The best tale of legal bungling I've read in a long time. Williams and his Kourtroom Keystone Kops explain in excrutiating detail how they screwed up not one, but two trials for Jamal. In the first half of the book, Williams excoriates Jamal's public defender for losing the original trial and earning Jamal the death sentence. Then he assembles his crack legal team consisting of an unlicensed Communist law student, a corporate attorney, who defrauds his own firm by working on Jamal's case on the sly, and creaking civil rights attorney Len Weinglass who, by William's own admission, is practicallly comatose throughtout the entire appeal. The unlicensed law student becomes the "brains" of the defense team and directs the entire legal strategy, which collapses as she drags in a collection of nuts and liars from the streets of Philadelphia.
Williams spends dozens of pages in abject adoration of Jamal, swooning over "his honeyed baritone voice" and his animal magnetism. Equally cloying is his defense of former handyman Vincent Leaphart, aka John Africa, the founder of the MOVE movement. Leaphart, described by the New York Times as "somewhat of a madman" and by the Philadelphia Inquirer as "borderline retarded," assumes Christ-like proportions at William's hands. Among Leaphart's more intriguing teachings; MOVE women who give birth are required to bite off the umbilical cord and lick their newborns clean. Soap is forbidden and vermin and insects are welcomed into MOVE homes like old friends.
Williams' book is loaded with suppositions, what-if's, could-have-beens and sheer speculation. But you never hear from the two people who could shed real light on what really happened that night Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner was shot down. Jamal still refuses to talk about his actions that fatal night, demanding that his personal declaration of innocence is evidence enough that he's not guilty. Jamal's brother Billy, who was a few feet away when the fatal shot was fired, is nowhere to be found. Williams' legal eagles never get around to looking for him even though the brother supposedly has all the evidence anyone needs to spring Jamal. Billy's attorney, in a newspaper interview, says Billy is not "mentally fit" to come forward. So much for brotherly love.
Buy the book and do what I did -- read portions of it aloud to your lawyer friends. They'll choke with laughter. And spare a few tears for this Harvard-trained author who is so utterly gullible and yet oh-so-earnest.

Because I know one of Mumia's attorneys, this book was more like "Everything You Wanted to Know About the Mumia Case but Were Afraid to Ask."

Political grandstanding, self-destructing testimony by defense witnesses, and a looney-tune conspiracy theory: this book tells enough about the case to give fair warning to anyone interested in becoming part of the pro-Mumia movement.

Along with Leonard Weinglass' RACE FOR JUSTICE and the trial transcripts, this book tells you what the kooks and radicals don't want you to know.

Shortly before this book was to be published, Mumia Abu Jamal fired Daniel Williams and the rest of his defense team largely over the contents of this book. After reading this excellent count it is obvious why -- even while he's trying to actively defend Abu Jamal in the book, it provides a damning account of the Free Mumia movement, and really leaves little doubt in the reader's mind that whether or not Abu Jamal received a fair trial, he almost certainly shot Officer Daniel Faulkner.

There is an intriguing passage in the book describing a wild conspiracy theory witness that some elements of the defense team wanted to put forward, which Abu Jamal eventually rejected. Williams chides himself for not having enough faith in Abu Jamal to realize he would never try to propagate such a fraud on the court. Of course as soon as he fired Williams, Abu Jamal presented exactly this conspiracy to the Court as the latest version of his defense. Williams, like many defense lawyers, is not a very good judge of character.

Still, this is an excellent look at the inner workings of the Abu Jamal defense team.

This play seems to be an interesting essay doctorow wrote, and he put it in a play format to make it different. there isn't much action, so reading the play may be as effective as seeing it (though i don't know for sure). it has the danger of getting melodramatic. it fits well with The Book of Daniel. But beware of the ending of Act One. It's rather cheesy. Doctorow loses his subtlety there and really should rewrite it.

This is a book for deep thinkers, looking for something creative and new. It's totally off the wall, and really should receive some recognition as a great book, which I don't think it has. Doctorow creates an air of philosophical depth at a New York City dinner party. It's intersting and strange, funny and sharp. This is really a book that people should start to read. It's a quick read, and one you can, and will want to pass off to friends.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a great,fun,challenging novel. Adults need to be reminded of their childhood and remember the crazy things they used to do. Children should read this book because Tom does things they can only dream of. Their are many aspects you will enjoy about this novel.
The story of Tom Sawyer is about crazy fun adventures. Tom is a misunderstood child who is tricky and sly like when he gave his cat painkillers. He tricked kids into giving him things so they could they paint the fence he was punished to paint. He also witnesses a murder and nearly gets killed for it. There are many more adventures that he goes on with his friends like Huck. The excitement never ends.
I learned that we must cherish our childhood, for it is merely a waning period in our short life. Thank you Mark Twain for showing me that I must enjoy everyday.

This book is about a boy named Tom Sawyer, a mischievous boy who was cared by Aunt Polly. He's in love with this young girl named Becky Thatcher. He teaches her how to draw. Tom and his friends Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper discovered a secret island. They go off onto that island to live like pirates. They were presumed dead until they came back just in time to attend their own funerals. They were caught and punished for their actions. Tom and Huckleberry Finn saw Injun Joe, a killer hid a treasure on that island. The only clue was a number two. Injun Joe died tough by starving to death. Tom told Huckleberry that he followed Injun Joe one day and saw that he buried it in the cave he died in. Tom and Huckleberry found the treasure box and looked inside of it. It was filed with coins, guns, and a pair of moccasins.
I recommend this book for other readers that are my age because this book teaches you that it is bad to lie. Tom Sawyer lied a lot. Hs stole jam from his Aunt in the beginning of the story. He had to lie to his aunt to get away and get to their secret island to be like pirates. He also told to Huckleberry Finn that he didn't see where Injun Joe hid the treasure.
My favorite part of the story was when Tom, Huckleberry Finn, and Joe Harper went off to their secret island and live like pirates. Nobody was with them and except themselves. It was funny how they came back on there own funerals. They also saw Injun Joe on that island and were he buried his treasure. Tom's aunt got so mad at him for running away from home. This is a great book to read.

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is a wonderous tale of childhood, mixed with fact and fiction, from Mark Twain's own life, as well as those of several childhood friends. Tom Sawyer is the mischevious, imaginative, intuitive child we all once dreamed of being, if only for a day. Huck Finn is the outcast, shunned by the adults, and envied by all the children. Becky Thatcher is the girl that steals away Tom's heart, and breaks it more than once.
Here is a brief summary of the four distinct adventures intertwined within the main story, including the graveyard adventure, The Jackson's Island adventure, the treasurehunt adventure, and the cave adventure.
In the first adventure, Tom and Huck Finn stroll out to the graveyard along midnight attempting to cure warts with a dead cat. They inadvertanly come upon a grave robbery, perpetrated by Injun Joe, Muff Potter, and Dr. Robinson. When Injun Joe demands more money from Robinson, a fight ensues, and Muff is knocked out. To Tom and Huck's horror they witness Injun Joe murder the doctor. The two flee moments before Muff comes to, and Injun Joe lays the blame on him. Tom and Huck swear an oath never to tell a living soul what they saw; something which later on weighs heavy more on Tom's shoulder's, than Huck's.
In the Jackson Island adventure, Tom, feeling rejected by Becky Thatcher, and the world in general, runs away from home with Huck Finn and his bosom friend Joe Harper. On the island the three children hunt, play, fish, and learn to smoke, until becoming home sick. Tom steals away in the middle of night to find out wether or not his family misses him. Not only does he discover that they do, much to his delight, but that they are presumed dead, and will be holding a funeral for them. A plan is born in Tom's mind, namely to attend their own funeral and make a grand entrance. And what an antrance they do make!
In the treasurhunting adventure, Tom and Huck hit upon the idea of searching for treasure. Tom is certain there must be some kind of fortune hidden somewhere within the abandoned homes of St. Petersburg. When he and Huck explore one such home, their adventure is interrupted when two men arrive. One man is a stranger, the other man, a "deaf and dumb Spaniard" seen around town of late turns out to be Injun Joe, much to the boys horror. These men are at the home planning a job when Injun Joe finds an actual treasure buried long ago by Murrell's Gang, it is supposed. Tom and Huck are awe-struck at such a glittering sight; but are heartbroken when the men leave with the treasure. From that moment they begin a dangerous mission to track these men, in the hopes of stealing away the money.
In the final adventure, Tom, and Becky Thacther, become lost in the cave they are exploring during a picnic. There is an immediate rush to find a way out, which only leads to further confusion. Suddenly, the two realize they may die in the cave, if they can't find a way out. Their struggle continues as they search deeper in the cave. Becky, weak with hunger, pleads with Tom to go on without her. However, he is too much the chivalrous one, and refuses. In their plight, Tom sees a shadow and calls out, as he runs toward it. His relief is rapidly turned to shock when he sees the face of the man - Injun Joe. Luckily for Tom, Injun Joe does not recognize his voice, and makes a mad dash for safety. Tom and Becky are left to continue their search, and when all hope seems to be fading, a way out is finally found.

Doctorow's historical novel, Ragtime, cracks this century's top 100 novels around position 75. The story, whose setting is in New York during the early 1900's, has several non-fictional characters in it. The reader catches a personal look at escape artist Houdini, investor and millionaire J.P. Morgan, mechanical inventor Henry Ford, and feminist Emma Goldman.

Inadvertently, these characters play an important part in causing an event that involved a Negro looking for justice. Coalhouse Walker was a ragtime musician whose car was wrecked by jealous firemen. Walker, seeking restoration of his car, escalates the fight after going to authorities. He fails to find justice and eventually a group of his men hold Morgan's museum / library in New York City as hostage and cause a stand off until the leader of the firemen restores his car.

At the start, the reader is lead to think he is getting an expose into the lives that made the early 1900's. However, there is a sense that Doctorow is taking the reader somewhere, but it isn't revealed until midway. Doctorow has done his research and captures the turmoil and amazement of the period perfectly. If you like this period of American History, this book will certainly interest you.

Calling this "a novel about America" would be a crime, because it would make the average reader pitch forward into a deep coma (and if you're at Barnes & Noble at the time, you could be injured when a pile of Grisham falls on you), and you'd never read this vibrant crackerjack of a book. So let's call it "a lively, funny, poignant, well-paced novel that happens to be about America but it's so fascinating you might not notice." It's about an unnamed family (the characters are simply named Father, Mother, The Little Boy, etc., which makes for some very lovely metaphoric overtones) who keep running into and involving themselves in the lives of celebrities of the '20s (Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan...about a dozen of them are recurring characters) as well as some no-name underclass workers and immigrants, who were treated far more shabbily than popular memory tells. The classes clash in a contrapuntal dance, history is made, and all the while The Family is subtly changing, and by the end of the book we actually care that the stage is set for our modern world, and that the glories and abuses of the Roaring Twenties are about to be lost forever. The writing moves at a satisfying clip, and the book is on the brief side anyway, so you'll burn through much of it at your first sitting, and be eager to get back to it, even if you don't do what I did: get to the end, smile, and start to reread it at the beginning. I've wanted to meet E.L. Doctorow ever since. You should be similarly charmed

This book is very amusing, presenting an interesting story as well as portraying nonfictional characters (such as H. Ford, J.P. Morgan,Evelyn Nesbit,and Harry Houdini) in their true identity. One gets to experience the early century and pre-Great War era. Each chapter allows the reader to enter a life of character all intermingled with one plot.

As one reads, the reader experiences the times as an African American, an immigrant, and rich businessmen. What I enjoyed most was the immigrant (Tateh & Daughter) which reminded me of my Great Grandmother's trip into America for the first time.

After reading, I did background research on many characters. For what reason? to see if Doctrow was telling the truth about the nonfictional characters, such as J.P. Morgan. It turns out that Doctrow was on the dot with all characters, which shows the hidden secrets of people we thought we knew.

I find this book very entertaining. Although not recommended for anyone under the age of 16 for some sexual content and vivid descriptions, I think anyone of any age old enoguh, would enjoy the read. It is a very interesting and a page turning history lesson as well as drama.

After reading consider getting the CD for the musical, which very precisely follows the book.

This is the first book I've read from E.L. Doctorow. His style is initially disconcerting because it isn't tethered to a linear structure. Time can't progress without folding in on itself. Even sentences are often interrupted and excised of all punctuation. Perspectives shift between first and third person -- which a previous reviewer noted can be confusing. Yet the book is so saturated in details, the characters display so many nuanced shades of anger and pride and cruelty and love, that it brings the book to a level that everyone can understand. The people in this book are such smart asses, all of them! Daniel's grandmother, the black man in his basement, the pathetic palsied Mindish who we're never quite permitted to hate. In that sense "Daniel" is a politically sophisticated work in that it acknowledges politics and government as flawed and limited structures created by flawed and limited people (like sentences). Daniel observes that his sister died by a lack of analysis. It's evident that an abundance of such is how he hopes to keep living. I left the book feeling like I was cheating myself by not having a mind as active and relentless as Daniel's. I'm grateful for this book. And I'm sort of glad it isn't very popular. Seems to confirm its authenticity.

I first read this book in the early 1980s, shortly after reading Doctorow's other masterpiece, Ragtime. The Book of Daniel is a fictional meditation based on the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg during the McCarthy anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s. The Isaacsons, Doctorow's fictional couple based on the Rosenbergs, have a young son named Daniel and a daughter named Susan, and the book is told from the point of view of Daniel, now grown and attending college during the radical upheavals of the 1960s.

Doctorow displays an encyclopedic and detailed knowledge of both of those political periods, capturing the tone of the rhetoric, the pop music, the posters, the idealism, the hypocrisy, and the dilemmas confronting human beings caught up in political movements that seem more powerful than the people themselves. He is as unsparing in his treatment of sixties radicals as he is in his treatment of the cold government executioners who sent the Rosenbergs to their death.

One of most remarkable things about this book is the character of Daniel himself: sharply intelligent yet confused and conflicted, someone who sees all the angles yet cannot bring himself to act -- a modern-day Hamlet. The title's allusion to the biblical Daniel is reflected throughout the text in a number of clever ways as the narrative leaps between historical reflections, allegories, and vivid evocations of moments and events in the life of Daniel, his sister, and their families. It poignantly evokes the relationship between the two children and the various guardians who are assigned to care for them after society has arrested and executed their parents.

The other remarkable thing about this book is its use of language. Doctorow is a great prose stylist. To get an idea of how great he is, you should read both this book and Ragtime, which is a very different work. Ragtime is written in a style reminiscent of an old children's primer--simple, quaint sentences, gentle imagery. The Book of Daniel, by contrast, is full of incendiary language and is a very complex narrative full of jarring transitions -- language ideal, in other words, to capturing the feel of the political periods and events that are the subject of the book.

This is the first book of Doctorow's I have read. Looking at his other books, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. But it certainly wasn't this. Doctorow's work has the feel of Kerouac, Burroughs, Heinein's Starship Troopers, Kesey, and Kafka. He takes an incident from one of the most turbulent and trying times in our nation's history and spins a story of a young man trying to understand the life and death of his parents (executed for treason). Doctorow takes on religion, Disney, and the political and social attitudes of America. And he does it well. Daniel is a man who is both confused and very knowing. He's a radical but not like any you've seen before. Doctorow's style is a little disconcerting the first few pages (he jumps between first and third person, both from Daniel's point-of-view, sometimes in mid-sentence), but after you adjust to it, it seems the only way this story could be told. This is a book you have to read. I didn't put it on my list of "best ever", but it was definitely short-listed for it.

This was the first novel by Kafka that I read and I wasn't terribly impressed. However, being his lightest novel it was an easy and entertaining read. Amerika is a tale of Karl Rossman, a recent emmigrant to America from Germany and his mis-adventures. Karl gets himself into many precarious situations which were the only real sources of entertainment in the novel. Otherwise all of Kafka's characters are very simple and none are none of them are devloped to satifaction, not even Karl, whom I would consider emotionally flat. Even when presented with pitfalls that would be devastating to most anyone, Karl reacts with little emotion. All the reader sees of Karl is a young man with good morals and motivation to improve his lot in a new and strange country, but we know nothing of Karl's heart and soul. This makes it difficult to get in tune with Karl and consequently the novel as a whole. Still, when reading Amerika you can sense Kafka's potential and Amerika has motivated me to read his more celebrated works such as The Trial and The castle.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) started writing this novel in 1913 and this, like most of his other work, was published after his death. He never visited America, but reality is not an important factor in his work. Rather, he creates a surreal landscape for his main character, Karl, a 16-year old who has been sent away from his homeland because of an unfortunate relationship with a servant girl. Karl is a victim throughout in a series of improbable adventures, and constantly struggles through a confused labyrinth of streets and buildings and random acts of cruelty and compassion. Always, he is under stress and the choices he makes keep leading to even more preposterous predicaments. I was constantly annoyed with him and yet identified with him as he fumbled through his very uncomfortable life. This is the only Kafka work I've ever read and don't plan on reading any more, even though I can acknowledge his artistry. It's just too disturbing. But I still do recommend this book because it challenged and expanded my perceptions. And I do appreciate the legacy he left to the world.

Kafka drives the reader crazy by this epic narration about the adventures of Karl, an adolescent sent to America at the beginning of XX century. While escaping from a stupid love affair Karl is to meet his uncle who will receive him at home and will push him into the secrets of accounting.
Thanks to one of Kafka's eternal "malentendus" Karl is sent to the immigrant's arena and he has to live on his own. Almost penniless, his sole possessions are his battered trunk and an old photography of his parents.
One can't but feel empathy and tenderness for young Karl. Fired by his uncle who was supposed to protect him, Karl has to cope with two drunkards (an Irish and a French) who attempt by all means to abuse of his innocence by promising him a job in the west coast.
Karl then finds a humble place at a big hotel. He is in charge of one of the numerous elevators and works almost sixteen hours a day just to be dismissed due to a new misunderstanding.
At times hilariously, the novel describes the situation of many Europeans who might have dreamed of America as an oasis to later realize they were just joined as a little part of an enormous and unspeakable machine.

Doctorow makes Loon Lake a much more difficult read than it needs to be. He keeps changing tense on us. He keeps switching from first to third person narrative. He keeps inserting bad poetic verse. We often don't know who is speaking, sometimes even what about. Is the narrator of the moment in a dream? A drug induced state? As looney as a loon? But in the end, Doctorow sweeps us up, and when Joe Patterson, nee Korzenioski, is up against it, we feel his pain; the tension is almost unbearable. We want good things to happen to Joe and Clara...and when he looks out the police station window to see her being taken away we want to scream with him. Then we want to see good things happen to Joe and Sandy, and maybe they are, or not. Doctorow keeps is in suspense until the last two pages when it is all laid out for us. And it all makes sense. It is a challenging read, but I'm glad I went down this trail. It won't be my favorite Doctorow read, but it has made a lasting impression.

Like all Doctorow, Loon Lake tells an amazingly interesting tale with vibrant, often beautiful, sometimes brutal detail. Even though few readers will be able to relate directly to the plotline (set in pre-WWII USA), Doctorow (as usual) manages to uncover universally human feeling despite the strange adventures the story depicts. A great work, but be warned: the switching from first to third person, tense shifts, and interspersion of poetry makes this a challenging work, but well worth the effort. I give it 4 instead of 5 stars only because, while great, the book is a notch below Billy Bathgate.

Jack London's book "The Call of the Wild" was well written and I think that everyone should read it. The book starts out talking about how Buck, the main character, lives in a large house in the Santa Clara Valley. The place he lives at is called Judge Miller's place. Buck's father, Elmo, was a large St Bernard who had been the Judge's very close companion. His mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd dog. Buck loved hunting and outdoor delights, which made him stronger. Buck loved living at the Judge's house but one night when he went on what he thought was just a walk with Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers, his life changed. Money was exchanged between Manuel and another man and Buck was sent off in a baggage car. After a couple of days they stopped and he was turned over to a black-faced giant called Francois. Buck traveled with Francois starting at Dyea beach where Buck's life was changed to a not so lazy life through the Yukon. Traveling he learned that it was a wolf manner to fight which he encountered a lot with a dog named Spitz who is the sled leader. One day Buck and Spitz get into it and Buck ends up killing Spitz and takes over the head position, which was my favorite part in the book. A while later in the book, Buck meets a man named John Thornton who Buck loves and will do anything for him and even earns Thornton sixteen hundred dollars. With the money they set off into the East with six other dogs and found lots of gold. I would recommend "The Call of the Wild" to younger readers who like adventurous stories.

The two rivals circle the ring, probing for any point of weakness. The duel has lasted longer than either competitor had anticipated. Weakened by fatigue, the challenger feints high and goes for a crippling blow. No, this is not a boxing title match in Las Vegas. This is a life-and-death struggle of one domestic dog for survival in the cold, icy, barren regions of the Alaskan plains. This is a clash between the civilized and the primordial. This is the conflict between domestication and liberation. This is the Call of the Wild.

Jack London centers his story on a dog by the name of Buck. Buck is a big, strong dog, his father being a St. Bernard and his mother being a Scottish shepherd dog. At one hundred and forty pounds, Buck was no mere house pet. Kept physically strong with a love of rigorous swimming and constant outdoor exercise, Buck was a lean, formidable dog. Undoubtedly, his great condition was part of the reason that the gardener's helper dog-napped and sold him to dog traders, who in turn sold him to Canadian government mail couriers. The gold rush in Alaska had created a huge demand for good dogs, which eventually led to the "disappearances" of many dogs on the West Coast. Buck was no exception. He was sold into a hostile environment, which was unforgiving and harsh. Although civilization domesticated him from birth, Buck soon begins almost involuntarily to rediscover himself, revealing a "primordial urge", a natural instinct, which London refers to as the Call of the Wild.

This book is set in the Klondike, a region in Alaska that was literally stormed by thousands of men looking to get rich quick via the gold rush. Transportation was increasingly important, but horses were near useless in winter, prone to slip and fall on snow and ice. Dogs were by far the best means of transportation in Alaska at the time, somewhere near the end of the 19th century. As the demand for dogs grew, the prices for good dogs skyrocketed. This price hike inevitably created a black-market- style selling of dogs, and the gardener's helper Manuel did what many men did; they sold the dogs for a good price.

A recurring theme in London's novel is the clash between natural instinct and domesticated obedience. Soon after the dog traders captured Buck, a man broke him with a club. Buck is thoroughly humiliated, but learned an all-important truth of the wild: The law of club and fang. Kill or be killed. Survival is above all. Buck resolved to himself to give way to men with clubs. In the beginning, Buck had problems with this new restriction, but learned that when his masters' hands hold whips or clubs, he must concede. However, that did not keep Buck from doing little deeds like stealing a chunk of bacon behind his masters' backs. However, as London says, "He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach . In short, the things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to do them." In this way Buck learns the way of the wild but also acknowledges his inferiority to men with clubs or whips. Eventually in this novel, Buck throws away his old life completely and replaces it with his natural urge, the primordial version of himself, the Call of the Wild.

Another underlying theme is the relationship between dog and master. In the beginning, Buck is acquainted with the Judge with a dignified friendship, his sons with hunting partnership, his grandsons with protective guardianship, the mail couriers Francois and Perrault with a mutual respect. Against the man with a club he despised but gave respect. However, when Buck met John Thornton, he loved his master for the first time ever. There wasn't anything Buck wouldn't do for his master. Twice Buck saved Thornton's life, and pulled a thousand pounds of weight for Thornton's sake. Even after Buck routinely left his master's camp to flirt with nature, Buck always came back to appreciate his kind master. However, even after Thornton was gone and Buck had released all memories of his former life, Buck never forgot the kind hands of his master, even after answering the Call of the Wild.

Jack London truly brings Buck to life. Using a limited 3rd person view, the reader is told of Buck's thoughts and actions. Obviously, London gave several ideal human qualities to Buck, including a sharp wit, rational reasoning, quick thinking, and grounded common sense. However, he does not over-exaggerate the humanity in Buck, which would have given an almost cartoon-like feeling for a reader. Rather, being a good observer, London saw how dogs acted and worked backwards, trying to infer what the dogs think. The result is a masterful blend of human qualities and animal instinct that is entirely believable. It is obvious that Buck's experience was similar to many other dogs' experiences.

I have to admit that I have not really given Jack London his proper due up to now. Perhaps it is because I don't by my nature like outdoor adventure type stories, or perhaps it is because I associate White Fang and "To Build a Fire" with my youth. The fact is that Jack London is a tremendously talented writer. His understanding of the basics of life matches his great knowledge of the snow-enshrouded world of the upper latitudes. The Call of the Wild, despite its relative brevity and the fact that it is (at least on its surface) a dog's story, contains as much truth and reality of man's own struggles as that which can be sifted from the life's work of many another respected author. The story London tells is starkly real; as such, it is not pretty, and it is not elevating. As an animal lover, I found parts of this story heartbreaking: Buck's removal from the civilized Southland in which he reigned supreme among his animal kindred to the brutal cold and even more brutal machinations of hard, weathered men who literally beat him and whipped him full of lashes is supremely sad and bothersome. Even sadder are the stories of the dogs that fill the sled's traces around him. Poor good-spirited Curly never has a chance, while Dave's story is made the more unbearable by his brave, undying spirit. Even the harsh taskmaster Spitz has to be pitied, despite his harsh nature, for the reader knows full well that this harsh nature was forced upon him by man and his thirst for gold. Buck's travails are long and hard, but the nobility of his spirit makes of him a hero--this despite the fact that his primitive animal instincts and urges continually come to dominate him, pushing away the memory and reality of his younger, softer days among civilized man. Buck not only conquers all--the weather, the harshness of the men who harness his powers in turn, the other dogs and wolves he comes into contact with--he thrives. This isn't a story to read when you are depressed. London's writing is beautiful, poignant, and powerful, but it is also somber, sometimes morose, infinitely real, and at times gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.

I love the "Best American Short Stories" annual collections - if nothing else they let you catch up on all those issues of The New Yorker, Harpers, Atlantic, etc. you didn't buy! The quality of any given year, though, depends both on how good the material was and who the editor is - this year it's E.L. Doctorow and he does a great job (in terms of quality, sequencing, variety of styles - even the short introduction is a nice read). If there's a flaw it's an overreliance on well-established authors (Amy Bloom, Walter Mosley, Jhumpa Lahiri, even Raymond Carver(!)) - I don't know if all these are really up to snuff, but the overall quality is right up there and you can't beat the price. Reader Alert: In my humble opinion, the two best stories appears towards the end: ZZ Packer's "Brownies" - a parable about race and growing-up that's a bit reminicent of, dare I say, Ralph Ellison. And Ha Jin's "The Bridegroom" - a thought provocing morality play about politics of all types. Not to be missed!

A bonus in the authors' notes appendix lets the authors comment on their stories or writing in general.

I disagree with many of the reviewers. This is an above average volume. With the exception of a couple of stories, I found the rest all highly readable and some of them truly outstanding. Ron Carlson, Allan Gurganus and Annie Prolux's pieces are gems. Carlson's The Ordinary Son reads like Salinger's the Glass Family, a surreal journey the keeps you turning pages. I was disappointed when it ended. He's At The Office is one of the best short stories I have read in a long time, absolutely engrossing from the begining to end and tragic without the slightest hint of sentimentality. Hard to do. Prolux piece is from her latest collection which has some great stories in it, but this one is a killer. The rest all fall slightly below these in my opinion but they are all good reads without a great deal of blather. Worth the price of admission.

Doctorow has excellent taste in short fiction. With only a few exceptions (Junot Diaz and Marilyn Krysl), the stories in this collection are excellent. Amy Bloom's story, "The Story", which i think is a great title, is an interesting story about writing, about the characters in the story, and it is a story about itself.Michael Byers has a great story about obsession and attraction rather than love (though he does go on a page or two too long). Ron Carlson has a wonderful story about about happiness and the ways you can get there. It is one of the best of these stories. There is a story from Raymond Carver, and it is as good as anything he has written. Kiana Davenport's story deals with abuse and family. Everett's "The Fix" is the best story in this anthology, which it's allusion to Christ, in a sort of Kafka-like way. Gautreaux's story about atonement is a winner as always. I remember reading Gurganus' story, "He's at the Office" when it was first published in the new yorker, and i remember thinking at the time that it had to be one of the better stories i'd read that year, so it was a pleasure to see doctorow select it. Aleksandar Hemon and Jhumpa Lahiri both have well told stories about being a foreigner in this country, though one has an uplifting feel and the other is more bleak, but both are a pleasure to read. Annie Proulx's "People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water" is a story you should read. but don't let the title fool you, it doesn't fit the story. Sherwood's story about loss is weak and a better selection could have been made, but it wasn't dull like the two mentioned earlier. i could go on about the stories i haven't mentioned, but there is a space constraint. i've only read best american short stories 2000 and 2001, so i can't say if these selected are better or worse than what is normally picked, but i can say that there are 18 stories here that are fine examples of what a short story should be.