Joan Murray deconstructs the boundary between poetry and science, biography, tourism, history, womens' studies. I am a college instructor and plan on using Murray's book of poems in an essay-writing course next year. She has written a stunning, subtle, believable book and has created a new genre.

i read murray's poetic and lively journey of annie taylor in one sitting. it was breathtaking, honest and all too real. Taylor was centuries ahead of her time. Her major flaw was that she believed that her feat would transcend gender. Murray's book should be taught in every grammar school so that children of all genders can exerience the world of realizing one's imaginative and so daringly creative forces. RUN OUT AND GET THIS BOOK! I GUARANTEE YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PUT IT DOWN UNTIL THE LAST GASPING PAGE!

With passion and compassion, Joan Murray gives Annie Taylor a voice and makes her a heroine, a woman of courage, who did what she had to do to survive. My colleague Jack and I both read this book about the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, and we each read it in a single sitting--very unusual for a book of poetry. But this is an unusually compelling book. Highly recommended.

This is a great book, with brilliant choices. Some of these poems feel like exactly what I needed to read right now and I bought copies for lots of friends, too. Joan Murray has a great ear -- her picks are superb: I love the Billy Collins, the Stephen Spender, the Jane Kenyon, John Berryman, Muriel Rukeyser -- The book also introduced me to Jennifer Michael Hecht's poetry. I bought her book, The Next Ancient World and all I can say is, BUY IT -- she will rock your world and if it is already rocking -- well get this book and Hecht's book...and see what happens.

When I saw this book at the bookstore, my first thought was Oh no, is this a book reacting to the events of September 11th? I picked it up and sure enough, it was published after September 11, but after reading the introduction I decided to buy the book. The editor has always loved poetry and for years has saved poems that were important to her in a binder labeled "Poems to Live By." She includes, at the end of the introduction, a poem she wrote a few days after the attack on the World Trade Center. She says "It was clearly an occasional poem, admittedly not a great poem." Besides this poem, there is only one other that might have been written in recent months, and this is "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski, which appeared in the New Yorker's first issue after September 11, and which alone is worth buying this book for.

These are not feel-good poems that give easy comfort. Instead, you will find here companionship in another person's way of seeing the mixture of suffering and happiness that is always around us. The book is nicely divided into sections, each title giving a hint of how the poems in that section look at uncertainty: Death and Remembrance, Fear and Suffering, Affirmations and Rejoicings, Warnings and Instructions, War and Rumors of War, and Meditations and Conversations. Mostly these are 20th century poets, many of them contemporary poets writing today (such as Billy Collins, Sharon Olds, Gerald Stern, Yusef Komunyakaa, Jane Hirschfield, and Seamus Heaney).

Sit and read these poems to feel what it means to be in this world. There is such a wide range of subject matter in this book, that there is probably a poem here to help you through any dark night you might find yourself in. But these 60 poems are one person's choice and any collection like this is only a beginning. The editor suggests that if you find any of these poems useful, you copy them out by hand and put them in a binder. I would take that suggestion a step further. Start your own binder, of poems you discover yourself.

"American Album" contains over 200 photos of every aspect of life in America from the late 19th Century to the early 20th Century. The selection ranges from staged portraits to shipyards to bustling cities to small towns and, finally, to Americans at work and play. These images will haunt you as you look into the face of a vanished America, but still see your own reflection looking back at you.

Where there is no Dentist by Murray Dickson is an excellant book for those traveling in remore areas of the world. Information in the book will allow the non dental care person to give emergency care to those they may come in contact with in third world countries as well as themselves or companions. This book and a small dental kit will get one through the journey and back to civilization with reduced or "cured" pain fron the dental demons.

Too bad there are'nt more writer's of the same mind, filling in the gap between costly expertise andlayman srticture. The book is a well-balanced workbetween hand drawn illustrationsand simple, succinct text, explaining procedures for teeth cleaning,pulling, simple filling, brokenteeth, etc., to the uneducated, 3rd -worldvillage healthcare worker, anddescribes how to construct the necessary instruments and materialsout of what bits can be found at hand, for all the procedures. At one end, we pay for the dentist's scent & muzak, at the other, with this book, they discardthe intervening fluff and tripeand get something done themslves. Actually, the book deals with poorer standards than readersanywhere else would like to seeaddressed.

Great stuff. She has a way with words. The work is dramatic, arresting, bone-chilling, Kafkaesque, and cute. Read it. It's better that getting hit in the head with a pizza.