Book Description
In this gritty, confessional memoir, Michelle Tea takes the reader back to the city of her childhood: Chelsea, Massachusetts—a place where time and hope are spent on things not getting any worse. Tea’s girlhood is shaped by the rough fabric of the neighborhood and by its characters—the soft vulnerability of her sister Madeline and her quietly brutal Polish father; the doddering, sometimes violent nuns of Our Lady of Assumption; Marisol Lewis from the projects by the creek; and Johnna Latrotta, the tough-as-nails Italian dance-school teacher who offered a slim chance for escape to every young Chelsea girl in tulle and tap shoes. Told in Tea’s trademark loose-tongued, lyrical style, this memoir both celebrates and annihilates one girl’s tightrope walk out of a working-class slum and the lessons she carries with her. With wry humor and a hard-fought wisdom, Tea limns the extravagant peril of a dramatic adolescence with the private, catastrophic secret harbored within the walls of her family’s home—a secret that threatens to destroy her family forever.
Customer Reviews:
Not My Cup.......2005-11-01
My stars are generous. I liked this memoir the first time I read it, but upon reading it a second time I could only wonder what I was thinking the first time around. As fellow reader Bruce suggests, Tea's story DOES have merit and, I would add, social importance, but the ways in which she conveys her story--or fails to convey it sometimes--leaves much to be desired.
I feel like the real story is still in the walls of Tea's mind, in the walls of the house where she grew up, in the walls of words that she has contructed and called The Chelsea Whistle.
But hey, it's her memoir, not mine.
In short, Tea's memoir could be about 100 pages shorter! It had really good potential, but it does not leave a lasting impression. I would have liked to see Tea draw out more of the social issues and implications (relating to class, religion, sexuality, etc.) surrounding her coming of age. Instead, at some of the most crucial moments, we get walls--pointless references to what she ate on random days or how she tried to cure a yeast infection. (And trust me, unlike other writers, there was no symbolic value in any of these references.)
Nonetheless I credit Tea for being so open and candid with her story. I just expected and hoped for something different, something resonant and socially useful (especially since she calls herself a feminist). Something more.
a third attempt shows true writing skills...........2005-10-18
tea's first two memoirs are full of action and sesationalistic experiences with lovers, drugs and prostitution. where you really find out about the skills of a writer is their ability to make the quieter, less thrilling moments of life interesting. tea's ability to do this is best discribed as average. though i appreciate her story of growing up working class in a poor neighborhood outside of boston, it was somewhat of a struggle to get through this book. i would venture to suggest that tea is certainly an important voice in young, queer culture, she's just not always so well spoken.
overwrought, over-the-top, Tea's harsh memoir falters badly.......2003-05-28
After trudging through Michelle Tea's gritty, depressing and desperately uneven recollections of her degraded and desolate childhood and adolescence, exhausted readers will have reason to congratulate both the author and themselves for survival skills. Written in staccato bursts of stream of consciousnessness vignettes which yearn for an editor's red pencil, "The Chelsea Whistle" valiantly attempts to not only narrate but explain how poverty and hopelessness blight lives. Unfortunately, Tea spends far too much time describing events and cataloging abuses and far too little time analyzing their influence. Sure, her horrific Chelsea, Massachusetts, the place where the American Dream goes to die, suffocates and submerges creative individualism and creative impulse. Of course, the only families that city spawns are pathetically dysfunctional. With Tea's ham-handed approach, readers will shrug their shoulders and say, "So what?"
The memoir is not completely without merit. The author's candid appraisal ofher life, aswirl in class, ethnic, racial and religious prejudices provides ample opportunity for Tea's sardonic resentment to manifest itself. The memoir bogs down, though, in the prosaic protests the author mounts; after all, how many song titles, dress styles and alcoholic drinks does it take to lead us to the inevitable conclusion that the author dissipated her physical and emotional self. Never once does the author permit us to glance into her developing homosexuality; instead, Tea prefers titillation and presumed shock instead of peceptive self-evalution. This omission is doubly galling as numerous young lesbians may well turn to this memoir for solace and solidarity. What they will receive is stereotype and caricature.
There are serious stylistic flaws as well in "The Chelsea Whistle." Its author apparently does not believe in dialogue or quotation marks; instead, she prefers to wow the reader with capitalized letters for the spoken word. This isn't artistic creativity, but a writer playing at trendy iconoclasm. Even more pathetic is her presenation of a serious family trauma as the "deep dark secret only to be revealed late in the memoir." Once exposed, her epiphany is not apocalyptic but mundane, not horrifying but banal. Tragically, Michelle Tea's suffering appears anti-climactic. But then, why should her "catastrophy" be anything else but another flavor in her multi-scooped cone of despair.
not bad but...........2003-01-12
as a chelsea girl myself i find this book very interesting. unfortunatly there are some details in the story that i dont understand or agree with. i'm sure these are just the authors interpretations.
Growing up can be painful..........2002-12-26
Tea's memoir is an amazing glimpse of a teenager's life in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Being a fellow New Englander I can hang onto every word she says and feel that is sad but true. Tea bases the book around her insanely complicated family life, while adding snippets of inner city adventures. Serious and funny she pulls you through a whirlwind of emotions and issues without asking you to sympathize with her.
She lives through a divorce, her step-father's harassment and deals with being a lesbian in a place where there is no such thing. It is a quick read and well worth it.
Book Description
A provocative work that explores the evolution of emotions and personal relationships through diverse cultures and time. "An intellectually dazzling view of our past and future."--Time magazine
Customer Reviews:
My fave non-fiction book.......2007-04-10
I've given out over a dozen copies of this book to random friends and the like and there's near universal approval. It's poetic so if you need tight clear directions with charts and lists then move along. But if you want to explore the issues that drive what makes us human, and fulfilled people, then read away!
Best book I've read in years; many late nights spent on it.......2005-04-07
Just reading this book gave me a thrilled sort of enthusiasm and compassion towards humanity. I agree that it does not build up very well; it does not have a big powerful climax of revelation, but it is so packed full of interesting true stories, both historical and current, that what you learn is between the lines. He shows how history looked at from the perspective of individual lives is not so much an evolving entity but that different attitudes have been prevelent at different places and times, and what we hold to be proper now has been considered both true and false somewhere else before, or even in our own culture's history, and what really binds us is our always human outlook and response to it all.
Extraordinary..........2004-01-24
What a wonderful and intelligent book to read agian and again. Theodore Zeldin discusses in 25 chapters the past, the present and the future.
He has a different subject for each chapter analyzing the issue in his simple and challenging form, and he pushes the reader to get smarter...
Some of the chapters are: How men and woman have slowley learned to have interesting conversations, how some people have acquired an immunity to loneliness, how respect has become more desirable than power, how humams become hospitable to each other, and why people have not been able to find the time to lead several lives. These are just some of the titles in the book, and as you can see the subjects are just enchanting in every way, and it drives the reader to get involved in every way, and make his own beliefs and thoughts.
one of the best books for sure...
Whose humanity?.......2003-03-12
Theodore Zeldin announces his project in a brief preface. It bristles with the energy of ambition. We sense that we may be about to launch into something truly revolutionary:
"I want to show how, today, it is possible for individuals to form a fresh view both of their own personal history and of humanity's whole record of cruelty, misunderstanding, and joy. To have a new vision of the future, it has always first been necessary to have a new vision of the past.... Instead of explaining the peculiarity of individuals by pointing to their family or childhood, I take a longer view: I show how they pay attention to--or ignore--the experience of previous, more distant generations, and how they are continuing the struggles of many other communities all over the world ... among whom they have more soul-mates than they may realize."
The 25 chapters that follow bear titles like "How humans have repeatedly lost hope, and how new encounters, and a new pair of spectacles, revive them," and "How people choose a way of life, and how it does not wholly satisfy them." Each chapter begins with a portrait of one or several people in the contemporary world--usually French women--focusing on a particular life problem, or a creative attempt at solving such a problem. Zeldin follows this portrait with a brief history of that problem, or of a clearly related phenomenon.
For instance, the first chapter opens with a portrait of Juliette, a domestic servant who feels trapped in her job, in her social class, and by the unbridgeable distance between her and potential friends. This portrait is followed by a history of slavery--not a linear history, but a selective highlighting of relevant themes and moments in the history of slavery. Zeldin emphasizes that not all slaves have been so involuntarily, nor is there such a great difference between those who are enslaved forcibly and those who are enslaved by their own lack of imagination. The overall effect is that we gain a stronger sense of kinship with medieval Slavs and others whose history is contrasted with Juliette's, as well as a stronger sense of our own agency in determining how we might fit ourselves into the patterns of history.
This first chapter is one of the strongest in the book, and I summarize it as an example of Zeldin's project at its brightest. Throughout the book, Zeldin writes with admirable compassion, as well as with an unapologetic earnestness that would read as idealistically naïve if it weren't for the intelligence and determined sincerity of his prose. These qualities made me want his project to succeed, and yet by the hundredth page I had already almost given up on it.
I had hoped to find a deep history of psychology and morality, a revelation that our preoccupations, passions, and needs, and the consequent values that they engender, have a long genealogy that is far from transparent. Such a history might help to disabuse us of the feelings of necessity and immutability that hover about our frustrations. However, rather than present us with a rich diversity of psychological and ethical concerns, Zeldin is keen to impose modern values and preoccupations on that past, dictating the morals we are to learn from his histories rather than allowing us to draw our own lessons and conclusions.
I believe the lack of relativism is quite intentional. Zeldin is inspired by the universalism of the Enlightenment, and speaks admiringly of the Declaration of the Rights of Man as being a declaration not just for the French people, but for all people. He wants us to see that all humans share a great deal, that people of different eras and cultures are not so different from us. Applying liberal values and contemporary emotional preoccupations to times past may foster a greater sense of kinship, but I think it is also deeply misleading. If our aim is to understand people of other cultures, we must make a determined effort to understand them as they understand themselves. How useful is a feeling of kinship if it is based ultimately on misrepresentation?
A further unfortunate consequence of Zeldin's imposition of liberal values on the past is that, despite an impressive range of examples, the book becomes repetitive. An exhortation toward open-mindedness can be given quite thoroughly in twenty pages. If a book of 472 pages returns again and again to a very basic set of themes, without elaborating on them or moving beyond them, it becomes tiresome no matter how many engaging historical anecdotes it contains. Despite the staggering breadth of Zeldin's reading, despite the range and diversity of the lives he portrays, this book ultimately makes for a disappointingly narrow read.
And while it is hard to fault the impressive range of material that Zeldin leads us through quite comfortably, certain choices narrow the breadth of the book even further. His justification for interviewing French women almost exclusively (he doesn't seem to register that almost all these women are also white) reads as a half-hearted apology for Francophilia. While we do get the occasional glimpse into the rich cultures of India, China, and Japan (less so with cultures with less sophisticated literary traditions) most of his anecdotes draw from the history of the Christian and Muslim West. While it would be unreasonable to demand a deep knowledge of all aspects of world history (though a project this ambitious would seem to require it) there are moments that the need for a non-Western point of contrast or comparison is sorely felt.
Zeldin wishes to speak for all humanity, but he succeeds only in speaking of all humanity, and even there his effort is lackluster. In truth, he only speaks for those of us in the modern West, and in addressing our current preoccupations with a therapeutic aim, his book reads as much like self-help as it does like a history.
Good book............2002-01-28
I must say that while this is an amazing book, it is written in the guise of being a guide to the future of humanity. How can this possibly be done by studying the history, as we are constantly shown that the future is impossible to predict and more often than not history does not repeat itself. What should be shown is that people are unpredictable as the future and that the content of the book is simply as the title implies.
Customer Reviews:
Printed on theback cover of paperback:.......2007-09-11
"This is at once a kind and brilliant book, at a time when our culture tends to favour a split between the two....Zeldin is gloriously rash in the sheer range of human concerns he takes on, and his language is a model of clarity and narrative impetus....Anyone who is willing to read this extraordinary and beautiful work andlisten to the vast range of human voices it contains will carry away a treasury of new ideas, but as something more valuable- hope." -Maggie Gee, DAILY TELEGRAPH(London)
"[This book]is a narrative of private lives, but it extends much further; it is universal history, but it has an extraordinary intimacy of tone....His is a study in which time is broken open to reveal the real world which lies beneath it, that real world of memory and inheritance which is all the more powerful for being obscured from sight."
-Peter Ackroyd, THE TIMES (London)
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Edicional Siempre on April 3, 1997. The length of the article is 822 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: Historia Intima de la Humanidad.(TT: Intimate History of Humanity)
Author: Jaime Septién
Publication:
Siempre! (Refereed)
Date: April 3, 1997
Publisher: Edicional Siempre
Volume: v43
Issue: n2285
Page: p67(1)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
|
AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF HUMANITY
THEODORE ZELDIN
Manufacturer: MINERVA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Anthropology
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General
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General
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ASIN: 0749385553 |
Book Description
IS EVERYTHING CONNECTED?
Can we sense what's happening to loved ones thousands of miles away? Why are we sometimes certain of a caller's identity the instant the phone rings? Do intuitive hunches contain information about future events? Is it possible to perceive without the use of the ordinary senses?
Many people believe that such "psychic phenomena" are rare talents or divine gifts. Others don't believe they exist at all. But the latest scientific research shows that these phenomena are both real and widespread, and are an unavoidable consequence of the interconnected, entangled physical reality we live in.
Albert Einstein called entanglement "spooky action at a distance" -- the way two objects remain connected through time and space, without communicating in any conventional way, long after their initial interaction has taken place. Could a similar entanglement of minds explain our apparent psychic abilities? Dean Radin, senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, believes it might.
In this illuminating book, Radin shows how we know that psychic phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis are real, based on scientific evidence from thousands of controlled lab tests. Radin surveys the origins of this research and explores, among many topics, the collective premonitions of 9/11. He reveals the physical reality behind our uncanny telepathic experiences and intuitive hunches, and he debunks the skeptical myths surrounding them. Entangled Minds sets the stage for a rational, scientific understanding of psychic experience.
Customer Reviews:
Illuminating.......2007-10-12
"Entangled Minds" by Dean Radin is an astonishing and remarkable study about psi research program, selective reporting problems, presentiment effect and expands our understanding about the nature of human consciousness.
Can we perceive by means other than our usual five senses? Science verifies the truth of 'psychic phenomena' as a consequence of the connectedness of the reality in which we live.
Telepathy, clairvoyance and psychokinesis are scientifically verified as real which makes this such a profoundly illuminating book.
Some further powerful, transformative books are:
Nexus: A Neo Novel
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
Limitless Mind: A Guide to Remote Viewing and Transformation of Consciousness
Tour D'Force in the science for PSI........2007-08-28
I found this a very good read, albiet a little "Heady" on statistics it was a fascinating read. I was never aware of the lengthy studies that have been done on PSI, and the continued studies showing it exists. This book made me aware of what I already knew existed, and wondered if science was either ignorant or complacent in ignoring it. Through this book, I discovered they were both.
I firmly believe there is a global consciousness, and definitely believe in telepathy as I use it often with people I am entangled with. This book just affirms what I already know, stacks up the evidence in favor of PSI, and shows that science really needs a wake up call to reality.
Entanglement & Synchronicity.......2007-08-23
This is an amazing book. I was truly impressed with all of the collected historical data and case studies which the author of the book presented. He also presented a lot of statistical data and examples in regards to the odds of whether events are to be rejected or accepted. This is definitely first class research in and by itself!! I first heard about this book online at a different website and thought about getting it here. Lo and behold, when I got to work later that day, a co-worker gave me her copy of this book!! Now, is this simply coincidence, synchronicity, entanglement or the universe playing "trick or treat" with me?? Whatever your beliefs are in regards to psi and psychic abilities, I believe you'll be both pleasantly educated and entertained with this book.
Courage.......2007-05-20
"Those who are frightened of the darkness often refuse to look, and they don't want anyone else to look either."
Look a little bit closer and you will find that there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. You will need courage but since that is an emotion it is freely available to all.
Jerry's.......2007-05-14
If you would like to know if there is any science behind those natural born psychics who seem to do things that most of us can't do, then this is a must read. For a scientist to dedicate much of his life to paranatural phenomena, should be recognized as credible. With a background in physics and technology, I highly recommend this book for all but the hard core skeptics who would never change their mind even if they experience such things themselves.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Journal of Parapsychology, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2006. The length of the article is 1280 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: Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality.(Book review)
Author: Roger Nelson
Publication:
The Journal of Parapsychology (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 70
Issue: 1
Page: 177(3)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
A timely study of change in a complex environment, Where There Are Mountains explores the relationship between human inhabitants of the southern Appalachians and their environment. Incorporating a wide variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, the study draws information from several viewpoints and spans more than four hundred years of geological, ecological, anthropological, and historical development in the Appalachian region. The book begins with a description of the indigenous Mississippian culture in 1500 and ends with the destructive effects of industrial logging and dam building during the first three decades of the twentieth century.
Donald Edward Davis discusses the degradation of the southern Appalachians on a number of levels, from the general effects of settlement and industry to the extinction of the American chestnut due to blight and logging in the early 1900s. This portrait of environmental destruction is echoed by the human struggle to survive in one of our nation's poorest areas. The farming, livestock raising, dam building, and pearl and logging industries that have gradually destroyed this region have also been the livelihood of the Appalachian people. The author explores the sometimes conflicting needs of humans and nature in the mountains while presenting impressive and comprehensive research on the increasingly threatened environment of the southern Appalachians.
Customer Reviews:
Trees hugged but not too tightly.......2006-10-30
I purchased 'Where There are Mountains' because it was cited so often by John Finger in his 'Tennessee Frontiers.'
(Note: Amazon's list of books that cite 'Where There are Mountains' misses 'Tennessee Frontiers.')
I was then disheartened, upon opening Donald Davis' book, to find him writing warmly of his time spent with Jeremy Rifkin, the enviro-alarmist. Fortunately, 'Where There are Mountains' is more professional and scholarly than anyone would expect from a Rifkin admirer. Still . . .
. . . the tone of regret that humans ever intruded into the Southern Appalachians forms a background hum throughout Davis' pages. The hum becomes louder when he writes about the Tennessee Valley Authority. Davis is not so savage toward the TVA as some Southern tree-huggers, but he fails to find any good words to say about it. It's true TVA was bad for the smallmouth bass (something Davis does not mention), but it was great for the humans.
Still, while I can quibble about many particular matters and regret that Davis missed some opportunities, this book is worth reading. It is a fair statement of the big picture during the past 400 years, though it leaves out a lot. That must be inevitable in a book of only 214 pages that tries to cover so much ground.
The extensive bibliography is also a plus.
Where there are Mountains.......2000-06-02
This is perhaps the best book that I have read on environmental history. Davis contends that the Southern Appalachian Mountains have been raped, robbed, and pillaged for centuries and casts new light on a largely ignored subject. The strengths of the work are Davis' illustrations of the cultural and environmental developments that have occurred in southern Appalachia from an interdisciplinary approach. The work is well-written and Davis displays an excellent knowledge of the literature using both primary and secondary sources. The sources are current and the bibliography is a useful tool for scholars wanting to do further work in Appalachia. Most scholars who have written on Appalachia have largely ignored Native Americans but Davis has shown in the same manner as William Cronan (Changes in the Land) and Alfred Crosby (The Columbian Exchange) in other areas of America, the consequences that European explorers had on Native American populations. Davis certainly executes and conveys with a skill understanding of the precontact environment, ecology, and landscape for the reader. This book could be used in history courses, folklore, Appalachian studies, sociology/anthropology, and a host of other classes. Also, it is written so well it is good for just general reading. This is a powerful, forceful, well-organized, and convincing work.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Geographical Review, published by American Geographical Society on July 1, 2000. The length of the article is 867 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: WHERE THERE ARE MOUNTAINS.(Review) (book review)
Author: Geoffrey L. Buckley
Publication:
The Geographical Review (Refereed)
Date: July 1, 2000
Publisher: American Geographical Society
Volume: 90
Issue: 3
Page: 457
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on February 1, 2004. The length of the article is 580 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: Where There Are Mountains: an Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians.(Book Review)
Author: Mart A. Stewart
Publication:
Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: February 1, 2004
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 70
Issue: 1
Page: 206(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Mississippi Quarterly, published by Mississippi State University on March 22, 2004. The length of the article is 867 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: Where There Are Mountains: an Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians.(Book Review)
Author: Benita J. Howell
Publication:
The Mississippi Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2004
Publisher: Mississippi State University
Volume: 57
Issue: 2
Page: 334(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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- The Lives and Times of Bonnie & Clyde
- The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Studies in North American Indian History)
- The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
- The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization (Diamond Mind Series, 3)
- The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky 1929-1940
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