Always Coming Home, by Ursula LeGuin, is a striking and highly readable Utopian novel with feminist themes. LeGuin wrote this work in 1985, and became so wrapped up in the World she created that she published the book with tapes of songs and ceremonies from its supposed inhabitants. This did not help sales, and the book, although very well reviewed at the time and much beloved by its fans, is no longer in print. In the distant future California is inhabited by a people with a culture similar to American Indians, current U.S. culture having polluted itself to death and fallen into the sea just as everyone predicted. These Napa Valley people have profited from Silicon Valley and combine modern computer skills with a simplicity of life close to nature. There is, however, a troublesome, warmaking, male-dominated, city-building culture to the north where Oregon and Washington are now, and this is where the culture clashes come from that allow feminist issues to be developed. The gentle Californians have e-mail, and a group safely far away from the community that is suffering raids and town burnings from the Arab-like northern people keep writing our community that fighting back is wrong, and that they should sit down with these people and discuss things and settle it all by peaceful talking; in a memorable line, someone in the embattled community flames back, "You come here and do that!" Our protagonist, North Owl, is captured by the Arab-like culture as a teenage girl. When she finds her way back after much oppression and many adventures, she takes the second of three names women take to mark major life themes, Woman Coming Home.

This book is a marvelous collection of "an anthropology of the future." LeGuin excavates stories, songs, beliefs, myths, traditions, and more of the people who "will be might have been" someday living in what is now Northern California. At once Utopian and Dystopian, the culture that LeGuin shares with us is beautiful and complex.

I read this book when it was first published in paperback in the mid-80's. It planted and nurtured in me a seed of hope that humans are capable of someday living in community in different ways than we do now. It opened in my imagination doors that I had never before noticed. Here is an example of a new narrative structure, or anti-structure. Here, too, is an example of a new-old social structure, a post-modern tribalism that has returned to "traditional" values such as living in harmony with oneself and one's environment, and recognizing the strength and beauty in ritual and tradition.

Though others (including she) may disagree, I personally have always considered this work Mrs. LeGuin's crowning achievement. As Tolkien did in his Middle Earth stories, LeGuin in "Always Coming Home" creates a new-old world that is unfamiliar yet recognizable, someplace we want to go back to again and again. We are lucky indeed that this book is now back in print!

Ursula K. LeGuin's novel Always Coming Home, published in 1985, is a story of our own earth in the distant future. Ms. le Guin has set her novel in what is today the small community of Rutherford , in the western Napa Valley of Northern California. Nothing remains of twentieth-century civilization except an occasional piece of rubble and some areas poisoned by residual pesticide. Much of our present-day land is under water, including California's Central Valley and some of the coastal region, and the human population is sparse.

However, the tone of the book is neither cautionary nor obtrusively alien; the topography, plants and animals of Northern California are easily recognizable, and the human culture--the people are the Kesh, or "Valley People"--although different from our own, is not jarringly so.

The book is the story of one woman's life, from childhood to old age. North Owl is born in Sinshan, one of the nine small communities in the Valley of the Na (our Napa River

I assumed this book would be as uninteresting as the other rock star biographies and autobiographies that I've read; nothing could be further from the truth. While most musicians are working their careers, falling in and out of love, and meeting famous people, which might be interesting to live but not to read about, Brian Wilson was going mad as a hatter and then coming back--the man has things to write about. The book seems to be written very honestly, and it has the ring of truth throughout. As for the material on Eugene Landy, Brian Wilson still says positive things about him, and apparently still holds the view of Landy presented here. The book provides basically zero insight into Brian Wilson's ways of working--it's a book about his life, not his music. You get a detailed picture of what his decline was all about, very clear characterizations of Murry Wilson and the Beach Boys, and what seems to be an extremely honest self-portrait of Brian Wilson, hardly a weakness left unexposed. I'm not THAT huge a fan, actually, but I've always been curious about Brian Wilson's much-ballyhooed problems--I found the book fascinating, and I'd recommend the book even if just to satisfy your idle curiosity. If you are a fan, I'd suggest that this is a book you really have to read.

It's sad how often the words "tragic genius" get mentioned in the same sentence. Brian Wilson is Exhibit A for the term in the contemporary American pop music world. This book is riveting, revealing in ways even Wilson himself might not have been aware of. The basic facts of his life--the abusive father, drug use, sandbox in the bedroom, his firing from the band, estrangement from family--were well known before the book's publication in 1991. But a good deal is added to the mix (including cruel stories meant to make enemies like Mike Love look bad). I think the moment that hit me the hardest was how employees in his house would walk around him when he was comatose on the floor, merely calling it "Brian being Brian." His stupor helped them exploit his position without interference. I was less interested in Landy's position in his life (the psychiatrist turned album producer is up there with the hairdresser who did the same thing in the 1970s) than in Wilson's revaluation of his career and life. The book is full of backgrounds on the songs that made the Beach Boys famous, which fans of the music will appreciate. This book sent me back to the music itself, deepening my appreciation for it. As a human document, it pays tribute to Wilson as a survivor--few could have lived through what he did. No history of the 60s pop music era will be complete without consulting this book.

I must say that this has to be the most brutally honest book that I have ever read. Starting with his birth and going all the way up until age 49 in 1991, Brian Wilson takes us on the harrowing journey that was his life. No stone is left unturned. Nothing was too abusive to leave out. In recovering from addiction, you have to be raw with your feelings and honest with yourself, and I think Brian Wilson has been both. Before reading this book, I had known about the controversy surrounding Dr. Landy and his treatment of Brian, and at the time I was on the side of Brian's family and the other Beach Boys, feeling that he had been brainwashed and was being controlled by Dr. Landy. However, after reading this book, although I still do not agree with the way some things were handled, I can see that it was necessary for someone to take control of Brian. He certainly could not do it himself. He needed to be literally rebuilt from the ground up and from inside out. I think he needed to be shown that he had the power within himself to recover. Dr. Landy did a fabulous job, and at times I'm sure it was a thankless job. Without him and his therapy, I am quite sure that Brian Wilson would no longer be with us. I don't know how Brian is doing today, but hopefully he is still living a clean and sober life. I'm glad that we still have him around.

There is no doubt Dr. Feinberg is an excellent communicator of very complex ideas. He stays away from technical language and manages to keep the interest of the reader throughout most of his fascinating narratives of the bizarre clinical behavior of his patients with right fronto-parietal brain damage to the neocortex. This exposition takes about half the number of pages of his short book and does not give a clear hint about his intention of resting his theory of consciousness on this clinical data. Unfortunately, the remaining space and his adherence to non-technical language makes it very difficult for him to elaborate a credible account of how a physical brain may evolve a mind. His deep philosophical insight is there but his important conclusions lack the necesarry theoretical development to back them up. Without saying so he identifies with the functionalist branch of neurophilosophers. For them it is no longer required to scrutinize the chemical or quantum physical properties of the physical brain to explain the conscious state. This approach has many advantages in that the model emphasis is in 'functional', not structural organization, i.e., how many abstract components there are and the different possible states they can assume under boundary conditions, plus a definition of the causal relationship controlling state transitions. It looks as if 'functionalists' have adopted information theory as their front line of attack and defense. Wherever the same conditions are to be met, in a neuronal or silicon array, you will expect identical results, the principle of organizational invariance for 'functional isomorphs'. In his book a patient's inability to maintain the integrity of his concept of self (herein equated with his consciousness)is the result of a disruption in the homeodynamic balance programmed in the nested hierarchical multineuronal control system (that we call the 'metabrain')now damaged by disease. His conclusions are to be considered more as another model for the brain control of 'first order judgements' or awareness than an explanation of a logical supervenience of 'second order judgments' (that we call 'metaconscience') on the physical brain. In the opinion of this reviewer, when he implies that the 'will' to act is in itself an unconscious act arising from those cognitive combinatorial structures we have called the 'metabrain' and directed to the 'homeodynamic' preservation of the psychological integrity of the self, he is making an unwarranted assertion not supported by his clinical data. In his model it is not expected that a 'normal' person would display an aberrant behavior that is contrary to his physical or psychological best interests. Yet we do witness this behavior in individuals involved in heroic sacrifices or unselfish acts of altruism. Mother Theresa of Calcutta is a recent good example of such personal sacrifice for the benefit of others.

I love books like these because I am fascinated by the brain, so I had to try it when I heard Dr. Feinberg on NPR. He does not disappoint those of us who enjoy books on the wilder side of neurology. He is very good at explaining all the most bizarre behaviors in fairly simple language, and his drawings of the brains of his patients were an outstanding addition.

I felt his theories of how the brain constructed the self were thought-provoking, but I don't think he spent enough time on them. If he had fleshed them out a little more, I would have given the book five stars.

However, if you like Oliver Sack's accounts of his patients, you'll like this book, too.

There has been a good deal of writing about the brain and mind of late, but I can't recall a more enjoyable and thought provoking read than Dr. Feinberg's new book "Altered Egos".I first heard Dr Feinberg on NPR radio and I went right out to buy his book. The first part relates numerous fascinating case studies of patients with brain damage who experience an alteration in their sense of self.For example, some patients misidentify their spouses,as in the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime ("This is not my Beautiful Wife"). Other cases don't recognize their own arms; still others who suffer from a condition known as "alien hand syndrome", might even attack themselves. In the later sections of the book, Feinberg uses these cases to explore how the many areas of the brain that contribute to the self combine to create a unified self and an "inner I". In simple language that is accesible to the non-professional, Feinberg draws on basic principles in neurology and philosophy and presents his case that the brain/mind is a "nested hierarchy of meaning and purpose." He argues convincingly that this nested hierarchy is the final irreducible reality of what and who we are. I personally found the combination of neurology and philosophy in this book exciting, and the best part was that I found the writing not just understandable, but fun. Feinberg's book is a must read for anyone who has wondered what it really is to be a person.

Mark it down as one for start-ups as well as firms looking to energize their work-flow.
This book combines great images, a top-notch informative web site, and useful information on the process of advanced Flash design. It uses Juxt Interactive as a means for a case study, but the processes described could be implemented by almost anyone.
A must read for Flash developers.

Juxt Interactive's book Flash deConstruction in a nutshell is an awesome book that all flash developers should have if they plan on taking their flash users and interactivity to a whole new level. With its cool, edgy, and progressive approach the book is a great tool to have if you want to learn all of flash's capabilities. Furthermore, the book does a wonderful job at showcasing the uses of ActionScript through various case studies making it really easy to learn from the best. Be sure to pick up this book if you are looking to improve as a Flash developer or if you are thinking of getting started with Flash

Aside from starting a small Internet adventure and shooting it to world wide fame in just a hand full of years, the guys at Juxt Interactive have written a book chock full of wonder-us delights. Though they claim the primary role of their Flash deConstruction book is to look at ActionScript, anyone buying this book will get far more than they bargained for.

Juxt demonstrate their processes of design and workflow in approaching real world application development. A look behind the scenes into their infamous Juxt Interactive site, with a tutorials in how they implement their design, and script of key sections of the site, is a real eye-opener to anyone who owns a copy of Macromedia Flash.

One of the great things about Flash deConstruction is the fact that many of the real world projects contain what Juxt describe as 'hacks'. These 'hacks' detail problems they have found with ActionScript when implementing projects on different platforms and gives detailed pointers how to overcome them. In my opinion this is what separates Flash deConstruction from the rest. How many other ActionScript books tell you about the development
glitches you are liable face?

Although this book, with the design fused in Juxt's innovative way, has a section for beginners, you need to have a decent working knowledge of ActionScript to get the best from it. It is a book of techniques for the developer to use and build upon, not a promo about Juxt.

Moore has shaped Tom's mythology out of the strong fabric that preceded the Superhero Golden Age: the American pulp and serial hero. Tarzan, Doc Savage, etc. Like them, Tom has a unique origin, being born and raised outside of society by his scientifically inclined mother and father on the lost island of Attabar Teru. Forged in science & nature, Tom returns to his parents' Western world and become the force for Reason & Good that he was invariably designed to be. Moore wants to give modern readers a similar return with Tom Strong, rebuilding the empire of comics darkened by Watchmen with a modern variation on the archetypes from before the superhero genre's rise. Today's comic companies must repeatedly reinvent their heroes to meet society's shifts; Tom is born whole, the product, not just of science and nature, but of innocence and intellect. Who will save these heroes from obsolescence, who will rally and guide the muscle-bound masks and costumes? Tom Strong, the product of the lost pulp/serial heroes and modernity's yen for realism, could just be the right man for the job.

This, next to Watchmen, is one of the greatest comic books I have ever read because it has one key element that many comics lack ever since the grim and gritty age. It starts out with an interesting premise: what if a man wanted to make his son a perfect human being by educating him in the far-off island of Attabar Teru, away from societies influence.
By raising him in a low gravity enviroment with his robot nanny, Phneuman and feeding him lots of the goloka root, which gives longevity and physical prowess, he becomes as it seems throughout the book, to become a human version of superman. When Tom turns 11 a quake hits Attabar Teru, and both his parents are killed so he is raised by the Attabar Teru trbe(not very unlike peacful indians.)When he grows up, he heads off to Millenium city and becomes a super hero, or science-hero as their universe calls them.And while the story is incredible, so is the art. Chris Sprouse is the perfect guy to draw Tom Strong because Tom Strong is supposed to be an incredibly smart and, well...,strong version of the BFG, a big guy who makes us all feel safer. I also liked the brief reuniting of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in the sixth chapter. Overal, this is one of the best graphic novels of all time,suitable for all ages, and something you should read right now!

This collection contains the first seven issues of the ongoing 'Tom Strong' series. In creating Tom Strong, Alan Moore has combined many of the archetypal characteristics of the heroes from pulp magazines (especially Doc Savage), but at the same time updated the concept for the 21st century, providing readers with the enthralling adventures of the premier science hero of Millenium City.

Worth mentioning is the fact that Moore avoids the typical flaws of the superhero genre with his use of accurate characterisation, fantastic settings, cunning villains and even a plot twist or two, which in the end make reading this book a truly fun experience.

With Tom Strong Alan Moore evokes the energy of the classic Jack Kirby run on Fantastic Four. This work truly helps revitalize the comic book medium.

Todd has written another provocative and well-written mystery-one which will keep you interested until the end.

Ian Rutledge, a shell-shocked veteran from World War I, is called upon to investigate the mysterious events in a Scottish village. A young woman has been accused of murder and kidnaping a child. The accusations begin with a series of anonymous letters and quickly escalate as bodies are discovered and it becomes clear that the child the woman claims is her son cannot possibly be her own.

This story is given an extra twist-Rutledge is haunted by the ever-constant presence of his former, corporal Hamish Macleod, who died under his orders during the war. The young woman accused of murder and kidnaping is Hamish's fiancee. Solving the mystery may, or so the reader hopes, help Rutledge deal with his own guilt over Hamish's death and his-Rutledge's-survival.

My only complaint with this series is a minor one-Hamish is sometimes too stereotypically Scottish. He constantly speaks in dialect (interestingly enough, Todd's other Scottish characters do not speak in dialect) and he seems at times to veer on a stage version of a Scotsman. This may be intentional on Todd's part (after all, Hamish is a part of Rutledge's memory-and as such he isn't real) but it can get annoying after a while.

That said, I still recommend the book strongly. You won't be sorry you read it.

In 1919 Scotland, World War I veteran, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge investigates the death of Eleanor Gray, last seen three years ago. Apparently, the remains of a person, probably Eleanor, have been found on a mountainside near Duncarrick. The local police arrest Fiona MacDonald for murdering Eleanor.

Ian knows he must carefully conduct his investigation so as not to affront the victim's mother Lady Maude Gray. At the same time, Ian feels stifled because the accused declines any defense even if it means her execution. With the ghost of Hamish MacLeod haunting his every step, Ian asks questions of anyone associated with the two women especially during the year of Eleanor's disappearance. Each step forward seems to lead to detours from the truth as an unknown puppet master manipulates behind the scenes.

In his fourth appearance, Rutledge has become a complete character so that readers can fully understand him and through his mind MacLeod. In turn, the audience also obtains a feel for the impact of World War I especially on the immediate decade that followed. LEGACY OF DEAD is a powerful entry in a strong series as Charles Todd continues his intelligent writing that assumes his followers are shrewd and perceptive individuals. This novel is a dazzling historical police procedural that will send new fans searching for the three antecedent books.

Harriet Klausner

This is the third of five written so far in this series. It features Inspector Ian Rutledge, a survivor of the trenches of France during WW I. His is a troubled soul - troubled by what he saw during the war and troubled by what he did. His return to Scotland Yard was seen by his sister and doctor as too soon, but Rutledge could not afford to sit around listening to the voice in his head.

In this outing, Rutledge is sent to deal with Lady Maude who has been offended by previous police visitors. Rutledge's task is to mollify Lady Maude and to determine whether her daughter is missing.

In Scotland, there is a woman accused of murder in Duncarrick, but did she kill the woman whose bones have been found hidden in the hills - and do those bones belong to Lady Maude's daughter?

As with the earlier entries in this series, the evidence is revealed to the reader as Rutledge uncovers it - piece by piece. And the reader has the advantage of hearing what Rutledge and the voice in his head think of the evidence.

This is procedural at its very best. The author is a talented writer who makes the reader feel the anguish and hear the bagpipes in the hills.

If you are thinking of reading this series, I recommend that you read the first entry before taking on the others for it was in the first entry that we learn of the voice in Rutledge's head and who it belonged to and why it's there.

Mysteries just don't get any better than this series!

People can often be categorized into one of two bins: innovators and followers - a small number pave the way for the rest. I chose to read Israel's biography of Edison because I wanted to understand more about the 'Wizard of Menlo Park,' the innovator's innovator, Thomas A. Edison.

Israel provides a detailed review of Edison's upbringing, influences, successes, and failures. The dominant character of the inventor's personality was his single-minded vision of success: the way he practiced telegraphy as a young man (long hours where ever he could find them), the way little could thwart his visions of innovation, his genius for seeing analogies among various technologies, his charismatic ability to raise capital, and his lack of fear of failure. Israel's portrayal of Edison paralleled de Toqueville's vision of the quintessential 19th century American. The 'Inventor of the Ages' was both a man who knew that what was good today could be made even better tomorrow and one that favored practical, applied knowledge over theoretical and esthetic considerations - "less learnin', more earnin'." (I admit that the latter quote is actually from an episode of Family Ties guest starring Carl Reiner but it is still applicable.) This is perhaps best summed up in the revelation (to me) that Edison did not stop at inventing the light bulb - he invented electric lighting. However, Edison's single-minded dedication to technical innovation negatively affected his personal relationships and his esteem among the scientific community of the early 20th century.

Israel's biography is extremely detailed. The text contains a great deal of the minutia of the individuals with whom Edison worked and technical descriptions of electrical apparatus in which I (who has studied only the physics which accompanies a BS in biology) had little interest or comprehension. I personally would have been satisfied with more interpretation from the author.

Mr. Israel has done an excellent job in capturing the human and scientific sides of Edison. After reading the book the reader has the feeling of actually knowing or having talked with the Inventor. Edison's entrepeneurship is an inspriation to all practicing engineers and scientists. The discussion of Mr Edison as a scientist or inventor in the epilogue is a lofty philosophical tratment(academic rhetoric) of an entrepreneuring individual that didn't add much. With this discussion all of the practicing engineers today are not scientist but inventors. The moving from this entrepreneurship in the educational institutions has been the disservice to the US industry, as shown by the ability of other nations taking over the industries such as electronics, autos and mechanical devices.The book is a must for anyone interested in innovantion history.

I did not know a great deal about Edison before reading this book and this served as a fascinating introduction. After visiting Edison's lab in West Orange, N.J. I became intrigued with him and wanted to learn more. Israel's book served as the perfect introduction to this complex and fascinating genius.

I emjoyed the fact that Israel divided the biography between Edison's professional scientific life and his complicated and sometimes bizarre private life, with strained relationships with his children and two marriages. Despite the fact Edison left much to be desired as a father, one almost feels sorry for him. Apparently his towering intellect made it difficult for him to connect emotionally with the more "plebian" sorts of people (which was everyone else on the planet). His sons struggled under the mighty shadow their father cast.

I highly recommend this book for anyone with a casual or serious insterest in the Wizard of Menlo Park.

In the introduction to MEDIA UNLIMITED, author Todd Gitlin vows to depict the "baffling media totality itself." The result is a book filled to the brim with tired cliches and overused platitudes about the information overload that's being dispensed by the multi-media, the ever-increasing pace of modern life, the erosion of American political life, the vacuousness and disposability of popular culture ("Not for American popular culture the presumption of Art with a capital A," writes Gitlin. Are we, as readers, supposed to be surprised or spurred into action by this?).

Part of the problem with this book is that Gitlin has nothing original to say. Another problem is that he seems to assume that all Americans are soulless drones who spend most of their free-time watching TV and surfing the Net -- and implicitly addresses his book to them, when it's obvious that these people simply don't read polemics by sociology professors. It never seems to occur to Gitlin that there are Americans who don't spend all their free time watching TV and having their value systems influenced by it, who have a strong sense of self that doesn't get drawn into rampant and uncontrollable consumerism by billboard advertisements, who have a general contempt for the multi-media in all its manifestations, and who fill their lives with good books, good music, good film, good food, intelligent friends and interesting conversation about important subjects. In short, it doesn't seem to occur to Gitlin that there are people in this country who have satisfying personal lives apart from the maddening multi-media-mediated crowd.

At the end of the day, this book isn't worth analyzing in depth. I'll just finish off with a quote [p. 71] that for me seems to typify its overall lameness:

"Turn on the TV, graze around, let the tsunami of images and information wash over you. A baseball game, with stats pouring across the screen--not only batting averages, RBIs, and ERAs but the on-base percentages, the speed of the last pitch, the number of pitches and first-pitch strikes thrown, the ball and strike percentages, even a visual of the batter's 'hot zone' and a cutaway to the new relief pitcher, resolute, with a 'scouting report' slashing across his image."

First of all, all of these things, which in and of themselves, are immensely trivial, Gitlin seems to think are worthy of dire sociological cerebration. Second, he also seems to think that these trivial details about televised baseball are emblematic of the deleterious information overload of popular culture. Finally, he seems completely unaware that rather than being a source of consternation, many of these things have improved immeasurably the entertainment value of televised baseball, which in its history has had a striking tendency towards dullness.

Misconceived analysis such as is contained in the above quote abounds on every page of Gitlin's book. There isn't an original thought in it. The author frequently embarrasses himself by attempting to coin clumsy aphorisms and cute puns. He has no solutions for or real insight into the bigger issues he raises. He is a remarkably dull writer. Finally, his boring, unrevealing book is merely one more contribution to the glut of information overload he's apparently attempting to redress.

Don't waste your time, like I did, reading this book.

Professor Gitlin's work is interesting, but he uses his introduction to distance his thoughts from McLuhan's, the rest of "Media Unlimited" reads like a Cliff's Notes version of "Understanding Media" and "The Medium is the Massage."

I thought "Media Unlimited" was fascinating at times (as all his books are), but it failed to deliver on the promises of the introduction. After saying that "the medium is the message" means almost nothing, the next 200 pages go on to explain in great detail how the torrent of media is, in the McLuhan sense, the message. It's not what is being said but how it is constantly washing over us that's important. Nothing new here.

His explanation of the word "speed" is fascinating, as is his hypothesis that the media torrent dictates a tendancy toward conservative values (an idea Chomsky kicked around years ago with his realization that in the television medium he must sound like he's from Neptune). There are gold coins to be found if the reader persists. Perhaps you'll love it if you skip the intro.

PS--If you're curious about why we're reading and writing these reviews as though they matter, pick up Gitlin's book. Great material on exactly this topic.

I bought Media Unlimited yesterday. And in line with its emphasis on speed, I read it in two sittings. It's impressive.

It seems that Todd Gitlin once again has released a book written without bombast, without alarm. There are no sirens in it. There are no skies falling. The book presents a new way of thinking about our new way of living. If we aren't "Amusing Ourselves to Death," then we are only amusing ourselves to fleeting passions. And the costs are therefore subtle, hard to measure, and potentially debilitating in unexpected ways.

Media Unlimited takes a reasoned, complex look at the phenomena of torrential media and presents it all in a fresh and lucid way. The book makes us consider the ways in which we swim among images and sounds, the ways we construct our desires and interests in response to what Gitlin argues is a major shift in the experience of being human after the 20th century.

Gitlin's reading of media flows is -- dare I say -- hip. When he writes about hackers or Eminem, I don't get the feeling that he has only read about them in the Times.

I appreciate that the book is respectful of fandom, aware of the value of passions (even fleeting, meta, hyper-mediated passions ... this morning I found myself nostalgically singing along with a song from my college days, ABC's "When Smokey Sings," an homage to Smokey Robinson, when the video came on VH1 Classic ... that's passion thrice removed), and willing to grant acknowledgement to potential progressive influence where it's due.

I hope the book catches a wave. Gitlin was able to place the book in the context of the terrorst attacks in September 2001. So the book seems very fresh. Yet I expect it has legs as well.

Jack Todd had always assumed he would have to fight in the Vietnam War - all the men in his family had fought in WWII or Korea - except that he was getting more & more troubled by America's role in this one.

When Jack's oldest school friend returns from the jungle & urges him to dodge the draft, Jack stuffs down his disquiet & enters the army. He almost completes basic training when the love of his life does a long-distant rejection that sends him into a tailspin out of which he makes a fateful decision.

It has taken this writer 30 years to come to terms with the guilt & shame of his desertion, to break his silence & tell his controversial, important & profoundly American story. Perhaps becoming one of Canada's most successful journalists & remarkable writers has given him the perspective & strength to tell this most difficult of tales.

If you are at all interested in how a deserter made his decision & then went along with it - read this book!

If, on the other hand, you have an aversion to anyone who deserted during the Viet Nam War - you had better avoid it!

Not an "easy" read although this author does have a way with words & scoops you along for the ride of a lifetime. It's like seeing inside of a man's mind - how he saw the world then & what he did about it.

If you want to read a master storyteller - then grab a copy - it is one disturbingly powerful memoir of a strange & dangerous time.

On one hand, Jack Todd's story is a good one. He tells it well. While I respect (and was stirred) by his apparent honesty and bearing of some stupid decisions, I can't say I really liked him. His vagaries and depression and struggles were moving, but for some reason I wasn't entirely convinced of his desertion-on-moral grounds rationale. He justifies it with a series of rants that seem to ring a little hollow. I wish they didn't.

Although the war was wrong, I have a hard time accepting the notion that it's better to desert than to sell-out behind a desk in a comfortable army post in Germany.

Like the rest of us, Jack Todd is both courageous and cowardly. At times I felt as conflicted as he was . . . wanting to second-guess him. I felt sorry for him on one page and got angry at him the next.

One more thing: I felt a chapter was missing that explained how he got from low-rent writing to Montreal columnist.

Between 50,000 and 100,000 young men and women fled northward to Canada during the Vietnam War era. Yet, their voices have remained largely silent during the past three decades while a significant body of literature concerning the war experience has been evolving. Jack Todd has broken that silence with the publication of Desertion: In the Time of Vietnam, a moving memoir of a young man who followed his conscience to Canada in 1970 and waged his own private "war" as an exile in search of himself in an unknown land.

This intensely personal account follows Todd from childhood growing up in a small Nebraska town to a promising career at the Miami Herald to basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington. Six weeks into basic training, Todd begins to contemplate flight northward as the dehumanization of the military experience and a growing antiwar conviction convince him to reluctantly leave his country. The decision is not made without Todd's painful acknowledgement of loss ("family, country, career, the woman I love") and moral agonizing over leaving his homeland of 23 years ("It's not that I live in America or that I am American. We are indistinguishable. You grow up the way I did, you don't know where your country leaves off and you start."). Ambivalence haunts him ("One instant I'm leaning one way, the next moment I've swung in the opposite direction. It's like watching a compass needle waver back and froth, back and forth, until it settles on true north.") until the morning early in 1970 when a friend escorts him over the Canadian border to freedom, and there is no turning back.

The memoir concentrates primarily on Todd's life as an exile in a country "that is so much like home that every morning when you get up you have to remind yourself that this is not home, that home is now a place where you can no longer go." Starting in Vancouver he drifts from city to city, on the verge of homelessness much of the time, never staying in any one place long enough to make lasting relationships or discover the security of stability. "The only constant seems to be this endless flight, running on and on and getting no place at all," he writes.

Even as Todd attempts to create a new life in this strange territory, he struggles to write about the exile experience in prose that is both poetic and poignant. "I worry at the theme of exile," he writes, "the meaning of existence on what is, for me in this endless winter, the wrong side of a three thousand-mile border."

By the time the war ends in 1975 Todd feels as if he has been "fighting it one way or another" for the past eight years since becoming a "late convert to the antiwar movement in 1967." Although draft dodgers and deserters are granted amnesty after the war, "it is too late for me," writes a deeply regretful Todd, who earlier made the "absurd decision" to renounce his American citizenship during a period of deep disillusionment. "I have given up my country, my citizenship, my profession, my family, my belief in myself, my true love, everything but my life. For this I will be called a coward," he writes, "and perhaps the people who say that are right. I feel it's the hardest, bravest thing I ever did, but it's not for me to judge." Todd stops short of claiming to be a casualty of war, but does place himself among many others of his generation who were "very different people after we had passed through that fire."

Today Todd is an award-winning journalist for the Montreal Gazette who has "spent half a life on each side of the border" and feels both American and Canadian "in roughly equal parts," although the Wildcat Hills of Nebraska, where he returns to visit as an outsider, will always be considered home "even if there aren't too many people out here who would care to claim me."

Todd's compelling story has waited more than a quarter of a century to be told and undoubtedly took much courage to write. Desertion is a different kind of war story than many that are included in the Vietnam War literary canon, but it is nevertheless a war story. Breaking the silence of desertion, Todd has created a story of conscience, bravery, remorse, and ultimately, hope.