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- Poets of the New Century
- Errors and Angels: Poems by Maureen Bloomfield (James Dickey Contemporary Poetry S.)
- Growing Back: Poems, 1972-92 (James Dickey Contemporary Poetry S.)
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- From the Bones Out (James Dickey Contemporary Poetry S.)
- Badge No. 160 and Other Poems
- Poems (Shambhala Pocket Classics)
- The Spring of My Life: And Selected Haiku
- River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko
- After Ikkyu and Other Poems
- Look! This Is Love: Poems of Rumi
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- The Rain of Wisdom: The Essence of the Ocean of True Meaning
- The Pocket Rumi Reader (Shambhala Classics S.)
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Average customer rating:
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
- Provocative, appealing and controversial
- pharaohs lived in the 3rd century AD
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
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Similar Items:
- History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
- Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History And Legends, Unearthed And Explored
- Before the Pharaohs: Egypt's Mysterious Prehistory
- Forbidden History: Prehistoric Technologies, Extraterrestrial Intervention, and the Suppressed Origins of Civilization
- They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies
ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Provocative, appealing and controversial.......2006-08-02
Fomenko has succeeded to convincingly demonstrate the misconception about what "history" factually is... It is fiction and -like we can read and judge for ourselves- no science. It indeed is "make belief" only. I "discovered" Fomenko while studying the "old" history of Al Andaluz, Spain. Having found too many contradictions in available data, having seen too many forgeries as to pretend the importance of christianity for its decline, I ventured out to find Fomenko, who convinced me that we know little if anything for sure of the epoch before the XI-century. However, the integration of the Arabic-Islamic cultural history into the heavily distorted Western fails... There are some attempts to fit "the budding new religion" (Islam) into Fomenko's scheme, but they are too weak to be taken seriously and too often focussing on Turkey as the region where things started to influence the West, which is untrue at all.
Islam certainly was no "new religion" in the X-century. That the highly cultivated Al Andaluz ruler Mohammed-I could have been "mirrored" down in time into some myth about the "illiterate" founder of Islam itself is highly speculative. Nevertheless, Fomenko convinces me about the processes that were involved in forging a christian history. Intriguing and controversial as his books are, I recommend them as to rethink our current position in time and space and simply verify what was claimed. It is a "good" book, but not for bedtime reading... Mundus vult decipi, the world wants to be cheated. Fomenko's readers will understand why.
pharaohs lived in the 3rd century AD.......2006-02-16
Traces of white wine were found in Tutankhamen's tomb however there were no record of white wine in Egypt until the 3rd century AD, 1600 years after the young pharaoh died according to the traditional chronology. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18925395.400
It can be interpreted as a contribution towards New Chronology theory that pharaohs lived in the 3rd century AD.
Average customer rating:
- A memoir that should be required reading...
- Waste of a year
- one of the best memoirs i've read
- Interesting
- I think this one is telling the truth.
|
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir
Nick Flynn
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
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- Possible Side Effects
- Sellevision: A Novel
- Magical Thinking : True Stories
- A Working Stiff's Manifesto: A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember
- Dry: A Memoir
ASIN: 0393329402 |
Book Description
"A stunningly beautiful new memoir…a near-perfect work of literature."—Stephen Elliot, San Francisco Chronicle
"Sometimes I'd see my father, walking past my building on his way to another nowhere. I could have given him a key, offered a piece of my floor. But if I let him inside the line between us would blur, my own slow-motion car wreck would speed up."
Nick Flynn met his father for the third time when he was twenty-seven years old, working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Nick, his own life precariously unsettled, was living alternately in a ramshackle boat and in a warehouse that was once a strip joint. In bold, dazzling prose, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (a phrase Flynn senior uses to describe his life on the streets) tells the story of two lives and the trajectory that led Nick and his father into that homeless shelter, onto those streets, and finally to each other. With a new postscript for the paperback edition.
Customer Reviews:
A memoir that should be required reading..........2007-06-27
This memoir should be required reading for any urban dweller - or anyone in the United States for that matter. It is rare that an author so shamelessly portrays the homeless and their plight without editorializing the reasons behind their situation or waxing grandiose or pathetic. It is honest, painful and vivid. I am so thankful to have read this novel.
Waste of a year.......2007-06-12
I have spent over a year trying to read this book, I finally gave up today on page 212, I just couldn't go on. I've read some bad book in my time but this was just painful. It's hard to invest time into something when you could care less about the characters. I was lucky someone gave me the book; at least I didn't have to pay for it. Personally I would not recommend this book to anyone. I cannot find any reason for anyone to waste there time with it. I'm just sorry I wasted as much time as I did with it.
one of the best memoirs i've read.......2007-06-08
This is seriously one of the best memoirs i've ever read.
Interesting.......2007-06-03
A pretty well written memoir. Like many books these days, I do wish the editor had cut more carefully.
I think this one is telling the truth........2006-07-12
With so many memoir writers being exposed as fiction writers these days, Flynn is writing the truth. There is a lack of narrative flow in this book--it's told in fits and starts, and no one is especially prettied or uglied up for the story's sake. Also, his self-awareness and self-assessment are brutally honest. He's as clear about what he doesn't feel as what he does. He stands back and marvels at his own ability to let his father keep falling, and that's the most realistic part of all. I didn't like the Santa part, but most of the stylistically risky writing worked for me. The humor is deadpan, the characters real, in that they don't seem to be trotted out as stock characters. This is a good one, folks.
Average customer rating:
- Poetry at its best
- An amazing read
|
On Desert Trails With Everett Ruess
Manufacturer: Gibbs Smith, Publisher
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Similar Items:
- Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty/ Wilderness Journals Combination Edition
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- Soul of Nowhere
ASIN: 0879058250 |
Book Description
9X12 In, 96 Pp, 45 Black & White Illustrations We Are Proud To Introduce This Handsome Commemorative Edition of On Desert Trails With Everett Ruess (First Introduced In Our 60, 000 Copy A Vagabond For Beauty), Which Was Originally Published In 1940 and Has Since Become A Collector's Item. The Poetry, Letters, and Artwork Contained In This Book Reveal The Adventurous Young Artist Who Loved The Arid Wilderness and Disappeared Into The Desert of Southern Utah. To The Original Book We Have Added Many Photographs of Ruess On The Trail, Along With Others Taken By Ruess of The Land That So Inspired Him. A Special Appenidx Tells The Salt Lake Tribune's Account of Its 1935 Expedition To Southern Utah In Search of Everett Ruess.
Customer Reviews:
Poetry at its best.......2005-02-03
Everett Ruess is a marvelously gifted poet. He writes in elegant lines teeming with passionate imagery. "Wilderness Song" is the most incredible piece and describes nature at its fullest. Any poet can write beautiful lines, but Ruess writes with soul, the soul of an aficianado of the wilderness.
An amazing read.......2004-06-23
A chilling voice out of the past from one who loved wilderness so much he vanished without a trace in it. I am hard pressed to come up with a book or person who was able to articulate the beauty around him more than Everett Ruess. In a tragic twist this lover of the purity nature gave and continues to give a painter's perspective in words to the American west despite the mysterious circumstances surrounding his disappearance. He left behind not only the beautiful writings of a master (and at such a young age) but also a mysterious tale of intrigue that leaves people guessing to this very day. Was he a victim of murder or did his love for wilderness drive him into the vast unknown to live out his days in the peaceful tranquility only nature can provide? Buy the book and formulate your own opinions. I highly recommend it.
Average customer rating:
- Sad story, but a real one
- "Black Dogof Fate" Is a Fuzzy Grey Beast at Best
- "AFTER LONG SILENCE"
- An Average Book/An Important Story
- beautiful memoir
|
Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past
Peter Balakian
Manufacturer: Broadway
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Similar Items:
- The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response
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ASIN: 0767902548
Release Date: 1998-05-04 |
Amazon.com
The author of four volumes of verse, Peter Balakian writes with the precision of a poet and the lyricism of a privileged suburban child in 1950s New Jersey. He is shadowed by his relatives' carefully guarded memories of past trauma: the brutal Turkish extermination in 1915 of more than a million Armenians, including most of his maternal grandmother's family. Balakian seamlessly interweaves personal and historical material to depict one young man's reclamation of his heritage and to scathingly indict the political forces that conspired to sweep under the rug the 20th century's first genocide.
Book Description
The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia and immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced--the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians in 1915, including many of Balakian's relatives, in the century's first genocide.
In elegant, moving prose,
Black Dog of Fate charts Balakian's growth and personal awakening to the facts of his family's history and the horrifying aftermath of the Turkish government's continued campaign to cover up one of the worst crimes ever committed against humanity. In unearthing the secrets of a family's past and how they affect its present, Black Dog of Fate gives fresh meaning to the story of what it means to be an American.
Customer Reviews:
Sad story, but a real one.......2006-12-20
The story of the author's grandmother is the same as the story my grandmother told me. Yes, her entire family was killed by the Turks. As a small child, I attended the Armenain school where all of us would compare stories as to how our grandparents survived the death marches. It is a very nice story that tells about history, a history that is kept hidden for many political reasons. Until the world fully ackhowledges what happened to the Armenians, and punishes the Turks, many more genocides and attorcities will take place. After all, if the Turks can get away with the torture, killing, rapes, and genocide (while countries such as the United States let them get away with it), then other similar regimes will committ similar attorcities.
I storngly recommend this book.
"Black Dogof Fate" Is a Fuzzy Grey Beast at Best .......2005-05-24
Peter Balakian's book, "Black Dog of Fate," tries to be too many things
and sadly fails at many of them. In essence, it is an attempt to tell a
sort of Armenian-American story which I find not overly interesting or
compelling. I wish the author had done a bit more in-depth work to learn
about his people and their rich heritage before embarking to represent it
or explain it or share it with non-Armenians, for he has much more to absorb
and understand himself first. I find the Armenianness in this book to be
tentative, unengaged and unconvincing. Pity, since the author seems to
have a lot of passion in his pursuit of other aspects of his life such as
football, the Yankees, modern poetry, and exposing Turkish attempts to
buy (among others) Princeton professors to act as mouthpieces giving
legitimacy to their vile historical revisionism, practiced by the
"modern" Turkish state and its organs.
It seems to be all the rage these days to elevate personal histories and
family testimonials into the realm of fiction and novels. The "I" and "we"
and "us" occupy center stage and the reader is invited to enjoy the
intimacy that must surely be in place via this artifice. But is it realy?
Since in order to make this legitimate, the writer must distance himself,
at least initially, from all this old world exotica, and like the reader,
question their validity or relevance in present day North American
society. What are all these old world, old fashioned ghosts and traditions?,
is the first cry of writer and reader alike, only, ofcourse, to be followed
by a sharp bank turn where the writer steers the satisfied and in-place
reader towards the opposite viewpoint wherein *this* culture and *this*
lifestyle become suspect in light of some tentative spotting of cultural
wealth that has been traded in or abandoned in order to swim swiftly towards
materialistic, memory-free, self-redefining, "comfort" seeking and buying
mores.
In the Balakian tale, one encounters suburbia instead of substance,
worldly goods acquisition instead of deep roots that steady the soul,
immediate family and relatives running away from their true identities either
towards surrealism, the abstract and unemotional, or else towards medicine,
respectability and detachment. Young Balakian observes but never
understands "the grandmother" for she is shielded culturally from being
able to reach him by her very offsprings who can not and will not instill
the Armenian identity he will eventually seek but never quite find. Their
crime is self-denial and a march to the tune of America's mixmaster
piper. "Be unlike your past and your future will be brighter," seems to be
what America promises, at the very least. The intermediate generation listens
and adopts this credo and Peter is left to find out but never quite
understand just what cost his ancestors have paid to remain Armenian and
to preserve our culture before the final denials on New Jersey pateos while
enjoying, as if to serve sweet irony, full course Armenian meals and the
mixing aromas of delicacies from the old country every Sunday.
Peter is lost alright, but as the book sadly shows, he remains lost.
Paraphrasing or quoting Ambassador Morgenthau does not an Armenian genocide
expert make. Personal family testimonials of the Turkish atrocities does
not a genocide history make (For that, read Vahakn Dadrian's "The History
of the Armenian Genocide" Berghahn Books, 1995). Episodic accounts can be
dismissed by the Turks as hear-say and as mere isolated incidents, leading
to more harm than good (for if better evidence existed, the arguement
goes, why would anyone resort to such flimsy fare?). For the story to have
worked, for the story to have *really* worked, as I would have liked it to,
Balakian's life and lifestyle would have had to have changed
significantly and his child rearing practices would have had to reflect
it, and his relationship with his wife who, like him, is not leading a strongly
Armenian existence, would have had to have changed, solidifying his roots,
celebrating his new found identity, and nurturing the metamorphosis by
sustained community involvment and grass roots movement participation
which, alas, never appear on the pages of this book. How else to explain
the lack of a turning around of the tide of assimilation to which Balakian
is a grand personal witness, except that the transition has not occured?
The ship of Armenianness sails by Balakian. He is finally aware enough to
be able to identify the ship and wave it goodbye and write about it, but
not resolved enough to climb aboard. That is how the book fails and that is
how his story fails. This is a story of assimilation and loss with a bit of
mid stream self awareness thrown in. For a real story of an Armenian
finding his roots and letting them take root in his own life and future,
read Mark Arax's book, "In my Father's Name (Simon & Schuster, 1996),"
where the transition is real and the early youth of disaffection is
replaced by a profound adoption of our essence revealed in exquisite
frankness and power by Mark Arax. One can only hope that Balakian's
partial reorientation towards our culture and traditions and essence will
somehow continue and that some day he will wish to live with a more meaningful
attachment to our cause and needs than merely as an able observer (not
withstanding his laudible actions as an April 24th -- Armenian genocide
commemoration speaker and an exposer of Turkish infiltration in the US
academic arena by buying spokesmen turned professors who mascarade as
unbiased researchers). This criticism I direct to the predecessor of this
genre of American Armenian writing first and to Balakian second. I speak
here of "passage to Ararat" by Michael Arlen (Hungry Mind republication,
1996) where a disinterested soit-disant Armenian goes to Armenia in the
70's and by the end of the short trip is somewhat more closely touched by
this strange people's woes and dreams. Too little, too late, and always
detached, is all I can say to these meagre displays of ethnic or cultural
reorientation. Much more needs to be absorbed before the essence is
transmitted to future generations to take and behold.
However, I remain hopeful that future transformatory stories and ethnic
identity survival stories *will be* written which will show that the tide
of assimilation and cultural abandonment are not the only outcome of this
experiment of transplanting peoples and cultures to this continent we
proudly call our home.
"AFTER LONG SILENCE".......2004-12-07
'Speech after long silence; it is right...'-William Butler Yeats
I have had this line from Yeats' poem in my mind as I've been reflecting on the contents of this book by Peter Balakian written in 1997. (This book was rated one of the best books of 1997 by the LA Times, Publisher's weekly and Library Journal.) I've read about Armenian history as I made many acquaintances of Armenians in the Boston area where I lived. I've put off reading this book because I thought the information would not be new since I've read The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Balakian's 2003 book The Burning Tigris, and Bat Ye'Or's book Islam and Dhimmitude. However, I loved this book even though some of the same information is found in The Burning Tigris. This book is different however. The Burning Tigris is history, The Black Dog of Fate is personal history of great relevance for today. It's a memoir of not only Balakian's life, but also his family's life during his lifetime and their past before he was born. The book is divided into 6 sections. The first three are devoted to his grandmother, his mother, his father. The last 3 cover his gradual understanding of his ancestors' trials and tribulations, their ancient history. Armenia was the first nation to embrace christianity as their official religion in the third century. An editor of Josephus notes that an early church father and mystic, Moses Chorensis, wrote that a tribe of jews designated Bagratidae migrated to Armenia during the time of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, the time of the destruction of Solomon's temple in 586 B.C. Although his family never talked about the genocide, he became curious by the very circumstances of his family. He never knew his grandfathers. He later comes to realize that his grandfathers suffered the common fate of many Armenian men during the Great War (WWI). The turkish gendarmes in charge of "protecting" the Armenians during their forced march routinely shot Armenian men in the back of the head killing them instantly. Other Armenian men attempted to disguise themselves as women to foil the Turks' bloody target practice. When his father suggested to him that he do a school report on Armenia, he chose to write about Turkey because he could not find any information about Armenia.
His fondest memories were of his grandmother telling him stories which began with the Armenian "djamangeen gar oo chagar", in English, there was and there wasn't. One of her stories was an Armenian parable about a poor woman and her black dog offering to God probably modeled after Christ's parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. Her stories are similar to any immigrant to America from their old, peasant countries. Peter Balakian was a second generation American; his parents were adamant that their children live as Americans, yet their Armenian culture is distinctive and is not totally erased by embracing the American one. Many Americans should be able to relate to this in some way since nearly all of our ancestors were immigrants at some time.
Peter Balakian is an English Professor at Colgate University, his aunt at Columbia University, both of whom also write poetry. Being able to write about history and making it interesting is not an easy task; I was impressed by his writing in The Burning Tigris, he kept my attention the whole time. I highly recommend this book and I highly recommend this book for book clubs in that the subject matter is very relevant to today, Armenia's history instructive in so many ways.
'Speech after long silence; it is right...'. The Armenian genocide happened almost 100 years ago, his grandmother one of the survivors. He comes to realize that for her to have spoken openly about it was probably much to much painful for her. He finds out later from his aunts that following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, her psyche was set into a tailspin. She suffered a nervous breakdown. That act of terrorism too much like the violence that she lived through. Strangely, the Turkish government today cannot come to terms with the truth about events of 1915 and goes so far as to influence governments and Ivy League Universities by contradicting the massive documentary evidence that exists confirming the atrocities and claiming that there is another side of the story that needs to be told. However, there is not much to discuss when you see mounds of bodies, women and innocent children, with an armed man capped with a blood-red pillbox hat standing right by. Strange that they cannot speak the truth, one hundred years later.
An Average Book/An Important Story.......2004-07-03
Until the end of our days, we will hurt each other for no reason. Hate our neighbors because they exist. Kill strangers without conscience. Why? Because we're barbaric? Are we naturally predisposed to evil deeds in order to keep the population boom in hand? Why in the world should I ever have to come across a story that chronicles the unknown hatred of one civilization to another? I should not have had to read this book because the reason for it written should never have happened.
Black slavery is the second-most despicable atrocity the United States has ever known. I say second-most because at least most lives of black people were spared so that this country could be built on the strength of their backs. No, the worst thing to happen to America was the inhuman treatment and near total destruction of the Native Americans.
Everybody knows the story.
No act of horror is more documented than the Jews being decimated at the hands of Nazi cavemen. Misguided into thinking that they were elite. Bombings, horrible experiments, endless gunfire, starvation, gas chambers, ovens made for cooking...people. A blight on the face of a planet replete with a history of destruction and malicious intent.
Maybe you've heard of it.
But "Black Dog Of Fate" tells another version of terror and hate. It's a story you've heard a thousand times but from the mouth of a different victim. Another voice. It very vividly tells us about the Armenian genocide, allegedly at the hands of the Turkish government. What begins as a memoir about young Balakian growing up in an Armenian family, yet doing his darnedest to stay waist-deep in the pool of Americana, becomes a quest of an adult Peter searching for his roots. The lives and deaths of his people.
To this day the Turks deny that they almost wiped out an entire civilization and I'm no one to argue here nor there. But the evidence, the painful words from those who were there, that escaped - it's like a whirlwind of torment to the ears and eyes of those who will listen and learn. But nobody knows anything about this stain on humanity because very few victims lived to tell about it and literally none of the suspects will atone for their crimes.
This is one of many novels that will endear and enlighten. My only real gripes are that it becomes a tad preachy (though it hardly cannot be) and it's two stories, two tones in the same book. It starts out a little happy-go-lucky. Somewhat light-hearted and sometimes funny for the first half. Then, things take a 180 and it's all out depressing. The entire second half of the book is killing and shooting and stealing and just plain bleak. Sometimes life has to be that way but as a reader it was a bit overwhelming.
And it's supposed to be. Lucky me. I just read it. Too many people lived it. You read it too. And talk about it. Because not enough people know.
beautiful memoir.......2003-06-17
This is a wonderful book, it made me cry, one of the best memoirs I have read and I highly recomend it.
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- The great critic of our age
- To the Dark Tower
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A Map of Misreading: With a New Preface
Harold Bloom
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0195162218 |
Book Description
In print for twenty-seven years, A Map of Misreading serves as a companion volume to Bloom's other seminal work, The Anxiety of Influence. Bloom offers instruction in how to read a poem, using his theory that patterns of imagery in poems represent both a response to and a defense against the influence of precursor poems. Influence, as Bloom conceives it, means that there are no texts, but only relationships between texts. Bloom discusses British and American poets including Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Warren, Ammons and Ashbery. A full-scale reading of one poem, Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", represents this struggle between one poet and his precursors, the poem serving as a map for readers through the many versions of influence from Milton to modern poets. For the first time, in a new preface, Bloom will consider the map of misreading drawn by contemporary poets such as Ann Carson and Henri Cole. Bloom's new exploration of contemporary poetry over the last twenty years will illuminate how modern texts relate to previous texts, and contribute to the literary legacy of their predecessors.
Customer Reviews:
The great critic of our age .......2005-11-29
Harold Bloom is the great literary critic of our age. His passion for reading is felt in every line he writes. This does not mean that his lead- ideas as the 'anxiety of influence' and 'map of misreading' are to be taken uncritically, but rather that they ordinarily lead him to ' open up the texts' in new ways, making surprising and interesting connections.
To the Dark Tower.......2000-07-12
After shaking up the academic world with his "theoretical" "Anxiety of Influence", Bloom begins to settle into what would prove his proper mode--the discursive literary essay. "A Map of Misreading" centers upon Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (one of Bloom's touchstones for his theories) as the perfect example of the latecomer Romantic poet struggling against his precursors. It is Bloom's wonder and love of this poem that is on display here as much as "proof" of his theory.
What is most evident in all of Bloom's books, and what is most important, is an obvious passion for reading (reading anything and everything). Bloom ranges across British and American Poets to discover how poems struggle against other poems. But, frankly, what I've always come away from a Bloom book with is a map of Bloom's misreadings that are worth a college education in and of themselves. We discover Emerson afresh and hear of Dutch Psychologist J. H. Van Den Berg, discover we must encounter Hans Jonas on Gnosticism and The Kabbalah of Isaac Luria(if we're to know anything of the roots of literary struggling against the precursor) and wish we'd memorized Paradise Lost. In short, for me, he encourages continued and life-long (mis)reading.
Average customer rating:
- Must read
- The journies of a Hero
- Great!!!!
- A wonderful memoir
- c.p.scottprosser
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The Big Sea: An Autobiography (American Century Series)
Langston Hughes
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ASIN: 0809015498 |
Book Description
Introduction by Arnold Rampersad.
Langston Hughes, born in 1902, came of age early in the 1920s. In The Big Sea he recounts those memorable years in the two great playgrounds of the decade--Harlem and Paris. In Paris he was a cook and waiter in nightclubs. He knew the musicians and dancers, the drunks and dope fiends. In Harlem he was a rising young poet--at the center of the "Harlem Renaissance."
Arnold Rampersad writes in his incisive new introduction to The Big Sea, an American classic: "This is American writing at its best--simpler than Hemingway; as simple and direct as that of another Missouri-born writer...Mark Twain."
Customer Reviews:
Must read.......2007-05-12
I read this as an assignment in college and found it wonderfully painful in its realism and truth. A must read for every American, regardless of what ethic origin.
The journies of a Hero.......2006-07-17
"On a radio show, he (Hughes) defended the right of trumpeter Louis Armstrong, who had long faced the white world with a broad grin, to vent his racial anger."
Like Armstrong, Hughes also faced the same world with his broad smile. Throughout the BIG SEA and I WONDER AS I WANDER, there in the texts of both autobiographies is the ever smiling Hughes. Other than the people he met and the foreign lands he visited---all making for great and entertaining reading--- very little is revealed about the man he was. His larger than life personae masked a man who was only 5'4 in stature, closeted gay
because being open would have meant a short career and ostracism, especially in the African American community who was a refuge from a racially hostile world and who Hughes loved with an unmatched passion back in his day, and, according to the late Gwendolyn Brooks who had known Hughes since the age of 16 wrote in a New York Times article that when Hughes was subjected to offense and icy treatment because of his race, he was capable of jagged anger - and vengeance, instant or retroactive. She has letters from him that reveal he could respond with real rage when he felt he was treated cruelly by other people.
Both autobiographies do a great job at documenting the world in Hughes' day. The most fascinating thing about the first book of his life is the Harlem Renaissance and the people who moved in it during its illustrious height. Till this day, the BIG SEA provides one of the best sources of this important period in American culture. Few people realized that if not for best friend Arna Bomtemps the autobiography may have never been written. Bontemps encouraged Hughes to write the book. Up to that time, few blacks, especially black males, had seen and done what Hughes managed to do. Plus, the book challenged stereotypes about black America in general. The challenge he had in writing the book was how to write for two audiences, white and black. Characteristically, Hughes did not pander to the white audience, "I do not hate `all' white people," nor did he distance himself from and sacrifice the racial pride his grandmother taught him to have for his people, who he primarily wrote for. In the second autobiography, Hughes is on the road again and much more time is given to his travels, especially in the then Soviet Union. Absent are his communist sympathies. Like many blacks of the day, socialism was preferable to segregation. Blatant is the unspoken critique that in the absence of capitalism, everyone man is "equal." As far as romance is concerned, scholars have noted Hughes'rather perfunctory and insincere rendezvous with the very few woman he talks about in these autobiographies. Quite understandably, Hughes attempts to pass himself off as having all the accoutrements of straight men. His situation with the over zealous Russian woman who he does not portray favorably in I WONDER AS I WANDER is interesting. She is portrayed as the Duboisian woman whose association with black men destroys them. Plus, Hughes did not favor interracial marriage so it is peculiar that he proffered the idea in the text of bring the Russian woman home as a wife as she wanted.
The above quote was from Volume 2 of Arnold Rampersad's biography of Hughes. What made Hughes' defense of Armstrong so intriguing is that Hughes also reveals much about himself and what lied behind the mask he wore. The readers of the BIG SEA and I WONDER AS I WANDER will not see the man behind the mask. They are largely presented surface, a fleeting glimpse of Hughes here and there. A scholar said to really understand Hughes, one must read Rampersad's two biographies. This scholar was partially right. But, don't dismiss these autobiographies! They are worth the read and are a enjoyable read. Time and interest permitting, do read LANGSTON HUGHES Vols. 1 and 2 by Rampersad for balance also read Faith Berry's LANGSTON HUGHES: BEFORE AND BEYOND HARLEM. Reading these latter biographies with the two autobiographies by Hughes, one will be presented the man Langston Hughes was: proudly African American, gay, brave, smart, ambitious, often very angry, and often lonely.
Hughes doesn't reveal much of himself, but his autobiographies are still 5 star ratings because like his work they continue to inspire and for everyone, especially young blacks in the inner city, let them know that they can overcome any obstacle in life so long as the desire and determination is there.
Great!!!!.......2005-09-27
Even though my book got lost in the mail, I was still able to get my money back. Thank you very much. I hope I have the chance to buy another book from you.
A wonderful memoir.......2003-12-04
Langston Hughes was a wonderful poet and story teller so it is not surprising that his autobiography/memoir is a joy to read. He tells the story of his life by giving us delightful episodes that each read like short stories. Each chapter has the structure of a short story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Along the way, the reader has to be amazed at the texture and breadth of his life adventures. He lives for a short time in Mexico with his father, in several cities with his mother and other relatives, and then his wonderful sea going adventures in Europe, Africa, and also his stay in Paris. The reader also gets a first hand glimpse of what it was like to be "Negro" in America as well as in other places in the world. The writing is bright and energetic and the book is very difficult to put down. I highly recommend it to anyone who might be thinking about writing an autobiography or memoir.
c.p.scottprosser.......2003-04-11
I thought that the story was realy nice.The charater had many changes to overcome. I like the way he through out his belongings, and started all over. He also was smart after releasing his emosions into the way to Africa.
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- Know Where We Stand, Then We Know Where We Are
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From Where We Stand: Recovering a Sense of Place
Deborah Tall
Manufacturer: Knopf
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0394577388
Release Date: 1993-05-18 |
Customer Reviews:
Know Where We Stand, Then We Know Where We Are.......2002-03-16
My understanding and practice of landscaping is limited to the home and garden variety. Even at this level of home maintenance my skills and interests are limited. And I should be vacationing at a national park, say, the Grand Canyon or Yosemite, I would be as Moses standing on Pisgah taking in the general effect of the scenery from a distance. It comes as an entirely new revelation then, for one to be connected to or be part of a landscape takes more than Scott's fertilizers for the lawn, bordered fences, or sightseeing the Yosemite Valley.
After accepting a teaching position at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the author and her poet husband make their home in the Finger Lakes Region at upstate New York. There, the author begins her interrogative journey on this vast landscape of terra incognita and eventually finding herself (and does her family) to belong to the land(scape) and not merely as a transient trampling through it with indifference.
The book is repleted with historical anecdotes, myths, and local interests. It's is not a technical tome about geography, history, and anthropology of the Finger Lakes. Rather, this is the author's journal of how she strives to be with the land upon she dwells. As the author discovers, the landscape is the embodied lessons of the past for the present, and instructions for the future. The scenery of a place is only a prop. Without a landscape there can be no scenery. And that what makes this book rare and instructive.
Deborah Hall's work has filled a void in my understanding of our culture. I now think more about the history, the town, and the neigbhorood (including neighbors) where I live. Perhaps too, I will come to know the land where I stand, and not just my own lawn.
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- a solid collection
- What a Small, Small World!
- An anthology of innovative, and exciting poetry
- An Impressive Collection
- a voice of reason
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Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century
Manufacturer: Sarabande Books
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ASIN: 1932511296 |
Book Description
This groundbreaking anthology offers a broad and representative introduction to some of the most exciting, fresh voices on the contemporary poetry landscape by gathering together generous selections from the work of 85 younger American poets.
The poets selected were born after 1960, published their first book within the last 10 years, and have no more than three books published. Some are the recipients of numerous awards, while others, who are making their first appearance, are quickly making significant contributions to twenty-first-century poetry.
The poets include Rick Barot, Joshua Beckman, David Berman, Nick Flynn, Matthea Harvey, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, James Kimbrell, D.A. Powell, Spencer Reece, Matthew Rohrer, Rebecca Wolff, Kevin Young, Matthew Zapruder, Andrew Zawacki, and many others.
Customer Reviews:
a solid collection.......2006-11-20
This book reminds me of the Poulin anthology. It seems to start where the Poulin leaves off, providing a look at the poets much too young and new to be included in any of Poulin's editions. Some of the writers in here are among the most notorious in their generation, the ones that seem to be winning honor after honor, but the book has some surprises as well: interesting poets I read for the first time include Sabrina Mark, Lisa Jarnot, and Julianne Buchsbaum. A lot of the bigger names too: Nick Flynn, Kevn Young, Natasha Trethewey. Some surprise omissions, but that's true of all anthologies. All in all, a pretty good intro to the poets who are probably well-known to many of their peers but not to us older folk. Definitely has more experimental poems than a lot of the big anthologies, but there's also a surprising number of writers using meter.
What a Small, Small World!.......2006-08-22
Iowa workshop anthology with a few other usual suspects as well as other signs of nepotism. How sad. Shuffle the pages and look at the cards: you've got only one suit.
An anthology of innovative, and exciting poetry.......2006-05-02
Legitimate Dangers: American Poets Of The New Century is an anthology of innovative, and exciting poetry. All the poets whose works were selected were born after 1960, did not publish their first book before 1995, and have no more than three books published. Though diverse in individual background and the manner in which they approach the craft of poetry, each has a unique voice and tone contributing to a singularly memorable and original omnibus. A black-and-white photograph of each poet precedes the selection of his or her works. Enthusiastically recommended for poetry lovers in search of fresh inspiration. Ars Poetica (the idea) by Dana Levin: would it wake the drowned out of their anviled sleep- / would it slip the sun like a coin behind their eyes- // The idea, the teacher said, was that there was a chaos / left in matter - a little bit of not-yet in everything that was- // so the poets became interested in fragments, interruptions- / the little bit of saying lit by the unsaid- // was it a way to stay alive, a way to keep hope, / leaving things unfinished? // as if in complete a sentence there was death-
An Impressive Collection.......2006-02-03
This is a beautiful-looking book, and I'm glad, because I can't put it down and have been carrying it around with me for two days and reading a new poet every chance I get.
Because I'm sort of new to reading and writing poetry, I can't pretend like I understand everything I have read in here, but the poems I like best make me question how I know what I know about them and what I feel after I've read them. I think a good poem is one that makes me react in a visceral way to it, like, A. Van Jordan's "Kind of Blue" or Major Jackson's "Euphoria." These poems make me think about things they don't mention, like darkness, cold, alienation, and despair, but also are often funny, warm, and occasionally sexy. To be honest, I do struggle to understand some of the poems, yet each feels important to the anthology as a whole.
Just because I don't "get" it immediately doesn't lessen its worth; it just makes me want to read it again. For instance, when I'm done with this review, I'm going to reread "The Elegant Tongue" by Terrance Hayes.
Every literary occasion will have its detractors, but I'm grateful to have the chance to read so many poems by writers I hadn't heard of before and will never forget.
a voice of reason.......2006-02-02
It should come as no surprise that a book called Legitimate Dangers would have a somewhat volatile effect. The world of poetry can often be a craven, petty, and divisive little industry, where people are more interested in attacking a new anthology than editing their own or actually writing a few good poems themselves. As someone who isn't part of any poetry coterie or underworld but who consumes as many books of poetry a year as I can stomach, I actually purchased this anthology and read it.
Many of the poems in here are fantastic. While the writers assembled have diverse aesthetic preferences (from the jazzy to the more formal, from the punky and edgy to the eloquent and mellifluous), for the most part, the poems themselves are meditative, lush, unsettling, and ambitious. Why pick on this particular anthology of younger poets and not another one? Have you read the book or are you merely disappointed that your friend's name isn't on the table of contents? William James said, "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." How many other anthologies are out there who are equally eager to introduce the general readership to the avant-garde stylings of Joshua Beckman, Christine Hume, Lisa Jarnot, and Joyelle McSweeney and to the clearly more traditional poems of Rick Barot, Spencer Reece, and Greg Williamson in the same volume?
This is not a comprehensive, democratic anthology, and it shouldn't be--it's already 500 pages long for crying out loud. If you read this book, chances are you'll discover some poems you like more than others. I did. That's true of any collection. This one happens to be filled to the brim with beautiful new writing. Is that such a bad thing?
Average customer rating:
- Depending on the reader...
- raving reality
- The Slam Bible, but not the Poetry Bible
- Poetry as Language
- Poetry Bible
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Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Nicole Blackman
Manufacturer: Owl Books
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- Verses That Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the POEMFONE Poets
- Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry
ASIN: 0805032576 |
Book Description
Compiled by poets who have been at the center of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City, Aloud! showcases the work of the most innovative and accomplished word artists from around America.
Customer Reviews:
Depending on the reader..........2007-05-27
I bought this anthology when I was really into performing, and watching performance poetry, SLAM, spoken word, whatever you want to call it. Even then I was disappointed. Perhaps I'm an elitist then, but I would have much rather this was a DVD, or a few CDs perhaps, but this work is meant to be performed, and on the page it just doesn't, well, perform, which is why, since my last move it hasn't made its way onto the bookshelf.
raving reality.......2006-03-09
Honest, deep, exciting. Thats what I found this collection to be.
The poets bare their souls, their opinions, their lives in an unflinching declaration of life. I loved it. I read and re-read it.
The Slam Bible, but not the Poetry Bible.......2005-08-13
Reading this stunningly broad and emotional collection of slam poems, two things are immediately noticeable. The first: these are excellent slam poems. The second: these are (mostly) disappointing printed-page poems.
If you have experienced slam poetry, either live or via audio or video recording, "Aloud" helps you appreciate how performance-intensive slamming is. A group of juvenile delinquents can perform a scene of Shakespeare and still retain much of its poignance and beauty, for such was Shakespeare's skill with words. Not so with most of the poems in "Aloud"--in the wrong hands, they could be very disappointing slam poems indeed. Had others written and performed them, they likely would never have made it into this collection.
In short, all but a few poems in "Aloud" don't measure up to the canon of printed-word poems humans have amassed over the centuries. And yet, when read aloud, or considered as only half of a slam poem (the peformance being the other half), they can surprisingly come to life with power and grace.
Poetry as Language.......2003-09-06
Just last year, Miguel Algarin visited the campus of the University of Florida and performed some poetry for us. I never really understood poetry in high school, but that's because I was never exposed to such a book as Aloud and the style of the poetry slams.
This book begs to be performed and shared. The verses sing, scream, coerce and laugh off of the pages. I love the idea of "poetry as language" and hope there will be much more to come from the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe.
Poetry's not dead after all.
Poetry Bible.......2003-03-18
This has got to be the best anthology around.So many different styles of poetry. It has become my favorite book in my entire collection. I have given this book to freinds who swear they hate poetry and have changed their whole outlook on the art.I first read this 4 years ago and it inspired me to pick up my pen (after not writing for almost ten years) and make my voice heard
Average customer rating:
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A Mystic Way: A Spiritual Autobiography
Nicholas Hagger
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