Women's Books Online - A Cooperative Book Review

A Cooperative Book Review

Reviews of Women's Books by Women Around the World

First-Fourth Quarter - 2001

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Updated July 15, 2001

First - Third Quarter, 2001

Diane L. Krueger's Reflections...One Woman's Life (1917 to the new millennium): Reviewed by Lynn Kane (Q1-3, 2001) (F)
Jane Roberts' A Thesaurus of Old English: Reviewed by Lynn Kane (Q1-3, 2001) (NF)
Jenny Scholten's Day Stripper: Reviewed by Lynn Kane (Q1-3, 2001) (NF)
Kyra Mesich's The Sensitive Person's Survival Guide - An Alternative Health Answer To Emotional Sensitivity & Depression: Reviewed by Lynn Kane (Q1-3, 2001) (NF)
Laurie Anthony's Have A Great One! - A Homeless Man's Story: Reviewed by Lynn Kane (Q1-3, 2001) (NF)
Sharon Bowers' Lucifer Rising: Reviewed by Lynn Kane (Q1-3, 2001) (F)
Sonia Pressman Fuentes' Eat First - You Don't Know What They'll Give You - The Adventures Of An Immigrant Family And Their Feminist Daughter: Reviewed by Lynn Kane (Q1-3, 2001) (NF)

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A Thesaurus of Old English
By Jane Roberts & Christian Kay with Lynne Grundy
Kings College, London Medieval Studies XI(1995)
ISBN 90-420-1573-X
ISBN 90-420-1563-2 (VOLUMES I+II)

Reviewed by Lynn Kane kanel@webmist.com

We received only the first volume of this set. It is a well-bound and attractive book. But the real treat is what happens when you open it and wade through the explanation of terms used and how to read the words found between the covers of this wonderful resource book.

I can visualize a science fiction author searching for just the right word for an alien fish-like character. Picking up this thesaurus she can go to 02.06.06 Fish: fisc, sæfisc or for a Race of fish-like characters: brimhalæst, fisccynn, holmes halæstm or wæterleod.

Words tell us a lot about the nature of a society, and the ones used in this book are certainly no exception. There are as many words describing goodness as there are describing evil practices.

There are long lists of words describing the nature of female purity virginity, celibacy, marriage, which if considered by themselves leads one to believe that this was a story-book society...until you see the long lists of words describing "unnatural sexual behavior", impurity, adulteress, prostitute,whores, procurer, concubinage, fornification, and adultery.

Just for adultry, there are six words to describe different types of adultery: æwbryce, dyrneforlege(r)nes, dyrne(ge)legerscipe, dyrne(ge)liger, forlef(en)nes, forliggang, hæmed, hæ medscipe, hæmedping, hor, geligere, geligernes, unrihthæmed, unrihthæming, wohhæmed

This is a dangerous book because for those who are interested in the meanings and origins of words, it can be a great enticement to spend time away from other tasks while you page through history considering the social ramifications of the words which receded our language.

Eat First - You Don't Know What They'll Give You - The Adventures Of An Immigrant Family And Their Feminist Daughter
By Sonia Pressman Fuentes
Can be ordered through Xlibris.com
or by sending an e-mail to Orders@Xlibris.com
or by calling 1-888-7-XLIBRIS
Information on ordering the book is also available on Ms. Fuentes' website. .
ISBN Hardcover: 0-7388-0634-X
ISBN Softcover: 0-7388-0635-8

Many times books that are self-published are difficult to wade through and are a task to read. This book was a delightful exception to the general rule.

Sonia Pressman Fuentes was a leader in the post-1950's women's movement in the United States and one of the founders of NOW (National Organization for Women) These stories give the reader more insight into the beginnings of the movement, but it is much more than that.

It is a collection of the author's autobiographical memories from a fascinating life, character sketches and short stories which are insightful, entertaining, and usually humorous.

There are many memorable sayings that came from Sonia Pressman Fuentes parents. The title of the book is one of those but one of my personal favorites was from her mother about sports. One day her mother observed Sonia's interest in a football game.

"I don't understand," she said, "What do you get when they win?"

I didn't know the answer then and I haven't been able to come up with a satisfactory answer ever since. Whenever I'm tempted to go to a game of any sort, my mother's question comes to mind -- and I stay home.

I highly recommend this book as interesting on several levels. It starts with the family's exodus from Nazi Europe, experiencing prejudice for being Jewish, her determination to become a attorney when this was not a typical role for women, her aforementioned experiences with her family, background of the women's movement from her perspective as an activist, and the demands of raising a daughter, and character sketches of some of the people whose paths crossed hers.

This was a book that was very difficult to set down and an enjoyable read. Highly Recommended

Have A Great One! - A Homeless Man's Story
By Lori Anthony
Published by Anthony Publishing
P.O. Box 3522
Dublin, OH 43016-0259
ISBN: 0-9675298-0-8

Lori Anthony is a special education teacher who took a leave of absence from her teaching job in Ohio to take her son to New York so that he could study for a year in a performing arts school. This gave her some spare time to explore the city. While doing so, she met a homeless man "earning" a living by being poor, homeless, and collecting the donations of passersby.

As she got to know him better, she discovered more about why he left his family, left life as a teacher, and ended up as a beggar.

As I read the book, I could almost see how it could be turned into a movie about someone who became content to accept his end and managed to rationalize the reasons he gave up on his family and evolved to accept begging as his intended occupation.

It is also a story about how he influenced Laurie's life and how she managed to gain an understanding and insight into his life and tried to make a difference in his life.

It is a story that could be fiction. Some parts of it may very well be fiction. At least there was one person to whom it was not fiction....Laurie Anthony

This is an engaging read and particularly if you are interested in the psychology of street people.

Reflections...One Woman's Life (1917 to the new millennium)
By Diane L. Krueger
Revised RSVP Press Electronic Book Division
http://www.RSVPBOOKS.com
ISBN # 0-930865-14-6

This is the first electronic book I have reviewed, although I have been reading them for years in text versions the from Gutenberg Project. It came as a link and was in Adobe Acrobat's pdf format, whereas other books I had read were in .txt so that was a difference.

The format worked fine. It was handy to be able to increase the text size to make it easier to read. I don't know whether this would work in my Handspring Visor, however. Straight text might be better if offered as an option.

The story was engaging until it started straining the limits of credibility. It started in 1917 with the birth of the main character, to her mother Leanne. As I read, I was hoping the story would be about Leanne because I have always been drawn to that name. In this story she is a poor girl in coal-mining country who fell in love with a man who had the poor judgement to be killed in a mining disaster leaving her pregnant and without means to provide for her child.

Another couple is introduced who want, but cannot have children, and who run the local company store. Without giving up the story line too much, Leanne has her girl-child named Melinda Sue and then commits suicide while depressed following the birth of her child and Leanne's mother takes over the care for Melinda Sue, but grandmother is in even worse straits than was her daughter so she gives up the child to the store couple and they raise her as their own and they provide every advantage that they can for Melinda Sue. Her grandmother is known to her as an Aunt.

As Melinda Sue grows, she displays a talent for singing and is discovered by Billy Rose, yes, The Billy Rose of vaudeville fame and after some false starts she goes into the entertainment business and eventually into films.

The story starts in the present as Melinda Sue is an old woman and chronicles the changes in her life as she learns more about her beginnings and about herself as she travels the path that brought her full circle. She reflects about her children, her loves, and her life.

Day Stripper
By Jenny Scholten
New Victoria Publishers
ISBN # 1-892281-10-4

According to the jacket, Jenny Scholten supported herself as an exotic dancer and lap dancer while earning her MA in Psychology. (When you think about it, that's probably an appropriate degree program for someone who is working in the sex business, since so much of it is a mind game.)

Jenny draws on her experiences in the business to write her first novel.

Although written as a murder mystery, it is more of an exposé about the San Francisco sex-business world and about union corruption in that business. It is probably a thinly veiled attempt to write a first novel based on her experiences.

The heroine, Aubrey, is a stripper in the Tenderloin district. After a stripper friend is murdered and after seeing the police will not take the murder investigation seriously, she decides to take it upon herself to solve the murder in a form that reminded me of "The Bobbsey Twins take on the Tenderloin". She runs down clues, finds a tape that points toward a union president that has been trying to organize sex workers, eliminates one suspicious character after another (and in that environment, there were plenty of potential sleazes to eliminate.

Her investigation takes her to hooker friends of the murdered girl, involves owners and workers in sex shops, dance clubs, and the aforementioned union organizers. And yes, eventually, she discovers the killer and motive.

Rather than write a mystery novel, however, I would personally think the subject matter would have played better had she written it as a non-fiction exposé of the San Francisco Sex business as it existed at that particular time from the inside which operates on the gray twilight edge of legality.

I'm sure that she had her reasons. Some of the characters may not appreciate their business being displayed in the sunlight or she may have figured it simply was not interesting enough to write about.

When you get right down to it, the sex business is just that...a business. A way to make money. Nothing really very interesting, but at a certain age, it has it's thrills, dangers, and experiences. But, it has been around since the beginning, which makes it very difficult to write about.

The Sensitive Person's Survival Guide An Alternative Health Answer to Emotional Sensitivity & Depression
By Kyra Mesich, Psy. D.
Ansuz Press
Order at http://www.KyraMesich.com
or Call (612)827-3163
ISBN # 0-9674767-9-8

It is difficult for me to identify someone who is experiencing clinical depression as being "Emotionally Sensitive". It seems to me that they are not sensitive to others and are occupied almost totally in themselves and their own hurt, frustration, and sense of powerlessness, and, in a sense, they give up on themselves.

But Dr. Mesich claims that these people are primarily too sensitive (empathetic) to others and internalize those feelings which manifest themselves as the symptoms of the clinically depressed.

There are treatment modalities she has devised to treat this form of depression by using meditation, visualization, flower essences, and herbs which she delineates in her book.

For those who are wanting to find these herbs and flower scents, she has inserted a number of resources for them in the back of her book and has provided a web site you can visit to gain more insight to your treatment of depression the Dr. Mesich way.

Lucifer Rising
By Sharon Bowers
Justice House Publishing
Order Online at http://justicehouse.com/Qstore/p000054.htm

ISBN # 0-9638231-6-7

This book is hot lesbian romance! Basically the story of Jude, a flawlessly beautiful, strong, DEA agent who succumbed to the dark side and became what she had hunted for the DEA. Or so everyone who thought they knew her believed until she met Liz, another flawlessly beautiful woman reporter out for a story. How them met, found their love, and tried to find their niche in the world is the story.

These two characters, one the spawn of hell from the wrong side of the tracks and the other from a life of relative ease and priviledge are drawn to each other with sometimes explosive results.

The story line revolves around how their relationship develops against all odds in the life that Jude had built for herself straddling the world of crime and legitimate business. There are parts which are highly violent which may upset some, offset by scenes of intense sexual interactions and great tenderness, but almost always it sets on a layer of smoldering violence which could erupt at any time.

There were too many sex scenes for my taste, some of which were rather improbable...such as after being wounded, while actively being shot at and hiding behind Jude's bullet-ridden Porsche, in the middle of a fire fight, but taking time out for deep-probing kisses and caresses.

When you are being shot at (even if you are used to the experience) you don't feel sexual. There are some priorities in life and ducking bullets is exceptionally high on the list.

In addition to the above and another serious break with reality when Jude was shot in the shoulder and someone hit her wounded shoulder, the author said it hurt and she fell back in pain. (It doesn't happen quite like that.) When you are wounded, the point of impact is numb because that area is in a state of physical shock. After all, the bullet hits at near or over the speed of sound and with enough power to usually throw a person off their feet. That's the reason it is possible for a person to stitch themselves back together if they are conscious and do it fairly quickly...providing then can keep their composure and know what they are doing.

But besides those two minor errors, in my opinion, the book was very much worth the read and unbelieveable well written for a first novel. The plot moved fast and kept you involved. The flashbacks were well written and provided an effect at times of a series of short stories within the novel which fleshed out the character development.

I look forward to reading more by Sharon Bowers.

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