An Island Scrapbook: Dawn to Dusk on a Barrier Island

Book Description

Before the sun rises, an artist and her daughter slip out of their cottage into the morning air to explore and record the treasures of their North Carolina barrier island. They sketch, paint, and observe the sights around them and as night falls they return to their cottage, bringing back pieces of their island home to compile this scrapbook of a special time and place.

Customer Reviews:

A great book for all ages.......2004-07-12

I grew up visiting my grandparents on a Georgia barrier island and took the life of an island for granted. But with age comes wisdom and I now see the beauty and fragility of these islands even more. This book has many great drawings . One of my favorites was of the wisps left in the sand by the waving sea oats. Kids and adults will enjoy this immensely.

Information Highway.......2000-09-05

This book gives loads of information to children as well as adult readers. You are intrigued with the story as you are learning about the environment on the Barrier Islands. There are pictures of animals, trees and more with names to identify them to curious readers. Highly informative and written by a very informed author!

Book Description

The Crusades covers everything from the First Crusade (1095-99) through the Ninth Crusade (1271-72).

The Crusades: Almanac discusses various topics, including the conquering of Jerusalem by the caliph Umar, pilgrimages to the Holy Land, the traditions of chivalry, Shiites and Sunnis, territorial expansion and colonization as motivations for the crusades, Knights Hospitalers and Knights Templars and more.

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The Crusades; Almanac.
Marcia Merryman Means And Neil Schlager
Manufacturer: Gale Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N6704K

Book Description

This volume and its companion, Volume 337, supplement Volume 310,. These volumes provide a contemporary sourcebook for virtually any kind of experimental approach involving biofilms. They cover bioengineering, molecular, genetic, microscopic, chemical, and physical methods.

Book Description

The book investigates bargaining between two agents. It presents the history of bargaining analysis from Francis Y. Edgeworth's first formal study, followed by cooperative and noncooperative game-theoretic models, to recent stochastic evolutionary investigations. Connections between the results obtained by different methodology are highlighted. The established theory is generalized with respect to its underlying rationality assumptions. Links between usually neglected psychological factors - e.g. the persistence and capriciousness of an agent - and average bargaining success are identified. Applications of bargaining models contribute to the measurement of decision power and to the discussion of distributive justice.

Book Description

First published in 1926, this book is Cather's sparest and most dramatic novel, a dark and oddly prescient portrait of a marriage that subverts our oldest notions about the nature of happiness and the sanctity of the hearth.

Customer Reviews:

An Enemy of Mortals.......2007-06-22

Natural questions a person might have when considering whether to read this book are: What kind of work of fiction is this? Does it fit into a major category of fiction? Who is the "mortal enemy" referred to in the title? I'll address those questions in this review.

My Mortal Enemy is not a classic romance, tragedy, or melodrama. It is a narrative view, from a fallible, secondary character's perspective. Some people might be put off by the title, incorreclty inferring: "Why would I want to read a book about someone ruminating over their interactions with their mortal enemy?" I can understand that apprehension. But hopefully, if you can make it to the end of this review - you may understand both why the above inferrence is partly inaccurate, and where it is accurate - there are plenty of worthwhile and thoughful cognitive twists to make this introspective novel a thrilling read.

"My Mortal Enemy" is a novel focused on the social observations of a young person, watching a close family friend's slow cognitive journey into almost invisible and hard to describe forms of mental dysfunction. I love this book. I read through it like a thrilling page-turner. I couldn't wait to get to the end, and was not disappointed when I got there. It is brilliant, sarcastic, and wise. It shows us, if we have the eyes to perceive, the seemingly benign steps a mind takes into horrific dysfunction.

I love Cather's characterization of Oswald. Cather's rare portrayal of him as a smart and compassionate man, dealing with a spouse who does not see her own self-inflicted demises, is a rare act of literary kindness from one gender to the other. After reading her characterization of Oswald, Cather cannot be characterized as a man-hater. He is so lovingly drawn, in the regular presence of Myra's berating.

It is hard for an author to write a character more interesting than the author. All of Cather's characters are interesting - so I would have loved to have met her. Reading this novel, I sometimes think of the conversations between Myra and Nellie (the narrator) as conversations between a younger generation and an older generation. But Myra does not represent "older and wiser." She represents "older." Many people don't get smarter as they get older or after they get married, and Myra is one of those people (and it appears Avril Lavigne is one also, at least for the moment, but that's a whole nother story). Myra is intelligent. But she is also not smart enough to see where she is misguided. And she is also so tunnel-visioned and bull-headed that she will not concede where she might be wrong. And if we're going to peg her with an Achilles' Heel - an inability and general unwillingness to change has to be near the top of the list of the reasons for most of her follies.

In some ways, Cather's 'My Antonia' can be thought of a young person's recollection and observations of what happens to first loves. 'My Mortal Enemy' can be thought of as a young person's discovery of how some people so easily make so many enemies. Some people are good at drawing many lovers to them. Others, like Myra and her father, are exceptional at creating enemies - even of the people closest to them. And the novel examines the social constructs and personality traits that easily create enemies.

This paragraph discusses the title of "My Mortal Enemy" and to what the title may be referring, so if you want to read the book before knowing the ending, please read the rest of this review thereafter. Who is the "My" referring to - in the title "My Mortal Enemy?" I think it can be read as several people. It could be a general "My," representing anyone. It could also specifically refer to Willa Cather, Nellie (the narrator), or Myra. Her name is "My"ra. And twice, at key plot places in the book (p. 78 and the final sentence), she says, "Why must I die like this, alone with my mortal enemy?" From Myra's perspective, she perceives Oswald to be her mortal enemy. I believe the title is intended to be interpreted in all the above ways.

So who is the "mortal enemy?" It could be most easily interpreted as Oswald. But it could also be interpeted as Myra's father who disowned and disinherited her. But I think Cather was smarter than either of those singular interpretations. This book was not intended to be some melodrama or whodunnit, where the protagonist whispers the killer's name in her dying breath. No, this is a book examining larger social and cultural rules and the real and damaging consequences of those boundaries.

Cather's lead characters are not known for their ability to adapt. Neither Antonia nor Myra are able to really see what may have held them back their whole lives. They are both brilliant, individual personalities and beauties. And it is not accurate to suggest Cather is like Thomas Hardy and is simply composing plots where no matter how hard the female leads try, fate seems to batter them down into their pre-ordained destinies. No, Cather's has more intelligent and modern perspectives. Cather wants to show the joys that are crushed by the combination of dominant social rules AND the women who follow them without questioning. Sometimes older generations, as they get older, think they have everything figured out. Myra is an example of this type of person. And Cather uses her as an example of an intelligent person who is also a fool, a fool who thinks all her enemies are the people around her, when tragically, her greatest enemy is her own thoughts, boundaries, and treatment of others.

Myra's mortal enemy is Myra.

As the book nears the end, Myra turns increasingly insentive and hostile toward Nellie, Oswald, and everyone else. She only shows mercy to her dead fatherly guardian, who never adopted her. But even her words toward him are cruel to everyone else - as she suggests he is worthy of mercy while all those who have cared for her daily for years are not worth her understanding, love or compassion.

The book implies Oswald may have had an affair with someone else after marrying Myra. But whether he did or not, is not Cather's great concern. Cather wants to stress that Myra's suspicion of Oswald's sexual or amorous feelings towards anyone else is a dominant basis for her hatred of him. Myra relies on her assumption that if Oswald ever loved another person after they married, then in Myra's moral reasoning, he should be her enemy. This charming, hard working, and loving man, who gave her years of love and compassion doing work he hated, to give her many ornate things he never wanted, is discarded and exiled from her affections. She takes extraordinary efforts to abandon him in the end to die alone.

Cather wants people to consider everything and to think for themselves. She wants people to look at the weight of these character's actions over their entire lifetimes and measure those against individual, exclusive moral standards. Cather shows us the fruit of Myra's and her father's (John's) hatreds and mistreatment of those close to them. Cather shows us what happens when some people require their loves to only love and follow them exclusively. According to several biographical accounts, Cather lived most of her adult life in love with a person who was married to another. Her writings often focus on related universal social concerns.

A little book that packs a wallop.......2007-05-30

When I finished "My Mortal Enemy," I closed the book and said out loud to myself, "Wow!"

For the past year I've been reading all of Cather's novels in order. "O Pioneers" and "My Antonia" are rightly praised, but don't miss "A Lost Lady" and this gem. ("Death Comes for the Archbishop" is next on my list.)

To me, this book is a never-to-be solved mystery. What exactly went wrong between Myra and Oswald? Too passionate and dramatic a beginning?? Oswald's being stuck in work that didn't suit him? Not enough money? Pride? Materialism? Innate incompatibility? All of the above/none of the above/some combination of the above?

There are clues, but no definite answers. And that's what makes the book so lifelike, so thought-provoking, and, ultimately, so moving. Can we ever know exactly why a relationship fails? Aren't the people in the relationship as clueless (or worse) as outsiders like Nellie Birdseye, the narrator of "My Mortal Enemy"?

I don't understand exactly HOW Cather gives the reader so much in so few words. But that is part of her genius here.

A great work of literature - and there aren't many books I say that about.

Don't miss it.

Excellent choice.......2007-02-14

MY MORTAL ENEMY by Willa Cather (one of my favorite authors) is about a couple who get married despite the concerns of others. Things do not go as wonderfully as they hoped, but at the end of the day, not as awfully everyone expected.

To say that this couple had a strange but profound way of loving each other is not giving away the story. Absorbing the nuances of such love can only be accomplished by reading the book yourself.

Spare and ambiguous, yet moving and memorable.......2003-10-12

This short novella (about 20,000 words, close in size to a few of Cather's longer short stories) is a concentrated study of the decline and fall of a marriage. Cather herself agreed with the assessment offered by one of her contemporary reviewers: "there is the steady rhythm of the fundamental hatred of the sexes one of the other and their irresistible attraction one of the other."

The young and idealistic Nelly Birdseye describes the marriage of Myra Driscoll, her aunt's friend, to Oswald Henshawe. Their elopement incites Myra's uncle to disown her from a considerable inheritance, and the couple alternates between mutual bliss and impoverished misery. The fragility of their relationship is further imperiled by Myra's materialism and jealousy and Oswald's indolence and philandering.

"My Mortal Enemy" is, perhaps, one of Cather's most misunderstood novels, and the author seems to have intended that the title's meaning remain ambiguous. Most readers will assume, quite reasonably, that the "mortal enemy" who inflames Myra's inevitable disillusionment is Myra herself, and the text certainly supports such a reading. Yet in correspondence to friends and other writers, Cather admitted that she "had a premonition . . . most people wouldn't [understand]" that Myra's "mortal enemy" was Oswald, since he could never satisfy the excessiveness of her devotion, both to him and to others.

Although framed by the sparsest detail to be found in Cather's fiction, the story's forlorn perspective and memorable characterizations make this one of her most powerful works.

Poetic and tragic short novel.......2002-11-10

We come to know the protagonist of this short novel,Myra Henshawe.through the eyes of a younger woman who at first admires her unconditionally and grows to view her and the motivations behind her behavior more realistically as she encounters her again as an older physically suffering woman.

The bitterness which she feels toward her husband ,covered over with friends and laughter, when they were young and successful is more openly expressed as they age and find themselves in economic straits.

The characterizations achieved in this very short novel are extremely memorable. An excellent one evening read.

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Mortal Enemy My Beloved
Rita Zamora
Manufacturer: Rita Adams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1880710455

Book Description

This is a fictional story which weaves a tale of two young children, one male, one female, separated at a young age who grow up in a war-ravaged third world fictional country. Each child grows up on opposing sides of factions warring with each other. The story line mixes battles, drugs and romance along with some folklore and traditions.

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My Mortal Enemy
willa cather
Manufacturer: knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Product Description

Her sparest and most dramatic novel, a dark and oddly prescient portrait of a marriage that subverts our oldest notions about the nature of happiness and the sanctity of the hearth.

Average customer rating:

My Mortal Enemy
Willa Cather
Manufacturer: Vintage Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VW6UHE

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My Mortal Enemy
Willa Cather
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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My Mortal Enemy
Willa Cather
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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My Mortal Enemy
Willa Cather
Manufacturer: see notes for publisher info
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Average customer rating:

My Mortal Enemy
Willa Cather
Manufacturer: Vintage Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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MY MORTAL ENEMY.
Willa. Cather
Manufacturer: Knopp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Viola Roseboro': a prototype for Cather's My Mortal Enemy.(Critical Essay): An article from: The Mississippi Quarterly

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Viola Roseboro': a prototype for Cather's My Mortal Enemy.(Critical Essay): An article from: The Mississippi Quarterly
Merrill M. Skaggs
Manufacturer: Mississippi State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Classics | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Mississippi Quarterly, published by Mississippi State University on December 22, 2000. The length of the article is 7160 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Viola Roseboro': a prototype for Cather's My Mortal Enemy.(Critical Essay)
Author: Merrill M. Skaggs
Publication: The Mississippi Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 2000
Publisher: Mississippi State University
Volume: 54 Issue: 1 Page: 5(17)

Article Type: Critical Essay, Biography

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