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< The Little Stranger > < The Forgotten Garden: A Novel > < The Help > < The Night Watch > < Olive Kitteridge: Fiction > < A Reliable Wife > Sarah Waters

price：~~$9.16~~
Riverhead Hardcover
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customer 's review
(Where are the missing pages?)

(Slow Decay)

(The ghosts within us)

(A wonderful mystery)

(Literate Genre Fiction)

Right at mid point (p 310) I find myself rereading the same pages?
Am missing from 310 to 375, just when the story was getting good.
Thought at first it was part of the book,
making me feel a little crazy like the characters...
what the heck is going on?
Unlike Ms. Waters' earlier novels, this one was paced so slowly that at times it had the feel of Miss Havisham's stopped clocks itself. The changing class identities in England as the underlying theme was moderately interesting, and the paranormal happenings kept the book moving, albeit at a snail's pace, but there just was not enough substance to this book. I love Ms. Waters' style of writing; I think I could give at least three stars to a technical manual written by her. So - three stars it is.
I am not a fan of ghost stories and bought this book on the basis of a review that described it as a study of social changes in Britain after WWII. (Shades of Brideshead Revisited.)

I am a fan of psychological thrillers, however, and thoroughly enjoyed this one. It is atmospheric, intriguing and provides insight into a way of life now mostly gone. The best part is that once you figure out what's going on, there's a lot of enjoyment to be had to go backwards and put it all together. I stayed up the better part of a night just reviewing details and then thinking, "Of course." It's been a long time since a book engaged me so fully.

This is a mystery. Nothing more, nothing less, which makes it a great read. Don't miss out on this book because of the reviews that say its a waste of time. Reviews that say it would have been better if....well if they had written it may have been different obviously but not necessarily better. But I don't see these reviewers writing anything.
This reminded me somewhat of Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" but with much more depth and suspense. Truly a good read. Don't miss out on this wonderful book. This is the first Waters book I have read and was very pleased. Read it in 3 sittings over a period of 36 hrs.
It is a novel, a mystery novel, a suspense novel. A good book!
I admire ghost stories, especially the English tradition of the early twentieth century (E. F. Benson, Henry James, M. R. James, Oliver Onions). With "The Little Stranger" Ms. Waters wipes the dust from that mode and gives it a gloss. The first and most important thing to be said is that this author knows how to write. In genre fiction that is crucial, because it's the writing--the tale well told--that keeps the pages turning (or, in my case, bestirs me to return to especially well-crafted paragraphs). The author is a master of atmosphere and setting: Essentially she is retelling Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher," but the effect of one of homage, not theft. The story is set in Warwickshire of the late 1940s, and the terms and turns of phrase seem remarkably true to that time and place--an era in which so many of Britain's gentry and grand manors were dissolving forever. While flawed and frequently unlikeable, the characters are believable in their varied reactions to incredible events. The plotting is curious: Its patches of predictability lulled me into a complacency that was sporadically jolted and snapped--which, of course, is the characters' own experience. Likewise, the terror ranges from the subtle drone of evil to outbursts of grotesquerie.

An excellent summer read; maybe a better winter one. This novel is my introduction to Sarah Waters. I've no doubt that I'll be reading more from her.
A chilling and vividly rendered ghost story set in postwar Britain, by the bestselling and award-winning author ofThe Night WatchandFingersmith.

Sarah Waters’s trilogy of Victorian novelsTipping the Velvet,Affinity, andFingersmithearned her legions of fans around the world, a number of awards, and a reputation as one of today’s most gifted historical novelists. With her most recent book,The Night Watch, Waters turned to the 1940s and delivered a tender and intricate novel of relationships that brought her the greatest success she has achieved so far. WithThe Little Stranger, Waters revisits the fertile setting of Britain in the 1940s—and gives us a sinister tale of a haunted house, brimming with the rich atmosphere and psychological complexity that have become hallmarks of Waters’s work.

The Little Strangerfollows the strange adventures of Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. One dusty postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline—its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

Abundantly atmospheric and elegantly told,The Little Strangeris Sarah Waters’s most thrilling and ambitious novel yet.
Rerations
< The Little Stranger > < The Forgotten Garden: A Novel > < The Help > < The Night Watch > < Olive Kitteridge: Fiction > freaks

< At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life > < Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival > < Dark Places: A Novel > < South of Broad > < Mercury in Retrograde: A Novel > < The Story Sisters: A Novel > Wade Rouse

price：~~$7.68~~
Harmony(2009-06-02)
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customer 's review
(At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream)

(Hilariously funny and so thought-provoking. It will change my life!)

(scream or laugh, your choice)

(A Memorable Story About Living Your Dreams)

(Funniest Book of the Summer!)

At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life If you are looking for an extremely funny book interlaced with a struggle to adapt to cultural and societal expectations, this is a rewarding choice by a gifted young author.
This may be the funniest book that I have ever read. I was thrilled to see that even after moving to the woods, Wade remained as fabulous as ever. (And that, believe me, is pretty darn fabulous!) And I was touched, and thrilled, to see that his experiences with the more simplified life did affect him very positively.

A previous reviewer quoted this passage, which I ended up reading to my husband: "I have now learned that there is never a wrong time to do something meaningful and courageous in life, something that makes you deeply and achingly happy. There is only a right time: a moment to hold your breath, close your eyes and jump." For the last several years, my husband has been working at a job he hates. After reading this book, I became SURE that it is time for us to make the jump, and he is going to quit his job to pursue his dream! THANKS WADE!!

If you are thinking about the meaning of your life, the pursuit of your dreams, taking risks, or being afraid to take risks, this book is for you. You will laugh and laugh-and then think deeply about some very important questions.

"there's a raccoon on my head. and i don't particularly look good in hats. especially when they're still moving." and that is how wade rouse got me started on his memoir, laughing my you know what off. this is what it is all about. you can either feel sorry for the 40 year old gay men who is freaking out about life, or you can laugh about all the funny things we encounter in life that he so eloquently puts on the page. if you live in new york or los angeles, you might wonder what in god's name a guy in a midwestern city feels all that pressured about? but a gay man in any city is still a gay man! and as you follow his ten "life lessons," all written down on napkins while high on caffeine, you will realize that whether we live in a city of 300K or 30 million, a city is a city is a city. you still have to give up LOGO, and kenneth cole, and, yes, the boys. ok, so the last one is not part of the ten. the point is, by reading about his frustrations one rediscovers what is essential. at the end of the day, do we really need cable? maybe not. but for some us, a neighbor to hear our scream is nice.
When was the last time you read a memoir that begins with an angry raccoon perched on the author's head? That's the opening scene of Wade Rouse's new book and one of many, both hilarious and wise, that make this a memorable story about living your dreams and in the process discovering a new life.

Despite the inspiration supplied by his grandmother's passion for Henry David Thoreau's WALDEN, Wade Rouse is an unlikely heir to the mantle of that nature-loving philosopher. Although he grew up in the Ozarks, the flamboyantly gay Rouse confesses that he had transformed himself "from a country rube into a sophisticated city boy, a Starbucks-swilling, pashmina-wearing, catch-a-Parker-Posey-independent-movie kind of guy." Frustrated in his day job as a public relations director at a St. Louis prep school, he yearns to become a full-time writer. So in 2005, he persuades his salesman partner Gary to abandon urban life for a small house they christen "Turkey Run" on three and one-half acres of land just outside the small town of Saugatuck, Michigan, a resort town and burgeoning artist community about a mile from Lake Michigan. Wade and Gary soon discover the chasm that separates life in the tourist season and the reality of a Michigan winter, and the fun begins.

Before embarking on his adventure, Rouse grabs a pile of coffeehouse napkins and compiles a list of "new life goals, one per napkin, that would match the tenets and principles that Thoreau set forth in WALDEN." The book's succeeding chapters end with a scorecard in which he judges his success by assigning a point to "Wade's Walden" or "Modern Society." Rouse's goals range from the mundane ("learn to love the snow") to the practical ("live off the land" and "nurture our country critters") to the profound ("rediscover religion" and "redefine the meaning of life and my relationship with Gary"). What gives his memoir its real zest are the sparks that fly when his wish to "eschew the latest entertainment and fashion for simpler pursuits" meets stiff resistance as he tries to "let go of my city cynicism."

For someone who is used to hanging out at Kenneth Cole and Banana Republic and is a devoted fan of "I Love Lucy" ("What would Lucy do?" is a frequent mantra) and Erma Bombeck, it's an understatement to describe Rouse's immersion into rural life as a culture shock. It isn't long before he has had to shed his normal haunts to frequent the local feed store on Saturday morning ("This is like replacing meth with Bubble Yum") or attend a potluck church supper that inspires a poignant recollection of the painful week he spent at church camp as a teenager. In one unsparing, often riotously funny self-portrait after another, Rouse tells of his grim battle with the relentless Michigan snow, his encounters with the local wildlife (the aforementioned raccoon gets a curtain call later in the book), his stab at ice fishing, and his attempt with Gary to plant a vegetable garden, among other adventures.

Like his predecessor Thoreau, Rouse is a keen, if initially reluctant, observer of natural life. He is able to write about it both lyrically ("Sometimes the fog rolls off the lake, heavy and thick, like a moving curtain, and the morning simply becomes stalled, the sunlight choked in darkness.") and with humor ("Spring arrives one day in Michigan like a forgotten castaway who manages to row his way onto the beach using two coconuts."). He is equally perceptive in the stories he tells of his neighbors, from the artists on whose farm he and Gary pick blueberries to the migrant workers who live, and eventually abandon, the decrepit single-wide trailer next door.

It's evident early in Wade Rouse's memoir that he's able to play a scene for laughs every bit as skillfully as David Sedaris, with whose work this book inevitably will be compared. Rouse's journey isn't an easy one, and for every step forward it seems he suffers a corresponding pratfall along the way. And yet, for all its biting wit, there's a rich, life-affirming message worthy of Thoreau at this story's core: "I have now learned that there is never a wrong time to do something meaningful and courageous in life," Rouse writes, "something that makes you deeply and achingly happy. There is only a right time: a moment to hold your breath, close your eyes and jump."

--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg
Side-splitting, hilarious, yet heartfelt and poignant "misadventures" of a man who hits 40 with a resounding thud and resolves to uproot his life, quit his job and leave the city, cable, culture and consumerism behind in order to move to a knotty-pine cottage in the middle of the Michigan woods to recreate a modern-day Walden. The memoir chronicles ultimate urbanite Wade and his partner, Gary, as they embrace 10 Life Lessons -- sort of a City/Country Smackdown -- based on trying to achieve a simpler life but also rooted in the tenets of Walden (think "Eschew Fashion and Entertainment for Simpler Pursuits," such as living w/o cable and magazines, a nearly impossible task for a man who considers Kenneth Cole to be on par with Gandhi for his contributions to the world, and Kathy Griffin to be his spiritual leader; think "live off the land," although his fave foods are Kashi and Morningstar Burgers; think "embrace your neighbors," though many seem to have night-vision goggles; think "embrace the Pixar-cute country critters, though Wade is attacked by a raccoon.) Yes, Wade buys waders, Wade ice-fishes, and survives blizzards and country stores and country karaoke with two tipsy trollops, but he also rediscovers -- as Thoreau did -- his spirituality, as well as happiness and a home in the last place he thought he'd ever find those things. I laughed out loud on nearly every page, but also was challenged to think about where I wanted my life to head in these tough times. Book is about taking risks, embracing life, getting lost in the woods, and finding yourself in the most unexpected of places. Wade reminds me of a gay Erma Bombeck, and I highly recommend this book as a must summer-read.
We all dream it.
Wade Rouse actually did it.

Finally fed up with the frenzy of city life and a job he hates, Wade Rouse decided to make either the bravest decision of his life or the worst mistake since his botched Ogilvie home perm: to uproot his life and try, as Thoreau did some 160 years earlier, to "live a plain, simple life in radically reduced conditions."

In this rollicking and hilarious memoir, Wade and his partner, Gary, leave culture, cable, and consumerism behind and strike out for rural Michigan–a place with fewer people than in their former spinning class. There, Wade discovers the simple life isn’t so simple. Battling blizzards, bloodthirsty critters, and nosy neighbors equipped with night-vision goggles, Wade and his spirit, sanity, relationship, and Kenneth Cole pointy-toed boots are sorely tested with humorous and humiliating frequency. And though he never does learn where his well water actually comes from or how to survive without Kashi cereal, he does discover some things in the woods outside his knotty-pine cottage in Saugatuck, Michigan, that he always dreamed of but never imagined he’d find–happiness and a home.

At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Screamis a sidesplitting and heartwarming look at taking a risk, fulfilling a dream, and finding a home–with very thick and very dark curtains.

Rerations
< At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life > < Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival > < Dark Places: A Novel > < South of Broad > < Mercury in Retrograde: A Novel > freaks

< A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played > < Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played > < Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir > < Levels of the Game > < The Third Reich at War > < The Help > Marshall Jon Fisher

price：~~$8.50~~
Crown(2009-04-21)
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customer 's review
(Excellent mix of tennis, Roaring 20s, sportsmanship, Nazism, gay issues)

(very interesting)

(What A Story!)

(A Terrible Splendor is great reading)

(A spendor to read...)

As Don Budge replaced Bill Tilden as America's top tennis player, the Roaring 20s were well into the Depression. But, Tilden was still one of the top sports icons of that era.

But, the US Lawn Tennis Association was glad to see him fall. They knew, as few others did, despite jokes, that Tilden was gay.

Meanwhile, across the ocean, aristocratic Baron Gottfried von Cramm resisted calls first, then pressure, to join the Nazi Party even as he rose in the tennis ranks. He, though married, was also gay, and watched over his shoulder as the 30s grew longer.

Then, befriended by Tilden in the mid-30s, he raised his tennis game even higher. And with Tilden rebuffed even as a USLTA coach, so, he sat watching von Cramm face off against Budge in a do-or-die Davis Cup match three weeks after Budge had whipped von Cramm to win Wimbledon.

Fisher weaves these story lines together, both before and after the dramatic clash, including the eventual arrests of both Tilden, in the U.S., and von Cramm, in Nazi Germany.

An excellent look at various slices of life, expertly woven together.
quite interesting juxtaposition of tennis greats and pre world war 2 history. Well written.
Fisher, Marshall Don. "A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played", Crown Publishing, 2009,

What A Story!

Amos Lassen

In July 1937 tennis seemed so completely civilized when Don Budge, the son of a California truck driver played against his friend Baron Gottfried von Cramm, a German aristocrat. The swastika flew with the Union Jack over the tennis court and Nazis had tea with the queen of England. Von Cramm had been coached by the legendary Bill Tilden and the three men's stories collide here. Von Cramm had a secret--he was gay and his Jewish lover had fled from Germany. He had been investigated for homosexual activities and was barred from several matches, He refused to become a Nazi and he confided in Tilden who was also gay that he was playing for his life. This is an amazing story and quite readable.

I read an excerpt of this book in "Tennis" magazine a couple of months ago, and found it intriguing enough to buy and read the book. This is masterful writing at its best as Fisher weaves the lives of three main characters (tennis players) into the fabric of the political and social scenes of the 1920's, 1930's, and 1940's. I happen to be a tennis fan and player, but I really believe that even if one is not familiar with tennis, he/she could enjoy this story. It is compelling.
As a tennis history buff, I have always believed that a good tennis player and fan should know something about the history of the game. This includes the great champions and matches of the past because they helped to lay the foundation for the modern game that we see today.

I recently read this masterful, well-researched and highly-praised book on a riveting period of tennis and world history - the 1937 Davis Cup semi-final match played at Wimbledon Centre Court between Germany and the United States, as the world prepared for war.

Here's my detailed review:
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Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played. Marshall Jon Fisher, Crown Publishers (April 2009). 321 Pages, 6 Chapters, 8 Pages of Black&White Photos.

(*The book's title comes from a quote from Thomas Carlyle about "Fate [which] envelopes and overshadows...[against which] human will appears but like flashes [of] a brief and terrible splendor...")

Before Federer and Nadal, before Sampras and Agassi, before Borg and McEnroe, the greatest tennis match of all, argues the book's author Marshall Jon Fisher was probably the singles match of the 1937 Davis Cup semi-final played at Wimbledon seven decades ago between the great Don Budge for the USA (ranked number one in the world at that time), and Baron Gottfried von Cramm for Germany (ranked number two).

Click here for a Photo of Budge and von Cramm:
[...]

The greatness of the match was based on more than pure tennis (though the tennis was indeed extraordinary), but also the backdrop of impending world war and the high stakes for all, especially von Cramm.

This match was a five set thriller before a raucous crowd on the edge of their seats. It ended only after five match points in the fifth set, culminating with a spectacular running forehand winner around the netpost, and after both men were exhausted and tested to their ultimate limits. One man was playing for the honor of his country - Budge. The other, Von Cramm, was literally playing for his life (as he was targeted by the Nazi regime in his home country for alleged offenses, and only his victory on the tennis court assured him safety.) In that sense, the match became a metaphor for the poignancy of the human battle and, in the words of the publisher, ultimately the "triumph of the human spirit".

Against it all, Fisher also writes beautifully about the rising drums of war across Europe and the world, interweaving the Budge-von Cramm match with the story of a world on the brink of global conflict.

The three extraordinary men of the book's title are: Budge and von Cramm, of course, and the third man - Bill Tilden, the great US tennis superstar and champion of the 20s. Fisher makes many insights into their lives and inter-relationships, traces their seminal tennis contributions and even touches on their personal demons.

Budge and von Cramm were good friends on and off the court, who genuinely liked each other. Budge and Tilden naturally had the greatest respect for each other and their respective abilities. Tilden said of Budge in a comment published later: "I consider him the finest player, 365 days a year, who ever lived." Tilden was a visitor many times to Germany and, in an interesting twist, unofficially coached the German Davis Cup team, including von Cramm and was rooting for him at the Davis Cup match, to the obvious dismay of American fans.

Bill Tilden
----------
The first great tennis superstar, who transformed the sport from a gentile country club pastime to an arena for world-class athletes where winning was the ultimate goal and aim. Tilden in his prime simply was tennis. As sports writer Frank Deford wrote: "It was Tilden and tennis, in that order." From 1920 to 1926, Tilden never lost a match of any consequence, a record unequaled even to now. He won 10 lifetime major championships. He was also a talented writer and a brilliant student of the game. His 1925 classic book Match Play and the Spin of the Ball was studied by generations of tennis students. Consider what he wrote in his book about the "all-court player", almost a premonition about the game's future:

"What is the future of the tennis game? ... As one of the champions of today, I see vistas of progress ahead, of which I glimpse only a bit, but which the champions of tomorrow will have explored and developed. Where are these lanes of progress? Not from the backcourt. Not from the net. It is rather in the use of the forecourt for sharp angled shots, in the use of the mid-court volley, the half volley and rising bounce shots, that future progress lies. Every player who desires to succeed in the future must equip himself with every shot in tennis and then strive to explore the mysteries of the forecourt."

And Tilden was a consummate showman and entertainer. And he lived a flamboyant and extravagant lifestyle. He was famous for a reputedly 150MPH cannonball serve - with the wood rackets of old. Witnesses at matches, including Gene Mako, recalled that he could take 4 tennis balls in one hand - one between each finger and thumb and serve up 4 aces on command!

Tilden boasted a long career, playing on the pro tour well into his 40s and even 50s. In his late 40s, when he once beat Budge on the pro tour, Budge remarked that Tilden taught him a lesson, playing "the greatest tennis I have ever seen." At 53, Tilden could beat much younger stars Fred Perry and Bobby Riggs. It was said he could still be the best in the world for one set. "All they can do is beat him", wrote columnist Al Laney, "they cannot ever be his equal."

In 1950, a AP Sports Writers poll, without any real dissent, voted Bill Tilden the greatest player of the half-century.

(Oddly enough, Tilden shares a birthday with me - February 10, and comes from the same hometown - Philadelphia. I have even played at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia where he learned to play.)

Tilden sadly carried a dark secret from the public until the end of his days. He was a homosexual, and was charged late in his life of corrupting teenage boys. He was ostracized in public but always his tennis accomplishments were honored. He died of a heart attack in his hotel room at the age of 60.

Don Budge
----------
Budge was the skinny, red-haired kid from Oakland, California, son of a truck driver, who learned the game at Bushrod public court. Later, he justifiably became "Mr. Tennis", literally inventing the "Grand Slam" by intentionally planning and winning all four majors in 1938. (In Budge's day, a sea journey to Australia to compete in their Open was 22 days.)

Pancho Segura once joked that Budge was so confident in his ability on the court that if you were his opponent, he was saying to you: "You can be my ballboy". And for good reason. His powerful backhand often hit on the rise with devastating consistency is even today considered one of the greatest in the game. Indeed, Budge's "unassailable package of power and consistency" is still viewed by many as "the finest ever", even seven decades later. In 1937-1938, he won 92 matches, 14 straight tournaments, including all the majors and 10 Davis Cup matches. He was voted by the press in 1937 and 1938 as the best American athlete.

Budge became a Hall of Famer in 1964 and retired in Eastern Pennsylvania. He died in a car accident in 1999.

Gottfried von Cramm
--------------------
von Cramm was the tall, blond, green-eyed, impeccably groomed, German aristocrat with the title Baron, son of a lawyer and military officer. He was very popular and well-liked in tennis for his gentlemanly conduct and fair play. Unfortunately, he rose to prominence when the Nazi party came to power in Germany. They wanted to promote him as an example of Aryan superiority, but he refused to be used as a propaganda tool.

von Cramm was being watched by Nazi officials for this reason and others. He had married his childhood sweetheart, who was part Jewish. And there were also rumors that von Cramm was also a homosexual, a grave offense in Nazi Germany typically calling for imprisonment and punishment in a concentration camp. von Cramm was reportedly assured that as long as he kept winning at tennis, no harm would come to him.

Before the Davis Cup match with Budge, von Cramm had won the French Open titles twice, made the finals of Wimbledon two weeks earlier, and rose to number 2 in the world. Tilden had agreed to unofficially coach the German team and von Cramm, and greatly sharpened his backhand for the match.

In the years after the match, von Cramm was eventually arrested and imprisoned for the morals charge of homosexuality, and banned from tennis. He was also later drafted and served in the German Army on the Eastern front. After the war and many letters of protest from tennis fans around the world, he returned to play tennis and Wimbledon in the 1950s. He died in a car accident in Cairo, Egypt in 1976.

The Davis Cup Singles Match: Budge v. von Cramm
------------------------------------------------
The Davis Cup matches were a major sporting event in tennis in 1937, closely followed around the world.

There were unconfirmed reports that just minutes before the match, von Cramm got a call from Hitler, and that he looked pale and deadly serious, answering with "Yes, mine Fuhrer."

The match itself was a five set spectator's marvel, with shot after shot thrilling the raucous crowd who rewarded a particularly brilliant point with an entire minute of applause.

von Cramm, serious and methodical and under Tilden's tutelage, took the first two sets, 8-6, 7-5 with an onslaught of net volleys and groundstrokes deep and hard to Budge's baseline, which were "like a barrage of leaden bombs." Budge who, according to Alister Cooke, played "crazy and inspired tennis", fought back by doggedly moving into net himself - intercepting von Cramm's deep shots at mid-court, hitting volleys from "no-man's land" on the way in, and took the next two sets, 6-4, 6-2.

One writer described the tennis as "winners hit off of balls which themselves appeared to be certain winners". James Thurber wrote that the level of play was an "inspired brilliance, amounting to almost physical genius..." Walter Pate declared years later "No man living or dead, could have beaten either man that day."

In the final set, to Budge's dismay, von Cramm pulled out to a 4-1 lead. Budge re-grouped and stormed back to a 6-6 tie. Point after point late into the fifth set became an epic duel, a "heroic and sustained" effort "with such gorgeous shots." It all ended at 8-6 in the fifth, after five match points, on a screaming running forehand winner to the crowd's thunderous cheers.

I won't reveal here who won but you're welcome to look it up. The important point is that both men, tested to the ultimate, hugged each other after the match, genuinely happy for each other's play - as the Centre Court inscription says - "meeting triumph and disaster and treating those two imposters the same."

For those who want to hear a Podcast Interview of Marshall Jon Fisher, the book's author, with Photo Slideshow, click here:
[...]

End
Before Federer versus Nadal, before Borg versus McEnroe, the greatest tennis match ever played pitted the dominant Don Budge against the seductively handsome Baron Gottfried von Cramm. This deciding 1937 Davis Cup match, played on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon, was a battle of titans: the world's number one tennis player against the number two; America against Germany; democracy against fascism. For five superhuman sets, the duo’s brilliant shotmaking kept the Centre Court crowd–and the world–spellbound.

But the match’s significance extended well beyond the immaculate grass courts of Wimbledon. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the brink of World War II, one man played for the pride of his country while the other played for his life. Budge, the humble hard-working American who would soon becomethe first man to win all four Grand Slam titles in the same year, vied to keep the Davis Cup out of the hands of the Nazi regime. On the other side of the net, the immensely popular and elegant von Cramm fought Budge point for point knowing that a loss might precipitate his descent into the living hell being constructed behind barbed wire back home.

Born into an aristocratic family, von Cramm was admired for his devastating good looks as well as his unparalleled sportsmanship. But he harbored a dark secret, one that put him under increasing Gestapo surveillance. And his situation was made even more perilous by his refusal to join the Nazi Party or defend Hitler. Desperately relying on his athletic achievements and the global spotlight to keep him out of the Gestapo’s clutches, his strategy was to keep traveling and keep winning. A Davis Cup victory would make him the toast of Germany. A loss might be catastrophic.

Watching the mesmerizingly intense match from the stands was von Cramm’s mentor and all-time tennis superstar Bill Tilden–a consummate showman whose double life would run in ironic counterpoint to that of his German pupil.

Set at a time when sports and politics were inextricably linked,A Terrible Splendorgives readers a courtside seat on that fateful day, moving gracefully between the tennis match for the ages and the dramatic events leading Germany, Britain, and America into global war. A book like no other in its weaving of social significance and athletic spectacle, this soul-stirring account is ultimately a tribute to the strength of the human spirit.
Rerations
< A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played > < Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played > < Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir > < Levels of the Game > < The Third Reich at War > freaks

< The Picture of Dorian Gray > < Assassin's Apprentice > < His Majesty's Dragon > < Treasure Island > < Hide in Plain Sight > Oscar Wilde

price：~~$0.99~~
MacMay
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customer 's review
(a cautionary tale?)

(The Dark Shadow of Vanity)

(A true classic with beautiful prose)

(fascinating story)

(Would be great, if it was half the length)

What a delightful book! Many of us our familiar with the basic Dorian Gray fable - a man yearns for immortality and gets it. In Wilde's take, Dorian Gray, a young handsome teenager wishes the deprecating effects of age to strike his portrait and not his flesh. He gets his wish and at the goading of Lord Henry becomes an absolute hedonist. Always within though there seems to be a remorseful conscience, a longing for purity. But the ease of depravity squashes moral sentiments before they take root. In the end though, the ageless man finally confronts his portrait...

After learning of the author, Oscar Wilde, I was surprised that the book came from his pen (thinly veiled homoeroticism nonwithstanding). I interpreted the book as a cautionary tale against heedlessness and indulgence - basically against the materialist character of Lord Henry. It is a moral tale that explores themes of beauty and its subsidary: age. One cannot help but see one's own portrait in the depiction of young Dorian Gray.

I found the writing of the book to be fantastic. Great dialogue and monologues with the British witticisms that you would expect.

So you want to remain eternally young? This book will tell you an engrossing moralistic tale that paints the picture of where the deadly sin of vanity can take you. It will take you into a descent into a hell full of shadows where the light will never touch you.

This is a classic dark tale of intrigue. It is filled with the depths to which the human condition can sink. It is a page turner, but it may leave you feeling empty at the end. That is what it did for me. Nevertheless, it is a haunting book that is well worth reading. Oscar Wilde will speak from his grave throughout the centuries through this book.

As the author of a spiritually-themed book entitled "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude," I appreciated this book for the most unusual reasons. I am a former addict who knows what it is like to experience hell within life. The hopeful note within this book is that it will wake the reader up to taking responsibility for his or her own life. That is what I have had to do with my own. Thank God for books that can wake us up to that reality so that we do not have to sink into the abyss of nothingness.

Davis Aujourd'hui, author of "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude"
I truly enjoyed this book. It's a story of Dorian Gray's journey through life. There's a great quote, which really is the theme for the entire book..."what does it profit a man if he gain the world and lose his own soul?" The pleasures and sins Dorian Gray enjoys in life are conveyed onto his portrait. Ultimately, his portrait ages and warps with each transgression that tarnishes his soul.

Wilde has some great narratives and descriptions in the book. His writing style immersed me in the book. Very moving. I can truly see why it's a classic and wish I had read it sooner.
I have seen the old movie several times, and it tempted me to order the book. Oscar Wilde was a "wild child", and he gives a glimpse into the often vain and decadant world of English society through the wanton excesses of Dorian...who appears to remain beautiful, youthful, and untouched by evil. It is Dorian's portrait that decays with every misdeed, including murder. The picture haunts Dorian as he travels among the rich, and also into the opium dens and low life of the waterfront. This edition contains a glossary of lesser known terms and references, for us modern folk. It was a quick and fascinating read.
Review by Jason Lush

One hundred and ninety pages of political masturbation disguised as a supernatural suspense story. Of the three main characters we have; Dorian Gray, who is a brainless puppet the personifies vanity; Basil Hallward, the artist who painted the fabled portrait and represents the sorrowful conscience; and Lord Henry Wolton, who is the quintessential 19th Century fop whose sole purpose in the book is to act as Wilde's voice on politics, religion and homosexuality and as a driving corrupter of everyone else in the book.

The pacing is horrendously slow, the chapters devoted to explaining Gray's hobbies and the pictures of his ancestors in his hallway don't help with the lousy pacing. The whole story could have been condensed to a 30 page novella and would have been enjoyable.

And, as a side note to the posthumous Mr. Wilde, forty is not old and hideous.
One of the strangest and most original stories ever written. Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray is the story of a hansom young man who stops aging after having is portrait painted. The picture begins to age in his place. Like a modern rock star the fame of Dorians hansom looks leads Dorian down a dark path. The novel gives a look into the strange back streets and underworld of Victorian London like no other book written at its time.
A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."

As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures,The Picture of Dorian Grayis an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."
Rerations
< The Picture of Dorian Gray > < Assassin's Apprentice > < His Majesty's Dragon > < Treasure Island > freaks

< Running With Scissors: A Memoir > < Dry > < Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's > < Possible Side Effects > < Magical Thinking: True Stories > Augusten Burroughs

price：~~$6.01~~
St. Martin's Press(2006-10-26)
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customer 's review
(Disturbing, not funny)

(Wonderful, irreverent)

(A Disturbing Childhood)

(Dreadful)

(awesome book)

This book is not worth the paper it's printed on. Simply recording (and/or "glamorizing" as one reviewer put it) mental illness is not entertaining or funny--it's disturbing. The book has no structure, and reads as if the author simply transcribed his journal entries. I almost gave up 3/4 through, but decided to finish it in the hopes that some sort of revelation would occur to the author, something that would make wading through all the crap (sometimes literally) encountered so far worth it. No such luck. Leaving does NOT constitute an ending.
What a great book. The stories are surreal, I couldn't put it down. Worth every penny.
I didn't find this book funny at all. It was certainly shocking, not to mention disgusting and plainly horrifying in parts. Unlike _Magical Thinking_, this didn't have the feeling of David Sedaris' writing at all. This was hard to believe, and mostly just sad. I just didn't enjoy reading it. It was hard to put down though, in the same way it is hard to speed past a crash site.
I borrowed this book to read on a flight and after persevering through half of it I slipped it into the seat pocket in front of me for the next passenger. Written clearly to shock and amuse it basically catalogues a series of highly improbable and mostly disturbing incidents, sprinkled with scenes of unnecessarily gratuitous sex. The psychiatrist patriarch was a character of interest and the main reason, along with misleading praise on the back cover, for my bothering past the second page.
ok, the bad ratings are a little ridiculous for this book so i had to comment.
READ THE DESCRIPTION ONLINE BEFORE GETTING THE BOOK!
It's not a book for children and if you read the description- it's obviously a pretty messed up, way dark humor book and that would be so clear if you just read the description!

really good book. easy read read it in two nights because i couldnt quit turning the pages. its so messed up its hilarious. touching and heartbreaking in some parts. its a really good read.
also, i saw the movie the day after i finished the book...didn't like the movie as much! def. read the book first!

Almost everyone can claim a crazy childhood. But did you have a childhood with: An electroshock machine as your favorite toy? Parades through the neighborhood led by your adopted psychiatrist/father? The whole family sleeping on the front lawn for weeks on end? Scotch for breakfast at age 13? A faked suicide attempt to get excused from the sixth grade? A pedophile living in the backyard shed? A psychiatric patient locked in the upstairs bedroom? Christmas trees in May and turkey carcasses under the couch? Lithium, Valium, and Halcyon to eat like candy?Running With Scissorswill shock, amaze and disturb you, and will never let you forget the story of an ordinary boy in anything-but-ordinary situation.
There is a passage early in Augusten Burroughs's harrowing and highly entertaining memoir,Running with Scissors, that speaks volumes about the author. While going to the garbage dump with his father, young Augusten spots a chipped, glass-top coffee table that he longs to bring home. "I knew I could hide the chip by fanning a display of magazines on the surface, like in a doctor's office," he writes, "And it certainly wouldn't be dirty after I polished it with Windex for three hours." There were certainly numerous chips in the childhood Burroughs describes: an alcoholic father, an unstable mother who gives him up for adoption to her therapist, and an adolescence spent as part of the therapist's eccentric extended family, gobbling prescription meds and fooling around with both an old electroshock machine and a pedophile who lives in a shed out back. But just as he dreamed of doing with that old table, Burroughs employs a vigorous program of decoration and fervent polishing to a life that many would have simply thrown in a landfill. Despite her abandonment, he never gives up on his increasingly unbalanced mother. And rather than despair about his lot, he glamorizes it: planning a "beauty empire" and performing an a capella version of "You Light Up My Life" at a local mental ward. Burroughs's perspective achieves a crucial balance for a memoir: emotional but not self-involved, observant but not clinical, funny but not deliberately comic. And it's ultimately a feel-good story: as he steers through a challenging childhood, there's always a sense that Burroughs's survivor mentality will guide him through and that the coffee table will be salvaged after all.--John Moe
Rerations
< Running With Scissors: A Memoir > < Dry > < Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's > < Possible Side Effects > freaks

< The Glass Menagerie (Signet Books) > < The Great Gatsby > < Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays) > < A Streetcar Named Desire > < A Raisin in the Sun > < The Crucible (Penguin Classics) > Tennessee Williams

price：~~$7.00~~
Signet

customer 's review
(The Glass Menagerie)

(A tragic play of biblical proportions)

(A real gem!)

(Superb, Heartfelt Classic)

(TOO FRAGILE TO SURVIVE?)

The book was beyond my expectations. It was in perfect conditions and definetly I would recommend this seller and would buy from them again.
Along with A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie is a famous play written by Tennessee Williams. Although the play is well-written, I still question the point of it. As I mentioned that the play is a tragic of biblical proportions, I can't help but feel the characters to be big-time losers. Before there was Blanche DuBois, there was Amanda Wingfield. Their personality is identically the same as Amanda tends to overdramatize everything. Laura Wingfield is another loser of the family as she could sit and stare while being fascinated by glass objects. I think I feel sorry for her, but I know girls like her. They aren't fun to be around with. Tom Wingfield might appear to be the lucid one, but he is selfish as men come. He faces the possibility of having a short life due to his deprivation of sleep and the fact that merchant marines have the highest rate of death of all armed forces. Don't think for a minute that Jim O'Connor is immune from criticism. He seems to be totally in love with his own voice and pretends to be knowledgeable of how the people are and how the world works. In reality, he is full of himself, and his narcissism painfully shows. Finally, we come to the father of the family. Well, he is through and through a loser for abandoning the family without facing his problems and skipping to Mexico with no thoughts of his children. I didn't learn anything in The Glass Menagerie, and I didn't find a single meaning. The reading is quick and easy and can be completed in two hours. All in all, The Glass Menagerie is a good play, but the point is very much missing.
Truly, one of the greatest playwrights, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, and the most talked about live theatre performance with Lauret Taylor as Amanda Wingefield. In the DVD documentary Broadway - The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There the veteran theatre actors raved about this performance, and not available on film. The play is brilliant and falls into the category of Williams "Southern belle-type", like Blanche in Streetcar, Maggie in Cat on Tin Roof; and Alma in Smoke and Summer.

Screen device included in some versions
Some versions of the written play, or theatre productions, have the screen device included, which is slides bearing images or titles. Keep in mind that not all versions have the screen device text included.

A memory play, backflash
Narration is done through the memory of a character, Tom, the frustrated son, who works in a warehouse and escapes reality by going to the movies all the time. Like Tennessee Williams, Tom is a poet. Amanda, a middle-aged southern belle whose "charming" husband deserted her and the children lives in the past bragging and delusional about the gentleman callers she had and the men who got away. Laura, the crippled daughter with low self-esteem, whose entire life is all about her small glass animals. And the fourth character is the gentleman caller, Jim, who Amanda expects will be the man for Laura. Jim was everything in high school, expected to succeed greatly, and he was admired by Laura. Jim works in the warehouse with Tom.

Amanda asks Tom to bring home for dinner a young man (not a drinker) from the warehouse for Laura, whose simple existence is to play with her managerie. You will learn everything written between the lines, how dysfunctional and illusional and/or delusional the family is. The moods are clearly defined.

The crowning moment for Amanda
One can't describe how great this play is, and for me, it was toward the end, the shocking tidbit that sends Amanda into another verbal assault on her son. It's comedy and tragedy

The film versions
A DVD theatre version stars Katherine Hepburn, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie (Broadway Theatre Archive) who is superb, but the rest of the cast was displaced, unfortunately. And if you can, get a film version directed by Paul Newman, Glass Menagerie, The and stars Joanne Woodward. I can't wait to see it. And the only thing greater than the live versions is to see the performance with Lauret Taylor! ......Rizzo

This classic tale by Tennessee Williams captures the reader's emotions by so forcefully displaying those of its main characters. This is a story of longing and frustration, set in a frustrating time (The Great Depression). The story is narrated by Tom, who hates his factory job and desires to run to sea, but is the main support for his mother Amanda and sister Laura. The matriarchal Amanda clings desperately to the past, while fragile Laura is devastated more by shy self-consciousness than her slight disability. The plot is simple - helping Laura's social life - but moves at a relentless pace. We see Amanda pain her daughter with wistful talk of gentleman callers from a generation past, then place false hopes on the singular visit of Jim - with resulting further desperation and loneliness. This story tugs gently but relentlessly on our heartstrings; so many of us can relate to its message.

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) earned his name as a great playwright with this moving story. Readers may also like his other top plays, including STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, etc.

Tennessee Williams' play in seven scenes continues to fascinate
audiences and readers a half a century after its Chicago premiere.
Based loosely on autobiographical memories of his southern boyhood GLASS MENAGERIE strikes a responsive chord because most people can relate to conflict within a family unit. The three main characters strive to follow their private dreams--no matter how unrealistic they are. Mother and children seek both to escape their drab existence in a honeycomb of Chicago tenements, while concealing their frustration and despair from
each other. They scorn to seek solace or encouragement at home.

A former Southern belle, Mrs. Wingfield desperately wants social success for her daughter; her visions of jonquils and gentleman callers are pathetic attempts to relive her own youth through her socially-stunted daughter. Amanda, overzealous to control her son better than she did her long-gone traveling husband, merely succeeds in alienating Tom, a warehouse worker with dreams of writing poetry and/or joining the merchant marine.

Slightly crippled Laura ("sister" as Amanda calls her) fails at everything she touches, including most recently a typing course at a business college. Seeking escape and unconditional acceptance with her collection of glass animals Laura is excessively shy, terrified of all new social interactions. She seems doomed to early spinsterhood--incapable of providing for herself in the world.

Amanda's scheme to marry off her daughter hinges on the success of luring suitors to their modest apartment. Pressed into providing a gentleman caller Tom invites Jim O'Connor, an affable coworker. In fact both Wingfield siblings knew the former athlete in high school. Despite resistance from Laura, who refuses to cooperate in any social con game, the two young people seem to hit it off when left alone--until Jim drops a bombshell. Dreams are shattered like the glass unicorn, as Amanda despairs because she has two children who are not normal. How will either of the Wingfield offspring escape and find the freedom which their father coveted more than domestic duties? Williams' stage version deliberately blends typical stage business with a cinematic style acquired during his years in Hollywood. Audiences are reminded of the
the question of social survival and the painful fragility of tortured individuals bonded by genetic hostility.

Dramatic script relating the interactions of Amanda, her son, and her daughter, Laura and the very important gentleman caller.
Rerations
< The Glass Menagerie (Signet Books) > < The Great Gatsby > < Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays) > < A Streetcar Named Desire > < A Raisin in the Sun > freaks

< Basketball Jones > < Just Too Good to Be True: A Novel > < Up To No Good > < Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment > < Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom > < The Best of Everything > E. Lynn Harris

price：~~$7.34~~
Doubleday(2009-01-27)
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customer 's review
(e. lynn at his best)

(Yawn and . . . yawn some more)

(Mr. Harris has done it again!)

(Awesome)

(Divas Read 2 Book Club)

i could not wait to purchase this book, once i started reading i could not stop. i always look forward to anything he puts out.
T. White and G*R*C* summed up pretty well the enormous disappointment I felt reading from page 10 to the last. This time you blew it Mr. Harris, yeah you blew it . . . for the worse: none of the characters in this book are credible. I still can't figure out what on earth was Cisco and Jade's deal (how important were they really?) and none of the supposedly `gay' characters had the good sense most gay people we all know do. At times, I couldn't believe the lame plots and scenes, droning dialogues, tedious (and endless) description of Maurice's party and the spying episode on Judi's home? What about Jade's everlasting blabber? Arrrrrrrgggg!! And why would AJ not seek revenge, like most real people would? Nothing really made any sense
At the end, I'm convinced it was not E Lynn Harris who wrote this uninspiring, dreary, boring book; it must have been a `Lynn wanna-be' or someone else. I know Mr. Harris has way too much talent to allow this sorry tale to be on his excellent portfolio.

E. Lynn Harris has out done himself, this book is a fun read. The best part is the book in set in a post-Katrina New Orleans my home town. Any, E.Lynn Harris fan will love Basketball Jones.
The author hit it outta the park here. I read this whole book in one night, I couldn't get enough!! Great book, fell in love with all the characters, and the suspense to the end was thrilling. If you love BLACK gay erotica, you best to get your hands on this book!!!!!
I wonder how many Basketball Jones we have out there? This is Queen Drama at its best. Mr. Harris once again locks you in from the very beginning and have you turning flips to the very end. Of course, that one familiar character from previous novels has to always make a grand entrance. Read It!!

Diva Reviewer - Lolita Allen
[...]

E. Lynn Harris has wowed and seduced more than three million readers with the wicked drama and undeniable heart in his novels. Now he’s back with another winner sure to top the bestseller lists—a rip-roaring tale of sex, secrets, betrayal . . . and blackmail.

Aldridge James“AJ” Richardson is living the good life. He has a gorgeous town house in always-flavorful New Orleans, plenty of frequent-flier miles from jet-setting around the country on a whim, and an MBA—but he’s never had to work a regular job. He owes it all to his longtime lover, Dray Jones. Dray Jones the rich and famous NBA star. They fell in love in college when AJ was hired to tutor Dray, a freshman on the basketball team. But Dray knew if he wanted to make it to the big time, he must juggle his public image and his private desires. Built on a deep, abiding love, their hidden relationship sustains them both, but when Dray’s teammates begin to ask insinuating questions about AJ, Dray puts their doubts to rest by marrying Judi, a beautiful and ambitious woman. Judi knows nothing about Dray’s “other life.” Or does she?
InBasketball Jones, E. Lynn Harris explores the consequences of loving someone who is forced to conform to the rules society demands its public heroes follow. Filled with nonstop twists and turns, it will keep readers riveted from the first page to the last.

Rerations
< Basketball Jones > < Just Too Good to Be True: A Novel > < Up To No Good > < Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment > < Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom > freaks

< Best Women's Erotica 2009 > < Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex > < Lust: Erotic Fantasies for Women > < Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women > < Best Women's Erotica 2008 > < Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories For Women >

price：~~$5.10~~
Cleis Press
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customer 's review
(A good collection.)

(Eh-)

(Best Women's Erotica 2009)

(Oh yessss. Very satisfying)

(An Atomic Orgasm)

I've been reading these collections for quite some time now, and was glad to receive and read the 2009 version. It's quite good, with some of the best stories I've read. I was glad to see new names added to the list just to mix it up a little. I also liked that the stories didn't meander around and really lived up to the hype. A good collection if you like erotic anthologies, such as Sex Scenes: Erotica Excerpts from the Novels of Kim Corum, which is also good, too.
This book was ok, I didn't like it that much. The stories weren't that well written.
This diverse and fairly well-written collection of erotica is quite entertaining. I suspect that there is something in here for every taste.
I found this a most pleasurable book to read, indeed as are all of Violet Blue's books. A collection of well balanced and varied erotica with something that will appeal to everyone. In particular I liked `Fly', a fairy tale which I think everyone will recognise, with a very erotic flavour which put me in mind of Ms. Madore. What I liked most about this story is how Wendy is depicted, as a demure but very alluring innocent, and I must admit she reminded me of someone who was very dear to me many years ago.

`Live Bed Show', is another story of note that has a genuine warmth about it that made me think that this story is possibly autobiographical. A very English girl in the very beautiful city of Amsterdam getting a dream job of demonstrating luxury beds in a shop window. Very erotic, with an old fashioned happy ending.

A great book, as are all the `Best Women's Erotica' series and long may they continue. One of my notable favourites wasBest Women's Erotica 2007.Two other books of note are Rachel Kramer Bussel's Dirty Girls: Erotica for Womenand Suzie Van Aartman's 100 Percent Erotica well worth adding to your collection.

My husband and I love to re-enact these erotic stories. We pick our favourites then perform them in our mirrored bedroom with our camcorder recording the whole adventure. One of us will read the selected passage, depending on who has a hand free to hold the book and a mouth free to read the magic. We try and time our orgasms to match the characters in the story and they have been unbelievable. Your mind lives out the experience, your ears hear the experience, in the mirrors your eyes see the experience and your body feels the experience. All put together,you have an atomic orgasm. And all this recorded, it is unbelievable to watch yourself totally lost in uncontrollable ecstasy.

We are members of a swingers group and our home movies have blown their minds and they are all now doing it. The stories in this book are a magical combination of the best in erotica and we have had many happy sessions performing the stories. Violet's Best Women's Erotica 2006 and Best Women's Erotica 2008 have also been masterpieces of erotica and we look forward with eager anticipation and excitement to the 2010 edition.

Highly recommended by us both (and the swingers group). and another favourite I have to mention, especially with the more mature members, is Suzie Van Aartman's 100 Percent Erotica boy is that a red hot book.

Best Women’s Erotica 2009is erotica by women, for women— contemporary, realistic, and explicit. Editor and best-selling author Violet Blue knows what women are looking for in an erotic anthology, and she delivers it here, with an amorous abundance of risky, romantic, heart-pounding thrills. Joyful, daring, and authentic, these steamy stories revel inerotic adventure, from the sparks between strangers to the knowing caresses of long-time lovers. Filled with strong characters and clever narratives that show how sexual experience is different for every woman, this seductive anthology is a glorious celebration of the finest and friskiest female erotic fiction today.

Rerations
< Best Women's Erotica 2009 > < Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex > < Lust: Erotic Fantasies for Women > < Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women > < Best Women's Erotica 2008 > freaks

< Purple Panties: An Eroticanoir.com Anthology > < Missionary No More: Purple Panties 2 > < Succulent: Chocolate Flava II (v. 2) > < Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love > < Honey Flava > < Head Bangers: An APF Sexcapade (Strebor Quickiez) > < Gettin' Buck Wild: Sex Chronicles II (Zane Does Incredible, Erotic Things) > < Succulent: Chocolate Flava II (v. 2) > < The Sex Chronicles : Shattering the Myth >

price：~~$3.30~~
Strebor Books
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customer 's review
(Purple Panties by Zane)

(This Book Makes me Tingle ;))

(HOTTTT)

(Formulaic, cookie-cutter short stories)

(Hot - yes - great writing...hmmm.)

I ordered this book on May 28, 2009 but never received it. This made me very unhappy and I have now ordered it from another company. A refund is being processed.
This book is definetly and MUST HAVE!! i just recently purchased the book two days ago and i cant put it down!..Im already on page 154..This book features short stories which i love by different authors..Each authors expresses their way of love making...There are some stories filled with passion and there are those stories that are rough...So it has stories for everyone..I recommend this book to anyone..
i think that this is a very well written book, i am a straight women and found my self getting aroused each story was different and had me wanting more i read it fairly quicky and will definatly purchase the second book amazing !!!
I picked up this book at the library and returned it the next day. It's apparent that the stories are over-editted to the point that I'd suggest they were all written by the same person. There is little distinction among the plotlines, just a change of characters.

Poorly written, but seemingly popular on this board. Go figure.
So I purchased this little tidbit of an anthology because of the reviews posted and because, frankly, there is a lack of lesbian erotica written for and about black females, and I'n not even black. But I am a woman of color who enjoy reading books with brown characters. Suffice to say, I was intrigued. Let me state for the record that I know what to expect when it comes to lesbian erotica/fiction. I realize and appreciate the fact that most lesbian fiction doesn't offer an abundance - of say - deep profound metaphorical prose. This is my biggest complaint when it comes to this genre. Drives me nuts. With the exception of a few choice authors that actually own a thesaurus, the majority of lesbian erotica, just isn't written well. But what are you going to do?

This particular anthology of short stories written about various lesbian liaisons, although great in some parts, is no exception to the above compliant.

Basically for every five stories in this book, you get one really well written story that not only features really great coital action, but some actual sexual BUILD UP. I mean seriously, anyone can write a story where two women get it on, but what separates a great story from the sup-par, is the fore-play. So in that respect, there are really just a handful of great short stories.

That said - are these handful of well written stories worth the money you will spend on this little book? Given the recession, it really depends on how desperate you are for some stories written about black women. Buy it if you don't mind spending 10 bucks for like a seventy pages of decent story. Kind of expensive if you ask me. But on the other hand, 70 pgs of well written story about hot black women, in a market where there is a shortage of black lesbian characters. Eh - go ahead and pay the price of admission. Just don't expect every story to read like a pulitzer.

Zane, theNew York Timesbestselling author and Queen of
Erotic Fiction, brings a new collection of lesbian erotica
that will blow the sheets off beds everywhere.

What happens when "The Finest Man" you have ever laid eyes on is a woman? What happens when a woman comes home to her man after a hard day's work with "Lipstick on Her Collar?" What happens when a married woman runs across the love of her life -- another woman -- who insists that "It's All or Nothing?" Is there such a thing as playing too "Hard to Get?" What happens when "Mom's Night Out" turns into group sex? What happens when you discover your true sexuality "At Last?" All of these questions and more are answered within the pages ofPurple Panties.

Written by women from all over the world, here is a new level of lesbian erotica, compiled by Zane, that promises the most exciting and steamy reading experience possible. These stories move beyond race, age, and all walks of life, including long-hidden passions, secret rendezvous with strangers, and May-December romances.

With Zane's ever-growing popularity, and the need for increasingly quality erotica,Purple Pantieswill satisfy a long-standing demand for African-American lesbian literature.

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Rerations
< Purple Panties: An Eroticanoir.com Anthology > < Missionary No More: Purple Panties 2 > < Succulent: Chocolate Flava II (v. 2) > < Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love > < Honey Flava > freaks

< The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death > < The Diving Bell and the Butterfly > < The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales > < Autobiography of a Face > < My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey > < Atonement > Jean-Dominique Bauby

price：~~$28.99~~
Knopf(1997-05-13)

customer 's review
(Not a comfortable read, but contemplative)

(Monsieur Jean-Dominique Bauby kindred spirit to my James. RIP)

(worth the read)

(Book Review: Diving Bell&The Butterfly)

(Haunting. Beautiful. SCARY)

It is impossible for me to separate out the content of this book from the manner in which it was written - dictated one letter at a time by blinking after a massive stroke. It is a book both triumphant and acutely sad, and although a quick read in real time, the narrative plays on the theme of time itself, forcing you to slow down for the duration of the read and consider the implications of being trapped by your own body and stripped of both movement and a spontaneous voice - a prospect any sane mind, mine included, instinctively shies away from. It is not a comfortable read - it is too sobering for that - but it a contemplative one. (Lisa McKay, Author of My Hands Came Away Red)
I have only come across this book recently,June 2009. I stumbled onto it by what I feel to be only described as divine intervention as my husband has recently passed from MSA (Multiple System Atrophy), a rare neurological disorder. Similarly to Monsieur Bauby, my late husband, James, lost his mobility, was unable to communicate except with his eyes and needed complete care. We did have a short period where he could talk and swallow with a PMV (Passy-Muir Tracheostomy Valve). However, it was all too short lived as the disease progressed and ultimately, as expected would silence him completely. Similarly, to Monsieur Bauby my husband passed away due to complications breathing. He was bedridden and it was sudden. We tried to live everyday as if it was his last and when the end came there was such a peace for him, myself and the family. The suffering was over and now only the memories of our journey remain. The book (and movie) helped me to feel a stronger sense of acceptance and to realize that no matter what occurs to the flesh, the brain and spirit are the stronger as long as the will to live exists as well. Such was the case with Monsieur Bauby and my husband, James. It was so wonderful for me to discover Monsieur Bauby's Memoir by chance or as I like to believe, by "divine intervention" and to discover that there was another man, a kindred spirit of sorts, who fought a battle similar to my husband. I know one thing for sure now--as long as we have a sense of gratitude, acceptance and love--in any battle, especially the fight to live, we will win and the journey is worth it. Things will come full circle. God Speed or as the Universe so orders it. I pray every day for a cure to all neurological disorders and again am eternally grateful to have read Monsieur Bauby's Memoir as it truly helped restore and reassure my belief, that despite our struggles to live with a progressive neurological disorder, my husband, was always "present" and will live on in those whose lives he touched before and after he was stricken. His journey, like Monsieur Bauby's was significant and I was blessed to have him as my husband. Thank you for allowing me to review this book here and to share my personal experience. It is my hope that perhaps it will reach someone like me, someone in mourning and/or caregivers dealing with people who have neurological disorders and/or any chronic, progressive disorder. Rest in peace my beloved. You are not alone. Rest in Peace. Always yours. M
This is a good book, with a very interesting and engaging story. In addition to that, I think it would be beneficial to read for those who may have a family member or friend who has suffered head trauma, because it helps to give insight into the thoughts and struggles of someone who can't communicate via traditional means. Too often we may view these people as less intelligent or unable to fully understand their surroundings. This book shows how very frustrating it is to convey thoughts when "locked in" but how wonderful it is to know they can still sense and appreciate the world around them.
The Review

After reading Lisa's Best of 2008 List and after speaking to a fellow "Basketball Mom" last week, I was intrigued to read The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. The story is a sort of an auto-biographical one, however only sharing Bauby's remarkably beautiful memories of the life he lost after the massive stroke he suffered in December 1995. At the time, Bauby was 43 years old and the editor of French Elle Magazine. From what I gather in this book, his life was once filled with travel and he was the type of man with an incredible passion for life. Once stripped of his physical abilities and the ability to effectively function and communicate due to "locked-in syndrome," a permanent and full paralysis as a result of the stroke, his mind craves to communicate the very acute and real memories to his bedside assistant.

Bauby is able to communicate via the blinking of his one functioning eye. He describes in the book that he had written and edited the material multiple times in his mind so that the effort to communicate it was clear the first time around. In his memoirs and thoughts, he shares his vivid memories of his travels in his past and times with his family and friends. He further describes what it is like to be trapped in this non-functioning body and compares it to being weighted by a diving bell/suit. He shares what all his sensory functions are like: eyesight, hearing, dreams, smell, and pain.

This book was, to me, more of a book of prose than of typical writing. Each line of the book intricately designed to effectively provide the reader a vision and an understanding.

In describing how it felt to now be described as a vegetable:

"The tone of voice left no doubt that henceforth I belong on a vegetable stall and not to the human race. France was at peace; one couldn't shoot the bearers of bad news. Instead I would have to rely on myself if I wanted to prove that my IQ was still higher than a turnip's."

And, he describes the hospital cafeteria:

"Although my own corner of the hospital has the look of an expensive private school, one would never mistake the cafeteria crowd for member of the Dead Poets Society. The girls have hard eyes, the boys tattoos and some with rings on their fingers. There they sit, chain-smoking and talking about fistfights and motorbikes. Their already stooped shoulders seem to bear a heavy cross. Cruel fate has cured them, and their stay at Berck is just one more stage between an abused childhood and jobless future. When I am wheeled through their smoke-filled lair, the silence becomes deafening; I see neither pity nor compassion in their eyes."

Some of my favorite parts of the book include his visit to the beach, his viewing of his children playing, and his description of what food tastes like although he is only being fed by a tube. This is a remarkable book in the knowing of how it was written and the determination it took Bauby to ensure its completion.

On Sher's "Out of Ten Scale:"

There is no clear book to use as a comparison to this one as it is unique in every way. This is a book that reminds you of the sheer preciousness of life and the value of human health. For the genre Non-Fiction, I would give this book a 9 out of 10.

Wow. To say that this book makes an impact is to state the obvious. Jean existed in what I would call a "living hell" -- alert and cognizant though paralyzed and trapped -- "locked in" his mind without the ability to communicate his thoughts, feelings, needs, or condition to anyone. He suffered a stroke at a very young age and was left completely paralyzed with only the capability of sight, thought and the ability to blink his left eye. I felt his frustration, his every breath, his longing to move his finger even a fraction of an inch, his pain at his inability to express himself. Thank heavens for the ESA alphabet and the breakthrough that allowed him to communicate. He dictated this memoir by blinking to Claude as she reached each letter of each word in each sentence in this book.

A testimony to the human spirit. It's not really sad, it's uplifting to think that this incredible man overcame his imprisonment in his mind to tell us all that he was still "there" through it all.

I hope it makes just one person compassionate and caring. I wish that everyone, somehow, learns about this condition and will use this knowledge if faced with or dealing with someone who has it.

To say it's inspirational would be to give some meaning to Jean's suffering. There is no meaning. It was a horrible way to live the last year of your life.

But this story and Jean Do will linger in my mind for a very long time.
In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of FrenchElle, the father of two young childen, a 44-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brainstem. After 20 days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body which had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired. Almost miraculously, he was soon able to express himself in the richest detail: dictating a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again. In the same way, he was able eventually to compose this extraordinary book.

By turns wistful, mischievous, angry, and witty, Bauby bears witness to his determination to live as fully in his mind as he had been able to do in his body. He explains the joy, and deep sadness, of seeing his children and of hearing his aged father's voice on the phone. In magical sequences, he imagines traveling to other places and times and of lying next to the woman he loves. Fed only intravenously, he imagines preparing and tasting the full flavor of delectable dishes. Again and again he returns to an "inexhaustible reservoir of sensations," keeping in touch with himself and the life around him.

Jean-Dominique Bauby died two days after the French publication ofThe Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

This book is a lasting testament to his life.
We've all got our idiosyncrasies when it comes to writing--a special chair we have to sit in, a certain kind of yellow paper we absolutely must use. To create this tremendously affecting memoir, Jean-Dominique Bauby used the only tool available to him--his left eye--with which he blinked out its short chapters, letter by letter. Two years ago, Bauby, then the 43-year-old editor-in-chief ofElleFrance, suffered a rare stroke to the brain stem; only his left eye and brain escaped damage. Rather than accept his "locked in" situation as a kind of death, Bauby ignited a fire of the imagination under himself and lived his last days--he died two days after the French publication of this slim volume--spiritually unfettered. In these pages Bauby journeys to exotic places he has and has not been, serving himself delectable gourmet meals along the way (surprise: everything's ripe and nothing burns). In the simplest of terms he describes how it feels to see reflected in a window "the head of a man who seemed to have emerged from a vat of formaldehyde."
Rerations
< The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death > < The Diving Bell and the Butterfly > < The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales > < Autobiography of a Face > < My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey > freaks

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