what's the big deal about this essay?
340463
I read this to see what the big deal was.  I can't believe that this thing caused the world-wide stir it did.  It is first rate propaganda and I can't see how anyone could throw away all of the social norms, e.g. marriage for this ilk.

The translation seems decent and it was an easy, and quick read.
2130147
An exceptionally dense text- but important. It provides an academic rational for what we in the community have been doing for years. It shows how academics could be involved and why. It is exceptionally dense for people to pick up though.
560667
Hold your horses. There are many mistakes in this 'aid to the memory', and just this year it was voted on to have the publisher make corrections and reprint .  So, my advice to you would be to wait until those corrections were made, or better yet skip this crutch altogether and attend your local schools of instruction to obtain the 'memory' work.
1852461
Essays thought-provoking and enjoyable.  One detraction is with Reed essay.  He constantly uses capital "B" on "black".  Redundancy of this use is jarring.  He may have a reason for doing so, however, it detracts from the writing.  Other essays in the book do not use same erroneous pattern.  It is similar to having a misspelled word jump off the page.  What's the point?  What is he trying to prove?
3203392
At a certain point in education, students start receiving as assignments longer and longer essays to write. In theory, this encourages them to explore subjects in more depth. In practice, many will simply turn to the  time-honored technique of padding. Unnecessary verbiage becomes their  ally.
One of the best padding tactics is the form: "in X I will talk  about Y. In talking about Y, I will mention A, B, and C. While talking  about A, I will delve into A1, A2, and A3. While talking about B..."  By the time the beleagured essay-writer actually GETS to X, he's doubled  the length, and is thus that much further along to whatever the required  word count is.
Chalmers uses this technique as if his very life depends  on it. The preambles to sections go on for pages and pages--frequently,  they are very nearly the equal in length to the sections themselves. Couple  this with repetition and a "good" degree of rambling, and, bingo!  The professor has a full-length book.
Which is a shame, since there are  some interesting bits sinking into all the padding. An aggressive editor  could have probably made the fellow slash things down into a handful of  genuinely good, unpadded essays.
4887126
The decision to include Bertrand Russell's essay "Why I am Not a Christian" in the section on Christianity is certainly curious. We may perhaps infer from it something about the quality of editorial discretion exercised throughout.
3264928
_The Skin That We Speak_ is a collection of essays on issues around language, education and identity.  While primarily focused on how home language effects the educational experiences of African-American K-12 learners, there are also articles on language and culture and identity in Britain and the Caribbean and on Latinos and other immigrants in the United States, as well as groups within the US who have strong regional accents (in rural Appalachia, for example.)  I had imagined the book's focus to be exclusively on education - how students are academically successful (or not) based on their ability to speak and write in "standard english" (SE), with SE grammatical rules and enunciation and  While this is a topic of some of the articles, others touch on issues of social class (most readily apparent in Britain, but also in the US as demonstrated with those speaking Appalachian accents as well as in the Caribbean) as well as on the larger question of "is there such a thing as 'proper English'?

Delpit and others don't provide an answer, and linguists would argue that there is no such thing as a "correct way" to speak a language, given the variety of dialects every language has.  What is interesting, however, are the values and inferences people place on the way in which people speak, and the role public education plays in seeking to standardize speech and writing.  To be sure there is value in this standardization, but Delpit asks "at what cost?"  Specifically, at what cost to those who don't speak "the Queen's English"?  Or "Standard American English?"  Should students who speak a different dialect feel less intelligent or less worthy than others?  Who gets to choose what is the "proper" way to speak, anyway?  Are there ways to simultaneously validate the home languages of young people, while teaching them to "code switch" depending on the situation?  (This last question was answered brilliantly in a pedagogical piece by Judith Baker in which students became researchers in identifying the varieties of the different home dialects and deconstructing their rules.)

While geared primarily towards primary and secondary educators, there was much that I took from the book.  First I was struck by the ingenuity of the educators who wrote pieces on language in their classrooms.  Clearly there is more going on in our public schools than critics would have us believe if this is any indiciation of the type of teaching, learning and critical thinking going on in these classrooms.  Second, the broader philosophical questions around language, culture, identity and education's role (in both the secondary and university levels) was brought sharply into focus - it was a topic I hadn't really thought much about, but is one that warrants attention by everyone involved in education (from teachers to professors to parents of children in school).  Lastly, the issue of how race and social class impact our persecption of each other, while hardly a new topic (Shaw's&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Pygmalion/dp/1599869047/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Pygmalion</a>&nbsp;and its film adaptation,&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/My-Fair-Lady/dp/B002HK9IDQ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">My Fair Lady</a>&nbsp;are examples of this), it is a powerful reminder of how wrong we are to judge and assume based on the speech and structure of another.  An interesting read.
2436874
The problem with these essays is that some of them were written a long time ago. The essay on the Palestinians dates from 1983, so its copious detail is almost irrelevant to current conditions.

This does not gainsay Chomsky's originality and  superiority as a thinker. There is no one like him.
173911
I haven't actually read it.. I'm just taking notes in class & that seems to be suficiant. My teacher actually told us most of the stuff we have talked about so far is not important to him & won't be on the test.
2378205
See title.  The entire book talks both about things that happened in history and things that people do in typography.  But it doesn't say why people do these things in typography, or why that stuff happened in history, or why the historical facts are relevant.  Let's look at one example passage and I will explain:

"In fifteenth-century Italy, humanist writers and scholars rejected gothic scripts in favor of the lettera antica, a classical mode of handwriting with wider, more open forms.  The preference for lettera antica was part of the Renaissance (rebirth) of classical art and literature."

Why did they reject gothic scripts?  Were they too harsh looking?  Was there too much embellishment?  Were they harder to read easily?  Did using wider and more open forms have a clear benefit?  Was gothic just a fad and the fad was over?  Did readers like letter antica more because it was easier to read?  Or was it easier to draw, allowing more books to be made?  How was it part of the renaissance, was it coincidental that it happened during the renaissance, or was it caused *by* the renaissance, or did it help *create* the writing renaissance?

The entire book is like this.  Including the parts where they talk about how typography is used.  They say stuff, and you're left wondering how any of it works or why it's significant.  The author will tell you that some people use a certain grid system and show you a picture of said grid system.  But they won't say why those people do it, or what the benefits and disadvantages are of that system compared to others.  It's just like "Hey, this grid system exists, see look."  This means there is very little practical information in the book.

Overall the book feels like the author wrote a bunch of post-it notes to remind themselves of things they already know.  But they don't let the reader in on the background knowledge that makes those post-it notes relevant.  So yeah, sorry for the negative review but I was pretty dissatisfied.
3994050
A work of scholarship that is a university course in itself---and more. An homage to the Old Right, it contains essays on the greats past and present: Burnham, Weaver, Kirk, the Vanderbilt Agrarians, plus Buchanan, Fleming, Francis, Clyde Wilson and Peter Brimelow. The man of letters is important, too. And so, the essays on Hemingway, Eliot, Solzenitsyn (sp), Waugh and Edmund Wilson. It'll keep you away from the TV screen, that's for sure.
4645401
About 440 years ago, Montaigne introduced the personal essay.
Reading Frame's translation strikes me with how much that form
has changed. Montaigne's essays have been aptly compared to a
mirror: you read his thoughts, and you discover your own. Thus, I
find myself asking who I am, as a 21st Century reader, as I
struggle through these essays. How different they are from the
essay writing I learned in school.

Essays, as I was taught, usually begin by stating a particular
point or position, proceed by arguing for that point using logic
and evidence, and conclude with a brief summary. Following the
dictates of Strunk and White, Zinsser, Hemingway, or Orwell, one
should write simply and directly, omitting needless words,
preferring the active voice, etc.

What then is one to make of his essay "On Solitude", for example,
beginning with these words:

"Let us leave aside the usual long comparison between the
solitary and the active life; and as for that fine statement
under which ambition and avarice take cover -- that we are not
born for our private selves, but for the public -- let us boldly
appeal to those who are in the midst of the dance."

I struggle to parse the meaning of that opening sentence. Is it
just me? Or, is it that I am reading a translation, albeit one
widely regarded as excellent? By modern tastes, Montaigne's
writing is often florid, meandering, and unnecessarily complex. I
find myself impatiently wishing he would just get to the point.

But, should this be taken as a criticism? I expect Montaigne
wrote for his contemporaries, for people who had both the time to
read for pleasure and the willingness to follow the meandering
wherever it lead. Four centuries later, we are awash with words
and media. Something in me wants the PowerPoint bullet point
summary, the "take home message" of his thoughts on solitude --
delivered as concisely as possible. The problem here may be with
me, the reader.

About solitude, Montaigne argues that the business of governing
one's life is not easily escaped. He says,

"Ambition, avarice, irresolution, fear, and lust do not leave us
when we change our country.

'Behind the horseman sits black care.' --Horace"

Here is a second issue: his use of classical quotations. I have
no idea what how Horace quotation contributes to the point
Montaigne is making. Do you? Throughout his essays, Montaigne
delights in being the "what do I know?" skeptic, the nonexpert,
the author who believes that a personal truth can be as great as
a universal one. It's that attitude that gives him his
friendliness and his greatness.

So, why is it, then, that he so often quotes ancient authorities?
Most such quotations add little to his arguments and occasionally
come across as snobby name-dropping. What could be Montaigne's
motivation? If you read his essay "On the vanity of words", you
will see that he is well aware of the malign power of fine-sounding
rhetoric to bamboozle audiences.

Perhaps my issues with Montaigne are merely a matter of taste.
Essays admit many styles, some quite different than that used by
Montaigne. Solitude has been discussed by many authors. In
Walden, for example, Thoreau wrote

"I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for
friendship, three for society."

I thank Montaigne for the form, yet I prefer the simple
directness of Thoreau.
3118603
This collection of essays is 'Chesterton the Critic' at the top of his game, cutting through intellectual and artistic pretension to get right to the heart of the matter.  Some of the people he wields his pen against are still well known names (like H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw); others will only be known to serious students of the late Victorian age.  But, the book is surprisingly relevant nonetheless.  Partly, this is because our own day is still deeply haunted by the errors of the 19th Century so it's not difficult to name for yourself modern proponents of the ideas that Chesterton rides out to do battle with.  But it is also due to the fact that Chesterton's method is never just attack.  His winsome, witty, warfare of words is ordered toward revealing the hidden or neglected truths that his interlocutors deny or reject or just miss.

And those turn out to be important truths about some of the biggest perennial questions:
Why should it matter what someone's philisophy is?
What's wrong with subjectivism?
What is the most secure ground for human rights like free speech, tolerance, and liberty?
What is the difference between good patriotism and bad patriotism?
Are human beings more than animals?
Can we build a great and just society without first addressing human selfishness?
Are human beings incorrigibly ritualistic?
If so, what is the difference between good ritual and bad?
What is the correct attitude toward drinking and other indulgences?
Why is sensationalist media so consistently boring?
What is the proper relation between the ideas of nation and race?
Is Christianity a benefit or a hindrance to society? and how so?
Is there any value in "low" entertainment like romance stories and action/adventure films?
Does humor have any place in serious debates about the most important things?
Is there any such thing as "good" art or is it all in the eye of the beholder? to name a few.

It's also important to note that Chesterton does not just denounce from on high; much more often he is explaining how he came to change his mind or notice something that he had missed before.

Not surprisingly, this book got under the skin of a number of Chesterton's contemporaries.  One of them threw out the challenge that  if he was so clever and all-knowing he should write down his own personal positive beliefs instead of just criticizing others. So he did. That's how Chesterton's little classic 'Orthodoxy' (1908) came to be.
612492
It was listed as humor.  It was actually a serious treatise of humor.  I had no desire to read a classroom lecture in preparation for an exam.
1848443
I don't get it. So many people are so enthusiastic about John d'Agata's works. I tried and tried. But I still don't see the sense, or the worth, of it. What's going on? Some kind of hype about the most unreadable, superfluous, cheating stuff, even on normally thrilling and high-interesting subjects?
I almost never write, as a rule, negatively about works of art. One man's poisin is another man's delight in these fields. And who am I to put down a piece where a writer has given maybe 10 years of his life to produce?
But today my cup is full with John d'Agata's elucubrations. He's cost me enough money. And I just thought I'd warned other innocent potential readers.
4217388
If I were to write an essay with the same title, it would consist of just the following sentence: "Because I have an IQ score in the triple digits." The fact that Russell takes several thousand words to say what I just said in ten doesn't mean that his work is not essential reading.
698735
Did I just waist time and money on somebody's mid term paper?? That's what it read like. It was like a bad essay, repetitive and filled with excerpts from Wikipedia!! Extremely disappointed, I thought it would be a very interesting read, it wasn't at all.