Dealing with fragments is like walking in a minefield: you can never be too cautious. There is only one methodology: keep your speculations "tame". The more ingenious a speculation may sound, the more aberrant may prove to be. If even the great T.B.L. Webster could not avoid this pitfall (his "Studies in Menander" ended up a major embarrassment), then nobody is immune. This volume brings together a number of major studies on the fragments of Old Comedy. The volume is comprehensive, welledited and well printed, representative of a variety of authors, subjects and approaches. As a rule the essays followed the cautious road, as pinpointed by Kenneth Dover's introductory note. One should not look here for a resurrection effect: what is lost is lost. But this is as close as we can get towards recovering at least the gist of the Old Comedy experience beyond the great master. A worthy investment.

One of the best cyclopedic works in field of freemasonry. Often in shadow of more known authors like Mcoy or Waite this book goes litle bit further in exploring speculative or spiritual aspects of freemasonry. Although largely outdated it still has alot to offer to curious students of freemasonry

In this offering, Collins employs the Wesleyan "via salutis," or "the way of salvation", as a framework upon which he successfully maps out John Wesley's theological thought. What Collins has accomplished beyond his careful organization of this material, is to capture many of the important nuances found in Wesley's scriptural-based theology. Although deep and profound, this text is composed in such a way as to not only instruct, but also to engage the reader. Wesley's theological convictions are presented in a clear and crisp style to which the student cannot help but become involved, both spiritually and intellectually. I am convinced this is already an important text, and will grow to be more so as time goes by. "The Scripture Way of Salvation" will no doubt receive the wide reading it so richly deserves.

People seem to enjoy being scared out of their wits. Big-budget movies have done it with relative ease, but trying to portray terror in a 30 or 60 minute TV show, complete with commercials, is a bit more difficult. There have been some major successes ("Kolchak: The Night Stalker", "The X-Files", "Buffy" and "Angel", but there have been some real dogs ---anyone remember 'Manimal'? This author presents the definitive work on TV horror shows, starting with Rod Serling's "Night Gallery." He reviews each episode, gives complete cast/crew credits, and doesn't waste words in analyzing each show. "Boos" and "ghouls" of all ages will find this a treasure-trove of TV terror.

Through The Rose Window: Art, Myth And The Religious Imagination by John F. Hayward (Minister, First Unitarian Church, Columbus, Ohio, and Editor of "The Journal of Liberal Religion") is a masterfully written and scholarly study of the intersection between expressions of the human spirit and the profound, life-changing impact of deep religious faith. Fourteen essays study the importance of imagination in religion, in meaningful and perhaps somewhat provocative manner. A profound and thoughtful analysis, through The Rose Window is very highly recommended reading for students of the interrelationship of religion, art, mythology, and spiritual expression.

This book has a one word definition . . . WONDERFUL! The wit, and wisdom nuggets will keep you longing to go to the bathroom to read it.

William H Rau (1855-1920), one of Philadelphia's preeminent photographers, was commissioned by the PRR in 1890 to photograph hundreds of scenes along its lines in order to promote travel by the general public. This book contains 87 of his 463 original images, which are owned by American Premerier Underwriters, Inc., sucessor firm to the Penn Central and PRR railroads, and on deposit with The Library Company of Philadelphia.
John R. Stilgoe, Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape at Harvard expresses in one of the book's three essays, "These photographs glisten with an energy born of opening, not the opening of pioneers opening the forest nor the opening of the first half-century of railroad technology, but the opening of wholly constructed, wholly controlled, scheduled and maintained, wholly artifical space."
Rau was a world class photographer and this is a fine selection of his PRR work. Therefore, it would be difficult to rate this book as anything other than first class.
These are excerpts from my complete review of this book, which will appear in a future edition of "The Keystone," the official quarterly publication of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society (PRRT&HS).

Alan B. Buchan
Member, Board of Directors - PRRT&HS

In A Traveller's History Of Mexico, historian Kenneth Pearce provides the reader with an informative, engaging history that begins the prehistoric life of the region, and continues with the coming of the Olmecs and the Mayans (1150-1000 BC), whose cultures were subsumed into the Aztec empire. The reader is treated to a vivid account of Aztec life and its ultimate demise with the arrival off the Spanish conquistadors. The consequent greed, corruption, and oppression of Spanish colonial rule and the Catholic Church are covered in detail. Pearce then moves on to the 19th Century War of Independence which led to the founding of the Mexican Republic, the brief reign of Emperor Maximilian and the Empress Carlotta, the dashing Santa Anna (who led the siege on the Alamo); revolutionaries Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, and other influential characters that were caught up in Mexico's' often violent power struggles. Highly recommended for personal, school, and community history collections, A Traveller's History Of Mexico concludes with the last 70 years of one-party political domination, recently ending with an election of the opposition, and the contemporary social issues of an expanding population, drugs, pollution, corruption, and an oppressed indigenous population.

A Useful Art: Essays and Radio Scripts on American Design, by Louis Zukofsky, is an invaluable chronicle of a major American poet's engagement with this country's indigenous tradition of design. In 1936, the Federal Arts Project (a division of the WPA) hired Louis Zukofsky, along with many others, to prepare a compendium of information on traditional American crafts. The Index of American Design aimed to define original U.S. culture at a time when interest in handicrafts had just begun to emerge. These previously unpublished essays and radio scripts are scrupulously researched investigations of various American handicrafts: the topics they cover include ironwork, tin ware, furniture maker Duncan Phyfe and friendship quilts. They also reflect Zukofsky's sense of the poem as a crafted object and his attempt to reconcile the labor theory of value with aesthetic production. This book, which can be seen in the context of kindred work by William Carlos William (In the American Grain) and Ezra Pound (Guide to Kulchur), will be of special interest to readers of 20th-century poetry, cultural critics, social historians, and scholars of design. The book was edited by and has an introduction by Kenneth Sherwood; the afterword is by John Taggart.

Woman in the Closet is a tense, sexually-engaging mystery. Harvey is a master of the form. I'll definately be searching out other books by the same author.