Warren Books

Gawd, I just adore the stuff this man writes!

It'll clobbers you right in the ticker, these stories will.

Here I am, in Prague, rolling with Adler's narrative punches, as I follow this pied piper of prose with Adler wistfully leading me down a halcyoned path of good neigbourliness -- the kind of path that Caroline, the protag in this little gem of a tale, pines for.

Then, whammo! Suddenly, her husband, Jules, isn't as convinced. "We hardly have time for our own expanded circle," he rebuts.

Yep, sure, I can hear you saying. It's all quite natural. The spouse with the XX-chromosome craves a more fulfilling relationship with the people "who share the same roof" as she. However, Alpha Spouse is typical New York-ian suspicious. Like Forrest Gump, our overly cautious Jules believes in the Cracker Jack Theory of Random Tenancy -- you never know quite what (or, in this case, *whom*) you're gonna get...argh!

So like the striving copywriter she is, Caroline is determined to make her living space a brighter place. She sets out to intrepidly cross her fake smiley 't's' and dot her good neighbourly 'i's.' She offers to walk her neigbour's dog, even offers a helping ear to another.

All quite natural stuff, you're telling me, right?

Until one day, something happens.

But you'll just have to buy this Short to find out...

Okay, tale of the tape time. I'll start with the postives, 'cause that's how life should ultimately be, in my humblest of estimations:

THE POSITIVES:

** if you've never visited New York City before, prepare to gain some very instant knowledge about a "day in the life in the Big Apple." Uhuh, 'nuff said.

** however, if you *do* happen to live in New York, and you seem to have lost your faith in the potential boundless goodness of your fellow man somewhere along the line, then Warren Adler's tale will most definitetly astound you.

Alright, THE NOT-SO-GROOVY REFLECTIONS:

** if you don't live in a city where people make a habit of occasionally being colder than an icebox to each other (this by design!), then prepare to be, er...unpleasantly surprised. Also, if you're the type that doesn't like rude reality checks, then stay right where you are! Don't move a muscle!

** Also, Adler perhaps reinforces the lest-we-forget notion that the System in such large metropolises is sometimes just a wee bit mightier than our lowly selves; though that shouldn't stop you from striving!

--

All in all, GOOD NEIGHBORS heralds a hopeful tune for the coming days. Or at least we hope...

In a world gone increasingly mad, we sometimes forget that the very best people are those very same ones who immediately surround us. People like our neighbours.

Warren Adler knows this intimately. But he wants you to know it too.

Five stars.

Item received in a timely manner and as described. Great and easy shopping.

For a considerable period of time the Mexican colonial period was viewed as a wasteland in the arts, a barren stretch awaiting the arrival of the Spaniards. Recent scholarship reveals that this was not the case. In fact, just the opposite was true as is showcased in this magnificently illustrated bilingual volume.

Displayed between these pages are eye-popping decorative and fine arts from the Mexican viceregal period (1521 - 1821). Included among the collection are paintings, sculptures, furniture, ceramics, metals, textiles, featherwork, lacquer, and books.

Five informative essays by Mexican and American scholars provide a backdrop for the arts of colonial Mexico, and extensive commentaries allow further exploration of individual pieces.

"The Grandeur of Viceregal Mexico" is an extraordinary volume shedding light on a previously little known segment of art history.

- Gail Cooke

This is a wonderful book of poems written by women while on their trecks westward. None of the authors are poets by profession, and many seem to have very little formal education, but they are beautifully real and powerful. One of my favorite lines is "...I reached so high my dress tore, and no one can say I am not a lady" You can almost hear the twang in her voice. These are the thoughts of pioneer women after a long day of travel, men fed, cattle put to pasture, babies asleep, dust settling. These are the thoughts that they had while alone and peaceful, perhaps under a tree with moonlight overhead and crickets chirping. I found this compilation in a small used book store when I was 16, and I have carried it around the world with me as a favorite item ever since.

Impressing! A detailed bookreview of the Dead. Some pictures seen before but a most for every Deadfan!

If you're interested in Jack Nicklaus, and in the way his life and family are interwoven with his golf career, you can't miss this book. One of the great sporting lives in history, a picture of the whole person, an uncommonly intelligent and balanced person who happened to become the greatest player of all time. Even the requisite chapters on instruction (standard among golf biographies) are terrific, reflecting Nicklaus' focus on a few fundamentals, his uncomplicated approach to the game. What you see in this book is an attitude, a mentality, that ought to be a standard for any great athlete, and one that reflects the nature of golf and golf competition at its best--and more than that, an aspiration to greatness that never got out of perspective, never overwhelmed Nicklaus' commitment to his own family and friends. The book was written when his pre-senior-tour career was not even a third finished yet, but it's an early look into the mind of perhaps the most focused, and yet balanced and unassuming, great athlete ever.

For years Paul Allen has pried up the dark folds of the human heart and tried to show us how to accept the detritus hidden within. Those worst bits of us cannot be swept or hosed out but, with a little hope and pain, perhaps exorcized through poetic rites.

The three dozen poems here cover the range of this poet's gifts, from a meditation on the theological function of losers to a reunion attendee reviewing his sorry life to a series of reflections on how we define ourselves by our shortcomings, personified by the obvious male insecurity.

Despite the seriousness of such dismal themes, Allen may be the funniest poet in America. He makes the best of self-deprecating humor: his poetic personas (and many of the poems are told in first person) realize that if they are to find some sort of redemption, they must among other things learn to laugh at themselves. Some of the personas don't quite make it to a redemptive level of self-knowledge, but we know that they are, even in their desperation, somehow better off than they were at the start of the poem, at least for recognizing the "little glorious ugliness in our lives."

The brilliance here lies in those glorious uglinesses that are indeed little. Allen's personas do not have grand epiphanies and turn their lives around; they long for but do not have blinding mystical experiences in which the whole world makes sense. They see that they have sunk into the world of inauthenticity, have lost themselves in increments, and must pull themselves up incrementally. One character working in a field says "I know that something from this moment/ will come to me through the heat,/ the sweat in my eyes . . . ."

Allen does not preach in these poems, but he certainly believes in the edifying power of poetry. You'll see much of yourself here, especially in those embarrassments that we all share and all need to laugh at. In one poem we readers are reassured with, "You are not a cliche./ You are not a cliche./ Well, you are,/ but one that works, somehow."

Don't buy this book, however, just because of its themes and its humor. Buy it because it is the best collection of American poems of the year.

Grunge and Roxy were the only two remotely interesting characters in the Gen13 series so it's only fitting that Adam Warren devoted an entire miniseries to a conversation they have that quickly devolves into a hysterical parody of manga, anime, kung-fu flicks, and comics in general.

After seeing a laughably bad ninja movie with his kinda-sorta girlfriend, Grunge decides that even a muscle-headed surf-rat such as himself could make better cinema. What follows is his epic idea for the greatest movie ever; starring none-other than his brilliant self of course...and under duress, Roxy as his saucy sidekick.

From a period piece...in bikinis, to an action film...in lingerie, to a Yakuza Mafia flick...in tube tops, Grunge's dirty little mind ricochets from one ripe parody to another, much to Roxy's chagrin. Her vision involves Sailor Moon style romance, not having shower scenes with steam wafting past convenient places. Her tart remarks will have you smiling when you should be cringing at the political incorrectness of it all.

What makes it so great is that Warren draws in line-perfect manga style, making the comedy that much funnier. Roxy has never looked better, with her pink-streaked punker hair and her bulky leather jacket, she looks ten times better than any actual manga girl.

This is definitely a teens and up read, despite the cartoony goodness of the art. There is near-nudity, violence, and innuendo aplenty; perfect for a good chuckle but not for little kids.

General-interest libraries strong on biomes and natural history will find a fine lay reader's guide to deserts in this illustrated survey of the ecology and nature of world deserts. Color photos and illustrations abound in a presentation packed with not only natural history but cultural and social insights into the societies which inhabit desert environments around the world, making for an excellent pick for both science and social science holdings.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

To read about a man who came from abject poverty in India to founding one of the world's most prominent Yoga movements is remarkable. The book also illustrates the incredible heart of love that Desai gave to his many followers. Although recent events have illustrated his own need for personal development, it does not undermine the truly remarkable ascent of a very evolved being. The book is well written and there are many pictures enclosed. A bargain at the listed price!