It is interesting that Wordsworth should never have published his most impressive poem. Norton calls it the "most original long poem since Milton's Paradise Lost," and it certainly deserves to be ranked alongside the master of the English epic. This poem was not published until after Wordsworth's death in 1850, and there are several versions of it (which are included in this book). The 1798-1799 version is very short, but the 1805 is expanded and includes many epic devices which Wordsworth borrowed from Milton and others. The 1850 version is basically a revised 1805 edition. It is not necessary that you read all three versions of the poem to understand its power, but it is useful to have them all at hand like this.

The Prelude is an autobiography about Wordsworth's early life. It is full of sublime images of the world through the eyes of a Romantic, and includes some of the most beautiful imagery ever set to verse in English (I believe). Wordsworth's reflections about the evils of ambition and self-absortion, among other things, are also very powerful.

This poem has been widely quoted by such Christian authors as CS Lewis, and has been admired by many great English poets. It is truly a masterpiece, an epic poem done in the tradition of English Romanticism. You can get this poem in many compilations, but usually in abridged form. This edition features the poem in its entirety, and in three version. This poem is essential to any study of English Romanticism.

This book articulates a vision of the world and of the emotions it inspires in a cerebral, yet densely imaged poem. Wordsworth did not want the poem published for fears that it was too self-absorbed; adressing earlier reviews that have made this complaint, it is true that the poem is self absorbed in that it presents the vision of the world from an individual perspective...as all poems do. I find Eliot's use of quotations and footnotes drawing on his banks of memory and reading to be far more self-absorbed than this: a poem intended to communicated clearly. It is true that it is personal in that it was written to a friend with devotion and love, but this does not detract from the power of the language, the power of the vision, and the impact of the poem upon the age(s). As for comparing Wordsworth to a modernist, that comparison is difficult to make as the modernists rejected the romantic's formal language and optimism (both present in the prelude, despite moments of recognition of a bleak 'wasted' world).

I entirely disagree with the prevailing reviews on The Prelude. We have no other secular poem about the futile search for meaning in a meaningless world so fine as the Prelude: it is the Paradise Lost of those who search or long for a fleeting significance. What is significant about the poem is not that we believe what Wordsworth claims about the power of nature and the mind, but that he tried so hard to search out some sense of meaning and order- Wordsworth is the first Modernist writer before there was a name for his anxiety. This edition is wonderful in the way that it presents the 1805 and 1850 versions on opposite pages- it also contains the 1799 version- a real tour de force. Read The Prelude, read it carefully and take it too heart- there is no Song of Myself without Wordsworth's humane yet Promethean quest for significance.

This book hooked me on si-fi and Andre Norton. Man has been in space so long that Terra is nearly forgotten. The social and political structure has fallen apart. A group of Space rangers and a ship of civilians crashes on a nearly empty world that has nomads, and sealed empty cities. The leader of the civilians takes control of the city and has the ability to control minds. Hate for non-humans grows and the Rangers choose to go it alone in the wild. They make the amazing discovery that this planet is Terra, the birth place of man. This was my first introduction to science fiction. I hope someday that this book will become a movie. Zinga is a match for a Drak or a Jedi anytime.

When I was 9 years old I found this book in the school library. I had never read such a wonderful book! It was my first science fiction novel, and it took me places that I had never dreamed existed.

My family moved 3000 miles away soon after that, and I often thought that I might go back to that school and find the thrilling science fiction book whose name and author I couldn't remember.

As these things happen, roughly 30 years later, I found the book as I was looking through a used book shop. Of course, I was seeing it through the eyes of a child, and the book lacked the depth, sophistication and complexity that I now desire. However, the characters and the plot could form the framework for a much richer novel or movie. Anyone know a good movie producer? I haven't seen a science fiction movie worth a farthing for a long time.

Blasters, rocket ships, and Space Patrols became staples of science fiction very early in its life as a separate genre, usually used in rather poor, pulp-level stories that were often nothing more than Westerns translated to outer space. But Norton took these common elements and added her own special flavor, and the result is a very satisfying adventure that truly qualifies as 'real' science fiction, one that will tickle that 'sense of wonder' that is such a prime requisite for imaginative fiction.

In the waning days of a vast interstellar empire, a lone ship of the Patrol crash lands on a minor, very out of the way planet. Quickly scouting around their crash site, they find evidence of a long vanished high tech civilization in the Sealed Cities, along with nomadic hunter-gatherer level groups of humans. Looking for better shelter to tend their injured personnel, the rangers enter one of the cities, only to find it occupied by another group of refugees and ruled by the Acturian Cummi, a master telepath, one who is not above overpowering and directly controlling other peoples minds, who is bent on becoming the sole ruler of the planet. Zinga, a member of the ancient historian race of Zacathans (a reptilian race that populates many of Norton's science fiction works), and the human Kartr, both high order telepaths themselves, though not of the strength of Cummi, end up in a memorable mental battle with Cummi. The result of this battle and its aftermath lead to a very surprising and exciting ending, one that has resonated in my mind for forty years.

Norton's work with the telepath aspect was unusual at the time of this book's writing (1953), showing measurable grading of telepathic ability, the dirty, nasty possibilities that such a talent engenders, the intriguing invention of the Can-hound as an android built for external mental control, and the indication that telepaths would not automatically form a society onto themselves, but might still be the object of unreasonable prejudice. She also strikes an accurate note in her depictions of the traditions and customs of the Patrol and the alienation that outsiders to that heritage can be made to feel. Her characterizations of Kartr and Zinga, while not excessively deep, are more than adequate to allow the reader to become engrossed in their problems and actions.

A grand adventure yarn, with more than a bit of meaning, depth, and moral injunctions hiding behind the fast pace. This is Norton at her best.

An interesting book in that it gives a number of diverse viewpoints. The POWs come from a variety of backgrounds and have different strengths, weaknesses, faults, and redeeming qualities. The number of POWs giving accounts makes it a little difficult to follow until you are well into the book. Human nature, good and bad, manifests itself not only in the treatment meted out by the captors, but in the actions and reactions of the POWs. Some handle themselves admirably and unselfishly while others who were unable to handle the oppressive conditions fall apart and go so far as to betray their fellow POWs and attempt to join the NVA. These individuals attempt to justify their actions through intellectualization but one gets the impression that they know, at some level, that they have betrayed the other POWs and their country. I would give this book 3 1/2 stars. The main drawback is that the individual stories are necessarily limited in scope and we do not delve deeply enough into each man's thoughts.

Zalin Grant does a masterful job of merging the interviews of the different POW's. The reader is able to take advantage of a wide array of viewpoints on their situation as prisoners. I found myself trying to decide which prisoner was the good guy and which was the bad guy. There was more animosity between some of the prisoners than their was between them and their captors! Anyone who drools over the prospect of learning more about POW life needs to add this tale to their respective library and enjoy!

This is one of the greatest books that I have read on the Vietnam War subject, and I have read many; its limited scope notwithstanding. Ostensibly, this book is the graphic of the experiences of a discrete number of men kept captive by the VC/NVA command. However, due to the complex subtleties of the book's structure, it becomes a bit more than this, especially because it encompasses a wider array of U.S. prisoners, and also Europeans, and South Vietnamese soldiers and mercenaries. The author has chosen to extract excerpts of interviews that he must have given to those men who volunteered to speak with him. The largest part of the book is given over to a group held in high mountain jungle camps in South Vietnam, and then of their march North to Hanoi and finally of theirs and others experiences in the so-called Hanoi Hilton. We are privileged to experience the lives of these men through their own eyes. We witness brutality, humiliation, bravery, cowardice, fear, humour, death, disease, insanity, depravity and, yes, love and friendship; both internecine and between the prisoners and their 'enemies.' The Vietnam War was, for the United States, a complex situation to say the least. The POW experience there does a wonderful job of conveying the complexities and difficulties this war posed for our society. Suffice it to say that one is left with a sense of awe for the strength and forbearance of these 'survivors' (but for one of the men, Theodore Guy, whose understandably disturbing and distorted views are explored a bit later in the book). One of the most beautiful aspects of this book is the testimonials that various POW's give to explain and ameliorate the weaknesses and 'failings' of their fellow prisoners. I was also struck by the underlying humility with which the prisoners spoke of their own experiences, some of which involved personal valor and heroism that all but one of the prisoners left unsaid, only to have their secrets unveiled by a different prisoner. I say that there is one stand out voice here that is filled with anger, hatred and braggadocio and that voice is Mr. Guy's. It stands in stark contrast to the testimony of the other prisoners, and one can't help but think that the author intentionally included this point of view. Guy was the senior officer in the so-called Hanoi Hilton for much of the time he was imprisoned and was unrepentantly gung ho during his tenure there. He set up lines of communication between the prisoners in order to help give strength to his fellow Americans and to enforce his policies of resistance to the enemy and to maintain this united front. He is embittered by the fact that a small contingent of the Americans there, members of the so-called Peace Committee, were cooperating with the enemy by making tapes and writing letters that condemned the American participation in the war. He even went so far as to attempt to stir up a firestorm after he returned home by going to the press with allegations of treason against some of these now-returned prisoners. Oh, and he also gets a few kicks in against his wife's activities while he was held prisoner. What makes this unadulterated venom such a bad reflection upon Guy's character is that, while he despises these men for their weaknesses, he admits himself that he was guilty of doing very similar things, but of course he only does them after he has reached the end of his mental and physical limits. It is an unfortunate truth that self-centered people are simply incapable of comprehending that different people are well, different. To wit, every man has his breaking point, his was simply different than those he condemns. Furthermore, he alone, in the telling of his initial capture incident tells of gung ho die hard heroic battle in the face of overwhelming odds. It strikes one as darned odd that nobody else, even men who describe fighting to the end, try to make themselves look like heroes. Anyway, you as the reader will be the judge of whether Guy's contrapuntal account strikes you as being somehow self-serving and inappropriate. Oh, there are two other accounts in the book that are equally disturbing. The first is of an American fellow who went over to the Vietcong. One wonders what that guy was thinking, tellingly, the prisoners who knew him best offer very interesting insights into his motivations and character without being accusatory. There is another account from one of the fellows that Guy hated most, John Young who was the 'chief' collaborator in the 'Hanoi Hilton.' He activities seem to have been disliked by every one, even those who were sympathetic to the so-called Peace Committee. I suppose that it goes to show that there just may be one in every crowd, and also that it is precisely for this that we should avoid placing our fellow countrymen into situations that can expose these fatal character flaws if at all possible. Our nation lost a lot of currency in waging war in Southeast Asia, let us hope that we are not on the brink of doing the same now in the Middle East.

The book has good information and is clearly written, but much of the information is repeated from section to section. The author covers security in one OS, then copied and pasted paragraphs at a time into security about another OS. Very annoying to re-read sections over and over. There is one two paragraph pasage that I have read five times in different parts of the book.

As this book points out numerous times, network security is really a trade off between convenience (wide open with no restrictions) and safety (totally locked down to where no one has access). How this trade off is accomplished in today's typical networking environment is covered quite clearly and concisely in this short book.

Things I liked were the organization and explanation of each of the common security tools available, such as firewalls, third party authentication and VPN's, with clear discussions of the inherent advantages and disadvantages of each, as well as the authors recommendations on where each should reside on the network. The authors provide great references for additional resources on areas outside the scope of this book also, such as websites, organizations and user groups where more exhaustive information may be obtained.

What I found annoying was the boilerplate assembly process used throughout much of the book, where the exact paragraph or group of paragraphs as well as example figures, was replicated whenever a topic overlapped. For example, the discussion of smart cards came up in chapter 5, "Letting Users Connect Securely", along with a cute diagram of one style of hardware security token, and then again in chapter 6, "About Authentication and Passwords" we are treated to the exact same set of four or five paragraphs along with the very same example diagram.

Overall though, this is a very informative, if short (at only 232 pages), introduction to the subject of network security. Perhaps a better title would have been "Peter Norton's *Introduction* to Network Security Fundamentals."

This is an extremely useful primer on network security. After looking through a number of books, I chose this one as a starting point because of its clear organization and language.

I first read this book back in high school, and it got me interested in fantasy and science fiction again. As an ancient Egypt enthusiast, I am still impressed by how much research Norton put into the the pseudo-african culture where most of the book takes place. It is also a quick read.
It tells the story of an American archaeologist who is drawn into an alternate universe where Egyptian culture still thrives. She must assume the identity of a dead princess/priestess to defeat an uprising with a mysterious leader.
I found this book refreshing because it is a sci-fi book whose main character is a black woman, and a smart, no nonsense one at that! It's not the usual sci-fi or fantasy i am used to seeing. So if you're interested in books that feature strong women and "Stargate" like Egyptian culture, I reccomend this book strongly.

I have a copy of this book from the '70s. It's falling apart from being re-read so many times. The book is entertaining, suspenseful and just down right good.

Tallahassee is a great herione. She is smart and willing to fight the good fight. She is taken back in time to a place that was only fabled to exist. This place is being threatened by an evil that will destroy it, unless Tally can convincingly take the place of the just deceased princess.

This book is a great way to introduce young readers to science fiction and time travel.

i first read this book back in the seventies when i was in high school. it is one of science fictions' best. when an archeologist finds an ancient tailsman, she is transported back in time and is a dead ringer for a princess that has just been killed trying to protect the artifacts. she then takes the idenity of the dead princess and the story that follows is really great. will she stay in the past to help fight the evil that caused the death of the princess or go back to her own

time? the story is well written and i think it is definelty worth reading.

Adrienne Rich has to be the most over-rated poet in history. Her work would be completely forgotten if it was judged as poetry, but because she has been adopted as the ideological idol of PC fanatics everywhere, she has become an untouchable icon of the present. Rich is best compared, intellectually, to the literary drudges of Soviet Russia, who extolled the glories of the people for the Communist Party. The diffrence, obviously, is that Rich is not embraced by the State, but by the buddy system that is academic feminism. This volume, complete with the breathless worship -- oh, sorry, critical scholarly attention -- of the editor, is a very fine presentation of what is, for all practical purposes, the work of a transient figure whose prominence is entirely dependent on the current PC state of the American academic establishment. If you wandered to this book because it claims to be poetry, why not skip it and try someone with some soul adn some real poetic talent?

Oct. 5: She is presented with prestigious Lannan Literary Award..for $100,000 for a job in writing,well.

Not merely a wonderful and incredibly courageous poet; oh, no. She is also a brilliant and challenging essayist. Most famous for "The Hermit's Scream", her other prose is absolutely startling in its originality and courage. This book is a threat to white males everywhere. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

While this is a wonder of words, a piece completely in poetry form, this is perhaps the worst book I have ever read. Unless you are a lit major or have a lot of free time on your hands and can sit through pointless speeches consisting of endless pointless description, buy anything else.

Why read Chaucer? Well, in the first place for the beauty and masculine vigor of his English, an English one soon catches on to after a bit of practice. Why else? Well, because Chaucer was intensely human and his stories are interesting, and are either truly poignant or richly comic and sometimes even both. Also for the rich gallery of unforgettable human types his stories bring before us.

Of course, Chaucer isn't for everyone. Those with no feeling for his language and no sense of humor, and whose own humanity is not their strongest point, may lack what is needed to appreciate Chaucer at his true worth.

And in the presence of critical editions such as the present one, there is a danger of forgetting that so much of Chaucer's power is in the sheer music of his lines. Those new to Chaucer would be well advised to learn how to read Middle English _aloud_ as soon as possible by listening to one of the many excellent recordings. If they were to do this they'd soon find their pleasure in Chaucer magnified enormously.

This edition is designed for those coming to the Middle English for the first time. All the difficulties are glossed, usually on the same line in italics. Far more glossing than any other edition. The spelling has also been regularized so that the same word is spelt the same each time. There are other aids as well: past participles are set as y-clept not yclept, and there are footnotes for particularly difficult lines.

If I had a better grip on what it was like to be a woman during the era in which this was written I would probably like this novel a lot more. But to be quite honest I found it to be almost unbearably boring and drawn out. It simply reeks of the style of the times, which was to so forcefully over dramatize everything that work now seems almost comical. The point of the novel was supposedly to show how Eyre was able to overcome the sexism of her time, but in the end it seems as though she gave in to the sexism and ended up getting lucky. The plot is weak, the characters are unrealistic, and the language is far too melancholy. I won't argue that it was progressive for its time, simply because of the fact it was written by a woman and openly spoke out against the sexism in society, but in our times I'm afraid the message has been lost in its tediousness and extremity.

Jane Eyre is justifiably held as one of the best books in print! I selected it because it is recommended in the Lifetime Reading Program and am certainly pleased that I did. Read it, every word, and you will be caught up in the very thoughts of Jane. After, rent the A&E movie version which is much truer to the plot than the other version. Feel free to weep with joy at the end. I did.

Jane Eyre is a masterpiece of it's kind. Charlotte Bronte brings the characters to life as not many authors of this period (that I have experienced) have. The plot is excelent and intriguing, and as evocative as anything I have ever read. Mr. Rochester is a very intriguing hero, not the run-of-the mill Knight in Shining armor, and Jane Eyre is a very different heroin from the usual as well, and a very interesting one. I would definitely reccomend this book to anyone who likes classics!

I am a college student, taking an intro to Office 97 with this book. If you need an introduction to computers - this isn't the book. Just because you're not a "techie" doesn't mean you have the I/Q of a lab rat- but that's what this book assumes. He reiterates the same concepts thoroughout the whole book, recycling them until you're consumed with boredom.

To conclude: I'm sure it will not take a thousand page book for you to learn how to save a document, my friends.

As an administrative assistant in a four year university I have noticed an increasing amount of students who have taken an Introduction to Computers Class and does not know how to save a document. There is more that you need to learn in that class and as seniors come to me and ask me how to do things that they should have learned, makes me recommend this book to them.

I have a copy of this book and I use it frequently when I tutor students in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I also use this book to tutor beginners who know nothing about computers. By the time I have let them read the chapters and done the work at the end of the chapters in this book, they have had a better understanding of computer concepts and terms.

I recommend this book highly as an effective tool for teaching in an Introduction to Computers Class.

REQUEST. I have a copy of local addition . the pictures and text are very poor. I want to buy this fantastic book(origenal copy). Could you help me? Please reply ASAP. Thanks

Here is another Sarton gem that captures human beings at both their best and most conflicted. The story revolves around a few months in the lives of the professors and students at a small women's college where some fireworks erupt, involving a brilliant student, plagiarism and accusations of favoritism.

The main character and narrator is a young woman named Lucy Winter who has just ended her engagement and is teaching because she can't think of anything else to do. Happily for both Lucy and the reader, her intelligence, caring and gift for teaching quickly propel her to the forefront of the emerging conflict.

The gift of this book is the questions it raises about the process and goals of teaching. How and when to foster and encourage brilliance? What allowances, if any, should be made for extraordinary ability? How to support students without becoming embroiled in their lives? How to get students excited about learning and thinking for themselves? And above all, how much of yourself to give as a teacher? All these questions come and go and come again throughout the book, offering a rich and varied look at what it means to be involved in the process of education.

The problems with this book have to do with the limitations of its characters. They are all in turmoil in one form or another, and their issues seem to be magnified by the fact that they are forever getting together to have a few drinks and talk things out. Their dependency on alcohol and cigarettes in order to loosen up, get to the bottom of what they are feeling, steady their nerves, and exchange confidences with one another is so striking that the modern reader can't help but think addiction. While the use of these two "habits" are clearly stage props in one sense, the need to use them raises questions about how Sarton saw human interaction. It also gives the book a slightly muddled and hazy quality at times.

Despite its limitations, however, this is a book that is well worth reading. Expect no final resolutions to the tough questions she raises, but plenty of satisfying food for thought instead.

this book, through its excellent plot and characters, opened up a lot of bigger questions, such as, what do we live for?, why do we strive for excellence?, what is the purpose of learning?, what are relationships about?, what does it mean to be a teacher, a friend, a therapist, a partner?

the fact that this book even pointed toward these questions is seriously in its favor, and for that i gave it four stars. the book, however, had some serious drawbacks.

weak points: often the questions, these vitally important questions, were not asked so clearly, as there was often a shroud of vagueness around them. no surprise, the characters asking these questions almost ALWAYS were drinking, or even drinking heavily, when doing the asking and exploring. they struck me as mostly numb people, and could only access life's seriousness when loosened up by alcohol. even with alcohol as sarton's ally, she never really uses her characters to tackle these questions at any sustained depth, and as such, the deeper answers are only hinted at and lurk in the shadows. for this reason, the book drags on, and often mires in questions of morality. and none of the relationships in the book are really founded on bedrock; even with the couple that fights throughout the book and "makes up" at the end, their reconciliation, presented as permanent, just comes across as temporary, because neither partner has ever really accessed the deepest parts of their beings. their reconciliation, which sarton presents as profound, comes across more as shallow, created for the sake of keeping the reader happy (or numb, in the dark), very hollywood. and while the main character is sympathetic, much of what i find appealing in her is based on her instinct, and not in any increasing consciousness on her part. she stills comes across as an underconfident wet noodle, even by the end of the book, despite the powerful roles she has taken on, or should i say, fallen into.

all this said, the book was tightly written, very believable, and gave me a view into a very realistic world...but a shallow yet pseudo-deep one that i'm not particularly interested in entering...but which i think may sarton still is. i think she feels this world she's created IS in fact deep. sadly, i think it's only as deep as she's capable of going.

This book is not at all boring. It is a beautiful picture of a young woman who goes to teach literature at a small New England woman's college. She goes more because she doesn't have anything else to do, rather than because of any great desire to teach.

Once at the college, though, the main character must deal with series of questions--what is the proper relationship of a teacher to a student, how much of oneself must a teacher share with her students, what moral responsibilities does a teacher have? One of her students is one of the star scholars of the small college, but while she seems to demonstrate real scholarly excellence, she is clearly unhappy. When this student plagiarises an essay, the main character must decide: should she let the rules proceed, and see the girl expelled for cheating, or should she concern herself with the extenuating circumstances of the girl's depression.

This is the kind of book where there are many, many scenes filled with thoughtful conversations, rather than action. I enjoyed these conversations, though, since they all relate to these questions about teaching, learning, the scholarly life, the privileges of excellence, etc.