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"It was as though Providence had willed that I should ever, all my life long, keep falling into the hands of knaves," writes Lorenzo da Ponte. Certainly, this remarkable narrative documents a life beset by a vicious world, but also one of insuppressible energy. Da Ponte is known for his librettos to three Mozart masterpieces: Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. He wrote much else for the opera company of Emperor Joseph II in Vienna (until his enemies got him dismissed), going on to be a bookseller in London, a grocer in New York, a general-store owner in Pennsylvania, and, finally, a professor of Italian at Columbia University. His life, stretching from 1749 to 1838, practically defines the term "picaresque."

Don't expect a trustworthy account, though. One reason to write memoirs is to tell your side of the story, and Da Ponte spends a lot of time settling scores. As a businessman, he's involved with a procession of false friends, who sink him with debts and slanders. At the Italian Opera in London, on the way to being forced out of another position, he juggles the egos of two rapacious divas: "The Lord help you if Morichelli gets a better reception in Martini's opera than I do in mine!" says one. His philosophy grows bitter--"I trusted in him blindly and was, as usual, barbarously tricked by him"--yet he always has another idea for making cash and, in later years, spreading the gospel of Italian literature in the New World.

Da Ponte doesn't interrupt his tale to ask probing questions. The most important period, his association with Mozart, passes with disappointing brevity. Though he salutes the composer's genius, he offers no insights into Mozart's personality or their collaboration. Da Ponte was busy at the time, however. He says he wrote Don Giovanni simultaneously with two other librettos: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, one at night.

This annotated version is a little short on notes. Da Ponte's many phrases in Latin and the untranslated Italian expressions could use some commentary. The notes do inform us when the author is mixing up his facts, which is fairly often. The 1929 translation by Elisabeth Abbott, blending 18th-century elegance with 20th-century crispness, has previously been available only in an expensive hardcover edition. This paperback is part of the New York Review of Books Classics imprint, an invaluable series that republishes worthy but hard-to-get titles. Da Ponte's book fills the bill admirably.--David Olivenbaum ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Interesting Book, Shameful Presentation
Da Ponte's Memoirs are a worthy, if eccentric, addition to the NYRB catalog, but the NYRB provides almost no help in situating it. This translation first appeared, I believe, in 1929 and has been available in recent years from both Dover and Da Capo. One, (or was it both?), carried an excellent preface by the distinguished scholar of the Renaissance, Thomas Bergin. NYRB does not republish Bergin. It does republish the original 1929 introduction (by Arthur Livingston, once a teacher of Italian at Columbia) but with no hint of its provenance and, so far as I can discern, no mention of the date (the biblio page gives you a hint when it mentions a "renewal copyright" dated 1957). There is also an LC entry identifying "Livingston, Arthur, 1883-" but I doubt very much that Livingston was still alive when NYRB published in 2000. There is a preface by the distinguished music-scholar Charles Rosen, but it is beneath him: a slapdash affair that does little aside from assuring us that Italian olive oil is now available everywhere in America.

Aside from these matters of production - the text itself is absorbing and instructive if you understand what you are getting. Da Ponte's only real claim to fame is, of course, that he is the librettist of Mozart's three great comic operas. Da Ponte cheerily declares that Mozart was the greatest composer of his time - perhaps the greatest ever - yet he gives this greatest of all composers perhaps a half dozen pages out of the entire 472-page text, less than any of a dozen other drifters and dreamers or down-market impresarios whom he met along the way.

Rather than reading it as a work of music criticism, you can take it as a loose-jointed adventure story, in the tradition of Casanova (Da Ponte claims him as a friend) or Benvenuto Cellini. A perhaps more interesting comparison would be to Stendhal's "Charterhouse of Parma": readers who are scandalized that Da Ponte gives such short shrift to Mozart will recall that Stendhal's hero trekked all unknowing through the Battle of Waterloo. I suppose it is just possible that Stendhal read Da Ponte: I have no idea whether he did in fact. But it doesn't matter; the comparison adds a gratifying resonance anyway.

Moreover, even if this book is not remotely useful as direct criticism of Mozart, I think it does cast the great libretti in a new light: you come to understand the schemers and seducers of the Mozart operas were not a mere nonce creation: they accompanied Da Ponte throughout the whole of his long and rumbustious life. "I trusted them and they betrayed me..." would be a pretty good title for the whole. You can certainly tire of his preening, his score-settling his tale-telling. Indeed you come pretty quickly to realize that not 100 percent of it can possibly true. How much, then? 80 percent? 50? 20? Of course I have no idea: maybe 50 will do as a guess. But I don't think that matters either. Recall what Goethe said about Livy: yes, they are just stories, but they are good stories. At the end, I think you can give Da Ponte credit for his most (nearly) disinterested passion: his desire to spread Italian culture to the Anglo-Saxon world. In this light, we can greet him on his own terms: se non e vero, e ben trovato.

Four stars for the book, one for the presentation. Compromise on three.

Third-rate at best.
The best thing about this book is the preface by Charles Rosen. The rest it hugely disappointing. It is amazing how a poet can be so non-descriptive! How can any writer has been friends with both Mozart and Casanova and yet have nothing to say about them? One gets no sense of what life was like during the end of the 18th century at all. Even Da Ponte's own thoughts and motives do not come across. All that is left are petty political games at an assortment of different opera houses. Da Ponte's story is less amusing than the description of a single flirtation in the truly interesting and picaresque memoirs of his friend Casanova. ... Read more

Book Description

The banner in Rafe Esquith’s classroom at Hobart Elementary School reads: “There are no shortcuts.” And his students are a testament to the power of that philosophy. These are kids who speak English as a second language, fourth--and fifth--graders who go to school in a part of Los Angeles where violence and despair are the norms of the neighborhood.

But the statistics are not what you’d expect: Esquith’s students score in the country’s top 10 percent on standardized tests and go on to colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, University of Chicago, Swarthmore, Stanford, and UCLA. How do they do it?

Esquith’s view—that learning isn’t easy and that it shouldn’t be—is an increasingly unusual take among educators. Success, he believes, comes from a strong work ethic and from dedication and perseverance on the part of children, teachers, and parents alike. But such ideas prove to be a hard sell to those who believe that hard work and fun must be mutually exclusive. On the other hand, visitors from all over the world have made a pilgrimage to this astonishing classroom.

Esquith’s students work hard. They are in the classroom at 6:30 a.m. and stay until 5:00 p.m. They come to school during their vacations. Each year the Hobart Shakespeareans, as Esquith’s students are known, perform one of the Bard’s plays—Sir Ian McKellen and Hal Holbrook are passionate patrons. These Renaissance children are outstanding mathematicians and scientists; they read Steinbeck and Malcolm X; they are artists; they play classical music and blistering rock 'n' roll. Above all, they are recognized for their impeccable manners, which serve them well as Esquith accompanies them all over the United States. They are, as many observers have commented, the gold standard in American education.

His former students in middle and high school return on Saturdays, where they read Ibsen, Chekhov, and eight Shakespeare plays a year. In their “Wake Up with Will” program, these eager youngsters travel the world with Esquith and his wife, from London to Paris to colleges all over the country. It’s a classroom where the American Dream really does come true.

There have been no shortcuts for Rafe Esquith, either. He had to learn the hard way: dealing with bureaucratic administrators, antagonistic colleagues, and his own impetuous and occasionally tactless, even confrontational, nature. But his history, peppered with funny and painful incidents, and a gallery of incisive portraits--Miss Mothball, Miss Busy-As-a-Bee, Mr. Incompetent--explains his extraordinary success as a teacher.

His scathing yet loving view from the front lines is the most trenchant look at American education to appear
in many years. It’s a full-alert warning signal, an inspiration, and a guide for teachers, parents, and all the rest of us who care about our country’s children. ... Read more

Reviews (51)

Not what I thought it would be...
I received a good report on this book from some educator friends of mine, but upon reading this book, I found that the author was incredibly full of himself. He was all about the great job he had done, and not so concerned about his students.I just really didn't end up caring about the book by the end, I just had to finish it for a class instead.

It's About Raising the Bar
I saw Rafe speak on a show that aired about a year ago. I had no idea who he was but once I realized he was a teacher, I had to watch the show. As the show progressed, I realized that he had the same notions about education I did, but was willing to put them into practice. Doesn't the ideal teacher want to spend more than two periods on language? Doesn't every teacher wish they could read important books to their student rather than standard children fare? I know I do. Rafe has shown us that it is possible but some sacrifice will be involved. In his case, it seemed to be his physical health.

Yes, it's true. Meeting Rafe's standard is a difficult task. I am amazed he's married and hasn't had a heart attack yet. Some reviewers have mentioned that Rafe is too involved with his students, too emotionally attached, too willing to sacrifice his personal life for the lives of his students. But isn't that better than not being involved enough?

Rafe never comes across as you must do these things or else you're a bad teacher. He is simply setting an example, as all teachers do to raise the bar. His opinions regarding mediocrity in society have never been more true. Pretty good is in fact pretty bad.

I have begun to use some of his ideas in my grade 4 class, the first being, "There are no shortcuts." This statement sums up the story of my life and it should be the rallying cry for all students. Second, I have used his classroom economy to great effect. If school is to be important, it must also be authentic to the world students will enter. I look forward to 15 years down the road when perhaps one student will come back and say, "Mr. A., thanks for letting me be the bank manager of the classroom. It really helped me learn respect for money."

You're all aware of the old saying, "Those who can't do teach." Read this book because it shows what is possible when a teacher 'can do.'

Alternately inspiring and frightening
I ran into this book at a used book store five hours ago and have been reading it since, rapt. I had never heard of this guy, but since I am becoming a teacher I found his insider account of finding success in a tough school intriguing. And the book is never boring. Also, I'm sure many of the kids he taught benefited from his passion, creativity, fundraising abilities and personal largesse with his time and (modest) income.

Honestly, though, the guy is a nut. At one point he takes the older kids on a 31-day tour of 25 college campuses?!?! Is that really necessary? Useful? Wouldn't three or four have sufficed? At another point he is working crappy second, third and fourth jobs to buy presents for the kids and take them on trips. When a father is shot in the neck, he practically moves in with the wife and daughter -- and then is suprised when he doesn't get a thank you note ... maybe he inspired some jealousy?! He stares down murderers, takes on LA Unified any chance he gets -- by the end I was waiting for him to drive up the stairs on a motorcycle like Jim Belushi in "The Principal." After all, he's teaching at what he describes as "The Jungle" (which seems a bit extreme a name for even the roughest K-5!)

The guy's martyr/megalomania level is off the charts. He so desperately needs to be these kids' uber-father figure, it's genuinely scary. And despite the occasional bone he throws other teachers, he is very clear that NOBODY is even in his league as a teacher. Plus, he has set up his class where his kids are constantly performing to public acclaim, which then reflects back on the director.

Furthermore, he glosses over so many issues to make his story sexier. For example, immigrants are statistically much more likely to jump the achievement gap than minorities who have been here more than a generation, but everything is simplified here as "inner-city" vs. "middle-class." And nowhere in my reading did I pick up that his class was not an "average" fifth-grade class, but selected as an upper-track class ("gifted").

Overall, although it was a lively read, I found this a rather disturbing book, because if it takes Gen. Patton meets Mahatma Gandhi to make change in the schools then we're in even bigger trouble than I thought. No doubt, this guy is a good teacher -- and folks with big egos and neuroses accomplish all sorts of amazing things in this world -- but as a blueprint for renewal, this was discouraging rather than inspirational.

Take what you like and leave the rest, they say in AA, and that's what I'm doing with this one.

A Responsive GenuineAuthor
I had a few questions for Mr Esquith after finishing the book (namely how this could apply to high school and how he balanced his personal and professional lives).I did an Internet search, and emailed him.He responded the same night with a phone number and asked me to call.When I got in touch with him, he was working with a class, and took my 20 minute phone call to talk about teaching, personal life, etc.While people may have personal or philisophical issues with Mr. Esquith, how many authors are that responsive?

While the reviews overall, were helpful, I think something needs come to the forefront of the discussion.This is not a book about what the ideal teacher is.It is certainly not going to provide all the answers or increase your student achievement after you finish the last page.Nor will it provide lesson plans for the year.Most of all it is not about measuring yourself against his achievements.

The value of "There Are No Shortcuts" lies in the discussion of realistic philosophy from a successful teacher in the trenches.Regardless of what students he teaches, gifted, average or otherwise, it is a competitive world (always was, always will be) and the education many of our students receive is not adequately preparing them for this world, especially in the inner city.Mr. Esquith provides some solutions he tried with both failure and success, and opened his experience up to show his growth.I believe that these experiences are useful to any teacher, or aspiring teacher to question, analyze, or use in their personal growth as an educator.

In my conversation with Mr. Esquith, he recommended that I get out and observe as many good teachers as possible.This book gives you a peak into his classroom.You take the good with the bad, analyze situations, learn from others, and you apply it to your circumstances.In the end, you are better off because you are looking for answers, not because you read a book and expected it to be the Bible that would save you.Read, enjoy, question and apply what is useful.It's well worth the $14 (less than $5 used) and 3-4 hours of reading.

Not quite what I expected . . .
I really wanted to like this book.I picked it up on the book store after scanning some of the passages and finding them inspiring.And I did find some of the story inspiring.But, the more I read, the more I got a negative sense about this guy.He doesn't seem to understand boundaries. It's subtle at first, with his students calling him "Rafe." Then it becomes so obvious with all the examples about the student confusion.Students at this age need to know where the boundaries of parents, teachers, coaches, etc. are, so they can feel comfortable where they are and safe pushing those boundaries and developing into healthy adults whether it be academically, personally or both."Rafe" never seemed to learn this, even after his experience with the "Musketeers."I found myself wanting to tell him to go to therapy instead of looking to Atticus to help him solve his problems. ... Read more

Book Description

Vartan Gregorian's tale starts with a childhood of poverty, deprivation, and enchantment in the Armenian quarter of Tabriz, Iran. As the world reeled from depression into six years of warfare, his mother died, leaving his grandmother Voski as the loving staff of his life. Through unlettered example and instruction, he learned about the first of his many worlds: the strenuousness required for survival, the fairy tale that explained existence, the place and name of his own star in the night sky, how to maneuver as a member of a Christian minority in a benevolent Muslim kingdom, the beauty and inspiration of Armenian Church liturgy, the exciting foreign world of ten-year-old American westerns, the richness of life on the streets.

He learned the magic of the innumerable worlds he could find in books -- and he wanted to visit them all. As the spell books cast on him grew more powerful, so did the constraints imposed by his father's indifference to his dreams of redirecting his life through learning.

So, one day when he was fifteen years old, he presented himself at an Armenian-French lycee in Beirut, Lebanon, to start the arduous task of becoming a person of learning and consequence.

This book tells not only how he reached that school but also about the many people who guided, supported, taught, and helped him on an extravagantly absorbing and varied journey from Tabriz to Beirut to Palo Alto to Tenafly to London, from Stanford University to San Francisco State University to the University of Texas at Austin to the University of Pennsylvania to the New York Public Library to Brown University and, currently, to the presidency of Carnegie Corporation of New York.

With witty stories and memorable encounters, Dr. Gregorian describes his public and private lives as one education after another. He has written a love story about life. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

One of the best!
This is one of the best autobiographies, that I have ever read. The book is full of content as supposed to words that just fill papers. Vartan Gregorian begins by describing a life filled with poverty and pain in a small city in Iran. He takes the reader through the journey that he took for more than 4 decades, and allows the reader to live through his words. He is a true inspiration to the world and especially to the Armenian community. Through his life experiences put into words, he demonstrates the true power of optimisim, hard work and motivation. This is a book that one does not want to put down. I strongly recommend this book.

A warm, inspiring story
The book is the odyssey of an orphan who travels from an impoverished land into the new world thanks to the help of many people along the way. It is an inspiring story of how far the love of books and knowledge can lead to great success and fame despite overwhelming odds. It's a love story...a Horatio Alger story and a cornucopia of knowledge. People who love books will have a feast.

Best college prof
My husband was Dr. Gregorian's student at San Francisco State from 1962-64. He took every history course 'Greg' taught; he was the most impressive college prof Mike had in his entire college career. Mike enjoyed his autobiography very much...he was a very knowledgable man and deserves all the success he has achieved in the United States. Mike Swoffer recommends this book. ... Read more

Book Description

One of the last century's most influential figures in highereducation, Clark Kerr was a leading visionary, architect, leader, and fighterfor the University of California. Chancellor of the Berkeley campus from 1952 to1958 and president of the university from 1958 to 1967, Kerr saw the universitythrough its golden years--a time of both great advancement and great conflict.This absorbing memoir is an intriguing insider's account of how the Universityof California rose to the peak of scientific and scholarly stature and how,under Kerr's unique leadership, the university evolved into the institution itis today. In this first of two volumes, Kerr describes the private life of the universityfrom his first visit to Berkeley as a graduate student at Stanford in 1932 tohis dismissal under Governor Ronald Reagan in 1967. Early in his tenure as aprofessor, the Loyalty Oath issue erupted, and the university, particularly theBerkeley campus, underwent its most difficult upheaval until the onset of theFree Speech Movement in 1964. Kerr discusses many pivotal developments,including the impact of the GI Bill and the evolution of the much-emulated 1960California Master Plan for Higher Education.He also discusses the movement foruniversal access to education and describes the establishment and growth of eachof the nine campuses and the forces and visions that shaped their distinctiveidentities. Kerr's perspective of more than fifty years puts him in a unique position toassess which of the academic, structural, and student life innovations of the1950s and 1960s have proven successful and to consider what lessons about highereducation we might learn from that period. The second volume of the memoir willtreat the public life of the university and the political context thatconditioned its environment. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A lesson to Learn Now More than Ever
How a group of caring people can be transformed into a catalyst for social change. Myles Horton, and threads of the humanity who made up the Highlander School, championed the Appalachian working class, empowering them to stand up to the factory owners and politicians who used their lack of education against them. By respecting the knowledge and intelligence of the poorest, Mr. Horton was able to win the proud mountain people's respect and trust and help them to understand the foundations of the democracy within which they lived.

This book has a great deal to teach about democracy, about learning, about our society's prejudices built on race, sex and education. It is a book about inspiration, about defining and learning about your own beliefs and where you stand on important issues that effect all of humanity today. Read this book for the history, to learn about the strength of a man and a group who followed their beliefs...but you will find yourself, in the end, learning about yourself.

A must for all in adult social justice education
In the 1970s, when I was a college student studying Appalachian sociology, Highlander was a golden beacon - the place where Rosa Parks learned civil disobedience! How I wish this book was available then. It's much more than an autobiography of Highlander's founder, Myles Horton. It's more than a history of Highlander. It explains how Horton and his associates evolved their methods of education. As part of a peace and justice start-up myself, I found myself thinking,"I must tell everyone about this idea!" and, "Oh, that happens to us, too." This book is an inspiration. ... Read more

Book Description

A compelling biography of a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, an eminent Chicago-trained sociologist, and a pioneering race relations leader. ... Read more

Book Description

Student, parents, and other teachers nominated all the teachers in the book, and all are among the best in Texas. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Positive Portrayal of a Diverse Group of Great Teachers
Top Texas Teachers uses the short biographical sketch format to briefly examine the careers of teachers who do their jobs well.In this time when everyone has a "magic formula" or "secret test" to suddenly solve all the challenges in our school, it's a pleasure to read this book, which takes on the question 'what makes a good teacher?' one teacher at a time.The striking thing about the teachers here is what a diverse set of circumstances and personalities are found among the educators profiled.The author skilfully shows us that the common threads are not identical personalities or approaches, but rather the more straightforward values of diligence and compassion.The book is an extremely easy and entertaining read.If you've wanted to understand teaching from the perspective of "who makes it work?" rather than the more familiar "everything's wrong", this is an excellent place to start. ... Read more

Book Description

Life began for Paula Rothenberg in a privileged home in New York City, but it took her to the battlefields of the culture wars on behalf of the underprivileged. Now this veteran of that cultural clash examines the subtle and complex ways in which issues of race, class, and gender impact people's lives.

A prominent figure in the creation of women's studies and multicultural studies as academic disciplines, Rothenberg is perhaps best known for her textbook Race, Class and Gender in the United States, which was widely attacked by conservatives defending traditional curricula. Now she shows how higher education upholds race, class, and gender bias, and, more generally, analyzes the ways in which many white people's unwavering belief in their own good intentions leaves them blind to their societal privilege and their role in perpetuating class difference.

In this candid look at social and academic realities, Rothenberg shares incidents from her own life and the lives of family and friends to show how privilege is constructed and to reveal the forces that make us unaware of it. Through recollections of her childhood in an upper middle class Jewish family and her college years in the early sixties, she tells how she discovered that the world one takes for granted as "everyday life" is in fact riddled with privilege of which we are unaware.

Reviewing the social upheaval of the seventies that challenged fundamental assumptions about gender roles, race relations, and even the nature of the family, Rothenberg tells how she gained a new understanding of what it meant to be an educator and activist. In sharing events surrounding the publication of Race, Class and Gender, she offers an inside look at the culture wars and brings her story into the '90s with a cogent discussion of hate speech and the "political correctness" controversy.

Rothenberg recalls the early mobilization against sexual harassment and recounts what it was like to create one of the first feminist philosophy courses. She also offers a hard-hitting critique of current teaching practices and a response to critics of multi-culturalism and feminism--as well as a look at how de facto segregation continues in American education in the form of tracking.

Both deeply personal and broadly social, this finely crafted memoir will capture the interest of anyone who cares about the future of education, race relations, feminism, and social justice. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A Propaganda Manual for the Committed
If you are entirely committed to viewing human destiny almost exclusively in terms of group identity, you will love this book. Rothenberg cheerfully acknowledges that she has no pretentions toward disinterested inquiry in her college courses or in her writing. She procedes from the assumption that racism and sexism are the underlying conditions of life in the United States and sets out to illustrate this. The book is an amusing compendium of the leisure-class totalitarianorientation and quasi-Marxiast group think that has become the status quo in American "higher" education.

Perceptive Insights into Significant Problems
A very well-done combination of personal recollection and political insights. The questions of gender, race and class are often presented in an off-putting manner that only appeals to the already committed.Because ofthe genuiness and the clarity of this book, it can serve as an introductionto these areas for those who still have something to learn about them.

PRIVILEGE:HOW DOES IT HELP? HOW DOES IT HURT?
"Invisible Privilege" is a multilayered book that I will enjoy reading more than once.It has the liveliness, humor, and candor of a good autobiography.But instead of merely telling one person's story, the author wears the analytical and critical lenses through which she views oursociety, to look at her own life -- without apology or mea culpa. She givesup the dearly held privilege of many of us "white liberals" topretend that, in spite of the impact of race, class, and gender on Americanlife, we somehow wriggled through unscathed, perhaps because of our own"natural" goodness.The author provides funny, poignant,eye-opening examples of how no one can rest on the laurels of being a goodperson with good intentions in this whirlwind society of ours.She isdeepening the discussions of discrimination and exclusion, prejudice andhate, as well as of being human, and I look forward to her next book. ... Read more

Book Description

During his life, Booker T. Washington was among the most celebrated educators, authors, and statesmen of his day. He walked side by side with Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, H. G. Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, and Andrew Carnegie. He was the first African American to dine with the president in the White House and the first to have tea with the queen of England. He was the first African American to receive honorary degrees from Harvard and Dartmouth, the first African American to be honored on a postage stamp, the first African American to be commemorated on a coin, the first African American to have a naval vessel named for him, and the first African American to have schools named after him.

To many African Americans today, Washington points the way toward prosperity and sophistication. Today his spiritual and economic wisdom is being reclaimed as a proven path of racial advance, and his ideas are again gaining currency among upwardly mobile African Americans. In this brief volume, Stephen Mansfield reviews the course of Washington's life and highlights those principles and practices that undergirded the great educator's ability to empower all people to be the best they can be. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Terrific
In another sterling volume of the Leaders in Action series, Stephen Mansfield here outlines the life and character of Booker T. Washington. In vivacious voice and moving magniloquence, Mansfield traces Washington's path from slavery to his founding of Tuskegee Institute. He shows the difficulties Washington surpassed in reaching his goals, and the principles that helped him make it. In the words of Washington, "Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succed." By this standard, Booker T. Washington was an astonishingly successful man.

Washington wrote his own autobiography, _Up From Slavery_, which must certainly not be neglected. But Mansfield's biography is also a criticial read because he includes facts that the autobiographer was too modest to mention, and he highlights wonderful aspects of Washington's character that humility prevented him from including. This biography doesn't contain the wonderful self-analysis and insight of Booker himself - but it does contain all the benefits of a third person account.

One thing I really appreciated about this book was its terrific analysis of slavery and inter-race reconciliation. Expounding Booker's opinion, Mansfield blames both whites and blacks for the problems that cropped up after the Civil War. Whites needed to repent of their brutal treatment of slaves and actually begin considering blacks more than mere animals; and blacks needed to repent of their spirit of bitterness toward their white enslavers, and begin working hard and leaving no excuse for disrespect of blacks. Too many books on reconciliation have practically advocated bitterness, hatred, and laziness when what is really needed is Washington's outlook of forgiveness and hard work. This book offers relief from such pride.

To wrap up, this is a great biography. Good history, good style, and good content. Buy it.

Outstanding biography of an outstanding Black American.
Then Darkness Fled is a celebration of the life of Booker T. Washinghton and tells of a man who dined with heads of state and became the first Afro-American to receive honorary degrees from Harvard and Dartmouth. Chapters survey both his achievements and his life in this lively coverage. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A must-read for all Jamaicans
I was a schoolgirl in Jamaica, during the 70s, the period Mr. Winkler writes about and I can attest that all the things he says are true. The book is hilarious and poignant at the same time, capturing all the things that make Jamaica a difficult place to live in, yet an impossible one to stay away from. He captures the crazy drama of everyday life there, with humor and beauty and sadness. The scene in the patty shop when he asked by two people behind him in line to judge which is the blacker one, is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

THIS TEACHER MAKES YOU LAUGH & LEARN
Just seeing his name on the book spine was enough to make me pick up the book.

Over the years, Anthony C. Winkler's rollicking novels of Jamaican life have given me considerable pleasure and insight into Caribbean sensibility. He writes with a great affection for the island nation's people, reveling in their culture and contradictions, equally amused by and compassionate toward all the social strata. However, I'd been curious about the writer himself since first reading THE LUNATIC years ago, after a St. Kitts-born friend and mentor pressed the book into my hand with a smile, saying "You must read this!" The brief bio in his books mentioned he was a native Jamaican and scant else. Who was he? I wondered to myself about his background, his roots, his understanding of Jamaica.

GOING HOME TO TEACH answered my questions and delivered a lot more. At heart, it's Winkler's memoir of his mid-1970s stint, when Michael Manley's "democratic socialist" administration ruled, as an instructor at a government-sponsored rural teacher training school. His return is part altruism, part nostalgia: As the author of successful, widely used college textbooks, he's got tidy sums squirreled away in American banks, so he can afford to return home and work for a pittance. On the other hand, at the time he's thirty-something, divorced, and he's spent thirteen years away from home to study and teach in the U.S., whose society bewilders him.

The meat of the book, though, is both personal and general. Winkler is a raconteur, a griot--a natural born storyteller--and he regales you with stories about his family (particularly his eccentric grandparents and crazy aunts), his encounters with hidebound administrators and bureaucrats, striking students, madmen, and the impossibility of finding competent repairpersons. And then again, there are his observations on American society and culture, the contrasts with Jamaica, and the cultural idiosyncrasies that he attributes to the history of slavery and English colonial rule. GOING HOME TO TEACH is a dense stew of memorable people, incidents and conclusions, richly seasoned with rib-tickling anecdotes.

Indeed, what makes the book really work is Winkler's humor and humanity, his conversational tone, his equanimity whether describing the absurd or the nearly tragic. He's not shy about his foibles, his family's or his countrymen's, and completely droll even when revealing the unpleasant side of paradise. Be cautioned about reading this book in public: you risk indelicate stares for laughing out loud, as I did particularly as I was reading his account of "night life"--the panoply of insects and other critters--in the Jamaican countryside.

There's also the bittersweet. Winkler's ancestry is European and Middle Eastern--which adds up to "white"--but he's Jamaica-born and bred (patois is his "native tongue" much as any other Jamaican's), and that's the land he loves. It results in a certain "double consciousness," which I find ironically analogous to the lot of "Black Americans":

"To be white in a black country with a long English colonial history is to be a pariah, an ambiguous entity. It is to be simultaneously respected and despised, to arouse suspicion and curiosity, to evoke defiance, rudeness, envy, and condescension. It is to be separated from that inalienable birthright every white American enjoys in his country: the expectation of being treated with indifference in a public place....

"The hardest thing about growing up white in a black country is the nagging feeling of not belonging.... Jamaicans of all races who have lived abroad for any length of time also suffer it after returning home, but for the white Jamaican the feeling of not belonging is a cross he must bear even if he has never set foot out of his own country."

If you're already a fan of Winkler's writing, I believe you'll also love this book. If you're not already acquainted, this should be a fine introduction to the man and the land. A highly recommended, rewarding read.

well worth the reading
If you live in the Caribbean you will be able to identify with all the occurrences. If you used to live in the Caribbean, this book will bring back all the memories. If you have no Caribbean connections, then you will be highly amused by the "peculiarites" of the natives as Mr. Winkler cleverly reveals the culture and personalities of the island ... Read more

Book Description

When Mark Salzman is invited to visit a writing class at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for Los Angeles’s most violent teenage offenders, he scrambles for a polite reason to decline. He goes—expecting the worst—and is so astonished by what he finds that he becomes a teacher there himself. True Notebooks is an account of Salzman’s first years teaching at Central. Through it, we come to know his students as he did: in their own words.

At times impossible and at times irresistible, they write with devastating clarity about their pasts, their fears, their confusions, their regrets, and their hopes. They write about what led them to crime and to gangs, about love for their mothers and anger toward their (mostly absent) fathers, about guilt for the pain they have caused, and about what it is like to be facing life in prison at the age of seventeen. Most of all, they write about trying to find some reason to believe in themselves—and others—in spite of all that has gone wrong.
Surprising, charming, upsetting, enlightening, and ultimately hopeful—driven by the insight and humor of Salzman’s voice and by the intelligence, candor, and strength of his students, whose writing appears throughout the book—True Notebooks is itself a reward of the self-expression Mark Salzman teaches: a revelatory meditation on the process, power, and meaning of writing.

Mark Salzman is the author of Iron & Silk, an account of his two years in China; Lost in Place, a memoir; and the novels The Laughing Sutra, The Soloist, and Lying Awake. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the filmmaker Jessica Yu, and their daughter, Ava.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Reviews (31)

Reality Check
True Notebooks is a wonderful story, delivering unexpected lessons about people and life in general. Mark Salzman is the instructor of an English class at Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles and finds it is a learning experience not only for his students, but for himself too. With each piece of writing shared comes a deeper understanding of the thoughts and emotions of the boys who typically would be seen as cold-hearted. This sensitivity reaches not only their teacher, but anyone reading the book as well. Mark Salzman goes beyond simply telling a story, and allows readers to feel connected to all of his students. This book is proof that willingness and an open mind will open doors and provide new insight to the world. True Notebooks is a great read that also serves as an important reality check.

THE TRUTH ABOUT JUVENILE DELINQUENTS
The first book I read by this author, a few weeks ago, was Iron & Silk and it was wonderful. Now he has written something different, though still in the teaching vein. He lives in Los Angeles and a friend of his was teaching at the Central Juvenile Hall in L.A. on a volunteer basis and Mark became curious and eventually decided he too would teach...about writing. The youths were teenagers and many incarcerated awaiting trial for murder. This book lets the youth tell their stories in their own way and it is an eye opener. Mark is guiding all the way, but you discover what is under the veneer of braggadocio for these criminals-in-training. You also find out the importance of becoming involved to help these young people and the results of your concerns. Mark Salzman has found his calling in writing books as he puts you in his picture with telling results. Bravo, Mark !

The Discomfort of Truth
My daughter, soon graduating with honors with a degree in social work and planning a career working with at-risk youth and juvenile offenders, is currently completing an internship in the probate courts. Her work, to boil it down to its essence, is to champion the young people society has forgotten. She stands up in the courtroom as they are about to be tried and sentenced, offering an articulate perspective on the background of these young lives so few seem to care about any longer. Certainly, a great many of these youth are without champions among their own family members, even fewer champions in society in general.

When I picked up Salzman's "True Notebooks," I expected it would give me more insight into the world my daughter is now entering. I, too, have spent some time visiting various at-risk youth homes and juvenile centers and prisons. I found the deeper insights I was looking for. I recognized my own mirrored insights in Salzman's experiences in a Los Angeles Juvenile Detention facility. My understanding of my daughter's passion for her developing career was expanded.

The United States has the world's largest prison system. We are the only country to my knowledge that sentences juveniles to the death penalty. While crime rates for juveniles have actually dipped, the detention facilities become increasingly crowded and increasingly ineffective in rehabilitating these young souls. Should we not ask why? Should we not seek these deeper insights?

Salzman's account is invaluable in disspelling the dispassionate views of many who are only too ready to blame others (oh, but it does take a village!) for the losses within our younger generations. He fears the unknown, as we all do, when he enters this facility and first touches on the lives of these young criminals. For they have committed crimes, many of which are serious, even brutal, but to know only this about them is to know and understand, and, more importantly, solve nothing.

I can remember the first time I walked into a similar youth detention facility to meet similar "gangbangers" and offenders. I was afraid. I didn't know what to expect. What I found, almost exactly as Salzman relates in his book, were children like all children. The only difference was that these young offenders had come through the filter of neglect, abuse, and apathy that would transform most any of us into a deeply damaged psyche. But for that, they had the same hearts with the same dreams, the same aches, the same longings, the same confusions, the same hopes. Looking into their faces, I found myself looking back at myself, at my own children.

If a few of us have been given the role in society to pass judgment, then we must do so armed with knowledge and understanding of those we judge. Salzman's book helps us to gain some of that much needed knowledge and understanding. Highly recommended reading.

Volunteer work pays off
"True Notebooks" was by far one of the best books I have read in a long time. It gave a behind the scenes look at a juvenile delinquent hall in Los Angeles by a writer named Mark Salzman, also the author of this book. He volunteers to teach a creative writing class at a detention center for incarcerated minors to try and get some ideas for a character in his upcoming book, not knowing that he would recieve alot more than just a couple of ideas. These young men showed Mark and society a different side of them nobody every knew exsisted and if you want to find out about the "other side" I highly reccomend you read this book. I promise you won't be able to put it down once you pick it up.

true and astonshing work
Author Mark Salzman admits right off the bat that he wanted to refuse a friend's request to lead a writing group at a juvenile hall. He's uncomfortable around teenagers, and he feels unqualified to teach minority youths from a different background than his. Those would be on my list of reasons to refuse, too. But he goes and finds the students to be surprisingly articulate, more so than the adult education students he teaches elsewhere. The inmates in turn, irritate, amaze, disgust, and impress Salzman with their writing. Some go on to healthier lives, some don't, but he manages (cliche though it is) to make an impact on quite a few - mostly when he believes he's done the opposite. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description

In summer of 2000, legal secretary Donna Moffett answered an ad for the New York City Teaching Fellows program, which sought to t "talented professionals" from other fields to teach in some of the city's worst schools. Seven weeks later she was in a first grade classroom in Flatbush, Brooklyn, nearly completely unprepared for what she was about to face.

New York Times education reporter Abby Goodnough followed Donna Moffett through her first year as a teacher, writing a front page, award-winning series that galvanized discussion nationwide. Now she has expanded that series into a book that, through the riveting story of Moffett's experiences, explores the gulf between the rhetoric of education reform and the realities of the public school classroom. Ms. Moffett's First Year is neither a Hollywood- friendly tale of 'one person making a difference,' nor a reductive indictment of the public education system. It is rather a provocative portrait of the inadequacy of good intentions, of the challenges of educating poor and immigrant populations, and of a well-meaning but under prepared woman becoming a teacher the hard way.

While the story takes place in New York, Ms. Moffett's first year is a metaphor for the experiences of teachers everywhere in America, one that illuminates the philosophical, economic, political, and ideological dilemmas that have come more and more to determine their experience -and their students' experiences - in the classroom. ... Read more

Book Description

After graduating from Yale University, Sarah Sentilles joined the Teach for America program and began a two-year assignment as an elementary school teacher in Compton, California. Far from the hallowed halls of academe and the suburban streets where she grew up, in charge of thirty-six first graders in a classroom without books, Sentilles experienced her own kind of education. Taught by America is the story of the children Sentilles taught—but more than that, it"s a story of one woman"s change of heart and life.

Through moving portraits of inspiring children, Sentilles takes the reader with her on her heartbreaking journey, as she learns about a failing school system, the true meaning of poverty in America, and the strength children exhibit even when they"re struggling to survive. Sentilles originally joined Teach for America as a break between undergraduate and graduate school. What she didn"t expect was that the children of Compton would change her utterly: instead of going on to graduate school in literature, she decided to study for the ministry.

Beautifully written, charged with love and indignation, Taught by America is a powerful tribute to the young lives Sentilles witnessed. She was transformed by what she saw in Compton; Taught by America will transform her readers as well. ... Read more

Book Description

The daughter of an unmarried immigrant Jewish garment worker whose family had perished in the Holocaust, Lillian Faderman dreamed of being an actress. Instead she worked her way through college by posing for nude photographs and stripping. She discovered that her deepest erotic and emotional connections were to women. After nearly losing herself in a dangerous underworld of addicts, pimps, and prostitutes, she became a brilliant student, eventually earning a Ph.D. And she became a loving partner, a devoted mother, an influential writer, and a groundbreaking scholar of gay and lesbian studies. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Lillian's best yet
By far, Lillian's best yet.Her previous writings were way too heady for me, but this one held my attention.For those looking for the juicy tidbits of Faderman's personal life, this book pretty much hits the spot.I am looking forward to the sequel -- this woman has much more to tell.

One Eye Closed ?
Ms. Faderman has always been an outstanding scholar, giving the academic and Lesbian worlds her well researched, and highly informative books about Lesbians and Lesbianism. She has also written other scholarly works that are highly recommended, if not a little heavy for most readers. In her latest venture, her memoir " Naked in the Promise Land", Ms. Faderman shows her readers another side of her makeup, her personal side. The Memoir is as interesting for what it reveled about Ms. Faderman's past life as well as what has been carefully left out. Readers may well have to wait for a bioghapher to tell the complete story of Lillian Faderman's life for it appears that she is willing to go only so far in its telling.
What is also a point to note is the muse that Ms. Faderman has chosen to use. It defiantly is not the carefully structured formal English she used for her academic books, nor should it be. However, as a memoir it reads more like an Ann Bannon or Clair Morgan novel, and this, perhaps, is part of its charm as well as its draw.
Finally, in the telling of part of her life story the reader is made aware that Ms. Faderman is a consummate actress. After all she studied hard to learn the techiques. As such, one has to wonder if what she has presented to the world after her "Sunset Strip" life, is nothing more than another act in one more carefully constructed costume.

Riveting!
I finally snagged a copy of the book and did not put it down to do anything but eat and sleep.As a young lesbian who is not nearly thankful enough for her older lesbian sisters, I could not believe what Lillian went through in her life.
A few people have summarized the book, but I'll tell you what had me glued to the pages: Lillian's determination.She always succeeded whether she was trying to become a movie star, get better grades in high school, trick a strip club into believing she was famous (and therefore making more money), make her mother and aunt believe she was straight, get her PhD, move up the ranks at a university, come out as a lesbian and lesbian mom, and become a world-renown author.
She was a pioneer, believing in herself when there was no guarantee that she would succeed.She hoped for the best, worked hard, and managed to change higher education all over the country.Thank you, Lillian!

Required reading for any woman loving woman
An outstanding personal memoir and documentary of mid-twentieth century lesbian life.Faderman's autobiography is an essential accompaniment to her lesbian history books.As a young lesbian, this book has given me a much deeper insight into life "before Stonewall" and during the earliest stages of the gay rights and women's lib movements.The writing itself *glows* and is far more powerful than any novel that I have read in a long time.This book is an absolute must-read for any lesbian, and will be an enlightening journey for any reader, gay or straight or anywhere in between.

A promise to expose a personal truth in all its nakedness
Ms. Faderman's story could have been a riveting novel, except that the series of events would have stretched our incredulity for its bigger-than-life experiences that could only be believed in the real world, not in fiction.

Lillian goes through derivatives of her name as Lil or Lily, with each name representing a phase in her turbulent life. She tells the extraordinary story of growing as a very poor girl to an unwed mother who had made a series of very poor choices she lives to regret. These life changing decisions haunt not only the mother, who is given to bouts of depression and temporary loss of her faculties, but deeply affect her daughter's life and choices.

From struggling to become an talented actress with "a bad face, a good body," to become a sex model--at fourteen--to older men with cameras shooting her photographs for their private pleasure, Lillian's freefall is almost certain. But in a last moment stroke of realization--supported by an encouraging teacher--she returns to high school.

In years to come, as Lillian holds on by her teeth to her continuing education, she continues to make ends meet as a pin-up model. The minimum wage in the 50s and 60s in more conventional occupations is way below living wages. (The author saves herself no embarrassment as she peppers the book with actual photographs of her naked poses.) At the same time, never doubting her homosexual makeup, she falls in and out of relationships, most of which start great, last for a good while, then wither away. All the while Lillian puts out a semi-respectable front for the sake of her mother and aunt, including marrying a gay man and later dating a straight man.

Once she reaches adulthood and finishes her graduate studies, in a university campus she had never planned to stay for more than one school year, Dr. Faderman rises up the ranks and is given opportunities to develop one of the earliest women's studies programs in the county--and the first to celebrate gay writing.

A wonderful, riveting book that is highly recommended both for its fluid prose as for it story-telling of a remarkable life... ... Read more

Book Description

Dr Zoltan Dienes is a world-famous theorist and tireless practitioner of the 'new mathematics' - an approach to mathematics learning which uses games, songs and dance to make it more appealing to children. Holder of numerous honorary degrees, Dr Dienes has had a long and fruitful career, breaking new ground and gaining many followers with his revolutionary ideas of learning often complex mathematical concepts in such fun ways that children are often unaware that they are learning anything.This is an honest account of an academic radical, covering his sometimes unconventional childhood in Hungary, France, Germany and Britain, his peripatetic academic career, his successes and failures and his personal affairs. Occasionally sad or moving, frequently amusing and always fascinating, this autobiography shares some of the intelligence, spirit and humanity that have made Dr Dienes such a landmark figure in mathematics education. A 'must-read' for anyone with a professional interest in the field, this is also an absorbing and frank book for anyone interested in the life of a man of ideas who was not afraid to take on the might of the traditionalist educational establishment. ... Read more

Book Description

Students of nature around the world revere Eugene Odum as a founder and pioneer of ecosystem ecology. In this biography of Odum, Betty Jean Craige depicts the intellectual growth, creativity, and vision of the scientist who made the ecosystem concept central to his discipline and translated the principles of ecosystem ecology into lessons in preserving the natural environment.

Placing Odum's achievements in historical context, Craige traces his life from his childhood through his education, his collaboration with his brother Howard T. Odum in developing methods to study ecosystems, his contributions to the field of radiation ecology, his emergence as an internationally distinguished educator of ecosystem ecology, and his environmental activism. Craige also describes Odum's role in the creation of the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, the Marine Institute on Sapelo Island, and the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia, where he became identified with the statement "The ecosystem is greater than the sum of its parts."

Odum's textbook Fundamentals of Ecology is a classic, published in numerous editions and translations worldwide. Odum achieved membership in the National Academy of Sciences, shared with his brother the prestigious Crafoord Prize for Ecology, accepted six honorary doctorates, and received numerous awards for environmental activities. ... Read more

Book Description

This is the first full-length biography of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, one of the three notable Peabody sisters of Salem, Massachusetts, and sister-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Horace Mann. In elegant prose it traces the intricate private life and extraordinary career of one of nineteenth-century America's most important Transcendental writers and educational reformers. Yet Peabody has also been one of the most scandalously neglected and caricatured female intellectuals in American history. Bruce Ronda has recaptured Peabody from anecdotal history and even blue-stocking portrayals in film-most recently by Jessica Tandy in Henry James's The Bostonians. Peabody was a reformer devoted to education in the broadest, and yet most practical, senses. She saw the classroom as mediating between the needs of the individual and the claims of society. She taught in her own private schools and was an assistant in Bronson Alcott's Temple School. In her contacts with Ralph Waldo Emerson's Transcendental circle in the 1830s, and as publisher of the famous DIAL and other imprints, she took a mediating position once more, claiming the need for historical knowledge to balance the movement's stress on individual intuition. She championed antislavery, European liberal revolutions, Spiritualism, and, in her last years, the Paiute Indians. She was, as Theodore Parker described her, the Boswell of her age. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

The boring journey...
Like most people who would be interested in this book, I was expecting some insight into the life of the last tsar and his family, as seen by someone close to the family. But, as the title implies, it's his SPIRITUAL journey the book chronicles, with a few well-known anecdotes on the imperial family thrown in. If your looking for a book on the Romanovs or Imperial Russian history, don't buy this book.

A Different View of Nicholas II and His Family
Although this book is one of many written about the tragic deaths of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, it is different than those which often appear explotive. Gibbes's relationship with the Tsar and his family provides us with a deeper insight into the family life, and the unshakable rich faith of this noble family. The book is one of a kind, and an "easy" read. As one who has read many books on the subject of Russian hsitory, I could not recommend it more highly.

Not What the Title Implies
I bought this book expecting its majority to discuss the life of Charles Sydney Gibbes, but it's more of an ill-researched portrait of history twisted to fit the author's opnions. Although the first and last few pages are devoted entirely to Gibbes, the rest is about this mass conspiracy that lead up to the revoultion that rarely mentions Gibbes at all (at least a hundred pages do not even relate to his journey or him in any way). I prefer a favorable picture of the imperial family, but even I cannot believe these "facts" presented, espcially since Ms. Benagh doesn't even to refute other opinions; moreover, she seems to say the starving peasants could have lingered on for a few more days. She uses a maximum of eight sources to support her book, all published and most are famous first-hand sources written in the 20s-40s that have been prooven to have some major falacies. Do not believe its claims to be using new resources from the collapse of the Soviet Union because unsolved mysteries in here have been solved and thoroughly explianed in many other books. This book does a decent job as presenting Gibbes as an affable person but is primarily conncerned on trying to rewrite history. If you decide to purchase this book, I want to forewarn you to read a good Romanov or Russian history book beforehand to be able to identify An Englishman in the Court of the Tsar's faults.

More than a spiritual journey; an intimate look at the Tsar
American author, Christine L. Benagh, has written a moving biographical and historical journey of an Englishman who went to Russia in 1901 to escape the disillusionment of his faith-shattering theological education. As Charles Sydney Gibbes' reputation as an English tutor in St. Petersburg grows, he comes to the attention of the royal family, whom he eventually serves for ten years until their tragic demise. Through Gibbes' letters and papers, we catch an intimate view of the Tsar, the Empress and their children in their home or on vacation, having tea, doing their studies, playing games and going to Russian Orthodox services. Their lives are placed into historical context with quotes from the biographies, letters and papers of people who knew them.

Sadly, Gibbes is among the first to investigate the fateful Ipatiev house in Ekatarinburg, where the Romanovs and their entourage were murderously slaughtered by the Bolsheviks. Due to his intimate knowledge of the Romanovs, as well as his command of the Russian language, Gibbes continues working in Russia for a time for the British High Command. He eventually ends up in Manchuria, working for the Chinese Maritime Service, during which time he adopts a teenaged Russian orphan and studies firsthand various Eastern religions.

At the age of 52, Gibbes decides to return to his Christian roots, but he is once more shattered by politics in the Anglican Church. After a much soul searching, he embraces the Orthodox Church, where, back in England, he is tonsured as a monk and then ordained into the priesthood.

As Father Nicholas Gibbes, he spends the remaining years of life devoted to the Orthodox faith in England, and to preserving the memory of the Romanov family with the many artifacts and relics he personally collected.

While this outstanding book is called a "spiritual journey," the spiritual journey is actually a pretty slender thread through these turbulent times until the last two chapters. It works as an interesting biography within this period of history, as an intimate portrait of the royal family, as a small slice of Russian (and English) history, and finally as a spiritual odyssey. I'd recommend this to those interested in the Romanovs, the Bolshevik Revolution, spiritual journeys or the Orthodox Church.