Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Book reviews for "Guinizzelli,_Guido_c." sorted by average review score:

Orlando Furioso (Oxford World's Classics)
Published in Paperback by Oxford University Press (1999)
Authors: Ludovico Ariosto and Guido Waldman
Amazon base price: $11.87
List price: $16.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $9.50
Collectible price: $9.95
Average review score:

Praise for Waldman's translation
Easy enough to refer to a prose translation as "appropriate for the masses," but the fact remains that when a translator is freed from the necessity of forcing a poem to conform to rhyme and meter in a second language, he has access to a broader range of vocabulary and is therefore more able to remain true to the spirit of the original (as Waldman deftly explains in his introduction). Is it any wonder that this work has received so little attention in America when past translations have been so hidebound and pedagogical? Orlando Furioso is anything but a sing-songy, staid old verse.

In Waldman's translation are to be found both the idealised virtues of chivalry and sometimes startlingly lowbrow humor, all wrapped up in an epic tale of adventure, romance and magic. By providing an unabridged translation (another shortcoming of more traditional editions), and by attempting to capture the true flavor of the work rather than slavishly abiding by the dictates of classical poetic rules, he has presented to English readers for the first time a tale that rivals the epics of Homer in its scope and aspiration. And for sheer entertainment value (coupled with the elitism of Ariosto's sly jabs at the very people for whom the work was composed), this work is all but impossible to beat-- his original audience, after all, was not the literati, but the idle rich.

A delightful giant
Ariosto was one of the giants of Renaissance literature, and this was his footprint. Grand, touching, funny, witty, stirring -- as Dryden said of Chaucer, here is the world's plenty. Some of the greatest poets of the next two centuries (Tasso, Spenser, Milton) explicitly attempted to overdo him, and only sometimes succeeded; Byron took as much from Ariosto as he did from Pulci.

But don't read this on that account. Read it because it's a delight from start to finish. War, love, and chivalry are the poet's themes, and they're here in all their forms.

I don't know Italian, but everyone I've asked who would know assures me Reynolds's translation captures not just the essence but the spirit of the original.

(Ignore the reviews that claim that this is a prose translation -- they are from another translation.)

Orlando Furioso
Before anything else is said, it should be known that this edition is a prose translation, which does not retain most poetic characteristics of the original poem although for a modern English reader this is probably the best edition yet: fairly clear and still interesting in its own way. Orlando Furioso is a 16th century epic poem dealing with Charlamgne's wars against the "Saracens" who had (if we are to take the poem as historical fact) even reached the point of besieging the city of Paris. Of course,the book was not meant by its author to be historically accurate in any way, merely a parody of chivalric court legends as the book description says. Whoever reads this book and fails to sense irony on every page, even crude jokes in some parts clearly does not understand what he is reading in the least. But Orlando Furioso is not a parody of just chivalric court legends; it also pokes fun at the Illiad, popular tales and even common peasant stories. The heads (complete with helmets) sliced in two by a single sword blow are taken from The Illiad, in which Greek champions perform similar feats, although in Orlando Furioso, literally hundreds of men meet their end in this manner to the point of becoming amusing in a way. And I found it strange to notice a very clear similarity between the story told by an innkeeper in the book and the prologue to a translation of a 13th century version of the Arabian Nights (translated by Hussain Haddawy). Ariosto had no possible way to know of the existence of the Nights, but still it is interesting to see how truly close the two incidents are: In Orlando, two men who have given up on the possibility of women being chaste, take one woman and watch her day and night, yet she still deceives them in their own bed. In the Nights, a demon has locked his wife inside an impenetrable castle, yet she still deceives him as he sleeps right next to her in bed. The two events are described similarly, with the same irony (being meant as a joke which the author denies believing in in the least). The book is funny only in the way reading Candide is funny. This is simply another example of what makes the book enjoyable. During the reading of Orlando, somewhere about 3/4 of the way into the book, the reader may wish that it would end right there and that two characters; Bradamant and Ruggiero should get married and finish the story. But the continuation of their separation and further adventures is just another parody of common legends, exaggerated out of proportion. In the end, with all its jokes and its surprisingly individualistic narrative technique, its more serious scenes (the most touching of which is when a woman named Isabel is killed) forms into a large picture, with a great deal of good atmosphere, such that when it ends (although the reader may not have been touched very much during its reading) will want it to go on.


Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist
Published in Paperback by Inner Traditions Intl Ltd (2002)
Authors: Julius Evola, Guido Stucco, Michael Moynihan, H. T. Hansen, and Joscelyn Godwin
Amazon base price: $15.40
List price: $22.00 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $12.71
Buy one from zShops for: $13.20
Average review score:

Julius Evola: Proponent of Counter-revolution and Tradition.
_Men Among the Ruins_ is the post World War II political reflections of the Italian intellectual Julius Evola. Continuing along the same lines as he had in his more famous _Revolt Against the Modern World_, Evola advocates a return to Tradition and radical counter-revolution. This translation is divided into three parts: an excellent introduction to the life and thought of Julius Evola, the text of _Men Among the Ruins_ proper, and Julius Evola's defense when brought in front of a court for charges of subversive activity.

_Men Among the Ruins_ has been called a "dangerous book" and Evola has been called a fascist; however, if we are unable to read these "dangerous books" and decide for ourselves what they have to say then we will never be able to learn anything from outside of the dull conformist mainstream. The introduction to this book explains much of Evola's thought and life, while at the same time explaining the particularly tricky issues of his involvement with fascism, his lectures in Germany, his racist theories (unlike the crass biological racism of certain components of the National Socialist regime, Evola advocates a spiritual notion of race), and his relationship with antiSemitism (including mention of the notorious forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion").

_Men Among the Ruins_ advocates a return to Tradition and a rejection of modern day liberalism, Bolshevism, individualism, collectivism, and the ideals of the revolution. Against this, Evola proposes a return to an underlying Indo-European substratum, authority, and a re-recognition of the necessity for transcendence. The book includes discussions of various aspects of the State, hierarchy, work and the economy, the Roman Imperium, corporativism (which Evola will somewhat reject along with socialism), militarism, and the role of war. Evola also tackles the issues of the "occult war" (including many of the rumors about the Jews - Evola rejects the more virulent forms of antiSemitism), the "problem of births", and Roman Catholicism as a component of that Tradition. I disagree somewhat with Evola's rejection of Catholicism, although it is unclear to me how much of this aspect of the Tradition is retainable (this would include recognition of the changes in the Church post-Vatican II, as well as the need to address the problem Evola brings up of the world's other religious traditions within the framework of Catholicism). Evola concludes with a discussion of the united Europe and a call for a new European Order. Evola writes specifically about the kind of men that are needed to compose this new Order, including old European families and military leaders. He concludes, "It remains to be seen which and how many men, in spite of it all, still stand upright among so many ruins, in order that they may make this task their own." The book concludes with Evola's defense before the Italian court and his rejection of his specific "glorification of Fascism" charge. This defense is one of the best clarifications of Evola's personal idiosyncratic thought that I have encountered.

In order to read this work, it is probably necessary to first complete Evola's more famous _Revolt Against the Modern World_. Most of Evola's other works that have been translated have a more esoteric bent to them and are less outrightly political. In the end however, Evola advocates a form of apoleteia, a phenomenon he will refer to as "riding the tiger", and a rejection of all party politics. In fact, Evola never participated in outright politics nor ever voted in his entire life. The book goes beyond the familiar schema of Right and Left political thinking and is certainly not to be recommended to any person completely absorbed in either mainstream or modernist ideologies and modes of thinking.

Men Among the Ruins
A great book. Not as good as his Revolt Against The Modern World but still great. A good read for any one interested in the Pagan Revival and fighting against liberalism, capitialism, and the new world order.

Dynamite for America
Now, with "Men Among the Ruins," the political Evola also enters the ruinous cultural landscape of America. Here we find the dynamite of Evola's world view, packed in the warning colors of black and red. Another safety-mechanism, as Joscelyn Godwin aptly remarks in his Foreword, is the hundred-page introduction to Evola's political thought by H. T. Hansen. The placement of a thinker in his historical and biographical context naturally relativizes the ideas that he advocates--however apodictically he may have expressed them. Hansen's analysis, taken from the German edition of the book ("Menschen inmitten von Ruinen" 1991) presents not only the first factual biographical sketch of Evola in the German world, but remains hitherto the fundamental treatment of his political development, above all in the Fascist and National Socialist epoch--although, as Hansen mentions in the additions he has made for the American edition, some very worthwhile works have appeared in the meantime, which help to sharpen many contours. Evola appears more and more as a central figure of a right-wing, 'reactionary' revulsion against the mass-aspects of National Socialism and the biologism of many of its ideologues. His 'spiritual racial doctrine' arises from the attempt to offer an alternative in the field of racial theory to the cattle-breeding mentality of the National Socialists.
In "Men Among the Ruins," the concepts of democracy and of electoral Fascism, of the nation-state and individualism, the bourgeois world-order, historical pusillanimity, economic thought-habits, to name but a few, are torn to shreds simply through being juxtaposed with the sovereign, Ghibelline, authoritarian, masculine, and solar Tradition. Then in the course of sixteen chapters, the ruins of the modern world are carted away, piece by piece. As the book closes, the view opens up: one breathes the new, freer and fresher air of the aristocratic spiritual and soul-world that one's reading has revealed, and sees in the distance a Europe united in the spirit of Tradition.


The Story of Yew
Published in Hardcover by Findhorn Press, Inc. (01 May, 2001)
Author: Guido Mina di Sospiro
Amazon base price: $19.95
Used price: $7.00
Collectible price: $15.88
Buy one from zShops for: $17.37
Average review score:

A extraordinary book.
I have found the new Tolkien in Guido Mina di Sospiro. I could not put the book down, it has it all, myth, botany, and fantasy. It was a great treat. I look forward to reading more from this author. My discovery of the 21st Century.

Si Monumentum Requiris, go to the Abbey!
Ugh. Tree huggers. Well maybe. Beware "teaming" masses, this Guido is dangerous. He will provoke you and lead you to have original thoughts and circumspect conversations. Dare we think beyond the Bell Curve? You have been warned!

Oh right, the dinosaur bit was "sidesplitting"; Har!

A very special treat!
I am an ecologist and have been into trees for many years and can state that this book is a milestone for nature. You will learn about trees and man from a great 2000 year old yew tree. This book has it all, nature, myth, history, once you start reading it is hard to put down. It has been a very long time since I've read a book that I have been able to recommend to all my friends. "The Story of Yew" is it.


The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World
Published in Paperback by Harvard Univ Pr (1991)
Author: Guido Majno
Amazon base price: $13.97
List price: $19.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $11.88
Collectible price: $26.47
Buy one from zShops for: $13.87
Average review score:

A brilliant survey of early surgery
Majno's book is not only magnificently informative but great fun. His prose is a positive pleasure, his research and knowledge are immense, and he has the gift of combining several perspectives to explain why procedures that now seem appalling made sense to the physicians of the period. He has experimentally tested a number of ancient remedies, and he is refreshingly willing to assume intelligence and craft among early physicians, even when they seem to be doing precisely the wrong things. His discussions of how we learn what medical techniques might have been is fascinating in its own right. Of his major sections (Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Indian, and Roman), the Egyptian is probably best and the Chinese weakest.

very accessible to the lay reader
Most books on the history of medicine read rather like either horror novels or dusty tomes, with few authors finding that rare balance between entertainment at the price of detail or dullness for the sake of completeness. Guido Majno's work THE HEALING HAND manages to entertain the lay reader without bogging down in too much medical terminology. THE HEALING HAND intrigues without succumbing to that all-to-tempting penchant many medical history writers have of detailing the most absolutely vile and disgusting medical practices in the world while sacrificing attention to the ones that modern readers will recognize and possibly even relate to.

The driving force of Majno's work, one that comes through plainly in his writing, is that he really wants you understand what it is he's talking about. By examining available historical texts, piecing together data from archaelological digs, and even experimenting his theories on himself, Majno take you on a "journey" through medical wound healing history, starting with ancient Egypt and the Pharoahs and moving on through Hippocrates's ancient Greece, Ceaser's ancient Rome, ancient India, and ancient China. Few authors could manage the detailed tapestry of cultures and medical information Majno deftly weaves. He treats the subject of ancient would healing as few other writers do and, in the process, exposes you to how his mind works by writing how he thinks the minds of healers worked concerning wounds during the aforementioned time periods.

It's that spark of looking into his mind that makes his writing intriguing to me. It's rather like getting an easily understandable peek into the mind of a genius hard at work on an earth-shattering discovery. Combine the easily accessible text with the understandable pictures and graphics, complete and unobtrusive footnotes, and the wonderfully extensive bibliography and you have an invaluable addition to your library.

As a lay researcher in a medieval re-enactment society, I found this work a true gem, well worth the price of adding to my collection. Even though it would only be considered a "secondary source," the details were too rich and the clarity of the information too valuable to think twice about its purchase. Majno gave me the "why" behind so many medical practices I'm rather saddened that I didn't find this book sooner. Despite being written originally in 1975, I've read and reread it many times using it as a springboard for further research and experementation.

Ancient Medicine Explained
This book is a wonderful resource for gaining knowledge and insight into ancient medicine. Guido Majno not only explains what these ancient cultures did, but in many instances he explains why. He discusses their practices against the foundatioins of their whole culture, including their cultural knowledge base, their religions, their laws, and their technology. He give a great deal of background. For example, when he discusses the medicine of the egyptions, he goes through a basic primer on heroglyphics and then shows the symbols used by the ancient egyptions. This book gives you a real understanding of what these ancient healers struggled with and why they chose certain practices over others. Because of Majno's modern investigation and testing of these practices you also gain an understanding of what they did that worked and what didn't work. I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in medical history.


Dressed for Death: A Guido Brunetti Mystery
Published in Hardcover by HarperCollins (1994)
Author: Donna Leon
Amazon base price: $20.00
Used price: $68.10
Collectible price: $40.25
Average review score:

Intriguing
The finding of a disfiguraded corpse dressed in woman clothes forced detective Guido Brunetti to investigate - from the lower districts where male prostitution is a daily routine to the higher districts of Venice where lawyers and financers living a double life used the male prostitute to satisfy their vices and corrupted planes - to find the killer of the faceless corpse. A very well written novel that keep the reader intrigued since the first pages.

Leon goes 'high fashion' in this thriller
It's not that Venetians are unaccustomed to discovering a body in and about one of its many canalas, but when this particular body is found to be that of the director of a local, influential, bank, eyebrows and curiosity are raised. And even more so when this body is presented as a transvestite prostitute! All Venice is in an uproar!

Donna Leon returns triumphantly in another of her brilliant Commissario Guido Brunetti episodes, and the reader is not left for one second in anything but gripping suspense. Leon, an American writer who is enjoying incredible success at writing police procedurals set in Italy, presents "the Pearl of the Adriatic" in more than all its glory. With Brunetti, she explores not only its grandeur but reveals the city's mud as well.

Just as the body is not as it seems, Brunetti finds that there is even more deception to come. Two more bodies are found that are related to this case, and the author examines more than just police procedures here, as she seems to do in all of her novels. The various aspects of Venetian life are examined, the corruption of government officials, the criminal activities (covering a wide range of subjects from drugs to illecit sex trade), and, of course, the personal lives of her central characters. She has a great knack for character presentation that make them more than just "interesting and lovable"! I have found few authors who do so with such dedication and thoroughness.

Leon, who lives in Italy, certainly seems to know her subjects well, beginning with the first Brunetti novel, "Death at La Fenice." None of her books should be missed, not simply because she has a glorious setting, or fantastic characters, or plots that are convincing, but simply because she is a good read!

Billyjhobbs@tyler.net

A engrossing story in an entrancing setting
Picked up an English copy of this with the title "The Anonymous Venetian" in a bookstore in Venice. It was a fascinating experience not only to read such a wellcrafted mystery but to be able, literally, to walk along with Inspector Brunett as he investigated this murder. The twists and turns of the plot are neatly matched by the twists and turns of the calles and canals of its location.


Meditations on the Peaks: Mountain Climbing As Metophor for the Spiritual Quest
Published in Paperback by Inner Traditions Intl Ltd (1998)
Authors: Julius Evola and Guido Stucco
Amazon base price: $10.36
List price: $12.95 (that's 20% off!)
Used price: $6.95
Collectible price: $8.00
Buy one from zShops for: $9.00
Average review score:

Not for Sunday strollers
This slim volume is collection of brief essays and magazine articles thematically centered on, as the title states, Mountain Climbing as Metaphor for the Spiritual Quest.

A few of the articles are dated, but the rest are gems. What Evola means by the spiritual quest is not the stuff of New Age fantasy or the gooey sentimentality of religiosity.

Evola's prose in these essays is clear and direct. He manages to give us a glimpse into a harsh and rarefied world of transcendent beauty. This book may be the best introduction to Evola for those who are not yet prepard for his more scholarly, esoteric and demanding writings.

A Rarefied and Lofty Evola
Loftiness, elevation, height-a leitmotiv in all Evola's books. This work bespeaks his passion for mountain-climbing and lends itself as a metaphor for a life of striving towards increasingly higher goals. An excellent introduction to the Italian philosopher, and a highly enjoyable read in its own right.

Very good edition of an important book
America seems to be the country where there the translation of Evola's works is marching on faster than anywhere else. Surprisingly this tendency started at the same time as the breakdown of the Communist superpower. Are now even Americans for a future beyond Americanism? Another leading role for the American translations in the "Inner Traditions" series is the beautifulness of the covers, the cheapness of the books, the including of an index - the only thing lacking is the bibliographic information regarding the collected articles which build this book - and much more important the quality of the translations. Guido Stucco has done a fine job again and he has shown in his preface to "The Yoga of Power" his insight into the Evolian thinking: "Evola pointed the way to a steep and solitary path that in my view is still a valid alternative to both the path of koinonia - of human fellowship, which contemporary society has been promoting for the past thirty years - and the spiritualized bourgeois individualism promoted by the New Age movement."

This solitary path can wind his way to the peak of a mountain as this book shows. The spiritual dimension lies first and mainly in the act of climbing, but then expands to the legends connected with the mountains and the experience of the elements - ice and storm, rain and sun. Evola's ashes returned after his dead to his beloved Mount Rosa, to be buried in the eternal ice: the ascend to the peak as a symbol of resurrection. The modern opposition to this experience of transfiguration is symbolzied in skiing: "In skiing the modern spirit finds itself essentially at home; this modern spirit is intoxicated with speed, with constant change, with acceleration." With this book the reader lets this modern spirit behind and reaches to those heights, where ice and light unite in eternal joy.

Martin Schwarz


Over Europe
Published in Hardcover by Weldon Owen Inc. (01 September, 1998)
Authors: Jan Morris, Torbjorn Andersson, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Max Dereta, Georg Gerster, Morris Jan, Leo Meier, Oddbjorn Monsen, Horst Munzig, and Daniel Philippe
Amazon base price: $19.99
Used price: $12.99
Collectible price: $12.00
Buy one from zShops for: $15.00
Average review score:

Absolutely spectacular collection of photographs
Most of my several thousand volume library consists of serious books, works of literature, literary criticism, philosophy, history, theology, political science, and so on. But I also have a shelf or two devoted to "fun" books, books that I pick up and just lose myself in having fun. This is one of my favorite fun books. Not a masterpiece. Probably won't be in print twenty years from now. But the photographs are spectacular! And in just under 300 pages, almost every major city and structure of Europe has been photographed from the air. It is not merely the famous sights and buildings that makes this such a fun book, but some striking photographs of relatively unknown features. For instance, one of the most stunning photographs for me is what would appear to be a gigantic green field in Denmark that has been punctuated by a series of large housing circles, each cut off from one another, and each surrounded by the same green field.

The text has been provided by noted travel writer Jan Morris. The book is largely structured by starting with Italy and proceeding clockwise through the entire European continent, ending with Greece, Romania, and Turkey.

I really can whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone except those who don't like to look at anything. But if you have any interest in the world, in traveling, in Europe, in history, in photography, or in just having fun looking at awesome photos, this book will prove to be an utter delight.

Inexpensive Grandeur and Glory
I stumbled upon this title in a competitor's bookstore and was astonished that I hadn't read a review anywhere. With a 1998 imprint and Jan Morris as the author of the text, it doesn't seem like it should be an obscure tome, yet even here on Amazon.com, only one other person has reviewed it!

The photos are designed to provoke a sense of wonder and awe in the reader/viewer, and they succeed aesthetically, emotionally, and psychologically. From the rock of Gilbralter to a dense set of "potato row" houses in Copenhagen; from snowfields near the Arctic circle to Turkey--it's all here, images snapped from blimps, airplanes, helicopters, almost any method by which one might be "over" Europe.

One will not be able to glimpse most of these sites from comparable vantage points on a typical trek across the continent unless one plans to do so in a biplane. The images here are unusual in their breadth and majesty. ... The text is literate and fun. Buy it and marvel.

Not just another coffee table book!
If you regard this book as just another coffee table book you aren't even half right. This is one of the best photo books I have ever seen. The pictures are outstanding. Nearly every photo takes you to the alter of the church, the edge of the cliff, or the gate to the castle. Not only is it a photo book, but a great travel book. These aren't just descriptions of what to see, but beautiful pictures showing you what you will want to see when you get there. You won't even need to take a camera or change for postcards-- the best pictures are right here. Get this book before you plan your vacation to Europe.


Understanding Yourself: It's So Darn Easy
Published in Paperback by Rutledge Books, Inc. (01 December, 2001)
Author: Guido D. Boriosi
Amazon base price: $10.76
List price: $11.95 (that's 10% off!)
Used price: $8.31
Buy one from zShops for: $6.00
Average review score:

Understanding Yourself: It's So Darn Easy
What a refreshing book! A simple, common sense set of guidelines for living your life. It is an easy read and is a great gift for family, friends, and colleagues. Can't beat the price, either!

finally, a book that lives up to it's title !!!
This book is wonderful!! It's message can be understood by
everyone who reads it. The language is that of the average person
on the street, not the jargon found in most of the previous so-called 'self-help guides'. Dr. Boriosi has taken a complex subject and distilled it to the basics. I hope that this is not the last from the good Doctor.

Submitted by:
Tony Moorehead
Ackerman MS

It Really Is So Darn Easy
Reading Dr. Boriosi's book is like sitting across from him and talking to the soft spoken, smiling man. The book explains in the simplest terms how to find peace within yourself and work throught the bumps in life. It is a wonderful reference book to be kept near at hand. I sincerely hope we see more of Dr. Boriosi's therapy put into book form.


The Decameron (Oxford World's Classics)
Published in Paperback by Oxford University Press (1999)
Authors: Giovanni Boccaccio, Guido Waldman, and Jonathan Usher
Amazon base price: $10.36
List price: $12.95 (that's 20% off!)
Used price: $5.63
Collectible price: $5.74
Buy one from zShops for: $8.90
Average review score:

Boccacio's Decameron is a classic indeed!
For a book to be even considered to a classic; then it, i.e., the book has to stand the test of time (and by so been read, pondered on and enjoy by several generations). The Decameron (Oxford World's Classics) by Giovanni Boccaccio, et al is one of these few books, e.g., The Odyssey, Thus Spoke Zarathustra et al. The story follows a plethora of storytellers whom all have gone to the countryside to escape the plague. The stories are filled with bravura, vigor, fortitude, a bit of sex and many other subjects (that are all written with an uncanny ability). If one considered oneself to be a scholar or a learned man then this book, i.e., The Decameron (Oxford World's Classics) by Giovanni Boccaccio, et al, is a must have; since not owning or having read it, then one as a person/scholar/learnedman must be considered less then civilized.

100+1 tales= a great book.
I had to read a good part of "The Decameron" last quarter and I have gone back to read more stories from it even though the Fall quarter is over. This is a great book: funny, entertaining, subtly revolutionary, insightful, and superbly well-written. Approach it without fear. It is a Classic, but it will have you laughing, thinking, and learning far better than any current best-seller. Anyone with an interest in journalism and/or history will profit from Boccaccio's Introduction, at the beginning of the First Day. His description of the Plague in Florence is vivid and gripping, and this eventually provides the background for the setting of the one hundred and one tales that seven young women and three young men will narrate in a villa away from the dying city. Also, the Introduction to the Fourth Day presents the reader with an unfinished, but hilarious story about a man who has been kept away from women. This story is what my teacher called the 101st, and I have to agree with her.

Do not think that all "The Decameron" deals with is sex. The mostly illicit sexual encounters depicted are some times funny, sometimes sad, but they share a common trait with the stories from the Tenth Day, for example (these ones are mostly about sacrifice, abnegation, and servitude), or with those of the Second: Boccaccio's concern for his society and the terrible tensions that had reached a breaking point by the 14th century. The Plague, in Boccaccio's universe, acts as a catalyst of emotions, desires, and changes that had to come.

Read, then, about Alibech putting the Devil back in Hell, Lisabetta and her pot of basil, Ser Ceperello and his "saintly" life, Griselda and her incredible loyalty in spite of the suffering at the hands of a God-like husband, Tancredi and his disturbing love for his daughter, Masetto and the new kind of society he helps create with some less-than-religious nuns, and then it will be easier to understand why Boccaccio is so popular after 650 years. And although it may be skipped by most readers, do not miss the Translator's (G. M. McWilliam) introduction on the history of "The Decameron" proper, and that of its many, and mostly unfortunate, translations into English. This book is one of the wisest, most economic ways of obtaining entertainment and culture. Do not miss it.

A Book of Laughter
Ten young Florentine noblemen and women escaping the Black Death in Florence in 1348 entertain themselves by each relating a story per day for ten days - 100 entertaining stories in all, mostly set in and around medieval Florence. Although famously naughty, none of these stories strikes a modern reader as more than mildly erotic. Rather, they consistently astonish by their thoroughly modern message that women are as good as men, nobility doesn't come from birth, sanctity doesn't come from the church, and - above all - true love must never be denied. Amazingly, Boccaccio often delivers this message while pretending to say the exact opposite; sometimes he presents very sympathetic characters who get away with things thought scandalous in his time, offering a mere token condemnation at the end, while other times he depicts someone actually following the accepted code and committing some horrible act of cruelty in the process. Either way - and despite his claims to be upholding convention - we always know what he really means, and apparently he didn't fool too many people in his own day either.

But one doesn't need to focus on the revolutionary aspects of the Decameron to enjoy the book; each of the stories delights the reader with a different tasty morsel, and, you can read as much or as little at a time as you please. Once you get past the introduction, (and that's probably the most serious part of the book, so be sure not to give up before you get to the first story) the stories will make you laugh, make you cringe, and make you sit on the edge of your seat. Inspiring authors from Chaucer to Shakespeare and entertaining audiences for over 700 years, the Decameron continues to delight.


Days in Heaven
Published in Paperback by iUniverse.com (2000)
Author: Guido Mina Di Sospiro
Amazon base price: $10.95
Average review score:

Literary Alchemy
Guido Mina di Sospiro is an original voice, a skilled practitioner of linguistic alchemy. In this mysteriously entertaining novel, di Sospiro blends ancient wisdom with modern storytelling technique to create an enlightened vision of human potential. At the core of this engaging novel are two souls, the beloved Joan, a rock and roll critic in quest of musical truth and Jimmi, an Irish troubadour, in quest of Joan - two parts of a whole in search of each other. Steady and self-assured, di Sospiro makes us think, feel, experience, on many levels, from the ridiculous to the sublime. Most contemporary authors pay heed mostly to the sound of money. Di Sospiro has tried to attune himself to the music of the spheres. He's not afraid to let God speak in his story, or to bring his characters to life in a dance of destiny. Ultimately, this is a book about attaining perfection, what it means to be an artist in life and living. Spend a few wondrous "Days In Heaven" and explore infinite possibilities. You won't be disappointed.

Everything that a perfect book should be!
My stepfather, Wayne (who wrote a smashing review here, as well) sent me Days in Heaven for my 21st birthday. It was a beautiful book to read; I read it twice and know I will read it again (and again...). Days in Heaven is a book of hope and inspiration. It shows us that life is not always what we anticipate, that it is full of surprises, miracles, and remarkable connections of different parts of our lives. The characters in this book are well rounded and charming-especially Jimmi and even more especially, Martha. I hope I meet someone like each of them someday. The plot is original and intricately interwoven-and as my step-dad pointed out-no foul language. Guido Mina di Sospiro has a fine repertoire to express anything and everything in his novel. Thank you, sir, for that, and thanks, Wayne, for a great birthday present!

A worthwhile read
I've just finished reading DinH for the 3rd time. The only other book I've ever repeatedly reread was a Hemingway novel for a whole summer. If you like good writing, read DinH; when you get to the last page, try starting over immediately on page 1. You will find new things, slowly at first then faster and faster.


Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Reviews are from readers at Amazon.com. To add a review, follow the Amazon buy link above.