Oh the Glory of It All Review

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(More customer reviews)The test of a great book is whether it stays with you, not just from the standpoint of recommending it to your friends, but also whether it changes the way you think. I could not get this book out of my mind for days after I finished it. This is the best book I've read in 2005.
Not only is this a fascinating commentary on how the rich and famous live, it's also heartrendingly honest, tragic, and laugh-out-loud funny. Sean's recollection of his trip to Russia on his mother's first "peace mission" is so funny it should be mandatory reading for creative writers. His honesty about his efforts to be the cool kid made me laugh and cry at the same time, particularly since I was the same age as Sean in the 1980s. I did not think less of Sean as he told of his prep school experiences and less-than-flattering behavior. On the contrary, the courage to write such a memoir generated my respect. Sean came through a terrible childhood where he was treated with less regard than the family dog, yet he still emerged a decent and thriving human being.
As for Dede Wilsey, who supposedly is threatening to sue Sean Wilsey, I believe every word about her in this book. The proof speaks for itself. For starters, she just donated $10 million to the De Young while her stepsons were left penniless after Al Wilsey's death. We reap what we sow. The world would be a better place if every wicked stepmother had a book written about her while she was still alive and kicking to read it. It's such great poetic justice.

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Conversations with Maxine Hong Kingston (Literary Conversations) Review

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(More customer reviews)I first read Maxine Hong Kingston's Woman Warrior when I was in 10th grade and I fell in love with it! I am Asian American myself and I could relate to various aspects in the novel. However, a lot of the novel can be confusing so I was not sure if I had gotten enough out of it. So, when I saw this book, I had to buy it! I wanted to know her thoughts and feelings about the book and everything else. I was not disappointed! This was a great supplement to her novels and a great read in general. If you are a fan of Maxine Hong Kingston, this is a definite must have!

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In 1976 Maxine Hong Kingston burst into American literature with the publication of The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. Since then her subsequent works--China Men (1980) and Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989)--have startled readers with their complex projections of Asian-American life as a bicultural and bilingual adventure filled with contemporary confusions and ancient legends, inherited values, and new loyalties. Kingston has written of her family upbringing in Stockton, California, of the stories her mother told her as advice and warning, of her father's illegal arrival in the United States, of the exploits of grandfathers who worked on the rails in California, of San Francisco street life in the 1960s, and of traditional Chinese legends. Whatever her subject, she claims America for herself and other Asian Americans whose histories are an essential part of the larger American tapestry.
In this collection of interviews Kingston talks about her life, her writing, and her objectives. From the first, her books have hovered along the hazy line between fiction and nonfiction, memoir and imagination. As she answers her critics and readers, she both clarifies the differences and exults in the difficulties of distinguishing between the remembered and the re-created.
She explains how she worked to bridge her parents' Chinese dialect with American slang, how she learned to explore her inheritance and find new relevance in her mother's "talk stories," and how she developed the complex juxtapositions of myths and memoir that fill her books. Always savvy, often provocative, constantly amused and amusing, Kingston provides a vivid commentary on her writing and offers insight into a body of her work.

Paul Skenazy is a professor of American literature and provost at Kresge College, University of California, Santa Cruz. Tera Martin is completing her doctorate in American literature at University of California, Santa Cruz.

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Burning Bears Fall From the Sky: My amusing story about relocating from a desk in San Francisco to a remote mountain in Northern California Review

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(More customer reviews)I absolutely enjoyed reading this book. It almost made me want to have a similar adventure as I sat and laughed at the various situations in which the author found himself. Colorful and crazy living! A perfect example of how life transforms each one of us and how our response to the challenges thrown our way can make or break us.

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The story starts with the unexpected end to a career, during a downturn in the economy. Without an income, the urbanite couple abandons their former life and finds the only property they could afford, in a remote mountainous area of Northern California outside the remnants of a tiny Gold Rush town. It's an area populated by rugged people. With only an abandoned shack for shelter the couple find themselves struggling to survive, theirs trials played out in the middle of a community they couldn't have imagined.Initially overwhelmed, they learn how to build a house, repair old cars, drill for water, fix water pumps, clear land, bulldozers, burn piles, horses, scary steep driveways, chainsaws, rattlesnakes, vermin, gun-toting neighbors, baby deer, good folks and bad folks, bears and lions, wilderness, fires, wildfires, mountain life, summer heat and winter freezes, and finally find redemption. Not just with themselves, but also the rural community of Igo, its surprising assortment of people and its very different culture. This is an adventure story set later in life, but most of all, it's a celebration of life.

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