Bradley's sure hand makes "Contemporay Irish Poetry" an engaging introduction to Irish poetry after Yeates, and his selections - such writers are Kavenaugh, Clarke, Kinsella and Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney - show an eye for the major figures of today and thier influential predecessors, while not neglecting younger voices. Bradley's judicious selections from the individual writers lend a sense of their larger oeuvre, and the arrangement of the poets, the short bios which preface thier work and the convenient notes allow the reader to gain a sense of the larger issues of 20th century Ireland which the poets confront in their work. Very nicely done.

covers the whole territory of national political history, with the latest scholarship

Jess Lederman, one of the editors of this book, has written or edited many books on mortgage banking, markets and interest rate risk - he is simply the most-informed writer on the subject, and if this is your area of interest I recommend you pick up anything he's been involved with and read it.

The Don and The Lover: A Review of Anthony Valerio's Conversation with Johnny (Toronto: Guernica Editions, 1997, 146 pages)

by George Guida.

Sadness and the subway transport Nicholas--the romantic, romantically challenged narrator of Anthony Valerio's third book of fiction--back to the world he has left behind, back to the old neighborhood and Johnny, the local don.

Nicholas has developed an allergy to pasta. He has loved women as much as his children and dead mother. He has lived a Bohemian life in Manhattan, removed from the values of his Brooklyn Italian childhood and family. Having revealed family secrets in print, he has violated the sacred code of omertà, honor in silence. Midway through his life's journey, he finds himself lost.

Johnny's eyes meet his from the cover of The New York Times Magazine, and Nicholas "knew they could see into everything, even into my subconscious, and they cleansed it of its penchant for debunking my own, for creating the beautiful lie...Instead of becoming a doctor or a businessman, I became a lover." The "beautiful lie" Nicholas has chosen to live reduces his existence to "The Images of a Lifetime," an lover/artist's burnished memories, preoccupations which keep him from happiness.

Nicholas requests a favor that dons aren't used to granting. "Help me change, Johnny...Help me to change from a lover to an ordinary man." Johnny agrees to try, and the result is a brilliant turn on Philip Roth: the Mafia don as therapist. This comic premise anchors the vignettes that form Conversation, allowing Valerio the freedom to demonstrate his virtuosity as poet, comedian, fantasist, philospher, cultural historian.

Johnny plays dialogic foil to Nicholas's inner Socrates, demanding "the whys and wherefores" of Nicholas's "[----]in' tears." Nicholas confesses troubles with his younger, red-haired, cross-eyed, chicken-legged, married, writer g! irlfriend, Lefty. Johnny listens as Nicholas relates family stories, tells tales of Lefty's sexual needs and vague emotions, and narrates the saga of his own desperate love. The process may or may not help Nicholas achieve a new life.

On one occasion, Nicholas compares himself to a figure larger life and death: Frank Sinatra. "Do you think, Johnny, that Marilyn Monroe was attracted to Joe D. the man? Or Ava Gardner, Gloria Vanderbilt, Linda Christian, Mia Farrow, to the humanness of Frank Sinatra?" The comparison reflects Nicholas's suspicion that Lefty has been using him for sex, responding to the Italian "animal" she sees in him. Valerio pushes this ethnic exoticism ad absurdum. Instead of having his charaters refute Italian animalism--the predictable move--he allows them to acknowledge a grain of truth in the stereotype while at the same time exploding it. "Let's face it, Johnny--all of us, we are animals....There's Jake the Bull, Sly the Stallion. Each and every one of us is a fox. But the winds may be changing. Stallone has a script on his desk about the life of Giacomo Puccini."

Nicholas admits to being a chimp, nearly as intelligent as Lefty, but not as cunning in desire. Lefty wheedles over the phone, "Your [ ] is beautiful. I think of it every night...," and when she sees him, "bolted from the yellow club chair, eyes, darting wildly. 'Get in bed. I must have you inside me.'" Nicholas may be the chimp, but Lefty acts from animal instinct, not love--a truth this Dante Nicholas can hardly bear.

During another session, Johnny points out to Nicholas that he is Lefty's "bridge" from unfulfilled wife to successful artist. In the same way, Johnny is Nicholas's bridge from successful and unfulfilled lover/artist to irregular joe. Johnny "married an Italian girl and stayed in the neighborhood," but as a gangster he stands apart from the "ordinary" men of Italian American society--legitimate business! men, dentists. Nicholas, the artist, Valerio suggests, ought to replace Johnny, the gangster, as Italian American man of the people. Nicholas proposes that Johnny use his lucre to finance a home for aged "Italo- American" writers, a request that reveals not only Valerio's cultural philosophy, but also Nicholas's sense of ethnic identity and his self- centeredness.

Valerio's philosophy comes to life in the fantastic figure of Don Pippo Napoli-Sicilia, an aged composite don/lover/artist who emerges from Nicholas's story within a story to share a vision of multicultural harmony. Don Pippo recalls the importance of Italian heritage, while he calls for unity, including in his America "Samir, the gay Palestinian restauranteur," "Bella, the female butcher," and "Gari, the albino Russian musician."

Don Pippo, the visionary, and Johnny, the outlaw/"boy next door," guide Nicholas along his way to a vita nuova. Nicholas must figure out who he is, culturally, personally, in order to find the love he wants and needs. That remains, after all, the beginning and end of the journey and of all constructive therapy. END

The book is great for one who is looking to learn a little astronomy, ancient history (Mayan, Babylonian, etc.), and ancient polytheistic religion. Furthermore, the book dwells on how the ancient people's customs, religion, and astronomy all tremendously interrelated. Any high school level reader can read, understand, and enjoy the book. However, even a person, who has multiple university degrees, can find this book intriguing.

I own and use a variety of cookbooks almost daily since we have eclectic international tastes. And baking bread is something I do the old fashioned way a few times per week. There is nothing as sumptuous as the smell of bread baking or the taste of a warm piece of bread slathered in real butter. And the heartier the better. None of the light as air no substance white bread for me.

And this book is a bread bakers delight and a big book packed with luscious photos as well as step by step directions for breads from dozens of countries. They even have glutten free bread recipes.

Some of my favorites are the Sunflower seed and olive bread on page 20, mixed grain sunflower loaf on page 19,Huron or whole wheat berry bread on page 27, rye bread with dry fruit on page 43, the various rye breads, stout and oat bread, and the green tea bread. And I really love the Lincolnshire recipes from England and of course Lusesekatts from Sweden which we will be savoring this week during celebration of St Lucia.

This is one of my all time favorite sit in a comfy chair near the fire with candle burning and plan for my next bake bread day books............. And it would make an excellent gift for any bread baking novice or master baker.

This book combines the seemingly incompatible: it is spiritual, practical and amusing to read at the same time. The author has years of experience of meeting God in prayer and he shares it with you in a way that makes you feel God so close that the moment you put the book down you want to try...

Browsing in a bookstore, I read a blurb of this book that told every secret twist of its plot. I was enraged, but read 'Cousin Henry' anyway. It was superb, and illustrates perfectly Trollope's own philosophy, given in 'Barchester Towers,' that a good book will not suffer even from the reader knowing what happens. 'Cousin Henry' has other, and considerable, merits, than suspensefulness--although it is suspenseful. It has been called the most psychologically probing of Trollope's works; indeed, Trollope himself thought it to be so, and was very proud of it. The plot, in brief, and without giving anything away, is this: Cousin Henry is the heir of the Squire of Llanfeare--according to the will everyone knows about. But Henry knows of another, later, will, that disinherits him. Most of the book concerns Henry's agonizing over whether or not to make this will public. There is also another plot thread, concerning the Squire's daughter, Isabel, who can only marry if her husband is willing to take her last name (shades of 'Cecilia'). I'll say it again: one of Trollope's best.

Some say you live and you learn if you are lucky...others just live. Gruppo shares the luck he has found through the lessons he has learned in life. A powerful dose of the reality that we are all responsible for our own futures and we make our own luck. Whether you are an executive or a homemaker, you are bound to find yourself reading this adventure from cover to cover. Pack your bags for the road to reality and prepare to make your dreams come true. Gruppo gives you solid strategies and tactics for focusing you energies, like forming a personal board of directors, which challenge you to improve your game every day. Couch potatoes beware!...this book will make you want to pack your persistance and go! A MUST READ for anyone who wants to create their own reality.

Cricket Weather is a collection of poems and prints of the specific. The poems range in subject from music to nature to the study of the human mind, each full of details that engage the reader. Walton's sense of timing and sound in the lines of his poetry is clever and concise. This is a small book of carefully constructed poems that the reader can enjoy on the first read, or with more study, can understand the layers of their construction. I highly recommend it.