Reading this book about Calder's work makes me want to bend a wire clothes hangar into nifty loops and spirals ... just for the fun of it.

Calder's art is BIG TIME fun, on every scale from immense graceful outdoor sculptures to strikingly elegant necklaces and pins. The book shows the variety of his creations...tapestry motifs, silver and brass cutlery, campaign posters. Check out his clever pull toy for a toddler.

Mobiles is probably Calder's most familiar category of work, but his playful menagerie, including a kangaroo, an elephant, a giraffe, a big bird and a flock of origami-size birds is his most endearing.

Photos and narrative, together, convey the wit and warmth of the sculptor. They offer opportunity to meet Calder, his wife, and their circle of friends.

Calder, by fine example, inspires one to lighten up and love it. This book is written permission to do exactly that, be it, high brow, low brow or no-brow.

Arthur Miller gives a nice outline to CivPro with clear examples and explanations for the terms. Don't expect it to be a party listening to the monotony (it IS CivPro), but if you need simple instruction and a very structured lecture, this is the tape/CD set that may help you.

I read his first essay about Brooklyn on the NYT books site and had to buy the book. Miller captures the past while avoiding nostalgia and bitterness towards the present, a very hard trick to master. The Depression really comes alive in his books, as does the immediacy of the Communist witch hunt. For someone in her 20s, it's hard to imagine how visceral the fear must have been, but Miller describes the uneasiness in not knowing whether the world was becoming socialist, fascist, communist or holding on to democracy. His writing was also beautiful - perfectly constructed sentences.

esta novela trata sobre un hombre comun y normal que un buen dia decide ponerse unos lentes para mejorar su vision y desde entonces su vida cambia por completo, ya que su cara que antes pasaba desapercibida es ahora la cara de un judio. y entonces se ve vejado y maltratado por todos, rechazado por una sociedad que le da la espalda a sus mismnos ciudadanos cuando estos son un poco diferentes. buena critica de la sociedad norteamericana. LUIS MENDEZ

This collection of three stories by Miller is worth reading for the last story in the book alone, "Fitter's Night." This is a superb story, the kind of short story you could imagine a great dramatist might write. The first story - "Homely Girl" is confused and not up to the mark. The second story, "Fame" is unfortunately a rather easy joke. So skip these (or read them quickly) and go straight to the last one. It is a story that will stay with you for a long time to come.

The phsicological aspects of the characters are developed very carefully so that you can almost crawl into their skin. The stories do not reflect an amazing creativity or deep dramas, but they provide the reader with a sense of lightness, which remains after the books is closed.

This book takes a critical look at the effect of censorship on American society. "[Liberty Denied] cites many cases of the sort of local censorship that is difficult to monitor," Larry McMurtry says in the introduction. It seeks out the roots of censorship, which may be fear or cultural prejudice. What comes out of these thorough studies is a panoramic view of American culture regarding freedom of information. The author reveals the links of censorship to political control as well as moral guardianship. Above all, the book is valuable because of its clear statement of responsibility on the part of the reader, that it takes courage and tremendous energy to keep books, or even words, from being suppressed or destroyed. Furthermore, I highly recommend this book to teachers and public librarians who often see themselves as promoters and protecters of intellectual freedom, in order that they may come to know the different forms of censorship of which they are a participant. This book does not throw blame for blame's sake. It is for the sake of accountability and a democracy of ideas.

From the 1870s, and for a quarter century, every new Verne novel had been issued in translation. Abruptly, in 1898, American and British publishers broke this tradition with The Mighty Orinoco (Le Superbe Orénoque), now available for the first time in English over a century later from Wesleyan University Press.
Why did the publishers of Verne's time reject this book, and nearly every one thereafter, although one or two Verne books had appeared annually under his byline in France until 1910, five years after his death? Since 1880, Verne stories had been mainstays of Boys Own Paper in England. American publishers came to rely more and more on utilizing the English translations, rather than commissioning fresh ones for use in the United States. Hence, by the 1890s, the anticipated taste of the British market came to govern what appeared in English translations on either side of the Atlantic.
The lack of a translation of The Mighty Orinoco has also been a factor in the conventional perception of Verne as a writer unable to place women in strong roles. The hero of The Mighty Orinoco is a 22-year-old woman undertakes a search for the father she has never known, whom she learns may have disappeared along the South American river that forms the book's title. To travel incognito, she dresses as a 17 year old boy, Jean, accompanied by one of her father's former military aides, Martial (whose name signifies his background). This is not simply the conventional story for youth of a girl proving courageous when faced with sudden danger. Instead it is a premeditated adoption of a new gender, a complete violation of the standard sex roles.
Along the way, she and Martial meet two naturalists, also exploring the river, and join forces. One of them, Jacques, cannot account for the attraction he feels toward Jean, deeper than what can be accounted for by male friendship. For his part, Martial is frustrated at his inability to shield Jeanne from this potential future lover. Only when rescuing Jean from drowning does Jacques discover her secret, and at that point their emotions can follow a normal heterosexual development.
Jean/Jeanne herself ultimately makes a similar transformation; for the search of her father, she had passed as a man, but once it is no longer necessary, she assumes feminine garb, which she had even brought with her. As noted in the critical commentary by the dean of American Verne scholars, Walter James Miller, Jacques remains attracted to the masculine side of Jeanne's nature, revealing Verne's insight into the dual aspects of masculinity and femininity present in individuals of either gender. As Germain exclaims of Jeanne, "Charming as a lad, and charming as a lass! It's true-I don't understand it at all!" (354) And on the return journey, calling again on those who knew them on the way out, Jacques has to explain how he married Jean!
It is easy to see why such a premise, as readily comprehensible as it may be to older readers, would be precluded when Boys Own Paper was such a crucial outlet. And that fact, unfortunately, denied for English-language readers one of Verne's best late colonial adventures.
Verne's journey involves a perilous passage, through steadily greater natural dangers, climaxing in abduction by bandits. However, their destination reveals not the heart of darkness, but one of light and civilization. Jeanne's father has become a priest and head of a utopian community, named Juana for Jeanne. He combines the best aspects of both a man of faith and one who insures the defense of the city, and the forces of righteousness defeat the bandits.
Verne well knew that his readers would quickly guess Jeanne's "secret," so he added mystery as the story unfolds, by initial withholding some of the motivations for her trip. Only in a fragmentary way are aspects of her past filled in, with the end jumping ahead to switch point of view entirely with her father's discover of his daughter and his rescue of her (he had thought she had died as a child). As Miller notes, the development and interweaving of the five plot "strands is a lesson in plotting." (374) In this way the reversal and recognition on which the novel relies remains fresh and vivid. The book is well-paced, with a perfect balance of varied and intriguing characters.
In typical manner for the genre, Verne reveals conflicting attitudes toward race and imperialism. There is a consciousness of racial difference, among Indians, Spaniards, and those of mixed blood (again, hardly likely to be approved of as reading for the Boys Own audience), but there are also no racist assumptions based on this background. Similarly, Verne sees typical benefits of "civilization," that is, white civilization, in the usual manner offered through missionary work, health, improvements in agriculture, and the like. The hope for the country's future is an Indian boy who has been educated at the mission, but who lost his father to the bandits, evoking parallels with Jeanne. The only true villain is the Spanish bandit Jorres, who, in another echo of Jeanne, is revealed to actually be the outlaw Alfaniz. Humor is derived from a trio of quarrelsome European explorers, true idiot savants, who are perpetually unable to agree on the river's tributaries.
Fortunately, again Wesleyan University Press's ongoing series of the Early Classics of Science Fiction, which will include a number of previously untranslated Verne books, has included all the original engravings, reproduced in an even higher quality than their previous Verne volumes, The Invasion of the Sea and The Mysterious Island. Pioneering Verne scholar Stanford Luce, who wrote the first American doctoral dissertation on Verne, provides a highly readable translation.

Signifies how often,how hard & how many fought,died....in Penn's Woods...& in foreign wars. An ommssion is Eldred,PA's WW-II Museum, Box- 273,Eldred 16731 East of Erie, & south of Buffalo NY.

This book is a very useful tool in writng term papers, eassays and book reports. Its also gives great insight to the Famous Play the Crucible. It is a great compian for teachers and students alike. I recomend this book as a great guide.