Book Description
Widely praised for its student-friendly style and exceptional artwork and pedagogy, Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain is a leading undergraduate textbook on the biology of the brain and the systems that underlie behavior. This edition provides increased coverage of taste and smell, circadian rhythms, brain development, and developmental disorders and includes new information on molecular mechanisms and functional brain imaging. Path of Discovery boxes, written by leading researchers, highlight major current discoveries. In addition, readers will be able to assess their knowledge of neuroanatomy with the Illustrated Guide to Human Neuroanatomy, which includes a perforated self-testing workbook. This edition's robust ancillary package includes a bound-in student CD-ROM, an Instructor's Resource CD-ROM, a Connection Website, and LiveAdvise: Neuroscience online student tutoring.
Customer Reviews:
Basic Overlook of Neuroscience.......2007-02-24
This book is really good for a general understanding of neuroscience and it has good pictures. This is really a beginning undergraduate level book and can be used as supplemental material for basic concepts when a student is starting to become more advanced, but it does not go into much detail. It is well-written and consequently easy to read. If you're looking for an introduction to neuroscience this is a good book. If you're looking for a reference book for higher level neuroscience this book won't meet standards.
Good for undergraduates.......2006-11-30
You're probably purchasing this book because it's required for your survey course in neuroscience, and that's fine. In fact, it's pretty good for that purpose. But if you want a more rigorous treatment of the subject matter, then this book needs one or several serious supplements.
It's certainly the most "lickable" neuroscience textbook out there, due to its candy-coated drawings.
Pros:
-Current information
-Readability
-Clinical focus
-Profiling relevant human diseases (however largely non-rigorous)
-Profiling current scientists
-Presentation of some of the diagrams (colorful, do a fair job at synthesizing information)
It is not so good at:
-Thoroughness
-More realistic images (stained sections, slice preparations, fMRI images)
The two cons are a deal-breaker for me, however. For instructors I would recommend this book highly at the undergraduate level and only with a caveat to the graduate level.
Neuroscience Brain.......2006-11-06
It is a very good neurobiology book. All of the concepts are explained very well and in great detail.
An Excellent Text.......2005-12-14
If you have been dabbling in cognitive psychology and brain science, have found it interesting and are looking for a broad yet in-depth treatment then this book will not dissapoint you. It approaches Neuroscience from every possible angle: you will learn about the anatomy and physiology of the brain and how it produces, controls and mediates the sensory, motor and emotional functions that underlie human experience. The layout of the text is logical, it uses great pedagogical tools, and the writing is concise and informative (if a little dry). Highly recommended as a first textbook for serious study.
A Brief Review of "Neuroscience".......2005-09-05
I just finished using this book for an undergradutate Neurobiology class at Harvard University, and found it to be very informative. It has a number of diagrams and illustrations, and clearly describes various aspects of neuroscience in great detail, but in a comprehensive manor. I recommend it to anyone pursuing a career in neuroscience.
Book Description
The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity.
Allen Mandelbaum’s astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized as a central model for all poets.
This Everyman’s edition–containing in one volume all three cantos, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso–includes an introduction by Nobel Prize—winning poet Eugenio Montale, a chronology, notes, and a bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from Botticelli's marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
The Divine Comedy: Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso.......2007-07-27
It's a good book, it's new and i received it in a timely manner for a really low price.
Unbelievable!.......2007-05-15
I was really pleasantly surprised by the condition of this book. I just needed a copy for a college class, so anything would have done the job, but this copy was something I will keep on my shelves forever! Good job !
BTW it got here fast, too!
A Many-Splendored Thing.......2007-05-05
The book arrived today and I am overjoyed to have it in my hands. Aside from the grandeur of Dante's masterpiece, it is quite beautiful to look at! It's an 800-page hardcover from Everyman's Library, respectfully produced, the dust-cover embellished by Botticelli's painting of the noble poet. Allen Mandelbaum's translation is a famously fine one, endorsed by such as the late, great Hugh Kenner, and I am the lucky one now able to read the entire poem.
Amazing Dante!.......2007-05-03
This is incredible! I am in love with this translation! I can read the original Italian (I am fluent), and this version is very faithful to what Dante actually wrote. Nonetheless, it is still extremely enjoyable, and I have taken much pleasure from reading this English version.
Pretty Good.......2007-04-30
This book is amazing. The way its made is perfect. I love the feel of it my hands, i just want to snuggle with it all night......the text in the book is good. It is a great copy to read, can get a little crazy with some of the archaic words, but that will make you more smart, hahaha, it also has a ribbon book mark in it, its cute......
Average customer rating:
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Paradiso: The Illuminations to Dante's Divine Comedy by Giovanni Di Paolo
John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy
Manufacturer: Random House
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0679428054
Release Date: 1993-10-26 |
Book Description
A lavishly illustrated edition of one of the greatest epic poems in history. Sir Kenneth Clark calls it "unquestionably the most beautiful illustrated Dante in existence."
Book Description
First published in Cuba in 1966, Paradiso was hailed as a masterpiece of contemporary literature. It has gained the international reputation of a modern classic and was received with unqualified enthusiasm when it was published in France and Italy. Jose Cemi, the hero of Paradiso, begins life at the turn of the century in Cuba. As an adolescent, Cemi discovers his soulmates, the intellectuals Fronesis and Focion, and it is the triangle of their relationship which provides the impetus for much of the novel. Each of Cemi's experiences in his search for his dead father and for the understanding of love and the powers of the mind has a tropical intensity that gives it long life in the reader's memory.
Customer Reviews:
Greatness!.......2007-05-17
Lezama is not for everyone... to feel Paradiso there is a need to understand all his previous work: essays, poetry, short stories, critical and cultural studies. For those who have seriously study World Literature, there is no doubt that Lezama is one of the most important, sensible and imaginative writers of the XX century. You might not like him (and that is ok!) but to doubt his artistic greatness is nonsense. Once you enter the poetic system of Lezama the rewards are endless!
Overrated.......2005-03-09
Some novelists are known for a pared down, no-nonsense approach to narrative, firmly delineated, plainspoken characters, crackling, lively dialogue, and swiftly moving, engrossing plots. Lezama-Lima is not one of those authors. It's hard to recommend a book that I have so many reservations about. Yes, the writing is occasionally beautiful, and as an historical document of a certain type of artistic and literary milieu in Pre-Castro Cuba, it's worth something. But I'm afraid that I'm going to have disagree with all of the reviewers here and say that LL's endless aestheticism must be something of an acquired taste. The problem is that he writes prose too much like a poet--all florid circumlocutions with no feel for the rhythms of everyday life and speech. No doubt he would have felt the everyday to be beneath his austere heights. Nobody talks the way his characters do--it's all lengthy, abstruse theorizing on frequently esoteric subjects. His essentially elitist approach to writing fiction would test the patience of anyone who looks to literature for a more immediate kind of connection. And, sorry, Mr. White, LL is not the Latin American Proust--Proust is far more readable and speaks to more basic human experiences.
Sometimes some of the worst snobs are those (i.e., homosexuals) who have themselves suffered the most heinous abuse because of their dubious social stature--rather than reject the values of the mainstream, a writer like LL ends up embodying them and perpetuating them to an infuriating degree through his snobbish affectations. Or else one could view his aesthetic vision as essentially escapist, understandable given the political situation in Cuba at the time. Still, a more accurate view of what was actually happening might have been of more human interest--it would have been valuable to see how these characters strained to maintain their sensibility in view of what was actually occurring around them. But, as it is, the book seems to exist in a vacuum with no real connection to the political situation in Cuba--its Eurocentric preoccupations offend.
A Universe in a book.......2004-12-10
This and a handful of other literary creations rank among the best of the 20th century. It is a dense, jungle of images, language, against an elegant background. I can not think of another work to compare Paradiso to, as it stands alone. Once upon a time, I attempted to read it in Spanish, but was overcome by a tidal wave of intricate vocabulary.
It is unfortunate Lezama Lima has been largely forgotton in the US except for a few ardent readers. It is impossible to find any of his poems in translation. Maybe they are not so readily translatable. In any event, the translation of Paradiso is in itself an amazing achievement, as Paradiso explodes in volcanic beauty.
More than nature.......2003-06-21
Jose Lezama Lima achieved one of the most complex and mesmerizing novels of the XXth century in Latin America. Paradiso is a Bildungsroman (a novel about an individual's growing process) as it is a Kunstroman (novel about the artist). The reader will find many references to Lezama's life, but his work goes beyond a self portrait. Jose Cemi is a little cuban boy who grows up having breathing problems, and grasping the lifes of those who were before him.
His individuality mixes with the other's and the result is a complex narrator, an overwhelming amount of literary, cultural and mythological references, a refined use of the metaphor and a hightened sense of reality. Cemi's world is more than nature... it is supernatural. Cemi attends to the world of death, as he remembers the lifes of his ancestors, as they are told to him by his mother Rialta, and grandmother Augusta. The first half of Paradiso is all about the family... then uncle Alberto's death marks a point of change in the novel. From that moment on, it focuses in Cemi's friendship with two other students: Fronesis and Focion. The three of them constitute a triangle in which homosexuality, love, erotism, unity, mythology and androginy are the main topics. As well as incest.
When this simbolic triangle breaks, Cemi is ready for the epiphany: he meets Oppiano Licario: a friend of his father who promised him, as he was dying, to look after his son (Cemi). Licario also witnessed Alberto's sexual iniciation. He is a poet, and he is the one who can bring Jose Cemi out of the time of desperation into a rythm of reflection and artistic contemplation.
There is so much more to this novel... You can only know what it is all about by reading it. I can here only give you a few pieces. As Lezama believed: only what is hard is really rewarding, and this is particularly true for young people.
Simply Amazing.......2001-08-25
I would argue that Paradiso is the best novel of the 20th century. I don't believe this because of the plot; as a matter of fact, I don't really think there is much of a plot here. I say it because of factors that have to do with the author, the time in which he wrote this, and how those elements combined to make this incredible piece of literature.
A little bit of history: by the time Lezama Lima wrote this novel, he was already a well-known writer in Cuba. He and some friends had started a literary magazine, and actually, he was best known for his poetry. When Castro's revolution came to be in 1959, it marked the end of Cuba's literary life. Writers like Lezama Lima could keep writing so long as they wrote nothing controversial, nothing too "out there," nothing that could even hint a thought of anything that could be deemed "counter-revolutionary." And soon after Lezama Lima wrote Paradiso.
Now a little bit about the novel. Consider it, really, a long, endless conversation with many, many asides. It is complex if only because there are so many run-on sentences, so many thoughts and descriptions and details, that it's easy to lose track and just find yourself thinking, period. And I think that's what he was going for. The book covers just about everything: politics, ethics, philosophy, homosexuality, love, religion, etc. I thought when I read it that basically Lezama Lima just wanted to express his thoughts and opinions on everything (I later learned I was pretty correct about that, but more on that in a minute). What this brilliant man had to say is well-worth reading, even today.
But now, let's go back to the time and place when this was written. A few years after Castro came into power, and after he had declared his Communist intentions. With the publication of this novel, Lezama Lima's fate was sealed. As a homosexual man living in a country with a severely homophobic dictator, life had already been getting more and more difficult for him. But when Paradiso came out, he was officially declared "non-person" by the regime. For those unfamiliar with the concept, I will explain that being declared "non-person" essentially means just that: you cease to exist in the eyes of the government. You are erased from the history books, from the record books, you lose your job, people who visit you or have anything to do with you risk losing their government freebies and suffering reprisals. Lezama Lima was no longer a national literary treasure, and the man who up until that moment was considered one of the most respected writers in Latin America, was reduced to nothing.
I had the honor of meeting his younger sister a short while ago. She was sharing the contents of private letters between her and her brother from the years after the publication of Paradiso to those before his death. They revealed so much about Lezama Lima as a person, how he saw life, how he regarded his family (all of whom were in exile and whom he missed terribly). They reveal his gentleness, the tenderness he felt about nature, his family, his memories. And they also reveal the hell that his life had become: the loneliness, the constant vigilance, the pain he felt over what had become of his country.
Being privy to such an experience really only affirmed my thoughts about this novel. He must have known what lay in store for him, and yet it didn't stop him. He still wrote it. When the government demanded that he denounce his own book, the one he considered his masterpiece, his message to the world, in essence, he refused. It simply fills me with awe. For that alone the book is worth reading.
Book Description
Robert and Jean Hollander’s verse translation with facing-page Italian offers the dual virtues of maximum fidelity to Dante’s text with the feeling necessary to give the English reader a sense of the work’s poetic greatness in Italian. And since Robert Hollander’s achievements as a Dante scholar are unsurpassed in the English-speaking world, the commentaries that accompany each canto offer superb guidance in comprehension and interpretation. This translation is also the text of the Princeton Dante Project Web site, an ambitious online project that offers a multimedia version of the Divine Comedy and links to other Dante Web sites. On every count, then, this edition of Paradiso is likely to be a touchstone for generations to come, and it completes one of the great projects of literary translation and scholarship of our time.
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- The Closing Of The Trilogy
- A heavenly conclusion to Dante's towering masterpiece
- Paradiso is paradise!
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Paradiso (Bantam Classics)
Dante Alighieri
Manufacturer: Bantam Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Purgatorio (Bantam Classics)
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The Inferno (Signet Classics)
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Inferno: The Divine Comedy (Bantam Classics)
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The Aeneid
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Montaigne: Essays
ASIN: 0553212044
Release Date: 1986-01-01 |
Book Description
This brilliant new verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum captures the consummate beauty of the third and last part of Dante's Divine Comedy. The Paradiso is a luminous poem of love and light, of optics, angelology, polemics, prayer, prophecy, and transcendent experience. As Dante ascends to the Celestial Rose, in the tenth and final heaven, all the spectacle and splendor of a great poet's vision now becomes accessible to the modern reader in this highly acclaimed, superb dual language edition. With extensive notes and commentary.
Customer Reviews:
The Closing Of The Trilogy.......2005-06-28
As with the other two books of the Divine Comedy, Paradiso could be a stand alone work of literature in its own right. The Grande Finale of Dante's massive poem ends with a flourish and upholds the tradition of masterful writing set forth by Inferno and Purgatorio.
This book should only truly be read upon completing Inferno and Purgatorio as many of the asides and relationships were first developed there. Allen Mandelbaum does a wonderful job of translating the poem but of also providing the reader with numerous notes and explanations on certain phrases or objects within the Cantos. This version is by far the easiest and most complete and can be enjoyed by both the casual and experienced reader.
A heavenly conclusion to Dante's towering masterpiece.......2004-11-18
As a whole, Dante's COMEDY (a title later amended by the Church to DIVINE COMEDY) is arguably the greatest work in the history of World Literature. As an artist, his only competitor might well be Shakespeare. Despite all that, I will confess that the PARADISE is not a terribly easy book to read. INFERNO in particular but also PURGATORY is filled with a host of extraordinary scenes with unquestionable universal appeal. The highpoints of INFERNO have become part of the intellectual furniture of Western literature, not least because one reads it with rapt attention and a sense that one is dealing almost with a contemporary rather than a person writing seven hundred years ago. PURGATORY lacks some of this universal appeal, but nonetheless features a host of marvelous moments and extremely human details.
Unlike INFERNO and PURGATORY, however, PARADISE is rather narrower and specialized in its appeal. It is not merely that it assumes that the reader is a devout Catholic; one must be a devout Catholic of the early 14th century, sharing completely the view of the universe accepted at that time. I think I have an unusually complete understanding of the cosmological views of the late medieval period, but while this meant I was able to read this work with some familiarity of the details, it also guaranteed that much of my interest was merely academic.
There is an expression that "You do not judge Dante; Dante judges you." This is undoubtedly true, but it it definitely true that this final book is going to strain the interest of most readers, even if you know enough about the intellectual worldview behind his work. In fairness to Dante, the work was nearly impossible to pull off. That he managed to do so nonetheless is nothing short of a minor miracle. For one thing, most of what made the many remarkable characters of INFERNO so fascinating was the struggle that existed in their lives. But in PARADISE there is no conflict, no struggle, no "agon." Instead, it is a realm of perfect bliss, with few qualities apart from love, happiness, and praising God through singing and dancing. These are some pretty stiff limitations that any writer would struggle with. That Dante managed something remarkable despite this is fairly amazing.
Also, there is a major theological limitation placed upon the work. At this particular point in the history of Christian thought, the assumption was that after death humans would be without a body (though they would be reunited with their body at the final judgment). So all of the denizens of heaven were disembodied spirits (though Beatrice does seem to possess a body, but that is a detail that we'll pass over). Dante represents all of the souls he meets in heaven as brilliant shapes of light. In fact, everything in heaven is represented as brilliant shapes of light.
C. S. Lewis remarked that PARADISE was the first Sci-Fi novel, and while he intended this hyperbolically, there is nonetheless a great deal of truth in it. Dante's imaginative depiction of the physics of the superlunary realm is a truly enormous achievement. I won't go into all of the details of medieval physics, but given the assumptions of Aristotelian science, the way his body reacts in the heavens is not merely consistent with the science but pretty much necessitated by it. For instance, moving on the assumption that things above the orbit of the moon have an ineluctable attraction to God, whenever Beatrice wants to take Dante from one sphere to another she merely gazes upon the divine beauty and they are transported as quickly as, as Dante puts it, a bolt from a crossbow. It is a wonderful touch, only one among many found in the book.
What I love most about this work, however, is the way that it expands and completes the work as a whole. On one level, the COMEDY is essentially a tour of the entire known cosmos excluding the surface of the earth. He begins by descending into hell, travels all the way down through the circles of hell to the gravitational center of the earth where Satan is encased in ice, and then ascends literally up Satan's legs (which are on the opposite magnetic pole from his torso) to the Southern hemisphere (contrary to popular myth, all educated medievals were perfectly aware that the earth was round), to the base of the seven-storied Mount Purgatory, up it to its top and the Garden of Eden, and from thence to the various spheres of the heavens until he gazes directly upon God. No, PARADISE is not as fascinating to read as INFERNO, but the paradox is that the COMEDY as a whole is far more fascinating than INFERNO on its own. Therefore, anyone who fails to go on from INFERNO to read both PURGATORY and PARADISE is not only going to shortchange themselves: they are going to neglect completing one of the genuine masterpieces in the history of literature.
As with the first two volumes, Mandelbaum's translation is both remarkably faithful to the original and magnificently poetic. There are many excellent translations of this masterpiece, but I would probably recommend Mandelbaum's over any other complete translation to someone desiring to experience this masterpiece in translation.
Paradiso is paradise!.......2001-04-26
Paradiso is another good book in the Divine Comedy trilogy. However most people never get past Inferno. The first two are good, and Paradiso most definetly holds up to its counterparts. I would also like to add that Allen Mandelbaum does an excellent job translating the Divine Comedy, as well as the Aeneid of Virgil. Paradiso, translated by Mandelbaum is easy to read, and very poetic. I am sure it is just how Dante himself would have written it, had he written the Divine Comedy in english.
Book Description
This book is designed to prepare students for classes or NCLEX by providing a comprehensive outline review of this particularly difficult area of study. Fluids and Electrolytes offers extensive self-testing that includes answer keys with rationale for correct and incorrect responses, as well as a comprehensive outline review and chapter study questions and a comprehensive examination at the end of the book. Each question is categorized according to the components of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Licensing Examinations (NCLEX).
Customer Reviews:
Oh no, not again!.......2004-04-27
This is the third Lippincott book I have looked at recently, and even though I have only read the first few pages, I can already see that it is continuing this publisher's tradition of poor, or possibly non-existent, editing.
Here are just two sentences, both from the same paragraph (page 16):
"[Vasodilation] and vasoconstriction influences balance."
Should be:
"[Vasodilation] and vasoconstriction influence balance."
"[Hypoventilation] and hyperventilation influences loss carbon dioxide and water, which effects fluid and electrolytes." (3 mistakes)
Should be:
"[Hypoventilation] and hyperventilation influence the loss of carbon dioxide and water, which affects fluid and electrolytes."
If you appreciate correct English, avoid this publisher.
Book Description
The best vegetarian cookbook, from the greatest vegetarian chef .
"This is not only the best vegetarian restaurant in Ireland, but one of the best restaurants of any kind." So states Frommers in their 2003 Guide to Ireland. Café Paradiso is an unassuming little restaurant in the heart of Cork City in Ireland yet it has been hailed far and wide as "the best vegetarian restaurant in Europe" and so is a contender for best vegetarian restaurant in the world. Fodors claims it "serves Mediterranean-style food, which is so tasty that even dedicated meat-eaters forget it's vegetarian". The reason for all this praise is the owner and chef, Denis Cotter, a quiet unassuming man, not unlike his restaurant, who, like all great chefs, is an obsessive. His obsession is to create the most exciting vegetarian dishes possible with the freshest possible produce, an ambition he has realized with remarkable success. In this book he serves up 140 recipes that make the very best of whatever vegetables are freshest at any given time of the year. Cotter's The Café Paradiso Cookbook has been hailed, in the Bridgestone Guide to Ireland, as "the best cookbook ever written by a working chef."
Winner of the Gourmand World Cookbooks Award for Best Vegetarian Cookbook
Customer Reviews:
Meatless Majesty.......2007-01-13
I've eaten often at Cafe Paradiso in Cork. Everytime I go I find something more innovative and more delicious. Even if you're not a vegetarian, and I'm not, you won't miss the meat in these beautifully planned meals. I've got several of Denis's cookbooks; this is the first one I've gotten in the US and having the measurement conversions is GREAT. There's a terrific range from straight forward and simple, to eye-dazzling and complex. Dig in.
Food for thought.......2006-06-09
Cafe Paradiso is unquestionably one of the best restaurants in the whole of Ireland; it should be a priority on the itinerary of anyone planning a visit. Even diehard carnivores have loved this place: I've taken many of them there when they've visited me in Cork, and they always come away from the table singing its praises!
As a result, I can't recommend this cookbook enough for anyone interested in doing more with their veg than just a slab of butter and some garlic. This book is just a preview of what is by far a culinary trip through the best vegetable, fruit and dairy produce in all of the island. Of course, being that the restaurant is a Cork-based institution, some of the ingredients Denis specifies in the book (Gabriel cheese, for example) will only be available locally; however, there is always room for experimentation in the recipes and often times, Denis himself will do so, changing one or two ingredients of what we locals feel is a staple dish to try something new. Denis Cotter uses some interesting combinations (lemon and liquorice with basil, to name one) in his cooking, which is one of the main reasons that the restaurant has become the talk of the vegetarian world. The marriage of flavours found his recipes are so vivid and palatable that it's like eating a rainbow. Of course, the restaurant's wine list is a particular complement to the food! (All the more reason to book those tickets to Cork...)
great restaurant, great cookery book.......2006-03-26
I love meat but really you don't miss the meat from these recipes, they are brilliant. Dennis Cotter uses a lot of squash and sweet potatoes, in my opinion overlooked in many cookery books.
The desserts are great too.
A Truly Inspring Coookbook.......2005-03-21
While perusing cookbooks recently in the bookstore, I was intrigued by the description on the inside cover of this book and decided to keep reading. I was thrilled by the scrumptious and healthy recipes - just wait until you see the luscious food photography! The food photography is incredibly beautiful- it makes your mouth water just to look at this book! The recipes are arranged by the seasons, which I find very useful. This book was the winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards for the Best Vegetarian Cookbook in the World in 2003.
This is an exquisite book- I could tell from the first pages on that it was a labor of love. Chef Cotter owns the Café Paradiso which is describes as an "unassuming little restaurant in the heart of Cork City in Ireland and has been called the "best vegetarian restaurant in Europe"...." and one of the best restaurants of any kind" by Frommer. I recently corresponded with Denis by email to tell him hos much I enjoyed his book and I must say that he sent me one of the nicest notes in return. I was delighted to receive his kind reply.
So, Denis utilized the best fresh vegetables, cheeses and nuts, just to name a few ingredients, in such inventive ways that most of us would never even imagine. His gratin of roast pumpkin, leeks, corn and hazelnuts in a Gabriel cream cheese is heaven on earth! There are influences from the Far East, from the Mediterranean and from Middle Eastern cuisines. There is truly something for everyone's palate.
Desserts know no limits - try the Chocolate pecan pie with whiskey ice cream and darling clementines. Denis recommends using "Irish whiskey" to poach the clementines since the "Irish whiskey is very smooth and clean."
You can tell that he has spent many, many hours developing and testing these recipes so that the end results are masterful. And they are really worth for you to try something so extra-ordinary. He spells out each step for you - the instructions are very well written and easy to understand and make.
This book is also a great incentive for you to expand your culinary skills- without being overly difficult.
I have to say this is the best cookbook I have bought in a very long time and recommend that you buy it right away. You'll be very pleased that you did.
Spectacular Vegetarian Creations.......2004-05-20
This vegetarian cookbook is for those who've gone as far as they can with basic, everyday, fast-and-easy, minimal-ingredient vego cooking and now want new, exciting, taste challenges.
The recipes are ideal for entertaining, perfect for special family occasions or romantic dinners, and great for those days when you feel like pushing the envelope and creating something a little more complicated than normal. Having said that, I should stress that none of the recipes are beyond the scope of those who have mastered the basics of cooking.
Author Denis Cotter, who owns Cafe Paradiso, an internationally renowned restaurantin Cork City, Ireland, leads readers on a culinary adventure through the seasons. In spring, you can enjoy dishes such as Roast Globe Artichoke With Sheep's Cheese and Pinenuts, Wilted Greens and Tomato Pesto (well worth the effort), or a simple Broad (Fava) Bean, Feta and Basil Mash. During summer, use the abundance of squash (zucchini, patty pan, butternut etc) to create Summer Squash Salad With Cashews, Coconut, Yoghurt, Lime, Ginger and Coriander, and the tomato harvest to make Tomato Saffron Ricotta and Olive Tart. For a dessert-to-die-for,try Oven-Roasted Peaches With Lavender and Honey Ice Cream And Pistachio Biscotti. When the weather cools and the leaves turn, make Pan-Fried Mushrooms in Sage and Cider Cream With a Potato, Parsnip and Wild Rice Cake And Beetroot Relish; Honey-Roasted Butternut With Avocado-Lime Salsa and Green Curry of Cauliflower and Beans; or Gratin of Roast Pumpkin, Leeks, Sweetcorn and Hazelnuts. For winter, boring old Brussels sprouts are transformed into gourmet status in Brussels Sprouts With Tomato, Ginger and Coriander. Or rev up the tastebuds with Carrot and Cabbage Spring Rolls With a Pomegranate, Mint and Yoghurt Sauce.
This is just a tiny sampling of the many recipes, all of which include detailed instructions. Beautiful photographs of the produce and the recipes illustrate the book, and Mr Cotter interweaves stories about the restaurant, his life and his culinary discoveries throughout.
This book surely ranks as one of the greatest celebrations of seasonal produce ever.
Book Description
With the publication of Dante's Paradiso, Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders complete their literary and artistic achievement the retelling of The Divine Comedy in contemporary words and images. Hailed as "inspired" by the The London Review of Books, Birk and Sanders's adaptation of Dante's classic work is true to the spirit of the original and is as acerbic and shockingly funny today as in thirteenth-century Italy. With a text that incorporates modern slang and references to anachronistically recent public figures, Birk and Sanders pay tribute to Dante's linguistic approach and clever politics. Birk's striking spin on Gustave Dor 's famous engravings accompany the cantos. Together they lend the timeless poem a postmodern edge. A major retrospective of all of Birk's illustrations and paintings for the trilogy will be held at the San Jose Museum of Art in August 2005 in tribute to a masterpiece for our times.
Customer Reviews:
Delightful Contemporary Read.......2006-07-30
I adore the Divine Comedy-- and all of the Modern Library translations of the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. I tried out these books by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders because they looked appealing. They're definitely great reads. No, they're not perfect, and some of it is a little strange to read, but overall, I think you can't really go wrong in trying them out. It keeps all of Dante's main points, it just presents them in a different, more modern way. Anyone interested in Dante's work, would should at least read these for experimentation.
Book Description
The Divine Comedy is a complete scale of the
depths and
heights of human emotion," wrote T.S. Eliot. "The last canto of the
Paradiso is to my thinking the highest point that poetry has ever reached or ever can reach."
The Divine Comedy stands as one of the towering creations of world literature, and its climactic section, the
Paradiso, is perhaps the most ambitious poetic attempt ever made to represent the merging of individual destiny with universal order. Having passed through Hell and Purgatory, Dante is led by his beloved Beatrice to the upper sphere of Paradise, wherein lie the sublime truths of Divine will and eternal salvation, to at last experience a rapturous vision of God.
"A spectacular achievement," said poet and critic Archibald MacLeish of John Ciardi's version of Dante's masterpiece. "A text with the clarity and sobriety of a first-rate prose translation which at the same time suggests in powerful and unmistakable ways the run and rhythm of the great original."
Customer Reviews:
The Best Intro to Heaven.......2007-08-22
Translators, according to the Italian proverb are traitors.
There is no way around it, something is always lost in the
leap from one language to another. You can consult a modern
'adaptation' of Shakespeare to get the feel of what has to
be surrendered.
John Ciardi decided to keep the original rhyme scheme: 'aba'
in which the poem is divided into groups of three lines of
which the first and third rhyme. In Italian, this is fairly
easy, in English a great deal more difficult.
So in order to keep the feel of the tercets (as they're called)
Ciardi sometimes had to stray a bit from the literal
meaning. Nothing vital is lost, but the specialist will
surely find some points to dispute.
For the rest of us, this is a first-rate view into a world
we can barely otherwise imagine. Ciardi's notes and glosses
on the cantos are breezy, illuminating and approachable.
There are other, more correct translations- Mandelbaum's
is first among them -that might be better for the specialist
or the student of the Italian Language. I notice, however,
that when I want to spend a pleasant few moments in the
Poet's company that this is the translation I usually reach
for.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the novel bang BANG. ISBN 9781601640005
Union with the Divine.......2007-01-12
Dante travels through the heavens growing ever closer to the source of all things, God. He learns a host of things from the spirits there who want to give nothing but love to Dante, to God, and to adore God. It is their pleasure to help Dante. For example, towards the end of the poem he learns about Adam and how long he abided in the Garden (the one from the end of Purgatorio and from which they begin their last journey in the Paradiso).
In order to experience some of the things in the heavens Dante needs to go way beyond normal human perception. The experience of heaven is so great that apparently all that he relates to us about it is but a shadow of how he saw it. It's experience is stamped forever on his heart, but Dante says its detail dissipates. I think of it like when you have a dream that you remember always, but the details do not necessarily stick in your mind though it is imprinted there nevertheless.
To me Dante seems to have guided his audience on a mystic journey. Whether he was a mystic or not I'm not clear on, but like other poets he reveals to us the truth of things.
[STANDING OVATION].......2006-02-02
Travel to the most light-forbidden spot on Earth.
Wait for night to fall. . .
Look up at the sky. . .
and count the stars.
That's how many stars I'd give John Ciardi's wonderful translation of Dante's Paradiso (indeed, the whole trilogy, but especially this)!
When reading this book it's almost impossible I'd say to not feel the same sense of awe as Dante does as he beholds the splendors of Heaven. This book makes you feel uplifted, upbeat, almost as if you're being catapulted through the Heavens right alongside Dante himself.
Of course, to get the full effect from reading this book you have to understand most of what goes on. And that is where the John Ciardi translation really shines. Just as Beatrice is Dante's guide, so is John Ciardi your guide through Heaven.
The Divine Comedy was written in the 1300's and how many people can honestly say that they understand Italian politics and history from that time period? Maybe Umberto Eco does (of "The Name of the Rose" fame), but that's a huge minority. But fear not, for every Canto opens with a short summary of what is about to be revealed next to Dante. One need not worry about this summary spoiling the story, either, as there really are no plot twists in The Paradiso. Although I have to admit that the last scene involving Dante and Beatrice was a bit shocking (to Dante, too) and even managed to form a few tears in my eyes.
After the summary there is the Canto itself and what I like most about this is how everything rhymes (ABA ABA, etc.) and still is rather easy to read. This text is uninterrupted, which is great if you happen to be an advanced reader of Dante and don't want to stumble into little numbers next to words referring you to footnotes all the time.
Again though, not many of us can say we're "Advanced readers of Dante", so for those of us in that crowd each Canto is finished with a healthy amount of footnotes that do an excellent job of explaining the politics and history in simple terms. You very well might still finish the Canto not understanding everything 100%, but you'll be much better off than if you tried to understand everything on your own. Think of it as Cliff's Notes already built into the book itself. Wonderful idea!
If you're still wondering if you should read this book, don't.
Trust me.
Everything is better in Paradise.
An Incredible Journey Through the Heavens.......2004-09-10
+++++
(Note: this review is for the book "The Paradiso" translated by John Ciardi and published by Signet Classics in 2001.)
In book one containing part one (or "canticle" one) of Dante Alighieri's (1265 to 1321) three part "The Divine Comedy" entitled "The Inferno," a journey of spiritual enlightenment is begun by Dante by descending into Hell and discovering the reasons for eternal suffering of souls. In book two containing part two entitled "The Purgatorio," Dante ascends the mountain of Purgatory where there is purification of sin. In this book (book three), Dante ascends to Heaven to experience "the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars."
Dante begins this part of his journey by stating the following:
"Whatever portion time
still leaves me of the treasure of that kingdom
shall now become the subject of my rhyme."
Dante is saying that in the time left to him, the subject of this part of his "rhyme" or poem will be "that kingdom" of heavenly Paradise.
There is an introduction by Professor John Freccero. (We are not told what university he's associated with.) He does a good job of highlighting key aspects of this poem.
The late John Ciardi, former poet and professor at Rutgers and Harvard universities, translated this poem from its original 1300's Italian into English. He states that he has translated this poem for one major reason: for "the pleasure of a beginning student reading in translation." The poem's translation, he admits, is not over-scholarly. Scholars and purists may thus not appreciate Ciardi's translation. I, however, enjoyed his rhyming translation.
Dante's heavenly Paradise is based on an Earth-centered model of nine spheres (individually called "heavens"). Going outward from the Earth, they are as follows:
(1) the Moon
(2) Mercury
(3) Venus
(4) the Sun
(5) Mars
(6) Jupiter
(7) Saturn
(8) the Fixed Stars
(9) Primum Mobile (Prime Mover)
The Prime Mover is the sphere that contains the divine power to move these heavenly bodies. Beyond the Prime Mover is the Empyrean (pronounced "Em-pi-reen"). The Empyrean is God's realm of pure light and is Dante's final destination.
Thus, this heavenly paradise that Dante travels through consists of ten parts that comprise thirty-three episodes (or "cantos").
Unlike parts one and two, Dante takes the majority of this final journey with his guide and former love Beatrice. Along the way, the travelers and the reader encounter such things as biblical figures and references, philosophers, people of Dante's time, legends, saints, and angels.
As with parts one and two, this part is a narrative poem whose greatest strength lies in the fact it does not so much narrate as dramatize its episodes. It is a visual work that sparks your imagination.
Ciardi's mini-summary in italics before each episode gives the reader a glimpse of what to expect in a particular episode. His (foot)notes at the end of each episode highlight our understanding of key passages within each. For me, Ciardi's mini-summaries and notes that accompany each episode are the cornerstone to understanding what Dante was attempting to convey. As well, Dante can be challenging and tedious to read at times. These mini-summaries and notes help the reader meet the challenge and overcome the tedium.
There are three illustrations in this book. They increase the understanding of and add another visual dimension to the poem.
I should mention the impressive art on the cover of this book. It has a reproduction of the 1825 painting by William Blake showing Dante in the Empyrean. It has a river called the River of Light. Dante is shown drinking from this river.
It is possible to read this part without reading the first two parts. However, to experience the full impact of this part, I would recommend reading the first two parts first before reading this part.
The only noticeable problem I had with this book is that it did not have a diagram of the heavenly Paradise to help the reader know beforehand where this journey was going. The first two parts have these helpful diagrams.
Finally, as I mentioned, this is a very imaginative poem. Thus, I recommend "The Dore Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy" (1976) by Gustave Dore. This book will add another vivid visual dimension to the poem.
In conclusion, don't miss this final phase of Dante's amazing journey. This brilliant translation allows the reader to experience what Dante was attempting to convey when he wrote this poem almost seven centuries ago!!
(published 2001; acknowledgements of translator; introduction; 33 cantos; poem, canto mini-summaries, and canto (foot)notes comprise 345 pages; 3 illustrations)
+++++
The definitive translation of the Paradiso.......2001-10-17
The music of this translation is so beautiful it hurts. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to experience the mystical yearning of this transcendental work.
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