Lost Paradise: From Mutiny on the Bounty to a Modern-day Legacy of Sexual Mayhem, The Dark Secrets of Pitcairn Island Revealed

Book Club... And Then Some!




 

Lost Paradise: From Muntiny on the Bounty to a Modern-day Legacy of Sexual Mayhem, The Dark Secrets of Pitcairn Island Revealed.

by Gail Collins





Book Review by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.
 
At the Simon & Schuster web site, “Authors - Kathy Marks - Biography” section, this is how her biography reads: “Kathy Marks grew up in Manchester, England, and studied languages. She has been a journalist since 1984, working first for Reuters news agency and then for national newspapers in Britain, including the Daily Telegraph and The Independent. Since 1999 she has been based in Sydney as The Independent’s Asia-Pacific Correspondent, reporting from Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, East Timor, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, and the South Pacific. She has covered major stories around the region, including the post-independence violence in East Timor in 1999, the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, the civil war in Indonesia’s Aceh province, the Indian Ocean Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 and the 2006 Java earthquake. In 2004 she was one of six international journalists who travelled to Pitcairn Island for the child sex abuse trials.” 

Why is all this biographical information important?  It reveals the expertise, the journalistic precision, and the background Marks brings to this book.

What an incredible story Marks tells about Pitcairn Island!  It’s not just hard to believe such a thing could happen, but it, indeed, stirs up haunting memories once read.

I knew of Pitcairn island in name only, and I always thought it was a South Pacific island paradise like Tahiti, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Easter Island, or the Cook Islands.  Of course, it is a paradise—if you discount some of the people who inhabit the island!

This is a very readable telling of a story of 40 years when children were abused and raped, adult males were protected and unpunished, and an entire society of 47 people feigned ignorance or claimed it was South Pacific “culture.”

One reviewer at Amazon.com writes, “In order to make this book as good as it is the author needed to be part criminal trial reporter, part historian and part anthropologist. She was all three and more. This is a fascinating book about a terrible abuse scandal on an isolated island founded by famous mutineers.” 

If you want to experience how a tiny, claustrophobic, community operates and what powerful forces can allow abuse to flourish, this is a fascinating saga that takes you through the legal battles and human trials that resulted in a paradise lost.


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This book is available from Amazon.com: Lost Paradise: From Mutiny on the Bounty to a Modern-day Legacy of Sexual Mayhem, The Dark Secrets of Pitcairn Island Revealed.

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present

Book Club... And Then Some!





When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present             

by Gail Collins





Book Review by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.
 
In this 481-page book, there are 30 pages of notes and an 11-page bibliography.  This gives you an idea of the thoroughness of the book.

Gail Collins was the editorial page editor for the New York Times from 2001 to 2007, the first woman to have held that position, and she currently writes a column for the Times’ op-ed page.  It goes without saying that she is an excellent writer, and every page of her book reflects her skills and easy-to-read style.

This book is a wonderful and important chronology as well as a terrific reference work that is full of insights, stories, historical facts, important information, and inspiration.  Her stories of real women (including Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Obama—and others we don’t know) make the book even more interesting. Of the personal interviews, one reviewer writes, “[they]  portray the details of the daily lives of American women of the era. This is not library research. It is woman to woman sharing of memories, frustrations and small victories that took place as ‘everything changed’”
Whether you lived through it, read about it in other books, or are new to the area of feminism and women’s rights, there is something in this book for you.

Carol M. Frohlinger, in her amazon.com review, writes, “From June Cleaver to Hillary Clinton, Gail Collins` new book, When Everything Changed, reminds us of both how much everything has changed for American women in the last 50 years and just how little. Collins writes skillfully about the ‘olden’ days when a glamour career for a woman was to be a stewardess and when the reason most women went to college to get a ‘Mrs..’”

Frohlinger continues her review saying, “What Collins does particularly well though is to highlight that there still isn't gender parity in America's workplaces or homes. She ends on a note that celebrates how far we've come with a reality check - the gender pay gap still exists, too few women serve as CEOs or sit on corporate boards and the work-life balance conundrum has yet to be resolved.”

This is the kind of book that should be required reading for everyone—not just women.  It is intellectually stimulating, completely enjoyable, and a reminder of what women have yet to accomplish. 


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This book is available from Amazon.com: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.