Customer Reviews

On a Move: The Story of Mumia Abu-Jamal

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is very interestingly written. It's not exactly "street prose" as one reviewer put it, but just shockingly to the point. The writer says in one sentence what most would take paragraphs to convey. It doesn't seem to matter to the writer whether he is writing in first/second person etc, he just conveys his message - beautifully.

Whether you believe in Mumia's innocence or not, this book is a good start to look into the complicated issue. For those reviewers who don't even review the book and simply blast Mumia or his followers, you have missed the point. I personally believe in Mumia's innocence and the system's failure to give him a fair trial (I'm a law studend and have read his trial transcripts, the opinions, etc). But that isn't the point. This is a good book, thoroughly gripping - I read it in 5 hours or so.

This book is interestingly written in 'street' prose, with certain lines and bits emphasized and then re-emphasized to hit home. This story will help a reader looking to find a first hand perspective into the Black Panther movement of the sixties and into the Philadelphia police nightmare of the seventies. As long as you approach this book knowing that Mumia is NOT a political prisoner (he is a murderer) and was NEVER silenced for writing the truth (he spread vicious libel throughout his career as a journalist), and you look into those facts for yourself, then this book can be for you what it is for me... a dishonest biography of a man set against an honest background of the turbulant and nightmarish time for African- Americans in the years following the Civil Rights Movement.

This is a very quick read, but good none the less. MAJ has the tendency to be treated either as a hero or a criminal and not a person. This reminded you that he is a human. Read it pass it on.

I was suddenly interested in Mumia so I decided to purchase this book as a beginning. I am very glad I did. It is an easy read but it gives you all you need to know about this political prisoner. Bisson told his(Mumia's) story in an almost poetic form and I loved it.

Mumia gives us a look into who this man really is. We can apprecitate who he is and where he came from by reading this book. You get a idea of how much of a strong great man he really is. You get a clear picture of how wrong the system is and why he was accused of a crime he did not comit. I enjoyed this book very much and look forward to reading more of his work.

This book is written in a way that you can;t put it down. It takes only a few hours to read the whole book. A wonderful must-read about a great revolutionary

This book is assume. Written about the life of death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal it gives an already larger than life living martyr a new larger than life identity. Terry Bisson, a white science fiction writer does a good job of describing the tumultuous life of Jamal who never really seemed to have benefitted from his aruged gift of writing. The bad thing about this book is that it fails to support any prosecuting evidence that could give the reader an objective opinion on the controversial case: Bisson leaves out any details of the shouting of the police officer. So, unfortunately, he does little more than cry for sympathy but he does it in a way that is interesting, entertaining, and fun(at Jamal's request). Read for entertainment not for facts.

Civil Disobedience is one thing and murder quite another. It is obvious since the days of Martin Luther King and Tolerence of the 60s that all sub-culture groups jump on the same ole band wagon of," It's not my fault." Blame the goverment. Point the finger at racism or an abused childhood. Fact is," Murder is murder!" Whether one is able to manipulate masses of naive believers is a good tool for digging out of prison, but the truth is," What else is new?"

This book is a predictable re-hash of the laughable attempts to free a cop killer and an attempt to turn him into some kind of noble, cudly revolutionary. Jamal shot and killed a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. Jamal has since become a cause celeb for a quite amazing amalgamation of leftists, including the Euro-trash left, anti-death penalty activists, black nationalists, anarchists, the Amnesty Int'l crowd, and your standard Ed Asner wacko-lefty Hollywood crowd. This book is an apologetic for Jamal, your time could be better spent reading the trial transcripts from his trial in 1982. Jamal's attorneys, which alternate from year to year, have abused the criminal justice system for 15 years with one story after another of fantastic conspiracies (which are always different) and new and exciting social degenerates as the stars.

Save your money. Watch your tv news for the next Economic Summit. The collection of trash that are rioting in the streets about that Summit are the same mob that will show up at a Jamal rally, they just bring different signs, and a different form of a "hey hey ho ho" chant. Take a good look at the cover of this book, that is what evil looks like...