English Classics Books

The Land of Narnia is a good book that tells about C.S. Lewis' life and how he came to write the Chronicles of Narnia. This book tells who Aslan and the Witches are and tells what gave C.S. Lewis the idea for Reepicheep, the warrior mouse. This book contains summaries for the seven books as well. This is an excellent book to read if you have just finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia. It helps you to understand the books and the characters a little better if you don't know what they mean. You also learn about C.S. Lewis' childhood and how this was a major factor in creating the Narnia books. Reviewed by Joshua Bixler *****stars

The Land of Narnia is a good book that tells about C.S. Lewis' life and how he came to write the Chronicles of Narnia. This book tells who Aslan and the Witches are and tells what gave C.S. Lewis the idea for Reepicheep, the warrior mouse. This book contains summaries for the seven books as well. This is an excellent book to read if you have just finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia. It helps you to understand the books and the characters a little better if you don't know what they mean. You also learn about C.S. Lewis' childhood and how this was a major factor in creating the Narnia books. Reviewed by Joshua Bixler *****stars

The Chronicles Of Narnia carry you off into a new, magical world full of interesting characters, enthralling storylines and fantastic places. Although they are recommended for children, anyone with a vivid imagination who loves fantasy will probably like these. One must wonder about the genius of Lewis - to create a whole world is unusual, to say the least. Narnia is a brand new world at the beginning of the first book, The Magician's Nephew. In the course of the chronicles the country is saved numerous times by a group of children from our world - England from about 1900 to 1950 to be precise. Lewis' writing is subtly witty and at times profoundly moving (especially in the first and last two books). Well worth a read - or several. The one bad thing about these books is that they instill a sense of wistful nostalgia in anyone who believes in the ability of people to destroy our world.

I received this book as a gift in elementary school and at the time found it much to deep even though I thoroughly enjoyed the books. However re-reading it several years later it gave me a lot of insight into the Narnia series and made me enjoy them more as I got older. I would recommend this book for anyone who loves the books.

I am so glad this book is still in print. It is one of my very favorites, and I read it at least once per year, like Huckleberry Finn. For those of us who love nature, and tales of growing up in the out-of-doors, this is a beautiful book of the natural world and agricultural lands. It contains wonderful sketches about farm life in the turn-of-the century English countryside, school life, and village characters. This book reminds me of Cider With Rosie (also called The Edge of Day) by Laurie Lee, another excellent book about growing up in England, set around the time of WWI. This is truly worthwhile reading. If you have read "Lark Rise to Candleford" and enjoyed it, another book by Flora Thompson, "Still Glides the Stream", deals with the same subject matter and is also very good.

LRTC is one of those books that I read almost every year. Why you should ask? There is no other book that provides a view into a time long past as Flora Thompson does in this and her other major work, "Still Glides the Stream". These are works that allow you to see, smell, taste and touch the fabric of a society in full measure. There is nothing maudlin or sentimental in these works, they demonstrate the grinding poverty of the rural poor in the late 19th century when slowly but surely the winds of change were at work to topple once and for all the rigid hierarchy of the Victorian class system. Also lost are the rural traditions and folk life of a people bonded to the earth and its seasonal cycles. Yet at the same time fully demonstrating the quiet joys and happiness that take place within the family of Laura, the main character who is a thinly disguised Flora Thompson.
One of the great characters in literature you will meet here is Miss Dorcas Lane, the village postmistress Laura goes to work for. She has the grit, grace and humanity of a Dickens character. Miss Lane also is at the vanguard of a new era, when it's revealed she prefers reading Darwin than suffering the Victorian Bible babble around her.
Once encountered, this book will remain a trusted old friend to turn to again and again.

This trilogy was one I read many years ago and only returned to recently. On this reading it was an even better - recalling in detail a life which has totally gone now but has a wonder and joy in it which we can no longer experience. On having her fortune told - the main character was told she would be loved by people she had never met - for once astrology worked. An excellent piece of literature.

As the previous customer review notes, "Lark Rise to Candleford" fully details life in, alternately, an English hamlet (Lark Rise), a village and a town (Candleford) at the turn of the 20th C. And, as with the prior review, the book is invariably described as a fond recollection of a bygone, uncomplicated era. I value it, though, for the opposite reason, that by describing agricultural life of the last century so accurately and dispassionately, it unintentionally shows such life to be overwhelmingly impoverished, bare and humdrum. In several passages, the author Flora Thompson scolds herself for making the hamlet and village sound so unremittingly dull. Ironically, her protests only underscore the reality of daily existence. One of her most telling observations is about the rarity of drunkenness in Lark Rise, not, as one might infer, because of a higher moral standard, but because no one could afford more than a glass of beer at a sitting. At another point, she describes without editorial the death of noblesse oblige and the resulting hand-to-mouth poverty, unbroken by one-time manor-sponsored holidays and fetes, that accompanied the transition from tenant to wage farming in the latter half of the 19th century. The ultimate strength of this book for me, therefore, is its reminder that, for so many Western people, these really are the good, old days.

Helene Hanff takes every day slices of life in New York City and shows us the people behind the skyscrapers. I highly recommend reading this book along with "Apple of My Eye", her book about New York City sites and history. Having had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Hanff in 1990, i can tell you she wrote as she talked, so when you read her words, it is actually HER voice speaking to you with no pretense. This lady called them as she saw them! I have read and re-read her books many hundreds of times and hope others will continue to discover them!

I could never understand people who read the same book several times until I began to read Helene Hanff.I find myself trying to work out just how big,or small is her apartment?I was so pleased to find the book about Q. It aswered such a lot of questions.I'm a real cult follower of her work.

Halfway through the very first dispatch, I began reading this book aloud. Since the essays are transcripts from her BBC Woman's Hour Broadcasts, it seemed more appropriate.

Helene's voice is clear and crisp, much like the autumn-in-NY days she once loved. Fans of "84 Charing Cross Road" who found themselves yearning for more should take the time to hunt down a used copy of this text. It's definitely worth it.

When writting about New York City, many authors try to be as chic and cosmopolitan as New York is perceived to be. But Helene Hanff's writing is interesting, witty and fun and there is not a bit of pretentiousness in it. This is a great collection of "talks" which describe the real New York.

"Letters of Transit" is a collection of five essays originally presented, in somewhat different form, as lectures sponsored by the New York Public Library from November, 1997, through February, 1998. Andre Aciman, the editor and author of both the Foreward ("Permanent Transients") and the first of the essays ("Shadow City"), focuses on the theme of being an "exile" (as opposed to being an "expatriate" or a "refugee" or an "emigre"). Aciman suggests, in his Foreward, that "[w]hat makes exile the pernicious thing it is is not really the state of being away, as much as the impossibility of ever not being away." He goes on to elaborate, in his ensuing essay, that the exile is not just someone "who has lost his home; it is someone who can't find another, who can't think of another." Aciman, impressionistically explores the way in which living in a new city (New York) can vividly reincarnate the memories of cities in which the exile has lived previously (the "shadow cities" of his title). Aciman's essay is fascinating, perceptive and insightful; it is a wonderful short piece which illustrates why his much-praised memoir, "Out of Egypt", has become a minor classic of the genre.

Similarly, Bharati Mukherjee's essay, "Imagining Homelands", provides thoughtful elaborations on the nuances and connotations of the words "expatriate", "exile" and "immigrant"; she draws fine and interesting distinctions among these words and carefully entwines these distinctions with an elaboration of her own life experiences.

The strongest essays in this collection, however, are those of Eva Hoffman, Edward Said and Charles Simic. All three of these writers provide classic insights into the experience of "exile, identity, language, and loss" which are worth careful thought and consideration. All three suggest (as does Mukherjee when she describes herself as an "integrationist" and a "mongrelizer") that the exile can only ultimately be redeemed by rejecting irrational devotion to the narrow and myopic tribalism of nation, ethnicity, religion, and ideology which so often encumbers the exile community; that redemption comes only through freedom, reason and syncretism. Thus, Simic writes, in concluding his essay, "Refugees", that the poet "is a member of that minority that refuses to be part of any official minority, because a poet knows what it is to belong among those walking in broad daylight, as well as among those hiding behind closed doors."

Hoffman's essay, "The New Nomads", is clearly the best of this collection. She carefully delineates the universality of the exilic experience, an experience which can be found in the Ur-text of Adam and Eve's exile from the Garden of Eden. She then discusses the way in which exile can magnify the impulse to "memorialize" the past. The result, she suggests, is that exile distorts the vision of the past, tending to make it an idealized "mythic, static realm" which forever impedes the ability to deal with the present (what Hoffman perceptively characterizes as the "rigidity of the exilic posture"). She then provides an interesting discussion of A.B. Yehoshua's provocative essay, "Exile as Neurotic Solution", wherein he postulated that there were many opportunities for the Jews (prior to the creation of the modern State of Israel) to settle in Palestine more easily than in countries where they had chosen to live, but it was the one location they avoided. In Hoffman's words, "[i]t was as if they were afraid precisely of reaching their promised land and the responsibilities and conflicts involved in turning the mythical Israel into an actual, ordinary home." The ultimate result of the "memorialization" of the past and the "rigidity of the exilic posture" is that exile communities often cannot function in the locus of the larger society; rather, they conceive of themselves as perpetually "Other".

Edward Said's essay, "No Reconciliation Allowed", describes the dislocation of the exile in vivid terms: "a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport, and no certain identity at all." Thus, he finds himself in a secondary school where only English is permitted to be spoken, even though none of the students is a native speaker of English. While his entire educational experience is Anglocentric in the extreme, he is also trained to understand he is a "Non-European Other", someone who can never aspire to being British in any true sense of the word. While Said has been criticized recently for allegedly misrepresenting his past, he is quite forthcoming in this essay in acknowledging his admiration for "self-invention". In some sense, Said's essay and the narrative of his life reflects his theory, specifically the notion that we can (and do) use language instrumentally to construct social realities (in this case the reality of his life).

While somewhat uneven, as all collections are, "Letters of Transit" ultimately provides a rich, varied and deeply insightful range of readings on what it means to be an exile.

This is a very important book from 5 writers who have suffered the unease that comes from being "neither fish nor fowl", something I've always felt as a Jew, but never related to other immigrants, expatriates, or those in exile. This book also draws in writers and their craft, the work that comes out of "homesickness", the instinct to "memorialize in prose". I read this book in a light trance, feeling if but for a moment as if I lived somewhere. Anyone looking for where they come from or even where they got to should read this book.

This is a great book for those who want to be able to place Exile, Identity, Language and Loss in some kind of coherent context. It allows the reader to be able to understand his/her own behavior and the behaviors of those around them. It can also be applied to novels written in the various genres that deal with immigration and exile--to understand the motivation of the authors regarding plot and character development.

There is not, however, based on just one perspective. We read five different authors' point of view and their personal experiences, which allows for a range of inquiries.

I highly recommend this book.

I loved the book becuase the authors have written very honestly about their feelings and about being different in a society. As a emigrant who has lived in the United State for the past 20 years, the book hits home for me. And I will read it again and again.

Incredibly inciteful, perceptive, and well-thought out; this book should be required reading in all college English departments. Mr. Carroll approaches literature with the rationality of science, but with none of its often jargon-filled dryness. Fascinating analyses of the evolutionary motives that not only make us tick, but some of our best-loved literary characters as well. A guide to reality, via fiction.

The human imagination is the fount of extraordinary creativity. "Flights of fancy" take us to places and ideas that only the mind can conceive, places where we create our own reality, if only for a time, a place where only "credibility" is a gauge, and often not even that. We've created more deities in our image than any single god can hold. We've traversed Aquinas's labyrinth of angelic worlds were no human has ever gone, and probably never will. Milton took us to Paradise, and explains how we lost it. Dante takes us through hell, purgatory, and back to Paradise. Marx's Utopia is a wonderlust of wishful aspirations and neurotic tensions. Freud's landscape of the psyche is unparalleled in its imagination, however false empirically. Borges takes us into places we can't get out, and we love the dead-ends. Science fiction takes us to worlds we want to explore without the constraints of our present limitations. It's all wonderful, delightful, provocative, and truly human. It's also fiction. We sometimes forget that.

The imaginative arts allow us "freedom" that the sciences, for example, limit. But that "freedom" is our window into ourselves, a projection of every possible nuance one can imagine. It allows us to create and fabricate all sorts of "alternative realities," explore different possibilities, stretch our limits, and go in directions that physics won't allow. Even those "worlds" that bear close resemblance to our own, such as Shakespeare's or Byron's, are still distant lands. We take a journey into realms only our imaginations understand. We must never lose this precious inheritance. But we also must not "confuse" it for the real. Nor try to "codify" it with overarching theories of interpretative hegemony. It remains a frontier that should not be reduced to ideology or the scientific method. That is both perversion and a "category mistake." It boxes-in that vestige of energy that must not be contained.

At first blush, literary Darwinism seems eminently sensible, using sociobiological insights of "life" itself to better understand our "creative lives." After all, we are humans first, and understanding our biological natures surely aids our understanding of each other, not the least of which is our own creative projects. With this level of approach, I have no cavil. It is clearly superior to the dogmatic Ivory Tower Drivel that has infected the Humanities over the past half century. Having "a foot on the ground" cannot but help bring our Humanities folk back to reality. But I cannot endorse a new "empirical" literary theory to replace the old ideological paradigm, however more sensible, because it just adds another template through which to force us through a sieve.

Being empirically-oriented myself, I cannot fault an English-literature professor suggesting we "re-impose" some reality in our literary theory. It's long been absent. Moreover, he's working in an environment hostile to such "realities," but his treatment is worse than the disease. He's advocating placing readers under imaging devices (e.g., fMRIs) to measure their responses to the literary experience, to tabulate the data, and show how it comports with all the other evolutionary work done in anthropology, biology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, etc. This is positively garrish, a project Darwin himself would find repugnant!

Let's situate Carroll in his predicament, and try to understand why he would make such an outlandish proposal. As a former Arnoldean, steeped in the Liberal Humanistic Tradition, he's convinced that only an appeal to "empiricism" will lift off the shackles of the Postmodernist Hegemon that dominates the Humanities. He's convinced that the "entrenched interests" will not budge otherwise, because it's their "bread and butter" to be contrarian, subversive, and radically irrational. He may be right. Certainly the English Departments in Anglo-American academies are a species of their own. And their ideological spue is toxic as well as dissonant. Asking why it persists, despite the onslaught of criticism from all other disciplines, only validates Carroll's point. It's entrenched.

But there is more. Carroll claims that the nexus of Marxism, Freudianism, and Deconstructionism creates a "whole" theory of the "world," arguably false, but complete. This claim needs to be taken seriously, even if I find it preposterous. Do these ideological flights of fancy really make a composite whole? Carroll insists the "nail" was sealed with Deconstructionism, which denies everything but "rhetoric," and then makes rhetoric so indeterminate, that all that is left is the assertion of the "will to power." Marxism and Freudianism just fill-in on the margins when anxieties get too tough. It's an interesting claim. And, if the claim is true, why? Why are English Departments exempt from substantiating their dogmas? No other academic discipline is "allowed" this latitude.

These questions need answers before we start forcing the "arts" through the "scientific" paradigm. Gilbert Ryle's famous phrase "category mistake" just screams at this indiscretion. And the "cure" is just as unsettling as the "sickness." Again, don't misunderstand me. Biological insights certainly enhance our understanding of imaginative works, because they both herald from "life" itself. Here we're on common ground. But "empiricizing" the imaginative arts should seem terribly dissonant, and "measuring" the aesthetic experience is fundamentally incoherent. Even if it could be done, why would we? To save the Humanities from itself? The prescription is worse than the problem.

Notwithstanding this broader reservation, Carroll's articulate, incisive, and well-crafted Humanistic scholarship blends with sociobiological facts and theory to produce one of the most sustained indictments of the impoverished Humanities and a compelling raison d'etre to look to proven sociobiological theory, coupled with Wilson's advocacy of "consilience" (unity of knowledge), to move Humanistic Study forward to a far more promising frontier. There's no looking back.

The greatest mind of the 19th Century, perhaps of any century, was that of Charles Darwin. If any mind of the 20th Century might be said to equal Darwin's it would be that of Edward Osborne Wilson. An entomologist, it was Wilson who demonstrated the implications of insect societies for human cultures. His ideas were first promulgated in his 1975 book "Sociobiology" and bore full fruit with "Consilience" in 1998. In "Consilience", Wilson proposed that, as humans were as much a part of Nature as any other creature, our behaviour traits, including the arts and literature, should be viewed in the light of evolution. Wilson demonstrated how the human spirit would be expanded, not diminished, by such a framework. The research ensuing since "Sociobiology" has affirmed Wilson's insight. How would such scenario apply to literature?

Joseph Carroll, a literary critic, incorporates Wilson's insights throughout this collection. Carroll argues that our outlook on the world would be expanded, not confined, by consciously applying Darwin's principles to our literature. Many authors, he notes, have done this through an intuitive sense. Jane Austen, hardly a Darwinian, still presented her characters fully integrated within their natural environment. Austen distinguished between which environments suited a character and which left the individual feeling displaced. For Carroll, this is an encouraging sign. Observant and astute writers can apply what he calls the "Darwinian paradigm", imparting a more natural and plausible foundation to fiction. He wants new writers to understand how to employ those principles from the outset. In this, Carroll is following where Wilson is pointing. The result, Carroll feels, will be an improved basis for literature's production and analysis.

Narrative itself, not only common to the human condition, but apparently necessary to it, reflects our ancestral past. As Wilson pointed out, human beings are a social, not a solitary, animal. Carroll's thesis furthers this idea by noting that narrative accounts are a means of identification within a community. Depicted human interactions must reflect that situation and be based on firm knowledge of Darwinian principles, not on assumptions nor sketchy awareness. He criticises authors who pay lip service to the "Darwinian paradigm" without truly understanding its tenets.

Carroll's thesis is based on what is known as "the Adapted Mind". Our mental states, whether in writing or reading, are derived from the long evolutionary path we've traversed. We aren't separated or "elevated" from it. Much of his attention is given to revealing the false notion of "poststructuralism" - that there are no "truths" [whether absolute or relative] and that authors have no intent in their writings, simply expression formed by local "culture". Darwin's idea, for example, could only have occured in Victorian Britain. Obviously, in such a framework, evolutionary roots have no role in composition, reading or criticism. It seems trite when Carroll writes "the subject matter of literature is human experience", but he feels we need to be reminded of that truth. Writing, he contends, must reflect that truism more forcefully than is often the case. Steps have already been taken, he notes. Such works as "Biopoetics" and "Homo Aestheticus" are indicators of a more realistic approach in fiction.

Carroll's three part collection - a view of the "literary landscape", theory and practical criticism, and assessments of Darwian biographers and critics, is a splendid example of how consilience works. He is opening a new frontier of both writing and reading, and is optimistic for its success. He stresses that a merger of the humanities and sciences, is not only desireable, but necessary. A better knowledge of ourselves must involve a better knowledge of our world. That can only be beneficial to all humanity and its habitat, using literature as a means. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

The various essays, articles and book reviews comprising Joseph Carroll's Literary Darwinism are rooted in two principles: first, humans share a common nature that can be revealed through the scientific method; second, this universal nature is the product of relentless Darwinian selection over eons. While this is obviously orthodox stuff in the world of behavioral biology, these notions remain quite heretical among the social constructivists who continue to dominate the world of literary studies. From Carroll's simple principles flow corollaries with large implications for literary studies and behavioral biology. The most important corollary for literary scholars is that a large proportion of all that has been said, written, or merely thought in the realm of literary theory and criticism over the last several decades is obviously and often breathtakingly wrong. This is because all of the dominant "poststructuralist" approaches--Lacanian, Foucauldian, Marxist, radical feminist, deconstructionist, and others--are organized around an adamantine core of social constructivist theory that is profoundly at odds both with Darwinian theory and with practical research in what Steven Pinker calls "the new sciences of human nature."

Carroll's argument is really quite simple. All literary criticism and theory is ultimately based on theories of human nature (even the theory that there is no such thing as human nature is a theory of human nature). Literary scholarship constructed on unsound theoretical foundations--on essentially faulty premises about human tendencies and potential--must itself be unsound, no matter how internally self-consistent. The chapters of Literary Darwinism articulate Carroll's vision of a foundation-up reorganization of literary studies along Darwinian lines. Carroll describes a Darwinian Literary Study where judgments about literary plots, characters, and themes are rooted in the bedrock of evolutionary theory, are disciplined by the findings of scientific research, and, when possible, are tested using scientific methods.

Literary scholars and evolutionists who are interested in the concept of consilience will also be interested in Literary Darwinism, which represents one of the most serious and sustained attempts to establish consilience between the humanities and behavioral biology-and to plumb its implications.

I received this book as a birthday present. I simply loved diving into the pages. Each poem captured my interest. I found myself memorizing a dozen of the poems. I would definitely consider this book to be a worthwhile investment.

This is a beautiful book of well selected works for anyone who celebrates love. There are many classics here as well as many not so well known, but equally beautiful selections. Read it with your lover.

As a relationship author and wedding officiant, I found this book to be full of wonderful poems and readings. A bride and groom gave me this book just prior to the day of their beach wedding in Rocky Point, Mexico. I could not put it down. As a surprise to the bride and groom, I read the first two paragraphs from the book's introduction during the wedding ceremony. What a hit! Many of the guests wanted to know where that very special reading came from. Give this book to someone you love!

This is definitely one of the best poetry books I've ever read. I read it often & memorized quite a few of the poems. I absolutely love the cover art. It's just beautiful to look at!! I highly recommend this book to poetry lovers.

Just what you need if your wife needs an indication that you are still "there"!

A diverse collection from classical, mediaeval and modern sources
including Manyoshu and Kokinshu, the poems have an elegant
simplicity. Brief biographies of the poets are supplied.
An exquisite volume well worth owning. It makes an excellent gift.

If you have a heart that is full of longing, a life that slips past too quickly, a love long lost or not yet known, a yearning for the spring, an ache for a distant tune partly forgotten or the remembrance of the scent of spring, then this book is for you. It will not lighten the load you bear, but it makes bearing it all the more meaningful.

More Wabi Sabi

Great things come in small packages has never been so true as it is with this little gem. Erotic, profound, and always beautiful, this is Japanese poetry at its short, short best. Read and enjoy.

Armenian-American inhabitant William Saroyan, whose heday was between 1934-1940 in San Francisco, is a great America writer of human short stories. He is gifted in characterization, in his ability to capture emotions and interpersonal subtleties; he is also overflowing with a sort of honest wisdom from whose cup it is a pleasure, via reading his stories to drink. There are several great stories in this collection; Secrets of Alexandria is about two isolated moviegoers with movie stars and hoping to hook up but thwarted by events; The Brothers and Sisters tells of the disillusionment of a buff young guy in lust with an innocent hooker, who is accompanied to the mysterious site of his jealousy by a religious member of a family of wine merchants; The Living and the Dead hilariously recounts the commentary of an Armenian grandmother, whose dead husband, a horse-riding drunk who terrorized and was never seen to cry, spouted incomparable oratory. Many of the best stories focus on the invisible fulcrum of passing time, the moment when an individual realizes, in the face of inexorable events, that things will not be the same. Relatedly, the stories perfectly capture the loss, the missingness, as it were, of the beloved. Dear Baby captures a boxer on the way out, fighting against odds for his dead sweetheart. The wonderful The Great Leapfrog Contest, perhaps my favorite, tells of a new neighborhood girl, Rosie Mahoney, the youngest of a big Irish family who moves into a non-Irish neighborhood where she proves her superiority to all the neighborhood boys-even the new, strong, instinctually cool and filmic-but not Rosie-quality-guy who moves in from Texas and refuses to engage in fisticuffs with a female. Many Miles Per Hour tells of young boys ogling a car souped up to go over fifty (!) miles per hour. Many of the stories feature, or have young male characters; because the stories take place in the first half of the 20th century, they contain a wonderful historical quality. Sweetheart, Sweetheart, Sweetheart details the angst of a teen desired by a married neighbor whose mother and sister realize what's going on before he does, and laugh when she takes a grown lover, never again to play the story's eponymous song which, she had said, was devoted to him.

Armenian-American inhabitant William Saroyan, whose heday was between 1934-1940 in San Francisco, is a great America writer of human short stories. He is gifted in characterization, in his ability to capture emotions and interpersonal subtleties; he is also overflowing with a sort of honest wisdom from whose cup it is a pleasure, via reading his stories to drink. There are several great stories in this collection; Secrets of Alexandria is about two isolated moviegoers with movie stars and hoping to hook up but thwarted by events; The Brothers and Sisters tells of the disillusionment of a buff young guy in lust with an innocent hooker, who is accompanied to the mysterious site of his jealousy by a religious member of a family of wine merchants; The Living and the Dead hilariously recounts the commentary of an Armenian grandmother, whose dead husband, a horse-riding drunk who terrorized and was never seen to cry, spouted incomparable oratory. Many of the best stories focus on the invisible fulcrum of passing time, the moment when an individual realizes, in the face of inexorable events, that things will not be the same. Relatedly, the stories perfectly capture the loss, the missingness, as it were, of the beloved. Dear Baby captures a boxer on the way out, fighting against odds for his dead sweetheart. The wonderful The Great Leapfrog Contest, perhaps my favorite, tells of a new neighborhood girl, Rosie Mahoney, the youngest of a big Irish family who moves into a non-Irish neighborhood where she proves her superiority to all the neighborhood boys-even the new, strong, instinctually cool and filmic-but not Rosie-quality-guy who moves in from Texas and refuses to engage in fisticuffs with a female. Many Miles Per Hour tells of young boys ogling a car souped up to go over fifty (!) miles per hour. Many of the stories feature, or have young male characters; because the stories take place in the first half of the 20th century, they contain a wonderful historical quality. Sweetheart, Sweetheart, Sweetheart details the angst of a teen desired by a married neighbor whose mother and sister realize what's going on before he does, and laugh when she takes a grown lover, never again to play the story's eponymous song which, she had said, was devoted to him.

this saroyan collection gathers together some of the stories he wrote while living in san francisco. besides the fact that they are beautiful short stories (one of my favorites: "the mother"), they are all set in san francisco. for a sense of place circa 1930s, a great book. also, the herb caen introduction is a nice addition. makes it a piece of SF literature worth holding onto, i think.

This little book released by New Directions is bright-eyed and youthful, with hardly any of the rancor contained in Saroyan's other tales. Written all before 1940, these short pieces pick you up quickly, drop you in the middle of a bunch of scrappy kids in Fresno/San Fransisco in the depression era, and then take you back home with hardly any jet-lag.

Saroyan goes back in time effortlessly, describing a game of leap-frog (remember that game, where a line of kids crouch on the ground and one kid hops over the whole line and crouches in the front, and then the last kid gets up and hops over the whole line, to infinity...) where a tough boy and a tough girl compete brutally, leaping and crouching, all the way out into the country and to the next town, ending in a bloody brawl. And in "The Messenger", a young boy gets hilariously distracted from his extremely important mission to send a message to the town doctor. Most of the stories are light, funny and non-ironic, but at times the customary Saroyan bile simmers to the top. Like in "The Living and the Dead", where a reluctant young Communist writer, is walking down the road to town, whistling happily, and suddenly "...the whole world, caught in time and space, seemed to me an absurdity, and insanity, and instead of being amused, which would have been philosophical, I was miserable and began to ridicule all the tragic straining of man, living and dead." Like I said, MOST of the stories are light and funny...

What I like most about these is the sense of respect and compassion Saroyan shows his characters, no matter how young, simple or strange they are. He describes their lives like he was there experiencing the same bittersweet mini-tragedies and absurdities simultaneously, right along with them. He uses the vernacular of the day to write the most endearing dialogue ever, bringing these superbly-drawn characters to luminous life. Saroyan's early stories here reflect the same kind of innocent humor and subtlety as the brief output of another American master, Nathaniel West. If you liked "The Day of the Locust" or "Balso Snell", then these little classics will bring you a similarly delightful reading experience. I strongly believe Raymond Carver to be a literary son, or at least nephew, to William Saroyan here in his best form, the short story.

I came to read Meister Eckhart because he influenced Nicholas de Cusa and Jacob Boehme, two great mystics that I've read indepthly. I knew Eckhart was accused of being an heretic, yet I came into his thought with an open mind. I have since become a disciple, and I'll explain why. The main text of the book begins with "Documents Relating to Eckhart's Condemnation." In it are "A. Selections from Eckhart's Defense" and "B. The Bull 'In agro dominico'" (March 27, 1329), which is the Catholic Church's condemnation document that was finished two years after Eckhart's death. In "In agro dominico" the church basically twisted inside out many of the conclusions of the propositions that Eckhart syllogized, misrepresenting the perspective of them. Eckhart was writing from the perspective of God, not his own perspective. His inquisitors were basically ignoramuses whose prejudices were dogmatically driven. I believe you will, like I did, find him totally innocent of the heresies he was accused of. You may find, however, some of his thoughts boardering on heresy, but he never really crossed the line. For instance, he believed that we must "give birth to Christ" in our souls. It has a ring of Boehme's mysticism or vice versus. Boehme believed the way to Christ is through the core of the soul, so the similarities are obvious. "Selections from the Commentaries on Genesis" is a very revealing glimpse into the allegorical meanings of parables in the Book of Genesis. If you want to truly understand what "In [the] beginning God created the heavens and the earth" means, there may not be a better explanation ever written than you'll find here. His elucidation is superlative. "Selections on the Commentary of John," "Selected Sermons," "Treatises: A. The Book of 'Benedictus': The Book of Divine Consolation. B. The Book of 'Benedictus': Of the Nobleman. C. Counsels on Discernment. D. On Detachment" are also included. Eckhart's theory of detachment is taken directly from the parables in the Bible, such as "the poor in spirit are blessed" (Mt. 5:13). We must abandon all images in the soul, to become totally free of self-will as well as God's will, and truly become poor in spirit. Only then is true poverty of the soul realized. That is the Eckhartian path to personal salvation. It is very deep and meaningful. That is what transformed me into a disciple. In the front of the book there's a Preface, Foreward, Introduction with Key to Abbreviations, Historical Data, Theological Summary, A note on Eckhart's Works and the Present Selections. In the back Notes, Bibliography, and Indexes. I highly recommend this superb volume as well as the others in the series.

This is an excellent translation of some of Meister Eckhart's finest works and is highly recommended as is McGinn's in this series. Eckhart is one of the greatest apothatic Christian mystics and both Eckhart titles in 'Classics of Western Spirituality Series' are a great place to start to read His works. If you want all of His sermons then buy O'C Walshe's 'Sermons and treaties'. For a study of Eckhart's mysticism buy 'Mystical Thought' by Bernard McGinn.

Meister Eckhart comes to us with an somewhat shadowy legacy. He was charged with heresy, and while this was not unique (many Christian mystics were accused of heretical thought at some point and some even burned, like Margarite Porete), what is surprising was that Eckhart was what would now be a Professor of Theology.

Eckhart was in some ways like a religious Galileo. His mystical ideas are very often shocking, from his notion of the birth of Jesus in the soul to the Godhead beyond the Trinity itself. His ideas were in many ways (with their paralells to Sufi Islam and Buddhism) very far ahead of their time and like other great Christian speculative mystics such as Origen or Evagrius Ponticus, the charge of heresy is never too far away in the shadows. It is then not surprising the ecclesiastic authorities charged this man with erring from established truth.

However Eckhart saw himself as an genuine mystic afire with the love of God and sharing in the deepest possible relationship with him. Eckhart certainly was a mystical genius, and one of the most brilliant and profound spiritual teachers Christianity has ever seen. He certainly belongs in the same rank as Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, John of Cross and Denys the Aeropagite.

Eckhart's approach to God uses both the way of denial and the way of affirmation. God is both an incomprehensible darkness, a beingless One above all distinctions, an ineffable reality, and at the same time the highest good, light and reality. God is to be reached mainly through the innermost ground of the soul which Eckhart calls the 'ground', and sometimes as a little 'castle.' In an obscure way by encountering the divine there by shunning all thoughts, concepts and images we don't so much encounter 'God' (the being with attributes as we see in the Bible), rather the Godhead, or the Absolute as it truely is, as a One above all distinctions, divisions, concepts, and being. When we meet the Absolute here God is no longer the Trinitarian God of Catholic Christianity but the simple, silent Godhead, ineffable and quiet in itself, yet also the highest reality there is, and the source of all else, even 'God' himself. In this sense Eckhart seems to share a great deal in common with Plotinus or Buddhism and 'shunyata', the mysterious emptiness which is the changeless source of being. Indeed he sometimes says God is 'nothing', and at other times creatures are nothing, pure emptiness (when compared to the super-essential richness of God in terms of his giving being). While having much in common with previous Christian mystics, these ideas sat rather ill with the Church authorities who seemed to think he was denying some key Christian dogmas as well as affirming heretical ideas, such as Pantheism or reincarnation. Indeed, the same charges often occur today.

Eckhart was not helped by his students, who often took his mysticism to very unhealthy extremes. Suso and Tauler were his best 'disciples', but overall the irrationalism and antinominalism of German mysticism which followed Eckhart tended to show the decadence even the best mysticism can fall into, if not checked with reason and common sense.

Nevertheless Eckhart speaks immediately and profoundly to the soul, and whether you are Christian or not, he is certainly a great Christian mystic who deserves in my view better recognition for his insights and achievements than he has.

This is what is included in this volume: Introduction: Historical Data, Theological Summary, A Note on Eckhart's Works and the Present Selections. Part One: Latin Works: 1. Documents Related to Eckhart's Condemnation. A. Selections from Eckhart's Defense. B. The Bull "In agro dominico" (March 27, 1329). 2. Selections from the Commentaries on Genesis. 3. Selections from the Commentary on John. Part Two: German Works: 1. Selected Sermons. 2. Treatises: A. The Book of "Benedictus": The Book of Divine Consolation. B. The Book of "Benedictus": Of the Nobleman. C. Counsels on Disernment. D. On Detachment. NOTES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEXES.

This edition was very helpful to me because I didn't always understand what the original text meant, so reading the modern version right after the old version was very helpful. The book was one of my favorites - it's such a comedy! The characters are so unique and interesting. I definitely reccomend this book to everyone - it's short and doesn't take long to read, but so lasting and classic!

I am not a very big reader. I read this book and fell in love with it. It has a lot of everthing:romance, comedy,and pure poetry. After reading the story, my class and I put on a play of this book, everyone enjoyed it of all ages. So if you are not a big reader like me read this book you will change your mind.

It was a riveting and classical masterpiece with an enchanted twist of creative and whimsical imagination.A timeless tale!

This edition was very helpful to me because I didn't always understand what the original text meant, so reading the modern version right after the old version was very helpful. The book was one of my favorites - it's such a comedy! The characters are so unique and interesting. I definitely reccomend this book to everyone - it's short and doesn't take long to read, but so lasting and classic!