Best Place To Get A Game of Thrones Online

March 15th, 2011 by shakira7569109

A Game of Thrones. A Game of Thrones

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First volume of a brilliant new fantasy trilogy: the most powerful, original and absorbing new epic since Stephen Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. The first volume of George R R Martin’s glorious high fantasy tells the tragic story of treachery, greed and war that threatens the unity of the Seven Kingdoms south of the Wall. Martin unfolds with astonishing skill a tale of truly epic dimensions, thronged with memorable characters, a story of treachery and ambition, love and magic. Set in a fabulous world scarred by battle and catastrophe over 8000 years of recorded history, it tells of the deeds of men and women locked in the deadliest of conflicts and the terrible legacy they will leave their children. In the game of thrones, you win or you die. And in the bitter-cold, unliving lands beyond the Wall, a terrible winter gathers and the others — the undead, the neverborn, wildlings to whom the threat of the sword is nothing — make ready to descend on the realms of men. A Game of Thrones begins the most imaginative, ambitious and compelling fantasy epic since The Lord of the Rings. Thronged with memorable characters, it unfolds with astonishing skill a tale of truly epic dimensions. There have been many pretenders to the throne of Tolkien: now at last he has a true heir.

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #253 in eBooks
  • Published on: 2003-01-01
  • Released on: 2003-01-01
  • Format: Kindle Book
  • Number of items: 1

Well plotted and paced; excellent, fresh fantasy tale5
First off, I’m a heavy duty fan of GRRM. I’ve read over a 100 different fantasy authors in my time (started at 12; I’m now 32). Took about 5 years off from the genre b/c I felt it was all getting too formulaic and cliched.

So, when I came back to fantasy at the end of 1999, I read the usual: Goodkind, Jordan, etc. and then someone told me about GRRM and man, that was the kicker!

Here are the reasons to choose GRRM. I’ve also listed the reasons not to choose him to make it fair b/c I know their are certain personalities who won’t like this series:

WHY TO READ GRRM

(1) YOU ARE TIRED OF FORMULAIC FANTASY: good lad beats the dark lord against impossible odds; boy is the epitome of good; he and all his friends never die even though they go through great dangers . . . the good and noble king; the beautiful princess who falls in love with the commoner boy even though their stations are drastically different . . . you get the idea. After reading this over and over, it gets old.

(2) YOU ARE TIRED OF ALL THE HEROES STAYING ALIVE EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE UNDER CONSTANT DANGER: this gets even worse where the author kills a main hero off but that person comes back later in the story. Or, a hero does die but magic brings him back.

This sometimes carries to minor characters where even they may not die, but most fantasy authors like to kill them off to show that some risked the adventure and perished.

(3) YOU ARE A MEDIEVAL HISTORY BUFF: this story was influenced by the WARS OF THE ROSES and THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR.

(4) YOU LOVE SERIOUS INTRIGUE WITHOUT STUPID OPPONENTS: lots of layering; lots of intrigue; lots of clever players in the game of thrones. Unlike other fantasy novels, one side, usually the villain, is stupid or not too bright.

(5) YOU ARE INTERESTED IN BIASED OPINIONS AND DIFFERENT TRUTHS: GRRM has set this up where each chapter has the title of one character and the whole chapter is through their viewpoint. Interesting tidbit is that you get their perception of events or truths. But, if you pay attention, someone else will mention a different angle of truth in the story that we rarely see in other novels. Lastly and most importantly, GRRM doesn’t try to tell us which person is right in their perception. He purposelly leaves it vague so that we are kept guessing.

(6) LEGENDS: some of the most interesting characters are those who are long gone or dead. We never get the entire story but only bits and pieces; something that other fantasy authors could learn from to heighten suspense. Additionally, b/c the points of views are not congruent, we sometimes get different opinions.

(7) WORDPLAY: if you’re big on metaphors and description, GRRM is your guy. Almost flawless flow.

(8) LOTS OF CONFLICT: all types, too; not just fighting but between characters through threats and intrigue.

(9) MULTILAYERED PLOTTING; SUB PLOTS GALORE: each character has their own separate storyline; especially as the story continues and everyone gets scattered. This is one of the reasons why each novel is between 700-900 pages.

(10) SUPERLATIVE VARIED CHARACTERS: not the typical archetypes that we are used to in most fantasy; some are gritty; few are totally evil or good; GRRM does a great job of changing our opinions of characters as the series progress. This is especially true of Jaime in book three.

(11) REALISTIC MEDIEVAL DIALOGUE: not to the point that we can’t understand it but well done.

(12) HEAPS OF SYMOBLISM AND PROPHECY: if you’re big on that.

(13) EXCELLENT MYSTERIES: very hard to figure out the culprits; GRRM must have read a lot of mystery novels.

(14) RICHLY TEXTURED FEMALE CHARACTERS: best male author on female characters I have read; realistic on how women think, too.

(15) LOW MAGIC WORLD: magic is low key; not over the top so heroes can’t get out of jams with it.

REASON TO NOT READ GRRM

(1) YOU LIKE YOUR MAIN CHARACTERS: GRRM does a good job of creating more likeable characters after a few die. But, if that isn’t your style, you shouldn’t be reading it. He kills off several, not just one, so be warned.

(2) DO NOT CARE FOR GRITTY GRAY CHARACTERS: if you like more white and gray characters, this may unsettle you. I suggest Feist or Goodkind or Dragonlance if you want a more straight forward story with strong archetypes.

(3) MULTIPLE POINTS OF VIEWS TURN YOU OFF: if you prefer that the POVS only go to a few characters, this might be confusing for you.

(4) SWEARING, SEX: there’s a lot of it in this book just as there is in real life.

(5) YOU DEMAND CLOSURE AT THE END OF EVERY BOOK: this isn’t the case for all stories in the series. Some are still going on; some have been resolved; others have been created and are moving on.

(6) IF YOU WANT A TARGET OR SOMEONE TO BLAME: this can be done to some extent but not as much. This is b/c he doesn’t try to make anyone necessarily good or evil.

(7) ARCHETYPES: some readers like archetypal characters because it’s comfortable; we like the good young hero (sort of like Pug in Feist’s THE RIFTWAR SAGA); it’s familiar and we sometimes like to pretend we’re this upcoming, great hero. You wont’ get much of this in GRRM with the exception of one or two characters.

(8) LENGTH: you don’t want to get into a long fantasy epic series. In that case, look for shorters works as this is biiig.

(9) PATRIARCHY: men are most of the main characters with lots of power (one female exception). ….

Exceeded my wildest expectations…and I expect a *lot*.4
I see where a reviewer below faulted A GAME OF THRONES for being so chock-full of “tragedy, bloodshed, cruelty, death, rape, incest, drunkeness, murder, (and) infanticide.”

Heh. Where I come from, that’s a five-star recommendation.

Glibness aside, the person has a point. A GAME OF THRONES is indeed a graphic, viciously unsentimental novel. It features all the offenses listed above and more besides. It revels in them.

Can’t you people see? That’s the *point.*

The writers of heroic fantasy like to write about huge and epic struggles between capital-letter Good and Evil. Yet over and over again they demonstrate only the most puerile understanding of what good and evil actually are. In their blinkered, constrained little worlds, “evil” consists of sitting in a dank tower all day sending orcs or demons or what-have-you after the Crampon of Justice or some similarly-named hogwash artifact. Not even the darkest of their generic Dark Lords would be caught boffing his own sister or murdering a child (much less get away with it), and in that fundamentally nonsensical bit of characterization lies the crux of their problem: by sticking horns and a lightning staff onto a one-dimensional pulp villain and calling it Ultimate Evil, they cheapen and debase *real* good and evil.

I’m sure most of these writers realize this perfectly well; the problem is that they’re writing to one of the most idiotically attenuated audiences on the face of the planet, people who really want to read the same book over and over ad infinitum with just enough variation from the template to create the illusion of difference. It’s a sad state of affairs when we consider that fantasy, which should rightly be the domain of myth, wonder, and what Warren Ellis calls “mad, beautiful ideas,” is the second most rigidly unimaginative genre out there (right behind romance, with whom it shares more than a few readers and tropes).

The “Song of Ice and Fire” series is a show-stopping six volume call to arms against this nonsense. Readers who come to the novels expecting another eminently predictable generic quest might be lulled to quiescence in the first few innocuous chapters, but will awake – sooner or later – to the unsettling realization that they’re playing George R.R. Martin’s game now. In A GAME OF THRONES, he systematically slaughters every sacred cow of “heroic fantasy” and, in so doing, injects a vigor and a zest for life and the written word into the genre that hasn’t been seen since the beautiful insanity of Tolkien. Heroes die and villains turn out to be not so bad after all. Magic appears only very rarely, making it infinitely more interesting. The plot steadfastly refuses to go where you’d expect. And lest you purists think that Martin holds fantasy in contempt, consider this: unlike practically every other fantasy writer out there, he’s gone to the trouble of writing this novel as if it were the most serious literature: his characters and their motivations are fully fleshed out (Eddard Stark and Tyrion Lannister are especially well-done), his prose is exciting and full of witty and lovely turns of phrase, and his themes are complex and multilayered. In other words, he’s actually assumed that his readership is *intelligent.*

After reading this and China Meiville’s PERDIDO STREET STATION, I have renewed hope for the future of fantasy. Works like these deserve to be read, reread, and passed to friends; they yank the genre – and its readers – out of bed and lead it blinking and cursing into the light of genuine literary merit.

Possibly the best of Fantasy in the last 20 years5
I spent quite a while staring at the blank screen in front of me to come up with a fitting description of A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin. Should I compare it to the classic Lord of the Rings for its impressively epic scope? Would it be best to focus on the honest, often painful humanity of the many characters – so rare in a fantasy novel – that personalizes each point of view? Perhaps I could impress other customers here with the sheer brilliance of a plot that weaves so many seemingly disparate stories together to form a believable alternate universe in which not only politics, intrigue, war, adventure and romance can coexist plausibly, but magic as well. How could I do such a work justice?

I might as well get this part out of the way first. Obligatory Synopsis: in a fantasy continent that bears a familiarity to Middle Ages England, Winter is coming. Winter in this world means a sort of mini ice age that will last for seven years before receding. In the always-frosty Northern area, the races of nonhuman beings are gathering to advance with the snows; there are hints that there is an ancient, evil power behind their forces. At the same time in the South, political infighting for the Throne has begun. Overseas, the daughter of the dispossessed former King is maneuvering forces of her own for a bid for the throne. All this is told through the various stories of both “good guys” and not-so-good guys.

For starters, AGOT can’t be accurately compared to any other book or series in the Fantasy genre (not without insulting it). The nearest thing of its type is the laborious Wheel of Time series by Jordan – see what I mean? And yet this first in the Song of Ice and Fire series is fathoms above that aimless, droning style. Martin has perfected what Jordan had arguably introduced; the multiple characters’ points of view telling the vast saga on an intimate, up-close scale. Never did I feel that I was being strung along, but rather lead by increments toward an incredible revelation somewhere up ahead. Martin builds the suspense masterfully in each book.

But by far the most striking thing about the Song of Ice and Fire is the “rules” that the author breaks. Martin is not afraid to tell the tale from the point of view of some very unlikable, even immoral characters. He is bold about revealing facts from a character’s past that challenge one’s impressions and assumptions about their ethics. He does not lay all his cards on the table up front, but rather unexpectedly reveals details that later change the whole picture and twist the plot admirably. And his most unusual move: this author even allows “favorites” to die occasionally (no names here…)! These risks pay off well to serve the story as a whole, bring a sense of true humanity to the people of this world and drive the reader on to the next series installment.

It’s just too bad that I can’t magically transplant my sense of admiration for AGOT onto this page. Hopefully, you are intrigued enough to give it a try; it would be a shame to miss what IMHO could be the best series of the decade.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle

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Guess Who? My first Animal picture book Lowest Price

March 13th, 2011 by shakira7569109

Guess Who? My first Animal picture book

Guess Who? My first Animal picture book Lowest Price

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Guess Who? My first Animal picture book Description:

Just released, this new picture book of animals, insects and sea creatures teach children all about what the animals eat, where they live, and other interesting facts. Guess Who then asks the child to guess what kind of animal they are. Written from the perspective of the animals, this book is filled with fun for the whole family. Suitable for children of all ages.

For a binded copy, look for the release of this book to be on Amazon in May 2009. For inquiries, contact us at ilifeebooks@gmail.com

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #51791 in eBooks
  • Published on: 2009-04-16
  • Format: Kindle Book

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This Is Not a Game: A Novel Lowest Price!

March 10th, 2011 by shakira7569109

This Is Not a Game: A Novel. This Is Not a Game: A Novel

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Once upon a time, there were four of them. And though each was good at a number of things, all of them were very good at games…

Dagmar is a game designer trapped in Jakarta in the middle of a revolution. The city is tearing itself apart around her and she needs to get out.


Her boss Charlie has his own problems — 4.3 billion of them, to be precise, hidden in an off-shore account.


Austin is the businessman — the VC. He’s the one with the plan and the one to keep the geeks in line.


BJ was there from the start, but while Charlie’s star rose, BJ sank into the depths of customer service. He pads his hours at the call-center slaying on-line orcs, stealing your loot, and selling it on the internet.

But when one of them is gunned down in a parking lot, the survivors become players in a very different kind of game. Caught between the dangerous worlds of the Russian Mafia and international finance, Dagmar must draw on all her resources — not least millions of online gamers– to track down the killer. In this near-future thriller, Walter Jon Williams weaves a pulse-pounding tale of intrigue, murder, and games where you don’t get an extra life.

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #38672 in eBooks
  • Published on: 2009-03-05
  • Released on: 2009-03-24
  • Format: Kindle Book
  • Number of items: 1

Brisk and readable, but a little obvious3
I like Williams’ work, and both “Aristoi” and “Metropolitan” are favorites. “Game” is a couple of steps below those. The first (and best) segment, in which a Dagmar, game producer is forced to rely upon strangers on the Internet for help escaping a collapsed state, is tense and tightly-plotted. The second, longer segment, which tells the story of Dagmar’s game and a few real-life murders that may or may not be attached to the game’s events, works less well.

Part of the problem may be that Williams simply doesn’t have anywhere to go: he introduces only four characters of any consequence, and one of them is the narrator, so any mysteries will be solved after the second murder. That limited scope is a feature of the work in general: although we’re told about 3 million people playing the game, there can’t be more than six or seven people named in the book. Williams keeps only a very narrow window open on the action. Because of this, the book flies by, but there aren’t any surprises for the alert reader.

A couple of moments in the novel that don’t amount to much–the inept Israeli security company, the kung-fu Muslims who save Dagmar–gave me the impression that this book might have been trimmed down from something longer. If that’s the case, it’s too bad; a little more flesh on the bones of this story might have made the second half of the novel feel less inexorable.

William’s best book in some time…5
I’ve been reading Walter Jon Williams since he wrote Hardwired and Voice Of The Whirlwind. But I have not found his recent work as good as the books he wrote all those years ago. For example, I thought that Implied Spaces was a weak book. I was pleasantly surprised by This Is Not A Game, which I found to be Williams’ best book in some time.

The book is written in a three act form. The first part of the book is fascinating and sets the context for the moral issues that arise later in the book. Reading this book it seemed to me that Williams was “doing” an impression of William Gibson, picking up on some of the themes that Gibson has touched on. I enjoyed this, especially because Gibson hasn’t been doing Gibson much these days (sadly his Spook Country was one of his weakest books). Nor do I see anything wrong with one artist being influenced by another.

This Is Not A Game is set in the relatively near future. One of the things I enjoyed about this book is its technological speculation. I am a computer scientist and I found most of the speculation reasonable. There was some suspension of disbelief required when it comes to the ability of software to “learn”, but I didn’t find that this detracted from my enjoyment of the story.

One way I judge a book is whether I’m still thinking about it after I’ve finished reading it. I keep thinking of bits and pieces of This Is Not A Game.

Reality Or Not5
This Is Not a Game (2008) is a standalone SF novel. It is set in the near future within Jakarta and Los Angeles.

In this novel, Dagmar Shaw is the executive producer of Great Big Idea, an alternate reality game company. She stages fictional conspiracies that involve thousands of players. She developed her interest in games at Caltech, where she played roleplaying games with Charlie, Austin and BJ. She married BJ for nine months, but then remarried and moved to England.

Charlie Ruff is the owner of AvN Soft, a software company that produces various forms of computer agents. He also owns the Great Big Idea game company.

Austin Katanyan is a venture capitalist. Charlie had helped him start his own business, which has been a huge success.

Boris Jan Bustretski is a customer service representative. BJ had been a partner with Charlie in the AvN Soft startup, but they had gone broke and Charlie kicked him out of the company. Now he is poor and bored.

In this story, Dagmar has just completed a game in India and is flying to Jakarta to catch a connecting flight to Bali. Her plane is late getting to Jakarta and she misses her connection. She gets tickets for another flight the following day and looks for a place to stay. The American hotels are full, so she takes a room at the Royal Jakarta.

Indonesia is suffering from a currency collapse. The government has fallen and the military intends to take over again. Many citizens have lost their jobs as well as their savings. People are rioting in the streets.

Dagmar informs Charlie of her situation. Other countries are planning to evacuate their citizens, but all American naval forces are committed to the Persian Gulf. So Americans in Indonesia have no way to leave.

Charlie hires a mercenary company to get Dagmar out of Jakarta. All the local security firms are already busy, so he hires an Israeli group. They will have to get their resources to Southeast Asia before Dagmar can be rescued.

Meanwhile, Dagmar appeals to her fans on Our Reality Network. She explains the situation and lets them start planning a rescue. The ARG fans get her out while the mercenaries are still trying to get their equipment in order.

When she gets back to Los Angeles, Charlie presents her with a new task. Dagmar uses her experiences in Jakarta to create a new scenario. Then someone murders Austin and Dagmar uses the ARG fans to discover the killer.

This tale also leads Dagmar to distrust Charlie and to hire BJ as a consultant. There are other murders and the ARG fans keep providing information on the real life crimes. Although Dagmar’s rescue was TINAG — see the title — some fans are beginning to confuse reality with the game.

BTW, the chapter titles can be a little irritating. All start with “This is not…”. Just keep on reading and eventually you can ignore the titles.

This novel drew my interest from the first page. It is mostly about Dagmar developing a healthy dose of suspicion in her culturally naive mind. Read and enjoy!

Highly recommended for Williams fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of roleplaying games, realworld murders, and smart women.

-Arthur W. Jordin

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Fastest Shipping Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay

March 8th, 2011 by shakira7569109

Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay. Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay

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Annie Proulx has written some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many readers and reviewers, Brokeback Mountain is her masterpiece.

Brokeback Mountain was originally published in The New Yorker. It won the National Magazine Award. It also won an O. Henry Prize. Included in this volume is Annie Proulx’s haunting story about the difficult, dangerous love affair between a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy. Also included is the celebrated screenplay for the major motion picture “Brokeback Mountain,” written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. All three writers have contributed essays on the process of adapting this critically acclaimed story for film.

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #75843 in eBooks
  • Published on: 2009-11-19
  • Released on: 2009-11-24
  • Format: Kindle Book
  • Number of items: 1

Women hold their own in this worthy adaptation of a gay love story5
This little volume contains Annie Proulx’s original short story version of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN as it appeared in The New Yorker in 1997 along with the screenplay to Ang Lee’s film by Larry McMurtry (The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment) and Diana Ossana. The screenwriters retained much of the spareness, tension, and overt and threatened violence of the original story. They even incorporate much of Proulx’s unfilmable descriptions in between the characters’ speeches (perhaps as cues for method actors). The biggest change from story to screen seems to be the expanded roles of the women in the men’s lives–the wives, girlfriends (created from whole cloth), and Ennis’s daughter, Alma Jr. This seems justified, given that the story takes place over twenty years, a period in which both main characters, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, carried out a spotty love affair but constructed their public lives according to more conventional mores. Ennis’s love of his daughters is, we feel, genuine and not a substitution or consolation prize. And the fact that she can see her father’s loneliness only adds to the pathos of his situation.

Each writer contributes an essay about their experience bringing this story to the big screen. Proulx’s “Getting Movied” was especially thoughtful and generous. The volume would have been nicely served, however, had Ang Lee contributed an Introduction. If you’re a movie credits geek, this book concludes with the entire closing credits, including the sheep wrangler and bear trainer. Also includes 8 pages of black and white photos from the film.

A nice souvenir for anyone who loves the movie and wants to study it more closely.

Powerfully moving, adds to the film; includes insightful essays from the writers5
Both the short story and screenplay are likely to move you to tears, make you feel like somebody’s pulling your guts out hand over hand a yard at a time, as Annie Proulx writes of Ennis. They can also make you treasure love more. Proulx’s prose is pure poetry. The screenplay is a terrific read and a faithful adaptation and expansion. It’s fascinating to have them side by side, to see how certain characters and events were fleshed out… how, for example a single sentence (about a terrible misunderstanding of Jack’s, for those who know the story) became a tear-jerking three-page sequence of scenes. The story, script and movie all add depth to each other, like three tellings of the same tale that emphasize different shades. If you’re interested in delving deeper into the lives and loves of these characters and the starkly beautiful honesty of this world, buy this book. In addition to the story and script, the book includes three eloquent essays by Proulx and each of the screenwriters, Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. These offer a good deal of insight and color to the story and whole development process, from Proulx’s germ of an idea for a short story to the screenwriters shepherding the project for years, to each of their reactions to the final film. Fascinating and powerful. Strongly recommended.

The Art of Transforming a Compelling Short Story Into an Equally Resonant Movie5
Ang Lee’s powerfully moving cinematic translation of Annie Proulx’s masterful short story, “Brokeback Mountain”, is obviously turning into a cultural phenomenon. So much so that not only is there the inevitable movie tie-in book (actually the original short story bound in a new softcover with the movie poster), but there is also a much-deserved resurgence in sales for her 2000 short story collection, “Close Range”, which provides the broader context for “Brokeback Mountain” (it concludes the book). With the increasing success of the film in its smartly planned roll-out, we now have the story-to-screenplay tome. This would seem like overkill were it not for the fact that Proulx’s original story is a remarkable piece of sparingly written fiction and that Lee’s film, thanks to screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, is a wondrously faithful translation of her vision.

Through a series of narrative ellipses, Proulx presents a palpable love story about two ranch hands, Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, who meet and become obsessed with one another. First published in the New Yorker in 1997 and greeted with much acclaim, the story is less about coming to terms about the characters’ sexual proclivities and more about their inability to act upon those heretofore untapped emotions toward a greater happiness. Even though both men marry and have children, neither can fully acknowledge the love they feel toward each other because of the steep price that their love carries and they can only express themselves privately for more than twenty years. Suffice it to say the story is stunning in its preciseness and evocation of the contemporary West, but on first read, it hardly beckons a screen treatment.

Yet, if anyone can do it, the reclusive McMurtry has the credentials given his masterworks as both novelist and screenwriter – “Lonesome Dove”, “The Last Picture Show” and “Terms of Endearment”. With his longtime writing partner Ossana, the obvious challenge was expanding Proulx’s story without getting verbose and compromising the emotional tone or integrity of the core story. The final script is 110 pages long, and it is a testament to McMurtry’s and Ossana’s talent that only one-third is taken up by the original story. Their approach was to take Proulx’s words verbatim and augment many of the narrative ellipses, the most obvious opportunity in adding dimension to the women in the two men’s lives. It is fascinating to read how the wives, Alma and especially Lureen, transform from background figures into vivid characters with their own unspoken feelings in the screenplay. The other significant aspect that resonates is how the script captures what Proulx painted in words about the landscape and the silent moments among the characters. Reading the wondrous screenplay makes me appreciate the effort it takes to visualize a story that was meant to be left to the imagination.

There are also three essays included in the book – individual accounts by Proulx, McMurtry and Ossana. What comes across clearly is how they all have strong synchronicity about the final screenplay. Proulx’s essay, “Getting Movied”, is the most interesting in that she tells us the genesis of the story through years of subliminal observation in her adopted home of Wyoming. It apparently started when she saw an old ranch hand in a bar packed with good-looking women, yet he was only watching the guys in a furtive fashion. This image so affected Proulx that she counted back from his age and decided to set the story in the 1960’s when he would have been a young man. She ruminated on the themes of rural homophobia and the internalized challenges of gay men in these areas. It’s obvious that Proulx tapped into something deeper and that McMurtry and Ossana have been able to make even more tangible.

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Is Inside the Surge: One Commanders Lessons in Counterinsurgency Any Good

March 6th, 2011 by shakira7569109

Inside the Surge: One Commanders Lessons in Counterinsurgency

Is Inside the Surge: One Commanders Lessons in Counterinsurgency Any Good

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Here’s a Detailed Description for Inside the Surge: One Commanders Lessons in Counterinsurgency:

When Lieutenant Colonel Jim Crider arrived in the Doura neighborhood of Baghdad in February of 2007 as the commander of 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Riley, Kansas the Sunni neighborhood appeared beyond hope. The streets were largely empty of life and the air was filled with the foul smell of burning trash and open sewage. Improvised explosive devices, small arms fire, hand grenades, and dead bodies were a normal part of every 1-4 CAV patrol in the spring and early summer of 2007. However, through the ruthless implementation of the counterinsurgency principles outlined in Army Field Manual 3-24 and several pragmatic decisions along the way, the neighborhood began to turn in July of 2007. By the end of September, the unit had seen the last attack on its forces. Businesses reopened, the streets were full of people, and there was hope. This paper contains some of the primary lessons learned during their 14 month combat tour. In his foreword to the paper, CNAS Senior Fellow and author of the New York Times best-seller Fiasco Tom Ricks calls Crider’s work “the first in-depth review offered by an American battalion commander about post-invasion operations in Iraq.”

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  • Amazon Sales Rank: #151819 in eBooks
  • Published on: 2009-06-11
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About the Author
Lieutenant Colonel James R. Crider, a native of Mayfield, Kentucky, was commissioned as a 2LT of Infantry in 1988 from the University of Kentucky (UK). He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from UK and a Master of Science in Human Resources Management from Troy State University. His military education includes the Infantry Officer Basic Course, Airborne School, Ranger School, Air Assault School, Infantry Mortar Leader Course, Bradley Leader Course, Battalion Motor Officer Course, Infantry Officer Advanced Course, Combined Arms Services and Staff School (CAS3), and the Command and General Staff College (CGSC).

Lieutenant Colonel Crider s previous assignments include serving as a Rifle Platoon Leader, Anti-Tank Platoon Leader, and Company Executive Officer in the Berlin Brigade in Berlin, Germany. His next assignment was with the Infantry Training Brigade as a Company Executive Officer and Battalion Operations Officer in the 2-58 Infantry. Following graduation from the Infantry Officers Advanced Course, he served with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (OPFOR) at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California as a Battalion S4, Commander of G Troop, and HHT/2-11 ACR. Lieutenant Colonel Crider s next assignment was at Fort Benning, Georgia with the United States Army Infantry School (USAIS) as a Small Group instructor, USAIS Executive Officer, and Commander of B Company 2-11 IN (IOBC). Following graduation from the Command and General Staff College, he was assigned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky as S3, 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry (Air Assault) where he deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom. During the deployment, he assumed the duties of Brigade S3 for the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). He then served as the Aide to the Commanding General, Fifth United States Army in San Antonio, Texas before assuming command of 1-4 Cavalry, 4 IBCT of the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas. Most recently, he deployed the 1-4 CAV to OIF V as part of the surge of 2007-08 in Baghdad. He currently serves as an Army Fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington DC.

Lieutenant Colonel Crider s awards include the Bronze Star Medal (1 OLC), Meritorious Service Medal (4 OLC), Army Commendation Medal (2 OLC), Army Achievement Medal (1 OLC), Army of Occupation Medal, National defense Service Medal, Operation Iraqi Freedom Campaign Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. He is also authorized to wear the Combat Infantryman s Badge, Expert Infantryman s Badge, Ranger Tab, Parachutist Badge, and the Air Assault Badge.

Lieutenant Colonel Crider is married to Jill Crider. They have one child, a son Jack (6).

–t2at

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Eminent Victorians Penguin Modern Classics eBook Discount.

March 6th, 2011 by shakira7569109

Eminent Victorians Penguin Modern Classics eBook. Eminent Victorians Penguin Modern Classics eBook

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“Eminent Victorians” marked an epoch in the art of biography; it also helped to crack the old myths of high Victorianism and to usher in a new spirit by which chauvinism, hypocrisy and the stiff upper lip were debunked. In it, Strachey cleverly exposes the self-seeking ambitions of Cardinal Manning and the manipulative, neurotic Florence Nightingale; and in his essays on Dr Arnold and General Gordon, his quarries are not only his subjects but also the public-school system and the whole structure of nineteenth-century liberal values.

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #102006 in eBooks
  • Published on: 1989-10-26
  • Released on: 1989-10-26
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The importance of not being earnest4
Some of Lytton Strachey’s choices of subject for the four scathing biographical essays contained in _Eminent Victorians_ may seem rather strange. Florence Nightingale was an obvious choice for any biographer, but who cared about Matthew Arnold in the post-war era when Strachey was writing these essays? Who gave a thought to Cardinal Manning or Chinese Gordon? And why combine their biographies into one book?

The answer may be that all four shared one unusual character trait, one so reminiscent of the Victorian age that even the thought of it brings the scent of lavender to mind: extreme earnestness. Each figure cared very, very deeply about something, but for each that earnestness also masked a corresponding personal craving. Like many young Britons in the post-WWI era, Strachey was deeply distrustful of earnestness, often seeing it as an excuse for personal gain or fulfillment. This was especially true when one man’s deeply held beliefs sent others to their deaths, as it often had during WWI. He had no time for official incompetence, ignorance, or inaction, but often found the opposite just as dangerous.

The first essay in _Eminent Victorians_ is that of Cardinal Manning. Manning was a priest in the Church of England who became involved in the Oxford Movement, a group of churchmen who disliked the increasing secularization of the C of E and who wished to bring it back to its Catholic roots. Most of those involved remained in the Anglican communion, forming the nucleus of the “High Church” movement of the late 19th century. Manning found that he could not stop at that, though; unable to reconcile his belief in a Church Universal with his membership in a church that existed basically because Henry VIII was a serial adulterer, and unable to ‘take back’ the text of a tract he had written that was deeply critical of the Anglican church and which eliminated any chances of his gaining higher office, Manning found himself eventually in the arms of Rome. Strachey paints Manning as a weak, vacillating, impulsive man of great ambition whose conversion to Roman Catholicism was as much a political and career move as one of the heart and soul. Had Manning remained in the Church of England, Strachey implies, he would have been an archdeacon until death; only conversion to Roman Catholicism allowed him to fulfil his ambitions towards higher office. It’s a masterful biography, one that explores not just its purported subject but also the birth of Anglo-Catholicism.

The third essay, of Rugby school headmaster Matthew Arnold, reveals Strachey’s hatred of the English public school system (or what we in North America would call the private school system). He skewers Arnold for failing to make the educational reforms he was hired to make and for delegating the discipline of younger students to the senior class, thereby condoning and even encouraging the type of severe bullying that caused many young men to consider suicide. Arnold, whose earnestness in creating ‘Christian gentlemen’ did not go so far as to allow him to teach them himself, refused to update the school curriculum ostensibly because gentlemen didn’t need science, maths, or English literature, but really (as Strachey contends) because Arnold had studied Latin and Greek himself and didn’t want to feel his own learning was unnecessary. Strachey points out that Arnold did little at Rugby except pronounce the Sunday sermon, intimidate students, and foster a personality cult that eventually made him the father of modern education in many Britons’ eyes – even though he made no changes to the educational system itself. His reforms in discipline and in religion (and his lack of reforms in curriculum) were copied by most public schools, to the great detriment of the British people.

In Strachey’s essay on General Gordon, Strachey shows how a brave man with a strong belief in the rightness of his cause and an overwhelming desire for adventure may have been used to precipitate a war and to advance the cause of imperialism. Gordon, a war veteran and former colonial administrator (and a rather unstable fellow), was sent to the Sudan during a revolt to report on conditions there and to evacuate civilians who were loyal to Egypt, which was then controlled by the British. Gordon did none of the above; he instead tried to wipe out the insurrection, and for his troubles was killed and his staff and allies massacred. His death was used by the imperialist factions in the ruling party as a call to arms. Strachey wonders: was this deliberate? Was Gordon given alternate instructions by the imperialists? Did they intend for him to die, so that his death could be used as a rallying point for further imperialism? He argues his point well, and the essay is definitely worth reading.

Strachey’s portrait of Florence Nightingale is not quite as successful as the rest. Nightingale was born into a wealthy family, and like all young women of her class and time was expected to marry young, have children, and generally be nothing more than a society lady. Florence wanted more: she wanted to work, to make a difference, to change the world, and she wanted everybody around her to work as hard as she did. After many years of waiting, she finally had her chance; her efforts to reform British military hospitals and eventually the practice of medicine in the Empire did in fact change the world. Strachey seems to have thought that she pushed her colleagues too hard, that her own drive was so abnormal that her friends and family could not keep up. Granted, she did push some of her colleagues very hard, and one may have even died from overwork, but they chose to work with her because they believed in her, and given what she was able to do I think they were right to believe in her. It also appears that Strachey may not have been comfortable with a woman refusing to hide her intelligence or personal strength when dealing with men. I had the distinct impression while reading this essay that Strachey was sneering at those men who took orders from Nightingale or who assisted her in her work. Another reviewer mentioned that Nightingale is portrayed here as a ‘pushy woman’ – and she certainly is; however, most of Strachey’s implied criticism seems to be directed towards the men who treated her as the intelligent, hard-working, valuable human being she was. Strachey also seems to have viewed her invalid status as something of a neurotic problem, which in the light of recent research (showing that she likely had undulant fever) may not be accurate.

Not what you’d expect4
This is a strange book. The author created quite a stir when he published it at the close of the First World War: it’s not the laudatory, voluminous biography that was popular at the time. Instead, it’s a more impressionistic work, artistic rather than factual. And since it’s not one biography but four short ones, the individual sketches tend to be more along the lines of extended eulogies or obituaries.

The four people studied in this book are Cardinal Manning (who almost became Pope), Dr. Arnold (who reformed the British public school system), Florence Nightingale, and General “Chinese” Gordon (killed defending Khartoum). The first difficulty, I would imagine, for the average American reader is that of these four, only Florence Nightingale will be familiar. The book only briefly touches on the events of the people whose lives are sketched here, and it’s helpful to know something of the individual’s background and life prior to picking up the current book. I only knew “Chinese” Gordon, and him not that well, so the four bios were only of moderate interest to me.

The writing style, however, stood out. The author has a bad habit of stretching his thoughts out beyond all reason. Paragraphs, at various points, run upwards of two pages in length, and sentences fill line after line. The author is full of opinions, and pushes them at you rather relentlessly. The tone of the book, and the way it was recieved at the time, show a considerable irreverence, as all of the bios involved are at least somewhat negative. While “Chinese” Gordon has always been known to have been somewhat eccentric, and the criticism of Manning and Arnold are probably irrelevant to most now, Florence Nightingale is mainly criticized for being a pushy woman. I don’t know that this will play very well these days, especially since she was right more than wrong.

I enjoyed this book reasonably well, given the shortcomings that I knew it had going in. I would recommend it to those interested in the topic, the author, or the era of British history.

LAUGHTER AT POMP’S EXPENSE5
The most famous anecdote about this book (and the one that made me aware of it) is the scene of Bertrand Russell in his prison cell incarcerated for his Pacifism during WWI laughing hysterically while reading the work. (And being henceforth rebuked by a guard for doing so in what was, after all, a penal institution.)-The other reviewers are pretty much on the mark in that Strachey set a new standard for biography.-But the piece on General Gordon surpasses all. I can see myself on death row laughing over this section.-It is in part a sad reflection on what years in the Sudan can do to an orthodox Englishman’s mind. It is indeed uncanny to hear Gordon aver, on his famous expedition to save Khartoum, nearly the exact words of Baudelaire as he gazed across the perhaps too familiar desert landscape:”It is necessary to be drunken always. This is everything. This is the unique question.” (my translation)-This is the aged General the sober English sent on this perilous quest. This is the man who daily battled with the question of what God’s Will was for him.-What the Gordon section and the others show, of course, is that man (or woman) is not one-dimensional. Far more often, he(she)is multi-dimensional to the point of being paradoxical. The hypocritical Victorian mindset was pushed over the edge by this book.

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Stories of King Arthur’s Knights-Retail —-! Sale Only Price Too Low To Display!!

March 5th, 2011 by shakira7569109

Stories of King Arthur's Knights

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Stories of King Arthur’s Knights Description:

More than four hundred years ago there lived a diligent man called
Sir Thomas Malory, who wrote in English words many of the beautiful
Welsh tales about King Arthur’s Knights, that the people of Wales
loved so well.

All the stories in this little book were found in Malory’s big
book, except ‘Geraint and Enid.’ But it, too, is one of the old
Welsh tales that tell of the brave knights and fair ladies of King
Arthur’s court.

Many times, since Sir Thomas Malory wrote his book, have these
stories been told again to old and young, but perhaps never before
have they been told to the children so simply as in this little
book.

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #189018 in eBooks
  • Published on: 2009-06-29
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Fastest Shipping Architect’s Drawings: A selection of sketches by world famous architects through history

March 4th, 2011 by shakira7569109

Architect's Drawings: A selection of sketches by world famous architects through history

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Here’s a Detailed Description for Architect’s Drawings: A selection of sketches by world famous architects through history:

The sketch is a window into the architects mind. As creative designers, architects are interested in how other architects, particularly successful ones, think through the use of drawings to approach their work. Historically designers have sought inspiration for their own work through an insight into the minds and workings of people they often regard as geniuses. This collection of sketches aims to provide this insight. Here for the first time, a wide range of world famous architects’ sketches from the Renaissance to the present day can be seen in a single volume. The sketches have been selected to represent the concepts or philosophies of the key movements in architecture in order to develop an overall picture of the role of the sketch in the development of architecture. The book illustrates the work of designers as diverse as Andrea Palladio, Erich Mendelsohn, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Le Corbusier, Michelangelo, Alvar Aalto, Sir John Soane, Francesco Borromini, Walter Gropius, and contemporary architects Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry to name but a few. Each chronologically placed sketch is accompanied by text providing details about the architect’s life, a look at the sketch in context, and the connection to specific buildings where appropriate. Style, media and meaning are also discussed, developing an explanation of the architect’s thinking and intentions.

As creative designers themselves, architects are interested in how other architects, particularly successful ones, think and draw and approach their work. Historically designers have sought inspiration for their own work through an insight into the minds and workings of people they often regard as geniuses. This collection of sketches aims to provide this insight.

Listed chronologically each sketch will be accompanied by a text which provides: A short synopsis/history of the architect’s life; a look at the sketch in this context; the connection to a specific building (where appropriate); techniques of the sketch: style and media; meaning – what the sketch shows about the architect’s thinking and intentions followed by a select bibliography for each section.

· Sketches from prominent architects, drawn from an international selection
· A unique insight into how architects use sketches to develop and transfer complex concepts into physical form, enabling readers to improve the connection between their own ideas and designs
· Reveals the secrets of the most successful sketching techniques used by architects for today’s designers

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  • Published on: 2005-09-20
  • Released on: 2005-06-27
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Buy Theory of World Security At Amazon!

March 4th, 2011 by shakira7569109

Theory of World Security

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Theory of World Security Description:

What is real? What can we know? How might we act? This book sets out to answer these fundamental philosophical questions in a radical and original theory of security for our times. Arguing that the concept of security in world politics has long been imprisoned by conservative thinking, Ken Booth explores security as a precious instrumental value which gives individuals and groups the opportunity to pursue the invention of humanity rather than live determined and diminished lives. Booth suggests that human society globally is facing a set of converging historical crises. He looks to critical social theory and radical international theory to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding the historical challenges facing global business-as-usual and for planning to reconstruct a more cosmopolitan future. Theory of World Security is a challenge both to well-established ways of thinking about security and alternative approaches within critical security studies.

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #206933 in eBooks
  • Published on: 2008-02-01
  • Released on: 2008-02-01
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Security as Freedom5
Ken Booth, Theory of World Security, Cambridge Studies in International Relations; 105 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007): ISBN 978-0-0521-54317-0 paperback.

Theory of World Security is both an exploration of the possible and a call to action. However, Ken Booth is equal parts realist and idealist in this text: “running through this book is the idea that human society globally is living in a New Twenty Year’s Crisis” (1). It will be tempting to dismiss elements of this text as pessimistic and even alarmist. He regularly cites the growing disparity between rich and poor, climate change as `climate chaos’, nuclear weapons and militarization, racism, and sexism among others. Indeed, some sections are downright depressing. Yet, the text is grounded in a firm sense of `this where we are, this is where we need to be, and this how we will get there.’ Further, his definition of `world security’ is rooted in a human-centric perspective: “world security refers to the structures and processes within human society, locally and globally, that work towards the reduction of the threats and risks that determine individual and group lives” (4).

Though the writing is steeped in a variety of theoretical traditions including Marx, the Frankfurt School, Arendt, Feminism, anti-racism, as well as international political theory approaches from the English School (which Booth chastises throughout) to standard Waltzian realism, the text is surprisingly (not to mention refreshingly) readable. This is of course Booth’s intent: to write about complex issues with as little jargon or name dropping as possible. The overall theoretical approach can be summed up by a phrase culled from Hannah Arendt: “pearl fishing”. Rationalist social scientists will wince at this but Booth is relentless in his quest to create a solid foundation for critical security studies (critical in the sense of Max Horkheimer’s and Robert Cox normative deontological distinction from traditional/problem solving theory). In other words, he wants to change the world. He is frankly unapologetic about his orientation. His `pearl fishing’ allows him to pull from an array of theories in order to ask more interesting questions. First and foremost, by eschewing the state-centrism of most international security studies, he is able to ask questions about global poverty, climate chaos, racism, and sexism. Ultimately, Booth’s `pearl fishing’ helps him create, as he says, an “idea of world security … synonymous with the freedom of individuals and groups compatible with the reasonable freedom of others, and universal moral equality compatible with justifiable pragmatic inequalities” (4-5). Be assured, this book is inherently emancipatory.

Organizationally, the text’s most readable chapters serve as the bread while the more theoretical chapters serve as the meat (tofu/tvp for the vegans!). However, all of the chapters are readable insofar as they tend to make regular reference to real life in keeping with the individual and non-state-centric approach of the book. Though an intelligent non-specialist will find much within these pages useful, this is a book for those who have had some basic training in political theory and/or international politics. This should not be intimidating, Booth is a teacher of uncanny ability who is able to take complex ideas and explain them to anyone with a modicum of patience. His commitment to change the world requires this commitment to communicate with others. As he insists throughout Theory of World Security, following Gandhi, “actually theorized security studies must also be the change we want to see” (462).

Review
“This visionary book distills and presents a radical refocussing of the security studies field by the leader of the Aberystwyth School of critical security studies. Taking his cue from the Frankfurt School, Booth argues that world politics is truly the Enlightenment’s most significant unfinished business. In a book of tremendous erudition and wisdom, he reasserts a humane, democratic version of Enlightenment values and critical analysis of the leading problems of our age: political and economic inequalities, ethnic differences, racism, conflict-prone societies and movements, population pressures and environmental challenges. Never before have I read a book so grounded in the realities of 21st Century World Politics and at the same time so visionary regarding the ways the key problems should be dealt with.”
Hayward R. Alker, University of Southern California and Watson Institute, Brown University

“Ken Booth takes us way beyond critical security thinking. He takes us, his lucky readers, to innovative, fresh and downright energizing security thinking! Theory of World Security shows what good things can happen intellectually if one starts one’s theorizing about security from the bottom up.”
Cynthia Enloe, author of Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link (2007)

“If Nobel Prizes were given in international relations Ken Booth would deserve one for this extraordinary book. We have long awaited such a magisterial approach to world security, and here it is, at once learned and lively, as well as clearing the way toward an emancipatory future for world order thinking and practice.”
Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

“At last the monograph is published which will allow students of international security to assess the critical thought of one of the foremost scholars in the field – hitherto available to us only in the bits and pieces of journals and book chapters. The breadth of learning, the characteristic liveliness and immediacy of Booth’s writing, and the skill in marshalling facts and analysis into a forceful argument, make for a major challenge to the conventional approach to security studies.”
Bill McSweeney, Trinity College Dublin

“After being for a generation an inspirational figure for the new discourse of Critical Security Studies, Ken Booth has now produced his own account of the field. Predictably, it does not always make for comfortable reading; Booth’s pessimism about the state we’re in disturbs as it is intended to – but this is not simply a threnody for a world gone wrong, it is also a call to action. This is a book that will be a key reference point for anyone who aspires to contribute to the discourse in the future. An exemplary piece of activist scholarship.”
Chris Brown, London School of Economics

About the Author
Ken Booth is E. H. Carr Professor in the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales Aberystwyth. He was the first president of the British International Studies Association and is the current editor of International Relations.

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Is If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State Any Good

March 3rd, 2011 by shakira7569109

If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State. If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State

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In the summer of 1998, Daniel Gordis and his family moved to Israel from Los Angeles. They planned to be there for a year, during which time Daniel would be a Fellow at the Mandel Institute in Jerusalem. This was a euphoric time in Israel. The economy was booming, and peace seemed virtually guaranteed. A few months into their stay, Gordis and his wife decided to remain in Israel permanently, confident that their children would be among the first generation of Israelis to grow up in peace.

Immediately after arriving in Israel, Daniel had started sending out e-mails about his and his family’s life to friends and family abroad. These missives—passionate, thoughtful, beautifully written, and informative—began reaching a much broader readership than he’d ever envisioned, eventually being excerpted in The New York Times Magazine to much acclaim. An edited and finely crafted collection of his original e-mails, If a Place Can Make You Cry is a first-person, immediate account of Israel’s post-Oslo meltdown that
cuts through the rhetoric and stridency of most dispatches from that country or from the international media.

Above all, Gordis tells the story of a family that must cope with the sudden realization that they took their children from a serene and secure neighborhood in Los Angeles to an Israel not at peace but mired in war. This is the chronicle of a loss of innocence—the innocence of Daniel and his wife, and of their children. Ultimately, through Gordis’s eyes, Israel, with all its beauty, madness, violence, and history, comes to life in a way we’ve never quite seen before.

Daniel Gordis captures as no one has the years leading up to what every Israeli dreaded: on April 1, 2002, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that Israel was at war. After an almost endless cycle of suicide bombings and harsh retaliation, any remaining chance for peace had seemingly died.

If a Place Can Make You Cry is the story of a time in which peace gave way to war, when childhood innocence evaporated in the heat of hatred, when it became difficult even to hope. Like countless other Israeli parents, Gordis and his wife struggled to make their children’s lives manageable and meaningful, despite it all. This is a book about what their children gained, what they lost, and how, in the midst of everything, a whole family learned time and again what really matters.

From the Hardcover edition.

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #127438 in eBooks
  • Published on: 2002-10-15
  • Released on: 2002-10-15
  • Format: Kindle Book
  • Number of items: 1

For Those Who Have All the Answers5
This is a MUST READ for anyone who thinks they have a solution to the problems in the Middle East. Rabbi Gordis doesn’t present ideology — rather, he gives us a dose of reality; of what he and his family face every day, along with constantly questioning the decision they made to remain in Israel. I’ve read a lot of negative comments regarding “putting his children in harm’s way,” but he is teaching his children what’s to be valued, cherished and fought for — not land, per se, as some have intimated but, rather, the ideal of one place on this earth that Jews can live — one day, God willing, in peace. Israel serves its purpose not only as the one place Jews in peril can immigrate to, but as a place of inspiration and dedication. While Israeli and American parents both want the same thing for their children — they should only be happy, have a successful career, a loving spouse, healthy children and NOT have to face going to war. Israeli parents, however, know there is something more — that achieving these personal goals should not come at the expense or peril of the country’s goals.

In the past, I have had opinions as to what Israel should or shoould not do to make peace, but this book highlights better than anything else what the daunting reality is vis-a-vis a solution. While we may all “pray for the peace in Jerusalem,” the reality is that more than prayer is needed, and there may not be A single solution or long-term peace — at least not without other Arab countries stepping in.

This is an extremely well-written, highly enlightening book, and the next time I hear anyone stating a firm opinion as to what Israel should do, I’m going to recommend they read this before the spout off again!

Gradual dimming of idealism5
Old joke, often seen on bumper stickers: “Definition of a conservative? A liberal who’s been mugged. ” Daniel Gordis would probably still not describe himself as a conservative, but the liberal views he and his family took to Israel when they moved there four years ago have taken a severe beating.

When Rabbi Gordis was offered a year-long fellowship in Jerusalem, the Oslo peace process was offering a vision of peace and prosperity for a country that had seen neither for some time. Inspired by what they saw, the Gordis family cancelled their plans to return to Los Angeles and moved permanently to Israel; a move known to Jews as “making aliyah,” or in English, “rising up.” Daniel Gordis began to write occasional email essays to family & friends updating them on this new life, and the emails were forwarded to a wide circle. Eventually they were extracted in the New York Times, and now they’ve been collected (with some new writings as connective tissue) in this remarkable book.

What shines through this book is the gradual dimming of the idealism with which the Gordis family saw their new country. As the peace process collapsed, replaced by a constant undercurrent of shootings, bombings and rocket attacks, Israeli attitudes and opinions moved firmly towards an uncompromising crackdown on Arab terrorism. Former liberals and peace activists found themselves grasping for a framework that could support their principles; but this time partners were hard to find.

The most disturbing part of the book is hearing the effect that it has had on the Gordis children. They went to a country that offered them safety and security, a place where they could walk safely in the streets late at night, but ended up living in a war zone. A comment by his son, quoted on the back cover, illustrates the heartbreaking transition the family has made:

“You know what I think?,” he suddenly added. “I think that when grown-ups really love Israel, they’re even ready for their children to get killed for it. That’s what I think.”

Despite the hardship of life in Israel now, the overall tone of the book is positive. The Gordis parents continue the struggle to make life for their children meaningful and nurturing, secure in the belief that the choices they’ve made for their lives are the correct ones, despite the challenges.

A Moving, Personal Memoir5
This is a moving, compelling and readable book that draws you in from the first page. Gordis is a gifted and sensitive observer whose account of his family’s life in Israel is so personal and honest that the reader feels an emotional bond. On every page, you feel his passion, his struggles and his deep knowledge of Israel’s history and meaning. More than a book about politics, it is a family story — about parents and children and how they cope with life in a place that is full of pain and hope, a place where the author finds inspiring, transcendent surprises around every corner.

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