"To Destroy You Is No Loss is an extrodinary book; it should be read by those who wish to understand this or any genocide, by those who would like to better know the Cambodians among us, and by those who are concerned about the still unresolved tradegey of the world's refugees. Criddle's book is far more than a history of annihilation. Like the finest examples of Holocaust literature, it is an affirmation of teh human spirit, of the will to prevail. It is the proof of the possibility of endurance of the human dignity in the face of incredible brutality. This book is in fact a deeply disturbing real-life story.

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOK I EVER READ. I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF WORKING WITH VITOU AND I HAD THE FIRST HAND ACCOUNT OF HIS STORY. HE NEVER STOP TO AMAZE ME FOR THEIR WELL TO SURVIVE.THIS STORY SHOW THE TERMENDOUS COURAGE AND STRONG WELL TO SURVIVE AMONG MONSTERS WHO HAVE NO REGARDS TO FELLOW HUMANS, YOU HAVE TO WORK HARD AND RISK YOUR LIFE EVEN FOR THE BASIC NECESITY OF LIFE JUST TO SURVIVE. THIS IS AN EPIC OF FORGOTTEN HOLOCUST AND THE STORY OF A CAMBODIAN FAMILY GOING THROUGH HELL AN BACK. A SUCCESS STORY OF A FAMILY MOVING TO A COUNTRY WITH A DIFFERNT CULTURE AND LANGAUGE AND MAKING SOMETHING OF THEMSELVES. I AM PROUD TO BE A FRIEND OF VITOU AND I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF KNOWING HIM. EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK, IT WOULD MAKE YOU APPRECIATE MORE OF WHAT YOU HAVE IN LIFE.

Joan Criddle has woven a gripping account of the personal experience of one young woman, Teeda Butt Mam, and her family under the oppression of the Khymer Rouge. Although I knew a little about Cambodia's killing fields, this book reveals in considerable detail the brutality and horror of Pol Pot's regime. Yet, it's an inspiring tale of survival, courage, and family loyalty under the most extreme conditions of deprivation, fear and suffering. I couldn't help but wonder if I would have had the strength, ingenuity and willpower to survive such horror. The book also includes many interesting details about traditional Cambodian life and culture.
I highly recommend this book. It's an amazing story!

Richard Peabody, whose own writing and editing receives too little attention, has here provided a varied and rich collection of often unknown named woman writers whose words echo back to a time we cannot forget. In many ways their views and sensibilities advance our understanding of their time and individual condition more than their more known male contemporaries. Peabody has provided another service to readers as he does with his series "Gargoyles" and his soon to be available novella "Sugar Mountain."

Although, most beat anthologies focus mainly on the works of male beat writers; "A Different Beat" provides an excellent source of women who were writing during the Beat Movement. This book is a testament that women were involved in the Beat Movement, and they were not merely watching "their men" from the sidelines. They were expressing themselves through their prose and poetry. I started to give this book four stars for providing a broad (yet sadly, still incomplete) selection of women who were active in the Beat Movement. However, since Elise Cowen's poetry was included in this anthology, I had to give it one more star. If you are interested in "beatnik" writers, this book is definitely something you should pick up.

de naples à la cour de versailles parcours d'un compositeur libre mais aujourd'hui oublié

This little powerhouse helped me make it through nursing school! It's a GREAT resource! Its 673 pages are packed with every conceivable disorder and/or disease with methods of diagnosis, diagnostic tests, medications for treatment followed with a full nursing process from assessment through management and outcomes. I used this book to write many, many care plans & carried it back and forth from classes to clinical to home -- it's a very portable, invaluable tool -- I wouldn't have survived nursing school without it.

This is an excellent book for students of the nursing profession. Clear concise details are given. It is ideal for studies and I consider it to be a 'Nurses' Bible" and it is one I will keep and refer to forever. Recommended for all medical students. You can't get a better book at this price.

Very comprehensive procedure manual. Includes IV procedures and management of central and peripheral lines. Some helpful illustrations. Small enough so field nurses can carry a copy in there bags. Staff reviewed many manuals and overwhelmingly preferred this book.

Wow. This book did more for me than I expected it to. I picked it up for the same reason many others probalby did - because of my interest in Kerouac. But Johnson is not telling his story, she is telling hers. And, despite obvious difficulties and social aspects that let us know it is the fifties, it is really a timeless story, something that can be identified with today. She has put into words what every female person who feels like they don't quite belong in the society in which they grew up has difficulties articulating. I found myself talking to the book - "Yes, that's IT! Exactly." I read this book twice this month.

Her unique and fresh writing style should not be overlooked either. She wrote this book at a good time in her life as well, it is reflective and filled with the insight and intelligence of years and experience.

Joyce Johnson's memoir of emerging from an overprotected childhood and landing at the center of the Beat movement in the 1950's is a delight whether you choose to read it for its portrait of Jack Kerouac, for the world that was, or for the inner journey it reveals. It is a fine literary performance. Johnson plays with tense and perspective as if they form a telescopic lens sliding the past out of a fuzzy black and white still photograph into a vivid, colorful present. There is a suspenseful tension to the book from which flows a novelistic structure, never, though, at the expense of truth. Johnson gets down like no one else how it is to carry around that overprotected childhood, to always feel that you could be missing something, that the center has yet to be achieved. Her inner struggle matches the themes of the Beats who are seeking the pure experience of being through their music, their talk, their drugs and alcohol, their lovemaking, their travels and their poetry. She nails the paradox of a quarry that can never sit still, whether it is a person, like Kerouac, or her friend and guide into the Beat world, Elise Cowen, both of whom eventually disappear into their demons. She captures the loss of balance when counterculture is encroached upon by the mainstream. She manages to convey all this without telling, just through showing the events of her life. Johnson is wry but never bitter, she takes full responsibility for her own choices and actions. This is a book that invites the reader to share the wonder that this was all, indeed, real.

As a long-time reader of Beat literature, and as a man, I must say that Joyce Johnson's take on those heady, wine soaked days of poetry and madness is absolutely as good and as necessary as anything Kerouac or Ginsberg or any of the more famous (male) crew ever wrote. For my money it's right up there with On the Road.

I guess I've read this book three or four times now and it never gets old.

I also recommend Ms. Johnson's novel, In the Night Cafe, another skillful invocation of the Beat period.

Wonderful novel by Jack Kerouac. We sense his deep loneliness and reevaluation of his life during his 63-day stay atop Desolation Peak in Mt. Baker National Forest in Washington State. Once down from the mountain, he sees how much life has changed once his novel "On the Road" is published. For those of you who loved "On the Road," "Desolation Angels" is a book you definitely must read--it's by far Kerouac's best and most personal novel.

Desolation Angels was the second Kerouac book I purchased, and it became my favorite book. In the first half of the book, the "Desolation" chapters explain Jack's feelings and mind more than in any other book and during an important period of his life. Some people say the book is schitzophrenic, having been started in Mexico City in 1956 and completed around 1962. However, I believe the result is not two books but half of the book being thoughts and feelings and the other half being a thoughtful man reflecting. In any case, the book is wonderful, and reading the entire novel does take some work but well worth the effort!

generation in Desolation Angels. Kerouacs frank accounts and vivid style draw you into the heart of a man both idealistic and cinical, naive and experienced, proud and downtrodden, as well as buddist and Catholic, living the life of a "Dharma Bum" as he travels to Mexico. From the fire lookout high on Desolaion Peak, to the junk steets of Mexico, Kerouac shares with his readers every experience and emotion, carring the reader deep into the lifestyle of the Beats as few authors ever accomplished. Its no wonder Kerouac became the symbol of the Beat generation for millions of kats in the 50's, for even today his writing is hep, and inciteful. He could very easily be an icon for generations to come.

When I read this book it takes a hold of me and doesn't let me go. I've read it twice and both times I couldn't put it down. Makes for late nights when I have to get up early for work the next morning, but well worth it. Joyce Carol Oates is my favorite author, everytime I pick up a new book of hers I'm so thankful that I found her. Her style of writting is a joy to read. The world of literature is a much better place with her in it.

This is one of Ms. Oates' earlier works set in Detroit.
It is a book of excellence as one generation is rolled into the other. A very true to life book where as the characters advance in reaching their destiny however small, they are always setbacks and stumbling blocks, not allowing them to see the light at the end of the tunnel, reminding us of the pathways we've walked before and are forever walking in. This was a very emotional book for me with great depth to the story line.

It is a long book and should be read with patience in order to get the gist of the Detroit the author penetrates in that century with it's poverty, racial and violent concerns. You won't forget Maureen Wendall who some will empathise with you see her desires and the things she yearns for with all her heart and soul.......and you won't forget her brother Jules either...intelligent and so very intricate you wonder what he is about to do next with that brain that never stops ticking. I cannot help saying what a brilliant writer I have found in Ms. Oates, and I encourage those who love her as much as I do to try THEM. I recommend it to all her favourite readers who haven't read this one as yet.

Nutface
March 2nd, 2002.

This book was somewhat of a struggle for me, though I am a giant Joyce Carol Oates fan. I thought it wasn't possible, but "Them" is more of a brooding, dark, and realistic novel than Oates has pulled off anywhere else in her career. Here is a lot of characters that are in constant danger of falling to pieces, of escaping one another, of realizing their limits as individuals and as a family unit. If you are not a reader who can take a kick in the stomach, don't read this book. However, if you are willing to realize there is a hard edge to life which goes unrecognized each day, pick this book up as soon as you can - Oates creates a world fatalism and human conditions that are at once terrifying, yet beautiful: it is hard to look away. I was held breathless and scared until the last word dropped like a boulder.

My first encounter with Joyce was an English Lit. course in college, some twenty years ago now. We were assigned to read an anthologized version of "The Dead", and I initially approached it as one does all such reading requirements at that foolish age; however, this particular story ending up affecting me quite unlike anything I had ever read before. Dubliners is a beautifully written collection of thematically inter-related stories involving day to day life in early 20th century Dublin - stories that masterfully evoke what Faulkner described in his Nobel address as being the essential nature of true art: A portrayal of the human heart in conflict with itself. "The Dead" is the final story in the collection, and my favorite. I have re-read it numerous times and am so consumed by it that I'm not even able to provide an objective review. The final pages, from the point where Gabriel and Greta leave the party, to the end of the story, are absolutly stunning; the poetry of the words, the profound humanity represented - defies description. As in the final line of Rilke's "Archaic Torso of Apollo" - You must change your life.

Dubliners is a collection of short stories ranging through chidhood, adolescence and adulthood ending with three public life stories and the grand finale "The Dead" Critics have associated many of the stories to Joyce's personal life as he to became dissillusioned with his home city of Dublin. In each story we find a struggle for escapement from each character with the ever burdening features of alcohol and religion amongst other things trapping the protaganists from breaking out of the Dublin mould. Hopes are often dashed such as those of Eveline and Duffy. Joyce intelligently creates an interplay of senses towards the end of each story which creates an epiphany and a defining moment in the life of each character. Throughout the book the characthers start in the middle of nowhere and end up in the middle of nowhere. The text starts with the phrase: "There was no hope for him this time", which symbolises the book perfectly with paralysis being a continuing theme throughout the text ending in the final component: "The Dead". Overall this is a fascinating insite into how Joyce viewed his birth place. Joyce himself can be viewed in many of the characters including Duffy who found love with Sinico in: "A Painful Case" and felt awkward at her death as he had let her go. A thoroughly enjoyable book where nothing actually happens!

The first of James Joyce's books, "Dubliners" is a collection of fifteen stories written between 1904 and 1907. Joyce wrote the first of the fifteen stories in this collection, "Sisters," in Ireland in 1904. The story was published in August of that year under the pseudonym "Stephen Daedalus." Joyce wrote the last, longest and most famous of the stories, "The Dead," in Rome in 1907. The stories were published in the book known as "Dubliners" in 1914. While there are many editions of "Dubliners" in print, the definitive edition of the work is generally considered to be the corrected text prepared by Robert Scholes in consultation with Richard Ellman, Joyce's biographer. Random House publishes the Scholes edition under its Modern Library imprint and I recommend this edition.

"Dubliners" stands as one of the Ur-texts of modernism, a startlingly original collection of stories set in turn-of-the-century Dublin that began the Joycean literary project. That project subsequently moved through the increasingly difficult, and characteristically modernist, iterations of "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," "Ulysses" and "Finnegan's Wake." Like those succeeding texts, the interested reader can find thousands of pages of commentary on "Dubliners," the study of Joyce's works being akin to a Talmudic undertaking, an undertaking that can, if one chooses, occupy an entire life.

Joyce once commented that the stories of "Dubliners" constitute a "chapter of moral history" that represents the "first step towards the spiritual liberation of [Ireland]." He also said, "I call the series 'Dubliners' to betray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city." The stories are, in other words, inherently critical (although also, at times, appreciative) of the Dublin life that Joyce abandoned, living and writing as an expatriate in Paris, Trieste, Rome, and Zurich for nearly the entirety of his adult life.

The stories operate on two levels. On one level, the stories are realistic narratives of every day life in Dublin. On another level, however, the stories are suffused with symbolism, with recurring, allusive images of spiritual, sexual and political meanings that mark a departure from nineteenth century literary realism and make "Dubliners" an enduring, and deservedly canonical, modernist narrative.

The first story, "Sisters," begins with a striking example of the tone of the stories in "Dubliners." A young boy stands, in the evening, looking up at the shadows flickering through the window of an upstairs room where a priest is dying:

"Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word 'paralysis'. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word 'gnomon' in the Euclid and the word 'simony' in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work."

Thus, a vivid, realistic image appears in the reader's mind, but so does a collection of words that suggest meanings and themes that go far beyond the real, that capture physical and intellectual and religious undercurrents, the inner life of a young boy living in Dublin.

"Sisters" is a brilliant story, as is "The Dead" and nearly every other story in "Dubliners" (excluding, perhaps, one or two, the worst being "After the Race," a story that Joyce reluctantly included in the collection). Realistic in its narratives, richly allusive in its language and symbolism, "Dubliners" is one of a handful of story collections that truly deserves the label "classic" and should be read and studied by every serious reader.