Paper The Books

This book is great... I have been looking for a card sketch book for some time now. Tons of amazing ideas! Every cardmaker needs this book today! I love that it is broken down into different size cards to make choosing a sketch even easier!

Loved this sketch book! Besides giving you the sketch, it
also gives you a few card ideas for each. Totally helps you think outside of the box. Get ready to create lots of fun new cards for family and friends!!

This card making book is great for beginner's! It shows you how to create balance designs in a very, very basic way using simple shape patterns ... it then offers you colorful photo illustrations of the same shape patterns used to create beautiful cards from scrapbooking papers, embellishments, etc. This book will show you how to create balanced and beautiful cards. Once you start using this book you'll start to notice the basic shape patterns in other card idea books that may have once looked difficult or daunting. By showing you the basic pattern shapes this book enables you to become more creative with ease. All of my card making friends bought this book after they saw my copy and cards!

I love this book! What's great about it:

It has 40+ sketches for different card designs and then 4 or 5 examples of completed cards

You can use the sketches over and over again

Everytime I look at the book I notice a patterned paper or embellishment that has been used on one of the completed examples in a way that has never occured to me before.

... and I'm a relatively experienced card maker.

Think of it as a set of "blueprints" for cards. Just as with architect blueprints for a house, you'll get diagrams showing proportion and placement of different elements that make up the card. You won't get detailed directions on making specific cards, although there are dozens of examples in the book, just as a book of house blueprints usually contains some illustrations showing examples of how the house will look if constructed in various colors, etc.

You WILL, however, get a ton of "patterns" that you can use to construct your own cards, with some assurance that the end result will be balanced and visually pleasing. Colors, trims, embellishments, etc. are entirely up to you.

This is the first book I turn to when I need to make a card for a specific occasion. I always find a pattern than "jumps out" at me, and from there, it's easy to put together a great card.

I highly reccomend the Hank the Cowdog books if you're a dog lover, or if you just enjoy good, clean humor and fun! The books
are written in Hank's perspective, which, I think, makes them funnier than if they weren't written in his persppective. He tries to talk "intelligent," but really he is actually quite, um,
well, to be to-the-point... DUMB. And Hank's conversations with Drover are priceless. If you don't have this book, you really should get it. This is one of my personal favorites.

My other faves are:
The Curse of the Incredible Priceless Corn Cob
The Case of the Missing Bird Dog
It's a Dog's Life
Every Dog Has His Day
The Case of the Fiddle Playing Fox
The Phantom in the Mirror
The Case of the Burrowing Robot
The Case of the Deadly Ha-Ha Game

...And too many more to list!...

One of my favorite books I have read in the past year was Hank the Cowdog by John R.Erickson. It is A marvelous book about Hank tries to fall in love with another dog he met. One of the major reasons I in joyed this book is because Hank and Drover stays ahead of the ranch security so nothing wouldn't happen to the farm or the chickens, but they decide that its time for A break from the ranch security. Another reason I found in the book to be so wonderful Hank and Drover goes out into the woods and they see four yellow eyes in the dark it was Rip and Snort. They were brothers but Rip and Snort didn't remember Hank and Drover, but Hank told them about the pit where they had parties and got drunk. Then Snort and Rip mumbled about it. Then they thought they would go we eat Hunk later and Drover for snacks then Hank said member what I told you about that don't eat friends that is bad manners. Then snort said, "Oh," but Drover ran off. when Rip seen the silage pit he ran but not snort; he stayed behind Hank. Then Hank said, "That was my chance to escape." To conclude Hank the Cowdog by John R.Erickson was truly my favorite book

Hank 36 is a very good book.I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE!

I love all the Hank books, and this is a great one for the Christmas season. These books are hilarious and more important to the young reader, fun to read. I'd also check the rest of the series.

Author of "Hobo Finds A Home" editor "Of A Predatory Heart"

After Wittgenstein's _Philosophical Investigations_ itself, no work more clearly demonstrates the power of using language analysis to begin to clarify traditional questions of philosophy. Although Austin was not the originator of these techniques, he towered over everyone else in the field, setting new standards of subtelty and venturing into entirely new areas of inquiry. His papers, the most important of which are collected in this volume, are brilliant, witty and powerfully intellectual. For the general reader, they will show a new way of thinking about questions of philosophy.

If you intrested in Philosophy, You must have that one

John Austin, Professor of moral philosophy at Oxford, died in 1960 before reaching age 50. He was possibly one of the most influential abstract thinkers who ever thought an abstraction, but we have to gain our own knowledge of this brilliant mind from collections of his lectures and his articles in philosophical journals. The Philosophical Papers is a miscellaneous assemblage of his writings on a number of topics, and it has grown by several items since I last and first read it 45 years ago. The articles are of differing degrees of complexity, but Austin is never obscure and he has a delightful turn of phrase. Two pieces here partly address a couple of my own favourite conundrums - free will vs determinism is touched on in Ifs and Cans, and the first piece deals with a number of the questions that bother me in Aristotle's supposed identification of `happiness' as being the `end' or main objective of life. I would also have loved to set an exam question inviting candidates to discuss the proposition on p34 `myths are invented about our "contemplation" of ursaneivls' for the sake of seeing someone set about it; but alas this unfamiliar term is only a printer's pie for `universals'.

Whether or not Austin pronounced any doctrines, he certainly established a method. The great philosophers have in general tried to create or identify some over-arching theoretical scheme for organising human thought, and in general they finish up like mechanics with several parts left over after supposedly completing their work on the car - it never seems to fit exactly. You can read Austin's own basic manifesto here in A Plea for Excuses, the most relaxed and informal item in this collection. Human language, says he, has had time to make any distinctions humanity has yet thought worth making - `words are our tools and, as a minimum, we should use clean tools.' This and the chapters following (excluding the one on Plato) are probably the easiest to follow as examples of his approach in action, and the earlier How to Talk-Some Simple Ways is actually the hardest. It all depends on an acute ear for language and meaning, but the least of us ought to be able to get the hang of Austin's approach, observing in passing the ruins of more traditional theories. In the Plea for Excuses he toys with the idea of cataloguing our language systematically, but I doubt he really believed that this would do the work of his own presence of mind and accuracy of aim, the very qualities that Housman praised in Bentley's genius for the sister science of textual criticism.

Specious assumptions are dispersed like chaff, e.g. does a statement have to be either true or false? Even if we throw in intermediate gradations such as `likely', 'apparent', `misleading' etc, can we deal with `A cat sat on a mat' on this basis? This is an example of an elementary sentence for infants, and to ask whether it's `true' is nonsensical - it's committing what Ryle calls the category-error, and the same goes regarding any work of fiction. Ifs and Cans is not basically concerned with free will and determinism, but it contains enough about them to whet my appetite. Austin claims that determinism has not been properly defined, but I take it to mean that anything that happens, including our own actions, could not have happened otherwise, and that it is all the result of an incalculably large network of causes and effects. I have seen one scientist try to get us off this hook by appealing to a randomness in the behaviour of subatomic particles, but I can't see that that helps. Either we are glorified machines or we are not, and if we are there can, logically, be no validity in a guilty verdict in a trial as the prisoner's action was predetermined. Austin clearly doubts determinism, and he makes the valuable point that `free' as in `free will' is a device for discounting alternative possibilities, as `real' also is. Free will as opposed to what kind of will? The difficulty is in `will' not in `free' -- what is it? Can thoughts and associated concepts such as choices and decisions be classified as `events' like the weather, subject to causes? If detective D decides that suspect S1 is guilty of the crime because S1's eyes are too close together we can `account for' or `explain' D's view by his temperament or his upbringing or his experience of life and so on, but do any of these `cause' his opinion? It makes good sense to say that D later `forces himself' to take account of the evidence that the guilty party is really suspect S2 and changes his mind against his natural inclination. This is my own idea of `will' in action, but can evidence (which is not an `event' anyhow) be said to have `caused' the change?

Can you make yourself believe that Aristotle said that happiness is the main objective in life and that it is defined as `a sort of activity of the spirit in accordance with complete virtue'? Neither can I, but a lot of his translators and commentators can. Happiness is something that Aristotle or any of us take when we can get it, and it is no sort of activity. Richard Robinson (in Definition) says briskly that Aristotle is really defining the means towards happiness, but I believe Aristotle meant what he said, and I don't believe he said `happiness'. To his credit Austin has some doubts about this standard translation. He tries `success', but on balance makes do with `happiness' after all. I'll try `wellbeing'. This makes sense as `a sort of activity', sc the non-intellectual aspect of life, well encapsulated in the Greek `eudaimonia' or `enjoying the favour of the gods' - the Greek for `happy' is `olbios' not `eudaimon'. Take `eu prattein' in its sense of `faring well' rather than `behaving well', and take this `virtue' as `finest characteristic' (as in `the virtue of soya is in its nutritional properties not in its flavour of which there is none') and it all seems to make better sense.

I find it all wonderful and liberating to the mind and spirit. This does not involve agreeing with everything, indeed Austin often marks his thoughts as tentative or provisional. It is all about how to think not what to think, and Austin's own beautiful aphorism makes a good summing-up for the activities of the mind `Neither a be-all nor an end-all be.'

Having a long interest in the philosophy of language (particularly Wittgenstein) this book was an exciting find! What I see in both authors is an appreciation for the fact that words have many meanings. Parts of this book suggest that the philosophical endeavor to isolate the 'singular' meaning of any given word may be futile. To people interested in the philosophy of language, this topic seems to have large implications for the history of philosophy. Books in this topic area or genre are not for everyone and are best appreciated given a background in the philosophy of language. The book covers lots of topics, and the author acknowledges that some chapters deal with questions that are not large in the larger philosophical scheme. Still the author's style is strait forward, and this is a plus.

This is a powerful, moving book, written with immense intelligence and sensitivity, but not without humor too. The author shares another of the many sad sagas of her unique community of fate. But alongside the trials that her people have been facing for millennia there are also now new ones peculiar to her sex and especially to the intellectually gifted subset of it. The protagonist is an extremely intelligent and sensitive woman: too sensitive, one has to conclude, because her own acute cerebral and visceral sense of moral indignation at the many wrongs, tragic and trivial, that she experiences and witnesses, are as oppressive to her as the wrongs themselves, eventually destroying her.

As a woman, as an academic, I found reading Clean Death in Tel Aviv by Rachel Elboim-Dror a compelling and moving experience.

I was fascinated by the heroin, Ruth Levin, her life story, her promise as a talented imaginative child, her determination to make a difference in the world, her efforts to realize her dreams and her painful realization that she failed to overcome her own shortcomings. The writing is so intimate that anyone can easily relate to Ruth's difficulties and heartbreaks, her trials and tribulations in family and professional life. But beyond the universal human story, the novel gave me deeper insights into Israeli society and the complex position of women in this society. Indeed, anywhere. I disagree with some of Ruth Levin's assertions about the feminist movement, but the questions the heroin poses give one pause for thought.

I felt that through Ruth's eyes I was taking a sobering look at our world. Under the surface of Ruth Levin's idyllic childhood in a remote utopian commune, the devotion to high ideals, hard work and love, lurked jealousy, hatred, murders, suicide, and rape. Ruth's story is Israel's story, cleverly blended throughout the book. The founding of the state of Israel, the utopian longing for creating a new just society and the twist that some of these ideals have undergone.

CLEAN DEATH IN TELAVIV is not to be read lightly. It is a challenging and enriching book. I strongly recommend it.

Rachel Elboim Dror is one of the most outstanding scholars and historians who have widely researched the Zionist ideological and institutional revolution which has gave birth to the State of Israel. She has been nominated winner of the Jerusalem prize for her monumental scholar creation.
Besides her huge works "The Hebrew Education in Eretz Israel" and "Zionist Utopias" she has largely published academic articles, for instance on the place of women in the Zionist Revolution and on the controversial dilemmas confronted by Zionist leadership during the epic developments of Modern Jewish History.
Her main assumption in these works has been that History is always written by hegemonic voices or in her words: "History is written by winners".
While writing History and researching Utopias she has silently proposed a latent and silenced question: What if? Think what if....
From this point of view her novel "Clean Death in Tel Aviv" is the coin other face.
Elboim Dror' novel characters and their interwoven plots tell us about the place of individuals as participants in epic historical deeds and the prices they had personally paid for subsuming their own narratives to the public one.
Tel-Aviv, the "normal" city, becomes in "Clean Death in Tel Aviv" the ultimate stage of the dramatic "mise en abime" of the tension that the plots' novel irremediably develops toward self destruction in a world where tenderness, love, understanding and communication have been subsumed to much more heroic and perhaps much more legitimate social targets.
From this point of view fictional writing utopically completes in Elboim Dror work the possibility of History to reflect the entire landscape of social creation and lets weak voices be heard loudly as if history could be told by combining the "official story" and the "unofficial" too.
Elboim Dror style interweaves an erudite metaphorical imagination parallel to almost sculpturing passionate and intuitive, almost naïve, images that play a contrapuntal and unsolved morose competition mimetically reflecting the human longing for love lost among the social mandates of social institutions in a given moment of History.
Brilliantly written!

Clean Death in Tel Aviv is one of the hardest-hitting, most compelling books about women that I have read. Relentless as the Mediterranean sun, Dror is unwavering in her investigation of one of the greatest mysteries of contemporary western culture - how strong, intelligent women become powerless. The novel takes us through a day in Ruth Levin's life, we see her as she sees herself, searching her past for the source of her weakness and failure as an adult. Ruth's story is the story of an entire generation - children born into a culture that no longer exists - the pre-WWII European Jewish community. Her youth is also the youth of the emerging State of Israel, and offers an intimate perspective on those early turbulent times.
Drawing on realms as seemingly disparate as science, mythology and poetry, Dror takes the reader on an intense emotional, intellectual and sensual journey through one woman's life - it is impossible to read this novel without emerging changed from the experience!

I love this book; however, be cautioned that the cards (look like paint chip cards) are horribly perforated making tearing out of book difficult. You need to cut the page as the perforation doesn't extend to the end of the page and even then you run the risk of ripping the card. After the first page, I tore out all pages and used my paper cutter. Also, the author should have labeled the cards on top, AWAY from the hole punch so when you place the cards on a ring, as suggested, you could fan them to see the "theme" first, then look down to the color scheme. The book suggests that you should choose theme before color and placing the theme (nostalgia, the 50's etc.) at the sight of the hole makes that very difficult. Besides that, it is a great find that answers one of the most difficult questions for many new cardmakers - what color cardstock should I use? Great model cards as well that offer inspiration and ideas. Well worth the cost; just re-do those perforated cards and label them away from hole!!

This book I have been hunting hi and low for it.
This is a great book to have especially when trying to choose a colour scheme. Great for scrapbooking or any other crafts.
Highly Recommend this book. This book you must have in your library.

This was recommended in several craft magazines and the previous reviews were very flattering, so I ordered it and I'm so glad I did. The color charts are so handy to take with you when purchasing items for scrap booking or card making and there are so many samples in the book to give you great ideas.

I bought this book for myself, and then ordered one for a friend as a Christmas gift. It is perfect for people who have trouble deciding or knowing what colors to use together. I am a card maker, and I often find that I know what color base cardstock I want to use, but am unsure about what complimentary colors to use. This book has it all. If you purchase the book, I know you will use it constantly, as I do.

this is a great book. The author goes into great detail about making dozens of paper and fabric beads. I would recommend this book to any crafter who enjoys jewelry, beads, paper crafts, recycling, and new and unusual crafts. Good instructions are easy enough for a pre teen or teen to follow-good party, scout craft idea. Buy it!

Paper beads are like potato chips, you can't stop at just one! They are easy to make, even the fancier ones are easy after just a little practice. This is such a great, inexpensive, and very creative craft. I even sold some of my creations on eBay!

The book is a very amazing craft idea. I could start making beads almost immediatly w/ great sucess. Almost everyone in my family has requested a necklace since i began making them, and i plan to continue. I hope more people catch on to this idea!

I loved this book because of the detailed instructions and beautiful color photos. I made one bead following the instructions and I haven't been able to stop since! The projects are perfect for kids because of the simplicity, and a great rainy-day craft because you already have the materials at hand. I've made some really cool jewelry that I can guarantee no one else has.

I love, love love this book! It came in the mail yesterday and I can hardly wait to start crafting cards, etc with all the wonderful family pictures I have. Inspiration on every page in a format easy to read and use. A nice product guide list finishes off this really one of a kind book. I have no doubt that I will turn to this book often for ideas creative uses for some of my stash of supplies.

I first saw Jill's work in SOMERSET STUDIOS and loved her style. This book is along the same lines as her cards in SOMERSET, but my only wish is that Jill Haglund had included just a few more photos of her vintage cards. Still, considering the limited space that Jill had in this book, I think she did a nice job.

PS: (this is an addition, after review was already given:)

.... I have used a few of Jill's ideas from this book, as of September 2007. The cards turned out so nice and the recipient loved receiving the card.

I was so happy to get a book that I have no regrets about buying. This book isn't just inspirational eye candy, although it is that too. Unlike so many other collage and craft books, this one includes clear instructions for doing the projects and a good resource list. I bought her other book, Artists Creating with Photos, and it's excellent also.

I love making vintage greeting cards this is the best book I've ever seen. The instructions are simple to understand the ideas are down to earth and made with easy to find embellishments. The designs are classy with simple lines. Every card in this book I want to make and there are so many ideas. I could not be happier with the purchase of this book. I'll be shopping for other titles by this author.

Linda

I absolutely enjoyed this book. I had to read it in one sitting. I hope there is a sequel or, at least, another book with Kitty Harding.

I was suprised when I read the book. I know the authors and didn't expect the book to be as good as it was. It is truly a wonderful story and it captured my attention and I couldn't put it down. I really enjoyed it and wished it had been longer. I am waiting for the sequel!!

This book was outstanding. I couldn't put it down once I started reading it. Very suspenseful and full of surprizes. A must read for someone who gets bored easy. With this story you can't get bored. Find out what the papers are about!

I was on the edge of my seat reading this book "The Deadly Papers". I couldn't put it down. It was a fast read at only 186 pages. I was left wanting more. I would love to see a sequel. I liked the characters very much and the plot lines, everything flowed. Nicely done!

Have the series of the Delaney's and this was the missing book. Pleased to find it and enjoyed it very much.

This is the first story that I came across about the Delaneys. I absolutely love Iris Johansen's books and I was thrilled to read this! It is one of the best and it has made me interested in finding all of the books that cover the Delaneys. An awesome read, I couldn't put it down for a second and when it ended, I wanted more. I recommend this to anyone!

This is a lovely 3 in 1 book of the Delaney's: "Christmas Past", "Christmas Present" and "Christmas Future." A lovely mirror carved with holly was supposedly given to Shamus Delaney by the gypsies. Succeeding generations have discovered that it is a magical mirror enabling only Delaneys to see past, present and future. Don't miss Dominic and Elspeth's story in "This Fierce Splendor"--the one that started it all!

I loved Iris Johansen's "Christmas Past" because here we get a glimpse of how Silver Savron is doing, as well as the love story of Rising Star's son. Zara St. Cloud is outcast even among her fellow gypsies. She is desperate to prove she has Delaney blood in her by searching for the mirror. Kevin Delaney is bored. When he finds a housebreaker at Killara, he is determined that she will be his Christmas amusement. Hot!

This book tells the story of a mirror that brings love to those who look into it. It can drive people away, bring them home, prevent events from happening, and help events occur. No matter what a person sees in this mysterious mirror, the mirror brings love to many of the people who have looked into it.

This is truly a stunning collection of Lu Xun's works. The translation is an easy read and entertaining. Professors seeking revolutionary period text for use in the classroom will be extremely satisfied.

Lu Xun (1881-1936) was not the greatest writer produced by a certain time, or city, or nation. He was one of the greatest authors this world has ever produced. Period.

This book begins with an overview of the man's life and works. I read its long preface, something I rarely do with a career retrospective, and enjoyed it. Lu Xun lived his life. He was not lived by it.

The meat of the book comes from his short stories, prose poems and reminiscences. The only way to tell his fiction from his non-fiction is by the name of the narrator, and even then you don't really know. Lu Xun is that good.

I was immediately stunned by his turn of phrase, his utterly realistic portrayal of life, his unflinching honesty, his gentle wit. His mind, his heart, his soul. Here in his hometown, 100 years too late. I am so grateful that he wrote, because otherwise I would have never known him.

"As to why I wrote [stories], I still felt...that I should write in the hope of enlightening my people, for humanity, and of the need to better it.... My aim was to expose the disease and draw attention to it so that it might be cured."

Just a few of his early words. I also admire how he openly states that he set out to use his words as "daggers" and "javelins." Here are more of his words.

"I did my best to avoid all wordiness. If I felt I had made my meaning sufficiently clear, I was glad to dispense with frills. The old Chinese theatre has no scenery, and the New Year pictures sold to children show a few main pictures only.... Convinced that such methods suit my purpose, I did not indulge in irrelevant details and kept the dialogue down to a minimum."

Let me pause here. Lu Xun knows how to show rather than tell. But dialogue that does neither doesn't exist in his writing. That's what he means by "a minimum." His dialogue rings so true that I'm sick with jealousy, and there's an ample supply.

"I forget who it was that said that the best way to convey a man's character with a minimum of strokes is to draw his eyes. This is absolutely correct. If you draw all the hairs of his head, no matter how accurately, it will not be of much use."

The best authors have always known this. But look at how well Lu Xun explains it. I could copy and paste what he wrote about writing, pass myself off as an expert, and get rich. Let me return to his words.

"After finishing something, I always read it through twice, and where a passage grated on my ears I would add or cut a few words to make it read smoothly. When I could not find suitable vernacular expressions I used classical ones, hoping some readers would understand. And I seldom used phrases out of my own head which I alone -- or not even I -- could comprehend."

I graduated high school, in Tampa, Florida, in 1981. I was taught that simple language is bad, which we now seem to accept isn't true. In China, roughly 70 years before that, Lu Xun defended the use of words that readers actually understand. Modern China and modern USA could both learn from him on this. The goal of communication is to communicate. It really bugs me that I feel a definite need to state this.

"Truth is the life of satire. Unless you write the truth it cannot be 'satire.'" But satire must be good-intentioned. Lu Xun opposed the cynicism which "simply convinces its readers that there is nothing good in the world, nothing worth doing."

I learned all this, and was convinced I'd love his writing, before I even read the first word. Look at the intelligence, the perceptiveness, the passion, the clarity. All this from the preface alone. Before I move on to a preface written by the master himself, let me throw in some historical perspective.

The Revolution of 1911 overthrew the Qing Dynasty, but it didn't erase the imperialism and feudalism. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Lu Xun saw this. He shows us life as it was then. But please don't think of him as a "political author," the way the preface by a loyal Communist Party member encourages you to do. To reduce Lu Xun to those two words would be a terrible injustice.

Lu Xun left Shaoxing when he was 17, to study medicine. His father's death was due to medical incompetence. Lu Xun studied medicine at the Kiangnan Naval Academy in Nanjing, then at a medical college in the Japanese countryside. This background exposed him to the world, whereas most Chinese at that time knew only their little corner of China. But let me use his words again.

"...one day I saw a news-reel slide of a number of Chinese, one of them bound and the rest standing around him. They were all sturdy fellows but appeared completely apathetic. According to the commentary, the one with his hands bound was a spy working for the Russians who was to be beheaded by the Japanese military as a warning to others, while the Chinese beside him had come to enjoy the spectacle.

"Before the term was over I had left for Tokyo, because this slide convinced me that medical science was not so important after all. The people of a weak and backward country, however strong and healthy they might be, could only serve to be made examples of or as witnesses of such futile spectacles; and it was not necessarily deplorable if many of them died of illness. The most important thing, therefore, was to change their spirit..."

That's from the preface of the man's first book. Lu Xun, brand new author, states that it's okay if Chinese people die because they are sheep, and that's why he left medicine. He challenges his readers with this before they've ever read his first story. Then he presumably expects those readers to read his stories anyway.

Based on the Western stereotype of China, this is what makes authors vanish without a trace. According to some people, this is what makes authors in Bush's America vanish without a trace. But what matters is that Lu Xun never lied to a reader. That's what he felt, so that's what he wrote.

Have you read a short story collection where you raced to see how fast you could knock it out? Here a story, there a story, everywhere a story story, and two hours later you're done. An hour later, you're hungry again. That's what's hurt the popularity of the short story. Writing them is easy!

No, it's not. Not if you do it right. The well crafted short story is harder to write than a novel. Every time I read a Lu Xun short story, it ended far too soon and I had to pause while my mind caught up with what it had just witnessed. He is truly a master, and I can't recommend him highly enough.

Back to the preface before Lu Xun's preface. "Lu Xun's essays form the bulk and the most important part of his literary work." In addition to his teaching and his editing. Amazing. I've spent the past two weeks being blown away by his short stories, but the other THREE books are supposedly all more important. Given the mind of their author, I believe it. Oh, the treasures ahead.

The cynic in me would like to know about the essays that didn't make it into this collection, but never mind. Lu Xun opposed that sort of cynicism. I'm happy to spend a whole lotta time with Lu Xun, and I can.

Can you? I don't know. Check your local libraries, bookstores, websites if you must. Lately, I've read email from several Westerners who are familiar with Lu Xun. There must be a reason.

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LU XUN - SELECTED WORKS - VOLUMES TWO THRU FOUR

I'm pleased to report that Amazon.com sells a short story collection containing all 25 of Lu Xun's short stories, not just the 18 reviewed above. What this means is, you can get it at your local bookstore or perhaps even your local library. Go for it! I have it, I've read it, I love it.

Now then. I also mentioned in my previous review that the anthology claims his essays are his greatest contribution. So how do they measure up?

They measure up just fine, thank you very much. He is a master of satire and he does use words as weapons. He can make you laugh and think at the same time. A remarkable clarity of thought combined with an enviable gift for communication. Again, one need not be from China, or from the early 20th century, to appreciate this remarkable person.

When I reviewed his fiction, I used the phrase "gentle wit" even though it wasn't always gentle. Regarding his essays, I'll say biting wit. Acid wit. Devastating wit. Think Jonathan Swift, think Bertrand Russell, strip them of the rubbish and make them far more prolific. Lu Xun's even better than that, but at least you'll be on the right track.

(I almost mentioned Oscar Wilde, but he wasn't quite disciplined enough to join Lu Xun's tier. Damn witty, though.)

I don't know that you can find these essays. If you can, get them. If not, well, the short stories probably are more "timeless." I probably enjoyed the essays more on my first reading than I did the stories. But I've since read the stories numerous times, and own a collection. It's hard to say whether or not the essays would hold up to the test of repetition so well, no matter how witty their author. Essays are like that, I think.

Finally, since I've been to Lu Xun's ancestral home, and since I have some of his short stories (English translation) on my website, and I've given him his own page at Lu Xun, you can probably guess that I want to give this author my highest praise. I'm trying. Get the book!

In this book by Lu xun, a greatest Chinese fiction writer in the history, you will see some influence from Russian literature, such as Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, yet Lu xun manages to keep the Chinese atmosphere by the vivid descriptions on things he sees in China. "Diary of a Madman" is absolutely wonderful. Comparing it to Gogol's story of "Diary of a Madman" it is interesting how Lu xun explores the reality in such a different way from Gogol and still cuts one side of humanity open to the readers. If you like Chinese poetry, this book by Lu xun is a must! It's nothing like any novels written by Chinese Americans because you feel the sense of China in his stories while you can relate to all the characters' mental pain and suffer through his gorgeous language. I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy ethnic literature, Russian literature, and Chinese poetry, or those who simply enjoy literature.

I walked into Standford University bookstore on Sunday afternoon and saw the translation of 'Diary of a Madman'. I flipped through the pages and saw the short story 'Ah Q - real story' so I grabbed one book just to see the translation. As a student grew up in Taiwan, I knew Lu Xun's stories in Chinese well in high school. Actually even some of his work was in high school Chinese Literature curriculum. But I could not put it down until I finished reading the translation of 'Ah Q - real story'.

It is really a masterpiece in translation. The translator is both master in Chinese and English. I like the introductions, a foreigner's introduction about an author is more in reality, dealing both success and failure of Mr. Lu's life. Besides, as the translator said he tried to imagine what Mr. Lu would said if his native language is English. He really captured the essence of it. I really like it. It is a great way to know English style from an Engineer major point of view.