For My Sister: Reflections on Life, Love, and Sisterhood (Quote-A-Page)

Book Description

There is no friend like a sister and no better way to tell her so. This hardcover title is filled with quotes, poems, excerpts, and anecdotes about that one person in the world who knows us best.

Customer Reviews:

Four Years with General Lee.......2005-04-18

A history of the Civil War by Lee's aide Walter Herron Taylor.

This is more a history than a memoir, and I get the impression that Taylor's other book has more personal reminiscence, though I haven't had a chance to see it yet. It clearly has served as a major source for generations of scholars; it describes most of the ANV's actions with a fair amount of detail and also discusses Lee's early campaign in West Virginia. The numerical strengths of the armies are tabulated in detail.

Taylor's hero-worship of Lee is clear in his analyses of events and in the appended anniversary address, which doesn't make this a less useful source but should be taken into account.

"Four Years with...", but NOT a memoir.......2002-11-25

As did Gilbert Moxley Sorrel (Longstreet), staff officer Walter Taylor offers his insights of the War of Southern Independence. Indeed, Taylor has rightful claim to his judgements, as his acquaitance with Lee offered him first-hand knowledge of events. However, I caution future readers that this is NOT a memoir or diary per se - Taylor rarely gives any unique slants to anything, and more often than not, seems occupied with setting the "numbers straight" - many, many, many tables and charts are provided giving the numbers available for this battle and that battle, etc...I suggest this book only for serious students of the war - and more particularly, those wanting "first-hand" data on "numbers." Of final interest, though, is Taylor's disdain for Hiram U. Grant (accurately recognizing Grant as a true butcher - merely throwing big numbers at an under-manned, under-supllied army) and the insertion of a speech given upon the anniversary of Genl Lee's birthday (albeit NOT written, or presented by Taylor himself)

Four years of Confederate history..........2002-04-11

Taylor's approach to covering the history of the Confederate struggle is encouraging to read. Though the title of this book tends to be a bit misleading. It should be called Four years of Confederate history. Taylor tends to describe battle movements and give calculations as to the manpower of divisions, brigades and regiments to a dragging sense. This books I recommend highly for those trying to get an accurate count of soldiers available for each battle, how many were casualties, after battle net amounts,etc.. Rarely are daily affairs of Lee covered. When I read this book I was disappointed to find out that it wasn't a book about General Lee and his daily livelyhood as I wanted to read about. Since Taylor was Lee's secretary I thought who better than to describe Lee's motives, attitudes, triumphs and defeats? Very rarely did Taylor ever mention Lee in this manner. Not enough to capture the man and tell his story. This book is a quick refresh of battles and movements throughout the war of the Army of Northern Virginia which hardly fits being called Four Years With General Lee. Credit is due to Taylor's ability to calculate total manpower and army positions throughout the four years though falls way short in covering Lee.

Men of Character.......2000-08-14

Wonderful book describing the massive work and devotion to duty that General Lee adhered to. Written by his A.A.G. A must read for southern patriots.

Sometimes, Taylor can be a little biased.......2000-08-03

Taylor, as Lee's trusty staff member thoughout the war, is a great reference on Lee. Not all his words are to be taken at face value, however. For example, he had provided himself with a lovely suie with a piano and all he needed, far grander than Lee's abode. When Lee commented that Taylor had himself "finely fixed" there, Taylor responded " It will do." Lee was rightfully astounded, and left, although Taylor does not phrase it this way. Just a warning.

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Four Years with General Lee
Walter H. Taylor
Manufacturer: Bonanza
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GTEQSM

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Four years with General Lee
Robert E.) Taylor, Walter H Lee
Manufacturer: Bonanza Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OC3I80

Four years with General Lee;: Being a summary of the more important events touching the career of General Robert E. Lee, in the war between the states;

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Four years with General Lee;: Being a summary of the more important events touching the career of General Robert E. Lee, in the war between the states;
Walter Herron Taylor
Manufacturer: D. Appleton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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FOUR YEARS WITH GENERAL LEE
Walter Taylor
Manufacturer: Bonanza Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NTNKFA

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Four Years with General Lee
Walter H. Taylor. Edited with an Introduction by James I. Robertson
Manufacturer: Bonanza Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VHZFMA

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FOUR YEARS WITH GENERAL LEE: Being a Summary of the More Important Events Touching the Career of General Robert E. Lee, in the War Between the States; Together with an Authoritative Statement of the Strength of the Army Which He Commanded in the Field .
Walter H. Taylor
Manufacturer: D. Appleton and Company,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JR2Y6W

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Four years with General Lee: Being a summary of the more important events touching the career of General Robert E. Lee, in the War Between the States together ... of the army which he commanded in the field
Walter Herron Taylor
Manufacturer: Appleton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

From Privileged to Dispossessed is a social and economic history of the foreign settlers who emigrated to the Volga region in Russia in the eighteenth century. Concentrating on the years 1860 to 1917, a period of rapid change in Russia, it is at once a detailed look at life in the lower Volga valley and a vital chapter in the history of the multinational Russian Empire, assessing as it does the impact of national policy in the outlying provinces.

James W. Long's book shatters the prevailing view of the Volga Germans in Russia, showing them not untouched by time but remarkably adaptable to ever-changing circumstances. It reveals how numerous nineteenth-century government reforms and rapid economic development, and the subsequent restruc-turing of state and society, transformed their lives for good and ill. It also illustrates the striking continuity of a misguided nationality policy that alienated a loyal, productive minority group by means of rigorous Russification and expropriation of landholdings. From Privileged to Dispossessed makes extensive use of rare materials from major Soviet research libraries and of oral interviews with Volga German immigrants. The book will be of special interest not only to historians but to people of Volga German descent, whose ancestors had learned to survive in a foreign land a century before they came to the North American prairies in the 1870s.

Customer Reviews:

Napoleon, Limes, Lemons and Limeys.......2003-11-12

This is a fascinating, often amusing book on a very interesting subject. It reads with all the gripping suspense of a well-written novel, while being meticulously researched to be historically accurate. Mr. Bown writes with his trademark contagious enthusiasm for his subject while answering all the questions you and I could possibly think to ask about scurvy. I had no idea, before reading this book, how horrifying the disease could be. The machinations of governments and navies are appalling, as is their total disregard for the plight of their apparently disposable mariners. Nor would I have guessed that the lowly lemon played a major role in defeating Napoleon! You have to wonder why history textbooks are so unnecessarily stultifying, when writers of Mr. Bown's caliber do such a wonderful job of making us gobble up their words as easily as citrus-flavoured Vitamin C tablets!

Scurvy How A Surgeon, A Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved The Greatest Medical Mystery Of The Age Of Sail

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Scurvy How A Surgeon, A Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved The Greatest Medical Mystery Of The Age Of Sail
Bown Stephen R.
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UIGO5C

Amazon.com

James Ellroy's trademark is his language: it is sometimes caustically funny and always brazen. When he's hitting on all cylinders, as he is in My Dark Places, his style makes punchy rhythms out of short sentences using lingo such as "scoot" (dollar), "trim" (sex), and "brace" (to interrogate). But the premise for My Dark Places is what makes it especially compelling: Ellroy goes back to his own childhood to investigate the central mystery behind his obsession with violence against women--the death of his mother when he was 10 years old. It's hard to imagine a more psychologically treacherous, more self-exposing way in which to write about true crime. The New York Times calls it a "strenuously involving book.... Early on, Mr. Ellroy makes a promise to his dead mother that seems maudlin at first: 'I want to give you breath.' But he's done just that and--on occasion--taken ours away."

Book Description

"Astonishing . . . original, daring, brilliant."
--Philadelphia Inquirer

In 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb. Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running. He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother--and himself.

In My Dark Places, our most uncompromising crime writer tells what happened when he teamed up with a brilliant homicide cop to investigate a murder that everyone else had forgotten--and reclaim the mother he had despised, desired, but never dared to love. What ensues is a epic of loss, fixation, and redemption, a memoir that is also a history of the American way of violence.

"Ellroy is more powerful than ever."
--The Nation

Customer Reviews:

Darkness and the Dahlia.......2007-09-26

I've been a fan of James Ellroy since reading "The Black Dahlia" years ago. He blended violent death and raw eroticism, threw in a few dashes of creative nonfiction, and came up with a fast-paced noir tale about a detective who becomes obsessed with the murdered Elizabeth Short, aka The Black Dahlia. The protagonist doesn't content himself with merely trying to unmask her killer- he pursues Short as if she were yet attainable, loving her more in death than he ever could have in life.

"My Dark Places" evolved from an article Ellroy wrote for GQ Magazine after viewing the homicide file of his mother, Geneva 'Jean' Ellroy, whose strangled remains were dumped in a seedy L.A. suburb in 1958. The killer was never found and the case was closed, but the ten year old Ellroy was left with a lifelong fascination with the beautiful and the slaughtered. After battling through a personal hell of drug and alcohol addiction, he made unconscious attempts to reconnect with his mother by writing provocative and darkly loving crime fiction whose primary love interests were dead women.

Ellroy teamed up with veteran homicide detective Bill Stoner and re-opened the thirty year old case case. They pored over yellowing files and battered evidence boxes, and interviewed some of the last people to see Geneva Ellroy alive. Ellroy recounts their efforts in a suspenseful manner that would do justice to a good piece of detective fiction. While their investigation does not result in the finding of her killer, Ellroy clearly experiences a psychic catharsis in the process, and the reader witnesses a documented softening of a child's hostility into an adult son's love for a mother he never truly knew.

"the sky was a carcinogenic tan".......2007-08-17

My Dark Places stands alone among the most naked, poignant, exquisite writing I have ever encountered. Anyone unmoved by either its subject matter or the sheer beauty of Ellroy's prose must be clinically dead.

Needed an editor.......2007-07-10

James Ellroy is undeniably a great writer, and the story he tells here --the unsolved murder of his mother when he was ten years old, and how the fact marked (and almost ruined) his life-- is an amazing one. But the book suffers, in my opinion, from a lack of editing. You can't blame Ellroy for believing that every single detail about the case, and his struggle to solve it, is fascinating, but the truth is, the writing suffers from too many details--some of them, irrelevant and even boring. A good editor could have transformed great but raw material into what it should have been: a masterpiece.

Relentless.......2007-06-13

To better understand (if not enjoy) My Dark Places, I would suggest that you need to have read at least one Ellroy novel. It will help to put this semi-autobiography into perspective, and if you're already an Ellroy fan it will make a great deal more sense. It's an extraordinary piece of work, so ruthlessly exhaustive in its detail that I for one felt almost physically tired by the time I had finished. Not tired of reading the book itself, but tired just to think of the incredible lengths Ellroy went to in order to track down his mother's killer some 37/38 years after her death in 1958. Although the book is dedicated to Ellroy's wife Helen, it could just as well have been dedicated to Bill Stoner, the retired ex-detective who committed himself absolutely to the cause of helping Ellroy in his unusual quest - but this might be an opportunity to mention two of Ellroy's greatest works American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand, one a sequel to the other; the latter was in fact dedicated to Stoner and deservedly so.

In one sense I feel that this book was written almost exclusively for Ellroy himself to read, I'm sure that he had little commercial incentive or reasoning to do it. Yet the raw, body-pummelling honesty of the book from start to finish makes for fascinating reading for those who, like myself, have ever wondered what made Ellroy write in the way he does in such classics as The Black Dahlia or The Big Nowhere. I have to admit that the short sentence style adopted in My Dark Places does irritate at times, in spite of the fact that the writer explains this after the end of the story. It gave me the impression that what we are reading, much of the time, are either his own or Stoner's investigatory notes and copied to the page verbatim.

The lasting impression though is the tireless and absolutely relentless commitment to the cause of a murder investigation. Although there are only a handful of characters who appear in the book throughout, there are nevertheless several hundred others who are mentioned during its course, the majority of whom are either related to the victim or are suspected of being so - and ALL of these suspects, no matter how faint their association to the crime might seem, have to be contacted and interviewed. I guess that this gives us an insight into the mechanics of any murder investigation, and how different it is to the relative glamourisation we see on the TV. This book covers, in finite detail, the day-to-day work of a real-life murder investigation, one which was spread well over a year and one which covered every single day of that period. The huge difference of course is that the victim is the investigator's mother, and the death took place most of his life ago.

After closing the last page, I felt that while I didn't exactly understand Ellroy as a personality that much better, I certainly knew him and his motives as a writer more than I had. My Dark Places strips away much of the mystery surrounding him and helps to explain what made him a self-styled specialist of 1950's LA crime fiction; he was a victim of the real thing.

TMI.......2007-04-24

My Dark Places is an excellent journey into the formative events of Ellroy's childhood and how they would shape him over time into one of America's most celebrated crime fiction writers. It's graphic, intense, and very real. It's also tough to take, at times, and not for the reasons one might expect. The most difficult aspect of the book from a reader's perspective is actually double edged: first, we know going in that his mother's murder is unsolved, so there is no resolution possible, unlike the fictional one present at the end of Black Dahlia. Second, Ellroy does not spare us any of the details of his investigation. While it is interesting to see how a true detective goes about his business, it makes for impossible reading. The details just overwhelm and ultimately suffocate the life of this narrative. So as far as a voyeuristic perspective on Ellroy's life, this couldn't dig any deeper. But as far as good reading, My Dark Places is a case of Too Much Information.

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My Dark Places
James Ellroy
Manufacturer: Century Publishing Co Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Criminology | Crime & Criminals | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

True Crime | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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My Dark Places
James ELLROY
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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My Dark Places
Elroy James
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UCKUWQ

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My Dark Places 1ST Edition Signed
James Ellroy
Manufacturer: KNOPF, ALFRED A
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

My Dark Places an L. A. Crime Memoir with SIGNED by author Sticker on Front DJ ( An unflinching autobiography a treatise on 38 years of American murder )

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My Dark Places an L. A. Crime Memoir with SIGNED by author Sticker on Front DJ ( An unflinching autobiography a treatise on 38 years of American murder )
James Ellroy SIGNED
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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My Dark Places Bookmarks
James Ellroy
Manufacturer: Vintage Books USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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My Dark Places: An L.a. Crime Memoir
James Ellroy
Manufacturer: ALFRED A. KNOPF
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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My Dark Places
James Ellroy
Manufacturer: Vintage Books/Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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My Dark Places
James ELLROY
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Customer Reviews:

A Military Historian Speaks Out..........2007-05-15

This book is well-written and an easy read, as compared to most military history which is, often, difficult, if not impossible to follow. I give it one strike technical/historical matters. First, for having been written after Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers, it and fails to take that work into account. The 506th is rarely mentioned and Easy's assault at Brécourt is not mentioned, at all. Now, I'll admit that Band of Brothers is as much hagiography as history, but, if one disagrees with the assertions, it's important for one to refute those assertions, not ignore them. Also, the World War II section is VERY brief and could've stood to have more detail added to it, as was done in the "Training Years", (1956 to 1967), where every minutia is mentioned (and no less interesting, I have to admit). This is, of course, an unfortunate effect of this being a collaborative effort with an author for each section. All in all, a good read, but very thin on World War II, if that's one's interest.

Book Description

A nearly 50-year review of U.S. efforts to transform defeated and broken enemies into democratic and prosperous allies.

Customer Reviews:

very informative.......2007-05-17

This book was a great piece of writing for anyone that is interested in learning about how the U.S. helps rebuild nations. It was very useful for research that I was conducting.

America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq.......2007-02-21

great background history to today's strategic events in Middle East

Good Background on Democratic Nation-Building.......2006-07-21

This is one of the portfolio of books exploring what it takes to create successful democratic nation-building--From German to Iraq (as the subtitle notes). It is also one of the better volumes among such works.

The RAND report goes into considerable detail, providing an operational definition of democratic nation building by looking at the commonalities in seven such interventions (Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan). The report seeks to establish those factors associated with success or failure. Among those linked to success were the use of force "to underpin a process of democratization" (Page 1), occupation, peace enforcement, stabilization, and reconstruction. Success is (Page 2) ". . .the ability to promote an enduring transfer of democratic institutions."

The RAND report suggests a number of prerequisites, including military presence over time by the occupying country, international police presence over time, reducing postconflict combat-related deaths, timing of elections, dealing with refugees and internally displaced persons, initial external assistance, external per capita assistance, external assistance as a meaningful percentage of GDP, and changes in per capita GDP. This obviously entails a commitment to provide substantial resources to the redevelopment effort, to be willing to invest considerable time to nation building, to make sure that appropriate security arrangements are made. In short, the process cannot successfully be done quickly or "on the cheap."

Unhappily, the conclusions of this book--if accurate--surely raise questions about the ultimate success of the American involvement in Iraq.

For the interested reader and the expert.......2004-08-11

This is one kind of pre-war analysis for post-war Iraq that the Bush administration is accused of ignoring. (Iraq-specific background is the other.) Indeed, the back cover attributes to CPA head Paul Bremer, "...a marvelous how-to manual...I have kept a copy handy...since my arrival in Baghdad."

The book uses seven case studies in search of lessons for post-conflict reconstruction: Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Each case study examines the challenges (security, humanitarian, civil admin, democratization, and reconstruction), the U.S. and international roles, what happened, and lessons learned.

Overall conclusions include: of the many variables, the level of effort in time, manpower and money is perhaps most important; security must precede reform; political reform needs to be "legitimized" by economic growth; there are tradeoffs between multilateral and unilateral efforts; and having good neighbors helps.

These conclusions are not earth-shattering, but the comparative effort is useful in itself and the lessons ought to have been helpful in Iraq. Compare this book with Orr's Winning the Peace (CSIS, 2004).

Excellent Policy Analysis with Congenital Defect.......2003-11-04

This book present an excellent policy analysis of USA-led enforced democratization. Based on historic-comparative study of seven such cases (Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosova and Afghanistan), striking policy recommendations are derived on military and police presence over time, humanitarian help, economic reconstruction, building of civil society, holding of elections and more, as as to maximize success in democratization. In all these respects the book is outstanding, in terms of method and substance alike, as is to be expected from a RAND Corporation study. However, the book also demonstrates a widespread cultural blinder of USA policy thinking, namely underrating of cultural factors and over-optimism in respect to making the world democratic. Paradigmatic is the following statement, put forth without any reservations (on page 204) "democracy is transferable to non-Western...societies", followed by a definite statement that "there is no reason why Iraq cannot be democratized and establish democratic institutions and a pluralist polity". Little wonder that this frame of thinking, as applied in the book to Iraq, failed to foresee, at least as a contingency, what is now happening there, the idea of persistent and increasingly effective armed resistance against USA and other Western "democratizisers" after "victory" not being taken serious enough. If what is probably the best strategic Think Tank in the USA suffers from such misunderstanding of realities that do not fit into Western perceptions of "the other", there is much that USA policy makers and policy planners have to learn so as to enable the leading country of the West to fulfill is increasingly crucial role as the leading guardian of Western civilization and security.

America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq.(Book Review) : An article from: Air & Space Power Journal

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America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq.(Book Review) : An article from: Air & Space Power Journal
Lewis K. Griffith
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Science | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Air & Space Power Journal, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2005. The length of the article is 920 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq.(Book Review)
Author: Lewis K. Griffith
Publication: Air & Space Power Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 19 Issue: 2 Page: 106(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

United Nations and United States experiences in nation-building.(The UN's Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq)(America's Role in Nation-Building: ... review): An article from: UN Chronicle

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United Nations and United States experiences in nation-building.(The UN's Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq)(America's Role in Nation-Building: ... review): An article from: UN Chronicle
Edward Newman
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from UN Chronicle, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2006. The length of the article is 2067 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: United Nations and United States experiences in nation-building.(The UN's Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq)(America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq)(Book review)
Author: Edward Newman
Publication: UN Chronicle (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 43 Issue: 1 Page: 17(3)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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