R. D. RosenRessenyes

Cute photo collection with poetry written in the style of famous poets. Mostly funny, in parts surprisingly crude, but a neat idea. Here's my favorite couplet from a poem called "Ode to Odes":

Nothing compares to discovering a sonnet
That moves me so much that I want to pee on it

Hey, it is supposed to be written by a dog.

Fun little book with kitties misbehaving, enlivened by humourous captions. (Incidentaly, none of them are as pretty as MY cat!)

We know about children who his and didn’t survive the Holocaust. But what about those that hid and survived?

This book covers the stories of tree girls that survived the Holocaust by hiding: one as a Catholic, one with her mother with a family, and another first at a convent then with a few families before being adopted. The author also covers what happens to these girls after the war well into adulthood. The last section covers how those who hid but survived had been dismissed or not even acknowledged to have existed. Everyone knows Anne Frank but these children were unknown.

A definite recommend especially those studying World War II and the Holocaust

Holocaust survivors......a phrase that encompasses a widespread mass of people. Most folks think of concentration camp victims who miraculously made it to the end of WW2.....but what about the repressed, isolated children who were hidden away during the war years? In woods, in convents, in homes with Christian families, often passed from place to place? They left behind their Jewish beginnings , were taught to embrace Catholicism and grew into angst ridden adults. Torn between what WAS and what IS, these are heart-breaking AND, at times heart-warming life stories.
A kink for me was that the first part of the book was about 3 girls/ women. It was somewhat confusing when towards the end it became more of an educational storyline involving a wide conglomerate of people....just my opinion.

Harvey Blissberg is a former professional baseball player turned detective and then retired and now reactivated to protect Moss Cooley while he tries to break Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. Moss is getting some threatening packages and the team's management wants their star safe and the situation locked down and private. Enter Harvey.

A good book/listen for those interested in NFL history, but especially so because of Sid Luckman's family background and some intriguing info on why that background hadn't been openly discussed during his college and professional years.

This books makes me laugh! It was a gift, and I sometimes wonder what that says about me.

This murder mystery is set in Providence, R. I., within the structure of a fictitious major league baseball team, The Jewels, which is struggling in its first year. Center fielder Harvey is determined to find out who killed his good friend Rudy, a relief pitcher for the team. The city police detective may or may not be on the case, and somehow no one on the team seems particularly concerned with locating the killer. Harvey's girl friend Mickey, a sportscaster, is on his side and provides some light and support to Harvey's otherwise dark days. The first in a series, this prompts me to track down the remaining four books bout Harvey.½

Such Good Girls: The Journey of the Holocaust's Hidden Child Survivors by R. D. Rosen is a very highly recommended nonfiction account of several hidden child survivors of the holocaust.

Most people know of Anne Frank, a child hidden for most of WWII who did not survive, but there were other Jewish children who were hidden and survived the Holocaust. In Such Good Girls R. D. Rosen shares the stories of three woman who survived the holocaust by hiding and how it affected their lives. The book is divided into two parts. The first tells the individual stories of the three girls, one Polish, one French, and one Dutch, and what they had to do and endure in order to survive. The second half of the book explores the lingering effects their childhood trauma has had on them as adults. The Hidden Child Survivors have been meeting since the 1980s and sharing their stories to add to the Shoah Foundation and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The numerous name changes, constant relocation and moving, the loss of family, heritage and personal identity are all heart breaking. The children may have survived the war, but at a great cost. This is not an exhausting, scholarly account of all the stories, but a selection of three that should highlight the fact that others also endured and were traumatized. Sharing and allowing these stories to reach a wider audience will shed light on a group of survivors that have been neglected in the past.

While this is not an emotionally easy book to read, the information it contains is necessary for us to always keep in mind that this must never happen again, although I know that it is, to other groups of people throughout the world. The book includes 16 pages of pictures, a bibliography, and list of documentaries and films.
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of HarperCollins for review purposes.

More than 100 years after Veryl Goodnight's ancestors hand raised two baby bison to help save the species from extinction, Veryl & her husband Roger Brooks adopt Charlie, an orphaned bison calf. This is the story of Charlie & Roger and how their relationship led to Roger's subsequent advocacy on behalf of the Yellowstone Bison (thousands which are mercilessly slaughtered every winter).

This was an interesting book which spans generations of Goodnights & their reintroduction of bison to Texas, a brief history of Chief Quanah Parker, and today's plight of the Yellowstone Bison herd. My problem was the book jumped back & forth between chapters..its didn't read as one continuous time line.

I read this simply because it seemed like an interesting twist on the friendship theme.

Like many survivor memoirs this tells of ath atrocities of WWII, but it goes further in its analysis of the 3 women and their beliefs about their faith later in life. A very thought provoking book.

This book follows the lives of three of the hidden children during the holocaust, one hidden with her mother using forged papers and passing as Catholic. The other two in different and sometimes worse situations.
Some would not learn they were Jewish until they were grown and had trouble accepting the truth.

Although I have read many books fiction and non about the holocaust I never really thought about those that had survived because they were hidden, raised by other families or just sheltered by those who did not agree with the Nazi solution. The author does a good job presenting these cases and goes on to examine the guilt many of them have for surviving when so many of their family members did not.

I also learned a few things I had never known: Belgium sheltered over 4000 Jewish people and the Dutch had the greatest percentage of Jews lost. The bravery of all involved is considerable and I am in awe of their courage and sacrifice. If only more had felt this way.

ARC from Netgalley.

Have you ever wondered what goes on in a dog's brain? According to this short and completely entertaining book of "Classic Poetry by Dogs," quite a lot of erudite thoughts go through their heads. Of course, they do spend a lot of time rhapsodizing about stinky smells, flatulence, poo, and licking their hind ends, but then even the most poetic among them is still a dog. Many of the poems here are based on well known works and it was good fun to see if I could figure out which poems served as inspiration. Some of the poems are hilarious and others are sweet, some saucy and some poignant. All in all, a fun little book to dip into for dog lovers.

And for my own canine poetry inspired by the book, see: http://booknaround.blogspot.com/2013/10/review-throw-damn-ball-by-rd-rosen.html½

More poop jokes than I'd have thought could fit in one marginally cute book.

These cats will get their revenge! But until then laugh it up.

Err, what on Earth this book is supposed to be about. Okay, so there are some cute pictures of cats, but there also some nasty pictures where cats have been dressed up. The captions are not funny- it's like the worst internet tat in a book.

Richard Dean Rosen – like Jerome Doolittle (Body Scissors) and Charles Goodrum (Dewey Decimated) – is mystery fiction’s equivalent of a journeyman baseball player. He’s around the game for years, familiar to hardcore fans but virtually unknown to casual ones, and his career numbers are impressive without being good enough to put him in the running for the hall of fame. Dead Ball, the fifth in Rosen’s “Harvey Blissberg” series, is ample proof of that.

Dead Ball opens with Blissberg, an ex-ballplayer for 15 years and an ex-private investigator for 4, in the midst of a galloping midlife crisis. Dissatisfied with his new career as a motivational speaker and his longstanding relationship with ESPN reporter Mickey Slavin, he’s a sharply etched character, but not one you’d want to spend 20, much less 220, pages with. No matter: A call from the owner of the Providence Jewels shakes Blissberg out of his slump. The Jewels’ star player, Maurice “Moss” Cooley – on track to best Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak – is receiving racist death threats, and Blissberg signs on to protect Cooley and find out who wants him dead.

The mystery in Dead Ball is competent without ever being thrilling or particularly innovative. Rosen provides a satisfying number of suspects, and plants the key clues competently enough, but in the end he works the “least likely suspect” principle so hard that the story creaks under the weight of the back story necessary to make the big reveal work. The climax has a similar feeling of too-elaborate contrivance, relying as it does on atypical behavior from several characters and the presence of at least one spectacularly implausible prop. Finally, there is a feeling of over-familiarity. Harvey, fresh in his debut appearance 30 years ago, now pales beside more recent, better-drawn characters: an amalgam of Greg Rucka’s bodyguard-for-hire Atticus Kodiak and Harlan Coben’s ex-jock detective Myron Bolitar, but without the intensity of the former or the goofy charm of the latter.

Rosen introduced Harvey – a Red Sox center fielder in the twilight of his career, traded to the Jewels for their first, and his last, major-league season – in Strike Three, You’re Dead (1984). Fifteen years separate Strike Three and Dead Ball, in real world and story world alike, and Dead Ball is at its best when Rosen explores that idea. Harvey’s encounters with characters from the older book, now grown old, are well-written and poignant, and his reactions to being back in a world he thought he had left behind (without being sure he wanted to) are satisfyingly complex. Providence, too, has changed in the intervening fifteen years, and Rosen makes good use of that, as well. The local color and the small details of life in a baseball team’s clubhouse are, as they were in Strike Three, the best parts of the book. The mystery works well enough as a mechanism to deliver them, and – like a looping infield single that advances the runners on base – that is ultimately enough.½

Guilty pleasure. Always makes me laugh out loud.

I picked up this book for a change of pace. I couldn't have been more pleased. Everyone will love this story, it is well written and moving. Do yourself a favor and read it, or give as a gift!

Not really sure what to say about this book. It definitely wasn't what I imagined. There are alot of cute and not-so-cute cat pictures in this book, and a few *really* ugly cat pictures! But the majority of the quotes/jokes/whatever are just stupid. Not funny at all.

So funny! I laughed a lot and really enjoyed it.

Very cute and would make a nice gift for the dog lover who doesn't take life - or dogs - too seriously. A little bit of strong language and some "suggestive" poses, but all in good fun. Laughed out loud many times when reading it and did that annoying thing where you call your friends and/or spouse over saying "come here and look at this!"....

Bad Cat is a photographic collection of some scary-looking cats, accompanied by extremely amusing quotes; not to say downright hilarious. My granddaughter Makala found it on a recent trip to Goodwill, and pounced on it. Unfortunately I didn't look at it too closely until we got home. There are some vulgar references in the book which I sincerely hope go over the head of a ten-year-old. All in all, the book really is funny.

A funny look at cats and their desires, wishes, and secret thoughts. A must-read for cat owners -- you'll never believe what your cat is really thinking!

Any cat owner will recognize these misbehaving felines.