Illinois Books

John Van Sant, a professor of Japanese History at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, has written an approachable and engaging look back at some of the very first Japanese travelers to the United States in the mid to late 1800s.

For the student of Asian-American History or Early Modern Asian Japanese History, Pacific Pioneers, is an invaluable reference that bridges the gap between the broad view of early Japan-U.S. interaction and the Japanese political reaction to it. Many of the popular books that deal with this area of history are concerned with its larger events such as the Perry and Iwakura Missions.

Van Sant's book is about individuals who came to a foreign land, and were instrumental in defining how the Western world viewed a recently opened island nation. Van Sant's scholarship is through and compiles a great deal of information that is often lost in the larger events of the period. Even those who aren't interested in Asian or Asian-American History can appreciate the people Van Sant has researched for their sense of wonder and discovery as some of the first to leave their homeland, which was closed off to nearly all foreign intercourse for over 200 years.

I find the book especially engaging because it examines how Americans reacted to their foreign visitors during a time when man of today's stereotypes about the Japanese culture had not been developed. Also, by examining the way in which the New World was viewed by the Japanese visitors, the reader can see how foreigners reacted to the Western world and found their culture to be exotic, captivating, and at times, frightening. The book is a revealing and honest look at how different cultures are viewed by people that were truly foreign to them.

A book I recommend for anyone who is interested in history on a very personal and revealing level.

This is a truly absorbing read. Author John Van Sant casts light on a little-explored corner of American history about which, I'm willing to bet, few readers have any knowledge at all. Some may be vaguely aware that a handful of shipwrecked Japanese sailors fetched up on American shores in the first half of the nineteenth century or that large Japanese embassies toured this country in 1860 and 1871-72. But how many know that scores of Japanese students were living in such an unlikely place as New Brunswick, New Jersey in the late 1860s and 1870s, studying about American institutions as well as "big guns" and "big ships." Or that several young Japanese aristocrats--including a later titan of Meiji Japan--were holed up in a utopian commune, under the watchful eye of an eccentric guru, doing housework and tending grapevines? Or that other countrymen and women of less elevated status, fleeing worsening economic conditions back home, were scraping out a bare living in Hawaii and northern California?

In clear economic prose, thankfully free of academic jargon, Van Sant explores each of these expatriate communities in some depth. (Oddly enough, the author makes no mention whatsoever of the troupes of Japanese entertainers criss-crossing the country during this same period. Even Mark Twain complained bitterly in 1867 about having to compete with a company of Japanese acrobats for an audience.) He also does the historical record a considerable service by freeing some of these pioneers--the "mysterious" Wakamatsu Colony of Gold Hill, California being a prime example--from an encrustation of myth. If I have any quibble at all with Pacific Pioneers, it is that it is too short. Highly recommended!

I think that Dr Van Sant tells a compelling tale of the first wave of Japanese settlers who came to the United States and Hawaii. This book is for anybody who is interested in Asian American History. It should be the first book cracked open for any student who signs up to take any Asian studies class, either in the undergraduate or post-graduate world. I loved it.

For students of French or European history this book by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie is a must read! This author is truly the most brilliant French historian. I recommend anything by Ladurie without reservation.

In Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's The Peasants of Languedoc the message and the [historical] method are inseparable. The sources used to explore rural life in the French province of Languedoc (today Languedoc-Roussillon), at times, take a more prominent role in the narrative than the peasant workers and tenant farmers. Its central theme examines the "Malthusian dilemma of a traditional agrarian society incapable, over the long run, of preserving a balance between population and food production." (x) Le Roy Ladurie employs a mélange of economic, demographic, social, meteorological, political, religious, psychological analysis to present in a histoire totale that the fluctuations within the agrarian cycle cannot be explained by only focusing on economic determinants. Societal and weather-related factors influenced economic choices, and the economy shaped demographic and religious arrangements.

Though Le Roy Ladurie primarily focuses his study on the agrarian cycle of Languedoc's economy stretching from 1500 to 1750, he, nevertheless, presents a load of comparative evidence from the fifteenth and prior centuries, and he is not shy about interpreting early modern decisions through twentieth century psychological principles. He divides the cycle into four phases: liftoff, rise, maturity, and decline. During the late medieval period, Languedoc's population suffered from famine and dearth, poor harvests, undernourishment, all of which made the onset of the Black Death of 1348 even more devastating. The late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries experienced expansion. Harvests rebounded, proper nutrition increased population, precious metal boosted monetary circulation, and urban areas grew. Sixteenth-century agricultural production, however, did not keep pace with population growth. The conditions set in motion, what Le Roy Ladurie termed, pauperization, which entailed reduced real wages and confining more people to smaller plots of land. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, an increase in land rents, higher taxes to the state, and a reinvigorated Catholic Church effort to collect the tithe "ate into the agricultural producer's income." (p. 215) The gross product also rose during this period, just not enough to keep pace with population and rent increases. A long period of recession marked the latter part of the century. Aggregate agriculture declined, taxation continued upward, and the population, for the first time in two centuries, began to decline because of joblessness, undernourishment, epidemics, and emigration. The beginning of the eighteenth century witnessed an economic resurgence in Languedoc, featuring increased wine production, diversified crops, a stable population growth, and declining mortality rates. In this environment, despite the continuance of land subdivision, pauperization vanished. The rise in earnings per hectare increased farmers' income and spread the earnings among more tenants.

The eighteenth-century economic revival owed as much to changes in personal and social behavior as it did to economic determinants. To Le Roy Ladurie's understanding, "the economy stagnated, society remained intractable, and population...retreated, because society, population, and the economy lacked the progressive technology of true growth." (p. 302) Languedoc's inability to adjust to economic downturns "was the fruit of a whole series of cultural stumbling blocks." (p. 298) To this end, Le Roy Ladurie identified the first cultural culprit as religious "fanaticism." To him it seemed that "the salvation of souls was more important than the improvement of techniques." (p. 298) The author disdains such dogmatism. However, he also acknowledges the late sixteenth-century violence between Huguenots and Catholic advanced two important social demands--redistribution of church land and reform of the tithe. He also credits religious tensions with aiding the abatement of the second cultural stumbling block to true economic growth: illiteracy. Early on in the French Reformation, with the Calvinists' emphasis on reading the Bible, a Languedocian's [in]ability to read helped determine his/her religious affiliation. As the conflicts persisted, literacy became a priority for both religious camps. Le Roy Ladurie presents the case of the rural parish Aniane, whose rate of illiteracy among its political council members (measured in the number members capable of signing their names) reduced from circa 50 percent (1570-1625) to "practically zero" by the beginning of the eighteenth century. Similar results in the province were due to the Protestant schools and perseverance of the Catholic clergy.

One of the more brilliant aspects, therefore, of The Peasants of Languedoc is its capacity to fault societal pressures for impeding economic recovery and to credit societal changes for aiding upturns. Le Roy Ladurie argues that the transformations in wine growing, manufacturing, and competent farm management--leading forces in the economic surge--followed the educational and religious modifications in the province. As religious fanaticism tempered and basic education became more widespread (at least in more urban areas), behaviors changed. "The progress of elementary instruction was inseparable...from a certain psychological transfiguration and a general improvement in behavior." (p. 307) He points to the decrease in violent incidents and the rise in cultural appreciation. Urban indifference effected some changes in the surrounding neighborhoods. Not only does Le Roy Ladurie present an agrarian cycle from 1500 to 1750, but also a societal and psychological evolution of the Languedocians during the same period. The economic turnabout of the eighteenth century resulted from "the educated and competent, practical-minded, composed individuals" taking responsibility for economic growth. (p. 309)

Le Roy Ladurie's analysis contains an evident bias for secularism. To the spiritual belief systems of the examined period, he takes a hostile view. One reason for the eighteenth-century turnabout was that Languedocian Protestants "were cured of their fanaticism" and focused on "conformity with their ancient and profitable vocation of secular asceticism." (p. 310) The Church's land holdings and tithe collection siphoned off needed capital. To satanic beliefs he attaches pejorative labels such as "superstitions," "epidemics," "forms of the disease," "irrational," and "primitive," as opposed to the "light of reason and the modern conception of man."

To affirm his biases Le Roy Ladurie brings an Annales-inspired interdisciplinary arsenal of primary sources and analysis to support claims. His sources consists of land tax registers, tithe accounts, hearth lists, and records of weather patterns, wages, prices, land grants, interest rates, and profits. To the source materials, Le Roy Ladurie applies critical economic, social, psychological, and anthropological analysis. The employment of these intellectual instruments provides him many solid (and some less solid) foundations for his assumptions. The book as a whole advocates for further attempts to present histoires totales. In addition, Le Roy Ladurie's use of such a broad array of knowledge bases gives way to a twentieth century reading of centuries-old events. Throughout the book he freely dispenses suggestions concerning what the landowners, state officials, clergymen, and peasants should have done.

The Peasants of Languedoc provides an inspiring model for the use of interdisciplinary sources and analysis in the construction of historical narrative. The methodology widens the historian's lens and provides several approaches to corroborate argumentation. It can also, however, furnish one with a false sense of proficiency in areas beyond one's intellectual capacity. The temptation to "overreach" with one's knowledge base must be kept in check. After reading Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's book, the thought of writing a history without considering evidence from other intellectual disciplines seems untenable and unappealing.

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, the author of "The Peasants of Languedoc," is a French historian whose works have had considerable exposure in English. The fascinating "Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error" (and alternate titles; 1975, translation 1978) may be the best-known of his works, as well as the most controversial among historians, based as it is on village gossip recorded by Inquisitors. Perhaps more representative are detailed studies of a popular demonstration / riot in "Carnival in Romans" ("Le Carnaval de Romans," 1979), and of folktale themes as transmitted in popular and literary versions from the south of France, in "Love, Death and Money in the Pays D'Oc" ("L'argent, l'amour et la mort en pays d'Oc," 1980), in which social stresses and personal anxieties come together.

Underlying much of this production, however, and perhaps giving Ladurie the confidence to interpret the notoriously difficult inquisitorial records, is this less-inspiring sounding early work, "Les Paysans de Languedoc" of 1966, here translated under an equally plain and literal title, which appeared in English only three years after the original French edition. In any case, it clearly underlies his later investigations of provincial culture and society.

This is a sophisticated analysis of primarily economic records from one of the traditional provinces of southern France, covering mainly the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It deals with the basics of ordinary life -- production, consumption, property, and taxes, and how they interacted. There are interesting confirmations of what can go wrong when people act without much guidance from economic theory in determining self-interest. For example, wide-spread cutting of wages in a time of rising prices reduced income and purchases, ultimately putting meat beyond the reach of most consumers. This was a catastrophe for some of the same employers, who were cattle-raisers (or owners of grazing land) with a diminishing market. (If I understand Ladurie's tables and charts correctly -- and this involves some interpretation on the part of a non-professional -- the typical response to their falling profits was to cut wages again, again reducing the cash in circulation, and reinforcing the cycle in a time when markets for most goods, especially perishable ones, were strictly local.)

It is definitely not light reading, but Ladurie is not above adding characterizations (such as "tight-fisted fellows") to otherwise anonymous groups of property-owners and employers, sacrificing a little of the appearance of objectivity for the sake of human interest. Generally speaking, Ladurie draws such positions from the hard data, and the attentive reader may well reach the same conclusion; I remain happier about the practice from a literary point of view than an historical one.

"Peasants of Languedoc" represents a major move toward understanding the history of people left out of official histories, although the original description as "total history" is rather misleading. Taken together with Ladurie's later cultural studies, however, it does mark a considerable advance.

Anyone who wishes to be considered a serious student of systematics and biodiversity should own and read this book. Many of the philosophical ideas are as fresh today as they were 40 years ago when Hennig's 1950 German masterpiece was updated and translated into English. This book changed everything about systematics and, for that matter, evolution. Phylogenies are now the backbone of much evolutionary research and the only reason that they are is due to the triumph of Phylogenetics.

This is the founding work for cladistic theory (which Hennig called phylogenetic systematics, hence the title). Cladistics has become so pervasive in biology and paleontology that this work should be considered mandatory reading for people employed in or seriously interested in either field.

Basically, cladistics is a method of determining hierarchical evolutionary relationships based on the transformation of morphological (now includes genetic) characters of organisms (plants, animals, etc.). Hennig called these transformed characters "apomorphic characters". Using these characters for a group of species, a cladistic analysis is performed.

While cladistic analysis is a complicated process, at its most fundamental level it is an analysis based on the number of these characters transformed between species. The results allow a "tree of descent" to be worked out that gives (in a broad sense) the relative evolutionary relationships of a set of organisms.

Hennig touches only briefly on the actual process. This book is much more about the theories that underly cladistics than about the actual practice of it.

While several previous workers had many of the ideas espoused by Hennig, he was the first to synthesize these ideas and (adding elements of his own) to form what is now cladistics. This area of study has grown and changed over the four decades since Hennig's work was translated into English and began to receive broad attention by the scientific community. Thus, many of the ideas in this book are expressed in a more primitive fashion than they are currently, having in the interim been developed by a number of later workers. The book, however, is still vital reading for understanding cladistics, since it is the basis of all subsequent work on the subject.

A translation of the Hennig's original ideas about the science of systematics... One of the most well built set of ideas to help us to understand the evolution of living organisms. A methodological framework to test hypotheses about the evolutionary history of species under a darwininian perspective and a popperian logic.The most robust, elegant and "parsimonious" statement about what homology really means...

Mr.Irving has had some wonderful books in the past,but "Places of Grace"is not only his finest,but is the best collection of landscapes i've seen in a long time!This book is a must for anyone interested in the finest of landscape photography!

A very well composed book featuring fabulous photographs with vivid colors and composition- enjoyable page after page. Books like this succeed for me when I desire to visit these locations. Well done!

Good production values overall make this a nice addition to other landscape photography books. Highly recommended.

PLACES OF GRACE consists of a series of stunning photographs by Gary Irving and an essay by Michal Strutin. The book covers states in the upper central plains--Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio and Indiana, although as Strutin notes, some would include other areas.

Strutin asks--what is the American Midwest? She outlines what she thinks comprises the area and discusses the forests, wetlands, huge fresh water lakes, and prairie that can still be found throughout the region. She imagines what the first European explorers must have seen when they arrived. She says, for example, the word prairie is French for meadow. French explorers were the first Europeans to travel extensively through the American plains. They saw the amazing wide open spaces where grass grew 10 feet tall and lacking any other word, likened it to their own grass meadows back home. The French named many places from Des Moines to Des Plains.

Strutin says conservationists are working to restore parts of the prairie to their natural state. She explains some of the research involved in determining the correct proportions of Asclepia (Butterfly Weed); Echinacea; Daisy; and other flora in a region that contains one of the three major U.S. flyways for birds, butterflies and other migratory animals.

PLACES also contains photos and text about non-prairie areas in upper Michigan and Wisconsin where hugh forests once existed as anyone who has ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder's LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS or heard of Paul Bunyun knows. Even today this area is a source of timber and home to many paper mills, though a good deal of the timber is being recovered from the bottom of Lake Michigan where it landed a century ago.

Irving and Strutin could have called their book HIDDEN PLACES OF GRACE. There are many wonderful nooks and crannies that somehow escaped the developer's axe, and today are protected in one way or another. This is an interesting and beautiful book.

I found this to be a very concise guide of relevant architectural landmarks for any visit to Chicago. This book provides architectural renderings and brief (half-page) histories of each building, and groups them into sections based on the order in which visitors to Chicago are likely to view them. This is a good supplement to any architectural tours of Chicago that may be taken. The glossary provides definitions and sometimes line drawings of architectural elements that novices to architecture would find informative and there is an index for architects and for buildings so that each can be referenced separately. A very good quick reference book for Chicago architecture. I know mine will be going with me on my next trip to Chicago.

An excellent and concise guide to the astonishing buildings to be found in downtown Chicago. The book covers the great buildings of the 19th century to modern skyscrapers by Mies, SOM, Murphy/ Jahn, KPF, Perkins & Will, et. al.

The book is great because of its clear structure and handy size; downtown is divided into 3 neighborhoods each with their own map with buildings keyed by number. The 100+ buildings are then each given their own page w/ an architects fine line drawing of the building (some with close up details) on top and description below. There's also a glossary of Chicago archi-terms and everything is indexed by building and architect. The writing is user-friendly and often very entertaining -- brief historical backround of building and architect, followed by incisive an commentary as to WHY the building is famous and how it fits into the ongoing story of Chicago's architecture.

One of the best portable guides to buildings that I have used in any city--highly recommended.

As a long-time fan of Access Guides and of the city of Chicago, I was pleased to find this pocket guide to Chicago architecture. Loved the history and all the visual detail "explained" that made it easy for me to visit and observe. This is a "must-have" for visitors and architecture buffs as well. It spurred me on to pick up the "skyline Chicago" videos. As well done as any Ken Burns documentary, these are great -- loved Chicago's Neighborhoods in particular.

I've read all three of John Wessel's books about Harding, the ex-con PI. All three have kept me up late nights, reading "just one more chapter." I can't put these books down! Pretty Ballerina is the second in the trio, which began with This Far, No Further, and has as its latest (but hopefully not last!) installment Kiss It Goodbye. All three books are fast-paced, loaded with action, and are damn good mysteries that will keep you scratching your head until the end. Harding's cynical world view leads to some hilarious observances, but this guy's no slouch as a PI; he never misses a trick. Well, almost never. His girfriend, Alison, is equally intriguing as a kick[in] femme who keeps Harding on his toes and watches his back. She could give Xena a run for her money! All in all, the characters and the stories in John Wessels' novels a well-worth the price of admission. Wonderful books, all!

I read alot of mystery/thriller novels and this one was good change from the usual formulaic mysteries I've been reading. The novel has an atmosphere that evokes a film noir feel and Harding is great as the reluctant hero.

Twenty-two years ago, a young boy, Kim Moon disappeared without a trace. Two years after that, their father allegedly murdered Kim's adoptive family with Cassie Rayn, hiding in the basement, being the lone survivor. Over the next two decades, Cassie became a famous porn star. However, she has recently received missives from "Lost Moon Developers" that are reminders of that night of terror and hints that her adoptive sibling is still alive.

Cassie hires defrocked Chicago private investigator Harding, who lost his license after a manslaughter conviction, to investigate. Harding quickly learns that the Lost Moon Developers have sent letters to other people besides Cassie. He also realizes that the recipients of these missives have a real good reason to fear for their lives. Harding will have to uncover the identity of a nasty evil being rather quickly if he is to keep his client alive.

The second Harding mystery, PRETTY BALLERINA, is a compelling novel that will please fans that enjoy the work ethic of a hard-boiled, wisecracking sleuth. The story line is filed with action and a well designed who-done-it. However, it is Harding, that usually unemployed handyman, who turns this novel and the superb debut tale (THIS FAR, NO FURTHER), into great reads.

Harriet Klausner

I am 82. This is a treasure. I suspect that practically no one alive today remembers these early days of Hollywood. This book is not only hilarious but simply could not be written today. The current code of political correctness would forbid it. Today the word "queer" has been co-opted along with "gay." The average young reader (under 60) wouldn't have a clue to the treasures between these covers and might be driven off by the title. There may be "queer" people in this story but they are not in evidence by todays standard of meaning of the word. The people in this book may be "queer" and "gay" but not homosexuals (I don't believe). The gay community of today might object to being neglected in this tale. The Jews might object to the Hollywood stereotypes portrayed. As I said it simply could not be written today.

drop me an email at miscellaneousmedia@yahoo.com This is a great -- and also the first -- Hollywood Novel, a comedy set in the pre-code, just after sound-on-film was invented era. Sadly, none of the follow-ups were as successful.

Some may hold up The Day of the Locust as the consummate Hollywood novel...or perhaps What Makes Sammy Run?, or the Nowhere City, or Play It As It Lays... Other than The Little Sister, the best book to portray Hollywood is also the first, Queer People. Written in the early Twenties, Queer People captures a Hollywood of sudden wealth and incredible wantoness, a new city without limits, seen through the eyes of a devilish reporter who seeks none

Race matters - that is not new. It always did and arguably always will. The question now is, knowing the rules of the game, how to play to even the playing field. Leland Saito's Race and Politics: Asian Americans, Latinos, and Whites in a Los Angeles Suburb is a piece about "contested" spaces - this one in suburban America and its players ethnic. Saito's incubator is Monterey Park. Nestled in the Los Angeles is the setting for this book about modern-day local politics that zeros-in on "Panethnicity" and confronts, in a very real way, inter-ethnic politics.

Saito's work transcends - for a lack of a better word - the academy. In this case, he lives the experience never really taking the story to an artificial setting such as planned interviews - he is "in" the scenario. Interdisciplinary in nature, Saito zeroes in on the ins and outs of the events in Monterey Park. One of the key departures of this "ethnic study" is that the minority in this local space are white. In the end demographics are important. Evolving racial and ethnic populations in America have led to the need to understand what the implications of these changes are. In the absence of white privilege - what happens? Saito uses the ethnographic fieldwork he did. Moreover, he utilized case studies as well as election information that was publicly available. This combination of methods allowed Saito to present Monterey Park as a rich, active, and ethnicly diverse space. From the interviews that he did do Saito brought to presence the Panethnic quality of Monterey Park. I will resist doing a chapter by chapter analysis but simply say that Saito draws up in 6 chapters the development of the community from a white dominated space to a multi-ethnic space that forces the people in the area to reinvent their politics - sometimes forming loose coalitions at other times going at it on their own.

The canvas is diverse - Asians, Latinos, and White - with varying degrees of divisions within each group. Saito does a spectacular job of collapsing even the most quotidian of information to show how ethnic negotiations is played out in this lived space. Americans based on common experiences with discrimination. Class becomes another complicating factor. With the need to negotiate consensus class, ethnicity converges in a political space in order to get basic needs as well as long terms goals met. Asians as well as Latinos are united by common experiences. All groups in the area - Whites included - a subject to of restrictive housing agreements, employment discrimination and racism - the pragmatic solution, coalitions. Much of the discussion, however, is really limited to Chinese and Japanese. In a more "instrumental" fashion, players in these "racialized" spaces understood that in order to get a critical mass it was in their collective as well as individual interest to come together. It could be argued that this piece is as much about personal realizations as it is about macro political moves. Engulfed in a sea of race, one finds the courage to deal with what cannot be changed but mobilized.

While one could read that Saito is suggesting that it is in the best interest of whites to develop fissures within the ethnic groups by setting one group the other, Saito is clear to show that whites are eager to be part of the landscape as it impacts them as well. The key then is to figure out how best to play in the field once we know the rules of the game.

Miguel Llora

I read Saito's book for a course he taught at UCSD in San Diego. I felt that from his book I was given not only a unique and fascinating sociological examination of the interworkings of perhaps the first Asian suburban neighborhood in America, but I was also enlightened to a relatively new notion of 'whiteness' and its effects on the American scene. This book may be read by high school students or academic scholars, the topics of which address some of the most controversial issues in contemporary society.

I came upon the book in an unusual way. I was having dinner with a group of educators and happened to meet the author. Over dinner he talked about some of the issues he came across in his research and I decided to pick up a copy a few days later. I read the book and it surprised me. It was interesting to me because I'm from Hawaii, and the experiences of Asian Americans there, I think, are different, and the text let me experience a major community outside my own. And while I don't see myself as politically driven, I found myself caught up in the alliances/divisions he sees forming in the San Gabriel Valley. As the text examines the theoretical aspects of the politicking in that community, it also presents detailed accounts of actual events that took place during the various stages of grassroots organizing. The depth of the cross-referencing is impressive, but what strikes me most are the insightful, sometimes very personal observations offered to the researcher by participants as events formed --observations that exist almost as sub-themes to the research. He sifts through then traces back lines of political theory through to actual events as residents began to change their community. A worthy read. It has caused me to look at my own community and makes me want to understand more about the forces and processes of change.

Corey Marks's work provides great aestetic and intellectual pleasure. The deceptive clarity of these poems guides the reader through the maze beneath the surface with a gentle and passionate hand. The book has aspects of the growth of the young man and of the artist, and we want to know both, though the voice and talent are already mature, able to negotiate authority and uncertainty. Marks's knowledge of music and art enrich these poems that are comfortable in urban and natural surroundings. There is a spiritual quest that pervades the work, as well, and Marks does not shy away from the larger questions of existence and purpose, while the poems remain appealingly tethered to evocative image and subtle narration. The only disappointment of this book comes when it ends.

At the heart of this great book is the heart of a pure poet. Marks writes with respect for his work and subject, bravely stepping out of the way of his words so they can stand on their own. Unlike most young poets, Marks writes with humility, yet without apology: in a time when our poetry follows at the heels of our confused culture, Marks steps away to name and clarify his place in it. Renunciation is good poetry from a writer with a good heart.

Wow! my creative writing instructor suggested I buy this book and she knew what she was talking about. Philip Levine selected it for the National Poetry Series and, unlike so many contest winners, this one deserved the prize. Marks' book is a real accomplishment for a first book; most third books aren't this good! At the book's center is the kind of poem all poets wish they could write, the moving homage "For Keats, After Keats." And there's the long title poem, a kind of spiritual meditation which contains subtle echoes of George Herbert. These poems are resonant, dense, formally adept, and full of exploding passions. Get this book!

These poems read like a soundtrack, and if you love poetry they will speak to you; if you don't love poetry, they'll speak to you even louder! R&B is not to be passed-over!

These poems read like a great soundtrack, or a stream of warm-fuzzy memories. If you are a poetry fan, R&B will speak to you...If you are not a poetry fan, R&B will speak to you even louder! You'll have read nothing as comforting or disturbing...NOT to be overlooked.

This is the book Maxine Kumin selected for the 2003 National Poetry Series. And it is a great book. It's divided into five sections, each named after a city in Louisiana. The best by far is the first, New Orleans. I will say Natchitoches, the final section was pretty weak, except for the poem "On the Departure of My Guest." Kane writes in form excellently. She does a lot of villanelles, and though I thought I'd get tired of reading so many of them, I didn't. She handles the villanelle very well. And, as you would guess from the title, alcohol plays a big part in this book. Many of the poems have bartender or a bar or something alcohol related in the title. But once again, you don't get tired of it because she handles it well. This is a really good first collection. If you are a fan of Kim Addonizio, Everette Maddox, or Sara Cortez, then you'll definitely like this book. Some poems to take note of are: "Maraschino Cherries," "Villanelle for Thel," "Mapleworld," and "Booker Again." Once again, this is a great book.