I loved this bio of Ellison, the first to be published, and its focus on the early years. The writing is top-notch and Jackson has clearly done exhaustive research to uncover an amazing amount of fascinating detail. Belongs in any reader's collection devoted to American and African American literature and history.

This is the most detailed look at Ellison's life that I've seen. This biography covers his path from poverty in Oklahoma to becoming part of the literary elite in the early 1950's. The author examines Ellison's involvement in the black rights movement and his relationships with Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. From start to finish, this is a fascinating read.

Mr. Kamm's book is a collection of wisdom, ideas, and strategies for the engineer and entrepreneur. He shares stories of success, setbacks, and innovation. I read the book some years ago, but the reason I most enjoy it now is when considering difficuties I am going through in my own career. Like most professions engineering will bring you frustrations as well as triumphs, and I enjoy seeing how a fellow designer delt with close-minded managers, tight deadlines, small budgets, and took blows as well as wins. In issues both social and technical, the author has fun telling stories of his career, and may prepare you for challenges you haven't thought of yet!

As a physician - inventor of surgical instruments and devices, I found this book an excellent basic reference as to engineering concepts and applications. I enjoy the author's wry sense of humor and efforts to make some complicated prosesses readily digestible. I think this would be an excellent text for a college -level course and believe it would influence students to enter the engineering world in a more formal manner.

A very interesting book with a whole new outlook on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran. Schiffman suggests that years of Christian scholarship has somewhat tainted the study of the scrolls and that a Jewish perspective on the scrolls is long overdue. I especially enjoyed his perspective on the origin of the dead sea sect, tracing their roots possibly to the Sadducees. The first several chapters serve as an introduction to the dead sea scrolls, including the story of their discovery, so if this is your first book on the DSS you should find sufficient background on the subject. He always compares the DSS literature with the practices of other Second Temple Period religious groups and literature, pointing out similarities and differences. I felt that part 2 offered more insight into the lifestyle and mindset of the community who lived at Qumran than anything I've read.

One of the greatest scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Lawrence Schiffman, tries to correct the problem of 40 years of Christian reading into the Judaic texts found at Qumran. By exploring the Scrolls as a whole, as well as the main groups of Jews in ancient Israel, Schiffman presents an amazing thesis as to who theses people were, and what schism led them to break from their homes and form this community. A book full of wisdom, and insight, Schiffman leads the reader on a complete exploration of the times, Scrolls, and provides a very helpful glossary for the layman, and scholar alike

When compared with Terry Richey's The Marketer's Visual Toolkit, I rate Larry Raymond's book second best, in terms of business application possibilities.

Terry's many ideas are geared strictly towards the marketer, whilst Larry's ideas are geared towards the strategic planner - more so in the arena of Organizational Development (OD).

In terms of applications and examples, Terry's book is more wide ranging, although I must add that Larry's book has more depth in his treatment of the subject, from the strategic thinking and planning perspective.

The few examples given in Larry's book are also well illustrated for the businesss reader.

On the whole, Larry's book is still an excellent visual toolkit for the businessman.

For readers who are fascinated by visual tools in the field of business applications, I would recommend exploring Dr. Malcolm Craig's 'Thinking Visually' book. He illustrates with more than a dozen graphical templates f!or visualisation of complex information in business as well as in research.

Larry Raymond's book is a real eye-openner. He outlines, and then describes in sufficient detail, how to redesign even highly complex organizational structures and work processes in a single day. Immediately, upon reading the book, I spoke with then met with the author. I have applied his process with great success. END

This work by Walter Pater, published in 1873, as
a volume of collected (previously published) essays
along with an essay on "Winckelmann", a Preface, and
a Conclusion was [and perhaps still is] an extremely
influential work of aesthetic criticism. The volume
helped shape [influence] the perceptions, the
attitudes, and the approaches of many youthful readers
in the late 1880's and 1890's. It is very interesting
to read, immensely engaging to consider and muse about,
but also offers cautions to the overenthusiastic,
easily influenced [or persuaded] disciple.
This volume consists of an Introduction [by the
editor, Adam Philips], a Preface [by Pater], 9 chapters,
and a Conclusion (in this particular edition
by Oxford Classics there is also a chronology, a
Selective Bibliography, an Appendix titled "Diaphaneite,"
and Explanatory Notes in the back. The chapter titles
(after Pater's Preface) are: Two Early French Stories;
Pico Della Mirandola; Sandro Botticelli; Luca Della
Robbia; The Poetry of Michelangelo; Leonardo da Vinci;
The School of Giorgione, Joachim Du Bellay; Winckelmann;
and Conclusion.
* * * * * * * * * *
What's the problem here? Well, unfortunately, Pater
is not completely reliable as an objective perceiver
or critic. He tends to be a bit eccentric in his
individualistic perceptions and interpretations of
the art works, but he goes ahead and defends this
approach in a very "modern" sounding fashion --
which seems to include a bit of "situational perceptions,"
subjective impressions of perception and response,
and subjective criticism. Which makes for extremely
engaging [sometimes irritating] reading, but leaves
something to be desired as far as objective and
judicious thoughtfulness and truthfulness. Pater
seems to believe that it is acceptable to "bend"
or even create facts to further his own it-pleases-
me-to-think-that-this-is-or-should-be-so desires.
We know that we are on a slippery critical slope
[though it will sound all too familiar to modern
ears and modern apologetics] when the editor Phillips
informs us: "In Pater's first published writing, his
essay on Coleridge of 1866, he had suggested that --
'Modern thought is distinguished from ancient by its
cultivation of the "relative" spirit in place of the
"absolute" ... To the modern spirit nothing is, or
can be rightly known, except relatively and under
conditions." It doesn't take much time to realize
that such a critical position is going to lead to
an end-position of aesthetic, critical, and moral
relativism ("You can't tell me I'm wrong, because
there is no one set way of seeing, analyzing,
believing, or evaluating."-- the spoiled, indulged child's
self-justification for the validity of its own
ego supremacy and authority against that of any
parental or adult restrictions. Such a position usually
means a lack of any meaningful in-depth self questioning
or objective evaluating of personal motives, and a
welcoming of lack of restraints in the pursuit of
pleasure and non-self discipline. And this, of course,
is the critical negative refrain that often comes
against the decadent followers of Pater's credo.]
The second fall-out effect of Pater's evaluations
and pronouncements is that some of his disciples
[self-styled] went farther than even he was willing
to approve with their hedonism and purposefully
shocking lifestyles and "decadent" behaviors and
aesthetic appetites.
But it came from statements like this, which Pater
may have meant one way, but which their subjective,
individualistic perceptions took another way: "The
aesthetic critic, then, regards all the objects with
which he has to do, all works of art, and the fairer
forms of nature and human life, as powers or forces
producing PLEASURABLE SENSATIONS [caps are mine], each
of a more or less peculiar or unique kind. [We value
them --he says] for the property each has of affecting
one with a special, a unique, impression of pleasure.
Our education becomes complete in proportion as our
SUSCEPTIBILITY to these impressions increases -- in
depth and VARIETY."
Let the perceiver and the critic -- and the
experiencer -- proceed with extreme caution and good
judgment.
* * * * * * * * *

This book has changed many lives in a very
peculiar way: although its evaluations are
quite wrong at times, particularly the chapter
on the School of Giorgione(if you care, check
out the edition with an introduction by
Kenneth Clark), Pater's Renaissance still
shines with the very same light that made it a
cult among Victorian youngmen.

The "gemstone flame", the pervasive feelings
of which Pater invited us to share have not
vanished (in spite of the attempts of the
so-called modern art), and the book's
invaluable lesson is that you simply
do not need a fancy objet d'art to see
what true beauty is all about.

So basically this is what I have to say: if
you have ever derived aesthetic pleasure from
anything at all in life, you should read this
little book tomorrow. If you never felt any
such pleasure, you must read The Renaissance
right now, or you'll simply let the good
things pass you by. I mean it.

This collection of stories by the versatile Italian writer, Dino Buzzati, bears a curious resemblance to the stories of Jorge Luis Borges. Borges's argument - and Buzzati's - appears to be with the nature of man.

Like Borges, Mr. Buzzati employs a relative simplicity of language to reveal and conceal the circularity and ineluctability of time and destiny. The longest story in the collection, ''Barnabo of the Mountains'', deals with the fate of a young man who funks his duty as forester and then lives on to the critical moment of reprise, only to discover that the honor he sought to recover has been absorbed in the undifferentiated wholeness of experience.

Another Borgesian device is the assumption that people and events are as well known to the reader as they are to the author. ''The inventor, the famous Aldo Cristofari'' is an invented inventor introduced with an air of universal familiarity.

Preoccupied chiefly with conscience and social decorum, the 14 tales could be described as parables, being short on narrative and long on moral suggestion. A middle-aged man flirts dangerously with the fantasies of childhood. Another story proposes that human imagination has as much to do with reality as any case-hardened fact. A story about a literary doppelg"anger once again demonstrates that one must be careful what one wishes for. And so on...

Why don't more people read Buzzati? Perhaps because he's always associated with Camus, whose philosopy-laden novels are forced on all students. Buzzati is existential, but he's a much better storyteller than anyone else burdened with the "existential" label. Restless Nights is a great collection of short stories that should have won awards for its publisher. There are touches of the surreal here, but his style is too clear and concise to fit in with Breton et al. There are many sci-fi and Twilight Zone effects as well, yet with a more profound and, yes, existential, theme. Think of this as Kafka with a good sense of plot, as if Franz were forced to write half-hour tv scripts. I consider this one a classic. Much better than the other DB collections.

This collection of essays on translation questions translators' shadowy existence, and the still prevailing romantic tendency to define translation as a simulacrum, as a second-rate product that dates. It problematizes this tendency -followed by many translators themselves- that also celebrates the very "vanishing act" of the translator, and that declares successful a translation which reads smoothly and conveys the idea that it is not a translation at all. In other words, this anthology challenges this tradition that has been prone to valorize a translation of 'transparency' achieved through the domestication of the foreign text, that is, a transparency that has rendered translations consumable by obliterating or concealing the linguistic and cultural difference between the foreign text and its domestic avatars. Among the contributors to the collection are: Samia Mehrez, who writes on "Translation and the Postcolonial Experience: The Francophone North African Text," Tom Conley, who deals with "Colors in Translation: Baudelaire and Rimbaud," and John Johnston, who engages with "Translation as Simulacrum."

These essays, by practicing translators of literary works, from both the Western and the Eastern worlds, wish to make readers aware of not only the political issues as they have related to the supremacy of transparent discourse in some historical periods; but also of the way they relate in contemporary translation and the theorizing of it. Along these lines, the contributors illustrate how, very often, fluent and canonized translations in different cultures have been the ones that have provided the reader "with the narcissistic experience of recognizing his or her own culture in a cultural other, enacting an imperialism that extends the dominion of transparency with other ideological discourses over a different culture" (5). In this way, these translations have not only contributed, but still contribute to the marginalization of other translations and texts, and also to the exclusion and/or commodification of cultures and social groups. At the same time, they have also fortified "the cultural and economic hegemony of target-language publishers" (5).

For instance, in his valuable essay, "Translation and Cultural Hegemony: The Case of French-Arabic Translation," Richard Jacquemond highlights the fact that the French book production dealing with the Arab world is still predominantly written by French or Western authors and translators, who still contribute to eternalize in the nonprofessional reader, who reads these translations out of curiosity, the dominant Western representations of Arab culture. The author goes on to question the apparent success of Nobel Prize winners' translations from older generations, specifically by Naguib Mahfouz. He argues that the wide acceptance of works by older bourgeois writers might rely on the fact that Western readers find either their preconceptions and representations of the orient; or conformity to the dominant Western ideological, moral, and aesthetics values validated in them. He goes on to emphasize how works by innovative and promising Egyptian writers of younger generations remain untranslated due to their 'lack of accessibility' and inscrutability.

In "The Language of Cultural Difference: Figures of Alterity in Canadian Translation," Sherry Simon questions, among other conceptions, "the humanist vision of translation as peaceful dialogue among equals, as the egalitarian pursuit of mutual comprehension" (160). To do so she makes a reading of the two first important English translations in 1890 and 1921 by two translators suffering from romantic infatuation with the literature and social values of French Canadian. Simon depicts how these paternalistic translators not only limit themselves to showing a pastoral and sentimental vision of French Canada, but how they also end up presenting it -through its superior understanding of the rural and natural realms- as irrevocably different from its English counterpart. At the end of her essay Simon calls for a more open understanding of English-Canadian and Quebec societies that so far has been "drastically limited " (174) by the tendency to attempt to grasp them "in terms of an English-French dialogue" (174) remaining thus oblivious to the plurality of these societies and to the variety of their regions.

On the other hand, in her essay "Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation," Lory Chamberlain questions the gender politics represented in the apparently innovative discourse of the most prominent and canonized contemporary theorists of translation themselves. She depicts, among others, how George Steiner theorizes translation from the orthodox male point of view, presenting the act of translation as a violent sexual act of possession and penetration of the original text that, in the ideal case, should lead to the literal incorporation of the text. At the end of the act, the translator, in order to make up for the violence inflicted on the text, must "attempt to restore the balance" (64). As Chamberlain explains, the model suggested by Steiner in order to make up for the violent act is the one proposed by Lévi-Strauss, "which regards social structures as attempts at dynamic equilibrium achieved through an exchange of words, women, and material goods" (Strauss, quoted by Chamberlain 64). Chamberlain suggests that although some theorists' discourse does not focus primarily on "biological premises," in this prominent metaphoric rhetoric the socially constructed categories woman, man with all their misconceptions, and the social differences created between them, are perpetuated and presented as 'immutable' and irrevocably universal.

I strongly recommend the reading of this selection of insightful essays that offers persons interested in translation, or who wish to get into the world of this practice, the opportunity to take a look at the ideological and social dimensions, that have been and are still at work in this, apparently unobtrusive and marginalized act, and in the innovative efforts by some intellectuals to theorize it.

This book, edited and introduced by one of the most influential theorists in contemporary translation studies, would make a valuable addition to the library of anyone interested in translation. It includes some very provocative essays by other translations scholars on the role of the translator, power dynamics in translation, translation as cultural representation, and the like. Published in 1992, the essays it contains have been quoted with amazing frequency in scholarly research since then.

for example, it includes Lori Chamberlain's essay comparing the metaphors used to describe the role of translation with historical constructions of the feminine; Richard Jacqemond's systematic analysis of North-south dynamics in translation using the specific case of translation between France and the Arab world; Suzanne Jill Levine's essay on the subversive potential of translation, and a number of other insightful essays.

It is a must have for the library of anyone interested in translation studies.

Well, reading this screenplay does give you a good insight into how Lawerance Kasdan and George Lucas wanted to end the Star Wars saga. It appears that they knew right from the start that the final story was going to be a big one. With a lot of action, but also dealing with Luke confronting his father and turning him back to the good side. Since this screenplay was done years before the prequel movies were even thought of. IT does show Lucas at the height of his talent. Trying to tell both a good story but also giving the characters as much to do as possible. It also shows that there is more then just a few inconsistences between These movies and the prequel films as well.

This is one great book. For those of you who love Star Wars, this should be added to your collection. Instead of reading about the story, you read the script. It's not all the same, some sentences are longer or shorter, but that doesn't matter. Includes cool illustrations too. I rate it a 5!

After reading the books and listening to the audio adaptions, I can't watch the movies anymore. Buy the CDs/Cassetes...to borrow a line from Garrison Keillor, the pictures are better. Anthony Daniels intro and insight was worth the jacket price.

I am a Star Wars fan, like most everyone else in my generation. If you are like me, having lived and breathed Star Wars at one time or another during your life, you really owe it to yourself to listen to the Star Wars Radio Drama casettes, available from Amazon. Click here, here and here to link to the casette versions, although I found a boxed set of CDs from Amazon that really kicked. These audio versions are terrific, offering tons of material not in the movies, background on all characters, great acting by Anthony Danielt and Mark Hamil, great audio and sound effects, and much more. Recommended to all Gen X'ers. END

I want to read his next book as soon as it comes out

I really identified with the main character. Like him, I take to the road when I am not sure what else to do. This is the story of one man, but the character is strong enough to carry the entire work. The work is thoughtful at times, very funny at others.

Anyone that has ever been caught in relationship limbo will enjoy Mr. Lawrence's first(?) work.