As we pass through another period in our history where unspeakable wars seem imminent, the great poets of the present and past draw focus, attempting to sound the alarm that might just possibly awaken us. And always chief among those poets who felt the folly and shame of war is Walt Whitman. So it is no wonder that collections of his poems re-surface and hopefully nourish a generation of young people who face the possibility of following the lifted sword.

Whitman's voice, in this collection from the Calamus poems, is turned toward a more personal declaration of intimacy between men rather than fist-shaking against war. In a beautifully designed and curated format, David Groff has selected poems that are enhanced by Richard Berman's selection of photographic images to allow the reader to listen more carefully to the thoughts of the master. Here we are not ask to weep as with "The Wound Dresser": here we celebrate the comradery and love between the living. The sensitive photographs are the contributions of John Dugdale, Mark Beard, Robert Flynt, Bill Jacobson, Russell Maynor, Frank Yamrus and Steve Morrison, and while none of these images is "illustrational", each embellishes the poetry in a way one believes Walt Whitman would mightily approve. A beautiful volume this.

Not only is this a book of beautiful photographs beautifully reproduced, it also has many of Walt Whitman's wonderful Calamus poems from his classic "Leaves of Grass."

The seven male, contemporary photographers represented in the book are all dealing in their images with the themes set forth in Whitman's poetry: loss, love of life and nature and mankind, death, love of man for man, loneliness, companionship, etc.: a man bathing in a tin tub in a John Dugdale cyanotype; two men embracing underwater in a mysterious Robert Flynt image; a man, stripped to the waist, standing alone staring at the camera, in what seems an old, empty house in the hand-colored photograph by Mark Beard; Russell Maynor's color Poloroid of a young, male nude---all of the 76 fascinating photographs in this small, perfectly put together volume deserve to be seen, seen again and shared.

And then, of course, there are always Whitman's magnificent words: "...Doubtless I could not have perceived the universe, or written one of my poems, if I had not freely given myself to comrades, to love." VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

For someone with no formal instruction in philosophy this is a very good book to begin with. Schopenhauer avoids the use of pretensious "philosophical" jargon and writes in a predominantly literary fashion.

The main value in this book is its ideas. Its basic premis is simple, yet the range of topics that Schopenhauer delivers treatises on is quite astounding - art, gambling, contract theory, sexual love and ascetic renunciation, to mention but a few. Only a man of his genius could have found a thread to link these diverse topics together. One does, however, sense at times that he distorts his philospophical beliefs in order to express his revulsion about his least favourite types of human activity.

I found the discussions on art the most insightful and rewarding. The book is a good dissection of the blind striving and willing of our world and has the potential to alter the way you view the nature of things.

WWI is a pure joy to read. Scopenhauer tackles metaphysical questions with clarity, wit, and style. His insights are both profound and illuminating, but patience is needed. Several readings may be necessary to fully grasp his ideas, but it is worth the extra effort. Schopenhauer is the rare thinker who can change the way you see the world.

While it is not necessary to have read Plato, Hume or Kant before reading WWI, I would at the very least, read some secondary literature on those thinkers before starting a journey with Schopenhauer.

The Everyman version is a great introduction to WWI. It cuts the fat but leaves the substance of the ideas intact. Prepare to meet pure genius!

This book tells about how rattlesnakes are reptiles and how their scales are hard. As a snake grows it's skin becomes to tight and it has to shed it's skin. The skin comes off over its eyes first, making them foggy and the eyes look blue. A snake rubs it head against something hard, like a rock, the skin rips and the snake wiggles out.

Drury's work is a classic. It includes discussions of issues in psychiatry and religion by a friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein's, the great philosopher whose works "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" and "Philosophical Investigations" remain controversial and highly influential today in philosophy -- especially analytical philosophy, (the late) logical positivism, and the philosophy of language. Students interested in any of these fields will also benefit from Drury's work, and it can especially recommended to those who enjoy Wittgenstein's own writing, or who are interested in how it might be applied to issues such as psychiatry and religion.

George Berkeley was a leading advocate of idealistic empiricism in British philosophy. He studied divinity and later lectured at Trinity College, Dublin. He went to London to muster support for a venture to establish a college in Bermuda for colonists and Indians in America. Although his college never came to be, he spent three years in the colonies and was a stimulus to the development of higher education in America. This venture also laid the foundation for public reputation for piety. In 1734 he was appointed bishop at Cloyne, in which office he devoted himself to the social and economic plight of Ireland. Berman's biography is a subtle introduction to the life and thought of the second of the three great British empiricists, the first being John Locke and the third David Hume. Berkeley most remarked upon philosophical view is best expressed in the Latin expression esse est percipi, "to be is to be perceived." This is a type of philosophical idealism that considers that nothing can exist apart from minds and the contents of minds. To say that a material object exists is to say that it is or can be seen, heard, or otherwise perceived by a mind. Philosophers such as John Locke had adopted the view that human knowledge depends on the existence of material objects independent of minds or ideas. These objects causally produce ideas in our minds. Locke held that in some respects our ideas resemble objects in the material world, but some qualities that objects appear to have are not in the objects but depend upon our minds. That is, material objects possess in reality the measurable, quantitative qualities, such as size and weight, but their sense qualities, such as color, odor, and taste, depend upon the mind. Against this view Berkeley held that all the qualities of the object depend upon the mind. Since objects have stable and regular existence, the mind they depend on must be divine rather than human. In Berkeley's view, therefore, the existence of a divine mind follows directly from the commonsense belief that physical objects exist when no one is perceiving them. Berkeley believed that the Lockean view gave a basis for skepticism and atheism. His arguments have been of continuing interest to philosophers. In this biography the whole cloth of Berkeley's ideas and theology as well as his enthusiastic endorsement of tar-water as a replacement to strong spirits and a general aid to health are given full form. The philosophical Berkeley is important but the Bishop Berkeley, social reformer and enthusiast is definitely more interesting. Highly recommended as a humanist introduction to the good Bishop of Cloyne.

How is it that the Final Opus of Leon Solomon is out of print in both hardcover and paperback?

The book's author, Jerome Badanes, died halfway through the sequel to The Final Opus of Leon Solomon. What he had written, and revised himself, was a pretty amazing 100 page novella called Change or Die which appears in Issue number #5 of Open City in its entirety.

It is always a peculiar thing when you take a piece of writing that has so much peculiar character and substance, and lump it in with all the other stuff that happens to comprise that issue of the magazine.

This issue has some absurd wild cards - when seen in the light of its central feature, "Change or Die," - such as an Irvine Welsh story he wrote shortly after completely Trainspotting, and this wonderful piece of non-sense that Delmore Schwartz wrote about T.S. Eliot's anti-Semitism. That is the one interesting thematic thread in this issue--Both Shwartz and the academic protagonist of Change or Die (a man trying to recover from Shakespeare,) have a certain lovely fatedness about them.

And Change or Die has one of my favorite short lead sentences:

"The Blik family was a dream and an education."

What a great beginning to such a great story!

(And what a concise and honest use of the short sentence, which has been bastardized and beaten up on any number of fronts, from Hemingway imitators to the cold pragmatism of news providers).

If this whole computer as a means to shop for books is to have any good side, then it is that finding a book like, "The Final Opus of Leon Solomon," or getting your hands on the novella "Change of Die" is something you MUST GET! If only to make use of the fact that you are sitting in front of a computer and perusing.

Jerome Badanes. He is coming back in the only way he can.

Open City consistently publishes great stories, poems, essays, and artwork. I look forward to each issue, because each one is so different, and because this magazine continues to be vital and relevant, esp. because many literary magazines are so staid and dull....

The task of learning idioms is daunting for ESL students. Approaching this matter lightly often leads to frustration. Berman and Kirstein have managed to avoid the traditional dictionary approach and made Practical Idioms an invaluable tool for the mastery of such phrases. I would shrink the over-1,000-idiom list and increase the number of exercises available. This might further help students in their struggle to harness idiom power for more authentic, near-native communication. Great buy!

I think this books is an excellent resource for those who wish to speak English in a very natural manner. The methodology used in the book takes a very straight forward to the use of phrasal verbs an idiomatic phrases.

Practical Idioms helps English-language learners build fluency in English by focusing on one of its most widely used and expressive features: the verb plus particle phrase (for example, stand up, bring over, open up, slow down).

Poetry is a medium normally associated with people so out of touch with reality that their main concerns are love, death, and the generally intangible. Berman understands this, and has published a book of remarkably down-to-earth yet surreal poetry that seems more comfortable concerning itself with the mundane. His "Self-Portrait At 28" is the central opus, a sprawling epic of high-school heavy metal T-shirts, space travel, technological nervous breakdowns, hills, psychedelia, and dogs that still somehow manages to be bizarrely moving. It's probably a cliché to say that it's a book "for everyone", but nevertheless, it's an apt term for a book so full of thought and imagination. Music fans, check the Silver Jews too, especially the "American Water" record.

A copy of this book is bumping along the bottom of the Colorado River heading toward Lake Mead. But before it went overboard: One afternoon in camp, while someone was cooking dinner, I was reading the Lincoln poem out loud to another guy on the trip. By the time I read a third selection from the book (at my friend's request) five or six other people had gathered around and were listening. I don't think any of us read poetry for recreation, but this book resonates, we could all tell that; and it was written with the ambition of being human, and as Grand as the Canyon. It ticks me off that this review protocal forces me to assign a number of stars. You can't count stars.

Saint David the prolific is once again saving our souls. The book carries an honesty and clarity rare in modern poetry, or modern life for that matter. The works here harken back to a time earlier this evening, as you sat at the table, staring at your glass of milk and wondering why your older brother never calls you. It's a simple choice for you, read it now or spend hours agonizing about the time you wasted without these words in your heart. When your heart swells you will understand. May the Silver Jew ride off into the sunset, in a chevy nova listening to steppenwolf. Berman, I salute you.

Have you ever seen sportscentury on ESPN?? I have to, but that's not what this is.. It's good, but that's not it. it goes by decade, and has a big bio on the main person from that centure, and has some extra stats for the decade at the end... then it talks about SOME other people..so it's still a good book, but if your buying it because u think it's like the tv show on ESPN, it's not

I bought this book for a gift - but caught myself reading it before I wrapped it - so I bought one for me, too. A great look at sports through the 20th century. Any sports fan would enjoy this book.

Over the past several months their has been an abundance of books about the sports century, ranking people and each list is very subjective. ESPN has put together some of the more interesting highlights of the last century and this book is one of a kind.

In just over 280 pages there is more sports memories than just about any other book I have read. Packed with photos, and some of them rare, laced with stories and filled with memories, there is something in this book for every sports fan, both young and old.

ESPN has made a name in the sports world as the leader in sports coverage, not with this book they proved themselves right. You'll read about Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Joe Dimaggio and Ted Williams, Johnny Unitas, Pete Rose, Ali and Jordan.

For the true sports fans this book makes the perfect addition to the library. About the only thing book needs now is a video to compliment the writing. Excellent work and congratulations ESPN on a job well done.