Biography Books

There are many editions of James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" available, but this is easily the best Kindle edition. The text is based on Chester Anderson's 1964 text. There are also a good number of annotations by Seamus Deane--fewer than in Anderson's Viking Critical edition but sometimes more detailed and aimed at a less scholarly audience. best of all, this edition is a very well constructed ebook, with a good table of contents to facilitate navigation to the beginning of chapters and with an excellent implementation of endnotes. Annotated items are marked witha superscripted number that links to the endnotes. The notes are all placed together, so you can read other notes rather than having to go back to the main text to go to other notes.

All in all, this is the best Kindle edition of Joyce's classic. The text is based on a standard version, the notes are helpful, and the implementation highlight the advantages of the Kindle format.

After having just finished reading Ulysses (and loving it) I decided it would be rewarding if I read 'A Portrait' next in order to delve further into Stephen Dedalus' character. (Moreover, I had also just finished reading Ellmann's famous biography of Joyce and felt inspired to read Joyce's own semi-autobiography). Unfortunately I was extremely disappointed with the dry, tedious narrative tone that Joyce adopted in writing his novel, especially within the overdrawn third chapter in which we learn the terrors of hell and damnation. Yes, I know the sermon sequence had great significance in Stephen's development from the primordial muck of biological existence to the more rarefied air of the soul, of human conscience and (above all) of the powers of artistic creativity. Nevertheless I found my thoughts wandering elsewhere when I was reading this book and many times I had to re-read whole pages because I had realized I was just reading the words without absorbing their content. While Ulysses drew me immediately into the consciousness of Bloom and Dedalus, 'A Portrait' was bland, cold and uninviting. I felt by the end of "A Portrait" that I was solely reading the book because it was Joyce and because it was deemed a classic. Perhaps I ruined A Portrait by reading Joyce's masterpiece first. Even if Ulysses can seem (at times) even more glacially abstract and opaque to the reader than A Portrait, Ulysses at least challenges you in such a way that you want to understand more about the text (its various allusions, its satire, its narrative experimentation, ect). I do not feel compelled to read A Portrait again, in fact (in the process of writing this review) I now feel compelled to re-read Ulysses and perhaps even Finnegan's Wake.

I don't know where to start. It's pretty difficult to review a book in which nothing takes place. This book lacks... well, just about everything. It lacks half a sentence of substance. Nothing in the story is connected; I read the book and wondered, "What is this about? What was the story?" Actually, I have a confession to make: I didn't actually read the book in its entirety; I read the first half and was so disgusted by it that I had to read the summaries for the rest of the chapters online. It is that bad.

Normally I listen to other people's opinions but I am making it a fact in my mind that this book is the worst book I have ever read. If you disagree, you are wrong. That is how terrible this book was. It was a complete waste of my money. It was required reading for school. I always read the books regardless of whether I like them or not, only reading summaries after finishing to make sure I understood the whole story. This is the first book I have ever relied on reviews to finish. My teacher worhips this book but there is nothing good about it. If anybody can explain to me what this book is about in a way that makes sense, I will give them ten dollars.

So far, everyone in my school has failed to explain it to me. This book is everything Flowers for Algernon tries to be (that's not a good thing).

As many do, I read this in preparation for tackling Ulysses, in which Stephen Dedalus makes a return appearance. This has been called Joyce's most accessible work, however I found Dubliners faster paced reading personally.

The style of the book changes as the title character matures from a young child to a young man. The part that affected me most was the episode at school where, after he has fallen to immoral ways, a speech is given on Hell that is as riveting and detailed as Dante's Inferno. The fiery pits are described as an abomination across all the senses, where not just pain from sensory touch is there but in smell, sight, taste, hearing - and quite effectively described.

Stephen's subsequent change after confession and struggle to achieve harmony with God is inspiring even given the eventual outcome of that attempt.

The latter part of the book bogs down considerably as it falls into philosophical debates on questions that many a young (and old) person ponders. The ending is hopeful but uncertain.

"marooned"--an utterly wrenching and boundlessly suggestive term to describe the situation of the young artist.

Here Ingrid Rowland continues to demonstrate her profound mastery of the society and space of sixteenth-century Rome. Unlike most other accounts, Rowland emphasizes Bruno's role as a writer and shows that his fiery death at the stake in the Campo de' Fiori provoked change in the policy of the Roman Inquisition's treatment of intellectuals. I admire most of all Rowland's ability to bring forth vivid details from Bruno's beginnings in Naples, from his travels through France, England and even to the Frankfurt book fair, and from his obstinate conclusions both religious and scientific. She does much to humanize both Bruno and his chief prosecutor, Cardinal Bellarmine, and in the end suggests how science and religion soon found that they belong together rather than in conflict. This bright and polished biography does much to put the imagination of Bruno and his moving historical context in this reader's mind.

If you read the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Terri Cheney's Manic: A Memoir, then you'll see some parallels between the two writers and the decision to organize their thoughts the way they feel best tells their stories. Plath's book was a fictional telling of her own story while Cheney's is undiluted autobiography.

During Plath's time, however, there wasn't a clear definition of what she was suffering from, and Cheney was "fortunate" that modern medicine has evolved sufficiently to help make her condition bearable.

Cheney is a good, solid storyteller and her descriptions of the manic depressive episodes she experienced often rang true for me and my loved one who suffers from bipolar disorder.

I am disheartened by some of the negative, and sometimes baselessly cruel reviews, from some of the readers and it actually makes me wonder whether they indeed read the book or understand the illness. It doesn't matter whether you live in Beverly Hills or in the poorest part of the nation, this illness knows no boundries and does not discriminate.

Cheney perfectly encapsulates all of the inner torture of this horrible illness with wit, charm and unceasing realism. It is both a tribute to her survival instinct matched with modern medication and is thoroughly recommended as an insight to a terrible, debilitating illness.

A medical condition, a flaw in chemistry that has psychological consequences, bipolar illness rarely produces a warm and fuzzy personality. It is a challenge for us not experiencing the feelings and conditions of the disease to have empathy. Cheney's memoir is truthful and colorful, a service to those who yearn to know more-
I am grateful for this book.

The book reads like a fictional novel, and a bad one at that. If you are looking for some insight into mental illness, look elsewhere. The story is thoroughly un-believable; the lack of details about anything stretches credulity. I It is only when the author wants to fluff her pieces does precise memories seem to magically appear. And the few "stories" about which she writes appear non-chronologically, and seem "scripted". It is actually insulting to the reader that we are supposed to believe her "memoir". The author seems cold, uncaring, and most of all, desperate. A disappointing book all around.

I applaud Terri Cheney for the courage she has shown in living and surviving a personal nightmare of a life with manic-depression. By the end of the book, she seems to have found medications that keep her mostly stable, and I hope that continues. Ms. Cheney's prose is vivid and powerful. It makes me wince to think she actually went through all of this mental and physical turmoil. Hopefully, this book will increase public understanding of mental illness and encourage the medical field to keep working for more effective treatments. Another excellent book I read about manic depression is "His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Traina" by Danielle Steel - the famous author. It is Ms. Steel's eulogy and toast to her son Nick, who was manic depressive, and tragically took his life when he was only in his teens. Warning -- Ms Steel's memoir is a real tear jerker. But attention needs to be given to mental illness, so we can better help and suppport the many who are afflicted. I hope Ms. Cheney continues to write and publish, and am so glad she escaped the horrible plastic lawyer life she was subjected to for so long.

Here's what I got from this book: if you're really, really beautiful, you can make enough money and friends during the manic phase to carry you through the depressive one, where even if you call in sick for weeks at a time and refuse to answer your phone, you won't lose your high-paying, highly competitive job. Yeah, right. I was left with so many unanswered questions from the many disjointed and confusing episodes. This book is a frustrating read and hard to believe.

I have never been more intrigued by a story in my life. Anthony Kiedis continually strived to have fun in his life and never took life too seriously. He made a life derived from the use of drugs and had magnificant experiences. This book is awesome and wonderfully expresses Anthony's deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings. Must READ!

I was pretty shocked that between the alleged writer, ghost writer and a major publisher that somebody didn't catch a blatant mistake that really casts some doubt as to the effort and veracity of this manuscript. About midway thru the book Anthony starts to discuss his contract negotiations with Warner Brothers and company president "Mo Austin". I believe, unless he was kidnpped by aliens, that the head of Warner's at this time was actually a man named Mo Ostin, a relatively well known figure in the record business. This would be like writing a book about the real estate industry and referring to a "Danield Trummp" This makes me wonder if Anthony either didn't even read the manuscript or didn't know how to spell the name of a reasonably important business associate, namely the person responsible for paying him millions of dollars annually. And the ghost writer should be ashamed of himself. Obviously, the publishing company probably didn't care since this has a People Magazine quality to it that spent more time racking up naked photos of ex-girlfriends and endless gossip about intercourse and "babes".
I expected a lot more from this book. On some level, I was entertained but ultimately this is a very disposable effort that is much like a fast food meal. Anthony's youth, his struggles with finding artistic success, his incredible self destructiveness and creative abilities are ultimately overwhelmed by the low rent, frat house behaviors that he knows are inappropriate but still seems all too willing to share. We never find out about what happened to his Dad in terms of how he left California, people like George Clinton who fade in and out without any follow up.

As much as Anthony's drug use is discussed in detail, he frequently pussies out with justifications stemming from inadvertent dentist novacaine and wrongly prescribed pharmaceuticals. I would have been more sympathetic if he manned up and just admitted that on all of these relapses it wasn't a relationship or a wrong prescription, he just wanted to fall off the wagon.

A word about the women. Living in LA, I get the sense that Anthony's outlook on women is totally defined by looks only. It was astonishing to me that a streetwise individual would have a woman he had broken up with come back to him and then after this leech starts trying to threaten him for palimony he falls madly back "in love". Only in LA. Another LA reference which I'm sure AK is already cringing over is his discussion of Kabballa which has already come and gone like alfalfa sprouts and oxygen bars as a passing and absurd fixation of LA's jaded. More revelatory moments (besides the aforementioned baffling inability to attend his "friend's" funeral) was when he went to give a Christmas present to Ione and the mother wouldn't even let him into the house. The mother must have been very pleased with the type of behavior her daughter, a veritable child was having to endure. It takes a lot of bad behavior to generate that kind of hostility.
Also, the story where he is so loaded that he forgets that he made a deal to sell his house and a realtor does that and he isn't even informed. Hello, doesn't a seller have to sign reams of paper during that process. that one was a bit hard to swallow especially because a buddy's family was literally living there. this all happened in a week. Can you spell escrow period? That's gotta be at least 30 days.

Anyway, I did find this book fascinating at least from the level of abuse and the hilarious kowtowing to celebrities that allowed anthony to literally walk the Earth as a veritable emotional, physical, ethical and professional zombie. Finally, this was written in 2004 with a supposed happy ending of sobriety but I don't think any reader would be at all surprised to find anthony hiding out in some future seedy motel, blazing away. I don't wish that on him or anyone else but it eems that if he can't even really explain this continual obsession to us readers he probably doesn't understand it himself. For a true biography of personal tragedy and the tortured artist those looking for a little more substance might like Richard Ellman's "Oscar Wilde", but, careful you will have to concentrate and you won't be able to read it with MTV on in the background.

Anthony Kiedis. Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was interesting to read Anthony's autobiography and understand the meaning beyond some of the lyrics he has written so far. I do need to separate book from "facts" however.

The book: 465 pages in tiny print describing a life of excesses in every sense became at times a tedious read, mainly because Anthony's life is self-described and delivered by what I define a rather flat narrative. A repetition of events -and most often, a vicious circle, literally- that failed to engage me in full in a few parts. That does not mean that I did not "appreciate" the content. If anything, his is an often brutal testimony of what a serious drug addiction can do to a human being (I felt that this book was more about his drug addiction than about his life or the RHCP).

The "facts": oh, I would have a thing or two to say about his upbringing, I am itching to do it. But. Anthony comes out to be so non-judgemental, so not-critical, so loving towards his family, which he clearly loves to bits to this day, that I am discouraged to say anything more about it. And I respect him for not pointing any accusing finger, about back then or later on. He is not blaming anyone, or at least, that's the way I have perceived the core of this book. In his words, it was mostly all about "the shortcut", which brought him to jump fences instead of walking on a proper path, figuratively and literally. The drugs, his love stories, his songs, the band, the friends he has lost to drugs, the rehabs, and drugs again... An indefinable sense of hopelessness, sometimes peppered with sober, more productive moments, where the love towards life shines in full. I think that it is at this point that he chose to write the book, after a few years of sobriety. And I hope the process of retracing his past has added to the self-healing and helped to stay clean and sober, appreciating life to the full.

Would Anthony have become what he is without experiencing what he went through? I do not know. We are what we do, or so they say. But as much as this book conveys the dispiritedness, desolation and utter despair connected to drug addiction, it is uplifting to see that it is POSSIBLE to get out of it. Tough, difficult, hard, but possible. An inspiration for those ones who are still struggling.

I read somewhere that Anthony recently had a baby (last year). Not an epilogue to his story, but another, wonderful, beginning.

After listening to Stadium Arcadium and being blown away by the lyrics (e.g. Wet Sand) and stunning music (again, Wet Sand), I was very drawn to reading Scar Tissue. While not a die hard RHCP fan before the book (or before Stadium Arcadium), I am now. I dug up the old stuff and gave it a re-listen. It's amazing to listen to the songs after having read about them; the process AK describes on writing lyrics and the contributions and musical influence from the rest of the band past and present.

A main theme and thread throughout the book is AK describing his serious struggle with substance abuse. He writes in a very clear and vivid voice, it is moving and revealing. I have profound respect for his recovery and the process he went through. To me, the book itself is written with a sense of service and purpose beyond mere autobiography. A great read.

Scar Tissue is an excellent tale. More than anything the story is about a man who has done some hard yards and is witnessing without shame or pride his life story. The book is humbling in many ways. Scar Tissue is as fun to read as it tragic. His account of his day to day dealings as a rockstar leave you feeling like Anothony Kedis could very well be just one of your friends. He is down to earth. He is real, and he is very articulate. There is quite a bit of esoteric language, but you can handle it. Read it. 5 Stars

A good book,I couldn't put it down. A very compelling insider's look at the little known partying/drug addicted world of the NFL. If you are a college or pro football fan who wants to dish a little dirt, this a must read.....Not for the faint of heart!

Great book!

I'd personally never even heard of Jason Peter, but the backstory sounded amazing and I love the NFL, so after reading several reviews I decided to give it a try.

Jason Peter is a prime example of how the NFL spits you out when your no longer worthy of playing, this book in no way puts down the NFL, it just once again brings to light just how harsh the system is, one of my favorite lines in the book best describes it,

"When you put on your team colors, you are no longer a person--you are a cog in a machine. That is how a team operates, and that is what wins games. People are discarded in this game when their usefulness is at an end."

JP's career was in jeopardy because of injuries, then he got hooked on pain killers, the pain killers led to cocaine, the cocaine to meth and crack

his journey thru drugs/rehab is insane, he was an unemployed millionaire with a raging drug problem

good, good stuff!!!!

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested reading about the ravages of (and redemption from) drug addiction as it impacts on someone who, to the naked eye, "had it made" as an elite college athlete and highly regarded National Football League draft choice. The book is presented in a raw style that offers the reader a "real feel" for the author's struggle and the impact of drug addiction on his family.

The author did not find the "recovery, 12-step" model to be his treatment of choice, in the end. The extent to which his distancing himself from this form of recovery might dissuade others from approaching this source of help, is the only caveat I have for recommending this book, particularly for those who subscribe to or who might be helped by Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous.

Yes, as the cliche goes "different strokes for different folks," but AA and NA have worked for so many, that his disdain for these models of recovery should be taken, as intended, as only one man's opinion.

Overall, a very good read and fine profile of someone who has bounced back from the precipice of death.

Jason Peter, co-captain of the 1997-98 Nebraska Cornhuskers college championship team, recounts the improbable story of a jock that became a junkie. Peter's story reads as the anti-Peyton Manning story--fitting, since Peter's Cornhuskers crushed Manning in the championship game in 1998. It's part football memoir and part drug memoir, and a gripping read that I read through in two nights.

Peter and co-writer Tony O'Neill write some of the best prose that I've ever read on the game of college football. In several chapters, it's difficult to distinguish Peter's rush from playing football from the rush of legal and illegal drug abuse. His story is all too common in the football industry, where young talent is bulked up, chewed up, and spit out when their bodies start to break down. The only difference is that Jason Peter filled the void left in his life with crack and heroin, whereas few players (and ex-players) ever reach such extremes of addiction.

I picked this book up ASAP after reading Peter King's mention in his superb MMQB column for SI.com. While "Hero" provides unique insights into the world of a college football star, NFL player, and emergent substance abuser following a series of injuries that end his career, the last third of the book drags on. And on. And on. "Are you still reading that thing?" my wife asked me the other night. Like the author, I couldn't quit the habit. It's good, but I honestly think the latter chapters could have been revised into just several. I liked it, but . . .

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Sir Richard Branson. He is extremely talented, hard working and incredibly successful. I defy anyone reading this book not to be inspired by it. He is living proof that if you really want to be successful at something and you are prepared to put in the work to overcome your obstacles and improve your skills you can do it. He also appears to be very down to earth despite his success which is a very attractive and rare trait these days amongst well known successful entrepreneurs.
Angela Coldwell - author of 100 Essential Steps to Career Success

It was quite the page turner. Wanting to find out what happens next! To think that one can lead a life like this is good to know. I recommend this book to anyone who is a little frustrated with life and its upsetting turns sometimes.

This book chronicles the life of Richard Branson from his starting years to the early 2000s. It goes into intimate details such as his early dealings to his current endeavors. Richard is never shy to explain anything including his mistakes regarding women (and cheating) to his usage of drugs during a business meeting costing him heavily by closing clients.

This book is perhaps the most fun of any auto-biography I've ever read. Richard goes into such great detail that you're left laughing through most of the story, hoping for the next piece of his life to be as exciting as the events that had already passed.

That said, Richard is a very lucky man and I'd assume he's the only person that could pull off being a leader like he describes himself in his book. He is perhaps one of my favorite people in the world and definitely a hero to someone interested in business leadership but his style of leadership would lead most people into bankruptcy. He tends to jump head first into business dealings, doesn't always know much about the businesses he's entering, and he continually breaks every rule in branding ever created. Had it been any other man in his shoes likely Virgin never would have survived.

He's definitely an interesting person, however, and his leadership style does work for him so obviously he knows the secret of getting it to work. And he's also the sort of guy that really has integrity in a time when the business environment and leadership lacks that. Even if I don't think his leadership style is the most solid I would definitely deal with a man of his character if I had the opportunity.

You will enjoy reading this book, I promise you.

...of one of the greatest (serial & excentric) entrepreneurs of our time and the creator of the first global brand. Branson bares his soul with very personal stories - sex, business, money and fun fun fun ... Attention! Readers who are employed might feel the surge of entrepreneurship after reading this book! :-)

Few autobiographies have the luxury of encompassing such a fascinating topic as Richard Branson who has led a life filled with unremitting vivacious action. Filled with modesty and a nerve that has him taking near unheard of risks (both personal and in business), Losing My Virginity reads like a roller coaster through all the ups and downs of Branson's life.

Richard Branson has created an empire, but few would be aware of just how close he teetered on the edge of bankruptcy for much of his career due to his unwillingness to accept the status quo. His battles with British Airways are epic, but Branson also fills the book with countless highlights of his illustrious life, most notably his near death experiences attempting hot air balloon records.

Where this book really won me over was regarding Branson's interaction with the Jordan royalty and his insight into the first gulf war. As a result of Branson's charitable efforts, he was privy to a point of view that most would not expect. I will leave it to any reader to discover this on their own, but this typifies the interest one should expect to obtain reading this book.

I highly recommend Branson's book to any enthusiast of adventure or business.

This book is excruitiatingly slow - the narrative just drags on and on and the author and her story are really uninteresting. I only continued reading this book to learn more about the Indian culture and not because the story is good, because it's not. Who is this Anita Jain to warrant a biography/autobiography? Perhaps this book could have been fictionalized and made into chick-lit. The book is about Anita Jain and her search for a husband. Despite the title, there is no marrying and Anita doesn't even actively look for a husband; she spends her spare time getting high and talking about her life rather than living it. Anita ends up in Delhi, India when her attempts to land a guy in NYC fall short. The book doesn't encourage you to take any interest in Anita and I couldn't wait for this to end. The setting is interesting but that's about all.

I really liked Anita, and enjoyed reading this book. It's well-written, candid, and full of very interesting observations and insights into both Indian and American culture. As I read along, though, I found it increasingly frustrating - and ultimately maddening - that Anita seemed to lack the slightest insight into herself. Specifically, the very traits she rails against the most are the ones she herself exhibits in spades.

The most laughable sentences in the book: "This so-called `fear of intimacy'... what is this? It seems rather unfathomable to me." What's unfathomable to *me* is how Anita can be unaware of how obviously terrified of intimacy she is. She rails against men who declare early on that they're not looking for anything serious. She doesn't seem to realize that it's much more insidious and irresponsible to declare that you *are* serious (and even to believe you're serious) about wanting something real, as she does - and then to have your every action and decision declare otherwise, as hers does.

If a man is married, or has a girlfriend, or lives on another continent, or has taken a vow of celibacy, or is inappropriate for her in every way, or is "just not that into her", or is downright cruel and heartless to her - well, she's all over him. On the other hand, if a man is appropriate, genuinely interested in her, well-intentioned and respectful, she can't seem to write him off or sabotage the relationship fast enough. News flash, Anita: these are classic symptoms of serious intimacy issues.

Case in point: her father arranges for her to meet a young man in whom she has no interest. She's much more taken with his chaperone - a handsome, accomplished, engaging and well-read professional. Unfortunately, he's just the chaperone, and naturally he is all the more alluring for being out of reach. But wait! This attractive and appropriate man calls her and wants to date her. In fact, two such men are interested in her at this time - two age-appropriate, professional, accomplished and courtly men. So what's the problem? She's admittedly too hung up on a boy she describes as a "surly, inarticulate kid" -- someone who actually *hangs up on her* whenever she calls him -- to give these other men a real chance. She even goes so far as to moon about this kid while on dates with her would-be suitors. News flash, Anita: this is not the behavior of a woman who is truly interested in attaining intimacy.

For that matter, seemingly appropriate and well-intentioned men display interest in her throughout the book. If she's not actively sabotaging her chances with these men, then she's disqualifying them right out of the gate, often for the flimsiest of reasons. After her father told one suitor that Anita doesn't do housework, they wrote the guy off for essentially saying that he doesn't do it either. She wrote another man off (a man she describes as attractive, very successful, and considerate enough to make dinner reservations in her honor) because his *mother* was adopted.

Another little hint that intimacy-phobia is at work here: if Anita isn't attracted to someone with whom she's on a date, she drinks slowly and in moderation and asks him questions about himself. In other words, she behaves appropriately. If she is attracted, she gets plastered and reckless immediately. With a man she describes as perfect for her, Anita orders "a double vodka-lime-soda, the first of three at *that* bar," and then, by her own admission, "slurs" and "stumbles" and "yodels" and "grins stupidly" as the date rolls along. News flash, Anita: when a professional, accomplished man of substance is evaluating a woman in terms of a potential wife and mother, he's usually looking for a modicum of stability, good judgment, impulse control and decorum. There's nothing wrong with kicking up your heels and having a good time once you get to know and trust a guy, but why brandish your "party girl" side at someone so relentlessly in the very first hour of your acquaintance? You complain about all the men who aren't looking for anything serious, then you seemingly do your best to not be taken seriously.

Anita, I was once just like you. I was only willing to invest emotionally where a real relationship was all but impossible. It took me years to understand that the fear of intimacy was mine and the suffering was 99% self-inflicted. I really hope you will take an honest look at your choices and your actions and realize how thoroughly they belie your words. You blame nearly everyone and everything around you for your situation: you blame the men, you blame New York, you even blame the entire Western system of dating. Where is your share of responsibility in all this? Come on, you're a Harvard-educated, highly intelligent woman, and this isn't rocket science. The one truly lacking in "clarity of intent" is you. There's still time for you to achieve what you say you want, but you need to wake up to what you're doing. I hope you'll believe me when I say I wish you the very best, because I really do.

As a guy, the title isn't something that drew me in; however, I have a keen interest in all things India, so decided to give the book a try.

Amid the amusing and often hilarious anecdotes about Anita and her escapades is a fascinating look at India in transition that goes well beyond the supposedly heavyweight but hopelessly behind-the-curve tomes such as Freidman's "The World is Flat". Jain, of Indian heritage but having grown up in the U.S. is in a unique position to take the pulse of the key demographic in the New India. Her observations are cogent and witty.

This is very good book.

I really did. First of all, the story is so charming and interesting. I was her - only not Indian - I was over 30 and not married and I wanted to be married. She gave a name to many of the feelings that I had during that period of my life.

Second, I absolutely loved her description of India - I've never been there and she made it come alive for me.

Read this book.

This is a ridiculously readable and endlessly entertaining story of a woman who wanders the world while both sampling its sublime physical pleasures and, even more importantly, looking for an acceptable mate. Yeah, it has India in the title and the author ping-pongs her passions between New York and New Delhi, but this breezy, sexy and stunningly insightful slice of bittersweet life isn't about culture clash, really. It's all about looking for love, and all of the wonderfully nasty stuff that comes with the hunt.

I read Black Boy years ago and wanted to refresh my memory of the book. The author has a way of taking you into his world. I was rivited to the pages as I was all those years ago when I first read the book. I would recommend this book to anyone, young or old.

Often when you see books written about the life of black people in any point and time before the 1960's its main message is "My life was hard because white people are terrible," and that gets very redundant. However this was quite refreshing, as he did not harp on racism on every page. This is a very well written and intresting account of this man's unique life experiences and all the strange, crazy people he encountered within his family and outside them as well. People who have a few or several nuts on their family tree will be able to relate to Black Boy.

The best autobiography EVER, in fact I am not even sure it should be called autobiography because it is much more than that for many reasons. Autobiographies are often flat and either self pitying or glorifying, but this one is completely at another level. I was so impressed by the brilliant mind that shines through all obsacles, and his writing is just so natural, logical and insightful, not just about his personal life experiences, but about human suffering, senseless oppression, and unyiedling human spirit. Wow!

I ordered this book because it was on my nephews book-report list. It's a good book. But it is full of bad language. I think it's an adult book--with a very compelling story. But completely not for kids. I know kids hear bad language all the time. But to have it presented to them by a 'trusted' adult--gives it a kind of condoning that it doesn't need.

Every time I read a book about the plight of blacks in the South in the early part of the 20th century as Jim Crow society solidified I have to shutter in disgust. I have just finished reading communist Harry Haywood's autobiography Black Bolshevik. I have read Malcolm X's words on the fate of his forebears in the post-bellum South and now I have read Richard Wright's autobiographical sketch Black Boy. I will make no defense of the unequal treatment of blacks in the North. There is none. However, Wright's descriptions of the physical and psychological damage, as presented by his own experiences of Jim Crow, done to blacks by Southern whites are positively feudal. There was no room for illusions about the goodness of humankind in that world. To believe so was to face personal humiliation, or worst-the lynching tree.

Wright, after great personal struggle within himself, is able to reflect on his experiences and to articulate the effect that Jim Crow had on him as a black, as a man, as a human being. It was not pretty. One can only image the fate of those less articulate than brother Wright as they try to comprehend a world not of their making but which they early on must learn to navigate. The description of this grinding struggle is heart of the first part of the book.

Wright goes back to the mist of time in his early youth to dissect the hunger, psychological as well as physical, than never was far from his door; the effects on him of a sick and helpless mother; of an absent ne'er-do-well father; and, an overbearing and religiously-driven grandmother on his early development. And those are just the problems in the house. Once Wright steps outside those comparably comfortable confines he faces the outside world of Mississippi reality that he must put on a mask in order to survive in a world that will literarily cut him down if he does not learn the code. Although Wright gives many examples of how this system robbed blacks of their personality the most graphic descriptions, by far, are those that deal with the need to have to put on the mask when whites are around. And the consequences if one did not.

And what of the great escape to the North (via Memphis) to Chicago-the Promised Land that forms the basis for the second part of the book? We have seen that urban story portrayed in other locales as well, for example, in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Claude Brown's Man-Child in The Promised Land. That is where my statement about the treatment, or rather mistreatment, of blacks in the North comes into play. In effect, Wright articulates the contours of a psychological feudalism in the North where the special oppressions of blacks as a race are met with indifference by whites. What makes Wright's case special is that through self-education and willpower he breaks out of the endless and destructive turning in on oneself to articulate his experiences and those of other blacks like him displaced from the rural life of the South to the uncertainties of urban life.

On the face of it seems incongruous that Wright would find a solution to his angst in the American Communist Party during the heyday of the `third period' in the early 1930's. I have mentioned elsewhere, most recently in my review of Harry Haywood's Black Bolshevik (part of which also deals with this period in the American party), that on reading memoirs and autobiographies of the older generations of radicals and revolutionaries I am looking for the spark that broke them from the norms of bourgeois society. I have found that there is a great range of reasons from racial and class hatreds to intellectual curiosity. I find that in the end that Wright's relationship to communism, not without some bumps and bruises along the way, came from intellectual curiosity as much as any sense of racial or class injustice.

In Chicago, in many ways the embryonic black proletarian core of the country in this period, Wright continued his struggle for physical daily survival and for intellectual understanding. His fortuitous linking up with the local John Reed Club helped, at least initially, stabilize his intellectual life. His description of the inner workings of the Communist Party and its role in its own front group creations, like the Reed Club, jibes with other accounts that I have read. The tremendous pressures to conform to party life and the party line are chilling for what, in the final analysis, was a voluntary political organization and not a cult. Moreover, one of the characters portrayed in this section bears a striking resemblance to the above-mentioned very real Harry Haywood. Wright's take on Haywood is very, very different from how old Harry portrayed himself in his autobiography. Surprise.

One of the charges brought against Wright by fellow black party members was that he was an intellectual. Self-taught, yes, but an intellectual nevertheless. One would think that recruiting such a fairly rare person, black or white, would have had the comrades spinning cartwheels. No so in Wright's case. Tremendous pressure was placed on him to conform to party dictates. Or else. This seems counter-intuitive. The relationship between communism and intellectuals and artists has always been a somewhat rocky one. But know this-then and today we need as many intellectuals as we can get our hands on to write, think and lead the struggles of humankind. Ignorance never did anyone any good. Enough said on that. If you want to get a real feel for what that old expression Mississippi God Damn from Nina Simone's song really meant read this well written and thoughtful book.

I was hooked on this book.I could not put it down.Im amazed at the amount of historical paper work that still survives to this day for this kind of biography.I felt like like I eas there.

I read this book as part of my interest in the Shakespeare authorship question. It was my first biography of Elizabeth, so I can't presume to compare to others. But I have read some other Tudor/Elizabethan history. I found Weir's book engaging, informative, relevant to my own interests, and colorful; and it seemed reasonably balanced. Take Me With You When You Go

I love reading books on the royal family,and this is a great book. Lots of history, very interesting, best book I've read in a long time. She was a great lady. Get ready for a LONG read!

Weir does a great job of giving the flavor of the times and the Virgin Queen. However, she gets bogged down in too much detail sometimes. There are hidden bits of humor that are fun to find, as well.

Overall I believe this is a good biography of the Queen, however, it isn't for those looking for a quick or simple read.

This magnificent book has me convinced that a woman can rule a complex country. My mind is changed and I think it's time for this country to elect a female president.

I was very satisfied with the level of customer service that I recieved from Amazon.com. I also enjoy the opportunity to leave feedback, because I feel that it helps other people to navigate and purchase from Amazon.com with more ease.

I feel that the story of Celia is better than the book. I say that because the book can be very vague and too narrow at the same time. The author will go on and on (for pages at a time) about an irrelevant political issue in great detail and frequently makes statements like, "it is possible that..." and "it is unknown what happened..." about Celia's story. To me, it felt like the author was trying to fill the holes left by Celia's lack of historical evidence with other, well-documented events of the time period. I understand some background information is important but that was too much and it happened too often. Despite some of the issues with the book, the story itself is great. I was completely sympathic to Celia and wished that things turned out differently.

Based on the content and the depthness of the book, it would be a great book to discuss and read in a college course on African American history/literature.

I agree with another reviewer that this book read like a story out of a history textbook. Although interesting, I think this book would have better served its purpose if written as a historical fictiopn. Plus, I got tired of having to turn to the Notes section for supporting details and background information.

"Yet the lives of lesser figures, men and women who lived and died in virtual autonomy, often better illustrate certain aspects of the major issures of a perticular period than do (others who achieve national prominence)". The introduction my Melton A. McLaurin sets up a well researched and thought out work regarding the life of a female slave, caught killing her owner for raping her over a period of years. The author does two very important things very well in this book. He demonstates in very real terms the hopelessness of women in particular during this sordid period or American history AND he places in a timeline perspective just before the outbreak of the Civil War when tensions were high, especially in her "home" state of Missouri, where the stakes could not have been higher with the question of the expansion of slavery into newly admitted states was being hotly contensted. While it would be impossible to argue that she would ever get a fair "trial" McLaurin astutely walks us through a real defense team doing their best in a time period where ANY notion of fairness is null and void and, specifically, why this is the case.

This book is a must read for any serious students of the "peculiar institution". It is remarkable how the author takes an "anonomous" life and demonstrates how and individual could be and was treated as property and degraded to the depths of our ability to comprehend while weaving in the fast moving antibellum period and the legislation, politics and emotions of the time.

Everyone! Buy Celia, a slave! She's Celia, a slave! Buy four or five at least!