It would hardly be proper for me to write a true review of "A Pious Bacchanal," but perhaps a few personal words will suffice. As editor and widow of the author, Daniel Orth Bell, Ph.D., I was involved with every aspect of the book's creation, from title page to index. Daniel, myself and our daughter Katie lived and breathed the wonderful drawings of Mr. Beardsley and Mr. Flaxman for over a decade. In fact, at the age of five, the works of these fascinating, if eccentric, British geniuses were probably as familiar to Katie as the characters of "Sesame Street". But though the manuscript itself was nearly done, the tragic death of my husband at the age of 41 left many details incomplete. As a tribute to Daniel's indomitable spirit, I vowed to finish what he could not, and with Katie's help, the book went to press at last. Never before linked by any art historian, Flaxman and Beardsley are compared with skill and empathy. The health problems and deep spiritual questions these artists faced are examined in depth, and Beardsley scholars in particular will derive a plethora of new insights from "A Pious Bacchanal". In every sense of the phrase, this book was a labor of love, and it is my fondest hope that readers across the world will give it the acclaim it truly deserves. Thank you!

One of my favorite books by one of my favorite poets...a book you should buy for your friends who say they don't like poetry because they don't understand it.

Daniels takes images from everyday urban life, including the task of making 30 burgers and 30 fries, a child catching crickets for pay from his mom, and Digger, Daniels' representation of a blue-collar worker, waiting up for his daughter on her first date. The title poem, a description of the workers in each department of a department store, is absolutely fantastic--Daniels at his disarmingly direct best. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

The most notable aspect of the 1909 Plan of Chicago was that the author's (Daniel Burnham) profession was not exclusively city planning. He was a business man. He viewed his plan for the City of Chicago as the best way to create an exceptional business and civic environment. It worked! Many elements of modern downtown Chicago that make it a truly great, world class city, are a direct result of Burnham's vision. For it is the grand vision that stirs the soul of mankind and allows a "planning document" -- normally a thick document, full of data, which sits on a shelf and collects dust -- to be embraced by an entire community. This is a must read for contemporary city planners, business men and government officials that want to "make it happen" in their communities. MAKE NO SMALL PLANS

Recently, I resigned from my teaching position to focus on raising my baby full-time. Each activity is a normal every day activity most everyone does with or encounters with their babies: using a rattle, nursing, walking, crawling, etc. No special equipment required.

Becky Daniel has set this "manual" up in easy to use "lesson plans" with the objective, set-up, process, assessment (how did you and your baby do?) and an "encore" to advance the technique, if you like. This is such an easy book that explains why and how certain types of play are essential to baby's development. Why not know why play works, rather than poo-pooing it as though we're just "playing" ??? Enjoy this book thoroughly, I am!

I am an actor-educator working with inner-city youth in the Pittsburgh area and found this book to be very entertaining and practical. I have developed original plays with students before, but did not necessarily have a strategic method of the playwrighting process (I used improv). This book is about a playwright who teaches inner-city youth how to write and develop their own plays. He gives a sequential structure of lessons which are very helpful for planning. The style of the writing is enjoyable (as if you were reading this playwright's personal journal) and the author does talk about some of the intracies of working with inner-city youth. Sometimes I felt like the answers came too easily -- I wanted to hear even more about some of the struggles this playwright encountered and how he overcame them. Also, the ending was a bit too abrupt. With those minor concerns aside, I highly recommend this book to any theatre professional who works with youth.

Described by Michael Hoffman of "The Times" (London) on the back cover of the book as "the best anthology of modern poetry for thirty years," this book is now sadly long out of print and hard to find. Find it. Hoffman wasn't kidding, "The Poetry of Survival" is a truly amazing compilation of some of the greatest poets of the century (Celan, Herbert, Rozewicz) and many other fantastic Eastern/Central European and German poets who remain relatively unknown in the West (Vasko Popa, Ingeborg Bachmann, Anna Swir). This anthology concentrates mostly on Eastern Europe - several Polish poets especially - and also includes some German poets (Bachmann, Brecht) and Isrealis (Amichai). The theme is basically, "How have these poets chosen to respond to Adorno's declaration that to write poetry after the Holocaust is barbaric?" and the results are truly striking. Although necessarily dark, this is poetry at its most meaningful, a testament to the continuing importance of poetry as an art. The translations are first-rate (Felstiner's astounding translation of Celan's "Death Fugue" is included) and the selections used to represent each poet are particularly well-chosen ("Death Fugue," Amichai's "Tourists" and Rozewicz's "She Looked at the Sun" are a few of the most exemplary poems that come to mind). There are 28 poets represented in this anthology; none are slackers and most, if not all, are world-class. This is a truly exciting book - for anyone interested in poetry let me repeat: find it. At all costs. "The Poetry of Survival" truly puts in perspective much of the frivolous nonsense that passes for poetry in the West today.

Read the cookbook when it first came out, and have referred to it many times since. When the current administration pulls a good one,, I run to my cookbook to match the meal to the moron. A must have for my coffe table and many a night source for a laugh or two. A great gift idea for the up coming holidays, planning on notifying the author to ask for a local source for friends. Great Cookbook

If you find it impossible not to be amused by politics, this book may tend to increase your glee. And if you ever find yourself in a political argument, I can't believe you could have a better source for seeming well-informed than chapter 2 by John Traugott, "'Shall Jonathan Die?': Swift, Irony, and a Failed Revolution in Ireland." I have always been puzzled by the title of this book, but I had to buy it to read Daniel W. Conway's chapter on the comedians of the ascetic ideal before he published his ideas in a work all his own. A bookmark in the chapter on the politics of anonymity is telling me that I haven't finished that chapter, and it hurts to know how often I would rather sleep than learn this stuff. Please read it.

this excellent book summarizes the complex and fascinating history of the national science foundation and u.s. science policy more generally. weaving together historical, sociological, and political science perspectives, the author analyzes the foundations of government involvement in big science and the elite networks that guided its creation.