Book Description
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient comes a visionary novel, a virtuoso synthesis of storytelling, history, and myth, about William Bonney, a.k.a. "Billy the Kid, " a bloodthirsty ogre and outlaw saint. "Ondaatje's language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets."--Annie Dillard.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book For the Non-serious BTK Fan!.......2006-06-28
The book is very fun to read, but is not for the serious Billy the Kid fans. It holds your interest well, as long as, you don't take it too serious. The author is good at what he does and this book is well written. But, don't look for any new, serious information on Billy because it is not there. My review is written strictly from a nonfiction point of view and should be read with that in mind. I read the complete book and enjoyed reading it, but there is nothing in it to really grasp as fact.
A Postmodern Western.......2005-06-01
"The Collected Works of Billy the Kid" creates a beautiful and visceral written collage about the legendary Billy the Kid. Written in a mixture of prose, poetry, clippings and interviews, the reader may not always be sure of whose voice they are hearing and whether the pictures being painted in their head are based on reality or fiction; or both. You can feel in your very skull the heat of the mid-day sun... This is the wonder that is Ondaatje's postmodern take on the Western.
It is a book to be experienced; read and re-read. Each time you return you will find something new to consider and move with. The language Ondaatje uses is among the most compelling that I have ever read. Best consumed with the suspended need for the linear and clear.
Oh, for yesteryear.......2004-07-29
There was a time, pre-English Patient, when the innovative work of Michael Ondaatje appeared assured of standing the test of time, as this slender, groundbreaking volume of poetry, prose, and prose-poetry, now some 35 years old, makes clear. It is, arguably, if not the best--that would be Coming Through Slaughter--then certainly the most felicitous work in Ondaatje's ouevre, and one would be hard pressed indeed to describe it as anything less than a work of sparkling genius.
That the author's more recent, utterly conventional efforts--first Patient, then Anil's Ghost--have, by comparison, evidenced such a precipitous decline, is only sad. But, if you want to read Ondaatje at the near-height of his powers, you could do far worse than Billy the Kid. (Or Slaughter. Or Running in the Family.)
Those were the days. And they were better days. And ballsier days. And brassier. Far better days indeed than Mr. Ondaatje's nowadays. It is the author's express lack of nerve, the lack of nerve expressed in his recent work, that one now deplores. But when Ondaatje was great, he wrote Billy the Kid, the great work of a once-great writer. And in those days, few, few indeed, were greater.
COULD'VE BEEN LESS PRETENTIOUS.......2003-06-12
The book is full of desultory excerpts from Billyýs diary: stories about certain people ý acquaintances, friends, foes, cops, outlaws (like the one he was) is told, which seem irrelevant until those people are referred to in some other part of the book, involved in a small incident involving Billy himself, or just Billy, shedding some more light on their persona. At times, it does feel that Ondaatje is being pretentious by making efforts to purposely disconnect fragments of the book and placing them hugger-mugger, just to make the book a little bit more outré, at other times, it is this annoying and deliberate effort by him, that adds color to this book, and forces the reader to read it more than once to get a grip of what is happening in the book; and with the book becoming more and more comestible with every subsequent reading, who could complain.
The poetry, as it seems to me, gets too vague to understand sometimes, and seems grossly out-of-context, though choice of words seem quite interesting. Moreover, it seems like one needs to know beforehand, the context of the poetry, and a brief know-how of Billyýs life, both of which could not be found in the book. This makes the understanding of certain poems, a bit too hard. The simplest poems of the book, is what give it high points: like the one about swatting a fly ý in all its simplicity, this detailed poetic- explanation of how Billy killed an innocuous fly, in addition to the people he had killed, hits the reader hard, with all its earthiness. Also worth highlighting is another poetry-of-sort, which describes the snoring, sleeping friend of Billy, and how his stertorous snoring made a funny whistling sound, when the air from his mouth was forced out of the gap in between his frontal pair of teeth: unassuming, touching and effective.
The book is rather funny, in the way the various killings and encounters are described. No detail is spared, and the gore is described, exactly the way it had happened: and all this, without an iota of emotion ý stoic and cold. Amongst the bits from Billyýs diary, about the people he knew, there is this interesting story about this mad-man, who used to raise ýfreakyý dogs; he cross-bred them, sub-Rosa, only to be brutally killed by them. Also, the excerpt about Paul Garrett, the ideal assassin and Sallie Chisum makes one feel there were really some colorful and adorable people in Billyýs life. Also, Billyýs ýexclusive jail interviewý is ýin-your-faceý, and at times, laughable.
All in all, the book is worth the money paid for it, though there are instances, where some material seem grossly out-of-context and leaves the reader lost: it couldýve been much better off without Ondaatjeýs pretentious effort to be weird.
Billy the Kid Speaks!.......2003-04-25
Michael Ondaatje's sprawling sequence of verse interspersed with poetic prose exposes the persona poem as one of poetry's surest paths to honesty. Through unsettlingly precise detail and unsentimental empathy, the character of Billy the Kid is recreated-and revisited-in all its brutality and splendor. Ondaatje's unflinching commitment to honesty yields a persona that is as vibrant and realized as possible, resulting in a series of confessions that range from disturbing to revelatory.
The image, consistently startling, graphic and discomforting, carries the speaker through the entire sequence. Whereas most imagery depends on the eye for effect, Ondaatje utilizes all five senses throughout the book. We taste wine "so fine/it was like drinking ether," we feel Pat Garret's "oiled rifle" against Maxwell's cheek and hear it fire beside his ear, "leaving a powder scar on Maxwell's face that stayed with him all his life." We smell the smoke in Garret's shirt and taste the nicotine in his mouth. At times, the stunned silence of Ondaatje's unremitting narrative conjures a hush so palpable that we can "listen to deep buried veins in our palms." It doesn't take long for The Collected Works of Billy the Kid to immerse the reader in its own unique world, accessible now only through words and photographs.
Most memorable, though, are the intensely graphic images that sprout from the page throughout the book. The chicken digging for a vein in the dying Gregory's neck, the warts in Billy the Kid's throat "breaking through veins like pieces of long glass tubing," the blood caked in Tom O'Folliard's "hair, arms, shoulders, everywhere." All these paint an unmistakable landscape of a bleak and desolate New Mexico in the 1880's, a scene so haunted that even "the sun turned into a pair of hands" and pulled out hairs from Billy the Kid's head which, we're told later, is "smaller than a rat." Not one potentially enlivening detail is overlooked; not one square inch of landscape or action escapes the reader's view.
Ondaatje's ambitious project demonstrates that the recipe for great writing is precise detail compounded by believable emotion, a recipe he follows to the letter. Ondaatje executes these two devices so effectively at times that a kind of piercing, revelatory insight emerges periodically. Magical disclosures such as the characterization of Pat Garrett as one who "became frightened of flowers because they grew so slowly he couldn't tell what they planned to do," help to fully realize both the character of Billy the Kid and the times in which he lived, and establish Ondaatje's book as perhaps one of the greatest attempts at persona poetry in the 20th century.
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The Collected works of Billy the Kid
Michael Ondaatje
Manufacturer: Anansi
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| Classics
| Contemporary
| General
| Historical
| Humor
| Letters & Correspondence
| Middle
| Old
| Poetry
| Renaissance
| Shakespeare
| Short Stories
Ondaatje, Michael
| ( O )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Ondaatje, Michael
| ( O )
| Poets, A-Z
| Poetry
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0887840183 |
Average customer rating:
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Savage fields: An essay in literature and cosmology
Dennis Lee
Manufacturer: House of Anansi
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| Classics
| Contemporary
| General
| Historical
| Humor
| Letters & Correspondence
| Middle
| Old
| Poetry
| Renaissance
| Shakespeare
| Short Stories
General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| Classics
| Comic
| Contemporary
| Literary
Lee, Dennis
| ( L )
| Poets, A-Z
| Poetry
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0887840590 |
Book Description
Scrollers can pick from more than 300 unique seasonal patterns to create decorative and inexpensive holiday ornaments in this handbook. Angels and nativity figures, wildlife, and holiday classics such as Santa, elves, and snowmen make up some of the wide variety of themes covered in these patterns. The entire scrolling process is discussed, with instructions on selecting the proper woods and cutting tables, sanding and preparing the pattern, and hanging the ornaments. A special section instructing beginners is included allowing scrollers of any skill level to enjoy these holiday projects.
Book Description
No one tells a Christmas story like Debbie Macomber. The Christmas Basket is filled with gifts for the reader -- gifts of warmth and laughter . . . and emotional truth. This Christmas, let Debbie make you smile!
That summer -- more than ten years ago, while they were still in high school -- Noelle McDowell and Thomas Sutton fell secretly in love. Secretly because their mothers had been locked in a bitter feud for decades. But despite the animosity between Sarah McDowell and Mary Sutton, Noelle planned to elope with Thom. Until he jilted her.
This Christmas Noelle McDowell is home to celebrate the holidays with her family. (After all, December 25 is also her birthday.) Unfortunately, Noelle's feelings about home -- or rather, her hometown of Rose, Oregon -- were changed forever the day Thomas Sutton broke her heart.
This Christmas the feuding mothers find themselves working together to fill Christmas baskets for charity. What irony! And what an opportunity for reconciliation . . . if only they could see it.
This Christmas Noelle and Thom discover they're still in love. Regardless of their mothers' reactions, they want to be together. Is that possible? Can old rivalries be set aside? Will Sarah's Christmas daughter have a second chance with Mary's charming son?
Maybe she will . . . this Christmas!
Customer Reviews:
A light-hearted treat for the holiday season...or anytime!.......2004-10-24
What a delightful story! The plot has been described beautifully already by Amazon and fellow reviewers, so I won't take the time mention characters or events. What I will say is that this story is full of reunited high school sweethearts, feuding mothers, fun family members, neighbors and, eventually, forgiveness, romance and a happy ending - Would you expect anything else from a Christmas story?!?
I highly recommend this book. This was my first experience with a Debbie Macomber book and I thoroughly enjoyed her writing style and the fact that she set the book in Oregon, my home state. It's a beautiful tale that you can read quickly and is guaranteed to leave you with a smile. :)
The Christmas Basket is the perfect gift..........2004-01-19
The Christmas Basket is a book that needs to be shared with someone and then a need to keep on going. The story is written for everyone...and we all need a little reminding on just what is important in life. I received this book as a gift and have now passed it on...and it has made its way into the hearts of many others. Debbie Macomber writes the words we all need to hear but at times are afraid to feel. This is a book of great calm and rejoicing....sharing and love!
The Christmas Basket.......2003-12-18
The Christmas Basket is the story of Noelle McDowell. She is returning to her childhood home for the first time since her broken engagement to Thom Sutton. The two were going to sneak off to get married because of a feud that had driven apart the once close family. The marriage never happened though because of events that took place that long ago night. This causees Noelle to face going home with dread and trepidation. Hoping to avoid seeing Thom during her stay at her parents house, Noelle comes face to face with Thom on the plane home. Neither is happy to see each other as memeories of their past come back full force. Can they resolve their problems from the past and become friends this Christmas? Will their feuding mothers find peace with each other while filling Christmas baskets?
The Christmas basket is a short feel-good Christmas story. It is a quick read with plenty of laughs. The mothers and their antics to outperform each other are hilarious. They were more fun to read about than the two main characters. This story is very easy to read and can be read in an afternoon or evening.
Debbie Macomber is great at what she does. This is another good story with characters you can relate to and like. A book to get you in the Christmas mood.
Heart touching.......2003-04-17
Two events changed two families' lifelong friendship years ago. When Sandy MacDowell borrowed Mary Sutton's tea service, loaned it to someone, and it was then stolen, their families became enemies. Despite this, Noel MacDowell and Thomas Sutton managed to fall in love and plan to marry. However, a misunderstanding shattered this relationship and the two parted, not to see one another for ten years.
When Noelle comes home to be part of her sister's wedding, it is inevitable that Thomas is one of the first people she sees, and keeps on seeing. At first, both pretend that their love turned into hate, but before long, they realize it did not and try to be just friends, though secretly. Their mothers still hate each other; however, they are being forced to work together on their club's annual Christmas basket project.
In an effort to mend the feud, Thomas and Noelle begin a search for a duplicate tea service, and in the process find that friendship is not all they feel. As Christmas draws nearer, can two miracles occur and two sets of hearts be healed?
... With trademark humor and warmth, Debbie Macomber spins a tale sure to touch your heart. Both storylines are endearing and captivating, as you can always expect with this writer. Her characters, as always, are easy to relate to, as if you already knew them, or someone just like them. This is perfect reading with a cup of warm cocoa, even in the deep south where it might be iced hot chocolate instead.
Friendship,Romanace,and Christmas.......2002-12-11
The Christmas basket is a wonderful story. It shows how little things become a huge problem and avoiding people and your home isnt the best thing. That is the lesson that Noelle McDowell and Tom Sutton learned. In this story these high school sweet hearts are joined again as the try to get thier mothers friendship back. I rate this book five stars it is a very good story. I reccomend this book to anyone over the age of 12.
Product Description
Boxed set Animal Ark Holiday Treasury containing 4 Animal Ark Books:1) Kitten in the Candy Corn2) Colt on Christmas Eve3) Husky with a Heart4) Bunny in a BasketRL4 ages 9-12, Scholastic editions
Customer Reviews:
A failed Christmas romance anthology.......2006-12-09
From the back cover:
JONI'S MAGIC by Mary Lynn Baxter
A man and his dog--that was the sum of Boothe Larson's self-imposed exile deep in the Arkansas woods. All visitors were turned away from the lonely cabin. But then a little girl worked magic on him, and so did her mother, Lacy Madison. It was Christmas magic--and it was called true love...
HEARTS OF HOPE by Sondra Stanford
Rob Green couldn't help laughing as he dropped off the enormous Christmas tree at Mary Shelton's home. How could the tiniest apartment in town ever contain such a huge tree? The woman was expecting a miracle. But one look at Mary got Rob thinking...of trees and mistletoe and the miracle of Christmas.
THE NIGHT SANTA CLAUS RETURNED by Marie Ferrarella
Laura Lekawski didn't believe in Santa Claus and neither did her son, Robbie...until they met him--or at least the Santa in Mattingly's Department Store. Here was the kind of Santa who could make Christmas wishes come true for a sad little boy. And make his lonely mother's dreams come true.
BASKET OF LOVE by Jeanne Stephens
"Merry Christmas" was definitely a contradiction in terms--at least as far as Nina Duncan was concerned. For Jeff Eberhart, that tough-cookie attitude became a challenge. It was past time for lovely Nina to open herself up to the spirit of holiday happiness--and the gift of his love.
And my review:
Silhouette has released some really nice stories in their Christmas collection, but unfortunately, not one of the stories in this installment was any good.
Mary Lynn Baxter's JONI'S MAGIC relied on only sexual attraction to draw the hero and heroine together. I never really felt like I knew the characters, or that I really cared about them. I felt that the hero only really went after the heroine because he hadn't been laid in a while. Not very romantic. And the little girl in this story felt more like a flat plot device than a real person. Two stars.
Sondra Stanford's HEARTS OF HOPE suffered from many of the same problems. There was nothing but overwhelming and immediate lust between the characters. Initial attraction? Great! Looking at a guy's hands two seconds after you meet him and thinking about how great they'll feel on your naked body? Ridiculous, over-the-top, unrealistic, and annoying. Didn't get very far into this story. Two stars.
I wasn't really sure what to expect from Marie Ferrarella's THE NIGHT SANTA CLAUS RETURNED. I've enjoyed some of her stories and been unable to finish others. She always seems to be a hit-or-miss author for me. The head-hopping from the heroine's point-of-view to the hero's and back and forth between them was pretty bad in this story. It was rather distracting and made it difficult to get drawn into the plot. I also didn't like that the hero fell immediately in love with the heroine at first sight. The way he pursued her (even though she was more than a little reluctant) felt a little creepy, rather than romantic. It was more like stalking than romantic pursuit. And I didn't like that the heroine never stood up to her interfering, domineering mother. Two stars.
Jeanne Stephens' BASKET OF LOVE was a story I didn't get very far into. I did not like how the hero takes the first advantage he can find and starts feeling up a grieving widow. Again, not romantic. That's creepy! He was trying to "prove" that she wanted to kiss him, even though she was trying to act indifferent to him. Uhh...this is the same kind of rationalization that rapists use, saying that the woman "secretly wants it anyway". It doesn't matter if a woman might "secretly wants it". If she says no, it means no! It was just sickening, and I quit reading this story right then and there. One star.
Romance anthologies are always a "luck of the draw" situation. Sometimes you'll find a story so wonderful it makes you cry. But that's pretty rare. There are better holiday romance collections out there. See my list "Christmas romance books worth reading" for a list of my keepers and rereads. As for this book, I recommend that you save your money.
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Baby in the Laundry Basket: A Christmas Story
Linda P. Carlyle
Manufacturer: Pacific Pr Pub Assn
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Ages 0-3 | Christianity | Religions | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Baby-3 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0816312338 |
Average customer rating:
- Excellent
- If we could only have 10 kids books, this would be one!
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Burro & the Basket
Lloyd Mardis
Manufacturer: Eakin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Fiction | Farm Animals | Animals | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Central & South America | Fiction | Explore the World | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Fiction | Christmas | Holidays & Festivals | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1571681787 |
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2003-10-05
This is a very enjoyable book. Has a great message for kids and is fun for them to read.
If we could only have 10 kids books, this would be one!.......1998-08-10
We have kids and lots of books. This is must have. The kids love it, and we do too. Very well written and great illustrations. If we did not have kids I would have purchased it!
Average customer rating:
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Christmas baskets
Debbie Mumm
Manufacturer: Mumm's the Word
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006S0GSM |
Product Description
Make fabric baskets using the coil method
Books:
- Color and Light for the Watercolor Painter: How to Get the Effects You Want Every Time (Practical Art Books)
- Dancing After Hours: Stories
- Danger on Midnight River: World of Adventure Series, Book 6 (World of Adventure)
- Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting
- Emotionally Weird: A Novel
- Flea Palace
- Giles Goat Boy (The Anchor Literary Library)
- Golden Apples of the Sun, The
- Hemingway: The Postwar Years and the Posthumous Novels (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)
- His Lovely Wife
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Asimov's Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan
- The Omega-3 Connection: The Groundbreaking Antidepression Diet and Brain Program
- Lying on the Couch: A Novel
- She May Not Leave
- The Complete Taj Mahal
- Schaum's Outline of Biology
- The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage
- Venice: A City, A Republic, An Empire
- Small Dogs, Big Hearts: A Guide to Caring for Your Little Dog , Revised Edition
- Paddy Mayne
Coming Through Slaughter
The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems
In the Skin of a Lion
The Age of Wire and String: Stories (American Literature (Dalkey Archive))
Running in the Family
