Read Silverlock while in High School and all your college Literature classes will be infinitely better! You can play spot-the-cross-reference as you follow Shandon on his exuberant journey, but the most fun is just sitting back and enjoying the ride. This book is about the journey of one man's soul from narrow unconsciousness to zest and life, and it does the same for the reader. You'll immediately want to go out and find an adventure!

This book is half Pilgrim's Progress, half Divine Comedy, half outright allegory and complete fun. A. Clarence Shandon, the Silverlock of the title, is not a very nice person as the story opens. Shipwrecked, he is saved by Widsith Amerigin Demodocus Taliesin Golias, who is more than a bard, he is a Maker. And from the moment he meets Golias, Silverlock falls into stories, one after another. He lands on the great island of the Commonwealth, which at one level is the Commonwealth of letters, literature, stories. And on another is simply a grand romp through the great stories of our culture.

For Silverlock, who is as ignorant of literature as a fish, it's initially simply something that happens to him. He is, in Golias's kind phrase, "Not well informed." Nor are we. Whether it's hanging out with Robin Hood, wandering into the scenes of Shakespeare's "Midsummer's Night Dream, or quaffing mead with Beowulf, or even his own quests; it's initially all the same. But gradually the stories he lives and the stories he hears, and Golias's own example, transform him into a better person.

I could tell you that "Silverlock" is an allegory, that Myers is telling you that literature has the power to transform, and make a person better, and that life without literature is not worth living. But that's like saying "Hamlet" is a story about a depressed prince. Saying this book is an allegory is implying its cod liver oil. It's not. This book is masterful as pure, sweet entertainment; the encounter with Izaak Walton and a dozen others is amusing even if you have never heard of any of them.

Sure, what makes the book even more fun is trying to recognize the characters and situations Silverlock encounters. Some are easy: Captain Ahab and the Great White Whale; Circe from "Odysseus;" drifting down a river on Huck Finn's raft. Others are much harder. But that's a game to play afterwards. There's no time when you are wrapped up in the story itself.

Myers' point is that literature is transforming. And this book will transform you. You will have great fun reading it - it's a ripping good story - but there's a real danger that Silverlock's encounter with Bercilak will send you to read "Gawain and the Green Night," or that the visit to the Deiphobe will send you off to the enchantments of Greek myth, or that the hysterically funny encounter with the Dean of Knights Errant will make you finally read "Don Quixote." The dangers are real in the Commonwealth, and not the least of them is the danger of being transformed by the experience of reading this book.

Understand that when Silverlock's guide, Golias, tells a story, or invents a poem in the course of this book, he is Making, he is creating new and wonderful characters that Silverlock or anyone else just might encounter as they wander through the Commonwealth. I promise you that John Myers Myers is himself a Maker. "Silverlock" is Making at its best.

I got my copy years ago and after having read it dozens of times it is badly worn. I found this site in my search for a new copy. This is simply the best work of fiction ever produced. Myers creates an entire world to challenge and capture the imagination, populated with both well known and obscure characters from all throughout literature. They are wonderful to recognize in this new context, and there is not a dull moment to be found in these adventures. This book will make you feel truly alive, and see the world around you with new awe and appreciation. Nothing compares to Silverlock. I urge you to demand as loud as possible that a new reprint is made- the world needs Silverlock!

I read books 1-4 of DIADEM.I will buy 5 and 6. You should keep on writing. Think of making this book a television series, computer software(Windows 95), and a movie. You should make a book that they have to face an evil version of themselves. And Shanara has enough power to help them and give them each a unicorn horn and a familiar(bird,mammal,reptile). And each gets a griomore or book of spells. Helaine has Eremin's, Score has Traxis's, and Pixel has Nantor's.

If you want to no a little bit about Diadem's characters I'll tell you.Pixel is a boy from another planet.He's from another planet were everyone lived in cyberspace so he doesn't have a lot of expearence with the real world but that's Okay because he's really smart.Hellaine is an arrogant girl that is a really good swordsmen and is really brave.She's from a rich family that was really powerful so she thinks that she is better then everyone else.Score(my persenel favorite) is a cocky homless boy from earth that thinks having friends is bad because they will just let you down.Despite his wisemouth attitude he is actually very smart.I LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE THIS BOOK and would recemend it to anyone that likes magic and adventure.I hope John Peel writes 100000000000 more Diadem books.I have read all 6 Diadem books 4 times and I really love them.I think you should go out get#1 and start reading it.

Usually I hate fantastic fiction, but this book, (and the other in the series), totally changed my view.It's very cool, especially the part where they made friends with goblins and fought the wyrm.This book,unlike the first one shows you don't have to fight everything to win. I warmly recommend it for monster-magic lovers especially.Good book.

Super book! Theophany is an emotional and spiritual adventure. After reading a few pages, I loved Sarah and Josh. I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. I couldn't stop reading, except to try to recover my emotions. The story is going along beautifully, and then Mr. Vines sends a jolt to your heart. He does this several times. The humor and evil he adds to the story complete the adventure. Sarah and Joshua will be with me forever. I'm reading it a second time, and finding even more in it. I'd recommend it to everyone. I am anxiously awaiting the next book.

If you think you have read all of the "angel lit" (surely a whole genre by now!) that you can handle, I beseech you to try one more. Michael Vines' THEOPHANY deserves to be read as the unique story it is, rather than as just one more take on angelic intervention into mortals' lives. THEOPHANY begins with a "one two" punch in the first paragraph that lets us glimpse that this story will deal in the unexpected and in wholly new ways. The story opens with a description of a beautiful, tranquil scene in the Rocky Mountains. . . a scene that the young heroine, Sarah, contemplates as being "a wonderfully perfect place to die." The tone of the book reads mostly as a sweet fable...belying the tragedies and acts of pure evil that unfold in its pages. Sarah, seemingly a most-typical American girl, has an imaginary playmate. . .except he's not. Imaginary, that is. Of course, this companion, Joshua, is the angel in question. But this tale is not an an ordinary tale of God's assistance to a human being through angels. THIS human has been chosen for something special; born to it, if you will. . .but, and here is where Vines' message begins to take shape, so have we all. Vines traces Sarah's mission from her childhood and early adolescence, through first love and its horrible consequences, through numerous miracles, and lessons learned and taught. As Sarah says, "I cannot teach what I do not know." Vines style eases us into situations, and then lets the situation itself do the teaching. He rarely pontificates, with or or two permissible exceptions. His three main characters--Sarah, Joshua and The Stranger--are each compelling in specific ways. Leading us into a decidedly NOT typical mystery/thriller involving collusion, conspiracy and corruption at levels only we in the late twentieth century could begin to find plausible, Vines weaves in the lessons which Sarah takes to the world. "Moderation even applies to those things spiritual." "Sometimes the answer is . . .no answer, and sometimes the answer is simply . . .no." Sarah learns these lessons and becomes the most loved and hated person in the world as she goes about trying to impart them to a world in need of them. This book is one of those in which the reader must, of necessity, become a character in the book and interpret its message through the perception of his or her own "character." I am fairly certain a great many people will focus on the feminist aspect of Sarah, a female, being chosen as the vessel through which God reveals Himself. And on the message of love which permeates the book. However, for myslef, the primary message is one which Sarah articulates quite clearly, leaving no room for doubt: "But the real essence of hell will be knowing what your potential was and never being able to achieve it." Michael Vines has, perhaps, not fully achieved his potential as a novelist; but with this first effort he is obviously well on his way.

Theophany is a charming and touching novel, with a lovable main character that we quickly grow to care about a great deal. The story is so engrossing, that its not especially apparent that you are being challenged to think. Its message of spirituality, love and sacrifice, seem very apt in the manic, sometimes rather cold seeming world we live in. As Sarah makes her journey, we journey with her and see the light in humanity that Michael Vines obviously does. Its universality and hope will appeal to anyone of faith, or indeed to anyone who has faith in the human heart. I recommend Theophany highly

I disagree with the 5-star consensus of the previous reviewers - Kerouac's writing is not 'faultless prose', as he characterizes it himself in this novel. But 'Desolation Angels' is another fascinating glimpse into the heart of this daring and nomadic - literally and spiritually - author. One star gets shaved from my review for the unfocused, enigmatic opening section of the book, 'Desolation in Solitude'. A rethinking of 'Alone on a Mountaintop' from 'Lonesome Traveler', this section only thickens the fog in both the reader and in the author, it seems. It's not that it rambles - all Kerouac's writing does, and to point it out as a flaw is like insisting that Bob Dylan's voice sucks. Of course it does, that's the point. But Kerouac characterized the Desolation Peak experience before and did it better in 'Lonesome Traveler'.

However, once Kerouac makes his descent and rejoins the world in the second half of Book One and through all of Book Two, the way that his mountaintop experience informs his perspective in places like New York, Mexico, and Europe is engrossing and surpisingly intelligent. Drawing from a wide variety of influences from St. Paul to Buddha to Hemingway, Kerouac revisits familiar places and people with a broadened and more cynical point of view. Desolation Angels is more candid, forthright, even explicit, than its predecessors about drug use and sex. But it also reveals a more exhaustive spiritual hunger in Kerouac, and leads the reader to conclude that the author, in his quest to meet God, realized he had indeed found Him.

By turns a thoughtful, pensive, funny and risk-taking novel, Desolation Angels is canonical Kerouac.

There are usually two types of Kerouac readers. There are the "On the Roaders", as I call them. The ones that enjoy his style, his way of placing his friend's lives into the context of their own troubles, their loneliness their love-- all the while with a literary pace likened to a old pickup speeding across the straightaways of the vacant Montana backroads. And then there are the others, who like the former, enjoy the style-- but they also look for the sadness in Kerouac's writing. His ability to deconstruct people with one look (in Des. Angels he watches a waitress in a bar and tells her entire life story in snapshot events that underlie the sad look in her eyes), to find the hidden sentiments in people's actions- whether he's right or wrong we really don't care.

Desolation Angels is the book for the second group of people. It is tortuous at times- like his solitude atop the mountain staring Hozomeen in the face every morning which reveals Kerouac's own struggle to deal with himself and his past. But I believe among all of his novels it is the most rewarding. The book takes us to all of his major haunts- London, New York, San Fran, Paris, the Mediterranean- with many of his closest friends - Neal, Allen, Williams S. Burroughs, Joyce. There's even a small part where Kerouac is face to face with Salvidore Dali.

If you are looking for Kerouac-the-humanist at his best- this is the novel for you. Where the novel lacks in adventure (On the Road) and joyous affirmation (dharma bums) it makes up in sheer descriptive character study and sad observation, of a man trying to grapple with what he sees as the emptiness of all things, and the sad reality of his own personal struggles with live, love, and death.

Wonderful novel by Jack Kerouac. We sense his deep loneliness and reevaluation of his life during his 63-day stay atop Desolation Peak in Mt. Baker National Forest in Washington State. Once down from the mountain, he sees how much life has changed once his novel "On the Road" is published. For those of you who loved "On the Road," "Desolation Angels" is a book you definitely must read--it's by far Kerouac's best and most personal novel.

In the past 2 years I have read EVERYTHING there is to read on the subject of hitting preperatory to teaching my gifted 8 year old son and while I tell you that in virtually each and every book there exists some gem that you can apply to help increase chances of success THIS BOOK is the definative work on hitting.

What amazes me the most is that Williams, only a HS graduate, but yet possessing of an incredibly gifted intellect, as is exhibited by his becoming a fighter pilot etc, taught himself through trial, error and DETAILED analysis what the incredibly complex physics of the swing are. Recently, with the publication of Rob't K Adair's THE PHYSICS OF THE SWING we have the definitive confirmation of what Williams came to understand himself but now from a scientific and scholarly source. Williams doesn't articulate it in his book but he employed a law of physics called The Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum. Simply stated as it applies here it means that when you hold the arms close to the body and start the swing with your hips rather than your arms you will generate greater bat speed. Williams stated this simply in his book when he talks about starting the swing with the hips and holding the hands back as long as you can.... the farther the hands get away from the body the slower the bat speed. It's a law of physics that simply cannot be overcome. The hands, wrists and arms add nothing to the speed of the bat. They are mere conduits through which the power which is generated by the legs and the torso are transferred to the bat. Williams was intelligent enough to figure this one out on his own. Well, as he stated in his book, Rogers Hornsby's immortal words: "great hitters are not born, they are CREATED by study, hard work and fault correction" probably provided him with the spark he needed.

He was an amazing man who had problems with his pears when he played as super intelligent people often do. Fortunately now he is getting his just due and respect.

Thank you and rest in peace Teddy Ballgame!

This book and Robert Adair's _The_Physics_of_Baseball_ are essential to being the best player, executive, or fan possible. This book is timeless, and focuses on the 'real playing field' of baseball -- the strike zone where the hitter and pitcher battle it out. This book covers technique well, but more importantly, it teaches approach, and the earlier in your life you can learn that, the better you will be.

Williams' emphasis on plate discipline and mental approach, combined with his teaching of how to analyze your own swing gives you the basic tools you need to be an excellent offensive player. For pitchers, this book is a must to understand the weapons available to the batter.

For fans, this book will help you understand what's important and what's just filler by the broadcast team. If you're under 14 years old, buy this book, or go get from your local library, and study it on a field with a tee and a bag of balls. Then read it every day before you do your hitting reps.

This book turns bad hitters fair, and good hitters great. You just need to put in the work.

This book is perfect for anyone looking to expand their knowledge on how to hit a baseball. Everything from pitch recognition to a smooth swing are discussed and analyzed. Ted Williams also includes some of his stories from when baseball was a lifestyle. This book allows anyone to see the time and hard work that must go into becoming a good hitter. Becoming a good hitter does not mean picking up a bat and taking a few swings. It starts before you ever get to the ballpark. He walks you through ways to pick up pitcher tendencies, and stresses patience at the plate. This book provides helpful diagrams, which show what pitches are good ones to take a swing at. But he doesn't stop there, he goes into great detail about what you should try and do with that pitch that is in the zone. Also included are tips for making your stance comfortable yet effective, grip on the bat, and improving your power for maximum effectiveness in every at bat. Ted Williams also provides insight on knowing the situation, and doing what is best for your team. A must read for players of all skill levels. This book will grow with you as your hitting experiences expand. Ted Williams deserves more stars than I am allowed to give him for this book.

CLASS-29 takes you back to 1963 as a few 19 year old boys take on the "Toughest School on Earth." From their hands being so cold they can't even light a match until their nasal cavaties exploding blood and mucus into SCUBA masks, John Carl Roat and his "Team" engage in "Hell Week" as Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training unfolds. Only a chosen few have the "fire in the belly" and" burning in the brain "needed to become a U.S. Navy SEAL/Frogman.

John Carl Roat's Class 29 is the only authentic book on the market today that will tell you exactly how SEALs are selected and trained!
As a two tour SEAL instructor, I trained over thirty SEAL classes and supervised 21 SEAL hell weeks. John Roat's observations on the bond developed by the classmates and his accurate description of the infamous SEAL hell week, makes this book a must read! If you want to find the secret to what it takes to become one of the world's greatest warriors - read Class 29! Martin L. Strong, author - Death Before Dawn

Absolutely fantastic book! I have read alot of books on SEALs and this book is the best book you can have if you want to know how SEALs are trained. It goes through each phase and tells what they are about and he felt going through them. SEALs are the toughest men in the US Miltary and one of the toughest groups of men, if not the toughest, in the world and this book tells how they weed out the ones that dont have the "fire in the gut," as he calls it and pick out the ones with the determination and mental toughness to be in the group. It is a fantastic book. If I could get ahold of John Carl Roats email address I would write him a email telling him how much I enjoyed this book. It should be read by anyone with interest in the Navy SEALs.

In ancient times, Plato was regarded as one who writes most beautifully, and even in translation his mastery comes forward.

Reading this book, you are at the beginning of philosophy. There are beautiful dialogs concerning the most profound questions anyone can ask.

An advantage of this particular book is that for a reasonable price you can own Plato's complete works in modern scholarly translations. The volume is skillfully edited and there are handy notes.

Plato is one of the few philosophers who can be read for pleasure. His influence on Western thought is immense. As Whitehead says, subsequent Western philosophy is just footnotes to Plato.

Here are some of the works collected in this volume -

Apology - Socrates defense of his life

Phaedo - a defense of the immortality of the soul

Euthyrpo - a criticism of the Divine Command theory of ethics

Republic - the ideal commonwealth, what is justice, theory of ideas

Meno - the recollection theory of knowledge

Timaeus - Plato's story of the creation of the universe, his cosmology

Plato, Complete Works is a must for the bookshelf of anyone interested in philosophy. Cooper's and Hutchinson's edition contains all Plato's known works and even some that might not be his, but are associated with him in some way. The translations are generally well-written and their style more up-to-date and readable than some older translations. As reviewers said before, this book is necessary if you want to understand philosophy and its history.

Except for some of the shorter works, (Euthyphro, Apology, Symposium), Plato's works are not easy to read. Some works are so dense and difficult that you can't see the point of his argument (e.g., Parmenides). If you need some help interpreting Plato, a good introduction to his work is G.M. Grube's Plato's Thought. It provides clear exposition on a number of subjects, including the theory of ideas, the nature of the soul, education, and statecraft.

One needs to decide whether Plato's thought is vital today or just historically important. Those who treat Plato as important today fall into one of two groups. There are those who think he is the source of that evil called Western Civilization. Post-modernists see modern philosophy as a series of rhetorical tropes started by Plato. They hold him responsible for the metaphysical nonsense espoused in philosophy today about reality, objectivity, and knowledge. If you think Plato is total nonsense and think his characters Protagoras (man is the measure of things) and Thrasymachus (might makes right) are largely correct, you might want to compare his work to Derrida or Nietzsche.

Then there are the Hellenists. They think that Plato said it all and nothing (or not much) more needs to be said. You usually get Alfred North Whitehead's quote here about philosophy being a series of footnotes to Plato. If you are so enthralled, you might want to try Allen Bloom, Stanley Rosen, or Leo Strauss.

Personally, I think both readings are wrongheaded for the same reason. In the 19th and 20th centuries especially, philosophy has made conceptual advances on Plato. Frege's logic, Kuhn's history of science, Peirce's communitarian pragmatism, and Wittgenstein's later language theory step beyond Plato.

If Plato is important today, it is for what he started, not what he says. He began the philosophical fields that are still popular areas today, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. And he invented the character of Socrates, through which he developed the notions of dialectic and definition. For these reasons alone, Plato's works should be read carefully and often. The fact that you get all of them here in one relatively inexpensive book (at least in terms of price per work) should be incentive enough to buy it.

I have not read every narration and account in this huge book yet but so far I am extremely happy with it. First, Plato's works are wonderful and somehow maintain a freshness even after reading through several in a row. The threads of logic woven through these works are a delight and I have found myself laughing aloud occasionally at the near sarcasm I feel I'm reading - Socrates often comes across as a quick-tongued smart-A**.

The translation is free-flowing and up-to-date. If you can read English, buy this book. If not, learn to and then buy this or have someone read it to you. It is that good and that important.

This book is one of the best-selling sports books of all time for a simple reason-it is one of the best sports books ever written. For one year, Bob Knight allowed John Feinstein unbelievable access to his practices, games, locker room talks, private meals, and all other facets of his life, and the author did a wonderful job putting all of his evidence together to describe the maniacal coach and the world of top-level college basketball. Coach Knight is a character who could not be imagined by a novelist because he is too complex. Throughout the book he proves to be one of the most loving, hating, bullying, charming, objectionable, and compassionate men you have ever encountered. His personality alone is a fascinating story and Feinstein does an excellent job of presenting all sides of the story to readers, but the story also includes the players, coaches, university officials, friends, and enemies who live within Knight's sphere, and each of them adds their unique and interesting perspective to the book. By focusing on the ups and downs of the 1985-86 Indiana University basketball season, Feinstein is able to put all of these people into context and makes an excellent drama out of what is on the surface little more than a sports biography. This is a great book about a brilliant coach and no true college basketball fan should miss the chance to read it.

This is a fascinating look into the genius and the madness that is Bob Knight. Feinstein details what its like to play for the demanding hall of fame coach. He takes you behind the scenes and into the locker room. Once I started, I could not put this book down. This book is a must for any basketball fan

As a huge sports fan, I couldn't wait to read this book and get an inside look into a college basketball season with Bob Knight and his Indiana Hoosiers. John Feinstein pulled off a minor miracle by convincing Knight to allow him to follow the whole team, players and coaches alike with his notepad and tape recorder throughout the 1985-86 season.

What you'll see is an inside look at the trials and tribulations of a big-time college basketball team and the sometime circus atmosphere created by their tempermental coach. The book starts off with a quick recap of the 1984-85 season which included the now famous chair throwing incident. Then you are lead through the offseason, training camp and regular season of 1985-86. Feinstein does a good job of keeping up the pace despite giving detailed recaps of every season's game. He ends the book with a brief summary of the national championship season of 1986-87.

There's no doubt who the center point of the whole book is: That of course is Bob Knight. I'm not an Indiana hoosier fan but I certainly was well aware of all the incidents Knight's been involved in over the years including the chair throwing, head butting, and choking. I can't say that my opinion of him changed at all after reading this book. The best word I can use to describe him is: complex.

In this book, you'll read how he verbally abuses players, especially Daryl Thomas. He'll play mind games like he did with Steve Alford, the team captain and best player. He'll be upbeat about the performance of the team one minute, and then the next he'll say how the team is horrible and will never win with these players. Warning: there is some profanity, but the f-words are "blanked" out.

But at the same time, this coach is extremely loyal to his players after they graduate. He'll do favors such as help get them jobs, etc. One of the most touching moments in the book is when he meets a family where the father and son are deaf-mute. Is his good side good enough to put up with his other nonsense? You be the judge!

Supposedly, BK was NOT very happy with the book. I don't know what he expected, but Feinstein clearly didn't take sides or had some kind of adgenda to [thrash] Knight. This is must read for all sports fans, Indiana Hoosiers or not.

Giovanni Boccaccio THE DECAMERON. Second Edition. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by G. H. McWilliam. cli + 909 pages. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin Books, 1995. ISBN 0-14-044629-X (Pbk).

Second-hand opinions can do a lot of harm. Most of us have been given the impression that The Decameron is a lightweight collection of bawdy tales which, though it may appeal to the salacious, sober readers would do well to avoid. The more literate will probably be aware that the book is made up of one hundred stories told on ten consecutive days in 1348 by ten charming young Florentines who have fled to an amply stocked country villa to take refuge from the plague which is ravaging Florence.

Idle tales of love and adventure, then, told merely to pass the time by a group of pampered aristocrats, and written by an author who was quite without the technical equipment of a modern story-teller such as Flannery O'Connor. But how, one wonders, could it have survived for over six hundred years if that's all there were to it? And why has it so often been censored? Why have there always been those who don't want us to read it?

A puritan has been described as someone who has an awful feeling that somebody somewhere may be enjoying themselves, and since The Decameron offers the reader many pleasures it becomes automatically suspect to such minds. In the first place it is a comic masterpiece, a collection of entertaining tales many of which are as genuinely funny as Chaucer's, and it offers us the pleasure of savoring the witty, ironic, and highly refined sensibility of a writer who was also a bit of a rogue. It also provides us with an engaging portrait of the Middle Ages, and one in which we are pleasantly surprised to find that the people of those days were every bit as human as we are, and in some ways considerably more delicate.

We are also given an ongoing hilarious and devastating portrayal of the corruption and hypocrisy of the medieval Church. Another target of Boccaccio's satire is human gullibility in matters religious, since, then as now, most folks could be trusted to believe whatever they were told by authority figures. And for those who have always found Dante to be a crushing bore, the sheer good fun of The Decameron, as Human Comedy, becomes, by implication (since Boccaccio was a personal friend of Dante), a powerful and compassionate counterblast to the solemn and cruel anti-life nonsense of The Divine Comedy.

There is a pagan exuberance to Boccaccio, a frank and wholesome celebration of the flesh; in contrast to medieval Christianity's loathing of woman we find in him what David Denby beautifully describes as "a tribute to the deep-down lovableness of women" (Denby, p.249). And today, when so many women are being taught by anti-sex radical feminists to deny their own bodies and feelings, Boccaccio's celebration of the sexual avidity of the natural woman should come as a very welcome antidote. For Denby, who has written a superb essay on The Decameron that can be strongly recommended, Boccaccio's is a scandalous book, a book that liberates, a book that returns us to "the paradise from which, long ago, we had been expelled" (Denby, p.248).

The present Penguin Classics edition, besides containing Boccaccio's complete text, also includes a 122-page Introduction, a Select Bibliography, 67 pages of Notes, four excellent Maps and two Indexes. McWilliam, who is a Boccaccio scholar, writes in a supple, refined, elegant and truly impressive English which successfully captures the highly sophisticated sensibility of Boccaccio himself. His translation reads not so much as a translation as an original work, though his Introduction (which seems to cover everything except what is most important) should definitely be supplemented by Denby's wonderfully insightful and stimulating essay, details of which follow:

Chapter 17 - 'Boccaccio,' in 'GREAT BOOKS - My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World'
by David Denby. pp.241-249. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. ISBN 0-684-83533-9 (Pbk).

Ten young Florentine noblemen and women escaping the Black Death in Florence in 1348 entertain themselves by each relating a story per day for ten days - 100 entertaining stories in all, mostly set in and around medieval Florence. Although famously naughty, none of these stories strikes a modern reader as more than mildly erotic. Rather, they consistently astonish by their thoroughly modern message that women are as good as men, nobility doesn't come from birth, sanctity doesn't come from the church, and - above all - true love must never be denied. Amazingly, Boccaccio often delivers this message while pretending to say the exact opposite; sometimes he presents very sympathetic characters who get away with things thought scandalous in his time, offering a mere token condemnation at the end, while other times he depicts someone actually following the accepted code and committing some horrible act of cruelty in the process. Either way - and despite his claims to be upholding convention - we always know what he really means, and apparently he didn't fool too many people in his own day either.

But one doesn't need to focus on the revolutionary aspects of the Decameron to enjoy the book; each of the stories delights the reader with a different tasty morsel, and, you can read as much or as little at a time as you please. Once you get past the introduction, (and that's probably the most serious part of the book, so be sure not to give up before you get to the first story) the stories will make you laugh, make you cringe, and make you sit on the edge of your seat. Inspiring authors from Chaucer to Shakespeare and entertaining audiences for over 700 years, the Decameron continues to delight.

For a book to be even considered to a classic; then it, i.e., the book has to stand the test of time (and by so been read, pondered on and enjoy by several generations). The Decameron (Oxford World's Classics) by Giovanni Boccaccio, et al is one of these few books, e.g., The Odyssey, Thus Spoke Zarathustra et al. The story follows a plethora of storytellers whom all have gone to the countryside to escape the plague. The stories are filled with bravura, vigor, fortitude, a bit of sex and many other subjects (that are all written with an uncanny ability). If one considered oneself to be a scholar or a learned man then this book, i.e., The Decameron (Oxford World's Classics) by Giovanni Boccaccio, et al, is a must have; since not owning or having read it, then one as a person/scholar/learnedman must be considered less then civilized.

John Boal's Be a Global Force of One! takes up where Dean Ornish's new ``Love and Survival'' book leaves off. How so? Ornish tells us ``When you help others you also help yourself.'' He's making a point in his new tome about volunteering as one way to improve health. By volunteering, we stay connected, and Ornish says that these connections are crucial. Staying connected with others is as important as paying attention to diet, working out and all that other stuff we know we should do, says Ornish. Boal's book tells us HOW to help others--whether on an individual basis or part of a group--and provides phones, locations, and lots of motivation. A nice birthday present for anyone who wants to live to be 100.

BE A GLOBAL FORCE OF ONE! is a great resource to help turn our THOUGHTS of wanting to do something positive into DOING something positive. The 202 ways listed in the book provide ready-to-use ideas that can be begun NOW. We can contact people who have actually been putting an idea into action.

It is often easier to adapt an idea rather than think it up in the first place. When we want to contribute our time, money, influence, ideas and/or resources to help others -- there is something in this book to get us started. This book is actually a powerful force of one in itself. Choose your level and type of commitment and BEGIN!

Thank you, John T. Boal, for your extensive research to make so many productive ideas readily available. BE A GLOBAL FORCE OF ONE! is a gift idea that keeps on giving.

As many who work with communities know, very often the most important resource for citizens seeking to improve their neighborhoods is not money, time or even people--it is information. Information is a foundation on which to build something and Be A Global Force of One gives community groups this vital foundation. We at KaBOOM! are thrilled that our work to build safe and accessible playgrounds across the country has been documented in Be A Global Force of One,and that many more fun, accessible, and safe playgrounds will be built because of the learning this book is sure to inspire.