It is a collection of short stories already published under different titles; they are summoned now with a common objective: to show a deep and complete analysis of women's world. The presence almost overwhelming of feminine figures (rural and urban women, young or elder, married or single, raw and sophisticated...) is the leading thread of this collection. Their decisions, vital choices, their problems, the situations they have to face due to the fact that they belong to the so-called "weak sex" (the girl deserted by her boyfriend after the engagement, the doubts before birth, the anguish of the eldest girl, who has disappointed deeply her mother's expectations over her...etc) are portrayed in a sympathetic and honest way; you can't avoid feeling sorry for some of them: the heroine that has made the wrong choice, the mother submitted to an inebriate husband, the woman that can't escape from an adulterous love.... In this sense the last sentence of the first story, The Connor Girls, is revealing: "By such choices we (women) gradually become exiles, until at last we are quite alone", because it introduces what is going to be one of the main points of most of the stories: loneliness, women's loneliness in the face of men, in the face of other women integrated in the system, in short, in the face of this world of men. What is the result of all this? I think that the feeling that pervades the whole book is that of sadness, an acute pain with which the writer could be exorcising her own.

I for one like history to be both accurate and dramatic - it so seldom is both. In this book it is. The research is meticulous and exceedingly well presented. The crisp, engaging style blends perfectly with the fine but terrifying paintings depicting the doomed ship. The newspaper portraits of passengers and crew harmonize with the graphic, yet deeply compassionate tale of human disaster. Also, the cover of the book is aesthetically powerful and highly effective. I enthusiastically recommend this fine work.

THE HEAD OF THE BULL shows Philip Duffy's unique ability to understand the thoughts and behavior that lurk in humanity. It is difficult to choose a favorite in this latest collection of stories, but "Diversity" and "Inherit the Earth" both make you want to quietly ponder what is important in our relationships.

I also recommend his previous two books, MOMENTS and UNDERTONES. The first volume of tales is captivating with each surprising ending. Undertones has enchanting stories because it is possible to imagine how you would react if you were caught in similar circumstances.

There is no doubt that Philip Duffy writes fascinating and thought provoking stories.

in this disturbing novel philip graham covers many aspects of people. there are eight stories: another planet, angel, interior design, beauty marks, the pose, the reverse, geology, and lucky "another planet" is about a family trying to cope with their father's failing shoe buisness "angel" is about an orphaned boy and his obsession with his angel with whom he attempts to describe his entire life to "interior design" is about an extremely creative woman who becomes increasingly fed up with her none-to creative lover and her attempt at getting him to express his feelings "beauty marks" tells about the secrets of a village a young american couple goes to live in to experience the native's life. they discover a secret that is known only by the villagers. this story is my favorite "the pose" is about a woman and man seperatly trying to recreate a pose the women was in in a picture taken when they had a better relationship "the reverse" is about an aspiring actress who gets hired for a commercial where she plays a character that is exactly the opposite of her "geology" is a tragic story of a woman who falls deeply in love with a man, but later discovers she was really in love with the ideas his job in geology presented to her "lucky" is about a man that sells old-fashioned clothes to his customers, who are all dying this book is very tragic and disturbing, but presents views on life that you probably never thought of!

I can be brief: this is an essential anthology for those interested in Alabama literature, and a great read for those interested in American literature in general.

Its predecessor, "The Art of Fiction in the Heart of Dixie," was perhaps the first collection of seminal Alabama writers, and one hopes it will be available in reprint soon. In "Many Voices," Beidler continues to explore and demonstrate the breadth and depth of Alabama writers from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century, when Alabama, a frontier state in which morality and the lack thereof created wonderfully racy fiction, was part of the "Old Southwest," to our present time--thus, we find a delightful selection from Winston Groom's "Forrest Gump" and a story by Mobile's R&B singer Jimmy Buffett.

Beidler's thesis is not that Alabama has produced the world's best fiction; rather, it is that Alabama like other states in the union (and the anthology includes selections relevant to the war of Northern agression, as some have termed it) has produced a literature worth reading. Lest we forget, Ralph Ellison was a graduate of Tuskegee, and "Many Voices" features a selection from his "Invisible Man."

This is a very attractive and beautifully printed book, with capable introductions (although Beidler seems to like the long periodic sentence, perhaps attributable to his liking Whitman, a liking to which I must pledge allegiance) to each period and biographical sketches. For Alabamians, this book is a good introduction to their literary past and present; to others, this anthology may show that there is and was more going on in the South than religion and football (in ascending order of importance), that indeed the art of fiction flowered in the heart of Dixie.

This book gathers together several essays on contemporary Japanese authors. Most of the authors discussed herein are contemporary enough that they have received little if any attention thus far in the English-speaking world. In the niche of contemporary literary voices coming out of Japan, this collection really stands alone as a guide to many of these new and interesting talents.

Although there is no unifying theme holding the individual essays together, each one is very informative and generally free of high-brow scholarly lingo, and thus very accessible. Each essayist is a leading scholar in the field of Japanese literature.

A must-have for anyone studying contemporary Japanese literature.

Philip Dick's collection of "android-oid" short stories is an excellent collection of the demons that haunted not just his mind, but the collective consciousness. Each story delves into intriguing ways that robots will run amok in the future. There are some precious gems in this collection which represent Dick at his best. Many of the stories are infused with his fascination of what makes a human human and a robot not. Two eloquent stories are "The Little Movement" (my personal favorite), and the short story that the awful "Screamers" was based on which I believe is called "New Model". If you love SciFi and have a Bradbury bent towards alternate futures, this is a must read! If you have never read Philip Dick, this is an excellent introduction! Bon Apetite!

Round Buildings, Square Buildings, Buildings That Wiggle Like A Fish won't fit into the curriculums of many schools but its appearance in 1988 earned it high recommendation as a basic introduction for all ages, to the world of architecture. This reprint of Round Buildings, Square Buildings, Buildings That Wiggle Like A Fish invites new generations to take a different look at the buildings we use. Beautiful photos abound.

This two volume set is essential for the Forster scholar. Edited by Mary Lago, one of the foremost Forster scholars, it contains some of the highlights of his voluminous correspondence. Up until his death in 1970, Forster wrote up to twelve letters (!) a day, many of which are stored in the Forster archives at Kings College in Cambridge, England. Dr. Lago painstakingly sifted through those massive archival files and translated Forster's unique penmanship and wonderful letter writing style into a lovely, insightful, and entertaining two-volume set of correspondence.

Isaacson does a wonderful job of tying all sorts of art forms together in this short volume [I read through it in <30min.]. I'll get nit-picky below, but let me say I heartily recommend it: first, for adults looking to understand "art" themselves, and secondly, as an introduction to the process of sharing and beginning to explain the arts to their children.

Now, to the "picking"...I would beg to differ with Isaacson on a few fine points, chief among these being 1) Pyramids belong in a separate chapter! to be called "Useful Things We NOW Consider 'Art'"; 2) don't [unless you must be totally PC] shy away from the term "primitive art", parents, look in a dictionary and share the definition of 'primitive' with your kids...there's a much deeper meaning than the derogatory-superficial meaning it's picked up; 3) in the chapter "Photographs" Isaacson, in an affront to all of us who have ever labored over a piece of ART [made with a camera+darkroom or otherwise] destined to be utilized to ILLUSTRATE something or other, flat out states that photographs which are 'illustrations' are "not works of art" and refers to an adjacent photo of the Taj Mahal.

Oddly, I had just done a double-take on that very same photo! It had struck me, as an RealArtCritic might say, as "exuding such an ethereal quality, such a misty moodiness, unlike the harsh photo-images of the late 90's..." that I at first mistook it for a PAINTING!

All in all, this book would make a great textbook for your very own "Family Art Appreciation" class.