Includes Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, O'Neill, Sartre, Brecht, Williams, Miller, Osborne, Beckett and many more!

Maxine's Tree is a delightful children's story about a 5 year old girl named Maxine and her love of the rainforest, and a particular sitka spruce tree. Maxine visits the rainforest with her father, who helps build trails through Carmanah Valley, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Also on these visits is her cousin Eddie and their great-grandmother Nannie. The wonder of nature is expressed with clever descriptions and thoughtfulness...the sitka spruce was "as wide as an elephant, as tall as the sky and as old as old could be..." One day, while hiking along the trail, they see a clearcut, which greatly disturbs Maxine. She asks if the brown area on the mountainside will grow back into a forest. Her dad explains that it takes thousands of years to grow a forest like Carmanah with the diverse and interdependent natural processes involved. He lovingly expresses the value of nature's diversity and the importance of proper stewardship of the forests' resources. Maxine is worried that her favorite tree may be in danger. Nannie reassures her by explaining that making trails into the rainforest, allows more people to visit it. Then as more people come to the rainforest, and see how beautiful it is, "I'm sure they'll want to save it." Maxine is compelled to do something to save her tree, so she creates a sign that names her tree. Her family follows her lead, and soon more and more people do the same. The end result is a forest filled with favorite trees marked with individually named signs. What a charming story for the budding environmentalist.

This is a deeply thoughtful book. Thomas L. Haskell is an excellent historian who brings to his reflections on his craft a deeply informed philosophical bent. This book is a collection of his writings from over twenty years.
The first thing to note is that the title of the book may be somewhat misleading. It is the title of a review that he wrote of Peter Novick's great book, That Noble Dream, on the history of the historical profession in the United States. Haskell's main thrust in that essay and the others that make up the middle section of the book is that objectivity is a social process to which individuals contribute provided that they have or develop a willingness to submit to perpetual criticism. To Haskell, the core skill required is the ability to suspend one's own POV and to "enter sympathetically into the alien and possible repugnant perspectives of rival thinkers" (p.60- my emphasis added). This is much more effortful than it sounds but more on that later. This whole section of the book is an examination of how the ideal of professionalism developed, what it entails, what constitutes its philosophical and political justifications and how it gets practiced or not practiced currently. One of his many points that is worth pondering is to recognize that most of what we take for granted as our commonsensical knowledge of the world is based on expert opinion. "If there is anything at all that justifies the special authority and trustworthiness of community-sponsored opinions, as I believe there is, it lies in the fact that these truth claims have weathered competition more sever than would be thought acceptable in ordinary human communities."(178) This is worth thinking about- to the extent that the research programs of science and the humanities become corporation or nation state directed is the extent to which we should become more hesitant about taking their "community-sponsored opinions" at face value. One of the sad ironies of the current state of science is that even though our knowledge of the world gets increasingly arcane and complex and therefore increasingly hard for us to judge, the grounds we have for trusting experts seem to be increasingly shakey.
One of the things that I like about Haskell's book is the way he takes the time to develop subtle arguments. The third section of the book is an example of this. Haskell puts forth an original and powerful thesis that is a variation of the old idea that it is anachronistic to judge the past by the standards of the present. Haskell goes deeper than that. He is interested in what he calls, "the conventions of moral responsibility" (238). These are the rules for assessing blame, responsibility and praise. Haskell's point is that over time more and more of our societal and personal life has come to be seen as something that we have control over. This has occurred in part because we have come to have an increasingly rich repertoire of recipes (Haskell's term drawing on the work of philosophers H.L.A. Hart, Douglas Gasking and Joel Feinberg) that allow us to accurately work our way to a desired result. As the recipes spread in use through out a society and as it becomes increasingly possible for individuals to control the shape of their future, the arena of moral culpability grows. We cannot be held accountable for what we cannot reasonably change. We can be held accountable for not living up to everyday standards. Haskell applies these ideas to the rise of the humanitarianism during the late 1700s and early 1800s. He points out the example of abolitionists like Wendell Phillips who early on in his career maintained a distinction between the exploitation of slaves and that of poor white laborers. At some point in the 1800s it became less common to assume that the lower classes of whites were completely responsible for their situation. Up until then, their plight had been seen to be the result of their moral laxity or their inability to master the arts of self-mastery. As the culture began to acknowledge the possibility that the working poor may not have much control over much of the circumstances of their lives, it became less possible to hold them accountable and reformers like Phillips showed greater and greater sympathy for their plight.
Haskell feels that the rise of capitalism was instrumental in the developing of the culture of humanitarianism. I will leave it to you to read his book to see how he develops this argument. Regardless of how you end up judging his success (I found his argument to be more intriguing than convincing), I believe you will be persuaded by his idea that such a history of the conventions of moral responsibility is necessary in order to have a true appreciation of the past.
As I said at the beginning, this is a deeply thoughtful book. It does not stake out popular nor easy positions but challenges the reader to really engage the past in a way that may be as revealing about our own moral presuppositions as about those of the period or people we are studying. I found it to be very much worth the time and effort of careful reading.

We received this book for Christmas, and it will always have a special place in our hearts. Our only child, a son of 26 years old, died of cancer four years ago. Some of his ashes were taken and planted under a Colorado Blue Spruce on the slopes of Mt Shasta. When we visit, the tall trees that surround him sway in the wind as if to protect him. The tree is a little crooked but it is growing beautifully. We would like to think that this book was written about our tree. The pictures are so well done and the story can be a lesson to us all.

Rarely have books of the nature of "Museum Collection" catalogues been so lavishly produced as THE PRADO MUSEUM published by Abrams in 1997. The sheer size of this tome and the expense have probably put off some art lovers, but this is not a book to let slip into obscurity. The organiztion of the book matches the layout of the museum: artists are treated to individual sections where there works can be most appreciated like the condensed spaces of adjoining rooms in the museum itself and each is treated by essayists who know the works and thankfully know how to write!
The reproductions are first class, the number of color plates is astonishing. For those who have not had the privilege of visiting the Prado Musuem there will be many surprises. For those who know the art of Spain already, there will be embellishments that are enriching to the eye and the mind. And for those who know the Museum, this book is a must for memory reference. A brilliantly produced Magnum Opus.

I read this book about 50 times. It is a realistic andbelievable book. I read this book in one sitting. Story deals with two rival gymnastics teams, the relationship between a father, a daughter and a gymnast

This work is focused on the evolution af artistic taste in France and England during the 19th Century. Though strongly documented, this book is almost an adventure novel. Because the history of taste and collecting paintings is the story about how esthetic perception fluctuates. And the author choosed to review in his work the majority of the cultural "dossiers", highliting some remarkable figures (art collectors, art historians, travelers) as well as the impact on the visual arts of fields such as literature or new printing methods.

A translation of the author's (by the author) book Outgrowing the Pain of Childhood Abuse, this is an easy to read, client oriented book which not only explains the effects of childhood trauma to people but gives simple, easy to understand ideas on how to recover from the pain. An excellent book to recommend to therapy clients as an adjunct to their own work in therapy.

Unfolding Bodymind: Exploring Possibility Through Education is very highly recommended reading for student teachers, classroom teachers, and teacher educators seeking fresh approaches to holistic and embodied forms of pedagogy, research, and curriculum development in the field of education. Editors Brent Hocking, Johnna Haskell, and Warren Linds have assembled a series of outstanding, highly recommended essays and commentaries that are as thought-provoking as they are informative. Unfolding Bodymind is enhanced with an afterword by David Abram and David Jardine.

This is a good story of a girl who's family rents a small house and barn for the summer. Although the girl does not have her own horse, she leases one from her riding school to have there with her. This is the story of how she finds a hidden valley where her neighbor keeps a herd of beautiful show ponies. Full of colorful description and adventure, this story is a perfect getaway- and has a happy ending.