So, What Did You Dream Last Night?

Average customer rating:

So, What Did You Dream Last Night?

Dream Interpretation Made Easy

DISAPPOINTING

So Much Fun!

Love it!

So, What Did You Dream Last Night?
Lauri Quinn Loewenberg
Manufacturer: The Dream Zone Companies, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Ask the Dream Doctor: An A-Z Guide to Deciphering the Hidden Symbols of Your Dreams - With More than 160 Actual Dreams and Their Interpretations! Ask the Dream Doctor: An A-Z Guide to Deciphering the Hidden Symbols of Your Dreams - With More than 160 Actual Dreams and Their Interpretations!

The Complete Dream Book, 2nd edition (Complete Dream Book)

Dreamer's Dictionary

Skinny Bitch

ASIN: 0615123848
Release Date: 2003-07-03

Book Description

Take an illustrated journey into the mysterious dreaming mind. We ALL dream and we all wonder what the HECK that strange dream last night could possibly mean. Wonder no more! This book explains it all, from the creepiest nightmares to dreams of celebrities. There are important messages about your life within even the most bizarre of dreams, and after reading this book it will all make sense to you. Stop guessing and start KNOWING what your dreams are telling you!

Jam packed with beautiful and whimsical illustrations.

Over 70 actual dreams (read the real life issues behind the dreams)

Includes glossary of dream symbols

Customer Reviews:

So, What Did You Dream Last Night?.......2007-01-27

What an awesome book!
Everything you want to know about what your dreams mean is inside this book.

Dream Interpretation Made Easy.......2006-12-20

This book shed light onto so many of my dreams. It makes understanding your dreams easy. My sister kept taking mine so I had to get another!

DISAPPOINTING.......2006-12-15

I was extremely disappointed in this book. I was purchasing it as a gift. For $25.00 I expected something a little more mature. It looks like a child's book and the very few pages of dream dictionary included in the back are limited. I need to spend another $25.00 on a real book to give. I cannot return it because they will deduct the free shipping cost from the purchase price. With the return cost of shipping and that fact, the total is almost what I paid for the book.

So Much Fun!.......2005-11-11

This book was given to me for my birthday... and I absolutely thought it was great!! It was so much fun to read. I loved reading the real dreams and the real stories behind the dreams. The author did share some of her own dreams, but the book wasn't entirely her dreams, it was mostly real people and real life. It was like a therapy session no one knows you're peeking in on. I am now a firm believer in the fact that our dreams are desperately trying to speak to us. This book was so enlightening!!!!!

Love it!.......2005-09-23

I bought this book for my wife and we actually fought over it!
We both loved reading the juicy stories of the peoples lives who had the dreams... because we totally related.

This book opened up many dialogues between my wife and I. We had a lot of fun going through it and saying, "Oh yeah, I've had this sort of dream!" And now we know why we had and continue to have certain dreams.

It's even got a great chapter on what certain celebrities mean in your dreams.

This is a fun book, makes a lot of sense and the dream dictionary in the back is very helpful.

The Devil's Teardrop: A Novel of the Last Night of the Century (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel)

Average customer rating:

Extortion plot that could lead to numerous rampages
Deaver at his meticulous and macabre best
Madness in D. C. Transit
An amazing book
A riveting psychological drama!

The Devil's Teardrop: A Novel of the Last Night of the Century (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel)
Jeffery Deaver
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

General | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

Suspense | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
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A Maiden's Grave

ASIN: 0684852926
Release Date: 1999-08-10

Amazon.com

Thriller readers can always count on getting extra value from Jeffery Deaver--strong plots, fascinating research, believable characters, and plenty of surprise endings. Like in The Terminator, the bad guys in The Devil's Teardrop just won't quit, and they create enough havoc in the last 50 pages to fill a whole new book.

Although Deaver's brilliant, wheelchair-bound forensic expert Lincoln Rhyme makes a guest appearance, the muscular scientist in charge here is Parker Kincaid--an expert in document analysis who'd much rather be checking the authenticity of letters from Thomas Jefferson than figuring out when a crazed shooter known as the Digger will strike again. But it's New Year's Eve, 1999, and the Digger has begun a reign of terror--promising to shoot into crowds in Washington, D.C., every four hours until he's paid $20 million. As Kincaid searches an odd ransom note for clues (and tries to maintain a low profile so that his vindictive ex-wife won't get custody of his young kids), we get to know the Digger better. He is a frighteningly invisible character with serious brain damage, who methodically obeys a set of instructions from an unknown handler. We also learn many amazing facts about paper, ink, and handwriting analysis, and watch as a relationship slowly and reluctantly develops between Kincaid and the FBI agent in charge. All this as the devious Deaver leads us down several garden paths overflowing with dead bodies. --Dick Adler

Book Description

It's New Year's Eve, December 31, 1999, and Washington, D.C., is under siege. Early in the day, a grisly machine gun attack in the Dupont Circle Metro station leaves dozens dead and the city crippled with fear. A note delivered to the mayor's office pins the massacre on the Digger, a robotlike assassin programmed to wreak havoc on the capital every four hours -- until midnight. Only a ransom of $20 million delivered to the Digger's accomplice -- and mastermind -- will end the death and terror. But the Digger becomes a far more sinister threat when his accomplice is killed in a freak accident while en route to the money drop. With the ransom note as the single scrap of evidence, Special Agent Margaret Lukas calls upon Parker Kincaid, a retired FBI agent and the top forensic document examiner in the country. Somehow, by midnight, they must find the Digger -- before he finds them.

In The Devil's Teardrop, Jeffery Deaver delivers the same intricate forensic detail, masterful plot twists and harrowing breakneck pace that made A Maiden's Grave, The Bone Collector and The Coffin Dancer national bestsellers. The Devil's Teardrop is destined to continue Jeffery Deaver's bestselling track record and thrill his legions of fans worldwide.

Download Description

"It's New Year's Eve, December 31, 1999, and Washington, D.C., is under siege. Early in the day, a grisly machine gun attack in the Dupont Circle Metro station leaves dozens dead and the city crippled with fear. A note delivered to the mayor's office pins the massacre on the Digger, a robotlike assassin programmed to wreak havoc on the capital every four hours - until midnight. Only a ransom of $20 million delivered to the Digger's accomplice - and mastermind - will end the death and terror. But the Digger becomes a far more sinister threat when his accomplice is killed in a freak accident while en route to the money drop. With the ransom note as the single scrap of evidence, Special Agent Margaret Lukas calls upon Parker Kincaid, a retired FBI agent and the top forensic document examiner in the country. Somehow, by midnight, they must find the Digger - before he finds them."-

Customer Reviews:

Extortion plot that could lead to numerous rampages.......2007-09-01

A criminal mastermind is plotting an extortion scheme against the city of Washington, threatening massacres at four hour intervals if 20 million dollars is not paid by noon that day.

The day is New Year's Eve, 1999, and someone is terrorizing Washington D.C., which leads the FBI to turn to Parker Kincaid, who had retired after an ugly incident a couple of years earlier which had endangered his children's lives.

With his expertise as a certified document examiner, they unravel the spellbinding mystery.

Parker is very likeable as a single father, which makes this story all the more enjoyable.

Deaver at his meticulous and macabre best.......2007-06-13

The devil is in the details, they say - and that's always been one of Jeffrey Deaver's strengths: the ability to take well-worn story-lines yet make them refreshingly exciting by going into meticulous detail with regard to characterisation and modus operandi. I have about a dozen Deaver novels, only three-quarters have been read so far but The Devils's Teardrop is as good as any if not the best. The semi-automaton in this novel, known as The Digger, is quite a scary individual and absolutely devoid of remorse. Someone has 'programmed' him however, and that's where the main challenge lies. While the central character here is good-guy Parker Kincaid, the author is confident enough to introduce none other than Lincoln Rhyme in a cameo appearance! It's bordering upon arrogance but he gets away with it.

If you have yet to buy a Deaver novel, here is as good a place as any to start and you will surely want to join the club. And if you're a Deaver reader already, then buy The Devil's Teardrop with absolute confidence, it will maintain or even raise the standards you have become familiar with. Jeffrey Deaver is one of a very select group of contemporary writers I can think of who make it a safe bet to buy everything they publish - he just doesn't write duds.

Madness in D. C. Transit.......2005-11-01

Gilbert Havel, a blackmailer, is the only person who can communicate with Digger, an invisible character with brain damage, which left him a 'half-human killing machine.' Already he'd carried out the massacre in the Dupont Circle Metro tunnel at midnight and had three other explosions to set off if Mayor Gerald Kennedy did not pay the ransom demanded.

Digger is an emotionless, robot-like madman who doesn't know not to follow through on the death job his 'handler' arranged. Havel is killed in a freak accident, but Digger is like a skinny ape man on Halloween, only this is New Year's Eve. He is unseen by those he's been programed into 'making ghosts.'

It is a tense, suspenseful thriller as they try to discover where he will strike next. Jeffery Deaver has written his major success, THE BONE COLLECTOR, NOCTURE, and THE LESSON OF HER DEATH.

An amazing book.......2005-06-30

Deaver really makes the reader stay interested in "The Devil's Teardrop". I found it arduous to put down. The serial killer, "The Digger" knew how to remain unseen. Leaving only a note for the FBI, their only clue, they call upon the help of Parker Kincaid.

A riveting psychological drama!.......2005-06-11

It's New Year's Eve 1999! A fixated killer, known only as "Digger", walks into Washington DC's Metro Station at 9:00 a.m. and empties a silenced Uzi on full automatic into the crowd on a brutal killing spree. The FBI receives a ransom note demanding a $20 million dollar payoff with curt instructions that unless the payment happens without a hitch, the "Digger" will repeat the mass murder at 4:00 p.m., at 8:00 p.m. and again at 12:00 midnight during the height of the New Year's Eve celebrations. Parker Kincaid, a former FBI agent and top flight forensic document examiner, is asked to return to active duty as a consultant to assist Margaret Lukas, special agent in charge of the task force put together to round up the mastermind and his automaton killer before the carnage is repeated. Given the intensely compressed time frames and enormous potential for death involved, Gerald Kennedy, DC's mayor, agrees to the payment demand and the FBI puts a plan in place to track the murderer and his "control" after the ransom is collected. The whole affair comes off the rails when the extortionist is killed in a hit-and-run car accident on the way to the drop. It now appears nobody knows how to contact "Digger" to stop the next three scheduled killing fairs!

The reading is intense and compelling. The excitement builds from the very first page until a breathless climax with two incredible twists that will leave every reader sitting on the edge of their chairs.

Despite the fact that the entire book takes place in less than a one day time frame, the action in this thriller is surprisingly low key and evenly paced. Deaver's success with this novel rests more on the psychological components of the drama - examination of the realistic issue of whether a city should succumb to payment of extortion demands to terrorists and criminals; the fascinating minutiae of forensic investigation of evidence, in particular, the ransom note; the validity of profiling on the basis of criminal conduct and physical evidence such as handwriting; the political maneuvering of governments and the balance of rivalry and cooperation between police agencies during a crisis; and, both the synergy and conflict of multiple brains at work in the environment of a task force assigned to a criminal investigation.

But the climax does arrive, of course, and,when it does, the action switches gears and becomes intense and frenetic. Despite a double surprise ending that has somewhat of a Hollywood over the top flair to it that stretches the credibility factor somewhat, any thriller fan will be left feeling they've got their money's worth! An enjoyable read, a worthy addition to Deaver's extraordinary body of work, and an easy book to recommend to those that enjoy the thriller genre.

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey

Average customer rating:

Great History, Writing Talent Lacking
Thoroughly researched, well-written history of the dance/club DJ
Written With Passion
Read The Real History Of Disco
Must Read for DJ's, Dancers, Music Heads

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey
Bill Brewster , and Frank Broughton
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0802136885

Book Description

From the first time a record was played over the airwaves in 1906, to a modern club economy that totals $3 billion annually in New York City alone, the DJ has been at the center of popular music. Starting as little more than a talking jukebox, the DJ is now a premier entertainer, producer, businessman, and musician in his own right. Superstar DJs, from Junior Vasquez to Sasha and Digweed, command worship and adoration from millions, flying around the globe to earn tens of thousands of dollars for one night's work. Increasingly, they are replacing live musicians as the central figures of the music industry. In Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, music journalists Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton have written the first comprehensive history of the mysterious and charismatic figure behind the turntables -- part obsessive record collector, part mad scientist, part intuitive psychologist of the party groove. From England's rabid Northern Soul scene to the birth of disco in New York, from the sound systems of Jamaica to the scratch wars of early hip-hop in the Bronx, from Chicago house to Detroit techno to London rave, DJs are responsible for most of the significant changes in music over the past forty years. Drawing on in-depth interviews with DJs, critics, musicians, record executives, and the revelers at some of the century's most legendary parties, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life is nothing less than the life story of dance music.

Customer Reviews:

Great History, Writing Talent Lacking.......2007-08-18

The only thing that kept me reading this book was that it contained information I didn't know. I found that skimming helped reduce the groaning and eye-rolling caused by poor organization of the material. Much of it was just fine, but parts of the book are difficult to read because the authors couldn't devise a smooth transition from one chapter to another. Other than that minor complaint, this is a great book!

Thoroughly researched, well-written history of the dance/club DJ.......2007-07-17

Written by two former editors of Mixmag (the magazine bible of club culture and dance music), this 400-page book provides a deep, well-researched history of the club DJ. It follows the evolution of the live performance DJ from a human record changer, to a macro mixer of individual platters, to a micro mixer of record segments and sounds, to a full-fledged music producer. In doing so the authors document the impact that DJs had on the music itself, first in selecting what they played, later in demanding what they needed, and lastly in creating what they wanted.

Although the book opens with a short chapter on radio DJs (all of twenty-one pages), this story is about the club DJ's rise to musicianship. The book charts the live DJ's beginnings as a record spinner in large halls, follows the DJ-fueled Northern Soul scene in the UK, threads in the revolutionary work of Jamaican DJ sound systems, and returns to the US for a lengthy exposition on disco, hip-hop, house and beyond.

The disco chapters, though at times devolving into discussion that's more of the music than the DJs, are among the book's most interesting. They explore the movement's organic New York roots, contrasting them sharply to the genre's publicly refuted commercial apogee. One might argue with their contention that the "disco sucks" backlash was a homophobic reaction (particularly when they do such a good job of describing the commercial overexposure that led to disco's mainstream repudiation), but their descriptions of the era's seminal underground clubs and DJs bring context to disco that was completely lost in its mainstream incarnation.

Two chapters on hip hop show both its evolutionary and revolutionary forward steps, with the DJ becoming a producer and musician. Fresh interviews with the major players are skillfully woven into a compelling narrative of the genre's birth and growth. Club music's transitions between house, techno, garage and other variants are layered with reporting on the stage-setting cultural environments and geographic movements of key players. These latter chapters read more as anthropological catalogs than the you-are-there accounts of disco, so while they're informative, they're a bit dry.

A good deal of the text devolves into a history of the music, leaving the DJs temporarily on the sideline. But given the intimate intertwining of DJs and music, and the reciprocal impact they had on each other, this is probably unavoidable. Unless you're an avid dance music fan, some of the authors' points, hinged upon references to specific songs, will fail to resonate.

The authors make a compelling argument for the DJ at the center of the vortex that created disco and morphed it into house, techno, acid house and more. Unlike music that was a product of artists, record companies and radio, dance music is a product of dancers, clubs, DJs and producers, with the latter two categories merging more and more over time. The added element of geographical isolation is shown to have had a major impact on numerous scenes (northern UK, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Europe) and the development of their respective musics, and the commercial needs for starless music created a vacuum into which DJs could step.

Though this is very well written, though there are nits to pick. Their anti-academic disclaimer is unnecessarily reactionary, and not even particularly true given the amount of original research they conducted. Their text on drug influences ignores numerous earlier drug/music interactions, such as in jazz and rock. Their lack of detail on radio DJs is a reasonable choice, but one not explained by the book's title or subhead. Their geography is UK/US-centric, and limited in the US mostly to New York, Chicago and Detroit. Whether or not those three cities were host to the only innovations worth reporting upon is questionable.

Structurally the book follows a linear timelines through the disco era, but later chapters have timelines that overlap. For the unschooled, it's difficult to really see how innovations in different places were influencing each other. The book's appendices include priceless club charts that provide useful guidance in assembling a soundtrack but it's unclear where these charts came from.

Quibbles aside, this is a great read for anyone who wants to learn about the DJ's critical role in the development of dance music. For disco, in particular, the DJ booth point provides an excellent view into the scene's true history. Brewster and Broughton write lively, engaging copy and have based it on thorough original research. Highly recommended! [©2007 redtunictroll at hotmail dot com]

Written With Passion.......2007-05-16

Covering a subject as broad as this is difficult and most readers will take exception somewhere since the author deals with such a subjective subject. However, I enjoyed both the exhaustive research and obvious passion that went into this work. It's a must, not only for DJs, but for any fan of music made for the dancefloor.

Read The Real History Of Disco.......2006-10-25

This book is pure magic and brought back some happy memories.

Wannabe Club DJs please read this and understand how it all really started.

Mobile DJs? Give up and let iPod reign...

Must Read for DJ's, Dancers, Music Heads.......2006-04-05

It is pretty well know that this book is a must read for DJ's, Makers, and Fans of all forms of electronic and dance music.

Excelent histories of Dub, Hip Hop, Disco, House etc. While many of the adherents of these sub-cultures don't necessarily appreciate the others, the histories outlined in this book show how they are all inherently connected.

My only issue with this book is that the West Coast is totally ignored up until the turntablist revolution of the late 90's which the authors regard as mostly mastabatory as the writers' bias is toward DJs as providers of a dance environment.

No matter ...
There are vital histories here.

READ THIS BOOK!

Average customer rating:

Terrible.
Great stories.
Brilliant Stories
A Great Athlete in His Twilight Years
A lesser work from a master of words

Last Night
James Salter
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

United States | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

A Sport and a Pastime: A Novel
Light Years
There and Then: The Travel Writing of James Salter
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Burning the Days: Recollection

ASIN: 1400078415
Release Date: 2006-03-14

Book Description

Last Night is a spellbinding collection of stories about passion–by turns fiery and subdued, destructive and redemptive, alluring and devastating. These ten powerful stories portray men and women in their most intimate moments. A lover of poetry is asked by his wife to give up what may be his most treasured relationship. A book dealer is forced to face the truth about his life. And in the title story, a translator assists his wife’s suicide, even as he performs a last act of betrayal. James Salter’s assured style and emotional insight make him one of our most essential writers

Customer Reviews:

Terrible........2007-09-07

Like a few of the other disillusioned reviewers I made the mistake of reading this turd masquerading as dark chocolate. It is true that Salter can write, that much is obvious. But after suffering through Last Night, in hope of vindicating the praise, I beleive the question is whether he should write at all. However, if you find that you can relate to or enjoy reading the stories of those who spend their time drinking fine wine, vacationing in their international summer homes, having executive affairs, and only admiring a woman for purely physical reasons, you may just love this book. File this somewhere between "Days of Our Lives" and "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous." Watch your step.

Great stories........2007-07-28

Great stories. Elegant writing which captures many different facets of relationships involving love and sex. Well worth it.

Brilliant Stories.......2007-07-13

James Salter never disappoints.

I read "Burning the Days" when it was published in 1998 and was captivated by the beauty of Salter's writing about his personal experiences.

When I searched for more, I found his brilliant novels: "A Sport and a Pastime", "Light Years", "The Hunters", and the beautiful "Dusk and Other Stories."

Salter's recent "There and Then", contains unforgettable reflections on travel written in his unforgettable style, and "Life is Meals: A Food Lovers Book of Days", a collaboration with his wife, is a delicious book about cooking and eating and drinking and life that can be opened to any page and savored.

"Last Night", a little book with a charming cover, is a special treasure filled with exquisite short stories. Not to be missed!

Salter is superb.

A Great Athlete in His Twilight Years.......2007-06-16

The American novelist and memoirist, best known for A Sport and a Pastime, also writes the occasional short story. None of the 10 stories here can quite match items like "American Express" in his 1988 collection Dusk and Other Stories.

Like a great athlete in his twilight years of competition, Salter subsists in the realm of what is now possible for him. Still in play are the steely eye, compression of form and agile shifts of viewpoint.

A number of these stories spin around characters who may be regarded as rule-breakers or transgressors in intimate relationships. The male interloper in "Give" is a lanky poet who appears to seduce the husband of a marriage. When the wife calls the husband's bluff, he carries a sense of injustice rather than contrition: "I had the poems. I followed him from afar, the way a woman does a man she was never able to marry."

The wife-tempter of "My Lord You" has the "face of a Regency duke, intimidating, spoiled". The husband of this piece knows "how near men could be to disaster no matter how secure they seemed". Neither duke nor poet, the indifferent middle-aged man of "Palm Court" transgresses nevertheless. For no profound reasons, he reneges on "the love that had filled the great central chamber of his life".

"Comet" and "Bangkok" bristle with a sexual malice that verges on terrorism. In the former story, Philip "could have licked her palms as a calf does salt" upon marrying Adele in the final blaze of her youth. Boredom and aggression soon set in, with the sky comet of the title providing an apt image for flickering prospects. In the latter story, a woman makes a cameo reappearance to trade ferocious insults with her former lover. He is left thoroughly ruffled and reflecting on his momentous life choices. "It was not a pretend life," Salter pointedly concludes.

The widowed film producer in "Eyes of the Stars" can barely locate the weak chin of her youth that is "lost now in several others". She has never really made it past the semi-finals in the track-and-field of sexual intrigue. Yet she remains content in her modest life and achievements. In "Arlington", a former soldier attending his old adjutant's funeral remembers the vanished wife of his own youth: "To put your hand on the small of her naked back was to have all you ever hoped to possess."

Older if not wiser, he is aware "it was one-sided, but that was enough". The weary compression in these two stories is also a form of incompleteness and inconclusiveness.

An altogether strange country is the title story. A woman's cancer-ravaged face is "now for the afterlife and those that she would meet there". Her husband agrees reluctantly to put her out of her misery. How this plays out is so gruesomely inapt, yet realistic, it is almost like life rather than fiction.

(Canberra Times June 16 2007)

A lesser work from a master of words.......2006-06-28

James Salter is a quietly legendary figure in American literature, almost an insider secret for those whose stock in trade is the use of words. One has the impression that he is read and admired almost exclusively by other writers. This, his latest book, sees him returning to the form of short stories, his first collection published since the PEN/ Faulkner award winning Dusk and other stories in 1989. Salter has long been regarded a master of sparse, measured and bewilderingly beautiful prose. He can, as was once said, break your heart with a sentence. In interviews, Salter has spoken about the exactitude with which he writes - playing sentences over and over, measuring them against a rigorous internal standard. Yet it is always prose full of immediacy, the time spent choosing fitting words repays the effort not with a weightiness but instead with a clear lightness of touch.

Salter is not the most prolific of writers - having written for short of a half century he has produced only five novels, a collection of short stories and his autobiography (there have also been film scripts). The publication of a new work is something to be greeted with excitement, albeit a rather quiet excitement. It is a shame, then, that Last Night should disappoint.

The stories in Last Night feature characters that are almost exclusively upper middle class, white, East coast Americans. Salter is trying to tell us something about them, and about himself as a part of them. They are intelligent, well schooled, always cultured and knowing. Lives are polite, correct, appearances are important. The marriages portrayed are long standing but never happy - they are artefacts of convention, the romance in them long suffocated. There is the constant sense that lives could, or should, have been lived differently but never were. Each protagonist is a failure in his or her own light - they were never brave enough. Core to each story is impropriety, adultery. Each protagonist is either narratively engaged in adultery or guiltlessly holding onto memories of fleeting, illicit romances they once had. We are shown over and over again that it is only in those moments that the protagonists ever touch upon something transcendent, something bigger and infinitely more real than the constricting social constructions of their daily lives. This impropriety is shown to be a psychological crutch, grasped with both hands - the protagonists are never oblivious to the implications and the damage done, but are found instead to be passive to it.

The younger characters are almost ciphers. They are as skittish and fickle as they are tempting and engaged. It is hard to tell if this is how Salter genuinely perceives young people or if instead we are seeing them only through the prismic distortions of the older protagonist's need of them. They promise much but are always by the end of the story bored, moving on, leaving quietly broken protagonists in their wake.

Salter is a bleak writer, perhaps very truthful, or perhaps instead a writer willing a universality to his own predicament. Perhaps by creating characters that act and think like him, by creating a universal law stating that all men in middle age are unhappy and crave impropriety, he excuses or comforts himself. Either way, this is not new territory for Salter - all of his books mine similar seams. Yet here, as distinct from earlier books, there exists a sense of fatigue, of fatigue in the quality of prose. Salter at his poorest is still a match for any writer in the English language, however there are moments in his previous works that leave one breathless with wonder at his talent. In earlier books, most notably A Sport and a Pastime, and Light Years, there were perhaps two or three passages in each chapter that could stand out as some of the loveliest use of words or choice of metaphor in the English language. Here, the tone is inescapably Salter's and the cadence as precise as ever, but the writing seems to lack the rigour that we look to him for. Less energy has gone into this work. As a sculptor of prose the reader has the impression that Salter holds the chisel less assuredly in his old age.

Last night differs from Dusk and other stories, not just in that it is less well written, but also in that it is more explicit, more obvious. The stories in Dusk end ambiguously, strangely sometimes. The reader is left with a sense of having been somewhere, of having been privy to a mind that won't let up all of its secrets, its workings. The first story in Dusk, Am Strande von Tanger, ends: 'Her father has three secretaries. Hamburg is close to the sea.' The Cinema ends: 'His ecstasy was beyond knowing. The roofs of the great cathedrals shone in the winter air.'

Yet taking as an example, Last Night's My Lord You (probably the best and most poignant of the stories) which ends: 'probably he was forgotten, but not by her.' It may seem a petty difference and some may applaud the simplicity of such an ending but its resonance is limited by it. The sentiment of the piece is tied up, neatly packaged (she won't forget him), ultimately there is nothing to dwell on. Now, rather than let his protagonists' feelings become known to us through crafted observation, Salter just tells us. Other stories in the collection begin and end in a similar fashion. The prose, shorn of the use of metaphor for resonance, becomes rather more a collected statement of facts about people's lives. This is very much unlike Salter whose Light Years (his greatest work) he described as being like a still life - we the reader are to watch, not be directly privy to the lives portrayed. Last Night is filled with statements directly explaining protagonists' inner thoughts, and by doing this Salter betrays his lack of energy.

For those looking to be introduced to James Salter, look instead to A Sport and a Pastime or Light Years - they are better written, more potent with a love of words. For those that are fans already, by all means add the book to your collection, but place it on the shelf next to his lesser works like The Hunters, or Solo Faces. You might as well place it on a harder to reach shelf for it is unlikely you will reach for it as often as his greatest works - it is not a book that repays returning to time and again.

It is an extraordinary thing to criticise a very good book for not being mesmerising, yet Salter is held in my very highest esteem because of what he is capable of. In this collection there are only a few glimpses of his brilliance and the consequence is that a very bleak book finally has little to lighten it, to make it an unequivocally human endeavour.

The World's Last Night: And Other Essays

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A Good Collection but not the Best
Why I Like Lewis
Seven finely crafted essays

The World's Last Night: And Other Essays
C.S. Lewis
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0156027712

Book Description

In seven witty, lucid, tough-minded essays, Lewis considers questions that challenge the faith of modern Christians. He discusses such topics as the efficacy of prayer, the various uses of the phrase “I believe,” the religious implications of life on other planets, the meaning of words like “culture” and “religion,” and the idea of the Second Coming.

Customer Reviews:

A Good Collection but not the Best.......2001-09-19

Lewis's shorter works were generally originally composed as speeches or as articles for periodicals. Various sets of them were collected and published in book form both during his life and after his death. Trying to determine what works are in what collections is difficult - most works appear in more than one collection, some works appear under more than one title, and some collections appear under more than one title.

To aid readers, in this review I've listed the works in this collection, with notes indicating other collections they have appeared in. Where a work has appeared under more than one title, I give both titles separated by a slash.

Table of Contents:

"The Efficacy of Prayer" (1), (2)

"On Obstinacy in Belief" (2), (3), (4)

"Lilies that Fester" (2), (3), (5)

"Screwtape Proposes a Toast" (2), (4), (6)

"Good Work and Good Works" (2), (4)

"Religion and Rocketry" / "Will We Lose God in Outer Space" (1), (2)

"The World's Last Night" / "Christian Hope - Its Meaning for Today" (1), (2)

Notes:

(1) also published in "Fern-Seed and Elephants and Other Essays"

(2) also published in "Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces"

(3) also published in "They Asked for a Paper"

(4) also published in "Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces"

(5) also published in "Christian Reunion and Other Essays"

(6) also published in "The Screwtape Letters" / "The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast"

Recommendations:

If you are interested in Lewis's shorter works, my best advice is to get "Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces", which, as of the time of this writing, is available from Amazon UK but not Amazon US. That collection consists of about 130 short works by Lewis. The works in that collection are mostly, but not exclusively, Christian.

If your interest in Lewis's shorter works is restricted to those on Christianity, and your budget or enthusiasm does not run to "Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces", then my second-best advice is to get any or all of the following (they don't overlap significantly, and between them they include most of Lewis's shorter Christian writings):

"God in the Dock - Essays on Theology and Ethics"*

"The World's Last Night and Other Essays"

"Christian Reflections"

"The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses"

* Be careful - there is a UK Fontana paperback lurking about called "God in the Dock - Essays on Theology" that is substantially shorter than the "God in the Dock - Essays on Theology and Ethics" collection. A full version of "God in the Dock - Essays on Theology and Ethics" was published in the UK under the title "Undeceptions - Essays on Theology and Ethics".

Why I Like Lewis.......2000-08-05

The World's Last Night is an education smushed into a neat, tiny, little package. Whenever I read Lewis, I am struck by his intense clarity of thought. This book is no different. Lewis is at his brightest and most lucid in these pages.

A variety of topics-from the effectiveness of prayer, to the end of the world-are covered in the pages of The World's Last Night. Each essay (and the story) is brilliant in its own way.

Lewis is one of my favorite writers. I have come to believe that I like him so much not because of his clarity or depth of thought-which are good reasons for liking him-or even because we share a distaste for modernism and all that it has done to cloud modern thought, but I believe what I appreciate most about Lewis is his sense of humor. Lewis' humor is on display in every one of these very diverse pieces. Even when I disagree with Lewis, his humor humanizes him, and I cannot hold anything against him. Contemporary authors could take a lesson from this.

Buy this book. It is worth reading and rereading. If nothing else, the humor will lift your spirits.

Seven finely crafted essays.......1998-06-19

This book is a collection of various essays that C.S. Lewis authored and published a few years before his death. The titles are "The Efficacy of Prayer" (that discusses what practical, if any, effect our prayers have), "On Obstinacy in Belief" (exploring the reasons why people cling to a particular world view), "Lilies that Fester"("Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds," a talk about those whose concern is with a superficial desire to "be cultured" versus those who really care about the things that comprise culture), "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" (a short sequel to his book The Screwtape Letters), "Good Work and Good Works" (describing the difference between quality workmanship and Christian charity), "Religion and Rocketry" (discussing the truth of religion in a world where advancing technology allows humans to visit other worlds), and "The World's Last Night"(about the second coming of Christ). The essays are full of the usual vintage Lewis: shrewd, humorous, wise, and clear. In brief, they make for a fine reading time.

The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness

Average customer rating:

Pinpoint Control
Heavy Weighs The Mantle...
Makes an eloquent case that the Yankees are done.
Feel the Pain
A review from a Non-Yankee / Sox fan...

The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness
Buster Olney
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Baseball | Sports | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0060515074
Release Date: 2005-04-26

Book Description

For an extraordinary handful of years around the turn of the millennium, the Yankees were baseball's unstoppable force. With four World Series championships in five seasons and a deep bench of legends and comers -- Clemens, Rivera, Williams, Soriano, Jeter, O'Neill -- they dominated the major leagues.

For the members of the team, though, baseball Yankees-style was a pressure cooker of anxiety, expectation, and infighting. As the spending and emotion spiraled, careers were made and broken, friendships began and ended, and a sports dynasty rose and fell.

In The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, Buster Olney tracks the Yankees through these tumultuous seasons and into the scandals and disappointments of 2004, providing insightful portraits of the stars, the foot soldiers, the coaches, the manager, and the Boss himself. With unparalleled knowledge of the game and an insider's familiarity with the team, Olney also advances a compelling argument that the philosophy that made the Yankees great was inherently unsustainable, ultimately harmful to the sport, and led inevitably to that warm autumn night in Arizona -- the last night of the Yankee dynasty.

Download Description

For the members of the team, though, baseball Yankees-style was an almost unbearable pressure cooker of anxiety, expectation, and infighting. With owner George Steinbrenner at the wheel, the Yankees money machine spun out of control, and as the team's revenues skyrocketed, salaries were inflated unimaginably -- and smaller teams found themselves priced out of competition. True devotees of the game suffered, and so did Steinbrenner's employees. Emboldened by New York's unforgiving fans, Steinbrenner let the Yankees know loud and clear that their fat paychecks carried an equally exaggerated mandate: win now, and win all the time -- any season that doesn't end in a World Series victory is an unforgivable failure. As the spending and emotion spiraled, careers were made and broken, friendships began and ended, and a sports dynasty rose and fell.

In The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, Buster Olney tracks the Yankees through these exciting and tumultuous seasons, providing insightful portraits of the stars, the foot soldiers, the coaches, the manager, and the Boss himself. With profound knowledge of the game and an insider's familiarity with the team, Olney also advances a compelling argument that the philosophy that made the Yankees great was inherently unsustainable, ultimately harmful to the sport, and led inevitably to that warm autumn night in Arizona -- the last night of the Yankee dynasty.

Customer Reviews:

Pinpoint Control.......2007-10-01

A recent personal project required that I read a half dozen books on baseball over the course of about as many weeks. Buster Olney's cool, lapidary prose made a nice sorbet with which to chase down the overweening lyricism of one of the game's Grand Old Men of American Lettahs, and the pomposity of a second. (I resist, with difficulty, the temptation to name names.)

The first thing to do is to set aside that contentious title. Olney, who covered the Yankees for four seasons for the New York Times, is a nonpartisan, or does a fine impression of one. His book is neither the inflammatory crowing of a Yankee hater nor the pessimistic keening of a demoralized loyalist. He uses the seventh game of the 2001 Yankees/Diamondbacks World Series as the springboard for a close analysis of the franchise's history in the years approaching and following the turn of the 21st century, and the treatment is both dispassionate and compassionate. The book's structure has a cinematic quality, with players taking their turns in focused, background-providing flashbacks generated by the inning-by-inning action on the field. Olney's narrative is not an innovation, but with his scrutiny of the decisions (good and bad) that led up to this game, and his attention to the personalities involved, he achieves something rare and tricky. He reminds us that every big game, like every snowflake, is distinct from all others, and suggests that the outcome of Game Seven was foreordained by the confluence of circumstances and people (both on the field and at the executive level) representing the clubs on this night. Put another way, a big game is never one big story; it's a significant point within dozens of smaller stories -- the stories of the uniformed people you see on the field, businesspeople you may recognize in the boxes and clubhouses, and others whose names you might never have heard. If anyone were removed from the tapestry, the whole would be altered. All the obvious slides get their time under the microscope -- Roger Clemens, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Joe Torre, George Steinbrenner, et al -- but the author also finds space, in a crisp 355 pages, for pertinent and illuminating studies of relative peripherals: the intellectually brilliant but fatally detached former Red Sox GM Dan Duquette; the obsessive-compulsive 1994-95 Yankee manager Buck Showalter; the gifted, infuriatingly undisciplined former Yankee pitcher David Wells, whose "bloated body camouflaged exceptional athleticism," in Olney's words.

The book, as suggested above, casts a wide net, but every one of its portraits has the subtlety and finish of a fine aquarelle. Indeed, some of Olney's most eloquent passages are those devoted to men who were not on the field for the game in question, but who played important parts in seasons leading up to it. I think here particularly of the section on the gracious and articulate yet driven David Cone, a Yankee starting pitcher nearing the end of a distinguished career and attempting (sometimes successfully, other times not) to do with guile and sheer force of will what he could no longer do with velocity and power. And the chapter on substance-abusing Darryl Strawberry's many second chances, and many subsequent relapses, makes something poignant out of material grown hackneyed in both news and fiction. "[T]hrough addictions, incarcerations, and hearings, he had never lost the beautiful buggy-whip swing he'd had when the Mets picked him first in the 1980 draft," writes Olney, and that unshowy yet felicitous phrase (especially that splendid description of the swing) finds just the right note with which to begin a chapter on a man of prodigious natural gifts and abysmal judgment, a package made up of the extraordinary and the dismayingly, even tragically ordinary.

I have taken pains not to reveal my own allegiances, because they are not really at issue here. Whether one roots for or against the Yankees, this is an engrossing and educational book, a potent blend of anecdote and psychology from the perspective of an astute insider. Go along with the author or not on his central point that the seventh-game loss to the Diamondbacks in 2001 was, by itself, of epochal character; but he compellingly makes his case that this franchise, historically restless and overachieving from the top down, was in some way due for sobering disappointment, retrenchment and reevaluation. Though occasioned by a bruising postseason loss, this taking of stock need not have been an entirely bad thing. For baseball franchises, as in life in general, survival is renewal.

Likely to become a classic within its field.

Heavy Weighs The Mantle..........2006-05-22

Buster Olney, a former beat writer for the New York Times, looks at the New York Yankees' run of baseball success from 1996 to 2000 from the vantage point of the night it all came to an end, Game 7 of the 2001 World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Published in 2004, the book's title seems overwrought. The Yankees haven't won a World Series in the last five seasons, but they have that in common with a lot of other good teams, and the Bombers remain impressive, winning the American League East every season since 1998, and well over .500 in 2006 as of this writing.

But something was lost in 2001, a spirit that departed along with Scott Brosius, Paul O'Neill, and Tino Martinez. One of the remaining Yankees, Derek Jeter, is quoted bemoaning at the end: "It's not the same team." Olney makes a convincing case for that non-quantifiable game element known as team chemistry, both its presence from 1996-2001 and its absence thereafter.

Olney seems to model his book, consciously or not, on the classic Dan Okrent book "Nine Innings," which focused on a single regular-season game in 1982, using each half-inning as an excuse to digress on different elements on the game and its players. The great thing about "Nine Innings," or one of them, was the fact the game wasn't that important, it was just another mid-season game and presented Okrent for a backdrop as he divided his focus between the two small-market clubs playing that day. Here, the game is the last one of the 2001 World Series, and all the focus is on the Yankees.

One weakness is instead of leading each chapter with the game, and then pulling the reader into the backstory, Olney starts with the story he wants to tell, whether it's about pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre fighting cancer or pitcher David Cone's ability to spin the media spotlight to the team's benefit, then throws in a half-inning's worth of business in the last few paragraphs, sometimes connecting it to the rest of the chapter, sometimes not.

While not a solidly constructed book, "Last Night" abounds with a lot of good behind-the-scenes copy, like Mariano Rivera's fatalistic locker-room speech before Game 7 and how George Steinbrenner's tirades caused his general manager, Brian Cashman, to think about wearing a mouthguard to bed, to keep him from grinding his teeth in his sleep.

There's also some funny dish on players ("It was taken as fact in baseball circles that Albert Belle was nuts") and nice insights on how they play the game (Cone's many different release points compensate for underwhelming stuff, Jeter's unorthodox playing style is re-examined by a former teammate who was critical but now thinks Jeter is right). If Olney comes across a little too kind to the Yankees' most vicious player, Roger Clemens, he is repaid by Clemens with some good quotes and worthwhile insights.

Overall, Olney is a sympathetic if not uncritical observer, and those expecting to read "The Bronx Zoo" may be disappointed. I'm not a Yankee fan, and I enjoyed it; I can only imagine how interesting it will be for those who bleed pinstripes and think five years without winning the World Series makes for some kind of drought.

Makes an eloquent case that the Yankees are done........2006-05-01

I admired Olney's attention to detail, the way he explains the game, and how he gives an in-depth account of every key figure for the Yankees during their latest dynasty run.

I especially like the way he writes about Mariano Rivera, the centerpiece of the dynasty. He comes off as a very decent man, as well as very humble, considering how good he is.

I do not like to nitpick, but Olney did use a fair amount of cuss words, which I do not like. Even when he was quoting players who were using such language, he could have used indirect discourse.

Nonetheless, an excellent account of the team by a man with a great baseball mind, as well as one who came to know the Yankee team of 1996-2001, its glorious run, and the internicine feuds that often divided members of that unforgettably dominant team.

Feel the Pain.......2006-04-07

For Yankees fans, this book makes you re-live the pain of the final inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. Why would you want to do a thing like that? It also happens to be a good read on how the Yankees teams of 1996-2001 were built, perhaps providing an excellent roadmap for how the current Yankees can get back on the path to postseason glory. Here's a hint: While adding expensive, Hall of Fame bound free agents every winter may create the appearance of guaranteeing World Series rings, the results show the exact opposite effect. Where have you gone Gene Michael, our (Yankees) nation turned it's lonely eyes to you...

A review from a Non-Yankee / Sox fan..........2006-02-23

I presonally am a San Fransisco Giants fan so I have neither great hatred or great love for the Yankees. The only reason that I bought this book is because I recently drove cross country so I needed something to fill the time when I wasn't driving, and I also really enjoy Buster Onley's writing. That being said I thought this book was phenominally informative and unlike some of the other reviewers I really enjoyed Olney using game 7 as the driving force behind this book. It really sheds light on why the Yankees were able to win 3 consecutive championships and how that team was able to essentially save itself from Steinbrenner during the '90s. The epilouge was also outstanding as the book was able to describe some of the differences between the current Yankees and the Championship Yankees.

What Did I Do Last Night?: A Drunkard's Tale

Average customer rating:

Light-weight Drunkard's Tale
"Fear and Loathing" in London and New York
bloody fun and scurrilous
Outrageous !

What Did I Do Last Night?: A Drunkard's Tale
Tom Sykes
Manufacturer: Rodale Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Alcoholism | Recovery | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1594864632
Release Date: 2006-10-03

Book Description

Tom traces his alcoholism back to his British boyhood at Eton College, Englands oldest and most exclusive boarding school, where the boys had to wear tail suits to class and there was a school pub. He delves into his aristocratic familys well-documented fondness for the bottle and covers his own drinking apprenticeship as a trainee journalist on Londons famously alcohol-sodden newspapers. Whether he is getting arrested for drunk driving at the age of 15, climbing naked into his friends and colleagues beds, or simply trying to file an emergency front-page update while reeling from a cocktail of Ecstacy and magic mushrooms, Tom takes the reader on an addictive journey into the insanity of intoxicationall too often followed by a mossy tongue, a dull headache, and one burning question: What the hell did I do last night?

Customer Reviews:

Light-weight Drunkard's Tale.......2007-06-17

I guess that the book was entertaining enough, but woefully absent of any real dramatic tragedy that would surround the life of a hardcore alcoholic. He never woke up in jail or beaten bloody in England or New York. No horror nor any particular insight into the disease of alcoholism or drug addiction. Plenty of Alcoholism light. It gets much much uglier.

"Fear and Loathing" in London and New York.......2007-01-13

Tis is a brilliant book full of hair raising tales and high jinx. Incredibly funny. The author was an alcoholic who managed to wangle a job as the chief night life writer and bar reviewer at the Evening Standard and then the New York Post with disastrous (but hilarious) results.
Highly recommended. Not for the squeamish!

bloody fun and scurrilous.......2006-10-21

Tom Sykes writes without being sentimental or judgmental. This guy is now sober but he used to drink like a fish and race around New York and London misbehaving. His is a cautionary tale, but he writes it with panache and a light touch. Buy this book now and you'll read it in one sitting. Cleverer than Toby Young or Candace Bushnell, most astute than Milan Kundera, as straightforward as Bill Bryson, and as disreputable as Jay McInernery or Brett Easton Ellis. This is a sure-fire hit.

Outrageous !.......2006-10-13

I picked this up and started reading it, and it is a pretty funny autobiographical work on a British guy who really, really liked to party and drink. At one point, he makes the point that if you don't really know what a blackout is, you are not a true alcoholic (that definition is no doubt not the one the medical community in the U.S. gives, but it also is probably pretty accurate). He explains it as like having your "memory chip" for the past (x) hours totally erased. So, he often wakes up on a couch somewhere (Britain and then New York when he moves there), not knowing where he was last night. Hence, the title of the book. I think this book is actually pretty outrageous, in the good and bad sense of that term. I found it very, very honest and compelling. I don't think we need really to go into all the "you shouldn't do what he did" stuff. I think that will be clear to people who read the book. The book is actually very funny, and very outrageous.

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram

Average customer rating:

A tender and wise book
A view of military medicine from the other side
Timeless Concerns
A memoir about war for all to learn from
deep diary

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram
Dang Thuy Tram
Manufacturer: Harmony
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, And Everyday Life in Nazi Germany
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A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath
ROAST CHICKEN AND OTHER STORIES
Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution In A Divided Vietnam

ASIN: 0307347370
Release Date: 2007-09-11

Book Description

At the age of twenty-four, Dang Thuy Tram volunteered to serve as a doctor in a National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) battlefield hospital in the Quang Ngai Province. Two years later she was killed by American forces not far from where she worked. Written between 1968 and 1970, her diary speaks poignantly of her devotion to family and friends, the horrors of war, her yearning for her high school sweetheart, and her struggle to prove her loyalty to her country. At times raw, at times lyrical and youthfully sentimental, her voice transcends cultures to speak of her dignity and compassion and of her challenges in the face of the war’s ceaseless fury.

The American officer who discovered the diary soon after Dr. Tram’s death was under standing orders to destroy all documents without military value. As he was about to toss it into the flames, his Vietnamese translator said to him, “Don’t burn this one. . . . It has fire in it already.” Against regulations, the officer preserved the diary and kept it for thirty-five years. In the spring of 2005, a copy made its way to Dr. Tram’s elderly mother in Hanoi. The diary was soon published in Vietnam, causing a national sensation. Never before had there been such a vivid and personal account of the long ordeal that had consumed the nation’s previous generations.

Translated by Andrew X. Pham and with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner Frances FitzGerald, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is an extraordinary document that narrates one woman’s personal and political struggles. Above all, it is a story of hope in the most dire of circumstances—told from the perspective of our historic enemy but universal in its power to celebrate and mourn the fragility of human life.

Customer Reviews:

A tender and wise book.......2007-09-30

This is a poignant and sad book. The perspective, the daily survival experience of a guerrilla force fighting a technologically sophisticated army, is unique in literature. This perspective obviously speaks to many similar experiences around the world (Chechyna, Iraq, Timor, South Sudan, etc.) --that reaches beyond the political labels that get attached to the various partisans.

Yes, the book is somewhat tendentious and overwritten but that is the charm of the honesty of her writing. After all, she was not writing for us, she was writing for herself about her lost love, the sexual tensions in medicine, the fear, the fatigue, the disappointments both political and medical. The reader should accept this voice as one might listen to any young person coming and talking about how confused this crazy destructive madness is. And yet, despite her voice--here is a barely trained doctor--operating without infrastructure, making medical judgments far beyond her experience and training. In this sense, she is older than most of us.

A view of military medicine from the other side.......2007-09-29

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram
Two years ago my colleagues at the Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi gave me a copy of the recently published diary of Dang Thuy Tram. It was apparent that they were very moved by the contents of that diary. Unfortunately for me, the diary was written in Vietnamese. I could do little more that wait for a translation of the text.
Working and teaching at the Bach Mai Hospital Department of Intensive Care Medicine since 1997, I knew why I was given the copy of the diary. During my association with my Vietnamese colleagues, I had often lamented that unlike American military physicians, Vietnamese military physicians didn't write about their military medicine experiences. A frequent response to my queries had been that the experiences of Vietnamese physicians in the wars were so difficult, so harsh and so painful, over such extended periods, that Vietnamese physicians who survived the conflicts didn't wish to recall those devastating hardships. I tried to point this out in my recently published book - A DOCTOR'S VIETNAM JOURNAL, and credit the brave physicians who labored for the other side.
The recent arrival of the translation of the diary of Dang Thuy Tram - LAST NIGHT I DREAMED OF PEACE, provides us with the story of a young female physician's personal hardships and struggles to provide medical care under extremely difficult conditions and with inadequate resources. Like most military physicians working with patients in battle-zone settings, the respect, gratitude and in her case, the love of her patients, appeared to carry her through the most difficult times.
This brave and compassionate young lady suffered much during the two years of her military service, which ended with her own traumatic death.
Fortunately, her story survives through her diary which introduces us to a noble, idealistic and heroic young physician.

Timeless Concerns.......2007-09-24

Read LAST NIGHT I DREAMED OF PEACE, keeping in mind her words are from a diary, not an edited book. Dang Thuy Tram says her diary "... is not only for my private life. It must also record the lives of my people and their innumerable sufferings, these folks of steel from this Southern land." Her latter purpose is apparent when she quotes Party (communist) rhetoric as she scolds herself for acknowledging her "natural" feelings of loneliness, fear, sadness, confusion, self doubt, pride, love, and so on. Why should she complain when her countrymen are dying for the cause? She doesn't want to appear less than fully vested in the "revolution" against U.S. presence, which indicates it's clear her diary could be read at any time. (Unfortunately, lack of privacy is the reason most people who write in diaries censor what they say.)

Tram speaks for many young women when she asks Who am I? and What do I have to do to be accepted and respected? or What is the proper way to express love? She was a doctor who treated soldiers and civilians in South Vietnam in the late 1960s, but she could have just as easily been in Iraq in 2006. Her universal concerns are what kept me reading the book.

Tram's "flowery literary style" is irritating but tolerable, because, as the translator notes, that was the "style of her era."

Please note the book design: Beautiful cover. The end sheets are pages from Tram's diary, and the title page features a design from a bookmark in her possession when she was killed.

A memoir about war for all to learn from.......2007-09-18

(Translated from the original Vietnamese by Andrew X. Pham)

April 8, 1968 is the first date in the diary of Dr. Dang Thuy Tram, a lovely, twenty-five year-old woman from Hanoi, who works as the chief medical officer in a field hospital in the mountains of central Vietnam. It is only two months after the Tet offensive and while hers is a civilian facility, she also treats many wounded soldiers.

Her first entry describes an appendectomy, "Operated on one case of appendicitis with inadequate anesthesia. I had only a few meager vials of Novocain to give the soldier, but he never groaned once during the entire procedure. He even smiled to encourage me."

Under conditions that were much less than optimal, she strives to give her patients the care she feels they deserve for devoting their lives to the cause of Vietnamese reunification under the banner of Ho Chi Minh's Party. In North Vietnam, she grew up in a somewhat privileged family and thus works extra hard to become a Party member. Yet she doesn't give up on the literature and music she was raised with. During nights in underground shelters, waiting for the end of American bombing raids, she discusses the works of Russian novelists with some of her friends. Her diary contains quotes from some of those works as well as quotations from well-known Vietnamese poetry.

Thuy, as she refers to herself, writes poignantly about the soldiers and villagers that she encounters. She also is very real in her musings about her own life - how she misses her parents and sisters who are still back in Hanoi, about her struggle to maintain proper sisterly affection for the young men who profess to love her. She seems naïve about love while harboring a passionate hatred for the Americans who are destroying her country and killing and maiming so many of her countrymen.

This book is not easy. The names and places are difficult to remember. Thuy Tram does not survive the war. This diary was found by an American soldier and returned to her family in March 2005. It was published in Hanoi in July 2005 and surprised everyone by being a major bestseller.

Andrew X. Pham enlisted the help of his father, who grew up in Hanoi, as well as Thuy's sister Kim Tram, to translate this book as accurately as possible. It also includes family pictures.

Armchair Interviews says: A vivid point of view written by a very sympathetic person.

deep diary.......2007-09-12

In 1968 in a Viet Nam twenty-four years old Dr. Dang Thuy Tram joined the Viet Cong as a physician at a battlefield hospital. In 1970 American soldiers shot and killed her. In those two years that she served as a battlefield doctor, she kept a diary. Military Intelligence officer Fred Whitehurst found the tattered hand sewn journal in 1970; preserved it (against orders); and eventually in 2005 presented it to Dr. Tram's dairy to her family.

The diary is a deep look at the destructive impact of the Viet Nam war on the country and its people from the perspective of a young medical volunteer who was zealous towards healing her patients. Dr. Dang Thuy Tram provides insight into the horrors of war as she struggles with saving lives and not having great success. Although difficult to read at times as this is a journal filled with short concise commentary (remember this was not intended to be published as a book three decades later), LAST NIGHT I DREAMED OF PEACE is a powerful indictment of those who rush others to war from a safe distance as the innocent suffer for years afterward.

Harriet Klausner

Last Night's Fun: A Book About Irish Traditional Music

Average customer rating:

Best insight into the soul of the music available
The night before the morning after
Delvings of the deep diddly diddly
An experience not to be missed

Last Night's Fun: A Book About Irish Traditional Music
Ciaran Carson
Manufacturer: North Point Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

In Search of the Craic: One Man's Pub Crawl Through Irish Music
Bringing It All Back Home: The Influence of Irish Music at Home and Overseas
Passing the Time in Ballymenone: Culture and History of an Ulster Community
O'Brien Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music (Pocket History series)
Music in Ireland: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (Global Music Series)

ASIN: 0865475318

Amazon.com

Reading these essays by an Irish folk musician, you are drawn in and transported, and it begins to seem that you can hear the fiddles and bodhrans, and you can almost smell the Guinness. Ciaran Carson, who has published several books of poetry, spent many years playing traditional Irish music in pubs with sawdust on the floor, and he evokes both scene and sound brilliantly in prose. We're lucky that the talented Mr. Carson takes time to put down his flute and pick up the pen. Anyone who appreciates folk music, or anyone who just likes fine writing, will enjoy this wondrously quirky little book.

Book Description

Last Night's Fun's is a sparking celebration of music and life that is itself a literary performance of the highest order. Carson's inspired jumble of recording history, poetry, tall tales, and polemic captures the sound and vigor of a ruthlessly unsentimental music. Last Night's Fun is remarkable for its liveliness, honesty, scholarship, and spontaneous joy; certainly there has never been a book about Irish music like this one, and few books ever written anywhere about the experience of music can compare with it.

Customer Reviews:

Best insight into the soul of the music available.......2004-09-14

A skilled and formidable poet and chronicler of his native Belfast, Carson here blends his power over words into an evocation of how Irish music makes the impact it does. Seemingly an impossible task to attain on the page, but his decades as a musician allow him to capture the spirit behind the music. As they say, it's not how you read the notes, but how you hear them.

His chapter headings refer to various titles of Irish songs, and I enjoyed his rendering of differing reasons (or lack of) for how various tunes get attached to specific names. A much better book than "Round Ireland with a Tin Whistle" by David Wilson for its ability to convey the feel of how music changes with every playing, and how fluid the communication between players can be in a seisuin.

Any book Carson writes deserves a read, whether his version of Dante's Inferno, his prose-poem-fiction of late, his explorations of his city's past, or his crafted if learned verse.
He opens up a bit more here than in some of his earlier works, and the glimpses into the world he lives in between nights playing makes for intriguing scenes.

The night before the morning after.......2000-01-31

Carson takes the reader on a journey deep into the very heart of Irish Music - the musician at his most timelessness. Don't pick this up expecting a scholarly approach to Irish music. This is an amazing insight into the music and the soul of the music as performed by an Irish musician. Carson even shows the little quirks of daily living that help to give birth to such a personable music. I love Irish music, but am a jazz pianist by musical trade. I highly recommend this to any and all musicians who are searching for their soul in music, especially those in jazz. It is a very moving and thought provoking work.

Delvings of the deep diddly diddly.......1998-09-12

Belfast writer, fluter, raconteur and unreliable witness takes us into the subterranean world of craic agus chaos as he attempts to surf the web of the perfect session experience. Part nostalgic interrogtation of his own relationship with traditional music, part exploration of the Ulster breakfast: this book is a close as it gets to the cameraderie and catharsis of an all night music bash. A work of astute fiction that might never be true but is always believable.

At the end we are left wondering was this one large joke or simply a witty Northern oxymoron? A book to be revisited when the frost keeps us away from session, pub or our inner fiddler.

Excellent is too narrow a word to describe the sweep of the narrative.

Sean Laffey Irish Music Magazine Dublin

An experience not to be missed.......1998-05-01

I've been a Celtic music fan for many years, long before it began to turn up on the New Age charts. While I don't mean to knock that genre (which has given some splendid traditional musicians -- e.g., the O'Domhnaills of Nightnoise and Alasdair Fraser of Skyedance -- the wider listenership they deserve), traditional Celtic music is an altogether grittier, funkier breed.
Ciaran Carson brings a poet's sensibility to the performer's-eye perspective of Irish music, from last night's fun to the next morning's rude awakening. Irish music isn't simply the tunes themselves; it's the old-timers who performed them, the instruments they played, the pints of Guinness, the choking smoke in the bar and the pouring rain outside, and Carson conveys the whole experience admirably. It's almost as good as being there.

Average customer rating:

Fantastic!!
Bukowski Still Going Strong
Death is smoking my cigars...
Read them out loud
Bukowski's last great book

The Last Night of the Earth Poems
Charles Bukowski
Manufacturer: Black Sparrow Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems, 1974-1977
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense
War All the Time: Poems, 1981-1984
post office: A Novel
Women: A Novel

ASIN: 0876858639

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic!!.......2007-03-14

I wish I discovered Bukowski earlier in my life. This book is just wonderful! Highly recommended!!!

Bukowski Still Going Strong.......2005-05-13

Having been a long standing fan of Bukowski's work I am partial to this book because it represents his later work which is just as powerful as any of his early lyrical work like Crucifix in a Deathand and It Catches My Heart In It's Hand. Poems like Dinosaura,We; In The Shadow of the Rose and My Uncle Jack capture the author still at the peak of his creative powers. Of course there are the typical Buk topics like horseracing, boozing, women, the outsiders, but Bukowski takes a soft turn by dedicating a poem to his wife which will catch many Buk fans surprisingly off guard. If you are new to Charles Bukowski's writing you will definitely want to get this book; it will inspire you to try his other books. If you're a long time Buk reader, you probably have this one in your collection already. I highly recommend The Last Night of the Earth Poems to everyone
that has a taste for earthy, lyrical and ballsy poetry.

Death is smoking my cigars..........2005-02-05

...and.....

The piano has been drinking
My necktie's asleep
The combo went back to New York, and left me all alone
The jukebox has to take a leak
Have you noticed that the carpet needs a haircut?
And the spotlight looks just like a prison break
And the telephone's out of cigarettes
As usual the balcony's on the make
And the piano has been drinking, heavily
The piano has been drinking
And he's on the hard stuff tonight

The piano has been drinking
And you can't find your waitress
Even with the Geiger counter
And I guarantee you that she will hate you
From the bottom of her glass
And all of your friends remind you
That you just can't get served without her
The piano has been drinking

The piano has been drinking
And the lightman's blind in one eye
And he can't see out of the other
And the piano-tuner's got a hearing aid
And he showed up with his mother
And the piano has been drinking
Without fear of contradiction I say
The piano has been drinking

Our Father who art in ?
Hallowed by thy glass
Thy kindom come, thy will be done
On Earth as it is in the lounges
Give us this day our daily splash
Forgive us our hangovers
As we forgive all those who continue to hangover against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver from evil and someone you must all ride home

Because the piano has been drinking
And he's your friend not mine
Because the piano has been drinking
And he's not my responsibility

The bouncer is this Sumo wrestler
Kinda cream puff casper milk toast
And the owner is just a mental midget
With the I.Q. of a fencepost
I'm going down, hang onto me, I'm going down
Watch me skate across an acre of linoleum
I know I can do it, I'm in total control
And the piano has been drinking
And he's embarassing me
The piano has been drinking, he raided his mini bar

The piano has been drinking
And the bar stools are all on fire
And all the newspapers were just fooling
And the ash-trays have retired
And I've got a feeling that the piano has been drinking
It's just a hunch
The piano has been drinking and he's going to lose his lunch
And the piano has been drinking
Not me, not me, The piano has been drinking not me

Enjoy this book kiddies. Buk can do no wrong, he never did. Turn on only one lamp, with no shade (as if there ever was one), open up a bottle of Ol' Red Eye, throw the cap away, put on some T.Waits, and cherish the fact that you and your misery are not as alone as you thought.

Read them out loud.......2004-08-31

This was the first Bukowski I've read. The poems are less poetry-like and more short stories in columns. They've got a great rhythm. They're better when you read them out loud, which works better when you live alone. What amazes me is that this book is 405 pages long, and it's one of forty-five books by Bukowski, mostly books of poetry. That's pretty prolific. This one was published in 1992. There's a lot of poems about being old and getting ready to die. And a lot about drinking.

Bukowski's last great book.......2004-08-11

Like the title of this review says, this is Bukowski's last great book. Very downbeat, almost a companion piece to "You Get So Alone...". Highly recommended.

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