Gender neutral language. Based in Right-to-Left format. Lots of English leader-and-group responsive readings. Contains Hebrew sections with English translations, and also transliterations for the primary blessings. The Four Questions are not transliterated, but are in English and Hebrew. The Four Children are children, not SONS. Dayenu is in Hebrew and English, no transliteration. There is a full Grace After Meals in Hebrew and Hallel is in Hebrew and English. Contains 25 pages of music.

Our extended family has tried out other haggadot, but we always come back to this one. The gender-sensitive language is done very well -- it doesn't stick out at all. The book is a work of art!

This book is great. The language is poetic and powerful. It is even gender-inclusive and socially conscious without seeming new-agey. The illustrations are beautiful and dreamy. This haggadah is very versatile and provides a lot of choices for planning your Seder.

This book started it all for me. It stood out in the sociology section of floor 3 at the library. They say that you can't judge a book by its cover, but often, a cover will tell you a lot about the book.

That's how it was with this one. The cover was funky, with half-finished etchings. What was written inside was even better. It was a beautiful discourse on the nature of Love. From Agathon's (it was Agathon that told of Achilles and Patroclus...wasn't it?) tale of devotion, Aristophanes' haunting fable about our "other halves" (and the interludes in between, especially the one about hiccoughs) to Socrates' speech on love "involving the mind and not the body", this is a timeless and highly accessable study.

Read it a few years ago, and have been into philosophy ever since.

Not only should this book be the literary book-fellow to any Classics student, but an absolute must for every human being on the face of the planet. Griffins' translation is not only beautifully rendered/translated but extremely funky and contemporary. It is so applicable to our own modern interpertations of life, the universe,and everything, that you will easily forget than it was written over 2,500 years ago. In addition, the book design values are astounding. The fonts, both English and Greek, are lovely that even the reader who has never studied Greek will fall in love with the flowing lines.

The story was originally written in 1965 but has been reissued in 1992 accompanied by some wonderful paintings by Leonard Baskin that are, indeed, reminiscent of Barry Moser (both of whom, interestingly enough, founded their own private presses). In this day and age, children are basically taught that success is everything and the only thing. This book tells a remarkably different tale: it is alright to fail, as Alberic learns repeatedly. Alberic does not wallow in his failure, he picks up and moves on to new chapters of his life. Ultimately, he learns he is a success by being thought wise, yet he remains uncomfortable in the trappings of success. Why, because he has learned that life is lived best by continual striving, that it is a process, a journey wherein "the freedom and the joy [is felt by] not knowing where each new step would take him." An altogether wonderful lesson for children and wonderful paintings.

This book is sure to delight both parents and children alike. Richard Michelson's whimsical poems coupled with fantastic illustrations by Leonard Baskin combine to make this book entertaining, educational and fun. Each fly receives dual treatment by the author and illustrator. First, a painting of the fly viewed through a child's literal eye matched with a humorous poem, followed by a factual monograph and technical sketch of the fly. Michelson and Baskin have concocted a brilliant collection of flies, real or otherwise.

As a beginning student in graphic art, I heard Leonard Baskin speak at the opening of a printing exhibition at Washington University in St. Louis. That experience made The Gehenna Press and Baskin's work alive for me in a way that simple research could not.

This book contains a bibliography of Gehenna's work which is annotated by Baskin, and that in and of itself makes it beautiful and invaluable. It took Amazon two years to locate the book for me, but it was well worth the wait. If you can find a copy, buy it and cherish it!

This is one of several translations of an ancient (date disputed) compilation of summaries of stories of the gods and heroes of Greece (but not Rome), based, where it can be checked, on excellent sources. If the name of the author is correct, he cannot be the "Apollodorus the Grammarian" to whom the work used to be attributed, but, given the lack of fraudulent internal claims, the bare name seems better than "Pseudo-Apollodorus". Given the huge amount of classical literature that has been lost, and the primary sources to which this compiler seems to have had access (whoever and whenever he was), it is even more regrettable that a portion of "The Library" survives only in an abridged form. (Fortunately, part of the re-summarized material is Homeric; unfortunately, some of it is not.)

This translation features extensive commentary giving detailed comparisons to other classical versions of the divine and heroic stories, combined with surveys of modern literary uses of the stories. The latter is now dated, of course, and Sir James Frazer (of "The Golden Bough") gave even more information from ancient sources in his commentary (with translation facing a Greek text) of 1921 (two volumes in the Loeb Classical Library). But Michael (not Micahel!) Simpson is clear, and, on the whole, well organized. Some readers seem to have found the language too American for their taste. It should be remembered that the author, whoever he was, used a kind of "international literary Greek," which probably seemed fairly up-to-date to his well-educated readers. Whether academic American English is a good substitute is certainly arguable. (By the way, my copy of the 1976 edition is of a large trade paperback; is this considered a second edition, or was there a later revision, whose date is not given?)

The index is not nearly as comprehensive as that in Keith Aldrich's rival version of 1975 (now out of print), but it usually helpful, and Aldrich does not discuss other ancient versions in any detail, or refer to modern literary versions. A recent translation by Robin Hard also has a better index (more than one, in fact), and is fairly good on ancient variants, but likewise avoids treatment of modern versions of the old stories. Simpson's commentary appears as endnotes to sections of the main text, which makes for frequent interruptions, but I have used this edition for a quarter century with considerable enjoyment, and frequent enlightenment about other ancient works.

Simpson's translation lacks the textual notes and apparatus of Robin Hard's 1997 translation, and Hard's introduction and commentary show both a later stage of classical studies and a more sophisticated view of the structure of "The Library". The two translations meet different needs, and it is good to have both available. If Aldrich was reprinted to join Frazer's more expensive translation, one might have to make a hard decision about how many versions can be afforded, and how much shelf space they deserve. As it is, the serious student and the love of ancient literature may want to have both Simpson and Hard at hand, or in a convenient library.

The Leonard Baskin illustrations are, in my opinion, an attractive feature. Aldrich's translation was also illustrated. However, a good selection of ancient art portraying (or possibly portraying) some of the stories or characters would also have been welcome. (The Illustrated Apollodorus - now there's an idea!).

A Cherry pickin' good time!

Both a child's and an adults delight, Leonard Baskin'sMinature Natural History has it all going for it. The format is wonderful for small hands, and there is no reading, just pure visual enjoyment for large minds of small stature. The vocabulary for description can depend on the viewer, and can be boundless. I cannot describe the delight of the artwork. Even the endpapers are gorgeous!

Ten Times Better, by Michelson.

New York Public Library "Children's Books, 2000 - 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing."

"...an imaginative numbers book that picks up where most others leave off. Michelson's jocular verse injects plenty of laughs into the calculations, while Baskin's jaunty, detailed watercolors deploy a sophisticated palette of muted autumnal hues." --Publishers Weekly, 7/31/00

Starred Review! "Paintings full of freshness and spirit, poems whimsical and sly, and yes, even a bit of mathematics all make this book irresistible...The wordplay is completely engaging, and artist Baskin triumps again with evocative and often startling animal images in a muted palette." --Kirkus Reviews 8/15/00

"The versus read aloud well, and the varied and off-center layouts (including a pull-out for the final page) are pleasing also from a distance, making this a good choice for story times...Additional facts, questions, and answers about each animal at the end (with an index) should be fun for individual readers. Baskin's vibrant, eerie, and humorous watercolors are a great enhancement to the intricately playful verses." -School Library Journal 10/00

"...a clever concept for a counting book, and the rhyming text adds to the fun. Baskin's watercolor illustrations, lovely as always to look at... In a lavish gesture, the last page is a gatefold filled with 100 humble bumblebees. The temptation to count is irresistible." --Booklist, 10/1/00

Note: this review is not just for this one volume but for the entire series. This volume is a reference guide and is a good basis, but the meat of Talmud study takes place in the rest of the series.

The main problem with studying Talmud is that at any point in the Talmud, you are expected to know the rest of the Talmud. The way to circumvent this problem is to study Talmud with a group and make sure there is at least one rabbi presence (two or more is optimal since much of the learning comes from the divergent viewpoints and the tension in between.)

What Steinsaltz seems to be trying to do is to place almost every commentary into the his series. This is great for the commentaries, however if you are not familiar with the particular tractate (Ketubos and Bava Metziah are the tractates currently published but there are other ones.) or the argument you will lose the thread of the argument and something that relies on you remembering a statement made a page back is going to be difficult since most Talmud "pages" (long story but there is a popular class in which you study a Talmud page a day) are taking about 4-7 pages to play out.

This is an invaluable book in conjunction with a class. It is also a great series if you have already studied these tractates and would like to come back and see what you've missed (and in Talmud study you do tend to miss a few things, especially if you are starting out and you don't know all the context.)

However, I would recommend the Artscroll Talmud if you are a beginner.

It is said that there is a Talmud for every generation, and the one for now and the next fifty years or so is the Steinsaltz edition, first in Hebrew, and now appearing in English at the rate of a couple of volumes a year from Random House. The "Reference Guide" is a "how to use this tool" sort of book, but in Steinsaltz's unusual case such a specialised book turns out to have general application. For the Christian who wonders about the relevance of Scripture to life -- and what exegesis can mean for lay people of faith -- this Reference Guide can serve as an introduction to their own faith reading. For the youngster attracted to the classics of the East, as Rabbi Steinsaltz was for many years, the book can serve to teach just what books _are_, how to use them, how to be captivated and even captured without being enslaved. For the Jew whose Hebrew -- and Aramaic, and Greek, and history, and.. -- are not up to full-time Talmudic study, this guide can be just that, a guide, and one which will very likely lead to buying the rest of the English language volumes as they appear. A natural bar and bat mitzvah present for all, except those so frum the boys will already have read it in Hebrew. :-) -dlj