News and Media Books

Although I think I'll have to buy another NYC travel book in order to get more detailed information about places to stay and to eat, I really enjoyed reading this. It's full of interviews with interesting New Yorkers, like Wigstock's Lady Bunny and the guy who runs the sideshows at Coney Island. There's a great section on NYC neighborhoods as well. The charming personality of the Mad Monks really comes through in their writing--you learn a lot about what they don't like (yuppies, sterile architecture, the Disneyfication of Times Square) as well as a few things about what they do (drag queens, egg creams, and Rudy Giuliani, strangely enough).

Funny, irreverant and witty ....took me to places I never would have discovered . . . .what a mind expanding trip without drugs! BRAVO.

The Mad Monks' Guide to New York City avoids dwelling on well-worn landmarks such as the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty, focusing more on the eccentric and offbeat, such as Miss Vera's Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls, Fly Fishing in Central and even Toxic Tourism like Staten Island's Fresh Kills Dump, the world's largest dump/landfill.

Along with the sublime and the bizarre is a cornucopia of the great city's diverse culture, from bars and restaurants to entertainment spots, making it probably as useful for those who live in the city as for those planning to visit it.

The Mad Monks' Guide to New York City is definitely the best thing I've read on that place in years, maybe the best book on New York since Washington Irving.

Here I am, spitting and cussing and followed by my tribe of beautiful wife, giggling baby, manic dog, neurotic cat, tiny overpriced one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, thirty-two South Bronx homeroom students, anti-situationist buddies in the Yale Art History Graduate School, coffee shop aficionados, strange relatives, no money, one as yet unfinished great American novel, an entire collection of badly washed decaying old college clothes, and, last but not least, one pristine, mint, delectable copy of "The Mad Monks' Guide to New York City." Genius! Genius! Genius!

But who are these morons who keep giving the Monks the cliched comparisons to Kerouac and Kuralt? Where are the comparisons to the greats? As convoluted, descriptive, and gratuitous as a Faulkner sentence! As minutely involved as Wolf! As sharp and evocative as Hemmingway! As full of life and extraterrestialy wise as Salinger! As innovatively plotted as Joyce! As romantic as Austin! As poetic and erotic as Shakespeare!

Excellent text for the communication specialist or media analyst in search of background on how the American public gets its news about breaking stories -- especially those in which the US Government has a clear policy interest. "Media Access and the Military," using the 1991 Gulf War as a case study, gets as close to "tell it like it is" as we are likely to get on this subject.

For someone who experienced the Gulf War on assignment in Israel and got the report of the Iraqi attack through CNN moments before hearing the first Scud missiles slam into Tel Aviv, "Media Access and the Military" by Judith Raine Baroody is a fascinating read. An extremely insightful, carefully researched analysis of the Gulf War, the study looks beyond the pyrotechnics and smart and not-so-smart bombs that captured public imagination at the time to the crucial role of the press and its interface with the warriors. It's a story not often told, but told here extremely well -- by a seasoned diplomat who is also a scholar and former TV anchor. It is clear that this book will be the definitive statement on the subject for years to come and an absolute must-read for the military and embassy professionals who are called upon to handle public affairs issues during our next war.

Readers in international affairs will greatly benefit from reading "Media Access and the Military." The first and last chapters offer a lively discussion of freedom of speech, of what is considered for public knowledge during a war and how this issue is resolved from the point of view of the press and also from the military point of view.

Journalists and researchers will find the appendix very useful, as it includes the research questionnaire and the list of interviewed persons.

The book also offers a concise history of the Gulf War. Scholarly books have no obligation to be "a good read," but I found it extremely interesting.

For someone who experienced the Gulf War on assignment in Israel and got the report of the Iraqi attack through CNN moments before hearing the first Scud missiles slam into Tel Aviv, "Media Access and the Military" by Judith Raine Baroody is a fascinating read. An extremely insightful, carefully researched analysis of the Gulf War, the study looks beyond the pyrotechnics and smart and not-so-smart bombs that captured public imagination at the time to the crucial role of the press and its interface with the warriors. It's a story not often told, but told here extremely well -- by a seasoned diplomat who is also a scholar and former TV anchor. It is clear that this book will be the definitive statement on the subject for years to come and an absolute must-read for the military and embassy professionals who are called upon to handle public affairs issues during our next war.

The definitive study of this important issue, written with clarity, effective argumentation and comprehensive research. The oral history or the negotiations between the press corps and the Department of Defense is perhaps the most interesting and accessible portion of this TEXT, and gives an insight into the evoling nature of government/media relations.Overall, a valuable contribution to the field.

my family loves this book. it is so cute and helps my kids process their feelings when their friends move away.

When Mitchell announces that he is moving "two weeks away" from the home he's lived in for sixty years, his best buddy (and next door neighbor) Margo doesn't sit quietly by and let him slip away. The tale that ensues speaks volumes about the love of friendship and surprising solutions. If you find yourself reading the same stories over and over, you'll want to make sure this one is among the possibilities.

Mitchell is moving is one of the best books I have ever read. Mitchell has lived next door to his friend for so long so he finally decides to move away, "three days away" to be exact. Margo, his friend, is not to happy about it so she tries to keep him from going. I recomend this book to all ages!

Mitchell the dinosaur is tired of living in the same old place and decides to move "three days away". His best friend Margo isn't happy about that at all. She thinks of some very ingenious ways to try and keep Mitchell as her neighbor. The story stays cute and readable--no matter how many times I've read it over the years.

Conor Oberst of the band Bright Eyes records a small child reading this at the very beginnng of is CD Fevers & Mirrors. It seemed like a great story, even though on here it says it's a children's book. It really made me want to hear what happened between the two friends.

Although this early reader has been around for quite a while, it is still one of the very best out there for a beginning reader. As a book buyer for a children's book company and parent, I have found very few that are so appropriate for and loved by children and parents alike!

I read this book by myself about 15 years ago when I was 5. I'm not quite sure how it stacks up against the rest of early child hood literature, but it will always have a special place in my mind as the first book that I was able to read by myself.

I give this book as a gift to all friends who have a new baby. I loved reading it to my son... it is the story of a new puppy and a boy from the puppy's perspective.

A great book for a beginning reader!

I give this book as a gift to all friends who have a new baby. I loved reading it to my son... it is the story of a new puppy and a boy from the puppy's perspective.

A great book for a beginning reader!

Many books easy enough for my kindergartener are not interesting. There is no story line. They focus on the words being simple only. This has easy words, yet a great storyline of life from a dog's view point and it is cute and funny. We read it over and over.There needs to be more of these kinds. Real stories inspire reading.

this book surprise me and made me glad when she got the pieces. This book is filled with lesson for you to learn.

This is a great book!
When I had to do this book for a report I read the first 4 chapters in 45 minutes. The names in this book are very rare but that is what intrests me. My favorite part was when she has to get the gortberries to go back to her dimension. If you like Fantasy Books than you will like this book!

What if you lived in a dimension where you were loved by all? Zenda finds out in this great book about not taking life for granted. At one point, I actually got so absorbed in this book that I felt as though I was in Zenda's world, and had to remind myself that I was really just in my bedroom. The cover art is, once again, beautiful, and the story is detailed, and easy to picture in your mind. The characters are memorable, especially Persuaja, who is mysterious and original. If you like magic, love good books, or want something entertaining to read, I recommend this fantastic series to you!

The second book in an incredibly entertaining series about a girl facing the troubles that come with growing up...on another planet! On Zenda's planet, Azureblue, almost anything can happen! In this particular story, Zenda is taken to another dimension, where everything is the exact opposite from the dimension she lives in. Almost everything is perfect, everyone loves her, and everything goes her way...but will she ever be able to go back to her own dimension? Find out by reading this book! I highly recommend it!

My daughter zipped through the 1st book only to tell me that she MUST get the 2nd ASAP. She read it in 1 day. It really held her interest, and from what I read of it, it really develops a since of self, spirit and purpose in a young girl's life.
I highly recommend these books. She is waiting very anxiously for the next books to be released.

This book is in great condition and it arrived on time. I'm very happy with my purchase.

This dictionary is essential for everyone, not just children. This should be in every household and in every classroom, it has the basics organized in sections such as language arts, math, science,and visual and performing arts. Every child should be taught this information before graduating from 8th grade and every adult with a college education really should know all these facts, ideas, theories, and movements.

I was surprised to discover how many common proverbs and phrases
are confounding to high school freshman. This book has helped me to better understand the cultural awareness that these
students have not yet acquired. It has also been a useful
tool for working to bridge that gap.

I had the first edition and now the second edition is equally as enlightening. This is a valuable book,

This is a valuable item for all New Citizens as well as for any adult who's had a "whole word" education. I give a copy to any new colleagues from a non-English speaking country.

The New Lean Pocket Guide XL is a great addition to our training materials. This larger size, new topics on Lean Office and Six Sigma, and most importantly, the numerous digital photos makes this book a benchmark in the industry. We distribute these in all our training sessions. We even discuss the photos and have found ideas for improvements just by looking at them. It's nice to have a book that is this concise, does not clutter information up with case studies (as everyone has one), and has those photo examples upon which to "see" and then "do". A book that does distinguishes itself from the others!

I like the format of this handbook and it is definitely easy to use, it gives simple explanations on the concepts and tools of Lean. I would definitely purchase copies for my process improvement team. I would also use it to teach lean concepts in my company.

I have purchased nearly every Lean book that has been published over the past 10 years, including The Lean Pocket Guide (MCS Media, Inc.) and found this book to be the best value on the market from current materials available. I like the larger print (in the 5" by 7" format), the new topics that were included, but most significantly, the actual photos of Lean manufacturing practices. The photos that were included have assisted our continuous improvement teams already. Seeing the picture of the Heijunka board for planning on page 26 allowed us to modify our entire shop floor scheduling visual system to emulate something similar to what this displayed. Many other photos that were included also are giving us great ideas for future kaizen events. Great addition to the world of Lean books! Lean Lean Trainer, Sycor Manufacturing, Inc.

I had purchased The Lean Pocket Guide over a year ago and recently purchased The New Lean Pocket Guide XL. Both are superb Lean references. What I do like about the XL version, including the new chapers on Lean Office, Six Sigma, is the Glossary of Lean Terms and the Waste Audit. But most of all what I found most beneficial were the actual photos placed throughout demonstrating many of the Lean tools. Many books just offer illustrations, The New Lean Pocket Guide XL shows Lean in action in various manufacturing operations. The book does it for me. I will be purchasing these for all my managers and supervisors (the associates already have The Lean Pocket Guide). An excellent enhancement of an already great book!
Continuous Improvement Coordinator, BA Systems, Inc.

This book is a handy collection of all the lean tools you can think of. Each tool is described clearly and simply in a couple of pages with a step by step guide for implementation. You probably need to have a background understanding of lean and its principles to use book but it is a handy reference of all the tools. It lacks overview material on the history and philosophy of lean, and it would be useful to have a clearer description of how to fit the tools together (perhaps some flow charts of what to use when etc). In summary then, great description of lean tools; lacks the background on lean and how to deploy it as a philosophy.

Contains a number of tips I haven't seen in any other job-search books; includes tips on getting advance info on a company and surviving phone interviews. I've been recommending it to all job-hunters I know for the last 2 years.

Updated comment: Still a great book, but a bit dated with respect to email and other electronic methods.

I've read a lot of job hunting books, and this is the best one to date

Recommends job seekers approach expanding small companies. Growth can be inferred through increases in stock prices. Job seekers should; 1) study industry periodicals and investment newsletters. 2) seek comments from venture capitalists and stock pickers; 3) focus on three rapidly expanding companies at a time and target them. One strong chapter describes handling an initial screening call from a company. Read it if you have trouble responding quickly to questions. Also recommends ways of leaving messages on voice mail that invite people to call back.

Adapted from Annotated Bibliography of Learning A Living; A Guide to Planning Your Career and Finding A Job for People with Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Dyslexia

Cheri and Jackie,

Back on Jan 10, 1995, I bought your book, The New Rules of the Job Search Game. Upon my first reading, either I was not in the right mindset to understand the powerful secrets of the Focus Method or I did not possess the maturity to accept the reality of what it takes to obtain a high paying, white-collar job in the 1990's. The other day, I re-read your book. Thank you both for writing this book! This time around, I understand the process and what it takes to get a high-paying job. No longer will I be enslaved by employment advertising, employment agencies and random luck. Your excellent explanation of the Focus Method is what every job seeker needs to successfully obtain the job of their choice with confidence.

Pierre Johnson

I've read numerous job hunting books, but this one offers the unique perspective of the authors' experiences as recruiters. With this view from the other side of the desk (hiring), they let you in on what works and what commonly practiced job search techniques are a waste of your time.

The book is thorough in covering numerous aspects of the job search process. Some topics covered include, but are not limited to: The New Job Market, Motivating Yourself in the Search Process, Researching Industries/Companies, Telephone Skills, Resumes and Cover Letters, Getting in Front of Decesion Makers, Getting Hired, etc.

Sadly, this book is vastly underpublized.

or for others who love newspapers and history. It's all here -- the moon landing, Nixon resigns, WWII, WWI. It's the first rough draft of history, as told by the paper of record. It's a coffee-table sized book that is a fascinating read and a conversation piece.

This is a great book for collection. It marks the important milestones in the 20th century. It will improve your general knowledge about the events in the last century and encourage you learn more about them. What is more exciting is to watch them as they were presented on the first page of NY Times. To relive those moments through the print and pictures and titles as presented on the Page One. It is much more than an encylcopedia for the last century.

It is fun to see how an incident was presented on Day One which went on to become World War One. A must collect for history lovers!

I received this as a present from one of my journalism students, and I really enjoy flipping through it. It's a coffee-table book of the major stories of the 20th century, and what a fun flip it is. I also enjoy the journalism aspect, as the style and layout changes over the decades are shocking. I wonder what the 2097 New York Times front page will look like--perhaps we will be printing the papers out on our own printer each morning, who knows. Anyway, this is a fun book for those who like a little history to go with their morning newspaper...and you don't have to be from New York to enjoy it.

I read this book first in my school's library, starting from the back and working my way towards 1896. I was amazed at all the things that had occured during those 100 years. From the crash of Flight 800 and the Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, this book illustates provides the front page of our last century and hopefully a window to the next!

These are the headlines that made the news. Often three lines, set in Italics Times, page one headlines of the "New York Times" defined American news for years. The internet, and national papers have diminished this effect somewhat, but for most of the Twentieth Century, the NYT was the news. Because of their influence, they were not only the reporters, but the generators of our news. If they didn't report it, one might wonder if it really happened.

This edition has no glorious essays explaining how wonderful people were in 1955, or how great the generation was in 1940. Instead, we get page one completed, unedited.

Only the days which made big news made the cut, but each page of the book is a complete front page. More than reproduced headlines, we can read the seondary and teriary stories, see the pictures, and know the weather. My birth year, 1966 apparently was only a big deal to me, as nothing newsworthy enough made this book.

It is a hearty book, tall and wide. It is smaller than actual paper, and the body copy seems to have shrunk to about 6.5-7 pt. Printing methods were not as good in 1900, and you'll see the smudges in the ink as the plates wore throughout the day's printing. This makes intriguing history, but occasionally difficult reading. Newer pages are reproduced cleanly.

I fully recommend "The New York Times Page One" as more than a curiosity. It would make an interesting book to provide school rooms to see the actual stories of the modern history they are studying.

Anthony Trendl

C.S. Lewis's "English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Excluding Drama)," first published in 1954, was part of a multi-volume series, The Oxford History of English Literature, and perhaps its most distinguished contribution (but see below). It also doubled as an installment in the Clark Lectures series (for 1944), which contributes an additional subtitle in some listings.

For reasons not immediately apparent, Oxford University Press has reissued this book in a "New Version" as "Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century." As the same fate has overtaken E. K. Chambers on "English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages," probably the other outstanding book in the series, which is now called "Malory and Fifteenth-Century Drama, Lyrics, and Ballads," there seems to have been a policy of titular refurbishing of at least some of the volumes in the series (once known, in an unfortunate acronym, as the O.H.E.L.).

The current titles are accurate enough, although "Poetry and Prose" should have included a warning that Elizabethan drama was covered in a different volume. (Due to the facts of human biology, Lewis' book not unexpectedly covers a slightly longer period than either title indicates.) Still, the changes can cause confusion for anyone not aware of them; given the current prices, this may be more than a little annoying to some people. If you have one version, you probably don't need the other!

Lewis on the "Sixteenth Century" was the product of enormous labor, including actually reading a huge body of writing generally ignored in literary histories, or customarily treated without much firsthand knowledge. Acquaintances -- not all of them friends, or even especially sympathetic -- described Lewis spending his days doggedly reading sermons and polemics, minor poets and bad poets, over the course of years. (He came to refer to the effort by the "infernal" acronym for the series noted above.) The result is a treasury of first-hand information, and with it Lewis' often-witty summations. It is engaging reading, even for those who disagree with Lewis -- and he seemingly set out to overturn most critical orthodoxies established between about 1900 and 1950, as well as a few older ones.

For example, he treats Elizabethan literature as an extension of medieval culture. Humanism, in its period sense of concern for a classicizing Latin style, and the disparaging of the immediate past, is treated as an often-harmful interruption. This reverses a judgment that actually goes back to the period -- but a judgment originally made by self-styled Humanists themselves, of course. And he includes the literature of Lowland Scotland, often ignored, or treated as something apart.

"English Literature in the Sixteenth Century" also appeared as an Oxford paperback under the original title (1973), unfortunately without the bibliographic supplement in which Lewis discussed textual histories and modern editions, if any, of both the well-known and the more obscure English and Scots literature of the late fifteenth through early seventeenth centuries. This portion is, of course, half a century out of date, but Lewis' observations are still of value. Even without this section, the paperback is worthwhile, and may be a good, reasonably-priced, alternative, but anyone familiar with the original form may be disappointed.

Those interested in Lewis as a Christian apologist will find here his considered reflections on many of his predecessors, not all of them flattering, but his comments on doctrine are pretty strictly limited to explaining the issues debated. It may seem odd to see the Reformation through the lense of literary history, but Lewis avoids open advocacy, unlike his "Preface to 'Paradise Lost,'" in which (it seems to me) his concern that readers take Milton seriously tends to blend with a concern that they take seriously their own salvation.

Lewis was also a poet, novelist, and occasional short-story writer. Here he occasionally briefly retells a story, with his usual skill, but, except for some overlapping topics, connections to his own fiction are less obvious than in some of his writings on the Middle Ages. There is a section on the Scots poet Sir David Lyndsay (d. 1555), who provided the epigraph to Lewis' novel "That Hideous Strength" (1946). And, somewhere it includes, as others have noted also, a quotation with the words "Stygian puddle glum." They undoubtedly lurks somewhere behind both the Marshwiggle named Puddleglum and the visit to the Narnian Underlands in "The Silver Chair" (1953, written 1950), although Dante, Virgil (of course), and a host of others, are under contribution there as well.

I was under the impression, from my first reading of the book decades ago, that it was given as a quotation from Gavin Douglas' Scots translation of "The Aeneid" (1513; Lewis describes it with enthusiasm); but I have never been able to locate it in the appropriate section. A recent search of my old copy of the shorter paperback has revealed that it was indeed quoted from a translation, but as an example of bad one, and English, not Scots; of the dramas of Seneca, not Virgil. On page 256 (where I had marked it thirty years ago), "Tacitae Stygis" in "Hippolytus" (line 625), rather weakly rendered by the utterly obscure John Studley ("which cannot now be read without a smile").

Perhaps establishing just how much Lewis read, and with what close attention, no matter how dreary.

(Reposted from my "anonymous" review of September 10, 2003)

Whether you rate this a 10 or a 2 depends on your reading tastes. No doubt many people would find the topic uninteresting, and if the topic or the author are not subjects you enjoy, then don't bother to buy it. Not being a lit. buff myself, my attraction for the book was the author's commentary, with the goldmine of quotable material found therein. This is an impressive volume of literary history, and I doubt that anyone else could have done such a thorough job and still made the topic come to life with such vigorous exposition. Opinionated? You bet. That's part of what makes it enjoyable to read. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the book, you may want to contact Oxford University Press directly. As one of the twelve volumes constituting the "Oxford History of English Literature" series, they have continued to print it over the years.

Tolkien, in a letter to George Sayer as recorded in his biography JACK: A LIFE OF C. S. LEWIS, says that this is "a great book, the only one of his [Lewis's] that gives me unalloyed pleasure." Coming from Tolkien, this is very high praise indeed. Originally published as ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY EXCLUDING DRAMA and for some inexplicable reason recently renamed, this book, Lewis's longest work, will not be found in the libraries of the causal C. S. Lewis fan for the simple fact that it is a textbook and is aimed not at the general reader but instead the academic world (even in those days there was that damned phenomena of `publish or perish!'). For those who are studying this material, however, will find the book a very remarkable one at that. As a previous reviewer noted, Lewis began referring to this text as "O Hell!" as the writing process became very tedious to him. This book was ten years in the writing, and by the time it was ended Lewis wanted to concentrate more on theology and Narnia than this "critical nonsense." The end sections of the book do not shore this weariness, however, so have no fear.

Although books of this sort always, by necessity, impose artificial time lines on literature which, in the long run, do not have a lot to do with the true literary history. To study literature in the sixteenth century, one should not confine oneself to going behind or in front of the time line to get a fuller understanding of the significance of the text. However, this is not really a fault of Lewis and it is a very difficult error to correct for literary historians. However, Lewis pulls off this artificial time limit very well by clearly illustrating the many strenghts and the many weaknesses of this century's literature.

Because it is for the student of literature, much of the more radical elements of this text will be lost without a general knowledge of the preconceptions the academic world has in regard to the literature in question. The opening chapter ("New Learning and New Ignorance") stands as one of Lewis's most famous academic writing because of the sheer implications and challenges set forth in the chapter. He debunks many of the fashionable scholarly trends, focusing on how much of what the scholars say is off base. Lewis argues that the during the sixteenth century much of the literature proved extremely dull, saying the authors wrote like "elderly men". Toward the close of the century, however, something radical began to take place. There was a renewal and an elevation in quality from drab to gold, as Lewis puts it. Most literary scholars and historians think the Renaissance is responsible for this, but Lewis says this theory has no truth, because the humanists who were responsible for the Renaissance were terrible scholars and brought death to the literature they presented, presenting the classics' virtues as ills and instead focused on the way the classics said what they said. The humanists focused on the language and left the literature itself alone. Everything else about the literature they hated. Lewis continually attacks the humanists, stating that "the new learning [that of the humanists] created the new ignorance." His belief that the Renaissance never occurred in England, and if it did it was of no literary importance, is as radical a literary belief as accepting the Book of Mormon to the Bible would be to a Christian.

The rest of the book reads as a survey of the literature of the period. All major and quite a large number of minor authors are represented in this. As a textbook, this stands as fascinating reading, for Lewis constantly illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of whoever he is dealing with, and his numerous quotations from the texts dealt with show the true skill of selection to prove a point. All of the quotations give a further understanding in context of Lewis's prose. If all textbooks were written with such skill and wit, there would not be the incredible resentment (myself included) of the price tag on most college text books.

Lewis's 1938 on Donne, published in SEVENTEENTH CENTURY STUDIES PUBLISHED IN SIR HERBERT GRIERSON has made him the heretic and central enemy of all Donne scholars and fans. Here he does not attack him but helps readers deal with Donne's metre. However, Lewis only gives five pages to Donne, and he was fond of saying that "Donne's place is that of a minor poet."

The reception of this book was fair, although the most resentment came from the academic circle. People accused Lewis of, as Sayer says in his biography, grossly oversimplifying by presenting only two classifications: drab and gold. Yvor Winters goes to the extreme when she says that "Mr. Lewis has simply not discovered what poetry is."

Of all the volumes in the series this still sells the most. Sayer notes in the aforementioned biography that "many Oxford tutors still warn their students that it is `unsound but brilliantly written.' Nevertheless, or perhaps partly because of this warning, it outsells all the other volumes in this series." While it does not enjoy the monumental place in criticism of THE ALLEGORY OF LOVE, which many would argue is Lewis's most significant piece of criticism, partly because of the radical ideas mentioned above, this work stands as one of the most brilliant and enjoyable survey books every written.

Commissioned as a volume in "The Oxford History of English Literature", "English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama", as it was originally titled, proved such tedium to write that Lewis took to referring to it by the acronym "OHEL". The sixteenth century ends as one of the great ages - arguably the greatest - of English literary genius, but it began dismally. Except in Scotland, where a vigorous Medieval tradition lived on, "authors seem to have forgotten the lessons which had been mastered in the Middle Ages and learned little in their stead. Their prose is clumsy, monotonous, garrulous; their verse either astonishingly tame and cold or, if it attempts to rise, the coarsest fustian. . . . Nothing is light, or tender, or fresh. All the authors write like elderly men."

This period of "bludgeon-work" gave way to something almost worse, "the Drab Age" - "earnest, heavy-handed, commonplace", a time when England did not shine and the peripheral light of Scotland guttered out.

The story would scarcely be worth telling, save for the happy ending, a true eucatastrophe: "Then, in the last quarter of the century, the unpredictable happens. With startling suddenness, we ascend. Fantasy, conceit, paradox, color, incantation return. Youth returns. The fine frenzies of ideal love and ideal war are readmitted. Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Hooker . . . display what is almost a new culture: that culture which was to last through most of the seventeenth century and enrich the very meanings of the words England and Aristocracy. Nothing in the earlier history of our period would have enabled the sharpest observer to foresee this transformation."

Had the scope of his labors not been set by his commission, Lewis would doubtless have preferred to skip the clumsy and drab, to delve into the riches of the Age of Gold. Still, despite his preferences, he was an apt choice to mine the less precious veins. Unlike many of his academic colleagues, who then as now regarded literature as merely a "job", Lewis read avidly in the most obscure corners. Little though he admired the early and drab writers, he was familiar with their work and could tease out virtues as well as point to flaws.

Three points about this history stand out as unexpected or significant. First is the fine opening chapter, "New Learning and New Ignorance", which contests the commonplace view that the medieval period was a vale of ignorance from which mankind was happily rescued by the Renaissance. That opinion is no longer prevalent in scholarly circles (where Lewis is now sometimes derided for expounding the conventional wisdom - much like accusing Shakespeare of writing in cliches!), but most general readers take it for granted. Lewis' presentation is one-sided, but it is a side that needs to be heard.

Second, Lewis devotes considerable space to Scotland, a territory absent from most of our literature classes. Though the Scots dialect is not easy to parse, Douglas and Dunbar and Lyndsay and their ilk are worthy of acquaintance.

Third - a slighter point than the preceding but interesting in its own right - there is Lewis' treatment of John Donne. As a young man, Lewis wrote a notorious essay on Donne, dispraising the quality of his love poetry and hinting that his vogue was due more to fashion than merit. For these heresies he became the stock villain of every introduction to Donne's work.

The "OHEL" volume takes a different tack. Lewis' appreciation of the "Songs and Sonnets" is warm and perceptive, with a useful disquisition on how to catch the rhythm of Donne's eccentric versification. It was not only, apparently, in matters of faith that Lewis was capable of casting off his youthful skepticism.

Within its genre - the comprehensive academic history - Lewis' effort is as good as a single mind and hand can produce. Similar tomes are nowadays parceled out chapter by chapter, gaining no doubt in narrow expertise but losing personality and perspective. Both are present in plenitude here.

One of the primary pleasures of reading literary criticism is to hear someone intelligent talk about books you both have read. This book, then, couldn't be better. Erudite, controversial, innovative--whether you approve of Lewis's opinions or not, they're always good reading. If you're like me, and haven't read many of the sixteenth-century works Lewis discusses, then this literary critical history will give you the related pleasure of hearing someone intelligent talk about . . . anything. Lewis could blow your mind and change your life if he wrote an essay on tying shoes; thankfully, he wrote instead on ideas underpinning the Western world.

In this volume, his work on poetry is especially good. Highlights include the stylistic acrobatics Lewis put himself through to avoid saying 100 times of Drab Age poetry: "I don't like it; you won't either; read something else." Cranky? Yes, but insightfully, entertainingly cranky. Then, when he actually turns proselytiser and suggests you read something--well, I'll admit this volume practically by itself has gotten me interested in early Scottish poetry and the great Elizabethans, not to mention equipped me (almost as an afterthought) with more prosodical knowledge than I received in any of my creative writing classes.

This book is good enough to read all by itself. If you have knowledge of the period, so much the better. Lewis has spoiled me as a literature grad student, permanently I hope; no other critic measures up to his combination of insight and memorable prose.