Emphasizing personal style, Joan Barzilay Freund’s Defining Style is a freeing, inspiring and extremely innovative look at interior design.
Emphasizing personal style, Joan Barzilay Freund’s Defining Style is a freeing, inspiring and extremely innovative look at interior design.
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Raymond Arsenault’s Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice covers a shorter, more specific time frame. The Freedom Riders were a courageous, racially integrated group of volunteers who traveled together on buses from Washington, D.C., to the heart of Dixie. They openly defied segregation laws and bore the brunt of vicious attacks, including firebombings and physical assaults that occurred in full view of the police. The sheer brutality that was presented on the front pages of major metropolitan newspapers shocked the Kennedy administration into finally protecting the Freedom Riders. Arsenault’s book goes into exacting detail about rides, destination points and vicious acts of retribution during the pivotal year of 1961. It outlines a story of supreme courage against unspeakable cruelty and disgusting bigotry, and presents the Freedom Riders as one group that probably hasn’t gotten the recognition it deserves for its crucial role in the civil rights movement.

Ron Wynn writes for the Nashville City Paper and other publications.

Raymond Arsenault's Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice covers a shorter, more specific time frame. The Freedom Riders were a courageous, racially integrated group of volunteers who traveled together on buses from Washington, D.C., to the heart of Dixie. They openly defied…
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Noted historian Nell Irvin Painter goes back even further than the days of the covered wagon with Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings: 1619 to the Present. Painter blends striking visual depictions with extensive analysis, covering everything from the extent of the African slave trade in North and South America to slavery in the U.S., Reconstruction, and the emergence and development of black culture, politics, economics and community life. She blends candid photos, stills and action shots of key community leaders and hard-working regular folks by artists ranging from Romare Bearden to Kara Walker, and her descriptive portraits are equally diverse, including familiar figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and lesser-known names such as Olaudah Equiano (one of the first African slaves able to record his own account of captivity). Exhaustive yet easily understood and digested,Creating Black Americans supplies plenty of knowledge without ever becoming pedantic or dry.

Ron Wynn writes for the Nashville City Paperand other publications.

Noted historian Nell Irvin Painter goes back even further than the days of the covered wagon with Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings: 1619 to the Present. Painter blends striking visual depictions with extensive analysis, covering everything from the extent of the…
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We’ve been lied to. That’s what Eugene Linden tells us in his formidably researched Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations, a cautionary document that challenges public complacency about global warming. Scientists have, for years, agreed that human activity has seriously altered Earth’s atmosphere to the point where we may be facing severe climate change. But that’s not the story that gets out from our elected officials and from the national media. Linden’s book spends a lot of time in the past, documenting the sudden and mysterious collapse of several advanced civilizations. Why did the Norse Greenland colonies fail? Why did the Mayans abandon their cities? Linden says the answer to these long-pondered mysteries lies in sudden climate change. His emphasis on history puts a face on climate change which can throttle a culture through drought, starvation and disease.

The same could happen to us. Evidence of climate change flickers bursts of extreme climate instability transitional to permanent change are already upon us, Linden suggests. This evidence comes from multiple fronts these days, not just from the ice core blanketing Greenland, but also from oceanic water and sediment samples. Who dropped the ball and forgot to tell the public at large? The majority of scientists who publish in peer-reviewed journals believe human activity could provoke severe climate change in the foreseeable future. But reporters give equal weight to the minority opinion of less credentialed scientists and to scientific experts specifically hired by major industry to downplay the threat of global warming. It’s true that scientists have reached no consensus about the type of climate change we’re looking at or what impacts it will have, but, as Linden notes, ignoring the threat of climate change until every question is settled is a bit like refusing to run from an oncoming tsunami. Lynn Hamilton writes from Tybee Island, Georgia.

We've been lied to. That's what Eugene Linden tells us in his formidably researched Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations, a cautionary document that challenges public complacency about global warming. Scientists have, for years, agreed that human activity has seriously altered…
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Delayed language, tantrums, arm flapping, hyperactivity, incontinence—Rupert Isaacson’s son, Rowan, possessed all the signs associated with autism. Rather than helping, behavioral therapies, diet changes and special classrooms seemed to bring out the worst of the boy’s behaviors. Only when they were riding their neighbor’s mare, Betsy, across a Texas range did Rowan exhibit lucidity and calmness and his father feel some reprieve from his incessant grief and fatigue. Isaacson’s astonishing memoir, The Horse Boy, reveals how, inspired by these rare moments in the saddle, he began a quest through Mongolia to heal his five-year-old son.

A travel writer, accomplished horse rider, and activist for the Bushmen of the Kalahari, Isaacson (The Healing Land) had witnessed the shamans’ indescribable healings and had even borrowed Rowan’s middle name, Besa, from a Bushman healer and good friend. He set his sights first on the shamans of the horse people of Mongolia and then on finding Ghoste, the most powerful shaman of the nomadic reindeer herders in Siberia.

With intensity and candor, Issacson describes their travels by horseback, shamanistic rituals, Rowan’s small leaps forward and continuing setbacks, his own fears and worries after dragging his family across the world, and the miraculous transformations that eventually changed Rowan and brought peace to the family. There’s a reason extreme locales are referred to as Outer Mongolia; the author weaves the flavor of this remote region into his story, from exotic foods that required him to overcome his gag reflex, to river crossings that put both horse and rider in danger.

Isaacson’s journey to heal his son is just that, a healing, not a cure. But he wouldn’t want it any other way. While the author’s purpose was to draw Rowan out of his autism, he came to realize the overlooked gifts it entails. The Horse Boy will leave readers with a new appreciation for autism and the healing techniques of other cultures; like Rowan, they, too, will be changed forever.


Angela Leeper is an educational consultant and writer in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Delayed language, tantrums, arm flapping, hyperactivity, incontinence—Rupert Isaacson’s son, Rowan, possessed all the signs associated with autism. Rather than helping, behavioral therapies, diet changes and special classrooms seemed to bring out the worst of the boy’s behaviors. Only when they were riding their neighbor’s mare,…

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The last time I saw Paris all right, the only time I saw Paris was a few years ago in April. It was neither warm nor cold, which meant I had no chance of packing the right clothes, and it rained seven of the eight days I was there. None of that mattered; all was just as it should have been. Drinking hot chocolate at Angelina’s, walking home in the rain after a 21-sample cheese-tasting, or watching street vendors sell Eiffel Tower trinkets under the real thing, Paris was wonderful. This spring, two books give readers the chance to live or relive the dream of spending April or indeed any time in Paris.

Paris is to haute cuisine as it is to haute couture. Understandably, Gourmet has featured stories about the city since the magazine’s inception. Many of these essays have been collected in Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing From Gourmet. Far from consisting only of food stories though the pieces on particular restaurants, chefs or dishes are, well, scrumptious the writings are also portraits of the city itself, its inhabitants and those fortunate enough to land assignments there. They range from Don Dresden writing about how chefs and customers alike cope with the cream and butter shortages of postwar Paris to Joseph Wechsberg (author of several pieces in the book) writing about the lost joy of walking through the city. But food is the main topic of Remembrance of Things Paris and reading it on an empty stomach is probably not a good idea.

Foodies and fashionistas aren’t the only ones attracted to the French capital, as demonstrated by the wide assortment of writers found in Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology, edited by Adam Gopnik. This fascinating collection is arranged chronologically starting with pieces by influential thinkers such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams and Thomas Paine. Popular culture is represented by a Cole Porter lyric, an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story and a piece by modern dancer Isadora Duncan. James Baldwin writes of spending Christmas in a Paris jail, while James Weldon Johnson head of the NAACP in the 1920s writes of experiencing equality for the first time during a 1905 visit. The variety of people represented in the book from Mark Twain to Elizabeth Bishop to M.L.

K. Fischer, for example and the wide spectrum of their experiences gives Americans in Paris a broad appeal, making it accessible to an audience beyond that of Francophiles and lovers of literature.

Both these books are good for reminiscing about or anticipating a trip to Paris. Read them from a comfortable chair at home, during a transatlantic flight or at a small cafŽ table in the city itself.

The last time I saw Paris all right, the only time I saw Paris was a few years ago in April. It was neither warm nor cold, which meant I had no chance of packing the right clothes, and it rained seven of the eight…
Review by

The last time I saw Paris all right, the only time I saw Paris was a few years ago in April. It was neither warm nor cold, which meant I had no chance of packing the right clothes, and it rained seven of the eight days I was there. None of that mattered; all was just as it should have been. Drinking hot chocolate at Angelina’s, walking home in the rain after a 21-sample cheese-tasting, or watching street vendors sell Eiffel Tower trinkets under the real thing, Paris was wonderful. This spring, two books give readers the chance to live or relive the dream of spending April or indeed any time in Paris.

Paris is to haute cuisine as it is to haute couture. Understandably, Gourmet has featured stories about the city since the magazine’s inception. Many of these essays have been collected in Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing From Gourmet. Far from consisting only of food stories though the pieces on particular restaurants, chefs or dishes are, well, scrumptious the writings are also portraits of the city itself, its inhabitants and those fortunate enough to land assignments there. They range from Don Dresden writing about how chefs and customers alike cope with the cream and butter shortages of postwar Paris to Joseph Wechsberg (author of several pieces in the book) writing about the lost joy of walking through the city. But food is the main topic of Remembrance of Things Paris and reading it on an empty stomach is probably not a good idea.

Foodies and fashionistas aren’t the only ones attracted to the French capital, as demonstrated by the wide assortment of writers found in Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology, edited by Adam Gopnik. This fascinating collection is arranged chronologically starting with pieces by influential thinkers such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams and Thomas Paine. Popular culture is represented by a Cole Porter lyric, an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story and a piece by modern dancer Isadora Duncan. James Baldwin writes of spending Christmas in a Paris jail, while James Weldon Johnson head of the NAACP in the 1920s writes of experiencing equality for the first time during a 1905 visit. The variety of people represented in the book from Mark Twain to Elizabeth Bishop to M.L.K. Fischer, for example and the wide spectrum of their experiences gives Americans in Paris a broad appeal, making it accessible to an audience beyond that of Francophiles and lovers of literature.

Both these books are good for reminiscing about or anticipating a trip to Paris. Read them from a comfortable chair at home, during a transatlantic flight or at a small cafe table in the city itself.

 

The last time I saw Paris all right, the only time I saw Paris was a few years ago in April. It was neither warm nor cold, which meant I had no chance of packing the right clothes, and it rained seven of the…

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