T Books

I loved the whole doctors without borders thing, the hot German aid worker, the sultry African United Nations spy, oh, my God, was Joseph hot or what? It was a constant tug of war for who I wanted Saffron, the main character, to end up with. And the whole LA thing was so funny, it made me see how we all take life too seriously sometimes. Highly entertaining and informative. It made me feel grateful for the life I have. Thanks

This is the only book I've chosen over sleep since the birth of my first child a year ago. It pulled me in from the first hysterical breastfeeding scene on page one all the way to the race to the death finish. The part about Africa was an unexpected thrill, giving this book something altogether new. I actually hid in the bathroom to finish it, I loved it so much. Can't wait for the next one.

Most "Mommy-lit" books these days are about women having to chose between work and motherhood, this one is not. This novel is about finding yourself through motherhood, which I thought was a great message. Saffron, the main character, never succumbs to being bullied about being a single-mom, a career-woman, about not fitting in. She rises above it. It's not only a fun read, it's got a very cool message for all of us women who feel different inside. Thanks!

I stumbled upon this book at the library, thought the story seemed interesting from the jacket summary. I am so glad I found this book! If this is considered chick lit, it definitely is a more sophisticated kind of chick lit. It deals with more serious issues such as war, poverty, Africa, etc. But you can still enjoy it as a chick lit novel ... meaning the politics of the issues I mentioned above do not swallow the story. It seems like the author may have used some of her own life experiences (London School of Economics references, etc.) which I always enjoy when an author does that ... makes the novel seem more real. This book is highly recommended by me. Read & enjoy!

After reading this book's more than favorable review in the Denver Post dated 6/19/05, I had to run out to buy it that very day! Upon delving in to the first chapter, I knew I would not be disappointed. Lennon has a unique ability to hook the reader by her funny and accurate insights into human nature. The story's heroine, Saffron, was someone I could relate to and identify with immediately. Although Saffron's story is adventurous and sometimes exotic, anyone who has ever been, or known, a new mother will have compassion for Saffron's real-life dilemma. Saffron's struggle with letting go of her independent, goal-driven past self and opening up to the boundless, albeit non-glamorous, love that she has for her new baby is a life experience that almost every new mother can relate to. Lennon will make you chuckle in recognition as Saffron goes through her transformation and experiences her new reality of changing dirty diapers and getting her baby to properly latch during nursing. Additionally, the contrast between Saffron's life as a war correspondent in the tumultuous political environment of Sierra Leone, with her new life as a single mother amongst the beauty-conscious and superficial mommies in Los Angeles is not only hilarious, but poignant. I was amazed at how Ms. Lennon was able to tell two stories simultaneously while keeping the reader equally involved in each and cognizant of the connection between the two. I especially loved the ending, and was rooting for Saffron all the way as she evolved into someone she didn't know was there, bringing along her flaws of course! This book is definitely a page-turner and will keep you wanting more from this talented new author. I can't wait to see what Lennon has up her sleeve next!

I first learned of Mistress Masham's Repose during a game of charades. (Can you imagine trying to act out this title, especially since it's a book so few people have heard of?) I had already read and loved The Once and Future King, and set out to find a copy. I have read this book three times over the past 20 years. Each time it strikes me anew as such a wonderfully funny, sweet and substantial novel. It could be that the title itself is what kept it from becoming a classic alongside Wind in the Willows and A Wrinkle in Time. Read this book! Buy this book for all the book-loving children in your life!

Although one of White's lesser-known works, to my mind it's easily one of his best (Anne Fine regards it as her favourite children's book). The concept of Lilliputians living in an English landscape garden is superb, and White develops his theme in wonderfully enticing ways - and always with his typical 'feel' for character and setting. There's so much to enjoy in this tale - still a classic after 60 years.

As an American child of about 10, I acquired a battered copy of this book along with a bunch of children's books from a family friend whose children had outgrown them. As other reviewers suggest, I was mystified by much of the book (the poet Pope?) but I still found it a great adventure story and loved the illustrations. It didn't hurt that I resembled Maria myself (a bookish tomboy with glasses--thank God for LASIK). I have re-read the book with pleasure on a number of occasions and now understand the references, but I wouldn't hesitate to give this book to an intelligent American child today. Perhaps it would prompt him or her to learn more about British history and literature. I'm glad to see it has been reprinted.

As kids, both my brother and I considered this one of our favorite books - and we did a LOT of reading. I can't tell you how many times I read it. Our copy was lost at some point, so I am thrilled that it is back in print so I can now read it to my own children. My kids are 3 and 6, so still a bit young for this book, but I'll probably buy a copy now for my own pleasure, and another for my brother.
I have always loved books that lead you to another book, and I just had to read "Gulliver's Travels" after reading this one. As a kid, much of it went over my head, but I still enjoyed it. Now that I think about it, I should re-read that one too...

After finishing university T. H. White worked as a teacher in the Stowe School which occupies a gigantic former Baroque stately home: here he conceived of the idea of Malplaquet, modeled after the greatest of all British country homes, Blenheim Palace, where the Dukes of Marlborough have lived and where Winston Churchill was born and raised. Malplaquet, an imaginary dilapidated repository of all its nation's history (we find out the Princes in the Tower were executed in its medieval dungeon, which also contains the ax which beheaded Charles I), would make a wonderful setting for any book, but rather than use it for a Gothic (the obvious choice), here White had the inspiration to make it the setting for a children's fantasy. White's mansion is not only the home of the little girl Maria who has inherited the estate (and not much else) and her warders--some cruel, some kind--but also a group of Lilliputians brought over from their island home during the time of Swift, whom Maria encounters one day. Maria's encounter with the Lilliputians becomes for her a means for learning about the nature of tyranny--both that exercised over herself by her guardian the Vicar Mr. Hater and her governess Miss Brown, but also that she herself can hardly keep herself from exercising over the Lilliputian community hidden on her estate.

This is a children's book that, to be honest, will best be appreciated by adults. White imagined his readers not only familiar with GULLIVER'S TRAVELS but also with some of the history of seventeenth and eighteenth-century England: American children particularly today would be confused as to who Mistresses Masham and Morley were, or what Malplaquet is named after, or even who Gulliver was. And their patience might well be tried by White's love of Wodehousean "types": the bluff Lord Lieutenant with an obsession with horses and hounds, and Maria's mentor the absent-minded and esoteric antiquarian the Professor . But adults (and even older children) should love this book, and its well-structured narrative is a real pleasure.

Desiree is married to Jamal. Troy is the ex-boyfriend she almost married and Derrick is one she let get away, who is also best-friend to Troy. Constantly away from home traveling for her job, Jamal feels neglected because when Desiree is home she acts as if she wants nothing to do with him. Jamal, feeling frustrated, gets caught up in a love triangle that doesn't include his wife. With lingering feelings for Troy, Desiree gets caught up in her own love triangle. Add in a best friend who is quick to voice her opinions, but has always been there for Desiree no matter what, with all that is going on, someone is bound to get hurt. The question is who will it be and what will the consequences be for all of this infidelity? This book is DRAMA-filled and it will have you quickly turning the pages to find out what is going to happen next and just when you think it ends the author leaves you gasping for more.

From the first page ONE AIN'T ENOUGH took off and I found myself quickly turning the pages to find out what was going to transpire next. Talk about drama, man, this book was chocked-full of it. Mo Flames did an excellant job in keeping this reader entertained and glued to the pages. I got to say she left me (literally) with my mouth hanging open, like no she didn't.

Reviewed by Leona Romich
for The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

I have been reading Mo Flames blogs for the last year....I was so impressed by her wit, candor, intellect and truthfulness. I was so excited when I found out she was writing a book. I pre-ordered it months and months in advance.

Well, I finally got my book and needless to say, I enjoyed it immensely. Suspense at every turn.....taking the book with me every where I go and finally finishing it and craving for more. This book will not disappoint!! I also ordered a book for my goddaughter, she loved it, said it was the best book she has read in a long,long time!!!

I am not a big reader. I get bored after a few chapters if the book is not interesting enough and I put it down, never to be picked up again. Not with this book. Hot hot hot. You are hooked from the very first page and can't wait to see what happens next. The descriptive nature of each scene makes you feel as if you are right there. Definitely a must read! I can't wait for the next book of Mo Flames!

Mo Flames is definitely a new author who is destined to take this literary game by storm!!

This book tells you all about Desiree and her quest to find a true soulmate. She starts out with Troy, a NFL player that is nothing but trouble from his fist connecting with her face every chance he gets. She finally comes to her senses and leaves him alone, gets married to another man Jamal and then starts getting busy with her and Troy's mutual friend Derrik...

Sounds like a bunch of DRAMA... well that it is.... Mo steps into many womens' lives with this uncut, hold onto your seat debut novel of hers and I can't wait for this sequel.... Please get this book! Much success, Mo!

Desiree is caught in a love triangle to say the least. She is married to a prominent doctor Jamal Edwards who has a family practice. As of late there relationship hasn't been hunky dory. Frequent with the friendly skies, Desiree is always away on business with her job and Jamal is getting a little bit tired of not being able to spend some time with his wife. Even when she is home she is not feeling him at all. Jamal has drama going on as well, and best believe its not with his wife.

Then there is Derrick, the perfect man for Desiree who captures her heart, mind, and body and she can't seem to get enough of. He is also the best friend of her ex name Troy, a famous NFL football star who broke it off with Desiree years prior but she is still weak at the knees for him. Through all the drama and turmoil her best friend Brielle is right by her side keeping it real. Sit back, relax, grab some popcorn and see how these triangles unfold.

One Ain't Enough is on fire!!!! Mo Flames you did your thing with this debut novel. From beginning to end this book was off the chain. Drama for yo' mama. I can't wait for the next one.

Tangerine, Reviewer
Reader's Paradise Book Club

Unbelievably inspiring. I challenge you to compare his reading with any one else's or your own in your head. He makes it alive. Not perfect, mind you. You'll find yourself suggesting to him in certain spots that he missed the meaning by putting some emphasis or other on the wrong words. Nevertheless, you know you couldn't do better overall. A real treasure.

Great for a long drive or while driving cross town in Manhattan. You can debate the issues of suffering with Milton in your head.

Sure do wish it were the whole work.

First off, let me say that we're not talking here about the famous Qi gong instructor named John Milton. We're talking about the famous 17th-century English poet who wrote _Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_, two of the most wonderfully overlong Christian poems in the history of Western literature.

Your English teacher will tell you that _Paradise Lost_ "narrates the story of Adam and Eve's disobedience, explains how and why it happened, and places the story within the larger context of Satan's rebellion and Jesus' resurrection." And you know that can't be far wrong, because SparkNotes says the exact same thing.

But the main reason everyone should read Milton's grand epic is that it contains certain secrets about prayer.

In PL, Milton reminds us how important it is, when we pray, to be absolutely specific. The Lord has a strange, often disturbing, sense of humour (PL, books I-XII). If you leave Him wiggle room, He will answer your prayer in a way you never intended, and then say it was your own damned fault, because your prayer contained seven types of ambiguity.

John Milton writes from experience. Example: Almost every time a good-looking woman passed within view of John Milton, he suffered an involuntary erection. Daniel of the Old Testament might well have suffered such a condition without complaining, but John Milton found it onerous. John was both a Puritan and a student of Saint Augustine. He was not happy when he suffered an erection, he hated it, and he especially resented the women who made that thing happen to him.

In a Latin letter to his friend, George Wither, John Milton reports that, in his youth, he would sometimes see a pretty woman even in his dreams at night, and suffer, not just an erection, but the whole nine yards, up to and including a nocturnal emission; which he trained himself to handle according to Scripture, thereby to purify himself (Deut. 23:10); but sometimes he was unable to wait that long before he handled it, which filled his soul full of Puritan remorse and self-reproach.

At age 33, the poet took to wife a 16-year-old lolita named Mary Powell; and you may already have guessed the reason why, which is that she gave him an erection -- more accurately, she gave him "one damned erection after another," without remission. (Giving John Milton an erection was not the girl's conscious intent, but it just happened to him, every time they met.) And since Christian marriage is Saint Paul's only approved method whereby to deal with that kind of torment, John Milton (being an honourable man) thought it best to marry the girl (1 Cor. 7:9).

Frailty, thy name is woman! After two years of marriage - after just two years of witnessing those insufferable erections that could not be beaten down, or at least, not for long - the poet's young Puritan bride ran away and skipped back home to live with her mother, Mrs. Anne Powell, who likewise gave John an erection; which is why John Milton resented his mother-in-law as well as his estranged wife.

Those were the hardest years of the poet's life - nothing but a daily struggle against involuntary erections, yet here he was, trapped in a loveless marriage to a barely pubescent teenager who lived with her entirely-too-attractive mother. Which is partly why John Milton wrote those four revolutionary Christian pamphlets, correcting Moses' and Jesus' hardline policy on divorce (Mark 10:11-12).

In his Latin correspondence, some of which is preserved in the Bodleian Library, John Milton reports that he was fine when alone in his study, or when hobnobbing with Parliamentarians, or even when having a hasty pudding, or a figgy one, over at the Inns of Court; but let just one good-looker cross his path, showing good ankle between the hem of her dress and the top of her shoe, and it was boing! - instant erection, just like a spring-loaded mechanical device; causing John to exclaim bitterly, "Oh, God, please, not again! Save me from this penal fire!"

It even happened to him once when Oliver Cromwell's wife, Elizabeth Bourchier Cromwell, bent over to pick up a handkerchief that had fallen to the floor. On that occasion there was a lamentable accident ("an hard mishap" [verbatim quote]) with John's ordinarily modest codpiece - an incident so humiliating that John never even wrote a poem about it, although he did apologise, profusely, to Oliver Cromwell, and to Mrs. Cromwell, who saw the whole thing, and then fainted. (John at the time was employed as Cromwell's Latin secretary.)

By the way: It was modesty, not arrogance, that moved John Milton, after that embarrassing incident, to wear a baggy codpiece, with plenty of wiggle room.

Which brings me back to the beginning, when I was explaining why you should give the Lord no wiggle room when you pray: John Milton took his problem to the Lord in prayer, stating in his journal, "Father, I pray Thee, let me not suffer a stiffe joynt when I see a beautifull woman."

And here's how the Lord answered that prayer, in 1651: He struck John Milton blind.

At first, John thought that his blindness was a punishment for his own bad behaviour - which is how that whole thing got going, in Anglo-American Christianity, about how, if you are a boy who does what John Milton used to do, it could make you go blind. But God revealed to John, by means of a dream, that his blindness was actually an answer to his own prayers ¬- because the poet had said, "Father, let me not suffer a stiff joint when I see a beautiful woman."

John Milton then said, "Lord, that is not what I meant, at all" - but it was too late to change the outcome, because the prayer was already answered.

The erections that John Milton suffered in the years 1651-1674, and there were many, even after the Lord answered his prayer, were not from seeing a beautiful woman, it was actually because John had a condition that modern physicians call PSAS ("Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome"). So the chronic "stiffe joynt" problem was not really the women's fault, and it never was; but John Milton never knew that. Even when he wrote Paradise Lost (by dictation, from 1652-1667), John was still under the impression that women, seen or unseen, were to blame for his condition; which is why he makes all of those snide remarks in blank verse about your mother, Eve, in Books IV-V and IX-X of Paradise Lost. Because whenever he pictured Eve in his mind's eye, it was boing! - the same old problem. And there would come no more blank verse to his head for the next twenty minutes or so, until things settled down. John Milton hated that.

But it all turned out for the best: if God had not answered John Milton's prayer in that unusual way, by blinding him, Paradise Lost might never have been completed, and sold to the publisher, Sam Simmons, in 1667, for £5 - which was a tidy sum for a religious poem during the decadent Restoration era.

It was while writing the early books of Paradise Lost that John was introduced to Katherine, a ship captain's daughter, a fat woman whom he had never seen (because he was blind); whom he nonetheless married in 1656, but not for the same old reason as before: John asked fat Kate to marry him (a.) because he needed secretarial assistance with Paradise Lost, and (b.) because Katherine did not have the same pernicious effect on him as Mary Powell and her mother Anne had done. John could dictate blank verse to Kate all night long without feeling so much as a tingle down there.

Kate's surname was Woodcock. Beelzebub made a little joke about that: he said, "The Lord finally gave John Milton just what he always wanted."

- L.

My review is of the library binding edition released by Buccaneer Books. It is a very plain and small volume which is wonderfully bound. It contains nothing but the poem itself (including the prose arguments) with the original spelling and punctuation. That means no notes, commentary, or introduction, so if you're looking for lots of in-text help, this isn't what you want. The Fowler, Hughes, or Norton editions are all laden with helpful material like that. But if you just want to experience Milton's masterpiece alone, this is a lovely edition. I found that the book could be purchased much more cheaply if I ordered directly from the publisher's website.

Milton in Paradise Lost unfurls a morning star banner heralding the cosmic story of the fall of angels and men in language eminently civil. I am sure that Homer and Dante were Milton's schoolmasters yet Milton almost exceeds them in the slendid language and poetry of this epic creation. Philip Pullman said "No one, not even Shakespeare, surpasses Milton in his command of the sound, the music, the weight and taste and texture of English words". This is a poem of majesty and sublime lyricism as in Milton's description of Mulciber falling:
"from Morn
To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve,
A Summer's day; and with the setting Sun
Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star".
Each book of Paradise Lost is introduced with an argument, or summary. These arguments were written by Milton and added because early readers had requested a guide to the poem. Milton's purpose in this masterpiece is to tell about the fall of man and justify God's ways to man. When the angels battle in heaven at one point they pull up mountains and hills and throw them at each other: "So Hills amid the Air encounterd Hills Hurl'd to and fro with jaculation dire, That under ground, they fought in dismal shade." After their coup attempt in heaven Satan and the other rebel angels are lying stunned on a lake of fire. Satan rises from the lake and makes his way to the shore. He calls the other angels to do the same, and they assemble by and above the lake. Satan tells them that all is not lost and tries to cheer his followers. Led by Mammon and Mulciber, the fallen angels build their capital and palace Pandemonium. They decide to get at God through his new creation and Satan sets off on this mission. In reading Paradise Lost the poem reads the reader while being read. What I mean is that Milton lets his readers go awry in their affections and he corrects and instructs those misreadings as well as anticipates them. In this way the poem becomes a live text with meaning apprehended through the interplay between the peruser of the poem and the text itself. Milton allows the reader to subjectively question the justice of the current religious paradigm and then leads them back to the perspicacity of deity. Ultimately Paradise Lost is Milton's paean to a vast pattern in the universe, the disruption of that pattern by rebels, and the weaving of those rebellion threads back into an ever more beautiful tapestry.

Love love love this little book of end-less information. I have the HUGE regular DiPiro which isn't a joy to lug around. This handbook is the perfect reference for any pharmacy/med student. It covers the same topics as DiPiro 6th edition, but in a much more condensed, straight-forward way, including foundation & therapeutics. Very happy I purchased this book!

I bought this book hoping that it would serve as a shorter version of the larger and more detailed textbook. It turned out to do just that. I have used this book on many occasions to review the key things about certain conditions without having to read the lengthy chapters of the textbook.....this is a must have for anyone in the medical field....it provides a concise summary and key points from the bigger version.

Great therapy book to have in your pocket, but doesn't discuss much on etiology of diseases. Basically it's good as a review, but it's not helpful if you are trying to learn the disease for the first time.

much more concise than Depiro; it's like ESPN for therapeutics, all the best highlights... but if you have a very picky professor they might bring up something specific enough that it isn't included in this book.

gives a detail summary of the book... a must have for all pharmacy students.

I read this book because it was a book club choice. I don't know what I was expecting however the first line of the book totally turned me off. I thought, "Why are we picking such bad books to read?" (the last few book club selections have not been very well received) However I kept on reading and was so glad I did. Throughout the book I kept thinking I really don't like this book, but I couldn't put it down. I found myself bringing it with me while I was doing errands in hopes I would get a few moments to read a little more. The writing is compelling, if not a tad transparent. I was able to guess what was happening as I was reading along. Except for the ending. The ending is a twist I never expected and was chillingly well done.

This is a book I would have never read if I had not been in my book club but I am so glad I did. It is a well written mystery/love story/western type book that is vibrant and dark at the same time.

In our book club we rate our books from 1 - 5 (5 being the best). The book received an average 4.8 - the highest of any book we have read in a very long time. I would highly recommend reading it and it makes a most excellent book club read. Our discussion about the book was one of the best we have had, with many different opinions and observations being shared.

I am stunned by all of the wonderful reviews for this book. I thought it was by far, the worst book I have read since high school. It could not have moved any slower. The thing I did like about it was the ending and things turn around to get you. Just so much of it was completely out of left field. Boring! Boring! Boring!

This is an unbelievably wonderful novel to sink your teeth into. A page turner of high literary merit, accessible and intelligent. Fabulous craft and language, a most diabolical villain who drives even saints to wish him ill.

Yes he is intelligent, arrogant, rough, caustic, poisonous, and evil, all to hide one tiny chink in his armor that nonetheless, one person manages to find.

Read this book! My one regret is that Thomas Savage doesn't know how popular he is today.

The afterword by Annie Proulx reveals even more about Savage's motivation for the novel, and provides an extra ounce of satisfaction to to novel's end.

Read this novel as slowly as you possibly can, for every paragraph is painted with no fewer than two rich coats of molasses-thick paint, and sometimes silver paint in one layer reflects off of another.

Hunted by a dog, chasing prey as a dog, or dog pursuing dog?

Savage leaves nothing to chance, for this novel will speak to all three.


Skip the after-word, initially.

A completely unexpected and disturbingly powerful character study of a small group of characters in the West, circa 1940s. The prose here is incredible, and the plot unfolds slowly and myteriously. Palpable tension-- the author knew precisely what he woas doing-- with an ending I truly didn't see coming. One of the most remarkable books I've ever read.

Maybe to that limited set of writers who thinak they are the Homers of today.

But a great american novel would be read by many people with differing levels of appreciation and determined to refelct the CURRENT and essence of America (oh what about south america) not just the mythical past.

THe words may flow as a poem, and cover or expound cleary or lyrically the points of life in this country but that alone does not make it a great story. Or a timeless one.

In preface to my review, I have to say that my favorite writers are Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Boll, Arthur Rimbaud, etc.
Many of the reviews here have bandied about the name of Thomas Wolfe (whose "Look Homeward, Angel" was brilliant); and the comparison is richly deserved; but the most insightful comparison came from the person who said it reminded him of an American version of Tolstoy's "War and Peace".
I've actually read "War and Peace". Lockridge's "Raintree County" rises to that level--and, in my estimation--surpasses it. I love the Russians--Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev. And I love Walt Whitman and Ross Lockridge for the same reason. They all have what the Spanish call "duende," what the American blacks clamor to express by the word "soul". These aren't weak, spineless, effete Victorians afraid of beauty, passion, shame and awkward emotions.
They cast light into the dark corners of the human soul and throw open man's collective experience for all to see--something rarely achieved in typically dryer Anglo-Saxon literature.
Ross Lockridge's "Raintree County" astounded me. It left me wondering how this great American genius has been ignored, neglected. The only thing I can think of is that Lockridge makes the fatal mistake of being honest, of writing too accurately about the time-period, of not lying and indulging in historical revisionism. As a result, spineless readers wince when the "N" word is used, or terms like "pickannies," "darkies" or various other period vulgarities are employed by despised side-characters.
For this reason geniuses like Booth Tarkington are banned and suppressed.
It's sad. They want to revise the past and make it "acceptable" for modern audiences. But if you sanitize, you gut, you neuter, you destroy the hard edges which give the time-period texture, verisimilitude. (I mean, if slaves were well-treated why did we fight the Civil War?) But modern hacks would have writers keep all profanities out of it, re-write it so that nothing crude or insensitive made its way in.
If you want lies, watch a Hollywood movie, read a trash novel; if you want genius, poetry, brilliant insights and literary talent, give "Raintree County" a try. Maybe, with enough of us protesting, the prude schoolmarms with tenure at universities will be nudged from their slumber and realize that they have neglected one of the titanic achievements of modern American literature.

Raintree County is the anatomy of a fall from Paradise-with all the Edenic metaphors placed in a fictional county in Indiana-and the process by which it is regained. The structure and scope of the book are extraordinary, a system of telling and suspension that turns one day into a hundred years, all hinged upon the American Civil War (and the allegorical death of the principal character). Like another great contemporary American novel, All The King's Men, Raintree County was built upon the wreckage of a failed epic prose poem. Also, like Robert Penn Warren's glittering classic, Ross Lockridge's best-selling masterpiece deals with a gifted primary character caught up in the vortex of human history (though Penn Warren was more interested in the problem of power than he was in the cataloging of the life of Huey Long).

Raintree County should be a standard of 20th Century American literature. It is perhaps the greatest novel ever written. I'm mystified as to why it doesn't make Random House's Top 100 Novels List. I think in all honesty that Raintree County is too straightforward, too compassionate, too wise, too loving, too optimistic, too gently humorous, and too accessible to please the moldy and myopic listmakers. Really "great" books, as everyone knows, are dry game puzzles, smug literary fogs, brutal crayon travelogues, or ancient misanthropic sphinxes that museum directors and tenured professors of the academies alike can dust off occasionally without fear of ever having to update their pamphlets.

The texture style and meter of this work is astoundingly lyrical yet clear. To wit: "The world is still full of divinity and strangeness, Mr. Shawnessy said. The scientist stops, where all men do, at the doors of birth and death. He knows no more than you and I why a seed remembers the oak of twenty million years ago, why dust acquires the form of a woman, why we behold the earth in space and time. He hasn't yet solved the secret of a single name upon the earth. We may pluck the nymph from the river, but we won't pluck the river from ourselves: this coiled divinity is still all murmurous and strange. There are sacred places everywhere. The world is still man's druid grove, where he wanders hunting for the Tree of Life."

As long as I have a mind, I won't forget this profound and wonderful book or the characters who inhabit it: Perfessor Stiles with his pince-nez and Malacca cane, the cigar-chewing bighearted phony senator from Indiana, Garwood Jones, sweet Nell Gaither, the dark lost and deranged Susannah Drake. Carefully researched (it took seven years to write), it is also an excellent freshener on historical events of the nineteenth century, especially the Civil War. Contained within, for all you philosophiles, is the added bonus of cogent and detailed arguments for free will over predetermination, the triumph of spirit over matter, a solution to the riddle of the Many and the One, an explanation of the Word, and many more.

Born four years before J.D. Salinger, who still breathes at this writing, Ross Lockridge Jr. ended his life by carbon monoxide poisoning March 6th, 1948, two months after the publication of his one and only novel. He was thirty-three. He left behind a wife and four children. His second son, Larry, five years old at the time of his father's death, has written a book (Shade of the Raintree) attempting to explain what he calls "the greatest single mystery in American letters." He largely blames success in combination with a "biological (possibly genetic) predisposition to depression" along with "suicide-personality disorder (narcissistic)." It's easy to see why a John Kennedy O'Toole battering his manuscript (Confederacy of Dunces) against the unbreachable ramparts of Harcourt Brace and Get Lost, might do himself in (and then of course win a Pulitzer). But to receive a Harvard scholarship, publish an immediately successfully and lavishly acclaimed book which wins several major prizes including an MGM contract, and then to take your life as a proclaimed lover of life and a protector of four children, is a riddle beyond the ken of my meager imagination.

You may have once wandered through an art gallery and
while walking between images both beautiful and banal
happened upon a painting unlike few you have ever seen before.
It was found placed in a more remote part of the exhibit
and poorly lit thus causing you to give it a brief glimpse.
At first glance, the quaint simplicity caused you to smile yet upon
a second look you noticed the unmistakable quality, the rich
shadings, the subtleties, the emotion upon the faces of the characters,
and within a short time you realized that the artist had captured the
very essence of humanity. Shades of life both light and dark and all
the hues in between, this is what Ross Lockridge has placed upon his canvass for
posterity. This is Raintree County.

Raintree County; a mythical place, a gentle and beautiful tale of an
age and culture that has long since been harrowed under and paved over.
A verdant and pastoral county whose heart is found at the crossroads of
two dirt roads, whose inhabitants are poised at the intersection between a young
and thriving republic and greatest wrong every allowed to fester within
its expanding frontiers. The sunny days of community existence intertwined
with the political complexities surrounding the greatest rift ever to divide a
nation. A portrait of the land and its people in the midst of life and the
trials and tribulations of life's inescapable vicissitudes.

Within the covers of this book are found the joys of love upon the banks of
a river, the excitement and pride of a community during the celebration of
Independence day, the pungent smells and prolific yet depraved lifestyle during
the last days of antebellum New Orleans, and the songs of the slaves in their
agony, joy, and uncertainty. An epic, a day in the life of a ordinary man and
how he came full circle-if that is indeed possible. A reminder of the nation and
her people who were deeply shattered by the violence of a Civil War.

Within the prose are whispers of Plato, Poe, and Shakespeare. Characters
of well developed intellect and humor coexist amid the turgid and the
unlearned. At its core is love, insanity, birth, death, family, war,
and a river that courses through the county to both nourish the smiles and
drain the bitterness. Indeed perhaps the "Great American Classic," and a
sadly overlooked book. Lockridge is of the same ilk as Wolfe, Faulkner,
and Emerson. It has been said that each of us contains a book. To have this
as your only book is a majestic feat. Raintree County can be analyzed at many
philosophical levels and I am sure subsequent readings will reveal a multitude
of lessons. To me, my first time just staying at the surface brought me
the great joy that a masterfully written novel must impart.

I have positioned this book as "The" Great American novel - in reccomending it to a dozen friends. Only one has disagreed. Nuff said.

I own this book, and even purchased a copy for the use by my Alma mater University for their children's collection of books.
This book is the FINAL published book of poems by 13 year old Mattie Stepanek, who died on 22 June 2004 from a rare form of muscular dystrophy: Dysautonomic Mitochondrial Myopathy. He was a genius by intellect, but as sweet as a boy could have been. I recommend this book because of Mattie's keen insight into major human issues such as LOVE, PAIN, SUFFERING, FRIENDSHIP, SICKNESS, LONLINESS, FULFILMENT, DEPRESSION, AND IMPENDING DEATH. By late Autumn of 2003, I believe Mattie surmised that not only was death possible but was probably imminent.

By Dec 2001, Mattie and former US President Jimmy Carter became close friends, and this undoubtedly had an impact on Mattie's later poems. You actually SENSE Mattie becoming a Peacemaker like his childhood idol, Jimmy Carter. This book is more than simply GOOD poetry, but the plethora of photos from his mother's collections give the reader a visual biography of a boy who ROSE ABOVE his fatal sickness and who proved to be an angel in disguise for millions upon millions of people, when the day was Done! A MUST BUY Book.

Mattie's writings have touched my spirit like no other. His wisdom beyond his years and how his books make us look at life, especially our own, in a different light, has to be from God, therefore, making Mattie an "Angel Among Us" in my book.

This book is a must-read for all adults, and older children. The amount of suffering this child endured, and yet could find a reason to grasp life to the fullest, is a lesson for all of us. Mattie had a special gift that only comes from God, with messages that are profound. And yet, the messages are delivered in utter simplicity. It will absolutely change your life.

I got this book last year from my grandmother and really enjoyed it. The poetry was nice, even if most of it didn't rhyme, and the color photos were excellent. This book was an awesome collection of Mattie's poetry from when he was really young, to his last words before he died in 2004. The only thing I wish was in the book was more information on Mattie's brothers and sister, so everyone could know about them as well as Mattie.

If anyone wants to learn about courage I would suggest this book. What a remarkable person Mattie Stepanic was, his poems will pull at your heart strings as they did mine. It will be a book to treasure all my life, and reread.
Betty Blake
Book lover in Vermont

As an event manager for Jan Mulder and orchestra, website: www.janmulder.us I purchased three copies of The Story of the Orchestra which will be given to young people to learn about the orchestra's various instrument. I highly recommend this book for both adults and younger people.
Hans Goede

Excellent tool for teaching your children about the Orchestra. The CD that comes with it is great.

"Santa" brought this book for our 4 year old. She loves it! It is layed out in a way that we can read just portions of each page without her getting overwhelmed. It is definitely a book she can grow with. Because a mom has to brag: My daughter can now easily name each instrument and knows which "family" it belongs. She laughs hysterically over Beethoven's picture, knows Tchaikovsky composed Swan Lake and the Nutcracker (the sweetest thing is hearing a 4 year old rattle of Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi!) etc. Highly recommended!

I purchased this book in preparation for teaching a group of homeschooled students (ages 7-14) a short course in music appreciation. It was a terrific resource for them. The text was brief but engaging; the cartoons were entertaining; and the photography was so eyecatching. It covered the musical periods, with information on several representative composers. Then each of the orchestra sections was covered, with a helpful CD included to hear snips from pieces that featured the instruments. The students all learned quite a bit from this book. I recommend it highly.

I was looking for resources to help make teaching about classical music and composers to primary grade children more entertaining and I found what I needed all wrapped up in this book and CD combination.

Part I of the book concerns composers and is separated into the periods in which they composed, ie., Baroque, etc., with a brief description of art, architecture and feeling of the period. The composers covered for all periods are Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mahler, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Gershwin, Copland and Bernstein.

Part II of the book is about the instruments of the orchestra. Again, this is further broken down into the different sections of the orchestra such as strings, woodwinds, etc. Then within each of those sections a feature on the individual instruments.

The accompanying CD has brief examples of the compositions introduced in the composers section and for each instrument. It really helps the kids hear what they've been discussing.

One of the best things about this book are the illustrations. They are colorful and entertaining. Sometimes there are humorous illustrations such as a drawing of the ideal Baroque instrumentalist needing 2 right hands, 3 left hands, and 3 eyes which really had my 3rd grade kids in giggles after hearing the intricacies of "Spring" by Vivaldi. There are also entertaining illustrations showing how an instrument produces its sound and they are mixed with photographs of the instrument itself. I highly recommend this book for music teachers to use as a reference and for parents who have children interested in learning an instrument.

The work of Hakim Bey is well-known in that other american world, the "underground" society, the one of subculture, silent resistance and anarchy. But slowly it has been bubbling to the surface, often in unexpected places. The novel and film Fight Club, surely shows an affection for poetic terrorism, an idea rooted in Bey's ontological anarchism and closely related to the situationist tactic of detornement. T.A.Z. is not the property of any philosophy but chaos and elegant disorder. Sure, there are aspects of anarchism, chaos thinking, situationist leanings, but that is just a symptom of the spectacle and is such precisely because of it. These essays all point to a way out of this spectacular society, but the first step comes with the mere recognition of it. This is harder than it sounds, or perhaps easier. TV and the media are always easy components to recognize, the real challenge is to recognize how the spectacle, i.e., the prefabricated, artificial, consumerist milieu penetrates, influences and shapes even our most intimate thoughts--which we often mistake for our own desires, wants and needs. In T.A.Z. Bey offers suggestions on how we can extricate ourselves from this structure and start creating our own temporary autonomous zones, within this system of economic, social and cultural oppression. Immediatism, Poetic Terrorism, and the embrace of Chaos are just a few of the strategies that he advises, all of which presuppose a new dialectic with reality.

This is only an outline, a mere review, I leave discerning and interpreting the details to you...Get this book today (also available in spoken word from axiom records).

TAZ is an amazing book. I personally see it as a philosophy and a self-improvement book. Hakim Bey presents his ideas about how the universe should be, chaotic. If you are into chaos magic or discordianism you will find this book very appealing and its a book that must be in your collection.

TAZ is a virus, it spreads through all the self-created walls that hold you down with the promise of true freedom. Suddenly you will become chaos.

Assume nothing.

I am surprised that the sort of people attracted to such a work--to guess from previous reviews--are still apparently apt to want to swallow the thing wholly, assertions that "they lied to you, sold you ideas" and all. Personally i reckon that we are in the midst of a conspiracy, yes...but most likely an unconscious one--the aggregate of fear & complacency & ignorance & such things, that is, resulting insidiously in the effects of a sort of conspiracy. What sort of result, for example, would one really expect from blowing up a transmission tower? A sudden enlightenment of the populace? No: most people would likely become even more reactionary when faced with causes for alarm.

Essentially this book, in spite of its claims to the contrary, seems to me a variety of art movement and not the "ultimate" anything, but as with anything so incendiary and beautiful its value can still hardly be overestimated. Who can resist Poetic Terrorism or Bey's felicity with language (eg. Chaote art)? The language and imagery are colourful and bursting full. Imagine a feast laid out on a table with barely enough room for the feasters' plates--and certainly not enough for their elbows--and everyone seated around it wearing purple plumage or velvet saris or nothing at all & laughing with food in their mouths.

I'll take what i need and leave the rest, as it goes. Implicit in most of the writing is criticism of those who would reject any part of the "freedom" described, but who's afraid of Hakim Bey? I'm glad he wrote even if i won't be taking all of what he wrote to heart.

Have a couple of dictionaries standing by, or be sure to have a few dozen bookmarked online while reading this, for if you're to appreciate Bey's prose, you're likely to need 'em. He writes in a strange way, obviously highly intelligent, but rambling, and if you're not quite sure what he's on about, it's just going to seem worse.

There are a lot of ideas in here, based on things I'm not very familiar with, such as Sufism and dadism - some of which are at least partially explained, but this is one of those books you need to read, and then come back to later and see how it compares. Certainly on the first go struggling somewhat to get a feel for how his mind works on paper.

It's a very inspiring work, which he may loathe to hear, but I intend to do something about it. I recommend reading it to anyone interested in expanding their interests and testing the limits of one's mind. Agreeing with everything he presents isn't necessary, but thinking about it is - doing even better. Highly recommended reading.

This is one of those pieces of literature that you simply cannot afford to miss. It's like discovering Marge Piercy at the tender, malleable age of 12, or finding Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book, worn and well-loved, after a ten-year marriage filled with abuse. Except, TAZ doesn't require you to be at any particular phase of your life to change it. It just does. Sometimes, it's not immediate. Sometimes it sits quietly in the back of your mind, bubbling up curt replies to oppressive corporate and societal forces that occasionally - tragically infrequently, to begin with - with issue forth from your mouth and cause bank tellers to go pale with shock.

Temporary Autonomous Zones are nets of co-conspirators, ready to take the mass of over-bearing government and the thin veneer of so-called civilization down, not through bloody revolution, but rather through obsolescence. If we do not respect the right to control us, if we have our own power back to do our own work, only then are we our own people. And moreover, in "Ontological Anarchism", we find the suggestion that we do not have to define ourselves by ANYTHING other than what WE feel we are. We are "supposed" to be productive, civilized, friendly, codependent, well-dressed, well-paid, well-fed and easily coddled. But humans are NOT that - we are animals, base creatures of a triple nature, as gods are, as goddesses are. And in each as our own deity, we cannot be truly shaped by anyone else but our own ineffable nature.

And that's just the beginning....