Romeo and Juliet is the best of Shakespeares work ever. Everyone knows the story, but once you read it, it brings the meaning and connection to a different level. The language is beautiful. The words passed betweem Romeo and his love are so moving, you read them over and over. Even if you don't understand what they are saying, you'll still get the general idea and fall in love with this forbidden romance. Even though its a sad ending. The tragedy just adds more to the play. A magnificent book...you have to read it.

Romeo and Juliet has been performed so often that it has become almost tedious. But it might be a thoroughly enjoyable play if it were seen with fresh eyes. The story and its main characters are exaggerated, and at times Romeo appears to be a parody of the young, ardent lover. The play contains more rhymed lines than most of Shakespeare's others, and this can have the tendency to make the play appear less realistic. But it also makes the lines very pleasing to the ear. The pure endurance of Romeo and Juliet's story line attests to its greatness. My favorite character is Mercutio, whose energy and witticism make the play worth reading. I also appreciated the friar, who serves as a foil to Romeo's excessiveness and offers tempering words of wisdom. The play is quite bawdy at times and the double meanings are numerous.

This is one of the best books I've ever read! I think anyone with tast for drama should read this book! Maybe not anyone under seven, but even so, maybe even they could read it!!!And it's also pretty easy to understand! If you do choose this book, I think you will love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that should be the title of this book (and all of the other Amado books I have read). While the story becomes interesting after a while, I get bored reading about how beautiful the women of Bahia are (although, it's true they are!). The beginning of the book is full of descriptions of old men and young beautiful women, which as a women is not only boring in such quantities, but also unappealing. It may be a little difficult for some women to laugh off, the way the author does, the social inequities of women that occurred at that time.

That being said, the story does pick up after Gabriella comes into her own. After the first 1/3 of the book, I couldn't put it down - Gabriella is a great character! She'll make it worth reading Amado's sometimes borish descriptors.

Gabriela, Cloves Cinnamon is simply bountiful. I bought this book in anticipation of a business trip to Brazil, and found that it was a wonderful story rich with political intrigue, well developed characters and a lush setting that served my initial purpose - as a microcosm through which to gain a little insight into the Brazilian psyche. It is a literary masterpiece with a strong prose / narrative style that prevents it being too 'heavy' a read. It total avoids trite characterizations and predictability in the plot. I am going to follow-up this with reading other of Jorge Amado's work, and buy the movie based upon "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" for their own literary value, as opposed to simply as examples of Brazilian / Latin American literature / film.

This is my favorite novel by my favorite South American writer. The scents, sounds and scenery of Brazil seem to spring from the pages of this book. If it were nothing more that a travel guide, it would be worth four or five stars. I promise that after you read this, you will be consummed with the desire to visit Brazil and sample its cooking.

However, this story is more. The best way I can describe it is to say that it is Capra-esque. A beautiful young woman with a peasant background becomes the object of adoration of a businessman. He tries to civilize her and in the process almost destroys that which makes herso sublime. If this was written by Thomas Hardy and the titole character was named Tess, this book would end tragically. However, this is the world of Amado. I do not want to give away too much of the plot, but I will say that Amado loves his characters and has a great faith in the ability of people to change and grow.

Will and Ariel Durant wrote a massive eleven-volume history, The Story of Civilization. After they finished volume ten -- which was to be the last - they came out with this brief work. (In 1975 they produced the final volume in the series, The Age of Napoleon). Although this series is not considered by professional historians to be a great work of history, the Durants' love of history is evident on every page. I read most of them in high school and college, and they help inspire a life-long interest history.

The Lessons of History consists of a number of short chapters, in which the Durants summarize what their study of history revealed on various themes, such as war, morals, government, religion, etc. Although certainly not a profound work, it contains a number of insights. For example, the discussion of the lineage of communism is quite interesting. On the other hand, the Durants strike me as having been moderately left of center, and some of their arguments in favor of government regulation of the economy don't convince me. They appear somewhat more conservative on morals, and there is a good discussion on how war negatively impacts traditional morality. The discussion of religion is somewhat ambiguous, perhaps reflecting Will Durant, who studied for the priesthood, became an atheist, and died an agnostic.

This work came out in 1968, and the Durants make a couple of predictions which didn't exactly come true. They argue that by 2000 the Roman Catholic Church will be politically dominant in the US. In addition, they expressed the commonplace idea in the 60s that the Soviet Union and the United States were coming closer together and would eventually meet in the middle.

Will and Ariel Durant were to history what Carl Sagan was to science: They breathed life into a subject considered lifeless by too many, and clothed the skeleton of recorded history in a garment rich in colorful detail and vast in perspective. "Lessons Of History" is, in my opinion, the finest 100 page non-fiction book ever written, and represents the capstone and encapsulating work of two authors who gave the world their ten thousand page "Story Of Civilization" over a period of 50 years.

Within this delightful book, one can view the enormous panorama of human civilization as it developed from, and was formed by, the matrices of geography, religion, science, war, and a host of other factors. The Durant's, in a writing style that should have been copyrighted, provide the reader with an engaging view of humanity that few readers will come away from without being touched and awed. To be sure, the Durant's works have had a few (very few) detractors, but they were almost entirely high-browed academics in narrow research areas who most likely envied them their commercial success. If I could give this synopsis of 100 centuries of history more than 5 stars I'd do it in a nanosecond.

For the person in a hurry, but who is also curious about history, I would recommend this book. It is the culmination of a survey of history that Will and Ariel Durrant did in the 1960's. I realize that some of the conclusions have been dated, such as concern about the Soviet Union, but that does not destroy the value of the work. Indeed, who is to say that the Soviet Union, or some neo-Tsarist regime, could not rise again?

Moreover, this book covers other topics, all of them revolving around the "Human Predicament," which is basically a choice between freedom and security. Or better yet, actual freedom, and claimed security, since if you chose security over freedom, you will lose both freedom and security.

This book is an easy read, written on the high-school level, so there are no excuses for not understanding anything. It is an essential in anyone's collection of "Great Books," since not only is the unexamined life not worth living, the unexamined civilization is not worth preserving. And we can make a change in things.

Although much of Burr's analysis leaves a lot to be desired, this book is a must have for a first hand look at Kissinger's diplomatic legacy. There is still much information that has not been declassified and therefore _The Kissinger Transcripts_ presents only a partial picture at best, but Burr's compilation is well worth the effort to see Kissinger's many different diplomatic faces show themselves as he deals with different characters such as Mao, Brezhnev, Zhou Enlai, Gromyko, Deng Xiaoping and others. It is truly fascinating to examine the different rhetorical tactics employeed by Kissinger to suit his particular audience. Incidentally, this bit of genius appears to be lost upon Burr, and others too, who view these many Kissinger faces with a seeming lack of understanding and even think of it as somewhat contradictory. The guiding theme when examined as a whole, however, is that Kissinger worked toward the improvement of the position of the United States in the world power structure. There is no doubt that the opening of China, coupled with Kissinger's deft Middle East diplomacy, did just that. These transcripts shed some much needed light on the operations of perhaps the United States' greatest executor of foreign policy.

The lengths to which Kissinger went to recruit the Chinese on the American side in the Cold War are instructive to those who believe that America played its cards well on the international arena in the Cold War. Much of the story that William Burr has pieced together--quite admirably in my opinion--is sad reading from the American point of view. Less so, of course, from the Chinese perspective. At points, it is easy to forget which of the parties was the superpower, and which the third world nation rising from internal turmoil, economic collapse and a severely hostile international situation. It is particularly instructive to read this book in context of the question of dealing with China, a problem which America has grappled with fitfully over the past two decades. The roots of Chinese suspicion of "peaceful evolution" and "engagement" lie in their recollection of the avid wooing of China in the 1970s.

On a local note, for the Asian reader, Kissinger's views on dealing with the Indian subcontinent are also instructive, including his open willingness to pressurise India in the Bangladesh crisis. In general terms, the Nixon administration's bias was perceived in India, and has been one of the reasons for the difficult relationship between India and USA in the 1970s and early 1980s. This book only provides proof of that less-than-subtle 'tilt'.

This book is invaluable reference material to all students of international relations, even if it is used as a "how-not-to" manual. The only gripe is the shoddy proof reading, with typos and inconsistent romanisation of Chinese names. But that is a small price to pay for this excellent piece of research.

Buy this book, you won't regret it.

Individuals indeed can change the world, as evidenced by some of the transcripts in this excellent collection of original documents. William Burr has delivered an important record of the actions of the principle actors during the United States' shift from Kennan-inspired containment policy to balance-of-power politics.

Reaping the benefits of the Freedom of Information Act and declassification projects at the federal agencies responsible for U.S. foreign policy, Burr and his colleagues at the National Security Archive project at George Washington University have brought us the raw, unadulterated truths surrounding the diplomacy behind Nixon's detente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China. Gems such as the momentous first meeting of Nixon and Mao with Zhou Enlai and Kissinger in attendance cannot be missed.

Excellent primary source material with copious notes from Burr. A must-have for anyone interested in Kissinger and his relationships with Nixon, Mao and Brezhnev.

I heard about Will Durant, and his Story of Civilisation, from general meandering through the reviews on Amazon. It is to the shame of the UK, where I live, that he is virtually unknown here and his works unobtainable.

I bought this book via one of the used book suppliers on Amazon and the mystery of Durants' obscurity in England has only deepened. Here clearly is one of the major historical writers of the last century, possessing a skill of verbiage and phrase the equal of Churchills.

The Life of Greece is well named. You trul;y are lead by the hand into that long ago civilisation. You are shown its cities, its institutions, its armies, its arts, its gods, its hopes, its fears, all to a background cacophony of slaves chisels clinking in the silver mines at Laurinium, or the howls of outrage from the crowds in the theatre over Euripides' savage potrayal of the Gods' caprice and cruelty. You really feel that you begin to understand the ancients, and to a degree see through their eyes.

The book is very much for the general reader with a thirst for knowledge. One immediately feels upon finishing the book that further readings will be required, and enjoyed, because the is such a depth of detail in the book that it would be impossible to absorb more than a fraction of what is there.

A further reading will have to wait however. My copy of Caesar and Christ has just arrived - and I'm off to ancient Rome for a while.

This is one of those "important" books that I had been intending to read for more years than I want to admit. I truly regret not picking this up sooner (or any of the Durant's other works) as it reads almost like a novel, though it is also very scholarly as can be seen from the copious notes and bibliographic sources contained therein. Durant's observations about the personalities and their actions are often touching and sympathetic, but he doesn't shy away from stern criticism of the social weaknesses and short-sighted treacheries that finally destroyed the Greeks. As a society, these people had faults that were all too human, yet they had a creativity and vitality that Durant is able to bring to life with a startling immediacy. He manages to peel away the interveaning millenia between then and now and reveal the Greeks not as "ancients", but as our virtual contemporaries. Read this book and understand why Greece is the fountainhead of the West.

Will Durant is a prolific writer and historian. This book is a must for students or anyone studying Hellenic history. Durant's books will stand the test of time - his uniquely orthodox perspective and the keen insights offered in his books are a welcomed break from the revisionist history of today.

For students of political science and history, studying ancient Greece offers insightful lessons of history in relation to politics and government. Greek history is full of political turmoil and change. The Greco-Roman contribution that shaped the ideas of the founding fathers of the American Republic were in part based on the lessons of Greek history. History, Greek history especially, offers keen insight on why the American founders were weary of unchecked democracy and the absence of a rule of law.

OK so it takes half the book to get to the story. In typical Henry James fashion you are completely prepared for the action. Unlike Thomas Hardy, whose surroundings tell us of the character of the person it surrounds, James wishes you to know the depth of his characters as seen through the eyes of others. This of course brings on many minor characters that just seem to disappear, but it is a view of a person as if the reader was on the other side of the mirror watching the story unfold. Yes, James is wordy, yes this is not a quick read, but Henry James has a mastery of language and story telling that is rare.
"The American" is a wonderful love story that ends as a real life love story might end. Do not expect roses and happily ever after, it is as much a story of an ancient social system as it is of the life of "our hero." And the thing that seems to get missed is that Henry James actually wrote this as a mystery, not a love story.
This is a novel to contemplate and read between the lines. Good verses Evil, Noveau vs Old Money, Right and Wrong, can literature get any better than that?

I have this friend who hates Henry James. I can't understand it. The style is dated, in that people dont write that way today, but as you get into the book you begin to enjoy the style, as well as the plot, characters, and French/American dual culture shock that still goes on today. (For an update on the theme, look at Le Divorce and Le Mariage by Diane Johnson). I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen to these characters and the description of Paris in the Second Empire were fascinating. If you watch the Masterpiece Theatre version without having read the book, you will be totally confused. They moved events out of sequence all over the place and after about ten minutes I shut off the tape and picked up the book. You have to know the whole story before you watch them throw characters and events at you in the first two scenes that only appear 2/3 of the way through the novel, after a foundation has been laid as to who they are and when and why things happened.

I couldnt recommend this more for a good read. The only caution I have is for readers who have never been to France. They may get an extremely negative impression of French people from many of the characters in this book. Go to Paris and you will find the city is wonderful, and so are the French people. These characters are not typical!! They belong to a certain class, and the book does take place 150 years ago. If this book doesnt get you hooked on James, I dont know what will. Try Washington Square and dont miss that movie, with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney and Maggie Smith.

This book is long, but only because that's how James tells the story. It's like a soup that needs to boil all day, so it's kept on low, but when it's done, it's perfect. The book stays at the pace of "our hero" the American Christopher Newman. A smart, educated, rich, yet easy going, simple, and humane veteran of the Civil War and a self made tycoon, who goes to Europe to see the "treasures and entertain" himself.

He becomes entangled in what he thinks is a simple plan for matrimony, but is really truly a great deal larger and more treacherous and terrible than that.

We spend a lot of time in Newman's mind, paragraphs of character analaysis are sprung upon us, but nothing seems plodding or slow, nothing feels useless. By the end of the book we find that we think like the character and can only agree with what he does. We react to seemingly big plot twists and events as he does, without reaction, and a logical, common sense train of thought.

But don't misunderstand that. For a book that is so polite and the essence of "slow-reaction", it is heartwrenching and tragic. You will cry, you will wonder, and you will ask yourself questions. Colorful, lifelike, and exuberant characters fight for your attention and your emotions, and we are intensely endeared to them. Emotional scenes speckle the book and are just enough. And the fact that something terrible and evil exists in this story hangs over your head from the beginning. It's hard to guess what happens because James doesn't give us many clues, and the ending may come as a surprise to some people. And without us knowing it, James is comparing American culture to European culture (of the day), and this in of itself is fulfilling.

Indeed, James uses every page he has, without wasting any on detailed landscapes and useless banter. 2 pages from the end you have a wrenching heartache, but the last paragraph and page is utterly and supremely satisfying, and you walk away the way Newman walks away, at peace.

This book will redefine your concepts of biography, of philology and of intellect. However critically James Boswell is rated as a writer, the fact remains that his biography of Johnson remains the standard by which all others are judged, and by which they ultimately fall--flat on their condescending faces.

Who was Samuel Johnson? He was, in one sense, the first literary celebrity. His fabled dictionary of the English language was, a few years down the road, superceded and greatly improved upon by the dictionary written by Noah Webster. His tour of Scotland and the book that ensued from it hardly rank with the other literary giants of English. And his essays, indisputably brilliant, remain sadly that: forms of literature seldom read, and lacking the artistic force of the play, the novel, the poem.

What Boswell shows us about Johnson is that he was the sharpest conversationalist of his time in a society that cultivated the very finest of witty speakers. Living off the beneficence of friends, off a royally-provided pension, and leading what he readily acknowledged to be a life of idleness, Johnson was a sought-after personality invigorated by one of the brightest literary minds ever.

Boswell introduces the genius, his pathos, his melancholy, his piety, his warmth, and most of all his stinging wit. That he loved and respected Johnson, and sought to honor his memory, can only be doubted by an utter cynic or someone serving a lifetime of durance in academia.

"All intellectual improvement arises from leisure..." "You shall retain your superiority by my not knowing it." "Sir, they [Americans] are a parcel of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." "He was dull in a new way, and that made people think him great." "...it is our duty to maintain the subordination of civilized society..." "It is wonderful, when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession." Boswell: "...you are an idle set of people." Johnson: "Sir, we are a city of philosophers." "We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards."

And best of all, and immortal to boot, is this: "No man but a blockhead writes, except for money."

Buy this book. Read it. It's humanity at its wittiest and most complex.

I chose the 1,000 or so page Wordsworth Classics paperback edition of The Life Of Johnson (ISBN 1 85326 797 x) and was very pleased I did. The book had a nice heft to it, and the print was large enough for a comfortable read. My only major beef with this edition is that Boswell's text is replete with quotations from a variety of languages including Latin, Greek, French, Italian and others, and very few of them are translated into English. Whether the editor assumed that the average modern reader is a polyglot, or was unable to provide the translations for some other reason, I feel deprived at not having had access to this portion of the book's material, particularly as the quotes are most often used to gild the lily of one of Johnson's witticisms. Nevertheless, the book rewards the diligent reader with a wealth of intellectual stimulation, and offers a fascinating look into the England of the period including: polite London society, Oxford University, and jaunts around the British and Scottish countryside. Johnson's somewhat eccentric life and personal habits are lovingly and affectionately relayed by his close friend Boswell, who somehow managed to preserve a vast amount of Johnson's conversation without the aid of a tape recorder. With everyday life as a backdrop, we see how Johnson, a self-described lazy man, managed to produce such an abundant literary legacy, not the least of which was his groundbreaking dictionary. I recommend this book highly to people with an interest in 18th century England, the literary society of the period, or who simply love a great biography.

Surely this is "The Biography" in the same sense that to the Scholastic thinkers, Aristotle was "The Philosopher."

More to the point, it is an endlessly fascinating book, one of those rare works that can be opened at random with consistently rewarding results. Johnson, of course, is one of those rare characters who demonstrates that life is not necessarily less rich than fiction, and Boswell is an entertaining (and amusingly exasperating) chronicler. The "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides" is also well worth reading and randomly revisiting.

However, I'm somewhat alarmed by the comments below about the accuracy of this version. I bought this because it was a decent-looking hardback version--I had actually read a library copy (some long out-of-print edition). Could some reviewer please explain the deviations? My skimming and minor re-reading hasn't revealed anything glaring yet, but it's been a while since my original reading, and I haven't sat down for a long Boswell read in a few years.

I was disappointed in this book, as it contains very little information that is applicable to trading strategies. The only information in this category is very general and would be found in virtually any trading book. Primarily, this book seems to be one big advertisement for the futures industry. A large section of the book is devoted to the history of online trading and the companies who shaped it as well as interviews with principals of these firms.

If you are a new trader, you may find something useful here. If, however, you are a seasoned trader, there is virtually nothing in this book that you will find helpful.

Starting with the history, and ending with the future the authors (who are the originators of electronic futures trading)leave no stone unturned. This book is a must for all serious futures traders whether a novice or a seasoned professional.

This book covers the beginning of electronic trading in the futures industry from the perspective of the authors who first introduced electronic trading to the futures industry. It covers the fears that sweep the futures industry as electronics threatens to close the traditional oupen outcry meathod of trading futures. The interviews with the original developers of the software really puts in persective how far we have come in the past few years. The book also helps you rate your personality and help you decide what system might be right for your psychological profile. With that in mind it is then time to design a system that is right for me. I found the book very informative and made me feel at ease knowing that the system I designed for myself even though not guaranteed to make money, will make me feel comfortable about trading it.

I have been teaching Graphic Design for many years and have found that Designing with Type is the perfect textbook. Now with the addition of the website...and its numerous links to design projects from schools around the world, as well as suggestions for books, magazines, organizations, and other web sites, it is a truly unique and invaluable tool for both teachers and students.

I have used this book both as a student and now as an instructor of typography and find it to be one of the most valuable resources on the subject. There is also a free new web site that supplements the book. I have found that students benefit greatly from using the book along with the website. I would strongly recommend checking out: ...

I use this book in a fundamentals class. It has solid exercises and simple, comprehensive info on typography.

This book gives what appears to be an almost complete and factual account of the events of the enrollment of James Meredith at Ole Miss. Having first hand experience of being there as a staff member in the Office of the Registrar, I was drawn to this book and find it flows well and coordinates time lines in an understandable format. It can easily be read in two evenings and makes you feel as though you were there. A must for anyone interested in history.

I spent the night of September 30-October 1 in the middle of the Ole Miss Campus. There were four of us who were barricaded in the Student Union Building. We watched the fightining swirl below through the night, but I did not know -- until I read this book -- how close to the abyss we really were. I think this a very balanced account that is basically accurate. There were no bars in Oxford in 1962 for Mississippi was legally dry until 1966! A few other slips like that do not detract from the totality of the book. This is the third or fourth book I have read on the subject and the first that really places the blame for what happened on both sides. It has always seemed to me -- and I have said so -- that the most foolish thing one could have done was what the Federal Government did by surrounding the Lyceum Building late on Sunday afternoon, thus giving a focal point for returning students and invading strangers . . . and the oncoming cover of darkness. In hindsight, it would have been so much better to lay low until early Monday, slip onto the campus and register James Merideth in the early morning, and face the daylight hours rather than the night. However, the men in the field had to deal with the situation that the Governor and the President had permitted to be created . . . and they cannot really be blamed for lack of foresight when those in a much higher position had shown the same lack of foresight.

An excellent book . . . that scares the wits out of someone who was really there!

I found this book to be very enlightening. It is a factual account of the clash between the United States Government and the State of Mississippi. Anyone who has been to Oxford would find it hard to imagine that those events actually occurred. It is a great example of our constitution being put to the test.