I was not a big fan of log homes until I saw this book. I enjoyed seeing the depth of detail through the house, very similar to the work of James Cutler. A very fine book to add to the architectural libray.

Oscar Wilde touches here a fundamental subject in Christian lore : Salome and John the Baptist, and through them Jesus and the prophesy that he is the Messiah. It would be a perfect subject for an opera because the events are contained in too short a time and the feelings and motivations are too simple and intensely concentrated for a dramaruc play. Salome asks for John's head out of spite because she could not possess him, because he refused to acknowledge her, and also because she knows this will mean the downfall of her step-father, the killer of her own father, and the incestuous husband of her mother. So vengeance is her second motivation. Those motivations are too simple to build up the tragical force of a play, but they are so intense that they could have inspired the most dramatic and powerful music. Oscar Wilde's language is beautiful in many ways but this beauty does not give any complexity to the simpleness of the emotions and motivations. This beautiful language could have become the carrier of a beautiful music. Actually we can hear the music of a Scarlatti, or of a Purcell behind the words, maybe even a Haendel. But as a play it is a little bit flat and without enough depth to build a beautiful performance. As a matter of fact the centrepiece of the play, the dance of the seven veils, is not a dramatic event but a visual and musical event. And we cannot in anyway escape the recollection of the fantastic little black and white film by Clive Barker on the subject. Salome is worth more than just a dramatic play. She can only find her full strength when music and dancing come into the picture, when it is fully visual and musical.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan

I found this book to a very quick and interesting read. Salome is both loved and feared by men. She uses her deadly seductive power to get anything she wants, almost.
The price of the book is so cheap how can you resist not buying it.

Wilde was the Irish Lord of the Language (English or French, it is the same). I concede that Michael Flatley is the Lord of the Dance... In any case, Wilde's words are worth being listened to. Salome possesses a rich texture of fine images and figures of speech that come to life through the voices of the actors.

This performance of "Salome" is a radio recording from a Canadian station broadcasted in the late sixties. It is too bad that radio theater be a rather defunct art. It has many values of its own. This abridged performance is based in the Alfred Douglas's translation of the original French play (Wilde wrote it directly in Frech, and it was the cause of his breaking up with Pierre Louys and serious trouble with Doulgas). I refrain from rating it with 4 stars because it is edited and abridged -slightly-.

Every interpretation is correct and some outstanding. It has even a fit original score. Wilde fans wouldn't be disapointed.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's more gloomy plays. It is downright grim. It starts grim and only gets blacker... ...It is one of Shakespeare's better plays

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's more ambiguous main characters. Motivation is always a big question with him. Sure, he is hungry for power. Yet he also needs prodding from several quarters to take most of his actions.

Lady Macbeth is really no different. She comes off as eager for evil early on, but is utterly shocked by its repercussions. Her attempt to go against nature leaves her absolutely unhinged and thirsting after guidance--only to find despair. In this regard, Shakespeare anticipates the psychology of Dostoevsky.

Macbeth is also one of Shakespeare's most supernatural plays. Regardless of whether one wants to debate the reality of Banquo's ghost, there are forces at work in Macbeth that are often unseen, but which drive the plot. The witches and all the unnaturalness come up against the forces of nature (the trees) and the divinely appointed King.

The most remarkable thing about this play is, for me at least, that it becomes a true tragedy only in its last moments. Only when all the stuff has hit the fan, and he has realized his doom is eminent, does Macbeth show the courage and nobility of a true tragic hero.

Macbeth is a great place to start if you are new to Shakespeare. It is a fun place to return if you're not.

While I was basically familiar with Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth, I have only recently actually read the bard's brilliant play. The drama is quite dark and moody, but this atmosphere serves Shakespeare's purposes well. In Macbeth, we delve deeply into the heart of a true fiend, a man who would betray the king, who showers honors upon him, in a vainglorious snatch at power. Yet Macbeth is not 100% evil, nor is he a truly brave soul. He waxes and wanes over the execution of his nefarious plans, and he thereafter finds himself haunted by the blood on his own hands and by the ethereal spirits of the innocent men he has had murdered. On his own, Macbeth is much too cowardly to act so traitorously to his kind and his country. The source of true evil in these pages is the cold and calculating Lady Macbeth; it is she who plots the ultimate betrayal, forcefully pushes her husband to perform the dreadful acts, and cleans up after him when he loses his nerve. This extraordinary woman is the lynchpin of man's eternal fascination with this drama. I find her behavior a little hard to account for in the closing act, but she looms over every single male character we meet here, be he king, loyalist, nobleman, courtier, or soldier. Lady Macbeth is one of the most complicated, fascinating, unforgettable female characters in all of literature.

The plot does not seem to move along as well as Shakespeare's other most popular dramas, but I believe this is a result of the writer's intense focus on the human heart rather than the secondary activity that surrounds the related royal events. It is fascinating if sometimes rather disjointed reading. One problem I had with this play in particular was one of keeping up with each of the many characters that appear in the tale; the English of Shakespeare's time makes it difficult for me to form lasting impressions of the secondary characters, of whom there are many. Overall, though, Macbeth has just about everything a great drama needs: evil deeds, betrayal, murder, fighting, ghosts, omens, cowardice, heroism, love, and, as a delightful bonus, mysterious witches. Very many of Shakespeare's more famous quotes are also to be found in these pages, making it an important cultural resource for literary types. The play doesn't grab your attention and absorb you into its world the way Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet does, but this voyage deep into the heart of evil, jealousy, selfishness, and pride forces you to consider the state of your own deep-seated wishes and dreams, and for that reason there are as many interpretations of the essence of the tragedy as there are readers of this Shakespearean masterpiece. No man's fall can rival that of Macbeth's, and there is a great object lesson to be found in this drama. You cannot analyze Macbeth without analyzing yourself to some degree, and that goes a long way toward accounting for the Tragedy of Macbeth's literary importance and longevity.

Noble Macbeth and the story of his decay due to the seduction of the forces of darkness - I liked it. The play sets off with an impressing scene, the chant of the three witches, a perfect use of language, I dare say. It takes only about a page and I knew it by memory after two times reading. We used to quote it during the breaks, and actually still do so sometimes. "When shall we three meet again...and so forth. After this promising start the language gets quite hard (I'm not any native form Enland, the US or any other english speaking part of this planet). One can follow the action though and every five or six pages there's a reward for your patience, at least for anybody who likes the power Shakespeare's language is able to display in their good or best moments: "Have we eaten on the insane root?" and the likes. Of course there's also the famous "It is a tale, told by an idiot...". It's for these moments, where Williams knew how to transfere a feeling of one of his caracteres into the realm of a universal significance, that I enjoyed the play...

At the time, I could not understand anything about poetry. And today, I still do not understand it. I have been re-reading this book lately (yes, I still have it 15 years later!), hoping to understand the appeal of poetry. Rime of the Ancient Mariner is in this one!

I got this book for a class and then lost it, since then I've been looking everywhere for it. All your favorites, and some new ones to treasure. One great little book!

Oscar Williams, a poet himself, published in the 50's this fine collection of poems by American authors. Although I had read some of them in translation to Spanish, this was my first step into the world of American poetry, which has so many distinguished representatives. Of course, it needed to be updated, and many other fine collections have come to print since then. Nevertheless, I think this is a good starting point. I still have my copy, which I want to keep because it's there where I found the work of poets I had no notice of, and whoose work I love and have kept reading. Conrad Aiken, for example, a poet that I think is grossly underrated; W.H. Auden, I had read about him, but his work impressed me; Hart Crane; Edgar Lee Masters; Edwin Arlington Robinson, another excellent poet shamefully underrated. Popular poets are adequately represented, like Whitman, Dickinson, Frost and Pound. Williams decided to let T.S. Eliot out, maybe because he opted for the British citizenship. I think he could have made a little trick and put him in, since he was born in St. Louis. Auden, a British-born, is. Overall, a recommended book.

Samuel Adams: Radical Puritan recounts the major events in it's subject's life, but doesn't leave you with a feeling about the essence of the man. Sam Adams does not speak for himself enough via quotes from his own writings. The coverage of the Sons of Liberty is reduced to 13 superficial pages. It does provide a glimpse of an old revolutionary not changing with the times after the war has been won. But it is not the full color portrait of a life like that Van Doren has provided for Benjamin Franklin.

Here it goes!You are about to read and comprehend a facinating book.That is the book of the world that Samuel Adams had and belive me this book is so great that I have already read it 30 times.I love it so much that when my friends have a BIG essay and help them study about Samuel Adams and they read it and this is their exppressions,"Wow! Girl friend,Why you didn't tell me of this incredible book. All of my entire family have read this incredible novel.this same expression came on their face. Radical Puritan by Lillan M.Fowler, William M. JR. Fowler, Oscar Handlin,is a novel of Samuel Adam's life.This novel tell from how he became an original born baby to a very onorable man. Samuel Adam was born in Boston,Massachusetts on September 27,1722. He was a leader of the fight against British colonial rule,and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Adams was a cousin o John Adams who became President of the Unted States.

Samuel Adams graduated from Harvard College with a Master of Arts degree in 1743.After college he entered private business,and throght out this period was an outspoken

... fraught with utterly stiff, pretentious, unnatural dialogue, even for the 19th Century. A disappointment.

I was very skeptical about this book, but the first few chapters pleasantly surprised me. The author seemed to perfectly capture Wilde's unmistakable and eloquent wit, something I thought would be impossible. I thought the concept was wonderful as well. However, the book quickly loses steam as it focuses more on the valet, who's far less interesting than Wilde. But then again, who isn't?

This book is a step back in history narrated in the language of the times, which is quite realistic. It is told from a quite different viewpoint, not of Oscar Wilde, but beautifully described by his black valet who accompanied Oscar on his nationwide American tour. The book starts out in January 1882, as Oscar arrives in New York to begin his tour. At the time no mention was made in the press of his black valet named William Traquair, who accompanied him. As Wilde entertains the New World with his lectures and humor, Traquair enjoys what he will always remember as the best year in his life.

This is an engrossing and intriguing story that certainly gives us a much clearer perspective on what it must have been like in America at the turn of the century and especially what impact this time period had on black men.

A story that's both fact and fiction, and one that will make you fantasize that you are right there on tour with Wilde and Traquair traveling across America at a time when life on this continent was so young and open to suggestion. I enjoyed this story and I feel the author has accomplished what he intended to do by taking us clearly back in time!

Joe Hanssen

The British poet Philip Larkin accurately summed up the bible in 3 words. Certainly well written, it's a nice collection of primitive myths and vaguely-historical stories. Unfortunately many uneducated people believe it is literally true. Thankfully in western Europe god has been officially dead for well over 100 years now, but even today large sectons of the great uneducated Amerikkkan public are intellectually living in the dark ages. When will American society be mature enough to follow Europe into the 20 century (let alone the 21st)?

I have made quite a discovery and I want to share it with you. As I am sure that these words clearly demonstrate- and certainly the message below CLEARLY demonstrates - that there is NO one at Amazon who edits THESE reviews. Any fool, such as the one below, can write anything and it will automatically appear in the book review section. I wonder, and I hope more readers will wonder, why this is the case.

I firmly believe in the freedom of speech and expression. But I also believe that we should be held to a standard or reason. Many things appearing in Amazon, in my opinion, like the "stinky review" do not meet this standard. They are irrelevant and insulting. In my unsolicited opinion, Amazon should be a bit more responsible in what it allows folks to say.

However, I have reason to take heart. With such an open policy in place I am pleasantly surprised that more schlock like the "review" appearing below are NOT on Amazon. It seems that MOST people are NOT abusive with the on line review feature. THIS fact reafirms my faith in humanity, just a little bit.

By the way, I have not read the book. But I am interested in reading it. Futhermore, I would encourage anyone, whether they are religious or not, to learn as much as they can about the Bible. I do so simply because the Bible is one of the great cornerstones of the Western thought.

I gave the book five stars only to balance the abuse it had so unjustly received.

While the language isn't boring the the ideas are great in Youngs second edition of this biography, I am not happy at all that my students have been assigned this book to read in a linked course. I teach a study and learning skills course linked to an American history course at a university in the USA and this biography must be read by the students. With all the time spent in the colleges and universities and now in the media about how historians need to cite their sources, this biography is a sad and sorry example. Nothing is cited, even the direct quotes have no citations! Yes, Youngs does discuss his sources at the end of the book but that is not the same as giving credit to the sources where he drew his quotations and facts from. The publisher, Longman, should be ashamed for allowing such poorly cited scholarship to be printed for used in either courses or the general public. I would have given this 1 star but the writing is engaging.

Youngs's biography is an average attempt to describe this great woman's life and I do not mean "average" in a derogatory sense. This book hits all the main points of Eleanor's life and accomplishments from before her birth up to her death. It remains objective throughout most of the book but Youngs does not bring any enthusiasm to the womans life. The few times when Youngs voice seems to be asserting itself, it is to criticize Eleanor. One example is when Youngs insinuates that Eleanor's work in the NYC skids was just a rich girl trying to slum. Youngs made it seem like Eleanor never cared about the poor because she could never truly know them. He may have a point, but he did not use that same emotion when he was describing Eleanor's work as First Lady during the Great Depression. I would have liked to seen a little more energy from Youngs but I cannot complain about the information in his book. For those of you wanting a good, fairly objective, overview of Eleanor's life, Youngs book is just for you. For those who like their biographer to throw their two cents into the book you might want to look elsewhere.

This would have been an excellent survey of American poets thirty years ago. But now it's a little bit dated. First, it does not contain any American poets since then. Second, it seems to have been written before the revolution in recent decades which brought some previously ignored poets of high caliber, but not white male enough to fame. For instance, Langston Hughes is clearly one of America's major poets, who had been around for decades before this book was published, but it includes nothing about him. The work that is included is clearly excellent, but there are plenty of better anthologies available now.

"The Mentor Book of Major American Poets," edited by Oscar Williams and Edwin Honig, brings together generous selections from the work of 20 writers: Edward Taylor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Stephen Crane, Robert Frost, Vachel Lindsay, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, John Crowe Ransom, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Archibald MacLeish, E.E. Cummings, Hart Crane, and W.H. Auden. These authors span the 17th to 20th centuries (the youngest was born in 1907). Many styles, forms, and themes are contained within this rich anthology.

That having been said, I must note that the book has a copyright date of 1962, and it really shows its age. It's hard to imagine someone compiling an anthology of major american poets (to 1962) today and making the omissions that Williams and Honig did: Anne Bradstreet, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and many others.

Despite its deficiencies, this is a wonderful collection that contains a wealth of memorable pieces. A few of my favorites: Taylor's rapturous "Stupendous Love!"; Emerson's "The Snowstorm," which celebrates the "frolic architecture of the snow"; Poe's masterwork "The Raven"; Whitman's ecstatic, all-embracing "Song of Myself"; a marvelous selection of Dickinson's quirky genius; Robinson's tragic "Richard Cory"; S. Crane's haunting short poems; Lindsay's lush, musical (and very politically incorrect!) "The Congo"; Cummings' amazing sonnet beginning "when serpents bargain for the right to squirm"; and much more.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in American poetry, but caution that, because of its dated nature, it needs to be supplemented.