AuthorsDen: Reviews at a Glance

Recent Reviews for Victoria Zackheim

The Bone Weaver (Book) - 2/26/2006 12:54:44 PM
I just read the excerpt, but it makes me want to read more.

The Bone Weaver (Book) - 2/21/2003 12:57:36 AM
Hi Victoria what jr high school did you enroll? Compton, Ca. ???? Bobbi Hutcheson -

The Bone Weaver (Book) - 1/21/2003 7:41:05 PM
I found a second-hand copy of BONE WEAVER at Goodwill in San Francisco, where I was moping in a distraught state after the funeral of my best Presentation High School friend, Kathy Murphy. Kathy, only 43, had been smoking since age 13, yet of course never banked on dying young. In these last years, battling cancer, she withdrew a lot and stayed up in Sonoma with her husband, until the very last months when she was back home in the Avenues with her mother. I tried to stay connected but Kathy was no longer really herself. She had been one of the brightest and wittiest girls in our class, and we had bonded in the first weeks of freshmen year. Anyone who knew us in those years, or in college together, could not forget us, since we operated as a team. Meanwhile, now in January 2003, I stood forlorn before a rack of blouses and spotted this paperback thrown atop it. I reached out and considered its title, BONE WEAVER. It could have something to do with broken bones, I wondered, except that there's a very Jewish looking old-world woman on front. Since old Europe is my interest, especially Germany and Russia, I looked further. I couldn't believe it. Of all the books to even see on such a wrenching day, I picked up a story about myself. I could be this college professor, adrift alone in the world and torn apart by the lost of the best old friend and only true soulmate of my life. In this book, the professor finds that she cannot function without her now-gone friend to chat with each night. Me, too. I read this book straight through until 5:30AM, and still couldn't sleep. If I have any criticisms of this - knowing that it is fiction anyway - I would arrange the book differently. The story of our Mimi, modern 40-ish professor in LA, is one story, for it is the story of the death of a best friend in modern USA, a woman-woman story. It is an intense analysis of an intelligent woman's puzzling over her own loneliness and singlehood. This theme could and possibly does obsess many women everywhere in the world, esp. the Western world, as I have learned from travelling. She concludes it's a fear of commitment learned from her own mother, and before that, the mother's mother of old Russia. That is why there's an in-depth seeking for her Jewish-Russian village roots and family history. However, I would say that is a separate and equally interesting, very absorbing story. I would have put these stories not side-by-side in interlapping chapters, but as two separate yet corresponding stories. It was too difficult to care about both, or all, characters, of different times and places. Finally, Mimi is sure darned obsessed with marriage! Even in the end, if she achieves it - of reluctant sort - it doesn't ring satisfactorily true to her own heart, but with a resignation about life's inevitabilities and sad acceptances of less-than-ideal choices. However, hats off to this writer - whom I phoned today - for hitting ME right on the head! And to my dear friend Kathy Murphy, a fantastic writer in her own right, I vow to write a book about an amazing bond of wits.

No Guts, No Glory (Article) - 11/28/2003 1:38:29 PM
Thanks so much for schooling me on the slings and arrows of outrageous promotions. It's stories like this one that let you know you're doing the right thing. And I was inspired to follow suit myself. Stay tough Victoria, and blessin's to you, (even your name says "Winner") cynth'ya lewis reed

No Guts, No Glory (Article) - 10/14/2003 4:34:04 PM
Very good writing. I'm sure your book sold well.

Learning the perils and pluses of barnstorming (Article) - 9/4/2003 7:04:50 AM
Loved the anecdotes! Interesting article, thank you for sharing it here. Other things I would like to know... - How much time did you actually spend "on the road?" - How many books did you sell, and how did that compare to your expectations? - How did you set up all of those appearances? Did your publisher help with that? I know the goal of your article wasn't to anser these kinds of questions...I guess I am suggesting another article you could write. :) Best of luck to you.

No Guts, No Glory (Article) - 3/7/2003 11:27:04 PM
No Guts, No Glory, can be seen as a humorous account of the efforts made by a tenacious author to market her books. I found it poignant as it reveals in simple words the situation were good writing falls victim of a situation where the jester is king. Thank you, Victoria for enlightening us. I don’t know whether this would make any difference to you, but you have won a reader, a special one who works out heavily by throwing some best sellers against the wall. Dali Abel http://www.intellitalesworld.com

No Guts, No Glory (Article) - 2/21/2003 1:19:36 AM
oops I forgot to add my email address---bmaucere.jps.net Bobbi Hutcheson

No Guts, No Glory (Article) - 2/17/2003 8:26:55 AM
It's a great article about a great trip and a learning curve that can only be acheived by being there and doing it. Tom

No Guts, No Glory (Article) - 1/21/2003 7:47:09 PM
This article is pretty funny, expressing well the real "fun" of travelling about the country with often little to show for it. Victoria Zackheim, you're a writer a person wants to hear more from, simply because you're honest about emotions! Read my review of the book's review here, because I'm the one who phoned you 1/21/03 here in San Francisco. I'll pass that $1 copy on to others.