A very readable memoir; well written. Good bits of real life in the years around 1900. Some good humor as well. It gave me a feel of the time as I read.

Born in 1871, Edward J. Farlow left his Iowa home at the age of fifteen to follow the life of a cowboy in Wyoming Territory. This colorful tale is footnoted with historical documentation that will delight and surprise the reader. The author includes history capsules of the Hollywood film industry, the government's attempts to "tame" the Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians, his experiences with Native Americans at a time when they were being "reservationed" and his interesting accounts of cattle ranching as it blossomed in Fremont County. WIND RIVER ADVENTURES brings to life an era of misunderstanding, great promise and what would eventually become the western way of life. It takes the reader through territorial times, statehood for Wyoming and the plight of two small tribes of Native American Indians as seen through the eyes of an adopted son of the Arapahoe Tribe. As a memoir this is a great read and as a reference tool it is well-documented and very well indexed. I recommend this book to any person interested in western history.

This intensely interesting book, part fiction, part memoir, and part stream-of-consciousness writing, has such a unique premise (a trip to Ireland to research a wild festival first hand) that it would have been a great book even without a good writing style. Nevertheless, Rukeyser's startlingly vivid poetic sentences are a key reason to read this book as well. The narrator/author's observations are so detailed that the reader feels as though he or she is in Ireland with her. By some miracle, the details never slow the book down; I found myself regretting how quickly I'd gobbled down this marvelous book (two days). I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys travel memoirs, engaging novels, or prose poems.

Recently I asked Prof Brueggemann for one of his lesser known writings on Justice or Injustice. This request came for a friend who as a non-violent protester at Ft. Benning GA was convicted to serve a six months sentence at a Kentucky Federal Prison. Without hesitation our good professor came up with the single chapter in this little gem of 65 pages! He simply repeated the names of the writers - Sharon Parks and Thomas Groome and their conference on Spirituality in Portland Maine in 1983. His valued contributions are the Preface written in May of 1984 and the first Chapter with the title of "Voices of the Night - Against Justice."

Since Brueggemann is the Theologian of three writers he sets the stage with the technical issues and background of Micah's tradition among the Old Testament prophets of Justice, Mercy and Compassion. As only our favorite OT Prof can accomplish he makes the case for Micah's program of poetry as a guide for our ways in education. As in his teaching he outlines the texts with headings of Economically, Epistemologically and Linguistically. Along the way he briefly focuses on Torah of Yahweh and the Exodus Memory: "Micah offers a vision of the nations submitting to the torah of Yahweh." He relates theology behind textual interpretation with doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. As one of my Chaplain friends notes, "most every exposition of Brueggemann comes out like poetry!" He is first and foremost a Poet.

I will send my friend this powerful, mediating, spiritual force for supporting those who stand-up for the rights of those who are dis-enfranchised. Another parallel book title that comes to mind is "Jesus and the Disinherited" by Howard Thurman! It was said to have been constantly carried around by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood

The Dead and the Living displays great emotional depth and maturity as Olds explores the world of familial relationships. The structure of the collection provides a fluidity of progression from poem to poem, subject to subject. One reads through Olds' poetry as though compelled to turn each page. But be sure you pause to reflect on these poems and their stunning use of language. Olds knows how to turn a phrase for just the right effect. She takes great pains to set down only the most perfect word. There are no throwaway lines here. Her poems are tight and powerful. This is a wonderful collection to introduce you to a fine and important contemporary poet.

Every poem resonated with me. I have never been a big reader of poetry, but this is different. Moving.

I like to think myself a poet. When I pick up a pen I am feeling out my life through the tiny cuts and scars of my hands. I am reaching for feeling and the heavy bud of truth. Sharon Olds has taught me words so bloody-red raw that filling myself with line after line of her beautiful, startling images has become a way for me to feed my own poetry addiction. She has taught me to find that pure, burning place inside myself so I might release it all through my own inky heart. The Dead and the Living is a masterpiece. Each poem burns with my desire to know more about this strong woman and her survival. I learn her emotion through "The Forms," in which she reveals the way she has been bent beneath every kind of love. Poem after poem reveals a kind of learned pain in which she concludes that even the sharpest parts of life can sometimes hold a soft spot. Every word dropped from her lip has me spooning and scraping and fighting for one more swallow. I lay this book on the kitchen counter where the sun is just going down, and I press my forehead hard against it. I feel the way pain must feel-- the way life and love must feel-- when you are knowing, breathing, living it through the beautiful flutters of another's shadow.

I first read this collection some years back, and was incredibly moved at the time. Since then, I've gone through a similiar experience in my own family, so returning to this book actually provided some sense of closure. Regardless, it is a tremendous effort, and a beautiful one. Sharon Olds is, without doubt, the best living poet in America, and that's saying a lot.

This is one of the most eloquent readings I have ever come across. Ms. Olds powerful use of metaphor to describe the tormented relationship she had with her father is insightful and inspiring. This should be required reading for any young female (indeed people of all genders and ages) struggling to find a means for remaining not only sane, inspite of the insanity in to which some of us are born, but how to remain caring, compassionate and creatively involved with your surroundings, despite the chaos of whatever personal hell you must survive to do so.

This is one of the best books I have ever read and Olds is a major talent, not just in the world of autobiographical poetry... but in the world of international literature. ---

This is a good addition to the many state and national quilt histories available. It is well illustrated in color and black and white, and the quilts shown include all types. Each quilt has information about style, fabrics, maker etc (where known). It is well laid out and I enjoyed reading it. Well worth getting.

This is a must read for any student or teacher of the book of Genesis. Genesis is viewed from the perspective of the important matriarchs of the faith. Practical applications are easy for the reader to make.

When I purchased Huxford's Old Book Value Guide, I imagined that the books that were covered might be older than those written by Len Deighton and Marian Zimmer Bradley. There's lots of stuff from 1970 on, but coverage of genuinely old books is very sparse. The title of this guide is extremely misleading, but if late 20th Century books are your area of interest, you might find this useful. I didn't.

This book does list values of 25,000 books as it claims, but it is incomplete in some very frustrating ways that have to do with how it was put together. The authors apparently contacted a number of book dealers and collected their 'inventories' into a database. These were then consolidated into the listing(s) of this book.

But what that means is that you find an extremely unsystematic selection of titles. You may find a $500 title that someone has been trying to sell for years right above a run-of-the-mill used-bookstore title selling for $15. You could find an author's second book listed, but not the first or third. As a lookup/reference tool is is hardly useful.

I once thought this book would be a nice supplement to the other collecting books that focus on more high-end titles... something to take along to yard sales and the like to see if the $0.25 book was 'worth' $50 or $0.50. Well, even with 25,000 titles you can imagine that many more books are not listed here. Far too often I would not find a listing but COULD NOT KNOW if the book was valuable or not... its non-existence in this book just means one of the selected sellers did not have it in stock. I also kept finding entries in the $25/$30 range - right at the point where it might be a collectable underlisted by that one store or just their overpriced junk. With only a single such listing to consider, I just couldn't know.

The overlarge physical size of the book also seemed unwieldy to me. Combined with the sense of slap-together technique and a look at the number of other "Huxfords" listings, I frankly feel that it is just an attempt to grab a piece of the growing 'collectibles' market.

I am sure this book is excellent for antiquarian/rare book lovers, but I like popular authors with books 20-30 years old too, and those seem to be lacking in this guide a bit. Unless you are a professional book dealer, you will not fetch these prices on the internet, it is flooded with booksellers and the worth of a fine book seems to be waning. But all-in-all it is a good guide to go by when looking up older hardbacks.

Olds could be writing short prose pieces and make it pass for a short novel. These "poems" don't even really pass for "psalms", which I suspect her to be moving towards. Interesting contents but I believe she needs to stop writing for writing's sake.

Sharon Olds' "The Unswept Room" is a 2002 National Book Award Finalist for Poetry. That alone makes the book worth paying attention to.
The National Book Foundation wrote "A new collection of poems from a distinguished poet, ranging from those erupting out of history and childhood, a new generation of children, the transformative power of marital love, and the shock when that love comes to an end."
If you enjoyed her previous poems, you will like this one too.

Strong, beautiful and breathtaking.

I didn't think Olds' work could get any stronger, but it does. Her sense of meter and her willingness to take the reader on a real leap of mind and heart are even more developed here than in her earlier work. A must-read for any poet or anyone who likes poetry.

Sharon Olds has diarrhea of the pen.

I enjoyed this book for several reasons - Olds' poetry is brilliant without being haughty or laiden with archaic vocabulary or tired style. Her straightforward honesty coupled with her conciseness makes her poetry easy to read. Such honesty and conciseness are easy to "overdo" or do wrong. Olds avoids both such mistakes. She is honest without being brutal or giving the reader a sense that they are recieving too much information and she is concise without being too brief and leaving the reading wanting more. Her style tells the reader exactly what she means to say and leaves us feeling as if we have recieved the perfect dose of poetry.

This is the most straightforward, urgent, honest poetry I have ever read. Not for fans of pretentious flowery language, for the squeamish, or for simpletons who don't see that there is beauty in complexity. I have yet to find another poet who can write with the clarity of Sharon Olds.