Book Summaries , Book Synopsis and Book Review All In One

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand: A Novel [Paperback] chapter Summaries:

Amazon. com Evaluation

Amazon Best Books in the Month, March 2010: In her amusing and wise debut fresh, newcomer Helen Simonson presents the unforgettable character in the widower Major Ernest Pettigrew.   The Major epitomizes the Englishman with all the “stiff upper lip, ” which clings to common values and features tried (in vain) for you to pass these together to his yuppie son, Roger. The story centers around Pettigrew's fight to maintain his greedy loved ones (including his son) from selling an invaluable family heirloom–a set of two hunting rifles that symbolizes high of what he symbolizes, or at very least what he thinks he does. The embattled hero discovers an unexpected ally and cause of consolation in her neighbor, the Pakistani shopkeeper Jasmina Ali. To the surface, Pettigrew and Ali's backdrops and life experiences couldn't are more different, but they discover that they have the most stuff in common. This specific wry, yet optimistic comedy of manners which has a romantic twist will attract grown-up readers involving both sexes. Kudos to Helen Simonson, who distinguishes their self with Major Pettigrew's Last Stand to be a writer with the actual narrative range, stylistic chops, and poise of your veteran.

Buy ‘Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand: A Novel [Paperback]‘ online

Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President [Hardcover] chapter Summaries:

Review

“The book paints a harsh, stark portrait of a president in over his head. . . . Suskind makes a compelling case that Obama was able to win the election because he was talking to the right people.” (The Daily Beast )

“Suskind is not calling Obama a confidence man here. Rather, he presents a president who is not up to the task of outmaneuvering a political and economic system that is packed full of confidence men.” (Time )

“A truly groundbreaking inside account. . . . Penetrating in its analysis of why the administration’s approach to the country’s economic ills has been so lackluster. . . . An important addition to the growing library of books about this president.” (Joe Nocera, The New York Times Book Review )

“Savvy and informative. . . . The most ambitious treatment of this period yet. . . . Suskind’s book often reads like Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest. But the quagmire isn’t a neo-Vietnam like Afghanistan – it’s the economy.” (Frank Rich, New York )

“This narrative. . . keeps you reading long after you’ve absorbed the White House’s petty criticisms about the book. The portrait of Obama that emerges here is sympathetic, even though Suskind addresses the president’s failings. . . . Though the book toggles between Washington and Wall Street, the freshest material comes from Suskind’s deep access to the West Wing.” (Bloomberg )

“Written in sharp, cinematic scenes, in which the main players in the administration are captured in full-blooded, uncensored conversation, Confidence Men sprawls across the multiple crises of the opening two years of the Obama presidency. . . . Suskind’s central thesis deserves to be taken seriously.” (Financial Times )

“This is wonkish stuff, but the you-are-there, personality-driven nature of Suskind’s writing is compelling.” (Bethany McLean, The Washington Post )

“A[n] authoritative window on the inner workings of the administration and a useful management primer on how not to run an organization. . . . Confidence Men is crammed with interesting detail.” (Fortune )

“No book about the Obama presidency appears to have unnerved the White House quite so much as Confidence Men by Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has developed a niche in the specialized art of parting the curtain on presidential dealings.” (The Chicago Tribune )

“The book of the week, maybe the book of the month, is Ron Suskind’s Confidence Men. . . . A detailed narrative of the Administration’s response-sometimes frantic, sometimes sluggish, sometimes both-to the financial and economic catastrophe it inherited, as experienced from the inside.” (Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker )

“Suskind does a magnificent job explaining the way an economy centered on debt has decimated the middle class and made the top 1 percent of Americans impossibly wealthy. . . . Suskind describes a leader pulled off course by his staff.” (Joan Walsh, Salon )

“The White House says Suskind talked to too many disgruntled former staffers. But he seems to have talked to a lot of gruntled ones, too. The overarching portrait of chaos, lack of intellectual depth and absence of political wisdom, from a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, rings true.” (The Wall Street Journal )

“A searing new book. . . . Suskind has a flair for taking material he’s harvested to create narratives with a novelistic sense of drama.” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times )

“Ron Suskind’s book is . . . the one that makes the most sense. . . . The shudder-inducing bits of Confidence Men come when the team is too optimistic about how its policies will play out. The confidence allows them to move on too quickly.” (Slate )

Product Description

The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single, powerful, quintessentially American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, tapping brazen innovations over the past three decades, learned how to manufacture it. Until August 2007, when that confidence finally began to crumble. In this gripping and brilliantly reported book, Ron Suskind tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in “a new era of responsibility.” It is a story that follows the journey of Barack Obama, who rose as the country fell, and offers the first full portrait of his tumultuous presidency. Wall Street found that straying from long-standing principles of transparency, accountability, and fair dealing opened a path to stunning profits. Obama’s determination to reverse that trend was essential to his ascendance, especially when Wall Street collapsed during the fall of an election year and the two candidates could audition for the presidency by responding to a national crisis. But as he stood on the stage in Grant Park, a shudder went through Barack Obama. He would now have to command Washington, tame New York, and rescue the economy in the first real management job of his life. The new president surrounded himself with a team of seasoned players—like Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, and Tim Geithner—who had served a different president in a different time. As the nation’s crises deepened, Obama’s deputies often ignored the president’s decisions—“to protect him from himself”—while they fought to seize control of a rudderless White House. Bitter disputes—between men and women, policy and politics—ruled the day. The result was an administration that found itself overtaken by events as, year to year, Obama struggled to grow into the world’s toughest job and, in desperation, take control of his own administration. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Ron Suskind introduces readers to an ensemble cast, from the titans of high finance to a new generation of reformers, from petulant congressmen and acerbic lobbyists to a tight circle of White House advisers—and, ultimately, to the president himself, as you’ve never before seen him. Based on hundreds of interviews and filled with piercing insights and startling disclosures, Confidence Men brings into focus the collusion and conflict between the nation’s two capitals—New York and Washington, one of private gain, the other of public purpose—in defining confidence and, thereby, charting America’s future.

See all Editorial Reviews

Buy ‘Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President [Hardcover]‘ online

Room: A Novel [Paperback] chapter Summaries:

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2010: In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way–he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue’s Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack, they are seeing the world for the very first time.

Buy ‘Room: A Novel [Paperback]‘ online

All That Is Bitter and Sweet: A Memoir [Hardcover] chapter Summaries:

Look at

“ All Which is Bitter and Fairly sweet, ” is, during its heart, the storyline of Ashley Judd’ s awakening. In sharing the secrets of a childhood fraught having neglect, abuse and debilitating depression, she confronts this stigma of psychological illness and celebrates this serenity that is included with the hard function of recovery. The reward is a new role using a new stage — international advocate for HIV/AIDS victims. The humanitarian goal of social rights and gender equality is gritty work, however the people she meets inside slums, brothels, sex-slave real estate markets, clinics and orphanages strengthen her faithful contention that every life has price. Judd’ s seek out justice and tranquility — for their self, and for the millions with no voice – is testament to the adage that if we help one man, we help the main world. “  –Greg Mortenson, writer of NYT bestselling A few Cups of Tea

“Ashley Judd provides written a severely moving story — incredibly, searingly, frank. Its her life report, warts and most. As I understand her account associated with her childhood, MY SPOUSE AND I ask 'How could possibly one so traumatized, therefore abused in when we are children, become the female we know, therefore caring, so altruistic, therefore compassionate, so worried for others, and for that reason joyful? '″ –Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“Ashley Judd is definitely has lived an extraordinary life. She has learned from this and turned it suitable blessing and a call to action for others. The girl journey is the two moving and inspiring, unique and very easy. Reading about it makes your personal life make much more sense. ” –Marianne Williamson

“This splendid woman, this video clip star, this determined dreamer is going to be familiar to an individual, assuming you have struggled to end your childhood, carve out a new career and make greater make use of yourself.   Ashley Judd's account reminds us to be effective harder and upon more important duties, and promises that if we accomplish, contentedness awaits. ” –Kelly Corrigan, author of NYT bestselling The center Place and Lift
 
“ Judd’ s hauntingly beautiful memoir shows upon her lifetime as actress, wife's comments, daughter, sister, woman of faith, along with ultimately, as friend from the world’ s ignored. The book is engaging like a narrative (I would not want to put it down), but this is not your typical ‘ superstar memoir. ’ All Which is Bitter and Fairly sweet is written with uncommon depth in addition to uncommon love. They have the power that will transport you besides into the mind and spirit of a true activist, but to the elusive meaning with our shared humanity, and even into unexpected places is likely to soul. Prepare to get your eyes opened as well as your heart jolted.   –Sue Monk Kidd

“Ashley Judd possesses given us permanent magnet and searingly honest portrayals of numerous women on tv screen. Now with exactly the same honesty and magnetism, she brings individuals her true self on the page. From her when we are children to her radical empathy with girls and girls living distinctive lives, her path can inspire readers on journeys of their own. “  –Gloria Steinem

“ All Which is Bitter and Great is all that may be enlightening and electrifying.   Ashley Judd has composed a memoir that teaches when entrances and detects hope and faith inside most unlikely locations.   The book is filled with real-life stories that reflect the compassion of its author and the need for healing on the globe. ”   –Madeleine NITED KINGDOM. Albright

“ Over the last decade I include watched my blessed, brilliant friend grow just as one artist, but moreover, as a wise, deeply empathetic girl.   I have read the diaries which are the heart on this memoir since she began traveling the globe, fearing for the woman's safety and sanity, perplexed why she chooses these grueling tasks. All That Will be Bitter and Sweet will be a revelation to readers, exposing Ashley Judd for what Relating to known for years she's:   An astounding woman doing great work. ” –Morgan Freeman

“There are usually certain books that outstanding you far following your last page : Ashley Judd's All That is Bitter and Sweet is always that very type associated with book. With the woman's sincere honesty, her commitment in order to servant leadership plus her intense passion for precisely what she is knowledgeable about, Ashley Judd provides a multi-layered portrait of how you person – dedicated, caring and conscientious – can truly changes lives. She may be our program's No. 1 fan, yet after reading this, you can count me united of her major fans. ” –John Calipari, Collage of Kentucky Travel Coach

Product Description

Ashley Judd is usually an award-winning film and also stage actor recognised for her roles both in box-office hits in addition to art-house gems, as well as the daughter and sibling of country-music the top fashion gurus. In 2002, drawing on the deep well connected with empathy, she determined her true phoning: as a humanitarian and advocate for all those suffering in neglected aspects of the world.

Asked why your lover was opting outside a successful employment, walking away when she was among the highest-paid women in Hollywood, Ashley herself would not want to provide an resolution. She simply recognized that after the woman's first trip to the notorious brothels, slums, along with hospices of southeast Asia, her own existence depended on advocating with respect to the vulnerable. Possible each new sibling, “ I would not forget you, ” Ashley began writing extraordinary diaries— where this memoir is based— expanding her capacity to relate with, and to share having a global audience, reviews of survival and also resilience.

Along the way in which, Ashley realized the coping strategies the girl had developed to cope with her own emotive pain, stemming through childhood abandonment, were not working. Seeking in-patient healing in 2006 to the grief that possessed nearly killed your girlfriend, Ashley found not only her own addiction recovery and an enriched faith but an broadened kit of religious tools that focused and advanced your girlfriend feminist social proper rights work.

Now, in such a deeply moving and also unforgettable memoir, Ashley Judd details her odyssey, like a left-behind lost child attains international prominence for a fiercely dedicated suggest. Her story stages from anger in order to forgiveness, isolation in order to interdependence, depression in order to activism. In sharing with it, she resoundingly advice the ineffable question within the relationship between restoration oneself and service to others.

Observe all Editorial Testimonials.

Buy ‘All That Is Bitter and Sweet: A Memoir [Hardcover]‘ online