Last Man Out is quite possibly the greatest work of nonfiction I have ever read. The writer wonderfully captures the terror of being trapped in pitch blackness for seven and a half days. The countless details of the survival attaches the reader to each of the trapped men. Because of this attachment, the reader is then appalled at the treatment received by the miners after their rescue.

This is a fantastic, awesome, excellent, outstanding, wonderful, terrific, splendid, fabulous, marvelous, magnificent, first-rate, brilliant, tremendous (and any other possible synonym of fantastic) book that should be purchased immediately.

The book of Melissa Fay Greene is a wonderfully written, thoughtful description and analysis of an extreme situation: a disaster that strikes an entire town. What I love about the book is that it presents very difficult situations in a compassionate, yet totally true and honest way. The book is based on extensive research and interviews, and the author allows the men who were trapped underground in the mine collapse to speak with their own words, making their suffering and lives very distinct and understandable. Yet the voice of the author is also clearly heard in the book and she draws conclusions from these individual stories, conclusions about the nature of heroism, communal reactions to catastrophes, the solitude of dying. These conclusions are never ponderous: Melissa Fay Greene never preaches or behaves like "senior analysts" we are besieged with. Her reasoning is woven into the story, and she is a superb story-teller. She writes with such a talent and taste for language and words, that every page is a delight to read. This is a book that made me cry, laugh, and think. I recommend it to all readers.

This is the third book I've read by Ms Greene. The others have been prize winners, and I suspect this will be as well. She is an exceptional writer whose prose is vivid, evocative and direct. The reader from Denver who gives her such a negative review must have been terribly constipated when he read this book. I talked to Ms Greene a few years ago after reading Praying for Sheetrock, one of my all time favorite books of non-fiction and she told me that she was about to write this book. I wondered what had peaked her interest in an event so far removed from her Georgia both in time and space. She gives us the reason in her portrayal of the racist rabble rouser, Marvin Griffin, the former Gov of Ga (who thoughtfully placed the remnent of the Confederate battle flag on Ga's current day falg so that modern day Georgians might have a gentle reminder of their glorious past in the forefront of the "old guard.") Greene reminds us, as if those of us who lived in those times needed reminding, that even heroes were not immune to the hatred and poisons spewed out of the mouths of the likes of Griffin. But this book is much more than a spotlight on racism. It is a portryal courage, of real family values lived under the most trying of conditions; of official, personal and corporate betrayal; of petty jealousies, disappointment and despair; but mostly it is a tale of human beings caught, trapped in what must be one of the most terrifying conditions that exist. A mile deep in the bowels of the earth, dozens of men are killed instantly, and others die slow agonizing deaths. The 19 miners emerge from this horrendous ordeal, their families, lives and freinds, are described in vivid detail. Greene has done a wonderful job putting the reader right beside the trapped miners and letting us share their fears, their awesome courage, courage which was neccessary just to enter the mine day after day after day. She admits us to their homes, introduces their wives and children and recounts, often in their own words, the story of their despair and courage just as graphically as she does that of the trapped and dead miners. Melissa Greene is a writer of awe inspiring talent and industry. She is a national treasure. Her books will be read so long as stories of courage and decency inspire us. wfh

There's been a lot written about the civil rights movement but the Temple Bombing is a real stand-out from the pack. Greene writes a compelling narrative, using the bombing of an Atlanta synagogue in 1958 as a touchstone for an in-depth social history. There's a good overview of Jewish life in the American south, the history of extremist groups in mid-20th century America, and how the bombing of "The Temple" effected so many people in so many ways. Couple that with a lively cast of characters that Greene brings to life through vivid prose and great personal sketches. Well worth reading and passing on to others.

I picked this book up in a Boston bookstore a few years ago while attending a National Abortion Federation meeting. The title attracted me, as I was attending my first national abortion rights organization conference of abortion providers and was astounded by the level of fear and anxiety that I sensed among my compatriots. It has been said that the true test of courage is not in doing what needs to be done without fear, but is in continuing to do so even in the face of great fear. If this is in deed true, my colleagues in the National Abortion Federation must be among the most courageous people in the world. Many of those whom I met there had endured years of threat and ostracism, of attacks both verbal and physical, and most knew clinic workers and abortion providers who had been maimed or murdered or whose facilities had been bombed and burned. And they continued their work even in the face of continuing threats to themselves, their families and their coworkers. So Greene's book title was a magnet for me, pulling me in although I had never heard of Ms Greene or the Reform Temple bombing. (I was in the Navy, serving in the Pacific when this incident occured and must never have seen any news reference to it. I was perhaps much more attuned to the events in Arkansas in the 50's, and never had heard of it until I read Ms. Greene's account.) The Temple Bombing is a masterwork by a master story teller, and although the ending is somewhat unsatisfactory in that the perpetrators were never caught and punished for their part in this heinous terrorist act - some of whom probably went on to other deeds even more evil like the the bombing of the Church in Birmingham which killed the four little girls - this is the way history played out in the South. Much as many of us would like to change it. Ms Greene has written a fine book with a truly heroic protagonist sympathetically and sensitively portrayed, and has given us a vision of an Atlanta and a time which long ago ceased to exist. For movie buffs, the temple bombed was that depicted in the wonderful movie, Driving Miss Daisy.

I purchased this informative history after my Temple in Gary Indiana had received a second bomb threat in as many years and the most recent being on Easter Sunday 1997 when an anonymous caller warned the caretaker of the detonation time.

The Temple hadn't been involved in any significant political movements for quite some time; the civil rights struggles had mostly depleted the community of the majority of its white residents and those who had remained in the neighborhood were as liberal as was our congregational membership. In the past those members who had been the most outspoken for integration of the public beaches and of the schools and for free polio vaccinations and bettering the conditions for prisoners were either hounded by the House Un-American Activities Committee or had since then been honorably distinguished by Gary's Hall of Fame committee. What threats if any the Temple had received in the distant past, when our intellectual rabbis had struggled for timely social improvements, were long forgotten to the deceased or perhaps had been filed to memories of denial? This most recent threat coming on Easter was a time old anti-Semitic standard, and yet a very real and dangerous relic of the pre-enlightenment era when non-thinking and superstitious peasants were easily rallied into violent action and a pre Vatican II legacy which just won't go away.

I read Greene's tome about the Civil Rights activist rabbi Rothschild in Atlanta and in conjunction with Louis Rosen's 1998 publication 'The South Side: The racial transformation of an American neighborhood' and about a Chicago Jewry which made a striking comparative between the general civil standards reserved for American blacks between the South and North respectively, neither of which were honorable. The Pill Hill neighborhood Rosen portrayed was one I knew intimately and I remember the trouble, the nervous conversations following the riots and the passive yet panic driven moves to the suburbs. In the Miller Beach section of nearby Gary, Indiana, rabbi Carl Miller at the same time had led the call for civil rights unlike the departing rabbi in Rosen's Illinois story and yet a flood of moving trucks nevertheless crowded the beach community streets with too many families fleeing under the premise that the public schools had deteriorated. However, the Indiana rabbi had made an impact because many families did remain and enough to sustain the Temple but ironically not a single member has even today a child enrolled in the Gary public schools.

Having read both tomes, I discovered Greene's book on the shelf of a friend's Mother's home when visiting them in the American Southwest and then learned that Greene had portrayed my friend's maternal Grandmother. A discussion pursued, my friend challenging his Southern belle Mother on her passivity with regards to the poor standards reserved for blacks in the South of her youth, and yet while we knew she, a merchant, had at one time pushed the social norms for a Valentines exhibit of women's lingerie in their storefront windows, that had caused a sad public out crying over what would be as innocuous as a 'Victoria's Secret' display today. As my friend hounded his Mother for answers, I could only think of those members back home in Indiana, in the more tolerant North, and in the 'City of the Century' whose prosperity had been stalled because of the FBI's allegations of communist activities and whose patriotism had been challenged because they had outspokenly called for social justice or their having been blacklisted by the Medical community when they had lobbied for free polio vaccinations! I also thought of my own Mother's childhood friend whose father the Chicago police had murdered in the infamous Republic Steel Strike of 1938 and who is one of the dead men for who Meyer Levin dedicated his novel "Citizens.' My friend's Mother had not been a political nor spiritual leader, amongst those professions that should have advocated social change, but for as many years as I have known her, a merchant who had pushed as much as she could in her own field, she has not only stood by but had been supporting their community's most liberal rabbi whose sermons demand more changes in our own times for prison reforms and other unpopular causes. Both reads of 'The Temple Bombing' and the 'South Side' reminded me of my favorite James Madison quote: "Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and over-bearing majority." And of my GGG Grandfather's epitaph "Freedom, Justice and Liberty, Do right and Trust in the Lord." Which in itself explains perhaps in my favorite UJA slogan an adaptation of an Disraeli quote from Alroy (1833): Great civilizations rise and fall but we few, we Jews we do survive! How lucky we are to have had a Rabbi Rothschild in Atlanta, and for a Melissa Faye Greene to tell us the story of this American patriot who spoke out for unpopular but just causes! Make this tome next year's Pesach gift, a chapter of our American Patriotism!

As I began this book, I was drawn in by the powerful imagery that Green created. This didn't continue throughout the book. It became more of a "he said, then he said, then he said" narrative. The beautiful language that Greene uses vanishes as she gets more deeply into the story. I was intrigued by the politics involved. Not being very politically astute, I was amazed at how the sheriff controlled everything in that county. I was also captivated by the tale of civil rights struggles in backwoods Georgia. This was such an interesting book, but Greene's talent at using language seemed to be subverted by her need to tell the story. This was our book group's topic of discussion for this evening; it made for a lively talk. Next time I'm on my way thru Georgia, I DO intend to drive down 17 thru McIntosh County. I may not stop, though.

I grew up in Mcintosh County and was a teen during the years of Uncle Tom, he and his right hand man (deputy) may have done somethings above the law, but he watched out for us kids. We respected them and there is alot more to this story. I have good and bad memories of that time and would love to tell it to Melissa. Melissa there is alot more to tell, your book is great and there should be a movie made, but there also needs to be more of the story told.

Once I picked this book up, I could not put it down. The way Greene chose to set up this book and play out the story is excellent. She laid out the characters and the scene in such a way to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions to the facts, giving equal voice to all parties. Though the heroes and villians are obvious, she doesn't portray them in a straight forward way. It opens with a complete and thorough description of everything surrounding the actual story, which gives the reader the feeling that they are there - a part of it - before all is said and done. The research she did on the subject to offer a tale told with all sides is commendable. Equally Fascinating and Intriguing!!