No comments about Concerning Animals and Other Matters (Large Print Edition).

5 comments about Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson.

1. David Fleitz has captured in a snapshot the essence of the life of Joe Jackson. He was born in rural South Carolina in the late 19th Century and died in 1951 in his home state.
   Shoeless Joe Jackson, has since become the precursor to the modern baseball slugger. His batting stance was copied by the ultimate baseball slugger, that being Babe Ruth. Mr. Jackson's batting skills in Cleveland and Chicago are legendary. He really was the first hitter to take a full cut at the ball. His batting prow ness was not out of the small ball era.
   Mr. Fleitz goes into great detail about Shoeless Joe's career. After reading this thorough dissertation, I feel that Mr. Jackson belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was a good man who probably deserved better. Like the tragedy of Pete Rose it probably will not happen. However I hope in the great wisdom of the "Old Timers Committee" they will see that Joe Jackson belongs in the hallowed chambers at Cooperstown.
   This book was well written and very readable. If you love the history of baseball, you'll love this book



2. Fleitz does a fine job of describing the atmosphere of the early days of baseball and is usually objective in his treatment of Jackson as a player and as a person. I recommend the book for anyone who is a Jackson affectionado and/or enjoys human drama in a sports context. However, I was very disappointed in the final pages where Fleitz offers his opinion that Jackson wouldn't have cared about the Hall of Fame anyway because he was basically a Southern, good old boy from a poor background who cared only about hanging out with friends and family near the old homeplace. My great uncle worked in those same Greenville, SC cotton mills as a 9-yr old boy for almost no wages but ambition did not die there among the textile looms.



3. There has been a lot said and written about Joe Jackson by a variety of people - baseball people, baseball historians, scholars of the 1919 World Series, residents of the South (particularly South Carolina), and others. There's also been a variety of books produced about Jackson, most with his point of view or the "point of view he would have had," whatever that might have been at any point in time. It was with some skepticism that I picked up Fleitz's book and started to read, half expecting to see the same arguments that I've read before - Jackson as a victim, as the greatest player not in the Hall of Fame but for one mistake, and how he went back to South Carolina and scratched out a living (or was very successful, depending on which book you read).

   Fleitz's book was a most pleasant surprise - it offers information that I haven't found anywhere else, and gives more "flesh" and substance to the person that was Joe Jackson than any previous account of his life that I had read. One point is the relationship that he had with his wife: always shown as the doting couple, Fleitz writes that this wasn't always the case. In baseball, he shows that Jackson wasn't the near-mythological player that he had been portrayed, and that he did fail at any number of clutch situations. By the same token, Jackson is also frequently mentioned as a batting role model to any number of famous players. The reactions of contemporaries thoughtout the book is also delightful feature.

   A primary focus of the book is in the 1919 World Series and Jackson's role in that. Through the years Jackson has garnered significant numbers of supporters claiming that he was innocent; Fleitz offers evidence and opinions that he may not have been that innocent at all. There is also the issue of his initial acceptance of the gamblers' money. As with many people, I have my opinions of the World Series fix and Jackson's involvement. Prior to Fleitz's book, the opinion was a little fuzzier; after reading the book, it's become a little clearer. Was he innocent or guilty? Read the book and make your decision - it's well worth your time.




4. Great book. Separates the myth and the legend of Shoeless Joe Jackson from the "average Joe" and looks at his banishment from baseball in an honest, objective light. Author does an outstanding job of dissecting Jackson's behavior and possible motives throughout the scandal of the 1919 Black Sox.
   But more importantly, more personal information about Joe is available on Joe throughout the pages of this text than any I have ever seen. This is a fantastic accomplishment as there is a lot of sappy, sentimental fluff out there about Joe Jackson and this book really made me feel as though I knew Joe, in addition to understanding what he was about.
   This book is by far and away the best baseball book of the year (along with Reed Browning's Cy Young) and is amongst the best and most important baseball books ever written. If you're a serious baseball fan, you will enjoy SHOELESS!!



5. Baseball biographies come in all types, from boring descriptions of the player's performance in games, to tantalizing disconnected details of the player's life outside the lines, to full-fledged development of the player's life history and personality. This new book by David Fleitz falls more toward the latter. I recommend it to all baseball fans, especially ones (like me) who are fascinated by the lesser-known stars of the pre-Ruthian world.

   Much of the book is devoted to Jackson's role in the Black Sox scandal, putting it into historical context and digging into the actions and motives of some of the key figures. The passages involving Charles Comiskey are especially revealing.

   The road between city life and country life was much longer back then. Early baseball has many stories of the difficulties rural men faced when thrust into MLB's urban landscape. Because of his great physical skills, the illiterate Jackson is a highly compelling example of these stories. I now feel like I've met Jackson. Among the best baseball biographies I've read.

5 comments about Dante.

1. In depth about his life, but fortunately was only about 200 pages.



2. Dante was the poet-historian of Florence. He associated himself with his native city. He was an ardent personality. In Florence there was a surging economy and seven guilds. City walls were extended to form a new circuit completed in 1333.
   
   Virgil's AENEID was the poem Dante admired most. Dante died in 1321 in Ravenna and is buried there. In 1373 Boccaccio offered a series of lectures on Dante's life and work. Dante's father died in the early 1280's. Brunetto Latini became a role model. Dante provides a portrait of the old master in his COMEDY.
   
   Dante had divergent impulses. Love and death are counter themes in VITA NUOVA. Following Beatrice's death, Dante became immersed in THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY by Boethius describing a soul finding comfort in the vision of God. Dante was gifted in discourse. He led a private and family life during the years he held public office.
   
   Florentine discord began in family feuding between the Donatis and the Cerchis. Dante became a literary man, exalting the welfare of the commune over the warfare of the two sides. Around 1301 Dante incurred the Pope's displeasure. Subsequently the poet suffered banishment and the threat of the imposition of the death sentence. First he lived in Verona, like Florence a daughter of Rome.
   
   Next Dante went to Padua, briefly, and then to Bologna. He was on his own. He identified fourteen separate Italian dialects in one of his books. He wrote much of the INFERNO on the run. He settled in Verona from 1312 to 1318. The PURGATORIO was written there and the PARADISIO begun. There is a tone in the former work of hope refreshed.
   
   In 1318 Dante moved to Ravenna. The Christian humanism of Thomas Aquinas appealed to him. Both men hold the idea that grace perfects nature. Examination of what he truly believed found Dante a changed man. Peter, James, and John represent faith, hope, and love. The PARADISIO was completed in 1320.
   
   T.S. Eliot's mind was infested with Dante.



3. The Peguin Lives series thrives on its clever and sometimes surprising pairings of subjects and writers, often non-specialists with a more personal take on the life. Giving Dante to a Yale English professor isn't the most inspired choice, though Lewis's expertise is mainly American lit. The book shows the marks of several pleasant vacations in Tuscany, with brief pen portraits of the various sites and geographical features that shaped Dante's world providing most of the color in an otherwise dry march through the facts of his life. Lewis often circles back to people or scenes described earlier in the work, which is either a tribute to Dante's own narrative style or a sign of slack editing. If you don't know something about Dante already, this isn't the book to convince you he's one of the world's great writers, or to help explain why. But for a quick tourist map of a complex place and time, it's a short, effective read.



4. Prior to this biography on Dante, R. W. B. Lewis had established himself as one of the leading authorities on Edith Wharton and had also written a book about Florence. Although he is not widely acknowledged as a Dante scholar, this brief volume is testimony to his obvious love for Florence's greatest poet. Unlike many brief biographies of great literary figures, this is a remarkably balanced account of Dante's life and career. Given the strictures on what can be covered in a small number of pages, other biographers of other writers often focus on an individual's life to the near exclusion of all else, or on the greater cultural context of their work, or on a discussion of the writings, ignoring the writer's world and life. Lewis strikes a marvelous balance between explaining the historical-especially the political-context for Dante's life, in detailing the significant biographical moments that informed his career (including most of what we know about his limited encounters with Beatrice), and the development of his art. Lewis's skill in refusing to neglect any significant aspect of Dante's life and work is laudable.
   
   Lewis's narrative progresses chronologically on a number of parallel levels. He reverts on several occasions to Dante's genealogy, on the political situation in Florence in the conflict between the Ghibellines (who favored the claims of the Holy Roman Emperor in Europe) and the Guelphs (who favored the Pope and later split into the Black and White Guelphs, Dante being associated with the latter), Dante's platonic adoration of Beatrice, the development of Dante's poetry, Dante's role in the government of Florence, his eventual banishment from Florence, and the composition and content of his COMEDY. I was especially encouraged by the number of theological figures who were crucial to Dante and essential for understanding the theological structure of the COMEDY.
   
   I do have a couple of minor criticisms. One is that Lewis isn't always as sharp in his exposition as he clearly is capable of being. There are also some curiosities, such as his comments near the end identifying Robert Penn Warren as "the most complete man of letters of our time," a good if not great writer whom I believe will be largely forgotten in as little as twenty-five years (one wonders if Warren and Lewis were close friends). There is an annotated biography, but most of the secondary works Lewis discusses are either out of print or not readily available, while many key contemporary texts dealing with Dante are omitted, such as Freccero's THE POETICS OF CONVERSION. And how could any discussion of translations omit Singleton's, which is easily one of the highpoints of Dante scholarship in the past half century? Two other small complaints: no index and no chronology of Dante's life. My own feeling is that there is never justification for not including an index in an academic book; the omission sharply reduces the book's usability. Even in a short biography a chronology is useful, allowing one to make rapid comparisons between the various events in a writer's life and their work.
   
   Nonetheless, for most readers of Dante in English, this brief biography will serve as a superb introduction to both Dante's life and his work.



5. This is one of several volumes in the Penguin Lives Series, each of which written by a distinguished author in her or his own right. Each provides a concise but remarkably comprehensive biography of its subject in combination with a penetrating analysis of the significance of that subject's life and career. I think this is a brilliant concept. My only regret is that even an abbreviated index is not provided. Those who wish to learn more about the given subject are directed to other sources.

   When preparing to review various volumes in this series, I have struggled with determining what would be of greatest interest and assistance to those who read my reviews. Finally I decided that a few brief excerpts and then some concluding comments of my own would be appropriate.

   On Dante's masterpiece: "The Commedia, to which the adjective Divina was affixed two centuries afterward, is, all things considered, the greatest single poem ever written; and in one perspective, as has been said, it is autobiographical: the journey of a man to find himself and make himself after having been cruelly mistreated in his homeland. It is also a rhythmic exploration of the entire cultural world Dante had inherited: classical, pre-Christian, Christian, medieval, Tuscan, and emphatically Florentine. And it is the long poetic tribute to Beatrice Portinari which Dante promised, at the end of the Vita Nuova." (pages 12 and 13)

   On Dante's response to Beatrice's death: He "did more than write an occasional poem of memorial grief; he put together the work to which he gave the title La Vita Nuova di Dante Alighieri. It was essentially an act of compilation, probably begun in 1293 and finished two years later. Dante drew up[ a narrative account of his relationship with Beatrice Portinari, from his first sight of her at the May Day party in 1274 to her death sixteen years later, sprinkling through it the poems -- canzones, sonnets, a ballad -- written to enshrine each successive moment." (page 59)

   On progression in the Paradiso: In it, "Dante ascends; he does not climb, as in the Purgatorio, but, as he is constantly remarking, is propelled upward with the speed of an arrow. He is swept up through the lower planets -- the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn; into the Fixed Stars; then upwards to the Primum Mobile, when come all distinctions of space and time, of 'where' and 'when,' through itself beyond space and time; to the Empyrean, the actual and eternal dwelling-place of the Three-in-One God, of the angels and the saints, of the community of the blessed." (page 170)

   In the concluding portion of his biography, Lewis briefly but eloquently suggests the ubiquitous and energizing presence of Dante in English and American literature, notably in the works of Shelley, Byron, Robert Browning, Rossetti, Emerson, Pound, Eliot, and Warren. According to Lewis, that presence "sparkles and sings and smiles like one of the spirits in Paradise." The same can be said of Lewis' writing style which, in combination with his erudition, enables the modern reader to gain a greater appreciation of someone who lived more than 600 years ago but whose Comedy is as contemporary as tomorrow's sunrise.

   As is also true of the other volumes in the "Penguin Lives" series, this one provides all of the essential historical and biographical information but its greatest strength lies in the extended commentary, in this instance by R.W.B. Lewis. He also includes a brief but sufficient "Bibliographical Notes" section for those who wish to learn more about Dante. I hope these brief excerpts encourage those who read this review to read Lewis' biography. It is indeed a brilliant achievement.

No comments about Manhattan Tales (Select).

3 comments about Johnny Weissmuller: Twice the Hero.

1. If any one is a fan of Johnny Weissmuller or even if you are just a fan of his Tarzan movies this is the book to read. There is so much I didn't know about this real American hero that is presented in such an informative and entertaining way. I heard the author is working on a book about Maureen O'sullivan. I'll be first in line for that one. You won't be disapointed in this book. Some great pictures as well.



2. I was very impressed by the research in this biography of Johnny Weismuller. A lot of time was spent in getting opinions of those who knew and worked with Weismuller throughout his athletic and film career. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in films or in Johnny Weismuller.



3. I've been a "Weissmuller" fan for most of my life,and this book is long overdue.The rare photos are simply great.The book may seem to be slightly over-priced until one examines the quality of the workmanship.The binding and print is first-rate.It covers Johnny's life from his birth in Europe in1904 to his death in 1984.While it doesn't shy away from the multiple marriages,it doesn't delve into salacious gossip.It's obvious the biography was written by a true fan.I especially enjoyed the foreword by Johnny Sheffield.It revealed a lot about the true character of Weissmuller.David Fury is to be complimented for this excellent book! P.S. Johnny Weissmuller was my boyhood idol.He was "head and shoulders" above everyone,in my book.I was most fortunate to meet him,when he came to my hometown,in 1967.I was 13 at the time,and it was quite a thrill to meet him.He was 63,and looked simply great! I still treasure the two autographed pictures he gave me.

No comments about The Man Shakespeare (Large Print Edition): And His Tragic Life Story.

1 comments about People Who Say Goodbye: Memories of Childhood (Transaction Large Print Books).

1. This was one of those rare books that succeeded in getting rid of many of my pseudo-intellectual gimmicks.

   Starting as a seemingly normal bitterwseet tale of a girl growing up in the Edwardian era, the book develops into a beautifully intricate filligrane of memories of those who pass through the narrator's live, however briefly.

   The Great War is, of course, the reason why their goodbyes have a final and moving touch to it, and the catalyst for the narrator's emotional and intellectual growth.

   But don't go away with the idea that this is a gloomy book. It's infused with a first-person quality that illuminates all the events, even the most tragic ones. And yes, it's about resilience and love, as well.

   Lastly, I can't resist quoting the late Dirk Bogarde (superb actor and writer, a personal favourite of mine) which found this book to be "a rare pleasure".

No comments about Life and Remains of John Clare (Large Print Edition): "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet".

No comments about Robert Browning (Large Print Edition).

No comments about Country Days (G K Hall Large Print Book Series (Paper)).