A Conversation with the Mann Review

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(More customer reviews)I had never heard of Jackie Mann. I didn't feel so badly about not knowing him after John Ridley admitted in his introduction that he had not heard of him either before eventually meeting him when he was long past his glory days. Reading the Jacket cover I discovered he was one of the premiere black club Comedians in the 1950's, early 60's who made a living "telling America what it wanted to hear", but in reality Jackie Mann's life is like an "Aesop Fable", the moral of the story cannot be missed.
All Jackie Mann ever wanted was to be famous, to be somebody and he was willing to do whatever was necessary to get there. Mr. Ridley tells his story with such eloquence and compassion and the story itself is so compelling I couldn't put the book down. I also understood his decisions. How he had arrived at every point where he made what could be considered fatal missteps. I can not honestly say that in that time and space, without a doubt, hand on a stack of bibles; I would have done things so differently. A fact I'm not proud of, but as a black woman who can't make a decision to stop perming her hair (it may be too political) I can hardly sit in judgment of him. I liked Jackie Mann. I was with him all the way. Wanted him to have his glory without paying too dearly for it. In retrospect people may point to his life as an example of what happens when you will not stand up and be a man, but Jackie Mann lived in an era where speaking your mind could not only kill your career but end your life. To be righteous and noble in those situations is to be admired, the stuff martys are made of, but it really takes more guts than most of us have.
While Jackie Mann never became a household name, most of the people who were in and around his life we know extremely well. At times this book gave us new glimpses at stories we've heard about some of Hollywood's Icons and a new look at some of our hero's. There were also several people in Jackie's life that kept pushing him to be the man they knew he could be, who were succeeding on their own terms. As faith would have it they all became the one thing Jackie really wanted to be Famous.
A Must Read!!!!
Reviewed by Ruby
APOOO Bookclub

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Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights Review

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(More customer reviews)I only thought countries like Iran, Cuba or Saudi Arabia prosecuted people for expressing their opinions. I was wrong. It's scary to think that in a 1st rate country like Canada, a great country, such courts exist. These government sanctioned courts/tribunals make it hard to express your own thoughts and Mr. Levant has embarked on a crusade to expose these Stalinist kangaroo courts and defeat them in the real court of public opinion. I think he has been successful. This is an extremely well done book. Greatly researched, written by a very passionate man who cares deeply about his country and has done so to protect it from these HR courts. Buy this book and let others read it too. Every single Canadian of all stripes must know what's going on and how their tax money is spent. I, for one, am glad that brave men like Mr. Levant have the guts to go through such fights. For their bravery, Canada will be a much better place and a safer place to live. 5/5

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Winner of the Writer's Trust of Canada / Samara's - Best Canadian Political Book of the Last 25 Years Part memoir, part investigative journalism, this is a shocking and controversial look at the corruption of Canada's human rights commissions."On January 11, 2008, I was summoned to a 90-minute government interrogation. My crime? As the publisher of Western Standard magazine, I had reprinted the Danish cartoons of Mohammed to illustrate a news story. I was charged with the offence of "discrimination," and made to appear before Alberta's "human rights commission" for questioning. As crazy as it sounds, I became the only person in the world to face legal sanction for printing those cartoons."As a result of this highly publicized event, Ezra Levant began investigating other instances in which innocent people have had their freedoms compromised by bureaucrats presuming to protect Canadians' human rights. He discovered some disturbing and even bizarre cases, such as the tribunal ruling that an employee at a McDonald' s restaurant in Vancouver did not have to wash her hands at work. And the human rights complaint filed by a Calgary hair stylist against the women at a salon school who called him a "loser." In another case that seemed stranger than fiction, an emotionally unstable transvestite fought for — and won — the right to counsel female rape victims, despite the anguished pleas of those same traumatized victims. Human rights commissions now monitor political opinions, fine people for expressing politically incorrect viewpoints, censor websites, and even ban people, permanently, from saying certain things. The book is a result of Levant's ordeal and the research it inspired. It shows how our concept of human rights has morphed into something dangerous and drastically different from its original meaning. Shakedown is a convincing plea to Canadians to reclaim their basic liberties.From the Hardcover edition.

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Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington Review

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(More customer reviews)Dinah Washington, like Etta James and Esther Phillips, is one of the underrated singers of the post WWII era, and very little has been written about her. So when I saw this book and who its author was,(Nadine Cohodas, who wrote a superb history of Chess Records,Spinning Blues Into Gold), I eagerly anticipated reading it.
After finishing it, unfortunately I'm still waiting for the definitive biography of the Queen. It's very apparent that Cohodas did a lot of research, but the result was turned into a laundry list of club dates, recording sessions, clothes inventories, and rotating musicians and husbands which becomes numbing. What is missing is context and interpretation of these events aside from the repetitive assertion that Washington was narrowly promoted and marketed because of race. I wasn't looking for sensationalism or psychobiography from this book, but I was hoping to gain some insight into Dinah Washington's life, or music, and the lack of analysis left me still wondering both who she was and how she created such wonderful music.

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