Ohio Books

The Sweet Scented Manuscript caught me unawares, I thought Mr. Perdue had given up writing since fewer people are reading these days. After all, most novels nowadays are hacked out with the hope that a Hollywood producer will take notice and pick up the movie rights. That will not happen in the Lee series for two reasons. First, because Lee Pefley is his own man, and has definite notions about what's what. And second because producers only take notice of comic books. Lee might best be described as a dinosaur in the Era of Louthood.

I must assume that there is a hint of autobiography in these novels, and Manuscript describes how Lee met his bride. The setting alterantes between Ohio and Chicago, with school and work in the former, and romance in the Big Shouldered City. It's Lee's attitude to work that fascinates me because he does absolutely nothing to please his bosses as if daring them to sack him. He's always trying to find out which will be the last straw. I can't live like that, but wish I could tell my toady bosses where to get off. It seems that most firings take place due to "lack of chemistry" rather than employee incompetence.

I have never met Mr. Perdue, but I did meet his neighbor once in Montgomery AL in a rally to support Judge Roy Moore. The young man seemed surprised to find somebody familiar with his work.

This is Tito Perdue's most accessible book to a general audience. All his books are exceptional, but are pretty deep. This is just a great semi-autobiographical story of a young Alabama farm boy leaving for college and running into the beatnik lifestyle and life in the big city. Wonderfully written and his descriptions of the gritty underside of the city, as well as campus life and love, are remarkable. This one is highly recommended.

This book tells of a young man going off to college and what happens to him there. It describes the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of a young man's first impressions of the world outside of Alabama. This could be considered a 'coming of age' in the 50-60's story, but through the magic of Perdue's prose, it is also much more. The descriptions of the world seen through Lee Pefley's eyes are unique, more beautiful and more ugly than you had realized, but they are instantly recognizable. The Lee Pefley character in this book is innocent, but learning, not yet angry and frustrated as in the later Lee Pefley books. The characters are real and their interactions true and amusing. This is a beautiful and entertaining book and I think anyone would enjoy it, even if not familiar with Perdue's other books. I think I've been reading these books out of sequence. This should be the first book in the Lee Pefley series, then New Austerities, where Leland is middle-aged, then Lee, where he is an old man, and finally Fields of Asphodel, where Lee is dead. I agree with the previous reviewer: it's a shame this book hasn't received more attention.The New Austerities Lee Fields of Asphodel Opportunities in Alabama Agriculture: A Novel

While the subject of Tito Perdue's "The Sweet-Scented Manuscript" (a country boy experiencing the world for the first time when he arrives at college) may not seem unique or special, it is in Perdue's deft manipulations of the novel's language that this artistic effort really shines. Perdue doesn't dumb anything down - rather, he exhibits an efficiency with words that gently demands that the reader pay full attention to the prose. Often, books like this can get bogged down in their own aesthetic self-importance, but Perdue sidesteps such problems with ease. Practically every sentence is phrased in such a refreshing manner that I found myself smiling while reading this book - not because of the situations or characters (though the characters are highly individual and fascinating throughout), but because of the playfulness of a sentence or the intricacy of a turn of phrase.

It is a shame that Tito Perdue has remained out of the mainstream for so long - this is his fourth published novel, and it reflects a capable and poetic wordsmith. I recommend this novel to anyone interested in having a fresh and compelling reading experience.

I think this is an incrediblly well-written book.
The stories are short, interesting and insightful. Any Browns -- new or old --- will enjoy this book. Grossi is the best Browns writer EVER!
An NFL team should hire him for his insight and knowledge of the game.

I thought I knew everything about some of my favorite Browns players and stories until I read this book. They should have subtitled it, the Greatest Stories NEVER Told. This is a must-buy for a fan of any Browns era.

I would recommend this book for any Cleveland Browns fan. It makes for good light reading, and yet is very insightful into some stories you may not know about your favorite Browns of all time. Grossi couldn't have spent much time putting these stories together because they are very brief, but he does the job in giving the reader some unknown info about Browns from the past. The only thing that would have made it a 5-star rating for me is if the stories on the individuals would have been more in-depth.

I was 8 years old when my father took me to the 1964 NFL Championship Game, and the Cleveland Browns' 27-0 victory over Baltimore remains the highlight of my sports life. I felt that rush of happiness again when I read Tony Grossi's fine page-turner, "Tales From the Browns Sideline." It's filled with great stories about all of our heroes, and also has a few eye-openers about some little-known characters from Browns history. Read it in one sitting, or pick out a chapter here and there . . . you'll remember the glory days immediately!

You can buy throwing knives at http://www.yourbestdeals.net/1_s/50.htm .

Throwing Knives

This story collection won the 2001 Oregon Book Award for fiction. Judge Dorothy Allison commented as follows:
"Astute, passionate and unmistakably wonderful, these insightful stories are rendered in language as strong as the characters Tinsley portrays. these are stories of survivors-not victims-and in every instance they make exceptional choices, choices that show us more about what is possible in the stubborn human soul. Prehaps what is most affecting is the way Tinsley's people reach toward each other rather than withdrawing into themselves. It has been years since I have read a collection that so strengthened my own resolve about the ability of the most desperate of us to confront and surmount the awful choices of our lives. this is a powerful writer working at the limits of her talen-great talent and great work."

Awarded Ohio State's Sandstone Prize in Short Fiction, these finely crafted short stories are precise and concise explorations of character. Molly Best Tinsley has assembled an assortment of individuals, then strategically moved them through situations that feel familiar, yet are driven by intense psychological undercurrents. These are characters whom the reader comes to know intimately, with each sentence containing essential clues that increasingly build suspense and the keen desire to know how the many tensions and ambiguities play out. In "Zoe," a precocious adolescent, largely self-defined by a fragile vanity and contempt for her mother's array of lovers, struggles with the chaos of her home life and sexual awakening, poised at the edge of an emotional abyss before an unlikely relationship subtly illuminates the nature of her distress. In "Square Zero," another vulnerable adolescent, framed by an array of characters nervously trying to achieve normalcy at a holiday dinner, buckles under the uncertainty of where and with whom she belongs. And in five interrelated stories that give the collection its name, a preadolescent girl struggles to survive the dislocation that her father's Navy career demands. This life, which nearly claims the health and spirit of her mother, serves as a backdrop for the girl's acquaintance with dark secrets leading to friendship and forces that gradually erode her innocence. In "Figure Drawing," an older woman on her honeymoon with a man who habitually confronts and conquers senseless hardship and risk witnesses the emergence of her husband's true character when true, but meaningful risk presents itself. And, surprisingly, it is she -- whose instinct is to deal with transience and unpredictability by accepting and briefly embracing them through art -- who is better equipped to survive. In many of these stories, people act in ways that often are surprising, even alarming. Some chose dark paths. Yet -- ultimately resourceful, driven to explore their options, and intent upon realizing personal truths that will allow them to experience life more fully and honestly -- they prove that their choices were not necessarily wrong. For many of this author's older characters, difficult decisions and discoveries arise from a sense that time is running out, that they are not doing what they want to be doing, are not who they thought they would be, or are not with the people who give them what they need. A gradually blossoming self-awareness is the key to many of these studies of character, rendered with economical prose, clarity, fresh, tactile images and nuanced humor. This collection is too good to be read once. Rereading is an opportunity to dig deeper, sifting through the ironies and complexities of the human heart.

These stories cling to you and won't let go; reading the book over a period of several days, I felt as though Tinsley's characters - quirky, vulnerable, ironic, and compellingly human - were lodged in my mind. Tinsley's writing manages to both accessible and alluringly elliptical; she has the short story writer's gift for suggesting a whole world with a few deft strokes. Perhaps most haunting are the five linked stories that trace the fortunes of a Navy family posted in California

and then Sweden. Cynthia, the oldest child and narrator of the stories, finds herself a social outcast - unable to communicate with her Swedish peers and mocked for her inability to pick up French at L'Ecole Francaise Internationale. By default she develops a friendship with "the persistent Pia," as Cynthia's father dubs her, an intense and eccentric girl who draws Cynthia into strange games of pretend violence. Meanwhile, Cynthia's brittle mother, temperamentally ill- suited to the part of Navy wife, succumbs first to a debilitating case of pneumonia and then to the thrall of the scrupulously vegetarian Dr. Ramaswami; when she mows down the beloved stand of iris Cynthia has discovered, in order to use it as a centerpiece for the dinner to which Dr. Ramaswami is invited, Cynthia experiences it as a personal violation. Sex is lurking around the edges of these stories, and indeed brackets them: from the innocent quasi-sexual encounter the younger Cynthia stumbles into in the first of these five stories ("Throwing Knives"), to her more deliberate - although still ambivalent - venture into sexual experimentation in the last ("Everyone Catch on Love").

The relationship between parents and children - mothers and daughters in particular - figures in several other stories in the collection. A precocious young girl subtly betrays her laissez-faire mother by forging an alliance with the mother's latest boyfriend, a fix-it man who decides it's time to rout the starlings from under the eaves of the house. A divorced mother hosts a Christmas dinner that includes a kind of surrogate family - the gay couple next door and their two unruly dogs - only to discover that her troubled grown daughter won't let go of the resentments she harbors. A widow whose adult children "both stick to the West Coast and change addresses often" tries to make a connection with a surly but talented young woman in her art class.

Throughout, Tinsley's stories shimmer with humor and memorable detail. One minor character, an immunologist at NIH, ostentatiously puts a spoon back into a pot of soup after sticking it in his mouth: "He is always ready to deliver his losing-battle speech on microbes-their power and numbers versus the frail and futile dream of antisepsis (`picture the Kennedy Center packed with cockroaches, and you've got one can of Raid')." And Tinsley's endings resist the temptation to tie up all loose ends. They suggest more than they say, and leave you pondering the possibilities.

Author James Cash takes a fresh look at Ohio's presidents. Much maligned and always rated near the bottom of presidential rankings, these leaders, Cash believes, deserve a second look. His book, Unsung Heros, makes the case that they should be seen in a more favorable light. The stories and insights Cash provides about Ohio's presidents make for an entertaining read that will appeal to both the casual and serious historian.

This is a superb, well-rounded historical picture of our Buckeye State Presidents and their families. This book should be required reading for all elementary students help better understand the shaping of our country. Rate this book an 11 on a scale of 1-10.

This is a very readable, entertaining, and enlightening book about eight men Ohio claims as native son presidents -- William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B.Hayes, James Garfield, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Warren G. Harding. The author makes a convincing case that they are not rated as highly as they should be. All, for example, stood more for civil rights for African-Americans they other candidates and presidents of their eras who are commonly rated as better presidents. Another theme is the heroism of several of them in the Civil War. Another is their humble demeanor, in marked contrast to such self-promoters as Theodore Roosevelt. This is a well-written revisionist look at Ohio's presidents, written for lay readers with interest in history. Also, it contains many "human interest" facts and anectodes about these presidents, who should not be forgotten.

Author James Cash takes a fresh look at Ohio's presidents. Much maligned and always rated near the bottom of presidential rankings, these leaders, Cash believes, deserve a second look. His book, Unsung Heros, makes the case that they should be seen in a more favorable light. The stories and insights Cash provides about Ohio's presidents make for an entertaining read that will appeal to both the casual and serious historian.

A great book about a great man......very informative.......I met the man so therefore I am extremely impressed....

Viktor Schreckengost is a truly amazing man! This book shows his wide range of design and artistic talents and accomplishments, and talks about his philosophy, which was so important in all of his work. The author has talked with Viktor, and includes Viktor's comments on some of his own work. There are many photos of his work in the book, including his famous Jazz Bowls, paintings, sculpture, toy pedal cars, and much more. This book is a wonderful tribute to Viktor as part of the celebration of his 100th birthday!

Fine artist, sculptor, and ceramicist Viktor Schreckengost has had an enormous impact of popular culture through his Limoges dinnerware designs, his work as a graphic artist, theater and costume designer, as well as his industrial designs which ranged from Murray bicycles, pedal cars, planes and boats, to Steelcraft toy buses and trucks, commercial printing presses, the first riding lawn mower, General Electric lighting fixtures and appliances, the Sear's Beverly Hills lawn chair, and that classic icon of American childhood -- the little red wagon. Profusely illustrated in full color and enhanced with the addition of an Index and Image Catalogue, and with expert commentary by former museum curator Henry Adams, "Viktor Schreckengost: American Da Vinci" is a superbly presented and informative introduction to the life, work, and artistry of a remarkably talent who dedicated himself to the esthetic improvement of American popular culture. Highly recommended for personal, professional, and academic library American Art History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

The book is an excellent read for any fan of Viktor's. It includes many of his pieces that have not been seen before, including dinnerware, theater designs, and toys. It has wonderful pictures of all of Viktor's various artworks. The new text greatly expands upon the different mediums he worked in and how he was influencial to American design.

I think that this book was one of the best that I have ever read.It deals with real life issues like peer pressure and family problems such as divorce and deaths. It also deals with emotional issues like depression,guilt,and sorrow.The people are also realistic,none of them are like the nice little perfect people tht you see in things like fairy tales.Over all if you are looking for a realistic and cleverly written book this is the one you should be looking for.

I thought this book was really good.I read the whole thing,and I don't like reading that much.If I had to sit down every nite and read this book again i would.I would recomend the watcher for every person that wants to read a good tale.

Tucker's poems prove themselves rewarding for the reader who is willing to look closely at the world. Her poems seem to beckon the unwavering stare. One of her speakers admits, "Now I'm the last one in the museum. No one sees / a woman searching wall after wall as if for lost children." One sometimes feels that same sense of urgency reading this collection, looking into the truths and untruths of the world, some simple, some fragmented, some hopeful, others harsh and cruel.

This collection explores the ways of seeing and the ways of being seen. Ghosts of grandmothers stare down; Miss Dalton dances for us all, and the skull of a Saber-Toothed Tiger is on display. Tucker's awareness of place, history, and familiy ties, as well as her lyrical sensibilities and fine use of detail, work together to keep the reader returning for more.

In her poem about Rabun Gap, Tucker writes, "Mist / clings to our hands, softly brushes our bodies / in the places air had touched / without our notice." Tucker's poems are like the mist she describes. They brush against us. They softly call us to take notice. An excellent book!

Tucker's poems offer surprises of perspective, from the view point of the observer, and from who or what is observed. The interactions of sometimes several sets of observers, as in "Holding Patterns," reverberate from the last line of the poem, "but there are other burials," to the beginning. In "Ghosts," silent grandmothers reflect from the polished surfaces of spoons.

This collection explores histories, places and family ties through apt, many layered use of detail. The image itself can be haunting: "From what overflow of desire--/this tired woman/ nightly turning emptiness into white azaleas-" At other times the speaker draws us into an insight, "After you learn the words, the play changes," and leaves us looking, searching, for more. A great book!

Written with sensitivity to the quilt and the quiltmaker, exploring not only what inspired the art form but the necessity of the art form. A real sense of understanding both the textile and history of the textile emerges as one explores the lives of the women who quilted for both pleasure and need. This is a must have book for the person who wants to understand history and art form and the production of textile and how it relates to the finished product, as well as the importance the quilt played in the the lives of the women who made them. A valuabe addition to any libary.

This book provides a wonderful history of quilting and quiltmakers and is also inspirational for quilt design ideas. It is well-written and engaging, making a quilt documentation project very interesting to others. I highly recommend this book and it makes a perfect gift for any quilters.

This is a marvelous book. Readers in other states will come away from it with new or changed views of West Virginia and its history. Author Fawn Valentine recognizes quilts as historic documents and is most persuasive in explaining and using material culture methodology to prove this. Yes, West Virginia quilters live primarily in rural areas, and many needed quilts as warm bedcovers. However, they also produced elegant silk quilts as examples of fine, decorative needlework.

As a quilt researcher in the adjacent state of Ohio I am fascinated by the similarities and differences between quilts in our two states, and Valentine's convincing explanations for them. Most of the quilts documented by the West Virginia Heritage Quilt Search-even the oldest ones-were found near the places where they were made. The reason, she explains, is that West Virginians didn't move around much; they love place and family. They also had a strong desire to maintain traditional skills, which are "family ways."

Some quilt patterns were found only in discrete regions of West Virginia. Others (crazy quilts, for instance) continued to be made much later than was true in other states. Through extensive interviews with quiltmakers, the WVHQS learned of quilt pattern names and quilt-related language not found elsewhere. Through their oral interviews they also learned of a system of "barter economy" West Virginia quiltmakers used.

Most intriguing is Valentine's discovery of different quilting style, aesthetics, and designs associated with the quiltmakers' ethnic backgrounds: German-American, British, Scotch-Irish and Welsh. She presents this information early in the book, preparing the reader to recognize and identify the ethnicity of quiltmakers whose work is included later.

A series of appendices, including a summary of data and an extremely important timeline are helpful, as are the state maps included with almost every quilt, clearly identifying the counties where the quilts were made. As we discovered in the Ohio Quilt Research Project, Ohio is also a county-conscious state, so I felt right at home in West Virginia!

West Virginia quilts documents quilts from the 40's and older, and the lives of those who created them. I picked up a copy of this book at the library and was quite fascinated by the beautiful quilts and the history surrounding them (a young 23 year old married a 79 year old and had several children, can you imagine?). The pictures are interesting and the stories fascinating. I particularly appreciated the absence of modern quilts as I'm not a fan of modern art style and the overuse of batiks. This is a wonderful book for fans of quilting and those who love quilt history.

This interesting book argues a number of points. First, one of the reasons that we have survived and prospered as a species is related to our ability to read others' minds, i.e., to infer their beliefs, desires, and intentions from their words, behaviors, demeanors, visual cues, and so forth. (Societies that were story-intensive, Paul Hernadi suggests, may have been particularly successful in developing these advantages.) The ability to do such things is highlighted by the difficulty with such behaviors exhibited by the autistic and the schizophrenic. In addition to reading minds, we qualify and contextualize representations made by others by being attentive to the fact that the representations are not necessarily straightforward, unvarnished and reliable. They are, rather, metarepresentations and it is important that we learn to recognize them and absorb them in specific ways.

The novel is particularly suited to mirror these processes and, hence, both hone our own skills and recapitulate the importance of those skills in our evolutionary development. Different genres do this in different ways and at different levels of intensity. The novel has triumphed as a form for other reasons; this is only a single nexus of reasons for its success, but it is an interesting one for the literary student to observe, since it highlights the importance of cognitive science for humanities research.

In general, the humanities have (in their recent incarnations) been wary of science, fearing its dominance and seeking to undermine its truth claims. This is ultimately self-defeating, to the degree that the insights of science are relevant to humanistic study and have existed, in effect, as a grand, missed opportunity. Scholars such as Professor Zunshine are seeking to alter that situation and their efforts should be applauded and encouraged.

The book is relatively `easy going' for literary scholars, for its insights are embedded in both the more recent `theoretical' traditions and the more historical/traditional work of worthies such as John Cawelti and Wayne Booth. I leave to the reader to decide whether the work of such figures has stood the test of time more effectively than that of more recent commentators. It is certainly true that they speak with a degree of clarity and point that stands in contrast to the poststructuralist/postmodernist language of theory. Even within the context of Professor Zunshine's laudable intentions and palpable successes, one sometimes has the feeling that `theory' complicates the obvious by substituting a vocabulary less transparent than that of earlier practitioners. The notion, presumably, is that the material is so complex that it requires language commensurate with that complexity, but one can argue as well that the complexity requires simpler, clearer terms and that it is one of the chief responsibilities of the specialist to clarify rather than further complicate. That point turns on the intended audience, for many `theorists' have seen their role as communicating with the similarly sophisticated like-minded. General or more traditional readers should welcome Professor Zunshine's book, for she is consciously attempting to clarify and she is consciously attempting to write for a wider audience--not an unsophisticated audience, but an audience with broad interests in the novel rather than narrow interests in small, heavily-theorized aspects of the novel.

Ultimately, Why We Read Fiction does not answer that implied question, but it provides one of the reasons why we read fiction and it does so in interesting, informed and engaging ways. Professor Zunshine is quite aware of the larger dimensions of the question and makes no claims with regard to its multifaceted answers. Her purpose here is to bring to bear some of the insights of cognitive science and she does that expertly. Ultimately, this is more `dry' neuroscience than `wet'. We now have the capacity, for example, to observe the activities of the human brain as it undergoes aesthetic experience. We could use an fMRI to watch the brain as its possessor reads a text or hears a text declaimed. We could watch the effects on the brain of a novel versus a sonnet, a science fiction novel versus a hardboiled detective novel, a novel versus a short story, a short story versus a tale, and so on. We are just beginning to make the (often highly speculative and even inchoate) insights of science available to literary study and Professor Zunshine acknowledges that reality. However, one must begin somewhere and she should be applauded for doing so. It should also be acknowledged that, within the parameters of her study, she has been quite successful.

I purchased WHY WE READ FICTION after reading a number of strong books on evolutionary psychology written for non experts, including Dennett's CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED, Wright's THE MORAL ANIMAL, and Pinker's THE BLANK SLATE. After reading these works and finding myself fascinated by their insights and their explanatory powers, I was curious to see how evolutionary psychology might be applied to my own discipline of literary criticism. I was not disappointed. WHY WE READ FICTION is readable, well conceived, and patiently executed, and it shows beyond any reasonable doubt that the cognitive perspective can be brought to bear on literature in extremely satisfying ways.

Zunshine's major focus in the book is on the phenomenon that that psychologists (and many others) refer to as "Theory of Mind," the cognitive process by which we collect facts about another person, assign various labels and levels of reliability to those facts, and construct a narrative about that person's thoughts, feelings, and motivations. It is our theory of mind that allows us to make reasonable guesses about another person's intentions and future actions while, at the same time, understanding that the other person's perspective is different than our own. Most people exercise their theory of mind automatically without realizing that it is an extremely complicated process built into the human mind through hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection in environments where understanding other people's perspectives was vital to survival. It is not until we encounter people with difficulties forming a theory of mind--such as individuals with autism or Asperger's Syndrome--that we realize what a complicated cognitive process it really is.

After introducing this concept, Zunshine theorizes that fiction of all kinds acts as a kind of exercise program for our Theory of Mind. Much as bodybuilders train their bodies by lifting heavy weights, readers can train their theory of mind by deciphering complicated texts. And to prove it, she uses her critical vocabulary to read and explicate dozens of literary texts, including sustained readings of Richardson's CLARISSA and Nabokov's LOLITA that must be considered interpretive masterpieces.

As a practicing professor of English literature and an occasional author of literary criticism, I have been, for the last ten years or so, increasingly dissatisfied with the dominant critical paradigms available in my field. WHY WE READ FICTION has changed that and introduced me to an exciting new critical vocabulary that is rooted in contemporary scientific discovery and offers the potential for meaningful, sustained interaction between the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities.

Anyone who has studied Literary Criticism knows how rich it is in theories which claim to explain it all, and in the end become one more milestone in a vast intricate network of interpretations. The problem of course is that in the discourse of the Humanities there are no ways of simply excising out all the over- interpretations.
This means that a new exciting way of 'reading Literature' is not for experienced readers the 'answer' but rather another creative contribution, hopefully more insightful, cogent, and aesthetically pleasing than most.
Lisa Zunshine presents such a new way of reading. Drawing from evolutionary psychology, and the new cognitive sciences she makes an effort to read Literature in relation to these new ways of understanding ourselves.
And in fact the center of her effort is on the 'theory of the mind' and the way we as readers read novels, put together clues about people in a way similar to the way we do in our everyday lives- and of course in a way similar to our ancestors have done in their historical struggles for survival. We read according to Zunshine in order to figure out what others are thinking and feeling, and in order to develop an understanding of them which will enable us to better live.
She reads a variety of texts in an effort to illustrate these points, and does so with a certain insightfulness and perceptiveness that make the enterprise richly worthwhile.
This book provides a 'new way of seeing' which helps us ' see more' than we would otherwise, and thus is a valuable contribution to readers, and especially to those who love to read about reading.

Of the reviews/comments posted so far, I believe mine might be the only one grounded in having had the opportunity to hear Ms. Zunshine present the core of her arguments which are so wonderfully filled out in this book; or, at least, none have admitted to that fact so far. And, that is really the reason I purchased and read her book. Having recently heard her speak on "source monitoring" and "metarepresentation," which are key and crucial elements of her argument, while at a conference in Ottawa, Ontario, I decided I NEEDED to read this book. There is much she has to say that is relevant to my own readings of Joseph Conrad and the presentation of characters' minds within his texts. While I am not well steeped in current cognitive theories, I never once felt "in over my head" reading her book. Ms. Zunshine has carefully written a highly theoretical text in so tightly focused a way that her arguments concerning Theory of Mind--our innate, though sometimes inadequately developed, ability to sense and grasp the thoughts of others through observation and interaction--and its relation to our reasons for reading fiction are accessible and pleasing to readers of a wide range of experience and education. Having gone through the book but once I am not wholly in agreement with some of her points, but I am sufficiently in agreement that I intend to read it again--particularly after I finish reading Lolita, one of the texts to which she applies her theories. I just hope there is room in the margins for more notes. Other notions I felt were relevant to the ideas presented in this book can be found in Aldous Huxley's concept of "mind at large" as presented in his essay "The Doors of Perception," and a variation of Theory of Mind in the psychological works of R. D. Laing, particulary Politics of Experience. Ms Zunshine's work shares another connection to that of Laing: schizophrenia, and its affect on our ability to accurately track the sources of our own notions.

The author of this book is Brian Boru Dunne (1878-1962). The editors of this remarkable memoir want to point out that it is unlike anything we might expect from one writer memorializing another. Brian Dunne was a very young man from an Irish-American family, who had recently studied in a Belgian college with princes of the aristocratic de Croy family, met Gissing by accident in Siena, and then spent several months with him in Rome. The Roman period was an unusually happy one for Gissing, who entertained H.G. Wells and socialized with many important people there, including such other writers as Arthur Conan Doyle and Ernest Hornung. As Gissing's frequent companion, Dunne wrote it all down in his diary, preserving a record of their daily escapades and quotidian conversations in the fresh, unguarded manner of a young man whose mind was uncluttered by any adult protocol, social philosophy, or professional agenda. He went on to become the city editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican, met and interviewed most of the leading figures of the day, and wrote several memoirs which will be published in due time. In Gissing's case, he remained faithful to his diary and produced a lively, vivid, and patently authentic account aof a man who was regarded as one of the leading novelists of the time. Paul F. Mattheisen

As a long-time student of George Gissing's work and one of his first biographers, I was delighted to read this vivid and perceptive first-hand account of his activities and opinions. Few people who knew Gissing personally have left memoirs of him, and Dunne's is certainly the fullest up-close portrait that we have. He describes Gissing's writing and eating habits, his attention to clothes, his reactions to Italy and his people, and his opinions of other writers, and all this helps to clarify the novelist's character. I especially appreciated the excellent informative notes, which provided much needed background, and brought Dunne himself forward as an interesting and significant figure.

I stumbled onto George Gissing two years ago through his travel classic "By The Ionian Sea: Notes on a Ramble Through Southern Italy." I had not read much late-Victorian writing, except for brief forays into Thomas Hardy. Now I have found a new champion -- George Gissing -- and am discovering that post-industrial era through his works. In this process, I discovered Dunne's delightful memoir and was drawn to it because it recalled a time in Gissing's life when he seem most happiest: his 1897-1898 tour of Southern Italy, the setting for "By the Ionian Sea." Dunne's memoir -- wonderfully edited to fully explain all references, from obvious to obscure -- can be read on more than one level. First, it gives a vivid recounting, through an innocent young journalist's eyes that miss little, of a golden three or four months or so in Rome, hobnobbing with Gissing and two other Victorian writers, H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle. It also can be seen as "a work in progress" where the reader can examine how Dunne, by now in middle age and an accomplished writer in his own right, moved from diary through drafts of memoirs. And particularly important for the Gissing enthusiast is the introduction, which puts the era in perspective and paints a vivid picture of the players in Dunne's Roman holiday.

Out of left field, from the editors of The Collected Letters of George Gissing, comes a refeshing new view of Gissing--plus some charming turn-of-century Americana. The oddly successful combinaton comes about in this way. When the English novelist, desperate to escape for a time from his miserable marriage, visited Italy in 1897-98, he met there a 20-year old American traveller named Brian Boru Dunne. The precocious young man, who would later become a journalist in Santa Fe, New Mexico, kept a diary of their conversations over several months, recording Gissing's opinions on literature, modern and ancient Rome, and everything else that interested them. Years later, he wrote p some of his notes. The diary is lost, but the editors have used Dunne's surviving materials to create a fascinating portrait that shows us a more unbuttoned and humorous Gissing than we knew. Because Dunne is worthy of interest in himself, they have seen fit to include some other pieces: William Jennings Bryan's unconsciously hilarious rules for oratory; Cardinal Gibons' recipe for longevity; and an interview with Mark Twain written by Twain himself. Their 40-page introduction to Dunne and Gissing is unexpectedly fascinating. The voluminous footnotes explain so much, and in such style, that they are an integral part of the reading experience. This beautifully produced, amusing, and illuminating miscellany should attract all Gissing readers, and they will be rewarded by more than they bargained for.

Insightful and well written. I really enjoyed sharing the life of this remarkable woman.

Ms. Greenwald's insightful biography of the fascinating woman who was both a shaper and observer of the women's movement is fascinating reading. Highly informative and entertaining this book is a real page turner.

The authors writing style is captivating and I look forward to her next endeavor.

As a former Times writer I was impressed with Ms. Greenwald's thorough investigation and her ability to capture Charlotte's persona.

After seeing a re-broadcast of Marilyn Greenwald on CNN and having just read yet another review (NY Times and Dallas paper), there is no brouhaha over this one --this is a fine work.