The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness
Vironika Tugaleva, 2013
Soulux Press
250 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780992046804
Summary
After a decade-long struggle with addiction, eating disorders, and profound self-hatred, Vironika Tugaleva had to make a choice: change or die.
In choosing to change, she meant to heal herself, and accidentally stumbled upon a deep spiritual truth about why she was suffering in the first place. As a former cynic, she was surprised to find herself having a spiritual awakening.
Drawing from first-hand experience, what has to say in this important and timely book isn't fanciful fluff or indoctrinating dogma. Her approach to spirituality is unconventional, deep, and refreshingly real.
The Love Mindset offers a surprisingly simple look at how we can heal our relationship with ourselves, each other, and life itself.
If you feel like you're too broken to fix, hold out your last shred of hope and give Vironika a try. She won't disappoint you. She will teach you about the power of love, the purpose of life, and the potential of people united. She will show you to yourself.
Author Bio
• Birth—June 1, 1988
• Where—Donestk, Ukraine
• Education— Experience and Recovery, University of Life
• Currently—Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Vironika is a people lover, inspirational speaker, reformed cynic, coach, and bestselling author of The Love Mindset. She helps people suffering from mental and emotional distress heal their minds and discover their inner strength.
Vironika is a teacher and lifelong learner of the human mind and the nature of change, healing, and happiness. Her journey into the depths of human nature did not begin in any university, organization, church, or school of thought. Her wisdom flowered out of her recovery from a decade-long struggle with addiction, eating disorders, and profound self-hatred. She healed herself and now she helps heal others. She says, "I just want to be the light I wish I’d had in my times of darkness."
Whether she's speaking on a stage or coaching one-on-one, she uses her youthful energy and down-to-earth wisdom to help people radically transform their relationships with themselves, each other, and life itself. She is a new breed of people-helper who won't call herself an expert or a guru. She'll help you become the expert on yourself.
You’re invited to read more about Vironika and get a free sneak preview of The Love Mindset. Finally, you can follow Vironika on Facebook. (From the author.)
Book Reviews
For anyone who's tired of feeling angry, depressed, or hurt, this book is a beacon of hope! The Love Mindset is a guide to healing yourself, no matter how hopeless and complicated things seem to be!
Christina Rasmussen, author of Second Firsts
As Vironika shared her own story, I saw pieces of myself and pieces of the people I care about. Many times the book brought me to tears and I had to put it down. It was like looking in the mirror and there was a part of me that was used to not looking.
Elephant Journal
If I had two words to describe The Love Mindset, they would be: fresh and powerful. This is because when I read it, something grabbed hold of me like it was the first time I'd seen a book in 5 years!"
Reuben Lowe - Mindful Creation
Vironika Tugaleva's The Love Mindset is an authentic, brave and beautiful guide to a more loving self and a more loving world. A great gift of words for anyone searching for the sacred place of self-acceptance, self-understanding and self-love.
Howard Falco, spiritual teacher and author of I AM: The Power of Discovering Who You Really Are
In the midst of turmoil, this book comes as a breath of fresh air. It shows us how to have a peaceful life filled with long-lasting happiness.
Readers' Favorite
Discussion Questions
1. How is the "love" described in this book different from how people typically talk about "love"? What other words have you heard used to describe what she is naming as "love" in this book?
2. Have you ever suffered from love deprivation? Are you suffering from it now? What are your typical symptoms of love hunger?
3. Summarize, in your own understanding, the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and actions.
4. Which triggers have you been using to experience love thus far? Which are you still using? In your own words, why is it dangerous to rely on triggers?
5. How has your understanding of your true identity changed from reading this book?
6. Why does Vironika call fear an autoimmune disease?
7. What is the relationship between healing and self-knowledge? How can this relationship help you with your own journey?
8. Are there specific ideas or passages in the book that turned into "Aha!" moments for you? Which ones? What major epiphanies did you have about your life?
9. How applicable are Vironika's journey and teachings to your own life?
10. How will you take Vironika up on her "challenge" in the final chapter? Do you share her dream for humanity?
(Questions issued by the author.)
The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan
Jenny Nordberg, 2014
Crown Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307952493
Summary
An investigative journalist uncovers a hidden custom that will transform your understanding of what it means to grow up as a girl.
In Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as misfortune. A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as "dressed up like a boy") is a third kind of child—a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world.
Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times, constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and little freedom.
The Underground Girls of Kabul is anchored by vivid characters who bring this remarkable story to life: Azita, a female parliamentarian who sees no other choice but to turn her fourth daughter Mehran into a boy; Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles with puberty and refuses her parents’ attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man; and Nader, who prays with Shahed, the undercover female police officer, as they both remain in male disguise as adults.
At the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America’s longest war. Divided into four parts, the book follows those born as the unwanted sex in Afghanistan, but who live as the socially favored gender through childhood and puberty, only to later be forced into marriage and childbirth.
The Underground Girls of Kabul charts their dramatic life cycles, while examining our own history and the parallels to subversive actions of people who live under oppression everywhere. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—
• Where—
• Education—B.A., Stockholm University; M.A., Columbia University
• Awards—Pulitizer (contributing journalist to series)
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Jenny Nordberg, Sweden and the United States, is a New York-based foreign correspondent and a columnist for Swedish national newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
In 2010, she broke the story of "bacha posh"—how girls grow up disguised as boys in gender-segregated Afghanistan. The front page story was published in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, and Nordberg's original research was used for opinion pieces around the world and inspired several works of fiction.
Her book, The Underground Girls of Kabul, published in 2014, reveals entirely new aspects of the practice and goes deep into the gender segregation and resistance among women in Afghanistan. Five years in the making, this cross-border investigation is described by Publisher's Weekly as "one of the most convincing portraits of Afghan culture in print.” She is also developing bachaposh.com as an online resource for girls who have grown up as boys due to segregation.
Together with the Times' investigative unit, Nordberg previously worked on projects such as an examination of the American freight railroad system; a series that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and U.S. efforts at exporting democracy to Haiti. She has also produced and written several documentaries for American television, about Iraqi refugees, Pakistan's nuclear proliferation and the impact of the global financial crisis in Europe.
In Sweden, Nordberg was a member of the first investigative team at Swedish Broadcasting's national radio division, where she supervised projects on terrorism and politics. Nordberg has won awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors, The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights and Foreningen Gravande Journalister.
Jenny Nordberg holds a B.A. in Law and Journalism from Stockholm University, and an M.A. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. (Bio courtesy of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Nordberg’s subtle, sympathetic reportage makes this one of the most convincing portraits of Afghan culture in print; through a small breach in the wall of gender apartheid, she reveals the harsh ironies of a system that so devalues women that it forces them to become men.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) A stunning book… Nordberg has done some staggering work in this unique, important, and compelling chronicle. Book clubs will be riveted, and will talk for hours.
Booklist
A journalist’s fascinating study of the Afghan subculture of young girls raised to be boys.... As affecting as the stories of these women are, Nordberg’s conclusion—that women’s rights are essential to "building peaceful civilizations"—is the most powerful message of this compelling book. An intelligent and timely exploration into contemporary Afghanistan.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The Underground Girls of Kabul features several women who find ways to resist and subvert power—including Azita, whose status is elevated by disguising her daughter as a son; Mehran, who is able to confidently roughhouse with boys her own age; and Zahra, who fights her parents to maintain her male identity after puberty. Which woman’s story did you find most interesting? Why?
2. Although Afghanistan and its conflicts have been well-covered, the book offers a different entry point into the lives of people there. Before reading this book what (if anything) did you know about Afghanistan? What did you find surprising about the country and its history in reading this book?
3. Do you think the practice of bacha posh is subversive, with the potential to change the strict gender culture of Afghanistan? Or do you see it as women capitulating to and reinforcing a system of segregation?
4. Some of the girls who are raised as bacha posh do not want to go back to living as women. How do you think you would react if you were in their position?
5. After reading the book, does the practice of bacha posh make sense to you or is it entirely foreign? How would you explain why this happens?
6. The author outlines a pervasive culture of violence and extreme segregation. Which part of the story, if any, made you angry? Why?
7. What historical and current-day parallels to bacha posh, pretending to be someone or something else due to segregation or oppression can you think of: real or fictional, in different countries, for different reasons?
8. Are the lives of Afghan women entirely different from those of women in the West, or do you see similarities in how we behave and how we live? What are those?
9. Do you agree that there is also a “culture of honor” in our society, where girls should be pure and boys should be aggressive and protective? Where do you see examples of that in the reporting of daily news or in your own life?
10. Many of the women in this book experience the limits of female freedom, even if they have had success. For example, Azita has risen from a small Afghan village to occupy a place in parliament, but she is still very limited in what she can do and how far she can reach. Is there a limit to how far most women can get in our own society today? Why is that?
11. In an interview about the book, Jenny Nordberg said that the story of the bacha posh “cuts right to the most difficult questions of human existence: war, oppression, and the difference between men and women.” Do you agree? Why are the differences between men and women so important to us?
12. Jenny Nordberg raises questions about whether or not gender is dichotomous, and she even calls bacha posh “a third kind of child”—neither boy nor girl. What do you think: Are we born a certain way or do we become our gender?
13. Under what circumstances would you consider raising a daughter as a son? And in what situation or circumstance could you imagine disguising yourself in exchange for greater freedom?
14. Did you ever wonder how things would have been different had you been born a child of the other gender? Did you ever wish, at any stage in your life or in a particular circumstance, that you could be a different gender?
15. For the female reader: Did you ever dress in a less feminine and more traditionally male or conservative way to be taken seriously? Why is that important?
16. For the male reader: What traits that are considered traditionally female have you ever wished you could display more openly, if any? Do you feel a pressure to appear manly in the sense of protecting one’s family; to appear capable; et cetera?
17. In what way were you treated like a boy or a girl, respectively, when you were little? Were there things you absolutely couldn’t do due to your gender? Do you see a future in which gender roles will be less strict, and how is that a good or a bad thing for men and women?
18. Do you agree with the author’s conclusion that women’s rights are essential to human rights and to building peaceful civilizations? Why or why not?
19. What would you tell the author or any of these women? She would love to hear from you. Crown Publishing invites you to continue the conversation on bachaposh.com or to connect with Jenny Nordberg on Twitter: @nordbergj.
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot
Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard, 2012
Henry Holt
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805096668
Summary
A riveting historical narrative of the shocking events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the follow-up to mega-bestselling author Bill O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln.
Bill O'Reilly recounts in gripping detail the brutal murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy—and how a sequence of gunshots on a Dallas afternoon not only killed a beloved president but also sent the nation into the cataclysmic division of the Vietnam War and its culture-changing aftermath.
In January 1961, as the Cold War escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of Communism while he learns the hardships, solitude, and temptations of what it means to be president of the United States. Along the way he acquires a number of formidable enemies, among them Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and Alan Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition, powerful elements of organized crime have begun to talk about targeting the president and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
In the midst of a 1963 campaign trip to Texas, Kennedy is gunned down by an erratic young drifter named Lee Harvey Oswald. The former Marine Corps sharpshooter escapes the scene, only to be caught and shot dead while in police custody.
The events leading up to the most notorious crime of the twentieth century are almost as shocking as the assassination itself. Killing Kennedy chronicles both the heroism and deceit of Camelot, bringing history to life in ways that will profoundly move the reader. This may well be the most talked about book of the year. (From the publisher.)
Author Bios
Bill O'Reily
• Birth—September 10, 1949
• Raised—Levittown (Long Island), New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Marist College; M.A., Boston University;
M.A., Harvard University
• Awards—2 Emmy Awards (Investigative Journalism); National
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award
• Currently—lives in Manhasset, New York
William James, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television. During the late 1970s and 1980s, he worked as a news reporter for various local television stations in the United States and eventually for CBS News and ABC News. From 1989 to 1995, he was anchor of the entertainment news program Inside Edition.
O'Reilly is widely considered a conservative commentator though some of his positions diverge from conservative orthodoxy. He is a registered "Independent" (See: Political views of Bill O'Reilly) and characterizes himself as a "traditionalist." He is the author of ten books, and hosted The Radio Factor until early 2009.
Early life and education
O'Reilly was born in New York City to parents William James, Sr., (deceased) and Winifred Angela Drake O'Reilly from Brooklyn and Teaneck, New Jersey, respectively. His ancestors on his father's side lived in County Cavan, Ireland, since the early eighteenth century, and those on his mother's side were from Northern Ireland. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when their son was born. In 1951 his family moved to Levittown, on Long Island. O'Reilly has a sister, Janet.
He attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury, and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school in Mineola. Bill O'Reilly played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team. During his high school years, O'Reilly met future pop-singer icon Billy Joel, whom O'Reilly described as a "hoodlum." O'Reilly recollected in an interview with Michael Kay on the YES Network show CenterStage that Joel...
was in the Hicksville section—the same age as me—and he was a hood. He used to slick it [his hair] back like this. And we knew him, because his guys would smoke and this and that, and we were more jocks.
After graduating from high school in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, his father's choice. While at Marist, O'Reilly played punter in the National Club Football Association and was also a writer for the school's newspaper, The Circle. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the New York Monarchs. An honors student, he majored in history and spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. Hey received his bachelor of arts degree in history in 1971.
After graduating from Marist College at age 21, O'Reilly moved to Miami, Florida, where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School from 1970 to 1972. He returned to school in 1973 and earned a Master's of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While attending BU, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including The Boston Phoenix, and did an internship in the newsroom of WBZ-TV. During his time at BU, O'Reilly also was a classmate of future radio talk show host Howard Stern, whom O'Reilly noticed because Stern was the only student on campus taller than he was. In 1995, having already established himself as a national media personality, O'Reilly was accepted to Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government; he received a Master's Degree in public administration in 1996. At Harvard, he was a student of Marvin Kalb.
Broadcasting career
O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver, where he won a local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for KATU in Portland, Oregon, WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut, and WNEV-TV (now WHDH-TV) in Boston.
In 1980 O'Reilly anchored the local news-feature program 7:30 Magazine at WCBS-TV in New York. Soon after, as a WCBS News anchor and correspondent, he won his second local Emmy, for an investigation of corrupt city marshals. In 1982 he was promoted to the network as a CBS News correspondent and covered the wars in El Salvador and the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He later left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of riot footage shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires during the Falklands conflict.
O'Reilly delivered a eulogy for his friend Joe Spencer, an ABC News correspondent who died in a helicopter crash on January 22, 1986, en route to covering the Hormel meatpacker strike that day. ABC News president Roone Arledge, who attended Spencer's funeral, decided to hire O'Reilly after hearing his eulogy. At ABC, O'Reilly hosted daytime news briefs that previewed stories to be reported on the day's World News Tonight and worked as a general assignment reporter for ABC News programs, including Good Morning America, Nightline, and World News Tonight.
O'Reilly has stated that his interest and style in media came from several CBS and ABC personalities, including Mike Wallace, Howard Cosell, Dick Snyder and Peter Jennings.
Inside Edition
In 1989 O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated Inside Edition, a tabloid/gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run, after the termination of original anchor David Frost. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly also obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
O'Reilly had expressed a desire to quit the show in July 1994, and in 1995 he enrolled at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he received a Master's Degree in public administration. His graduate thesis, which he researched in Singapore, was titled "Theory of Coerced Drug Rehabilitation." In his thesis, O'Reilly asserted that supervised mandatory drug rehabilitation would reduce crime, based on the rate of prison return for criminals in Alabama who enrolled in a such program.
The O'Reilly Factor
After Harvard, he was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report in 1996. The show was renamed The O'Reilly Factor, after O'Reilly's friend and branding expert John Tantillo's remarks upon the "O'Reilly Factor" in any of the stories O'Reilly told. The program is routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news television channels and began the trend toward more opinion-oriented prime-time cable news programming. The show is taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and airs every weekday on the Fox News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time and is rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m.
O'Reilly's life and career have not been without controversy. Progressive media watchdog organizations such as Media Matters and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have criticized O'Reilly's reporting on a variety of issues, accusing him of distorting facts and using misleading or erroneous statistics.
After the September 11 attacks, O'Reilly accused the United Way of America and American Red Cross of failing to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. O'Reilly reported that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Actor George Clooney responded, accusing O'Reilly of misstating facts and harming the relief effort by inciting "panic" among potential donors.
Beginning in 2005, O'Reilly periodically denounced George Tiller, a Kansas-based physician who specialized in second- and third-trimester abortions, often referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer." Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist, and critics such as Salon.com's Gabriel Winant have asserted that O'Reilly's anti-Tiller rhetoric helped to create an atmosphere of violence around the doctor. Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that O'Reilly "clearly went overboard in his condemnation and demonization of Tiller" but added that it was "irresponsible to link O'Reilly" to Tiller's murder. O'Reilly has responded to the criticism by saying "no backpedaling here...every single thing we said about Tiller was true."
In early 2007, researchers from the Indiana University School of Journalism published a report that analyzed O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" segment. Using analysis techniques developed in the 1930s by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, the study concluded that O'Reilly used propaganda, frequently engaged in name calling, and consistently cast non-Americans as threats and never "in the role of victim or hero." O'Reilly responded, asserting that "the terms conservative, liberal, left, right, progressive, traditional and centrist were considered name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill." The study's authors claimed that those terms were only considered name-calling when linked to derogatory qualifiers. Fox News producer Ron Mitchell wrote an op-ed in which he accused the study's authors of seeking to manipulate their research to fit a predetermined outcome. Mitchell argued that by using tools developed for examining propaganda, the researchers presupposed that O'Reilly propagandized.
O'Reilly is the main inspiration for comedian Stephen Colbert's satirical character on the Comedy Central show The Colbert Report, which features Colbert in a "full-dress parody" of The O'Reilly Factor. On the show, Colbert refers to O'Reilly as "Papa Bear." O'Reilly and Colbert exchanged appearances on each other's shows in January 2007.
Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, O'Reilly promised that "[i]f the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean [of weapons of mass destruction] ... I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on February 10, 2004, O'Reilly responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to never again trusting the current U.S. government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."
On May 10, 2008, O'Reilly was presented with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Governors' Award at an Emmy awards show dinner.
Personal life
O'Reilly was married to Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive. They met in 1992, and their wedding took place in St. Brigid Parish of Westbury on November 2, 1996. They have a daughter, Madeline (born 1998), and a son, Spencer (born 2003).
The O'Reilly couple currently reside in suburban Manhasset, New York, with each of them living in a different house. They separated in April 2, 2010, and were divorced on September 1, 2011.
Books
• The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life (2000)
• The No Spin Zone (2001)
• Who's Looking Out For You? (2003)
• The O'Reilly Factor For Kids: A Survival Guide for America's Families (2004) with Charles Flowers
• Culture Warrior (2006)
• Kids Are Americans Too (2007)
• A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity: A Memoir (2008)
• Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama (2010)
• Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever (2011) with
Martin Dugard
• Lincoln's Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever (2012) with
Dwight Jon Zimmerman
• Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation (2013)
• Keep It Pithy: Useful Observations in a Tough World (2013)
• Killing Jesus: A History (2013) with Martin Dugard
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/5/2013)
Michael Dugard
• Birth—June 1, 1961
• Where—state of Maine, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Orange County, California
Michael Dugard is the author of numerous nonfiction works: seven of which he authored alone and three with Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, including Killng Lincoln (2011), Killing Kennedy (2012), and Killing Jesus (2013). His magazine writing has appeared in Esquire, Outside, Sports Illustrated, and GQ, among others.
Dugard regularly immerses himself in his research to understand characters and their motivations better. To better understand Columbus he traveled through Spain, the Caribbean and Central America. He followed Henry Morton Stanley’s path across Tanzania while researching Into Africa (managing to get thrown into an African prison in the process) and swam in the tiger shark-infested waters of Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay to recreate Captain James Cook’s death for Farther Than Any Man.
On the more personal side of adventure, Dugard competed in the Raid Gauloises endurance race three times, and flew around the world at twice the speed of sound aboard an Air France Concorde. The time of 31 hours and 28 minutes set a world record for global circumnavigation. In 2005, took a walk-on position as head cross-country and track coach at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano, a position that he still holds.
Books (sole author)
• Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth (1998)
• Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Capt. James Cook (2001)
• Into Africa: The dramatic retelling of the Stanley-Livingstone Story (2003)
• Chasing Lance (2005)
• The Last Voyage of Columbus (2005)
• The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846–1848 (2008)
• How to Be a Runner: How Racing Up Mountains, Running with the Bulls, or Just Taking on a
5-K Makes You a Better Person (and the World a Better Place) (2011).
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/5/2013.)
Book Reviews
Killing Kennedy has a momentum problem: it is lively, but not innately suspenseful. The authors combat that by packing in as much volatile language as possible.... However shameless it may be....Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Dugard...succeed in investing a familiar national tragedy with fresh anguish. Although their sources range from highly reputable... to iffy and presumptuous..., they are all brought together to form a powerful historical precis.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
All the suspense and drama of a popular thriller.
Husna Haq - Christian Science Monitor .
[A] comprehensive account of the John F. Kennedy administration and its untimely end.... [T]his is quick, gossipy and sure to please Kennedy buffs.... By paralleling the period with loner Lee Harvey Oswald's desperate attempts at recognition and his fixation on communism, it's easy to see how the assassin slipped under the radar.... [T]he constant reminders of the few years, months or hours Kennedy had left to live are tedious in the extreme.... A quick-fire, easy-to-read account of the Kennedy years, with some salacious details to spice it up.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the introductory Note to Readers for Killing Kennedy, co-authors Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard announce that their narrative will “go only as far as the evidence takes us.” With that in mind, discuss how this work differs from other books, articles, or fi lms you’ve previously encountered on JFK’s assassination?
2. At the outset, we see John F. Kennedy being sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren. What distinguished Kennedy from Dwight Eisenhower, the man who immediately preceded him as president? What set them apart? Indeed, what set Kennedy apart from every president that came before him? And what did JFK and Ike actually think of one another? (And how, for that matter, did Jackie diff er from Mamie?)
3. “Lee Harvey Oswald wants to come home,” we learn at the end of the Prologue. Why? Where had he been for the past few years? And why was he there? Do we really know?
4. Much is made of John F. Kennedy’s sexual liaisons and infi delities in these pages; his aff airs and trysts with all manner of women were, literally, far too many to number. In Chapter 2, we read: “As JFK once explained to a friend, he needed to have sex at least once a day or he would suff er awful headaches.” And later, in Chapter 5, JFK’s sexual appetite is described as “beyond the realm of most men’s moral or physical capacities. . . . Sex is [his] Achilles’ heel.” Discuss whether and how JFK’s addiction to sex (if, in fact, that’s what it was) weakened or lessened him as a president. We all have our demons, as they say, but is it fair to suppose that Kennedy would’ve been a better, more eff ective, or more successful Chief Executive if he hadn’t had this particular “need”?
5. “Jackie is assembling a team of top collectors to enhance the décor of the White House in every possible way,” we read in Chapter 2. And in Chapter 4: “Her goal is nothing less than to transform the White House from the very large home of a bureaucrat into a presidential palace.” What did you make of this devotion to all things elegant and gilded? Was it right, or apt, for Jackie to be so focused on issues of style? Who really cares, in other words, if the White House does or doesn’t convey a palatial grandeur to those who visit it? Is it ultimately shallow, or else misleading, to devote so much attention to the glittery surface of things? Explain your views. (And if you can recall seeing Jackie’s historic tour of the White House on CBS, be sure to share with others how that landmark TV special registered with you personally.)
6. In Chapter 5, we read that JFK “has known for years [that] Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy is [his] number one political asset.” When, then, did he continue to cheat on her? Why was he almost incessantly unfaithful to her? Why the aff air with Marilyn Monroe, or with so many others?
7. Discuss the bitterly acrimonious relationship had by Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Why did these men despise one another? And describe the “shoot a gun like man” exchange, from the fall of 1959, which seems to have originated this feud. Moreover, why did JFK and LBJ likewise not get along?
8. As a group, compare/contrast how John Kennedy handled the Bay of Pigs invasion (in 1961) with how he facilitated the rescue of the crew of PT-109 (in 1943).
9. What was the “Irish Mafia”? Who were the key players in this squad, and why were they important to John Kennedy? What did they do for him?
10. Why was JFK’s decision to stay for a few days at Bing Crosby’s residence in Palm Springs, California—rather than at Frank Sinatra’s residence—so devastating? Why did this last-minute change of venue turn out to be so hurtful, so pivotal? And how did this change come about in the first place?
11. In Chapter 6, we note: “Originally, Johnson fought JFK over being used as a roving ambassador, but now he has come to love this aspect of his job.” What did such ambassadorial work consist of, and why did LBJ like doing it so much?
12. What sorts of questions did FBI Special Agent John Fain have for Lee Harvey Oswald on August 16, 1962? And how, if at all, did Oswald answer them?
13. “The president of the United States is rolling around on the bedroom floor with his children,” we read at the beginning of Chapter 7. What did you glean from Killing Kennedy about JFK as a family man? What sort of father was he?
14. During his typically eloquent, televised speech during the Cuban missile crisis, John F. Kennedy said: “Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right. Not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom—here in this hemisphere and, we hope, and around the world.” Did this remain a paramount “goal” for the U.S. in the years following the early 1960s? And is it still one of America’s primary aims today? Explain.
15. Who is (or was) Lisa Gherardini? Why is JFK so taken with her, at the start of Chapter 8? And why is Jackie, too, even more so? Why is Jackie driven to share Lisa with the whole United States?
16. Isaiah 1:18—“Come now, let us reason together”—was, as we see in Chapter 9, LBJ’s favorite biblical verse. Why?
17. “On April 10, 1963,” O’Reilly and Dugard write ominously, “Oswald decides it’s time to kill someone.” Describe what has brought him to this decision; pinpoint those events that have led up to it. Also, identify Major General Ted Walker.
18. Killing Kennedy maintains that certain Associated Press photographs significantly influenced Jack Kennedy’s ideas and feelings about both the civil rights movement and Viet Nam. Look again at these two photos, as a group, and then discuss why each image had such an impact on the president. Also, discuss how Kennedy’s views on civil rights and Viet Nam were influenced by RFK as well as LBJ.
19. Were you surprised to learn that the famous “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the March on Washington, was—at least, at the outset—an “unusually stiff ” and “flat” and “dull” piece of oratory? When and why did King’s speech turn the corner? And what did Jack and Bobby, and also Jackie, think of MLK? What were their respective opinions of King, and what were these opinions based on?
20. Talk about the role the City of Dallas plays in this narrative. Describe what Dallas, Texas, was like—as a place, as an American town—in the early 1960s. Why did people (several different people, actually) warn JFK not to travel there? And why did he decide, nevertheless, to do so?
21. “He doesn’t know whether he wants to be an American, a Cuban, or a Russian,” we read of Oswald in Chapter 21. “Still, he longs to be a great man. A significant man. A man whose name will not be forgotten.” And back in Chapter 10, along the same lines, we read of Oswald being “worse than a failure; he is anonymous.” How common is this thirst for lasting famousness—or if not for outright fame, at least for notoriety—among modern assassins? John Wilkes Booth comes immediately to mind, of course, but what about other examples? Discuss this matter, and if necessary, do some additional/outside research into this question.
22. After considering the ways in which Jack and Jackie Kennedy dealt with the death of their infant son, Patrick, reflect on how their marriage changed over the course of their time together in the White House. Why, for example, was JFK so jealous of Aristotle Onassis? And why, conversely, were the First Couple closer and more intimate with one another—and much closer with their two kids—in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis?
23. Having read this book, do you believe Oswald acted alone? Some folks think so, others don’t. (RFK didn’t think so, by the way, as we read in Chapter 26.) Killing Kennedy presents the assassination of JFK as though Lee Harvey Oswald committed the terrible act of and by his own accord, but the book also leaves room for the possible involvement of other events, schemes, or persons. As the authors put it: “The world will never know the answer.” Do you agree with this assertion (especially with the “never” part)? Explain and defend your view(s).
24. Why did JFK’s seated body remain more or less erect in the presidential limo, even after being hit by a bullet—the first of two separate impacts—in the back of the neck? Why didn’t the president fall forward? And what would’ve happened to Kennedy, most likely, if he had fallen forward?
25. Looking again at this book’s subtitle, and also at the last few paragraphs of Chapter 27, explain the “Camelot” allusion that Jackie passed along to journalist and author Theodore White, and that the rest of the nation (no, make that the world) was all too ready to accept as fact. Was this bright and graceful “Camelot” of a White House a mythic place, or did it—if only to some degree—truly exist?
26. Killing Kennedy boasts a memorable cast of incredible-yet-real-life characters, a rich, diverse dramatis personae that’s as colorful and compelling as any other roster in the annals of history. Therefore, reading this book’s Afterword can be a treat. Whatever happened, for instance, to George de Mohrenschildt, Allen Dulles, and Sam Giancana? And how, respectively, might’ve each man had a hand—perhaps, perchance—in the killing of JFK?
27. In the Epilogue, we find a letter that JFK wrote concerning Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Conclude your discussion by considering the traits that Kennedy and Lincoln had in common—as presidents, leaders, thinkers, statesmen, fathers, inspirational figures, tragic heroes, and American visionaries. They are sometimes regarded, Lincoln and JFK, as two sides of the same proverbial coin. Would you agree?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Blue-Eyed Boy: A Memoir
Robert Timberg, 2014
Penguin Group (USA)
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594205668
Summary
Acclaimed journalist Robert Timberg’s extraordinary, long-awaited memoir of his struggle to reclaim his life and find his calling after being severely burned as a young Marine lieutenant in Vietnam
In January 1967, Robert Timberg was a short-timer, counting down the days until his combat tour ended. He had thirteen days to go before he got to go back home to his wife in Southern California. That homecoming would eventually happen, but not in thirteen days, and not as the person he once was. The moment his vehicle struck a Vietcong land mine divided his life into before and after.
He survived, barely, with third-degree burns over his face and much of his body. It would have been easy to give up. Instead, Robert Timberg began an arduous and uncertain struggle back—not just to physical recovery, but to a life of meaning. Remarkable as his return to health was—he endured thirty-five operations, one without anesthesia—just as remarkable was his decision to reinvent himself as a journalist and enter one of the most public of professions. Blue-Eyed Boy is a gripping, occasionally comic account of what it took for an ambitious man, aware of his frightful appearance but hungry for meaning and accomplishment, to master a new craft amid the pitying stares and shocked reactions of many he encountered on a daily basis.
By the 1980s, Timberg had moved into the upper ranks of his profession, having secured a prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard and a job as White House correspondent for The Baltimore Sun. Suddenly his work brought his life full circle: the Iran-Contra scandal broke. At its heart were three fellow Naval Academy graduates and Vietnam-era veterans, Oliver North, Bud McFarlane, and John Poindexter. Timberg’s coverage of that story resulted in his first book, The Nightingale’s Song, a powerful work of narrative nonfiction that follows these three academy graduates and two others—John McCain and Jim Webb—from Annapolis through Vietnam and into the Reagan years.
In Blue-Eyed Boy, Timberg relates how he came to know and develop a deep understanding of these five men, and how their stories helped him understand the ways the Vietnam War and the furor that swirled around it continued to haunt him, and the nation as a whole, as they still do even now, nearly four decades after its dismal conclusion.
Like others of his generation, Robert Timberg had to travel an unexpectedly hard and at times bitter road. In facing his own life with the same tools of wisdom, human empathy, and storytelling grit he has always brought to his journalism, he has produced one of the most moving and important memoirs of our time. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1942-43
• Where—New York City, NY area
• Education—U.S. Naval Academy; M.A., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Bethesda, Maryland
Robert Timberg is an American journalist, writer, and author of four books, including The Nightingale's Song (1995) and his memoir, Blue-Eyed Boy (2014)
Timberg was raised in the New York City area. His father was American musician and composer Sammy Timberg. He received his college education at the United States Naval Academy and his journalism degree at Stanford University. He served with the American Marines in Vietnam from March 1966 to February 1967. He worked for many years as a reporter for The Evening Sun and The Baltimore Sun. He is also the author of John McCain: An American Odyssey (1999) and State of Grace: A Memoir of Twilight Time (2005), a book about his experiences with sandlot football and growing up.
Robert Timberg, who was disfigured by a land mine as a Marine in Vietnam, went on to become a successful journalist. His memoir Blue Eyed Boy charts his struggle to recover from his wounds (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/3/2014.)
Book Reviews
In a clear confiding voice, [Timberg’s] autobiography Blue-Eyed Boy speaks to you like an American Proust, straight from the start: 'Falling asleep is never a problem for me. Waking up always is.' As he approached age 70, he at last let himself look back at the jagged scenery of his life….There’s a hardwon beauty in those crevices…. Timberg’s memoir is a searing loss of innocence tale, one that may address a wider swath of college baby boomers in the 1960s than he thought. Whatever side you were on when it came to the Vietnam War, it ended badly. Nobody won. America suffered a shattering loss of innocence over that war, starting in 1967, the year Timberg—who goes by "Bob"—lost the man in the mirror. Then comes the best part of his journey: a mordant tale told of adult resurrection.
US News & World Report
Blue-Eyed Boy, the just-released memoir by wounded veteran and journalist Robert Timberg, excels with limpid writing and gripping personal travail and triumph, never once hinting at or lamenting what-might-have-been, even as it admirably meets all the requisites of an exemplary memoir…. Forcing the reader to seriously ponder obligations and responsibilities to one’s country and society, Blue-Eyed Boy is a welcome tonic, an elixir of life delivered with hard-hitting flesh-and-blood reality. Refreshingly honest in depicting less than admirable personal behavior, Timberg is equally blunt in recounting the arduously difficult and tortuously slow road to mental, psychological, and physical recovery. In spite of numerous setbacks and indignities in the struggle to cope and "come back," Timberg thrives as much in his writing as he has in life.
American Conservative
In this straightforward and unsentimental account, Timberg traces the trajectory of his career, from promising Naval Academy graduate and wounded war veteran to success as a journalist.... [He] had to confront the political split in the country between those who fought in the war (few of the privileged at Stanford) and those who dodged their draft calls, a subject that keeps him simmering throughout. Eventually, his marriage crumbled under the stress of recovery, but Timberg, a Nieman fellow, devoted his time to writing books.
Publishers Weekly
[W]hat's especially important here is that, having immersed himself in reporting on the Iran-Contra scandal and talking with the Vietnam-era veterans at the heart of it (see his The Nightingale's Song), he finally saw clearly how the Vietnam War has shaped this nation.
Library Journal
This thoroughly absorbing autobiography really begins with the author’s life-altering experience of being badly wounded (and severely and permanently disfigured) as a marine officer in Vietnam..... Timberg will strike many readers as demonstrating the truth of the notion that 'genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains'—although, in Timberg’s case, he first had to demonstrate a large capacity for enduring pain.
Booklist
In 1986, the Sun tapped [Timberg] to cover the Iran-Contra scandal.... The scandal, and the book that later emerged from it, became a kind of extended catharsis for Timberg. Both forced him to revisit his own brutal experiences and, in so doing, help a nation still tormented by Vietnam find the beginnings of its own peace. An empathetic and extremely candid memoir.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Mother Daughter Me: A Memoir
Katie Hafner, 2013
Random House
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400069361
Summary
The complex, deeply binding relationship between mothers and daughters is brought vividly to life in Katie Hafner’s remarkable memoir, an exploration of the year she and her mother, Helen, spent working through, and triumphing over, a lifetime of unresolved emotions.
Dreaming of a “year in Provence” with her mother, Katie urges Helen to move to San Francisco to live with her and Zoe, Katie’s teenage daughter. Katie and Zoe had become a mother-daughter team, strong enough, Katie thought, to absorb the arrival of a seventy-seven-year-old woman set in her ways.
Filled with fairy-tale hope that she and her mother would become friends, and that Helen would grow close to her exceptional granddaughter, Katie embarked on an experiment in intergenerational living that she would soon discover was filled with land mines: memories of her parents’ painful divorce, of her mother’s drinking, of dislocating moves back and forth across the country, and of Katie’s own widowhood and bumpy recovery. Helen, for her part, was also holding difficult issues at bay.
How these three women from such different generations learn to navigate their challenging, turbulent, and ultimately healing journey together makes for riveting reading. By turns heartbreaking and funny—and always insightful—Katie Hafner’s brave and loving book answers questions about the universal truths of family that are central to the lives of so many. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Katie Hafner is an American journalist who writes books and articles about technology and society. She writes for the New York Times on technology and healthcare, and was a contributing editor for Newsweek. She has worked at Business Week, and has written for Esquire, Wired, New Republic and New York Times Magazine. She was born in Rochester, New York.
Her sixth book, Mother Daughter Me, a memoir about three generations of women trying to live together was published in 2013 to solid praise. It was named one of "Ten Titles to Pick Up Now" in O Magazine and made Parade Magazine's 2013 Summer Reading List, July's Goodreads "Mover and Shaker" list, and iTunes' "Best Books of July."
Bibliography
- Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier (with John Markoff) (1991)
- The House at the Bridge: A Story of Modern Germany (1995)
- Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet (with Matthew Lyon) (1996)
- The Well: A Story of Love, Death and Real Life in the Seminal Online Community (2001)
- A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano (2008)
- Mother Daughter Me: A Memoir (2013)
Along with her other literary credits, Hafner's 2006 New York Times article "Growing Wikipedia Refines its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy" is currently featured in The McGraw-Hill Guide Writing for College, Writing for Life, second edition an English composition textbook. It is used by hundreds of undergrads as source material for topical essays. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/17/2013.)
Book Reviews
In a curiously optimistic but ultimately doomed experiment in communal living, journalist and author Hafner (The Well) invites her 77-year-old mother, Helen, to share the household she and her teenage daughter.... Their year of living together elicits enormous spiritual growth, though not necessarily the way they envision. Sadly, the narrative is tedious, but some well-intentioned familial reckoning emerges.
Publishers Weekly
Hafner writes with compassion and wit about the often uneasy alliance between mothers and daughters and the surprising ways in which relationships can be redeemed even late in life.
Booklist
Hafner agreed [to rent] a house in San Francisco where all three women could cohabitate. It was only when they all came together under one roof that she realized she had totally misjudged the situation. In a narrative that skillfully moves between her present predicament and her difficult childhood, Hafner offers a compelling portrait of her remarkable mother and their troubled relationship.... Heartbreakingly honest, yet not without hope and flashes of wry humor.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these broad talking points to help start a discussion for Mother Daughter Me:
1. Discuss the personalities of each of the three women—Katie, Helen and Zoe. How would you describe each of them? Do you find one more sympathetic than the others? More at fault? Were you shocked, for instance, by Zoe's rudeness...or Helen's need to control?
2. Trace the roots of the tension and anger among the three women. Consider Katie's childhood in particular. Was the disarray in the household inevitable given the family histories? Are there any parallels in your own life, past or present? To what extent are we all shaped by our past?
3. What does Hafner come to learn by the end of the memoir? What deeper understanding has she gained? What have they all come to realize?
(Questions by LitLovers. We'll add specific ones if and when they're made available by the publisher.)