Title: Prequel

Author: Rachel Maddow

Publisher: Crown

As Reviewed on Maddow's Amazon Buy Page

     I am considering this a review and hope you will, too.  It is slightly edited from a recommendation I sent to a housebound relative who reads voraciously and sends recommendations to me--about three a week. You will see I found some reasons for reading it that might be quite different from the usual reader.  Here it it is:

Dear Reader: 

     You don't know Rachel?  Rachel is a highly  talented …and educated…MSNBC host, podcaster, writer…She writes with humour and much irony. And she avoids lots of unnecessary latinate words, and that's the kind of thing someone who also makes her living with words notices.  Her knowledge of political  history is prodigious. She is an antidote to the crap going on in the world right now. 

     You said you avoid TV.  I think many thinking people turned away from  TV because of all the misinformation that’s going on there. My trajectory was just the opposite.  A long, long time ago when I was in my writing/retailing/getting-an-education era of my life I didn’t watch much, either —almost never. I started watching because I found it an antidote to all the misinformation we have been inundated with in these times of mass media--including the internet. \

     You may recall, I am pretty fussy about what I read. Or not. We had the decade-long gap where we didn't communicate. To update you, I am an ex journalist major, as well as a recovering journalist. I am truly grateful to my journalism experience because of the perspective it has given me and, frankly, the background it has given me for my other writing.  I am pretty much settled on NBC and MSNBC as a major TV news resource because they have a huge staff of trained journalist/reporters stationed all over the world. They even cover financials with a separate cable station, CNBC.   CNN  is my next favorite as a reliable resource, but it seems their new CEO is letting it (or causing it) to slip lately.  And I probably haven't missed a "60 Minutes" on CBS segment in decade.

    Make no mistake, I listen and read from resources that are on both sides of the political spectrum.  I even recommend Dr. Frank Luntz’s, “Words that Work," in the Appendix of several of my books. One needs to know how both sides of politics manipulate the words they use. (Luntz even includes a list of words that can be used when one wants/needs to influence (copywriting and advertising are good examples ). He tries to be fair and noncommittal about politics but sometimes slips. His expertise in the worlds of marketing and politics is prodigious. His readers come to understand how our entire population is being manipulated with words and that saddens me.  That said, I think you find much to learn from Luntz and much to love in Rachel Maddow's newest book.  Even history buffs will be surprised at what they didn't know.

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A Reviewer's Choice Memoir Pubbed by Scribner

The Glass Castle
By Jeannette Walls
Scribner, 2005
ISBN# 978-0-7432-4754-2

Reviewed by B. Lynn Goodwin for www.writeradvice.com

Jeannette Wall’s The Glass Castle is a compelling memoir that delves into resilience, self-discovery, and love. Dad is “half potted.” Mom is flighty and “nonchalant in the face of adversity.” The couple accidentally raises resilient children.

The author, one of their children, describes her upbringing with clarity, honesty, respect, and love. She leaves the judgments to others. The young narrator’s innocence, which remains intact throughout the memoir, turns tragic episodes into adventures. The children sleep in refrigerator boxes at a railway station. Dad turns the planet Venus into a Christmas gift. Mom refuses to sell inherited acres in Texas, claiming it is a legacy and must stay in the family.

What makes their behavior almost palatable is the love that comes from these two bizarre parents. They don’t mean to hurt their children. From her father, Rex, Wall learned that survival is all about bravado and craftiness. From her mother she learned that a bright and breezy attitude can turn any disaster into a blessing. Filled with the complexities love creates, The Glass Castle would be grim in less skillful hands. Wall leaves judgments about the parents and their dysfunctions up to the reader.

As a teenager Wall stayed at the school, which was heated, and worked on the school paper, The Maroon Wave. She becomes the first eleventh grader to be appointed editor. Adversity, in her case, led to triumph. She left her family, got educated with her brother in New York, married a successful writer, and today she writes for MSNBC. Her style and story make her an author worth watching. Get a copy of her book today.

Reviewed by B. Lynn Goodwin, www.writeradvice.com