The quiet power of these tales is as mystifying and timless as the originals from which they are spun. By recasting and reshaping both favorite and obscure fairy tales from our youth with gay themes, Peter Cashorali has given gay men the myths and legends on which empires are made. Queit, pensive, reflective, moral, funny, entertaining, sexy, thoughtful and just plain fun are the words I'd use to describe this collection. The 17 stories are easily read in one sitting (some only a page or two long), but are hard to forget. I chose to read one a night, right before bed. If you have a lover, reading them to one another makes for great bedtime stories. Each is begun with a simple line drawing that forshadows events to come. A nice design element is each of these drawings are picked up on the jacket cover. If you happen to not know the tale on which a particular story is based, it is refrenced on the bottom of each stories first page. This makes it really easy to find and read the original to see just how much Cashorali has reworked it. I espicially loved the range of gay life portrayed; from girly boys to butch boys, S&M, AIDS, aging, looking for lasting love and dealing with a loss, this book covers it all. And don't forget the manditory enchanted objects, talking animals, handsome princes, frogs, ogres and withces needed for any good fairy tale! All are included and no one feels left out.

Fairy tales give us a shared history, something to aspire to, and to learn from. Finally - finally gay men have their own! I can't recomend this book enough. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Cashorali. I'm sure the Brothers Grimm would be proud as well. Buy it and I'm sure you'll savor it's rich tales for years and years to come!

it is funny and it is moving and it is profound.

the retelling of these traditional stories from a gay vantage point is nothing short of brilliant. some of them, like "beauty and the beast" will stay with me forever.

i have sat and read passages aloud over the phone to friends, and everyone seems to agree this is a classic book.

and the sequel (still not in paperback, god knows why!) is just as good.

if you are a gay man with a sense of humor, and a need to understand where and how you fit in, cashorali's book is for you. and it makes a great gift!

In this book, Peter Cashorali takes familiar folk tales and recasts them with gay men and boys in the starring roles: finally, a world where it's the gay man who finds love or fulfills his dream or solves the problem.

As I read these stories, I felt emotional blocks inside me falling into place, having been suspended for decades; as a child, I had read the original versions of these stories, but I could not identify with the heterosexual protagonists and so felt a certain distance from the stories. Those stories weren't about me.

But now, I have this wonderful set of tales, filled with humor, wisdom and compassion. The archetypes are there for me too, now--I can my heart resonating when the prince loves a boy, when the outcast gay man ends up succeeding. I believe that every gay man will benefit from reading these stories, to repair his childhood tapestry that included no gay figures.

The stories work well when read aloud, too. The sources of the tales are given, so that you can trace them. The illustrations are charming and delicate.

I would say that sometimes the humor of the texts is a little cheesy--for instance, getting a laugh by introducing some anachronistic detail like a car--but not enough to really detract from the effect. It's also worth noting that a quite wide spectrum of gay life is represented here, and Mr. Cashorali is brave about playing with stereotypes, subverting them and showing the nuggets of truth inside them.

(I have to confess--I have not read a couple of the stories yet, though I've had the book for a year. I couldn't stand to reach the end, so I have saved two of the stories... I also bought the sequel to this book, which is equally good.)

This book, and its sequel, are the only books I would unhesitatingly recommend to every gay man.

This heart opening book can inspire you to achieve great heights! It can heal the heart and soothe the soul. This book changed my life for the better and continues to do so. I hope it will help you as well.

A must read for anyone sincerely wanting to change their life. Concise and easy to understand. This book touches the heart, opens the mind and helps the spirit soar. A delightful book to curl up to at night before sleep.

This book is a wonderful step by step guide to living a prosperous life. I am sure John Roberts will be the next Wayne Dyer or Deepak Chopra. His insights tell the read easy ways to find happiness, abundance and peace of mind. If you live the principles - they work!

This is the kind of book I dream about. When I look for my next read, I look for a book that is 1) passionate 2) not pretentious and not totally mainstream, and 3) about quirky (in a trashy and at least slightly out of control way) people and things. Sounds simple enough, but lord knows it ain't as easy to find a book with those characteristics as you might think. But Robert Gordon has torn it up and come through for us. Really, it's amazing that this book is still in print because it's "target audience" must consist of about thirty people. And therein lies its beauty. Imagine something as idiosyncratic as a zine, but, unlike a zine, not poorly written! Also, it doesn't hurt that a nice sized portion of the book is devoted to the godhead, Alex Chilton, which means a lot to us Chilton-ites since no real definitive bio exists. Of course, there's tons else besides Alex--take for example pro wrestlers, hippie bluesmen, and a cool-as-hell photographer--but if you don't dig Alex, maybe you should pass on this anyway and go and see if Will and Grace is available on DVD yet. Your type sickens me.

Gordon's It Came from Memphis helps to unravel the rich heritage of a city whose musical heritage is largely overlooked save for BB King and Elvis Presley. He succesfullly attempts to expose the politics, racism, and situations of circumstance that fueled Memphis to become what it is today both musically and socially. A young gifted author whose style is both easily readable and profound, Gordon offers a book that is a must read for any fan of modern music. I recommend this one highly.

If you've never been to Memphis, this book will either make you drive straight to the airport or convince you to stay far, far away. Gordon's round-up of Memphis eccentrics, flops, and genuises is short on Elvis and B.B. King, and long on Alex Chilton, Dewey Phillips, Jim Dickinson, and Furry Lewis. An indispensible and hilarious guide to America's deep-fried music capital.

Peter was my professor and I had to read the book for his class, but I liked it anyway. It was very interesting and concerns an issue that is very important in today's world. It is even an easy read for those outside the academic world (unlike books by certain other professors I could name). Thanks, Peter! And go ahead and get Nina that American Girl.

I am the author's daughter and I think this is a wonderful book. It inspired me so much I wrote a song about Don Roberts, the co-author. Go out and buy the book. Dad will be happy and I will get another American Girl!

This is a good book! It thoughfully distills all the current research on the effects of popular music on teens and does so without the hype or hysteria of the press. Required reading for anyone who has concerns about the effect of music on youth.

After being in Paris for an entire summer, I've returned to the US with great heartache. Paris had a profound effect on me, so when I arrived in the states, I feverishly tried to gather all I could to remind me of Paris. On a whim I bought "Parisians." From the moment I opened it up, I was suddenly back in my beloved city. The photographs capture Paris in the way that takes me back everytime. Turnley's skill at capturing the essence of Parisians is striking, uncanny and charming. If you've been, you miss it, or want to know what Paris is "really" like, just open the cover of "Parisians." On the days I want nothing more than to transport back to Paris, all I have to do is open this book and I'm there.

Peter Turnley has captured the spirit of Paris and the souls of Parisians and presented it in one beautifully produced volume for the world to see at an affordable price. The images are stunning and the order of the images contributes to the quality of the book. I expect to return to these images often for years to come.

For those of you who have been to Paris, Peter Turnley's work will strike a deep sense of longing to return. His ability to capture some many facets of life throughout his book is delightful. I really enjoyed the mix of people, places, and situations he photographed such as a French woman in a barista or fans at a soccer game. His use of black and white photography added a sense of timelessness to the work. In summary, I think the book is an amazing piece of work that highlights the diversity and beauty of Paris.

This book brought Dante to life in a way for which I was unprepared. From the moment I saw Boticelli's depictions of the damned I was sure he must have had an "inside" look into what Dnate was writing about. A wonderful coffee-table book that will get your guests to talking.

As a former museum photographer, I can speak to the fine reproductions in this volume. The complexity of reproducing drawings of such fine detail in print is quite difficult if not impossible. One would expect to find this quality at a much greater price. This volume is not only a master work of techical ability, but the history revealed in the essays is astounding. I actually could not put it down. As a painter working with the subject matter, it provided an invaluable resource.

This is an extraordinary book. It's like finding a rare and beautiful volume in an antiquarian bookstore. The book consists of almost a hundred drawings by Botticelli, made around 1500 to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy of 1300.

The drawings are marvelous. The devils and monsters are rather tame by modern standards but the thousands of individual characters are beautifully drawn and are easily recognizable as Botticelli's work even to the untrained eye. Botticelli illustrates each canto like a modern day story board or sequence of drawings in a cartoon strip. The action follows all of the events described in each canto. I pored over the drawings every evening for a month. I used a recent translation of the Inferno as my guide to this section. Opposite each drawing is a short but comprehensive summary of the canto together with a description of the drawing. The summary was sufficient to carry me through the Purgatorio and Paradiso sections and the descriptions were extremely helpful and never pedantic.

The book is superbly produced with informative essays and excellent photographs of paintings by Botticelli to illustrate his style. Even the dust cover is well-made and robust. It is illustrated with a scene of Dante and Virgil crossing a bridge over a pit of burning souls (the evil counselors). The hard cover of the book is embossed with the flames from the same scene, making it a very attractive volume.

Most of the drawings, which were intended to be colored, are unfinished, but this adds to the interest since it's possible to see how the artist worked. In some, the drawings are so dense and complex that you might need a magnifying glass to see them. On each such occasion the producers of the book have provided an enlargement of the drawing on the following page, anticipating the reader's needs. A particularly fine example of the complex drawing is the illustration for canto X of the Purgatorio. The scene shows marble reliefs on the walls of the mountain terrace illustrating example of humility. There are three tableaux of such detail and intensity that each could represent a sketch for a fresco on the wall of a cathedral and yet the complete drawing is on a piece of sheepskin parchment measuring about 14 x 16 inches.

Anytime you have Burroughs, Ballard, Metzger, and R. A. Wilson together in a collection you know it's just the kind of good, clean fun you mother warned you about. (Not to mention the Rev. Stang!)
There are some great short stories in this collection. There are also a few which aren't great, but if you fancy yourself as more-subversive-than-thou, you simply aren't if you don't have a copy of this.
I've had this book for more than a decade, and it is still read often, and displayed proudly in my most prominent bookshelf.

And no, the material presented in this anthology is not for the faint of heart. While some of the pieces may not fit the Science Fiction stereotype >aliens, outer space, etc.< all of them test new waters, explore deeper into the recesses of the human mind, and present the varying truths found in unique, raw, and above all, fun (at least imho) formats. Don't misunderstand - it serves up its share of sex and blood and good times. The real depth starts the day, years after you've read it - when something everyday strikes a chord of familiarity, and you recall this or that story, and how weird it was to your senses. Then it has affected your frame of reference. The adjustment is highly recommended. ;-)

This is a great collection of some really out-there short stories. They're SF for the not-so-faint of heart.

I first became acquainted and fell in love with the work of F.Scott Fitzgerald when I read a hardback copy of The Great Gatsby in my early 20s. Since then, I have read Tender Is The Night and This Side of Paradise, so when I discovered this collection of stories by my literary hero, I floated up to the cieling. My favorites include The Diamond As Big As The Ritz and Bernice Bobs Her Hair, and anyone who has not already been introduced to Fitzgerald, either in English class at school or while browsing in a local bookstore, it's not too late to change your mind, and it is my sincere hope that you will love this man's work as much as I do!

I was delighted to find out that not only were F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories being narrated on audio cassette, but that one of the performers was none other than Robert Sean Leonard. Scottie is by far one of my favorite American authors. It takes an incredible talent to condemn the life you live in your literature, and when I think how he strived for excellence but fell victim to society, I can't help but pity him. His writing is so delicious to read as well. He has such wonderful similies and metaphors, and is so descriptive I can taste the wine, feel the rain and see the stars. The Jazz Age is one of my favorite time periods and F. Scott Fitzgerald captures it perfectly. You see the glittering side but then the glitter gets tarnished as it must. What is even better about this audio is that one of the narrators is none other than my favorite actor, Robert Sean Leonard (better known as Neal in Dead Poets Society and Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing among other films). His voice is wonderful to listen to, even if you're not a fan of his acting. It's perfectly clear and flowing and it reminds you of listening to your parents reading you a bedtime story. The tape itself leaves you feeling as if you've been on an emotional rollercoaster. There's a nice beginning, then it peaks with conflict, the resolution, and then the end finishes as calmly as it started. Yet you've gained something from it. Fitzgerald has some incredibly phenomenal themes in his work. The odd part is that I usually don't like getting audio books, but I certainly reccomend this audio of The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald" It's worth every penny.

Surely an icon in the annals of American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald produced a body of work which epitomized the Roaring Twenties. It has been said that his dominant influences were "aspiration, literature, Princeton, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, and alcohol." Nonetheless, his writing possesses an urgency, a bite, unrivaled by his peers.

Collected in this superb audio are nine of his early stories performed by accomplished actors. Broadway/film actress Blythe Danner reads "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," a narrative inspired by a lengthy letter Fitzgerald wrote to his younger sister, Annabel, in which he offered advice on how she could become popular with boys.

"The Jelly-Bean," read by Dylan Baker, takes place in Georgia. Fitzgerald credits his wife for her expertise in helping him write a portion of this tale involving crap shooting, saying "as a Southern girl" she was an expert at this endeavor.

The talented Peter Gallagher reads "Head and Shoulders," the first of Fitzgerald's story to appear in The Saturday Evening Post.

Also found in the collection are "The Diamond As Big As The Ritz," "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong," "The Ice Palace," "Benediction," "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," and "May Day."

This is an exemplary combination of memorable prose and oral presentation, a remarkable listening experience.

First off, I'd like to agree with the first reviewer. This is an excellent compilation that stands by itself (although, for an intro class, it definitely requires a "discipline-oriented" text book like Kottak as a guiding force). I would recommend this book highly to my fellow anthros and to general readers alike. What follows is a brief summary of some of my favorite articles in the collection. The selections are all short and well-written, they make interesting and useful points and convey the complexity and utility of anthropology very, very well.

I've been waiting a long time to see Peggy McIntosh's wonderful essay on "White Privilege" in print somewhere. I had the distinct pleasure of hearing her give an oral version of the same talk a number of years ago and am very very pleased to see it published here for the benefit of students. The book is worth the price for that article alone.

However, this is not the only gem in this collection. Phillipe Bourgois' work on crack dealers is introduced here as is Gerald Murray's work on wood farming as a means to encourage re-forestation programs in Haiti. There are also classics such as Richard Lee's story of the !Kung San insulting of his gift of a Christmas ox ("Eating Christmas in the Kalahari") and Laura Bohannon's failure to get Tiv elders to see Hamlet as a story about incest, revenge and justice. Jared Diamond's revisionist view of the advent of agriculture is also here (perhaps an antidote for his more recent "Guns, Germs and Steel" though undoutedly similar in style).

Other personal favorites of mine include Eugene Cooper's discussion of Chinese table manners (also a must for people who want to teach a course on the anthropology of food), Richard Reed's examination of the tension between environmentalists and indigenous communities in Paraguay, Joan Cassels' excellent analysis of surgery as a male-gendered medical speciality and Paul Farmer's and Arthur Kleinman's thoughtful peice on suffering and AIDS in Haiti.

Incidentally, I would thoroughly recommend anything by Paul Farmer to readers interested in social medicine. His scholarship and humanity are both quite phenomenal and totally justify the attention he has recieved due to the MacArthur fellowship.

I only have a couple of quibbles with this book and even these are not so much criticisms as comments for the unwary: Jennifer Laab's peice on corporate anthropologists seems to have been written for a corporate audience as a selling point for anthropology. As such it plays up the notion of anthropologists as service providers for corporate interests in a way which is a little frown-inducing for an academician such as myself. Not because I don't approve of anthropology in the private sector, but because the peice itself seems to argue that anthropology is merely a set of techniques that can be workshopped (like team-building exercises)to busy executives for the greater good of the company. Again, this is a VERY worthwhile point to debate, but not one that easily stands without comment. Secondly, the article by Wade Davis (he of "Serpent and the Rainbow" fame), while again discussion-worthy, seems a little superficial, dated in language and probably replaceable (Robert Voeks'recently-published "Sacred Leaves of Candomble" is one alternative that springs to mind). Lastly, I would like to plead for the inclusion of a selection on tatooing or bodily adornment of some sort in any future editions. This is a topic of enduring interest among students and would definitely be an asset to such a nicely-balanced and valuable collection.

When I took a sophomore level anthropology class at my University, Applying Anthropology was required as a secondary reading text, in addition to Kottak's Anthropology (7th edition). Applying Anthropology contains 52 articles in the categories of Biological Anthropology, Archaeology, Cultural Anthropology, Culture and Communication, Culture and Food, Culture and Race, Economy and Business, Gender and Socialization, Politics & Law & Warfare, and Social & Cultural Change. Instead of being a textbook that was something I just read for the class that required it, it turned out to be a book that I would have bought for my own personal purposes. Also, in addition to enjoying reading it, I learned a lot about anthropology. One of my favorite articles discusses what may have happened on Easter Island that resulted in the demise of an entire culture. All in all, Applying Anthropology provides an interesting approach to learning a lot about culture worldwide.

This is a must read for any music lover! I used it all the time as a reference point when reading about the industry.

This is a fascinating book that traces the life of one of the most controversial and influential people in the history of Rock and Roll. Accounts from his early years by himself as well as his friends provide insight into how he became the fiery rock impressario that he was.

It is, however, the accounts from the later years and the tales from his famous and infamous Fillmore Auditoriums from insiders such as Jerry Garcia and Eric Clapton that really make this book come alive. They make feel like you were there (or at least wish you were) for many of the most crucial events in the history of Rock and Roll- Altamont, Woodstock, etc... Fantastic for the unabashed music fan!