Our family has the fortune of having Frank Finale as a teacher to both our children.

He has done a wonderful job capturing the Jersey Shore for all of its charms and the many artists who live here.

First, the editors of To the Shore Once should be congratulated. They chose 101 drawings, etchings,and paintings from local New Jersey and some national artists. These works of Art complement Mr. Frank Finale's writing in essays, prose and poetry. You, turn the page and you feel like you are at the beach in Spring Lake, Belmar or Manasquan. Even the carrousel of 1950s Asbury Park is represented. As I think of Frank O'Hara's book on Jackson Pollock, To The Shore Once More will become a classic coffee table book for years to come. Art and prose and poetry, what a nice mix. We have Mr. Frank Finale to thank for such a beautiful book this Summer

In The Eclectic Odyssey Of Atlee B. Ayres, Architect, Robert Coote (professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Texas, Austin) informatively surveys thirty years of the architectural career of Atlee Ayres, focusing on Ayres' residential architecture in the San Antonio suburbs of Monte Vista, Olmos Park, and Terrell-Hills. It is in these architectural designs that Ayres' eclecticism is most apparent. Coote studies twenty-five of Ayres' houses in detail including their plans, spaces, exteriors, materials, and structure. Additionally, Coote describes Ayres' architectural education, travels, and career highlights. Highly recommended for professional and academic architectural reference collections, The Eclectic Odyssey Of Atlee B. Ayres, Architect is a superbly presented treatise on the work and career of a most remarkable American architect.

I am not a music teacher. I teach 5th grade American History. Over the past few years, every single fifth grade student in my school has memorized this entire cassette which covers all of the Presidents! We do this by preparing these songs as a "musical show" each year in honor of Presidents' Day.

In my 20 years of teaching, this still proves to be the most exciting and well liked musical I have ever directed. What makes this especially interesting as a performance, is that each song is written in the style of the historical period, so although the kids may be rapping information about the Presidents, they are singing in classical, gospel, light opera, rock and pop styles.

Well done! Our school year wouldn't be the same without it!

Sara George's The Journal of Mrs Pepys: Portrait of a Marriage is exactly that, the story of a marriage. It is also a unique view of history; the world through the eyes of someone who's experiences are limited by the fact that she is a woman and not a man. Elizabeth Pepys is an intriguing character; she is a woman who's life centers on her husband but unlike the "ideal woman" Elizabeth is very vocal about her wants and needs. In this story the reader is allowed to experience tragic historical events like the Plague and the Great Fire of London through the eyes of a person experiencing these moments. We are given the rare opportunity of knowing the thoughts of the character because the events are presented the way Elizabeth sees them. The journal format, although a very biased account of history, allows readers to experience Elizabeth Pepys' life and times in a way that ordinary storytelling never could. Overall I found this story intriquing and an interesting perspective of the events taking place in London during the late 1600s.

This book was wonderful reading from cover to cover, especially after having read The Diaries of Samuel Pepys, however, do not be misled. This is a fabrication, a novel, NOT a true diary like that of Samuel Pepys. For those who have read the real thing, this comes as somewhat of a surprise, and a disappointment.

The blurb says it's well researched, having never read the diary of Samuel Pepys I could not really say, but the writing comes over as believable. I chose to read this as research for my novel hoping that it would give me an insight on the views and behaviour of women of that age and I do think Sara George has met my expectations. This is an enjoyable read and not just for those interested in history.

Is George Eliot the world's greatest novelist? There's certainly an argument to be made, based on her classics Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, which feature characters as complex and vividly, bafflingly alive as those of Shakespeare.

Yet today she seems curiously unread and under-appreciated, certainly in comparison to her contemporary, Charles Dickens. This has long mystified me, but perhaps I've found the solution in Mill on the Floss.

Seemingly the best known of her books, Mill on the Floss is certainly the one most frequently taught in high schools and colleges. And it's probably enough to guarantee that most students forced through it or its Cliff Notes won't bother with her again.

Not that it's a bad book. If you like Eliot, you'll find plenty of her riveting, obsessive characterization and dramatic psychology here. But along with these come a fractured, frustrating structure, a dearth of narrative drive, and endless passages of phonetic, "naturalistic" rural accents. Not to mention an ending so out of left field it seems to belong to an entirely different story. Unlike Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, or even early but more successful novels like Adam Bede, Mill on the Floss is work, and its rewards are more modest.

Mill on the Floss seems to rate the academic attention because of its autobiographical elements, perhaps for its dazzling heroine, rather than its overall quality. So don't let an underwhelmed response to this fascinating if flawed book keep you from the rest of her amazing work -- she might be the best novelist out there.

Few females were writing fiction in those days, but it says a good thing about Great Britain that most of them were British. Mary Ann Evans, the real name of "George Eliot", was an enlightened and socially conscious woman, who wrote a story about the Torvill family, from the standpoint of Maggie, a young girl with a sharp mind, struggling to be herself in a world which was hard for that kind of person. The central theme is perhaps her struggle between family loyalty and independent spirit, as revealed through her relationship with his beloved, but tough, brother. The book is long and evocative, painting with acuteness the social surroundings in which the story develops. And the development intertwines many messages and situations, always revealing Maggie's inner self. One important characteristic of the book is that it is difficult to classify, since it contains features of Romanticism and Realism; social narrative and a glimpse into what psyichological literature would be in the Twentieth century.

In THE MILL ON THE FLOSS George Eliot provides an insightful and intelligent story depicting rural Victorian society. Set in the parish of St. Ogg's, Maggie and Tom Tulliver endure childhood and young adulthood while experiencing the harsh realities of poverty, devotion, love, and societal reputation. I emphasized greatly with Maggie as I have experienced some of her own lived experiences. I truly loved every chapter of this book and didn't want it to end. It is indeed very rare that I have this type of reaction to a book. Although this book was published during the Victorian era, it's amazing how Eliot's prose flows virtually unobstructed. The reader is given a rare glimpse into rural life during the 19th century and is treated to how strictly structured society was then. I am now a fan of Eliot and look forward to reading her other novels.

Bottom line: THE MILL ON THE FLOSS is an excellent novel. Enjoy!

Unfortunately, this Yale edition leaves out about half of what Newman himself published in 1873 as the definitive edition of THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY. Published here are only the nine "Dublin Discourses" from Part I on "University Teaching" and but four of the ten chapters of Part II, "University Subjects Discussed in Occasional Lectures and Essays." For the hundred-page displacement of Newman's essays, the editor substitutes five interpretive essays supposedly inquiring into the relevance of Newman's book for today's higher education debates. These interpretive essays have major inconsistencies and repetitions among themselves and are of mixed quality, with inaccuracies and serious misunderstandings of some of Newman's central ideas. As accurate forays of the Newmanian mind into the twentieth- and twenty-first century university, only the engaging and intellectually challenging essays by George Marsden and George Landow succeed. (COMPLETE paperback editions of Newman's IDEA are available from Loyola University Press, 1987, and University of Notre Dame Press, 1982).

A wonderful work, too bad that this edition by Regnery is chock full of glaring typographical errors. Detracts from Newman's otherwise brilliant prose.

Newman's work is not only an eloquent, erudite, and careful defense of the virtue of knowledge and the value of a liberal education; it is also a brilliantly reasoned and felt argument for the prevention of hubris on the part of any particular branch of knowledge.

Newman's sound warnings against the overreaching of scientific fields and the triumph of smug materialism and positivism are still urgent, of course. Newman is also careful to point out that the liberal arts and even theology may attempt to establish a single, inadequate framework for the discovery of truth.

Newman's complex epistemology does not fall prey to the heresy that truth is not one, but reminds us that in our present state, truth present various aspects and that the tyranny of any particular branch of knowledge is the victory of ignorance.