I have been buying this guide since my five year old was born. I can't buy a toy without consulting it. There is so much junk out there and my kids' imaginations and my dollars are too precious to waste on junk. I even keep a typewritten list of all their recommended toys/books/videos appropriate for my children in my purse. That way I'm always ready when I spy a sale. This book has helped my never pay full price for anything and my Christmas/birthday shopping is done well in advance.

This is the kind of book that no one thinks they need to buy but that all your friends want to borrow once you've got it. Even parents who insist on simplicity and refuse to buy the new, plastic gizmos that kids clamor for each year, will appreciate the suggestions for music, literature, and classic toys. Ones that will be passed down through the generations. Ones that you played with as a kid but may have forgotten or didn't realize were still around. Founded in 1989, the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio is the only independent consumer review of children's products, everything from literature and audio/video to learning toys, top-rated science products and big ticket items. The testers are real "families from all walks of life" and the criteria used to determine a toys suitability for a coveted listing in this yearly manual include: product design, safety and interactivity, developmental appropriateness, learning and entertainment value, and more. The listings are grouped by age, subject, and also into special award categories, like the SNAP award, the Special Needs Adaptable Product Award for those toys that are easily adapted for children with special needs. Despite all these groupings and listings, the book is very easy to navigate and so very useful.

Whenever I go into a toy store, I see the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio award seal on the best toys. They have their finger(s) on the pulse! I've been keeping track of their reviews for years, and they're consistently accurate.

This latest edition makes me wish my kids were younger, so I could play with the new toys they recommend.

I haven't even had a family yet and this book really hit home for me. From the minute I picked it up, I couldn't put it down! As a law student with high career aspirations it is difficult to imagine how I can possibly be a great lawyer and a good mother. Williams' book describes this conflict and provides excellent examples and creative solution. She makes the bold suggestion that our society needs to change the way we work so that people can do both. I completely agree. The book is articulate and compelling. Anyone who is concerned about children's welfare, family issues, or women's equality should read it!

As a family therapist with a special interest in the area of work and family, I have read a number of books on this issue. Unbending Gender is a tremendous contribution to the field and one of my favorites. It was highly recommended to me by a marriage and family therapist and university professor, and I am passing on the recommendation to many of my colleagues. Williams' book has important implications for family therapy, as many male and female clients struggle with how to combine market work and family work. It will change the way you educate, normalize, and approach this issue with clients.

This is the book that I had been waiting for! As a lawyer, feminist, wife and mother I have struggled with conflicts between work and career and found myself forced to make "choices" that later seemed unjust. After examining family law and employment discrimination law in the course of rethinking how our society structures the relationship of "market work" to "family work," Williams presents her visions for a new paradigm which she calls "reconstructive feminism" or "family humanism." She offers both legal strategies and policy initiatives for restructuring how we "work" and changing the ways we talk about gender. This book has had a tremendous impact on me. As a result, I am hoping to teach a law school course around this book next spring. Professor Williams has been extremely helpful in assisting me in that endeavor. In addition, I am urging everyone I know to read this book. We need to forge the coalitions Williams proposes if we are to be ultimately successful in "unbending" gender roles in our society.

First, to be fair, this book together with Audrey Kischline's book on Moderation Management and others, has helped me stop after years of heavy, consistent drinking. I was able to take the complicated regimen of various dietary supplements proposed in the book and reduce it to a simple twice-daily dose, based on a multivitamin pack, amino acid tablets, Glutamine powder and Melatonin. This has led to a diminished desire for alcohol, BUT...Sorry folks, will-power and attitude are still the most important aspects in making any change to your life, including drinking.

The debate concerning the role of nutrition and alcohol rages on. Based on a considerable amount of reading, I believe that alcoholism is much more than a simple question of changing diet and taking supplements, although proper nutrition plays an important role in reducing cravings for alcohol. Clearly the nutrition-only approach works for some people, however. Larson's book provides a program of amino acid and vitamin supplements which she claims has a success rate of 74%. If you examine the claim more closely you find it is based on only 100 sample cases from her clinic, and worse yet, buried not-so-subtly in the text is a "buy my mega-package of pills" pitch that turned me off completely. The daily recipe includes Tryptophan, a questionable supplement at best. Extensive reading and my own experience has lead me to believe that the most essential "non-vitamin" elements in this program are Glutamine and Melatonin. Larson fails to prioritize the importance to each supplement to the overall program, thus giving the impression that each of the 11 elements are equally important. The ad-hoc nature of her recipe, and the fact that it is neither age nor body-weight specific, detracts from the book. If her program were "74% successful", AA would be finished, the various treatment centers would switch to this approach and most alcohol abuse would go away.

Given all that, the bottom line is: If you have problems with alcohol, buy this book. It won't hurt, and for you it may be the critical factor in reducing or eliminating alcohol from your life.

"Seven Weeks to Sobriety," by Joan Mathews Larson. "The Proven Program to Fight Alcoholism Through Nutrition," as claimed on the front cover's subtitle. Proven by whom is not asserted; it is assumed to be of "Health Recovery Center" for which Dr. Larson is the director. I have few negative comments about any attempt at promoting recovery from alcoholism. Dr. Larson with Keith W. Sehnert, M.D. want to catch the coattails of AA's success and ubiquitous big book. Covering 12 chapters and three appendices over 335 pages, it offers their advice for breaking the habit of alcohol addiction through a specially modified diet.

I found nothing harmful in "Seven Weeks," except one exaggeration that claimed one naturally occurring supplement (GLA?) could "reverse aging" (I tried to find it again, but it's in there). There are also some practical mentionings of "research indicates that..." many times throughout the pages, although to which research they are referring is not indicated. Most of the time, Dr. Larson does cite her sources, and that makes all the difference. On page 44 there is a nice and simple comparison chart of a Swedish Study vs. HRC results; but in this chart, the HRC study is claiming a 100% recovery rate from alcoholic symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, tremors, dizziness and three others. Can they really do that? Is anything 100% effective? Most of the information in "Seven Weeks..." is sound, although at times a little eccentric. On page 108-109, for example, we read "Since most alcoholics suffer blackouts, it makes sense to assume that insufficient tryptophan is to blame and that it also underlies any depression and sleeplessness they are experiencing." In any kind of scientific work, it NEVER makes sense to assume anything. It is either conclusive or it isn't. On page 144, they also state, "Insulin is the fat-storing hormone." Insulin metabolizes sugar, it doesn't store fat (or, that it is an indirect action of insulin). On pages 94-113, everything mentioned about the role of vitamins, minerals and aminos is believable, verifiable and duplicable.

I believe this book can be helpful for recovering alcoholics, in spite of that the carbohydrate-restricted diets might be difficult to follow. To cut out colas, coffee, bakery products, fried foods, margarine, taco shells, or anything made with hydrogenated oils from the diet--even diet sodas and nicotine--all at once may seem too much at once for someone in recovery. (We've got to have something left!) The proposed diet is rigid, taking a strong will to accomplish, but the price of sobriety is incomparable (did I give away my anonymity?) Details of the HRC diet and "Week Three: Correcting Chemistry" are at Chapter 7, page 115. I was particularly interested in the section "The Role of Adrenals," in which the authors discuss the effects of placing to many demands for adrenaline on the system, leading many alcoholics to suffer additional stress and emotional instability, even for a time after early sobriety. In this case, I can personally verify that, and it makes perfect sense. At Chapter 8, "Week Four: Tailoring Repair," many suggestions and formulas are given for certain vitamin, mineral and amino acid combination which assure the reader they will help to reverse the undesirable effects of alcohol abuse. Given the few overstatements and yet unproven FDA claims for certain minerals (e.g., chromium), and a few borrowings from the big book, I found nothing malignant in "Seven Weeks." I won't dog anything meant to help people get off of alcohol. It is not meant for the general public; it is meant to be used in conjunction with a doctor's help to break the addiction to alcohol. AA's big book was the first of its kind to offer a self-help plan with other alcoholics in attaining this admirable and monumental goal. This book is another next step, advancing this and new knowledge for the benefit of the common good.

The nutritional program suggested by this book is outstanding and is an essential aid to recovery from alcoholism or addiction. While it is not a substitute for the fellowship and the spiritual enhancement of your life that you can find in AA, it can make your path of recovery far easier to tread by allieviating the very REAL bio-chemical pulls and traumas that distinguish alcoholics from nonalcoholics and which make recovery far more painful than it needs to be. You don't get any gold stars for making your recovery more difficult! The nutritional supplements and dietary advice set forth in this book can definitely make it much easier. This is the kind of advice you won't often hear at AA or in traditional methods endorsed by otherwise outstanding treatment centers. The information on hypoglycemia alone is worth the price of this book and shows the fallacy of the often-heard advice that a recovering alcoholic should eat a lot of sugar to reduce cravings. That can be a recipe for disaster, as this book explains. The truly unfortunate thing is that there is so much tension between the Larsen approach and traditional treatment courses, as they really need to complement one another to give the alcoholic or addict the optimal chance for success. Those of us who suffer from this disease deserve nothing less!

Joan of Arc by Herself and Her Witnesses

Regine PERNOUD, _Joan of Arc by Herself and Her Witnesses_. Translated by Edward Hyams. Lanham, MD: Scarborough House 1994 (reissue of 1964 original). 287 pp., with index and plates. ISBN: 0-8128-1260-3 (pb).

This book is a biographical monograph by French Joan of Arc specialist Regine Pernoud. She first published it in 1964 and it has remained in print since then. The book opens with a background-setting introduction describing the geopolitical realities of royal succession in France in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, national division through civil war, and the contending forces and their allies. Nine substantial chapters comprise the main text. They cover JoanÕs early years (chapter 1); her vision and quest (chapter 2); her meeting with Dauphin Charles VII and the aftermath (chapter 3); her military campaigns (beginning with the crucial battle that lifted the English/Burgundian siege of Orleans, and concluding with CharlesÕ coronation at Rheims, chapters 4-6); her politico-religious trial of condemnation (ch. 7), her execution by fire (ch. 8); and her posthumous trial of rehabilitation (ch. 9).

The authorÕs narrative method is to present JoanÕs life and the events she inspired and lived through using extracts of testimony from her trials of condemnation and rehabilitation and from other primary sources (examples are: letters, journals and account books). Pernoud proposes on page 8 to Ò...let the historic documents themselves make answerÓ to questions about Joan, what she did and what was done to her. By this method, Joan is made to speak directly to readers. Pernoud, however, does not simply assemble a catalogue of quotations, but adroitly interleaves direct speech with narrative that pairs what is said with cultural interpretation. She thus avoids the problem of leaving untutored readers without indices to the religious, political and military context that imbue JoanÕs story with its fascination. However, Pernoud chose wisely to minimize analysis and to allow the story to unfold primarily from the documents. She invites readers to judge Joan themselves.

Pernoud appends a brief but valuable commentary to each chapter. These commentaries provide more background about events and discuss contentious arguments in the study of JoanÕs life. For example, Pernoud disposes handily of the idea that Joan was an illegitimate daughter of royalty who had been spirited away to safe haven as a child, triumphantly emerging to rescue the nation (pp. 66-9 and thereafter). Pernoud also provides incisive remarks on the provenance, dating and validity of the documentary evidence in these commentaries.

A sample extract from JoanÕs trial of condemnation offers insights into her beliefs and personality (pp. 174-75). Joan responds to interrogator Jean de La Fontaine (March 17, 1431):

La Fontaine: Do you know whether Saints Catherine and Margaret hate the English?

Joan: They love that which God loves and hate that which God hates.

La Fontaine: Does God hate the English?

Joan: Of the love or hate which God has for the English and of what He does to their souls, I know nothing; but well I know that they will be driven out of France, excepting those who will die there, and that God will send victory to the French over the English.

La Fontaine: Was God for the English when their cause was prospering in France?

Joan: I know not if God hated the French, but I believe that it was His will to let them be stricken for their sins if there were sins among them.

La Fontaine: What guarantee and what succour do you expect from God for your wearing of manÕs clothes?

Joan: For the clothes as for the other things I have done, I expect no other recompense than the salvation of my soul.

I do not read French and so cannot comment on the accuracy of Edward HyamsÕ translation. But, he did receive the 1965 Scott-Moncrieff Translation Prize for this work. Hyams rendered the transcripts in a style that unmistakably is not modern English. Antique grammatical constructions abound. These aspects of the translation provide much of the savor in the text.

This book is well worth reading and thinking about. Its special value is that Pernoud presents a view of Joan that personalizes her without analyzing her. Although an authorÕs point of view and the material selected necessarily influence how readers perceive the subject, PernoudÕs method here is more transparent than others she could have chosen. A _Saturday Review_ article stated ÒOne feels closer to Joan in these pages than in any other of the modern biographies...Ó when the book was first published; this quote is from a cover blurb and does not overstate the case. One caveat about reading this volume is necessary. It is that readers untutored in the history of the period will need to consult other sources to understand the times and the importance of what Joan accomplished in life and death.

Last is an idea for two interesting projects. Reading this work together with Carlo GinzburgÕs _The Cheese and the Worms; The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller_ (1992) and Jonathan SpenceÕs _GodÕs Chinese Son; The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan_ (1996) would provide superb material for cross-cultural comparisons of three religious visionaries. Second, these same books would provide material for comparing three anthropological approaches to history by scholars who have mastered their craft.

Regine Pernoud is an expert on Joan of Arc, and makes you feel almost like YOU know her too. I laughed. I cried. The telling of the story from Joan's own words and the testimony of those who knew her puts this book on the top of my list.

I liked it better than Pernoud's book, "Joan of Arc: Her Story," but it's not quite as comprehensive. Both are excellent books, but I rate this title a little higher.

If you really want to feel like you walked with Joan, read Mark Twain's fictional diary, "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc," told from the point of view of her childhood friend-later-scribe. One of the greatest reads of my life! A Book that really changed my perspective on a lot of things.

People who don't study history at the university level rarely get to glimpse how professional historians work. Regine Pernoud offers a superb example here.

Each chapter begins with a short essay describing the major debates about some aspect of Joan of Arc's life, followed by excerpts from original sources. Pernoud invites the reader to reach his or her own conclusions. The material is well chosen and Pernoud's overviews are balanced. The result is a truly challenging experience--about as close as the average person can come to meeting the real Joan of Arc.

Only those who demand a straightforward narrative will find this approach disappointing. The available material does place a few limitations on the work. Only topics with ample original sources get coverage here, so readers will learn much more about Joan of Arc's trial than about her military career. Pernoud also chooses to paraphrase later historical interpretations, so readers won't encounter these controversies directly. These drawbacks are minor and probably unavoidable in a short work intended for a popular audience.

This innovative little book may be the best single volume in history for the general reader.

This was a nice story, but it lacked excitement, it was low key. I did not care for the first person narrative. I think this is what took away from the story - not knowing the thoughts and feelings of the other characters especially Reeve. Even the intimacy was on the low key side. I read a book once that the first intimacy shared by the main characters took 14 pages. It was fantastic! Wish I could remember the authors name so that I could read more of her books.

Joan Wolf's first-person narrative has got to be the best technique ever employed by a romance writer. This book is another one of her winners. Both the hero and heroine are rich, likable characters, and I found the idea of them being friends before lovers interesting. It worked very well, and neither was the plot something we've all heard before. "The Pretenders" was a refreshing read. I'd recommend this if you are a reader that wants a good, non-angsty romance.

I must admit I'm a sucker for friends who fall in love. Add to that Joan Wolf's name on the cover and I'm sold. This is a great book. As always, her characters and her writing style draw you in. If you like good character driven romances, you won't be disappointed.

There is, wrote Charles Baudelaire, a vice which is uglier, more wicked and filthier than any other, a vice which he called "L'Ennui". This is a stronger term than the mere "boredom" which is its literal meaning, because the word also implies a state of indifference and moral and spiritual deadness. It is a state of mind frequently invoked in Baudelaire's poetry, and one which is also at the centre of Joan Didion's novel.

The central character is Maria Wyeth, a Hollywood actress in her early thirties. Fate has, in many ways, been unkind to her- her mother died in a car crash, her career is in trouble, her marriage to an uncaring husband is also failing and she has a mentally-handicapped daughter. Maria reacts by retreating into the sterile world occupied by most of the novel's other characters, one of casual and promiscuous sex, drink, drugs and "Ennui", both in its literal and its extended Baudelairean senses.

Told in a series of very short vignettes, the novel traces the progress of the disintegration of Maria's life. She is bullied into an abortion by her husband. (It is interesting that a novel by a woman writer treats abortion not as a woman's right but as another weapon of male dominance). Her marriage ends in divorce. In the final scene her moral nihilism means that she deliberately fails to prevent the suicide of a friend.

Much of the book is set in the deserts of southern California and Nevada, and Maria spends much of her time driving on long but aimless car journeys through this landscape. The imagery of the desert is clearly used to suggest the aridity of the spiritual world in which the characters live, and Maria's meaningless journeys are a symbol of her inability to escape this world. It is noteworthy that although the book is set in the late sixties or early seventies, a time of great ferment and social change in America, news of the outside world plays virtually no part in the book; Miss Didion's characters seem able to shut it out completely.

The bleakness of the world inhabited by Maria and her acquaintances means that this is certainly not a feelgood novel. It is, in many ways, not an easy one to like. It is, however, certainly one worth reading.

At some time in many people lives, they reach a point where they ask themselves, what's the purpose of life; in Joan Didion's book, "Play It As It Lays", Maria Wyeth, the main character, finds herself asking that very same question. Didion's book follows Maria's journey through this point in her life, examing her feelings, thoughts and actions.

"Play It As It Lays," takes place in Hollywood in the late 1960's. It's written from a struggling actress's point of view. She's reached a crossroads in her life and pushes everything to the side for a while. Focusing on nothing in particular, her friends begin to think she's lost her mind, when all she wants is to make a little sense of her hectic surroundings. "I know what 'nothing' means, and keep on playing."(214) The setting that Joan Didion chose to use really defines the story. Hollywood itself, no matter what time era, has its own personalities, moods and excitement. The late 1960's, was a time of contemporary society, the culture was characterized by emptiness and ennui. As the characters are all part of the entertainment business, their lives revolve around attaining a certain level of social standings, and this in term sometimes leads to mental breakdowns. Their lives set the mood and the atmosphere within the story. Didion's style of characterization does an excellent job of developing the setting, as well as revealing the theme over time.

What would life be like if it was meaningless, if the people we associated with were plastic? not real? pretentious? What if our life was just a hopeless void with loose morals, drugs, hollow sayings and beliefs? What if we just played the empty game of life as it was laid down for us? That is the main theme in Joan Didion's classic book that takes the reader into the life of Maria Wyeth, actress, mother, daughter, divorced wife, a woman who has grown tired and desensitized to the fakeness and pain caused by the Hollywood and Las Vegas establishment.It is a life filled to the brim with movie premiers, booze, pills, suicide, casual, empty sex, abortions and nothing else. It is a world of plastic surgery and beautiful people, of Let's do lunch and venomous gossip. The sneering, caustic tone of Didion's voice would want to make anybody who lived the lives of the novel's characters put a gun to their head and end it all. The language is stinging, fast-paced, lean, anti-Hollywood. Pure Didion!

I was introduced to this brief book because of my 13 year old daughter's biography assignment. The book was abstracted and translated from French into English and consists only of "her own words" in the form of letters and documents which have accumulated over the years and been studied by scholars.

While not a book I could say would bring a complete understanding of Joan's life, it was intriguing to read her own interpretation of the events in her life. A little deep towards the end, especially for a young reader, it never the less did prove to be provoking and we enthusiastically probed other mediums to find more background information.

The story is so full of emotion and controversy it is sure to prompt contemplation and conversation. From my experience, it was worth the read to listen to my 13 year old reflect on what it would be like to be living in Joan's time and if you were Joan. All in all, both of us had a positive experience from the book.

I love this book because of the direct way in which it tells the story. You get a sense of Joan's character through the most significant words she spoke. Whatever she could not tell, the wonderfully written afterword does. Also, the cover art (a b&w photo) is worth having in itself- it's incredible compared to most other Joan of Arc books. In short: Most books I pick up never fail to bore me, but this text is truly gripping.

Actually, what resparked my interest in Joan of Arc was a an A&E documentary and the recent made for TV movie. As usual, I am always more impressed with the real story, which usually comes from a book. This is also my first book about Joan of Arc and I wanted to get something that would tell me about her without boring me and getting me caught up in long-winded frivolous details. This book is well-written, compiled, whatever and straight and to the point. It told me everything I wanted to know about Joan. I was impressed that she would not allow her soldiers, accomplices to use means of the occult to heal her wound when she was on the battlefield. Her last words when she was burning at the stake, "Jesus! Jesus!" would have been my exact same last words if I were ever God forbid in such a position. Those are always my words when I'm going through trials. What also amazed was that in the 1400s there were people, taking down Joans words, I mean actually writing them down and saving them, so we could have them here today, in the 1990s to interpret for ourselves. Now that's history.

This purports to be a medical textbook, and many of the obviously learned author's quotations are from half-forgotten late mediæval medical writers. A plausible translation of the title into modern terms would be "A Study of Abnormal Psychology." The application of Scholastic methods to this topic --- so similar, and yet so different, from contemporary academic discourse --- creates a curious impression. He invokes astrology and theology in forming his psychology.

But in fact, Burton uses this arcane subject to go off on a profound and lengthy meditation on the melancholies and misfortunes of life itself. The author, it seems, was easily distracted, and his distractions are our gain. The passages on the Melancholy of Scholars, and the Melancholy of Lovers, are themselves worthy of the price of admission.

His prose is unlike anything before him or since him. It has some kinship to the paradoxical and simile-laden style of the Euphuists, but his individual sentences are often pithy and brief.

This seventeenth-century classic ought to be read by anyone interested in the period, in early psychology, or in the history of English prose.

Don't be misled by the title of this book, nor by what others may have told you about it. In the first place, it isn't so much a book about 'Melancholy' (or abnormal psychology, or depression, or whatever) as a book about Burton himself and, ultimately, about humankind. Secondly, it isn't so much a book for students of the history of English prose, as one for lovers of language who joy in the strong taste of English when it was at its most masculine and vigorous. Finally, it isn't so much a book for those interested in the renaissance, as for those interested in life.

Burton is not a writer for fops and milquetoasts. He was a crusty old devil who used to go down to the river to listen to the bargemen cursing so that he could keep in touch with the true tongue of his race. Sometimes I think he might have been better off as the swashbuckling Captain of a pirate ship. But somehow he ended up as a scholar, and instead of watching the ocean satisfyingly swallowing up his victims, he himself became an ocean of learning swallowing up whole libraries. His book, in consequence, although it may have begun as a mere 'medical treatise,' soon exploded beyond its bounds to become, in the words of one of his editors, "a grand literary entertainment, as well as a rich mine of miscellaneous learning."

Of his own book he has this to say : "... a rhapsody of rags gathered together from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and fopperies confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgement, wit, learning, harsh, raw, rude, phantastical, absurd, insolent, indiscreet, ill-composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry; I confess all..." But don't believe him, he's in one of his irascible moods and exaggerating. In fact it's a marvelous book.

Here's a bit more of the crusty Burton I love; it's on his fellow scholars : "Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers."

And here is Burton warming to the subject of contemporary theologians : "Theologasters, if they can but pay ... proceed to the very highest degrees. Hence it comes that such a pack of vile buffoons, ignoramuses wandering in the twilight of learning, ghosts of clergymen, itinerant quacks, dolts, clods, asses, mere cattle, intrude with unwashed feet upon the sacred precincts of Theology, bringing with them nothing save brazen impudence, and some hackneyed quillets and scholastic trifles not good enough for a crowd at a street corner."

Finally a passage I can't resist quoting which shows something of Burton's prose at its best, though I leave you to guess the subject: "... with this tempest of contention the serenity of charity is overclouded, and there be too many spirits conjured up already in this kind in all sciences, and more than we can tell how to lay, which do so furiously rage, and keep such a racket, that as Fabius said, "It had been much better for some of them to have been born dumb, and altogether illiterate, than so far to dote to their own destruction."

To fully appreciate these quotations you would have to see them in context, and I'm conscious of having touched on only one of his many moods and aspects. But a taste for Burton isn't difficult to acquire. He's a mine of curious learning. When in full stride he can be very funny, and it's easy to share his feelings as he often seems to be describing, not so much his own world as today's.

But he does demand stamina. His prose overwhelms and washes over us like a huge tsunami, and for that reason he's probably best taken in small doses. If you are unfamiliar with his work and were to approach him with that in mind, you might find that (as is the case with Montaigne, a very different writer) you had discovered not so much a book as a companion for life.

Of all the editions of THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY that have ever been published, this may be the best for the general reader. The NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS CLASSIC edition wisely reprints the great 1932 Everyman's Library edition, with its wonderful introduction by the noted bookman Holbrook Jackson. (Readers are advised to skim or skip the rather pretentious new introduction by William H. Gass.)

Unlike the "all-English" edition referenced..., the Everyman/NYRBClassic edition gives the Latin tags as Burton scattered them through his work and translates each and every one, either in brackets immediately afterward, or (sometimes) in an endnote to each of the three volumes (now bound as one). I've tried to read the "all-English" edition, and it's disappointing, because it turns out that Burton wanted readers to read the Latin tags whether they could understand them or not. He included their syllables in the rhythm of his prose, so as you read this edition, you can almost hear him quote, then translate, then continue onward.

No booklover should skip this one, and this is the edition to have.

I read 'Incorruptibles' expecting to be dazzled by corresponding pix and hard to defy happenings. Some of the pictures, I must admit, come across as morbid. It also dawned on me that the level of decomposition may not be a function of sanctity but rather of the corpse being exposed to air or the elements. I worked one summer in a Catholic cemetery, and though I wasn't an eye-witness, I was told that people occasionally moved out of state and wanted their relatives moved with them. On more than one occasion, when an exhumed coffin was opened, the body looked normal, asleep, with no decay evident. Some of these were decades old. So I believe that those 'saints' whose bodies decayed after being exhumed, were not miraculous 'incorruptibles' as the author purports. HOWEVER, those who remain the same and exude sweet aromas, then this truly cannot be explained 'in the natural'. This latter condition does eliminate quite a few of Ms Cruz's candidates. I do want to commend Ms Cruz on her research and her well-written first effort. Larry Pozzum Ronnow

This book is excellent. As others suggest that the dead may be found in similar condition, it ought be mentioned that these saints' bodies had no preservatives and in some cases, should have decomposed even more quickly based on where they were buried. The book is loaded with information and great pictures. This whole process of exhuming a body and placing it in a crystal coffin has been in place for years in Europe....only Americans would find this gross. Mrs. Cruz is commended for thorough research and the photographs. I use the book so often in my research that I have gone through several copies and recently had most last edition hard bounded. Highly recommend this and her many other books. It must be something in that New Orleans air!

You Will Be Amazed.
"The Incorruptibles" by Joan Carroll Cruz, Tan Books and Publishers, Rockford, Illinois,

On the very first page of her introduction, Joan Cruz specifies that she understands that she is treating a very special case in the preservation of the bodies of saints. First, she notes that there are three classifications of preserved bodies: (1) deliberately preserved, (2) accidentally preserved and (3) the incorruptibles. Ancient Egyptian mummies are probably the most familiar examples of deliberately preserved bodies; many of us have seen them in various museums. In her introduction, Ms. Cruz presents more details than most of us want to know about the modern techniques of embalming and its impact on the body of the deceased.
(Pages 27 to 32).

Accidentally preserved bodies include the more or less well known cases of bodies found in peat bogs in Denmark, Ireland and Scotland (page 32). Ms. Cruz presents the interesting case of Bremen Cathedral, Germany, where the cellar burial place tends to mummify any body left there. Experiments were run using the bodies of animals or fowls, hung in the open-windowed cellar, and the bodies of these animals became mummified.

The incorruptibles, however, are those bodies which have been preserved only since Christian times and their preservation is ..."even more baffling..." since it "...seems to be neither dependent upon the manner of burial nor on the temperature or place of interment". Joan Cruz makes a case for the intervention of God as a sign of favor to His saints. The mystery is "...further compounded ... (with) ...the observance of blood and clear oils" which flow from these incorruptibles. (Page 27). Her introduction to the book is a clear and pressing statement as to why the 100+ cases she presents are different from mummifying the bodies or from accidental preservation.

After her excellent introduction, Joan Cruz then presents, in chronological order, slightly more than a hundred documented cases of individuals whose bodies had been preserved from corruption after their death. In many of the cases, she provides photographs of the dead bodies, with, perhaps, the most striking and the most beautiful being that of the nun and saint, St. Bernadette Soubirous, (1844-1879), whose body has been preserved intact, "...without embalming or other artificial means", since 1879. This is a wonderful book, which will make anyone think again on his mortality, if the book is read with an open mind.

Having lived within the cloister of the Rule of St. Benedict for several decades, Joan Chittister writes with that rare mix of authority and humility, drawing upon stories from daily life within the Abbey, yet building bridges for Benedict to cross the monastic walls into our daily life. For another such book written specifically for parents, look into THE FAMILY CLOISTER: BENEDICTINE WISDOM FOR THE HOME, by David Robinson (New York: Crossroad, 2000). Benedict offers us in the 21st century spiritual depth and practical clarity on the daily calling of raising children.

Joan Chittister has written a most beguiling and yet practical reflection on the ancient Rule of Benedict. This charming book, though nearly ten years old, is as fresh as the day it was written. "Wisdom Distilled from the Daily" is a timely and welcome guide for all who seek moments of grace and personal spiritual growth in and from their daily lives. Each of the fifteen short chapters is prefaced by a direct citation from the 1500 year old Rule of St. Benedict. Each begins with a description of some physical characteristic of the Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pennsylvania, home of her religious community, to whom Chittister dedicates the book. The author uses each of these concrete realities from in daily life in her monastery as a root metaphor which she breaks open in flowing, nearly-musical prose to reveal the timeless wisdom of Benedict on such topics as Listening, Prayer, Work, Humility, and (my personal favorite) "Holy Leisure". But this is not a book about monasticism. St. Benedict was a layman. While his Rule has been adopted and used by monastic brothers and sisters of various religious orders since the sixth century, it was meant to be a spiritual guide for all -- particularly lay persons. More importantly, its purpose is to help us build our spirituality from the bricks and mortar of the lived experiences of our daily lives. The author reminds us that we can find sanctity in the world around us: "If we are not spiritual where we are and as we are, we are not spiritual at all". This book is a gem! It is an easy read. If you think highly enough of someone to want them to read it also, buy them a copy. Don't lend them yours. This one is a "keeper" you will want to refer to frequently. In "Wisdom Distilled from the Daily", Joan Chittister has remade the timeless sixth century Rule of St. Bendict into a much-needed Rule of Living for the twenty-first century.

'Daily life is the stuff of which high sanctity can be made.'

Near the beginning of Joan Chittister's wonderful treatment of the Rule of St. Benedict, she makes this statement, something that is agreed upon by most who are serious about the spiritual life. The old phrase 'little things mean a lot' is very true with regard to spirituality. After all, it is not the big crises that cause the most problems in life -- in fact, it is often a crisis that brings people together and deepens spiritual feeling and commitment. It is in the day-to-day struggle to maintain sanity and security that the spirit can be ignore most easily, unless paying attention to spiritual things is made intentional.

This is part of what Benedict was driving at so many centuries ago. Beyond the specific rules for his community, which are variously applicable and irrelevant toward living in today's world, is the overarching idea that some kind of rule, some kind of daily intentionality, some sort of deliberate pattern that puts us in community with each other and with the divine is very necessary for today's people.

'After years of monastic life I have discovered that unlike spiritual fads, which come and go with the teachers or cultures that spawned them, the Rule of Benedict looks at the world through interior eyes and lasts. Here, regardless of who we are or what we are, life and purpose meet.'

Spirituality of this sort is far more than ritual action. It is far more than churchiness or how often one does any particular thing, including prayer. This spirituality calls upon the individual to incorporate a way of life on top of daily life, a defining context of life that puts all things, prayer, church, family, work, play, study, sleep, indeed all parts of life, in connection and community with God.

There are interior practices and exterior reflections of these practices. Listening is described as the key virtue toward spiritual growth. Listening has to be more than a passive hearing of what is being said, but an active incorporation into life.

Prayer is a central practice, but care must be taken that this not become routine in the sense of being done mindlessly, by rote, but an active listening for the will of God should always be part of this. Also connected to prayer is the practice of lectio, a reading that inspires and feeds the soul, a reading that is different from academic study or informational and entertaining reading.

Chittister highlights many monastic practices and shows ways in which these can be incorporated into daily life for anyone. Monastic mindfulness -- the blending of the day together in harmony and balance -- can be a principle applied as easily outside the monastery as within the cloister. Certainly the ideas of obedience (to the will of God, if nothing else), stability (which means more than living in the same place), hospitality, humility, and community all are applicable beyond the monastery walls, and in many ways antithetical to prevailing Western cultural ideas. These have the potential of feeding the soul and enriching the lives of those who practice even without the support of a monastic community. Many have been surprised that their conversion of life, to use Benedictine language, can lead to subtle, and often not-so-subtle, changes in those around them.

The seeker asked, 'How does one seek union with God?'

The Wise One said, 'The harder you seek, the more distance you create between God and you.'

'So what does one do about the distance?' the seeker asked.

The elder replied simply, 'Just understand that it isn't there.'

The Rule of Benedict is not a mystical text. It is not a spiritual catalogue or occult-ic manual. It was intended, and continues to serve, as a simple guide to help make people more conscious of their already present relationship with God. It is realistic, and makes no promises of spiritual gifts accruing to those who follow it. Yet the riches that do become present can be very great to those open to receiving them. And in receiving these gifts, they become a gift themselves to the world.

Perhaps this is the meaning of the strange biblical dictum (which often seems unfair upon straight reading)

For to those who have, more will be given,
and they will have an abundance;
but from those who have nothing,
even what they have will be taken away.
- Matthew 13:12

This is a book that definitely fills a need for those seeking a more wholistic way of life.