Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2
Book reviews for "Short,_Alison" sorted by average review score:

The Bostonians (Vintage Books/the Library of America)
Published in Paperback by Vintage Books (1991)
Authors: Henry James, LuAnn Walther, and Alison Lurie
Amazon base price: $10.50
Average review score:

A different kind of novel than I'm used to
I finished reading this book only a few weeks ago for a college class I'm in. It certainly wasn't the kind of book I'd pick up just on my own, but I wouldn't say I didn't like it.

The story is set primarily in Boston and somewhat in New York during the 1880's. At the request of his cousin Olive Chancellor, southern lawyer Basil Ransom comes to visit. He accompanies her to a meeting where the young Verena Tarrant speaks wonderfully on women's rights. Olive is so impressed with Verena, she starts what's debatably a lesbian relationship with her, but Ransom is taken with Verena as well and so a struggle begins between the two for Verena's affections.

I think Henry James does an excellent job of giving complete descriptions of each character and you really get a sense of who they are. Olive comes across as rigid and passionate, Verena as young, full of life and curious and Basil as sexist and determined. Basil uses all his ability to wrench Verena from Olive. As I mentioned, the relationship between Verena and Olive is debatable. There are no sex scenes in this novel, but the implication is there. Additionally, I've learned in the class for which I read this novel that many women during this time period engaged in very intense romantic relationships which may or may not be described as sexual.

There are of course other characters such as Verena's parents and other women's rights activists, but the whole focus of the novel is on this struggle for Verena. It wouldn't be completely unfair to say that in some ways nothing much happens in this novel. It's truly a character driven story. There aren't really antagonists and protagonists in the story, but more just people whom all have faults and are just trying to make the right decisions. Although my description of Basil above may sound like a bad guy and although he's unapologetically sexist, he perhaps is no worse than Olive who sometimes seems to be using Verena, a young woman whose thoughts and feelings are maleable. At its heart, the novel is still a love story. Overall, I'd say this is probably worth reading if you like novels about this time period, about love or if you like this author. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd read another novel by James, but I don't regret reading this.

James' Satiric Vision
Though James is certainly not known for his sense of humor, he displays a keen sense of satire in this novel. The two senses are not identical--many readers expect satire to make them laugh out loud, and those readers will be disappointed in this book. James' satire is more likely to make readers feel uncomfortable. He repeatedly mocks the two main characters and their struggle to control a young woman who hardly seems worth the effort that these two egoists put into her pursuit. James allows Olive Chancellor and Basil Ransom (whose names evoke the satiricomic tradition in which he is writing) to take themselves seriously while allowing the readers to see them as stereotypes. While satire depends on such stereotypes, James' fiction typically delves into the psychological. At times, he is able to keep this balance, but often the tension is too great and the characters seem to fall flat. Verena Tarrant--the object of Olive and Basil's affection--is virtually absent psychologically (as others have noted), but her lack of character is built into the novel. She begins as her father's possession, and the novel hinges on whether Olive or Basil get to own her next. While the novel is certainly not without faults, it is interesting to watch a novelist as self-conscious as James attempt to write a novel of this type. While he wasn't destined to become a comic genius, this novel is a step toward the psychological, satirical and comic success he was to have in a novel such as "The Ambassadors."

He really hated his home town.
When he says the "Bostonians" he means "the lesbians." I was pretty interested in the story of a Boston marriage, but it got increasingly mean-spirited toward the end, when the dashing right-wing Mississippian convinces the young woman to leave the older one and a full suffrage lecture-hall and run away with him-- she finds it seductive to be told she must have no will of her own.

I went looking for criticism of this book and found little in Gale, but two essays from 1990s by Wendy Lesser and Alison Lurie. Lesser argues against the feminist line that the book is a misogynist polemic; she responds that Olive (the lesbian) and Basil (the Mississippian) are both complex characters, sometimes weak, sometimes strong and sympathetic. (She quotes Hardwick that James is our best female novelist because his women are powerful and interesting.) Lurie looks at the novel as more about politics than gender: James came home from Europe and found he hated America; showed the South re-conquering the North in Basil's conquest of Verena.

I disagree with Lesser: Basil is shown as naive and occasionally weak but dashing and full-hearted -- I'm sure he is an idealized self-portrait of James. Olive is honest and principled but so bleak and unhappy that her love is purely destructive. Her strength lies less in her principles (Mrs. Birdseye after all is equally principled but utterly weak) than in her vaulting ambition. She reminds me of Dixon's Thaddeus Stevens in The Klansman -- passionate, scheming, perversely principled, but essentially evil. Both come from Milton's Satan, seen as a Yankee.

Which brings me to Lurie's version. I agree with her that the novel is about politics, but disagree that he was writing against America -- I think he was just writing against Boston. The hostility the novel met at the time stemmed from his nasty portrait of the old transcendalist Elizabeth Peabody (his minor character Mrs. Birdseye); this is a less irrelevant reaction than critics portray it, since she's a stand-in for everything he despises about his own Boston roots, a hatred which drives the novel. An equally weak but even more despicable character is Verena's father, a mystical fraud whose nomadic career has certain resemblances to James's father's -- resemblances strengthened if Verena is modeled on Alice James. The Boston reform tradition is alternately weak-minded and hard-edged, and basically loveless -- a spirit of drafty wet lecturehalls. Where Basil is hot-blooded -- he feels about Mississippi a tragic love he can't bear to speak of in conversation -- Olive's New England feeling is only cold philosophy.

How real is the political alternative which Basil represents? We see much less of him than of Olive; James knew Boston but not Mississippi. But I think James like some of his peers yearned for a certain reactionary romanticism which northern intellectuals associated with the South -- a Burkean spirit of cavaliers and kings. (Basil's name means "king," and his emerging career is writing political essays said to be hundreds of years out of date.) Basil's defeat of Olive to marry Verena -- he imagines his own seizure of her from the podium of Fanuiel Hall as a political assassination, with shades of John Wilkes Booth -- is clearly a re-conquest of the North by the old South. What he offers for an American future is less Enlightenment, more Middle Ages -- less rights, more responsiblities -- less cold charity, more warm friendship.

James/ Basil reminds me of Henry Adams in the "Education." On the one hand, Adams saw the warm (mildly homoerotic) friendship of exceptional men (modeled on himself and John Hay) as a strategy for national progress. On the other, Adams developed a similarly St. Gaudensian aesthetic of the medieval -- the cathedral against the dynamo. This was the first, aesteticist reaction of the northern elite to the soullessness of postbellum America, which we forget because it was replaced by Teddy Roosevelt's more muscular alternative.


Naughty Stories from A to Z, Volume 2
Published in Paperback by Pretty Things Press (03 March, 2003)
Author: Alison Tyler
Amazon base price: $14.95
Average review score:

Rather dull
This book is pretty dull for something "naughty" - lots of old hat ideas, and nothing's risque in it. A couple of good writers, and the rest is quite forgettable. Avoid

Not my cup of tea exactly
I must admit I didn't read the whole book. Just a story here, story there. The stories were a bit too much "reading" I like stories 2 pages long that get to the action..But, thats what you should expect when the erotica you read is from the adult shop and not really erotica at all, but..porn in words.
Anyways, this book seemed a little too wordy for me. A great book otherwise.

Delicious! A definite winner!
This book was super sexy. I can't say my favorite story, because all of them were very good. The writing was amazingly hot. Very descriptive. Very seductive. As good as the first book, and Sweet Life. A must-have for any erotic collector!


How to Make Great Short Feature Films: The Making of Ghosthunter (Book & DVD)
Published in Hardcover by Focal Press (2001)
Authors: Ian Lewis and Alison Reddihough
Amazon base price: $29.99
Average review score:

This book is from the U.K.
This is an informative book, in terms of breaking down what everyone does on a set, and giving tips on how to prepare for a shoot. However, the writers are in England, and base their experience on making a short film in England. So, be prepared for lots of "things are much different in the USA" for some of their advice regarding permits, insurance, contracts, and production resources.

Covers all aspects of creating a short feature film
Utilizing the feature film "Ghosthunter" as his example, Ian Lewis' How To Make Great Short Feature Films covers all aspects of creating a short feature film from the its inception, the script, to putting the production package together, financing and budgeting, pre-production planning, the shoot, editing the film, and the final touches for distribution. How To Make Great Short Feature Films is enhanced for the film student with a number of informative appendices including: the shooting script; shot list notes; Designer's sketches; special effects list; the budget; contracts for cast and crew; production forms; biographies of consultants and key crew; cast and crew list; Alison's "Ghosthunter" diary; useful addresses and websites; Amulet Films' e-mailing list; and who does what on a film set. The informative, superbly presented and highly recommended text is impressively augmented by an accompanying DVD that contains the 20-minute "Ghosthunter" film; a 25-minute documentary; budgeting and screen writing software.


The Java(TM) Tutorial: A Short Course on the Basics (3rd Edition)
Published in Paperback by Addison-Wesley Pub Co (15 January, 2000)
Authors: Mary Campione, Kathy Walrath, and Alison Huml
Amazon base price: $44.99
Average review score:

Woefully Inadequate on Basics
For someone already familiar with C type programming this is probably an excellent book. It has lots of examples, great linked online resources, a pretty good index, and is one of the most error-free technical books I have read in 5 years of programming. However, this is NOT the book for those with no C (or maybe VB) type programming background.

The authors jump right in using the Java language. While this makes it more interesting it leaves non-C programmers to wonder about the constructs. Examples area great IF they explain everything new that is introduced. For example, the following are used in the first part of the book:

String[ ] args
String args[ ]
String[ ][ ]

But it is not until nearly halfway through the book (end of Ch 4 of 10) that array constructs are discussed. And even then I don't recall any discussion of the difference between the first and second example above. Another example:

Sleep((int)(Math.random() ...))

What is this? Casting maybe? Casting is not even in the index so you just have to guess.

This book needs 2 things to make it excellent: First, an appendix that clearly and thoroughly explains the constructs, syntax rules, and naming conventions - all in one place. For example, what do the curly braces signify, why are empty parens or empty curly braces or semi-colons used, when do you use String[ ] args vs String args[ ] - the works. Secondly, it needs more comments in the examples, including the reasoning involved (eg why variable was declared outside instead of inside method) and an explanation when anything new is used. Admittedly, experienced programmers will not want heavily commented examples, so making those available on line would be a good solution.

Best Java book if you have a Visual Basic background!
Coming from a Visual Basic background, a lot of other Java books weren't as helpful as this one (I bought the 3rd Edition of the Tutorial). The beginning chapters on OOP were very well written, I think it was the only Java book I've perused where every sentence made sense the first time I read it. The authors' use of metaphors to help make a point is done just right, not too little and not too much. If you have *some* experience with programming techniques, even just doing some .BAT files, I think you'll do well with this book. I had started reading Bruce Eckel's "Thinking in Java" before this one, but I think the best sequence for anyone else struggling with the transition from Visual Basic, etc. to Java is as follows:

- first read the Java Tutorial (3rd edition) and work through the exercises at end of each chapter
- second, read Peter van der Linden's "Just Java 2" for a very readable (sometimes funny) way to wade a little deeper into how Java does things.
- finally, and I have yet to do this myself, read Bruce Eckels' "Thinking in Java" to really wrap your head around object oriented programming and thinking like a Java guru.

This Book Deserves It!
dont you get sick of all these 5-star reviews ...? i sure do. but this time, i liked this book so much, i am sending one in anyway.

i don't mean to overstate things, and no, i am not related to Sun OR any of the authors, but this is simply one of the best 'computer books' i've ever read, even though it came from a vendor, and even though it's title (not to mention its topic) is rather pedestrian. here's why:

1) unlike many of the 'teach yourself Java' books, it finds just the right level of metaphor. am i the only one tired of the use of fruit, etc. when explaining objects? this book does that a little, but it also relates everything back to real-world problems that are complex enough to matter but simple enough to be graspable.

2) no irritating humour. I'm sorry, but i have had enough of computer-book authors who can't restrain their wit (like Bill Vaughan, so is otherwise a great writer).

3) a great explanation of threading. in all the other java books, i gave up after a few pages. i read the threading chapter in this book while driving home, and it made complete sense the first time round!

4) NO TYPOS. actually, i found one this morning. page 372, line 4, there is an extra hyphen. but that's it! it is almost unheard of, in my experience, anyway, to find such high quality in a 'computer book'. and personally, i find it insulting to spend $... on a book only to find the author didn't even proof their work.

5) after reading an explanation of interfaces in at least 4 other places, i THINK i finally get it, thanks to this book!

ONE BIG BEEF: having the answers to the exercises available only on the web is a major irritation. what were they thinking? for one thing, sun.com always seems to be the slowest site on the web. and that's assuming you have a networked PC handy, which i did not when i read this book.

i also agree that the space taken up by references to sample code was distracting and useless. on the other hand, there were 1 or 2 places (in the Swing chapter in particular) where the book did NOT include a printout of the complete source, which it should have.

notwithstanding the preceding comment, i believe this book was about right. it wisely omitted JDBC and stopped at a fairly skimpy coverage of Swing, which is correct, IMHO, in a book at this level. i also don't need another 4" thick book full of screen prints and fluff, which is what many of the competing books have.

all in all, i found that despite my interest in Java being modest at best, i literally could not put this book down. i read it almost nonstop cover to cover. no, i am not a freak, normally i fall asleep after two chapters. solid writing, well scoped, and near-perfect execution earn this a *****.


A Sicilian Romance
Published in Paperback by Oxford University Press (1993)
Authors: Ann Ward Radcliffe and Alison Milbank
Amazon base price: $8.95
Average review score:

Messy Gothic
Ruined castles, secret passages, evil plotting nobles, things going bump in the night - it's all there. Even the heroines faint every six pages (what was it about females in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - why did they faint at such regular intervals??! - Only joking). This is a book which promised much - the first thirty pages were fairly tedious, designed to set up the characters and plot for the rest of the novel. After that, the story did pick up pace, only to fall apart amid a welter of outrageous coincidences (one does expect this in eighteenth and nineteenth century literature, but this was taking things much too far, to the point where one either became irritated beyond endurance, or as I did, treat it as funny). The main protagonists spend most of the novel chasing each other around various parts of Sicily, discovering long-lost or supposedly deceased relatives and lovers. The book has not put me off reading more of Ann Radcliffe's work, on the basis that this was an early novel: it certainly reads as such. I hope there is better to come.

A good start for an author who will just get better...
My favourite novel of Ann Radcliffe's is The Mysteries of Udolpho, but I think A Sicilian Romance is a promise of what Mrs. Radcliffe will be able to accomplish in her later books. For Ann Radcliffe and Gothic romance fans, this novel is a must because it plays on all of the classic themes of the genre. This is also great escapist reading to a world very much unlike our own. Radcliffe's heroines and heroes do suffer greatly and go through some extraordinary (perhaps sometimes unbelievable) events, but I find it thoroughly enjoyable to read about their adventures as I am a true romantic at heart. It's good to read about a world where when virtuous people are put through struggles at the hands of villians, the heroines and heroes are able to triumph.

Mrs. Radcliffe and Monk Lewis
I've read all of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, except for her last one. I must admit that this novel is not as good as The Mysteries of Udolpho. But I think when reading this novel it's important to keep in mind why Ann Radcliffe wrote it in the first place.

It's impossible to appreciate Ann Radcliffe's intentions in writing this book and the complexities of The Italian without having first read Matthew "Monk" Lewis' The Monk. Lewis was so inspired by The Mysteries of Udolpho that he wrote The Monk, which has characters engaging in activities that are horrifying. (Lewis became so identified with his book that he was nicknamed Monk Lewis.) Mrs. Radcliffe was very upset that Lewis was inspired by her book to write his. In response to The Monk, Mrs. Radcliffe wrote The Italian. Mrs. Radcliffe "corrected" in The Italian what she felt was wrong and horrifying about The Monk.

For anyone who finds The Italian lacking at all, I highly recommend he or she read The Monk to gain a better understanding of what Ann Radcliffe was trying to accomplish. And for anyone who has not read The Italian yet, read The Monk first- then I'm sure you will find The Italian a much more enjoyable read.


The Birthday Bear
Published in Paperback by North South Books (1998)
Authors: Antonie Schneider, Uli Waas, and J. Alison James
Amazon base price: $5.95
Average review score:

Children in this book "play Indian"
Not mentioned in the synopsis of the book is that the children play Indian while visiting their grandparents. They leap from the bushes to ambush their grandfather, wearing feathers and brandishing tomahawks. This presentation of Native Americans only serves to perpetuate the idea that Native Americans are savages.


Adventures of Sam Pig
Published in Paperback by Viking Press (1976)
Author: Alison, Uttley
Amazon base price: $1.50
Average review score:
No reviews found.

August Derleth: A Bibliography
Published in Hardcover by Scarecrow Press (1983)
Author: Alison Morley Wilson
Amazon base price: $27.50
Average review score:
No reviews found.

Back Rubs: Transitional Tales by Women
Published in Paperback by Serpent's Tail (1997)
Authors: Alison Campbell, Joanna Rosenthal, Jenny Palmer, and Caroline Hallett
Amazon base price: $14.99
Average review score:
No reviews found.

Bad For Them, Good For Me
Published in Paperback by Tumbleweed Press (01 September, 1997)
Authors: Aaron Zevy, Allison Lang, and Alison Lang
Amazon base price: $5.99
Average review score:
No reviews found.

Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2

Reviews are from readers at Amazon.com. To add a review, follow the Amazon buy link above.