Product Description
"A Decent Place to Live is a fabulous piece of work. Well-written, candid and engaging, its honesty is refreshing; nothing is swept under the rug. The voices of the tenants carry the story forward, but the transformation of Columbia Point is set in a political context and the impact of government policies is explored. A valuable resource for urban planners, architects, housing policy makers, and developers." -- Hubert E. Jones, Assistant Chancellor for Urban Affairs, University of Massachusetts, Boston ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

What about the good times!
I lived in Columbia Point from 1963 - 1973 and I don't see anything in this book about the good times we had there.Lived on Montpelier Road and Monticello Avenue and I sure had some good times.I remember Ms. Shearer and her lovely family and Ms. McCluskey and her family - I use to go to school with them and they were good friends with my mother working at the Health Center.There were good times when parents looked out after other parent kids while working hard and keeping us in check; I marched with the Dorchester Brigadiers and remember when they were under St. Christopher.I had a wonderful stay at CP and I am not a shame to say that I did.I don't remember too much trouble back them as we go dancing at the Center; playing basketball in the city league at the playground.But the most of all that I will never forget is the summer jobs that Bernie Sneed, Ben Wade and Stevie Sullivan were my supervisors and we had wonderful time.They were discipline people and I admire them for what they contributed to the community, especially Bernie Sneed.Oh I have to speak on the "summer thing" across the street from the Center every summer - there was always something going on in CP.

Those Dorchester Brigadiers and myself, marching through Columbia Point (all through the Point) and everyone looking out their windows cheering, coming out of the buildings cheering us on as they could here use all the way up near the church.I remember marching in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in South Boston.Incredible!Those were the days that I remember and not the bad!

In 1973, my parents stated that it is time to go but I kept coming out to visit my friends - I missed them so much as I was also angry that my parents took us out of CP.

I know everyone in this book that spoke their minds, use to working under Ms. Young and the people in this book were and still great people.What happened after our family moved out, I can't speak on it but can amazing what happened, that's everywhere.So this book should of focus on the good and the bad and not just only on the bad because back in the day, it was a great place to be rise at and look at me know, I turn out alright!

A Decent Place to Live, Indeed
This is a book detailing the entire history of a Boston neighborhood I lived in for 5 years ('89-'94). And...it's good! It's well-written, comprehensive, & thoroughly researched.

The point of the book was how the neighborhood rebounded after degenerating into one of the worst & most notorious housing projects in the country. Due to a few local businessmen dedicated to their home city & a team of local community leaders (strong-willed housewives & grandmothers, mainly), the neglected, miserable-looking brick buildings were eradicated (along with the tainted "Columbia Point" name) & smartly-designed townhouses & apartment complexes took their place. The key to it all was the fusing of considerable private funds (the local businessmen) with state & federal funds to create an attractive profit-generating mixed-income developement that would appeal to professionals while at the same time treating the poorer long-time residents as equal partners in community decisions. In addition, because of all the funding, the landscaping was greatly improved, a private security force was created, and amenities like tennis courts, a gym, & a pool were added. And as a result, Harbor Point WAS a decent place to live.

Brilliant!

Why can't ALL housing projects be redone like this?

... Read more

Product Description
This book is a lively account of a community working to combat suburban sprawl and discover how to live responsibly on the land. A founder of the Land's Sake community farm in Weston, Massachusetts, Brian Donahue describes the joys and sorrows of farming in the suburbs. He calls for every community to protect its common land, establish community farms, and engage citizens with the land on which they live. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A must read!
Reclaiming the Commons is an excellent read for anyone interested in the natural history of New England, community farming, open space issues, and the value of farms in thelandscape. This is a well written, thoughtful book that offers an inspiring vision for a future of locally produced food, protected farmland, and community involvement that farms help to create.

A book that will inspire action
In Reclaiming the Commons, Brian Donahue has given us a remarkable portrait of a thriving community farm in Weston, Massachusetts called Land's Sake. In 1980 the nonprofit organization Land's Sake was formed inWeston, a suburb of Boston, to work closely with the town's ConservationCommission on managing and using the town's growing public land. Its threefounding principles were to care ecologically for Weston's land, to involvethe community and especially young people with the land, and to be asself-supporting as possible through the sale of products and services. Bythinking of the land as a rural space that could "benefit from ourpresence, rather than need to be protected from us," they opened thepossibility that they could engage suburban youth with the land and producehigh-quality natural products for local sale, offering ample educationaland recreational activities while striking "a balance betweenprotecting natural ecosystems and making sustainable, productive use of theland."

Land's Sake sends about one-fifth of their fresh organicproduce to Boston's homeless shelters and food pantries, as well assponsoring a Harvest for Hunger every September, thus ensuring that theirsurplus finds an assured wholesale market (the town pays the price to sendthe food to the inner city) which benefits the disadvantaged anddisenfranchised in the nearby urban areas. Donahue shows that suburbia"is the condition of residing outside the city proper with littlefunctional connection to one's neighbors, aside from the schools, andalmost no functional connection to the land," and he shows thatcommunity farms on common land offer a vibrant opportunity to keep farmlandfrom being lost to development, and to transform the suburban conditionfrom alienation to connection. This is a surprisingly powerful and excitingbook that will show suburban and city readers how to become more connectedto their land and to their source of food.

This is a fresh approach to sustainable suburban living.
This book,written by a newcomer in the environmental landscape, will become a landmark. It points the way to transform the suburban way of life into one that is sustainable.This it would do by converting suburban openspaces into community sanctuaries for agriculture,husbandry and forestry,administered by suburbanites themselves,especially by their youngsters.Thegreat strength of the proposals is that they have been demonstrated to workby the author and his associates in the upscale Boston suburb of Weston.Another plus is the grace and humor with whichthe book is blessed.

OUTSTANDING! Pointed, engaging, inspiring, and well-written.
OUTSTANDING!Very impressive!Pointed, engaging, and inspiring from the get-go.Andextraordinarily well-written -- my innate and involuntary tendency tomentally edit anything I'm reading was off in another countysomeplace. ... Read more

Product Description
Across the country, white ethnics have fled cities for suburbs. But many have stayed in their old neighborhoods. When the busing crisis erupted in Boston in the 1970s, Catholics were in the forefront of resistance. Jews, 70,000 of whom had lived in Roxbury and Dorchester in the early 1950s, were invisible during the crisis.They were silent because they departed the city more quickly and more thoroughly than Boston's Catholics. Only scattered Jews remained in Dorchester and Roxbury by the mid-1970s. In telling the story of why the Jews left and the Catholics stayed, Gerald Gamm places neighborhood institutions-churches, synagogues, community centers, schools-at its center. He challenges the long-held assumption that bankers and real estate agents were responsible for the rapid Jewish exodus. Rather, according to Gamm, basic institutional rules explain the strength of Catholic attachments to neighborhood and the weakness of Jewish attachments. Because they are rooted, territorially defined, and hierarchical, parishes have frustrated the urban exodus of Catholic families. And because their survival was predicated on their portability and autonomy, Jewish institutions exacerbated the Jewish exodus. Gamm shows that the dramatic transformation of urban neighborhoods began not in the 1950s or 1960s, but in the 1920s. Not since Anthony Lukas's Common Ground has there been a book that so brilliantly explores not just Boston's dilemma but the roots of the American urban crisis.Amazon.com Review
Boston's so-called white flight of the 1960s and '70s became anational symbol of the urban crisis. But what caused whites to move tothe suburbs in such great numbers? Common knowledge holds that aninflux of African Americans, assisted by the Boston Banks UrbanRenewal Group, pushed Jews out of their neighborhoods and into thesuburbs. In Urban Exodus, however, historian GeraldH. Gamm argues that the driving force behind suburbanization isnot race but religion.

Gamm studies two remarkably similar Boston neighborhoods, Roxbury andDorchester, and argues that, while the Jewish population left, theCatholics stayed because of religious rules--rules that "are real notbecause they are written down but because they are obeyed." Looking atcanon law and Talmudic guidelines, he separates issues of membership,authority, and "rootedness." In brief, Catholic congregations arebound by the geographical lines of their parishes and the physicalstructures of their parish churches, as established by Churchhierarchy. Jewish congregations, on the other hand, are moreautonomous, with the power to create and dissolve synagogues--andworshippers are not bound by geography and can attend the synagoguesof their choice. Gamm is quick to point out that he does not arguethat Catholics are necessarily more likely than Jews to stay in urbanneighborhoods, but that the Catholic parish is better able to sustainneighborhood attachments. He also notes that race is a newerissue--"only after the urban exodus had nearly run its course,emptying apartments and lowering rents, were blacks able to overcomelongstanding barriers to entry." Indeed, it was the growing populationof the automobile and automobile suburbs in the 1920s that pushedsuburbanization, as middle-class whites left still-white urbanneighborhoods. Urban Exodus is a thought-provoking look at theshifting populations in America's cities--and the role organizedreligion plays in those shifts. --Sunny Delaney ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

One of the Best Books about American Cities
Probably one of the best books about U.S. cities since Jane Jacobs. The analysis of Jewish and Catholic settlement patterns was so detailed and presented so well, it lead me to read a whole series of books on religion I wouldn't have touched otherwise.

While it touches on a potentially sensitive topic, Gamm's approach is strictly academic. He presents a lot of data without getting dogmatic or blaming or praising anyone. This is where the book's strength really lies.There is almost no finger pointing whatsoever, rather tons of data to back up a chronicle of events. He documents how the regional archdiocese had tremendous power, and required people to change churches if they moved. A Dorchester church couldn't just pick up and move to Newton, but without a powerful, central authority, a South End synagogue could very easily re-locate to Brookline, which many did. This issue of central authority was particular to Catholics, because Boston's original Puritans placed most of the organizing power in the congregation, similar to how the Jews did.

I would like to see an update to this book now that many of the formerly Irish Catholic parishes in the city have become Latin American Catholic. I don't live in Boston anymore, but I know many Irish-Americans have moved out of Southie to southern suburbs from Quincy to Plymouth.

Whether you agree with Gamm or not, you learn a lot reading this book because it is filled with so much data and brings a whole new set of ideas on suburbanization you don't see with many urban planning books, which get caught up in blaming politicians and bankers without doing the sort of in-depth research Gamm did.

When "Common Knowledge" Goes Wrong
This is primarily a response to the previous review. The reviewer calls this book "provocative", which is to damn with faint praise. It is far more than provocative; it overturns what has become gospel truth for a generation - that the Jews were forced out of Boston byhidden, mysterious forces. Malevolent bankers, with their red pens, together with city fathers seeking to keep black residents away from Catholic neighborhoods, had funnelled African-American home-buyers into the solidly Jewish district of Mattapan. In his examination of the subject, the author tests this claim, and proves with many documented sources than the accepted story is false. There was redlining, but the districts redlined included many white, Catholic neighborhoods that did not see white flight during the same years. The previous reviewer claims that the Irish Catholics of Dorchester did leave, but that was only well after theredlining that is claimed to have driven the Jews out of Mattapan. In fact, the author documents that the flight of Jews from Mattapan began before redlining went into effect, and was led by Jewish neighborhoods that were actually outside of the redlined district.
Debunking an accepted story can be difficult when the story is so entrenched that no one sees a need to reexamine the original question. This may be the case here. Newspaper articles continue to be written based on the accepted version of history. The story of malevolant bureaucrats suits our time: Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma all conspire against us. The accepted story of redlining in Boston protects us from having to answer the uncomfortable question: if redlining didn't cause Jews to sell their homes, what did? If the Jews had legitimate fears of crime from African-Americans, we blame the blacks. If the Jews didn't have legitimate fears of black encroachment in their neighborhoods, we have to ask whether the Jews were too racist to deal with black neighbors. Better we should keep blaming the bankers in their offices than reopen those old wounds.
Don't trust me - buy the book, or find it at the library, and make up your own mind.

book quite different from its title
The Book examines why white ethnics left the inner city of Boston which became almost exclusively minority. 50,000 Jews lived in the FranklinPark/Franklin Field Blue Hill Avenue area of Boston as recently as the 50sand today they are all gone.

The title suggests that Jews left andCatholics didn't. The author demonstrates that Jewish institutions such assynagogues were portable and that most of the major synagogues moved fromBoston to the suburbs. The author shows that Catholic institutions cannotmove and that parishioners must worship at the church where they live.However, the author shows that most white Catholics also left as theAfrican-American population expanded south. The churches remained to servea non-white Catholic population, particularly immigrants from Haiti andCentral and South America. The author does not address how it might havebeen possible to build a stable, multi-racial community in Boston. Heunderestimates the effects of the BBURG line, blockbusting, and redliningin the process of neighborhood transition here. He devotes inadequateattention to efforts at community building, crime watches and such thatwould have assisted in attacking the breakdown of order which impacted thechange in neighborhood.

The author does show that Jewish movement to besuburbs began as early as the 20s and that those remaining in Boston werelargely older and poorer. As the institutions moved out, anyone who couldmoved as well, to Newton and Brookline, or south to Sharon and towns aroundit. Catholic movement south out of Boston accelerated with the schooldesegregation decision in 1975.

Worth reading for a provocative thesis,even if I don't agree with most of it. Should be compared to Levine andHarmon's Death of an American Jewish Community which is a different take onthe same events. This is a sad description of the rather sudden end to aonce viable urban community. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

vital contribution
It's difficult to express how important a contribution Streets of Glory is to the sociology of religion as well as to black religion.He really helped us understand how the black church relates to the vicissitudes of urban life in ways that were previously unexplored. He reveals how a black urban locality can be saturated with churches and yet fail miserably in disabusing the socio-economic challenges of that locality because many of those churches don't identify with the community.In other words, they're choosing localities based on low overhead, so they don't invest in or develop solidarity with the surrounding community.If we were looking to the church to solve urban problems, McRoberts let's us know that maybe we better look elsewhere.This is a monumental contribution and is why many people are referring to McRoberts as the next "C.Eric Lincoln.

Essential Reading on Afro-American Religion
This is essential reading in any study or class in the sociology of religion more broadly put, or especially the"Black Church" or Black Liberation Theology.McRoberts demonstrates the vitality and variety of at least this 'corner' of African-American church life.

A Classic
This is the most important study of black urban religious life in a long time, and University of Chicago sociologist Omar McRoberts gives us a lot to think about here.

The book focuses on Four Corners, a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Boston composed of Holiness-Pentecostal-Apostolic and "mainline" (Baptist, Catholic, and United Methodist) congregations but also numerous black Caribbean and Hispanic immigrant churches. There are so many churches in the neighborhood that it is what McRoberts calls a "religious district"--a depressed area where vacant commercial spaces provide space for religious institutions looking for property with cheap rent. One might expect that the sheer religious presence of all these churches would help turn a poor neighborhood around quickly, but apparently most of the people coming on Sunday are commuters from other parts of the city who feel little responsibility for the area their churches happen to be in. That leaves community activists, local politicians, and the efforts of some concerned ministers and laity to try and save Four Corners. It is a story that may be found in similar urban areas all across the country, and Streets of Glory helps us understand their particular nature, problems, and possible future.

McRoberts is a tremendous scholar and writer--an authoritative and imaginative new voice in urban sociology, and a keen observer of the highest order. This is ethnography at its best, and it will be a classic on many reading lists for years to come...

Solid scholarship -- dry read.
How the author of this book can take something so rich, dramatic, lush, vibrant, controversial, dynamic, powerful, human, and compelling -- black urban religious life -- and write a book that is boring, dead, overly analytical, and hyper-dull is nothing short of astounding.
No doubt this is top-notch sociological scholarship. But does it also have to be so dry ? If you like academic journal articles, you'll love this book . If you want an engrossing, engaging, enthographic-like read which really draws you in to a community, which lets you get to know these people as thinking and feeling humans, which takes you into the actual drama of urban religous life, you'll be let down.Yes, the author reveals some interesting scholarly conclusions. But that's about it. ... Read more

Product Description

In this fascinating book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder takes us inside the everyday workings of Northampton, Massachusetts -- a place that seems to personify the typical American hometown. Kidder unveils the complex drama behind the seemingly ordinary lives of Northampton's residents. And out of these stories he creates a splendid, startling portrait of a town, in a narrative that gracefully travels among past and present, public and private, joy and sorrow.

A host of real people are alive in these pages: a tycoon with a crippling ailment; a criminal whom the place has beguiled, a genial and merciful judge, a single mother struggling to start a new life at Smith College; and, at the center, a policeman who patrols the streets of his beloved hometown with a stern yet endearing brand of morality -- and who is about to discover the peril of spending a whole life in one small place. Their stories take us behind the town's facades and reveal how individuals shape the social conscience of a community. Home Town is an unflinching yet lovingly rendered account of how a traditional American town endures and evolves at the turn of the millenniums.Amazon.com Review
Northampton, Massachusetts, boasts a rich history that dates back to the 17th century. It is home to Mount Holyoke, which has been climbed by Charles Dickens and Henry James (among others), and to Sylvia Plath's alma mater, Smith College. It has always been the quintessential New England town, while becoming in recent years a politically progressive small city, whose population of 30,000 has WASPs rubbing elbows with lesbians, immigrants, students, and the homeless. Driven by a narrative force comparable to that of the best fiction, Home Town is a remarkable evocation of small-town life at the end of the 20th century.

Probing beneath Northampton's friendly exterior, Pulitzer-winning author Tracy Kidder uncovers the town's many layers, from the lowest to the highest rungs of society, and renders a portrait of Northampton by introducing those who know it best. Kidder relies most heavily on native Tommy O'Connor, a 33-year-old police sergeant who has never left his beloved hometown. Tommy's optimism and gentle humor make him an appealing guide, as he shows both the darkest and most charming streets of his town and wrestles with a future that may forever alter his relationship to Northampton. Kidder also introduces readers to Laura Baumeister, a young working mother and Ada Comstock scholar at Smith College who is struggling to care for her son and keep up with the rigorous school curriculum; Alan Scheinman, a real estate lawyer who made a fortune in the 1980s, now plagued by a crippling case of obsessive-compulsive disorder; and Samson Rodriguez, a former loom operator who may have been one of the first people to bring crack cocaine to Northampton. --Kera Bolonik ... Read more

Customer Reviews (59)

Nothing is very ordinary to Kidder.


Few writers can take a slice of daily life in an "ordinary" town and make it as engrossing and interesting as Kidder. Northhampton, Mass. Is the focus of HOMETOWN and here Kidder finds a number of tales worth relating to the reader. Focusing on Tommy O'Connor, a police sergeant who grew up there and is gradually starting to feel constrained by his hometown's daily life, Kidder looks at many lives in the community, from the local eccentric, a once successful lawyer, who now is hoarder and is trapped by his OCD to a young single mother looking for a new start with a scholarship program at Smith College, Kidder populates his book with people whose lives become more interesting under his probing examination. From O'Connor's turmoil over his life and a friend's possible guilt in a molestation case to the misadventures of the police department's local informant, there are a number of fascinating stories. The main problem for me lies in the disjointed approach to the examination of these lives; as O'Connor seems to be a tenuous anchor to the stories in some cases. But this is minor concern and really didn't interfere with my enjoyment of this work. Kidder's ability to make the commonplace intriguing is fascinating and well-worth your time.

True flavor of Northampton
Tracy Kidder fills out the backround of Northampton for someone like me who has visited.We may be a young country, but this is a 400-yr-old town in our country and the town and the elite institution of Smith College are inextricably interwoven in undeniable and still yet undiscovered ways.

Good Local Drama
I would imagine you could only enjoy this book if you lived in or near New England. Its fun reading. I would have to agree with others who know this town that it is NOT your typical New England town. Its a college town with cool restaurants, an extreme liberal bent and a strong homosexual identity. Worcester, MA is a far more interesting place. I love Tracy Kidder's books.

wonderful portrait of a corner of America
Kidder does here what he does best: put the reader in the mind and world of the people you pass on the street every day. Nuanced characters exist in real-life situations and work through the same tough decisions that we all face each day. There's real artistry in this simplicity.

I don't imagine that the book is a perfectly accurate depiction of the town or the people in it. Nonetheless, it is an engaging one that perhaps can teach us about the people we pass every day on the sidewalk and in the grocery aisle.

Certainly, this isn't Kidder's top work. It does have its place, though, among Kidder's efforts to help us understand the communities we live in.

New England Style
This book follows the style of many of Tracy Kidder's works, and uses a specific person to help form the supporting structure of the book, which allows the reader to become involved in the text as they would in a novel.Home Town follows the career of a police officer in the small Massachusetts town of Northampton.O'Connor grew up in the town, and now serves the community by helping reduce drug trafficking and other crimes.Each of the people that intersect Tommy O'Connor's life is explored in some detail during the book: Alan, who becomes trapped by his obsessive need to stay clean; Laura, an Ada Comstock Scholar at Smith College who managed to make it even though many would prefer she be kept down; Rick, an old childhood friend & police officerwho goes through divorce and jail time for child molestation, and the various drug informants. Mr. Kidder's writing allows you to join each of the characters as they follow a path through life in Northampton.It is highly recommended, as are other works by this author. ... Read more

Product Description
Now available in paperback, the entrancing story of how one woman's journey of self-discovery gave her the courage to persevere in re-creating her life.

Life is a work in progress, as ever-changing as a sandy shoreline along the beach. During the years Joan Anderson was a loving wife and supportive mother, she had slowly and unconsciously replaced her own dreams with the needs of her family. With her sons grown, however, she realized that the family no longer centered on the home she provided, and her relationship with her husband had become stagnant. Like many women in her situation, Joan realized that she had neglected to nurture herself and, worse, to envision fulfilling goals for her future. As her husband received a wonderful job opportunity out-of-state, it seemed that the best part of her own life was finished. Shocking both of them, she refused to follow him to his new job and decided to retreat to a family cottage on Cape Cod.
At first casting about for direction, Joan soon began to take plea-sure in her surroundings and call on resources she didn't realize she had. Over the course of a year, she gradually discovered that her life as an "unfinished woman" was full of possibilities. Out of that magical, difficult, transformative year came A Year by the Sea, a record of her experiences and a treasury of wisdom for readers.
This year of self-discovery brought about extraordinary changes in the author's life. The steps that Joan took to revitalize herself and rediscover her potential have helped thousands of woman reveal and release untapped resources within themselves.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (136)

AYear by the Sea:Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman
This book was enlightening for me, to realize there are other women who have the same feeling I do. There are many of us who try to be all to all people. I could not put it down, and even have reread it.I have passed on her book to many people.It is a must read for all women and men who want to know what their mid-age wife is going through.

If ever I wanted to dress up like Cher, slap someone, and tell her to "snap out of it", it was after reading this book
The writer of this book is absolutely irritating. The thought behind it -- excellent. I was actually jealous at the writer's ability to make a decision to take a year away from her marriage for reflection, and that she had the resources to do so. I relished the opportunity to curl up with her for a year, feeling sad, or happy, joyous or disappointed, as she wrote about her experience.

Instead, I found my forcefully slamming the book down at times, and at other times, heaving deep sighs of irritation and annoyance. I thought Joan was a whiner who didn't appreciate the abundance of riches she had available to her, to even think about this experiment, let alone carry it out.

Poor me, my marriage has grown stagnant. My children are grown. I'm lonely. I'm overweight. Join the club, sister. But, guess where you and most of your readers part company? Many of us are still slaving away at the 9-5 jobs which put food on the table and pay the rent or mortgage. We don't have options. We don't have Cape Cod getaway houses, multiple vehicles, royalty checks arriving, a savings account we can empty to make the leap, and a year of free time to write about our disappointments.

I don't begrudge her what she had. I just wish she would have had more tact, class and dignity not to write from a place where she felt she had to constantly lament her life, when she had more abundance -- an embarrassment of riches, really -- in that little cottage and the option to retreat to it, than legions of sad and lonely married women have.

I also have to hand it her to husband, estranged during this time, who took a few steps to make her grow up and stop whining. For instance, her cottage belonged to her family before she married and it came down through "her side of the family", not his. Long after she'd separated from her husband and moved to her cottage, and he'd moved to another state to start over a new career as well, the cottage needed a major repair. What did she do? Called him for financial help. Another PBS review states he "refused to help" and I think this was totally justified. The husband pointed out, and I think fairly so, that this was her house, her problem. He had bills, as well. Two mortgages to make (his new house, the old house), etc. It was her decision to take a year off and create this financially precarious situation, and she can't have it both ways -- the independence of living alone, and the expectation that her estranged husband would fix her house for her the minute something went wrong.

She then wrung her hands and lamented about what she had to do --- gasp --- GET A JOB and earn extra money digging clams and such, to pay for the repairs. Welcome to our world, Joan, the world populated by single, divorced women everywhere -- and with small children, working two jobs to make ends meet.

I also felt she used too much poetic rambling. She uses 10 words when she could use 5 and there was just such a sense of "Look at me, I'm a writer. I can write about a rainstorm and make it sound as if I'm watching it in technicolor."

I appreciate nature and all its glory, but the best way to cook fresh ingredients is to let them shine through with simple recipes. Ditto nature and her beautiful displays. You don't need to ramp up the poetry to help describe Mother Nature's beauty. We GET it.

I still envy her ability to take herself away to reflect, and I think she made some wonderful observations which many women, me included, will benefit from, gut good gosh, she was so annoying.

someone who shares my own thoughts
This is the only book I have read three times.I was so excited when I found Amazon and some more of Joan Anderson's books, as I hadn't been able to buy these in Australia.

This book is for any woman, who has been a daughter, girlfriend, wife, mother, and hasn't had a lot of time for themselves. It makes you think, and it makes you long for solitude, and if you cant get it, value any time you can grab alone.

Decidedly overwritten and self-centered
I would not say that I didn't enjoy reading this book, only that I came away from it with thoughts almost the opposite of what I would have expected. I am nearing 50 myself, and having raised a large family, I am interested in books that offer ideas for what happens next. I also find the idea of some time away from the busyness of my household very appealing. I am completely on board with the idea that a woman (or a man for that matter) needs to re-evaluate and even re-invent themselves at this point in life.
The author has a ridiculously overwrought style- several other reviewers have mentioned that nearly every paragraph contains a metaphor meant to be extremely deep, but which is in reality an attempt to imbue the most mundane of thoughts with cosmic metaphysical import. I found upsetting the complete lack of respect and compassion that she has for her husband of many years- and while she keeps claiming that she has been a devoted and self sacrificing wife and mother, it is her obsession with her own thoughts and feelings that comes across most clearly. You get a more than a glimpse of her true character, and I pity her daughters-in -law- her desire to control and know the details of her sons' lives is disturbing.

Most disturbing to me was the older woman- Joan Erickson- who miraculously appears in her life in this semi- deserted seaside town. The woman may be another metaphor, this time for a wiser and more mature Joan Anderson, but I believe she is supposed to be a tangible person, and as such is very unbelievable. Pearls of wisdom fairly drip every time she opens her mouth- most of them as shallow and forced as the rest of the dialogue in the book. As a fiber artist I have to say that the dialogue between them when she teaches Joan to weave is ludicrous- another overused metaphor of the threads being the threads of one's life. Please. Sometimes thread is just... thread.

I came away from the book still longing for my own year (or month) by the sea, with a few insights, but mostly the feeling that I'm glad I'm nothing like the author, and very thankful for my husband, who, like the author's husband, is a really decent guy.

Thought provoking...
Perhaps because I was going through 'that time' of my life as well, I found this story very inspiring. As women, we are often times judged when we take time out for ourselves. But that is what Joan did, and she found out lots of things about herself, that she wouldn't have realized any other way. Would recommend (to women reaching 'middle' age). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Daiquiri Girls
Readers should be aware that this book was not written by the "other" Toni Graham, the author of a book titled Sleeping with the Pastor.The two writers have nothing in common except the coincidence of their names.

Humanizing and substantial, an awakening read.
The Daiquiri Girls is an intimate exploration of the lives of four women facing the torrent of fear and self-loathing so prevalent in contemporary society.While the characters themselves represent a somewhat typicalmixture of alcoholism and helplessness, Graham's narratives move us into afresh perspective on the process of empowerment.As the characters awakento the reality of their surroundings, a similar awakening presents itselfto the reader as well. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
While gay male literary criticism abounds, much of it is based in theacademy and uses the critical perceptions of postmodernism and queertheory to elucidate both popular and literary work. In this context, ReedWoodhouse's Unlimited Embrace shines out like a beacon. Coveringwork from the 1950s (James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room andthe short stories of Tennessee Williams) to contemporary novels such as Dennis Cooper's Frisk and Dale Peck'sMartin and John, Woodhouse attempts to create a cohesivetapestry out of diverse, imaginative styles, attitudes, and intentions. Sucha project is fraught with difficulty, and Woodhouse is careful not tomisrepresent or misread specific works to make them fit his theories. Thebest part of Unlimited Embrace is the author's own exuberance,excitement, and enmity to individual works. Like the film critic PaulineKael--known for her sharp intelligence and even sharper tongue--Woodhouseis unafraid to venture opinions when he knows they are idiosyncratic oreven contrary to "accepted" opinion. Whether praising Dennis Cooper'stransgressive narratives over David Leavitt's assimilationist novels, orpreferring Samuel Delany's perversely brilliant The MadMan over Stephen McCauley's popular The Object of MyAffection, Woodhouse makes his cases with flair and panache and willdelight and infuriate even the most stolid lover of literature. --Michael Bronski ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Don't Miss It
One of the more engaging and refreshing studies of its type, though not without its controversial readings of the literature, much of which is not as insightful as this.

Flat-out Brilliant
This book not only offers incredible insight into the work of gay fictionwriters, it offers brilliant observations about what it's like to live lifeas a gay man.Woodhouse's ideas are original, compelling, and dead-on.Myonly reservation is that too few readers will be brave or intelligentenough to take Woodhouse's ideas and observations and apply them to theirown lives.That's where they belong.

literary criticism with a personal touch
The acid test of a book like this is whether or not you can disagree withsome of the author's opinions but still want to keep reading, and Woodhousesucceeds just fine at passing this test. The openly personal nature of hisreadings of the texts he chooses excuses the leaving-out of so much (forinstance, a gay "canon" with nothing about Gordon Merrick?), andthe author's articulateness makes me hope he'll write a sequel. ... Read more

Product Description
Perhaps no other natural setting has as much literary, spiritual, and environmental significance for Americans as Walden Pond. Some 700,000 people visit the pond annually, and countless others journey to Walden in their mind, to contemplate the man who lived there and what the place means to us today. Here is the first history of the Massachusetts pond Thoreau made famous 150 years ago. W. Barksdale Maynard offers a lively and comprehensive account of Walden Pond from the early nineteenth century to the present. From Thoreau's first visit at age 4 in 1821--"That woodland vision for a long time made the drapery of my dreams"--to today's efforts both to conserve the pond and allow public access, Maynard captures Walden Pond's history and the role it has played in social, cultural, literary, and environmental movements in America. Along the way Maynard details the geography of the pond; Thoreau's and Emerson's experiences of Walden over their lifetimes; the development of the cult of Thoreau and the growth of the pond as a site of literary and spiritual pilgrimages; rock star Don Henley's Walden Woods Project and the much publicized battle to protect the pond from developers in the 1980s; and the vitally important ecological symbol Walden Pond has become today.Exhaustively researched, vividly written, and illustrated with historical photographs and the most detailed maps of Thoreau country yet created, Walden Pond: A History reveals how an ordinary pond has come to be such an extraordinarily inspiring symbol. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

A lively account of the pond from early to modern times
Some 700,000 people visit Walden Pond annually and others journey to Walden mentally in contemplating of the region Henry David Thoreau made famous. It's surprising, therefore, to note that this is the first history of Walden Pond to appear in over 150 years, providing a lively account of the pond from early to modern times. W. Barksdale Maynard teaches architectural history at Johns Hopkins University and one might anticipate from this a dry perspective: not so. Walden Pond captures the social, political and conservation issues revolving around Waden over the decades.

A fascinating history of Walden Pond
For years to come, historians and literary scholars will know this book as the definitive history of Walden Pond.But it's also a delightful read.Combining impeccable scholarship with skillful writing, Maynard brings Walden Pond's storied history to life, from Thoreau's first visit as a little boy to today's preservation battles."Walden Pond: A History" is a brilliant book.

AN AMAZING BOOK
Walden Pond:A History has received positive reviews during its first month of release.Kirkus gave it a coveted ?star.?Also, the ecologist Ed Schofield has written the following five-star review on a national bookstore website: ?AN AMAZING BOOK.I know a good deal about Walden Pond and Walden Woods as a result of many years of personal research.I never thought that anyone would be able to bring together, between the covers of one book, the astonishing amount of information Barksdale Maynard has compiled and integrated in this scrupulously researched and well written book.He has brought together facts from all sorts of sources: newspapers and magazines, books, unpublished letters and diaries, eyewitness interviews, videos, radio broadcasts, maps, and so forth.There are fifty pages of endnotes and bibliography - over 500 of each.I am in awe at what he has been able to do. (Wish I could have done it!)Anyone interested in historic preservation,nature conservation, human nature, grassroots activism, literature, or (most important) Thoreau and Walden itself will enjoy this book.It has lots of information, yet it reads easily and has a good ?story line?: how and why Walden has become the symbol it is and what people have done to protect it.The hero of heroes is Don Henley of The Eagles.There are lots of other people - heroes, villains, oddballs, famous people (Emerson, the Alcotts, John Muir, Walt Whitman, the Kennedys, the Clintons, and many others).I recommend the book highly.?

Should be titled "THE "History of Walden Pond
This is a book that has been over 200 years in the making.
Maynard has done a fabulous job of combining history,environmentalism, science, popular culture and "gossipy stories" in order to paint a highly interesting and balanced history of Walden Pond, before, during and after Henry Thoreau's famous sojourn there.
Thoreauvians will find lots to admire in this book. Maynard has obviously done his research on Thoreau and his times.In particular I was amused by the amazement of some Concordians,in Thoreau's time and after, who just couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about over the so-called hermit of Walden Pond. But more importantly, the book looks above and beyond Thoreau's realationship to the Pond and Maynard goes into exquisite detail about life at Walden after 1847. If dedicted Thoreauvians abhor the so-called commercialism of the place now, be thankful it's not the 1930's, when all vestiges of Walden as a "sacred" spot were practically destoyed. Maynard does well to explain the ups and downs that the Pond has been through the last 150 years.
In particular I was pleased to see the way the author treated Thoreau's contemporaries, particularly Bronson Alcott. All of the Transcendentalists had a special fondness for Walden and their love of the place-and the love that millions have shared over the last 150 years- really comes out. It is obvious that Maynard loves Walden as well.
And, he also does a good job of explaining the many fights to preserve Walden, and the in-fighting and back-stabbing that has, unfortunately, been as much a part of Walden's history as the Transcendentalists. But Maynard's reporting is fair and balanced and he doesn't seem to take sides. Still, I'm sure he will have stepped on somebody's toes with this book!
If anyone is interested in American History,Conservation, Henry Thoreau or just an interesting piece of Americana, "Walden Pond; A Hsitory" is a must read!

excellent history
Walden Pond by W. Barksdale Maynardis an excellent history, thoroughly researched and written in the best prose style. ... Read more

Product Description
A senior editor at Progressive Architecture takes an engaging look at life in America's suburbs, analyzing how the layout of suburbs has actually contributed to discontent and isolation. He also provides alternative designs to make suburban neighborhoods more workable. 92 photos; 10 line drawings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Great book on urban planning
I read this book about 10 years ago and it really changed the way I think about how communities are built.I didn't like cookie cutter suburbs that were popping up everywhere (and I still don't), but before I read this book I only had some vague ideas about how a city could be better.This book gives some really great examples about specific things that can/should be done to make a city a nice place to live.

A beautifuly-written and accessible book. A treasure.
Langdon describes why modern American suburbs, with typical cul de sacs, feeder roads, and strip malls, rob us of our sense of community and of our connections to our neighbors. He explains how the over-reliance on the automobile is both a cause and a result of these suburban designs. But he goes further, describing why older neighborhoods feel so much better to us-- neighborhoods with grid layouts, houses with front porches, homes placed fairly close to tree lined streets. If you've ever looked around at modern American developments and wondered why they feel alienating and uncomfortable, this book will answer your questions in fascinating detail. Langdon's prose is beautifully clear.

Outstanding critique of American suburbia
There are more books that I can count that address American suburbs, and of the dozen or so that I have read this is by far the most comprehensive, best written, and most illuminating. Far from simply being a 250+ page rant about how bad suburbia is, Langdon offers an immense amount of very specific advice about how it can be made better. You don't have to be a landscape architect or planner to appreciate and enjoy this book. Anyone concerned with ensuring that we all have great places to live will benefit tremendously from reading it.

Why can't suburbs be like real communities?
Langdon's book is a gentle and articulate introduction to New Urbanism - the notion that our cities and our suburbs are a mess, and that in their place, we should have higher residential densities, mixed-use zoning, and pedestrian-oriented design. Langdon extols the benefits of the traditional street grid, and bemoans suburban developers' fascination with "pods" (i.e., clusters of cul-de-sacs). The author highlights the design of individual houses, and describes various ways of hiding garages and "granny apartments."Places given special attention include Seaside (Fla.), Kentlands (Md.), Laguna West (Cal.), Portland (Ore.), Kirkland (Wa.), and Bellevue (Wa.). The book is profusely illustrated with well over a hundred photographs and diagrams, a welcome change from authors who feel they can discuss this topic at length without a single illustration.

Langdon can't force people to live this way
Mr. Langdon has some excellent points in his book. For instance, he makes a very convincing case that modern suburbia is sterile and that it encourages heavy reliance on the motor vehicle. He also offers goodsolutions, including more mixed-use neighborhoods, higher architecturalstandards, and different street layouts.

However, Mr. Langdon neveradequately addresses a significant objection to his ideas: they are*expensive* to implement. At times, he does concede that his ideas wouldrequire higher expenditures on housing. Usually he counters this witharguments resembling "well, Americans don't need wet bars and atelevision set in every room. If only they would give that up, we couldhave more intimate communities." At times it seems as though he isactively encouraging Americans to consume less, an idea that could form thebackbone of another book. In this book, it only detracts from hisargument.

Sorry, Mr. Langdon. While Americans may want bettercommunities, you can't force them to give up their television sets and wetbars in order to get them. Come up with a better way to pay for your ideas;otherwise, concede that the market has given modern Americans exactly whatthey want. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Macro social work
An amazing story of a community working together to protect and maintain their neighborhood long forgotten by the city of Boston. Very inspiring.

An inside look at community development
I witnessed much of the transformation described in this book and it is remarkably accurate.This should serve as a guide for community organizers seeking to work in neglected neighborhoods.Too bad Peter Medoff is nolonger with us.

Success story in community development, w/difficult odds
A little too much detail.However, this is an inspiring success storyabout a community in very bad shape, that turned itself around totally,working "from the inside out".Well known in the field ofcommunity development, in my area. ... Read more

Product Description
"Bright, cheerful houses, well arranged, well trimmed lawns, hedging carefully cut... distinctly joyous," wrote architectural critic Herbert Croly in 1914 about the Forest Hills Gardens community in Queens, New York. The New York Tribune agreed, reporting that the place was a "modern Garden of Eden, a fairy tale too good to be true."Conceived as an experiment that would apply the new "science" of city planning to a suburban setting, Forest Hills Gardens was created by the Russell Sage Foundation to provide housing for middle-class commuters as an alternative to cramped flats in New York City. Although it has long been recognized as one of the most influential planned communities in the United States, this is the first time Forest Hills Gardens has been the subject of a book.Susan L. Klaus's fully illustrated history chronicles the creation of the 142-acre development from its inception in 1909 through its first two decades, offering critical insights into American planning history, landscape architecture, and the social and economic forces that shaped housing in the Progressive Era.Klaus focuses particularly on the creative genius of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., who served as planner and landscape architect for the project. Drawing on his father's visionary ideas but developing his own perspective, the younger Olmsted redefined planning for the modern era and became one of the founders of the profession of city planning in the United States. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An important book
I happend to bump into the book by accident. I was doing research into
Edward Bouton, creator of Baltimore's Roland Park. Bouton also doubled as the general manager of the Sage Foundation's Forest Hills Gardens.
This is a great book, meticulously researched. Read it. ... Read more

Product Description

From the almshouses of seventeenth-century Puritans to the massive housing projects of the mid-twentieth century, the struggle over housing assistance in the United States has exposed a deep-seated ambivalence about the place of the urban poor. Lawrence J. Vale's groundbreaking book is both a comprehensive institutional history of public housing in Boston and a broader examination of the nature and extent of public obligation to house socially and economically marginal Americans during the past 350 years.

First, Vale highlights startling continuities both in the way housing assistance has been delivered to the American poor and in the policies used to reward the nonpoor. He traces the stormy history of the Boston Housing Authority, a saga of entrenched patronage and virulent racism tempered, and partially overcome, by the efforts of unyielding reformers. He explores the birth of public housing as a program intended to reward the upwardly mobile working poor, details its painful transformation into a system designed to cope with society's least advantaged, and questions current policy efforts aimed at returning to a system of rewards for responsible members of the working class. The troubled story of Boston public housing exposes the mixed motives and ideological complexity that have long characterized housing in America, from the Puritans to the projects.

Customer Reviews (1)

Double-Binds, Double Trouble
Vale's marvelously detailed history of public housing in Boston from the early Puritan settlements to the present day tells the story of our "alternating current of compassion and hostility" toward the poor in the U.S.Through his exploration of public housing in Boston, Vale writes a compelling sociological history of the tensions inherent in the American dream of home ownership, government subsidy vs. free enterprise, and most valuable of all explores the ideology of homeownership and its bearing on citizenship.Dense, meditative, often wryly humorous, this is a deeply researched work which yields uncommon insights about mythic American values of community as expressed through public housing and public spaces.

Particularly well-rendered is the recurring theme of how the government used its powers to dispense and dispose of land to reward certain Americans.The U.S. soldier was the first, and continues to be, a singular actor in this drama of service and reward. In the Jeffersonian post-revolutionary war period, veterans were rewarded with grants of land. In so doing, the government empowered these men to do the work of settling the frontier -- who better to perform such a task than those already trained in war?Civil War veterans were similarly rewarded.

From there, other "deserving" populations were rewarded with housing -- those who demonstrated their commitment to an American standard of behavior: industriousness, cleanliness, responsiblity being some of the key attributes for qualification for early public housing.Vale describes, for instance, how public housing developments in the Depression and postwar era were also used by politicians to reward their supporters, especially deserving working-class poor families who fit a traditional dual parent, father/provider schematic.

The early chapters exploring the city fathers erection and administration of jails, insane asylums, shelters for the poor, and the concomitant rise the settlement movement and the social worker are particularly well-rendered.Great illustrations, too! ... Read more