european

This movie and book is not about lesbian or transexual. Rather how women were treated in Judiasm. More about feminism. I suggest you go on jewish websites on woman and jewish society. A woman could not study with men, men can't touch women and that still happens today in different orthodox sects,hassidic,or labavitch. Women dont study with men only with women, but that is new, women are still separated by a curtain because this will distract men with their prayers. etc

As I said, I haven't read the book. However, I saw the movie and knew nothing of what the book version had to say. It never ocurred to me that she,Yentl, had any identity crisis of any kind. She was a woman ahead of her time who just wanted to study the bible with the same freedom that Men had and still have. I am not Jewish, but Christian, and I could well identify with her thirst for knowledge. I don't KNOW what IBS had in mind but I think we all pretty much have to draw our own conclusions.

There is a review on this site, dreamed up by some idiot who saw this movie and book, as being about a transsexual. Said something about mistakes that God made, etc. That person should be shot ! The story is about how women were oppressed, not allowed to study, only to read "picture books". It told of a courageous who knew his daughter had a thirst for knowledge and taught her in secret. When he passed away, she had no choice, she had to get an education....she was a beautiful, intelligent woman, not content to JUST cook and clean house. She wanted, needed to learn. She is to be applauded, not called a transsexual. She was always a woman...never was that in doubt. Meeting her learning partner, falling in love with him, afraid to tell him the truth, that she was a woman, made for an incredible and moving story. YENTL is my second favourite movie of all time. I have seen it 132 times, and know the lyrics to all the songs...and all the dialogue. (I give it more than 5 stars)

Did your family eat prakke, holishkes, golobtzes, huloptches, or just staffed cabbage?? Read this book and learn what this means about your family's history. This book is complete. Let me put it this way; there are 22 noodle-kugel-lokshen recipes and 7, count them, 7 recipes for chicken soup in this definitive book of classic Ash-kenazic Jewish cuisine. He includes maps of the Yiddish speaking areas of Europe and a pronunciation guide. Not only is the book filled with recipes and Yiddish aphorisms, but the author analyzes the history of the Jews through their language and cuisine. For exmaple, in his analysis of Lithuania and Northern Poland (an area known as Litteh), the popular herbs are understated dill and sorrel. Salmon and herring were the fishes used, and the starch was potato. Thus Jews from the area made the best potato kugels. But for non-potato breads, the best Jewish area was the Ukraine, which perfected black breads, challahs and bagels. Beet borsht eaters were mainly in the Ukraine, fruit soup eaters were in Litteh. Get the idea? If your gefilte fish was peppery, think Litteh; if it was sugar sweet, think Galitzia and southern Poland and Hungary. Either way... u have good cooking ahead for u with this book

This book doesn't have the glossy pictures or fancy covers that you often see in cookbooks these days, but the content is superb. The recipes are beautiful, and strike me as authentic. The best part of the book, though, are the stories the author writes that put the food into the context of Ashkenazi Jewish culture. As a non-Jew, I found Sternberg's stories and sidebars both fascinating and intimate. I've other books on Jewish food, and this is the only one I use regularly.

This is a wonderful cookbook -- both for the recipes and for the rich cultural heritage it paints. We got this book half price a long time ago and liked it so much, we bought 8 more copies to give to friends and relatives. It's really that good.

Brother Lewis has done a great service for the Trans communite, he has Revealed what many whoud Hide. The Greeks did not invent Truth it happend in Afrika.
Especially it is True that Pig not Horse was the first Totum.
Yeah!

This review is entitled "Confirmation" because it serves to confirm or ratify what, intuitively, I have felt for as long as I can recall. Having been raised in a strongly religious family, I have been exposed to various versions of the Holy Bible, all of which tended to depict and illustrate all personalities with white faces. Given that all of the accounts in the Bible took place on the continent of Africa, prior to the arrival of any significant numbers of Europeans, it was very difficult for me to accept that none of the major figures in the Bible was Black, yet that is what is portrayed. Although I felt that something was "wrong with this picture", I had no way to refute it, and in fact, was reluctant to voice it among some of my own friends and elders who would have deemed such thoughts as sacrilegious, or worse. It still bothered me, nonetheless. As my educational experiences progressed, I had increasing difficulty reconciling what was thrust upon me by the media, those omnipresent Bible illustrations, TV Evangelists, and others who perpetuated the same notion that all of the personalities in the Bible were white. I began to research on my own, and with the advent of the Internet, other avenues were opened to me. I have read a number of other treatises and writings by other distinguished Black religious scholars on the issue of the Black presence in the Bible, all of which enlightened me, and at the same time gave me a deep sense of "connection" with those Biblical personalities, as well as a sense of pride. On the other hand, it also aroused in me a sense of anger and frustration, as it confirmed to me that religious history, just as history in general, has been manipulated, twisted, distorted, and violated for the very sinister and express purpose of discrediting a People and robbing them of a very rich heritage and perpetuating a myth of so-called "superiority". This book should be mandatory reading, not just for Blacks, but for whites, as well, who have themselves been, in the words of Carter G. Woodson, "miseducated". I applaud Dr. Johnson and his colleagues, who are making an invaluable contribution to the telling of OUR history, as too often the euphamism that history is simply "his story" as it pertains to Blacks, is validated over and over. My record will reflect that I have ordered multiple copies of this book in the past, and am at this writing ordering several more copies. They make great gifts, and I can't imagine a better gift than the gift of truth.

very informative , and very real .with bibical scriptures to backup these claims.but most of all it is true ,and common sense.why would africa be inhabited by caucasion ,and how could cleopatra be exotic and caucasion.especially the very hot and dry climate.caucasion skin is much to thin made for colder climates.it is an exellent research on the history of african race in the bible and lets people see that they were around then and will continue to be

Just a follow up to a previous poster, ISBN 1879751372 is the translation by Schultz-Behrend (the one you consider poor).

The other reviewer is much more knowledgeable than I am. All I can say is that I found this book, regardless of the translator, hilarious and remarkably rich. It tends to drag a little if you read too much at once but is great fun when you spread the sections across a number of days. Very readable and wicked clever.

Simplicius Simplicissimus is an artful and stunningly humorous account of the adventures of naive and utterly simple idiot boy who acquires a rich knowledge of life through a series of amazing adventures. This book was written in 1669 - nearly 100 years prior to Voltaire's Candide. Unfortunately, Amazon.com does not list the name of the translator of the offered edition. There are several English language translations available. The British translation by Walter Wallich is excellent and true to the original, preserving both the author's wit and creative prose. An American translation by George Schulz-Behrend is utterly lamentable and should be avoided at all costs - it completely sterilizes the author's humor and has the appearance of having been translated under the close and fastidious censorship of a puritan sect. It is not advisable to purchase the version offered by amazon.com, unless and until they can clearly specify the name of the translator.

"All This Reading" is an essential addition to the libraries of Barbara Pym fans and an engaging introduction to Pym for new readers. The collection of essays features wise and sensitive insights into the theme of reading in Pym's books. Part I addresses this theme with a variety of topics, from "Love Like Bedsocks" to ". . . Metaphors of Aging and Death". Part II presents fascinating personal and literary encounters with Pym and her writing, including 'My First Reader' by Hazel Holt, Pym's long time friend and literary executor, and 'Barbara Pym as Comforter' by John Bayley, whose essay ends with a poignant personal note about the importance of Pym's novels to him and his wife, the novelist Iris Murdoch, who died in 1999.

The expertly compiled index by Hazel Bell, in addition to serving as the indispensable tool for locating references and topics, provides an revealing look at the wide range of motifs and people mentioned by Pym and her readers, from anthropology to writers and writing, from Jane Austen to Charlotte Yonge.

This is a book to keep close at hand -- readers will find themselves dipping into it repeatedly for diversion, instruction, entertainment, and contemplation.

In 1980, when Jane Nardin first came across the novels of Barbara Pym, as she remarks, 'almost no literary criticism had yet been written' of Pym's work, while Dale Salwak, in his epilogue to All This Reading, records the 'appearance since 1985 of twenty full-length book studies or anthologies, with more soon to arrive'. An extraordinary growth of interest, which is now further reflected in the publication of this stimulating collection of nineteen new essays. Part I examines the significance of reading in the novels; Part II is devoted to literary encounters and collaborations in Pym's life and works. Hazel Bell's index successfully draws together the threads running through the contributions by various hands, allowing the reader to trace, for example, references to spinsterhood in the essays of Frauke Elisabeth Lenckos, Katherine Anne Ackley, Barbara Everett, Helen Clare Taylor, Anthony Kaufman, Anne Pilgrim and Barbara Dunlap.

In attempts to pin down Pym's special quality as a novelist, she has been compared to, and with, a quite disparate list of writers, from Jane Austen to Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth von Arnim, E. M. Delafield and a whole host of other names, many listed by Lenckos in her introduction. Kaufman compares the rivalry of Belinda and Agatha in Some Tame Gazelle to the humour of E. F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia, and Everett commends Pym's 'high originality' which sets her fiction 'far above the intransigently reactionary ... Angela Thirkell'. Dunlap, tracing the influence on Pym of Charlotte M. Yonge, asserts that 'Pym's fiction is steeped in the work of Yonge' (even the unusual name of the heroine of A Glass of Blessings, Wilmet, is borrowed from a very different heroine of Yonge's).

To what extent are Pym's novels autobiographical, and her well-read heroines reflections of herself? Orphia Jane Allen, writing on 'Reading Pym Autobiographically', comments that 'Pym was aware that she could permit herself to become like Leonora' (in The Sweet Dove Died), but Leonora represents only 'one of the directions an aging, unmarried woman's life could take'. The most obvious incarnation of Pym's own personality is Belinda in Some Tame Gazelle, with her near-obsessive love of literary quotation. Pilgrim notes that, while Archdeacon Hoccleve and Bishop Grote quote aloud, sometimes not very felicitously, and Harriet 'tends to be oblivious to literary references', Belinda 'hardly ever quotes aloud, but silently recollects and meditates upon scores of passages, many of them quite obscure', and Nardin also finds significance in the fact that Belinda keeps her literary references to herself, 'restrained by a sense of personal modesty and strict propriety at once pathological and deeply lovable'. In being made privy to Belinda's interior monologue, the reader is at the same time granted access to the author's own stream of consciousness.

As Ackley points out, Pym 'often blurs the distinction between literature and life', suggesting in various ways that some of her characters have lives outside her fictional world. Dulcie in No Fond Return of Love, who cannot resist prying into people's lives, finds it 'so much safer and more comfortable to live in the lives of others'. Pym's characters, says Ackley, 'view the world as if they, too, were writers', and Nardin writes that 'in Pym's novels, there is a tension between the impulse to read and the impulse to contextualize or interpret'.

The inner monologues of Pym's heroines reveal her own uncertainties and need for reassurance. Pilgrim comments on Belinda's habitual alternation between self-doubt, 'expressed in her diffidence, timidity and constant anxiety', and self-confidence. Everett remarks on the unpretentiousness of Pym's early novels, and adds that the modesty of her approach 'possibly worked to Pym's disadvantage during the period when her manuscripts were being rejected' and 'makes her too easy to dismiss now'. Surveying the six earlier novels, she considers these thoroughly enjoyable but 'probably minor art', while Quartet in Autumn is to her mind a major work. She finds Excellent Women the 'most accomplished,... the most admirably competent', and has a kind word for An Unsuitable Attachment - it 'has a first-rate cat and a wholly believable public library'.

These are only some examples of the many rich insights provided by All This Reading. Further pleasures are provided in the second part of the volume, such as the reproduction in the essay by Paul De Angelis of Pym's letters to him of 1978-9, almost up to the time of her death in January 1980, and of A Year in West Oxfordshire, Pym's contribution to Ronald Blythe's anthology Places of 1981.

Janice Rossen's essay, 'Philip Larkin: Barbara Pym's Ideal Reader', discusses the crucial role played by 'virtually the only fellow writer with whom she discussed her work in progress'. Larkin's influence and advice were clearly of great importance to her: not only was he able to give her very specific and practical advice, but he was a writer of established reputation who treated her as an equal and gave her 'constant reassurances that her work was of extraordinary value'.

And not least, there is an account of thirty years of friendship and collaboration by Hazel Holt, Pym's literary executor, who tells us that she no longer reads Barbara Pym. 'I don't need to. ...once you've read the novels, she is with you forever.'

Eudora Welty found Pym's novels to be "quiet, paradoxical and sad." I think she described them perfectly. All this Reading explores the life, novels and publication of Pym. The book comprises a series of essays by many distinguised contributors. Educated at St. Hilda's college, Osford, she joined the Wrens during WWII and was posted to Naples. Her novels draw on her circle of college friends and her military life. Her writing highlights the theme "only connect" from Howard's End by Forster.
In Katherine Ackley's essay, she suggests Pym's characters are devoted to literature. They recite passages from an Austen novel or a Donne poem. Literature is a source of comfort to them. In John Bayley's essay, he further seees Pym as a comforter. He expands upon Matthew Arnold's theme that great art calms and comforts us, and he cites Pym as such a writer. Bayley notes that Pym's confidence about the sexes comes "from her sense of the arbitrary, almost ruthless, way they join up."
In "A Life Ruined by Literature", Elisabeth Lenckos argues that reading is a central theme in Pym's novels. The related topics of reading, romance and redemption are central in her novels. In A Few Green Leaves, the heroine Emma Howick recalls Austen's Emma. She stars in her own drama of misplaced affection, rejection and humiliation before leaving romantic fantasy behind. Lenckos suggests that Pym's world is like Austen's where the gentlewomen of reduced circumstances in post-war England have moved from manor houses to village cottages, and work part time in gentile jobs as librarians, clerks and social helpers.. "Like Austen's heroines their desire is to find a loving partner with whom to share life...." Those who love literature will find the nineteen essays in All this Reading satisfy every taste in a fine collection.

Anyone who wants to understand the history of "French theory" would be well advised to start with Philip Watts's important study of French writers and intellectuals (Sartre, Celine, Duras, Blanchot, and Eluard) caught up in the period known as the Purge, when some 350,000 French citizens were judged for acts of collaboration with the Nazi occupier. Sartre calls for a commited, responsible literature, while Celine clings defensively to style over ideas, and so the stage is set for a debate over the role of the writer that is still raging. Watts reminds us that the literary and philosophical classics we read today were born in a period when words could cost you your life. This is a brilliant essay, elegant and probing. I recommend it not only to students of France but to anyone interested in the interplay of politics, literature, and justice.

A clearly written work on the difficulty of separating art and literature from reality. How far should "art for art's sake" be allowed to go? How far can anyone distance himself from reality? Watts has done an excellent job of analyzing the works of four authors in relation to the reality of the postwar purge, and of dealing with the difficulty of remembering that in this century, in a democratic country, authors could be - and were - executed for their writings. Allegories of the Purge is a very intelligent, well-written work which gives the reader a new and important view of post-war France.

This remarkable study explores the complex interaction which took place in France, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, between the purge trials and literary theory. As French collaborationist writers were tried for treason and intelligence with the ennemy, prosecutors and defenders debated over the role of literature, and the role of the intellectual, in modern societies. After presenting and explaining the stakes of these debates, Phil Watts analyzes how novelists and poets have echoed (and sometimes anticipated) either side of the arguments in their literary works. Celine, Sartre, Blanchot, Eluard are interpreted in a new and powerful perspective which also offers the reader invaluable insights into the literary and intellectual debates held in France during the 1960s and 1970s, all the way to recent events like the Paul De Man affair.

Should civilized nations kill their poets? Certainly not. Should these poets be above the law for the sake of the autonomy of literature, even after they fed and led the anti-Semitic hysteria? "Allegories of the Purge" raises a whole set of fascinating questions at the crossroads of history, literary theory, politics and ethics, without ever succumbing to the temptation of providing oversimplified answers, but avoiding with equal mastery all the traps of escapism. A brilliant and stimulating book!

This book gives the reader an insight into a fresh and new yet contradictory view on EUROPEAN CONSTRUCTIONS of the AFRICAN BODY. A great read.

A very sophisticated piece of work. With great insght into many medical/historical perceptions and social mechanisms!
Absolutely Stunning!

P.S: Looking forward to another one.

A disquieting and destabilising experience is what I was left with after reading Butchart's Anatomy of Power. On beginning the book, I at first thought that it was just another social history, albeit incredibly detailed in its probing of what doctors did in the name of science. But, as a I read on, the commanding thesis of the work took ever greater shape, and by the end I was as convinced as Butchart is of the argument that without the socio-medical sciences there can be no bodies at all. This leaves one with a real dilemma in terms of what to do in terms of liberation and the struggle against oppression. While the book doesn't answer this key question, it surely poses it with a greater degree of lucidity and insight than many other books about Africa, colonialism and liberation.

Highly recommended!

Daniel Kuhlmann, Stockholm

An awesome book. Let's just say that our tour guide in Greece use this book as a reference. As an educator I found this book to be extrememly useful. How many of us actually knew that all these marble ruins were fully painted in their prime? The overlays and information are wonderful. Highly recommended.

I first saw this book while on vacation in Greece...Naturally, I looked up the places my husband and I had visited and the book portrays them beautifully! There's great historical detail in the text as well as outstandingly accurate illustrations of prominent Greek sites and monuments. The 'see-through' pages give an incredible glimpse of what ancient Greece looked like over 2000 years ago. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who has been to Greece, wants to go to Greece or is studying Greece. It is written for all ages! For any educator teaching Greek history this would be a highly useful 'textbook'.Enjoy!

This beautiful book has full page color photos of the ruins of ancient Greek temples and theaters, with transparent overlays filling in how these magnificent buildings would have looked when first built. It includes photos of statues and architectural details, with a general overview of ancient Greek history and explanations of the buildings' purposes and histories. Most of the buildings shown are on mainland Greece, but the Palace at Knossos and the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos are also included. These buildings are spectacular!

You definitely won't regret buying this book. It has interesting historical information as well as pictures on what is Rome all about. It helps a lot to see what the places looked like when they was first built, and what is left of them today. I think the price for this book is a little steep. I mean considering that when I was in Rome in September 2003 it was sold right by the calcium for 10 euros. So you be the judge. But over all, from most of the books that were sold around this one left the most impression.

I purchased a pocket size copy of this book in Rome on holiday It was great help to understand what we were looking at and we could see how it did look in the past. When we got home it was great helping us understanding and labeling our own pictures. I even included past pictures next to the ones I had taken to complete my own album. It is great when watching our videos and people ask what different buildings are.

Marylou

Ancient Rome: Monuments Past and Present is a very interesting book. It is very useful in visually learning about the monuments of Rome such as: the Colosseum, the individual buildings in the Forum, the Circus Maximus, Hadrian's castle, and other ancient ruins. The pictures and models are very useful in comparing and contrasting the present to the past. However, this book is not ideal for finding extremely in-depth information on each ruin, only the general is covered. I would definately recommend this book for someone visiting Rome or a curious intellectual striving for more knowledge in a fun way.

Initially published in 1972, this anthology stands as one of the first to introduce English-speaking countries to Brazilian modern poetry. Fourteen poets in all are represented, a few more heavily than others (with Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Joao Cabral De Melo Neto receiving nearly half of the space of the book.) Aside from this imbalance, it introduces many poets who are still unfairly obscure in English-speaking countries, even among those with an extensive grasp of modern poetry. Like any great anthology, it has since prompted a few publishers to release book length works of individual poets, esp. Manuel Bandeira, Joao Cabral de Melo Neto & Carlos Drummond de Andrade. Unfortunately, the poets who caught my attention the most such as Murilo Mendes, Cecilia Meireles & Vinicius de Moraes have not received the same attention due to them. From lyrical incantations & meditations of love through pieces of anguish, they prove that they are just as competent to write on these subjects as the world's other great poets. The multiplicity of voices & styles so noticeable in this anthology, proves that Brazil's modern poetry deserves a lot more notice and consideration.In "The End of the World" Joao Cabral de Melo Neto writes, "Instead of the last judgment, what worries me/ is the final dream." This anthology will provide us with numerous dreams for a long time.

Also highly recommended-the recently release "Pip Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century Volume 3: 20 Contemporary Brazilian Poets" pub. Green Integer.

Not only does this book (edited by no less an authority on poetry and Brazil than Elizabeth Bishop) contain poems by such greats as Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinícius de Moraes, João Cabral de Melo Neto and Manuel Bandeira-- but it has on the facing page translations by such respected greats as James Merill, W.S. Merwin, Mark Strand and Bishop.

The selections are neither too much nor too little. If, like me, you are learning Portuguese, the originals can be studied easily. The quality of the English translations is exceptionally high, many of them great poems in their own right. I credit Bishop and her co-editor Emanuel Brasil, whose introduction is brief and effectively sets the scene.

In Brazil, poetry is widely respected and read. The poets in this anthology are part of the generation that has broken away from the more rigid forms and themes of Portuguese and continental poetry. Poets like Vinícius de Moraes deserve to be known for more than writing the lyrics to "Girl from Ipanema" (he needed the money). This is their due. This anthology has introduced me to several poets I now plan to explore in greater depth.

Brazil is famous for its gems. It is clear this literary gem comes from a very rich mine.

This collection is an absolute classic and is particularly recommended to anyone learning Portuguese. How often are readers of English able to see both the original text and brilliant translated verse? And the selections are magnificent, from Oswald de Andrade to Vinicius de Moraes and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, many of the poets most influential both in literary circles and on the Brazilian songwriters who seem to be more and more prominent on the world stage. Also worth noting are the spectacular poets credited as translators: Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill, W.S. Merwin, Richard Wilbur...

The poems are broadly chosen, from playful to mournful. Many are unforgettable. Highest recommendation I can give is that it influenced my decision to learn Portuguese.