The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal
Vickie Constantine Croke, 2005
Random House
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375759703
Summary
Here is the astonishing true story of Ruth Harkness, the Manhattan bohemian socialite who, against all but impossible odds, trekked to Tibet in 1936 to capture the most mysterious animal of the day: a bear that had for countless centuries lived in secret in the labyrinth of lonely cold mountains. In The Lady and the Panda, Vicki Constantine Croke gives us the remarkable account of Ruth Harkness and her extraordinary journey, and restores Harkness to her rightful place along with Sacajawea, Nellie Bly, and Amelia Earhart as one of the great woman adventurers of all time.
Ruth was the toast of 1930s New York, a dress designer newly married to a wealthy adventurer, Bill Harkness. Just weeks after their wedding, however, Bill decamped for China in hopes of becoming the first Westerner to capture a giant panda–an expedition on which many had embarked and failed miserably. Bill was also to fail in his quest, dying horribly alone in China and leaving his widow heartbroken and adrift. And so Ruth made the fateful decision to adopt her husband’s dream as her own and set off on the adventure of a lifetime.
It was not easy. Indeed, everything was against Ruth Harkness. In decadent Shanghai, the exclusive fraternity of white male explorers patronized her, scorned her, and joked about her softness, her lack of experience and money. But Ruth ignored them, organizing, outfitting, and leading a bare-bones campaign into the majestic but treacherous hinterlands where China borders Tibet. As her partner she chose Quentin Young, a twenty-two-year-old Chinese explorer as unconventional as she was, who would join her in a romance as torrid as it was taboo.
Traveling across some of the toughest terrain in the world–nearly impenetrable bamboo forests, slick and perilous mountain slopes, and boulder-strewn passages–the team raced against a traitorous rival, and was constantly threatened by hordes of bandits and hostile natives. The voyage took months to complete and cost Ruth everything she had. But when, almost miraculously, she returned from her journey with a baby panda named Su Lin in her arms, the story became an international sensation and made the front pages of newspapers around the world. No animal in history had gotten such attention. And Ruth Harkness became a hero.
Drawing extensively on American and Chinese sources, including diaries, scores of interviews, and previously unseen intimate letters from Ruth Harkness, Vicki Constantine Croke has fashioned a captivating and richly textured narrative about a woman ahead of her time. Part Myrna Loy, part Jane Goodall, by turns wisecracking and poetic, practical and spiritual, Ruth Harkness is a trailblazing figure. And her story makes for an unforgettable, deeply moving adventure. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Vickie Constantine Croke has been covering pets and wildlife for more than two decades—and, obviously, has been having a good time doing it.
Now reporting regularly on animal issues for NECN TV, she previously wrote The Boston Globe's "Animal Beat" column for for 13 years. A former writer and producer for CNN, she has been a contributing reporter for the National Public Radio environment show Living on Earth covering everything from gorilla conservation to a coyote vasectomy.
She consults on film and television projects, most recently a two-hour documentary on gorillas for the A&E channel. Croke is the author of The Modern Ark: The Story of Zoos-Past, Present and Future, and has also written for Time, People, the Washington Post, Popular Science, O, The Oprah Magazine, Gourmet, National Wildlife, Discover, International Wildlife, London Sunday Telegraph, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Since Focus Features bought the movie rights to The Lady and the Panda, Vicki has suffered a few delusions of grandeur. She is working on a screenplay—a thriller set in the animal world— that needs a little more thrill.
(From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
The Lady and the Panda is primarily a personal story. And it conveys the unusual blend of imperiousness, caprice and affection with which Ms. Harkness approached her under-taking. At a time when adult pandas were considered too difficult and perpetually hungry to transport alive, she fastened on the idea of finding and nurturing a tiny one. (A newborn panda has the weight of a stick of butter.) She would make a surrogate child out of Su-Lin, the rare panda to leave China as anything better than a pelt.... The Lady and the Panda winds up stranger than fiction but no less poignant.
The New York Times
A real-life Indiana Jones adventure…[that] seems to grab hold of people and refuse to let go … Croke lived her story and it shows.
Chicago Tribune
An ingenious story.... Croke is smart and skillful enough to give us a romantic heroine who can hang on to her louche personality and remain believable.
Newsday
Insightful,a beautifully written work....[deals] with bigger issues: loss, fate, love, and the way animals emotionally can touch human beings.
USA Today
(Starred review.) During the Great Depression, inexpensive entertainment could be had at any city zoo. The exploits of the utterly macho men who bagged the beasts also made good adventure-film fodder. Yet one of the most famous animals ever brought to America—the giant panda—was captured by a woman, Ruth Harkness. Vicki Constantine Croke, the "Animal Beat" columnist for the Boston Globe, became fascinated by bohemian socialite Harkness, who was left alone and in difficult financial straits in 1936 after her husband died trying to bring a giant panda back from China. Instead of mourning, Harkness took on the mission. Arriving in Hong Kong with "a whiskey soda in one hand and a Chesterfield in the other," she soon found herself up against ruthless competitors, bandits, foul weather and warfare. Luckily, she was accompanied by the handsome and capable Quentin Young, her Chinese guide and eventual lover. This gripping book retraces their steps through the isolated and rugged wilderness where pandas hide, and then back to America, where the strange bears took the West by storm. Despite her remarkable journey, Harkness was derided and ignored by male adventurers. In dusting off this exciting tale, Constantine Croke (The Modern Ark: Zoos Past, Present and Future) returns Harkness to her rightful place in the top rank of zoological explorers..
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) It was once a story that every school kid knew. Ruth Harkness, a dress-designing socialite, following a trip laid out by her dead husband, captured the first giant panda to ever be seen in the West.... Harkness was a mass of contrasts: sophisticated city dweller and earthy lover of remote places, hard-drinking libertine, and devoted nurturer of infant pandas (yes, she went back and got more), and Croke evokes her character in an evenhanded style that makes her three-dimensional.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. It's impossible to know what makes each of us who we are, but what elements of Ruth Harkness's life do you think help explain how she became such a courageous, if unlikely explorer?
2. Who and what were the greatest loves of Ruth Harkness's life?
3. Does any of the Chinese history from that period have a bearing on what we read about the country today?
4. How about the giant panda? What are the things Ruth seemed to know intuitively that took the conservation world decades to realize?
5. What about Ruth's notions of destiny? Do you believe we each are guided by a pre-ordained fate? Mull over the "what ifs" — what if Bill had brought Ruth with him to China in 1934? What if Ruth had stuck with the original plan and had made Floyd Tangier Smith and Gerry Russell her expedition partners?
6. What if she and Quentin Young had come back to the US together? What if she had stayed in China after her third expedition?
7. Ruth is both an inspiration and cautionary tale in one. Has her life made you examine your own? Has her courage and determination made you think about pursuing your own dreams?
(Questions from author's website.)
A Place to Stand
Jimmy Santiago Baca, 2001
Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802139085
Summary
Jimmy Santiago Baca's harrowing, brilliant memoir of his life before, during, and immediately after the years he spent in a maximum-security prison garnered tremendous critical acclaim and went on to win the prestigious 2001 International Prize. Long considered one of the best poets in America today, Baca was illiterate at the age of twenty-one and facing five to ten years behind bars for selling drugs.
A Place to Stand is the remarkable tale of how he emerged after his years in the penitentiary—much of it spent in isolation—with the ability to read and a passion for writing poetry. A vivid portrait of life inside a maximum-security prison and an affirmation of one man's spirit in overcoming the most brutal adversity, A Place to Stand offers proof that hope exists even in the most desperate of lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 2, 1952
• Where—Sante Fe, New Mexico, USA
• Education—B.A., Ph.D., University of New Mexico
• Awards—American Book Award, Pushcart Prize, International
Hispanic Heritage Award, International Award.
• Currently—lives in southwestern USA
Born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was raised first by his grandmother and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison that he began to turn his life around: he learned to read and write and unearthed a voracious passion for poetry.
During a fateful conflict with another inmate, Jimmy was shaken by the voices of poets Pablo Neruda and Federico Garcia Lorca, and made a choice that would alter his destiny. Instead of becoming a hardened criminal, he emerged from prison a writer. Baca sent three of his poems to Denise Levertov, the poetry editor of Mother Jones. The poems were published and became part of Immigrants in Our Own Land, published in 1979, the year he was released from prison.
He earned his GED later that same year. He is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award and for his memoir, A Place to Stand, the prestigious International Award. In 2006 he won the Cornelius P. Turner Award. The national award recognizes one GED graduate a year who has made outstanding contributions to society in education, justice, health, public service and social welfare.
Baca has devoted his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship. His themes include American Southwest barrios, addiction, injustice, education, community, love and beyond. He has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities throughout the country.
In 2005 he created Cedar Tree Inc., a nonprofit foundation that works to give people of all walks of life the opportunity to become educated and improve their lives. Cedar Tree provides free instruction, books, writing material and scholarships. Cedar Tree has an ongoing writing workshop in the Albuquerque Women's Prison and at the South Valley Community Center. Cedar Tree also has an Internship program that provides live-in writing scholarships at Wind River Ranch, and in the south valley of Albuquerque. The program allows students, writers and poets the opportunity to write, attend poetry readings, conduct writing workshops, and work on documentary film production.
Radio/TV Appearances
National Public Radio, Good Morning America, National Discovery Channel, PBS Language of Life with Bill Moyers, CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood.
Special Projects
Founded Black Mesa Enterprises, a grassroots entertainment cooperative that modeled constructive patterns of living to troubled and at-risk teenagers and focused on respect of self and others. Members abided by strict rules regarding responsible behavior and avoidance of drugs, alcohol and violence, while participating in the business by writing, performing and recording rap and poetry, designing and selling T-shirts, promoting literacy with free books.
Facilitated an intensive writing workshop for unemployed steelworkers in Chicago, and the compilation of In the Heat, an anthology of their poetry, which was published by Cedar Hill Publications to acclaim.
Provided free readings and workshops at countless elementary, junior high and high schools, colleges, universities, reservations, barrio community centers, white ghettos and housing projects from coast to coast. Tutored many kids in reading and writing, arranged readings for them at local bookstores, mentored and motivated children and young adults in writing, publishing and constructive living. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Elegant and gripping.... The velocity of Baca's transformation through literature is breathtaking.
Los Angeles Times
A wild ride through poverty and alcoholism, abandonment, and orphanage scenes from Dickens.... A Place to Stand is a hell of a book, quite literally. You won't soon forget it.
San Diego Union-Tribune
A Place to Stand is an astonishing narrative that affirms the triumph of the human spirit.... A benchmark of Southwestern prose.
Arizona Daily Star
At once brave and heartbreaking.... A thunderous artifact...by a poet whose voice, brutal and tender, is unique in America.
Nation
Worth reading from both a literary and a social perspective, this book is recommended for all public and academic libraries. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
While readers may find Baca's poetry more dazzling than this prose memoir about how he became a poet, the author still manages to capture both the reader's interest and sympathies. Baca traverses his life, starting with his childhood in rural New Mexico where both parents essentially abandoned him his adolescence in "juvee" halls and his days as a drug dealer. The story leads up to an account of five years in a maximum-security prison in Arizona, and the unusual personal transformation that occurs there through his learning to read and write; eventually, he discovers his poetic voice. The text is structured like a conversion narrative in which Baca's past symbolizes all that is unhealthy and his poetry-oriented future is filled with the hope and optimism that come from discovering something divine in the midst of darkness. The darkness is often literal, as when Baca is describing his lengthy solitary confinements. He also recounts the intricacies of prison politics, in which failure to gain respect and alliances forged with the wrong people can mean death. Oddly, certain story lines are simply dropped along the way, such as his charge that the prison was lacing his food with strong psychoactive drugs. It is too bad that Baca's prose is frequently flat ("Poetry enhanced my self-respect. It provided me with a path for exploring possibilities for life's enrichment that I follow to this day"), especially when reflecting upon abstract topics, since the content of his story is so interesting and his poetry simply shines. Forecast: Baca has won a Pushcart Prize, among other awards, including his title as a one-time champion of the International Poetry Slam.
Publishers Weekly
Poetry seems antithetical to the poverty, racism, and violence that wracked Baca's tragic youth, but the power of language is what kept him alive and sane while he served hard time in a hellish federal prison. Now a prizewinning poet and screenwriter, Baca, born in New Mexico in 1952, was abandoned by his parents and put in an orphanage at age seven. He learned to fight but not to read and, in spite of good intentions, ran into nothing but trouble. Baca chronicles his brutal experiences with riveting exactitude and remarkable evenhandedness. An unwilling participant in the horrific warfare that rages within prison walls and a rebel who refused to be broken by a vicious and corrupt system, Baca taught himself to read and write, awoke to the voice of the soul, and converted "doing time" into a profoundly spiritual pursuit. Poetry became a lifeline, and Baca's harrowing story will stand among the world's most moving testimonies to the profound value of literature.
Library Journal
A mercifully brief memoir of the Pushcart Prize—and American Book Award-winning Hispanic poet's criminal past, and his agonizingly slow discovery of the redemptive power of writing while serving a prison term. Born in New Mexico as the third child of an alcoholic father and philandering mother, Baca (Black Mesa Poems) was handed off at seven to his grandparents when his father disappeared and his mother ran off with another man-only to find himself in an orphanage when his grandfather died shortly thereafter. Early efforts at schooling failed, and the marginally literate Baca ran away and experimented with criminal behavior. Without any strong role models, fruitful employment, or defenses against anti-Hispanic bigotry, Baca, unusually strong for his youth, developed a vicious proficiency at streetfighting and deliberately resisted attempts by occasional benefactors to set him straight. When he discovered that his first lover was unfaithful to him, Baca drifted to California, where he was fired from his job as an unlicensed plumber after he refused the sexual advances of a housewife. In Arizona, a life as a drug dealer soon landed him a five-year sentence in Florence State Prison—an overcrowded, maximum-security facility where Baca turned to books as an escape and began writing angry, bitterly ironic poetry to purge himself of emotional turmoil. "I am Healing Earthquakes," he writes in one of his early poems, "a man awakening to the day with a place to stand / And ground to defend." After he was released, his attempts at reaching a reconciliation with surviving family members ended in horror when a brother died from alcoholism and his stepfather murdered his mother and then killed himself. Baca finally married, clinging to the love of his wife and his poetry "to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless, of which I am one." A brutally unflinching look back at a dead-end youth that became a crucible for vivid and vital art.
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 LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Place to Stand:
1. To what extent was Jimmy Santiago Baca's youth and young adulthood a result of a broken family? What kind of example does Jimmy's story offer for the nurture vs. nature argument?
2. How did the childcare and legal system fail Jimmy? To what degree was he...or was he not...responsible for his actions?
3. When he headed to prison at the age of 21, was there any reason to think he would become anything other than a hardened criminal? Were there hints that there might be another outcome for Jimmy?
4. Talk about Jimmy's steps toward redemption? What was the turning point or points? Who helped him along the way? What kind of qualities within Jimmy himself made the difference?
5. Jimmy pulls himself back from killing an inmate when he hears "the voices of Neruda and Lorca...praising life as sacred and challenging me: How can you kill and still be a poet?" Comment on that passage.
5. In what way did reading literature help Jimmy begin to heal? Same question for Jimmy's writing—how did it help him?
6. Talk about one of Jimmy's early poems: "I am Healing Earthquakes," in which he writes, "a man awakening to the day with a place to stand / And ground to defend." What is the significance of those lines?
6. In a larger sense, how does the written word have the power to remake the personal world? In your own experience, have you ever been moved deeply by reading poetry or prose—or by the process of your own writing—to rethink the way you live your life?
7. To what extent has this memoir opened your eyes to life in prison? What kind of life do prisoners endure? Is there a better system? If so, what would it be?
8. After his release, Jimmy attempted to reconcile with his family, only to witness more horror. How much can one individual endure? (This may or may not be a rhetorical question...it's up to you.)
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?
Bodies, Behavior, and Brains—The Science
Behind Sex, Love & Attraction
Jena Pincott, 2008
Random House
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385342162
Summary
How do the seasons affect your sex life? Is your lover more likely to get you pregnant than your husband? Are good dancers also good in bed?
If you’ve ever wondered how scientists measure love—or whether men really prefer blondes—this smart, sexy book provides real answers to these and many other questions about our most baffling dating and mating behaviors.
Based on the latest research in biology, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes? dares to explain the science behind sex—and opens a fascinating window on the intriguing phenomenon of love and attraction. Did you know…
•When a couple first fall in love, their brains are indistinguishable from those of the clinically insane
•You can tell a lot about a person’s sexual chemistry just by looking at his or her hands
•Your genes influence whose body odors you prefer
Viewed through the lens of science and instinct, your love life might be seen in a completely different way. This book provides both an in-depth exploration into our sexual psyches—and fresh advice for men and women who want to discover the secrets of successful relationships. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Education—B.S., Hampshire College; M.A., New York
University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
My saving grace as a science geek is that I have a real interest in beauty, style, and romance. For me, my latest book, Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?, was a dream project—it's about the science of love and attraction.
Eons ago, I graduated from Hampshire College with a dual major in biology and media studies. I had a scary incident in the lab and decided that the life of a career scientist, growing bacteria in Petri dishes, wasn't for me. Seeking a happy medium, I became a PA on science documentaries for PBS, and then moved on to book publishing. I was an editor of business and general nonfiction books at John Wiley & Sons, where I rekindled my love for "dead tree" media. I received an M.A. from NYU; my thesis was on science and the sublime in the works of Thomas Pynchon. Later, I became a senior editor of "prescriptive" nonfiction (how-to) and reference books at Random House. Then I left it all to be a full-time writer.
My other books run the gamut from self-help and motivation (Healing and the bestseller Success) to science, technology, business, and history (Technomanifestos, Making the Cisco Connection)
I live in New York City and play the clarinet. I travel as much as I possibly can, usually with my husband, Peter, and I hope to learn Mandarin someday. I also write science fiction under a pen name. (From the author's website)
Book Reviews
This book is likely to prompt conversations with friends that start with, "Hey, have you ever wondered why people... ?... A cross between Cosmopolitan and Scientific American... an insightful and amusing read.
Associated Press
Jena Pincott may have performed a kind of public service in compiling in easy, brief form the findings from recent studies on sex and stuff. But before we answer the title question—Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?—we'll give you the breaking news. You know how grim the economy is? Everyone should be depressed, right? But it seems that in hard times men prefer women who are slightly older, heavier, taller and have large waists.
Sherryl Connelly - NY Daily News
Why do we find some people beautiful and others not? And is there anything we can do to make ourselves more attractive? In her fascinating new book, Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?, American science journalist Jena Pincott collates scores of academic studies to reveal what really makes us attractive to the opposite sex.
Daily Mail (UK) (via Huffington Post)
Pincott's breezy little book examines...queries about love and romance while supplying answers based on the latest scientific findings. The witty New York City author ponders such burning questions as, "Is chocolate really an aphrodisiac?" and, "Why do men love big breasts?" Reading just one page of this charmer is as impossible as eating one potato chip.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
[An}informative and amusing book...The short answers are judiciously packed with information culled from hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. All of it is relayed in a light, engaging tone....Open up the doors to some fascinating research.
Weekly Standard
In these playfully written scientific anecdotes, Pincott argues that desire is strongly rooted in evolutionary biases and consults a variety of studies—some familiar, others cutting-edge—to reveal the extent to which hormones dictate human behavior. Even idle ogling is a serious endeavor: humans constantly rate each other for levels of attractiveness, a signifier of male and female hormones. When women are ovulating, estrogen rebuilds the female face, making lips fuller and skin smoother; Pincott cites studies showing that strippers earned twice as much during the fertile phase of their cycles as when they had their periods, while those taking birth control earned significantly less money throughout. The book also has the scoop about whether penis size matters (it does), how the post-orgasm rush of oxytocin promotes bonding and why women are tempted to cheat during certain times of the month. It ends with a look at the neuroscience of love, which despite all the jostling and jousting of dating and mating, appears to be very much alive when measured by MRI studies of passionate couples.
Publishers Weekly
Former science editor Pincott explores the science of attraction based on the latest scientific studies in biology, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and the cognitive sciences. Organizing the text into three sections ("Behaviors," "Bodies," and "Brains"), she answers around 100 questions we've all wondered about or asked: What makes a face good-looking? Why do some men smell better to you than others? How might your mom's and dad's ages influence your attractions to older faces? The studies themselves are intriguing, and sometimes it is simply hard to believe that anyone has actually examined, for instance, a "low digit ratio" (which involves which finger is longer-your ring finger or your index finger-and is related to how much prenatal exposure a person has had to the hormone testosterone). It becomes obvious that we are aware of only a small part of what drives our choices when it comes to choosing whom to marry or with whom we have a sexual relationship. What's not quite so obvious is how this information can be used by those looking for a soul mate. This book puts together a tremendous amount of potentially useful information in a well-written, entertaining, and easy-to-understand format. Recommended for all public libraries.
Mary E. Jones - Library Journal
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 LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Do Gentlement Really Prefer Blonds?:
1. What surprised you most about Pincott's book? Which sections left you with a "suspicions confirmed" feeling...a knowing nod of your head? Any study results that confound you..or you feel can't possibly be true?
2. The studies Pincott compiled indicate how little rational control we have over our initial sexual attractions: she writes, "All the time...you're making decisions beyond your conscious awareness, and people respond to you in ways and for reasons unconscious to them." Do you find that information comforting...or disconcerting?
3. Do the "rules of attraction" as spelled out in this book seem to favor you...or not? Are they even "fair"? (And who says life is fair?)
4. In what ways are women choosier than men in selecting a mate? And why?
5. In what ways have some of Pincott's observations played out in your own life, with your own choices? Big mistakes? Little ones?
6. Discuss some of the many differences between men and women that Pincott explains in her book?
7. Do the sum total of these explanations regarding our sexual preferences undermine the mysterious quality of love...or actually enhance its mystery for you?
8. Is the way to a man's heart really through his stomach?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
Alexandra Fuller, 2002
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375758997
Summary
In Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller remembers her African childhood with candor and sensitivity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller’s endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate.
Fuller’s debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 29, 1969
• Where—Glossop, Derbyshire, UK
• Raised—Central Africa
• Education—B. A., Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Currently—lives in Wilson, Wyoming
Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972 she moved with her family to a farm in Rhodesia. After that country’s civil war in 1981, the Fullers moved first to Malawi, then to Zambia. Fuller received a B.A. from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. In 1994, she moved to Wyoming, where she still lives. She has two children. (From the publisher.)
Her own words:
(From two Barnes & Nobel interviews—in 2003 and 2004)
• There isn't a moment that I am not thinking about Africa. I am either thinking about it in relation to what I am writing at that time, or I am thinking about it in relations to where I am geographically (I am writing this at my desk in my office overlooking the Tetons, which could not be further, you might argue, from Zambia. Yet, I have been thinking all morning that the cry of an angry great blue heron—they are nesting in the aspens at the end of our property—sound like Chacma baboons).
• The best way for me to evoke the same sense of place and the same smells and the same space of Africa is when I am out riding. I have a rather naughty little Arab mare, whom I accompany (it would be an exaggeration to claim that I "ride" her) into the mountains almost every day when the snow is clear. Something about being away from people, alone with a horse and a dog, fills me with an intense sense of joy and well-being, and I always return from these excursions inspired (if not to write, then to be a better mother, or to cook something fabulous, or to do the laundry).
• I have come to the conclusion that I can only write about something if I have actually smelled it for myself. I have no idea what this says about me, but I think it's a fact of my work. I also cannot think of something without immediately evoking its smell (for example, if I think of my father, I think of the smell of cigarette smoke and the bitter scent of his sweat—he has never once worn deodorant, so his smell is very organic and wonderfully his—and of the faint aroma of tea and engine oil he exudes). Once, in France, a particularly thorough journalist (he had 50 questions for me!) said, somewhat accusingly, 'You have written here in your book' (it was Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight) 'about the smell of frog sperm. What exactly does frog sperm smell of?' And without hesitating for a moment, I replied, 'Cut turnips,' which I think surprised both of us.
• When asked what book most influenced her life, here is her response:
I remember the visceral thrill and horror and pain and sheer astonishment I felt when I first read Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl. I was 14 years old, and I was sitting in the field beyond the art and science laboratories, under the stink trees at my high school in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was winter (I remember the chilled air mixed with the smell of the trees, which is a sort of mild spilled-sewer smell, and the rough feel of my school uniform on my dry legs, and I remember plucking up tufts of winter-dry grass and the shouts of the girls playing hockey on the lower fields). I swallowed the book whole in a single, stunned afternoon. For days after that, I felt as if I carried the diary and Anne's voice around inside me, as if I was seeing the world through her eyes and speaking it with her sharp, witty tongue, and all the time, I was feeling her terrible confinement and feeling a sort of sickness for how her life had ended. I wanted to swim back through time and warn her that her family would be betrayed; urge her not to give up hope; tell her that the war would be over one day.
The diary was my introduction to nonfiction—if you don't count the cheerful account of Gerald Durrell's young life in Greece in My Family and Other Animals and the short, sanitized accounts of the lives of the English monarchs that I read, or the biographies of supposedly mild-mannered authors of children's books that I inhaled. With the diary, I was struck, not only by how compelling real life can be to read but also by how beautifully written it can be—especially by one so young.
Until I read Anne Frank's diary, I had found books a literal escape from what could be the harsh reality around me. After I read the diary, I had a fresh way of viewing the both literature and the world. From then on, I found I was impatient with books that were not honest or that were trivial and frivolous. Honesty, I found, translated across all languages and experiences and informed the reader about their own world.
For almost the first time in my life, after I read the diary, I found myself thinking about how capricious and evil politics can be, about how racism can fling young lives (old lives, all lives) into turmoil and death. Even though the Holocaust has its own awful place in history for the sheer ghastliness of thinking that brought it about, and the fact that so many died so pointlessly and in such a terrible fashion, I couldn't help thinking about it in terms of the world that I knew. We had recently gone through a war in Rhodesia, in which whites (my parents included) had fought to keep blacks oppressed, without a vote, and without the rights that we whites were entitled to. Blacks were oppressed for being black—they had to shop in different stores, attend different schools, they were spat on, beaten, scorned, dismissed as third-class citizens. I remember thinking, This book should have taught us never to do such things again to one another. And I felt profoundly hopeless for the human race. If Anne Frank—that clear, acerbic, innocent voice could be ignored...then who would we listen to? (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is surprisingly engaging and even moving.
Stephen Clingsman - New York Times
A classic is born in this tender, intensely moving and even delightful journey through a white African girl's childhood. Born in England and now living in Wyoming, Fuller was conceived and bred on African soil during the Rhodesian civil war (1971-1979), a world where children over five "learn[ed] how to load an FN rifle magazine, strip and clean all the guns in the house, and ultimately, shoot-to-kill." With a unique and subtle sensitivity to racial issues, Fuller describes her parents' racism and the wartime relationships between blacks and whites through a child's watchful eyes. Curfews and war, mosquitoes, land mines, ambushes and "an abundance of leopards" are the stuff of this childhood. "Dad has to go out into the bush... and find terrorists and fight them"; Mum saves the family from an Egyptian spitting cobra; they both fight "to keep one country in Africa white-run." The "A" schools ("with the best teachers and facilities") are for white children; "B" schools serve "children who are neither black nor white"; and "C" schools are for black children. Fuller's world is marked by sudden, drastic changes: the farm is taken away for "land redistribution"; one term at school, five white students are "left in the boarding house... among two hundred African students"; three of her four siblings die in infancy; the family constantly sets up house in hostile, desolate environments as they move from Rhodesia to Zambia to Malawi and back to Zambia. But Fuller's remarkable affection for her parents (who are racists) and her homeland (brutal under white and black rule) shines through. This affection, in spite of its subjects' prominent flaws, reveals their humanity and allows the reader directentry into her world. Fuller's book has the promise of being widely read and remaining of interest for years to come. Photos not seen by PW. (On-sale Dec. 18) Forecast: Like Anne Frank's diary, this work captures the tone of a very young person caught up in her own small world as she witnesses a far larger historical event. It will appeal to those looking for a good story as well as anyone seeking firsthand reportage of white southern Africa. The quirky title and jacket will propel curious shoppers to pick it up.
Publishers Weekly
It is difficult for most people even to imagine the world described in this book, let alone live in it as a child: the nights are dark, scary, and filled with strange noises; the people welcome you and despise you at the same time; there is a constant anxious feeling burning in your stomach, which, you later realize, is fear of the unrest surrounding you. The British-born Fuller grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), losing three siblings to disease as her father fought in the Rhodesian civil war and her mother managed the farm. She approaches her childhood with reserve, leaving many stories open to interpretation while also maintaining a remarkable clarity about what really transpired in her homeland, in her own home, and in her head. The narrative seems complicated, weaving together war, politics, racial issues, and alcoholism, but its emotional core remains honest, playful, and unapologetic; it hardly seems possible that this 32-year-old has so much to say and says it so well. In this powerful debut, Fuller fully succeeds in memorializing the beauty of each desert puddle and each African summer night sky while also recognizing that beauty can lie hidden in the faces of those who have crossed her path. Highly recommended.
Library Journal
Fuller's debut is a keen-eyed, sharp-voiced memoir of growing up white in 1970s Africa. Born in England in 1969, the author by age three had moved to civil-war-torn Rhodesia, where her parents had lived before they lost an infant son to meningitis. Tim and Nicola Fuller ran a farm on Rhodesia's eastern edge. Mozambique, just across the border, was deep into its own civil war, and in this hostile geopolitical climate the Fullers struggled for a toehold that would keep Rhodesia white-ruled. In 1976, Nicola gave birth to a daughter who drowned in a duck puddle less than two years later. Minority rule ended in 1979; the country began its gradual, uneasy metamorphosis into independent Zimbabwe. The Fullers lost their land; Nicola bore and for the third time lost a child. To gain distance from all this failure, the family moved to dictator-controlled Malawi before ultimately settling in Zambia, where Tim and Nicola remain to this day. Fuller makes no apologies for her parents' (especially her mother's) politics. The loose structure and short takes here crystallize and polish the general subjects—race, politics, history, home, loss—into diamond-hard clarity without sacrificing the pace and intensity of the narrative or distracting the reader from the appeal of the personal. Like Dinesen, the author takes an elegiac tone, but it's balanced by a bouncy lyricism derived from compression, humor, and gimlet-eyed compassion. Fuller loved and loves her Africa; in the final analysis that passion takes a bright and vivid story to the next level, and even further. An illuminating, even thrillingly fresh perspective on the continent's much-discussed post-colonial problems.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Fuller compares the smell of Africa to "black tea, cut tobacco, fresh fire, old sweat, young grass." She describes "an explosion of day birds...a crashing of wings" and "the sound of heat. The grasshoppers and crickets sing and whine. Drying grass crackles. Dogs pant." How effective is the author in drawing the reader into her world with the senses of sound, smell, and taste? Can you find other examples of her ability to evoke a physical and emotional landscape that pulses with life? What else makes her writing style unique?
2. Given their dangerous surroundings in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia and a long streak of what young Bobo describes as "bad, bad luck," why does the Fuller family remain in Africa?
3. Drawing on specific examples, such as Nicola Fuller's desire to "live in a country where white men still ruled" and the Fuller family's dramatic interactions with African squatters, soldiers, classmates, neighbors, and servants, how would you describe the racial tensions and cultural differences portrayed in Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, particularly between black Africans and white Africans?
4. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is rich with humorous scenes and dialogue, such as the visit by two missionaries who are chased away by the family's overfriendly dogs, a bevy of ferocious fleas, and the worst tea they have ever tasted. What other examples of comedy can you recall, and what purpose do you think they serve in this serious memoir?
5. Fuller describes the family's move to Burma Valley as landing them "right [in] the middle, the very birthplace and epicenter, of the civil war in Rhodesia." Do her youthful impressions give a realistic portrait of the violent conflict?
6. The New York Times Book Review described Nicola as "one of the most memorable characters of African memoir." What makes the author's portrait of her mother so vivid? How would you describe Bobo's father?
7. Define the complex relationship between Bobo and Vanessa. How do the two sisters differ in the ways that they relate to their parents?
8. Animals are ever present in the book. How do the Fullers view their domesticated animals, as compared to the wild creatures that populate their world?
9. Of five children born to Nicola Fuller, only two survive. "All people know that in one way or the other the dead must be laid to rest properly," Alexandra Fuller writes. Discuss how her family deals with the devastating loss of Adrian, Olivia, and Richard. Are they successful in laying their ghosts to rest?
10. According to Bobo, "Some Africans believe that if your baby dies, you must bury it far away from your house, with proper magic and incantations and gifts for the gods, so that the baby does not come back." Later, at Devuli Ranch, soon after the narrator and her sister have horrified Thompson, the cook, by disturbing an old gravesite, Bobo's father announces that he is going fishing: "If the fishing is good, we'll stay here and make a go of it. If the fishing is bad, we'll leave." What role does superstition play in this book? Look for examples in the behavior and beliefs of both black and white Africans.
11. Consider Fuller's interactions with black Africans, including her nanny in Rhodesia and the children she plays "boss and boys" with, as well as with Cephas the tracker and, later, the first black African to invite her into his home. Over the course of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, how does the narrator change and grow?
12. By the end of the narrative, how do you think the author feels about Africa? Has the book changed your own perceptions about this part of the world?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch, 2007
Hyperion Books
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401323257
Summary
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. —Randy Pausch
A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"—wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come. (From the publisher.)
Background
Co-author Mr. Zaslow recalled sitting in the audience for the original lecture, laughing and crying along with 400 of Dr. Pausch's friends, colleagues and students
It was the first time Mr. Zaslow had laid eyes on him. As a journalist who writes a column on life transitions, he had heard about the coming lecture and phoned Dr. Pausch the night before. He was so impressed by their talk that he decided to attend, even though his editors had refused to pay for a flight and had told him to do the interview by telephone. "Once I was there, I knew I'd seen something remarkable," Mr. Zaslow said.
After the lecture, the two men met for the first time and Dr. Pausch said he would spend his remaining months with his wife and children.
Later, the men were reportedly paid more than $6-million (U.S.) by Disney-owned publisher Hyperion for their book. At first, Dr. Pausch had been reluctant to take on the project, saying it would take too much time away from his children. As a compromise, Mr. Zaslow interviewed him for one hour every 53 days. That hour was the time Dr. Pausch set aside to ride a bike to keep his strength up.
Mr. Zaslow said he was not surprised that his friend's message, in all its incarnations, struck such a chord. "It's because we're all dying. His fate is our fate and it's just sped up," he said. "So, watching how he approached even his death as an adventure, it just resonates with people. He had a way of turning his own life into lessons. (Fom the Last Lecture website.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 23, 1960
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Death—July 26, 2008
• Where—Chesapeake, Virginia
• Education—B.S., Brown University; Ph.D. Carnegie Mellon
Randolph Frederick Pausch was an American professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pausch received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University in 1982 and his PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in August 1988. Pausch later became an associate professor at the University of Virginia, before working at Carnegie Mellon as an associate professor.
Pausch was born at Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in Columbia, Maryland. After graduating from Oakland Mills High School in Columbia, Pausch received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University in May 1982 and his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in August 1988. While completing his doctoral studies, Pausch was briefly employed at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and Adobe
Systems.
Teaching
Pausch was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science from 1988 until 1997. While there, he completed sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts (EA).
In 1997, Pausch became Associate Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design, at Carnegie Mellon University. He was a co-founder in 1998, along with Don Marinelli, of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), and he started the Building Virtual Worlds course at CMU and taught it for 10 years. He consulted with Google on user interface design and also consulted with PARC, Imagineering, and Media Metrix. Pausch is also the founder of the Alice software project.
He was a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator and a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. Pausch was the author or co-author of five books and over 70 articles. He also received two awards from ACM in 2007 for his achievements in computing education: the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education. He was also inducted as a Fellow of the ACM in 2007. The Pittsburgh City Council declared November 19, 2007 to be "Dr. Randy Pausch Day". In May 2008, Pausch was listed by Time as one of the World's Top-100 Most Influential People.
His Last Lecture
Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and underwent a Whipple procedure on September 19, 2006 in an unsuccessful attempt to halt the cancer. He was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health. He soon moved his family to Chesapeake, Virginia, a suburb near Norfolk, to be close to his wife's family.
He gave "The Last Lecture" speech on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon. Pausch conceived the lecture after he learned that his previously known pancreatic cancer was terminal. The talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk", with a topic such as "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?" The talk was later released as a book called The Last Lecture, which became a New York Times best-seller.
On March 13, 2008, Pausch advocated for greater federal funding for pancreatic cancer before the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.
Death
On June 26, 2008, Pausch indicated that he was considering stopping further chemotherapy because of the potential adverse side effects. He was, however, considering some immuno-therapy-based approaches. On July 24, on behalf of Pausch, a friend anonymously posted a message on Pausch's webpage stating that a biopsy had indicated that the cancer had progressed further than what was expected from recent PET scans and that Pausch had "taken a step down" and was "much sicker than he had been". The friend also stated that Pausch had then enrolled in a hospice program designed to provide palliative care to those at the end of life. Pausch died from at his family's home in Chesapeake, Virginia on July 25, 2008, having moved there so that his wife and children would be near family after his death. He is survived by his wife Jai, and their three children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Dr. Pausch did not omit things that would break just about anybody’s heart. He spoke of his love for his wife, Jai, and had a birthday cake for her wheeled on stage. He spoke of their three young children, saying he had made his decision to speak mostly to leave them a video memory — to put himself in a metaphorical bottle that they might someday discover on a beach. As the video of his lecture spread across the Web and was translated into many languages, Dr. Pausch also became the co-author of a best-selling book and a deeply personal friend, wise, understanding and humorous, to many he never met.
Douglas Martin - New York Times
Randy had always said that his talk was in large measure meant to be a "message in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children," now ages six, three and two. The fact that tens of millions of other people ended up watching it was thrilling for him, but he was most excited that his kids would one day see it. His last months were part of his continuing process of sharing lessons with them, and finding ways to build memories and show his love. In a sense, every day, he was continuing the lecture he began on stage. He saw the book, also, as a gift mainly for his children. "How do you get 30 years of parenting into three months?" he asked me. "You write it down is what you do. That's all you can do." He approached his illness as an optimist, a scientist, but also as a realist. (See "Background" under Questions, below.)
Jeffrey Zaslow - Wall Street Journal (co-author of The Last Lecture)
As the video of his lecture spread across the Web and was translated into many languages, Dr. Pausch also became the co-author of a best-selling book and a deeply personal friend, wise, understanding and humorous, to many he never met.Made famous by his "Last Lecture" at Carnegie Mellon and the quick Internet proliferation of the video of the event, Pausch decided that maybe he just wasn't done lecturing. Despite being several months into the last stage of pancreatic cancer, he managed to put together this book. The crux of it is lessons and morals for his young and infant children to learn once he is gone. Despite his sometimes-contradictory life rules, it proves entertaining and at times inspirational. Surprisingly, the audiobook doesn't include the reading of Pausch's actual "Last Lecture," which he gave on September 18, 2007, a month after being diagnosed. Erik Singer provides an excellent inflective voice that hints at the reveries of past experiences with family and children while wielding hope and regret for family he will leave behind.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• Generic Discussion Questions
• Read-Think-Talk About a Book
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to get a discussion started for The Last Lecture:
1.How did you feel about Jai's unhappiness over Pausch's decision to give a last lecture—her concern that its preparation would divert precious time away from his children? Did you find yourself sympathisizing or disagreeing with her? How would you have reacted as his wife?
2. Discuss Pausch's statement that "it's not about how to achieve your dreams. It's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way ... the dreams will come to you."
• Do you think he's right? Might the reverse be true—that only by working toward (and achieving) your dreams can you "lead your life the right way"?
• Randy remembers his childhood dreams with clarity. Do you remember your childhood dreams—are they as vivid as his? And how important is it to hold onto your childhood dreams—might not they change over time?
3. Does The Last Lecture make you rethink your own priorities —what you want out of life, your work, your friendships, your marriage? Does it make you re-evaluate—or confirm—the things you thought were important?
4. If you had only 6 months to live (and adequate financial means), how would you spend the time left to you? Would you continue to work? Travel? Spend time with family and friends? Would you make changes in your day-to-day life or continue the life you're living now?
5. Pausch said he gave his lecture (not knowing it would attain such worldlwide acclaim) so his children would have some memory or knowledge of their father. If you were faced with 6 months to live, how would you go about creating lasting memories? Is that an important concern—or is it self-serving or self-indulgent?
6. Why is it that The Last Lecture has struck such a chord with people? Co-writer Zaslow says (in Background above) that "it's because we're all dying," and that Randy's fate is ours. Do you agree? Are there any other reasons?
7. What passages in particular resonated with you? Which struck you—personally—as most profound or meaningful for your own life?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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