Stephen Crane was such and eloquent poet. His works always seem to question both himself and society at large. "War is Kind" is the picture of this as Crane mocks the idea of glory in war, using sarcasm to condemn war even as he praises it. This is a wonderful book, one that everyone should at least read if they don't own it, but this is such a great price, it should be a must-have for every literary scholar.

Dark and rather succinct, it's a little more than what a normal thinking and somewhat religious person might want to read after a lunch repast. What grips me here is that this man must (MUST!) KNOW God, must have met Him severally, and must have been denied some sort of heaven by God. The thing that makes me so impressed and in one passage, breath-taken, is that this man had to go through tremendous pressure, stress (his peers and friends hated him and laughed at his creativity) and ultimately, consumption, to create this small (and quite inexpensive) collection of poems. "War is Kind" is sarcastic, I agree, as some would say, but I also think that Crane's wars were waged not only on the Somme or in the trenches in some Eastern front, but they were waged with desire, for heaven with or without the presence of women or lovers, waged with the Ultimate thoughts he was being given so as to recall God's ear to bend to his poems. I like the book so far that I've read. It benefits the poet-in-progress to study Stephen Crane, and it also might help to not be quite so deeply drawn into his case against his maker and himself by reading some poems without much sobriety. For a $..., someone wishing to know Truth might be wealthy in more ways than the list price. Thanks, Stephen Crane.

Usually read for his one hit novel (Red Badge), Crane produced a score of great stories & a gritty novel about prostitution (Maggie) and some very modern poetry that still reads well today. Put it up against his contemporaries of the 1890's and he sounds remarkably modern. (He even looks modern is some later portraits... I see him hanging out with Brautigan, learning about horses with McGuane, hanging in the streets with...)

Crane does not waste words. Each poem moves quickly to the point, offers you this, and this. In school there may be a couple Crane poems in an english book, but not near enough. From "In a desert" (#3?) to Intrigue, his poems are near perfect and his words still hold strong meaning today, from 80 to over a hundred years after they were written.

Although Stephen Crane has earned his place in the American literary canon largely on the basis of his novel "The Red Badge of Courage" and his psychologically compelling short fiction, he was also a master of the art of poetry. "The Complete Poems" is a superb tribute to that poetic genius. In addition to collecting all 135 of Crane's known surviving poems, editor Joseph Katz has written a substantial introduction which places Crane's poetic achievement in context.

Most of Crane's poems are written in a free verse using simple, yet quietly powerful language. His words are full of irony and paradox; his vision is sometimes sarcastic and often dark, yet frequently surprises with gentleness and compassion. Reading Crane, I get the sense of meeting an ancient sage on a barren, wind-swept plain. His poems often have an oddly scriptural flavor to them; these are verses that invite return and reflection.

Stephen Crane writes, "I have a thousand tongues / And nine and ninety-nine lie." Nonetheless, in "The Complete Poems of Stephen Crane" the attentive reader will discover a reservoir of disturbing truth.

There are a few prep books in the market, I woul rate them as below
1. Barron's How to prepare for SSHSAT ----4 stars
2. Kaplan's SCI-Hi------------------------3 stars
3. Princeton Preview SSHSAT---------------3 stars
4. Arco Specialized science High exam-----2 stars

I bought this book preparing for another exam. When it was time to prepare for the Specialized High school exam I picked up this book again. My friends thought I had no chance. They were paying $1,000 for courses. While I was just using this book. And now Im in Stuyvesant and they're not. It's all thanks to this book!!!

I made it into Stuyvesant High School. I didn't use any other book (I couldn't find any). This book really helped me.

Crane has a delightfully light style of writing that can take the deepest and most sorrowful of situations, and somehow bring them light. His, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets," is a wonderful depiction of life for a 19th century girl in New York. "The Open Boat" puts you on the ship; you can naturally feel the narration and flow with him as he crashes against the waves. A wonderful read for any interested in American or New York literature.

Stephen Crane died at the early age of 29, but in his writing he shows what he'd come through in life. I think his style is mature and hardened up, due to a life spent in difficult times. In "The Blue Hotel", he depicts a brief, brutal and enigmatic moment in the lives of several residents and migrants in Nebraska, a stupid and cruel fight in the midst of a snow blizzard.

The rest of the stories have to do with Civil War episodes and other moments in the US history. My favorite tale is the one that's on the cover of the book: the Open Boat. It is masterfully told, the story is tense, sad and exciting. The reader can feel the up and down movement of the boat, the cold wetness of the clothes, the seasickness the characters suffer, the desolation at every failure to approach the coast, the relationship between the characters, etc. It is a pity that Crane died so young, since in these short stories he shows himself as a talented, gifted and mature writer.

Crane proves to be an early American master of the short story. I found "Courage" to be plodding and obvious, but Crane's short stories rescue his literary reputation for me.

The stories are well paced with vivid characters and little epiphany by story's end.

A timeless collection of must-have-read literature. The compilation is of the highest quality, the presentation most satisfactory. Particularly suitable for students, many of us older people will also enjoy new encounters with old friends. amazing how the impact of those stories grows with one's own age. Highly recommendable!

Thanks for scholars like Nicholas Delbanco who hunt down biographical details that enrich our knowledge of famous authors lives. Here is a book that offers a savory meal for the literary gourmet. Henry James liked donuts. Stephen Crane chain smoked. Conrad the English stylist spoke with a thick Polish accent. Ford Madox Ford embellished his recollections with untruths. H. G. Wells treated offers of help with cocky independence.

The author contends that for a certain interval these men associated with and admired each others literary accomplishments. "South of London in 1900, a galaxy of talent assembled that beggars in accomplishment anything the English language has since produced." He provides quotations and photographs that demonstrate social intercourse between the big five. Between the initial overview and the concluding summary, three chapters provide respectively a view of Stephen Crane on a visit to England to meet the other masters of ficti! onal prose, a study of the collaboration between Ford Madox Ford and Joseph Conrad, and an examination of one of English literature's most famous disputes - James vs. Wells.

I found the book informative and interesting and recommend it to any admirer of any of the five writers singularly or in combination. About those we admire our curiosity is insatiable. Did Shakespeare like his eggs over easy or sunny side up? We have his Hamlet, his Lear, isn't that enough? Some might say no. We have Crane's "Open Boat", Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", Ford's *Good soldier, James' *Ambassadors, Wells' *Time Machine*. Still, it's natural to inquire about the virtues, quirks, and foibles of their creators. *Group Portrait* gives us a taste of the traits that rounds out these illustrious authors.

A sad epilogue to which Mr. Delbanco refers in his lead chapter is that this literary summer was so brief. Crane died in 1900. Eventually the other associations wither! ed. By 1906 the friendship between Conrad and Ford had coo! led. *Boon* published in 1915 dissolved Wells' ties to James with its ridicule of the latter. For a while there was Camelot albeit a loose confederacy of brilliant writers. A genius needs a tough ego to sustain him for the long haul to fortune and fame. An alternate lesson from *Group portrait, perhaps one not intended, but nevertheless patent, is that collaboration must eventually give way to ego.

This Review refers to the paperback edition of "The Little Regiment" and Other Civil War Stories (Dover Thrift Editions), by Stephen Crane.

"The Little Regiment" and Other Civil War Stories is a small collection of Civil War tales by the masterful storyteller Stephen Crane. This particular collection contains; "A Mystery of Heroism", "A Gray Sleeve", "Three Miraculous Soldiers", "The Little Regiment", "The Veteran", "An Indiana Campaign", and "An Episode of War". Each story describes the plights of soldiers or ex-soldiers in a manner that few other authors have been able to portray. Preceding the selection is a short biography of the gifted author.

Crane's short stories are surprisingly true to the Civil War, despite his being born after the subject. Through his literary work, Crane provides a window into the life of the soldier - a detail dismissed in the majority of literature due to the centering on generals or famous leaders.

The literary style Crane presents is said, by some, to be confusing, especially due to his naming a certain person and then neglecting to call that person by their name later in the story (i.e. if an author starts a conversation in a book naming a soldier as "John" and then later refers to him as "the soldier"). However, this form of writing conveys a sense that the soldier is any soldier and that the name has no particular influence on how the soldier acts or reacts, therefore defining not a single soldier, but rather the general soldier - every soldier. Crane also presents environments not from a visual perspective, but rather from the perspective that a human consciousness would be in possession of.

The work of Stephen Crane is rather remarkable and deserves to be read in centuries to come. Despite the quality of his work, however, the book is composed of rather cheap materials. It is suggested that the reader purchase this collection only if they have the intention of reading the book a relatively few times, and that if the reader looks to have a book that will last a while to get a copy of his tales in a better quality paper. To conclude, the stories will make a great addition to any library although it would be best to get a print of higher quality paper composition.

Crane's first book is always a pleasure to reread for the new discoveries I have always made; it might be a sentence I had not seen before, a humorous line, or simply, the wonder that an semi-educated writer--really just a boy--could write this short novel, one that was so instinctive in its forebodings of genius (Anyone wishing to chat about this book or Crane's "Red Badge"--I have a review there--or simply literature, please send e-mail: it will be pleasurably read and commented on).

If I were pressed to use one word to describe this book itwould be dark. However, Crane's novel is a moving piece with momentsof transcendence and rampant dark humor.

Basically, it is the story of Maggie, an undeveloped character who takes the back-seat to her loud and abusive parents, her swaggering, self-confident brother Jimmie and his friend, the boastful Pete.

The novel chronicles the injustices that surround Maggie, who is quiet and doesn't fight back. A chilling look at poor, urban life in the late 1800's, it is also a tale critical of society's judgmentality and questioning of morality. A more complex novel than it seems on first look, it is wonderful to take apart and examine the relationship between Maggie and Pete, Maggie and her mother, and Maggie and Jimmie.

Most importantly, however, are the quiet moments of transcendence in this novel.

Hart Crane's first novel is the tale of a pretty young slum girl driven to brutal excesses by poverty and loneliness. It was considered so sexually frank and realistic, that the book had to be privately printed at first. It and GEORGE'S MOTHER, the shorter novel that follows in this edition, were eventually hailed as the first genuine expressions of Naturalism in American letters and established their creator as the American apostle of an artistic revolution which was to alter the shape and destiny of civilization itself.

As an avid reader of military techno=thrillers, I consider Stephen Coonts one of the best writers in the genre. I picked up Fortunes of War expecting the same gripping plot and realism that Coonts had in his earlier thrillers involving Jake Grafton. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed by Fortunes of War.

The story takes place in 2008. The Emperor of Japan is assassinated by nationalists who want to spread the Japanese power around the globe like they did in World War II. The nationalists are also angry that they have to pay to import oil. What better way to do this than to invade Russia and conquer oil-rich Siberia? Russia, of course, is bankrupt. And it is also under the control of a madman. At this point I already had trouble with the realism of this book. It seems that every thriller involving Russia has some insane President in control of that country. I expected that Coonts would not start putting stock characters in his books, especially as world leaders, and I was wrong.

So Japan invades. They have a new fighter called the "Zero", which has a stealth system that prevents it from being captured on RADAR. This system is totally illegal for Japan to have under the terms of their treaty signed in 1945, and I found it surprising that the United States doesn't know about it in the book. Japan also has nuclear weapons, but that information is also unknown to the United States intelligence. So the new Japanese fighters destroy the Russian air force, and the United States intervenes with a squadron of F-22 "Raptors". However, the madman in the Kremlin has his own plans, and the climax has Russian and Japanese bombers on their way to nuke the other country, and only the United States can stop them.

I found this book disappointing not just because of the implausible story line. The characters are undeveloped and the reader cannot have feelings for any of them. Coonts at least doesn't have his air force pilots being tall blond jocks. I give him credit for his mix of pilots in the squadron. But that's about all I give him credit for. Another question: What about China? Coonts doesn't even include China in this book. You would assume that they would want to do something, right?

An implausible story line, stock characters, bad dogfight scenes. I think Coonts needs to stay with the Jake Grafton series, and I hope you agree.

Stephen Coonts crafts a tight book with a war scenario between Russia & Japan over control of the Siberian oilfields. The United States gets drawn in, ultimately assisting both sides as desperation leads the combatants to consider nuclear attack.

This is a much faster-paced & faster-reading book than Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, for example. He is Clancy's equal with the realism of his combat scenes. As a former combat aviator in Vietnam, he is especially masterful with the aerial battles involving Cassidy, Kimura, & Chernov, the American, Japanese, & Russian protagonist fighter pilots. He's also not too bad with submarine warfare, either.

The action starts quickly & grabs you from the start. I was unable to put it down & probably read it faster than any other novel this year. I heartily endorse this book for fans of modern military fiction.

Fortunes of War has got to be one of the most exciting and enjoyable books I have read in many years. Although the US contingent led by Air Force Colonel Bob Cassidy plays an important part in the outcome of the war, it is the fierce determination of its to main heroes (both Russian), along with the troubled dedication of Cassidy's long time friend Jiro Kimura that really makes this book something special. The Russian characters of Yan Chernov and submarine Capitan Saratov (along with Saratov's supporting crew) are just too cool. If it wasn't for them, Russia wouldn't have had a chance.

Coonts also shows us how supreme power on the part of both the Japanese and Russian leaders, creates a mindset that causes them to forget about the people they govern and causes them to focus only on their own personal gains.

I found myself cheering when the good things happened, and feeling down when the unfortunate occurred. Coonts gives a wonderful description of all of the charac! ters and events that unfold, without boring us with extensive detailed hi-tech information.

I recommend you pick this book up, find a cozy spot to read it, and just enjoy this extremely fast paced highly entertaining novel.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, READ THIS BOOK! Dont get me wrong, but The Scarlet Letter is one of the most boring books out there. Even if it is assigned for a reading in class, dont bother. Your analysis will inevitably be incorrect. I dont care how bright you are.

okay. if you've read The House of Seven Gables, you probably already know how metaphor-happy Hawthorne can be. If not, get ready for page after page of in-depth metaphors. In other words, you get to read 3 consecutive pages about rosebushes, material, colors, etc. If you enjoy description (and there is a heck of a lot of it) by all means, buy this book. If you're like me, and get annoyed with over-analyzation, one-dimensional characters, and obvious plot endings, despite the themes of sin, blackmail, supernatural,etc, you should understand why this book was banned.

Yes, I suppose if you are into WCW "wrasslin" and collecting unemployment this book would not be your best bet. But, for those of us that have jobs and attention spans it is a wonderful novel about the "effects of sin". Something most of the other reviewers only see on Jerry Springer. So do not listen to these reviewers who tell you to "drop the class" if you are forced to read it...look where dropping classes got them. Yes, I WOULD like that super sized.