General Books

August: Osage County

Tracy Letts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

"A tremendous achievement in American playwriting: a tragicomic populist portrait of a tough land and a tougher people."-Time Out New York

"Tracy Letts' August: Osage County is what O'Neill would be writing in 2007. Letts has recaptured the nobility of American drama's mid-century heyday while still creating something entirely original."-New York magazine

One of the most bracing and critically acclaimed plays in recent Broadway history, August: Osage County is a portrait of the dysfunctional American family at its finest-and absolute worst. When the patriarch of the Weston clan disappears one hot summer night, the family reunites at the Oklahoma homestead, where long-held secrets are unflinchingly and uproariously revealed. The three-act, three-and-a-half-hour mammoth of a play combines epic tragedy with black comedy, dramatizing three generations of unfulfilled dreams and leaving not one of its thirteen characters unscathed. After its sold-out Chicago premiere, the play has electrified audiences in New York since its opening in November 2007.

Tracy Letts is the author of Killer Joe, Bug, and Man from Nebraska, which was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His plays have been performed throughout the country and internationally. A performer as well as a playwright, Letts is a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where August: Osage County premiered.

Hamlet (The New Folger Library Shakespeare)

William Shakespeare

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Utter Tripe 1 out of 5 stars.
6 of 14 people found this review helpful.

What kind of idiot writes this tripe? This is allegedly a "Play" by some long-dead "Master".

Well, let me tell, you: it's boring and derivative. It's about this Prince who doesn't get his father's throne, and feels all depressed about it for a while, and fights back against his uncle (who took the throne and married the prince's mother), to show everyone that it was actually the uncle who killed his father the king.

Excuse me? Haven't we heard this before?

Yep: Disney's "The Lion King".

This is "The Lion King" dressed up in period clothes. Instead of "Simba", we've got "Hamlet". Instead of "Scar", we've got "Claudius". Instead of "Nala", we've got "Ophelia".

And it's in "Denmark", instead of the African Plains. Denmark? Is that even a real country anymore? Anyways, it's called Europe, now; That's a part of London.

And don't get me started on the language this writer used! It's all like it's from the Bible and stuff. Get rid of that, and use real words: Take a lesson from someone like Stephen King.

Don't waste your time with this; watch "The Lion King", and you'll get it. And while you're at it, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'm selling.

Editorial Review:

Each edition includes:

• Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play

• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play

• Scene-by-scene plot summaries

• A key to famous lines and phrases

• An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language

• An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play

• Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

Essay by Michael Neill

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

Romeo and Juliet (Folger Shakespeare Library)

William Shakespeare

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Can Love Conquer All? 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Innocent love is the most pure... and the sight of those who are in that beautiful whirlwind of its hypnotic clutches is a sight to behold.

Is it true? "Is youth wasted on the young."

Sometimes, sometimes not.

Romeo and Juliet is the most known western love story of all time.

Why?

This is not an easy question to answer, however, personally, I would never go back to those extremes of pure love; that game playing, jealousy, love-making so innocent,(wonderful) and the relationship inevitably ending in tragedy.

What makes this 500 year old love story one of a kind is its "truth", that we are essentially envious beings, and pure love is something we all either unconsciously or consciously yearn for...and attempt to destroy.

Shakespeare was a clever fellow: with the sacrifice of these two lover's, at last, the feuding families ended their years of fighting... the Montague's & Capulet's. Peace fell upon Verona.

Does true love always end in tragedy?

A good question.

Shakespeares' classic is considered a "love story"; but the Bard revealed pure love's true irony...young love so pure, so intense, so true, the god's become envious and tragedy is pure love's ultimate end.

Very sad, but very true.

As the cliche' goes:

"Nothing ventured nothing gained."

Re-read this beautiful story and reflect that true love just might conquer all.

Editorial Review:

Each edition includes:

• Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
• Scene-by-scene plot summaries
• A key to famous lines and phrases
• An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
• An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
• Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

Hamlet (No Fear Shakespeare)

William Shakespeare

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Golden Gate to Shakespeare 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 19 people found this review helpful.

Bravo to the writers, editors, and publishers of the entire No Fear Shakespeare series. Rendering Shakespeare into prosaic, colloquial American English not only explains what Shakespeare was saying, but reveals how much better he said it! Here's a few examples from HAMLET:

Hamlet sees the Ghost, but his mother doesn't. In modern lingo, she says, "This is only a figment of your imagination." That's a cliche. In the original, she says, "This is the very coinage of your brain." That's vivid.

Rosencrantz tells Hamlet in modern lingo, "You're not doing yourself any good by refusing to tell your friends what's bothering you." Sounds like a reprimand. The original line sounds like a threat: "You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend."

Hamlet remembers his mother's relationship with his father: "She would hang on to him, and the more she was with him the more she wanted to be with him; she couldn't get enough of him." Sounds good, but the original sounds disturbing: "Why, she would hang on him / As if increase of appetitite had grown / By what it fed on . . ." Change the word "she" to "it" and you have the image of a parasite. That alone says a lot about Hamlet's view of women and sex.

I know of no better guide to reading, understanding, and appreciating Shakespeare than Spark Notes' No Fear Shakespeare series.

Editorial Review:

No Fear Shakespeare gives you the complete text of Hamlet on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand translation on the right.

Each No Fear Shakespeare contains

• The complete text of the original play
• A line-by-line translation that puts Shakespeare into everyday language
• A complete list of characters with descriptions
• Plenty of helpful commentary

Macbeth (Folger Shakespeare Library)

William Shakespeare

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Folger is a good series 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

It would be ridiculous for someone to come on here and give Bill a bad review. When a person writes a review on a Shakespeare play, Shakespeare is not on trial, the reviewer is. So, I have no comments on the play, just the series. This is the second Shakespeare work I have read out of the Folger Library series. The running commentary and essay at the end of the play are well done and beneficial. If you enjoy reading Shakespeare, but find the archaic language hard to grasp at times, this is a good series for you.

Editorial Review:

Each edition includes:

• Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play

• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play

• Scene-by-scene plot summaries

• A key to famous lines and phrases

• An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language

• An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play

• Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

Essay by Susan Snyder

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 139 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What Happens To A Dream Deferred? 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Produced in 1959, A RAISIN IN THE SUN was the first Broadway play written by a black woman: Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), a memorable author who based the central story on an incident that occurred in her own family and which eventually evolved into a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1940 as Hansberry v. Lee.

The play presents us with three generations of the Younger family: the widowed matriarch Lena; her son Walter Lee and daughter Beaneatha; and Walter's wife Ruth and their son Travis. The family resides in a semi-slum apartment building on the south side of Chicago in the 1950s, where each tries to rise above the difficulties of their enviroment and the many social limitations imposed upon African-Americans at that time. But there is hope on the horizon: Lena is about to receive insurance money from her husband's death.

Unfortunately, instead of pulling the family together, the money actually drives them apart. Each member lays claim to it in some form or fashion. Lena dreams of owning her own home; daughter Bea is attending medical school and needs money to finish her degree; and most especially Walter Lee dreams of owning a liquior store. Bit by bit the pressure chips away at the family, already strained by years of frustration, and explodes at the play's climax--although not precisely in a way that one might foresee. When the explosion arrives it does not shatter the family; it unexpectedly reaffirms it.

When I review a play, I like point out that plays are not really intended to be read. They are intended to be seen on stage, where performing artists and designers breathe life into the lines and bring force to the story and its themes. This is true of every play. It may be especially true of A Raisin In The Sun, which on paper feels somewhat dry and slightly preachy. But I have seen the play performed--and let me assure that you that it brings the audience to hysterical laughter, painful tears, a sense of deep outrage, and an affection for its characters that few other modern plays can match. It is indeed a brilliant work and a great classic of 20th century American theatre.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Editorial Review:

When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever."--The New York Times.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Tom Stoppard

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 82 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A grand aimlessness 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I first saw this as a film. It was so good that I bought the VHS version.

The characters' existential wonderings are a bit of a smack in the face. And yet, there is a certain laughing at the darkness. Call it whisteling past the graveyard.

We all know the end, but we argue against it until is it upon us. And even then. And that is what it is. In the end, aren't we all supporting characters in someone else's play?

And we all call for some direction....

Editorial Review:

Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" is the fabulously inventive tale of "Hamlet" as told from the worm's-eye view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's play. In Tom Stoppard's best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of "Waiting for Godot" resound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end.

Tuesdays with Morrie

Jeffrey Hatcher, Mitch Albom

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Total reviews: 2118 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent story 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

the story is very good a must read.... the shipping was quick but not in the described condition....

Editorial Review:

This true story about the love between a spiritual mentor and his pupil has soared to the bestseller list for many reasons. For starters: it reminds us of the affection and gratitude that many of us still feel for the significant mentors of our past. It also plays out a fantasy many of us have entertained: what would it be like to look those people up again, tell them how much they meant to us, maybe even resume the mentorship? Plus, we meet Morrie Schwartz--a one of a kind professor, whom the author describes as looking like a cross between a biblical prophet and Christmas elf. And finally we are privy to intimate moments of Morrie's final days as he lies dying from a terminal illness. Even on his deathbed, this twinkling-eyed mensch manages to teach us all about living robustly and fully. Kudos to author and acclaimed sports columnist Mitch Albom for telling this universally touching story with such grace and humility. --Gail Hudson

Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays)

Arthur Miller

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Total reviews: 202 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Arthur Miller's 1949 Death of a Salesman has sold 11 million copies, and Willy Loman didn't make all those sales on a smile and a shoeshine. This play is the genuine article--it's got the goods on the human condition, all packed into a day in the life of one self-deluded, self-promoting, self-defeating soul. It's a sturdy bridge between kitchen-sink realism and spectral abstraction, the facts of particular hard times and universal themes. As Christopher Bigsby's mildly interesting afterword in this 50th-anniversary edition points out (as does Miller in his memoir, Timebends), Willy is closely based on the playwright's sad, absurd salesman uncle, Manny. But of course Miller made Manny into Everyman, and gave him the name of the crime commissioner Lohmann in Fritz Lang's angst-ridden 1932 Nazi parable, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.

The tragedy of Loman the all-American dreamer and loser works eternally, on the page as on the stage. A lot of plays made history around 1949, but none have stepped out of history into the classic canon as Salesman has. Great as it was, Tennessee Williams's work can't be revived as vividly as this play still is, all over the world. (This edition has edifying pictures of Lee J. Cobb's 1949 and Brian Dennehy's 1999 performances.) It connects Aristotle, The Great Gatsby, On the Waterfront, David Mamet, and the archetypal American movie antihero. It even transcends its author's tragic flaw of pious preachiness (which undoes his snoozy The Crucible, unfortunately his most-produced play).

No doubt you've seen Willy Loman's story at least once. It's still worth reading. --Tim Appelo

No Exit and Three Other Plays

Jean-Paul Sartre

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Total reviews: 48 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Beautiful melancholy 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Sartre is sometimes given a reputation that far precedes him, as with many Nobel recipients. These plays are a testament against the skeptic's mindset.

"No Exit" is a modern-day interpretation of the antiquated "fire and brimstone" hell we are so accustomed to hearing about. Sartre adroitly picks up on the small idiosyncracies of human behavior and capitalizes on them with his version of hell. Three incompatible personalities are locked in a hot, stuffy hotel room for eternity, unable to get along with one another or reconcile their personal differences. The lights are always a bit too bright, the furniture a bit too stiff, and the wonder at "what lies down the hall" eats at the occupants for eternity. This is a far cry from biblical interpretations of hell, where an individual can mentally will themselves against pain. Instead, Sartre focuses on the interpersonal nature of unhappiness, and gives his spirits "one of those days" for eternity.

"Dirty Hands" is perhaps my favorite piece of literature. It plants its focus on a young intellectual revolutionary intent on assassinating a corrupt party leader. As he grows closer to Hoederer, the man he is sent to kill, he comes to realize that pure intellectual theories will always become muddied in the waters of reality.

"The Respectful Prostitute" depicts a young woman, a prostitute, who spends the night with a man who turns out to be a politician. The man completes his sordid mission, but the next morning scorns the woman. An lesson in objectivity and the two-faced nature of those who tend to preach loudly.

"The Flies" is set in Ancient Greece, but possesses Sartre's aptitude for human behavior. Just as good as all the others, though not as indicative of how humans behave.

These are all plays, making them quite easy to read. The characters are not hard to keep straight. The ease of reading doesn't detract from their literary quality. These four plays are elegant simplicity at its finest.

Editorial Review:

4 plays about an existential portrayal of Hell, the reworking of the Electra-Orestes story, the conflict of a young intellectual torn between theory and conflict and an arresting attack on American racism.