Hughes Books

I read this book transrated in Japanese. I could enjoy the rhythm and phrases even in Japanese. I would like to read it in English now.

Langston Hughes, one of our greatest writers and poets, was also a jazz fan. In this slim book , he traces the development of jazz, hitting all the basic elements: African polyrhythmic drumming transported to Congo Square in New Orleans, work songs and slave songs, homemade instruments, spirituals, the blues, ragtime, minstrel shows, improvisation, the spread of jazz to New York and Chicago and the regional bands, the influence of Louis Armstrong.

Sound familiar? It's the first eight hours or so of the Ken Burns' documentary "Jazz," only much briefer and written for youngsters ranging from around ages 4 to 9 or so. Although he ignores all the contributions of early women jazz artists (singers are paid scant attention here), his tone is proudly inclusive ("Of course, people were making music in other parts of our country in early times, too--not just in New Orleans. In New England, settlers were singing their hymns. In Virginia and Kentucky, the newcomers were singing their ballads. In the Far West, the Indians were playing on their drums, African slaves in Georgia, the Carolinas, and other parts of the South, who did not always have drums on which to play, were making up songs to chop cotton to, load the river boats, or build the levees.") and emphasizes the joy of performance and improvisation ("That is how the music called jazz began--with people playing for fun.").

The straightforward narrative, although lacking the "poetic" imagery one might expect, is clear and joyful. This is a excellent introduction for young readers. It is obviously not intended as an jazz encyclopedia, and jazz fans will have to ignore a few of its inherent limitations: The above-mentioned oversight of singers and of women (other than one list of pianists that includes Marion McPartland), the over-generalized portrayal of early jazz musicians as untrained, and limited descriptions of Ellingtonto Jazz, swing, and bebop. (Although, for a book written in 1955 by a non-musician, Hughes mentions Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Charlie Parker, and Lester Young). The book includes fun drawings by Cliff Roberts, a brief discography (apparently updated to include Coltrane, Mingus, and Ornette Coleman--but no Miles), a three-page definiton of terms, Hughes' list of his 100 favorite jazz recordings, and a list of "famous jazz musicians" by instrument.

This is a delightful cookbook. Everything recipe I have tried is delicious, really, really delicious.

While not as useful as her 300 Calorie One-Dish meals (for me, anyway), this has been a welcome additiion to my cookbook library. I usually do not make the entire menu she outlines, and some of her side dishes are no-brainers, (no cookbook necessary!)but the main courses are great. She uses common ingredients in new ways - not the same old stuff as in all the other diet cookbooks. My entire family (including 2 preteens)have liked everything I have made from the book, and I have had to tell my husband that it is lo-cal. I like to cook, so if you just want simple things to slap together, this book may not be for you, but if you have between 30-45 minutes to make dinner, you will like this book.

This is a story which my son continually asks me to read. It explores several concepts of giving, and we have thoroughly enjoyed it. He loves the story, and the illustrations are a treat for Mom! It's definitely a favorite in our house!

This is a very worthwhile book -- the illustrations are delightful and kid-friendly, and the words help young children understand both the concept of giving to people, and the concept of being the recipient of gifts. I'm going to buy more of Shirley Hughes' books.

The author traces the historical bases of Reformed worship from the Jewish Temple through the Reformation, thereby connecting the Old and New Testament practices. His explanations of the many facets of worship; e.g. ministries of praise, prayer, word, and sacraments, and the cited examples are clearly stated and readily understandable. Where scripture references are appropriate, they are given and serve to enhance and amplify the reading. The entire book is enriching, serving to make the Reformed worship more meaningful.

Review by Rev. George van Popta

In this book, the author introduces all the different aspects of Reformed worship. He treats the following parts: baptism; the Lord's day; the ministry of praise; the ministry of the Word; the ministry of prayer; the Lord's supper; daily prayer; alms. In each case he discusses Old and New Testament roots, development in the synagogue, the early church and the middle ages, and reformation. Old has clearly mastered his topic on both the large and small scales. His bibliography is extensive.

In the final chapter," Tradition and Practice," the author enumerates a 15-point program for the renewal of worship in American Protestantism. He wants to avoid two extremes: the first is a sort of archaeological reconstruction in the English language of classic Reformed liturgies that do no more than mechanically and unthinkingly reproduce the tradition; the second is an ignoring of our traditions and of giving ourselves to perpetual liturgical revision (or revolution) thereby losing sight of the great value and importance of having a set liturgy. A tradition radically changed every generation is not a tradition.

This is a good book and very pleasant to read. The one who reads it will learn much about the biblical and church-historical roots of the different parts of the worship of the Reformed churches and be led to reflect on why we do things the way we do.

Here are two interesting quotations from the book. This first one (p. 148) is in the context of an argument to renew the classical Reformed practice of daily household worship:

"For classical Reformed spirituality, morning and evening family prayer was one of the foundations of piety. It was at the heart of the day to day exercising of Christian faith. This made sense to those for whom Covenant theology was so formative. The unity of the family was a significant feature of Covenant theology. With the coming of pietism, daily family prayer was unfortunately replaced with private devotions.

"Pietism was very individualistic and many of this persuasion had a hard time understanding why children should be baptized. There was no sacred unity in the family. Each single human being stood before God alone. With the demise of pietism, private devotions began to develop atrophy. They finally became not much more than "five minutes a day." Today as we seek to recover a Reformed spirituality, we need to reach behind pietism and recover the older classical Protestant discipline of daily morning and evening prayer."

I'm confident Old is not advancing an either-or dilemma between family worship and private devotion. Surely both are important. He is writing in a North American context that eschews the corporate for the individualistic in matters of relationship to God and neighbour.

What follows is the concluding paragraph after the author has put forward his 15-point renewal program for (North) American Protestantism:

"This program for the renewal of worship in American Protestant churches of today may not be just exactly what everyone is looking for. In our evangelistic zeal we are looking for programs that will attract people. We think we have to put honey on the lip of the bitter cup of salvation. It is the story of the wedding of Cana all over again but with this difference. At the crucial moment when the wine failed, we took matters into our own hands and used those five stone jars to mix up a batch of Kool-Aid instead. It seemed like a good solution in terms of our American culture. Unfortunately, all too soon the guests discovered the fraud. Alas! What are we to do now? How can we possibly minister to those who thirst for the real thing? There is but one thing to do, as Mary the mother of Jesus, understood so very well. You remember how the story goes. After presenting the problem to Jesus, Mary turned to the servants and said to them, "Do whatever he tells you." The servants did just that and the water was turned to wine, wine rich and mellow beyond anything they had ever tasted before."

A very useful guide for students who know nothing about this fantastic literature!

An excellent collection of scholarly yet accessible articles, and a good place to start your reading on this subject. This volume covers the earliest Welsh poets - Taliesin and Aneirin - as well as the 9th century saga poems, the later Poets of the Princes, and the prose tales of the Mabinogion. (500 - 1282 AD)

Trout eat things. Sometimes its nymphs, sometimes its Duns, sometimes its Terrestrails. This book discusses the insects that Trout eat and gives you clues on how to determine what they are eatting and how to match it when you hit the water. This fisherman introduction to bugs is scientific enough to get you started into further research if you would like and basic enough that you don't have to learn Latin names in order to understand what type of Caddis you are looking for. This book is also a good resource for learning how to tie flies that will match the hatches that you are experiencing. The only downfall in my opinion is that the pictures are not in color and therefore you don't get as exact of a photographic match of the insects as you would would color photography.

Outstanding...the book i've been looking for. As a freshwater fly fisherman, I've been looking for a book that offers an applicable approach to matching the hatch. This book succeded. Hughes successfully establishes the primary aquatic insects of a trout's diet (stoneflies, mayflies, and caddis flies) then skillfully and simply explains each species specific life cycle. His basic premise is to focus on 5 aspects of an insect/hatch to successfully immitate and fish it: shape (determined by species and stage), color, size, behavior, and habitat. Maintaining this theme throughout the text allows you to store this information in a logical and simple form. Futhermore, it allows you to apply this knowledge rapidly and with confidence. It the fish doesn't care what the Latin name of its food is, why should we? This book is based on the KISS principle: Keep It Simple Stupid. Outstanding.

This is an extremely readable selection of 26, out of about 156, of Hans Andersen tales. As the brief but very fine and helpful introduction by Naomi Lewis points out, these tales are perhaps more for adults than children, as Andersen himself wanted them to be. Most of them have a darker side. I also believe that the eminent literary critic, Harold Bloom, includes Andersen in his select list of short story writers qualified to be part of the Western canon. I did prefer some of the collection's early and middle tales, such as "Little Claus and Big Claus," "The Travelling-Companion," and "The Little Mermaid" to a handful of the later ones like "She was Good for Nothing," or "The Family and the Gardener." It seems that Andersen's true imaginary gifts shine best where his writing is least in step with the real world.

The very short 1981 edition currently before me features black and white illustrations by Philip Gough, and was translated by Naomi Lewis.

There's been a trend lately for fantasy authors to take traditional fairy tales and retell them, either as novels (as in Mercedes Lackey's case, or Peggy Kerr's _The Wild Swans_) or short stories (Tanith Lee did this even before Terri Windling came along). Hans Christian Andersen's little gems *aren't* traditional folk tales - he did the work - but quite often serve to fuel such fires anyway.

The translator, Naomi Lewis, has included a brief introduction discussing Andersen's life and career, and a few pages of notes at the end of the book discussing the original publication and origins of each story herein.

"The Princess and the Pea", "Thumbelina", "The Emperor's New Clothes"

"The Little Mermaid" - If you're only familiar with the Disney version, I warn you that they discarded much of what makes this story truly great. When evaluating a translation of this story, a quick test is to check the last scene between the mermaid and her prince to see how well the translator captures the actions and feelings of the characters.

The youngest of the seven mer-princesses has always been more fascinated by her grandmother's tales of the world above than any of her sisters, but she has the longest to wait for her first trip to the surface on her fifteenth birthday. Since mer-folk turn into seafoam at the end of their 300 years of life and have no immortal souls, she is especially curious about her grandmother's tales of how humans, when they die, can rise into a higher world just as the merfolk rise to the ocean surface, but one the merfolk can never reach, save through a human's love. (Oscar Wilde once turned this upside-down in "The Fisherman and the Soul", a very good story in which a fisherman fell in love with a mermaid and magically cut himself free of his soul to join her in the sea.)

As each of the sisters in turn makes her first journey, we see the world through their eyes, and since each has a different temperament and their birthdays fall at different times of the year, each sees and seeks out different sights. But when the youngest princess' turn finally comes (her name is never given), she has experiences that even the 3rd sister (the most adventurous of the lot) never had: a prince's birthday celebration at sea is struck by a great storm, foundering his ship before her eyes.

"The Steadfast Tin Soldier" - A toy story.

"The Nightingale" - Try Lackey's _The Eagle and the Nightingales_.

"The Ugly Duckling"

"The Snow Queen" - Check out Joan D. Vinge's novel of the same name.

"The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep" - They're porcelain figures who have fallen in love, but when her grandfather arranges a marriage for her with a mahogany carving instead, they decide to run away together.

"The Happy Family" - One of Andersen's lesser-known stories, of a little family of snails who know that they're the most important people in the world. :)

"The Goblin at the Grocer's" - The poet rescued an old book of poetry from the grocer who was using it as scrap paper, and the household goblin took offense at what was said. But when he entered the poet's room to play him a spiteful trick, he got more than he bargained for.

"Dance, Dolly, Dance" - Very short story about a poem written for little Amalie and her dolls.

This is Hughes' first collection and with it he made his reputation as a strong observer of nature. His verse is vibrant with observation of the fierce animal- rich world. His focus is away from the human and certainly away from personal relationships. His language is richly metaphoric and original. There is a toughness in his voice and a lurking sense of violence everywhere. At times he seems to enter the skin of the animals he writes about and feel and see the world as they do.
He writes of 'The Thought- Fox' and 'The Jaguar' and 'The Horses'.
I recognize the value of his work and his originality but it is fundamentally not congenial to my interests or my soul.

Here is the opening stanza of his poem 'The Jaguar'

"The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion..."

And its concluding stanza.

"More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come."

This book should not be out of print. Besides his more recent translations (interpretations) of greek and latin texts and the recent collection "Birthday Letters," this may be Hughes' best work. It was his first volume published, and while volumes to follow, such as "Crow" and "Gaudette," descended into a fabricated landscape, this volume derives it's subject matter powerfully and beautifully from, primarily, the natural world. Hughes' renown as a depictor of the natural world is made evident as deserved here more than any other volume he produced. As the first publised work of a masterful and recently deceased poet, this work should still be in print. Find it if you can.

I received this book in quick shipment and the book was in excellent condition and I am enjoying it very much.

I thought this collection of short stories were well written, funny, inspiring and heartwarming. I have faced some serious health issues. I was particularly touched by the stories about ones health and how the bond with horses enable people to have strength and perserverance. I don't have a horse but several of my friends do and I gave each of them a copy of the book and they, too, loved it.

Excellent insight into the Hearst, Hughes and other trials including much information not previously published. Dr. Lunde's insights were on target, and it is wonderful to find a man of such note who had high ethical standards and didn't deviate from them, nor compromise. A great read and a keeper.

Dr. Lunde's compelling account of his involvement in many of the most widely publicized criminal cases of the last half of the twentieth century kept my attention riveted to the pages. As Herman Wouk points out in the Preface, the tales do tend to meander--plus a little redundancy--but the book is well worth sticking with to the end. I'm glad Dr. Lunde set the record straight with his first-hand knowledge of cases I followed closely during those years.

Greta Manville, author of mystery/suspense novels