Book Description
This comic true adventure follows the outrageous experiences of one Redondo Beach loafer who is tricked into enlisting in the U.S. Army during the height of the Vietnam War. Suddenly Pete Whalon is thrown into a bizarre, harsh and alien world where "the rulers devour their young." Yet keeping his wits about him, Private Whalon carves out a very different sort of military career. Using youthful cunning, he transports his laidback So-Cal mentality to the Army structure with hilarious results! From Hawaii, to Saigon, to Long Binh (the largest U.S. military base in Vietnam in 1970), this reluctant soldier tests the patience and nerves of the lifers in command. Joining him in the rebellion is a motley crew of malcontented GIs, the core of which become his closest friends and the primary characters of this memoir.
Customer Reviews:
Drugs, Rock and Roll but little on the Sex side.......2007-06-03
This book is funnier than a rubber crutch in a polio ward. I thought I was the ultimate rear echelon m-f'er (REMF) in Vietnam but this guy edges me out. Being a 'shammer' and having run from duty that involved work, I found this to be right on the mark and very up front and honest in every respect. This is a must read for very veteran. Pete is telling what alot of veterans and the public do not really want to here.........that there was another side to being stationed in Nam. The book could have went more into the sex department as my tours revolved around that but nevertheless, you will enjoy this book and will laugh your rear off.
Hilarious reading!.......2005-12-21
This book is a hilarious mix of the Mash buddies going to Vietnam. Take out the medical and replace it with a bunch of guys trying to avoid work and trying to cope with Saigon and the Vietnam War.
Whalon begins with how he "joined the army" and continues with his various antics until he is released to return home.
This has the foundation of a light-hearted movie. I recommend Jim Carey to portray the leader and author, Pete Whalon.
A Cult Classic -- A Twisted, Hysterical Saga.......2004-09-16
Whalon's Saigon Zoo is a cult classic in the making belonging in the ranks of Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Bukowski's Ham on Rye. Every red blooded American will want to crony up with Pete Whalon as he takes you on a wild ride of Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll through the "the heart of darkness." The book has timeless implications that are just as relative today than ever before. Get ready to laugh out loud and make friends with characters that will feel close to home as you embrace this hysterical, twisted saga in The Zoo!
I don't recommend books lightly...this is a must have/read!
Book Description
It was 1733 when the poet and philosopher Voltaire met Emilie du Châtelet, a beguiling—and married—aristocrat who would one day popularize Newton’s arcane ideas and pave the way for Einstein’s theories. In an era when women were rarely permitted any serious schooling, this twenty-seven-year-old’s nimble conversation and unusual brilliance led Voltaire, then in his late thirties, to wonder, “Why did you only reach me so late?” They fell immediately and passionately in love.
Through the prism of their tumultuous fifteen-year relationship we see the crumbling of an ancient social order and the birth of the Enlightenment. Together the two lovers rebuilt a dilapidated and isolated rural chateau at Cirey where they conducted scientific experiments, entertained many of the leading thinkers of the burgeoning scientific revolution, and developed radical ideas about the monarchy, the nature of free will, the subordination of women, and the separation of church and state.
But their time together was filled with far more than reading and intellectual conversation. There were frantic gallopings across France, sword fights in front of besieged German fortresses, and a deadly burning of Voltaire’s books by the public executioner at the base of the grand stairwell of the Palais de Justice in Paris. The pair survived court intrigues at Versailles, narrow escapes from agents of the king, a covert mission to the idyllic lakeside retreat of Frederick the Great of Prussia, forays to the royal gambling tables (where Emilie put her mathematical acumen to lucrative use), and intense affairs that bent but did not break their bond.
Along with its riveting portrait of Voltaire as a vulnerable romantic, Passionate Minds at last does justice to the supremely unconventional life and remarkable achievements of Emilie du Châtelet—including her work on the science of fire and the nature of light. Long overlooked, her story tells us much about women’s lives at the time of the Enlightenment. Equally important, it demonstrates how this graceful, quick-witted, and attractive woman worked out the concepts that would lead directly to the “squared” part of Einstein’s revolutionary equation: E=mc2.
Based on a rich array of personal letters, as well as writings from houseguests, neighbors, scientists, and even police reports,
Passionate Minds is both panoramic and intimate in feeling. It is an unforgettable love story and a vivid rendering of the birth of modern ideas.
Customer Reviews:
Passionate Minds, Dull Book.......2007-08-03
This reader did not venture upon Passionate Minds with unreasonable expectations: a good yarn featuring an enlightened cast was all. Sadly, the effort was not worth the result. A middling tale, a tabloid history, and that most hideous of affectations, aspirations to wit on the part of the author. Claims to be liberating du Chatelet from the chauvinist past revealed less about her intellectual work than the descriptions of her appearance did of her [...]. Voltaire may well have been a hypochondriacal social climber, but he deserves better than lit crit 101 reviews of his work. The author seems extremely uncomfortable with the period: kings must be stupid & useless, aristocrats are not much better, merchants are hard working, peasants are earthy. When claiming that Voltaire's relationship with his niece was fine, because those things were more acceptable in such debauched times, Bodanis overlooks that minor inconvenience known as canon law. He also, presumably for reasons of humour, refers to Madame de Pompadour as Ms Poisson, combining historical innacuracy with silliness - this is not feminism, it is just plain wrong. The period and people covered by this book are fascinating in so many ways, yet the end result is shallow and dull.
Great History.......2007-07-24
This book gave me a fascinating piece of history that I was completly uninformed on. It is fascinating learning the details regarding life in a period that is completly foreign to our culture. It is also fascinating to find out the contributions that women made in science at a time when it was believed that women were completly ignorant, and every effort was made to keep them so.
"You are a delight/You are tender/What pleasure I find in your arms." Immortal verse?.......2007-04-18
I must thoroughly agree with the Publisher's Weekly reviewer of this book. Although it promises to deliver sensational events such as hot love affairs and outrageous behavior in addition to enlightening us about the brilliance of Voltaire and the genius of Emilie du Chatelet, this writer cannot live up to his own book's expectations or his clear attempt to pen a bestseller. What I felt I was getting was the diary entries of a peeping Tom who was busy sticking his nose into the sordid soap opera that was the "great love affair of the Enlightenment." I never had a sense that I was in the presence of a brilliant woman. Rather, Emilie comes off as a hedonistic and conflicted female, fatally insecure, and overshadowed by the even more insecure and narcissistic Voltaire. Although lots of information is imparted between the covers of this book, it never seems to gel into a cohesive or gripping whole, and I was left feeling flat, not only about the featured on-again, off-again eighteenth-century rock-star couple, but about eighteenth-century France altogether. No one seemed worth reading about. The lot of these folks apparently were stuck in their petty, class conscious, foolish ways, fawning over the court, slapping around the general population who weren't upper class, and generally being idiots. Perhaps the best I can say about this work is that it redeems science and rational thinking as well as the integrity of the individual, but only in a backhanded way. I'm afraid most readers will give up on this endless recounting of flaming passions and pettifoggery before getting halfway through. Lucky would they be too because they would happily miss the glaring and unforgivable fragment on p. 163: "But not only was the water cleaner in Cirey. There was also something more to Emilie's innovation." Editor please!
History comes alive........2007-04-05
In writing history for the masses, the author can take a major or a minor role. In the former, the history is more important than entertaining and the author has to pull the narrative along with great effort and undergo great travails to make the story interesting to the reader. In the latter, the history is so compelling and so entertaining that it defies logic, all the author has to do is tell the tale without much ornamentation nor effort.
David Bodanis, much to his credit, combined the best of both situations. The history is remarkbable to begin with, AND he put forth a valiant effort in research and sheer completeness. The story of Emilie Du Chatelet is so amazing and so very interesting that I wondered why I had not heard about her before this book. I think that it is because the story lay so deep and domant within the history of the French revolution and Voltaire's biographical details that no one lese had bothered to look it up and comprehend the importance and fun of her story.
Since the history involves two people who were lovers and partners, it is inevitable that we compare the two in terms of intellect, temperament, achievement, and personality. In my humble opinion, Voltaire came out the worse for wear on that account. Perhaps this was Bodanis' intent, perhaps it is just the charm of Emilie Du Chatelet. If I had my wish, I would much rather have an audience with her than with him, but not by much. Her achievements were astounding, she was, a natural philosopher in the finest sense of the phrase. Given the discriminatory stance of the scientific establishment at the time, her achievements were remarkable.
Far beyond that, it seems she was also the better diplomat, realist, politician, and intellect of the pair. This is not to denigrate Voltiare's prowess as playwright or provocateur extraordinaire, but his intellect seem less impressive by comparison.
The added incentive to read the book comes from the swashbuckling episodes in their lives together that was worthy of a cinematic presentation. Bodanis does an excellent job of building the suspense while also keeping the story line flowing through his fine skills. I guess the best compliment I can pay him is to say that I had to check the book cover numeorus times to ascertain that I was, indeed, reading non-fiction rather than fiction.
a casual but entertaining biography.......2007-02-10
I became interested in Emilie du Chatelet after reading a review of Judith Zinsser's biography on her. However, I ended up picking up Bodanis's book instead because it was written in a more welcoming style than Zinsser's drier account.
Emilie du Chatelet is a fascinating woman whose story needs little embelishment to be an entertaining read, but Bodanis's sense of humor and intimate approach to writing her biography do make it more intersting and readable. While he often goes out on a limb making assumptions about people's thoughts and actions that surely weren't documented, I don't think he was too unrealistic or uncalled for in doing so.
Bodanis also does a fine job intertwining the biography of Voltaire into Emilie's story, bringing to light Voltaire's little-known in science. He elegantly ties their lives into the climate of the Enlightenment and the events leading up to the French Revolution. In doing so, he introduces a tapestry of characters that played a key role in history as well as in Emilie and Voltaire's lives.
Absent from this book is anything more than a glossing-over of Emilie's scientific and mathematical contributions. Yet I can understand why this was done-- the light narrative of the book would have been bogged down by in-depth calculations and explainations that some readers may not be interested in or understand. Nevertheless, as a woman who loves math and science I was disappointed that Bodanis didn't go into greater detail here.
It's not often that I read more than one book on a particular person or subject (there are just too many interesting things to learn in this world), but now I'm eager to read more about Emile du Chatelet and will be picking up Judith Zinsser's more serious and detailed book soon. A quick and engaging read, Passionate Minds is an excellent introduction to this amazing lady.
Book Description
In 1733, the lovely, intelligent, and married Marquise du Chtelet commenced her romance with one Franois-Marie Arouet, a philosophe who had made a name for himself as "Voltaire." Mitford deftly and engagingly recounts their exemplary affair, whether in studious exile in the country, on the run from the censor, or in the "thoughtless circles of high society." Her portrayals of the "scamp" philosopher, his mistress who was "excessive in everything," and their "irregular century" are delightful portraits in themselves and as a group, a fascinating fresco of the French Enlightenment.
Customer Reviews:
Voltaire, his brilliant mistress, and the rest of the Enlightenment.......2007-08-15
Nancy Mitford's Voltaire in Love is an entertaining book, full of historic characters, revealing both their best and worst attributes in politics, society, the arts, and the bedroom.
The book is primarily about the long affair between Voltaire and his mistress, Mme. Emilie du Chatelet, which was certainly a meeting of two exceptionally brilliant minds of the Enlightenment. Yet the book really covers the early adult years of Voltaire and does not cover his later successes and fame.
Voltaire, a graduate of Louise-le-Grand Jesuit School, was a brilliant but sarcastic student, who became popular with his witty poems and plays. Yet his satire often went to far which on more than one occassion resulted in imprisonment in the Bastile. Like Moliere, Voltaire wrote witty comedy that appealed to the sophisticated upperclasses. Yet early in his career he is forced into exile to London where he wrote plays for Queen Caroline and King George. Gradually his star rose in the French court of Louis XV. Queen Marie Leczinska found him charming and gave him a pension. Louis XV also gave him a pension but was less comfortable with Voltaire than was his wife and his father in law, Stanislas Leczinska, ex-king of Poland. The king's famous mistress, Mme. Jeanne-Antoinette de Pompadour, was an admirer of Voltaire also and there is some evidence that she came to his rescue when he ran afoul of the censors of Louis XV. Thus much of the book is about the highest levels of French society and their impact on the arts, sciences, and humanities.
As is the case with many bright and opinionated thinkers, rivalry and jealousy and ambition create the conditions for long lasting enemies. This is the case between Voltaire and Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, a philosopher whom Voltaire seemed to disdain. However Voltaire's primary rivalry was with Abbe Desfontaines. Abbe Desfontaines was found molesting male adolescent chimney sweeps and was sentenced to burn at the stake for sodomy. Voltaire was one of his only allies and Desfontaine was saved. Yet, amazingly, Desfontaine became extremely critical and bitter and vindictive toward Voltaire leading the reader to recognize that no good deed goes unpunished.
The attempts of Frederick II of Prussia to lure Voltaire into his court was amazing underhanded strategy. Frederick II, creating a completely male homosexual court, seemed to be obsessed with Voltaire and secretly tried to undermine him in France so that offers to come to Prussia would be more appealing.
The book however is primarily about the affair of Voltaire and Emilie du Chatelet. They were quite a pair, both studious and brilliant, who allowed each other ample space to think and create. Voltaire and Emilie both popularized the works of Sir Issac Newton and advanced the fields of science and mathematics. French scholarly society prefered to continue to support Descarte's theories, primarily because he was French, a loyalty that Voltaire saw as standing in the way of rational thought. The book takes us through the many journeys of Voltaire and Emily outside of their remote mansion in the countryside. We see Emilie struggle in a game of strategy with King Frederick II for the loyalty of Voltaire. We see Voltaire trying to be supportive during Emilie's outrageous gambling addition. Her son, Florent-Francois is virtually raised in a home with two fathers. Eventually Emilie falls into lust for the handsome bright Saint-Lambert and wishes to continue her 3 man life with a rich lenient legal husband, her older more mature lover who has become her best friend, and her younger sex toy boyfriend. Unfortunately she becomes pregnant with Saint-Lambert and at age 43 dies 2 days after giving birth.
Well written, well documented, engaging, entertaining, and full of witty satiric details, this is an accomplishment that you will enjoy.
dissapointing.......2004-05-07
it is NOT a biography. It is a bounch of events glued together. At times I felt lost because she jumps from one topic to another and makes the reader confused when she throws a few strange sounding names without explaining who they were. As for the research of the subject I can't comment on the french part, however, on the polish side, the author didn't do a whole lot research because she couldn't even spell the name of an ex-King of Poland correctly! It's Stanis³aw Leszczyñski, not Stanislas Leczinski!!! She also undermines the linguistic abilities of the readers, thinking maybe that no-one but the French can really figure out the french language. I would not recommend this book if you really want to learn something about Voltaire and his love life, because there was no love life in that book!!
The book that inspired "A Visit From Voltaire".......2003-06-04
The hilarious modern comedy featuring the Ghost of Voltaire returning to the 21st century, "A Visit From Voltaire" Visit from Voltaire, A cites this book as one of the main sources for the period spanning the love affair of Madame de Chatelet and the King of the Englightenment, Voltaire. Another book that updates this information is Passionate Minds by David Boganis,Passionate Minds: The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Emilie du Chatelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings, but this is the book that hooked me first. And it remains one of the best books to date, despite a few little hitches in her facts, for readability, entertainment and capturing the spirit of Voltaire's middle years. Anybody who reads it will finish with a wonderful understanding of the man's energy, resilience and courage. A must.
The Candid Voltaire.......2003-01-04
Nancy Mitford was a brilliant writer, and the bedrock of virtually all her works - even the histories - was satire. And, true to the first law of all satirists, she takes no prisoners, even in dealing with such luminaries as Voltaire and his lover, Mme du Chatelet. From the very start, for instance, she tells us that Voltaire rarely had any original thoughts: his true genius was in his turn of phrase. In fact, to Mme du Chatelet's great embarassment, he was likely impotent, was virtually banished from Versailles, flirted outrageously with the openly gay King Frederick of Prussia and, later, developed an infatuation for his own niece.
Mme du Chatelet does rather better in Mitford's estimation - she is portrayed as a gifted scientist and an independently important literary figure - but as a lover, she too is deeply flawed. Time and again, she drove Voltaire close to bankruptcy with her gambling debts. And her premature death was brought on by childbirth - not Voltaire's baby, mind, but those of her "toy boy" lover. Yet it is clear that, for all that, she had met in Voltaire her true life partner, and within their own adulterous union, they tolerated each other's infidelities with good grace.
A classic chronicle of human foibles by an author who is utterly unintimidated by her biographical subjects.
Solid biographies::the love story is the backdrop.......2002-04-29
I couldn't put this book down, and tore through it in a matter of days. Despite being a voracious reader, it's (sadly) seldom that such a book comes along for me. The main draw for me in purchasing this book is being an avid fan of Voltaire. I had wondered just how strongly the "love story" element of the book would play out, as I'd known prior to purchasing this book that all of the intimate correspondence between Voltaire and Emilie has been lost. I'm not a "love story" kind of person, and was hoping this book would provide more of a strong picture into the personalities, foibles, strengths, habits, and routines of Voltaire primarily, and Emilie secondarily. I was not disappointed.
If you count yourself a lover of Voltaire -- the man and his writings -- then this book is truly a must-read for you. I've read much of his essays, philosophy, short stories, et cetera, and finally (to my immense delight) feel I "know" the man.
The personalities and temperaments of both Voltaire and Emilie were rather as I'd figured they would be, although there were a couple of genuine surprises -- some flattering, some not so flattering.
What continues to make me curious is how these two persons defined the word "love"...the dynamics of their relationship and love was interesting, and sometimes confusing, to say the very least. Ah well, I'm speaking of dead persons here. Respect for their personages and for the deceased prohibit me from going further. And besides, after nine years of marriage, I too admit the word "love" has a myriad of nuances.
Please enjoy this book! Ecrasez l'infame!
Book Description
It was 1733 when the poet and philosopher Voltaire met Emilie du Châtelet, a beguiling—and married—aristocrat who would one day popularize Newton’s arcane ideas and pave the way for Einstein’s theories. In an era when women were rarely permitted any serious schooling, this twenty-seven-year-old’s nimble conversation and unusual brilliance led Voltaire, then in his late thirties, to wonder, “Why did you only reach me so late?” They fell immediately and passionately in love.
Through the prism of their tumultuous fifteen-year relationship we see the crumbling of an ancient social order and the birth of the Enlightenment. Together the two lovers rebuilt a dilapidated and isolated rural chateau at Cirey where they conducted scientific experiments, entertained many of the leading thinkers of the burgeoning scientific revolution, and developed radical ideas about the monarchy, the nature of free will, the subordination of women, and the separation of church and state.
But their time together was filled with far more than reading and intellectual conversation. There were frantic gallopings across France, sword fights in front of besieged German fortresses, and a deadly burning of Voltaire’s books by the public executioner at the base of the grand stairwell of the Palais de Justice in Paris. The pair survived court intrigues at Versailles, narrow escapes from agents of the king, a covert mission to the idyllic lakeside retreat of Frederick the Great of Prussia, forays to the royal gambling tables (where Emilie put her mathematical acumen to lucrative use), and intense affairs that bent but did not break their bond.
Along with its riveting portrait of Voltaire as a vulnerable romantic, Passionate Minds at last does justice to the supremely unconventional life and remarkable achievements of Emilie du Châtelet—including her work on the science of fire and the nature of light. Long overlooked, her story tells us much about women’s lives at the time of the Enlightenment. Equally important, it demonstrates how this graceful, quick-witted, and attractive woman worked out the concepts that would lead directly to the “squared” part of Einstein’s revolutionary equation: E=mc2.
Based on a rich array of personal letters, as well as writings from houseguests, neighbors, scientists, and even police reports,
Passionate Minds is both panoramic and intimate in feeling. It is an unforgettable love story and a vivid rendering of the birth of modern ideas.
From the Hardcover edition.
Average customer rating:
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VOLTAIRE IN LOVE.
Nancy. Mitford
Manufacturer: Reader's Union/Hamish Hamilton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O8LEG2 |
Book Description
Most of us think we know what we want, and even why we cant get it. In her frank and inspiring book, Tonya Pinkins, star of television and Broadway, shows readers techniques and exercises that help them develop their own processes for obtaining their goals. This is tough love, Tonya style. In addition to being an actress and singer, Tonya has helped hundreds of people with her catalytic motivational seminars. She herself has seen the heights and the depths: from teen star to Tony Award winner to divorced mother on welfare to spiritual student to soaring success and unstoppable celebrity, delivering her magnificent solo performance at the 2004 Tony Awards show. In Get Over Yourself!, she takes the principles that helped her to succeed and puts them into a book that reaches out and grabs readers searching for a better way of life.
Customer Reviews:
GBM BookClub.......2007-08-01
Wow! What an attention grabbing title, from such a powerful book. The GBM Book Club definitely have to say that the author, Tonya Pinkins: Actress, Singer, Tony Award Winner, Soap Opera Diva and now the author of a best selling book Get over Yourself!: How to Drop the Drama and Claim the Life You Deserve, has written a self-helped book that will blow you away. She really makes you take a step back and look at yourself as a whole, but most of all, she makes you focus on life-changes and the steps one must take in order to achieve them.
In her book, she shares some of her personal experiences, her ups and down and the low points of her life. This self-empowerment book helps guide you through the decision making process and forces you to come up with the best possible solutions. She makes you see the type of energy you put out to the universe and how others may perceive that energy.
What the GBM Bookclub liked best about the book was the different exercises / quizzes she offered during the reading. As you're reading the book, she actually guides you through the exercise which helps you to identify how the madness / drama in your life begin. Trust me, as you continue to complete the exercises / quizzes, you will begin to examine your thinking process which will force you to question and develop new ways of reaching your primary goals in life. There are times in the book where she would ask you a question and your only answer would be "Yes" "Yes" Now is that positive thinking or what?
Let's face it, we have all come across a time in our life where we start to question our behavior or evaluate the people who are in our lives. We start to think about the bad decisions or the mistakes we've made...... Now, unless you're totally perfect, blissfully happy and content with your life, then this book isn't for you. But, if you're ready and willing to make some changes, take the challenge and start living the life that you deserve, then Congratulation!!!!! You've taken the first step....Now run out and get her book. Trust me, you won't regret it.
This book surprised me.......2006-10-29
I must admit, this book caught my eye in the bookstore, and I skimmed over it.
I subscribe to "Science of Mind" magazine, and a few days later, when the issue came, there was Tonya on the front cover. -I read the article and ran back out to the store to buy the book! So many of the spiritual/Universal teachings I've read before are rolled up in this one book.
Some of the things she proposes in this book may be hard to grasp or even think about doing. This lady's "expenses outnumbered her income by about 1000 percent" and she still stuck with her "paper bag" system while on welfare. Are you "over yourself" enough to be willing to do something like that? -Well, honestly, I must say that I'm not there -yet, but this book definately has me thinking about it and wondering if I can take a chance like that and make it work. I am wondering if one must get to the place where they have nothing else to lose, to be able to take a chance like that?
This lady has faced some very challenging situations. When she was involved in a custody battle w/her ex, she gave in instead of resisting. She decided that her old patterns weren't working for her any longer, so she chose differently. This, in a situation that would be heart wrenching for any mother, she chose differently. -"I was not reacting, but responding, proactively, to achieve what I wanted, rather than giving in to the fear that dominated me in the past. No longer did I believe that I had better take "something-anything!" rather than risk ending up with the very thing I did not want." ...."You are so sure that no other option is possible that you react against your own best interests." -from the book.
There are real life examples of why and how the principals she proposes work. She's lived/experienced them for herself. The chapters end with a review and spaces to write in your own thoughts and answers to the questions. There are lots of very helpful/inspirational/relevant quotes throughout the book.
This book is overflowing in helpful advice, not only pertaining to finances, but in how to change your THINKING and begin living the life you really want to live.
I have to say that the "ice cream cone" analogy was very helpful for me in putting the financial freedom system in perspective. -It's about "demonstrating your ability to handle a single scoop so you can move on to the double and triple."
Also, the birthday gift that she gives to herself every year...I loved that.
A few excerpts from the book:
"You are free to choose to do it differently at any time."
"Keep doing what you've always done and you'll keep getting what you've always gotten."
"I've been an avid reader my entire life. But whenever I changed what I was reading, that didn't change my life. My life changed when I changed what I was doing. I changed what I was doing with practice."
She Makes You Work For It.......2006-06-14
Really, really fun book. Read this book with a pen in your hand. Tonya Pinkins asks you to write all over it, to get to the bottom of you, and to get you to act on certain things in your life in which you need to be taking actions.
My favorite thing about this book is that she walks you along - asks you to answer a few questions, and then inerprets your answers for you or has you interpret them once she gives you some clues. Very thorough. I'm surprised that she has so many topics in here in regular language (but if you were to look through any chapter, the techniques she uses to ask you questions have been studied to make results in your life!... wiring the brain towards remembering and towards action, what you'll be when you grow up, banishing debilitating attitutes, forgiveness, action, goals - even these words that I'm using to summarize her book are dry). Her book is active, and that's what makes it effective.
informative read.......2006-03-10
I bought the book as a gift for my wife and she found some of the lessons informative. Some of the lessons were common sense but others we interesting bits of knowledge most people never stumble across in every day life but are very helpful.
Never get over the Passion.......2006-01-09
"Get Over Yourself" is not one of those self-help books that really should have been a single paragraph. (You know the type: example after example tells you the same story until you feel that perhaps the author mistrusts your ability to understand the point.) This book is radically different from that genre. Every chapter delivers more, and newer, and different.
The book represents a world of work on the part of the author. If you have ever seen Tonya Pinkins on stage, you know that she works! The energy she generates in performance fairly explodes out of her and acts like a depth charge in the audience. Now, through some kind of magical alchemy, she's been able to impart that quality to the printed page, and you should be ready for a genuine mental work-out when you crack the book open; reading it is an audience-participation activity.
Don't let that scare you off, though. I found that some chapters went slowly and others went quickly, depending on how familiar I was with the feelings they evoked and the requirements they placed on me as a reader. In the first chapter, Pinkins starts giving assignments. I got my pen out when I saw three blank lines after her advice: "write it down." Feeling a little silly, I wrote down my response, and then I kept reading. At the end of the chapter, I realized how important it had been for me to physically write those words. Several chapters later, it dawned on me that I had used every prior bit of my "workbook" writing to gain mastery over the ideas and techniques presented. I no longer felt silly about it, either.
Whether or not you use this book in the big parts of your life (after all, you might not want the same things this particular artist/performer/celebrity-mother wants), you will probably find yourself using some parts of the book in smaller parts of your life. I hear myself say (to myself and even others), "don't give it any energy," or "figure out what you want and try to get it," and I understand how profound an effect Pinkins' book has had on me. Perhaps the reason is that she wrote it with real passion, with that special Pinkinsian passion that emanates from her as she sings or acts. Some call it magnetism; some call it charisma; some call it leadership. I think it's the quality of a real teacher. So, some call it love.
I am not a religious person. Yet I could appreciate in this book an almost religious quality, a certain cross-cultural faith-tinged feeling, if you will. Pinkins is a prototype open mind. She seeks out gurus and soaks up knowledge. She has been an avid student, over the years, of many fine teachers, and she seems, finally, to be a disciple of all sorts of universal "ways." Anyone traveling through any of the ways she has lived will love this book. Buy it, read it, see for yourself.
Book Description
On her Food Network show Sugar, pastry chef Anna Olson shows viewers how to create simple, original desserts that they can create at home. Now, Anna's favorite recipes from her show are available in this book! Divided into sections based on key ingredients, such as Fruit, Chocolate, Nuts and Citrus, Anna's recipes progress naturally from one dish to the next. She first includes an easy recipe and then follows it up with a "switch-up" -- a more elaborate recipe to dress it up or transform it into a whole new dessert. For example, Chocolate Orange Pudding turns into Chocolate Orange Cream Pie with the addition of a cookie crust and creamy topping.
Throughout Sugar, Anna provides countless tips such as the best way to unmold a cake and how to prevent nuts from becoming a paste in the food processor. She also explains how following basic rules of baking leads to greater success. Sugar's accessible, creative recipes and helpful hints will assist every home cook to create innovative desserts.
Customer Reviews:
Sugar - Anna Olson.......2007-01-07
I watch Sugar on Foxtel in Australia - so was very happy to see the accompanying book !
Quite simply - if you love desserts this book is for you! The recipes range from the very easy to the more complicated - there is something for everybody from simple cookies , to coffee sour cream cake, to the wonderful phyllo bananas - and peanut btter chocolate cups -
Anna also includes handy tips on choosing the right tools and using the right techniques - the only problem I have with this book is that it should include more photos - there are only a handful - but other than that you won't regret buying this book
Books:
- The Sun Kept Rising
- The Tracks of God:The Story of Henry Oehmsen -- Waffen SS Soldier of World War II and Prisoner of the Soviets
- The Turned Field
- The Way of a Boy: A Memoir of Java
- The Young Ones: American Airmen of Ww II
- Then Darkness Fled: The Liberating Wisdom of Booker T. Washington (Leaders in Action Series)
- This Cruel War: The Civil War Letters of Grant and Malinda Taylor
- Trapped at Pearl Harbor: Escape from Battleship Oklahoma
- Tumult in the Clouds
- VETERANS: The Last Survivors of the Great War
Books Index
Books Home
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General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power (A Philip E. Lilienthal Book)
The Debate over Vietnam (The American Moment)
A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath
Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War
Understanding Vietnam
