Susan Neville has long been a chronicler of secret lives, shadow selves, possibilities and fears and yearnings. She is one of the most lyrical prose stylists I know, and her characters are often illuminated by the light from lives they almost lived, choices they nearly took. IN THE HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS, Neville's newest collection, presents stories that are dazzlingly alive with what-might-have-been, possibilities so alive they feel like what-still-might-be. One of Neville's great gifts is her ability to present characters in the grip of double lives: visible, outward caily existences, alongside darker, hidden lives of desire. Characters are shaped and distorted by their longings--for stability, for a discernible God, for a glimpse of color in the middle of a tedious, gray midwestern winter--and IN THE HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS achieves a strange and beautiful expansiveness because characters generally do receive what they long for. In the luminous "Blue," the old husband of a young woman goes to lunatic lengths to bing color into her drab days--to bring her pleasure, that simple thing. In "Your Own Most Quiet Voice" a girl watches her mother slip into insanity. The girl years for the return of her normal life, and normality ultimately reasserts itself, but with a new, ghastly face. And in "August" a young wife, terrified by the bonds of marriage, is offered a chance to flee from those bonds, only to glimpse the more terrifying constriction beyond them. Like descriptions of God, the lives Susan Neville describes are gorgeous and terrifying, and this book is subtle, moving, and brilliant.
--Erin McGraw, Cincinnati

This play, the first I've seen of Daniel Sullivan's, is possibly the funniest holiday script that I have ever read, and the production was the funniest I've seen in years. It is a perceptive satire on the theater business that is thankfully short on the inside jokes and theatrical allusions that often make this sort of material dry for a wide audience.

Everyone who has ever procrastinated can relate to the drastic situation that the fictional Soapbox Playhouse finds itself in with only four days to put together a show.

Meanwhile, the struggling company has reached only half it's goal of sighning new subscribers, and the National Endowment for the Arts is withholding it's annual grant, pending inspection by a caseworker who is scheduled to observe the worst show in the company's nine-year history.

To say any more would spoil the rest of the show. I could not recommend this show enough!!!

There are three ways of knowing truth: Revelation, Experience, and Abstraction - reasoning from the first two. This is called "Philosophy". Over the centuries, as the expression of Dogma developed, so too did Philosophy, creating where necessary the proper language to express the Church's teaching. False philosophy held by Catholics inevitably results in heresy. In this clear and easy to follow book, the main outlines of the philosophy held by orthodox theologians down through the centuries is made accessible to the average reader. Especially useful for saving the faith and reason of college students confronted by strange philosophical ideas.

I liked this book, because it is such a great play!

Interesting vignettes. Many of these well-told stories were new to me. I highly recommend this book.

This book proves again that the worth of a book is not by its weight, but by its content. This book is certainly much, much better than "Hononrs Programs and Colleges" published by Thomson and Peterson's.

This book selects the best 55 out of all the honors programs at the public universities nationwide. This guide gives an analysis for each honors program, which you will not find in any other books. Furthermore, it ranks these 55 honors programs. This gives students and parents a very good way to choose among the programs.

Indeed, some of these programs provide education as good as Ivy League's. Overall, I highly recommend this book as one of the must-have's college guides.

The "bible" for kachina collectorsAuthor Barton Wright is known as the authority on Hopi kachinas and this book (his major work) shows why. It contains 255 pages of descriptions of kachinas, from the most "popular" to many lesser known and seldom carved dolls. The sketches by Cliff Bahnimptewa are very detailed ... some of the best in print. This book is certainly a "keeper" if you are a collector of this outstanding art of the Hopi. One to add to your library!

There are so many books written about Kant that one could almost emend the statement, "Of the making of books, there is no end" to "Of the making of books on Kant, there is no end." Kant is not merely studied, he is studied in enormous depth and with a passion and meticulousness reserved for few philosophers in history. When I was working on my Ph.D. in philosophy, even though I had read dozens of books on Kant, and was planning on spending half of my doctoral thesis on aspects of his moral thought, I would never have dreamed, in academic parlance, of describing myself as a Kant "specialist." I remained hesitant to even acknowledge myself as "competent" in Kant's ethics.

Of all the books I read on Kant's ethics, I found this one to be the best at providing an overview of Kant's moral thought and how it related to his work as a whole. Sullivan resists the widespread tendency to subdivide Kant. There are Kant scholars who expend all their efforts on one aspect of Kant's philosophy, with little effort to explain the connections with the rest of his work or to show how the two interrelate and, in fact, require one another. Moreover, even scholars working with Kant's moral theory oftentimes focus on one or two or perhaps three texts to the exclusion of the rest of his work, to the point of ignoring completely what Kant has to say about ethics in some of his works less directly concerned with moral philosophy. For instance, it is impossible to understand Kant's views about the demands of the moral law if one does not also understand his thinking about immortality. A larger number of Kant scholars have attempted to understand his ethical thought with no reference to his religious philosophy, but this isn't understanding Kant so much as preparing a fully secularized version of Kant (in fact, Kant is pretty secular even after brining all his religious beliefs to bear, but that is a separate issue).

Sullivan is marvelous at taking a particular issue in Kant, and then discussing it across a variety of texts, sometimes texts that even specialists ignore. His work is primarily integrative and synthetic, although there is also a strong analytical strain. If I were to teach a course on Kant's ethics, this is the book I would use as a secondary source. If I were taking a course on Kant's ethics, this is the book I would rely on most, apart from Kant's own writings. Advanced students and scholars will argue with many aspects of Sullivan's exposition, but no book on Kant enjoys universal approbation. But I question whether anyone studying Kant's work for the first time or trying to study his moral thought as a whole will find a more helpful book than this. It is to be recommended for its breadth, its comprehensiveness, and its clarity.

There are many good collections of the poetry of John Keats. Why would you be interested in this particular book, titled "Keats - Truth and Imagination"?

Each poem is accompanied by a painting, often by an artist inspired by Keats' poetry. The paintings are sensual and exquisite, complementing the beauty of Keats' language. This attractive, little book is printed on glossy paper. It is moderately priced and would make an excellent gift.

Amusingly, the book's printing history reads like the credits for a major Hollywood production: Created and Produced by Flame Tree Publishing, part of The Foundry Creative Media Company Limited, published (1999) by Gramercy Books, a trademark of Random House Value Publishing, and written (Introduction, Author's Note, and Chronology) and compiled by K. E. Sullivan. The ISBN is 0-517-16101-X for my 1999 edition.

Sullivan's compilation is quite good; it consists of many of Keats' most popular work as well as some lesser known poems. My only disappointment was that Sullivan decided (or was compelled) to present only a short extract from "The Eve of St. Agnes", one of my favorites.

This collection includes several of Keats' Odes (Grecian Urn, Melancholy, Nightingale, Psyche, and To Autumn) - Fancy - Happy is England! I could be content - How many bards gild the lapses of time - Keen, fitful gusts are whispering here and there - La Belle Dame sans Merci - O solitude! if I must with thee dwell - Ode - On a Leander Gem which Miss Reynolds, my Kind Friend, Gave Me - On First Looking into Chapman's Homer - On the Grasshopper and the Cricket - Stanzas - To Hope - To Leigh Hunt, Esq. - To one who has been long in city pent - and the longer poem Isabella, or The Pot of Basil - and extracts from The Fall of Hyperion and from The Eve of St. Agnes.

John Keats is not a difficult poet, but occasionally the reader may encounter some unfamiliar references to mythology or somewhat archaic words. However, I am quite convinced that the attractive format of this book, the beautiful art work, and the careful selection of poems makes this small book an ideal gift for readers either familiar or unfamiliar with poetry. For that matter, I suggest you consider giving this book to yourself.

It seems hard to believe that I, or anyone, could possibly dare add to the body of praise (or criticism) of this stunning collection of articles completed by Louis Sullivan right after the turn of last century. Remarkably, even though written by an architect, this work has the beauty, form, and flow of the poetry of deep thought about lessons we can learn from nature - with barely a word about architecture. This book is a must for the romantic. A stimulating and fresh connection spanning 100 years with a truly brilliant mind. It is essential reading for the 21st century. Louis Sullivan developes his arguments with superbly fine points and magnificantly developed reasoning. I am humbled to think I can praise this dear and departed genius. I am in debted to this man's universal thinking, clarity of mind, and depth of soul. Read this book. Love it. Respect it. Re-read it. Cherish it.