Poetry Books

The title says it all: "Trombones" represents the preservation of the history of the community backbone of prayer, persistence, and strength. The poetry gives some insight to the suffering of the elders, and speaks to the continuing fight for the full parity of the AfricanAmerican community in a country that was literally built upon the bleeding, sweaty backs of my ancestors.

Amazon is to be commended for participating in this historical preservation of a works that I would recommend as mandatory reading for generations to come - regardless of religion, gender, or color.

My soul is galvanized everytime I hear or read James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones. I have directed student perfomances of this deeply moving African American text. "The Crucifixion," for example, tells the story of how Jesus Christ, my Lord, my Savior,my Friend, suffered death on an old cross so that I might have an opportunity to be more sensitive to the hurting. The "Prodigal Son" urges me to experience and, thus understand, that I must live with a redemptive consiousness. And, of course, I am compelled to understand, through the poem "Go Down Death" this reality: God does call His children home. Those who have suffered "long in the vineyard" are deserving of rest. For sure, God's Trombones is a poetic tribute to an experience that is Christian and African American. I thank James Welson Johnson for creating this poetic masterpiece. Let's continue to read it; let's perform it. Let's live within the context of the spirituality of the voice. Amen!

God's Trombones is a beautiful expression of the themes of the Southern black experience and God's constant, personal presence in their lives. The themes he chose were expressed in sermons and in Gospel music. For the black person, God was aware of their struggles, would bring them out of "Egypt" (slavery) and would eventually take them to their home "over Jordan". Death would be a gentle freedom for those who were weary (as in "Go down Death").

Johnson's introduction explains that he was trying to express the fervant Southern black preacher with his pauses and emphases. He has done both well.

This is a book to be read for its beauty and inspiration, but more important, it shows (theological inaccuracies aside) how an oppressed people trusted in God's gentle hand, and God's constant love for even the "least" of his Creation.

I recommend this for historians, teachers, lovers of poetry, and for its spiritual content, anyone seeking inspiration.

My dad teaches Sunday School and was looking for this book to incorporate into his lesson plans. I found it here at Amazon and fell in love with this book. Absolutely wonderful to read and very profound. Exceptional!

While James Weldon Johnson's theology is not always orthodox ("God thought and thought" - who could put a new thought in God's mind? unless it was God and, then, God would not be God - this insight compliments of E.V. Hill in his sermon "When Was God At His Best?"), JWJ's poetry and, especially, his Preface displays the harmonious beauty of a long tradition of African American preaching not generally known or appreciated outside of African American circles. If one really wants to become familiar with and, indeed, edified by the godly reaching of E.V. Hill (now deceased), Fred Luter, Tony Evans, Robert Smith and a host of unknowns who preach with substance and, sometimes, in the "whoop"ing style, then, Weldon's book is a must read. May Christianity never lose what God has brought forth in a substantial style which stirs heart, mind and soul.

Wonderful poems showing the power and of two woman poets of the Heian Jidai. Exposes the "nature" poetry prejudice that derives from the unfortunately all male cutesy pie abbreviations of Westernized haiku. Waka yes, Haiku no.

The Heian period of Japan was artistically fertile time that produced numerous classic works of literature. It was even more remarkable in that most of the major literary figures of the time were women. Among those great women, Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu were two of the best. Their waka poetry (now called 'tanka') is some of the best literature ever written in Japan and the poetesses themselves have become the stuff of legend.

Doing justice in translating ancient Japanese into modern English is no easy task, but Hirshfield and Aratani have created translations that are as beautiful as the originals. Anyone who enjoys poetry, who loves love, or who is interested in other cultures and finding the universal passions of the human heart will enjoy this book.

--M. Kei, editor of Fire Pearls : Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart

Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani have done a marvelous job with the translation of these lovely tanka-- manages to capture both their fragility and robust complexity. I had an acquaintance who was a scholar with a focus on Japanese literature. She explained to me a little bit about the complexity of translating waka. I have nothing but admiration for those who can do it well. Hirshfield actually has an essay at the back of this book called "On Japanese Poetry and the Process of Translation". I recommend it highly, even if you do not normally read this kind of essay.

I am a little bit afraid that the focus on the love poems and the emphasis on Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu as female writers may give the wrong idea about the strength and importance of the poetry. Shikibu is widely considered the greatest poet of her period and Ono no Komachi was one of the Rokkasen-- the six best waka poets of the early Heian period. The reason that I am not giving this volume five stars is because of this packaging and not because of the poetry itself.

These poems are a joy to read aside from any issues of scholarship. They are strong and sad and very affecting. There is actually no stronger recommendation to read this than the poems themselves, so I will close this review with one of the poems by Shikibu:

What is the use
of cherishing life in spring?
Its flowers
only shackle us
to this world.

Unlike other reviewers, I am not an aficionado of Japanese poetry or culture, nor have I ever studied this period in Japanese history. I found this book entirely by chance buried in an obscure corner in my college library. I read a couple of random pages and fell in love. I checked it out repeatedly throughout my academic career, then bought it.

These women so effectively communicate, in few words, universal feelings of love. While the poems are deceptively simple, they manage to be so beautiful that I am amazed every time I pick it up.

Even more impressive than the writing is how easy it is to relate to the emotions behind it. As I have grown older and experienced so much more of life, I am surprised to find my own feelings mirroring one poem after another. What once seemed pretty words are eerily my own thoughts. It's amazing, considering they were written one thousand years ago!

If you're thinking about buying this, I suggest using the preview to read the few sample pages. If you like what you see, just get it. You won't be disappointed.

This book is among my most treasured. These women's love and longing is so eloquently worded, and could be the very same heartaches any woman experiences today. A fascinating glimpse into a society I could only imagine. Excellently translated tanka. Extremely good. I would recomend it highly to anyone.

The Kalevala is the result of Elias Lönnrot collecting and commiting to paper the oral traditions of the Finnish people to produce an epic tale.
This translation has captured the poetic delivery of the original Finnish as perfectly as these two opposing languages could.
The poetry weaves the tales of Väinämöinen, an old seer and the younger Joukahainen who wishes to challenge him. This angers Väinämöinen who chants him deep into a swamp, a meadow and a heath!! To get himself out of trouble Joukahainen offers the old seer his sister Aino as a bride. Väinämöinen thinking he has been offered a house keeper accepts. Aino is quite taken with being his bride but Väinämöinen has other ideas and heads North to woo the maiden of the North. He can marry her if he forges a Sampo, which is a magical machine that churns out salt, flour and money! He can't do that but he knows a man who can, his good friend Ilmarinen the blacksmith. He has to trick Ilmarinen into going North but he makes the Sampo. Then the marriage requires another task and so the maiden remains unmarried.

Meanwhile, another character Lemminkäinen decides to go North and try his luck winning the maiden. He is given tasks in order to win her hand, capturing the elk of Hiisi and the swan from the river of Tuonela. The latter task nearly kills him and he gives up.

Väinämöinen is now making himself a boat to head back up North but he runs out of spells so he has to go and find Vipunen, a giant who knows all the spells. He gets his spells, finishes his boat and heads North but he is seen by the sister of the blacksmith and the blacksmith rides like the wind on his horse and catches up with him. The two men make a pact that they will let the maiden choose between them. The maiden choose Ilmarinen because he forged the Sampo but her mother still wants more tasks done and she orders Ilmarinen to plough the field of vipers. Ilmarinen finds this easy with his armoured boots and cape and so the crone of the North sets him the task of capturing the giant pike of the chill north sea without line or net!!Ilmarinen forges himself a giant eagle and captures the pike. Now the old crone is satisfied and the wedding takes place. Väinämöinen makes a kantele from the jaw of the pike which produces sweet voiced music such that tames the beasts and even causes the sea king Ahti to rise from the depths. He and Ilmarinen use the sweet music to soothe the beasts of the North whilst they take the Sampo for themselves and set sail for home. Louhi, mistress of the North casts a fog spell to stop them, which Väinämöinen conjures away so Louhi unleashes a terrible storm which sweeps the kantele from the boat whereupon Ahti the sea king thinks it is a present to him and he calms the sea. The crone turns herself into an eagle and attacks Väinämöinen's boat and in the struggle the Sampo is broken into pieces. Some of the pieces are washed up on the shore and from the fragments Ilmarinen makes amulets and rings thinking that perhaps there is still some magic left in the pieces. Each resident of Kalevala wears a magic piece on special occasions, wishing for a peaceful life.

Now I've just condensed an epic piece into a few short paragraphs...for which I apologise but it's a great tale and maybe this will encourage folk to read it themselves.

This review is in two parts:

THE TRANSLATION: When it comes to reading ancient literature there are often numerous versions and translations. Unless a story is REALLY good, I only want to read it once. So it only makes sense that one should want to read the best version/translation available.
Thankfully, the Keith Bosley translation of The Kalevala is the most reader-friendly, very much like Seamus Heaney's translation of "Beowulf".
The Kalevala does not rhyme, although there are a few instances of alliteration scattered throughout. Each line is usually a handful of words comprising an even larger sentence, but it's done in a tasteful way so that you won't feel like you're reading a James Joyce run-on sentence like in "Ulysses".

THE EPIC:
The Kalevala bounces around telling tales of several major characters, which is fortunate, considering the length of the work. Without giving anything away, the characters do things like get married, steal precious relics, sing magical songs, go to war and build many more precious relics.

There are lots of good "Chapters" in The Kalevala and I was surprised that a few of my favorites had little or no action in them (according to a guy's definition of action, at least). One of which was the marriage sequence of Chapters 21-24. If you've ever heard the advice, "Don't get married", this is probably one of the sources where such advice comes from.

It is also noteworthy how much influence The Kalevala has had on Fantasy and Metal. If I remember correctly, Tolkien's "Silmarillion" starts off with beings singing things into existence, much like the characters in The Kalevala do.
The Finnish metal band "Ensiferum" has songs that are inspired straight from The Kalevala, such as "Old Man" which refers to Vainamoinen.
There are many other bands in the folk metal genre, that, although they don't specifically cite The Kalevala as an inspiration they clearly have songs that are similar to The Kalevala's oral tradition. Some examples (in my opinion) would be Korpiklaani (Finnish), Metsatoell and Raud Ants (Estonian).

Overall, I liked The Kalevala much more than I thought I would, given its length and I have to admit: I found it more interesting than Beowulf.

The Kalevala has a flow to it that makes the plot/ idea easy to follow. If English is your second language you will struggle with some of its vocabulary. The stories and the essence of this epic poem are captivating. I didn't want to put the book down at night. This is a good way to get to know Finnish culture.

There is an elegant, powerful simplicity to this epic tale, no matter what language you read it in. The symbols transcend both language and time. There is nothing contrived here. Such a tale could not be counterfeited by a modern mind.At the center of the entire epic is Vainamoinen, the singer at the world's dawn. Here is the archetype for the wizard- the first and greatest among shamans. Before Merlin, before Taliesin, before Math, before Manannan, there was Vainamoinen, Eternal Seer.Something real and vital carries over even in translation. Reading this book on a cold winter's night you can taste the sea and smell the forest. You can identify with the characters even though they have godlike powers, because they also have trades that they live by (Vainamoinen is a boatbuilder, Ilmarinen a smith, Joukahainen builds his own crossbows, etc.) These Godlike beings lived simple lives close to the earth. And simple wisdom is powerful wisdom. Yet, there is also so much more of the old, deep legends and symbols buried in these lines. You can tell that they were preserved long after the long lines of singers had ceased to know their original meanings.The ancient Finns believed in the power of words, and the greater power of songs. There is still power here. Or as the epic says:

Words shall not be hid

nor spells be buried;

might shall not sink underground

though the mighty go.

I enjoyed this epic story of Finnish mythology. It was a musical, delightful collection of heroic stories that didn't overwhelm me. I could keep track of the characters and what they respresented quite easily.

I was delighted by this book! I hope all Finnish children are exposed to the exciting yet fun depiction of their mythological heritage.

I know that scholars want to read everything and disect the stories for deeper meanings -- which is just fine -- but I can really see this as a set of stories being told to small children while the whole family sat around the fireplace.

I love the selections from Ovid in this book! I like the slow start, using words very similar to their English equivalents, and the series of exercises that follow the selection. I even enjoy the discussion of etymology at the ends of the chapters.
My only complaint is the lack of answers at the back for the exercises. I'm trying to learn Latin on my own, and having the help of seeing answers would make my task somewhat less daunting. Still, taking enough care, and looking back at the examples and reading excerpt, I think I'll learn Latin well enough to read it on my own. Eventually.

I learned Latin using Wheelock's textbook, studying with an engaging instructor. That is an excellent text but, as many have noted, it is very dry. This book is more entertaining: less philosophy and more blood, sex, and other agreeable topics. Can't recommend it highly enough.

This is a great book to learn latin at your own pace. I have been studying it for almost a month now. The explanations are clear, and the examples meaningful. I highly recommended it for anyone who wants to learn some latin.

I found this book very useful and, if I were learning Latin from scratch as a youngster I expect it would have proved more interesting than the volumes I did work with. Of course, being American, the declensions are in the "wrong order" but this is a minor nuisance. Interesting exercises and additional information on Roman life and mores, mythology and magic.

Goldman's text is wonderful for someone desiring to learn Latin on their own. From the second chapter onwards, all the readings consist of revised excerpts from Ovid's Metamorphoses. As you are taught more grammar and vocabulary, she gradually introduces more and more of the original into the readings until you are reading what Ovid actually wrote. And although there is no answer key, the excercises (of which there are plenty) are usually of just the right difficulty: just hard enough to help you in learning Latin, but not so hard that you can't figure them out on your own.
I would also recommend the accompanying workbook, which is a little more difficult, but does include an answer key.

Maya Angelou's book "Phenomenal Woman" is a celebration of women regardless of race, creed, or color. The poems contained between the covers of this small but powerful book articulate the strength and beauty of womanhood. I display the book on my coffee table along with other books. My twelve year old niece read the book and fell in love with it. She has asked me to buy a copy for her.I will buy a copy for her and my other nieces and nephews.

Maya angelou is a jewel. Her poems rich deep inside your spirit. My daughter really enjoys these tapes.

Whether you are tall, thin, heavy, young, old, beautiful, ugly; we are all our own phenomenal woman!!!! Each of us has our own power within ourselves to shine and be our own wonderful person. Maya Angelou's own life, reaches within and brings us to this point with her words.

I heard Oprah recite the title poem at her workshop and had to have it. It is a great little book and would make a nice gift for a 'phenomenal woman'

What a wonderful collection of poems celebrating women. This book of four very soulful, strong, empowering poems has quickly become a favorite. I would recommend this book as a gift for any woman. Or better yet, buy it for yourself - you won't regret it!

A real tribute to the poet. I couldn't ask for more in this complete and unabridged title.

I bought this as a gift. It is well edited and complete.

This book and The Complete Poems Of Emily Dickinson were my introduction to poetry and I felt such a strong connection to both of them that it led to a life long love of this form of writing.

Lathem's collection is THE collection of Robert Frost's poetry. Nearly every Frost piece ever published is in this volume, and all organized chronologically. Everyone should own this collection.

There are more Robert Frost collections out than there are Robert Frost poems, but this is the only one you need to have. It's complete, unabridged and with numbered lines all the way through for reference work. THE Frost collection, bar none.

If it weren't for the illustrations, this book would be rated two stars. I saw this book advertised on Amazon's website among other children's books. The cover was so beautiful, that I had to read the reviews about the content and artistry of this book. I was seconds away from making a purchase when I decided to borrow it from the library instead. The pictures are absolutely gorgeous and I liked the way the author took a spin on the mean old woman in a shoe rhyme and made it into a loving mother bunny rhyme. Children get to learn all kinds of uncommon words (at their age) like shed, trellis, etc. but the rhymes are just names of rabbits who sleep on those objects - boring and uncreative. Example, "Zed slept on the shed" The whole book from A to Z is like that. I was wondering why such a beautifully illustrated book was not such a hot seller on Amazon's rankings and found out why. It's pretty but not educational. I don't need my little one to learn uncommon names of people that are supposed to rhyme with the objects. If you want a good ABC book, I highly recommend Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. That is by far the best. It is very educational and very fun. As for numbers, I recommend Ten Little Ladybugs and/ or Over in the Meadow. Both are just excellent.

Illustrations are wonderful. Text is silly fun, but instructive in counting and alphabet. Just don't be so taken by the beautiful bunny drawings that you decide to get a bunny for your young one- they're more adult pets, despite their cuteness. They require a lot of care, research, adult attention and space to roam. Let your kids enjoy the pretty pictures instead.

Mama bunny lives in a shoe, has 26 babes, but knows just what to do. She tucks them into various "beds" as she counts them off. The detailed illustrations are what I like best about this book. My son loves studying them. He gets a kick out of the quirky places the bunnies sleep, esp Frankie in the hankie for some reason. I wish that this was written so that the bunnies' names and the places they slept started with the same letter. That would have reinforced the alphabetic aspect of this book, but maybe it's asking too much. I still really do like this one.

Unlike so many poorly executed rhyming books, this one is a joy to read. The rhymes are well constructed and creative. And the pictures are delightful. Just tonight, my 6 year old asked me to read it again as a bedtime story, because he loves to study the engrossing pictures. And we've enjoyed this book for years. I was happy to just now see that this author/illustrator pair have done other books together.

I'm such a sucker for rhymes. Fortunately, so are my kids. There's nothing like a story with pleasant and soothing rhymes to get them off to sleep quickly (giving me more time to write reviews :D) See, there's an Old Mother Rabbit who lives in a shoe. She has 26 children (those rabbits sure know how to multiply!) but she definitely knows what to do. The tale travels through the alphabet -naming each bunny and where they fall asleep (1 is named Abel, he slept on the table.....and so on) My kids delighted in guessing where each little bunny would sleep (some places were pretty strange - like who could fall asleep in candy???) It also taught them words they don't normally use (e.g. lane, holly, kettle). Counting, the alphabet, and rhyming.... all in one sweet little bedtime story. What more could a parent ask for - besides children who beg to go to bed?

One of the guilty pleasures of reading Old SF, is seeing just how badly the imagined futures of the past tend to hold up, "..as the room-sized master computer blinked and clacked in the background, our hero picked up the heavy handset and dialed the number of the rocket taxi company on the black and white rotary video phone...", but you will have to forego such joys with this surprisingly modern half-century old wonder. Not to worry, though, because the timeless hilarity more than makes up for it!

Contained within its covers are some 45 hysterically modernized Mother Goose classics with a few originals tossed in, charmingly illustrated by Marian Parry's deceptively simple line drawings, ending with a useful though slightly warped glossary to help you (or hinder you as the case may be) in getting the jokes. (Some recourse to an unabridged dictionary or a good encyclopedia may also be required.) Open the book, and you will enter a marvelously twisted universe in which Miss Muffet's arachnophobia is eased by a force field, Little Jack Horner extracts cube roots, three men go to sea in a Klein bottle, and Jack builds a Theory.

Defects? None that I can think of! One can argue that many of the in jokes will not be gotten by young children but such is true of the original nursery rhymes: Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme. Frederick Winsor tragically passed away while working on a sequel, but one might hope to someday see an expanded edition containing whatever he managed to produce before his death. Meanwhile, thanks to Purple House Press, here is a back in print book you won't mind reading over and over to your children...

in fact your children might have to remind you to quit giggling about it all to yourself and share the fun!

This wonderful little book is one that I have owned several times since I first read it around 1961. Unfortunately, every time I managed to find a copy, I loaned it to someone. Of the several people I loaned each hard-won copy, none ever returned it. I guess that means people like it. For me, it has been a never-ending source of delight, even though I didn't understand most of it when I first read it at the age of 12. (Be warned: This is not a book for children. Nothing offensive; they just won't get it.) This time, I am not loaning my copy. Get your own. (And thanks, Amazon.)

This book was a big part of my childhood.

Rubber-band mathematics, telekenisis, Moebius strips and Klein bottles, multi-dimensional space-folds, a model of a scientific theory, postulates and relative time frames would not seem to be material suitable for children, but this slim book will quickly disabuse you of that idea. This book is a marvelous re-working of the old Mother Goose rhymes, updated to today's scientifically oriented world.

I first read this book just after it was published, when I was about eleven years old, and was immediately captivated. It made no difference that I didn't understand some of the terms being used. The thing that caught me was the skill with which these modern-day and science-fictional items were folded into those well known rhymes, how well they fit and gave new, quite twisted, and in many cases hysterically funny meaning to them. Reading them today, these verses are still just as funny, if not more so than I found them to be in my youth, as I now can catch the fact that Winsor buried many sly references to Greek literature, outmoded scientific theories, and even satire about academic politics within their brief lines. My favorite along this latter line is `The Theory that Jack Built', which contains a fatal flaw, hidden by mummery, obfuscation, and bells and whistles, which all gets blown away when the Space Child presses the `Go' button.

The illustrations are just as marvelous, and do much to help someone who might not completely understand the scientific terms to see just what is being referenced, while being very individualistic in style and maintaining the humorous tone of the whole book. Along with these visual aids, there are often `definitions' at the bottom of the page, some even more abstruse than the item being defined, but just as funny.

Don't forget to read the `Answers' at the back of the book, which in addition to some appropriate real definitions, also provide some rather unique explanations of some of the terms used in this book, including one which takes a viscous dig at Congress.

Give this one to your son or daughter, but not till you've read it yourself. You might get a few questions, and there might be a few puzzled frowns, but I'd almost guarantee you'll also be the recipient of some laughs and smiles.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

I was born in 1952. This is the second book I remember having owning, after Dr Suess. I can't place the year exactly, but it was in the 50s.

I still have that first copy. I still read it. I enjoy it just as much or more now than I did way back when dinasoars roamed the earth.

Books don't come any better than this.

Being a Maryland girl but living far away, these poems brought me back home! I am a huge Bruce Hornsby fan too so it was fun finding the lines to the songs that I know here and there! The poems made me laugh, think and cry. Thanks for the trip back home!

I bought this book because I'm a big fan of Bruce Hornsby. Luckily I did! Trying to find each Hornsby lyric that the author placed in each one of his poems was certainly very fun and quite challenging!


If you're a fan of Bruce Hornsby.......and The Shawshank Redemption.......then you'll definitely like this book.

I received this book just recently as a Christmas gift and what more can be said about it that hasn't already been said by other Amazon reviewers? So many of the poems in Till The Dreaming's Done really do hit home.
I guess one of things that hasn't been touched on a whole lot in these reviews, is to mention the author's one of a kind sense of humor. This young man uses some pretty darn good analogies throughout his poems and seems like he'd be one heck of a fun guy to chat with over a cup of coffee.
In conclusion, I do believe that we haven't heard the last of this 20-something poet and I know that I'll be awaiting that second book release from him one day down the road.

This author is going to fly to the top. His poems are very unique. After reading his book of poems, I lost my mother to cancer. There is a poem that he wrote that I kept reading, that brought me comfort. He is an amazing writer and I hope he will be bringing out another one. I'll be waiting!

A groundbreaking new book and author who gives tribute: to musical artist Bruce Hornsby, drama movie The Shawshank Redemption, and a traditional taste of Robert Frost here and there throughout his poetry. This guy's good!

For me--raised on Sherlock Holmes--this novel, first published 1968, is not a detective novel in which morality or heroism triumphs, or in which the hero is able to think his way out. When Conan Doyle invented his hero, he was writing within the context of a moral Victorian society in which Holmes's kind of detective work was able to triumph over perpetrators, or at least able to rationalize his own faults. But the world Sciascia shows us is one in which the police remain silent, and those who inquire and question are punished. Sciascia gives us an intelligent, inquisitive high school teacher, Professor Laurana--not a Sherlock Holmes--but, as a learned and well-meaning man, he is an engaging main character. What sort of society is it in which sensitive, inquisitive people are devalued and ignored?

Professor Laurana's questioning opens doors and others shut. And in a town in which people teach each other to keep quiet, we have to wonder what is being taught. It seems that this society is reduced to primitive survival instincts. Only someone like Laurana can break the vicious circle of crime, but Laurana's emotional vulnerability--his sensitivity to literature--is considered a fault. There are clearly characters who do not like anyone asking questions. And there are two characters who are philosophical and analytical, but their ability to understand human psychology disables Laurana's investigation. It's as though too much belief in moral ambiguity can stop a criminal investigation.

While this novel is a comment on Italian or Sicilian society and politics of the 1960s, this setting could be anywhere in the world. We all must be vigilant that through silence and acquiescence, our world does not become like the one Sciascia shows us.

This short novel (158 pages) has so much wonderful, nuanced writing that virtually every page is enjoyable in and of itself. One Amazon reviewer called "To Each His Own" postmodernist, but it also seems reminiscent at times of 19th Century writing that is more character insightful than plot driven. Sicilian master, Leonardo Sciascia, certainly does provide a plot in this novel - an inexplainable double homicide begins the story, followed by the slow accumulation of clues leading to the unlocking of the mystery by a hapless bystander, who reveals his revelations despite himself. The cautious innocent ultimately wanders into the killers' crosshairs betrayed by his own lust and the quiet complicity of the entire community. And it's lust that author Sciascia suggests is at the bottom of everything in the Sicilian town that is the novel's setting.

This is a highly literate and entertaining read that will encourage most readers to seek out other titles by this terrific author.

This book is a well written mystery. The author sets the crime out before you right at the beginning and gives many leads for you to try and draw your own conclusions. His style of writting is very different, but very interesting. It is the type of book that you must continue to read to find out what the ending is about.

The basic principles of right are: to live honorably, not to harm any other person, to render to each his own." Digest of the Emperor Justinian.

The Latin phrase "suum cuique tribuere" or "to each his own" is one of the three fundamental maxims of the law laid down by the Emperor Justinian. The peculiar interpretation of that phrase in Sciascia's native Sicily forms the emotional core of his brilliant "To Each His Own."

"To Each His Own" begins with a double-murder. A local pharmacist, Manno, receives a death threat in the mail, compiled with words and letters cut and pasted from a newspaper. The pharmacist laughs it off. He considers the letter to be a joke and although these threats are usually taken seriously in his town, Manno leads a blameless life and simply cannot believe anyone intends him harm. So he goes off hunting the next day with his friend Dr. Roscio and, without further ado, both Manno and Roscio are shot dead in the woods.

A police investigation follows but it is doomed to go nowhere. Sciascia paints a very explicit portrait of a society in which everyone knows (or suspects) everything but says nothing, certainly not to the local police. The general consensus (on the surface) seems to be that Manno was killed by a jealous husband and Roscio was an innocent bystander. The matter would have ended there but for the curious intercession of Professor Laurana. Laurana is a history and Italian teacher at the local liceo (high school). He walks into the pharmacy where the police are reading the anonymous letter and quickly spots a clue. The police dismiss his information out of hand. Laurana, however, driven by what appears to be no more than a desire to solve a puzzle, decides to follow up on the clue. In short order he seems to have solved the mystery. Laurana is oblivious to the fact that his musings on the crime pose more of a threat to the murderers than a typical local police investigation. Events play out to their natural conclusion, and in Sciascia's Sicily natural conclusions are not quite so neat and tidy as say in Agatha Christie's parlor room England.

The enjoyment to be found in reading "To Each His Own" is not the mystery itself. The fact of the matter is that, for Sciascia, solving a mystery doesn't require great insight. Rather, it simply requires a willingness to actually see that which is self-evident. As blind as Laurana may be to the danger he puts himself in, he can see well enough to understand why Manno and Roscio were murdered and who murdered them. Laurana's problem is not that he knows more than anyone else in town, Sciascia makes it clear that the actual events do not seem a surprise to anyone. No, Laurana's problem is that unlike everyone else in town, he doesn't bother to hide his knowledge.

Sciascia's writing is both precise and enjoyable. He seems to have a keen eye and affection for his native place, but that affection does not diminish, but likely enhances, the despair he feels for a culture in which silence is golden and in which "to each his own" does not bring to mind Roman traditions of equity but, rather, the critical importance of minding ones own business. "To Each His Own" is a cynical, but highly-entertaining piece or work.

Highly recommended. L. Fleisig

Having read "To Each His Own" (or rather, "Il ciascuno il suo") twice, once in Italian and once in English, I find that each time I found new interesting nuances.

Rich, ambiguous characters fill the novel and leaves one wondering who is considered intelligent and who is considered an idiot in Sicilian terms. It also leaves one wondering what exactly is the crime: the killer or the one that deems himself the investigator? Is it the one who deals in politics or the one breaking the law of "omerta"?The novel explores the mafiosi as an institution, as a family, what it is in the government, the church, the peasant village.

Sciascia's novel is a page-turner for both those who want an easy read detective thriller and also for those wanting to dig deeper into the story's message.