Historical Ecology: Cultural Knowledge and Changing Landscapes (School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series)

Book Description

Historical Ecology addresses environmental change, one of the most pressing problems faced by the world community, as pollution, global warming, species extinction, and massive disruption of critical ecosystems become commonplace events. This book repesents a critical step along the road to a new environmental science.

Book Description

For some serious backyard fun, learn how to convert model rockets and engines into surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles. Includes principles of operation, safety precautions and improvised warhead and missile designs, all illustrated with clear plans and schematics. For information purposes only!

Customer Reviews:

Not to be Taken Seriously.......2007-09-08

I like model and high power rocketry. This book, though, is not for those with similar interests. It is for those who would like to learn how, theoretically, such rockets could be made into improvised weapons. There are not particularly good or accurate weapons, they have the form rather than the functionality of the real thing.

It is interesting in a curious way. The ideas put forth are certainly correct in their conception. The details are all very fuzzy, however. This is probably for the best. Most of what is contained in here is DEFINITELY NOT SAFE. The author says as much.

I wouldn't take this very seriously. I'm rather sorry I took it at all.

I keep a bound copy of this book.......2007-08-21

It's not a real thick volume but it's fun. Model rocketry is what got me interested in joining the Army and going into Air Defense Artillery. If anyone out there is disappointed that they can't use this book to build a Stinger out an Estes "Super Omega Plus" model rocket, then they're idiots. Post-911 or pre-911, a fun book.

Funny--But Really Dumb.......2007-06-16

Yet another Paladin Press classic, this book purports to contain hidden secrets of how to build supposedly destructive devices. And like most similar titles, it doesn't tell you anything that the average mischievous 12 year old could not think up--or that grown-ups could not acquire with a few minutes of internet searching.

Allegedly a technical manual, this is a slim volume of skimpy text and VERY basic drawings of assorted model rocket and "warhead" designs, most of which the author clearly sketched without ever having tried them and many of which simply would not work (thank heaven!).

As a work of somewhat offbeat humor, "Backyard Rocketry" certainly delivers some light laughs--not all of them intentional. But actually following any of the directions contained within would be illegal at best and quite possibly fatal at worst. Just don't do it.

Rest assured, someone picking up this book with the "wrong" motives will not find it useful. If anything, this treatise casts an undeserved shadow on the legitimate hobby of model rocketry. Which would be a far better subject for a book, to my mind.

ZERO STARS. Completely useless, hazardous and idiotic........2004-11-17

This is a pathetic piece of compressed sewage.

Maybe back in the mid 1990s it was funny, ha-ha, but it is not any more. Not since 9/11 anyway. Anybody reading this book stupid enough to follow any of its suggestions is likely to either blow their own head off or end up in jail on terrorism charges.

It has nothing to do with a sense of humor, it has to do with having more than one brain cell in your head in operating condition. A far more practical book than this one would be any one of the numerous texts available on the captivating field of animal husbandry.

Useful Tool.......1999-06-26

This book was quite useful in constructing rockets

Book Description

pres Thanksgiving. Weeks before Christmas. Alicia and Olivia are on their way to Manhattan so the Teen People editors can do a story on them about winning the Octavian Country Day uniform design contest. When Massie finally processes that the girls who hijacked her victory are also modeling for Teen People, she is livid. It should have been her. 'Ehmagod, what will everyone think when they find out it wasn't me who was asked to model? I will be SO over.' Massie decides it's time to get revenge. This snake can not lay idle in the weeds for one more second. Kristen and Dylan throw out terrible 'revenge' suggestions and Massie vetoes them all. She will think of something! But first she has to go home and exfoliate. The social minefields of Westchester County's most privileged middle school girls drive the page-turning action of this addictive series, set in New York City's most elite suburban county. The Clique . . . the only thing harder than getting in is staying in.

Customer Reviews:

Revenge Has Consequences That You Must Except.......2007-06-06

Name: Vanessa Bouwman
Title: Revenge of the Wannabes
Author: Lisi Harrison
Publisher: Little Brown and Company, Time Warner Book Group
Copyright date: 2005
Total Pages: 426

You just over heard some gossip about a person that you know! Do you spread the gossip some more? If you think you might, then this might be the book for you!
Alicia Riveria is tired of being Massie Block's beta and always being the second choice or second hottest - so she decides to start a clique of her own. Well once Massie finds this out, she goes ballistic! With the race between the two, to tell who's the hottest or who's better, the girls realize that they loose the most important thing that they had. Friendship.
The best part of the book was the climax when all the gossip between the girls, exploded and revealed itself, through a cat fight. Then when they're told to stop, they stat to laugh about the whole scene and then become friends again! It's a happy ending.
As the reviewer of this book, I would say the main idea is that friendship s more important than popularity or attention `cause being popular has lots of responsibilities, but friendship involves just being yourself.
I liked the way this book switched from all the girls' different perspectives and they talked about their true feelings in their perspectives. What I would change about this book is the drama. There seems to be too much drama between the girls that the book doesn't quite, then, seem completely real, but yet its still very interesting. I would recommend this book to teenage girls between the ages 12-18, because it can help anyone of them, realize how important friendship really is and how unimportant being popular is. Overall this book is very good and I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone.

the clique revenge of the wanabes.......2007-05-23

I absolutley loved this book so much! There are many things that go wrong though. The girls think that nothing could go wrong between their strong friendships, until one day it all falls apart. Alicia was hanging out with Olivia way to much. The other girls knew that there wasn't enought room for her in their clique. Alicia had to make a decision to whether or not to stay with the clique, who had been her best friends forever, or stay with her new bestfriend Olivia. The clique planned a mean revenge for Alicia to make her want to change her mind about being best friends with Olivia, who was a "loser beyond repair," and not "the pretty committee."

When i was reading this book i could not put it down for one second. There was so much action going on it was really hard to put it down. The book was definitely, without a doubt in my mind a page turner. This book shows real life situations. I can relate to almost everything that happens in this book. This book is a great book for girls who are going into middle school, or who are in middle school

Revenge of the Wannabes Review.......2007-05-06

When Alicia Rivera cheats by switching ballad boxes at the OCD fashion design with her partner Olivia, Massie Block her former best friend decides she needs to get revenge. After dance rehearsal Alicia talked to some of the girls decided she needs make other friends too other than Massie. They convinced her to hold Friday night sleepovers, even though Massie always invites her popular friends over every Friday. When she finds out she is furious and decides she doesn't want Alicia to hangout with them anymore. When Alicia and Olivia go to the Teen People Interview for winning the contest, the lady there asks them if they want to model for the magazine instead. They agree and she said they are able to bring six other friends. When Massie hears this she calls the lady and tells them that they will be the others. In the end the go to the photo shoot and it turns out a total disaster because they all get into a fight, but after that the make up and are good friends again. The Revenge of the Wannabes is a funny, interesting novel I would definitely recommend.

One of the reasons I liked this novel is because it is easy to understand and keep interest in. The story dealt real life situations that happen to teen's everyday like friendships, crushes, and popularity. Such as Alicia being tired of being pushed around by Massie, wanting to be more popular, and have other friends. Also Clair who is kind of new to Westchester and lives in Massie's guesthouse is just starting to feel popular and Massie's friend.

Another thing I liked is the characters and how they acted. Alicia Rivera wanted to be independent and more popular yet she still wanted to be exactly like Massie. She did similar things like Friday night sleepover, start her own clique, and even find look alike new best friends. Also I liked the Teen People fashion editor, Lucinda because she didn't care and was cool about everything even when she found out Olivia and Alicia cheated. She always made sure everybody and there outfits look perfect. There is also Massie, who very popular and used to getting everything she wants.

Lastly, I liked this book because of the unique well written plot. The book is mostly about revenge for Massie to get back at Alicia for starting her own clique and cheating on the fashion contest. At one point in the book Massie and her friends painted a mural describing Alicia's backstabbing then showed it to her that sent her sobbing out the door. There were several twists and unexpected parts such as when Clair is accepted into the clique and Alicia has Todd, Clair's younger brother, spy on Massie's sleepover.

Revenge of the Wannabes is a wonderful book that I would highly recommend. It was fun to read about events that I could relate too such as the drama that happens to normal teenagers. Also I liked the characters such as Kristen, who doesn't have very much money is still really good friends with the popular girls in school, and they have kept her secret for a long time. The reader will have fun trying to imagine what it would be like to be in the position of people in the book such as how Massie felt when she found out Alicia backstabbed her.

~ C. Cirillo

there coming for revenge.......2007-04-05

The characters of Revenge Of The Wannabes are Clair Lyons, Kristen Gregory, Dylan Marvil, Alicia Rivera, Massie Block and Oliva. Massie Block is the most popular girl at school but Alicia want's to be more popular then her, so Alicia and the other girls at the dance studio starting talking about the sleepover that Massie Block always has and they came up with an idea that Alicia should have a sleepover of her own. so when Alicia got home she thought about it for a while. She went up to her room and checked her messages on her phone and she had messages from her dance studio friends and from Massie and those group of friends. Alicia was really confused she didn't know if she should have her own sleepover or go to Massie's. Later in the book it was a Teen People design contest Massie really won but before judging Alicia and Oliva changed the vote boxes so the 2 girls went to Teen People and they got to see all of the latest clothes and even got to take something home.

A Favorite!.......2007-03-30

Alicia had cheated in the OCD fashion contest and now Massie feels that the revenge is long past due, and she will stop at nothing to crush Alicia's perfect record. After dance rehearsal Alicia was talking to the other girls and decided that there was too much "Massie" in her life, and the other girls talked her into starting sleepovers on Friday night. Massie owned Fridays and that course of action was not an option, but she could not refuse the wide eyes staring in on her. As the day of her Teen People magazine interview grew closer Alicia continued to wonder if Massie knew what she and Olivia had done, but when the day of the interview came and Massie still did not say anything she thought that she was in the clear, but in truth Massie knew exactly what had happened. Then Massie found out that at the magazine interview Alicia and Olivia had been offered a modeling job, Massie decided to tell the people that Alicia was lying, but when she did all the people said was that they did not even care. Massie was so mad at Alicia that she invited her over and she had a mural of her on the wall and explained its contents to Alicia and sent her running out. Then one day at a Briarwood soccer game Cam convinced Alicia to ask Claire out for him. Alicia told Claire the news and said that they should go on a double date and Claire agreed to go. While they were there Alicia had Todd spy on Massie's sleepover. The next day Alicia said that unless they where a scarf showing that they were in her group she would tell everyone their secrets. They all wore the scarves and they all went with Alicia to the shoot and there they all got in a fight after breaking down from all the pressure that had been building up during the past month. After that situation they became friends again and Claire was admitted to the Pretty Committee. I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys gossip and tough social situations.

I enjoyed this book because it depicted how cliques and popularity affect social structure and how people act. At the beginning Alicia wanted to have her own sleepover and be the leader of a group, but Massie completely rejected the idea because she thought that people would like Alicia more than they liked her. Another time was when Alicia found out all of her ex-friends' secrets and she used that as leverage to get them to see things from her point of view. Another point was at the very end when everyone let out the anger built up inside of him or her and they started fighting. The fight was Massie's friends versus Alicia's friend and finally at the end they made up and continued the photo shoot for Teen People.

The book details the life of the Clique over the course of about one month and it is amazing how people changed and stayed the same. Kendra, Massie's mother, was always very strict about keeping everything clean and perfect, but after she started reading with a book club she started to .et go and was not as strict. She even let the girls paint the old horse barn. Another person that changed was Claire, because at the beginning she was quietly in love with Cam, but was never confident enough to really go out with him. After he did, though, she really liked it and found another thing to like in Westchester. Finally it was Massie who changed the most. In the beginning she was always rude and jealous towards Claire because she had a crush on Cam as well, so she was always telling Claire to break up with Cam because she was always so mad that someone had beaten her at something. In the end she allowed Claire to go out with Cam and she developed a crush on Derrington.

Another thing that I appreciated in this book were the different characters and how they acted. I especially liked Lucinda, the editor for Teen People because she did not care too much about anything or even that Olivia and Alicia had cheated in the contest, but she did care about how the other people dressed around her as well as her clients. Another character was Alicia Rivera and she was tired of sitting in Massie's shadow and decided to be independent and start her own group. Of course there is Massie Block, and she is an ambitious seventh grader that is used to everything going her way and getting all she wanted.

This was on of my favorite books because of the characters like Kristen, a girl who does not have very much money and yet has still made friends with the most popular girls in school, and has kept her secret over the years. I also liked this book because of how the characters changed through the progression of the story. I also liked this book because it shows how popularity really does control our life. I recommend this book to anyone that can really relate to the situations in the book.

The Clique Collection: The Clique / Best Friends for Never / Revenge of the Wannabes (The Clique)

Average customer rating:

Dial L for Loser
Sealed with a Diss
More More MORE!
Another ah-mazing Clique book!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Clique Collection: The Clique / Best Friends for Never / Revenge of the Wannabes (The Clique)
Lisi Harrison
Manufacturer: Little Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

School | Issues | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Literature & Fiction | Teens | Subjects | Books

Being a Teen | Social Issues | Teens | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0316167053

Book Description

A boxed set of three books (The Clique #1, The Clique #2: Best Friends for Never, The Clique #3: Revenge of the Wannabes) in the New York Times bestselling series.

Customer Reviews:

Dial L for Loser.......2007-09-17

I thought the book was very interesting. It made you want to keep reading. This book was my favorite so far in the series but it left you hanging in the end I can't wait til I get to read the next one. Lisi Harrison is a great writer for teens.

Sealed with a Diss.......2007-09-10

This book was absolutley fabulous. I love how Lisi Harrison keeps you on the edge and anticipating the next word (or in Massie's case, a clever comeback!) These books are fun filled and action packed, a great read for anyone 10 or older. I recomend this series to everyone, and I cannot wait for the next book!

More More MORE!.......2007-08-17

I loved this book, but I hated the fact that it ended like it did and the next one doesn't come out til next year. That sux! But the book itself was )as most cliques are) drama filled and intense. The life of an alpha is so not as great as it seems. And the poor girls and their crushes I mean you have GOT to feel sorry for them.

This story takes you on a journey that ended quite abrubtly, and will begin again in February 2008!!! Man I can't wait!!!!!&hearts;

Another ah-mazing Clique book!.......2007-08-06

I have really enjoyed ALL of the books in the Clique series. I am a middle school teacher, and have shared my love of reading with many girls via the Clique books. These books are perfect for a hesistant reader- they are so engaging and fun to read. They are also age-appropriate, unlike some other series that are marketed to young girls.
Massie and the Pretty Committee do not disappoint in the 8th book of this series. The dialog is snappy as always, and left me looking forward to the 9th book!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......2007-07-30

this is my favorite book out of the clique series so far. i'm not going to tell you what happened but it's a real cliff hanger. anyway it's a great book and i gaurantee that you won't want to put the book down.

THE CLIQUE SERIES 4 BOOK SET (YOUR CHOICE OF ANY FOUR CLIQUE SERIES BOOKS)

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THE CLIQUE SERIES 4 BOOK SET (YOUR CHOICE OF ANY FOUR CLIQUE SERIES BOOKS)
LISI HARRISON
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: B000JD7GL4

Product Description

SAVE ON SHIPPING!!! GET ALL YOUR CLIQUE SERIES BOOKS FROM FIFTH AVENUE BOOKS!!!

THE CLIQUE SERIES 2 BOOK SET ((YOUR CHOICE OF ANY TWO CLIQUE SERIES BOOKS))

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THE CLIQUE SERIES 2 BOOK SET ((YOUR CHOICE OF ANY TWO CLIQUE SERIES BOOKS))
LISI HARRISON
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JD5RJW

Product Description

SAVE ON SHIPPING!!! GET ALL YOUR CLIQUE SERIES BOOKS FROM FIFTH AVENUE BOOKS!!!

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Revenge of the Wannabes, a Clique Novel
Lisi Harrison
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000RK3D1Q

THE CLIQUE SERIES 3 BOOK SET (YOUR CHOICE OF ANY THREE CLIQUE SERIES BOOKS)

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The Clique Book Set

THE CLIQUE SERIES 3 BOOK SET (YOUR CHOICE OF ANY THREE CLIQUE SERIES BOOKS)
LISI HARRISON
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Clique, The: Invasion of the Boy Snatchers - Book #4 (Clique Series)

ASIN: B000I9RX58

Product Description

SAVE ON SHIPPING!!! GET ALL YOUR CLIQUE SERIES BOOKS FROM FIFTH AVENUE BOOKS!!!

Customer Reviews:

The Clique Book Set.......2007-08-06

This is the best books I have bought all summer for my 14 year old to read. She read the first 2 books in 2 days and can't wait for the rest of the series to arrive. If your daughter liked the movie Mean Girls she will love these books!!! Thank you for allowing my daughter to move from the television into the wonderful world of reading!!
Mary

5 Book Set of the Clique Series By Lisi Harrison; the Clique; the Pretty Committee Strikes Back; Best Friends for Never; Revenge of the Wannabes; It's Not Easy Being Mean

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5 Book Set of the Clique Series By Lisi Harrison; the Clique; the Pretty Committee Strikes Back; Best Friends for Never; Revenge of the Wannabes; It's Not Easy Being Mean
Lisi Harrison
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VUB4NG

Product Description

5 Book Set of the Clique Series By Lisi Harrison; the Clique; the Pretty Committee Strikes Back; Best Friends for Never; Revenge of the Wannabes; It's Not Easy Being Mean.

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Revenge Of The Wannabes: A Clique Novel
Lisi Harrrison
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VS3SLY

Average customer rating:

Some good parts, but patchy

heavy material...

Disappointing & unenlightening

Turning the tide on AI research in a sense

Lots and lots of buildup ... and very little payoff.

Creation: Life and How to Make It
Steve Grand
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Artificial Intelligence | Computer Science | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
Computer Mathematics | Artificial Intelligence | Computer Science | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0674011139

Amazon.com

Though its title brings to mind the hubris of Frankenstein, Steve Grand's Creation: Life and How to Make It is just humble enough to keep its readers hooked. Best known as the developer of the Creatures series of artificial-life software, Grand has quite a following among devotees of playful complexity.

The book ranges from deep ruminations on the nature of life and mind (artificial and biological) to fairly concrete advice for future creators, and his writing is just as elegant and compelling as his software. Sometimes his cleverness gets the best of him, but for the most part, his wordplay is used to serve his ideas, which are thought-provoking even for readers who have no intention of creating life.

Many will be surprised at the strength of Grand's antireductionism, but he makes his case vigorously and may win a few converts to the emergent-phenomena camp. Creation is essential reading for those of us who want to think through the consequences of our actions before we imitate Frankenstein's mistake. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

Working mostly alone, almost single-handedly writing 250,000 lines of computer code, Steve Grand produced Creatures®, a revolutionary computer game that allowed players to create living beings complete with brains, genes, and hormonal systems--creatures that would live and breathe and breed in real time on an ordinary desktop computer. Enormously successful, the game inevitably raises the question: What is artificial life? And in this book--a chance for the devoted fan and the simply curious onlooker to see the world from the perspective of an original philosopher-engineer and intellectual maverick--Steve Grand proposes an answer.

From the composition of the brains and bodies of artificial life forms to the philosophical guidelines and computational frameworks that define them, Creation plumbs the practical, social, and ethical aspects and implications of the state of the art. But more than that, the book gives readers access to the insights Grand acquired in writing Creatures--insights that yield a view of the world that is surprisingly antireductionist, antimaterialist, and (to a degree) antimechanistic, a view that sees matter, life, mind, and society as simply different levels of the same thing. Such a hierarchy, Grand suggests, can be mirrored by an equivalent one that exists inside a parallel universe called cyberspace.

Customer Reviews:

Some good parts, but patchy.......2007-02-22

There are some interesting analogies and examples of perceived or emergent behaviour but overall many of the arguments do not hold up to scrutiny. If you are looking for a book written in the form of opinions, as opposed to hard facts, then this book will be more to your liking. Certainly something I would borrow from a friend/library rather than paying for it to sit on my shelf - not something I will go back to in future to read again or for reference. It was a disappointment as I was led to it from Richard Dawkins' excellent "The God Delusion".

heavy material..........2006-11-10

This book gives a very deep insight in the problems of the creation of systems with some intelligence.

Disappointing & unenlightening.......2005-11-14

I seldom pan books, but this one is little more than an egotistic rehash of simplified versions of AI/AL theories of the past 3 decades. The only new data are the author's opinions. If you are looking for anything new and/or in depth, look elsewhere.

Turning the tide on AI research in a sense.......2004-07-10

I must say I enjoyed the book completely. While I don't agree with the author on all points - the book is incredibly though provoking. I was so glad to see such a book written that after I read the book (in 3 nights - short book) I bought three copies for co-workers who I wanted to read it. Steve Grand is now quite famous (or should I say even more famous) after writing this book. He has challenged traditional thought on the subject of AI and in a way made converts out of many.

However, he spends 10 chapters saying "you are all wrong - this is the way to do it" - then doesn't follow up on doing it himself but rather takes enough shortcuts to make the work suspect - but to his credit he does say he's doing going just that :) All in all - if you're a software engineer or software developer I highly recommended the book.

Lots and lots of buildup ... and very little payoff........2004-05-27

Grand's book isn't that at all, although it tries to be. He starts out with his definition of life, and builds (slowly, oh so slowly you could cry) up to the point where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. At that point, he imply handwaves the entire process of programming a-life.

So in short, there are books out there that do a better job of explaining the application of neural networks. There are better books on the philosophy of consciousness and life. There are better books on game design.

So you don't need this one, because Grand only tells you what you already know, if you're at all interested in the subject, and doesn't add enough best-practice techniques to make his way of building a-life better than any other. It's as though he was so worried about giving away his secrets that he redacted all of the information in the book that would have made it more than 'Here's my philosophy.'

Book Description

Mankind now has within its grasp the power to synthesize true artificial life, playing out Dr Frankenstein's dream in both cyberspace and the real world. In this book, Steve Grand, a leading exponent of artificial life, provides the first authoritative and comprehensive tour of the frontiers of this burgeoning new creation. He surveys what has been achieved so far and looks at future possibilities for generating autonomous, intelligent, even conscious living things. The fundamental questions he tackles range widely: what is life? What should the minds, brains and bodies of these new life forms be like? What philosophical guidelines and computational frameworks are necessary? How much can we learn from the evolution of natural life forms? What are the practical, social and ethical implications of this research? At the heart of this brilliantly accessible and thought-provoking book is the author's unique imaginative vision — a vision based on his experience of making some of the most advanced artificial life currently available. The secret of success, he argues, lies in emulating nature's way and working from the bottom up. This groundbreaking book reveals the details of how to do this and challenges how we think about the meaning of life.

Book Description

Most object-oriented or functional languages are higher order languages, ones in which the means of manipulation can itself be manipulated. This important reference contains a collection of original articles about recent developments in operational semantics for higher order programming languages by some of the leading researchers in the field. Operational techniques are important because they are closer to implementations and language definitions than more abstract mathematical techniques such as denotational semantics. One of the exciting developments recounted in the book is that mathematical structures and techniques used in denotational semantics (such as fixpoint induction) may be recovered from a purely operational starting point. The book surveys and introduces techniques such as contextual equivalence, applicative bisimulation, logical relations, improvement relations, explicit models of memory management, and labeling techniques for confluence properties. It treats a variety of higher order languages, based on functions, processes and objects, with and without side effects, typed and untyped. Researchers and graduate students will find this book valuable reading.

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Among the very best fiction I've read

The Very Best of Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane as Impressionist

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, Stephen crane

the black rider

Great Short Works of Stephen Crane (Perennial Classics)
Stephen Crane
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Crane, Stephen | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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McTeague (Signet Classics)

ASIN: 0060726482
Release Date: 2004-07-06

Book Description

The collected short work of an American master, including The Red Badge of Courage and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.

Stephen Crane died at the age of 28 in Germany. In his short life, he produced stories that are among the most enduring in the history of American ficiton. The Red Badge of Courage manages to capture both the realistic grit and the grand hallucinations of soldiers at war. Maggie: A Girl on the Streets reflects the range of Crane's ability to invest the most tragic and ordinary lives with great insight.

James Colvert writes in the introduction to this volume: ⇥re we find once again the major elements of Crane's art: the egotism of the hero, the indifference of nature, the irony of the narrator ... Crane is concerned with the moral responsibility of the individual ... (and) moral capability depends upon the ability to see through the illusions wrought by pride and conceit –– the ability to see ourselves clearly and truly."

Great Short Works of Stephen Crane Includes : The Red Badge of Courage; Maggie: A Girl of the Streets; The Monster. Stories: An Experiment in Misery; A Mystery of Heroism; An Episode of War; The Upturned Face; The Open Boat; The Pace of Youth; The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky; The Blue Hotel .

Customer Reviews:

Among the very best fiction I've read.......2003-08-09

These 11 stories run from a few pages to about 125 pages. Crane evokes a great deal of color describing his scenes with a relative economy of words. He uses irony alot in his writing but is never cruel. He objectively writes about people struggling in harsh environments against overpowering fates but shows compassion.

The first story and the longest is "The Red Badge of Courage." Of all the stories, it may be best overall. The motivations of Henry Fleming and his fellow soldiers are really well drawn. They really don't want to be there, but feel they have to be heroes and at times they force themselves to be. But when the going gets tough in battle, many of them turn around and run. Crane portrays Henry as overhearing a general as saying to the effect that Henry's regiment was expeendable cannon fodder and this revelation very much grates on Henry's fellows.

The next story is "Maggie: A Girl of The Street." The story seems to be set in the late 19th century in an Irish tenament slum in New York. The account of the younger years of Maggie and her brother Jimmie ends with a scene of the two huddling in a corner of the flat as their parents lay sprawled out asleep on the floor, amidst broken furniture and dishes, after a drunken brawl with each other. It is such an environment like this that Maggie grows up. Jimmie grows up to be a truck driver and a brute. But Maggie is something of a flower amidst tenament squalor and catches the eye of Jimmie's friend Pete. Jimmy hears, from an old lady in his building who overheard a conversation between Pete and Maggie after one of their dates, that Maggie begged Pete to say that he loved her. Obviously this is a discrete intimation that Pete has taken Maggie's virginity. Well, this sets Johnnie and his barbaric mother into quite a rage and it goes downhill for Maggie there.

The biographical note at the back of the book, presumably written by the author of the fine introduction, James Colvert, says that Crane dosen't get into Maggie's mind. I think that's because she's extremely ignorant, with a mind numbed by a violent environment and lack of stimulation. The characters in this story engage in really thick Irish accents. I think the funniest dialogue is Pete's drunken conversation with his lady friends in the bar towards the end. Another comes from Jimmie and Maggie's mother Mary's lamentations to the effect that she didn't understand how Maggie could turn out so bad after being raised so well by her, Mary. I liked the description of the scenes in the cheap theaters where Pete takes Maggie. I don't understand what the next to last chapter with "the girl" walking the streets is about.

Other stories include "The Monster," an effective tragedy about a black servant named Henry Johnson of a white doctor in rural New England, who gets his face literally burned off and his brain damaged after trying to save the doctor's son in a fire. Both whites and blacks in the town are terribly afraid of Henry because his burned off face makes him look like a monster....After several incidents, after Henry escapes from his confinement at the house of a black family rage, the town turns against the doctor for keeping him in the community. One incident is him merely looking into the window of a birthday party and scaring out of her wits, one little girl. The little girl's father greatly exagerates the harm done to her and talks of having the doctor arrested. The other is when he appearts in the black neighborhood in the evening and stops by his old girlfriend Bella's house where her family is sitting on the front porch. Bella's fat old mother breaks her leg jumping over a fence at the sight of Henry. Bella herself is reduced to crawling in terror on the porch trying to escape as Henry in his amiable mental retardation babbles invitations to her to go to a dance with him. Henry moves into his old place above the farm of the doctor's house, making one of the neighbors move away. I thought the scene was really superb where the doctor's son Jimmy and his friends are competing with each other to see who can approach "the monster" as he sits solitarily in the barn.

"An experiment in misery," is an 11 page account of a night and next morning experience of two homeless men. "A mystery of heroism" a tale about a civil war soldier's attempt to get water in the middle of a field where bullets and shells are flying back and forth. "The Open Boat" is a very technically well done story of four men, survivors from shipwreck, trying to survive at sea in their dinghy. The dialogue is excellent. "The Pace of Youth" is very succinctly written, about two young employees of a small merry-go-round place, who are prevented from having any communication by the girl's father, the manager of the place. Their silent flirtation is quite believable and really engaging. What they do at the end is incredible, but well managed by Crane. It is a superb romance. In "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," I like the initial scenes where the young, naive couple, the groom being the sherrif of Yellow Sky, Texas, are viewed sardonically by the black porter and other passangers. "

The last story is "The Blue Hotel." It begins with the owner of a hotel in a small Nebraska town managing, fatefully, to convince three passangers on the train that has stoped there, to stay the night at his hotel. The travellers are refered to as "the Easterner," "the cowboy," and "the Swede." A major highlight is the fistfight between the owner's son Johnnie and the extremely demented Swede, officiated by the owner. Indeed Crane is very skilled at describing fights whether they be on civil war battlefields or in bars. The other fight in this story, is, of course, at its end but I won't tell about that.

The Very Best of Stephen Crane.......2002-01-17

Anybody who has graduated from an American high school, or taken an introductory course in American literature at the college level, has been exposed to The Red Badge of Courage. This story of cowardice, courage, and self discovery is often ranked with the hallmarks of American literature. However, after this story has been read and discussed, all too often the author of this work is soon forgotten. This is unfortunate. Crane produced an amazing amount of work, some equal to or superior to The Red Badge, but very few contemporary readers are aware of these writings. This collection of short works and stories group together the very best of Crane's work and hopefully will help bring him to the attention of a new generation of readers.

Although Crane wrote some of the best descriptions of warfare ever written, not to mention other forms of action from gunfights to the power of sea and fire, his main interest was always concerned with how the individual reacts to the various challenges posed by a flatly indifferent universe. His characters invariably react with the egotistical assurance that they are in control of their destiny only to be knocked flat by life's viscisitudes. The character that can strip away his illusions finds redemption; those that don't are simply condemned to repeat the patern over and over again.

Two stories in particular deserve renewed attention. The Blue Hotel and The Monster rank with the very finest short stories ever written by an American. Both deal with false impressions and how these fallacies eventually lead to the ruin of the characters who hold them. In the two stories, one dealing with 19th century romantic notions of the American west, and the other with the unseemly side of American small town life, Crane combines realistic dialogue with his wonderful descriptive powers to create a world of his own making, one in which assumptions and prejudices are ever bit as powerful as decent behavior and civil responsibility.

Stephen Crane as Impressionist.......2002-01-10

"The battle flag in the distance jerked about madly. It seemed to be struggling to free itself from an agony. The billowing smoke was filled with horizontal flashes." (Crane, TRBOC).

If you were to mix Monet with the Civil War you would have "The Red Badge of Courage," penned by one of America's finest writers, Stephen Crane. His sense of hues and the dripping colors of the sky come together to paint some of the most beautiful literature humanly possible.

Stephen Crane is, above all, an Impressionist. His writing is strongly suggestive of the culmination of myriad viewpoints and perspectives. Scenes are not depicted from a distance, but rather from isolated instances on the battlefield. Esoteric symbols are utilized to bombard the reader with a certain cosmopolitan consciousness.

"The Red Badge of Courage," however, is not my favorite of Crane's works, but "The Open Boat." This short story is the monument to Crane's genius, the triumph of his language and arbitrary mode of experience, it is like viewing a story from many assorted "first person(s)."

Words could not explain my love of "The Open Boat."

Read Crane, love Crane, regardless of your High School preconceptions.

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, Stephen crane.......2001-12-14

The short story "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," by Stephen Crane is a short western story written around 1890. It concerns the effort of the town marshal, Jack Potter, bringing his new bride to the "frontier" town of Yellow Sky, Texas, at the time when the Old West was slowly being civilized.

While you are reading through the book, and waiting for something to happen, you are lead to the climax. At this turning point, the stereotypical gunfight between Jack Potter and his enemy Scratchy Wilson, the drunken troublemaker from Yellow Sky, was averted. Potter told Scratchy he didn't have a gun with him bacause he married now. Upon hearing this, Scratchy came to the realization he doesn't want to fight him anymore.
The averted gunfight, a main feature of the western story, makes you, as the reader, think all such gunplay is a thing of the past. This is, in fact, Crane's description of the "end of an era." Scratchy realizes through potter's change in behavior, which is now more mature, that a new way of life has started.

"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" is a short story one can read in twenty minutes. When the reader returns to the story, he or she realizes, it is a short story with thoughts and meanings to be ieferred beyond the actual words. It may seem simple - even boring to read, but the message is meaningful.

As a student whose first language is German, I struggled with the vocabulary but came to realize the significance of the situation once I had finished reading. Therefore it is a good story, due to Crane's depiction of the western civilization.

the black rider.......2001-09-03

A most magnificent piece of war journalism The Red Badge of Courage was crafted from interviews with Civil War veterans. Crane wasn't born yet when the Civil War was actually happening but by some strange feat of the imagination he takes you there. You've probably read this at some point in your school days but read it as an adult too. The prose is actually less literary journalism and more a highly crafted and stylized subjective telling of the war experience through Henry Fleming's eyes. Crane was admired by Conrad(who called him the "best of the boys" and who like Crane is also called a literary impressionist) and Hemingway whose own prose and journalism owe much to him. The short stories("Open Boat"one of the best sea episodes ever described) are also excellent and since Crane only lived 29 years this volume contains all his important work. His work was groundbreaking and his style has an immediate quality to it that leaves one with the feeling of having lived through the experiences he describes. In his short life he constantly sought the extremes. The medium length work Maggie describes a prostitutes existence and in true Crane style does not spare any of the gritty details though again it is not strict objectivity which marks the Crane style. In my mind he belongs alongside Conrad as one of the great originals who were writing at a very high point in literary history. Some would say they have not been matched. There is still much in their styles which has never been improved upon.

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