Reviews Books

This book helped me TONS. I took my TExES and almost aced it. I'd recommend it to anyone.

This book is an excellent source to help you PASS the PPR! I read through other books and found this one to be more explanatory and easier to understand. It goes into great detail of all the types of questions that appear on the exam. I finally felt like I knew how to go about taking the exam without the confusion and frustration! I positively recommend this book to anyone who needs a better understanding of how to choose the BEST answer on the exam. This is the book that finally helped me PASS!!! Cheers & Good Luck!

This, like E. M. Forster's "Aspects of the Novel," is an essential work of criticism, and it's nice to see it back in print. Lubbock's outlook is an extension of Henry James's. He is more immediately accessible than the Master, and he illustrates the "craft" by reference to classic novels such as Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," and of course James's own works, particularly "The Ambassadors." Lubbock, Forster, F. R. Leavis's "The Great Tradition," and Ian Watt's "Rise of the Novel" give you what you need to know if you want to understand the central canon in Anglo-American and European fiction.

This is the book recommended by graham greene in his autobiography.he had studied this book inside out before embarking on his illustrious career. I suppose no other stamp off approval is needed after that.....

If your chances of getting your child to study in advance for the SATs is minimal, this is the book for you. I examined many SAT Prep books, and this one offered the "condensed" version of what all the others included. For a quick review, it's great, and certainly less expensive that other prep products.

This book basically teaches you how to guess and what to do when you don't know the concept. They don't teach concepts like Barrons and Kaplan. No practice reviews. Only worthless tips and easy weak practice tests. I've got 800 in math and 700 in verbal with this book. This book has the worst practice tests. With Barrons, i got 700 Math and 550. With Kaplan, i got 780 math and 620 verbal. When i took my real SATs, I got 780 math and 640 verbal. So therefore this book sucks. I prefer Barrons SAT I Math Workbook for Math and Kaplan SAT Verbal Workbook for Verbal.

All Babylon 5 fans hear to this: you will really understand how our favourite series was set up, designed and came to life. The book is detailed and written for those who don't have a clue of any behind-the-scenes jargon. It really puts all fans inside the TV series, makes them a part of the building process. Also, if any of the readers has already bought the previous edition, please do spare the money and buy this really new edi- tion: it includes the complete Season 4 episode list and more (new) photos of the Season 4 episodes, plus real updates in the data. It comes to wonder then how the same duo (author, publisher) didn't thought of a real new edition of "The A-Z Guide to Babylon 5" but they reprinted the previous book as a ... "new edition".

Creating Babylon 5 is the sort of coverage B5 has deserved --but not gotten-- for years. It is worth the price for the pictures alone, but David Bassom's text can more than compete for your attention. His writing is as strong here as in the A-Z Guide to Babylon 5. Worth every cent.

The pastoral nature of this novel is such a disguise for it ends with the toughest, grittiest and most challenging ending I have ever read (stronger than Kafka's 'The Trial', or Christopher Priest's 'The Separation'). As a human being facing what we all face this ending is truly awful.

But what is Hudson telling us in this novel? Is it a Victorian approach to telling things that are otherwise inexpressible - that affection is not enough? That real love with all its manifestations must be honoured, because without it there is only death?

Here I find a challenge to psychoanalysis and all the techniques of psychology: 'I only discovered, what others have discovered before me, that the practice of introspection has a corrosive effect on the mind, which only serves to aggravate the malady it is intended to cure.' (If only I could stop introspection ......!) ) [page 279 Dutton edition of 1917]

But here the common man, Smith, plunged into this affectionate pastoral society, bemoans what he has just learned - that the young woman he loves can never love him as he wishes - 'I wish that I had never made that fatal discovery, that I might have continued still hoping and dreaming, and wearing out my heart with striving after the impossible, since any fate would have been preferable to the blank desolation which now confronted me.' [page 303-304 of the same edition]

I wonder what woman of Hudson's acquaintance he had to put aside with such enormous regret that he expressed these words!

Search this book out. Absorb its gentle fantasy and hold tight for a rough ending.

Other recommendations:
The Separation - Christopher Priest
The Trial - Franz Kafka
The Shepherd's Life - W H Hudson
Green Mansions - W H Hudson

JB Priestly wrote a book about time ('Man and Time') and in it he referred to a WH Hudson novel called 'A Crystal Age'. His couple of paragraphs about 'A Crystal Age' stimulated my interest but nowhere could I find the novel he referred to. However, I did find 'Green Mansions' and I have read it several times. It is a beautiful novel with an undertone of darkness (is death the darkness that we all live with during the beauty of life?). Perhaps 'Green Mansions' disappointed me a little after triggering my romantic nerve. I did, however, keep exploring the writings of WH Hudson - 'Long Ago and Far Away', 'The Purple Land', 'Idle Days in Patagonia' and the wonderful 'A Shepherd's Life'.

I have just finished reading 'A Crystal Age' at last. I concur with JB Priestley's assessment. 'A Crystal Age' is worth the effort of pursuing - it is a surprising first-person utopian novel in which Hudson's love of nature does not render him oblivious to the fact that there are downsides in all worlds - all imaginable worlds. Just like the dark shadows in 'Green Mansions'. The end of 'A Crystal Age' is so surprising - I believe very few readers would see what is coming - I certainly didn't as I rushed on towards it. There is a certain illogic to the ending, but there is also something that haunts me continuously.

'A Crystal Age' is a stronger less romantic novel than 'Green Mansions', but it is also exceptional for many reasons. I don't hesitate in recommending 'Green Mansions' but I also urge readers to pursue 'A Crystal Age'.

Author Robert Sellars has done a great job of bringing together all the ITC British TV shows in one very detailed and well researched book. From "Robin Hood" to "The Prisoner", "The Saint" to "Thunderbirds", its all here. Complete with the fascinating behind-the-scenes stories, that give the reader even more reason to view the shows again, all these years later. Specially since most of them are readily available on dvd through Amazon.

ITC was -legendary TV and entertainment mogul Lew Grade. Later knighted by the Queeen, for his services to the industry. Grade took on Hollywood at their own game and for the most part won out. A master showman and salesman, he was of another era. A time that saw him green lighting new ITC shows on just a smile and a handshake. A time when personal instinct and loyalty usually paid off. The late 1970's and early 80's,saw ITC moving into the movie market with not always so good results, remember "Raise The Titantic"? But Sir Lew did introduce us to "The Muppets" both on TV and on the big screen. His detractors called him Sir "Low" Grade, but when you consider what he accomplished even before he created ITC. And then to bring us such an iconic British TV output on such tight budgets and schedules and with such diverse talent as Richard Greene, Roger Moore, Patrick McGoohan and alike -well it's all in this book -with plenty of pictures!

You'll hear from the actors, the writers, the producers and directors that worked on the ITC production assembly line. Memories both good and bad and all with that distinct British sense of humour. Notice being British myself and having grown-up with these shows in the old country, I continue to spell certain words differently. But you'll have no trouble understanding the meaning of what these TV imports had on American viewers.

ITC exists today, only through its exstensive and profitable library, which is part of some other multi-national media conglomerate. But the Grade name continues in showbiz, through his nephew Michael who heads up the Pinewood-Shepperton Studio group. However, as the cover of the book shows and the title name "Cult TV" implies, it is Patrick McGoohan's cult 1960's show "The Prisoner", that continues to stand out the most. An ITC failure at the time that went on to become one of life's strange ironies. A personal "inside joke", that would have Sir Lew himself, turning in his grave to light up another of his big trademark cigars for!

Film/television writer and journalist Robert Sellers presents Cult TV: The Golden Age of ITC, an examination of the legendary media company responsible for just about every cult/fantasy television show of the 1960s and 70s, from "Thunderbirds" to "The Prisoner" to "The Muppet Show". Vintage black-and-white photographs pepper this exciting behind-the-scenes history, drawn from interviews with more than 50 stars and big names. An amazing behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of 60's and 70's American popular culture.

JIll Austin truely hears the voice of God, and again in this book she has imparted revelation to ignite the desire within all us to draw closer and deeper into relationship with Jesus. Jill's books are what Miracle Grow is to the plant world. This is a must read (and read and read) if you have desire to be closer to God.

this book is for everyone and anyone who believes the Lord has called them for such a time as this
you will be so encouraged and energized to continue on you journey to the completion of your destiny
be blessed

I remember meeting Jon Davis at a reading in Salt Lake City. I don't exactly remember the place, but I liked the way he shifted his stance while reading his poems aloud to the crowd of dying soldiers. He tore through the air, a warrior escaping the arrows that flew at him like pigeons in search of the worm of an apple. Jon Davis' words are neither apple nor worm. They're the seeds of our bodies erupting as candles on the bridge to the other side. I recomend this book to anyone who seeks enlightenment in a supermarket checkout line.

I'd just like to attest to the power of these poems. I've not come across a poet as strong as Jon Davis in years.

If it ever comes back into print, it's well worth buying.

With so much publishing money funneled into Chick Lit and the next mass market success, it is more than just a little refreshing to find a book of poems of such caliber. Wright, with his dark, lyrical style is the sort of poet who is the real deal. His sensibilities, reminscent of Roethke and Dickey, materialize in his masterful images and his language; while his approach to nature (especially a blue crab) is fresh and unique. His perception of the South denies the current trends of focusing on the "redneck qualities" and instead, revisits Southern landscape and relationships in a tone both comically horrific and heartbreakingly beautiful. Wright is an emerging enchanter to enjoy.

Give this book a chance, and see why the University Presses are putting out the best work right now.

It's hard to remain sedate about a book that shows such promise: I was one of the few who had access to the manuscript of William Wright's Dark Orhard before it was selected for the Texas Review Breakthrough Poetry Prize. For a first time book, Wright's poetry strikes me as masterly; he has a inherent sense of line break and meter, although most of his work is free verse. In addition, Wright's work synthesizes the sensibilities of preceding poets like Roethke, Dickey, Ammons, James Wright, Richard Hugo, and, in his more lyrically obsessive pieces, Dylan Thomas; Wright's style is definitely his own. My favorite pieces from the book include "Dreaming of My Parents," "Cruelty," "Benfield, Remembered," "Dead Dog," and "In Fear of Holiness"-- all of these poems interlace Wright's half-imagined, half-experienced childhood with interior exploration, really great stuff.

Nature and humanity coalesce in some of the best, freshest poetry that I've recently read, a welcome relief from the esoteric, propaganda fueled poetry that claims much of today's literary landscape.

THIS IS INFORMATION FOR YOUR BOOKSTORE'S PURPOSES. I am the author of De La Palabra. Trout Creek Press published it during the nineties as one of five books of mine published under the DOG RIVER REVIEW SERIES.

My current email address is samsilva54@email.msn.com (my server was for a brief period a local server called "Faynet")

My postal address is Sam Silva 309 Spring St. Fayetteville N.C. 28305

I mention all of this because in links you have mentioned that your bookstore has "music" of mine as well. There is a well known Brazillian musician named "DANI SAM SILVA"...HE IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF DE LA PALABRA...I AM! I have not published or professionally recorded any music in my life.

Thanks,

Sam Silva

Of the five chapbooks of Sam Silva's poetry published by Trout Creek Press, DE LA PALABRA is the finest. Here the reader will confront not the business-as-usual poetry of contemporary America, but rather a passionate verse that is a throwback to a time when sound and rhythm were at least as important as content. Just a sample from "Prayers to an Infant King": One morning again! One wind-shot dawn! One ache of the sea and the sky and the palm.

DE LA PALABRA is a collection of twenty-eight mostly brief, highly religious poems. But as Ron Bayes notes in the foreward, these are poems that often "shake a fist at God" out of love and despair: But what corpse do we worship? and is it for naught but stones or is it indeed for bread... Besides his advanced sense of lyricism, Silva also creates much memorable imagery as in "Seeking Plenty": Riches, riches and sick despair. Even on a tropical island, the black hoof of God... If you are looking for a poetry that borrows from the past to create something extraordinarily fresh and new, that at once startles, then instructs, then Sam Silva may be for you, and DE LA PALABRA is a good place to start.