Green Grass, Running Water

Customer Reviews:

What is forever - Green Grass, Running Water.......2007-03-26

Thomas King captures Native Humor as an excellent tool for teaching, for sharing wisdom and as a means to cope when others cannot grasp the meaning of what Natives have to say. The humor of the book and its cyclic rather than linear paterns may be new to Non-Native readers. But, this is the richness and beauty of Native storytelling and liturature at its best.

Window on the Indian mind.......2005-10-27

This is an inventive, magical book for anyone who knows, or wishes to know, American Indian ways of seeing the world. Rather than ponderously attempting to explain the Indian mind, King simply puts it on display: storytelling, puckish humor, memory, quiet persistence and all. Through that Indian lens, the book examines the interactions of men and women, white and Indian attitudes, modern and traditional ways, Hollywood and real history.

It is understandable that those not familiar with Indians might find the book disjointed or hard to follow or less laugh-out-loud hilarious than it is. Much of my enjoyment came from seeing all my Mohican aunts, uncles and cousins -- and the Blackfeet who is married to one of them -- reflected in King's Blackfeet characters.

Nonetheless, for those who know -- or take the time to understand -- Indian ways of thinking, this is a simply wonderful book, a more polished companion to the delightful movie "Smoke Signals" and the Sherman Alexie short stories in "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" from which that film is drawn.

" In the Beginning , there was just the Water ".......2005-05-07

Thomas King with " Green Grass Running Water " takes us on a Journey of Spirit and Adventure. Witty , Engaging and Entertaining , this is a must read for those who enjoy Quirky Slice of Life stories. His words flow as if Carried on a Breeze. He plays with Indigenous Philosophy , Christianity and Creationism with Tongue in Cheek. This is a Simple and Sincere , Warm and Charming read that will Entertain and Enlighten.

If you like Talking Coyotes , Women who fall from the Sky , Virgin Births and more than I highly recommend this book. Throughout this Theatre of the Imagination Mr.King proves that he is an Engaging Literary Voice to be Respected and Treasured for Generations to come. In all Thomas Kings writings we are made to Smile and Think while being left with Hope for a Greater Tomorrow.

There is Common Sense Wisdom thoughout as we are Taken on a Journey where Dreams come Alive and the Heart of the Human Spirit is Tested. This is Truly a Delightful Book , Food for the Spiritual Seeker. Green Grass Running Water is an Inventive Interpretation of the Human Spirit. Thomas King is a Writer whose Voice is Unique and his books are Enlightening , Inspiring , Wise and Generous.

Green Grass Running Water is a Literary Tree of Life. To truly enjoy it you must Read Between the Leaves.

I have read this Story and now I will Live my Life differently.

Green Grass, Running Confusion.......2004-12-10

This was a very readable book. I liked the characters and their development, and the many sub-plots are woven together remarkably well. That being said, what is going one here? There are these four Indians with names from famous literary works, like Robinson Crusoe and Ishmael. What they smybolize or mean, I wasn't clever enough to pick up on. If you like a challenge, you can try to figure it out, but be warned. The Indians fit in with the book; the confusion stems from trying to divine their roles and their overall contribution to the book. With the multitude of characters, it's a little tricky keeping all of them straight, but once you've got them figured out, you'll find yourself wanting to read more and more to find out about them. One of the characters is said to have made three major mistakes in his life, and you'll want to read and read until you find out what they were. This is a highly enjoyable book if you can learn to let go of all the confusing aspects of it.

Interesting..........2004-09-22

I found this novel aesthetically pleasing, well written and interestingly structured, as well as witty in places, but hardly hilarious as others here have suggested. Regarding the book seeming to be written by a female (with all the presumptions of enlightenment that that carries with it - in this text and in literati generally) due its satirical reworkings of phallocentric myths and legends, I would say that the first 'novel' in history by Cervantes did just that, so phallused author's have a decent tradition in that area; having said that, this comment made the course material of my literature course at university, so you can see how pervasive it is. I don't blame the book for its strident and parochial feminist/misandrist and postcolonial themes - there is almost a complete cultural saturation of it. The book works in very well with current literary theory and should be used by all like-minded people as a text to place new 'Portias' and 'Shylocks' in different racial/cultural groups - same sort of hatreds with different wrappings. It's a shame, because King's talents as a writer are very great, despite the ideolatry.

Eagle Drum: On the Powwow Trail with a Young Grass Dancer

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Eagle Drum: On the Powwow Trail with a Young Grass Dancer

Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0027255158

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Frozen Grass
Kenneth D. Scott
Manufacturer: none shown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MX1IJC

Product Description

Hardback,no dust jacket, 1964 CR Kenneth D. Scott,no publisher shown,lt green linen cvr,220 pgs,historical story of one of the last Indian outbreaks in US,Eagleville,Calif 1911,Kelly Creek,Humbolt Co,Nevada,Sheriff Smith

Grass Games and Moon Races: California Indian Games and Toys

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Grass Games and Moon Races: California Indian Games and Toys
Jeannine Gendar
Manufacturer: Heyday Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0930588568

Book Description

Dozens of traditional games are described through personal accounts, anecdotes, photographs, and drawings.

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Even Traditional Oral Histories aren't this convoluted
Sorting through Complication
Practically Lyrical
An Inside Look at a Little Known Spiritualism.
Powerful, lyrical, moving

Grass Dancer
Susan Power
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0399139117

Book Description

Inspired by the lore of her Sioux heritage, this critically-acclaimed novel from Susan Power weaves the stories of the old and the young, of broken families, romantic rivals, men and women in love and at war. Revealing the harsh price of unfulfilled longings and the healing power of mystery and hope, The Grass Dancer takes readers on a journey through past and present-in a tale as resonant and haunting as an ancestor's memory, and as promising as a child's dream.

Customer Reviews:

Even Traditional Oral Histories aren't this convoluted.......2007-07-20

Sometimes the best intentions at innovative approaches result in something akin to torture. I suspect that Susan Power was envisioning a novel approach to the NA Novel genre. Instead, she sold herself short - and her readers along with her. It was expertly crafted short stories disconnectedly telling differing tales of the same connected story lines, some without resolution and some surprisingly with. Obvious talent such as this should not have as its supreme result a book so unworthy of representing the author. Let us pray she fixes these flaws and continues to hone her amazing story telling gift.

Sorting through Complication.......2005-05-18

Power certainly does not make this an easy read. At first glance you can read through it and be happy, then you start really reading it, and it never ends! There are so many messages in this book than I care to count, and our class disected this book till I wanted to puke. However, in defence of Power, it was well written and if I had read on my own, not only would my knowledge of Native American life been increased dramatically, I would have enjoyed it!

I have also met Power, very nice woman, and she can most certainly tell a story.

Practically Lyrical.......2005-01-27

The editorial and other customer reviews do a good job of covering the characters and basic plot, so I won't go into that.

This has to be the best book I've read in months. It's practically lyrical, the sentences are so pretty. The dust jacket is more than a little off on the plot, so don't read that. It's a collection of self contained stories about a messed up family living on a reservation in North Dakota.

Each story is narrated by a different person and takes place a random number of years before the last one. The effect is that each new chapter gives you a different understanding of the events in the previous chapters, until you get back to the "present" time from the first chapter, where you have a completely new take on everyone involved.

It's unusual to find a short story collection this good from such a new author. I highly recommend it.

An Inside Look at a Little Known Spiritualism. .......2005-01-19

This is an interesting book that gives us a series of stories about Sioux spirituality. The stories are loosely interconnected with each other and tell of people who maintain an ability to employ a sort of black magic. With this "gift" they communicate with past generations, conjure up love potions, compel others to self destruction, and other bizarre phenomena. Within these stories is a generally clear view of life in a modern day Indian reservation. The author, an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation who grew up in Chicago, gives an inside view of a live fairly removed from mainstream America. I got the feeling that there was a fair amount of autobiographical material included in these stories.

I was prepared to give this book a "3 Star" rating until I noticed how well the author pulled things together towards the end. I had made the mistake of reading the book one story at a time spaced in between my other reading. I finished the last third of the book in a day's time and was able to catch the inter-relationships of the stories. Still, I was not as drawn into the spiritual magic as others may be. I don't discredit this phenomena but I suspect there are others who will get more out of the book than I did. I did enjoy a lot of the local flavor. I don't ever recall seeing any other novel that mentioned my wife's hometown of Mandaree, North Dakota. I have come to appreciate that there is a real element of spiritual magic through her Hidatsa/Mandan roots. Of the many stories and incidents that she has shared with me, I do vividly recall the night after her mother's funeral. My wife expressed her aprehension about going to bed that night because she was sure her mother's spirit would come to visit. That night, about 2AM, our house dog started barking. He never barks indoors at night and, when I got up to look around, nothing explained his outburst. I was puzzled, my wife wasn't. Susan Powers shares a lot of this in "The Grass Dancer" but on a much larger scale.

Powerful, lyrical, moving.......2004-04-19

Susan Power's THE GRASS DANCER, although billed as a novel, is a series of tightly bound stories centered around the thematic core of a Sioux myth. Separately, these stories, many of which have been previously published in high-quality magazines such as The Atlantic and The Paris Review, are excellent, but read as a whole, one after the other, they form a powerful whole - a novel, if you will. The world Ms. Power creates it at once current and ancient, with legends and tales of ancestors so entwined with the present day that the Native American characters seem less like individuals and more like highlighted segments on a multi-branched and infinitely continuing time line. But that is not to say that Ms. Power creates simple characters. Her people are complex and often troubled, struggling with the magic that swirls around them.

The individual stories tell the larger one of Native Americans, in particular the Sioux, and their battles, both physical and metaphysical, with the white men who invaded their land. This is not a historical novel, however, but rather a lyrically psychological one, where myth becomes fact. The pivotal legend that embraces all the characters in The Grass Dancer is the one of Red Dress, a Sioux woman with breath the scent of plums and a spirit that guides a long line of women to their destinies, both tragic and exhilarating. Charlene, a direct descendent from Red Dress, is in love with Harley, a descendent of Red Dress's husband Ghost Horse. But Harley keeps in his heart the spirit of another woman. Charlene's grandmother, Mercury, uses Red Dress's magic to control men and to wrest Charlene from her mother. Lydia, who is mute by choice, survives her husband and son, dead because of her anger with the magic of Red Dress. The magic in this novel has such force that when Red Dress finally tells her own story, we cannot wait to see what kind of mortal she was that gave rise to such spiritual power. Sadly, the Red Dress story is the weakest of the book. Her motivation to lure white men to their deaths, ultimately bringing on her own, seems flimsy. However, Red Dress as a spirit has become so poignant through the other stories that her final appearance in the novel is perhaps one of the most moving passages.

Susan Power is an extraordinarily gifted writer with a taste for language that makes a reader want to linger over her words. Her imagination is so precise that it is difficult to accept that her characters do not exist beyond the pages.

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Where the Long Grass Blows
Louis L'Amour
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: 0553102869

Product Description

Fiction, Westerns, Cowboys, Historical

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journey to new spaces
compelling short story collection
Stunning elegance
Short stories and much, much more.
A reader from Cambridge, Massachusetts

Where the Long Grass Bends: Stories
Neela Vaswani
Manufacturer: Sarabande Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Measuring Time: A Novel

ASIN: 1889330965

Book Description

"Fierce and bold, these beautiful stories provide a highly kinetic exploration of sameness and difference in terms of ethnic and racial origin. Through a romp of language-vital, outrageous, unpredictable-the fireworks of Neela Vaswani's original genius cast shadows and illumine psyches that conventional monovisions never perceive. The stories of Where the Long Grass Bends are for readers willing to view the shape-shifting of both reality and literary form. Vaswani's characters embrace their fates through such rigorous birthing that what has been internal finally contains and defines them."-Sena Jeter Naslund

"If it is true, as one of Vaswani's characters claims, that a musical movement is the equivalent of a sentence, then the stories in Where the Long Grass Bends comprise an uncanny and beautiful symphony. This is a luminous collection, where each fiction evolves its own mythology. I want to live in the world of these stories just as I am afraid of this beautiful and often dark world. Neela Vaswani's Where the Long Grass Bends is lovely, strange, lyrical, full of true mystery."-Victoria Redel

Where the Long Grass Bends is a delight of invention and language. In whirling, catch-me-if-you-can prose, Vaswani tells stories that subvert conventional narrative by employing Indian lore, Gaelic fable, and historical legend. Spare, fierce, and unpredictable, this debut collection is boundless, even boundary-less, because Vaswani has, as David Garnett said of Virginia Woolf, a mind that sticks to nothing.

Neela Vaswani lives in New York. Her short stories have appeared in numerous journals, including Prairie Schooner, American Literary Review, and Global City Review. In 1999, she was awarded the Italo Calvino Prize. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland, and teaches in the Master of Fine Arts in Writing program at Spalding University.

Customer Reviews:

journey to new spaces.......2004-03-16

Vaswani's creative honesty and descriptive genius make these sojourns memorable. Like dreams one cannot forget, the residual allegorical power of the situations you experience linger on long after all the pages have been turned. From stark reality to the fantastic, Vaswani's range touches on various levels of human existence - the mundane to the spiritual. Waiting for more.

compelling short story collection.......2004-01-26

Readers who love the short story will enjoy discovering this exciting young writer. The stories have a wide range - magical realism with roots in (East)Indian mythology, funny and realistic depictions of the tensions, misunderstandings, and strong ties within intergenerational Indian immigrant families - but all are almost compulsively readable. The pages fly by, and you will find yourself laughing out loud. Resonant with some of your favorite Indian authors, but an authentically new and hard to categorize American voice.

Stunning elegance.......2004-01-26

What separates this book from the pack and makes it a must-read is the multifaceted power of the writing. Vaswani is functioning on a literary level, eschewing easy plotlines and trite constructions, and yet the reader gets soundly pulled into each and every story in the same tidal way children sit rapt at the unfolding of a fable. Vaswani follows the truth of the human heart, regardless of the borders it may cross or the many ways it may find to love.
Many of the stories have land-mine lines or images that--spearing out from the artfully crafted exposition or the colossally detailed exposures of character--bury themselves hilt-deep in the reader: a passing reference to a lumpectomy, an innocent question about the demonic nature of higher education. It is moments like these that had me placing the book back on top of the pile when I was done, ready to read it again almost immediately.

Short stories and much, much more........2004-01-24

Anyone who appreciates the economy and power of the short story form should buy and read this book which is astonishing in its historical, cultural, geographic and stylistic range. Many of the stories, but especially the first two, are an eerie blend of myth and modernity. The reader must speculate on how much they were adaptations from what the author, whose parents are Indian and Irish, read or heard as a child and how much they were creatures of her own wondrously bizarre imagination. Modern stories, except those intended for children, are rarely animistic. These are feistily complex fables for adults who understand the continuum between humans and the rest of the sentient world. "Twang (Release)" has to be one of the zaniest and zenniest titles for a short story (or long, complex dream) ever invented. I found a word I'd never seen before --"marcelled". Are these marshalled waves, or marceauvian waves that mime movement as Vaswani's narrative mimes the crazed logic of fantasy? "The Excrement Man" is as rich in incongruity as the others; the core story is more linear than the first two, although it too has many hallucinatory gambols and gambles. "Sita and Mrs Durbar" is a sad but lovely piece, more manic in subject than style. "Five Objects in Queens" is a suite of vignettes with a common cast, chronological structure, and disconcerting counterpoint -- foreboding continuum under light motifs. I imagine that these Queens stories are more autobiographical than the others, if only for the direct Irish Indian references, but they may be just more miracles of Vaswani's endlessly fertile imagination. "Bing-Chen" offers other ethnically diverse insights, notably the sweet wistful lust of a self-conscious Asian boy who watches prom girls being shorn, before his own hair mixes on the floor with theirs. "Domestication of an Imaginary Goat" is a tour-de-force unraveling of a relationship, interwoven with nostalgic yearning for ways of life lost to political and migratory vagaries. "The Rigors of Dance Lessons" half as long as the other stories in this collection, and even more, well, rigorous, recounts an intense flamenco session, ineptness, disdain and reconciliation. Vaswani's cultural range is especially impressive in another Iberian piece, "Bolero,"which draws together the Basque ethonological landscape and vivid musical metaphors. One could quarrel with Bernstein's equivalency, cited here, between movement and sentence. Why is not the musical movement equivalent to a chapter or to a multi-themed, multiple layered Vaswani story? "The Pelvis Series" takes us into yet other areas of expertise, to paleontology and primate research, and an engaging character, Lola Bonobo, blurring the boundaries of what is human. "An Outline of No Direction" is a clever, telegraphic exercise in subjective geography: four parts follow cardinal directions, disintegrating our vast country; the fifth part is a pebbly reintegration. Vaswani transcends this surface structure with the language and density of reported incident. The last piece "Blue Without Sorrow" is another mysterious migration-and-myth, life-and-death story, marrying (somehow) Mexico and India, peasants and peanuts and literary escapes.

This is Neela Vaswani's first book, but her unique voice is already beyond "enormously promising." I can't recommend it highly enough and I just can't wait for her second.

A reader from Cambridge, Massachusetts.......2004-01-21

A fireworks display of language and form: this is a stunning debut!

Wind on the buffalo grass: The Indians own account of the Battle at the Little Big Horn River, & the death of their life on the Plains

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Wind on the buffalo grass: The Indians own account of the Battle at the Little Big Horn River, & the death of their life on the Plains
Leslie Tillett
Manufacturer: Crowell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

As Long as the Grass Shall Grow and Rivers Flow: A History of Native Americans

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Best Native American History Text Ever
This book needs an editor.

As Long as the Grass Shall Grow and Rivers Flow: A History of Native Americans
Clifford E. Trafzer
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0155038575

Book Description

Although coverage chronologically spans from prehistory to the present, the emphasis is on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is written in a readable, flowing manner and is deeply rooted in native traditions and lore. The title is a reference to a message sent by President Andrew Jackson to the Choctaws and Chickasaws indicating that, as a friend, he planned to move the people to the Trans-Mississippi West to "land of their own, which they shall possess as long as grass grows or water runs."

Customer Reviews:

Best Native American History Text Ever.......2007-02-24

This is the best American Indian textbook on the market today. Trafzer not only writes in a clear and compelling manner, he also presents the incredible complex histories of Indian societies in a clear fashion. He has an eye for details, which he connects in a fine intellectual fashion to the greater, overarching historical themes. This is also the ONLY Native American history text that tells the history of American Indians from the vantage of American Indians; one of its many significances. This is a must buy for those interested in this field.

This book needs an editor........2003-09-23

This book could have used a serious trimming by an editor. The author will state a fact, then proceed to repeat it two or three times with slightly changed phrasing. I often felt as if I was reading the rough draft of someone's Masters thesis and not a published book.
Contentwise it covers a lot of ground. But due to the repetitous style in which it's written, I recommend seeking another book if you're buying this for pleasure.

About the Grass Mountain mouse =: He p'eji it'unkala kin (U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. [Indian life readers. Sioux series, in English and Sioux])

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About the Grass Mountain mouse =: He p'eji it'unkala kin (U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. [Indian life readers. Sioux series, in English and Sioux])
Ann Nolan Clark
Manufacturer: Haskell Indian Junior College [distributor]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Readers | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007FT5OU

Book Description

Based on material from 400-600 level Immunology courses, this concise and thorough review of modern concepts in molecular, cellular, and systemic immunology contains over two hundred detailed problems with step-by-step solutions. Taking a problem-solving approach, Schaum's Outline of Immunology is an excellent supplement to any systematic textbook of modern immunology, focusing on the basic tenets of immunology as applied to the dynamics of immune responses and their outcomes, and is perfect for pre-med students who need help in their required immunology courses, as well as for medical and veterinary students who want to update their knowledge.

Download Description

"Schaum's Outlines give you the information your teachers expect you to know in a handy and succinct formatwithout overwhelming you with unnecessary jargon. You get a complete overview of the subject. Plus, you get plenty of practice exercises to test your skill. Compatible with any classroom text, Schaum's let you study at your own pace and remind you of all the important facts you need to rememberfast! And Schaum's are so complete, they're perfect for preparing for graduate or professional exams. Inside, you will find: A concise approach to the basics of immunology Solved problems that supplement any immunology course Outlines of the dynamics of immune responses and their outcomes Unique approach to immunology as it relates to biological sciences, pathology and medicine"

Customer Reviews:

a good review.......2005-12-14

While some Schaum's outlines are comprehensive enough to sufficiently replace introductory textbooks (Schaum's Genetics is a good example), Schaum's Immunology is not among these. This outline is formatted in a question and answer style that is well suited for review before exams. The outline does not make a good stand alone resource for independent study, however it is great as a supplementary study-aid. So while I do recommend this book for those taking a first course in immunology, I wouldn't depend on it to allow you to throw out your regular textbook or start missing lectures.

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