True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership (J-B Warren Bennis Series)

True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership (J-B Warren Bennis Series)
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Be a Mentor

Authentic Leadership!

TRUE NORTH

A compass with no map?

A must read for a leader or leader-to-be

True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership (J-B Warren Bennis Series)
Bill George , and Peter Sims
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Leadership | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0787987514

Book Description

True North shows how anyone who follows their internal compass can become an authentic leader. This leadership tour de force is based on research and first-person interviews with 125 of today’s top leaders—with some surprising results. In this important book, acclaimed former Medtronic CEO Bill George and coauthor Peter Sims share the wisdom of these outstanding leaders and describe how you can develop as an authentic leader. True North presents a concrete and comprehensive program for leadership success and shows how to create your own Personal Leadership Development Plan centered on five key areas:

Knowing your authentic self
Defining your values and leadership principles
Understanding your motivations
Building your support team
Staying grounded by integrating all aspects of your life

True North offers an opportunity for anyone to transform their leadership path and become the authentic leader they were born to be.

Personal, original, and illuminating stories from Warren Bennis, Sir Adrian Cadbury, George Shultz (former U.S. secretary of state), Charles Schwab, John Whitehead (Cochairman, Goldman Sachs), Anne Mulcahy (CEO, Xerox), Howard Schultz (CEO, Starbucks), Dan Vasella (CEO, Novartis), John Brennan (Chairman, Vanguard), Carol Tome (CFO, Home Depot), Donna Dubinsky (CEO/cofounder, Palm), Alan Horn (President, Warner Brothers), Ann Moore (CEO, Time, Inc.) and many others illustrate the transitions that shape the type of leaders who will thrive in the 21st century.

Bill George (Cambridge, MA) has spent over 30 years in executive leadership positions at Litton, Honeywell, and Medtronic. As CEO of Medtronic, he built the company into the world’s leading medical technology company as its market capitalization increased from $1.1 billion to $60 billion. Since 2004, he has been a professor at the Harvard Business School. His 2004 book Authentic Leadership (0-7879-7528-1) was a BusinessWeek bestseller. Peter Sims (San Francisco, CA) established “Leadership Perspectives,” a course on leadership development at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and cofounded the London office of Summit Partners, a leading investment firm.

Their Web site is www.truenorthleaders.com.

Customer Reviews:

Be a Mentor.......2007-10-05

If you have children, buy this book and have them read it. If they are to young, then read it yourself and teach them the principles given by author Bill George.

"True North" will help you develop a path to your authentic self. Leading from the strength of your authentic self will give you new opportunities to expand your personal influence. Perhaps the best use of that influence will be to mentor others to find their "True North".

One more thing, buy a copy for your boss. Who knows she may just become a true authentic leader.

Larry Kevin Adams
theactionator.com

Authentic Leadership!.......2007-09-09

I recieved the order sooner than I expected with no hassle, no problems at all!

TRUE NORTH.......2007-08-31

BILL GEORGE OFFERS AN INSIGHT INTO WHAT OUR CORPORATE/BUSINESS WORLD NEEDS SO BADLY TODAY - TRUE LEADERS. THIS SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING FOR TEENS, ESPECIALLY THOSE IN COLLEGE, AND THEIR PARENTS. IF CEO'S AND THEIR MANAGERS FOLLOWED THE AUTHOR'S ADVICE, OUR WORLD WOULD BE A DIFFERENT - AND BETTER - PLACE.

A compass with no map?.......2007-08-31

I am not sure if the authors are clear on their objectives for this book. It certainly contains a wealth of information about leadership characteristics and behaviours but little practical advice.

It is also inspirational in places; however, I am left with what feels like a collection of random cameos of leadership wisdom, which in themselves are useful, but together lack cohesion. If the book is trying to say `look, the world of leadership is very complex, random and idiosyncratic' then it achieves this very well but if they are trying to provide direction in such a world then the book clearly fails.

There is no framework for potential leaders to follow, the authors only state that if you know your true north and your values you can be authentic, which is about as useful as a chocolate teapot at a tropical tea party.

If you are a successful leader already I dare say you would agree with most of this book but if you are an aspiring leader then providing the compass without a map is very cruel.

A must read for a leader or leader-to-be.......2007-08-01

I feel this book is a must read for a leader or leader-to-be. True North is one of those rare literary experiences in which engaging the material and reflecting upon it can help you with your development as a person and as a leader. It is my belief that no matter where you are in your life you should never stop working to develop yourself.

Bill George has achieved a tremendous amount of success within his life by applying the principles of True North. However, the greater testament to these principles is that Bill has achieved this success while remaining grounded, truly satisfied and deeply inspired. True North is about the type of leader that leads authentically and thus consistently--though we each express this leadership in our own individual way. It is this type of leader that will restore faith and trust in leaders and leadership that has been diminished, if not lost, in recent generations.

Success can be crippling and change you in ways you never thought possible. This is one of the risks in leadership. However, True North is a literary work that will help you find your compass--even if you have already strayed off course. There is no one right way to lead and True North is structured to help you learn about your leadership and how to stay grounded. You may already be equipped with some of this knowledge, but True North will present novel ideas that you have not yet been exposed to and is a great resource and reference.

Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival

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A modern retelling of one of the most influential books in U.S. history
Too Much Camel Urine
One Heck of a Ride
It'll take your breath away
Devoured by the Desert

Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival
Dean King
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0316159352

Amazon.com

Some stories are so enthralling they deserve to be retold generation after generation. The wreck in 1815 of the Connecticut merchant ship, Commerce, and the subsequent ordeal of its crew in the Sahara Desert, is one such story. With Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival, Dean King refreshes the popular nineteenth-century narrative once read and admired by Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, and Abraham Lincoln. King's version, which actually draws from two separate first person accounts of the Commerce's crew, offers a page-turning blend of science, history, and classic adventure. The book begins with a seeming false start: tracing the lives of two merchants from North Africa, Seid and Sidi Hamet, who lose their fortunes—and almost their lives—when their massive camel caravan arrives at a desiccated oasis. King then jumps to the voyage of the Commerce under Captain Riley and his 11-man crew. After stops in New Orleans and Gibraltar, the ship falls off course en route to the Canary Islands and ultimately wrecks at the infamous Cape Bojador. After the men survive the first predations of the nomads on the shore, they meander along the coast looking for a way inland as their supplies dwindle. They subsist for days by drinking their own urine. Eventually, to their horror, they discover that they have come aground on the edge of the Sahara Desert. They submit themselves, with hopes of getting food and water, as slaves to the Oulad Bou Sbaa. After days of abuse, they are bought by Hamet, who, after his own experiences with his failed caravan (described at the novels opening), sympathizes with the plight of the crew. Together, they set off on a hellish journey across the desert to collect a bounty for Hamet in Swearah. King embellishes this compelling narrative throughout with scientific and historical material explaining the origins of the camel, the market for English and American slaves, and the stages of dehydration. He also humanizes the Sahrawi with background on the tribes and on the lives of Hamet and Seid. This material, doled out in sufficient amounts to enrich the story without derailing it makes Skeletons on the Zahara a perfectly entertaining bit of history that feels like a guilty pleasure. --Patrick O'Kelley

Book Description

Some stories are so enthralling they deserve to be retold generation after generation. The wreck in 1815 of the Connecticut merchant ship, Commerce, and the subsequent ordeal of its crew in the Sahara Desert, is one such story. With Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival, Dean King refreshes the popular nineteenth-century narrative once read and admired by Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, and Abraham Lincoln. King's version, which actually draws from two separate first person accounts of the Commerce's crew, offers a page-turning blend of science, history, and classic adventure. The book begins with a seeming false start: tracing the lives of two merchants from North Africa, Seid and Sidi Hamet, who lose their fortunes#151;and almost their lives#151;when their massive camel caravan arrives at a desiccated oasis. King then jumps to the voyage of the Commerce under Captain Riley and his 11-man crew. After stops in New Orleans and Gibraltar, the ship falls off course en route to the Canary Islands and ultimately wrecks at the infamous Cape Bojador. After the men survive the first predations of the nomads on the shore, they meander along the coast looking for a way inland as their supplies dwindle. They subsist for days by drinking their own urine. Eventually, to their horror, they discover that they have come aground on the edge of the Sahara Desert. They submit themselves, with hopes of getting food and water, as slaves to the Oulad Bou Sbaa. After days of abuse, they are bought by Hamet, who, after his own experiences with his failed caravan (described at the novels opening), sympathizes with the plight of the crew. Together, they set off on a hellish journey across the desert to collect a bounty for Hamet in Swearah.King embellishes this compelling narrative throughout with scientific and historical material explaining the origins of the camel, the market for English and American slaves, and the stages of dehydration. He also humanizes the Sahrawi with background on the tribes and on the lives of Hamet and Seid. This material, doled out in sufficient amounts to enrich the story without derailing it makes Skeletons on the Zahara a perfectly entertaining bit of history that feels like a guilty pleasure.--Patrick O'Kelley

Download Description

An incredible story of shipwrecked American sailors sold into slavery in North Africa and dragged through the hellish interior of the Sahara.

Customer Reviews:

A modern retelling of one of the most influential books in U.S. history.......2007-10-09

We read this book for our book club and had the honor of discussing it with the author, Dean King. As someone without any sort of nautical background, I was a bit worried as I started reading that the book was going to be too technical for me, but I quickly got to the point where I didn't want to put it down. The story, which is true and yet reads like a novel, had a certain "Apollo 13" feel to it...it is hard to fathom that so much could go wrong and yet be overcome. Dean King really did his research and was able to verify seemingly unverifiable elements of the story through his own trek on camel - and in some cases on foot - through the Sahara (such as the branding treatment used for illness and the belief that one cannot be hurt if fallen from a camel).

The original manuscript of Captain Riley's has been documented as being one of a handful of books that was influential to Abraham Lincoln. After his own stint as a slave, Riley - a white man - was able to give voice to the inhumanity of slavery here in the U.S. in a way that, at that time, no black man or woman could. Captain Riley's experiences and the telling of his story certainly had an impact on the consciousness of the American people and its leaders. This book brings history alive in a truly thrilling way. I highly recommend reading the footnotes for each chapter and the extra features (like an excerpted interview with the author) included in the paperback version of this book.

Too Much Camel Urine.......2007-09-20

Skeletons of the Zahara certainly has moments of high drama, and the fact that the story is (mostly) true, adds to the sense of adventure and disbelief. And the poor sailors stranded on the Western Shore of Africa could not have been treated much worse than they were. But for me, the retelling of this story suffered from the same monotony as the sailors themselves must have felt. There are lengthy passages of their travels through the desert that are too similar to other lengthy passages of their travels through the desert. This was interspersed occasionally with the graphic depiction of the devouring of an entire camel. I don't really have a weak stomach, but the numerous references to the green goo inside the camel stomach which became the main entree on the menu was a little too much even for me. Then there was the camel urine, which one and all slurped down like a nice chardonnay. Maybe I need to spend more time with the Touareg to get a better feel for things.

One Heck of a Ride.......2007-07-23

This book rips your throat out and stuffs it up your nose!!!!!!!!!
If you think you are tough.....or if you waste your time watching the goofy fake Survival Reality TV shows.......then you need to cleanse your brain with this book......It will show you what a wimp you really are...I do not know anyone who could take for 24 hours what these human beings endured for the extraordinary amount of time they were subject to these conditions from hell......... Dean King did his homework ...from the library to the turf...He actually ventured into this region and DID SOME REAL HOMEWORK

It'll take your breath away.......2007-06-25

Americans shipwrecked in 1815 and held captive by Muslim slavers in the Sahara.

I was considering ordering Sufferings in Africa by James Riley and Robbins' journal: by Archibald Robbins, the two books King based his book on, but after reading this I didn't think I could stomach anymore of their suffering.

The cruelty and ignorance of the arabs/islamist/muslims is stunning. How could and why would anyone be so cruel? If you don't take care of your servants how are they going to be able to continue to serve you?. These arabs were either too dumb to logic that out or just inherently vicious.

Devoured by the Desert.......2007-05-13

This incredible tale captures the true recollections of survivors of shipwreck and enslavement by nomadic Arabs in the western Sahara in 1815. It's a time when the US is striving to assert itself on the world stage. American men seeking to provide for their families willingly take great risk and leave their homeland and find themselves in the Islamic world, stranded and forced to pay a high price to escape. Survival in this world requires enduring constant threat to life and limb. While some of the Arabs are worthy of respect and admirable in their bravery, even the best examples have a moral code that is hard to reconcile with Western values. Equally true is how Islamic values mirror some of the best and worst of Western values (slavery, cruelty for economic profit, strong familial bonds, communal coherance in a time of threat, and dissonance in a time of abundance). While the story of Captain Riley and his fellow American sailors may stand as one of the world's great survival tales, it is enriched by moral themes relevant to today's world experience.

Average customer rating:

Grippingly Written, Moving, and Historically Powerful
Evangelical Pastor - 63 years old
A mixture of polemic, interesting recollections, and accounts of questionable credibility
Heartbreaking and Revelatory
essential

Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story
Timothy B. Tyson
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

African-American & Black | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith
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ASIN: 0609610589
Release Date: 2004-05-18

Amazon.com

When he was but 10 years old, Tim Tyson heard one of his boyhood friends in Oxford, N.C. excitedly blurt the words that were to forever change his life: "Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger!" The cold-blooded street murder of young Henry Marrow by an ambitious, hot-tempered local businessman and his kin in the Spring of 1970 would quickly fan the long-flickering flames of racial discord in the proud, insular tobacco town into explosions of rage and street violence. It would also turn the white Tyson down a long, troubled reconciliation with his Southern roots that eventually led to a professorship in African-American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison--and this profoundly moving, if deeply troubling personal meditation on the true costs of America's historical racial divide. Taking its title from a traditional African-American spiritual, Tyson skillfully interweaves insightful autobiography (his father was the town's anti-segregationist Methodist minister, and a man whose conscience and human decency greatly informs the son) with a painstakingly nuanced historical analysis that underscores how little really changed in the years and decades after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 supposedly ended racial segregation. The details are often chilling: Oxford simply closed its public recreation facilities rather than integrate them; Marrow's accused murderers were publicly condemned, yet acquitted; the very town's newspaper records of the events--and indeed the author's later account for his graduate thesis--mysteriously removed from local public records. But Tyson's own impassioned personal history lessons here won't be denied; they're painful, yet necessary reminders of a poisonous American racial legacy that's so often been casually rewritten--and too easily carried forward into yet another century by politicians eagerly employing the cynical, so-called "Southern Strategy." --Jerry McCulley

Book Description

"Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger."

Those words, whispered to ten-year-old Tim Tyson by one of his playmates in the late spring of 1970, heralded a firestorm that would forever transform the small tobacco market town of Oxford, North Carolina.

On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel, a rough man with a criminal record and ties to the Ku Klux Klan, and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased Marrow, beat him unmercifully, and killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. In the words of a local prosecutor: "They shot him like you or I would kill a snake."

Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets, led by 22-year-old Ben Chavis, a future president of the NAACP. As mass protests crowded the town square, a cluster of returning Vietnam veterans organized what one termed "a military operation." While lawyers battled in the courthouse that summer in a drama that one termed "a Perry Mason kind of thing," the Ku Klux Klan raged in the shadows and black veterans torched the town's tobacco warehouses.

With large sections of the town in flames, Tyson's father, the pastor of Oxford's all-white Methodist church, pressed his congregation to widen their vision of humanity and pushed the town to come to terms with its bloody racial history. In the end, however, the Tyson family was forced to move away.

Years later, historian Tim Tyson returned to Oxford to ask Robert Teel why he and his sons had killed Henry Marrow. "That nigger committed suicide, coming in here wanting to four-letter-word my daughter-in-law," Teel explained.

The black radicals who burned much of Oxford also told Tim their stories. "It was like we had a cash register up there at the pool hall, just ringing up how much money we done cost these white people," one of them explained. "We knew if we cost 'em enough goddamn money they was gonna start changing some things."

In the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird, Blood Done Sign My Name is a classic work of conscience, a defining portrait of a time and place that we will never forget. Tim Tyson's riveting narrative of that fiery summer and one family's struggle to build bridges in a time of destruction brings gritty blues truth, soaring gospel vision, and down-home humor to our complex history, where violence and faith, courage and evil, despair and hope all mingle to illuminate America's enduring chasm of race.

Customer Reviews:

Grippingly Written, Moving, and Historically Powerful.......2007-08-16

I finally got around to reading this memoir this summer and was in awe of the author's narrative gifts. This story reads like a novel and is full of plain human wisdom, an emotional openness combining humility and pride, wry humor, sharp political analysis, and a can't-put-it-down story line that comes to terms with America's number one cultural problem: racism. This is a book of local history that gets at the human condition, and a work of history that reads like great literature. I'm telling everyone I can to read it, and that includes whoever reads this. Don't pay attention to any of the so-called "corrections" made by some other reviewers here. This is a must-read historical work that shows an astute and perceptive ability to understand its widely varying participants' points of view and experiences, while not shrinking from the moral and historical obligation to draw judgments. There is only one word to use: *brilliant.* (I'm not one to use that lightly when talking about either autobiography or
history.)

Disclaimer: The writer of this review is a professional historian with a Ph.D., but one who has never met Timothy Tyson.

Evangelical Pastor - 63 years old.......2007-07-29

Few books are as challenging for me as this one. I lived through the years of this story and consistently refused to believe that our racism was as extensive or deeply rooted as it was. Take away: the challenge to see it in our present day and to do something about it.

A mixture of polemic, interesting recollections, and accounts of questionable credibility.......2007-07-18

I was born and grew up in Oxford, North Carolina as a white boy, and graduated from the
University of North Carolina in 1949. I have lived in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland for many
years.

Tyson deserves credit for deploring the murder and acquittal of the murderer in the book.
However, he tends to be polemic: all black people in it are noble; all but a few white people are
some combination of racist, ignorant, or narrow-minded. (It is similar in that respect to Leon
Uris's novel "Exodus", in which all Jews are noble and bigger than life, while all others are hateful
or, at best, not very bright.)

He often uses a down-home style of writing, calling his parents "Daddy" and "Mama" and being
addressed as "Little Buck" by his father, which he apparently feels makes him and his family seem
to be folksy, good plain people.

However, the book is not without its shortcomings.

Accounts of questionable credibility:

¶¶He states that tear gas was used by Oxford police in 1944 to dispel a crowd of black people
who were protesting the arrest of two men. I witnessed the event and remember no tear gas--had
there been, I think I would never have forgotten it.

¶¶An account of the torching of buildings in Oxford on May 25, 1970 by angry black people
following the killing of Marrow describes two tobacco warehouses which were among
them:"Inside these warehouses were eight hundred thousand pounds of golden cured tobacco, a
known flammable substance, with a total value of more than a million dollars." I find it hard to
believe that any tobacco would have been in those warehouses in May.

Tobacco was brought by the farmers to Oxford warehouses from mid-September through
mid-November, where it was sold at auction and immediately taken by the buyers to their Oxford
processing plants, and then shipped off to the cigarette manufacturers. By some time in late
November, all of the warehouses became empty.

Although the whole procedure I describe above could have changed somewhat by 1970, I still
find it hard to believe that there would have been tobacco in the warehouses in May, by which
time it would have probably become dry and crumbly.

¶¶The following exchange supposedly took place during the 1930's between Major T.G. stem (a
prominent white man in Oxford) and a man described in the book as "a local white bootlegger."
Having occurred long before Tyson was born, it was recounted to him by Thad Stem, the Major's
son and a close friend of the Tyson family.

"Major Stem was leaving Hall's drugstore with his son (Thad) and they passed Mrs. G. C. Shaw,
the wife of the principal at Mary Potter High, the local Negro high school.

'Good afternoon, Mrs. Shaw,' the Major said, tipping his hat.

A local white bootlegger, idling under the store awning, accosted Major Stem. 'Why'd you call
that [...] woman Mrs. Shaw'?" he demanded.

'Well, Mrs. Shaw's older than I am,' he began softly. 'She's better educated than I am,and she has
more money.' Then, thrusting the bootlegger away from him, the major exploded: 'But more to
the point, what I call Mrs. Shaw is none of your goddamned business, you low-life taxidermist,
you two-for-a-nickel jackal, you knee-crawling [...], net.' These were the days when
people really knew how to cuss. Back then, the appendage 'net' meant a real [...]...on the
way home (Thad) asked his father why on earth he had called the bootlegger a 'taxidermist.' The
major said quietly that a taxidermist is a man who mounts animals."

If not a total fabrication, the story seems to me to have been mostly made up.

In those earlier times, I never heard any white person in Oxford address or refer to a black person
as Mr./Mrs./Ms. (However, by some strange logic, a black doctor was referred to as Dr. X by
white people. Dr. Ellis Toney was a black practitioner there for many years and was so referred
to. The same was the case for some black ministers, who were referred to as Pastor or Reverend
such-and-such.)

¶¶In writing about the slave trade, Tyson speaks of "the dark Atlantic, where the bones of
somewhere around ten million Africans settled into the sand, thrown overboard by the slave ships
that plied those waters in the early days of the republic (the USA)."

Where did this 10 million figure come from? Tyson provides no source. One reference, "Slavery:
A World History", by Milton Meltzer, says that about 2.2 million died that way.

Degrading most of Oxford's black people by stereotyping them as uncultured:

The most puzzling aspect of the book is: On the one hand, Tyson makes the legitimate point that
black residents of Oxford and Granville County, after long having been subjected to a segregated,
inferior status in society, deserved to be recognized as having equal rights with white citizens.
Yet, at the same time, he consistently shows these same black people as being crude and unable to
say anything without massacring English grammar.

"I knowed him right good, and I liked him all right. He didn't hurt nobody." "Yeah, we was
listening to TV, that's how we got involved in the first sit-ins in Oxford, because we saw on TV
they was doing it up in Greensboro." "Me and a guy named Ronald Jordan, me and him climbed
up on the Confederate soldier..." And there are many more.

I know from personal experience that many black people in Oxford, then and now, are much more
cultured than Tyson portrays them. I also know from my volunteer work at the Helping Up
Mission in Baltimore, where I tutor men who are recovering from drug and alcohol addiction in
the 3R's (all of whom to date have been black), that most black people, like anyone anywhere, will
grasp an opportunity to become more cultured.

Heartbreaking and Revelatory.......2007-05-18

An essential history and memoir of a time whose facts are often forgotten and even actively repressed. The present doesn't make sense without honestly examining the past, and this book does that with humility and emotional power. Even if you think you know this history (as I did) you very well may not.

essential.......2007-03-15

For those of us who think we understand by reading about racial prejudice and thinking about what it must be like, should read this book. We still won't really understand, but we will be a much closer than we were before.

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan

Average customer rating:

A life-changing experience
A must read
True, Real, Humbling
Must Read
Must Read

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan
Alphonsion Deng , Benson Deng , Benjamin Ajak , and Judy A. Bernstein
Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Africa | History | Subjects | Books

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Lost Boy No More: A True Story Of Survival And Salvation

ASIN: 1586483889

Book Description

A stunning literary survival story, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a "moving, beautifully written account, by turns raw and tender."

Across Sudan, between 1987 and 1989, tens of thousands of young boys took flight from the massacres of Sudan's civil war. They became known as the Lost Boys. With little more than the clothes on their backs, sometimes not even that, they streamed out over Sudan in search of refuge. Their journey led them first to Ethiopia and then, driven back into Sudan, toward Kenya. They walked nearly one thousand miles, sustained only by the sheer will to live.

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is three boys' account of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and the purity of their child's-eye-vision, Alephonsion, Benjamin, and Benson recall by turns how they endured hunger and strength-sapping illnesses. How they dodged the life-threatening predators-lions, snakes, crocodiles and soldiers-that dogged their footsteps. How they grappled with a war that threatened continually to overwhelm them. Their story is a lyrical, captivating portrait of a childhood lost to war, and of the perseverance of the human spirit.

Customer Reviews:

A life-changing experience.......2007-10-04

I never thought that a book could move me in the way that this has. It is gripping, inspirational, horrifing, beautiful tear-jerker that will keep your jaw dropped. You will be forever changed by this true account of a tragedy that sadly many Americans do not know about. Amazing book. Make sure to have a box of tissues by your side!

A must read.......2007-09-26

I couldn't put the book down and at the end I cried. It was hard to believe that boys so young had been through so much. If your interested in whats going on in Sudan than I think its a must read.

True, Real, Humbling.......2007-09-26

This book is so powerful, these boys journey is so humbling, there is no way that you could read this book and not look at your life in a different way. The crazy thing about it is that it is ALL TRUE, this is thier account of their lives, this book has encouraged me more to want to fight for social injustices.

Must Read.......2007-08-11

I have a BA in English and taught high school literature courses for seven years before becoming the administrator of an alternative school. I consider myself well read. Therefore, when I say this was the most moving book I have ever read, I do not say so lightly. I had the honor of meeting one of the authors, Benjamin Ajak, at a recent conference. While his English is not articulate, his message is gut wrenchingly moving. This book is not for the faint of heart. It is not a summer beach romance. It is the story of the survival of the human spirit at its most base level. It is both appalling and inspiring. It is a must read. If you are not a humanitarian before you read it, you will be after you read it.

Must Read.......2007-06-27

Amazing!
This sad true account of the lives of the people of Southern Sudan is a must read.

Stop Being Mean to Yourself: A Story About Finding The True Meaning of Self-Love

Average customer rating:

To all of YOU who have written a review for this book
Simple but enlightening
Don't Waste Your Money
Stop being a rich whiny woman!
An inner and outer travel diary

Stop Being Mean to Yourself: A Story About Finding The True Meaning of Self-Love
Melody Beattie
Manufacturer: Hazelden
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Substance Abuse | Recovery | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Self-Esteem | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Mysticism | New Age | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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Playing It by Heart: Taking Care of Yourself No Matter What
Finding Your Way Home: A Soul Survival Kit
Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter
The Lessons of Love: Rediscovering Our Passion for Life When It All Seems Too Hard to Take
Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

ASIN: 1568382863

Amazon.com

Using the unlikely backdrop of Northern Africa, Melody Beattie (author of Co-Dependent No More) blends the genres of travel adventure and spiritual quest. Traveling mishaps such as being led unknowingly into the souk of Cairo (rumored to be a clandestine marketplace of no return), become metaphors for learning how to let go of fear while still honoring your instincts. Interrogations at border crossings symbolize the self-examination we must endure before crossing over to a new stage of enlightenment. Fortunately, this is not a U.S.-centric travelogue. In war-ravaged Algiers, Beattie diligently pursues the truth of its people rather than her own reactions to poverty and terrorism. Despite its pop-psychology title, this is a book of impressive depth, exploring the global challenge of loving thy neighbor as well as thy self.

Book Description

In this wonderfully practical book, Melody Beattie gives you the tools to discover the magnificence and splendor of your being. -- Deepak Chopra, M.D. Beckoning readers toward a spiritual territory beyond even that of her revolutionary best-seller Codependent No More, Melody Beattie conducts us through teeming Casablanca, war-torn Algeria, and the caverns of Egypt's great pyramids as she embarks on a new kind of journey of the soul. An enlightening blend of travel adventure and spiritual discovery, filled with new ideas for overcoming the pitfalls of guilt and self-doubt, Stop Being Mean to Yourself is a compassionate tour guide for the troubled and the heartsick, for those who seek a happier place in the world. A tale that is at once modern and timeless, rich with the promise of personal discovery, it is a book about learning the art of living and of loving others -- and ourselves. As full of suspense and excitement as it is of hope and encouragement, it is as rewarding for its pure reading pleasure as for the wisdom it imparts. About the Author:Melody Beattie is the author of numerous best-selling books, including Codependent No More, Beyond Codependency, The Language of Letting Go, A Codependent's Guide to the Twelve Steps, and Journey to the Heart. Beattie's writing draws on the wisdom of Twelve Step healing, Christianity, and Eastern religions. Click here to read a one-to-one conversation with the beloved author of Codependent No More, The Language of Letting Go book and journal, Playing It by Heart, and 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact.

Customer Reviews:

To all of YOU who have written a review for this book.......2005-06-01

I am writing to all of you who have written a review about this book, and especially to Melody Beattie. To the person who mocked about Melody's inner civil war, or you're already a god or you will never ever hope to KNOW what an inner civil war is. And to the rest of you, this book is not about traveling through Nothern Africa, it is about INNER travel, if you were trying to read an action-packed James Bond or Indiana Jones story, you guys picked the wrong book. This is not a fiction book, it is a book about how to find your inner deamons, your fears, face them and come through truly successfuly. This is a "self-help" book, and should be rated accordingly. I lived an inner civil war myself, and Melody greatly helped in making me understand how everything lies in subtleness, awareness, in trusting the universe. In trusting yourself, in listening to yourself for once! Hence the name of the book. This certainly was one of the pivotal steps in helping me change my life. This book is for people WHO needs it, otherwise you'd be bored to hell, of course. Every kind of book, song, movie, painting, etc... has a porpuse and is meant for certain kind of people. Just stop for a moment and THINK before you rate a book...before you rate anything. It is NOT about "if I liked it or not", it is about "does it work?" This book is not a novel, it is a tool for those who need it. It didn't work for you because you didn't need it. I needed it, and guess what, it worked. It really did. THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH MELODY, YOU REALLY HELPED SOMEONE BE MORE CONSCIOUS, MORE AWARE AND A BETTER PERSON. I ONLY WISH I COULD CONTACT YOU TO TELL YOU THIS PERSONALLY. GOD BLESS YOU, AND YOUR DAUGHTER. -Rafael Romo, Mexico City.

Simple but enlightening.......2003-01-06

The title of this enlightening read caught my eye, for the very fact that many of us, at some time, treat ourselves worse than do others. In Stop Being Mean to Yourself, Melody Beattie finds a unique way towards unraveling the reasons why this may be so. Beattie reaches the reader at the level of the solar plexus - an area of the body to which she refers several times as she recounts her 1996 journey through Algeria, Morocco and Egypt. While one may never see Giza's pyramids, Melody's "leap of faith" in that exotic locale helps the reader to vicariously experience her inner transformation, which is really what this book is about.

Cairo and Giza are areas of the world wherein the 'ancient' rubs shoulders with the 'modern'. While being guided through the marketplace called the "souk", Melody observes a man using a stick to hit (thus identifying for the benefit of those in his vicinity) any thieves or "bad guys" among the crowd. It occurs to her at that moment that she has been "walking without a stick" all these years - she has never been able to protect herself from those who would do her harm, much less identify them. This revelation displays a yearning for intuition that could have protected her earlier in life and now comes too late to do so.

Symbolism permeates her tale. There are references to living in a psychological "box" and being tossed about as in a "vortex" - she makes good use of these images in describing some very disturbing episodes. What emerges, in the end, is Melody's realization that her pain-filled life has had a greater purpose after all - in her new awareness, she can now help others in their quest for meaning and fulfillment.

Don't Waste Your Money.......2002-08-20

I am seldom pushed to write a book review, especially a negative review, but this book has compelled me to write one.

I haven't read any other books by Ms. Beattie, but I doubt that I will. This book was empty, shallow, and very disappointing. Her trip to the Middle East was barely a trip, rather a few layovers, hardly enough to feel at one with the people or the land and cultures. She overnighted in Paris, spent a day in Casablanca, where she got scared at the marketplace, then bailed out in Algeria when a blackout interrupted her hot bath. One doesn't get a sense of how long she was in Cairo, but it wasn't long before her good night's sleep was interrupted by pounding in her hotel. Back to the U.S. to write this uninspiring book.

Don't waste your money.

Stop being a rich whiny woman!.......2002-04-17

This is a mediocre travelogue at best. Too often the author comes across as another rich spoiled american abroad. The narration is inherently funny as she often mispronounces common words. I didn't feel a lot of sympathy for her as she comes across as way too flighty and too new agey. I would not recommend this too highly.

An inner and outer travel diary.......2002-02-12

It is often difficult to internalize the concepts discovered by others in their search for enlightenment. Although there were (often creepy) parallels between her experiences in North Africa and my own, as well as similarities in the lessons we have learned, I often found it hard to resonate with Ms Beattie as she told her story. I do appreciate her analogy of spiritual growth to that of a computer game...we just keep going to higher levels.
Although I will probably never re-read this book, I will keep it in my office for my clients to borrow. Perhaps it will strike a chord with someone.

Average customer rating:

don't bother
Beware: This is NOT a ghost story!
A little too cheesy
No Sparks this time
How is this guy so famous?

True Believer
Nicholas Sparks
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Suspense | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
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At First Sight
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The Rescue
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The Guardian

ASIN: 0446532436
Release Date: 2005-04-12

Book Description

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes an unforgettable love story that explores the deepest mysteries of all-those of the heart. As a science journalist with a regular column in Scientific American, Jeremy Marsh specializes in debunking the supernatural. A born skeptic, he travels to the small town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, determined to find the real cause behind the ghostly apparitions that appear in the town cemetery. What he doesn't plan on however, is meeting and falling hopelessly in love with Lexie Darnell, granddaughter of the town psychic. Now, if the young lovers are to have any kind of future at all, Jeremy must make a difficult choice:return to the life he knows, or do something he's never done before-take a giant leap of faith. But his choice is only the beginning, for their story takes the most unlikely twist of all, one that will finally make Jeremy a TRUE BELIEVER.

Customer Reviews:

don't bother.......2007-09-04

I have to agree with many of the other reviewers. The premise had me interested then the story did not amount to much. I was let down at the end. The problem is I finished the book because I already bought the next one At First Sight. I think Sparks really dropped the ball on this one. It was such a let down from his other novels that I was surprised.

Beware: This is NOT a ghost story!.......2007-08-27

I'm writing this review in the hopes of dissuading anyone from buying it based on what the synopsis says on the back cover! Here's the part I'm referring to: "...Jeremy Marsh [Scientific American journalist hero of the story] specializes in debunking the supernatural and has a real nose for the strange and unusual. ...he travels to the small town of Boone Creek, determined to find the real cause behind the ghostly apparitions that appear in the town cemetery..." Based on this, I thought there would be some great ghostly intrigue interspersed with the promised love story.

Well, we don't get the first glimpse of the ghosts until page 167! And in the whole book, perhaps 30 pages (of 322) have ANYTHING to do with ghosts. As a matter of fact, the whole ghost business is a limp, mostly lifeless subplot to an equally limp love story.

And I like good love stories. But this is not one of them. Contrived and cliche, I never really cared much for the relationship of Jeremy and Lexie, the small town librarian he meets while investigating the 'ghost story'.

I believe this book would never have been published had it been a first novel - the writing drags and winds, badly in need of tightening, and neither the love story nor the ghost story, by themselves, are worth the read.

Lastly, I have to say shame on the editor for letting Mr. Sparks dish out erroneous science - a new moon is NOT caused by the moon being in the earth's shadow! That would be an eclipse. A new moon is when the moon is not visible because all of the light from the sun is hitting the side of the moon currently not visible. Google it. Amazing that such a silly error could pass the editor. But given the drivel of the rest of the book, I guess I'm not surprised.

In summary: just another shallow sappy love story, with little bits about ghosts (which turn out to be nothing anyway) interspersed. Do not buy.

A little too cheesy.......2007-08-25

This book was just okay. It is my second Nicholas Sparks book, and I am trying to figure out why he is so loved. Both the books I have read, "A Bend in the Road" and now "True Believer" were just okay. Both of these books seemed to follow the formula of boy and girl meet, boy and girl fall in love after some apprehension by one of them, boy and girl encounter snag in relationship, boy and girl work everything out in the end. Also, am I the only one that feels these are so unbelievably cheesy that they just want to gag?? The last line of "True Believer" almost had me lose my dinner it was so disgustingly cheese-ball.

No Sparks this time.......2007-08-04

I usually love Nicholas Sparks' books but this one seemed to drag on and on. I couldn't feel the connection between Jeremy and Lexie. So predictable but was hoping that they would say goodbye in the end so as to end the boredom of their relationship.

How is this guy so famous?.......2007-07-24

I have seen a couple of Spark's book-adapted movies and loved them, so i thought i would take a chance on his writing. I felt no connection to his characters, the plot was slow, and i was very disappointed. The book wasn't worth the time it took to read. Sorry, nicholas. Maybe, hopefully, his other stuff is better.

Average customer rating:

A flawed but exciting novel
I got bored
He is getting repetitious.
True North bears careful reading, but bears rewards
One of Harrison's better works

True North (Harrison, Jim)
Jim Harrison
Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Returning to Earth: A Novel
The Summer He Didn't Die
Saving Daylight
Off to the Side: A Memoir
The Beast God Forgot to Invent: Novellas

ASIN: 0802117732

Book Description

An epic tale that pits a son against the legacy of his family's desecration of the earth, and his own father's more personal violations, True North is a beautiful and moving novel that speaks to the territory in our hearts that calls us back to our roots. The scion of a family of wealthy timber barons, David Burkett has grown up with a father who is a malevolent force, and a mother made vague and numb by alcohol and pills. He and his sister Cynthia, a firecracker who scandalizes the family at fourteen by taking up with the son of their Finnish-Native American gardener, are mostly left to make their own way. As David comes to adulthood, he realizes he must come to terms with his forefathers' rapacious destruction of the woods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, as well as with the working people who made their wealth possible. In the story of the Burketts, Jim Harrison has given us a family tragedy of betrayal and amends, joy and grief, and justice for the worst of our sins. True North is a bravura performance from one of our finest writers, accomplished with deep humanity, humor, and redemptive soul.

Customer Reviews:

A flawed but exciting novel.......2007-09-28

I loved the one-page prologue: The son is on the boat, which is in the water off Veracruz even though we know the bulk of the story probably takes place in northern Michigan. The father's face has been beaten to a pulp. They cut off both of his hands and duct-taped the stubs. He is in extreme pain and wishes very earnestly to die so he can stop the pain. The son pushes him out of the boat, and the father slowly sinks below the surface and drowns.

The protagonist is from a rich family that denuded the Michigan forests and ran mining operations in Northern Michigan. In other words, financial robber barons and ecological criminals. This perplexes our hero greatly, and he decides to research the evil in his family (mostly his grandfather's and great grandfather's actions) I guess as a means to understand it and purge himself of it. Clearly, our hero identifies more with Native Americans and lives that lifestyle, unlike his salacious and out of control father. There are two major plotlines in this story, one being the hero's quest to find out more about his family's history and the other being his amorous adventures with young ladies.

One problem is with all of his female sex partners. None of them are shy and withdrawn or self-conscious about their bodies. And they all seem to approach sex with the same exact attitude and techniques, and that attitude is total abandon. It's as if, during the sex scenes, they are all the same character. It's one failing Harrison has in this novel. He doesn't seem to know how to write female characters. It's as if they were all guys with female genitals.

Another problem is related to something Robert McKee addresses in his book, STORY. I think he calls it the Law of Conservative Response. In McKee's book, he asserts that, when confronted by a dilemma or crisis, people tend to respond with the least amount of effort possible, which of course implies that, as new permutations of the problem arise, the responses develop greater magnitude. In this story, it seems as if the problem stays at the same level and so do his responses. This situation is also alluded to in Donald Maass's book, WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL. In it, Maass talks about that old chestnut, "Raising the Stakes". In other words, the consequences of the protagonist's actions become greater and the results of failure responses more dire as the story continues. And I kind of didn't have that feeling with this story. First of all, what is the great reward if the hero totally researches and understands what his ancestors did? How does that make him feel better or turn him into a better person? Also, what is the negative consequence if he fails in his mission? Not a lot as far as I can see. He won't be appreciably more screwed up than he already is.

That said, let me offer a taste of Harrison's style. You may remember I said that the hero is preoccupied with both sex and religion. Here's a passage from page 48:

I continued on to the tip of Presque Isle then circled around the west side of the peninsula and back toward home, a three-hour walk loaded with sappy feelings about Laurie, the kind of emotional schmaltz that makes country music so sodden. I made a detour to avoid passing the Baptist church what with the odors of the sin of fornication on my skin, not a small item after a year that included baptism, prayer meetings, and my prolonged and devout study of the Bible. I consoled myself by thinking that fooling with girls didn't seem high on Jesus' agenda of the forbidden, and while St. Paul was doubtless a good man he tended toward dreariness. This sort of waffling is typical of young fundamentalists looking for an angle in which they may behave as they wish.

The story is divided, so far, into three sections: the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s. Since I graduated high school in 1959, it's easy for me to get caught up these decades as my own age during these times mirrors the age of the protagonist. Harrison's use of detail from these decades appears to be flawless, and he culls up memories of things that I didn't realize I still had.

I got bored .......2006-10-01

I liked Legends of the Fall and the other two novellas that were in that book but I got bored reading this, maybe after about 40 pages or so. I found myself getting depressed just thinking that somehow I should force myself to keep reading this rambling, pointless, overly detailed coming of age type story. Finally I just said the heck with it and turned it back into the library, so happy that I didn't buy it. I would have to have absolutely nothing else going on in my life in order to tolerate this kind of book. I've noticed that many writers, after they get some fame, decide to write one of these tour-de-force books and they are almost always very bad and very boring.

He is getting repetitious........2005-09-26

Over the years I have read just about every book Jim Harrison has written. "True North" is one of his better novels. That said however, there is a reoccuring theme in just about all of Jim's books; The men are weak and/or confused Vs strong and in control women. Nothing wrong with this approach now and then, but he constantly repeats himself in this manner. Time to get a new approach Jim!
In my opinion, the best book he has ever written is "Legends of the Fall".

True North bears careful reading, but bears rewards.......2005-08-13

Though I can sympathize with them, the reviewers that complain about Harrison's rambling style and lack of focus in True North are unfortunately missing the point of the book. Those that stick with it will be generously rewarded.

This is first and foremost a novel of self-discovery and self-definition. Unfortunately, such journeys are not packaged neatly into a 3:15 song, a 90 minute movie, or 250 page tightly plotted novel (if someone knows the trick of discovering one's self in such a fashion, please post). And that's the poorly-kept secret of this book: a person's journey to find and perhaps save himself is a rambling, chaotic, often incoherent one and it's not going to fit well into our 20th/21st century indoctrinated idea of plot or novel.

In the hands of almost anyone else, such an approach would turn into a plodding, stumbling account of banalities, of burnt breakfasts and waiting in doctor's offices. This is not the case in True North. Harrison uses his wit, poetic training, and incredible clarity of observation to produce a wonderful inside view of David Burkett's struggle to make sense of his own life's story.

For those that couldn't stick with it, I suggest you put down your latest Dan Brown pablum and try True North again, this time with patience.

One of Harrison's better works.......2005-08-12

I'd read some lukewarm reviews of this novel but was encouraged to read it anyway by a chum and fellow Harrison aficionado. "True North" did not disappoint me. The novel meanders, takes its time understanding people and places, and really thinks about the world and our relationship with the world. Many of the less-than-lustrous reviews I had read of "True North" cited all the above reasons as explanations FOR NOT reading this novel, which is ridiculous. If you love the Upper Peninsula, nature, food, sex, relationships - please read this book. It is excellant, and true.

By Truck to the North: My Arctic Adventure (Adventure Travel)

Average customer rating:

By Truck to the North: My Arctic Adventure (Adventure Travel)
Andy Turnbull , and Debora Pearson
Manufacturer: Annick Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Travel | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Action & Adventure | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Arctic | Polar Regions | Travel | Subjects | Books

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52 Days by Camel: My Sahara Adventure (Adventure Travel)
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ASIN: 1550375504

Book Description

"A bone-chilling silence filled the truck. We were north of the Arctic Circle on a road made of ice -- not pavement or gravel like a regular road, just a bumpy surface of frozen water. Under the ice flowed dangerous waters, deep enough to drown in -- if the shocking cold didn't kill you first. I glanced out the window and shivered..."

Adventure is just around the corner when you climb aboard an 18-wheeler and join Andy Turnbull on his eye-opening trip to the Arctic. You're along for the ride as he befriends a trucker's dog, views the Northern Lights, gets caught in a whiteout, and explores the ice roads of the Far North. Short sidebars of information that accompany Andy's story reveal what's inside a truck's cab, why camels once carried goods through this part of North America, what kids love about live in the Arctic, and much more. Colourful maps (essential traveler's tools) help you follow Andy's route chapter by chapter!

The Unquiet Grave : The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country

Average customer rating:

We need the whole story and more facts because it affected all our lives.The Federal injustice continues to this day.
don't bother
What Did Andrew Jackson Do?
A great informative book!
Elegant writing seldom seen in non-fiction books

The Unquiet Grave : The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country
Steve Hendricks
Manufacturer: Thunder's Mouth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Conspiracy Theories | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Murder & Mayhem | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

True Crime | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Loud Hawk: The United States Versus the American Indian Movement

ASIN: 1560257350

Book Description

In 1976 the body of Anna Mae Aquash, an American Indian luminary, was found frozen in the Badlands of South Dakota—or so the FBI said. After a suspicious autopsy and a rushed burial, friends had Aquash exhumed and found a .32-caliber bullet in her skull.

Using this scandal as a point of departure, The Unquiet Grave opens a tunnel into the dark side of the FBI and its subversion of American Indian activists. But the book also discovers things the Indians would prefer to keep buried. What unfolds is a sinuous tale of conspiracy, murder, and cover-up that stretches from the plains of South Dakota to the polished corridors of Washington, D.C.

First-time author Steve Hendricks sued the FBI over several years to pry out thousands of unseen documents about the events. His work was supported by the prestigious Fund for Investigative Journalism. Hendricks, who has freelanced for The Nation, Boston Globe, Orion, and public radio, is one of those rare reporters whose investigative tenacity is accompanied by grace with the written word.

Customer Reviews:

We need the whole story and more facts because it affected all our lives.The Federal injustice continues to this day........2007-08-18

Steve Hendricks did the best job of any in documenting what happened during this period of time between American Indian people and no-Indian people in one document.
I was deeply committed and involved within the Indian communities because for some strange reason yet unknown to me I have been very close to Indian people since my youth.
I suffered and experienced the daily abject poverty with them in their homes and could not realize why they could never share what most of the people called the American Dream. I knew part of the answer was almost a
total culture of poverty rather than the Indian cultures I had learned about in school.Multi-generational abuse,physical,sexual,and substance abuse,was the direct cause of much dysfunctional behavior I witnessed.I decided early in my life and to do whatever I could do to help change whatever I could in my lifetime that would stop this injustice. I would give my own life to change that.
I always deplored most organizational efforts to accomplish anything however I joined the Michigan Chapter of the Great Lakes Indian Youth Alliance and the American Indian Movement. The reason why I joined is because for the first time in my life I could feel the surge of self respect,self actualization and spirituality within these organizations,and the individuals and Indian Communities involved at that time.It was a refreshing healing wind of change like you feel after a thunderstorm.
I actually thought the young brilliant Indian Warriors were street/woods wise and spiritual enough to avoid the pitfalls of other dominant culture civil and equal rights organizations but ultimately as far as I am concerned the movement became more and more corrupt exactly like the enemy as it matured.
Individual's like Russell Means,Dennis Banks,Ed McGaa,Floyd Westerman and others less visible continued to self actualize and work hard to individually accomplish the original goals of their and our youth in rather unusual ways after AIM died. I know that each one is committed to do what they can do to improve the lives of their families,extended families,and Indian Nations. Sometime being human they fall short of our and even their expectations. They do what they can as Warrior in spite of almost total overwhelming repression by the United States Government and the American society. However humanly flawed they remain in my mind truly contemporary Warriors of this century.
I also feel Steve Hendricks and many others are doing their best to bring out the truth and documentation of constitutional and personal injustices of those days.I expect other individuals with information to come forth with their knowledge and writing because our society is even much farther away from the truth and principals that this Country was founded on today.
As far as I am concerned whoever killed the active committed lives of the Freedom Fighters,Ray Robinson,Anna Mae Aquash, Neogeshick Aquash the FBI Agents, and the others made a serious mestake and destroyed the purity, beauty,and Sacred Place of the Movement. The murderer or murderers who called for the hit on the precious Warrior Anna Mae Aquash in that instant killed AIM with the same bullet. They will pay for that decision deep within their soul.
I was pleased to see a that the Law Library at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law purchased the copy of The Unquiet Grave I am reading for their students.
It is my hope and prayer that the youth of today will read everything they can get their hands on work, and commit to make justice a reality in their lifetimes.
As long as this abuse, poverty, and injustice remains in our society no one will be free. Until the truth is known we will all be in a "unquiet grave" just waiting for the next shovel of dirt.
If you want to broaden your knowledge,be alive,and aware at least read this book and those that will be forthcoming.

don't bother.......2007-06-26

How this tome ever got past the editors and into print I will never know. What is the author trying to say? It is never clear. The first part of the book seemingly is about, among many, many, many other things (way too many if you ask me), the murder of Annie Mae Aquash - and great detail is included about the circumstances surrounding the discovery of her death. Abruptly at some point in the 2nd part of the book, we find ourselves at the trial of one of three people accused of her murder (none of whom were ever mentioned in part one, and, as to whom there is virtually no biographical detail included). At the same time, the book includes voluminous biographical detail and digression about many, many, many other individuals, for no particular reason it seems. I finished the book because I wanted to see if the author was going to bring this tangled mass of trivial and unimportant details together in some coherent way, but alas, all I got for the effort was high blood pressure. Among the book's many other flaws are these: the author reports on at least one trial, but seemingly has no grasp of trial tactics or evidentiary rules - he chastises lawyers for not bringing up details that (a) would have been irrelevant; and (2) would have been inadmissible; the author too often says things like "but we will never know . . . " about things that are perfecty checkable, things he could have fact-checked if he had chosen to; and, the author seems to believe in a big conspiracy or two that must explain all of the loose ends he leaves, but he never explains what those conspiracies were about and who was in them. Has he ever heard of topic sentences? I am astounded to read the other positive reviews posted here about this book. I consider it to have been an utter waste of my time, and a disservice to the topics he attempted to cover.

What Did Andrew Jackson Do?.......2007-05-27

Mr. Hendricks' book is burdened with the same dichotomy (Multiple Personality Disorder/schizophrenia) as the Euro-invaders' ever-shifting policy/pendulum on what to do about "the Indian problem." The first part of this book does a salutary job of explaining to the unfamiliar some historical bases of the white "Westward Ho!" "Manifest Destiny" expansion across the North American continent, its effect on Native Americans, and the rise ("AIM is good") of the American Indian Movement. But parts of the second part - the fall ("AIM is bad,") could pass for being ghost-written by nemesis J Edgar Hoover and his COINTELPRO'd FBI.

Though flawed in some "facts" and reporterage, Unquiet Grave is marketable and intelligible to the masses and it is important that wider cultures read this (in the Aretha Franklin sense to RESPECT the Native cultures, delight in diversity, and abhor forced "assimilation and "THINK") about what the US Government did - not only in the Miner's Canary sense (If the US Government so cavalierly abrogates/ignores its treaties with the First Nations before this Nation - what does that tell other sovereign nations with whom we seek to entreat?) but also the Santayana sense ("those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.")

For a fuller understanding of Wounded Knee I (1890); Wounded Knee II (1973,) and context, this reviewer recommends my List "The water's still running and the grass still growing, so .? " including

Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (Civilization of the American Indian)
and
Robert Redford/Sundance Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story

What did Bill Janklow do? /TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer "What do you mean 'illegal alien,' Pilgrims?"

A great informative book!.......2007-04-11

If you are looking for a book that gets right to the heart of government corruption in Native American history yesterday and today this is the book for you to read! The writer has done a wonderfull job researching and digging to get to facts that our inept and sickening government would like to turn a blind eye to. A must read for all people and definately for those who wish to enlighten themselves.

Elegant writing seldom seen in non-fiction books.......2007-02-01

The Unquiet Grave is written as a non-fiction book should be written--with verve, wit, and balance. The author, Hendricks, sifts through reams of information without imparting the pain of his research to the reader; with a novelist's ear and eye he makes every word count, every paragraph visual.

Throughout the book he weaves interviews, news accounts, court records, and censored FBI documents into a story you learn to care about. He does not shy from critical analysis of historical events or of the characters and parties involved, which is refreshing given the geography of most U.S. journalism today.

If you're concerned about the abuses of government powers (past and present), if you think injustice needs to be properly witnessed, then flip through The Unquiet Grave. It's a good read, a hopeful beacon in the fog and the darkness of the American political psyche. Support an investigative journalist working in the heartland of the U.S. empire--they are a dying breed on a punishing road.

Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea

Average customer rating:

A hero in everybody else's mind
excellent reading. The cruel sea.
Don't Read This Great Sea Story - LISTEN INSTEAD
Uses historical documents and modern accounts to spice true adventure.
Captain Courageous

Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea
Frank Delaney
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

General | Transportation | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1400065240
Release Date: 2006-06-27

Book Description

“HEAVEN HELP THE SAILOR ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS.”
–old folk prayer

In late December 1951, laden with passengers and nearly forty metric tons of cargo, the freighter S.S. Flying Enterprise steamed westward from Europe toward America. A few days into the voyage, she hit the eye of a ferocious storm. Force 12 winds tossed men about like playthings and turned drops of freezing Atlantic foam into icy missiles. When, in the space of twenty-eight hours, the ship was slammed by two rogue waves–solid walls of water more than sixty feet high–the impacts cracked the decks and hull almost down to the waterline, threw the vessel over on her side, and thrust all on board into terror.

Flying Enterprise’s captain, Kurt Carlsen, a seaman of rare ability and valor, mustered all hands to patch the cracks and then try to right the ship. When these efforts came to naught, he helped transfer, across waves forty feet high, the passengers and the entire crew to lifeboats sent from nearby ships. Then, for reasons both professional and intensely personal, and to the amazement of the world, Carlsen defied all requests and entreaties to abandon ship. Instead, for the next two weeks, he fought to bring Flying Enterprise and her cargo to port. His heroic endeavor became the world’s biggest news.

In a narrative as dramatic as the ocean’s fury, acclaimed bestselling author Frank Delaney tells, for the first time, the full story of this unmatched bravery and endurance at sea. We meet the devoted family whose well-being and safety impelled Carlsen to stay with his ship. And we read of Flying Enterprise’s buccaneering owner, the fearless and unorthodox Hans Isbrandtsen, who played a crucial role in Kurt Carlsen’s fate.
Drawing on historical documents and contemporary accounts and on exclusive interviews with Carlsen’s family, Delaney opens a window into the world of the merchant marine. With deep affection–and respect–for the weather and all that goes with it, he places us in the heart of the storm, a “biblical tempest” of unimaginable power. He illuminates the bravery and ingenuity of Carlsen and the extraordinary courage that the thirty-seven-year-old captain inspired in his stalwart crew. This is a gripping, absorbing narrative that highlights one man’s outstanding fortitude and heroic sense of duty.

“One of the great sea stories of the twentieth century… [a] surefire nautical crowd-pleaser.”
--Booklist é (starred review)

“Frank Delaney has written a completely absorbing, thrilling and inspirational account of a disaster at sea that occasioned heroism of the first order. In the hands of a gifted storyteller,
the ‘simple courage’ of the ship’s captain and the young radio man who risked their lives to bring a mortally wounded ship to port reveals the essence and power of all true courage–
a stubborn devotion to the things we love.”
–Senator John McCain

Customer Reviews:

A hero in everybody else's mind.......2007-06-19

I was a child of 7 at the end of 1951, and vividly recall going to the Saturday flicks and watching the MovieTone newsreel footage (voiceovers by Ed Herlihy)of the Flying Enterprise in her ongoing struggle to remain afloat. It was the most gripping drama of that era, and the Captain was rightly lionized for his perverse determination to stay with the ship and bring her to port.

At the time, his devotion was seen largely as a blind commitment to duty and obligation, and few commentators ever seriously made the case that abandoning ship would make the Enterprise fair game for marine salvage companies.

So, the tale is well-told, with solid pacing and few digressions into irrelevancies. The things that really were missing from the book, given the saturation photographic and media coverage of the event when it happened, are (1) a cross-sectional diagram of the ship showing how it was loaded, hold by hold, (2) drawings of how the split-hull repair was made and (3) a good collection of photos of the wreck in distress. The omission of these photos is sad, considering that the struggle was filmed for days and the author has only seen fit to include some gray-tone renderings as cover sheets for each section.

excellent reading. The cruel sea........2007-01-16

As a sailor and someone who has great respect for the sea I have recommended this book to my Friends and also given away copies to family, whom I would like to read this book and get the experience though the book.
The sea can be Cruel and wonderful at different times, I love the Ocean but at the same time Respect it for what it can do. The book leaves you wondering how things could have been done differently and perhaps there was other reasons for what took place, the book leaves you thinking, which is good, I can highly recommend this book.
Hans Andersen.

Don't Read This Great Sea Story - LISTEN INSTEAD.......2006-10-19

I listened to the CD version of Simple Courage. Other reviewers have deducted marks for the book's length and author's personal narrative. None of that mars the audio version. LISTEN to the CD. It's been expertly abridged by Kristin Lesko into a tight, taut, compelling story. Frank Delaney is an absolutely OUTSTANDING reader/narrator (a long prior career at the BBC probably helped). I begrudged every moment it took to eject the finished CDs and spin up the new ones.

Uses historical documents and modern accounts to spice true adventure........2006-10-15

Frank Delaney's SIMPLE COURAGE: A TRUE STORY OF PERIL ON THE SEA tells of a 1951 ship laden with passengers and tons of cargo heading from Europe to America which faced huge waves which about destroyed her. Her captain fought to bring her cargo and passengers safely to port: his courageous story is told on audio for the first time, and uses historical documents and modern accounts to spice true adventure.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Captain Courageous.......2006-08-31

The world has not long remembered Captain Henrik Kurt Carlsen, but in 1952 he was deservedly one of the most famous men in the world, "The Man of the Year" according to Life magazine and plenty of other listmakers. Frank Delaney, an Irish writer, was nine years old at the time, and one of the connections he had with his difficult father while growing up in Ireland was sharing the world's fascination with Carlsen's peril at sea. Delaney remembers his father uncharacteristically summoning the family to the radio: "There is an incident happening at sea." An incident, indeed, and one that stuck with Delaney for years, finally flowering into the grand account _Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea_ (Random House). Delaney's personal interest in the story, as part of his own family's lore, is told in episodes through the book, illustrating how all the world over people were waiting to hear of the fate of Carlsen as he clung to his sinking vessel, so it helps us understand what a sensation the story was at the time. Delaney's book brings the sensation back for our own time.

For the voyage of _Flying Enterprise_ at the end of 1951, she had picked up passengers and cargo in various European docks, and was headed to the United States. The master of the ship was Captain Carlsen, a 37-year-old Danish-born American who had two decades of seagoing experience, including 43 Atlantic crossings. He was an impeccable sailor and captain. He had no pretense; everyone who knew him said that he was exactly the sort of straight-arrow he seemed to be. The ship had the ill fortune to be hit not by one but two rogue waves, the first cracking the hull and the second giving it a sixty degree list which shifted the cargo so that she could not right herself. Eventually there were ships that came to the rescue, and although one passenger died in the transfer, all the rest of the crew and passengers jumped, often heroically, into the raging and frigid waters to be dragged to safety. Carlsen ordered everyone off, including those that volunteered to continue to try to save the ship, and then began a solitary stay on the vessel, attempting to find food or a dry place in which to wedge mattresses so he could catch some sleep. A seagoing hero in peril was a great story, and the press ran with it, ensuring that even Delaney's isolated family knew of "Stay-Put Carlsen" or "Captain Courageous." There were those who thought there must be some hidden motive to keep Carlsen aboard in such atrocious conditions, but the truth is, as the title of the book implies, simple: Carlsen knew his duty, he loved his ship, and until there was no hope, he was not leaving.

This was the biggest one-man heroism story since Lindbergh. He was honored on his return to England, and when he got to New York, he was given a ticker tape parade. He refused to cash in on his fame; even while he was awaiting rescue, a beer tycoon had arranged for a packet to be dropped to him offering him $30,000 to endorse a particular brew. He declined an appearance on _The Ed Sullivan Show_. He was quickly put back at work for his shipping line, and was a hero to all, except for himself. For one thing, he never understood why people would get so worked up over a man who was simply carrying out his duty; for another, he felt a deep personal shame that he had become a captain who had lost a ship. It is a true touch of tragedy within a spellbinding tale of a hero pitted against the vicious sea.

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