This is the story of a family of post-WWII German immigrants in Canada, and their struggle to come to terms with life as Canadians, in spite of their difficult, war torn past. I thought this book was beautifully written and wonderfully sensitively wrought. The writer's very unique writing style sustains a tremendous level of poignancy and sensitivity throughout the story, but the author manages to achieve this without ever compromising the story at any point. It remains immensely readable and compelling to the end. In particular, the beautiful relationship drawn between the protagonist, Peter, and his sister, Ruby, is so beautifully drawn that I think it could quite easily go down in the annals of literature alongside such famous sibling relationships as the one in George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss. The book is a series of interconnected stories, beautifully held together with bridges of pure literature. The stories follow Peter, a second generation German, as he tries to make sense of his life in small town Canada. Inevitably, though, his history as a German, and all of the associated feelings of guilt enter into the fabric of his, and his families, lives and emotions and forces each of them to come to terms with the weight of history. The way in which this is achieved is so moving, so finely crafted, it brought tears to my eyes, and furthermore, it gives a very important and valuable perspective to another group of people who also suffered as a result of WWII. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history, who enjoyed reading Anne Michaels' Fugitive Pieces or to anyone who enjoys fine literature.

I was always a big fan of American publishers like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Barney Rossett for their role in liberating and promoting subversive literature in America. I am sure that many deplore the famed publisher Rossett who introduced "Tropic of Cancer" and "Naked Lunch" and "Lady Chatterly's Lover" to American readers. These are people who will probably not appreciate the importance of a book like "The Olympia Reader". Maurice Girodias was the founder of the Olympia Press. This French publisher was responsible for the first publication of many literary icons. Girodias followed in the footsteps of his father Jack Kahane who founded the Obelisk Press in the 30's. Kahane, it should be noted, is famed for discovering Henry Miller. The Olympia Press was a shoestring operation and labor of love for Girodias. These paperbacks were put out as The Traveller's Companion series. Girodias also faced censorship pressure in France. Luckily for us, he was able to put so much work out in spite these problems. He published writers like Raymond Queneau, Paline Reagé and Jean Genet among others. (It should be noted that he published the first version of Nabakov's "Lolita" but Nabakov refused permission for reprint in this book.) Publishing banned English books was a grand scheme for making money. The 'not to be sold in USA or Britain' category was a surefire way to spark sales. American G.I.s snapped them up with a passion. This book collects samples from this extraordinary press. It includes excerpts from books like "The Ginger Man" by J.P. Donleavy, "My Life and Loves" by Frank Harris, "The Black Book" by Lawrence Durrell, "Naked Lunch", de Sade's "Justine" and many more. It is a retrospective of an amazing moment in literary history. Girodias deserves much merit in the annals of Twentieth Century literature. This reader merely scratches the surface but it is a good introductory volume for readers of erotica and subversive literature. It would make a good starting point for a person interested in the stuff that doesn't get taught in schools which is truly the stuff that needs to be read.

A word about the illustrations in this book: As someone with a background in cartoon and illustration, art history, (and the son of an art dealer), I was extremely impressed by Mr.Kennett's illustrations. The pen drawings blow me away. His mastery of pen rendering, human and animal anatomy, composition, "camera" angles, balancing whites, greys and blacks, the way he varies--almost seems to be experimenting with varying rendering and textural effects--from drawing to drawing, is astonishing. Also, while the drawings have a "modern" feel to them, they capture the romance and atmosphere of older time illustrators such as NC Wyeth, or Howard Pyle. Pen drawings with a technical fountain pen or similar instrument can look skillful, but sterile. These don't. Also, many current illustrators and artists who draw in a realistic or quasi realistic style, though their work is admirable, look very obviously like their work is traced over or very closely based on photographs. These most certainly don't. This guy can really draw. Wonderful stuff.

In the 1937 preface to the first edition of this book, Leni Riefenstahl remarked 'it is the timeless document of a great idea -- a hymn to beauty and competetive endeavour.' Sixty-five years later, the graceful images of athletes competing in the 1936 Berlin games has more than withstood the test of time and validated Riefenstahl's original estimation of this work's ground-breaking importance, not only as a document, but as an exercise in the aesthetics of the idealised beauty of the human body in movement.

Leni Riefenstahl was something of a Renaissance woman: Photographer, motion picture director, editor, dancer, skier, and all-around athlete, no one could have been a better match for documenting the 1936 Olympics on film, from which stills were culled to create this volume. True to the spirit of Ancient Greece, it is fitting that it was captured on silver nitrate by this gifted cinematographer christened Helene (her birth name, for which 'Leni' is a German nickname).

Actually, the term 'stills' does injustice to the photographs contained with -- so alive are they, capturing the essence of athleticism and motive power.

The beginning of the book is devoted to Ancient Greece, and documenting the ruins which monumentalise her greatness: The Parthenon, Myron's discus thrower, the gods, such as Apollo and Achilles. Riefenstahl has brought many of the famous statues of athletes alive, as she photographs naked men and women engaged in the ancient sports, such as the javelin throw, the shot put, eurythmics, dance and the discus throw. Her athletes epitomise the grace, sensuousness and taut, muscular efficiency of the male and female bodies.

Another striking sequence is of the young Greek torch bearer, who ignites the torch at Athens and delivers it on his long route through Thermopaylae, the Grecian shore, Delphi and Corinth. The poise and determination in the runner's body and eyes convey the Olympic spirit with the same glowing certitude as the eternal flame, which the runner holds aloft like a beacon in the night.

Once in Berlin, the bulk of this volume is dedicated to the athletes themselves. Leni's cameramen captured all the events, and some of the images are just astounding for their sense of motion and eloquent simplicity of composition. Among my favourites are: The Flame from Greece, which shows a German youth standing before the crowd of athletes, holding the flame erect before lighting the stadium torch; Start of the 80 meter hurdles, as seen from the timekeeper's point-of-view, the lines demarcating the oval track's lanes sweep into a bird's eye view of the pensive hurdlers as they await the starter's gun; Jesse Owens in the starting blocks, the great athlete is the very embodiment of concentration; German Gisela Mauermayer, discus thrower, shows the female athlete in motion, and in joyous release on her way to the gold medal; Shadows of marathon runners, which convey the fleeting rush of the events; Finale, which shows the Berlin Olympicstadion encircled by pillars of searchlights just before the flame is extinguished.

'Olympia' is, to me, the greatest expression of graceful motion ever captured by a photographer. A tone poem for camera, these images better convey the concept of motion than 99% of the movies today, which are motion pictures in name only.

This edition, by the German publisher Taschen, is truer to the original, both in graphics and in the accutance of the photography, than St. Martin's 1994 reprinting. Highest recommendation.

This is the book that changed my life and got me interested in literature. I ended up reading so many other books because of this book. In my life,this was the book that changed it all. Will it work for anyone else? Probably

Long before Olympia Dukakis became well-known for her Academy-Award-winning supporting role as Rose Castorini in Moonstruck, I was a fan of hers based on the outstanding performances she often gave at the Charles Playhouse in Boston in the 1960s. One of the misperceptions that I had about her was that her remarkable control on stage was a reflection of a rock-solid personality. Ask Me Again Tomorrow helped me to see how acting has helped her to get control over her life. It was an unexpected twist for me.

The book opens with the experience of becoming an "overnight" success after thirty years when she won the Academy Award. The event doesn't seem worth dwelling on, except that Ms. Dukakis clearly showed her values were in the right place by using her success to help the Whole Theater, which she had been involved with for 18 years in New Jersey.

For me, the book became interesting when she recounted the story of her family's life before she was born. Several friends of mine who are Greek-Americans say that non-Greek-Americans can never understand what it is like in their families. As I read about Ms. Dukakis's family, I began to get a sense of what they mean. A dominant story from her childhood was about a teenage girl in Greece who had lost her virtue to an overseer. To avenge the dishonor, her brother shot and killed her. The pressure on her to be a "good" Greek-American daughter was unrelenting. Her relationship with her mother was very difficult as a result. Ms. Dukakis was a free spirit as a child, teen and a young adult which set her up for lots of family problems.

Having several family members who would like to act for a living, I also wondered what had drawn her to the profession and what had made her so good at it. The story is very much one of a late bloomer, but a determined one. I was surprised to learn that she had become a physical therapist helping polio patients as a way to pay for her education. During those terrible days, she even contracted a mild case of polio herself. Her story about this work is gripping, and added much to my understanding of that period in time before vaccines more or less eliminated polio.

Lastly, I was curious how a hard-working actress balanced home and family over the years. With difficulty . . . is the answer.

Ms. Dukakis also reveals a lot about how her self-discovery has occurred, especially through her reactions to roles she has been asked to play, therapy and seeking out the origins of Goddess-based spiritual beliefs.

I came away from this book having even more respect for Ms. Dukakis, both as a person and as an actress. I think you will, too.

My main reservation about the book is that Ms. Dukakis is a bit overly circumspect about how much she chooses to reveal about herself in many places. You just get a sense that something might be going on, and . . . you are pushed off into another subject. For instance, after first being married, Ms. Dukakis and her husband Louis Zorich had an "open" marriage. After becoming pregnant, the open marriage was closed for all time. I was left wondering why it was ever open in the first place.

After you finish reading this fine story, think about where your conflicts with family and friends can inspire you to take on larger challenges in areas that are meaningful to you. Have the passion to act!

If you are a struggling actress, actor or anyone pursuing their dreams to do what they love against all odds, this book is for you! I would recommend it for required reading in any theatre class. A Star's light needs to brighten up the path of others to see too.

The book is not what I expected, a series of memories about the entertainment business mixed in with life's loved one. Instead you get the real deal from a real person from a perspective that can enhance your own reflections and without pity of confessions, concessions or the conceit of 'look what I have done!' More like this is how it happens to me with thoughtful self-doubts and all!

Olympia's life is not just one of just pursuing her dreams but backing up her doubts and decisions while clashing with her sense of worth, fears of family and friends second guessing her, lecturing her and offering advice that often makes one stumble rather than risk it all.

She had to deal with her not just her cultural and femininity preconceptions and others during the Age of Social Self-Reliance that made many women often cry in quiet anguish. As if something is wrong with them but ignoring the restrictions in society for you and your dreams, until you find out on your own it is up to you change it for yourself.

The book talks about how one often responds sometimes in measured half steps trying to please more people she could like choosing to take advantage of earning an education as a Physical Therapists during the 'Age of Polio' in the hearts, limbs and often brains of others. Just in case she fails at acting!

How and whom you marry often dictates new changes you never expected despite the best and worse of high expectations. Or how you seek out the truth in yourself with the help of a teacher or guide like in Olympia's 'Gayatri Devi.' And finally, discovering a new concept in history that there existed Goddesses before Gods, for a Greek Woman that is a humbling but revealing experience. And one can often feign the art of fainting that started it all!

In the end, each setback added to her wisdom, each personal victory added to her confidence and she never forgot who she was, what she needed to do, and it all added up with a grand success to set the stage for her 1988 Academy Award. Her peers in the entertainment industry could bestow one of the highest awards an artist.

Today, Olympia molds others as she did herself since her Stage Debut in 1956. She has had 48 yearly principal stage appearances, 14 of them in Directing, 29 Films, and 26 TV Movies and became a founding member of 5 Theatre Companies and a Master Teacher at NYU. All the while conflicting with her mother, having belated judgments of her father, raising a family, mixed in with self-denials, self-determinations and self-improvement often taught by the lessons of the life we learn with and the other we live with in the end.

Many think Olympia's role as 'Rose Castorini' in " Moonstruck," changed her life. But from what I read from the book and what she left off in her modesty is that Olympia changed many lives in her own way. By following her own will and making conciliation necessary to work along and love many others she now inspires others to do the same.

Olympia's story proves, one can do it her way too, without changing names, goals and achievements for society, or what her family wanted but how friends and family change with you like they did with her.

I think you will find this book a delight to read and over time will come to know why and how Olympia Dukanis's became a favorite of the Goddesses and the Gods without apology or recriminations; in any event she was named right from the start.

Olympia is Greek meaning "Of Olympus Heavenly One, Named After The Beautiful Canopy Of Stars That Lights The Earth At Night." You will have to read how this Stage and Movie Star's radiance contributes to the world to find out why, and as you enjoy enlightening yourself!

I have been weight training on and off, for the last 12 years and have come across many books on the subject but this is one of my favourites. This book by Samir presents a good source of information and working-out routines on body-building for all; from the beginner to the advanced body-builder. I expecially like its simple layout and a good range of illustrated exercises.

This is one of the best books on weights training/ muscle building. Samir explains everything from muscle tissue, routines, diet to exercises. If followed the results can be truly rewarding. Five stars all the way. Its a pity that this book is not easily available in the book stores.

In writing his monograph on 'Olympia', Leni Riefenstahl's epic record of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Taylor Downing has to deal with questions most film critics don't face. Planned to glorify the Nazi regime, this Olympiad was the most spectacular yet, with massive new stadia built, state-of-the-art facilities provided for spectators and athletes, and ceremonies of extravagant pomp orchestrated by Albert Speer. Riefenstahl had Hitler's personal blessing to make the film, and was given unprecedented financial and administrative support to expose all this Aryan glory to the world.

Downing does full justice to this troubling film. He does not avoid its propaganda basis, and the best bits of the book narrate the historical context in which the film was made (Downing is the TV producer of politic-historical programmes like 'The Cold War'), sifting through the self-justifying rewriting Riefenstahl has been doing for decades.

But Downing is scrupolously fair to the film as a piece of Olympic film-making (Downing has co-ordinated the TV coverage for two Games). He shows how in itself, the film is a very fair representation of the event, with the amazing achievements of the African American athletes as celebrated as the German victories (which I hadn't noticed, suggesting I brought my own prejudices to the movie), in spite of the Nazis' racial 'theories' (although he could have mentioned that Jesse Owens' miraculous Games, hailed here as a victory of democracy over fascism, went unnoticed at home, and that he was reduced to racing dogs and horses for a livelihood). Indeed, he makes the telling point that it was the Americans, in 1984, who were first reprimanded by the International Olympic Committee for the excessive chauvinism of their TV coverage.

He is full of admiration for Riefenstahl's technical ingenuity, offering a fascinating potted history of Olympic film-making to date, revealing just how revolutionary the German was. As a fellow practitioner, he brilliantly explains the logistics of the shoot, the breakthroughs of new cinematic technology, the importance of the director's collaborators, and, valuably, the meaning of the varied stylistic choices Riefenstahl made. It seems odd, however, that he doesn't interpret her relentless fetishising of the human body as itself fascist - maybe he's right.

However, he doesn't change my own feelings for the film, the overwhelming unhealthiness of all that health. In fact, the one film this book has made me ache to see is not the Riefenstahl classic it's about, but Kon Ichikawa's film of the 1964 Tokyo Olympiad, which sounds fantastic.

Taylor Downing's 'Olympia' is one of an impressive series (BFI Film Classics) of books on great movies. These books, although concise and small in format, are excellently researched, formatted, and most importantly, well written treatments of film classics.

Downing's book provides a review of Riefenstahl's career leading up to the filming of 'Olympia', necessary background information to understand both her technical and artistic prowess as they reach the screen in this great documentary film. For those familiar primarily with 'Triumph of the Will', this portion of the book is particularly interesting.

The creative, fiscal, and technical challenges the director faced in bringing the 1936 games to the screen are discussed in fascinating detail. For those who see Riefenstahl as a puppet of the Nazi progpaganda machine, her run-ins with Goering are illuminative. The chapter on the 'plot' and aesthetics of the film are also very well-written and are a good overview for those who have not yet seen this groundbreaking sports documentary.

An appendix noting the different versions of the film presently in circulation would be welcome in the next edition of this fine book.

Members of our book club recently read this book. One member liked that all the women met without regard for personal or political differences. Another member would love to be invited to one of the dinner meetings (...). The description (p. 144) of the priorities of the women senators impressed another member. "Not compelling, but intermittantly inspirational", commented yet another member. One member wished that the biographies for each senator were compiled in one chapter rather than the current "bits-and-pieces" format. In addition, she would have appreciated the cover photos identified so that stories could've been matched to people. The final member was inspired to run for the school board. The afterword (in the latest addition) was a nice addition which showed the current dynamics of the Senate.

The Senate has long been characterized as the Old Boy's Club, a place where the political process is insulated from the pressures of cultural change. The nine women currently holding seats in the Senate have been, in very diverse ways, part of the winds of change that have swept through the American legislature. Nine and Counting chronicles the personal and political travails and triumphs of these extraordinary women. Though they come from very different backgrounds, they are consistently advocates for their constituents and have been important role models for women who are committed to public life. The book's narrative thrust is aided by skillful commentary from Catherine Whitley, interwoven with personal stories and comments from each of the Senators. The book is easy to read and steers away from explicitly political agendas or advocacy, instead focusing on the realities of women's lives and the importance of bringing diverse voices, male and female, Democrat and Republican, to the legislative process. As a young woman in politics, I found it fun and, in its own way, inspirational.

The nine extraordinary women of the United states Senate have collaborated with writer Catherine Whitney to present an informative and absorbing read. Following the lives of all of the women who've served, Nine & Counting intermingles the fascinating personal stories of each of the nine women currently holding office. This is the greatest number ever to serve at the same time. And that's the point. The women of the Senate want to inspire others to join them. The first woman Senator, the formidable Rebecca Felton of Georgia, was appointed as a token gesture, and allowed to serve only one day in 1922. And it was stunning to be reminded once again that women didn't have the right to vote until 1920. Political offcie for a woman was a rare accomplishment. Dedicated to the Girl Scout Organization, with all proceeds from the sale of the book going to them, Nine and Counting is a lot of fun to read. It was obviously written to inspire young women to emulate today's nine women Senators, to show them what courage and perseverance can accomplish. And that's exactly what it does. An entertaining, enjoyable read, it should become a lasting part of the historical record of this great nation.

The book discusses in great detail the Reichmann family's role both in Jewish culture over the last couple hundred years and in the real estate developement business over the last 40 or so years.

The part I liked the best was the descriptions of 18th and 19th century Jewish life in the "oberland"(sp?) of Hungary. A lost culture, thanks not only to the Nazis but also to Jewish Emancipation.

In a way, it is inspirational, as it shows how one family managed to integrate a healthy, traditional religious expression with philanthropy and business acumen. It also shows that you cannot understand what makes that family "tick" without understanding the rich culture and religion of orthodox jewishness.

The greatest strength of this book, in my opinion, is that it is a _history_ of the family and its business, religious, philanthropic, and cultural dealings. It isnt the hagiography that so many business biographies in the popular press tend to be.

As the Reichmanns anticipate another rush to the top of the heap we shall watch with amazed eyes as this family woos our imagination, yet again! As renowned as the Reichmanns have been there are still followers of scrappy success stories that do not know much about what this family, with brother and son Paul at the helm, contributed to New York City's skyline. The World Financial Center was a creation of their delicately named Olympia & York. Read this from beginning to end so that you can grasp the rise and fall and now, again, rise of this amazing family. As is usually indicative of most business minds through time, the children are not as capable as the original "originators" themselves.

For those interested in real estate development, I recommend skipping through the first half of the book and starting at page 256. From there on it is fascinating reading on the possibilities of development for those with seemingly infinite capital on hand. Paul Reichmann's passion, drive and high tolerance for risk makes for better reading than most novels.