Thanks to Anthony Molino and Jane House's brilliant translation,Manlio Santanelli's play Emergency Exit has been made accessible to English speaking readers.Hailed in Italy as a masterpiece,Santanelli explores the physical and psychological condition of two Becket-like characters in a modern urban setting.Simultaneously witty,probing and disturbingthis translation demands to be read. Better still,it demands to be produced.

Emergency Exit by Manlio Santanelli is a rewarding read, both for it's metaphoric value as well as for its literary style.

I must confess that I am not fond of reading plays. While a work of prose allows your mind to spontaneously create its own images, a play does not. One must first create a mental image of a stage, then create the appropriate scenery, props, and the like. Then one must scrupulously follow what character is speaking, mentally attribute the corresponding voice and follow each character's entrances and exits so as not to have the wrong character on the stage at any given time. There is the whole business of delivery . . . how a written line is to be spoken; what emotion, how intense and so on.

Emergency Exit eliminates most of these problems. First, there are only two characters, Angelo and Martino. The setting is the interior of an abandoned dwelling in Naples. Santanelli is highly directive, providing copious directions for the characters - something that actors and directors may find confining, but removes much of the guess work for the reader. So, from the reader's stand point, it is direct, to the point and unambiguous.

But the real value is its content. Emergency Exit is a metaphor for life. Two characters, one of high birth and the other a commoner, represent the Everyman in each of us. They find themselves sharing quarters in a district of Naples which is largely deserted due to earthquake damage. The threat of another quake looms ever in the background. Angelo's and Martino's arguments and bickering vacillates from the trivial to the profound, but always has the texture of reality. Effusive with existential despair, it never wallows - you are constantly motivated to turn the next page.

What a spectacular book! This will be the starting point for all future researchers of the subject. It's not your typical, dry encyclopedia text. I read it from cover to cover, and found every page enjoyable, fascinating reading. Slide presents beautifully written articles on hundreds of topics, individuals and locations -- and with a wealth of footnotes and resource lists. There's even a small but exquisite selection of photos. I've been researching vaudeville for years, and I learned more from this one book than any five others on the subject. Anyone interested in vaudeville owes Slide a genuine debt for this one. Wherever you are, Mr. Slide, three cheers!

Those of us with a love and fascination for vaudeville, but who were just born too late, owe a real debt to Anthony Slide. This book, while a little light on the stories so near and dear to my heart (though I suppose you can get those from "All My Best Friends" by George Burns) is still an absolutely invaluable reference piece. I'm sure there are others out there (you know who you are!) who wish they could have been there- to see a young Eddie Cantor run around the stage for eight shows a day with total abandon; to witness W.C. Fields as he originally performed, as a silent juggling clown(!); to watch the Ziegfield spectacles; to see, quite simply, the GREATEST ENTERTAINER THAT EVER LIVED, Al Jolson. This doesn't put you in the front row of the Palace, but it sure helps. Even if you're not a fan of this truly American artform, you should be proud that a resource like this exists (and in nigh-indestructible library binding, to boot!) Not cheap, but well worth it.

I read Anthony Minghella's sublime, lyrical novel some time after seeing the Oscar-winning movie and I was struck by the seamless similarities in both genres. The novel has a dream-like quality as it shifts in time back and forth, sifting through the memories of the dying patient and the other inhabitants of the Villa San Girolamo. The cinematography of the movie has the same fluid continuity, no mean feat when one considers how difficult it is to keep a story flowing with constant flashbacks. The film of The English Patient was described by one reviewer as almost film noir. Well, the book is novel noir. This not a romp, it's intricately multi-layered and intended to be savoured.

The story is based in the abandoned villa on a hilltop in central Italy. It is 1944 and the Allies are advancing yet the scent of victory is overwhelmed by accumulated shell shock. The central characters in the villa: Hungarian Count Lazlo de Almasy, Canadian nurse Hana, the Indian sapper Kip and the thief Caravaggio are all burned out by war and in de Almasy's case, literally and mortally burned. Hana is nursing her mysterious dying patient who gradually details his life as an explorer in the desert of northern Africa and reveals his doomed, magnificant, obsessive, life-altering love affair with Katherine Clifton, an English rose with the tenaciousness of a lioness. Hana, who has lost everyone she dared to love, tries to insulate herself from the world but in the presence of Kip and the less noble Caravaggio, she reaches out once again. This is a story of love's expectations, and the shifting loyalties of friends, family and nations in times of war, of deadly betrayals and being rescued by strangers, of healing wounds and preparing for death. In short, all the stuff top class literature is made of and, strangely, pretty much what happens around us every day although the settings might not be as exotic.

Minghella has constructed a vast canvas of human experience, yet he does not waste a word. He peels away the exterior visage of his characters to reveal their joy and pain with an exquisitely bare, poetic use of language. The consequences of their lives remained with me long after I had put the book down. I pick up The English Patient from time to time and the magic is always there.

This is the first screeenplay i've read and i understood it clearly. In regards to the books content i was in tears by the end and it pushed me to buy the film after i read it. A must for any shelf.

Father Zimmerman takes a unique and thoughful approach to all his work, and this book is no exception. Of particular interest to me is his analysis of what St. Augustine's approach meant to the development of certain negative features in Catholic theology regarding Original Sin. (But don't get me wrong, Father Zimmerman is totally orthodox and pays due respect to the great Augustine.)

All who are concerned about this subject and read this book will find much to ponder. Few books really shed new light on one's thinking, but this is one of those books.

This book gives some new insights into original sin and Adam and Eve and I recommend it to all interested in that important subject

This book is an excellent account of one of women's greatest women. It may have been written for a younger audience, but its simplicity makes it all the more intriguing. Her friendship with Elizabeth Cady Stanton is so powerful, and their struggle makes what they fought to win so much more appreciated. "Failure Is Impossible: The Story of Susan B. Anthony," should be used as required school reading.

I enjoy Ms. Bohannon's writing. She is an easy author to follow and can comprehend easily. Her writing was very informative and so interesting that you just did not want to put the book down. Her subject Susan B. Anthony was expressed so well and with thoroughness. I think the book was done so well that it should be considered to become a movie. I know I would thoroughly enjoy a movie about our heritage and how much effort some women put into making women's life today so much easier and better. Lisa was able to bring all of this out, the dedication these women had and never gave up. I truly enjoyed the portraits and how Lisa was able to express something so well written about each person in the book. She is truly a wonderful writer and I cannot wait until her next book comes out. I have her first book and I was so excited that she wrote another book. Thank you Lisa for such a knowledge that you have given to us, and how much we appreciate your telling the story. I truly enjoyed this book. Carol Nipper

I'm half way threw the second one. This is a good series for learning about religions. It really gets down to the point of meaning. Why we're here without any religious garbage.

I read the Tarot series only knowing it was by my favorite author. Piers Anthony has a way of making the reader think....especially concerning long taught ways in our social upbringing. He has made me ponder the meanings of religion (formed and free spirited) on more than one occasion. His hero, Brother Paul, is the epitome of man. Bravo, Anthony!!! You should add more to this series on the world of Tarot.

I just finished reading this wonderful book a few hours ago. The book is so well written, so full of honesty and family anecdotes, it make me feel almost as if I were a member of the Waller family. Maurice Waller (Fats' son) has written a classic, seminal book about the greatest pianist/singer/comedian/actor/composer of the twentieth century. I place Fats' untimely death at age 39 in the same category in terms of the tragedy and loss to the world of music, as the tragic death of George Gershwin in his 30's. (Gershwin and Fats were good friends, by the way. It was Gershwin who suggested to Fats that he study counterpoint and harmony with Godowsky). There are so many good things to say about this book that I wouldn't have room to list them all. Maurice Waller, born in 1927, should in my opinion win a Pulitzer prize for this book. I have already begun ordering CD's ...in order to better appreciate this great man's musical output. Fats was taken under J.P. Johnson's wing when Fats was 16 and J.P. Johnson was 26. Fats himself personally taught Count Basie how to play the organ. Fats was a truly wonderful human being. Over 10,000 people came to his funeral in Harlem when died in 1943. Thank you, Maurice Waller, for writing this monumental book about a monumental man.

I love Fats Waller, which is why I wanted to read this biography by his son, Maurice Waller. I had high hopes and expectations, and I was not in the least bit disappointed! This is a great book! The biography is filled with Maurice Waller's fascinating anecdotes, one of the most notable being the one about how Fats was kidnapped by Al Capone's men. I was also intrigued by the ways in which Fats acquired his musical education, and with the accounts of how he composed his music. The authors also bring to life the context in which Fats Waller lived and worked: the rich culture of Harlem, the way in which the jazz greats nurtured each other and promising young musicians such as Fats, how they created their music, and how Fats and the others dealt with racism in the performing world. It also provides a fascinating look at the young recording industry. The book includes several appendices of Fats Waller's recordings and compositions. This book is short, fast-moving and easy to read, and absolutely packed with information. It enhanced my appreciation and understanding of the great Fats Waller and his work. Anyone who loves jazz should read this book!

This novel happens to be my favorite type of story: one which begins in the present and connects back to the past. In the present there is Faversham, who is plagued by a recurring dream. He goes to an auction and makes a purchase, which turns out to be poetry written by a man who used to live in Faversham's house. Strangely, Faversham finds his dream described in this book of poetry. In the present, everyone is trying to explain this event and other weird happenings, but the writer's strength is definitely his portrayal of the past, in Britain during the reign of King Henry VIII and a little beyond. You will like this book.

Anthony Duncan's novel is a spell-binding, magical tale, simultaneously imbued with earthy humanity and spiritual insight. But this is not a preachy book that sets out to convey a "message". Rather, the lives displayed in the story weave a tapestry of wisdom, which is not easily reducible to any summary. Father Duncan is already well known for his writings on mysticism and theology. He will surely become just as much admired for his fiction, if this novel is any indication.

Piccione's poems are spare and careful, wonderfully devoid of artifice and intellectualism, grounded in the world. His voice is large and generous, extraordinarily kind to the smallest moments and emotions and beings in the world. He asks big questions and provides comfort here on the edge of the dark in language that won't let us dismiss him.

At the first glance, his poems are simple. However, there is a great deal of work that lies behind this seeming simplicity. He is able to find the most essential material in our speech and uses it to achieve the clarity of vision that is almost classical. How? Why? Perhaps because he is asking us the most essential question: "What does it mean to be human?" And, he is able to find the language simple enough to deliver our answers.

I would like to share some of lines of his that I find myself remembering when in need:

"Something unnamed, grief-sweetened keeps calling us out."

"Take me, you want to say even as you are taken."

"See these hands. We raised them to touch and pray."

"I have read all night at the kitchen table. Whenever I look up, people are dying and being born all over the earth."

"We are here / to weep, to touch the living shore, to leave our bones."

"Look. Because I love you fifty miles to the north, I can lie down in still darkness and disappear, with my eyes open."

"Together now in simple nearness, we study each other. There is French wine. Her face burns. We know this place. We do not touch and do not touch."

The Forgotten Air Force: French Air Doctrine In The 1930s by Lt. Col. Anthony Christopher Cain, USAF, is an informed and informative history of the French air force, which despite its many ranks of talented officers and pilots, suffered from incompetent high command and was ultimately crushed in the early years of World War II. Meticulously researched and presented, The Forgotten Air Force closely studies an important and often overlooked facet of the war and the nation. Cain is to be commended for his meticulous research leading to this seminal and enduring contribution to Military Aviation History Studies.

This is the best account of the problems facing the French air force at the beginning of the Second World war. The first part of the book deals with the design problems in developing an air craft that could fulfill both the fighter and the bomber roles and how this resulted in failure. Cain then describes how the French air force had a variety of doctrines in the nineteen thirites but ended up being tied to the army. The most intriging aspect of this book is the dilemma that generals in the French airforce had to face in using experienced personnel for trianing or having them placed on the frontlines. This dilemma strangled the French air force in the opening phases of World War II. I would reccomend this book to anyone interested in knowing the reasons why the French air force was so ineffective in the path of the German Luftwaffe.