Dylan Thomas has, well, how can I put it - a way with words. This is a delightful and extremely droll prose poem, without which Christmas just wouldn't be the same for me. And the author's reading voice is nothing short of magnificent.

Scaring sleeping uncles by popping balloons. Getting a hatchet by mistake. Snowballing cats. Dylan Thomas has captured the perfect Christmas. Without any moral, very little plot, and a concern only for the child's perspective, this little piece sticks in my mind better than any other Christmas story I've ever read. Between drunk Auntie Hannah singing in the backyard and the haunted house down the streets where a group of mischievous carollers get the living hell scared out of them, "A Child's Christmas in Wales" is everything Christmas should be: funny, happy, poignant, a little sad, and fattening. Keep a bowl of candy nearby when you read it.

Every Christmas Eve, I set aside a few minutes to listen to my CD of Dylan reading "A Child's Christmas" in Wales, placing the special emphasis only he can on the frustrated Mr. Prothero trying to put out a fire in his house, the neighborhood St. Bernards who bellow "Excelsior!" over the town, and the churchgoers who, with taproom noses, go scooping over the ice. The older I get, the more I need this little piece. As friends and family are, for one reason or another, lost with the passing years, it gets harder and harder to laugh, even at Christmas, but Dylan Thomas gives me a good giggle every time.

I have over 50 photo books in my collection, but this one gets the most attention. Everyone seems to linger over the many beautiful images in this book, even after quickly flipping through other photo books by great masters. Howard Schatz has taken some beautiful vibrantly colored (and some black and white) artistic photos underwater, even though most other photographers get ugly photos with a horrible blue cast when they take underwater shots. The monumental effort necessary to create these great images is documented in this book and is well worth the read too.

By the way, it is interesting to note that some people I know who are offended even by what many would consider artistic nudes are surprisingly not offended by the nudes in this book. So, if you tend to be offended by artistic nudes, perhaps you may find this book opens your eyes to the beauty of the nude as an art form. I suspect with this book that Howard Schatz may have made a significant contribution to the acceptance of nudes by the general public.

Improving on his '96 Waterdance, Schatz provides glorious images made magically possible in that altered dream-world where all things are possible and more beautiful. This book will undoubtably provide us with more Schatz images that continue to re-shape the related worlds of film and advertising.

A magic delight to any person with or even without sensibility.
A must see for photographers and artists. It is a source of inspiration for my paintings and sculptures.
The beauty of the human body as if we were still in Eden.
After this book I was hooked on all Schatz books.
Do not miss it.

Once you have started the emotional roller-coaster ride with these families and their sick children you cannot stop and put the book down. You are there...right there in the NICU with these families. Your stomach is churning and your heart is breaking as if it is your child that you are looking at through the glass, unable to hold or even touch. From genetic disorders, to drug abuse in expectant mothers, to no explanation... it just happens... you feel the days turning into what seems like a lifetime for these parents(and in some cases literally is a lifetime). The author pulls you in and does not let you go until you have experienced every set-back and milestone imaginable in a newborn's life. Because of the dedication of the doctors and nurses who go above and beyond and their remarkable ability to save these precious lives, you are left feeling hopeful, having shed a lot of tears, but smiling throughout. Read this book and the next hug you give your own child...Oh, what a feeling and a gift!

As the mother of a multi-handicapped child, it's difficult to describe to others the roller coaster of our daily lives. This book captures it all, the doctors, nurses, therapists, parents, and always the babies. Impossible to put down as you follow the infants ups and downs, learning the history, politics, and management of the modern NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). This should earn Edward Humes another Pulitizer. I'm buying it as a present for my own daughter's neonatologist/pediatrician.

"Baby ER" is an incredibly dramatic story of hope, fear, miracles, and joy. For parents like myself who have experienced this situation, it will be like revisiting an unforgettable time in our lives. For those who have had the wondrous luck of never having walked in those particular shoes, it is an eye-opening account of a world known to a few. I appreciated the fact that Humes drew from his own first-hand knowledge of what the parents go through during this stressful time. In documenting the stories of three different families during their stays from the critical first hours of life to the unforgettable conclusions, he tells each story with sensitivity and compassion, as a father who has been there should. This is an outstanding book that should be shared with anyone going through this situation, and with every doctor, nurse, and other health-care professional who might be connected with the care of children.

If you liked Bloodstone, the rest of the series is a must read. Wagner has managed to create the near perfect anti-hero. I would also recommend "Killer", a book he co-authored with David Drake. Not a sword and sorcery tale, but good sci-fi.

In the book a worrier name Kane who seems immortal and ageless, finds an ancient relic in the booty of a bloody raid. With this relic he seeks to unearth and awaken an ancient power with which he will rule the earth. It is a gory tale of a man part savage, part sage, with a touch of satanic seasoning, and lust to rule the planet he is doomed to stride for eterity. If you loved Kane you should try and read some of Wagners other tales of Kane Like : Dark Crusade, of Darkness weaves both excellent, and they give hint to his past.

Bloodstones fills every need that a sword and sorcery reader has. The character,Kane, is truely the hero or un-hero, your choice, that we all seek to follow. Sporting the triple "B's", Big, Brutal, and Brilliant he shows the reader survival and success techniques that apply even in today's market arena. I am constantly amazed at the intricate flow of intrigue Wagner created. I have read the book three times and then lost my copy. I am now on my own quest for the "bloodstone" and the power of it's story.

There are two separate matters to consider here: the nature of this volume of Auden's collected poems, & the poetry itself. To tackle the first issue: this is not a _Complete_ but a _Collected Poems_, & this is a crucial difference. Auden was a perpetual reviser & assembled his canon with care. As with Robert Lowell his revisions are sometimes bewildering attempts to remake himself & his work in a very public manner. Auden grew to hate many of his best & most famous poems, notably "Sir, no man's enemy", "September 1, 1939" & "Spain 1937", & these are all excluded here, along with countless others. Late in his career Auden massively revised & pruned his canon, a project that was apparently prompted by his horror at the unprincipled use of his most famous line ("We must love one another or die") by Lyndon B Johnson in a notorious 1964 t.v. ad. (He was right to distrust that line's easy quotability: in the wake of Sep 11th the poem has enjoyed renewed popularity, which is pretty bizarre for a poem with lines like "Out of the mirror they stare, / Imperialism's face / And the international wrong.") Thus this volume presents a drastically lopsided view of Auden's work, & for this reason I cannot recommend it to anyone as an introduction to Auden's work. Nearly half of this book's 927 pages is taken up by work from the late 1940s up to Auden's death in 1973, & only the most ardent admirers of Auden will be able to find much of value in the final few hundred pages, facile, prolix & chatty verse which greatly disappointed Auden's contemporaries in his lifetime & which reads no better now. Anyone actually interested in the poetry that made Auden an important & influential poet should turn to the _Selected Poems_ & _The English Auden_. The former reprints the earliest printed texts of poems; the latter the texts as they stood when Auden left for the USA. This is an important distinction, especially for one of his most famous poems, "Spain". In the _Selected_ this appears in the 1937 version, which contains a stanza referring to the need to commit "the necessary murder". Orwell viciously attacked this line in a pair of essays, dishonestly distorting it into an apologia for Stalinist purges in "Inside the Whale". Auden, probably in response to the earlier of the two essays, altered the stanza in the 1940 version (entitled "Spain, 1937"), & eventually deleted the poem from his oeuvre. Auden nonetheless (rightly) defended the original version of the line, arguing that it was an honest attempt to speak of the possibility of a "just war", against the absolutist pacificist position that all wars are wrong, while nonetheless not downplaying the brutality of war.

About the poetry I can't say enough within the space of a brief review. Auden is probably the most influential English-language poet of the 20th century, & depending on your perspective must take much of the credit or blame for the midcentury retreat in the UK & US from the modernist & avantgarde styles of the early 20th century. (For good polemical histories of this shift, take a look at Jed Resula's _The American Poetry Wax Museum_ & Keith Tuma's _Fishing by Obstinate Isles_.) Auden was probably the most technically accomplished poet of the century, & yet this is not enough: by the end the verse fell into an obsessively genial & cozy facility carefully gutted of the urgency of his earlier work. His canon is still rather in need of a strongly revisionist survey: his most famous poems are sometimes justly so (the sublime "Lullaby", one of the century's great love poems) and sometimes in need of demotion ("Musee des Beaux Arts" for instance opens with one of the most fatuous lines in all of modern poetry: "About suffering they were never wrong, / The Old Masters."; & the elegy for Freud is like other of Auden's poems disfigured by nursery-talk & condescension). This volume makes me ultimately rather sad, that a poet with such enormous promise (the work he wrote in his early 20s is still utterly astonishing in its accomplishment & daring) never quite made good on it, & even came to hate much of his own best work. Turn to the _Selected Poems_ to get a better measure of what Auden was as a writer.

Auden is funny, sad, strange, wonderful. Here's a selection from of my favorites:

'When it comes,will it come without warning/ Just as I'm picking my nose?/ Will it knock on my door in the morning;/ Or tread in the bus on my toes?/ Will it come like a change in the weather?/ Will its greeting be courteous or rough?/ Will it alter my life altogether?/ O tell me the truth about love.'

Auden talks about not only love but also truth, justice, every part of the human experience. Here's a short part of "Musee des Beaux Arts":

'About suffering they were never wrong,/ The Old Masters: how well they understood/ Its human position; how it takes place/ While someone else is eating or opening a window or/ just walking dully along.'

I cannot find words strong enough to convey how powerful, and how human, this work is.

By the way, in his original 'selected works' Auden re-edited several of his most beloved works - many critics said for the worse. In this particular edition the editor included all of the poems that Auden selected as his best, but in their original forms.

"Collected Poems" brings together Auden's greatest poetic work, which was abundant, diverse and always masterful. It's difficult to describe the breadth of his work -- emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, technically. From a purely technical standpoint, however, I've never seen as many first rate sonnets, sestinas, classical odes by one poet in one place. Auden is the only poet I've ever encountered who seems incapable of writing badly. In my humble opinion, no one surpasses him in the 20th century in the English language.

Those who decry the current state of judicial affairs in this country will be interested to learn that our modern court system has changed very little since its inception back in the 18th Century. This, along with many other scholarly insights, is the compelling undercurrent running through Jean Edward Smith's John Marshall: Definer of a Nation.

Smith, no stranger to scholarship himself, guides the reader in painstaking detail through the rise of one of the most renoun jurists of early American history, John Marshall. Marshall, who served his country first as a soldier under General George Washington and later as the first truly influential chief justice of the Supreme Court, is a figure ripe for investigation at this particularly legal-oriented period in our history. For it was Marshall who, in his landmark decision, Marbury v. Madison, first gave rise to the notion of judicial review, the concept that suggests that the Supreme Court indeed has final say over the constitutionality of a given state action.

What is fascinating about Marshall's life is how bitterly he had to fight to establish what we today take for granted, the Court's supreme authority. Marshall's relentless pursuit of a powerful judiciary was often at odds with the vision of his fellow founding father, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, who pushed for a small, decentralized federal government in a largely agrarian America, was constanly at odds with Marshall, and the tale of their stormy political battles resonates throughout the pages of Smith's biography.

Of course, the philosophical musings and feindishly political battles of our founding fathers may not make for interesting reading for everyone. Smith's book is chock full of obscure anectdotes and oftentimes difficult-to-get-through detail. All the same, the interested reader seeking to understand just how our current court system got to be this way can do worse than pick up Smith's tome for some insight. For, in the end, the battles fought between America's early political titans bear a strong correlation to -- and perhaps even explain -- blips on the judicial radar screen now called things like "O.J."

The author acknowledges up front that the book has little to say that is critical of the great Chief Justice. Nevertheless, the author presents a balanced view of the man and his times. As befits one of the greatest writers in legal history, Smith's prose is clear, precise and entertaining. Given Marshall's long tenure on the Court and his many accomplishments and associations with great historical figures, this book should be of interest to anyone with a serious interest in American History. One is left with the strong impression that Marshall's role in shaping the government has not been fully appreciated.

John Marshall defined American law, politics and power. This book paints a vivid picture of who Marshall was, and why he is still important today. The author does an excellent job stating the facts and letting the reader decide for her/himself whether or not Marshall did the right or wrong in the very important decisions he made. This book is enlightening and well written. Marshall's life is wonderfully told through the authors use of clear and concise writing. This book is excellent. It clarifies many misconceptions of this great man who came out of a generation that claims many great men. Marshall may be the least understood of them all, but he certainly is no less important than any of his contemporaries in forming and defining the United States of America.

This book shows a side of Robert E. Lee that seems to have been lost in the history books. After the end of the Civil War, we hear little or nothing about General Lee. In truth, he died five years after the war ended, but he made the most of that time in trying to repair the damage done by the war. This book is an excellent chronicle of those years.

Lee lost most of his property during the war. He was a career soldier, and didn't have many prospects for employment. He hoped to move onto a farm and to live quietly in the country.

However, other plans were being made for him. The trustees of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, voted unanimously to offer him a job as president of the college. Lee was not a professional educator (although he had served as superintendent of West Point), but the trustees believed that his leadership and integrity were just what the college needed to survive the harsh economy left by the war. For his part, Lee saw this as an opportunity to help young Southern men to become productive citizens.

The college's wager paid off. Enrollment grew each year that Lee spent at the helm. The college developed new programs, and Lee's stature and good reputation were such that Washington College received large donations from philanthropists, even in the Northern states. Lee took a personal interest in the students, learning to address them by name and taking responsibility for disciplinary measures.

Yet Lee's last five years were not years of unabated bliss. His health declined steadily, his wife was an invalid, his brother died, and his reputation suffered from some unjust attacks in Northern newspapers. Throughout it all, Lee held his head high and maintained his dignity, his character, and his principles.

Lee put much effort into healing the wounds left by the war. He appreciated the esteem in which he was held by his fellow Southerners, but he encouraged them to be loyal citizens of the United States of America. He never said a word against General U.S. Grant, and even rebuked an employee of Washington College who did. One of the most fascinating (and mysterious) episodes in the book is Lee's trip to Washington, D.C., to visit President Grant in the White House. No one else was present for the meeting, and so no one really knows what they discussed.

The book ends abruptly with an account of Lee's death, without going reporting on his funeral and his family's life without him. Even so, this book makes great reading and has fascinating insights into the private life of an American icon.

I have a real passion for the American Civil War and, if truth be told, I usually enjoy reading about it from a Southern perspective. I am though no Robert E. Lee worshipper and can see the good and the bad in the man and the soldier. He was not the perfect general and he did make mistakes (some very costly) but he is a fascinating character and any understanding of him leads to an appreciation of duty and honour. In those respects he was a paragon of virtue.

I'd read so much about Lee during the war that I needed something more, to find out what happened to him after the war. Charles B. Flood provided that "something" and I am so happy that I decided to go for this purchase. It was a snap decision but one I shall never regret.

The first ten chapters of the book are worth the price of purchase on their own, dealing as they do with the surrender of the marvellous Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox and the subsequent weeks and months as Lee made his way back to Richmond and waited to see what fate awaited him at the hands of the victorious Union.

I don't believe Flood was laying it on too thickly but the devotion felt towards Lee by his old soldiers (Pickett excepted of course) and the civilian population of the South are incredible. The stories of soldiers coming to see him before they set off on foot to return home are just so moving and Lee will not say no to anybody who wishes to see him.

After those opening incredible chapters things slow down somewhat and we learn of Lee's transition into what could be called a 'normal' life which sees him take up the presidency of the Lexington College in Virginia. It's not rivetting stuff by any stretch of the imagination but it's interesting and we gain a greater insight into what drives Robert E. Lee... duty and honour. He could have cashed in on his name a thousand times to retire a wealthy man, but he would not sell out and knows that his example, a dutiful one, will be followed by so many former Confederates in those dark post-war days.

Lee also refuses to incriminate his former comrades when pressed to do so and it is a measure of his standing even in the North that no-one dares to bring charges against him, despite the clamour from some sections of society that he be tried for treason.

The picture that Flood paints of Lee is not always flattering though. He is shown to be a stubborn man in some respects and his family are always in awe of him, especially his daughters, of whom he is extremely possessive. So much so that all three will die spinsters!

One of the last things that Lee does before his death in 1870 is to go on a short trip into the deep south and that again provides an incredible picture of his standing in the old Confedracy. Though he craves privacy word gets out that he is on a train and telegrams break the news ahead of his journey. Consequently, thousands turn up just to get a glimpse of him, with old soldiers bringing their children (man of who have been named after Lee). It is a very moving account of just how deeply his people felt for him.

My only complaint is that I would have liked just a little more reaction to lee's death around the South. How did the people react? What did the papers say? That sort of thing. An omission that could easily have been avoided in my opinion.

All in all though a hearty well done to Charles B. Flood for an excellent biography of Lee's last years. If my review sounds a little soppy then believe me, the book isn't. It is a solid, fair and well constructed picture of the last years of Robert E. Lee's life. It may move you in ways you weren't expecting though!

This was a passionate story of the last five years of the life of one of our greatest American heroes. Finally, we have a look at what Lee accomplished AFTER the war! From the first chapter to the end, I was enthralled with the story of Lee's dedication to God and country. The author used interesting stories to detail Lee's character which made the book easy to read and immensely enjoyable. I judge this to be one of the very best biographies I've ever read.

This is a book I loved as a kid, and was delighted to rediscover. In addition to all the details about how witches live, this is a great book because it combines all the scary elements of the traditional witch (including Halloween) but the little human girl Amy is the boss and the old witch has to follow Amy's rules. Nice combination of fantasy and comfort, plus a happy ending. A few very nice illustrations. Just right for a read-aloud for my second grader.

This book captured my imagination as it has my children's. They love it as much as I did in the 60's, where I must have checked this book out from the library 20 times. I was delighted to find an old copy still in the library, and started searching to find my own so that we could read and reread the magical stories of Hannah, Weenie Witchie and Old Witch. Malachi was always my hero, and the two brave little 7 year olds, Clarissa and Amy reminded me often of my best friend and our adventures in fantasyland. Take time to cherish this book again and again. It is a book well worth the effort. Bless the publishers for putting it back in print.

It has been 30 years since I have seen this book--I never owned it, and it was a non-circulating book in the local children's library-- but the summer I turned seven, I spent hours reading this book day by day in the children's section of the library at Lincoln Center while my parents did their graduate work upstairs in the adult collection. I still vividly recall the characters: Amy with hair the color of moonlight whose mother gave her a lambchop for lunch each day, Clarissa with hair the color of sunlight whose mother gave her spaghetti for lunch each day, Malachi the Bumblebee, and, of course, the make-believe characters Hannah and her baby sister and the Old Witch and the mermaids who lived in the Big Glass Hill. Back in those days, we did not have any super-heros (no female ones, anyway), no Wonder Woman, no Warrior Princesses capering across the TV in their undies, not even Sailor Moon and co., and so if you wanted to make believe you could fly, Hannah the Little Witch Girl was all there was. My friends and I used to pretend to be Hannah and Amy and Clarissa in a gem-studded forest landscape taken from James Thurber's The White Deer. On imaginary broomsticks, we careened around stuffy apartments full of couches and dining chairs holding loquatious, boring adults. The book also holds appeal for the child with a systematic mind--the sort of child who types out alphabetical lists of dinosaur species will also enjoy writing out alphabetical compendia of all the runes spoken in the story!

Edward O'Donnell does a wonderful job telling a complex story through tracing the actions of certain passengers aboard the General Slocum. This 1904 fire was the largest loss of life in New York City history prior to 9/11, though the story has been forgotten until now. For me, the book is a classic "can't wait to see what happens, but don't really want to see the tragic endings for so many" read.

O'Donnell also brings to light, and to life the turn-of-the-century immigrant neighborhood Little Germany that even New York City history buffs tend to be unaware of.

Beyond the history, SHIP ABLAZE was more deeply moving than I had expected: not only the varied and terrible deaths of mostly women and children, but the many acts of bravery, the search for survivors, the funerals, the community's dignity and the strength of family bonds.

The only missing element for me (beyond the footnotes which will be available online) was more information about how the Slocum families lived after the tragedy, and I hope that the author plans a sequel, perhaps about the influence of German immigrants in the NYC.

Congratulations to O'Donnell for a well-researched, well-told and moving story, and for adding to the body of great NYC history books.

Readers will never forget the Slocum.

Edward T. O'Donnell's "Ship Ablaze" is head-and-shoulders above the glut of historical disaster books lining the shelves these days. O'Donnell's well written narrative history has all of the elements that make a book like this compelling: it details a tragic and nearly forgotten event, it paints the event on the proper historical backdrop and also tells the stories of the victims in a sympathetic and unsensationalistic way.

Though it is not well remembered, the fire and sinking of the steamboat General Slocum near New York City was the city's deadliest disaster prior to September 11, 2001. Over 1000 people, mostly women and children, perished in a few horrifying minutes. What is more disturbing about the story is that the disaster was completely preventable. Had the General Slocum's fire safety equipment been properly inspected and maintained and had the crew been trainbed in fire safety, it is unlikely that there would have been any loss of life.

All of this O'Donnell describes in vivid detail. He also describes life in turn-of-the-century New York, particularly the so-called Little Germany section where the victims were from. The latter part of the book is dedicated to the legal battles that resulted in the imprisonment of the General Slocum's captain, but not the federal inspectors or boat owners who were equally responsible for the tragedy.

Overall, an outstanding work of narrative history that will appeal to history buffs as well as general readers.

I recently finished reading SHIP ABLAZE by Edward O'Donnell.
Prior to reading the book, I knew next to nothing about the
tragedy of the "General Slocum." I had heard of it, but knew
nothing of the details. This book grabbed me from the first
page. I really like human interest stories, and this book fills
the bill. It details the background of the tragedy, the
event itself, and the aftermath, which includes one of the worst
aspects of the tragedy...which I won't reveal. The burning and
sinking of the "General Slocum" was the greatest loss of
civilian life suffered by the city of New York until
September 11, 2001. Yet this incident is all but forgotten by
a few historians and maritime specialists. It should not be
forgotten, and Professor O'Donnell does a commendable job of
bringing the incident and its attendant emotions to life. It
is a very good and interesting read.

I have cancer and I believe that had I read this book before my surgery, I probably would not be paralyzed. This book goes into great detail on the big cover up for the cure for cancer. I am in the process of getting what I need to fight this thing that is inside of me. I am also refusing radiation and chemotherapy. The only reason that I did not give this book 5 stars is because I believe that the author is a bit too detail. He really does get his point across because he mentions names and places where things took place and was discovered. If you have cancer or someone you know has cancer, then you need to read this book. It is a shame that people are dying because of other hungry people for the almighty dollar.

I whipped thorugh this book in two days. It provides an excellent exposé of an alternative natural way to prevent and cure cancer throug nutrition, and the forces in government and in large pharmaceutical firms that are fighting to keep the secret from us. This book serves as an eye opener to anybody who has ever wondered why there has been so little progress in the fight against cancer, despite the vasts sums of money being invested.

This book is only for those who have the guts to face the TRUTH and there is no better researcher that I have found anywhere than G. Edward Griffin. He has dug into a very, very ugly situation and exposed why Cancer is killing all our loved ones, and also the profiteers who have created and are perpetuating the problem. THANK YOU, Mr. Griffin, for all you have done in trying to save humanity from this monstrous suffering perpetrated by our real enemies. God bless all those who listen.
"My people perish for lack of knowledge." Hosea 4:6
j. mueller, CA