Literature Books

I've been teaching at a community college for 16 years on the topic of energy efficiency, Passive solar, Building Science, green building, healthy home and alternative structures. These fields have evolved over this period of time. During the past 5 years there have been many good books on new construction, but few on Remodeling.

Since remodeling would recycle a whole building, it is "greener" than new construction, especially in Suburbia or rural agricultural land. I would like to emphasize Remodeling in community colleges and think this would be the best textbook on the subject. The photographs alone are worthwhile. I also own the book, "Green Remodeling" by David Johnston and would use it as a secondary reference.

I would also recommend Natural Remodeling for homeowners.

This is an outstanding book on remodeling your home to blend in with nature, and to avoid introducing toxic products into your home. Great ideas and photos.

And I am glad I did! I am even gladder to know that more people are waking up to the idea of natural remodeling. I am not sure whether it alone will save our earth but it's a good start. If enough people do it, it will certainly raise the level of our appreciation of nature to a higher level.

We're in the process of buying a house. Having been brainwashed by the mainstream culture and the media, I had grand dreams of huge expansion with piles of the latest and the biggest "goods" we're all programmed to consume - things like an all powerful over sized profession stainless oven even though I would never use it. But I now have a completely different mind set after reading this book.

We've decided to go small and practical and recycle, reuse as much as possible. Let mother Nature live so that we can too!

I could not put this book down. It answers all of my questions and concerns as I begin to contemplate the large undertaking of creating a healthy, eco-friendly home for our family. Very thorough, creative and well-written... I only wish I could hire these women directly. Just enough information to cover all of the key considerations, with plenty of guidance on how to dig deeper if necessary. Should be required reading for every builder on the planet!

There were many good ideas in this book. Some more expensive than the average person could afford. I read Building Green: A Complete How-To Guide to Alternative Building Methods Earth Plaster * Straw Bale * Cordwood * Cob * Living Roofs; By: Clarke Snell (Author), Tim Callahan (Author). Which was very comprehensive and enjoyable. While Snell and Callahan focus on building from scratch I was more interested at this moment in remodeling. I wouldn't dismiss this book, but I would identify what your needs are first.

This book by Thomas Merton is a marvelous exploration of what it is to be human and the fundamental problems of disconnection from the depths of Being. More practically, it addresses the solution to our isolation in a direct, loving and compassionate way. Thomas Merton is clearly one who has traveled the path to his deepest self and has much to share about his journey.

Thomas Merton is a mystic who has spent a lot of time in silence and deep contemplation. He had a grasp of contemporary issues facing the modern person and he has a way of using language that is simple, but touches the heart.

Although Merton was a Catholic Christian mystic, his message is universal. He illuminates the mystic's path and shares the fruit of his explorations through writing in a way that is accessible and powerful. Somehow, between the lines it is obvious that his experience has been profound and he translates this into terms that help the reader to find meaning.

This book will be especially appealing to Catholics and Christians. The tone is understanding and gentle, although it is packaged in a way that is most digestible to fellow Catholics. On the other hand, there are so many gems that are applicable to the human condition that it will be a valuable read by people of any faith.

Thomas Merton wrote a lot of books and this is one of his best for lay people. New Seeds of Contemplation is also very thought provoking and could be considered a companion volume. It also goes a bit deeper into some of the more existential and metaphysical aspects of living, but not in an esoteric way.

If you have an interest in Christian Mysticism in general, I also highly recommend Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill. This is a great short introduction to Western Mysticism delivered in a very poetical style and that is geared to the average person looking for meaning in their lives.

This book was an amazing read for me the first time through. I have since read again and it continues to reveal insights into my life and relationship with God and to others. Thomas Merton is amazingly timeless and contemporary throughout. These are not abstract views of spirituality, but real and meaningful looks at a life of faith in the world, our world, today. Merton looks truthflly at how we relate to God and to each other in a world that is filled with noise and distractions. I highly reccomend this book to anyone who is honestly seeking to deepen their own interior spiritual life. Merton is a man of our times, understanding the depths and treasures of faith as well as the pitfalls of our humanity. This book will help you to believe that goodness is very possible and that being a spiritual person is possible while living in the world. Merton shows that the religious life is not just for priests, monks and nuns, which is very compatible with the John Paul II vision that all lives lived in faith can be a vocation.

This hardcover is very nice as it is linen bound with a gold ribbon marker. Chapters are broken up into numbered segments, making it possible to read a little each day and to find favorite sections.

"No Man is an Island" is a spiritually moving set of essays--or meditations, rather--that address many issues but ultimately center on our relationship with God, with each other, and with ourselves. Having read only a little of Merton, I found this book somewhat more straightforward and prosaic compared to a later work of his, "The New Man", and he gets a tad dogmatic in spots (well, he is ordained, so he has a license to do so, fair enough)--I was reminded of some of the more trenchant passages in "The Seven Storey Mountain" before he'd mellowed out a bit. And yet Merton's characteristic mix of simplicity and profundity, his fine-tuned mystic's sense of paradox, and his ability to take Catholic teachings and breathe new life into them are all here in full; indeed, in many ways this book would serve very well as a Catholic Monastic statement of what life's all about, spoken in Merton's gentle conversational tones at once calm and serious, critical of the shallow aspects of modernity while articulated in a manner that speaks eloquently to modern people. I have no doubt that this book should appeal to readers who profess Christianity as their religion, but I also think that many non-Christians (such as myself) will find much here that is inspiring and spiritually enlightening.

Every adjective title used to describe this book in the reviews so far i have found to be true.

"The truth i must love in my brother is God Himself, living in Him."
excerpt from this book (Thomas Merton "No Man is an Island"

Reading just that line is enough to contemplate for some while.

I found i had to read small sectionsm and re read to gain fuller meaning
because some concepts are difficult to grapple with, but grapple with them.
I will re read this book many times over throughout my life. It strikes richly at the core of Catholic teaching, its value universal for everyone.
Its a celebration of God and his creatures, it affirms the truth of His love as His gift living in us, for us also to share, for it is not ours to keep selfishly.

While this is certainly not one of my favorite Thomas Merton works, I do find that its format and style facilitate a prayerful experience.

With its individual sections of thought, this book is great to read in parts. I found it wonderfully useful in sections read before community prayer in the chapel. It might be good for someone looking for spiritual reading but who does not have a lot of time to spare.

The book is brilliant. The caracthers are complex, except for that La Esmeralda, the city of Paris is beautiful describe and the chapter about architecture and litetarute is fascinating. Victor Hugo's style of writing is elegant and his sense of humour, sometimes really ironic, is unique.
The only low point of the book is La Esmeralda caracther. She is shallow, the typical "please rescue me" heroine and i kept asking myself praticatly the whole time i was reading it: HOW CAN SOMEONE BE SO STUPID???????? And by the end of the book, every time she said "my phoebus" i felt like slaping her. And i didn't think her love for "my phoebus" was bliding her so she couldn't see what he was really about. I think she was that dumb and stupid to not see what was right in front of her. Love isn't blind. Love is the opposite. That's why Quasimodo's love for her is so great. He is aware she doesn't love him, she doesn't even like him, she just keep on thinking about "my phoebus", he sees all that and still he loves her. That's love. What she felt was due to her stupidity.
When la esmeralda, hiding from the people who wants to hang her, hears phoebus' voice and yells "my phoebus" (it seemed that the only sentence she could say most of the book), and is found out, i thought: "she deserves to be hung, how can someone be so dumb??????".
I 'don't give 5 stars because of her.

Forget singing hunchbacks and chivalrous captains, dancing on rooftops and merry parades, and embrace the real Notre Dame of Paris. Poor, deaf Quasimodo, doggedly loyal to his vicious and stern master, delighting in his pealing bells and as flawed as every other character in the book makes a frightful counterpoint to the beautifully innocent La Esmeralda. The tale does not begin with them but events spiral around these two in a vortex of complicated plots and duplicitious people, drawing closer and closer to finally end with the two unfortunate souls. It is a single-sided Romeo and Juliet, a daisy chain of ill-conceived romance and misbegotten loves that ensanare everyone they touch. Every character has a story, from Gringoire the poet of the streets to Claude Frollo, the very model of severe ecclesiastical virtue and his miscreant brother, and even the city itself is described in occasionally agonizingly minute detail. They are at times loveable, at times odious, and forever utterly enthalling.

Victor Hugo, the French poet and writer, who wished to change how novels were written and read, wrote The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in the beginning of his career. In contrast to Les Miserables, which is his more celebrated work, and was written several decades after the Notre-dame novel, the present piece is not only laced with more humor and romance but also stands out as a piece where the young poet in Hugo pours out a ravishing range of similes. Just for the pure magic of his metaphors and similes that make all his descriptions so poetic, so powerful Notre-Dame is worth reading.

The story itself reads like a fanciful movie, an ugly hunchback, Quasimodo is brought up by a Priest Frollo, the archdeacon of Notre-dame. The hunchback is hence attached like a dog to his master to him. The English title of Hunchback of Notre-dame is a misnomer, for the original is called Notre-dame de Paris, and English title lets us assume that it is the story of Hunchback as hero, while the original title asserts it is story set in Notre-dame and has characters who reside in it, or live in its shadows. The Priest Calude Frollo, leaving his pursuit of science and philosophy meanders to a path of unrelenting lust for the gypsy dancer, Esmeralda. A writer, Pierre Grigorne, gets into a set of bizarre circumstances, where a token marriage attaches him to the gypsy. Phoebus, captain of King's Archers is the object of the affection of Esmeralda herself.

Besides these characters, there is a madwoman who lives in confinement, pining for her lost child, who was carried off by gypsies, and hates Esmeralda. There is the goat Djali, who performs tricks with Esmeralda, Jehan who is Claude Frollo's irreligious brother, King Louis IV - who interacts with Claude on issues of science, and the most important character, who lurks like an existence all though, is the Notre-Dame itself. The romances criss cross through a series of interesting episodes and drama, and that forms the crux of the story that I won't divulge here. Readers will benefit by discovering surprises and mystery for themselves, in process getting enchanted by a story that has been a popular read for centuries now.

What makes this novel a masterpiece, besides the poetic descriptions, is
Hugo's description of the cathedral of Notre-dame and the city of Paris, and his discussion of how the arrival of printing press signaled an end to the importance as architecture as the expressive art of intellectuals. The views of the author expressed in these pages and pages of delightful reading provide the reader not only with historical and architectural perspective on the buildings in Paris, but also gives us a word image of buildings, roofs, rooms, carvings, modernism, and more. In his commentaries and comparisons between writing and printing as form of expression in contrast to architecture, Hugo unmasks a wide array of issues that arrival of every new media (TV, Cinema, Internet, Digital Photography) bring. How existing precepts and concepts are revised, how adaptations occur, how each age has its own expression through any of these means- and all Hugo says so passionately about architecture or literature allows us to feel the essence of why we make monuments of stones or words in the first place.

Victor Hugo had great skill in developing characters, and describing their lives over an extended period of time, capturing how situations and people led to certain choices, behavioral changes and thought process of each. His ability of doing this, in a very detached manner, where narrative is like a camera floating into a room, and staying long enough for a distant observer to watch and identify traits of every person present there, makes him a great novelist. The novel, like all classic reads, looks formidable in size, but can be read at a formidable pace, especially after the first half of the novel is over.

Besides the merits of the novelist, and the beauty of his wordplay, the story itself is a charming one, and has been brought to screen versions many times. Reading Hugo's two major works allows one to get the same keen insight into French society of the respective times, as does Thackeray and Dickens novels for England and Tolstoy in Russia. Reading any of these masters takes time, but trust me, it is worth the patience and the effort. Recommended highly.

If you peruse through all the reviews of this book, you will notice that not one review is less than five stars. There is a reason for that. This is a phenomal book. As many have pointed out, to call it "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is a fallcy; Quasimodo is NOT the main character; he is barely even a secondary character and I might even go as far as to call him a tertiary character. Esmerelda is really the main character. Hugo wrote the book to attempt to get Paris to restore Notre Dame cathederal and, as many reviewers have already pointed out, the cathedral really is the focal point. But the story is phenomenal. So dark and terribly sad. Hollywood has tended to butcher this story. Not one version tells the story as Hugo intended. Forget all the movie versions and just read the book. The experience is MUCH richer and MUCH more rewarding intellectually than any of them.

Victor Hugo never did anything by halves. His NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS begins as a tour of Gothic Paris and ends as a monumental and melodramatic Grand Guignol. Needless to say, all the film versions focus on the wrong character: Quasimodo is by no means the main focus of the novel, and the novel certainly is misnamed when called THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. The hero, if there is one, is the cathedral itself, brooding over Renaissance Paris like a horror from another age.

The only character who is not not overdramatized appears only once in an unforgettable vignette at the very end: Louis XI, King of France, who has been called by the historian Philippe de Commynes "The Universal Spider." Louis; his grasping barber, Olivier le Daim; and his grim hatchet man, Tristan l'Hermite are unforgettable and more sharply drawn than any other Hugo characters I can recall.

John Sturrock's translation is well done except for his occasional inclusion of an archaic term without footnote or any other comment. Most notable are two items of apparel I still cannot visualize, namely bycokets and actons. Yet every Latin phrase, and there are many spoken by Pierre Gringoire and the student Jehan Frollo, is faithfully translated.

Also useful would have been a map of Louis XI's Paris. I was frequently confused about where the action was taking place, because most if not all of the place names were later superseded by others.

I would venture to say that no one reading this novel will ever forget it. I first read it more than twenty years ago, and it still sprang into my mind as sharply-etched as before.

This edition is unabridged. Although Hugo sometimes tended to go off on tangents, I could not think of a single chapter I would axe. Even where it does not add to the plot, it adds to the atmosphere of a city in which life and love were cheap, and no infraction was ever left unpunished by the most dire means possible.

Expertly executed. A detailed history of oranges--customs surrounding, growing, marketing, geography--yet if you apply your close reading skills and critical thinking you may find that this work has deeper meaning. Could it also be taking on social issues such as poverty, ignorance, miscenegation, reproductive rights, and just plain old politics. It is certainly intriguing to consider this when drinking in the beauty of the writing and the mastery of weaving a comprehsensive report on all things having to do with oranges. Never dull no matter what your take.

It's forty years now since this brilliant little mandarin of a book appeared. Early reviewers (and readers of McPhee in the New Yorker) were amused and even a bit ill-at-ease at the entertainment that the author squeezed from a subject as apparently banal as oranges.

Fruit, after all, is hardly a subject for serious discourse and therefore must not be a subject for serious readers. But it was hard to avoid the suspicion that there was something more important about the dynamics of everyday life than about the transient political and artistic events that captured 'serious' attention.(Valley of the Dolls was a best seller that same year)

In the years that followed, we saw a growing realization among scholars that ordinary life was worth study. In fact, the suspicion is even raised that ordinary life may be the thing most worth studying. There has been a spate of books examining such mundane topics as salt, the codfish, apples, spices, coffee, sugar and wine. We have had biographies of diseases and inventions and public manias.

Some of this attention to the mundane has been diluted by its focus on the ordinary object as a marker of greater things: sugar stands for colonialism in Sweetness and Power, public napping stands for a cultural of denial in (No) Time for Sleep and so on.
But increasingly the daily lives of ordinary people-the hohum stuff of most of human existence is seen as worth attention.

Remarkably, it turns out that everyday things are often the most fascinating. Here's a book by the man who played the first card in the genre. It remains remarkably readable and charming and its indirectly indicated concerns are very much alive today.

"Oranges" was the first of John McPhee's books I ever read. I found a copy at a thrift store about ten years ago, and was absolutely blown away by it. Since then, I've probably read it another six or eight times. There is so much fascinating information in it, covered in such a beautiful way, that I could probably read it once a month and still find it entertaining. I'm here to buy yet another copy, as I tend to loan out McPhee's books to my friends, whether they ask for them or not. Unlike other books I loan out, my friends eventually return the McPhees, if only in hopes that I'll loan them another one. I always do. Oranges has been away for about a year this time, and I'm feeling a powerful urge to read it again.

Whether a lot of the information in the book is out-dated or not is totally immaterial. McPhee's work is not journalism covering current events, it's brilliant literature on non-fictional subjects, in the same way as the writing of Samuel Pepys is well worth reading today, in spite of all his subjects' being deceased.

I recently read Mr. McPhee's "Survival of the Bark Canoe" again, and found it just as hilarious as ever, and just as informative. Mark Twain couldn't have covered the subject as well, or any more entertainingly.

Aside from the sheer quality of his writing, the great thing about John McPhee is that he's so damned prolific. Any time I see one of his books which isn't already in my collection, I snap it up; yet I still haven't managed to read his entire body of work. But, I'm working at it.

First published in the 1960s, Oranges by twice Pulitzer winning journalist, John McPhee got a limited lease of life back in 2000 when Penguin reissued it as a modern classic. And while it's an interesting little book covering pretty much everything to do with oranges, the reportage within doesn't so much as ground the book in its time than date it

You may think that there is not much to say about fruit in general, never mind being specific. But that's where you'd be wrong as, it turns out, the orange has a catalogue of facts literally bursting with juicy trivia. It begins with uses for the fruit around the world, covering methods of eating, seasoning, and even cleaning the floor and removing grease. It explores the etymology of both the fruit's name, and it's scientific name, Citrus Sinensis. Along the way, as it spouts nugget of information in quick succession, we see the orange in history as it began its two thousand year westward journey from China to the Americas until orange growing and juicing became a worldwide industry within itself.

Splitting up chapters of trivia, McPhee shares the outcomes of his meetings with orange barons, orange growers, and other assorted industry types. While interesting to read, the text is littered with anecdotes containing names that will mean nothing to anyone other than their immediate families. And, to top it off, there is a section whereby we learn of new methods being introduced to improve the industry that, even if you have no experience of it, you know has long since been superceded by methods. It doesn't take a genius to know that in a world rife with technology and technological gains, that the huge workforce mentioned in Oranges has long since been made redundant or replaced by immigrant workers.

McPhee's style is immensely readable, the way he dances from fact to fact a delight to read, and when he injects some humour to his catalogue of orange facts, you can't help but raise a smile - at the joke and in appreciation of its wording. His anecdotes do drag, and I think it wouldn't be uncommon to breath a sigh of relief once they conclude.

It's a quick read and a quirky subject, and McPhee's research is to be commended, although much of the journalistic writing -reading it forty years on from publication - has soured. That said, if you know nothing of the orange industry - and oranges in general - then Oranges is a fun little book that should quench that specific hole in your trivia.

For twenty years I have given this book to recent high school graduates, carefully inscribing each book to encourage them to see what McPhee reveals here.

What he reveals most vividly is the idea that there is no such thing as an uninteresting subject; there is only an uninterested reader.

What also impressed me, decades ago, was the notion of connectedness, and the idea that one thing-an orange, a diamond, iron, oil, lead-could reveal everything about our world.

Finally, he deserves five stars because he never gets in the way of his subject, and he has moments of such brilliance-his devotional to Otto, the restauranteur, still ranks as a great moment in writing, fiction or non-that everyone should read him.

My favorite of a shelfull of McPhees, with the Headmaster in a virtual dead heat.

great story it is the continuing story of Peter and his friends against the evil shadows snatchers

This outstanding novel is both thrilling and humorous. The ever so sly Peter gets caught by his two enimies...hook and ombra. They've plotted to get rid of Peter and the rest of the star catchers for good, and they're determined to suceed. By the time you've finished the third and last book of the "Peter and the Starcatchers" series, the characters are real to you, alive, and it will be hard to say good bye. As the previous books of the series were, this story is equally amazing. Every chapter gives you a glimps of the other characters whereabouts, keeping you on your toes for the whole fantastic journey. Barry and Pearson end their series perfectly, but you don't want it to end. I had tears in my eyes reading the last page. This book is not a story that you will ever forget. I strongly feel that Peter and the Secerets of Rundoon should be read by every child 10-14 whom enjoys fantasy, adventure, and a little bit of romance. I hope that you'll enjoy this book as much as I did!

The first two in the series were entertaining reads--well-crafted and funny. Highly recommended for all ages! Wish I could read the third, though. But now that I have a Kindle, I guess I'll have to wait until it's available in that format. :(

By:Angie Murdock
Peter and The Secret of Rundoon
by:Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Peter and The Secret of Rundoon was so awesome, I loved it! Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry have created a new world of Peter Pan. They have twisted the whole story to an amazing adventure in never land. They have recreated Peter Pan, Captain Hook and the Lost Boys. They have written three action-packed books about Peter's adventures with "starstuff",the magical fallen stars that have given him his ability to fly and in effect made him immortal and a boy never to grow up.
If you haven't read the first two books in the trilogy I suggest you go and get them before you read this. When I started reading this book, I couldn't put it down. It gave me an amazing movie in my head, and it is very well written. Peter and The Secret of Rundoon was a great read. It ended the best trilogy I have ever read. I would suggest this book to people who are looking for a bit of a challenge and a great adventure, it is a fantasy book. It is for readers in 2nd grade and up.

I've read the first two books in this series to my son at night. We're about 3/4 through this one. We both really enjoy the story. Lots of good twists and turns and fun connections to Peter Pan.

Maybe to that limited set of writers who thinak they are the Homers of today.

But a great american novel would be read by many people with differing levels of appreciation and determined to refelct the CURRENT and essence of America (oh what about south america) not just the mythical past.

THe words may flow as a poem, and cover or expound cleary or lyrically the points of life in this country but that alone does not make it a great story. Or a timeless one.

In preface to my review, I have to say that my favorite writers are Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Boll, Arthur Rimbaud, etc.
Many of the reviews here have bandied about the name of Thomas Wolfe (whose "Look Homeward, Angel" was brilliant); and the comparison is richly deserved; but the most insightful comparison came from the person who said it reminded him of an American version of Tolstoy's "War and Peace".
I've actually read "War and Peace". Lockridge's "Raintree County" rises to that level--and, in my estimation--surpasses it. I love the Russians--Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev. And I love Walt Whitman and Ross Lockridge for the same reason. They all have what the Spanish call "duende," what the American blacks clamor to express by the word "soul". These aren't weak, spineless, effete Victorians afraid of beauty, passion, shame and awkward emotions.
They cast light into the dark corners of the human soul and throw open man's collective experience for all to see--something rarely achieved in typically dryer Anglo-Saxon literature.
Ross Lockridge's "Raintree County" astounded me. It left me wondering how this great American genius has been ignored, neglected. The only thing I can think of is that Lockridge makes the fatal mistake of being honest, of writing too accurately about the time-period, of not lying and indulging in historical revisionism. As a result, spineless readers wince when the "N" word is used, or terms like "pickannies," "darkies" or various other period vulgarities are employed by despised side-characters.
For this reason geniuses like Booth Tarkington are banned and suppressed.
It's sad. They want to revise the past and make it "acceptable" for modern audiences. But if you sanitize, you gut, you neuter, you destroy the hard edges which give the time-period texture, verisimilitude. (I mean, if slaves were well-treated why did we fight the Civil War?) But modern hacks would have writers keep all profanities out of it, re-write it so that nothing crude or insensitive made its way in.
If you want lies, watch a Hollywood movie, read a trash novel; if you want genius, poetry, brilliant insights and literary talent, give "Raintree County" a try. Maybe, with enough of us protesting, the prude schoolmarms with tenure at universities will be nudged from their slumber and realize that they have neglected one of the titanic achievements of modern American literature.

Raintree County is the anatomy of a fall from Paradise-with all the Edenic metaphors placed in a fictional county in Indiana-and the process by which it is regained. The structure and scope of the book are extraordinary, a system of telling and suspension that turns one day into a hundred years, all hinged upon the American Civil War (and the allegorical death of the principal character). Like another great contemporary American novel, All The King's Men, Raintree County was built upon the wreckage of a failed epic prose poem. Also, like Robert Penn Warren's glittering classic, Ross Lockridge's best-selling masterpiece deals with a gifted primary character caught up in the vortex of human history (though Penn Warren was more interested in the problem of power than he was in the cataloging of the life of Huey Long).

Raintree County should be a standard of 20th Century American literature. It is perhaps the greatest novel ever written. I'm mystified as to why it doesn't make Random House's Top 100 Novels List. I think in all honesty that Raintree County is too straightforward, too compassionate, too wise, too loving, too optimistic, too gently humorous, and too accessible to please the moldy and myopic listmakers. Really "great" books, as everyone knows, are dry game puzzles, smug literary fogs, brutal crayon travelogues, or ancient misanthropic sphinxes that museum directors and tenured professors of the academies alike can dust off occasionally without fear of ever having to update their pamphlets.

The texture style and meter of this work is astoundingly lyrical yet clear. To wit: "The world is still full of divinity and strangeness, Mr. Shawnessy said. The scientist stops, where all men do, at the doors of birth and death. He knows no more than you and I why a seed remembers the oak of twenty million years ago, why dust acquires the form of a woman, why we behold the earth in space and time. He hasn't yet solved the secret of a single name upon the earth. We may pluck the nymph from the river, but we won't pluck the river from ourselves: this coiled divinity is still all murmurous and strange. There are sacred places everywhere. The world is still man's druid grove, where he wanders hunting for the Tree of Life."

As long as I have a mind, I won't forget this profound and wonderful book or the characters who inhabit it: Perfessor Stiles with his pince-nez and Malacca cane, the cigar-chewing bighearted phony senator from Indiana, Garwood Jones, sweet Nell Gaither, the dark lost and deranged Susannah Drake. Carefully researched (it took seven years to write), it is also an excellent freshener on historical events of the nineteenth century, especially the Civil War. Contained within, for all you philosophiles, is the added bonus of cogent and detailed arguments for free will over predetermination, the triumph of spirit over matter, a solution to the riddle of the Many and the One, an explanation of the Word, and many more.

Born four years before J.D. Salinger, who still breathes at this writing, Ross Lockridge Jr. ended his life by carbon monoxide poisoning March 6th, 1948, two months after the publication of his one and only novel. He was thirty-three. He left behind a wife and four children. His second son, Larry, five years old at the time of his father's death, has written a book (Shade of the Raintree) attempting to explain what he calls "the greatest single mystery in American letters." He largely blames success in combination with a "biological (possibly genetic) predisposition to depression" along with "suicide-personality disorder (narcissistic)." It's easy to see why a John Kennedy O'Toole battering his manuscript (Confederacy of Dunces) against the unbreachable ramparts of Harcourt Brace and Get Lost, might do himself in (and then of course win a Pulitzer). But to receive a Harvard scholarship, publish an immediately successfully and lavishly acclaimed book which wins several major prizes including an MGM contract, and then to take your life as a proclaimed lover of life and a protector of four children, is a riddle beyond the ken of my meager imagination.

You may have once wandered through an art gallery and
while walking between images both beautiful and banal
happened upon a painting unlike few you have ever seen before.
It was found placed in a more remote part of the exhibit
and poorly lit thus causing you to give it a brief glimpse.
At first glance, the quaint simplicity caused you to smile yet upon
a second look you noticed the unmistakable quality, the rich
shadings, the subtleties, the emotion upon the faces of the characters,
and within a short time you realized that the artist had captured the
very essence of humanity. Shades of life both light and dark and all
the hues in between, this is what Ross Lockridge has placed upon his canvass for
posterity. This is Raintree County.

Raintree County; a mythical place, a gentle and beautiful tale of an
age and culture that has long since been harrowed under and paved over.
A verdant and pastoral county whose heart is found at the crossroads of
two dirt roads, whose inhabitants are poised at the intersection between a young
and thriving republic and greatest wrong every allowed to fester within
its expanding frontiers. The sunny days of community existence intertwined
with the political complexities surrounding the greatest rift ever to divide a
nation. A portrait of the land and its people in the midst of life and the
trials and tribulations of life's inescapable vicissitudes.

Within the covers of this book are found the joys of love upon the banks of
a river, the excitement and pride of a community during the celebration of
Independence day, the pungent smells and prolific yet depraved lifestyle during
the last days of antebellum New Orleans, and the songs of the slaves in their
agony, joy, and uncertainty. An epic, a day in the life of a ordinary man and
how he came full circle-if that is indeed possible. A reminder of the nation and
her people who were deeply shattered by the violence of a Civil War.

Within the prose are whispers of Plato, Poe, and Shakespeare. Characters
of well developed intellect and humor coexist amid the turgid and the
unlearned. At its core is love, insanity, birth, death, family, war,
and a river that courses through the county to both nourish the smiles and
drain the bitterness. Indeed perhaps the "Great American Classic," and a
sadly overlooked book. Lockridge is of the same ilk as Wolfe, Faulkner,
and Emerson. It has been said that each of us contains a book. To have this
as your only book is a majestic feat. Raintree County can be analyzed at many
philosophical levels and I am sure subsequent readings will reveal a multitude
of lessons. To me, my first time just staying at the surface brought me
the great joy that a masterfully written novel must impart.

I have positioned this book as "The" Great American novel - in reccomending it to a dozen friends. Only one has disagreed. Nuff said.

I first bought the trilogy almost twenty-five years ago, and it is one of the few books that I have that wasn't buried in the basement shortly after reading. Recently, I pulled it out again and found that I enjoyed reading it as much as I did all those years ago. The best review that I can give is that I have purchased the complete set twice, individual books on several occasions, lent it others and given it away. It's a book worth sharing with others.

After all the reviews I read regarding this book I had expected something good and, still, it was better than expected. So good, in fact, that I read it a chapter at a time because I wanted to let it sink in.

All in all, well worth it: check it out.

I thought I did a review for this last week but it didn't appear to have gone through. This is a great book and anything Calvin Miller writes is worth the time and expense. I had read "The Singer" before, so when I saw the trilogy was available in one volume, I knew I had to buy it. I can't imagine anyone would be disappointed. It's really a must have!

I first heard of The Singer Trilogy while working on my Master's degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Calvin Miller, the author of the series, was the speaker for chapel services. The professor in my class before chapel said that Dr. Miller had written The Singer Triology which consists of The Singer, The Song, and The Finale. He said it was the best thing written since the canon was closed. I rightly understood this to mean this was the best thing written since the Bible.

The Singer Triology is a retelling of New Testament events, including the ministry of Jesus and the founding of the early Church. The books are religious historical fiction. They are excellent and an easy read. They are a must for any Christian library. The series is as timeless as the Bible itself.

All three books read and reviewed by Jimmie A. Kepler.

This is one of those books I read over and over again. I have read it probably 20 times since my first reading. Calvin Miller puts biblical stories into narrative poems that are so well written they force you to turn the page again and again. This book is the first in the Singer Trilogy, followed by The Song and The Finale. It is a poetic retelling of three biblical books: The Singer parallels the 4 Gospels, The Song retells the story of Acts, and The Finale is Miller's version of the book of Revelation.

Miller writes explicitly Christian fantasy in these books. He is also widely known for his non-fiction AND Christian life application books.

The Singer is a powerful retelling of the life of Christ, where instead of Jesus and The Gospel you have the Singer and his song. His song, if you are open to it, can bring healing and restoration. The World-Hater, wants to destroy both the Singer and his star song. Miller's words moved me to tears the first time I encountered them. The story is so well written, it can be read over and over without losing its freshness. The book is also excellently illustrated by Chicago artist Joe DeVelasco. The drawings done in pen and Ink style add to the power of the story by transporting you into the events.

No matter how many times over I reread this book, it is always fresh and new and draws me into the story of Christ in a different way. It is truly a classic and a treasure for any bookshelf. Each time I pick these up and reread them, I find a deepening of my relationship with Christ, and of my prayer life.

Miller also has a Symphonic Trilogy that retells different stories from the book of Genesis. The two I owned were A Requiem for Love and A Symphony in Sand. As far as I can tell, there are also 2 stand-alone books by Miller in this style that are often compared to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Lewis's Narnia. They are The Valiant Papers, an account of a guardian angel's experiences, and The Philippian Fragment, the retelling of the book of Philippians from the New Testament. I have owned most of these and lent them out to not be returned. I now have The Singer Trilogy, Valiant, and Singer Trilogy 3-in-1 hardcover. Over the next few weeks I will review those I still have, but cannot encourage you strongly enough to pick them up if you find them in a used bookstore. They are all great.

Over the next few weeks, I plan on reviewing some of the others that I still have from this author. And if I find the others again, I will review them. (It has just been too long since I lent them out and did not get them back for me to review them from memory.)

Other Miller Books:
The Singer
The Song
The Finale
The Valiant Papers
The Philippian Fragment (Currently OP)

I became a vegetarian a few months ago, and coming from a carnivorous family, problems immediately arose. Suddenly, I needed to learn how to cook protein/iron rich dishes for myself and discover meat substitues. I looked through a lot of books for this, and The Teen's Vegetarian Cookbook has definately been the best.

It addresses teen-specific problems, like how to make really quick, easy, nutritious dishes, eating vegetarian in the cafeteria, and myriads of tips, info, terms, etc.

It's not so big that it's overwhealming, but it's not to small that it's limited. It's perfectly organized and easy to navigate.

It makes foods you didn't like before delicious. I used to hate tofu, but after making some of the recipes in the book, I am a fan.

There are really nice charts to help you figure out how to get all of the important daily nutrients you need, so you don't become anemic or get porous bones and such.

It talks about meat-alternatives that you most likely would never have found out about on your own.

It uses really relaxed, genuine language without ANY straining to be hip and cool to appeal to the youth -- this is so common in books for teens and it is so degrading and stupid. This book has none of that, thank God.

I've made a lot of the recipes and they turned out wonderfully. The rest of my family totally stole my marinated tofu out of the fridge the other day. Which really says something, in my humble opinion.

Easy recipes for adults. Still haven't gotten my 14-yr-old, newly turned vegetarian to read it, but perhaps she'll take it to college.

I purchased this book for an 11 year old vegetarian as a christmas gift. She loved it, and began choosing recipes that she wanted to try immediately. After looking at it, her college age sister asked if she could have a copy. When the non-vegetarian rest of the family tried the foods created from the recipes this book became an instant family favorite. Recipes are clearly written, easy for even a child to follow, creative and tasty enough for adults to love. Teaches many basics of nutrition and cooking. Vegan and non-vegan choices are given for many recipes. Lots of the recipes are developed by real teens.

I got this book for my eleven year old daughter. Ever since we have been enjoying great meals, such as Thai Coconut Curry, on Sunday nights when it's her turn to cook. The recipes are easy enough for her to follow without much help, yet hard enough for a challange. She is sure to grow up to be a great cook and not someone who is afraid of any recipe with more than five ingrediants.

I LOVE this book! Being the only vegetarian in my family (and also being a 'kid')makes it really hard to find things to eat that are healthy that I still like. The Teen's Vegetarian Cookbook is the best cookbook I've ever used. The format is fantastic, the instructions are really simple to follow, the recipes don't usually include strange things or anything that no one would actually eat. If you're vegan, there are lots of really good recipes that don't contain any animal products at all. This book isn't just for vegetarians, though! I got my whole family eating some of it. They added meat to theirs, but they still love the pizza dough. I even make the Chocolate Coma Pie for a party and everyone ate it and enjoyed it. Whether you're a teen, a parent, someone hoping to eat more healthy but still delicious food, or you were just dared to be vegetarian for a week, this book is the ULTIMATE!

Having purchased The Three Musketeers and The Man in The Iron Mask I realised that there were three intermediate novels pulling the story together.Twenty Years After, The Vicomte De Bragelonne and Louise de La Valliere bring the complete story of the musketeers into focus. To gain the most from these stories they need to be read as virtually one book in five large chapters.

After writing The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years after, Dumas wrote a third installment to the trilogy. It is probably the most controvercial book in the trilogy, as can be revealed by reading many of the reviews. For starters, it's LONG: over 200 chapters. As a result, the English-speaking world has split it into three books: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Valiere and The Man in the Iron Mask (the most famous volume). The length is certainly a problem, in fact is it THE major flaw in the conclusion of the trilogy. Dumas is never terse or concise, but in this three-part book, he produces an monolith. This was largely due to him overcomitting himself and having to write this much for financial reasons. However, while this is a major setback, the three books still have elements of great, almost sublime Dumas left in them, which can be extracted if approached in the right way.

The final installment of the trilogy represents the dear old Athos, d'Artagnan, Porthos and Aramis maturing and growing old. The trilogy thus moves from more active and straightforward swashbuckling to a more complex and sombre picture. Like the previous book Twenty Years After, it is not completely clear as to who's in the right and who isn't, only this time it is more so. Like the previous book, age has placed the former Musketeers in a somewhat divided situation, this time involving many a clandestine dealing of state and international level. Finally, in this three-part saga, we are introduced to a huge number of characters while our Four at times take a back seat for several hundred pages. This has been criticised as well, but has a point.

In terms of this specific volume (The Vicomte de Bragelonne), it is the most historical one, as initially d'Artagnan and Athos are brought out of retirement, united in their royalist causes. After completing an adventure reminiscent of their former, more "action-packed" years, the intrigue of the newly-ascended Louis XIV begins. It is here that we can see Dumas as painting a brilliantly detailed picture of what he sees as France moving towards a more centralised, efficient yet pedestrian autocracy from Richeleu to Mazarin to Louis XIV. For the first time, d'Artagnan finds himself serving (and appreciated by) the king, however, the novel asks the question of whether this is at all a good thing. In the power-struggles of the court, we see the irony that the "detractors" of progress are often more honourable than its supporters.

If you only expect more action involving the Four, then don't bother reading this at all. However, if you persevere, you will get to see sublime glimpses of what a long way the Musketeers of old have come (for better or worse), what they think about the entire society they live in and what Dumas thinks. As well as some of the old-fashioned-style adventure. I think that the fact that this is obscured by an overly-drawn-out style, while annoying, does not detract from this being an honourable conclusion to the trilogy.

While the main characters of the Musketeers saga are present here, The Vicomte de Bragelonne does not make nearly so good use of them as in the previous two books. While true that the characters have aged along with Alexander Dumas, they retain their flair for adventure and their basically upright personalities. What fails, unfortunately, is the writing itself. Bragelonne is the first of three novels that make up the trilogy ending in The Man in the Iron Mask. But while the last installment is well known worldwide, the first two (this one and Louise de la Valliere, the latter of which I've not yet read) remain obscure. At least in this case, there's a reason for that.

First, the plot is scattered. Even by Dumas's normal standard there is little coherence. The first third of the book, roughly speaking, is fully up to the normal Musketeer standard, involving two of our heroes in military intrigue during the restoration of King Charles II to the English throne. Bravo all around for that. But after that, the story devolves into somewhat stale palace politicking in the new reign of Louis XIV. We start to see some hints of the broader schemes involving the full cast, but not enough to grab our attention.

Finally, to put it bluntly, there's just something stale about the style this time around. Dumas has yet to find his proper voice for this installment, and hence he loses the reader. I'm assuming he finds it again by the end of the trilogy, but it's just not present here.

If you are reading this review, you have probably already read the Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. You are wondering if it is worth it to continue with the series. If you decide to go on, you have three more 600+ page novels ahead of you. That is a lot of time and energy.

If you are foremost into the swashbuckling aspect of the Musketeer stories, I would not go forward. The Musketeers are now in their late 50's. They are still vital characters but they are no longer young men looking for any excuse to duel with the Cardinal's Guard. From this point on, there is a lot less sword play and campaigning. The focus of the story moves to the intrigues of Louis XIV court.

I am continuing with the series because I like the characters. I want to find out what happens to the four friends. In this novel, D'Artagnan and Athos are the principal characters. Aramis and Porthos do not show up for the first few hundred pages. Dumas has kept me entertained for the first two thousand pages of this saga and I am counting on him to keep me entertained for the next 1500 pages.

This book is part one of a three part series, the next two being the Louise de la Valliere, and the final being the more well known Man in the Iron Mask. I understand this was originally one HUGE book, but is now more commonly broken up into these three books.

This book starts about ten years from where Twenty Years After (Oxford World's Classics) ended. Although the book is titled the Vicomte de Bragelonne (who is the son of Athos), we don't see much of him except for the first and last parts of the book. The rest is filled with the adventures of D'Artagnan and Athos while they separately scheme (unbeknownst to the other) to aid Charles II of England to claim his throne. LOL, D'Artagnan's scheme in regards to General Monk. Aramis and Porthos are up to something mysterious and make only the briefest of appearances. The rest of the novel is filled with the mysteries and intrigues of the French court, and ends with the marriage of Henrietta (Charles II's sister) to Louis XIV's younger brother, Phillip.

If you loved the musketeers, history and intrique it is well worth your time to spend on these books.

Great educational and fun book! My kids' favorite is the horned lizard shooting blood out of his eyes. Lovely collage illustrations too.

Little known anatomical facts on a number of interesting animals that should entertain inquisitive youngsters.

This book is really hands on, and gets lots of talking and questions going with my 3 and 5 yr olds. It's a clever book and we've had a lot of fun with it.

My family loves this book! Both my sons, ages three and five, enjoy trying to guess which animal this tail, nose, foot, etc., belongs to, and then reading what the animal "does" with it. In the back of the book are more in-depth descriptions of the animals, which we also enjoyed. We ordered this book from Amazon over a year ago, and it is still a top choice when we sit down to read!

It is a good, informative book. Although my 9 years old son seems to be very old for this kind of reading, I still bought it for him because of the book's educational value. Surprise, surprise! - my Big Boy liked the book a lot(!) We now quiz each other about various animals... Another good book that I value a lot for its educational content is Why Some Cats are Rascals, Book 2 by B. Nowiki. I was afraid that in this case my son would to be a "little too little", but he is now reading it and seems to have even more fun... - lucky me, again!