New York Books

What a pleasure to finally read this classic book. I grew up loving Cousteau's television programs. Ultimately, I became a diver because of Cousteau.

This is adventure writing at its best. Cousteau was always a master storyteller. That was probably more instrumental to his success than his bravery, innovativeness, or his ability as a diver. This book is a collection of Cousteau's experiences with early scuba. He masterfully captures the awe, the fear, the struggles, and the sense of adventure of the first years of scuba.

I love adventure writing, but sometimes great adventurers are not great writers. Cousteau was both. If you have an interest in Cousteau or in scuba diving, this book is a must read.

As promised in the title, in this book Jacques Cousteau reveals a new world of unanticipated beauty, fittingly described in his charming, French-influenced English phraseology. C. Blickenstorfer has done a fine job explaining the contents of this book, particularly as it relates to divers or those interested in diving history. However, The Silent World, read as a frontier narrative, also has relevance for anyone interested in our current and historical treatment of the ocean.

Humans have interacted with the ocean for ages, but before divers like Cousteau it was a blind interaction, a grasp at resources based on guesses and historical results. Cousteau's underwater observations of trawl-net fishing make clear the change of ideology his "aqualung" opened to humans. Watching the net destroy grasses on the ocean floor, Cousteau reports "Man's method of undersea farming seemed to consist of blighting the acre while reaping a small part of the crop" (48). As opposed to a history of blind grabs at ocean creatures, Cousteau's aqualung gives him the capacity to see without touching, and his narrative provides a chance for our knowledge to begin catching up to our know-how.

Another epiphany facilitated by the aqualung is a completely new set of fears and a new evaluation of old "monsters." The killers of which Cousteau writes are nitrogen in his blood and clams with shells sharp enough to sever air pipes. On the contrary, the octopus, demonized by Victor Hugo as a monster who will suck out a man's innards, shows itself as harmless and shy. Cousteau concludes his chapter "Monsters We Have Met" with a jocularity that is persistent in the work: "If none have eaten us, it is perhaps because they have never read the instructions so generously provided in marine demonology" (222).

Cousteau's reinterpretation of the ocean brings readers to the fundamental questions of humans and their environment. How are we going to think of this new space? Should we sell it as new realty? Militarize it? Farm it? Should we simply Keep Out in a quest to guard some portion of the earth against ourselves? Those from my generation who have mythologized Cousteau as a heroic conservationist might struggle with Cousteau's narrative. This is not the work of a dolphin-hugger. Cousteau writes of his exploits kidnapping an endangered monk seal pup in his desire for an aquatic hunting dog (the seal almost dies and is given to a zoo) and bludgeoning most large sea creatures who get close enough. This includes wounding a captured porpoise to watch sharks eat it alive, an act which he justifies with "It was cruelty to an animal but we were involved in a serious study [. . .] and had to carry it out" (234).
In his conclusion, Cousteau asserts "Obviously man has to enter the sea. There is no choice in the matter. The human population is increasing so rapidly and land resources are being depleted at such a rate, that we must take sustenance from the great cornucopia" (266). Both those who would agree with this 1950s assumption and those who believe this "cornucopia" has been already overexploited can gain insight from this book as a well-written record of human reactions to the new world under the waves.

As a diver for long years, I remember the old b&w tv days, when we find happiness with Cousteau's documentary films. Now it's a mirracle to be able to purchase the whole collection in DVD format.

As great a read today as it must have been over 50 years ago. Being a modern day technical and recreational dive instructor I still find this book a fascinating read and would recommend it to all ages to divers and non divers alike.

What can be said about Jacques Cousteau and his groundbreaking book that hasn't been said a thousand times? He is undoubtedly the defining figure of modern scuba diving, his books, films, and documentaries known to millions or billions. Even the name of his ship, the Calypso, is known the world over. It's a small volume, this book, just 160 pages, yet it's absolutely mandatory reading for anyone interested in what Cousteau termed "the silent world" under the surface of the water that covers 71% of our planet. The Silent World is the bible of modern scuba diving.

Jacques Cousteau himself died in 1997 at the age of 87, but the legacy of his pioneering work with diving and diving physiology lives on. It is all well documented and disseminated worldwide, thanks to this French explorer's unique combination of instinctive understanding of the world under the surface and his equally unique knack of spellbinding the world with his words and images. A total master of public relations and getting the word out, Cousteau managed to grab attention and media coverage wherever he went. Critics went so far as suggesting his media talents exceeded his actual contributions to understanding the seas.

At first it's hard to figure out why this slim volume became such a success. It's not a textbook, it doesn't cover the history of diving or even much of Cousteau's own research, and it's not an adventure book. Though Cousteau was French, he wrote The Silent World in English as he had attended American schools in his youth, widely traveled the US, and, of course, extensively lectured in his enchanting French-accented English. Yet, The Silent World clearly reveals its author's non-English origin and decidedly "non-English" thinking. The writing, while precise, often suggests that Cousteau frequently described a word or concept that existed in his native French, but did not directly translate into English. As a result, the writing at times seems a bit flowery and, well, foreign, and you need to read a sentence or paragraph two or three times to figure out what it actually means. Cousteau's liberal use of metaphors, artistic nuances, poetic concepts and words that have since fallen out of currrent language only serve to make The Silent World even more unusual of a literary treat.

Anyone looking for technical explanations, precise history, a logical flow of events, or anything one might expect from a world-famous documentary maker and researcher will not find it in this book. The Silent World is a totally unique, very compressed tale flowing from Cousteau's mind. Read half a chapter and you know the man; he's a unique combination of inspired philosophical observer and gifted researcher with uncanny intuition. While others conducted their research methodically and ploddingly, Cousteau always just seemed to know what to expect, how to behave, and what to seek and avoid to make it all seem easy. He and his close associates and friends Phillipe Tailliez and Frederic Dumas used their "aqualung" to experient liberally in sort of a "Hmmm.... this is probably what will happen, let's go check it out!" approach.

Using this, Cousteau describes the difference between "helmet divers" and the newly liberated users of their "aqualung" -- what we now know as air tanks and regulators. The book casually touches on all the principles of diving physics and physiology, the stuff we learn in our PADI and NAUI classes. He describes sea life, how it reacts, where it lives, how it behaves, and what is dangerous and what is not. They see just how deep they can go. They check how colors change. What nitrogen does and why we need recompression chambers. He offers his views on treasure hunting (not worth it; if you find real treasure authorities and hordes of lawyers will soon apprehend it). He reports on atrocities he witnessed underwater, like the needless destruction of corals and cruel killing of fish. He debunks myths of sea monsters, seeks answers to geological phenomena such as the Fountain of Vaucluse near Avignon, one that almost cost him and Dumas their lives in a pioneering effort at extreme cave diving. He describes what fish do and how they react. And sea mammals and other sea critters. Sharks remain an enigma to Cousteau as his conclusion is that you simply cannot understand or predict them.

So The Silent World relates, in 14 fascinating self-contained chapters, pretty much everything we know about diving today, 60 years after Cousteau began researching as a "manfish," all the principles we know, and it's all neatly and attractively presented in tales that always mix research with adventure. Cousteau never preaches or lectures. He just explores, pushes, interprets, and reports. Maybe Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a showman as much as a researcher. If so, good for him as otherwise we may never have had the opportunity to learn from him and enjoy his remarkable insights. -- C. H. Blickenstorfer, scubadiverinfo.com

The prison Journals of David Berkowitz is excellent. It gives great insight into prison life and it tells about David's spiritual responsibility in the prison. David definitely shares his new heart in this book and I would recommend it highly for anyone of any age. Teenagers should read this book because David speaks about how many young people are coming to prison and given long sentences. He shares his desire to see people avoid crime so they will not go to prison.

Perhaps over the years people have wondered how genuine the conversion of David Berkowitz is. All they have to do is read his journal book, "Son of Hope." David has a wisdom and a sweet spirit that can only come from God!
I think people forget who the Apostle Paul was...a man who wrote a huge chunk of the New Testament, but was formerly a violent and unbelieving man...until he met Jesus. Berkowitz is a tribute to the saving and transforming power of God on a human life, no doubt about that.--Kathie FitzPatrick

This is the news story that the public needs to hear about the Son of Hope(no longer Son of Sam) . It is clear to see that he is the "real deal." Having repented of his sins and experienced forgiveness in Christ 20 years ago, he is now the prison pastor of the Christian Church in his prison. His writing of his prison experiences and life in general, is vibrant and articulate. I would highly recommend this journal.
DAN

David's writing is a ray of sunshine emanating from a place where very little gets in or out. David's love for his prison brothers and their families is shown throughout. Son of Hope will make you cry and fill you with sadness for lives which have been so damaged by sin! But, as David's life has been turned around by his acceptance of Jesus, he shows that the Love of Lord is there for everyone (Isaiah 1:18--"Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow"). David is a humble man who is living an extraordinary life (James 4:10--"Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up"). Thank you David for a work so filled with the Love of the Lord.

If you want to know what prison life is like, here is the book. But it's more than that; it is hope within the darkness behind the concrete walls and razor wire of prison--that it is possible to live a productive life, pleasing to God, while incarcerated. You may cry while reading this book, over the wasted lives of men who chose crime, but you may smile at the evidence of God's grace in the lives of other prisoners who have chosen the joy of following Jesus.

I was Sara in a production of this play. However, that is not the only reason that I love it. I first read the play for a women playwrights class that I was in, and I instantly fell in love with it. My director described it best when she said "I read the last page, gasped, then went straight back to the beginning and read it again." I feel that way every time I re-read the script. After speaking these words for months of rehearsals and performances, I still gasp. Diana Son herself said it best when she said that it isn't a play about homosexuality or violence. It's a play about love. I think it's a play about humanity. But most of all, it's a play about taking chances and finding out who you really are no matter what that means.

I might be in a minority, but I don't have any problem with the parallel time line device. The structure makes it easy to give physical cues to separate the elements, and the story unfolds evenly between the stories, so you aren't left with gaps or redundancies.

Possible challenges in a couple scene changes, mainly costume/makeup, but a good director will find a way.

Diano Son captures this touching store told in scenes that jump from present to past. Every other scene tells the present and past of two women who fall in love without the knowledge of their sexuality. When one is beat and injured by a madman in the city, they must confront their families with their sexuality. One, too unstable to be on her own, needs the other. The story is touching, melodic and wonderful.

Diano Son captures this touching store told in scenes that jump from present to past. Every other scene tells the present and past of two women who fall in love without the knowledge of their sexuality. When one is beat and injured by a madman in the city, they must confront their families with their sexuality. One, too unstable to be on her own, needs the other. The story is touching, melodic and wonderful.

This is an excelent exploration of love and what constitutes it, and a painful reminder of hate--specifically homophobia. The message here is one worth hearing, and the telling of it is skilled and a pleasure to read. Highly Recommended.

THIS BOOK IS GREAT. A BOOK ON SUGGESTIONS?? I SUGGEST YOU BUY THIS BOOK. ANYONE FROM NEW YORK WOULD LOVE THIS AS GIFT. THE AUTHORS, ILLEGAL ART, ARE REALLY ON TO SOMETHING HERE. SUGGESTIONS FROM CITY DWELLERS IN THE GREATEST CITY IN WORLD, NYC.

This book leaks out pure amazingness. The editors spared no one's beliefs, thoughts, or feelings while compiling this book-- and that's a good thing. Along with the funny things (i.e. "I suggest you give me the box"), there's whimsical advice, heartfelt thoughts, religious and political suggestions or observations, and truly thought provoking statements.

This book gives you a glimpse into the minds of strangers, and, no pun intended, pulls you out of your own box. It opens your mind to things you might not have ever even considered.

It's thoroughly enjoyable to read, and doesn't take long, so why not give it a try?

Thank you Illegal Art for giving voice to the people of New York City and beyond. The Suggestion Box is not only a mobile polling machine that
samples peoples views, it is a monitor for the state of various urban conditions.

Keep it Public.

Malachi Connolly

This book is a great collection of what those around you might be thinking at the time.
If you were sitting on the subway and could put a bubble with one sentance over everyone's head representing what they were thinking or feeling, this is what you'd come up with. The guy next to you might be saying "beer flavored nipples" and the woman across from you suggesting "Dave should stop wasting my precious time" Humorous, thoughtprovoking and entertaining, this collection of suggestions, thoughts and opinions of your fellow humans walking by you on the street and sitting next to you on the subway is worth the read and a fun experience.

Very few art books make you open your mind and think like this one does; yes there are some expected suggestions but there are also some really weird no-one-person-could-make-this-stuff-up suggestions. There is a breadth, scope, emotion and imagination that couldn't come from fiction or conventional art. It really makes you think, laugh and wonder. A truly inspiring book, that is really good for angry New Yorkers, but I think the ideas will resonate wherever you are in the world.

John Gardner wrote many good works, the Sunlight Dialogues being by far the best. In it he captures the range of hope and anxiety that made the 1960s such a thrilling and tormenting time to be alive. Using the small town of Batavia, New York, Gardner plunges the reader into the life of a prodigal son of the most prestigious family in town and that of the dedicated police chief. And do the intellectural sparks fly! The illustrations by John Napper are reminescent of those from the Yellow Book in the 1890s, by Aubrey Beardsley. There is a lot of subtle humor ("take a gun of, say, x caliber...") as well as dead-on observation of what makes people do outrageous things for perfectly logical reasons.
It's a roller coaster of a novel, so hang on and enjoy the ride. You might even want to go back for a second trip. I did.

The Sunlight Dialogues_ is truly John Gardner's magnum opus, equaling and perhaps overshadowing _Grendel_, the book for which he is best known.

Grossly over-simplified, it is about the tide of discontent and change that came about in the 1960s, exemplified in the stories of a handful of people who live in the small New York town of Batavia. All of these characters' stories occur at roughly the same moment, and to a certain degree overlap each other; they all come into contact with one another at some point during the novel, and may even influence each other, but every member of the book's huge cast has his or her own story and denouement.

The primary one of these stories is the one that concerns Police Chief Fred Clumly and a haggard, maniacal drifter known as "the Sunlight Man", and the happenings of this particular storyline are the catalysts for the rest of the stories. "The Sunlight Man", whom we later find out is Taggert Hodge, the black sheep of the wealthy and powerful family the members of whom comprise roughly half the other characters in the novel, is the one who sets all of these denouements into motion with his seminal return to his hometown as a magician, hippie, murderer, and poet. His has been a life of disillusionment, loss, betrayal and unattainable wants, and he returns to Batavia to set into motion a sort of romantically juvenile plot to take revenge on the world and to mewl out his disappointment with the way things are, the latter of which he does through Fred Clumly(thus is the origin of the title.)

Gardner is remarkably adept at character development; Taggert Hodge, Walter Benson and Fred Clumly are among the best painted characters of fiction I know of. The author has a gift for articulating neuroses and flaws of characters, from miniscule ticks in their everyday behavior to major personality faults. And with a cast of roughly eleven major characters, making each and every one entirely unique in their drives and hamartias is no task to be scoffed at. However, the ability of John Gardner's I perhaps envy the most is that of taking a very normal, even pretty environmental setting, and turning it nightmarish and haunting. In the novel, the dense forests and century-old barns of Batavia are made into artifacts and ruins of an almost Lovecraftian caliber of queerness, and yet it does not serve to displace the small New York town from the realm of believable reality, but rather forces you to evaluate your reality on the same dark and weird basis as his authorial voice.

The sheer scope of the novel (that of several stories cycloning around a unifying theme and plot catalyst) at times threatens to tear it apart, however; the reader at times is left wondering why the author has switched point of views when the scenario he was describing previously had yet to be resolved. This is a mere annoyance, however, and is not really something for which I believe the novel should be faulted, for the rewards of its pages are vast ones.

Due perhaps to its relatively young age, it has yet to receive the proper "classic" status it so rightly deserves, and, sadly, it may never, for "Grendel" seems to be John Gardner's only remembered and widely read work, and is perpetually overshadowing the rest of the author's material, most of which are just as powerful and memorable as tale of Beowulf's tragic nemesis. In fact, some may even be better, as I propose The Sunlight Dialogues is, but until the higher-ups at Norton and the like get around to looking at this master of fiction as a master should, I advise any and all of the people reading this to purchase this book from whatever obscure publisher it has currently been tossed to.

Back in the 70s, I became fascinated with John Gardner, starting with The Wreckage of Agathon and Grendel. When The Sunlight Dialogues came out, I was hooked. I picked up a paperback copy and just fell into the story. After that, each new Gardner was purchased in hardcover, which I could ill afford back then.

About 10 years ago, I tracked down a fine condition copy of TSG and re-read it. Bad move, though, donating the paperback to the library.

I welcomed the arrival of a new trade paperback edition of the novel, and of one or two others by Gardner until I actually had the opportunity to hold them. The reprints were done without the original illustrations, which are integral to the books. Unbelievable!

For old times sake, I bought a used Ballantine paperback copy and am re-reading it. I have no intention of buying this new edition.

So, five stars for Gardner and the book, with a one-star demerit for this compromised reprint. The new introduction doesn't add much to the book.

I recently met a recent graduate of the State University of New York: Binghamton, an English major. He had never heard of John Gardner, author of the one American post WWII novel that stands comparision in scope and quality, if not import, with Middlemarch.

This novel is unabashedly symbolic, it's many characters each representing the dichotomies of order/chaos, love/hatefulness, light/darkness. But don't think that the work is heavy handed or didactic because of the obviously metaphorical quality. Rather, it is like other great metafiction, the reading of which is akin to entering a complex microcosm, and best of all, having a bird's eye view into the lives and minds of all the many characters. The multiplicity of narratives, some dramatic, others hilariously banal, is nearly perfectly balanced so that when one character might get tiresome, we are transported into another new and fascinating life. Most impressively, all these narratives are eventually woven together in perfect and beautiful harmony. Once you enter this work, you will not want to stop. I don't advice reading this unless you have some free time, otherwise all your other responsibilities will suffer.

The 1998 Yankees championship team, which has to be seen as one of the greatest teams of all time, produced two quick paperback books by NY sportswriters after the season was over. This one, by NY Post beat reporter George King, is the superior one and the one to read if one wants to re-experience the 98 season with the freshness of how perceptions were at the time. I've gone back to it many times in the years since, and those who want to write an account of the 98 Yankees from a distance in years to come will have to utilize this book for needed reference purposes.

It makes you re-live, one-by-one, all those magical moments from the best baseball team ever (125-50).

I am not an avid reader but i read this book for school. I love the yankees and i loved this book. It was very fast reading and i would recomend it to everyone. Yankees Rule!

George King has captured the true essence of this great team. Without ever having managed,coached or signaled one player within the lines, Yankee fanatics everywhere can sense that King communicates the day to day heartbeat of this great team.

Let me just say that I picked it up and it was awsome! I didn't put it down, and know, a year after it happened, it still remains one book that I will re-read untile I basiclly knew it from memory!

No need to summarize the plot; others have already done so. This is another terrific novel by the author of "Morte D'Urban" and fans of that sadly-neglected work will find this one equally enjoyable.

Powers has a talent, rare in American literature, for subtlety. His portrayal of Joe Hackett, a somewhat aloof, well-meaning but complacent Catholic priest, is a masterpiece of nuance, as realistic a character study as any I've encountered. One wouldn't think a book about the everyday goings-on of a suburban clergyman (everything from fund-raising to attending retreats to petty diocesan politicking) would hold much interest for the lay-reader, but don't let the subject matter scare you: this is a book about faith, redemption, and the wins and losses faced by all of us as we grow older (and, purportedly, wiser).

J.F. Powers's characters are built incrementally, as much through what they say and do as by what they leave unsaid and undone. The dialog here is snappy, the plotting is swift, the humor is wonderfully dry (the first chapter alone is a quiet riot), the observations of human nature are acute. The writing is razor-sharp; not a wasted word or imprecise thought to be found. And this without the stylistic bells and whistles so many writers feel the need to employ in order to "prove" their literary merit. It's not often I say that I hated to see a book come to an end, but in this case, it was true. In many ways, the novel ends just as Hackett's life is beginning.

Keep Powers in print. Read this book.

This final entry--1988 marks its long-delayed arrival--in a lengthy career (starting in the mid-1940s) of scant fiction marks the end of the postwar, triumphalist, yet marginalized, Midwestern Catholic parish--and notably here, rectory--intrigues that Powers excelled at conveying. His scale, being so focused, gains accuracy and depth by its concentration upon detail. Like a model railroad set, the 1:150 (or whatever!) ratio means painstaking attention to fidelity. Such realism to the untutored eye appears grotesque or caricatured, but to an aware observer reveals a nearly exact fit of form with content.

I give it four rather than five stars as I have re-read (and reviewed here, "Morte" and the thirty stories in their original three volumes as well as the collected reissue) all of Powers recently, and I believe that his many strengths as a writer are at times clouded slightly by his tendency towards oversubtlety. A forgivable fault in an era of so many authors straining for the obvious or what critics call "overdetermining" their subject, but Powers tends in all his work towards lengthy passages where not much goes on at all, but in which an editor could have polished the presentation and refined the craft even further. Powers appears to have been his own worse enemy and his own most scrupulous critic, on the other hand. Be it as it may, Powers makes nearly all of his peers look hasty, scattered, and undisciplined by comparison.

Action over the course of a priest's youth, coming of age, and gradual rise from curate to administrative assistant (when that word did not connote a secretary or receptionist) and then pastor comprises the narrative. Less verve here than the worldlier, more urbane Fr Urban had, but perhaps in his principled if compromised (the whole crux of the tension) fidelity to the needs of separating "Church from Dreck" Powers reveals that the need for reform Fr Urban realized while Vatican II was still in session (so to speak) by the end of the decade became all the more apparent as the slow slide downhill accelerated. Set by its conclusion around 1968, if offhandedly, the Catholic Worker roots of Powers and his conservative radicalism stand his fictional main character in good stead as priests wander off, parishioners ignore crusty priests' reprimands, malls open on Sundays, the hillbilly's war machine thunders on in the small town press, and guitars with cant supplant chant.

This novel, like his earlier (sharing with it a clumsy if rarified referential title) "Morte d'Urban," (1962), suffers from arid stretches, where the humor is so deadpan, the pace so true that the inert nature of our own shared experience with the clerical protagonists appears too neatly aligned. Dullness enters. A VD quarantine warning takes up one and a half pages verbatim. A few sample sermons from Father Felix (who helps out saying weekend Masses) summarize the stultifying, yet sincere, homiletics of a certain, less soundbitten, age. So with Powers, who in this novel had been criticized as a man out of time, with figures he identified with whose era had passed them by. Joe is only in his mid-forties. He seems much older. This may be a sign of now-diminished respect, when the maturity demanded of authority figures gave an earned dignity and a bit of unearned noblesse oblige to the clergy in smaller towns where the collar still mattered. Joe Hackett manages to get through the routine, and out of the limelight that had once courted his counterpart Fr. Urban, this parish priest does his best balancing God with Mammon, as the demands of a new accounting system make fundraising all the more essential, even as this pulls at the Gospel admonition that it's better to give alms in secret. How to square this with the need to make accountable freeloading parishioners when the Archbishop's needs come payable on demand? Out of such quandaries, Powers raises his own quiet art.

The need in fiction for a jolt, a spark, a spin off from the quotidian to the profound nestles, certainly, in Powers. This, however, moves along leisurely, and often nothing seems to happen for chapters at a time. Then, you understand that this accurately limns the trajectory of a recognizably human life like our own. You can see Powers' study of Joyce in his preparation of the slow ascent to epiphanies, such as Fr. Joe Hackett's finessed blessing of a scruffy draft resister who steps to tie his shoelaces while the padre finagles praying over his head and out of eyesight or earshot as the young man prepares to flee to Canada, on the pastor's unspoken advice but according to his moral example.

Re-reading this nearly two decades after it appeared, I admire Powers' critique of not only the institutional Church and its compromises with the world, but of his own admission that holy Joes only go so far in their own zeal in battling for their losing side. They must do so, vowed to do so and called by their Maker, but Powers recognizes in his own mellowing how annoying piety and phariseeism can be for the rest of us. Not for nothing is an early battle Joe engages in at the seminary, much to the disgust of some classmates and the suspicion of his rector, over the necessity of wearing a hairshirt.

Constructed in part from stories written over the past (two of which appeared in the last of his three thin story collections, 1975's "Look How the Fish Live," the novel does let its seams show. I wonder if parts of this novel were left too long on the shelf, or in hibernation. Yet, this is how Powers wrote. Very slowly, spending days pondering if a character would use the term "pal" or "chum" in referring to a confrere. Such was his state of mind, and more power to him. Probably a patron saint of scrupulous writers, if he is canonized as he deserves! His friend and colleague Jon Hassler eulogized him as "a saint with a bad temper." Hassler notes how Powers could strain so long over a detail that a reader, even an informed one such as himself, might miss the very nuanced finesse.

The extended battle of the story that was "Bill" for Joe to learn his new curate's name appears tedious and unbelievable, a shaggy-dog tale after a few pages of the many devoted to this embarrassing and rather cryptic episode. The story earlier published as "Priestly Fellowship" enters the novel mostly unchanged, but again the dive into the post-Vatican II uproar appears muted, if perhaps less dated for its lack of topicality to specific changes so much as the persistent lack of clerical fidelity. Yet, as the novel lengthens, the episodes do build upon possibilities tucked into these two stories, and while they unfold in off-handed and perhaps overly-controlled fashion, they are truer to the texture of everyday life for being so controlled. Holiness comes, if at all, minutely slow. The lack of histrionics or forced symbolism remains despite the uneven pacing in his longer works Powers' greatest talent. Powers knew when and how indirect first-person voice carried his stories; his shift in and out of his protagonist's minds is at its best in the imagined reverie Joe lets himself into as he pitches in the yard with Bill to let off steam. As with Urban's similarly prosy--both exaggerated and ordinary-- temptation at Belleisle in "Morte," the priestly heroes let their deepest selves emerge when they pretend they are just like the rest of us. Powers, and we, know better.

A final word, quoted from one of his students in Commonweal on his death in 1999. In the novel, out of his collar on a much-needed vacation, Joe passes himself off at the hotel bar as working for a "big concern," in "life insurance." The firm? "Eternal." Sort of a multinational, he admits, although he works out of a local "branch office." Powers explained when asked in class why he wrote so much about the clergy, and if he was anticlerical. "I'm not anticlerical. I simply look for a story that elucidates truth. If a human being buys an insurance policy, that's not much of a story. But when a priest buys an insurance policy, there's something going on that needs to be said and I want to say it." It took him nearly fifty years to write it.

This book was nominated for the national book award in 1988 for fiction. It is the story about Father Joe Hackett who as a young man was an athlete and a bit of a partier, and then he became a priest out of saintly ambition but becomes overly fond of the drink. Joe is a strange hero for a novel. Powers' daughter Kathrine in her introduction to the current edition states: "Written over an increasingly dark time, Wheat That Springeth Green was shaped by my father's growing conviction of the progressive and irredeemable absurdity of things. He was a connoisseur of the dull, the mediocre and the second-rate, and of the disingenuous and fraudulent, but now it seemed that their dominion has truly come." This book captures much of that sentiment - Joe in his own life and in his interactions with most of the other clergy in this book. Though Powers is more famous for his earlier work Morte D'Urban, I personally find this book much more enjoyable and Joe, though he has more visible faults, a person you can relate to more easily. I have known priests in my life that were mirrors of both Joe and Urban and yet I end up seeing a lot of myself in Joe.

Joe desired to live a holy life; he wanted to be pious and devote. He desired to be a man of prayer, serving the world. In chapter 6 Out in the World (previously published as The Warm Sand) Joe, in his last year in seminary, became known as a holy roller and was avoided his last year in school. His first assignment is with a priest who is a truly pious man, and when he criticizes him in front of some other clergy he experiences great remorse. Through this event he tries to change his ways.

Personally I can really relate to Joe; there is much in his small successes and more frequent failures or setbacks. This book is excellent. It was a labour of over 25 years of writing and rewriting. And having read some of the earlier versions of some chapters published as short stories, it was worth the wait. Powers, being the wordsmith he is, crafted and recrafted the stories together into a fabulous novel.

Anyone who has not read J.F. Powers is missing a major American voice in letters. This review will not be adequate to even speak of his skill.

Complete lives are sketched with the faintest of references, such as a family who the hero, Father Joe Hackett, brings from the city to remind his comfy parishioners of the trials of the poor (shades of the "holy poverty in the city" mantra so common from my youth). He tells their entire story with three unconnected lines sprinkled as a leitmotif throughout the narrative.

The hero's interior monologue is both revealing, and surprising. Throughout the novel faint points of challenges and grace (and simple, just-sufficient grace) carry the reader along with Father Joe's eventual conversion (rededication?). This is the story of a bumbling soul who eventually inhales the breath of the Divine.

Every person I've ever given a J.F. Powers book to has thanked me (Catholics and non-Catholics alike). Highly recommended, for this is monumentally great literature.

The best of the series of books published by The New York Review of Books are all the works of J.F. Powers, who died in 1989. Powers' novels and stories are almost entirely concerned with Catholic clerical life in the midwest. I hadn't read his last novel, Wheat That Springeth Green, and I was happy to find that the new edition contained an introduction by the author's daughter, Katherine Powers. Wheat That Springeth Green is every bit as fine as Morte D'Urban, his first and only other novel written some 25 years earlier, and a National Book Award winner as well. In its treatment of character and plot the latter novel is theologically perhaps even more complex.

Joe's character is cast from the first pages: as a toddler he gets attention from his parents' friends merely for declaiming at a party "I go to church!" We also learn of his parents' antipathy towards the parish priest's intoning on the subject of the "Dollar-a-Sunday Club," an attitude that Joe will inherit, and which becomes a theme that will be played out in a number of surprising ways. We also sense something of his aloofness in these first chapters as well. He doesn't keep up with many friends, but he does seem to know the value in keeping up appearances: "Joe just smiled at Frances and everybody, so they couldn't tell how he really felt about being in the sack race..." Joe is a good athlete, even in grade school, and the race he really wants, but doesn't get, is the sprint.

Much of the story revolves around Joe's relation to money, so that even an early adventure (described in nearly pornographic detail) involving his first adult relations with women is later understood to be subsumed by his larger pecuniary obsessions. His sexual sins, or at least the memory of them, turn out to be something of a red herring: at the seminary he asks his instructor, "Father, how can we make sanctity as attractive as sex to the common man?" a question that (rightly) earns him nothing but mirth from his fellow seminarians. We are given hints that as Joe grows older he succeeds in overcoming his youthful scrupulosity. After a stint at Archdiocesan Charities he is assigned to the parish of St. Frances - a name shared by his childhood infatuation and a co-traveler in that youthful adventure. So as far as sex is concerned, there is in his maturity there a sense that all is right with Joe, if not the world. That this is the case is dramatically reinforced by the nearly hopeless entanglements of an ex-seminarian, some of which leads to misplaced retribution that Joe patiently, even faithfully endures. These episodes are magnificently structured, displaying in Joe's life a kind of fate that is worked out through choices made less in freedom than with a concern for propriety and in service to principles that are neither his own, nor of the church in which, as he says in other circumstances, he does so much hard time.

Other obstacles to holiness, as perhaps they always must, remain. Although his basic attitude is good, the reader realizes that the young Father Hackett has refused one halo in favor of another when he refuses to toady up to either the priest in his parish or to the archbishop in his archdiocese. Money matters are everywhere in evidence: the rectory built by Joe; bribes offered by parishoners; purses collected on behalf of retiring priests; inheritence; a collection drive that is farmed out to a private firm - in which Joe will take no part. All this points to beyond the contradiction in one man's character to a paradox that is funamental to our very being. How do we care for an abundance which is most fully ours when we least consider it our own?

Joe's misappropriation of his own nature, and indeed human nature, leads to a truly heinous transgression in one of the final chapters. That this transgression is committed and then resolved in secret, without comment from Joe or even the narrator, points toward a God who is as truly all merciful as he is unnoticed even by lesser beings working on his behalf. I would guess that the true thorn in Joe's side is also Powers', and while reading I several times wondered whether the crux of the story wasn't inspired by his frustration at watching baskets and plates passed through the pews, week in and week out, for a lifetime.

Very highly recommended.

This book is full of fascinating stories and discussions of the dioramas and their impact on animal drawing and animal conservation movement.
The pictures are excellent. Good for children just becoming interested in the field as well as adults. Highly recommended. mj

My father introduced me to the wonders of the American Museum of Natural History at the age of five.The Hall of African Mammals was the highlight of my first interest in the 1930`s.The dinosaur exhibit and ocean life can capture the imagination and fascination of any child.
Windows on Nature is a must have in the library of any one with an interest in Natural History.

This was a gift for my mother who visited this museum years ago. It brought back great memories we had when we went. The book was very well done.

Stephen Christopher Quinn, Windows on Nature: The Great Habitat Dioramas of the American Museum of Natural History (Abrams, 2006)

Dioramas are amazing things. Looking at them may not make it seem so, but that, more than anything, is testament to the artistry practiced by the men and women who construct them. Windows on Nature goes behind the scenes of the construction of the dioramas at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.

This is a coffee-table book, so there are a large number of excellent pictures of the dioramas themselves accompanying the text on how they were created. Both are as fantastic as they are fascinating. If you're a fan, this is a must-have. ****

There is nowhere beneath a roof, anywhere on earth, that means more to me than the great diorama halls of The American Museum of Natural History. It is stunning (and, really, rather sad) that it has taken this long for a popular book to be written about these magnificent works of art and science, but at least it has been done well. (It is also gratifying to see the book getting such good--and well deserved--reviews here.)

For many millions of people habitat dioramas have been their first taste of the beauty, calm, and nobility of wild creatures and wild places. More people are familiar with nature documentaries these days, and since I love good documentaries too I can't really complain about that. Nonetheless there are some things that habitat dioramas, when done well, can convey that the flickering image, even on an IMAX screen, just can't. No medium portrays the spacious calm of wild country, and the simple dignity of wild animals, better than dioramas. It's also important to remember the valuable record dioramas can provide: many of the dioramas in this book are of places no longer wild.

Stephen Quinn's credentials for writing this book are probably as good as anyone alive. He started as an artist for the museum and has been an important force in helping keep the medium alive through the dark years of the 60s to 80s, when across the U.S. it was frequently neglected, if not despised, by curators though not, blessedly, by the general public. Things are at least somewhat better now, and Mr. Quinn is now project manager for exhibitions at the museum. He has done a fine job with this book. The text is engaging and informative and the photos are big and beautiful.

I do have a few quibbles. He sometimes uses the word "captured" for animals collected (read killed) for the dioramas. I'm sympathetic with why he felt he had to do that, given what he's trying to do with the book and given the cultural forces with which he must contend. The moral issues behind hunting and museum collection are complex and beyond what a book like this could be expected to cover. Nonetheless, animals are never "captured" for taxidermy.

I should hasten to add that animals do not need to be killed specifically for taxidermy. Many if not most animals mounted for museums in the last few decades died in zoos, were hit by automobile traffic, etc. That generally was not a realistic option at the time these dioramas were created.

My other reservation is deeper, but harder to articulate, and I don't have a real solution to it. I also know that a lot of readers will be unsympathetic with it. I'm not completely comfortable with "behind the scenes" stuff in anything other than technical manuals, trade magazines, etc. The people who made these dioramas were of course just people but had high ideals (ideals that Mr. Quinn without question shares) and they wanted the dioramas to be about their _subjects_. His behind the scenes writing will engage people more with the medium and is interesting in itself, no argument. But how much does it really help to have people thinking "I wonder if that rock in Diorama Z is the one that employees used to go to make out behind on their lunch hour."?

I don't know the answer, and so I can't really fault the author. I also recognize that many of the reviewers here loved that aspect of the book. My hope, and I'm sure it's the author's as well, is that it will all stay in perspective. Let's hope that's right. It would be very sad to see dioramas become the subject of the kind of psychologizing and trivializing that permeates the world of "fine" art.

That said, this is a beautiful and well-written book about a noble, if often neglected, realm of art and natural history. If you've read through a long review like this one about a book on this subject, I promise you won't regret owning it.

It's a nice book, well written and with a nice alternating between anedocts and game recaps with box scores and precise recollection of the Mets most important games over their history. I wish the author had expanded a bit more the final part of the book dedicated to players profiles. But overall it's a nice reading for baseball fans interested in the recent history of the game, not only Mets fans

I loved this book. If you are a baseball fan, half the fun is reliving great moments. Blatt puts you back on the field only the way a seasoned sportswriter can. There is also plenty of stuff from off the field. I love baseball and this book does it for me. Even after reading it, it's a book you can pick up and enjoy all over again. Buy it.

I just finished reading Howard Blatt's book, Amazin' Met Memories. I really enjoyed the trip down memory lane with the Mets. This book had terrific accounts of over 40 of the greatest games in Met history. My whole family have been fans of The NY Mets for many years. Since we don't live in New York anymore we can't attend the games, but this book made me feel that I was sitting on the third base line at Shea. I will keep this book in the company of every Met yearbook I own, since '62. Mr. Blatt, keep the Met books coming!!!

After realizing that Howard Blatt couldn't possibly have spent 40 years in the Mets' lockerroom, I became aware of the fact that his amazin' book only makes it seem so, and that he has astounding knowledge of both the Mets and baseball in general.
This is an enjoyable and fascinating chronicle of 40 sometimes great, often frustrating years.
Perhaps my biggest kick, however, came from Bud Harrelson's wonderful and honest introduction. It alone makes the book a great buy, and brought back for this original Met fan many fond memories of the '69 Miracle Mets.

Might this be the best Mets book -- ever? I'm old enough to recall the Mets first win in 1962, and here's that game again, one of dozens of games -- from the good years and the wishful -- with dozens of box scores (box scores! Why don't baseball books have more box scores like Blatt gives us?) and excellent game stories, with the best quotes, scene-setting and analysis you could want. I just pick this book up, read any game at random and next thing I know I'm reading three games, four, and the writing of each game-story is so crisp, evocative, witty and intelligent that nothing about it tires. It's like sitting next to a great afficianado who's seen it all and makes you feel as if you're seeing it fresh in the thrill of the original nights and afternoons. Like a time machine, you're placed in the game's seasonal situation, the immediate dugout calculations, and the cultural implications for the Blue and Orange. And then there are the chapters on best/worst trades, best players (complete with stats and rain-delay musings) and like the song says, "I don't care if I ever get back." And the topper is that he even includes "bonus" games, plucking the extraordinary from the ordinary (if there is such a thing as ordinary in baseball). Any old book can give you the World Series games but Blatt gives you it all, from the Aprils to the warm summers to the October chill. It works on every level. Not only is this a book for the deepest, most passionate fan but also the perfect volume to introduce and explain to your girlfriend, wife or kids why the Mets matter, why this is not just the Mets history but our own. Just as you can love and appreciate Wrigley without being a Cubs fan, or appreciate Jordan without being his team's fan, you can love this book even if you're not a Mets fan. If you value great baseball writing you'll become a Howard Blatt fan. As do all great authors and their classics, this book transcends its particulars to become something any fan will find fascinating and historically compelling. This book will become as dog-eared as your first scorecard and just as precious.

Many players played for the Pied Piper(Holcombe Rucker).No one was has great as him though.He was a great man and founder of the Rucker Tournament.Most people who ended up playing in the Rucker Tournamet was better then most players in the NBA.They first started playing just in Harlem,New York then went to playing more teams in New York then more and more teams.They played as far as Mississippi.

this book talks about problems the players and coaches had with racism.Most players got started in the Rucker Park Tournament.After the park tournament they went on to college ball even some went to the NBA!
Asphalt Gods by Vincet M. Mallozziwas a great book about players before professional ball games.This book is a excellent book to pick up and read.

An excellent book. Well worth the read. Great read on the history of the fabled blacktop and the man who dedicated himself to making a difference in people lives. Great read on some of the characters to grace the early days of the tournament. you won't be dissapointed getting this book

Asphalt Gods is the best book on the planet.If you love basketball you should read this book.It is a true story which took place at Rucker Park.Rucker Park is named after the brother named Holcombe Rucker.Who was born in Harlem on March 2,1926.He was raised by his grandmother.It is interesting because Mr.Rucker brought some of the best players ever to play there.

I've read Heaven is a Playground, City Game, and seen On Hallowed Ground, for anyone that is a "real" basketball fan this is by far the "BEST" story of the best streetball.

Great subject, great storytelling. By the way, I played with Rucker legend Billy Rieser (aka White Jesus) and he was hands down the most incredible basketball talent and the most compelling personality I have ever been around. His story is worthy of a volume in itself.