Book Description
Straight from the front line of urban America, the inspiring story of one fiercely determined teacher and her remarkable students.
As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old English teacher at Wilson High School in Long beach, California, Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. One day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature, and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust—only to be met by uncomprehending looks. So she and her students, using the treasured books Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo as their guides, undertook a life-changing, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels in these books to their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers” in homage to the civil rights activists “The Freedom Riders.”
With funds raised by a “Read-a-thon for Tolerance,” they arranged for Miep Gies, the courageous Dutch woman who sheltered the Frank family, to visit them in California, where she declared that Erin Gruwell’s students were “the real heroes.” Their efforts have paid off spectacularly, both in terms of recognition—appearances on “Prime Time Live” and “All Things Considered,” coverage in People magazine, a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley—and educationally. All 150 Freedom Writers have graduated from high school and are now attending college.
With powerful entries from the students’ own diaries and a narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an uplifting, unforgettable example of how hard work, courage, and the spirit of determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students.
The authors’ proceeds from this book will be donated to The Tolerance Education Foundation, an organization set up to pay for the Freedom Writers’ college tuition. Erin Gruwell is now a visiting professor at California State University, Long Beach, where some of her students are Freedom Writers.
Customer Reviews:
Review of Freedom Writers Diary.......2007-10-10
The book is a great read. I would definitely recommend to teachers, especially those that teach or will teach a widely diversified class. Not just teachers should read it. You really get an idea how crazy being racist and prejudiced is and how many people can be hurt by it. Nothing was edited so you get the full feelings of what those teenagers lived through.
I wonder what it was actually like..........2007-09-12
There were lots of positives and negatives that stuck out to me when I read this book which really bothered me.
Let's start with the teacher. We get occasional reflections from Erin Gruwell throughout the book, and in the beginning, they provide a way for us to get to know the teacher and to experience some of the adversity and the troubles that she was experiencing with running her classroom in the unorthodox style she managed. As the book progresses, the majority of these insights begin to fade into a simple account of what she did, the awards they won, and the plans that she had. For instance, she briefly mentions that she had to struggle to teach these kids for their senior year, and then she breezes over how she got that done and launches into an explanation of the binding of their book and the two awards ceremonies that she's attending. This robs the teachers out there of a great potential resource for them to use and understand, and glosses over the reality of politics in education.
The other issue I had was with the journal entries of the students. While I'd love to believe what I'm seeing, I have a difficult time believing that these entries the children wrote were not blown a little out of proportion during the editing or completely contrived from the get-go. Before you jump all over me for having a lack of faith in these kids, look at what we're presented with: the first few journal entries, which these kids supposedly wrote on the first few days of class are every bit as long and as detailed as their later entries in their senior year...and this is supposedly when they were well below the rest of their grade and their expected reading level, and when they had no faith in their teacher whatsoever. What we are left with, then, is a look only at where they were during their junior and senior years, with no gauge of progress or results to compare.
Because of the way the book was put together (entries are numbered rather than being entered chronologically, and no students are named), there is a lack of continuity between chapters, and no characters. Thus, all we are left with are two styles of entries: 1) the entries about struggles and hardships, and 2) the hopeful entries. You are completely unable to identify the students and connect who wrote which entries unless the stories are about a single club or experience. I would much rather have seen the students be given fake names to keep their anonymity protected, because then we not only benefit from a more personal connection to the students, but we also get to see how they've grown from their struggles, and we could break up some of the monotony between struggle stories and hope stories.
Then you get the obligatory "Anne Frank [or insert speaker here] is my hero" entries that read almost exactly like essays that I used to write for the sole purpose of appeasing a teacher who clearly has a tremendous interest in the speaker or book. While the experiences these students had were much more impressive than a simple book or movie, the similarity is astonishing, and I can't help but believe that these kids felt a lot of pressure and wrote what they felt the teacher wanted to hear rather than what they actually felt.
The entries that we are presented with in this book are also extremely toned down versions of the original, which in some sense steals from the power that they can convey. As a couple of students pointed out, the editing process was a big part of putting this book together, and I'm not sure whether it was the authors themselves or the publisher, but the snippets that we are given in the diaries are about the editing process are much more honest and graphic accounts of what happened to the students than the full diaries that we are given in the pages of the book. Some were certainly removed to protect anonymity, and probably also because of their graphic nature, but I believe that readers could have benefited from a slightly more realistic tone. The PG13 edit that the majority of these accounts are given strips the events of their power.
On the whole, though, that doesn't take away from the fact that Gruwell is clearly a very gifted teacher, and that she did take these children much farther than anyone ever expected of her. The lessons in the book are timeless, in that classroom management is all about building relationships, not only amongst students, but also between the teacher and the students. It's inspirational, and impressive, but clearly a bit contrived and heavily, heavily edited. This book is a pretty good read, but I think you have to take it with a grain of salt.
An inspiring story........2007-08-27
I loved reading the stories from the voices of the various students and hearing how they discovered love and hope despite their difficult home lives.
Got my daughter to read.......2007-08-23
This is an excellent book for a non reader, especially if they have seen the movie. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed the book and she is not really a reader. it has now encouraged her to move on to a Diary of Anne Frank. Thank you
A Great Read.......2007-08-14
An extra-ordinary book. I bought 3 copies to give away to friends. A very easy read and very enjoyable. Not just for educators.
Book Description
Shocked by the teenage violence she witnessed during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, Erin Gruwell became a teacher at a high school rampant with hostility and racial intolerance. For many of these students–whose ranks included substance abusers, gang members, the homeless, and victims of abuse–Gruwell was the first person to treat them with dignity, to believe in their potential and help them see it themselves. Soon, their loyalty towards their teacher and burning enthusiasm to help end violence and intolerance became a force of its own. Inspired by reading The Diary of Anne Frank and meeting Zlata Filipovic (the eleven-year old girl who wrote of her life in Sarajevo during the civil war), the students began a joint diary of their inner-city upbringings. Told through anonymous entries to protect their identities and allow for complete candor, The Freedom Writers Diary is filled with astounding vignettes from 150 students who, like civil rights activist Rosa Parks and the Freedom Riders, heard society tell them where to go–and refused to listen.
Proceeds from this book benefit the Freedom Writers Foundation, an organization set up to provide scholarships for underprivieged youth and to train teachers
Customer Reviews:
READ THIS, THEN PASS IT ON TO A FRIEND !.......2007-08-07
A close friend kept bugging me to see the movie, "Freedom Writers." Finally, we watched it one afternoon, and she was right. It's a very good movie. After seeing the movie, I came home the same day, and ordered the book. The book is a collection of diary entries by high school students in the Long Beach area of L.A., right after the Rodney King riots. Some of their true stories are horrific and all are intense. These kids, who are 14, at the beginning of the book, have to deal with abusive or neglecting parents, parents strung out on drugs, pressures to be in a gang or to lie in court to protect their own. It's a very intense book. Their teacher, Erin Gruwell, set herself the goal to teach them about tolerance and stop the cycle of violence in their lives. Amazingly, she was suceesful. This book follows the kids through their high school years, and the changes that take place in their thinking in that time.This is a great book, I couldn't put it down.
Freedom Writers.......2007-05-13
Well written, deep and touching true accounts of the students past. A truly inspiring story
Courtesy of Teens Read Too.......2007-05-05
This is the book that the movie Freedom Writers (Widescreen Edition) is based on. These are the diaries of the students put into one book.
There are no names used in the book--each diary entry has a number, so that the students could feel free to write what they wanted without knowing exactly who wrote what. Personally, I think this is a great idea because the diary entries were very open and you could tell the students wrote exactly what they felt.
THE FREEDOM WRITERS DIARY is a truly excellent book, because everything is so real and most of The Freedom Writers had to grow up at an extremely early age. Many had their innocence taken away around the age of ten. The Rodney King riots were going on and the Columbine High School event occurred during the time of the book. These high school students had seen more murder and dead bodies then most people will ever see in their entire lives.
99% of The Freedom Writers have even been shot at. This is an extremely true and eye-opening statistic. Segregation is still an issue in the United States, even though many people don't have to deal with it. This book taught me a lot about tolerance and what happens on the streets of Long Beach, California.
Reviewed by: Taylor Rector
great for teens and tweens.......2007-03-09
I bought this book for two 12 year olds to read, they are still reading and it has sparked important discussions!
AMAZING........2007-03-09
this book was apsolutly amazing. i loved it. if you have seen the movie the book is exactly like it. it is amazing if you are a teenager like myself. my dad bought this book for me for my birthday. if you havent already bought it buy it. If you havent bought it and you havent seen the movie. READ the book first then watch the movie. AMAZING!
Book Description
This celebrated volume begins when Nin is about to publish her first book and ends when she leaves Paris for New York. Edited and with a Preface by Gunther tuhlmann; Index.
Customer Reviews:
Should be read simultaneously..........2007-09-09
...with "Tropic of Cancer." For newbies, read the synopsis of Anais Nin and Henry Miller at "wikipedia." Then start reading Volume 1 of Anais Nin's diaries (1931 - 1934). After a while, maybe 30 - 40 pages you will want to take a break. So, pick up "Tropic of Cancer" and read the first couple of chapters. Anais had Henry read her journals; Anais and Henry helped each other with each others works. The preface to "Tropic of Cancer" was written by Anais Nin (at least it was signed by her; legend has it that Henry actually wrote it). "Tropic of Cancer" was published (and immediately banned in the United States) in 1934. (By the way, off topic, Henry Miller reminds me a lot of Hunter S. Thompson, at least "Tropic of Cancer" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.")
A womans heart ...laid out boldly in words for all to see. .......2005-12-31
ANAIS has been someone who has carried me through some tough times in the past...I read her at twenty...and twenty-three and twenty-six. Her troubles were my own and we were kin. She is meant to be read by anyone who loves life...in it's full fleshy sometimes heart rending reality. She writes with the open-heart of a poet, and leaves the reader feeling more than fed. READ ANAIS NIN!
A great read.......2004-10-08
I recomend reading Anais Nin's diary. The book is such poetic prose. Some sentences really took my breath away, the way she can captivate something so beautiful and human in simple words. Since it is a diary, its main focus is her life, but its not selfish, infact she mentions herself very little. The main focus is Henry (Miller) and June, his wife. When Ananis Nin falls inlove with someone, so does the reader. Her descriptive skills gave me goosebumps, you really can see it in your minds eye, hear the music or feel the softness of skin. I highly recomend this to anyone thinking about reading this book, you will come away with a slice of life from 1930's France.
Wonderfully delicate and erotic.......2004-07-30
This is one of the most profound works of literature I have ever read. Nin leads you directly into her life, the nature of the people around her, her feelings and internal conflicts. She writes delicately and powerfully and womanly. Everyone should have a chance to read this.
Worth reading.......2004-04-11
A bit long and occasionally dense, but overall, a worthwhile and insightful glimpse into the life of a remarkable, thoughtful writer in 1930s France.
Book Description
This beautiful journal/workbook, illustrated by the authors own paintings, provides the perfect opportunity for would-be writers, as well as those seeking a fresh approach to their work, to learn simple techniques that will help them master the basics of the craft. Inspired by Zen Buddhism, the book provides a complete step-by-step mini-course on how to write clearly and powerfully. Abundant lined pages can be used for writing practice.
Customer Reviews:
Happy I didn't purchase it..............2006-05-26
I flipped through this book at the library. I saw Natalie Goldberg's name and instantly thought that I was in for a treat. WRONG!! It's a journal!! And one with an itty-bitty amount of paper to write in to boot!! Soooooo happy I didn't purchase this one. I'll save my money to be used for purchasing another book written by her.
Do You Journal?.......2005-07-17
This review refers to "The Essential Writer's Notebook - A Step by Step Guide To Better Writing" (Natalie Goldberg).
If you are looking for a lovely journal, a place to record your thoughts, or a nice gift for someone who does journal, this notebook would be a good buy. The book is a sturdy hardcover, with good quality lined pages for writing, that are double spiral bound. Every few pages, you will find a beautiful color illustration that may even prove to be inspiring. At the beginning of every few pages, you will also find, writing exercises or daily inspirations to help you gather your thoughts, or that you may use as a warm up excercise to get your mind working if you are a writer working on other projects.
Goldberg guides the budding writer with ways to really get your thoughts out there. Keep your hand moving on the paper, make contact with other writers, give a specific voice to your writing(e.g, mother, teacher, etc),accept what's in your mind, practice often, etc. All great advice for the budding writer. However, I feel the subtitle of this notebook, "A Step By Step Guide to Better Writing" may lead someone to believe, this is actually a text or refrence book to learning how to write.
One other thing, I think for the price, there could have been more pages to write on. If you journal or write everyday, this notebook may not even last a month. Especially being that the advice given is to KEEP writing.
A nice quality journal, with some very useful information and helpful hints for a budding writer. Maybe nice for a stocking stuffer or gift for someone going away on a vacation or to college. But don't expect..a "step by step guide to better writing."(If that wasn't part of the title I probably would have gone 4 stars for this item.
Keep writing and enjoy...Laurie
An Excellent Notebook.......2002-04-27
I found this to be an excellent notebook. Keep in mind that this is essentially a workbook, not a text on writing. If you are looking for a beautiful place to put your thoughts , this is for you. Quotes from the author are scattered thoughout the book to prompt your inner voice. I like this book so much, that I'm going to buy another copy when I fill the first one.
The lush artwork of Ms. Goldberg is itself worth the price of the book:)
Misleading title.......2002-01-05
Those who are familiar with Natalie Goldberg's other books will be disappointed. This is basically like any other blank journal, with colorful pages, some quotes, and the very occasional writing prompt. For the same money, you can get a simple notebook and one of Natalie's other - and considerably more substantial - works.
buy a school notebook instead.......2001-11-25
I was angry with myself for succumbing to propaganda when I bought this book, so un-Natalie like.
Average customer rating:
- Not For Writers Only - But For Female Survivors
- An introduction to her mind and process
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A Writer's Diary
Virginia Woolf , and
Leonard Woolf
Manufacturer: Harvest/HBJ Book
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The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Vol. 1, 1915-1919
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ASIN: 0156027917 |
Book Description
An invaluable guide to the art and mind of Virginia Woolf, drawn by her husband from the personal record she kept over a period of twenty-seven years. Included are entries that refer to her own writing, others that are clearly writing exercises; accounts of people and scenes relevant to the raw material of her work; and comments on books she was reading. Edited and with a Preface by Leonard Woolf; Indices.
Customer Reviews:
Not For Writers Only - But For Female Survivors.......2006-01-21
This is one of the greatest books ever compiled/edited (here, by the brilliant Leonard Woolf-too often completely disregarded for his own unique editorial genius) after Virginia Woolf's most tragic suicide. What you will learn from this book is the spectacularly heroic efforts VW expended moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day, month to month, year to year, and decade to decade to prevail over those inner demons by utilizing her great gift of writing herself out. This is an extraordinary Masterpiece in English Literature as well. A must-have for anyone with even a scintilla of understanding about Bi-Polar Illness and Depression insofar as how torturously difficult it can be to simply carry on...let alone glitter like the Heavenly star VW surely was. Oh - and as long as her books are still in print, I don't see her as really "gone" at all.
An introduction to her mind and process.......2004-05-12
A WRITER'S DIARY: BEING EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF VIRGINIA WOOLF Edited by Leonard Woolf was in a tradition I love, the practical and inspirational inner life of writers recorded in diaries or letters. Within pages of starting it, I was already back to regular journal writing myself. This volume includes entries from Monday, August 4, 1918, to Sunday, March 8, 1941, within four days of her suicide by drowning.
The real value of this book, I think, which was heavily edited by her husband to protect people still living, I'm told, is that it clearly spells out the troubles and mental burdens of the writer that she was. I loved reading about her processes in writing books of hers that I have read, ORLANDO, TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, MRS. DALLOWAY. (I forgot the affection I held for Mrs. Dalloway until I read about her writing it, and I just felt love for that book all over again.)
One can see the practical issues a writer faces, and I think this book performs the valuable service of illustrating that creative work is WORK, that it doesn't just rise from a magical well of talent and become complete -- voila! -- in the world. She frets about sales, about timing, about editing, about what her friends, Lytton Strachey, Morgan (E.M. Forster) and Tom (T.S. Eliot) will say. What the reviewers will understand of what she was trying to do, what her method should be, etc. It's a vivid account of the pain of creation. And she reminds herself each time a book comes out that she goes through these stages of happiness, dejection and waiting every time she publishes. When her book THREE GUINEAS came out, referring to the media response, she wrote from her home in the countryside, "It's true I have a sense of quiet and relief. But no wish to read reviews, or hear opinions... Mercifully we have 50 miles of felt between ourselves and the din."
She also notes how the slightest criticism is so much more resounding to her that the highest praise (we've all been there!), revealing explicitly that common trait of depressives, that their successes are somehow a sham perpetrated on the world by a cunning and knowing secret failure of a self.
An interesting angle of this book is her experiences in World War II with the bombing of London by the Nazis. She and her husband, Leonard, lost two homes they had in London, and she sometimes wondered if she would die that day in a raid, even forcing herself to write how she imagined dying by bombing would feel. It made me think of de Beauvoir's autobiography, how it was most gripping when she wrote of her life in France during WWII and the Vichy government. I think, particularly in this area, Woolf's unexpergated diaries, which were published later, would prove even more vital and interesting.
She also writes about what she is reading. Woolf was an accomplished critic, and she clearly like to write, to express herself in that way, whether for publication, or for catharsis as an "external processer" in her diaries, and her notes on what soothes her and what is boring for her (some chapters of ULYSSES) and what she ought to be reading if she's about to get killed in an air raid (SHAKESPEARE) are fascinating.
This book is VERY episodic, and while it's a little harder to pick up again, because of the lack of a conventional plot of ongoing issues, it's easy to keep reading for pages and pages once one does pick it up again. There is no plot really apparent here about her mental illness. Her suicide isn't something the reader of this volume sees coming, though she is often ill with headaches and later on, influenza, and as the war continues, she is thinking about the concrete matters of death.
Her lovely writing, colloquial, chatty, insightful and carefully plotting her worries and happinesses is a joy. Her last entry is about finding occupation to keep oneself going and motivated. She is even scheming what she could do with her time, and is grateful to have supper to cook, now that the cook has left the household to be with her sister during the raids. It's very vibrant and lively. It's hard to believe she isn't out there somewhere still making her charming and insightful notes in her journals.
This is a good book for people curious about the process of writing or about the thoughts of Woolf as she composed her books specifically. I would recommend it to them.
Customer Reviews:
Freedom Writers Diary Teacher's Guide.......2007-10-15
The Freedom Writers Diary is an incredible book for teenagers to read, and this book will help any teacher use the FWD to motivate and inspire students. The Teacher's Guide contains practical activities that tie into the book but can also be used independently. Several of the activities, such as the Line Game and the Toast for Change, were featured in the Freedom Writers movie. All of the activities are tied to NCTE standards, and they are all ready to use. This book will help educators teach reading and vocabulary skills, but it will also help them reach their students. The Freedom Writers Diary is an incredibly powerful book for teens, and the Freedom Writers Teacher's Guide is the best teacher's guide I've ever used.
Book Description
It is likely that these journals will be regarded as one of [Kafka's] major literary works; his life and personality were perfectly suited to the diary form, and in these pages he reveals what he customarily hid from the world." -- New Yorker
"What seems to hold [the diaries] together is a kind of ruthless honesty and self-awareness." -- New York Times
Though Franz Kafka is one of the greatest and most widely read and discussed authors of the twentieth century, and continues to be a tremendous influence on artists of our time, he remains an elusive figure, his life and work open to endless interpretation.
These diaries reveal the essential Kafka behind the enigmatic artist. Covering the period from 1910 to 1923, the year before Kafka's death at the age of forty, they provide a penetrating look into Kafka's world -- notes on life in Prague, accounts of his dreams, his feelings for the father he worshipped and for the woman he could not bring himself to marry, his sense of guilt and of being an outcast, and his struggles and triumphs in expressing himself as a writer.
Now, for the first time in this country, the complete diaries of Franz Kafka are available in one volume. They are not only indispensable to an understanding of Kafka the man and the artist, but are a compulsively readable, haunting account of a life of almost unbearable intensity.
Customer Reviews:
Comic masterpiece.......2007-10-07
Yes, yes, I know it's odd to describe Kafka's writing as comic, but he really was one of the funniest writers of the Twentieth Century. His outlook on life reminds me so much of Charlie Chaplin's famous mantra that life is a tragedy in close up, in long shot it's a comedy. Kafka is loved by millions because he is the most universal writer of them all. High on the peaks of Twentieth Century literature features the brilliant stylistic prose of Nabokov, the pyrotechnics of Joyce, the pitch black comedy of Beckett, the sublime little observations of Proust. But right at the summit sits the unlikely figure of the wretched, kvetching tortured sick soul and body of Kafka, the world's greatest underdog. With these diaries chronicling his dreams, his awareness of the fragility of his physical body, his anguished relations with his family and friends, the daily nightmare of his office job and the time it stole from his creative pursuits, Kafka speaks for us all. For instance, a single paragraph sentence from 1913 reads:
I'll shut myself off from everyone to the point of insensibility. Make an enemy of everyone, speak to no one.
Now anyone who has ever been a teenager will feel a burning empathy with that sentiment!
Then some bits are brilliantly, nightmarishly extraordinary, like this musing, also from 1913:
To be pulled in through the ground-floor window of a house by a rope tied around one's neck and to be yanked up, bloody and ragged, through all the ceilings, furniture, walls, and attics, without consideration, as if by a person who is paying no attention, until the empty noose, dropping the last fragments of me when it breaks through the roof tiles, is seen on the roof
I read this part on a train, and snorted with laughter. Kafka is such a lovable tortured genius, carrying the weight of his misery around like an anvil on his back. Such a warped brilliant imagination.
Keep a copy of these diaries on your bedside table for those moments when you are fed up with the wretched pressures of the world, can't stand other people, and want to selfishly wallow like a pig in the mud of your own self pity. Priceless.
A Writer's Writer.......2006-10-15
Franz Kafka's diaries were never meant to be published. Yet his diaries are spread across the internet, the actual published diaries translated into many languages and countless printings. These dairies are very personal, and the gentle Prague Jew would certainly be appalled.
Why do we continue to find these writings so fascinating?
Well, simply, they're terribly honest. Kafka never meant for these diary entries to be published, let alone read by another person. For those interested in the mechanics and soul of writing, Kafka's diaries are a source of true wonder. A confessional of a gentle soul, a man trapped in an insurance job, staying up through the night writing his heart-out, his thoughts, pains and acute observations of a time on the brink of great and terrible change, the death and cruelty of two world wars.
When reading Kafka, there is an overwhelming darkness, loneliness, a strong shadow that continually hovered around him, a "something" he tried to rid himself of through intense self reflection, which the reader of these diaries will discover.
Kafka's life story is, for the most part, a tragedy. A painful experience as one, sometimes, can feel his self consciousness, that subtle pain at the back of the neck, when, you know, you're being stared at...and his continued bad health.
I've attempted to read Kafka's diaries many times, and only now, for some reason, can withstand the pain of his perceptions, his precarious relationship with his father, and the few women he loved and the true love he never married.
Kafka is a man that loved writing for writing's sake, an artist who experimented daily, till dawn most nights, to pick up his little brief case and begin his work as an insurance lawyer in a semi-official insurance institute.
A strange yet moving entry:
21 February 1911
I live my life here as if I were entirely certain of a second life, as if for example I had entirely gotten over the failed time spent in Paris, since I will strive to return soon. Connected to this, the sight of the sharply divided light and shadow on the street paving.
For a moment I felt myself covered in armour.
How distant, for example, are the muscles of my arms
Kafka's writing was for the act itself without pretension or grandious dreams, (though his success during his 40 year lifetime was no disappointment) an act of instinct, pure and natural. Kafka is the true writer's writer.
The Indispensable Kafka.......2006-09-23
Franz Kafka's 1910-23 diary entries are essential reading for anyone who seeks a better understanding of the author's literary world. This 1988 printing contains all the surviving Kafka diaries in one comprehensive volume. More revelatory than any biography, the diaries remain as compelling as his fictional work.
I am now in love with Franz Kafka.......2005-07-27
The diaries reveal that Kafka was not only the one-dimensional character of the disturbed, alienated, and melancholic man that contemporary literary analysis presents him as, but a person with a complexity of feeling, humor, and distinct moments of happiness and joy.
The segment where he vacillates, through an organized list, as to whether he should marry his fiancé or not I found most enjoyable, and it is also fascinating to watch the diaries darken as Kafka ages, and to long for the unfinished fragments of stories and the gaps in narrative as he struggles against tuberculosis.
History claims that he was the prophetic bearer of images of totalitarianism and social suppression, but it is often forgotten that Kafka was also an ordinary man leading a rather ordinary, if not emotionally tempestuous, life.
These diaries are indispensable in understanding the underlying philosophy and thought behind his literary works, and in coming to know more intimately the author who created them, rather than relying upon a preconceived notion of Kafka as an isolated, miserable apparition.
Incredible, Underrated........2005-07-23
The Diares of Franz Kafka reveal him to not just be the disturbing and clever author, but a genuine philosopher in his own right. Because he never published huge tomes of philosophy, he is completely overlooked. Kafka tends to address only himself in his diary, but he grapples with universal problems of the human condition. My copy of the Diaries is underlined, highlighted, and circled on almost every page. He puts into words, even in the translation, so many important and elegant ideas that have not been adequately expressed before or after him. If you have even the slightest interest in Kafka or philosophy, or alienation, buy this book. Buy two copies, in case you lose the first one. Once you've read it, you will not want to be without access to it, ever. Incredible.
Book Description
Have you always wanted to chronicle your experience of motherhood, but never knew how to begin? Are you looking for an outlet for self-expression, but can't imagine how you could juggle one more thing? In Writing Motherhood, longtime writing teacher Lisa Garrigues dispels the myth that motherhood is an impediment to creativity. Drawing on her own efforts to balance the demands of motherhood with her dream of writing, she shows readers how everyday life can be a rich source of stories, and how writing can provide a means to both understand and document their experiences. Whether you are a new mother or a grandmother, someone who has long aspired to write or someone who has never written before, Writing Motherhood will help you find your voice and tap into your creative self.
Filled with insight, honesty, and humor, each chapter of Writing Motherhood weaves together stories from the author's life with wisdom from other writers and mothers. In daily writing Invitations, Lisa then encourages readers to tell their own stories. Along the way, she reveals how to:
- Start and fill a Mother's Notebook -- in just fifteen minutes a day.
- Silence the critical voices that stifle creativity.
- Throw away the rules that bind the imagination.
- Carve out the time and space for writing.
- Find a community of other mothers who want to write.
Beautifully written and thought-provoking, this inviting and inspiring book will strike a chord with any mother looking to explore and reflect on her experience of motherhood. Here she will discover that mothering provides endless material for writing at the same time that writing brings clarity and wisdom to mothering. Writing Motherhood is an essential guide for mothers at every age and stage of life.
Customer Reviews:
Christmas presents for all!.......2007-07-20
I am loving working through this book and intend giving it to several 'Mothers' for Christmas this year! Along with a blank notebook and a pen of course.
Exceptional Guide for the Journey to Being a Mom-Who-Writes.......2007-06-25
I walked through my local Barnes and Noble recently and, as always, headed for the Writing Books. It surprised me, although I don't really know why, to find a couple brand new books written specifically for Moms-who-are-writers as well as another title for "busy women."
Intriguing.
Of the books I read, Lisa Garrigues "Writing Motherhood" is the most in tune with what it means to "be" a writer, not someone who is obsessed with publishing or looking for a recipe book to achieve this or that in 7 hours or 14 days or instant-success, this is a book that is realistic, heartful and a powerful guide for mothers who want to write motherhood and so much more.
She gives specific tips and techniques as she shares stories of how these tips and techniques have worked for herself and others, including a section on "Mother's Helpers" and 7 Building Blocks for Success.
She also pays respect to the concept of having a Writer's Notebook that serves a dual purpose as a Mother's Notebook. I am a longtime fan of folks who write in notebooks like Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg, so this struck a significant cord for me as well. We Moms-who-write need to train ourselves to write in small, heartful chunks.
Garrigues is an able guide for us along this journey.
This is a book to have on your shelf, to pick up and use - to refer back to regularly.
For Mothers Who Love to Journal Their Way to Self-Discovery.......2007-06-13
Mothers have always written about the experience of mothering. They've written letters to other mothers detailing the complex blend of day-to-day minutae and big-picture thinking that go into raising a child. They've recorded the journey of their days in their diaries. They've captured these moments in poetry, fiction, song lyrics, and movie scripts (to say nothing of countless other art forms). And, more recently, they've been inspired to hit the blogosphere to chronicle their lives and experiences and create a community of mothers online.
Writing about motherhood is a proud tradition and one that many mothers are drawn to, both to make sense of the powerful, life-changing experience of becoming a mother and because they want to capture moments of this journey, perhaps to share with their child, another friend, or the broader community of mothers.
WRITING MOTHERHOOD by Lisa Garrigues reads very much like SIMPLE ABUNDANCE FOR MOTHERS in that it is a guided journey to greater self-discovery and creativity as a mother and a writer. The book is inspiring and encouraging, and the techniques suggested will work well for mothers who are primarily interested in journalling (what Garrigues refers to as keeping a "Mother's Notebook"), but who may also be interested in other types of writing. In a short section entitled "Coming Out of the Notebook," pages 253 to 254, Garrigues discusses first steps to pursuing publication and other means of sharing your work with the world (reading your work, starting a blog). There is an additional section on online options for writers (pages 289 to 294), which will primarily be of interest to the mom who is new to the online world.
The book is peppered with encouraging quotes from other writers and Garrigues has included enough resources and writing ideas to provide creative inspiration to keep any mom writing non-stop. I love Garrigues' advice about the need for a holistic writing schedule for mothers -- "one that takes into account your whole life." She argues that your writing schedule should be nonnegotiable, individual, reasonable, resilient, and compassionate." Very sensible advice.
The only suggestion I would make to a reader of this excellent book is not to get too caught up in the formal writing exercises and writing prompts that are provided. Use them to jumpstart your creativity on days when your muse has gone AWOL, but don't allow them to drown out the ideas that are perculating inside your own brain.
What you want to be writing (and what the world wants to hear) are your own unique ideas; your own unique experiences; those raw moments of motherhood that are so fresh and dripping with truth that you have no choice put to reach for your Mother's Notebook and write. That's what motherhood writing is all about and where Garrigues ultimately wants to take you. Enjoy the trip.
Writing is a gift you give yourself.......2007-05-22
If you are a mother who has ever thought of writing, I highly recommend that you treat yourself to Lisa's book. Developed after years of experience teaching writing classes for mothers, "Writing Motherhood" is original, well-crafted, and beautifully written in a manner that evokes the same deep truths as "The Artist's Way." A writing practice can be a private pursuit, the nexus for a group of kindred spirits, or something you eventually pursue for publication. But I can testify to the fact that the process is worthwhile, independent of the product.
Writing is a vital creative outlet for any mother. To write is to stake a claim for time, creativity, and energy that is just for you! "Writing Motherood" is full of practical exercises and guidelines, and Lisa's evocative writing is an inspiration in itself. She's written the guide creative moms have been waiting for.
Writing Motherhood-A Creative Guide.......2007-05-21
Lisa Garrigues's first book is a creative guide for writing about our motherhood experiences whether in the past or currently.
As a grandmother, with her guide as a beacon I have written about my own children when they were young and about my 16, 6, and 3 year old grandchildren. I eagerly await her next book.
Average customer rating:
- Brilliant early Merton
- A very warm, human effort showing the man the way he was.
- Merton: The battle between Monk & Man
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Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and a Writer (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 2)
Thomas Merton
Manufacturer: HarperOne
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Run to the Mountain: The Story of a VocationThe Journal of Thomas Merton, Volume 1: 1939-1941 (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 1)
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A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True LifeThe Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3: 1952-1960 (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
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Dancing in the Water of Life (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
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The Other Side of the Mountain: The End of the Journey (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
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Learning to Love: Exploring Solitude and Freedom (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
ASIN: 0060654775 |
Book Description
The second volume of Thomas Merton's "gusty, passionate journals" (Thomas Moore) chronicles Merton's advancements to priesthood and emergence as a bestselling author with the surprise success of his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. Spanning an eleven-year period, Entering the Silence reflects Merton's struggle to balance his vocation to solitude with the budding literary career that would soon established him as one of the most important spiritual writers of our century.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant early Merton.......2001-06-05
Thomas Merton's journals take up here in the momonastery in Gethsemani abbey in Kentucky in the 1940"s. An expurgated version of these entries has previously been published as THE SIGN OF JONAS,my personal favorite before the publication in the late 1990's of these unexpurgated diaries.Here we see the dutiful young monk, full of the zeal of the newly converted, seeing all of his brothers as "signs of God's wonder and Mercy." Needless to say, the tomne shifts slightly as the aura of conversion wears a bit, and Merton is given time to write. One of his most famous pieces done while he was on watch in the abbeys fire tower is included here, without the editing. Firewatch in and of itself is worth the price of the book. We begin to see here Mertons wish for a life of more seclusion, and here he mentions the Carthusians and the camaldolese as possible places he could find that solitude.{a wish that he held,apparantly until the end of his life]Merton's insaitable curiousity,his honesty in dealing with himself and his foibles, and his crystaline perceptions on the life of the spirit are being formed here in this volume. Indispensible for Merton fans, and welcomed to any who seek the path trod by a spiritual giant, and a very honest man.
A very warm, human effort showing the man the way he was........1998-07-11
When Thomas Merton retreated from the civilized mainstream to enter the Trappist Monastery at Gethsemani, an unknowing observer might view his spiritual struggle as ending, becoming completely lost in the routine of monastic life, its repetition and overt acceptance of spiritual discipline. The battle against personal desire versus group obedience to higher powers beyond flesh and blood one would assume to have been a forgone conclusion. Merton brilliantly shows us, however, that within the souls of men the battle still rages. And it is how he dealt with that struggle that makes this book so marvelous. His caring and loving approach to life and others is tempered with griping about the choir's proficiency, the demands of writing within the monastic framework, the lack of understanding by superiors and comrades in spiritual arms concerning his shifting spiritual needs, for solitude, quiet and letting God sort things out for him, vice pushing his own, highly tempered will into the whirling mixture that made up this complex, brilliant man. The writing is first rate, his descriptions of the surrounding countryside are marvelously genuine as is his analyis of himself and his motives. (like to move onto a more strict, Carthusian order to reach the apotheosis of perfect contemplation). This book is a good building block for future reading of this author and I would recommend reading the entire biography/journals before even wandering into the not so clearly written efforts of Merton's theological books. Many thanks to the publisher for finally making such great writing available!!
Merton: The battle between Monk & Man.......1996-10-14
The second of Merton's private journals in a series of seven, editor John Montaldo
brings out the struggle that Thomas Merton, already a noted writer and critic,
endured during his earliest monastic days (1940-early 1950s). Merton
tackles a sort-of internal battle between the man who writes in the wee hours,
and communicates with his New York society friends (among them was poet Mark van Doren!),
and the monk who seeks to live out the Rule of St. Benedict to its fullest extent.
First time Merton readers might be lost, but Montaldo skillfully fills in the details
so that all readers will be able to focus on the struggle between man and Creator.
Seasoned Merton fans will be given a deeper appreciation for the writer and devout
monastic that emerged as a result of that internal confrontation.
Not something to pass over!
Amazon.com
The Writer's Journal offers a fascinating look at the creative mind at work. Forty contemporary authors of varying degrees of renown display the private pages of their writer's journals, accompanied by their own discussion of the journal's role in the writing process. Some of the contributors keep separate journals for each of their writing projects, while others prefer letter writing as a form of journal keeping. Still others prefer the scrap method: "My journal those years," admits fiction writer Ron Carlson, "had been a large Z.C.M.I. shopping bag which by that August was full of half a bushel of little papers on which I had scribbled: envelopes, folded memos, torn slips, wedding announcements, rodeo programs and such." For a couple of writers, such as poet Stanley Plumly, "the very idea of the journal is a dissipation of energies better spent on the work itself"; even still, says Plumly, "the changes I make, the rewrites, the editings, they are my journal." Nearly all of the writers agree that the aggregation of material and freedom of speech afforded by keeping a journal is invaluable. Denise Levertov finds that "The value of the notebook is in the way writing such things down deepens our experience of them," while Kyoko Mori uses journal entries "as a visual artist might use pencil sketches or snapshots." Lisa Shea's journal is "where I tell the truth, and the place where I fashion lies." And Ilan Stavans's journal is "simultaneously an agenda, a loyal therapist, a creative notebook, and a confessional pulpit."
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- The Last American Man
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- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Nature of Consciousness : The Structure of Reality: Theory of Everything Equation Revealed : Scientific Verification and Proof of Logic God Is
- The Psychic Pathway: A Workbook for Reawakening the Voice of Your Soul
- The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament
- The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups
- The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion
- Think Two Products Ahead: Secrets the Big Advertising Agencies Don't Want You to Know and How to Use Them for Bigger Profits
- Ulysses S. Grant : Memoirs and Selected Letters : Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant / Selected Letters, 1839-1865 (Library of America)
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