Northwestern Books

Quite useful as a refference for writing papers of post-graduate level. Compact book, but amount of information contained is enough to surprise you. Easy to read, especially if you have some background of knowledge related to this field.

This is a moving and beautifully written short novel -- more of a long story, really -- written from the point of view of an adult woman as she and her siblings try to make peace with the unpleasant memories of their late father. The narrator's developing friendship with an elderly man in her neighborhood both provides a narrative counterpoint to the story of her unhappy family and brings her to a better understanding of her troubled father (and mother). There are no surprises -- just elegantly simple writing and a thought-provoking story. I recommend this book highly.

Highly spiritual and respectful of the reader, the text is grave without being pompous. Philosophy without a doubt,nevertheless extremely readable. I recommend it for anybody in search of the meanders of soul and mind, never one without the other.

Rain Taxi/Summer 1999 by Matt Dube-- Ronald Sukenick's tenth book, MOSAIC MAN, poses difficult questions about the form of the novel and the creative act. Sukenick writes what he calls "heterofiction," autobiographical narratives that are opened up by fictional conceits.... Sukenick's prose is rich and distinctive, with lyrical nods to the Beats and a Joycean ear for puns. While Sukenick's long reach is at times frustrating, it constantly makes the reader aware that he or she is reading an object constructed by human hands. Perhaps it is here, in the book's unwillingness to cohere and in its wholehearted embrace of its human origins, that Sukenick escapes a charge often leveled against other authors: that of laying claim to a divine originative role.

It may not have been the way it is told here, either (I hope not for the author's sake, since he presents himself as the lead character). But this is a wonderful alternative to the narcissistic-heroic type of historical fiction for which a far less clever writer with the same last name as Bora Cosic has become very well known. The setting is Belgrade during and just after World War II, with themes of identity, revolution, ambition, loyalty and love treated by a child just naive enough to be smarter than the wise folks around him, with help from the motley characters in his family and neighborhood. I know the wise-naive child has become an East European cliche, but sometimes it is done very well.

Paquito d'Rivera is an undisputed virtuoso on saxophone and clarinet in both the jazz and classical worlds. One of the great innovators of Latin jazz in modern times, Paquito has always been at the forefront of the movement. Unless you are familiar with his random writings in numerous publications, most people were unaware of Paquito's talent of prose in Spanish and English. After penning his novel, Oh, La Habana! and the Spanish version of his memoirs, he has now released his memoirs in English or his anti-biography as he prefers to call it. Much like his lyrical improvisational style, Paquito d'Rivera's book is filled with his trademark humor and wit, bounces between decades here and abroad and includes personal antidotes and stories as well as those of his closest friends and collaborators. Destined to becoming one of the great jazz memoirs of all time, and definitely a must read for this year's music book releases, My Sax Life is highly recommended.

Few national leaders have shaped present-day America more positively than Justice William O. Douglas. The force of Douglas's ideas has had a profound influence on our world--from the individual liberties that we enjoy to his attitudes about protecting the natural world from human encroachment. At the core of it all is Douglas's idea of the human person. The advantages Americans enjoy over citizens of other nations, particularly totalitarian regimes " . . . are not in material things such as technology and standards of living. They relate to matters of the mind and the spirit . . . Man's moral and spiritual appetite, as well as his political ideals, demanded that he have freedom. Liberty was to be the way of life--inalienable and safe from the intrusions of government."

James O'Fallon's edited selections provide us with an excellent overview of Douglas's vast experience and the life that underlay his philosophy--from his boyhood days growing up in near poverty in the Yakima foothills, through his great Supreme Court decisions (establishing the right of privacy) and dissents. Here we also get a feel of the great men Douglas knew: Brandeis, President Franklin Roosevelt (with whom he played poker and drank martinis regularly), Hugo Black and many others.

In the tradition of John Muir and Aldo Leopold, Douglas is one of our great nature writers with his descriptions of the experiences and characters of the great wild places of our Pacific Northwest. He has a botanist's feel for the detail of a landscape and paints a vivid picture with all the sights, sounds and smells of the wilderness.

Douglas was the partner of presidents, but he also had a great understanding and sympathy for the poor, for persons such as prostitutes who lived in conditions where criminal conduct was prevalent, and hobos with whom he rode in boxcars in his early days. These are outstanding recollections and ideas--Douglas is one of the greatest thinkers of the last Century.

I love this cookbook. I used to love the restaurant but it sold and is not as good anymore. Sure glad I have the book.

I really enjoyed this book for many reasons: the writer, story, location, and style. Ivan Olbracht (1882-1952) is, unfortunately, little known in the West although he was a very significant Czech writer and political figure. A journalist, he lived in the remote region of Sub Carpathian Ukraine, a mountainous and mysterious area between Slovakia, Hungary, and Galicia. Following First World War, Sub Carpathian Ukraine (also know as Ruthenia) became part of the newly formed Czechoslovakia and remained so for the next thirty years before being annexed by the Soviet Union. Ruthenia was noted for its ubiquitous mountains, vast stretches of virgin forest, and abject poverty. Olbracht captures these qualities with great skill in this book and also reveals a pagan majesty that flowed through the primeval landscape: this was a place of sorceresses, malevolent spirits, curses, snake-masters, and werewolves. It was also a place of people living in great poverty and trying to survive: Ruthenian peasants, poor and wealthy Jews all co-existing in their own divided but interconnected worlds.

The story is simple and centers around Nikola Šuhaj (read Š as "sh"), an army deserted who receives magical protection against bullets and who uses highway robbery as a way of distributing wealth in the region. His invulnerability and unconventional lifestyle creates powerful sentiments: the admiration of the local peasantry; the concern of the local Jewish merchants; and the indignation of the militia sent from a distant Prague to restore the rule of law. The story is a subtle one that skillfully weaves strands of greed, resentment, fear, admiration, and love into a. compelling and thoughtful book. It provides a vivid and realistic insight into a world that has gone. In particular, as a Jewish reader, it was moving to be led through these little Jewish communities with all of their concerns and intrigues; these communities would be exterminated within a few years. The Jewish element is pervasive and non-sentimental: Olbracht was himself Jewish (on his mother's side).

This is a beautifully written book and is considered Olbracht's finest work. The translation by Marie K. Holeטek is a masterpiece in itself. "Nikola the Outlaw" is a remarkable window into a distant world but a world with which we can relate. This was my first reading of Olbracht but it was not my last: he is a superb teller of tales. I might never have entered his world had it not been for a dear Czech friend who was climbing in mountains of the region and who recommended this book: a battered copy was always in his rucksack. I am so glad that he did. Perhaps you too might like to enter a magical and lost world to understand perhaps more about the present?

I'm assuming this is the book I think it is (don't have my old English copy in front of me), but if it includes the story of a dog named Jim, get it. This amazing story (which also explains how dogs asked God to create Man) is at turns folklike, charming, sweet, and transcendent. Capek is an author who could not be published today: for how could you classify him? Only one way: as himself, Karel Capek.