Anonymous

A Feast in the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Reviewed: 05-18-18

I just listened to Oliver Sacks' very short book, GRATITUDE. He wrote it during the few weeks he had left before newly diagnosed cancer killed him. Thanks to those who brought it to press afterwards. Thanks to Audible and to the narrator Dan Woren for letting Sacks speak aloud, not just metaphorically.

As in his many other books, Sacks is passionate about life, and brings to the brink of doom gratitude for being blessed by creation. He writes without sentimentality. He is a brilliant scientist and physician. He counsels that our uniqueness never survives us, that it is appropriate to leave and appropriate sooner or later to be forgotten.

When diagnosed, Sacks reorders his time. He stops watching the News Hour. The news is important he feels, but mostly for those who still have an active stake in it. The task of those lucky enough to live to be old is to experience thoroughly the beauty and the knowledge that we have been given and to welcome the uniqueness of those who follow us.

Sacks grew up practicing Orthodox Judaism, but stopped all religious practice as a teenager when his mother told him he was going to hell because of his homosexuality.

Sacks still respected Orthodox Judaism for many of the values it nourished in him. He was grateful for the example of a Noble Prize winner who concluded that he would rather not accept the prize if doing so required him to travel on the Sabbath. Fortunately the date already chosen avoided such a conflict.

I expect to listen to this book many times. Sacks is not docile like the sheep in the 23rd Psalm, but just as grateful for the feast.

Louie Crew Clay, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University

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6 people found this helpful

Sassy Prophet

Reviewed: 08-01-17

Would you consider the audio edition of All Day to be better than the print version?

Absolutely, because it adds the AUTHORity of Lisa Jessie Peterson's voice.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

Her amazing imagination in service of her charges.

What about Liza Jessie Peterson’s performance did you like?

Her own enjoyment of it. This is not a report so much as it is a living prophecy. She's not the kind of prophet who foretells the future, but the more important kind, one who cogently articulates 'jedgment, jedgment'

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Dozens of such moments! But since you want 'a' singular one: when she arrives for a work day and finds everyone quiet and knows something ominous has caused it. Or when she rails about the blind authoritarianism of a new principal

Any additional comments?

•All Day• intimately connects us to the hearts and souls of talented children whom we have thrown away through our criminal injustice system.

Peterson did not just investigate. She did time herself —16 years in fact — as a loving teacher of those whom society considers the least among us. Her boundless imagination and courage inspire me. Her sass and candor heal.

I love this book, especially her reading of it on Audible.com.

Louie Clay
Professor Emeritus, Rutgers/Newark

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2 people found this helpful

Most wells I knew as a boy…

Reviewed: 09-08-15

Most wells I knew as a boy in rural Alabama were sealed decades ago. Climbing down the dank and dark narrow walls of this one at 78 was torturous, but i could close the book, shut off my iPod, and go to a comfortable sleep. Not so for the noble and vulnerable family at the center of this story.

The author has Shakespeare's gift to let me see, smell, taste, touch, and hear every detail vividly, poignantly.

I did not choose this book but read it as a project for the book club at my public library. I need this group to help bring wholeness but not closure to the reading . I would not be surprised if our next meeting resembles a wake. We know the characters of the novel as family.

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215 people found this helpful

Hard to pause this book

Reviewed: 05-02-15

Don't make my mistake: I began the book on the last day of the month and could not turn it off. Just when I needed to do many other routine tasks, the book took over my life.

I thoroughly enjoyed it; I'll catch up with the work later.

But I come to this book with special privilege. I am an Episcopalian and I take no interest in celebrity culture. It was especially enjoyable to watch an episcopal cleric not be suckered into celebrity glorification. Kate Charles peoples this book with an engaging variety of persons.

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3 people found this helpful

Written three decades ago?

Reviewed: 03-24-15

The Good Terrorist could have been written last night. Its details are that close, threat lurking subtly as but one of many possibilities . Lessing brilliantly stays aloof from judgment: the characters indight themselves with charm, but there's nothing charming about the book's relentless, Inevitable conclusion.

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4 people found this helpful

Caveat: One of Her Best, But...

Reviewed: 02-24-15

Put off if you're already gloomy. The book is likely to exacerbate your mood by quadrupling it. Or, enjoy anyway!

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8 people found this helpful

Not for me

Reviewed: 02-19-15

The plots and the people engaged me. The heavy gossipy tone turned me off. Each wears thick levels of protection, too thick to be accessible for me. Turn it off, I wanted shout as I ducked under the hair drier.

Louie Clay

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5 people found this helpful

A gentle, gracious and personal performance

Reviewed: 01-26-15

Forget the machinations of celebrity. This poet speaks to you as a friend. He shares the poems and he shares a few details of his experience in writing them,, with minimal jargon. He is talking to a reader, not to someone merely trying to pass an examination. No wonder he is very popular. I like his work even more after hearing these through his own voice.

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5 people found this helpful

A neighbor's response

Reviewed: 01-02-15

I live next to Orange Park less than a mile away from Robert Peace's home. I am a retired Ruckers University professor and worked many years five minutes away by foot from Robert's high school.

Jeff Hobbs' text is profoundly moving. There is not world enough or time to lose such talent and humanity. As a species we human beings must improve the world one person at a time, each beginning with herself or himself.

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6 people found this helpful