The Paperback Version: A Rake's Progress
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For most people the name Zack is associated the quintessential male art and time is placing him I the echelon with Tom of Finland. But just as Touko Laaksonen took on the moniker of Tom of Finland and thereby landed his permanent place in the galleries of erotic art, so has Oliver Frey taken on the moniker of Zack and that seems to allow him to follow his extraordinary talents in a similar way. There is an excellent blog about Zack by John Coulthart that bears repeating: `It's inevitable when writing about gay art and artists that Oliver Frey's name will turn up eventually, so here's the requisite posting. Frey is often better known in gay circles under the nom de plume he used in the 1980s, "Zack", when he was a very prolific illustrator and comic artist for Britain's small number of gay mags. As Oliver Frey he was already well-known as an accomplished professional illustrator who was for a time an artist for Look and Learn`s long-running science fiction adventure strip The Trigan Empire. That professional work makes him probably the most widely-seen of all gay porn artists simply because he drew some Superman pages which are briefly seen at the beginning of the 1978 Superman. His career as a comic artist honed his skill at dealing with figures and telling a story which is one of the reasons his gay strips are still highly valued today. Those strips tend to be completely pornographic right from the start so I'll spare the delicate sensibilities of some of the readers here and link you to some collections of his Zack work instead. In the meantime, I'd love to know where the picture of the boy with the sword (above) comes from originally. It's a lot more finished than his Zack drawings and is paired on this page with a similar picture of serpent-twined tribal youths which hints at some kind of Burroughs-esque Wild Boys scenario. If anyone knows the answer, please leave a comment. As it is, it makes a good addition to the Men with swords archive, as does the piece of fluff below.'

And if the reader needs more background on this gifted artists/illustrator there is a fine, extended essay, complete with photographs, by Roger Kean in this book - entitled ZACK: An Art Amatorius. But words are words and images are images and this monograph contains more imagery over an extended period of time than any book preceding it. Zack is a gifted painter and this book selects some of his best work and treats them as the fine paintings they are. His ability to draw and to use color in both brilliant light and barely visible dark is a gift. Yes, this is erotic art and is basically aimed at a gay audience. But as art in and of itself it is especially excellent.

Zack is best known for his illustrated novels - comic book style tales of stories that involve adventure of the darker kind. But in this volume published in high quality standards by Bruno Gmnder Verlag is not story oriented: this is Zack's art as art - and it sets a very high standard. Grady Harp, July 13
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A Rake's Vow (Cynster Novels) is a great story by Stephanie Laurens with plenty of romance and sex.  All the Cynster Novels are great.  I had the story in paperback and then bought in Kindle for convenience.
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The front cover of the Modern Library paperback has a quote by the famous critic, Lionel Trilling, proclaiming Little Dorritt as "one of the most significant works of the 19th century."  When I think of significant works of the 19th century, I think about Moby Dick, Wuthering Heights, War and Peace, The Red and the Black, Madame Bovary, Bleak House, Middlemarch, Tess of the D'Urbervilles.  At the risk of boring the reader, I will end my list here, although there are many more.  What we have here is Dickens' attack on the debtor prison system and government stupidity, topics at which he excels.  But he lays it on too thick, especially with the Circumlocution Office.  It's funny for a while and then it just gets tedious.  As we expect, his characters are marvelous, especially the secondary characters (Mrs. General, Mrs. Plornish, Flora, Maggy, Fanny, the Merdles,  Pancks, Mr. Meagles...).  But there are serious problems with plot:  1.  There is no reason for Arthur to believe that his family is involved in any way with the Dorritts, 2.  The meeting in Italy of so many of the characters by chance is simply not believable, 3. The substantial sub-plot with Miss Reade, Harriet and Blandois/Rigaud takes up far too much space and adds nothing really to the story.  It might have been better for Dickens to have found a way to expose Arthur's maternity in another way,  4. The sudden wealth of the Dorritts is never really explained and not believable, 5. We never really understand exactly what happened between Arthur and Merdle to land Arthur in the Marshalsea prison, not do we understand how it is that his partner, Doyce, is suddenly able to spring him.  Additionally, some of the characters are just one-dimensional (Pet, Rigaud/Blandois, Flintwinch and most damaging of all, Amy).

These criticisms aside, Dorritt is a good read and despite my carping about plot inconsistencies, I remind myself that the book was originally serialized and that explains a lot.  I particularly liked the Modern Library paperback edition for the wonderful illustrations (not to be missed) and for the notes and preface.
2004568
A good replacement for the paperbacks I've been lugging around for the past 40 years.
911116
The one star has nothing to do with Kierkegaard, it is for the kindle version which does not include "The Book on Adler" at all. Another kindle buyer said "Fear and Trembling" is not complete, but I already have Fear and Trembling and was just hoping for Adler.

Edit:  now I see that the Hardcover version, paperback version,  and Kindle version are all completely different versions, but for some reason grouped together by amazon.  The Kindle is  "Fear and Trembling (Great Ideas)", the Hardcover is "Fear and Trembling and The Book on Adler (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)"  and the paperback is simply: "Fear and Trembling [Paperback]"
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I just finished reading the book, and I thought it was a 7.8 on a scale of 10. It was an expanded (really padded) version of her New Yorker article. The expansion consisted mostly of chapters devoted to various aspects of  orchid collecting and cultivating history (well told).
The  characterization of Florida is very nice, and she describes people well.
On the other hand, the orchid information is pretty familiar stuff, and  can get repetitious (how many times do I need to be told that it
takes  seven years from seed to flower -- a questionable generalization at that).  The biology is specious (she has roots and shoots "evolving" from  protocorms rather than developing from them). She also characterizes  Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace as colleagues -- an overstatement of the  case I think, despite Darwin's gracious and much-deserved sharing of credit  with Wallace in his presentations to the Royal Society.
The book dust  jacket has been bashed for its largely non-resupinate phalaenopsis flower,  but it looks to me like a fallen bloom on fabric, so I think that's  okay.
Pretty good read and, hey, it's about our favorite plants!
501115
This is a fantastic volume for studying the history of the western church, particularly the development of Protestantism alongside of the Catholic church.  This book, however, is NOT the same edition as the paperback as one may believe.  A quick review of the table of contents reveals that the paperback contains additional material, though both are listed as 2nd Edition.

BE ADVISED: there are significant differences.  If you require a specific text, especially for academic work, consider the paperback edition, linked below.

<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Story-of-Christianity-Vol-2-The-Reformation-to-the-Present-Day/dp/0061855898/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Story of Christianity, Vol. 2: The Reformation to the Present Day</a>
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First off, there are a number of comments disparaging the book's legitimacy in view of a disabled navigation table. It is true that the 'Table of Contents' button on Kindle's menu doesn't show any links to individual works, however, through the span of Location 2 to 94 protracts the book's capacity of titles. With but a click on the title of any particular work within the aforementioned range, one summarily arrives at the designated title without additional hassle.

For every purchaser's sake, here's an overview of the book's contents

Table of Contents  provides Jump-to feature to every work; spans from location 2 to 94.

Plays

Vera; Or, The Nihilists  Location 110 of 38581
The Duchess of Padua  Location 830 of 38581
Lady Windermere's Fan  Location 1692 of 38581
A Woman of No Importance  Location 2457 of 38581
An Ideal Husband  Location 3321 of 38581
The Importance of Being Earnest  Location 4519 of 38581
A Florentine Tragedy/La Sainte Courtisane  Location 5337 of 38581
Love of the King A Burmese Masque  Location 5655 of 38581
Salome English  Location 5815 of 38581
Salome French  Location 6268 of 38581

Books

The Picture of Dorian Gray  Location 6704 of 38581
De Profundis  Posthumous  Location 8711 of 38581

Children's Fiction

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime  Location 9340 of 38581
The Canterville Ghost  Location 9812 of 38581
The Sphinx Without a Secret  Location 10238 of 38581
The Model Millionaire  Location 10313 of 38581
The Portrait of Mr. W. H.  Location 10388 of 38581
The Happy Prince  Location 10816 of 38581
The Nightingale and the Rose  Location 10942 of 38581
The Selfish Giant  Location 11025 of 38581
The Devoted Friend  Location 11084 of 38581
The Remarkable Rocket  Location 11240 of 38581
The Young King  Location 11403 of 38581
The Birthday of the Infanta  Location 11596 of 38581
The Fisherman and His Soul  Location 11870 of 38581
The StarChild  Location 12356 of 38581

Poetry

Poems in Prose  Location 12578 of 38581
Ravenna  Location 13556 of 38581
The Ballad of Reading Gaol  Location 13771 of 38581
And over 100 poems...

Shorter Works

Articles and Miscellany: Intentions  Location 16618 of 38581
The Decay of Lying  Location 16618 of 38581
Pen, Pencil and Poison  Location 17089 of 38581
Some Remarks Upon the Importance of Doing Nothing  Location 17399 of 38581
Some Remarks Upon the Importance of Discussing Everything  Location 17886 of 38581
The Truth of Masks  Location 18455 of 38581
The Soul of Man  Location 18831 of 38581
The Rise of Historical Criticism  Location 14811 of 38581
Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young  Location 19372 of 38581
A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the OverEducated  Location 19392 of 38581
And articles, essays and lectures...

Books About Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions (By Frank Harris)  Location 29512 of 38581
Oscar Wilde & Myself (By Lord Alfred Douglas)  Location 36264 of 38581

Bonus

Art and Morality  A Defence of The Picture of Dorian Gray  Location 35205 of 38581
A Critic in Pall Mall  Location 19407 of 38581
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Before I get started, I should probably confess to being a literary snob. That means I'm more familiar with the work of Elizabeth Strout than I am Stephen King, Annie Proulx than Dean Koontz; and I actually know how to spell Jeffrey Eugenetes. The stereotypical image of people like me are shy, bookish children who have gone on to earn degrees in English Literature from small, exclusive (and expensive) Northeastern liberal arts colleges and advanced degrees from one (or more) of the Ivy League universities. By my age, people of my ilk are usually professors emeritus who regularly sally forth arcane phrases like "stream of consciousness" and "literary fiction" at faculty cocktail parties with the same aplomb as Scaramouche thrusts his rapier. I, on the other hand, hail from a lower middle-class family from the South. I am the first of my people to ever set foot across the threshold of any institution of higher learning, either way. My degrees are not in English Literature or in any subject even remotely related, and my schools are large (and inexpensive) state universities which bang out diplomas about like Wal-Mart peddles cheap, plastic widgets.

It took me years of diligent, start-and-stop effort to finally make it through my first William Faulkner novel; but once I did, I became addicted. These days, I need regular hits of Faulkner in much the same way as a drug addict needs a fix. People of my ilk seldom read the work of popular, genre authors who have their stories made into equally popular movies and make millions, you know, those folks who write about romance, and science fiction, and crime, and young lawyers who save the world. People like me are much too busy perusing the dusty shelves of second-hand bookstores--seeking out those obscure, unknown geniuses of undiscovered yet great literary merit--to waste our time with predictable, formula writers.

About twenty years ago, when "The Firm" showed up in bookstores I bought a copy. It was a quick, light read with not much of a lasting impression. A few months later, I noticed another John Grisham book had made its way to the bookstore shelves. I bought a copy of "A Time to Kill," took it home, and devoured it. It was difficult for me to believe the same author had written both stories. I bought more Grisham novels with hope I would find the same story telling talent and ability I'd discovered in "A Time to Kill." After a couple more of his predictable, young-lawyer-takes-on-the-world-and-wins novels, I gave up on Mr. Grisham.

The other day, while I was searchinging the shelves of my favorite second-hand bookstore, I came across a copy of Mr. Grisham's latest effort "Ford County: Stories." I cracked open the cover and read the flap summary. Interesting, I thought; so I thumbed through the pages, stopping intermittently to browse. When I got home and sat down with my new purchase, I never dreamed I would complete it in one sitting. I simply couldn't stop reading.

The characters and the situations in Mr. Grisham's fictional Ford County are very real. I know, because I grew up with most of them, just up the road in Shelby County, Tennessee. I know those people in that book.

The prose, like the stories' characters, is simple. Nothing complicated or convoluted here. As I read those stories, I felt I was back home with Bubba and Raymond listening to and telling of the goings-on around town, laughing, and drinking beer. It is the same feeling I had when I read of the fictional folks in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, except Mr. Grisham's prose is much easier on the mind.

With "Ford County: Stories," Mr. Grisham has undeniably entered the world of literary fiction and done it well. I hope he chooses to stay for a while and gives us literary snobs more of his wonderful stories to enjoy.
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It soon becomes apparent when reading the first few chapters of this interesting book that in this tiny part of the publishing industry were an equally small number of people (mostly males, obviously) yet they were responsible for producing millions of trash paperbacks that sold in the Fifties, Sixties and early Seventies.  This book is a celebration of their endeavours.

Because of the very competitive arena in which these publishers worked, with twenty or more new titles each month the covers were the main selling point and the three hundred plus reproduced in this book show that you don't mess with a successful formulae.  They had to show a female (unless it was for the gay market) as provocatively posed as possible with a two or three word title to complete the package.  It has to be said though that the quality of these illustrations is pretty poor which only makes the work of one or two artists really stand out.  Robert Bonfils, in particular, consistently turned out quality art and sleaze artists like Stanton, Bilbrew and Bill Ward were made for this market.  No cover design could be too tacky for this publishing genre.

The bulk of the book are the cover reproductions (each with date, publisher, author and artist credits) with several short essays in the front.  The two about soft core publishing on the East and West coasts were interesting because they actually explain the background to the publishers and more importantly how the books were distributed through the network of adult book stores in most cities and towns.  The back has a useful list of publishers and authors pseudonyms.  I was slightly disappointed with the books production though, there is no real page design, paragraphs are excessively long and columns just fall short because no one bothered to make adjustments to the picture sizes to compensate.  Despite this 'Sin-a-rama' will probably be the only book to comprehensively cover the publishing world of paperback sleaze.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
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Gary Schmidt brings us an accessible modern paraphrase of John Bunyan's classic in Pilgrim's Progress: A Retelling.  This version includes more plot and character detail than Dangerous Journey, and the modern text is good in its own right, especially if you plan to move on later to the original novel.  Bunyan's original language is rather difficult to read, and knowing the plot ahead of time can defuse the intimidation of unfamiliar words.)

Schmidt's storytelling is augmented by Moser's vibrant paintings, which are often reminiscent of Norman Rockwell`s style.  He uses subjects from across several centuries and walks of life, and this gives a stimulating breadth to the story.  Christian, an Everyman in a baseball cap and blue jeans, greets the distinguished African-American Evangelist with the same equanimity as the Medieval gatekeeper Goodwill.  It is all a dream, after all, so why shouldn't the characters appear in unpredictable ways?).  The monsters and perils Christian meets along the way are grimly terrible, quite in line with Bunyan's classic, but sensitive children may be troubled by images of the creeping company of demons, the brooding Pagan, and especially the dragon Apollyon, who is rendered so vividly that he seems to belong in a graphic horror novel rather than in a Christian children's book.  Just as in all the good stories, however, evil is soundly defeated, and Death itself is shown to have lost its sting (1 Corinthians 15:53-55).

This book may be best suited to an elementary audience for read-aloud, and upper-elementary and middle school for reading alone.  It fills in some plot gaps that Dangerous Journey leaves out, and bridges a language gap for those who may have trouble with Hunkin's version.  If I had to choose between the two it would be a difficult choice, but I would recommend that Dangerous Journey be introduced first, since it's a bit closer to the mood of the original author.  Also, Schmidt leaves out Part Two, Christiana's Journey, which is included in Dangerous Journey, so let your read-aloud audience know they shouldn't expect it.
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The book reflects the times when the book was published
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the trade paperback is much larger than regular paperbacks. it is easier to hold. and i enjoyed the first 2 books in the series on the dunsworthy brides. it is nice to have the whole set to read in order.
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Perhaps indicative of an academic press (The John Hopkins University Press, in this instance), there seems an assumption that readers of MATTERS OF FACT would be fully conversant with Donald Greene's 1953 article "Jane Austen and The Peerage". The Introduction is heavily predicated upon a discussion of Greene as preparation for the ensuing six chapters. I felt compelled to hunt up a copy before I could continue; an appendix, reprinting Greene, would have been helpful.

A name that "`has the right ring'" (Greene quotes Charles Morgan, author of The Fountain) is a notion most writers will agree holds a certain degree of importance. While only the writer knows where inspiration sprang from -- it can be fun to dissect and deduce! Clever dissection is why Barchas' book will have value to readers attracted to slices of history. Thought-provoking connections will create a desire to tease out further avenues of "historical references and topographical clues." When Barchas illustrates how a particular historical incident or person elucidates some aspect of an Austen novel, her story engages the imagination. The three chapters that are reworked prior publications (chs 2, 3 and 5) are among the most convincing. Readers can delve into Austen's fiction with renewed attention, or simply enjoy the tale imparted.

One favorite chapter, "Touring Farleigh Hungerford Castle" (chapter 3) invokes the life-history of Miss Tilney-Long. Barchas' recognition that Miss Tilney-Long may have been on the minds of those first readers of Austen's Northanger Abbey was enlightening. She also presented an interesting story of a long-forgotten heiress. In recovering the "long-forgotten," Barchas exposes the type of everyday-knowledge Austen surely possessed -- knowledge of scandals, travel, books, paintings, politics, general news, which would have been culled from conversation, gossip, letters, newspapers. Anyone reading even a small correspondence - Jane Austen's own, for instance - will see the rapid succession of news (family or the greater world) and topics that made up an average letter. If, in bringing forth some of the more accessible "histories," Barchas sheds light on Austen's integration of the world into her novels, that discussion ultimately aids fans of Austen's fiction, as well as those who wish to study the "times" in which Austen lived. For instance, reading this condensation of Miss Tilney-Long's life and struggles made me long to learn more about _her_.

An academic remoteness, especially in sections that go a little off-topic, repeat information, or serve to merely inform about prior points or upcoming subject matter, sometimes creeps into Barchas' discourse, which will distance some readers. Despite a style that occasionally gets in the way of storytelling -- and only Austen (in the end) knows what Austen intended, Barchas' revelations of the histories and "coincidental" references will engage those looking for some timely reading material.

Kelly M. McDonald
author of Two Teens in the Time of Austen: Random Jottings, 2008-2013 (on Kindle)
1413002
I own & absolutely love the hardcover novel version of this story, and was very disappointed it was out of print when I conceived the idea of giving it to family members as a Christmas gift.

So I was thrilled to see it available again as a paperback, and ordered 15 copies, without realizing the paperback is a play version (perhaps that it was published by Dramatists Play Service should have been a clue....) The dialogue in the play version is essentially the same as that in the novel, but it isn't nearly as enjoyable a read without Tom Mula's lyrical descriptions of Jacob Marley's surroundings, as well as the internal dialogue of the characters.

If you are buying the paperback to stage a production, I think it would be a very worthwhile endeavor. If you're looking for a novel to curl up with on a cold December evening, get one of the used hardcovers...if I haven't bought them all!
1965275
Rural Rides is today William Cobbett's best known work, and new editions are available. Even if you don't know who William Cobbett was, you may be simply attracted to this book's title, which was why I picked it up nearly a decade ago and have been re-reading parts of it ever since. Who doesn't like a rural ride?

You are about to discover a treasure if: you love English history; you like to read travelogues or journals even if written long ago; you enjoy observing things in the landscape, including soil conditions and what is growing there. And, if you believe that reading journals is a superb pathway to the past, this is a perfect selection for you.

Cobbett was an English radical social and political commentator (writer and speaker) of the latter 18th century and early 19th century. He was born in 1762 and died in 1835. As an example of his forthrightness, he was imprisoned in England for speaking out against the use of flogging in the army, in which he had served. He also spent many years in the United States.

Cobbett was the local food advocate of his time, keeping up on the latest soil science and imparting his first-hand experience on the best growing practices. He published Cottage Economy in the 1820's, the same period of these travels. He founded the journal Political Register. He was very well known in England and America.

I have the two-volume Everyman's Library edition, without a date of its publication, but certainly early 20th century. These two small, green cloth volumes have been a joy to have and to read.

Rural Rides was more than a travelogue, of course. It was Cobbett's medium for commenting on society, nature and science. He was obsessed with the improvement of agricultural practices, and he was thrilled with natural phenomena.  I recently reread a passage describing how, while riding on horseback with a friend, he saw ahead in the distance what he thought was a cloud of dust apparently arising from the passage of a stagecoach on an intersecting road, only to discover upon getting closer that it was a cloud - fog - on a sunny day, passing through a low point in the road. You will find plenty of these sorts of things, and observances upon the growing of turnips, corn and many crops, the types of soil in a particular town, what is growing there, the hospitality of people along the way, their political prejudices, remembrances of America for comparisons, horses, bad beds, good pubs, wild birds, cattle, dogs, hares, etc. etc. Each passage is given a place and a date. I sometimes leaf through to find a passage for the current date.

It is helpful to know something of the history of the time. Otherwise you will have to gloss over his mention of such things as "the Pitt-system" that to Cobbett resulted in social decay and destruction of the rural economy. Not current on English political history? You can still enjoy the wealth of such passages as this: "Nov. 11, 1822: Uphusband once more, and, for the sixth time this year, over the North Hampshire Hills, which, notwithstanding their everlasting flints, I like very much. As you ride along, even in a green lane, the horses' feet make a noise like hammering. It seems as if you were riding on a mass of iron. Yet the soil is good, and bears some of the best wheat in England. All these high and, indeed, all chalky lands, are excellent for sheep...this pasture is on the very tops of these lofty hills, from which you can see the Isle of Wight."

I hope you will find a copy that suits you and enjoy it as I have. Rural Rides is one of my great treasures and I never tire of reading it. I especially enjoy the passages describing places I have visited in England. It is one of the true marvels in this world that so many of the places Cobbett describes are much as they were, a testament to England's passion and determination to preserve its countryside.
4031834
This novel is subtitled  "Ye Old Baby Switcheroo," and the publisher doesn't mind giving away this much of the plot: "Twenty-eight years later, the son of a barber is now an earl, and the son of an earl is now a barber." So the dual themes are "hair restoration and heir restoration." If that sounds witty and droll, it's a good introduction to the rest of the book. This is an oversized, paperback, large-print edition from the oddly-named publisher, International Polygonics (IPL). I don't think a smaller font version exists in paperback. In the preface D.R. Benson says that If I Were You makes use of a bit of plot from W.S. Gilbert (as in Gilbert and Sullivan), and the sense of theatre runs throughout. Add "enter stage right" and "exit stage left" in a few places and you'd have a corking good play. Add singing and you'd have a sprightly musical. For fans who enjoy seeing Plum's "other life" in musical comedy creep into the books.