One of the true gems of baseball literature. Klinkowitz's short stories of minor league baseball ring true,without the cliches and gimmicks that lesser writers find so necessary

The Norton Anthology of American literature is a great collection of the most prominent and prolific authors in this young nation's history. The Anthology covers the development of authors in the new world, from the early native American folk tales to the works of Toni Morrison and Allen Ginsberg. The anthology spans poetry and prose and gives the reader a great cross sectional view of American society and its problems. The presence of Native American, Black and Hispanic authors presents a complete line up of works of literature, presented in a pleasant chronological order and introduced by a brief and interesting description of the author's life and works. The introductory description of each author facilitates the contextual placement of the text and its comprehension. The anthology contains several novels such as "Howl", "Sula" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". The presence of these complete works makes the anthology more complete, as they are an important part of the American literary tradition. The selection of authors and of their works is a good one, but presents some flaws. Obviously not being able to include all relevant authors in the American literary tradition, the editors selected a large number of authors, and their most important works. Nonetheless several important texts seem to be missing. Texts by less prolific authors, such as the great new classic "To kill a mockingbird" are missing. Although the anthology gives the reader an introduction on the author and his works it does not stimulate sufficiently through interesting points to be discussed and questions which shed light on hidden or obscure aspects of the texts. The anthology is a great tool for any class, or for the passionate reader. It is ideal if accompanied by a class or group/club in which the texts are discussed.

The Norton anthology is the definitive collection of American literature. Its selections range from the letters of Christopher Columbus to quintessential American works like Whitman's "Song of Myself" and inherently American movements such as beat poetry. The collection offers a wide spread selection of works, some of which fall outside of your typical definition of "literature." All, however, have been important parts of our artistic tradition and provide literary examples of the coming of age of America. Literature has truly helped to define the American identity. This book is a history lesson, a journey through some of the most beautiful poetry and prose ever written and a testament to the kind of intelligent, passionate people that have formed our country.

To anyone seeking an encompassing overview of American literature, here is your book. This, the latest edition of the Norton Anthology, not only makes for months of good reading but also acts as a good primer for further pursuits in American letters (academic and otherwise.) Besides the countless number of excellent selections, eleven works appear in their entirety. Among them, Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Whitman's "Song of Myself," and Ginsburg's "Howl."

The anthology also contains several new additions - most notably an intriguing section of Native American trickster tales that provides an interesting counter to Chris Columbus' over-zealous ramblings. As for more contemporary writing, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of deserving writers and poets newly anthologized in this revision: Toni Morrison, Raymond Carver, and Sandra Cisneros just to name a few.

Yet what makes this anthology truly successful is the breadth and depth of the text as a whole. The selections, the organization, the well-written bits of biographical information... IT ALL FITS PERFECTLY! No doubt other readers will find this anthology as informative, provocative and enjoyable as I do. A definite keeper for my permanent collection.

As mentioned in the previous review, this work is a collection of separate essays. Because of that there is a lot of overlap in terms of the stories told. Each essay recaps what the previous essay already recapped, and so on. And on and on. When the author expresses fresh material, the reading is a true pleasure. Therefore, I think these essays would be better digested read separately, ie between readings from another work. I read them straight through and kept getting the feeling that I had heard this story a thousand time before. Also, half of the book is the author critisizing his own work. Is it just me, or does critisizing ones own work, or rather praising one's own work, seem amazingly egocentric?????

...of what it's like to be involved with a small-town minor league baseball team. The author uses humor and sensitivity to capture how his love for baseball as a child - lost for a number of years - was rekindled by his association with the Waterloo, Iowa team. It's a relatively quick and easy read. My only negative, is that because it's a series of independent essays combined in this book, there are a number of redundancies throughout. That is a minor downside however. I plan on reading more by the author.

This slender volume is a bit of a disappointment. It is not really a book about the Flying Tigers, but a book about books about the Flying Tigers. Yet it is not really that either, but more a book about books about the air war in Burma and China in 1941 and '42. Each of the chapters has the read and feel of a term paper done on a specific topic. Oh, yes, there's some history here but it is secondary to the literary critique of books written by participants in the air war in Burma and China. Having read most of the books referenced, I found the author's labored recounting of anecdotes from them rather tedious. The tedium was not even relieved by having a good selection of photos. The photos that do appear are not accurately captioned. The book also suffers from poor editing. In one glaring example, the American Volunteer Group (the true name for the Flying Tigers) is referred to as the "American Volunteer Force," followed immediately by the AVG acronym. How the shark's mouth motif for the P-40s came about is also not accurately told. Further, while aviators in Burma and China showed bias in identifying any Japanese fighter encountered as a "Zero," much as Battle of Britain Me-109 pilots always fought "Spitfires" and not Hurricanes, Zeros (Japanese Navy aircraft) were not fighting there. The true adversaries were Nakajimas, flown by the Japanese Army, as Daniel Ford's excellent history of the Flying Tigers points out. It was nice to have the British contributions to the literature of the theatre quoted and the books by those aviators are some of the best. All in all, this is a literary discussion of contemporaneous war books loosely tied to the Flying Tigers. The title is misleading, but then calling this "A Study and Comparison of Aviation Books Written During the China and Burma Air Campaign of 1941-42," while more accurate would not sell as well. My advice is to seek out the books listed in the bibliography and draw your own conclusions.

What the good professor has done here is sit down and read all the published accounts of the AVG and the RAF in Southeast Asia, then tell the story through the eyes of the participants. He's especially interesting on the British side, since the RAF's accomplishments in the Pacific haven't received much attention from historians. If you don't know anything about the Flying Tigers, this might suggest the books you ought to read, and if you've read them all, this is a helpful review--though the author tends to give all sources equal weight, and (sometimes for that reason) he gets some of the facts wrong.