I initially read the entire trilogy, U. S. A. by John Dos Passos, as a soldier in Vietnam, in June and July of 1969. Reading the two earlier volumes on America's lofty aims and actual experiences in World War One and the economic boom which followed it in the United States helped me try to imagine what my life would be like, as I faced growing old in a country which increasingly depended upon its global dominance for its style of life. Volume 3, THE BIG MONEY, ended this gigantic series with a political point of view that stuck with me more than any of the fictional parts of this novel. A look at the Contents in the sample pages gives some indication of the other tidbits in this trilogy, Newsreels, popular songs, and short bioographies, which make the composition of this trilogy unique.

Of the biographies, I would consider "The Bitter Drink" on Veblen the most intellectual item in THE BIG MONEY, and my best introduction to how Socrates ended up drinking the hemlock. Most biographies were about people who were so famous that they might still be remembered. "Tin Lizzie" is a life of Henry Ford. "Poor Little Rich Boy" was William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper owner whose father died in Washington, a senator, but who was only elected to the House of Representatives, where he justified his politics with, "you know where I stand on personal fortunes, but isn't it better that I should represent in this country the dissatisfied than have somebody else do it who might not have the same real property relations that I have?" However familiar this might sound today, Dos Passos wrote that "his affairs were in such a scramble he had trouble borrowing a million dollars, and politically he was ratpoison." The biography of Hearst is at page 375 in the paperback which is currently available, a few pages after "The Camera Eye (50) they have clubbed us off the streets" (p. 371) which says:

America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul

their hired men sit on the judge's bench they sit back with their feet on the tables under the dome of the State House they are ignorant of our beliefs they have the dollars the guns the armed forces the powerplants

they have built the electricchair and hired the executioner to throw the switch

The final nonfiction biography in THE BIG MONEY is called "Power Superpower" on page 420. Samuel Insull had been learning shorthand "and jotting down the speeches in PARLIAMENT for the papers" before he came to American in 1881 to be Edison's personal secretary. As president of Chicago Edison Company after 1892, "If anybody didn't like what Samuel Insull did he was a traitor." The part I liked best was after the stockmarket crash, when there were accounting problems involving a number of companies. "He held directorates in eightyfive companies, he was chairman of sixtyfive, president of eleven: it took him three hours to sign his resignations." When "Revolt against the moneymanipulators was in the air," he ran off and extradition proceedings involved at least four countries to bring him back to Chicago for a trial. So, "With voices choked with emotion headliners of Chicago business told from the witnessstand how much Insull had done for business in Chicago. There wasn't a dry eye in the jury." The result was different from the trial of Socrates in Athens a few thousand years earlier, and I think Insull had a better retirement than Socrates asked his friends to provide if they had to pay a fine for him. Maybe we are better off than some people. Read this book anyway.

The Big Money is a great work that exposes the American Dream as a destructive race towards an explosive jumping off point. Whichever way we make the money, it will end in devouring the part of us that was never mercenary. I'm a big fan of John Dos Passos, but I have to admit that if you aren't the type of reader who likes to visualize written images, his writing would be pretty wasted on you.

The best dog story ever written, bar none (I'm including Lassie Come Home and The Call of the Wild). What makes it so are two things: detail and duality. The book works on two levels, with one level being a very realistically drawn portrait of the lives of the shepherds of England's Yorkshire dales, and the other being a interlocking tale of two men, one good and the other evil, and their dogs, also good and evil, respectively.

What really kicks this story up a notch from the usual dog story is the depth of the good-and-evil theme, with the point being that in even the best of men there are weaknesses, and that in even the worst of men there are strengths.

A thinking man's dog story, and a parable of tolerance far ahead of its time.

Note: The dialogue is written in the vernacular of the place and time (late nineteenth century England), and is not always easy to wade through. It's well worth doing so, however.

I live in Vermont. The adjoining forest contains an old grave marker which reads "Bob, Son of Battle". Anyone have an explanation?

I liked Bob Son of Battle because I thought Bob was cute and nice. I didn't like when Bob was eating a lamb and blood was dripping.

Let me issue a caveat on the translation of my countryman Onetti's finest book, which I originally read in Spanish. Rendering the invented word "Juntacadáveres" as "Body Snatcher" doesn't really make sense, since it seems to hint at a grave robber or something like that. "Corpse collector" would be a much better translation, the nickname referring to a man who runs a brothel full of old, ugly, depressing prostitutes. I cannot comment on the rest of the translator's work, since I haven't read it, but if the very title is badly translated, how good can the book itself be?

This said, I highly recommend this book, whose grim, surreal atmosphere will appeal to readers in search of unconventional, well-crafted writing.

I read this book just after completing Kerouac's "on the road" - but when I finished Body Snatcher I said to myself "To hell with beat culture - this is real literature". I was just stunned by the class of Onetti's writing. He is in the class of Marquez and creates a fantastic canvas like Marquez. The topic of the book is very simple and the whole story is set up in a town where life is drag and prosaic but Onetti brings a strange tone of suspense which will keep you hooked to the book. When in any author tries to look into a topic from several view points and builds up the story in these view points -the story tends to become divergent in nature. Onetti never looses the tight control of the plot. I also admire the translation - I do not how far it is true to its Spanish version but it is definitely good piece of translation. Long time back I read a book called "Body Watching" by Desmond Morris, where he describes human behavior through pictures - Onetti can be described as the literary counter part of Morris. Every essential movement of every character is described without boring the reader. Of coarse you will not find the twist and beauty of the language that you find in authors like Steinbeck, Paul Auster but may be the Spanish version has those qualities - you never know. If you get a chance buy this book. I just pray to God that some body does the same justice with translation to Akutagawa and his writings.

This book was written before the age of thinking that invention could be accompished on paper alone. Hands on experimentation was the order of the day. Real understanding was the result. The world we live in today is a direct result of those who marched to the beat of Alfred Morgans' drummer. Of course, if he published this book today, he would be shot (in California, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusits) for suggesting that "boys" actually go beyond safe video representation of physical science, and try to really build working devices. "Time out" parenting is not compaible with this book.

On the other hand, I first read this book in the late 60's, and built a few of the projects therein. My parents didn't quite understand, but they tolerated my enthusiasm, and my understanding of our world was better off for it. Get this book. Even if you are a boy that happens to be over 50, you will enjoy many hours of adventure and new understanding of things that have been with you from your beginning. I am thrilled to find a reprint after so many years.

The classic how-to book, first published in 1913, is filled with dozens of electrical projects and experiments for the young and old alike.
Learn the principles behind radio and other early electrical wonders.
Build a spark coil, a crystal radio, even a toy train with the easy-to-follow instructions contained herein.
With the original long out of print, this modern paperback reprint may be the only affordable way to obtain a copy of this wonderful classic.

Business Buyer's Handbook by business broker and consultant Jim Calkins is a practical and resourceful guide to buying and operating a commercial business for profit. From ways to carefully scout a business entity in order to avoid ripoffs; to the facts on understanding financial statements and ratios; to creative financing techniques and how-to instructions for one's first day owning a new company, Business Buyer's Handbook is the ultimate consumer shopping entrepreneurial guide. If you are considering the purchase of an existent enterprise, then first give a very careful reading to the Business Buyer's Handbook!

I went to the Expo to check out business opportunities, and found this book. It seems like a good bargain considering that the author gives 2 hours of free consultation with every purchase. I really bought it just for that, but once I got it home and looked it over, I saw the book itself is worth its weight in gold. It's easy to read and really simplifies so many things...especially all those accounting things!

Thanks, Mr. Calkins!

Caroline Peterson

This book is just perfect. It's very well written. Conrad shows an understanding of the predicament of women of his time. Conrad advances the plot though the voice of the characters, who tell a story, which involves another character telling a story, etc. At one point the tale is six levels deep; but such is the skill of Conrad that you do not notice and are never lost. One of Conrad's two or three best. A book I was sad to end because I was enjoying it so much.

I cannot believe that there are no customer reviews already for this spectacular novel - full of intruiging situations and wonderful characters - certainly the best Conrad female character I have read. Conrad is a wonderful writer in style and the manner in which he tells a yarn - how then has this novel become so 'lost'? It has wonderful lines ('Don't be in a hurry to thank me,' says he. 'The voyage isn't finished yet.' p22 Oxford World Classics), great insights (women respond to the smallest things, which immediately had me nodding in agreement from my own experience), spectacular descriptions ('Yes, I gave up the walk [along a cliff top with the intention of killing herself],' she said slowly before raising her downcast eyes. When she did so it was with an extraordinary effect. It was like catching sight of a piece of clear blue sky, of a stretch of open water. And for a moment I understood the desire of that man to whom the sea ans sky of his solitary life had appeared suddenly incomplete without that glance which seemed to belong to both of them. p231). The characters are admirable in behaviour sometimes, victims sometimes, regrettable in behaviour sometimes, or just plain confused - just like real people. But one thing I really like is the way the narrator of the story is an observer, barely a participant of the events being described.

This may not be the perfect novel, but I urge you not to miss it. The chapter 'On the Pavement' by itself is worth the read!

This is an excellant text book of general surgery. The book covers all the basic topics of surgery in a great mannor. There are plenty of good quality pictures and illustrations. The book is well divided into chapters. There is a summary at the end of each topic which gives a reivew of all the contents. I would highly recommend this book for rmedical students and surgical residents.

I am a graduating senior medical student, and I happened to come upon this text quite by accident. Intending only to browse it for the moment, I found the text to be captivating. The author gives a clear and concise overview of every major surgical topic in a way that is approachable and easily understandible. The tables and figures nicely complement the "high yield" text. I only wish I had this text when I did my surgical clerkship.

Unrequited love and youthful death are the author's recurrent themes. Always forthright and devoid of the esoteric and modernistic qualities of more revered poets, Housman's work, though imbued with a pronounced melancholy, is never strident or sanctimonious. It is through the symmetry of theme that Housman achieves the solemnity which lends these justly celebrated poems their stature.

I feel that any discussion of A. E. Housman's poetry should first acknowledge that he was never a poet in the same sense as Whitman, Auden or Ginsberg. he was first, and foremost, a scholar, the Chair of Latin at Cambridge and an academic legend. Thus it seems churlish for his detractors to take the rather meagre amount of poetry he produced and deride it for it's lack of thematic multiplicity.

A closeted homosexual, Housman's poetry is perhaps most distinctive for it allusive qualities. One revels in the allegorical poem XVIII from Additional Poems: "Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair." Perhaps my favorite in this collection full of favorites is XXXI from More Poems:

"Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.

To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
'Good-bye', said you, 'forget me.'
'I will, no fear' said I.

If here, where clover whitens
The dead man's knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,

Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word."

Haunting. First rate. A masterful collection.

Housman is a wonderful, lyrical poet. I bought this collection after having seen The Invention of Love on the London stage.

Most beautiful of all, to my mind, is the poem entitled "To an Athlete Dying Young". This was the eulogy read by Isak Dinesen at Denys Finch-Hatton's funeral in the movie "Out of Africa". The poem, which was originally included in "A Shropshire Lad" (1896) begins:

"The time you won your town the race, We chaired you through the market place. Man and boy stood cheering by and home we brought you shoulder high. Today the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home. And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad! to slip betimes away from fields where glory does not stay And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose... And round that early laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find, unwithered on its curls, A garland. Briefer than a girl's."

A very moving and sad poem. Many of Housman's other poems are of a similar, outstanding quality. He was not a prolific poet, but he was certainly a great one. Great pleasure will be found in this collection.

To a common reader, like myself, "Contradictions" may at first seem more than you can bear, the lines are so finely spun and the whole cloth blinds in its shimmering (and shifting) vision. As the book's title suggests, life and art never present a single, clear set of directions. But if you open this book and read the poems one by one, looking up unfamiliar words as the poet intended, letting your senses be pulled gently through like the rough common thread in the first poem, you'll come away with keener insight, understanding better, hearing fine cadences, feeling with all of your senses once more intact.

Mr. Corn tells us a little about our fatal flaw in his first poem. There is no common understanding without adversity fully experienced, shared and finally understood. He proceeds to share with us, as someone remaining in the heart of life - at high risk - relying on no sibyls but the souls he meets and his own trustworthy one.

Life exposes, fragments, blinds, lures, denies and traps, but this poet is no seeker of easy ways out. He takes us on a journey of new angles, weaving pieces together into a unity of being. Great themes are pieced with smaller poems. Through them, he establishes a running theme that a painstaking life (mastery) is worth its price.

Corn's "Contradictions" begin and end as a triumphant cross - a cross-weave of themes and a path cut by art through life, a textile of words that the artist carries for us to light our own paths and help us see what we might otherwise miss.

This book is a triumph of art over darkness, of heart over fragmentation, of eternal meaning over death, and in my opinion there isn't another book more perfectly timed for its private public.

Contradictions stretches a magic tightrope across various pairs of opposites: a conversational tone versus one that foregrounds language, the lyric versus the narrative, the historical versus the metaphysical, thought versus sensation.
As Corn hold his lines taut, the reader proceeds, step by step, discovering new perspectives.
In most collections it would be generous to say that two or three pieces are memorable; in Contradictions, at least a dozen poems etch themselves on the reader's memory, demanding to be reread, revealing more each time.

The Centennial Exhibit of the Nobel Prize is brought to life in the pages of this beautifully rendered oeuvre. I bought it happily thinking that it would serve as a coffee table book and was more than pleasantly surprised to find that this book is so much more than that. Dr. Larsson has done a superb, creative job in selecting inspiring, thought-provoking essays that enhance the visual experience of the carefully chosen, high quality photographs. I keep coming back to it, and each time I do, I find something new of interest. Splendid.

A truly remarkable full color European quality paperback, divided into sections dealing with the history of the prizes, selected Nobel laureates, and various creative milieus in which they worked. Altogether fascinating. Should be in every library, both personal and public.