'Henry and the Elephant' is one of the Junior JellyBean books recently released for preschool readers. While the story itself is charming in the Thomas the Tank Engine tradition, this book's most appealing features are the bright and expressive illustrations that accompany the pages of the story. The always-confident Henry has an unusual task to accomplish...transporting a circus elephant by train! Surprises and obstacles present themselves along the way, but as all Thomas and Friends fans have come to trust, all ends well and a valuable lesson is learned in believing in yourself and working cheerfully with others. The book is quite small, but is very appealing to little readers with little hands. Makes a wonderful gift, and the price reflects the smaller size.

Henry, the green tender engine in the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends series, tends to be a bit boastful about his abilities to the smaller engines. When it begins to rain, Henry lets his vanity go to his head and refuses to come out of a tunnel and risk getting rain on his lovely green paint. To teach him a lesson, Sir Topham Hatt has a wall built at the tunnel exit, forcing Henry to remain there until he changes his attitude! As days pass, Henry's green paint gets sooty and cold, and the other engines go about their business around him. Henry must then reconsider his stance, and just in time to help Gordon the Great Engine out of a real fix. This story is a wonderful one for illustrating what one misses out on by being haughty and not cooperating with others.

This is a great pictoral history of the Jersey Central's Seaside Branch from Matawan, N.J. to Atlantic Highlands, N.J., site of the Sandy Hook ferries to New York City. The book abounds with pictures of locomotives, equipment (both passenger and freight), stations and stops, and, to a lesser extent, the communities served. All the photos, which are black and whte, are nicely labelled and identified. Many of the photos are of scenes along the railroad from 50 or more years ago. Considering the age of the photos, and reflecting on what photograph equipment of 50 years ago (or longer) was capable off, do not expect to see pictures of todays 35mm or digital quality. My only reason for not giving a FIVE STAR rating was the book's lack of any significant narrative history of the CRRNJ's Seaside Branch. The introduction gives a very brief, almost a timeline, history of the railroad's development, and later demise, along the shore. Additional information is gained by viewing the many pictures and their captions. The author in his introduction indicated that he lives alongside the Henry Hudson Trail, the linear park that has been built on the railroad's right-of-way, and was inspired to write the book after being approached by many trail users asking him what the park used to be. Taken in that context, I highly recommend this book.

So I was getting ready to reread Don Quijote (1605)(Miguel de Cervantes 1547-1616) in the excellent Burton Raffel translation and as I was looking for information about the book and author, saw repeated references to Fielding's Joseph Andrews. I'd read his Tom Jones a couple of years ago and found it kind of tough sledding, but when I stumbled upon this one at a library book sale for a quarter, it seemed a stroke of destiny.

The parallels with Don Quijote are readily apparent. First of all, the book consists of a series of humorous travel adventures; second, the travellers involved seem too innocent to survive in the harsh world that confronts them. When Joseph Andrews, the naive footman of Lady Booby, deflects the amorous advances of both her Ladyship and Slipslop, the Lady's servant, he is sent packing. Upon his dismissal, Joseph, along with his friend and mentor Parson Adams, an idealistic and good-hearted rural clergyman, who essentially takes the physical role of Sancho Panza but the moral role of Quijote, sets out to find his beloved but chaste enamorata, Fanny Goodwill, who had earlier been dismissed from Lady Booby's service as a result of Slipslop's jealousy. In their travels they are set upon repeatedly by robbers, continually run out of funds and Adams gets in numerous arguments, theological and otherwise. Meanwhile, Fanny, whom they meet up with along the way, is nearly raped any number of times and is eventually discovered to be Joseph's sister, or maybe not.. The whole thing concludes with a farcical night of musical beds, mistaken identities and astonishing revelations.

I've seen this referred to as the first modern novel; I'm not sure why, in light of it's obvious debt to Cervantes. But it does combine those quixotic elements with a seemingly accurate portrayal of 18th Century English manners and the central concern with identity and status do place it squarely in the modern tradition.

At any rate, it is very funny and, for whatever reason, seemed a much easier read than Tom Jones. I recommend it unreservedly.

GRADE: B+

This book is at the same time the least and the most "Melvillian" of all Melville's corpus. Melville wrote in Moby-Dick that "two thirds of the world revolve in darkness." This idea certaily holds true for most of Melville's works, but not Israel Potter. In this uncharacteristically light-hearted and crisply written rewriting of American history, Melville gives an early literary version of Woody Allen's film Zelig. The character Israel Potter is that same sort of insignificant historical non-entity who just happens to get caught up in incredibly significant historical moments. In his various wanderings Israel meets and becomes politically involved with a trio of the most important American patriots--Ben Franklin, John Paul Jones, and Ethan Allen. It is through these encounters that Melville subtlely (and sometimes not so subtlely) realizes his critical agenda and those darker themes that dominate so much of his other work begin to show themselves. In his portrayal of Franklin, Melville takes a bash at what he sees as the exemplar of American "genius"--the same American genius that ignored and misunderstood his most significant works and forced him into obscurity and poverty in his lifetime. Melville sees Franklin as representative of all that is wrong with the American character--he is parsimonious, small-minded, hard-headed, and morally hypocritical. In the other two historical figures, John Paul Jones and Ethan Allen, Melville finds redemption. In them he sees represented more of that European idea of genius, the manly half-savage/half-civilized genius of Thomas Carlyle. Like Queequeg in Moby-Dick who is described as "George Washington canabalistically rendered," Jones and Allen are wildmen in a civilized society, raging against the world as they utter their outrageous and at times incomprehensible truth. A fun yet undenialbly thought-provoking read. Enjoy

Although this book is quite pricey, as have been other recent OUP releases, this volume of Newman's Letters and Diaries is critical for seeing JHN at a critical time of his Anglican career. Here, Newman seems almost surprised by the reception of Tract 90 and it is also apparent that the Jerusalem Bishopric affair was one of the critical blows to his loss of faith in the via media. Some biographies may give us a glimpse at what was happening at the time, but here we can read Newman as he was living through it, without the benefit of hindsight.

As a lover of Savannah, I found the stories in this book compelling.I learned new things about the city I adore that make me want to rush back.The book sheds some light on the strangeness on this charming city.A must-read of those who love Savannah.

Written in 1854 and published the next year,this book is fascinating in providing personal sketches of distinguished Americans Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson,Henry Clay and John Randolph with many references to other prominent men who were their contemporaries. The author's
analysis is interesting not only in the spirited description of the individuals profiled but in his comparison of each of them with their political antagonists. The unique perspective he brings a man whose life overlapped some of these figures is worth a read for history or politics buffs. His admiration and defense of some he buttresses with argument. His passion is clear.
His oratorical style is typical of the time yet conveys a vivid impression of his subjects, and reminds one of a time before soundbites and simple words geared to a mass audience.

For those of us who are of the old Southeastern, this book is a welcomed history filled with vivid memories and what was. Southeastern was home to me from 1983-1986. I received my MDiv there, with all the hopes of returning someday for a D. Min. The overthrow of the Southern Baptist Convention left me and many others without a theological home-base. This book chronicles the years of developement and ministry of SEBTS. The hopes, dreams and prayers of many are chronicled for you here. If you are a friend of free Baptist, then this book is for you

This is a handy if somewhat eclectic little collection, with works by some poets who are hard to find elsewhere, such as Henry Howard. If you don't have a copy of the long-out-of-print Hebel and Hudson anthology of English Renaissance Poetry, pick up this.