Book Description
Wild Girls is the critically acclaimed true story of two wealthy American heiresses---one an artist, the other a writer---whose stormy, passionate love affair captivated Paris’s salon set between the wars.
Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks were rich, American, eccentric, and grandly lesbian. They met in Paris in 1915, and their relationship lasted more than fifty years, despite infidelity, separation, and temperamental differences. Romaine Brooks, a painter, was the product of an unhappy childhood and trusted no one but Natalie. Natalie Barney was passionate about life, sex, and love. Her Friday afternoon salons, attended by Gertrude Stein, and Colette and Edith Sitwell, were a magnet for social introductions and cultural innovations.
Drawing from letters, papers, and paintings, Diana Souhami, the award-winning author of Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter, re-creates the lives and loves of this pair of dazzling and wild women.
“Epic romance . . . smartly sex-positive and so good-naturedly shocking.”
---The New York Times Book Review
“Real tenderness and pathos . . . not only entertaining but affecting reading.”
---The Washington Post
“Their friends were the most bohemian, their parties the most risqué, their tortured love affair the most notorious in Europe. Diana Souhami tells a remarkable tale.”
---The Sunday Telegraph (UK)
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating, But..........2006-05-09
A fascinating story of two extraordinary lives soaked in the demi-monde at the fin-de-siecle with the world of the rich and artistic as its background. Unfortunately, this telling comes with some irritating costs. The book is studded with bizarrely extraneous footnotes: does any reader of this story really need to be told who Dante, Proust, Cocteau, Sappho, Gertrude Stein, Sarah Bernhardt (among many others) were? Also, the author interpolates little autobiographical asides that have nothing to do with the dual biography at hand and merely comes across as an egotistical affectation.
When Souhami actually gets to the story at hand (which in fairness is most of the time), historical errors aside, she tells a wonderful tale of the sapphic world in turn-of-the-century Europe.
Very well written when not marred by the author's idiosyncrasies.
A life still left in shadow.......2005-05-11
Gray is a difficult colour to master. It is enigmatic, aloof. It can be warm, with tints of peach and pink, or cold, with tints of sapphire and indigo. But no one could ever doubt that American artist Romaine Brooks was a master of gray. From her mysterious, icy portraits of members of the belle époque and the jazz age, to her preference for colorless fashions and décor, to the melancholy of her own day to day existence, Brooks was almost the personification of the colour gray itself. It would take great skill to write a biography of such a woman. Therefore I was ecstatic to discover that Diana Souhami had taken on the task of writing a book on the entwined lives of Romaine Brooks and her long-time companion, Paris saloneuse Natalie Clifford Barney. Both American, both wealthy, both artistic, Barney and Brooks still made an odd pair. Barney was the ever-social butterfly, flitting from flower to flower, beautiful and flamboyant. Brooks was her exact opposite, a withdrawn, flighty creature from a background of insanity, who preferred to live in the shadows, alone. This sounds like perfect material for the talents of Souhami, who has already tackled the lives of such challenging individuals as Radclyffe Hall, Gertrude Stein and Greta Garbo. Souhami also wrote the award-winning "Selkirk's Island", untangling the threads of the life of Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Defoe's classic, "Robinson Crusoe". Yes, Brooks and Barney seemed in good hands.
I cannot express, then, the disappointment that this anticipated book brought. Distressingly short not only for a biography of two distinct souls, but also an examination of the times in which they lived, the book is riddled with factual errors and blunders. Souhami begins her race by stumbling. In her Foreword she states plainly, one would say almost flippantly, of her use of the Internet as a main source of research-and it shows. The author appears to think that everything you find on the Web is factual, not realizing that the information to be found there is only as accurate as the knowledge of those posting it. This is a fatal error. Souhami seems almost dismissive of her own research, telling us about how much she enjoyed reading the pop-up advertisements she encountered while on the Net for such things as sexy chat, and even giving us a footnote detailing a pill that can help men lengthen the size of their endowment. Souhami further mars the book with the constant insertion of bits and pieces of her own past that, although well written, are disturbingly incongruous and intrusive and give the impression that she would much rather be talking about herself.
Next, Souhami falters in her facts, tripping too many times to enumerate, but here are a few major potholes: Lady Mary "Minnie" Anglesey is said on page 40 to be "about to divorce her transvestite husband." Souhami then footnotes that Mary was married to Henry Cyril Paget, the 4th Marquess of Anglesey. This is a gross mistake. Mary Anglesey was indeed married to the 4th Marquess of Anglesey, but she was married to Henry Paget, not Henry Cyril Paget, the 5th Marquess of Anglesey, who was not only infamous for his flashy dressing-up and obsession for jewelry, but was also Mary's own son (and, for the record, Henry Cyril Paget's wife's name was Lilian). Next we are told that the Italian poet Gabriele D'Annunzio's nickname for Brooks was "Cinerana". This is incorrect; his nickname for her was "Cinerina", meaning, "little gray one". Also, the Baroness Madeleine Deslandes was known as "Elsie", not "Ilsie". On page 141 we are told that Brooks described in a letter the "house" on Capri of the eccentric Marchesa Casati as "simply beautiful", but the author fails to point out that Casati's "house" was, in fact, the famous Villa San Michele, rented from Dr. Axel Munthe.
Beguiling anecdotes also slip through the fingers of an author so proud of her diligent international research. No mention is made of the mystery revolving around Brooks' painting "The White Bird" and how some historians believe it is a portrait of Barney's lover, the renowned grand horizontal, Liane de Pougy. Nor are we told that the face of the cat in Brooks' portrait of Baroness Catherine D'Erlanger was deliberately painted to resemble that of her husband's. Nor do we hear of the intriguing story that, after becoming a virtual hermit in Nice, living in a room devoid of everything but a bed and table, and having given away all of her paintings, drawings and writings, beneath Romaine Brooks' death bed was found the only canvas she kept, her portrait of Luisa Casati. Also, there is no mention of the small book, written by Elizabeth de Gramont, another of Barney's paramours, on Brooks' work that was published in 1952. Nor that the normally pathologically reclusive Brooks granted a long interview with French writer Michel Desbrueres that appeared in the Parisian periodical "Bizarre" in 1968, just two years before her death. Souhami also claims that Brooks painted a portrait of artist Elizabeth Eyre de Lanux, but, oddly, there is no reference to this painting in any prior biography of Brooks or in any catalogue of her oeuvre. Has Souhami discovered a hitherto unknown painting? We are given no clue. Perhaps another fifteen minutes of research on the Internet would have cleared up all of this-or better yet some good old-fashioned investigatory legwork and elbow grease that Souhami's research sorely lacks.
Next is the matter of Souhami's innumerable and annoying footnotes. She footnotes everyone and sundry with what she must have felt were charming and witty caricatures-Noel Coward is summed up as being "friendly with the lesbian haut monde", composer Prince Edmond de Polignac's only reference says "he died after eight years of marriage" and Luisa Casati is dubbed "the patron saint of exhibitionists". Such sketches are neither charming nor witty, and consistently get in the way of reading the text. As a reader, I also do not need to know such minutiae as how many seats there are in the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, that Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice" was first performed in 1762, or the lyrics to "Auld Lang Syne". It is most interesting to note that even though the author strives to introduce us to every person in the book that some celebrated individuals such as Madame Eugenia Errazuris, a bright grand dame of the beau monde, are left floundering and unannotated, while poet Anna de Noailles, writer Paul Morand, and interior designer, Elsie de Wolfe, each a distinguished sitter for Brooks, are not mentioned at all (nor is the fact that Brooks' portrait of de Wolfe was often sarcastically called "The White Goat", because of the small ceramic goat that sits beside the designer and mimics her simpering expression perfectly). And worst of all, these intrusive footnotes shine a glaring light on the fact that Souhami never footnotes any of her relevant and/or fascinating facts. How do we know that Liane de Pougy's asparagus soup congealed and her risotto went cold while she, at lunch, waited for writer Max Jacob to arrive, or that after being pelted by preserved cherries by boys at the Long Beach Hotel in New York, a young Natalie Barney ran into the arms of Oscar Wilde for comfort. Where does this information come from? Such charming tidbits require references for future researchers.
And here is where Souhami's book fails the most-as a research tool and reference book for the future. Subsequent authors and students cannot use a book rife with easily correctable errors without perpetuating those same mistakes ad infinitum. As a highly respected writer, shame on you, Ms. Souhami. You should have known better.
Book Description
Despite Prohibition, the '20s was the decade of jazz, flappers and hip flasks. While some took their vote and joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Movement, others, well, took liberties. Compiled here for the first time are more than 200 publicity stills and photos of some of America's first "It" girls—the silent film-era starlets who paved the way for the cacophony of Monroes and Madonnas to follow. Accompanying these iconic images are the stories behind them, including accounts from surviving Ziegfeld Girls, as well as ads featuring them that helped perpetuate the allure of It girl glamour. When rare and striking portraits of these women surfaced on the internet in 1995, author Robert Hudovernik began researching their source. What he discovered was the work of one of the first "star makers" identified most with the Ziegfeld Follies, Alfred Cheney Johnston. Johnston, a member of New York's famous Algonquin Round Table who photographed such celebrities as Mary Pickford, Fanny Brice, the Gish Sisters, and Louise Brooks, fell out of the spotlight with the demise of the revue. A sumptuous snapshot of an era, this book is also a look at the work of this "lost" photographer.
Customer Reviews:
Beautiful!!.......2007-10-02
I cant say enough about the beauty of this book. I was pleasantly surprised at the top notch quality. I highly recommend it.
Very nicely done.......2007-07-01
I'm a photographer and also a big jazz fan, so when I saw this title it caught my attention. I found it to be an interesting mixture of text, photography and history. I'm a big fan of vintage photography and often buy quality images and negatives at garage sales and flea markets whenever I can find them. I'm always amused by what was once considered daring, and risqué' and always interested in seeing the vintage clothing styles and backgrounds including the furnishings and automobiles as well as the subject of each image.
By any measure Alfred Johnston was a great photographer, and in my view one luck man. Firstly his images all give the models dignity, grace, and pose, and the nudes are done with exceptional taste. Image if you can being a photographer during that era and also being lucky enough to have access to a pool of models that included the stars, both real and wannabes, as well as the Ziegfield Girls! But Johnston does much more than just shoot pretty faces and bodies. The care given to each pose, especially the attention given the eyes and face, the makeup, the props, they're all first rate. All the images, especially the nudes speak volumes about this photographer's passion for producing quality images.
From a technical perspective, it's easy to pick at some of the work. Some of the lighting and shadows, and the extensive use of soft focus might give some a reason to critize. But there was no "Photoshop" software to edit these images; in fact the technology of photography was very crude by today's standards.
This is a first rate collection of vintage photos and the carefully written text makes it a great book for anyone with a serious interest in photography or the history of the craft.
A beauty unto itself.......2007-04-19
Not only does this book contain some of the most stunning photography from the jazz age but is also full of wonderful stories about some of the people pictured. I've been studying the 1920s for years now and some of this information came as a delightful surprise. This is a treasure from anyone who loves great history and fine art.
Beautiful.......2007-03-13
They just don't make 'em like they used to. So many beauties, all beautiful for different reasons.
Purchased for the photos, enjoyed the text.......2007-02-21
I purchased Jazz Age Beauties for the beautiful photographs. Alfred Cheney Johnston brought an aristocratic air to classically posed black and white nudes. The photographs from the 1920s illustrate that beauty is timeless. However, as I read through the text, I gained an insight of life passing from youthful beauty to adulthood and often the troubles that followed. The text brought the photos to life. More than just a book of excellent photographs, Jazz Age Beauties offers the reader a glimpse into another time, not unlike our own.
Book Description
The first scholarly book-length examination of the work of comics legend Neil Gaiman includes detailed analysis of his best-selling "Sandman" and "Death" series, a look at his work's relationship to Joseph Campbell, and such topics as "Living in a Desacralized World," "The Relationship of Dreams and Myth in Campbell, Jung, and Gaiman's Sandman," "Humanization, Change, and Rebirth: The Hero's Journey," "The Role of the Artist and the Art of Storytelling," and more.
Customer Reviews:
Terribly Disappointing.......2007-09-14
This is one of the worst books i have ever read. The same quotes from the Sandman series are used over and over again and the author's personal experiences cloud any real information. "Intelligent" and "scholarly" are the last words I would use to describe this book; it reads like a high school student's analysis. I was excited to see a book-length examination of both the Sandman series and the ideas of Joseph Campbell, both of which I am extremely interested in, but this was disappointing beyond words.
Neil Gainman's The Sandman and Joseph Campbell: In Search of the MOdern Myth.......2007-01-18
If you are looking for another story told by Neil Gaiman - This is NOT it - this is a very well written book by stephen Rauch about the philisopical and contexual aspects of myth. The book just happens to use the Sandman sieres as its primary backdrop for its discussion. All and all a very interesting book to which i would recommend, and one not be an avid fan or very knowledgable about The Sandman sieres to enjoy. Just make sure to consider it a book primarily about myth and philosophy as opposed to a book about the Sandman sieres.
Average customer rating:
- A Look at How the Other Half Lives; Forget the Humor
- A Look at How the Other Half Lives; Forget the Humor
|
The Poor Boy's Guide To Marrying A Rich Girl
Brian Ross Duffy
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 014009721X |
Customer Reviews:
A Look at How the Other Half Lives; Forget the Humor.......2001-08-30
This long out-of-print book is useful beyond its intended purpose, which is to prep 'poor' (read 'middle-class') American males in the art of marrying into wealth.
Since subject matter of this type seems crass when presented as a straightforward manual (and did even in the 'greed was good' 1980s), it is packaged as 'humor.' It should not be read as such. Anyone picking up "The Poor Boy's Guide to Marrying Rich" in search of laughs will be disappointed. What humor there is is heavy-handed and suggestive, like the color commentary in a bad men's magazine, and seems incidental to the rest of the book, as though it were added as an afterthought.
In fact, I would be surprised if that weren't the case. No respectable mainstream publisher would put out a book on how to marry a rich girl (what would be next -- 'Gold Digging for Dummies'?) except under the guise of humor. I imagine that Brian Ross Duffy's original conception was a serious work on the subject, but that he was persuaded by the publisher (or someone) to rework his original manuscript and "lighten it up." This is unfortunate, because his attempts at levity come across as rather seedy, while the rest of the book is fairly innocuous. The bawdy humor seems doubly out of place since Duffy has not yet accomplished what he purports to teach the rest of us, and one imagines he would wish to avoid biting the hand he hopes someday might feed him.
What Duffy has written is purely a practical guide. He explains simply and earnestly how the wealthy spend their days; how they eat, how they court, even what they read and where they vacation. The terms and concepts he introduces here may be common currency in wealthy circles, but they were Swahili to this middle-brow Midwesterner. When friends of mine talk about their 'swim,' they mean their trip to the local pool, not their circle of friends.
The book has obvious flaws. It begins by painting the moneyed class -- and particularly its daughters -- in broad strokes. But it spins off into such arcane topics as classic horse show events and the Fertile Crescent, covering the latter in such agonizing detail that the casual book browser might mistake it for a travel guide. Incidental information of this sort might be useful to someone planning to `pass for rich' for a weekend, but a person looking to make a permanent move up in society would be better off studying etiquette, economics, and his own psychology than memorizing the names of country clubs and celebrity diseases.
The book touches only lightly on the psychology and ethics of marrying above one's station, citing the concept of noblesse oblige while failing to explain it. One subtle obstacle to "marrying up" is the enormous social gulf it must create between the two sets of in-laws (and, by extension, within the marriage itself). Duffy only hints at this intriguing topic before moving on to more fluff. Another tantalizing angle is the self-loathing that must beset many social-climbers, particularly men, when faced with the constant realization that they are their spouses' economic inferiors. Does this situation tend to produce a sort of financial eunuch? Does that husband become an angry rebel who condemns his benefactors at every opportunity while continuing to live off of his in-laws' bounty? The author doesn't venture into these waters, though there is comic potential there. Then there is the distracting use of personal anecdotes: "I've summered in the Fertile Crescent for almost thirty years and (modesty aside) feel well qualified to conduct this important although abbreviated tour..." Is Duffy attempting to gratify his ego? If so, he loses the sympathy of the reader in the process. Is he trying to build credibility on his subject matter? His claims are too vague to prove or disprove. Who, besides Duffy himself, really cares how many yacht clubs he's been to or rich girls he's bedded? The writer does, however, display an obvious affection for the subject. He is not engaged in class warfare. He is not out to mock the wealthy or destroy them from within; he merely wishes to number himself among them. He readily admits that doing so constitutes a tradeoff, however, and that joining the ranks of the rich means giving up a private existence for one of constant activity, most of it apparently philanthropic in nature.
Why did I read the book? After all, I already have a wife, and no aspirations of replacing her with anyone named Muffy or Mimsy. I read 'The Guide' (as Duffy calls it) because it is an honest, if casual, look at the lives of the American upper-crust, and it serves as a useful primer to anyone hoping to someday operate -- however peripherally -- within that rarefied environment.
A Look at How the Other Half Lives; Forget the Humor.......2001-08-30
A Look at How the Other Half Lives; Forget the Humor
This long out-of-print book is useful beyond its intended purpose, which is to prep 'poor' (read 'middle-class') American males in the art of marrying into wealth.
Since subject matter of this type seems crass when presented as a straightforward manual (and did even in the 'greed was good' 1980s), it is packaged as 'humor.' It should not be read as such. Anyone picking up "The Poor Boy's Guide to Marrying Rich" in search of laughs will be disappointed. What humor there is is heavy-handed and suggestive, like the color commentary in a bad men's magazine, and seems incidental to the rest of the book, as though it were added as an afterthought.
In fact, I would be surprised if that weren't the case. No respectable mainstream publisher would put out a book on how to marry a rich girl (what would be next -- 'Gold Digging for Dummies'?) except under the guise of humor. I imagine that Brian Ross Duffy's original conception was a serious work on the subject, but that he was persuaded by the publisher (or someone) to rework his original manuscript and "lighten it up." This is unfortunate, because his attempts at levity come across as rather seedy, while the rest of the book is fairly innocuous. The bawdy humor seems doubly out of place since Duffy has not yet accomplished what he purports to teach the rest of us, and one imagines he would wish to avoid biting the hand he hopes someday might feed him.
What Duffy has written is purely a practical guide. He explains simply and earnestly how the wealthy spend their days; how they eat, how they court, even what they read and where they vacation. The terms and concepts he introduces here may be common currency in wealthy circles, but they were Swahili to this middle-brow Midwesterner. When friends of mine talk about their 'swim,' they mean their trip to the local pool, not their circle of friends.
The book has obvious flaws. It begins by painting the moneyed class -- and particularly its daughters -- in broad strokes. But it spins off into such arcane topics as classic horse show events and the Fertile Crescent, covering the latter in such agonizing detail that the casual book browser might mistake it for a travel guide. Incidental information of this sort might be useful to someone planning to `pass for rich' for a weekend, but a person looking to make a permanent move up in society would be better off studying etiquette, economics, and his own psychology than memorizing the names of country clubs and celebrity diseases.
The book touches only lightly on the psychology and ethics of marrying above one's station, citing the concept of noblesse oblige while failing to explain it. One subtle obstacle to "marrying up" is the enormous social gulf it must create between the two sets of in-laws (and, by extension, within the marriage itself). Duffy only hints at this intriguing topic before moving on to more fluff. Another tantalizing angle is the self-loathing that must beset many social-climbers, particularly men, when faced with the constant realization that they are their spouses' economic inferiors. Does this situation tend to produce a sort of financial eunuch? Does that husband become an angry rebel who condemns his benefactors at every opportunity while continuing to live off of his in-laws' bounty? The author doesn't venture into these waters, though there is comic potential there. Then there is the distracting use of personal anecdotes: "I've summered in the Fertile Crescent for almost thirty years and (modesty aside) feel well qualified to conduct this important although abbreviated tour..." Is Duffy attempting to gratify his ego? If so, he loses the sympathy of the reader in the process. Is he trying to build credibility on his subject matter? His claims are too vague to prove or disprove. Who, besides Duffy himself, really cares how many yacht clubs he's been to or rich girls he's bedded? The writer does, however, display an obvious affection for the subject. He is not engaged in class warfare. He is not out to mock the wealthy or destroy them from within; he merely wishes to number himself among them. He readily admits that doing so constitutes a tradeoff, however, and that joining the ranks of the rich means giving up a private existence for one of constant activity, most of it apparently philanthropic in nature.
Why did I read the book? After all, I already have a wife, and no aspirations of replacing her with anyone named Muffy or Mimsy. I read 'The Guide' (as Duffy calls it) because it is an honest, if casual, look at the lives of the American upper-crust, and it serves as a useful primer to anyone hoping to someday operate -- however peripherally -- within that rarefied environment.
Customer Reviews:
son of a legend..........2007-04-03
I don't imagine any of us really know what it is like to be the son of a legend..the incredible pressure that must come with living up to your father..it sounds like a wonderful easy life but as Stephen Bogart let's us know it's not..a book full of anecdotes and stories, self-examination, a bit too much whining for my tastes but nevertheless some tasty morsels can be found in this book..
Would you like some cheese with that whine?.......2006-11-14
The book is a collection of stores from interviews conducted by Stephen. Who, after a battle with cocaine, removing the chip from his shoulder, and maturing, decided to find out who his fater was. The book is a fast read, has a few interesting stories, and the pics are good. Glad I checked it out of the library and didn't pay for it.
Insightful tale of how Bogart's son came to terms with his fame.......2005-12-31
Heard BOGART: IN SEARCH OF MY FATHER, written and
read by Stephen Humphrey Bogart . . . his son was only eight
when he died and for a long time, it was difficult for him to
deal with his legendary father . . . only with the encouragement
of his famous mother, Lauren Bacall, was he finally able to
come to terms with some of the anger he felt toward his father.
I'm still not quite sure that I understand this feeling; it's almost
as if he blamed his father for dying . . . however, Stephen
Bogart did a good job of researching his father Humphrey, and
he shares many amusing anecdotes that I not heard previously.
In addition, I enjoyed reading about how Bogart and Bacall
met and fell in love.
BOGART: IN SEARCH OF MY FATHER gave me the impression
that Humphrey had no idea how to raise his children, but it
was clear that he did love them . . . Stephen Bogart now
appreciates this fact, too.
a tiring search.......2004-01-13
Well written but hardly engaging, Stephen Bogart descends to the predictable far too often. Open any section and the recipe will be identical: Fascinating anecdotes about Humphrey Bogart & mid-century Hollywood are sandwiched between massive slabs of "oh my daddy died and thats why life has been so hard for me me me!" The mantra of selfpity continues throughout. For those who blame their parents for the crippling hardship of adulthood (!) this is the book for you. Bogart fans will perhaps be less pleased - 2 stars for fluid prose & the bits which actually deal with Bogie, icon & man
By far the best bio I've read..........2003-08-24
This book is the best biography I ever read! You learn what Bogart was really like when he wasn't on set doing a movie. You get a real good idea about how he really was in real life. Stephen Bogart tells wonderful stories that he's heard about his father and puts an end to some of the rumors about him. You learn about the last days Bogie was living and what everyone close to him went through. You get to read about the first time Bacall and Bogie met and their love story! Great book!
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Video Age International, published by TV Trade Media, Inc. on November 1, 1995. The length of the article is 940 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Bogart: In Search of My Father. (book reviews)
Publication:
Video Age International (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 1995
Publisher: TV Trade Media, Inc.
Volume: v15
Issue: n9
Page: p8(1)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
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Snare Drum: The Competition Collection
Thomas A. Brown
Manufacturer: Alfred Publishing Company
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0769265901 |
Book Description
A collection of individual contest solos, gradually paced in increasing difficulty from elementary to intermediate levels. These solos can be used to augment regular method books, and as supplementary lesson material and contest solos for state and local contests. The 14 titles include Ratama Cat and Wriskit.
Book Description
Play bridge like an expert by examining 36 hands taken from actual top-level competitions. Become part of the action and learn to think like a bridge champion with this unique approach that invites you to come up with your own solutions at key stages of the bidding and play. After each answer is given, both the “correct” and the “real-life” plays are analyzed. The featured deals, which include declarer and defensive problems, are not complex, and the analysis focuses on judgment and sound, basic technique, enabling all duplicate players to advance their game.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), published by The Register Guard on March 7, 2002. The length of the article is 1462 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Ducks are underdogs no longer.(Sports)(Champions: With the top seed in the conference tournament, Oregon becomes the hunted as play begins.)
Publication:
The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) (Newspaper)
Date: March 7, 2002
Publisher: The Register Guard
Page: E1
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Food Processing, published by Putman Media, Inc. on March 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1612 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Midwestern chef, international solutions: Champion barbecuer plays with subtleties. (Chef Sessions).(Dan Turner, corporate chef, Danisco A/S)
Author: Steve Ennen
Publication:
Food Processing (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2002
Publisher: Putman Media, Inc.
Volume: 63
Issue: 3
Page: 34(3)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
"Shortchanged" takes an uncompromising look at the corporate vultures that prey on America's working class. Made up of pawnshops, payday lenders, check cashers, credit card companies and the like, the fringe economy entices vulnerable consumers into an economic netherworld of high interest rates and ever-increasing debt. The book examines the factors behind the fringe economy's rise -- stagnant wages, rising numbers of working poor, and the 12 million U.S. households without bank accounts -- and investigates the sleazy practices -- instant credit, cash-for-your-title loans, predatory mortgage lending, E-Z home equity loans -- that result in phenomenal growth for the industry and a nightmare for the consumer. Powerful analysis is combined with moving personal stories of the mothers, fathers, and families whose lives have been put on the line for the perpetuation of this economy. Ruthless, compelling, outrageous, and often enraging, "Shortchanged" puts the spotlight on the shady side of America's economic underbelly.
Customer Reviews:
Socialist Rant.......2007-01-29
I bought this book because I love books about economics and finance. I enjoy reading about the pitfalls of credit and the dangers of an over-leveraged society. And I wish everyone could pull themselves out of this dangerous cycle and live debt-free.
What I don't love, however, is reading an author who puts the blame for society's ills on everyone but the individual. For example, it's not Joe Sixpack's problem that he makes $8 an hour, but HAS to have a $4,000 big-screen LCD television. It's Sony's fault for having compelling marketing, and the predatory bank's fault for loaning him the money, and Wal-Mart's fault for selling him the TV, and the cable company's fault for broadcasting NFL games, and the NFL's fault for allowing games to be televised. Poor Joe Sixpack -- he can't possibly live with a 20" CRT TV -- he needs an LCD TV. So he's a victim.
It's also not Joe's fault for the 32% interest, over-limit and late fees he's paying. It's the bank's fault for not letting Joe slide when he needed beer money and a cool stereo for his new car and couldn't pay his bills for a few months. Poor misunderstood Joe.
The author also rails against payday lenders. Never mind that payday lenders employ ten of thousands of people in blighted urban areas, and provide much needed access to money to buy food or heating oil. They're evil because they expect that money back! And who are they to add an interest rate to cover operational expenses and provide salaries for those inner-city employees? The nerve!
I should have read about the author before purchasing this book. If I had realized that he was a purveyor of pseudo-science (sociologist) living in an ivory tower, and not an employed, real-world financial analyst I would have passed. I did manage to sell it used for two-thirds of what it cost me though. I guess I'll just consider that interest paid.
the underbelly of a modern economy.......2006-07-02
Karger reveals what he accurately terms the "fringe economy". Something possibly unknown to those safely enscounced in the American middle class. This fringe is inhabited by working class people, which might have experienced a bout of bad luck. This can come in the form of losing a job, or having a very low paying one. Or perhaps a chronic illness, that severely restricts what types of jobs one can get.
Within the fringe economy, the book shows a range of companies that might be accurately described as predatory. Offering short term payroll loans that amount to over 100% interest on an annualised basis. Or for those unable to buy furniture, these are made available on a rental basis. Again, typically at an annual rate of over 100%. Such techniques might perhaps be aimed at those who exhibit poor personal money management. The deservedly imprudent, if you will. But the techniques also take aim at those who carefully count every dollar, and who do not squander what little they have.
Intriguing, insightful, suffers only from some disorganization.......2006-01-21
The fringe economy is a poorly-understood shadow structure operating below the surface of maintstream life, according to Karger, a professor of Social Work in Texas. His outlook is more broad than deep, but I applaud both the scope of his work and his policy recommendations. While I would disagree with a few of them (as an economist I have a slightly different perspective of the function of financial institutions), the suggested policy actions offer a launching point for further discussion that is missing in some other purely emotive works. I also applaud Karger's effort to tackle this fairly ethereal subject (much like the idea of the 'economy' itself) and put it into human terms.
I knock one star for the presentation of statistics - there's a little too much of it without enough order to support their presentation. However, these do not detract from the logic of the book, only from the continuity in a few sections. Otherwise, an eye-opening read.
Excellent Book!.......2005-12-28
"Pawn shops, check cashers, rent-to-own stores, payday and tax-refund lenders, auto-title-loans, buy-here-pay-here used car lots - what seems to be small independent storefront operations turn out to be part of an economy dominated by well-financed corporations with little-no oversight and increasingly strong ties to mainstream financial institutions" - so claims "Shortchanged" summary material. The book then goes on to provide stories of real people trapped in perpetual debt, usually starting with overpriced goods, and acerbated by high interest rates and required extra charges.
Karger admits that serving the poor can cost more, and thus would justify higher prices. However, he cites examples of pawning a vehicle for 1/3 its value and paying interest of up to and over 300%/year to get it back, depositing $100s-$1,000+ in low-interest savings accounts to acquired a secured credit card that charges 30%/year rates (and more) to use, check cashers paying 3% to cash relatively risk-free government checks - and concludes that clearly the line separating "reasonable" from "unreasonable" was crossed.
Karger's material is well-documented, providing sources for his claims - eg. "almost 10% of unbanked households' net income is spent on alternative financial services,." "consumer debt, excluding mortgages, averaged about $19,000/family in '04," "68% of EITC and CTC eligible families use tax preparers (average cost $305 in '01; total of $1.3 billion vs. $EITC payouts of $30 billion." However, sometimes these claims, despite documentation, do not seem to hold water - eg. Karger states that the "bulwark of public assistance programs cost $125 billion/year or less (low-income housing, AFDC and its successor program, food stamps, WIC, school lunch), compared to check cashers, payday lenders, pawn shops, rent-to-own growing $78 billion in '01 - the problem is that the $78 billion did not appear substantiated by the detail.
Information on how these purveyors of credit to the poor avoid usury laws is provided - eg. require a loan applicant to sell up to three household items to the lender, and then lease them back.
The material on home mortgages for the poor was particularly eye-opening - balloon payments, shared appreciation mortgages (due at maturity), extra insurance fees, foreclosure "help" that often takes the customer's equity, and high interest rates (location, credit rating). Car sales (over-priced to begin with) that allow the seller to break-even in about three months, accompanied by a 30% repossession rate for "buy-here-pay-here" and frequent profitable trade-ins upon breakdown. (They even have companies that rent tires - at high fees and rates!)
Debt counselors get about 15% from money paid to credit card companies - some counseling firms are reputable and provide good service. Others steer money towards the credit card companies, neglecting home mortgage and car payments. Only 26% complete the process.
So, one wonders, if these firms are making so much money, why don't others come in and compete down the charges. In some cases this is happening - Wal-Mart is now providing check-cashing services at far lower charges than check-cashing stores. On the other hand, there is also a problem with low-income consumers being their own worst enemies - eg. not knowing that they could cash a payroll check free at the issuing bank, or even the advantages of having a bank account. (I'm left wondering how President Bush's privatization of Social Security would possibly avoid these people being taken advantage of.)
An excellent book, even for someone like myself who thought he knew it all already!
Wake Up Call/Christmas gift.......2005-12-18
While Nickel and Dimed is an excellent read, in key ways it lacks authenticity. Barbara Ehrenreich, while attempting to live the marginal life, could always fall back on the resources of her "real" life, which she admittedly does on occasion. Her actions in these instances underscore the importance of Karger's book. Where do the actual poor, who can't step out of a temporary context, go when they need something to fall back on? As Karger so clearly illuminates, they must look to those who "have" and are anxious to give - at interest rates that guarantee the customer will be back, again and again. Karger's keen observation of the relationship between morality and economy may hit too close to home for those benefiting from the system. For those committed to reform of a predatory economy, he offers critical strategies for change. This book is an eye opener and a wake-up call to those of us who have not lost our moral center.
On a personal note, my friends and family who will see themselves in this book - lured by the "easy" money of the fringe economy - have gotten this book as a PRE-Christmas present. I hope they read it before they borrow money they'll never to really be able to pay back to buy Christmas gifts they can't really afford.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Mortgage Banking, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2005. The length of the article is 2055 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: America's unbanked.(Shortchanged: Life and Debt in the Fringe Economy)(Book Review)
Author: Molly Shaw
Publication:
Mortgage Banking (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 66
Issue: 1
Page: 189(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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