Julie Salamon

Every year, the chief gardener at Rockefeller Center responsible for selecting the tree that will grace the Center for Christmas flies over New Jersey seeking the perfect tree. He doesn’t really enjoy this job but he is very good at it. He searches for a tree with ‘character, a spirit that outshines the ornaments and tinsel and lights’; one whose ‘beauty comes from the inside and not just the outside’. This year he spots what he thinks will be the perfect tree. When he drives out show more to the site, he discovers that it is on the grounds of a convent. He is told that one of the nuns, Sister Anthony who has spent most of her life at the convent, is the only one who can decide whether he can take the tree. To her it is not just a tree; it is Tree. She planted it when she was a lonely little girl, an orphan, and it has been her best friend, her solace, and the depository of all her secrets ever since. She now tells stories to children under the tree and, although, she will not part with Tree, she invites the narrator to come and sit with them and hear about her shared life with Tree. Over the years, the pair develops a close relationship as her story helps him see the beauty of the season. Eventually, after a storm that damages many of the trees although not Tree, she realizes that it has lived a very long life for a Norwegian spruce and she relinquishes it so that it can provide joy to others as it has to her.

The Christmas Tree by author Julie Salamon was originally released in 1996 and is being reissued this year with some rather lovely illustrations by Jill Weber. It is a fable about finding beauty all around us if we would just stop and look and is based on a true story about a group of nuns who donated a tree to the Rockefeller Center in 1995. It is a sweet tale, at times a bit too sweet for my taste. Still, it is fairly short read and, I suspect, given its lasting appeal, that most readers will enjoy its uplifting message at this hectic time of year.

Thanks to Netgalley and Open Road for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review show less

A friend, who called it "a page-turner," gave me this book. We both worked on the Playwrights Horizons production of "Isn't It Romantic," and also with many of the theatre people who populate the book, so for us, it definitely was. Contrasting the private Wasserstein with the public Wasserstein, the book reveals an ambitious, talented, driven, social woman who defied uppercrust conventions in her appearance, but was buffeted about privately by traditional societal expectations of family life show more and stalked by tragedy. It does not sufficiently convey how funny she could be. The quote most interesting to me was from John Lyons, the one-time literary manager, who said that if Playwrights had received blind submissions of a Noel Coward play and a Sam Shepard play, the Noel Coward would be the one that would have been produced. Aha! The rich and privileged do think different from you and me. show less

This book was about the administration of Maimonides Hospital in New York and just about as thrilling as that sounds! It was a long, hard slog but in the same way as hill-walking is pretty hard step by step, but worth it for the view, the interesting things you see along the way and the accomplishment, quite enjoyable.

It was a real eye-opener for me, a hospital which is a business first, the chosen product being health care, coming as I do from the UK where private insurance for health care show more is an option, not the default standard.

People say that you get what you pay for, that it is worth purchasing health insurance because you will be assured of a better standard of diagnosis, treatment and care. It isn't actually true. A year and a half ago my (late) mother underwent a couple of non-invasive tests in a National Health hospital that wasn't luxurious and made her wait but it was free. She waited a week for the results. She didn't want to believe the results so she went to a very high-ranking, very luxurious private hospital where endless tests were done over a three week period, some of the tests being extremely painful and $20,000 later they came up with exactly the same result as the 'free' hospital. Neither could offer her any treatment.

So this book was, as I said, a real eye-opener to medicine where the money you have does make a difference and where the chief executive earns well over a $1M a year (now), as do quite a few of the medical staff and other administrators approach that figure, and they bemoan the fact that their cancer centre is losing money at the rate of $8M a year because they are failing to attract the type of patient with good insurance.

No sympathy! If they cared that much, hey a small paycut for a dozen or so of them for a year or two would put the cancer centre back on its feet as the community cancer centre for Brooklynites. Community my arse, caring, my arse. Community and caring after pay. The doctors and administrators were efficient and often very empathetic but all of it was subservient to money and hospital politics. Who could jostle for the best position, who could get the most fame, who was recognised by the media as 'sexy' and charismatic and its rewards: the most money. A good career for a young person seeking to become rich, brains and manual dexterity necessary, compassion optional.

So it was interesting. But hell, I do feel for those who are poor and those who aren't quite poor enough for aid but not well-off enough for insurance.

I did learn one very interesting fact, that an emergency department is obliged to treat you no matter what your financial status. Like the Arab who flew all the way from the middle East, got a cab to Maimonides and went to the Emergency department knowing that his heart surgery would then be free. There's always someone, always a way to game the players!

4 May 2011 show less

Excellent read! Explores raising a severely handicapped child, murder by reason of insanity, putting your life back together; all the nuances, implications, and issues, challenging and thought provoking.