Henry Vaughan is rightly regarded as the great mystic poet of his time. Although a firm believer in Christianity, his is not the sort of Christianity that is comfortable with the world God has made. He is more a believer, one might say, in the Fall, and longs for the angelic world which he catches glimpses of from time to time. This selection of poems is an excellent introduction to his disposition, which deal more with escaping this world than glorifying the next. Brief Examples: In "Child-hood" his love of that innocent period "which angels guard" and the impossibility of returning to that state of bliss make him ask himself "Why if I see a rock or shelf, Shall I thence cast myself down" ...."Since all that age doth teach, is ill"----And in "The Night," he speculates that there is in God "a deep, but dazzling darkness;" and proclaims "O for that night! where I in him/ Might live invisible and dim."-Vaughan was really ahead of his time and more resembles Shelley and his later disciple Francis Thompson than any poet of his age (including George Herbert). After reading this selection of poems, one feels that Vaughan was a unique sort of Christian. More to the point, one questions whether Christianity was not the mere medium through which Vaughan, in tune with his age, conveyed his mystical yearning and escapism, which is the core of his poetry and his being.

Generally hailed as America's finest Civil War memorial--maybe the most powerful memorial to any American war--the St. Gaudens masterpiece on Boston Common has inspired poetry, music, and probably a movie, "Glory." Lincoln Kirstein has written a stirring essay on the subjects: Colonel Shaw and his Massachusetts 54th Regiment (black), what they meant to their contemporaries, and their message for today. Although the photographs were taken in a bleak period for the Memorial (it badly needed restoration, which it received shortly after this book came out), Richard Benson's photographs are still powerful,able to transmit with finesse the messages of Shaw, his black comrades, St. Gaudens, and Lincoln Kirstein. It's a beautiful book, a labor of love.

An Excellent Book.. A Must For All The Managers In Any Organistaion.

This book is by far the most beautiful and informative book I have ever owned. It is also the biggest and heaviest book I have ever carried out of a store. It is full of wonderful prints of quilts of all kinds and from history as well as today. The text is fascinating as you read about the truth of the history of quilting, about quilts done by the people of different modern cultures and about the trends and exciting things happening in quilting today. I am sure this book will bring hundreds of hours of enjoyment both in the reading and in the gazing again and again at the prints

I am an inveterate dog-earer, often bending the pages unconciously, and I find, after reading Robert B. Shaw's SOLVING FOR X, that I've folded down the corners of 17 pages! I haven't messed up a book of poetry this badly in a long, long time.

Many of the poems in this book are metrical, and quite a few of them employ perfect rhyme. One of these, my favorite in the book, is "A Roadside Flock," a poem ostensibly about copper weather vane roosters, which concludes:

" . . . their giddy doom to pivot, / prey to the winds that flounce about the sky. / It's not the life we'd live if we could live it. And gleam gives way to verdigris, raised high // to weather drably, exiled from the ground . . . / Feel that? A hint of breeze. Birds of a feather, / their regal beaks shudder without a sound, / and all the copper flock turns tail together."

But "A Roadside Flock" has a lot of stiff competition. I also very much enjoy "Airs and Graces," "A Field of Goldenrod," "The End of the Sonnet," "Dec. 23," "Espalier," "A Paper Cut," "Ant in Amber," "Seed Catalogues in Winter," "A Flashback," "Letter of Recommendation," "Out of Character," "Static," "September Brownout," "Other Eyes: Hurricane's," "Remainders," and "Living past 19."

I'm struck by how casual Shaw's style is, how downright funny at times, without being the least bit loose or nasty. It's a tricky way to write, but Shaw has mastered it, and I think this is his best book to date.

And that's saying something when you consider his excellent previous books or poetry: THE WONDER OF SEEING DOUBLE, THE POST OFFICE MURALS RESTORED, and BELOW THE SURFACE. But don't trust me. Read everything he's written, including his superb study of the poetry of Herbert and Donne, THE CALL OF GOD, and judge this intelligent, accessible, witty writer for yourself.

What a great read. It captures the mood and humor of the movie characters well. It has also been "cleaned-up" from the movie version so it is suitable for all the young readers out there.

Any fan of the Back to the Future triology who wants to be able to take the movie with them should think of picking up this book. One of my favorite movies of all time, Back to the Future Part II goes just as well in book format.

The second part of the famous trilogy , starts off right where the first one ended. Doc Brown shows up in his time traveling Time Machine to take Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer to the future to fix a problem with their future kids. Little do they know that their troubles are far from over after they arrive there. Biff steals the time machine from the future and hands himself a sports almanac giving all the scores for the next half centruy. The time line is totaly changed and its up to Marty and the Doc to fix things before its to late by going back to 1955 where the trouble starts.

The great thing about the book is that it gives more detail then the movie. It goes into what the characters are thinking that we can't see during the movie and gives details that were cut out of the movie as well. Theres a part where Marty meets his brother Dave in an alternate 1985 and his brother is drunk and a bum to say the least. Another moment where the old farmer Peabody from the first movie shows up trying to still get at the DeLorean that busted up one of his pines is pretty intersting as well. Theres also a lot of description of the moments we find ourselves in, so we can pretty much see the movie without having to actualy see it. Its very true to the movie and I think captures the great sequal quite well in book form.

The only true problems I have with it is that they did edit out the curses and even not so bad words making them even nicer then they were. I do feel it took a little away from the book as there aren't that many curses in the movie as it is and it was noticible. Also some of the scenes seemed rushed through towards the end. A lot of the stuff at the end of the 1955 climax of the movie just didn't come off as exciting as it did in the movie. While I know its hard to do a non stop action scene like the tunnel chase where Marty has to get the almanac off of Biff's car in a book, it still came off as half as exciting as it truly was.

Its great to be able to take with you though whereever you are. you can't always bring a VCR or DVD player with you, but this book can always be in hand and it is defiitely a worth while buy as its as much fun as the movie and the movie is one of the greatest sequals of all time.

This was an excellent book. It had lots of action and it was flawless. I liked the way it described the characters. It never got boring. I would recommend this book to anyone.

This was a okay book The movie was adpted from this?

Robert Gould Shaw was that shy, stubborn hero of the movie "Glory": a Boston aristocrat, reared among abolitionists, struggling to break free from the iron grip of his mother, a good soldier, a born leader. Peter Burchard's book is still the best for bringing the young Colonel to life before our eyes: reading military history in his tent, courting his future wife, fighting on great battlefields, and displaying awesome moral courage as well as physical courage. A complex and in some ways a heavy-burdened young man, he took on the uncertain, unpopular and dangerous job of organizing, training and leading the nation's first black regiment. He certainly knew before he took the job that in order to prove that "Black Men could fight as well as White Men" he would probably have to lose his life along with many of the men who would come to trust him. The story of how he battled every kind of prejudice and misunderstanding, as well as the common hazards of poor food, boredom, cold, homesickness, and the grief of leaving his wife of just three weeks, makes for a well-presented saga; 140 years later it's still worth pondering. It proves that one cheerful, rather ordinary young man--a dedicated man--can make a difference.

"Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes" is the only title I have seen specifically looking at the process of how one goes about collecting and writing ethnograhpic data. The book begins with theoretical issues, then moves into jotting, full fieldnotes, and finally discusses how to analyze fieldnotes and write a full ethnography. In general it is an excellent treatment of the subject and provides very practical advice which is well-illustrated by samples collected by the authors and their students. The authros show a marked preferrence for interpretive and processual anthropology (there are frequent referrences to Clifford Geertz among others) so researchers and students with strong comittments to other approaches might not find it as useful as I did. If the book suffers from any shortcoming it is that at points the explanations become too wordy bogging the reader down somewhat. While this book would not be of much interest to the non-professional reader, I highly recommend it to anyone who is studying, practicing, or teaching ethnographic method. I found it very useful and practical.

Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes was written to fill a gap in ethnographic methods training - students are seldom guided through the process of turning notes jotted down as they do observation into publishable ethnographic documents. Not laden with academic jargon, the easy flowing text makes this book readily accessible to the undergraduate student - but the content is such that even an experienced ethnographer can benefit.

True teachers, Emerson, Shaw and Fretz (UCLA faculty) show just as much of the process as they tell. Step by step, readers are walked through the process of turning initial chicken scratches jotted down on scrap paper to publishable ethnographic documents. Rarely will you find more than a page between excerpts from real fieldnotes.

The authors recognize that every field situation is different and ethnographers rarely, if ever, find themselves in ideal situations for writing. Thus, they explain the tensions that constantly pull at ethnographers and also what things will become much easier as ethnographers gain experience. They discuss how to balance observing with writing, and demonstrate that how you write fieldnotes (what you emphasize, point-of-view used, quality of description, representing community members' voices) is just as important as what you write.

Redundancy might be a weak point, but overall the re-explaining of things in two or three different ways serves only to make the reader experience and assimilate the process of writing fieldnotes. Readers can then naturally employ the procedures rather than constantly referring to the book as a "checklist" when doing fieldwork.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand the worldview and customs of another culture, or doing social research within their own culture. Even if your goal is not to do anthropology or to publish ethnographic documents, turning your experiences and observations into written text helps you to process things. Writing also helps you gain insights about the community you are working with by increasing your observational skills. You will not regret taking time to read Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes.

This is an excellent and engrossing account of a complex, flawed, difficult, passionate, honest, immensely talented and hugely underrated actor, author and playwright.
The book provides a superb overview of his life, and provides a counter-balance to the only other completed (to date) biography, the rather more subjective view of his former manager John French.
Robert Shaw's brilliance as a performer and writer was underpinned by the early experience of his father's tragic suicide; the resultant fiery over-competitive will to succeed was best channelled in performances that displayed his talent for supreme intensity backed by intelligence. On this form Shaw commanded the camera; witness his scene-stealing in From Russia with Love and Jaws - then witness again in his other works; this is Gold standard British talent that is yet to be fully appreciated by his profession and public...this book helps redress the balance a bit and lets us know what we are now missing.

My wife bought me this biography because she knows how big of a Robert Shaw fan I am. However, before reading this book, my knowledge of Shaw was limited to his work in the movies. I had no idea he was a brilliant writer as well as a father of ten. After reading this biography I read one of his books, The Man in the Glass Booth and realized how big of a talent he was with writing. It was mentioned several times in his biography that he enjoyed writing more than he enjoyed acting. It also tells about his time doing Shakespeare and there is a section about his time spent acting in Jaws. This is truly an exceptional biography about an exceptional actor/writer.

When I saw Mr Shaw for the first time (in Jaws)I was about nine years old.
Now I'm twenty and Shaw was far before mine time but I feel that he can learn me how to life because this great biographie from a man who I love and dream about.
I'm sure that I'm the most fanaticus of the "Shaws-fan" from the Netherlands.
I have a private archief from this unique person and I dream about him and think most of the time how sweet he was for childeren.
Mr Shaw is deep in my heart because I discover his live and read this colourful biographie and I will thank Garmean and Gaston for this great great great book, thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!
This book is the most best biography because the spirit that Shaw in his short live had give this book the most power.

(sorry for my bad english I think)

Love you all Gilian Schmidt,

the Netherlands

This book is basically the biographical essay and chapter introductions to Duncan's 1992 book about Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune. In many places, the text reads word for word the same as the 1992 work. As such, it is disappointing. Duncan doesn't give much new information about Shaw. I also found it disturbing that Shaw's biographer would describe his wife as "the younger woman" when she was actually two years older than he. I feel that in the seven years that have elapsed between Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune and this title, Duncan could have researched primary and secondary sources in more depth to add to Shaw's biography. Where Death and Glory Meet is also very short: 126 pages of text, with the remaining pages taken up by notes, bibliography, and index. If you haven't read anything about Shaw, then you will probably enjoy this book. It would also be good for school libraries. Otherwise, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune, with the letters of Colonel Shaw, gives you a better understanding of the man.

This book serves as an important source of information regarding the birth of the 54th Massachusetts,black soldiers, politics, Shaw's personal and Civil War life. It is well written and places the reader at the start of northeastern politics and Shaw's upbringing. Shaw leads a pampered life of a wealthy family. He travels the world yet comes back to fight for the Union in the Civil War. His family is influencial in his military promotions and sets his promotion to Colonel with Governer Andrew's backing. Shaw becomes Colonel of the 54th and dares to take a risk at leading the first ever black regiment. His daring tale of being an outcast and a potential political target for his role in getting the 54th ready for battle is courageous and inspiring. The book covers the plights of the 54th in learning drill, military life and battle in chronological fashion. Much is covered in this short yet informative book on Shaw and the 54th. The definate "must read" for anyone looking to get an understanding of how the 54th and Colonel Shaw came together and fought!

Where Death And Glory Meet: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw And The 54th Massachusetts Infantry is the fascinating military biography of Civil War Colonel Robert Shaw who commanded an infantry unit composed of Negro soldiers, the North's first Black combat regiment. Russell Duncan presents a poignant portrait of an average young soldier struggling against his mother's indomitable will and thrust unexpectedly into the national limelight. Drawing upon Shaw's letters home before and during the war, Where Death And Glory Meet tells the story of the rebellious son of wealthy Boston abolitionists who never fully reconciled his own racial prejudices, yet went on to lead his black regiment into fierce and bloody battlefield conflicts where they performed with heroic distinction and scotched forever the notion that black soldiers would not or could not fight successfully against the Confederate forces. Where Death And Glory Meet is a superb contribution to Civil War studies and will prove of deep interest to students of Black history.