Bøger af Sasha Newborn

Ambrose Bierce runs through a catalog of misuse of the English language as it should be spoken and written by Americans. Though his list is 100 years old, he was so meticulous that it would benefit any writer to consult it.

Seven essays by Robert Louis Stevenson on writing techniques, style, the profession, realism, and notes about his most famous two novels: Treasure Island and The Master of Ballantrae.

A minor classic of American literature, The Man Without a Country was written in the midst of the Civil War to bring home the emotional point of leaving the Union with no prospect of returning. The character is fictitious but many of the events and situations described are historically accurate. This short piece captures the essence of patriotism from the flip side -- and the remorse of having taken a youthful stand of defiance.

A reader's edition, modernized language ("you" for "thee," etc.) and glossary for unfamiliar words. Venus and Adonis was published early in Shakespeare's career, establishing his reputation as a poet before that of playwright, as plays were not considered "literature" at the time. He draws on stories from Ovid to expound on his major theme: Love. In Shakespeare's version, Venus is the aggressor, Adonis is a youth who resists. He was set for hunting the boar when interrupted by Venus. By the end of the longpoem, Venus catalogs the various ways that love affects people, changes them, torments them. The source of this poem, in Ovid's Metamorphoses, a huge work, is currently available online for free at www.bandannabooks.com/ovid. Once illustrations are complete, the Ovid book will come out as "The Changes." More than a dozen plays of Shakespeare can be found at http: //www.bandannabooks.com/drama.php, some of them in the form of Playbooks designed for directors and producers to keep tabs on all the elements that go into play production.

A reader's edition, modernized language ("you" for "thee," etc.) and glossary for unfamiliar words. Plus chart of characters continuing from one play to another. Falstaff appears, in one way or another, in four of Shakespeare's plays. His character serves as a counterpoint to the transformation of the scamp Prince Hal, who ultimately, on ascending the throne, must repudiate his old drinking and thieving buddy, Falstaff. As seen in the chart of characters in the back matter, many characters appear in more than one play, including the reprobates surrounding Falstaff, a fat old knight whose moral sense has eroded to the mere semblance of propriety. The character of Falstaff has fascinated audiences for a few centuries now, for when he is on the stage, he's stage center. Even in his dying and death, his companions bring him back to memory. Queen Elizabeth is reported to have been so enchanted with Falstaff after Shakespeare had written him into two plays, that she insisted he write another specifically for Falstaff, and that became The Merry Wives of Windsor, unrelated to history, just for fun, mostly at the expense of Falstaff. Henry V shows the reformed Prince Hal as a conquering hero; meanwhile Falstaff can be heard from a back room, as he is dying. If you've never seen the extravagant character of Falstaff onstage, try these free samples at http: //www.bandannabooks.com/free/falstaffsample.zip. Other works of Shakespeare, including Sir Toby Belch, a predecessor of the character of Falstaff, can be found at http: //www.bandannabooks.com/drama.php. A dozen of these books are Playbooks for directors and producers actually involved in or planning to investigate live productions.

Near the end of his long life, in 1904, he wrote yet another story of the Caucasus, an area he knew from his own military experiences there in his twenties (the 1850s), participating in incursions into the Caucasus area. The Russian long-term strategy in the Caucacus had developed into a continuing effort to unite Orthodox Christian Russia itself with the Christian nation of Georgia. The area in between, however, had long been settled by various ethnic groups of the Muslim faith, often at odds with each other, among which were the Chechens. This story, though told as fiction, is about a real Chechen leader, a cultural hero (dzhigít), Hadji Murad, who had been active at the time. Tolstoy seems artless in the infectious spirit of life in his writings. He himself questioned this quality in What Is Art? Curiosity and keen observation and, in this case, good memory, serve him well. His ability to "inhabit" his characters, including those of another culture, may rival that ability in Shakespeare, so that we readers feel that we know the characters and the world they inhabit as well as the author does. Brief history lesson: This episode occurs right between two important European events: the revolutions of 1848, and the Crimea War. A Glossary is provided, including notes on historical events and personalities of the times. Another book by Tolstoy, not a novel, is The Gospel According to Tolstoy (www.createspaced.com/3846726), a reweaving of the Gospel stories of Jesus to uncover his teaching, while rejecting the non-teaching elements: the miracle birth, genealogy, miracles, resurrection, claim for his messiahship. Tolstoy distills the teaching to five new commandments.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's longpoem Aurora Leigh is a drama of love and ideas in an era shaken by revolutions and progressive programs. Her headstrong heroine makes her way without her cousin's help, refusing his offer of marriage to stake our her own career. Yet their stories intertwine with other characters, efforts to better the world that come crashing down, miscommunications, until they both individually undergo changes of heart that allow for what we presume is to be a happy ending on a rather high level. Is it a poem? Is it a drama? It's a compelling story of women claiming more than men had traditionally allowed, and proving their worth. Aurora Leigh is one of the last works that E.B.B. completed before her death at age 55. In her life, she had been nominated to be Poet Laureate of Britain, but that was not to be. This is a book of ideas, and discoveries of what love really is. Another book that explores the indomitable energy of a young girl becoming a woman is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's semi-autobiographical novel Benigna Machiavelli (www.createspace.com/4264375). The girl determines that villains are the interesting characters who get things done, so she decides to be a "good villain."

Mary Shelley wrote Matilda not long after the phenomenal success of her first novel, Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus (www.createspace.com/3683197). However, that publication did not carry her name until the second printing five years later. She sent the manuscript of Matilda to her father, William Godwin, who refused to return it to her, probably because of the intimation of incestuous feelings by a father to a daughter. Whether this was autobiographically based or not, readers would assume the worst. Over a hundred years would pass before Matilda would reach the public. Her parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, were famous radicals. Mary Wollstonecraft, an early feminist, died shortly after giving birth to Mary. Godwin did remarry, but his interests were with his equals rather than his daughter; he often entertained other leading writers and intellectuals, such as Charles Lamb, Coleridge, Hazlitt - and Percy Bysshe Shelley, whom she met when she was 14. At 16, the two of them eloped. On a stormy night on Lake Geneva, Dr. Polidori, Byron, and the Shelleys indulged in a contest to see who could come up with the scariest story - this was the era of the Gothic novel, vampires, and ghosts. And Mary Shelley had just lost her second child. Her contribution to the evening's entertainment was soon turned into the novel Frankenstein, which was an immediate sensation. Innovative in its storyline rather than its style, Frankenstein is sometimes touted as the first true science fiction novel. The Shelleys lived together in various places in Europe for eight years, when Shelley died in a boating accident. Mary turned to writing novels to make her way. True to the Romantic tradition, the short novel Matilda explored human emotions in their depths. Family tragedy, loss, incest, total withdrawal-these themes would have been influenced by the her depression following the loss of her children in early childhood. Only one child would reach adulthood. This intimate story, and later novels were not to recapture the popular imagination as Frankenstein had. She would continue writing historical novels, romantic novels, a travel book, until she died at 54. Though her social concerns remained, her issues did not coincide with her father's ideas. He is known as one of the first to articulate the doctrine of utilitarianism, and he wrote several novels, most notably Caleb Williams, which was written as a plea for social justice. She advocated cooperation rather than confrontation, social reform, vegetarianism, and, unlike her father, advocated for marriage-to which Shelley later agreed. How much of Mary Shelley do we see in this short novel? We can only guess. She grew up during the last days of Napoleon, in an era of ferment, radical thinking, new possibilities for women, and a burgeoning literature of gushing emotion we now call the Romantic Era (some traces of it remain in our cultural life). Two other novels of girls winning against odds are: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Benigna Machiavelli (www.createspace.com/4264375), a young precocious girl who manipulates events to vastly improve her family's chances of happiness. And a novel-length poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (www.createspace.com/3812489)-a half-Italian orphan girl resists the temptation of an easy marriage to pursue a career as a writer.

Dante's putative subject is Beatrice/Love-but the Vita Nuova is really an exercise in poetry: Dante sets the emotional scene for a poem, then he writes the poem, then he explains the poem's structure, part by part. The work shows what we recognize today as a literary attitude, a critical stance on a piece of writing. His precision in thinking about how thoughts ought to be organized may seem pedantic, yet this is the mind that later engaged the question of what Hell might look like, and why and how, not from a religious point of view but as an extended imaginative venture.

Mary Shelley's story of the Frankenstein creature came from Byron's insistence that he and his guests entertain themselves on a rainy day on Lake Geneva with ghost stories. Mary's was by far the most original, and was very popular for its theme of reaching beyond, and possible consequences of such reaching. Her narrative not only documents the scientist but also illuminates the creature's story. The pursuit of the obscured truth may also be found in Edgar Allan Poe's detective stories (www.createspace.com/4185216). As for Mary Shelley, one of her MSS only emerged a hundred years after it was written. Matilda (www.createspace.com/4177083) is a gothic tale of an orphaned girl whose father returns after fifteen years, but then develops a secret malady, which, when Matilda uncovers it, leads to disaster for both.

Why is it that the members of a few families sprouted so many useful and famous careers, such as the Jameses, the Adamses, the Holmeses. And the Beechers. Is it a peculiar gene? Or perhaps the family environment is somehow conducive to genius? Out of eleven (!) children, ten of the Beechers secured a national reputation in one form or another. As I came to know them by their personal statements, I realized that their history was our United States history, not the whole of it, but a major portion of the tides of sentiment and eras of a nation abuilding. This script was produced to honor the Beechers and what they had done that is so little known today. Much of the Nineteenth Century, certainly the era before the War Between the States or the War of Secession (now known as the Civil War, which it was not), is hidden history, yet these events, thse people, laid the foundations for what our culture has become.

Sappho was universally recognized by the ancients as the greatest lyric poet. Her lines are spare, bare, and subtle, or as Mosas Hadas put it, "it is ordinary language raised to its highest potential." Alongside the odes to Olympic athletes of Pindar, the wisdom verse of Hesiod, or the epic lays of Homer, Sappho's highly personal poems sound quite modern to our ears. Only a few fragments of her work has survived the centuries, most of them more than one line in length are in this book. The Supplement Edition coordinates with the student text edition, and includes the same poems (www.createspace.com/4185675). This dialogue-style teaching supplement, the Supplement Edition: Sappho: The Poems is arranged by question and answers. Table of Contents Preface for teachers Who was Sappho? Where did Sappho live? Who was in Sappho's family? Map of Aeolian Greek territory What do we know of Sappho's poetry? What was Sappho's school like? What was Sappho's sexual orientation? What makes Sappho's poetry special? What did the ancients think of Sappho? What was the poetry tradition in Lesbos? What was Greek poetry like? What was unique about the Aeolian dialect? What techniques does Sappho use? What was Lesbos culture like What role did Greek women play socially? What about particular poems? BB11. Alkaios: Violet-haired, pure BB12. Ah, the sweet apple that reddens at the tip BB13. Dika, braid your lovely hair BB14. Aphrodite on your shining throne BB21. Raise high the roof-beam, carpenters BB22. The full wine bowl already had BB23. Lucky bridegroom, your wedding day has come BB23. The doorkeeper to the bridal chamber has feet BB24. A messenger came running on powerful legs BB25. Give up groom, we'll camp outside your door BB26. Indeed the stars anywhere near her undisguised brilliance; BB27. You cam. And you did well to come BB28. To me he looks godlike BB30. Anaktoria: Some prize the cavalry, while others favor BB31. Love now shakes my limbs and BB32. Atthis: Even in distant Sardis BB34. So, I'll never see Atthis again BB35. Leave Crete, and come to me here BB36. Mermaids and brine-born Aphrodite, please BB38. Hera, I pray you, may you BB40. I have a little daughter who is like BB41. When our girls were young BB42. Girlhood, girlhood, when you left me BB46. Gongyla, this is surely a sign What is the controversy about Sappho? Who opposed Sappho and why? Did Sappho leap for love? Whom did Sappho influence? What have the modern critics said? What problems in translating Sappho? What English translations of Sappho? What is Sappho's publication history? Bibliography Glossary

The Supplement Edition: Apology of Socrates & The Crito is designed to aid teachers with a wealth of background information and opinions. The Supplement includes the text of the class book Apology of Socrates & The Crito (with the same page numbering), plus the supplement material, with bibliography, glossary, and the text of Xenophon's Apology of Socrates about the same trial from a different point of view. Benjamin Jowett's early translation of Plato's Apology is remarkably free of Victorianisms, and brings to life the figure of Socrates with an easy colloquialism. Almost the entire dialogue is actually a monologue, battling the demons, real or imaginary, that had haunted him for decades. The record we have is Plato's rendition of Socrates' words and the court proceedings. Our best assumption is that Plato himself was there-he places himself as a mute audience member in the dialogue. Are Plato's words direct from Socrates' mouth? Common Greek practice by Herodotus, Thucydides and others, was to recreate scenes or even entire speeches from the past as they might have happened; today we would describe taking those liberties with history as docudrama. The later dialogues that Plato wrote featuring Socrates have led critics to wonder how much in these texts represent Plato, a systematic philosophizer, and how much could be attributed to actual statements made by Socrates, the perennial seeker. Xenophon also wrote a work about the same trial; he was not present. The text of his account, with his interpretation of events, follows the Supplement section; however, the Supplement material in this volume does not deal directly with the Xenophon text. Here are the contents of the Supplementary material: This Supplement is organized around a series of typical student questions; the answers are short paragraphs gleaned from many critical sources, often contradicting each other. Socrates has had perhaps as many critical detractors as proponents down through history, plus a Glossary for Greek names of people, gods, and events, a Bibliography, and the text of Xenophon's Apology of Socrates. PLATO: Supplement Edition: The Apology of Socrates & The Crito. Table of Contents Preface for Teachers What is important about the Apology? What is an apology? Who was Socrates? Who was Plato? Why did Plato write the Apology? Who else wrote firsthand about Socrates? Is Plato's text accurate? What did Socrates' contemporaries say? Why is this trial taking place now? What was the larger political picture? What were the charges against Socrates? How did Socrates defend himself? What is the "Socratic problem"? Why did Socrates attack the early accusers first? Did the Athenians sentence Socrates unjustly? What was the public reaction after the trial? Was Socrates singled out? What do moderns say about Socrates? Did Socrates have a gospel or teaching? Was Socrates anti-democratic? What is the publishing history of the Apology? What is important about the Crito? Bibiography the text of Xenophon's Apology of Socrates Glossary

This Supplement Edition of Areopagitica, designed for teachers or autodidacts, has three elements: the text itself, supplementary material from a number of sources organized around questions that students may ask, such as, What was Milton's early career? Why did he write Areopagitica? What was happening in England at the time? Plus an extensive Notes section for the names and events that Milton mentions, a Bibliography, and a Glossary (ex. "sponge" from spunge, to expunge). 124pp. in all. The printed version lists page numbers. A pdf version with hyperlinks is also available; contact the publisher at bandannabooks.com for information. Here is the Table of Contents for the Supplement Edition. This provides the same text, with the same page numbering, as the student edition, with a wealth of information organized around typical student questions, plus a glossary. Here are the questions: Preface for Teachers Why is Areopagitica important? Who was John Milton? Who was in Milton's family? What was his childhood like? What happened during Milton's college career? How did Milton prepare himself after college? What happened on Milton's trip to Italy? Did Milton change on returning to England? Did Milton marry? What was he writing at this time? Why did Milton use this title? Why did he write Areopagitica? What was the public reaction to Areopagitica? What did the early critics say about Milton? Why was England in a turmoil in the 1640s? What did King Charles expect to achieve? What was the Long Parliament? How did Cromwell rise to prominence? How had the press been restricted? What points does Milton make? Who states the other side of the argument? What is special about printing? How many people could read? Is freedom of the press the same as freedom of speech? Is freedom of the press a dead issue? What books were in Milton's library? Is Milton's style important? What do modern critics say? Was Milton borne out by history? What was the printing history of Areopagitica? What happened in Milton's later life? Bibiography Notes to the text Glossary

The Supplement Edition of Leaves of Grass includes the text, a supplement section of typical questions, such as What did the first readers say? What were Whitman's influences?, plus a bibliography of Whitman's own work and critics of his work, glossary for terms not in modern use. Also appended is the last statement that Whitman made about the writing of Leaves of Grass, called A Backward Glance Over Traveled Roads (1888). 246pp. For an interactive pdf version, go to www.bandannabooks.com/ebooks/leavessuppeb.php The original edition of Leaves of Grass had just 95 pages of poetry, and a lengthy introduction. The only titles were "Leaves of Grass" or a marker, indicating a new poem. The original book listed no author, with a small engraving of himself in a loose open shirt and tipped hat, one hand on hip, the other in his pocket (to "loafe" at that time meant to be seen idling stylishly about town). The engraving by Samuel Hollyer was based on a photo by Gabriel Harrison (a common printing conversion by skilled professionals in the pre-digital age). Whitman's experience as editor of the Brooklyn Eagle observing the American scene and his patroitic bombast of, for example, the "America" essay that opens this book, led him to use the longest breath-line in poetry until Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. This poetic line allowed him to speak as a visionary poet of Biblical stature with remark-able candor, and he continues to stand at the center of American literature a hundred years after his death. Why should we read the first edition, long before the famous Lincoln and Civil War poetry? This edition shows the freshness of Whitman's creative breakthrough-for the first time he finds/invents an appropriate form, and he gets a handle on his true subject. This book marks his emergence from the wilderness. Whitman himself designed the book and set the type for the first edition. He set no poem titles other than the phrase "Leaves of Grass," placed at the heads of major sections, and we follow that design. This edition retains the universal "he," which Whitman uses liberally throughout.

In the sixteenth century, a group of Renaissance Italians sat down together to revive the lost art of Greek and Roman drama, as part of the great rebirth of learning that had already revolutionized the arts of painting, poetry, architecture. To name this "new" art, they used the word for any general work of art, opus, the plural in Latin being "opera." Opera today is experiencing another revival. Works by American composers such as Philip Glass and John Adams now stand alongside the great Italian, Russian, German, French operas. The repertoire is not closed, and the industry-singers, orchestras, stage designers, opera houses, publishers, and opera-goers-flourishes around the world. This little book is offered as a compendium of Italian terms describing the techniques and refinements that propelled this art into an enduring position among the arts. Italian terms are explained in English. Also, Italian poetry in English: Dante and His Circle (www.createspace.com/4024060) Vita Nuova (Dante on Beatrice) Ovid, The Changes (web only: www.bandannabooks.com/ovid). And Shakespeare plays with Italian settings: Two Gentlemen of Verona (www.createspace.com/3724080) The Merchant of Venice (www.createspace.com/3727221) The Taming of the Shrew (www.createspace.com/3718477) Romeo and Juliet (www.createspace.com/3892597)

Edgar Allan Poe invented and perfected the model for modern detective fiction, including Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and many others. The formula: an extremely intelligent amateur sleuth out-thinks the official police, with a story often narrated by his not-so-bright companion. In Poe's case, he set the scene in Paris, with French characters. His three stories - The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined Letter were set as a series, each succeeding one referring to the previous. But, despite the immediate popularity of the genre, Poe moved on to other fiction and poetry experiments. The three stories together elaborate on the psychological analysis that Poe saw as relevant to human life. If everybody believes something, he concluded, it must be wrong. He goes into a trait that distinguishes humans from all other animals -- the ability to see into the minds of others, anticipating their motives and actions. The introduction by Sasha Newborn is peppered with comments from critics and psychologists alike as to the meaning of Poe's contribution. This unique genre has lasted over a hundred and fifty years and occupies a large section in most bookstores; the appetite for such fascinating stories seems to be unending. Another novel that highlights the reach, or overreach, of reason, is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (www.createspace.com/3683197. Three characters, the captain, Victor Frankenstein, and the Creature himself all seek to know or to do more than is considered possible.

Blake's notebooks after his death disclose an unfinished poem titled "The Everlasting Gospel." The message of the poem is enduring, and presents a humanist document with few parallels and perhaps no predecessors. Blake's personality was seen by his contemporaries as part genius, part naïf-just the combination to touch areas of sensibility remote from the rest of us. But in fact good and evil are not at all remote, they are simply removed from our daily considerations. To live with such consciousness, and with such conviction to shout against the platitudes of our lives, may be possible only for such a personality. Blake's ability to step outside the conventional thinking of his day (and of ours) gave him a point of view from which he could critically re-evaluate cherished values and expectations of the Christian tradition, such as good and evil.

Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market is a fable of two sisters who encounter the goblin merchants, who offer tempting fruits with beguiling voices, begging them to try, to taste, to touch. A friend had succumbed to their alluring charm before, and then, having tasted, gradually wasted away to death. One sister heeds the warning signs and begs the other sister to follow her home and ignore the beckoning calls of the insistent, persistent goblins who promise so much. But the second sister lingers to know more, and, even when admitting that she has no money, they accept just a lock of her golden hair for payment. She tastes of the fruits and is delighted. Not only is it delicious, but she wants more and more. When finally she is satisfied, she returns home, perfectly safe -- so she thought. But day by day, the yearning after more of the marvelous fruit sets in, but she doesn't hear the siren voices of the goblins ever again. Her sister, however, who was cautious, does hear the voices, and recognizes that she will have to do something or she will lose her sister as they lost their friend. She emboldens herself to go to the goblins, tosses them a coin, but does not bite the fruit. She is assaulted, wheedled, poked, argued with -- but she is stubborn. Returning, she is able to save her sister from the consequences of the temptation. Although she was "right," she put herself in danger in order to reclaim her sister. Christina and her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, were members of the Pre-Rafaelite movement, in the course of which, D.G. translated a number of Italian poets who were friends or acquaintances of the young Dante Alighieri, and published their work, primarily love poems, as Dante and His Circle (www.createspace.com/4024060) -- somewhat resembling the artistic kinship of the Pre-Rafaelites.

French for Food Lovers is a wordbook for French terms of cooking, food, and especially French cuisine. Think of it as a starter kit - or maybe you've already started experimenting with French techniques. This does not show you how to cook, but it does help with the terminology. French is not the easiest language to learn, and one should avoid making assumptions about what a French word means. "Prune," for example, means "plum" - just one of the faux amis that can mislead you. A basic pronunciation guide is included, to help with hearing or saying the French terms. But don't worry, no grammar is included.

Poetry from the Seventies to 2000. One hundred selected short poems ranging from emotional to experimental, relationships to soul-searching. A bit of foul language can be found in a few poems. An avowed "non-poet," Newborn has published two novels, The Basement (www.createspace.com/4176600), a Novel of the Sixties, and The Martian Testament (www.createspace.com/4300682), a sci-fi novel of the settlement of Mars in the near future. Newborn's anthology First Person Intense, has been used in college classes for years. A new litmag, TimeWell (www.timewellsp.net) continues Newborn's editorial efforts.

Among the last of her poetic career, The Babylonian Captivity is an allegory describing the conditions of the Ukrainians under Russian influence at the end of the Nineteenth Century-which is not unlike the pressures Ukraine is under in 2014. This text is modernized from an earlier translation. Lesya Ukrainka is a pseudonym of Larisa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka, perhaps made necessary in the beginning because the Ukrainian language was not permitted in publications at the time. The story is of Jews, not all of the same persuasion, in exile in Babylon, in woeful conditions. The main character is Eleazar, a singer and harpist, who is challenged by the others of his community for serving the Babylonian masters with his songs. He defends his activities and helps to redefine the situation they are all in. The "play" is designed for reading rather than staging in a theater, and is in looser format than strictly poetic lines, although Eleazar does perform a few songs in measured lines. The reason for publishing it now is to provide for a wider audience a historical dimension to current affairs in one part of the world rarely portrayed in European fiction.

Charles Dickens' classic tale of the Xmas spirit even in the most recalcitrant soul. With visions of his former partner, and the three Xmas spirits: Past, Present, and Future, Ebenezer Scrooge emerges from himself. In my family, the reading of this story was shared every Xmas and remains in my memory.

Late in his life, the intrepid traveler and translator Richard Francis Burton, distilled his understanding of story as it applied to live performance into this book, How to See a Play. The title implies that most people watch plays, but don't really perceive the structure of the storytelling, and that they would benefit from his experience with how, and why, the theatrical experience has been so powerful. Here is his preface: This book is aimed squarely at the theater-goer. It hopes to offer a concise general treatment upon the use of the theater, so that the person in the seat may get the most for his money; may choose his entertainment wisely, avoid that which is not worth while, and appreciate the values artistic and intellectual of what he is seeing and hearing. This purpose should be borne in mind, in reading he book, for while I trust the critic and the playwright may find the discussion not without interest and sane in principle, the desire is primarily to put into the hands of the many who attend the playhouse a manual that will prove helpful and, so far as it goes, be an influence oward creating in this country that body of alert theater auditors without which good drama will not flourish. The obligation of the theater-goer to insist on sound plays is one too long overlooked; and just in so far as he does insist in ever-growing numbers upon drama that has technical skill, literary quality and interpretive insight into life, will that better theater come which must be the hope of all who realize the great social and educative powers of the playhouse. The words of that veteran actor-manager and playwright of the past, Colley Cibber, are apposite here: "It is not to the actor therefore, but to the vitiated and low taste of the spectator, that the corruptions of the stage (of what kind soever) have been owing. If the public, by whom they must live, had spirit enough to discountenance and declare against all the trash and fopperies they have been so frequently fond of, both the actors and the authors, to the best of their power, must naturally have served their daily table with sound and wholesome diet." And again he remarks: "For as their hearers are, so will actors be; worse or better, as the false or true taste applauds or discommends them. Hence only can our theaters improve, or must degenerate." Not for a moment is it implied that this book, or any book of the kind, can make playwrights. Playwrights as well as actors are born, not made-at least, in the sense that seeing life dramatically and having a feeling for situation and climax is a gift and nothing else. The wise Cibber may be heard also upon this. "To excel in either art," he declares, "is a self-born happiness, which something more than good sense must be mother of." But this may be granted, while it is maintained stoutly that there remains to the dramatist a technique to be acquired, and that practice therein and reflection upon it makes perfect. The would-be playwright can learn his trade, even as another, and must, to succeed. And the spectator (our main point of attack, as was said), the necessary coadjutor with player and playwright in theater success, can also become an adept in his part of this cooperative result. This book is written to assist him in such cooperation.

The legends of Ossian, as reported by James MacPherson, became a popular sensation at the time of publication. The epic stories of battle and love, love and battle and death appealed to the burgeoning Romantic sentiment of the time. Although controversy arose as to the authenticity of MacPherson's claims, this work of Ossian stands as a unique and original poetic form. How much of this is MacPherson and how much is Ossian is, in this editor's opinion, beside the point. This edition simply presents the poetry for the reader. Also available on Amazon (http: //www.amazon.com/Ossian-Legends-James-MacPherson/dp/093001250X/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412357105&sr=1-1&keywords=Ossian+legends)

The Deadword Dictionary was first written more than twenty years ago. I'm making some changes, based on further refinement of the concept, and also including an "Iffy" section. Here are the rules for the selection of Deadwords: Orphans, words used in only a single common expression, with no flexibility, such as "yore" as in "days of yore." Faux amis, words borrowed from another language but misunderstood or misapplied (à la mode) Obsolete words or phrases Iffy words-you decide whether they still have weight in today's language. You might call this the rearview mirror perspective, with a "huh" under one's breath. Yeah? They really said that? The English language is like a kitchen sponge: it picks up all the tiny pieces of we-don't-know-what but we need a word, so we'll just use this stray one from we-don't-care-where. But when did you last see a "doublet" or "spitoon" or use "whilom"-why keep them around? A little housecleaning is in order here. Got your favorite overworked obsolete nugget? Send it in to bandanna@cox.net.

A vocabulary of Yiddish terms, common expressions, and proverbs. Many Yiddish terms have entered the English language, describing character or emotion (usually displeasure) that have no ready equivalent, such as klutz, kvetch, shmoose, or kibbitz. Yiddish as a language grew out of Medieval German and Hebrew, and spread through Eastern Europe among Ashkenazi Jews. With the worldwide spread of Jewry in many countries, Yiddish plays two roles: as a language unto itself, and as a "lending" language for terms and attitudes about business, sexuality, or human relations.

The Martian Testament peels back the myth of creating a new Earth on Mars. The view from the red planet is startlingly different, and deeper, than anyone imagined. Going to Mars? Throw away the rulebook. Four main characters descend on the red planet for their own reasons: one marooned, another on assignment (so he thought), a third as a lark, and a fourth as an extraordinary power play. As to which is the hero, the reader will have to decide. Much like the Wild West, the "new Martians" write their own rules, even though they need each other to survive the extreme conditions. A journalist makes the long voyage to Mars; his bunkmate is an ambitious politician, with schemes of his own, which unfold in the town, as the journalist discovers one aspect and then another of this amazing planet, capped off by the discovery of the journal of the original "first Martian," who survived years alone on the red planet, ferreting out the secrets of survival, and perhaps the early history of Mars and Astra (which later became the asteroid belt) long before intelligent life began on Earth. Many discoveries, adventures, and revelations. A different kind of novel by Sasha Newborn is also available (www.createspace.com/4176600), The Basement, a Novel of the Sixties -- part memoir of the early Peace Corps in Africa, part a culture clash on returning to an America at war with itself as the narrator also struggles to find himself.