The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale

Book Description

At last! Here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). It now appears as it was originally envisioned by the author: The Complete Maus.

It is the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent read.......2007-09-12

I read Maus I and II back in junior high and thought it was really cool that I was reading a book while also reading a comic. I purchased and re-read the boxed set recently when I stumbled upon it on Amazon. It's excellent. Truly a one-of-a-kind story, told in a way that gets the reader engaged in the details of what went on back in World War II. I love the cleverness of the Jews being portrayed as mice and the Nazi soldiers as cats. The only qualm I have with this series is that Maus II (the second and last book) ends rather abruptly, which is sort of understandable if you read the books. Honestly, I wanted more from the author and the storyline. Either way, it was a good read back when I was age 12 and still a good read at age 25.

DEMEAMING, INSENSITIVE, STEREOTYPING, TOO GRAPHIC - JUST NOT CORRECT.......2007-09-01

I just don't understand, how any type of stereotyping, as maus is loaded with it, can be acceptable. Stereotyping like bigotry, can "never" be justified! The graphic nature of this book is also "disturbing." With so many other books out there, I personally am unable to understand why anyone would use this book that offends "other" (3 million Catholic Poles for starters)holocaust victims. Many, many books out there get the job done, without such dark graphics and offending peoples, who were also victims. There are three books that I feel are truly objective, factual and just not as offensive, as Maus is: "Auschwitz," by Sybile Steinbacher, Richard Lukas' "The Forgotten Holocaust," which "objectively" talks about "everyone's" suffering in the holocaust; and finally, Michael R. Marrus' "The Holocaust in History." On Marrus' book: "An ideal introduction to the subject for any student of the Holocaust, and an authoritative summary for the expert." Yehuda Bauer, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem(back cover). With all the suffering and sensitivity on the Holocaust, "all" victims' feelings should be considered - maus does "not" accomplish this.

Sometimes truth is better than fiction........2007-08-21

I stumbled across this a few days ago in a book shop in Cambodia, of all places. I sat transfixed reading the book until 4 a.m., when my eyes could no longer focus. When I awoke the next day, I finished the book.

We are provided with a narrative by the father, a Holocaust survivor, and a more recent portrayal of the author (the son, who happens to be the artist, also). We see the trials and tribulations of his father and his mother as a young Jewish couple in World War 2 era Poland during the Nazi invasion and subsequent occupation.

We also get to share the experience of being the guilty son of Holocaust survivors. He worries about seeing his father as the stereotypical "miserly old Jew." Can he have judgment about people who have suffered through so much? Can he have a bit of animosity towards his parents, as most people tend to do? The author has to question how his mother could have survived the Nazi regime, but committed suicide when he was 20. He has to question the relationship with his father. Is he annoying or pitiful or admirable?

All these muddled emotions and the true story of a man who lived through the most brutal crime of the 20th century all come into play.

The drawings are great. The format is great. The idea to show different races as different animals is also great. Because, as silly as that sounds- isn't even sillier that people see our own races as different creatures?

Maus.......2007-08-10

As a Polish/american/alsacian I need to say this book is amazing. It captures all cultures together and produces the most authentic representation of WW2 I have ever read.

Immensely sad. Full of pathos. An immense work.......2007-06-13

More than a graphic novel. Rather a powerful moving tale of a son's recovery of a father's experience of the years of the holocaust and how this trickled down into contemporary family life. Reflective and immense in scope. I would recommend this book genuinely to anyone interested in what makes life worth living. The vignettes of Spiegelman's father are harrowing and inspiring, accentuated by a matter of fact story telling style. Spiegelman's insertion of his own family into the narrative serves to contrast the relatively normal travails of a modern family with those of families on the edge of survival and extinction.

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History

Average customer rating:

Maus: Explores the ineffable with creativity and ease
A Compelling Graphic Novel
Approbation for Maus
Excellent seller!!
DEMEANIG, INSENSITIVE, CRUDE STEREOTYPING, HURTFUL TO "OTHER" HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
Art Spiegelman
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0394747232
Release Date: 1986-08-12

Amazon.com

Some historical events simply beggar any attempt at description--the Holocaust is one of these. Therefore, as it recedes and the people able to bear witness die, it becomes more and more essential that novel, vigorous methods are used to describe the indescribable. Examined in these terms, Art Spiegelman's Maus is a tremendous achievement, from a historical perspective as well as an artistic one.

Spiegelman, a stalwart of the underground comics scene of the 1960s and '70s, interviewed his father, Vladek, a Holocaust survivor living outside New York City, about his experiences. The artist then deftly translated that story into a graphic novel. By portraying a true story of the Holocaust in comic form--the Jews are mice, the Germans cats, the Poles pigs, the French frogs, and the Americans dogs--Spiegelman compels the reader to imagine the action, to fill in the blanks that are so often shied away from. Reading Maus, you are forced to examine the Holocaust anew.

This is neither easy nor pleasant. However, Vladek Spiegelman and his wife Anna are resourceful heroes, and enough acts of kindness and decency appear in the tale to spur the reader onward (we also know that the protagonists survive, else reading would be too painful). This first volume introduces Vladek as a happy young man on the make in pre-war Poland. With outside events growing ever more ominous, we watch his marriage to Anna, his enlistment in the Polish army after the outbreak of hostilities, his and Anna's life in the ghetto, and then their flight into hiding as the Final Solution is put into effect. The ending is stark and terrible, but the worst is yet to come--in the second volume of this Pulitzer Prize-winning set. --Michael Gerber

Book Description

A story of a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father's story and history itself.

Customer Reviews:

Maus: Explores the ineffable with creativity and ease.......2007-09-18

The book is adumbrated in the form of a graphic novel, giving a seemingly new perspective on the holocaust. The issue itself is nothing spectactularly new, although it approaches the holocaust in such a way that the most acerbic of events are bearable.
Most simply stated, the visual aid that accompanies the text allows for the reader to fully understand the author's stance, or viewpoint on the touchy issues of the holocaust. One does not need to have any sort of historical acumen, to grasp the concepts and ideas of the story.
The facade, of animals, instead of humans, used by the author also makes the events seem a little less human. However, throughout the novel, the thought doesn't escape your mind, that this was actually happening, to real people.
The reader is also easily captivated by the father-son presentation of the story, as Art (the author), interviews his father. With nothing but acrimony polluting the stories told by his father, a bond is formed between the reader, Art, and his father, as you must approbate anyone who braves these hardships, more specifically, the characters.
Overall, this story makes something new, that has been done so many times. It entertains, as well as informs. However, it isn't something I'd recommend for casual reading, as time must be set aside to truly appreciate the events in this book.

A Compelling Graphic Novel.......2007-09-18

When hearing the words "Graphic Novel" most people do not think of a moving and inspirational story, yet Maus by Art Spiegelman is just that. Firstly I would recommend this novel for its crafty and meaningful graphics. Various groups, such as the Jewish and German, are depicted as numerous animals. In doing so, the author expresses underlying themes, as one judges another's character by how they look, or their origin. Each picture also conveys the deep feeling in each moment. Frighten and sometimes acerbic faces, give the reader acumen on how the characters feel and are reacting. Also, several depictions of maps and drawings, heightening one's understanding of each setting. The second reason I would recommend the novel is because of the compelling story lines it contains. The first is Vladek's poignant account on how he and his wife survived as the Nazis abrogated their rights. From witnessing friends being hanged, to hiding in attics, the reader gains and insight on personal experiences of the Holocaust. The second is of a strained father and son relationship. As the father ages, the interest and reminiscence of a troubled past becomes their last connection. These assiduous characters are connectable for the reader, and acquire my last approbation. Anyone with a stained relationship or even an experience with isolation, can relate to the feelings and manners of the characters. With evocative graphics, gripping story lines, and relatable characters, Maus is a compelling novel which I highly propose.

Approbation for Maus.......2007-09-18

Maus should be greatly encouraged with approbation. The book displays the crude reality of the Holocaust and World War II in a creative, artistic way that makes the book classic and unique. Having Jews displayed as mice and Nazis as cats, Spiegelman uses much acumen in how the book is laid out and the story told. Even without reading, the graphic art adumbrates the story enough to understand.
Artie is a comic book writer who decides to write meaningful stories instead of useless funny ones, and wishes to interview his father about his experiences during the Holocaust. Vladek willingly tells his story to Artie, who seems unchanged by the troubling information his father is offering him. Throughout the story, Vladek becomes almost an anathema to Artie, and Artie finally finds the hate for his father that was always brewing. Although Artie dislikes his father, his father dislikes himself as well. After the war, life was never the same for Vladek. Having never gotten over his wife's death, and feeling antipathy for his new wife, he seemed to abjure all opportunities to enhance his life and adopted a new, somewhat acerbic personality.
Overall, the story told in Maus is an unforgettable one. It brings about several ineffable issues such as the harshness of World War II and how the Nazis arrogated lives with no right to do so. In addition, how these times were difficult even for the high class. The graphic art in the book ties all of the information together and allows a visual interpretation what the book is saying. Although the story is based on World War II and the Holocaust, it is as much about family issues and hidden hate as it is about history. Throughout the whole experience, Artie and Vladek discover where they truly stand with each other and decide that this deleterious relationship is not worth the trouble any longer.

Excellent seller!!.......2007-09-15

Good seller! Highly recommended for all buyers. My item was timely sent and the condition of the item was as described.

DEMEANIG, INSENSITIVE, CRUDE STEREOTYPING, HURTFUL TO "OTHER" HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS.......2007-09-14

This is as bad, as the 1st Maus: Horribly GRAPHIC, EXREMELY CRUDE and INSENSITIVE to the "OTHER" victims of the holocaust. Spiegleman shows absolutely "no" sympathy or sensitivity to the 3 million Polish-Catholics that were killed by the Germans. Adding insult to injury, he portrays the Poles in a very negative and hurtful manner, when in fact the Poles themselves lost everything. Poles, as well as Jews, lost their homes. Poles, as well as Jews, came home to homes that were piles of rubble. There are so many better vechicles out there to teach about this. This is the last one to use, as it seriously offends many innocent students whose parents and grandparents also suffered, died and lost everything in the Forgotten Holocaust. Better books are: Sybille Steinbacher's "Auschwitz. Steinbachers book gets the job done without all the grusome graphics and vulgar demeaning that is in Maus. Richard Lukas' "The Forgoten Holocaust; Poles Under Nazi-Occupation," and "Did The Children Cry: The suffering of Polish & Jewish children in the holocaust." After reading the latter one by Lukas, you'll never go anywhere near a Maus book again! "Did The Children Cry," will be a wake-up call - unless you are inhumane. Lukas, in both book, talks, OBJECTIVLY about "all" who suffered, without the sick graphics and personal attacks that maus has. Michael Marrus' "The Holocaust in History." Marrus, like Steinbacher and Lukas is controlled, scholarly and informative - Spiegleman is not. These 3 books will explain and teach you something, unlike Maus, that only teaches hateful generalizations through stereotyping and is grusomly graphic. Don't be fooled by the hype. Maus gets an F- for humanity. TEACHERS, PLEASE, BE TEACHERS!

Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple

Average customer rating:

Haunting
Chilling well-written memoirs
Excellent Book
A very well-written historic account of the Jonestown massacre
Going off to College? A must Read.

Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple
Deborah Layton
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385489846
Release Date: 1999-11-09

Amazon.com

Deborah Layton was, by her own account, a typical rebellious youth, with nothing in her dossier to indicate that she would eventually find herself in Jim Jones's People's Temple in Guyana, looking for a way out of the green hell that had become the People's Temple Agricultural Project. She barely escaped in June 1978. Within months, more than 900 people drank Jones's cyanide punch and committed "revolutionary suicide" in the face of mounting stateside pressure on the cult, some of it prompted by Layton's own testimonials upon her safe return home. Her brother, Larry, also survived, and as one of the few left alive in Guyana became a scapegoat for Jones's crimes; he is now serving a life sentence in federal prison.

There is a simple naiveté at the root of Seductive Poison. Layton's own youthful innocence, foremost, but also the desire to trust another person, the need for belonging and meaning, which led so many perfectly normal Americans to place their faith in a suicidal madman. Far from confirming the simplistically monstrous Jones of the public imagination, Layton paints the man as a dark, twisted shaman, by turns soothing, then suddenly malevolent and petty, with a hugely sadistic streak that belied his perfectly coifed hair, expensive suits, and impressive political connections. The scenes in which she describes her escape and flight to safety are wrenching, her last-minute conversation with Jones and his seductive appeal for her to return home to Jonestown are chilling, and her fear and indecision are still palpable on the printed page. For Layton to recount tales this personal and horrifying must have been tremendously difficult. For her to lift those recollections above the bargain-basement freak-show reputation the People's Temple has achieved in the popular imagination and depict them with the power of great tragedy is nothing but extraordinary. --Tjames Madison

Book Description

Told by a former high-level member of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown survivor, Seductive Poison is the "truly unforgettable" (Kirkus Review) story of how one woman was seduced by one of the most notorious cults in recent memory and how she found her way back to sanity.

From Waco to Heaven's Gate, the past decade has seen its share of cult tragedies. But none has been quite so dramatic or compelling as the Jonestown massacre of 1978, in which the Reverend Jim Jones and 913 of his disciples perished. Deborah Layton had been a member of the Peoples Temple for seven years when she departed for Jonestown, Guyana, the promised land nestled deep in the South American jungle. When she arrived, however, Layton saw that something was seriously wrong. Jones constantly spoke of a revolutionary mass suicide, and Layton knew only too well that he had enough control over the minds of the Jonestown residents to carry it out. But her pleas for help--and her sworn affidavit to the U.S. government--fell on skeptical ears. In this very personal account, Layton opens up the shadowy world of cults and shows how anyone can fall under their spell. Seductive Poison is both an unflinching historical document and a riveting story of intrigue, power, and murder.

Customer Reviews:

Haunting.......2007-08-09

This book is horrifying. I could not put it down, and since I have finished it I can't stop thinking about it. I would highly recommend it.

Chilling well-written memoirs.......2007-07-24

This is a detailed account of what really went on in The People's Temple.
It is very upsetting and at the same time not able to put down!
Deborah Layton writes with passion, details and a timeline.

Deborah's personal account on how she was raped, taken from her father, forced into marriage with a man she wasn't allowed to interact with and many many more terrifying accounts.

One is obligated to know of such cruel terrible events, such as the mass-suicide-murder, to be able to prevent similarities in the future.
MUST BUY MUST BUY MUST BUY!

Excellent Book.......2007-07-09

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the Jonestown tragedy. How Deborah Layton escaped with her life is a miracle. What is even more amazing is how she was able to go on with her life and survive; to be able to reclaim one's mind after such an experience is truly a testament to her strength of character.

A very well-written historic account of the Jonestown massacre.......2007-07-08

I was just a kid when the Jonestown tragedy hit the news. Like most kids my age we did not understand how one man could convince 1000 people to kill themselves. I never understood it and so I figured that they must have all been "crazy". I never researched the tragic story and don't recall hearing much about it after the initial story. But then I saw a special a few months ago on public TV and was mortified by what Jim Jones had done to the people who trusted him with their very existence. That was what compelled me to find and read this book. I thought the author did a fantastic job of telling her story. She never once made herself out to be any one special. She was brutally honest about herself and her thoughts and feelings of and for Jim Jones. She was really just a sheep like all the rest of them and completley under his spell. Somehow she started thinking for her self and woke up to the fact that he was crazy and getting crazier everyday. It is sad that her initial accounts and warning of the mass suicide were not taken more seriously. Had the government listened they would not have let a congressman and a news crew - do their job. This story is a very well-written historic account of the Jonestown massacre and I think everyone should read it.

Going off to College? A must Read........2007-06-21

This book should be handed out to high school graduates. Ms. Layton gives a vivid and very moving account of her expriences with The People's Temple and Jim Jones. Those naieve and going off to college would do well to familarize themselves with the way people can disillusion others and the almost silent way cults can sneak into a young person's life. As a survivor of a cult myself, I highly recommend Ms. Layton's book to parents, teens, and also those who have experienced cults first hand, as it helped me come to terms with what had happened to me.

Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language

Average customer rating:

comfortable in London, half way between New York and Cracow..
Lost in Translation
Lost, But Found As Well
Enlightening description of immigration and languages
a classic

Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language
Eva Hoffman
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140127739

Amazon.com

The condition of exile is an exaggeration of the process of change and loss that many people experience as they grow and mature, leaving behind the innocence of childhood. Eva Hoffman spent her early years in Cracow, among family friends who, like her parents, had escaped the Holocaust and were skeptical of the newly imposed Communist state. Hoffman's parents managed to immigrate to Canada in the 1950s, where Eva was old enough to feel like a stranger--bland food, a quieter life, and schoolmates who hardly knew where Poland was. Still, there were neighbors who knew something of Old World ways, and a piano teacher who was classically Middle European in his neurotic enthusiasm for music. Her true exile came in college in Texas, where she found herself among people who were frightened by and hostile to her foreignness. Later, at Harvard, Hoffman found herself initially alienated by her burgeoning intellectualism; her parents found it difficult to comprehend. Her sense of perpetual otherness was extended by encounters with childhood friends who had escaped Cracow to grow up in Israel, rather than Canada or the United States, and were preoccupied with soldiers, not scholars. Lost in Translation is a moving memoir that takes the specific experience of the exile and humanizes it to such a degree that it becomes relevant to the lives of a wider group of readers.

Customer Reviews:

comfortable in London, half way between New York and Cracow.........2007-03-25

I will not refer to the book itself as so many have reviewed it already. I just wish to make a brief comment, in addition to stating that it is a good book

The author, Eva Hoffmann, would never have written this particular book if, when leaving Poland, her mother had had the last word on where to immigrate to, North America or Israel. She had preferred Israel and the anxt, the feeling of being torn between two cultures would not have haunted her enough to write a book. I too have been transplanted. In my case at least three time but possibly five. As right through my cultural identity was always clear to me as Jewish, I could move from culture to culture without feeling that I had to be "translated" into them. Only few will understand what I am trying to say: had she been better grounded in her Jewish culture and identity, she would never have felt such conflict.

On the other hand, for those of us who have experienced her "angst" though in a lower dose, the book is a useful projection of something that could not be understood except as such a total and essential question; magnified for the sake of study.

If not London, but Jerusalem would have made Eva Hoffmann feel comfortable, she would be a less anxious (neurotic?) person but perhaps a lesser thinker. This is a book to keep even after reading it. It is almost a reference book.

Lost in Translation.......2007-01-04

A wonderful book on moving from one culture to another and one language to another--Polish to English. Anyone who has had this experience will immediately identify with the author. Eva Hoffman writes beautifully about every nuance of her family's move as a young teenager from Communist Poland to Canada. Cultures that are superficially similar turn out to be very different and the effect on family life is staggering.

Lost, But Found As Well.......2007-01-01

Hoffman's description of Poland in the Communist years following World War II is riveting, and so is her narrative of life in the U.S. following her arrival here at age 13. But what impresses me most about this book is its assured writing style, and the author's ability to skip back and forth from one decade and year to another without boring or losing the reader. Hoffman is an unusually gifted writer. I am using her text as a teaching tool for a would-be memoir/autobiographer. Thank heaven her parents survived the Holocaust and brought her to us.

Enlightening description of immigration and languages.......2006-12-16

I started reading this wonderful book 6 months before I left Brazil towards Israel. After finishing the first Part (Paradise) I just could not keep on reading, and I abandoned the book for a while. After I landed in Israel I re-took the book and was delighted again with the realness of it. A thought occurred to me that the reading was so descriptive of the immigration sentiment that I just could not understand it before immigrating myself.

The book helped me to understand and to organize the infinite sensations that come with the leaving/arriving to another country. How the language affects the way we think and act, how sadness and happiness are mingled into one strange feeling, how we cope and forget without noticing, and how we urge to succeed and prove that we can be part of the new country.

In addition, the book also brought to me new feelings and curiosities about my grandparents, whom also escaped from Poland and Russia in the late 40's. Hoffman describes so well how the old traditions and languages influenced the new live of those who left their country because of prejudice and persecution!

One passage that I am specially fond of: "No, I'm no patriot, nor was I ever allowed to be. And yet, the country of my childhood lives within me with a primacy that is a form of love. (...) All it has given me is the world, but that is enough. It has fed me language, perceptions, sounds, the human kind. It has given me the colors and the furrows of reality, my first loves. The absoluteness of those loves can never be recaptured: no geometry of the landscape, no haze in the air, will live in us as intensely as the landscapes that we saw as the first, and to which we gave ourselves wholly, without reservations." It reminds me of Wordsworth when he writes about Tintern Abbey.

A wonderful life-changing book.

a classic.......2006-06-19

I loved this book when it came out and I love it still many rereadings later. This portrait of the Wandering Jew as a young girl begins with Hoffman's childhood in Cracow, Poland just after the second world war; moves to Vancouver, British Columbia when she is thirteen; continues on to Texas and Massachusetts for her university years; and ends in New York, where she becomes a writer and an editor at the New York Times Book Review. It encompasses many themes: the defining power of language; the cost of changing cultures, the construction of personal identity, and the consequences, for many Jews, of the Nazi and Communist regimes. Hoffman was born in the summer of 1945. Like many Jews in post-war, Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe, the Hoffmans observed Passover and had home-baked challah, on shabbat but Eva was culturally Polish, reading Sienkiewicz's nationalistic novels, playing Chopin etudes, attending church with her friends, receiving gifts on St. Nicholas's Day. After emigration, she adapts to North American culture, first Canadian, then Texan, then New York. This is a memoir squarely in the Jewish immigrant tradition but one in which the immigrant is a graduate student at Harvard, and relates her situation not only to Mary Antin but to contexts laid out by Sartre and Nabokov, Jung and Freud. Lost in Translation contains stories and essays, phrases to ruminate on, ideas to consider. It is a demanding read that challenges its reader to consider her own autobiography, her own childhood, her own assumptions. Having compiled an international bibliography of Jewish women's non-fiction books with poet Irena Klepfisz (available on my website) , I can say this is one of my favorites.

Average customer rating:

Could not put the book down!
Memoirs of a Sex Industry Survivor
A Great Read! Informative and honest!
great book...very emotionally descriptive
Good Subject, Horrible delivery

Memoirs of a Sex Industry Survivor
Anne Bissell
Manufacturer: Cleopatra International Publications LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Accessories:

ASIN: 0974606006

Book Description

For Juliet, the "life", or the world of prostitution, started off as a game. But then the "game" took over. First she became addicted to the fast, constant, easy money, then to turning tricks into "sugar daddies".

As Juliet begins to heal from her life as prostituted teen, she meets other sex industry survivors. Their similarities change her perspective on the sex industry for good. For most sexe industry survivors, prostitution is a re-enactment of childhood sexual exploitation.

Like Juliet, these women mistankenly believed that prostitution would help them regain the power that had been stolen from them. Ultimately, this decision often proved to be soul-destroying, self-destructive, and for far too many, lethal.

Customer Reviews:

Could not put the book down!.......2007-06-13

This book is fantastic! It was riveting! Once I picked it up and began to read, I could not put it down!

Memoirs of a Sex Industry Survivor.......2006-10-16

Anne Bissell's memoir slaps the mirror up to a very expensive secret. Painfully bold and hopeful, it's one of the most enlightling books that reveals the connection between our parents to our duality, and a tombstone that awaits; not a condo, and SUV like I wanted to believe. There is an addiction to this well-dressed-death-style! I am in the business of lying to my dreams, and I want out. I am sold. I am now challenged and exposed. Read the book if you want to know the truth.

A Great Read! Informative and honest!.......2006-09-21

I read this book recently and it was such a great read! I am a sexual abuse survivor myself, and this book really shows how one thing leads to another in the sex industry. This is a good book to read if you are a survivor yourself, or if you are curious how it is women (and some men, too) get into the sex industry (pornography films and magazines, strip clubs, prostitution, etc...). If more people knew how this cycle really worked, more women and children could be saved from a devastating life-style. Through this book, I learned that just because a person working in the sex industry smiles through his/her job does NOT mean they really want to be there. It's not so much a choice at that point - too much harm has already been done, and they feel as if there is really nowhere else to go. THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ!

great book...very emotionally descriptive.......2006-04-05

This book was great...next to Lap Dancer and the fairly
new release..Dance to Despair , memoirs of an exotic dancer..
it was one of my favorites...these women ought to get together
and go on the Ophra show...you all have incredible stories
that I think would intrigue the public....

Good Subject, Horrible delivery.......2005-12-31

This is a good story about how the sex industry can tear a woman apart, and how past sexual abuses can influence ones acceptance of the sex trade. HOWEVER it is horrible delivered. The whole book could have been just one chapter of Juliet's story. It was so redundant. She kept repeating the same thing, her stepfather wanted her body, she doesn't want to marry Patrick, she was molested, okay we get this but she will tell the exact same peice of story in one chapter, and repeat it verbatim in the next chapter. IT got to the point when it seemed as if she were just whining about her situation.

I purchased the book from Barnes and Nobles last night, Im on page 73 and I keep putting the book down and trying to pick it up and go on. But, its just not interesting.

I will return the book today and pick up something else.

Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors

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How did the world let this happen?
Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors
Excellent
Stories of the soul
A sad story.

Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors
Dith Pran
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0300078730

Amazon.com

Dith Pran, the Cambodian photojournalist portrayed by Haing S. Ngor in The Killing Fields, compiled this collection of eyewitness accounts to the genocide perpetrated by Pol Pot's regime from 1975 to 1979. All of the survivors who recount their stories here were children when the Khmer Rouge took power, and the horrific images from a time when an estimated third of the Cambodian population died of disease, starvation, and execution remain fixed in their minds to this day.

The bleakness of evil made commonplace permeates these testaments. "There was a man who was friends with a woman, and they had a friendly chat under a tree," one woman writes. "Pol Pot saw them and accused them of having an affair... Pol Pot tied them up on a cross and then told everyone to watch the couple being questioned and hit. The lady was pregnant and was hit until she lost the baby and died. The man was also beaten to death." As Cambodians struggle to rebuild their lives and nation, books such as this make sure that they--and we--will never forget the depths from which they have been forced to rise.

Customer Reviews:

How did the world let this happen?.......2006-05-01

This is one of the most powerful books I have read. The writing may not be the greatest. After all it is not a novel; it is a composition of the stories of Cambodians that have survived horrendous atrocities. Before we blame the U.S. we must realize that The U.N. and the rest of the world failed to take action as well. Would the public have supported sending troops into a situation similar to Vietnam? Is Burma the next killing field? We still ignore similar circumstances that are occurring as I type this review.

Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors.......2004-01-21

This book of memoirs is deeply moving with one eulogy to a mother which I will never forget. It brought me to tears and crying out loud. Books such as these should be read by our youth before they enlist in the armed services. Naive Americans such as Jessica Lynch might not be so swept up by the manipulative promises of military recruiters if they became more informed before they enlist.

Excellent.......2003-03-31

This is a good introduction for anyone who wants to learn about life under the Khmer Rouge. The stories may be different, but they all provide a vivid detail of children struggling to survive Pol Pot's regime.

Stories of the soul.......2003-01-19

I read a lot of books Cambodia. This is yet another collection of stories about people who survived the holocaust. My heart is always touched by such stories. These types of books are always similar even though the stories are specific to individuals there are common themes. If you are interested in more personal accounts there are 2 others which I would recommend. "When Broken Glass Floats," and "First They Killed My Father."

A sad story........2002-01-14

These are the collected accounts of children who suffered untold atrocities under the Pol Pot regime such as torture, rape, starvation, beating, and killing. People were buried alive or thrown into a pot and cooked like fish or poultry. Others had their gallbladders and liver removed to serve as meals for the Khmer Rouge.

This is the story of a revolution going haywire and of ruthless men who, in the name of distorted and senseless ideologies, inflicted pain, fear, terror, and death on their countrymen.

Customer Reviews:

more than just a survivor.......2007-02-25

Mira lived to tell the tale of the holocaust. She's carried the message of strength and forgiveness, of working through the horrors she's lived by bringing the message to all who will listen. This is a strange and different book: on the one hand, so repulsive, so unbelievable, yet, on the other hand, compelling. Several questions ran through my mind: how does a person continue to live with any humanity at all after such an experience; why does one person live, while all the rest die; what kind of magnetism did Mira have that encouraged people to help her?
I've met Mira; she lives here in my home town of Oak Ridge. She will speak before my class. Perhaps my questons will be answered, and I will know who Mira is after all.

A "Must Read" Book.......2006-04-13

Echoes from the Holocaust by Mira Ryczke Kimmelman is a riveting memoir that recounts her life as a child in Danzig to her life in the United States after World War II. Mira describes how the innocence, effulgence, and peace of her youth are shattered once the Nazi troops force her family to leave their home in Poland in October 1939. Embracing her Jewish heritage, Mira tells of how she strives to preserve her identity and pride as a Jew alive by receiving secret Hebrew lessons, attending prohibited Jewish gatherings, and becoming a member of the Zionist movement. Kimmelman refuses to let herself become discouraged when she learns that more than twenty of her family members and friends are killed by the SS officers.

Infused with aspirations, Mira does whatever she can to cope with the persecution she and others receive at the ghettos and concentration camps. After suffering from typhoid, physical torture, starvation, horrendous living conditions, and simple dehumanization, Mira continues to be a burning flame among all the melted candles. All her struggles and lucky moments become learning experiences.

Mira is able to move on with her life, after the end of the war in 1945. She marries Max Kimmelman, another Holocaust survivor, and has several children and grandchildren after. She gives them the names of her relatives and close companions so that her memories of them will live on. Although life in the United States becomes a bit of a struggle, Mira manages to carve out a content life with her husband and family. She continues to encompass her traditions and tell her story of survival.

The memoir is written simplistically, but with very powerful imagery and episodes, that capture Mira's moments effectively. Metaphors, similes, or hyperboles are not necessary to make this memoir memorable. The book is divided into several short chapters that make it an easy read. With cliffhangers at the end of every chapter, this book becomes a real page-turner. An atmosphere of hope surrounds the events Kimmelman depicts and reiterates the idea that Mira has survived for a purpose. No history book can tell a story such as this one. To capture the meaning and depth of the Holocaust, one must go out and read Mira Kimmelman's account.

Unbelievable horror!.......2001-05-21

From a priveleged upbringing in pre-war Gdansk, the author and her family are deported first to Warsaw then to other ghettos and camps. The book is written in a frank, no-nonsense fashion and she really states the facts about what happened to her and her family. An amazing book and one that everyone should read.

This Voice in My Heart: A Genocide Survivor's Story of Escape, Faith, and Forgiveness

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MUST READ
Reflection
Reviewed by Carianne Carleo-Evangelist
Inspring Story
A Tale of Hope and Forgiveness

This Voice in My Heart: A Genocide Survivor's Story of Escape, Faith, and Forgiveness
Gilbert Tuhabonye , and Gary Brozek
Manufacturer: Amistad
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060817518
Release Date: 2006-05-02

Book Description

In the wake of the successful film Hotel Rwanda, a personal and inspiring story of a young boy’s survival of genocide.

Customer Reviews:

MUST READ.......2007-08-15

I truly enjoyed this book.
It meant a lot to me because I was able to see Gilbert speak at the Oklahoma City Marathon.
He is an inspiration!

Reflection.......2007-08-10

Pause a bit in your busy life and read this amazing book. The writing style is unique. The message of hope is clear. Genocide on a large scale is a subject we don't understand here in America. Gilbert's story will enlighten you, force you to count your blessings, and make you ponder.

The story of early explorations of Africa by David Livingstone is a helpful introduction to this continent. Gilbert's description of his country is very modern - his ordeal began only fourteen years ago. It provides a whole new way of thinking about how Africans lived and now live.

I am grateful to my friend in Pa. who shared a copy (signed by Gilbert) of the book with me. It's an unforgettable story about a place in Africa (Burundi) I had never heard of; about running competitions and how qualified runners in developing countries can acquire training, and about a terrible tragedy. Gilbert, a gifted runner, being the lone survivor to give the account.Gilbert details his life, his education, his experience in international running competitions, and his present life in Austin, Texas.

Best wishes, Gilbert, for success in the 2008 Olympics. May your story reach every nation. May genocide in Africa and everywhere else in our world be banned. May God continue to bless you and your efforts to build of bridge of understanding and love between nations.

Reviewed by Carianne Carleo-Evangelist.......2007-01-26

This Voice in My Heart by Gilbert Tuhabonye (Amistad--May 2006) is a heart wrenching account of what one young man, Mr. Tuhabonye, who, at the time, went by his birth name of Tuhabonyemana--Child of God--went through at a time of extreme political upheaval in his homeland of Burundi. This book is a must-read for those interested in history as well as those who want to know more about what can drive a young man to overcome and not only survive, but make a name for himself.

Early on in his story, Mr. Tuhabonye writes, "If you were to read the history of Burundi in a schoolbook, it would tell a story very different from the story of my early years. You would read words like war-torn, genocide, impoverished and sanctions. Despite all the violence and unrest that has plagued the country since it first achieved independence in 1962, for me, growing up on its southern hillsides and deep valleys, Burundi was truly a paradise." I imagine this was placed where it was to set the contrast in motion in the reader's mind--that what we get on the news--especially the Western News--is not necessarily what people are experiencing, however it had a different effect to me. Burundi, whether painted in a positive or negative light, hadn't made much of an impact on me. I don't recall spending more than a few moments glossing over the country in history and geography classes so this insider's look told me more than I could ever have expected to know. And though he wrote it as an adult, we got the point of view of a young child peering out at the world from the safety of his campus and trying to make sense of a world gone seemingly mad. An idea that most people born and raised in the relative safety of the USA cannot even begin to imagine.

The author also focuses on the little things, which serve as a reminder that material things are not necessary in order to remember times in our lives. If you fix something that's broken there's a chance that you'll lose the story of why it was broken in the first place. And what's more important? The story of the homeland to pass on to future generations or a perfect smile? A smile can always be addressed but a story once gone is lost forever. Mr. Tuhabonye's work with this story is key to making sure the story of the Burundi genocide is not lost. A reminder to the West that we must remember if we're going to avoid repeating history.

The story's pace kept the reader engaged in the story--we learned some details of the country's history while at the same time learned the small details of the life of a normal teenage boy--a life seriously interrupted by a snowballing series of events in October 1993.

From his recollections of his early days, how he longed to follow his older siblings in both their chores and going to school to the day when his life changed in seemingly an instant, Mr. Tuhabonye covered it all with a voice that seemed more as if he was talking to a few friends rather than such a large audience. It all started on a normal day: a young boy worrying about exams and thinking about a race--never realizing the next race he'd be facing was one to save his own life--to prove he was a true survivor.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be in a room where your classmates and teachers were dying around me. Dying at the hands of people I'd lived along side of. I cannot imagine having the foresight to use a classmate's bone to free myself, but Mr. Tuhabonye showed us that he has what is needed to succeed.

That drive will take him far, whether it's to Beijing in 2008 or to the next location where he speaks of the atrocities he faced, but it will help him to succeed in whatever path he pursues. He's already shown what he's made of.

Inspring Story.......2007-01-24

This is a very nice and quick read. First, it deals with Barundi and the killing of Tutsi's there, which is lesser known than what happened in Rwanda. Second, Gilbert tells his story in a very self effacing and humble manner. He does not describe himself in any sort of falsely heroic way, but neither as a victim. It is a heartfelt testimony to his village life in Barundi, his love of running and the life he is rebuilding her as an Asylee. Welcome to Texas Gilbert. We're proud to have you!

A Tale of Hope and Forgiveness.......2006-11-10

If you want to read a story about a person who has experienced such great tragedy but has used the experience to love and forgive and to help end the cycle of hate and educate us to this effect, then this book is for you. The book alternates through stories of school boy life in Burundi, running, and genocide. I am a runner in Austin Texas who hears great things about Gilbert Tuhabonye (now a running coach in Austin), but this is not a running book. This is a book about a man's dream to do well in school in order to get a U.S. college track scholarship. Despite being a victim of unthinkable horror he succeeds in doing so. But his greatest success is his ability to teach forgiveness and the book is a vehicle for doing so. The book is an easy read of a worthwhile tale.

Average customer rating:

Aharon Appelfeld's memoir
disappointing
A deeply moving memoir
haunting and compelling

The Story of a Life: A Memoir
Aharon Appelfeld
Manufacturer: Schocken
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0805241787
Release Date: 2004-10-05

Book Description

In spare, haunting, almost hallucinogenic prose, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning novelist shares with us–for the first time–the story of his own extraordinary survival and rebirth.

Aharon Appelfeld’s childhood ended when he was seven years old. The Nazis occupied Czernowitz in 1941, penned the Jews into a ghetto, and, a few months later, sent whoever had not been shot or starved to death on a forced march across the Ukraine to a labor camp. As men, women, and children fall away around them, Aharon and his father (his mother was killed in the early days of the occupation) miraculously survive, and Aharon, even more miraculously, escapes from the camp shortly after he arrives there.

The next few years of Aharon’s life are both harrowing and heartrending: he hides, alone, in the Ukrainian forests from peasants who are only too happy to turn Jewish children over to the Nazis; he has the presence of mind to pass himself off as an orphaned gentile when he emerges from the forest to seek work; and, at war’s end, he joins the stream of refugees as they cross Europe on their way to displaced persons’ camps that have been set up for the survivors. He observes the full range of personalities in the camps–exploitation exists side by side with compassion–until he manages to get on a ship bound for Palestine. Once there, Aharon attempts to build a new life while struggling to retain the barely remembered fragments of his old life (everyone urges him simply to forget what he had experienced), and he takes his first, tentative steps as a writer. As he begins to receive national attention, Aharon realizes his life’s calling: to bear witness to the unfathomable. In this unforgettable work of memory, Aharon Appelfeld offers personal glimpses into the experiences that resonate throughout his fiction.

Customer Reviews:

Aharon Appelfeld's memoir.......2007-02-27

This book is Aharon Appelfeld's memoir. Appelfeld, a Holocaust survivor and an acclaimed novelist, escaped a Nazi concentration camp when he was eight years old and wandered alone in the forests and fields of rural Ukraine for nearly three years until he was found by Russian troops. Appelfeld is known for his use of vague, dreamlike images and sparse, gentle language in writing fiction about the Holocaust. He describes just enough and lets the reader's imagination fill in the rest, turning the story into an inner experience for the reader. Appelfeld employs this same technique to great effect in his memoir, drawing the reader into his loneliness and isolation.

Appelfeld tells his life story in vignettes. He begins by recounting his earliest memories - of foods consumed in the company of loving relatives; of the different languages spoken by his parents, grandparents and neighbors. He then tells vaguely of his father sending telegrams to South America, trying to find a way out of Europe. He tells of formerly well-to-do relatives, suddenly poor and sick, coming to his parents for help and comfort.

Abruptly, Appelfeld's memories switch to crowds being loaded into railway cars - the director of a school for the blind leading his students in song as they are beaten by Nazis and herded onto the train. Even more abruptly, Appelfeld's memories shift to his years wandering alone in the forests - eating a rotten apple alongside a stream while trying to visualize his dead mother's face; huddling with farm animals for warmth at night.

At the war's end, the 13 year-old Appelfeld finds himself in a displaced persons camp in Italy. From there, he relocates to the newly-formed nation of Israel, along with other war refugees. With great sensitivity, Appelfeld recounts his struggles to learn a new language and to fit into a new culture, while mourning the loss of the culture and languages of his childhood. Appelfeld works on a kibbutz, joins the Israeli military and eventually gains admission to a university where he begins writing fiction.

Appelfeld makes clear that, while his body remembers his experiences, his mind deals with the memories in a different fashion. Sometimes there are vacant spaces in his conscious memory, and sometimes unwanted memories come rushing back unbidden. By translating these memories, vacant spaces and sensations into fiction, Appelfeld has become a voice for the collective experience of the Holocaust. I came away from this memoir with a sense of indebtedness to Appelfeld.

disappointing.......2005-01-14

Way too short on details and specifics. Apparently the author's memories of the Holocaust are still too painful or repressed. I don't need to know all the horror of it, but expected much more of an eye-witness account.

A deeply moving memoir .......2004-12-06

Applefeld is one of those writers much loved by critics but without a great legion of readers. I never somehow really 'got into ' his fictional works. This memoir however was different and I was deeply moved by it.
His story of his childhood in Czernowitz, the relations within his family, his special connection to his mother who was murdered by the Nazis , his being torn out of his childhood world, and sent with his father on a death march, his escape and life as a child in the forest and with a prostitute who makes him her servant and alternately terrifies and fascinates him, his hiding, and moving about , his finding his way to the ship which will bring him to the new home in the land of the Jews, his difficulties in accomodation , his being an outsider here even where he is supposed to be at home- all this is told with great restraint and power. Applefeld himself seems to radiate a certain kind of calm, the calm of what he has described himself often as ' the observer' the one who ' waits and looks' and tries to understand. His early efforts at writing are also described here and the contradictions between what others expected of a ' Holocaust writer' and what he himself had to give. The sense of loneliness is palpable in the last pages of the book where he tells of his coming to belong in the club made of those from his former home - region .The dissolution of this club with the years is the loss of a second home.
As with Oz in his also remarkable memoir " A Tale of Love and Darkness" Applefeld does not delve into the present reality, into the world of the new family he has made. He says he walks around and at times ' he is back there' and this work gives a real sense of what that ' there' is. I have not in this review really come close to touching on the richness of this memoir, its emotional depth. It also has great horror in it, and there is one scene one story that sticks out in my mind and which bothers me even now as I write this. It is about one camp that Applefeld came to. In this camp the Nazis had a special kind of corral in which they would throw babies, who would be devoured by German shepherds. When I think of this I wonder what the words ' forgiveness' and ' humanity ' can possibly mean. This fills my heart with such horror and sorrow, I don't know what to say. I apologize for picking out this one detail and emphasizing it so strongly .The work has many scenes and much perception of and wisdom about life. Applefeld has written a masterful and moving work. He is one person who survived the horror and has conducted himself in his life with quiet courage and great human dignity .He should be seen as a hero in the creation of Literature, not only for the Jewish people but for Humanity as a whole.

haunting and compelling.......2004-10-06

Aharon Appelfeld, the highly regarded Israeli novelist and Holocaust survivor, has written a hauntingly beautiful book.

It begins with a loving description of his childhood years with his parents in Czernowitz near the Carpathian Mountains and with his grandparents whom he visited in the country every summer. That all ended with the Nazi invasion in 1941 and the murder of his mother. After months of confinement in a ghetto, Aharon, his father, and the other Jews who had not yet been shot or starved to death were forced to march across the Ukraine to a slave labor camp.

Appelfeld writes sparingly about the ghetto, the forced march to the labor camp, his escape from the camp, and the deaths of his parents. "I have forgotten much, even things that were very close to me--places in particular, dates, and the names of people--and yet I can still sense those days in every part of my body."

He describes in somewhat greater detail the time he spent hiding alone in the Ukrainian forest. The strongest imprints the war years made on him, he writes, were intensely physical ones, like hunger for bread. "To this very day I can wake up in the middle of the night ravenously hungry. Dreams of hunger and thirst haunt me almost on a weekly basis. I eat as only people who have known hunger eat, with a strangely ravenous appetite."

He writes that his novels hardly begin to capture what he went through. "I've already written more than twenty books about those years, but sometimes it seems as if I haven't yet begun to describe them. Sometimes it seems to me that a fully detailed memory is still concealed within me, and when it emerges from its bunker, it will flow fiercely and strongly for days on end."

In the Ukrainian countryside the animals he met did not scare him. "I was sure they would do nothing harmful to me. I became familiar with cows and with horses, and they provided me with a warmth that has remained with me to this very day. Sometimes it seemed to me that what saved me were the animals I encountered along the way, not the human beings. The hours I spent with puppies, cats, and sheep were the best of the war years. I would blend in with them until I was part of them, until forgetfulness came, until I fell asleep alongside them. I would sleep as deeply and as tranquilly as I had in my parents' bed."

When from time to time he came out of hiding and worked for peasants in exchange for food, he learned how to pass himself off as a gentile orphan. Those years made him distrustful of the world around him ("even today, I stop and listen every few paces").

After the war he struggled to build a new life and learn a new language in Palestine, soon to be Israel. He immersed himself in Yiddish and Hasidic literature and began writing, but in the late 1950s he gave up trying to be what an Israeli writer was supposed to be and instead became "an emigre, a refugee, a man who carries within him the child of war, who finds talking difficult and tries to speak with a minimum amount of words."

He closes his memoir with a moving chapter about the New Life Club in Tel Aviv, which Holocaust survivors from Galacia and Bukovina established in 1950. "There was no one with whom I was close in Israel, so I'd go there to drink coffee, play chess, or listen to a lecture." Since its members spoke Yiddish, Polish, Russian, German, and Romanian, the club became a substitute home for him.

When Appelfeld's first book, Smoke, was published in 1962 to good reviews, some members complained that his characters were too grayish and too obsessed by the past. Where were the heroes? Where were the ghetto uprisings? they wanted to know. "Only later did I understand: it was hard for some people to be taken back to those places and forced to relive those experiences. The moment I understood this, I was no longer angry."

Since each club member carried within him a double and sometimes triple life, the club was important to Appelfeld for literary as well as social reasons. "I borrowed a little from each of their lives." In fact, it sometimes seemed to him "that all my writing derives not from my home and not from the war, but from the years of coffee and cigarettes at the club. The joy I experienced when it was in its heyday and the pain I felt when it collapsed--these feelings are still very much alive within me."

Part of the credit for the literary artistry of this compelling memoir goes to Aloma Halter, who translated it from the Hebrew.

--Reviewed by Charles Patterson, Ph.D., author of ETERNAL TREBLINKA: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust

Burned Alive: A Survivor of an "Honor Killing" Speaks Out

Average customer rating:

Burned Alive....tragic but true
Souad is a shero for surviving a modern-day Holocaust
How can anyone say this is not true?
HORRIBLE...
Humpty-Dumpty takes a Middle Eastern twist and Souad takes a great fall

Burned Alive: A Survivor of an "Honor Killing" Speaks Out
Souad
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Accessories:

ASIN: 0446694878

Book Description

At once harrowing and moving, this international bestseller is the first true account ever published by the victim of an 'honor crime.' Souad was a 17-year-old woman living in a small village in Jordan when she made the mistake of falling in love-an event that would lead to unspeakable acts of violence and a lifetime of exile from her homeland. Desperate to leave her abusive childhood behind, Souad begins a relationship with a neighbor-one that would leave her pregnant, and her family shamed. Now, Souad faces the only punishment her society deems acceptable: death. Her survival of her family's attempt to kill her, leaving her with burns over 70% of her body, her dramatic escape, and her resolve to build a new life is a tale of heartbreaking drama and remarkable courage.

Customer Reviews:

Burned Alive....tragic but true.......2007-09-20

This book held my interest and at times made for shocking reading. A country with beliefs so foreign to us made it almost abhorant. The true tragedy is how women in other cultures suffer and we are powerless to do anything to stop it. This book was written by a very very brave woman.

Souad is a shero for surviving a modern-day Holocaust.......2007-09-08

"Burned Alive" is an insightful account of a heinous and violent crime, that is unfortunately rather common.

Souad describes thoughtfully how she was treated worse than an animal while she lived as a slave; owned by her father in a primitive West Bank Village. On a daily basis Souad was the victim of beatings and horrible abuse. Why is that?

Because like virtually all third-world/Islamic States, women are property; not human-beings. Souad is nothing if not honest and brave as she describes in detail how it is a sin simply to be born female. She even describes how her mother murdered her own newborn baby daughters because of their gender!

Souad was forbidden to ever speak to a man and could only go outside to work her long daily chores. When she was still a teenager one of her neighbors raped her repeatedly. She was young and vulnerable and this pig told her that he "loved" her and would "marry" her. But after Souad became pregnant this rapist abandoned her!

Poor Souad goes into detail about how she tried to hide her pregnancy because she knew that it would surely mean her execution. When her family was finally aware of her pregnancy (more than 6 months,) they had her brother-in-law douse her with gasoline and set her on fire. Soaud bravely describes how this felt and how she was treated.

This story is very sad, shocking, tragic but also hopeful. There are millions and millions of women who have been victims of these horrible honor murders. Souad is unique because she is a survivor. She survived her attempted murder. Her family left her for dead, but she survived. And she was able to start a new life!

My hope is that this book will be passed around in the Islamic third-world villages where women are treated worse than garbage. Proper education is the solution. No one deserves to be treated the way Soaud was; there is no justification for this.

Souad is a very courageous woman, not just for surviving, but for also telling her story. She still feels guilty, but if I could speak to her now I would tell her that she is a shero and has nothing to be ashamed off. Souad is a survivor.

How can anyone say this is not true?.......2007-09-02

I read this book when it first came out in hardback and admit I was blown away although I am someone who is VERY familiar with the challenges so many women face worldwide. I am disappointed with reviewers who state that the book is not true and only have one question: HOW CAN YOU KNOW THIS FOR A FACT? CAN YOU PROVE WHAT YOU ARE SAYING? The truth is that you cannot possibly know and that you are simply angry and making unfair statements. Life is stranger than fiction and no one but the author of this book knows for certain, but I suspect that this story IS true. There are many people who believe that such book exposures are meant to attack a culture or a religion. This is not true. You should not take these true stories as an attack on you or your country or your culture. These are individual stories that do not reflect on you, yet should be made known. This does not mean that your culture or your land does not have many wonderful aspects. I, myself, write about women's issues and just so happen to write about the Arab world because that is where I lived for much of my adult life and that is what I know, and women from the area come to me oftentimes asking that I tell their stories. Although I write true stories of women in the Arab world, and those stories are heart-wretching, I am still aware that there are many women living happy lives in Arab lands, and that there are many wonderful things about Arab culture and lands...things that we westerners can learn from and better ourselves. But the issue of abuse on women is one that should concern every caring person. Even if most women live in safety in the Arab world, it does not mean that ALL women live without abuse. Every life is different and readers from the Arab world should be glad such stories are exposed and work to stop the abuse of women, rather than gripe when stories are made public. I am from the United States yet am not ashamed to admit that we have many abuses of women here. I myself know some professional women (doctors, lawyers) who live in abusive relationships, which is horrifying. Yet I have found that a very important difference is that women in the USA who have an abuse problem CAN seek help from society and generally will find help. Sadly, in the Middle East when a woman complains of abuse, society generally BLAMES HER for the abuse rather than the man who is abusing her! Few people will step up and try to help. Why? Because they are worried that they themselves will be targeted. Also, to expose abuse is considered a huge shame on the country. This should not be the case. No one blames an entire country for a few bad people. If anyone in the area will be honest, they will admit that abuse of women is a genuine problem. Rarely will anyone help a woman in need. The area is still a part of the world where men are more valued than women, and until this attitude changes, a lot of women will pay the ultimate price, and will live miserable lives. For example: I still have very educated Arab friends who mourn at the birth of daughters and express openly their desire for sons only. Even the educated women I know keep this attitude ongoing, which is shocking considering the fact they are women and they should work to make the status of women high. It is a huge problem. When will the world acknowledge the truth that a baby girl is no less than a baby boy, both are precious and there should be rejoicing at the birth of either. So, those of you who make statements that this story is not true, perhaps you should look around the world and know that cruelty upon women knows no bounds. I believe that anything is possible and nothing in this arena surprised me anymore. Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia;Mayada, Daughter of Iraq: One Woman's Survival Under Saddam Hussein[;[ASIN:0470067292 Love in a Torn Land: Joanna of Kurdistan: The True Story of a Freedom Fighter's Escape from Iraqi Vengeance]]

HORRIBLE..........2007-08-10

This book was a big waste of both time and money. It is absolutely the worst thing I have ever read and, for someone who is interested in and has studied Islamic culture, religion and history, this book is a complete disgrace. Yes, some things that the author maintained happened to her do really happen. BUT, she did not experience just one bad thing, but ALL of them and, quite frankly, nobody is that unlucky. And even if someone can be that unlucky, there is no way such person could just randomly be saved by some European aid worker. Not after she was left to die. Although, I, too, was skeptical about the claims that Souad's story is a fake, after reading the first 20 pages, I was sorry I didn't listen to the people who wrote the negative reviews.

OK, in the words of Therese Taylor:

"An important point to note is that Burned Alive is a work of recovered memory." ... "There are similarities in most works of recovered memory and unreliable memoirs. The authors' stories are extreme, they are the victims of every conceivable circumstance, and everyone they meet tends to be a sadist. Their survival is always a miracle."

Also important to note is that such works are found to be fictional 90% of the time. Basically, in my opinion, this is yet another work of anti-Muslim propaganda that is becoming oh-so-popular these days. So, if you don't care about the truth, this is an excellent book for reinforcing your hatred of the entire Muslim world. But, then again, ignorance is bliss...

Humpty-Dumpty takes a Middle Eastern twist and Souad takes a great fall .......2007-05-03

It is highly suspenseful and I especially liked the evil telephone motif. This was back in the days before calling features when the phone still had enough mystique to sometimes in still fear.

Several reviewers have impugned the credibility of this story. The basic premise, unfortunately, is highly plausible and not just confined to Muslim countries. Someone also expressed contemptuous disbelief that Souad's mother would actually suffocate her baby daughters. This story takes place about three decades ago. Today gender (almost always female) infanticide has been made obsolete by ultra-sound. In countries like India (majority Hindu) and China (majority atheist) female fetuses are aborted at such a high rate many young men have difficulty finding wives. Many baby girls who manage to make it out of the womb alive end up in orphanages. This perturbing aspect of females helping to perpetuate their own subservient status is an irony usually overlooked by readers.

Burned Alive is a timeless story. This version just happens to take place in Palestine. Souad lives a very isolated and abusive life. Instead of her parents building self-esteem in their daughter, and warning her about the archetypal Humpty-Dumpty, they treat her as some sort scourge turned servant as compensation for not having been born male. She is kept locked up behind walls so that she won't escape and no one will use her. When she eventually manages to sneak out she is putty in the hands of a wily older man looking to score. He showers her with "kindness" and flattery, tells her he loves her and wants to marry her, etc. He gets her pregnant and then leaves the country for an extended vacation. It also turns out that he's already married or has a fiancée.

This creates an embarrassing quagmire for Souad's family: It makes the men look like a bunch of weenies who can't control their women. It also spoils their cash crop since in many cultures the groom must pay a bride price to the male head of household. Ergo, pregnant Souad must be annihilated in order to punish her and save face.

In the US murder is the leading cause of death among pregnant women, usually perpetrated by the husband or boyfriend who wants to be relieved of his paternal responsibility. Fortunately, defending one's so called "honor" is not a defense for murder. So, Charles Stuart, who fatally shot his pregnant wife and superficially shot himself blamed it on a non-existent black man. Rae Caruth denied shooting his pregnant girlfriend and if this had been prior to the advent of DNA testing he could have simply denied paternity. Scott Peterson blamed it on a band of marauding Devil worshippers. His trial was a death penalty (which is rarely carried out) case and he was convicted of two murders.

I am very grateful that in America women enjoy a status, economic power, and legal protect that exceeds that of many nations. Unfortunately, these advances haven't eradicated misogyny, which fuels violence against women.

FYI: For those interested in this subject I also recommend The Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan. It takes place in the Chinese countryside in 1987. A young woman, Jinju, is forced into an unwanted marriage with a much older man in order to secure a happy marriage for her older brother. Corrupt officials refuse to help her and she runs off with her true love. It is also a brutal story and its premise is basically the same.

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