Nonfiction Books

Dr. Paul Farmer is a rare character: a genius whose infinite compassion drives him to lalbor around the clock and around the world to find ways to cure drug-resistant tuberculosis and AIDS in the most primitive of conditions in such places as Haiti and Russian prisons. This rare man deserves a rare bographer, and he has him in Tracy Kidder who spent years of his life in tracking Dr. Farmer and then writing an admiring but not fawning biography. This improbable life all rings true.

Mountains Beyond Mountains
From a high school student - 2 March 2008

Tracy Kidder, author of the Pulitzer Prize winner The Soul of a New Machine, veers off on a different course as he explores new areas of the world and the problems they face. Upon his inquiry, Kidder encounters Paul Farmer, a prominent physician and anthropologist. It is there where Kidder's interest in Farmer's work grows and he realizes the great impact this one man has on so many people. Kidder describes Paul Farmer's unorthodox childhood and the conditions in which he grew up, from living in a secondhand bus and leaky boat to starting a herpetology class in forth grade. Despite Farmer's childhood, Kidder describes him as a gifted person and Farmer his headed on the path of a "big-shot Boston doctor" in which he attended college at Duke and later Harvard where he studied to earn his MD and PhD. Later in the book, Kidder describes Paul Farmer's accomplishments and his work in countries such as Haiti, Peru, and Russia. Paul Farmer did not just practice his medical and life-saving work in these countries - he lived it to the fullest. Farmer, with the help of some generous donors, built a health and social-wellbeing organization titled Partners in Health. There he helped and cured thousands of patients and not only gave them the physical ability to live, but the hope as well. Farmer once said, "It is the curse of humanity that it learns to tolerate even the most horrible situation by habituation" (Kidder 61). Farmer worked day in and day out to prevent this mindset and reeducated the improvised communities to strive for success and a new life; he was not just a doctor, he was a mentor, a life-saver, and a gift to everyone he met. In one passage, Tracy Kidder describes Farmer's dedication and devotion, "He told me he slept fours hours a night but a few days later confessed, `I can't sleep. There's always somebody not getting treatment. I can't stand that'" (Kidder 23). It is Farmer's complete focus on the task at hand that Kidder says makes him so outgoing and so successful in everything he does. Paul Farmer is a man of action, and in doing so he has given up his life to changing the world and making it a better place. When reading this book, you will wonder why everyone is not as caring as Paul Farmer and hopefully you will be inspired to make a change in your community. Reading this book, you may feel a rejuvenation of your soul and will be encouraged to act out in generosity and love to your neighbor as Paul Farmer did. Kidder's well-crafted words clearly express the conditions of Haiti and the poor around the world, as well as the brighter aspect of human nature and the ability to love. This book is truthfully an inspiration and well worth the eleven dollars you spend. Those readers looking for an outlet or a way to make the world a better place may be inspired to send donations to Partners in Health so people like Paul Farmer can continue to spread life and hope throughout the world.

Mountains Beyond Mountains Book Review

Tracy Kidder's excellence in writing is proven yet again, as he brings to life the history of one man who changed the lives of many people around the world. Read and used by Reader's Circle, a nation-wide book club, it proves its greatness as it describes the disturbing, yet motivational work that Paul Farmer accomplished while living in countries stricken by the political wound of poverty.
Growing up in a second-hand bus, once used as a mobile tuberculosis clinic, and later a hull ship that was repaired by his father, Paul shows the true transformation - from rags to riches - any motivated person can accomplish. Even from a young age, he became familiar with the deprived nation of Haiti, starting with his early occupation picking citrus with Haitians, as his father, referred to as the Warden, "described, briefly the epic poverty of their country" (Kidder 51). Paul excelled in class, only to later receive a "Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard" (Kidder 7), and begin his numerous trips to Haiti, where he doctored the deprived Haitian citizens and cured many cases of tuberculosis and other dangerous diseases. His life story takes the reader through the troubling path of Farmer's double identity as a "big-shot Boston doctor [...], a professor of both medicine and medical anthropology at Harvard Medical School" (Kidder 10), and a meticulous savior to the dying people in poverty-infected regions. This true story breaks open the boundaries of one's mind, and makes the reader question their own legacy in life, motivating the reader to help in the potential change that can occur around the world.

I love everything written by Tracy Kidder. This book was chosen because he was the author listed, not because of the subject matter. In fact, Kidder doesn't disappoint and Paul Farmer, the main character in this true story is a subject I long to know more about. I am glad to not have read the Amazon reviews prior to forming my own opinion of the book. Yes, Farmer stole supplies from Yale to give to the poor. Yes, Farmer does alienate some people in his zeal to help the sick poor people. However, none of that overshadows the fact that Farmer accomplishes miracles while others sit and contemplate what to do.

Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains is an account of the life and deeds of Dr. Paul Farmer, a brilliant Harvard graduate who works wonders for the world's poor and sick. He puts almost all of his time into his work helping the poor, and a very large portion of his money as well. He never sees his paychecks of about $125,000 a year, which are all sent to a bookkeeper at Partners in Health, his charity, who pays his bills and then deposits the remainder in the charity's treasury. Because he hardly keeps any money for himself, the bookkeeper once told him, "Honey, you are the hardest-workin' broke man I know" (Kidder 23).
Kidder's account of Farmer's work becomes very dry at several points, especially when it is describing in detail the medical issues Farmer's patients undergo, and may be hard for some to understand without some background in medicine. This book would provide a reality check for many readers, showing how terrible the living conditions are in poor nations of the world today. For example, the house Dr. Farmer lived in while he worked in Haiti was similar to most of the other peasant housing, but "[...] exceptional in that it had a bathroom, though without hot water" (Kidder 23). Another example of Haiti's living conditions is put bluntly by another doctor who worked there, who stated, "There's no electricity here. It's just brutal here" (Kidder 80). The majority of the Haitians live in severe poverty, in conditions most Americans would cringe at, without running water or electricity.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone, especially those who are interested in the fields of charity or medicine.

I saw the Frontline documentary "Storm over Everest" by David Brashears which features interviews with several of the individuals mentioned in the book. You definitely get two different perspectives when watching the documentary and reading this book, but both accounts are riveting. I found myself pulling for the characters throughout the book, and I was exhausted when I finished.

Into Thin Air, the second of Krakauer's self-described three books to date on fringe elements of society, is about the mountaineering tragedy on Mt. Everest in May, 1996. He was with one of the teams on the mountain at the time for an article he was writing for Outside magazine.

In general, the story is about people who, for reasons known only to them, subject themselves to very extreme, sometimes-not-survivable weather and altitude conditions in the interets of having "climbed" the mountain (many truly climb, some of whom are able to summit; some pay significant amounts of money for what can perhaps best be called "taken," sometimes to the peak). More specifically, the book is about the numerous teams on the mountain at the time and the extraordinary difficulties encountered, some due to the limited training of paying customers, many due to the sheer number of people trying to get up and back down within the same period, all exacerbated by the weather conditions. A very tragic story ... several talented, courageous climbers died in the process and others had life-altering injuries.

Many books have been written on the events (Boukreev, Breashears, Viesturs, and others), but to my knowledge this was the first. It is well-written and, in many ways, reads like you would expect - by a talented professional writer who witnessed a truly devastating situation first-hand and who, at the time, wasn't anywhere near "over it." Highly recommended, whether or not you have any interest in mountain climbing.

This book is a true story. As such, it is amazing that men and women still will try to climb this mountain to the peak. Dangerous conditions come from everywhere, lack of oxygen, weather, and the mountain itself. Plus I must mention the climbers, some of which, are not prepared for this ascent. Have some tissues handy.
This book is well written. It tells a story of triump and tragedy and of human error and its consequences. You must read it for yourself.
GREAT SUMMER READ, or anytime.

I'm not a big non-fiction adventure book aficianado, but this book was wonderful. Jon Krakauer is the type of author who can make you feel what he's feeling and see what he's seeing without being overly verbose. I felt the epilogue was especially poignant.

Like many other one star reviewers here, I read Into Thin Air first and found the story quite compelling. After reading The Climb and Above the Clouds, its clear Into Thin Air was hastily written and poorly researched. I also question Outside magazine's journalism in the original article as its easy to question the fact checking involved in that article.

Don't spend your money on Krakauer.

There are several things about The Nine that make it an absorbing and worthwhile read. As stated in the dust jacket, Jeffrey Toobin has great narrative skills. He shows them in abundance when giving us memorable portraits of each justice. Furthermore, he does an outstanding job summarizing the most important Supreme Court cases from 2000 onward; and distilling the complex issues that each case presents re: abortion, affirmative action, free speech, federalism, and the death penalty, etc. In these respects, it is an ideal resource for the casual follower of the Supreme Court.

However, I am a paralegal well-versed in legal research, and am fascinated by the Supreme Court. I expected much more from the book, but was greatly disappointed with several omissions. First, Toobin did not offer citations to any of the cases he summarized so well(from Bush v. Gore to Rasul v. Bush, or the Kelo case re: eminent domain). Maybe it was an editorial decision by the publisher not to list the citations; and if true, I would've appreciated knowing this at the outset. To list a case without giving its citation is an unforgivable omission for anyone familiar with how legal research is done. It made the book seem more shallow than I'm sure Toobin intended. Toobin's defense(at the end of the book) that these cases are readily available online is just not good enough.

I have equally strong misgivings about Toobin's approach to the book.
Yes, he is a fairly high-profile legal analyst for CNN; and writes prominently on legal issues for the New Yorker Magazine. These facts alone, however, don't tell us what motivated him to write this book. The dust jacket tells us that he was born to write this book. How so?
What goals did he set for the book? He didn't say. The book is touted as providing a valauble look inside the Supreme Court; and in some ways, he succeeds. However, Toobin largely had to rely on the information the Justices, and other Supreme Court experts were willing to provide him.

However, what did Toobin himself bring to the table to advance the goals of his book, other than admirable enthusiasm? Unfortunately, we are not told. He is a journalist, but has given us no idea of how he became one, and how his journalism experience intersected with the law?
How did he become acquainted with law? Has he been to law school? Is he an attorney? He gives us no indication.

Having answers to these questions could've at least in part explained why he did not offer at least one case citations for people who just might want to do further(more in depth) reading. If he didn't want his book to be a scholarly appraisal of the Supreme Court, Toobin should have told us so beforehand in an introduction. Again, The Nine is quite a good book, as far as it goes. It could have been, and should have been so much better.

Awesome. An easy and fast read. The book rewards you with a perspective on the politics behind the Court for about the past two decades. A great indtroduction for young readers.

Conservatives are just upset that their goals and momentum have been exposed and possibly thwarted to some extent by the release of this widely-read book before the extremely important presidential election of '08.

Jeffrey Toobin makes a strong case in "The Nine" that the 2008 election is indeed a change election if only because another Republican president will doom Roe v. Wade and other constitutional protections hanging by the thread of a moderate Justice (Stevens, Souter or Ginsberg) stepping down during the next Presidential term.

The Nine looks at how the current Supreme Court Justices' personalities impact the process and outcome of deliberations and why those Supreme Court decisions matter in the lives of Americans. He focuses on various confirmation struggles as well as court rulings including Presidential elections (Bush v. Gore), abortion decisions (post Roe v. Wade), gay rights, affirmative action, the war on terror and the separation of church and state.

One of the themes of the book is the rise of the powerful Republican conservative judicial movement. Their ideology demands that justices to be pro-life, for increasing the role of religion in public life, against any and all affirmative action, for certain restraints on free speech except when it impacts public financing in which case they are champions of money as speech. They want Justices to uphold the sanctity of straight marriages and families and grant the Executive broad powers to wage war against terror. And yet despite most of the appointments having come from Republican Presidents, the court hasn't - until recently - surrendered to this conservative ideology. However, that has begun to change with the very conservative Alito taking O'Connor's seat.

Toobin does an excellent job of showing how the Justices' humanity plays out in how they work together, perceive their roles on the court and come to their judicial decisions. He isn't afraid to show them acting poorly but he also shows them as people with a real affection for one another and a commitment to the constitution and their role in American life. As a non-practicing lawyer, I was surprised at how much legal analysis he included but a friend of mine who isn't a lawyer wasn't put off by it at all.

The book isn't a big civic lesson bore. He includes a number of touching and funny stories that develop his larger themes; he relates the great reception Clarence Thomas gets when speaking before an RV convention, he pokes fun at Kennedy's high flown prose, at David Souter's disinterest in dating women and O'Connor's habit of handing out a congratulatory tee-shirt to parent of newborns and making sure that a gay clerk and his partner get one too.

I regrettably cannot recommend this book. I listened to the Audio CD, and I suspect that such medium makes the content more palatable (in the auditory sense) then trudging through the written prose with the days or weeks-long commitment that might entail.

I have renamed the book to better reflect its content, which, to its ultimate undoing, comprises mostly a hagiography or reification of Ms. Sandra Day O'Connor. It is in his near puppy-doggish love for Justice O'Connor that Toobin betrays the same lack of understanding of the limited constitutional role of the Court likely shared by millions of Americans who focus only on the provision of Good, irrespective of its source. This love of result over principle is never clearer than Toobin's analysis of the Court's "affirmative action in education" cases from 2003, known popularly as the Grutter and Gratz decisions, wherein Justice O'Connor surmised that, notwithstanding the Equal Protection Clause, race (qua diversity) could form some basis in the selection of student candidates by state university and that, in 25 years or so, perhaps the Nation shall have progressed to the point that such race-conscious statecraft shall no longer be constitutional, effectively giving our holy Constitution the magnificence of an egg-timer. All the while having hailed Justice O'Connor's knack for crafting CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, whether intentionally or not, to mesh with public opinion (whatever happens to be prevailing at the time of course), Toobin effectively breaks the spine of his book with the embarrassing conclusion that O'Connor's equal protection ruling and timetable was the eminent jurist at her worst (he does not explain) and her best (he goes on to say "[it] was INDEFENSIBLE IN THEORY, AND IMPECCABLE IN PRACTICE (or "application," or words to that effect). My jaw nearly dropped as I listened to Toobin laud any Supreme Court rule making that could be both indefensible as a matter of constitutional theory but impeccable in its prescient steering toward the course of public opinion. That moment alone nearly ruins the book.

Mr. Toobin, like far too many, seems satisfied with a Court unanchored from constitutional limitations of any kind. He wants the Court, like some blind but psychic sentry, to propound reasoned opinions that just so happen to equate with prevailing public opinion, presumably guided by American values. One wonders how such advocates for a fluid if not "living" constitution would regard Court rulings that coincide with a public opinion of a future generation that rejects Progressive values and causes. Would he then, demand fewer rulings "indefensible in theory" but concordant with the desires of "ordinary" Americans, as THEN defined. (Of course, thanks to stare decisis-the rule that prior precedents of the Court should be respected as entrenched constitutional law, immune to overruling except in limited circumstances, the liberal's policy preferences-constitutional rights to abortion, a limitless federal commerce power, e.g.-may be difficult to erode notwithstanding the shift in public opinion of future generations and the willingness of judges like O'Connor to placate it.)

The Constitution, if anything, represents a fundamental structural check on the power of public opinion to soil the vision of the Framers which the People, our political ancestors, ratified through their State governments. This is the Consent that we live by, the Premise of our social community. Should not the fact that the Constitution could not be changed but by Supermajority vote of the States suggest that it ought to be the most cautiously expanded document in our combined lexicon ? Why, instead, should the Constitution be the vehicle of ensuring that modern laws, notwithstanding the popular support that prompted their very enactment through their ELECTED representatives, be ultimately approved or rejected as sufficiently co-extensive with the American experience as viewed by five law professors (i.e. the 5-4 majority necessary to produce a binding constitutional holding). One should hope instead, that public opinion have little if anything to do with expositions on the nature of the delicate but constant document that binds the several branches and several governments of this nation together. Justice O'Connor's failure to serve her true Master, i.e., the Constitution of the United States, instead arrogating the Power to herself as swing vote and guardian of the public's happy regard in a growing Nanny State, in the end makes her less a jurist and more a Soft Tyrant. We Americans should hope that our policy preferences that might otherwise be enacted into law, for experimentation purposes if not ultimately the prevailing Good, do not one day offend the pulse-taking of popular opinion as read by a judge who wants to be loved as Louis XIV, the Sun King.

Liberal, heal thyself.

An interesting, but ultimately disappointing, look at the USSC and how it functions. I can't write a better critique than can be found via this chain of posts by Eugene Volokh of UCLA law school and Orin Kerr of George Washington University law school:

[...]

I'm giving this book 4 Stars. I was going to go with 3, but based on the works readability and style I believe that there is something to be taken away by everyone. The information presented by Ellis will interest the scholarly historian as well as the casually curious reader. The former of the two readers may busy themselves more with disputing some of the poorly cited, questionable material presented within the pages of this book.
If I have it right, Ellis was attempting to portray the founders as a group of thoroughly human participants that possessed the omniprescence to grasp the scope of what their actions meant to history. This fundamental paradox of presentation left me scratching my head in search of the authors true motives. Was Ellis attempting to unite us with the men and politics of the Founding generation or was he furthering the mystification of these men, by adding to the accumulated material that presents them as histoical deities.
Regardless of the overall impression the book leaves on you, I am sure, the reader will find themselves entertained from start to finish.

In the afterglow of the HBO series on John Adams, I grew interested in some of the founding fathers, many of whom had seemed boring to me ever since I read their bios in grade school. Ellis does a highly intelligent and readable job of laying out the personalities, conflicts and battles of the whole group during the first years of the nation. I particularly like the chapter on the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Also great is the chapter about George Washington, who had seemed a cardboard character to me until my interest was piqued by the TV series. Ellis is more than a little inclined to repeat himself in that particular way academics have, although his ruminations are likely to advance the story, although a bit wordily. That aside, this book is worth digging into by anyone who wants to know what those guys were really all about and who doesn't want to be told by some ideologue what to think about them.

If I had to recommend one book to read in a year, I would recommend The Founding Brothers.

Joseph Ellis recounts the early stages of American history with six historically-based tales about the Founding Fathers or, as he thinks of them, the Founding Brothers. The stories of Jefferson, John Adams, Madison, Washington, Hamilton, and Franklin (more of a Founding Grandfather, Ellis asserts) highlight how the period after the Revolutionary War was the most politically treacherous in our nation's history. It was the Founding Brother's talents and foresight that allowed them build a country out of a revolution which, in most cases, falls short of ideals because of personal ambitions.

The stories of the Founding Brothers is completely factual, however, the stories are written so that the reader can see the emotional and personal character aspects that the Brothers experienced during the early years of our nation. The stories are interconnected and woven so that even though each of the stories highlight different facets of the nation's early history (the ratification of the Constitution, the question of slavery, the infamous duel at Weehawken, the location of the new republic's capitol), the major players remain the same. Their personalities are built together to create interesting and insightful history.

This book won the Pulitzer Prize. After reading, I found that to be no surprise at all. It's an excellent read with a blend of wit, conviviality, learnedness, and intelligence.

Ellis presents this as if it were a light little book: a collection of vignettes about the Founders that will give us some random insights into the Revolution and the early Republic. It certainly reads like a light, little book. The pages turn easily, and it is a very entertaining read.

But, beneath the very decorative surface, this is a very serious book. It is nothing less than a prolonged series of explorations into the contradictions at the heart of the Revolution and of America. The fundamental contradiction which Ellis sees is between the spirit of the Revolution -- which opposed all authority of any kind -- and the needs of the new Republic to have effective leadership. This is why the unity of the Washington period gave way to the extraordinary bitterness of the partisan warfare during the Adams Administration. Washington, Hamilton and Adams focused on the need to build a nation with effective institutions of leadership. Jefferson and Madison saw any strong leadership -- until THEY won the White House -- as a betrayal of the Revolution.

It would be easy for Ellis to see Jefferson as essentially a hypocrite. The great exponent of freedom who kept slaves. The merciless attacker of the shoemaker's son (John Adams) as an aristocrat when he inherited his wealth. The leader of the slander and defamation against both Washington and Adams, who served as a high official in both of their Adminstrations.

All of this is true, and Ellis examines it, but there is more to Jefferson than just hypocrisy, and Ellis sees that as well. As he explains, Jefferson had a great talent for creating stories, which fit grand narrative lines. Unlike Adams, who insisted on seeing reality as a mass of messy contradictions, Jefferson also saw the world as playing out the simple and inspiring lines of the great Englishtenment melodrama in which reason and freedom marched to their inevitable victory over superstitution and feudalism.

This, of course, speaks to Jefferson's ability at self-delusion -- of which he was a master -- but there is more. The new Republic needed a founding story. People need a simple narration, to use to make sense of their world. Adams was quite unable to giving one to America; he insisted there there was no simple story line. Jefferson was so incredibly effective as a leader, precisely because he could create these story lines and make people believe them. More than all of the other Founders, Jefferson was able to create a new iconography for the new Republic. Ellis sees, and lucidly explains, all of these levels of Jefferson, the self-deluding hypocrite who flattened out the messy parts of reality to fit the story line in his head, but then made that story line THE story line which inspired the new nation. Very complex stuff, and Ellis does full credit to it.

The insights into the individual leaders are just extraordinary. Ellis simultaneously is deeply sympathetic to, yet harshly critical of, nearly all of the Founders. He understands them, and he sees into their souls. He loves and admires them, yet no one is more aware of their failings. This is not a book with easy answers. Instead, it is a book

Others have commented upon Ellis' problems with the truth in his personal life, and I will not revisit those issues here. However, while this book is a good read and tells interesting stories, there are factual problems here when you get down to the details. First, the book is poorly documented. Only direct quotes seem to be cited with footnotes. Thus, when the author makes questionable assertions, his sources are unidentified. For example, he claims that the idea of political parities was new in the 1790s. Anyone with a fundamental knowledge of colonial or British politics knows this claim to be false. Second, Ellis claims that Jefferson's affair with Sally Hemmings has been proven by DNA evidence beyond all reasonable doubt. Again, this claim is false. The DNA testing has only proved that a member of the Jefferson family fathered Hemmings' children. Personally, I believe it was Thomas Jefferson, but the DNA evidence has proven nothing beyond a reasonable doubt. Third, Ellis claims that Hamilton's pamphlet against John Adams had no major impact on the election of 1800, which is a fact others would certainly dispute. These are some examples of Ellis' weakness with details and facts. His interpretations are often made, it seems to me anyway, to fit his preconceived agenda. George Washington, for example, is portrayed as the father of big-government liberalism.

This book is very readable, but the stories seem disconnected to me and some statements of fact and assertions are highly questionable. I cannot even see very clearly what the overall argument is in the book. I almost wonder if these stories were bits and pieces left over from other works that Ellis threw into a book he thought would easily sell to the general public. If you read this book, read it critically and do not take it at face value. I'm really not sure why this book won a Pulitzer. It must have been for the writing itself. This book is a good read, but it is often very bad history.

Sandra Boynton's books are the PERFECT GIFT for baby showers....they are wonderfully rhythmic to read and babies love these! I always purchase these little board books for new parents who generally get all kinds of baby clothes etc. for showers but rarely get books to start a baby libary. You just can't go wrong with any of the books by Sandra Boynton, they beg to be read aloud!

This was our first Sandra Boynton book and one of our favorites. It's usually in our stack of bedtime books and our son often wants to read it more than once. It's so fun to read. Our whole family highly recommends it!

We love this book (well all of her books!) and this one has been many a gift for friends and family! We read it every night and our older son can quote it word for word now!

I love the Sandra Boynton books. This one is one of my favorites along with Pajama Time, Birthday Monsters, and the Belly Button one. Kids can turn the thicker pages and they always love the drawings and rhymes.

This book is okay, but it doesn't seem to draw my 2-year-old's attention very much. The storyline is interesting to him, but I believe it's the pictures that are not too appealing to a younger child, as they're more like a drawing rather than distinct separate animals, etc. that he can clearly see.

I would buy something else :(

Incredible this is going on in America!! Greta book well written! Please write more on this subject! Especially liked the unbiased historical overview of morman religion!

Jon Krakauer has climbed Mount Everest and lived to write and tell about it. Now, he writes about the subculture of America's polygamous culture. He writes about the FLDS and UEP who are both discommunicated by the official Mormon Church who stopped the practice of polygamy in 1890s. Remember, the official Mormon Church does not condone or condemen enough of the polygamous practice of their discommunicated members of the FLDS. Krakauer writes about the growth and the secrecy for obvious reasons. Most escapees refuse to return to their compounds and former lives. They might dress like the Amish but they are not Amish at all. They are taught to fear the outside world and outsiders or gentiles which includes Jews and other Mormons. The FLDS and UEP believe that the Mormon Church has sold the practice of polygamy out as a way for acceptance in America. THe Mormons have grown and flourished in the world despite the polygamous monkey on their back. Not all polygamous families are like the ones depicted in the fictional cable show, Big Love. Not all are functioning. Women are treated like cattle and breed babies. The girls are brought up to be mothers and wives at young ages. The boys who are seen as a threat to the older men in the community as competition are often sent to exile to live on their own in the streets. There are hundreds of lost boys whose only crime was to be teenagers, like girls, catch a movie or television show. In the polygamous communities of FLDS and UEP in Colorado City, ARizona; Hildale Utah; El Dorado, Texas; Bountiful, British Columbia, Canada; there are taught to live without television, radios, or read newspapers. The education system is flawed with edited books and manuals. The children are not taught properly about science or sexuality in general. Sexuality is seen as a necessary evil in order to reproduce more. They are expected to wear long skirts, long pants, long sleeved shirts, and the women's hair is not supposed to be cut but styled like in a braid or like Little House on the Prairie. Even the men must endure heat with long pants and long-sleeved shirts, life is hard enough for both men and women. I don't support the idea of polygamy but I am concerned about the women and the children. The women are mostly mothers and are often victimized by the men if they leave and return. The crimes are numerous and unspoken outside the compound until now. The women who are polygamous wives are almost all born into it. They know of no other life and they have never had the opportunities that other women outside the community. The polygamous wives from outside the communities might have the opportunity and choice after generations of polygamy within their families to make that fateful decision. Not so in the FLDS and UEP, women are assigned husbands at an early age by the head prophet.

This book is Jon Krakauer's nonfiction account of the difficulty the justice system has ensuring freedom of religion while dealing with lawbreakers who were, in their words, following God's commands to them. A cornerstone of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints is that God reveals His will personally to His followers. Men only. The book is very complicated to follow moving through the history of the church to the present day and through the stories of many crimes committed in the name of God. I was reading this book and finding it amazing and terrifying just when the Texas FLDS polygamy case began. It gave me insight I never would have had. I had never recognized the vast gulf between the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) and the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. The power of the elders in FLDS groups is complete. Their ability to ignore laws and get away with it is outrageous. Their growing numbers, growing power, and growing violence is more than scarey.

I loved this book. Krakauer (as Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster) manages to give an even-handed account of a quintessentially controversial topic. This book delivers a detailed but never boring, account of Mormon history, and its relevance to today's America and world. It's the story of the Mormon Church in America, and its division into mainstream and fundamentalist strains. In this story, he provides a rich context through which we can appreciate how it is possible for a religion to be a force for both "good" and "evil". Krakauer gives due credit to the sources of Mormons' amazing and praiseworthy industriousness and indeed countless works of true charity, alongside a formidably well-documented account of Mormonism's power to subvert the minds of Americans who in the end, possess the very same humanity and capacity for "good and evil", and the same freedoms (to leave their faith or remain as reformers within it) as you and me. It shows how young women can find themselves vehement defenders, or vocal critics, either mothers of five by age 28, (with neglected health, and on welfare, living in remote backwater compounds, and married to male elders who convince themselves they have a direct line to God in serial dream "revelations" to add more and more wives), or apostates.
As others write, this book has salience to any students of fundamentalism, in its protean incarnations (e.g. that of the Islamic fascism of Wahabi Muslim jihadists), and students of how racism can be legitimized and rationalized by theological decree(by examining Mormon dogma that elevates Anti Semitism, labels African-Americans as inferior humans, and hypocritically legitimizes self-serving violence against Native Americans--in spite of Joseph Smith's proclamation that American Indians are favored by God).
For me, Krakauer's key achivement is his recounting of HOW EXACTLY, a dogmatic faith works its way into minds of men psychologically, by showing how one's position in the pecking order can blend with his internalization of peer-pressure, sermons, threats, incentives, and disincentives, to render him either beholden to, or transcending, the subversive in his culture. He does this by showing how a believer can apply (or not) his faith's more elevating and virtuous values, and interweave these with an embrace of the best in the broader, shared American culture beyond, to reach a place of personal "goodness" and integrity.

Although the subtitle of Under the Banner of Heaven is "a story of violent faith," there is a lot more to it than that. Krakauer, author of one of my favorite adventure books, Into Thin Air, delves deep into the history of the Mormon Church, from its humble beginnings, to what it is today: one of the world's fastest growing religions. About his original plans for the book, Krakauer writes (p 337) "As initially conceived, it was going to focus on the uneasy, highly charged relationship between the LDS Church and its past." The resulting work contains a lot of fascinating information about the church; (p 69) an angel named Moroni handed off some gold plates to founder Joseph Smith, who (conveniently) returned them after translating them into what would become The Book of Mormon; the founder himself, who married (p 6) three to four dozen women in spite of his first wife's aversion to the practice; his successor, Brigham Young, (p 205) who had 20 to 57 wives; the murder, execution style, of 120 members of the Fancher party; the deceitful treatment of Native Americans by the early Mormon settlers; and much more. Both religions (p 5) "believe in the same holy texts and the same sacred history." The story of the murders, though grisly and tragic, and the murderers, who did away with their innocent victims supposedly based on a commandment from God, fill up more space than the historic parts, but in my mind are more of an accessory to the historic facts, from infancy to the present, about the Mormon church, both LDS, and FLDS, which by the way (p 5) "amounts to less than 1 percent of the membership in the LDS Church worldwide." The book definitely has its negatives, including trial testimony that seemed to go on forever and the overwhelmingly anti-FLDS (and LDS) tone. But as they say, you reap what you sow. The fundamentalists are still practicing one of the religion's original tenets: celestial marriage, plural marriage, spiritual wifery, polygamy-call it what you want-live and let live seems like a good policy-but not when it involves, to any extent, the forced marriage of underage girls. Under the Banner of Heaven is an anti-FLDS-toned, highly informative history of the Mormon religion, primarily concerned with the murder of a woman and her daughter by male relatives. The Anchor Books Edition has an interesting appendix containing an official response to the original edition by a church leader and Krakauer's rebuttal. Also good: Silence by Shusaku Endo, The Greatest Story Even Told by Fulton Oursler, and god is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.

I can't add much to the good reviews, but I wanted to suggest that if your child is taking history in school or shows an interest before that, please buy them this book.

This action will reflect the main premise of this theory, it will create the environment for growth.

Mr. Diamond must be admired for this epic work on humanity. Is it perfect, of course not, but what is perfect. He gives us a different way to view history and how geography has influnced it. I enjoyed the read and have assigned it to my students for reading and reviewing. The majority of them said it was worth the effort and it has given some instances of lively discussion in the classroom. We should tip our hats to a man who at least gives us something to think about.

Pulling together research from a wide variety of fields, Diamond sets out to answer the question of why civilization as we know it developed and flourished in some parts of the world, while other areas were left behind.

The gist: it's all about the geography. In order for civilization to develop, people have to be living in large groups, with food plentiful enough so that some people can be spared from the business of survival to specialize in organization and crafts. In order for that to happen, they must have agriculture and livestock. In order to have agriculture and livestock, they must have either native animals that are domesticable or trading opportunities to obtain them. In other words, it all comes down to where they started from.

I admit to a little hesitation before I chose this book. I read through several reviews, and quite a few reviewers claimed it promoted the concept of racial superiority, and I really didn't want to end up reading several hundred pages of racist propaganda. Still, the majority of the reviews were positive, and there were also quite a few negative reviews complaining that it overlooked the racial factors, so I was intrigued enough by the question to give it a try.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is decidedly not racist propaganda. Diamond bends over backward to ensure that it's not, and even raises the very intriguing question of who's actually smarter--the westerner with the comfortable lifestyle or the jungle native who has to depend on his own knowledge and judgment for survival.

What I enjoyed most about the book was how thorough it was, putting together... well, I was going to say all the pieces of the puzzle, but when it comes to human history, that's just not possible--but enough of the puzzle to see the big picture, rather than just the small segments you get by focusing on a single discipline. It's not enough to describe, for example, how the development of language affected civilization--it's put into perspective along with all the other developments happening at the same time.

G, G, & S is pretentious but shallow and illustrates the corruption of too much of American academia where political correctness masquerades as objective scholarship. It is as false as Lysenko's "biology." Diamond sets up a strawman, "biological differences," and destroys him with his academic beanbags of dubious validity.

I won't recount all of this unfortunate book's deficiencies, as many reviewers have already done so in voluminous detail. It is a strained and selective exposition of history in a vain attempt to support the author's preconceived opinions, i.e., that geography determines everything, which even casual observers would conclude is nonsense. It completely ignores the roles of human creativity, innovation, energy, drive, and motivation. To Diamond everything is predestined by geography. This sounds vaguely religious, i.e., politically correct.

To Diamond, physics, engineering, and mathematics would have been developed in New Guinea, if not for what? Who knows?

An alternative exposition on roughly the same topic is, "Carnage and Culture," by Victor D. Hanson. It displays vastly superior, i.e., objective scholarship.

Diamond's final analysis proves a good point. Many dominant countries today are not only in Europe and East Asia, but are also ones that have been largely repopulated by the descendants of those peoples, like the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Taiwan, and Singapore. Other countries rising to power today, like Southeast Asia's "Little Tiger" economies (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines), also contain descendants of invading conquerors nearly 10,000 years ago. China and India are now back in power to their historical positions. The Eurasian continent is the only one with a advanced history since the beginning of the Neolithic or Agricultural Revolution. Look at South America, and you'll find that the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) are ones with mostly European-descended populations like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile, and the poorest ones are the ones with the largest indigenous, native populations like Peru, Bolivia, and Guatemala. Diamond is so right in this regard.

Having worked with many addicts, this book is an accurate portrayal of where addiction leads you. The author is lucky to be alive.

I read David Sheff's Beautiful Boy and wept. The thought of paying money to Nic Sheff for his side of the same story is a great struggle. The problem is that if children who have not yet tried drugs hear this (and other similar) stories, what will they make of it? People who overcome their addictions fail to make the point of the horrible damage drug/alcohol abuse causes. A child will weigh the possibilities and see someone like Nic who has emerged a published author, and therefore, an addict who can function and earn a decent living. The question then becomes, "If Nic Sheff (or other addicts in the limelight) can do drugs and still have a good life, why shouldn't kids or young adults try drugs? It would be phenomenal if Nic Sheff didn't spend his earnings from this book on drugs. It would be beautiful if Nic Sheff lived the rest of his life clean and productive and happy. I wish this for his family. But I just can not know that I have given him a penny toward possible further abuse and pain inflicted on himself or the people who love him.

I get that this is just a guy telling his story to anyone who may be intersted. And, I am interested. But I just can't do it.

What a wonderful book. Everything Nic expressed in here was so true.
I could not stop listening to this book. It was just so good.

This book scared me. It scared me because of all the drugs that Nic did and how he ruined his relationship with his family, just to get high. But at the same time I liked it, because it was so descriptive, like when Nic talked about how it felt to be high. Also when Nic realized that being sober was a lot better than getting high. I also liked how the story jumped around, like the flashbacks. What I didn't like about this book was how the story just ended, it just stopped. It never talked about if he stayed sober and how what encouraged him to write the book. I also didn't like how Nic acted. He didn't like to hear what anyone else had to say, about what he was doing wrong, like when Spenser and his dad told him that his girlfriend was a bad choice for him. And I didn't like it when Nics' mom call his girlfriend's dad and told him that they had both relapsed. That was a very mean thing for her to do.
I would recommend this book to older teenagers and most adults, because I don't think that younger teenagers would understand what Nic is saying about drugs.

I could not put this down after my husband handed it off to me. After mediocre memoirs, fake memoirs and memoirs about everything from ballet to dogs, I really just wanted a good old good down and dirty drug recovery memoir. This kid explains truly what it's like to feel when a drug addict is down and out, and the whole AA experience resonates all too well, along with dual-diagnosis. Read it. If you can stomach it.

It seems kindof cheesy at first, and Bryson's writing style can be a little precious. (Although always easy to read, and I certainly never felt bogged down in this book; in fact, I finished the whole thing in a weekend.) But I read it toward the beginning of a long kick to learn about stuff, and as I've gotten more in depth in several fields, I find myself remembering things I read in this book. He's given me a firmer foundation in...well, nearly everything...than I realized.

Many of you people know a lot of things, and for you this may be unnecessary. But some of you may be like me: high school chemistry is a distant memory, and you're not sure if you've ever even had a history course, and suddenly you sortof wish you knew all those things school was supposed to teach you. If that describes you, this book is a remarkably good place to start.

This is not a book to be devoured, or scanned lightly, though Mr. Bryson's fluid prose and wit would allow us to do so. This is a work to be pulled from the shelf more frequently than not and re-examined like a long Del Prado wall. It possesses the richness of a Qalicheh carpet or a Benares silk--an item to be held with awe. What an amazing compilation and composition.

The book was an entertaining read. It briefly touches on just about every subject. The only real thing that isn't that great is that it will go through several historical figures very quickly leaving you with a lot of information to digest. Later, the author often returns to talk about that figure, but after you've already forgotten about him. Not a big deal though.

Also, I thought the book would be more focused around history but it is actually more focused around the history of science.

I dont know much about Sci. but just had a good time reading this book/

Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything is an great read for people who are interested in Science. It describes in easy to understand terms what the current thinking is in the various sciences including Biology, Geology, Astronomy, Physics, and Chemistry. It reads differently from your science text book in a number of ways. It covers the history of how we got to what we currently think and does so in a "warts and all" approach. It tells you which scientists were brilliant, which were loons and which were just jerks. Of course sometimes this describes the same person, say Sir Isaac Newton. It also describes some of the reaction in science to a new theory, and seldom is that pretty. It also is not afraid to say that many of the "facts" that we learned in school are either now wrong or speculation, sometimes based on a surprisingly small amount of data.

I was surprised to know what really happened in 1776. It was a great year with many challenges. I enjoyed reading this book.

1776 is an excellent piece of literature. From page 1 you are transported back to this most important time in our history. I found this to be a fascinating work, one that should be read by all Americans. Especially during this, an election year. Bravo ! I look forward to reading all of David McCullough's masterpieces.

A very well written book full of life and history. Very few writers can put together a historical moment without making it look like a text book. I felt as though I was living in the moment looking around me, even feeling the temperature. The book draws you in. Great read.

Wonderfully researched by McCullough's staff and various librarians all over America and the UK. This book is worth purchasing used if only for the bibliography, which covers more than 20 pages. Alas, Pulitzer Prize & National Book Award winning author, David McCullough delivers by far the weakest presentation of material I've yet to read by him. Truman and John Adams are towering works and Mornings on Horseback is an excellent read. I've not read any of his other books.

1776 is a short, quick, unchallenging read about a particular aspect of an extraordinarily important period in American history. McCullough does not concern himself beyond the most perfunctatorial mentioning of anything besides the struggle between the American army under General George Washington and the British army it opposed in Boston, in and around New York City and in New Jersey. From rousing victory without bloodshed to crushing and repeated defeats to tide-turning and decisive victory.

McCullough's presentation is dutiful and repetitive. Only General Washington is delineated with any particular effort. Other important personages are presented with an offhanded chattiness just barely this side of cuteness. The miserableness of the American army is incessantly referred to, as is the commonness of it's soldiers. McCullough seems to have an almost perverse insistance that American freedom was bought with the blood of the most vulgar wretches imaginable; the lowest of the low. Duly noted. Wars are rarely fought by the rich and there was nothing profoundly patriotic or "American" about the peasantry of nation taking up arms to defend it's land. What's your point, Mr. McCullough?

This is McCullough's only effort and describing battle tactics and events that I'm aware of and he does not equip himself well. He fails to convey with any clarity the lay of the land, intended tactics or actual troop movements. He describes land only very generally, general orders vaguely and troop movements hurridly. To read the seige of Boston & battles of New York and New Jersey, I would recommend using the internet for area maps, specific orders and other helpful clarifying information. It may well be McCullough's strength lay much more in biography (Adams, Truman, T. Roosevelt, Brave Companions subjects) and topical history (Brooklyn Bridge, Johnstown Flood and Panama Canal) than in the minutae of military history.

McCullough's tone is relaxed and chatty to a fault. I like my history as easily digestable as the next guy but there is a fine line between popular history and a downright commercial presentation deliberately designed to capitalize on the author's popularity. For all of the research, there is very little hard history here. Furthermore, it has been my experience that Revolutionary War history, both militarily and politically, is best understood by reading biographies of the principal participants, particularly Washington, Andrew Hamilton, Adams, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson because a well written biography inevitably places the subject in the larger context of their time. This is not a necessary read as the same information can be had with a reading any one of the several excellent biographies of Washington availiable in conjuction with a familiarity with the numerous websited that delineate in excruciating detail the actual events of the battles outlined in this book.

I think McCullough's living on his reputation with this one. A good bit of information, but not a lot of sense of history or the events or the people. Whoever wrote this for him didn't do a great job. I read this after Ellis' American Creation and the contrast was shattering.