Growing up, my father had a copy of the original vinyl recording of this from the 1950's. Every Christmas it came out and was played, and now I can't think of Christmas without it. After being unavailable for decades, I'm delighted to see this record once again available. Few people know that Dylan Thomas gained fame in his lifetime as a radio personality, and the dry, droll voice of his takes his fantastic prose and breathes a life into it that the simple words themselves cannot demonstrate. A classic, recommended to all.

Just finished with the annual tradition of reading this fine work aloud to the whole household, & although Dylan Thomas's perfect (if sometimes tongue-twisting) prose cannot be improved upon, nonetheless, Trina Schart Hyman's illustrations do enhance the story, & make the Welsh poet's vivid reminiscences even vivider. A marvel of beauty, both lyrical (Thomas) and visual (Hyman); a joy to peruse. Make this edition of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" part of your collection, and part of your Yuletide tradition!

Christmas so often disappoints us. And why not? How could it ever live up to the sappy and maudlin presentations it suffers so often on TV, in the movies, even in commercials! Along comes Dylan Thomas (well he came along a while ago) and captures elements of the holiday that we can still live today. There is a town shut up against the cold with the occasional hardy soul braving the elements. There are families, rich in generations, sharing a day punctuated more by the telling of tales than the exchange of gifts. There are children overcoming their own fears of the unknown to give "Good King Wenceslaus" to a spectral figure behind a closed door. And there lies, on the final page and in the final line, an ending that captures all of what is best in the holiday and, maybe, what is best in all of us. Granted, until you hear the poet himself read this work, you will never capture the full effect, but you will come close. And you may be more ready for Christmas than you have ever been before.

I have now bought three copies of this book, one for my house in London, one for my house in the country, and one which I cut up - so I could frame and hang my favourites. It IS that good: this is a truly-wonderful collection. Howard Schatz is a great photographer and in Pool Light he sets the benchmark.

I have over 50 photo books in my collection, but this one gets the most attention. Everyone seems to linger over the many beautiful images in this book, even after quickly flipping through other photo books by great masters. Howard Schatz has taken some beautiful vibrantly colored (and some black and white) artistic photos underwater, even though most other photographers get ugly photos with a horrible blue cast when they take underwater shots. The monumental effort necessary to create these great images is documented in this book and is well worth the read too.

By the way, it is interesting to note that some people I know who are offended even by what many would consider artistic nudes are surprisingly not offended by the nudes in this book. So, if you tend to be offended by artistic nudes, perhaps you may find this book opens your eyes to the beauty of the nude as an art form. I suspect with this book that Howard Schatz may have made a significant contribution to the acceptance of nudes by the general public.

Absolutely beautifully photographed book. Schatz captures the God given beauty of the models under water with perfect taste. This is his best book by far. Yes far better than his most recent book Nude Body Nude.The dancers and models in this book appear to be much more natural and have a graceful beauty that almost makes you forget their nude; as opposed to the cliche "sexy" look that is typical of other models.

"Baby ER" is an incredibly dramatic story of hope, fear, miracles, and joy. For parents like myself who have experienced this situation, it will be like revisiting an unforgettable time in our lives. For those who have had the wondrous luck of never having walked in those particular shoes, it is an eye-opening account of a world known to a few. I appreciated the fact that Humes drew from his own first-hand knowledge of what the parents go through during this stressful time. In documenting the stories of three different families during their stays from the critical first hours of life to the unforgettable conclusions, he tells each story with sensitivity and compassion, as a father who has been there should. This is an outstanding book that should be shared with anyone going through this situation, and with every doctor, nurse, and other health-care professional who might be connected with the care of children.

this book is great! it follows the real life happenings of a nicu in california. it follows the cases of several families, through their ups adn downs, and everything in between. there are babies that recover fine, some that recover with problems, adn some do die. it also talks about things from the doctors and nurses perspectives, and gives some history of neonatology. a great book for preemie parents, non preemie parents (i am not, and just loved this book), doctors, nurses, etc. very good read.

As the mother of a multi-handicapped child, it's difficult to describe to others the roller coaster of our daily lives. This book captures it all, the doctors, nurses, therapists, parents, and always the babies. Impossible to put down as you follow the infants ups and downs, learning the history, politics, and management of the modern NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). This should earn Edward Humes another Pulitizer. I'm buying it as a present for my own daughter's neonatologist/pediatrician.

Bloodstones fills every need that a sword and sorcery reader has. The character,Kane, is truely the hero or un-hero, your choice, that we all seek to follow. Sporting the triple "B's", Big, Brutal, and Brilliant he shows the reader survival and success techniques that apply even in today's market arena. I am constantly amazed at the intricate flow of intrigue Wagner created. I have read the book three times and then lost my copy. I am now on my own quest for the "bloodstone" and the power of it's story.

In the book a worrier name Kane who seems immortal and ageless, finds an ancient relic in the booty of a bloody raid. With this relic he seeks to unearth and awaken an ancient power with which he will rule the earth. It is a gory tale of a man part savage, part sage, with a touch of satanic seasoning, and lust to rule the planet he is doomed to stride for eterity. If you loved Kane you should try and read some of Wagners other tales of Kane Like : Dark Crusade, of Darkness weaves both excellent, and they give hint to his past.

If you liked Bloodstone, the rest of the series is a must read. Wagner has managed to create the near perfect anti-hero. I would also recommend "Killer", a book he co-authored with David Drake. Not a sword and sorcery tale, but good sci-fi.

There are two separate matters to consider here: the nature of this volume of Auden's collected poems, & the poetry itself. To tackle the first issue: this is not a _Complete_ but a _Collected Poems_, & this is a crucial difference. Auden was a perpetual reviser & assembled his canon with care. As with Robert Lowell his revisions are sometimes bewildering attempts to remake himself & his work in a very public manner. Auden grew to hate many of his best & most famous poems, notably "Sir, no man's enemy", "September 1, 1939" & "Spain 1937", & these are all excluded here, along with countless others. Late in his career Auden massively revised & pruned his canon, a project that was apparently prompted by his horror at the unprincipled use of his most famous line ("We must love one another or die") by Lyndon B Johnson in a notorious 1964 t.v. ad. (He was right to distrust that line's easy quotability: in the wake of Sep 11th the poem has enjoyed renewed popularity, which is pretty bizarre for a poem with lines like "Out of the mirror they stare, / Imperialism's face / And the international wrong.") Thus this volume presents a drastically lopsided view of Auden's work, & for this reason I cannot recommend it to anyone as an introduction to Auden's work. Nearly half of this book's 927 pages is taken up by work from the late 1940s up to Auden's death in 1973, & only the most ardent admirers of Auden will be able to find much of value in the final few hundred pages, facile, prolix & chatty verse which greatly disappointed Auden's contemporaries in his lifetime & which reads no better now. Anyone actually interested in the poetry that made Auden an important & influential poet should turn to the _Selected Poems_ & _The English Auden_. The former reprints the earliest printed texts of poems; the latter the texts as they stood when Auden left for the USA. This is an important distinction, especially for one of his most famous poems, "Spain". In the _Selected_ this appears in the 1937 version, which contains a stanza referring to the need to commit "the necessary murder". Orwell viciously attacked this line in a pair of essays, dishonestly distorting it into an apologia for Stalinist purges in "Inside the Whale". Auden, probably in response to the earlier of the two essays, altered the stanza in the 1940 version (entitled "Spain, 1937"), & eventually deleted the poem from his oeuvre. Auden nonetheless (rightly) defended the original version of the line, arguing that it was an honest attempt to speak of the possibility of a "just war", against the absolutist pacificist position that all wars are wrong, while nonetheless not downplaying the brutality of war.

About the poetry I can't say enough within the space of a brief review. Auden is probably the most influential English-language poet of the 20th century, & depending on your perspective must take much of the credit or blame for the midcentury retreat in the UK & US from the modernist & avantgarde styles of the early 20th century. (For good polemical histories of this shift, take a look at Jed Resula's _The American Poetry Wax Museum_ & Keith Tuma's _Fishing by Obstinate Isles_.) Auden was probably the most technically accomplished poet of the century, & yet this is not enough: by the end the verse fell into an obsessively genial & cozy facility carefully gutted of the urgency of his earlier work. His canon is still rather in need of a strongly revisionist survey: his most famous poems are sometimes justly so (the sublime "Lullaby", one of the century's great love poems) and sometimes in need of demotion ("Musee des Beaux Arts" for instance opens with one of the most fatuous lines in all of modern poetry: "About suffering they were never wrong, / The Old Masters."; & the elegy for Freud is like other of Auden's poems disfigured by nursery-talk & condescension). This volume makes me ultimately rather sad, that a poet with such enormous promise (the work he wrote in his early 20s is still utterly astonishing in its accomplishment & daring) never quite made good on it, & even came to hate much of his own best work. Turn to the _Selected Poems_ to get a better measure of what Auden was as a writer.

"Collected Poems" brings together Auden's greatest poetic work, which was abundant, diverse and always masterful. It's difficult to describe the breadth of his work -- emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, technically. From a purely technical standpoint, however, I've never seen as many first rate sonnets, sestinas, classical odes by one poet in one place. Auden is the only poet I've ever encountered who seems incapable of writing badly. In my humble opinion, no one surpasses him in the 20th century in the English language.

... and will enliven his readers. From the ineffaceable early work to the effervescence of the later, from the casual perfection of his songs, to the dark grandeur of "The Age of Anxiety," Auden's poetry enriches and helps one to live.

It was the late Joseph Brodsky who said that if there were no churches or religions, a religion could be founded on the writings of W H Auden. That is stratospherically high praise, but we see what he means.

Auden's prosodical confidence, his ease with the most difficult of forms, reminds one of an Olympic gymnast. His sobriety and skepticism, his sharp eye and his good cheer, his tone veering from the outrageous in one poem ("Even hate should be precise") to the reverent in the next ("Whitsunday in Kirchstetten") make him one of those poets we cannot readily dispraise without convicting ourselves of envy.

This is a good read about a fascinating individual. John Marshall is clearly one of the most underrated shapers of our country and this book goes a long way in providing the texture and context of his life. The author does a good job of balancing history with legal scholarship and I believe that this is worthwhile for both the "lay-man" and the "law-man". I did believe that the author abridged the content a bit too much at times(for example, he did not cover Marshall's point of view on the Declaration of Independence or Articles of Confederation, and he covered the last 12 years of Marshall's life as Chief Justice in less than 50 pages), but overall, it was a solid investment of my time.

This is an outstanding biography of a great American who not only gave the United States a solid foundation for its judicial system, but also shaped the judiciary as one of the major branches of the Government. The biography is a marvellous and beautiful piece of work by Jean Edward Smith. The focus is on John Marshall and the law. This exquisite literary work reveals a great mind and a great man! The author, by often quoting John Marshall's letters and legal opinions, portraits a creative mind with a capacity for splendid expression. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in American history and Government. I will also recommend this for all students and practioners of law.

John Marshall defined American law, politics and power. This book paints a vivid picture of who Marshall was, and why he is still important today. The author does an excellent job stating the facts and letting the reader decide for her/himself whether or not Marshall did the right or wrong in the very important decisions he made. This book is enlightening and well written. Marshall's life is wonderfully told through the authors use of clear and concise writing. This book is excellent. It clarifies many misconceptions of this great man who came out of a generation that claims many great men. Marshall may be the least understood of them all, but he certainly is no less important than any of his contemporaries in forming and defining the United States of America.

I have a real passion for the American Civil War and, if truth be told, I usually enjoy reading about it from a Southern perspective. I am though no Robert E. Lee worshipper and can see the good and the bad in the man and the soldier. He was not the perfect general and he did make mistakes (some very costly) but he is a fascinating character and any understanding of him leads to an appreciation of duty and honour. In those respects he was a paragon of virtue.

I'd read so much about Lee during the war that I needed something more, to find out what happened to him after the war. Charles B. Flood provided that "something" and I am so happy that I decided to go for this purchase. It was a snap decision but one I shall never regret.

The first ten chapters of the book are worth the price of purchase on their own, dealing as they do with the surrender of the marvellous Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox and the subsequent weeks and months as Lee made his way back to Richmond and waited to see what fate awaited him at the hands of the victorious Union.

I don't believe Flood was laying it on too thickly but the devotion felt towards Lee by his old soldiers (Pickett excepted of course) and the civilian population of the South are incredible. The stories of soldiers coming to see him before they set off on foot to return home are just so moving and Lee will not say no to anybody who wishes to see him.

After those opening incredible chapters things slow down somewhat and we learn of Lee's transition into what could be called a 'normal' life which sees him take up the presidency of the Lexington College in Virginia. It's not rivetting stuff by any stretch of the imagination but it's interesting and we gain a greater insight into what drives Robert E. Lee... duty and honour. He could have cashed in on his name a thousand times to retire a wealthy man, but he would not sell out and knows that his example, a dutiful one, will be followed by so many former Confederates in those dark post-war days.

Lee also refuses to incriminate his former comrades when pressed to do so and it is a measure of his standing even in the North that no-one dares to bring charges against him, despite the clamour from some sections of society that he be tried for treason.

The picture that Flood paints of Lee is not always flattering though. He is shown to be a stubborn man in some respects and his family are always in awe of him, especially his daughters, of whom he is extremely possessive. So much so that all three will die spinsters!

One of the last things that Lee does before his death in 1870 is to go on a short trip into the deep south and that again provides an incredible picture of his standing in the old Confedracy. Though he craves privacy word gets out that he is on a train and telegrams break the news ahead of his journey. Consequently, thousands turn up just to get a glimpse of him, with old soldiers bringing their children (man of who have been named after Lee). It is a very moving account of just how deeply his people felt for him.

My only complaint is that I would have liked just a little more reaction to lee's death around the South. How did the people react? What did the papers say? That sort of thing. An omission that could easily have been avoided in my opinion.

All in all though a hearty well done to Charles B. Flood for an excellent biography of Lee's last years. If my review sounds a little soppy then believe me, the book isn't. It is a solid, fair and well constructed picture of the last years of Robert E. Lee's life. It may move you in ways you weren't expecting though!

This book shows a side of Robert E. Lee that seems to have been lost in the history books. After the end of the Civil War, we hear little or nothing about General Lee. In truth, he died five years after the war ended, but he made the most of that time in trying to repair the damage done by the war. This book is an excellent chronicle of those years.

Lee lost most of his property during the war. He was a career soldier, and didn't have many prospects for employment. He hoped to move onto a farm and to live quietly in the country.

However, other plans were being made for him. The trustees of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, voted unanimously to offer him a job as president of the college. Lee was not a professional educator (although he had served as superintendent of West Point), but the trustees believed that his leadership and integrity were just what the college needed to survive the harsh economy left by the war. For his part, Lee saw this as an opportunity to help young Southern men to become productive citizens.

The college's wager paid off. Enrollment grew each year that Lee spent at the helm. The college developed new programs, and Lee's stature and good reputation were such that Washington College received large donations from philanthropists, even in the Northern states. Lee took a personal interest in the students, learning to address them by name and taking responsibility for disciplinary measures.

Yet Lee's last five years were not years of unabated bliss. His health declined steadily, his wife was an invalid, his brother died, and his reputation suffered from some unjust attacks in Northern newspapers. Throughout it all, Lee held his head high and maintained his dignity, his character, and his principles.

Lee put much effort into healing the wounds left by the war. He appreciated the esteem in which he was held by his fellow Southerners, but he encouraged them to be loyal citizens of the United States of America. He never said a word against General U.S. Grant, and even rebuked an employee of Washington College who did. One of the most fascinating (and mysterious) episodes in the book is Lee's trip to Washington, D.C., to visit President Grant in the White House. No one else was present for the meeting, and so no one really knows what they discussed.

The book ends abruptly with an account of Lee's death, without going reporting on his funeral and his family's life without him. Even so, this book makes great reading and has fascinating insights into the private life of an American icon.

This was a passionate story of the last five years of the life of one of our greatest American heroes. Finally, we have a look at what Lee accomplished AFTER the war! From the first chapter to the end, I was enthralled with the story of Lee's dedication to God and country. The author used interesting stories to detail Lee's character which made the book easy to read and immensely enjoyable. I judge this to be one of the very best biographies I've ever read.

It has been 30 years since I have seen this book--I never owned it, and it was a non-circulating book in the local children's library-- but the summer I turned seven, I spent hours reading this book day by day in the children's section of the library at Lincoln Center while my parents did their graduate work upstairs in the adult collection. I still vividly recall the characters: Amy with hair the color of moonlight whose mother gave her a lambchop for lunch each day, Clarissa with hair the color of sunlight whose mother gave her spaghetti for lunch each day, Malachi the Bumblebee, and, of course, the make-believe characters Hannah and her baby sister and the Old Witch and the mermaids who lived in the Big Glass Hill. Back in those days, we did not have any super-heros (no female ones, anyway), no Wonder Woman, no Warrior Princesses capering across the TV in their undies, not even Sailor Moon and co., and so if you wanted to make believe you could fly, Hannah the Little Witch Girl was all there was. My friends and I used to pretend to be Hannah and Amy and Clarissa in a gem-studded forest landscape taken from James Thurber's The White Deer. On imaginary broomsticks, we careened around stuffy apartments full of couches and dining chairs holding loquatious, boring adults. The book also holds appeal for the child with a systematic mind--the sort of child who types out alphabetical lists of dinosaur species will also enjoy writing out alphabetical compendia of all the runes spoken in the story!

This is a book I loved as a kid, and was delighted to rediscover. In addition to all the details about how witches live, this is a great book because it combines all the scary elements of the traditional witch (including Halloween) but the little human girl Amy is the boss and the old witch has to follow Amy's rules. Nice combination of fantasy and comfort, plus a happy ending. A few very nice illustrations. Just right for a read-aloud for my second grader.

This book captured my imagination as it has my children's. They love it as much as I did in the 60's, where I must have checked this book out from the library 20 times. I was delighted to find an old copy still in the library, and started searching to find my own so that we could read and reread the magical stories of Hannah, Weenie Witchie and Old Witch. Malachi was always my hero, and the two brave little 7 year olds, Clarissa and Amy reminded me often of my best friend and our adventures in fantasyland. Take time to cherish this book again and again. It is a book well worth the effort. Bless the publishers for putting it back in print.

My brother died of cancer in 1978. Shortly after he died, I heard the tape "The Politics of Cancer Therapy", which is based on the second half of the book "World Without Cancer". That tape was one of the best done presentations I've ever heard--about anything. It is about the takeover of the field of medical education by the drug industry, and explains why cures for cancer aren't really of great interest to the medical field.

The tape was so fascinating that I immediately went out, bought the book, found that even better, and made the trip out to interview Mr. Griffin.

Mr. Griffin is extremely well informed, writes and speaks clearly and makes his subjects very easy to understand.

If you have any interest in either an effective treatment for cancer, in world politics, or in politics and the medical field you simply have to read this book. I cannot speak too highly of it.

THE INFORMATION IN THIS BOOK IS SO SHOCKING AND WELL WRITTEN YOU WILL BE AMAZED WHY IT HASNT RECEIVE HEAD LINE NEWS ABOUT A TREATMENT FOR CANCER!!THE REASON IS SIMPLE THE DARK FORCES IN THE MEDIA AND THE DRUG INDUSTRY HAVE RIDICULED THIS BOOK BECAUSE IT EXPOSES THE FRUAD IN THE SO CALLED FIGHT AGANST CANCER!!A MUST READ IT IS A SHOCKING SINISTER STORY THAT READS LIKE A MYSTERY!!

This book has changed my entire perspective about cancer, medicine, politics, and big business. No one needs any longer to become victim to the ravages of cancer, traditional cancer treatments and the greed of the cancer industry. This 2 part book first gives the layman an insiders powerful understanding about cancer from the earliest pioneers and heros of cancer research to the practical cancer-free life available today. Second, this well-documented expose of the billion dollar cancer industry will leave chills running down your spine. Finally, the author's quick and rivoting style effortlessly engages the reader - leaving no excuse for anyone to ignorantly fall prey to the deadly deception of cancer conmen!

ee cummings is a magnificent poet - almost as much of a visual artist as writer. His poems fall and flow and jump and dance, their patterns and punctuation adding so much more to the words and essence of meaning. I have tried reading cummings' work aloud: it never quite works. He has an exceptional turn of phrase, and with one line (give or take a pattern or two) can bring about powerful emotive responses.
This book is fantastic - I had quite a lot of difficulty finding collections of his poetry, and although I'd found a couple of small volumes, this one was exhaustive. I reread it - or at least parts thereof - more often than any other poetry book I own, and always seem to discover another nuance or aspect or pattern that I hadn't seen before. cummings wraps you in words, and the best way I can think of to describe how I feel after reading his works is to steal a quote from one of his poems - "such strangeness as was mine a little while."
Worldwords. And he is the creator of my favourite quotation of all time...
"listen:
there's a hell of a good universe next door:
let's go."
And there is.

I have a few E.E. Cummings books of poetry, but quickly despaired of every finding them all. This collection is a terrific resource for someone who simply wishes to have all the poems collected in one volume.

Typography was preserved very well (with Cummings this is critical), and I find the order of appearance by date helpful in charting his growth as a poet; the first few poems are radically different from the later ones.

Of course, acquiring his individual issues has its own appeal, but if you simply want to have his work easily at hand, this is your only choice (the indexing at the back is extrememly good at helping you remember a poem by its first lines).

Along with being a poet, cummings was a visual artist-chiefly a painter and sometimes an engraver. With his poetry, he made the attempt to arrange the words of his poems in something of an image. He also achieved this end with the words themselves: if he was to say a leaf falls, he might say: a l e (fa l l s) a f His poetry is not straight forward-if you want something easy to read, look elsewhere. But if you want to be exposed to a new and innovative style, and some exquisite writing and subject matter cummings is for you.