Iowa Books

They are depressing pictures. definitely if you were to take color photos in the spring and summer there would be a much different mood. it conveys sadness for a corner of the world which seems to be slowly dying away. the pictures really got at the core of what it means to be iowan, the snow and cold that you just deal with, the openess-- land that goes on forever with nothing hidden, the partying and drinking on one hand and the amish on the other, the humility and lack of pretense of the people.

Full disclosure: I am not qualified to write this review. I haven't really, thoughtfully perused the book yet...

Opposing argument: ...but the damn thing's been sitting on my coffee table since Christmas, and if it had looked more engaging to me when my husband (a devout Hawkeye) flipped through it after he unwrapped it, I'd have torn through that mofo three weeks ago.

I hate, hate, hate to say this about the work of someone from the clean, pure state of Iowa. But, the images struck me as depressing. And maybe that's the point! It's art, right? But then, plenty of National Geographic photos are bleak in nature without making you want to die a faster death.

My husband's only words: This cost 27 dollars? It seems a tad thin for 27 dollars.

Danny Wilcox Frazier's book of photographs, Driftless, is just that. The reportage/documentary style body of images is an aimless collection of photographs tethered together by the vague theme of "Iowa." Some are excellent, many are poor. There are many pictures that capture an utterly indecisive moment, causing one to wonder what its purpose in the book is. Nothing in the volume totally blew me away. Furthermore, the quality of the printing feels flimsy and the layout, with a combination of full bleed two-page spreads and smaller pictures vertically off-set on opposite pages, leaves a lot to be desired.

The sugar-coated, romanticized, or one dimensional view of "Middle-America" would have us believe that Iowa is only a land of covered bridges, fields of dreams, or over weight mall moms casting their red state ballots. But the world where Danny Wilcox Frazier lives is the real deal, and he explores it deeply with his camera in ways that are never sentimental and trite or judgemental and cruel. He finds stunning beauty and intrigue in the daily lives of real Iowans around him.

This is the most powerful collection of photography released in 2007.

Fine for undergraduates but of little use to the orthopaedic trainee. Better off with one of the Thieme series.

This is a great, small book that can be used for quick reference when working with orthopedic patients. The pictures are small but it is not meant as a true anatomical atlas. It includes some nice x-rays, plenty of common pathological conditions and a few quick tests.

It is frustrating and sad to see Dr. Netter's art being miniaturized.
The book should be sold together with a microscope.

My order arrived very quickly and in perfect condition. I will do business with this seller again

Waldner has a good and evocative ear, slinging moon, June, spoon rhymes and assonances around with grace and ease. Perhaps she has become too enraptured by her facility with language, because I felt that there was nothing to most of these poems apart from the wordplay. The occasional emotional insight was not enough for me to enjoy this book as a whole.

Liz Waldner, A Point Is That Which Has No Part (University of Iowa, 2000)

After my last jaunt into the land of Liz Waldner, I was looking her work up on the Internet to research the review, and most of what I was finding on line seemed quite superior to the work in the volume I'd just completed. So I gave her another shot, and what came out of the library system's game of chance was this collection of prose with a few poems scattered through. While much of the work turns on the same punning as that in Etym(bi)ology, there are points in the book where it all comes together, and what you get is the subtle wit of Shakespeare rather than the meat-cleaver punning of a tabloid headline writer. While those points are few and far between, their sublimity is not to be missed.

Unfortunately, much of the rest has the same feel as did the newer collection; while the overtly political aspect that made Etym(bi)ology so noxious is mostly absent here (Waldner concerns herself more with the politics of interpersonal relationships), the stream-of-consciousness feel that simultaneously says "this poet has never revised a poem in her life" and "this is performance art/slam work, not poetry" is still all too much in evidence. I have little doubt these pieces perform admirably at readings, but on the page, they often read as strings of disconnected thoughts begging for being shaped into poems. **

I am a simple man. I like ideas, but can't always grasp them if put forward in complex form. Liz Waldner is clearly off-the-charts smart. I don't always understand what she's saying (I don't understand most poetry I read), but when I get it, it is stunning. Nature, philosophy, math, feelings, sex all bounce off one another in this book. Waldner is able to reveal hidden relationships, swoop from the theoretic mathematical level to the sublime and stick something sexual in between. That is, in the opinion of this simple man, really extraordinary. Well worth the money -- if you like large ideas or poetry or daring attempts, this is the stuff. I look forward to more from Liz Waldner.

Do yourself a favor and buy this book. I mean this in the same way as "I did myself a favor and had a massage". It is easy to love and be in love with this author. She strips edifices without pounding the table. She undresses, dresses and then re-dresses subjects with grace inflicting no harm but allowing the reader to walk away with a new appreciation of the complexity of the most simple of things. I object to the description above of Ms. Waldner as a "smarty pants" because that implies that she gets off as smarter than the reader. I don't get that sense at all. She could easily change her poetry with very few word changes to show life as brutish and short. But her writing is lovely, even loving because, at least in part, it is easy to feel like one is knocking around with a pal. It is paradoxical that such writing can unearth such passionate lines. The other part I like about this book is the inner sanctum one gets near. I became privvy to girl talk and it feels both tingly and welcoming yet foreign. To say it another way somtimes I felt I was seeing something private, unashamedly feminine.But feminine undefined by masculine, just feminine. The last thing I noticed about this writing is how self aware the author is of her own skill. Although at first I did not understand the title, I now see that the simplicity of the geometry it takes it's name from, Euclid's Geometry, can get increasingly complex with each hypothesis. Her writing is the same, seemingly simple insights woven into an elegant whole. A unique voice.I hope Liz Waldner becomes our poet laureate. We need her.

Good content for the Middle West. My book club will read for January 08.

In the mid-'40s, Barbara Scot's father abandoned his wife and two children and ran off with another woman, leaving behind a mortgaged farm and a pile of debts. He committed suicide in 1950, but his wife Katherine continued to live in the small Iowa town and to attend the Presbyterian Church that was witness to her shame. Years later, Scot returns to the town, to her grandfather's house, and to the farm that her mother defended, to try to understand the truth. What compelled her mother to remain? What compelled her father to flee? What combination of church and land loyalty and family heritage created this singularly American tragedy?

As she answers these poignant questions, Scot also movingly discovers a real father: her uncle Jim, who kept her safe and taught her to love nature and the world. Scot's story reminds us that the truth is never simple, and that we are all woven into an intricate web that stretches back into time and deep into community and culture. If you're looking for a book to help you understand a father's abandonment, a mother's determination, and the power of place, this story offers some important insights.

by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for, and about women

This book is not my usual genre, but thought I'd stretch a bit. A few chapters in, I felt that I should not be reading Barbara's private diary. Several chapters later I was wondering WHY I was reading Barbara's private diary. Several more chapters in, I was wondering why Barbara felt we all should be reading her private diary. I am confident that Barbara got more out of writing this book than I got out of reading it.

While I was aware that this was a memoir, my assumption was that something interesting must have happened to the author, or her immediate family, or her friends, or her neighbors, or her not so immediate family, or ANYONE! But that was not the case. While Barbara does a very good job of recalling various parts of her childhood, the reader is not really provided any reason to care about any of the characters. Unless you grew up in the Midwest, or were divorced once or twice, or had a parent die young or commit or attempt suicide, there was no real "hook," no connection to the author or her life. We don't really learn anything or take anything away from this book, nor do we learn that the author learned anything but a few missing facts about her past. We don't get any inkling of how that information and/or revelations will benefit her or the reader.

Despite her inclusion of geographic maps and genealogical family trees I had no idea who was related to whom, nor which generation was involved with which other generation. I'm sure it all made sense to her extended families, but to the moderately engaged reader it was very disjointed.

Though this volume was self-absorbed and narrow, Barbara's other volumes may be worth a read assuming that she has an actual story to tell in them.

i thoroughly enjoyed this book. i am not an expert critic, but i found myself wanting to go"home" again after reading her book. very nostalgic and bittersweet.

the book came some what handy, but I would have like more information than it gave. for example what drugs were used to treat the animals, or the difinative host and intermidiate host.

Miss Reith is referring to the 6th edition not the 5th. The 5th edition is still the premier reference for any parasitology student. Unfortunately the 6th edition and later editions were edited, diluted and reformatted to become a nice fecal collector used to house train a pet. Useless is a kinder description. Find, buy any edition before the 6th!

I was surprised at Dr.? Reith's review of this book. Contrary to what Reith affirms, the book IS divided into host sections, al least for the parasites diagnosed by fecal examination; actually, there are 28 pages and 55 photographs devoted to dogs and cats, 16 pages and 32 photographs devoted to ruminants, etc. Parasites of the urinary tract, genital tracts, or skin are in a separate chapter, as are blood parasites and arthropods. This does not bother me terribly. I wish Reith had mentioned the "very common parasites" that are not included; I have not missed any yet of the common ones in a veterinary practice. I have a fairly extensive collection of parasitology diagnosis books and, for the variety and/or quality of the photos, this is still the best. I only wish that some of the photos were in color but I am not sure I could afford it. I still recommend it very strongly to my students of Veterinary Parasitology and to veterinary practitioners.

The features that made the 5th edition so helpful as a reference, like separating the book into sections according to the type of host (ie: dog, sheep, horse, rodent), and showing photos of the parasites that commonly are found in or on that host, have been removed. Additionally, some very common parasites are not even included in this 6th edition! Rather than a good reference book, it has now been reduced to somewhat of a primer on parasitology, one that introduces you to 'types' of parasites, rather than one that actually enables you to recognize characteristics of one parasite that distinguish it from another, similar parasite so that you can specifically identify it. This book is no longer useful, as the previous edition was, for reference work. I do not recommend it.

"APOLLYON is the story of one man's struggle with himself, his parents, and particularly with his traumatic experiences in Vietnam. The lives and psyches of all Vietnam veterans are distilled in his own experiences there..." Norman Sage, Editor

I just recently sorted all the books I've recieved from friends, publishers and agents. At the bottom of the pile was, Apollyon. I had some free time so I started to read it. Here is my review. It is obvious Mr. Stein needs to work on his character development. He also needs to work on his writing style. Both are very weak. But most important, he needs to do more research. It's apparent he's not that knowledgeable on the subjects he writes about. This book is dated 1985, I don't know if Mr. Stein is still writing or not. But if he is, I hope he has improved since Apollyon.

My family and I have read this first novel over and over, and we love it. While it is apparently total fiction, it smacks of something that could happen. Actually, just a year or three ago, when that man crashed his small airplane next to the White House, we all thought APOLLYON: A Novel was coming true.

This collection of poetry, essays, and short stories by registered nurses has moved, inspired, and encouraged nurses here in the US and Canada and overseas. Many nurses, after reading this collection, have contacted me to say how these poems and stories reflect what they think and feel as they themselves are working with patients: the joys and moments of transcendance as well as the fears and frustrations. Nurses from all walks of healhcare--among them ICU nurses, homecare nurses, Hospice Nurses, OB/GYN nurses, Nursing Home nurses, office nurses--find words here that mirror what they feel during those amazing moments, the ones between the heartbeats, when they are standing by a patient's side. Death and dying are part of a nurse's day, just as surely as birth, healing, and grace are. These works speak of all aspects of caregiving, from the nurse's unique vantage point. Now in it's fourth printing, Between the Heartbeats is being translated into Japanese and a second, all-new volume is currently being assembled, a companion piece to the original volume offered here. As Frances Biley said in her review of Heartbeats in Nursing Times (3/20/96) "This book is essential. I dare you to read 'NICU' by Dana Schuster and not be moved. Beg, steal or borrow this book; if that fails, buy it."

As a nurse, when I purchased this book, I thought I would find some beautiful poetry about the profession of nursing and the art of caring. Instead, I found what I think may be the problem with nurses. As I read this book, I am struck with what appears to be repressed hostility and depression by these writers. Some of the poetry is morbid. And we wonder why there are nursing shortages?

Superb text for teaching creative approaches to caregiving through literature to nurses and other caregivers. I had the honor of using the book as a text book this past semester at Penn State University, Harrisburg, PA. The course explored the literature of nurses as well as traditional literature. The goal of this exploration was to redefine caring, to create new ways to teach preventive health care and nurturance, and to sensitively encourage caregivers to own their responsibility to intellectualize and write from their unique vantage point as observers of pain. Numerous and various clinical scenarios were available through the creative writing in BETWEEN THE HEARTBEATS and provided an opportunity to look at clinical situations with a refreshing perspective. My co-editor, Cortney Davis, and I have conducted many workshops but this was my first opportunity to use the book as a text for a three credit course. As might be guessed, I was personnally pleased that the book served so well as a text. Best wishes to any of you who may want to try it in your classroom.

Judy Schaefer, RNC, MA

In the Base-Superstructure debate that has been raging for a while, and still is, within modern Marxism, GA Cohen's Defense of Karl Marx's Theory of History is one of the more powerful blows struck and deserves to be read.

Cohen is a supporter of "the primary of productive forces" (the word primacy here being used to avoid the label of being a determinist or vulgar marxist) and argues to uphold the base-superstructure metaphor which Marx set forth in the 1859 preface to the Contribution to Political Economy. In a nutshell, the metaphor basically said that the base of all society is the economic structure, where everything else (legal and political institutions, for example) rise as a superstructure on this base. The implication is that the most influential thing in society is indeed our economic system. The further implication here, and surely what Marx was trying to say, is that capitalism is the defining aspect of everything and essentially the primarily determining entity in society.

GA Cohen upholds this metaphor by first scouring the 1859 preface, then other Marx works and finally arguing for the legitimacy of the "primary of productive forces" himself. His arguments are concise and powerful. If you are a serious student of Marxism, the read is basically mandatory and helps break the illusion that there is really one theory of Marxism and thats it. Cohen's interpertation of Marx tends to be the one that most people identify Marx with themselves and also tends to paint Marxism as cold and determinist (despite his attempts to keep away from the dreaded title).

However, if you are going to read this, be sure to read Althusser, Williams and Lukacs. These are the other three major points on the debate and reading them will give you a rounded perspective on the entire thing. I tend not to agree with Cohen (though that doesn't show in my rating) and think that if you read a lot of Marx, you can see he himself differing from Cohen. The famous 11th statement in his Thesis of Feurbach sums it all up:

"The philosophers have only interperted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."

Cohen's views on the economic base's primacy doesn't leave much room for this statement to be anything other than a hollow statement.

Cohen's classic book is a defense of the Second International thesis that the productive forces (roughly technology and labor power) are the "motive forces" of history. In the first version of the book this idea, widely disputed among Marxists, was intended to show that socialism was the necessary culmination of a history of increasing development of the productive forces. This is a difficult thesis to maintain today, and indeed in more recent work, some of which is embodied in the second edition of the book, Cohen retracts it, suggesting only that the development of the productive forces makes socialism possible. (Subsequently he seems to have backpedaled even on this.) The implications of the weakening of historical materialism (along with a sharp critique of Cohen's original view, one that he now largely accepts) were offered by Wright, Levine, and Sober in their Reconstructing Marxism, an essential companion piece to Cohen's book. They essentially involve taking apart the optimistic claims that Marxism offers an integrated scientifically based program of social change that inspires optimism about progress towards socialism. Cohen's main thesis, as an interpretation of Marx and as a _defense_ of Marx, seems much less plausible than, for example, the alternative "class struggle" interpretations of historical materialism urged, for example, by Robert Brenner or (formerly) Richard Miller in his Analyzing Marx.

Nonetheless, Cohen's book remains a model of clarity, depth, and ruthlessly honest exposition that shows up the places where it runs into problems. It contains must that is salvageable, not least an interpretation of what it is for the economic to be "primary" in terms of a theory of functional explanation, on which the ideological superstructure and the state are explained in part in terms of their functionality for the economic base, and revolutionary social change due to "fettering" of the productive forces understood in terms of dysfunctionality. People who like their Marx fuzzy and obscure enough to avoid intelligible criticism (Althusserians, for example) have never liked this book, but if Marxism _as a theory_ has a future in the wake of collapse of the Marxism _as a movement_, Cohen here set the standard for what that theory should look like in procedure and rigor if not necessarily in its substanative claims. Serious study of Marx's theory of history starts here.

This book has some virtues, in terms of clarity of exposition, but as a reading of Marx it leaves a lot to be desired. Like Jon Elster's attempts of making (non)sense of Marx that followed it, this text reads into Marx a set of assumptions taken for granted within neoclassical economics but entirely foreign to Marx's work. If you want to see how Marx and Marxism measure up to the unquestionable and seemingly unthinkable criteria of bourgeois thought, read this. But if you want to understand Marx, read Althusser. 'For Marx' is a good place to start, but be sure to read the essays collected in 'The Humanist Controversy' and 'Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists' too, not to mention 'Reading Capital' and 'Machiavelli and Us' ... Cohen may be easier to read, but only because Cohen doesn't challenge any of the ideology of capitalism that is as invisible to most people as water is to the fish that swim in it.

I have had to read this book for the English class and I must say that it is not bad. For me it was not easy to understand and so I was tired to read it. But I think that it was a good choice to read this book in class because you can learn much about the Revolution in Russia but also a lot about tyranny.

For all people who want to inform themselves about socialism and communism in very abstract way. Personally I prefer to treat an issue in a realistic way, and I think the oppinions and feelings of the situations that Orwell describes would better be understood if he had used human characters.

FINE

I expected a more "animal rights" version of why we should all be vegetarians. In fact, this is a very balanced explanation of how we *used to* take better care of our farm animals == they were practically under the same roof as us; there was an unwritten contract between us and the animals, that if we took care of them, they would "take care of us." but now that "animal husbandry" has become "animal science" -- and animals are no longer under our roof, this "contract" is no longer a fair contract: there is benefit for only the human and not the animal.

Bernard Rollin gives both the meat eater and the vegetarian a lot to think about with this book. I highly recommend it for all.

After hearing the author of Furious Cooking speak,my feelings on this book are very strong. The poems are very wild, follow no form or idea, and use obscene text and language for shock value. Some poems were good, but most were just dissapointing.

I am astonished by the fearless talent this book has between its pages. The poems jump off the pages and grab my heart. I would recommend Ms. Seaton's books to anybody looking for the best poetry of this century.

I was feeling depressed about the state of American poetry, then started reading this book. Seaton's blend of humor, intensity, music, word-play and compelling narrative is a wake-up call to the hushed and mournful monotone-makers on the one hand, and to affectedly disengaged language-poetry offspring on the other.