I am so happy I found a book with plentiful Glamour photos. I especially love the Norma Shearer pics and the Rosalind Russell pics (especially the rather gothic cloak pic.) This book is not only insightful about how the pics were done but who Hurrell was. Truly beautiful and a must for any coffee table and/or collector.

Once upon a time, I was reading Empire magazine and suddenly I saw a promotion of The book Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits. The cover picture was very impressive. I didn't know George Hurrell before. As soon as I saw the picture, I decided to buy this book. So, after buying it and see the pictures inside, I just said: Wow! What a photographer he was. He's a genius. His works are magnificent. Great use of light and remarkable composition are the typical of his works. Definitly he's a master in the art of photography. You can find many fabulouse black & white photoes of your beloved actors and actresses in 30s and 40s as well as an interesting and useful biography of Hurrell. If you love cinema you won't regret after buying it. Your library misses this book.

This book is just filled with gorgeous photographs, in a beautifully dramatic and romantic style that is often missing in the photographs taken in more recent times. A wonderful book for photographers looking for a little inspiration, or those who have had a surfeit of the modern, photojournalistic approach to portraiture. Look at the light, the composition, and the drama! As photographers, we've shown these images to prospective bridal clients, who thought they only wanted "candids" taken at their wedding - "very few posed images" - who summarily changed their minds about "stuffy posed photography." Many of our portrait clients, who came to sessions loathing the idea of having to pose for the camera have found themselves having so much fun they don't want to stop when we've introduced some of the more dramatic poses similar to those used by Hurrell in a session. This book is also a bonanza for movie buffs - to see images of a young Joan Crawford, BEFORE retouching, freckles and all, and then to see the results of Hurrell's handiwork, is fun for fans -and his techniques impress those of us who do this for a living.

George, known to me and the rest of his students as Mr.Flynn, is an amazing person and this is a wonderful book. Parts of it made me cry and others made me smile. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves to read about true love.

I know that I cannot write a good review but I loved the book. I am not fond of reading too many books but I started to read this when I was bored and now I have read it eight times! Mr. Flynn was my English teacher and I will never forget him!

The stories in Maggie's Heart are short, but each is moving in its own way. The book can be read in sequence or kept as a quick pick-me-up for those times when you need something to read, but don't want to delve into a novel. There is a gentle love of people and goodness that comes through in each story. You are left with a catch in the throat and / or a smile on your lips. In a word the stories are wonderful.

This McManus book is one of his classic mixtures of stories about growing up poor in Blight, Idaho (really he grew up in the Idaho panhandle around Sandpoint, I believe) plus hunting and fishing stories. As always with McManus books, the book will leave you "splitting a gut" from all the laughter.
Highly recommended.

If you've read anything by Pat and laughed and would like a book or another book, trust me when I say that you'll like this. It's just more of the same kind of thing, Rancid and Crazy Eddie and Pat running around scaring his friend's Grandma. You can't read it or rememeber it without laughing or smiling, unless you're dead in which case you have no business having the nerve of reading or remembering anything. Trust me, there's nobody better than Pat out of all the humorist authors. Even Daniel Steele. You'll love it if you love anything he's done.

The book is a composite of stories of his childhood and adolescent years. He grew up in the boonies in an old run down shack. As a child he spent most of his time outside. He tells stories of tying his best friends brother up and locking him in the basement. He also gives pionters on taking fish hooks out of a buddys' ear. The book has a plot in every story; with 26 stories there are lots of plots to get burried in. The theme is pretty much the same throught out the book; Life is good if you have the right perception. I thought the book was hysterical. I actualy read the whole book. My parents almost got a divorce, because my dad would shake the room. He was laughing so hard. The book really reminded me of when I grew up; my friends and I were always outside raising cane. The way Patrick tells the story is like a joke, he lets your mind wonder before telling what happens. His choice of words really catch you, words like gunkholing or podner. I would definetly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the outdoors. Patrick really knows how to make people laugh.

If you have never read George Herriman's masterpiece--one of the few comic strips I would label as such, and it's creator: a genius--I would NOT suggest this one. Buy "Krazy Kat: the komic art of George Herriman" instead. I say this only because Mr. Herriman's style changes so dramatically throughout his tenure on Krazy Kat, that this can only give you a very incomplete impression of his work and, truthfully, I can't say very much for this particular impression. It is not George's fault, either. At this time a certain visual structure was imposed on his work by William Randolph Hearst--a fan himself of our author/cartoonist--that limits the VISUAL creativity of the strip. Some critics have suggested that this period is where the SOUL of the Krazy Kat strip was first truly refined; where the relationship between Krazy, Ignatz, and Officer Pupp begins to be fully realized. That may be. The writing is as good as it ever was. But the uniformity of the art and visual structure--all panels are of uniform size, shape, and number (though not at the very beginning of the book)--make the material seem redundant. Especially when reading one after the other in the same sitting.
I love this strip and I respect George Herriman as an artist. If you already have a taste for Krazy Kat--and are longing for more material to be continuously reprinted (as I am)--this is a purchase you should be making without me telling you. Otherwise, you had better get a taste for this particular work before you delve into this chapter of its development. Or try back in a book or two.

Every man, woman, and child should own a complete set of George Herriman's Krazy Kat, but that's currently impossible cos so much of it is out of print (or has never been reprinted). Thanks for getting this thing started again, Fantagraphics, and hopefully you'll get the financial support to see this thing through.

If you know nothing of Krazy and Ignatz, I can only invite you to slide into their surreal world. Words won't do it justice. Krazy is yin, Ignatz is yang. You figure it out.

Wow. There is justice in the world. After Eclipse stopped their "Kompleat Krazy Kat" series I feared that no publisher would dare take up the cause for a loooooooong time. I'm having spasms of joy over the continuation of the series. There was indeed no comic (even the best ones) that came close to the subtlety, detail, and substance of Krazy Kat. The irreconcilable love triangle between Krazy, Ignatz, and Offica Pupp provided enough material for decades of brutally good material. These volumes also carry on Eclipse's tradition of good and helpful notes at the book's end to elucidate anachronisms that will inevitably arise in nearly anything approaching a century in age.

More good news is Fantagraphic's pledge (near the end of this book) that once they complete the Krazy Kat cycle (kompleat with the kompleat Kolor Komiks in full Kolor), they will go back and republish the years covered by the Eclipse volumes! I was never able to find all 9 volumes, and those that appear on E-bay tend to get VERY pricey ...

This is good news for all of the Kat's devoted followers. May Fantagraphics march on.

This is what all popular art forms should be. A social commentary as love poem. And poem this is. There is very little that someone can write about the Krazy experience without treading in the same terran as this wonderful book. This is were your Krazy love afair begins. And unlike Ignatz you don't show your love with a brick.

fine anthologies like this will have to do.

compiled principally by patrick mcdonnell (artist and author of "mutts" -- the finest contemporary comic strip) this is a good introduction to the best comic strip of all time. for some thirty years in the first half of the american century, george herriman created one of the greatest works of american art and literature. based almost entirely on variations on a theme (cat loves mouse, dog loves cat, mouse throws brick, cat deems said abuse [rightly?] as a sign of love), herriman caught the essence of a country barely growing up, as well as love in all its potential manifestations.

"krazy kat" can be appreciated as allegory, or it can be enjoyed simply as damned funny. this volume will allow you to have a bit of both.

but oh dear, when will some brave publisher issue the entire run?

Over the past fifteen years or so, a strange new breed of art-geek has mutated in the suburbian basements (of their parents' houses) across the American landscape; they aggressivley praise every third-rate creation in comics, trying ever so hard to convince themselves that any of them could ever matter to a serious person outside their little world. On occasion one of them will pay lip service to the genius of Herriman, a ritual that is expected of them, and then go right back to buying up the kinds of pretentious or deviant efforts produced by the current so-called masters of the medium such as Spiegleman, Clowes, Ware, McCloud, Crumb, Bagge, the Hernandez brothers, Chester Brown, and so on. The terrible shame of all this is that through this overhyping of the layer of scum that has risen to the top of the commercial pond, those precious few men of genius--Jim Woodring, Joe Sacco,and a handful of others-- that have chosen to express themselves in the medium of comics are thrown out with the proverbial bathwater by those who are intrigued enough by this sort of publicity to investigate the genre, as soon as they discover that they have been had. Herriman's books, which are all surreal masterpieces of infinitely higher consciousness, poetry, originality, beauty, truth, love (and everything else good in the universe!) than 99 percent of "fine" art and certainly all of the aforementioned funnybook fishwraps, cannot even stay in print in such an environment. For this reason, and because if you have any sensitivity at all to the sublime you will wear out your first copy and will therefore need a spare to share with your children, I advise all readers to purchase two copies of everything that has Herriman's name on it. You will find it a bargain.

I have read, and read, and read this story to my class of Kindergartners so many times they can say it from memory. We all love the funny illustrations but our favorite thing about this book is the language. The dialect is so fun to read and to listen to. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys a vivid repeating story that is fun to read aloud.

Over the years I have bought at least a half dozen copies of this to give as gifts. I don't even have kids, but it's one of my favorites. You have to read it aloud--and with a southern accent if you can.
I love the drawings too--kind of primitive which suits this book well. The possum has very cute and devilish expressions on his face.
I stick up for poor misunderstood possums anyway and was happen to have one star in such a cool book.

I love this book. We read this book to our children when they were younger. It was my husbands favorite to read. Somehow the book was given to charity. I have been looking for it at book stores , because I really wanted to replace it. I'm so glad you have the book and I will order a couple. We'll be reading it to our grandchildren someday. The book rhymes bueatifully and just flows when you read it. It's a great read out loud book.

I found Jasper Milvain, the "alarmingly modern young man," to be the most interesting character in Gissing's New Grub Street for a number of reasons, the most significant of which is that he evinces what can only be considered a modernist's consciousness in his approach to writing. That is, while it soon becomes clear to the reader that Milvain represents the antithesis of what Edwin Reardon personifies-i.e., the work of literature as an emanation of author's native genius-and thus one of the intercalated plots of the novel involves the incremental success of Milvain as a modern man of letters, and the concomitant gradual abjection of Reardon. In a manner of speaking, then, Milvain and Reardon's fates emerge from a common source, namely some sea change in the reading public's (the consumer's) preferences and tendencies.

Milvain identifies as vulgar the most lucrative market for the product of the man of letter's labor. The vulgarians, or "quarter educated," drive the market (479), and since they have been determined to desire nothing more than chatty ephemera, they have successfully opened an insuperable gulf between material success in writing and artistic success. Reardon's psychologically penetrating novels just aren't in demand. Therefore, there emerges quite an interesting conceptual shift within the nascent hegemony of the quarter-educated as established by their purchasing power: what was once considered healthy artistic integrity has transmuted into a peculiar kind of petit bourgeois hubris, if, in the new paradigm, the writer is more an artisan than an artist. Therefore, Reardon's artistically-compromised and padded three-volume novel, written with no other end in mind than to pander to the vulgar reader, nonetheless achieves only modest success because, the fact that it is indistinguishable from countless other similar works glutting the market aside, his novel is infected from his irrepressible integrity, and thus his novel becomes a strange sort of counterfeit, a psychological narrative masquerading as a popular novel. Reardon thus becomes a sort of Coriolanus among writers.

Milvain, on the other hand, is a sort of Henry Ford among writers; he reveals his particular genius when offering advice to his sister Maud about how to write religious works for juveniles: "I tell you, writing is a business. Get together half-a-dozen fair specimens of the Sunday school prize; study them; discover the essential points of such a composition; hit upon new attractions; then go to work methodically, so many pages a day" (13). In other words, Jasper has managed to streamline and to mechanize the writing process. He studies previous works, abstracts formulae from them, isolates the elements of these formulae, and then deploys and rearranges these elements to give his own writing a patina of originality. By treating writing as an exercise in manipulating formulae, Jasper exchanges "authenticity" (whatever that word means anymore) for the convenience and efficiency of not having to grapple with his own potentially mutable and recalcitrant genius. Jasper did not invent writing, just as Ford did not invent the automobile. But like Ford did with automobile manufacture, Milvain discovers those aspects of writing that lend themselves to mechanical reproduction. Thus he is able to capitalize on his time and effort, and effectively becomes the very machine Reardon believes himself to be but never actually becomes because of his lingering notions of artistic integrity (352).

Also of interest is the fact that Albert Yule is a sort of synthesis of Milvain and Reardon. Like Milvain, Yule attempts to streamline his own literary production by delegating some of the labor to his daughter Marian. However, like Reardon, Yule clings to the superannuated notion of the necessary individuality of writing: "[h]is failings, obvious enough, were the results of a strong and somewhat pedantic individuality ceaselessly at conflict with unpropitious circumstances" (38). In other words, Yule fails to recognize the obsolescence of the lone, learned genius within the realm of literary production. A market of vulgarians who demand occasional literary confections simply does not expect Works of individual genius. Moreover, even if they were in demand, works of individual genius are too ponderously inefficient to keep pace with the rate at which they are consumed. Therefore, Yule straddles the either/or proposition personified by Reardon and Milvain: One may preserve his artistic integrity and write "for the ages"--hence Yule, Biffen, and Reardon's fetishization of Shakespeare, Coleridge and authors of classical antiquity--and starve in the process, or one may write "for the moment" and actually turn a respectable profit.

The shadow of Charles Darwin indeed looms large over the events and characters of New Grub Street. The growth market brought about by the advent of the "quarter-educated" vulgar class, and their discretionary income coupled with their callow aesthetic sensibilities and truncated attention spans, represents a nascent economic, if not ecological niche, for certain social creatures to occupy. However, it's not simply a matter of being able to adapt one's skills to the tastes of these consumers. One must also be a prodigious enough writer to keep pace with an equally prodigious rate of consumption. Individuals like Milvain and Whelpdale are adequately adapted to this niche in that they satisfy the demands of this niche in terms of both content and output. Reardon panders to the vulgar taste only grudgingly and after long resistance and thereby cannot meet the production demands of this niche. Biffen absolutely refuses to pander at all. Alfred Yule does attempt to pander, but his mode of literary production is too inefficient to meet production demands, and he is also largely ignorant of vulgar literary taste. While more in touch with the vulgar reader than her father, Marian Yule is as inefficient in her literary production as her father. Therefore, each of the characters named above are equally maladaptive, albeit for various reasons, and thus their extinction by the novel's end strikes the reader as somehow inevitable. Whereas Milvain and Reardon's widow Amy are left to come together as the triumphant niche occupants and thus reproduce themselves in their offspring, should they decide to produce any.

George Gissing's 1891 novel, "New Grub Street," is likely one of the most depressing books I've ever read. Certainly, in its descriptions of literary life, be it in publishing, or in my own realm of graduate scholarship, the situations, truths, and lives Gissing portrays are still all too relevant. "New Grub Street" itself points to the timelessness of Gissing's portrayals - as Grub Street was synonymous, even in the eighteenth century with the disrepute of hack writing, and the ignominy of having to make a living by authorship. One of Gissing's primary laments throughout the novel is that the life of the mind is of necessity one which is socially isolating and potentially devastating to any kind of relationships, familial or otherwise. "New Grub Street" gives us a world where friendship is never far from enmity, where love is never far from the most bitter kinds of hatred.

The anti-heroes of "New Grub Street" are presented to us as the novel begins - Jasper Milvain is a young, if somewhat impoverished, but highly ambitious man, eager to be a figure of influence in literary society at whatever cost. His friend, Edwin Reardon, on the other hand, was brought up on the classics, and toils away in obscurity, determined to gain fame and reputation through meaningful, psychological, and strictly literary fiction. Family matters beset the two - Jasper has two younger sisters to look out for, and Edwin has a beautiful and intelligent wife, who has become expectant of Edwin's potential fame. Throw into the mix Miss Marian Yule, daughter of a declining author of criticism, whose own reputation was never fully realized, and who has indentured his daughter to literary servitude, and we have a pretty list of discontented and anxious people struggling in the cut-throat literary marketplace of London.

Money is of supreme importance in "New Grub Street," and it would be pointless to write a review without making note of it. As always, the literary life is one which is not remunerative for the mass of people who engage upon it, and this causes no end of strife in the novel. As Milvain points out, the paradox of making money in the literary world is that one must have a well-known reputation in order to make money from one's labours. At the same time, one must have money in order to move in circles where one's reputation may be made. This is the center of the novel's difficulties - should one or must one sacrifice principles of strictly literary fame and pander to a vulgar audience in order to simply survive? The question is one in which Reardon finds the greatest challenges to his marriage, his self-esteem, and even his very existence. For Jasper Milvain and his sisters, as well as for Alfred and Marian Yule, there is no question that the needs of subsistence outweigh most other considerations.

"New Grub Street" profoundly questions the relevance of classic literature and high culture to the great mass of people, and by proxy, to the nation itself. For England, which propagated its sense of international importance throughout the nineteenth century by encouraging the study of English literature in its colonial holdings, the matter becomes one of great significance. The careers of Miss Dora Milvain and Mr. Whelpdale, easily the novel's two most charming, endearing, and sympathetic characters, attempt to illustrate the ways in which modern literature may be profitable to both the individual who writes it and the audiences towards which they aim. They may be considered the moral centers of the novel, and redeem Gissing's work from being entirely fatalistic.

"New Grub Street" is a novel that will haunt me for quite some time. As a "man of letters" myself, I can only hope that the novel will serve as an object lesson, and one to which I may turn in hope and despair. The novel is well written, its characters and situations drawn in a very realistic and often sympathetic way. Like the ill-fated "ignobly decent" novel of Mr. Biffen's, "Mr. Bailey, Grocer," "New Grub Street" may seem less like a novel, and more like a series of rambling biographical sketches, but they are indelible and lasting sketches of literary lives as they were in the original Grub Street, still yet in Gissing's time, and as they continue to-day. Very highly recommended.

"New Grub Street," published in three volumes in 1891, is George Gissing's grimly realistic exploration of literary life in 1880s London. While it is a remarkably vivid novel, it is also an accurate and detailed depiction of what it was like to be a struggling author in late nineteenth century England, "a society where," as Professor Bernard Bergonzi points out in his introduction, "literature has become a commodity, and where the writing of fiction does not differ radically from any other form of commercial or industrial production."

"New Grub Street" is the contrapuntal narrative of two literary figures, Edwin Reardon, a struggling novelist who aspires to write great literature without regard to its popular appeal, and Jasper Milvain, a self-centered, materialistic striver whose only concern is with achieving financial success and social position by publishing what the mass public wants to read. As Milvain relates early in the novel, succinctly adumbrating the theme that winds through the entirety of "New Grub Street":

"Understand the difference between a man like Reardon and a man like me. He is the old type of unpractical artist; I am the literary man of 1882. He won't make concessions, or rather, he can't make them; he can't supply the market. I-well, you may say that at present I do nothing; but that's a great mistake, I am learning my business. Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius, who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skillful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets. . . . Reardon can't do that kind of thing, he's behind his age; he sells a manuscript as if he lives in Sam Johnson's Grub Street. But our Grub Street of today is quite a different place: it is supplied with telegraphic communication, it knows what literary fare is in demand in every part of the world, its inhabitants are men of business, however seedy."

Gissing brilliantly explores this theme through the lives of his characters, each drawn with stunning depth and verisimilitude. There is, of course, Reardon, whose failure as a novelist and neurasthenic decline destroys his marriage and his life. There is also Reardon's wife, Amy, a woman whose love for Reardon withers with the exsanguination of her husband's creative abilities. While the manipulative and seemingly unfeeling Milvain pursues his crass aspirations, he also encourages his two sisters, Dora and Maud, to seek commercial success as writers of children's books. And intertwining all of their lives are the myriad connections each of the characters has with the Yule family, in particular with the nearly impoverished Alfred Yule, a serious writer and literary critic, and his daughter and literary amanuensis, Marian.

It is Marian--struggling to reconcile the literary demands and expectations of her father with the desire to lead her own life, struggling to escape the claustrophobic world of the literary life--who ultimately, pessimistically challenges the verities of that life while sitting in its physical embodiment, the prison-like British Museum library:

"It was gloomy, and one could scarcely see to read; a taste of fog grew perceptible in the warm, headachy air. . . . She kept asking herself what was the use and purpose of such a life as she was condemned to lead. When already there was more good literature in the world than any individual could cope with in his lifetime, here she was exhausting herself in the manufacture of printed stuff which no one even pretended to be any more than a commodity for the day's market. What unspeakable folly! . . . She herself would throw away her pen with joy but for the need of earning money. . . . This huge library, growing into unwieldiness, threatening to become a trackless desert of print-how intolerably it weighed upon the spirit."

It is Marian, too, who ultimately becomes the romantic victim of Milvain's aspirations, the powerful language of Gissing's anti-romantic subplot twisting into almost gothic excess as he extends the metaphor of London's fog to Marian's sleepless depression:

"The thick black fog penetrated every corner of the house. It could be smelt and tasted. Such an atmosphere produces low spirited languor even in the vigorous and hopeful; to those wasted by suffering it is the very reek of the bottomless pit, poisoning the soul. Her face colorless as the pillow, Marian lay neither sleeping nor awake in blank extremity of woe; tears now and then ran down her cheeks, and at times her body was shaken with a throe such as might result from anguish of the torture chamber."

"New Grub Street" is deservedly regarded not only as Gissing's finest novel, but also as one of the finest novels of late nineteenth century English literature. Grimly realistic in its depiction of what it was like to be a struggling writer in late nineteenth century London, it is also remarkable for its historical accuracy and its literary craftsmanship. If you like the realism of writers like Harding and Zola, then "New Grub Street" is a book you must read!

Mr. Hess purports to present the first tactical history of one of the most famous military actions of the Civil War. He therefore sets high expectations for himself, perhaps too high. Mr. Hess does accomplish this forensic and encylopedic presentation, but either this approach to the subject or Hess's style is dry and emotionally unengaging. Hess does a great job in researching soldiers letters and accounts of events surrounding July 3, some of which see the light of day for the first time I have no doubt. These annecdotes are wonderful.

Mr. Hess also does a good job in rebalancing the participation of Pettigrew's and Trimble's commands in the charge. Many accounts of this engagement focus on Picketts' Virginians, partly because these men left a better aggregate written record of their impressions, and partly as a result of post-war prowess with the pen.

There are some gaps. The account of the immediate post-charge Confederate impressions is thin. Is it due to lack of data or just lack of presentation? Does Hess credit the account found in many histories that Lee lets loose his despair that night telling John Imboden "Too bad, too bad, Oh too bad." Did that happen? Is it post-war hyperbole? The account is extant but Hess is silent about what he knows about it. You are begging for a glimpse of Longstreet's post-charge movements that night or over the next few days. Who did he talk to? Did Lee and Longstreet meet within the days following the attack? If Hess doesn't report it you are left to conclude it didn't happen, but is that an accurate conclusion? The Imboden encounter leaves doubt about how thorough the author has been.

Hess explained the storied background of the officers and men who participated in the charge. He mentions Waller Tazwell Patton, colonel of the 7th Virginia, but says nothing about his relationship to WWII's George Patton. Perhaps these ommission's are minor. If Hess sets himself such high expectations, however, the reader has the obligation to call him on it if he fails to deliver.

As a Civil War historian myself, I'm only to pleases to recommend this and all of Earl Hess' other fine works. One of the best tactical studies to appear in a long while

I have thought Stewart's "Pickets Charge" to be the best source for the past 40 years. Hess has written a book that will replace Stewart for more than 40 years. While a master of the sources, Hess is a thoughtful military historian and a writer of a judicious narrative. I have been reading, writing and teaching about the Civil War since 1960 (and graduated from Gettysburg College) and Hess tells me things that I never knew or failed to consider. This is an essential book on the Battle of Gettysburg and one of the better military history works at the beginning of the new century.

I wanted to read the novel soul food to see if it included anything that was left out on the movie, I was surprised to see that the book, and movie was pretty much the same with only a few small differences. I didn't realize Terri was so jealous of Maxine. I liked knowing what the characthers were thinking.

Soul Food was a heart felt movie and it was like real people really living that particular life that was in the movie. And the characters were great especially Nia, Mekhi, Brandon, and Vivica. The book was just like the movie and had a couple parts added which is always cool.

THE NOVEL, SOUL FOOD, WAS AN EXCELLENT COMPANION TO THE MOVIE. THE READER COULD REALLY FEEL THE EMOTIONS OF THE CHARACTERS. FOR EXAMPLE, THE WISDOM OF MAMA JOE REMINDS US OF OUR OWN PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS WHO STRUGGLE TO KEEP THE BLACK FAMILY TOGETHER THROUGHOUT HISTORY. ACCOLADES TO THE AUTHOR, LAJOYCE BROOKSHIRE ON A THOUGHT-PROVOKING BOOK.