Reviews Books

I have heard through the grapevine that this book actually might make it out of print. If it does this is a must book for fans of seventies sci-fi!!

This is a great look at the best and worst of the Science Fiction films of the 1970's done with insight and humor by someone who obviously loves SF films and knows them well.

Science fiction enthusiast and author Craig Anderson's Science Fiction Films Of The Seventies is an entertaining, fact-filled reference and guide to the science fiction films of the 1970's, an era when only 5% of the box office movies were science fiction. Over forty science fiction movies are each looked at individually, including a synopsis, information about the making of the movie, and thoughtful critical appraisal. a segment of black-and-white photographs lets readers unfamiliar with certain films get a glimpse of what they were like. Science Fiction Films Of The Seventies is a "must" for connoisseurs of such great classic movies as Logan's Run and Soylent Green, as well as film history students with a strong interest in the evolution of silver screen sci-fi!

This is a fantastic book about sex -- it will make you want to have more and more of it. The book is more exciting than "Wordsmart Junior" (another Princeton Review book by Brantley), but it's written for a different audience. It's a thoughtful, intelligent, humor-filled look at sex on campus today, including the down side, like STDs and rape. Should be required reading for everyone who's going to college.

A tremendous guide for any student or parent. Worth its wait in gold

As a college student and lover of non-fiction, I found this book not only enjoyable, but a good bit fascinating. In a time when sexual activity is becoming much more public, this book has many answers that a student may find embarrasing or awkward to ask. Most books based on statistics are dull and used for reference only. "Sex on Campus" was not, putting the reader at ease with its candid language and humor. A great read.

Highly recommended for someone who has some familiarity with the plays and wants to see this terrain through sharper eyes. This is not "CliffsNotes." These are essays by a master critic who loves Shakespeare, written *for* readers who love Shakespeare. But be prepared when Van Doren plays the critic, not the worshipper. If your favorite is "Henry V," for example, keep an open mind and wince along.

A pleasant aspect of this book is that you can take the essays in any order. This means that if, like me, you know some of the more popular plays (Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Lear, Julius Ceasar), but not some of the seldom-performed ones (Titus Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida, King John, Pericles), you can see what Van Doren has to say about "your" plays and then come back when you have hunted up the others.

Van Doren's prose is familiar, easy, and full of love. It is almost a conversation, and hardly less a joy to read than Shakespeare himself.

How often have you encountered a book on Shakespeare or his works that attains a level of writing that is often heart-meltingly gorgeous, even at times comparable to the beauty of the Shakespeare quotations it contains? Probably only once, and this is the book.

A helpful introduction by David Lehman reminds us that Mark Van Doren was a celebrated professor of literature at Columbia University, and a poet of considerable accomplishment, who served as mentor to a long list of students who later achieved great things. In his courses he generally spoke without notes, and this 1939 book on Shakespeare's works was also written without notes or references, other than a well-thumbed one-volume edition of the works, printed in about 1906.

Any modest power of description which I might possess fails utterly for this exquisite book. Instead, let me give a sample of Van Doren's commentary: "It may well be that Shakespeare in 'The Tempest' is telling us for the last time, or consciously for the last time, about the world. But what he is telling us cannot be simple, or we could agree that it is this or that. Perhaps it is this: that the world is not simple. Or, mysteriously enough, that it is what we all take it to be. Any set of symbols, moved close to this play, lights up as if in an electric field. Its meaning, in other words, is precisely as rich as the human mind, and it says that the world is what it is. But what the world is cannot be said in a sentence. Or even in a poem as complete and beautiful as 'The Tempest.'"

I have always loved Shakespeare but, even though I have studied it, sometimes, he is a little difficult to pin down on what exactly he is saying or meaning and it is often hard to get the feel or mood for certain scenes. After all, he was a playwright, not a journalist! And he wrote five centuries ago in the idiomatic English of that time. This critique is absolutely brilliant. Van Doren's feelings on Shakespeare are that he wrote his plays to be enacted on a mostly-bare stage in front of a noisy crowd of Joe Q. Publics, not enacted in an elaborate hushed stage setting in front of a group of phychologist, phychoanalists, etc. I have often felt that some critics see deep, mystical, dark meanings in Shakespeare that he never intended (I feel it is more a reflection of the critic's own phyche). Not to say that Shakespeare is shallow! I feel his "well-written" plays are awesome and unmatched by anyone, anywhere, anytime. Van Doren brings Shakepeare to the light of day in a clear, logical, yet so very elegant way. This book literally brings me to tears, it's so beautiful!

As a horse lover this is truly a good look at the best there was

This book is a really good book for finding out the names of the horses that the western cowboys rode.

Bobby J. Copeland's book on "Silent Hoofbeats", a salute to the horses and riders of the bygone B-Western era...finally a book listing each and every steed that carried our heroes over the dusty trails and plains...Copeland has composed each section in his book to perfection...names of our western stars with the most comprehensive information of movie and TV horses.

A few examples with some of my all time favorites stars and their horses...find many more and their comments within the 136 pages.

B-Western Star & (Horse)
REX ALLEN (Koko)
GENE AUTRY (Champion)
DON "RED" BARRY (Cyclone/Banner)
WILLIAM BOYD (Topper)
JOHNNY MACK BROWN (Royal/Wheezer/Scout/Dice/Reno/Rebel)
RORY CALHOUN ("The Texan") (Domino)
ROD CAMERON (Knight)
BUSTER CRABBE (Falcon)
GAIL DAVIS ("Annie Oakley") (Target)
WILD BILL ELLIOTT (Dice/Pinto/Sonny/Thunder/Stormy)
DALE EVANS (Pal/Buttermilk)
DICK FORAN (Smoke - aka Smoky)
HOOT GIBSON (Goldie/Midnight/Starlight/Mutt)
MONTE HALE (Pardner)
TIM HOLT (Duke/Lightning/Sundance)
HERB JEFFRIES (Stardusk)
BUCK JONES (Silver)
TOM KEENE (Sonnyboy/Rusty/Prince/Flash)
ROCKY LANE (Banner/Feather/Thunder/Black Jack)
LASH LARUE (Black Diamond/Rush)
RICHARD MARTIN (Taco)
TIM MCCOY (Starlight/Pal/Midnight)
TOM MIX (Ole Blue/Tony/Tony Jr.)
BOB NOLAN (Sky Ball)
GEORGE O'BRIEN (Mike)
DOROTHY PAGE (Snowy)
JOHN PAYNE ("The Restless Gun) (Scar)
TEX RITTER (White Flash)
ROY ROGERS (Trigger)
RANDOLPH SCOTT (Stardust/Steel)
CHARLES STARRETT (Yucca/Socks/Raider/Bullet/El Granito)
PEGGY STEWART (Smokey)
TOM TYLER (Ace/Baron/Red/Boy)
JIMMY WAKELY (Lucky/Sonny)
JOHN WAYNE (Duke/Banner/Steel/Cochise/Dollar)

As if it were only yesterday, can remember sitting in a darkened theater, in the fifth row with my bag of popcorn and soda waiting impatiently for my favorite cowboy to appear on the screen...let's start with some favorites of mine such as Hop-a-long Cassidy, Wild Bill Elliott, Charles Starrett (Durango Kid), Allan "Rocky" Lane, Buck Jones, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Johnny Mack Brown, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Tim Holt, Sunset Carson, Tim McCoy, Bob Steele, Tom Mix and John Wayne...the list could go on forever including their favorite four legged friends.

My favorite side-kick was George "Gabby" Hayes (with his horses Calico, Eddie & Blossom), from the early days of John Wayne, Bill Boyd, Roy Rogers, Wild Bill Elliott and Randolph Scott films...Mr. Hayes could do no wrong in my eyes. He and I even agreed on not liking girls, he would call them "purr-snickergardy" women...and I totally agreed with him at the tender age of nine years old. Gabby could not only make me laugh, but also make me cry...his code of fair play was his bond, and he was always there when the hero needed a helping..."you're durn tootin'"...even though Gabby was not to fond of riding, he always gave us the impression that he was having the time of his life.

Hats off to our friends at Empire Publishing as Mr. Copeland shares in depth an account of the B-Western Heroes, Ladies and Sidekicks inclusive within their own individual sections in the book...things have only now come to light as Bobby Copeland answers many questions about the B-Western era..."what cowboy cried when his horse died"..."who said horses were stupid"..."had his horse buried instead of stuffed because it was cheaper"..."broke his arm when falling off his horse and was replaced by another star"...If you're into the memories of the B-Western hero, his code of fair play and favorite horses...this is the one you've been anxiously waiting for...and saddle pals, it was well worth the wait...another winner from Bobby Copeland, gotta love it!

Total Page: 136 ~ Empire Publishing Inc #ISBN 0-944019-37-4 ~ (12/07/2001)

Sleeping Upside Down will stun you with its poetic brilliance and raw honesty, its starry adolescent dreams and gritty farm girl observations, its unearthed and pulsing passion. Its carefully constructed lyrical poems weave the narrative threads through gardens and bedrooms and into your heart.

As soon as I began to read this slim, beautifully-bound volume of poems, I realized that I had slipped into a world of honest emotion and brilliant observations. These poems are sensual and soft as a first kiss, hard-edged and raw as the first shuddering sob after a difficult breakup with a lover. Hibbard evokes human sensuality and desire with a deceptive simplicity and clarity; second and third readings create echoes that resonate long after you have put the book down. There are poems here to delight and astonish, not only about love and loss, but about the isolation and joy of farming in the Midwest, about coming to terms with the aftershocks of rape and violence, about being middle-aged and slowly becoming one's mother. Hibbard's eye is acute and wise, her range is broad, and her hopeful vision is grounded in the physical. The title poem is one of the most original and finely detailed poems about nascent desire that I have ever read, and the opening line from "The Trouble with Language," "The trouble with language is / it follows you everywhere," could be said of the poems from this book. I recommend it both for those who already love and appreciate brilliant, well-crafted poetry, and for those who are new to poetry. Both will be more than satisfied.

I read Sleeping Upside Down under a spell of wonder. These poems are accessible but cover complex ground between men and women, women and women, and the writer and her subjects. The title poem is a beautiful coming of age poem in which the narrator describes the electricity between two teen girls on a hot night in the Midwest. Awakening sexuality is made visceral through "[...]ing/as if threaded with wires." The heat and vibrancy inside a young woman's bedroom is in interplay between the dark night outside and "the crackle and hiss of the electric fence on the all night Top 40 radio." This evokes the buzzing and heat present everywhere in pubescent adolescence. Juxtaposed against the energy of desire is a claustrophobic closeness, which captures the discomfort many of us have known when faced with an attraction that can't be expressed. What the narrator is seeking is barely suggested beyond the hint of an open "pajama top," which is remedied by "feigning sleep." The phrase, "sleeping upside down" is a superb use of metaphor for the confusion and worldview changes that occur when people recognize their attraction to the same sex.

There is a lot of humor throughout this book as well. In Fever, Hibbard expertly establishes the tensions between lovers about to split up. Certainly the idea of sex with someone we're about to leave is a compelling premise for a poem. While having sex with her male lover for the last time the narrator is distracted: "she noticed things the way she thought a firing squad victim would." The sweating and haze of fever leaves the woman "too witless and weak to argue" and "she felt a great reverence for what the body is still willing to do." Quite the opposite of pathetic, as break-ups can often be, the tone of this poem is hilarious and all too familiar to anyone who tried to leave a relationship gracefully.

Buy this book. It is delightful, brilliant, reverent, funny, and original.

So I've Heard: Notes Of A Migratory Music Critic comes from a music critic whose published music criticism column has decades of appearance here gathered under one cover for the first time. From an unenthusiastic account of a Leonard Bernstein world premiere to encounters with conductors and classical musicians in different settings both on stage and off, So I've Heard provides a set of rich insights on musicians, their inspirations, and the future of music as a whole.

There are people who understand music so well, and write about it so well that their writing is far more than educational but highly entertaining as well. Many of these people write for transient media such as newspapers and their writing tends to disappear with yesterday's trash (or hopefully it's recycled).

Once in a while one of the masters at the trade finds a publisher willing to publish some of his work in book form. This is one of those. Alan Rich is more than just a music critic. Over sixty years he has written about music.

He has writen about the ancient Medieval chants. He has written about the electronic music produced by instruments that bear little relationship to traditional musical instruments. Over the years he has had a close relationship with musicians, conductors, performers, composers - basically the entire musical world. He wrote about them and here those words are preserved.

If you've never read an article by Alan Rich, you're in for a treat. As a music critic, his opinions are easy to disagree with, but the insight he offers into the lives and works of composers (especially contemporary ones like Ligeti and Glass) is truly thought-provoking. Living in California, he reviewed many local symphony/opera performances.

With catchy titles like "Let's Hear If for Ockeghem" (one of my favorites :), "Armen Ksajikian: Akbar of the Armadillo," (about a movie villain actor/accomplished cellist) "La rondine: Momma Domingo Gets It Wrong," and on and on - Rich compiled an amusing and educating collection of articles spanning a good chunk of the American music scene (Rich turned 80 in 2004).

This is also a great book for those who enjoy picking up a book every so often for a short excerpt.

I've used this book a lot over the years, for both personal and professional research. It is an alphabetized guide to every soap opera TV show until 1987, with background info and a quite-robust cast list for each. It's amazing to read through and see how familiar the names become -- how many actors and actresses hopped from show to show over the years. Ironically, the author comments that he did a second edition because the soap opera world had changed "tremendously" from 1985 to 1987! Twenty years later, that's all the more reason for an update.

This book is just what it says, an encyclopedia of EVERY soap opera with story sumaries and cast listings up unto the time of publication. The best part of it is it's insight in the behind the scenes of the shows! I've had this book for years and still love it! I agree with the other reviewer and wish there would be an update! Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in the history of soaps!

No soap opera enthusiast should be without this immaculately researched and detailed manual of daytime television. Brilliant in its simplicity and execution and I still find myself referring to it for accurate information. I don't know why there hasn't been an update, but even so...it still serves as one of the all time handy authorities on the subject of the American Soap Opera.

June Strong successfully manages to portray the world before the flood, the sinfullness of man, his lust, his greed and the loving God. She portrays a world where the children of God are despised. This book shows how God can touch lives and bring new meaning. It is one of the saddest and yet most beautiful of stories ever told.

Even though the whole concept of a story set in that mysterious world that was our earth before the Great Flood may seem naive or presumptious depending upon one's point-of-view, Strong's description of the antediluvian world and of the people who lived at that time comes across as highly believeable. We need to take seriously the lessons conveyed in this story and in the Scriptures Strong quotes. Otherwise, we will be just as doomed as the wicked antediluvians.

I am a big fan of books set during Bible times, and this one is one of my favorites. I enjoyed reading about the time before the flood. Actually, this is the first book I've ever seen written about that time in history. I think that the author does a fabulous job of helping us to understand this time period and the people in it.

This book aims to be a review of the series in pictures, and it does it very well. A lot of shots with great quality throughout the book makes it very enjoyable reading. An extensive reference for all series, even the animated ST:TOS. A lot of interesting behind-the-scenes information makes this book more then a bunch of pictures. Half of the book is on TOS, we also get a good section on DS9 (no Voyager, as it has been written in 1994). All and all, a great collection book for the Star Trek fan.

Over the years, many books have been written about Star Trek's growth from a popular-yet-low-rated television series to the huge cultural phenomenon it is today. Some are strictly technical (Gene Roddenberry and Stephen Whitfield's The Making of Star Trek), others are a mix of in-depth analysis and insider's insights (David Gerrold's The World of Star Trek), while still others are personal memoirs (William Shatner's Star Trek Memories). Most of them describe the growing pains of Roddenberry's concept of "Wagon Train to the Stars" and tell the now-familiar story of how NBC commissioned two pilots (rejecting "The Cage" for being too cerebral); how the fans saved the show for a second season but couldn't stop NBC from cancelling Star Trek in 1969; how those same fans kept the spirit of Star Trek alive during the "in-between" decade from the show's debut in syndication to the release of 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

J.M. Dillard, author of many Star Trek novels (The Lost Years, Mindshadow, plus five movie novelizations), contributed the text for Star Trek: Where No One Has Gone Before -- A History in Pictures. Published shortly after Star Trek: The Next Generation ended its seven season run and before both the premiere of the seventh feature film and the debut of Star Trek's third spin-off, Voyager, Where No One Has Gone Before covers Star Trek's first 28 years, from its creative genesis as the proposed chronicles of Starfleet Capt. Robert April and the Starship Yorktown to the pre-production of Star Trek: Voyager (which ended its run in 2001).

Although its well-written and includes two essays by the late great Isaac Asimov, informative sidebars in each chapter and an introduction by William Shatner, Where No One Has Gone Before's main asset is the wealth of pictures, many of them publicty shots of the several casts, but also many stills from the Original Series, the short-lived animated series, the first seven Star Trek features, and the first two spinoff series.

And even though it is a history of Star Trek, don't look for juicy "dark" revelations about the troubles (real or imagined) behind the scenes. Jeffrey Hunter's departure from the show is never examined in detail (the book Captain's Logs, an unauthorized history of Star Trek, blames Hunter for being excessively demanding, telling producers what camera angles not to use when photographing Capt. Pike and other prima donna behavior). It's not written as an expose -- Dillard, after all, is a Star Trek fan who also is an authorized Star Trek writer, and the intended audience is, of course, the vast number of other Star Trek fans.

It took Leonard Nimoy almost three decades to finally admit that he was Spock. It hasn't quite taken me that long to admit to being a "Trekker". The fear of being labeled a "geek" or a "nerd" was so overwhelming that I would shun any mention of the show outside of my circle of fellow Trek fans.

Well, I have come out of the Star Trek "closet", proudly announcing my enjoyment of all things Trek, past and present. This book is a treasure for those of us that have followed the original series as well as the subsequent spin-offs as of the book's publication.

Insightful background on the various shows along with great photographic stills and illustrations makes this a "must-have" for the devoted follower.

It's definitely for those of us grateful for the "journey" of which Gene Roddenberry initiated back in the mid-sixties.

It's also a good primer for those that don't quite understand what all the fuss was about.

great b/w picks and lot of links from star trek to the really worl

I liked this book. I haven't read much other Star Trek books, so I don't have much to compare to. I really liked the authors easy, concise explanations for things like warp drive, wormholes, alien biology, time... all the favorite sciences, and what's real and what's not! The segments are based on accounts from specific episodes with "science logs" from favorite Star Fleet personelle. The photo's and such add a nice touch as well. In short, if you like Star Trek, and ever wondered if what you saw was possible, I highly recommend this book. The science-minded will love it!

It is an interesting book and is easy to read. It is broken up into chapters, and in each chapter is a one to two page sections on a particular subject like telepathy. It hits a wide area of subjects.

Andre Bormanis, science advisor for the Star Trek franchise, explains the science in broad layman's terms, but enough to explain the basics and the logic behind what the team did.

I enjoyed reading it even with a sever lack of previous knowledge in some of the areas. It gave a neat look into the why they handle the science on the show. If you don't have too much time to sit down and read or you just want to have something to read during the commercials, this is an good book to have.