Nicholson Books

Story of a perennially happy damsel with magical charm transformed into a chronically depressed woman in an immobile state. Story of a hopelessly lovestruck husband transformed into an abjectly indifferent house mate. Story of Utopian arranged marriage charged with sensual exchanges transformed to twisted and sombre erotica featuring children, threesomes, animals and lesbians. This is a story of the metamorphoses of happy sweet-nothings to melodramatic tragedy.

Never judge a book by its cover. Judge it by its metaphors. The metaphors in the last song of dusk (the title itself) are original and inventive. They range from snappy wit to profound wisdom, yet never contrived. The character of Nandini is the richest source of humor and savoir faire.

The story is written with a passion that can only be the result of parallel personal experiences and an immensely fertile mind. Like all good tragedies, the wretchedness of this story does not offer any obvious escape in terms of blame allocation. Shanghavi's recipe has the right pinch of magic realism to engage the Indian senses and sensibilities.

This is a story of transitions but the sudden twists are sometimes hard for the reader to reconcile. In order to create the element of unpleasant surprises, the author leaves much to the readers' discretion. If Shanghavi had filled these gaps with his beautiful writing and made it 50% thicker, it would also be that much better off.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It kind of reminds me of those kids in school who you knew were absolutely brilliant and capable of straight A's, yet managed only a B average. Shanghvi's prose is lush, his analogies satisfying, yet he almost drowns himself in his own script as the book moves on. The characters are certainly interesting, yet lose their momentum towards the end of the novel. The plot loses it's zest, becoming bogged down in his own philosophical reveries that can exhaust the reader with it's ambiguity (which you could argue, is the point, however, there is only so much ambiguity a reader can take). I look forward to what this writer will produce in the future, and, considering this was his first novel, I'd say he did a good job overall.

Music sings its way through evil, tragedy, and immense passions. I copied the last page and reread it frequently. All the events, all the characters, all the emotions, and all the magic hit a magnificent chord that transports me again and again to a place where I feel life most deeply.

This book is odd to me, because it's lushly written-- I can smell the frangipani that Anuradha braids into her hair, hear the peacocks screeching, taste the dust that rises as the rickshaws trundle down the street-- but at the same time the lushness convolutes and confuses. The author, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, has a true talent for description, but sometimes he loses control of himself and indulges in prose that becomes positively violet (especially in the sex scenes with all the phallic worship):

"...the restless, hungry baton in his trousers..."

"...the adamantine sumptuousness of his manhood: a proud, thick, succulent thing had found its home..."

"...a member between his legs that was lonely and strong willed and utterly gorgeous inside its own confusion..."

What in the world does that last one even mean? The "[...] yay!" enthusiasm gets a bit old after a while, and the attitude toward it becomes, "Yes, yes, we know [...] is king. Can we get back to the story now?"

...on the other hand, we have little witticisms that amuse me enough to redeem the above indiscretions about 20%, such as the following:

"Are you a star?" he asked.

"No," she replied, "I'm an entire constellation."

The pacing is languid, as befits a story set in turn-of-the-century India. It unravels at its own pace, with flashbacks that are handled with subtlety and without feeling intrusive or clumsy. Shanghvi doesn't rush through anything, is in no hurry to chivvy the plot along, but somehow it's all so interesting we don't care and are content to go along with him, trusting him to get us where we need to go.

I'm not crazy about the foreshadowing, however, which occurs with all the finesse of a mallet to the skull. And the dialogue is too contemporary far too often-- doesn't sound in the least like something people in post-colonial India would say in the 1920's. There's a clear feminist theme, here, as well as pro-gay overtones, both of which feel forced, like there's an agenda behind them. I've always felt that if you're going for social commentary in your fiction, it shouldn't hit you like an arrow through the neck.

It's irritating when the vicious old bat of the story (you knew there was going to be one, right?) has entire conversations with her equally malicious parrot, and the anthropomorphization of the house in which they live seems a bit batty. There's a weird quasi-magical subtheme that's more puzzling than intriguing-- a red herring that adds questionable merit to the overall story, is never explained or justified-- we're supposed to accept it without questioning.

Well, to hell with that. I question, baby, and I want answers: why do the women of Anuradha's family have the ability to work magic with their songs? Is Mohan a prodigy or some sort of divine creature? Is the house really alive and cranky? How is Nandini able to walk on water? Can it be possible for her to be the descendent of a human/leopard union?

The characterization is over-the-top, much of the time: there are three main characters, and they're all bewitchingly attractive, and their faults are never true faults (i.e. things that risk making the reader dislike them). They are, instead, faults that are supposed to make us like the characters all the more: Vardhmaan can't get over the grief of losing his son, but wouldn't we think him a less-than-devoted sire if he sprang back so quickly and easily? Nandini's wild, fey ways are meant to fascinate more than repel (such as when she tells Gandhi his loincloth is hopelessly sexy-- we're supposed to be delighted by that rampant iconoclasty, and it shows).

And the nasty crone, Devi-bai, is a caricature of the evil stepmother... until they move out of the house, and then her wicked influence over their lives abruptly ends. What sort of antagonist is that? No bad guy worth their salt would just let themselves be written out of the book halfway through and let a possessed house take over the role.Unless she's not the antagonist of the story, in which case it should be made clearer because it's confusing.

The book does succeed in submerging the reader into the world of 1920's India, and the characters and plot are compelling enough to keep one reading instead of putting it aside, but overly lurid phrasing, anachronisms of speech, and whacked-out mystic occurances jolt one's suspension of disbelief and call attention to the ultimate weakness of the prose.

As a first novel, The Last Song of Dusk is excellent, achieving a dreamlike surreality that other, more experienced writers strive (and fail) to accomplish, but in comparison to other authors (masters) of this genre (Isabel Allende, Arundhati Roy) it's clear where he's being imitative, rather than intuitive.

From the moment I started reading this novel I was captivated by the beauty of Shanghvi's words. But as the story moved on it got more and more unrealistic. The characters and what they stood for was all far too ambitious and I lost interest, I just stuck through it to find out what happened. It is beautifully written but thats about it. Shanghvi tried to take the story into a million different directions but it did not work out. I wish it were a lot more simpler and honest

I had read a few of Simone Weil's essays and admired them greatly, but didn't know much about the woman herself. This book is a good source of basic biographical facts, but the author leaves a lot to be desired in discussing Weil's philosophy. Yes, this is a biography, not a philosophy text. This being a biography of a philosopher, however, one might expect *some* sort of argument to be presented when the subject's philosophy is being dismissed.
The anti-semitic opinions Weil held are obviously distasteful to most intelligent people and no explanations are needed as to why these views of hers were wrongheaded. But when the author is dealing with Weil's specific criticisms of the Old Testament, she calls her readings of it "skewed" and "distorted by the bizarre conception of God" she had developed through studying various world religions, yet she gives no reasons why Weil's readings were skewed or why her conception of God is so bizarre. From what I've gathered in this book, Weil's conceptions of God were quite reasonable.
I'm glad this book presents the faults along with the virtues of this great thinker, but such swift and unreasoned dismissals of certain parts of her philosophies are off-putting, and this book is rife with them.
A little nit-picking: the author goes back and forth between calling her "Weil" and "Simone" with no ostensible rationale for doing so. Also, at one point in the book, for no apparent reason, she describes events in Weil's life in the present tense for a few pages.
All that being said, the book has mostly satisfied my curiosity about Weil's life. I wouldn't say it's not worth reading.

It is hard for me to understand why someone would choose to write a book about a person they obviously dislike and then do a bad job of researching their lives. There are some wonderful biographies of Simone Weil out there, including one by her friend Simone Petrement. This books has gotten most of the facts wrong and turned a young woman searching in her own way for truth into a weird, comical figure which she certainly wasn't. Most of the stories quoted by the author are anecdotal at best. Reading this book is a waste of time. If you want to know Simone Weil, read her books.

Francine Du Plessix Gray has done a phenomenal job in distilling the life and and thoughts of Simone Weil. Most importantly, while illuminating the experiences, insights, and influences of the noted French philosopher, Du Plessix Gray has not shied away from Weil's darker sides, including her virulent Jewish self-hatred. It is sad that such a deep thinker could be so blind to the suffering of her fellow Jews when they faced the greatest catastrophe in their history. This is a book to be read not only for those who wish to understand modern French thought, but also for those who need to understand the limits of the intellect as well.

Simone Weil and her brother Andre were prodigies. Andre had learned advanced math, Sanskrit, Greek, and how to play the violin by age 12. In the first decades of the twentieth cenury there was developed a myth of the happy Weil family. Selma Weil, a forceful woman, made the decisions about the children's education. Simone had severe eating problems as an adolescent. (Selma was nearly phobic about contagion.)

World War I disrupted the Weils' cocooned existence. Simone was fascinated by world events. She was younger and slightly less precocious than her brother Andre. Jews in France received full citizenship in 1789. The Weils were assimilated. Simone had an almost dangerous ability to be receptive to the suffering of others. She felt like an 'old soul'.

Alain, the pen name of Emile Chartier, a philosopher, based his method on skepticism. His favorite philosopher was Descartes. He taught Simone in her cagne class, preparation for admission to the Ecole Normale. She was one of two female students. He encouraged his students to write prolifically. Learning to write well was learning to think well.

At the Ecole Normale Simone's thesis advisor was France's leading authority on Pascal. At her first teaching post in LePay her students found her inspiring. She gave away most of her salary to a fund for the unemployed. She preferred Revolutionary Syndicalism. Support of the unemployed made her controversial. The following year she was assigned to a school at Auxerre, an ordinary place. With Boris Souvarine as her guide, she turned against the regime in Russia. She became an anathema to mainstream leftists. At school she told her students that the bachot was a mere convention. She taught a restricted curriculum, Plato, Descartes and Kant. Inspectors found her mind brilliant, her lectures confusing, diffuse.

Following another year of teaching in another city, Simone sought work in a factory under much the same sort of impulse that drove George Orwell and Dorothy Day to participate in the lives of the dispossessed. She encountered the degrading aspect of piecemeal work, and discovered the psychological impact of factory work exceeded the physical pain of such work. Simone was appalled at the humiliation. In 1940 she moved with her parents to the South of France. Two essays on the Albigensians were published in CAHIERS DU SUD.

During the war Simone Weil identified her body with mutilated France, an intense patriotism. In female mystics eating disorders are the rule, not the exception. An onlooker felt that Simone had a self-centered vocation for self-effacement. In London with the Free French she was refused a post as a nurse and as an undercover agent. She died of tuberculosis, or perhaps she died of a pathological need to share the sufferings of others.

The most memorable and the most compelling thread in Gray's narrative for me is the new focus on Weil's relationship with her parents: they made great sacrifices to ensure that Simone was safe, living well, or at living decently, throughout her many willfull and ruinous physcial and spiritual experiences. Weil's mother followed her from town to town as she took on different teaching posts or factory jobs, making sure her living quarters were at least semi-satisfactory and slipping money to local food merchants so they would give her more than she would normally buy for herself. These accounts are gut wrenching in their way. Gray suggests the intensity of the relationship between parents and child through these kinds of accounts, their strenuous attempts to simply keep their child alive, but the deeper psychological attachments and tussels remain a mystery. Gray says that it was Simone who safely saw her parents to New York in the early 1940s, in escape of the war, but perhaps it was the other way around. I wonder if, when Simone then swiftly decided to return to Europe to plunge herself head first into the annilation of war her parents realized she was essentially committing suicide? How could they have let her go? And yet, how could they have made her stay? Gray doesn't say. All biographers bring something of themselves to their subjects and it was only after Gray's biography of her own parents, entitled Them, recently came out that I understood why her focus on Weil's parents was so loaded with poignancy and meaning.

Oonya Kempadoo has written a perfectly charming account of a young girl's coming of age in Guyana. She has writtwn it in a sryle that gives the reader the feel of the action, of the environment. That is the emphasis, how it felt or smelt or tasted. I think she succeeds admirably, and through it all (to Lula), that Buxton Spice Mango Tree watches and remembers all the antics of the humans who live around it

Kempadoo is a true poet, and although BUXTON SPICE is billed as a novel, it is really more a collection of dances in which the poetics of language play a great part. With more and more literature appearing that does not follow the tight storylines of old, perhaps it is time for us to come up with another word to describe books such as Kempadoo's that are not-quite-novel, not-quite poetry, and not-quite-short-stories. Never mind that we don't have an official category for Kempadoo's fiction. It is strong enough and musical enough to dance on its own power. A series of short collage pieces show us a series of small moments that become suddenly huge in the life of a girl child in Guyana in the 70s. It is about early and uncomfortable awareness of race, sex, age, disability, and of the unpredictibility of politics. Kempadoo writes beautifully and naturally of sex. This is a strong point of hers, and it serves her well. The sex actually creates a sort of tension on which all of her stories ride. Oonya Kempadoo is young and she's talented. What she has done in BUXTON SPICE with language can most certainly be done again with a different theme. One can only wonder what Kempadoo will write about next. Will it be Guyana or England or . . .something entirely from her imagination? This is an author to watch. And, in the meantime, to read.

This sultry story of sexual-awakening is a must-read for everyone. Mothers, but this book for your daughters! It is both poetic and political, you will find it difficult to put down. It is truly a caribbean classic.

I just finished reading Buxton Spice. Initially it was difficult for me to become invoved in the book because I am such a critical reader and I found myself a bit turned off at her style, which to me seemed forced, almost as though she was trying to write in a unique way, as opposed to a Jamaica Kincaid whose style is unique, albeit very flat and nonchalant, but never forced. But as I read on I became more accustomed to it and even appreciated it for its lyrical tone. The sad thing is that there is really no story line here at all. If someone asked me to tell them what the book was about, I would have to broadly state that it was about a girl's coming of age in Guyana, but I would not be able to decribe the story with any specificity and that is what is missing. But I do admire Ms. Kempadoo for her ability to publish. Shoot I have been writing the same novel for the past ten years and Im probably on page five. I would read a second novel of hers, because I think she has the potential to create something really good. But I wouldnt really recommend this one to anyone.

I give this book 2 stars for the author's obvious gift with language and for the nostalgia for my homeland Guyana it managed to awake. No stars for anything else. All the characters are so obsessed with sex that it finally becomes so boring youfeel like fliPping through the pages to find some other theme. I grew up Guyana and I promise, we are not at all that way! Otherwiese the whole book was mere verbal gymnastics; the authior drawing attention to her style, but having nothing much to say; certainly she didn't have a story to tell. A series of anecdotes; no plot, no characterization, the dialogue stilted. Perhaps the writer should mature more before writing her next book - because she shows obvious promise.

Anyone interested in another theory, though it doesn't refute anything presented in this book, check out this article, see the map of Sundaland at the bottom of the page.

The article is written for the Cthulhu Mythos genre, but aside from that, the facts presented in there are real facts based on real finds that include Sundaland - a land that is now under the ocean. That's the place that is being referred to as Eden. If the article is uninteresting, just jump to the bottom of the page and SEE Sundaland for yourself. There is also a very large image you can get to from the bottom of the page. The image was made from an actual map of the ocean floor.

Can be heavy going in the detail, but is the product of a 'Good Analytical Mind'. I really enjoyed the introduction to Religious & Folkloric Analysis, and to Linguistics, & Genetics (a fast growing symbiosis).
Another book in this growing category is 'Genes - People and languages' by Luigi Lica Cavalli-Sforza ISBN: 0140296026.
A classic analysis. It makes one realise we are on the brink of discoveries regarding early human history similar to the unfolding of the age of the dinosaur in the last century.
This book layed the foundation and blazed the trail for 'Underworld Flooded Kingdoms' by Graham Hancock ISBN: 0718144007 (USA - 1400046122 ).
Lounes Chikhi, from University College London (UCL), UK, and colleagues looked for markers by analysing mutations (errors) on Y chromosomesstudied rare mutations called unique event polymorphisms (UEPs). These are not thought to have occurred more than once in recent human history.

However I feel that the book is missing some intermediate stages and can be viewed, with valid reasons, as focused only on the South Asia region.
the main focus of the book is the region east of indonesia, including Micronesia and Polynesia.

The early Polynesian and related groups traded and travelled the Pacific from Madagascar in the West to Easter island in the East.
For a reference see 'Man Across the Sea (Univ. of Texas 1971) by Riley, Kelley, Pennington and Randa.

Latin America:-
Recognising that the Polynesians got to Rapa Nui (Easter island), only 2,000 from Chile (where the nearest other Polynesian island is 1,500 mile east), there is little analysis and mention is made of Latin America.
In Rapa Nui per folklore is said to have been populated by long & short eared peoples (one group from the East and the other from the West).
With the Humboldt current from Peru & Chile would have brought this island within a week or two sailing.
A more inclusive reference would have included a section on Inca (Peruvian & Chilean) contacts.
Witness the late Palaeolithic remains and rock art found by Dr. Walter Neves (Univ. of Sao Paulo) and Marcello Caosta Souza in the Serra da Capivara, Pedra Furada and Lagoa Santa, Belo Horizonte and in Tierra del Fuego again by Walter Neves.

Africa & Australia:-
However, it has no reference to the cradle of human-kind, Africa nor to Australia ?
Both ancient and habitable continents covering the period in question, late Palaeolithic, witness 'Australian' rock-art specialist Grahame Walsh.
We know from recent finds in Southern Africa and lately on the Congo river that there many settlements existed here. I believe this is a serious shortcoming. We know for example that towns and later settlements existed along the coasts of Africa during Roman times.
Why not provide any reference to the region around Madagascar on the African coast ?
And what archaeological discoveries await the Ivory Coast, the Canary islanders and the Congo river delta ?

Unanswered Questions & Puzzles :-
With all this navigation, the study of the astronomy etc how come little is or no written record has been found ?
Is it, as explained in the book, the joining up of the cycles of agriculture with astronomy with power and religion and control ?
Thus have we missed important sources of ancient knowledge ?
For instance to date there is no translation of the Rapa Nui 'Rongo-Rongo' tablets and their similarity to Indus Valley tablets.

What treasure throve of hidden knowledge lies with the Basque fisherman (who since time began knew the coast of Canada and Iceland).
As human markers are being identified that help unravel these ancient migrations, See Mapping Human history, 'Discover the past thro Genes' by Olson Steve and Mapping Human History by Prof Steven Rose ISBN 08706667979 and 7 Daughters of Eve by Sykes Bryan ISBN: 0593047575
When will similar markers be found for domesticated animals, such as pigs, dogs, goats etc or fruit, rice, cereals, sugar cane and sweat potatoes.

In Conclusion:-
I cannot help but think that this unique book has instigated a whole new area that we will be viewing in documentaries in the not too distant future, when the rest of the world catches up.

Naoise O'H

Interesting premise which is painstakingly researched and documented. Oppenheimer makes a very cogent argument which if true will completely rewrite history!

The beginning of human civilization as you learned it in school goes like this:

Human beings (homo sapiens) have been around for some 100,000 years, give or take. Until about six or seven thousand years ago, after the end of the most recent ice age, humans were a bunch of wandering hunter-gatherers. They made some great cave paintings, but other than that and a few gnawed bones, they made nothing and left nothing behind. Then, when the ice age ended, they spontaneously dropped their fur cloaks, stopped hunting woolly mammoths and invented agriculture, the wheel, cuneiform, beer, and everything else that makes up civilization.

The problem with this picture, of course, is that the ice age didn't cover the entire earth with ice -- just some of the parts we live on now. And because there was so much more ice, there was less water, and sea levels were some 100-odd meters lower than at present.

So all the best land, the fertile, coastal land, during the ice age -- the era immediately preceeding the first great civilizations of the near easy -- is now underwater.

In _Eden in the East_, Oppenheimer focuses on the great Sunda Shelf in southeast Asia, which in the last ice age was a continent-sized land mass (now sometimes called "Sundaland"). His thesis is that the great civilizations of the near east did not spring whole cloth from the soil, but were founded, or informed, or guided, by refugees from the east, refugees fleeing the great destruction of their homeland with the submergence of the Sunda Shelf.

He argues for his thesis on the basis of genetic, linguistic and mythological studies, all appearing to show a diffusion of culture and people from some prehistoric Sundaland home. The arguments are varied and interesting, maybe even compelling. Certainly they are worth reading.

But they are also very difficult to read. This is a dense book, almost five hundred pages in the edition I have and written in a fairly dry, scholarly tone. So read it, but be warned.

If you're interested in the argument that human prehistory is to be sought in the lands that sank beneath the waves at the end of the last ice age, check out Graham Hancock's book _Underworld_ (already published here in the UK and coming to America soon). Hancock does not focus exclusively on Sundaland, but his arguments and evidences are complementary to those adduced by Oppenheimer. Hancock is less scholarly and more chronological in his approach; _Underworld_ is all first person and very readable.

Stephen Oppenheimer is the first author to treat this subject in an extensive manner using both scientific evidence and comparative mythology. He brings together a wide range of complimentary fields to support his theory on the rise of Southeast Asian during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. A must read for those interested in new historical perspectives.

Based on reading just half this book I scrambled back to Amazon and ordered everything else he's written. (Then I went back and finished the rest of SIZE OF THOUGHTS; the brilliance never dimmed. Baker's amazing agility with words never stopped surprising and tickling.)

Those other books are coming in now, and I've skimmed three or four and they are no-less unique amazements. MEZZANINE, as an example, immortalizes some guy's thoughts on a 135-page escalator ride. All, an inner monologue of comments and perceptions that made me feel I'd slipped into an alternate universe that exceeds description by anyone by Baker. (Consider a format where there's as much copy in the footnotes as in the narration.)

Nicholson Baker can see and describe anything and make it readable, interesting and insightful. Wish I could write like that.

I've read and enjoyed other works by Baker (The Fermata, Vox), but this collection of magazine articles is absolute rubbish. Random musings on arcane topics such as fingernail clippers, cinema projectors and model airplanes not only fail to entertain, they appear to have no redeeming value whatsoever.

Baker is without question a talented writer, but this collection aptly demonstrates that even the best author needs adequate subject matter with which to work. I'm stunned at just how bad this collection actually is. The first time I've ever awarded a one star rating.

This is a brilliant book. It consists of several short essays on varied subjects; fingernail clippers, a review of a slang dictionary, and the demise of card catalogues to name a few, and one long essay on the history and usage of the word 'lumber'.

Nicholson is a master of finding the sublime in the mundane and his essays bring into focus the understated beauty of everyday objects. Eccentric and and at times almost comically over-erudite? Sure, but you'll find yourself nodding in silent recognition at his apt descriptions of the minutiae of daily life.

Which brings us to the book of the month: The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber by Nicholson Baker. With all this travel and displacement, I didn't read that much in the past month except for a few scant pages of this or that book, or leafing though New York Girls, or the Doris Kloster book, or flipping through pages of The Complete Reprint of John Willie's Bizarre. Baker's book was sort of a meditative book after enjoying the "over the top" quality of a Kern or a Kloster. Baker is a very intelligent man as an essayist and this sober and funny book reminds me of the thoughtfulness of his previous novels, The Mezzanine or The Fermata.

In fact, Nicholson Baker has been assaulted once or twice in the past by a reviewer or two for being a minor pornographer on the last two novelistic outings, and I guess that he is now asking for our forgiveness. He portrays himself here as a regular guy, with a great interest in the most minute particles. The careful essays are about simple things: changing your mind as opposed to making decisions, the size and shape of thoughts, and rarity in life and experience. Baker is also a physical guy and likes his hands on the machinery, so he devotes a word or two about typewriters, model airplanes, clipping your nails, and the movie projectionist.

He is a severe literary critic (refer to U and I), and Baker here elaborates his views on the literary profession which include the art of reading aloud, the history of punctuation, thoughts about Alan Hollinghurst and J. E. Lighter's The Historical Dictionary of American Slang. Things read at weddings, typos, a recipe, dewey decimal system, and books as furniture are thrown in the shuffle; glue keeps it all together. And finally a long essay about the history of lumber, where he comes out in favor of lumber, is his most strongly political. I say that I love lumber! Ever since I was hit on the head by a two by four as a child.

The world is full of whiners, and this guy is the king. As a pup, Nicholson Baker attended the School Without Walls where, "learning has no limit." Unfortunately for us, the only message he got resulted in his permanent low self-image.

If you purchase ANY of this poor misbegotten soul's books, you are doing nothing more than feeding the mouth of a permanent pessimist.

Nicholson, we're praying for you and your children.

Kamani's collection of short stories provides a rare look into South Asian female sexuality. Her characters are fresh and her stories, especially "Waxing the Thing," tackle original ideas in hilarious ways. What makes this book so enjoyable is the skill with which humor is woven into serious (and otherwise largely ignored - who writes books about waxing?) subject matter. Even though the book is made of short stories and not a novel, I wanted to keep reading just to see what new, crazy tale Kamani would produce next.

This is neither soft-core porn nor poorly written erotica. It is simply R-rated fiction that will ruffle some reader's feathers, while striking a chord in others. Kamani does use a fair bit of imagination and artistic license in these stories, which may throw off readers looking for a more serious novel. Also, there are one or two stories that drag on for several pages without a clear purpose, but the others are stellar enough to make up for this.

The bottom line: Don't read this book if you are uncomfortable talking about sexuality. Do read it if you are looking for a change from the stereotypical, 'life is so hard for women' Indian-American writing. You will not be disappointed.

I was totally put off by this collection of short stories. I do read erotica and women's fiction but this falls into neither catgory. The sexual obsessiveness of the characters became slightly repulsive for me and I gave up after 4 stories. There is no beauty to this writing, no sensuality in the descriptions. All I can say is that it is crude and if you like that, go for it!

Ginu Kumani creates a colorful and bizarre picture of women's sexuality in India. Many stories bring to light an interesting relationship between the young woman character, and her family as well as her coming to terms with her sexuality. I recommend this book for the light is sheds on the suppression of sexuality in India.

Being of Indian background, I enjoy reading books on Indian-Americans. To cultivate the genre I often will purchase books by Indian authors, even though the reviews may not be great. This volume is not worth the time.

An acquaintance recommended this book. I read it twice and bought four copies for friends. It is thoroughly delightful and engaging. Plus, if one is so inclined, there is plenty of nourishment for the mind. The prose is robust and vital. The narrative voices are confident, assertive and self-assured. Most refreshingly, the language is unadorned and free of the mannerisms so much in vogue in today's fiction. The stories are very readable. Economy and subtlety are Kamani's stock in trade. These are dramatic multi-layered stories: We meet conniving lovers: voyeurs; girls exploring new found sexuality; servants testing the limits of social tethers; a mother fighting off her son's predatory lover; beauty salon patrons arranging for special home services; a blind cat with exotic propensities: a bride who rebels on her wedding day. The tales, nested within and influenced by the hierarchical restraints of Indian religion and nationality, impart Kamani's theme of the "sexual body." The story "The Cure" echoes Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka: Is the ever-growing "jumbo girl" an Alice; is she the transformed Gregor Samsa; is she asserting her sexual prowess to escape from oppressive conditions; is her growth solely physical? Intriguing questions. No easy answers. Like turning corners into alleys of ambiguity and paradox. Enter and explore.

Five stars.

This essay is more about Roger Scruton's ideas about Spinoza's philosophy that about Spinoza's philosophy itself. He spends too much of this short book on criticism of Spinoza's geometric method of presentation and hardly any on his vision.
Typically he says on the last page of the book that "it is no accident that Spinoza should have called forth so sharp an attack from the other false prophet of atheism, Nietzsche," and concludes with a quote from Nietzsche.
If Scruton considers Spinoza a "false prophet of atheism" he has self-confessed an ignorance of Spinoza's work.

Anyone who has dove into the bowels of Spinoza's most famous work, "The Ethics," without adequate preparation has probably felt similar to a cat thrown into the deep end of a pool. After all, doesn't the title suggest that the book will discuss how to live "ethically?" Instead a tidal wave of abstruse metaphysics washes over the reader of Section One, called "Of God." And what about Spinoza's chosen format? Oh boy. Definitions that lead to propositions and quasi-mathematical conclusions? Not to mention all of those somewhat humorous "Q.E.D.s." A few pages in, the uninitiated may slam the book shut, curse the name of philosophy, and return to the familiar, and almost equally arcane, world of online gaming. So what's the big deal about Spinoza's magnum opus? How could such a strange book, replete with such strange thoughts, survive as a masterpiece of philosophy? Shouldn't such a seeming anachronism have gone the way of alchemy? Or does this poo conceal a golden treasure trove?

For beginners, Roger Scruton's microscopic book, slim as an iPod, goes a long way towards answering such questions. The bulk of its 54 pages focuses on "The Ethics" and concludes with his own interpretations of what this strange book could mean for twenty-first century people. In essence, Scruton characterizes Spinoza's Euclid-inspired work as comprising a system that encompasses all of reality. That's a big claim. Not only that, "The Ethics" does not philosophize for its own sake. Spinoza was a lens grinder, not a professor, and thus not shackled to the "publish or perish" hamster wheel of academia so familiar today. He didn't write "The Ethics" to secure tenure. In fact, it was so controversial that it wasn't even published until he died ("publish and perish" probably describes those religiously volatile times). This bizarre work instead delineates a metaphysical system and then, based on the implications of this system, deduces how humans should live. Only after taking a machete to Spinoza's metaphysical jungle does the work's title become evident. This book helps sharpen the blade.

Scruton delves into Spinoza's definitions, an understanding of which necessitates comprehension of the whole system. He pulls away the goo adhering to such terms as "cause of itself," "finite in its own kind," "substance," "attribute," "mode," and even "God." In under twenty pages the book gives a suitable high-level outline of Spinoza's metaphysics. Of course, given the space limitations, much detail gets ignored. Scruton does not discuss Spinoza's voluminous proofs, for example. After examining the idea that human beings remain finite modes of the self-existing substance ("God"), the discussion turns to Spinoza's theory of knowledge, views on individuality, and free will through internal "conatus" (or essence of being). Human beings, according to these ideas, are deterministic beings constrained by external and internal forces. Since all causation derives from the self-existing substance (again, "God") our "mission" becomes seeking and finding the infinite ("sub specie aeternitatis") amongst the finite ("sub specie durationis"). This unbinds us from the knots of time. Ultimately, reason becomes the prime mover to help human beings achieve both happiness and a sense of the infinite cause. We can do this by mastering our emotions and enhancing our understandings. Don't let impulsive passions predominate. Think. "A free man" recognizes the limitations and determinations of our human nature. Freedom then comes from the realization that we are not free. We find bliss in the rational contemplation of the self-existent, all-causing substance. As such, we have an impassionate relationship with this impassionate substance Spinoza calls "God." This path leads to views of God that contradict our traditional notions, namely, that God neither hates nor loves anything, God feels neither joy nor sorrow. God seems wholly impersonal, but nonetheless the object of our contemplation. No such system has ever existed in the western philosophical tradition. No wonder it wasn't published during his life. Spinoza doubtless remained aware of the dangers of doing so.

The book does not include much detail about Spinoza's life. It does not examine in depth the historical charges of atheism or heresy. Elucidation of Spinoza's philosophical system remains the focus throughout. Scruton summarizes, rather ominously, that "Spinoza undertook what has rarely been attempted, and never so boldly or arrogantly achieved: he gave a description in outline of all that there is, and a guide in detail as to how to live with it." In other words, Spinoza took on the big questions of existence (Scruton depicts post-modernism as the rejection of these questions) and at the very least presented a relatively comprehensible philosophical framework. Though not everyone will agree with the conclusions Scruton draws in the book's final section, the book as a whole nonetheless provides a good introduction to a very notable and unique metaphysical and ethical system.

If this book is so bad why arn't people selling their used copies at low, low prices on amazon.com?? This author seems to be able to put forward a different point of view that makes people think.Unfortunatly because it is an Introductory book the people who read it seem not to want to do so. Perhaps Roger S. should have saved his thoughts for more enlightened readers.

Roger Scruton's book on Spinoza is a waste of time. As a professor of philosophy Scruton should surely have come up with something better than this. It does not serve to explain Spinoza's thought, and it betrays the point of the series that it belongs to when it obstinately refuses to explicate Spinoza's works. This book should never have been published, and this will no doubt be its final printing. Spinoza is the pivotal philosopher who mediates between early modern philosophy and that of the Enlightenment period, which he belonged to as one of its most important players. Luckily, other modestly priced and thorough accounts of Spinoza already exist: the Cambridge Companion to Spinoza (from which Scruton is noticably absent) and the wonderfully researched biography entitled Spinoza: A Life, by Steven Nadler. This latter book follows in the methodological footseps of the medievalist historian Johan Huizinga, who wrote such benchmark books on intellectual history as Erasmus and the Age of Reformation and The Autumn of the Middle Ages. A third book to consider, one that places elements of Spinoza's philosophy in the proper context of his Enlightenment contemporaries, is Jonathan Israel's book Radical Enlightenment. Spinoza's thought has recently been revived in other countries, most notably in France, and for this reason his work and its influence are currently being taught at the university level in humanities departments as diverse as film studies, literature, and of course philosophy. The essential work to own by Spinoza is his Ethics, edited, translated and annotated by the scholar GHR Parkinson. However, other texts of Spinoza have also attracted increased attention, notably in "The New Spinoza" (U Minnesota P) and Antonio Negri's "Savage Anomaly."

Scruton provides an excellent short biography of Spinoza's life and a good description of the world in which he lived. He invokes the biographical memoir of a contemporary and friend of Spinoza, Colerus. Scruton says " From this we learn of the simplicity and naturalness of Spinoza's life and character, and of the high esteem in which he was held by acquaintances and friends. The seclusion of Spinoza's life was necessitated by intense labour and intellectual discipline , and his frugality expressed independence of spirit rather than meanness of self- concern."
Scruton speaks of the magnificence and ambition of the last great Latin masterpiece, Spinoza's 'Ethics'. He has chapters on Spinoza's view of God, of Man, of Freedom,and one on his legacy.
This is a rich work from which much can be learned. As Scruton says for Spinoza "scientific objectivity and divine worship " are the two forms of freedom.
Spinoza for Will Durant was the one philosopher who lived as he wrote. This short work gives evidence of this congruence between work and life.

Excellent view of modern art in the United States as well as England and Europe. I also enjoyed the illistrations.

If there ever was an art book that you shouldn't waste your time with, this is the one! Written as an exercise in pure egomania, the only thing Collings manages to communicate is how little he respects his readers' intelligence, taste, or personal integrity. The relentless "I'm oh so smart and sophisticated, while you're not and never will be" screed gets really old after about 3 pages but drones on until the bitter end. No need for Syrup of Ipecac when you have a monograph like this around! About the only thing one can learn from such a sorry excuse for a book is not to waste more money on any other birdcage liner the (putative) author has dumped into the marketplace. I felt bad that the lowest grade I could give it was one star: it actually deserved a minus five.

I found this book to be a challenging, thought-provoking foray into contemporary art. And fun. First off: it is not necessary to agree with the writer to get something out of what they have to say. If you are open minded and a critical thinker and enjoy art, you will like this book. If you only want to read stuff that supports your comfortable notion of what you already know, you will never get through it, and you'll hate it. I enjoyed the discourse and had a sort of running debate with the author as I read, which was like having a stimulating conversation with a fellow art geek. I really liked this book and have recommended it to many of my art buddies. It will be interesting to see what they think...

This is very idiosyncratic look at art today, and in it, Matthew Collings chooses several issues about art to discuss: Shock, beauty, emptiness of meaning, humor, and the present. His writing can be annoying, sounding almost like Warhol in his "Philosophy of Andy Warhol" with short, witty, curious phrases, and a distant, ironic humor that can sound condescending or careless. Still, it turns out to be insightful and entertaining, and even informative. It isn't that you learn something profound about how to see art or understand it. Rather, it's like having a conversation (albeit one way) about art and particular artworks with someone who has a lot of knowledge about art and is often very perceptive. Along the way, you learn about recent artists such as Chris Ofili, Sigmar Polke, and Richard Prince, as well as past artists like Pollock, Picasso, and Goya. The pictures are good too. But it's just a fun look into the issues that modern (or post-modern) art tries to tackle, and some things to think about the next time you visit a modern art museum. Again, it's idiosyncratic and personal, so it's only one person's take on artists and art.

As an antidote to art jargon that passes as "writing" whether in ART FORUM or in catalogues, Mr Collings' book is a refreshing RELIEF. Well illustrated examples which illuminate his arguments, clear division into six sections, and an open-endedness to many issues make this a very enjoyable and informative read for the lay person who loves art. I'm immediately passing it on to one of the people I value most in the world - my 17 year old son. Is there a better recommendation?

The book devotes one or more chapters to individual female leaders throughout history. The first "warrior" - Boudica - truly was a warrior queen. She receives the most coverage with 7 chapters (approximately 100 pages) as well as occasional references throughout the book. Also included are Zenobia (3rd Century Queen of Palmyra), Matilda of Tuscany, Maud (daughter of Henry I), Queen Tamara (late 12th Century Georgia), Queen Isabella of Spain, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Jinga, Queen Louise of Prussia, and a few modern female leaders.

For the most part, the chapters comprise short biographies told in an easy-to-read narrative style. My only complaint is the strong female rights sub-theme or thesis. The attitudes are dated, albeit understandable since the book was first published in 1988.

The Warrior Queens serves as a good introduction to historical female leaders as well as an introductory biography for any one of the women covered.

Antonia Fraser superbly writes about Boadicea of Great Britain, Catherine the Great of Russia, Elizabeth the First of England, Queen Isabella of Spain, the Rani of Jhansi, and the obscure Queen Jinga of Angola. All are delineated with grace and fervour and this book is another welcome addition to the opus of Lady Antonia Fraser. It is very highly recommended.

Timothy Wingate Ottawa CANADA

Perhaps I expected more from this book than was present, but I could hardly get through the first few chapters and I am an avid historic biography reader. I found her methods tiresome and boring, having the preference to recite found facts rather than compile and share, she reads like a card catalog. I now know exactly what to read if I do wish to learn something of these women she eludes to, but after having put this book down, I feel I am less wise to the subjects then when I started. I need a chronological telling of a person and their movement, not a forty-three page explanation of exactly who has written such things in the past. Perhaps, I stopped reading three or four chapters before it got good, but I doubt it. I was very disappointed.

For all the exalted reputation Lady Antonia Fraser enjoys as a historian and writer, I expected this work to be far more informative and entertaining than it actually was. Despite her fascinating subject, Lady Fraser manages to flog it to death with endless historical references, obscure citations and literary allusions. I found the text to be so cluttered up and bogged down with arcane details and research notes that the actual subject matter was obscured by the author's very erudition. In a word: BORING. I hoped that after determinedly slogging through two opening chapters of explication and introduction, the body of the book pertaining to the fascinating women selected to represent history's Warrior Queens would pick up speed and capture my fast fading interest. Nope. Ponderous at best, the writing never seems to catch fire and I found myself hoping the next chapter would be better than the one I was reading. This is slow going and fails to reward the reader who actually gets through it. The last chapter of "summation" just repeats quotations and points made throughout the main text. Very disappointing and far from Lady Fraser's best effort. This more closely resembles the senior thesis of a graduate who has spent too much time in the library than the sparkling historical depiction of female political and military leaders throughout time which I was hoping to find.

This is not a pop-history book. I picked this book up expecting it to be a very easy read but was surprised when I found myself reading through a book that would not have been out of place in any of my college history courses. Fraser has painted a very fascinating picture of various warrior queens around the world. Though at times, the narrative drags through her meticulous statement of facts, that is to be expected. I was very disappointed at her omission of the Egyptian pharaoh-queen Hatshepsut, however. Nevertheless, the women that she picks to include in her analysis make up a very good overview of the various warrior queens throughout the world and through time. It was an extremely interesting read and I would recommend it for anyone who has an interest in historical women as well as the the patience to read a (mostly) scholarly work.

In many of his books, Lukacs sets out to write a multi-disciplinary history (drawing on economics, psychology, sociology, and political theory) of a narrowly circumscribed subject during a relatively thin slice of time (e.g., "Five Days in London, May 1940" and "June 1941: Hitler and Stalin"). Here, the object of Lukacs' rather idiosyncratic approach to history is the city of Budapest around 1900, which, according to Lukacs, was the city's zenith as a cultural and commercial center of (Eastern) Europe. Unlike reading many of Lukacs' books, however, reading BUDAPEST 1900 is tough going. Lukacs does make an impressive case for the significance of Budapest and its many notable literary, artistic, and intellectual figures around the turn of the century, but he burdens that case with page after page of tedious chamber-of-commerce data: miles of railroad track, water consumption per capita, number of mailboxes, number of gymnasiums, theater seats per capita, etc., etc. Further, it is not readily apparent which pages or paragraphs to skip. To get to the wheat, one must necessarily sift through a lot of chaff.

I read this book as background and in preparation for reading some of the works of Gyula Krudy, and I looked forward to it because over the years I had enjoyed a number (at least six) other books by Lukacs. But this is not as well-written nor as intrinsically interesting as were the other books of his that I read, and the prickly and grandiloquent (an adjective that is used far too often in the book) side of Lukacs is a little too evident. Despite numerous informative and insightful passages, I had to force myself to stick with this book to the end, and having reached the end I am not sure it was worth the effort.

History doesn't have to be a boring list of facts - look at Norman Davies's Europe: A History for evidence of that. But Lukac's Budapest 1900 is an example of what can go wrong when the historian attempts to write like a novelist.

Many parts of Budapest 1900, a potrait of the city at the turn of the century, are bogged down in long descriptive passages which try to impart a mood. In Budapest's heyday around 1900 sun lights up the beautiful women shopping in the boutiques on Vaci Street. Later, during the short-lived Communist government after World War I, politicians scheme in badly-lit basement rooms.

This kind of impressionistic history becomes irritating, and detracts from otherwise interesting detail about a city which was once the fastest growing in the world. There are also sizeable footnotes on almost every page, which seem unecessary in a non-academic history like Budapest 1900.

Furthermore, Lukacs employs a flowery style, which also grates. There are lots of unecessary self-references to "this historian" and tortured sentences like the following: "Seeds of trouble is the title i gave to this chapter: but semination is one thing, and fructification another."

The book also fails to draw all of the chapters together in a thematic whole. Finishing the book is unsatisfactory - You have very little sense of what it was really about, beyond a trip down memory lane.

This is another book that deserves to be put back into print. Throughout a long and productive career, John Lukacs has taken pride (sometimes bordering on preening) in his penchant for defining things his own way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it just a distraction. But no subject is better suited to his mix of talents than this "historical portrait" (as he puts it) of this the capital of his native country.

The book is a nostalgia trip in part, but it is a good deal more. Lukacs also undertakes to to situate Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in particular, in contrast to its great partner, Vienna -- it's remarkable even today how these two cities, so close together on the map can seem so far apart.

But perhaps the best part of the book is in his chapter on "Seeds of Trouble," when he undertakes to show how liberal nationalism went sour and headed down the road to anti-semitism and the destructive hyper-nationalism that wracked us all through so much of the 20th century. Liberal nationalism had always contained the seeds of its own undoing. Discerning politicians as disparate as Disraeli, Bismark and Napoleon III had already grasped how the liberal impulse could be harnessed to conservative ends. But through Lukacs' eyes, you can see just how quick and subtle -- and disastrous -- the shift can be. Probably the point is that Lukacs was never a good liberal to begin with. So he can look on with unblinkered eyes as the liberal vision crumbles in his hands.

For all of Lukacs' aristocratic disdain, it is possible for a reader less austere than the author to see this shift as a disaster. Perhaps a good pairing for this book would be Gordon A. Craig's "Triumph of Liberalism" about Zurich in a slightly earlier time: there you can be reminded (if you need reminding) of just how refreshing the rise of liberalism could be.

Lukacs has a final chapter called "Since Then," but it's perfunctory. There's certainly a story to be told about 20th Century Budapest, but you wouldn't come here to find it. On the other hand, as an exercise in archaeology -- of the substrate that underlies our more recent battles -- this book is hard to beat.

Lukacs attempts to capture the mental climate of Budapest 1900. This is a kind of impressionistic approach to history that uses scholarship to achieve its effects. He is definitely worth reading.

Reading this book took me on a trip to an age when things were golden. I was able to see places I have been and picture myself in those times. The christian-jewish relationships were a model that can be likened-to today's America. I enjoyed the section about the coffeehouse district and also the author's footnotes. I learned a lot of things I did not know about political sides and issues.

Anyone thinking of buying this book will be pleased with their purchase. I have read "An Undiplomatic Diary", by an american General after WWI. I would like to read about Emperor Karl 1st, the "Peace Emperor". This combination of books bring about a rounded history. I am sure that there are other books to read, but these are pretty good places to start.

The last chapter tied everything together and was very strong.
Bravo! Is there another chapter about the last 14 years or so?