Collaboratively written by equestrian expert Sarah Pilliner, freelance illustrator Samantha Elmhurst, and equine nutritionist and consultant Zoe Davies, The Horse In Motion: The Anatomy And Physiology Of Equine Locomotion is an extensive and authoritatively examination of equine anatomy and how horses walk, trot, canter, and jump. Profusely illustrated with numerous black-and-white photographs and sketches, and offering invaluable tips to avoid hindering a horse as well as a wealth of information about how horses move, The Horse In Motion is very highly recommended reading, especially for equine enthusiasts and for anyone with an interest in painting or animating these robust creatures. Also very highly recommended is Sarah Pilliner and Zoe Davies' earlier work, Equine Science, Health And Performance (0632039132; [money]).

Sanjek's book provides a wealth of information for anyone concerned (some would say mad) enough to understand how urban politics take their shape from individual events, groups and people.

Although the sociology language has its discontents (events like the Colombian Independence Day festival become "rituals"), the perspective it brings speaks volumes of the impact of ethnicity. Sanjek shows how individuals overcame historic racial antipathy to recognize different people as, well, people. I certainly hope the future of us all does mean that we stop identifying ourselves as black, white or other and start recognizing ourselves as part of a local and very real community.

I had the pleasure of taking several classes taught by the author over 15 years ago when I was a college student. This book reminds me why he was such a special teacher. He goes inside the neighborhood (literally and figuratively) to seek the common ground which unites the many people of diverse backgrounds in the pursuit of the American Dream.

I grew up in Queens in the 1960's and my wife grew up in Corona. We enjoyed the opportunity to recall the neighborhood as it was and to consider how and why it changed. This was a great book. It should be read by students of urban sociology everywhere.

Sojourn at Elmhurst is a sequence of poems about Frank Goldin, a middle-aged biochemist who is admitted to a mental hospital, Elmhurst, with the chief complaint, "I hear a thousand voices and must respond to each." In the first poem Goldin confesses his sins, but simple confession doesn't get to the root of his dilemma, the existential ambiguity that plagues him. During Goldin's dark night of the soul, his scientific self struggles with the mysterious longing within. Dr. Hudspeth, the Elmhurst psychiatrist, directs his support to the part of Goldin that says, "I am the restless biochemical cycle / that pours out glutathione in buckets." In essence, just straighten out the chemicals and you'll get better. Throughout the book Goldin waits for his wife Helen to visit Elmhurst, but she never appears. He ruminates over the matter of confessing that he had an affair with a woman named Da-ling during a professional meeting in Osaka. If he confesses, if Helen comes, Goldin hopes that things will return to the way the way they used to be. However, the mysterious side of Goldin is looking for something else. He has visions of the ancient Rabbi Yehuda of Smyrna, who asks, "Why do we not even know how to ask a question properly?" After several weeks Goldin leaves Elmhurst with the feeling that he has made progress, but not in any discernible direction. Goldin concludes that he should be grateful, but he asks, "to whom?" Goldin's sojourn at Elmhurst reveals itself in a variety of forms, ranging from formal verse (e.g. villanelle) through free verse to prose poems. On one level these poems simply present Goldin's observations, dreams, and reflections during his several weeks of internment. Nowhere is there a burst of inspiration, an epiphany, a miraculous cure. His stay in the mental hospital ends as ambiguously as it began. At another level, though, the different sides of Goldin-rational and mysterious, Jewish and Catholic, thesis and antithesis-engage in a dialectic, which does, in fact, achieve a new perspective, a synthesis.