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Book reviews for "Pikelny,_Philip_S." sorted by average review score:

The Rain Maiden: A Novel
Published in Hardcover by Citadel Pr (1987)
Author: Jill M. Phillips
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this romance novel contains no fluffy, sweet sex
A thousand kudos to Jill Phillips. She did an outstanding job of letting a romance novel reader know that there really is good historical fiction out there. She has inspired me to delve deeper into the romance of the era. This book contains no happy ending, but Ms. Phillips took away all the fluff and sweet sex of usual romance novels and replaced it with the reality of life in medievil times. I always thought it would be cool to live in those times, have my knight in shining armor there to save me from the despicable people portrayed in this book. True to the times, everyone used each other, to their fullest ability. How frightening to be a young child in those times. Isabel, who I plan on researching her for factual information, was a classic victim, and I am sure all women were in those times. Chattel. I wish more authors were as conscientious about writing of history, the true lives, making every effort to be as accurate as history allows. This book is for anyone who needs a lift. Despite its depressing contents, you close the book with a sigh, thankful for all you have in this life.

A Haunting Novel
I found myself haunted by this book for weeks after and I had to find out if it were true. All I could find was that Isabelle of Hainault was married to King Philippe when she was 10, gave birth to his heir at 16 and died before she was 20. This is tragic by any standards but the way the book depicts her is even more tragic. She was used by so many men - her father and uncle mostly who (if the book is accurate) were sick. But the book does not depict them that way - incest is seen as common in those days. It is hard to understand her having so many relationships as she was so young. To start at 10, have over 10 pregnancies and then die in childbirth is unbelievably sad. She was a queen but in reality nothing but a victim. Lets hope this book really is purely fictional and the real Isabelle had a much happier life.

Beautiful, Tragic, Very Detailed
Five stars, only because I can't give it ten. This is the best book I've ever read. Although there is a lot of detailed sex, etc., It is still a great book. I had to force myself to put it down. It's long, but well worth it. A very good look at the lifestyles of royals in medival times & the lives of many medival women. Excellent historical detail.


Raised by Wolves
Published in Paperback by Scalo Books (1995)
Authors: Jim Goldberg, Philip Brookman, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Addison Gallery of American Art, and Museum Fur Gestaltung Zurich
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A real eye opener. Wonderfully put together.
This isn't your ordinary coffee table book. Jim Goldberg delves into the lives of homeless kids living on the street, cataloging and following two kids through his collage of pictures and stories. Although it's hard to resist just leafing through it's pages, the real message and story is in reading the book from cover to cover. Jim Goldberg ties the pictures together with stories, giving you a real sense of what these kids go through, what their motivations are, what their daily lives are like.

I volunteer helping out homeless kids in Seattle, and from what I've seen this book does a good job of accurately protraying these children, including why they're on the street. He's unbiased and uncensored in his view, I think echo's review reflecting this (one of the kids followed in the book) only stands as a testament of this.

Definitely worth Buying!
This is an eye-opening book full of amazing photographs that will leave you FEELING what these kids and adults are and have gone through living on the streets of San Francisco. Not too often are you experiencing so many emotions as you will when you flip page through page through this book. I can't say much more but it is worth the money...you will experience something that many of us are fortunate to have not experienced.

Jim Goldberg got it right
Accurate and thourough- Jim Goldberg told our stories truthfully, and lets you draw your own conclusions. - echo


Recovering from a Broken Heart
Published in Paperback by Pinnacle Books (1990)
Author: Philip Golabuk
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this is the most loving treatment of lost love anywhere
Phillip Golabuk is a gifted author and philosipher. It is aad that the book is out of print as it is so desparately needed by millions of people. We are a disposable society and we "rid" ourselves of spouses as quickly as we change a dollar bill. To date, we have no real answer as to how to absorb this trauma and go on. This book quiets the missplaced soul.

This book is amazing!
This is one of those books that changes your life. I read it several years ago after a devastating break up and it helped me survive. Subsequently, I have read it many times. The philosophy and tools that it gives can be used in all situations in life. The author, Philip Golabuk, is a wonderful writer whose words go straight into the heart. It is truly a heart break that this book went out of print. My copy remains cherished on my shelf. I only hope that some very brilliant publisher sees it and picks up its rights so the world can have this wonderful book again.

Calms and guides you through the pain of loss
This author of this book is like a gentle loving friend who has been there, guiding you through the pain of a heartbreak. It is also one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It is trully written from the heart and I would recommemd reading it just for the wisdom and beauty contained within. It has helped me through the worst times of my life and has helped others who I have recommended it too.


Red Earth: Two Novellas
Published in Paperback by Holy Cow! Press (1997)
Authors: Philip H. Red Eagle and Philip H. Red Eagle
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Philip Red Eagle Completes the Circle
Philip Red Eagle is an amazing writer! There have been many exceptional books written about PTSD and the reality of the warzone. What makes this book different is the mind, body and spirit approach that Philip Red Eagle expresses so well. He not only takes you there with him,but shows you a way home through the pain, distrust and loss and to the strength of your heart and spirit. For anyone who wants to help a vet who is struggling to regain his or her spirit, this is the book you've been looking for! This is a way home.

This is a wonderful book
There's been a lot written about Vietnam vets and post traumatic stress, but I've never read any author who portrays the pain and anguish as well as Red Eagle. Then he portrays the healing. But to understand it you must enter a different skin. The skin of a people not held to standard conventions; where time has a different meaning and visions and dreams are an important part of life. I have never read an author who managed to accomplish this, but Red Eagle does. Even Alexie, an author I greatly admire, still leaves the reader on the outside looking in. But with Red Eagle you are truly taken inside.

I am an avid reader who usually consumes one book after another. However, when I finished this book I couldn't start another one for a couple of days. It has that kind of effect on you.

student favorite
I have taught this book alongside classic works of Native American (such as Leslie Silko's "Ceremony"), alongside exceptional works of Native philosophy (e.g. Vine Deloria's "Red Earth / White Lies") and alongside some of the most popular contemporary Native writing (Sherman Alexie, among others). Red Eagle's "Red Earth" holds its own in all these contexts, and has been the favorite of many students in my classes.

"Red Earth" is a magical pair of stories dealing with the trauma not only of Vietnam, but American colonialism.


Scheler's Critique of Kant's Ethics (Series in Continental Thought, No 22)
Published in Hardcover by Ohio Univ Pr (Txt) (1995)
Author: Philip Blosser
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A Phenomenological Event
Dr Philip Blosser of Lenoir-Rhyne College has truly arranged a definitive study of Max Scheler's critique of Kantian ethics. Not only does this book elucidate Kantian formalism and Schelerian axiology, it also provides a necessary historical context for the Kantian legacy and Scheler's assessment of Kant's formalism. Moreover, Blosser's expertise in phenomenological thought and value theory shines through in this distinctive and peerless work. I have read the book twice and still often consult it in my studies when trying to comprehend Kantian ethics. Pick up this monograph and add it to your library. It is a phenomenological event!

The Best of Scheler's studies!
I am not exagerating. As a postgraduate student fond of the philosophy of Max Scheler, I am dare to say I have read most of Scheler's studies in English. Of course, they are not large in number, actually. But I really find Prof. Blosser's investigation the superb of them, no matter the scope and the depth and the clarity of his analysis. And he is always eager to put the things in the context of contemporay philosophy, telling us what on earth is the true meaning of Scheler's insight to us.

This philosophical masterpiece has changed my life forever!
The pure and awe-inspiring brilliance of Dr. Philip Blosser bursts forth from these pages like academic napalm. This book is a true gem penned in excellence by one of the greatest minds to ever grace the realm of philosophy. It should be thankfully discovered by one and all.


Shadow Play: The Murder of Robert F. Kennedy, the Trial of Sirhan Sirhan, and the Failure of American Justice
Published in Hardcover by St. Martin's Press (1997)
Authors: William Klaber, Philip H. Melanson, and Samuel Dash
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A returning student's review
This book was extremely enlightening and engrossing. It reveals many startling details about an assassination that in the public's mind is an open and shut case. This book will make you re-examine what you think you know about the murder of Robert F. Kennedy. It is a fascinating and disturbing look into the mishandling of the investigation as well as the trial of Sirhan Sirhan.

Surely Surly Sirhan
Klaber stands alone in his remarkable attention to detail and his insightful intuition as he dissects Sirhan, the assassination and all the people and events surrounding it. Investigative journalism at its finest; with no sides taken, no leaf unturned/unflipped/unanalyzed and certainly no minds unchallenged.

Klaber's wired-in work makes all the others' works putter off into nattering nabobs of nonsensical noise as he delicately delves into this June 4, 1968 seminal tragedy. Klaber kooks the krime and katers to only the most diskriminating kats.

What's Klaber writing about now?

A Must Read
I literally tore through this book. I couldn't put it down. Fascinating and frustrating with regards to the failure of the justice system.


The Simple Truth: Poems
Published in Paperback by Knopf (1996)
Authors: Philip Levine and Harry Ford
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Mr. Levine's Simple Truth
Philip Levine writes in the title poem of this collection:

"Some things/you know all your life. They are so simple and true/they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,/they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,/the glass of water, the absence of light gathering/ in the shadows of picture frames, they must be/ naked and alone, they must stand for themselves."

These lines capture many of the themes of this Pulitzer-prize winning book. The poems in this collection are deceptively simple, "naked and alone". They generally involve an incident or person, recollected by the poet from his past. The incident is recounted in bare unrhymed lines, without hyperbole or judgment. We are encouraged to see the incident, as we see the still life reproduced on the cover of the volume and to let it "stand for itself". The poems are elegaic in tone and the effect of the memory is generally one of deep sadness.

Many of the poems have a deliberately pictorial quality, as reflected in their titles, that remind one of a photo or of a painting in a museum. In many cases, the reader is tempted to conceive in the mind's eye a painting to accompany the poem. This is true, particularly, as the book progresses into its final section with its descriptions of the poet's mother ("My Mother with Purse, the Summer they Murdered the Spanish Poet"), father ("My Father with Cigarette Twelve Years before the Nazis could Break his Heart"), and others ("Edward Lieberman, Entrepreneur, four years after the Burnings on Okinawa") One of the poems of the collection is title simply "Photography". Ironically, this poem is less pictorial than many others. It relates a sad incident from the poet's childhood involving his Aunt, and others, and focuses on the ravages of time and memory.

The poems also focus on the role imagination plays in constituting our reality. The first poem of the collection "On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane" relates a meeting between these two romantic 20th Century poets and alludes to Crane's apparent suicide in jumping from a ship bound from Vera Cruz to New York. Crane's tragic but romantic death is juxtaposed with the vision coming "to an ordinary man staring/ at a filthy river" as he contemplates not only Crane and Lorca but his son falling to his death "from/the roof of a building he works on." With a voice of irony, the poet asks us to "bless the imagination. It gives/ us the myths we live by. Let's bless/ the visionary power of the human-- the only animal that's got it--"

These poems have a multi-layered simplicity realized through an understated voice of sadness and illuminated by imagination.

He writes plain, about things plain, and is plain fabulous!
Philip Levine once vowed to be the voice of the poor, the simple, those without voice--a vow he has not broken in his sixty-plus years of writing poetry. In 1995, Levine was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his collection of poems, "the Simple Truth". That prize would mean less to him than the knowledge that thousands of people have found enjoyment and comfort from reading his poems--that from his work, they came to better understand our common vulnerabilty to the state of being human. Levine's poems are an echo of the emotions trapped in the reader's heart; they are a friendly voice giving substance to what has been lived, but not spoken. Levine's title poem "The Simple Truth" invites the reader to recognize and celebrate the stark beauty of simple things. Each poem in this collection builds on the other to introduce the reader to the poet, who in turn introduces readers to perfect poetic expression, so personal that they will stop and say "Yes!! That IS how it is!" Anyone who cannot relate to or reconginze themself in at least half of the poems in this fine book, have not read it. That's "the simple truth."

Beautiful book
Levine's poetry often moves me. In my opinion, this is his best book. His poems strike me as being very honest; they make me accept the complicated mess of joys and disappointments that it means to be human. The title poem, "The Simple Truth," explains exactly what I mean (and in a better way than I'm doing here). Please read this book.


The return of Philip Latinowicz
Published in Unknown Binding by Quartet Books ()
Author: Miroslav Krleza
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an excellent, imaginative novel
The early 20th century Croatian novelist Miroslav Krleza is far less well known in this country than, say, Bosnian novelist Ivo Andric or Croatian journalist and novelist Slavenka Drakulic, but reading this excellent book convinces me that he is far superior to the latter and almost in the class of the former. "The Return of Philip Latinowicz" tells the story of an aging and doubting painter who returns from cosmopolitan Europe to his small Croatian home town, both to retreat from current problems and to confront lingering uncertainties and resentments from his youth. The atmosphere, as the reader from the Netherlands writes, is wonderfully Dostoevskian in places; the characters are drawn unforgettably (at times with humor, at others with pathos); the story moves slowly at the beginning but becomes a sort of psychological thriller by the end. This is a very impressive book that deserves wide readership.

Too little known about Krleza
Unfortunately, only two novels of Krleza's have been translated into English, which does not even come near to doing justice to the volumes of novels, stories, plays, poems and essays this multi-talented writer has produced. The reviewer below is incorrect in saying Krleza is "almost" in the class of Andric. Krleza far surpasses Andric, and this can be sensed in "The Return of Filip Latinovicz." I highly recommend this and esp. "On the Edge of Reason."

Power of croatian literature
Just another great classic from the hand of the greatest coroatian writer.Like his early works, this book represent a modern style in his best way. A must read!


So, You Wanna Be a Comic Book Artist?
Published in Paperback by Beyond Words Pub Co (30 September, 2001)
Authors: Philip Amara, Pop Mhan, and Phil D. Amara
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This Is A Good Book!!
This is a fun book to read. In addition to being well written and informative, this book opened up to me the wonderful world of comics/graphic novels (MAGIC KNIGHTS RAYEARTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)I think it is a really good book for if you want to start on drawing comics but you just don't know if you have the patience to fit all those little drawings into little boxes. That's kinda how I felt at first but now I love drawing comics.

Written in a kid-friendly, chatty tone
Comic book fans of all ages who want to create some memorable works of their own receive basic tips on everything from starting a cartoon studio and choosing characters and plots to honing drawing skills and submitting work to comics companies. A kid-friendly, chatty tone makes it easy for younger artists to become involved.

VERY GOOD BOOK!!!
This book is very helpful. I can now draw comics very well!!!


Poets on the Peaks: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen & Jack Kerouac in the Cascades
Published in Hardcover by Counterpoint Press (16 April, 2002)
Author: John Suiter
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