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Best Books of the Year So Far
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for 2015's Best Books of the Year So Far in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.
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Caroline Paul started life out as a privileged yuppie hopeful. She attended a posh boarding school and then Stanford University. She graduated with the hopes of a distinguished journalism career. Instead, she became a firefighter. FIGHTING FIRE is a riveting story of learning to adapt to a different way of life, with its own rules and traditions. There are burning building and singed bodies - I shed plenty of tears reading this book - but this is not only an adventure book. This is a deeply moving story of how people learn in the end to get along - in the firehouse and on the streets. This book is not a whiny monologue about a Poor Me woman in a man's world. Ms. Paul has a generous, humorous perspective about the people she meets and she is always willing to concede her foibles. It is a thrilling yet insightful read. Both my husband and my local librarian (neither one firefighters!) loved it - Fighting Fire has something for everyone.
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As a female fire fighter I thought this book was one of the best books I have ever read. It shows the true facts that women in the service have to go through. I thought she used a really good imagery in the book making you feel that you were on the call. This is a good book for fire fighter men and female and for people whoare not fire fighters but like the adrenaline rush of an action book.
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When I first read this book I could not put it down not only because my sister wrote it but because Caroline's writing draws you in and you begin to see and feel her story like it is your own. Her struggles through the fire service dominated by men shows that women can do their part and they can do it as well or better than any man. A must read for all and for those who feel they are lesser than others this book will inspire you to rise above your fears and shine.
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I did not expect to like this book but it was thrust into my hands by a friend who demanded: Read this. I dreaded a long technical discourse on fire trucks and the mechanics of fire but i instead got an eminently readable book about how a young woman matures under trying but exciting circumstances. Caroline Paul is in the beginning a likeable but arrogant, affluent preppie who, fearing the inevitable "trajectory" her life is taking towards a corporate desk job, falls into the blue collar world of firefighting. There she learns that life is much more complicated - and more poignant - than she had ever imagined. We follow her as she sees her first dead body, understands for the first time in her life what it is to be an "outsider" (and rather philosophically claims that it is good for her!), and goes into the deep, hot, black of a fire building. I cried when the babies died, laughed as the firehouse culture leapt from the page, and in the end rooted for the narrator to come to terms with herself. I stayed up all night reading it and I recommend it (with a loud guffaw and a hearty slap on the back)to all non-firefighters!
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Interesting inside view of the way fire-fighting is now done, the "super-macho" culture it spawns, and historical record of a brave woman who took on the challenge of "making it" in the sometimes hostile, sometimes indifferent quasi-military structure of the modern firehouse. You will never again just call them "fire trucks" after you read Paul's insightful description of engines vs. ladders, and never again misunderstand the "charge the fire" method, or the crazy idea of climbing on the roof of a burning building to chop holes in it to "vent" the fire.
SF has unusual challenges to the firefighter, such as: tall, steep roofs on crazy-quilt 3-story buildings; lead and other toxics from the 19th Century; crazy people getting into chemical problems, and so much more.
Quite an intellectual memoir, unusual in this genre. An objective account and interesting reading, even if you disagree with the current bureaucratic fire hierarchy and their "fire brigade" ideas.
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The general public has little idea what being a member of the fire family entails. The politics, the hazing, the fight to "gain acceptance" by the "guys". Paul began her journey with the intention of doing what many of us wanted to do... investigate the harrassment and the notion of lowering training standards for the purposes of having "politically correct" looking fire personnel. Prepared to risk it all, Paul rose to the challenge of the emotional and physcial aspect of being a firefighter. Rather than allow herself to be a "victim" of the system (as too many minority probies do) she trained to become a respected firefighter. As a daughter, sister, niece and wife of a firefighter, I hope that when I am in need of a first responder, someone as skilled as Paul, regardless of gender or hertitage, assists me.
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Love this book; have read it over five times. The best part is her description of fighting fires..you can actually feel the heat of the fames as she fights the fire from the nozzle point. She could be a Joseph Wambaugh or Gina Gallo of fire fighting if she wanted to be. I think she's trying to go in a more literary direction, but I'd really like to see more fire fighting books out of her. The part of the book that surpised me was the "east coast" idea that a fire fighter was a "lowly" blue collar job. I'm from San Francisco, and here everyone looks up to the position of fire fighter as a very special job, that only a few chosen can do. It never occurred to me that people looked at fire fighters in any other way.
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