Product Description
The newest titles in the Princeton Architectural Press Campus Guide series take readers on authoritative tours of two prestigious colleges, Vassar and Dartmouth. Beautifully photographed in full color, the guides present architectural walks of these American college campuses distinguished for landmark buildings-Vassar showcasing a developing expression of changes in women's education and Dartmouth revealing the provincial design roots and rural setting of the prominent Ivy League college. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

amazing photos and history for the interested
This is part of a series of architecture and history books on New England college campuses, including most of the Ivy League and other old colleges/universities.

The book itself is impressive to scan through: a lot of crisp colored plates showing different buildings and views of the campus.It would actually make a great coffee-table book for a Dartmouth alum or a Dartmouth parent.Though I would appreciate more views of the beautiful New Hampshire scenery (instead of an overwhelming number of building facades), the ambience of Dartmouth is nonetheless captured through these pictures.

The photos are organized as part of "walks" through the college, following a path that leads through various buildings and natural landscapes.Accompanying content describes the architectural as well as founding history of each point of interest along the path of the "walk".This usually means a discussion about the designers of the building, their inspiration and other historical influences, as well as other interesting tidbits that probably won't be mentioned in a normal campus tour.Some technical architectural vocabulary is used--especially in reference to architectural styles--but it is certainly manageable for the lay reader.

Overall, a good book for those interested in knowing more about the history of Dartmouth College through the keen architectural eye and a discussion of buildings along the walkways surrounding the Dartmouth Green. ... Read more

Product Description
A firsthand account of the Elderhostel movement, capturing both the flavor and the experience and enthusiasm of the participants. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the remarkable story of the creation of a new kind of high school that truly aspires to educate all students to high standards. Believing that a deeply personalized culture can prevent the senseless violence that has invaded many public schools, educators at Souhegan High School in Amherst, New Hampshire set out to create a safe, caring, and academically rigorous school. In this volume, Silva (a teacher) and Mackin (a principal) chronicle their experiences as they worked through the many challenges that ultimately resulted in this extraordinarily successful school. Featuring their honest reflections and the voices of other participants, this book portrays a real public high school (not a small alternative school) that is successfully implementing most of the reform practices recommended by national reform models, demonstrates how schools can strike a balance between the need for stricter safety measures and the needs of each student, and details the school's structure. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Ancient history at best
The high school that is the subject of this book was on a creative track, but then lost its way. Faculty understood the underlying principles, but did not have the methods or mastery to make the dream a reality over the long haul. Today the school has experienced serious violence, theft, declining test scores and many of the same challenges as any other troubled high school in America. It makes one wonder if Silva's book is anything more than a feel-good exercise in creative thinking.

Great Book!
This a great book on a school who took the current educational thoughts and trends and turned it into a reality!I recommend this book to anyone interested in secondary education! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

I sincerely wish that is was true, but alas it is not
I read this book for the first time in high school as part of a directed individualized reading class. At the time, I was interested in the occult and other supernatural phenomena, reading everything I could find on the subject. This book was one of the first accounts of space alien abduction and was a sensation when it appeared. This incident, while it may not have been the first reported instance of alien abduction it was the first to have a high level of publicity. At the time, the story amazed me and I found myself hoping that I would have a similar experience.
However, time, experience and knowledge have tempered my enthusiasm over the years and I realize that I will never have the pleasure. Re-reading this book after all those years was tedious rather than interesting. This account suffers from the major flaw that all such encounters have, namely that the aliens have the technology to fly across light years of space yet seem to be technologically bumbling when they get here. One telling point is that the alien examiners required Betty to remove her clothes so that they could examine her. Modern medical technology that now exists on Earth can now perform such tests through almost any type of clothing.
These "memories" were also "regained" through the use of hypnosis, at best an extremely questionable practice. The star charts that were recovered have been proven to be little better than a random pattern of dots.
As much as I still would like to be the subject of an alien abduction, I know that there is not a thing in this book that convinces me that such a thing has ever happened on Earth.

Good Read
Amazingly true to the TV movie which I first saw in the early 70's as a child.Good read, very interesting and matter-of-fact.It tries to just present the case, even has transcripts from the actual hypnosis sessions the Hills underwent separately.Has several great pictures in the center.I read almost the entire book in one sitting because I was so engrossed.If you are a UFO buff, this story of the UFO abduction that started it all will surely arouse your interest.

Watch the Skies; Check Your Watch.
Reading this book was like watching A Hard Day's Night and recognizing the launching of an era. I have read all of Budd Hopkins' books, which are quite enjoyable and/or upsetting. Now I have discovered the granddaddy of all alien abductee regressive hypnosis transcibed sessions books.

Fuller gives the reader the necessary background information, then offers the original (edited for relevancy) transcripts from the psychiatriist's files. What a great thing it is that these sessions were tape recorded. The Hills weren't the first to be taken, but they were the first to go public, although unwillingly.

It is amusing in hindsight to read the doctor's repeated attempts to get Barney to admit that the entire encounter was a dream - if not his dream, then surely Betty's, which he somehow absorbed. Barney wants so much to believe that it was, but under hypnosis, he can only call it as he sees it.

The Interrupted Journey is a classic of UFO-related literature. It will remain fringe material so long as the UFO reality is under wraps, but when the buggers are finally outed, this book will go mainstream and become required reading.

Like a second bible.
The very first written testimony about an encouter between human beings and alien civilisation can be found in the bible (the anciant testament is very rich in details if read and interpreted in a logical way and not inthe "spriritual-traditional" way). The second written testimony,and the last one so far, is the "interrupted journey". The"interrupted journey" is according to me much more than a book.It's a real testimony which goes beyond the common question "do youbelieve in UFO", because a UFO is "just" an unidentifiedobject and it doesn't say much. In the Betty and Barney Hill's case, itgoes far beyond the "simple" unidentified flying object. There isa real encouter and a conversation between a human being and a civilisationwhich is obviously NOT from our world, which is obviously NOT from ourplanet. And it means A LOT. During her conversation with the alien crew"boss",she was told while she was staring at the map, that someplanets (or stars) where regularly,frequently or occasionaly visited bythem. It also seems that commercial exchanges between alien civilisationsthemselves are quite common. How about us, habitants of the planet earth,what do we represent for those civilisations? I haven't heard so far thatwe're making trade with extra-terrestrials. But it doesn't mean that theyhave no interest in our planet. We could even easily suppose that aliencivilisations have visited us thousands of times and not only during thiscentury but for many,many centuries.........and probably more. Inconclusion, if we admitt that our planet have been visited for ages byaliens like the ones of "the interrupted journey", then we mayask ourselves "In which ways the alien intervention in the history ofthe Manhood has influenced our believes and in which way the alienintervention will influence the future of the Mankind".

I want to read a review of this book.Help!
I'd like to read a review of this book but can't seem to find one.Can anyone help me?Thanks. ... Read more

Product Description
Native American students entering college often experience a dramatic confrontation of cultures. As one of the writers in this remarkable collective memoir remarks, "When I was a child, I was taught certain things: don't stand up to your elders; don't question authority; life is precious; the earth is precious; take it slowly; enjoy it. And then you go to college and you learn all these other things that never fit." Making things fit, finding that elusive balance between tribal values and the demands of campus life is a recurring theme in this landmark collection of personal essays. Navajo or Choctaw, Tlingit or Sioux, each of the essayists (all graduates of Dartmouth College) gives a heartfelt account of struggle and adjustment. The result is a compelling portrait of the anguish Native American students feel justifying the existence of their own cultures not only to other students but also throughout the predominantly white institutions they have joined. Among the contributors are a tribal court judge and a professional baseball player, the first Navajo woman surgeon, and the former executive director of a Native American preparatory school. Their memories and insights are unparalleled. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

a great view
There is not much literature that exists about Native American students in Higher Education. I have used this book in three of my Master's projects. This book has ignited my passion to serve this identity. While this is only a few voices it helps us get a view into their college experiences.

A great snapshot of a unique Native American experience
Garrod & Larimore's First Person, First Peoples is a fine collection of personal accounts of leaving home.The stories are at once unique and universal.They are expressive of an experience to which Native Americanscan truly relate, and yet, set on the campus of one of America's mostselective colleges, the stories are from a elite few who may be speaking ofan experience that is virtually impossible to share.This is valuable asan oral history, and perhaps more importantly, as a voice of the NativeAmerican which remains too infrequently captured.Still, we must findthose voices which are seldom heard, rather than continuing the habit ofletting the elite culture speak for us all.

Stellar, a first class work on Native education
This was a truly wonderful and accessible book about Native American educational achievment. The story of Dartmouth College and its relationship to Native American education is captivating. The honesty of the students isat time heartbreaking and yet is continually inspiring. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides a sustained look at literacy development and language instruction across the curriculum in a teacher's primary classroom during one school year. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

My Thoughts on The Author's Chair and Beyond
Children have a great imagination, and this book is great to have when you are starting to teach young children how to write.Great ideas are given such as what materials to have in writing centers and how to go about using the writing center.Karelitz pretty much explains that the writing process for children ismuch like the writing process taken for adults and if you can have the children use this process and make them feel comfortable while using the method, it is a great success."The Authors Chair" is a must have book for teaching children the essentials to becoming a great writer. This is also a must have book for those of you in the teaching profession and those wanting to become educators.It was fun to read and it fills you with ideas and great teaching techniques used in teaching the writing process.

My Thoughts on The Author's Chair and Beyond
Children have a great imagination, and this book is great to have when you are starting to teach young children how to write.Great ideas are given such as what materials to have in writing centers and how to go about using the writing center.Karelitz pretty much explains that the writing process for children ismuch like the writing process taken for adults and if you can have the children use this process and make them feel comfortable while using the method, it is a great success."The Authors Chair" is a must have book for teaching children the essentials to becoming a great writer. This is also a must have book for those of you in the teaching profession and those wanting to become educators.It was fun to read and it fills you with ideas and great teaching techniques used in teaching the writing process. ... Read more

Product Description
Dartmouth College began life as an Indian school, a pretense that has since been abandoned. Still, the institution has a unique, if complicated, relationship with Native Americans and their history. Beginning with Samson Occom's role as the first "development officer" of the college, Colin G. Calloway tells the entire, complex story of Dartmouth's historical and ongoing relationship with Native Americans. Calloway recounts the struggles and achievements of Indian attendees and the history of Dartmouth alumni's involvements with American Indian affairs. He also covers more recent developments, such as the mascot controversies, the emergence of an active Native American student organization, and the partial fulfillment of a promise deferred. This is a fascinating picture of an elite American institution and its troubled relationship-- at times compassionate, at times conflicted--with Indians and Native American culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good storyteller and a good historian
STRONG recommendation. If you're interested in Dartmouth history or Native history, this is the book to buy. Everything I've read by Colin Galloway has been engaging and rich; he makes history read like a good story. At the same time, he documents scrupulously. For example, he has the name, tribal affiliation, year of arrival, year of departure, and (where available) the story of every Indian student to attend Dartmouth or Moor's Charity School. If you're Cherokee and looking for family members, here's your list of students entering between 1770-1969: James Ward, Jeremiah E. Foreman, DeWitt Clinton Duncan, Albert Barnes, Rollin K. Adair, Walter Howard Luckadoe, Harvey Wirt Courtland Shelton, Cornelius (Ellis) Alberty, Alonzo Mitchell, David Hogan Markham, Simon Ralph Walkingstick, Frell McDonald Owl, & Russell O. Ayers. For Choctaw, here's your list for the same period: Simon B. James, Joseph Pitchlynn Folsom, Charles J. Stewart, Albert Carney, Zachariah T. Carnell, George H. Hughes, and Michael Hanitchak (Choctaw-Chickasaw). ... Read more

Product Description
In 1930, philanthropist Edward S. Harkness bestowed a gift of $5.8 million on Phillips Exeter Academy, expecting to inspire "something revolutionary" in secondary education. The gift enabled the Exeter, New Hampshire, academy to redesign pedagogy and classrooms around distinctive oval "Harkness tables" that could accommodate twelve students plus a teacher and to remake its campus into a residential community.The gift transformed education at the school, but its impact spread well beyond the classroom.Since 1930, principles of free and open inquiry and discussion have come to animate Exeter's efforts to deal with major challenges and changes, including working with an increasingly diverse community, introducing coeducation, and governing and financing a large,complex institution.After the Harkness Gift demonstrates how one leading independent school adopted a distinctive approach to teaching and learning and then successfully adapted it in the service of continuing institutional change. ... Read more

Product Description
A lost New Hampshire story comes to life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

He wore a black(not red)bandanna at Gettysburg!!
I had to laugh during the authors' intro when he gave a story in regard to the man that was doing a bio on Col.Cross. Suddenly this author realized that in fact Cross represented about everything this prospective author despised. As if Col. Cross(devil blast him),had just destroyed this particular authors' Civil War Fantasy Camp.Boys in blue,freeing the slaves to overjoyous, tearful,thankful mobs of blacks and white abolitionists.A smiling Lincoln with a "Go Union" pennant.Mom.God and apple pie for the the North!!
This book greatly lets down candy cotton unionists. Cross comes across as a very unadimirable yet real person. Some of his antics in regard to troop discipline would make Patton blush?As you read the book you have to wonder if maybe Cross wasn't taken down by fragging and the heroic tale of his death in the Wheatfield made up to appease someones'conscience. The 5th New Hampshire comes across in the book as "Hard Core" Army and they couldn't have cared less if they met the superficial standards for the "Billy Yank" action figure of a certain political persuasion of which I'm unsure of. Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition for these type soldiers.The author gives alot of human interest stories in regard to some of the individual soldiers of the fifth.
These men fought primarily because they believed in the "union" of the states and they saw the southern states as in rebellion.Once again the slavery issue takes a back seat(or even no seat) although the fighting fifth was in no way in sympathy with the "peculiar institution".The book reminds me of a "nuts and bolts" version of the Red Badge of Courage.Mechanics,farmers,students,old and young with a love for family and country all changed by the experience of war,willing to do all that's necessary to end it.

Biography /or/ Regimental History?
It seems to me that this book does not /quite/ reach the level of a great regimental history (what about the "reborn" fifth regimental history?). It seems to be much closer to a biography of Cross primarily, and a regimental history second. I have a copy of Child's 1893 regimental history, and it has far more detailed information about the regiment, and a pretty good overview about Cross as well.

My Brave Boys is readable, and seems quite solidly based, but reading the other reviews left me a bit befuddled - I didn't come away thinking it was as great a book as others seem to find. Your mileage may vary...

Civil War Battlefield History at its Best
I've read what seems like a ton of books on the Civil War. It seems that there must be nothing left to learn, but of course that's not true, there's more. Two newspapermen from Concord, New Hampshire, are the latest entrants in the Civil War history competition, and their book, My Brave Boys: To War with Colonel Cross & the Fighting Fifth, is one of the best Civil War regimental histories ever written. It's amazingly well researched, wonderfully authentic, and well-enough written I was sorry it ended.

The Colonel Cross of the title was Edward E. Cross, a newspaperman from New Hampshire who had worked on newspapers in Ohio and Arizona before the war started. He was an American party member (the "Know-Nothings") and something of a bigot, but very strong-minded on the subject of the preservation of the Union. When the Civil War began, he immediately returned to New Hampshire, and through political connections was given command of the state's Fifth regiment. He immediately recruited as many experienced soldiers as he could, turned them into drillmasters, and began to transform his crowd of farmers and townsmen into soldiers.

The training paid off. In its first fight, the regiment acted as if it were composed of veterans, and the authors make it clear that it didn't lose this composure until long after Cross' death at Gettysburg, when it was weakened by draftees (from other states even!) who didn't want to fight, and weren't properly trained. The heart of the book follows the regiment through its baptism of fire in the Seven Days, the Second Bull Run campaign, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, where as I said, Cross was killed. The narrative keeps you apprised of the course of the battle well enough that you understand the context of the regiment's actions and the opinions of the participants, without bogging down, and the battles themselves are recreated here as well as it's ever been done. The authors have, through contacts they have in the state, found several people who have collections of letters from participants to relatives back home. These give the narrative an immediacy and authenticity that might otherwise have been lacking.

Lastly, the maps are gorgeous. This is the sort of thing that's difficult to do in a book like this, and often you're presented with a blurry recreation of something from the era, overburdened with detail and almost illegible. The authors made a happy choice in allowing Charlotte Thibault, who's apparently the newsroom illustrator at the paper they both work at, to draw the maps. She's done a marvelous job: they convey the situation in the battles, and the Fifth's position and actions in the fighting, while being clear and easy to understand.

Pride and Travis have produced one of the best books on the Civil War in a good while. It'll be interesting to see if they have anything else up their sleeves.

A Story Well-Told
With "My Brave Boys," authors Mike Pride and Mark Travis have set a new standard for throwing compelling illumination on a slice of the American Civil War. There've been sweeping works on the subject, military analyses, biographies and all the restBut the real untold story has been the war's impact on small communities, states and the men from them.Until now. Pride and Travis have turned their considerable journalistic skills -- both work at the Concord(NH) Monitor -- toward history, putting what amounts to a local news story in broader context.The result is highly readable, meticulously reported book. "My Brave Boys" should appeal to historical researchers, students of the Civil War and those with a more casual interest who just like a good yarn well-told. The media impact on the war and the men fighting it as told through New Hampshire newspaper editorials and accounts is an intriguing sidelight.We who grew up with Vietnam coming into our living rooms each night may appreciate more the ways in which war is brought home.For Americans, the Civil War was the first conflict to be so graphically displayed in word and picture to the general audience -- via newspapers and magazines such as Harper's Weekly. The authors have not ducked tough issues, such as the rampant racism and ethnic bias of the times.No sugar-coating of history here. The story of the 5th New Hampshire is haunting and so very human.It is a story of tragedy and triumph.And strikes a chord that continues to echo in our collective memory yet today.

"Not Merely a War Story, But a Human Story"
"From the beginning, the story of the Fifth was not merely a war story, but mainly a human story," write Mike Pride and Mark Travis in their superb new book about the exploits of New Hampshire's legendary "Fighting Fifth" Regiment in the Civil War. In fact, it is the humsn dimension of their narrative that so distingishes it among Civil War accounts. Their extensive research into town and state archives, period news accounts, memoirs, and little-known letters takes them well beyond a catalogue of dates and skirmishes. Piecing together their sources to construct the unfolding events of the Fifth's experience, the authors give us rich insights into the personalities and thoughts of Colonel Cross and his men, showing us what war actually felt like to its participants from battle to battle, and from day to day. Not that war-making is this book's only subject. Some of its most affecting passages are from the letters written by soldiers to the wives and families they have left behind. In one striking chapter, the authors relate the surprising pronouncements the men of the Fifth made against the very blacks they were fighting to emancipate. While there is plenty to satisfy the student of the Civil War in the Fifth's story, told here for the first time, you don't have to be a Civil War buff to enjoy this volume. I'm not one myself; yet the fully developed characters and dramatic descriptions of events on the battlefield had me turning pages entranced. It's a wonderful book. ... Read more

Product Description
Shirley, John M. The Dartmouth College Causes and the Supreme Court of the United States. Chicago: G.I. Jones, 1895. 469 pp. Reprint available 2003 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 2002041359. ISBN 1-58477-337-5. Cloth $90. Reprint of the first edition. Dartmouth College vs. Woodward (1816-1819) established significant precedents concerning state authority and the nature of private enterprise. Dartmouth College was incorporated under a royal charter in 1769 as a private corporation. In 1816 the New Hampshire Legislature attempted to transform the college into a state institution. Daniel Webster, representing the college trustees, convinced the Supreme Court that the royal charter was a contract that could not be invalidated by subsequent state legislation. The court concurred. Its decision initiated a significant constitutional limitation on state authority. It also helped to define corporations as relatively unregulated private economic entity that contributed to the public sphere through enlightened self-interest.Shirley offers a vivid account of the case, enriched by extensive quotation of primary archival sources. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1972 Lorene Cary, a bright, ambitious black teenager from Philadelphia, was transplanted into the formerly all-white, all-male environs of the elite St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, where she became a scholarship student in a "boot camp" for future American leaders.Like any good student, she was determined to succeed.But Cary was also determined to succeed without selling out.This wonderfully frank and perceptive memoir describes the perils and ambiguities of that double role, in which failing calculus and winning a student election could both be interpreted as betrayals of one's skin.Black Ice is also a universally recognizable document of a woman's adolescence; it is, as Houston Baker says, "a journey into selfhood that resonates with sober reflection, intellignet passion, and joyous love." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

Amending previous review
I just reviewed this sellar and gave them a poor rating, myapologies. I was looking at the worng book (we had ordered 3 copies). This sellar sent a nice copy of the book. They were a little slower than the other three..

Book
Got this for a college Women Studies' class. Also can be used for general reading. Very good book & highly recommended for students interested in African-American history.

not very postive
Lorene Carey's book, left alot to be desired. THe racism inside of the pages is either subtle or seemingly imaginary. I beleive she did experience racism, however not to the degree of less fortunate African Americans. Little things to do with racism that could have been mistakenly perceived are what she concentrates and is enraged about more so then her rape. Though her rape was under odd circumstances she doesnt seem bothered by it as much as things that should have held less pain from.

Good book
This book is interesting, and the author actually spoke at my school (Temple University) which was awesome. She goes into detail within the book and leaves you guessing.

Very bad
This book is horrible. The writing is badly done, and it is so drawn out and boring. It felt like one hour to read one chapter it was so bad. ... Read more

Product Description
"Loud, raucous, infantile, racy, and very funny...The book is full of likable eccentrics, sexual shenanigans, and--if you know where to look for them--valuable life lessons."--Booklist

Animal House, the movie, didn't tell the half of it.

Writing with a freshness and joy that make Dartmouth 1960 feel like a beer-soaked rock-and-roll heaven on earth, Chris Miller tells the real story of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity as no one else could. Seal, Doberman, Otter, the legendary Moses (he of the burning bush) - these titans and dozens of others come alive again, terrorizing the administration, taunting cops, surviving their own lunacy, and challenging the squareness of a stifling time. The Real Animal House is the perfect antidote for a conventional age much like today.

"A breezy, chuckle-worthy read, and a must for the Animal House fan." -Courier-Post

"Action-packed. . . . A boozy holler of a book, with a great soundtrack." -Kirkus Reviews

"A seriously funny read. . . . The joy and exuberance that Pinto and his pals demonstrate holds a lesson for every generation that needs to learn not to blindly follow the expectations of parents and guidance counselors, but to seek out those blissful bands of merry misfits that appear from time to time." -Review ... Read more

Customer Reviews (36)

Horrid, juvenile, and (worst of all) BORING.
I agree with the other 1-star reviews (though I'd give it zero stars if I could); this book is worse than being simply horrid (which it is), it is also incredibly boring. Now, before fans of the book & film villify me, you should know that I'm such a fan of the film, it's easily in my top 3 favorite comedies ever, and easily in my top 50 films of all friggin' time. I know it like the back of my hand. For me to to abhor the "source material" so easily should tell you something....that this book is complete shiite. Never before have I read a book to the end when it was so utterly awful as this one, but I kept waiting/praying/hoping that it was going to "get good sooner or later", which it failed miserably at. I've also never been tempted to destroy a book after reading it, but I see nothing worthy of passing on within those pages, not a single word.....it would certainly be better off used as kindling. I don't believe in burning books....but I'd make a once-in-a-lifetime exception for this trash.

Sweet Crudity or Crude Sweetness? Either Way...
In 1978 the men and women of Dartmouth College were some of the first people in the country to view "Animal House." Alum Chris Miller '63 made a triumphant return to Hanover with the film cans under his arm and hosted a couple of packed, frenzied screenings at the Nugget Theater. As a freshman newsman for Dartmouth College Radio I interviewed Chris in the chill, moonlit alley behind the movie house as he basked in this hero's reception (the movie's fate was unknown at that point, though it would become the year's top comedy blockbuster, but Dartmouth loved him already). "How much of the movie is true?" I asked, cassette recorder running. Miller, who co-wrote the movie and had a small part as a Delta -- he's the guy who lets the marbles loose during the parade finale -- giggled back at me through a wreath of dope smoke. "It's ALL true," he said.

Thirty-plus years later this book shows Miller wasn't kidding. It's an affectionate, sexy, hilarious, and deeply profane account of Miller's sophomore Dartmouth year and first year as an AD. He gets the seductive, often frozen-solid allure of Dartmouth exactly right, though I think that matters less to non-Dartmouth readers. What you will appreciate is spotting the roots of the "Animal House" characters and narrative, and seeing how many traits of Miller's real-life AD brothers and girlfriends ended up onscreen. There really was an Otter; there really was a depraved roadtrip to a girls' college to "date" a recently deceased girl; there was real inspiration for Belushi/Bluto covering himself in yellow mustard; Otis Day and the Knights were a hybrid of numerous real R&B bands that ventured into lily-white New Hampshire circa 1960 to play for Miller's house, a bunch of prep Caucasians crazy about black music.

Miller shares his earliest sexual adventures and the repulsive hygenics of his fellow ADs in unstinting detail; it makes you think those left alive, men and women, had some 'splaining to do to friends and relations after publication. But his easy, full-frontal explicitness mimics the no-shame intimacy of frat brotherhood. He does mix and mingle some real-life characters into composites -- one star off for that, as there's obviously some embroidery here but it's hard to tell where. (Speaking of "those left alive" -- there is a sometimes sad where-are-they-now postscript, a sober counterpoint to the end of the "Animal House" movie, which indicates a number of ADs died young... more than one of alcohol-related illness.)

This book is referenced in Rick Meyerowitz's wonderful 2010 coffee-table retro-review of National Lampoon art and writing, "Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead," so I'm hopeful Miller will find some new readers. It's warm, amiable, and very funny.

Funny, sad, and inconsistent
The first part of this "memoir" is really hilarious. This is the part where Chris Miller is a senior in high school, before heading off to Dartmouth. He was writing this in the first person at that point, and I cared about him and his experience, and there were some very funny scenes. Once the author hits Dartmouth, the book becomes much more uneven. Some parts are funny, some are gross, many are both. Where this book falls short is by not having any of the other Dartmouth guys become real to me. I don't care about them as people, which makes the humor more empty. It turns out that some of the other boys in the frat are composites of a number of students, which partly explains why they didn't come alive to me. Mostly, the author chose to wrote this as one funny/gross incident after another. I went to Dartmouth almost 15 years after Chris Miller, and so I had a special interest in reading this account. Now, with children of my own, college age and older, many of these antics strike me as sad and dangerous. Still, I laughed a lot, too. I am disappointed that the book didn't continue as well as it started. If you like the movie Animal House and want to know more about life in the most outrageous frat at Dartmouth in the early 60's, you'll probably enjoy this book.

By a cretin, for cretins
This book is a giggly bit of adolescent humor -- I'll show you mine (giggle giggle) if you show me yours (giggle giggle) -- written by a person in his seventies who obviously is stuck mentally at the level of not-very bright 13-year-old. I once read a serious treatment of the movie "Animal House" claiming that its popularity was due to resentment by ordinary people of "Ivy League superiority" -- that is, the Bluto character could be taken to show that students at the Ivies were really no different than any average overweight beer-swilling slob who spend his time watching internet porn and staining his couch. But my brother-in-law, who went to Dartmouth, says that "Animal House" does pretty much capture the ethos on that campus -- it was true then, he says, and is true today. On the evidence of this book, I'd have to say he's right. He makes it clear that the school is a place still populated by specimens like those in this book (giggle giggle, puke puke). When the Wall Street Journal recently published an op ed about the frat featured in the book, its president responded with a letter filled with the sentimental twaddle always trotted out in American society to justify stupid or noxious or harmful behavior: they may have done all those things, but they're good guys because they go to blood drives and collect track shoes for orphans in 3rd-world countries, etc. (It makes one wonder about the logic they teach at these places. "You know, you really shouldn't be picking your nose on national TV this way." "How dare you say I'm picking my nose? I helped collect milk for school lunches for inner-city kindergarten kids last term!") No wonder the brightest young people in the country keep going to places like Yale and Harvard and Swarthmore. Anyone who read this book and still wanted to go to the college it portrays would be somebody you wouldn't want to sit next to on a bus. The five-star reviews above are evidence that America really is becoming a nation of cretins -- the largest collection of morons, as H.L. Mencken once said, ever collected on one continent.

Immature But Hillarious
If you've seen the movie, you need to read this book. It varies a good bit from the movie. This book made me laugh again and again. ... Read more