I love Edward Lear's story and James Marshall's illustrations are magical. I don't like the version with Jan Brett's illustrations. I've never liked Jan Brett's illustrations. I've spent hundreds of hours looking at children's books and I always pass over Jan Brett's books. Her illustrations just don't appeal to me. Her illustrations are distinctive and I can always recognize her work but I don't like them. There is just something missing--they don't have any life to them or something. I can't explain it. I have always loved James Marshall. His genius transcends understanding. His illustrations complement Ed Lear's beautiful tale perfectly.

A very good illustrated version of the classic poem- the pictures are beautiful with a distinctly exotic flavour, great for all ages!

This book is just so cool. Longing for a trip to the tropics? Read this version of the book to your little one and you can at least feel like you are there. The illustrations are really sweet. They have a lot of details so that kids kind find new things with each reading. My two-year old loves this book. It is a great twist on an old tale

This is an excellent book, which shows that in childhood you plant the seeds for adult happiness. It gives concrete suggestions about what to do for your children in order to improve their odds of becoming happy adults.

A few things struck me in particular: the idea of flow, that we are happiest when we are in activities that we get so wrapped up in that we forget ourselves, the concept that children need to learn how to fail, and how to cope with failure, that being bored is an opportunity, you needn't fill up every minute of your child's time, or orchestrate their play.

I'd recommend it to anyone with children, or anyone, such as teachers, that deal with children. Even an unhappy adult, might find out that they have the seeds of happiness within them, they just need some care to make them grow.

>It is a pleasure to recommend THE CHILDHOOD ROOTS OF ADULT HAPPINESS:
> Five Steps to Help Kids Create and Sustain Lifelong Joy by Edward M.
> Hallowell, M.D. This was just released and reflects the views of a
> psychiatrist dealing with adolescent development. He draws from his
> experiences as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy,Harvard
> University, his family, and his clinical practice with objectivity and sensitivity. Not only does he point out the
> importance of connectiveness in youth with family and school
> associates, but also describes the HARVARD FALLACY.
> The studies quoted are appropriate to crime prevention as well as
> moving forward to far more effective community programs for mental
> health. Written for the general public, the author quotes appropriate
> recent studies that should be meaningful to ANY parent or grandparent.
> For those of us interested in understanding our own roots of joy,
> fear, "success", and appropriate or inappropriate self-esteem, this
> is
> an excellent book.
> Keep reading and thinking - AND COMMUNICATE - It's good for you!!!
The adult reader will find pleasure examining the content of this book along with AGING WELL by George E. Vaillant M.D.

IN THIS DAY AND AGE, WE ALL NEED REGROUNDING - WE LIVE IN A TROUBLED TIME AND BRINGING UP CHILDREN IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT JOB.
BUT....WE HAVE NO TRAINING - WE LEARN ON THE JOB - WE MAKE MISTAKES - WE HAVE SUCCESS AND NOW WE HAVE DR. HALLOWELL TO HELP US NAVIGATE.
AS ONE OF THE MANY SINGLE MOMS, I THANK YOU FOR THIS WONDERFUL BOOK FILLED WITH INSIGHT AND THOUGHTFUL GUIDENCE. I WILL PASS A COPY ALONG TO MY CHILDREN WHEN THE TIME COMES.
NANCY OGDEN
PRODUCER, Attention Deficit Disorder in the 21st Century,A Conversation with Edward M. Hallowell
A video series for parents, kids & Teachers

I have read this series at least 4 times. If you like SCIFI, you will cherish these books and buy the whole collection (as I did).

Not only did the lens series inspire a lot of science fiction books, but it also inspired a lot of movies. One can almost see the galactic "knights" carrying their "lens" weapon using a Force derived from a higher Plenum as being the direct inspiration for the Jedi Knights with their Life Sabers and (when not fighting with those Light Sabers) using a Force derived from the midichlorians in nature.

I first read this series in the 1970's, and repurchased them in the 1980's. The Science Fiction Book Club just released the whole series in a two volume set. However you can get a hold of these, get them. They are a great read. John W. Campbell did another series in the 40's as a great space opera but the lensman series is the best.

This little book served as my introduction to Edward Gorey; after reading it, I am hooked. The illustrations are truly endearing, the text is well-crafted and hillarious. You can flip through the book in all of five minutes, but will be chuckling all the while. Highly recommended!

Two children go an "adventure" of sorts, riding around on an "Epiplectic Bicycle" (which eventually meets its demise) in this "chapter book" of sorts by Edward Gorey.

One detail I enjoyed was the chapter numbers-I noticed about halfway through reading it that I was on something like Chapter 11, but never remembered seeing Chapter 10... Pure Gorey fun! If you're not really into the scarily macabre Gorey stuff, try this book instead. It's much more light, but still has those touches that only Edward could add. It's even good for slightly older children (9-11 year olds), and the pictures are good for any age (like the picture that is all black except for a sliver of light on a bicycle wheel).

i love this book. it makes me strangely happy and i hope to run across many of edgar goreys' books by accident aswell. this proves my theory that you always find the best books under another on the forgotten side of the book store.

and how could you go wrong with a name like "the epiplectic bicycle"?

Debby Mayne's "Sunshine Harvest" stands out in this anthology with a tale of deeply inspirational romance. She has painted a colorful backdrop with the citrus groves, migrant workers and tropical Florida locale. Her heroine takes us through a gamut of emotions after her father dies and she must summon the strength to hold his dream together while dealing with his loss. But what I liked best about this story was the hero! Daniel is a sensitive, intelligent, spiritual leading man, and I did some swooning along with Anna as I got to know him. Debby Mayne writes with a very visual stroke; "Sunshine Harvest" would make a stunning and romantic movie!

In the fourth novella of the Harvest Home Anthology, talented author, Janet Spaeth, weaves an emotional romance filled with love for God, family, and the Dakota Territory of 1879. ONLY BELIEVE shows the hard work and faith of two people, Catherine and Micah, who fall in love in the midst of trials they both face as they harvest the wheat crop. Woven into the story are touches of the humorous talent of this endearing author. Janet uses the embroidery of the bible verse, 'Be not afraid, only believe,'(Mark 5:36), as a memorable setting, along with that of the beautiful prairie of the Dakota Territory, for this wonderful, heartwarming harvest story of true love. I could not put down the Harvest Home Anthology from Barbour until I finished Janet Spaeth's novella, ONLY BELIEVE. I know you will enjoy Catherine and Micah's love story as much as I did. And that like me, you will remember to -- be not afraid and only believe -- for miracles in your life.

A very well-written decent story for everyone of any age. It was easy to read and to relax with. I would recommend this story to everyone. It takes you back to days of the American Settlers when times were simple. It is refreshing to read and to escape the confusing, busy, and complicated days of today.

Almost nothing can be said about the Thousand Nights and One Night, except what is obvious to anyone who understands its substance. It is one of the truly essential pieces of world culture, and probably the most extensive universe of stories in history.

Something must be said, however, for those who are NOT aware of the extent of this work. This is not the simple batch of a dozen or so stories -- Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad, and the like -- that most people think it is. This is over 2400 pages of narrative, comprising close on 100 stories -- some of which are themselves as long as novels, and many of which contain smaller stories within themselves. The stories range from the profoundly epic to the delightfully whimsical, and there is variation in mood and length throughout the series that it not only serves as a collection of discrete stories but functions as a unified whole.

As such, the attempt to read the Thousand Nights and One Night in its entirety can not be a halfhearted one. The reader must be prepared to invest considerable time in the reading. The rewards, however, are incalculable. The complete experience has few parallels in fiction, because few works of such volume possess such unity. Reading moves from the hasty and immediate to the comfortable and regular. The difference is akin to that between listening to a 3-minute pop song and listening to a 30-minute symphony. The individual stories fade into memory, retaining their own identities but also falling into place within the whole.

I will not attempt to address the individual stories themselves in any detail. Suffice it to say that they narrate love, lust, sex, war, peace, contemplation, action, commerce, politics, art, science, and many other things, in the spheres of the supernatural and the mundane. The Thousand Nights and One Night is a virtually complete panorama of human existence, with each story a component scene.

I will, though, address the issue of translation. I have perused other editions of the tales in varying degrees (although this is the only one I have read completely). In the first place, any translation which omits some stories is not worth consideration. Although there is some controversy over whether Richard Burton (the first to translate the tales into English) corrupted the original text and inserted spurious parts, there is nothing to be gained by being persnickety in this regard. This edition contains more tales than most others I have seen, and therefore is more likely to contain the "right" tales somewhere inside. On a less abstract level, this text is simply more fun to read than most others, and, as mentioned, there is more of that fun text to be read.

Also, it can be plausibly speculated that this translation is particularly likely to have fewer Burton-induced inaccuracies, since it is not in fact a direct translation from Arabic to English. This 4-volume edition is a translation into English, by Powys Mathers, of a French translation, by J. C. Mardrus, of the original Arabic. It is somewhat surprising that an indirect translation such as this should be of such high quality, but I have found it to be so. In particular, this Mardrus & Mathers version includes substantial verse passages (which in other translations are often rendered as prose) and is refreshingly frank in its translation of the more ribald passages (which are numerous).

The Thousand Nights and One Night is not merely a book that can be read; it is a world which can be experienced, and the memories of that experience can mingle almost indistinguishably with memories of reality. Only a work of this size can work on large and small levels, with many intricate details but also many large thematic components. As an added benefit, by the time you have finished reading the fourth volume, your memories of the first will be fading, so you can begin a new reading immediately, and experience the joys of the Thousand Nights and One Night all over again.

The stories contained within are truly wonderful. They oftentimes read with such beauty and vividness that I almost believed I was there! If there's such a thing as a darn-near perfect translation, these books are it imho. Why not introduce your children to the tales of the Arabian nights via these books? I'm no historian, but these tales have a much more authentic feel than others that I encountered as a child. Read a few stories each night, and enjoy the whole series over a period of time! Or dive in and don't surface until you're done!

This is a complete English translation of the Thousand Nights and a Night. Before reading this, I started the Burton translation and never finished it. The language was very awkward, it seemed Burton purposely made it sound antiquated and in the passive voice. Instead of suiting the translation to the preconceptions Europeans had about both old and Eastern writings, Mardrus made a literal translation into French, and Mathers translated that into English. The result is not only a more acurate translation, but it's not the least bit awkward and is a joy to read. This is the only English translation of the book I recommend.

Though not quite so wonderful as "Amphigorey" (q.v.) (if nothing else, there is nothing to equal the brillint "Gashleycrumb Tinies" nor "The Unstrung Harp"), the first Gorey omnibus volume, if only because the very best was skimmed off for that volume, this is still very high class whimsey indeed.

Like Gahan Wilson (q.v), Gorey looks at the world in a slightly skewed manner; much of his work consists of showing or telling us something that sounds perfectly rational but does not, in fact, quite compute, leaving our own minds to struggle with the cognitive dissonance he creates.

Probably my favourite bit in this collection is "The Gilded Bat", which is a sadly perceptive story of perception and reality in the life of a prima ballerina -- even after litle Maudy Splaytoe has progressed to being enigmatic star Miriella Splatova, her life is still pretty much the same as it always was, a round of rehearsal, performance and boredom. (In a wonderful example of something or other, there was a ballet based on this work; i have never seen it, but heard an interview on PBS with the choreographer, who had had to create excerpts from three OTHER, fictitious, ballets referred to in the text...)

The two versions of "The Chinese Obelisks" present us with an opportunity to see the author's mind at work, comparing sketch and draft of text to the finished work.

The only reason not to immediately purchase this work would be if you could only afford one of them and hadn't already got the previous volume. If you DO already have "Amphigorey", then you absolutely must have this collection to go with it.

Edward Gorey is the type of artist who produces very specific reactions from anyone studying his work: one will either love or hate his artwork and/or stories. For those of us who are a little off center ourselves, this book is delightful. His unique drawings remain unmatched to this day, and his tales--well, they are not ordinary by any stretch of the imagination. Even though I am a staunch Gorey fan, I must admit that there are times when some of the endings leave me quite sad but, just as in life, not every tale has a happy ending. The book itself is huge, very heavy and filled to the brim with as much Gorey drawings as any fan can desire. Mr. Gorey deserves more recognition for his unusual but strange depictions of characters whom we don't really know whether to love or hate--a sort of bizarre Alice In Wonderland world of people who run the gamut from the familiar to the insane, and a bestiary of creatures born from the depths of an uncommon imagination. One has to wonder what a cartoon series based on his drawings and story lines would be like--certainly not Saturday morning fodder. At any rate, the book is well worth every penny whether you are a fan of Edward Gorey or have just discovered his works and find yourself fascinated by his bizarre view of a world which existed in his extraordinary imagination.

This wonderful second collection contains 20 highly enjoyable stories:

THE BEASTLY BABY (a definite Gorey favorite!) about an absolutely abominable baby, you'll be glad to see the end of!
THE NURSERY FRIEZE: Features odd strips of rhino-like animals saying words like "Archipelago" & "Quodlibet" which could very well be used as a frieze for a very unique nursery :-)
THE PIOUS INFANT: About little Henry Clump, who is completely unselfish and charitable, and always concerned about the salvation of everyone elses soul!
THE EVIL GARDEN: About a families visit to an ominous garden, where there is no way out!
THE INANIMATE TRAGEDY: A dramatic tale featuring inanimate objects as the characters, such as pins & needles (who appear to represent the chorus) a penpoint, glass marble, two-holed button, thumbtack, & a piece of knotted string (as the villain)
THE GILDED BAT: About a little girl who grows up to be a very distinguished prima ballerina.
THE IRON TONIC: or "A Winter Afternoon"- "The people at the grey hotel, Are either aged or unwell" "The guests who chose to stay aloof, Lie wrapped in carpets on the roof".
THE OSBICK BIRD: About Emblus Fingby and the osbick bird that chooses one day to live with him, as his loyal friend.
Two versions of THE CHINESE OBELISKS, one version that looks like a sketch or rough draft, and then the better known one in typical Gorey style- All about an author who goes for a walk, and the many things he encounters.
THE DERANGED COUSINS (one of my favorites!): About Rose Marshmary, Mary Rosemarsh & Marsh Maryrose, three cousins who all live together in a rose covered house at the edge of a marsh. "Since they were orphans and there was no one to stop them, they were often merry far into the night"!
THE ELEVENTH EPISODE: Starts when a woman hears a scream apparently coming from a well, when she goes to investigate she falls in and enters a world that changes her life.
[THE UNTITLED BOOK]: Charming piece, that features a little child looking out the window as strange creatures come to play in the garden. Hippity Wippity!
THE LAVENDAR LEOTARD: An early Gorey tale, in which the author introduces two small, distant, ageless, and wholly imaginary relatives to fifty seasons of the New York City Ballet!
THE DISREPECTFUL SUMMONS: A tale of the occult!
THE ABANDONED SOCK: All about the saga of a sock that decides it's life is tedious and unpleasant, and goes for an adventure.
THE LOST LIONS: About a handsome man named Hamish, whose life is suddenly changed when he one day opens the wrong envelope!
STORY FOR SARA: A cute story about a slightly wicked little girl, who captures two little birds in her small bag, and her meeting with a very large prowling cat!
THE SALT HERRING: An odd tale written to make all serious men mad, mad, mad!
LEAVES FROM A MISLAID ALBUM: A wordless collection of interesting pictures.
A LIMERICK: Absolutely cute, very SHORT limerick about poor little Zooks, of whom no one was fond.

Edward Gorey one of my favorites, whose darkly whimsical and macabre tales (that he sometimes writes under pseudonyms) are sure to offend the overly-prudish, luckily I'm not one of them. Should Gorey be classfied as a writer or Illustrator? He so obviously possessed talent in both fields, I cannot imagine his fantastic drawings without the odd amusing little quips. The people in his illustrations usually resemble silent movie stars, the women always look elegant and mysterious, the men dashing and stately. His stories also include lots of fanciful creatures and adorable (but usually hapless) children.
Gorey is strange and wonderful, and I am VERY proud and absolutely happy to be fan!
Get all three collections!

Cross Creek is located just south of Gainesville, Florida, and in spite of the urban sprawl the community is today almost as isolated as it was in 1928, when Marjorie Kennan Rawlings and her first husband Charles Rawlings purchased a farm house and citrus grove in the area. At the time of the purchase, Rawlings was a failed novelist in a bad marriage, and both farm house and grove were neglected. A decade later she was a respected writer on the eve of her most popular novel and happily divorced, and the farm and its citrus groves were very much going concerns.

Rawlings would eventually remarry, and both her second marriage and her literary success would gradually lead her away from both her farm and the Cross Creek community--but she would never leave them entirely, always returning for the inspiration that fed her best works. The property was still in her possession and still in use as both a citrus grove and occasional residence at the time of her sudden death of cerebral hemorrhage in 1953. Rawlings left the it to the University of Florida, and in 1970 the property was turned over to the State of Florida for restoration and management. Restoration was completed in 1996, and while the large citrus grove that once surrounded the farm house has been reduced to a representative portion, visitors can now see the property as it existed in the 1930s and 1940s.

Although Rawlings won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel THE YEARLING and would publish several other novels and short story collections, today her literary reputation rests largely on the book CROSS CREEK, in which she details both her own struggle on the land the lives of the community as she knew it during the 1930s. While the book is clearly autobiographical, it is not autobiography per se; she gives little attention to her personal history, preferring to focus instead on the landscape and the individuals that surround her. The stories she offers are by turns funny, sad, thoughtful, each informed by an intensely felt observation of her environment. And while critics may accuse her of having been excessively sentimental in her fiction, no such sentimentality besets this particular work. It is brilliant from start to finish.

CROSS CREEK was published in 1942, and while it is very much of its era in its depiction of rural society and racial considerations, it also proved very much ahead of its time. It is profoundly concerned with ecology long before the term was popularized, and not only are its characters vividly alive, they move against a landscape that is as alive as they, a landscape that at once harsh and nurturing, at once giving and indifferent, and throughout the text (and most particularly in its final chapter) Rawlings repeatedly takes the point of view that we are not the owners of the earth, but its trustees; its care is in our hands.

I have read CROSS CREEK several times, and I returned to it in the wake of a visit to the Rawlings farm in 2003--and while it is not necessary to actually visit Cross Creek in order to fall in love with this book, they each inform the other. The book is somewhat obscure; the community of Cross Creek is difficult to find on the map and awkward to reach, hardly a place you would stumble upon by accident. It must be reached in deliberation. The guide at the Rawlings farm told me that in spite of this they received some forty thousand visitors from around the world each year--visitors drawn by the power of Rawlings' work and a determination to share in the environment she so loved. That is both testament and recommendation enough.

--GFT (Amazon Reviewer)--

Cross Creek is one of the finest memoirs ever written, filled with the grace and beauty of fine writing from one of America's greatest writers, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Perhaps no other writer has so perfectly and honestly captured a place and time like Rawlings did in Cross Creek. It will transport you to that small acreage of backwoods Florida and cause you to wish for a life such as this.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings purchased a seventy-two acre orange grove in this remote area and fled her aristocratic life in the city to perfect her craft and get published. It is here all her beloved books would be born, including this memoir covering the years of hardships and beauty at the creek. Rawlings herself would become a part of the earth and land as she was reborn here in Cross Creek and would leave behind literary achievements such as South Moon Under, Golden Apples, When the Whipporwll, Cross Creek Cookery, and of course, her Pulitzer winner, The Yearling.

Her close relationships with her neighbors at the creek, both black and white, are told with humor and humanity. Their lives were often filled with hardships but serenity as well, for all of them had chosen to live this kind of life rather than conform to society. Especially poignant are Rawlings's observations of a young destitute (even for the creek) couple who would be portrayed so movingly in her short story, Jacob's Ladder.

Rawlings's recollections of her friendship with Moe and his daughter Mary, who was his reason for living and the only one in his family, including his wife, who cared when he came or went, are told with such beauty we feel pain ourselves when he takes his last breath at the creek. Her deep friendships over the years with Tom and Old Martha are told with humor, honesty and a gift for description few have ever had. Tinged with sadness is Rawlings's relationship both as employer and friend to 'Geechee. Rawlings would attempt to help her to no avail as this sweet personality slowly became an unemployable alcoholic, her mistreatment at the hands of a womanizer unworthy of her love at the heart of her problem. It is perhaps at the bottom of a few bitter comments from Rawlins.

But Cross Creek is about the earth and our relationship to it. When we stray from it we become less because it is a part of us. Rawlings came to believe over time that when we lose this connection to the earth, we lose a part of ourselves. The great and wondrous beauty of nature, from magnolia blossoms and rare herbs to Hayden mangos and papaya, are as much a part of this memoir as the people. Particularly hilarious are Rawlings's descriptions of a 'pet' racoon of mischievious nature and such cantankerous disposition as to almost seem human. Rawlings's world at the creek is perhaps her legacy, a gift given to the reader we can never forget.

In order to enjoy this memoir, however, one must read the entire book, taking into consideration a number of factors. Published in 1942 and covering many years prior in a backwoods area of Florida, at a time when racial equality was a distant dream, some may be offended by Rawlings's casual, though never mean spirited observations. Rawlings honestly relates actual conversations from this time and place between blacks and whites, and blacks to other blacks. Rawlings treated everyone fairly but a long string of farmhands prone to drink and violence, including the one who would destroy her friend and employee 'Geechee, prompted her to lump an entire race into one group, her friends at the creek being exceptions.

Her thoughts on the matter, which are included in one of the 23 chapters, do not really fit in with the rest of this memoir. Having first read this over twenty years ago I did not recall it, and it certainly gave me pause. It is only proof, that even someone as intelligent and literate as Rawlings, can intellectualize a misguided view until it sounds right. Taking everything into consideration I do not feel it should keep anyone from reading this most beautiful and heartwarming of memoirs. But others may feel differently, and have a right to do so.

Rawlings's graceful prose, whether describing a chorus of frogs singing at night as a Brahms waltz, the scent of hibiscus drifting through the air at dusk, or a myraid of dishes meticulously prepared and labored over for hours, is delightful and unforgettable. Cross Creek will make you hungry for succulent fruits, cornbread an hot biscuits with wild plum jelly, and most of all, life. Reading this lovingly written memoir will leave you with a wistful desire to walk away from society as Rawlings did and live the life we crave in our very being, even if it is not possible, and can only be lived in our hearts.....

"Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time."
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
(1896-1953)

As a native Floridian (although transplanted now to South Carolina), I have found the works of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to be a welcomed homecoming and a delightful insight into the "frontier" Florida life of the 1930s and '40s. Rawlings' words are timeless because they animate a timeless period in Florida history--when things were still largely rural, natural, and undisturbed by capital investment and the tourism boon of the last thirty-plus years. "Cross Creek," moreover, is the perfect introduction to Rawlings for the uninitiated, a moving narrative of her life and career amid the backwoods and streams of a bygone Florida. Yet "Cross Creek" is not simply an autobiography; it is a lavish tale in itself. I highly recommend it.

I also suggest the motion picture version of "Cross Creek," starring Mary Steenburgen and Peter Coyote (1982?). It has recently been re-released, so you should be able to find a copy easily. The movie is perhaps "even better" than the book, with its stunning cinematography of the natural beauties of Florida woods, creeks, rivers, and swamps. It stays fairly true to the book, as well, and Steenburgen and Coyote are endearing as Rawlings and Norton Baskin. Rip Torn is another wonderful addition to the cast.

Pick both of these up today!

Written by America's most inventive poet, "The Enormous Room" is a book of prose set in a French detention camp during World War One. It is a coming-of-age story in which events happen, not always to the narrator (E.E. Cummings), but to the inhabitants of a place that serves as a microcosm for all the folly and brutality of war itself. As a war narrative it is unique -- unlike Hemingway's "Farewell to Arms" or Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front," the central story doesn't take place on the front lines. The plot of the book is basically non-linear, with the exception of the first three or four chapters, and several passages are written in French (thankfully a glossary of foreign terms is printed at the back of the book). I would describe Cummings' story as a stream-of-consciousness dialogue with himself, written in the language of a talented budding poet. Most memorable are the wonderful characters Cummings encountered during his short stay at La Ferte Mace, the name of the camp in which he was interned. They are objects of torn humanity and how terrible it must have been for him to leave them, knowing that upon his release many would languish in prison for the rest of their lives. "The Enormous Room" is a unique historical fiction. It is not an easy read, but it is one of those books that is even more difficult to put down. I have never read another book quite like it. [P.S.: There are two editions of the book, one published by Boni & Liveright and the other by Penquin Classics. The Liveright edition is the better one (and naturally harder to locate online or in book stores), and includes samples of drawings that Cummings made during his confinement.]

Some works of literature that I have read in the past required several scans of certain passages due to their thick and wholly unconsumable nature. While reading E. E. Cummings' The Enormous Room, I found myself skimming back over entire paragraphs simply for the sheer joy of reading them again. Cummings' ability to turn a phrase is astonishing. It's not hard to glean from reading only this work that the author has a poetic nature.

The personal journey recounted here amounts to a fantastic tale that happens to be (for the most part) completely true. By turns, bleak and hopeless - then joyous and brimming with a kind of spiritual joy, The Enormous Room takes the reader to extremities of all sorts in its relatively short span of chapters.

Though it takes place during a three month stint in a French concentration camp during the latter parts of World War One, it could just as well be set on another planet, for all of its fantastic characters, settings and behavioral interactions that never cease to alternately amaze and confound the reader.

Even if it seems a cruel statement to make, after having the pleasure of experiencing this world through the prose of E. E. Cummings you will be thankful that he found himself in this squalid and vile place so that we now have the honor of sharing in it.

Reading Cumming's poetry was never a priority in my school days, except such excerpts as appeared in my far from comprehensive American Lit book. After reading this, I wish I'd paid more attention to this truly gifted writer.

The Enormous Room is the story of Cumming's three month incarceration at La Ferte Mace, a squalid French prison camp. Cummings is locked up as accessory to exercise of free speech, his friend B. (William Brown) having written a letter with some pro German sentiments. What Cummings experienced in those three months and the stories of the men and women he met are, despite the straits of the polyglot texture of the book, never other than fascinating. At moments touching (the stories of the Surplice and The Wanderer's family), hilarious (the description of the Man In the Orange Cap is hysterical), and maddening (the smoking of the four les putains), this is a brilliant weft of memorable characters and not a little invective for the slipshod French goverment.

Something I noticed. Though the book claims as its primary influence Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, I noticed a similarity with Thoreau's Walden. In both books, there is the idea of self-abnegation breeding liberty and peace of mind. The idea is to shear away all luxuries, all privileges. But Thoreau had one very important luxury to his credit: Free will. Whereas Thoreau chose his isolated and straitened existence near Walden Pond, Cummings' was involuntary. So, if the touchstone of freedom both men share is valid, is not Cummings, by virtue of the unrequested nature of his imprisonment, the freer of the two men?

This is a fascinating, thought provoking, ribald and intelligent book. I only regret that the Fighting Sheeney was never given commupance...

This work was merely the abridged version (the actual version is 3000 pages long), but Gibbon's command and use of the English language is so rich and varied that one must take the time necessary to savor and fully digest his arguments. Besides, at nearly 800 pages, this isn't light reading.

Editor David Womersley did a masterful job with the editing. In situations where chapters of the abridged version were truncated, Womersley still favored the reader with a description of Gibbon's arguments, as well as with commentary on why/how Gibbon's observations were of consequence. Additionally, Womersley's introduction is well worth one's time--he is able to give us an accurate and fascinating portrait of Gibbon, which enables us to better understand and appreciate the nature of Gibbon's arguments.

Of course, the best part about the book is Gibbon's own observations regarding the history of Rome. Gibbon was a masterful and witty commentator--oftentimes issuing backhanded insults and wryly discussing certain historical personages. Even the footnotes are filled with such commentary. Consider one footnote where Gibbon said "The Dissertation of M. Biet seems to have been justly preferred to the discourse of his more celebrated competitor, the Abbé le Boeuf, an antiquarian, whose name was happily expressive of his talents." Of the emperor Gordian, Gibbon remarked that both his gigantic collection of books, and his impressive collection of concubines were "for use rather than ostentation." Who could help but be charmed by this cheeky and mildly scandalous commentary?

But beyond dry wit and well-placed insults, Gibbon's work stands out because it is so relevant to our world today. The collapse of empire is a subject of much debate in the United States--what with various commentators and pundits assuring us that we will go the way of the Romans quite soon. Gibbon tells us what the crumbling of an empire really is and what it means--in sumptuous detail. In discussing the empire of the Romans, Gibbon lends perspective to geopolitical arguments of today. We can use his analysis as a starting point--the definitive discussion on how a world power may reach its nadir, and may ultimately see its power dissipate.

At times, Gibbon's attention to historical detail is eerie in its ability to pick out important and consequential subjects for discussion. In analyzing the rise of Islam, Gibbon remarks upon the rewards that await the faithful Muslim: "Seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls, of resplendent beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility, will be created for the use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to a thousand years, and his faculties will be encreased a hundred fold, to render him worthy of his felicity." Tell me that you don't read that passage without a shiver running down your spine. Over two hundred years before the attacks of September 11th, Gibbon identified and remarked on the mythology that would drive madmen to plot and execute that mad deed.

Equally impressive was Gibbon's complete and absolute mastery of allegory and analogy. His use of the story of the "Seven Sleepers" to describe the human advancement "from youth to age, without observing the gradual, but incessant, change of human affairs," is a shining example, as Womersley points out, of "human insight, historical vision and philosophical reach" that confirm Gibbon's "range and power as a historian." A relation of the history of the Paulician sect would have struck other lesser historians as tedious and unnecessary, but Gibbon--who was no lesser historian--undertook an analysis of the history with excellent results--making clearer to the reader the nature of religious culture in Gibbon's own time.

Like any work devised by the human hand, the book does have characteristics that receive criticism. Throughout The Decline and Fall Gibbon takes shots at the Persians--a sore spot with me, personally. One bit appears to occur when Gibbon discusses Sultan Mahomet [Mohammad] II of the Ottoman Empire. Remarking on the fact that Mohammad II "spoke or understood five languages, the Arabic, the Persian, the Chalaean or Hebrew, the Latin and the Greek," Gibbon goes on to say that "The Persian might indeed contribute to [Mohammad's] amusement, and the Arabic to his edification." Needless to say, this is a slam against the Persian language--one of the most beautiful and lyrical tongues in existence, and a language that is perfectly suited to poetry--as Hafez, Rum'i, Sa'adi and Omar Khayyam would attest to, and do attest to by their eternally magnificent poetry. Gibbon also has his favorite figures. He openly roots for the Romans, under Emperor Julian, to vanquish the Persian Empire by force of arms, and laments the fact that the Romans lost their holdings in Persia thanks to the death of Julian, and the incompetence of the Emperor Jovian--Julian's successor. Indeed, Gibbon goes so far as to say that "Julian, on this occasion, shewed himself ignorant, or careless, of the laws of civility, which the prudence and refinement of polished ages have established between hostile princes. Yet these wanton ravages need not excite in our [heart] any vehement emotions of pity or resentment. A simple, naked, statute, finished by the hands of a Grecian artist, is of more genuine value than all these rude and costly monuments of Barbaric labor: and if we are more deeply affected by the ruin of a palace, than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life." Additionally, Gibbon tells us that "The native race of Persians is small and ugly: but it has been improved by the perpetual mix of Circassian blood." Maybe it's just because my ethnicity is Persian, but I found these remarks wholly unnecessary.

Additionally, Gibbon lionizes Mohammad II, Julian, the Byzantine general Belisarius, and others--lending such favoritism at times that one cannot help but wonder whether his analysis is sufficiently dispassionate. And despite the fact that Gibbon was a believing Christian, Gibbon does show a hostility to religion that is characteristic of a man of the Enlightenment, but one that stands out nonetheless, and could very well have colored his analysis. I suppose that "The Decline and Fall" wouldn't be the same if this opinionated commentary was omitted, and overall, I did rather enjoy having the opportunity to gain an insight into Gibbon's own feelings and beliefs, but the reader should be warned that Gibbon's history is not exactly objective in nature.

In the end, however, these are trifling concerns. I haven't created anything like a Top Ten List of Favorite Books, but when I do, Gibbon's magnum opus will surely be included, and will have a place of honor. In remarking on the success of "The Decline and Fall," Gibbon stated that "my book was on every table, and almost on every toilette." I would not be in the least bit surprised if this were so, and few works in history would deserve similar popularity and acclaim. Given Gibbon's masterful historical relation, given his erudition and expert use of the English language and the contribution he made to the language through his work, and given the relevance of "The Decline and Fall" to our present day and age, let us hope for the sake of contemporary intelligence and society, that more tables and toilettes are graced with a copy of this magisterial work. More importantly, let us hope that Gibbon is read faithfully and constantly--like a Bible of the Enlightenment whose discussion of the past could very well serve to illuminate the present and the future, and offer guidance to meeting the challenges posed to us by modern day events.

This book would be worth every penny if purchased solely for David Womersley's introduction. The introduction is written so beautifully that it effortlessly carries the reader through every facet of the life of Edward Gibbon. I intended but to scan only a few pages of the introduction. Candidly, I expected it to be at best irrelevant and at worst tiresome. I was struck at once by how thoroughly Gibbon's life was recounted. My imagination was launched into flights of fancy at the sharp contrasts between Gibbon's classic European education and my decidedly less useful American public indoctrination. Gibbon spent time with major philosophers and these interactions helped to shape an intellect that was uniquely able to see 'truth', especially through religious dogma. The introduction provides the reader with invaluable insight and, dare I say, a device that may grant the reader a greater understanding and likely a greater appreciation of this classic work. Womersley has wisely chosen to abridge only the number of chapters while not 'blending' chapters. Womersley explains that the beauty of Gibbon's writing is best viewed in the arc of a complete chapter and therefore 'blending chapters' would be a horrible injustice. I liken Gibbon's writing to that of a non-fictional Shakespeare. Shakespeare helped us see truth in fictional stories as Gibbon does so in a non-fictional format. This is THE book to buy about the Roman Empire. Bravo - Sir Womersley!

How can you not love Edward Gibbon? Master of the one-liner, the backhanded compliment, the passing zinger, who else could have remarked famously of Gordian, a relatively obscure 3rd century emperor, that his enormous library and twenty-two acknowledged concubines were both "for use rather than ostentation." Gibbon is known to be no fan of Christianity's influence on Rome, nor is he a friend of Byzantium. Yet these prejudices are more than just pet hates: they reflect the fact that he, more than any other historian of the Englightenment, was prepared to cast aside the received wisdom of recent generations and delve back to the source to give an authentic view of history. Not only does he rank as a writer of Shakespearean proportions, he is one of historiography's most successful revisionists.