Indiana Books

One of the most astonishing and original works of phenomenology and continental philosophy to be written in many years! It should perhaps be read in tandem with David Abram's recent "The Spell of the Sensuous", another intensely original and ethical work of continental philosophy. Like Abram, Lingis is carrying the profoundly embodied and embedded insights of Maurice Merleau-Ponty into new and outrageously beautiful territory. These guys are exploring the ethically-charged landscapes that await us on the far side of post-modernism. Some of the most evocative philosophical prose I have ever read. In the space of a few years, these recent 2 books by Lingis and Abram are rescusitating the entire project of phenomenological inquiry.

It was my great privilege to read this book in manuscript form. Lingis already has a wide reputation as a master stylist and a unique philosophical personality. _The Imperative_ is his most systematic work yet, and the most reflective of his characteristic insights, which have up till now been dispersed among dozens of memorable essays and books.

The central thesis of the book is simple: the ethical imperative found in thinkers from Kant to Levinas is too narrowly focused on the realm of human interaction. Lingis argues that there are actually countless imperatives in the field of reality. In addition to describing the seductive imperative worked upon us by objects ("it looks delicious"; "it looks beautiful"), Lingis makes an original appeal to the work of Merleau-Ponty to show how a structuring imperative is already at work even in the most rudimentary forms of perception. In short, there is a new vision of Continental philosophy in this work, one that paves the way for a return to the things themselves after decades of textual-linguistic hegemony.

The names most often tossed about as the leading figures in American Continental thought tend to be _interpreters_, ace readers of Heidegger or Derrida who rarely attempt any speculative risks of their own. With this latest book, Lingis again proves himself a thinker of a higher caliber-- in fact, the most original writer in this tradition in the English-speaking world.

Prior to reading this I've always had an intense fascination with African Antelopes, particularly the Tommy(Thomson's Gazelle), Spring Bok, Impala, and Wildebeest. There is something so wondrous about their elegance, gentle beauty, and astounding grace, agility, and speed.

I've always wondered why I could never find ANYTHING pertaining to African antelopes, particularly Thomson's gazelle, without their presence being solely limited to food stock for roving predators. Literally, there are no PBS television specials or extensive research material on these wonderful creatures...

That is until I read, "In The Country of Gazelles." My goodness this book was the breath of fresh air that I longed for. Fritz R. Walther--unknowingly--wrote this book for me, I'm convinced. I love those speed racing little Tommies even more now. Walther, in his adoration for the antelopes, allows the reader to learn about an animal that everyone knows so little about. I've always wondered how, in the midst of numerous threats(predation being only one), these animals-gentle plant eaters-managed to survive, thrive, and proliferate, in the face of such gargantuan obstacles.

The end of the Thomson's gazelle installment, literally, brought a tear to my eye. Walther had so much respect and admiration for gazelles. It comes through in every word he writes. This makes me long for the day when I can take my own journey through the Seregeti and see a herd of Tommies for myself.

If you love Gazelles and tire of them spoken about in terms of predation...Then this is the book for you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

You would have to possess a heart and mind of stone to read this book and come away not only understanding gazelles much more deeply, but also falling in love with them. It is a fine gift to be able to both convey the factual nature of animals and their charm, and Fritz Walther has it. Walther is an accomplished and respected zoologist and ethologist, and fine illustrator and (if you read a little bit between the lines) a philosopher and poet as well.

Of all the field study/memoirs I've read this is my favorite. If you have a love of and interest in hoofed animals, you simply must own this book.

I have this book; it is a "must have" book for any one who was at ISSCH. I found it most helpful in "jogging" my memory. I was at ISSCH from 1958 -1962.

This book has been a great reference for me in may ways, especially for The Morton Memorial Class Reunion Web Site. It is an indexed listing of most all of the children admitted to the Home. From the very first orphans admitted in the late 1800's, on up to the children admitted in the late 1980's. It shows the name of the child, the county for which they came from, the date of admission along with the date of discharge. What is really helpful..is the fact that it shows the child's full name, along with the middle name. This is very helpful in locating individuals. I strongly encourage the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis, Indiana to update this book soon with the records of admissions of the children of the 90's...

I was given this book as a gift and at first I let it sit on my shelf and look pretty. But recently I began to make some of the recipes for friends and each one of them got rave reviews. The pictures are beautiful; the writing is superb and now I find that the recipes are outstanding. I am ordering a bunch to give as gifts for birthdays and when I am invited to someone's home. Buy it and ENJOY!
Ronnie Weston
Palm Harbor, Florida

I've noticed that there seem to be 2 kinds of cookbooks; those that sit on the shelf for many years in largely the same condition in which they were acquired, and those that are dog-eared and have certain food-stained pages with the corners turned down.

The same goes for narrative books intended to be read for the content of their story (whereas cookbooks should usually be more properly thought of as manuals). Again, two types - they either get read once and forgotten or read and then passed around or lent, often never to be seen again (in my experience).

Here's a cookbook that will receive the latter treatment on both counts. I owned this book for no more than a single day when a fellow cook absconded with it. Luckily, I've recovered the book. However, I've noticed that people pick it up for a cursory glance and then, distracted, sit down and begin pouring through it. In order to retain this book so that it can achieve dog-eared food-stained status at my own hand, I'll be giving copies of it away as gifts (as opposed to replacing my own copies as they vanish).

Whether you're new to Slow Food or not, you'll find the creativity evident in these dishes inspiring. If you already participate in any sort of Slow Food gathering, this book will be de rigueur.

While I'm partial to desserts (I must, must round up some Shagbark Hickory Syrup, p.34), the layout of the recipes restaurant by restaurant and chef by chef, a full course from each, does a superior job of emphasizing the regional elements of the foods. This is a terrific book, and the LaSalle Grill's Apple Fritters with Caramel Sauce are underway in our kitchen this very evening. That page (p.53) already has a post-it stuck to it, doubtless a presage to dog-earedness.

Darryl Jones captures Indiana's beauty like no one else. Jones has made several books filled with wonderful shots from all over Indiana, although he tends to focus on Southwestern Indiana hill country most of all. These are not all natures shots, like some of his other books. There are shots of small towns, grain silos, barns, the Colts, the Indy 500 and Conner Prairie.

Jones' work is paired with James Alexander Thom's essay on Indiana history, character and its possible future. Thom's writing is not just mindless boosterism, but rather a thoughtful commentary by a Hoosier who is in love with his state, warts and all. The essay is just as wonderful as the pictures, if not better!

I am considering this as a gift for a relative who moved out of state just to remind her of home and its unique character.

I give this one a grade of A+.

This is a fabulous book that truly depicts the down home feel of Indiana. As a life-long resident, I am able to reflect on the many places I have visited throughout the years. The photography was beautiful and made me proud of my midwest heritage. I first purchased this book for my daughter to take to her host family in Germany and have now purchased it for myself and for gifts.

a great book in the choose your own adventure/find your fate series. i enjoyed it!

Yet another in the "Find Your Fate" series, this book is entertaining in that it involves the reader in the storyline, and it gives the reader control of the story.

All I can say in incredible. If you're an IU fan you NEED this book.

Incredibly comprehensive, historically correct, and utterly fascinating telling of the history of Indiana University Basketball. I read this book cover to cover and even use it to look up different facts (like seeing if 45 points WAS the Assembly Hall shot clock record low point total).

If you are a fan of one of the most storied programs in NCAA history, the IU men's basketball team, this is as close to a must have as you can get.

This is a great work, covering every aspect of Khalkha Mongolian the novice to advanced learner will encounter. Each chapter includes explanatory notes on the grammar and Cyrillic orthography, a reading selection aimed at reinforcing the grammar of the chapter and a glossary of terms introduced in the reading selection. There is also a general glossary in the back which serves as a good beginner's reference dictionary as well. The index of suffixes and particles is what first made me pick out the book.

I have studied Mongolian informally and have encountered many suffixes for which I haven't been able to find clear descriptions elsewhere and have seen puzzling particle use that was also made clear in this text. For my specific needs, this book is clearly a 5/5 and worth the high price as I will refer to it as a reference continually.

This volume is not intended to be used as a self-study text for those new to Mongolian, but would serve well as a text for use with a tutor. For those who have studied Mongolian and are looking for greater mastery, a good reference or simply a review, this fills those needs well.

This is a great work, covering every aspect of Khalkha Mongolian the novice to advanced learner will encounter. Each chapter includes explanatory notes on the grammar and Cyrillic orthography, a reading selection aimed at reinforcing the grammar of the chapter and a glossary of terms introduced in the reading selection. There is also a general glossary in the back which serves as a good beginner's reference dictionary as well. The index of suffixes and particles is what first made me pick out the book.

I have studied Mongolian informally and have encountered many suffixes for which I haven't been able to find clear descriptions elsewhere and have seen puzzling particle use that was also made clear in this text. For my specific needs, this book is clearly a 5/5 and worth the high price as I will refer to it as a reference continually.

This volume is not intended to be used as a self-study text for those new to Mongolian, but would serve well as a text for use with a tutor. For those who have studied Mongolian and are looking for greater mastery, a good reference or simply a review, this fills those needs well.

A nice, heartwarming book that is short enough to read in a session or two yet contains some carefully crafted observations about the world from the perspective of young teens with whom we can all relate. The author certainly has some insight and wisdom to share, and does so in a wonderful way.

Ms. Finch has created three unforgettable characters that ring true of today's teenagers. A part of them is afraid of the unknown and seeks the security of the past, but another part of them is excited about experiencing the future. The author presents them honestly, with both endearing qualities and obnoxious flaws, allowing the reader to accept them or reject them in part or completely. The ambivalence the characters feel as they part at their high school graduation will draw upon our individual and collective memory in a bittersweet, heartbreaking way. For that reason, the characters come vividly to life and will remain with us long after we have finished reading the book.

This is an excellent book, illuminating both the life and intellectual development of Howe, one of this country's foremost literary critics, and the world of New York's literati much throughout the twentieth century. It gives insight not only into the thoughts and work of this serious, idealistic, and highly intelligent man, not only into his complicated, social, religious, and intellectual background, and his encounter with the new world, at times clashing against the values of his ancestors, but also into the riveting history of Jewish socialist ideas, stemming directly from the Pale, shaping the American political, intellectual landscape throughout the century. In the process, it reveals the widening split within the Jewish community, the potential of the developing "kulturkampf," and the winding path of the bitter struggle, still characterizing the polarized groups of the more traditional and the more radical academics of our time. Reading Alexander's work, one learns not only to appreciate Howe's vision and moral development but also to place them in the context of the history of Jewish intellectual thought in search for the Messianic age. One may even note some of the crucial commonalities between this search and that of a number of European Jewish literati in our century. Of course, Howe's paradoxical attachment to the "world of our fathers" was not an option there. As true children of the Enlightenment, some of the European intellectuals remained simply detached and alienated from the tradition; others became communists or "Catholic socialists," following the instructions of the Popular Front and struggling against the transgressions of Franco rather than paying attention to the threat against Jewish life and being in Nazi Germany. Howe was more complicated and more "Jewish" than that (of course, he also had both more freedom to be Jewish and later more time to learn about, and recognize the consequences, of the Holocaust). Yet the process of living in, and the difficulties of assimilating to, a hostile world in need of redemption show deep-seated commonalities between these groups. They also reveal the ramifications and the price of such process and such need. While aware of the power of these forces, Alexander treats his subject truthfully and sympathetically. And despite his critique of Howe's initial opposition to both US involvement in World War II and the creation of the State of Israel, Alexander remains true to his task to trace Howe's steps and penetrate his ideas and imagination as truthfully as possible. The result is that he paints his subject as a great tragic character, vulnerable, torn by contradictions, intelligent, insightful, and despite everything, "better than ourselves." This is an excellent book, beautifully written, moving, exhilarating, and dramatic.

Edward Alexander is not going to win the hagiography (lives of the saints) award of the year but he just might capture the critical biography prize because his tripartite study of the intellectual condominiums that co-mingled in the mind of Irving Howe is work of meticulous scholarship, felicitous writing style and a literate feistiness. The latter is perhaps the most endearing part of this absorbing book: Alexander has chosen to write a biography of a man whose political views, historical understanding and religious thinking (or lack thereof) he does not share. In fact, in a personal communication with his future biographer, Howe once referred to Alexander as my favorite reactionary. It is therefore a tribute to Alexander's skill th! at he has been able to reconstruct Howe's remarkable contributions to the American socio-political agenda and the Jewish component thereof while at the same time offering his, Alexander's, editorial strictures of Howe's political, literary and cultural myopias and tunnel vision. In his youth adolescence and early 20s - a period that coincided with the rise of Nazism and the outbreak of World War II - Irving Howe (né Horenstein) pledged his troth to the Trotskyite vision of the world, that is to say, an anti-Stalinist yet totalitarian form of communism which filtered the all political events through the doctrinaire lenses of the party line. The contrition which Howe expressed later in life about this part of his career could not be anticipated in the ferocious advocacy he advanced in his numerous articles in Labor Action about a version of history in which only the workers' causes and the class struggle had any validity. In this shameful and embarrassing period Howe was able! to analyze World War II as a unidimensional clash between! two capitalist systems. Alexander has gone through the painstaking and undoubtedly masochistic exercise of reading the articles that Howe wrote under his own name and under a pseudonym in order to document the vapidity of Howe's incredible ability to write about the most seismic events of the twentieth century - World War II and the Holocaust - without mentioning the uniqueness of Hitler's racial policies and, the targeting of Jews. There is no better example of ideological blindness filtering out unpleasant truths that might alter the rigidities of one's political beliefs. The ideological straitjacket which immobilized Howe's not inconsiderable intellectual potential was seen especially in the Partisan Review magazine crowd, among which Howe was a distinguished representative. The love affair which the largely Jewish coterie of Jewish intellectuals attached to that journal carried on with the American-English poet T.S. Eliot is a curious and archival example of the syndrome ! known as self-hate. Alexander notes with irony and some delectation the affection displayed by Howe and other Jewish intellectuals for a poet whose anti-Semitism was as unsubtle as his poetics was refined. Author Alexander also faults Howe for his inability in the late 1940s to register the importance of what Winston Churchill called an event of world history that would require two or three thousand years to conjure with - the creation of the State of Israel. For Howe and his ideological brethren Israel's re-birth was to be seen only under the rubric of fighting British imperialism. Even as late as 1982 when Howe was ready to celebrate Israel's creation, he made it a point to note that acceptance of the State did not imply any Zionist commitment. In his many digressions in this biography, Alexander rejects the use made by Howe and other (including this reviewer) of the term "Arab-Israeli conflict," as if it implied some kind of equalizing of responsibility. Says Ale! xander: "It's the Arab war against the Jews - period.&! quot; Alexander calls one of the chapters in his book The Request of Jewishness, by which he means Howe's slow and painful re-insertion into the Jewish orbit of history. In some ways it was predictable because Howe was a kind of Yiddish-speaking Marrano who despite heroic efforts to submerge his "parochial" heritage, found it bubbling to the surface in the soft cadences of the first language he spoke as a child in the Bronx and in the warmth he remembered in the image of his virtuous, hard working parents and the thousands of other simple Jewish immigrants who people the world of his youth. Later in life when he was reviewing a major book by a feminist critic, he conjured up the picture of his parents as an antidote to the rigidities of feminist theory. Howe's odyssey from Marxist ideologue to secular Jewish guru was neither smooth nor without its troughs and depressions. It began in the 1950s with his interest in editing Yiddish short stories and poetry, an exercise! in which he exhibited skill, sensitivity and sober judgment. It continued with Howe's entry into the university world, where, despite the absence of a Ph.D. in English literature and in a discipline notoriously prejudiced against Jewish scholars he achieved more than a modicum of success teaching at Brandeis, Stanford and Hunter College of the City of New York. The early 1960s was probably the turning point in terms of Howe's Jewish loyalties, as he himself hinted in his 1982 autobiography. Alexander details the controversy which swirled over Howe because of his unhappiness with Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, a book which first appeared in serial form in The New Yorker. Howe organized a forum under the banner of his journal Dissent, during which the book was dissected asnd repudiated. Critics later argued that Howe had led a lynch mob against Arendt's book - a description which Howe and his supporters vigorously denied. By 1976, the bicentennial of the American revol! ution, Howe had come full circle with the publication of hi! s most famous book - World of Our Fathers. Alexander wryly observers that in 1940 none of the Partisan Review crowd could ever have conceived that their union-organizing, Trotskyite polemicist cum literary critic, would produce an affectionate, absorbing and best-selling volume about the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants who had come to New York City beginning with the turn of the century. In publishing this extraordinary document Howe digested a library of Yiddish books, memoirs, letters, newspapers and other archival materials in order to tell his story and to let the participants of his drama speak out to history. Alexander recognizes the incisiveness of Howe's reconstruction of the Jewish immigrant community, its cultural riches and linguistic treasures. But he also advertises the book's weaknesses - its preoccupation with secular Jewishness at the expense of its religious dimensions. Howe's main argument was that Jews came to American for non ideological reaso! ns - to save themselves from persecution at worst and to make a better living for their families at best. Alexander does not contest this point but observes that there were thousand of other Jews who fled Czarist Russia and went to Palestine for ideological reasons. In the last decade of his life, before he was felled by illness Irving Howe injected himself in numerous political and literary skirmishes and Alexander is there giving us a lively play-by-play account of the victories, defeats and draws. Some of Howe's best critical works pivoted around the claims of the new university curricula where the books of "dead white males" are now denounced as holdovers from a despised canon. Howe would have none of this nonsense. Perhaps the best of Howe's writing was Holocaust memoirs and the difficulty of establishing esthetic criteria for a literature aages@interlog.comthat had no precedents and which "succeeded only when it failed." If there are any faults in A! lexander's stimulating biography they flow from a surfeit o! f its virtues. In an effort to be thorough Alexander has read virtually everything that Howe wrote and what others wrote about Howe. However, this reviewer found the parts about Howe's struggle with defining his Jewish of much greater interest than those parts dealing with Howe's interest in the esoterica of literary criticism, American ethnic politics, black writing and the American novel. Others will undoubtedly disagree. -30-