It pains me to give American Aurora a relatively negative review, as the book was entertaining and well-prepared. I must do so, however, because the book offers only part of the story. James Thomas Callendar is one of the most amusing characters of early American history -- the forefather of folks like Walter Winchell and Matt Drudge, the first American "scandalmonger," as William Safire calls him. But he was motivated by money and personal pique, embracing and denouncing Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in turn to sell papers and whenever he felt one had slighted his ambitions. American Aurora focuses only on the period of the Alien and Sedition Acts and Callendar's campaign against Adams. The book makes Callendar out to be a John Peter Zenger-caliber hero of free expression, ignoring the fact that Callendar once praised Adams, and would later tarnish Jefferson -- Callendar's hero in American Aurora -- and breaking the story of Sally Hemings. This is a fun read. Too bad it's not the whole truth.

You will notice that even the reviewers that hate this book are passionate in their hatred. Which is more than you can say for those damn text books that went something like Our FOUNDING FATHERS blah blah, Founding fathers blah blah, etc... that's because this book fleshes out these historical figures, makes you like them and hate them.

Part One sets the stage with the initial articles of The Aurora claiming that Adams is a monarchist who only wants to be king. Published by William Duane and Benny Bache (grandson of Benjamin Franklin) the Aurora pulls no punches and neither do its detractors. The historical background is told from the perspective of Duane which is irritating at first because you feel like you are being confronted rather than informed. The articles seem just a little bit like a radical college student rambling on about how bad everything is (Gore Vidal's history books are like this as well).

Part Two goes back to before the Revolutionary War to trace the personal and professional conflict between John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Adams wants a government like England's while Franklin sees a one house parliament as ideal (much like Revolutionary France). Not only are they split in the professional sense but they don't like each other either. Washington is seen as a spoiled elitist who spends all his time whining about the army when its Franklin that wins the war by involving France.

Part Three comes up to the 1800s in which Adams' Sedition Law is in effect and one by one papers that are seen as disloyal face jail sentences and high fines. Most are shut down. Aurora stays in business even though the publisher has to go into hiding. There are street brawls and open hostilities as every article of the bill of rights is challenged by the Adams administration. The problems don't end until Jefferson's election.

Important things in this book -- many of the Founding Fathers hated each other. Washington was a popular president more due to reputation than anything presidential. Adams could be compared to George Bush in many ways (vice president for mediocre popular president, mediocre president, loses election to charismatic whoremonger, son goes into politics), History is a LOT more interesting than the high school textbook would have you believe.

Love this book or hate it, you won't come away neutral.

I never knew about this America. I didn't know John Adams was jealous of Ben Franklin, and that Thomas Jefferson was kind of like a bright kid in my high school class who always hid when there was trouble. I knew George Washington wasn't a great general, but I never knew that all that junk in the history books of the 50s was fantasy. The Continental Congress started a war in spite of the fact that they had no gun powder, no money to fight the war, no food to feed the army, and a reluctant army. I didn't know that the French had truly won the war. They supplied billions of dollars, ships, generals and fighting men. -- in fact, after they won the war for the Americans they were bankrupt. Now I want to know more about the French King who fought this war. I am only half way throught this book.

Proust by Edmund White is really good but the other one How Proust can Change Your Life was funnier, though I know that it was a different genre altogether. White has been accused of "homosexualising" Proust, in fact I think it is relevant, since others have always "de-homosexualised" Proust and his many affairs. White has been quite proud of his status as a gay writer and that does not limit him, only that the rather short biography sometimes lapses into an account of his failed affairs, sometimes with straight younger men. However, I cannot forget that moving passage in which Proust immortalized his Italian lover, Alfred Agostinelli who died of a plane crash. Though the affair was largely unrequitted, Proust spoke of it with great passion in the book. White's accounts weave back and forth from Proust's life and works, to a point they are linked seamlessly. I also like the rather passionate conclusions where White comments on love as seen by Proust, and one knows that the writer is intense and involved in his affair with Proust!

Although there is no shortage of books on Proust in English, and no shortage of enormously long biographies, there is a surprising lack of short biographies. Luckily, this excellent little volume by Edmund White fills a major need. While we have major long biographies like those of Painter, Tadie, and Carter, these may not be appropriate for someone wanting a brief overview. The trick with any biography of Proust is striking a balance between writing about Proust's life and Proust's art, not an easy task given the degree with which Proust based his work on events in his own life. It is virtually impossible to disentangle the two.

This is a short book (around 150 pages), but in that brief span, White is able to touch on all the major events of Proust's life, the key relationships of his life, the major themes of his work as an author, and the ways in which Proust's life became the basis for his work. If one is unfamiliar with Proust before picking up this book, one will gain a first rate overview of him before setting it down. One thing that tremendously enhances the value of the book is an excellent annotated biography that gives a great overview of work on Proust both in English and French.

White, who is a well known gay author, does a superb job writing about the myriad of contradictions in Proust's own work as a lightly closeted gay author. Although Proust's being gay is the worst kept secret of the century, Proust fought many duels over accusations that he was homosexual (or, an invert, as Proust would have put it). Proust was the first writer to write extensively about homosexuality, both male and female, but maintained a façade of heterosexuality to those who did not know him well.

All in all, this is an excellent brief biography of the man many regard as the great novelist of the 20th century. I heartily recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about Proust.

Working my way through the Proust oeuvre and biographies, I was relieved beyond measure to find that White, alone among biographers, has dared to write that Proust was gay, and to redefine some of the 'close friendships' his other biographers refer to so coyly.
It is hard to quantify the influence Proust's sexuality had on his writing, mainly because it is so gracefully veiled. Yet on a second reading, particularly through the prism of White's biography, it screams from every line. How could past biographers not deal with the central fact of his life? While White does not mistake Proust's oeuvre for autobiography, he provides a short account of the missing piece of the puzzle that is as entertaining as it is revealing. As in all his writing, White is direct and uneuphemistic - qualities which starkly reveal the subtext of Proust's complex and imagistic novels.
White is accurate, as factual as one can be in such a brief book, and provides a bibliography which is invaluable for anyone setting out to discover Proust's life for themselves. I recommend this book to anyone planning to read Proust for the first time, or anyone who is moving beyond "In Search of Lost Time" to a search for the lost novelist himself.

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary is a great reference book for scholars and pastors who need a single volume of biblical commentary near at hand. The articles are written by some of the greats of biblical scholarship, and offer remarkably in-depth analysis, considering that one volume covers the entire Christian Scriptures. Of special help to students and scholars are the bibliographies at the end of each article. While not up-to-the-minute (the most recent edition of the NJBC is 1991, I think), the bibliographies often point out the most important books and articles written on the Bible in the past 30 years. I heartily recommend this book!

Some will say that Raymond Brown, Roland Murphy, and John P. Meier are "modernists" or "heterodox". Those who make these claims typically stopped reading Catholic teaching just before Vatican II - and most, if not all, who assert "modernism" are biblical literalists and/or fundamentalists, both Protestant and Catholic.

Brown and Meier are the premier historical-critical exegetes of our time. This commentary is a must have for any serious student of the Bible. It is not for those who prefer "pop apologetics" (e.g., The Catholic Answers crowd). It is for serious scholars who appreciate the nuance of biblical scholarship.

Upon the death of Raymond Brown one commentator had this to say about Brownn (and Murphy):

"Both produce scholarship clearly Catholic in character and modern in substance. Both respect and follow guidelines of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (BTB 26:2, 79-81). For both, caution was never so strict that they forsook honesty. Together, they span the two Testaments. Orthodoxy for Raymond E. Brown was a hallmark. Given a conflict between text and theology, he found a middle course that allowed both to survive. His lines of argument may have exhausted the field; yet his Catholic loyalty never flagged...As Raymond Brown's honesty at times may have shocked some, so the forthrightness of BTB authors should expand the envelope of scholarship today for even more expansive inclusivity in the future."

This volume is loaded with articles and commentary that will illuminate, stimulate, and prompt more extensive research. If you buy only one commentary, make certain it is this one!

This is one of the finest biblical commentaries available -- and is certainly unsurpassed as a one-volume commentary.

It is encyclopedic in its examination of the prevailing theories of 'higher biblical criticism.' If you want to know what scholars think about the development of a particular book of the Bible, this is a superb source to consult.

It is not a 'preaching commentary,' however. And though it will tell you a lot about theological ideas associated with particular texts, it is the text, not the theology, which is of principal interest to the authors. This commentary reads more like a technical manual than like Shakespeare -- but this is not a fault. Rather, this commentary fills a much-needed niche among commentaries.

The would-be reader and purchaser of this book should also know that it is born out of a Roman Catholic perspective and often provides critical insights into how the Roman Catholic Church has interpreted Scripture. Similarly, however, this perspective often leaves the reader without the contrasting Protestant and Orthodox perspectives. Again, this is not a fault -- simply something to keep in mind.

This is a superb work that deserves a place in the library of preachers, biblical scholars, and serious students of the Bible.

This slim volume details the plight of the Antarctic expedition of the Australian explorer Douglas Mawson in 1911. Seemingly few people are aware of this particular foray into the polar south, as the Scott tragedy looms largest in the public consciousness and there is a new vogue for the remarkable exploits of Ernest Shackleton in this same time frame. However, this is a story worth telling.

For those who are not obsessively interested in accounts of polar exploration, this books serves as a good introduction to the genre. It's almost novelistic in its easy yet vivid narrative flow, and unlike more encylopedic works, it avoids getting bogged down in excessive side treks about rival explorers or earlier achievements in the mapping and scouting of the continent.

Even so, it has a glaring weakness in its lack of footnotes or a bibliography. Bickel recounts entire conversations verbatim and even details the thoughts of several individuals, all without documenting the sources for such material. Since some of the quoted individuals died on the journey, one can only assume that the author is drawing from their expedition journals, and yet there is only a vague allusion to this in the afterword. More annoyingly, Bickel describes the immediate events preceding the death of one of the men from the point of view of the soon-to-be-deceased explorer, even though his two surviving comrades weren't even eyewitnesses to the moment of the tragedy. This gives rise to the suspicion that poetic license may have been somewhat abused in the composition of this book.

There are a number of photos of expedition members, their ship, and their camp. Sadly, no map is provided, making it difficult for the reader to follow Mawson's progress.

Bickel certainly does good work in shedding some light on this little known expedition, especially on the causes of the death of the second explorer. But the lack of notation of sources is a serious drawback.

The story of Sir Douglas Mawson's 1911-13 expedition to Antarctica is, without question, one of the greatest survival stories ever told, and Bickel rises to the task in Mawson's Will. Despite this, Bickel's book is no match for Sir Douglas Mawson's personal account of his adventure, as related in the landmark work, The Home of the Blizzard. Given the choice, Home of the Blizzard is the preferred account of this adventure.

Douglas Mawson is one of the great explorers of our millenium and this is probably the best survival adventure story ever told. The harshest conditions imaginable are revealed to Mawson in body, mind and spirit.

Leonard Bickel attains exceptional results transcribing Mawsons field notes, creating a readable account of an enormous struggle few have heard of and one not likely to be matched. Not even Shackelton's story measures up to this one.

Recommneded for those who must persevere.

"Just who is Keith Fleming and why is he tryng to slay me" might be a good subtitle for this short memoir. Frankly I bought the book because of my great admiration for Edmund White (the Uncle Ed of Keith's minor autobiography) and in the end all reasons for liking the book reflect back to that initial response. Yes, this is the life of an unfortunate, acneiform teenage product of yet another dysfunctional family unit whose saving grace is his finding solace with his brilliant writer uncle in New York. Keith Fleming writes well, has some pages when his prose actually begins to sing, but aside from his "growing up" experience with Edmund White, his story - full of despair and cruel circumstances -hardly registers as a precis for a book. But all criticism aside, Fleming does give us more insights into the person of Edmund White and it is refreshing to read passages that demonstrate White's warmth and humanity and caring that often his books fail to suggest. Far from being just a flamboyant social surface person, White, as drawn by his nephew, has more than a modicum of compassion for family, for adolescence, for the sticks and stones that make us falter as we mature. So, I think this young writer bears watching. Maybe next time his misery will not be too much with us.......

This amazing story raised as many questions as it answers. The first half takes place in the several mental institutions around Chicago to which the seemingly average, but troubled, teenage Fleming is sent. It is never made clear just what his diagnosis was, only that the treatments were cruel and senseless. An appalling psychiatrist is profiled in Fleming's almost deadpan voice.

In the second half of the memoir, Fleming's brother, worldy New Yorker Uncle Ed (Edmund White), comes - dramatically, generously, and nearly unbelievably helpfully - to his nephew's rescue. He invites him to live in his NY apartment. Once there, White takes over the care and redemption of the boy. White is a saint, and it's obvious in this story. Fleming is taken to a dermatologist in order to finally get proper treatment for his severe acne, he is outfitted in great new clothes (the shopping trip is memorable),tutoring is arranged for, and eventually, prep school tuition paid.

White offers a benign and comforting acceptance that the boy has never known. (And educates Fleming, who is straight, regarding gayness and White's NYgay world of the 1970's - in what has to be one of the most interesting and sweet aspects of this memoir). Fleming quite naturally and sensibly falls under the spell of what has to be the world's best living relative. Uncle Ed is everything and more that readers of his many books can glean. He is sociable, witty, kind, generous to a fault. He works on books and writing assignments, talks on the incessantly ringing telephone, cooks for the boy, makes arrangements for his benefit, and then, while Fleming does his homework in the kitchen, White leaves to cruise gay bars, nightly.

White offers Fleming a tolerance and love that literally seems to save the child's life.

Fleming has a troubled and troublesome girlfriend, Laura. Their relationship is mapped for the reader, and Ed's acceptance and support of that love affair is described.

This is an incredible story. Things happen around this boy that are almost too heartbreaking and sad to believe. He describes his family and his several worlds with a clarity that is almost eerie. It seems reasonable to assume that he went through a hell much more difficult that the usual teenage stuff, and yet the reader never quite feels Fleming's sense of it. He quotes White liberally, lists the novels and music that his Uncle prescribed for him. You can smell the sulphur treatments that Fleming had to use, nightly - and hear the racket of Columbus Avenue outside of his little bedroom is his uncle's apartment.

This remarkable story is full of nearly photographic detail. The people are well drawn and memorable. Fleming lacks any self-pity In fact, I was terrorized by the life Fleming lived before being rescued by his uncle. Fleming's life in NY is pretty unusual, too, despite the outward conventionality of "coats and ties" from Barney's basement, and a prep school education.

This is a very interesting story of family, of Edmund White, and of his nephew, Keith Fleming. Definitely worth reading.

I still feel under the spell of Keith Fleming's wonderful memoir, The Boy with the Thorn in his Side. I read it over the weekend in 2 sittings. The opening pages grabbed me right away -- what an eccentric, fascinating family! Whether describing his first innocent sexual adventures, or his horrifying experience as the patient of a pyschiatrist/sadist, or his touching romance with an inner-city Latina, Fleming writes so well about what it feels like to be a teenager at the mercy of circumstances. And what circumstances! The book takes us through one extreme situation after another, always described with deep feeling and great sense of style. This book is so much more than a portrait of his uncle Edmund White. I recommend it to anyone interested in love, in families, in adolescence -- in life!

White's books are a mixed bag. His collection of essays, "The Burning Library," is an important work, and the material in "Nocturnes for the King of Naples" is handled subtly without being needlessly obscure. "A Boy's Own Story," though, is an overrated book. White includes some incredibly soft, well-done sexual scenes, but destroys any empathy for his character by making him selfish, with no caring for anyone around him. If, as some readers and critics think, this is a semi-autobiographical piece, White was an unbelievably self-absorbed adolescent; however, if autobiographical, White should be commended for writing honestly about himself, not obscuring truth for the sake of creating a "nice" image. That having been said, "A Boy's Own Story" really says nothing that has not been said before about sexuality or human nature, either now, or when it was released in the early 1980s. The subject of coming out of the closet and dealing with life has been handled rather differently, but with stronger emotional and psychological insight, in everything from the 1950s Fritz Peters novel "Finistere" to Rita Mae Brown's early 1970s "Rubyfruit Jungle." Finding any insight that makes "A Boy's Own Story" worth reading is difficult. Humans can be shallow and self-absorbed? The coming-out process is a hard row to how, especially complicated by the sexual urges and nature of the beast? This has been written before, and with better characterizations to boot. Ultimately, the book is better viewed as a widely-read example of the "coming-out novel" than as any piece of great literature.

This story is a very beautifully told literary classic. The intimate proximatey of such a well developed character is truly amazing. White tells a wonderful sotry of a gay boy growing up in the 50's--though he never truly accepts it; not until the second book of the series, anyhow.

Warnings: Many people reviewed this book negatively and I wish to use this space to share who will NOT enjoy this book. First of all, you must enjoy the "literary" style of writing; if you don't enjoy classics and works by the likes of John Irving than this is not for you. A fine example is to compare it to J.D. Salenger's "Catcher in the Rye"--if you read this in your schooling years and hated it, you'll probably hate this also. If you like a solid and clear course of plot you may not enjoy it; this book is written much like life is lived, and that is with a degree of chaos. Also, if you are homophonic, this book is obviously not for you unless you are attempting to open your mind. Finally, if you are the type of person who is offended by the unappologetic beliefs of the 50's that homosexuality is an illness, etc., then you may not want to read this; this was an issue with me, but I came to understand that this would be the thought process of someone in the narrators posision at his age and time.

I loved this book, and hope that other readers will expierience the same amazement as I did.

Edmund White long ago established himself as a premier voice in gay America. "A Boy's Own Story" is a literary masterpiece both moving and disturbing. Many readers make the mistake of calling it "autobiographical", forgetting it is a work of fiction LOOSELY autobiographical. I can't imagine being gay and not having read this book. Yes, the ending is disturbing, and this makes it all the more powerful. "A Boy's Own Story" is so moving a reader threw it across the room upon reading the ending, vowing never to read Edmund White again. This alone should cause you to click on "add to shopping cart."

Edmund Morris has had an interesting career as a writer. A native Rhodesian (the African country dominated by whites, and replaced by the currently unstable Zimbabwe) he emigrated first to South Africa, then Britain, finally the United States. He then became a full time writer, and for his first book, "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" won a Pulitzer for biography. He was then appointed Reagan's official biographer (Reagan read the previous book and liked it) and produced "Dutch", a worthwhile addition to the library of books about Reagan, but one that will remain controversial because of the way Morris treated the subject, and the format in which he wrote the book.

Morris's next book is the current one being reviewed, "Theodore Rex." This book covers his presidency, from the succession to the office on the death of William McKinley to his leaving office seven and a half years later. There is a great deal of detail about his life in office, his relations with his family and contemporaries, and the legislative issues that confronted him. The author, while pro-Roosevelt, isn't blindly so. There are instances in the book where he clearly disagrees with what the President did, and is critical of him in consequence. Most notable is the Brownsville Texas incident, where Roosevelt and the high command of the army decided that some black soldiers were guilty of rioting on the streets of that city, and the president decided to cashier the whole unit from the army without court martial or anything.

Other characters of the administration are well-drawn and interesting. These include Elihu Root, who held various cabinet positions, and could earn more money on Wall Street, John Hay, who had been personal secretary to Abraham Lincoln forty years before and seen three presidents be assasinated, William Howard Taft, the overweight Secretary of War Roosevelt chose as his successor, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Supreme Court Justice who wasn't quite as dependable on cases before the court as Roosevelt thought he was.

The issues of the day are carefully delineated in enough detail to satisfy the reader and still not be boring. The coal miner's strike, the Great White Fleet, various war scares, the negotiations that ended the Russo-Japanese War, all are dealt with carefully, and intelligently. The whole of Roosevelt's presidency is here, and interesting.

I do have a few issues. The author has an unusual pedigree (see above) and it shows in his penchant for using strange words and phrases. Some of them (a lame duck congress quacking its last, for instance) are amusing, but others are just weird. Nouns become adverbs, sentences are long or clumsy, and it's occasionally difficult to tell what the author meant by something. Also, the way the book is constructed is sort of strange. The author uses short, choppy sections at points to illustrate things. And lastly, the author recounts events and occurances that don't seem to have much, or anything, to do with Roosevelt. One anecdote involves Woodrow Wilson telling a racist joke, another recounts briefly the Wright Brothers flying their airplane the first time. One is occasionally left wondering why they're in the book.

All in all, though, I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it.

A thrilling look at the great Bull Moose at the apex of his career. Morris definitely seems to have regained his stride after his disappointing Reagan roman a clef. Among recent presidential biographies I'd rank "Theodore Rex" just behind McCullough's "Truman."

Edmund Morris has written an excellently account of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. Arguably, Theodore Rex Roosevelt was one of the greatest United States Presidents. The author notes that Ex-President Grover Cleveland declared "Roosevelt is the most perfect politician thus far seen in the Presidency." Many contemporary historians rank Theodore Roosevelt in the "Top Five" of U.S. Presidents.

The book opens with an account of Roosevelt receiving word of McKinley's assassination and closes with Taft's inauguration on March 4, 1909. The author does an excellent job narrating the challenges Roosevelt faced during his first term including handling of the anthracite coal strike and ending the Russian-Japanese War. The text describes how the President adroitly handled all challenges including domestic political problems and crises on Wall Street. Later, Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to facilitate the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russian-Japanese War.

The book covers his second term equally well. Roosevelt, a Republican,won a second term by a sizable majority. He had strong public support and the text quotes H.G. Wells stating "Never did a President so reflect the quality of his time" A frustrated Democratic Senator Tillman shouted " . . . the Democratic party can always be relied on to make a damn fool of itself at the critical time".

His second term was also demanding; and having publicly announced he would not run for a third term, his legislative clout was weakened. Among his second term challenges were a situation involving black soldiers in Brownsville, Texas; and anti-immigrant riots in San Francisco involving Japanese immigrants. The cooperation of the Japanese government was required but not immediately forthcoming. The author notes "Roosevelt confessed another fear . . . that of war with Japan. He did not think it would come soon, but he was sure it would one day." - how true! One reason that he sent the Great White Fleet around the world was not only to impress Europe but also to show to Japan the U.S. strength in the West Pacific. It worked and Japan became cooperative on the immigrant problem.

While handling his many second term challenges, he initiated a Governors' Conference (attended by 350 persons) covering ninety-five aspects of conservation, preservation and planned exploitation. The discussion of his relationship, during his second term, with heir apparent, William Howard Taft is revealing. In most aspects, Taft was the antithesis of Roosevelt.

It is interesting to note that many issues Theodore Roosevelt faced in both terms are issues today. For example: in his first message to Congress, regarding a ban on all political violent immigrants Roosevelt wrote "They and those like them should be kept out of this country and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came; and far-reaching provisions should be made for the punishment of those who stay." Shades of 11September 2001.

In conclusion, the author writes "Statue books and official histories would celebrate his administrative achievements: the Monroe Doctrine reaffirmed, the Old World banished from the New World, the great Canal being cut; peace established in the Far East; the Open Door swinging freely in Manchuria and Morocco; Cuba liberated (and returned to self-government...); the Philippines pacified; the Navy hugely strengthened, known literally around the world; the Army shorn of its old deadwood generals...; capital and labor balanced off, the lynch rate declining, the gospel of cleaner politics now actually gospel, and enough progressive principles established, or made part of the national debate, to keep legislative reformers busy for at lest ten years." To this should be added that he created five national parks and established sixteen national monuments plus initiated twenty federal irrigation projects in fourteen states.

The books concluding paragraph states that "...he left behind a folk consensus that he had been the most powerfully positive American leader since Abraham Lincoln."

Edmond Morris' style make this is a very readable book. For example, referring to Roosevelt's previous call for legislation in the area of employer's liability the author writes "That call had been mainly propaganda, since the lame-duck Fifty-eighth Congress had soon after quacked its last..."

Whether you like or dislike with Theodore Roosevelt, this book is a must for all American government history "buffs."

White's The Unfinished Symphony masterfully completes the trilogy begun with A Boy's Own Story. White's novels speak for a generation of gay men who witnessed the burgeoning of gay liberation and despaired at the devestation of AIDS on the community. It must be read in sequence with A Boy's Own Story and The Beautiful Room is Empty to fully feel the impact of the narrative.

The Unfinished Symphony sees a change in style from the other two novels. With clearer prose and less imagery than the previous two it at times loses some of the beauty of its predeccesors. Having said that this novel is more raw and grittier, more physical and forceful and as a result invokes a whole different range of sensory images than the first instalments.

In certain sections of the novel, the descriptive narrative tends to border on the mundane and dull but when White taps into the emotions of family and death the novel soars and speaks to you both as a human being and as a gay man. The recounting of the relationship with his sister and the illness of his mother is written from the heart and speaks a universal language. The emotional desolation wrought by the deaths of many friends to AIDS leaves the reader drained but feeling extremely human. The emotive passages as the novel nears completion make up for any over descriptive and dull passages earlier on.

I have referred to this book as a flawed masterpiece. Flawed, in my opinion, as a result of the decreased use of the imagery and senses used in the prior books. A masterpiece due to its rawness, its honesty and its ability to hurt, to make us ache and to make us feel human.

While shopping with an ex-lover of mine I found the Dutch print of this book. Bought it... read it... enjoyed it... told all my friends about it...

I have never been a person who liked to read books with an autobiographical point of view; but I am glad I have dared to look beyond my prejudices and go for it.

Nice words, beautifully written, Edmund White is a real craftsman. (Based solely on this novel, because he lost some magic when I read A Boys story).

A very helpfull and insightfull book. How did gay men live in the 50's up till the 80's... Really beautiful!

I spread the word about the book among almost all of my friends and even the heterosexual people really liked it. I think it's not only a gay-tale, but it's a tale about loving people, wheter they are male, female... whatever, it doesn't matter, because the one thing you can read between all the lines is that the writer must have really loved the people he wrote about.

Within a few weeks he'll be coming to the Netherlands for a presentation, most definitely I am one of the people being there and hanging on to every word he tells.

I'm always intrugued by White's work and his singular ability to capture not only his stories but mine and those of many other gay men. As a raconteur of the dawning and tarnishing of gaylife, he is peerless. He leaves me breathless, having to re-read the last paragraph over & over.

This is a superbly written book, capturing the drama behind the discovery of the concept of the Ice Age. Bolles tells the story from the perspective of three different 19th century investigators: Kane, a gentleman adventurer, Lyell, one of the founders of modern geology, and Agassiz, one of the world's greatest naturalists. Using what is almost like a diarist method to tell the tale, the author interweaves the points of view of all three individuals taking the reader through the stages of the theory's conception and gestation. It seems amazing that what seems so abundantly apparent to modern students of earth history is blindly missed by many very astute 19th Century scientists. Furthermore, when a clear arguement with supporting data is resisted, it seems almost a willful desire to deny the existance of an Ice Age. Indeed such it may have been, as this was an era when strongly held religious beliefs, which had shaped much of the thinking up to that time, were beginning to crumble. In Ice Finders Bolles expertly creates an exciting and informative history of one of the intellectual adventures of science.

This is a wonderful little book about three individuals deeply involved in the exploration and discovery of the earth and it's origins during the 19th century - Louis Agassiz a Swiss Professor and politician; Elsisha Kent Kane, who spent two years trapped in the ice of Greenland and published "Arctic Exporations," his account of the ordeal; and Charles Lyell, a Scottish Geologist.

Bolles interweaves each figure's story and experiences as they work their way toward the discovery and acceptance of the previous Ice Ages and how they explain many argued about features of earth, such as erractic boulders and glacial moraines - many of which were accepted as the outcome of biblical events. And these primary explainations were a major hurdle to our ever-expanding understand of the earth, it's origins as ours.

The names of these three individuals will probably be familar to any reader of Arctic Exploration, Discovery and History.

Edmond Bolles book "The Ice Finders" is a real treat, perhaps the best I've read this year. In this tale of the discovery of the concept of "Ice Age", Bolles weaves together the story of three people of different times and places. We are treated to three biographies of people who played important but very different roles forming a new view and understanding of the world-a view we carry to this day to such an extent it's hard to imagine anything else.

Bolles displays for us an intellectual adventure I'd never thought about before, as well as ego trips, and quixotic expeditions. And what a cast of characters including Charles Darwin, the Lowell's of Massachusetts, Ralph Emerson and others who add great spice to the stories. The book is intellectually stimulating, entertaining and fun. Here is a piece of history I knew nothing about until reading Bolles book. What a bargain-all in one book.

As the grandson of America's sixth president, John Quincy Adams, and great grandson of America's second president, John Adams, Henry Adams was born to a distinguished New England heritage. His biography recounts the education he received, lamenting the inadequacy of formal schooling in preparing him to live ably during a century of revolutionary technological and philosophical change. Within his comments are wry insights that sometimes draw a smile from the reader, such as his definition of a schoolmaster: "A man employed to tell lies to little boys." Adams' views are rather cynical and somewhat fatalistic, but they do reflect the grand changes taking place during his lifetime. I read this book for a lit. class in college, and though most of my classmates found this book a little dull, I found it interesting enough to hold my attention.

Henry Adams managed to become a Modernist late in life. He was 62 years old at the turn of the century and a bit older when he wrote this memoir and yet his prose is crisp, direct and penetrating like that of Aldous Huxley rather like that of say Charles Dickens. I found myself re-reading passages of this books immediately after finishing them, purely to admire the beauty of expression. Adams is epigrammatic, conveying humor and wisdom with economy and an amazing sense of rhythm.

The content of this book is fascinating. His observations of 'New England character' early on are, to my mind, dead on, although it may be so that he actually invented this perspective on New Englanders. In either case it matches my post-Modern experience of the place and its people. Adams' insistence on treating all of life's events as either learning experiences or conscious wastes of time is an attitude that I suppose I've always had, but never 'brought to consciousness'. He is very tough on formal education, but one needs to be or it rapidly becomes a waste of time.

His application of the third person to his own self is very effective. He considers himself to have been essentially a pawn of history because of his pedigree. His use of this simple literary device detaches the character portrayed from the narrator and has the effect of leaving Adams adrift in the narrative of his own life. Other reviewers have actually complained that he does not deal with the suicide of his wife in this book. This is not true. He pointed stops the chronological narrative immediately before his marriage and picks it up several years later after she is dead. In a painful but enigmatic passage he describes daily visiting the statue that St. Gaudens designed for her grave and being angry that it has become a tourist attraction. There is much else expressed there, but I would have to re-read it to understand all of it, but I do know that the sadness is practically palpable on the page.

I can not say that I accept his 'law of history' related in the penultimate chapter of the book, but it has made me want to pick up his brother Brooks' book, The Law of Civilization and Decay, that has long sat on my shelf.

Dear Stefi, Now that there is a slight lull in the happy Chestertown merry-go-round, I want to write a paragraph or two explaining why is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. This is why it is so interesting: It was written about 1906 and covers U.S. intellectual and political history from about 1860 to 1906. What is clever about it is the cynical, humorous sophistication (very unAmerican) with which he, an insider, regards all of these events. The book, like Montaigne or Rousseau's is an autobiography and, like Montaigne, Adams is of the view that life should above all be amusing, so that any great enterprise should be undertaken only if it is indeed amusing. The driving idea of the book, however, is where to find the truth (you guessed it--he is still searching on the last page). The places where he searches are very intriguing. He begins at Harvard, where, says he, he learned nothing from books and only one thing from the classes: how to get up and talk in front of large crowds of people about nothing. He was required to do this routinely, and his speeches were, like everyone else's, greeted with hissing and criticisms, so he learned not to expect approbation from an audience. Adams got heavily into the debate about evolution (Darwin being the hot topic at the end of the nineteenth century), because he thought it was the main amusement of his era. His position on evolution is "reversion" rather than progress. One of his proofs is a comparison of George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant. He admired Washington (a great general who became a great president); he voted for Grant (a great general). He knew personally the members of Grant's cabinet, thieves or incompetents at best. QED: things are getting worse not better. In his old age (sixty), after many other amusements of a busy lifetime, he decided to do what I did at the age of twenty-two: to visit all the important medieval French cathedrals. (In 1958, I bought a car in Saarbrucken--VW bug--and drove to seventeen of the greatest cathedrals, Guide Michelin in hand, staying at the youth hostels.) His book is peppered with well-digested quotations from French literature; he apparently knew it from top to bottom. His goal was to understand the Middle Ages (unity in the Virgin) and to write two books, one about the unity of the Middle Ages (title: ) and another about the diversity of the twentieth century, . Adam's book has a number of difficult spots (confusing original philosophy and historical references that mean something only to the well-informed historian), but the good parts are worth going on to find. I hope this vignette will persuade you to get through the boring chapters at the beginning of the book on his childhood in Quincy. The narrative becomes interesting only with his stories about the Court of Saint James where he spent his early twenties as a diplomat during the U.S. Civil War. From that point on, I think you will love it as much as I did. Cheers! Claire