Wisconsin Books

Greg Borowski is truly one of America's great young writers. After reading "First and Long," I felt I had been in the locker room and on the practice field all season long. It's a fascinating and poignant account of two Milwaukee schools close in proximity but worlds apart as players and coaches struggle and grow and struggle some more. Borowski has an amazing eye for detail and a gift for sharing it with the reader. "First and Long" is a terrific story for anyone who loves Friday Night football or who wants insights into American cities today. Can't wait for his next book.

Featuring a Foreword by Vince Lombardi Jr., First And Long: A Black School, A White School And Their Season Of Dreams by Greg Borowski is the inherently fascinating and superbly told story of the first year of the combined Messmer High School/Shorewood High School football team. These two southern Wisconsin schools were almost exact opposites of each other with one being black, private and urban, while the other was white, public, and suburban. First And Long is a story about football, but even more, it is the story of contemporary life and the modern issues of cultural adjustment, racial harmony, and the ideals and idealism of youth as mentored by their imaginative and persevering mentors. Unique and highly recommended reading for sports enthusiasts in general, and Wisconsin highschool football fans in particular!

I really enjoyed First and Long, even though I have to say I am not a sports fan. The author is known for his attention to detail, his ability to put a story in context, and his engaging style. All of these really come through in his account of a landmark season for the country's first high school football team formed from a partnership of a central-city Catholic and a suburban public school. Although the two schools are located merely 2 miles from each other, the author shows us how far apart the schools really in so many other ways.

Clearly, countless hours of interviews and observation went into this book. The players really come to life in its pages -- First and Long allowed me to get to know them, and the coaches as well. The glimpses of their lives off the field were every bit as intriguing as the accounts of their work on the field. Intriguing because they didn't fit squarely into one's expectations formed from Hollywood stories of underdog teams facing adversity. This team displayed a different kind of courage, and by the end of the season I wanted to continue following the players beyond the book's final page.

This book reminded me a good deal of "My Losing Season" by Pat Conroy (a excellent look at the author's challenging season playing basketball for The Citadel). I heartily recommend First and Long.

"First and Long" is a must-read for everyone who loves high school football. Greg Borowski gets as close to the gridiron as George Plimpton did. But his story tells so much more: How boys not only from different schools but from such disparate backgrounds forged a team and refused to fail against seemingly insurmountable odds. What's more, this is a story told with a perceptive eye and exquisite detail. See if it doesn't inspire you, too.

I am reviewing this book because Eric Broder, rules, ok? He RULES! Is that sufficient enough for ya? (see how I pick up the Broder speech patterns? Read the hilarious book, you'll see what I mean). Ok ok, Broder influenced MANY of us fellow Cleveland writers, took us thru endless drab rainy lunch hours downtown as we read his weekly column, Eric Broder deserves his place up there with the masters, dangit! And I mean no paper plate award ceremony, either!Dont keep it such a secret, Eric! Spread your words to the masses! In my own lovely comedic writing, I often scorn the fact that Broder is not writing for Letterman or Conan.. if u like those two, you'll see broder as their 'brother'. And, dont worry if youre not a big reader, the essays in this book are just as easily skimmed than read. I carry GREAT INDOORS in my special CA packing suitcase place, the only book I'll take on the long plane ride.. ok, so I had nothing better to do today but review this (Eric, if youre reading this, kiss kiss hug hug.. although youre taken). WENDY W cleveburg, oh

A very amusing and easy read, Broder's "Great Indoors" is simply a must have of anyone who has followed the man's weekly column in the Cleveland Free Times (or the old Cleveland Edition). It's a veritable autobiography of an indoor intellectual in serial form, and myriad points of cosmic import are established. You'll read, and will doubtlessly recognize yourself somewhere in Broder's tales of tribulation and triumph set here in the wondrous urban armpit of our Great Nation, Cleveland. The best part is that these columns are presented chronologically, and in bite-size readings. So you can put it down whenever you like. Read a couple bits on the bus. Peruse a few more nuggets while making your evening toilet. You'll come to realize that you aren't the only one who does silly and stupid things when left alone in the confines of one's domicile. This stuff is funny, and the author is to be lauded profusely.

Just reading the table of contents of this book makes me laugh. I'll show you. I'll close my eyes and put my finger someplace on one of the 4 pages listing the two-page long essays in the book. I'll bet that reading just the titles of the 5 entries nearest my finger will make you laugh. Here goes-

My Hot Date with Ivana Trump; Fashion: Pants and Stains; Attack of the Kitten People; Impending Domestic Bliss; You'll Hear from My Psychologist.

To prove my little theory to myself I made several more points (of my finger). These points, as well as making me laugh, reminded me that these reprinted columns from almost 10 years of the Cleveland Edition and the Cleveland Free Times are cumulative in their funniness as the reader learns all that he/she really doesn't need to know about the author, Eric Broder. The author himself does a good job of giving the flavor of the book so I'll just quote a section of his introduction to the work. "The theme of the endless, futile, Homeric search for the lost snacks of youth. The theme of raging hypochondria and medical misinformation. The theme of enraged babies and cats. The theme of whining and sniveling at every minor inconvenience. And don't forget the theme of sexual self-delusion. That one's in there big-time."

The book is wierd and useless and about the funniest thing I have ever read. I'm kind of worried about what that might mean, but I think YOU should get this book and dream along with Eric Broder.

PS: I AM NOT related to Eric Broder. I don't even know him.

First of all, I am not related to nor do I personally know Eric Broder...but he is wicked funny and he causes me to run to the newspaper rack each week to read his column. Rants about small animals, his celebrity garden at the Home and Garden show, potato chips...plus some faux "60 Minutes" fantasies to boot? Pure comedic genius. By the way - I met someone who used to work with him at a bookstore many years ago - she reports he's ALWAYS been like this, it's not just a front.

Hearing is a really satisfying novel because of the way it builds and accumulates and stores and supplies meaning little by little, page by page, in gripping patches of prose laid out like a vast acreage of many crops growing side by side to produce a bountiful plenty. But I'm not sure it can be read at the beach, it's not to be dipped into and enjoyed at random-it can only be fully established by reading it sentence by sentence from beginning to end because of the way meaning slowly accumulates even as decades of time are covered. There are no end of stories. They are used, story after story, story on top of story, to build meaning. The authors seem to want the power of stories to be questioned, not to get rid of them or put them down but to break their hold on us. The novel's facinating voodoo sanctuary hidden in a antebellum house depicts a place where its votaries go to tell stories and give them a new kind of hearing. There, they can at the same time freely hear stories and, as one of them puts it, hear "the speech of deliverance" from stories.

As for me, I just want to hear more stories woven together like these. Reading this book brings a new experience of how stories can be heard moving over a vast range of feeling in a short compass like an unfamiliar musical composition.

An incident recounted on the first page or two of this novel sets the stage for what it's all about. Jael B. Juba catches a plane from New York to New Orleans and sits beside a man "wearing one of those Italian silk suits women always want." It's not the man she wants but his suit. Busy with her own personal matters and put off by her perception that he's preparing to come on to her, she resorts to a queer form of protection from unwanted bids for attention. From her briefcase, she pulls out a sheaf of papers she carries to use for just such occasions and studies a sheet closely. A display of what she's looking at takes up the whole of page 2 or so in the novel and certainly confirms Jael's comment that it's "just the right amount of alien without that fatal exotic-erotic combo" to put them off: "the most dense, absolute nonsense computers can generate, every element scaled, cropped, flipped, modified beyond recognition, overprinted, no telltale repetitions." At the very beginning, this device, besides recalling eighteenth century novelists we may have read in high school, like Sterne or Defoe, performs all kinds of functions. It questions our expectations and distances us as it does the attractive man beside her but it also sets up a playful, teasing interaction with us. This foregrounding of print technology (along with a reference to the man's "closed laptop astride his genitals, IBM compatible") situates us in today's world of media. It clues us in on what not to expect in this novel. There's no budding romance here. Jael's feelings are strong and deep but, we discover shortly, they are directed toward an old handwritten diary: "Old leather as soft-skinned as a smooth fat baby." An object produced with the older technology of the pen and one that links her to others, alive and dead, from a past not of her own making.
As in many modern novels (Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Joyce's Ulysses, McEwan's Saturday, to name a few), time in Hearing is restricted to a day or so in the life of one character (Jael) while covering decades, even centuries, of events (as far back as sixteenth century European struggles for control of the Americas). The novel unfolds as the telling and `hearing' of Jael. We read the diary at the same time as Jael re-reads it. We hear Jael's stories as she tells them and we travel with her into a wild spit of Florida for consecration of her beloved book, the old diary, and on to South Beach, Florida where she leaves us with a sketch for a flyer and a sign advertising a new line of work she envisions for herself:
Jael B. Juba, Travay Philousiac
first and last practitioner
As to what this sign could possibly mean, only Hearing, its centuries of movement resounding through a couple of days from one woman's life, offers an answer.

Hearing is fiction in the grand tradition and will appeal, I think, to readers ready and willing to be transported by fabulous writing into the reaches and depths of a fictional world. This novel gets my highest recommendation, but this one is not for you if you're looking for nonfiction embroidered with fictional touches.

I'll flip through each chapter to give some idea of what you can expect, while trying not to give away particulars of the twists and turns that make reading this novel such a pleasure. In the first chapter, "Trail of Seduction," the narrator Jael B. Juba describes how she's following the "trail" made some 15 years earlier (in l977) by her friend Elizabeth Harding Dumot-from Athena, New York, to an antebellum house in Old Tarragona, the historic section of a Florida Gulf Coast town advertised as "the oldest continuous settlement in America." As you move along with Jael over this terrain, you begin to understand how Harding was seduced into buying the broken-down old Boullet House and how Jael experiences that seductive pull when she travels the same route in l993 to return the diary of the long dead Frances Boullet to the Boullet House, where Harding found it. You hear the story of how Harding falls through a rotting windowseat one day while restoring the house, and finds herself in an architecturally concealed voodoo sanctuary. This secret space is so vividly and realistically described that you actually believe in its reality. By the end of the long first chapter all living major characters have been introduced. You have the feeling that you know the people of Old Tarragona and you know where you are in this semi-tropical atmosphere. You're now prepared to hear what's in the diary.

In the second chapter, "Bride of Freedom," you begin reading the diary compiled by Frances Boullet as she approached her ninetieth birthday, back in l935. She originally had 40 volumes of diary and had filled up 39 of them, starting at age 15 on the eve of the Civil War. To fill the remaining blank volume (the one you'll be reading) she cut the material she wanted out of the other 39, burned what was left of them, and pasted her selections into the remaining one. From the way she puts together these cut-outs you get slices of her life and world over a period from l860 to l935. You hear what she sounds like as a teenager, a young woman, a mature woman, and as the old Frances putting together volume number 40. As you listen to changes over time in her voice, you get a strong sense of how she and her cronies develop over decades of time and how America developed from its Floridian and Caribbean beginnings. This chapter is highly entertaining.

Continuing with the diary, the third chapter, "Heroes and Refugees," takes on Frances's father and his ancestral line, showing her turns of character as well as those of America's early settlers. In the fourth chapter, "Of Legacy and Dispossession," you hear the story of how the times brought people together in such unexpected connections that a woman with Frances Boullet's French and English lineage found it natural to adapt the practice of voodoo to her life-and many other fascinating stories of her kin and kind. In chapter 5, "Blood Washes Blood," Frances reveals how the African diaspora and the Caribbean islands, especially Haiti, came to play a profound and lasting role in her life and death (a fascinating and moving read). Chapter 6, "Remains," does a smashing job of tying up loose ends from this amazingly rich and unusual range of material.

The last chapter, "The Opening," may be my favorite. All the other chapters prepare you for this one, which is a celebration of the opening of the secret voodoo sanctuary to the public. Besides being very funny, it brings you to the sudden realization that you, the reader, have involuntarily acquired an insider's ease of understanding what goes on here in the heart of "the oldest continuous settlement in America." The voodoo sanctuary has opened for you too, it seems. Beware!

Hearing by Lydia Fakundiny and Joyce Elbrecht is a highly complex and totally engrossing novel, a tour de force in collaborative fiction. It works as a sequel to The Restorationist, from 1993, but it isn't necessary to have read its predecessor to enjoy Hearing. The work is brilliantly conceived, using the device of one composite diary, compiled from forty volumes of diaries with significant incidents, stories, and history cut and pasted into this final volume. The forty volumes span as many years from the late 19th century into the first half of the 20th, but dip far back into the early years of this country. The myriad layers of time flow logically and smoothly in and out of one another. I thought of it as a tightly packed flower bud with each diary entry like a petal unfolding, and each one opening a new dimension of either time or locale or culture. There are many distinct voices in this novel, each one clear and different from the others - a truly masterful handling of language. Furthermore, the story is completely engaging with shocking surprises along the way, a bit of mystery, a wealth of history and Caribbean culture, and a touch of serious social commentary. If you enjoy reading works that fully engage your brain and all your senses, that open up new worlds and suck you right in, this is the novel for you.

Prof. E. L. Anderson (Lansing Community College), in: Choice - Current Reviews for Academic Libraries (April 1997): This indispensable reference and thorough summary of mostly French and German reports and [Webb's] interpretations and observations will thrive and be a foundation for future work. Fine index, thorough footnotes and bibliography, clear outline and arrangement of material,and articulate paragraphs.

Prof. Gary Reger (Trinity College), in: New England Classical Journal 25.3 (February 1998): In Hellenistic Architectural Sculpture, Pamela Webb aims to assemble in one place all the instances of sculpture that adorned buildings on the Aegean islands or in western Asia Minor in the Hellenistic period. In this she succeeds admirably. Her 110 page "List of Sites" covers every major building at every major site. The entries are divided up by region and by site within region. For each site she provides a list of builidngs which carried, or can be argued to have carried, sculpture, giving their date, size, order, and other basic information; a brief description of the extant sculpture, including provenance and present location; and a bibliography. Her discussion of each sculptural program gives special attention to the themes and motifs behind the sculpture and reviews particular problems, to which Webb occasionally offers her own solutions. The vast majority of the sculpture she discusses is illustrated with photographs of high quality in the plates at the end of the book. Webb's book is now the place to start for anyone interested in sculpture on architecture in the Hellenistic period. Webb's discovery that the types of buildings preferred and the nature of architectural decoration changed around the end of the third century BC is, historically speaking, surely the most important result of her work. It adds another element - all the more welcome as coming from the art historical direction - to the impressive list of important changes that mark the end of the third century.

Prof. Linda Jones Roccos (City University of New York), in: American Journal of Archaeology 102 (1998) 446-447: Here is a most welcome addition to the meager corpus of informative works on Hellenistic sculpture. The monuments discussed provide an amazing view of little-known sites such as Chryse in the Troad, Alabanda in Caria, and Sagalassos in Pisidia. This is an extremely thoughtful book, with comprehensive bibliographies, lengthy descriptions, and thorough discussions of each monument, in addition to a detailed index and plentiful illustrations. More than 100 pages of catalogue entries provide the essentials of date, shape, size, order, and extant sculptures for each monument. Discussions for each entry provide background information on the ancient literary sources as well as excavation and publication histories. [Webb's] purpose is threefold: to examine how figural sculpture was used, to determine patterns of usage, and to gain understanding as to why figural motifs were employed. She believes that the motifs were of paramount importance and indicate a strong religious component. Webb wisely emphasizes the interdependence of sculpture and architecture and most fortunately considers both together. There are effective tables for a chronological view of types of buildings (temple, altar, civic, domestic, cultic, heroa). The Hellenistic period saw an increasingly wide variety of locations for sculpture, such as column drums and shafts, captials, pedestals,...and these are treated effectively. In addition to the basic background and descriptive information about the sculptures from each site, Webb discusses problems in dating and identifying the monuments. A particular strength of the work is Webb's competent over-all discussion of each monument, covering architectural elements and pottery deposits as well as the sculptural finds. Altogether, this volume is a most useful and informative work.

Prof. Barbara A. Barletta (University of Florida), in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review 8.5 (1997) 493-495: In this succinct and lucid exposition of figural motifs in Hellenistic architecture, Pamela Webb accomplishes exactly what she sets out as her task in the introduction. Her first goal is to demonstrate how figural sculpture was used. Thus [she] establishes a classification of buildings, as religious, civic, domestic, and cultic and commemorative. She also includes here a discussion of the orders used and a short section on Hermogenes, the most famous architect of the period. In the next chapter, she locates sculpture on the individual architectural members, moving from [column] drums and pedestals to akroteria. Chapter 4 then treats motifs dividng them generally into non-narrative and narrative themes. Her second and third goals, to elucidate patterns of use over time and the meaning of figural ornamentation, are addressed in the discussions above and developed further in the conclusions. Part 2 of this book provides a documentation of the material. Full descriptions of the architectural and sculptural remains are presented in geographical arrangement from northern to southern Anatolia, the Aegean Islands, and Cyprus, and from earliest to latest within each site. It is in this section that Webb discusses the problems and controversies surrounding the monuments, particularly their reconstructions and dates. As a result of its clear organization, with thorough and up-to-date bibliography, this book represents a handy and important reference. It is well illustrated, in several cases using the author's own photographs, and includes almost all the necessary plans and reconstructions. The book certainly provides the reader with an excellent overview of architectural sculpture in the "heart of the Hellenistic world".

Like an earlier reviewer, I'll look for more books from Jerry Apps. My mother's dad was a farmer in Iowa. They moved to "The Valley" in Texas (near Brownsville) when she was 14 and then to NW Arkansas before she graduated from high school. In all three areas, my grandad farmed. When I was a child, he milked a few cows and put his 10-gallon milk cans out at the rural train station for pick-up each day. He worked at the local BUSH canning plant part-time to supplement his farming income. My grandmother was a grade school teacher until she retired. This novel helped me to understand more about my family history and some of the challenges that must have been faced by my grandparents. This story is good food for thought.

No need to repeat Jim Pope's comments. I like books like these as a nice "break" from the "murder & mayhem" novels I usually read. Very nice and informative book, indeed. I'll be looking for more of Jerry Apps' works.

Jerry Apps zeroes in on the importance of the small family farm in the community and the challenges that are facing the farmers and their families. I enjoyed getting drawn into the story of the pickle factory and its importance as a source of income and gathering place. You will look at pickles differently after reading this book. I live in Wisconsin but never knew about the role small cucumber patches played in the life of the farm areas. Buy local, support the family farmers and help them creatively survive the challenge of agribusiness.

Novels are typically not on my 'to read' shelf. But I picked this one up because Apps' non-fiction has always been so much fun and chocked full of right-on memories for me. IN A PICKLE is about the time when I grew up and about a place only half-a-county from where my family's farm was. This book is right up there as one of Apps' best, and it superbly captures the essence of the culture and the times. It tells an engaging story in a down-home and straightforward style that shows why Apps should be on everybody's list of really good storytellers.

The book is a character-driven tale that's not only a fun read, but it will give you an effective insight into what small-farm life was really like half-a-century ago in middle America. After the first couple of chapters of IN A PICKLE, I found it to be one of those few books that is so enjoyable that I forcibly (and with difficulty) limited myself to just a chapter or two a day - that way I knew I would get to enjoy it for a lot longer. The book has several layers to it: 1) an enjoyable novel about the relationships of a cast of characters trying to get through tough times together, 2) a chronicle of small farm families documenting some of the everyday realities of that life fifty years ago, 3) a commentary on how progress in the big picture of things can impact the lives of the individual people being swept through those changes, and 4) a depiction of how the modernization of technology can be a good thing, but how, whether it intends to or not, and for better or for worse, it can significantly disrupt the traditional order of things and much of what goes with that tradition. Those aspects can all be enjoyed on their own merits with IN A PICKLE. But the book also gives the reader a combined experience of all those things fitting together in one place and one period of the American landscape, an indispensable part of our country's character.

If you're old enough, IN A PICKLE will jog your memory about the old days and tickle your funny bone at the same time. If you're younger than that, the book takes you back in time to a part of your parents' world, and it does that in an entertaining way that leaves you appreciating some new things about that world your folks grew up in. In either case, you're apt to see some things in a way that you maybe hadn't considered before - until Jerry Apps let you know about it with IN A PICKLE.

In my not-so-humble opinion, Walter Davis's Inwardness and Existence is the most important work of philosophy since Sartre's Being and Nothingness. In this book Davis attempts an astonishing synthesis of 4 seemingly irreconcilable schools of thought: Hegel's self-consciousness, Heidegger's Existentialism, Marxist concepts of ideology and subjectivity, and Freudian psychoanalysis. His goal is a comprehensive and intellectually rigorous theory of "subjectivity," of what we are and how we got that way. Along the way he finds time to write a prose Ode to Death, explore the psychological mysteries of sexuality, provide the best explanation ever written of the Marxist concept of ideology, and intellectually skewer the phony "radical" Professors of academic deconstruction. This is a profound, challenging, wide-ranging book that deserves to be read, re-read, argued with, and discussed. "Put down thy Derrida; open thy Davis!"

Like a previous reviewer, I came across this book unheralded while searching through racks at a bookstore. As a psychologist, psychoanalyst and theologian, I see the topic of inwardness and subjectivity as much discussed today and often fading into greater obscurity for all the analysis. Davis's book manages to retain perspective on the actual phenomenology of subjectivity and addresses each of these four major approaches to the topic - Hegelian, Existential, Marxist and Psychoanalytic (which he addresses from the actual current state of the field, not simply returning to the Freudian model long since left behind) - without allowing his thought to be captured by any one of them. He achieves a true conversation amongst them, allowing each to inform the other and offering us a creative combination that permits the experience of subjectivity to be rediscovered from within that conversation. A well-researched, solid, accessible, excellent book.

As a first year graduate student in mathematics at the Ohio State University in the summer of 1989, I had the good fortune to wander quite at random into one of Walter Davis' English classes. I was immediately hooked. Over the next three years I took three more of his courses. "Inwardness and Existence" was just into print then, and although it pales in comparison with his outstanding live presentation of similar themes (Davis is an accomplished stage actor in his spare time), I've treasured this book for many years for the memories it brings back of these immensely rewarding (and oftentimes themselves quite theatrical) classroom episodes.

Now, I don't read Hegel, Heideggar, Marx or Freud...though I did once enjoy the latter three...and don't see many of the things of value in their writings that Davis culls from them and brings to life. Hegel, in particular, strikes me as an utter windbag. The strategy here, though, is merely to draw ideas from the writings, discarding whatever encumbering nonsense enshrouds the germs of inspiration. For example, Davis develops a convincing analogy between the stoic/skeptic/unhappy consciousness triad of Hegel and the structuralist/post-structuralist/existentialist triad of 20th century French "thought", hinting that existentialism could be resuscitated. This is presented with a full awareness of the things that made it so deservedly unfashionable in the first place, and a surprisingly compelling case is made. In the psychoanalysis chapter, Davis talks, in a non-schmaltzy manner, about active engagement in traumatic experience being a key to self-actualization (the schmaltzy expression is mine, not his), concluding with the insight that "love is not about finding the right person--it's about becoming the right person." This is an idea that concurs with my own evolutionary intuitions, though he of course gets there via a different route. In a marvelous final chapter, Davis ties it all together with a discussion of his general methodology...a dialectic he calls a "hermeneutics of engagement". I doubt there is a better explanation of or justification of the contemporary relevence of dialectical thinking anywhere.

G.H. Hardy criticized criticism generally, on the basis that the talented should create, rather than commentate. I think this book proves that idea to be ill-founded. Five stars here is a no-brainer. Be warned, however...its overriding advice is to deepen your engagement with your most difficult issues, rather than extricate yourself from them...a process that, when worked out correctly, never actually ends. The implication is that anything less is a waste of life. Even if you find yourself in the most-likely-reader mould, it's almost inevitable that you'll resist...indeed, it probably took me ten years from the time I last saw Davis to realize how right he was with regard to me.

I came across this book wandering through a bookstore in 1989. It had a section on Hegel's famous chapter on "Lordship and Bondage," and I thought Davis might have something interesting to add to my already considerable library on the subject. The academic sounding book title suggested a Ph.d thesis turned book or something from the mills of postmodernism, in those years grinding out mind-numbing book-length footnotes to Derrida et al.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! The pages showed an intellect and heart breathtakingly alive and engaged. Despite forbidding sounding chapter titles the prose was beautifully crafted and spoke to my life, my fears, my evasions. I found the book more akin to a sort of wisdom literature, maybe something Ralph Waldo Emerson could have written towards the end of the 20th Century. I read it 2-3 times. Gave it to friends along with advice to ignore the forbidding title and titles to sections.

Later I searched academic journals for reviews and, as I had expected, found none. There is something discomfiting about Davis' book. Maybe Davis meant to scratch your conscience, grapple with intellectual and emotional honesty and courage, put a tack in life's chair -- do those things, that is, that tend to not get one the big symposia at the academic conference. I'm not sure what Davis meant to do, but I have never read such engaged presentations of the likes of Hegel, et al, that so gently yet so relentlessly made me look at the question of how I live.

So, wandering through the Amazon.com jungle, I was greatly encouraged to see that, 12 years later, Davis' book is still available. Give it a try.

This is an interesting book about happenings/history in Wisconsin.
We gave it as a gift to two people and they both enjoyed it.
Books came quickly and were in perfect condition.
I even found out that one of my relatives was involved in
one of the stories!

I have lived in Wisconsin for 50 years and I have visited many of the places they write about in this book. I didn't know the history of these places and so I found this a very informative and interesting book. I also found it easy to read, the chapters were short and to the point.

Known as the Badger State, Wisconsin is famous for its cheese and beer, for its settlement in the 19th century by waves of Norwegian, Swedish and German immigrants, as well as for the progressive politics of Bob Follette and the infamous politics of Joe McCarthy. But there is so much more to Wisconsin's history and author Michael Bie recounts some truly remarkable incidents in that history, many of which may come as a surprise to even life-long residents. This compendium state history begins with a chapter on the archaeological discovery in Lake Mills of a Native American culture that was flourishing around 3000 B.C., then goes on to cover the founding of Green Bay in 1634, events in Prairie du Chien in 1842, the Taliesin accomplishments and scandals of 1914, alleged events in Niccedah in 1950, the Posse Comitatus in Tigerton Falls in 1974, Milwaukee corruptions and depravity in 1991, and so very much more. Of special note is the chapter featuring 'Wisconsin Facts & Trivia'. Enhanced with an extensive bibliography and an index. An essential, core addition to school and community libraries throughout the Badger State, "It Happened In Wisconsin" is as entertaining as it is informative, and especially recommended to the attention of non-specialist general readers with an interest in Wisconsin history and personalities.

From Capital Times columnist and author Doug Moe:

"It goes without saying that Mike Bie is a splendid storyteller, but his real gift is digging out the tales from the past that are truly worth telling. Nobody knows the truth behind more Wisconsin myths and legends than Mike Bie, and it's his singular talent that in dealing us those truths he has produced a book as entertaining as any fiction."

This is the best book I've found to serve as a companion on a descent into the depths of "Finnegans Wake." It will deepen a reader's understanding of Joyce's methods. The author's insights are original and exciting - unlike some other books, this one actually made me eager to jump back into Joyce's book, sure I would see things in a new light.

I'm coming close to completing my first reading of the Wake. I understand now that it's a book you need to read many times. For this first pass, though, Joseph Campbell's "Skeleton Key" and this "Book of the Dark" were great guides.

This guy's read "Finnegans Wake" a thousand times, so it seems, and his knowledge of Joyce and environs is wide. I'd recommend "Joyce's Book of the Dark" for you Wakeans out there who need to dig deeper into the book of the delpth.

Unlike any other book in English literature, James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) is written entirely on the level of dream consciousness. Joycean scholar John Bishop has tightly focused his attention on the *sleep* aspects of Finnegans Wake. While this makes for a rather monochromatic presentation sometimes bordering the banal, the scholarship, clarity, and thrust of Bishop's presentation are indisputable. At bottom, one really doesn't like to admit there's so much in Finnegans Wake that such restrained scholarship is required to understand just one aspect of it. But then again, this work was the mature James Joyce's magnum opus.

From the text, pages 4-7: "Suppose we charged ourselves with the task of providing in chronological order a detailed account of everything that occurred to us NOT last night ... but in the first half-hour of last night's sleep. The 'hole affair' [535.20], (and a 'hole', unlike a 'whole', has no content), will likely summon up a sustained 'blank memory' [515.33]: 'You wouldn't should as youd remesner, I hypnot' [360.23-24]. What would become equally obscure, even questionable, is the stability of identity... No one remembers the experience of sleep at all as a sequence of events linked chronologically in time by cause and effect."

Joyce remarked to his friend William Bird: "About my new work - do you know, Bird, I confess I can't understand some of my critics, like Pound or Miss Weaver, for instance. They say it's *obscure*. They compare it, of course, with Ulysses. But the action of Ulysses was chiefly in the daytime, and the action of my new work takes place chiefly at night. It's natural things should not be so clear at night, isn't it now?"

Superb scholarship and a major key to understanding the deep strata of Finnegans Wake.

The ultimate treatment of Joyce's confusing classic, Bishop's comprehensive analysis goes beyond typical literary interpretations. Focusing of such diverse influences as Vico's "New Science" and The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Bishop shows the compexity of Joyce, as well as his almost total command of the English language, and language in general. If you've ever wondered about Vico's historical thesis, and want to understand how Vico permeates Joyce, this is the book to read. In the end, you'll come away with a better appreciation of Joyce's text, and a feeling of amazement at Vico's poorly understood, but far-sighted view of mankind.

If you like Jim Collins "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't", "Joyworks" is a must read. While "Good to Great" is from an observer's angle, "Joyworks" is from the man who achieved it. This book was written in a witty and warm tone, which reminds me a lot about the good old days at Marquette. It's a remarkable culture that not only builds great products, but also builds great people with characters. Unleash the creativity of people is the key to the success of Marquette's innovative products.

A great book for a great look into one of America's great companies through the eyes of the man who founded it. Witty and funny. This book is an example of what is possible to achieve in this great Country with a little smarts and some courage.

This book is written with wisdom, warmth and humor. Both a memoir and a business how-to, it's a must read for young entrepreneurs. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend.

In this book Michael Cudahy remembers the long path to success taken by Marquette Electronics. The early days are given a great deal of ink, demonstrating the determination Mr. Cudahy is known for, including his childhood and young adulthood. The story continues through the 1970's as MEI broke new ground in the medical electronics business. As the company develops into a major force with acquisitions on two continents, the issues and problems of growth are discussed in depth. Mike spends time discussing the various leaders in place prior to the GE buyout and his reasons for selling the company. As a prologue he brings the reader up to date on his activites since MEI.

Gorgeous portraits - full of emotion and complexity. I originally bought this book because I was interested in the fashion celebs - Todd Oldham, As Four, Simon Doonan, John Bartlett, etc, but all the other celebrities in the book - John Waters, Edward Albee, Michael Cunninham - certainly don't hurt, either.

A compelling, gorgeous book - totally unique. Gay and straight readers alike will be captivated by the interior images so beautifully displayed in this newly published addition to the photography genre. While by no means a book on interior design, the spaces depicted will be a source of fascination to readers who delight in viewing interesting homes. The human subjects, too, are intriguing. Alternately calm and kooky, they don't dominate the photographs, but are essential to the composition. A thrilling read. (Or, rather, experience.)

So refreshing to see a gay photography book that is thoughful, insightful, not obsessed with young bodies, and at the same time absolutely gorgeous.

The photographer Tom Atwood writes in his "Artist's Statement" that he wanted to do a book of color photos of clothed gay men in New York who live in apartments. The photographs should balance both the portrait of the individual with his environment. He describes this book as a "miscellaneous catalogue of personalities and living spaces." The models come from a variety of professions: writers, artists, composers, designers, interior decorators, attorneys-- John Waters, Edmund White, Ned Rorem, John Ashbery, Edward Albee et al. Most of them are collectors of practically any and everything: books, crosses, musical instruments, paintings, photographs, porcelain poodles, wigs, etc. Some of the subjects arrange their "stuff" well while others do not. I could not be in Joe Holtzman's kitchen (p. 42) for more than five minutes without jumping out the window. On the other hand, the apartment of Eric Bernhoft and Peter Mintun (p. 15) is most inviting.

The photographer in 70 frames or so manages not to repeat himself at all or even come anywhere close to repeating himself, no small feat. Some of my favorites are that of Billy Basinski (p. 64) where the model is seated on a sofa in front of floor-to-ceiling windows with beautiful light streaming in, Andrew Solomon (p. 61) in a beautiful but claustrophobic shot and Christophe Le Gorju (p. 39) where the model is standing to one side of a window which makes a beautiful Modrian-like grid. The most unusual living space has to be that of Tobi Wong (p. 31) which is described as being an eight by nine foot apartment.

A friend of mine used to say that regardless of how diverse the objects were, that you could hang anything together on a wall so long as you grouped them. This book of very fine photographs perfectly illustrates that theory.