by Mel Tormé (1974)
"More than an exciting chronicle of an incredible theater experience, this is also a warm, objective, compassionate portrait of a great singer and actress at the time of her last important moments of triumph. That winter of The Judy Garland Show will never be forgotten by anyone who shared in the unbelievable confusion, excitement, humor, sadness, and frustration of it all. It is a story that has never been told, a profile in some depth of a frenetic nine-month period in Judy's life. It is a book for the many thousands who were deeply saddened by her death and wonder why her world went to pieces." --Dust jacket.
Brian Byfield & Alan Orpin
This is an excellent book to learn how to play chess. It contains strategy as well as basic moves and does so with humor and flair. It is a little dated (computers have been built that can beat the best human players) but it is still a very good read.
Ben Berman
"Ben Berman's wonderful first book, Strange Borderlands, is a masterful study in the power and limits of empathy, of respect for difference in tension with the urgent need for common ground. Beyond his formal and stylistic range, linguistic flexibility, eye for detail, irrepressible wit and powerful feeling, what's most impressive about this terrific book is Berman's inclusive generous spirit, the dealy serious imaginative play he exercises in every line of every poem ... These are poems that weigh, consider, and restore some flesh-and-blood meaning to the experience of multiculturalism ... Ben Berman's lyric poems mostly set in Zimbabwe dig deep into the casual and the casualty of daily life: the hammer striking the sheep's head, the sustenance that follws; disciplinary beatings that students, giggly and protesting, could count and count on to fade. Unassuming but wise, compassionate yet wildly, unpredictably funny at times, Berman delivers to us escalating hardships that somehow elevated us toward the sacred; the pathetic harvest and sweetness that comes from the least likely of places. This least likely of places is where Berman thrives, calling on closely observed facts to chronicle the perimeters of tenderness and cruelty ... Strange Borderlans, chronicles in startling and ungorgettable poems his sojourn in Zimbabwe and his immersion in a culture that both embraces and exiles him, attracts and reproaches, changing him forever. Using a variety of poetic approaches: rhymed couplets, prose paragraphs, sonnets, free verse--he gives us a multi-tonal description of landscapes that are as elusive as they are inviting, as unfamiliar to most of us as they are intuitively recognizable ..."--Back cover.
Oscar de Mejo
Pompilius McGrath, the Professor of Etiquette, gives a lecture in which he identifies various social blunders and defends the much misunderstood toothpick.
Furui Yoshikichi
"Furui Yoshikichi's work has long dealt with the human dramas of growing up and growing old, but by probing further into the recesses of the mind and memory, he also touches upon the deepest mysteries of human existence. As if to balance the somber themes of madness and death, Furui shows a great sensitivity to the dark humor inherent in everyday life. White-haired melody is no exception; it is the record of the daily experiences of a man approaching old age. It delves into the essential but hidden nature of his daily life, employing prose that is relentless in its re-creation of detail. This novel is a meditative exploration of the strange borderland around the inner experience of aging and approaching death. Yet, rather than follow a conventional plot, the novel develops by means of an intricate weaving together through time of key experiences of the narrator and his friends to build a compelling portrait of human experience. Those familiar with Furui's writings will find here a fascinating new development of earlier themes. White-haired melody, a work by one of Japan's finest contemporary novelists writing at the height of his power, is not to be missed."--BOOK JACKET.