Much like the film this book by Elizabeth Von Arnim inspired, there is something peaceful here on these pages. This is a gentle novel about the gradual internal changes brought about by the beauty of our surroundings. It is a book that reads itself as much as it is read, the author writing with the flow of the characters thoughts and feelings as their hearts are changed by the suprise of beauty.

An ad to rent a castle in San Salvatore on the Italian Riviera will prompt two British women, Rose and Lottie, with only a passing acquaintance, to inexplically leave their husbands behind for a summer that will change their lives and their marriages forever.

Joining Rose and Lottie for this holiday is Mrs. Fisher, an older woman living in the past, and Lady Caroline Dester, a grey-eyed society beauty tired of being gawked at like a majestic statue, not allowed to be human. Diverse in nature and temperment, not to mention background, they interact uneasily together until the flowers and the sea bring about a change in their souls.

Surrounded by fig and olive trees, plum blossoms and Tamarisk daphnes, and the scents of fortune's yellow rose and blooming acacia, the women slowly find their roles at this castle by the sea, and in doing so find themselves as well. New insights will prompt Rose and Lottie to send for their husbands. Lady Caroline, or 'Scrap' as she is known, will find love in spite of her wish to be alone and her great beauty. Mrs. Fisher will form a friendship with Lottie and her husband, and discover a renewed zest for creativity in this heaven by the sea.

This is a novel about life and love, told gently through the emotions of these women, as the the suprise of beauty and the warmth of being suddenly admired and seen as beautiful, when they had not been before, changes their simple lives, which were not so simple at all. You will definitely enjoy this novel if you enjoyed the film. It is about love restored, and love discovered, along the wistaria covered steps leading down to the sea.

"Enchanted April" is one of my favorite books. It is such a warm, witty, wonderful story, full of hope and romance. I hear it is going to be a Broadway show this April! (fittingly) I cannot wait... I know I'm going to be the first one on line for tickets, that's for sure. All you other "Enchanted April" lovers out there, I urge you to come see this show! I'm sure this will be one of the finest shows on Broadway in a long time!

Yay "Enchanted April!"

This is a delightful story...one of my favorite books! Gives you a little faith that even seemingly irreconcileable situations can be restored or transformed, that drastically different people can find common ground and become friends, and that people can change their lives for the better! A sunny read for a dark winter day!

charming prose and beautiful artwork, a winning combination. ms. gibson serves another bounty of beauty that is fast, easy ,creative and fun to work with. a fine feast for body and soul. i look forward to seeing what ms. gibson serves us next.

fun recipes and lovely drawings. good food that`s beautiful to look at, and the recipes are straightforward and easy. nice to buy for yourself, or as a present.

This book was a birthday gift. It's a breath of fresh air all around and truly delightful to read: witty, encouraging, personal. I love the illustrations. And the recipes are fun, simple, and delicious.

I could easily keep this book with my favorite garden titles, but have decided to let Cynthia Gibson's writings have a permanent spot in my kitchen, along with Alice (Waters) and Julia (Child).

I can recommend this book highly to anyone who loves fresh and original writing, food, and ideas for the garden.

I've just read Precious Bane and it was very moving. It should be better-known, her style is excellent, the characterisations extremely vivid, and the twist in the plot at the end quite unexpected. Prue Sarn is not at all your typical wet 19th c heroine, she is intelligent, sensitive, and assertive (which is why she gets into trouble with the society of her day). The Precious Bane of the title is usually interpreted as being her hare lip, which is certainly a very prominent theme in the book, but it could also be interpreted as the money after her which her brother Gideon constantly strives, which causes so much misfortune. And the hero is really good too, an animal rights campaigner before his time.

I inherited a 1920's hardcover copy of this book when my Grandmother died- it had always been one of her favorite books. When I read it, I begin to see why. My Grandmother was a person whose spirituality was unconventional, and this is a theme that strongly runs through this book. Traditional Christianity is there, but so is ecstatic spirituality inspired and manifested by nature. She sees God in nature. There are many many beautiful passages where the heroine is literally transported spiritually by the slight of flowers, or the songs of birds. Traditional beliefs and local magic are explored in detail and with an amazing lack of Judgement ( folklorists take note), and the Wizard, though he is not expected to go to Heaven, is a friend to a poor disabled girl and teaches her many good things. Her struggle for a "normal" life with her disability, a hare-lip, is very touching and inspiring. The author also deals with bigotry, persecution and rejection of those who are different, and the difficult question of what truly manefests Goodness- is Goodness something people truly strive for, or do most people simply go through life follow social pressures? Is the Wizard, who reached out to Prue and helped her with and open heart, a "better" person then the hard hearted comformity driven Churchgoes who would not even allow the Wizard's ( staunchly Christian) wife to enter their homes, condeming her to a lonely life?
There is Magic here, and unearthly beauty seen though the eyes of a sensative young girl, and what must have been a very different exploration of true human nature in those rigid times. A thoughtful, highly recommended book.

I am a senior in high school. I read this book under reccomendation from both my father and sister. Precious Bane truly was a breathtaking story. It's a shame it's out of regular print; I think if more people knew about this book, it would be much more widely read. I reccomended it to all my friends in school, and we together convinced our English teacher to use it as material for the course. Unfortunatly we all might have to pay the hefty $14 price if the school won't pay for it! I was hoping to find some used or paperback editions but alas my search has been to no avail!

I rushed home every day after work to read a little more of this Trollope comedy. The book starts out with the death of a bishop during a change in political power. The new bishop is a puppet to his wife Mrs. Proudie and her protégé Mr. Slope. Along the way we meet outrageous clergymen, a seductive invalid from Italy, and a whole host of delightfully ridiculous characters. Trollope has designed most of these characters to be "over the top". I kept wondering what a film version starring the Monty Python characters would look like. He wrote an equivalent of a soap opera, only it doesn't take place at the "hospital", it takes place with the bishops. Some of the characters you love, some of the characters you hate, and then there are those you love to hate. Trollope speaks to the reader throughout the novel using the mimetic voice, so we feel like we are at a cocktail party and these 19th century characters are our friends (or at least the people we're avoiding at the party!). The themes and characters are timeless. The book deals with power, especially power struggles between the sexes. We encounter greed, love, desperation, seductive sirens, and generosity. Like many books of this time period however, the modern reader has to give it a chance. No one is murdered on the first page, and it takes quite a few chapters for the action to pick up. But pick up it does by page 70, and accelerates into a raucously funny novel from there. Although I didn't read the Warden, I didn't feel lost and I'm curious to read the rest of this series after finishing this book. Enjoy!

"Barchester Towers" has proven to be the most popular novel Anthony Trollope ever wrote-despite the fact that most critics would rank higher his later work such as "The Last Chronicle of Barset","He Knew He Was Right" and "The Way We Live Now".While containing much satire those great novels are very powerful and disturbing, and have little of the genial good humor that pervades "Barchester Towers".Indeed after "Barchester Towers",Trollope would never write anything so funny again-as if comedy was something to be eschewed.That is too bad,because the book along with its predecessor "The Warden" are the closest a Victorian novelist ever came to approximating Jane Austen."Barchester Towers" presents many unforgettable characters caught in a storm of religious controversy,political and social power struggles and romantic and sexual imbroglios.All of this done with a light but deft hand that blends realism,idealism and some irresistible comedy.It has one of the greatest endings in all of literature-a long,elaborate party at a country manor(which transpires for about a hundred pages)where all of the plot's threads are inwoven and all of the character's intrigues come to fruition."Barchester Towers" has none of the faults common to Trollope's later works -(such as repetiveness)it is enjoyable from beginning to end.Henry James(one of our best novelists,but not one of our best critics) believed that Trollope peaked with "The Warden"and that the subsequent work showed a falling off as well as proof that Trollope was no more than a second rate Thackeray.For the last fifty years critics have been trying to undo the damage that was done to Trollope's critical reputation."Barchester Towers"proves not only to be a first rate novel but probably the most humorous Victorian novel ever written.

This is the second of the six Barsetshire novels, and the first great novel in that series. THE WARDEN, while pleasant, primarily serves as a prequel to this novel. To be honest, if Trollope had not gone on to write BARCHESTER TOWERS, there would not be any real reason to read THE WARDEN. But because it introduces us to characters and situations that are crucial to BARCHESTER TOWERS, one really ought to have read THE WARDEN before reading this novel.

Trollope presents a dilemma for most readers. On the one hand, he wrote an enormous number of very good novels. On the other hand, he wrote no masterpieces. None of Trollope's books can stand comparison with the best work of Jane Austen, Flaubert, Dickens, George Eliot, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky. On the other hand, none of those writers wrote anywhere near as many excellent as Trollope did. He may not have been a very great writer, but he was a very good one, and perhaps the most prolific good novelist who ever lived. Conservatively assessing his output, Trollope wrote at least 20 good novels. Trollope may not have been a genius, but he did possess a genius for consistency.

So, what to read? Trollope's wrote two very good series, two other novels that could be considered minor classics, and several other first rate novels. I recommend to friends that they try the Barsetshire novels, and then, if they find themselves hooked, to go on to read the Political series of novels (sometimes called the Palliser novels, which I feel uncomfortable with, since it exaggerates the role of that family in most of the novels). The two "minor classics" are THE WAY WE LIVE NOW and HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT. The former is a marvelous portrait of Victorian social life, and the latter is perhaps the finest study of human jealousy since Shakespeare's OTHELLO. BARSETSHIRE TOWERS is, therefore, coupled with THE WARDEN, a magnificent place, and perhaps the best place to enter Trollope's world.

There are many, many reasons to read Trollope. He probably is the great spokesperson for the Victorian Mind. Like most Victorians, he is a bit parochial, with no interest in Europe, and very little interest in the rest of the world. Despite THE AMERICAN SENATOR, he has few American's or colonials in his novels, and close to no foreigners of any type. He is politically liberal in a conservative way, and is focussed almost exclusively on the upper middle class and gentry. He writes a good deal about young men and women needing and hoping to marry, but with a far more complex approach than we find in Jane Austen. His characters are often compelling, with very human problems, subject to morally complex situations that we would not find unfamiliar. Trollope is especially good with female characters, and in his sympathy for and liking of very independent, strong females he is somewhat an exception of the Victorian stereotype.

Anyone wanting to read Trollope, and I heartily believe that anyone who loves Dickens, Austen, Eliot, Hardy, and Thackery will want to, could find no better place to start than with reading the first two books in the Barsetshire Chronicles, beginning first with the rather short THE WARDEN and then progressing to this very, very fun and enjoyable novel.

Who You Were Meant To Be: A Guide To Finding Or Recovering Your Life's Purpose provides the reader with the tools for identifying and pursuing his or her calling in life. Psychotherapist Lindsay Gibson explains that it is understanding those of our fears, frustrations, and loyalties that sabotage and undermine our dreams and limit the realization of our full potential. Highly recommended for self-help and self-realization reading lists, Who You Were Meant To Be is presented in two major sections: How Our Legacies Hold Us Back and Developing Your Adult Destiny Despite Present Obstacles, as well as providing the reader with two informative appendices, notes, bibliography, and an index.

This book is probably the best self-help book I have ever read. Lindsay Gibson provides us with a mental road map which enables us to grow and expand without fear. She explains the origin of many of the self-imposed limits we all have, and how to deal with them. Then she provides us with a sort of road map explaining the difficulties we may encounter on our trip. But more importantly, this book helps us find out who we are and where we want to go. We are given a free ticket to explore the possibilities--and even taught how to give ourselves permission to excercise the options.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone, and am sending several copies as gifts. I only wish I lived in Virginia Beach so that I could meet Dr. Gibson in person!!!!!

Who You Were Meant To Be: A Guide To Finding Or Recovering Your Life's Purpose provides the reader with the tools for identifying and pursuing his or her calling in life. Psychotherapist Lindsay Gibson explains that it is understanding those of our fears, frustrations, and loyalties that sabotage and undermine our dreams and limit the realization of our full potential. Highly recommended for self-help, self-improvement, and self-realization reading lists, Who You Were Meant To Be is presented in two major sections: How Our Legacies Hold Us Back and Developing Your Adult Destiny Despite Present Obstacles, as well as providing the reader with two informative appendices, notes, bibliography, and an index.

Being an adaptation by and with the great Martin Jarvis, I thought it would be absolutely excellent, as I have found his audio efforts to be always. But in his performance there is something lacking, Sir Robert Chiltern should be played with a bit more pathos. Jacqueline Bisset is formidable, and Alfred Molina also as Lord Goring.

As to being a live recording, this is a mixed blessing. This public seems to misunderstand some lines, and there are misplaced laughs, for example when Robert Chiltern says: "I did not sell myself for money. I bought success at a great price. That is all". I'm sure Wilde didn't intend this to be a joke. Chiltern is not bought, he is not changed, it is he who buys something, therefore his character, his person, is not altered. The public dismisses this important nuance and bursts into a hearty fit of laughter.

There are three o four more like that. But on the whole, this recording by L.A. Theater Works is highly enjoyable.

Wilde, in part, attempts to portray the relativity of truth, power, and character, things we often take as absolutes, while also entertaining his audience with witty dialogue and comical mishaps.

Oscar Wilde gives us here one of his best plays. He explores the political world in London and how a young ambitious but poor man can commit a crime, which is a mistake, to start his good fortune. But he builds his political career on ethical principles. Sooner or later someone will come into the picture to blackmail him into supporting an unacceptable scheme, by producing a document that could ruin his career if revealed. His past mistake may come back heavily onto him. But he resists and sticks to his moral reputation. He prefers doing what is right to yielding to some menace. He may lose though his political ambition and career and his wife's love. But love is saved by forgiveness and the man's career is also saved by the work of a real friend who recaptures the dubious document and destroys it. In other words love and an ethical career are saved by the burrying of the old mistake into oblivion. In other words love and friendship are stronger than the scheming action of a blackmailer. This is a terrible criticism of victorian society which is based more on appearances than principles and yet able to destroy a man's absolutely ethical present life with a mistake from his youth, throwing the baby along with the water of the bath. It is also a criticism of the victorian political world where you cannot have a career if you are not rich, money appearing as the only way to succeed, at least to succeed fast. But it is a hopeful play because love and friendship are beyond such considerations and only consider the best interest of men and women, in the long run and in the name of absolute purity. Better be a sinner and be forgiven when you have reformed than see a reformed sinner destroyed by the lack of forgiveness. Oscar Wilde advocates here a vision of humanity that necessitates forgiveness as the essential fuel of any rational approach. Real morality is not the everlasting guilt of a sinner without any possible reform. Real morality is the recognition that forgiveness is necessary when reform has taken place. Otherwise society would be unlivable and based on hypocrisy and the death or rejection of the best people in the name of (reformed) mistakes. One must not be that sectarian, because man can learn from his mistakes and improve along the road : one can learn how to avoid mistakes and repair those oen has committed. If condemnation is absolute, no progress is possible. A very fascinating play, a very modern play. And yet when can one be considered as reformed, when can we consider one has really corrected one's mistakes and improved ? And who can deem such elements ? The very core of political and ethical rectitude is concerned here and Oscar Wilde embraces a generous approach.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan

I found Jasper Milvain, the "alarmingly modern young man," to be the most interesting character in Gissing's New Grub Street for a number of reasons, the most significant of which is that he evinces what can only be considered a modernist's consciousness in his approach to writing. That is, while it soon becomes clear to the reader that Milvain represents the antithesis of what Edwin Reardon personifies-i.e., the work of literature as an emanation of author's native genius-and thus one of the intercalated plots of the novel involves the incremental success of Milvain as a modern man of letters, and the concomitant gradual abjection of Reardon. In a manner of speaking, then, Milvain and Reardon's fates emerge from a common source, namely some sea change in the reading public's (the consumer's) preferences and tendencies.

Milvain identifies as vulgar the most lucrative market for the product of the man of letter's labor. The vulgarians, or "quarter educated," drive the market (479), and since they have been determined to desire nothing more than chatty ephemera, they have successfully opened an insuperable gulf between material success in writing and artistic success. Reardon's psychologically penetrating novels just aren't in demand. Therefore, there emerges quite an interesting conceptual shift within the nascent hegemony of the quarter-educated as established by their purchasing power: what was once considered healthy artistic integrity has transmuted into a peculiar kind of petit bourgeois hubris, if, in the new paradigm, the writer is more an artisan than an artist. Therefore, Reardon's artistically-compromised and padded three-volume novel, written with no other end in mind than to pander to the vulgar reader, nonetheless achieves only modest success because, the fact that it is indistinguishable from countless other similar works glutting the market aside, his novel is infected from his irrepressible integrity, and thus his novel becomes a strange sort of counterfeit, a psychological narrative masquerading as a popular novel. Reardon thus becomes a sort of Coriolanus among writers.

Milvain, on the other hand, is a sort of Henry Ford among writers; he reveals his particular genius when offering advice to his sister Maud about how to write religious works for juveniles: "I tell you, writing is a business. Get together half-a-dozen fair specimens of the Sunday school prize; study them; discover the essential points of such a composition; hit upon new attractions; then go to work methodically, so many pages a day" (13). In other words, Jasper has managed to streamline and to mechanize the writing process. He studies previous works, abstracts formulae from them, isolates the elements of these formulae, and then deploys and rearranges these elements to give his own writing a patina of originality. By treating writing as an exercise in manipulating formulae, Jasper exchanges "authenticity" (whatever that word means anymore) for the convenience and efficiency of not having to grapple with his own potentially mutable and recalcitrant genius. Jasper did not invent writing, just as Ford did not invent the automobile. But like Ford did with automobile manufacture, Milvain discovers those aspects of writing that lend themselves to mechanical reproduction. Thus he is able to capitalize on his time and effort, and effectively becomes the very machine Reardon believes himself to be but never actually becomes because of his lingering notions of artistic integrity (352).

Also of interest is the fact that Albert Yule is a sort of synthesis of Milvain and Reardon. Like Milvain, Yule attempts to streamline his own literary production by delegating some of the labor to his daughter Marian. However, like Reardon, Yule clings to the superannuated notion of the necessary individuality of writing: "[h]is failings, obvious enough, were the results of a strong and somewhat pedantic individuality ceaselessly at conflict with unpropitious circumstances" (38). In other words, Yule fails to recognize the obsolescence of the lone, learned genius within the realm of literary production. A market of vulgarians who demand occasional literary confections simply does not expect Works of individual genius. Moreover, even if they were in demand, works of individual genius are too ponderously inefficient to keep pace with the rate at which they are consumed. Therefore, Yule straddles the either/or proposition personified by Reardon and Milvain: One may preserve his artistic integrity and write "for the ages"--hence Yule, Biffen, and Reardon's fetishization of Shakespeare, Coleridge and authors of classical antiquity--and starve in the process, or one may write "for the moment" and actually turn a respectable profit.

The shadow of Charles Darwin indeed looms large over the events and characters of New Grub Street. The growth market brought about by the advent of the "quarter-educated" vulgar class, and their discretionary income coupled with their callow aesthetic sensibilities and truncated attention spans, represents a nascent economic, if not ecological niche, for certain social creatures to occupy. However, it's not simply a matter of being able to adapt one's skills to the tastes of these consumers. One must also be a prodigious enough writer to keep pace with an equally prodigious rate of consumption. Individuals like Milvain and Whelpdale are adequately adapted to this niche in that they satisfy the demands of this niche in terms of both content and output. Reardon panders to the vulgar taste only grudgingly and after long resistance and thereby cannot meet the production demands of this niche. Biffen absolutely refuses to pander at all. Alfred Yule does attempt to pander, but his mode of literary production is too inefficient to meet production demands, and he is also largely ignorant of vulgar literary taste. While more in touch with the vulgar reader than her father, Marian Yule is as inefficient in her literary production as her father. Therefore, each of the characters named above are equally maladaptive, albeit for various reasons, and thus their extinction by the novel's end strikes the reader as somehow inevitable. Whereas Milvain and Reardon's widow Amy are left to come together as the triumphant niche occupants and thus reproduce themselves in their offspring, should they decide to produce any.

George Gissing's 1891 novel, "New Grub Street," is likely one of the most depressing books I've ever read. Certainly, in its descriptions of literary life, be it in publishing, or in my own realm of graduate scholarship, the situations, truths, and lives Gissing portrays are still all too relevant. "New Grub Street" itself points to the timelessness of Gissing's portrayals - as Grub Street was synonymous, even in the eighteenth century with the disrepute of hack writing, and the ignominy of having to make a living by authorship. One of Gissing's primary laments throughout the novel is that the life of the mind is of necessity one which is socially isolating and potentially devastating to any kind of relationships, familial or otherwise. "New Grub Street" gives us a world where friendship is never far from enmity, where love is never far from the most bitter kinds of hatred.

The anti-heroes of "New Grub Street" are presented to us as the novel begins - Jasper Milvain is a young, if somewhat impoverished, but highly ambitious man, eager to be a figure of influence in literary society at whatever cost. His friend, Edwin Reardon, on the other hand, was brought up on the classics, and toils away in obscurity, determined to gain fame and reputation through meaningful, psychological, and strictly literary fiction. Family matters beset the two - Jasper has two younger sisters to look out for, and Edwin has a beautiful and intelligent wife, who has become expectant of Edwin's potential fame. Throw into the mix Miss Marian Yule, daughter of a declining author of criticism, whose own reputation was never fully realized, and who has indentured his daughter to literary servitude, and we have a pretty list of discontented and anxious people struggling in the cut-throat literary marketplace of London.

Money is of supreme importance in "New Grub Street," and it would be pointless to write a review without making note of it. As always, the literary life is one which is not remunerative for the mass of people who engage upon it, and this causes no end of strife in the novel. As Milvain points out, the paradox of making money in the literary world is that one must have a well-known reputation in order to make money from one's labours. At the same time, one must have money in order to move in circles where one's reputation may be made. This is the center of the novel's difficulties - should one or must one sacrifice principles of strictly literary fame and pander to a vulgar audience in order to simply survive? The question is one in which Reardon finds the greatest challenges to his marriage, his self-esteem, and even his very existence. For Jasper Milvain and his sisters, as well as for Alfred and Marian Yule, there is no question that the needs of subsistence outweigh most other considerations.

"New Grub Street" profoundly questions the relevance of classic literature and high culture to the great mass of people, and by proxy, to the nation itself. For England, which propagated its sense of international importance throughout the nineteenth century by encouraging the study of English literature in its colonial holdings, the matter becomes one of great significance. The careers of Miss Dora Milvain and Mr. Whelpdale, easily the novel's two most charming, endearing, and sympathetic characters, attempt to illustrate the ways in which modern literature may be profitable to both the individual who writes it and the audiences towards which they aim. They may be considered the moral centers of the novel, and redeem Gissing's work from being entirely fatalistic.

"New Grub Street" is a novel that will haunt me for quite some time. As a "man of letters" myself, I can only hope that the novel will serve as an object lesson, and one to which I may turn in hope and despair. The novel is well written, its characters and situations drawn in a very realistic and often sympathetic way. Like the ill-fated "ignobly decent" novel of Mr. Biffen's, "Mr. Bailey, Grocer," "New Grub Street" may seem less like a novel, and more like a series of rambling biographical sketches, but they are indelible and lasting sketches of literary lives as they were in the original Grub Street, still yet in Gissing's time, and as they continue to-day. Very highly recommended.

"New Grub Street," published in three volumes in 1891, is George Gissing's grimly realistic exploration of literary life in 1880s London. While it is a remarkably vivid novel, it is also an accurate and detailed depiction of what it was like to be a struggling author in late nineteenth century England, "a society where," as Professor Bernard Bergonzi points out in his introduction, "literature has become a commodity, and where the writing of fiction does not differ radically from any other form of commercial or industrial production."

"New Grub Street" is the contrapuntal narrative of two literary figures, Edwin Reardon, a struggling novelist who aspires to write great literature without regard to its popular appeal, and Jasper Milvain, a self-centered, materialistic striver whose only concern is with achieving financial success and social position by publishing what the mass public wants to read. As Milvain relates early in the novel, succinctly adumbrating the theme that winds through the entirety of "New Grub Street":

"Understand the difference between a man like Reardon and a man like me. He is the old type of unpractical artist; I am the literary man of 1882. He won't make concessions, or rather, he can't make them; he can't supply the market. I-well, you may say that at present I do nothing; but that's a great mistake, I am learning my business. Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius, who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skillful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets. . . . Reardon can't do that kind of thing, he's behind his age; he sells a manuscript as if he lives in Sam Johnson's Grub Street. But our Grub Street of today is quite a different place: it is supplied with telegraphic communication, it knows what literary fare is in demand in every part of the world, its inhabitants are men of business, however seedy."

Gissing brilliantly explores this theme through the lives of his characters, each drawn with stunning depth and verisimilitude. There is, of course, Reardon, whose failure as a novelist and neurasthenic decline destroys his marriage and his life. There is also Reardon's wife, Amy, a woman whose love for Reardon withers with the exsanguination of her husband's creative abilities. While the manipulative and seemingly unfeeling Milvain pursues his crass aspirations, he also encourages his two sisters, Dora and Maud, to seek commercial success as writers of children's books. And intertwining all of their lives are the myriad connections each of the characters has with the Yule family, in particular with the nearly impoverished Alfred Yule, a serious writer and literary critic, and his daughter and literary amanuensis, Marian.

It is Marian--struggling to reconcile the literary demands and expectations of her father with the desire to lead her own life, struggling to escape the claustrophobic world of the literary life--who ultimately, pessimistically challenges the verities of that life while sitting in its physical embodiment, the prison-like British Museum library:

"It was gloomy, and one could scarcely see to read; a taste of fog grew perceptible in the warm, headachy air. . . . She kept asking herself what was the use and purpose of such a life as she was condemned to lead. When already there was more good literature in the world than any individual could cope with in his lifetime, here she was exhausting herself in the manufacture of printed stuff which no one even pretended to be any more than a commodity for the day's market. What unspeakable folly! . . . She herself would throw away her pen with joy but for the need of earning money. . . . This huge library, growing into unwieldiness, threatening to become a trackless desert of print-how intolerably it weighed upon the spirit."

It is Marian, too, who ultimately becomes the romantic victim of Milvain's aspirations, the powerful language of Gissing's anti-romantic subplot twisting into almost gothic excess as he extends the metaphor of London's fog to Marian's sleepless depression:

"The thick black fog penetrated every corner of the house. It could be smelt and tasted. Such an atmosphere produces low spirited languor even in the vigorous and hopeful; to those wasted by suffering it is the very reek of the bottomless pit, poisoning the soul. Her face colorless as the pillow, Marian lay neither sleeping nor awake in blank extremity of woe; tears now and then ran down her cheeks, and at times her body was shaken with a throe such as might result from anguish of the torture chamber."

"New Grub Street" is deservedly regarded not only as Gissing's finest novel, but also as one of the finest novels of late nineteenth century English literature. Grimly realistic in its depiction of what it was like to be a struggling writer in late nineteenth century London, it is also remarkable for its historical accuracy and its literary craftsmanship. If you like the realism of writers like Harding and Zola, then "New Grub Street" is a book you must read!

Secrets of a Perfect Night is the best collection of short romance stories I've read so far.
Stephanie Laurens tells the tale of a rake with a scandalous reputation who finds his life of endless conquests and aimless amusements dissatisfying. He decides to go back to his ancestral estate and start anew. On the way there he gets caught in a snowstorm and seeks shelter at a nearby cottage where to his surprise he finds a young girl, now a woman, that he once seduced and whose heart he broke.
I had read one book by this author before that I didn't enjoy at all so this was a delightful surprise for me and I will be looking for more of her books.

Victoria Alexander's story deals with two young people in love who plan to elope to avoid the wrath of the girl's father. The treacherous father already knows of their plans and hatches an evil scheme that tears the lovers apart.
I felt this story was the weakest of the bunch. I've never read this author before and while the story was well written. The
plot, which starts out nicely, quickly becomes too convoluted and ridiculous to be believed.

Rachel Gibson's contemporary story is the best of the bunch. She tells the story of high school sweethearts brought back together at their ten year reunion. I will not go further into it except to say that the dialogue sizzles and the characters are compelling and completely believable. The story is one that most of us have dreamed of: to attend our high school reunions and knock the socks off every person there. This is another excellent story form the very talented Ms. Gibson.

I give Ms. Lauren's story 5 stars. Alexander's story 2 stars and Gibson's 10 stars! Highly recommended

If you love romantic anthologies then this one is for you. Let's be realistic - most anything that includes a Stephanie Laurens story is going to be great and this one is no exception. Her entrancing tale of rediscovered love is a perfect example of her amazing talent when it comes to blending sensuality and humor. I was less impressed with Victoria Alexander's tale of misunderstandings and rekindled romance - it was considerably more downbeat than the other two, although on its own probably would have been wonderful. Rachel Gibson's contemporary love story is a delight - for all those women who have dreamed of knocking the socks off their high school buddies at a reunion. This book is a great summer read, and the pleasure of anthologies is to be able to put them down and get a little work done in between stories!

The title, SECRETS OF A PERFECT NIGHT, gets you from the start. And the names of the three romantic writers involved help it along. The good thing about a book of novellas is that you can read one whole story at one sitting, and get that satisfied, complete feeling.

SCANDALOUS LORD DERE, is the tale of a young man who wants to leave his well-deserved rakish reputation as "master seducer" and go back to his quiet country home and the girl he left behind. The problem is that he left eight years ago and all indications are that things have changed dramatically. If winning it all back is even possible, it certainly won't be easy. The "master seducer" will have to use all that he has.

THE LAST LOVE LETTER is the story of both selfish and well-intentioned motives gone awry. A couple who've declared their love against the wishes of their parents plan to run away together one night, but they don't make the last-minute connection. Ten years pass before they both receive a letter that lets them know what actually happened that night, and how neither of them was to blame. Now, has too much time passed to rekindle feeling which never really died?

NOW AND FOREVER is a modern story of a high school reunion and of seeing the one who got away and how much they've changed. It's the reopening of possibilities. It's the time to aplolgize and get on (or get it on) with their lives.

I think this book suitable for everyone not only for child but adult also can read it. My friend and I love this book and try to collect the whole of Pooh's series. But I think .. The house at the Pooh corner also lovely while The Tao of Pooh was very difficult to understand for child. However, I love it!!

Yesterday I planned on reading "The Great Gatsby," but instead I read A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh."

What! you say.

Well, I bought it a while back, and I never sat down to read it. So yesterday I just grabbed it, and started reading---and despite the fact that it's meant for children, the insight it offers is unparalleled. Maybe some of you have read "The Tao of Pooh" (which I read in high school). That book explains how Winnie the Pooh behaves in a Taoist fashion. But instead of reading the "Tao" book, I think people could have done just as well, if not better, reading the original work.

I have great respect for an author who can write a work that appeals to both children and adults. Such is "The Phantom Tollbooth" or "The Wizard of Oz." Such is "Winnie The Pooh." The joy of reading Winnie is the absurd logic it follows. Or the way it satirizes adults, which it does quite well through the characters of Eeyore and Owl. For example, how can you NOT enjoy this passage from Chapter Four:

"The old grey donkey, Eeyore, stood by himself in a thirsty corner of the forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, 'Why?' and sometimes he thought, 'Wherefore?' and sometimes he thought, 'Inasmuch as which?'---and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about."

Now the only decision that remains is do I read the other Pooh book I bought, "The House at Pooh Corner" or do I read F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." Hmm.

How did I get to adulthood without reading Winnie-th-pooh? If the only Pooh you know is the Disney version,you are in for a feast. Pooh and his friends are so much more than the mindless,flat characters in cartoons. When we read this aloud to our three children,12,5,&3, they were enthralled. The oldest understood most of the underpinnings and the two preschoolers just loved the fun. Night after night the kids would line up by the sofa,begging for more Pooh. We were all sad when the book ended,but Pooh is always with us in our hearts.

Ya gotta get this book!

Okay, before you read too far into this review, keep in mind that I am only 13, and haven't read as many books as some of the other reviewers on this page, but I have read enough to know that I love this book. It's a fantasy lover's book. If you like E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and other books by A. A. Milne, you will certainly enjoy this book as well. With a exciting plot, and humerous but loveable characters, this book is a must have.

Many, many years ago I read this book to my former husband as a bedtime story. The book occasioned one of the few instances in which I laughed so hard I cried. Now I have a new husband and a new copy of the book. Who says you can't go back.

A.A.Milne wrote this fairytale after being in the army during WWI. the story is basically about how easy it is to get into war (and over very stupid reasons), and how no one REALLY wants to hurt every one, but they just want to look out for their own interests. The charecters are not your typical bad-vs-good and each one can be lovable in his or her own way, and there are also wonderful little stories inside the major plot line. one of the BEST books I have ever read.