What more to say? Ok. The end was particularly disappointing, seeming to simply fall into the very "void" Amelie so often feels. "The doorbell" (obviously) rang" for the La Baume as well as she beats a hasty retreat from providing her readers with any sense of real-life closure to the notion of an "affair." It was, in her words, "a fright."

What a frank and talented writer, and full of promise. I look forward to her next.

I really liked this book. It wasn't one of those soft, I-really-don't-know-what-you-mean erotic books. This one was lusty and full of it. Just what I was looking for. I recommend it highly.

Filled with lots of craft ideas, the WonderUnder Handmade Gifts collection is a great book for crafty people who don't like much sewing and want to get projects done quickly.

This hardbound book is full of great and fun projects, well presented, complete with patterns and new ways of using Wonder Under. What did we do before Wonder Under? Recommend +++

I was forced to read this book in a class recently by the usual suspect, my feminist professor, and was very sad to see that this piece of lesbian hatred of the family was being pushed upon young women in my class at a vulnerable time of their lives. The usual atmosphere in universities now, in which young women are asked either to agree with feminist diatribes of this sort or be labelled weak and a tool of men, was so plainly at work here. I'm older than the others in my class, and a father and husband, and the book was so plainly the product of a neurotic, unhappy person that I was having difficulty understanding why we were reading it. The vast majority of women want families and to be mothers and wives, and they need help to do it better, not to be force-fed this sort of weak broth. When Rich says of her pregnancy and motherhood, "I only knew that I had lived through something which was considered central to the lives of women... a key to the meaning of life; and that I could remember little except anxiety, physical weariness, anger, self-blame, boredom, and divisions within myself," she admits to something sad, not hoepful, and demeans her children and their worth. Poor, sad, neurotic woman. I think young women would be best served to view this book as something to avoid -- or at least as something to view with pity, and not permit your professors force you to agree with it.

Adrienne Rich's experience as a mother is what propelled her to write this depressing look at motherhood as an institution and at the the patriarchial society that imposes its restrictions and encourages its oppression. It is her own negative experience as a mother that compells her to condemn the entire history of womanhood and its accomplishments. Did Adrienne Rich ever think that perhaps she is projecting her own experiences onto the lives of the general public? A selfish, unloving mother who felt "depressed" throughout her entire experience raising children is certainly not the one to be writing about the experience of motherhood as the general public sees it. Rather than giving practical advice in terms of empowering women, she emasculates men, choosing this as the best method to raise women. Her suggestions as to how women can overcome their "oppression" are buried somewhere underneath poetic phrases relating to her own miserable experiences as a mother. If her kids, aren't in therapy, they should be!

We were asked to do a term paper on Adrienne Rich and some of her poetry. During my research I found this book and it changed my entire view of motherhood..or rather the institution of motherhood. I have never realized how literally confining motherhood is. I look back at what my mom used to tell me about how kids held her back from what she wanted to do, and I realize (with the help of this book) what she ment. Not that was being rude when she said this, just that it is a fact that our patriarchal society uses motherhood to put women in 'their place'. Please if their is one book you take time to read make it this one. Rich writes this analytical book in such a way as to make it sound personal and interesting...not dry and dull. Highly, highly recommend it if you are trying to understand your mother or mothers in general. What an EYE OPENER!

Every once in a while I wonder why, in this age, people still utter the word "feminist" as though it were an obscenity. Then I pick up one of Adrienne Rich's books, and I think, Oh yeah. That's why.

Arts of the Possible purports to be a text on aesthetics, but it winds up more of a text on Adrienne Rich. The "essays" include "Notes" for several talks she's given, and unlike most essays titled "Notes," these really are just her notes, without any effort to flesh them in; the full text of other speeches; some singularly unemlightening "conversations," where she displays her disheartening lack of an understanding of literature; and a few legitimate essays, most that have appeared in other anthologies. In fact, the title piece to her previous collected prose, Blood, Bread and Poetry, is here.

Her argumentative strategy mostly consists of rambling a bit about herself, especially the horrors of growing up in a house filled with books of poetry by white men, making some vague, barely-arguable statements of generalization ("the reading of poetry in an elite academic institution is supposed to lead you. . . not toward a criticism of society, but toward a professional career in which the anatomy of poems is studied dispassionately"--huh?), drawing even more generalized conclusions, and then ranting about the wickedness of capitalism or patriarchy. Often, she takes swings at big-business publishing's utter lack of an aesthetic and slavery to the bottom line, claiming that the larger houses print nothing of worth. What press is this book on? Norton. What press put out her last couple collecteds? Norton. What press has she published just about every volume she's ever spewed out? Norton.

Intriguing.

In many pieces she hints at the theory most expounded in "Defying the Space that Separates," the reprinted inntroduction from the abominable 1996 Best American Poetry: poor people make better art than rich people do. It's a peculiarly Protestant notion (peculiar especially because she makes so much of her oppressed and suppressed Jewish heritage). Sure, you're starving, your teeth are falling out because you can't get decent health care, and you had to sell your baby to an infertile couple from Napersville just to pay your back rent, but you do some really powerful paintings. Not only is this ludicrous on its face, but it's made especially so considering Rich's admitted upbringing in the upper-middle class, attendance at prestigious universities, and current residence in a posh San Francisco neighborhood. She has made quite a living on fashionable compassion for a class with which she's had precious little contact.

T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and a host of miserable but financially-comfortable artists dating from the time of the Italian Rennaissance would definitely disagree with her theories, as would I. Having grown up in close contact with plenty of trailer parks and inner-city ghettos, I can guarantee that most the poor--like most the rest of America--are perfectly happy with their singing fish plaques and Jerry Springer Too Hot for TV videos. Many middle- to upper-class white Americans who feel guilty about their own privilege have proposed that disenfranchisement leads to better art. They haven't been right either.

I would put forth that this rhetoric is, in fact, dangerous to the underappreciated sects Rich claims to represent. Works like that 96 Best, which sacrifice artistry and craft to present a political agenda undermine the very cause it purports to promote. If the poor, gays and lesbians, prison inmates, people of marginalized race groups, and the like are represented by bad work, the established hegemony will have every excuse to exclude them from the canon, based on quality and importance in the history of literature.

Rich's prose occasionally breaks into moments of genuine music, but for the most part it's painfully self-aggrandizing, and at times even offensively so. Arts of the Possible feels like nothing so much as a last-ditch effort by a woman who fears she'll be remembered as a radical instead of a writer, or worse, forgotten entirely.

Those of us who take both our politics and our art seriously can only hope that last will indeed come to pass, and that our work will be considered fairly, out of the ugly shadow writers like Rich now cast on anyone whose muse has a political bent.

Please ignore the review above. It's author seems to have missed thepoint entirely. This book is essential reading, as all of Rich's books are. One of our greatest writers.

Paul De Man spent his early years in Europe as a confirmed Anti-Semitic fascist. When the Nazis invaded his homeland, he actively collaborated in creating and disseminating virulent polemics against Jews. After the war De Man fled to America. He was hired to teach at Yale (great background check, guys) while desperately attempting to conceal his wartime activities. De Man became famous at Yale for founding the School of Deconstructionism, an intellectually disreputable philosophy which claimed that works of art may be freely interpreted by observers without consideration for the creator's intentions. In other words, Hitler's "Mein Kampf" might have one meaning to a Bantu and another meaning to a Swede without concern for Hitler's intentions. This type of moral equivocation appealed to members of the politically correct sect, which faithfully regurgitated De Man's shallow assertions. Early in his Yale career De Man's European escapades became known to the senior staff and faculty at Yale. When confronted by his accusers, De Man lied. Yale never publicized De Man's record of violent bigotry (great moral courage, guys), allowing De Man to proselytize his message of moral relativism for decades without public recognition of the Great Scholar's character or moral fitness.

In the person of Paul De Man the politically correct are forced to confront the true nature of their inhuman philosophy. Thomas Jefferson preached freedom and liberalism while owning slaves, in direct contradiction of his philosophy, becoming a hypocrite. De Man preached genocide against helpless minorities, lied after the fact, and never apologized for his actions. In doing so he conformed perfectly to the moral relativism of political correctness. Deconstructionism became the intellectual shield behind which hides the totalitarian urge.

Although Derrida utilizes the death of a friend to illustrate reflections on other thinkers, the text primarily illustrates the double bind we find ourselves in when those close to us die, as illustrated in Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia" as well as in Holderin. We find ourselves making an impossible decision. We may repair our memories inward like a "tomb", a "bad object" incorporation resulting in an inward flow of libidinal cathexes, leading to a dead, incorporated otherness and a narcissistic and deadened state, or retrieve our libidinal investitures from our deceased friend, resulting in a sense of betrayal. A timeless human dilemna illustrated beautifully here. I suppose a third choice is a healthy dose of therapy. Maybe M. Derrida should have called on his buddy M. Lacan when he had the chance, like M. Althusser? At any rate, I can't comment on De Man's political activities prior to his Yale appointment because I don't know. I suppose I'm just an irresponsible intellectual. Nonetheless, "Memoires" is worthwhile for those initiated in continental thought and some of the nuances of presentation.

I'm never sure how to respond to experimental found text books. They are interesting as an exercise - especially to observe one's response to texts out of their context. However, rarely do they work as literature in their own right - at least in the sense of being of interest in 500 years. When they work, I still consider them emphemeral.

99: The New Meaning is not an exception. The provision of the number of words in each extract appears to add no value other than insuring the reader correctly identify when the extracted text begins. In this particular case, I found myself uncomfortable with the European-centric text; in some manner, it caused me to read the text as an "inside literati" text.

In short, the text is worth reading as experimental text but not particularly a original experiment.

It took me eight years to find the sequel to "A Time to Choose" and the final installment of the whole "Famille Moreau" series. As well, "A Time To Choose" is one of my all-time favorite books, one I reread each and every year. So, in all probablility, my expectations were far too high for this book. It may have been Mary Feeney's translation, but ultimately, the faults lie with Ms. Boissard herself.

Cecile Moreau, the youngest of the four Moreau daughters, has just turned eighteen. When last we saw her she was a preteen child, known by all as "The Pest". Though prone to making annoying comments, she was quite an interesting character in the previous books. So it was a real surprise when this incarnation of Cecile turned out to be so...ordinary. In the first part of the novel, she spends all her time following around this loser named Tanguay. It's obvious to the reader that he--a lazy actor-type--is no good for Cecile. But for someone known for her spunk, she is sorely lacking it at this point.

Even later, when she finally meets a man who respects her, the chemistry is lacking and there is no real reason for them to get together. He seems rather superfluous.

However, most shocking to me was Ms. Boissard's treatment of Cecile's older sister Pauline, heretofore the protagonist of the entire series. Now, she is married to Paul, but things disintegrate so rapidly and so unbelievably it is like "A Time to Choose" had never happened. Were these the characters I had cared about so much in the previous book? I didn't think so. I couldn't believe that Ms. Boissard could have forgotten that Pauline and Paul had weathered all of their problems and flaws together; to suddenly dismiss the progress was a real blow.

Ultimately, this series ends on a slightly sour note.

Pediatric Dentists are battling for early visits to prevent and detect problems with early childhood caries. The rugrats have not yet received this message. The book suggests that the time for the first visit is once all primary teeth are erupted. That would mean ca. 3 years of age which seems to match with Angelica and Susie's age. The "little kids" have some erupted teeth (Chuckie and the twins), but they are told that they are too young to see the dentist - The chance to include anticipatory guidance and discuss baby bottle caries is clearly missed. Why does a dentist have to be bald and look this serious? At least x-rays are taken and some prevention is discussed.

Has the beautiful illustrations of the other Noni books - but her examples of things that taste bad are: VEGETABLES and MEDICINE. NOT what you want to share with a small child...