Book Description
The World of Shakespeare: The Complete Plays and Sonnets of William Shakespeare (38 Volume Library) By William Shakespeare Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmiller, General Editors
Amazon.com Exclusive
The Pelican Shakespeare is available in hardcover for the first time in one complete collection only at Amazon.com.
For anyone with an abiding love of the Bard and his to all of Shakepeares singular contributiOn to English literature, this complete library combines enduring beauty with the scholarship and authority demanded by modern readers. Easier to read and enjoy than massive, single-volume editions, these individual volumes feature authori tative text, essays on how the plays would have been performed in Shakespeare's day, and notes valuable for general readers, teachers, students, and theater professionals. Here, in 38 truly stunning heirloom volumes, are William Shakespeare's classic plays and sonnets in the only complete, individually-bound set of Shakespeare's works currently available. The tragedies, comedies, histories, and poetry, so beloved by millions of readers and theater-goers, are reproduced here in luxurious, linen-bound hardcovers, enhanced by silver stamping on the covers and spines, and sewn-in, satin ribbon markers.
The distinguished Pelican Shakespeare editions have sold five million copies. Since the series debuted more than forty years ago, developments in scholarship have revolutionized our understanding of William Shakespeare, his time, and his works. The general editors of the Pelican Shakespeare, Stephen Orgel of Stanford University and A. R. Braunmiller of UCLA, have assembled a team of six eminent scholars who, along with the general editors themselves, have prepared new introductions and note * Authoritative and meticulously researched texts * Illuminating new introductions and notes by distinguished authors * Essays on Shakespeare's life, the theatrical world of his time, and the selection of texts * A handsome new design inside and out * Deluxe packaging, including a full-linen case with silver stamping, ribbon marker, printed endpapers, and acid-free paper * Line numbers marking every tenth line and footnote references * Both glossorial and explanatory notes appearing conveniently at the foot of the page
Included are:
Tragedies
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Histories
Henry IV, Part I
Henry IV, Part II
Henry V
Henry VI, Part I
Henry VI, Part II
Henry VI, Part III
Henry VIII
King John
Richard II
Richard III
Comedies
All's Well That Ends Well
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Cymbeline
Love's Labor's Lost
Measure for Measure
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Pericles
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Winter's Tale
Poetry
The Sonnets
Customer Reviews:
Almost perfect deal.......2007-10-03
Should I judge this collection by price or quality? I'll try to blend them. At the time of this writing, I ordered it from Amazon for $89.70, which was marked down from $299. Sounds hard to believe, and after owning it, it still is. At this price, this is, without doubt, a major, total, complete deal. However, I give it four stars instead of five because it is 99% of Shakespeare's complete works. Why not include the rest? Why, why, why? It'd take two more volumes, one for his non-sonnet poems and one for THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, which is now officially part of the Shakespeare canon. It's very easy to get these works, but they wouldn't match your 38-volume set. Still, at anything less than $100, this set is a steal, especially considering that buying all these plays even as used paperbacks would probably cost more, and these are new, 8.5" by 5.5" hardcovers. Call me a nitpicker, but I just don't get why this collection didn't go that extra half-yard. Still, I bought it anyway and am very happy with it.
As for supplements, each book has a basic intro and meanings of archaic words and phrases printed at the bottom of each page.
Super deal! Great investment........2007-09-02
I read the other reviews about this being a great deal for what you're getting. Took a chance....and they were right. After visiting London this summer and realizing I'm literary-deficient, my goal was to read all of Shakespeare's plays once I got home. So I needed a starter set. For $90, I have just that. And much easier to manage that a huge compilation book that I was considering. The book covers are simple, but elegant. Just the right size--easy to carry in my bag to work. I'm very happy with the set--it is a good investment.
The Value Purchase of the Year.......2007-09-01
This is an excellent edition, the volumes are extremely nice to read: larger and clearer than paperbacks; handier, lighter and much easier to handle than one-volume editions. It's the buy of the year. You'll never forgive yourself if you let this slip away. It's a cliche, but true in the case: I would have bought it at twice this price and considered myself lucky.
GREAT value. .......2007-08-08
I bought this as a gift for my partner as a graduation present. It is a REALLY great deal: I can't believe how cheap it is for what you get.
The quality of the books is really high, the paper is lovely stock and the binding is excellent. All in all, this is a really wonderful product and definetely worth forking out the cash for. When you think about it, it's an absolute steal.
Do it!
ps. it arrived REALLY quickly. I am in Australia and it was here within 7 working days (i paid for the mid range postal option, whatever it is called).
Glad I Bought These Volumes.......2007-05-15
The reviews encouraged me to buy this series, and I'm very glad I did. I've read a number of different Shakespeare editions; my favorite had been the Folger. But these books are luxurious, and comparing one to a Folger proves the quality of the paper and the clear, easy-to-read text. At the $89 price - and even higher - these volumes are a rare bargain.
Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
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Similar Items:
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History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
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History: Fiction or Science? Astronomical methods as applied to chronology. Ptolemy's Almagest. Chronology III
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Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History And Legends, Unearthed And Explored
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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:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
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.
Amazon.com
Recall the old saying about all work and no play making Jack a dull boy? World-class companies today need play--serious play--if they want to make truly innovative products, argues Michael Schrage, an MIT Media Lab fellow and Fortune magazine columnist. In Serious Play he writes, "When talented innovators innovate, you don't listen to the specs they quote. You look at the models they've created." Whether it's a spreadsheet that tests a new financial model or a foam prototype of a calculator, what interests Schrage is not the model itself, but the behavior that play--be it modeling, prototyping, or simulation--inspires.
Schrage examines the approaches to successful prototyping at companies such as AT&T, Boeing, Microsoft, and DaimlerChrysler and describes the kind of culture that's needed for encouraging innovation. In the last chapter, he lays out the 10 rules of serious play, including: Be willing to fail early and often; know when the costs outweigh the benefits; know who wins and who loses from an innovation; build a prototype that engages customers, vendors, and colleagues; create markets around prototypes; and simulate the customer experience. Well-written and inspiring, Serious Play, is a first-rate user's guide for managers, project leaders, and other innovators. --Dan Ring
Book Description
Serious Play is about serious work: how the world's leading companies model, prototype, and simulate to innovate. Increasingly, prototypes are the key platforms and models are the core media for managing risk and creating value. They allow for cost-effective creativity, encourage profitable improvisation, and inspire organizations to collaborate in unexpected ways.
Serious Play is a crisply written handbook for product, process and project leaders who are determined to manage their innovation initiatives successfully.
As digital technologies for modeling and simulation offer more value for less money, they provoke fundamental challenges to organizational culture and design. MIT research associate Michael Schrage asserts that conventional wisdom surrounding innovation gets turned inside out: What innovative companies choose not to model often proves more important than what they do. Contrary to the popular assumption that innovative teams generate innovative prototypes, in fact innovative prototypes generate innovative teams. How innovators play with their models and simulations invariably matters far more than what they actually plan. In fact, Schrage shows why innovative firms cannot seriously plan unless they seriously play.
Drawing upon a range of companies as diverse as Walt Disney, Boeing, Merrill Lynch, General Electric, IBM, IDEO, Microsoft, Royal Dutch Shell, DaimlerChrysler and American Airlines, Schrage identifies the common patterns and practices that distinguish productive prototyping cultures from pathological ones. He explores the intimate connection between how leading innovators model reality and how they actually manage it. He examines prototyping failures as rigorously as he explains prototyping successes.
The essential message of
Serious Play is that tomorrow's innovations will increasingly be the byproduct of how companies and their customers behave-and misbehave-around this new generation of models, prototypes, and simulations. The distinction between serious play and serious work dissolves as technology gives innovators ever-increasing opportunities to simulate and prototype their ideas. As the media for modeling radically change, so will the organizations that use them.
With real-world examples and engaging anecdotes, Schrage argues that the future of prototyping is the future of innovation. A User's Guide included in the book helps readers quickly take away the innovation practices profiled throughout. A landmark book by one of the most perceptive voices in the field of innovation,
Serious Play will lay serious claim to the hearts and minds of forward-looking business managers.
Download Description
Successful innovation demands more than a good strategic plan; it requires creative improvisation. Much of the "serious play" that leads to breakthrough innovations is increasingly linked to experiments with models, prototypes, and simulations. As digital technology makes prototyping more cost-effective, serious play will soon lie at the heart of all innovation strategies, influencing how businesses define themselves and their markets. Author Michael Schrage is one of today's most widely recognized experts on the relationship between technology and work. In Serious Play, Schrage argues that the real value in building models comes less from the help they offer with troubleshooting and problem solving than from the insights they reveal about the organization itself. Technological models can actually change us--improving the way we communicate, collaborate, learn, and innovate. With real-world examples and engaging anecdotes, Schrage shows how companies such as Disney, Microsoft, Boeing, IDEO, and DaimlerChrysler use serious play with modeling technologies to facilitate the collaborative interactions that lead to innovation. A user's guide included with the book helps readers apply many of the innovation practices profiled throughout. A landmark book by one of the most perceptive voices in the field of innovation.
Customer Reviews:
Readable User-Friendly Book on Innovation.......2005-04-30
I am enjoying this book. I like the title "Serious Play", but I dislike the sub-title "How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate". Companies don't innovate people do is my thought. I think the author could have taken this concept one step further. That is tie in the concepts of how innovation relates to chaos theory and fractals and larger concepts. The author's ideas are not that new to me because I am a project manager in a software engineering environment where prototyping and iterations is the name of the game. We have at most 3 months to make a difference, to deliver and then we are swept into the ocean of change. You have a small window of opportunity before both the game and the players change.
I think that the world may be on the verge of moving so fast that we begin to see things like the wiki, open source culture in that it takes all of us innovating collectively in serious play. Long term I wonder if you are not free, workable and now, you are not in the game.
Some concepts for me are:
1) Importance of being able to improvise in the moment
2) Prototyping both reveals the underlying power cutural structures and changes them.
3) Human beings are relationship morphing entities.
4) the importance of shared collaboration space that invite clever interactions between people.
5) Treating prototypes as conversation pieces
6) Watch for the underlying feeling of geniune fun
7) The importance of the challenge or obstacles to the game
8) We shape our models, our models shape us
9) "In order to have actionable meaning, the fuzzy mental models ... must be externalized in representations in ways... that can be grasped"
10) Prototypes force individuals to confront the tyranny of tradeoffs (i.e. difficult decisions)
11) "All models are attempt to manage the complexity by making it simpler and more accessible"
While the text is very readable I had trouble pulling out the underlying structure of the book. But I felt redeemed when I read the User's Guide at the end of the book. Interesting you would think a User's Guide would go at the beginning. Fortunately I do not read sequentially so I found that chapter fairly quickly.
Three years on, still a great book.......2002-09-16
Here's the best review I can give Michael Schrage's "Serious Play": Three years on, it's consistently the first book I pull out of my bookshelf when I'm looking for ideas for presentations, thoughts on introducing new products or services, etc. His commentary on "mean-time-to-payback" is something that will stick with you for years. It's brilliant stuff, written in clear, concise terms. And, surprisingly, very little of it is dated. Unlike many books from that era, there's no .com or Enron fixation for the author to be embarrassed about. Schrage's examples are pulled from health care technology, animation, theater...in short, an eye-opening spectrum of ideas. I consider "Serious Play" one of my best purchases ever.
Preaching to the choir.......2002-08-22
This is a good book for someone to read if they are skeptical of the benefits of prototypes. However, since I already know the value of interactive prototypes I became quickly tired with the book.
Other critiques: it felt like the author had a bunch of cool little examples lying around and finally got the idea to put it together, surrounded by some fluffy text to make it thick enough to sell as a book, and put it on the market. Lots of space is taken up by these excerpts, as well as big text in the margins summing up "important points," which I would usually find useful but instead gave the impression of just taking up space.
Also, the author makes repeated use of similes to the point that it got annoying; "Just like a is to b, c is to d."
At one point, the author brings up the difference between a "simulation" and a "prototype," and just when you think the core of the matter is going to be distinguished the author backs out, leaving you wondering why they brought it up in the first place if they weren't going to take a stab at defining and differentiating them.
Sorry, but given the hype I was sorely disappointed. Read the first chapter or so in a bookstore before actually buying this.
Enlightening.......2002-07-11
This book gave me a very good and new insight of how to manage prototyping. It is enlightening for not only it explains and lists the topics that are important. It also gives us lots of practical examples of implementations.
I kept refering it, and i DON't usually do that.........2001-03-14
The most significant aspect of this book is that it provides a vocabulary and a language to discuss the nature of creative prototyping and modeling behaviors. The first thing you do is take off the cover, otherwise people think you're reading a really cheesy book. It's everything but that. It's been 4 weeks, and i'm on my 3rd time through it. I reference it and re-use it over and over. I've since recommended it to a genetic scientist friend of mine that works for a major drug company, a software engineer, and a broadcast designer. The thinking in this book has an epidemic effect with those that read it, and the excitement that it carries into their work and mine is the most influential and direct I have ever experienced. Some books are relevant once, but this will be accessed for years to come. This is my first book recommendation i have ever made. that is all...
Book Description
There's an incredible similarity between the mechanics of a fly cast and the swing of a golf club. Perhaps that's why Chris Santella, author of Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die, can be found on the links when he's not on the stream. With Fifty Places to Play Golf Before You Die, Santella gives voice to his other sporting passion, interviewing 50 people intimately connected to the sport about some of their favorite courses around the world.
For both passionate golfers and armchair travelers, this gorgeous full-color book presents the world's greatest golf venues, the personal favorites of renowned players, course architects, and other experts in the sport. From Ballyliffin, Ireland's northernmost course, whose rumpled fairways wander along the North Sea in the shadows of Glashedy Rock, to New Zealand's Cape Kidnappers, perched atop dramatic cliffs some 500 feet above the ocean, the book's beautiful photographs capture the architecture, noteworthy holes, location, and ambiance that make these courses standouts for ardent golfers. A brief history of each course, an experiential account-filled with local color-from the person recommending the venue, and trip-planning advice provide adventurous readers with all the information they need to chip and putt their way around the globe.
A close-up look at golf's top courses around the world, recommended by such experts as Nick Faldo and Christie Kerr (pro golfers), Pete Dye and Tom Doak (course architects), Brian McCallen (editor and author), and Donald Trump
With breathtaking color photographs of each site, this is a great gift for avid golfers and armchair travelers alike
Customer Reviews:
50 Places to Play Golf Before You Die.......2007-06-08
A lovely book. Not exceptional, but enjoyable. It was disappointing in two ways:
1. some of the authors (each chapter talks about a specific course or courses) of the chapters were the course designer of that specific course - clearly, a conflict of interest!
2. would have loved to have more courses that are out-of-the-way and/or extremely private - courses that we can only dream about playing!
A fabulous Find!.......2007-05-15
Top Notch Golf and World Travel...what more could a serious golfer want?
This book is a fabulous find and an inspired gift you will be proud to share with a golfer you love. Even as a non golfer, I enjoyed the travels insights and the background on how each course was created. It provided me a whole new appreciation for the game and the "art" of golf course creation.
Great Book!.......2007-01-15
Bought it for my Dad, an avid golfer and traveler. He loves it.
O.K. Little Book.......2006-05-17
Notice that the title is not "The Fifty Greatest Golf Courses." My title would be, "Fifty Interesting Places to Play Golf." Whether it's my title or the real title, the emphasis is on "places to play," or "destinations," not golf courses per se. More than fifty golf courses are covered. Which is not to say that the book does not include a lot of great golf courses. The format is mini-coffee table, with several pages of text for each destination and one small picture for most of the destinations. The quality of the printing, photo reproduction and binding in my copy is excellent. The text for each destination has been volunteered by a different prominent golf person. For example, Nick Faldo writes about the Royal Melborne Golf Club (West Course) in the Australian state of Victoria. Alice Dye about the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course (see a connection there?). On the plus side are the quality of the color photos and the introduction (to me) of golf courses in some far away places (e.g., Bhutan, Morocco, India, places, however, I'll never get to). On the minus side, I don't have a prayer of playing some of the U.S. courses, even after I die (e.g., Pine Valley, Sand Hills, National Golf Links of America), which, honestly, the author points out. Finally, why not at least one photo for each destination? From the two page description of the Pacific Grove muni: "[T]he back nine . . . takes you right out to the water and combines incredible views of the Pacific and Monterey Bay with windswept bluffs reminiscent of some of the great courses of Scotland and Ireland." Why no photo of this course? From the two page description of the Torekov Golf Club in Sweden (my ancestral home): ". . .a links-oriented course. . . You can view the sea from all eighteen holes. In the summer, wildflowers are blooming everywhere . . . ." I want a photo, darn it!
Beautiful Pictures, really nice gift........2006-02-03
Being a golfer, I got this as a gift from one of my relatives. I must say the pictures are outstanding. This book makes me want to travel more to other countries to experience the pleasure of these courses. This book will always have a permanent place in my library. For excellent golf instruction that helped me to drastically reduce my handicap, I recommend,
The Ultimate Golf Instruction Guide: Key Techniques for Becoming a Zero Handicap Golfer or Better, isbn 1933023090
and
for more great pictures of specific golf holes, I recommend,
Golf Digest 365 Golf Holes Calender 2006, isbn 0761137343.
This maintains a permanent place on my office desk.
Book Description
One day back in 2003, Ken Jennings and his college buddy Earl did what hundreds of thousands of people had done before: they auditioned for Jeopardy! Two years, 75 games, 2,642 correct answers, and over $2.5 million in winnings later, Ken Jennings emerged as trivia’s undisputed king. Brainiac traces his rise from anonymous computer programmer to nerd folk icon. But along the way, it also explores his newly conquered kingdom: the world of trivia itself.
Jennings had always been minutiae-mad, poring over almanacs and TV Guide listings at an age when most kids are still watching Elmo and putting beans up their nose. But trivia, he has found, is centuries older than his childhood obsession with it. Whisking us from the coffeehouses of seventeenth-century London to the Internet age, Jennings chronicles the ups and downs of the trivia fad: the quiz book explosion of the Jazz Age; the rise, fall, and rise again of TV quiz shows; the nostalgic campus trivia of the 1960s; and the 1980s, when Trivial Pursuit® again made it fashionable to be a know-it-all.
Jennings also investigates the shadowy demimonde of today’s trivia subculture, guiding us on a tour of trivia hotspots across America. He goes head-to-head with the blowhards and diehards of the college quiz-bowl circuit, the slightly soused faithful of the Boston pub trivia scene, and the raucous participants in the annual Q&A marathon in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, “The World’s Largest Trivia Contest.” And, of course, he takes us behind the scenes of his improbable 75-game run on Jeopardy!
But above all, Brainiac is a love letter to the useless fact. What marsupial has fingerprints that are indistinguishable from human ones?* What planet has a crater on it named after Laura Ingalls Wilder?** What comedian had the misfortune to be born with the name “Albert Einstein”?*** Jennings also ponders questions that are a little more philosophical: What separates trivia from meaningless facts? Is being good at trivia a mark of intelligence? And is trivia just a waste of time, or does it serve some not-so-trivial purpose after all?
Uproarious, silly, engaging, and erudite, this book is an irresistible celebration of nostalgia, curiosity, and nerdy obsession–in a word, trivia.
* The koala
** Venus
*** Albert Brooks
Customer Reviews:
Through The Trivia Looking Glass.......2007-07-08
Brainiac is, in part, Ken Jennings' account of his championship run on Jeopardy!. I say in part because, as seems to be the case with books I've been reading lately, it's that plus a lot more. If Jennings had simply written a book about being on Jeopardy!, it would have sold fairly well - mostly to people who want to be on Jeopardy! themselves. But Brainiac is a lot more than that, and Jennings has written a book that will attract a much larger audience.
Brainiac takes on the history of trivia itself. From the academic trivia of college quiz bowl teams (of which Jennings provides a fascinating insider's perspective), to the pop culture trivia boom of the 1960s, Jennings shows the development of trivia in American society. Fascinating factoids dot the book (who knew that doo-wop retro band Sha Na Na started in doo-wop because of a trivia competition?), but Jennings also asks some tough questions.
Does a person's trivia ability indicate their overall intelligence? Does success on TV programs like Jeopardy! really indicate that someone is a genius? Some feel that trivia has become the academic version of the Olympics. The Olympics were meant to help train warriors, but ended up training specialists, not well-rounded soldiers; likewise, trivia has produced a breed of people who know or are able to remember arcane bits of knowledge (like the three airports named for people who died in aircraft crashes), but often cannot function in society. They're the people that the rest of us really hate at parties - no matter the topic, they know something about it that nobody else does, and can kill a conversation in one sentence.
Jennings, of course, would disagree. "Trivia... is bait on the fishing rod of education," he says, and makes a persuasive argument. Dangling a fascinating bit of information in front of a student can motivate him or her to learn in ways that nothing else can - I've seen it happen firsthand. Facts, as Jennings says, are the building blocks that lead to more substantial knowledge and understanding.
My favorite part of the book, though, is Jennings' interaction with the trivia subculture. From NTN players in restaurants to an entire town that turns into a trivia competition one weekend each year, we meet these trivia "freaks." We find out that they are, in fact, human, but not the average human. We find out what makes them tick, and we understand why Jennings himself distanced himself from the subculture while he was in high school. (I, unfortunately, didn't, and can assure him that his was a socially expedient decision.)
But of course, Jennings talks about Jeopardy!, and that may well be the bait that attracts some to the book. And he's honest about the experience; it's not as glamorous as some may think, and you can almost feel him sigh with relief when his reign as champion is ended. His account has persuaded me that perhaps just sitting in the living room watching the show, and chiming in with the answers, is the better way to go. But for someone who wants to learn from someone who "lived the dream," or anyone who wants to find out what makes trivia-heads tick, this book is invaluable.
Informative and entertaining.......2007-06-25
I bought this book because I was caught up in Ken's winning streak on Jeopardy! and wanted to know more about why he may have gotten that far. Well, this book tells you about that and so much more. It takes you behind the Jeopardy! scene, which alone was very interesting. I never knew that trivia was taken so seriously by so many, and Ken goes to great lengths to explain this culture. Best of all though is the clever and witty way in which Ken has written this book. He is humble, touching, lighthearted and extremely funny throughout. Even if you're not a trivia buff, you would most certainly enjoy reading this book.
Cool book!.......2007-06-01
I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Jeopardy, it's a very interesting look into the inner workings of the show and the contestants on it.
Delight of the Nerds.......2007-05-13
This book is so fun to read. I enjoyed watching Ken Jenning's run on TV and this book gives you some insight into that experience. There are also lots of fun trivia facts along the way.
Loved it!.......2007-05-13
I bought this book for my son who's a voracious reader and fan of "Jeopardy." He reports to me that it was a "great read."
Book Description
In Puppet Mania!, a master of the art brings kids thirteen original projects they can make on their own, primarily using everyday household materials. Many of the projects the author includes here are for puppets he himself designed and created as a kid. There's Sock Puppy, Banana Buddy, Running Rabbit and a gaggle of other endearing creatures. Aside from explicit directions, Kennedy provides construction tips and troubleshooting advice.
Puppet Mania! is more than just a project book: It also gives kids the know-how they need to turn their creations into characters--lip synching, body movements, eye contact and movement, and, most important, imagination. To that end, Kennedy kick-starts readers' creativity with a character worksheet that has room to enter the character's name, favorite phrase, hobbies, and physical characteristics.
With directions for customizing their puppets and tips for maneuvering them believably, kids will want to get started in no time!
Customer Reviews:
My students love the book!.......2007-08-09
I am an Elementary Art Teacher and the ideas in this book are perfectly suited for my students and class. I have, also, used the ideas at home with my own children. It's a colorful, well organized, easy to read guide ranging from easy to more challenging puppet making ideas for kids.
The Amazon book description clearly indicates that the book is geared toward children. I don't understand why the other reviewers didn't read what they were buying. If you don't know what you're buying, then there is a great chance that you won't get what you want. It was frustrating reading those reviews and it almost caused me not to purchase the book.
Anyway, my students and I love the book and have enjoyed making the puppets! I'd love to see more books and perhaps some demonstration CDs that my class could watch before beginning a project. Just a idea.
A nice starter for children........2007-06-10
I was alittle disappointed when I receieved this book. God knows the title is a bit of an exageration. If you're buying for a child who needs craft projects for a rainy day then this is the book for you.
As an adult with a career in puppet building I found it a waste of money. Unless you're making a show that revolves around paper plate puppets.
a good start for begginers, great for elementary classrooms.......2006-11-05
If you are just into puppet making for fun and not really into the art of making them, this book is for you. The puppets built inside are very basic and developed sot hat anybody can make them. It's a fun book, but personaly I felt it was a little childish and didn't really touch base on some of other techniques. If you are looking to make a more muppet style puppet this book does not cover it. however his second book Puppet Planet is an excelent book that goes into more detail and more profetional style puppet making.
great book for children.......2006-08-08
the book is not for professional puppet makers.
most of the puppets are hand puppets made of simple materials that can be find or improvise at home - it's great project book for children.
great ideas.......2006-03-28
lots of different puppet ideas. They are not too difficult, great to make with kids.
Book Description
In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps--as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces.
Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)--including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online-and offline life--and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play--and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space--what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic ethnographic approach to MMORPGs.......2006-11-07
In her book on the MMO gaming world, Taylor brings an ethnographic approach to the game Everquest. Through interviews and personal experience, she gives an insight into the gaming world that portrays it for the rich, complex, social world that it is. A gamer herself, Taylor does an excellent job shining new light on the "frowned upon" gaming world. She also goes beyond the gaming world to show how things are connected through the internet and "in real life" to things within the game.
As far as this being too "basic" in covering the genre - this wasn't aimed to be a book only for advanced gamers. For those of the academic world, who have no experience whatsoever with games, the chapters provide sufficient information about the games to allow understanding. The summary/analysis is as comprehensive as it is rich. There are parts that she could have gone further and I do hope she does write a second book (although she does have articles on this topic as well).
All in all, this is an absolutely fantastic book for academics (or just interested people) who want an ethnographic approach to the gaming world that treats it not as a deviant, subersive "alternate" reality. Gamers and academics alike can appreciate it. Think Jenkins' Textual Poachers (written about the fan world) for gamers.
I sincerely hope this is the tip of the iceberg for this serious academic research into the community, social aspects of MMOs.
Could have gone further.......2006-08-08
I would term the first few chapters of this book to be MMOs for dummies. They were fairly redundant filled with the basics of the genre. I realize that to a certain extent she had to write about this sort of stuff to ground the book for non-genre players, it went on for a little to long I think. If you took away the stuff that explained how the genre worked, this book may very well have been about 75 pages.
Once you got past this point, the book was fairly good. I especially like Taylor's insight into the ownership rights in online games as I think this subject is currently of major concern to players. The women in MMO section was also fairly good, but again fairly redundant at the same time.
I would like to point out that Taylor is a woman and not a man as a previous reviewer implies. A point she makes quite clear early in the book, and a point which I do think offers a fresh perspective on the genre considering much of what has already been written has come from a male-centric point of view.
Overall, the read is pretty good. I think it would work best for those who are not familiar with online gaming, and maybe even someone who hasn't yet started really reading material on the culture of online gaming. As someone who has both been an MMO gamer for over a decade and someone who has read a number of theories and books on the genre I didn't really feel that this book brought much new to the table which was too bad.
For clarification .......2006-06-13
TL Taylor is a brilliant woman, and the thoughtfulness and scientific rigor of her research shine through in this book.
entire, elaborate, virtual worlds.......2006-04-17
For those who wonder what on earth online gaming is about, Taylor furnishes an education. He covers the history of how it sprang from the MUDs [Multi User Dungeons] and MOOs [MUDs with object orientation] of the 80s. When those were of necessity primarily text based. Then, in the 90s, with the advent of the Web and faster bandwidth and more powerful personal computers, multiuser online games emerged. Notably EverQuest, which is well documented here. Other games are also mentioned.
Taylor himself took part as a player in one of these. Partly of his own recreational interest. But also as background research for this book. He shows that these games became virtual worlds. Where players could build up their personas and environments. Even to the extent of trading these assets in the real world. Some players took these on as "jobs", building up characters that they would subsequently sell on eBay. Amazing indeed.
Important issues are aired. Like what rights, if any, do players have to sell these personas? Much of the value in a persona arises out of the creativity of its owner. Much more than just the passive watching of a film. Or even of playing a twitch game like Quake, which is not really about character development. The book reaches no definitive conclusion. Which is a good assessment of how things stand now, anyways.
Average customer rating:
- Demise of Determinism
- Intriguing.
- Intriguing concept - but is it drama?
- The play and a fascinating postscript
- Deserves a reading
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Copenhagen
Michael Frayn
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ASIN: 0385720793
Release Date: 2000-08-08 |
Amazon.com
For most people, the principles of nuclear physics are not only incomprehensible but inhuman. The popular image of the men who made the bomb is of dispassionate intellects who number-crunched their way towards a weapon whose devastating power they could not even imagine. But in his Tony Award-winning play Copenhagen, Michael Frayn shows us that these men were passionate, philosophical, and all too human, even though one of the three historical figures in his drama, Werner Heisenberg, was the head of the Nazis' effort to develop a nuclear weapon. The play's other two characters, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, are involved with Heisenberg in an after-death analysis of an actual meeting that has long puzzled historians. In 1941, the German scientist visited Bohr, his old mentor and long-time friend, in Copenhagen. After a brief discussion in the Bohrs' home, the two men went for a short walk. What they discussed on that walk, and its implications for both scientists, have long been a mystery, even though both scientists gave (conflicting) accounts in later years.
Frayn's cunning conceit is to use the scientific underpinnings of atomic physics, from Schrödinger's famous cat to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, to explore how an individual's point of view renders attempts to discover the ultimate truth of any human interaction fundamentally impossible. To Margrethe, Heisenberg was always an untrustworthy student, eager to steal from her husband's knowledge. To Bohr, Heisenberg was a brilliant if irresponsible foster son, whose lack of moral compass was part of his genius. As for Heisenberg, the man who could have built the bomb but somehow failed to, his dilemma is at the heart of the play's conflict. Frayn's clever dramatic structure, which returns repeatedly to particular scenes from different points of view, allows several possible theories as to what his motives could have been. This isn't the first play to successfully merge the worlds of science and theater (one is inevitably reminded of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and Hapgood), but it's certainly one of the most dramatically successful. --John Longenbaugh
Book Description
The Tony Award—winning play that soars at the intersection of science and art,
Copenhagen is an explosive re-imagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb.
In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a clandestine trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart and friend Niels Bohr. Their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle had revolutionized atomic physics. But now the world had changed and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. Why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen and what he wanted to say to Bohr are questions that have vexed historians ever since. In Michael Frayn’s ambitious, fiercely intelligent, and daring new play Heisenberg and Bohr meet once again to discuss the intricacies of physics and to ponder the metaphysical—the very essence of human motivation.
Customer Reviews:
Demise of Determinism .......2006-11-25
Why did Heisenberg come to Copenhagen? Was he there to prod his former mentor for information on America's nuclear program? Or, was he there to gloat? Perhaps to reach a bargain; we won't build it if you don't? Perhaps to warn Bohr: Leave now before it is too late. Or, merely to pick the brain of the old master? About that calculation, did you say two tons or two kilos? Then again, Bohr was a kind of deity. Could Heisenberg have come to him for absolution: Forgive me Father for I have sinned; the Nazis made me do it. Or, is it possible that a German could actually be a goodie. After all, Heisenberg never built "the" bomb. Indeed, after the war Heisenberg asserted that though he possessed the scientific ability to construct a bomb, he instead steered the Nazis towards the production of a reactor.
Uncertainty. It allows Frayne to explore science, morality, politics and memory, all of which are inexorably linked. Explore is the operative word, here. Nothing in the play is ever really resolved but Frayne does use Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle" to consider and explore the subjective nature of observation, which in this case relates not only to the workings of the atom but to the human mind as well.
Intriguing........2005-11-09
Michael Frayn, Copenhagen (Anchor, 1998)
Copenhagen 2000 Tony Award winner for best play, turns on a rather simple premise: Niels Bohr, his wife Margrethe, and Werner Heisenberg, who were all together at a brief meeting in 1941 which has confused historians ever since, are back together after death. They are trying to piece out what actually happened that night; it seems they don't remember what happened that night any more than do those who have written so many pages about it over the years. In the process, they also dissect quantum physics, argue the viability of the atomic bomb (and why Heisenberg didn't think it was possible, while Bohr ended up being a small, but instrumental, player on Oppenheimer's team), and in general behave like old friends who have grown old and crotchety.
Frayn is obviously coming from the Waiting for Godot school of drama here, as the play is absent any action whatsoever; all the events are described by the three players. This has been expressed by a large number of the play's critics as a weakness. Whether or not you see it as one is, well, pretty much up to you; in all honesty, it never really occurred to me to consider it a weakness while I was actually reading the play, which I take as a positive thing.
The real reason to pick this up, though, is in Frayn's rather long afterword. (One wonders if anyone considered having one of the actors come out and relate it after each performance.) While the play itself does a decent job at demystifying the physics and mechanics of the various details about which Bohr and Heisenberg spent most of their lives niggling, the play's afterword both puts these details, and the nigglers, into the larger picture of their culture and time and elucidates a few things that someone simply seeing the play is likely to still not understand (such as how much of Frayn's various ideas as to what happened in the mysterious conversation he pulled out from under his arm, and how much has actually been posited by scholars). While the play itself is interesting, the afterword is fascinating, and the two together make for a good read. *** ½
Intriguing concept - but is it drama?.......2004-07-29
Reading a play poses challenges, as one must imagine it as a production while reading it as a book, and Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen" is no exception. Written without stage directions or set descriptions, and relying solely on dialogue, this three-person play describes the complicated relationship between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, two physicists responsible for groundbreaking work in quantum physics. With Bohr's wife Margrethe acting as a fulcrum, the two great physicists discuss their lives before, during, and after World War II, using Heisenberg's visits to Copenhagen as focal points. Probably the most radical device Frayn uses is skipping around in time (appropriate given the mention of Einstein) where the characters speak after they have died as well as in the past, often with one describing to the audience what is happening or what something means while the other two interact; the reader has to be astute enough to "hear" the change in tone to know whether the characters are speaking in the past or as deceased observers, especially since the change can occur from one sentence to the next. This play gathers its power mostly near the end as certain principles of quantum mechanics, particularly the ability of an atomic particle to act like both matter and wave, clarify these relationships. Issues of personal responsibility and negligence ignite the last pages.
But is this drama? Frayn does not create scenes except through expository writing and discussions. Action is described rather than shown, and thematic development is contained solely in the words spoken by the characters. What's worse, the characters seem too aware of the implications of their actions, making the dialogue somewhat heavy-handed. I would expect skilled actors to be able to magnify the glimpses of deep emotion as well as enliven what is already an intriguing concept, but in lesser hands, this play could end up as a mere exercise. The cover perfectly describes the starkness of "Copenhagen": three industrial chairs on an empty stage, two characters talking while another looks on.
Frayn's postscript lends context to the play, and I recommend not skipping it since this is an intellectual play about an intellectual topic. Particularly interesting is Frayn's description of fact, background, interpretation, and pure imagination on his part.
The average play reader should find "Copenhagen" fascinating. The basics of quantum mechanics are rendered in understandable and digestible bits. If you are planning to see a production of "Copenhagen" in the near future, the book is worth purchasing for the postscript; it should enhance your enjoyment of the production.
The play and a fascinating postscript.......2004-02-11
This book contains the text of Michael Frayn's Tony Award-winning play (94 pages), a fascinating 38-page Postscript, and a two-page word sketch of the scientific and historical background to the play.
The play itself is brilliant (see my review of the PBS production directed by Howard Davies, starring Stephen Rea, Daniel Craig, and Francesca Annis available on DVD) and is the kind of play that can be fully appreciated simply by reading it. There are no stage directions, no mention of props or stage business. There is simply Frayn's extraordinary dialogue. A photo from the cover suggests how the play might be staged on a round table with the three characters, Danish physicist Niels Bohr, his wife Margrethe, and German physicist Werner Heisenberg, going slowly round and round as in an atom. This symbolism is intrinsic to the ideas of the play with Bohr seen as the stolid proton at the center and the younger Heisenberg the flighty electron that "circles." Margrethe who brings both common sense and objectivity to the interactions between the ever circling physicists, might be thought of as a neutron, or perhaps she is the photon that illuminates (and deflects ever so slightly) what it touches.
At the center of the play (and at the center of our understanding of the world through quantum mechanics) is a fundamental uncertainty. While Heisenberg and Bohr demonstrated to the world through the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics that there will always be something we cannot in principle know regardless of how fine our measurements, Frayn's play suggests that there will always be some uncertainty about what went on between the two great architects of QM during Heisenberg's celebrated and fateful visit to the Bohr household in occupied Denmark in 1941. There is uncertainty at the heart of not only our historical tools but at the very heart of human memory (as Frayn explains in the Postscript).
"The great challenge facing the storyteller and the historian alike is to get inside people's heads... Even when all the external evidence has been mastered, the only way into the protagonists' heads is through the imagination. This indeed is the substance of the play." (p. 97)
The three characters appear as ghosts of their former selves, as it were, and begin immediately an attempt to unravel and understand what happened in 1941. The central question is Why did Heisenberg come to Copenhagen? Was it an attempt to enlist Bohr in a German atomic bomb project? Was it to get information from Bohr about an Allied project or to pick his brain for ideas on how to make fission work? Or was it, as Margrethe avers, to "show himself off"--the little boy grown up, the man who was once part of a defeated country, now triumphant?
The play leaves it for us to find an answer, because neither history nor the recorded words of the participants give us anything close to certainty. With the conflicting statements of the characters Frayn implies that the truth may be a matter of one's point of view, that is, it may be a question of relativity. Ultimately it may even be that Heisenberg himself did not know why he came to Copenhagen.
Also being asked by Frayn's play is a moral question. Is it right for scientists to build weapons of mass destruction to be used on civilian targets? Heisenberg contends that this is the question he wanted to ask of Bohr. It is ironic that although Heisenberg was condemned by physicists around the world for his (presumed) unsuccessful attempt to build a fission bomb for Hitler, his work killed no one, while the universally beloved and admired Bohr had a hand in the Manhattan project that resulted in the bombs that were dropped on the Japanese cities.
As the electron is seen and then not seen, its speed measured and then not measured, but never both at the same time, so it is with Heisenberg's character in life and in this play. We are never sure where he is. Is he working for the Nazis or is he only pretending to? Is he working on a reactor or is he working on a bomb? Did he delay the German project intentionally (as he claimed), or was the failure due to incompetence, or even--as Frayn suggests--to an unconscious quirk of Heisenberg's mind?
In the Postscript Frayn recalls the historical evidence he used in constructing the play and cites his sources and gives us insights into what Bohr and Heisenberg were like. He quotes Max Born, describing Heisenberg as having an "unbelievable quickness and precision of understanding," while "the most characteristic property" of Bohr, as described by George Gamow, "was the slowness of his thinking and comprehension." One can see where Frayn got his metaphor of the atom with its heavy nucleus and its speedy electron. But Bohr was also thoughtful and thorough while Heisenberg was "careless with numbers." And of course these are relative terms since both men were Nobel Prize-winning physicists, brilliant men who reached the very pinnacle of their profession.
Bottom line: one the great plays of our time on an epochal subject, fascinating and cathartic as all great plays should be.
Deserves a reading.......2004-01-21
COPENHAGEN is a play that welcomes a reading. The structure of pure dialogue between the physicists, Heisenberg, Bohr and Bohr's wife Margrethe( who represents the non-physicists in the audience) lends itself to the closer examination the written word gives us. Michael Frayn brilliantly imagines a moment frozen in time- Heisenberg arrives from Germany in 1941 to discuss something with his mentor, Bohr in occupied Copenhagen. Seizing upon this historical event and its mysterious circumstances, Frayn recreates the event from a variety of perspectives in pursuit of a greater truth. Was Heisenberg a hero, who kept the Nazi's from achieving the ultimate weapon, or a victim of his own carelessness?
Reading the play, gives you the time to reflect upon how creatively Frayn frames each of his scenarios. The dialogue is never less than challenging, even while playing to the audience surrogate, Margrethe. Frayn uses these two great minds to introduce the audience into the realm of advanced physics and the moral ambiguities involved in the mixing of pure science with the nature of war. The forced civility between the two men emphasizes the underlying current of terror created by the Nazis rise to power and the oncoming dawn of an atomic age. Frayn does not offer any easy answers, to do so would be an insult to the wonderful work that has gone on before.
The postscript alone is worth the price of the book for any fan of the play. It sets up the historical context for the play's creation and gives the reader a much greater understanding of where Frayn came up with many of the issues he examines in this work.
Book Description
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Customer Reviews:
always sneering at someone else.......2001-02-12
I enjoy this collection of plays from Mr Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953). He is considered the first dramatist from the US and is also the first to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. First, I must write that this edition from the LIBRARY OF AMERICA is beautiful. It has a sewn binding, flexible yet strong binding boards covered with a closely woven, rayon cloth and a ribbon bookmark attached to the spine. This volume covers the period 1932-43, marking Mr O'Neill's most well-known work. My favourites are A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT and THE ICEMAN COMETH. I also enjoy the the Irish flavour of A TOUCH OF the POET. ALDJIN is auto-biographical, as is also A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN. ALDJIN benefits from an eye-witness perspective which makes the characters extremely poignant. I feel an eery shiver as I read the drama, knowing the playwright's life. Like his character Edmund, Mr O'Neill left Princeton after his first year; went to sea, searched for gold in South America and haunted the waterfront bars in Buenos Aires, Liverpool and New York. He drank heavily. The other characters reflect his life also. His father was a successful actor who played but one role, the Count of Monte Cristo, and never became a more serious actor. His mother used morphine and his older brother was an alchoholic. All three died between 1920-23. This play is such a vivid "photograph" it sometimes is painfull for me to read, but at the same time a great reward. If you are interested in dramatists from the US, or in gritty, realistic plays about characters on the the margins of society, this collection will be interesting to you.
America's greatest plywright at his best!.......2000-04-21
This collection of work gives the reader O'Neill, America's greatest playwright, at his most powerful. The two earlier collections are likewise great, but this third one contains his two strongest works: "The Iceman Cometh" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night."
In "The Iceman Cometh," O'Neill creates a world of happy derelicts. They spend their nights and days in Harry Hope's saloon, living through today by drinking and believing in the "pipe dreams" of tomorrow. That is until Hickey comes to town. He forces them, for the first time, to look honestly at their lives. This dose of reality has devestating affects on the patrons of Harry's.
Also included is O'Neill's masterpiece, "Long Day's Journey Into Night." This play, not published or produced in his lifetime, painfully tells the story of his own dysfunctional family. The play's action is one calendar day, but O'Neill, through dialogue, takes the reader back to the origins of their problems. The emotions displayed, which include guilt, envy, pain, cynicism, and love, tears the family apart, while strangely holding them together. Even though the emotions run high, O'Neill does it without employing sentimentality. He is honest without becoming melodramatic. A rare accomplish in literature. A more emotionally rendering work would be hard to find.
These two works are not the only jems the collection contains. "A Moon for the Misbegotten," now running on Broadway, continues the story of his brother, Jamie, who appears in "Long Day's Journey . . ." "Ah, Wilderness!" is a fine coming of age story.
The others also bare the mark of O'Neill's genius. The stories, set in the first half of the twentieth century, are as true today as they were when written. They've persevered and have proven timeless. His characters live with the reader long after the work is finished. And many are well worth a second visit.
Best American Play Ever Written.......1997-11-08
Long Day's Journey Into Night is O'Neill's autobiographical dichotomization of his dysfunctional family. I also happens to be one of the best plays ever written. One would not expect the author to be impartial toward his past or his family: he is either strongly libelous or fondly empathetic. What O'Neill accomplishes is a Golden Mean, it is written with so much integrity, so much compasion and with so much devastating truth that it becomes one of the most emotionally- challenging literary works one is ever likely to read. The four Tyrones' characterization is as broadly affecting as life itself: Jamie, a cynic ruined by dissipation; Mary, one of the best tragic heroines ever created; Edmund, O'Neill's tortured alter-ego; James, an epitomy of the Irish-American presence in US and their blind faith and peculiraly ambivalent optimism. The play is in four acts and it is brillintly crafted; it has all the urgency of a social outcry and all the emotional strength of an epic. O'Neill wrote," God grant me sympathy for the haunted Tyrones." He does sympathize with these people, of course, but he is also soberly realistic: his heroes will forever remain thwarted by the vicious circle of their multi-faceted inadequacy.
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History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
Anatoly T Fomenko
Manufacturer: Delamere Resources LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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