How to Be a Woman
Caitlin Moran, 2012
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062124296
Summary
Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them?
Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from the riot of adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother. With rapier wit, Moran slices right to the truth—whether it's about the workplace, strip clubs, love, fat, abortion, popular entertainment, or children—to jump-start a new conversation about feminism. With humor, insight, and verve, How To Be a Woman lays bare the reasons why female rights and empowerment are essential issues not only for women today but also for society itself. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 5, 1975
• Where—Brighton, UK
• Education—N/A
• Awards—British Press Award (3), Irish Book Award
• Currently—N/A
Caitlin Moran is a British broadcaster, TV critic and columnist at The Times, where she writes three columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, a TV review column, and the satirical Friday column "Celebrity Watch". Moran is British Press Awards (BPA) Columnist of the Year for 2010, and both BPA Critic of the Year 2011, and Interviewer of the Year 2011.
Early Life and Career
Moran's Irish-Catholic father is a one-time "drummer and psychedelic rock pioneer" who became "confined to the sofa by osteoarthritis". She is the eldest of 8 children and has four sisters and three brothers. She was born in Brighton and then lived in a three bedroom council house in Wolverhampton with her parents and siblings. She attended Springdale Junior School and was then educated at home from the age of 11, having attended secondary school for only three weeks.
At the age of 13 in October 1988 she won a Dillons young readers' contest for an essay on Why I Like Books and was awarded £250 of book tokens. At the age of 15, she won The Observer's Young Reporter of the Year. She began her career as a journalist for Melody Maker, the weekly music publication, at the age of 16. Moran also wrote a novel called The Chronicles of Narmo at the age of 16, inspired by having been part of a home-schooled family. In 1992 she launched her television career, hosting the Channel 4 music show Naked City, which ran for two series and featured a number of then up-and-coming British bands such as Blur, Manic Street Preachers, and the Boo Radleys. Johnny Vaughan co-presented with her on Naked City.
In December 1999, Moran married The Times rock critic Peter Paphides in Coventry and the couple have two daughters born in 2001 and 2003.
In 2011, Harper Perennial published Moran's book How To Be a Woman in the UK. As of July 2012, it had sold over 400,000 copies in 16 countries.
On 13 July 2012, Moran became a Fellow of Aberystwyth University. (Adapted from Wikipeida.)
Book Reviews
...Remind[s] us, in this era of manufactured outrage, what a truly great rant should look like: rude, energetic and spinning off now and then into jubilant absurdity…None of what she says is new, and it's written in a style that, inevitably, tips here and there from larky into dashed off…But this is to miss the point. The book is so joyful, so free of the piety that has felled many a worthier title and—this is its real value—so liable to find readers who in a million years wouldn't identify with Susan Faludi, that it feels like a rare case of winning the argument…. How to Be a Woman is a glorious, timely stand against sexism so ingrained we barely even notice it.
Emma Brockes - New York Times
Moran’s frank wit is appealing.
The New Yorker
Totally brilliant.
Independent (UK)
Scathingly funny…. Moran makes us think about femininity and feminism, and whether you agree or not, she’s fascinating.
People
Bravely and brilliantly weaves personal anecdotes and cutting insight into a book that is at once instructional, confessional, and a call for change…. Moran shifts effortlessly between her own hilarious experiences and larger questions about women’s place in the modern world.
Interview Magazine
The UK’s answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one.
Marie Claire
Half-memoir, half-polemic, and entirely necessary.
Elle (UK)
Part memoir, part postmodern feminist rant, this award-winning British TV critic and celebrity writer brings her ingeniously funny views to the States. Moran’s journey into womanhood begins on her 13th birthday when boys throw rocks at her 182-pound body, and her only friend, her sister Caz, hands her a homemade card reminding her to please turn 18 or die soon so Caz can inherit her bedroom. Always resourceful—as the eldest of eight children from Wolverhampton—the author embarrasses herself often enough to become an authority on how to masturbate; name one’s breasts; and forgo a Brazilian bikini wax. She doesn’t politicize feminism; she humanizes it. Everyone, she writes, is automatically an F-word if they own a vagina and want “to be in charge of it.” Empowering women is as easy as saying—without reservation—the word “fat” and filling our handbags with necessities like a safety pin, biscuit, and “something that can absorb huge amounts of liquid.” Beneath the laugh-out-loud humor is genuine insight about the blessings of having—or not having—children. With brutal honesty, she explains why she chose to have an abortion after birthing two healthy daughters with her longtime husband, Pete. Her story is as touching as it is timely. In her brilliant, original voice, Moran successfully entertains and enlightens her audience with hard-won wisdom and wit.
Publishers Weekly
A spirited memoir/manifesto that dares readers to "stand on a chair and shout ‘I AM A FEMINIST.' " With equal amounts snarky brio and righteous anger, Moran brings the discussion of contemporary women's rights down from the ivory tower and into the mainstream.... While some American readers may struggle with the British references and slang, they will find their efforts rewarded. Rapturously irreverent, this book should kick-start plenty of useful discussions.
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).
1. What do you think of the premise of How To Be a Woman—that the blacksliding of feminist principles has a negative impact on women and society as a whole? Does Moran's argument resonate with you? Or is the author exaggerating simply to make a point?
2. Talk about the specific ways in which Moran sees the current trend toward anti-feminism.
3. Why has Moran written this book? What does she envision for her daughters? If you have daughters...what do you envision for them?
4. Moran cites a poll showing that only 29% of American women consider themselves feminists. Why do contemporary women disavow feminism? Do you consider yourself a feminist? If you have daughters, do they?
5. What do today's younger women think feminism was—and is—about? Are they mistaken, or correct, in their dismissal of the movement's precepts?
6. How would you describe the book's tone—angry, snarky, funny, pious, joyful?
7. Moran asks: "Do you have a vagina? Do you want to be in charge of it?" If you say "Yes" to both, "Congratulations! You're a feminist.'" What do you think of her question...and her conclusion? Doesn't her conclusion end up supporting one of the very arguments she rejects—that strip clubs actually empower to women because they're taking charge of their sexuality?
8. What does Moran suggest about the pioneers of feminism back in the 1960s, particularly Germaine Greer?
9. Moran also takes some decidedly "unfeminist" views, particularly on abortion. Talk about her abortion stance—do you agree or disagree? Did you find the account of her abortion overly graphic?
10. Moran tells us that "when a woman says 'I have nothing to wear!' what she really means is, "There's nothing here for who I'm supposed to be today.'" She says a woman's wardrobe is more a matter of duty than personal taste. Do you agree? Or not.
11. What do you feel about women's fashion—stilletos? Why do women wear them—for themselves or for men?
12. Overall, what do you think of Moran's book? Has it altered your ideas of feminism?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Eye of the Hurricane: My Path from Darkness to Freedom
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter & Ken Klonsky, 2011
Chicago Review Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781569765685
Summary
Eye of the Hurricane: My Path from Darkness to Freedom is a self-portrait of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a twentieth-century icon and controversial victim of the U.S. justice system turned spokesperson for the wrongfully convicted. In this moving narrative Dr. Carter tells of all the "prisons" he has survived—from his childhood through his wrongful incarceration and after. A spiritual as well as a factual autobiography, Eye of the Hurricane explores Carter's personal philosophy, born of the unimaginable duress of wrongful imprisonment and conceived through his defiance of the brutal institution of prison and ten years of solitary confinement.
His is not a comfortable story or a comfortable philosophy, but it offers hope for those who have none and serves as a call to action for those who abhor injustice. Eye of the Hurricane may well change the way we view crime and punishment in the twenty-first century. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 6, 1937
• Where—Paterson, New Jersey, USA
• Education—self-taught
• Currently—lives in Tortonto, Ontario, Canada
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter fought professionally as a middleweight boxer from 1961 to 1966. In 1966, he was arrested for a triple homicide in the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey. He and another man, John Artis, were tried and convicted twice (1967 and 1976) for the murders, but after the second conviction was overturned in 1985, prosecutors chose not to try the case for a third time. From 1993 to 2005 Carter served as executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted. In 2011, Carter published his memoir, Eye of the Hurricane.
Early Life
Carter grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, the fourth of seven children. He acquired a criminal record and was sentenced to a juvenile reformatory for assault and robbery shortly after his 14th birthday. Carter escaped from the reformatory in 1954 and joined the Army. A few months after completing infantry basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, he was sent to West Germany. He adopted Islam and changed his name for a while. In May 1956, he received an "Undesirable" discharge, having served 21 months of his three-year term of enlistment.
Carter was discharged from the Army on May 29, 1956, and was arrested less than a month later for his escape from the Jamesburg Home for Boys. After his return to New Jersey, Carter was picked up by authorities and sentenced to an additional 9 months for escaping from the reformatory, he was sent to Annandale prison for five months. Shortly after being released, Carter committed a series of muggings. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was imprisoned in East Jersey State Prison in Avenel, New Jersey, a maximum-security facility, where he would remain for the next four years.
Boxing Career
Upon his release from prison in September 1961, Carter became a professional boxer. His aggressive style and punching power drew attention, establishing him as a crowd favorite and earning him the nickname "Hurricane." The Ring first listed him as one of its "Top 10" middleweight contenders in July 1963.
He received an honorary championship title belt from the World Boxing Council in 1993 and was later inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame.
Murders
On June 17, 1966, two males entered the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey, and started shooting. The bartender, James Oliver, and a male customer, Fred Nauyoks, were killed instantly. A severely wounded female customer, Hazel Tanis, died almost a month later. A third customer, Willie Marins, survived the attack, despite a gunshot wound to the head that cost him the sight in one eye. Both Marins and Tanis told police that the shooters had been black males after being interrogated, although neither identified Carter or John Artis, both of whom were subsequently arrested, charged, tried, and convicted.
Petty criminal Alfred Bello was an eyewitness. Bello later testified that he was approaching the Lafayette when two black males came around the corner walking towards him. He ran from them, and they got into a white car that was double-parked near the Lafayette. Bello was one of the first people on the scene of the shootings, as was Patricia Graham. Graham told the police that she saw two black males get into a white car and drive westbound. Both Bello and Valentine provided a description of the car to the police, which changed at the second court case.
First Conviction
Carter's car matched this description, and police stopped it and brought Carter and another occupant, John Artis, to the scene about 31 minutes after the incident. There was little physical evidence; police took no fingerprints at the crime scene, and lacked the facilities to conduct a paraffin test on Carter and Artis. None of the eyewitnesses identified Carter or Artis as the shooter. The defense would later raise questions about this evidence, as it was not logged with a property clerk until five days after the murders.
Carter and Artis were taken to police headquarters and questioned. They were released later that day.
Several months later, Bello disclosed to the police that he had an accomplice during the attempted burglary, one Arthur Dexter Bradley. On further questioning, Bello and Bradley both identified Carter as one of the two males they had seen carrying weapons outside the bar the night of the murders; Bello also identified Artis as the other. Based on this additional evidence, Carter and Artis were arrested and indicted.
At the 1967 trial, Carter was represented by well-known attorney Raymond A. Brown. Brown's focus...was on inconsistencies in some of the descriptions given by eyewitnesses Marins and Bello. The defense also produced a number of alibi witnesses who testified that Carter and Artis had been in another nearby bar at about the time of the shootings. However, prosecutors were able to impeach the testimony given by these witnesses. Both men were convicted. Although prosecutors had sought the death penalty, jurors recommended that each defendant receive a life sentence for each murder.
In 1974, Bello and Bradley recanted their identifications of Carter and Artis, and these recantations were used as the basis for a motion for a new trial. Judge Samuel Larner denied the motion, saying that the recantations "lacked the ring of truth."
Despite Larner's ruling, Madison Avenue advertising guru George Lois organized a campaign on Carter's behalf, which led to increasing public support for a retrial or pardon. Muhammad Ali lent his support to the campaign, and Bob Dylan wrote song called "Hurricane" (1975), which declared that Carter was innocent. In 1975 Dylan performed the song at a concert where Carter was temporarily an inmate.
However, during the hearing on the recantations, defense attorneys also argued that Bello and Bradley had lied during the 1967 trial. Prosecutor Burrell Ives Humphreys decided to try Carter and Artis again. It was concludede that Bello was telling the truth when he said that he had seen Carter, outside the Lafayette immediately after the murders.
Second Conviction and Appeal
During the new trial, witness Alfred Bello repeated his 1967 testimony, identifying Carter and Artis as the two armed men he had seen outside the Lafayette Grill. Bradley refused to cooperate with prosecutors, and neither prosecution nor defense called him as a witness.
The defense responded with testimony from multiple witnesses identifying Carter at the locations he claimed to be at the morning the murders happened.
After deliberating for almost nine hours, the jury again found Carter and Artis guilty of the murders. Judge Leopizzi re-imposed the same sentences on both men—a double life sentence for Carter, a single life sentence for Artis.
Artis was paroled in 1981. Carter, 48 years old, was freed without bail in November 1985. The prosecutors appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.
Aftermath
Carter now lives in Toronto, Ontario, and was executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) from 1993 until 2005. Carter resigned when the AIDWYC declined to support Carter's protest of the appointment (to a judgeship) of the prosecutor of Canadian Guy Paul Morin, who had to serve ten years in prison after a wrongful conviction for rape and murder.
Carter often serves as a motivational speaker. On October 14, 2005, he received two honorary Doctorates of Law, one from York University (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and one from Griffith University (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia), in recognition of his work with AIDWYC and the Innocence Project. Carter received the Abolition Award from Death Penalty Focus in 1996. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Ken Klonsky
Ken Klonsky, co-author of Dr. Rubin Carter’s Eye of the Hurricane, is a former Toronto teacher and writer now living in Vancouver. He works as Director of Media Relations, and advocates for prisoners, at Innocence International, the organization conceived by Dr. Carter to help free wrongly convicted prisoners worldwide. Songs of Aging Children, Klonsky’s collection of short stories about troubled youth, was published in 1992, and Taking Steam, a play co-authored with the late Brian Shein, was staged in New York and Toronto in 1983. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
An uplifting tale of how a man can transcend shackles of all sorts.
Globe and Mail
Long story short, if Eye of the Hurricane doesn’t inspire you, nothing will.
Smooth Magazine
Carter was a top middleweight boxing contender of the early 1960s (who had already served time in prison) until he was arrested for a triple murder in 1966 and convicted—not once but twice. He was incarcerated until his conviction was finally overturned on appeal in 1985. Bob Dylan had protested his imprisonment in song; later Denzel Washington portrayed him on the screen. While in prison, Carter authored his first book, The Sixteenth Round. Perhaps the greatest proof of his innocence is his career after he was released from prison. As he relates here, he spent 13 years as chair and CEO of the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted, and since splitting with that organization in 2005 has been CEO of Innocence International, another group working to free innocent prisoners. While he harks back to his own legal tribulations, the core of his new book is his condemnation of the flaws in our criminal justice system: the book's protagonists are the wrongly convicted prisoners whose stories he imparts. The legal verdicts on Carter were impaired, but the verdict on this book is positive. It is not a sports book for the casual boxing fan, but it's essential for the socially conscious. —Jim Burns, Jacksonville P.L., FL
Library Journal
Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a former middleweight prizefighter whose 1967 imprisonment for a triple homicide at a...New Jersey bar became a cause celebre in the 1970s...was released from prison in 1985 by a federal judge who cited a conviction predicated on “an appeal to racism rather than reason.”.... For more information about Carter, check out Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton’s Lazarus and the Hurricane (1991) and James Hirsch’s Hurricane.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Thanks to Lauren Sommerfield of The BWB Bookclub, Massena, New York, for submitting her questions:
1. How does the tone of the book change from beginning to end? Do you feel differently about the author's message in different stages of the book?
2. Does Dr. Rubin Carter's struggle appear to be an internal struggle or an external struggle? Why?
3. If wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life in prison, do you think you would have chosen to "fall in line" of the prison system to make your time there easier, or been defiant like Dr. Carter, to fight for your innocence and freedom?
4. Dr. Carter believes many people and groups of people are to blame for wrongful conviction: investigating police officers, lawyers, judges, American society in general. Who do you think is to blame for wrongful convictions? What is something that could/should be changed to prevent it?
5. Did anything presented in this book change your opinion about capital punishment? Does it change your views on the interrogation process and the possibility of false confessions?
6. Dr. Carter describes instances in the book of different, specific, spiritual awakenings he has experienced. What do you make of these spiritual awakenings? Are they a result of past events or were they meant to help him with future events? Are they a coping mechanism?
7. Dr. Carter believes much of society is "asleep". Do you agree? Do you believe our country is more "asleep" than others?
8. Do you believe Dr. Carter's time in prison was worth it for him since upon his release he was and is able to help so many others in the same situations?
9. How do you think his life would be today had he been acquitted of all charges and never sent to prison?
10. Would you ever turn yourself in for a crime you committed knowing you would spend years in prison? Would you ever turn your child in for a crime they committed?
(Questions submitted by Lauren Sommerfield of Massena, New York.)
Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man
Brian McGrory, 2012
Crown Publishing
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307953063
Summary
Brian McGrory's life changed drastically after the death of his beloved dog, Harry: he fell in love with Pam, Harry's veterinarian. Though Brian’s only responsibility used to be his adored Harry, Pam came with accessories that could not have been more exotic to the city-loving bachelor: a home in suburbia, two young daughters, two dogs, two cats, two rabbits, and a portly, snow white, red-crowned-and-wattled step-rooster named Buddy.
While Buddy loves the women of the house, he takes Brian's presence as an affront, doing everything he can to drive out his rival. Initially resistant to elements of his new life and to the loud, aggressive rooster (who stares menacingly, pecks threateningly, and is constantly poised to attack), Brian eventually sees that Buddy shares the kind of extraordinary relationship with Pam and her two girls that he wants for himself. The rooster is what Brian needs to be—strong and content, devoted to what he has rather than what might be missing. As he learns how to live by living with animals, Buddy, Brian’s nemesis, becomes Buddy, Brian’s inspiration, in this inherently human story of love, acceptance, and change.
In the tradition of bestsellers like Marley and Me, Dewey, and The Tender Bar comes a heartwarming and wise tale of finding love in life’s second chapter—and how it means all the more when you have to fight for it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Bates College
• Awards—Scripps Howard award
• Currently—lives in Massachusetts
Brian McGrory is a longtime newspaper reporter, editor, and columnist. Born and raised in and around Boston, he went to college at Bates College in Maine. He worked for the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, the New Haven Register in Connecticut, and has written for and edited the Boston Globe since 1989. He has a twice weekly column that appears on the front of the metro section, for which he has won the Scripps Howard journalism award, and is the author of four novels. He lives in Massachusetts with his entire family. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
A moving and funny account of one man’s journey from bachelor to husband and father aided by remarkable pets. Novelist and Boston Globe columnist McGrory begins his tale by recounting his bond with his first dog, Harry. Obedient yet loving, Harry helps him through his divorce and enjoyment of newly single life, until a painful disease takes the dog just before his 10th birthday. A grieving McGrory goes about his life, “swallowed up by acres of emptiness like I had never imagined,” until Pam, his former vet, sends him an expensive necktie, and he falls in love again. Pam, recently divorced with two young daughters, introduces McGrory to suburbia and a rooster named Buddy. Originally a science fair project for one of the girls, Buddy quickly becomes the neighborhood attraction, strutting out on the front lawn. Despite McGrory’s hopes that Pam will find a more suitable home for the rooster, Buddy’s tenure becomes permanent with a strong fence around the yard and a home in the shed. In spite of (or perhaps because of) Buddy’s frequent attacks on McGrory, and a disastrous summer in Maine, McGrory comes to understand the obligations and sacrifices that come with family life.
Publishers Weekly
C'mon, how can you resist that title? With the death of his cherished dog, Harry, McGrory lost his best friend but gained in the romance department: he fell for Harry's veterinarian, Pam. And he was ready to accept Pam's entire family—two daughters, two cats, two dogs, two rabbits, and one rooster—but the white-feathered, red-crowned Buddy was not about to accept him. Here's how McGrory overcame Buddy's resistance to sharing Pam. Since he's a Scripps Howard Award-winning journalist at the Boston Globe and a novelist to boot (e.g., Dead Line), expect good writing.
Library Journal
The story of a newspaper columnist who got a second shot at love and happiness in the suburbs—only a crazed rooster named Buddy stood in his way.... Readers who adore their pets will no doubt identify with the profundity of losing a cherished animal, but the unrelenting somberness juxtaposed with the occasionally silly moment make for an uneven narrative. An unexpectedly melancholy meditation on marriage, mortality and the merits of living in suburbia.
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)
Specific discussion questions will be added if and when they are made available by the publisher.
My Seductive Cuba: A Unique Travel Guide
Chen Lizra, 2011
Latidos Productions
328 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780986891007
Summary
Enough books have been written about Cuba to fill an entire library, but few take the approach Chen Lizra does with My Seductive Cuba. Deeply personal and always engaging, Lizra—an Israeli-born dancer and entrepreneur now living in Canada—fuses history and politics with her real-life experiences among the people of this often-visited but little-understood island.
The result is a moving portrayal of Cuba on the verge of historic change. Packed with practical information on where to go in Cuba, what to pack and the best ways to get there, My Seductive Cuba also helps readers ferret out persistent opportunists while finding Havana's best reggaeton, flamenco, jazz and salsa clubs. A glossary of Cuban slang and a description of the Santeria religion—along with a vivid chapter titled "Getting Possessed"—makes Lizra's humorous travel guide even more compelling. This is one book you won't want to be without, even if you don't plan on going anywhere!
My Seductive Cuba changes the way we approach travel guides from an index book to a book that people fall in love with even if they are not planning on visiting. In fact any person reading it ends up wanting to visit Cuba if they haven't yet. The book also includes QR codes that lead to online videos and transport you to Cuba through visuals and sounds. If you plan on traveling to Cuba you will arrive knowing the mentality and how to move around.
The website—www.myseductivecuba.com—is full of updates from Cuba always keeping you update on the latest news and serving as an extension of the book and the Cuban lifestyle. (From the author.)
Author Bio
• Birth—
• Where—
• Education—
• Awards—
• Currently—
With nearly a decade of experience in the animation industry, working on projects for MTV, TVA, Alliance Atlantis, Mainframe Entertainment and Radical Entertainment, Chen Lizra’s intellect, imagination and creative thinking evolved her into a branding expert. What makes her truly stand out is her ability to mix her creative ideas with solid business understanding. A BBA with focus on international business and marketing, seduction training with the best professional dancers in Cuba, sixteen years in the international business arena, and a TED Talk under her belt, make Chen a dynamic entrepreneur and public speaker.
In 2009 & 2012 Chen was nominated as one of the “YWCA Women of Distinction in Vancouver,” and was honored by the Australian government with a Distinguished Talent Permanent Visa for her international achievements in the arts. As the international best-selling author of My Seductive Cuba: A Unique Travel Guide, Chen has won two awards in the US, including the prestigious IPPY Book Award. Chen was featured in the Vancouver Sun, Globe & Mail, The Province, Global TV, CityTV, CBC, and many other media outlets. With a passion for dance and creative movement, Lizra offers students seduction workshops and focused lectures and seminars about the art of seduction in our everyday lives and its practical uses.
You can see what other projects Chen is involved with on her site - www.lizraconsulting.com. She has just signed with Bettie Youngs for a second book called Seducing Happiness and another book is in the plan for 2013. (From the author.)
Book Reviews
What makes My Seductive Cuba an exceptional travel guide is its mix of handy and useful travel guide tips, with personal anecdotes from Lizra's own experiences. Lizra discovered the Cuba she loves through dance. A profession-al dancer, originally from Israel, now living in Vancouver, she travelled to Cuba to study. She came away with not only dance skills, but a new understanding of the people who taught her, danced with her, ate with her, and allowed her to embrace their culture. She returned again and again, first as an arts tourist and dancer, and eventually as a travel guide. It's a book filled with stories of passion—including seduction—and real-life experiences, making it both a practical and adventurous travel guide. Lizra shares where the locals eat and what they eat, as well as where they dance. She describes extraordinary locations on the island, untouched by commercial tourism, and discovers how to have a relationship of respect with the Cuban people. QR codes are used in the hard copy of the book and some are linked to videos on YouTube, enhancing the whole cultural experience. The eBook allows travellers the ability to take the book with them electronically. For those who know Cuba, My Seductive Cuba will make them want to return, and for those who have never been to Cuba, this book will draw them there..
The Province (Canada)
Lizra's well-illustrated and structured book is a by-product of her motivation to visit the island in the first place: her passion for Latin dance. Users can get ultimate use out of this book by scanning the QR barcodes found throughout. That gives readers access to online resources that provide further information on a specific topic or destination. A big part of My Seductive Cuba is devoted to the island's rich dance and musical traditions, rooted in that country's African heritage. No surprise, given Lizra's intensive training with the National Folklore Group of Cuba, the National School of Art and the National Cabaret. But Lizra didn't limit her research to Havana and its environs; she also investigated trends throughout other major Cuban cities and historic sites. One chapter, "Getting Possessed," details Lizra's attendance at a ceremony at which spirits took over the bodies of practitioners. Lizra also delves into an area few other Cuba travel books touch: romance with locals. "Seduction is part of the place," she explains. "When you go to Cuba, you experience the charm and the seduction, and always find a reason to come back." That kind of advice, generated from firsthand knowledge of the country's culture and informal way of doing things, is what will help any visitor become a Cubanaut—ready to blast off for a return visit to the island. "In Cuba, everything turns into an adventure," she says, "and the things that happen along the way—which you don't plan for—are what makes it exciting.
Vito Echeverria - Cuba News
[Y]ou tell it like it is, in terms of inter-personal dynamics. So it's terrific for its introduction to manners. For that alone, I would recommend it. I like the style of writing. Breezy but informational. Congratulations on a fine and spirited book
BC Book World (Canada)
And, as she proves in My Seductive Cuba, she is one of the best tour guides this Caribbean island could ever want to have. This travel guide not only tells you some of the best places to eat and visit in Cuba, but she transforms it from an all-inclusive tourist destination into a country that pulses with history and culture. The book answers all the most practical question a visitor could ask but then she asks you to understand why Cuba is the way it is so you can appreciate its nuances as much as she does.
Martha Perkins - We (Vancouver)
Discussion Questions
1. What makes Cuba seductive? What did the book teach you about seduction in Cuba?
2. In Cuba people can get possessed by deities and dead spirits? What would you have done instead of Chen when she was asked the most personal questions about her life in front of everyone? How would you have handled it differently?
3. Taking things for granted in life is one of the strongest messages that My Seductive Cuba delivers? Do you take things for granted in your own life? What makes you notice that you do and makes you value what you have again?
4. Chen comes across as adventurous going with the flow and trying things in order to understand the culture better? Can this attitude backfire? Do you find yourself more liberal or conservative in your approach? Have you learned something from her by reading this book?
5. What prevented Chen from running away from Cuba the first time she went? What made her want to run away in the first place? Did it pay off to stay? if you were faced with the same situation, would you have gone back or stayed?
6. Seduction can be quite luring and tempting waking up the desire in us making us want things. Chen handles seduction quite well in Cuba. Do you think that you would have been able to handle it the same or would it have terrified you? Do you ever fear losing control and being manipulated into things you don't want? And how would you react to it if you did?
7. Do you know the Cuban dance styles that Chen talked about in the book? Have you tried the QR codes to watch the videos online? Did their description take you deeper into the culture and if so what have you learned about their norms of behaviours? Do you feel at ease with it or does it make you nervous?
8. A lot of people have misconceptions about food in Cuba. They think that food is horrible. But Chen clearly shows you how great food can be in Cuba if you know how to do it. What did you learn from the food chapter about how Cubans think and behave?
9. How did you like in the 5th section of the book the photos and descriptions that took you into cultural experienced you will run into in Cuba? Did it make you feel closer to the culture? How did it compare to the culture you come from? is it very different? Is it similar?
10. Cuba's history and the embargo tint many people's view of what this little-understood island is all about. The tendency is to think of Cuba as a repressive country with human right violations. Did the book show you a new take on this culture? Did you learn something new? If you did—what was it?
(Questions provided by author.)
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
John Valliant, 2010
Knopf Doubleday
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307389046
Summary
A gripping story of man pitted against nature’s most fearsome and efficient predator.
Outside a remote village in Russia’s Far East a man-eating tiger is on the prowl. The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s murdering them, almost as if it has a vendetta. A team of trackers is dispatched to hunt down the tiger before it strikes again. They know the creature is cunning, injured, and starving, making it even more dangerous. As John Vaillant re-creates these extraordinary events, he gives us an unforgettable and masterful work of narrative nonfiction that combines a riveting portrait of a stark and mysterious region of the world and its people, with the natural history of nature’s most deadly predator. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
John Vaillant’s first book was the national bestseller The Golden Spruce, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction, as well as several other awards. He has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Outside, National Geographic and The Walrus, among other publications. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with his wife and children. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Riveting, often chilling.... A remarkable, thoroughly researched, informative chronicle that will appeal to readers interested in the conservation of wildlife.
Providence Journal
Mesmerizing.... A blistering good tale, stocked with fascinating characters, none more compelling than the tiger itself.... The adventure book of the year.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
[A] riveting story.... Vaillant’s book teaches a lesson that humankind desperately needs to remember: When you murder a tiger, you not only kill a strong and beautiful beast, you extinguish a passionate soul.
Washington Post
An extraordinary book, bringing vividly to life this rare and terrifying creature and the men who are setting their lives at stake every day in a barely civilized part of the world. This is a real-life adventure story that is rarely encountered.
Washington Times
A remarkable and thoughtful account of a distant place where man and animal meet with fatal consequences.
Richmond Times Dispatch
If ever a nonfiction author has used the techniques of fiction any better to recount a real-life narrative, it is difficult to imagine who that author would be.... Think of Vaillant as a younger version of John McPhee, but on steroids.
Seattle Times
Brilliant.... A tale of astonishing power and vigor.... Read this fine, true book in the warmth, beside the flicker of the firelight. Read it and be afraid. Be very afraid.
Simon Winchester - Toronto Globe and Mail
Nonfiction as riveting as any detective story.... Vaillant sets the stage for an epic encounter that unfolds dramatically and inexorably, climaxing in a stunning encounter.
Christian Science Monitor
The grisly rampage of a man-eating Amur, or Siberian, tiger and the effort to trap it frame this suspenseful and majestically narrated introduction to a world that few people, even Russians, are familiar with. Northeast of China lies Russia's Primorye province, "the meeting place of four distinct bioregions"–taiga, Mongolian steppes, boreal forests, and Korean tropics-and where the last Amur tigers live in an uneasy truce with an equally diminished human population scarred by decades of brutal Soviet politics and postperestroika poverty. Over millennia of shared history, the indigenous inhabitants had worked out a tenuous peace with the Amur, a formidable hunter that can grow to over 500 pounds and up to nine feet long, but the arrival of European settlers, followed by decades of Soviet disregard for the wilds, disrupted that balance and led to the overhunting of tigers for trophies and for their alleged medicinal qualities. Vaillant (The Golden Spruce) has written a mighty elegy that leads readers into the lair of the tiger and into the heart of the Kremlin to explain how the Amur went from being worshipped to being poached..
Publishers Weekly
In the bitter cold, as night claims the forest, a man and his dog make their laborious way home. In only a few hours all that remains of the man is the smear his blood leaves on the white ground and a few tattered bones. The man has been eaten by an Amur (Siberian) tiger. Or rather, not just eaten, as Vaillant tells us in his fascinating examination of visceral fear, history, and ecology, but studied, tracked, and hunted. Arriving to take down the tiger is Yuri Trush, the leader of a squad that is a cross between game wardens and Jack Reacher-style cops. Vaillant uses this core story of atavistic thrill to explore the landscape, ecology, history, and culture of the Primorye province, a remote region of Russia, and home to the tiger. His story frequently leaves Trush and his team to explore the impact of poaching, recount the history of European explorers, and examine the precarious fate of Amur tigers. The book is a treat, full of gripping and lyrical prose, a richly created world, and a sensibility that invites readers to sink into the landscape of the Primorye.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. The Tiger is a riveting book, with the momentum of a thriller and the depth of insight of an extended philosophical meditation. How does Vaillant create suspense throughout the book? What are the major insights he offers about tigers and the larger issues that come into focus through his investigation of the killing of Vladimir Markov?
2. What historical forces have contributed to the desperate conditions facing the people of the Primorye? How understandable/forgivable is their poaching?
3. Vaillant writes: “What is amazing—and also terrifying about tigers—is their facility for what can only be described as abstract thinking. Very quickly, a tiger can assimilate new information...ascribe it to a source, and even a motive, and react accordingly” [p. 136]. In what ways does the tiger that kills Markov engage in abstract thinking?
4. Does Markov deserve the fate that befalls him? Is it fair to say that he brought on his own death by stealing the tiger’s kill or by shooting at the tiger?
5. What kind of man is Yuri Trush? In what ways is he both fierce and thoughtful, authoritarian and at the same time sensitive to the desperation that makes people of the Primorye break the law? How does his experience with the tiger change him?
6. Vaillant attributes the attitude of entitlement of Russian homesteaders, at least in part, to biblical injunctions: “1: Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2: And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth.... 3: Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things” [p. 150]. What are the consequences of this way of viewing our relationship to the earth and other animals?
7. Chapter 18 begins with a epigraph from Moby-Dick. What are the parallels between Trush’s hunt for the tiger and Ahab’s pursuit of the whale and between the behavior of the tiger and that the whale in these stories?
8. After he helps to kill the tiger, native people tell Trush he’s now marked by it, that he now bears, as Vaillant puts it, “some ineffable taint, discernible only to tigers” [p. 290]. When an otherwise tame and placid tiger tries to attack him at a wildlife rehabilitation center, Trush wonders if “some sort of a bio field exists.... Maybe tigers can feel some connection through the cosmos, or have some common language. I don’t know. I can’t explain it” [p. 291]. Is this merely a fanciful conjecture, or could it be true that tigers can sense the presence of someone who has killed one of their kind? If true, how would it change our views of animal consciousness?
9. Vaillant suggests that, like captive tigers, most of us “live how and where we do because, at some point in the recent past, we were forced out of our former habitats and ways of living by more aggressive, if not better adapted, humans. Worth asking here is: Where does this trend ultimately lead? Is there a better way to honor the fact that we survived?” [p. 298]. How might these questions be answered?
10. Vaillant argues that “by mass-producing food, energy, material goods, and ourselves, we have attempted to secede from, and override, the natural order” [p. 304]. What are the consequences of this desire to separate ourselves from nature?
11. What makes tigers both so frightening and so fascinating? What mythic value do they have for humans? In what ways are they an important part of the ecosystem?
12. What does the book as a whole suggest about our relationship to nature, particularly to the animals that share the earth with us?
13. It is a precarious time, not just for the Amur tiger, but for all tigers. Poaching and the destruction of tiger habitat pose major challenges to the survival of the species. What would be the significance of the loss of the tiger? What positive steps have been taken to protect it?
14. What changes in human behavior need to happen in order to preserve the (Amur) tiger and similar species? How likely is it that humans will make such changes?
(Questions issued by publisher.)