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The Icon and the Idealist

The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
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PhotographyArts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Once there were heroes who rode on flame-roaring rockets to another world. Full Moon celebrates the 30th anniversary of the first human flight to the Moon.

Artist/photographer Michael Light spent five years sorting through some 32,000 photographs taken by the astronauts themselves most of them never published and has selected 129 images that depict our journeys to the magnificent desolation of the Moon.

And they are our journeys, not merely the missions undertaken by 21 astronauts, not merely the program in which nearly half a million men and women worked for almost ten years. All of us participated in the Apollo missions, all of us were thrilled by the sights and sounds of men from Earth exploring a world that is a quarter million miles away.

The book is a treasure, the photographs a monument to humankind’s ability to dream vast dreams and then make them come true. And, as Andrew Chaikin’s thoughtful essay points out, once we began to see the Earth from the distant shores of the barren and alien Moon, none of us could ever think of our home world as anything but a beautiful, fragile, precious island of life set in a cold and utterly indifferent infinity. By reaching the Moon, we finally began to appreciate our own Earth. The Apollo astronauts’ photographs of the big blue marble were an enormous stimulus to the environmental movement.

Two of the photographs from the Moon hit me especially hard. Both come from the final lunar mission, Apollo 17. The first shows the lunar landing module on the ground near the base of a mountain system called the North Massif. Taken from two miles’ distance, the image captures the loneliness, the distance, the realization that the Moon is totally different from any place where humans have planted their footprints before. The second shows astronaut Gene Cernan, tired and grimy with lunar dust, after a long hard day of exploring on the Moon.

They were heroes, sent to the Moon by politicians who have not seen fit to carry on the brave endeavor they began. But there are other heroes waiting here on Earth, in schools, in cradles, even unborn as yet. They will return to the Moon and begin a new chapter of human exploration and adventure. Full Moon will help to inspire them to heroic futures. ¦ Ben Bova’s latest novel is Return to Mars, the long-awaited sequel to his 1992 best-selling Mars.

Once there were heroes who rode on flame-roaring rockets to another world. Full Moon celebrates the 30th anniversary of the first human flight to the Moon.

Artist/photographer Michael Light spent five years sorting through some 32,000 photographs taken by the astronauts themselves…

Women in the Picture

Catherine McCormack looks closely at four archetypes of women in art to examine not only how we look at art but also how we view women in general.
ParentingFamily & Relationships

Review

Review by bookpagedev

I once read that a marriage is maintained by combining equal measures of dewy-eyed romanticism with clear-eyed realism. Well, the adoption of a child is much the same. You have to believe in the child’s unique value. At the same time, you’ve got to acknowledge the challenges that come with the territory.

Parents at Last contributes greatly to the romanticism involved in adoption and other ways of achieving parenthood: surrogate, in-vitro, and other technological innovations. The variety of stories (each written by the parents) are accompanied by delightful photographs by Helen Kolikow Garber.

Robert and Evelyne McNamara of California decided to adopt a Chinese infant after the death of their youngest child from a brain tumor. Paul Montz of Arizona also adopted two children from China as a single gay dad. Susan Hollander, who founded the Alliance for Donor Insemination Families in 1995, achieved parenthood in this fashion. Congresswoman Connie Morella of Maryland became an adoptive parent after the tragic death of her sister, adopting all six of her beloved sister’s sons and daughters. Then come the awe-inspiring parents like Peg Marengo and Alison Smith of Worcester, Massachusetts, who created a second family after their biological families had grown up by adopting the throwaway kids in our society. They began with Luci, a two-year-old with AIDS. Finally, comes the note of realism from Torin Scott of Scottsdale, Arizona, who counsels parents of special needs adoptions and is one herself: Abuse and neglect before and after birth exact a huge toll. It is important to grieve over who the child might have been, and then let it go. Love unconditionally. Love fiercely. Love enough for both of you, and realize that love alone is not enough. It takes commitment, endurance and acceptance. This book is a lovely paean to the couples and single men and women who persevere in their efforts to become and remain parents.

Rosemary Zibart is a writer in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

I once read that a marriage is maintained by combining equal measures of dewy-eyed romanticism with clear-eyed realism. Well, the adoption of a child is much the same. You have to believe in the child's unique value. At the same time, you've got to acknowledge…

Reclamation

As a Black person working to prove her family’s claim that they are descendants of Thomas Jefferson, Gayle Jessup White faced plenty of obstacles.
Travel

Review

Review by bookpagedev

One Year Off is the charming narrative of a couple’s wild idea to sell their house and possessions, close their business, take their three small children out of school, and embark on a year of round-the-world travel. The reader is left with a combined adventure, memoir, history, and travel narrative, all wrapped into a tender account of a family meeting life head-on.

The author does not sugar-coat the trials of spending a year in cramped quarters with his entire family. Tales of finicky eaters and uncooperative toilets are interwoven with the wonders of the world and the adventure of a lifetime. Why does a man do this? In his own words, to gain a fresh perspective on life, to develop an equanimity, a balance. Is it surprising that thoughts formulating this trip began to surface close to the author’s 40th birthday? The book is presented as a series of lengthy emails from the far-flung outposts of the globe. Just how far-flung? Visa stamps accumulate from Costa Rica, Sardinia, Turkey, South Africa, India, Bangkok, and Cambodia. Cohen is the author and co-producer of the popular series of photographic essay coffee-table books of the 1980s known as the Day in the Life series. As he began to reach middle age, he felt the desire to purify [his] life and reclaim [his] old spirit. Cohen is blessed with an adventuresome wife already accustomed to world travel.

The Cohens barge through French wine country, sample cappuccino and pastries in Tuscany, roam the streets of Istanbul, tour wild game preserves in Zimbabwe, sleep with nomadic desert tribes in India, pick through the ruins at Angkor Wat, swim with dolphins in western Australia, float up the Mekong River into Laos, and watch the giant fireworks display during the British divestiture of Hong Kong. Throughout it all, regardless of discomfort or expense, the family thrives. The author paints a portrait of the beauty of travel and the excitement of the wide, wide world.

One Year Off is the charming narrative of a couple's wild idea to sell their house and possessions, close their business, take their three small children out of school, and embark on a year of round-the-world travel. The reader is left with a combined adventure,…

Nonfiction

Behind the scenes of Florida’s orchid business

Review by bookpagedev

We tend to think of flower growers and collectors as timid, gentle souls who spend their days wistfully tending to their colorful collections and praying for a little rain. But in these true-life dispatches by New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, we're introduced to one particular strain of botanist that's chock full of characters, crazies, and con men—the orchid lover. With a skillful blending of keen journalism, historical background, and first-person narrative, Orlean takes us behind the scenes in the highly competitive (and often combative) world of Florida's orchid scene.

Inspired by a newspaper account of three Seminole Indians and a white man (John Laroche, the thief of the title) facing trial for stealing some prize specimens out of a protected swamp area, Orlean introduces us to a cast of real-life plant smugglers, obsessed collectors, dealers who encourage breeding with their "stud" flowers, and even a country-singing flamboyant Seminole chief. All of their lives somehow intertwine with Laroche, who is, according to Orlean, the "most moral amoral man" she's ever met. Oddly handsome (though he's missing all his teeth), Laroche is equal parts slimy con man and moralizing do-gooder. He's also an unforgettable literary presence.

Orlean also writes thoroughly on the politics and business of Florida real estate, the history of orchid growing and hunting, and Native American relations. And though these pages sometimes read like a dry biology textbook, they are populated with peculiar information, like the true tales of the Victorian orchid hunters who often risked life and limb to claim rare flowers for their rich patrons — sort of like a horticultural Indiana Jones.

The Orchid Thief is being compared to the spirit of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. But while the author of that monster-selling tome took a backseat to his cast of southern eccentrics and the area's unique sociology, Orlean offers a more compartmentalized book readable in segments. As readers of the novels of Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard will tell you, the steamy state of Florida is full of tropical schemers, hidden secrets, and dirty dealings on or by the water. And all of them are present here—except in this case, they're real. In the end, The Orchid Thief will make you look twice at that nice little old lady in the greenhouse with the glint in her eye.

We tend to think of flower growers and collectors as timid, gentle souls who spend their days wistfully tending to their colorful collections and praying for a little rain. But in these true-life dispatches by New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, we're introduced to one particular…

Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Combining autobiographical accounting with near-poetic turns of phrase, Laura Shaine Cunningham tells the story of how she came to love and own a home in the country. The country, for Cunningham, is first in Tuxedo Park, New York, about 40 miles from the city, and then at another home, the Inn, on an estate called Willowby. Her own vantage point as a city girl imbues A Place in the Country with the longing and expectations urban dwellers have for the beauty and peace of more rural settings.

Cunningham ranges all over her own biography, from adopting a daughter in China to her own experiences at summer camp. Her varying descriptions of places dear to her could have been disjointed, but instead all cohere through an understanding of the importance of place in general, and of the sanctity of a home. She creates fictional names for the privacy-loving neighbors at Willowby, and describes the disappointment of seeing how rundown her summer camp was with a keen memory of a child’s desire for something beautiful. In A Place in the Country, Cunningham writes about people as well as places. Stories of the individuals connected with the Inn (some of which have appeared in The New Yorker) happily populate the anecdotes Cunningham relates. These include the English Lord and Lady who live in the manor on the Inn’s property. Cunning-ham describes her first meeting with the Lord and Lady as a cross between Hay Fever and The Bald Soprano. Tales of Cecil, the handyman, are at once funny and acute; as Cunning-ham writes, The single drawback to Cecil was that he was deaf. So when I screamed,

Combining autobiographical accounting with near-poetic turns of phrase, Laura Shaine Cunningham tells the story of how she came to love and own a home in the country. The country, for Cunningham, is first in Tuxedo Park, New York, about 40 miles from the city, and…

Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

A Widow, A Chihuahua, and Harry Truman is an unusual memoir of grief and recovery. Mary Beth Crain, a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in publications such as Redbook and Cosmopolitan, recounts the story of her too-brief marriage, her husband’s death, and her debilitating depression afterward. She describes her rehabilitation under the guidance of two Harry Trumans the President and the Chihuahua.

Crain was happily married for three years when her husband died of cancer. On the Christmas Eve after his death, Crain was in despair until she was guided to a pet store under rather mysterious and remarkable circumstances. She bought a Chihuahua puppy and named him after her hero, Harry Truman. From this point on, Crain weaves together the two emotional themes of her book: While continuing to mourn her husband’s death, she was falling in love with her new puppy. She reveals how, as she passed through the stages of grieving and letting go, Truman’s devotion and playfulness kept her involved in life and made her laugh. Crain shares the joys and trials of taking home a new pet. The tension in her household escalated after she introduced the puppy to her three hostile and imperious cats. As Truman expanded his social circle, Crain was amazed at the ups and downs of doggy romance, and she and Truman were forced to endure humiliating failure at obedience school. Crain’s patience was challenged when an adolescent Truman decided that being housebroken was boring. Every day Truman brought chaos and craziness into Crain’s life and kept her distracted from her sadness. Throughout the book, Crain reflects on the indomitable spirit and tenacity of her puppy’s namesake, President Harry Truman. As she moved through this difficult time in her life, she was inspired by President Truman’s life and words, and each chapter begins with a bit of practical advice from the man from Independence.

Mary Helen Clarke is a writer and editor in Nashville.

A Widow, A Chihuahua, and Harry Truman is an unusual memoir of grief and recovery. Mary Beth Crain, a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in publications such as Redbook and Cosmopolitan, recounts the story of her too-brief marriage, her husband's death, and her debilitating…

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