20th Century Books

The Prophet

Kahlil Gibran

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 263 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

hideous piffle for dimwits 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This book is a sort of Hallmark Greeting card compilation of the type of vacuous garbage-thought that made the 1970s a cultural disaster. Are you a sentimental pacifist who thinks Gandhi was swell, but never heard of the Moriori? Do you think of love as some sort of emotional flatulence that comes and goes the way weather does? Do you think evil is only a result of people being insufficiently nice to one another? Are your views on child rearing that you should let the kids do what they want because they're individuals? Do you think business is evil and soul destroying, and hurts the world more than it helps? Do you think religion is bad, but spiiiiirituality is good? Do you think criminals shouldn't be punished, because it's not really their fault? Do you think a mindless pursuit of pleasure is necessary for a healthy life? Well, if you believe any of these things, and enjoy saccharine sweet sing-songey prose, this book is for you. It comes in an attractive hard cover, making it appear to be a very serious book, on the same level as Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but with more naked lady pictures inside. It will provide you with many prim moments of doltish piety in your cloud cuckoo land. You may even be able to use this tome to pick up on people who are as morally defective as you are.

Personally, I prefer my wisdom to be, you know, at least vaguely wise. If I want florid saccharine language, I'll go read some Browning or other Victorian poetry. You can pick up antique volumes of such stuff for cheap, since books which required effort to write or read are unfashionable these days. They also look nicer on your bookshelf. As a bonus, it might actually be good for you to read Browning, whereas reading Gibran is sort of like giving yourself a mental venereal disease.

Please, humanity, restore my faith in basic human decency: stop reading this book. This book destroys souls and stunts aesthetics. If you must give copies of the book to people, give it to people you don't like. Give this book in the same spirit the British sold Opium to the Chinese. The end result will be much the same if they take the precepts of this silly book seriously.

Editorial Review:

First published in 1923, this masterpiece of religious inspiration and timeless appeal offers deep insight into every facet of existence: love, marriage, children, work, freedom, pain, joy, sorrow, friendship, and time.

Ballistics: Poems

Billy Collins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A Billy Collins poem is instantly recognizable. “Using simple, understandable language,” notes USA Today, the two-term U.S. Poet Laureate “captures ordinary life–its pleasure, its discontents, its moments of sadness and of joy.” His everyman approach to writing resonates with readers everywhere and generates fans who would otherwise never give a poem a second glance.

Now, in this stunning new collection, Collins touches on a greater array of subjects–love, death, solitude, youth, and aging–delving deeper than ever before. Ballistics comes at the reader full force with moving and playful takes on life. Drawing inspiration from the world around him and from such poetic forebears as Robert Frost, Paul Valéry, and eleventh-century poet Liu Yung, Collins drolly captures the essence of an ordinary afternoon:

All I do these drawn-out days
is sit in my kitchen at Pheasant Ridge
where there are no pheasants to be seen
and, last time I looked, no ridge.

Collins reflects on his solitude:

If I lived across the street from myself
and I was sitting in the dark
on the edge of the bed
at five o’clock in the morning,

I might be wondering what the light
was doing on in my study at this hour.

And he meditates on the effects of love:

It turns everything into a symbol
like a storm that breaks loose
in the final chapter of a long novel.

And it may add sparkle to a morning,
or deepen a night
when the bed is ringed with fire.

As Collins strives to find truth in the smallest detail, readers are given a fascinating, intimate glimpse into the heart and soul of a brilliantly thoughtful man and exemplary poet.

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem

Maya Angelou

Amazon Price: $12.23 List Price: $17.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Schwartz & Wade Amazon Marketplace: 42 new & used starting at $8.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A Scandalous, Shameless Marketing Scam and a Terrible Poem 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 12 people found this review helpful.

We all have very strong feelings about peace. Throughout human history, peace has always been lacking. We live in a time when our country is run by corrupt criminals who attack other countries for corporate profiteering. We also continue to live in a world where the three major religions all proclaim they are the one true religion and war on the other two. So, it is definitely a good time for a message of peace!

But this beautifully bound little book containing a cliche'd, trite, and just plain bad poem comes up empty. A message of peace is not sold in a one-poem book for $9.99 as an impulse-buy merchandising scam at Christmas. If Maya Angelou had printed this poem in newspapers, or sent out postcards to the world on her own dime with this poem, I would have more respect for her intentions. But this book is the worst scam, one that plays upon our hearts and souls to milk our pocketbooks. I received this book as a gift from a friend who had bought it for everyone she knew. Her intentions were beautiful: a message of peace.

The end of organized religion will bring us one step closer to a world where the are no wars in the name of God. For those of you who don't know, Christianity was created by the Romans as a method of controlling people. If you have to go through the priest to reach the divine "God", and the priest can tell you what "God" orders you to do, then the priest (the Church) has control over you. The truth is, the divine nature of this universe is inside all of us. We are all made of cosmic stardust, literally, because all matter on this planet was made from exploding stars. We are all sacred. All you have to do to reach the divine is sit quietly and reflect upon your own beautiful luminous nature.

So if you want to give a beautiful message of peace, don't give $9.99 plus tax to Angelou and Random House. Just reach out with your own beautiful nature to those you love (and those you don't). Write your own poem, your own song, whatever. Make your own little book, and make it real. Work for peace. Volunteer. Get involved. It will mean so much more than Angelou's scandalous, commercialized marketing scam of a Christmas Poem.

And if you want to read some real poetry, try Charles Bukowski. His stuff is infinitely better and you'll get hundreds of great poems for the price of one bad one from Angelou.

Editorial Review:

“ANGELS AND Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers, look heavenward,” Maya Angelou writes, “and speak the word aloud. Peace.” Angelou’s moving poem is a radiant affirmation of the goodness of humanity. First read at the 2005 White House tree-lighting ceremony, it comes alive again as a fully illustrated children’s book, celebrating the promise of peace in the holiday season. In this simple story, a family joins with their community—rich and poor, black and white, Muslim and Jew—to celebrate the holidays.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Abridged Audio Edition)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 307 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Charmed but Cautious 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book provides well-written insight into growing up as a black child during the Depression. Maya Angelou is wonderful with her use of words and imagery. I was greatly reminded of my own childhood and what being a kid really meant. Written in first person, she addresses childhood fears, respect for adults and growing up with such tangible details that she could be her eight-year-old self again.

Angelou's insights into the African-American way of life and religion during a time of national change range from tender to comical. She speaks warmly of her love for her brother and her frustration with the young white girls. It is sweet to see the growing up process taking affect and the experiences of youth shaping her character.

I am somewhat relieved that we were not permitted to read this book back in my high school literature class where many parents were opposed to it. I fear it would have caught me off guard in many respects. Many of the sexual themes running throughout the book are quite heavy and discussed in detail. Both the subjects of rape and teen pregnancy are covered and sex in general is frequently alluded to.

Though I do perceive this as a lovely piece of literature, I would be cautious in offering it to teens and others who may be unprepared for its impact.

Editorial Review:

2 CDs / 3 hours
Read by the Author, Maya Angelou

Also available on cassette

Superbly told--with the poet's gift for language and observation, and charged with the unforgettable emotion of remembered anguish and love--this remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are unaware of.

The Night before Christmas

Clement C Moore

List Price: $14.95 By: Longstreet Press Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $2.35

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 48 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Two boys' review: Hollywoodesque and distracting illustrations 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The 5-star reviews for this book ignore the fact that Jan Brett's illustrations are Hollywoodesque and distracting from the classic poem itself. Betraying the golden rule -- If it isn't broken, don't fix it -- Brett inserts in to additional characters. Nearly a third of the book features two unnamed elves who play with the toys and generally cause havoc on the roof as Santa fills the stockings.

Instead of enhancing Clement Moore's poem, the illustrations scream for attention. The effect drowns out the lyrical quality of this classic story. Often on facing pages you are bombarded with two full-page illustrations bookended by six additional panels, three on each side. Your eyes can only skip and stutter across the pages or risk losing any semblance of a storyteller's cadence.

This book was especially disappointing because earlier during that same bedtime reading session we enjoyed Christmas Magic by Sue Stainton and illustrated by Eva Melhuish. That book is an excellent example of how the marriage of story and illustrations can work magic for children.

I wrote a 5-star review for a beautiful version of Clement Moore's The Night Before Christmas illustrated by Douglas W. Gorsline and recommend you buy that book instead. Don't give up hunting for an out-of-print copy, if necessary. Gorsline's illustrations are heartwarming and true to the original poem.

Editorial Review:

This beloved Christmas classic is illustrated here by popular twentieth-century folk artist Howard Finster.

Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems

Mark Doty

Amazon Price: $10.87 List Price: $15.99 Not yet published By: Harper Perennial

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A quintessential poetry experience.......a must have for any serious reader or writer of contemporary American poetry! 5 out of 5 stars.
24 of 24 people found this review helpful.

Mark Doty is one poet who continually astonishes me. I read his work and am always swept up in his lush vocabulary, the musicality of his language, the richness of details in the images he creates of the natural world. Suddenly, I realize, usually with an audible gasp, that he has taken me somewhere unexpected; he led me gently somewhere I can make meaning in a much more personal context. One way he does this, I believe, is by giving the reader emotional distance by using metaphors so deftly and so subtly. The reader finds beauty even in the darkest places.

Doty is the poet who led me to poetry, and I do believe that "Fire to Fire" is the book I'd take to the proverbial "desert island" with me. I've reread his paperback titles so many times that they are nearly disintegrating. After reading "Pipistrelle," "The Green Crab's Shell," "The Source," and so many other new and old favorites all beautifully bound in this hard cover volume, I do believe I'm doing triple lutzes! I'm off the ground!

This book is a must-have for anyone who reads, collects, and studies contemporary American poetry.

Editorial Review:

Mark Doty's Fire to Fire collects the best of Mark Doty's seven books of poetry, along with a generous selection of new work. Doty's subjects—our mortal situation, the evanescent beauty of the world, desire's transformative power, and art's ability to give shape to human lives—echo and develop across twenty years of poems. His signature style encompasses both the plainspoken and the artfully wrought; here one of contemporary American poetry's most lauded, recognizable voices speaks to the crises and possibilities of our times.

True lies

Philip Ross

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 217 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Gordon Street? Sid once benched with Arnold on Gordon Street, but that was a long time ago when Sid was a young man 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

True Lies has long been on the Sid the Elf back-burner. It was on the list of films that must be reviewed at some point, and kind of became an emergency B. It was like the Vinny Testaverde of B, weren't too excited to use it because of the apparent clumsiness involved, but if first and second options failed, you might be ok going with it. Well, we officially went into emergency B mode this week so we went with True Lies. It turns out that we were exactly right, there was a ton of clumsiness to endure, but in the end Sid came out ok. Really, you're never in bad hands with Arnold. If Amazon had his California tourism commercials on DVD, we'd not only review them, we'd give them 5 stars. The point is, we could get a laugh or a hundred out of Arnold saying anything at all. True lies was no exception.

In this film, Arnold plays super terrific secret agent Harry Tasker. Tasker's family believes he is a computer salesman, that he loves the computer business, and that he is an incredibly boring person. His mission is to track down nuclear warheads stolen by an arms smuggler from Kazakhstan. We were blown away when we learned that Borat's country was prominently involved in this film. So Arnold goes to a party at the arms dealer's house where he meets Cassandra from Wayne's World 2. She is an antique dealer who is using her business as a front to smuggle the warheads for Aziz the leader of a terrorist organization into U.S. and A, greatest country in the world. Once Arnold starts poking around the situation, Aziz decides to follow him. Arnold, of course, is much too smart for this. He leads Aziz into a mall where he procedes to catch him with the front and make Aziz blead inside his chest. Aziz manages to get away on a motorcycle, being chased by Arnold on a horse. A terribly B action sequence ensues and Aziz gets away. Just great B all-around, trust us.

Arnold then finds out that his wife, Laurie Strode, is having a kind of affair with a guy named Simon, who is a B version of Lester Diamond. This is the intentional comedy part of the film with Arnold using secret agent methods to track Simon and his wife. Simon pretends to be a spy to get chicks. Harry and his sidekick, Tom Arnold, kidnap Laurie and interigate her through a one-way mirror. They find out that Mrs. Tasker hasn't done anything with Simon Diamond, but that she is bored with Harry and craves adventure. So Harry gives her a fake assignment, which entails her going to a hotel room and getting ready to have a sexy time with a supposed stranger, even though it was really Arnold doing soundboard in the shadows. Anyway, the terrorists bust into the hotel room and take Harry and Helen prisioner. Some of the most ridiculous action sequences ever filmed ensue, including the famous Arnold iso-rowing Jamie Lee Curtis from the limo to the helicopter scene. So he just saved his wife from the terrorists, now they have kidnapped his daughter. Harry's daughter is played by a young Eliza Dushku. In case you were wondering, the ruling on the field is that it is ok to think she's hot here--moving on. She manages to get the arming key for the missles and has Aziz chase her onto the top of a skyscraper. Arnold flies to her in a marine jet and has her jump in. Ok. Aziz manages to jump onto the plane as well, but he is hanging from a missle. So Arnold fires the missle into a helicopter carrying the other terrorists and kills them all. That encapsulates why Sid believes Arnold should be the sole exception to the law stating the president must be born in the U.S. At the end of the film, we see that Arnold and Jamie Lee are now secret agent partners as they go off to a mission together.

This film was an action-comedy(both intentional and unintentional), by James Cameron. We liked it, but we also lost interest in the second half of the film. Maybe we just couldn't resist the lure of the Arnold soundboard after listening to him for a solid 45 minutes. Maybe it was only enjoyable after doing a unit in the bushes and making countless "Good. Now we are having fun" jokes and assesing the parallels of the film with Wayne's World 2 because of Charlton Heston and Tia Carrere. If you're an Arnold fan, it's certainly a must. You can always laugh at Arnold and as a bonus, you can make fun of Tom Arnold and his "I can't believe they gave me this part!" glow throughout the film. This film isn't the Governator's best work, but it did just fine in a B pinch. Without hesitation, Sid recomends.

Red Bird: Poems

Mary Oliver

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Red bird came all winter / firing up the landscape / as nothing else could." So begins Mary Oliver's twelfth book of poetry, and the image of that fiery bird stays with the reader, appearing in unexpected forms and guises until, in a postscript, he explains himself: "For truly the body needs / a song, a spirit, a soul. And no less, to make this work, / the soul has need of a body, / and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable / beauty of heaven / where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes, / and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart."

This collection of sixty-one new poems, the most ever in a single volume of Oliver's work, includes an entirely new direction in the poet's work: a cycle of eleven linked love poems—a dazzling achievement. As in all of Mary Oliver's work, the pages overflow with her keen observation of the natural world and her gratitude for its gifts, for the many people she has loved in her seventy years, as well as for her disobedient dog, Percy. But here, too, the poet's attention turns with ferocity to the degradation of the Earth and the denigration of the peoples of the world by those who love power. Red Bird is unquestionably Mary Oliver's most wide-ranging volume to date.

"Mary Oliver has done it again. She has assembled a collection of poems that is moving, intense and evocative in its engagement of the natural world. Yet this latest book by the Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winner is distinctive among her 17 volumes for the dark undercurrent that runs through the poems . . . the hard lesson that this earth is fallen and fragile, now more than ever, and unless we learn to cherish the world, we will destroy it . . . The song Mary Oliver sings in Red Bird is the song she has always sung, but now more urgent, more needful, more true."
—Angela O'Donnell, America magazine, April 28, 2008

"Last April, Book Sense's poetry bestseller list included two titles by Billy Collins. This year the Top 5 can be summed up in six words: Mary Oliver, Mary Oliver, Mary Oliver. Oliver's impressive feat reflects both an enduring popularity and an unparalleled ability to touch readers on a deep, almost primal level."
—Elizabeth Lund, The Christian Science Monitor, April 15, 2008

"Mary Oliver celebrates the creatures she observes on Cape Cod in "Red Bird" (Beacon), her 17th book of poetry. A longtime resident of Provincetown, Oliver, at 72, is among the nation's most popular poets . . . Oliver's grief ripples through the book, as does an unwavering sense of gratitude for the moment, the memories, and her trusty dog, Percy."
—Jan Gardner, Boston Globe, April 13, 2008

"Mary Oliver is 70 years old and still 'in love with life' and 'still full of beans' as she notes in 'Self-Portrait.' She savors the ocean, visits a graveyard, salutes a red bird in winter, heeds the invitation of a group of goldfinches to attend their performance, and finds lessons in teachings of an owl and a mockingbird. We depend on this poet for her hallowings in the animal kingdoms. We look to her for a reverence that lifts up and celebrates the little things in nature."
—Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & Practice, April 9, 2008

"In Red Bird, Oliver maintains the lyrical connection to the natural world that has made her work so popular. But in the new book she speaks even more loudly than usual against mankind's growing list of abuses of the planet, while celebrating such seemingly ordinary creatures as crows."
—Poets & Writers, March/April 2008

"One of few avidly read living poets, Oliver revels in the beauty of the living world, and takes to heart its lessons in patience and pleasure, cessation and renewal. As piercingly observant as ever in this substantial and forthright collection, Oliver is rhapsodic."
—Donna Seaman, Booklist, March 1, 2008

"Mary Oliver, who won the Pultizer Prize in poetry, is my choice for her joyous, accessible, intimate observations of the natural world . . . She teaches us the profound act of paying attention—a living wonder that makes it possible to appreciate all the others."
—Renee Loth, Boston Globe

"It has always seemed . . . that Mary Oliver might leave us any minute. Even a 1984 Pulitzer Prize couldn't pin her to the ground. She'd change quietly into a heron or a bear and fly or walk off forever."
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

"'My work is loving the world,' Oliver tells us . . . She has always done that work . . . in poems of considerable beauty. Now she rises, not above the world, but through it."
—Jay Parini, The Guardian

Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman

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Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A looser 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I bought this and returned it. There must be someone out there with the right voice and reading skills to bring us Whitman's words and rhythms. Ms. Gibson's soprano sing-song doesn't make it.

Not the 1855 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

At least as available for the Kindle, this is not the 1855 edition. It seems to be the final edition, which is of course great, but not what I intended to get based on the product description posted. Also, the foreward and afterward mentioned in the description are missing. I don't expect the moon for a low price, but I do expect to get what I pay for.

Editorial Review:

Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, contained twelve long untitled poems, but Whitman continued to expand it throughout his life. Whitman's poetry was unprecedented in its unapologetic joy in the physical and its inextricable link to the spiritual. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to him: "I am very happy in reading [Leaves of Grass], as great power makes us happy ... I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be."

Thirst: Poems

Mary Oliver

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Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Now in paperback: the national bestseller from the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet

"To read Thirst, Mary Oliver's most recent book of poems, is to feel gratitude for the simple fact of being alive." —Angela O'Donnell, America Magazine

Thirst, a collection of forty-three new poems from Pulitzer Prize–winner Mary Oliver, introduces two new directions in the poet's work. Grappling with grief at the death of her beloved partner of over forty years, she strives to experience sorrow as a path to spiritual progress, grief as part of loving and not its end. And within these pages she chronicles for the first time her discovery of faith, without abandoning the love of the physical world that has been a hallmark of her work for four decades.

"Mary Oliver moves by instinct, faith, and determination. She is among our finest poets, and still growing."
—Alicia Ostriker, The Nation

"It has always seemed, across her [many] books of poetry, . . . that Mary Oliver might leave us at any minute. Even a 1984 Pulitzer Prize couldn't pin her to the ground. She'd change quietly into a heron or a bear and fly or walk on forever."
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

"'My work is loving the world,' Oliver tells us….She has always done that work…in poems of considerable beauty. Now she rises, not above the world, but through it."
—Jay Parini, The Guardian, 10/6/2007

"Mary Oliver is, to my mind, one of the most gifted American poets working in English today. In her hands, the language acquires a lucidity approaching translucence; the accuracy of her vision and the precision of her voice are unique in their refreshing simplicity. Perhaps most singular is the tendency of her poems to be at once powerful and appealing; an affection for the natural world and a sympathy toward the reader abide."
—Katherine Hollander, Pleiades, Fall 2007

"To read Thirst is to feel gratitude for the simple fact of being alive. This is not surprising, as it is the effect [Oliver's] best work has produced in readers for the past 43 years."
—Angela O'Donnell, America magazine

"'My work is loving the world.' That first line of 'Messenger,' the first poem in Mary Oliver's new collection Thirst (Beacon Press), names what she does better than any other poet writing today. Just as Joan Didion's memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, which had a similar 'occasion,' was arguably her best work ever, so is Thirst Oliver's."
—Tim Pfaff, Bay Area Reporter, 1/11/07