This lean volume is everything you'd want in a companion: Lively, intoxicating, and beautiful in appearance; her lean, supple prose swells provocatively beneath the sheer, black jacket that clings suggestively to this tight, curvaceaous body of work. But she is more than a sensual treat! Her wit, though not of the highest order, gives some delight as well and one would be proud to appear with this companion under one's arm even at a Mensa gathering.

....

I am the librarian at the Sonoma County Wine Library, and I have known Charles Sullivan for some years. His newest work will probably be THE one volume reference on California wine from now on. In concise and informative entries, Sullivan encompasses the whole of California's rich wine heritage. He covers all the varietals and most of the wineries A to Z. His writing is insightful, dispassionate and fluid, and his research is superb.

In the pages of Contemporary World Architecture, London-based writer, lecturer and architectural expert Hugh Pearman presents an immense and wonderfully illustrated study of architecture drawn from nations around the globe. Filled cover to cover with gorgeous color photography and erudite commentary on thirteen separate categories of buildings, Contemporary World Architecture is as much an architectural art appreciation reference as it is a practical study of the design, sturdiness, and aesthetics of architectural construction styles transcending cultures. An amazing, eye-catching, 511 page volume that incorporates shelter, history, building mechanics and more into a studious whole, Contemporary World Architecture is strongly recommended for professional and academic architectural reference collections as being an impressive and seminal work of detailed architectural information and enduring appreciation.

very nic

"Dancing With Change" is written by a professional. This book is one to "savor"! It offers you the choice of solving new and on-going problems or challenges. The step by step methods offer you, the reader participant, the simple tools to help yourself. The steps are stated clearly & simply......a well edited book.
The steps are easy to follow, requiring only the willingness of the reader/participant.
While the book leads you on chapter by chapter, I personally found that I wanted to take my time with the reading of it. Hence, I read, savor the information, then act on the practical suggestions. It works!
Try this book! You'll love it. A perfect gift for all those "self searchers" out there.
Thanks Hugh for writing this practical approach to the ongoing search that each of us human beings turn to, each in our own way, & when it is the time for each of us to do so.

If you enjoy Don Ruiz, I know you will want to read this book.

Hugh Wiley helps the reader to develop a vision and explore their core beliefs. Hugh then suggests exercises to help the reader meet these goals. It stresses that life is an adventure in which you are an active participant, always changing and growing.

The book is clear and concise and left me with wanting more. Hopefully Hugh will write another book soon.

I am in the process of reading this book right now. It has inspired me to take another look at my depression, to think about letting go of it, and attending a local D.A. meeting. I even e-mailed Hugh to ask for locations and times, and he answered me promptly and kindly! Highly recommended if you are ready to let go and move on!

"Depressed Anonymous" is THE book that should be in the library of not only every person who struggles with depression of any kind, but the family and friends of someone who does. Offering inspirational and spiritual guidance and anecdotal true stories of others dealing with the disease of depression, this book offers hope. Using the 12-steps of AA as a guide, a format to conduct Depressed Anonymous meetings is included, which proves to be of great assistance when meeting with others in any stage of depression, be it struggling, recovering or maintaining a healthy life. It also gives insight to those who are affected by this disease, but are not suffering from it. "Depressed Anonymous" is not bogged down with psycho-babble - it is written for everyone who wants insight, guidance and hope in a format accessible to everyone.

This is not simply a book about word origins, because what Hugh Rawson is writing about are the popular misconceptions we have about where words come from. The word "hooker" predates the Civil War and General Joseph Hooker while "crap" was in use prior to Thomas Crapper's invention of the Valveless Water Waste Preventer. Besides such "Imaginary eponyms" Rawson also considers "Spurious acronyms," "Geographic ghosts," "Erudite errors" and "False refinement" to explain why what we know is not true. The author of "Wicked Words" and "A Dictionary of Euphemisms & Other Doublespeak," Rawson certainly has the credentials to correct our misconceptions on over 1,000 entries, with words from "adultery" to "zip" and phrases from "bit the bullet" to "vicious circle." This is a delightful book that you will find fascinating whether you are a teacher trying to get students interested in the wonderful world of words or are just interested in knowing how words and phrases enter our common usage. Give yourself a treat and learn about one word/phrase a day. You have a couple of years of fun here for sure.

A great book for anyone who "thinks" they know where some very popular words and phrases come from.

The movie musical version of "Doctor Dolittle" was on cable this weekend, and after cringing a bit at Rex Harrison's portrayal of the Doctor (about as faithful to the book as Julie Andrews was to P.L. Travers's original Mary Poppins), I pulled down several of my Hugh Lofting classics to remember why I loved these books so much. You probably know the general story: the adventures of an English animal doctor who learns the language of the animals. All of these books are great (start with "The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle" or "The Story of Doctor Dolittle") but "Doctor Dolittle in the Moon" was always my favorite as a kid, and I'm please to say it holds up extraordinarily well reading it in my late thirties! The adventure is continued in part from the previous book, "Doctor Dolittle's Garden," but you don't have to read that book at all to get right into the action: the good doctor is already on his way to the moon, on the back of a giant moth (it's not as silly as it sounds), along with faithful companions the parrot Polynesia and the monkey Chim-Chim--plus a stowaway, the Doctor's protégé and apprentice, Tommy Stubbins. They discover on the moon's dark side a fantastic world of giant--and talking--plants, weird creatures, and the mythical, millenniums-old Man in the Moon. I'm not *at all* doing justice to this--the setting is moody, spooky, even a little chilling, and always exciting--in my mind, no juvenile author has portrayed an alien world so well until Eleanor Cameron's "Mushroom Planet" books. It astonishes me how far ahead of his time Lofting was; I had to glance at the copyright page and actually check that it was published in 1928. I don't mean that he was prescient in what the moon is actually like (Lofting's moon is a weird but lush, living landscape), but his themes and ideas in this book were far beyond most of the books I read as a kid, and must have been revolutionary for juvenile lit in 1928: the ideas of evolution, the extraordinarily precarious balance of nature (and how a man who can talk to the animals and plants can help bring justice and fairness to their society), and even a reflection by the Doctor on man's inhumanity to man--and why he prefers the company of animals. The science is fantastic but believable: Lofting's imaginative speculation on the low atmosphere and gravity of the moon, and how the plants and animals have evolved to compensate, is one of the highlights. This book entertained and thrilled me as a kid, and I'm pleased to say it did so as an adult as well. Sadly, it's currently out of print. I can definitely see fans of the Harry Potter adventures also enjoying Doctor Dolittle...it's time for a savvy publisher to make the entire series available again for a new generation. (And the Mushroom Planet books by Eleanor Cameron, too, while you're at it!)

This classic book by Hugh Lofting tells the tale of Dr. Dolittle, his companion Stubbins, his parrot Polynesia, and monkey Chee Chee as they arrive on the moon by way of a giant moth. Discoveries and adventures await them as they travel throughout this new world and try to find out why they were brought the moon. The book climaxes when Dr. Dolittle and company get a chance to meet the Man in the Moon! The book leaves you hanging at the end and ready to buy the next book in the series!

Oh the JOY of reading Doctor Dolittle books! This is a great one. How can it be no publisher(s) have reprinted all the books including the zoo, the moon, the garden, the post office, puddleby adventures etc.?? Are they mad? These books are timeless stories that appeal to animal lovers everywhere!

Ahh, the feelings of nostalgia I get when I think of Dr. Dolittle, the man who could talk to the animals. In the fifth grade all I did was read Dr. Dolittle books. My school library only had the Story of Dr. Dolittle, Dr. Dolittle's Voyages, Dr. Dolittle's Post Office, and Doctor Dolittle's Circus, and I always had one of them checked out. Consequently, I got sick of them. Then came summer vacation, and my downtown public library had Dr. Dolittle's Caravan. Well, I read it and really got into it. The story ties in with both the aforementioned Dr. Dolittle's Circus as well as Dr. Dolittle and the Green Canary (to the point that read Green Canary borders on redundancy, but I digress). Herein Dr. Dolittle discovers the canary with her sweet songs and bittersweet life's story. My favorite part occurs where the good doctor meets Paganini, the infamous violinist. I liked the "flirting with historical fiction" Lofting tosses our direction. Chronologically, this story MUST take place before 1839, the year the Dr. meets Tommy Stubbins; Paganini died in 1837, I believe, so the timeline for this novel would be the mid-1830s (assuming Dr. Dolittle was taught the language of animals around 1830). I hope this book goes back in print soon.

Until I read this book, I thought I knew everything about Spenser, but Norton has done it again! Insightful and interesting,this anthology of criticism covers everything from "The Faerie Queene" to all the other things Spenser wrote. I had always been a Chaucer hound,but now I've converted to the Spenserian camp. Partake of this grand work and be saved!

EDMUND SPENSER'S POETRY : Authoritative Texts and Criticism. Third Edition. Selected and Edited by Hugh Maclean and Anne Lake Prescott. 842 pp. London & New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 1993.

Although everyone has heard of Edmund Spenser's amazing narrative poem, 'The Faerie Queene,' it's a pity that few seem to read it. To a superficial glance it may appear difficult, although the truth is that it's basically a fascinating story that even an intelligent child can follow with enjoyment and interest.

It appears difficult only because of Spenser's deliberately antique English. He needed such an English because he was creating a whole new dimension of enchantment, a magical world, a land of mystery and adventure teeming with ogres and giants and witches, hardy knights both brave and villainous, dwarfs, magicians, dragons, and maidens in distress, wicked enchanters, gods, demons, forests, caves, and castles, amorous encounters, fierce battles, etc., etc.

To evoke an atmosphere appropriate to such a magical world, a world seemingly distant in both time and place from ours, Spenser created his own special brand of English. Basically his language is standard Sixteenth Century English, but with antique spellings and a few medievalisms thrown in, along with a number of new words that Spenser coined himself. The opening lines of the poem are typical :

"A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine, / Y cladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, / Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine, / The cruell markes of many a bloudy fielde...." (page 41).

If, instead of reading with the eye, we read with the ear or aloud, the strange spellings resolve themselves into perfectly familiar words such as clad (clothed), mighty, arms, shield, deep, cruel, marks, bloody, field. And "Y cladd" is just one of those Spenserian medievalisms that simply means "clad" or clothed (i.e., wearing).

The only two words in this passage that might cause problems for the beginner are "pricking" and "dints," and it doesn't take much imagination to realize that these must refer, respectively, to 'riding' (i.e., his horse) and 'dents.' But if you can't guess their meaning, in the present edition a quick glance to the right at their explanatory glosses will soon apprize you of it, and will save you the trouble of searching for their meaning elsewhere.

Once you've used the side glosses for a little while, progress through Spenser's text becomes a snap. And learning a few hundred words is a small price to pay for entrance into one of the most luxuriant works ever produced by the Western imagination, and one that once entered you will often want to return to.

The present Norton Critical Edition has been designed for college students, but will appeal to anyone who is looking for an abridged Spenser which gives maximum help with the language, and who might also like to read a little of the best recent criticism.

The first part of the book, besides giving almost 500 large pages of annotated selections from 'The Faerie Queene' which amount to well over half of Spenser's complete text, also includes a generous selection from Spenser's other poetry : The Shephearde's Calendar; Muipotmos : or The Fate of the Butterflie; Colin Clouts Come Home Againe; Amoretti; and the beautiful Epithalamion and Prothalamion. An Editor's Note exploring important issues follows each selection, and all obscure words have been given convenient explanatory glosses in the right margins.

The second part of the book consists mainly of a wide range of Twentieth-Century Criticism, and contains twenty-five critical essays on various aspects of Spenser, many by noted scholars such as A. Bartlett Giamatti, Thomas P. Roche Jr., Northrop Frye, A. C. Hamilton, Isabel MacCaffrey, Paul Alpers, Louis Martz, and William Nelson. The book is rounded out with A Chronology of Spenser's Life and a very full Selected Bibliography.

Criticism undoubtedly has its value and at times can be stimulating, but Spenser, as one of England's very greatest writers, was of course writing not so much for critics as for you and me. Admittedly his language can be a bit tricky at first, and he certainly isn't to be rushed through like a modern novel. His is rather the sort of book that we wish would never end.

His pace is leisurely and relaxed, a gentle flowing rhythmic motion, and that's how he wants us to read him. To get the hang of things, try listening to one of the many available recordings. And when you hit a strange-looking word there will be no need to fret or panic, for a quick glance to the right at its gloss will soon apprize you of its meaning.

So take Spenser slowly, and give his words a chance to work their magic. Let him gently conduct you through his enthralling universe, one that you will find both wholly strange and perfectly familar, since human beings and their multifarious doings are Spenser's real subject, and somewhere in one of his enchanted forests you may one day find yourself.

This book should be retitled The Ehrman Complete Needlepoint Book. I have been a fan of Hugh Ehrman's kits for over 15 years and this book features all of my favorite patterns as well as instructions on finishing cushions and wall hangings. The artists use of colours are incredible compared to other needlepoints out there. These are truly works of art rather than simple crafts!

When will his next book appear? I and many of his devoted fans wait with baited breath for a new book.

This book has some of the most beautiful designs for needlepoint that I have yet run across. The only problem is that the graphs are color coded, (as opposed to symbol coded), and since there are so many colors in a lot of the designs, they are pretty hard to read.

I had never heard of Hugh Kenner until a local radio station replayed the Massey Lectures ( a radio lecture series on the Canandian Broadcasting Corporation) on which this book is based. They entranced me so much that I went out and bought this title.

Kenner expounds the merits of travelling and meeting people as a way of both learning and shaping your life and work. He starts by looking at the "Grand Tour", the visits to Europe by the English (and later North Americans, including Kenner's father) and links in Homer and "The Odyssey", Aristotle, Gibbon, Wordsworth, Milton and Dante before moving on to his own trips Elsewhere when he visited first Ezra Pound and then T.S. Eliot. These allow Kenner to tie in Yeats, James Joyce, Henry James and many others.

Kenner shows how all these writers were influenced and educated by their own voyages and exiles and how the movement of people shaped modern literature, among others.

The book is marvellously written and incredibly engaging. It sent me delving into my shelves and visiting libraries to find poems or prose by the authors he mentions. It once again focused my mind on my own desire to see England and Europe.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys literature or wants a marvellous excuse to travel and find their own Elsewhere Community.

"The Elsewhere Community" examines the role of "elsewhere" in learning. One learns by going (or being) elsewhere -- geographically, with other people, in another frame of mind, or with other types of literature. One learns by being around what one doesn't know -- something else.

And among other things, this is a fascinating account of Hugh Kenner's own voyage to elsewhere. In 1948, driving from Toronto to New Haven (via New York and Washington) with Marshall McLuhan, Kenner went to visit Ezra Pound, then incarcerated at St. Elizabeth's hospital for the mentally ill in Washington. That visit led to Kenner's subsequent career as one of the leading critics of our time. For fifty years, Kenner has explained Modernism and its leading writers (Pound, Joyce, Beckett, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and others) to us with his comprehensive intelligence and wit. This book is perhaps the closest we will come to having Kenner's autobiography, and it's a treasure.

Early on in their friendship, Ezra Pound told Kenner that he had "an ob-li-ga-tion" to visit the great people of his time. And so began Kenner's trips to Europe to meet the writers he has explained so eloquently. The stories of his experiences with these people (with Beckett and Eliot, for example) are always revealing. Kenner has always amazed readers with his power to see and to hear things that the rest of us might miss. His eye misses nothing, and his ear is musical in its ability to catch just the right inflection and the meaning beneath it. Some of these stories have appeared in Kenner's earlier books, but here they are presented not to Explain Literature, but rather in the form of five radio scripts. They are warm, personal, fascinating, and charming.

Read this book, whether or not you know Modernism. If you don't know Pound, Eliot, and Beckett, you'll want to after you read this. And you'll want to read more Kenner. Above all, you'll want to discover and explore your own "elsewheres."

This book is a treasure.