This is a difficult book to describe. The author is writing about the life of a woman she knew who is destroyed by life under the communist regime in East Germany. It speaks to the reader about the dangers of totalitarianism, the freedom and beauty of the human spirit, and about relationships. The relationship between the author and the title character is in itself interesting. She is trying to keep the memory of Christa alive, and yet the author seems to say at times that she doesn't know if she even really knew Christa. As usual, this novel has alot of Wolf's brilliant examinations of the nature of memory -- memory is a recurring theme in all her novels. Wolf's gifts for language, imagery, and insight are stunning. The translation is well done. This is one of the best books I've ever read. I highly reccommend it.

Christa T. is the story of a woman growing up in post-war East-Germany - under Communist rule. She is not openly hostile to the regime, but she is a woman who does not fit in, a dreamer and a romantic. Her life is not outwardly dramatic: She reads literature at university, works as a teacher, marries a vet and lives far away from the big city, but this intensely private life was in itself an act of rebellion in a country which wanted fervent supporters of Communist doctrine, and which expected writers to celebrate tough workmen. Christa T. is also the story of a woman trying to find the words to write about another woman's life, and this is "The Quest for Christa T." - Christa Wolf ranks among the best authors now writing in German, and the quiet tragedy of Christa T. is one of her most moving books.

Christa Wolf brilliantly succeeds in creating a new literary space, one that surfaces during the interplay and transition between subjectivity and objectivity. Through the course of her novel she writes somewhere between the "I" and the "you"; in this shifting, elliptical state we begin to understand that the self is neither wholly interior nor exterior, and that the quest for self-knowledge can be as lyrical, as immediate, and as maddeningly unreachable as her prose. An incredible book

Solid translations and, like all the volumes in Princeton's 12-volume Goethe series, the book is attractive with great typography. Much easier on the eyes than the Penguin editions.

This volume is a very accessible way to read Goethe for the first time, as well as revealing a new layer of depth for those who are more familiar with his essays and scientific studies.

Although his novel "Jakob von Gunten" is a masterpiece, the maniacal genius of Walser is more easily discovered in his short fiction. If Kafka's vision is maddening and claustrophobic, Walser, who deals with a similar kind of surrealistic world, applies a lighter, more deftly playful touch. Sometimes, the puns and literary license Walser take can be willful and test a reader's patience, but the sheer force of his philosophy and world view contained in these miniaturist stories are awe-inspiring, and are on par with the delirious vision of Kafka. Walser is a kind of a writer who can turn from anger to unbearable tenderness within a sentence. Many of these stories will move you and frustrate you at the same time, but all the risks he takes are still, and I suspect always will be, thrillingly modern and relevant. I only wish his excellent reworkings of fairy tales (I'm thinking especially of 'Snow White') could have been included in this volume. Walser has been neglected for far too long, and the longer his work languishes in obscurity, the world is that much more at a loss.

A divine parable. A German married couple on the verge of breaking up smell a stinking corpse on a drive through Italy. When their rental car breaks down in a seedy, decrepit Sicilian town, they are forced to participate in a banal tourist spectacle at a nearby water tower--and find themselves witnesses to an act of barbarity. Hofmann conjures a gothic atmosphere out of petty and mundane incidents. The novel works both as an all-too-believable tale of a horrid holiday, and on a deeper level, as a damning parable of third-world exploitation by slumming first-world tourists

This is a collection of some great sad stories. They're not for everyone, however. I've noticed I have to be in the right mood to read them; otherwise I might reread a story I really liked and not understand the point in it at all. They're mostly stories about alienated characters, like the stork who is in love with the hedgehog and pines away like a hunger artist, while the hedgehog, lowly as it feels itself to be, refuses to feel anything but contempt. Or the man with the pumpkin head who wanted to be number one, and ends up with a broken heart and a burned out candle stump in his head. I'm not doing justice to these stories in this review, and unfortunately I don't have a copy with me right now to make myself clearer. The situations in the stories are absurd, and they're told with such strong, clear emotion and sympathy for the characters! You find yourself understanding and sympathizing with the characters, and for the writer who found such a unique way to express himself. The best of these stories are heartbreaking and you will relate perfectly to them, assuming you're in that lonely and nihilistic mood. (Kafka was supposedly heavily influenced by the writings of Walser.)

But since one word in disallowed, let Midleton's words speak for themselves. Based on my reading, there is little Middleton doesn't know or know about. The book is a compendium of knowledge and lore, the whole delivered with a masterful feel for form and, I judge, a profound love for life. This book would make, among other things, a marvellous textbook for just about any course in subjects ranging from etymology to ornithology.

I'm not a big poetry buff but Qabbani just grabbed me. He's an amazing poet who spills his heart throughout this book.

So powerful, so sensual, so incredible. His poetry is earth shaking and primal.

Don't let the fact that his words have been translated from their original Arabic dissuade you from believing that somehow the work isn't as honest as it should be. Qabbani's work is so powerful it hardly matter shwat language it is in. In short, easily read dollops of wit measured out with a voice of quiet urging, he has given us work that transcends time and politics, while being above-it-all.

"If you know a man
who loves you more than I
guide me to him
so I may first congratulate
hom on his constancy
and later, kill him."

If poetry ever had a Luther Vandross, it was Pablo Neruda. If it ever had a Barry White, it was Qabbani.

In 1910, Franz Kafka began writing his journals. This was one year after the publication in Germany of Robert Walser's eccentric little novel, "Jakob von Gunten". The fact is worth noting because Kafka had read Walser and liked his writing, writing which can be characterized as "Kafkaesque" even though it preceded the publication of Kafka's work by several years. The resemblances between Walser and Kafka-- in sensibility, in prose style, in eccentricity of thought and syntax--are remarkable.

"Jakob von Gunten" is the first person journal of a student at the Benjamenta Institute, a school for butlers in an unidentified city. In young Jakob's words, "one learns very little here, there is a shortage of teachers, and none of us boys of the Benjamenta Institute will come to anything, that is we shall all be something very small and subordinate later in life."

The Institute is run by Herr Benjamenta and all classes are taught by his sister, Fraulein Lisa Benajamenta. There are no other teachers, all of the others being either "asleep, or they are dead, or seemingly dead, or they are fossilized." It is a narrowly circumscribed world full of students who are enchanted with the most mundane and trivial matters. But it is also a mysterious world, a world alienated from reality, a dreamlike projection of Jakob's mind expressed in the concrete language of the real. "The Benjamentas are secluded in the inner chambers and in the classroom there's an emptiness, an emptiness that almost sickens one."

Humorous and absurd, disturbing and, at times, childlike in its simplicity, "Jakob von Gunten" is the work of an undeservedly obscure master of modern prose. Thus, Christopher Middleton, the translator, in his fascinating and useful introduction, describes Walser as "in significant ways untutored, something of a primitive." More precisely, Middleton notes that Walser's prose "can display the essential luminous naivete of an artist who creates as if self-reflection were not a barred door but a bridge of light to the real." It is, in other words, prose which seeks to rewrite the "real" in the distorted image of the narrator's mind, making simple descriptions of mundane experience absurd. It is Kafkaesque writing before the advent of Kafka, a diminutive precursor of the Master of Prague.

Any true lover of literature will love Walser. The only complaint that can possibly be made is the poor paper quality of this edition of this book. The publisher should re-print.

Jacob is a young man attending a bizarre school to train servants (butlers) for upper class families. We are never certain if it is the school that is so odd or Jacob. He decides the other teachers "either do not exist, of they are still asleep, or they seem to have forgotten their profession" for the teaching responsibilities are taken solely by Herr Benjamenta or his dying sister Fraulein Benamenta.

This slim novel is Jacob's soliloquy to us. He is charming, buoyant, perhaps mad, and never intimidated. He reflects upon himself, his fellow students, his family and the Benjamentas with interest, sympathy, and occasional sadness.

Even when Jacob is frightened (rarely), he is intrigued and fascinated at what is happening to and around him, as when he incurs the ire of Herr Benjamenta:

"I'm writing this in a hurry. I'm trembling all over. There are lights dancing and flickering before my eyes. Something terrible has happened, seems to have happened, I hardly know what it was. Herr Benjamenta has had a fit and tried to-strangle me. Is this true? I can't think straight; I can't say what happened is true. But I'm so upset it must be true-"

I ended this novel very fond of Jacob. I know I will find him unforgettable. I believe the translation must be very good as the prose is fluid with Jacob's idiosyncrasies of speech intact. Highly recommended.

If you want to gain insight into Nietzsche's thinking outside of his usual philosophical writings, or follow his chain of thought throughtout his life, this collection of letters is somewhat helpful, but he does not seem to engage in the manner in which he does in his formal philosophical works. One of the features I found surprising in his letters is the courtesy he showed to his recipients. It is evident that Nietzsche treasured the friendships he had, and this is very apparent in his letters. And interestingly, I did not find any hostility in any of the letters addressed to Richard Wagner, considering the history of their relationship.

The book is well-edited, and there is an index of recipients near the end of the book. The editor also includes a general index with subentries that allow the reader to scan an entire topic. This is a helpful aid for amateur readers of Nietzsche, such as myself, but could also be helpful I think to dedicated scholors of Nietzsche.

I was only disappointed that more letters did not address more of Nietzsche's thinking on Dionysus and Apollo. It would have been interesting to read what he had to say about them via the "freestyle" of letter writing. Nietzsche's philosophical writings are actually the most frank and unrestrained of all in nineteenth-century philosophy. He is very honest with himself, and because of this he might be viewed as somewhat narcisstic by some readers. This may be true to some degree, but Nietzsche is refreshing in his style of writing, and actually it is quite entertaining to randomly move through his books and read his maxims and opinions.

The most interesting letter is the one addressed to Carl von Gersdorff on April 6, 1867. He is writing about what he has called "the scholarly forms of disease", and tells of a story about a talented young man who enters the university to obtain a doctorate. He puts together a thesis he has been working on for years, submits it to the philosophical faculty. One rejects the work on the grounds that it advances views that are not taught there. The other states that the work is contrary to common sense and is paradoxical. His thesis is therefore rejected, and he does not therefore earn his doctorate. Nietzsche describes the "not humble enough to hear the voice of wisdom" in their negative judgment of his results. Further, the young man is "reckless enough", in Nietzsche's view, to believe that the faculty "lacks the faculty for philosophy. Nietzsche uses this story to emphasize the virtue of independence: "one cannot go one's own way independently enough. Truth seldom dwells where people have built temples for it and have ordained priests. We ourselves have to suffer for good or foolish things we do, nor those who give us the good or the foolish advice. Let us at least be allowed the pleasure of committing follies on our own initiative. There is no general recipe for how one man is to be helped. One must be one's own physician but at the same gather the medical experience at one's own cost. We really think too little about our own well-being; our egoism is not clever enough, our intellect not egoistic enough."

He's right.

This book is real fun to have, and shows a side of Nietzsche that is hard to come across in his formal works and the countless biographies. You can read first-hand the conflicts with his sister's anti-semitic husband, read his own giddyness about finishing a new book, and follow his decline into a state of insanity (during which he wrote the strangest letters of all). His wierd sense of humor is much more visible in his letters, which helps one to recognize when he is humoring himself at the expense of the suprised reader in his other works.

"Dear Professor: Actually I would much rather be a basel professor than God; but I have not yet ventured to cary my private egoism so far as to omit creating the world on his account. You see, one must make sacrifices, however and wherever one may be living..." (Jan. 6 1889, To Jacob Burkhart, from Turin).

Also, the index in the back of this book is very thorough, making it easy to find any person or concept that he deals with.

Note: If you are looking for other writers that write as intangible and beautiful as Nietzsche's works but less harsh on the world, try reading some Emmanuel Levinas, a briliant French Jewish Philospher who died in 1995, (Good book: Dificult Freedom)

There is a great deal of fascinating, and very useful information here, and if the writing style is a bit didactic, it's hardly soporific. Still, it would seem to me that an "encyclopedia" should be organized in some way (preferably alphabetically) that is comprehensible to the layman. Granted, there's a fairly good index that allows one to find the entry that one is looking for, but the book as a whole is apparently organized by order and suborder, which makes it impossible for the layman to pick up the book and find a given entry in a reasonable amount of time. This strikes me as a fairly serious flaw. For example, we start with ostriches, rheas, emus and cassowaries, progress through kiwis and tinamous, progress to penguins, loons, and grebes; hummingbirds are roughly halfway through the book, and we finish with crows. Jays have no entry of their own, but are lumped with crows, as sparrows are lumped with buntings, tanagers, waxbirds and weavers. It's very difficult to find the method to this madness.

Granted, three stars is a bit low for this book, but four would have been too high.

If you need a reference book on birds that has a lot of information, and are willing to spend the time sorting through the incomprehensible organization to find that information, this is an excellent choice, but if you want a quick "field guide" that not only gives good information but that is easy to use, this would be a bad choice.

The problem with birding books is that they mostly just tell you what a given bird looks like. If your curiosity about feathered creatures goes beyond just appearances here is the book for you. It's a big, 450-page book that is packed with information. This is not just a big picture book, though it is full of beautiful color shots. It's mainly a reference book that describes, by species, birds' lives in detail, covering such topics as mating, nesting, communication, feeding, and socialization. There are many fascinating sidebars, such as the one describing why owls have such broad heads, and the one on the Hoatzin chick's claws on its wings that enable it to climb around trees while still an infant. There is excellent material on how various birds have developed features that have enabled them to adapt to their environment - probably the best know example being the beaks of finches.

And, best of all, this encyclopedia is interestingly written. It's informative, but not drearily academic. It's one of those books that you can just open up to any page and find yourself reading something truly fascinating about birds. Highly recommended.

I love ALL the books that make up the "Facts On File" series, and this book is no exception. It's filled with lush, detailed, extraordinary illustrations, photographs, and plenty of facts about bird anatomy, physiology, and evolution.

It's not as detailed as a professional ornithologist's reference work. Also, it's not as handy to take outside as a Roger Tory Peterson field guide. Still, it's the BEST single reference book a bird watcher will EVER need!

Buy it!