Shoes Books

The Girl With The Golden Shoes by Colin Channer is a lyrical exploration of a young woman's internal and external journey. Estrella Thompson is a fourteen year- old girl, living on the island of San Carlos, who dreams of life beyond the shores where she exists. A chance meeting with a scuba-diver who washed up on the shore propels her forth on her journey. No one believes her when she explains what she has seen and she is viewed as a liar. Her biggest struggle seems to be her quest for a better life, something other than what she has known. The islanders believe that she feels she is better than they are and she needs to accept her destiny as a fishmonger. Their lack of belief forces her on her quest to get to a better place; in her mind that place is Europe. However, to get on her way she needs to get herself a new pair of shoes, golden shoes. That is a major undertaking for someone who has never owned or worn shoes. Though the story starts in 1942, the message is so timely because it deals with how one must make their own way. I loved how the gentle message of making your own choices was layered throughout the story.

Mr. Channer paints such a vivid picture with his use of language that I was swept along with Estrella as she ventured out. She travels from her village, allowing herself to become intertwined in the lives of the people she encounters. The people she encounters on her way are as ethnically and culturally diverse as any I have seen in recent literature. The Girl With The Golden Shoes takes us on a journey that explores class, sexuality and racism with dignity and a use of language that causes the scenes to dance off the page. Mr. Channer explores sexuality in a way that is non-sensational, yet thought-provoking. Watching Estrella strive to overcome her beginnings and work towards her inner strength as a proud African woman is beautiful. In the larger view the changes may not seem huge, but in terms of her growth they are phenomenal.

I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in a beautifully wrought work, by a storytelling master.

Angelia Menchan
APOOO BookClub

I bought this book because I have several ancestors who were Huguenots that settled in Purrysburg, S.C. I wanted to know something of what made them tick. I understood their religious convictions while in France or Switzerland, but why did they not maintain their Calvinistic traditions? This book helped to answer some of my questions.

It doesn't give a detailed history of the Huguenots and their great struggles in Europe, although it does give a very good sketch of it. It gives just enough history to get them to the S.C. colony. But it does offer invaluable information of each of the Huguenot colonial towns.

But this was more than just a narrow history of the Huguenots in N. America. It also opened my eyes to the socio-economic conditions of colonial South Carolina, and how these brave people contributed to the overall benefit of the colony. Worth the read if you are interested in colonial history of the South, or of these religiously persecuted people.

On the subject of free will, Laird explains (p. 118-9) that according to Hume, human actions are no less determined than inanimate objects, and what they have in common is what Hume called "uniformity" - a kind of predictability. If human actions are far less predictable than, say, the orbit of Mars, that's no different from the unpredictability of the weather despite our great advances in meterology. Indeed, someday we may predict our earthly weather with incredible precision, but then we can probably never predict exactly when the human race may be wiped out by another giant asteroid. (Of course, by then the human race may have evolved to something quite inhuman.) Several mass extinctions have occurred in the past due to asteroids and we would be lucky to escape such a fate. But just because natural phenomena like these are UNPREDICTABLE does not mean they are not DETERMINED. For all we know another killer asteroid might have been hurtling through outer space head on for Earth for millions of years now. Given what we know of Earth's natural history, it would be surprising if this were not true.

Human actions are as unpredictable as such natural phenomena but no less determined, Hume argued. The only possible alternative is chance, or complete chaos with no rules whatsoever. And given these two alternatives, it is clear which one Hume chose. But many people believe that there should be a third alternative to complete determinism and total contingency, and here lies free will. Hume rejected this, and so do I. Laird, however, has difficulties with Hume's position.

I see increasing "uniformity" in human actions in light of modern knowledge about genes and the brain - what used to be quite unaccountable is now known to be physically explainable, and we have no more free will than a severe schizophrenic in the objective, philosophical sense if not in the moral or legal sense.

John Laird, the Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen (elected FBA 1933), wrote this book some eight years before Norman Kemp Smith's groundbreaking work on Hume, and it must be reckoned a real classic in its own right. Kemp Smith's work is somewhat longer, but it also features Hume's quotes to greater lengths. (This must be what Ayer meant when he wrote that Kemp Smith actually paid attention to what Hume said rather than used Hume as a starting point for his own philosophical babble - which is a fault all too common among other authors, a fault I think Laird does not have.) Otherwise Laird's commentary is comparable to Kemp Smith's in quantity if not in quality. Kemp Smith himself acknowledged Laird in the very short bibliography in his own work.

The following are the chapters: Preface, List of Abbreviations, 1 Introductory, 2 The Principles of Sensory Phenomenalism, 3 Space, Time & External Existence, 4 Causality, Experiment & Induction, 5 Bodies & Mind, 6 Nature & Scepticism, 7 The Passions, 8 Ethics & the Sense of Humanity, 9 Politics, Economic History & Criticism, 10 Religion, Index.

Not surprisingly, the longest chapter is Chapter 4.

I wouldn't place this book above Kemp Smith's work but it must be clear that Kemp Smith benefited from fine Hume's studies before him, and Laird's work is one of those. This is a competent work on Hume's philosophy.

I first glanced this book and read a few poems from it while visiting friends. So of course I had to have my own copy. I thought the author captured her personal feelings very well. It gave me the feeling that she had been "rooted good". The poems are easy to read and are heart and soul felt. They are not drawn out and lengthy, just straight to the point, the honest deep part of her life. Recommend highly.

Wheeler has written a comprehensive review which goes into considerable detail about Gibbs's scientific accomplishments, without using unnecessarily complicated language or mathematics. As a former student of Gibbs, Wheeler is well-placed to provide a detailed biography of a man of whom he had first-hand experience. But this closeness must raise questions as to how objective this book is: at times the biography might be overly-eulogistic. This book was first published in 1951. What is needed now is a modern, more objective work. Amongst Gibbs's contemporaries, for example, Lords Raleigh and Kelvin were critical of Gibbs's thermodynamics. This is not mentioned by Wheeler.

Ralph Sutton burst onto the jazz scene in the mid 1940s and has remained one of the finest jazz pianists ever since. Strongly influenced by Fats Waller, he has the strongest left hand in the business, has enormous power, drive and swing, coupled to great sensitivity and sophistication.

This book is a life of Sutton but also an appreciation, drawing on the views of admiring fans and equally admiring jazz musicians. Although critical of some facets of Sutton's life, the overwhelming sense of the book is one of great affection and respect for a person who is not only a superb musician but a genuinely nice man.

The book includes a discography, interesting but now slightly dated, and also a fine range of photographs.

For Sutton's many fans this should be self recommending. For others it gives some interesting insights into the life of the professional jazz musician, and should inspire you to buy some of his CDs! Recommended.

Intended for a younger audience than the other books Savery wrote for her American audience, "Magic in My Shoes" is still a romp that older readers will enjoy and learn from, although they won't be much challenged to anticipate the story's big surprise. When Sally goes to her aunt Persis for the summer, she finds the good woman distraught over her fleet apprentice, Jossett Laurence Alexander Ormond, who is eager to break out of his locked attic room to join his triplet brothers, Laurence Jossett Alexander and Alexander Jossett Laurence, who are hiding from their own masters. Although the runaways remain on the loose, Jossett seems to settle down, but then Aunt Persis finds herself being criticized by the community for failing to feed her apprentice and niece properly, although both eat greedily at her table. "Magic..." is available easily on the used book market for a reasonable price, and it received excellent reviews. Reading it is a painless way to learn a little history, and more to the point, a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Who cares that it isn't very plausible?

One of the most difficult issues for children is fitting in. It seems that if you don't have the right clothes or can't afford that new gadget that you are destined to become an outsider forever. No one wants to be friendless but what do you do when your family simply can't afford to spend money on all the latest trends?

Raymond, the new boy, had this exact same problem. On his first day of school, he got hassled because his shoes weren't the expensive kind. Raymond knew that his mother couldn't possibly afford such expenses but still sometimes he wished he could have all the stuff that other kids seemed to have. Then Raymond came up with a plan.

This book is a good pictorial review of not only petroleum geology but also of state of geology in the early 19th and 20th century. Its very surprising that the oil companies, even in the early, 1900s did not appreciate the utility of having a petroleum gelologist in their company. The book also tells and shows (in form of good B&W photos) the hardships the geologist had to undergo. The only problem with the book is that the events are not given in a chronological order therefore it difficult to understand the context in many of the instances. Surely, the book is worth a read for everybody in the oil industry. If not a read... it is worth taking a look at the photos. Then, they would really appreciate the works of early petroleum geologists.

This is an excelent text for doctor and shoe reparman alike it could well be a rosetta stone to simlify the nomenclature since several words are identical yet totaly different depending upon the application. The grapics depict a wide variety of devices and or methods of device use that also will assist in the accurate fufilling of prescriptions for alterations to footwear.