Richard Wright Books

I'm always impressed with writings by Richard Wright. This book took me on a written and pictorial journey in history of the plight of African Americans in this country. Wright did an excellent job of connecting the past with the present. What a wonderful history lesson!

A Good Book to explore the culture and history of the pain that they went through. The struggle which we don't see or realize.

Richard Wright's The Flesh Remembers is a terrific, genuinely creepy novella about Dexter Lomax, a tabloid reporter who, investigating a series of small, mysterious craters, stumbles across a nasty secret involving flayed bodies (living and dead), an unconventional videotape, and some rather unpleasant Lovecraftian things. Lomax's first-person narration builds perfectly to capture both Lomax's terror and his pity as he doggedly uncovers the truth, rendering The Flesh Remembers worthwhile for any horror fan.

Dexter Lomax knows his job for "The International Inquisitor" is not necessarily to report the facts, but to report a sensational story. And the series of strangely perfect craters popping up around England certainly seems sensational. Add to that a dumping of 30 skinless bodies, a video showing another world of gigantic proportions where no sound travels, and the fact that the video itself isn't made out of magnetic tape, and Lomax may end up wishing he'd never started this journalistic investigation.

Richard Wright's "The Flesh Remembers" is unapologetically Lovecraftian in nature. You've got the lone researcher (Lomax), the mysterious tome (a video tape), cultish groups pursuing the hero (two of them), along with god-like, tentacled beasts from beyond. While it's been done over and over Wright makes it feel fresh and pumps out a darn good tale. He's added enough new elements to make it unique while holding onto enough of the old elements that fans won't be disappointed. The writing is fast, the descriptions are great, and I actually found myself getting creeped out a few times.

I've only got a couple of minor quibbles. First, Lomax is said to be from New York but he uses English slang and phrasing very often. Second, some of the formatting is weird (like using single quotes around dialog). Neither of these are huge, but they were enough to pull me out of the story a few times. And when a tale has the momentum that this one does, you don't want anything pulling you out of the story.

If you're a fan of good, old fashioned, creepy Lovecraftian horror (with just a tad of X-Files style sci-fi) you can't go wrong with "The Flesh Remembers". I'm greatly looking forward to the sequel!

I really liked this book. I am in eight grade and we had to read part one for school but it was so good i read both parts.

I thought that this book was really good. It taught me things that I never knew. I learned about the real differences between blacks and whites. I also had a chance to see out of the eyes of a black boy and it was hard for me to realize that he was put through all of that for no reason. I think that there should not be racism for the things that he had to go through. It also made me see things from a new perspective because living the live that Richard Wright had to live must of been hard. I am glsd that he wrote his book.

This was an overall good book. I liked the style, and I love Richard Wright!

This book is a must have for all African American literature classes!

Not a common read but an essential read. Read by Frederick Douglass in his youth, this work helped to inspire his thirst for knowledge and freedom.

I loved this book. Old but actual testaments by people who bought it hook line and sinker. It helped me understand the lure today of the left.
I highly recommend it!

The Book is a summary of all the Jewish Tombstones in the different Cemeteries of Jamaica. The information is actually the epitaphs so the book have some info in Spanish, some in Portuguese, some in Hebrew and some in English, as these were the languages that were used on the Tombstones. The Authors (they didn't work together) were in Jamaica around the 40's or 50's (I don't remember) and the information was finally compiled in 1997 date that the book was published. The Book has an Index of all the tombstones, it is a very useful index as the list is per name or surname so the reader can find a person very easy. Some of the Cemeteries that are mention in the book may not exist anymore as they were replaced by Hotels and commercial buildings. So the information in this book is very valuable as the Tombstones may have disappeared forever.

Frank Lloyd Wright advised in his autobiography that "no home should ever be on a hill"; instead, it should be "of the hill, belonging to it." Just as gestalt theory described the holistic connections between figures and backgrounds, Wright emphasized the interdependence of an architectural structures and their surroundings. It is said that he always decided the site before considering a building's style, its spatial orientation, or the materials with which to build it. Of all his projects, there may be no better example of that than Fallingwater (c. 1938), a small but elaborate home in the woods (commissioned by a wealthy Pittsburgh department store owner named Edgar J. Kaufmann) in which the building is embedded in the landscape, making it inseparable from the waterfall, woods, and cantilevered rock ledges of its location. While much has been written about Fallingwater as a completed structure, less has been said about its preparatory drawings, the friendship between merchant prince and master builder, and the dozen projects that Wright and the Kaufmanns intended to build (few of which were ever realized) from 1934 until the architect's death in 1959. This is the full-color catalog for an exhibition of fifty of the more than 600 Wright drawings for projects commissioned by Kaufmann, which opened on 10 April and continues through 3 October 1999 at the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. (Copyright by Roy R. Behrens from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 14, No. 4, Summer 1999.)

Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas (1901, 1902, 1908 & 2006)
a.k.a. Norse Mythology Great Stories from the Eddas (2002)
By Hamilton Wright Mabie

This review will be covering several editions of this work, while the text is the same in all the editions their presentations vary greatly.

A well written book covering seventeen of the more popular Norse Myths from the Eddas. Mr. Mabie had a very engaging style that is palatable for adults and will still hold the interest of children.

Now, having said this, it must be remembered that this work was originally written in 1882. This was a time when children were not sheltered from the realities of life and death. A time when being politically correct meant that you voted for the winner. A time when cholera, small pox and numerous other diseases ran rampant through the population. Children were quite a bit tougher back when this work was written. So if you have a wimpy, sheltered child you may want to find another book for story time. Or try something mindless and milk toast like the Disney Channel.

All the stories are faithfully translated into a readable and entertaining format. While this work can not be considered scholarly, it does convey the spirit of the Norse Era quite well. As a testament to the books quality, few works of any type continue to be published for over a century.

One of the newer editions, "Norse Mythology, Great Stories from the Eddas", 2002, was, (to me anyway), a bit of a disappointment. While the text remained the same as the older editions, the illustrations or lack of them has not. The early 1900's editions are lavishly illustrated with Nordic style gilt work on every page and simple, but powerful water color's throughout the book. The cover was graced with a depiction of a powerful Viking God, (probably Odin), looking proud and imposing. The 2002 paperback editions cover depicts a beardless, nude, neo-Greek Thor battling Jormungand, from the Chapter 9 story, "Thor Goes Fishing". While the cover art is well done, its style would be better served on a book of Greek or Roman Myths. The interior illustrations and gilt work of the 2002 edition are nonexistent. This lack of interior illustration transforms a very good book with eye catching pages that add life to the myths into just another paperback.

All and all a nice retelling of the tales but if you can get a copy of the older editions or the 2006 paperback it's well worth it.

In Frith,
Spence

"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc"
M. Addams