I'll be honest: I picked this up because I wanted a copy of _Walden_, and getting a selection of Thoreau's other writings was icing on the cake, so if all you want is to confirm that this contains the uncut text of _Walden_, I assure you that it does. For completeness, though, I'll mention everything else in the book as well, with a few quotes to let Thoreau speak for himself.

"Natural History of Massachusetts", 1842 - This isn't what the title might suggest, still less the official subject (given the usual dryness of scientific papers). Like G K Chesterton's Father Brown, Thoreau takes the view that science is a grand thing when you can get it, but that the true scientist should be able to know nature better, and to have more experience of it by noticing fine detail without losing the big picture. "I would keep some book of natural history always by me as a sort of elixir, the reading of which should restore the tone of the system."

"A Winter Walk", 1843 - Exactly that, seen through Thoreau's eyes. "There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill."

"The Maine Woods", 1848 - A year after retiring to Walden Pond, Thoreau took a trip to Maine, recorded herein. Some of the word-pictures drawn include those of the pines before logging - and afterward, when rendered down to matches. But once away from the areas near Bangor, much of the country was still wilderness. "And the whole of that solid and interminable forest is doomed to be gradually devoured thus by fire, like shavings, and no man be warmed by it."

"Civil Disobedience", 1849 - Very influential on Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and quite capable of making a reader squirm even today - if one isn't prepared to back up one's principles with action.

"A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers", 1849 - Not just a travelogue; this is Thoreau, after all, so extra layers of historical discussion and a little poetry are here too. This is a revised and somewhat trimmed version from the original - Thoreau's own later text.

"A Yankee in Canada", 1853 - The beginning of Thoreau's tale of his first journey to Quebec, with a bit of culture shock at his first exposure to a Roman Catholic society.

"Walden", 1854 This would be worth reading if only for 'I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately...', re-popularized in these latter days because of its prominence in the film _Dead Poets' Society_, I expect.

"Journal", 1858 - Not Thoreau's entire journal for 1858, but a selection. The complete journal was his collecting-point of raw material - everything from first drafts of letters, essays, and lectures, to a review of every natural detail the trained surveyor had seen that day.

"The Last Days of John Brown", 1860 - Thoreau didn't attend John Brown's memorial service, but wrote this essay, which was read for him. "Now he has not laid aside the sword of the spirit, for he is pure spirit himself, and his sword is pure spirit also."

"Walking", 1862 - "I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks..."

"Life without Principle", 1863 - "We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial - considering what one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so paltry."

"Cape Cod", 1864 - "The Wellfleet Oysterman" - Thoreau's chat with the elderly oysterman (being asked in after a walk) proves his observation works for human beings as well as the rest of nature - and that he has sense enough to ask somebody who ought to know about nature in the area. "I was fourteen year old at the time of Concord Fight- and where were you then?"

A miscellaneous selection of Thoreau's poems is also included, along with a chronology, bibliography, introduction and epilogue by the editor.

This is a "collected works"-type volume, which I recommend because it gives you the whole package deal, and if you enjoy *Walden* you'll probably want to read more. *Walden*, Thoreau's most famous work, is my favorite book in all the world. Though it is admittedly not for everyone, there is a virtuosity and vibrance to his prose which led one critic to call it some of the best poetry in the English language. In 1845 Henry Thoreau built a small house with his own two hands on the shore of Walden Pond, just outside Concord, Massachusetts, and proceeded to inhabit it for two years, two months, and two days with the purpose of discovering the meaning of life, of paring life down to its most basic elements through self-exploration and communion with nature. Seeing nature through Thoreau's eyes is an experience akin to that of a farsighted person donning corrective lenses for the first time and discovering the extraordinary beauty of things which had been right in front of him all his life. This should be required reading for anyone with any environmental feeling and for anyone interested in self-reliance and personal freedom (which should be all of you). You might want to read "Civil Disobedience" too: people of the ilk of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. lived by this essay on passive resistance. The introduction and epilog by Thoreau scholar Carl Bode frame the volume well and offer enlightening and apt insights into Thoreau's history and psyche

This book has the most complete selection of Thoreau's poetry that I have been able to find. I found it absolutely amazing. Thoreau uses such simple words to convey a deep and complex message that not many people can pull off. He brings what he has seen to life and makes the words dance, laugh, sing and weep as they flow off the page. One of my favorite quotes from this book that reminds me of Oscar Wilde is"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it." So don't take my word for it, read it and fall in love for yourself.

Anybody with an interest in free speech issues will find this account of the "Hatrack Case" fascinating and entertaining. The book recounts an attempt by the federal government to censor a 1926 issue of Mencken's magazine, The American Mercury, because of an ostensibly pornographic short story that appeared in it. Mencken, of course, is a great writer, and this only adds to the appeal of this book. Mencken regarded free speech as our most important liberty, and this book reveals that he was willing to risk a jail sentence to combat censorship.

This is a lovely book of photographs taken across Maryland. Depicts the state beautifully!

Bode's biography of Mencken changed my life, in that is was an introduction to the Baltimore critic Mencken's role in shaping libertarian thought and appreciation. Actually, I daydreamed back in college through a linguistics class that used Mencken's American Language textbook, but it took Bode's biography to teach me how important Mencken was to realism and the fight against puritans and Big Government pablum. While I ignored the classics in school, Bode's story of Mencken's critique of the great writers of the 20's and 30's gave me a list of books to read. As a libertarian Mencken's favorites -- Theodore Dreiser, Joseph Conrad, Sinclair Lewis, etc. -- have delighted me as much as Bode's biography. The lonely, creative individualist in Dreiser's "The Genius" and Conrad's "Victory" is the same character that Mencken is. For that matter, Ayn Rand seems to be in a similar class as Mencken. Thank God I stumbled upon Bode's book.

Carl Bode's "New Mencken Letters" is a richly thick volume of personal letters involving the internationally renowned newspaper editor and writer H. L. Mencken. I strongly recommend this book to Mencken aficionados who desire to read privately intimate glimpses of Henry Louis Mencken's correspondence.
H. L. Mencken was a product of Baltimore, Maryland. He wrote a myriad of books, letters and columns where he espoused his opinion upon a vast number of topics. Although an eclectic far smaller selection of his letters appear in this compendium it is estimated that Mencken wrote an unbelievable 100,000 letters in his lifetime.
Mencken was one of the most entertaining writers in history. He was a true original who was an iconoclast and a skeptic. His concision and novelty of expression makes him one of the most quotable American writers. The famed Hollywood comedian Groucho Marx enjoyed reading Mencken and he wrote to him on occasion ( although no correspondence of his appears in this book ).
H. L. Mencken personally knew some members of my mother's family. Baltimore newspaper editor Richard Dennis Steuart ( his pen name was "Carroll Dulaney" ) was for thirty years one of H. L. Mencken's best friends. Richard Steuart was also a longtime friend of my great-grandfather Boston Fear's family. Boston Fear created Walbrook ( originally known as Fearville ): Baltimore, Maryland's very first suburb in the 1890's. I found this book very helpful in my own ancestral research. Carl Bode's volume contains two private letters exchanged between Richard D. Steuart and H. L. Mencken. One letter was sent from Mencken to Steuart and the other letter was sent from Steuart to Mencken. This book was also useful to me in that it contained two letters exchanged between H. L. Mencken and Baltimore bookseller Meredith Janvier. One letter displayed was sent from H. L. Mencken to Meredith Janvier and the other exhibited letter shown is from Meredith Janvier to H. L. Mencken. Meredith Janvier also knew my relatives during the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Baltimore. Janvier describes my great-grandfather Boston Fear in the delightful Baltimore book entitled "Baltimore in the Eighties and Nineties".
The book "New Mencken Letters" will also give the reader an idea of Mencken's attitude towards topics, his life-style, and some of the activities of early twentieth century Baltimore. All H. L. Mencken scholars should purchase this book for their own personal library.

Your great grandfathers read them by the fistful. Even your grandfathers probably read at least a few of them. But the days when Horatio Alger was one of the most widely read authors in America have long since passed. Alger's message--that by dint of hard work, decent morals, good manners and a hefty serving of luck, any American boy can rise from rags to riches--is so clearly anathema to the literati that his dismissal by the critics and the continuing refusal to treat his work as anything other than simple-minded boosterism was virtually foreordained.

However, you would think that Alger's novels would warrant greater scrutiny simply for their obvious cultural impact. It is not an overstatement to say that it is likely that every significant man of business, politics, literature and academia in America in the early decades of this century had read the works of Horatio Alger. How can you hope to understand these men and the America that they forged if you ignore the one author who was most likely a formative influence on them? More than that, it is certainly the case that except for a couple of decades of despair brought on by the Great Depression, it is, has been, and seems sure to remain, the uniquely American idea that anyone can succeed. It is amazing the number of times you will hear folks from foreign countries speak about how this perception of unlimited possibilities is something that you only find in America (Howard Evans on Booknotes one night springs to mind). This after all is why we are the one nation that welcomes immigrants. Other countries assume that immigrants will just get on the dole and stay there; we assume they will not only succeed, but will flourish. Alger is certainly not the originator of these belief, but his millions of books must have contributed something to this entrepreneurial spirit that informs the national soul.

Besides that, they are just fun. There is something refreshing about Alger's straightforward, unmannered writing style. The mere absence of all of the modern stylistic devices that so often make reading modern novels a chore, makes reading the books a pleasure. Besides, who doesn't get a vicarious thrill reading about a good boy making good. And, beneath the outer layers of poverty, Alger's heroes are enormously appealing; here's his description of Richard "Ragged Dick" Hunter:

Dick's appearance as he stood beside the box was rather peculiar. His pants were torn in several places, and had apparently belonged in the first instance to a boy two sizes larger than himself. He wore a vest, all the buttons of which were gone except two, out of which peeped a shirt which looked as if it had been worn a month. To complete his costume he wore a coat too long for him, dating back, if one might judge from its general appearance, to a remote antiquity.

Washing the face and hands is usually considered proper in commencing the day, but Dick was above such refinement. He had no particular dislike to dirt, and did not think it necessary to remove several dark streaks on his face and hands. But in spite of his dirt and rags there was something about Dick that was attractive. It was easy to see that if he had been clean and well dressed he would have been decidedly good-looking. Some of his companions were sly, and their faces inspired distrust; but Dick had a frank, straight-forward manner that made him a favorite.

There is a reason that the term "Horatio Alger story" lives on in our lexicon. The concept touches something deep within our psyche, confirming something that we desperately want to believe about individuals and about the type of world and society that we live in.

Let the critics ridicule them, but when we stop believing in the power and the truth of the Alger myth, we will cease to be a great nation.

GRADE: B

Horatio Alger made an instant classic when he wrote this book. Fast-moving, you can finish the book in one sitting. These two stories will reach all youth and even adults. Perfect book for those comming of age. A definite 5-star book!

This book was great. it was about a boy who came from the streets of New York City who had to fend for himself. Even though he was very poor and lived on the streets he was very kind and always tried to help people out. this is a excellent book for it reminded me of people who come to New York city not having anything but at the same time possessing everything! he had dreams but thought he would never achive them. Ragged Dick was a powerful and complelling book. I couldn't put it down cause I wanted to read more of the boy's adventures through the streets of NEW York. it has left a warm place in my heart forever!

Journey to the Center of the Earth is another Science Fiction by Jules Verne (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days) Like most of Verne's other works, Journey is told from the perspective of someone reminiscing about a great adventure. Becuase the story is told in a journal-like fashion, the action sequences are abridged somewhat; but there is still some excitement in this book. Though somewhat dated (many of the theories Verne relied on when writing his descriptions about the center of the Earth have since been disproven) this book is still an excellent read. Visit http://www.michaellegg.com for more reviews.

A breathtaking fictional journey through the bowels of the planet that we the readers live on and think we know so much about. Cleverly worded, the novel grabs the readers attention from the beginning and doesn't let up until the end. Also Jules Verne's choice of plot scheme made the book a very enjoyable read. In this epic tale, A Greek professor finds a secret parchment stating that another scientist has been to the center of the earth. Taking on the adventure as a number one priority,
He packs his things and literally drags his nephew with him to Iceland, where they are to begin their awesome journey. It seemed to me that everything that took place in the novel took place where it should have, one of the marks of a true author.
Also, the novel was not rushed, which is one of the most common problem with adventure stories. This book made me want to read more of Verne's writting. The novel definitely deserves to be a
classic.

As an avid reader of Jules Verne, I enjoyed reading this book very much. I am not much for reading alot of books, but when I do read he is the authur that I choose. I thought that Journey to the Center of the Earth like all of his books was very well writen and very well developed.
I especially like these types of books because, they seem that they could actualy be real and certain places mentioned could actually exist. The book starts off with a young boy telling the story. His name is Harry and he lives in Hanburg with his uncle. His uncle's name is Professor Hardwigg. He is a professor of many different sciences like philosophy, chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and many other sciences. In the beginning of the book the Professor makes a discovery. His discovery is a small piece of paper that is called a Runic manuscript. The hard part was trying to figure out what langauge the paper was writen in, but once it was deciphered it appeared to have directions that lead to the center of the earth. So professor Hardwigg being the adventurer that he was, was ready to set off for Ireland, which is were the paper said to go first. Harry being only 13 had no choice in the matter but to go. They took a ten day trip on a boat to Ireland and when they got there, they were supposed to go to base of a mountain where there was a cave that they would enter that would lead them to the center of the earth. The cave seemed to go down and down forever where it lead them to the very depths of the earth. When they reached the center of the earth they came across a blue sky and an ocean. They built a raft to go across it and in the middle of crossing they ecountered two prehistoric monsters fighting around them. In the story they also encounter living fire. In the center of the earth any wrong step of wrong turn could lead to most certainly death or being trapped down there forever. To find out more details and what happens in the rest of the book, you will just have to read it for yourself.
Like I mentioned before the reading experience of this book was very good. The characters were very well developed, because of the information given about them and also how they were used throughout the story. Professor Hardwigg for example was a great character because he was a very smart man, but also a great adventurer. In the book as soon as the professor figured out what the paper ment he was ready to begin the journey. Harry was another great and well developed character, because of the information that was given in the beginning. Also, who would have thought that a 13 year old boy could have cracked the code before his smart uncle, so he plays a great role in this story.
The plot was very well developed and very well laid out. The story went step by step not leaving out anything and everything was very well explained. In the story they talked about having to learn to repel and in the story it told exactly how and why they did this.
I would recommend this book to anyone with an open mind and to people that think that this could actualy happen. Overall I enjoyed reading this book very much and I hope that this review will help anyone interested in reading it or people just reviewing it.

I love Emerson. For my money, he's one of the most insightful thinkers and beautiful stylists this country has produced. He deserves better than he's received from "professional" philosophers who tend to dismiss him as "just" a person of letters (as if that were a shameful thing to be!).

But this collection of Emersonia is seriously flawed. It prints the essays in Emerson's first collection, but only two from his second. It omits some of his best poems (including "The Sphinx," which Emerson himself so valued that he always had it printed at the very beginning of all the books of poems he published during his lifetime), as well as all of the later essays. In their place, the editors choose to print Emerson's "English Traits," a pleasant enough travel book but rather fluffy compared to the rest of his works. As the editors admit in their Introduction (itself a rather disappointing effort), they tend to feel uncomfortable with Emerson's work on mysticism, and so they decided to leave out of their anthology huge chunks of it. But since Emerson is first and foremost a mystical writer, this is to seriously misrepresent him.

In short, read Emerson--but find a better one-volume collection of his work than this one.

Every Emerson volume is 'a good read'. Unlike some other readers, I love English Traits, maybe because I am English. Emerson is a joy, everyone should read him, at least once.

Emerson's writings are eaily and clearly displayed in this wonderful publication. My thirst for poetry was easily quenched with his powerful and meaningful words. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to read thoughtful and discriptive literature.