English Classics Books

My son and I had checked this book out from the public library and he loved it! He was so upset when we had to take it back so I decided to look online. We love Mexican food/culture and he thinks it's so funny after knowing the original song!I was so happy to have found it for his birthday!

I heard this book from the bookmobile librarian. I thought it was so fun, that I ordered it the next day!
Great new lyrics to an old song. The preschoolers at our school loved it.

This book resembles the old western train ride at Disneyland before they transformed it into "Big Thunder Mountain Railroad." The opening pages have the same desert canyon terrain and hues of tan, umber, gold, yellow, orange, and purple. Illustrator Ashley Wolff places mountain goats in strategic locations (e.g., on top of boulders and natural terraces), an armadillo and a chipmunk read on top of a cactus, and pigs fish off a bridge. You almost expect one of the animals to jump off the page, slowly turned its head at you, and talk in an electronic voice. This is not a criticism, however; the relaxed tone and elements of fantasy tell you not to take it too seriously.

A cowboy-hatted, banjo-playing frog starts singing "She'll be comin' `round the mountain when she comes," and we see a red and white camper truck slowly approaching over wooden bridges and through cement tunnels. As we view the frog in the foreground, and the almost mythic John Ford-like western landscape in the background, we can also look "down" at the old town nestled at the bottom of these mountains. Illustrator Wolff`s pictures capture a perspective as wide and long as the canyon itself.

The story slowly unfolds through the frog's modified song lyrics, the activities in the old town, and the tension built through the approaching truck. We learn gradually that the animals are preparing for a big reception in the town center and cleaning up the best room in town to get ready when the mysterious "she" comes. Food is very, very important too: The skunks, foxes, and other animals are getting the salsa, rice, candy and other food ready:

"We'll cook her favorite taco while she's here.
We'll mash an avocado while she's here.
We'll make an enchilada and a lovely ensalada,
Then we'll all drink fruitilada while she's here."

In a wild scene again reminiscent of Disneyland, the critters are shown singing, dancing, and generally whooping it up on an adobe house decorated with red chilies--just as the camper truck is on the home stretch to town. Finally, we're at the climax. Everybody is singing and eating, dancing and snuggling, roasting marshmallows and even reading when the big truck rolls into late night "Reederville." Finally, we're about to find the answer to the big question: Just who have they been waiting and preparing and celebrating for, what is that truck, and who is driving it?

In a truly great surprise ending, we find out the driver is a pig, and the truck in a bookmobile named the "Six White Horses." The animals wait in line as the brightly dressed pig hands out books, and the bookmobile is decorated with bumper stickers such as, "If You Can Read This, Thank a Teacher!" Twenty-eight colorful and rollicking pages, with an afterward that tells the origin of the song. One of 2004's best books; you'll have lots of fun reading this enchanting story aloud or to yourself.

"Fruitilada" is a drink made from a combination of fruits (fruit salad) which have been liquified and sugar, water and ice is added to the mixture. The word is a combination of English and Spanish. Lada is from "helada" which means cold, or from ensalada which means salad.

My two year old can almost recite this book. It is not the song we've all heard but a funny take on it. We borrowed it from the library and had to eventually purchase our own copy. It is very fun to read and sing!

Sherlock Holmes will forever be one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. No study of the character of a detective can begin anywhere but with a reading of some of the Holmes stories. This book is a collection of six considered among the greatest and I cannot argue with any of the selections. They are:

*) A Scandal in Bohemia
*) The Red-headed League
*) The Adventure of the Speckled Band
*) The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb
*) The Final Problem
*) The Adventure of the Empty House

This book is an excellent supplemental text for classes in fiction or for someone who wants to read some of the Holmes' stories. Another advantage of the Holmes stories is that they set a context that has validity for classes in history as well.

One of those most excellent cheap Dover paperbacks, so yet again I bought some Sherlock Holmes, with another order from there.


A Scandal in Bohemia
The Red-Headed League,
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb
The Final Problem
The Adventure of the Empty House


A woman? Smart as me?

5 out of 5


Bloodnut scammer bonanza.

4.5 out of 5


Sneaky snakey stuff.

5 out of 5


Secret commerce leads to deathtrap digit detachment.

4 out of 5


Moriarty. Cliff! Or, Don't Push Me Coz I'm Close To the Edge.

5 out of 5


Murder, Moran and Moriarty = Holmes Back In Town.

5 out of 5

For less then the price of a cup of coffee, you can own a copy of what I consider to be Sir A Conan Doyle's best Sherlock Holmes stories.

This book contains 6 stores. A Scandal in Bohemia. In this story you see Holmes pitted against a female that may just be his equal.

Next is The Red Headed League. This is the weak story in this collection. Still worth a read, but not a very thoughtful one.

Next is The Adventure of the Speckled Band. Holmes and Watson visit the countryside to examine a death most foul.

The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb is a short tale of a young mans missing digit.

Next is the final problem and closes with The adventure in the Empty house. I will give no plot away on these since they are my favourite Holmes stories.

Overall for under a buck, a GREAT value!

The Dover-Thrift edition of Sherlock Holmes advertised here is quite worth the pocket change, containing some of my favorite Holmes short stories including "The Red-headed League" and "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." I'll keep this simple; whether you like Sherlock Holmes or not, you should get these six classic stories under your belt. If you haven't read Doyle, this is a great book to read to see if you like the classic Doyle series.

In detective literature Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with his Sherlock Holmes series is undoubtedly one of the best authors ever. His character Sherlock Holmes has a remarkable power of observation and his deductions from minutest details are plainly stunning. I feel there never is a dull moment in his stories; which are concise to the point. This compilation of six stories is no exception. My favorite from this list is "The Adventure of the Empty House"; in which Holmes busts the remaining group of Prof Moriati's gang. I will not divulge further for fear of giving up the plot.

Very good translation and excellent hardbound edition of some of the best plays ever written.

If you haven't read anything by Sophocles and want to read him for fun, I'd suggest getting the Fagles translations of the Theban plays, followed by the Sophocles II volume published by University of Chicago. That will get you every complete play we have by him and is a good way to start.

However, if you've read one (or even all) of the plays in this volume, know some Greek, and want to go a bit deeper, this is the book you're looking for. The translations in this volume are extremely, almost unusually, literal. While the two most prominent translations (Fagles and Greene) waver from the text at times for poetic value, Lloyd-Jones does nothing of the sort. For the most part, what you see on the left side is as close as it gets in English to the Greek on the right side. This is really helpful for those who know enough Greek to be curious about what Sophocles is up to but not enough to actually read the text in the Greek without a lexicon.

I generally see Loeb books as investments, due to their high costs. This is one investment that has paid off for me. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Oedipus the King, Ajax, or Electra (although let's be honest: you probably want this more for Oedipus the King than for the other two plays).

This play is a fantastic view at what some ancient people in Athens thought about their leader Pericles. I love this play, and can only justify Loeb Classics as the best text. I challenge anyone to read this play and not feel a strange need to wickedly laugh out loud as the story unfolds.

I honestly enjoyed reading these plays. Especially the first and third. The translation is easy to read and flows really well. I picked these up to supplement some lines of study that I'm pursuing but ended up enjoying them in their own right and for the purposes natural to them. These are not dusty old dry plays - exactly the opposite - these are vibrant introductions to the ancient greek world. I highly recommend you read these - and I recommend this edition and most especially the wonderful translation.

Sophocles is the master of Greek drama and a master at contstructing a plot. Antigone is excellent and turns into an amazing story that leaves you rethinking just who the "tragic hero" of the play is. Oedipus at Colonus is perhaps the saddest play of the so called "Oedipus Cycle". Yet, in a way, it has a very redeeming end. This is a great edition because, of course like all the Loeb series, it also has the Greek.

This book became an immediate favorite of mine ever since I picked up a copy of it a couple of years ago. Stunning poems from the Shiva bhakti tradition of India. Basavanna, Devara Dasimayya, Mahadevi, Allama Prabhu. The commentary in the book, though a little academic, is genuinely insightful. Enthusiastically recommended!

This book contains the most moving, personal theistic poetry I have ever read. I re-read it constantly, and have begun buying copies for my close friends. Basavanna and his Virasaiva followers shattered the caste barriers (which do not exist in the Vedas anyhow), and went on to shatter economic and gender barriers. The actions of these saints elaborates their poetry rather than contradicting it. If you don't buy this book, there will be more copies for me.

This poetry is of the 10th century Bhakti, or devotional yogic tradition, which eschewed academic traditions of prosody and style ("...I don't know anything about meter/ I don't know anything of rhyme/ As nothing will hurt you, My Lord Siva, I'll sing as I love..." one poet writes). The book features excellent translations from Kannada (a Dravidian language), especially of the work of Mahadevi-Akka, a Godiva-like figure who left wealth, marriage, home, and ultimately, her would-be teachers behind to wander naked and homeless in worship of her "Lord White as Jasmine." As the destroyer of illusions, Siva is a purveyor of truth, here found in this devotional poetry.

These are fascinating medieval Bhakti poems by four Virasaiva saints, devoted to the Hindu god, Siva, translated from the Kannada language. I am in no position to judge the accuracy of the translation, but they read very well. I should point out that they were not polytheists but monotheists who worshipped God under the form of Siva, just as others, for example, would worship the one god under the form of Vishnu.

These four poets, Dasimayya, Basavanna, Allamu, and my favorite, Mahadeviyakka, flourished in the tenth to twelfth centuries. They wrote short poems called vacanas, and according to the translator, A. K. Ramanujan, the are the greatest poets in that tradition. They are a selection of their works, and the identification by a number refers to other editions, and does not imply there are hundreds of poems in this relatively short book.

The Bhakti saints often broke away from the Hindu caste system and the elaborate temples and ritual systems in the name of personal relgion. Poem 820 by Basavanna illustrates this perfectly (p. 89):

"The rich
will make temples for Siva.
What shall I,
a poor man,
do?"

"My legs are pillars,
the body a shrine,
the head a cupola
of gold." (820)

These four religious poets were devoted to Siva and generally addressed their vacanas to him. They all give particular titles to their universal lord connected with their experience of him. Three of them use titles connected to particular places where they had their conversion experiences. Bassavana addressed his poems to the "lord of the meeting rivers," and Allamu Prabhu to the "Lord of Caves." Devada Desimayya's village had a temple devoted to Ramanatha, Rama's Lord, and he used that. Similarly, Mahadeviyakka called her lord, Cennamallikarjuna, apparently related to the form of Siva worshipped in the temple of her village. Ramnujan translates this as "the Lord White as Jasmine," but points out in his introduction that it can also mean, "Arjuna, Lord of the godess Mallika." (p. 111)

The one I find most appealing is the young woman, Mahadeviyakka. She apparently had early devoted herself to Siva, but she was apparently more or less forced into a marriage with a king, which was not successful. She had already regarded herself as married to her "Lord White as Jasmine." Her poems sometimes refer to Siva as her husband and sometimes as her lover, reflecting the conflict.

There are stories of her wandering naked, covered with her long hair, to Kalyanna, where Basavanna and Allamu head a school of devotees. Among other things, Allamu asked her about her contradictory behavior, that is, why, since she wears no sari, she then covers herself with the tresses of her hair (no. 183, p. 112-13).

"Till the fruit is ripe inside
the skin will not fall off.
I'd a feeling it would hurt you
If I displayed the body's seals of love."

Anyway, they accepted her as one of their number. It is reported that she later continued her wanderings in search of her Lord. Tradition has it she died fairly young, in her twenties.

For all her independence, we must not read modern attitudes into her work. This is particularly true of her ambiguos feelings about her body.

"After this body has known my lord,
who cares if it feeds
a dog
or soaks up water?" (117)

I will offer a few phrases from Mahadeviyakka with the numbers of the vacanas:

"Seeing the feet of the master,

O lord white as jasmine,
I was made
worthwhile." (45)

"loving my lord white as jasmine
I have wandered through unlikely worlds." (69)

"O lord white as jasmine
filling and filled by all
why don't you
show me your face?" (75)

"Since your love
was planted,
I've forgotten hunger,
thirst and sleep." (79)

"Take me, flaws and all,
O Lord
white as jasmine." (251)

This book makes available some material which is rather hard to find elsewhere. The poems themselves, though they reflect the broad background of Hindu religious life, nevertheless can have in many respects a universal appeal for those devoted to the Lord.

A collection of poems from southern India at about 1200 AD from the Siva cult, these poems range from profound intellectual theology to the loveliest of devotionalism. A find for readers from all traditions.

I enjoyed this primary source collection. Worthwhile reading if Ancient Egypt interests you.

There are some great stories here and much insight into the ancient Egyptians as a people. It is refreshing to have a view of them apart from either simple lists of kings or the pyramids. I hate to be provincial but the Tale of Sinuhe, the first story in the book, is as powerful as others claim. In some ways a tear jerker. My favorites were that, The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, and the Teaching of Khety. You may have others.

This text is not dry or dull at all, but incredibly readable. It is also accurate - a priority with me. The selection is varied and should present something of interest for almost everyone. I highly recommend it.

Also good is "The Literature of Ancient Egypt : An Anthology of Stories, Instructions and Poetry" by R.O. Faulkner and William K. Simpson. However, I believe that this Oxford World Classics book is better presented and perhaps more enjoyable. It will provide many hours of good reading.

This excellent collection of translations of the key Middle Kingdom (the classical era of ancient Egyptian literature) literary texts supersedes the now dated translations of Lichtheim and Simpson. Those were great translations at the time they were made (26 and 15 years ago, respectively). However, Parkinson's have the benefit of up to date understanding of the ancient Egyptian language, are much more readable (he uses clear, modern English rather than the rather awkward, over-wordy and old fashioned English used by other translators) and have superb commentaries which clearly explain the meaning of each text. The commentaries will be very helpful to students of Egyptology, but are as valuable for the general reader as they provide background information, much of which is unlikely to be known to non-Egyptologists and which is essential to making sense of these ancient texts which can appear simple but are surprisingly complex. This book also comes out on top on price.

This book offers an English translation of the major literary works from the Middle Kingdom (ca 1940-1640 BC), golden age of Egyptian fictional literature. It includes the masterpiece The Tale of Sinuhe, The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, The Teaching of Merikare, The Teaching of Ptahhotep and The Dialogue of a Man and his Soul. An introduction to each work is provided, followed by its translation. The glossary and bibliographic references are useful. Accessible to the general reader, this is an excellent introductory book for those interested in Ancient Egyptian literature.

"Dazzling" is just the word to describe this collection, with each poem an intense & passionate work of lapidary perfection. While utilizing traditional Japanese poetic symbols drawn from Nature, this is far from being just blandly pretty "Nature poetry" -- it explores the landscape of the heart. And it does so with gorgeous precision, constantly evoking subtleties of color & emotion. An extraordinary woman's soul is laid bare in these pages ... and she celebrates her body & the joys of the flesh with equal honesty.

First published in 1901, this is sensual & stirring work that's timeless -- certainly far more real & lasting than the superficial treatment of sexuality in too much of today's popular culture. For those who seek lush beauty & love's anguish in all of its Romantic splendor, this is where you'll find it. Most highly recommended!

Goldstein & Shinoda's translation of selections from Midaregami, Tangled Hair by Yosano Akiko is unsurpassed for its simple elegance that perfectly matches the sensual spareness of the original. Yosano Akiko ranks not only as one of the world's great women poets, but great poets, period. Her imagination challenged the limits of her culture and dared to speak of the fullness of womanhood while simultaneously overcome old conventions and breathing new life into the genre of tanka poetry.

This tradition continues today, and readers who liked this book should seek out M. Kei's Fire Pearls and Leza Lowitz's A Long Rainy Season: Haiku and Tanka (Contemporary Japanese Women's Poetry, Vol 1).

"To punish-- Men for their endless sins,-- God gave me-- This fair skin,-- This long black hair!"

Imagine writing that in turn of the century Japan, at a time when women were considered to be barely human and feminism was unheard of! Yosano Akiko's beautiful poems broke with tradition and spoke of love, the emancipation of woman, and the pleasures of the flesh. Attacking conventional morals, she glorified the female body and defended sexuality, but there is more to her poems even, than that. The title, Midare Gami means "tangled hair" and is a typically oblique Japanese expression that, despite its indirectness, is utterly fraught with nuance and meaning. Tangled hair refers not to hair that is messy or untidy, but to hair tousled by love making and is a constant theme in her poems. Yosano Akiko brought new meanings to the term, and used it to connote female emancipation and sexual freedom.

Although Yosano Akiko is important in Japanese literary circles because she wrote about things that no one had ever dared to write about before, her poems are more than just historical curiosities. They are hauntingly beautiful, and her choices of images are incredibly vivid.

She says so much in so few words, that one can spend days thinking about a simple three or four line poem no matter how many times one reads her work, one can always find new things that one had not seen before. It is fascinating to read the thoughts of a woman who truly lived her life for love and art, and who was constantly struggling to come to grips with the conflict between one's ideas about the way that life ought to be and the way it really is. Her poems about being betrayed by men who go off to have affairs, or the sad verses about women waiting for men to come home, or the lamentations on the emphemerality of beauty and youth are unforgettable. As Pico Iyer discusses in his book The Lady and the Monk some of her best poems have to do with the conflict that the monk faces when he is torn between his love for a woman and his quest to escape from the longings and desires of the material world.

Yosano Akiko's poems are very difficult to understand, as the many of the cultural references and symbols she uses are not familiar to westerners, but fortunately there is an excellent appendix which provides explanations for all the poems.

Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka From Midaregami is a selection of Akiko Yosano's rather impressive Japanese poetry, which was originally published in 1901, and is here superbly translated by the combined efforts of Sanford Goldstein (Professor Emeritus, Purdue University and Keiwa College, Japan) and Seishi Shinoda (Niigata University, Japan) into English for a new generation of readers. The "tanka" is the most popular form of Japanese poetry, representing 1,200 years of literary history and tradition. These translations are sensitive to context and subtle word meaning, are presented with extensive notes concerning the poems themselves, and include facets relating to the author's life. 95: Through these pines/The breeze equally/On her cheeks and mine,/Yet how like strangers/Our thoughts.

The tanka collected in this volume are simple and elegant. I would say perfect, but I suppose that's a dangerous word. Heck, I like danger; they're perfect. Not one extra word or unessesary image in the whole book. Now, in my fast food culture "without excess" is a rare,beautiful,almost inconcievable thing. I suppose that's one reason I cherish this particular book. Using quiet traditional images from nature; moonlight,cherry blossoms, morning dew, the high cries of the cranes the author cuts deep into the collective human experience. It quiets my soul. I'm amazed. In the words of Josef Albers "Less" in this case certainly "is more".

This brilliant little book (71 pages of actual text) records twenty days in which Hawthorne was in effect a single parent for his five year old son, Julian, during August 1851. Hawthorne's wife Sophia, called Phoebe in the book, and two daughters (seven year old Una and newborn Rose) go off to visit Sophia's parents. Hawthorne is with Julian for just about every waking moment of Julian's day, running from six or seven AM to seven or seven thirty PM. He records their days in his notebook; and, despite the brief and informal style of these notes (and they are notes and not a detailed chronicle), succeeds in evoking nearly the totality of a child's day. I doubt that any major writer has ever so completely and carefully focused on what a five year old actually does and what his life is like.

Hawthorne is also direct and frank. He gets exasperated (as all parents do) about the constant demands for attention, the nonstop childish chatter and the endless sometimes inane questions but only rarely rebukes Julian. On the whole, Hawthorne is remarkably patient. He is amused by Julian's battles with the monsters that appear in the form of thistles and weeds which Julian routinely and daily slaughters. He is fascinated by Julian's determined and uniformly unsuccessful fishing. He admires Julian's great good nature and his gusto. Hawthorne takes care of the boy's minor illnesses, injuries and accidents. He feeds, dresses, bathes and clothes him daily. He also tries to curl his hair. Some of these actions he admits are badly or clumsily done but they are all clearly done with love.

The book also contains a few insights into other aspects of the normally reserved Hawthorne. He is positively volcanic about his dislike of Massachusetts's Berkshire region and its weather and his contemptuous and angry references to a neighbor and to (of all things) the Shaker sect are painful to read. Also clear, however, is his deep love for his family and for friends such as Melville and his love of life generally. He goes to considerable lengths to rescue a kitten trapped in a cistern and does what he can for the well-being of Bunny, whom he obviously considers a rather dull creature. There are observations on the daily round of country life in 1851 as well, including the contents of meals (little meat but plentiful milk, vegetables and rice), interactions with others, visitors and other matters.

The prose is very direct and clear, a far cry from Hawthorne's complex, allusive and often indirect formal style. This is a record of parenting and of a child's life that is moving and beautiful. There is also a useful if perhaps somewhat overlong introduction by writer Paul Auster.

I had previously thought of Nathaniel Hawthorne as serious, stuffy, reclusive - as indeed many contemporaries thought of him. However, _Twenty Days with Julian_ show another side of the man - and the eternal joy and wonder of childhood.

While his wife and daughters were away, Hawthorne spent three weeks alone with his son, Julian. Chronicling their activities, you get a clear sense of the time and of the person Hawthorne was. But what was most pleasant - and surprising - was how similar 4 year old Julian was to children today. A joyful read that would make an excellent Father's Day present.

This is abrief book, but full of great writing. It's very interesting to see what has changed in 150 years - the food, the activities, the words, and what hasn't - how little kids behave.

Hawthorne really captures the boundless energy and joy of small children, as well as his own sense of bewilderment as a father.

Everything positive said about this book is true. But I would add this: Mr. Auster's introduction is excellent until he reaches a point where he starts divulging some of the best points in the diary. So buy the book and go straight to the diary. Then enjoy Auster's wonderful intro. Bravo to NYRB for publishing this as a stand alone book; what a great gift for a new parent!
CS

From July 28th until August 16th, 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife Sophia took their daughters on a visit to her relatives, leaving her husband home to care for their 5 year-old son, Julian. Hawthorne kept a record of his time with the little boy in a journal, calling the episode "Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny by Papa". Anyone familiar with Hawthorne's exquisite, almost recondite writing style as exemplified by his novels and short stories will hardly recognize him in the guise of babysitter and chronicler of his jet-propelled kid's activities. Driven nearly to distraction by Julian's nonstop chatter and noisemaking (Hawthorne's wife had recently given birth to baby Rose, and the little boy was constantly being told to keep quiet), Hawthorne nevertheless decides to allow the child the freedom to be as noisy as he likes while the baby is away. This proves to be an exercise in forbearance for poor papa, as Julian proves to have no off switch, making it "impossible to read, write, think, or even sleep (in the daytime) so constant are his appeals..." Over the ensuing three weeks, the two take daily walks to fetch the milk, and to the lake where Julian fishes with furious, single-minded determination and catches absolutely nothing. Hawthorne struggles to figure out how his wife curls the kid's hair, and there are several unfortunate events - a bedwetting accident, a pants-peeing incident, the kid gets stung by a wasp, the pet bunny, Hindlegs, dies and is buried in the garden, much to Julian's amusement. (He hopes a Bunny Tree will spring up, covered all over in bunnies hanging by their ears.) Through it all, Hawthorne, in spite of his befuddlement with the finer points of child care, bears up gracefully, proving himself not only a gentle and loving father, but a genius at capturing the essence of childhood and the joy of witnessing,close at hand, his little boy's joie de vivre.

Ruskin had a very refreshing and interesting point of view, and it's still valid today. Ruskin's ideology doesn't follow any left-right trends.

On some things he's a market proponent, while on others he's marxist. For instance, while he insists on fair wages (a socialist idea), he believes that those who strive harder should be rewarded more (a free-market idea). Basically, he gives the example of a bricklayer: if you hire one, you should pay him according to how much effort his job requires and that should be independent on who the bricklayer is, whether he's good at it or not; however, only the good bricklayers should expect to be offered work.

Overall, he presents his ideas in a rational/logical manner and supports his positions using simple examples most will agree with him on. It's refreshing to read work on economics that doesn't take either Marx's nor Smith's side.

Ruskin, unlike Marx or Ayn Rand, bases his economic work in the real relations between human beings and the hard facts of work and exchange. There is no one reality in terms of aesthetics, or cultural approaches to the world, but _Unto This Last_ is THE TRUTH about human(and/or "post-human")economic realities. Our business-biased news media in the U.S., and academic Marxism, are ideologies. Ruskin is dealing with "mere" material reality.

I must say I never expected this to be such a stunner. I have read it twice but confess that I am sitting down again. This has to be the 'Matrix' of the 1800's as it certainly turns conventional thinking on its head...

The introduction by Clive Wilmer is extremely enlightening as it provides a background against which the book can be thoroughly enjoyed. This book cleared a lot of doubts I had for a long time on many things and I must say raised twice as many questions about what I thought right :-)

Ruskin has been praised by many people as being the vioce of truth. He starts his main essay from a story in the Bible and then blows the reader away with his acute judgements and impeccable logic. In the end all you can do is but agreee that 'There is no Wealth but Life'

Also recommend 'The Kingdom of God is Within You' by Tolstoy.

A compilation of some of the important works of Ruskin are included here, the most important being (in Ruskin's own words) "Unto This Last", which had a profoundly moving effect on Ghandi (among others) and his approach and philosophy. For Ruskin morality and moral economics, sustaining/healthy economics, comes from basic things like knowing who made your shirts and that this person is getting a fair wage for their efforts -- taking responsibility for the effect one's use of money has on the lives of others. Taking advantage of other's economic misfortune was immoral and likely to result in a future backlash on the greater society as well as well as one's inner well being. An intelligent/knowledgeable person taking advantage of the stupid or ignorant is no different than violence of the strong upon the weak, Ruskin analogized. Ruskin illustrated his ideal of a moral economy by using the Gothic "Christian" style as an example, explained in the "Stones of Venice", its communal/community development, its imperfection yet impressive beauty. Perfection is not beautiful in Ruskin's view of life/art; which echoes something of the Zen view of art. Ruskin also argued that homes, during the Gothic age, were in the Gothic style as well and that modern Churches should mimic something of the style of the typical house being built today, the church should not be seen as a separate entity, a separate style; the Church should be integral to the community's self identity and use a similar architecture. Ruskin also inadvertantly created a style and movement he did not aprove of, by creating such a popular view of the Gothic style, that being the Anglo/Catholic movement whom enjoyed the gothic style church and ceremony. (Just walk around most any town and and look at the dates of when Gothic style churches were built in the USA, probably around 1910 or so).

The wealth of the elite and the wealth of the rich should ultimately be judged by the general happiness of the common man on the street. Ruskin also advocated reading and the building of public libraries and wrote a moving essay on why one should read: included here.

Ruskin's life took some passionate twists. His mother had him memorize the Bible while his father inculcated a love for Byron in him. He proved a gifted artist and then studied geology at university. Then an attack by critics on a favored artist, Turner, lead him on an eighteen year quest to study art and explain why Turner is a great artist, writing volumes of popular art history and critiques while developing a love for Giotto and Dante on the way and becoming possibly the most widely read art critic the English-speaking world has ever produced. Then the economic debates rageing in his day between advocates of Smith's laissez-fair, Malthus, Ricardo, Mills, and Marx lead Ruskin to attack all of them and to point out why they all miss the point in some way. Ruskin's approach was organic given: time, place, and circumstances, but he does give models and examples for what good economics is. Ruskin was a great humanist, in general terms he had the heart and approach of a conservative but his results could be described as almost idealic liberalism -- echoing something of Plato's philosopher kings.

Ruskin's observations on the English language are also interesting; the hierarchy of words and the distancing of words from their right place and meaning due to English being a diverse language with Latin, Greek, French, and variety of Germanic dialects composing it.

In De Profundis, by Oscar Wilde, Wilde must have been profoundly influenced by Ruskin as Wilde expressed regret for not having taken up the moral causes of Ruskin and to have wasted his genius the way he did. Wilde seemed to say that the torch was passed to him and he dropped it. Read this book then De Profundis (which Wilde wrote, without the use of references as he was in prison), and I don't think there will be any doubt that Ruskin had a profound influence on Wilde as Wilde refers to Ruskin-esk themes throughout the book (letter). I think Waugh and Forester echo some Ruskin sentiments as well; Ruskin had a huge influence, well worth reading.

_Unto This Last_ is a series of four essays on political economy, which were originally designed to be published in Cornhill Magazine. The essays caused so much contemporary anger and scorn, however, that their publication was discontinued.

Ruskin began as an art critic, who wrote in favor of a naturalism based in the imagination rather than the eye. His works discussed the moral and political dimensions of art and architecture, and it was probably natural that this would lead him into his interest in socialism and the powerful writing found in _Unto This Last_. He was passionately arguing against the Utilitarianism of writers such as John Stuart Mill and others who saw immutable laws of economy which were rooted in anything except justice. His assertion was that the accumulation of money was in fact an accumulation of power rather than wealth, and necessarily resulted in an imbalance which adversely affected society. For instance, he said that a successful factory which polluted the environment could not be termed profitable because of the resulting damage to society itself.

This collection of Ruskin's works (edited and with commentary by Clive Wilmer) contains the whole of _Unto This Last_ and enough of a selection of his other works to give a sense of the chronological position of the essays in Ruskin's career.

The book features an early fairy tale by Ruskin which was written for his wife, an excerpt from _The Stones of Venice_ which discusses the nature of Gothic architecture, excerpts from _the Two Paths_ and _Modern Painters_, two lectures which were published as parts of _The Crown of Wild Olive_ and _Sesame and Lilies_, and finally ends with letters 7 and 10 from _Fors Clavigera_.

Ghandi credited _Unto This Last_ with providing part of the impetus behind his transformation. And it would not be ridiculous for me to say that the book forced a radical reexamination of many of my own assumptions and ideas. It's also a pleasure to read, with beautiful as well as thought-provoking prose. Worthwhile reading for more than students of Victoriana.

I can confidently echo for you the praise the other reviewers on this page have granted The Virgin of Flames. It is the lyrical, grotesque, ecstatic, outcast story of a Los Angeles that simmers unknown to many of it's own citizens-migrants and natives alike. Chris Abani's imagery of Black, Iggy, Sweet Girl, Bomboy, Ray-Ray, Rio L.A. and East L.A., among others is quite reverential and even more than the pictures and qualities he conjures, they are brave.
As a resident of L.A. and it's environs I enjoyed those references to neighborhoods (yes, L.A. has neighborhoods), bridges, restaurants (Thai Palms-Thai Elvis) and the like that told me Mr. Abani walks these places and sees the faces and grafitti, decay and sublime magnetism that propels many of us here. He captures the mystery and possibility of Los Angeles in the radical expressionism of Black's identity experimentation, Iggy's underground venues and physical risk, Sweet Girl's bold sexuality and paralyzing trans/pro-gression. As well, the Catholic blood that run through the dusty past of Los Angeles and California, the WEST, in all it's harrowing, piercing pain. Abani's vision of a modern martyr, his many attempts at acceptance and expression reminded me of Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers. The artist living his life as a work of art, challenging the dominate modes through as many of his avenues of existence as possible.
Some favorite passages:
"It seemed, though, that those with a clear sense of the past, of identity, were always so eager to bury it and move on, to reinvent themselves. What a luxury, he thought, what a thing, to choose your own obsession, to choose your own suffering. Him, he was trying to reinvent an origin to bury so he could finally come into this thing he wanted to be, and he knew that if he didn't find it soon, it would destroy him, burn him up." (pgs. 123-24)
"This River was alive, this River was here before anyone knew this was a River, before anyone saw it and said, River. And its personality shaped this city. Was this city." (pg. 135)
Referring to the L.A. Mission, downtown: "It had long since lost out to Six Flags fun parks and Universal Studio's theme park. It looked sad, not in the way of a rejected wallflower, but more in the commonplace shame of a community center. A place kept open by a grudging love." (pg. 155)
Mr. Abani expresses one of the prime enigma's of Los Angeles life: "In LA we are always becoming, and any idea of a solid past, as an anchor, is soon lost here. And I mean any, that's why there is no common mythology here, that's why people come here, to get lost or to be discovered, makes no difference. It's the same coin. Other cities, like New York, have an overwhelming myth, and there is no you, as it were, without this-shall we say-New York state of mind. But here, there is none of that bulls**t, there is just you and what you see and imagine this place and your life in it to be, moment by moment. If you can't change, if you don't embrace it, you destroy yourself. The only landscape in this city is in your mind. It's very Zen..." (pg. 207)
"Ambivalence is the heart of this town. Not in spite of, but because of." (pg. 207)

I look forward to reading more of Mr. Abani's works.

This was a great read, start to finish. Daring and unexpected. Highly recommended.

I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this book. Abani's characters leap from the page. It's a stunning book and I can't wait to go back and read some of Abani's earlier novels.

The Virgin of Flames is odd, complex, and accomplished. We find many of Abani's earlier themes: lost, found, and created identities, violent acts and defered release and the consequences of both, surreal consciousness, sublime sexuality and abhorent flesh, choices, imperatives, the absence in the human condition of objectivity - all ignited on the page into an escalated blaze that can keep you up nights. Abani's writing is not for those invested in happy endings. The suicides of his protagonists speed up the inevitability of a death most of us strain to delay. Yet, this is fiction, and, if you give youself over to it, The Virgin of Flames reads as a unique, disquieting voice, an extended prosepoem which will leave you changed. What other is the purpose of art?

In the Virgin of Flames Abani gives us a lyrical, daring portrait of a city and its inhabitants struggling to find their place between darkness and the sublime. Black, a mural artist, is a modern-day Hamlet searching for answers to the riddle of his past, fighting to create a whole from its fragments. This conflict is mirrored in the topography of Los Angeles, where the holy and grotesque combine in a city that reflects the struggles of post-9/11 America. Abani does not provide easy answers to any of this. Instead, he shows us characters that navigate violence and despair but retain the ability to truly care about one another and a city where, despite its urban malaise and constant veil of smoke and ash, people sing joyously in the streets. From its vivid dreamscapes to its gritty realism, Abani's novel will leave the reader breathless at the beauties and complexities of life.

First, before anything else, he links us to a character, a man named Bert Smallways, who we will follow and this allows us to see what is happening from the view of a normal man within the book. The first few chapters in fact deal only with Bert, pushing much of the major events into the background, suggested by news headlines that nobody seems to notice.
But when wars come it comes with a bam. The Earth's weapons seem to be bomb carrying airships and gun carrying airplanes.
The airships seem to be the major weapon, becoming the terrors of the sky, huge monster craft that carry death to the cities of Earth.
Why airships? The book was published in 1907. While airplanes were just being invented and designs played with, blimps and dirigibles were already flying about in good numbers. By the time World War One cames about, German airships are bombing London. Airplanes started off during the Great War totally unarmed, used for scouting out enemy movements and checking out the landscape. So, for him to suggest that airships would become the wave of the future in combat is not a great leap of logic.
One scene has German airplanes and airships destroying an American fleet of warships, a chilling vision of things to come.
As each nation designs and builds it own aircraft things get out of hand. While the air fleets can bomb the cities, they can't TAKE them (not being able to carry any troops) and they can't DEFEND them (as they carry many bombs, but few weapons to fight other aircraft), so soon the world is nothing but burnt out buildings and thousands of airships attacking anything on the ground that even LOOKS dangerous.
Will Bert survive? Will he get back to England? Will mankind ever learn to live together?

"The War of the Worlds" wasn't the only masterpiece that H.G. Wells wrote with the words "The War" in the title. "The War in the Air," which came out 10 years later, in 1908, is surely a lesser-known title by this great author, but most certainly, in my humble opinion, a masterpiece nonetheless. In this prophetic book, Wells not only predicts World War I--which wouldn't start for another six years--but also prophesies how the advent of navigable balloons and heavier-than-air flying craft would make that war inevitable. Mind you, this book was written in 1907, only four years after the Wright Brothers' historic flights at Kitty Hawk, and two years BEFORE their airplane design was sold to the U.S. Army for military purposes. In "The War in the Air," Wells also foresees air battles, as well as engagements between naval and aerial armadas. His gift of peering into the future is at times uncanny.
We see this worldwide war through the eyes of Bert Smallways, a not terribly bright Cockney Everyman who is accidentally whisked away in a balloon and lands in Germany right on the eve of that country's departure for war. Bert is brought on board one of the German airships, and so personally witnesses a titanic battle in the North Atlantic; the Battle of New York (in which the length of Broadway is destroyed and many buildings near downtown City Hall Park are levelled, looooong before 9/11); and the huge fight between the German and Asiatic forces over Niagara Falls. And these are just the start of Smallways' adventures. Wells throws quite a bit into this wonderful tale, and the detail, pace and characterizations are all marvelous. But this isn't just an entertaining piece of futuristic fiction; it's a highly moral one as well. The author, in several beautifully written passages, tells us of the terrible waste of war, and the horrors that it always entails. In this aspect, it would seem to be a more important work of fiction than even "The War of the Worlds." While that earlier work might be more seminal, this latter tale certainly raises more pressing issues. And those issues are just as worrisome today as they were nearly a century ago. In his preface to the 1941 edition of this book, Wells wrote: "I told you so. You damned fools..." As well he might! And it would seem that we STILL haven't learned the lessons that Wells tried to teach us so many years ago.
Perhaps, at this point, I should mention that readers of this novel will be faced with many geographical, historical and vocabulary/slang terms that they may not be familiar with. If those readers are like me, they will take the time to research all those obscure terms; it will make for a richer reading experience, as always.
I said before that this novel is a masterpiece, and yet, at the same time, it is not perfect. Wells does make some small booboos in prediction, for example. Zeppelins were not more important than airplanes in war; civilization did not collapse after World War I. He tells us that the distance from Union Square to City Hall Park is under a mile, whereas any New Yorker could tell you that it's more like two. Wells mentions that the Biddle Stairs (which were built in 1827, led from Goat Island to the base of Niagara Falls, and were demolished in 1927) were made of wood, while in fact they were made of metal and encased in a wooden shaft. But these are quibbles, and in no way detract from the quality of the work. Indeed, this is a novel that should be mandatory reading for all politicians, not to mention all thinking adults.

H.G. Wells-what a genius. He foresaw the future better than any supposed "psychic." This novel, little known but available again, is the proof.

In the early 20th century, the invention of aerial vehicles precipitates the outbreak of a worldwide war that had brewed for hundreds of years. The aircrafts' ability to wreck unlimited destruction lays waste to civilization, reducing it to pre-Industrial revolution levels. That is the basis of this incredible piece of political and scientific prophesy. Wells unleashes his full understanding of human "progress" and the fraility of political systems, and with every page hits truths about war and technology even more applicable today than during World War I, the combat that Wells envisioned here. He even saw 9/11 and the Iraq War, pegging Western European complaceny so accurately that I felt my jaw drop to the floor on a few occasions.

Honestly, this H. G. guy was one in a billion. He was utterly, incalculably brilliant. He was also a helluva writer, expressing ideas with flashes of humor, irony, and passion. Wells uses a countryside Englishman as witness to the fall of civilization, and manages to effortlessly switch between the epic canvas of war and the cameo portrait of a normal man seeing everything he ever understood about the world fray apart before his eyes.

In a terrific last stroke, Wells writes the final chapter that sums up the possibility that "progess" may be an illusion. This novel deserves to be considered amongst Wells finest, and this new edition with Duncan's insightful introduction, may be the firest step in getting it the wide audience it deserves.

Written in 1908, Wells predicted warfare as we know it now. He foresaw pushbutton wars, "cold-blooded slaughters ... in which men who were neither excited nor ... in any danger, poured death and destruction on homes and crowds..." Paradoxically, Wells also predicted it to be "a universal guerilla war, a war involving civilians and homes and all the apparatus of social life." He predicted weapons "ineffectual for any large expedition or conclusive attack, [but] horribly convenient for guerilla warfare, rapidly and cheaply made, easily used, easily hidden." Specifics of the story needed to be credible to Wells's 1908 reader, but major points could have been drawn from today's headlines.

Wells's war encircled the globe, years before WWI showed how widespread a war could become. Rather than narrate global destruction, though, Wells told his story through the viewpoint of Bert Smallways, an everyman of modest means, achievement, and intellect. In fact, Bert's only real skill was a knack for being in the wrong place when world-shattering events came to pass. Starting from his bicycle shop in England, Bert's involuntary travels made him witness to the destruction of whole blocks and rows of blocks in New York City, then to the rise of Eastern armies that over-ran the Western world. Then, somehow, he made it back to his sleepy village to settle into a post-war agrarian life without technology - easy enough, since the village had slept through the technology of the time anyway.

Despite the zeppelins used as warcraft, Wells's forecasts hit the bullseye of many targets. He predicted the worldwide caches of hidden weaponry, not too far from what we saw in the Cold War. He also predicted the bafflement of the common civilian, who really just wanted to settle down with a spouse, a house, and food on the table. Headlines aside, that's still the case today.

-- wiredweird

Bert Smallways is a rather backward sort, trying (but not too hard) to make a living in England, and watching the advance of technology. But, technology is moving on in directions that he might never have guessed. With the advent of the airship, a secret arms race has broken out among the world's powers, and a new type of war is about to break out.

When Bert is accidentally scooped up by a German fleet, on its way to launch a surprise attack on the United states, he finds himself with a front row seat to the greatest war that has ever been - the war in the air! This new war is to be a different sort of war than all the wars that came before it, unprecedented in its ferocity and destructiveness. When everything can be smashed, what will be left? A good deal less than you might hope.

This now largely forgotten work was written by H.G. Wells (1866-1946) in 1907, and is a masterpiece of forward thinking. While Wells missed the true course of the development of military aviation, his grasp of what a major war, involving fleets of aircraft, would mean was spot on. In fact, this book is quite spooky in its prediction of the destruction of cities and modern infrastructure, and in its portrayal of fleets of warships destroyed from the air! As a prediction of the future, this book is nothing short of amazing.

Well, if the book is so good, why is it now forgotten? In fact, while Wells' portrayal of aerial warfare is right on target, the book, as a novel, is not as good as it should be. The story starts out quite slowly, wasting too much time on the development of the character of Bert Smallways. And, there are many places throughout the narrative where the book could have benefited from some pruning and tightening of the narrative.

So, if you are a fan of H.G. Wells, or are interested in how correct a man of 1907 could have been about modern warfare, then this is the book for you. However, if you are looking for a good science-fiction story, you might be disappointed. Overall, I found this to be an interesting story, one that I am glad that I read. It's almost frightening how close to reality Mr. Wells was. I just wish that he had had a better editor.