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The plot is that of a philosopher's paradise being invaded by the most nefarious of things...love.
Shakespeare means many things when he speaks of love: often it can be shallow, bawdy lecherous love, sometimes it is an almost Petrachan yearning "courtly" love, once in a while it is a self destructive, clasping, obsessive love. Here it is pretty much straight-up attraction of the "hey, I'd like to marry you" variety.
As the noble, well-meaning but unable to restrain themselves philosopher's fall for the beauties of this tale, many awkward situations occur. Much of the humor here is of this vein. Plays on words and outrageous situations provide most of the laughs.
For fans of Shakespeare, I wholeheartedly endorse this great play. For beginners, I recommend starting with one of the plays mentioned above.
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In "A Raven In The Foregate", Abbot Radulfus returns from a church council with a new priest for the Foregate. Father Adam having recently died, Radulfus brings back Father Ailnoth at the recommendation of Bishop Henry. Ailnoth, however, turns out to be a harsh and stiff-necked young priest and manages to alienate his flock before turning up dead on Christmas morning. There are plenty of suspects, not the least of whom is young Benet, nephew of Ailnoth's housekeeper.
With plenty of potential suspects, this would seem to be an intricate and challenging mystery, but ultimately the plot is not as involved as one might wish. The outcome is a happy one, if a bit too neat and satisfactory for everyone involved, but not too hard to see coming.
Like most of the books in this series, "A Raven In The Foregate" is only an average mystery. What makes this and the other Cadfael tales enjoyable is the pleasant world Peters creates and the idyllic, unhurried way in which she tells the tale. These are nice books to read and, on the strength of that I recommend them, especially to those who like a bit of history and romance along with their whodunits.
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This one describes the idea of transit oriented communties. These are relatively dense planned communities that try to maintain what is seen as the essentials of small community life.
The density and distribution of these communities make them amenable to public transport. However more emphasis is placed on the development of community. Shopping facilities are centralized and made accessible to pedestrians. Public buildings and public space like squares are made central to the life of the community. The public buildings are given distinguished architecture to show their importance to the community. The public park or square is placed at the hub of planned pedestrian traffic to provide a place for unplanned meetings and interactions.
As it is this soert of community will probably work. The idea of the public square at a transportation crossroads as a means to creatre interaction is straight out of Bill Hillier's seminal work 'Space is the machine.' With proper attention to the principles presented by Hillier, there is no reason why a community designed in the way advocated here cannot produce the types of interactions advocated within this book.
However the book does not go far enough to truly identify what these principles are or even to state clearly and directly what basic principles are guiding the plans that it advocates. It would be possible to create developments that follow the plans described here that would work against the outcomes that it is advocating. Hillier's book, in its analysis of some modern housing estates based on similar goals, demosntrates this.
Yet there is something fundamentally wrong with this book. It is a basic statement of architectural determinism. Traditional suburbs are blamed for all problems in society from environmental pollution to school shootings and possibly even to asteroid impacts causing mass extinctions. There seems to be nothing wrong in society that is not the fault of suburbs and that cannot be fixed by these pedestrian-based communities.
The author acknowleges that the autonomy and privacy provided by the suburban form is attractive to many. He even states that his suggested community form is not antithetical to it. However following that one statement the remainder of the book is a jerimiad against suburban life. Privacy and autonomy references are replaced with descriptions of isolation and alienation.
The book would be more convincing if it remained an advocacy for its desired form. There is no doubt that this form if designed properly can foster the close community life that many people find very attractive. However not all people are attracted to this sort of life. Many people prefer the social autonomy that is provided to them in suburbs. With modern communication mechanisms like the telephone, Email, automobile etc, they can maintain multiple social netowkrs each with the social distance that they find comfortable. They are not forced to interact with a neighbor that they do not care for simply because his residence is nearby.
All in all this is a good book for its purpose. The unfortunate blathering about the short comings of suburbs distracts from its main purpsoe and weakens its argument. However many will find the small community life presented here very attractive.
It is worth reading despite these handicaps.
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But there are a few gems. There is a votive candle chandelier that is fabulous, along with the bowl seen on the cover. The toast rack is too cute. There are no jewelry pieces in this book. If you are looking for a solely wire book (as opposed to wire mesh/chickenwire), this book is not for you. It really is a nice book, but just not what I expected. But then again, for the price, it is a nice little book.
"All education is despotism. It is perhaps impossible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cases the tyranny of implicit obedience. Go there; do that; read; write; rise; lie down; will perhaps for ever be the language addressed to youth by age."
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Having seen all of the documentaries made on Jane Elliott's famous lesson on discrimination, I found this book very interesting, especially to read excerpts from interviews with her on the inner moral struggle she went through in trying to work out whether she was doing the right thing by these children, and the heartache and stress it caused her knowing that she was lying to them about eye colour being an indicator of superiority. She talks openly about her fears that she could have been doing them more harm than good, and the fact that the children's reactions to the experiment and to one another taught her much more than she was either expecting or wanting to know about discrimination.
However, if you have seen the documentary 'A Class Divided' made for the PBS series 'Frontline' you will realise that the book is almost solely a transcript of the video, doing nothing more than describing exactly what I had already watched. The only thing that came through to me as new was, I believe, more coverage given to interviews with Jane and her honesty and frankness about the experiment. But on balance, it was much more interesting to watch the documentary and to see facial expressions and conversations than have them described to me. The book is useful, but the documentary is better.