What a gift Sebastian Barry has given us all. --A remarkable book which seems to have pushed the language a little closer toward expresing feeling in words. The writer is a poet; his use of language has a transparent quality that make the poetry of life itself more apparent.

The title hints at a modern day Aenid, and indeed this Eneas wanders far and wearily, like his ancient counter-part. I wonder if Barry recognized the power of his own voice as he took up the linguistic legacy of Joyce, giving a nod to Ulysses in his text?

But as much as the language of the book is delightful, so too is the story. Barry has taken as his hero someone who has fallen on the wrong side of romantic history. The author does more than redeem Eneas's suffering, he very quietly requires the reader to re-think attitudes about the romantic and heroic aspects of war.

This book is certainly the finest piece of recently written prose I have come upon. I am extremely grateful to Sebastian Barry for sharing his gifts with us.

Don't be fooled by Frank McCourt's praise for this novel into thinking that it is anything like Angela's Ashes. The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty is a much better book than McCourt's. While McCourt romanticizes every Irish stereotype, Barry imagines a character that falls through the cracks of history. Nothing about being Irish is taken for granted. McNulty's travels take him to England, Scotland, Texas, WWII France and, most interestingly, a newly independent Nigeria. Barry's novel asks the reader to be critical of all his or her assumptions about nationalism, colonialism and political violence. At the same time, the warmth of the unexpected relationships McNulty forms throughout the seventy-odd years the novel covers leaves a lasting impression.

Sebastian Barry's command of language, his passion for life, and his ability to leave room for his characters to breathe, and for the reader to therefore be drawn in and inhabit their special world is unsurpassed. I assume that the succes of books like 'Angela's Ashes' may attract readers to the latest spate of Irish novels (Roddy Doyle's 'Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha' is the best of the previous lot), but Barry's book leaves McCourt's trifle in the dust. A gem in every line, an epiphany per page, a revelation and redemption for all who make this brilliant journey.

as fine a writer as england has produced since the second world war. these plays represent bond simply and completely, as a man of passion and vision and a writer that any reader or writer MUST reckon with if they wish to have an understanding of modern drama. genius, and handed out when the word is knowingly overused. here it is earned.

If you are considering the plays of Bond there is no better place to start than here, at the beginning of his career. This volume contains his first three plays. Whether you have seen thse works performed or not is irrelevant. Just reading them is an interesting experience. This is essential modern literature! Bond's introductions (to all the volumes of his collected plays) are also essential. They have a socialist leaning but are not too preachy. Bond's self-educated working-class position gives his articulate essays a powerful punch. (A punch modern society needs.) I would buy these volumes just for these introductions, they are that good!

After this, go on to PLAYS:TWO for the brilliant LEAR.

It's no surprise that this play, one of the finest I have ever seen, won considerable international acclaim. I would not hesitate to rank it among the top ten masterpieces of 20th century drama.

Plays come and go, but this one, first produced at London's Royal Court in 1995, has all the hallmarks of a timeless treasure. It's drama, and poetry, full of unbelievably rich characterizations and history of Ireland's Time of Troubles.

Thomas Dunne, the seventy-something Da, anchors the play firmly, though not exactly in the play's here and now, about 1932.

Three of Da's four children have relegated him to an Irish county home, not for lack of love. No, Da's gone mad, as his effervescent lapses into the past make altogether real.

He is not so mad, though, not to know the truth of things, and there is the beauty in this Lear-like drama.

Play-lovers will melt on reading or hearing the final 15-minute soliloquy of this masterpiece. Da tells about a dog he had as a child, a dog his father did not want him to have, one that he brought home anyway.

"And I knew that dog and me were for slaughter. My feet carried me on to where he stood, immortal you would say in the door. And he put his right hand on the back of my head, and pulled me to him so that my cheek rested against the buckle of his belt....

"And I would call that the mercy of fathers, when the love that lies in them deeply like the glittering face of a well is betrayed by an emergency, and the child sees at last that he is loved, loved and needed and not to be lived without, and greatly."

That hint of the powerful closing, though, is just the beginning. For the play proves equally rich throughout. Alyssa A. Lappen

This is a wonderful play. I saw it performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and was drawn in by the beauty of the language and the power of the story. It's quiet, at first; and then the drama of a man left behind by history gradually insinuates itself into your consciousness and your heart.

ANNIE DUNNE by Sebastian Barry

ANNIE DUNNE by Sebastian Barry is a book about an elderly woman and her observations on her life, past, present and future. The actual story takes place during one summer in the 1950's in a rural area of Ireland called Wicklow. However, through the ramblings in her mind, the reader is taken back to her past, where she goes over memories of her dear father, whom she has on a pedestal.

Her grand niece and nephew have come to stay for the summer, and so Annie and her cousin Sarah must deal with a big change. Taking care of children isn't easy, especially for two elderly spinster ladies such as Annie and Sarah. However, the children take to Annie as it was meant to be, while Sarah hovers in the background and watches.

It is Sarah's home that Annie lives in, so Annie helps out with the daily chores that need to be done in a rural area like this. Daily chores include retrieving eggs from the hen house and hand-washing of clothes. Making butter and bread is all done by hand. (To Annie's disgust, people in the city buy their bread and butter pre-made!) Their life is a simple one, far from the modern contrivances of the day.

Annie considers herself a lucky woman for having a home despite being a spinster and having a hump on her back. She was never considered marraige material and has lived with family members from year to year. Sarah took Annie into her home after Annie's sister Maud had passed away and her widow decided to remarry. Now, the threat of moving on is back. It appears that Sarah is being courted by a neighbor, Billy Kerr, who Annie thinks is at least 20 years Sarah's junior. This whole idea has Annie worked up and more flustered than usual. She's appalled that this could be happening, and is worried about what the neighbors would think.

On top of all this, Annie has witnessed something strange going on between her neice and nephew, something that could be very inappropriate. The whole incident has Annie worried and troubled.

I enjoyed reading Annie Dunne. Although the story itself was somewhat lacking, for I felt there was not enough substance to this book, the book itself was beautifully written. The beauty of this book was Barry's descriptions of the beautiful pastoral world of Annie Dunne and the precise characterizations that made Annie and the other characters come to life. One could almost hear the pristine silence of the green Irish countryside and the laughter of children, and see the humpbacked image of Annie Dunne living in the beauty that is Ireland. I recommend this book for those readers that yearn for books about the Ireland of long ago.

It is the summer of 1960 at Kelsha in rural Wicklow where Annie Dunne, an impoverished and proud spinster who has known better times, lives out her days on a farm owned by her cousin Sarah. Annie's nephew and his wife leave their young son and daughter in the care of the elderly Annie and Sarah while they are in London preparing for their family's eventual relocation there. Concurrently, Annie's already shaky sense of security is threatened, testing her mettle to its limits.

There are moments of beauty in this story, bolstered by the fulsomeness of Barry's writing. Barry justifies his prose: "If you listen carefully for how people are talking to you in Ireland, in certain districts, it is quite elaborate, there is a strangeness to it."

An interesting aside is that Annie Dunne was a real person: the author's father's aunt and, in his boyhood, his "favorite person on God's earth." And, like the boy in the story, Barry lived with her at Kelsha one summer in his youth.

This is one of the most beautifully written books that I have read in a long time. If you are interested in the heart of the Irish people you will love this book. It has made me want to read everything this author has written. The lovely cover of the book with the little Irish girl is almost worth the price of the book itself.

This book is very interesting to psychologist. In my work with low academic achievement students', children and adolescence needs tools to manage their learning process and motivation to study.

Zimmerman and his colleagues offers a method, and philosophy to teach and learn. This book is easy to aply in diferent educational context, like my country , Peru.

Thanks.

Eduardo Mejía Carbonel Colegio La Salle Departamento Psicopedagògico

This book is a very useful resource for middle school and senior school teachers. One of the strengths of this volume is that it helps bridge the gap between educational psychology and what happens in classrooms. The book is written for teachers, and as such, it provides a series of exercises they can use with their classes to help students become better learners. The authors have taken into account their audience by providing explanations that teachers can understand. A glossary of terms is also provided at the end of the book. The contents of the book are grounded in recent educational and psychological research. Bandura's social cognitive theory (and the importance of self-efficacy) provides the theoretical framework for the book. The book provides a very useful and succinct introduction to the principles of self-regulation and learning and then goes on to address five key academic skills that underpin academic success. Each of these key academic skills are described and a series of exercises are provided so that they can be developed over a five-week period. I found the description of self-regulation and ideas associated with each of the five key academic skills to be excellent, and I highly recommend the book on this basis. I have not implemented the exercises the authors have provided and I'm not really sure that I would. Nonetheless, I have heard of other teachers who have worked through these exercises with their students.