I ENJOYED THE movie, the soundtrack was bette

This is an outstanding collection, even though the first story is really weak. Hamlin Garland's great story echoes "Cold Mountain," with a soldier returning home from the Civil War to the woman he loves. Oddly, the editors said Garland was "probably a minor talent." Ever read "Daughter of the Middle Border?" Garland was not prolific, but he was definitely MAJOR.

I picked up a copy of this book, having read several Jack London short stories, and his novels White Fang and Call of the Wild. This book mainly focuses on his stories about life in the north during the Gold Rush, all of which are very intriguing, with the exception of the Sea Wolf, which is a wonderful novel about life on the sea. If you like adventure, animals, romance, anything at all, you'll enjoy this book.

It took me some time to track down this book, but I had heard that it was the best Jack London biography out there, and it is that and a whole lot more. Irving Stone writes a very easily readable book in which he takes a deep look at the life and character of an amazing man. I read it once in a night, I'm reading it again, and don't think it'll ever make it back to the bookcase for more than a week!

Kids ages 13 and older will find this an excellent research and study guide to the short stories of Jack London. Almost 90 pages cover the plots and criticism of four selected London stories, providing a blend of cross-criticism of London's various works and insights on London's methods. Highly recommended.

The fourteen essays that make up Doctorow's book range in concept from discussionsof the lifes of authors which were the stuff of myths to the lives of politicians who were trying to create myths in their own names, from Thoreau's WALDEN to Orwell's 1984. These and the others all fit into a theme that Doctorow calls "presumptive nationalism."

The essay that I find most interesting is entitled "Commencement," and is,in fact, the Commencement Address that Doctorow delivered to the Brandeis University graduating class of 1989. A theme in the address is taken from Sherwood Anderson and Doctorow refers to it as "the theory of grotesques." It goes something like this: The world is filled with many truths to live by, and they are all beautiful. Two that he first mentions are the truth of thrift and the truth of self reliance. There is a problem, however, when one of these truths is grabbed up and made into a cause to the exclusion of all other truths.

Take thrift for instance: It is a good thing to be thrifty, and work hard, and scrimp and save in order to get a college education. You've done well. But if, later in life, long after it's necessary, you continue to deny yourself and those close to you, until the act of hoarding becomes an end unto itself, your thrift has become a lie. You've become a miser. You've become a grotesque.

Or take the truth of self-reliance: Doctorow states that it is undeniably beautiful. Self-reliance was the truth that underlay the whole Reagan Administration. In the name of rugged individualism and self-reliance, the truths of community and moral responsibility towards those with lesser advantages were forgotten. In the name of self-reliance, school lunch programs were halted, legal services for the poor, psychologocal counseling for Viet Nam veterans and Social Security payments for the handicapped, among many social programs, were taken away. The philosophy that this engendered has caused hundreds of thousands to suffer. Doctorow believes that much of the homeless problem that we see on the streets of our cities, and the rapid increase of drug sales, among other ills, can be directly traced to the advocacy of the truth of self reliance to the exclusion of other truths. This has certainly become a political philosophy of the grotesque.

In a way, concentrating on just one aspect of one essay does this book a real disservice, but there is just so much food for the brain here that I felt I had no other option. To get even an inkling of the connections between poets and presidents, between literature and lyrics, and between aspects of 19th and 20th century American life as Doctorow means for us to do, the book must be read in its entirety. That's exactly what I recommend.

Following the worst of London's alcoholic periods he wrote this autobiography beginning with his first taste of alcohol, his first experience at being drunk,and his first hangover-all at the age of five. London went on to "earn his manhood spurs" through hard drinking at the steamy waterfront bars on the San Francisco Bay. Claiming never to have acquired a taste for the stuff, London stresses the important role of the saloon in cultivating alcoholism in young men. He brings to vivid life the romantic allure of a place full of sailors with names like Whiskey Bob, whose stories of 'round-the-world journeys, barroom brawls, and dangerous sea adventures mingled with the "comaraderie of drink." At once a highly personal work of intense emotional power and an unsparing social commentary on the evils of drink, this masterpiece of autobiographical literature first stunned a world audience in 1913, and today continues to strike a resounding contemporary note.

This is the first Granta book I've read but I'm definitely interested in more after this one. A collection of essays, stories, memoirs and photographs all based around the theme of London, it contains works by such well-known authors as Anthony Bailey, Ian Buruma, Amit Chaudri, Hanif Kureishi, John Lanchester, Dale Peck, Will Self and Graham Swift plus articles by two writers for the Observer. Sandwiched in between all of these works are ten 'London Views', where various authors ruminate on their favorite or most memorable views in and about the city.

Many of the essays are accounts of the author's memories of their time spent in London, as in the childhood memories of Ferdinand Dennis and Ruth Gershon or the more recent recollections by Ian Hamilton and Lucretia Stewart. My favorite part, however, was the short fiction, especially Philip Hensher's mysterious tale of real estate in the late '80s and Lanchester's quirky story about an accountant's experience of a bank robbery. I also enjoyed Helen Simpson's 'With a Bang,' an account of life in Kew in the age of Nostradamus, an appropriate addition to a volume published in 1999.

The stories taken collectively give a really in-depth view of London at the turn of the century. Yet even if you're not interested in London per se, the writing here is good enough to warrant buying this anyway.

A deeply historicized, wry, and often funny look at the process by which London fashioned a model of US masculine selfhood and expanded territories of (barely sublimated) territorial/regional conquest. One of the best books I know on a single-author study of a Pacific author from imperial era of national expansion, then or now [sic].

Jack London travelled extensively through the Southern Seas, living exciting but often frightening adventures that he later reflected on his short stories. London, a troubled adventurer who committed suicide, had a special sensibility to perceive, mix and express the juxtaposure of beauty and horror which reigned in non- or semi-civilized islands of the South Pacific. Frequently, his tales talk about the brutal confrontation between the white people and the aborigines, sometimes taking one side, sometimes the other, but most often simply depicting the sad consequences of the relationship. One exception to this is the tale that gives its name to this collection: "On the Makaloa Mat" is an extremely beautiful story about two Hawaiian sisters of mixed descent (3/4 white, 1/4 indigenous), from a very wealthy and noble family. Bella, the elder sister, tells the story of her one and only love, of course an unfortunate one. The story abounds in depictions of the lush landscapes of the Hawaiian islands, and of the strange social life of mid-XIX century. It is tragic but sweet, and I'd be surprised if someone hated it. Other tales are not sweet at all, like "The Chinago", about the absurd execution of a Chinese laborer; "The Terrible Solomon Islands", about a cruel joke played on a naïve Englishman by brutal colonists; "Koolua the leper", a short but epic story about man's indomitable lust for freedom, even in the most adverse and tragic circumstances; and "The inevitable white man", a bloody, horrific and dark tale of adventures.

The stories abound with murders, blood and cruelness, but they're never cheap or vulgar. In fact, I give them five stars because I consider them to be masterpieces of storytelling. London has no mercy, but beneath the surface his characters are full of life, that plenty, wild life embedded in the white men who conquered the world, and the aborigines which suffered the conquest. Extremely recommended.