D.H. LAWRENCE AND ITALY is composed of three stories: 'Twilight in Italy', 'Sea and Sardinia' and 'Etruscan Places'. The first two "books" seem to be based on journals he wrote while traveling with his German born lover then wife Frieda, whom he refers to as q-b for queen bee, through various villages on the mainland of Italy and the island of Sardinia. Lawrence does not record his experience of "famous" sights in these two books, in fact he says he is not interested in historical places, museums etc. but rather he wishes to see the people and the places in the out-of-the way areas of Italy. He and Frieda travel by bus, train, and boat--close to the ground.

Those who have read Lawrence's fiction will recognize his writing. He describes what he encounters with a visceral language--people, clothing, food, establishments. Some of the places are stunning and some so filthy you wonder how he could have stayed overnight. He visits lemon and olive groves and various high places along the coast and in the interior valleys. His writing is graphic--the reader will be as appalled and enchanted. He reflects Italy just before and after WWI.

In the third book, 'Etruscan Places', Lawrence describes his visits to various Etruscan sites, including the painted tombs of Tarquinia. His writing is less descriptive than that of the first two books. He is concerned with nothing less than the meaing of life, and the conflict between religion and truth (he died a few short years later at age 44 so his reflections seem almost prescient). He muses that societies are organized around death or life. He speaks of the use of fertility symbols such as fish and lambs for Christians and dolphins and eggs for Etruscans; the significance of the color vermillion -- male body painting by warrior classes where red paint connotes power contrasted with the the red skin coloring of the Etruscan tomb portraits which seems to have connoted the blood of life. He says the Etuscans loved life and the Romans who subdued them loved power.

Lawrence's book provides good background for those who would know more about Italy. Many of the places he describes have changed since the 1920s--some for the better. The people have changed--their clothing, homes, etc. are less unique and colorful, but they are better fed, warmer in winter, and cleaner. Hopefully their lives are better, but I don't think Lawrence would agree.

If i were to read only two travel books then this would be the second one, although both my wife and an English friend read it in German translation and reported that it was terrible. Maybe it doesn't translate well. Lawrence, as young man, describes a thread running through his life as he starts the journey by heading south toward Italy on foot from Bavaria with Frida, a way of travel that many Germans still understand very well. Descriptions of people are attractive, like the one-legged Italian who tried to seduce the cold, northern women at a dance. I liked best his description of his own Alpüberquerung, his description therein of the hurried English hiker, the way that Italins have ruined the alpine valleys with industrialization. And I felt loss at his growing distance from Frida. The book made me want to see the lemon and olive trees above Lago di Garda and the villages high above the lake, but we haven't done that in spite of our nearness to the region. Gardasee is completely overrun by German tourists now, not just by those wearing heavy hiking boots.

Had the wonderful feeling of being lost in a magic world, while reading this book. Brought to the magic island of Sardinia, on an old train, on the mountains of the island. And then, when I had the chance to be there, it all became true. The same train, the same atmosphere... in a world that did not change...after all.

Hecht's verse is always a pleasure to read. You see his intelligence, formal skill, and love of language in his poems. "Nocturne" is Hecht's succesful villanelle, which is one of my favorite formal types of poems, and when it is well done, and it is well done here, it can be one of the most successful forms of poetry. bravo mr. hecht. "Sacrifice" also sticks out in the book. it is a poem in three parts, juxtaposing the story of abraham and isaac with an incident in 1945, which is just chilling. hecht has several successful translations. I was dissapointed in the lack of war poems, which few do better than hecht, and the overabundance of religous poems. the dual picture on the cover lead me to believe that the subject of this collection would be both wwii and religion. i would hope next time knopf would do better in designing the cover.

Outstanding masterpiece using many Biblical themes and events to convey the paradox of God's Light in the Darkness of a cursed world, alluding to Creation & Fall in Genesis 1-3.

Just two poems are worth the price of the entire volume:
SACRIFICE - ABRAHAM; SAUL & DAVID.

Excerpts:
Abraham -

Three promises he gave/Came like three kings or angels to my door:His purposes concealed/In coiled and kerneled store/
He planted as a seedling that would yield/In my enfeebled years/
A miracle that would command my tears/With piercings of the grave.
"Old man, behold creation,"/Said the Lord, "the leaping hills,
the thousand-starred/Heavens and watery floors./ Is anything too
hard/For the Lord, Who shut all seas within their doors?"

Saul & David -

A shepherd boy, but goodly to look upon/
Unnoticed but God-favored,sturdy of limb/
As Michelangelo later imagined him,/
Comely even in his frown./

Shall a mere shepherd provide the cure of kings?/
Heaven itself delights in ironies such/
As this, in which a boy's fingers would touch/
Pythagorean strings/

And by a modal artistry assemble/
The very Sons of Morning, the ranked and choired/
Heavens in sweet laudation of the Lord/
And make Saul cease to tremble.

Simply magnificent. A tour de force. Mr Hecht simply gets better with age, like a fine Merlot. Bon Apetit!

Twenty-five years ago the novelist John Fowles published a truly silly essay in which he argued that lyric poetry is the exclusive province of the young. He cited Keats and Shelley to make his point. I was just a kid when I read it, but my reaction was "Shoemaker, stick to your lath." Among the lyric poets I most admired were Pindar and Po Chu-I, Horace and Hardy, men who had done extraordinary work into their eighties. Even then I longed for the reflections of those who "spit into the teeth of Time that has transfigured me," in Yeats' memorable phrase.

With the appearance of The Darkness and the Light, I have another great old man to read. Here are one of the half-dozen greatest villanelles in our language, the most vicious, wittiest flyting since Burns sank beneath the sod, the "Sarabande at Age 77," and the title poem, which I first read one week after my octogenarian father succumbed in the wan, morning light. Fellow Amazonians, I'd say this is the most important book of English verse to appear since Wilbur gave us his collected poems in 1988. Buy it. Read it. Memorize it.

Alma Schindler - the goddess, the muse, the center of attention ... How did she manage that? How did she become an obsession of so many genial men, a thing of admiration of the Secessionist Vienna? But simply - she was a remarkable woman. And also, happened to be pretty and at the right place at the right time, born into an artistic family. It was said that she had a hearing defect. She would move closer to her companion in order to hear better. Men found that irresistible.

One would expect her to be vain and conceited. Through her diary, we entered her mind - she is none of that. At least, not more than any of us. She is an insecure girl. She has fears, doubts about herself, she loves passionately... Alas, her anti-Semitic feelings are shocking. At first, she is quite tolerant and objects anti-Semitic sentiments. Then she changes. One can only find the reason in propaganda being already pretty aggressive. She lives among Jewish families, loves Jewish men and marries two of them. Why then? And how did it happen that she married Mahler so quickly?

"Please God, give me some great mission, give me something great to do!" She could have been quite a good artist. Her drawings show certain talent that could have been developed into something much more. She could have taken drawing classes and maybe, her mission would have been even greater. But she pursued music even though it
seemed that she lacked the talent - not one of her opera impressions on the notepaper correspond to the real score. She never composed a great opera she dreamed of. But she left her mark in the history of arts and love.

This book is a great document. The correspondence between the authors just adds to the value. I only wish there were more photos of Alma as well as letters that she received. It would have been nice to read passionate words of her admirers. At the end, instead of an epilogue, there should have been a short biography. And a word of two about her sisters and mother would have been valuable. What happened to her sister Maria? I guess I need to start searching.

As a long-term diary writer myself I was interested in Mahler-Werfel's diary and the manner in which the voice of the nineteen-year old woman is expressed (and the next two years of her life). Often when I reread my own writings I cringe at my ideas and philosophies when I was young and it takes some time for me to empathise with myself and regain a feeling for the person I was. One of the great features of these diaries is that they truly express the voice of the nineteen-year old, they have not been edited to provide a more sophisticated voice. Perhaps Mahler-Werfel cringed a bit at herself in the way I do, perhaps that is why she never published these diaries during her lifetime, although we do know she gave it some consideration. But I think it is important that we heed the voice expressed in youthful writings because it reassociates us with the people we once were, and hopefully gives us greater empathy with the youth of today.
The most challenging aspect of these diaries is Mahler-Werfel's revelations of her growing sexual awareness with its contradictions, rapid changes of view, hesitancies, self criticism, and intemperate admissions. This is emotional and at times erotic writing. While we can allow Mahler-Werfel the licence to say what she wants about herself, it is less readily acceptable that she describes the behaviour of her partners - some of them quite historic figures. But this is the voice of youth going through very tumultuous personal times. Most people move through these times with varying degrees of ease and distress. Mahler-Werfel's writing reminded me of Wedekind's play 'Springtime Awakening'. The awakening is not satisfactory for all - and is sometimes disastrous. For Mahler-Werfel we can only speculate.
Mahler-Werfel associated with many great artistic figures - in the times of these diaries there are Gustav Klimt, Alexander Zemlinsky and Gustav Mahler. Her reflections on these figures make them more alive than many histories. For her, they were living pulsing human beings and we see them in that way.
But was Mahler-Werfel extraordinary herself? I find it hard to decide. She obviously was not your average woman of the time, and yet it is possible to see her as just a spoilt rich girl who happened to have a pretty face. In her diaries she speaks of writing a song (lied) in a day, playing the whole of Tristan on the piano in an evening. And yet her musical examples noted in the diary are so poorly notated and often so inaccurate that it is hard not to think she had little genuine talent. Perhaps someone else completed the lieder from her tenuous musical ideas. But equally possible is that she was a real talent and, as popular history tells us, was suppressed by Mahler in their marriage. To me, however, there is another reading in that marriage to Mahler enabled her to renounce her musical ambitions, which she knew would never match those of Mahler no matter how hard she worked. To be fair about her musical notation however, we need to remember that all her writings border on the unreadable (perhaps that was deliberate - a sort of code?) although the single-minded line drawings she included are quite fine in a limited way (are they all of pretty Alma herself?).
Another way to judge her musical astuteness is her reviews and critiques of the many concerts she attended. At first look they seem to match the views of the day - wildly supportive of Wagner, dismissive of Bach, Saint-Saens and even Mozart. Was she just copying the view of the day? But then there are the changes of view - suddenly the opinion on Mozart changes, she starts to see some flat spots in Wagner. This does seem to suggest self-awareness in her musical views and even if it is selective acceptance of different critical opinion she shows a capability to make the change. There is one final thought that came to me as I read the diaries - perhaps her influence was so great (it certainly wasn't trivial) that she went some way to actually forming the critical view of the day.
I was immensely fascinated by these writings. If you are interested in human development and artistic creativity I recommend you do not overlook them. One thing is certain - Mahler-Werfel was an impassioned writer as a young woman.

Alma Mahler was a fascinating woman and this diary gives an unique insight into her personality and those she knew. Her growing years, developing both emotionally and in personality come through as does her determination and zest for life. Her time with Gustav Mahler is fascinating and sheds an interesting light into his character and fears at this time. A fascinating read.

New Jersey Bureau of Parole's "Jump Squad" assigns Loretta Kovass and Frank Marvelli to go to Seattle in order to bring back Sammy Teitlebaum, a parole violator. Sammy has been hired to kill mob informer Gus Risposi, who is supposedly hidden by the Witness Protection Program.

The FBI wants the hit to go down so they refuse to help the easterners. Instead, it is up to Loretta, even as she quits consuming caffeine and Frank to stop Sammy before he gets himself so tangled with the mob, the FBI, and the hit that he will not see daylight for quite a long time.

DOUBLE ESPRESSO is a humorous tale that will please of Kovass-Marvelli (see DEVIL'S FOOD). The story line is crisp and interesting though the caffeine withdrawal pains will pain many a reader. Anthony Bruno allows the reader to see more into the weird but intriguing lead protagonists, thereby adding a personal element to the novel. This is a fun series that is forging its own place in the legal pro! cedural sub-genre.

Harriet Klausner

Tony Bruno's latest is simply an exciting and funny read to experience! His characters are satisfyingly real and funny. His descriptive metaphors are almost as bodacious as Joe R. Lansdale's, they are that funny.

I enjoyed this book tremendously, even if I did borrow it from the library. I'm going to read all the rest of his stuff, as much as I can get my hands on. A warm, humane author with genuinely likeable characters. His descriptions of coffee in this book were so alluring and vivid, that I almost was tempted to try a cup (I do not like the taste of coffee at all, makes me instantly nauseous). Now that's powerful writing!

New Jersey Bureau of Parole's "Jump Squad" assigns Loretta Kovass and Frank Marvelli to go to Seattle in order to bring back Sammy Teitlebaum, a parole violator. Sammy has been hired to kill mob informer Gus Risposi, who is supposedly hidden by the Witness Protection Program.

The FBI wants the hit to go down so they refuse to help the easterners. Instead, it is up to Loretta, even as she quits consuming caffeine and Frank to stop Sammy before he gets himself so tangled with the mob, the FBI, and the hit that he will not see daylight for quite a long time.

DOUBLE ESPRESSO is a humorous tale that will please of Kovass-Marvelli (see DEVIL'S FOOD). The story line is crisp and interesting though the caffeine withdrawal pains will pain many a reader. Anthony Bruno allows the reader to see more into the weird but intriguing lead protagonists, thereby adding a personal element to the novel. This is a fun series that is forging its own place in the legal pro! cedural sub-genre.

Harriet Klausner

Dr. Dooley was a young US Navy Medical Officer, aboard a ship in Haiphong harbor when France was being turned out of Vietnam. Following a plea for medical help he went ashore, got to know the people, and grew to love them. He left the Navy and spent several years in the 1950s traveling among the peoples of Southeast Asia, bringing medical care to regions where whites had never before even been seen, until his return to the U.S. shortly before his death from cancer.

He saw and described many horrors committed by Communists on their own people trying to cross the new border from North to South Vietnam after the country was partitioned. Those descriptions of what was really happening stand in stark contrast to the stories popularly accepted in the U.S. a decade later.

These three books form a powerfully emotional yet factually substantiated account. They are worth searching to find and read. Would that they would be reprinted as many less worthy books are these days.

Dr. Thomas Dooley was a hero to me. Fire On the Mountain means to me the Fire yet another time after the French left for honourable reasons Indochine and still the people could not be set free. Agriculture burned and people died. Deliver Us From Evil was their petition, and the world did hear them, but too much, it would seem. Merton would have been his Confessor, but over what teletype would this have been then? I did read Merton as a girl, but it gave insufficient consolation to these wounds of the heart. On the Night They Burned the Mountain, the children of that Tigerland were again left behind. Tom Dooley didn't live to see it, and before he slept, he anguished sore. I neither need to buy these books nor see the film. I've lived in that hereafter and carry in on through the remainder of my life.

I first read these books when I was in H.S. They inspired me to want to be a better person and devote myself to good works. I know that sounds odd but these are no ordinary books. I recently reread them and found them to be even better than I remembered. These are noble books written by a noble man. Tragically the author died from cancer at a very young age. The background for these books may seem a little dated due to the fall of Communism in Russia but the subject is as pertinent now as it was then and will be hundreds of years from now. Inhumanity and humanity. The cruelty of ideolegies versus the compassion of the individual. These are an excellent choice for any reader from nine to ninety-nine.

This omnibus of some of Pat Anthony's shorts clearly shows her having a versatile imagination. At times she borders on being witty, but seems to forget how to carry the ascerbic wit through to a satisfying conclusion. And like many of today's modern female authors, he seems unable to resist bashing men in some of her short stories, something which is patently adolescent, hence why Pat lost one star from my overall rating.

This collection of short stories is worth reading for several reasons: First, Mrs Anthony covers a wide range of topics with these stories - it's not the same theme repeated over and over again. You are thrown from a boy who remembers the future to a pilot captured by aliens to a ghost story to a virus infection on Mars to your neighbor, the alien, to a city-kid "imprisoned" in a redneck town with Torku to.... do you get the picture? And every time, it's fresh. Creative. The ideas are new. Second, this is not SF where problems are solved with science. No "beam me up, Scotty.", sorry. Most of these stories explore the human condition, human behaviour, human reasoning. Third, P. Anthony has a way with characters and with language - both seem very alive, and she does it with very little words. Fourth, the stories get you (or at least me) thinking. They're not very happy stories, so if you need happy endings, then this book is not for you. But the stories grip you, and they stay with you after you read them. I couldn't stop reading. It was one of these books I finish in a few hours. After reading it, I got Cradle of Splendor, one of her novels, which I didn't really like much. I'll try again with Brother Termite, but what I really wish for is more short stories.

As I write this, I am only part way through this book, but the stories are remarkable. Patricia Anthony is astounding. I can't wait to read everything else she has written.

There are two hazards in reading Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time (12 books in 4 volumes or "Movements). First, you may be too bored to continue (so buy only the first volume to start). "Nothing" happens in the first two volumes I've read. Fans of action, suspense, romance, light, or even historical novels may be most unhappy with this series. For the many characters living through the 1920's and '30's described in the first two movements, life is an endless round of parties and conversations over food, through which the characters, in ever mutating combinations, drift while insightfully discussing each other. In a sense this is high-brow and high-toned soap opera. Only in Book 6, as World War II impinges on the characters, does an outside structure of events impose itself on the actions and reactions of the characters. Previously they have seemed largely to float in an hermetically sealed world of university-educated gentlemen and their women (mothers, wives, and ex-wives). In this upper class void no chronological dates are supplied, although if you are an octogenerian the names dropped may supply a framework to the intricate sets of flashbacks and occasional anticipations Powell employs. We learn much about the main characters, but rarely see them at work or play, and never domestically or with children.

The second hazard is that you may be forever spoiled for reading anything less well crafted. The next author you read after Powell may seem shallow, simplistic, juvenile, obvious, crude, banal, overheated, or even vulgar. Powell's writing is objective, distanced, understated, intricate, subtle, acute, and highly precise; the apotheosis of ordinary detail. Powell's strength lies in closely observed and particularized character development, our understanding of each person altering slightly from one vignette, glimpse, or reference to the next. Allegedly a masterpiece of comedic writing, "Dance" is not, however, funny, farcical, or obviously, satirical. I really think it takes an English person to see and enjoy fully the comedy of manners I sense behind the prose. I felt I was always on the outside, vaguely aware that people might be not quite right, or "dotty," except for one passage in Book 5 where I laughed out loud. I probably need an "Annotated Powell."

You can see I'm deeply conflicted about this series: it is marvelously well-written yet I am not well entertained. An honest reviewer admitted that Powell "evokes a wry poetry from drabness and boredom." It took me 5 years to finish the first Movement, and dogged determination to read the next, and still I want to read one more! Just not immediately.

_A Dance to the Music of Time_ is an extremely absorbing and well-crafted novel (composed of 12 smaller novels). Its subject is the decline of the English upper classes from the First World War to about 1970, a decline seen is inevitable and probably necessary, but somehow also regrettable.

Such a description might make the novel seem stuffy, but it is not. _A Dance to the Music of Time_ is at times very funny indeed, and always interesting. always involving. It features an enormous cast of characters, and Powell has the remarkable ability to make his characters memorable with the briefest of descriptions. In addition, Powell's prose is addictive: very characteristic, idiosyncratic, and elegant.

The long novel follows the life of the narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, from his time at Eton just after World War I to retirement in the English countryside in the late '60s. But Jenkins, though the narrator, is in many ways not the most important character. The comic villain Widmerpool, a creature of pure will, and awkward malevolence, is the other fulcrum around which the novel pivots.

This second volume of the University of Chicago's beautiful trade paperback editions features books 4, 5 and 6 of the novel series. _At Lady Molly's_ is centered around the eccentric title character and her parties, as well as such other characters as her eccentric husband, Ted Jeavons, and even Nick Jenkins' wife-to-be, Isobel. _Casanova's Chinese Restaurant_ opens with a bravura prose set-piece of flashback within flashback, and deals with Jenkins' great friend the composer Hugh Moreland, and with the tragically unhappily married critic Maclintick. The subject of the novel is marriage. The last novel in this book is _The Kindly Ones_, which deals with the coming of World War II. It begins with a flashback to 1914, as the First World War breaks out and impinges on Jenkins' childhood, then continues in the late '30s as Europe heads again into war.

This volume contains the second three novels of Anthony Powell's masterpiece, A Dance to the Music of Time. Readers coming to this series for the first time should start with the first volume. Powell's work is social comedy in the tradition of Jane Austen and George Meredith. Contemporary writers with whom he is often compared include Marcel Proust and Evelyn Waugh. The 12 short novels of A Dance to the Music of Time give a panoramic picture of English upper-class social life from 1921 to 1971 that is both intensely realistic and amazingly funny. Readers either love Powell's work or can't understand what others see in it. My own opinion is that Dance is the best novel written in the twentieth century. Others share this view: A Dance to the Music of Time is #43 on the recently constructed Random House/Modern Library 100 Best Poll (of twentieth century fiction) and was made into a 4-part miniseries on British television just about a year ago.

Libeskind has refind his deconstructivist style, expressionist architecture and somewhat of an "acquired" taste. The book shows only a couple of pictures per project, however the reading gives a fantastic insight into the mind of Libeskind. I'm not the type that would usually read the amount of text that's included in this book but it does draw you in, enabling a full and "accurate" understanding of what his architecture is all about. If your not passionate about deconstructivist architecture steer well clear.

Following up from Libeskind's previous monograph, radix matrix, "The Space of Encounter" read brilliantly into the life of this master architect. However whilst the former read as an extrusion into his work, "Space" intelligently delves into the writing that aided in the creation of such experience like the Jewish Museum in Berlin. With additional writing by the likes of Kipnis and Vidler it makes this book a must read for anyone interested in the theory and manifestation architectural of ideas. Though the pictures are few, the articulation of the writing weaves fantastical imagery lending to very technique used by Libeskind in his drawings. The book is convenient, as well - fitting nicely in the hand or satchel, making it the ideal companion both in size and in content. Libekind's "Space of Encounter" is easily the "S, M, L, XL" of the new era.

The refreshing thing about this book is that it steers away from the traditional 'monograph' format, in presenting work both built and unbuilt as well as significant theoretical treatises from Libeskind and others. There could have been more attention paid to structuring the content so that the projects followed a particular line of architectural strategy (as opposed to alphabetical organisation) but with Libeskind this is likely an intertextual approach, allowing the projects to be linked as the reader sees fit. An excellent snapshot of the thoughts of one of todays best architects...

The subtitle of this book is a history of philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance, but that can be slightly misleading. It is in fact what it claims but it is also much more and a little less. The little less is that only the book's last two chapters cover the period after the death of Aristotle but anyone who has slogged through medieval philosophy will appreciate and understand the author's choices. The good news is how deftly the author, Anthony Gottlieb, covers the topics and philosophers selected. The Dream of Reason is a wonderfully comprehensible volume that glorifies the Greeks, certainly not for getting it precisely right, but for expanding the attempts to actually get it (it, of course, being a simple word covering a multitude of complex ideas.) This book is always intelligent and very entertaining. There is no better single place for a reader to go to cover this vast period of time.

Anthony Gottlieb delivers a readable, enjoyable history of philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance in The Dream of Reason, although the history is predominantly of the Greeks, particularly the big three, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (only the last two chapters cover the period after the death of Aristotle but the author makes a healthy, believable excuse for this). The book makes the ideas comprehensible and, often, funny which four years of medieval and classical studes at university often failed to do. Passing over the more scholastic medieval arguments now seems like a wise choice the author made. The history of philosophy, in this author's capable hands, seems important, relevant and, most suprising, quite interesting. At times he may seem a tad generous to each of the ancient philosophers but he cleverly backs up everything he states. A good book for those looking to plunge into this topic.

An interesting look at the history of Ancient Greek and medieval philosophy. I agree with the other reviewers in that the cursory review of the medieval philosophers was appropriate, although perhaps the book would have been better if it had simply ended after discussing the Hellenistic philosophers. The chronological sense of the book left me with a feeling of anticlimax.

I found the discussion of the Hellenistic philosophers fascinating and would have liked to see a further discussion of them. Overall, a very worthwhile read.

Storr never fails to amaze me with the depth of his perceptions. He dicusses 'head-on' the kind of ideas that one has thought of before, but never persued. He manages to cover every view-point without obvious bias...I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the reasons one is drawn to create, and the links between mental illness and creativity/madness and genius......

I wish this had been the first book I read for a semester of independent research on the relationship between creativity and mental illness- this is an extremely clear, comprehensive look at a variety of questions within the field. The only failure in this is Storr's habit of raising interesting questions and never answering them. Overall, an excellent read, borrowing much from Jung's idea of integration.

Storr not only clears up much of the misinformation surrounding creativity and madness, but once again proves himself to be a remarkably clear interpreter of both Freud and Jung.