literature

The editors have thoroughly researched the life and times of L.M. Montgomery. After reading the appendixes in this book I feel much more knowledgeable about L.M. Montgomery, Prince Edward Island and the life of a young girl in a Victorian Canadian villiage.

Due to the nature of the writing in Anne of Green Gables, an annotated edition is especially welcome to fill in the blanks on Canadian politics (What is a "grit?") and social conventions at the time. Reading the annotations increases the pleasure of entering the Anne's world, and that is incredibly important.

Also, of special note and appreciation, many of Anne's favorite obscure poems and readers are included in the back. Finally, you are able to get the whole version of the many quotes that she drops, and see just where she picked up her big words.

The best gift you could get for a true fan of Anne of Green Gables.

This book, however, has a lot more to offer than solely the "most memorized poem" of the English language.

Though it does not state it in the information about this volume, this book contains the complete poems of "The Spell of the Yukon" and "Ballads of a Cheechako." Either of these volumes (in hardback) alone will cost about thirteen dollars (at least at your local bookstore), but this hardbound edition offers much more.

The Kinsey photographs which help fill these pages give us all a more brilliant picture of life in the Yukon gold rush era, and help paint a canvas along with the verses of Robert Service in a cooperative rarely seen in the medium of poetry. Whereas most "gift" or "coffee table" editions of literature, the pictures rarely enhance and often detract from the visual imagery of the poetry. This volume is quite the opposite.

At the price, this is one of the best bargains you will find on Amazon.com. The artistry of the binding and design of the pages would warrant that this book retail at twice the price it does.

I recommend anybody with any interest purchase this book.

They say that Robert Service was not a 'poet's poet'. The effete literati sneered at his work, and accused him of writing doggerel. But, the people have always loved his work. He was truly a 'people's poet.'

His first volume of poetry, The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses, sold out while it was still on the presses. Two of his ballads, The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee, are among the most memorized poems in history.

The Shooting of Dan McGrew alone made him a half-million dollars, which was a sizeable fortune in his time. He never had to do manual labor for his bread again, after its publication.

This volume of his work contains not only all of his best-known poems (those contained in both The Spell of the Yukon and his second, longer collection, Ballads of a Cheechako), but also many of the photographs of the famous Northwestern photographers, Clarke and Clarence Kinsey -- famous not only for the photography of the Klondike gold rush, but also for Clarke's later photographs of Pacific Northwest logging, some of which were included also in my father's book, When Timber Stood Tall.

This is a high quality coffee table book that you will not only delight in reading before the fire on a winter's evening or when that confining office job is getting you down, but it will also display well on your coffee table, where it will draw friends' attention like a magnet.

For Robert Service is, without a doubt, one of the best-loved of the world's poets. His poetry stands alongside that of Kipling, Coleridge and Poe in the public's affection.

Joseph Pierre

Something must be said, however, for those who are NOT aware of the extent of this work. This is not the simple batch of a dozen or so stories -- Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad, and the like -- that most people think it is. This is over 2400 pages of narrative, comprising close on 100 stories -- some of which are themselves as long as novels, and many of which contain smaller stories within themselves. The stories range from the profoundly epic to the delightfully whimsical, and there is variation in mood and length throughout the series that it not only serves as a collection of discrete stories but functions as a unified whole.

As such, the attempt to read the Thousand Nights and One Night in its entirety can not be a halfhearted one. The reader must be prepared to invest considerable time in the reading. The rewards, however, are incalculable. The complete experience has few parallels in fiction, because few works of such volume possess such unity. Reading moves from the hasty and immediate to the comfortable and regular. The difference is akin to that between listening to a 3-minute pop song and listening to a 30-minute symphony. The individual stories fade into memory, retaining their own identities but also falling into place within the whole.

I will not attempt to address the individual stories themselves in any detail. Suffice it to say that they narrate love, lust, sex, war, peace, contemplation, action, commerce, politics, art, science, and many other things, in the spheres of the supernatural and the mundane. The Thousand Nights and One Night is a virtually complete panorama of human existence, with each story a component scene.

I will, though, address the issue of translation. I have perused other editions of the tales in varying degrees (although this is the only one I have read completely). In the first place, any translation which omits some stories is not worth consideration. Although there is some controversy over whether Richard Burton (the first to translate the tales into English) corrupted the original text and inserted spurious parts, there is nothing to be gained by being persnickety in this regard. This edition contains more tales than most others I have seen, and therefore is more likely to contain the "right" tales somewhere inside. On a less abstract level, this text is simply more fun to read than most others, and, as mentioned, there is more of that fun text to be read.

Also, it can be plausibly speculated that this translation is particularly likely to have fewer Burton-induced inaccuracies, since it is not in fact a direct translation from Arabic to English. This 4-volume edition is a translation into English, by Powys Mathers, of a French translation, by J. C. Mardrus, of the original Arabic. It is somewhat surprising that an indirect translation such as this should be of such high quality, but I have found it to be so. In particular, this Mardrus & Mathers version includes substantial verse passages (which in other translations are often rendered as prose) and is refreshingly frank in its translation of the more ribald passages (which are numerous).

The Thousand Nights and One Night is not merely a book that can be read; it is a world which can be experienced, and the memories of that experience can mingle almost indistinguishably with memories of reality. Only a work of this size can work on large and small levels, with many intricate details but also many large thematic components. As an added benefit, by the time you have finished reading the fourth volume, your memories of the first will be fading, so you can begin a new reading immediately, and experience the joys of the Thousand Nights and One Night all over again.

Evaluation: Amazing Grace is a lovely picture book story that stars a feisty heroine. The watercolor illustrations of Caroline Binch are as vibrant and real as Grace herself, and they reinforce the plot by depicting aspects of Grace’s life with Ma and Nana, and how Grace enthusiastically acts out the characters she loves. The illustrations are particularly effective in communicating the movement and color that characterize the world of Grace’s imagination. Young readers will relate well to both Grace and to her story. Grace is the kind of person that many of us â€"kids and adults alike-- long to be: a fun, take-charge kind of girl who sees life as an exciting adventure. Grace’s story, though simple enough to be told in a picture book, incorporates some traditional plot elements, including a problem for the heroine to overcome and a resolution to that problem. Amazing Grace would be a good addition to Kindergarten through 2nd grade reading curriculum for several reasons. It brings multi-culturalism into the classroom through its dynamic main character. It tells a positive message story about a girl who follows her dreams, without being preachy. And, it includes eye-catching illustrations that bring the heroine and her story to life.

As one turns the pages of this beautifully illustrated book, one can enjoy the little girl's imaginary adventures. When Grace learns of the part in "Peter Pan," the reader is able to identify with this as a part of school life. The illustrator has also balanced the classroom with children of varied ethnic and racial backgrounds. This is a plus in the age of being "politically correct."

The language of the book is reflective with the age of the intended reading audience. With a little adult help, the average primary child will "read" this one with great relish.

The resolve of the adults in the family to encourage Grace in pursuit of her dreams is refreshing. Most of us let barriers prevent us from doing the same.

This is one great children's book!

As the mom of a very creative child, I appreciate the realism offered via every illustration. The watercolor drawings by illustrator Caroline Binch captivate the reader, child or adult. The detail is remarkable, adding immense compliment to the story. I appreciate the realistic expressions on each character. After the initial read, I gazed back at each illustration. In addition to facial detail, the props within the pictures are realistic. It is no surprise that this book is a Reading Rainbow Book.

On the page in which Grace is acting Anansi the Spider, we see her on a schoolyard type of bar. She is looking forward, her eyes exhibit a serious glare, her feet dangle with confidence, and her arms are postured in a stern manner. This child has a mismatched outfit, her right tennis shoe is untied, and she is using pantyhose for the webs. This illustration supports the text, "...and wove a wicked web as Anansi the Spider." But more importantly this - and other - illustrations show true childlike creativity unfolding. This is a mere example of the multiple high quality drawings.

After initial read of Amazing Grace, My daughter told me that she thought it was really sad that the classmates questioned Graces ability to be Peter Pan. This led to open discussion with regard to gender and race prejudice. Thankfully my daughter doesn't exhibit prejudice thoughts, but this story allowed her to realize that some children are subjected to prejudicial judgment of others.

When I asked My daughter what she liked about this book, she told me that she likes Grace. She expanded on this by telling me that Grace has a lot of fun, has a Mom and Grandma that love her, and that Grace does what she wants to do. In addition she told me, "The pictures are beautiful Mom!"

There are multiple messages in this story. Overall my reasoning for adoring Amazing Grace is that the tale is good and the illustrations are superb. But the true measure of success is based on the reaction that my child has. It is books like this that lend toward my 7-year-old maintaining adoration for the written word.

There is something unique about the works of Edward Albee, a kind of mood, or wry-but-not-entirely-dry attitude, one recognizes but can't quite put his finger on. This "story" of a suburbanite with two daughters minding his own business on a park bench who is accosted by a poorer but somehow wiser man who has been at the zoo was Edward Albee's first play to be seen by the public. Dating from 1958, the one-act play, which like much of Albee's work seems to deftly mix absurdist elements with an intimate rendering of the American bourgoisie--and a sort of silent, if perhaps ironical, nod to mystical Christianity--he reminds me of a dramaturgic Saint Francis of Assisi--was first seen in Berlin. As in Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf? and The Goat, the object of desire is off stage, at least until the end, at which point "its" "retrieval" reveals a generalized dissatisfaction which the playwright allows to be dispersed as satisfaction after all, in conformity with the peculiarities of human desire and the conventions of literary endings. This two-man play seems to work largely because the older, more well-to-do man, Peter-a kind of icon of smug suburbanite self-satisfaction, who wants to be entertained, as it were, from the outside--is drawn in--across the white picket fence, or here, the green slatted Central Park bench--to the life of the slightly younger Jerry--a sort of stand--in it would seem for the playwrite, and his dramatic task to involve us all in a participatory experience this side--or perhaps a little more--of religion.

The American Dream

Although I have read/seen only four of Albee's works (Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf, Zoo Story, and The Goat), this seems to me the work of his that owes most to-or is closest to- the theater of the absurd-particularly to Samuel Beckett. And yet, as the title suggests, the work is far more American-down home, you might say-and so is the humor. The main characters are "Mommy," "Daddy" and "Grandma"-and Grandma is a scream. Her brilliant, if irascible, wit contains some brilliant, if not exactly unbiased, observations on the treatment of, expectations from, and inner reality of, the elderly. She comes off as the most intelligent person in the play, and the one we identify with the most-even if her metaphysical capacities for hiding objects, forgetting who her strumpet daughter is, and desiring with spiritual ardor the flesh of the young who may or may not be her own are not necessarily everyone's instantiation of satisfaction's successful pursuit.

I don't really have a lot to say. It's not a book that I can enthusiastically applaud, but I won't say it was horrible. I would advise you to just read it for yourself and decide whether you like it or not! : )

Judy spends the duration of the story struggling over her brother's untimely death and trying to find some catharsis through her music and up-and-coming fame in her rock band Wedding Night. At the same time, a love triangle develops between her and one of her band mates (Mark the Music) and Nick Praetorious, the quintessential "bad boy" rock singer they tour with. How this hot-and-cold relationship draws out and concludes is quite satisfying for any romantic. Judy, especially, is a remarkable character--she's extremely bright and independent, and like in the book, other young women will want to be her.

This is one of the best contemporary young adult novels I've read in awhile. It's fast paced, touching and deep, and suitable for the slightly older teen crowd due to some mature themes. In fact, the book seemed to be written from a much older character's point of view than from a 16-year-old's. At times, I couldn't connect her age and actions together, but I loved this book regardless. Recommended.