Williams Books

I planned to read a chapter a day when I began this book. Well, throw that out the window -- it's not possible to put this book down. The story is compelling, humorous, and true to life. The characters are so real, I found myself casting stars to play each one when the movie comes out! I cannot wait for V.W. Williams' next book!

Shadows Of Trickle Creek is an excellent book with captivating characters and a plot that grabs you and won't let go. A true must read.

This story pulled me in from the first paragraph. Great writing and descriptions make the characters come alive. Leavened by humor, the tension builds to a satisfying climax. I'm living in Texas and have lived in a small town and she nailed both, with kindness and humor. I hope this talented author keeps writing.

Shadows of Trickle Creek is Vickie Williams' stunning debut novel. Set in the Big Thicket of East Texas, the book is filled with details and skillfully written descriptions that showcase the beauty of the area and the author's love of Texas. The plot is intricate and fast paced and the characters are strong and yet very human. V.W. Williams is a new writer to watch out for and I'm eagerly awaiting her next release.

Keep up the excellent work!

Diana Driver

Involving you immediately in its characters but slowly unpeeling their depth, this novel drives toward the gradual explication of a sinister plot in a small Texas town, but its real appeal is the grasping of different believable but iconic characters for self-respect. Not unlike Texas itself, it is vast and complicated but boils down to a few simple truths. Its two most enigmatic characters are an honest cop fleeing the chaos of his past, and a hard-working country woman attempting to discover hers, but they are complemented by insightful beef-jerky-tough older ladies and a town full of familiar personalities. As our publishing industry spirals into the increasing irrelevance of niche publishing and empty drama, it is refreshing to find an independent author with this much tenacity toward storytelling in its most vivid form.

The lessons provided are great and can easily be switched up to fit your own personal lessons. This book is great and highly recommended.

This is the best Shakespeare teaching material I have ever found. It does not "dumb" it down, rather takes the plays and makes them fun and accessible for all ages. It has six week unit outlines for each play, and a multitude of activities and resources. FANTASTIC!!!!

This book has many great ideas, but as a high school English teacher I found it lacking as a teaching guide. Essentially, one has to cobble together aims and learning objectives, not to mention learning standards, for him/herself. Its best feature is that the lessons, while not complete lessons for those of us who teach, are creative, original, and fun for students. Yet given the cost of this teaching guide, more of a companion, I felt it came up short.

I'm an English Education major and as I'm just starting to develop lesson plans and units, this book has come in handy. There are a ton of great ideas and worksheets ready to be copied and used in the classroom. This book also believes in the idea that students learn through doing; therefore many of the lessons focus on performaning the plays to understand them. I almost wish I was in high school again just to participate. The section on teaching sword fighting was particularly interesting. I highly recommend checking this book out.

I teach an English 12 class for regular high school students. They complained about the Othello unit, until I used this book. We begin the unit with the swordfighting exercise at the beginning of the book. It's a scary leap of faith, but the kids love it. Buy extra dowel rods.

I only used the Othello part of the book, but it was great. The kids were worried about not understanding anything in Othello at first, and I didn't translate a word. They created meaning themselves and did very well.

The final activity--a performance and promptbook--was a huge success. That's the activity that students felt was most worthwhile from the entire unit. They not only enjoyed it, but also they learned something. Much more fun than correcting essays, too!

Katherine Duncan-Jones in the Arden Shakespeare's Sonnets is closer to Stephen Booth's linguistic approach from Helen Vendler,s artistic analysis of the Sonnets. I think she made a mature choice because Old Will in his love lyrics is ambigous and misleading.His words are loaded with meanings and accordingly are open to more than one interpretation.Publishing the detailed notes and commentry on the same page looks more practical and helpful, not only for the students but also for the general reader.Nevertheless, Hank Wittemore's version of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, recently published for the first time , emphasizes that the dedicatee of Shakespeare,s Sonnets is Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton and not William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke as the Arden,s editor of the Sonnets suggests in her introduction. Since 400 years the dedicatee,s identity had been masked. A.L. Rowse in 1964 published his version of the Sonnets and held that Shakespeare dedicated his poems to his close friend and patron Earl of Southampton. Now Wriothesley proved what Rowse had cocluded in his literary and historical researching half a century ago.
In the next edition of the Arden,s Sonnets I hope Katherine Duncan-Jones sheds more illuminating light on this issue which puzzled many Shakespearians for a very long time.


Abdulsattar Jawad
Duke University

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit.
(Sonnet 26.)

How to do justice to the legacy of literary history's greatest mind -- moreover in such a limited review? Forget Goethe's "universal genius" and his rebel contemporary Schiller; forget the 19th century masters; forget contemporary literature: with the possible (!) exception of three Greek gentlemen named Aischylos, Sophocles and Euripides, a certain Frenchman called Poquelin (a/k/a Moliere), and that infamous Irishman Oscar Wilde, there's more wit in a single line of Shakespeare's than in an entire page of most other, even great, authors' works. And I'm not saying this in ignorance of, or in order to slight any other writer: it's precisely my admiration of the world's literary giants, past and present, that makes me appreciate Shakespeare even more -- and that although I'm aware that he repeatedly borrowed from pre-existing material and that even the (sole) authorship of the works published under his name isn't established beyond doubt. For ultimately, the only thing that matters to me is the brilliance of those works themselves; and quite honestly, the mysteries continuing to enshroud his person, to me, only enhance his larger-than-life stature.

The precise dating of Shakespeare's sonnets -- like other poets', a response to the 1591 publication of Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella" -- is an even greater guessing game than that of his plays: although #138 and #144 (slightly modified) appeared in 1599's "Passionate Pilgrim," most were probably circulated privately, and written years before their first -- unauthorized, though still authoritative -- 1609 publication; possibly beginning in 1592-1593.

Format-wise, they adopt the Elizabethan fourteen-line-structure of three quatrains of iambic pentameters expressing a series of increasingly intense ideas, resolved in a closing couplet; with an abab-cdcd-efef-gg rhyme form. (Sole exceptions: #99 -- first quatrain amplified by one line -- #126 -- six couplets & only twelve lines total -- #145 -- written in tetrameter -- and #146 -- omission of the second line's beginning; the subject of a lasting debate.) Their order is thematic rather than chronological, although beyond the fact that the first 126 are addressed to a young man -- maybe the Earl of Pembroke or Southampton, maybe Sir Robert Dudley, the natural son of Queen Elizabeth's "Sweet Robin," the Earl of Leicester -- (the first seventeen, possibly commissioned by the addressee's family, pressing his marriage and production of an heir), and ##127-152 (or 127-133 and 147-152) to an exotic woman of questionable virtues only known as "The Dark Lady," even in that respect much remains unclear; including the nature of Shakespeare's relationship with the two main addressees, regarding which the sonnets' often ambiguous metaphors invoke much speculation. #145 is probably addressed to Shakespeare's wife; the closing couplet plays on her maiden name ("['I hate' from] hate away she threw And saved my life, [saying 'not you']:" "Hathaway -- Anne saved my life"), several others contain puns on the name Will and its double meaning(s) (exactly fourteen in the naughty #135: "Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will;" and seven in the similarly mischievous #136), and the last two draw on the then-popular Cupid theme. Sometimes, placement seems linked to contents, e.g., in #8 (music: an octave has eight notes), #12 and #60 (time: twelve hours to both day and night; sixty minutes to an hour); and in the famous #55, which praises poetry's everlasting power and as whose never-expressly-named subject Shakespeare himself emerges in a comparison with Horace's Ode 3.30 -- in turn written in first person singular and thus, denoting its own author as the builder of its "monument more lasting than bronze" ("Exegi monumentum aere perennius") -- as well as through the number "5"'s optical similarity to the letter "S," making the sonnet's number a shorthand reference for "5hake5peare" or "5hakespeare's 5onnets," echoed by numerous words containing an "S" in the text.

Of indescribable linguistic beauty, elegance and complexity, Shakespeare's sonnets owe their timeless appeal to their supreme compositional values, the universality of their themes, and their keen insights into the human heart and soul; as much as their transcendence of the era's poetic conventions which, following Petrarch, heavily idealized the addressee's qualities: a form new and exciting twohundred years earlier, but encrusted in cliche in the late 1500s. Indeed, Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" Sonnet #130 owes its particular fame to its clever puns on that very style, which went overboard with references to its golden-haired, starry- (beamy-, sparkling, sunny-) eyed, cherry- (strawberry-, vermilion-, coral-) lipped, rosy- (crimson-, purple-, dawn-) cheeked, ivory- (lily-, carnation-, crystal-, silver-, snowy-, swan-white) skinned, pearl-teethed, honey- (nectar-, music-) tongued, goddess-like objects. "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;" the Bard countered, proceeded to describe her breasts as "dun," her hair as "black wires," and her breath as "reek[ing]," and denied her any divine or angelic attributes. "And yet," he concluded: "by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare."

Arguably, Shakespeare's very choice of addressees (a young man -- also the subject of the famously romantic #18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day;" the first of several sonnets promising his immortalization in poetry -- as well as the "Dark Lady," in turn introduced under the notion "black is beautiful" in #127) itself suggests a break with tradition; and compared to his contemporaries' poetry, even the equally-famous #116's on its face rather conventional praise of love's constancy ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments"), echoed in the poet's vow to vanquish time in #123, sounds fairly restrained. But ultimately, Shakespeare's sonnets -- like his entire work -- simply defy categorization. They are, as rival Ben Jonson acknowledged, written "for all time," just as the Bard himself immodestly claimed:

'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
(Sonnet 55.)

Also recommended:
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
Shakespeare: For All Time (Oxford Shakespeare)
Much Ado About Nothing
Love's Labour's Lost
William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Two-Disc Special Edition)
BBC Shakespeare Comedies DVD Giftbox
BBC Shakespeare Tragedies DVD Giftbox
Olivier's Shakespeare - Criterion Collection (Hamlet / Henry V / Richard III)
William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
Twelfth Night

Ms. Duncan-Jones' Introduction is an extraordinary example of scholarship. To say that the Sonnets have been controversial throughout the time since their publication is a mild understatement. Ms. Duncan-Jones casts a brilliant and unwavering spotlight on these controversies and resolves them.

Any serious student of Shakespeare must read this Introduction.

If there is a failing in the book, it is in the actual footnotes to the Sonnets themselves. But in the context of Booth's footnotes, for example, this failing is insignificant. Anyone who wants a line-by-line exegesis of the Sonnets has many resources available.

Go get this book and read the Introduction!

The secondary source material found in the appendices, the fantastic footnotes, the capacioius introductions, the big clear typeface, the textual editing decisions, all make the Ardens the best single-volume Shakespeares by a long shot. The rest pale by comparison.

The only drawback, god forgive this y-chromosomed curmudgeon, that I can see in this particular Arden is that the editor, Katherine Duncan-Jones, often tends to lean a bit too far to the left, indulging into too much gender politic-ing.

Duncan-Jones also spends a quite a bit of time arguing in a rather extended manner for composition dates that are self-consciously 'provocative' and seem to be much too speculative for an introduction.

One could match this with Booth's version, which by comparison seems perhaps a touch more shallow and hidebound-- but more solid, and get a nice complimentary set of typefaces and editorial views that would balance out nicely, I would suspect.

I recently used the Arden edition of the Sonnets in a graduate level course on Renaissance literature. It's useful, too, to have Helen Vendler's "Art of the Sonnet," as well as the Penguin edition (fewer notes than the Arden). Quite simply, the Arden excels in the scholarly apparatus. Also, for a concise, readable supplement, include Greenblatt's "Will in the World" (the chapter on the sonnets). But for a close study of the sonnets, if you need a single edition, Arden is terrific.

Is there anything or anyone to compare to Shakespeare? You can never just read Shakespeare or even begin to feel the passion of his Sonnets until you get to know him. This is truly a wonderful edition of his work and a perfect gift for the lover of his writings. Poetry such as this Elizabethan prose is no longer written , the emotions,passions,tragedies are from yesteryear but as magnificent today as they were so long ago when such expression was a way of life. An excellent addition to any collection of prose or Shakespeare.

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit.
(Sonnet 26.)

How to do justice to the legacy of literary history's greatest mind - moreover in such a limited review? Forget Goethe's "universal genius" and his rebel contemporary Schiller; forget the 19th century masters; forget contemporary literature: with the possible (!) exception of three Greek gentlemen named Aischylos, Sophocles and Euripides, a certain Frenchman called Poquelin (a/k/a Moliere), and that infamous Irishman Oscar Wilde, there's more wit in a single line of Shakespeare's than in an entire page of most other, even great, authors' works. And I'm not saying this in ignorance of, or in order to slight any other writer: it's precisely my admiration of the world's literary giants, past and present, that makes me appreciate Shakespeare even more - and that although I'm aware that he repeatedly borrowed from pre-existing material and that even the (sole) authorship of the works published under his name isn't established beyond doubt. For ultimately, the only thing that matters to me is the brilliance of those works themselves; and quite honestly, the mysteries continuing to enshroud his person, to me, only enhance his larger-than-life stature.

The precise dating of Shakespeare's sonnets - like other poets', a response to the 1591 publication of Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella" - is an even greater guessing game than that of his plays: although #138 and #144 (slightly modified) appeared in 1599's "Passionate Pilgrim," most were probably circulated privately, and written years before their first - unauthorized, though still authoritative - 1609 publication; possibly beginning in 1592-1593.

Format-wise, they adopt the Elizabethan fourteen-line-structure of three quatrains of iambic pentameters expressing a series of increasingly intense ideas, resolved in a closing couplet; with an abab-cdcd-efef-gg rhyme form. (Sole exceptions: #99 - first quatrain amplified by one line - #126 - six couplets & only twelve lines total - #145 - written in tetrameter - and #146 - omission of the second line's beginning; the subject of a lasting debate.) Their order is thematic rather than chronological, although beyond the fact that the first 126 are addressed to a young man - maybe the Earl of Pembroke or Southampton, maybe Sir Robert Dudley, the natural son of Queen Elizabeth's "Sweet Robin," the Earl of Leicester - (the first seventeen, possibly commissioned by the addressee's family, pressing his marriage and production of an heir), and ##127-152 (or 127-133 and 147-152) to an exotic woman of questionable virtues only known as "The Dark Lady," even in that respect much remains unclear; including the nature of Shakespeare's relationship with the two main addressees, regarding which the sonnets' often ambiguous metaphors invoke much speculation. #145 is probably addressed to Shakespeare's wife; the closing couplet plays on her maiden name ("['I hate' from] hate away she threw And saved my life, [saying 'not you']:" "Hathaway - Anne saved my life"), several others contain puns on the name Will and its double meaning(s) (exactly fourteen in the naughty #135: "Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will;" and seven in the similarly mischievous #136), and the last two draw on the then-popular Cupid theme. Sometimes, placement seems linked to contents, e.g., in #8 (music: an octave has eight notes), #12 and #60 (time: twelve hours to both day and night; sixty minutes to an hour); and in the famous #55, which praises poetry's everlasting power and as whose never-expressly-named subject Shakespeare himself emerges in a comparison with Horace's Ode 3.30 - in turn written in first person singular and thus, denoting its own author as the builder of its "monument more lasting than bronze" ("Exegi monumentum aere perennius") - as well as through the number "5"'s optical similarity to the letter "S," making the sonnet's number a shorthand reference for "5hake5peare" or "5hakespeare's 5onnets," echoed by numerous words containing an "S" in the text.

Of indescribable linguistic beauty, elegance and complexity, Shakespeare's sonnets owe their timeless appeal to their supreme compositional values, the universality of their themes, and their keen insights into the human heart and soul; as much as their transcendence of the era's poetic conventions which, following Petrarch, heavily idealized the addressee's qualities: a form new and exciting twohundred years earlier, but encrusted in cliche in the late 1500s. Indeed, Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" Sonnet #130 owes its particular fame to its clever puns on that very style, which went overboard with references to its golden-haired, starry- (beamy-, sparkling, sunny-) eyed, cherry- (strawberry-, vermilion-, coral-) lipped, rosy- (crimson-, purple-, dawn-) cheeked, ivory- (lily-, carnation-, crystal-, silver-, snowy-, swan-white) skinned, pearl-teethed, honey- (nectar-, music-) tongued, goddess-like objects. "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;" the Bard countered, proceeded to describe her breasts as "dun," her hair as "black wires," and her breath as "reek[ing]," and denied her any divine or angelic attributes. "And yet," he concluded: "by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare."

Arguably, Shakespeare's very choice of addressees (a young man - also the subject of the famously romantic #18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day;" the first of several sonnets promising his immortalization in poetry - as well as the "Dark Lady," in turn introduced under the notion "black is beautiful" in #127) itself suggests a break with tradition; and compared to his contemporaries' poetry, even the equally-famous #116's on its face rather conventional praise of love's constancy ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments"), echoed in the poet's vow to vanquish time in #123, sounds fairly restrained. But ultimately, Shakespeare's sonnets - like his entire work - simply defy categorization. They are, as rival Ben Jonson acknowledged, written "for all time," just as the Bard himself immodestly claimed:

'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
(Sonnet 55.)

Also recommended:
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
Shakespeare: For All Time (Oxford Shakespeare)
Much Ado About Nothing
Love's Labour's Lost
William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Two-Disc Special Edition)
BBC Shakespeare Comedies DVD Giftbox
BBC Shakespeare Tragedies DVD Giftbox
Olivier's Shakespeare - Criterion Collection (Hamlet / Henry V / Richard III)
William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
Richard III

This is an amazing book - excellent for the student of Shakespeare. Wonderful reference and resource book to keep on hand. More information than any other collection of sonnets I've seen.

I once had a philosophy professor who memorized a new sonnet every day, perhaps because he felt there is so much to learn from each one. Unpacking a sonnet, really making it your own, is a beautiful and intensely laborious process.

Booth helps. This edition gives the sonnets in a clean, contemporary, sensibly edited typeface, and on the facing page a facsimile of the 1609 edition of the sonnets, so you never have to choose between readability and historical rececption. You get both. Plus, Booth gives precise supporting material for each poem, crystallizing a few hundred years of thought and meditation into an easily referenced appendix. Best part: it's cheap and there are tons of used copies around.

Good stuff!

Who is to judge Shakespeare? Here all I can question is the medium. I purchased this book expecting normal sized print as it is a dimensionally larger than average sized paperback. Ironically however, the print in this edition is rather smallish, compressed, and often smudged throughout the book.

If want want a scholarly text this is a good one. However, if you wear reading glasses and simply want to read Shakespeare's Sonnets in a relaxed way without squinting, you may want to look elsewhere.

This is a fun and easy read for any fan of the women's game, centered around the pivotal 1996 Olympic gold medal-winning team, which in many ways marked a turning point in establishing the foundation upon which the modern game is built.

But not only does this book offer a wonderful historical perspective, and some great stories and inside anecdotes on many top players past and present, it also provides insight into the mind of one of the college game's top coaches.

Even for those close to Stanford basketball, Tara Vanderveer is a very private inividual. That's why I found this book especially helpful in providing a better understanding of her personal history, philosophy toward the game, how she feels it should be played, and how that all filters down to the teams she puts on the floor today.

Because Tara is often softspoken in public and not one to actively seek the limelight or TV cameras like some of the other big names in her profession, there may be a tendency by some to think she is more of a hands-off coach. And despite the occasional glare from the sideline, a calm and quiet presence. Nothing could be further from the truth. This book does a good job of uncovering the intensity that boils deep inside and her unbending desire to win.

This is a really inspirational book for those who care about womens' basketball. I had a really hard time putting it down. You feel as if you are part of the U.S. Olympic Team, and were there to witness the trials and tribulations of their road to Gold. Great book for those who play basketball or enjoy it. (Especially if you're female!!) I think I will start reading the book from the beginning again tomorrow. It also meant more to me then maybe someone else because I have been to Tara's Camps and been able to interact with Jennifer Azzi and Katy Steding, and other players as well. It is totally my favorite book ever!

I confess that I have been a fan of Tara Vanderveer for nearly 10 years. I think I understand that basketball is a very major part of her life. She likes Bob Knight, sheesh. This book was a very easy read even though you already know how it will end. When you finish the book you might feel like you want to see if the players saw everything the same way. Well, this is her point of view.

I thoroughly enjoyed this in-depth view of Tara's work with the Women's National (Olympic) team of 1996. The team was a masterpiece, and being able to see it thru the eyes of its coach was really something special. It gave me great insight into Tara and her drive and dedication to the sport and to the team. A great book!!

Tara Vanderveer is the author of the inspiring autobiography Shooting form the Outside.  In this autobiography, Tara Vanderveer discusses the challenges and obstacles that she must overcome into to reach her goal of winning the gold medal.  The autobiography discusses the hardships, conflicts, and problems that the team faces throughout the year and shows how teamwork can overcome anything.
This novel is pretty much an overview of the Women's Basketball team throughout their Olympic season.  The novel starts out with Tara Vanderveer talking about her child hood days and how she developed a love for the game.  She talks about how she use to be a mascot for the school, used to write down every new play she heard in a notebook, and how she went and watched the men's basketball team to learn any new play on offense or defense she could pick up.  The story then proceeds to Coach Vanderveer discussing her thoughts and concerns for the year that lay ahead of the eleven woman that have been selected as the national team.  She talks about her past failures like the 1994 World Games that have pushed her and motivated her to win the gold medal.  She promised that the embarrassment and disgrace that she felt from the World Games will never happen again.  One can easily feel the strong determination and motivation that Coach Vanderveer feels, and how she uses this as an ally and works the team harder than they have ever been worked before. 
This book was undoubtedly worth reading from my point of view.  This book taught me information about Title IX that I had previously never even heard about.  The book showed me the true struggle that a woman must face and has taught me a sense of respect for woman who have succeeded in the past. 
One issue the book brings up is that woman are not given enough opportunity to succeed in life.  A woman's determination and motivation can easily be destroyed or brought down by the cruelness and unfairness of discrimination towards woman.  Therefore, since woman can do all jobs just as productively as men, the book suggests that woman should be given fair and equal treatment and equal opportunities to men. 
In conclusion, Shooting from the Outside is an excellent book that teachers lessons and values that should be known and followed by all of society.  The story teachers discrimination is pointless and by not allowing woman to perform to their full capacity we are truly ruining our own opportunities to further succeed in life.

Snaphots was a deeply satisfying read and all the more gratifying because I took a risk and picked up this book by a writer I had never heard of before.

This book has not gotten the attention it deserves. William Norris has a real gift for characterization; the people in his book come alive from the very first. Like Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, Norris details the life of an American family and how they got to the places they are --but Norris chooses a path of sensitivity instead of contempt, and the results are characters that linger.

how people became who they are now? This well-crafted book takes one Irish Catholic family and works backward in time to discover the answers to why they are the way they are, how their relationships have formed, the effects our families have on us. Some parts of the book really do stay in your mind like perfect snapshots. I love the end. Highly recommended.

I don't read too many contemporary authors...I tend to focus on books written at least 75 years ago, but I was not disappointed when I read "Snapshots." Mr. Norris' rich characters grabbed me instantly and I was drawn into their world. I wanted to know every detail about their lives...I wanted to find out where they ended up. Every member of the fictional Mahoney family felt like a real person...someone I could have grown up with...someone I now send a Xmas card to every year. I can't wait to see what Norris comes up with next...and he's helped to open my eyes to the many great contemporary writers out there right now.

In his first novel, Snapshots, the author William Norris has crafted a cleverly plotted and worthwhile read. In the tradition of Harold Pinter's works and Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland, Norris has told the story of the Mahoney family using the technique of presenting the family in present times and revealing more about them by moving through the past.

Ww first meet the Mahoney clan at the Jersey Shore as the Mahoney parents wait for each of their four children arrive to celebrate Christmas. Each of these children have past histories with each other and themselves and as in any family there are many emotional dynamics at work. The oldest daughter, a doctor, is coping with her demanding lifestyle and a reliance on alcohol to get through her days. The second daughter, who is married, is dealing with an emotional illness and her reliance on drugs to "keep her normal." The third child, a chef in England, longs to be with his girlfriend and is most content living far from his parents and siblings. Finally trhere is the youngest daughter, a vetenarian who can't bear to be separated from her woman lover whom she met in college. And presiding over this holiday reunion are the Mahoney parents who aren't quite sure who these adults belong to.

As the name of the book implies, readers are offered verbal vignettes about this family which serve as literary snapshots of this family. The book ends when the children are quite young and have spent the day at the Jersey shore with their parents. As they pack up and head for home all is before them but already one senses that some of the seeds have been planted for their futures. And while we as readers know most of the future, it is intriguing to see the children evolve and to put the puzzle pieces together till we finish the book.

This was a poignant novel especially for anybody who has raised a child and wondered "what if" or "why?"

This was a fine first novel to read and savor. And now I look forward to another book by William Norris.

This book covers a period just prior to internet prevalence and the digitally connected world. This book is one that any adult on the autism/Asperger's (a/A) scale will readily identify with as it addresses issues people on the spectrum contended with prior to being able to find one another and understand living with "undefined differences."

Donna Williams' early life reads like a Dickensian classic. She survived poverty, prostitution, homelessness and the abuse that so often accompanies these societal obstacles in a person's life. She has traveled extensively from a geographical perspective as well as a diagnostic one. It was only when she had long reached adulthood that she was formerly diagnosed with autism.

Many people with autism born during the Baby Boom were misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and other unrelated conditions. Bad placements and inappropriate placements were very much the order of the day for many years. It is only in recent times, thanks to pioneer experts such as Donna Williams, Jerry Newman and Tony Attwood that these misperceptions about autism can hopefully be laid to rest.

Donna Williams, as with probably everybody on the a/A spectrum likens autism to sociology (learning about how humans behave and interact and what general expectations are) and feeling like an alien for not having this inborn, instictive and intuitive knowledge. People on the spectrum will certainly be able to identify with her experiences and how she describes them as well as her feelings regarding same. I like the way she describes her client-doctor relationship with her therapist, Dr. Marek. It sounded like a dance, of sorts where each was dancing timidly around the other, trying to figure out what step to take next.

Like the Bronte Sisters who created wonderfully creative, diversely populated fictional towns, Donna Williams sets out to create such an "Autistitopia" (Autistic Utopia).

Sheer luck and an unlikely friend come through like the Cavalry for her. Her first manuscript was left in England. A stranger found it and forwarded it to her. From there, an agent contacts her, expressing an avid interest in her work. That was the first quantum stride forward that transformed Donna Williams from a private citizen into a leading expert and scholar in matters relating to autism and treatments. This book is a shining beacon of hope and a ray of strong sunlight. WE NEED THIS BOOK!

It's 1994 in a world where most people don't yet have email or internet and the undiagnosed adults on the Autistic Spectrum born in the 1960s and earlier still don't know each other exist, often believing they are the only one's like themselves in the entire world.

After a life of abuse, domestic prostitution, homelessness and poverty Donna Williams has wandered her way back to Australia and finally found the answer to 'what kind of mad am I'. The words of her childhood like deaf, psychotic, disturbed now get swept aside with a formal diagnosis as Autistic as she stumbles upon and enters into therapy with an eccentric an innovative psychologist, Theo Marek and they try to understand each other with astoundingly different language, concepts, realities and 'normality', viewing each other as one might an alien.

Having finally discovered the population she has been kept from all her life, Donna develops a small town dream and determines with her IQ of under 70 to become a teacher and change and advance the world of Developmental Disabilities and how those with them are treated in Special Education and beyond.

But the manuscript of her first book remains in a tea chest in England, a copy of it left with a stranger who unknown to her has forwarded it on. And soon a fax arrives through the post from a literary agent with a copy of that book in his hands. The book she wrote only for herself, filled with darkness and shame and surreal idiosyncracy of her previously undiagnosed Autistic world is set to become an international bestseller and propel the woman terrified of being 'known' out of the shadows and straight into the limelight as one of the most famous people ever diagnosed with Autism in the world.

An incredible, uplifting book.

Donna Williams was diagnosed with autism as an adult, after many misdiagnosises. In her past, she faced child abuse, homelessness and prostitution. Now, that she began to realize her problems had a definite basis, she began to do something about them. Although her behavior was considered "antisocial" and eccentric, her insight into the human condition is remarkable. She has worked as a teacher of special needs children, and received awards for her "do-goodness." In this book, she casts aside the "characters" and poses that have made up her world, and begins to relate to people as herself, not as how she imagined they would want her to. Eventually, she began to publish memoir, which was picked up and published internationally. Her triumphs both in the professional and personal spheres will have you cheering, as she fights to master autism. "I will not let it control me" she writes, and she hasn't.

There are many books written about autism. While we can learn from researchers and professionals, we gain a whole new perspective when we listen to someone who has autism describe what it's like. Donna Williams is a bright, articulate young woman who freely shares insight into what it's like to live in the world of autism.

The first book was an amazing journey for me, and to read the second book was just as wonderful as the first. It left me wondering if there was a third book. A must read!

Eileen Goudge writes books. Good books. Fiction books. So when I found this cookbook on the "New Book" shelf of my library in 2005, I was a bit confused, but had the good sense to check it out. And have since bought my own copy.

I own far too many cookbooks, but this one is kept on the 'short shelf' of books I use regularly. Yesterday I made the Velvet Bundt Cake for my daughter's teacher as a gift. The recipe comes together easily and bakes into a fragrant cake with a beautiful texture. I've never actually gotten around to making the glaze for the cake - it's heavenly alone, but I'm sure glaze fans will enjoy it :)

The Chocolate Swirl Cake is also a family favorite. A vanilla cake batter is made, half is put in the bundt pan, and then chocolate syrup is stirred into the remaining half and poured over the vanilla. The cake bakes into a beautiful and delicious creation. Again, half the time I never get around to making the simple glaze, but I feel it doesn't suffer a bit. Guild the lily if you must... The swirl cake includes the steps to make your own chocolate syrup - it's fast and easy, and I recommend you make the homemade over store-bought if you have the time.

My favorite bread is the Alabama Light Bread - the texture of the finished bread is amazing, and a favorite to give to friends.

Other favorites from the book include: Tennessee Jam Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting; Cappuccino Cheesecake; Fudge Meltaways; Blackberry-Peach Pie; Jam Tart; Eggnog Bread; Gingerbread with Lemon Icing; Angel Biscuits; Oatmeal Bread (heaven!); Cinnamon Bread.

Eileen Goudge's SOMETHING WARM FROM THE OVEN (0060740418, $24.95) represents the author's debut as a cookbook author - but she's no newcomer to publishing; she has eleven popular novels to her name. She discusses the sum of the techniques and tricks she's absorbed over the years, blending basic information with the best recipes from her personal collection and adding some inspiring stories from her family baking adventures. Pecan-Cranberry Pie, Raspberry Marzipan Cheesecake, and Cherry-Cream Cheese Bread are only a few of the delights in SOMETHING WARM FROM THE OVEN: BAKING MEMORIES, MAKING MEMORIES.

I have been a fan of Eileen Goudge's romance novels for some time. She's a prolific writer with fans from all walks of life , and from all around the world.
So. when I heard that she had written a cook book, I thought "just what we all need - another cook book!" But, was I ever surprised.
This book is about baking, and as I began to browse through the many recipes with titles such as Fudge Meltaways, Pecan Sandies, Nanny's Swedish Rye Bread, and Mom's Gingerbread with Lemon Icing, I was immediately transported back to my childhood, with warm remembrances of coming home after school, and inhaling those sweet smells from the oven that we all, as kids, coveted from our mother's and grandmother's kitchens. I have already tried about half a dozen of these truly delectible desserts and breads, and cannot wait to try many more. I mean, come on - Blue-Ribbon Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate - Creams Cheese Frosting! So what's another couple of hours at the gym!

AFTER SAMPLING THE MICROWAVE CRANBERRY PUDDING WITH BUTTER-BRANDY SAUCE(YUM) AT A BOOK SIGNING, AND THEN HAVING THE GOOD FORTUNE OF TRYING THE CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE TART AT THE NEW YORK CHOCOLATE SHOW, I WAS HOOKED. THIS LADY BAKES AS WELL AS SHE WRITES. BUY THIS BOOK AND SEE FOR YOURSELF.

What a wonderful surprise. This is a cookbook for everyone. Not only are the recipes that I have tried easy to put together and delicious but above each recipe is a short memory from the author about her family. Her tips for better baking are very helpful. So far my family's favorite recipe is the Apple Crisp, page 198. It is so good warm and just as good cold the next morning. Thank you Eileen for sharing your family recipes and your lovely memories that go along with each one.

William Stillman has given us a hand held walk beyond the complexities of Autism. A deeper understanding and tolerance is revealed as Mr. Stillman speaks of spirituality, love and kindness in those on the Autism spectrum. This book is truly a gift.

Eddie Tuduri
Director/ The Rhythmic Arts Project
www.traponline.com

This book is very beautifully written. It helped me to see autism in
an entirely different light. These children ae truly crystal children.

This is such a wonderful book- and all of William Stillman's books are so amazing. Inspirational and well written. Read 'Autism and The God Connection' as well.

ANOTHER WONDERFUL BOOK BY WILLIAM STILLMAN! I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!! Both this book and "Autism and the God Connection" are in my opinion easily the best books ever written about autism. I wish everyone shared Stillman's views about autism. The basic premise is that autism is not a disease (therefore doesn't need a "cure") but that it has an important role in the evolution of humanity. If we learn to listen in other ways (besides using our ears) we have much learn from those with autism. Stillman, like myself, has Asperger's and understands how offensive the commonly accepted "war on autism" perspective can be to those of us on the spectrum. When someone like me sees that most neurotypicals in the autism "community" are basically on a crusade to eradicate autism by finding a "cure" it can be very hurtful. Quite frankly "cure autism now" translates to people like me as "we don't accept you for who you are. Your differences are a flaw. You are diseased." It's bad enough for me...but now I have a son with autism, so that mainstream perspective is even more hurtful to me now. We don't want to be "cured." We want acceptance. Most people don't seem to understand this. William Stillman does. Thank God someone has the guts to step up and give this viewpoint an eloquent voice in these beautifully written books. I hope there are more books like this to come!

looking for fun autism awareness items? check out my store!
[...]

THE SOUL OF AUTISM is a very different kind of book about people who have been diagnosed with autism, since its author, William Stillman, has Aspergers Syndrome, something somewhat similar to autism. Not only does Stillman know first-hand what it is to live a life differently from others, he has dedicated much of his life to working with autistic children and their families.

In THE SOUL OF AUTISM, Stillman finds ways to describe the autistic spiritually graceful way of living in ways that greatly expand our awareness of the value of autism. Stillman views the recent dramatic rise in autism not as something dreadful, but as a requisite part of human evolution, since autistic individuals tend to have tremendous sensitivity and multi-sensory giftedness (including telepathy, precognition, and animal communication).

People who learn from autistic individuals tend to naturally become more compassionate, more considerate, more sensitive, and more loving. This beautifully written book suggests we consider autistics with tremendous reverence and respect, and that we consider the idea that the world needs autism, now more than ever. "People with autism compel us to higher standards of deference and respect for humanity," Stillman explains, as he recommends that we learn from autistics and while we assist them in learning in their own unique ways that work best for them.

Stillman packs this book with dozens of page-turning stories about autistics who talk with animals, ghosts, and dead people... and who can at times know what will happen or has happened without normal direct experience.

THE SOUL OF AUTISM is an excellent book for anyone who knows autistic friends, family members, students, or community members, as it provides an intimate and surprisingly revealing view of autistic life that has the power to expand our awareness of what it means to be conscious, to be aware, to be human.

This is one of the most fun books of history you will ever be lucky enough to read. It covers some aspects of 17th Century French history, with the greatest proportion of the book centered on Louis XIV and his court, although there are chapters on the peasantry and the brutality of the galleys.

I personally enjoyed the essays on court etiquette because it was so ludicrous. Louis convinced the nobility of France to give up their private armies to live in tiny attic bedrooms at Versailles and fight over who got to sit in an armchair and who had to sit on a stool. Human nature never changes--in the 21st century people fight to achieve status by buying the correct Manolo Blahnik shoes and the right Hermes carry all.

The chapter on female education alone is worth the price of admission. Louis and Mme. de Maintenon established a school for the daughters of impoverished aristocrats, and as a result reformed education for upper class females throughout France.

As other reviewers have said, this is history in the grand manner and most enjoyable.

The wealth of detail in W.H. Lewis' book The Splendid Century is incredible, but even more incredible is Lewis' ability to see the forest and the trees, to intelligently distinguish between what is useful and what is irrelevant and to leave the reader with a definite impression of Louis XIV's France.

Like his brother, C.S., Warren Lewis has that stereotyped but still very real and precious commodity of English commonsense. His good-humored rationality flavors the book but not to the detriment of the subject. Lewis was, afterall, writing about Louis XIV's France, not 20th century England. As with all the best historians, Lewis has the ability to see the world from outside the ideologies and pressures of the present. More than once, he cautions the reader against applying current century thinking to a 17th century problem or event.

But tone is where Lewis excels. Personable without being chatty, humorous without being sarcastic, A Splendid Century is amazingly relaxing to read, especially allowing for the subject matter and Lewis' fact-filled prose.

Recommendation: Buy it.

So much of what you read about the France of Louis 14th is based on the memoirs of Courtiers, to whom Versailles was the centre of the universe. In many ways that was true. Louis built Versilles to be the new heart of France. One where *he* ruled absoultley to the glorie of France.

However, this book covers much more than Versilles. You get to see what the majority of France was like during the period outside the court. Why the country was loathed by all courtiers, the real definition of a stinking Paris. How to get caught out at dinner for wrong ettiqute. Why you *didn't* want to end up on the Galleys and what your chances of education would have been like.

The author makes it clear that it is hard to make generalisations about this period in France, but he does his best to give us examples of the confusion and differences people experienced during the period.

If you think our taxes are bad today. Read this book and thank your lucky stars you aren't living in 17th cent France.

All in all this is a very enlightening read and highly recommended to anybody who wants a real glimpse of what the *real* France was like under Louis 14th.

W.H. Lewis wrote this famous book (dedicated to his brother C.S.) in 1953, but it has stood the test of time very well and provides an excellent introduction to the history of France during the reign of Louis XIV. "The Splendid Century" is history in the grand manner, written in the style of Trevelyan, Runciman and Roy Porter. The erudition is everywhere apparent, but it is worn lightly and the story is told in fluent prose enlivened by the odd flash of sly humour.

As the author points out in the introduction, the book might have been better titled "Some Aspects of Life in the Reign of Louis XIV;" rather than present a sequential narrative, Lewis chose to structure the book as a series of essays on particular aspects. There are chapters on the king and his court, the religious situation, the organisation of the army and the state of the peasantry. Among the unexpected pleasures of the book are the chapters on sea voyages, the world of the galleys and the education of women. A surprising omission, however, is a discussion of Colbert and his attempts at administrative reform. Nevertheless, this is a fine work of history that can be strongly recommended.

Mr.W.H.Lewis, brother of Mr.C.S., projects his fondness for the 17th century with bravado in The Splendid Century. The word splendid, derived from the latin for "illuminated", allows the reader to understand his thesis of the Grand Siecle without turning a page, by simply judging the book by its cover. Here is a profoundly pious Christian man composing some of the most glorious prose about a controvertial subject and succeeding where so many others have failed.

By not limiting himself to Versailles Mr.Lewis creates honesty. But he does not stop there, he remains true to the popular understanding. The Sun King's world brought to life.