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"A life is full of isolated events," writes Carol Shields near the end of Unless, "but these events, if they are to form a coherent narrative, require odd pieces of language to link them together, little chips of grammar (mostly adverbs or prepositions) that are hard to define... words like therefore, else, other, also, thereof, therefore, instead, otherwise, despite, already, and not yet." Shield's explanation for her novel's title lends meaning to this multilayered narrative in which a mother's grief over a daughter's break with the family revises her feminist outlook and pushes her craft as a writer in a new direction.
The oldest daughter of 44-year-old Reta Winters suddenly, inexplicably, drops out of college and ends up on a Toronto street corner panhandling, with a cardboard sign around her neck that reads "goodness." The quiet comforts of Reta's small-town life and the constancy of her feminist perspective sustain her hope that her daughter will snap out of this, whatever "this" is. Threaded into her family's crisis is her ongoing internal elegy on the exclusion of women from the literary canon, which she transposes to mean her daughter's exclusion from humanity. Reta wonders if her daughter has discovered, as she herself did years before, that the world is "an endless series of obstacles, an alignment of locked doors," and has chosen to pursue the one thing that doesn't require power or a voice: goodness.
In her own writing, Reta reaffirms her own sense of self, as well as her sense of humor. As her theoretical reflections on modern womanhood play counterpoint to her unwavering sense of creating a home and keeping her family together, Reta's smarts and fears form a wonderfully coherent narrative--a life worth reading about. With Unless, the inaugural title in HarperCollins's Fourth Estate imprint, Shields (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Stone Diaries) once again asserts her place in the canon. --Emily Russin
Book Description
Reta Winters, 44-year-old successful author of lightsummertime fiction, has always considered herself happy, even blessed. That is, until her oldest daughter Norah mysteriously drops out of college to become a panhandler on a Toronto street corner -- silent, with a sign around her neck bearing the word "Goodness".
Customer Reviews:
Not her best.......2007-05-28
I enjoyed several of her books but not this one. First of all the plausibility--Who would not have their 19 year old daughter forcibly committed in these circumstances? I can't believe they could be this passive.
Second--The feminism angle is way over the top. Third, most of the characters are poorly developed. Fourth--It's almost always a bad idea to write a novel about a writer writing a novel.
Disappointed.......2007-03-25
I picked up this book after finishing her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Stone Diaries, which I thouroughly enjoyed. I, too found it a bit boring, but mostly I just found the character a bit pathetic. She writes numerous letters (all unmailed) castigating various authors for not including any women in their articles on great authors, thinkers etc. I consider myself a feminist, not a radical, mind you, just an average middle-aged woman who owns her own business and has taken charge of her life. The attitude was so defeatest, that her daughter is so defeated by this male dominated society that she checks out of it. It seemed a bit ridiculous and almost insulting to women. Although I felt for her, I could not relate to the main character's turmoil at all. She just seemed so weak and resigned to her daughter's fate.
Secularism gone amok = mush.......2007-03-13
Take a person who prides herself on having sex with her 'partner' on their first date, having three children with no marriage, treating her mother-in-law like a boarder at meals, and wondering why her children, particularly the oldest, Nora, has no structure to her life. She's so lost trying to find herself that she had to drop out and live the life of a derelict. This is what happens when children continue searching in vain for what their parents can not give them. . . possibly what they were not given by their parents. It results in mush: mushy story about mushy decisions and mushy results. Oh, they get in the claims for feminism so to satisfy the liberal readers but otherwise, it's just many, many, many words, very little emotion and no rationale whatsoever except that maturity doesn't result from living in the vacuous world provided by these
extreme secularists.
Beautiful!.......2006-06-01
I struggle to find the words to express my feelings towards this book. While reading Unless, I found myself perfectly identifying with it.
Very insightful, very original work. I commend Shields for her artistic and poetic style. It's as though she reaches within me, and pulls out exactly the words I long to express, the feelings I never knew had a name. She brings to light the silent questioning, the soft and unsettling feeling that something's not quite right in a world where women are the healers and the caretakers. A tremendous burden at a sometimes tremendous cost.
I enthusiastically gave this book to my sister to read. She couldn't get through it and finally gave up. She told me she became bored with it.
I find that people either absolutely love Shields or they are bored to tears by her. I would venture to say that if you love to explore the significance of your inner life, then this book will intrigue and captivate you. Many have complained that the ending was not good, or that the storyline was weak. This book's main plot is not about what's going on with the life of the main character (that is only the subplot), the story is one of a woman's inner turmoil, how she deals with it, how she grows, and she finds meaning in her life.
Whether or not we understand what is going on with her daughter is not really the point, nor is what we discover in the end. What we discover, rather, is a woman's journey towards self-understanding - as a mother, as a writer, as a woman grieving, as a wife, as a woman of strength, and as a woman of weakness.
This book truly inspired me. It came to me like an old friend with kind words and a welcoming shoulder.
Essential goodness.......2006-04-30
Fourty-four year old Reta Winters has three children, a loving husband, and a successful career as a writer of light fiction. Her life is comfortable, normal - and so she suffers a terrible shock when she discovers that her eldest daughter, Norah, has dropped out of university to sit on a streetcorner, a begging bowl in her lap and a cardboard sign that reads only 'GOODNESS' strung around her neck. Norah gives no explanation to her family, refuses to speak with them or to come home. 'Unless' follows Reta's struggle to understand what has caused her to withdraw from the world, as she attempts to continue on with her own life.
This is a lovely novel. It moves very slowly, but is written with exquisite grace and skill. Reta is utterly believable as a character; her meditations on life are not, as some reviewers on this page have claimed, 'dull' or 'trite', but poetic, insightful, moving. Her sadness is tangible, and poignant - handled very well by Shields, who can lift the smallest details of life to almost spiritual heights. Her writing has a certain modesty, a frankness and integrity to it that is delightful, refreshing. 'Unless' is appealing because, like Norah, it asks nothing of itself - and it gives the reader all in return. Wonderful.
Book Description
Forty-four-year-old Reta Winters, wife, mother, writer, and translator, is living a happy life until one of her three daughters drops out of university to sit on a downtown street corner silent and cross-legged with a begging bowl in her lap and a placard round her neck that says "Goodness."
The final book from Pulitzer Prize-winner Carol Shields, Unless is a candid and deeply moving novel from one of the twentieth century's most accomplished and beloved authors.
Book Description
Early in the twentieth century a new character type emerged in the crime novels of American writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler: the "hard-boiled" detective, most famously exemplified by Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. Unlike the analytical detectives of nineteenth-century fiction, such as Edgar Allan Poe's Inspector Dupin, the new detectives encountered cases not as intricate logical puzzles but as stark challenges of manhood. In the stories of these characters and their criminal opposites, John T. Irwin explores the tension within ideas of American masculinity between subordination and independence and, for the man who becomes "his own boss," the conflict between professional codes and personal desires. He shows how, within different works of hard-boiled fiction, the professional either overcomes the personal or is overcome by it, ending in ruinous relationships or in solitary integrity, and how within the genre all notions of manly independence are ultimately revealed to be illusions subordinate to fate itself.
Tracing the stylistic development of the genre, Irwin demonstrates the particular influence of the novel of manners, especially the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He goes on to argue that, from the time of World War II, when hard-boiled fiction began to appear on the screen in film noir just as women entered the workforce in large numbers, many of its themes came to extend to female empowerment. Finally, he discusses how these themes persist in contemporary dramatic series on television, representing the conflicted lives of Americans into the twenty-first century.
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Unless: A Novel
Carol Shields
Manufacturer: HarperAudio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
ASIN: B000VYVSMY |
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Unless : A Novel
Carol Shields
Manufacturer: Random House of Canada, Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OEAINQ |
Average customer rating:
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Unless:A Novel
Carol Shields
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8PEAE |
Book Description
While on a mission to obtain information vital to the Union cause, U.S. secret agent Harrison Raines finds that his informant has been murdered-and his partner has been accused of the crime...
Customer Reviews:
Not Nearly What it Could Have Been.......2004-06-29
Harrison Raines and Boston Leahy are heading west on assignment. There are reports of the rebels trying to take over a path all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Their job is to find out what is happening and report back to the Secret Service.
But first they have to cross the desert. The climate is nothing like either of the men have seen before. When they find some time sensitive info, they split up. When Harry finally arrives in Santa Fe, he finds the town in disarray and Boston arrested for one of the murders he's learned about. Now he needs to find the truth to clear his friend and keep the west in Union hands.
I love this series because it brings the Civil War to life in a fascinating way. This book, however, wasn't nearly as good as the others have been. The plot dragged with too much time spent on Harrison's travels through the desert. When the plot finally does get going, it seems rushed as a result, and I found myself struggling to keep up. One thing I enjoy about the series is the developing storyline with the characters, but since only Harry and Boston were in this book, that aspect was absent as well.
I'm sorry to have to give this book such a low rating when the series is normally so great. Hopefully the next book will be more on the level with the others.
A Fun History Lesson.......2004-04-10
I'll keep it short.This book draws you right into an often forgotten theater of the US Civil War. Few Americans know that the war raged in the desertland of New Mexico. There's vivid battle scenes and of course the unforgettable Harrison Raines on another dangerous mission. I hope if you're a Civil War buff you give this book and the rest of the series a shot. You'll be rewarded with a fun and informative read.
Fast-Paced Civil War Mystery.......2003-02-14
Author Michael Kilian continues his Harrison Raines series, as the Secret Service agent and his partner Joseph Leahy journey to New Mexico to investigate reports of a rebel invasion there. Though the two agents become separated in New Mexico, they are both in close proximity to Glorieta Pass where the Union, under the command of Major Chivington, drives the Confederate forces back and burns their supply wagons.
Noting the rebels' retreat while trying to free Leahy from jail where he is accused of being a horse thief, Harry makes the acquaintance of Isabel Almaden y Cortes, daughter of Don Luis, a Union hero at Glorieta. When Don Luis is murdered at his home, Harry seeks to discover the identity of the murderer. Passions run high, as shades of gray blur lines of loyalty, and someone seems to be searching for the gold that Harry discovered abandoned near the bodies of a man and woman.
Gripping and intense, the pace of this novel increases in speed as Harry and Indian friend Tatou are attacked when they unearth the grave of Don Luis near Glorieta. Inspired by the actual 1862 Battle of Glorieta Pass, this novel brings into focus a clear picture of the division of familial loyalties and subterfuge that were so much a vital part of the U.S. Civil War.
great Harrison Raines Civil War mystery.......2003-01-18
He is a son of the South, part of a rich Tidewater, Virginia family who embraces the concept of slavery so wholeheartedly that they fight for the confederacy. Harrison sees slavery as an evil institution and severed his ties to his family. He became an agent for the secret service under Pinkerton's command. Having been involved in two battles in the East, Pinkerton sends Harrison and "Boston" Leahy out west to determine whether these states will join the Confederacy.
Harrison and Leahy are to make contact with Federal supporter Don Luis Almaden y Cortes but instead they journey into Santa Fe during the battle of the Glorieta Pass. The Federal troops, with the help of locals, win, ending the South's hope to make the west part of their new nation. Don Luis is killed after the battle is won and Harrison, who is infatuated with the deceased's daughter, vows to bring the killers to justice if the killer doesn't murder him first.
Each book in the Harrison Raines Civil War mysteries revolves around a key battle that is interwoven into the story line. Michael Kilian does meticulous research so readers are receiving an education while being entertained. A GRAVE AT GLORIETA is an interesting tale focusing on the Western states during the Civil War, but presenting all sides fairly so that readers can understand all the undercurrents pulling people in numerous directions. Critical to this theme is that war is not glorified, but presented closer to the lines of All's Quiet on the Western Front. This book and this series are highly recommended.
Harriet Klausner
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A Good Soup Attracts Chairs: A First African Cookbook for American Kids
Fran Osseo-Asare
Manufacturer: Pelican Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Cooking, Food & Wine
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| Baking
| Canning & Preserving
| Cooking by Ingredient
| Culinary Arts & Techniques
| Drinks & Beverages
| Gastronomy
| General
| Meals
| Natural Foods
| Organic Cooking
| Outdoor Cooking
| Professional Cooking
| Quick & Easy
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Similar Items:
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The African-American Child's Heritage Cookbook
ASIN: 156554918X |
Book Description
Go ahead--let your kids cook healthy meals!
Creepy Spiders, Sloppy Dogs, Tornado Swirls . . . sound edible to you? It sure will to kids! Inside this beautifully illustrated hardcover edition are activities, colorful recipes, and cooking tips that will turn meal preparation into exciting family fun. Kids of all ages can take charge, don a chef ’s hat, and create delicious and nutritious snacks and dishes for every meal. From the simplest snacks and drinks--Monster Mouths and Raspberry Slush--to masterful meals--Super Giant Sea Snails and Chicken Swords--your kids can create their own masterpieces using step-by-step illustrations. Kids’ First Cookbook can help your children learn to make healthy and wholesome food choices that will benefit them for a lifetime.
"A cookbook with a contemporary look filled with nutrition information . . . colored type, drawings, and helpful photographs. A solid effort that will encourage healthy eating habits.”
–School Library Journal, December 2000
Customer Reviews:
Kids' First Cookbook.......2007-05-12
I was looking for a simple cookbook for a four year old. Simple recipes that he could do under supervision and this fit the package. Pictures and simple language that he could
understand. His parents were thrilled with the book and they too agreed that it was written for the younger child. Most of the other books I reviewed were written for older children that could read and had a little more dexterity.
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My First Cook Book
Manufacturer: C. R. Gibson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0766789829 |
Product Description
Very large and colorful children's cookbook. Diagrams included for steps to making simple dishes.
Product Description
FitKid7 is guaranteed to help children lose weight and/or get fit! The bonus is that children who live healthily tend to sleep better, have fewer behavior problems, experience less illness and are able to concentrate better in school! The FitKid7 book contains- 7 Simple Steps for a Fit & Healthy Child. Looks into reasons of why kids are unfit &/or overweight. How to get our kids on board to make the positive changes. Harmful Food Additives List. Shopping List. Great Ideas for Meals & Snacks. Recipes. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.
Customer Reviews:
6 stars.......2007-08-22
Fitkid7 is a great book on childhood fitness & health. It covers the issues of exercising, healthy eating and much much more.
I found it was easy to read (unlike a few others I've tried).
I love all the sections on Recipies, Shopping lists, meal ideas etc.
I would recommend FitKid7 to anyone looking for a book on kid's health. Your kids would love to read it just as I have.
Sirkka Wolke has done a great job on this one.****** 6 stars from me!
Books:
- Winning Racquetball: Skills, Drills, and Strategies
- Woman At Point Zero
- A Cold Day for Murder (Kate Shugak Mystery)
- A Loving Scoundrel
- A Whisper Of Eternity
- Alice's Tulips: A Novel
- Arrow's Flight (The Heralds of Valdemar, Book 2)
- Back When We Were Grownups: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
- Beware of Pity (New York Review Books Classics)
- Blackberry Wine: A Novel
Books Index
Books Home
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Stone Diaries, The (Essential Edition): (Penguin Essential Edition)
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