I first owned this volume of poetry in 1978. That book simply fell apart after more than 20 years of reading and handling (sometimes roughly by my children). I replace this book with a new one just last year.
The old favorites are all here; Fireflies in the Garden, The Road Not Taken, Fire and Ice, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, and a hundred more. In my opinion this is the definitive volume on Frost.
I have always been awed by the number of poems Frost wrote about the stars. A Star on a Stoneboat, The Star Spitter, Stars, Canis Major and many others. Truly Robert Frost is the astronomers poet.
Also in this volume is perhaps my favorite Frost poem, Brown's Descent.
If you love reading Frost on a crispy fall evening, then you'll love reading him when the crickets chirp. You'll need to own this book.

Robert Frost was and is America's greatest poet. Excepting, perhaps, W. B. Yeats, he may be the greatest poet to write English in the twentieth century. (To me, it's a toss-up.) To read this volume systematically or desultorily is to become convinced of that. But Frost is, above all, accessible, so the casual reader may not appreciate the difficulty of what he does. Like much of the greatest art his looks easy, even inevitable.

All of Frost's poems are here, plus his two dramatic Masques. When this book first appeared (in 1969) it caused a furor: the editor, it was angrily asserted, presumed too much. He dared to clarify - inserting a hyphen here, excising a comma there. That furor has since died down, as people realize that he did not do away with the sacred texts (any emendation was noted), but simply performed his job as editor. He regularized spelling and the use of single and double quotes (though not Capitalization, which can legitimately be thought of as integral to the poet's expression (think of e.e. cummings!)), and corrected other obvious errors. The notes give the published variants for each poem, so if you wish you may make your own call on some of these finicky issues.

I cannot emphasize enough: BUY THE HARDCOVER! After all, you will be reading this book for the rest of your life. It is a beautifully-built volume, of an easy size and heft for use, with understated appealing typefaces and an exemplary design. Put out by Frost's long-time publisher, this is one of the few essential books of American literature.

"It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts, The reader of good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound-that he will never get over it...The proof of a poem is not that we have never forgotten it, but we knew at sight we would never forget it."

Robert Frost

I have to admit it! When I first met Robert Frost's poetry in Freshman English class I took an immortal wound-that I will never get over it. Perhaps the then recent memory of the white haired poet who inaugurated Camelot that cold, January day conditioned me to receive the wound. Maybe Fr. Sheridan's teaching opened these poems for me. Most of all, I think that it is the words themselves which have made the poetry of Robert Frost such an important part of my life for almost 35 years.

This complete collection complemented the high school text book to which I had so often referred over the years. Here is the source of lines which I have often quoted. Many family vacations have begun with: "I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep" (Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening).

When my son tries to silence his sister's singing he is reminded that "Of course there must be something wrong In wanting to silence any song" (A Minor Bird).

Here we find philosophical reflections. "Good walls make good neighbors" counters "Something there is that doesn't like a wall" (Mending Wall).

Here "The Death of a Hired Man" challenges us to reflect upon how we value and treat others while "Christmas Trees" reminds us that not all things have prices. Here we are invited to follow the road of the poet who wrote "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference" (The Road Not Taken).

I have writen just a sampling of the treasures to be found in this collection, but I have written enough. It is now time to indulge again with words I have never forgotten. "I shan't be gone long-You come too." (The Pasture).

Carl George effectively communicates the essential basics. This book does a good job of highlighting the difference between being a facilitator of small group time and being a leader (someone who is a disciple-maker). I have used this book as the main text for training small group leaders. It provides great material for interactive discussion and presenting a wholistic picture of all that small groups can be.

The best two things about this book are: 1) it helps the small group leader coordinate with the pastor, and 2) it includes shepherding, building community, discipleship and evangelism as part of the small group experience. It is the best balanced book available today!

I am a small-groups person. I have been in one small group or another, often as a leader, almost continually, for the past 30 years. I believe small groups are just about the most important aspect of a church's life.

I have read many books on this, gone to many seminars. There is a lot of good material on this topic.

But in my present role as a church consultant, this is the book on small groups that I hand to pastors who are wanting to know how to grow a small group ministry or how to better equip their small group leaders.

Why? As George explains in this book, most church small groups do a good job of promoting nurture and fellowship, but most stop there. George believes an effective small group should perform three basic functions, not just nurture. In addition to nurture, he believes small groups should be effectively engaged in small-group-based evangelism (George says that in any given year, only one small group in four does any evangelism), and he thinks that small groups should constantly be training small group leaders through apprenticeship. I agree that a small group needs all three functions. And so I use this book as the entry point for someone who is new to these ideas about small group life.

After this introduction, I point churches to further training or more in-depth printed materials about various aspects of this approach to small groups, but in my opinion, there's not a better starting point than this one.

This is an inspiring collaboration between a passionate amateur scholar and his professional scholar friends. How delightful to read something that isn't dumbed down. The analysis and induction is nicely supplemented by the "Hymn to Demeter." Much for the brain to chew on!

Wasson et al's revelations of the complexity of the myths that surrounded the Eleusian mysteries are fodder for hours upon hours of thought play about the foundations of our culture today.

The authors of 'Road to Eleusis' - they include Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, and Gordon Wasson, the white man who in 1957 revealed the continued existence of the pre-Columbian sacred-mushroom rite to the non-Mexican Indian world - argue that a water-soluble alkaloid contained in ergot, a tiny fungus which attacks grains and grasses, was the principal psychoactive ingredient of the 'kykeon', the sacred potion drunk before the celebration of the Mysteries of Eleusis by those awaiting initiation. The philological and psycho-pharmacological argument of 'Road to Eleusis' is compelling but to get the most from the book, read it in combination with 'Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter' by Karl Kerenyi, a disciple of Carl Jung, which provides an introduction to the history of Eleusis and contains a psychological study of the Mysteries.

In pre-Classical times, it is likely that almost the entire population of Athens walked the fifteen-mile distance to Eleusis at harvest time every year in order to drink the 'kykeon' and experience the sense of the mythic reunion of Persephone, the Daughter, with Demeter, the Mother who taught men how to plant seeds and reap the fruit. The Christ, the draw in the psychological game of chess between the Hellenised Middle East and Israel, speaks distantly but clearly of Eleusis in John 12: 20-24 and Cicero, the Roman philosopher, author and statesman who coined the phrase 'bread and circuses' to damn the spectacular politics of his time, was an initiate.

Iktinos, architect of the Parthenon, also designed the Telesterion, the classical-period temple of the Mysteries of which only broken columns survive. However, scattered throughout 'Eleusis' by Kerenyi are bits and pieces of the psychological vocabulary of the Mysteries which with the help of ancient Greek and Indo-European comparative etymological dictionaries allow a reconstruction of the mind of the initiate. For example, 'tele', from 'telos', the full circle, the crown - today, we hear it many times every day in connection with technology; however, at Eleusis 'tele' had a sacral meaning.

Eleusis was to religion in Athens what democracy was to Athenian politics: essential.

'Road to Eleusis' and 'Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter' - read both; and when in Greece, don't miss Eleusis, 20 miles south of Athens on the mainland across the water from the island of Salamis, open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. except Monday when the site is closed.

If other books are dynamite, this is nuclear. It documents how the Mystai at Eleusis became Epoptes, a standard rite of passage for all the famous Greek minds we seek to understand. Full understanding is not possible without initiation such as is outlined in this volume. Eleusis is at the end of a line of mystical experience that goes back to 5000 BCE. Is is not so much that the Mystery of Eleusis is revealed, as that it points the sacred way how to unravel the mystery of our own existence. The Greeks knew, and if you do as they did, you can. Wasson tells us what the Greeks did.

"A remarkable and helpful collection of the dialogues begun by Jung and his followers with the great teachings of the East. These are visionary papers which raise profound questions about human wholeness in the spiritual and psychological world. I hope that this book sparks continued and deepening discussions."

"It is an urgent necessity that Eastern and Western intellectual traditions be bridged in order to establish a new spiritual foundation for the one world to come. This book is an excellent anthology which pursues this very task in its focus on C.G. Jung -- a unique and originative Western thinker in the field of depth psychology -- and Buddhism."

MILTON ROSENBERG,THE AUTHOR OF WHOM I'M NOT FAMILIAR WITH, DOES A OUTSTANDING JOB OF EXPRESSING FACTORS,IN THE CONSISTENCY,OR LACK THREREOF CONCERNING HIS PHILOSOPHY OF CHANGE,AND THE VARIOUS ATTITUDE'S,LEADING UP TO THAT,FACTOR OF CHANGE.......THIS BOOK STRICKLY FOR THE VERY INTELLECTUAL,OF WHICH I'M NOT IN THAT CLASSIFICATION,STILL MADE INTERESTING READING,FOR A LAYMAN....

This book reviews many "must read" metaphysical books. Ever since this book literally "fell off the shelf" near me at a bookstore, I have read many of the books reviewed in it. They have expanded my mind and my view of consciousness in ways I cannot even describe. If you're interested in metaphysical topics, get this book, see which of the "reviewees" you are attracted to, and go from there. It's a worthwhile pursuit!

This was a 2 volume set, green binding. Showing your most fortunate times on any given day.

THis work comes out of the "Braaten/Jenson Ecumenical Center" which has provided so many great books on Christian reunion. The center isn't called that, but those two untiring Christians have done so much that it should be named after them!

Now this book doesn't solve any problems per se, but it does put them into context and it avoids the unhelpful, silly, and unscholarly straw man arguments that the cheaper scholarship throws out as to why we should be Catholic or Protestant or Orthodox or "Protholidox"! WHile it is a great book for those interested in reunion, it is certainly a must-read for those who have read Ut Unum Sint, "that all may be one".

See my review of Brian Tierney's "Origins of Papal Infallibility" for a great selection of books that deal indepth with the subject of reunion between east and west as it relates to the papacy. Enjoy!

This book is about nuclear winter, and what scientists have determined it will probably be like. Before I say anything else, let me state as clearly as possible that I am not an expert in this topic. Sometimes it isn't always clear, reading Amazon.com reviews, whether the writer is an expert or just someone who read the book. I am in the second of those categories. Let me quickly mention that I have also read Lydia Dotto's "Planet Earth in Jeopardy: Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War," and I found that to be quite helpful as well. I put some more helpful commenst on my Amazon.com review of that book.

This book is one of the scariest things I've ever read. It clued me in on entirely new things over which people should be losing sleep. Did you know that one of the major threats of nuclear war is the threat of strikes on oil refineries? Such strikes can release unbelievably quantities of sun-blocking smog into the air. Did you know that radiation caused directly by nuclear bombs is relatively insignificant, compared to the radiation that would be released if such bombs fell on reactors? Reactors have fuel rods and waste which will remain lethally radioactive for DECADES after the radiation from a nuclear war reached tolerable levels. This book is full of information like this. It is all presented quite accessibly. Also, there is a fantastic question and answer section at the end, which includes back and forth sessions between eminent scientists in related fields. This section alone is worth the price of the book.

Let me point out that the main author listed for this book is only one of many cotributors. Paul Ehrlich has a lot to say here, but it is always made clear when he is writing, or when it's someone else, e.g. Carl Sagan or Lewis Thomas. I make this point here because I wouldn't want anyone to decide against buying this valuable book, because of Ehrlich's old reputation for being an alarmist. In the 1970s, as a member of the "Club of Rome," Ehrlich made some irresponsible statements about the dangers of population growth and energy shortages. Time has shown that he actually wasn't entirely wrong, but his timetables for his predictions were often overly pessimistic. Be that as it may, Stanford University has seen fit to keep him on their faculty, so he can't be seen as wholly out to lunch.

At any rate, this book is certainly worth wrestling with. Ehrlich bends over backwards, to be as conservative and non-alarmist as possible, in his writings here. Carl Sagan, Lewis Thomas, and other contributors take the same approach. Nevertheless, as cool-headed as they are, the underlying horror of their message is unmistakable. Nuclear winter would be an unprecedentedly horrific experience, and there's basically zero chance that anyone reading this would survive it. Please buy this book, get copies for all your friends, and find a way to get involved.

If you love wildlife art that shows every hair, whisker or feather of a wild creature and every blade of grass, leaf or branch in the "background", Carl Brenders is your man. His work is technically brilliant and acutely observed, resulting in paintings that are more real than reality.

This man can draw! There are a few pencil sketches included in the book. They are a little looser than his impeccable paintings and they appeal to me more than the paintings.

So much art is a matter of taste - I am awe struck by the patience Brenders must possess in order to produce these images, but I personally prefer a more spontaneous approach. I subscribe to James McNeill Whistler's view: "To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view." Brenders manages to achieve a fusion of "great and earnest labour" (he must take months to do each painting!) and creative excellence. That's the only reason why I give a four- and not five-star rating! It's just a little TOO slick for my taste.

The layout of this book is clean and fresh, allowing his detailed paintings lots of white space. Accompanying the paintings is a brief commentary from the artist. This text reinforces the artist's absolute love of his subject.

If you are not a collector of wildlife paintings or limited edition fine art work yet, you definitely will be after you see these images. Many people belive these are only photos. Carl Brenders captures so much detail in his paintings, most are fooled who do not know of his works. From the finest feathers of a golden eagle's head to the glass-like eyes of a Canadian Lynx to lichen and moss on rocks and trees.
I have been an art dealer for many years and still am in awe at his paintings and prints. It is truly amazing that someone has the ability to represent wildlife in such a way.

Carl Brenders is a fantastic artist. I had his calendar hanging in my office and people thought his drawings were photographs. This is an excellent book of his works.