Today I had the pleasure to hear Mark Cox, this year's Frost poet in residence at the Frost Place in Franconia, NH. He read from this lovely book of poems with such clarity, such honesty, that I was compelled to buy the book on the spot. He writes of the things that we all face, that we can all connect with, but still, with careful word choice and all the other fine things involved with the crafting of good poetry, he evokes our own experience as well. The poetry is accessible, careful, emotion-laden but not "sentimental". Build your own collection, using this one as a valued addition.

Cox is a poet whose work I admire and enjoy (and I'm a hard woman to please -- as I am both a poet and a literary critic). This collection is like a complicated American all -you can eat breakfast with surprises, freebies you never thought you'd get and a bottomless cup of thought provoking images to wash it down with.

See him "read" (aka, perform) these if you can, but in the meantime, buy the book and support the work!

Reviewed by Rustin Larson in The Iowa Source

An often heard praise for a poet these days is that he "takes the straw of the ordinary and spins it into gold." However, it may be said Mark Cox takes it one step further, that he gives his gold an unusual new texture and shine. Ever since the appearance of his chapbook Barbells of the Gods in 1988, Cox has been taking perfectly good poetic lines and spinning them into something even better. One line from that chapbook could well have read "Let's... throw our cigarettes from this car like ecstatic hearts, / and let the sparks lead us home." That would have been a good line for most of us. But Cox does a brilliant thing. He reverses the tenor and the vehicle of the simile so it reads "Let's throw our hearts from this car like ecstatic cigarettes..." and for my money the lyric and imagistic movement of the line is enhanced by this strategy. Something emotionally unexpected and vivid comes from it. This is just the sort of gold weaving Cox has practiced and improved over the past decade. His new book, Thirty-Seven Years from the Stone, exhibits a very high level of accomplishment.

Cox's great sense of the absurdity and communicative strength of similes, and his artistry with them, continues beautifully in poems like Like a Simile:

"Fell into bed like a tree/ Slept like boiling water/ Got from bed like a camel/ And showered like a tin roof./ Went downstairs like a slinky/ Drove to work like a water skier/ Entered the trailer like a bad smell/ Where I changed clothes like a burn victim/ Drank my coffee like a mosquito/ And waited like a bus stop./ A whistle blew./ Then I painted like I was in a knife fight for eight hours/ Drank like a burning building/ Drove home like a bank shot/ Unlocked the door like a jeweler/ And entered the house like an argument next door./ The dog smiled like a chain saw./ The wife pretended to be asleep/ I pretended to eat./ She lay on the bed like a matress/ I sat at the table like a chair./ Until I inched along the stair rail like a sprinkler/ Entered like smoke from a fire in the next room/ And apologized like a toaster./ The covers did not open like I was an envelope/ And she was a 24-hour teller/ So I undressed like an apprentice matador/ Discovering bullsh*t on his shoes."

Working with the concept on a larger scale, with extended metaphor and simile, Cox excels. Even a title might reflect a brilliant reversal of the expected, such as The Tunnel at the End of the Light, and then build upon it: "The summer my body began to fit,/ living seemed fluid/ as putting my arm through a sleeve--/ when I threw crusts of bread in the air,/ they became birds,/ when I held her,/ I held myself-" .

There is a great emotional investment in each poem of Thirty-Seven Years from the Stone, but Cox does not stray toward the sentimental and false. Do not mistake heart and courage for sentimentality. Whether reflecting on fatherhood in poems like Make the Cobra Talk, or on his future death in Grain, the uniquely rendered similes transmit a genuineness within the oddity: "...like a snapping turtle in a two-dollar butterfly net,/ I will refuse the new world" Cox says of the prospect of leaving the ones he loves behind when he dies. It's a tenacious spirit that inhabits these poems, that grabs on and holds us even as it turns the world upside-down. Thirty-Seven Years from the Stone is an accomplished, admirable collection of poems.

This book was an excellent resource to use on your own or in a classroom setting. I personally used it for a college course and I really think it is excellent! It not only shows you signing, it explicitly describes each each sign and gives you grammatical and cultural notes on Deaf culture which is as important as the signing itself!

This ASL Curriculum guide to the BRAVO series is a wonderful addition to those who are serious sign language learners. The Bravo lessons are easy to follow and very beneficial! I recommend this tool highly!

The Franconia, New Hampshire, farm of the American poet Robert Frost was turned into a museum and center for poetry and the arts in 1976. From that time, "The Frost Place" has been annual event wherein an emerging poet has been invited to spend the summer living in the house where Frost once lived and wrote some of his greatest poetry. The Breath Of Parted Lips: Voices From The Robert Frost Place, Volume One is a remarkable anthology of twenty-four poets, each of whom won that honor of a summer's residency and document the success of the original concept as a means of generating outstanding poetry while nurturing the poet's muse in the rooms and views that were once the inspiration of the great Robert Frost. Poem At 40: Windwashed--as if standing next to the highway,/a truck long as the century sweeping by,/all things at last bent in the same direction./An opening, as if all/the clothes my ancestors ever wore/dry on lines in my body:/wind-whipped, parallel with the ground,/some sleeves sharing a single clothespin/so that they seem to clasp hands,/seem to hold on.//And now that I can see/up the old women's dresses,/there's nothing but a filtered light./And now that their men's smoky breath/has traversed the earth,/it has nothing to do with them./And now that awkward, fat tears of rain/slap the window screen,/now that I'm naked too,/cupping my genitals, tracing with a pencil/the blue vein between my collar bone and breast,/I'll go to sleep when I'm told.

Any theatre buff will think he or she has died and gone to hog heaven. It is virtually impossible to put this gorgeous book down. Put together by the archivists who work for the Shubert Organization, this book covers Broadway with the Shuberts for the past 100 years. Currently the Organization owns 17 Broadway houses. A history of each theatre and what has played there is covered on these pages. The photography and beautiful design make this one of the best coffee table size books I have ever seen. And I have quite a collection. You won't regret your purchase!

An amazing book that I couldn't put down. The Shuberts have compiled a great tribute to Broadway theater. It's worth the money if you are a theater history buff!

A letter is missing from the subtitle of this book: it should have been "100 Years of Great American Theaters." Yes, this gorgeously designed and printed volume offers numerous historic production stills, but Chach et al. reserved the real glamour for interior shots of Schubert-owned houses. They include no views of backstage areas, nor do they mention the true history of the Schuberts and their attempts to replace and repeat the syndicate's dominance over American theater. Readers will find reproductions of rare items from the Schubert Archive interesting, and the price is certainly a good value. Libraries with extensive theater collections may wish to acquire it, but the volume is a coffee-table book best suited for theater buffs.

The first thing I have to say about Tiedemann's work is that once I begin one of his stories I don't want to put it down.
Whether it's a new Asimov Robot Mystery or his Secantis series, this author keeps you turning the pages. Compass Reach is crisply paced, with richly drawn characters and a compelling story. Tiedemann cooks up a spicy stew of Bradbury mystery with Asimov's galactic scope and a dash of Heinlein's humor. Watch for Metal of Night, the 'second' in the series, and Feel the Impact When Worlds Collide!

"I picked up COMPASS REACH last year after seeing it on the short-list for the Philip K. Dick Award, and discovered a sophisticated novel about interstellar civilization, aliens, and the humans who are trying to come to terms with a universe they know little about. At face value, that description may sound like standard fare, but this book isn't. And that's because of the characters and the way Tiedemann reveals them. I've always been drawn to the strange, imaginative worlds of possibility that comprise the science fiction genre, but what makes me a fan of Tiedemann's universe, in particular, is the beings who inhabit them. He writes about the human condition with an immediacy that makes you feel the world he's depicting is real. Instead of the neat political and ethical boxes that usually comprise 'space opera', he embraces ambiguity and talks about life as it is and how it might be under fully-realized future conditions.

"He's very visual, too. From the tortured landscape of the opening chapter to the startling evocation of Earth at the end, the world of COMPASS REACH is vivid and rich, equal to the intellectual and emotional explorations of the book--which are all multifaceted and fascinating. He addresses questions I've always wondered about when reading or watching traditional science fiction. Questions like, What would life be like for the people on the bottom of the economic pyramid in an interstellar culture? How would "wealth" be determined in such a system? How would interactions with alien civilizations change the way we see ourselves? What are the ramifications of--?

"Well, you get the idea. This novel is a sleeper. I hear it is on the preliminary ballot for the Nebula Award. I hope it wins! It's a refreshing twist on old ideas, liberally laced with some new ideas, but with a central power and drive that rewards close reading. The images stayed with me long after the last page. I don't have a lot of time to read for fun, so I'm a little behind, but I'm starting PEACE AND MEMORY, the third book in Tiedemann's Secantis Sequence, right now. This is a writer to pay attention to and enjoy for a long time to come.

As a long time reader of science fiction, it's always a pleasure to discover a new author with genuine talent. Mark Tiedemann is such an author, and Compass Reach is a genuinely good book. As hard as it is to imagine, he has created a believable space opera. There are no stereotypical heroes or villains here, no mock heroics, no paint-by-the-numbers galactic empires. Instead, there are heroes who have doubts, make mistakes, get confronted with sitations they can't deal with...and yet, somehow they manage to survive and overcome. There are villains who are villains for believable reasons...Mr. Tiedemann makes you understand why they behave the way they do, and even empathize with them (not an easy trick!) And those inscrutable aliens...just what are they up to? It's all set against the background of a very well-realized galactic civilization, with supporting details that bring it to life in a most convincing fashion. After finishing this book, you have the feeling you have been somewhere and done something. Kudos to Mr. Tiedemann for creating such a memorable novel. I recommend it most highly.

I bought this book 7 years ago, and just recently took it back off the shelf to read/reread sections related to my current work. Book is packed with explanations that facilitate understanding of these complex instruments. And it's nice to see how the binomial model is developed by its inventors. I highly recommend this book to all seeking to understand how to price and analyse options. The reason I gave it 4 stars was that book has an equities focus.

Always an up-to-date work. The excellent analysis of every aspect of options ranks it a must for the researcher (speculator or agent trader) in order to comprehend thoroughly the real nature and forces of the derivative instruments of the markets and obtain a strong infrastucture for consequent reading on strategies and technical analysis. Mathematics of the book are plain and worth reading to the last equation, for they prove to be the key to the understanding and valuation of any novelty work on the subject.The authors' state-of-the-art multiple remarks and explanations on options prices,their factors and sensitivity factors makes it an everyday's book, besides its academic value. A stand alone book for traders that once you get it is to be read over and over in sequence with any new techniques to be tested.

Was Twain the greatest writer America ever produced? Certainly no other author has written so many genres so well. Life on the Mississippi is one of my favorites by Twain. What a storyteller! From his own personal experiences to explorers, psychics, the Civil War, slavery, geography, steamboat history etc. Twain gives us a glimpse into himself and his country.

Twain is of course humorous in this book, but his lesser known quality--insight--is very keen in this book. Twain's style is at once sophisticated and simple. It is pure mastery.

While this may not be up there with some of other Twain's writings, it is certainly worth the time and money. Definitely recommended.

In Life on the Mississippi, Twain recounts his river experiences from boyhood to riverboat captain and beyond. Encompassing the years surrounding the Civil War, this book is an excellent source of 19th-century Americana as well as an anthology of the mighty river itself. Replete with rascally rivermen, riparian hazards, deluge, catastrophe, and charm, Life on the Mississippi is another of Twain's stellar literary achievements.

Wit and wisdom are expected from Twain and this book does not disappoint. It is equally valuable for it's period descriptions of the larger river cities (New Orleans, St. Louis, St. Paul), as well as the small town people and places ranging the length of America's imposing central watershed.

The advent of railroads signalled the end of the Mississipi's grand age of riverboat traffic, but, never fear, Life on the Mississippi brings it back for the reader as only Samuel Clemens can. Highly recommended.

Life on the Mississippi is by far one of the most wonderful books ever written about the post Civil War era in America. Mark Twain takes the reader on a melancholy look at this period of time in history as you journey into the Mississippi of his youth, adulthood, and the people and the communities he knew so well. He conveys a miraculous picture of this lively river giving it the grandeur and prominence it deserves. He defines the river very much like a living organism with a power and personality all its own. As the book unfolds, he begins in his days when he grew up along the river and became a steam boat pilot, ending that career with the advent of the Civil War. Later he returns to the river after some twenty years and takes a journey as a writer from around St. Louis to New Orleans and back up the river into what is present day Minnesota. You learn about the different cultures along the river, its tributaries, as well as the remarkable people who become part of the forgotten history of our nation. Twain's anecdotes are sheer brilliance, and he has an incredible way of choosing just the right story to illustrate a particular point transporting the reader back into time as if it was the present day and you are standing beside Twain observing what he is seeing. His reflections of his times along the river and his descriptions of the people and places make this a true masterpiece of literature and I highly recommend it. I found myself only able to read short portions at a time, as I personally found the sheer beauty of the entire book was a work to be savored and digested rather than rapidly consumed as you would with any other book. As I poured through the book, I felt often as if I was traveling with Mark Twain as a companion along his charming and magnificent journey during a wonderful period of history.

As a public speaker and trainer, no matter how well prepared I am for an engagement, I encounter situations, audiences and questions that can catch me off guard. This book offers concrete tools, suggestions and examples of how to handle these types of situations using various improvisational techniques.

It is also a witty, fun and playful reminder to trust our instincts and tap into the natural creativity that we are born with. A definite must have on your book shelf!

I pull this book off the shelf so often that I'm thinking of naming it and teaching it to fetch. As an acting teacher, I not only find the games energizing and useful for my students, but I value the advice and suggestions. It really helps with the side-coaching, with reviving the essential spirit of the work that got all of us into this. As a mostly human being, I sometimes let this book jump up onto my lap simply for the giggles. These are people who not only know what they're talking about, but who write with great wit about wit. Hey . . . this book may be the solution to that pesky old form vs. function debate. This is a really, really good book that continually inspires.

In a world where the corporate climate is becoming more and more concerned about don'ts, than dos, more worried about what can't be said, than what can, this delightful book is the perfect reminder of the power of play. I love the messege. Let's get out of our heads and have some fun. Then let's see how that fun effects our work product.

The authors give us inspiring examples of humor in the workplace, and a series of excerises to loosen up even the most button downed office. They manage to give sound advice while keeping tongues firmly in cheek. I found it an easy read, perfect for the airplane.

This is a great beginner's book for Improv in the workplace. Now,I would love to see a more in-depth work from this joyful team. Improvise This! has whet my appetite.

Mr. Bernstein does a great job bringing to life the interactions among the Wright Brothers, Boss Kettering, and John Patterson in turn of the century Dayton, Ohio. Did you know John Patterson (founder of National Cash Register)invented the canned sales pitch and direct mail marketing? And the way the book covers the five year period it took the Wright Brothers to concur flight is spellbinding. I have purchased five copies of this book to give to various friends, all of whom loved it.