Book Description
FLYBOYS is the true story of eight young American airmen who were shot down over Chichi Jima.Seven of these young men were captured by Japanese troops and taken prisoner.One was rescued by an American submarine and went on to become president. The reality of what happened to the seven prisoners has remained a secret for almost 60 years. After the war, the American and Japanese governments conspired to cover up the shocking truth. Not even the families of the airmen were informed what had happened to their sons. It has remained a mystery-until now. Critics called James Bradley's last book 'the best book on battle ever written.' FLYBOYS is even better: more ambitious, more powerful, and more moving. On the island of Chichi Jima those young men would face the ultimate test.Their story-a tale of courage and daring, of war and of death, of men and of hope-will make you proud, and it will break your heart.
Customer Reviews:
a great book.......2007-06-28
I thought this was a great book. It details the interesting background of Japan, covers coditions that military men had to face, and provides vivid details of the daily activities of the Flyboys themselves. This is the first military type book I've read, and I plan to continue reading them and hope they read somewhat like this one. This has done nothing but increase my interest in war stories. I look forward to reading Flags of Our Fathers shortly.
Flyboys Review.......2007-06-13
"We scorched and broiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo on that night of March 9-10 then went up in vapor at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." This is a quote of General Curtis LeMay talking about the firebombing of the Japanese city of Tokyo.
This book is about WWII in the pacific, mostly the Americans fight against the Japanese. It is a book about 8 American flyboys that are shot down over the Japanese island of Chichi Jima. They were held as Japanese POWs until their executions at the hands of the Japanese. The fates of these 8 men were classified and unknown by everyone, even their families, until now. The book takes place mostly from 1941 to 1945. These were the years that America was involved in WWII.
My favorite part of this book was when the Japanese were fire bombed and a lot of the city of Tokyo was destroyed. This was my favorite because all the troops were really excited about it. They all saw it as revenge for Pearl Harbor. This really let me get inside the soldiers heads and figure out how they felt.
The main theme of this book is war and how it affects people. All the violence in the pacific affected everyone. It affected the natives because their homes were being destroyed n the chaos. It affected the families of the flyboys because they were shot down and the families had to hear the bad news and were devastated.
This was an excellent book. It teaches a lot about the history of Japan and the war in the pacific. Most importantly however, it tells the tales of those 8 brave pilots that gave their lives for our country.
My review on Flyboys .......2007-06-05
I thought that this book was a great story. It had a good story line, and the whole book made sense with its flow. This book really intrigues me because I am into alot of the military or shooting books. I love to read a book with a lot of action in it. Truly a great book.
a hidden secret for years..........2007-04-26
what happened to some American flyboys on the island of Chichi Jima was kept top secret for years. James Bradley in a courageous book tells us what happened. Talk about destiny, one of the few pilots that was actually saved was a young George W. Bush. The brutality of war is never easy reading, here, torture, cannibalism and secret rituals will punch you in the gut. Bradley does a good job of presenting of both sides of the story as he tries to present an even handed account of culture differences and the atrocities of war.
Flyboys was a strange title for this book.......2007-03-26
First let me say, that I enjoyed reading Bradley's book "Flags of Our Fathers". I was expecting the same professional and unbiased research in his latest book "Flyboys".
After finishing the first several chapters of "Flyboys", I had to check the dustjacket to make sure that it was applied to the correct book. "Flyboys" is a strange title for a book in which almost half of the book appears to be a personal apology by Bradley to justifiy the atrocities committed by the japanese from the 1930's on toward the end of WWII in 1945.
Once the reader finally gets to the chapters dedicated to the actual title of the book, it is nearly impossible to accept as plausible even the facts Bradley presents about the american pow's on Chichi Jima.
I find it beneath contempt that Bradley uses the story of what occured to american pow's on Chichi Jima as blatant attempt to bring attention to his own biased and distorted world view. Bradley almost singularly blames much of the atrocties committed in recorded history on "Christians" which he clearly identifies as the culprit several times in the first few chapters of his book.
High-minded revisionism is not a tool used by legitimate historians and "Flyboys" clearly indicates that James Bradley has schemed to try to present his on political agenda disguised as a historical book on WW II.
What Bradley does present in his book about the american naval aviators who were taken prisoner on Chici Jima easily could have been presented as a short story.
The publisher could have saved themselves the trouble of wasting a lot of good paper on more PC revisionism.
An example of Bradley's failures as a historian is his attempt to blame the loss of the war on the fact that the japanese didnot place enough value on the "third demension" - a phrase Bradley uses for air-warfare - when in fact, the japanese were actually way ahead of the United States military in that "demension" as early as the late 1930's. The japanese placed much value on aerial warfare and it took the concerted effort of all the industrial resources of America to eventually catch up to and surpass the japanese in the aerial...oops, "third demension" (Bradley seemed to like using that phrase a lot).
I was considering recommending this book based only on the facts presented in the book about the Chichi Jima atrocities but there's already a much better book out there already on the subject titled "Sorties Into Hell: The Hidden War on Chichi Jima" by Chester Hearn so I won't even do that.
Unless one is curious about how to write a book dripping with politically correct biased revisionism presented as a historically factual work, don't bother with this one.
Book Description
This acclaimed bestseller brilliantly illuminates a hidden piece of World War II history as it tells the harrowing truestory of nine American airmen shot down in the Pacific. One of them, George H. W. Bush, was miraculously rescued. The fate of the others-an explosive 60-year-old secret-is revealed for the first time in FLYBOYS.
Customer Reviews:
Drawn between two worlds.......2007-06-13
Being Half Japanese and Half American, this book was by far the most compelling I have ever read. I did not know the extent of anguish and fierce country loyalty that both the United States Flyboys and Japanese soldiers had to deal with. I could not put this book down. I was reading as if I was that person or this person in the book and trying to comprehend what they were thinking when doing what "had" to be done. And truly the only book in which the last three words written brought hard warming shivers down my spine and goose bumps up and down my body. And once that was done, I cried.
A little different from what I expected . . . ........2007-04-14
Having seen that a movie has been produced based on this book, I expected more of a narrative centering around some consistent characters throughout. In reality, every chapter seems to introduce new flyboys. The stories of these various men are great -- many were very brave and some had amazing adventures, but there are no central characters who carry the narrative, as I had expected and hoped.
The book really traces World War II, with much attention to the war in the Pacific, putting an additional emphasis on the air campaigns. Thus it is a rather broad-based survey of the world war, not a tracing out of individual lives. The author rightly points out that the air war was crucial, and Japan lost WW II in large part because the Japanese high command never really understood the key principles of air warfare.
The book is very hard hitting. Some facts are quite amazing. I have read a number of WW II narratives and have not seen some of this grisly information. For instance, did you know that only about one Japanese serviceman out of three was actually killed by a weapon (i.e., a bullet)? Two thirds were killed from starvation, disease, mass suicide, or abandonment by the Japanese high command.
If there are "bad guys" in this book, it is the Japanese high command. These people were truly wicked in the eyes of Mr. Bradley. Their indifference to the death of their countrymen was appalling.
One interesting detail -- much is made out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mr. Bradley says that persons who really do the reading about the events of this decade will not criticize the use of the two atomic bombs. The "to the death" fanaticism of the Japanese high command would have made an invasion of the home islands a "lake of blood," with most of the deaths being those of the Japanese civilians. Frankly, the firebombing of the Japanese cities killed far more people than the atomic bombs ever did. Moreover, more persons were killed in the Battle of Okinawa than the combined death toll of both atomic bombings. As Bradley implies, "ignorance makes everything so simple." But hey, we can't deny people their emotional "trip," can we?
Anyway -- heck of a book. By no means a bad book, just not what I had expected.
Excellent story.......2007-03-16
I really liked this book. Very gripping and thorough. There are many WWII books and movies that have been coming out and although I don't think a movie will be made of this book; it's still an eye-opener of how intense and fanatical the Japanese military was back in the day.
fast as a jet.......2007-03-08
If you are a piston-engine airplane lover, this book will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Long, but worth reading.......2007-03-02
James Bradley is an amazing non-fiction writer. I loved Flags of Our Fathers and Flyboys is worth reading, too (although I can't say I loved Flyboys because the topic was very heavy and the book was longer than it needed to be).
Flyboys takes a deep look at war atrocities in the Pacific. And it's not your high school history book. Pilots get their heads chopped off. American pilots. Then officers eat the livers of the dead. Japanese soldiers get bayonet practice on living prisoners, both Chinese and American. The Japanese Spirit Warriors rape and pillage China, killing thousands of civilians--men, women, and children. Bradley even tells of thousands and thousands of civilians being burned to death by napalm. Entire cities are apocalyptically destroyed, leaving nothing but scorched women clutching their babies. These were Japanese victims of America's fire bombing missions that killed more people than both the atomic blasts combined. It's not a book for the squeamish.
However, it is more relevant in our present time of war than most books on the shelf today. It's well written. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of war.
That being said, the weakness of the book is its scope. It's too broad. It tries to cover too much, leaving the reader trying to mentally chew on something much bigger than bite size pieces.
Customer Reviews:
Flyboys.......2007-08-26
For anyone even remotely interested in the Pacific war, this book's an absolute "must read". I've given this book to two close friends who could not put it down and had the exact same reaction. An eye-opener, to say the least. Read it!
The truth is pretty painful.......2007-08-15
An incredible book for detail into the history of the world that leads to the stories of these brave pilots. It is accuracte but not a flattering commentary about how we treat each other on the face of the earth. Challenging and rewarding to read.
History vs. storytelling.......2007-07-09
Author Bradley is a storyteller and a detective, not an historian. He needs some leeway to establish a context, which is tough to do with such a complicated subject matter. Reviewers should save their historical-critical energies to refute the analyses of real historians.
Technically, the writing is unsophisticated and sometimes inept. There are painful mixed metaphors, an annoying third-person use of the Japanese honorific "san" (and then only when the author approves of the subject), and the unscholarly, disparaging references to those who displease the author(bordering on name-calling).
Once you get by this trivia, you see the book for what it is: a mesmerizing, disturbing, intimate story about the exteme dichotomies of war. As with the tale of Breaker Morant or Judgement at Nuremburg, a reader can take any ideology he wants from this "sideshow of the war", but in the end can not help but be haunted, saddened, and inspired.
Why America Dropped the Bombs.......2007-05-07
I am old enough to have lived through the war and remember it well. I never knew why Japan declared war on the U.S., even though I have taken every history class offered throughout my school career. "Flyboys" is probably the most brutal book I have ever read, almost too difficult in places. I am grateful to James Bradley for having written this book, I now understand why America dropped the Atomic Bombs and put an end to that war. "Flyboys" is a must read.
leave your biases at home when you read this.......2007-04-16
This is a top ten book in my opinion and a must read. Bradley does draw conclusions but only after citing the conclusions and opinions of others that were there. I do not view this book as a guilt trip, but a historical look from both sides of the fence. While reading this book, I couldn't help but think of the middle east and our approach. War is hell and if your not prepared to fight like the devil, be prepared to be conquered by the devil.
Bradley did a great job in citing historical events that brought us to the conclusion of WWII. If you are NOT a defender of american stupidity, you will enjoy this book. Im not a liberal and I dont feel guilt, but Im not stupid either, and I dont appreciate being lied to by the public school system and having been fed a buncha bulls*it on how the west was won starting somewhere in 1492.
Book Description
The Millionaires' Unit is the story of a gilded generation of young men from the zenith of privilege: a Rockerfeller, the son of the head of the Union Pacific Railroad, several who counted friends and relatives among presidents and statesmen of the day. They had it all and, remarkably by modern standards, they were prepared to risk it all to fight a distant war in France. Driven by the belief that their membership in the American elite required certain sacrifice, schooled in heroism and the nature of leadership, they determined to be first into the conflict, leading the way ahead of America's declaration that it would join the war. At the heart of the group was the Yale flying club, six of whom are the heroes of this book. They would share rivalries over girlfriends, jealousies over membership in Skull and Bones, and fierce ambition to be the most daring young man over the battlefields of France, where the casualties among flyers were chillingly high.
One of the six would go on to become the principal architect of the American Air Force's first strategic bomber force. Others would bring home decorations and tales of high life experiences in Paris. Some would not return, having made the greatest sacrifice of all in perhaps the last noble war. For readers of Flyboys, The Greatest Generation, or Flags of Our Fathers, this patriotic, romantic, absorbing book is narrative military history of the best kind.
Customer Reviews:
Pleasant Surprise.......2007-01-06
I'm seldom attracted to books about war, especially if they're not written by someone who participated in the conflict. From my reading experience, the tendency by many authors is to regurgitate bland facts and anecdotes and the main theme is clouded by second-hand minutia. Not this book.
Somehow, Mr. Wortman brought these young men to life allowing me to become interested in their successes, failures and fates. He did a terrific job weaving the narrative from historical documents and bringing the characters to life. I didn't expect to react emotionally but I did. Without giving too much of the story away, there are a few instances when I closed the book, filled with sadness.
Making research material come to life is a skill few master. Mr. Wortman has, and I don't think it's by talent alone. He obviously went the extra mile to learn as much as possible about the principal characters, to literally "Flesh them out."
Wortman also did a great job describing the era; a time when the wealthy recognized their obligation to serve and not use their power and influence to shirk responsibilities. I can't believe the risks they took against such lousy odds.
A lost spirit.......2006-09-16
This is a very unusual book about a group of students at Yale in 1916 who all came from very privileged backgrounds, but felt it their duty to do something worthwhile with their lives. Considering the world situation at that time, they decided to form the Yale flying club and its members would become well trained pilots and eventually ended up flying many and extremely dangerous missions in Europe on behalf of America and its Allies during World War I. Unfortunately, several of them did not return, having paid the ultimate sacrifice. This is a book about Yale students who had it all, but whose strong belief in a cause made them turn into a life full of life threatening experiences, but convinced that it was their duty to do so. Such wonderful spirits, unfortunately, do not seem to be much in evidence in today's times. This extremely well researched book is certainly of great interest to those of us who were not aware of such remarkable spirits, but also to those who want to learn more about the beginnings of military aviation and the World War I period in general.
An Inquiry into the Culture of Leadership.......2006-08-17
First off, this is a great book and I agree with the other reviewers that it is a great read. Yes, it does follow the Yale flyers from crew races in Connecticut to the skies over the English Channel and Belgium in World War I. And yes, there are great descriptions of courage, heroism and loss. But to me there are two things that set this book apart. One, Wortman is a great writer. It is the mark of any really good book of history when the author can put you there, in a wholly different time and place, and make you feel that you know it, know the people and know the mores of the period. Wortman does this well, even down to getting the slang of the young Yalies. One cannot soon forget the importance of having "sand" or the feeling of flying over the trenches in Flanders on a cold dawn patrol. With due deference to Charles Schulz and Snoopy, there was a bit more to it than climbing onto the roof of your doghouse. And two, by opening up to us the world of the early nineteen hundreds, Wortman illuminates how these privileged young men, and the entire society of which they were a part, understood the responsibilities of leadership. For better or worse than the culture of our own time, and without any romanticism a la Snoopy and the Red Baron, many of these very rich young men felt the personal responsibility to take part and to lead -- and to do it from the forward and dangerous position. One cannot read this book without clearly contrasting the Yale flyers' attitudes and actions from those of many of today's most important political leaders in their formative years. Again, without having to surrender to any of the Band of Brothers romanticism, "The Millionaire's Unit" reminds us that our present day's attitudes towards leadership are not the only ones that Americans have always held.
One of those 'must read' books!.......2006-08-17
A remarkable story! In 1916 a group of extraordinary Yale class leaders, who happened also to be millionaire athletes, organized an aviation unit. These were heroic, very patriotic young men. Wortman makes you feel as if you're in the air flying with them. It's a great read. Don't miss it.
A Fascinating History of American Air Power .......2006-07-27
Highly recommended for holiday gift lists. This splendid, well researched book relates the story of a group of Yale students, who in 1916 formed the Yale Flying Club and pioneered the development of America's flying forces. The author traces the adventures of these aristocratic young men from their first open-cockpit flying lessons to scouting the New York coastline for W W I German submarines to aerial combat in Europe, and to their impact on the establishment of U.S. air power. A remarkable book that should appeal to those with ties to Yale, aviation fans, history buffs, and non-aviator types, like me, who enjoy a good read and couldn't put it down.
Sam D. Starobin
Average customer rating:
- A book in search of a subject
- Excellent History, But Biased Propaganda
- One of the best WWII books I've read
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Flyboys: A True Story of Courage
James Bradley
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
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ASIN: 031610728X |
Customer Reviews:
A book in search of a subject.......2007-05-11
"Fly Boys" an incredible botch. The book promises to tell of American fliers shot down over Japanese-held Chichi Jima. Not far from Iwo Jima, scores of Japanese on Chichi could only watch impotent as a huge American force utterly devastated their nearby comrades, opening the door for fiery assaults against the Japanese home islands. The Japanese proved far better at amassing forces than maintaining them, effectively stranding troops across the Pacific. (Imperial doctrine called for troops to "provision" themselves - by stealing from local inhabitants or by subsisting on insects and flora.) As a result, islands like Chichi and Guadalcanal became home to thousands of starving Japanese troops barely able to bring the fight to the enemy. Desperation exacerbates the sort of hysteria already endemic to every level of the Japanese military when the war began, and the "Fly Boys" suffer their captors' wrath.
Some reviews complain about Bradely's use of "moral equivalence" (Bradley compares Imperial brutalities with those of an expansionist America from the post-Civil War era through the war in the Philippines) to anti-American effect. But those problems mask the book's larger flaw: that it really isn't about anything at all. What starts out a story of American prisoners, goes back to the dawn of Japanese-American relations, the birth of modern Japan and the road to war. Then there is the rise of American airpower, the battles of Coral Sea and Midway, and finally the landings at Iwo Jima and the firebombing of Japan. These historic events don't simply form a backdrop to the story, but become the story, grabbing as much of Bradley's focus as the plight of his downed airmen. Bradley never integrates these threads into a common historic theme, and never explains what they're all doing in the same book. In a book about nothing in particular, everything is irrelevant.
For his research, or maybe because of it, Bradley loses his way almost immediately. Instead of learning about the downed Chichi fliers, Bradley begins with the historical roots of the Pacific war...and then works backward. We see how Commodore Perry "opened" the closed yet sophisticated and highly regimented Japanese society to the outside world. Japan's honor system - epitomized by Bushido - was blameless for the barbarities of WWII. Instead, the modern combat experience of the Japanese demonstrates both compliance with that code and extraordinarily humane (Russians captured in the 1907 war received treatment little worse than that for guests). Bradley contrasts this with the aforementioned brutality of Americans in war.
Getting to WWII, Bradley barely touches on his subjects - instead rehashing more milestones already familiar to anybody with the least basic grasp of military history (or with basic cable). From the court martial of Billy Mitchell to Doolittle's raid on Tokyo; from the Battle of Midway to the fire-bombing of the home islands of the Empire - Bradley gives some marginal insight, but again little bearing on the downed American fliers who become extras in their own story. Bradley not only forgets whom he's writing about, but never clarifies whose perspective. (Bradley compares the cruelties perpetrated by Americans in giving some shape to those committed by the Imperial Japanese, but did the Japanese know of "Wounded Knee" during the Bataan March? Is Bradley is arguing for moral relativism, or merely demonstrating that the Japanese had done so?)
When it's clear that Bradley is writing from his own perspective, the result is a soft concoction of history and euphemism, with little hard fact. This is especially true of the title - nothing in Bradley's book gets to the meat of what it means to be one of the "Fly Boys", though he uses the term throughout. In that vein, "fly boys" may be an image, like the one used in "The Right Stuff" in which pilots were the lone shining knights of the nuclear powered space age. But Wolfe fleshed out his metaphors without being conquered by them (by the end of "Stuff", Wolfe's America has matured beyond its need for such archaic heroes like the Mercury 7 - the era of the lone, shining and supersonic knight had come to an end). Bradley instead uses "Flyboys" to refer to fliers in general - ignoring much distinction between the fliers of different services. Instead, Bradley has "flyboys" as FDR's one-word answer in the desperate early days of the war (was FDR such a fan of naval aviation?), without saying much about how FDR turned that answer into the force that won the war. Other glossed over points - the relative industrial might of America and Japan, and the exhaustion faced by Japan in China even before hostilities began with America. Bradley "shows" much, yet teaches little.
As to the problem of moral-equivalence touched upon by unfavorable reviewers, "Flyboys" engages in a sort of thematic shell-game. In turns, he eschews then embraces the sentimentality of American pluck over Imperial aggression. In a work that reveals the contrasting imagery that each side used for the other (uniformly hostile, of course), Bradley freely engages in imagery and sentimentality of his own - of spirit warriors and Samurai, of those betrayed the warrior's honor code, and those who've inherited it. Bradley charts Japan's ironic metamorphosis from honorable warrior to barbaric marauder, fleshing out the contrasting extremes for each. Yet having plumbed American atrocities, reverses direction for Americans without explanation, and makes them the heirs of the Bushido - a characterization (much like "Fly Boy") qualified or even defined. "Flyboys" is supposed to be an unflinching look at WWII as we haven't seen before, yet its subtitle, offering a story of "courage" suggests he's as much reliant on heroic and unreal imagery as those who written before him.
Excellent History, But Biased Propaganda.......2007-01-10
What could have been an excellent piece of historical research is fatally flawed by an unflinching and blatant diatribe against American culture and action going back to the first settlers in the East.
Under the pretext of explaining why the Japanese resented American "meddling" in the Pacific, Bradley clumsily brings up a litany of (in his mind) evil American policies and acts that gradually become the dominant theme of at least his first few chapters. His graphic depiction of the Rape of Nanking is followed by a diatribe against the Americans' treatment of their aboriginals ( Indians, Native Americans, or whatever term floats your boat this week), and Bradley's intent of establishing moral equivalence is quite clear. As this pattern goes on, and on, and on, one begins to harbor a secret suspicion that this anti-American propaganda -- for there is no other appropriate word for his slick and dishonest portrayal -- was indeed the real raison d'etre behind this book.
No historian worthy of the name would seriously argue that Japan's megalomaniacal conquer-and-slaughter policies were merely a natural response to America's westward expansion, but that is exactly what Bradley tries to do. He is certainly entitled to his opinion, no matter how bizarre, but he is not entitled to play fast and loose with historical fact, and claiming that the US conquered the Philippines and Hawaii at bayonet point in the same way as the Japanese conquered Nanking is not just a stretch -- it's a lie.
Bradley's carefully-calculated weaving of every available piece of anti-American propaganda into the fabric of this book is especially distressing because his research and portrayal of the actual facts surrounding the Chichi Jima incident is otherwise excellent. His analysis of Japanese history and cultural change is succinct and, occasionally, perceptive. Clearly, there are either huge gaps in his knowledge of these areas or, more likely, he has picked and chosen the parts he likes and ignored others. He could have done us all a service by mentioning the Japanese plans for conqest and empire, including specifically everything up to and including Hawaii -- plans that went back almost to the turn of the century and were certainly no secret among the Japanese military or any Japanese citizen that read books and newspapers. He may not be comfortable with direct research into Japanese-language material, but there is at least one recent book in English on the subject of Japan's plans for Hawaii (Hawaii Under the Rising Sun, by John J. Stephan). Japan's militaristic culture and birth rate drove her imperial dreams since the population of tiny Japan, believe it or not, was almost two-thirds that of the whole United States.
For those with a firm grounding in history that can stomach Bradley's distortions, this book can be useful and definitely add to one's knowledge. Personally, I got a lot out of this book, but I deeply resent the deliberate distortions and untruths, and this is one book I would only recommend to other readers with a giant, bold warning label: "Inside these covers lies much good data, but with a large helping of politically correct B.S."
Unfortunately, I suspect this book will get wide readership among students and academics since the leftist history professors will simply love the message in this screed.
One of the best WWII books I've read.......2006-07-25
I picked this book up on a whim and was unable to put it down. James Bradley's book is graphic at times, but enlightening. I found myself extremely curious as to what happened to members of my own family who fought in the Pacific.
Customer Reviews:
A dazzling intellectual analysis of the African-American avant-garde.......2006-09-17
FLYBOY IN THE BUTTERMILK is a major work within the too-often overlooked world of African-American cultural theory and writing. Tate, first famous as a contributor to 'Village Voice' and 'Vibe' magazines, emerges here with a complex aesthetic sensibility that very much pushes the limits of African-American pop culture, and traditional culture, in the interest of advancing a new urban avant-garde.
In this Tate's goals are perhaps narrow and not as proletarian as some would like (he narrows the focus to music and literature), but his ideas are challenging in constructive fashion and his extremely rigorous blend of wide-ranging erudition (everything from Public Enemy, Miles Davis, William Gibson's cyberpunk and the sonic tapestries of My Bloody Valentine are all part of a seamless cultural landscape, as seen through Tate's eyes) and street-culture interests will keep any reader engaged and thinking in critical (in the best sense of the term) fashion.
This book's publication in 1992 is in some senses unfortunate - one would wonder what Tate thinks of the subsequent dope-and-guns fixations of hip-hop, or the glittery party vibe that emerged afterwards, all the intellectual antithesis of everything posited in this book; the cultural and political challenges thrown down in hip-hop 1988-92 (roughly) would seem to be long-dead.
Tate's style is an urban reworking of what used to be called gonzo journalism - the variety of wildly personal, slangy, intellectually dense but stylishly raw writing initially associated with the likes of Lester Bangs and Hunter Thompson, it works very, very well here, and Tate (as probably the foremost African-American writer working within a similar style) has breathed new life into the previously moribund style. I doubt we'll be seeing his writing in the staid likes of 'Ebony' anytime soon, but such is life.
-David Alston
GREG TATE IS A BRILLIANT THINKER AND WRITER.......1999-04-04
I first heard of Greg Tate back when he was writing for VIBE Magazine. I was impressed with his surreal and at the same time politically urban views. Greg Tate is a voice for the so-called "BOHO" or Black Bohemian Arts Movement, an underground urban culture which includes Black intellectuals who push the envolope of what traditional Black customes should be. Greg Tate interviews the musical genius George Clinton of Parliment/Funkadelic, science fiction, jazz innovators, unknown but gifted Black filmmakers, an essay about the legendary Rastafarian/Hardcore band Bad Brains, Amiri Baraka, and much more.
Greg Tate's writing style is like a cross between Amiri Baraka and Tim Leary. He has been a major influence on my writing. His ideas are so far out there that the mainstream Black intellectual community (who most still have the negroe mentality) won't accept them. Me personally, I have the same dilemma, because the mainsteam says a Black man should only write about Hip-Hop, 'hood stories, the "Negroe" Rights Movement, and slavery instead of science fiction, classical music, and a variety of other subjects. To the average Black mind; Black culture is confined to UPN/WB zitcoms, SoulTrain, goin' to church on Sunday, sittin' in the beauty shop, basketball, and eatin' grits. But Greg Tate says we are a colorful people who have a lot of potential and have no limitations. Only through art can we fully grow. Greg Tate is a gifted writer who deserves credit.
Average customer rating:
- skilled writing and a wonderful story!
- Wholesome, Non-shmut Book of the Year
- Funny But Not A Brat Experience
- The Wild Blue Yonder Was Never Wilder or More Yonder
- Superb and Informational.
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Flyboys
Tom Hanley
Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Comic
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Contemporary
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Action & Adventure
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Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
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ASIN: 0738808652 |
Book Description
Tommy Riley and his friends are growing up among the men and machines of a key Air Force Base in the middle of the Cold War. One day, the boys sneak into a top-secret reconnaissance bomber, switch on the radio, and overhear a commie plan that is so diabolical . . .
Customer Reviews:
skilled writing and a wonderful story!.......2003-05-21
This book was given to me as a gift, and I was absolutely taken by it from the first page. The other reviews are all true that Flyboys is a hilarious fantasy, but I found it much more. First of all, the dialogue is so wonderfully true to the time - when was the last time you heard 'bozo-brain?' I grew up in Iowa in the early 60s and the language is perfect - no `four-letter' words at all (we really didn't!) Another thing is that this is a terrific 'growing up Catholic' story. These are fun to do, and there are a lot of them, but Flyboys is delightful. Hanley gets us into the head of young adolescents so well, it is a memory-ride for us who were there. The daydreams of glory, the peanut butter sandwiches, nuns shooting 'invisible beams of atomic-nun energy rays'. It seems so innocent now, were we really like that? His comedy timing is on par with the master, Mark Twain, and Dave Barry, that is how good it is. I was laughing so hard in places I had to put the book down. The descriptions of the airplane and flight are simply great. You would pooh-pooh the idea that 3 young kids could start up and fly a jet like a B-47 until you read how it is done. Follow the checklist! The banter between the boys in the cockpit is so real. some want to go ahead, some want to 'chicken-out' so they take a vote and go! This is where it gets a little unbelievable, but once again Hanley writes with such conviction, you wonder if it couldn't actually happen. Beautiful descriptions of flying, and really good characters on the ground as well, witnessing the flight along the route. Besides the boys and the nuns, we get a hilarious dose of Billy Bob up in a silo, a deaf lady who gets her hearing back, cows on the loose, cigar-chomping Gen. LeMay, assorted air force types (including a hilarious episode when a New York Air Police gives chase in a leaky 'piece of s--- Dodge truck'). There is also a cast of commies (Gen Vodka Buttinski and Steveski Khunyin-Steve Canyon, get it?) and LBJ and JFK and CLINTON! and well, the cast goes on and naturally, our heroes save the day. I won't tell you the ending, but once you read it will all make perfect sense. I recommend this book very much. What a movie this would make!
Wholesome, Non-shmut Book of the Year.......2003-01-20
This is probably the only book that I've ever read that had no uneccessary shmut. It wasn't just wholesome, it conveyed strong characters, a good background, an exciting plot and cherishable diction. The portrayal of the characters and how they percieve life around them is gripping to the reader, as well as fun. Yes, I said it, something that wasn't about sex, drugs or violence can actually be fun!
I couldn't put it down.
Funny But Not A Brat Experience.......2002-12-24
I agree that this is a funny story and worth reading. However, for those of you looking for military brat nostalgia, such as Sarah Bird's "The Yokota Officers Club," like I was, this will be a disappointment. There is very little about brat life experiences, unless you can relate to four sub-teen boys flying a reconnaissance mission over Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis. It is fun - but it is fantasy.
The Wild Blue Yonder Was Never Wilder or More Yonder.......2002-11-28
As Bobby, the aircraft commander stood in front of General Curtis Lemay, the head of SAC summed things up this way: "Well gentlemen, it seems that here's what we have so far: one stolen B-47 with major damage, from the looks of it. An overflight of Cuba, for God's sake! One extremely important ceremony ruined for all the wide world to see. Krushchev is bonkers. Castro is apoplectic. I got VIP's in ambulances. I got VIP's cryin. I got VIP's flat on their backs and blubbering like idiots...Reporters from every hick town from here to Florida are talking about major damage. Cows. Chickens. Barns, Glass..."
So, how did all of this take place? What is the story behind this trail of terror and destruction? That's what you need to find out by getting this book and giving yourself one fine and enjoyable read. You'll thank me if you do.
I'll give a you a clue. Well, the cover of the book does that as well. The aircraft commander is 12. Think that makes it too much of a stretch? The rest of his crew is about the same. Ridiculous?
I assure you it is not and if you will open the first page and start reading, by the end of the book everything will make perfect sense and you will have been highly entertained by a very talented writer.
Superb and Informational........2002-08-14
True facts in this book, along with adventure, comedy, and great fun! It depicts wonderfully what its like to live on an air force base and to be a young, military brat. I fully enjoyed this book and respect the author as a true person and as a teacher.
Average customer rating:
- Hispanic Aviators - Some Great Stories about some Great Men!
- A moving tribute to a remarkable group of men
- A crucial historical document
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Arizona's Hispanic Flyboys 1941-1945
Rudolph C. Villarreal
Manufacturer: Writers Club Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Hispanic & Latino
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General
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General
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Military & Spies
| Professionals & Academics
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General
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General
| 20th Century
| United States
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General
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ASIN: 0595257178 |
Book Description
World War II remains probably the most significant historical event of the 20th Century. It has been well documented in print and film over the last sixty years. Not much, however, has been written about Hispanics who served in uniform from 1941 through 1945. This is especially true of those who served in the so-called "glamorous" air corps of the US Army and Navy. This is a documentary of Hispanic young men from Arizona who served as pilots, navigators, bombardiers, flight engineers, gunners, and radio operators. Hispanics make up the largest ethnic minority in Arizona. Many of Arizona's Hispanics served valiantly in ground and sea forces during WWII, and today, in the Hispanic community as elsewhere, their service is remembered proudly. Less well known, however, is the contribution made by those young men in the elite volunteer services that fought the war from above.
Customer Reviews:
Hispanic Aviators - Some Great Stories about some Great Men! .......2006-10-01
Author Rudolph C. Villarreal has chronicled some of the most interesting WWII aviators, who all just happen to be Hispanic and from Arizona. In his book "Arizona Hispanic Flyboys 1941-1945", he gives us a series of short bios on some real American heroes. His book not only preserves a slice of WWII history with never before told tales but he also honors the Hispanic culture of Arizona with his tributes to these old warriors.
What brings this all together and makes it such a reader friendly book is that the author presents each man's story with some local information like what high school or college the men attended or graduated from. He paints an honest portrait of real human beings who did heroic things in his brief bios. He lists what military medals each man was awarded and where they fought and for what unit. There were some men that I wanted to learn more about like what happened to Corporal Oscar Gallegos after he was released after being a POW in Europe. What was his life like? What did that imprisonment do to him? Where is he now? We may never know.
Some of those profiled have lots of information such as First Lieutenant Gilbert F. Gonzales a pilot of a P-38 fighter lane. The author follows his life right up to his death in 1994. He was part of a squadron that had shot down 179 planes in the Pacific. The book must make fascinating and inspirational reading for those families who have a father, or grandfather featured within these hollowed pages.
The author has truly honored these men and their memories. It is a worthy effort and a well researched book. If you love stories about real men and war this is a good book to read.
A moving tribute to a remarkable group of men.......2005-06-01
In his introduction to "Arizona's Hispanic Flyboys 1941-1945," author Rudolph C. Villarreal says this about the book: "This is a documentary of Hispanic boys from my home state of Arizona who served as pilots and aircrew in our armed forces during the war." The book contains entries on seventy-seven "flyboys" from both the Army and Naval air services. The book is structured like a reference work; the seventy-seven entries are alphabetically organized and follow a standard format. Each entry includes the man's name, rank, hometown, combat decorations, and other material.
The flyboys include pilots, gunners, navigators, flight engineers, radio operators, and those in other jobs. Both enlisted men and officers are included. The book contains reproductions of many materials from the era covered. There are photographs of newspaper articles from the _Phoenix Gazette_, _Tempe Daily News_, _Arizona Republic_, and other newspapers, as well as reproductions of such historic documents as a commendatory letter to a flyboy from the governor of Arizona. Although some of these reproduced documents are difficult to read, overall they are a great feature. The book is also full of photographs showing the flyboys and the crews they served with; many photos show the men together with the aircraft of their era.
Villareal notes that his primary sources of information were wartime newspapers. His footnotes give further insights into his research methods. Included in the entries are some remarkable stories of courage and survival. Quite a number of the flyboys survived time as POWs. Villareal also tells of many of the men's lives after the war; there are some noteworthy accounts of achievement in both military and civilian careers. It's clear that this book was a labor of love for the author. This is both a valuable reference work and a moving tribute to this group of World War II veterans.
A crucial historical document.......2003-04-08
Villarreal has done a marvellous job researching the lives and exploits of heretofore unrecognized men. We all owe a tremendous debt to the daring Arizona Hispanic flyboys who fought for us during World War II. This book should be required reading in all Hispanic Studies classes and is an absolute necessity for WW II buffs.
Books:
- Fortune's Fool (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 3)
- From Alpha to Omega, An Introduction to Classical Greek, Rev Third Edition
- Half Broken Things
- Handbook of Flavor Ingredients, Volume II (Handbook of Flavor Ingredients)
- Headache and Your Child: The Complete Guide to Understanding and Treating Migraine and other Headaches in Children and Adolescents
- Hidden Power for Human Problems
- Highland Fling
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
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