Shana Alexander's Very Much a Lady and Diana Trilling's Mrs. Harris: The Death of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor are complementary books about a fascinating case: the murder of Dr. Tarnower by his lover Jean Harris.

It is Jean Harris' motive in killing Dr. Tarnower that interests these two writers. Jean Harris was neither psychotic nor particularly violent. In some ways, she seemed the classic example of the woman wronged. In other ways, she seemed the classic example of the 1950s woman coping uneasily and unsuccessfully in the changed world of the 1980s and in still other ways, she seemed the eternal victim of circumstance.

Both writers agree that the punishment did not fit the crime. Mrs. Harris did not intend to kill Dr. Tarnower and in law, intent does matter. Shana Alexander spends more time than Diana Trilling in exploring the mistakes made by the defense (such as their refusal to plead to a lesser charge), and she is more critical of the prosecution. Both writers, however, are primarily interested in Jean Harris' character. Their differing approaches regarding the latter are at the heart of these similar, yet ultimately distinct, books.

Shana Alexander is an objective partisan. She is honest about Jean Harris' flaws, but it is clear both from her tone and the accumulation of biographical information that she considers Jean Harris not as a victim but as a basically sane and not unlikable human being pushed beyond her limits by her culture, her background, her medical history and her own psychology. She doesn't exculpate Jean Harris but neither does she condemn her.

Diana Trilling, on the other hand, is far less partisan and far more critical. She sees in Jean Harris a woman who sacrificed her intellectual integrity for a sordid affair. She is disgusted by Mrs. Harris' behavior during the trial and appalled by the letter written by Mrs. Harris to Dr Tarnower before the killing (and never actually read by him). Shana Alexander, on the other hand, while agreeing that the letter condemned Mrs. Harris in the eyes of the jury (even in the evidence did not) bemoans the lack of prescience by Jean Harris' defense in presenting the letter in court. Her defense, Shana Alexander argues, did not understand Jean Harris and were therefore unable to successfully present the problems of the case both to Jean Harris herself and to the jury.

The similarities and differences between Shana Alexander and Diana Trilling make their two books excellent complements. I recommend reading Diana Trillling's book first since it is the "outsider's" take on the case. Shana Alexander's book then will give the reader a closer look at a troubled woman and a bizarre, perhaps avoidable, tragedy.

Very Much a Lady by Shana Alexander is the immensely readable story of Jean Harris. For anyone who has lost track of yesterday's headlines, Harris is the headmistress of a girls' school who shot and killed her lover, Herman Tarnower, a respected cardiologist who authored the best-selling Complete Scarsdale Diet Book. To this day, Harris maintains that the fatal shooting of Dr. Tarnower was an accident that occurred when the doctor fought with her over the gun she planned to use to kill herself. Alexander traces of the lives of Harris and Tarnower from childhood on and sees the seeds of destruction planted early on. The same character traits which brought them together as lovers doomed them to a terrible ending. Harris's relationship with her impossible-to-please father formed her early identity as a "good girl" and led to her need for a dominant male image to shore up her shaky sense of self. The classic overachiever, Harris had to excel in any project! she tackled. She craved stimulation which she failed to get from her brief first marriage to a decent but unexciting man. Harris divorced him and began a fourteen-year-long love affair with Dr. Tarnower. The latter was a dedicated physician with old-fashioned attitudes toward women. There is one puzzling aspect to the tale that deserves fuller attention than Alexander gives it: Harris's religious background. According to Alexander, Jean Harris's Mom was a devout Christian Scientist. The irony of Jean's passion for a doctor should have been examined in light of the Christian Science beliefs into which she had been indoctrinated during her childhood--but this is ignored by Alexander. The jury rejected Harris's version of events and found her guilty of murder. Alexander, who is unabashadly Harris's partisan, brilliantly dissects the defense errors which led to conviction. Amongst the chief of these were her attorney's misguided interpretation of the explosive Scarsdale ! Letter, the distance between the accused and the jury in cl! a** and background, and the failure of her attorney to understand the personality of this brittle, high-strung "lady." In a story laced with ironies, the greatest is that in the version of events told by the prosecutor and accepted by the jury, Herman Tarnower is just another murder victim whereas according to Harris's defense Tarnower died a heroic death, tragically jeopardizing his life to save hers,

This book is very touching. It tells a true story of what many women are going through with fibroid tumors. I cried and I laughed when I read through the pages of this book. I highly recommend this book for both men and women to read.

Anyone familiar with Gericault's painting "The Raft of the Medusa" will know immediately that this is not going to be a pretty story. "Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal," written in 1816, is by two of the survivors from the raft. They tell a frightening tale of abandonment, starvation, mutiny, murder, and cannibalism, the horrors of which are surpassed by their treatment by the French government once they've been rescued. Despite the dreadful consequences of the rampant incompetence and indecision that led to their fate, ultimately it's the misguided faith the authors have in their mother country that sees them through.

The Medusa set sail in 1816 to reclaim Senegal, on the west coast of Africa, from England. Despite France's loss in the Napoleonic Wars, England had conceded France's former colonies in the wars' aftermath. The ship was carrying the governor who was to take over the reclaimed territory, as well as several hundred soldiers who were to be stationed there. After the Medusa wrecks, due to the incompetence of the captain (who relied on the advice of a passenger rather than pay attention to what his own navigators were telling him), bedlam breaks loose. Plans are made only to be tossed aside, no one is in charge, and people are scrambling to save themselves without a care for anyone else on board. As there is not enough room in the boats for the approximately 400 sailors and passengers, the survivors build a raft to carry away those who won't fit. The raft, approximately 85' x 25', is quickly lashed together from intersecting masts and spars, but it doesn't have a solid floor. (Later, people's feet and legs get caught in the holes, and they drown, unable to free themselves.)

One hundred and fifty people are put on the raft, with the idea that the boats will tow it behind them to safety. That many people, however, are too much for the small raft, and they are crowded together so tightly they stand side by side, with no room to sit down. They couldn't have sat anyway - the raft is so overloaded that the people are up to their waists in water. That is only one of the many difficulties they face.

First, the boat towing the raft deliberately loosens the tow rope, casting the raft adrift with no oars, no rudder, and no charts or navigation equipment. Then there is a gale, and many of the victims are swept overboard to their deaths. The second and third nights see a mutiny of the soldiers against the officers; many on both sides are killed and almost all are wounded. Food and water are scarce, and all are suffering from sunburn and exposure. Soon, sharks appear alongside the raft.

By the time the raft is sighted and the people on it are rescued after 13 days at sea, only 15 people of the original 150 are still alive. Of those, five die soon thereafter. The remaining 10 are put in a filthy hospital, with little food and no clothes. The governor and his cohorts leave them behind, escaping to Dakar in hopes of avoiding a scandal by spreading their own version of how the raft came to be on its own. The authors appeal to the French government for help and are spurned, again in an attempt to avoid scandal. Despite their trials, they remain loyal French citizens, with an undying hope that their country will give them at least some sort of pension after all they have been through. They are to be sorely disappointed.

It is only because of Savigny and Correard's rather florid writing style that I give this book four stars instead of five. Nevertheless, they write with an emotional candor that is heartwrenching, and I would recommend this narrative to anyone who is interested in adventure tales, sea stories, or history. The book is well worth-while, and for those of you who aren't used to reading early 19th Century literature, I recommend sticking with the story through to the end. This terrible event is rendered more awful by the knowledge that the authors really experienced it.

Calder is my favorite artist ever. This book captures many of his different styles of works, but it needs photos of his standing mobiles, such as Little Parasite. The book has only a couple photos of unspectacular standing mobiles.

Warning, there is not one picture in this book save a crappy watercolored cricket on the cover. There was an earlier edition with exquisite illustrations, so I thought I'd take a chance with this one. *sound of gameshow buzzer* I'm sorry, no pictures. Anyway it is a good book, I enjoyed it. It's not a scientific description of insects and their habits, it's a regular guy's observations of and adventures with the insect world throughout his life and it's pretty interesting. It was Surrealist director Luis Bunuel's favorite book, although his copy had illustrations!!!