Literature Books

I love this book, especially for kids with big families. As an adult from a big family it is equally fun to read. This account of the journey and the visit at the relatives' house is written from a refreshingly honest child's point of view. A completely delightful read-to book. I bought a copy for all my kids with children.

This story is about some
family members from Virginia came down to some other relatives that lived
far away and the family from Virginia was staying for a couple of weeks. They finished with eating, playing, and hugging. At the end of the story, the family from Virginia goes back to their house, and wait `til next summer.

I liked this book because the book was about family time and this book will be good for any kid at anytime.

Can be the inspiration for many writing ideas- character sketches of family members, preparing for guests, positives and negatives of having company, missing those who live far away, family traditions, what do you all do when you get together, etc.

I use it for a writing springboard for my 4th grade class.

This is a lovely, funny story about going to visit relatives that live far away (you never do find out where they are), and what happens when you get there. From going through a long line of hugging, to eating everything in sight, to the getting-to-know-you looks, to bunking down wherever there's a space. The text is warm and descriptive and the illustrations are evocative and amusing. I am lucky enough to have a family of extended relatives like these, and this books rings very true!

We found this book second hand somewhere - and when we read it, we knew we had discovered a treasure. We took it to my sister's - read it outloud to only adults. We read it to our grandchildren. It is a lovely book filled with something very good about life on earth. Transcends these people - hits us all.

This is a collection of essays about the first twelve rulers to bear the name Caesar. It is the definitive collection of eyewitness stories about the early emperors as they were seen by their contemporaries.

The rulers covered by this book include Julius Caesar, his adopted son Augustus and his descendents, the warlords who contended for power in the "Year of Four Caesars" after Nero was overthrown, and the Flavians.

In other words, the full list of twelve is:

Julius Caesar
Augustus
Tiberius
Gaius Caligula
Claudius
Nero
Galba
Otho
Vitellius
Vespasian
Titus
Domitian.

If you want to understand the early Roman Empire, you need to read this book. If you are a budding novelist and want to write about the early Empire, you need to read this book.

Robert Graves, author of "I Claudius" and "Claudius the God" translated this version: not surprisingly many of the snippets of gossip and fascinating little stories from Suetonius find their way into his novels. They also find their way into every good novel about first century Rome that I have ever read, absolutely without exception.

You should not take for granted that every word of Suetonius's account is accurate. For example, he supports the story that Nero set fire to the city of Rome, and then sang an aria as he watched the city burn. (This is story is often misquoted as Nero having fiddled while Rome burned - an impossibility since the violin had not been invented.)

Some modern historians have made a strong case that this was a clever libel spread by Nero's contemporary opponents, that Nero was actually away from the city when the fire broke out and hurried back to Rome to personally lead the fire-fighting efforts.

If they are right it does not cast doubt on Suetonius's integrity as a reporter of what was said about the emperor, because there is no dispute that the story of Nero singing while Rome burned was widely believed at the time. As the saying goes, "Si non e vero, e ben trovato" - if it's not true, it's well invented. Aspects of the story certainly seem in character with many of Nero's other proclivities including his love of art, enormous vanity, and complete ruthlessness. However, it illustrates that Suetonius does seem to have a propensity to repeat every snippet of gossip he heard about the early emperors, with rather less selectivity and critical judgement than the other great ancient historians, Herodotus and Thucydides.

However, for this very reason, though perhaps he is a whisker behind Herodotus and Thucydides as a historian, Suetonius is far and away the most entertaining of the three.

The translation by Graves is very easy to read. This is one of the most important, fascinating, and informative works of ancient history which was ever written.

That question can be solved by me by choosing the former simply because of what survives of his work and here it is: The Twelve Caesars. Tacitus is the other great Roman historian but what survives of his two masterpieces: The Annals and The Histories, is not as comprehensive as what is found in The Twelve Caesars.

The Twelve Caesars is definatley my favorite historical work of the Roman Empire. In it, Suetonious goes over the actions and character of not only the entire Julio-Claudian dynasty but the Flavian as well, making The Twelve Caesars cover roughly 138 years.

This is probably the best historical account of the emperors of the Roman Empire and is the best introduction to other works such as the great works of Tacitus.

lunatics that ruled Rome in the first century, & told very well in the audio cassette format. As history it is not much but as biography it is informative & entertaining. Apparently the mores & standards of decency were much diiferent than they are today. Most of these 12 Caesars did not not rule very long but they impacted the Empire probably for a long time after. I'd like to read more about the individuals that followed Domitian & before Julius thus supplementing other well known works such as the Fall of the Roman Empire. This book however, is a good start.

Suetonius grew up in the years following Nero's reign and wrote these histories while he was the secretary of the emperor Hadrian in the early second century A.D. His book covers the successive reigns of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.

The stories focus on the emperors themselves more than the events which took place under their reigns and, although there's certainly some truth to those emperors, many of Suetonius' facts are anecdotal stories and rumors. Suetonius has therefore been called one of the first tabloid writers. Nevertheless, his biographies are rather concise and systematic; touching upon the physical attributes of the ruler, his background, the good deeds (if any) in his reign and then, of course, the bad deeds.

Robert Graves' translation is superb and carries the jovial mood of the writings quite well. I can't help but be amused at some of the stories Suetonius recites on Nero and Caligula as they are definitely two of the most eccentric emperors (to put it lightly)that ever ruled the Principate. For example, when Nero first inaugurated his new gigantic Golden House with a mile-long corridor and a 130' statue of himself at the entrance, he was said to have exclaimed, "At last! I can live like a human being!"

The Twelve Caesars is the first classical book I ever read, and it fascinated me to no end. I'd recommend this is a starter book for anyone interested in the History of Political Power. Gore Vidal reviewed this book years ago, and he wrote an excellent piece about it--the nature of power, the perversions it causes, and the absurd humanity of it All. Hopefully there won't be another Tiberius as President of the USA (we only have our cheap Clintonius) but it's fun to wonder what may become of our American Empire. Please, please buy this book.

In his wonderful and fascinating book Unspeakable ShaXXXspeares, Richard Burt, the leading scholar of Shakespeare and film studies, pioneers research into the manifold ways Shakespeare enters into American popular culture. Concentrating mostly on film but attending as well to television sit-coms, Burt offers penetrating insight into everything from mainstream adaptations of Shakespeare to "low" spin-offs in which Shakespeare's language almost entirely disappears. Burt explores both what film and mass media have done to Shakespeare and also what Shakespeare enables our culture to do trhough film and other electronic media. Readers intersted in this book will be happy to know that Burt has since edited a related collection entitled Shakespeare After Mass Media and has co-edited Shakespeare, the Movie II.

One doesn't usually expect to find oneself laughing when reading a book of criticism written by an academic, much less a book on Shakespeare. But Burt's book is frequently just that, funny to the point of making me laugh out loud. Burt has a refreshingly off-beat sense of humor, and the materials he has discovered--such as an adult movie version of Hamlet--aer themselves often hilarious as well, though not always intentionally so. But far from being just a laugh riot, the book is also a serious, critically sophisticated analysis of Shakespeare's fate incontemporary mass media, where much of hte lnagugae is cut or confined to well-known quotations. Burt's final chapter on films about teaching Shakespeare is quite moving, and Burt has the courage to raise difficult questions without pretending he is able to answer them. He is right to think that the questions are more important than the answers. Burt is to be congratulated for writing his book in a clear and engaging prose style without sacrificing the complexity of his thought.

One of the many strengths of Burt's truly excellent book is that it not only discusses Shakespeare adaptations but uses Shakespeare, or of ShaXXXspeares, to discuss post-war American popular culture. Burt's theory of the loser as critic has ramifications for all criticism, not just Shakespeare. This is a profound, original, and engaging book.

I happened to be doing research for my thesis on Shakespeare in the university library and, while looking for other books, I was intrigued by the three XXXs in the title of Burt's book on the shelf, so I pulled it off and looked through it. What a daring work of cultural criticism! When I saw the chapters on Shakespeare porn, I marvelled both at the courage of the man to write such a book and how at the publisher who took it on. Of course, I check it out and read it. I especially was drawn to the chapter on action films and Burt's point that while the films cannibalize others, no one in the films ever eats; the characters are anorexic. The book is full of similarly wonderful insights. I am a cinephile, and very much appreciated Burt's quite hip approach to ShaXXXspeare. Now, it's back to those other, rather staid books of Shakespeare criticism, I was orginally looking for.

Whatever you think about Shakespeare, it is impossible not to agree with the points Burt makes in this book. His analysis is right on the money and you will never be able to look at Shakespearean movies or literature in the same way. A fantastic book and a must read.

In spare, poetic and very beautiful dialect, old and grumpy Guernsey misanthrope, Ebenezer Le Page, recounts the story of his life; a tale of disillusionment, loss and remarkable resiliance.

Edwards makes Le Page a Guernseyan "Everyman." Le Page represents an embattled folk community: colonized by the French, occupied by the Germans and finally overrun by English tourists.

Like the butler, Stevens, in *The Remains of the Day,* Le Page has an epiphany that transforms him. But while Stevens' epiphany is of the rather subtle dry sherry variety, Le Page's knocks you flat like a good shot of white lightening, poteen or whatever it is that Guernsey people drink when they want to see God.

*The Book of Ebenezer Le Page* is about a small miracle of the human spirit in the face of war, poverty and souless consumerism.

What can I add to the almost unanimous chorus of praise and rave reviews? Not much. But this is such an exceptional yet so inexplicably little-known book that I feel obliged to join the chorus.

THE BOOK OF EBENEZER LE PAGE reminds me, as unlikely as this particular combination may sound, of both Thomas Hardy and Mark Twain. Indeed, for a rough approximation of the narrator Ebenezer Le Page and his personality and humor, imagine that Sam Clemens had been born in 1890 on the Channel Island of Guernsey, lived there his entire life, and then nearing 90 set down the story of his life and his world. Although not as cosmopolitan as Sam Clemens, Ebenezer Le Page is every bit as independent a free-thinker, as open-minded, as cantankerous, as wise, and as ruthlessly disdainful of cant, self-righteousness, and those who better themselves at the expense of others. And almost as funny.

For all its greatness, THE BOOK OF EBENEZER LE PAGE is not a page-turner that you are likely to devour in one fell swoop. It took me two weeks to read it. But each time I returned to it, I was eager to do so. It is not unlike an idiosyncratically crusty grandfather telling tales from his life after dinner; as much as one loves to listen to him every evening for an hour or two, one is not prepared to listen to him day in and day out, to the exclusion of everything else.

This novel is sui generis. It also is, in my experience, the greatest novel by a "single-work author." (It far surpasses John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces.") But it should not be regarded solely as some sort of curiosity. It is a great work of literature, and it merits far wider recognition and a far wider readership.

One of the best books I have read in a long time...The universality of Ebenezer is wonderful. It brings the reader back to another time and place. I highly recommend this book.

This is a book for good readers only. And for good readers who enter the book at the right time when they are willing to invest the effort to get far enough into the story to care about it. There is much to complain about. It is a first person narrative written by a person who is not always likeable about other people who are not always likeable and who are often two dimensional. It is written in an idiosyncratic style that reflects both the education level and patois of the narrator. The setting is limited, obscure and unfamiliar to most readers. Somehow those very complaints gradually reverse themselves to become the strengths of the book. The author asks a lot from the reader because you have to plow through a lot of words and page after page until you become aware of the reversal. You become very interested in the narrator's life story, the vast cast of characters continues to increase with every page but they seem more human and not so irritating, the writing style becomes familiar and essential to the story as the narrator's personality and a reflection of the richness of the setting. This is a long book full of a long life story and many small stories. The small stories are some of the most memorable, particularly during the time of occupation. Some of the little stores are entertaining, like the two pigs and some are tragic, like the story of the young prisoner. I found myself more caught up in the little stories than in the larger tragedy of Raymond and Horace. My recommendation is to skip the introduction by John Fowles which is long and unnecessary and save your endurance to see if you can get far enough into the book to reach the point where you stop having to work at reading and want to pick it up. It is brilliant, even as it is astounding that a publisher read enough of it to make the decision to publish it.

I keep rereading this book. I've probably read it 20 times, in full and in part, since encountering it 20 years ago. The pageant of characters who march through are so alive I feel like I know them, and the number and variety of experiences the protagonist relates are as rich as life itself, despite the fact that Ebenezer left his home island of Guernsey only once, as a young man, for a short period of time.

However, I have lent or given a copy of this book to at least a half dozen people over the years, and not one of them was able to finish it.

Also, I do suspect that John Fowles wrote the book and perpetrated a grand hoax. I doubt that G. B. Edwards ever existed, at least as the author of this wonderful volume.