Needless to say, Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON is one of the preeminent works of biography and should be read by anyone interested in Johnson or the genre. It is a great book (also great is W. Jackson Bate's SAMUEL JOHNSON [1st published 1975]which is a MUST for anyone interested in Johnson). But although I love the Everyman's Library, I do not recommend this edition of Boswell. Unlike the usual quality of the Everyman's Library, its Boswell is rife with typographical errors (there's even missing text!). Though it's the only edition of Boswell I've read, I regret that a correct edition is not on my bookshelf. That being said, if this is the only affordable hardcover version you can find -- and you buy only hardcovers -- go ahead and purchase the Everyman's despite the numerous and distracting errors.

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 His fabled dictionary of the English language was, a few years down the road, superceded and greatly improved upon by the dictionary written by Noah Webster.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.

Boswell was not the obvious choice to write the best biography about Samuel Johnson, much less one of the greatest biographies in world literature. He had much less contact with Johnson than Mrs. Thrale, for many years a close friend of Johnson who spent much more time with him than did Boswell. In fact, Boswell spent perhaps 400 days with Johnson over a period of many years. He also was not Johnson's literary executor. Finally, Boswell was regarded by many of his day, and afterwards, as something of an 18th Century celebrity hound. He made a point of meeting every famous person he could (Voltaire, Rousseau), and went to great efforts to make himself famous. Nevertheless, in his Life of Johnson, Boswell succeeded in portraying Johnson and his circle so vividly that more than 200 years later they come across as real human beings. He did this by breaking the convention of concentrating only on the most favorable aspects of his subject's life, and instead describing Johnson's eccentricities of dress, behavior, etc. Moreover, Boswell did not neglect to include incidents that make himself appear ridiculous. The book is both extremely funny and moving. If you read this, you will want to immediatley get a copy of Boswell's book on the trip that Johnson and he took to the Hebrides.

"The Use of Man" covers familiar territory for those who have read "Kapo": Post World War II Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, In this book, Tisma was unable to achieve the same gripping effect as he did in the horrific "Kapo". The narrative is rather aimless, and while it may accurately display the dislocation felt by many who lived through this brutal era in Balkan history, it does not make for engaging reading. If you're searching for a thrill on the scale of "Kapo," look elswhere

This is a great book. It describes german, jewish and serb families, thier lives and reactions before, during and after the World War 2 in the city of Novi Sad, Serbia.

It contains one of the most vivid description of Concentration Camp suffering and survival that I have ever read.

For someone who has spent first fifteen years of life in the former Yugoslavia, this is a masterpiece! But I read it in Serbian and English, and must warn that many things will pass you by if you are not familiar with ethnic, geographic, and human differences and relations in the former Yugoslavia. It should also be understood that it is difficult if not impossible to capture cultural things in any translation, including English. This book reveals Tisma'a genius even more in the light of the recent and current events in the former Yugoslavia and Serbia. He uses his words carefully, and with simple language creates images of incredible force, stirring an entire range of emotions in the reader. It is only after the reading that the full horror of it all hits you! A powerful book on many levels!

The main character's love of architecture (and, in particular, the houses he owns) and his genuine emotional attachement to them might seem odd at first (such as the fact that he gives classic Serbian women's names to them), but, over time, the message becomes clear. Pekic's take on communism: the fact that we should not give up our possesions to share with others, whether they be our human relationships, or, as in this case, material things. To add to this thought provoking theme, the book is also a nicely done chronicle of this century's history of one of the major Balkan cities (Belgrade) ; it is a story often overshadowed by Holocaust memoirs and the like. All in all, this book was a provoking , and , above all, very entertaining (due to its irony) read.

I picked "Houses" up on a remainder shelf in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. The story is set around certain historical events in Belgrade: student riots in 1968; Germany's attack in 1941; and Serbia's entry into World War One. Horrible to admit in a review, I am sure, but I did not fully understand the references in the book.

Pekic tells the story in the first-person; the character is a landlord of several houses in the city. Arsenie Negovan is losing his sanity. What better character to relate the tale of a city half-heartedly embracing communism: a landlord, losing his mind, recalling his houses when they were young, lamenting their loss. Here is a sample: "For just as people who have done nothing at all wrong are got rid of simply because they stand in the way of something, so houses too are destroyed because they impede somebody's view, stand in the way of some future square, hamper the development of a street, or traffic, or of some new building." Again, on being a landlord and a man of commerce, "...the very act of possession would be so completely reciprocal that sometime, perhaps in some perfect world, it would become one with the act of self-perception."

With this ironic tone, the deranged voice of a once decent man of property, the history of human struggle in the city unfolds. Buildings are talked about as beings. People are inanimate. Yet human action transforms the place. The loss of the old city is tragic. The grand old houses decay. Present buildings are inferior to their predecessors-- a succinct way to measure the progress of a society. Within this narrative about property and architecture, Arsenie explains his motives, wonders about his soul, and spouts what he has learned during a lifetime of accumulation.

The book was exactly what I was looking for when I plucked it off the remainder shelf: a new direction in my reading. I will look for others in the series, and I recommend "Houses" to readers looking for something different. (My apologies to more knowledgable readers of Pekic.) I will be reading other titles in the "Writings from an Unbound Europe" series.

In his book "Houses of Belgrade (the original serbian title "A Pilgrim of Arsenije Njegovan"), continues his masteful work on the history of family Njegovan. Through the history of one typical serbian family Pekic depicts the last two centuries of Serbian (+ Balkan + East Europian) history. His previous 7-volume work "Golden Fleece" (Zlatno Runo) illustrates the historical events in that part of the world from 1848 through 1941. This book presents a logical continuation of events from 1945 through 1968. Through the story about Arsenije Njegovan, one of the last descendant of one-time rich and powerful family Njegovan, Pekic depict historical events that took place after the arrival of communism in Serbia.
Borislav Pekic, one of the most prolific serbian authors after the World War II, and more importantly, the greatest serbian intellectual in that period, uses his unsurpassed observation skills, sharp cinicism and self sarcasm to both critice and explain the unfortunate turn of events that placed Serbia in the jaws of communism. This book as well as the whole Pekic's opus had an decisive impact on the generations of Serbs. Furthermore, his opus is a must for all people interested in the history and national mentality of Serbs.

I find the Collaborations-English in Our Lives workbook and student books to be very useful in my ESL classroom. The beginners series has provided my students with a great jump start into English. The workbook and student book make planning lessons easy and the students can organize themselves with the useful notes on when to use the two books together. The books are very specific to learning about the United States. This is helpful especially if your students are very new. These books would be very useful in an Adult ESL classroom, but I use them in a beginning middle school classroom. They also provide great support for learning needed vocabulary and verb use for outside the classrooom. They are very good classroom tools.