ET Books

I have long been an admirer of Eugène Ionesco, with his playful wit and keen insights into human nature. This play is certainly among his best. The inspiration for it was the Nazi phenomenon in the Europe of the 20th century, but the theme is timeless, since we are all too prone to follow slavishly whatever movements we encounter in our society. To do so makes us less than human. The play's hero, Bérenger, is full of flaws, but he is paradoxically the only character capable of resisting the allure of the herd mentality. The play not only has a powerful message; it is also lots of fun to read.

Euguene Ionesco (1912-1994) was born in Romania, but lived a great part of his life in France. He was an important exponent of what became known as "the Theatre of Absurd", a kind of avant garde theatre that was born more or less in the 1950s and that somehow manages to transmit a message through irrational speech and strange occurrences that take place in what seem at first glance as common situations. Other exponents of this kind of theatre are, for example, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet and Harold Pinter

"Rhinoceros" was written by Ionesco in 1958, and has a strange plot. The main character is Berenger, a Frenchman who likes to drink a lot. Berenger doesn't seem to mind when a rhinoceros first appears running past his town square, while he is talking with his friend Jean. Everybody else is astounded, but they are truly horrified when the same rhinoceros (or maybe another one) returns and even kills a cat. Even that doesn't shake Berenger, unfortunately. The situation is almost dramatically altered later, when Berenger realizes that many of his acquaintances are turning into rhinoceros without apparent reason. The pertinent questions are quite a few, for instance: will rhinoceros ultimately prevail?. And can an average person resist to conformity, or is the temptation to be like everybody else to big?.

This book can be understood as a metaphore regarding nazism and its diffusion in Germany, and has a lot to do with Ionesco's experiences with the Nazis. However, its main theme is the rise of totalitarism, the kind of behaviour and relativism that takes a country to that, and the dehumanization of those that succumb to conformism (like the human beings that slowly turn into rhinoceros, almost indistinguishable from each other). Due to that, "Rhinoceros" was considered a dangerous play by more than one totalitarism. For instance, the play was to be produced in the URSS, but the government wouldn't allow it to be played if Ionesco didn't say that the rhinoceros were the Nazis and not them. As Ionesco refused to do so, "Rhinoceros" couldn't be played...

On the whole, I can say that I really liked this play. It is interesting, easy to read (yes, without overly difficult vocabulary!!) and has a deeper meaning that shouldn't be lost to us. That is, conformity isn't the answer when an stampede of "rhinoceros" tries to run over us...

Belen Alcat

Art and poetry are two things that go together like bread and butter. "River of Words: Young Poets and Artists on the Nature of Things" is exactly what its title says: an anthology of both full color art and poetry by poets and artists under the age of eighteen. Sure to bring readers face to face with the world as seen through the eyes of the young, "River of Words: Young Poets and Artists on the Nature of Things" is a must for community library poetry and art collections alike. "Water", by Helena Leech, Age 7: Water glistens on the rocks,/ flowing down to the sea,/ gurgling, splishing, splashing, crashing,/ never stopping/ for a cup of tea.

This touching book is not just for children. I keep it on my coffee table for all to enjoy and they do! I bought it for my sister and her child but don't think I can give it up. I don't have kids but have greatly enjoyed the art and poems in this absolutely beautiful book with my morning coffee. It gives me hope for the future that talent such as this exists, is cultivated, and nutured by the wonderful people at River of Words! I can't say enough!! My favorite poem is by Jose Perez (age 7!) and is called "Rivers".

Rivers splatter,
hitting rocks below.
But don't be afraid,
there is poetry,
deep inside each crevice.

Can't you just feel the cool clean water and the worlds within!!! Really neat book.

Very thorough, especially with idioms.

So far I've only come across one French "word" that I found in the Grand Robert but not in here: "véronal". And to call that a word is something like calling "kleenex" in English a word.

It costs something, but if you're serious, it will be well worth it: it will save you lots of time.

Very thorough, especially with idioms.

So far I've only come across one French "word" that I found in the Grand Robert but not in here: "véronal". And to call that a word is something like calling "kleenex" in English a word.

It costs something, but if you're serious, it will be well worth it: it will save you lots of time.

Ages 6-12

Introduction to Scientific Journaling
Great First Field Guide -offers Identification of wetland species. Mix of fiction story of girl "pond dipping" and studying the area as well as "punch out" factoids about wetlands.

I definitely recommend this book! It works on many different levels, and you will page through it many times, discovering new surprises with each reading. Kristin's latest book is a fascinating account of how keen observations of Nature can lead to a deeper appreciation. This book is vividly illustrated and describes a journal-making process that is valuable to any teacher or child. A great addition to any Nature-lover's bookshelf!

This 54-page 5-chapter book tells the story of Joe Browder's successful 1969 effort to defeat the planned construction of a major airport 50 miles from Miami in the Big Cypress Swamp. As head of the Miami chapter of the U.S. National Audubon Society, Browder felt that his only chance to stop the destructive development in the swamp would be to gain support from others. He convinced both old-time alligator hunter Gator Bill and Miccosukee chief Buffalo Tiger to join his fight.

Next Browder drafted Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Douglas had written her legendary book, River of Grass, in 1947. He drove her to the site of the jetport, where some trees had already been cut and the swamp drained. She decided then and there to help. The people of Florida could have a jetport or the Everglades, but they couldn't have both. The former, if constructed, would destroy the latter.

Douglas formed the Friends of the Everglades and took the fight to Washington D.C. and then Interior Secretary Walter Hickel and Secretary of Transportation John Volpe. They ordered an environmental study, which found that the jetport would so pollute the Glades' water, its lifeblood, that all wildlife there would be threatened.

At last, Joe Browder too made it to Washington, where he met with President Richard Nixon. Transportation Secretary Volpe supported the jetport, while Interior Secretary Hickel opposed it. Nixon sent his daughter Julie to Florida to see the Everglades. When she returned to Washington, she told her the President that the Everglades were a national treasure. Nixon called a press conference and opposed the jetport.

This is a great book for children, which shows what can one person can accomplish if only he tries. And of course, it extols the virtues of one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Alyssa A. Lappen

While written as a social studies textbook for young children, Save the Everglades is the most accurate account ever published about the time so many years ago when environmentalists, Native Americans and the people who lived and hunted in the Everglades joined together to protect America's most endangered National Park.

Save the Everglades is part of a series of 28 books edited by the late historian Alex Haley (of Roots fame), written to help children understand how change in America is made by real people. Haley placed this book about a conflict between protecting nature and building an aiport in the same category with the series' book about the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott -- books about people working together, making choices about what kind of communities they want to have.

Save the Everglades tells how very different people who all shared a love of nature fought to stop political leaders and real estate developers in Miami, Florida from building what would have been the world's largest airport, just a few miles from Everglades National Park and within the Big Cypress Swamp, the wildest and richest part of the Everglades. Hunters, alligator poachers, Miccosukee Indians, school children and environmental leaders started a national campaign that convinced the President of the United States to withdraw federal money and permits for the airport project, and then to buy the Big Cypress and make it part of the Everglades protected by the National Parks System.

This book is about one of the campaigns that helped bring together the national environmental movement of the 1960s, but the book is also important for people who care about today's environmental issues, because Everglades National Park is, in the year 2000, once more threatened by another airport project sponsored by Miami political leaders and real estate developers. So people in Florida and across America are once more appealing to the President of the United States to Save the Everglades.

To make the publisher's first draft more suitable for children, the author added some false drama (fear of flying) and eliminated some true drama (death plots by real estate promoters, oddly enough referenced inaccurately in a more recent book about Florida, Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief). The writer of this review is also the principal subject of Save the Everglades, and so can personally confirm that with those exceptions, the story is accurate.

Stefan Zweig was not a great character builder or a 'complicated story' teller. His strenght was the short novel stuffed with secret plots, unexpected U-turns and stunning disclosures or endgames, coupled with a good psychological insight.
Some critics called his work 'a heap of superficial effects'.
I don't agee, although he surely has not the depth of a Dostoyevsky.
He was more the master of the operetta, not of the opera. However I must make an exception for his master work 'The World of Yesterday'.

In a natural flowing and enthusiastic style he perfectly sketched his characters and quickly aroused the readers's interest by posing intriguing questions.
The 'Chess Story' is a perfect example of his strenghts, putting the following riddle to the reader: How can a totally unknown person beat a chess world champion?

Read this most intriguing and sometimes harsh pearl of a short novel, which combines anti-totalitarian sentiment, haughtiness and a strong will to survive.

"Die Schachnovelle" or "Chess Short Story" is an excellent little book. As far as I am aware, it is one of the few books in modern German "classic" literature that directly deal with the Nazi past (some others are "Mephisto" by Klaus Mann, "The Seventh Cross" by Anna Seghers, and "The Tin Drum" by Guenther Grass). The "Schachnovelle" is the short story of an Austrian gentleman travelling by ship during the time of the Third Reich. This gentleman is chess amateur. By chance, the unbeaten world champion in chess, an arrogent, conceited, unlikeable man, is also on board the ship. The Austrian gentleman passes his time on board watching chess matches between passengers and the chess master. As the Austrian gets drawn into some losing chess matches between himself with a group of passengers and the chess master, an interesting little man appears in the group just in time to offer the playing passengers asounding insight and advice so that the seemingly hopeless match ends a draw. It becomes clear that the mysterious stranger is a chess guru whose knowledge of the game well exceeds that of the champion. However, the stranger visibly suffers when in contact with chess...it absorbs him and possesses him until he exaustingly pulls himself away. The Austrian traveller notices that the stranger is also Austrian and enters into a discussion with him. Here the stranger recounts his haunting story of how he was arrested by the Nazi Gestapo, put in prison and interrogated day after day, suffering under the physical and psychological pressure of the Nazis. He tells how the sole thing he had in his foresaken prison cell was a book on chess stratagies and manouvers that he had managed to steal during his incarceration. He studied this book inside and out, mentally expanded past its examples and played chess in his mind against himself. Though this kept him sane and able to resist the Nazi's treatment, it eventually became excessive and led to a schizophrenic breakdown as his mind was engaged in a chess battle against itself. Thereafter it was necessary for him to avoid chess like a former drug addict must avoid his drug.
The author, Stefan Zweig, is one of Austria's greatest writers. As a man of culture and a jew, he greatly suffered under the Nazi regime; mostly his suffering was psychological and emotional as he saw his beloved Vienna, Austria, and Europe sink into barbarism. He eventually fled to Brazil where he committed suicide towards the end of World War II.

Edition indispensable des oeuvres de Serlio avec les différentes variantes. un magnifique ouvrage

This first ever translation in English from the original Italian is accompanied plates from Serlio's first editions. Thus it brings for the first time originals of Serlio's remarkable oeuvre to attention of the modern era. Through these five books Serlio had an enormous influence on the Renaissance and Baroque architecture of Northern Europe and the translators Hart and Hicks really bring this most self-effacing of Italian renaissance architects to life. A must for all those fascinated by the Italian renaissance!

This is a wonderful selection of amusing stories, well read by such performers as James Naughton and Jerry Zaks. The selection of stories includes "The Cat that went to Trinity" by Robertson Davies and "The Hector Quesadilla Story" by T.C. Boyle. Also included are stories by Grace Paley, Edna O'Brien, Michael Cunningham and others.

The reviewer below says this Selected Shorts set, Vol 3, is actually about baseball. He refers to another Selected Shorts volume with three discs of baseball stories, which you can look up as: Selected Shorts - Baseball.

First, IGNORE the title shown by Amazon.com. The real title of this set of tape recordings is "Selected Shorts Celebrates Baseball." While the title shown, "spaceball," seems to evoke the 21st century, the baseball short stories read in this tape actually give a great feel for baseball during the 20th century. The set of stories are introduced with great insight and humor by Roger Angell and Bart Giamatti. The short stories include John Updike's well known "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu." Overall, I think this is a great recording and something I listen to every spring. It always gives me a chuckle and makes be appreciate the game of baseball. It also reminds me of all the great baseball writing.

A resource for early English/American geneological research. Great asset, opened a new chapter for us.

The Book "Sir Robert Bell and His Early Virginia Colony Descendants" is a most throughly researched tome. It is a well written history of this clan of Bells. There are dozens of interesting Maps, Charts, and Photos that augment the history. The time line, "Bell Britain-American History, 1520-1790", is helpful relating a time in history with various Bells on both continents. This book has already helped answer a number of questions I have had in my research, and I'm sure it will be of further use in the months to come. I highly recommend the book for those researching with lineage to Sir Robert Bell.

I love mermaids and this little book contains small 3x5 inch cards with J.W. Waterhouse paintings of memaids. All are lovely images. They can be used as note cards or put into tiny frames or on the fridge to remind one of these lovely creatures.

They were really great my niece has loved mermaids all her life she swims like a fish she is now preparing to attend the Coast Guard Officer Training School and these mermaids she can take with her I got these for her birthday.