Bloom Books

All 3 of my copies were in perfect condition. It arrived right on time. Thank you.

Loved the book. My students loved hearing how the wolf became a good reader. The service was great too. Got the book fast! Thanks!

As a teacher I love the ultimate message that this story sends: Reading is hard work, but with effort everyone can suceed.

The story is set in absurdity where educated cows, pigs, and ducks can teach the big bad wolf a few things. Enjoy!

A hungry wolf comes to eat the other animals, only to learn that reading is much more rewarding. My students loved seeing him go through the steps of learning to read, just as they had done.

The "big, bad wolf" wants to eat Pig, Duck and Cow, who are too busy reading to be bothered with him. He goes to school, to learn to read and his early attempts are brushed off by the animals. When he finally learns to read, he entertains Pig, Duck and Cow with his story telling skills and wins them over. This is a fabulous read aloud to launch reading and story telling activities early in the school year.

Tips for runners are combined with a history of some of America's best runners. This book is also a great motivational tool right before a race.

this book is a summary, biased or not, of history and tips for runners. It will be a nice reading for those who appreciate reading a little bit of history of famous American runners, as well as knowing the way they did to get there. If you are not into history or not looking for tips, maybe better not buy it. If you don't think american runners deserve that much credit, maybe not buy it either. If you don't care about who runs and enjoy it as pure as runners from Kenia do, than that's a nice book for you, as it was for me.

I bought a used copy on Amazon Marketplace and it was the best three bucks I ever spent! Entertaining, informative and inspiring, it profiles fifty of the greatest runners in short but amazingly detailed and well structured chapters...complete with racing states, biographical info, training plan and memorable quotes. There is something for every runner in the book... I came away with many interesting ideas and memorable words of encouragement.

Light, easy to read. Great to throw in your gym bag or keep in the car for a quick-pick-me-up before a race or training session.

"Motivation has to come from within. I make up my mind to shoot for the moon. Even if I don't make it, I'll be among the stars." --Francie Larrieu Smith

This book surpassed my expecations because it not only masses the best all time U.S. distance runners of both sexes but Bloom does not just give you the workouts but includes compact and effective biographies on each runner that I found the most interesting of all. The fact that Frank Shorter was fair runner in his private HS years but later won the NCAA 10,000 meters is quite amazing and of course so are his marathon medals as well. Bill Rogers virtually borrow gear to get appropriately outfitted for a race (Pre sent him a pair of shoes he still has) and then runs his first 2:09 while stopping to tie his shoe (Bloom didn't mention that Rogers often stopped to drink water). Everyone remembers Jim Ryun but what about Billy Mills the great cinderella story gold medalist of the 64 Olymmpics and asthmatic Bob Schull who also wins in 64 in the 5000. Well both are covered extremely well and Schul wonders like Bloom where the top runners are of today (soccer suggests Bloom). Great personal nuggets of information plus a bit of where are they now in four pages on each athlete. The women are well represented with Doris Brown, the great miler and 800 runner Jan Merrill, Francie Laraeu, Pattie Catalano (2:27 marathon), Joan Bennoit and Mary Slaney. What's great about this book is that Bloom gives you a career look in the few pages he has on each athelete with their PR's and dates and locations along with their greatest acheivements, times, records and victories and touches of ther personal life (Schul's wife was his workout timer). For example both Slaney and Laraeu were well known milers and 1500 specialists but late in their careers both Francie Laraeu and Mary Decker Slaney ran excellent 10ks both qualifying for the Olympics late in their careers. Listed at the end of each chapter is a week out of one of their workouts during their peak period such as Frank Shorter doing intervals on the track with only 50 yards of rest just before the Olympics. Bill Rogers running almost 30 miles a day for over 200 miles a week. Mary Slaney and her impressive track workouts and Pre running 30 second 220s with a 40 second 220 (jog?) for two miles at an overall 9:20 pace. The book also includes recent stars like Bob Kennedy, Suzie Hamilton and Regina Jacobs (now shrouded in controversy).

The hardest part of the book is the rating system, outside the top 30, Bloom lists an honorable mention section but a few deserving folk seem to be missing. Bloom graciously invites you to submit anyone missed on email such as where is Rick Wolhoter the mid 70's dominate 800 meter specialist and later 1500 runner? He's the other guy that fell down in the heats at Munich. And can you believe that Rogers and Shorter still put in over 50 miles a week? If you follow U.S. distance running this is the book. Bloom also has an intro that sounds like "Where have all the U. S. distance runners gone?" He'll give you his best answer.

If you don't know much about the history of American distance running, this book will give you a good introduction. Each runner profiled gets only 3 pages, though. Of course the result is that the book is super-formulaic and gets boring after a while.

The info on how the elites trained is very interesting. However, at its root this book is written in the Runner's World style: it's stated purpose is to promote the advancement of American distance running, while the book itself is a work of mediocrity that promotes only mediocrity.

In addition to 50 profiles, Bloom also includes a long essay on how to make Americans competitive again on the international stage. The essay is more of a fanatical diatribe than a thought-out exposition; Bloom never really even explains why he believes distance running is so much more important than any other sport. He has all these plans to coerce kids into joining cross country teams and he chastises Americans for being lazy and always seeking the short-term payoff. I don't understand why Bloom has the right to cast the accusing finger at US runners - he stated himself in the book that he was never a very good runner in high school (and apparently never became good after that, either), and as far as I can tell the only coaching he has done is at the high school level. I just can't help but think of this guy as some failed jock who spends the rest of his life hanging on to the sport for lack of anything better to do with himself.

For an excellent book of sketches of famous runners, read Kenny Moore's "Best Efforts".

I first read this book when I was in highschool and it's still one of my favorites books today.

tucks away easily in my back pack, easy to read, and even the coffee house snobs pay it respect.

It is nice to have a more recent translation of a classic work. Often classical works are difficult to understand because even though in English, they are written in forms and modes that are "out of fashion" or not easily understandable to younger generations from lack of exposure. This version is easy to read and understand. The poetry is beautiful. I just think this project is exciting and it is so nice to see a compilation of work that includes so many contemporary poets.

I found Dante's Inferno to be in excellent shape, a great book, and plan on purchasing volumes II and III.

This was required reading for a graduate course in medieval history.
Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) "Devine Comedy" weaved together aspects of biblical and classical Greek literary traditions to produce one of the most important works of not only medieval literature, but also one of the great literary works of Western civilization. The full impact of this 14,000-line poem divided into 100 cantos and three books is not just literary. Dante's autobiographical poem Commedia, as he titled it, was his look into the individual psyche and human soul. He explored and reflected on such fundamental questions as political institutions and their problems, the nature of humankind's moral actions, and the possibility of spiritual transformation; these were all fundamental social and cultural concerns for people during the fourteenth-century. Dante wrote the Commedia not in Latin but in the Tuscan dialect of Italian so that it would reach a broader readership. The Commedia was a three-part journey undertaken by the pilgrim Dante to the realms of the Christian afterlife: Hell, (Inferno), Purgatory, (Purgatorio), and Paradise, (Paradisio).

The poem narrated in first person, began with Dante lost midlife. He was 35 years old in the year 1300 and in a dark wood. Being lost in the dark wood was certainly an allegorical device that Dante used to express the condition of his own life at the time he started writing the poem. Dante had been active in Florentine politics and a member of the White Guelph party who opposed the secular rule of Pope Boniface VIII over Florence. In 1302, The Black Guelphs who were allied with the Pope, were militarily victorious in gaining control of the city and Dante found himself an exile from his beloved city for the rest of his life. Thus, Dante started writing the Commedia in 1308 and used it to comment on his own tribulations of life, and to state his views on politics and religion, and heap scorn on his political enemies.

Dante's first leg of his journey out of the dark wood was through the nine concentric circles of Hell (Inferno), escorted by his favorite classical Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid. Dante borrowed heavily from Virgil's Aeneid. Much of Dante's description of hell had similarities to Virgil's description in his sixth book of the Aeneid. Dante's three major divisions of sin in hell where unrepentant sinners dwelled, had their sources in Aristotle and Augustinian philosophy. They were self-indulgence, violence, and fraud. Fraud was considered the worst of moral failures because it undermined family, trust, and religion; in essence, it tore at the moral fabric of civilized society. These divisions were inversions of the classical virtues of moderation, courage, and wisdom. The fourth classical virtue, justice, is what Dante came to believe after his journey through hell that all its inhabitants received for their unrepentant sins. There were nine concentric circles of hell inside the earth; each smaller than the previous one. For Dante the geography of hell was a moral geography as well as a physical one, reflecting the nature of the sin. Canto IV describes the first circle of hell, Limbo, which is where Dante met the shades, as souls where called, of the virtuous un-baptized such as Homer, Ovid, Caesar, Aristotle, and Plato.

In the four circles for the sin of self-indulgence Dante met shades who where lustful, gluttons, hoarders and wrathful. In the second circle of Hell, lustful souls were blown around in a violent storm. In Canto V, one of the great dramatic moments of the poem, Dante had his first lengthy encounter with an unrepentant sinner Francesca da Rimini, who committed adultery with her brother-in-law. Like all the sinners in hell, Francesca laid the blame for her sin elsewhere. She claimed to be seduced into committing adultery after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. At the end of the scene, Dante fainted out of pity for Francesca.

In Canto X, the sixth circle of hell reserved for heretics who are punished by being trapped in flaming tombs, Dante took the opportunity to use the circle to chastise political leaders for participating in political partisanship. A Florentine who was a leader in the rival Ghibbelline political party, Farinata degli Uberti, accosted Dante. Both men aggressively argued with each other, recreating in hell the bitterness of partisan politics in Florence. Farinata predicted Dante's exile. Dante used this Canto to show the dangerous tendencies of petty political partisanship that he harbored.

The seventh circle of hell was subdivided into three areas where sinners were punished for doing violence against themselves, their neighbors, or God. In Canto XIII Dante encountered Pier della Vigne in the wood of the suicides. The shades there were shrubs who had to speak through a broken branch. Pier spoke to Dante about how he had been an important advisor to Emperor Frederick II, and how he blamed his fall, and his suicide, on the envy of other court members. This Canto was especially important because Dante came to grips with his own "future" fall from political power and exile. Pier's behavior served as a strong example to Dante how not to act in exile. Whether he had been tempted to commit suicide is not clear; however, he certainly had been prone to the selfish and despairing attitude that Pier represented.

The last two circles of hell contained the sinners of fraud. In the eighth circle, there were ten ditches for the various types of fraud such as Simony, thievery, hypocrisy, etc. Canto XIX described the third ditch, which contained those guilty of Simony, the sin of church leaders perverting their spiritual office by buying and selling church offices. Simonists were buried upside down in a rock with their feet on fire. Pope Nicholas III mistakenly addressed Dante as Pope Boniface VIII who was the current Pope in 1300, and whose place in hell was thereby predicted. This is not surprising since Boniface was the person most responsible for Dante's exile. In an interesting literary twist, Nicholas "confessed" to Dante, as if he was a priest, his sin of greed and nepotism. He admitted that even after becoming Pope he cared more for his family's interests than the good of the whole Church. Dante responded to Nicholas' "confession" with a stinging condemnation of Simony drawn from the Book of Revelation. After this encounter, Dante came to understand that hell was a place of justice.

Canto XXXIV, the last one in the Inferno, depicted Satan with three heads. Each head was chewing the three worst sinners of humankind. The middle head was chewing on the head of Judas Iscariot, who was a disciple to Jesus and his betrayer. The other two heads were chewing Brutus and Cassius; the murderers of Julius Caesar, and the two men Dante faulted for the destruction of a unified Italy. Dante considered the two ultimate betrayals against God and against the empire as the worst betrayals perpetrated in the history of humankind.

Thus, Dante's intent in his Commedia was to teach fourteenth-century readers that if one wanted to ascend spiritually towards God then one needed to learn the nature of sin from the unrepentant. By doing this, one could learn to overcome the same tendencies found in themselves. He wanted people to realize what he had come to learn that political partisanship would only stand in the way of unifying Italy and keep it from regaining any of its former glory that it enjoyed during the time of the Roman Empire.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in literature and medieval history.

The book is fantastic and is the missing link to get started when you want to blend several items into one. The chapters really encourage you to try a collage. And, the images in the book are very clear as Susan walks you through each step.

I feel that the author was torn between writing a step by step, "follow these directions to recreate this image" project book for beginners, and a book filled with art to inspire and spark the creativity of those a bit more advanced. For me, it does neither well.
There are about 600 pages in this book. The first 500 show you other artists finished work then give you detailed, step by step directions, complete with screen shots and settings, on how to recreate what the artist did. This makes it seem to me like a step by step project book. Problem is, you aren't supplied with the images so you can't duplicate the image (and why would I want to anyway?). I would guess that each piece of finished work you're shown gets at least 10 pages of directions on how it was done. If I was a beginner and wanted a step by step project to follow, it would have been great, but only if they supplied the images, which they don't, so it's not. As I'm not a beginner looking to replicate someone else's work, all those pages and screen shots were a complete waste of book space and my time, reading page after page after page of settings and screen shots bored me silly.
Sometimes, you get page after page of screen shots on how the artist fixed a bad photograph before he used it in his collage. Huh? So now this a basic "How To Use Photoshop" book? This is why I say the author wasn't clear on what type of book she was writing.
I feel the book misses the mark as one to inspire and spark my creativity simply because 500 of the 600 pages are filled with screen shots of how to replicate someone else's work. If I could have gotten 600 pages of art with a small blurb with the gist of how it was done I would have loved it.
The best part about this book for me was the quotes. There is a quote about art on almost every single page. The reason I didn't flip past section after section of screen shots was that I didn't want to miss the quotes.
So, unfortunately, this book will go on my shelf and probably never see the light of day again. If it supplied images to go with the steps, I'd pass it along to a beginner to use, but it doesn't so I won't. And all those pages of screen shots doesn't really spur my creativity, so I'll probably never open it again.

This book was like reading a great novel, I couldn't put it down! The inspiration was excellent. The incorrect assumption of some that "digital" means "computer generated" is debunked in this excellent work which has lots of beautiful examples of many kinds of digital art (not just collage). There are lots of step by step tutorials that are helpful and tips for using the tools of PS and Painter to their best advantage.

It is not a beginners book however as Bloom assumes that the reader is familiar with PS and Painter. Still this might be the work that makes one REALLY want to do the work needed to become proficient in these programs.

Loved it more than any other work on this subject and I already have a shelf full!!!

Suni R

Most chapters are very good. My interest is painting--I found that several chapters were just excellent instruction and tips-others were OK. Worth the purchase price to me...

Ok, firstly if you want a hands-on plenty of action book stay away from this one. Sure you get to see how other artist have created their work but if you read carefully there are gaps between getting from one stage to the next in some cases. Also a MAJOR dissapointment is you get no images to play with so you can attempt to emulate what the artist is doing as you read. Using the same techniques on different images can obviously give you totally different results.

There is a small hands-on section (26 pages) at the back where you have to download the images to work with. Come on guys how about a CD..? You also have to download a total of 49 files off the web if you want all of them AND they are all largish TIFFS instead of jpgs so be prepared for a long download session.

Basically if you want to be a digital vouyer and have a perve at how others do it without having fun yourself buy this book. If you want to get down and dirty and have heaps of fun then look elswhere. I have read many good PS and Painter books but for me this is not one of them. I might add I am a very experienced PS user and more than a fair Painter user and while the author certainly knows her stuff the book for me is a major letdown and certainly not for a new user looking for a good start to take them to an intermediate level.

This is the first book I have read by JM Benjamin and I must say I was hooked from page one. I was so into this book I have to pick up his previous works to see what I have been missing. JM has made a believer out of me!!!!!

JM takes us to the past to explain how Treacherous aka Treach and Teflon became the people they are today. They both have had horrible experiences in the childhood. At the age 12 ½ Treach gets caught slipping and is sentenced to 5 and half years in the juvenile system. Teflon has her share of heartbreak also, at the tender age of eight Teflon, witness her mother's murder at the hands of her father. After Teflon is shuffled from foster home to foster home, she meets her ex-boyfriend and ends up in a world of trouble resulting in her getting sentence to sixteen months in the juvenile system. Thus brings the story of Treacherous and Teflon.

Treacherous and Teflon is without a doubt a love story of two kindred souls who find one another and wreck hell on anybody who tries to stop their love. They live by the code of the streets take no prisoners. They have the streets of VA on lockdown. No one is safe in the streets of VA By hook or crook if these two want it, it is theirs period. In this story we see a deadly combination that will leave you saying Bonnie and Clyde who? They vow never to go to jail again thus if it comes to it, they will hold court in the streets. See if this unstoppable team makes it big time.

SiStar Tea
ARC Book Club Inc
5 star rating

Ride or Die Chick

I just finished reading this book...I finished it in about a day and a half I couldn't put it down every page left me wanting to know what was going to happen next...These two characters were stuck together like glue they had a bond that just couldn't be broken although the ending could've been better.

Man this book was a very good fast read, i wish i could have gotten to know trech and teflon a little bit better but it showes they had a true gangsta relationship and their was no bull shi# and straight g love

Life isn't easy for Treacherous or Teflon, but when this modern day Bonnie & Clyde duo hook up life won't be easy for anyone seeing paper in Virginia. Bonded by tragic childhoods Treacherous and Teflon grew up hard on the streets of VA. But those same Virginia streets will be suffering losses as ballers from VA or others just visiting the city fall victims to Treach and his Ride or Die chick Teflon!

With their murderous robbing spree sparing no one just how long can Treach and Teflon continue to terrorize the streets of Virginia before they fall victim to the streets again? Can Treach and his murder Mami, Teflon come out on top? Come along for the ride while J.M. Benjamin pens another hood classic and find out!!!!!

When you combine the love of Romeo and Juliet with the dedication of Bonnie and Clyde, you create Treacherous and Teflon; the hardest ride-or-die couple that shared their love story in J.M. Benjamin's novel, Ride or Die Chick.

Treacherous and Teflon had difficult upbringings. Both had parental problems and were products of their environment. While they were youngsters, Treacherous and Teflon learned how to fend for themselves. Bypassing the typical route of selling drugs, they decided to rob big-time and small-time ballers alike. No one was safe from their wrath. Together, they were unstoppable, or were they? No person was safe in the hood, so why would they be an exception to the rule? Treacherous knew they could overcome anything as long as Teflon remained loyal and Teflon knew they could conquer the world together until a botched bank robbery threatened to tear them apart.

I enjoyed getting to know Treacherous and Teflon and their struggles. Their childhoods' were intriguing, but once I became a part of their adult world, I no longer cared to know more about them. The story became predictable and was too easy to put down. In an attempt to show readers the different points of view, the author often repeated scenes as they happened. This left me feeling as if I was reading the same story twice. Overall, Ride or Die Chick is a decent read, but does not add anything new to the concept of `ride or die chick'.

Reviewed by Darnetta Frazier
APOOO BookClub

Sophocles is really one of the Greatest dramatists of all time, but equal to the others since he doesn't have the psychological penetration of Euripides

The Lattimore/Grene translations of Sophocles balance ease of reading with closeness to the original Greek text nicely. Hugh-Lloyd Jones's translation, which can be found in the Loeb edition of Sophocles's tragedies, is unquestionably superior at rendering the original Greek text, but it can come across as archaic and confusing to high school students or those unversed in Greek literature. Lattimore and Grene, unlike many modern translators, DO feel that they owe more to their readers than the loosest gist of the original text, and they deliver it.
All that said, I would advise readers to be cautious of these translations for the following reasons. First, the plays are presented in the chronological order according to the myths they portray - not in the order in which Sophocles wrote them. In other words, even though Antigone was one of the first plays Sophocles produced and Oedipus at Colonus was produced posthumously, they are presented in order of their dramatic events. This means that they are very likely translated without regard for any evolution of Sophocles's thought or any implicit commentary the poet might have made upon the works of his own youth.
Second, in his introduction, Grene states that he sees in Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles's clumsy attempt to cover over the inconsistencies of his Theban Cycle. While this is certainly not all Grene sees in Oedipus at Colonus, the judgement of anyone who takes so irreverent and shallow a view of the last work of the most technically savvy tragedian of the classic age must be called into question.
In summary: Buy this book, read it, enjoy it, but if you're going to write an important paper on Sophocles, look at his work in the Greek, or at least in the Lloyd-Jones translation of the Loeb edition.

I generally do not review classics, because I find it impossible to adequately review a genuine classic with the necessary brevity. However, I plan on giving my opinion at some point on books with conflicting Amazon reviews, and it occured to me that readers ought to have a touchstone by which to assess my credibility. There are two types of books which a wide swath of readers may be presumed to have read and so may function as touchstones: popular bestsellers and classics. I made a choice from the latter category.

I note at the outset that, as my title indicates, this is *NOT* a review of Sophocles' Theban triology. It is not even a review of Antigone in its entirety. That review awaits someone with greater insight and eloquence than me to write it. I post this review on this page b/c this is the translation I used.

It is often said that the drama of Antigone consists in the conflict of divine law against human law, or, put in contemporary terms, of natural law against positive law. I believe that interpretation is mistaken. To hold to that interpretation is to see the dispute as Antigone sees it and not as Creon sees it. For various historical reasons, Creon's position no longer seems as plausible to us as it did to Sophocles' audience. It must suffice to mention only one reason here: the divine foundation of the city has lost its self-evidence for us. "We must not lose sight of the fact that, among the ancients, what formed the bond of every society was a worship ... the city was the collective group of those who had the same protecting deities" (Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City).

Creon is not a positivist b/c he does not claim that the law is simply whatever he says it is; he is not Louis XIV. The first words we hear from him eulogize the gods as the guardians of the city (lines 179-81). His basic claim is that in proving traitor to his city Polyneices also proved traitor to the city's gods, and it is not proper that the enemy of the gods be granted burial rites (lines 217-29). When Creon learns that the corpse has been buried against his decree and the Chorus asks if this might be the work of the gods, Creon retorts that it is impossible that the gods could show such consideration for one of their enemies (lines 312-20). Creon, then, is not less pious than Antigone, but his piety is essentially political whereas Antigone's is not. Antigone, of course, sees herself as obeying divine law, and Creon's decree as violative of that law. But to understand the play Antigone, one must understand more than the character Antigone; one must understand the playwrite Sophocles.

Given the contemporary manner of highlighting the basic conflict of the play, I believe one gets closer to the heart of Antigone (the play) if one shifts the focus away from the conflict b/t Creon and Antigone, toward their shared agreement. They share a passionate concern to obey the gods' wills, i.e., divine law. Creon's arguments for the priority of the city anticipate Aristotle's beginning to the Politics: the whole is prior to the part and so the city is prior to both the household and each individual. They are both fighting to do what each perceives to be his or her duty; for both of them, their understanding of who they are is intimately bound up with their understanding of the divine prescriptions. In short, they both, in different ways of course, accept the judgment formulated by Aristotle: "For just as man is the best of the animals when completed, when separated from law and adjudication he is the worst of all." The problem of Antigone, if I had to state it in one sentence, then boils down to the question, What does the law require?

I read the story of Oedipus in high school and several times since. While I find the twists of the story, especially the riddle of the Sphinx fascinating. (A very original puzzle.) I also found it a litte disturbing. I've never cared for the idea that a person's destiny is fixed and unavoidable.
The fact that the steps Oedipus took to foil the prophecy, actually placed him on the direct path to fulfilling it was scary. It makes one wonder: Do we really have control over our lives, or are we, as Shakespear put it, actors in someone's grand play?
It is a very sad and tragic story. Oedipus was hopelessly caught in a terrible snare. Definitely NOT upbeat. However,in my opinion, any story that can create positive thought and conversation on the inner workings of life is worth reading.

Researching translations is never an easy task, and in this case, where you'll have to search on Amazon for the title and the translator to find what you want, it's particularly difficult.

Here's what I've found by comparing several editions:

1. David Grene translation: Seems to be accurate, yet not unwieldy as such. My pick. Language is used precisely, but not to the point where it's barely in English.

2. Fitts/Fitzgerald translation: Excellent as well, though a little less smooth than the Grene one. Certainly not a bad pick.

3. Fagles translation: Beautiful. Not accurate. If you are looking for the smoothest English version, there's no doubt that this is it. That said, because he is looser with the translation, some ideas might be lost. For instance, in Antigone, in the beginning, Antigone discusses how law compels her to bury her brother despite Creon's edict. In Fagles, the "law" concept is lost in "military honors" when discussing the burial of Eteocles. This whole notion of obeying positive law or natural law is very important, but you wouldn't know it from Fagles. In Grene, for example, it is translated to "lawful rites."

4. Gibbons and Segal: Looks great, but right now the book has only Antigone (and not the rest of the trilogy) and costs almost 3x as much. I'll pass. But, from a cursory review, I'm impressed with their work.

5. MacDonald: This edition received some good write-ups, but I wasn't able to do a direct passage-to-passage comparison.

6. Woodruff: NO, NO, NO. Just NO. It's so colloquial it makes me gag. Very accessible, but the modernization of the language is just so extreme as to make it almost laughable. You don't get any sense of the power of language in the play. You just get the story. If you want this to be an easy read, then get Fagles, not this.

7. Kitto: Looks good, though not particularly compelling over either Grene or Fitzgerald (or Gibbons if I wanted to pay so much more).

8. Roche: Practically unreadable the English is so convoluted. Might be the most literal translation, but what's the point unless you are learning Greek and want such a direct translation.

9. Taylor: Way too wordy. Might be more literal, but again, why?

Hope this all helps. Translations can make or break the accessibility of literature. Pick wisely.

The cover illustration right away drew me in. This is a very sweet little board book and very worthy of the Seuss honor. The illustrations appear to be chalk, which is not a very common medium in children's illustration, with all the clicks of a computer available to us these days. The illustrations are very textured and vivid and invite close scrutiny as the characters come alive.

Having several younger siblings I have lived the story in the book countless times. The Bear is in the midst of some quiet Bear time, reading etc. And the Goose is ready to chat, ready to spend some time with someone else, not really paying attention to how the Bear is trying to brush him off. However, even the Bear can't brush off the very sweet note the Goose gives him.

Its a lovely story about friendship, its worth buying for the illustrations alone however.

Lots of lively discussion resulted after reading this sweet story to a group of kindergartners. The illustrations are bright, simple and reveal most of the story's plot and emotions. Students were able to read this book along with me after just one read. Teachers and parents will enjoy the reaction to this book when sharing it with youngsters.

At the risk of sounding needlessly lewd, we declined to stock this title in the bookshop because the goose on the cover looks less like a goose and more like part of the bear's anatomy, lending itself to a very vulgar interpretation. It probably should have been better thought out.

The opening pages of this book are wordless but the incredible texture of the polar bear's fur stretches across two pages and begs to be touched. The fur is rendered in pastels or chalk and the tips of the hairs have a green algae tinge to them just like polar bears I have seen at the zoo.

Duck is enthusiastically trying to gain the bear's attention by claiming to enjoy all the things Bear enjoys like reading and writing. Bear is not amused nor interested until Duck writes him a letter from the heart. They become splendid friends.

The simple language is embellished by the comical expressions of Bear and Duck. There is a easy warmth to this story that underscores the importance of not making snap judgements about new people we meet.

This is a friendly and kind book indeed. It was about a friendly goose nice, energized and inquisitive, and a polar bear, irritable and grouchy. Interestingly enough, the goose is making the polar bear annoyed and grumpy like a lion, because the goose is asking too many questions while bear is reading, writing, and thinking. Goose goes to get a snack and writes a friendship letter. He comes back with the letter and reads it to bear who is overjoyed because the letter is so loving. In the end, they shared feelings and were happy. I would rate this book a five star book because you can really learn how to be a good
friend!!!!

Reviewed by: Amanda

Hart Crane's brilliant poetry continues in the tradition of Eliot's 'The Wasteland,' in that he is interested in exploring the modern American landscape. Crane's poetry pulsates with his passion and tragedy. Frequent themes are his own homosexuality and the coldness of contemporary existence. His work is tremendous achievement in terms of its visual beauty and lyrical flow:

"Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death's bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells."

Hart Crane lived a tragically short life. Fortunately his remarkable work remains.

This is the worst kind of service available from any seller, just really insulting. Never received the poems, just a box of veterans greeting cards, which are worthless and immediately thrwn away

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R9RGG45QBJ0WW I decided on this (relatively) obscure poem, because, rather than Crane's more famous poems (The "Voyages" series, "The Bridge" or "The Broken Tower"), it was unknown to me until I purchased this book. Also, of course, I found it very striking and lovely, though dark.

How can I review Hart Crane? He's been part of my consciousness, my whole sense of the possibilities of language and of the English language especially, since I first read his work in the 1950s. At that time, I read him as the fiercest modernist, the wildest adventurer in abstract verbal emotion, yet now I re-read him and find a lapidary conservator of the poetic tradition, rhyming his fervid images in strict quatrains.

None of the critical assessments and explications of Crane's poetry have ever jibed with my visceral/musical response to his exaltations. Yes, he was a tortured soul, tormented by his homosexuality. Yes, he committed suicide. But the vision in his language is far from bleak. It's all a paean of beauty. What I think happened, when he jumped from the ship into the sea that had always been a symbol of overwhelming infinity, was that he lost his religion, that is, his belief in the salvation offered by poetic transformation:

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull's wing shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty --

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
--Till elevators drop us from our day...

That's how Crane launches his huge poem The Bridge, with an invocation addressed to the icon of his modernity, the Brooklyn Bridge, and to the city of New York. "Liberty" is of course the statue, and it was the liberty of his choice to write poems for a life that took him to New York. Beyond that hint of my understanding of Crane, let your ears make what you want of it. I suppose Crane is ultimately a musician's poet; like music, his words pulse with feeling that never needs to be forced to be explicit.

I'll try to be brief, for we are on holy ground. Hart Crane is among the greatest English Poets; he extends the orphic tradition--he works under the assumption (fact?) that poetry is nothing less than Life staying Death--and not in the tradition of mere "Culture", of elegant verses for elegant people.

Among his few peers, we have Keats, Stevens, Spenser (of the epithalamium), Blake, Shelley, and Shakespeare--yes, I said it and I meant it...at his best, Crane possesses as much daemonic power as Shakespeare. There are others, without a doubt, but rarely will one enounter so much of the concentrated Sublime, of pure poetry in such a small body of work. Some of his final fragments are more True than most of the Qu'ran, the Bible, etc, etc. Like a saint, Crane sacrificed everything in order to give us the gift of his song, including his own life. If he had lived, he would certainly be better known (as if Fame were enough); he might be esteemed our country's greatest artist. My advice, read "Atlantis" until you have it by heart--your life will never be the same.

In short, this is poetry at its highest. A moral force, a religious power, an estatic appraisal of our collective destruction, a hymn to to city, an elegy for birth, a myth for our exiled god, Love, to Whom we must ever strive to know better.

p.s. There is a rumor that the Library of America will (at last!) put out an edition of Crane this Autumn that is likely to be the one to get (my copy of their Stevens is exquisite--it trumped Knopf's Collected Poems, something I never thought possible. So if you want to save your money, you can wait for that & hit the library in the meantime (assuming that your public library is unlike mine, and has something other than than how-to books and unauthorized biographies of Jane Fonda).

Matt Bloom's book is a terrific page-turner about a stand-up guy among the East End's dissolute in-crowd. All the Hamptons' rogues are in this gallery: the egomanical movie star, the callow personal trainer, the avaricious art dealer, the hateful gossip columist, the vacuous super-model. And then there's the hero, Andrew Kane, a struggling fisherman haunted by a grisly discovery that drags him off the wharves and into the limelight. Bloom has a rare talent for the morality tale--a toss-up between stark portraiture and larger-than-life satire. I can't wait to see where he goes after Death in the Hamptons.

This is a breezy, entertaining, funny book with a serious subtext. Set against the natural beauty of the Hamptons, Bloom's witty portrait of the indulgent summer scene, told through the story of a Montauk fisherman-turned-movie star, skewers everyone from nouveaux riches developers, movie moguls, rap stars, gossip columnists, and unctuous maitre de's while also telling a poignant prodigal-son type tale of self-discovery.
It's neither pure mystery nor pure satire but an original and compelling synthesis that deftly straddles multiple genres -- all the better to convey the clash of the sublime and the ridiculous that has come to characterize the Hamptons. This isn't everyone's Hampton's, but regular tabloid readers will readily recognize many of the larger-than-life characters that people this book. It should be noted, though, that Bloom builds the book around the regulars, the weather-beaten fishermen whose rugged labor puts the food on the tables of the fancy restaurants catering to the Upper East Side set.

In tight, readable prose, and sharp dialogue, it's all here. With this book, Matt Bloom establishes himself as a thoughful and incisive social critic who, one hopes, has just begun to sharpen his knives.

This is a breezy, entertaining, funny book with a serious subtext. Set against the natural beauty of the Hamptons, Bloom's witty portrait of the indulgent summer scene, told through the story of a Montauk fisherman-turned-movie star, skewers everyone from nouveaux riches developers, movie moguls, rap stars, gossip columnists, and unctuous maitre de's while also telling a poignant prodigal-son type tale of self-discovery.
It's neither pure mystery nor pure satire but an original and compelling synthesis that deftly straddles multiple genres -- all the better to convey the clash of the sublime and the ridiculous that has come to characterize the Hamptons. This isn't everyone's Hampton's, but regular tabloid readers will readily recognize many of the larger-than-life characters that people this book. It should be noted, though, that Bloom builds the book around the regulars, the weather-beaten fishermen whose rugged labor puts the food on the tables of the fancy restaurants catering to the Upper East Side set.

In tight, readable prose, and sharp dialogue, it's all here. With this book, Matt Bloom establishes himself as a thoughful and incisive social critic who, one hopes, has just begun to sharpen his knives.

I loved this book because it was very dark but at the same time hilarious! The main character is very likable and the minor characters are hysterical. I read it right after I got back from going to the Hamptons for the first time and even though it was completely exaggerated I have to say I thought it was pretty bang-on about a lot of stuff--I think I even met a few of those characters while I was out there! The giant, tacky houses, the manicures and lapdogs, and the constant gossip about who bought what boat or who lives in what house are all spoofed perfectly. It's all magnified a hundred times in this book, which is what makes it so fun to read. It's also got a really juicy plot! So even while you're laughing your...you're sort of drawn into this creepy/glamorous world of debauchery and life in the fast lane, and you really care about what happens to Andrew. I have to say I loved it and I'm recommending it to all my friends. I can't think of a book I've read with more fun per page than this book.

In his new novel, Matt Bloom shows, once again, his enormous skill at portraying likable, well meaning, blue collar guys struggling with tough life choices. Andrew is a fisherman who falls in with the rich and famous when he is befriended by Jack, movie star and consummate jerk. Bloom portrays the richer residents of the Hampton scene with comic contempt (the gossip columnist who talks to her dog, calling herself "Mommy Goddess")and his book skillfully dramatizes the gaping divide between the haves and the have nots. Bloom writes in a straight-forward, readable, yet highly intelligent prose style (no pretentious sentences here) that is a delight to read. Highly recommended.

As a long time lover of Jane Austen, with a sister named Evelyn, I had to read this book. It is easy to see why Jane Austen considered Fanny Burney among her favorite authors. Evelina is a time capsule, a vision of life, manners, and morality of England during the late 18th century, written from the refreshing viewpoint of a woman.

A prankster would love this book.

So would any Jane Austen fan.

Why?

Well, for starters, Frances Burney created a story about a young woman coming to society and discovering what it really means. Innocent, sweet Evelina suddenly discovers a strange and at times dangerous world as she begins to grow up. But at the same time, we are presented with side characters that are incredibly amusing and give this story the light air and dramatic punch needed to create a truly stupendous book.

Evelina as a character is interesting, though not particularly strong. She is quite intelligent and sweet, but on the whole, she doesn't learn very much nor does she step up for herself. Upon reflection, seeing as to when this was written, is that particularly surprising? I was still mostly impressed by the time period (and also at times amused by time-relevant remarks...).

Mostly "Evelina" is a wonderful book. It's a great read (though at times, unsurprisingly dry [as seemed to be the habit of English writers in those days]), an interesting, intriguing story (with quite a few twists, though some predictable with others still thoroughly surprising!), but mostly is an amusing, fun story of a girl.

A favorite classic. Highly recommended!

A wonderful story written in satire of the upperclass life in the 18th century. I couldn't put it down until I was sure I had finished every word. Also, it came on time and everything was as advertised.

This is a fun and enjoyable novel that deserves more of a comeback. It also has easy to access editorial notes. It flows a lot smoother than most epistolary novels, such that one hardly notices the letters.

This book is fantastic! It is so entertaining and engages the reader from the first page. This is actually the first review I've written, but I just finished this book and had to tell someone what fun it was to read and what an excellent writer and character-developer Ms. Burney was. I am a big Jane Austen fan, but I have to say this was even more entertaining than my favorite Austen works. I usually read to relax, but this book kept me on the edge of the couch page after page wondering what crazy event would take place next. While I read, I kept imagining 18th/19th century women reading this book aloud to each other and gasping and swooning. I've finished this book with a big smile on my face.