Ovid is by far the greatest Roman poet. Certainly, Vergil's work must not be overlooked, with his excellent style and powerful emotion (a favorite scene of mine is the death of Laocoon); however, Ovid surpasses Rome's poet laureate by leaps and bounds: Ovid's dactylic hexameter is ornate and precise, and his poetry contains a daring irreverence that outraged Augustus. Few authors have surpassed the power of Ovid's pen, and his _Metamorphoses_ is his best work.

Although I am not entirely impressed with pedestrian prose translations of poetry, the Lobe edition's side-by-side translation provides the reader an adequate aid to begin to grasp the poet's beauty.

(If one desires to read Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ in English, I highly recommend Rolfe Humprhies's excellent translation.)

The Metamorphoses, of course, is one of, if not the, classical world's greatest mythological treatises. The Loeb edition's convenient format of original Latin text opposite a clear, concise English translation is invaluable for anyone who has ever been interested in Latin, and a wonderful study guide for the Latin scholar. Highly recommended.

I've long wanted something with artwork by James Christensen. His work is magnificent, his art geared to fantasy usually. This book however was given as a present by my sister. I use it for teaching the parables to my Sunday School class, and as one of the few books laying out where others can see it. The book is well-done, and well-laid out. Of course, the pictures draw the eyes and the amount of detail is fascinating to children. The parables are classic stories, no matter what religion you are...like many other religious stories, they teach everyone the same thing. In this day and age, when so many children and adults need basic training in kindness, in charity, in placing your trust in right things (rather the wrong ones such as money)...this is a beautiful way to reteach those lessons. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh

We received this book for Christmas last year, and I recently bought a copy as a gift for a relative. It makes a nice addition to our coffee table, and we have received many positive comments about the book.

The artwork is what makes the book special. Look at the picture accompanying this book and of other books by the same artist to get an idea of the type of art this book includes.

I've enjoyed Millet's writing in the past, and "Parables" didn't disappoint. He takes a nondenominational approach to the parables of Jesus, offering insight about how they can apply to our lives today. There's no deep theology here -- just useful observations and commentary. We've used the book as the basis for family devotionals, and the children seemed to enjoy it.

In my view, this book would make a fine gift for any Christian family or anyone who likes that style of art.

The "Pattern of Courtship" was a very clear book on courtship. Even though it is relatively short (63 pages) and cheap ($3.50), it definitely hits the target.

This book tells you about the history of courtship as well as what courtship is about. It also lists references to the Bible which support courtship. I've read "I kissed Dating Goodbye", which I liked and I found this the "Pattern of Courtship" a good supplement to give a more detailed picture on Courtship.

I thought that this was a very good book. After reading other singles book, it served as another guide to help me along the path of singleness. I recommend this book for anyone who is struggling with dating and doesn't quite know how to start a relationship or make one last. It shows you common mistakes and patterns that you probably did not know you were making. I enjoyed the book!

Peter Miller's work is marked by both personal and professional integrity. His writing always is clear, sensitive, funny, sympathetic to the subject unless he isn't, and layered with well researched meaning like a fine painting. His photography is as unwavering as the agreement in an old time Vermont handshake.

When Peter Miller hit the roads of the Great Plains to photograph and write about its people, it was a journey of discovery as much as a quest for stories, information and images. His discoveries are as significant, beautiful and moving as the stories and images in People of the Great Plains. This is a book every reader, every lover of fine photography, every person interested in the soul of America will want to have.

I am surprised to be the first reader reviewing this book, but accept the honor of setting the table. But why no other reviews? This book is beautiful in every department; Miller's photography is stunning, often provocative, and his portraits of a people shine in the pages, capturing the tenacity, grit, and joy of Great Plains life. Miller wisely lets everyone tell their own stories and saves most of his own remarks for the book's introduction and conclusion. He also rightly includes the stories of our indigenous peoples remaining on the reservations, whose ancestors held their own stories of the land long before Europeans arrived. Plains history includes both beauty and tragedy.

The book deserves its award for visual excellence. Miller includes several panoramic shots, only appropriate considering the ocean-like vastness of the landscape. He also shows us the people in a way that, combined with the text, almost makes you feel you've been introduced to them in person. This book honors them, and if they had the chance to read it I hope they would agree.

Plains people, of course, are no more or less important than anyone else. But if this book were, say, "People of the Strip-Mall Towns," I don't think it would have quite the same appeal. It seems Great Plains life is in many ways endangered, not only its economy but also, more importantly, its ideals. What is it like to have roots, a heritage? What is freedom, good work? These questions beg to be asked as we careen through our microchipped, catch-me-if-you-can Information Age, a beat to which America marches faster each year. The future can never--and should not--be exactly like the past, but nevertheless there are many things worth saving. Read this book and you may understand.

Having a bad language day? Exhausted by the flatness, the banality, the weighty tedium of so much infospeak, e-mail speak, t.v. speak, and yes, even much contemporary poetry-speak? Fret not... A brighter fate awaits you, at least while you immerse yourself in this sublime book. Holmberg is not a plainstylist, and those intimidated by baroque syntax may, at first, find this extravagant cocktail going to straight to the head. We have lost our edge for such intensity. But knock back the full glass and feel the fire temper your neurons. Holmberg is the real thing. Welcome to the scintillant galaxies of English.

I came across this book quite by accident and upon flipping through the first few poems, I was stunned by the richness of language and image. Holmberg levels a penetrating gaze at the world; a gaze which seems to peel back one layer of significance after another. From the microscopic details to the macroscopic musings, these poems are a tour de force. They affirm for me that a combination of beauty and intellection continues to thrive among America's younger poets.

'Phaedrus' is the first work ever to provide an explanation to how we organise our ideas, speeches and use our knowledge in a general sense. It explains the basics of an arguing and convincing, within the context of Greek politics and society.

As I said, it's division and gathering that is evident in all of our arguments. We make our claims based upon the similarities and differences in things, and this is the core of argumentation.

In his dialogue style, Plato talks about many other things, that range from what makes a good writing a good one, to the heritance of knowledge. How should knowledge be attained from others? How should we present our knowledge for new generations to understand us? These are some of the questions that come up in Phaedrus.

Plato, one of the clearest writers in philosophy, wrote yet another beautiful work. I've started reading Plato when I was thirteen, and I really enjoy reading his works, which just flow.

I recommend not only this book, but almost any book of Plato's, for all philosophy lovers out there, and all those that would like to make their first attempt in understanding some philosophical issues, which build the base of our living.

In Phaedrus, Plato records the conversation of love and rhetoric between Socrates and Phaedrus. Socrates uses love as a metaphor for rhetoric by categorizing the differences between love and lust, as well as the differences between a philosopher who pursues divine truth, and a poet who forgoes truth for ostentations. Then Socrates and Phaedrus eventually conclude the requirements for being a dialectician. In the course of defending proper love and truth, Socrates pointes out that beauty and truth are divine. Whoever pursues reality would worship beauty and truth with reverence, and his admirations of divinities yield pleasures. Then in order to receive the blessing from gods, the proper lover and the philosopher must overcome desires with reasoning. Conversely, those commoners who are tempted by earthy imitations of the reality would be trapped by carnal or linguistic pleasures, as the improper lover and the poet, who lack reasoning would drown in the momentary enjoyments of their own wantonness.

Manlio Argueta's most lyrical novel to date, A PLACE CALLED MILAGRO DE LA PAZ continues de saga of life among the common people in El Salvador begun with ONE DAY OF LIFE. Examining the legacy of civil strife in the lives of a Salvadoran family, it tells the story of the courage and strength of a single mother and her daughter, who have to overcome the trauma of the murder of the eldest daughter and survive in an atmosphere of bitter poverty and repression. The book is filled, however, with magical, lyric moments of love and compassion, strangely illuminated by the figure of a young girl with butterflies in her hair who suddenly appears and adopts the family. This astonishing tour-de-force exemplifies the best in magic realism.

The Washington Post called Argueta's A PLACE CALLED MILAGRO DE LA PAZ an "exquisitely crafted novel" and considered it "a veritable hymn to these resilient, uncomplaining women." Critic Beatriz Terrazas wrote in Dallas Morning News: "It takes a master to turn a story of pain and tragedy into a thing of beauty. But then Manlio Argueta is a proven master of words." Philip Herter commented in The St. Petersburg Times that A PLACE CALLED MILAGRO DE LA PAZ "charms like a fairytale but has the moral force of an indictment." Nick Owchar from The Los Angeles Times noted that Argueta's novel "assures us that from the ashes of tragedy, the human spirit will rise like a legendary bird." Other words of praise appeared in Publishers Weekly, Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, World Literature Today, and The British Bulletin of Publications.

The book is a very intellectual and sensitive portrayal of a family of three women who must deal with very adverse conditions and who have to make a living with very few means. It is at once serious and yet it allows for human dignity and inner strenght in the characters. A very good look at the strenghts of women in a very unfavorable setting.

I've been in sales over 30 years. This book has really helped me present my product (which is a service, and therefore challenging for people to "see" the differences).
I have recommended this book to others in my organization to help them see the fine tuning differences that this book outlines.
Author does a good job with the concept,metaphors. I now look forward to seeing my prospects in the groove (you'll understand more when you read the book) with my presentations!

Presentation Jazz provides readers with a unique visual approach to organizing sales presentations. Undergraduate and graduate students love it! I am using it in all of my sales classes.

Michael Gamble, Ph.D. New York Institute of Technology, New York City.

I've always read above my age level and some of them are confusing and I have no idea what they're talking about. Wishbone is a great book, it's not supit and it's not like most children books. The writer is wonderful and it makes you want to read the The Prince and the Pauper. Buy this book it's great for all ages!

This book was great. I spent nights reading it. It is a true adventure that will really want you to read more classicals.

I've recently developed an interest in Civil War history, an era that had not heretofore intrigued me. In doing some reading on the subject, I kept coming across references to "the diaries of Mary Chesnut," and decided to read them. Most historians look upon these diaries as a major source of information on what took place in the South during the Civil War, because the lady was present at some of the important events and was certainly herself effected by them. As the editors write, she was often reduced to moving "eventually from one place of refuge to another as a fugitive from military invaders (p. x)" and "Living out of her trunk in hotels or rented rooms (p. x)." The quotations or information gleaned from this resource do indeed illuminate the narration in the historical works in which one comes across them. They are not, however, easy to read.

I gather from the introduction to this book that the diaries had been edited for publication as a continuous narrative--minus the more embarrassing self-revelations--entitled by a hand other than the lady's a "Diary from Dixie." The author herself had died long before the book was ever printed, leaving the details of publication to a relative. The editors of the current text despair the latter work as "heavily cut and carelessly edited (p. ix)," because it prevents the reader from knowing well the lady as a character herself.

The Private Mary Chesnut is just what the Diary from Dixie is not, a real diary. As such, it contains entries that are for the most part endless mentions of people with whom the reader probably will not be knowledgeable unless he or she is very "into" the South and Civil War history. One is frequently reduced to checking the footnotes for information on the individuals named. Unfortunately the editors of the diary give only the barest of facts about them, usually social or military rank or relationship to Mrs. Chesnut or another individual mentioned in the diary. The writer's comments often leave one trying to read between her lines for some inkling of "what's really going on!" because there is the merest glimpse of some probably very interesting underlying story. The editors of the text, however, either will not or cannot give these details. Because of this dearth of underlying social information, the book comes across as either confusing or a little boring, a simple catalogue of parties and people met at parties, of polite social visits paid back and forth. This is definitely not an Edith Warton!

Spaced throughout the document are nuggets of truly golden information about the Civil War and antebellum period. [THOSE WRITING PAPERS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE OR HISTORY TAKE NOTE] Because the lady was well connected by virtue of her own social status and oft sought company, she is privileged to the opinions of and gossip about significant individuals. She knew people who had met or knew the Lincoln family and was herself intimately acquainted with the Jefferson Davis family. One of the more interesting quotes was gossip associated with Mary Todd Lincoln's notorious household economy in the White House (pp. 30 and 31-32). This gives a much truer picture of what the social elite thought of the Lincolns, particularly in the South, and makes clear, that Washington D. C. was--and probably still is--more part of the southern social milieu than that of northern or national.

Certainly the lady herself comes across quite real in these diaries. In short she is often vain, opinionated, over-indulged, and wasteful by modern standards--at least by middle class standards--but she is also a well educated, astute and outspoken judge of political events and of the social ills of the institution of slavery. [THOSE WRITING PAPERS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE OR HISTORY TAKE NOTE] Her discourse on its ills, particularly of misogynation, are eminently quotabl--and often are. My favorite is that beginning with "I wonder if it be a sin to think slavery a curse on any land (p. 42-43)," etc.

While the book is difficult to get through, for those with a desire to know more than just the bare facts about the Civil War period and its society, this book is probably a good source for that information. [THOSE WRITING PAPERS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE OR HISTORY TAKE NOTE] This would definitely be considered a primary rather than a secondary source for the topic.

This is the one indispensible book for anyone interested in what went on in the South behind the battle lines. As Pepys gives us a living picture of the London and court of Charles II, so does M. Chesnut give us a bird's eye view of the Confederate government and the society she lived in.

A wise and witty woman, Mary Chesnut spent most of the war years close to ground zero in Richmond, VA. She knew Jefferson and Varina Davis intimately. She rubbed elbows with congressmen and cabinet members. Mrs. Chesnut was a sharp tongued woman who pulled no punches and she tells us much that, but for her, would remain unknown about the leaders of the "Lost Cause".

Anyone who enjoyed the Woodward/Muhlenfeld editon of Mary Chesnut's memoirs can't afford to miss this publication of the materials from which she created her masterpiece.