Average customer rating:
- Growing up Jewish in Alexandria
- lovely childhood memoir
- Wonderful writing, wonderful memoir
- Nostalgia for the Alexandria tram and beaches
- A portrait of ethnic cleansing in Egypt
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Out of Egypt: A Memoir
Andre Aciman
Manufacturer: Riverhead Trade
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ASIN: 1573225347 |
Customer Reviews:
Growing up Jewish in Alexandria.......2007-07-12
REVIEW OF "OUT OF EGYPT" for Amazon.com July 12, 2007
Andre Aciman describes his colorful and complicated life (and family)in
Alexandria in the 1960s. Childhoods like that are often the preparation
for a life of writing. The child absorbs all the peculiarities as part of
normal life without knowing they are peculiar until much later. Then they
need to make sense of it all.
All this is heightened by the fact that the Acimans are Jewish, in a
Muslim country still resonating with the after effects of British rule.His
experiences in the theoretically best school in Alexandria, run by
British teachers, would be funny if they weren't so awful. For complete
cognitive dissonance,his parents force him to learn Arabic to survive.
Reading about those lessons alone is worth the price of this book. At
home they speak Ladino, the Sephardic Yiddish, among themselves.
His beautful mother was born deaf. When provoked she can produce a
high-pitched scream. used to good effect at the butcher's. Once she has
made her point they are all quite happy. The butcher has to give the package
to her Arab servant. She never touches an Arab's hand.
The Acimans and Andre's maternal relatives live in a state of mutual
scorn, but when faced with the threats of Pan-Arab nationalism pull together very
efficiently. Eventually they all flee, the sedate Sephardic merchants
and the shady international adventurers too.
Two other writers come to mind when reading this book. Laurence Durrell
evokes something of the same atmosphere in his Alexandria Quartet and Elias
Canetti grew up in a large Sephardic family in Bulgaria. That society has
completely disappeared. Without Canetti's memoirs one would not know it had ever
existed.
This is an eloquent and elegiac account of that love and absurdity
known as a family.
lovely childhood memoir.......2007-07-06
Aciman wrote this book not only being 'Out of Egypt' like Blixen was 'Out of Africa', but as well being "Out of Childhood'. So the grown-up is looking back and remembers his extended family with live-in servants and longtime friends. Whoever loves family stories will enjoy this well-written book.
Having myself spent some summers in Egypt I would say that his kind of Egypt isn't gone completely - there is still, beneath the noise of the traffic and industries, the chit-chat of the doorkeepers, sharellas and nannies. Or the difference of daily lives in regular, in summer, during the ramadan. Egypt still works as a time machine.
Wonderful writing, wonderful memoir.......2007-01-30
This memoir is the very best I've read. It takes the author from his earliest years as part of a large Jewish family which moved from Turkey to Alexandria (he was born in 1951), through the air raid sirens during Suez war with France and England, to the expulsion of the Jews by Nasser in the late 1950s, and then on to his adulthood in America and his return to Egypt following his marriage. After a lengthy opening section dating roughly from age 5 or 6, the narrative skillfully skips back and forth in time. The descriptions of the boy's exotic world and his dysfunctional extended family are priceless, as are the re-invented conversations and arguments among the adults who surround him. There is something Proust-like in the writing, a love of detail for the texture it creates, and something Nabokov-like as well, in the hooded humor and artful language. I found it utterly captivating and written with love, especially for his mother, who was born deaf. I heartily recommend it to anyone who contemplates or is writing a memoir.
Nostalgia for the Alexandria tram and beaches.......2006-08-15
Andre Aciman's Out of Egypt is an amazing book, I found it very hard to put down. At a time of increased hostility in the middle east it is heartwarming to read of a time when Jews lived in peace with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in Alexandria. Not a whiff of anti Jewish sentiments was reported by Aciman until after the Suez War. Aciman and his family left Egypt in the sixties.
Aciman, like many "Egyptian" Jews preferred to hold European nationalities and in some cases some were French or Italian without ever setting foot in these countries. Europeans had their own courts in Egypt and did not fall under Egyptian Laws. For Aciman, born and raised in Egypt and in many ways no different than many affluent Alexandrians life became unbearable after the waves of Nationalization in the early 60's.
Aciman writes of an Alexandria that no longer exists not just for Egyptian Jews. The population explosion in Egypt has transformed Alexandria beyond recognition; hence Aciman's beautiful writing of Alexandria, its beaches and its tram will bring floods of memories for anyone who's known Alexandria.
Affluent Egyptian Jews who left Egypt in the fifties and sixties are not immediately thought of as refugees and there is little discussion on their issues of identity and affiliation in Egypt and elsewhere. Aciman through his acute sensitivity to the people and events around him and his wonderful story telling skills has produced beautifully written and very touching book that subtly challenges many assumptions on all sides.
Readers will see the very same Alexandria in Leila Ahmed's Border Passage and in parts of Ahdaf Souief's In the Eye of the Sun. Enjoy
A portrait of ethnic cleansing in Egypt.......2005-08-25
As another reviewer noted, it takes a while for the reader to get his/her bearings about the ties of blood and marriage among the characters in Aciman's memoir. The beautifully written book then becomes an elegy for a lost way of life as the cosmopolitan city that Alexander the Great had founded and that remained significantly Greek through the time of Cavafy, but underwent "ethnic cleansing" by Nasser's United Arab Republic.
It seems to me that Aciman considered himself an Alexandrian, and that he could not be "Egyptian." To say that he was a poor student of Arabic without noting that the Arabic textbooks he was supposed to use and memorize from were filled with demonization of Jews (as the first reviewer here did) is deeply tendentious. Yes, the young Aciman lived a life of privilege in a colonial (British) state (and in the kingdom of the playboy King Farouk), but post-World War II Arab states (with the Saudis supplying the kind of propaganda demonizing Jews at which Aciman bridled) did not treat "peoples of the book" as the Ottomans had. The discourse of racism documented by Aciman's memoir is of Islamist Jew-hating. Perhaps the reviewer did not actually read the book despite passing as "a reader"?
That said, Marcel Bénabou's more difficult _Jacob, Menahem, and Mimoun_ provides an account of expulsion of Jews from another Arab ethnic cleansing (in Morocco) with more geopolitical detail and similar colorful relatives for those more interested in macro history than the micro history of which Aciman supplies an exquisite slice.
Book Description
This richly colored memoir chronicles the exploits of a flamboyant Jewish family, from its bold arrival in cosmopolitan Alexandria to its defeated exodus three generations later. In elegant and witty prose, Andr Aciman introduces us to the marvelous eccentrics who shaped his lifeUncle Vili, the strutting daredevil, soldier, salesman, and spy; the two grandmothers, the Princess and the Saint, who gossip in six languages; Aunt Flora, the German refugee who warns that Jews lose everything at least twice in their lives. And through it all, we come to know a boy who, even as he longs for a wider world, does not want to be led, forever, out of Egypt.
Customer Reviews:
Out of Egypt.......2007-09-30
Out of Egypt, is a very special memoir about growing up in Alexandria before the author and his family were forced to move from Egypt in 1965 . It's a fascinating memoir of a time and place that no longer exists, and a wonderfully written account .
Book Description
A humorous look at a boy's growing up experiences in small town and rural America during the 1930's and 40's. His problems are cast against the profound changes in American society brought by the Great Depression and World War II.
Average customer rating:
- Kentucky Cavaliers in Dixie
- Excellent KY Resource
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Kentucky Cavaliers in Dixie: Reminiscences of a Confederate Cavalryman
George Dallas Mosgrove
Manufacturer: Bison Books
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Bluegrass Confederate: The Headquarters Diary of Edward O. Guerrant
ASIN: 0803282532 |
Book Description
George Dallas Mosgrove was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1844, and enlisted in the Fourth Kentucky Cavalry Regiment as a private on September 10, 1862. Through service as a clerk and orderly in both regimental and brigade headquarters, he became familiar with the environment of officers and command. His eyewitness account illuminates the western theater of the Civil War in Kentucky, east Tennessee, and southwest Virginia.
Mosgrove admits to a romanticism influenced by Sir Walter Scott in his description of the superiority of the officers and "some of the boys" in his regiment. At the same time, his narrative includes unadorned passages that depict with stark honesty the sordidness of war and man’s inhumanity. Mosgrove provides firsthand information about military actions at Blue Springs, Saltville, and elsewhere, and relates details of his participation in John Hunt Morgan’s Last Kentucky Raid and the skirmish where Morgan was killed. Mosgrove’s highly entertaining account is a perceptive and informative retelling of the truth as he saw it.
Customer Reviews:
Kentucky Cavaliers in Dixie.......2001-07-20
This work is more of spin off work from the Diary of Edward O. Guerrant who served with this book's author during the Civil War. Musgrove supplements Guerrant's Diary which has been recently publlshed under the title "Bluegrass Confederate" Edited by William C. Davis. Both works fill in the gaps about the actions that were fought in Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee where the Official Records are silent. Aside from a few local histories this book is one of the few that has such information. Highly recommended for students of this area of the conflict.
Excellent KY Resource.......1999-06-09
I recently finished reading this book and found it to be one of the most interesting unit histories that I have ever read. This book is a history of the 4th Kentucky Cavalry (CSA) and is written by one of its members, George Dallas Mosgrove. It recounts the service of this unit in Eastern Kentucky and Southwest Virginia and under the command of Generals Humphrey Marshall, John Hunt Morgan, "Grumble" Jones, and others. It also provides a roster of members of the 4th and biographies of the Captains. The "classical" writing style of the author is evident throughout the book, yet it always keeps your attention and is easy to read. For those who have an interest in Kentucky units or the war in Southwest Virginia, this book is for you.
Product Description
Reprint of 1957 McCowat-Mercer Press edition. Illustrated
Customer Reviews:
THE PURE VS. THE FORSAKEN!.......2007-06-04
The Pure is a 192 page hardcover supplement for World of Darkness: The Forsaken, presenting the werewolf antagonists known as The Pure. As with most of the Whitewolf supplements the detail presented is staggering, and perhaps even a bit overwhelming at times. The book begins with a compelling narrative into the history of The Pure, of Father Wolf's betrayal by Mother Moon, and her creation of the Forsaken and of the Forsaken nearly driving the Pure into extinction. It is this preamble that sets up the Pure as a sympathetic antagonist, fighting to reclaim what they had, and growing in power.
The complicated society of the Pure is explored along with the various clans. Their mating habits, various rites of passage and "becoming", oaths, secrets, and much more are explored in exhaustive detail.
The second chapter deals entirely with the three tribes of the Pure, The Fire-Touched, The Ivory Claws, and the Predator Kings. In each tribe you'll find info about that tribes goals and mindset, tribal abilities, recruitment, combat and infiltration tactics, societal interaction, sample Pure characters, and Pure character types or classes for lack of a better term.
The third chapter will be the most important to players as it deals with the rules of creation for Pure characters. Abilities are referred to as "Pure Gifts", and include a wide array of attack and defensive combat skills. In addition to these gifts are a host of ceremonial rites which can serve to increase abilities or grant other powers.
The final chapter is for the Storyteller and includes everything they need to know about developing and running a campaign with the Pure. These include about a dozen or so very detailed story hooks which can easily be dropped into any existing story. The last thirty pages or so makes up a scenario that can be played out in the Pure domain of Santa Fe, New Mexico. This features points of interest, territories, ongoing conflicts and story hooks, and close to twenty, fully detailed notable characters of the region. This all makes for a nice starting point for a game with the Pure.
As with most White Wolf books, you'll really need to spend a good deal of time familiarizing yourself with the contents and there's a lot to absorb. That's also part of the fun though as well because the books are always so well written and The Pure is no exception. A solid edition to the World of Darkness.
Reviewed by Tim Janson
Worth the wait.......2007-01-18
The long awaited guide to one of the primary antagonists of the Werewolf game, this book gets you inside the mind and culture of the Pure. The book explains their take on the myths of the Uratha and how they help to establish and maintain the culture of hate in which they live. The book does an excellent job of allowing them to be understood without making them sympathetic and without dispelling the fearful mystique which surrounds them. Highly recommended to anyone who is going to use the Pure extensively in their campaign. It will allow you to add depth and character to what could easily be a two-dimensional villian and should be much more.
Average customer rating:
- Thank goodness I didn't pay money for this ...
- Just another romance author now BUT with no desire to write
- Tempting" by Susan Johnson
- Susan Johnson go back to your roots!!
- Is this a time-travel book?
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Pure Silk
Susan Johnson
Manufacturer: Kensington
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Johnson, Susan
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ASIN: 1575668092 |
Customer Reviews:
Thank goodness I didn't pay money for this ..........2006-02-03
I read a lot of romance novels and agree with several of the other reviews here that Susan Johnson's writing has been deteriorating. Neither the hero nor heroine in "Pure Silk" are likeable characters, and their motives are sorely unconvincing. Add that to the repetitive use of crude wording within the sex scenes in the setting of a shoddy shot at a "historical" romance (albeit in a new setting), and you've got reason to want that hour back that you spent trying to forge your way through this book!
Just another romance author now BUT with no desire to write.......2004-10-03
I am/was a Susan Johnson fan but the last 4 or 5 books are clueless (I'm sorry Susan). I loved my education I used to get when reading your material but now it's just so so. I gave it a ONE STAR for Susan Johnson but maybe I would have given it a 4 STAR if I didn't know how well she can write. I don't think she wants to write anymore & just satisfies her contract with a book company. I collect her books, have many originals, but I don't know how long I will continue to do so. I agree with another reviewer....go back to your roots.
Tempting" by Susan Johnson.......2004-07-26
I thought the book "Tempting" was excellent! I loved the whole Knight in shinning armor saves princess theme. It's refreshing to actually have the story end "happily ever after" Although the language is
sometimes offensive with the use of the "Lords name in vein"
But the way she wrote the story was great in her use of language
with her descriptions of the way "Max" wanted "Christine" It took me awayyyyyy It made me believe for that moment that this kind of love is possible. It had me captivated and arroused me and I couldn't put the book down.
All I did while reading it was picture this beautiful man who loved this princess.
I thought it was truly wonderful and wished there was a part-2
to "Temping" with the continuation of Max & Christine's life.
Bravo Susan Johnson !!!
take me away again !!!
Susan Johnson go back to your roots!!.......2004-05-12
I first discovered Susan Johnson over ten years ago when I read "Blaze." I then went on to read "Silver Flame" and the other Braddock-Black books and more. I've re-read the books many times - they are that good. Ms. Johnson was ahead of the curve with her sensual love scenes and really compelling heros. She could write a page-turner. However, I have been disappointed in Ms. Johnson's books since "Sinful." What I don't appreciate about her books now is that she has lost touch with her characters' soul and identity somewhere along the way. While I enjoy an independent, smart and accomplished woman, the heroines act like men in their sexual encounters and frankly I, like most romance readers, enjoy the dance between the two sexes. Female sexuality is powerful in and of itself and different from a man's! I loved when Ms. Johnson celebrated the difference while still letting the woman enjoy her man! Another way that this soullessness expresses itself is in Ms. Johnson's use of very crude language. It is a complete turn off for most women. We don't fall in love with men who CONSTANTLY use the c--- word. If I wanted to read crude erotica, I wouldn't pick up a mainstream romance. Please remember who your audience is, Ms. Johnson! Please bring back your former style.
Is this a time-travel book?.......2004-02-10
I admit I haven't finished this book. But seeing as how both heroine & hero are annoying beyond belief and have dubious motivations to be having sex together, the only reason to continue this book is to keep finding anachronisms.
This is supposed to take place in 1868, right? Yet I have found phrases such as "worst case scenario" which wasn't used till 1960, "equal opportunity observation" (1963), "the understatement of the century," "shoot first, ask questions later," and most annoying of all, "That's me. Mr. Assured."
Would anyone really say these things in 1868? Is this a time travel story? I think Ms. Johnson hired a ghost writer, though how all of the above could have made it past the many readers prior to publication is beyond me. Ms. Johnson is normally so meticulous and thorough in her backgrounds and facts. That's why I gave it two stars, because I normally like her.
I thought it'd be intriguing to read something that didn't take place in England, France, or Scotland for once! So she gets another star for a fresh locale.
Book Description
"Pure war" is the name of the invisible war that technology is waging against humanity. In this dazzling dialogue with Sylvere Lotringer, Paul Virilio for the first time displayed the whole range of his reflections on the effect of speed on our civilization and every one of them has been dramatically confirmed over the years. For Virilio, the foremost philosopher of speed, the "technical surprise" of World War I was the discovery that the wartime economy could not be sustained unless it was continued in peacetime. As a consequence, the distinction between war and peace ceased to apply, inaugurating the military-industrial complex and the militarization of science itself.
Every new invention casts a long shadow that we are generally unwilling to acknowledge in the name of progress: the invention of automobiles inaugurated car-crashes; the invention of nuclear energy, Hiroshima and Tchernobyl. The technologies of instant communications have invented another kind of accident: the extermination of space and the derealization of time. Instant feedback is shrinking the planet to nothing, and "globalization" is its ultimate accident. First published in 1983, this book introduced Virilio's thinking to the United States. For successive generations of readers, it remains one of the most influential and far-reaching essays of our time.
Customer Reviews:
Prophet of speed.......2000-06-15
I think Virilio is one of the century's genuine original thinkers. More specifically, his thesis about speed and chrono-politics is a key explanation of the basic transformation of society under pressure from technology. Of course he is all over the place and hardly rigorous, but his shere intelligence makes him a 'must read' in my view. His ideas inspire more than educate, but he is worth paying attention to in a world of charlatans passing themselves off as intellectuals. Read, think and understand.
Average customer rating:
- Tragedy, desperation and sin without redemption
- an impressive writer, but I think that this must be a bad translation
- A wonderful story of love, war, peace, and sadness.
- A Wonderful but Tragic Story
- Amazing flap copy!
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Memories of a Pure Spring
Duong Thu Huong , and
Nina McPherson
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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ASIN: 0140298436
Release Date: 2001-01-02 |
Book Description
Memories of a Pure Spring is a mesmerizing portrait of modern Vietnam and its people who struggle to survive under the complexities of a post-war regime. During the Vietnam war, Hung, a well-known composer, becomes enchanted by the voice and beauty of a young peasant girl named Suong. He invites her to join his troupe; she becomes his wife and his star performer. But after the war, Hung loses his job, setting off a series of events that drive him and Suong into a destructive spiral. One of Vietnam's most popular writers, Duong Thu Huong draws on her own experiences to describe life at the battlefront, the conditions of a re-education camp, and the texture and rhythm, scents and sounds, of a provincial Vietnamese city. Most of all, she tells a haunting, universal story of failed love.
Customer Reviews:
Tragedy, desperation and sin without redemption.......2007-01-10
Duong Thu Huong's "Memories of a Pure Spring" is not a novel that rests lightly with the reader. Instead, it insinuates itself into your being and sticks uncomfortably in your conscience. It's set in Northern Vietnam, in the aftermath of the "American War," but despite its exotic locale, it grips the heart with a sense of sorrow and exasperation almost too familiar, too painful. This, you know immediately, is not just the story of particular people in a place so far from home and so exotic you can hardly imagine it. Instead, you find yourself immersed in the author's dream, embedded in the life of a family whose center is wobbling inexorably off course, whose love - once thought so pure -- is corroding and dissolving in caustic tears of disappointment, self-pity, alienation and infidelity.
Duong's tale begins in the heady days following the Communist victory in Vietnam. The American War is over and an entertainment troupe, led by composer and director Hung, has returned home after years of danger and death alongside the Communist fighting forces. Hung, a man of considerable talent whose work is well known, fully expects to continue his career in peacetime. Instead, in a purely vindictive act to avenge an insult done years before, he's peremptorily dismissed by the Party boss. His appeals prove fruitless, and he finds himself cut off from the work he loves and from the troupe he formed and trained.
As Hung spirals downward in dejection and despair, his young, beautiful wife, Suong, a singer and member of his troupe, whom he discovered in the countryside and trained, finds her career arching upward. Hung, who had been her hero, her lover, her husband, her teacher and her comrade, diminishes as his problems mount, as dejection and depression seal him in a cell of self-pity. Suong keeps the family intact, but cannot save Hung, whose depression leads to drink and to the collection of "friends" who parasitically exploit him and further alienate him from Suong. Hung's problems mount, and, because of a poisonous trick of fate, he is sent to prison. Through the efforts of his wife and his old friends in the troupe, Hung survives prison and is eventually released, but his rehabilitation comes too late. His sins are never redeemed. The "Pure Spring" of ideological commitment, of love, of family and real friends is only a dim memory, painful when recalled, overcome by the open sewer of his later life.
The author, Duong, had first-hand experience as a member of an entertainment troupe during the war. She suffered all the privations, pain and trials, and watched most of her comrades die. Her dark vision of the Communist apparatus, of the pettiness and vileness of its bureaucrats and party hacks, of the pervasive corruption and the contemptuous treatment of real heroes by unblooded apparatchiks, is unrelenting. Hung is a tragic figure not hounded by the fates, but by the brutal mediocrities in the Party. The Pure Spring of memory was a promise of peace, of a glowing future, of an ascension to security and happiness. Instead, there is only the grey emptiness of a vicious, vindictive world run by creatures without joy.
If Duong's work seems melodramatic, it is, but then life is melodramatic. Even in translation, her story unfolds gracefully; the dialogue rings true. These people of hers, so far way and in such a different place, become immediately familiar. Love and sadness, despondency and hope, the beauty of a consummate artist, the desperate longing to find peace, to create, to find one's soul, are all extraordinary and all familiar. This is a book that lingers and persists, that tweaks the conscience and impales the soul.
Read it.
an impressive writer, but I think that this must be a bad translation.......2006-11-11
I have read other works by Duong Thu Huong, and those works inspired me to pick up this novel. Knowing that her work is banned in her home country was also incentive to check out more of her stuff.
This novel is chock full of social commentary and the brutality of man against man, but I can't help but think that this was a less than adequate translation of her work. Othertranslations I had read of other pieces presented her style as direct and unabashed, revealing the worst and best of her characters in an unfiltered, honest way. There is much of that philosophy in this book, but the sentences themselves became rather convoluted and sometimes just downright poor in grammar. I would prefer NOT sounding like an English teacher when discussing literature, but when the writing can't seem to sort itself out to let the matter within speak, then reading becomes more of a chore than a pleasure.
I strongly recommend many of Duong Thu Huong's work, but I would suggest avoiding this one. Perhaps one day a more competent translation will come out.
A wonderful story of love, war, peace, and sadness. .......2006-06-11
The story takes place shorty before the Vietnam war. Suong, a gifted singer follows her dream to become the "nightingale with the crystal voice". Her story is one plagued with hardships that never seem to go away. Her husband Hung is the leader of Vietnams premier troupe. Together they work to entertain Vietnam during the war. The storyline is delivered in a Quentin Tarantino style format. Chapters being and end on key parts of the past, present and future. An entertaining epic with the soul of Vietnam at heart.
A Wonderful but Tragic Story.......2003-05-02
This story combines ill fortune and personal tragedy that bring a noble soul to sorrow or ruin. In modern literature, tragedy like this is rare. The hero must live and prosper because Hollywood heroes always do. Not tragedy, but romance always reigns. Memories of A Pure Spring is a tragedy in the classical sense. Huong will take you through many tragedies in this story, but the way that they are told makes you want to keep reading.
Huong takes us on an emotionally intense journey, both in a political sense and a personal sense. The political sense appears throughout the entire story as it takes place during and after the Vietnam War. Suong, a young singer, marries Hung, a theater director older than she. Hung is removed as leader of the artistic troupe in a demonstration of the pettiness of arbitrary political power. Then we are brought to the political mess in the heart of the re-education camp. As you read, you begin to feel pity for the characters, but it is not the type of story that depresses you because you find yourself wondering what will happen next. Suong's attempt at suicide, Hung's addiction to alcohol and drugs, and Hung's constant struggle for artistic success all make the story more interesting to read. Sure the story has a few good things that happen, and although they create some happy moments, the emotions that the characters go through and the emotions you as the reader feel, are all inspired more by the tragedy that the characters are experiencing.
This book is written beautifully with lots of imagery and description. As you read, Huong's words constantly make you see or feel something, for example the sea: "It had no country, no fatherland, no nationality, that the sea was free...that belonged to no one else, that answered to no one, that was no one's slave"(99). Hung, the director, is inspired by the sea, and this description of the sea is now how Hung must write his music: "in a different light, in the howl of the sea, of freedom." Huong could have chosen to simply explain how Hung was now free from writing for the troupe. Instead she uses the beautiful metaphor to explain it. She uses metaphors and similes like this throughout the entire story. For example, she uses a neat simile to describe happiness. "It was a small, modest happiness, like a drop of honey that you spread on the tongue of a newborn babe." We are not just told that someone is happy, we are also told the type of happiness and to what extent. These descriptive words and metaphors throughout the entire book make it much more fascinating to read. The tragic events that are occurring are explained with such beauty that they create images and feelings within you that keep you wanting to continue to read.
The only weakness that I find about the story is that it has shifting time periods. Throughout the entire story we shift from past to present quite often. The shifts do not take place just at the beginning of chapters, but everywhere. They are not marked or distinguished in any special way. Sometimes you do not even realize you have shifted until you have read a few paragraphs. Huong, however, did throw in a big hint that helps at times which is the use of symbols. One symbol that is especially helpful is the ylang ylang flower. Huong uses the flower at different times in the story to symbolize a memory one of the characters is having. This is helpful at times and is a neat hint, but it does not occur at every time shift. These time shifts do cause confusion but they in no way ruin the story. They just make the story more challenging to read. The text is written in a way that is very easy to understand. The story is not at all difficult to read as long as you can work through the shifts from past to present. This is the only weakness that I discovered throughout my reading and most people might not even call it a weakness, but a challenge.
I really enjoyed reading Memories of A Pure Spring. Any reader who enjoys a book about love, and life after war, will enjoy this story. Of course not many people enjoy reading about tragedy, but the way it is written helps you to get past the tragedy and enjoy the story. It does not have the action-packed excitement of a horror story, but the beautiful description and whirl-wind of love and tragedy keeps you reading and wanting to know what more could happen next. This is not a story that I would normally read, but I am glad that I did and I would recommend it to anyone.
Amazing flap copy!.......2000-03-03
Gripping and intriguing. Never would have thought to pick it up were it not for the amazing flap copy. Well crafted and rich, it captured my interest right away. Kudos to the editor who wrote that!
Average customer rating:
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Pure Luck: The Authorized Biography of Sir Thomas Sopwith, 1888-1989
Alan Bramson
Manufacturer: Motorbooks International
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Aviation
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Aviation
| Transportation
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1852602635 |
Average customer rating:
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Pure Chance
Felicity Peake
Manufacturer: Swan Hill Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Aviation
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1853103675 |
Average customer rating:
- Definitive authority on LEBENSBORN
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Of Pure Blood
Marc hillel & clarissa he
Manufacturer: Pocket
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| World War II
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Ethics
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0671819771 |
Customer Reviews:
Definitive authority on LEBENSBORN.......2002-03-29
I found this book while researching my own, SACRED BLOOD. Not only was it enormously helpful, it is fascinating and meticulously researched, documented and presented. Anyone with interest in WWII, particularly Nazi atrocities, will be gripped by this incredible book.
Book Description
Sir Thomas Sopwith’s 101-year life spanned aviation history. A contemporary of the Wright brothers, he went on to become a highly successful airplane manufacturer in his own right: his Camel and Pup revolutionized aerial combat in World War I. His Hurricane and Lancaster were among the most successful designs of World War II and the remarkable Harrier "jump jet" emerged from an industrial empire that included over time, Sopwith Aviation, Hawker Siddeley, and AV Roe, an empire that employed up to 127,000 people. But Thomas Sopwith was more than a remarkable aviation pioneer and industrialist, he was a sportsman in the old tradition and one of the world’s leading 12-meter-class yachtsmen. Pure Luck traces the remarkable history of Sopwith, narrates the moments of triumph and tragedy during his early life and describes the events leading to his 80-year involvement in aeronautics – ballooning, early days at Brooklands, and the founding of Sopwith Aviation. His wisdom and record of achievement are recorded as Pure Luck reveals Tommy Sopwith’s private and business life and places his astonishing career in perspective. With justification, Sir Thomas Sopwith can be classed among the most influential non-political figures this century.
Customer Reviews:
Goes into great detail .......2006-09-24
Alan Bramson's PURE LUCK: THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY OF SIR THOMAS SOPWITH traces the history of the Sopwith family's early involvement in aeronautics, which would lead to not only air fame but attempts to win the America's Cup for Britain in the yacht competition. Tommy Sopwitch's style earned him acclaim in all sectors from business to flight: his biography goes into great detail on family relationships, achievements, and merits and is a 'must' for any enthusiast of aviation legend.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Average customer rating:
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Hatta Shuzo and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan
John Crump
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Japan
| Asia
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Socialism
| Political Doctrines
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0333565770 |
Book Description
This is a pioneering study of Japanese 'pure anarchism' between the wars focused on its principal theoretician, Hatta Shuzo.
Average customer rating:
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The Ecology and Management of Breeding Waterfowl
Manufacturer: University of Minnesota Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Conservation
| Environment
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
Hunting & Fishing
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
| Fishing
| General & Anthologies
| Hunting
| Shooting
General
| Conservation
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
Birds
| Field Guides
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Birdwatching
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Zoology
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Ornithology
| Zoology
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Ecology
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0816620016 |
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- Secrets of the Talking Jaguar
- Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death
- Summer Doorways: A Memoir
- Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table
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