This book was fascinating. The author looks at the way our economy is dependant on oil and energy, shows an alternative theory for the fall of the Soviet Union, and predicts when the next oil crisis will be. Everyone should read the book so that they are prepared for this eventuality. The author believes it will be here in the next five to ten years and he's convinced me its true.

One of my favorite chapters was on energy grades, explaining why alternative energies are less viable than we have been led to believe. As a matter of fact, I've decided to put all my investments in oil and gas stocks. This book may change your life and your investment strategies too.

For those who are familiar with the field, note that this book is in stark contrast to earlier scarcity and growth books, the first written in 1964 by Barnett and Morris, as the author tells us, and the second written in 1979 by V. Kerrry Smith. It gives quite a rebuttal to their theories. It will probably break the field wide open.

In light of current world affairs, it is even more important to be aware of how dependent Americans are on foreign energy. While the book is of the scholarly nature, the author brings concepts and ideas down to a level everyone--students, academics, and arm-chair analysts--will understand.

I like to contact mr. Milburn Price in relation to the composition he made called "Have You Not Known" Isaih 40:28,3

L.Uittenbogaard Akelei 19 7621AR BORNE THE NETHERLANDS

Reynolds Price proves, once again, that he is the masterful poet we always knew. He shares deep emotions in so few words, but we come away with such a great admiration for the person who wrote them. RP likens the world and it's misery, as well as joys, to the fire that can warm you, but also engulf you.

Reynolds Price takes the willing reader along on the ride between life and death. Cancer-stricken, we feel his anguish, we mourn his loss. RP tells us that the world changes, but we must learn to adapt, as he has done so masterfully.

I have a confession to make. Mark was probably my least favorite of the Gospels. It seemed so disjointed at times. The author seemed to race from one event to the other, with seemingly little connection between events or tales. His descriptions and details seemed scant, with the other Gospels filling in the blanks. And there lies part of my problem in trying to figure the book of Mark out - my reliance on the other Gospels to help me interpret it, instead of reading Mark as though I was hearing everything about the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah for the first time.

The authors of "Mark as Story" try to impress upon the reader the importance of understanding Mark on its own terms as a narrative. They offer four guidelines in this approach: (1) read Mark as a story rather than history, (2) read Mark independently from the other Gospels, (3) avoid reading modern cultural assumptions into the story, and (4) avoid reading modern theologies about Jesus back into Mark's story. With these guidelines in mind, the authors discuss the various elements of Mark, known in biblical studies as "narrative criticism" where tone, style, setting, plot, characters, etc. are analyzed. Sound like a college course in Literature? Perhaps. And thus this particular book may not be to everyone's liking. As for me, I can truly say that I have a much greater appreciation for the Gospel of Mark having read it as a work of literature in its own right. - Ronni

This fairly brief book provides a fresh and exciting approach to the Gospel of Mark. By respecting the integrity of Mark and encouraging the reader to attend to the details and style of this Gospel, the reader is allowed to experience anew the Gospel and find within its story the astounding character of Jesus.

Most churches teach "the gospels" as if they were one story told by someone named Matthew Mark Luke John. So it's very hard to read any one gospel as if for the first time. They all wind up sounding like random collections of sayings and miracles by Jesus leading up to Good Friday and Easter. What Rhoads and Michie do is to treat the Gospel of Mark as a work of literature in its own right, apart from anything else we know or think we know about Jesus. They examine Mark's rhetoric, settings, plot, and characters to see how he tells the story. In the process, they enable us to experience Mark's gospel in a completely fresh way. Now I'm waiting for them to do the same thing for Matthew, Luke, and John--especially John.

One of the best books I have read in years. From an ordinary life with its share of sorrows and joys, Reynolds Price shares wonderful insight about what life is really made. How can a man creep into a soul and body of a woman with such authenticity? Just reading this book reminds me of the pleasure of reading KATE Vaiden, another book I enjoyed. Bravo, writing well can still be moving.

Once again, Reynolds Price amazed me with his insight into the mind of his character. Roxanna and the other characters were real, human and admirable. This is a book to be read slowly, so that the language can roll around your tongue and the experiences sit in your brain. Like life, it is to be taken one event at a time.

Mr. Price shows his mastery of language and unique voice of the South in this wonderful novel. Amazing that he can write so convincingly in a woman's voice! Roxanna is a wise, but ordinary woman who knows the value of a normal life. Her life has mystery, love, and sorrow, and it she tells about it all in an unfailingly honest way. As a native North Carolinian and a woman, I felt all her experiences deep in my heart. Her episodes of depression are expressed as tenderly as her feelings of love and family life. A long life related by a woman comfortable in her own value. A wonderful read! Mr. Price does it again!

Sally Mann's "Immediate Family" is startling when you first open it. Not because the children who are so often her subjects are nude much of the time, but because the scenes immediately draw you in and hold you like a feather gripped by a dirty-faced wild child. I grew up in rural Tennessee, and though I didn't have the freedom of the Mann children in some ways,I feel an affinity with them unlike any other children I've seen in these kinds of collections and was instantly transported back to my early years. My favorite pictures are "Crossed Sticks", which perfectly depicts the energy and vitality of childhood, and "Virginia at 3", which inspires both curiosity and empathy in me whenever I see it. I'm glad someone like Sally Mann is out there to portray childhood honestly and fearlessly, and I will treasure this book.

All of the photographs in this collection were taken with an 8x10 view camera, even those that have the appearance of candid, random snapshots. Many of the images are carefully manipulated in the darkroom to give one of the subjects an eerie, almost angelic luminescence in scenes dominated by hardship, tragedy, and crushing rural poverty. Sally Mann is a major artist, supported by Guggenheim, NEH and NEA grants, and this is some of her very best work. Readers should be warned that some will consider this work to border on child pornography. While this is absolutely not the case (and I vigorously support prosecution of those who exploit children in any fashion), in some localities this could almost be a "dangerous" book to own. Sally Mann's disturbing and transcendent vision will outlast our current hysteria and misunderstanding and will endure as photographic literature.

POSSIBLY MY FAVORITE BOOK! I carry this book with me everywhere I go. I bring it with me on two-day trips. It's ridiculous. Sally Mann is an incredible photographer and in this book, contrary to previous criticism, she photographs her children in DECENT and human, natural poses (nudity reigns, but tastefully so). She is by far my favorite photographer and, as a photo major in college, constantly cures me of those dreaded uninspired days of my life. Every time I flip through this book, I'm crazed with new ideas and inspiration. Not to mention awe.

I've read SOS going on four or five times now, floored, awestruck, enraptured each time, every twist and turn a new surprise arrives. Milkman is a wonderful archetype for a Black man searching for what he can claim as his own. His mind, his body, his sex, money? What is his and not tainted by the past, by racism, by internal family feuding? This is what I call a "Patience Book", you have to sit with it the way you would sit with a child on a Sunday afternoon. Patience. You have to breathe in rhythm with this book. Morrison is one of those few writers that it's silly to ask all of your questions of even after you finish the book. Pick it right back up and breathe, savor each page, have patience. It is not an easy read for it is literature and you are reading, truly reading. Not surfing through pulp fiction knwoing that the hero lives, the heroine is saved and everybody sleeps well on the last page. Uh uh. Patience. What else but patience could you use to understand Magdalene, Pilate, Corinthians? My all time, all time, all time favorite literary scene that chills me, tears me up, knocks me around hard and then uplifts me: Pilate at the funeral. "That was my baby, That's my baby, AND SHE WAS LOVED!"

Honey, welcome to real African American literature, impossible to translate to film for this is patience reading. Patience, free at last, free at last!

Song of Solomon is one of the greatest books written in the 20th century. Many writers can tell thoroughly engaging stories, write believable characters, and present it in insightful, clever prose. Morrison does all of these things and a level beyond, in some instances several levels.

Song of Solomon is probably the most brilliantly thought out stories ever put to paper. Morrison adds little details here and there early in the novel, and many times throughout, that seem to be used only to show the eccentricty of the characters or just to throw a little humor in there. But every single story behind the story, every little 'joke' or amusing tidbit about some characters past ties together in the final chapters in a literary feat I have yet to seen matched.

Dickens presented stories wide in scope, with many characters and symbols to show a culture or to present a political idea. Morrison does the same, only she makes every word matter. THERE IS A REASON you learn such and such about Pilate in chapter 2, or that this comment is made about Guitar by this character, and it all jells, aboslutely, thoroughly beautifully by the close of the book.

Song of Solomon cannot receive enough superlatives from me. I have yet to read Beloved or Jazz, Morrison's other two supposed masterworks, but I can only hope I will be equally if not moreso dazzled by them.

When you reread Song of Solomon, as I have done twice, you not only come to find the secrets and reasons hidden along the backroads and tangents of the characters' lives that went previously unnoticed, but to re-immerse yourself in the brilliance of the story that has always been and will always be there.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is a novel that everyone should read. It leads us through the family history, failures, successes, and self-discovery of Macon Dead III (Milkman). Morrison allows the reader a glimpse into the culture and everyday life of black families. We are along for the ride while Milkman discovers mysteries from the past and develops himself into a man. The reader is also given the opportunity to see racism in the worst degree. The retaliation of the Seven Days represents the actions of many early violent civil rights groups. Morrison deals with everyday issues such as love, rejection, depression, and obsession in her telling of Hagar. She depicts the strong bonds made between women through Pilate, Ruth, Hagar, and Reba. The theme of flying is present throughout the novel and relates the characters with slave stories and the belief that humans could fly to escape hardships. Song of Solomon is an excellent novel that I recommend to anyone looking for a book involving drama, mystery, and excitement. Even though Toni Morrison is portrayed as an author whose works represent that black community, Song of Solomon can be related to the lives of anyone: a family history.

In "The Last Great Weeper" from this collection of essays Reynolds Price says that he often cries these days when somebody gets something right-- a flawless dive from Greg Louganis and a perfect A above middle C from Leontyne Price. The same could be said of most of these fifty-two commentaries from National Public Radio: he gets it right.

Mr. Price has opinions on most subjects and certainly doesn't hesitate to express them. Even when some of his subjects do not particularly interest me, I as always feast on Mr. Price's language. There's something for almost everyone here. I was moved by his essay called "Wheelchair Travel," and also liked "The Great Imagination Heist," where he laments the evils of TV exposure on today's students, and "Private Worship." Mr. Price avoids the typical white church in America today which he describes as "The church as country club" and, like Emily Dickinson, keeps the Sabbath staying at home. Sound familiar?

I'm really writing this because I have to respond to the reviewer who thinks the title comes from Homer. Reynolds Price wrote and read about the two lines that give the title of this collection. He cites the Latin poet, Horace and says that the English poet, A.E. Houseman translated the poem. It is beautiful but Price writes beautifully also. I like the first novel the best, I think.

I'd read Reynolds Price's autobiographical A Whole New Life a year or so ago. That book, about his long battle with spinal cancer, impressed me with the man's courage, honesty, and depth of insight. When I saw Feasting the Heart, I grabbed it instantly and read most of it the same night. Jacques Maritain said once that truly creative people go deeper and deeper into an inner silence and extract everything the Source there has to give them, until finally their own heart is used up. I thought of Price when I read that. Not many modern writers struggle so hard with their own sense of integrity or go so deep they would ever risk using up their own hearts. Price does, and I always leave his books feeling that I have feasted my own heart. This collection is a treasure.

Reynolds Price is a brilliant, prize-winning writer, an ancient languages scholar and Christian, apparently. His approach, from the literal translation of two gospels, to the writing of his own, is fresh and eye-opening. Highly recommended to those who choose to look deeper into Christianity and its founding texts.

Reynold Price's translations of Mark and John are good in that they try to transliterate the style and feel of their Greek originals, but truth be told they just don't read as well as the translations to be found in other Bible tranlsations. But Price's commentaries on these two Gospels are the main factor in this book. He utilizes something that's missing from the "detective kits" of most other Biblical scholars: common sense. I've read a great majority of the books on the "Historical Jesus," each of which - as the old saying goes - reveals more about the author than the subject. Instead of going off into groundless supposition, as most other Historical Jesus questors are known to do, Price gives us the evidence that we have and makes common sense conclusions on who wrote the Gospels: when, where, how, and why. He doesn't make any mention of the so-called "Secret" Gospel of Mark, true; but I think this is less Price being unaware of it and more of him just realizing it's a phony and unworthy of mention. Read Akenson's Saint Saul, which brutally brings this forgery to light. Price's extra Gospel, which he wrote himself, is interesting, but ultimately the selling point of this book are his commentaries to the two ancient Gospels themselves.

Ahem.Mr Price is not the Editor. He's the author! (I wonder if any one reads these reviews and notes its contents). Its still a wonderful book, with a fresh new look at the Gospels of Mark and John. And frankly, after reading it, one gets a new perspective of the relationship between God and man. It certainly gave me a stronger foundation and background to the two gospels and an insight into Christ.