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Clarke's masterpiece was published in 1874, after being serialized in 1870-72. Critics have lambasted a few of the less believable elements and some of the pat characterization of a number of supporting characters, but these are flaws to be found in most novels of that time (and ours). Clarke redeems himself by taking the cliches and mannerisms of the nineteenth-century English novel and using them to illuminate a whole new society, one practically mythical to the metropolitan consciousness of the Victorian Anglophone world. This work is a great counterpoint to all those English novels of the day where the hero or villain gets packed off to the antipodes and returns mysteriously changed. The main thrust of the novel, though, was the need to tell the true story of (white) Australian society's beginnings. Clarke, in telling the story of the unjustly convicted Rufus Dawes (aka Richard Devine), provides a panoramic view of early Victorian Australia, from the hellish convict settlements of Macquarie Harbor and Norfolk Island to the nascent frontier towns of Hobart and Melbourne, from the aging memories of the "First Fleeters" (the original convicts who arrived in 1788) to the controversial Eureka Stockade Uprising of 1854. The narrative frequently moves at a deliciously whirlwind pace to accomodate the exciting interaction of characters and history.
Clarke's novel is generally cited as nineteenth-century Australia's greatest and points the way towards more nuanced examinations of the colonial experience in the twentieth century (Peter Carey's JOE MAGGS, about the "off-stage" life of Dickens antihero Abel Magwitch, is apparently very much in this vein). Don't read it just for this reason, though. Please be sure to find the longer, original version, as I was fortunate enough to do. Clarke was forced to produce a revised, shortened version for the original publication, one dictated by his editors that turned the novel into a much more "conventional" Victorian literary production (and has a longer title--FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE). I understand a TV series was made in the mid-80s with Anthony Perkins as North. If this was the case, then it badly needs to be remade on celluloid, because I can't seem to find the series. It's a magnificent novel whose flaws, I think, are amply counterbalanced by its unexpected joys.
Richard Devine, an innocent man (under an assumed name of Rufus Dawes) convicted of a crime he did not commit, is sent for transportation and assumed killed in a shipwreck. In reality, he is heir to a vast estate (unbeknown to him) and the convolutions of the tale that evolve from this are wonderfully written; the gradual demolishing of Dawes, the unspeakable duality of Frere, the calculating guile of Sarah and the gullible innocence of Sylvia are woven together in a plot that does not end happily ever after. This I think, serves to underline the barbarism and futility of the transportation system.
Based on actual events, Clarke uses his 'hero' to illustrate the depravation and privations that prisoners (and their guards) had to endure. Graphically showing how degradation degrades and power corrupts, the narrative never dwells on gruesome details, instead it relies for effect on the imagination of the reader, which can be more terrifying.
A book that deserves a wider readership.
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The second class of books, those which teach the art of 'Crooked Wisdom,' is exemplified in the East by Kautilya's 'Arthasastra' itself, and in the West by such works as Balthasar Gracian's 'The Art of Worldly Wisdom,' Francesco Guicciardini's 'Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman' (Ricordi), and by the present collection of Maxims by La Rochefoucauld.
These books are both highly realistic and extremely practical, for they depict, not man as he is supposed to be, but man as he is with all his selfishness, stupidity, ambition, arrogance, malice, laziness and other imperfections, and they teach the art of how, not merely to survive, but even to thrive in the midst of our far from perfect fellow men and women. And, certainly in the case of La Rochefoucauld, this teaching is done with great precision and wit.
'Crooked Wisdom,' then, should not be understood as the product of a crooked mind, but as the clear-sighted wisdom one needs to survive in a world teeming with such minds, a world, as Tancock says, involved in a "sordid struggle of self-interests, a scramble for power, position, and influence in which the foulest motives and methods [are] decked with labels such as duty, honor, patriotism, and glory."
La Rochefoucauld seems to provoke two very different kinds of reaction. Fully paid up members of the rose-tinted spectacles club, are shocked and horrified by his portrait of man and society, and they tend to dislike both the man and his book.
The more realistically inclined, however, will savor his bite and wit and will readily acknowledge the self-evident truth of much if not all of what he says. The man was undoubtedly brilliant, not only in terms of the many profound insights he gave us - particularly those having to do with 'amour propre' or self-love - but also in terms of the skill with which he translated those insights into pithy and memorable maxims.
Tancock defines the maxim as the expression of "some thought about human motives or behavior in a form containing the maximum of clarity and TRUTH with the minimum of words arranged in the most striking and memorable order" (my caps). La Rochefoucauld's aim, in short, was simply to tell the truth, and to tell it for our benefit.
The maxim as a literary genre was cultivated in his milieu, and La Rochefoucauld's were polished to a high state of perfection, for they had to satisfy a critical and sophisticated audience. Seven years were devoted to refining them, during which the circle of his aristocratic friends and fellow habitues of Mmme de Sable's salon repeatedly offered advice and criticism.
The 'Maxims,' then, although the product of an individual sensibility, also become in a sense the product a collective effort, having emerged from a serious and civilized salon whose interests were psychological, literary, and linguistic. Anyone who feels inclined to dismiss them might keep this in mind.
I discovered La Rochefoucauld many years ago, and have always been a great admirer of his Maxims. Once read, they are never forgotten. They have a way of burrowing deeply into the mind, and the fact that they tend to recur in those moments when we are reflecting on life and mulling over our experiences seems to me a kind of proof of their veracity.
One that has always struck me as particularly significant is Maxim 22 : "Philosophy easily triumphs over past ills and ills to come, but present ills triumph over philosophy." Or, in the words of the Red Queen : "Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but no jam today." If such truths are not exactly cheering, this in no way detracts from their being true.
There is an enormous amount to be learned by the honest and open-minded reader from La Rochefoucauld's 'Maxims,' especially if they also have a sense of humor. But the 'Happy Days! Happy Sky!' school, whose main requirement of a writer would seem to be that he should confirm them in their beautiful illusions, would be wiser to look elsewhere for edification. La Rochefoucauld is not a writer for the faint of heart, nor for those without a sense of humor.
Born at La Roche-Guyon, on 11 January, 1747; died at Paris, 27 March, 1827.
Opposed during the last years of the reign of Louis XV to the government of Maupeou, and the friend of all the reformers who surrounded Louis XVI, he owed to the influence of these economists the favour of the king. Having little liking for the military profession he devoted himself to scientific agriculture. During the rage for rural life which characterized the last years of the old regime, La Rochefoucauld made his estate at Liancourt an experimental station, whishing to improve both the soil and the peasantry. He introduced new methods of farming, founded the first model technical school in France (intended for the children of poor soldiers), and started two factories. Politically, he was a partisan of a democratic regime of which the king was to be the head, and throughout his life was faithful to this dream. Deputy for the nobility of Clermont in Beauvaisis at the States-General, he voted unhesitatingly for the "reunion of the three orders". it was he who in the night which followed the taking of the Bastille (14 July, 1789) roused Louis XVI, saying: "Sire, it is not a revolt, it is a revolution." He presided at the Constituent Assembly from 20 July to 3 August, 1789. On the night of 4 August he was one of the most enthusiastic in voting the abolition of titles of nobility and privileges. As grand master of the wardrobe he accompanied Louis XVI from Versailles to Paris on 5 and 6 October, 1789. As president of the committee of mendicancy, he made a supreme effort at the Constituent Assembly to organize public relief; he determined the extent and the limits of the rights of every citizen to assistance, determined the obligations of the State, and established a budget of State assistance which amounted annually to five millions and a half of francs, and which implied the national confiscation of hospital property, of ecclesiastical charitable property, and of the income from private foundations.
Liancourt is one of the most undiscerning representatives of the tendency which led the revolutionary state to destroy all collective forms of charity. Absolutely devoted to the person of Louis XVI as well as to the doctrines of the Revolution, he secured for himself in 1792 the lieutenancy of Normandy and Picardy, so as to prepare for the flight of the king as far as Rouen; but Louis XVI refused to place himself in the hands of constitutional deputies. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt emigrated shortly after 10 August, and resided in England until 1794, afterwards in the United States (1794-7). He took advantage of his residence in that country to write eight volumes on the United States to induce Washington to interfere in favour of Lafayette, and to gather ideas upon education and agriculture which he attempted later to apply in France. After 18 Brumaire, Napoleon authorized him to return to his Liancourt estate, which was restored to him. This former duke and peer gloried in being appointed, during the first Empire (1806), general inspector of the "Ecole des arts et métiers" at Châlons, of which his Liancourt school had been a forerunner. The book "Prisons de Philadelphie" which he composed in American and published in 1796, was meant to initiate a penitentiary reform in France at the Restoration in 1814 he begged but one favour-to be appointed prison inspector. In 1819 he became inspector of one of the twenty-eight arrondissements into which France was divided for penitentiary purposes. Louis XVIII gave him back neither the blue ribbon nor the mastership of the wardrobe, and in the House of Peers he sat with the opposition.
La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt was the Franklin of the Revolution. An aristocrat by birth, a liberal in his views, in touch with all the representatives of the new commerce, he availed himself of this concurrence of circumstances to become the leader of every campaign for the people's protection and betterment; improvement of sanitary conditions in hospitals and foundling asylums, reorganization of schools according to the theories of Lancaster, whose book he had translated (Système anglais d'Instruction). He brought into use the methods of mutual instruction, and the pupils between 1816 and 1820 increased from 165,000 to 1,123,000. In 1818 he established the first savings bank and provident institution in Paris. On 19 Nov., 1821, he founded the Society of Christian Morals, over which he presided until 1825. It was at times looked upon with suspicion by the police of the Restoration. At its meetings were such men as Charles de Rémusat, Charles Coquerel, Guizot the Pedagogue, Oberlin, and Llorente, historian of the Inquisition. Broglie, Guizot, and Benjamin Constant were chairmen in turn, and Dufaure, Tocqueville, and Lamartine made there their maiden speeches. In these meetings provident institutions, rather than charitable ones, were discussed; slavery, lottery, gambling were combatted, and the matter of prison inspection was taken up. When La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt died, the Restoration would not permit the students of Châlons to carry his coffin, and the two chambers were much concerned over such extreme measures. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt was a typical philanthropist, with all that this word implies of generous intentions and practical innovations; but also with a certain naïve pride, inherited from the philosophy of the eighteenth century, which led him to mistrust the charitable initiative of the Church, and to forget that the Church, the most perfect representative of the spirit of brotherhood, is still called in our modern society to win the victory for this spirit by putting it to practical uses, as she alone can.
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In fiction, whether popular or literary, one of the greatest gifts a writer can have is a distinctive voice, which becomes the author's trademark and is apparent from work to work. Even more wonderful than this, though, and as rare as rubies, is a writer so talented that she can vary her voice to suit the story. Anne Stuart proves herself to be such an exceptional artist in The Right Man.
I am not a particular fan of film and novelistic noir of the late 1940s and 1950s (and therefore no expert on the subject), but from the little I have watched of that art form, it is highly recognizable. I believe it was a touch of genius for Stuart to fall into this style or "voice" for writing the segments of this time travel set in 1949. The cryptic, highly structured noir style of dialogue, in particular, sets us firmly in the late 1940s, and lends itself to a concise and deliberate pacing that, while moving the book along rapidly (essential in a short book such as this), never seems too rushed. The noir voice as used here is also so highly visual, one can easily imagine the book being made into a film, with the original dialogue carried into a script intact. (Are you listening, Lifetime? The use of the wedding dress, which is the major plot device of the "Gowns of White" Harlequin series this book is part of, as a magical device for time travel, while not a wholly new technique in and of itself, is quite original in its execution. My three favorite aspects are these: the way the dress, like an enchanted cape from a fairy tale, never soils or wrinkles; the way the magic brought by the dress spills over into all the other major characters' perceptions, and the way we are never quite sure if the time travel really happens or is a case of mass hypnosis (though this possibility is pleasantly mystical in and of itself). As wonderful as the magic and the noir voice are, they do not overwhelm that which is the ultimate reason fans read romance: the love relationship. In this book, we get not one, but two great pairs of lovers. The level of sexual tension and expressed passion between each duo is incendiary, and the resolution of the internal and external conflicts, both within the protagonists individually and within the two love relationships, is believable and satisfying. All in all, this is not only one of the best romance novels I've read in the past few years, but, in my opinion, one of the best short contemporaries I've read in almost 20 years of enjoying this genre.
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Go to your video store and rent "Mind Walk" (a scientist, a politian and a poet get together and discuss Quantum Mechanics). This helped in understanding that we are all linked as one in this great big world ! Understanding brings clarity to humanity and Stuart Wilde teaches us how to take a step towards that understanding.
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Additionally, don't let the print date fool you... the book is timely.
It does not include the robust designs of Taguchi which came later and could easily be included if the authors choose to revise it.
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The subtitle is "All the Tools You Need to Sell Your Published Book" with a tool box on the cover. Consistent with this theme are the four helpful sections inside: 1) "Project and Site Preparation," which covers conception, design, and obtaining endorsements and reviews. 2) "Choosing the Right Tools and Materials" discusses press releases, creative promotion ideas, making your book signing an EVENT, developing a speaking platform, and online promotion. 3) "Finding the Right Subcontractors" deals with publicists, using radio, and how to market to libraries. 4) "Executing Your Plan" delivers success stories and final words of encouragement.
Author Carmen Leal expertly addresses issues for both self-published authors as well as traditionally-published authors. I am amazed at the number of resources and websites she includes in this book. Get your highlighter ready, because you'll need it to mark all the great ideas in YOU CAN MARKET YOUR BOOK!
~Kimn Swenson Gollnick, coauthor of GETTING YOUR FINANCIAL HOUSE IN ORDER (Broadman & Holman, September 2003)
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Like other reviewers, I especially liked the inclusion of Foote's fiction though more was read into it than probably should have. However, I think Chapman does a good job in bringing the hidden and private Foote to us. With all his foibles, Shelby Foote is destined to be remembered for generations.
If you're a fan of history then you need to read Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life.
This book is an absolute must read for anyone who has watched the PBS series on the Civil War or has read Foote's civil war narrative.
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This opportunity is available to each one of us and is made easy by the guidance of the Gunpaisha. It is our right. It is our delight. It has always been and will be. In living here there are no prerequisites. Close the past and open a willing heart and the mind will follow in service.
I dare not live any other way. I thank and love my Gunapisha for my answer to "Who are you?". God bless and be an example. Good journey.
Note the positive change in your approach and attitude.