Dick Shelton, a boy of sixteen, is quickly thrust into the conflict of the War of the Roses. He battles against almost any kind of evil - bloodthirsty pirates, a murderous priest, and even his own legal gaurdian - Sir Daniel Brackley. Through the whole book Dick strives to become a knight, and to rescue his true love. The Black Arrow is a sure winner for 6th graders and up.

Also appearing in this collection is a story I've loved since I first saw the Classic Cartoon version--Rikki Tikki Tavi. It tells the story of an intrepid young mongoose and his life or death battle to protect an Indian villa from a couple of particularly unpleasant cobras. Rikki Tikki Tavi has always seemed to me to be one of the great heroes in all of literature.

These are great stories for young and old. For folks who worry about Kipling's potentially imperialist, racist or racialist overtones (see review), rest assured, these tales are free of such themes. They offer an excellent opportunity to introduce kids to the work of a true master storyteller.

GRADE: A

I read MoV for a Bar Mitzvah project on Anti-Semitism. Naturally, my sympathies went to Shylock. However, even if i were Christian, i still would've favored Shylock. What many people believe is that Shylock is a cold hearted ruthless person and only wanted to get back at Antonio because Antonio was a Christian.

Not true. Shylock specifically says something along the lines off, "Why should I lend money to you? You spit on me, and call me a Jewish dog!" I'm not saying that Shylock was a good guy, but I am saying that he is not the villain.

In fact, the "Merchant of Venice," in this story is actually Shylock, not Antonio, contrary to popular belief. My thoughts on the story was that Shylock requested a pound of Antonio's flesh because he did not trust Antonio. Who would trust someone that spat on him? The fact is, Antonio doesn't pay him back in the end.

Now, there's always something else we have to put into consideration. Would the judge had given the "spill one ounce of Christian blood" verdict at the end if Shylock were not a Jew?

This is the mark of a great play. A play that really gets you thinking. But I encourage you, I beg of you, that when you read it or see it, please do not hold Shylock up to being a cold hearted villain. Hold Antonio up to that image. (joking, of course, Antonio's not a bad guy, he's just not a good guy.)

The Merchant of Venice is a lively and happy morality tale. Good triumphs over bad - charity over greed - love over hate.
There is fine comedy. Portia is one of Shakespeare's greatest women (and he ennobled women more than any playwright in history). There are moments of empathy and pain with all the major characters. There is great humanity and earthiness in this play. These things are what elevate Shakespeare over any other playwright in English history.

Plays should be seen - not read. I recommend you see this play (if you can find a theater with the courage and skill to do it). But if it is not playing in your area this season - buy the book and read it.

Using the amazon "five star" system, I usually reserve five stars for the really good to the great, four for the pretty damned good to the good, and three to the "good but" category. This one is thus a "three" on that measure since it was strongly enough written to carry me as a reader and interesting enough in its unexpectedly powerful use of language but, in the end, that very usage went over the top and slid into the dream-like purple of the sage in which the characters cavort. And the characterizations, themselves, are rather stilted, the tale kind of flat and just plain contrived. I think it is the underlying sexual energy in the writing which really carries the day. "Good but . . . "

Jane is the main character in the book. This book is different because most westerns do not center around the life of a woman. Most westerns are focused on the rough, tough, cowboy who shoots people and lives on the edge to survive. Jane is different. Her father founded the town she lives in and she keeps the town going. She is like the head of the town. She owns almost everything in the town and the landscape around it. She is very wealthy and has no biases. She likes who she likes because of who they are, not what their religion is, like the rest of the town does. The town hates that she acts like that. Jane takes Lassiter in and answers his questions about the secret. I really like that the author uses a woman in this novel because it gives a whole different perspective to a western. Most westerns focus on the cowboy and his journeys, but this book focuses on a woman, Jane, throughout the book and the troubles she encounters living in the West. It gives us a perspective of what women may have been like in the West. It still has the rough, tough cowboy, but he is not the only focus in the book. There is more happening than just the journey of a cowboy.

This book was also a pleasure to read because it does a good job of describing the landscape around Cottonwoods and in the sage. Some westerns give the reader an idea of the landscape, but this book focuses on the landscape and uses it in the book. For instance, Venters travels into the sage and hides behind the rock and in holes in the mountains and terrain around him. The landscape is used throughout the book when the characters are faced with problems such as the one described above with Venters. The landscape helped to hide him. I think it was clever to bring the landscape in and use it as part of the story. Alot of westerns do not use the landscape, they just describe it to give the reader a setting and an idea of the landscape in the book.

The book is a typical western though, because Lassiter is a typical cowboy. He has a deep secret and is in search of answers to that secret. He is a stranger that comes riding into town. He sleeps in the sage under the stars and will not sleep inside. He is on a mission and is not going to let anything or anyone get in his way. Most westerns have the cowboy meet a woman as in this story.

Overall, I think this is a good book for all sorts of readers. Zane Grey is a good writer who includes aspects for all kinds of readers. Riders of the Purple Sage is an action pact, mystery solving, all around good book for anyone who is in the mood for a western.

One, the setting is beautifully and gloriously described. Rock formations, plains, desert, sage....his descriptions evoke mental images as if you are watching a movie.

Two, the characters are unique, well-described, exhibit growth and development, and interact in deed and dialogue in realistic ways. By the end of the book, you will feel like you know these people.

Three, the plot is absolutely fantastic. It starts exciting, and continues to unfold realistically, yet unpredictably, throughout the whole book to the very last page.

From the opening pages, to the climax...very exciting. I was on the edge of my seat and could not put this book down. I practically cried at the end...it is that good. Highly recommended.

We all know the story: Carol Kennicott (nee Milford), educated at tiny Blodgett College, wants action: She wants to travel and live in a big city where she can see plays and hobnob with intellectuals. She meets future husband Dr. Will Kennicott at a St. Paul dinner party; (Throughout the novel, her feelings toward Will oscillate between admiration for his efficient practice and good nature, and discomfort with his depthless character). Will coaxes Carol onto a train bound for the hamlet of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. The bulk of the novel, which, considering the context, could be considered picaresque, consists of Carol's haphazard attempts to reform the obdurate, immobile mindsets of the citizens of her new home. Among the improvements Carol suggests are a library board composed of the well read men of the town, and a campaign to renew interest in reading (In a town where the great books are bypassed for the contemporary moralistic, optimistic, and religious authors), and a theater company containing one fine actor and a supporting cast of hams, who bungle through one play (the frivolous "Girl from Kankakee"; poor carol had Shaw or Sophocles in mind. Throughout the novel, Carol evinces a blinding fear of living as a stereotypic denizen of the American Main Street; her fears are intensified by the birth of her son another fetter that could prevent a night train escape from Gopher Prairie), and the loss of several friends (the most notable being Miles Bjornstam, a Swedish horse trader who leaves for Canada after his wife's death) Made desperate by the seeming ineffectuality of her reform efforts, and these fears of decline into a town matron, Carol runs off to Washington D.C. for a period, before returning half broken to Gopher Prairie, tractable while still picturing herself as a maverick.

A five star review does not preclude qualms over a piece of literature. Main Street is truly a marvelous book, but there are flaws. Irony peppered moderately in a story can lend life and humor; too much can overwhelm the reader with a sense that the author has no other crutch than easy, predictable amusement. Also, this being an episodic novel, there sometimes seems to be little tying the book together save for the overpowering contagion of yearning for excitement, reform, and freedom that leaves Carol and others in Gopher Prairie so disappointed. These should not be deterent enough to suggest you steer clear of Main Street, though. As with every marred but overall fantastic booke light breaks the dark for the reader willing to overlook flaws that, were he or she writing the novel, he or she couldn't have ironed out. As glorious a work of literature as it is an historical document, this is a delight for any serious or recreational reader.

As with most novels, I read page after page anticipating the "big moment", the "turning point", a "climax", anything to cite as the work's purpose or point. I never did quite accomplish that.I found myself reading and rereading looking for the part that I must have skipped over accidentally. I have yet to find the secret chapter.

But what I accomplished wasn't known to me at the time but became clear after reflecting. The goal of the book is to help its readers acquire an inner peace within themselves; one that I found to be best appreciated in one's older years. I dont think that I was ready to read the book presently, but can see myself one day rocking in a glider totally enjoying and appreciating Jewett's novel.

A collection of quiet "sketches," this volume is a reminder of the fine writing produced by some of the earliest American realists. Critics have recently revised their first opinions of the book as a "small success" and now consider it a classic of American literature. The stories revolve around a young writer who goes to the coastal town of Dunnet Landing, Maine. In the company of Mrs. Todd, a venerable and locally revered herbalist who gives her lodging, the writer comes to know and write about the people of the area. The result is a fascinating look into personalities shaped and distilled by life on that severe coast into persons of rare character. This edition also contains eight of Jewett's best short stories, including "A White Heron" and "The Queen's Twin."

No plot devices or car chases here--this is a book to read on a rainy afternoon when nostalgia and melancholy threaten to overwhelm. It's comfort food like grandma used to make--reassuring, soul-fortifying, and full of the capacity to cheer. It's also addictive--once you take a bite out of Pointed Firs, you can't stop.

Similar author: Mary Wilkins Freeman

The introductory note also includes a brief summary of events leading up to the events of this play. "Antigone" concerns the family of Oedipus, former ruler of the city-state of Thebes. As "Antigone" opens, Thebes is ruled by Creon, the brother-in-law of Oedipus. Creon is at odds with his niece, Antigone, because he denies a proper burial to Antigone's brother Polynices. Antigone's intention to defy her uncle sets this tragedy in motion.

This is a powerful story about familial duty, social customs, gender roles, and the relationship between the individual and governmental authority. The issues in this play remain relevant today, and are powerfully argued by Sophocles' characters. At the heart of the play is this question: Is it right to disobey a law or edict that one feels is unjust?

But "Antigone" is not just a philosophical meditation; it's also the story of a very personal clash between two strong-willed members of a very troubled extended family. A bonus in the play is the appearance of the seer Tiresias: it is a small but potent role. Overall, this play is a solid example of why ancient Greek drama has stood the test of time.

It is too easy to see the issues of this play, first performed in the 5th century B.C., as being reflected in a host of more contemporary concerns, where the conscience of the individual conflicts with the dictates of the state. However, it seems to me that the conflict in "Antigone" is not so clear-cut as we would suppose. After all, Creon has the right to punish a traitor and to expect loyal citizens to obey. Ismene (Maro Kodou), Antigone's sister, chooses to obey, but Antigone takes a different path. The fact that the "burial" of her brother consists of the token gesture of throwing dirt upon his face, only serves to underscore the ambiguity of the situation Sophocles is developing. Even though the playwright strips Creon of his son, Haemon (Nikos Kazis) and wife, Eurydice (Ilia Livykou) by the end of the drama, it is not a fatal verdict rendered against the king's judgment, but rather the playing out of the tragedy to its grim conclusion.

Note: I have always enjoyed Jean Anouilh's "modern" version of the play, produced in 1944 and loaded with overtones regarding the Nazi occupation of France. The two plays offer a fascinating analog and students are usually quick to appreciate how Anouilh revitalizes the ancient myth with the political situation in which he lived.

What if you had been switched in the baby nursery at the hospital for another child? How might your life have been different?

These are the kinds of thoughts that will occur to you as you read Pudd'nhead Wilson.

I was attracted to the story after reading about its genesis in the new illustrated biography of Mark Twain.

Pudd'nhead Wilson is tragic story about the consequences of two children being switched at birth in the slave-holding society of the American South. Those who admire the eloquent portrayal of common humanity among African-Americans and whites in Huckleberry Finn will find more examples of this point to delight them in Pudd'nhead Wilson.

Pudd'nhead Wilson was a novel that gave Mark Twain a great many problems. The book started as a short story about Italian Siamese twins with a farcical character, as the drunken twin caused the Prohibitionist one to get into trouble with his woolly headed sweetheart. As Twain turned the story into a novel, the most important characters began to disappear in favor of new characters. Stymied, Twain realized that he had written two stories in one novel. He then excised the original of the two stories in favor of the tragedy, while leaving many satirical and ironic characteristics. Part of this switch no doubt related to Twain's growing pessimism as he grew older and to the personal tragedies and financial difficulties dogged his efforts and life.

Perhaps it is this deep plot difficulty that caused Twain to leave the novel with two rather large flaws, which vastly reduce its effectiveness. The first flaw is building a plot around switching two children at birth to establish that perceived racial differences and slavery had been unjust. Unfortunately, the "bad" actor in the novel turns out to be the irresponsible Tom Driscoll (ne Valet de Chambre), who is 1/32 African-American but is raised as a white free man. Thus, those readers who wish to believe in racial differences affecting character can point to that underlying racial factor as still being present in explaining the misbehavior in the story . . . despite what appears to have been Twain's opposite intention. Had Twain developed his story to make the false Tom morally equal to his all-white counterpart Chambers (ne Thomas a Beckett Driscoll), the story would have worked much better in condemning racism and slavery. The second flaw involves having the story turn on establishing the unchanging nature of finger prints in a trial conducted in a small Missouri town many decades before that point was scientifically proven and legally accepted.

For us today, the story moves slowly because we know all about fingerprints as a means of identification which makes much of the eventual resolution easy to anticipate, and also because Twain left many unnecessary remnants of his other story in the book.

Despite these weaknesses, the Pudd'nhead Wilson has many brilliant sections that strikingly portray how the concepts and realities of slavery corrupted both African-Americans and slave-holders. Because of thefts in the Driscoll household, the real Tom's father threatens to sell his slaves down the river (a fate to be avoided). When three of them confess, he agrees to sell them locally. Frightened by the potential for her child to be sold in the future, Roxy plans to kill herself and her son. By accident, she realizes that she can successfully switch the two children's clothing, since both of them look the same to Tom's father, and ensure that her son will never be sold, because he will be raised as the master's son, a white person. Many of the ways for rearing white child are bad for Tom, making him spoiled and disagreeable. Chambers does much better on a simple diet, and from performing physical labor. Tom is arrogant and nasty. Chambers is uneducated and cowed. Later, when Tom realizes that he is 1/32 African-American, he begins to behave as a slave would towards white people.

But the story is much broader than that. Pudd'nhead (a derogatory term somewhat like "featherhead") Wilson is thought to be a fool by the townspeople because of something he said about a dog when he first came to town. Because of that perception, his legal career is delayed by 20 years . . . even though he is actually quite bright. In other areas of the story, a man dresses as women and a woman dresses as a man. A thief has his booty stolen from him, so he is also the victim. In many ways, the story reminds me of Shakespeare's many comedies and tragedies about misperceptions being harmful to all concerned.

Although you will not think this is one of Mark Twain's best books, it is one that will encourage you to have many valuable thoughts about questioning labels and assumptions that we apply to one another. For example, if someone is not very quick to grasp certain widely-accepted points, we may feel the person is stupid. The person may actually be able to grasp many nuances that make the situation ambiguous, and be the opposite of stupid. Or someone who is slow in one way may be a positive genius in other ways. Yet a label may be attached that is the opposite.

Keep an open mind, and observe vastly more about what is going on . . . and be able to create vastly better results!

To keep her son from being "sold down the river," Roxy, a woman 1/16 black, devises a way for her son to grow up with all the privileges of 1830s white society. But questions as to underlying nature of the boy, born Valet de Chambres and now called Tom, soon arise.

David "Pudd'nhead" Wilson is a well-educated man who found a place in Dawson's Landing, Missouri, not as a small town attorney, but as the local curiosity. He earned his nickname due to his strange and frivols hobby of fingerprinting his friends and neighbors, keeping the glass slides carefully labeled and filed.

The melding of Pudd'nhead with the plot of the story comes late, and to modern readers, the way in which a murder is solved comes not as a surprise. It is, however, an interesting enough piece of history, recorded with care and style by Twain. The most amusing and enduring portions of the book are the random quotes taken from Pudd'nhead's calendar. They include nuggets of wisdom such as "keep all your eggs in one basket... and watch that basket!"

This book takes thought to read. As slim a volume as it is, each chapter takes quite a time to work its way into your brain. And Roxy's speech, written in Twain's famous dialect spelling, can make you set aside a whole afternoon just to grope your way through. But if you find your lips moving don't worry. Each word is important, and there is little in each short chapter that is not necessary and interesting.

I found Roxy to be the most compelling character. Her life in and out of slavery is one of a mother trying to do right, a woman trying to live her life, and an unfortunate pawn in the manipulative world that judges her only by her lineage.

Although the suspense story may seem simple or outdated to a contemporary reader, many of Twain's themes are not. The subject of nature versus nurture is still debated today as are the politics of language and dialect. Twain's titular character is a hobbyist in what was then the nascent science of fingerprinting and his discussion compares to the contemporary debate over DNA evidence. Of course, the biggest problems the author addresses remain our biggest social challenges-- racial discrimination, the gap between the haves and have nots, and the persistence of classist social systems.

Artistically, no, this is not HUCKLEBERRY FINN, but few books are. Twain's use of irony wells up from every scene, every phrase so much so that it shines brilliantly. It is a pleasure to read and it keeps you thinking long after it is over.

The language in this play is often romantic and lush, a grand language suited to rulers of the world. Cleopatra's "O, my oblivion is a very Anthony,/ And I am all forgotten" has to be some of the most erotic stuff that the Bard ever wrote.

Cleopatra is a very passionate woman and a great role-player, but she is always herself, never inauthentic. What she feels may change from moment to moment, but while she's feeling it, it's REAL. I find her to be the more mature one in her and Anthony's relationship. Notice how she never yells at him for marrying Octavia, which is certainly a terrible betrayal. She accepts that he did what he had to do and is only glad that Anthony is again united with her. Her love for him is beyond judgement.

The relationship between Anthony and Caesar is a very complicated one, and one that fascinated me almost as much as that of Cleopatra and Anthony. Caesar admires Anthony, but he betrays himself as having contempt for him in the way he expresses that admiration. Dodgy man, that little Caesar.

Having just read the incomparable Julius Caesar and longing for more of the same after Antony & Octavius Caesar's sound defeat of the "noble" Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, I ordered Antony & Cleopatra. Although in some respects it is similar to its predecessor, Antony & Cleopatra, having been written by Shakespeare much later in life after the tragic death of his lone son Hamnet and a turbulent relationship with his wife, brings forth a much more cynical and wily Bard than the young and idealistic one who wrote Caesar. This disillusionment can be witnessed not only in the tragic deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, but moreso subvertly in the incongruity and disingenuousness of their supposed driving impetus - their love for one another. Both Antony & Cleopatra continuously and almost purposefully betray each other throughout the play - undermining their ability to lead and therefore leading to their tragic and untimely demise.

I recommend this to those who adored Julius Caesar as well as those Shakespeare aficionados who simply cannot get enough of The Bard. Antony & Cleopatra proves a lucid, enjoyable, and easy read, although somewhat longer, but with less substance than Julius Caesar. Enjoyable nonetheless.

"Make not your thoughts your prisons." - Octavius Caesar