As a librarian I frequently encounter new versions of the bible that are usually word for word translations that never attempt to translate the original languages into meaningful and understandable english. The Christian Community Bible is a rare exception. Its clear and simple English is very enlightening and its introductions and notes are nothing short of a mini commentary that reveals the correct context and setting of each book. I highly recommend this translation to all who yearn to comprend to simple message of Jesus.

This seems to be one of the least known and least-reviewed Bibles out there, and yet it is a book that every student of the Christian Scriptures should have. I am a free-thinking student, not a Catholic. But that doesn't prevent me from seeing the excellent qualities in this work. Here are the pros:

1. Wonderful translation. The introduction does not tell us how this translation came to be. I assume it was commisioned by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). But the translation is a pleasure to read: modern but not as casual as the Good News Bible. I have various translations of the Bible, and so should you, since this may not be the most accurate. But the spirit of the Word (if you will) is there, and this is what I use most of the time.

2. Recognizes (to an extent) modern criticsm and research. Unlike the NIV Full Life Study, and Halley's Handbook, the commentators of the CCB do not shun or condemn the theories of modern scholars. Those two books are valuable in their own right, but I feel that they are narrow-minded, dogmatic and even hostile at times. By contrast, the CCB acknowledges when the authorship or historical validity of a book is doubtful (e.g. the Book of Daniel and 2 Peter). It also notes how silly some interpretations of Revelation are.

3. Comments are often longer, warmer and just more interesting than that of the Full Life Study. That book often just sums up passages, as if you aren't smart enough to figure that out for yourself. The CCB, instead of just repeating what a chapter says, seems to REFLECT deeply on it. Compare the commens on the Fall of Man, for example.

4. Important passages in the OT are in large print; less important ones not relevant to Christian teaching are in smaller print. This enables you to see at a glance which are the highlights of a book. I do not always agree with the commentators' choices, though.

5. The sides of the pages are marked (like Merriam Webster's) to make it easier to open the book you want to read.

6. There are a few things here that I didn't find in the Full Life or in Halley's, e.g. what the initials of the Lord's Prayer stand for. :-)

And now the cons:

1. No concordance. Only brief indexes, and historical overviews. No maps, either.

2. Commentaries are printed in small text. You MIGHT need a magnifying glass.

3. In some cases, commentaries are unexpectedly short.

4. It does get too dogmatic in some places, but THAT is expected. Of course, as a free-thinker, that bugs me. But if you are a staunch believer, you'll love it!

5. Order of books is different, as mentioned below. But I like it.

So, overall, GET THIS BIBLE!

the Christian Community Bible is an excellant achievement of scholarship and devotion. Most Catholic Bibles have just technical scholar notes or none at all. None of them have any Life application or spiritual guidance type of notes. This Bible brings a new quality often missing in Catholic Bibles (except for recent teen Bibles) that is commonplace in Evangelical Bibles. It goes one step further than its evangelical counterparts in that it stresses community as well as the personal in its notes. My understanding is this Bible is used by Base communities and others in Latin America and Philippines and was recently translated into English. It has revolutionized my life.

What a daunting task for a writer - a novel dealing with the life and work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Sor Juana is considered by many to be the finest poet that Latin America ever produced - she is also a hero to many, and for good reason. In her day - the 17th century - women were looked upon pretty much as chattel. They were expected to make a home for their husband and children, to sew, to cook - and little else. They were certainly not expected to seek an education - indeed, they were not deemed capable of benefiting from one. Juana, from the time she was a child, knew better - she sought out ways to feed her hungry intellect from the time when she was three, tagging along with her older sister to school and insisting to be taught to read.

As she grew older, fame of her learning spread, and she moved to Mexico City, where she became a favorite at the court of the Viceroy and Vicereine - the attention she received there fanned the flames both of her intellect and her emotions. She joined a religious order and took her vows believing that it was the only way to further her in her quest of knowledge, and in her pursuit of literary expression. She didn't count on the incredibly, rabid opposition that she met - not only from the Church hierarchy, but from within her order, from other nuns who were jealous of the attention she received, and terrified of her intelligence. She was a threat to too many people who held power. Change frightens people - especially those who see it as a threat to their own position and influence. There's an old saying that 'absolute power corrupts absolutely'. I think in the case of Sor Juana's persecution by the Church, one could observe that 'absolute power breeds absolute paranoia'. If she had not, finally, succumbed - at least in part - to the will of the Inquisition, she would no doubt have been martyred. Some might say - and it's a valid observation - that, without her books, her writing materials, and her scientific and musical instruments, without any contact with the outside world, she died a martyr without being subjected to the gibbet or other tortures. The intellectual torture of repressed expression, imposed on one who had so much to express, was a death sentence in itself.

Sor Juana's sexuality has been discussed in many forums - it is, after all, a valid and vital part of anyone's personality and life. The film concerning her life - I, THE WORST OF ALL - is based on SOR JUANA, or THE TRAPS OF FAITH, by notable Mexican poet and author Octavio Paz (he being another treasure of Latin American literature), and approaches the subject of her sexuality very obliquely (I'm amazed that the film bears an 'R' rating). SOR JUANA'S SECOND DREAM, on the other hand, tackles the subject head-on, in a very open - but tasteful - manner. The author discusses her viewpoint briefly in her afterward, with a couple of references to Paz and others - she sees their attitudes as 'homophobic', that they distort truth of Sor Juana's life and work by turning a blind eye to her sensuality. She makes it very clear that she respects Paz and his work - but that she disagrees with his assessment of Sor Juana, as well as that of some other scholars.

What emerges from the author's viewpoint is a very readable, engrossing work. The sections of the novel that deal with Sor Juana's sexual orientation - her relationships with other women, her views of men in general, and the lifelong, ongoing struggles within herself - make this a very LIVING work, bringing to life the subject in a very human way. Given the prejudice that still exists in matters of sexual orientation, one can only imagine how much this was magnified in 17th century Mexico. Sor Juana's story is a testament to her achievements in literature and science, as well as to her own courage - courage in facing not only her accusers and enemies, but in her own psychological and emotional self-examinations. She was an amazing woman - an amazing human being, an amazing scholar - and she would be thus in any day.

The book is a long one - at over 400 pages - and goes a long way in bringing to life the everyday routine of the convent, as well as the atmosphere and intrigues in the court and Church. The characterizations are well drawn and patiently, carefully created - none of them come across as flat or stereotyped, which is a great relief in a novel of this length and scope. I found it to be both entertaining and enlightening - and I would recommend it to anyone interested in a story of a heroic, intelligent woman - or, for that matter, anyone in search of a good read.

In "Sor Juana's Second Dream," Alicia Gaspar de Alba unveils the "other -- sensual, human side" of an extremely intelligent and profoundly passionate monja/mujer -- who suffers from "unnatural, unnameable, pleasurable aches" until she comes to believe, in the depths of a hurting heart, that "love, our very soul, has no gender and is never a sin" -- and into another's orbit lets herself go!

Sadly -- however, Juana's comet soon loses its glow -- a victim of envious others and timely circumstance, she is forced to spend her short life struggling with/against the temptations of: the tender touch of an hermana's hand, the (al)lure of a soulful "cell-mate's" lips, and the unforgettable "chiaroscuro of an unspeakable love."

It has taken Gaspar de Alba's courage, creativity, imagination and interpretation to "kick the habit" off this "patron saint of rebellious women" and offer her well-rewarded readers a fresh, new look at a mujer who poured passion onto her written pages, using a quill that drew both ink/blood and inspiration from a heart's well of loneliness and love!

Juana's "re-creator" (Gaspar de Alba) gives us with her: calla lilies, comets, a meaningful medal and a long lost letter of professed and requited love -- significant symbols of very beautiful sentiments -- in juxtaposition to a hauntingly powerful and disturbing storybook tale of a young Juana's innocence/childhood lost.

I cannot find the words to sing the author's praises loudly enough! After my third reading of these pages, the passages still move me! --- perhaps that, in itself, says it all.

Sor Juana's Second dream, by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, is a must-read text by anyone who is interested in the major figure from Colonial Latin America, Sor (Sister) Juana Inés de la Cruz. I have taught for many years about the life and work of this Mexican nun, and never before has a work of historical fiction captured what I believe renders a true portrait of Sor Juana. Most works of the past, even academic ones, have avoided addressing Sor Juana's personal life; in Sor Juana's Second Dream, we see, as we should, an anguished personal experience that appears in many of Sor Juana's most famous texts. Bravo! Well done!

Rabbi Arragel did a fine job translating the Hebrew into flowery Castillian. It is said that Queen Isabella was most pleased with the delicate rendering of the miniatures.
If you want a work which highlights the Jewish cultural contributions to Castillian arts before their ignoble explusion in 1492, you will not want to miss this.

Wauck's translation of the Good News is superb, demonstrating that clarity, accuracy, and elegance need not be inconsistent.

Jaime Espinel's "Alba Negra" is a rare find. Timely, insightful, powerful, it cries for a translation into English. A collection of short stories of different calibre and scope, strongly rooted in the modern existence, that touch the essence of the human spirit. His short story "Blanco Es", for example, is a parable that applies directly to the illusion of wealth brought about by the drug-boom of the 80's. It makes one of the most insightful portrayals I have seen of the then in the rise drug-lord Pablo Escobar. But more than that it shows the roller-coaster of emotions and the changes drugs and money bring about to an unsuspecting fishing village in the Caribbean. The way Espinel structures and tells this one story justifies this whole book. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear more about one of the most innovative voices in Latin American letters.

First as a student of Spanish, and now as a Spanish teacher, at the secondary and college level, I have seen a lot of books about verbs. Like most beginning students, I bought 501 Spanish Verbs, and by the end of my first semester of college Spanish, I had already outgrown that limited book. In Spain, I found a fantastic book, Conjugación de los verbos: Manual Práctico (ISBN: 84-7640-891-9), but alas, the book is in Spanish, which limits its usefulness to beginning students.

All Spanish Verbs combines the usefulness of a 501 Spanish Verbs, with full verb conjugations, general rules of conjugation in the beginning, as well as tips on usual phrases, with the extended verb list of Conjugación.... What limits 501 Spanish Verbs is that there are 501 and only 501 verbs conjugated. In contrast, All Spanish Verbs provides models for the conjugation of every single paradigm you could encounter, and has an index with thousands upon thousands (I can't find my copy to give you the exact number) of verbs listed, with a reference to the fully conjugated verb that it conjugates like. For example, let's say you want to conjugate "mindanguear" (okay, not the most useful of verbs, but maybe you need to use it) and you look it up in 501... and the verb is not there. You're out of luck. With All Spanish Verbs... on the other hand, you see that mindanguear is not conjugated, but it is found in the index, and it is indexed to verb number 1--the model, basic -ar verb. You now know that this verb is conjugated perfectly regularly.

For the very early beginner, 501 Spanish Verbs might be a better choice, because it contains the 501 most frequent verbs you'll need to use, and for the first year of high school Spanish or the first semester of college Spanish, this might be sufficient. But if you have any language background and are comfortable with the idea of conjugating verbs, skip that book, and go straight to this one. Furthermore, if you think you will ever continue with Spanish, you will eventually need this kind of book.

Another advantage: since not as many verbs are conjugated fully, the book is nice and skinny, easy to stick in your briefcase or bookbag and carry everywhere with you!

...

Reading The Eighth Continent was like being on the island again. I felt captured by the image that each story left with me. The intensity of each character, the beliefs that still besets the people of this beautiful island. This is my first book by this author. Now I am enthralled by A Perfect Silence.

...que quiera iniciarse en la ciencia moderna. Por lo general este tipo de libros son escritos por norteamericanos o europeos y los hispanoparlantes debemos conformarnos con su traducción (a menudo desafortunada, pues el traductor es tan sólo tal y no un científico).

No es el caso de este libro. El autor, Luis González de Alba, además de ser un erudito en estos temas es un escritor ameno, divertido y agudo, que lleva de la mano al lector, paso por paso y con todas las explicaciones de por medio, por los complejos y fascinantes vericuetos de la teoría de la relatividad, la mecánica quántica, las supercuerdas, la "partícula Dios" y tantas otras materias que desafortunadamente no han sido el fuerte de nuestros pueblos. Ya va siendo hora.

Alba Ambert is a poet and there are images in this book that strike like poetry and linger long afterwards - images of suffering, oppression, loss and images of strength, survival and connection. It is a book rich with language, and it shows the power of language as a force both to wound and to heal. I have shared this book with international students in a creative writing class and found students who came from backgrounds very different from Blanca's empathized strongly with the character and were inspired to explore emotionally challenging material in their own work. Blanca's story of a Puerto Rican woman who overcomes familial and cultural obstacles has universal resonance.

A Perfect Silence made me weep. Every line led somewhre. Every word had a purpose. I felt this book. I first encountered this book as an excerpt in an anthology of Puerto Rican writers. Those short pages sent me on a search for this book and I was not disappointed. This story is perfectly moving, and even more so by the fact that so much seems familiar to me. WONDERFUL

The incidents in this semi-autobiographical novel are a very disturbing commentary on the status of girls and women living in conditions of poverty and dysfunctional familes. But the quality of the writing lifts the story to a level above the degradation and shows the triumph of ability over upbringing. (Not to mention the influence of one grade school teacher!)

garcia lorca is simply a person who must be read.

And where has gone the Argentine "Valsa de Requerda??"" Where?

The trilogy by FGL, Yerma, Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba is set in Spain not Peru. They are an excellent portrayal of life in rural Spain during those times. A must read for anyone, but especially those who are studying Spanish literature. Allthough most widely known as a poet, FGL displays his talent for drama with these plays.

Lorca uses simple mathematical expressions to convey emotions. A colour, for example white, combined with an object, for example a baby in the opening sequence of Yerma, will add up to a symbolic meaning where either two factors can be used somewhere else. Basically, anything white is a dream of happiness which is destroyed by an event. This very basic set of symbols and the application of "equations" makes Lorca one of the most powerful and accessible writers i've come accross. Oh and the stories are good too (!)