Book Description
Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is a brilliant mystery set in a fictitious medieval monastery. The text is rich with literary, historical, and theoretical references that make it eminently re-readable. The Key makes each reading fuller and more meaningful by helping the interested reader not merely to read but also to understand Eco's masterful work. Inspired by pleas from friends and strangers, the authors, each trained in Classics, undertook to translate and explain the Latin phrases that pepper the story. They have produced an approachable, informative guide to the book and its setting--the middle ages. The Key includes an introduction to the book, the middle ages, Umberto Eco, and philosophical and literary theories; a useful chronology; and reference notes to historical people and events.
The clear explanations of the historical setting and players will be useful to anyone interested in a general introduction to medieval history.
Adele J. Haft is Associate Professor of Classics, Hunter College, City University of New York. Jane G. White is chair of the Department of Languages, Dwight Englewood School. Robert J. White is Professor of Classics and Oriental Studies, Hunter College, City University of New York.
For more information on Umberto Eco's work, please visit Libyrinth's web site at http://www.libyrinth.com/eco http://www.libyrinth.com/eco"
Customer Reviews:
The Key to the Name of the Rose.......2003-06-18
After reading The Name of the Rose with few helps, discovering this book was quite wonderful. It goes into adaquate detail with the historical background, and I found the translations to be good and very helpful. A must for those trying the novel for the first time or for those who felt the lack of endnotes frustrating. A wonderful suppplement.
The Key to "The Name of the Rose".......2002-09-12
The Key to "The Name of the Rose" by Adele J. Haft, Jane G. White, and Robert J. White is a wonderful little book. When was the last time you used your Latin that you had in High School? You say, you never had Latin... well how do you expect to solve the clues that Brother William of Baskerville in "The Name of the Rose" gets.
Well, the answer is in this little tome as it includes translations of all of the Non-English passages making you as "smart" as Brother William. This book furthers your experience when reading "The Name of the Rose" as you now can decode the juicy clues. Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" is about crimes in a medieval abbey and the obsession of it monks with heresies, apocalyptic visions, and forbidden knowledge.
This "Key" is a delightful guide to the phrases and bizarre characters and has mirthful anecdotes that you're sure to enjoy and you'll solve the mystery of the seven deaths as fast as Brother William and enjoy the intrigue in doing so.
excellent resource for artists.......2002-03-20
i am hoping to do an intricate performance art piece based on the novel "the name of the rose;" however, many of the lush details and layers were lost on me, because i am not a historian or a scholar well-versed in semiotics... the task is still daunting, but i feel more confident having this "hint book" to fill me in on the background information. it renders the novel much more accessible to a lay person, and makes the story even MORE fascinating than it already is. i suggest that anyone reading "the name of the rose" should have a copy of this to help them along... also, there is a text that does this same task for dante's "divine comedy" (dante has a large influence on the novel, so reading dante will help the reader to understand the apocolyptic attitudes of the characters). joseph gallagher wrote "a modern reader's guide to dante's 'the divine comedy'" which you may also find helpful.
A must-have for Name of the Rose neophytes.......2001-08-06
I'm enjoying Umberto Eco's NAME OF THE ROSE, but I don't understand so much as a tenth of the Latin. Before I reached page 200, I came to the sinking conclusion that I was missing out on something. I checked KEY TO NAME OF THE ROSE out at my local library, but soon realized that I needed to own my own copy to keep beside my copy of NAME OF THE ROSE. This book is a God-send for those NAME OF THE ROSE fans like me who lack a reading knowledge of Latin. Having other scholars' comments at hand really helps. If you're intrigued by NAME OF THE ROSE, but just don't get it, buy this book!
A very helpful companion volume.......1999-11-10
This is a very good guide to The Name of the Rose. Not perfect, but good. The non-English translations are very helpful, and beat sitting next to a Latin dictionary. The biographical information for historical characters is very good too. My only beef about this is that it doesn't address the historical backdrop of the novel well enough: the Renaissance of the previous century, the conflicts in the Church at the time, and the looming disasters of the 14th century between the time the novel takes place and the time the narrator lays the tale down. Get this volume if you're going to read the book. But don't rely strictly on this.
Amazon.com
New York City Cookbooks from Wiley
New York is one of the world's great food cities; it is also one of the most culinarily diverse. Check out these great cookbooks from some of the stars of the New York food scene, as they make their great recipes accessible to the home cook.
At Home with Magnolia: Classic American Recipes from the Owner of Magnolia Bakery
Known for recipes evoking a homemade, uncomplicated era, Allysa Torey, the owner of New York's renowned Magnolia Bakery, expands her repertoire with 93 great recipes for appetizers, soups, casseroles, main courses, vegetables, and, of course, desserts. |
The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa
Marcus Samuelsson, award-winning chef/owner of Restaurant Aquavit and Riingo, takes his formidable culinary talents and curiosity to Africa to bring the continent's diverse cultures and cuisines alive for home cooks in this beautiful book with more than 200 recipes, 250 photos, and fascinating stories of his journey. |
Artisanal Cooking: A Chef Shares His Passion for Handcrafting Great Meals at Home
Terrance Brennan, the chef/owner of two acclaimed restaurants, Picholine and Artisanal, brings to life his passion for simple yet flavorful cuisine in this wonderful cookbook. |
Go Fish: Fresh Ideas for American Seafood
Celebrated chef Laurent Tourondel of New York's BLT Fish and BLT Steak, reveals how creating elegant, mouthwatering seafood at home can be marvelously easy-and faster than you might think. |
In the Heat of the Kitchen
Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy
International superstar chef Gordon Ramsey, owner of the forthcoming New York hot spot "The London," reveals all, from techniques and short cuts to clever cooking tips. |
Book Description
The high-profile chef of New York's acclaimed Fiamma restaurant brings his contemporary spin on classic Italian cuisine to home cooks with 110 delectable recipes and more than 75 stunning color photos. Capping off the book are dessert recipes from Fiamma's pastry chef, Elizabeth Katz, which include updated twists on Italian classics such as Blackberry Gelato and Cup of Tiramisu.
Customer Reviews:
Visually pleasing but of poor use.......2007-03-06
1 star for great photos and 1 star for interesting combinations of foods. The book's worth of owning decreases rapidly once you start to cook from it. It would simialr to a hiking book with great photos of places you always wanted to hike but when you used it you found the distances quoted in error and the terrain to be more difficult than described.
The recipes are in error of the serving sizes, e.g.., the individual chocolate cakes recipe makes substantially more than 8 cup cakes. This also points to another problem, poor editing. The aforemention recipe indicates muffin tin and then uses the word cup cake later. A similar problem is with the expresso and gelato calling for shot glasses but the volume being served will overfill a small shot glass as specifeid in the recipe.
The recipe for the polenta with broccoli rabe produces a polenta with slippery texture. While in the introdcution White discusses his method of making polenta without fats, the texture of the polenta in this particular recipe suffered.
Use this book for the concepts of the combinations of foods and use your skill as a cook to make these recipes work. The recipes are for make and serve so you will need to use some creativity on how to use them for a dinner party unless you want to be in the kitchen while everyone else has a good meal. The recipes for the caponatas work well and take little adjustment to make.
Fiamma is Excellent !!! Simple Italian Cooking at its Best!!.......2007-01-05
I spent three and a half weeks in Italy on my honeymoon and then spent three and a half weeks on my return to San Francisco trying to find food that tasted like what we ate all over Italy, without success. I was looking for a good Italian cook book recently and spent several hours at the local bookstore reading and studying the many offerings. After five minutes reading Fiamma, I was struck by the how different this book felt. I almost felt I was back in Cinque Terra watching seafood risotto being prepared as I read parts of Mr. White's book. There is great value and beauty to the simple, well-considerd thoughts and recipes presented in Fiamma. Our many great meals in Italy were made with fresh,simple ingredients.Fiamma captures the essence of this style in its recipes. I felt like I had met a kindred spirit to my visit to Italy in reading about the lessons Mr. Smith learned cooking there. I haven't cooked all the recipes yet, but can say without hesitation, that following Smith's mantra of buying the freshest and best quality ingredients you can afford makes the recipes I've prepared shine. There are many easy and straightford recipes presented..great value for money to those who Love Italian food!I look forward to eating at the restaurant in New York as well.
New Italian Restaurant Dishes You Can Make. Great Desserts.......2006-12-06
`Fiamma' by American restauranteur of Italian cuisine, Michael White, assisted by Joanna Pruess, with desserts by Elizabeth Katz is another in the recent trend of books which market themselves as manuals on `contemporary Italian cooking' when they are actually nothing more than good restaurant cookbooks. Another recent entry into this category is Scott Conant's `New Italian Cooking', which impressed me when I reviewed it, in spite of the pretentious title and aspirations.
Conant and White seem to have much in common, especially as they distinguish themselves from `Mister Italian chef in New York', the redoubtable Mario Batali. While Mario's genetic credentials run to true `Italian-American' traditions, Conant and White both seem to pride themselves on having virtually no Italian blood. We have ample evidence that this is no barrier to cooking great Italian food and even creating great Italian styled dishes. The Brits, Rogers and Gray and wunderkind, Jamie Oliver have been serving up first rate Italian dishes for years now, and both London's River Café and Oliver's `15' seem to be thriving on this diet.
Conant and White are also predominantly rooted in the Northern Italian cuisine, but both distinguish themselves from Mario by focusing on distinctly Italian ingredients. This really sort of runs contrary to their claim to modernity, as Mario seems to have the right idea when he applies the Italian food ethic to local American ingredients. But, all three manage to create totally marvelous dishes.
A glance at White's Table of Contents reveals a style about as Italian as you can get and still be publishing an American book. All primary chapter and recipe titles are in Italian, with all having an English translation just below. A quick glance at recipe titles shows White being almost 100% true to the classic Italian larder and market. In one recipe, White says `I like to marry old dishes with contemporary ingredients.' Well, his ingredients in this dish (not including herbs and spices) are truffle oil, balsamic vinegar, baby artichokes, sea scallops, and frisee. Now which of these ingredients is `contemporary'? I will grant that combining `carciofi alla giudia' with scallops and frisee may be new, but these are certainly not new ingredients. The author makes something of the fact that the pumpkin is a `new world' vegetable that only arrived in Italy in the 16th century. I guess that in a country where a 900-year-old church may be considered `young', this is new, but then the great orange gourd got there at the same time as the tomato, and no one is calling the tomato a `new' Italian ingredient. `The Silver Spoon', the Italian `Joy of Cooking' has 16 recipes for pumpkin listed in its index. There are also several dishes done `in the style of ...' one Italian region or another. Where is the `Contemporary' in this book?
I confess I'm having just a bit of fun at Chef White's expense. I really like almost all the recipes in this book, and I have no doubt that most of the recipes in the book are White's own creation, as much as Conant's recipes and Rogers and Gray's recipes are their own takes on Italian ingredients and techniques. I am also pleased that publisher Wiley didn't put a premium price tag on the book, as they did with the somewhat pretentious `Working the Plate' from Christopher Styler.
Comparing books from both Conant and White to Batali's flagship restaurant book `The Babbo Cookbook', I find both Conant and White's recipes to tend to the simpler, with much more uncommon with Rogers and Gray than with `Molto Mario'.
I also think White brings just a bit of unusual insight to Italian cooking. His sidebars have offered some notions I have not seen before, but they are not earth shaking. If you want major insights into Italian culinary technique, see Marcella Hazan's `Marcella Says...'.
As I swing between assigning four or five stars, I look at the dessert chapter done by Ms. Katz, and decide that this contribution tips the balance to five stars. The recipes are true to Italian Dolci simplicity, but have an extra Franco-American panache that makes them more interesting than poached pears and Parmesan. I also give extra credit for the quality of the photographs, except for the fact that many times they seem to end up one page too far on.
This will do what all good restaurant cookbooks should do; provide good, new, not too expensive recipes with a story. In this case, the story is that an American mid-westerner goes to Italy and does good in the Italian kitchen.
Beautiful inspiration - especially for those with kitchen minions.......2006-12-03
Luscious photographs and bold presentation showcase the contemporary Italian flair of White's New York and Las Vegas restaurants.
Like most elegant restaurant cookbooks, this is as much for savoring in the armchair as taking to the kitchen. White offers cooking tips and suggestions for ingredient substitution inn his evocative recipe introductions but many of his luscious dishes require more patience or kitchen help than the average home cook is likely to coax out of family members.
Robiola Cheese with Soft Polenta and Fonduta, for example, essentially a rich cheese ball covered with polenta and topped with shaved truffles requires an hour of continuous stirring for the polenta as well as a tricky cheese sauce and a bit of quick assembly before your cool cheese ball melts. That said, it's delicious.
Creamy Artichoke and Sunchoke Soup calls for some chopping and several cooking steps but looks to be worth it, as do the Herbed Pork Rolls made with pounded pork tenderloin, sage, rosemary and Romano.
And a few dishes are simple: Rabbit Braised in Oil is a must try - and the 3 cups of braising oil can and should be used again - and Farmer-Style Spinach, well cooked with wine, vinegar and mushrooms has a melting texture.
A beautiful and inspiring book for cooks with a bit of flair and ambition.
-- Portsmouth Herald
Book Description
When Italian immigrants landed on American shores they were outsiders: dark in complexion, culturally different, and unable to speak English. Over time the vibrant community assimilated and moved from being ethnically suspect to being racially privileged as America divided into black and white.
This dazzling collection of original essays from some of the country's leading thinkers asks the rather intriguing question - Are Italians White? Each piece carefully explores how, when and why whiteness became important to Italian Americans, and the significance of gender, class and nation to racial identity.
From tales of immigration to the stormy relationship between Italians and blacks, the volume presents a dynamic, insightful look at integration, community identity, radicalism, urban politics and creative expression. The authors also explore critical moments in community conflict from the murder of Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst to Frank Sinatra's visit to Italian Harlem in the 1940s.
In the tradition of groundbreaking works like How the Irish Became White and How Jews Became White Folks, Are Italian White? is sure to become a landmark work that defines and adds to the dialogue on the distinct relationship that Italian Americans have had throughout American history to both racialized discrimination and racial privilege.
Customer Reviews:
Are Sicilians White Anglo Saxon Protestant? No, Are they White Latin/Berber Catholic? Yes!.......2006-05-01
I have not yet read this book but I am going to, since I do have an italian great grandmother (Lavagnino) from Guatemala. The title may be hard to understand for younger adults. However if you can understand the history of CLASSISM (you know rich against the poor), cultural elitism (racism if you must), sociology in general it will make complete sense. You'll know why you can see italian american Raymond Arroyo on EWTN cable channel talking about why the immigrants are a burden on the USA and cant really be considered our christian duty to help them, even if they're an orphan living in rags in a trash dump. (oh the hypocrisy! so many recent immigrants from south american still have italian blood in them, but EWTN's still mostly a good channel) Read books about the "white anglo saxon protestant" (WASP) "establishment" (sometimes liberal/sometimes conservative) from Boston for example these "blue bloods" who were anglo-philes who traced their citizenship back to pilgrims and didnt trust anyone who wasnt northern euro protestant, and certainly shunned the Irish Catholics (until JFK in the 60's) you'd know where the author is coming from.
I see what you're trying to say, BUT..............2006-01-12
Ok, being a "white" skinned, NOT "olive" skinned Italian, with light brown hair and hazel eyes, as well as having blond haired blue eyed relatives, this book and "Are Italians White" officially confused me. I figured it would be best to go right to the source to answer this question, and you all should to if you want to know, if, genetically speaking, Italians are "white". That source is ANTHROPOLOGY! I have cut and pasted factual information straight from the Wikipedia Encyclopedia, regarding Italian people, race, how and why they have the physical features they do, and DNA speaking, who Italians are closest related to. Here it is: The Italians are a Western European ethnic group with a linguistic Latin backround primarily associated with Italy and the Italian language.
There are almost 56 million autochthonous Italians in Italy, around 550,000 in Switzerland, around 25,000 in San Marino, as well as some smaller groups in Slovenia and Croatia.
There is a notable Italian diaspora in the United States (Italian-Americans), Brazil (Italian Brazilians), Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, Canada (Italian Canadian), Australia (Italian Australians), and France.
Ethnic makeup:
The history of Italy shows that over the centuries, quite a few non-native ethnic groups have poured into the Italian peninsula and Sicily since Roman times. Almost all of these ethnicities were European with the notable exception of a small number of Arabs who invaded Sicily in the 9th century, only to be driven away by the Normans, a people who were a mixture of Celtic and Viking origin who settled in France. The northern Italians of the Po Valley were historically recognized as Gauls (or Celts) by the Romans. Central Italians called themselves Latins and other linguistically related tribes (and are probably related to the Celts in the north). The main outsiders who came into Italy in the last 3000 years were the Greeks who heavily colonized the southern Italian Peninsula as well as Sicily before the 1st century BC. Then came the Ostrogoths in the 5th century AD who plundered and settled both north and southern Italy, and finally the Lombards in the 6th century AD. Both of these groups were Germanic tribes who had come from northern Europe seeking land, wealth, and living space. Other later groups such as the Franks, Byzantines, Normans, and the French Angevins who ruled parts of Italy, settled in smaller numbers.
Physical appearance and characteristics:
Some stereotype Italians as having tan coloured complexion and dark eyes, but this is not all true. While the Italian phenotype is European, they vary within this context. Sicilians tend to have the darkest complexions, but yet many native people with Nordic features can be found throughout the island. The peninsula contains people mainly descended from the prehistoric waves of migration from the north during the last ice age. These groups of stone-age Europeans gave rise to the indigenous Italian tribes such as the Romans and Etruscans.
Succesive waves of Greeks who populated the southern Peninsula and Sicily, were very numerous to the point that southern Italy became known Magna Graecia ("Greater Greece"), During the decline of the Roman Empire, invaders from northern Europe, mostly Germanic tribes plundered Italy, and then at least two massive waves of Germans during the medieval period. The resulting varied appearance of Italians shows that there is no typical Italian 'look' as some claim for other European countries. The shape of the Italian peninsula dictates that any land travel into the peninsula would have to come down from the main body of the European continent, which is exactly what happened during the last ice age. Later, sea travel facilitated contact and some migration around the Mediterranean.
As a result of the thousands of years of migration, Italians come in all hair and eye colours. Those who are taller with fair skin with blonde hair, blue/green eyes tend to dominate north and central Italy including sizeable pockets in Sicily and the south. Those who are brown hair, brown eyes with darker complexions tend to dominate southern parts. Darker complexions commmon in Sicily are due to high sun exposure rather than genetics. It is also interesting to note that the most common hair colour after brown in Sicily is red, and this is due to the Norman and to a smaller extent, Germanic invasions that occured in the south. Current genetic studies are attempting to detect distinct foreign gene signatures. The results so far indicate that Italians are most closely related to their immediate European neighbours... This little "Anthroplogy lesson" helped clear up any misunderstandings as to the degree of "whiteness" Italians have. "Are Italians White?" this book speculates...well, I think the above just answered that question. Hope the above anthropological information helps clear up any stereostypes and blanket statements commonly made about Italian ethnicity.
Great essays, but this book has the wrong title.......2005-11-05
When I first saw the title of this book, I literally laughed. I thought it was a joke. In my mind, anyone of European descent was always unarguably white. It's not that I considered it any honor or anything special to be white. As I have mentioned in many other reviews, my stepfather was Mexican American; I spent my childhood mainly among Mexican Americans, and I spent my teen years living in the mostly black neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon. I had simply thought that the categorization of "white" was very cut and dry. Of European descent? Then you're white. End of story.
It was fascinating for me to read the introduction where the editors say "Italians were not always white." It was also fascinating for me to read that at one point even Malcolm X himself said that Italians were not really "white." (I wonder what my African American History class teacher and fellow students would've made of that.) The book quotes Malcolm X as saying that any Italian who knows his history, knows that Italians have African ancestry and therefore are not completely "white."
The enclosed essays are wonderful and very interesting, with topics ranging from the bigotry Italian immigrants faced, to the challenges faced by people who are both black and Italian American. One essayist says that her grandmother's naturalization papers made it clear that though the grandmother was white, she was "not fully white." (Can you believe that the early naturalization papers not only asked what your "color" was but also what your "complexion" was? Many Italians were listed as being of the "white" color, but having a "dark" complexion.) Another essayist discusses the challenges of living in the United States while being half Italian American and half black.
The essays focus on the bigotry Italians have faced, and occasionally the essays explicitly state that the Italian American community is one of the most racist segments of the population -- and this bigotry was a reaction to the discrimination that Italians have faced. Some say that it was only after embracing the racism in American society that Italian Americans were fully accepted as "white." And in this discussion of bigotry faced by Italians, the topic of whether Italians are truly white is occasionally raised. But the question of whether Italians are white never seems to be enough of the focus of the various essays so as to warrant the title "Are Italians White?"
Don't get me wrong. This is a good book and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the Italian American experience and the bigotry Italian Americans have faced in the past. It's just that I think it has an unfortunate title because the essays don't line up with the title that well. The title should've been something along the lines of, "Italian Americans and the Bigotry They've Faced."
On a personal level, this book was very interesting to read. My biological father is a full-blooded Italian American, and he grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area where there is a large Italian American community, going back to the 1880s. Over the years, I have become something of a "self-realization junkie," looking in just about every place possible in order to understand the makeup of my life. For some odd reason, it wasn't until recently that I decided to look at what it means to be of Italian descent. For me, Italy always seemed very much in the past, and when I thought of what it meant to be Italian -- the only things that came to mind were Michelangelo, the Roman Empire, opera, etc., all the "glory" of Italian history and culture. (To be completely honest, I had always viewed Italy as being the most important country on earth. I know that sounds terribly ethnocentric, but at least give me credit for being honest. That's truly how I always felt.) Unlike my father, I did not grow up in an area with a sizeable Italian American community. There are so few Italians in Oregon that being Italian really doesn't signify much of anything to anyone here, and certainly would never be a cause of racism or bigotry. The most authentically "Italian" thing we have in my area is the Olive Garden. Never once in my life have I experienced any bigotry for being of Italian descent; the closest I've come is to be told that I have an "interesting" last name.
Reading this book helped me realize that my father's experience was very different from my own. Unlike me, my father grew up in an area where being Italian carried a connotation, and, due to stereotypes, due to the racism in society that placed an importance on being white, due to the fact that the whiteness of Italians was occasionally dubious, due to the fact that some Bay Area Italian Americans were interned during World War Two (see "Una Storia Segreta" by Lawrence DiStassi), that connotation was often not very positive. This book helped me realize that there was a time in US history when "Italian" didn't simply mean the Renaissance, Michelangelo, the Roman Empire, etc., but meant poor immigrants of dubious ethnic classification who were allegedly prone to crime (the mafia stereotype, etc.), and in some cases considered closer to being black than white. (This book says that the term "guinea" was originally used in the American South to refer to African slaves, and only later was that term used to refer to Italian Americans.)
Oh, by the way, one reason Italian immigrants were of dubious racial classification upon arrival in the United States is because, apparently, the very classification of "white" didn't even exist in Italy during the period when many of our ancestors arrived here (late 1800s, early 1900s). Therefore, many Italian immigrants didn't know if they were "white" or not because they had no concept of the US system of color classification.
Oh, geez, and now I'm feeling all emotional. Most likely something I owe to my Italian descent.
"Lo sono fiero di essere Italiano!"
Andrew Michael Parodi
How is race defined and categorized in this country?.......2003-11-15
How is race defined and categorized in this country? Various contributors here focus on the Italian American experience as a showcase for discussing racism, stereotyping, and differences between ethnic groups in America. The focus on Italian American experiences will reach a wide audience, from college-level students in classes on social issues to Italian Americans interested in their history.
Inspiring!.......2003-09-20
A friend gave me this book a few days ago and I haven't been able to put it down. Each essay is short, to the point, and easy to read. The best thing about it is that it's filled with lessons about the powerful role each of us can play as individuals in confronting racism within ourselves, our families and our neighborhoods. There are essays on everything from hip hop, labor struggles, and neighborhood tensions, to police brutality, white flight, and inter-racial families. This book is revolutionary and I recommend it to all who are committed to ending racism and building a truly democratic society.
Product Description
Introducing a new book, bound in two volumes, not only containing an astonishing new "pure gambit" named the Miami Variation, but a very delightful, interesting and insightful adventure through a unique perspective of historical chess.
Customer Reviews:
eccentric but fun.......2006-04-15
I enjoyed the references to classical games and the way the author showed how the theory developed. I play the Max Lange whenever possible but castle first before pushing the pawn. Knowing more of the theory here would have saved me working it out myself through a lot of trial and error over the years. There is much in this volume to think about.
That said, it is a rather eccentric piece of modern publishing. The layout and even the typefaces are all over the place. Some of the games referenced annoyingly don't have dates. The Classical Giuocco Piano header notation on page 128 doesn't match its diagram.
The book is a bit like Alice in Wonderland, things get 'curiouser and curiouser' although it is fun to look around.
Very badly organized.......2005-02-27
This book has a lot of original ideas and a lot of colorful stories, but the arrangement of the material is very bad. It is rarely clear what "best" play is supposed to be, and when Acers encounters a theoretical problem he will often cop out with a remark that the line gives good practical chances or is very strong in fast-time-limit games, rather than trying to get to the objective truth. The reader must do a great deal of work to construct a real repertoire from this book -- there are enough good chess ideas that it can be done, but a lot of irrelevant material is thrown in, because Acers can't resist name-dropping or showing some famous brilliancies that don't actually bear on the analysis in the book.
The main theoretical contribution is Laven's "Miami variation" -- 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 d4 Bxd4 5 Nxd4 Nxd4 6 Be3!, which appears to give sufficient compensation to equalize and good practical winning chances against an unprepared opponent. This means that 4.d4, previously thought bad, is actually quite playable, and has many transpositional advantages. The other valuable analysis is in the Two Knights variation 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d4 exd4 5 e5! d5!? 6 Bb5! Ne4 7 Nxd4, where it is shown that Black cannot fully equalize and White can maintain an endgame bind with a small advantage (and no losing chances).
A Unique and Entertaining Chess Book.......2004-12-16
This book contains much analysis not found anywhere else. How many currently published chess books can say that? What makes this book so entertaning is the collection of personal stories by Master Acers that permeate the volume. One sees a unique perspective on chess in the trenches and learns unique twists on classic games. This is a great chess book to study or just to read. I highly recommend it.
JUDE ACERS - Great Chess Player and Storyteller.......2004-02-15
It's Awesome!! The simplicity of the read is breathtaking! The Italian Gambit System is one of the best gambits I've ever seen. No other author writes like this!
Italian Gambit -awesome book.......2004-01-31
Jude Acers has written an awesome book ! I love the graphics, the chess stories, the chess analysis, and Jude's commentary. Jude brings to life many American chess players, who played the game with great heart and spirit. Jude's prose is filled with the fighting spirit of Bobby Fischer and Ken Smith. Jude's passion for the game comes out in his lively prose.
HIs chess stories remind me of the oral history style put to prose by the great Studs Terkel. This book is a must read for anyone interested in chess, or the history of its players, including many great american chess players who are not known that well. Honor is due Jude ACERS on his outstanding book ! I hope his book will spark a new american renaissance in chess!
Book Description
In this book Caroline White presents a challenge to the orthodox approach to southern Italian politics. From her study of two neighbouring villages in the Abruzzi region, she argues that patron-clientism - a form of political relations by means of which resources are distributed in exchange for political support, and which has been seen as typical in southern Italy - is not universal, and that the particularities of local history may give rise to alternative forms that are open and democratic, and oppose the domination of political elites. By immersing herself in the two communities Dr White has developed a deep understanding of the inter-relations between economic life, kinship ties, friendship networks, clubs, and religious beliefs in each: her explanation of the striking political differences between the villages in terms of the historical development of the social relations of production is rigorous and convincing.
Book Description
The 1st Identification Guide Of Late 19th & Early 20th c. Italian Pottery & Porcelain Marks for English-Speaking Collectors. Praised by collectors & dealers internationally as an essential guide, it's been included in the traveling library of Antiques Roadshow & received a glowing review in NEAJ, July 2005. Mr. Wendell Garrett, Senior VP of Sotheby's & Editor at Large of The Magazine Antiques said in a personal note to the authors "I am most impressed. The book is comprehensive in scope, scholarly in research, beautiful in its illustrations, and clear in its writing. Everyone interested in ceramics - collectors, curators, scholars and students should have a copy on his or her shelf." (6/13/05) For the very first time information on more than 120 Italian factories, studios, artists & over 300 identified marks becomes readily accessible to those who can't read Italian, making this Guide indispensable for the collector.
Book Description
Richly illustrated with black and white reproductions of paintings inspired by Dante's masterpiece, Luke explores each of Dante's poetic images, ending with the "white rose," the final emblem of joy and regeneration.
Customer Reviews:
one of the most wonderful books i ever read.......2003-06-17
helen luke is dead now but i wish she wasn't. this
is the best book i ever found about dante. if dante's
comedy seems a mystery to you, if it seems hard to
reach, or if it seems like it has nothing to say to us
now, you need this book. helen luke used dante's poetry
to write a magnificent jungian deconstruction of growth
and love. it makes everything simple. it is magnificent.
i was interested to see that she liked dorothy sayers'
translations (of all the dante translations that there
are) the best. if you have this book, you don't need
any other growth book, you don't need any other literary
analysis of the comedy. she knew dante very well.
A wonderful guide for the soul's journey.......2001-05-14
This marvellous book opens up Danteland for the contemporary reader. Helen Luke's masterful guidance on the paths of Dante's three-tiered cosmos not only helps us to reenter and relish the Divine Comedy - the towering literary achievement of the medieval imagination - but to use it to enter deeper levels of reality through meditation and active imagination. I have based deeply moving group meditations on this, along the lines of those decribed in my own book "Dreamgates", and we have found that Dante's gates can actually take us into imaginal realms that people appear to inhabit after physical death. As the life dreamer she was, Helen Luke reminds us of the way the radiant guide keeps calling the seeker through dreams, which are so often ignored or forgotten until the BIG moment of spiritual trial and eventual initiation. I would recommend using the middle section of the book in tandem with W.S.Merwin's excellent recent translation of the "Purgatorio", which is more readable than the older versions quoted by Ms. Luke.
The most memorable book I've read in the last 3 years.......1999-11-05
The moment I saw the references to Charles Williams and Dorothy L. Sayers I was hooked. Culturely familiar with, but never having studied, Dante's poem, I had always understood it as an allegory of life after death. Wrong! The intersections between Dante's journey as portrayed by Helen Luke and portions of my spiritual journey were intense, meaningful, detailed -- and totally unexpected. The reality of the passage through Hell and Purgatory in this life points to the hope of a portion of the feast to come also in this life. It is not an easy read, but I found myself unable to put it down -- except when the power of a passage would so resonate in me I had to pause to mark it and reflect on it.
Average customer rating:
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Art and Architecture in Italy, 1250-1400 (The Yale University Press Pelican History of Art)
John White
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Siena, Florence, and Padua: Art, Society, and Religion 1280-1400: Volume II: Case Studies
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Sienese Painting: The Art of a City-Republic (World of Art)
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The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 9501350
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Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena (1260-1555)
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Architecture in Italy, 1400-1500 (The Yale University Press Pelican History of Art)
ASIN: 0300055854 |
Customer Reviews:
preparation.......2000-03-31
It is a kind general book on the art history of Italy, but it is a very good introduction to it and it will certainly serve a new student.
Average customer rating:
- Great Cookbook!
- Lots of Facts and Recipes, but not essential.
- A Great Resource For The Italian Cook
- The Simple Things!!!
- Now what should we do with this vegetable?
|
Red, White, and Greens: The Italian Way with Vegetables
Faith Willinger
Manufacturer: Morrow Cookbooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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Eating in Italy: A Traveler's Guide to the Hidden Gastronomic Pleasures of Northern Italy
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Adventures of an Italian Food Lover: With Recipes from 254 of My Very Best Friends
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Contorni: Authentic Italian Side Dishes for All Seasons
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Italy Al Dente: Pasta, Risotto, Gnocchi, Polenta, Soup
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Biba's Italy: Favorite Recipes from the Splendid Cities
ASIN: 0060183667 |
Amazon.com
For those who immediately associate Italian cooking with meatballs and red sauce, Faith Willinger has a treat. She has composed a cookbook of everyday, family Italian recipes that rely on vegetables and tradition. Each chapter features a specific vegetable, offering recipes and entertaining explanations on the traditional purpose of specific dishes. Try Carmignano fennel seed-spiced dried figs or Torquato's Rice and Cabbage Soup--her concoctions are creative yet simple to make.
Book Description
Faith Willinger, a contributing editor to Gourmet magazine who was called "the ultimate source for information on Italian food"by the New York Times , here offers 150 simple, elegant, and diverse vegetable dishes that reflect the creativity and flavor of her adopted country.
Italians do the most exciting things with vegetables. The same ingenious creativity that resulted in some of the world's greatest art, architecture, design, literature, fashion, and music is also applied to vegetables. " With this in mind, Faith Willinger, who has lived in Italy for more than 20 years, brings the honest and delicious vegetable recipes she has discovered there back to America. The dishes come from friends and family all over the Italian peninsula, from the Dolomites to the tip of Reggio Calabria, and showcase a wide range of ingredients, styles, and techniques. Each recipe highlights the Italian ability to create exquisite dishes out of the simplest, freshest foods.
The 150 sensible, delicious, and easy-to-follow recipes include Garlic Bread Soup, Raddichio Lasagne, Garlic-Parsley Braised Artichokes, and Asparagus Carpaccio. Willinger offers variations on the recipes--such as adding a piece of meat or fish to some dishes--as well as backgrounds and fascinating history and lore. Red, White, and Greens offers advice from a well-respected expert on how to make abundant, inexpensive, and healthy vegetables taste their best.
Customer Reviews:
Great Cookbook!.......2006-07-02
This one is a real winner - one of my personal favorites. You won't be disappointed - the writer knows her stuff!
Lots of Facts and Recipes, but not essential........2005-07-25
`Red, White & Greens' is on `The Italian Way with Vegetables' by one of the leading distaff Anglo-Saxon interpreters of Italian cuisine, Faith Willinger, who joins Joyce Goldstein, Lynne Rosetto Kasper, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, and Claudia Roden in the very demanding footsteps of Elizabeth David in providing us with an understanding of Italian cuisine.
Unlike many of the superb books by the likes of Marcella Hazan and Lydia Bastianich, these authors, like David, want to go behind the recipes and give us some feel for the analysis, history, geography, botany, and culture of Italian cuisine. Ms. Willinger in this book is focusing on vegetables in a way that is somewhat different from her closest competitor, Jack Bishop, with his book, `The Complete ItalianVegetarian Cookbook'. And, before I go any further, if all you want is Italian recipes with vegetables, then Bishop's book will definitely give you more of what you want than Ms. Willinger's older and shorter volume.
When I started in on Ms. Willinger's book, I quickly became wary of her statement that the Italians like vegetables because they taste good. Almost every authority I have read on the matter, including some which go back to Renaissance cooking, are pretty clear on the fact that Italians like vegetables because they were poor and so many good vegetables could be gathered from the wild.
As I was docking the author for her faulty history, I largely gave her back most of her points when I saw how she treated her subject once we got into the individual vegetables. Unlike Mr. Bishop who organizes his recipes by type of dish, Ms. Willinger treats each of her nineteen headline vegetables in a separate chapter. Note that while there are only nineteen chapters, many more species are discussed. The chapter on artichokes, for example, also deals with cardoons and there is but one chapter on all of mushrooms.
The selection of recipes is not meant to be complete or even a selection of the most popular dishes. The chapter on artichokes, for example, does not include the famous `carciofi alla giudea' of Rome. In fact, most of the recipes are identified with the name of the individual from whom Ms. Willinger cribbed the procedure.
This book is a bit of a lightweight compared to many, but it has a lot of historical and botanical information you may not find elsewhere. It is an excellent addition to any library on Italian cuisine, but if you have Elizabeth Schneider's `Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini' and Jack Bishop's book, you will probably not miss this volume.
A Great Resource For The Italian Cook.......2000-11-21
While living in Italy, I learned to appreciate the Italian way of cooking vegetables which combined fresh ingredients with simple preparations, creating amazing results, and Faith Willinger's book on Italian vegetables is packed full of these types of recipes. As the host of my own Italian cuisine website Italian Food Forever, I love to prepare vegetables in the Italian manner, and this book has become a great resource for me. Each chapter highlights a vegetable, with a little history of each thrown in with great recipes. If you like vegetables, you'll enjoy this book.
The Simple Things!!!.......2000-08-08
Anyone that knows the Cooking talent of this woman KNOWS that her recipes are wonderfully simple and easy to prep. This to me makes cooking so much more fun than a 25 step recipe with less than satisfactory results. "Sometimes.. the simple things are the best things" So is true with Faith and her way of working with food. Great food with ease !!! Always a wonderful treat for the eyes...nose..and mouth when I cook one of her recipes! She is a true Diva or her art. Luv Ya FAITH!!!
Now what should we do with this vegetable?.......1999-08-03
The other day I opened the fridge and discovered that I have some zuchhini. I opened up Red White and Greens under "zuchhini", and within a little while I was eating wonderful zuchhini carpaccio. The next day I found out I still have some leeks from my last shopping. I opened the book under "leek", and discovered how simple it would be to make roasted leek. It was delicous. And when I had some pecorino romano --- well, just look under garlic for a beautiful salad. Faith Willinger, who took us thorough Northern Italy in her "Eating in Italy", here gives simple and delicous Italian recipies for vegetables. Everything I tried is easy to understand and prepare, and became an instant "classic" in our household. Some of the recipies are from Firenze's wonderful Cibreo restaurant, and they are definitley clearer here than they are in the little Cibreo cookbook. Anyone who likes vegetables and loves Italian food will delight in this book. It's a real asset to have. And yes, as some have complaines, some of the ancedotes are repititve, but they still provide fun reading, and even more fun cooking. So get this book, and start maybe with the leek and lemon sauce for pasta. Can I have some more of that, please?
Book Description
The NIV Gift Bible in a two-column, red-letter edition, is economically priced to make it the perfect gift for promotions, confirmations, and special achievements.
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- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
- The SBL Handbook of Style: For Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies
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