It's hard to believe that James's theatrical turn of the late 19th century ended with his audience "booing" him off the stage. This novelized play reads quickly and delightfully. I've read more than twenty of his novels, and this was the quickest of them all.

The plot is simple enough (at least for James): two houses, apparently back to back, in Wilverley, a small English village, set the scene. One contains a widow, the other a young married couple. The young wife widows the young husband, and he becomes Wilverley's "most eligible bachelor," except for the fact that he promised his dying wife that he would never marry again, at least not during the life of his child. So somebody has to kill the child, right?

Enter James's genius for character. There's Paul, the huge, infinitely imperturbable son of the wealthy Mrs. Beever; the diminutive and impetuous Dennis Vidal; Tony Bream himself, a remarkably good-natured but insensitive fool; and the powerful Mrs. Beever, whose awful determination cows every one else before her. Like James's best writing, his characters become interesting on their own; his fictions become an opportunity to satisfy curiosity. I think that's what makes this book a "page-turner"; the characters are interesting enough that I want to know what's going to happen.

In the end, I suppose, what makes this book succeed is what would have made the dramatic version fail: James's endless fascination with the workings of the human mind must have become either painfully boring or just incomprehensible to a theatrical audience. However it came about, I recommend it unequivocally.

This book is a novelization of the play by the same name. And you can see the stageplay - the characters are continually coming and going - and there's stage business - all of which I think shows some stiffness - yet about half way through the novel I was startled at how much the characters were real, rounded - I could just about see them - they ached with life - I was always aware of the stage during the novel - the story itself is rather shocking - it's a mystery novel! - it's all very well done - it's short - and it's very psychological

I am impressed with The New York Review's revival of this unexpectedly non-Jamesian title. A truly unique James choice to bring back to life--it's been done so with a cover so compelling (I'm not a tradional James fan) I opened the book which I found locally in a brick and mortar as they are now called, book shop. The internet cannot do justice to the thoughtful sophistication of this book's packaging. (But I can purchase another copy here more easily!) The publisher's comments about the work were also compelling and complimentary to the cover art. The Other House is a mystery, a detective story, a love triangle with more than three angles--a true page turner--with a timelessly human plot and "modern" characters. Anyone thriller fan would be enchanted with it. And turning every page, holding the book, is a sensory thrill. Paper, writing, art--all representative of what any literary rebirth deserves. If it's worth bringing back--do it with quality, I say! They did--along with a whole marvelous collection of equally intriguing books, with well written new introductions. Good choices--the pieces themselves, the introduction authors and the book artist designers. Truly timeless in all ways!

"Vivid. Evocative. Bruce Holland Rogers' writing jumps right off the page." -Wil McCarthy, author of Bloom

"Bruce Holland Rogers stories are like the glimpses you catch out of the corner of your eye. They are full of the logic of dreams, and the logic of the heart." -Maureen F. McHugh, author of Mission Child

"I admire Bruce Holland Rogers and his writing for their seriousness, their onesty and their style." -Valerie Freireich, author of Becoming Human

From dark fairy tales to creepy science fiction to a theological mystery set in the Old West, the mind of Bruce Holland Rogers takes you to territories of the bizarre: Wall Street, Suburbia, and Mexico. In the Nebula Award-nominated story "These Shoes Strangers Have Died Of," a World War II veteran confronts the perpetrators and victims of genocide, and the would-be perpetrators, through his art. The title story, "Wind Over Heaven," exposes the weird underside of the upscale restaurant business. And the 1998 Bram Stoker Award-winner "The Dead Boy at Your Window" (which also won a Pushcart Prize for literary fiction) takes readers on a journey to the land of the dead like no other.

I've heard it argued that horror is an emotion, not a genre, and Bruce Holland Rogers has demonstrated this well in his collection of dark stories. The stories range from a western to a fable to science fiction, but all are intelligent tales with dark themes, including redemption and revenge, and settings ranging from the land of the dead to an alternate Aztec-like Mexico. I recommend this book.

"Vivid. Evocative. Bruce Holland Rogers' writing jumps right off the page." -Wil McCarthy, author of Bloom

"Bruce Holland Rogers stories are like the glimpses you catch out of the corner of your eye. They are full of the logic of dreams, and the logic of the heart." -Maureen F. McHugh, author of Mission Child

"I admire Bruce Holland Rogers and his writing for their seriousness, their onesty and their style." -Valerie Freireich, author of Becoming Human

From dark fairy tales to creepy science fiction to a theological mystery set in the Old West, the mind of Bruce Holland Rogers takes you to territories of the bizarre: Wall Street, Suburbia, and Mexico. In the Nebula Award-nominated story "These Shoes Strangers Have Died Of," a World War II veteran confronts the perpetrators and victims of genocide, and the would-be perpetrators, through his art. The title story, "Wind Over Heaven," exposes the weird underside of the upscale restaurant business. And the 1998 Bram Stoker Award-winner "The Dead Boy at Your Window" (which also won a Pushcart Prize for literary fiction) takes readers on a journey to the land of the dead like no other.

A wonderful compilation of poems, well translated by Sam Hamill and Keiko Matsui, illustrated by Stephen Addiss, written by the "goddess of poetry", Yosano Akiko (1878-1942). In the introduction, there is a brief description of the life of this wonderful woman poet. There we learn that she was the epitome of early twentieth century Japanese feminism, social reform and romanticism. The poet was so noted by her peers, that her era is referred to as the Age of Akiko. Born out of a family of poets and literati, she was initially despised by her father, who sought a male son. Afterwards, her father gave her the best available education and supported her fully. Her life was full of adversities and triumphs, and her love story with a romantic womanizer poet, Yosano Hiroshi (pen name Tekkan) reminds me, in a way, of Frida Kahlo's relationship with Diego Rivera. Proficient in modern occidental literature, she can be seen, in the context of her times, as a modernist poet; the first in Japanese history to criticize openly the emperor. Throughout the poems written in tanka form, compiled in this edition, we can perceive and feel her struggle to look directly into the heart and reveal the complexity of the human being, as well as the hues of erotic, spiritual and familial love. There are also some modern style poems which confirm, again the genius and sensibility of the greatest 20th century woman poet of Japan.
"Raindrops continue
to fall on white lotus leaves.
While my lover paints
I open the umbrella
on his little boat....." Long live Akiko!

As a poet, I can barely open this book without the muse whispering in my ear. The translations are superb - page after page of delicious tanka with a small section of "modern style poems" at the end. The brush illustrations by Stephen Addiss visually enhance a magnificent experience. Don't miss it!

This volume of poetry has the same high quality one has come to expect of Sam Hamill. It is enhanced by brush and ink illustrations by Stephen Addiss and a brief biographic introduction to the poem Yosano Akiko.

The most jarring poems are the twelve in modern style - jarring in the sense of being furthest from the reader's expectations. "Women Are Plunder" is a feminist poem opening with the image of a department store sale as a universal call to women. "The Town of Amazement" describes a Utopia - one without student plays - in which the power structure (political, educational, legal, religious. famial) is leveled. "Cold Supper" explores family financial troubles, a plight frequent in the poet's life. "You Shall Not Be Killed, Brother!" is a pacifist poem. Most of these modern poems are relatively time bound - interesting but ephemeral with some exceptions.

The poems written in the traditional tanka form, however, are more universal exploring sensuality, sexuality, religion ... An example: "On her cheek and mine, / although our minds so differ, / like utter strangers, / the pine winds blow equally - / almost as though we were friends." In these poems one sees a genius transforming traditional image and form into something new, expressing experience previously hidden and confronting the changing views of society.

The chicken and dumplings recipe alone is worth the price of this book!!! This is true Southern comfort food at its very best!!! If you happen to come across this book at its given price....DON'T THINK TWICE!!! BUY IT!!! It really is too bad that it is not out of print because it really is a wonderful book. You couldn't do anything but benefit from it's pages.

From Tennessee's premier milling company, this book combines the best of yesterday and today. Belinda Ellis Gibson has shown that in her first venture as a food stylist and author she has what it takes to allow the conumer to visualize and almost smell the biscuits baking.

This book is a must for any proud Southerner!

This is a collection of recipes from the famous Southern flour, White Lily. The tips and recipes are the most requested from generations of Southern bakers. These favorites have been updated so they are quick and easy to prepare.

The biscuit recipe is so much like my Grandmother's it takes me back to her kitchen, and fills me with memories of "home".

The black walnut cake is the easist I have ever baked, and has a wonderful flavor. Rich without being too sweet.

I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as I have.

I read the entire book on my flight from FL to NY. My husband served with the 101st in Vietnam and while reading the book, I felt as though all the FEELINGS behind all of the stories my husband had told me, where there in the pages of the book. Anyone who has loved or lost a Vietnam veteran or anyone who has wondered what it was like for these young men, what really was going on in their hearts and minds... HAS to read this book. A lot of vietnam vets don't want to share their thoughts, memories or tears... I thank Pete Griffin for sharing his.

What a wonderful book. A deeply, personal memoir of a soldier's time in Vietnam, his commitment to the brothers who served in the Korean War and the love of his family. Unlike commerical books that have been poured over by professionals, this book is emotional and permeated with love and commitment. As a soldier, Mr. Griffin is obviously committed to his country and fellow soldiers. In my observation over the years, combat soldiers are overly generous in their views toward their leaders. This book is no exception. Mr. Griffin is very charitable toward his leaders, who in my opinion, were not as mindful of their soldier's welfare as they could have been. A wonderful memior and I hope it will be prommoted to many colleges and universities who are teaching about the Vietnam War. I personally appreciated the time and energy such a book must have taken. I'm sure it must have been cathartic for Mr. Griffin. The Vietnam story needs to be told and this book does it in a very different and personal way. I hope many will purchase this book as it is a must read.

This is something new for me,to set down and write a book review because I have not read more than maybe two books in my whole life. I was with peter in the 101st Airborne Div.in 1965 and 1966.in Co.A 2sd/502sd. pete went to viet Nam in a weapons platoon but was soon changed to a rifle paltoon so pete was there with the rest of us line dogs.So read this book and let it open your soul,you can,t get over the fears till you get over tears. WELCOME HOME.. Ronnie Shook jshook@gateway.net

As a woman you can identify yourself very well with Bertha, but there is a big difference between the social situations. That's exactly what makes this book so special, you see yourself even if the reactions of Bertha are often stupid and wrong you understand what she feels and why she's doing it. You see that maybe in her situation you would have reacted the same way and that makes you thinking About it. There are many little things which tell so much about people's emotions and the situations.

It's a very interesting book. It shows our feelings very well. It's simple to read. But I think it's more a book for women than for men. Mrs Craddock is an intelligent person and she has married a simple man. In the beginning she is very in love with him. And they are lucky. But later she notices that he is not Mr Right and her life gets boring. She leaves him and meets someone else in Italy.... I can recommend this book to everyone which is interested in love stories. But it's not a simple love story with a happy ending!

W. Somerset Maugham has long existed somewhat on the periphery of literary and critical respectability: "a first-rate second-rater," someone once called him. But the more I read Maugham the more I become convinced that this is a snobbish appraisal, derived perhaps from his extraordinary popular success (if it's popular, it can't be good) and, later, from revelations regarding his homosexuality along with some unpleasant personal details related by various biographers. But none of this should get in the way of a reader seeking out Maugham's best work---"Of Human Bondage," certainly, and the much-less-known "Mrs. Craddock."

"Mrs. Craddock" is a stunningly powerful novel of one woman's compromises with the realities of love. Reminiscent on the one hand of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," and on the other of Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," this novel has a vitality and brilliance of characterization all its own. Bertha, the heroine, is superbly rendered: a woman who is unable to understand until too late the nature of her emotional folly, a victim of her own self-imposed romantic delusions. Edward, her husband, is equally compelling: a fundamentally good man who has simply, in essence, married the wrong woman. Watching these two mismatched souls attempting to co-exist is engrossing, painful, and exhilarating. The story is solidly written in the usual Maugham plain style, and is just as relevant today as it must have been the year it was published.

This "lost" Maugham novel---ignored even by many Maugham admirers---deserves a wider readership. Those interested in Maugham's fiction of this period, or in turn-of-the-century novels centered on women, owe it to themselves to try this unjustly neglected masterwork.

Columnist Jack Anderson never suffered self-esteem or objectivity problems. Yet in his autobiographical Peace, War and Politics, Anderson displays humility and a degree of introspection that is shocking to anyone familiar with his often self-aggrandizing muck.

Anderson often pumped out scandalous drivel in which he conspicuously cast himself as the central figure. It could be speculated that if Anderson had not been such a successful publicity hound, he would have become a serial killer obsessed with newspaper clippings and broadcast reports of his crimes. Yet a decent and moral man emerges in this account of a colorful life.

Although several of Anderson's more convoluted conspiracy theories are rehashed (the JFK assassination chapter is incomprehensible), the book is mostly solid and an enjoyable read. Early chapters devoted to Anderson's boyhood in Depression-era Utah and his World War II adventures in China are excellent.

Anderson's running battle with the Nixon Administration, and his seething rage at what he saw as Jimmy Carter's hypocrisy and total incompetence, reveal a righteous indignation that is simultaneously tedious and fascinating. While he rightly condemns the excesses of J. Edgar Hoover, and even digs through garbage bins for dirt on the late FBI director, Anderson also is objective enough to admit the G-man never politicized his agency.

Anderson makes some very insightful observations. For example, he shares his fear that former Soviet scientists might one day assist rogue Islamic states. Written well before 2001, this and much more speculation about the aftermath of the Cold War proves well-founded.

The most surprising aspect of Peace, War and Politics is Anderson's self-deprecating humor. When potential sources offer juicy details for cash, Anderson humorously remembers he didn't have the funds to pay for them, and ethics were a secondary consideration. In addition to himself, Anderson reports on the foibles and strengths of his poorly paid interns and associates. Many like Brit Hume went on to become prominent reporters and broadcasters. The degree to which Anderson acknowledges these young, underpaid muckrakers is as admirable as it is surprising. Anderson also turns the spotlight onto a hypocritical national media that shunned him yet often followed his lead.

The highlight of the book is a very brief chapter about the return of General Anthony McAuliffe, whom Anderson describes as the most decent person he ever met, to a hero's welcome in Bastogne. Gen. McAuliffe is remembered for his reply "nuts" to a Nazi demand that he surrender his 101st Airborne troops and the Belgian town they defended during the Battle of the Bulge. McAuliffe tells Anderson that he "never cared " for General George Patton after Patton surveyed the frozen enemy bodies at Bastogne and commented "these are the types of Germans I like to see." McAuliffe, who commanded the troops who killed the soldiers, said the dead were mostly boys like the Americans who fought against them.

Given such humanistic insight into people, it is apparent Anderson never wet the bed into his late 20's, engaged in pyromania, tortured small animals in his youth, or fantasized about serial murder. No, if he hadn't become a muckraker, Jack Anderson very well could have been a Mormon church official albeit a very opinionated and self-absorbed one.

A very informative and influential book. I now know things about the goverment that I never knew before. My views on the goverment and on politics have now changed after reading this masterpiece of a novel. Everyone should read this superb book. I have read alot of books and this is one of my personal favorite books.

Very informative, yet very influentual. Lets you know what has really happened in past wars and what has happened in the goverment, that the average citzen doesn't even know about now. I have very diferent issues on politics now that i have read this book. I recomend it to anyone & everyone. I've read alot of books and this happens to be one of my personal favorites.

....with each poem a great single. Spin it

I love the way Pink Instrument zooms like the Space Shuttle orbiting New York, very Un-John Glenn-like. It's funny and beautiful. Ralph Gibson's interspersed, nicely reproduced photographs are touchingly elegant.

Max Blagg is the relaxed Jack Kerouac. His meditations on the pleasures of the mind and body (and wine) are relentlessly and energetically entertaining.

L. Frank Baum considered "Queen Zixi of Ix or the Story of the Magic Cloak" to be the best of his non-Oz fantasies for children and there is certainly no reason to disagree with his self-assessment. The fairies assembled one moonlit night in a pretty clearing of the ancient forest of Burzee to weave the magic cloak. When the old king of Noland dies without any relatives to take the throne a peasant boy named Bud becomes the guy when he is the forty-seventh person to enter the city and the magic cloak that allows wishes to come true becomes very important to him in this 1905 story. Bud has to be king, whether he wants to or not, which means his sister is now Princess Fluff. Dispensing justice and trying to deal with his Aunt Rivette, who feels the new king owes everything he now has to her, are minor problems for King Bud when Queen Zixi and the armies of Ix invade Noland. To make things worse, the magic cloak is stolen.

One of the things I like about "Queen Zixi of Ix" is that it sounds like a traditional fairey tale adventures, even more so than the Oz books, in which Baum certainly created his own fantasy universe. More importantly, characters manage to get beyond the limits of their stereotypes with surprising results, which is certainly a laudable thing to do in telling stories to children. Of course, this only cements Baum's reputation in the realm of American children's literature, but then as anybody knows who has gotten beyond "The Wizard of Oz" Baum was deservedly known as Father Goose. Check out Baum's "The Sea Fairies" and "Sky Island" as well if you like this one, which has 90 illustrations on its 231 pages.

This is one of those books that you remember reading in front of a fire, and for little girl you probably envisionsed actually slipping on the coat made by fairies. I read this about 20 years ago and I can still summon up the feelings I got reading it, just by hearing, "Queen Xixi." I noticed this book by chance and decided I needed to re-own it. Please read this to you child, even if he happens to be a boy. All of us love fairies, we just haven't seen one, but this book allows us to.

This was one of my favorite books as a child - I used to listen to the record (read by Ray Bolger) over and over again. L. Frank Baum out does himself in this one. It is every bit as good as all of the Wizard of Oz books he also penned. Truly magnificent! Read this one to your kids (or just to yourself)!

Only 11 of the 30 chapters of this book were actually written by Jane Austen. However, the completion made, though somewhat livelier than I am used to from Austen, fits in quite well with the start that had been made.

The plot is extremely light compared to Austen's other books -- there are indeed, some very annoying characters, but what ill-spirited characters there are give no real distress to the heroine of the book, as is usual in the other books. Many of the "comic" characters are allowed to show some improvement (which is odd compared to such Austen creations as Mrs. Bennett, or Robert Ferrars), but who knows? The 11 chapters written by Austen seemed written in a very light spirit, and perhaps something like this novel would have been the result.

I think it a very good read.

Every loyal Janeite must read Sanditon. It was destined to be her greatest work, but unfortunately she stopped working on it and died shortly after doing so. Sanditon is unique in its setting,a small seaside resort, and its characters. Jane Austen continued in her sucession of "deficient" men by the name of Edward (those who have read Sense and Sensibility or Love and Friendship know the other two)but, this Edward is perhaps the worst man that she ever created because he "considers it his duty" to seduce women. Do not be repelled by the villany of Edward though because there are many wonderful and deep characters to be found. The Parkers are very amusing. Who could fail to be amused with a trio of Hypochondriacs? There is also the visting Charlotte, the unfortunate cousin Clara, a wealthy young heiress of mixed racial background, and several other characters. You will yearn for an ending (of course as a fragment it does not have one)and if you are like me you will want to know more about Sydney, Mr.Parker's brother who is quite frequently mentioned and praised by the Parkers. Sadly none of the continuations of Sanditon are perfect or seamless as some may claim, however, I believe that the ending by Anna Lefroy is the closest to the intent of the author.

The book I read was published in 1986 and I have not been able to find another copy.