Luisa Valenzuela has written series of short vignettes that force the reader to reexamine the foundation and psychology of gender differences. The perspective of each short story is from that of the woman, as she percieves her lover and how he is incorporated into her world and her body. The context of the stories are particular male-female relationships in a politically unstable south american country(argentina?). It is a refreshing and beautifully written book well worth reading.

Luisa Lang Owen's recounting of her childhood and the losses she and others experienced before, during and after the war, including three years in a concentration camp is, at once, both hauntingly beautiful and horrific. Her captors, in seeking to exterminate individuals and their culture ironically distilled, in this young woman, the essence of being. Her lush and loving attention to detail, her artistic perceptions were heightened and strengthened in those years, and what we sometimes refer to as the "strength of the human spirit" is clearly defined in the telling of this woman's coming of age under life-threatening conditions. Both fascinated and saddened by the telling, I felt as if I'd entered the spirit of someone who has always lived and continues to live fully and attentively in the world.

Each story, each line, almost each word in this book is a perfect little morsel of most delicious imagination, wit, wordplay and everything else that would make a story shine. Some stories are nothing short of Orgasmic - leaving you gasping for breath, making you want to just sit there and smoke a cigarette and let the perfection of the experience fill you with passion for Valenzuela's writing. Buenissimo!

This book is just great. Its stories, the author's imaination, the way in which she writes. I am so grateful she is an Argentine writer!!!!!

"She says in a few words what some people don't say in a whole book." - C. Rosencrantz

"Vanna Bonta's poems are so sensitive and poignant. I loved each and every one of them." - Irene Dunne

"Vital and filled with all the good things..." - Phyllis Diller

"I was inexpressibly struck, overtaken by chills, the likes of which I have not felt since the time I studied Sylvia Plath. Vanna Bonta is an important discovery." - Margherita Guidacci

"Excellent. It is real poetry." - Torkom Saraydarian

"Vanna Bonta writes with an ancient mind through the eyes of a child." - Delores Kliegerman

"This description of Vanna can be no more than a sketch, a few strokes of pen. To try to convey the reality of her in these lines is like trying to replicate the reality of the complexity and beauty that exists in a painting by one of the old masters. The best way to get to know her is to read what she has written. The reader of this book is about to share her view of the world." - Joseph Turner, MA American Studies, Yale University

A very personal journey in the education of often-marginalized students. Written by educators who clearly care about the education of such students. Chapters cover not only the classroom teaching, but also the administration of schools.

This book is absolutely delightful. The reader learns that not all monsters are ugly and cruel. Indeed, some have hearts just as big as their bodies. Some even think. "What's my purpose in life?" the Monster of Albacete asks himself one day. One night, while trying to escape the stifling summer heat of Albacete, Spain, this monster changes form and slips beneath the door of a shop that sells portable air-conditioning units. After turning all of them to their maximum settings, the monster again changes form, and slips into one of the units. The next day, before he can escape, our monster gets delivered, with the AC unit, to a local library. It isn't long before he falls in love with the young female librarian. Being a voracious reader, he learns of a frog that claims to be a prince, that when kissed... "O.K. so I'm not really a prince," he admits to her after receiving his kiss. But you will surely fall in love with this monter's personality. And the artwork does this story 100% justice--better than you could imagine yourself. This is a keeper that you will read over and over. Perfect for the intermediate to advanced Spanish student, or any native Spanish reader.

_English Transcription Course_ is a programmed series of lessons in representing spoken RP English in IPA symbols for phonetics and ESL students and teachers. What distinguishes this book is its emphasis on connected speech processes, rather than just citation forms, which is all that many ESL learners are taught. The book offers two basic methods of giving the student practice: by providing passages written in (1) regular orthography, for transcription into IPA; and (2) IPA transcription, for reading aloud.

Each chapter introduces the student to a different type of allophonic variation that speakers tend to be little aware of. The student must learn to 'hear' these processes and then to incorporate them into increasingly narrow transcriptions of the practice passages. The processes are described by the titles of Chapters - or 'Lessons' - Three through Eight: Stress, rhythm and weak forms (concentrates on reduced forms of function words [and, there, can]); Sandhi r (both regular linking r [car of my own] and intrusive r [draw it]); Consonant syllabicity (syllabic n [listen] and l [little]); Elision (alveolar plosive elision [can't think], schwa elision [history]); Assimilation ([is she, red book, don't you]); and Glottaling (replacement of t with a glottal stop [not now]. Lesson One introduces 'Symbols and terminology', Two gives 'Transcription hints', and Nine offers 'Further practice'. There is also an introduction, an appendix with answers to all the exercises, a glossary, and a short bibliography of textbooks, workbooks and pronouncing dictionaries.

Anyone who has assembled a book like this knows about the difficulty of finding suitable practice texts, mainly due to copyright laws. The authors solved this by writing all of their own material, a formidable task. Although students can easily find texts on their own for transcription, and the authors encourage this, the key is getting help with transcriptions, which is where these self-produced texts with answer keys come in. The texts include personal anecdotes, descriptions of nature and places, and some surprisingly successful examples of creative writing, e.g. science fiction and household drama. Below follows an excerpt (p. 51) from an anecdote about a group of Italians on a train who were puzzling over the author's IPA transcription work:

The man said, 'It's him! He's doing it again! I wonder what that funny lettering is.' They all collected around me, peering over my shoulder.' I couldn't resist the challenge. When I got off the train, I said in Italian, 'I hope you all have a pleasant day.' I wish I had had a camera to take a picture of the expressions on their faces.

It is surprising that there apparently is no accompanying cassette tape or CD with this book. This would be of tremendous value particularly for instructors and students outside the UK, including those in English-speaking and in non-English-speaking countries.

This is a carefully thought out, well-designed, and meticulously produced volume which will be useful and instructive to teachers and students learning to transcribe any dialect of English, though it is obviously most suited to those working in RP. Phonetics and ESL instructors who are serious about cultivating in their students good pronunciation and clear, solid concepts of what that entails would do well to take a close look at this book.

Guido Cavalcanti: The Other Middle Ages by Maria Luisa Ardizzone (Department of Italian Studies, New York University) presents a fascinating and scholarly examination of the life and work of the renowned Italian poet of the late thirteenth century, Guido Cavalcanti, who is especially his famously complex poem "Donna me prega". An meticulously researched study placing Cavalcanti's work within the context of the intellectual history of the European era, as well as comparing Cavalcanti and his work with that of Dante, Guido Cavalcanti is a highly recommended addition to Italian literary studies collections as it offers an fresh and innovative reading of a truly classic poetry that transcends centuries.

Aptly edited by Luisa Del Giudice and Gerald Porter, Imagined States: Nationalism, Utopia, And Longing In Oral Cultures draws from international folklore scholars who have examined the ways in which national and ethnic groups have traditionally and creatively utilized "imagined states of existence", in the construction of cultural identities for themselves and for others. The original materials examined by scholarship includes oral traditions as found in traditional ballads, broadsides, and folk lore stories. Imagined States is an impressive and highly recommended body of original scholarship that is a strongly recommended, core addition to anthropological, sociological, and cultural history reference collections.