Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose (Norton Critical Editions) Review

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(More customer reviews)My copy is missing pages 225 to 276, comprising the last four essays in the Prose section: "Blood, Bread and Poetry: The Location of the Poet," "The Genesis of 'Yom Kippur 1984'," "Adrienne Rich: The Interview with David Montenegro," and "Swarthmore College Commencement: June 1, 1992." Must have been a bad printing batch. Caveat emptor.

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This Norton Critical Edition presents the work of one of America's foremost poets. It moves well beyond the scope of its predecessor, Adrienne Rich's Poetry (1975), in giving proper recognition to Rich's extraordinary achievements in both poetry and prose in recent years. The result is a judiciously edited, sensibly annotated volume ideally suited for classroom study of one of our most distinguished working writers.
In both poetry and prose, the editors have chosen selections intended to give readers a clear sense of Rich's evolution and accomplishment. Many of the poems in this expanded collection are from Rich's five recent volumes-The Dream of a Common Language (1978), A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far (1981), Your Native Land, Your Life (1986), Time's Power: Poems 1985-1988 (1989), and An Atlas of the Difficult World (1991). Prose selections include "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision," Rich's canonical statement on feminism; "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," on being a lesbian in a heterosexual world; Rich's interview for American Poetry Review, which presents a full and frank discussion of her work; and her previously unpublished commentary on the genesis of the poem "Yom Kippur 1984."The editors have also taken into account the many essays on Rich and reviews of her work that have been published since 1975. Some earlier biographical selections have been replaced with works that focus on the quality of Rich's writing and her place in twentieth-century American literature-not just as a poet, but as a woman, a lesbian, and a mother. Criticism includes thirteen reviews and interpretations of Rich's work by W. H. Auden, John Ashbery, Margaret Atwood, Helen Vendler, Judith McDaniel, Adrian Oktenberg, Charles Altieri, and Joanna Feit Diehl, among others. A second recent study by Albert Gelpi traces the events in Rich's life from which her work evolves. An updated Chronology and Selected Bibliography, as well as an expanded Index, are included.

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Mastering French Vocabulary: A Thematic Approach (Mastering Vocabulary Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is the best tool I have found to aid in aquiring a solid and useful French vocabulary. It was well thought out, is very comprehensive, and has made my time spent studying French more productive. This is because I'm able to focus my studies on the most used words on the topics most important to me.
The authors claim the number of words needed to take part in simple conversations is 1200 to 1500. To assume an active role, 2500 to 3000. And to do so without having to ask "what does that word mean?", 5000 to 6000. Langenscheidt's "Basic German Vocabulary" judges the magic number to be 2000 words, in order to carry on everyday conversation or read a text written for the average native speaker (2000 words constitute 80% of words used in all written and oral communication). This book, Mastering French Vocabulary, seperated their nearly 6000 words into those to be learned first, numbering about 3000, and those to be learned later, numbering an additional 1943. They were organized into 35 thematic categories (which were broken down into further sub-categories) to make learning easier and more enjoyable (this approach worked well for me).
Some examples of the 35 categories used are: biographic information, appearance and character, feelings, making evaluations, shopping eating and drinking, clothing, fields of art, at work, politics, weather and climate, and colors and shapes etc..
Aside from the quantity of words, and the nice organization into seperate themes, the authors wrote out each word phonetically using the International Phonetic Alphabet, just as any quality dictionary would, but something most other vocabulary building tools fail to do. This was complimented by the best explanation of the french pronounciation of the IPA that I have yet to see.
The only criticism I have is the small number of example sentences used to supplement the vocabulary given. Langenscheidt's "Basic German Vocabulary" had at least one example sentence for each entry, and even the other foreign language books in Barron's Mastering Vocabulary series have a great deal more examples. The French version has a mere 1310 example sentences, which roughly means there is an example sentence for every sixth vocabulary word given. The current Mastering German Vocabulary: A Thematic Approach has 4,900 and the Spanish and Italian versions have about the same. The French edition is noticeable thinner than its counterparts, ...
I was disappointed when I found there was an example sentence for only one out of every six entries, and doubly so after I discovered the same publisher did such a better job with the other editions in the series. But its practical pronounciation guide and inclusive list of the most important french words, still makes it the best -French- vocabularly resource avaliable.

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This French word-power builder presents more than 5,000 words and phrases with translations into English. The feature that makes this vocabulary book distinctive is the way words are divided into themes, grouped together so that the foreign traveler or language student can find words related by subject. The subject themes include business terms, medical terms, household terms, scientific words and phrases, units of measurement, clothing, food and dining, transportation, art and culture:24 separate themes in all. The new second edition has been expanded and updated with increased vocabulary.

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