Prose Books

I think this is the best Jack Handey book. I should know, I have them all!My favorite story is about when he had his head out the car window and knocked off a dog's head! The only complaint I could possibly make is that it is a little short. Go buy this book nooooooooowwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!

What can I say, other than thanks to Jack Handey for inviting me to read his book. This here is some side splittin' humor - the type that makes you worry about your guts!! I have to agree with Dirk when he so eloquently stated "this book is funny". Thanks to Jack for giving us never before seen material (Susan the Eubie) and for making this the best EVER!

If you're only buying one Jack Handey book then buy this one. I love them all, but some are better than others, and this one is consistently great from beginning to end.

This Book is funny as well as it should be , it's jack after all
i have all of his books they're all funny , weird this book is no expection . a word to the wise don't drink or eat anything when reading this book . i'm just waiting for the next volume of deep thoughts until then i'll read fuzzy & the others for a laugh.
take care jack & keep martha in line haa . this weird warped journey through childhood for those who don't get dry sense of humor things i would'nt get this book but for those who do than i'd recommend it. it's real treat.

If you're a fan of the Deep Thoughts series, this is surely a must have. Unlike the Deep Thoughts, you now have stories that are as funny as the short quips you've previously seen. I only wish the book were longer because you find yourself wanting to read more and more. My personal favorite is the fried chicken story with his cousin Susan the "Eubie". You truly get a sense of the warped genius that created Jack Handey. This book is enjoyable enough to read again and again whenever you start to feel down. If I could give it 10 stars I would.

An incredible look into the heart and soul of America as it really was in the 30's & 40's. Written with perfect passion and honesty like never before or since. READ THIS BOOK!

There are very few novels that have knocked me out of my chair as consistently as this one. Thompson's writing may seem crude to the uninitiated, but one cannot resist being swept up by his delightful tapestry of slang which peppers some of the most captivating prose I've ever read. It's about life in America, in it's underwear, up way past its bedtime, broke, beaten up, bombed out of its skull, with a tenacious hope running through it all like a river. No heterosexual American male in his right mind will be able to put this book down, and none should miss the chance to read it.

Hi,
I love his work and am looking for any information on Earl Thompson, i.e., where he died and how, family, etc. Anyone out there with any info can contact me at dpollock@adelphia.com.
Thanks,
Donald Ray Pollock

He could have given us more books like Garden. Yes, the topics are a little off-kilter and the language a little rough, but the man could write! In my own opinion, Thompson belongs on the shelf next to Hemingway and Steinbeck as an American treasure.

When the smoke of obscenity trials cleared in the 1960s, publishers were free to print well known novels like Joyce's Ulysses, Miller's Tropic of Cancer and Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. The new freedom to write about sexually explicit topics subsequently led not only to a spate of sexploitaton novels such as Grace Metalious's Peyton Place and Harold Robbins's Carpetbaggers but also to a handful of honest, forthright novels that focused on men and women in their teens and twenties, including Thompson's Garden of Sand, Agnar Mykle's Lasso Round the Moon, and R. V. Cassill's Pretty Leslie. The sexual frankness of these novels so overshadowed their merit that they were doomed to a sniggering relegation to the back shelf. It is time to redeem them. I doubt any American writer, including Mark Twain and J. D. Salinger, has ever got inside the head of an adolescent young man more than Thompson in Garden of Sand and Tattoo. There is sex, yes, but also the ethos and the degradation of poverty and the wild hopes and expectant dreams of people without money, privilege, or an Ivy League education. Clearly, Thompson lovingly worked and reworked his writing, piling up detail upon detail, observation upon observation, all of which results in a novel much like a Breughel painting: having naturalistic characteristics but an elegaic tone. He reminds us of what growing up REALLY was like.

I love this book! From the moment I saw the beautiful images that adorn the pages of this tribute to lost pets and the memorials their owners have built I knew this was a book I had to own. The resources in the back of the book are also essential information for any pet lover.

I felt happiness and sadness when I read this beautiful and unique book. Happiness when reading about all the joy the animals have given to their people, and sadness when reading about their losses. Only so many stories and pictures can be put in a book, but I feel that these stories also represent every animal of every person who reads this book. I am currently dealing with my 8-year old German Shepherd going lame, and it was very hard for me to pick this book up and read it again. But I did, and the story of Arlo, the German Shepherd/K-9 Hero from Oklahoma City touched me and made me cry. I know I will eventually have to deal with the loss of my dog, maybe sooner that I want to, but this book has helped me to think about that inevitible time, and what I will want to do then. This book also has a great list of resources that are available all over the country. I highly recommend this book to purchase for you and all of your friends/family members that love animals.

This was a unique and beautifully arranged book. It brought back so many memories of the pets I have lost. It's truly touching. I will buy this for my many animal lover family members and friends when that day comes for them too. It would make a wonderful gift!

This is such a unique beautiful book. If you love animals you would love this book. Those stories about pets inside this book made me cry. I lost 2 dogs in recent years and there are a lot of stories I can relate to. This book helps you to deal with your pets' deaths. It is also an art book. The pictures are all beautiful and artful. You can enjoy this book in that sense,too. I highly recommend it!!

A book that will let you know that there are others out there, just like you, who mourn the loss of their pet. Good-Bye My Friend shares sorrow, laughter and love. The pictures show how others have given tribute to their lost companions. A great gift to a grieving friend or a resource for a veterinarian's office.

A must have for anyone interested in Hermetic magick, this edition of PMG is fantastic, easy to read , very tidy clean work with many useful notes and references. Even if you're not into to the occult this edition of PMG will help you uderstand what religion was for people back then. Great work I really enjoyed reading it.

This book isn't for the casual reader, it is both hard to read as well as understand, if you are looking for a book on witchcraft there are much easier reads and the spells and rituals in this tome are not really going to be possible to recreate without serving time.
As a look into the everyday lives of our ancestors and how they saw magick as an everyday event it is amazing, worth the hard read to see just what the modern world has lost in it's rush to dismiss what we have difficulty in explaining or are to afraid to ask.

No fluff in this book
Anybody thats interested in Greek Magic this book is a must have.

This book is an absolute must for anyone interested in Greek magick, or the development of the Western Esoteric Tradition. It is full of literally hundreds of fragments and whole spells from ancient Greece, covering a huge range of areas from divination to love spells to knowledge gathering to revenge to exorcism. The Greek gods, along with other imports, are to be found throughout the texts, as well as a lot of planetary material, such as extensive use of the Greek vowels. You have to read this book if you are serious about magick, there is no excuse not to!

Much has already been said about this phenomenal collection of texts and I would be redundant to merely repeat much of what I find intriguing. However with that said, I have been delving into this phenomenal text since a fellow Evocational Magics practitioner turned me onto it. There's quite a bit of useful information for those who are practitioners of the arts of Summoning Spirits via Evocation.

If you desire to use this collection of texts in this manner, then you will need to make a thorough study of the various texts in this collection. There are specific passages that work very well as incantations for summoning the 72 Spirits listed in the Goetia, the first book of the Lemegeton. Further the rite of the Headless One is included in this text without modification and that too is an excellent addition to the arsenal of the working karcist.

Overall you will find a lot of useful lore and knowledge in this manual. Get it. Study it. Put it into use.

Amazon, in your Editorial Review Section, you've included an editorial review that essentially tells the whole book's plot. This should be scrutinized as it creates a true disincentive to read a book, if one knows the plot. I believe this is an outlier. With movie reviews one can come to expect the ending to be provided but with book reviews, please take care to talk about the tone, the flavor, the "back drop", the psychology, but the actual events in plot order--No No No avoid this, review the "reviews".Please take care and as a long term customer, please pre-review the editorial reviews to insure you are not succombing to newspaper like book reviews. I use Amazon because it's much like shelf shopping (live shopping) but if it loses this quality, i.e. the last pages of a book are somehow leaked, then Amazon has lost its charm and done a great author (and the readers) a true disservice.

Mahfouz is not well knowin America, but should be. The Harafish is the epic novel of the al-Nagi family who rules a particular alley in Egypt over multiple generations. (The "harafish" refers to the common people of that same alley). The book's chapters each encompass a generation of leadership by some descendant of the original Ashur as-Nagi, a gentle and pure physical giant, filled with pious and spirit-filled humility. His off-spring, and theirs as well, vary widely in their emulation of this great man and their stories are fascinating and quite unique. Each story's characters are vividly painted for the reader and all of the generations their good guys and bad guys. The entire book will captivate the reader and the simplicity of the read will remind you of books you read in childhood. However, the story themes are not to be thought of as childish- but rather as timeless and transcultural. Greed, piety, fidelity, cunning, love, lust, faith, and compassion all rolled together in an easily read documentary of one family's influence on many. An absolute joy to read. Mahfouz is one of my favorites!

The place is Cairo. The time is unknown but pre-modern. There is no technology and carts and carriages get the poor and rich around (respectively). It is post-Mohammed; Muslim is a faith and not a political philosophy. There are bars selling alcohol and women are not covered. Women can and do own businesses, and manipulate their husbands into divorcing them.

Ashur Al-Nagy, through a twist of fate, becomes the chief of the neighborhood. This office can be taken by force, or popularity, and entitles the holder to security payments from the rich and poor. There is vague judiciary role. The holder can really exploit the poor (the Harafish) who pay, clean the chief's house and bring food, etc.

Ashur, who before chiefhood, worked hard and led an unassuming life. He had some stains: he was a foundling (probably a love child); he divorced a devoted wife to marry a prostitute who worked in a bar and he spent year in jail for acts of kindness and generosity. He served as chief with fairness and distinction. His administration is a legend that looms over the Harafish and his progeny as do the interpretations of his life and the legacies of his successive generations.

Within this family saga about wealth, power, poverty and madness are parables about leadership, government, family, jealousy, sex roles, etc. To name a few: Leadership taken by force is hard to get rid of. Good leadership is rare and ususally those led have to demand it. Good government is fragile. Confined sex and courtship roles promote dishonesty and can wreck whole lives. Money doesn't buy happiness.

There are some strong female portraits. One female Nagy, Zahira, manipulates herself to a position of great power.

Interestingly, one generation of Nagys loses its wealth and moves to a family tomb. Cairo's City of the Dead is said to be populated by servants of the wealthy. I never thought these homeless would be fallen notables themselves.

The book ends with some hope because a new Ashur has an eye to the future.

I like the format of the book. Each chapter is its own story comprised of numbered substories. For those who don't know Mahfouz, this is an excellent introduction. His masterpiece, The Cairo Trilogy, is similarly a family saga but set in more modern times with deeper analysis of the characters.

Naguib Mahfouz' 1977 novel, "The Harafish," is an intriguing mix of allegory and saga. The term "harafish" refers to the large underclass of poor and downtrodden in an Egyptian city, presumably Cairo. The novel focuses upon the sufferings and the fortunes of the harafish and upon the history of a particular family, the Al-Nagis, over the course of generations. The story has a timeless quality with the author giving few details that identify either a specific place or a specific time. Yet, the novel succeeds in bringing the characters to life as individuals and in creating a sense of place.

The book is told in ten chapters, each recounting successive adventures that befall the Al-Nagis. Each chapter is subdivided into many short paragraphs. The story moves forward with simplicity but becomes increasingly complex as it unfolds.

There is a great deal of indirection in the book. The reader learns slowly by seeing and not by being told. Thus, Mafouz never explicitly explains the "clan" system at the heart of the book but rather shows the reader how it works. The "clan" is the informal ruler of an "alley" or section of a town. It can be analogized to an American gang or to a crime syndicate but enjoys quasi-official status. It accepts "protection" money, wars with neighboring gangs, keeps a semblance of order in the alley, and is headed by an all-powerful chief. Some of the religious leaders of the community are closely allied with the clan. The "alley" includes not only the many poor people, but rich and successful individuals as well, called the "notables". Most, but not all of the clan leaders ally themselves with the notables while exploiting the harafish.

The chief character of Mafouz' tale is Ashur al-Nagi, a foundling who ultimately rises to the position of clan chief. Although he ultimately marries a prostitute and appropriates property that is not his, Ashur becomes a legend in the alley as a result of his compassion, strength, and protection of the harafish. His son, Shams-al-Din continues, for the most part, in the path of Ashur, but the family then deteriorates and its worst traits come to the fore. Its members, men and women, descend into murder, corruption and licentiousness. They move in and out of positions of power and are forever haunted by the fame of their illustrious ancestor. At the end of the book, another Ashur arises and restores and enhances upon the family name.

Mahfouz' story unfolds with detail and with a deep compassion for the poor and the weak. There is a sense of human frailty and of the overriding force of change. There are several themes suggested by the story. First, there is the sense of decline, reminding me of charismatic figures who found religion or social movements which soon fall into torpitude. The story opens with something of a golden age with heroic figures and deeds. As it progresses, human life slips into the mundane. I also found in the book the suggestion that people tend to look too much to the alleged glorious deeds of their ancestors and judge themselves and their own potentialities falsely in their light. Mid-way in the story, one of the characters is reproached because the al-Nagi's view themselves in light of their founder, Ashur, and not in light of what they themselves can do. At the end, there is a deepening of the story. The final al-Nagi we meet, also named Ashur is said to be greater than his forbearer because "the first Ashur had relied on his own strength, while [the second Ashur] had made the harafish into an invincible force". While the first Ashur had conquered the evils of slum life, the second Ashur had achieved an even greater conquest: "his victory over himself". The second Ashur achieves a moment of spiritual awakening at the end.

This is a fine book, both in its description of places, characters and societies and in the meditation it offers on the human condition.

Robin Friedman

The story style was new to me and at first I had trouble getting used to the pace and the simple (almost childlike, unsophisticated) writing. But, you soon realize that the author is a very intelligent and perspicacious person and continually surprises you with his analysis of human beings. I was particularly struck by the manner in which he picked the defining character trait of each person and skillfully built the chapter around it. I was also impressed by the aptness and beauty of his metaphors. As I kept reading about successive generations, I began to wonder how I would end such a narrative and I couldn't come to any satisfactory conclusion. So when I reached Mr. Mahfouz's ending, I was suitably floored. In all, a very beautifully structured and written story.

This reader blows away any of Kerouac's work, in my opinion. Huncke was the first to coin the phrase "beat," and also the first to turn on Burroughs to morphine. He's really where Beat started. The book is very interesting, especially in the fact that it is composed mostly of journal-type entries. He writes as he probably spoke: full of slang terms of the time that other authors leave out.

This is a wonderful glance into Huncke's world and the workings of his singular, unique mind.

Herbert Huncke was the true beat. As WS Burroughs wrote, in The Herbert Huncke Reader, "Huncke had adventures and misadventures that were not available to middle-class, comparatively wealthy college people like...me....Huncke had extraordinary experiences that were quite genuine." The sad true is that Huncke was the type that Burroughs wrote about, but didn't like much. He was real. Burroughs was living on trust-fund money for decades (remember that the $200 a month WSB received from family in the 1950s was equal to thousands of dollars a month now-not a bad way to live). Huncke lived the life that others wrote about, but never live. While Burroughs ate steak and drank fine booze, Huncke was still wandering around Times Square. Read the original beat. He makes the other `beat' writers seem like the middle-class dilatants that many of them were. Huncke never fought for the fame, the fortune, and the boys. He was just a "junkie on the prow." This book is truly hip.

Previously known for using the word "beat" to the fullest, thus inspiring Kerouac for an appropriation of a very hip literary movement, there was more to Huncke than just a "jive" talker. As we know, Huncke was a full time junky (what a rhyme!) who had more of an affect on Burroughs than any other beat writer. Likewise, Huncke spent most of his life helping out on the Burroughs' cannabis farm and taking care of Bill's wife Joan who harnessed a difficult benny habit. In Huncke's early years, growing up in Massachusetts and NYC, he used to entertain the boys at local cafeterias with his succinct yet street jargon-fulled stories; clearly he had a talent for story telling. This story-telling is pretty much what makes up the Herbert Huncke Reader. Starting with Huncke's journal, Herbert gets his feet wet with short-story writing, particularly focusing on introspective work-outs and clever anecdotes. Then the books moves to The Evening Sun Turned Crimson, another introspective composition altho mainly concentrating on structural pieces depicting street life, hanging with the beats, and drugs. Next to Reader introduces Guilty of Everything, a comprehensive series of interviews plus outtakes from other journals. Finally the book closes with Previously Uncollected Material, the chapter says it all. Sometimes moving other times raw and scatological, Huncke writes with a unique style that is easy to comprehend and is inspiring. Although not as transcendent as his contempoaries (Burroughs, Ginsberg, Corso), Huncke's writing should not overlooked as "writings of a drug addict," or "a subordinate Beatnik." Huncke did have talent (most notably with recitations) and has definitely worked to the fullest by publishing what he could, despite his painful heroin addiction and ostracization. In my opinion he's a second Neal Cassady (more of a inspiring icon) and definitely had a major affect on the foremost Beat's writings despite his own sparse collection; that's why I think this Reader is important.

There are few authors I feel everyone should read but no matter who you are Herbert Huncke should be read. He is one of the best storytellers/writers I have had the privilege of reading. His stories of sex, streets, drugs, life and friends bring a humanity to what may be considered by many obscure, degenerate, or just plain disgusting, but Huncke�s stories I believe are non of these. They are filled with love, beauty, pain and always truth. He takes the reader into a world they don�t always want to enter but when the story is finished we are glad we made the journey and had someone like Huncke by our side as a companion.

This gem is a great yarn for children - it should also be a compulsory text for technical managers, as it is a parable on the virtues of creativity and freedom of expression. (no kidding, or maybe just a little!)

Resilient (and polite) even under the thumb of the terrible Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong, Tom fools around, explores allies and fiddles with stuff until she enlists the dreadful Captain Najork and his hired sportsmen to teach him "the lesson he so badly needs." But Tom has already taught himself most of the lessons he needs: to remain cool in emergencies, to take it easy while competing, to enjoy exploring. This is a brilliant book for both boys and girls, with the single most sensible hero in children's literature.

This is, quite simply, the best children's book ever written. The story and the illustrations are brilliant. I still own the copy I had as a child, and can't wait to read it to my daughter, once she's old enough to appreciate it. It's hilarious and twisted and clever and wonderful in the way that classic childrens' books should be.

Although this wonderful book is long out of print, the excellent Hutchinson Treasury of Children's Literature includes it with many of the pictures. The rest of the Hutchinson Treasury's not bad, either, my six-year-old's favorite book.

It's not available in the US, but you can order it from amazon.co.uk ...

The first time our family set eyes on this book was when we borrowed it from the mobile library that visits our village. It became a classic when the kids were young, and we went on to borrow it a number of times. Phrases from it became part of our everyday language such as lets do some "high up fooling around and low down fooling around", lets play "sneedball", and I think I'll go and "learn the nautical almanac". When our younger son reached 18 years of age we decided to buy him a copy as a joke present.... We wrapped it and presented it to him at our local pub where we were having a celebratory drink on his birthday. It was a present to be savoured. We ended up having a ceremonial reading in the pub, much to our great amusement. All the other customers wondered what all the laughter was about. Had they known they would have been as hysterical as we were. Whenever the family recalls great examples of children's books this is always at the top of the list. Its a cracking read for grown ups as well. I defy anybody not to laugh. We still have the book and still refer to it....

The diversity of themes in this collection provide a great deal of satisfaction while you're reading. I found almost all the stories incredibly compelling and they all touched upon an aspect of life that I haven't thought about in a while. I'm currently disabled and I haven't been able to go to school as I'd planned, but I'm going back next year, and I feel that this book is an excellent tool for preparing me for critiques, analysation, and the challenging environment that Cornell is going to offer.

IN FACT is an anthology of personal narrative stories. The stories are well-written and powerful for the first reading. The story about celestial navigation is my favorite.

But after reflection, the stories seem histrionic and melodramatic. Take the celestial navigation story for example. The writer packages the navigation as life & death magic that snatches the lost sailor away from boat killing rocks and shoals in the nick of time, but he had a GPS (satellite) locator in his pocket. The thrill isnt real. He was never in peril.

I dont care for Annie Dillard's commentary about the state of publishing. It may be true that young girls in New York City decide what all of us read, but enough good stuff gets into print inspite of them. Annie comes across as a bit of a wet blanket.

The stories are well-written and interesting, but the drama is inflated.

In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction is a triumphant statement about Lee Gutkind's original goals in 1993 for Creative Nonfiction, the journal. This collection of essays shows the depth explored in the journal in its first 11 years, and could also be considered a history of the genre's current incarnation.

Beginning with Annie Dillard's introduction, a collection of pearls of wisdom for young writers, In Fact takes readers on a sometimes-jolting ride through the creation and development of both the journal and the emerging genre. These essays explore the issue of exclusion from society, either because of one's personal actions ("Shunned" - Meredith Hall) the color of one's skin ("Looking at Emmett Till" - John Edgar Wideman), and the state of one's mind ("Three Spheres" - Lauren Slater, "Gray Area: Thinking with a Damaged Brain" - Floyd Skoot). The environment takes center stage in essays about endangered species and hunting ("Prayer Dogs" - Terry Tempest Williams, "Killing Wolves" - Sherry Simpson), and scientific matters are explored with a personal twist ("Adventures in Celestial Navigation" - Philip Gerard, "Chimera" - Gerald N. Callahan).

Families are typically considered the cornerstone of society, and their dynamics and histories are explored here as well ("An Album Quilt" - John McPhee, "Dinner at Uncle Boris's" - Charles Simic, "Being Brians" - Brian Doyle, "Leaving Babylon: A Walk Through the Jewish Divorce Ceremony" - Judyth Har-Even, "Joe Stopped By" - Andrei Codrescu, "In the Woods" - Leslie Rubinkowski, "Mixed-Blood Stew" - Jewell Parker Rhodes, "Why I Ride" - Jana Richman, "Delivering Lily" - Phillip Lopate).

Showing Gutkind's contention that creative nonfiction is related to journalism, at least in the goal of reportage, social issues often found in the news, and accounts related to former "front-page" material are represented as well ("The Brown Study" - Richard Rodriguez, "Finders Keepers: The Story of Joey Coyle" - Mark Bowden, "Notes from a Difficult Case" - Ruthann Robson, "Sa'm Pèdi" - Madison Smartt Bell, "Going Native" - Francine Prose). Finally, literature, and the writing process are explored ("Language at Play" - Diane Ackerman).

These terse classifications would suffice for general indices of these works, but they each have their own depth beyond the general subjects they explore. James Wolcott's theory (mentioned in Gutkind's Introduction) about the nature of creative nonfiction being too personal is decidedly false; these works offer much more than overly personal prose. Wolcott's declaration that Gutkind is "the Godfather behind creative nonfiction" is perhaps his only accurate comment made on the subject. In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction is an excellent cross-section of both the journal and the genre. It is a necessary volume for any writer, and for any reader who enjoys real stories.

This volume is a brilliant collection of extremely well written short stories. The subject matter varies with the author and the selected works are engaging. I enjoy creative non-fiction and find this collection is an excellent example of the genre. It also offers information about the authors and mentions the workshops, colleges and universities they attended. Many of the writers currently teach creative non-fiction writing at university level programs throughout the United States.

I love the book, thank-you. It also got to my university in time for the beginning of the semester. I was the only person that had it with such a low cost. Thank-you Amazon. You will be seeing me again.!

I have spent reading Icelandic Sagas for a year now, almost exclusively. I skipped over this one, because I read that it focused too much on Christian Europe. So when I passed by this treasure, I inadvertantly saved it for a later time. So I bought it this past August and it is one of the best. I thoroughly enjoyed this story, it was very rich, great characters, vibrant storytelling, and wonderful imagery. This was just a superb story, one for the ages!

Some of both, probably. The Icelandic sagas are a unique historical resource, a written capture of European oral history, back when the stories were still fresh. As part of the oral tradition, they had to be memorable, but also to focus on the men and women important to the clan where the stories were told.

This is really the story of Gudrun, a remarkable woman who successively married (and lost) four of the most influential men in the Lax river area. Iceland, around 1000 AD, was a male-dominated society, but with strong property rights and legal status for women. Many rose to positions of high influence and respect. This is hardly surprising, since they kept the household and lands working while men were out viking, or after the were killed in frequent vendettas. In fact the first few chapters talk about Unn and her supporters.

The narrative is a bit choppy, and lacks in character development. In that, it's not much different from other sagas I've read, and better than some. The translators have done a good job of rendering the story into modern English. They also add explanatory text that I find quite helpful. Footnotes are informative but unobtrusive, and often cross-reference the story at hand to other sagas. End matter draws the family trees, very important for understanding where loyalties lie, and indexs the dramatis personae. That's especially helpful, for example, in sorting out which of five different Thorsteins is under discussion.

The sagas are a wonderful complement to standard history. They describe history as seen by the people who made it. They put personal faces, meanings, and depth on dry facts, like "1000 AD: Iceland converts to Christianity." And, as always, they show the personal intrigues, vengeances, and triumphs of the individuals.

This saga, in particular, presents the complex, bloody, and dramatic events around a very powerful woman of the time.

//wiredweird

The feeling in this amazing saga is that Iceland is governed moreso by basic decency than by an organized religion. However, a segment in the middle describes the historical conversion of Iceland to Christianity, which may fascinate some readers.

Laxdaela Saga lacks any sense of organized religion until Kjartan and Bolli go to Norway and meet King Olaf. Prior to their trip, sporadic appearances of loosely connected superstitions seem to represent the belief system, such as the ghost of Killer-Hrapp haunting the living (77), the belief that quarreling brings bad luck in fishing villages (69), and the consultation of the "prescient" Gest for the interpretation of Gudrun's dreams (119). The author focuses on human relationships throughout the saga, but in the diction of chapters 40 and 41, a subtle dislike for the church shows through. While the narrative remains very matter-of-fact and with a tone of objectivity, the imposition of a new religion seems to annoy the characters, but they do not become volatile at all.

The author doesn't indict Christianity as a negative institution, but describes King Olaf Tryggvason as a ruthless leader in his campaign to convert Iceland. Olaf is politically shrewd, and knows when to placate Kjartan and when to turn the screws. The first mention of Olaf shows him ordering "a change of faith in Norway, but the people were by no means agreed on it" (143). Shortly after that, Olaf stifles the economy of Iceland by placing an embargo on them "because they refused to accept the new faith he was proclaiming" (144). After a swimming contest with Kjartan, king Olaf offers a gift to Kjartan, and the narrator comments on Kjartan's acceptance: "he put himself too much in the king's power" (145). The city of Trondheim is converted without bloodshed, and the tide turns in favor of conversion. Kjartan declares his opposition, threatening to "burn the king in his house" (146). One of Olaf's spies reports the threat, and Olaf shrewdly becomes magnanimous in a case where he could have executed Kjartan. Olaf understands the value of having Kjartan on his side, and says, "I shall not force you to become Christians on this occasion, for God has said that he does not wish anyone to come to him under duress" (147).

This speech serves Olaf politically, as the crowd cheers for him. Kjartan responds with thanks, and by this act of clemency, Olaf gains Kjartan as an ally, though unconverted. To Olaf's credit, his example of living impresses Kjartan, but while Olaf presents himself as trusting and holy, we learn that "he had spies in all the lodgings of the pagans" (149). During Christmas, Kjartan and Bolli are baptised into the Christian church.

After conversion, Olaf tightens his control over Kjartan by telling him, "I will only grant you leave on the condition that you...compel the people there to accept Christianity, either by force or persuasion" (150). The claim that no one should come to Christianity "under duress" is now abandoned. During the final steps of conversion, pagans are murdered, threats are made, and another embargo goes into effect (151). By the end of chapter 41, Kjartan and three others become political hostages in Norway. In the following chapter, "the whole of the people of Iceland accepted the faith" (153). In comparison to other conversion stories, such as Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the conversion occurs smoothly. The culture is not devastated. Once Kjartan returns to Iceland, we hear little of church affairs. Near the end, Gudrun becomes "a deeply religious woman, and was the first woman in Iceland to learn the Psalter" (153). As a whole, the saga does not seem too concerned with organized religion, but with simple decency.

Amazing stories of human interaction. In general, the characters cannot be categorized as black or white, good or evil, because the author concedes the nuances and imperfections that sometimes get left out of family histories.

I read the Laxdaela Saga more than a year ago for a class I took on Viking History. I have enjoyed few books in my life as much as I enjoyed this one. I've read it three times total now. For me, it was a life-changing book (due in no small part to the professor who was teaching the class, but I digress). Because of this book, I'm now majoring in Medieval History and plan to get a Master's degree in Sweden. While you probably won't find it quite as fascinating as I did, it is a very worthwhile read for anyone interested in the Viking Age, Medieval Europe or just a good read. The story unfolds throughout the settlement period in Iceland and chronicles the lives of the adventurous and bold people who lived in the Lax River Dale over the course of several generations. The center-piece is the tragic love-triangle of Gudrun Osvifsdottir, Kjartan Olafsson and Bolli, his cousin. It is speculated that because of the abundance of female characters and a strong sense of their motivation that this saga may have been written by a woman. The Magnussen translation balances native terminology with modern English and the footnotes, maps and family trees are invaluable. I highly recommend this saga. If you've read the Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien, you probably will find the Laxdaela Saga similar in style. A tip to keep in mind while reading: Don't try to remember every character; there are way too many. Just keep track of the major ones and refer to the glossary of characters at the back of the book as needed for family connections and the like.

Icelandic Sagas are truly the best of Medeival literature. They are much easier for modern readers (and therefore more entertaining) than the epic-heroic poetry which was standard throughout the rest of Europe. Other reviewers have already said plenty about this saga. I just wanted to note that Laxdaela Saga is included in the collection "The Sagas of Icelanders" also published by Penguin Classics. That's the version I own. It seems that many of the sagas from that collection are also published in single volumes. If you're interested in sagas, the bigger book is a much better value than buying them all seperately.

Not much to say. You should be a Burroughs fan, and somewhat aware of his writings an lifestyle in order to understand. This book is the life, times, friends, travels, and ideas of a brilliant sociopathic junkie.

The only book of, or by, William Burroughs that I have read twice. His life was stranger than his fiction.

I have never written a review for amazon.com before but I had to add my two cents to the few reviews listed here. This book changed my life. I was already familiar with Burroughs' writing and had read several of his books before I found Morgan's excellent biography. I've read this lengthy tome several times, but I remember the feeling after I finished the first reading: I was inspired to write, write, write. The book cleared up my writer's block and has continued to do so every time I read it. His life really was as strange or stranger than his fiction, and it reminds me always to write what I know. I can't believe this is out of print. Highly recommended to all writers and all fans of biographies.

After a failed attempt to read "Naked Lunch" I turned to this book to gain some insight into William Burroughs that might aid me with future reading. I did not find that the book went into great detail about Burroughs ideas, except for ones that I find either trivial or even "wacky", like his interest in some aspects of Scientology and Reich's "Orgone Box". In fact, I might have given up on my plans of reading Burroughs after reading this biography; I could have easily concluded that Burroughs was a man who had led an interesting, albeit tragic, life but who, because of his heroin use and open homosexuality, had just become a "trendy" author. I might have concluded that he was a precursor to the cultural revolution of the 60s but of little importance today. Quite frankly I persist in my quest of getting to know Burroughs because of the importance attributed to him by one of my favorite philosophers, Gilles Deleuze, who claims that Burroughs has a lot to teach us about the "society of control". Only my future readings of Burroughs' novels will reveal rather I am right to persist in my study of him.

If this book failed in being an intellectual biography, it certainly succeeded in portraying the world of William Burroughs in an interesting fashion. Burroughs life seems for the most part
a series of tragedies. It appears as though he was molested as a youth and one is tempted - perhaps due to the saturation of "pop psychology" in our day- to conclude that somehow his future misfortunes (and brilliance) were rooted in that event. Subsequently driven from the United States, then Mexico (where he committed the infamous "William Tell" fatal shooing of his wife) he spends the greater part of his life wandering between Tangiers, Paris, London and New York. Oddly enough, he only seems to find some kind ofhappiness at the end of his life in Lawrence, Kansas.

His meeting with the other members of the "Beat Movement", Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, seemed fated, and unlike the others he did not become a "Beat Stereotype but remained authentically himself, behaving in many ways like a conservative midwesterner. Perhaps this authenticity is what appealed to his groupies who could not manage to retain their own identity separate from the various trends in which they participated.

Whether I will find anything intellectually stimulating in the works of Burroughs remains to be seen. Despite his many shortcoming, he was a key cultural force in undermining the foundation of the narrow, cocktail sipping, coutnry club 50s generation.

When I read this book in 1990, or thereabouts, I had only read William Burroughs' book Junky, and I had read nothing by Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg.

After I finished reading Literary Outlaw, by Ted Morgan, I was so fascinated that I read all of Burroughs' novels, and several books by Kerouac and Ginsberg. I also read two more Burroughs biographies, just to get more information on this weird old guy.

Literary Outlaw is just that good.

There are newer biographies of Burroughs by Barry Miles and also Graham Caveney. Nevertheless, Literary Outlaw remains the definitive Burroughs biography written to date.

This is a fascinating biography that reads like a pageturning novel. Burroughs grew up in a privileged St. Louis family, spent some time at a rough ranch-style boarding school in New Mexico, attended Harvard, travelled in Europe, and lived in New York, Mexico, New Orleans, Texas, Tangier, London, New York (again), and finally Kansas. Along the way he became the most scandalous figure in modern letters. His adventures and misadventures are related in this marvelous book.

Literary Outlaw is more exhaustive than either Caveney's or Miles' biographies. Chapters with titles like "Tangier: 1954-1958" and "The London Years: 1966-1973" make for easy navigation. As the book's coverage ends in 1988, there is no information on Burroughs' life in the 1990s, but the essays in the book Word Virus (by James Grauerholz) act as a good supplement, for biographical information.

Morgan did a good job. He wrote a page-turning biography, but not at the expense of Burroughs' literary reputation. Burroughs' value as a writer is challenged throughout, and it holds up. Biographical detail is linked to popular criticism of the texts. There is an extensive section of notes. There is an index.

You can't go wrong with this biography. If you've never read a biography of William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, or Allen Ginsberg, I advise you to try Literary Outlaw. This book is very well written, and is probably the most fascinating biography I have ever read.

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