An excellent collection and variety of essays and poems. Best among them for me are Jonathan Rosen's "The Talmud and the Internet" from Parabola; Phil Levine's "After Leviticus" from Image; (Roshi) Bernie Glassman's two-page "My Wife Died Unexpectedly Last March" from Tikkun; Pico Iyer on why we travel; Max Apple's "Max and Mottele" from Pakn Treger; and Eliezer Shore's "A Single Glance" from Bas Ayin.

This wonderful collection should be read over a period of many days, to allow the stories to soak into your consciousness and enrich your soul! You are sure to laugh, cry, and give thanks for what you hold in your hands.

Publisher's Weekly states that "In most cases, these writers leave behind at least one image to forever haunt the reader." I think they meant this as a good thing. For the essay, the single haunting image as the residual force is simply not enough. I found that each essay has plenty to offer, but most of them favor the exceptionally long, personal explanation that is unrelated to image, to wandering through ideas and seeing where a strange turn of the mind can go. I felt that many of the essays began with what they already knew, and then spent the time telling the reader how they got there. I love the essay form for the homage it pays to journey. But this collection felt largely pre-planned, which I think was also felt in the range of selections itself. As Publisher's Weekly also states, "The drawbacks of this collection are negligible, mainly that Norris verges on thematic repetition." This is not a negligible drawback. The thematic repetition should at least be used to show a variety of approach, but the essays seem to come from the same place, know the same approaches, and make the same discoveries. This year has been a big one. I had hoped that the best essays of the year would carry some of the diversity with which we approach this huge century before us. Also, the introduction by Norris seemed a bit self serving--"So you're a real writer!" And then we learn what a 'real writer' is, but in terms of what the writer expects. I think that what the piece of writing expects of the reader and where it takes the reader is a more important consideration.

This is my first time to pick up the best american essays series, and i wasn't disapointed. there were a few essays that i struggled to finish (i remember skipping them when they were first published in their respective magazines), but there are many strong essays in the collection: Anne Fadiman's essay "Mail", which warns of the dangers of email; Heiman's touching "Vin Laforge"; Stephen King's essay "On Impact" is not surprisingly the best of the bunch; Yusef Komnkyaka has a very interesting piece in here; Marcus Laffey, the anonymous new york policeman's insightful piece, "The Midnight Tour" is included; rebecca mcclanah's essay closely follows king's as the best included; Reynolds Price's "Dear Harper" is one of the finest spiritual pieces i've seen in a long time; and Carlo Rotella has a great essay on boxing. there are a few that shouldn't have been included and a few that are iffy, but that is more personal opinion than the quality of the essay. it's a good sampling of the year.

I have been reading the Best American Essays from 1997 to this present collection. Although I found the 1999 and 2000 to be more valuable to me and have used them in the college classroom, I find this volume to be quite good.

I particularly liked "Brain Cell Memories" which gives a poignant account of a patholigist who studies brain tumors that have life and death consequences for people unknown to him directly. As he describes the samples he is examining, Spencer Nadler reminds the reader that he is detached from the lives of those from whom they were taken. (Or is he?) As many of us, he wonders what his own future will be based on his family medical history.

Then there is Stephen King's descriptive account of his accident near his summer home in Maine, "On Impact" is worth reading. I find King's essays more to my particular liking than his fiction, but only because that genre is not my "cup of tea."

Ashraf Rushdy's "Exquisit Corpse" is necessarily disturbing. His accounts of lynchings in the mid-twentieth century sets the macabre but unfortunately real stage for a detailed description of the murder of James Byrd in Jasper. Texas in 1998. Unpleasant indeed, but truly what is needed to tear us away from complacency.

These essays are not escapist reading. There are those too, but I find these types of essays, which are plentiful in this series to be valuable in opening the mind to a more balanced view of reality and making the reader face the issues that unfortunately continue to plague us today. An educator can do so much with them.

I expected more for the price. There are some nice ideas and a few plans, but the plans don't contain measurements. This is not very professional and makes implementation very difficult. Nice for dreaming, but no real help planning.

The best garden book overall. A smart book. Creative. Great pics. VERY Comprensive. Wish Id bought hardback.Complete. Very readable. Projects are suberb. Voluminous. A must for every serious gardener.

This is a very comprehensive book describing all western regions including the low and high desert, the Pacific Northwest and southern California. The book includes many landscape ideas with diagrams and suggested plant types and many plant photos. Ideas for special needs such as privacy, patio & small spaces , desert areas, swimming pools, decks, lots for shade, low water and other requirements are covered. Types of fencing and decking are also covered. If you are starting out with a bare backyard, as I am, this is the book for you!

No, this is not an 'action-packed' novel to astound readers, but it offers an intelligent look at the strength and vision of a pioneer women and the friendship of two, culturally and socially opposites. The characters in the novel are described in great detail; their personalities were fashioned such a way that the reader receives a true sense of each character. The book was published at a time when women characters were expected to find happiness only in love or marriage. 'My Antonia' gives us a forceful heroine who is independent and strong of mind and body. The use of plot, characters, setting, and perspective open readers eyes to a period in time that most people today can't imagine. The novel invites readers to feel the pain, hardships, joy, and satisfaction of the frontier characters. In 'My Antonia,' Cather successfully develops believable characters and an intriguing story of prairie life. While your reading this novel, look for the theme of friendship. This significant theme can bring your comprehension a little deeper. Willa Cather develops the friendship beautifully throughout the book. Jim and Antonia symbolize what every friendship should include. I believe my thoughts about the book are changed when Jim Burden returns and finally reveals the hidden emotions that he had for Antonia. I had to read this book for English class and ended up enjoying it. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a great book that isn't hard to understand. As an English student, I was sick of reading difficult books. My Antonia can be enjoyed on many levels.

My Antonia by Willa Cather is set in the farmlands of Nebraska during the late 1800's. The main characters are a young inexperienced boy named Jim and a strong willed girl named Antonia. I thought the book was unique and worth reading.

It was like a fresh breath of air from reading other stuffy books. The first reason I liked it was because the setting was clear. I never knew what Nebraska looked like until I read the book! I felt like I was standing on the long, red, grassy farmlands. The author described the setting so that the reader could get a better feeling for the story. Another reason was the characters were described very well. The main characters, Jim and Antonia were described to make you feel that they were like real people. Jim snuck out of his house to go to the Fireman's dances every Friday night, when his Grandparents forbid him to go. Antonia had a child with her fiancé who ran away from her before they were married. The last reason was the theme was fantastic. The theme was Jim's admiration for Antonia. Even when Antonia had a bunch of kids and was older, he still admired her inner strength, intelligence, and beauty.

My Antonia is a different kind of a romantic novel. It wasn't gushy, otherwise I wouldn't have read it at all! The novel was exciting and a really good page-turner. My Antonia is a novel you would want to read sometime during your lifetime.

Willa Cather's novel was a recent selection for the One Book, One Chicago program and what a rich treat it was, since I was familar with any work from this author. While I'm not big on "pioneer" or "western" type novels, this book was sheer joy. There are many themes in the book and to go through each one would be to write a review that goes on for pages and pages. So I'll try and hit the major themes that came out to me. First the theme of the immigrant expereince are here, the hardships of trying to build a new life in a stange life where opportunity is promised. Second, you get the real feel of the Nebraskan land and the effect of the land on the people and vise versa. Third, the reader becomes aware of the "circle of life" and the people in our lives; how our existence effects and is affected by so many people. Fourth and finally, it is a subtle love story between Antonia and the narrator, Jim Burden, which is the device the Cather uses to tell this incredbile story. Jim leaves small town life an becomes a educated sucessful man, while Antonia stays behind and gains her education from the her own life, one that can not be validated by any piece of paper. A true masterpiece is written here with every sentence.

The Virgin of Bennington by Kathleen Norris is misnamed, mismarketed and misleading to potential readers. Described as a memoir beginning at Bennington college and moving on to her first years in New York, the book focuses much less on Norris's coming of age than it does on the events before, during and after her friendship with Betty Kray, the executive director of the Academy of American Poets.

The primary fault with the book does not lie with the author, who admits at the end of the first chapter that the story begins with "an untidy but cheerful job interview" at the end of her college years. It lies instead with whoever decided to sensationalize what could be described as a quiet but interesting book of tribute to a woman who devoted herself to poets and poetry. Norris's prose is clear and easy to read. But her description of her brushes with famous and not-so-famous poets in New York in the 1970's are not that interesting, as the encounters themselves tend to be of the mundane variety. The true kernel of this book is Norris's love and admiration for Elizabeth Kray, which is only briefly alluded to on the book's cover. In sum, a bit of a disappointment.

For a true coming-of-age memoir, check out Susanna Kaysen's Girl Interrupted or the more recent humorously written Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl.

. . . with a somewhat misleading title, autobiographical "look back" at the influences which shaped the life of the author, poet Nathleen Norris.

From her extremely sheltered background to the crazed culture of drugs and sex at Bennington in the late 1960's through her own personal conversion experience, this book traces the life -- and loves -- of an extraordinary 20th century American woman.

The book will not satisfy all. The ultra-conservative will be uncomfortable with the sexual honesty expressed by the author; the far-left will be equally uncomfortable with the author's spiritual awakening and personal conversion. Those persons either too young to remember or too old to have been quite so involved in the whirlwind which "was" the late '60's and early '70's in the United States will be uncomfortable with the author's honesty about her own activities, both positive and negative.

Nevertheless, the story is in the journey -- and the journey is told with depth, with clarity, and with honesty.

Recommended.

I purchased this book the day it came out and returned to my favorite bookstore a few days later to find a large display of "The Virgin of Bennington" with the description "Sex, Drugs and Poetry". If you are looking for the first two, you would find more in a few minutes of a sitcom. Poetry, however, is the main context in which Norris tells the story of ten years of her life, from entering college to moving to her mother's childhood home in South Dakota. While the world of late sixties-early seventies poetry may not seem the most interesting of subjects, Norris mananges to hold the reader's interest until we encounter the real subject, Elizabeth Kray, the arts administrator who headed the Academy of American Poets.

Norris' abilities as a storyteller were evident in her earlier works, especially "Dakota: A Spiritual Geography", and again she takes what might be for some an uninteresting subject and grabs our attention. Readers who are looking for a spiritual read similar to Norris' earlier prose may be disappointed, but I feel that Norris probably sees God's hand in her experiences with Kray.

Highly recommended, well-written and, more importantly, well thought out.

This volume contains lectures which Thomas Merton gave to nuns of the Loretto community during late 1967 and early 1968. He manages to say almost nothing of substance, except that "contemplation" (however we define it) is good, and that authoritarian structures are bad. Only the most fervent devotees of the somewhat trendy Trappist would find this book ineluctable; the rest of us can profit by avoiding it. We look to his earlier work for nourishment: Thoughts in Solitude (1958), New Seeds of Contemplation (1961), and many of his poems and journals. THE SPRINGS OF CONTEMPLATION strikes this reader as needless chit-chat about silence. We do not find God in the book, but a tired talkative Merton who is a bit too convinced of his own sagacity. Alas.

Its odd, how things work out. In his Journals, Merton was ENTHRALLED by this reterat. He spoke in glowing terms of the participants,and praised the intamcy achieved. He states, flatly"this is the best reterat of my life." Yet none of that comes forth in this collection, which is more the pity. Of course, some of this is indeed dated[the world is radically changed in 33+ years]and perhaps, as it seems Fr. Merton was wont to do, he gets overly enthusiastic about something before he has completely immersed himself.Still, second level Merton is better then just about top shelf from anyone else.Some nuggets on prayer left me thinking that perhaps the great moments of this retreat were the celebration of the Mass that were held each day. In that silence was perhaps that ineffable moment that cannot be heard nor touched that Merton groped for so in his life and writings. So, in all not great Thomas Merton, thjough still necessary to see the entire picture of this good great man.

Having just finished a long journey through "The Cloister Walk" I do not consider myself at all qualified to provide an objective review of "The Psalms". But the in-depth commentary on the Psalms, the saints, the Church, on liturgy and theology..and especially the people of the monastic world.. which was so very prominent in her "Walk" is missing. To compare is, of course, patently unfair. However, in my opinion a book's value is not in merely restating what has already been written, but in the creative contributions to and interpretations of what already is. This does not happen. Shame on the publishers!

After reading the poetic, almost mystical, Cloister Walk, I was disappointed. In Cloister Walk, Norris consistently uses the Grail Psalms in her quotes of Psalm verses. So, I was disappointed to find that these Psalms were based on the KJV. Alas, the Grail translation is out of print! Too bad -- that would have been my preference.

It's important to remember that Kathleen Norris did not write this book. She provided an introduction to an ancient and venerable text.

If you are one of the many people who are illiterate when it comes to the Bible, this is a good place to start. As a "slow-learning Christian" I found this book a comfort. I purchased my first copy and will be ordering many more. To give as gifts to those who are hungering for spiritual direction.

One of the most boring books I have ever read. The main character is not particularly likeable and is, in fact, totally unbelievable in certain areas of personality/lack of insight. The plot has gapping holes in it in addition to being terribly predictable.