The Complete Works of Shakespeare edited by David Bevington

Bevington's edition of Shakespeare's plays is a popular choice, and not without good reason. But that doesn't make an ideal choice. The introduction to this one volume edition is ample with chapters on life in Shakespeare's England, the drama before Shakespeare, Shakespeare's life and work. These are good, but they tend to rely on older scholarship and they may not be current. For example Bevington repeats Hinman's claim that there were 1200 copies of the 1623 Folio printed. However later scholars think the number was quite a bit lower, around 750. It should be said that we don't know for sure how many copies of the 1623 folio were printed and either number could be correct.

Bevington's edition prints the plays by genre. We get a section of Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, Romances and the Poems. He puts "Troilus and Cressida" with the comedies, though we know the play was slated to appear with the tragedies in the 1623 folio. The play was never meant to appear with the comedies, and all the surviving Folios that have the play have it at the beginning of the tragedies.

Let's get down to brass tacks. You are not going to buy an edition of Shakespeare's works because of good introduction. You're going to buy one because the quality of the editing of the plays. Is it reliable? Is it accurate? For the most part this edition is reliable and accurate, but that does not mean it is accurate and reliable in every instance.

Modernized editions of Shakespeare's plays and poems are norm. Since the 18th century (and even before) editors of Shakespeare have modernized and regularized Shakespeare's plays and poems. There are good reasons for this modernization. There is the reader's ease of use and the correcting misprints and mislination. I have no problem with this regularization of spelling or punctuation. But when an editor goes beyond normalizing and modernizing--when an editor interferes with the text then I have a problem.

Let me give two examples of the editorial interference that I am writing about:

King Lear 2-1-14 (p. 1184)
Bevington has:
Edmund
The Duke be here tonight? The better! Best!
This weaves itself perforce into my business.

The Folio has:
Bast. The Duke be here to night? The better best,
This weaues it selfe perforce into my businesse,

Even allowences made for modernization of punctuation and grammar would not account for Bevington's "The better! Best." Bevington glosses this to mean "so much the better; in fact the best that could happen." Nice try, but "The better best" of the folio is a double comparative, (which is a regular feature of Early Modern English) and not two separate adjectival phrases. Interestingly, the Quarto printing of Lear prints this scene in prose, and there is no punctuation between "better" and "best" in that version either.

A few lines down Lear 2-1-19 Edmund continues
Bevington has:
Brother, a word. Descend. Brother, I say!
Enter Edgar

But Bevington has reversed the order. The Folio has:
Enter Edgar.
Brother, a word, discend; Brother I say,

Bevington does not say why he changed the order, though to be fair other modern editors have done the same thing.

These two changes just a few lines apart go beyond regularization or modernization. They interfere with the text as presented in the 1623 Folio. And Bevington does not explain the changes. So next time you pick up this or any other modernized edition you should ask yourself "am I really sure what I'm reading is what Shakespeare wrote?"

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. Updated Fourth Edition. Edited by David Bevington. 2000 pp. New York : Longman, 1997. ISBN 0-321-01254-2 (hbk.)

As complete Shakespeares go, the Bevington would seem have everything. Its book-length Introduction covers Life in Shakespeare's England; The Drama Before Shakespeare; London Theaters and Dramatic Companies; Shakespeare's Life and Work; Shakespeare's Language : His Development as Poet and Dramatist; Edition and Editors of Shakespeare; Shakespeare Criticism.

The texts follow in groups : Comedies; Histories; Tragedies; Romances (including 'The Two Noble Kinsmen'); Poems. Each play is given a separate Introduction adequate to the needs of a beginner, and the excellent and helpful brief notes at the bottom of each page, besides explaining individual words and lines, provide stage directions to help readers visualize the plays.

One extremely useful feature of the layout is that instead of being given the usual style of line numbering - 10, 20, 30, etc. - numbers occur _only_ at the end of lines which have been given footnotes - e.g., 9, 12, 16, 18, 32. Why no-one seems to have thought of doing this before I don't know, but it's a wonderful innovation that does away entirely with the tedious and time-wasting hassle of line counting, and the equally time-wasting frustration of searching through footnotes only to find that no note exists. If the line has a note you will know at once, and the notes are easy for the eye to locate as the keywords preceeding notes are in bold type.

The book - which is rounded out with three Appendices, a Royal Genealogy of England, Maps, Bibliography, Suggestions for Reading and Research, Textual Notes, Glossary of common words, and Index - also includes a 16-page section of striking color photographs.

The book is excellently printed in a semi-bold font that is exceptionally sharp, clear, and easy to read despite the show-through of its thin paper. It is a large heavy volume of full quarto size, stitched so that it opens flat, and bound, not with cloth, but with a soft decorative paper which wears out quickly at the edges and corners.

If it had been printed on a slightly better paper and bound in cloth, the Bevington would have been perfect. As it is, it's a fine piece of book-making nevertheless, and has been edited in such a way as to make the reading of Shakespeare as hassle-free and enjoyable an experience as possible. Strongly recommended for students and the general reader.

Last year for Christmas I asked my parents for some William Shakespeare's plays.Boy was I suprised!Not only does it have all of the plays,but also his Sonats,poems,and illistrations.Despite the fact that it's a large valuem and will need quite a bit off book space from you're self.You wont regret getting it.You will never need to get another book on William Shakespeare's plays and everything else ever again.It also has a list of dictonary for understanding the words better.

Gitanjali is a sweet collection of poems and songs from Nobel Prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore. These are songs that touch on love, faith, truth, life in general. Tagore has written from the heart. The wisdom contained in these works is startling. This is Eastern poetry that is a wonder to behold. Tagore embraces the personal as well as the universal. He encourages his people to transcend. I refer to this book variably over the years. Its alluring beauty has not faded in any way.

"Gitanjali" is a collection of prose poems by Indian author Rabindranath Tagore. The Dover Thrift Edition contains an introductory note on the life of Tagore, who lived from 1861 to 1941. According to this note, Tagore, who wrote poetry in Bengali, translated "Gitanjali" himself into English. The Dover edition also contains a 1912 introduction by William Butler Yeats.

This English version of "Gitanjali" is a series of prose poems that reflect on the interrelationships among the poet/speaker, the deity, and the world. Although Tagore had a Hindu background, the spirituality of this book is generally expressed in universal terms; I could imagine a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, or an adherent of another tradition finding much in this book that would resonate with him or her.

The language in this book is often very beautiful. The imagery includes flowers, bird songs, clouds, the sun, etc.; one line about "the riotous excess of the grass" reminded me of Walt Whitman. Tagore's language is sensuous and sometimes embraces paradox. Like Whitman and Emily Dickinson, he sometimes seems to be resisting traditional religion and prophetically looking towards a new spirituality.

A sample of Tagore's style: "I surely know the hundred petals of a lotus will not remain closed for ever and the secret recess of its honey will be bared" (from section #98). As companion texts for this mystical volume I would recommend Jack Kerouac's "The Scripture of the Golden Eternity" and Juan Mascaro's translation of the Dhammapada.

The word and the deed were never far from each other in Tagore's life and not surprisingly he advocated the Universal Man. He was a polymath: a poet, fiction writer, dramatist, painter, educator, political thinker, philosopher of science. He was also a genius in music, choreography, architecture, social service and statesmanship. Over six decades Tagore gave the world some 2,500 songs, more than 2,000 paintings and drawings, 28 volumes of poetry, drama, opera, short stories, novels, essays and diaries and a vast number of letters.

I would enthusiatically recommend this book by my favorite author. Like the Psalms of David, Gitanjali is a soothing balm to the spirit. I read this entire book in less than two hours and has been my long-trip travel companion ever since. The introduction to the book by W. B. Yeats is magical and all the poems in this book transcend your imagination. The variety and quality of the poems are unbelievable!

This book and Robert Adair's _The_Physics_of_Baseball_ are essential to being the best player, executive, or fan possible. This book is timeless, and focuses on the 'real playing field' of baseball -- the strike zone where the hitter and pitcher battle it out. This book covers technique well, but more importantly, it teaches approach, and the earlier in your life you can learn that, the better you will be.

Williams' emphasis on plate discipline and mental approach, combined with his teaching of how to analyze your own swing gives you the basic tools you need to be an excellent offensive player. For pitchers, this book is a must to understand the weapons available to the batter.

For fans, this book will help you understand what's important and what's just filler by the broadcast team. If you're under 14 years old, buy this book, or go get from your local library, and study it on a field with a tee and a bag of balls. Then read it every day before you do your hitting reps.

This book turns bad hitters fair, and good hitters great. You just need to put in the work.

This is the greatest book anyone an possibly buy on hitting. It is written by one of the top 3 hitters in baseball history, Ted Williams, and he definitely knows what he's talking about. Take it from me, I know. Im a 15 year old baseball player, whenever I get into a slump I can read this book and it will automatically get me out of it. If you read this at the beggining of a season it's possible your batting average could at least increase by .200, depending on how good you are. He explains the importance of having a good swing, stride, and everything essential to being a good hitter. This is a must have for every little leaguer.

This book is perfect for anyone looking to expand their knowledge on how to hit a baseball. Everything from pitch recognition to a smooth swing are discussed and analyzed. Ted Williams also includes some of his stories from when baseball was a lifestyle. This book allows anyone to see the time and hard work that must go into becoming a good hitter. Becoming a good hitter does not mean picking up a bat and taking a few swings. It starts before you ever get to the ballpark. He walks you through ways to pick up pitcher tendencies, and stresses patience at the plate. This book provides helpful diagrams, which show what pitches are good ones to take a swing at. But he doesn't stop there, he goes into great detail about what you should try and do with that pitch that is in the zone. Also included are tips for making your stance comfortable yet effective, grip on the bat, and improving your power for maximum effectiveness in every at bat. Ted Williams also provides insight on knowing the situation, and doing what is best for your team. A must read for players of all skill levels. This book will grow with you as your hitting experiences expand. Ted Williams deserves more stars than I am allowed to give him for this book.

Open the book. Chase County, Kansas has U.S. Route 50 and the Kansas Turnpike running through it. The Flint Hills are the last remaining grand expanse of tall grass in America. The population of Chase County is 3,013. This is clearly William Least Heat-Moon's masterpiece. The closest reading experience I can summon is that of Barry Lopez's ARCTIC DREAMS.

Chase County, Kansas is an empty area in relative terms. The arrangement of the book is to follow a sort of geographical grid. The author introduces new concerns with a series of paragraphs and quotations from other works. Individual stories are inserted for interest and historical verisimilitude. For example, Gabriel Jacobs was a Dunkard preacher from Indiana. He and his wife arrived in Chase County in 1856.

The book is filled with maps. Cottonwood Falls, State Lake, Spring Creek, Den Creek, Rock Creek, Cottonwood River, Sharp Creek, Roniger Hill, Landon Rocks and Bazaar are shown on the map of the Bazaar Quadrangle. Chase County is tall grass country. Beef is the major pursuit. It absolutely depends upon grass. The work of Chase is to turn soil and cellulose into humanly digestible carbohydrates and protein. Tribal people took their health from prairie plants. Antelope are returning to the Flint Hills through a restocking program. The author observes that the land in Chase County is like a good library, it lets a fellow extend himself. Common Chase properties of the land are the vales and uplands through which the author enjoyed traveling.

A review by me cannot do justice to this book. The work is as multi-dimensional as EXECUTIONER'S SONG by Norman Mailer. Vachel Lindsay traveled down the Cottonwood Valley. A student going to high school in Chase County thinks there is no privacy, no opportunity to be one's self. A grade school teacher told the author she hoped that people in Chase County could learn to love themselves less and the children more. The largest cottonwood in Kansas has a trunk 27 feet around. The Timber Culture Act of 1873 gave 160 acres of land to the settler who would plant ten of these acres in trees. In 1931 a Fokker plane carrying the famous football coach Knute Rockne crashed in Chase County near Bazaar.

People ariving in Chase County after 1862, the Homestead Act, were limited to taking a quarter section, 160 acres. Most county bottom land had been claimed by 1870. Absentee land ownership has been a fact of life in Chase County since the 19th century when the English aristocracy and the railroads owned large tracts.

The author says that for him writing is not a search for explanations, but a ramble. He believes that Chase County is the ideal place to develop a prototype of a new agricultural community. The book began when the author arrived at Roniger Hill with an image of a topographical grid in his head. Of the dozen settlements in Chase County, three or four can still be called villages and two are towns. The significance of prairyerth is that Chase County lies among it. "The Prairyerths and Blackerths are deep soils, lightly granular, relatively nonacid, unleached, with full stores of humus and minerals."

A book in my top-ten all-time list. It proves that no place is devoid of deep historic, geologic, and geographic meaning--if you are poetic enough, as Least-Heat Moon is, to observe and record it. The enormous amount of detail is presented in such a way that it makes you happy; as it prolongs the experience. The book has unique features--quotes that lead off every chapter, it's "geographic" the organization--that further the pleasure. Every place on earth needs a deep map. I am jealous of anyone from Chase County. I wish my home county had such a comprehensive compendium. To be sure, all of this information is there for the asking, but who esle but WLHM can pull it together in one place and present it in a such a gripping fashion? If you like history, America, people, geology, geography, maps, exploration, or adventure, are experiencing a turning point in your life, or are just someone who appreciates a job well done, this book is for you.

I first picked up this book when a job change brought us into the Tallgrass Prairie region of Kansas. As it turns out, we settled in Cottonwood Falls, Chase County, Kansas! It was extraordinary to read PrairyErth, knowing that we would soon be experiencing this place first-hand.

There is truly nothing like living in this community and experiencing the sights, places and people described so richly in PrairyErth. William Least Heat-Moon knows this place well, and paints a picture that is as vivid and timeless as Chase County itself. As a "local", I've returned to this book time and time again.

Unfortunately, my job is now taking us away from here. If you've read the passage about Spring Street in Cottonwood Falls, then you know our home. This is truly a beautiful and extraordinary place; unique in the world. If you would like to experience the sense of community that my family and I have been so blessed with, give me a call.

Laura was a nine year old girl who had dark brown hair and eyes. She lived in the prairie of Minnesota with Ma, Pa, Mary, Carrie and her pet bulldog,Jack. Laura's family worked very hard in their everyday life. Pa would tend the garden,Ma would do the house work,and Mary and Laura would help after they came from school. Sometimes storms struck the prairie and it was devastating. The author,Laura Ingalls Wilder, wanted to let people know about pioneer times. On the Banks of Plum Creek is a very well written book,it made me feel as if I was part of the story.

Laura and her family have moved to a small farm near Walnut Grove in Minnesota. They will have to adapt to Minnesota, the sod house, and a lot more. Laura Ingalls is a seven year old girl who loves to explore the creek, and is daddies little angel. Laura lives with her Ma, Pa , her two sisters Marry and Carrie, and their loyal companion and bulldog Jack. Pa goes out to get lumber and builds a beautiful new house with windows and he farms wheat to earn money. One day Pa said that in a couple weeks the wheat would soon be ready to pick. Then they see this peculiar sparkling cloud that filled the sky. Shortly after countless numbers of grasshoppers cover the field, the creek, and the rest of the farm, including Laura and her family. The grasshoppers consumed every plant including the wheat that Pa worked so hard to grow.
Mary and Laura start to go to school and on their first day they met many friends and some foes. one of their rivals was named Nellie who had a party and invited all the girls from school. Nellie was very rude and very cruel to Mary and Laura. Laura decided to have a party as well, and invited all the girls from school. Laura invites Nellie particulary to get back at her, and boy did she do a clever and a funny prank on Nellie. Then the Ingalls experienced blizzards, storms, and prairie fires which were very devastating. After all the work the family put into the farm and the wheat, their work finally payed off.
This book had lots of surprising, unpredictable, and very exciting events. If I could rate this book on a scale of one through ten, I would give this book a ten. Once I started to read this book I couldn't put it down, because I was so hooked on it. This book is fantastic and is great for every age, and great for every age, and should be enjoyed by everyone. If your looking for a great book that will excite, delight, suprise, and grasp your attention, On the Banks of Plum Creek is just the book your looking for.

On the Banks of Plum Creek is a really good book. Laura is seven like me. Her big sister Mary is eight. The little sister Carrie is two. They moved to the banks of Plum Creek and built a house. There was a town three miles away so they got to go to school. They had lots of fun in the water. You should read this book.

We have an inexpensive paperback version (see our reviews) of this classic poem, and we said that's enough for us. That was before we looked through this beautifully illustrated (by Bruce Whatley) edition of The Night Before Christmas.

The lyrics are the same, from book to book, but the fanciful illustrations in this one are enough to engage adults and children as they read this book together.

The perfect gift for any family whose Christmas tradition includes reading this classic!

I discovered this book 31 years ago, for my daughter and it is still loved by all the family. The illustrations are wonderful, warm, charming and delightful and bring a special meaning to the story. We still read it to all the young children on Christmas Eve and for adults we read the story and pass a grab bag gift every time the word THE is mentioned. It would not be Christmas without this book. It is magical.

This beautiful book was in my family as a hard cover edition for many years and was a Christmas Eve tradition for my four sons when they were growing up. It's poor battered body disappeared some time after the last of my little ones went off into the adult world. I am so delighted to see it back again, though this time as a nicely affordable soft cover. Clement C. Moore's enchanting story poem already provides an atmosphere filled with warmth and joyful expectation and with the addition of Tasha Tudor's quaint, nostalgic water-colors from an antique New England the Christmas magic is complete!
The winter landscapes fill our senses and Tasha's own gray tabby cat and Welsh Corgi welcome us into this charming world.
Tasha's Santa that you will meet in this book has been portrayed as the poem describes him...a right jolly old elf. He's not that much larger than the corgi and his team really consists of eight "tiny" reindeer. His pointy ears and his Eskimo mukluks add to the delightful ambiance of the book. He dances with the toys and with the happy animals and we can truly believe it will be a happy Christmas for all.
I hope this book becomes a Christmas Eve tradition for many, many more families.

I've never had the experience of meeting a person like Horse Badorties. Coming form a culture like mine.. I read almost half of the book to get an idea of what's going on, I read all the reviews too. I enjoyed reading it. And what amazed me most is Kotzwinkle's ability to register all this confusion in a person's mind. I thought it funny, interesting, new to me.. the confusion puzzled me

I first read this book when I was about nine or ten. My mom and older sisters had already dog-eared our copy and finally saw fit to pass it down to me. I read it, laughed uproarously, and wasn't aware of 90% of the culture, drug, or sexual references in the book. I still found it funny enough to read repeatedly throughout middle adn high school, and throughout college and graduate. Of course, as I got older, I understood more and more and found The Fan Man to be as sad as it was funny.

Horse Badorties is a loser who knows he's a loser and this makes his life that much more poignant, hilarious, and pathetic. He's on the fast track going nowhere and intends to enjoy every moment of it. He's the burnout hippie who hasn't escaped his languishing identity; he's capable of great things, but never follows through. He's a skilled musician, a magnetic group leader, and a charismatic con artist, yet never takes himself seriously enough to achieve the bliss he's looking for -- until he gives up his main ambition to watch the sunset over the Hudson River.

Like the sunset, his contentment is also short lived and leads inevitably to his perpetual dark dissatisfaction with everything he does (with the exception of his girl's choir). Yet I still find myself laughing at him and with him. Every time I read this book.

This is one of the greatest books ever written. Every word, line, page, image hits true. I read it back when it first came out & have since given away a couple dozen copies. Like so many others in this thread when I reread it I am hit anew by the force of its humor & pure writing. Horse Badorties LIVES, MAN!!! He is a TRUE ORIGINAL right up there with Huck & Ahab (& you & me, man). Wow!!

Don't expect to learn Windows 2000 by reading this book cover to cover. It's not really designed for that. It is better used as a reference guide for commonly performed system tasks. In that regard, it serves its purpose quite nicely providing solid organization and simple advice.

This book serves a definite purpose. It's designed to be the book on the shelf that you use when the inevitable "How Do I Do This?" question pops up. It fulfill this purpose well. What this book is not designed for is to fully explain the features of Windows 2000 and Active Directory. There are other titles that do a much better job of that.

When and if you find yourself wondering "how do i do that again?" or "how does that work?" you will need this book. Its small enough to place on your desk and big enough to contain all the information about Windows 2000 as it relates to an administrator.

This book never comes up short in the help department. You cant remember it all and you dont need an 900 page book to remind you. Pick this up and keep it handy. You wont be let down when you need it most.

This book is indeed one of the best Windows 2000 references (IMHO, the best). While it does not really fit in a regular pocket and does not teach you how to start working with win2k, it comes in extremely handy when you need to know how to get work done as a win2k administrator. So far I have not found a single error in the book.

I think the coverage is very complete, but given the comlexity of win2k, some areas are bound to be left out. Suffice it to say that this book looks like it has everything I need to do my job. If you work as a win2k administrator, definitely get this volume.

Cancer Ward is often overshadowed by its predecessor, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and its successor, the immense memoir, The Gulag Archipelago. While the worldly impact of those two works is perhaps greater, the aesthetic power of Cancer Ward is stronger than both of those works. The story is poignant and powerful, reaching out and probing deeply into the essential questions that are never answered by not only Soviet society, but western culture as a whole. The religious message that emerges is stunning and unique, recalling the works of Dostoyevsky. Overall, this is an excellent book, and any reader who enjoyed One Day or Gulag will be blown away by this work.

Having read a good bit of Solzhenitsyn's books, I can safely say that this is the pinnacle of his work. It simultaneously examines how people cope with the loss of freedom (to the Soviet state and the cancer ward), with the death that surrounds them, and with their own mortality. Through the whole work, too, through death and triumph over disease, runs Solzhenitsyn's recurring theme of the survival and growth of the human spirit under terrible conditions, seen as the main character and those around him realize former errors and deficiencies of character and seek to redeem themselves by doing good for others. I would highly recommend this book to all readers of Solzhenitsyn and, really, anyone.

Having just finished reading it for the third time, I believe that Cancer Ward is a very fine novel, rich at many levels: in its depiction of Soviet provincial society in 1955, a poor society just emerging from Stalinism; in its portrayal of many separate characters (doctors, nurses, patients, hospital workers) in that society, many of whose lives have been permanently damaged by the terror and the GULAG, but in different ways; and, as I know from personal experience, in its depiction of the isolated world of the cancer patient, from which the rest of society is seen dimly, as though through dirty glass. In spite of all medical progress, the basics of this world have not changed much in 50 years: the core treatments are still surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, and the side effects both long and short term can still be brutal.

The ending of the book will disappoint those who want a happy ending, or just an ending with all the loose ends tied up. In real life, though, loose ends usually stay loose. My thought is that Solzhenitshyn intended the reader to understand that for the characters and the society who are so damaged by the past there can be no happy endings; the best they can hope for is to continue from day to day, grasping at whatever happiness briefly comes their way.

Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting and attending a reading by Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. At the time, I was unfamiliar with her work, but I was nevertheless astounded by her presentation. Immediately, I bought two of her novels-- one of which was Refuge. When I read it a few months after meeting her, I was amazed at the tone and emotion in the text. Williams' book can be a source of peace or healing to many whether you have experienced cancer, a loss, or just adore nature. The language is rich yet gentle. The structure of the narrative is such that, during reading and after, a reader feels she has experiences a unique marriage of nature and family issues. The way in which Williams weaves the Great Salt Lake and its inhabitants with her own family's suffering is not only amazing but especially touching as well. Just as the waterfowl and other creatures are evicted from their home during the great rise and flood of Salt Lake, so does William's mother fight for the domicile and dominance in her own cancerous body.
This is a must read. A wonderful story of love, hardships, and more love, REFUGE is a truly breathtaking piece of art.

As the Great Salt Lake rose to submerge and destroy the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, grief rose and submerged Terry Tempest William's spirit with the destruction of her mother and grandmother by cancer. The gradual regeneration of the Refuge with the subsiding of the lake parallels the regeneration of her spirit and the subsiding of her grief. But the pain and the scars remain and transform. Terry is no longer an accepting trusting Mormon daughter but a searching questioning activist after her tumultuous emotional experience. One wonders if the gifts of awareness and sensitivity are worth the price of the pain endured. The Refuge becomes a sanctuary for the returning birds and Terry's returning spirit. No more moving piece has been written about the folly and ultimate tragedy of human intervention in the environment. From the nuclear testing of the 1950s to the manipulation of the level of the Great Salt Lake, there is much to learn about the long term consquences of our short sighted acts. Everyone should read and reread and pass on this book.

An intimate telling of family and loss, courage and humor, honest confrontations with mortality, a deeply spiritual tone, and chapter titles introducing us to over thirty different birds, this beautifully descriptive and authentic tale leaves us with tears and a search for binoculars and a bird guidebook. Terry Tempest Williams weaves with great detail the heart breaking and life affirming events of the simultaneous devastation of her mother's body and the migratory bird sanctuary that has been her refuge. She skillfully keeps from dramatizing this innately powerful story. Williams had me deeply attached to pages I knew would be increasingly painful to read. Yet, as it became more painful, I would never describe it as depressing. I am struck by the powerful way she honors her mother, their family's reverent yet human journey through a particularly virulent cancer, and the ultimate power of nature, and equally important, humanity's thoughtless interference with nature, to turn one's life into a personal desert that used to be called home. She is a master storyteller and a poweful activist. This must read challenges the reader to enter a world where solutions are not simple, and life is exposed at its most vulnerable while courage and passion abound.