The Spotter's Handbook: Wildflowers, Trees, and Birds of North America

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Francine Prose might well find herself on one of those lists of oddly appropriate congruency between name and occupation. Indeed the prolific writer has demonstrated an enviable versatility in her witty fictional works and journalistic forays. Yet at her best, her voice is far from prosaic, conveying the distilled, sympathetic wisdom of the unfaltering observer. That characteristic pervades her treasurably evocative, literary travel memoir Sicilian Odyssey--part of the ongoing National Geographic Directions Series. A few months after the trauma of 9-11, Prose embarked with her husband on a trip to Sicily "partly to discover what this island has learned and can teach us about the triumph of beauty over violence, of life over death." She colorfully invokes the profuse legends and myths linked with Sicily (Homer's "Island of the Sun" where Odysseus washed ashore) as a classical backdrop to her own odyssey, which at times in fact assumes the character of a trip back to a timeless, pre-modern way of life.

Prose is especially effective at threading into her narrative fascinating items of reference—artistic, historical, and sociopolitical—without appearing didactic. She packs an extraordinary amount of information into her account: art historical observations (including a trenchant interpretation of Caravaggio's disturbing "The Burial of St. Lucy"), the spectacle of religious ecstatics, accounts of culinary traditions, political intrigue, and memorable character sketches of people engaged in everyday habits, with the novelist's touch for the telling detail. Throughout, Prose is keen to capture Sicily's vacillating moods—its cheerful colors as well as its melancholy strain—as a place that "has seen countless cycles of violence and peace, of poverty and prosperity, of horror and beauty"—and yet embodies humanity's will to survive. As the ultimate travel guide, her prose conveys the sights, sounds, smells, and sense of the place with vicarious finesse. --Thomas May

Book Description

A blending of art and cultural criticism, travel writing, and personal narrative, Sicilian Odyssey is Francine Prose's imaginative consideration of the diverse cultural legacies found juxtaposed and entangled on the Mediterranean island of Sicily. Prose examines architectural sites and objects that encapsulate period in the island¼s rich life and history and looks at the ways in which myth and actuality converge. Exploring the intact and beautiful Greek amphitheaters at Siracusa and Taormina, the cathedral at Monreale, the Roman mosaics at Piazza Armerina, and some of the masterpieces of the Baroque scattered throughout the island, Prose focuses her keen insight to imagine them in their own time, to examine the evolution and decline of the cultures that produced them, and to deconstruct powerful responses each evokes in her.

Prose writes of the intensity of Sicily, the “commitment to the extreme,” where the history is more colorful, the sun hotter, the cooking earthier, the violence more horrific, the carnival more raucous, the politics more Byzantine than other places on Earth, and how much the island can teach us about the triumph of beauty over violence and life over death.

Illuminated by the author's own photographs, Sicilian Odyssey brings exotic and enigmatic Sicily to life through the prism of its past.

Customer Reviews:

Jumpy in an Enjoyable Way (and Better than Previously Mentioned).......2006-12-21

I have never been to Sicily (but am planning to visit in March), so I'm unable to judge whether this book accurately describes the island, but as a work of travel writing I found it to be light, jumpy, and fairly enjoyable. It doesn't intend to be comprehensive, but it does move around the island and describe both cities and country, historical sites and restaurants, etc. Like much travel writing, it is--in part--a reflection of the author as much as the place, but Francince Prose never intrudes too much into the narrative. (In other words, it isn't the inward journey, "How I found myself" type of travel writing.)

As to the strong dislike of the book mentioned by Bill Marsano in a previous review, I'm not sure I agree with his complaints. Some of them feel like professional jealousy for the soft assignment Francine Prose received from National Geographic to write this book. He criticizes her prose, and while it can be unnecessarily ornate at times, it isn't as extravagant as he proclaims. Francine Prose seems to be having fun trying to capture her thoughts and emotions, while Marsano seems to prefer some objective, semi-historian approach to travel writing. He also criticizes her for not having spent much time in Sicily, but I don't have a problem with that. I think it's as useful to read a limited perspective of a place as it is to read an expert's description. There's something to be said for the honesty of a first impression.

I'd give it 3.5 stars (and 4 if you're planning a trip or in love with Sicily).

no Jan Morris.......2006-03-15

It is hard to top Bill Marsano's devastating review. I didn't find the writing that bad, but it certainly wasn't compelling. There is a certain laziness here. But I enjoyed the book anyway, because I was on vacation when I read it, and I love Italy. Two and a half stars to three stars is about right. So if you're in the mood for light fare, sort of like cold pizza, read Sicilian Odyssey. And Bill Marsano's comments about travel writing are dead on.

For a Good Time, Don't Call Francine.......2004-02-20

By Bill Marsano. This is a small book but a large achievement. In less than 40,000 words (about one-third the length of the average novel) Francine Prose commits almost every sin in, as the say, the book. It can't have been easy.

Prose is a novelist of some reputation, chosen probably because the editor thinks novelists are Real Writers who will lend credibility to travel writing, which is, after all, journalism's sandbox. (Also because they know travel books by novelists are routinely over-praised.)

Prose's passion for Sicily is dubious. Although she claims often and unconvincingly that she wishes to be re-born a Sicilian, she has visited but once before--10 years ago. Such devotion is a little on the cool side, is it not?

Does she have some insights to ipart? Indeed, she tells us traffic in Palmermo is 'homicidal'; that Catanians love sweets immoderately; that Sicilian life 'burns at a high heat'; that the Ancient Greeks wouldn't recognize Sicily today; the Sicilian food is not subtle; that Sicilians have a gift for overcoming tragedy that is specifically their own. Her silly comments on the Sicilian aristocracy are at least mildly amusing.

And her writing is both awful and lazy. She writes in the present tense--the lazy way of getting to the bottom of the page, of getting it over with, with a minimum of effort. ("Name" writers love book assignments like this because they pay well, but their work ethic often deserts them. They think they're on vacation.) Like so many other bad travel writers, Prose is short of imagination: She can't get past the first graf without reaching for "magical," the travel hack's favorite word.

She piles up words instead of really writing. For example, when she wants to tell us that 'many pilgrims in a religious procession carry candles' (that's eight words) she says instead that they "carry long yellow candles they will light in the course of their peregrination around the holy sites associated with the saint scattered through the old quarter" (that's twenty-six). What we want from a writer is some electricity in the words, some vigor, some sign of delight in mastery of language. Prose gives us prose, not poetry--drab, bloated, prosaic prose, comma-crippled and tedious.

She uses crutches so often I began counting them. Eternally indecisive, she says 'seems' more than 60 times, occasionally switching to 'perhaps,' 'almost,' 'maybe' and 'a little like.' She finds things 'disturbing' nine times and also leans on 'perilous,' 'upsetting,' 'alarming' and 'spooky.' Well of course: The Real Writer does NOT enjoy herself, especially because she is in Sicily "to discover what this island has learned and can teach us about the triumph of beauty over violence of life over death." (Really?)

Prose often mentions 9/11 as if she were the only one affected by it. She experiences "panic" at an old castle and again while planning to visit Mozia, a tiny island a few yards off the coast: ". . . what if the fisherman who ferries us out there gets distracted and forgets about us, and we're stuck out there all night? What if we're stranded, exposed to the elements, alone with the spirits of the Phoenician traders who first came to Mozia in the eighth century B.C. and who lived in harmony with their Greek neighbors until the Carthaginian wars, when Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, using catapults, missiles and battering rams--state-of-the-art tools of fourth-century warfare--destroyed the settlement and much of its population?"

What if, indeed. This is drama-queen panic--she's still in her hotel. If stranded, she can just return to the island's museum and tell the attendant. And why on earth would she write or commit such a gross and clumsy sentence to begin with?

Apart from the awful writing, Prose misquotes Goethe and commits numerous grammatical and spelling errors. Everyone connected with this shabby performance should be embarrassed, copy editor included.--Bill Marsano is a professional magazine editor and an award-winning travel writer.

A concise and insightful view of Sicily.......2003-10-24

Novelist Francine Prose's slim but not slight book is filled with insights and evocative appreciation of the often-invaded island of Sicily and its hybrid art and cuisine. Her book provides a good introduction to Sicily, and also provides many interesting reflections for those who have visited the island and are familiar with the literature about it.

_Sicilian Odyssey_ lacks the familiarity based on long-time residence underlying Peter Robb's involuted and near-desparing _Midnight in Sicily_ , Daphne Phelps's The Most Beautiful House in Sicily, or Mary Taylor Simeti's _On Persephone's Island_. Prose's travel book is, however, much better informed than Lawrence Durrell's entertaining _Sicilian Carousel_, but there are not any characters as vivid in Prose's book as some of those in the other books I've mentioned.

I think that Prose's book is a useful introduction to Sicily that also contains much of interest to those with previous experience of Sicily and the writings about it in English.

She writes acutely about food (rightly summing up that "if freshness [of ingredients] is the hallmark of Sicilian cuisine, subtlety is not").and art and architecture, with insightful bits of appreciation of Sicilian writers and photographers and of what Caravaggio did while on Sicily. Also, her photographs (reproduced in black-and-white) are sharp and well illustrate some of the points in her text.

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Sicilian Origin of the Odyssey
Lewis Greville Pocock , and L. G. Pocock
Manufacturer: Cross-Cultural Communications
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0893045934

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Great book

Meet Abraham Lincoln, the politician

He was a Godly Man.

Lincoln's Virtues by Miller

Great and Kind Human

Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography
William Lee Miller
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0375701737
Release Date: 2003-02-04

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William Lee Miller's Lincoln's Virtues is less an "event" chronology than the tracing of the moral and ethical core of Abraham Lincoln's beliefs, what Miller calls the man's "unintended preparation for greatness." Miller posits that Lincoln rightly deserves his nonpareil place in American history. But, he continues, Lincoln's greatness is best appreciated only when we realize he was merely mortal and therefore free to follow any number of courses of actions. Miller, through scores of eloquent exegeses of Lincoln's writings and speeches, explores the path--consistent, though evolving--this free agent took. Lincoln chose politics as his work. As a politician he was subject to the very real constraints of collective action. However, such was the man's "moral self-confidence," that the mantle of greatness alit on his shoulders alone. This is a revealing, delicate, and at times soaring work. It also presupposes its readers are much more than casually familiar with Lincoln's life and times. - -H. O'Billovitch

Book Description

William Lee Miller’s ethical biography is a fresh, engaging telling of the story of Lincoln’s rise to power. Through careful scrutiny of Lincoln’s actions, speeches, and writings, and of accounts from those who knew him, Miller gives us insight into the moral development of a great politician — one who made the choice to go into politics, and ultimately realized that vocation’s fullest moral possibilities.

As Lincoln’s Virtues makes refreshingly clear, Lincoln was not born with his face on Mount Rushmore; he was an actual human being making choices — moral choices — in a real world. In an account animated by wit and humor, Miller follows this unschooled frontier politician’s rise, showing that the higher he went and the greater his power, the worthier his conduct would become. He would become that rare bird, a great man who was also a good man. Uniquely revealing of its subject’s heart and mind, it represents a major contribution to our understanding and of Lincoln, and to the perennial American discussion of the relationship between politics and morality.

Customer Reviews:

Great book.......2007-08-09

Instead of a passive retelling of Lincoln's life, Miller examines Lincoln's choices, and how they made him the great man he became. Highly recommended.

Meet Abraham Lincoln, the politician.......2007-03-07

This is a fascinating read. Lincoln deserves to be on Mt Rushmore.
I was impressed with Lincoln's ability to run the political rat race, all the way to presidency, and yet keep his moral torch so bright.

Lincoln's Virtues is a unique biography, because it focuses on Abraham Lincoln's political and philosophical ideas instead of the chronological history described in typical biographies. Most Americans know Lincoln lived in a wooden cabin, led the North to victory in the Civil War, and emancipated the slaves. However, not many know how shrewd a politician Lincoln was, and how effective a debater he was.

The book analyzes Lincoln's speeches with a focus on how he was able to stand for his beliefs while at the same time not alienate the mainstream public. His speeches were not as zealous and emotionally charged as the New England abolitionists' were; however, his moderate stance was the most practical and effective way to achieve the emancipation. While he made compromises, he never abandoned his core values. He believed all men were created equal and that one should always do the right thing. This book vaulted Lincoln to the top of my `most admired people' list.

Besides learning Lincoln's beliefs and virtues, the reader will enjoy the great political debates decorated with wit and humor. The writing by author Miller is vivid and animating: you just traveled back in time to 1859 and are sitting in the auditorium listening to the speech by the great man from Illinois.

He was a Godly Man........2007-02-27

Edmund Wilson wrote that more rubbish has been written about Lincoln than any other America, except Edgar Allen Poe. Almost 4,000 volumes by 1939 had been published. At times, it is hard to know what to believe. Last year, the History Channel dwelled on his melancholia trying to prove that it was he and not his wife, Mary Todd, who was mentally deficient. In one of the absurd publications, Abraham Lincoln was measured "by the mostulates of Kipling's "If." He was not a practicing Christian, but he certainly was a believer while dealing with the Civil War and residing in the White House. I'm not sure that John Wilkes Booth was religious, but it is possible he considered Lincoln an infidel because of what the Union forces did to our beloved South.

President Lincoln was a man of character with ethics and virtues as are all great statesmen. Responsibility, practical wisdom, and realism, moral principles, conduct of "standing where one must" and doing what is right are just a part of his personality. Max Weber wrote about him:"the occasions on which he said "Here I stand; I can do no other." was not undertaken for a self-indulgent display of rectitude.

In his euloogy to Zachary Taylor in 1850, he said "The presidency is no bed or roses" and the former president "had found thorns within it." Another virtue: "self-sacrificing, long-enduring devotion to his duty" personifies Lincoln. Taylor "pursued no man with revenge" althought he had the opportunity to do so after the Mexican War. Lincoln praised people and looked for the best and not the worst in everybody. Magnanimity was one of his "prime virtues."

Sectional politics was not to his liking. He was aware that Southerners "will not so much as listen to us." That may have been so in 1865 but less than a hundred years later, we were memorizing "The Gettysburg Address" for school assignments, even in the South. He did not become our hero but he was someone we could respect -- after the fact. He had many good, upstanding principles and next to the Bible is the most quoted by the populace of this country. In Tennessee, near his beloved Kentucky, (Harrogate to be exact) is Lincoln Memorial University where the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, located on Cumberland Gap Parkway. In 1863, Lincoln put his finger on the Cumberland Gap area and suggested to General Howard, "can't we go through here and seize Knoxville." The general founded Lincoln Memorial University in 1897 as a "living memorial to" the president. There they observe the anniversary of his death, April 15, celebrate November 19 with a play entitled "The Ghost of Gettysburg" as a single actor delivers the Address; and December 5 (an annual event) an original play is performed with period music of Christmas with the Lincolns during the Civil War.

The museum is composed of three gallelries: Young, Mr. Lincoln (the wall of photographs contains a copy of every known photo of Lincolln as of 1939), politics and war with the election of Lincoln to the presidency and the dissolution of the U.S., then the tragic ending to Lincoln's life. The can Abraham Lincoln carried into Ford's Theatre that fateful night of his encounter with John Wilkes Booth is on display. After the assassination, be became the nation's (North and South) martyred leader. A mural replete with angels shows George Washington welcoming Lincoln into Heaven. At the museum store, I bought a small Confederate flag, what irony.

The author of this book, William Lee Miller, debunks many myths about the Civil War and Lincoln's part and his past. The Civil War was fought over States' rights, not slavery. Even with his Emancipation Proclamation, he did not end slavery. However, eight months after his death, the Constitution's 13th Amendment that "all men are created equal" was ratified. Mrs. Lincoln received a pension of $[...] for six months before her death July 16, 1882. The Licoln Tomb at Springfield was designed by Larkin Mead, Jr. On July 26, 1947, 18,350 items of Lincoln's papers were left in trust and opend to the public. Miller also wrote "Arguing About Slavery" in 1996.

Lincoln's Virtues by Miller.......2006-09-03

The book is a compendium of experiences in the life and times of
Abraham Lincoln. The author depicts him as a strong self-educated
character who studied Kirkham's Grammar, philosophy, astronomy,
chemistry, engineering surveys and the law. He studied military
science so that he could debate the generals of the time. There
is much detail on the early life of Lincoln. This aspect makes the book interesting because many of the facts related are not
well known to the general public.

Lincoln was a "Universalist" who shied away from religious arguments in favor of moral ones. The former President secured the 1860 nomination against strong rivals including Seward. Seward was ahead at the Republican Convention; however, he was thought to be more radical than Lincoln on the subject of slavery.

Lincoln considered slavery a monstrous injustice. Frederick Douglass was always at ease while in the presence of Abraham Lincoln. The former president acted courageously to deal
forthrightly with the issue of slavery instead of leaving the
issue for future generations to correct.

The book contains much historical information which will be of
interest to a wide constituency of academicians. It is a must
read for every American interested in the pre-Civil War era.

Great and Kind Human.......2004-07-03

This is a very unique biography of Abraham Lincoln. As described in all the other reviews, this book focuses on Lincoln's ethical character. After reading this book, the reader should feel like we have so much more to give to this world that we live in. We should continue to develop ourselves so we can contribute to make this world a better place. Lincoln believed he could do that by proving to the rest of the world that democracy can survive and prosper. Everyone knows Lincoln was a kind and humble man. But the author not only describes Lincoln's ethical nature but provides many examples that proves to us time and time again what a wondersful exceptional man Abraham Lincoln really was. Everyone living in a free country should thank Abraham Lincoln for his ethical dedication.

Lincoln's Prudence.('Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography'): An article from: First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life

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Lincoln's Prudence.('Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography'): An article from: First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life
Allen C. Guelzo
Manufacturer: Institute on Religion and Public Life
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This digital document is an article from First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, published by Institute on Religion and Public Life on October 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1789 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Lincoln's Prudence.('Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography')
Author: Allen C. Guelzo
Publication: First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (Refereed)
Date: October 1, 2002
Publisher: Institute on Religion and Public Life
Page: 60(5)

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Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography.(Book Review): An article from: Ethics & International Affairs

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Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography.(Book Review): An article from: Ethics & International Affairs
Cathal J. Nolan
Manufacturer: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs
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This digital document is an article from Ethics & International Affairs, published by Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs on October 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1178 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography.(Book Review)
Author: Cathal J. Nolan
Publication: Ethics & International Affairs (Refereed)
Date: October 1, 2002
Publisher: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs
Volume: 16 Issue: 2 Page: 173(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Southern History

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Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Southern History
Mark E., Jr. Neely
Manufacturer: Southern Historical Association
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This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on November 1, 2003. The length of the article is 711 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography.(Book Review)
Author: Mark E., Jr. Neely
Publication: Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: November 1, 2003
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 69 Issue: 4 Page: 922(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description

Bred and defined in the 1950S era of White greaser gangs, the Gaylords steadily grew in Chicago to become a gang to be reckoned with. By the early 1980s, Spanish immigration threatened not only their reign, but the very survival of many. Michael Scott was a member of the Gaylords through this turbulent time period, and has written a story based on actual advents, to offer all of us a ticket to take a suspenseful guided tour. The book not only gives the reader a roller coaster ride of traditional gang fights, but it also gives an historical account of what it took to walk the streets of Chicago as White youth in the 1970s and 1980s.

Customer Reviews:

Accurate & Sad.......2007-08-19

I never wrote a review before - probably never will again but like Duke said - this book brought back alot of memories of growing up just a little ahead of Rocker; right there. The book is good; maybe only if you lived there; maybe not. It's a book about what he did and what it was like in the neighborhood at that time. The names and places are accurate and pretty much the events and life hanging out is accurate. If you want know about it because you know the place or you want to understand what it was to be a teenager then and there - read the book. Not everyone was in a gang but I find it hard to believe you could have lived there and then and had your head so buried that you never saw any of this. I guess that's possible - but if you were 8-20 between 1970 - 1985 it would have been hard to miss - even if you got no closer than someone trying to recruit you.
All that said, for all the people that give it a one or two because you want to whine about typo's or bash the guys life or whine that it doesn't give a solution you should have read the cover before buying it. Rocker never claimed to solve anything; He claims, right on the cover to give, "a historical account of what it was like to walk the streets of Chicago (on the NW side) as a white youth in the 1970's & 1980's" and he delivers. Rocker is clearly not a professional author ... never claimed to be ... did the typo's changed the story? No. I agree there are definetly parts that drag and get repetative but, in a way, that just about sums up the life; in the end life dragged at times, it could be repetative but it was what it was. If that's what you want to know read the book. If you want a perfectly editted romance novel with a happy ending, read Mary Higgins Clark

Try again.......2007-08-12

I live in Chicago and know these places, and it was fun knowing where he was talking about I over all thought the book was lacking. It may tell how he thought things were at the time but all I could think about was how this book just sounded like he was trying to justify everything. Justify the violence, the crime, and most importantly trying to justify being in a racist gang. He not only tries to justify it but there are undertones he wants you to feel the same way he does and he fails poorly. Its not the worst book I've read but I won't advise you to read it. What can you expect, after the success of Reymundo Sanchez's books the flood of crap books to fill this niche in ex gang members lives is to be expected.

Low life piece of human waste.......2007-08-12

MIchael Scott is not the name the 'author' went by in the 1980's. It was Michael Polk, and I arrested him on many occasions. I have not read this book, and I have no intention of reading it . In the 1980's, I was a Chicago Police Officer assigned to the Gang Crime North unit. Polk, and the slime he ran with, were nothing more than a group of racist animals who were determined to do harm to the Hispanic people that were moving into the area. Of course, they also found time to battle the Simon City Royals, another white gang who were the Gaylords' rivals. The real heroes are the people who refused to be intimidated by this trash, and remained in their changing neighborhoods, in the hope that they would provide a stabilizing influence. Please,folks, do not buy this book. Take the money you would spend on it, and give it to charity, or better still, the families of violent crime victims. And please, resist the urge to glorify these creeps. If you have ever seen a twelve or thirteen year-old kid with his brains splashed all over the street, for absolutely no reason, you would better understand my frame of reference. After a while, you get tired of picking up the bodies.

Disappointed.......2007-05-12

As a NW side Chicago girl I was excited to read this book. What a waste of my time and money. I still have not finished it, but I know this is a book going nowhere. The book is terribly repetitive, poorly written and glorifies low level street violence. Yes, its tough being the white kids in an urban landscape, but have you learned anything? What is obvious is the writter is still glamorizing the old days. I can imagine him, PBR or Old Mil in hand waxing prophetic about his days as a white gang-banger. I like to be a solution to a problem, not contribute to it.

My life reading this book.......2007-04-04

Boring. I guess in the world of gang activity that's a good thing. How many times can you get into fist fights and smash things? I guess you had to be there.

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