Customer Reviews

Macaroni and Cheese Manifesto

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This mix of essays, prose, and poetry will make you cheer for winners and losers alike. It will break your heart and make you smile. The works range in length from several pages to four short but incredibly profound lines in "Memo to Job," my personal favorite. Above all else this book will compel you to examine yourself, your world, and how you live in it. The author's introduction alone is a stirring tribute to the power of "paying it forward," as we follow the odyssey of a boy who first loses his father at age 6, then his mother 3 years later when she abdicates her responsibility to the state. He becomes a ward of the court through no fault of his own, spending the next 7 years of his life in the nation's oldest large-scale orphanage whose founder, Stephen Girard, "understood deeply that he was fathered not by a single individual, but by the thousands of human interactions that constitute life itself." Girard's legacy lives on in Mr. Biondolillo, who has indeed "gone the distance" and continues to do so, making the world a better place.

I grabbed this book as I left my house for the office thinking it would be good to read on the Underground. It's not good, it's phenomenal -- but it's not a good book to read on a subway ride. Why? Because my eyes kept welling up, that's why. Not just tears of sadness and sympathy, but also of delight and triumph against all odds. Impressions of the bag lady, the human cats on the mat, king Arthur, the boy, resonated beyond my tube journey. Biondolillo's poems are powerful, inspirational, and as deep AND direct as a subway tunnel.

Spirit and beat in the blood of the street! I just finished my second reading of this collection of poems and still couldn't put the book down. Equal parts inspirational, reflective, and instructive... and entirely satisfying. Bravo! The reviewer who commented on the Introduction alone being well worth the price of the entire book, hit the nail on the head. Biondolillo is clearly a man who has paid his dues and wrestled with many of life's key issues. Highly recommended.

I've never experienced poetry quite like this--the unique, masculine voice is evocative, lean, muscular. The collection has a strong male senseibility yet is toally accessable to women. BRAVO! FIVE STARS!

The introduction alone is worth the price of the book. Not since reading "The Little Engine That Could" to my young, now middle aged, children have I found a more inspiring and self-revealing work on the dynamism of character and optimism. Mr. Biondolillo's Horratio Alger genre poetry is compelling.

The perfect gift for anyone who has ever faced a challenge...and overcome!

Uniquely touching, the words jump off the page and hold your hand

throughout the entire gritty yet poignant journey. A must read!

You have to see this book performed to believe its full impact. If you do you will send one to everyone you know that appreciates pure genius. If you just read the book you will miss its soul. You have to stand up and read it aloud.Only then will you realize that its content is like no other.

Once you have done that once, then do it again.

Finally pick up the phone and read a passage to someone you want to impress. They will be blown away.

This is a book like no other. It has a soul. It lives and it speaks.

Brilliant and beautifully written -

The words are rich, resonating emotion and universal meaning.

Tough yet touching topics -

To be read, and read again and again.

A deep, sometimes stark look at the author -

and an opportunity to reach into our own souls to seek discovery, truth and inspiration.

Hard and heartfelt -

Truly reflective of a life, and of life's gifts.

One man's journey -

and gratefully, many life lessons to be embraced.

This book will bring you to tears. One of the most powerful books I have read in a long time. Poetry that is easy to understand and relevant.

Reading the poems challenged me emotionally, and made me re-discover the notion of gratitude. Gratitude towards people I have met along the way on this journey of mine. As the author stated: " Like many, I owe both survival and success to experiences as part of several 'bands of brothers'..."

While reading my favorite poem, "In Midtown" , I felt melancholy, sadness and nostalgia...but also faith.

Yes, faith is what one really discovers between the lines in Macaroni and Cheese Manifesto. Overall, it is a great reminder that we are not only in charge of our journey, but also that happiness is within us.

Marie-Claude