This is another in the long line of hornbooks from West publishing. It is an excellent source to supplement and even embellish the law of Civil Procedure contained in whichever casebook you are using. Since most Civil Procedure courses are a year long, I would strongly recommend investing in this hornbook, it is very handy to have when outlining and preparing for finals.

The "book description" above belongs to a different book: this hornbook is not part of the "Black Letter Series," its author is not Professor Clermont, and it doesn't come with a handy computer disk.

It is, however, an extremely helpful hornbook to have and use during your first-year course on Civil Procedure. If you're a One-L, buy this early and use it often; it'll go with pretty much whatever casebook you happen to be using (mine was Yeazell). It's extremely well-designed and its discussions are clear and sound.

If you're looking around in order to decide whether you need a hornbook at all, the answer is: yes, you probably do. There may be students who can squeeze a profitable education out of the "casebook" approach, but I'm not one of them and you probably aren't either.

During your first semester, it will be tempting to spend a lot of time briefing cases. Don't let me talk you out of doing so, or you'll be really mad at me the first time you get called on unprepared. But you'll probably be better off spending a little less time briefing and a little more time reading this hornbook first.

This is the most helpful study aid available for Civil Procedure! The text is very easy to understand and it is orgainized to follow the progression of the law school course. The authors do an excellent job of explaining the development of personal jurisdiction and subject matter jurisdiction to the present day. It also does a fine job of explaining the federal rules (and includes an index of each FRCP and where it is cited).

Feel the tension build in this play (a short one, some seventy pages) as you wait to learn the fate of several detainees suspected of being Jewish detainees rounded up in occupied France. Courage and cowardice are the high and low roads chosen by the protagonists. These men are in a waiting room while, one by one, they are taken into the main office and interviewed by the Nazis as to their race. Life becomes cheaper and cheaper as the story builds. Will they sell each other out? Read it and find out. Read about and never forget certain of the characters.

Arthur Miller has captivated theater-goers for decades and his legacy will never grow short. One of his lesser known works, Incident at Vichy is perhaps the most chilling of his pieces. The play itself is entertaining enough to captivate audiences for about an hour (I know, I am directing it now). Its rhetorical power is absolutely amazing; its depth of coverage is inspiring. Most importantly, it begs viewers to think. That is, perhaps, its best trait. The energy of the performance coupled with the power of the dialogue makes Incident at Vichy a genuine treat.

I have never been more inspired by the dialogue in any book I've ever read. I know that everyone fusses about Miller's THE CRUCIBLE and DEATH OF A SALESMAN, but INCIDENT AT VICHY is definitely the best of the three. It is one of those books that makes you really think about what the author is saying. I have an entire list of breathtaking quotes especially from this book. I had to read it in AP English, 12th grade, and was blown away.

The Ride Down Mt. Morgan is an engaging play, one that provides the reader (or viewer) with as much food for thought, as amusement. Is it a masterpiece? No. Not by any stretch. Death of a Salesman is a masterpiece.

Lyman Felt is certainly a colorful character from whom we can learn much, not just about bigamists, but also about ourselves. He is not, however, a Willy Loman, a character so strongly defined that he's entrenched in the American (if not the world's) psyche. Felt effectively represents and helps us to understand (if not forgive) a specific type of man; Loman effectively represents the sometimes overwhelming frustrations any of us endures in pursuit of the elusive American dream.

Miller does succeed in The Ride Down Mt. Morgan by prompting us to consider what might motivate a man who constructs an elaborate network of lies in an attempt to keep two wives. In his own mind, Felt is justifiably keeping both women happy and (again, in his own mind) he loves them both so much, he couldn't stand to let either one go. For some time, he is quite successful in living these two lives.

After surviving an accident (or was it an accident?), however, both women arrive at the hospital to take care of him. Now that the deception is uncovered, the real damage unfurls; both wives know they can't trust him; both feel they were never truly loved; both are forced to make swift decisions, none of which are surprising or irrational given the circumstances. Although Felt is charming enough to win our affection, we still come away believing he pretty much gets what he deserves. I might be wrong. Maybe Felt does represent us all. Sure, few of us are bigamists; but maybe Felt really represents the very damaging, but human desire we all have to have your cake and eat it, too.

This is essentially the material of Kazan's The Arrangement arranged to formulate a conception of theater derived from After The Fall, and it shows the fruits of having written that monumental play. It takes two thirds of the play's length to get its mechanism functioning, and when it does it's a poetic surrealism of great flexibility and subtlety, capable of shifting planes of thought instantaneously, and provided with a set of cinematic flashbacks and evocations which happen in full view of the mind's eye of characters onstage, in a story of Christ between two thieves.

In Arthur Miller's splendid play, the main character Lyman Felt concludes that if you try to live according to your real desires, you have to end up looking like a s---. That's his explanation for never divorcing his first wife before marrying another. It's when his car crashes traveling down a snow covered Mt. Morgan that his double life is exposed. His two wives meet and the issues of fidelity, true love, deception and honesty are explored. Can a person remain true to himself and still always true to another? Arthur Miller poses wonderful food for thought in this witty, poignant masterpiece.

Capek was a genius and an all-around literateur, succeeding with fairytales, novels, plays, and sketches. He could even draw. (and he liked cats, which endears him to me).

A Czech friend first got me interested in Capek, and made me read WAR OF THE NEWTS, one of his novels, which I adored. WAR OF THE NEWTS is part of this series.

This reader is certainly a good addition to any library, particularly for anyone interested in Capek's work or Czech writing in the Golden Age (the first Republic, before Chamberlain's bargain with Hitler carved up the new state of Czechoslovakia).

However, the translations here do not do Capek justice. While e the translation of the play R.U.R. (a play which introduced the word "robot" to the English language, and which was once more heavily anthologized and taught in America than O'Neill)does include scenes that were cut from the Broadway productions of 1921 and 1945, scenes never before available in Englishl, the translator also takes idiomatic Czech and makes it oddly formal, stilted. "To staci" for example is translated as "That will suffice," which is literally the meaning, but doesn't capture the informality of the phrase. "That's enough" would have been more speakable. If you're a director, use this text only for research but don't give it to your actors-- it will bore an audience, and lacks Capek's humor and zest. And some of the translation, according to native speakers, is simply inaccurate (a word that can mean "scissors" in context was translated as "provisions.") Just as poetry should really only be translated by a poet, plays should really only be translated by playwrights (working with native speakers if necessary). Too much is lost.

Still, the book does put in English, however flawed, much that had been long out of print, and all of it is worth reading.

This book is a compillation of some of the greatest works by the brilliant Czech writer Karel Capek. Here there are some of his best-known plays and a selection of tales which can be found entirely and unabridged in "Crossroads" and "Tales from Two Pockets". The plays included are "RUR" (Rossum's Universal Robots), "The Makropulos Secret", Act II of "The Insect Play" and "The Mother".
"RUR" is a comical though moving to thought play about the limits of technology from a social and moral point of view, and how men playing God can lead humankind to a complete disaster. However, the play has a happy and very funny end.
"The Makropulos Secret" is a sort of Faustian comedy which leads to discussion upon immortality and the final conclusion that it's better to remain mortals because nobody could bear immortality's boredom.
"The Insect Play" (better read it complete) depicts the insects' world as a microcosmos which reproduces human behaviour, greed, powerlust, war, shallowness, every human vice incarnated in insects.
"The Mother" is related to Capek's increasing worry about war and the rising of totalitarianism.

One of the best qualities about Capek, apart from his obvious wit, is that he never moralizes, he takes things from the side of the "ridicule" rather than from a sort of preacher's view. His works are very funny, but no less deep. His sense of humour never conceals the depth of his thought, and humour thus makes things even more serious.

Outside his native Czechoslovakia the author Karel Capek (to be pronounced as: Chah-pek) is not as well known as he would merit. In fact, he is one of the 20th century's greatest authors, with a masterful talent for sharp observation and profound reflexion. This collection - 'Towards the radical center' - contains, inter alia, his two most famous theater plays:
1. 'Rossums Universal Robots', which was written in 1920, introduced the word 'Robot' (Czech for the forced labour of serfs) into practically all modern languages, in the sense of an automaton that without protest performs all the chores humans themselves are loath to do themselves. In his play Capek underlines that the process of creating a class of intelligent servile automatons inevitably leads to cruelty. In the end the robots revolt against human oppression.
2. 'The Makropoulos Affair'. A central theme in this theater play is that of a youth elixir that provides eternal life. It turns out that, in the very long run, this is more a curse than a blessing.

Apart from these two famous plays, the selection contains a number of essays and short stories which, without exception, are very whitty and profound. Every cat lover should read his brilliant one page essay 'From the point of view of a cat'.

In 1936, appalled by the threat of expanding Nazism, Capek elaborated the main theme of 'Rossums Universal Robots' in an even grander way in his novel 'War with the Newts'. This novel - which is not included within this selection but separately available on Amazon - is an anti-utopian ('dystopian') novel at least as unsettling as Orwell's '1984" or Huxley's 'Brave New World'.
Not having read Capek means missing a vital part of 20th century world literature.
Capek died soon after the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938.

You could call the play a critic on capitalist system but it is also simply the story about a man with a fatal error that leads to his downfall. Arthur Miller presents a complex and difficult character: Willy Loman. Willys mind and inner life are presented dramatically by the use of flashbacks and inner monologs.It is an interesting trip through psychology for the audience,to find out why Willy escapes into the past. Miller perfectly creates the illusion of the past and makes the audience experience a fusion of past an present by verbal and non-verbal theatrical technique.The audience can reach a deeper rational and emotional understanding of Willys situation during the play. The requiem interrupts this identification to make the audience have an objective view on Willys fate. Miller makes the audience realize the psychological development to make them critisize and think actively about it: Could Willy Lomans downfall have been avoided or not? By analysing Willys character his fatal error gets clear.Willy makes his own bad situation worse,e.g.by refusing his friends offer of a job. There for the play gives an advice to the audience:Think objectively about your behaviour and spot errors,like you spot Willys fatal error.

When you get down to it, really, the only reasons for buying one version of a play are 1) price, 2) readability (i.e., the font, size of print, etc.), and 3) accompanying analysis/essays. As for myself, the third reason is the most important. This version is the best I've seen for accompanying analysis. It has a number of essays and an interview by Arthur Miller himself and reviews of the play by others. The works written by Miler were of the most interest to me, but there is plenty here. Admittedly, if price is most important to you, there are cheaper versions out there, but you won't get what this version offers. To me, though, this version is worth the money.

And do I need to mention this is a damn good play? But, as I said, you'll get the same play regardless of which version you pick up (at least, I would hope...).

DRAMA

Real vs. Virtual American Dream

By Kevin Biederer

Arthur Miller's 1949 drama basically revolves around the American dream of a father who makes many mental errors that lead to his downfall.
The inner life of the father, Willy, is presented by the use of monologs in his head. He is a washed up salesman that does not realize it, and tries to rub off his overwhelming cockiness on his two sons.
Biff, one of his sons, transforms from a cocky, young football player into a doubtful, young man. Biff understands the reality of life through the falseness of the American dream, which ultimately, destroys his father who is living a virtual American dream. If Biff had listened to his father his whole life, he would still just be a cocky, young football player. Instead Biff realizes what a, 'ridiculous lie [his] life has been!' (104). He

Death of a Salesman
By Arthur Miller
139 pages

realizes he does not want to follow in his father's footsteps and become a washed up salesman. Biff just wants to live a normal life where Willy is not pressuring him about everything. Willy is one of those fathers who think their child is the greatest at everything no matter what. That is good in some cases, but not when Willy sets unrealistic goals for his child.
This drama portrays how many parents treat their children. Most parents try to push their children, but some go over the line, as seen in this drama. But what Willy has truly failed in is his family life and his married life. That is the corruption of the true American dream.
This drama deserves five stars because it always keeps you on your feet just waiting to see what will happen next. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times says, 'this is one of the finest dramas in the whole range of the American theater.'
The theme of this drama is seen in the mental approaches Willy has in his life. You have to think about what you say to certain individuals and spot errors. Could Willy Loman's downfall have been avoided or not?
This drama has a tragic but far-fetched ending that puts a twist on the entire novel. Willy does something drastic, which he thinks is best for his children. We will leave that for you to decide if this decision was the best one he could have made.

I was so excited when I heard a book of The Misfits was coming out, my favorite movie with my favorite stars. They layout is beautiful and the pictures are great. I only gave the book 3 stars because it didn't tell me anything 'new' about The Misfits. Just another book with the same things that have been written over and over agin. But for any die hard Marilyn, Monty, Gable, Huston, or Miller fans worth reading.

the way marilyn looks during this film and in this book is the way I want to remember her....I can't get her long, straight flowing hair, girl-next-door face, ski-slope nose, and fragile, vulnerable eyes out of my mind...it's not the comedian, dancer, colorized made up look she so often portrays that's everlasting; what is permanent and pertinent to this film is the haunted vision of such a beauty contrasted against untamed emotions and the naked wilderness.

A thoughtful, long-time, and loving friend just gave me this book as a birthday gift.

When I was almost six years old, my family was visiting Virginia City, Nevada. My mother overheard about the filming of "The Misfits" rodeo scenes in Dayton, Nevada, so we drove down for the afternoon, and re-visited Dayton on subsequent shooting days.

During the filming, we were sitting in the rodeo arena bleachers, close to where 'Roslyn' (Marilyn Monroe) runs down after 'Perce' (Montgomery Clift) is thrown from the bull. My mother still does a creditable imitation of Roslyn's cry of "Oh, Perce! Perce!" for our amusement.

This book brought back many special memories of those experiences. I feel as if I'm a part of this book, since they had such an impact on those early years of my life.

All in all, this is one of the best gifts I've ever received. Any film buff would also appreciate this book, to own, share, or to give--it's a gem.

Arthur Miller's Focus is never dull it has suspense, humor, and violence. His story of Lawrence, the main charactor afraid of the world, gives the reader an insight into the nature of prejudice. He writes about the beliefs middle-class white Americans have about Jews in 1945. His poignant way of explaining Lawrence to the reader gives us a forum to better understand our own feelings. This book is a definite read for anyone that wants to become more socially aware.

It amazes me how this short novel isn't mandatory reading for high school or college courses! Arthur Miller touches on so many themes and in turn touched my heart at the same time. After reading the back cover of the book, I was anticipating a shallow and predictable anti-semitism novel. I mean, how can one man's glasses a book make, right? Wrong...

Anyone who has ever felt alienated for any reason can empathize with Lawrence Newman, the Christian protagonist, who attempts to no end to conform to his antisemitic neighbors' absurd standards, but to no avail. His boss orders him to purchase glasses due to his myopia(irony indeed) and then his perfect world turns upside down as he himself is branded as "looking Jewish" by his neighbors, his boss, and even his mother. He is poked, prodded and pushed to the brink.

William H. Macy is perfect for the role of Newman. I enjoyed the movie as well, albeit the book should be read prior to viewing the movie in order to fully appreciate Miller's descriptive use of the English language and his prodigious character development.

The WASPish main character, Lawrence Newman, learns about bigotry first hand when, after getting fitted with eyeglasses, he is suddenly perceived as "looking Jewish" by his neighbors and business colleagues. His life becomes a nightmare as he first tries to disassociate himself from Jews and gradually begins to identify with them.

Newman himself is a bigot, although he's very gentlemanly about it. He just does not question the origin, fairness, or rationale behind the warped thinking that underlies his own assumptions. He is sleepwalking through life, trying to avoid any surprises or danger, when he is thrust into a disorderly, ugly world that was there all along, but which he had steadfastly refused to see. Newman's life is utterly banal, with a vague dreamlike quality that gradually becomes a nightmare.

With a masterful combination of description and dialogue, the author takes the reader on a grimly fascinating and disturbing journey through the side of human nature that lurks just under the surface of civilization.

After having read 'Timebends,' I can only say that I am grateful that Miller decided on drama rather than the novel as a form of expression. While this autobiography does give us glimpses into a very interesting life, the author, without warning, often abandons his discussion and jumps into some other person he has bumped into along the way. Meanwhile, his family, his wives and children remain shadowy figures at best. At any given point in the book it is anyone's guess to whom Miller is married. I would gladly have exchanged much of the anecdotal material, some of which seems to drag on endlessley, for the more important influences in his life, specifically the women. Only Marilyn Monroe gets the thorough treatment, although I suspect strongly that the mother and the wives were more than simply 'props' in this colorful career. Only toward the end does the mother appear more sharply defined but, sadly, it is at the moment of her passing. I found a great deal of trivial detail which I would have exchanged gladly for insights about the impact of having a family and familial responsibilities while trying to be a writer. The treatment of his marriage to Monroe and his insights into her personality are very worthwhile, as are the discussions of his plays, particularly "Salesman." However, the reader could easily have been spared much of the tedious detail that dominates much of this great tome.

In an interview conducted before he wrote this book, Miller said, "I think memoirs, autobiography...can help to translate chaos into something that is a useable past. Give an image where there was only a blur." He suggests the kind of autobiography he would be interested in writing would be more about the time he was living rather than his life, so a reader would "come away from it somehow a little heavier than he went into it." In all of this, TIMEBENDS succeeds wonderfully. I learned a great deal more about the textures, realities and signficance of the 1930s, 40s and 50s through his observations and images than through any linear professional histories. A bonus for those who enjoy seeing and reading Miller's plays is his deliberate selection of significant events and people in his life that show up in the plays in one way or another. And he does have great stories and observations about famous people--Olivier, Clark Gable, etc.-- that are the more conventional pleasures of show biz autobios. Even if he wasn't among the most important American dramatists of our time--perhaps the most important--this book would be a significant literary accomplishment. Miller is a careful writer, so readers perhaps unused to tact and understatement in memoirs are advised to look beyond their expectations to what he actually says. Yet his chapters on Marilyn Monroe were vivid and gave me more of an impression of her as a person than anything else I've read. Miller's voice brings all of this varied material together, and so the reader might approach this book as if listening to a great storyteller. This is a book full of heart, humor, wisdom and perspectives not found elsewhere. It is a treasure and a gift.

This autobiography, written by Miller at age 72, strikes the reader immediately with his wonderful writing style. He does not march year by year through his life but bobs and weaves subtly bending time with his abundant dramatic talent. It is a pleasure to read. But so much in his life! It does go on and on. It is a book for leisure, not speed, reading. He brings to live the Depression Age, insight into our real life in World War II, the ugliness of the House un-American Activities Committee and McCarthyism (he was convicted of contempt for Congress for refusal to name names though the conviction was later overturned upon appeal), and of course he writes on his successes of his plays All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, the Crucible and of many others as well as his failures. All this with Marilyn Monroe yet to come! He seems continually embroiled in injustice and wrenching emotional turmoil. With his third wife, in his 40s, he gets his emotional life together but still pursues freedom for writers as a president of PEN. Miller, now 85, still writes and has recently published 60 years of collected essays entitled as Echoes Down the Corridor. Some of the material covers the events covered in TimeBends, but TimeBends is much more interesting.

It is a wonderful play which expertly portrays events which could have happened in old Salem. The ending is particuarly great!

I have finished reading the Crucible - it is simply great. The text is wonderful, full of ironies and dramatic scenes - for example, the scene where Elizabeth lies for the first time in her life to save Proctor's reputation, only to realise that her good intentions have unwittingly helped Abigail. Land wars, revenge and a host of other reasons show us the repressed state Salem was in in those days. The relationships between the main characters : Proctor, Parris, Abigail, etc, were understandable and one could actually feel himself or herself praying that a particular character would survive the madness, or feel sympathy for even the villains. The Crucible was a great experience for me, and I hope that via this review many of you out there will go and buy this book to see what I mean.

I really enjoyed this play even though it was a class assignment. It gives you a feel of this huge chunk of our worlds history that no one can fully understand. I wasn't really into ready anything of this sort, but it was really cool. I liked it a lot :)

Arthur Miller's play, "The Crucible" gives a true insight to the time of hysteria during the Salem Witch Trials. Reading the book, I thought the Puritans could do no wrong, commit no sin, or speak slander about each other; but then I realized these people were human and made mistakes. I have never read a work of literature in which human nature during hysteria is so well portrayed. Abigal was one character whom I despised because she is the kniving, cold-hearted, wicked vixen guys hate to love and love to hate. I did enjoy the books social message because the entire Salem scenario repeated itself during the 1950s, when Sen. Joseph McCarthy led teh nation on a Communist witch hunt.

The Crucible is as twisted a story as any that I've read before. In the late 15th century, Salem, Massachusetts was in the form of a theocracy, which stirred up conflict between government leaders and citizens as well as citizen vs. citizen battles. Witchcraft was the big talk of this play because it played such a huge role in the vast number of trials and executions. When you begin to take in the information of the text, you see that witchcraft became a way that any citizen of Salem could blame their enemies just to have them killed. Several small groups of people (factions) who fought over such topics as land and governmental positions would accuse their opponents of witchcraft and in many cases it would result in imprisonment or death. Examples of battles between two people are Abby and Elizabeth Proctor who fought over John Proctor and Putnam and Francis Nurse, who were in a dispute because Nurse beat out Putnam's brother-in-law to become a member of Salem's ministry. Even though this play may not be historically accurate, it made me realize exactly what was going on in the world 300 years ago and make me appreciate the United States' government today.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is not really a book, but I've decided to count it anyway. The play is short, and I finished it in one afternoon because I was so engrossed. Also, I enjoyed it much more than I did The Death of a Salesman, also written by Miller. One of my favorite aspects of the play was its relevance to modern times; at points, I couldn't tell whether the action was set in Salem in the 1600s or Washington DC in the 1950s. In addition, the first act included one of my favorite lines I've read recently: "Their fathers had, of course, been persecuted in England. So now they found it necessary to deny any other sect its freedom, lest their New Journalism be defiled and corrupted by wrong ways and deceitful ideas."