You'd be shocked to see how stupid people can be. This book was really funny. I read every story and they were all great. This book is kind of like a combo of "COPS" and "America's Funniest Home Videos" (but on paper, not tv). These stories aren't just in the U.S.A. but all around the world (as the title implies). Just to give you a sample of a funny one... this one guy broke into a display case at a shoe store and he only stole right shoes, no left at all. Duh. If you enjoy comedy this is the book for you. -_-

This thought provoking collection offers pedagogical practices for the classroom and supports them with theory. The first reading of the book inspires writing instructors and tutors by presenting exciting ideas for teaching and tutoring writers in a multicultural setting, while the theory introduces concerns that teacher's should consider. Readers will want to keep the book for handy reference when they need a reminder about the benefits of diversity in writing classrooms and centers or need a tip for enlivening their multicultural classroom.

Dr. Gorski is a great writer and professor of literature! I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Yeats or broadening their own literary horizons.

Does this mean bonus points for me? *grin*

Terrific insight into W. B. Yeats and Ireland in the 30's. This book is steeped in extensive research by one who has spent a great deal of his own life studying the Poet, the Country and their times.

In reading Yeats , one comes upon so many issues of content and style. Reading this may give you a clue. It is important for stylistic interpretation, thematic analysis, and discussions or how Yeats began his career and the topics he chose. It is refreshing to think of Yeats as an extension of Shelley. Hopefully , our generation may develop writers and philosopers with links to Yeats. This will give you ample time to reflect on the issues. It is not light reading.

". . . a well edited and critically important collection" --The Irish Times

"It will surely be assigned widely as a required text in undergraduate seminars focussed principally on Yeats, and should be essential reading for anyone embarking on a fuller engagement with the poet's cultural and political self-positioning." --Bullan: An Irish Studies Journal

"This volume is a well-conceived and very useful collection of important, even classic, essays on Yeats . . . This is certainly the first source to which one would now direct anyone interested in Yeats and politics." --South Atlantic Review

"Yeats's Political Identities will interest a wide range of readers. . . . The volume invites a graduate course based on its title, with the selected annotated bibliography serving as a list of valuable supplemental readings." ---Irish Literary Supplement

"The emotional quality of these essays is extraordinary: they are emotional in their relation to Yeats, as to a father of great legacy recently bereaved, and they are emotional in their relation to one another, since the quarrel in print is also often a dispute with the professor in the office across the hall." --ELT (English Literature in Transition)

Zaki's Ramadhan Fast is an excellent book for non-Muslim children to learn about the fast of Ramadhan and for Muslim children to see their lives depicted in mainstream literature. I am an educator with 4 children of my own, and we are Muslims. My children love this book whether the oldest one reads it to younger ones, or the younger ones read it to themselves. The book is perfect for a short read - probably about 10 minutes - the ideal bedtime story. However, the story can generate a great deal of discussion, so 10 minutes might not be sufficient.

The illustrations are realistic, colorful, and attractive. The situations are reflective of the true homelife of a Muslim family and show insight into how a young child experiences fasting. The dialogue is genuine, and the emotions Zaki and his family go through are sincere. In addition, there is a separate final page that offers a great deal of explanation about Ramadhan to non-Muslims. This book is particularly good for school libraries and classrooms, and I urge parents to purchase an extra copy to donate to their school or local library. It is a book to keep on your shelf to read and re-read over many years. Both you and your children will enjoy it.

Reading Kindred is like taking an exhilirating journey through time. The book whisks the reader from Los Angeles, 1976, to the antebellum South and back again. Through the characters Dana (an African-American woman) and her Caucasian husband, Kevin, modern-day readers(of all races)are allowed to venture back into the days of slavery and see for themselves in vivid detail a sampling of what life was like for those involved in this most horrific time in American history. From the attention-grabbing opening line("I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm."), to the closing scene (which I will not reveal), I was hooked! (So much so, that I read the entire novel in one day.)I frst read Kindred for a graduate-level class and have since read it several times for pleasure. I am now a University lecturer and have taught the book in an undergraduate course. Much to my surprise my students loved it too! (One student loved it so much that she was almost fired from her job because she had customers to wait on, but didn't want to put the book down.) Another student remarked that he had never read an entire book from cover to cover because he always lost interest in the middle, yet Kindred was so engrossing that he not only finished the book, but has discovered the joy of reading.

Octavia E. Butler did an incredible job of capturing the reader's attention right away, and not letting go. Her novel takes us on a science fiction journey from 1976 to the antebellum South. In these journeys, Dana, a young black woman, is constantly being summoned back in time to save Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner. Dana returns often to save Rufus to ensure her heritage, as he will eventually grow up and father her ancestor. Her journeys are rich in southern history and portray a classic battle of personal morals vs. personal heritage in a real racial dilemma. Butler does a fantastic job of developing her characters, as well as the woderful plot. This book is a must read for all fans of good literature.

I just completed Kindred and I was amazed at the depth of imagination that Ms. Butler has to possess in order to create a work such as this. I am not a science fiction reader but in perusing the book at the bookstore I decided to take a chance on this one. I was definitely not disappointed and found Kindred to be extremely well written and organized. Ms. Butler tied an enormous amount of historical research into the storyline as the story takes place in the 19th and 20th centuries. The main character, Dana is pulled back in time to the 19th century by one of her ancestors, Rufus, when his life is in danger. Neither of them knows why this occurred or exactly how it occurred but Dana must now adjust to living during slavery times and manage to keep her ancestor alive (as well as herself) long enough to ensure that he fathers her relatives. Dana is beaten, abused and ultimately loses her arm interacting in this "second world" before Rufus dies and the reader is given a glimpse of what it was like to live during those times. Ms. Butler has an extremely mellifluous writing style that captures your mind and doesn't release it until you're turning the last page. Kindred proved to be an excellent read.

Robert Fagles's translation of Homer's Iliad is spiritually if not literally true to the original. Both versions repeat set speeches and descriptions in precisely the same words, and the translation exhibits a fairly regular rhythmic beat. But Homer's Greek was chanted, and the set passages were like refrains in which listeners could, if they chose, join in as a chorus. In English, the repetitions sometimes become tedious, especially when the same speech is given three times in two pages, as in the relay of Zeus's orders in Book II. Especially noteworthy is Bernard Knox's long and fascinating Introduction, a masterpiece of literary criticism which conveys Homer's grim attitude toward war, the interplay of divine and human will, and the ancient concepts of honor, courage, and virility in the face of the stark finality of death. Knox also includes a succinct explanation of the quantitative, rather than accentual, basis of Greek (and Latin) verse. For easy readability, Fagles's translation is without rival. For elegance and poetry, however, I recommend Richmond Lattimore's older but still gripping and fluent translation.

Robert Fagles's translation of Homer's Iliad is spiritually if not literally true to the original. Both versions repeat set speeches and descriptions in precisely the same words, and the translation exhibits a fairly regular rhythmic beat. But Homer's Greek was chanted, and the set passages were like refrains in which listeners could, if they chose, join in as a chorus. In English, the repetitions sometimes become tedious, especially when the same speech is given three times in two pages, as in the relay of Zeus's orders in Book II. Especially noteworthy is Bernard Knox's long and fascinating Introduction, a masterpiece of literary criticism and scholarship which conveys Homer's grim attitude toward war, the interplay of divine and human will, and the ancient concepts of honor, courage, and virility in the face of the stark finality of death. Knox also includes a succinct explanation of the quantitative, rather than accentual, basis of Greek (and Latin) verse. For easy readability, Fagles's translation is without rival. For elegance and poetry, however, I recommend Richmond Lattimore's older but still gripping and fluent translation.

Robert Fagles's translation of Homer's Iliad is spiritually if not literally true to the original. Both versions repeat set speeches and descriptions in precisely the same words, and the translation exhibits a fairly regular rhythmic beat. But Homer's Greek was chanted, and the set passages were like refrains in which listeners could, if they chose, join in as a chorus. In English, the repetitions sometimes become tedious, especially when the same speech is given three times in two pages, as in the relay of Zeus's orders in Book II. Especially noteworthy is Bernard Knox's long and fascinating Introduction, a masterpiece of literary criticism and scholarship which conveys Homer's grim attitude toward war, the interplay of divine and human will, and the ancient concepts of honor, courage, and virility in the face of the stark finality of death. Knox also includes a succinct explanation of the quantitative, rather than accentual, basis of Greek (and Latin) verse. For easy readability, Fagles's translation is without rival. For elegance and poetry, however, I recommend Richmond Lattimore's older but still gripping and fluent translation.

I don't often read science fiction, but the recommendation of several readers and its inclusion on our local public radio "Readers and Writers on the Air" series caused me to pick up, with some trepidation, Octavia E. Butler's 1993 sci-fi novel Parable of the Sower. Set just twenty-five years from now, Butler imagines a California beset by severe global warming, with the government virtually collapsed and anarchy run amuck. Written in the first person, Butler's narrator, Lauren, is a young woman who begins the book living in a walled community with her family. Life outside the walls is total chaos, and much effort is spent keeping the "barbarians" - people who have been dispossessed of home or property - on the outside. When her town's security is breached and her entire family murdered, Lauren finds herself on the road, where she eventually gathers a group of people with her, all journeying to the north. Lauren is unique and memorable in a couple of respects: first, a preacher's kid, she sets out to define and found a new religion, which she calls Earthseed, and which takes both the moral precepts of Christianity and the unique creed that "God is change." Second, Lauren has "hyperempathy syndrome", which causes her to feel as her own the pleasure and pain of those around her. Thus, if she sees someone critically injured and in pain, she will herself feel that person's conscious pain. Not a good condition to have when living under circumstances where one must fight to survive, and kill or be killed!

While I found at times the Earthseed material to be a bit "over the top," overall this is a provocative and excellent novel. Butler writes extremely well, and she made the hellish world in which her characters find themselves absolutely believable. Parts of this novel are not for the squeamish. Although very dark in tone, the novel ends on a ray of hope when Lauren's group, after burying the dead from a recent battle, recall Jesus' Parable of the Sower. As the reader may recall, although most of the seed ends up dying, some falls on good ground, "sprang up, and bore fruit an hundredfold." Highly recommended.

This is not my favorite Octavia Butler Novel, but it is still well written and it is a good story.

In the not-very-distant future, America is disintegrating into widespread unemployment, crime, and violence. Lauren lives in an enclosed neighborhood where everyone looks out for each other, but racial divides are still factors. As a young black woman and an empath, Lauren knows her future is dim, but she has a vision of the future she calls Earthseed and is determined to make it a reality. When the trickle of thieves into their community flares into an invasion, Lauren witnesses the destruction of her world, her friends, her family, and barely escapes with her life. She encounters two other survivors and they set off to find a better part of the U.S. Butler's powerful vision of the future is starkly possible, and with compelling characters, she creates a stellar tale of believing in a better world for future generations even as we are mired in our current crises. The book is a powerful commentary on our culture and where it could be headed.