Everything that you wanted to know or needed to know about African American Literature is contained in this eight hundred page volume. This comprehensive volume covers the historical and cultural contexts of African American literature that has been too long neglected.

Oxford's Companion encompasses the traditional genres of poetry, fiction and drama but goes beyond them. It gives the same analysis to special genres such as Slave Narratives, Oratory, Folk Literature, etc. that you don't normally find in reference works of this kind. These special features and others give this book a unique spot in reference works of literature.

From the moment I got this volume in my hands, I couldn't put it down. Its numerous essays, brief biographies and analysis of the various hues of African American Literature was overwhelming and enjoyable. A referance guide such as this should be in every home. It is user friendly, informative and entertaining. Most of all it will give you a deeper appreciation of the vast types of African American literature produced throughout the years.

I purchased this anthology to assist me in my African-American literature class. This book has given me great insight about the literature of African-Americans. Not only does it give great details about the many authors, but it also explains the nature of their many works. I strongly recommend this book to anyone taking an African-American literature course - regardless of the time period.

Great books for students and interns for a general introduction on radiology, including reading x-ray fils of the head, chest, abdoman, pelvis, and bone fractures. It also has a great review on CT reading. It has lots of films with arrows and illustrations for novices to follow. Great book to have

I bought this book during first year of medical school but didn't appreciate its quality until 3rd and 4th year (the clinical years). Concise text with many, many high-quality radiographs and studies. Covers the basics of diagnostic imaging and then moves to areas of the body: head, chest, abdomen, bone & joint, etc. with imaging modalities for each explained. An excellent way to learn how to look at films, ultrasounds, CT, MRI, and nuclear medicine studies. Can't recommend it highly enough.

Walter Benjamin has progressed over the years from an obscure lesser member of the Frankfurt School to a widely read leading member of that obscure school. Aided by such as Hannah Arendt, who introduced him to a wider audience in her writings (and also to me), readers have come to appreciate Benjamin for the beauty of his writing as well as his sharp insight.

This volume, along with its companion, is an excellent introduction to the style and thought of this man who, while out of step with his times, possessed the insight to give those times an original critique.

Possessed of a lively style and free from the Marxist bagge that weighs down his Frankfurt School colleagues such as Adorno and Horkheimer (I think Benjamin owes much more to Heidegger than Marx), Benjamin will hook any reader who takes the time to spend an hour or two with this book. From here it's an easy step to purchase other Benjamin writings, a step I can almost guarantee.

While his work is as important as Barthes, Foucault, or Derrida, or any other critic of the 20th Century, Benjamin's work has a mystical quality, a kind of enchantment, that resonates much more than any other critic I have read. It is always human and sensitive, even despite his determinedly impersonal tone.

When I think of Benjamin, I think of Emerson's famous line about Hawthorne - that he was a greater man than any of his works betray. The integrity and character of Walter Benjamin shines through his works, and is an inspiration to anyone who takes literature seriously.

This first volume of Bejamin's complete works is very attractive and welcome. Some of my favorite essays are present, such as his essays on children's literature, and the nature of language. I eagerly await the other two volumes.

Sir William Smith's "Smaller Classical Dictionary" has certainly been considered an invaluable resource for a long time. It might be compact, but it is comprehensive and covers gods and goddesses, myths and legends, leaders and battles, dates and places, all dealing with the ancient world. Revised by E. H. Blakeney and John Warrington the updated volume takes into account the findings of modern scholarship and archeology. The only real problem is that the FONT is so small, especially for those of us who have to abandon their bifocals to read the entries. But even with all that fun stuff floating around on the Internet, this is the volume that sits on my desk when I am teaching anything dealing with the Ancients.

This book, although out of print and very difficult to find, is the best classical dictionary I've been able to find. My copy is 40+ years old and falling apart, but I'll not trade it for anything new. Designed for the more advanced student, it includes more in depth information and more entries than any other compact classical dictionary I've come across. In fact, I've been searching for years to replace it, but to no avail. My only objections are that it is out of print and that the type set is very small / difficult to read, the paper is too thin.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was used for a sociology class taken at BYU. Going into the course I thought it was going to be extremely boring but I found myself reading it as if it were a novel! This book is very thought provoking and knee jerking, forcing you to take a look at your views and perceptions and how they got to be that way. I would recommend this book to all because it can only help you to be a better person. I wish this were a requirement for high school students, it would definately help them to understand our world and how they fit into it!!!

James Henslin's Social Problems is an excellent textbook for students who want to learn more about social problems in the U.S. Henslin divided his book into three parts. First, an overview of the problem. Henslin used the three major sociological theories: symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and conflict theory to interpret the significance of the problem. He used all of the theories without any biases favoring one theory over another. Second,he summarized what social researchers have found about the problem. Finally, he outline possible social policy for it, including making his own recommendation about how to solve it. Those who are tired of reading other social problems book who found that the book' content are depressing and the authors are pessimistic about the problem he/she cover should read Henslin's book. His coverage of the problems, from crime to America's health crisis, from racism to income inequality, from population explotion to war, are excellent and his recommendations on how to solve this problems makes sense and largely optimistic. My professor used Henslin's text for his social problems class and I think his choice is an excelent choice. I highly recommend this book for students and professors who want to learn and explore the social problems in our society

In 1916, American poets Witter Bynner and Arthur Davison Ficke had it up to wherever with Imagism, Vorticism, and several other minor isms that they thought had infected the literary world. They set out to concoct an ism to end all isms, and devised "Spectrism," a new school for experimental poetry. To that end, they published "Spectra: New Poems," with an unintelligible preface purporting to explain the name of the new ism. Each of the Spectric poems was pretentiously titled with an opus number, like a piece of classical music.

Witter Bynner wrote as "Emmanuel Morgan." Morgan's persona was full of bacchanalian, bardic blatherskite, a rhyming Whitman. Here is the opening of his "Opus 6:"

If I were only dafter
I might be making hymns
To the liquor of your laughter
And the lacquer of your limbs.

Arthur Davison Ficke wrote as "Anne Knish." The name was meant to be vaguely exotic and Eastern European; apparently not many Americans had heard of knishes in 1916. Knish is the archetypal poetess, sensual and enigmatic, vaguely scandalous. She writes free verse. Here is Opus 118:

If bathing were a virtue, not a lust
I would be dirtiest.

To some, housecleaning is a holy rite.
For myself, houses would be empty
But for the golden motes dancing in sunbeams.

Tax-assessors frequently overlook valuables.
Today they noted my jade.
But my memory of you escaped them.

By now, the basic flaw of the hoax should be obvious. Having endured much worse in the way of poetic experiment between now and 1916, the Spectric poems aren't that bad. In fact, they are rather consistently entertaining, and contain some pretty good lines. They rank among the more memorable work by Bynner and Ficke, and both writers acknowledged as much after the hoax had been exposed.

I first read this book when it came out in 1961. Its great value lies not so much in documenting the amusing history of the hoax, but in reprinting Spectra in its entirety as a lengthy appendix. Yes, the "hoax" poems are parodies, but they're careful ones, and contain some of Ficke's and Bynner's very best work!

"Asparagus grows feathery and tall; The hose lies rotting by the garden wall."

What a couplet! Buy it! Read it! Give it to your teenager as an introduction to modern poetry. Before long he'll be reading Pound.

This is still in print, there is a 1997 reprint (contents unchanged), ISBN 0-304-34782-5 (softback).

This is the work of the author of "Botanical Latin", the indispensable reference for those delving deeply into plant taxonomy. He is thus quite qualified to do what he did here: extensively revise "A Gardener's Handbook of Plant Names" by A.W.Smith (1963, still available as a Dover reprint of 1997). Facts were checked, errors eliminated, additions made. The typography was modernised. The help in pronunciation limited to stressing syllables.

This book presents a wealth of information on plant names: it lists 6000 botanical names and 3000 vernacular names, in addition to quite a bit of background information. It is limited to plant names of importance to gardeners, but this is not so limiting as might be, since by this is meant "gardeners worldwide", including those on the Southern Hemisphere. Although I wish it were slightly longer, this book surely gives value for money.

Smith's book is excellent for two reasons:

1) His explainations of the properties, structure and applicaiton of various alloys is simple and to the point. (Many of them are somewhat out of date, but so is every other textbook in the world.) Excellent for metallurgists.

2) This book is so loaded with tables, you may never have to look any mechanical property data up in the library again. Excellent for mechanical engineers.

Although expensive, this book will replace a dozen others on your desk.

This book is written from the prospective of a metallurgist. As such, it contains a very good discussion on the physical structure of various engineering materials, heat treatments, and alloy effects. However, it also contains lots of material data useful for engineering.

This is an excellent book for those interested in more than stress-strain curves and yield stresses of engineering materials.

If you are a beginning gardener and don't know the difference between a shovel and a spade, or what to use them for, this book is immensely useful. It is certainly worth the price and the time it takes to browse through it to find and understand the exact tools you will need for your individual garden before you go out shopping. In addition to pages of full color pictures of each tool, it contains historic accounts regarding the tools and some nice quotes about gardening. After reading this book I felt like I understood garden tools, whereas prior to reading it, I just used tools in a haphazard way without understanding their purpose and how they could help me in the garden.

A piece of art, fits the coffee table and yet is packed with valuable information

I'm a tax attorney and I have this book as a desk resource. It is a great general text on a variety of tax issues. This book has helped me find the quick answers to countless "simple" tax questions.

This textbook has a counterpart INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX, also published by West's Federal Taxation that is used extensively by business schools as well as accounting classes covering all the aspects of taxation.

The book is written in an easy to understand manner, which follows the most important codes that are used in tax today. The only drawback of these books are the fact that since the tax codes are constantly changing, the books are updated about every year.