English Classics Books

This book has an extrodianry amount of suspense it was good for people who like long books, i think Jane Austen is an good novelist.

This book has an extrodianry amount of suspense it was good for people who like long books, i think Jane Austen is an good novelist.

Cliff Notes have always helped me in the past have a greater understanding of classic literture, and this guide to Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" is no exception.

The guide covers all of the chapters with a summary, commentary and glossary for definitions. The guide also includes a brief biography of the author, character analyses, a review section(which contains: Questions and answers, identify the quote, essay questions, and practice projects), a resource center(which contains: books with more information and web sites), and critical essays.

I highly recommend this guide to anyone who wants a better understanding of this classic book.

These cliff notes really helped me understand Austen's pride and prejudice. I now fully understnad this novel and am able to discuss it properly in my english class!

"The Old Man and the Sea" was my favorite from all the books I've read this year. It was written by Ernest Hemingway in in 1951. The story is called a novella because it is too long to be a short story, but too short to be called a novel. This book by Ernest Hemingway is so amazing though. Hemingway has the ability to write a story that makes your mind paint a picture. This book draws you in, and you feel like you're in the skiff with Santiago, rooting for the death of the marlin. Quoted from Zach Davisson, "This short novel is fierce, full of vibrant energy and humanity," and I would say that this is Hemingway's best work. At first the story seems like a standard "man against nature" tale, but unlike those kind of stories, this one has a more vivid battle, and a stronger point at the end. It is said that Hemingway's inspiration for the old man in the book, was the Cuban fisherman Gregorio Fuentes, who was also Hemingway's friend, but noe one really knows where Hemingway gets he extraoridnary ideas.
Although short, the book has a deep meaning. Sometimes people can just read a book without really seeing much of a point, but that only happens when people read the words, not the story. You have to know how to read right, in order to see the message in the book. One main theme I found while reading was to have courage in the face of defeat. Even though the Old man hadn't caught a fish in 84 days, he didn't give up. He continued to try and try. On day 85, he decides that, no matter what, he will not return with a catch. His waiting paid off though, because soon, he caught an enormous marlin. Santiago had to fight with the fish for three days before finally killing it. On the way back, the old man had more to worry about than just about keeping the fish tied to the boat. Sharks, hunger, and weakness tried to defeat the man, but he stayed strong. This book mainly portrays masculinity. Although the old man was very gentle, he knew when to use the power and strength that men have. He is so gentle though, that at one point in the book he wishes he "could feed the fish," and at another in the book he is "sorry for the fish that had nothing to eat." Later on in the story, he deeply grieves when the first shark mutilates the fish's beautiful body. Santiago has a very kind soul and loving heart too. He doesn't mind the fishermen who make fun of him, and he respects Manolin's father, even though he forbids the boy to fish with the old man and tells him to fish with someone else after forty fishless days with Santiago. The only time in the book when Santiago is violent, is when he killed the sharks which attacked his fish, but such actions, the only reason he did was to defend his "brother", the fish. Even in his dreams are gentle and pleasant. Santiago usually dreams of playful, not fierce, lions, and also, once of mating porpoises. I loved his easy-going, selfless, and thoughtful character, throughout the whole story.

The reason that I loved "The Old Man and the Sea" is because this book inspired me the most. It made me think of how the old man's life is the kind of live anyone would want. Although he is poor and lonely, he loves everyone around him no matter how much they discourage him, and he believes in himself enough to set out goals that seems unreachable. He knows that he can succeed in practically anything. The old man has everything he needs in this world: determination and strength. Santiago's battle was a very hard one, but no matter how hard it got, he never gave up Mainly, this story portrayed hope. Santiago created hope when there was none. He was strong when his body was weak. Santiago himself has said, "Man is not made for defeat....A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
The strength of his will is what keeps him going. It is all that holds his failing body together. Even though the old man's strength seemed a little over-exaggerated and unrealistic sometimes, the rest of the story has fixed that. The boy is a good example of a casual person, and the fish is just a casual fish.

This book has many different interpretations. To one person, this could be a story of how a man was so determined that he never gave up, not matter how much suffering he had to go through. Another person may think of this story as just another story of symbolism, because the old man, no matter how aged and hurt, had strength and bravery throughout the whole story.
While one person may this of this story as a story of success, another one might just label the old man as too desperate and obsessed, because he almost lost his life over catching a fish. To another person this story might portray that riches and wealth give nothing, and that a person can live a good life without any of that. To me, this story had a different meaning, but is similar to the first one. This story represents courage, trust, and love to me. It represents courage, because the old man had courage in times when most people fear. He had the courage to go out there, knowing he will succeed in his goals, and he rejected fear, doubt, and weakness. It represents trust, because the old man trusted himself. Sometimes, in a tough situation, people do things they normally wouldn't. Sometimes people say they would never do something, but at the end, they turn out to. Mothers who love their children, actually ate their children in times of starvation, and this is because of how their brain reacted. The old man knew that he could trust himself not to give up. He knew he would keep going no matter how back-breaking the work would be. He knew that he wouldn't betray himself and give up in the end, like many people do. It also represents love, because the old man loved his dream and hobby. Catching the marlin was his dream, and fishing was hobby. He loved the feeling of success, and self-respect, and so he loved the dream of catching the fish so much that he decided to go out and make it reality. I can really relate to this story, because many times, I suffer in order to get a reward at the end. Even though I don't actually get a reward, just like the old man didn't, I get respect, and it makes me feel better too. This story could have had a different ending, one that many people said they would have liked. Some think it would have been better if Santiago would have towed the enormous fish back to port and posed for a triumphal photograph, but instead his prize gets devoured by a school of sharks. Santiago returned home with little more than a skeleton, but that didn't mean anything to him. He was not fully defeated, and that made him feel proud. He didn't want credit or popularity, because he didn't care about any of those things. All he wanted was to finally succeed in catching a fish, and that's what happened. When he returned home, he went to bed and, dreamed about the lions.

I recommend this book to everyone. It is such an encouraging and outstanding story, and I think that everyone should get a change to read it. If you've read it, but you didn't find it touching or meaningful, then you've missed the point. I never knew that a story a little over 120 pages could have so much meaning, and teach you such great things.

The book Ichose to read was The old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. This book was very interesting to me because this is the first time I am reading a book written by Ernest Hemingway. This novel was a hundred and fifty three pages. After I read this novel I convinced myself that this was an interesting book to read. That is because the author Ernest Hemingway has only a few weaknesses in his novel. This novel had a lot of strengths, the one that I liked was, he did'nt bore his audience with the book, he had many interesting ideas. From all the books that Iread this novel was the most interesting and understandable novel.This book is perfect for teenagers to read because they learn that success doesnt just come by just sitting there, it comes by working very hard. Another strength was that the kid and the old man worked together and showed that to be successful in life, it takes friendship, and working together like a team. Another strength was it had a lot of symbolism. Besides strenghts this book had a few weaknesses too. The part where the old man Santiago spent two days trying to catch a big fish that was the size of his boat. Ernest Hemingway could have made it a lttle bit more interesting by adding a little more action to the novel. The story is overly simplistic. I recommend this novel to everyone that can read. I would not recommend this novel to anyone who likes adventures. And to anyone who doesnt like complicated, suspensful novels. In conclusion this novel taught me a lot of stuff like, never quit, and reach for your goals. I understood the importance of having people help me, and the value of friendship. I recommend you to read this novel, You will understand a lot of things you didnt before. By Gevork Sarkisyan

The book Ichose to read was The old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. This book was very interesting to me because this is the first time I am reading a book written by Ernest Hemingway. This novel was a hundred and fifty three pages. After I read this novel I convinced myself that this was an interesting book to read. That is because the author Ernest Hemingway has only a few weaknesses in his novel. This novel had a lot of strengths, the one that I liked was, he did'nt bore his audience with the book, he had many interesting ideas. From all the books that Iread this novel was the most interesting and understandable novel.This book is perfect for teenagers to read because they learn that success doesnt just come by just sitting there, it comes by working very hard. Another strength was that the kid and the old man worked together and showed that to be successful in life, it takes friendship, and working together like a team. Another strength was it had a lot of symbolism. Besides strenghts this book had a few weaknesses too. The part where the old man Santiago spent two days trying to catch a big fish that was the size of his boat. Ernest Hemingway could have made it a lttle bit more interesting by adding a little more action to the novel. The story is overly simplistic. I recommend this novel to everyone that can read. I would not recommend this novel to anyone who likes adventures. And to anyone who doesnt like complicated, suspensful novels. In conclusion this novel taught me a lot of stuff like, never quit, and reach for your goals. I understood the importance of having people help me, and the value of friendship. I recommend you to read this novel, You will understand a lot of things you didnt before.

The book Ichose to read was The old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. This book was very interesting to me because this is the first time I am reading a book written by Ernest Hemingway. This novel was a hundred and fifty three pages. After I read this novel I convinced myself that this was an interesting book to read. That is because the author Ernest Hemingway has only a few weaknesses in his novel. This novel had a lot of strengths, the one that I liked was, he did'nt bore his audience with the book, he had many interesting ideas. From all the books that Iread this novel was the most interesting and understandable novel.This book is perfect for teenagers to read because they learn that success doesnt just come by just sitting there, it comes by working very hard. Another strength was that the kid and the old man worked together and showed that to be successful in life, it takes friendship, and working together like a team. Another strength was it had a lot of symbolism. Besides strenghts this book had a few weaknesses too. The part where the old man Santiago spent two days trying to catch a big fish that was the size of his boat. Ernest Hemingway could have made it a lttle bit more interesting by adding a little more action to the novel. The story is overly simplistic. I recommend this novel to everyone that can read. I would not recommend this novel to anyone who likes adventures. And to anyone who doesnt like complicated, suspensful novels. In conclusion this novel taught me a lot of stuff like, never quit, and reach for your goals. I understood the importance of having people help me, and the value of friendship. I recommend you to read this novel, You will understand a lot of things you didnt before. By Gevork Sarkisyan

Wrigley is a poet who speaks to all sorts of readers, not just a specialized few. His poems are usually very accessible, but not easy to put into other words, because they are so wonderfully written. Buy this book and read the poem "Conjure." It's as beautiful a love poem as you'll ever fine. Read the long series of poems that give the book its title: scary, exciting, and like all Wrigley's poems, beautiful. Even the italicized poems that are spaced through the book--they are impossible to paraphrase, but they are the kind of poems that make the hair on your neck stand up and chills slide down your spine. I can't wait for this poet's next book.

Anyone that has spent anytime in the great ourdoors, be it hunting, fishing or just observing nature, will find something to identify with in Wrigley's poems. He reaches a part of us long ago forgotten and touches our primitive soul, igniting our memory like the wind whipping at a dying coal. Highly recommended.

Nobody sings like this poet. Maybe that's why the book seems so risky and wonderful to me: it seems like most poets these days are trying to write in the language of computer manuals--dull, dry, flat, and boring. Not Wrigley. His poems ring and soar like Mozart. And at the same time they mean something worth hearing. They can break your heart or make you laugh and often leave you speechless. Reign of Snakes is Wrigley's best book so far, the genuine article, a true jewel.

There are poems in this book that go deeper into that place that poetry can go than the work of any other poet I've read in years. They make a good ache. They make you want what you can't quite imagine. They make you understand something you can't find the words for. But this poet could and did. Some of the poems are strange, but even when they are strange, they make you feel what one critic described as Wrigley's "delicious melancholy." It really is like being under a spell, and it's beautiful.

I cannot think of a better way to introduce the poetry of Robert Lewis Stevenson than this small volume. The selection is excellent and of interest you the young reader. The commentary is quite relevant as are the pictures which accompany it. I find that often now, our young people go all the way through the early grades in school and many of them have never heard of Stevenson, much less read his poetry. This was the sort of stuff my generation and the generation before it grew up on and cut our teeth on. I do not feel I am any worse for the wear. I am fearful that we are bringing up an entire generation (rightfully or wrong, although I feel it is the later) of young folks who will have no appreciation to this great art form and will miss a lot. This book helps. This entire series helps, as a matter of fact and I certainly recommend you add this one and the others to your library. Actually, it is rather fun reading these with the young folk and then talking about them. Not only do you get to enjoy the work your self and perhaps bring back some great memories, but you have the opportunity to interact with your child or student. It is actually rather surprising what some of the kids come up with. I read these to my grandchildren and to the kids in my classes at school. For the most part, when I really get to discussing the work with them, they enjoy it. Recommend this one highly.

This small selection of some of the delightful children's poems by Robert Louis Stevenson is a real treasure. What will capture the fascination of all children (as well as adults like me!) are the illustrations by Lucy Corvino. This artist's beautiful illustrations are perfect for the magic that all children love in these classic poems. You keep returning to each picture, and always discover more fascinating detail. A lovely job - a lovely gift book for any small child, and for "grown-ups" like me who can't resist such perfect art work.

When I showed this beautiful book to a friend, she wanted one for both her children (so they can keep it when they grow up) and also one for her mother. The poetry is timeless--it takes you back instantly into your childhood imagination--and the illustrations are superb. These pictures are funny, mysterious, comforting, poignant, all at the same time, and filled with gorgeous soft color and intriguing details. As a child, I would have spent hours looking at them.

As an elementary school teacher, I found "Poetry for Young People" by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Lucy Corvino, a wonderful book. It's a great way to introduce poetry to children because the poems are short and easy to understand. The illustrations have magnificently detailed illustrations without being overly complex or confusing. The children are drawn to the pictures, which heightens what is being read to them. They unanimously respond with great enthusiasm, and they eagerly ask for more. I highly recommend this book to parents, teachers and anyone who regularly spends time with children.

Like the Gnostic text Thunder, Perfect Mind, the Wake is a song of oblique wisdom. Eric's father and Terrence McKenna are my two favorite analysts of Joyce. Eric is not as funny as these two but I love this book. Much ado about long funny words. If you don't LOVE the Wake, skip this, but if you do, Eric has many gnarly thoughtlets for you to play with.

The bibliography alone is worth the price. Prof. McLuhan describes the Menippean tradition beginning with Lucian and traces a continuous line to Joyce. He describes the breakdown of the Greek Logos into the Trivium, and how the ratio between Grammar, Rhetoric, and Dialectic (and the culture itself) changes under the influence of technology. He shows how Joyce uses the thunders as rhetorical gestures enacting the transformation of culture by technological metaphor using textual context and multilingual etymology. Sounds horribly stiff, perhaps; its really much more fun (and much freer) than most over-conceptualized scholarship.

Yes I said yes. (Now and then I realize how esoteric my books about Joyce and "Finnegans Wake" are.) Anyway, Marshall McLuhan's kid Eric dove headlong into the Frey oops fray and came up with a winner. "FW" takes place on a Thursday, as does "Ulysses." And Feb. 2, 1882, was a Thor's Day too. Oh my gosh...how does one write a review of this book. I guess it's for Joyce fans, or those who have read "Finnegans Wake" more than once. To me, reading "about" the Wake is as fun as reading the Wake. "Oh; THAT'S what that means!!" Let's face it, we all need a lot of help. If you've seen the paperback "War and Peace in the Global Village"---where, I think, the page called "What the thunders said..." is found---you'll have a headstart. Enough! or too much. Thanks, Eric McLuhan.

This book make FW a bit less obscure. First he narrows his focus to the ten 100-letter Thunderwords in FW and shows that, like DNA in a chromosome, each Thunder contains all the themes of its section in microcosm. (find the Joseph Campbell on Finnegans Wake video and hear him read the first thunderword for the full effect) Second, he fits FW in the genre of Minippean satire, so its disorderly mess has a bit of company on the bookshelf. Hey, "Every artist creates his own precursors", Borges wrote. When I went to school, it was Horatian and Juvenalian, nice and nasty, Garison Keillor vs Howard Stern. Well, now there's room for Tristram Shandy and Frank Zappa, too. A good entree to the subject.

trivia: The author's dad was the guy Alvy Singer produced to silence the movieline bore in Annie Hall.

I have read this book in Chinese, and then I decide to get the English press to be my treature. It is very elegant and powerful, describing the history and making elegant, deep interpretation. I consider that it has better than the classic discourse "The Mirror and the Lamp" wrote by M. H. Abrams. The analysis and result from this book is a very important step forward to a splendid literary world.

There are books I try more than usual to have my own copy of. And this is one of them. A brilliant look into the world of English Romanticism. This is not just a literary sketch of the age and its spirit. As the title suggests, it's also about social interaction with the backdrop of the French Revolution. As Butler sees it, Edmund Burke's "Reflections" was "a polemic against intellectuals". And perhaps, Coleridge traveled to Germany to avoid conscription. The rise of German Romantik could have been caused by the social Angst especially among the young adults who ended up jobless in the wake of economic malaise... Butler's grip on all these details is so enticing you simply want to follow her until you see "The End." I have to make it known that this is no page-turner for everyone(despite the rolling but crisp, subtle but lucid sentences) but recommendably for those who have interest in how the period shaped the Romantic ideas and how the poets and novelists were all distinctively and creatively responsive. Still, it can also be read as a great introduction to the social and literary topography of the English Romanticism.

A fascinating book! A must read for anyone that is interested in literary research of the period, or someone interested in learning more about their favorite author. An interesting book to just read on its own as well, since it covers a wide range of ideas and authors. Marilyn Butler's book is a must for the library of any student of literature.

Marilyn Butler is at least as great a literary historian as Ann Douglas, and that means as great as it gets. This book is... well, I do not say an object lesson in writing history, for it is inimitable. Dr.Butler's mind is vast: she can be just and sympathetic both to the stern Toryism of Jane Austen and to the extreme progressivism of Blake or Godwin. Her eye for the peculiarities of a period - even a period that lasted, perhaps, only a few months - is flawless. Her learning is enormous, yet worn lightly; like her Oxford predecessor C.S.Lewis, she can be said to have "read everything, and understood what [she] read". And because her knowledge is so broad, embracing political and social history on both Britain and the continent, she is able to indulge in the wholesale slaughter of sacred cows without being in the least affected, self-indulgent, or attention-seeking. It is simply her sacrifice to the truth. Dr.Butler on the real intellectual origins and significance of Wordsworth, for instance, is a marvellous liberation from generations of nonsense; as soon as one reads her analysis of his derivation from a specific and identifiable strand of eighteenth-century writing, one becomes conscious that this is the truth. And her style is worthy of her content: plain, profound, readable, with not one sentence in the whole book that does not advance the argument or shed further light. Dr.Butler is an Oxford Don, and this is the Oxford manner at its best - clear, unpretentious, comprehensive. This is a fabulously good book, that takes its place alongside Lewis' OXFORD HISTORY OF SIXTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE, Auerbach's MIMESIS, Ann Douglas' TERRIBLE HONESTY and THE FEMINIZATION OF AMERICAN CULTURE as one of the finest pieces of literary history I have ever read.

An excellent aid for scientists whose native tongue is not English, but also a useful aid for any person that wishes to improve their written English skills. I mostly like the witty fashion and simplicity in which is written. In fact, the main message from this textbook is that in simplicity lies the secret to adequately express your ideas, whichever is the language. Furthermore, it provides useful rules and hints for the proper use of expressions, words, adverbs, adjectives, etc. Mandatory!

An excellent book for a scientist whose mother language is not English.

I have worked as a science writer and editor for years and purchased this book with the intention of using it when working with investigators writing papers, grants applications, etc. (especially with those investigators for whom English may be a second language). Overall I think the book is quite good, and provides clear and concise advice and guidance (as well as numerous examples) on proper English language.

Perhaps it is just a pet peeve of mine, but I take issue with Mr. Day's discussion of the use of the words "that" and "which." Although he provides examples of how the meaning of a sentence can change with the alternate use of "that" and "which," his conclusion is that, if it doesn't change the sentence, use either. To quote from the book, Mr. Day says, "Who gives a damn?"

Well, I do. I'm not a "which-hunter," as Mr. Day describes some, but there are specific instances where these words are to be used, even if the meaning of a sentence doesn't change with either use, and he acknowledges this. Advocating a dismissive attitude about the rules is tantamount to propagating poor English in a society already replete with poor speakers and writers.

Despite this, I would recommend this book to anyone wishing to improve his command of the English language.

I'm a technical writer by profession, and taught technical writing for 10 years. I've used this book and Day's "How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper" as textbooks, as well as in the workplace. This is the most succinct, practical, and helpful guide for scientific and technical writing on the market -- and I've looked at an awfully lot of guides! It's easy to use, and often very funny. Also, it's a good example of the clarity and brevity he advocates (this is not, unfortunately, true of many technical writing textbooks). Finally, I heartily concur with Day's belief that "Simplicity of expression is a natural result of profound thought." I've heard many scientists deplore the poor state of scientific education in the U.S. and the rise of "bad science." In my opinion, this is the fault of scientists themselves for not making their methods and results more accessible to the general public. Day's guidelines are an important step in the right direction, and I hope more scientists follow them.

For years I have been watching Seamus Heaney in interviews and wondered to myself, where does all this come from? Not a poet myself, I just intuitively felt there was much more to learn from him than I was grasping. Reading this book opened entirely new avenues of understanding for me, and Ms. Moloney obviously cares deeply for the man's work. Highly recommended!!

I have never read a book of literary criticism cover to cover before, but I found Moloney's book very readable and compelling, even. I had an interest in Ireland's history and in its relationship with England before I began, and I have always enjoyed Arthurian legend. This book correlated with much of what I knew already, filled in gaps I didn't know were there, opened up new ideas, and has sparked my desire to go further in my studies in this area. I am also a new fan of Seamus Heaney's work. I look forward to other publications by Moloney. I loved the discussion on Patricia Coughlan's ideas and wonder if there will be any response from the feminist camp.

Significant works of scholarship have a value that goes beyond research. This is such a book. Professor Moloney's thorough study of Heaney's place among Irish poets and within the Irish mythic tradition actually casts a wider net that includes all of us, embedded as we are in our conflicted sexes and societies, Irish or not. As Ms. Moloney, meticulously shows, Heaney and most other significant Irish poets have been struggling for centuries to come resolve or come to terms with a deep disconnect in the Irish past, as symbolized by the "Feis of Tara," a myth in various forms in which a hag-like mother-fertility figure must be accepted and embraced (sexually) in order to be transformed into a beautiful emblem of hope and fertility that renews a wasted land (country, Ireland). Professor Moloney's work suggests--by extention--that all of us, not just the Irish poets and people--suffer from some kind of similar disconnect and contradition, particularly in our sexual identities, and--by a further extention--in our respective political and historical contexts, regardless of what country we reside in. In short, we too are cut off--from our past, from ourselves, and from members of the opposite sex especially. We all need a reconciliation that will only come if we "effectively conquer" our "fear of the feminine," and achieve "the humility vitally required in our interaction with each other." Heaney's work, and the work of other Irish poets, is central to this imperative, healing objective--which must be achieved if the whole world is not to degenerate into something like the Irish "troubles" (i.e. Civil War) that forms the context within which Heaney is working, particularly. The solution is embodied in Heaney's quest to understand, accept, and then transcend the cultural mythology he inherited as an Ulster poet, conflicted from birth by Ireland's particular and violent disconnect. According to Moloney, Heaney "is linked utterly to his Irish past even as he argues memorably for a world beyond the post-colonial" (and post-patriarchal, if truth be told). Simply put, "it is kindness, after all" that "transforms" us, that frees us from the curses inherent in our cultural inheritances. As another Irish poet, John Montague, puts it, we need to move "beyond male condescension" and "feminist reaction," to "love's equal realm." This is why Moloney's book should be read--in addition to the fact that it also provides and introduction and insight into the work of several other significant Irish poets in addition to Heaney. It is a "hopeful" book in more ways than one.

This is the fourth book of literary criticism on Seamus Heaney I've read so far. Moloney manages to say something new about Heaney's mythologem and places it within its context of Irish literature. I would recommend Moloney's work over the others I've read so far.

Sure, most Robert Burns poems are on the `Net. Sure, we can look them up, print them out, and then recycle them. But what if you are at home, with no computer on, or in the park, or in a bus or train or plane? This is a smooth, slim, handsome volume, with a purple picture of a thistle on the cover and a ribbon placeholder inside. This is a book of poems for the ages--familiar, resonant, humorous, and ready.

Burns is a legendary lyric poet whose Scots verses inspired Wordsworth and Coleridge. A number of his poems and songs, "Auld Lang Syne" " To a Mousie" "Tam O'Shanter" " A man's a man for a that" are among the most well- known in the language.
Burns bright star burned briefly, and his life was filled with passionate and romantic loves about which he wrote some of his greatest poems. " My love is like a red red rose" is perhaps the most well-known of these.
In brief lines he expressed a great range of feeling, from satirical to humorous to tender and loving.
Here are the concluding verses of one of his signature poems, "To a Mousie"
But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o mice an men
Gang aft agley,
An lea'e us nought but grief an pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An forward, tho I canna see,
I guess an fear!

Robert Burns was and still is the greatest Scottish poet to ever live. This book takes you deep inside the mind of the Scots and makes you feel like one yourself. A perfect selection of literature, it is sure to be among your favorite bedside books. Buy it!!!

This is the best volume you'll find of the poetry of the great Bobby Burns (1759-1796). What's so great about this guy is that his poetry is never really sad or whiny like, well just about everybody else, but his poetry is really happy and merry; just a song you sing while drinking scotch. Another thing is that Burns is just the voice of Scotland. His poems in the Scottish dialect are nothing short of delightful like one of my favorites of his, A Red, Red Rose
Oh my luve is like a red, red rose ,
That's newly sprung in June
Oh my luve is like a melodie
That's sweetly played in tune
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel awile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile!

Another fantastic poet pushed to the chest of oblivion of women's achievements, in spite of her Nobel Price of Literature. Touching and profound stories of innocence, longing for one's roots, lost loves, and nature's beauty. The Spanish original poems are so rythmic and endearing, and yet, the excellent English version maintains the purity of its message. A book worth reading and re-reading.

This bilingual collection offers a superb selection of poetry from all of Gabriela Mistral's volumes. Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957)was the first Nobel Laureate from Latin America, teacher to Pablo Neruda, forerunner of writers such as Garcia Marquez and Rigoberta Menchu. Her work is hardly known in the United States in part because Mistral was not (unlike these other, better-known writers) identified with any particular political platform. She was always, first and last, a writer and a teacher...and incidentally one of Latin America's first celebrities, a public intellectual in every sense of the word. This collection draws from Gabriela Mistral's poetry alone (excerpted from five volumes; short selections of Mistral's poetic prose have been ably translated by Stephen Tapscott, published by the U of Texas, while the hundreds of journalistic pieces that Mistral wrote and circulated all over the Spanish-speaking world are still unknown to US readers).

The editorial standards in this text are very high. Pages have been laid out so that it is easy to consult the corresponding lines in Spanish and English. While LeGuin states in the introduction that she has little prior experience translating from Spanish to English, she makes clear in her introduction that she worked on this project for years, aided by associates fluent in both languages, and her motivation throughout was the desire to bring this extraordinary, brilliant, hard-to-classify poet's work to English language readers. LeGuin has succeeded admirably. The translations are close to the feeling of the Spanish, yet they avoid wooden literalism.

At all moments LeGuin opts to communicate the mood of the poem, and her choices of poems to translate is clearly dictated by a combination of elements. She chooses, first, what can be most readily translated - she prefers the narrative poems over most of the "songs" (cradle songs and rounds) since the rhymes and rhythms of latter are difficult to convey. Also the book selects more or less equally from the volumes of poetry that Mistral produced over her lifetime, so that we get an excellent overview of this poet's development. Finally, the translator has worked with poems that are among the poet's most intellectually complex works, ones that show the poet's utopian vision for the Americas, her unique feminism, her fascination with landscape and her travels all over the world.

This book gives you great insight about the amazing writer Gabriela Mistral. I wish more translations were available.

A simply outstanding addition to any personal or academic poetry collection, Selected Poems Of Gabriela Mistral is an extensive anthology of poetry by Gabriela Mistral who is the first Latin American writer to earn the Nobel Prize in literature. These free-verse poems are presented side-by-side in their original Spanish and expertly translated into English by Ursula K. Le Guin. Impressionable imagery and powerful, sweeping themes of the human condition mark this truly exceptional collection as highly recommended and memorable reading. Evening: In this sweetness I feel/my heart melt like wax./In my veins runs/not wine, but slow oil,/and I feel my life slipping away/still and soft as a gazelle.