It was a great pleasure to (re)discover Reynolds Price in this book. I had put him aside many, many years ago when I read A Long and Happy Life and couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. My loss, it seems. I must now revisit the many books he has published over the last few decades because having read The Promise of Rest, I am sure I have missed a lot that is worthwhile.

This book, about an aging southern poet/professor who brings his only son, suffering from AIDS, back from New York to die at home, is a beautifully written and touching portrait of the characters involved. But more, it is in many ways the typical 'Southern' novel, where the tragic outcome and any hope of redemption are all bound up with family history, race, sex, friendship, the 'wages of sin' and the weight of history. There is a sensibility at work here, as in Peter Taylor's work, that seems, in its particular experession, uniquely southern but manages to be, in its effect upon the reader, universal.

This is a very moving book. The only problem I experienced in reading it was a slight twitch whenever the main character would speak of his own early same sex experiences. In these scenes, the language Price put into the protagonist's mouth seemed artifical and strained, and the euphemisms chosen to refer to body parts and sexual activity were so strange that even a Victorian would have laughed at them. Nevertheless, the story engaged the reader from the beginning and despite the inevitability of the outcome, maintained a strong emotional hold. I was deeply moved by this book, which, like the best of southern writing, left me questioning much in my own life and times.

I was a student in Reynolds Price's creative writing class in 1966. I had not read any books by him lately, partly because I have been intimidated by his formidable academic credentials(he graduated first in his class and was a Rhodes Scholar), partly because my interests have been elsewhere. However this year among my other reading I have read 3 of his novels; "The Promise Of Rest" "Roxanna Slade" and "Blue Calhoun". Of the 3, I consider "Roxanna Slade" to be possibly the most psychologically astute, since it deals in part at some depth with a married woman's depression. "Blue Calhoun" is a bit of a romp through forbidden sexual territory--a romp in the hay for the protagonist with a nubile 16-year-old, and its dire consequences for his family. "Promise Of Rest" deals with AIDS, so it is in some ways the most contemporary. My big problem with Price is the racism, which turns up as a key issue is many of Price's novels, apparently. Though the racism is not pervasive,and he attempts to make amends for it in the end, every time it comes up, I feel outraged. But make no mistake about it: this is the racism that is the legacy of Thomas Jefferson-style southern plantations,the Negro concubine, where uppity Negroes are dealt with with physical violence, and characters still refer to the Civil War as "the war of Northern aggression." All
of Price's novels are written in the same lilting Southern dialect which is supposed to be charming and I suppose it can be so viewed. Price has created some memorable characters in these three novels, notably Alice Matthews and the old Negro Grainger in this one. At times, the novels are not perfectly organized and the endings sometimes strain credibility. This novel is redolent of family tradition as revealed by the numerous letters exchanged among the protagonists.This novel also has a lot more going for it: students who come and go, who sort of supply "background noise," a trip to New York, some interesting New York characters. All in all this novel is simultaneously worldly and quite localized. Price, interestingly, also has a most liberated view of sex, both heterosexual and homosexual, and these views are openly expressed by both the women (Roxanna Slade) and by the men, and sex is a fairly prominent feature of human relationships in his novels.

The cliche of every creative writing class is "show, don't tell." The problem with that philosophy is that true literature can be defined as breaking free of cliches. Unless you abandon omniscient narrator or (most) first-person narrations as literary devices, you will be engaging in some sort of "telling."

Now, as for believability, literature is a tool for the communication of ideas, just as color and light are to a painter. Would you tell Picasso that it is simply not believable for a woman to have two eyes on one side of her head? I would encourage anyone who has questions about the role of believability in literature to read Maupin's The Night Listener. He clarifies that literary truth transcends the believability of the narrative.

In summary:

1) In literature, it is perfectly acceptable to "tell" versus "show" if "telling" is the best way to communicate your ideas.
2) In literature, believability is irrelavant if the amalgamation of words effectively communicates the writer's ideas.

This is a small collection of Alphons Mucha's work. It includes lovely prints of Mucha's poster design and painting, a small biography, however, what disappoints me the most is the small dedication to his major work "The Slav Epic" and jewerly design. This is a good gift to introduce someone to Alphonse Mucha, but if you are a collector or fan of Mucha this is not the right book for you.

David is reviewing another book and people should not buy this for Mucha's non-photographic work. It is a small book of beautiful photographs by Mucha, quite varied, and very period-specific. Enthralling.

Excellent full color collection of Alphonse Mucha's illustrations. Larger and more informative than the "American Collection", and with just as nice reproduction but a much lesser cost than the "Spirit of Art Nouveau". For the art fancier on a budget, this is by far the best Mucha buy available.

the editors boast themselves as modern .in the 6 edition authors did not even mention h. pylori in the pathology of peptic ulcer whereas harrison' 13 edn discussed about it. also the urology chapter is badly written with not even a mention on CA urethra ,peyronie's disease.also the treatments are incomplete.also the concept of GE reflux &its relation to standing & lying is totally wrong(infact opposite).go for a greenfield or asabiston instead.

Surgery as a field, is wide and developing rapidly, probably publishing textbooks is not a good idea anymore. This book hits and misses in trying to collect the basics for surgical knowledge and more.
You'll find many missing points which you can fill from the internet or from magazines or other resources.
Most of the chapters are excellent and are probably all what you might need for your college study like those on trauma, diseases of the thyroid and parathyroid, metabolic response to injury etc.. but there are some which are disasterous like the chapter on breast conditions, but probably the subject itself is complex and controversial anyway.
The text overall is very well written and the structure and design of each chapter is very logical, some figures are not so great though, plus the book needs an update. you might consider supplementing it with Surgical clinics of north amarica for some of the chapters you read.

It's new and more . but It's expensive for medical student in the devloping country such as Thailand . however it's a reference book for most surgeons in the world.

kung is a smart man and a scholar. however, in trying to make christianity all-inclusive, he dilutes christianity into little more than dialectic feel-good mysticism. i think he needs to buy a Bible and reexamine/meet Jesus.

"Christianity and the World Religions" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy" http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

This semi-autobiographical novel is the first in a series by Czech-cum-Canadian author Josef Skvorecky that charts the life of Danny Smiricky, a Czech sometimes-saxophonist and full-time womanizer. The story opens during WWII in German-occupied Kostelec, a town not far from Prague. The way Smiricky tells it, the war and the occupation are minor hardships and major bores; what really matters is the pursuit of his two true loves: jazz and women. Like most egotistical men, Danny is most charming in his youth, and this novel displays him at his finest. His exchanges with friends and musings on the unattainable Irena are entertaining, and his rhapsodies on a solo with his jazz band and the fit of the ever-tantalizing Mitza's uniform go even further to make up for long stretches of disaffected self-indulgence. As a portrait of everyday life during wartime, the novel is excellent. Skvorecky captures the sort of daily details that bring a historical event to life in an intimate and personal way. One just wishes that the main character didn't block the view quite so often.

This is one of the several novels by Joseph Skvorecky which presents the daily life of his alter ego Daniel Smiricky. "The Cowards" is not about coward people, it is about local people in the small town of Kostelec (north Bohemian Nachod)whose aim is to survive living their ordinary lives in the last days of the Nazi Protectorate, seven days of May, from the fourth to the eleventh May 1945. The Germans are quickly withdrawing from the Eastern front as fast as the Red Army advances towards Central Europe, while the people of Kostelec prepare a "revolution" against the Nazi opressors to welcome finally the Soviet troops who will "liberate" them.
The main intention of the author, from my point of view, is to remark that both the revolution and the liberation are a complete farce, that History, as written in books, is a great deal of falsified propaganda. Danel Smiricky and his friends of the jazz band are by no means interested in heroic feats nor care about patriotism but about girls and music.
But Skvorecky gives a moving view of his characters and events, an intimate vision, tender, dramatic, satyrical, funny, critical, full of humour and nostalgia, as only Czech writers can, because I have always found that Czech writers have the incredible ability to combine the trivial with the deep, the ordinary with the remarkable, the comical with the dramatic, the harsh with the tender.
Of course, this novel, being one of the earliest by Skvorecky, lacks the maturity of "The Engineer of Human Souls"; nevertheless, it is worth while to read it and realize that nothing is what it seems and that History is subject to countless manipulations.

Aimed at the vacationer or business traveller, the strength of this guide is its guided walks/day trip itineraries...and in for a place whose coastline and skyline is forever changing, not to mention its complete change of sovreignty, the more up to date your guidebook the better!

I found the guide to be quite good and conveniently compact. My one criticism is that information for a given area is in several different places in the book. For example, there is a section on Wan Chai as a tour, another for Wan Chai at night, another section under excursions, and then Wan Chai restaurants are listed in a fourth section, altho some are included in the previous sections. This made for a lot of page flipping back and forth. This should all be consolidated into one section on Wan Chai. I thought the info was very good, just a lot of page flipping ("Now, where did I see that?")

If English is your language, then this book has 2/3 of useless text for you as it includes other languages. The text in this book is surprisingly lean, take out the other languages and you would have a very thin book indeed. Further, the texts are quite a dull read, except for the interview (which is the most interesting part of this book aside from the photographs), the text reads like someones college report.

The image reproductions are well done, but be aware that there are not a lot of them....

This is a small size book, yet it gives an overview of the different themes Koudelka worked on. It consists of work from his experience in the theater, from his Gypsies book, from the Prague 1968 events, as well as Exiles and Chaos. In addition, it has interesting writings and interviews with Koudelka. Not often do we here the great Koudelka speak out on how he came to being a photographer and his life in general, his search of a place in this world. Even if you already have his books this one is worth buying. If you are just discovering Koudelka's photography - this is a must to have. I am sure it will soon be a collectors item.

This is an interesting book. It appears that Pieper is a German Thomist who has written a general interest book on Scholasticism. He identifies 529 as the turning point from Hellenism to Scholasticism, or the Middle Ages. That is nearly the date that Augustine died, 525, and the date that Cassiodorus headed for the hills. It is also the epoch of Boethius, who had one foot is both eras. The primary access to Aristotle during this time was the Peri Hermenia and Categories, thus entailing a focus on language and logic. Only with the introduction of Aristotle around 1215 do we get the revival of Averroism and Aquinas. More treatment of logical issues and ontological questions would be welcomed, as Pieper concentrates primarily on theological questions. Evenso, this is a once over very lightly treatment of medieval philosophy that is well written and intelligently conceived.

Written prior to the recent interest in medieval studies, this book still gives a fine introduction to the era, and explains the significance not only of the great Scholastics, but also of lesser known figures like Cassiodorus, Pseudo-Dionysius, John of Salisbury, and Siger of Brabant. Both the fundamental problematic of the Scholastic--to unite the deliverances of faith and reason, in accordance with the motto "Credo ut intelligam"--and the attempts of different philosophers to carry out this project are detailed and explained clearly and in simple language. This book does not, however, discuss philosophical problems in any detail, and can only serve as a general introduction. Still, its brevity, clarity, and self-contained approach make it a good starting place for the philosopher interested in this topic.

Dr. Roetzer (sic) is an NFP pioneer in Austria. This book is old, and hard to get, however. There are several other good alternatives, however, like CCL's "Art of Natural Family Planning" by Kippley, and Toni Weschler's "Taking Charge of Your Fertility".

For someone looking for a natural, cheap alternative for birth control (or looking to conceive) this is a comprehensive, clearly explained, and an overall excellent book. Natural Family Planning is NOT the rhythm method, and this book clearly explains why. It also explains in detail the woman's menstual cycle and its various stages, also offering sample charts and questions and answers. I highly recommend it!

High School assignments have been more enjoyable. The translator will also be known by posterity as the translator of the authorized bio of Vaclav Havel {out of print}. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Skvorecky is a master of understatement, speaking volumes in this thin book of ten glimpses into the lives of artists, socielites and politicos living under a totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia.

As is so often the case with these reader reviews, upon perusing them I can't help but wonder if we were even reading the same book. In this slim but far-reaching volume, Skvorecky carries through his lifelong themes of freedom vs. conscription, will vs. compulsion, and the idea of humanity vs. the humans involved. The stories are short and almost deceptively witty -- because there is a depth of heartbreak beneath. If you favor writers like Klima, Hrabal, and Kundera (although Skvorecky thankfully lacks the latter's pomposity) you'll find "The Tenor Saxophonist's Story" well worth reading.