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Writer Anthony W. Robins released 'Grand Central Terminal' in conjunction with the New York Transit Museum to mark the 100th birthday of the epic station.
Grand Central Station turns 100
You may have never been there. But your mind's eye almost certainly has a vision of Grand Central Terminal's gigantic main concourse, bustling with a fantastic stream of commuters, tourists, and employees.
But there's more to New York City's epic train station than a very big room. A century after its construction in its current form, much of the wonder of Grand Central remains far underground, an epic maze of tracks and loops, pumps and pipes, fans and lights, workers and computers.
Historian and preservationist Anthony W. Robins has spent decades exploring the glory of Grand Central. In conjunction with the New York Transit Museum, he celebrates the train station in an exquisite new coffee-table book titled Grand Central Terminal: 100 Years of a New York Landmark.
In an interview, Robins talks about the grandeur of Grand Central, its place in the architecture of 1913, and its brush with disaster.
Q: Commuters often have just one thing on their minds: Getting somewhere. But it's almost impossible to hurry through Grand Central without appreciating where you are. Why is that?
A: When you walk into the Grand Central and the ceiling is 150 feet over your head, 15 stories, you can't not notice it. You walk into the space, and it's overwhelming.
Call it spiritual or psychological, it opens up something inside you to be in a space like that. Even if you're not interested in architectural detail, the sense of grandeur that just comes from the space is hard to miss.
Q: What sort of statement does Grand Central make?
It says that this is a very important train station in a very important part of New York City.
Many architects of that time had a particular mindset. They'd made the Grand Tour in Europe, visiting Italy and France. They wanted to understand the architecture of the empires of the past so they could bring back that knowledge and create the monuments of the new American empire.
So we have the US Custom House, the New York City Public Library, and Grand Central Terminal – enormous and overwhelming buildings dripping in classical detail.
This all says New York is a capital just like Rome and Paris. That's the kind of monumentality that they were looking for.
Q: While it's monumental, Grand Central isn't a skyscraper. Why doesn't it try to push into the clouds?
The original plan included a skyscraper, and one plan called for an enormous tower that would have been the tallest building in the world. What we got was a very grand, low-scale building.
What it has is a grand sense of scale. Your eyes go right to Grand Central because of the way it's designed. It's a short building, but its sense of scale is so vast that it gets all the attention. Even though it's surrounded by skyscrapers, it's such a commanding presence that it doesn't matter.
Q: Amid Manhattan's glass and gloss, Grand Central seems like a throwback to another time. Was it considered modern in its own day?
A: In 1913, it was the height of good taste.
They weren't trying to make it look like an old building. They would have thought it to be a very modern and up-to-date Parisian creation. That's where American architecture was at the time: Architects learned they were passing on traditions that went back to the Renaissance.
Q: What sort of world did Grand Central enter when it was built?
A: This is a moment when transportation was being radically transformed by electricity. Its introduction made it possible to move trains and train yards underground and create 16 blocks of prime New York City real estate around Grand Central.
We forget is that it's so much more than just a train station. As big as Grand Central is above ground, it's so much bigger below ground.
Q: What does the future hold for Grand Central?
A: It's never looked better. The restoration has been spectacularly successful, and the terminal is expanding with the East Side Expansion Project. As of 2018 or 2019, a separate line will leave Long Island, go under the East River, and end in Grand Central. This is all being build underground in the bedrock, an entire new train station being built underneath Grand Central.
Q: Looking back, we could have lost Grand Central, correct?
Yes.
I started working at the New York City Landmarks Commission in 1979, just a few months after a Supreme Court decision about Grand Central that was a huge moment in the world of preservation. It finally put preservation on solid ground. It's legal, it's constitutional, it's OK.
Q: By comparison, New York City's other train terminal – Penn Station, where people catch Amtrak trains – is crowded, soulless and decrepit.
A: Vincent Scully, a professor from Yale, once had this to say about [the two incarnations of] Penn Station: "One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat."
Q: How does Grand Central's revival reflect the city's as a whole?
A: Forty years ago, in the 1970s, the city was a disaster. It was teetering on bankruptcy, anyone with a choice was fleeing the city. It was becoming a place of poverty, crime, and despair.
The difference between now and then is extraordinary.
A lot of it has to do with preserving places like Grand Central and making them part of the city, buildings with identity and panache. These are now the buildings that everyone wants to be around because they tell you that you're in New York.
And it shows why a train station matters and why public architecture is important.
Randy Dotinga is a Monitor contributor.
'I'll Love You When You're More Like Me' by M.E. Kerr originally came out in 1977 and is scheduled to be reprinted by Lizzie Skurnick Books. “Teens’ tastes have changed," says Skurnick. Her republished books will be aimed at adults "who want to read, re-read, and collect these books."
Lizzie Skurnick Books will retrieve out-of-print young adult books
Writer Lizzie Skurnick hopes to help adults – particularly women – who are in search of an out-of-print book that they once loved.
Publisher Ig Books, which publishes previously out-of-print academic books as well as fiction and nonfiction, announced that it would be launching a new imprint this fall titled Lizzie Skurnick Books. The imprint, named after Skurnick – who is the author of 10 teen titles – will focus on republishing out-of-print young adult books from the 1920s to the 1980s.
“[The imprint will] bring back the very best in young adult literature, from the classics of the 1930s and 1940s, to the thrillers and social novels of the 1970s and 1980s,” Ig Publishing co-founder Robert Lasner told Publishers Weekly.
Skurnick will be in charge of all titles, completing all acquisitions as well as editing every book released under the imprint. Lizzie Skurnick Books is scheduled to release between 12 and 14 books a year.
While the books will be aimed at young adults, Skurnick told Publishers Weekly she thinks the majority of Lizzie Skurnick readers will be adults who are returning to titles they read when they were younger.
“[These books] are not for teens,” she said. “Teens’ tastes have changed. It’s for adults who want to read, re-read, and collect these books. If mothers and fathers want to share the books, great.”
The first title released under Lizzie Skurnick Books will be “Debutante Hill” by Lois Duncan, a book that originally came out in 1958. "Debutante Hill" will come out in September.
Skurnick said she was struck by how few books that were beloved by female readers in past decades are still in print, while she believes that many favorites of male readers – Skurnick singled out the Isaac Asimov novels – are still available.
“There’s an enormous group of women who wrote such important work, but these books are so hard to get,” she said. The book titles are a “shared shorthand” among women who grew up during that time period, said Skurnick.
Other books scheduled to be reprinted by Lizzie Skurnick Books include 1979’s “Happy Endings Are All Alike” by Sandra Scoppettone; “I’ll Love You When You’re More Like Me” by M.E. Kerr, which originally came out in 1977; and “To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie” by Ellen Conford, which was originally printed in 1982.
'The Great Gatsby' stars Leonardo DiCaprio. (Lee Jin-man/AP)
'The Great Gatsby' trailer features new plot points, music
A new trailer for director Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” showcased more of its music and showed a few pivotal events from the book’s plot.
Actor Joel Edgerton, who plays Tom Buchanan, husband of Daisy (Carey Mulligan), got more of a showcase in the new series of clips, especially at the beginning of the trailer. The trailer starts with Tom questioning the identity of Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio).
“Mr. Gatsby,” Edgerton says, “I’d like to know, exactly who are you, anyhow? Can’t you see who this guy is?” he asks his wife. “His house, his parties, his fancy clothes.” He then addresses Gatsby. “We were born different from you. It’s in our blood. Nothing that you do or dream up could ever change that.”
Gatsby snaps and yells, “Shut up!”
The new trailer also includes more voiceover from Tobey Maguire, who portrays the book’s narrator, Nick Carraway.
“I had the uneasy feeling that he was guarding secrets,” Maguire says of Gatsby at one point.
Glimpsed briefly in the trailer are a few pivotal moments in the story, including what looks like Myrtle Wilson (Isla Fisher) being hit by a car and what appears to be George Wilson (Jason Clarke) with a gun.
The new trailer features several songs, including “Young & Beautiful” by Lana Del Rey, artists Andre 3000 and Beyonce (whose husband Jay-Z is scoring the film) covering the Amy Winehouse hit “Back to Black,” and a Florence + The Machine song titled “Over The Love” which includes references to “green light” (undoubtedly a reference to the dock light at the end of the Buchanan property which serves as a symbol of Daisy to Gatsby).
“The Great Gatsby” was originally scheduled to come out this past December but is now slated for a May 10 release.
Roseanne Montillo is the author of the book 'The Lady and Her Monsters.'
Roseanne Montillo discusses 'The Lady and Her Monsters,' her book about Mary Shelley
Like many others with limited maturity levels, I've been utterly corrupted by Mel Brooks.
Bring up the word "Frankenstein" and I don't think of Mary Shelley or even Boris Karloff. No, unfortunate people like me immediately fall into a reverie of jokes from a certain 1970s movie: "Blücher!" (whinny), "Would you like a roll in zee hay?," and, of course, "What hump?"
Never mind all that (even poor Abby Normal). Or the other Frankenstein movies, the Halloween costumes, and "The Munsters." Turns out they miss much of the gist of the original 1818 novel.
Frankenstein is the scientist, not the monster. His creation is smart and eloquent, far from a grunting ogre. Beyond that, the whole story – as imagined by an extraordinary young woman – explores deep questions about humanity, death, and the limits of science.
Emerson College literature professor Roseanne Montillo explores a world of grave-robbing, fantastic, scientific advances and scandalous writerly behavior in her new book "The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece."
In an interview, Montillo talks about science without boundaries, a monster with a brain, and the "Frankenstein" quandaries that still resonate after almost two centuries.
Q: These days, scientists would be laughed out of the laboratory if they tried to study bringing people back from death.
But, as you write, respectable scientists of 200 years ago loved to explore the prospect of reanimating the dead. How were things different back then in terms of acceptable scientific pursuits?
A: There was a great demand after the French Revolution – maybe something can be done to bring all of these young people back. A lot of women were left without husbands, fathers without young ones. Maybe something can be done for all these people who are sad, grief-stricken, and upset.
There was also the idea of a financial gain. If you could bring people back, they could go back to work.
Q: According to Christianity, dead people don't return to earth in a human form. How did the idea of reanimation challenge people's faith?
A: You're taking God completely out of the equation if you believe you can bring someone back. If you're assuming you can do it yourself, like Frankenstein, what do you need God for?
For the religious individuals, this was a no-no right off the bat.
Q: What about the wishes of the dead people themselves, like the many criminals who were executed at the gallows and then experimented upon?
A: Maybe these people didn't want to come back. Maybe they'd gone to heaven and it was a good place, or they went to hell and it was where they belonged.
Maybe they didn't want to come back or shouldn't come back at all. No one took this into consideration.
Q: Did the book explore these issues?
A: "Frankenstein" was one of the earliest books to ask these questions.
At the onset, it seems very much a plain horror story. But once you read on inside, it asks a lot of deep moral questions. People didn't have the answers for them then, and we still don't today.
Q: How is our popular view of Frankenstein and his monster different from the original portrait that Mary Shelley created?
A: The pop-culture view of Frankenstein's monster is focused on his freakiness: the creature is a lump of bones.
In the book, the creature was meant to be a moral compass. He commits horrible deeds, but he's also very eloquent. He's an intelligent being, he speaks very clearly. He tries to be nice and makes a conscious choice to move to evil. One could debate whether he's even smarter than Victor Frankenstein himself.
Most of the movies miss that. He grumbles, he's green, he's got those outstretched hands. You know what he's going to do if you come in contact with him.
Q: Did Mary Shelley create the first "mad scientist" of fiction?
A: She really did.
One could argue whether he was truly mad. I'm not sure, but he is eccentric. He wants to know more, he's into the pursuit of knowledge, he is curious and intelligent. The book tells you right away that he wants to know the secrets of heaven and earth.
He did achieve his goal to give life to a creature. But he missed the mark and didn't live up to his responsibilities. I think he became a little bit mad afterward.
Q: How does the book fit into the early development of what we now know as the genres of science fiction and horror fiction?
A: It was probably the first science-fiction book. She led the way for everyone who came after her.
Different bookstores have different ways of labeling it. It can be science fiction or horror. Many bookstores place it in feminist fiction as well, which is odd to me.
Q: What message is Mary Shelley sending that's still relevant today?
A: Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" as a warning to society. At that time, people had ambition and wanted to push those lines and see how far they could go.
But where is that boundary? Science wants to achieve its goals, but how do you know when too much is too much? Is there a line that shouldn't be crossed?
I'm not quite certain there is. But you do have to take responsibility for your creations since consequences can be quite dire, as Victor Frankenstein found out.
Q: So she's giving a warning to scientists?
A: It is a warning, but I don't think they will see it as that.
If anything, Mary Shelley had an opposite effect: People see this as something that could be done.
Randy Dotinga is a Monitor contributor.
Roger Ebert was a movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. (Michel Euler/AP)
Roger Ebert: Author as well as movie critic
In addition to becoming one of the respected and beloved movie critics in America, Roger Ebert was also admired for his skills as a writer.
Books by Ebert, who died April 4, ranged from movie guides to compilations of reviews to memoirs that looked back on the many years he served as a critic.
A staple of his work was “Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook,” which was published yearly and compiled his work from the previous two-and-a-half years. Ebert released “Yearbook” every year, except for 2008, starting in 1999. His 2013 “Yearbook” edition came out this past December.
Ebert's best-known books are probably “Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert,” a collection of his work which was released in 2006, and his recent memoir “Life Itself,” which came out in 2011. In “Life Itself,” Ebert discusses everything from his childhood to his recent health difficulties, which left him unable to talk, eat, or drink.
Other works by the critic honored the movies he loved and addressed those he hated. In “The Great Movies” (2003) Ebert discussed films he admired. This was followed by two further editions, "The Great Movies II" in 2006, and "The Great Movies III" in 2011. He also published “I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie” in 2002, “Your Movie Sucks” in 2007, and “A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length” in 2012, all of which were compilations of reviews of movies which he had given two stars or less.
In addition, Ebert penned titles including “Questions For The Movie Answer Man,” which came out in 1997 and featured his answers to readers’ letters, and various movie recommendation books in the “Ebert’s Essentials” series such as “33 Movies to Restore Your Faith in Humanity” and “25 Great French Films.”
More offbeat works included a cookbook he wrote titled “The Pot and How to Use It: The Mystery and Romance of the Rice Cooker” and “The Perfect London Walk,” which Ebert wrote with author Daniel Curley and photographer Jack Lane and in which the three co-authors describe their journeys throughout London. Ebert also penned the novel “Behind the Phantom’s Mask” and the screenplay for the 1970 film “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.”
“Life Itself” was particularly well-received by critics, with New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin calling it “candid, funny and kaleidoscopic.”
“It communicates a whole lot of gusto and very little grief,” she wrote of the book. “Its globe-trotting, indefatigable author comes across as the life of a lifelong party.”
Washington Post writer Gerald Bartell was similarly won over.
“Tales from childhood, interviews with film stars and directors, funny and touching stories about colleagues, and evocative essays about trips unspool before the reader in a series of loosely organized, often beautifully written essays crafted by a witty, clear-eyed yet romantic raconteur,” he wrote.
In his third edition of “Great Movies,” Ebert himself wrote about how he felt about the power of the movies.
“Because we are human, because we are bound by gravity and the limitations of our bodies, because we live in a world where the news is often bad and the prospects disturbing, there is a need for another world somewhere,” he wrote. “A world where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers live."
An anonymous source told the Washington Post that Hillary Clinton’s upcoming memoir will not discuss the 2008 election or any presidential runs in the future. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Hillary Clinton's new memoir will include Osama bin Laden, Qaddafi – but not 2016
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has gotten a release date for her planned memoir, and a new press release shed a little more light on what she’ll discuss in the book.
Her book will come out in 2014 and will be released by publisher Simon & Schuster.
Clinton had previously announced that she would be writing a new book about her time as secretary of state, but a press release from Simon & Schuster elaborated that the as-yet-untitled book would address the attack against Osama bin Laden and the end of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime in Libya as well as the Arab Spring in general and relations with China.
Simon & Schuster published Clinton’s previous titles as well, which include the 1996 book “It Takes A Village” and 2003’s “Living History.”
“Hillary Clinton’s extraordinary public service has given her a unique perspective on recent history and the challenges we face,” Simon & Schuster president and publisher Jonathan Karp said in a statement Thursday. “This will be the ultimate book for people who are interested in world affairs and America’s place in the world today.”
Karp is also serving as the book’s editor.
An anonymous source told the Washington Post that Clinton’s new book will not discuss the 2008 election or any presidential runs in the future.
Arthur Frommer (r.) announced that he has reacquired the rights to his travel books. His daughter Pauline (l.) has also written guides. (Seth Wenig/AP)
Arthur Frommer says he will publish travel books again
The Frommer travel guidebooks will be published again by founder Arthur Frommer after being acquired, then shut down, by Google.
The Frommer’s books were originally published by Simon & Schuster before switching over to publisher Wiley & Sons. The franchise was then bought by Google this past summer, but it was reported last month that Google would no longer be publishing print versions of the guidebooks.
Now Frommer has the rights to the brand back from Google and said he will be releasing the books in print editions and e-books and will be running the website.
“It's a very happy time for me,” Frommer told the Associated Press.
Google told the AP via e-mail that the deal had gone through but that some travel information it had gotten through Frommer’s would remain in areas of the company like Google Plus.
According to the travel website Skift, Google decided not to publish more than 20 titles that were to go out under the Frommer’s name. Authors were told by Google editors that their books would not be released as planned. In September, soon after their acquisition, Google had taken the bookstore component off the Frommer’s website.
An unnamed Google representative told CNET that they wanted to provide Google users with practical travel tips.
“We're focused on providing high-quality local information to help people quickly discover and share great places, like a nearby restaurant or the perfect vacation destination," they said. “That's why we've spent the last several months integrating the travel content we acquired from Wiley into Google+ Local and our other Google services.”
Google had also previously purchased legendary restaurant ratings guide Zagat.
Frommer first released travel advice in 1957 when he wrote a book titled “Europe On 5 Dollars A Day,” which was adapted from a guide he’d penned for American soldiers serving in Europe.
Jason Clampet, a Skift writer who is a former Frommer’s employee, told the AP he was happy about the switch.
“Everyone I know was hoping this would happen once we saw that Google was just after content for Google Plus rather than the brand's history and potential," he said. "I think Arthur's and [Frommer’s daughter] Pauline's passion will reinvigorate the series. There are dedicated readers both online and in print who will stay with a name they trust.”
In a column, Clampet speculated on what publisher will want to take the chance on releasing print travel guides for Frommer.
“There aren’t many publishers that don’t already have a guidebook series or that haven’t turned their back on the game,” Clampet wrote. “Wiley is obviously out, and the combined Penguin/Random House group already has a handful with Fodor’s, Rough Guides, and DK, among others.”
Clampet guessed that Avalon Travel, which publishes guidebooks by travel guru Rick Steves, might decide to print the books.
'The Little Prince,' first released in 1943, has been translated into 250 languages and is today one of the bestselling books in the world.
'The Little Prince' turns 70
This year, the story of a little prince, his rose, and a fox friend, is turning 70.
“The Little Prince,” a novella by French author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was first released on April 6, 1943. Last month, to mark the 70th anniversary of the book's printing, new editions were released by publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. One version is a new paperback edition aimed at young adults, while another is a special anniversary edition of the book which includes an audio version of the book read by “Lord of the Rings” actor Viggo Mortensen.
A third edition, which is coming later this month, will be a reissue of the graphic novel version of the book by Joann Sfar.
In 1935, while trying to break the speed record for a Paris-to-Saigon flight, Saint-Exupéry crash-landed in the Sahara desert when his plane suffered problems. This accident was to become the inspiration for “The Little Prince,” in which the protagonist, an unnamed pilot, meets a small boy after landing in the desert. The boy tells the pilot he is from an asteroid and that he lived there until he decided he wanted to explore other planets. He also tells the pilot of a rose with which he fell in love, other planets he explored, and of a fox he met on Earth.
Finally, the pilot and the prince find a well that saves them from dehydration, but the prince soon tells the pilot that he wants to return home to his asteroid.
“The Little Prince” is one of the bestselling books of all time and was voted the best literary work of the 20th century by a French author in a 2000 poll. According to the Saint-Exupéry Foundation, the novella is the most-translated book ever after the Bible.
The book has been adapted for the screen, stage, and radio, with a radio adaptation produced by CBS debuting in 1956 and a BBC version airing in 2000. Notable film adaptations include a 1974 musical that featured Gene Wilder as the Fox, Bob Fosse as the Snake, and Richard Kiley as the pilot. The book has been adapted into a stage play, a musical, and an opera.
Author Gregory Maguire, who wrote a foreword for the book’s new paperback version, told Publishers Weekly that he believes the novella has more of an impact than its scant number of pages would suggest.
“The Little Prince is a little book, but what a little largeness it contains,” Maguire said. “Not quite fable, nor allegory, nor fantasy, nor farce, though it is all those things, too.... As a writer, I’ve always liked approaching tales read in childhood to see what they reveal to me now. As a reader, I do the same.”
'Lean In,' published on March 11, raised a controversy even before it went on sale.
'Lean In' boasts strong sales, largely positive reviews
The announcement that Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg would publish a book about the workplace, women's role in it, and how gender inequality still affects all of us, seemed to be greeted with equal parts anticipation and dread. Some potential readers couldn't wait to hear what Sandberg would have to say, while others predicted that it would just be another salvo in the “mommy wars” – the endless debate over whether or not women who are parents should work full-time and what is best when raising children.
“Thirty years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry,” proclaimed the book's publisher, Knopf Doubleday. “This means that women’s voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives… Sandberg digs deeper into these issues, combining personal anecdotes, hard data, and compelling research to cut through the layers of ambiguity and bias.”
Sandberg’s book was released on March 11. Today, holding the No. 1 position for hardcover nonfiction sales on The New York Times bestseller list, the book has garnered largely positive from book reviewers.
“Sandberg ... has written a brave book that is unabashedly personal and political,” Monitor reviewer Anna Clark wrote. “’Lean In’ serves as a kind of philosophical and practical toolkit for women with ambitions of all kinds, and an education and inspiration for men who are aware that their workplaces and home lives are diminished when women are only a fraction of who they can be.”
New York Times reviewer Anne-Marie Slaughter spoke positively of Sandberg’s voice in the book in her review.
“Sandberg is not just tough, however,” she wrote. “She also comes across as compassionate, funny, honest and likable…. Most important, Sandberg is willing to draw the curtain aside on her own insecurities.”
Talk-show titan Oprah Winfrey also gave big a thumb-up to Sandberg’s work. “[It’s] the new manifesto for women in the workplace,” she said.
NPR reviewer Maureen Corrigan was less enthusiastic about Sandberg's execution but overall did applaud her effort. Corrigan said she found parts of the book dull but that she’d still “slide ‘Lean In’ into my teenage daughter’s bookshelf.”
“I dozed off twice while reading it,” Corrigan wrote. “Most of the book is kind of blah, composed of platitudinous-corporate-speak-intermixed-with-pallid-anecdotes.... 'Lean In' may not be the most impassioned or entertaining feminist manifesto ever written and, sure, Sandberg is somewhat blinkered by her big bucks and privilege and inhibited by corporate caution. Yet, it's great to have a woman with such a platform speak up about sexism.”
Of course the book has also had its share of detractors. Writing for Atlantic, Christina Hoff Sommers charged that Sandberg “is mired in 1970s-style feminism.”
“An up-to-date manifesto on women and work should steer clear of encounter groups and boys-must-play-with dolls rhetoric,” she wrote. “It should make room for human reality: that in the pursuit of happiness, men and women often take different paths.”
And WBUR writer Carey Goldberg identified what she calls “Sandberg’s biggest blind spot”: that some mothers don’t want to work while their children are young.
“Our greatest obstacle is not any girly self-doubt,” Goldberg wrote. “It is a rigid workplace culture that won’t let us ratchet down. It is employers who do not offer flexible alternatives that drive parents out, by offering only a binary choice between full-time-plus or the highway.”
Online reviews of the book have also been divided, with some readers singing its praises and others finding the content objectionable.
“This is a life-changing book, if you let it be,” an Amazon commenter named Cathryn Michon wrote. “By writing truthfully ... about her own failings and insecurities, Sheryl Sandberg tells every woman who reads this book that they are not alone if they ever pulled back from their ambitions, whatever they may be."
Michon also deplored "the vicious criticism" that has been hurled at the book. "The fact that there has been this much venom spewed at the writer of a business book (does anybody know what Jack Welch's dad did for a living or who paid his college tuition? Does anyone care?) tells you everything you need to know about how the playing field for women in business is in no way equal,” she wrote.
But a commenter on Goodreads named Aryn said she couldn’t see what the fuss was about.
“I am confused by this book, [because] it doesn't inspire me at all,” she wrote. “In fact, it makes me wonder if the other women around me actually feel this way??? I can't seem to relate to [Sandberg's] frame of mind. Maybe it's a generation thing? Maybe it was how I was raised, but I don't feel the same insecurities.”
Given the book's strong sales, one thing seems certain: “Lean In” – and the debate over its content – won’t be going away anytime soon.
A new study suggests that William Shakespeare (pictured) was a successful but rather unscrupulous businessman, as well as a famous playwright. (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
Shakespeare: tax evader and food hoarder?
A new study presents some surprising evidence about legendary playwright William Shakespeare.
Aberystwyth University faculty members Dr. Jayne Archer, Professor Richard Marggraf Turley, and Professor Howard Thomas say that Shakespeare almost went to jail for not paying his taxes and received multiple fines, as well as being prosecuted, for buying food like wheat and barley to sell to others for a higher price than the sum he bought it for during times of food shortages.
Archer researches Renaissance literature topics, while Thomas is a plant science professor, and Turley is a professor of Renaissance literature.
“By combining both illegal and legal activities, Shakespeare was able to retire in 1613 as the largest property owner in his home town, Stratford-upon-Avon,” the study reads. “His profits – minus a few fines for illegal hoarding and tax evasion – meant he had a working life of just 24 years.”
Archer said the findings highlight the contrast in aspects of Shakespeare’s personality.
“Here was another side to Shakespeare besides the brilliant playwright – as a ruthless businessman who did all he could to avoid taxes, maximise profits at others' expense and exploit the vulnerable while also writing plays about their plight to entertain them,” she told the Sunday Times.
She noted that the playwright may have been thinking of his children because, in a world without royalties, he had no reason to believe his plays would generate profit after his death.
“He had two surviving daughters and would have seen himself as providing for them,” she said. “But he was acting illegally and undermining the government's attempts to feed people.”
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