Book Description
The writer Tom Wolfe once described Hunter S. Thompson as thefinest comic writer of the 20th century. Thompson was this and more, an aptobserver of the American scene for almost four decades, the founding fatherof "Gonzo Journalism," and an inspiration to many. Through hiswritings, he examined the loss of American innocence in the latter part ofthe 20th century and, as a "bull who carried his own china shop aroundwith him," was never afraid to confront the truth head-on.
InThe Gonzo Way, Anita Thompson pays tribute to her late husband as awriter and as a citizen, through her own words and through interviews withthose who knew him best, including Tom Wolfe, George McGovern, and DouglasBrinkley. With elegant prose and entertaining anecdotes, she reveals aHunter Thompson who was much more than a mere embodiment of sex, drugs, androck-and-roll. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Never Apologize/Never Explain
Don't waste your time with this book. It's horrible and lacks any insight despite being written by Thompon's wife (though she wasn't with him long and it shows!). Why does she feel the need to apologize for his "stoned twisted, ripped...good people" side? I mean REAL Thompson fans KNOW that's not the only essence of him...even though, yes, his "lifestyle" did provide a sort of romatic idea for the outsider to think about while living mundane lives. But thanks to Anita she does a good job of ruining that too...I don't smoke, use drugs of any kind, and have always loved Thompson for his work and his life and I can tell you, this book has NOTHING!. So sad and it only diminishes my ideals for true Gonzo and Thompson since it appears he really did have a load of "leeches" at his side. So sad to see his legacy degraded this way!

Poorly Written-weak attempt to profit on Hunter
I was excited to buy this book, thinking that it would give a personal glimpse into the "real" life of Hunter.My excitement was in vain.It is poorly written. She says the same things over and over in an attempt to clarify her point.Reading half of this book was a waste of time.I ended up really disliking Anita and learning nothing about Hunter.

The best self help book ever
Forget about tony robins or the Purpose driven life.If your life is in turmoil and you want to make your life more fun and interesting...this book is for you.Seven simple lessons to live the way hunter S. did.And it doesn't include usingillegal drugs or over indulging in alcohol.I try to use these lessons in my every day life and you should too.It would make the world a better place.

Yeah, This is 'Cut & Paste'
Like everyone else who wrote reviews, I'm a fan of HST and I'm sorry he's gone, but this small, ill-conceived book by his last wife is little more than a way to harvest more $ off the legend.Like many Thompson tributes (including Steadman's) this book is more an act of recycling than representative of any original, nuanced take on what made Thompson truly great.One would think with all the access Anita Thompson must have to real writers and editors, that something less cathartic and more authentic would have been published, especially a book that purports to teach "The Gonzo Way."Even the book's primary thesis, that we should move through our lives without fear, is belied by the timid content, and ironically, by Thompson's suicide.If I see one more post-Thompson work advising me to "Buy the ticket and take the ride," (a phrase used 3 or 4 times in this book) it will sadly be time to cash in the chips on this great writer and his biographers and look for someone with a more interesting idiom.

Hunter's Work Cut and Pasted
While it's a vaguely interesting idea to put down Gonzo rules that Thompson lived by through his wife's interpretation, this book is pure gibberish.

If you really want to understand the Gonzo Way, reading Thompson is the best route to go - hearing it through his voice, not this weak interpreation by his wife. And it's all there, in his own beautiful prose, through countless short stories and other writings of his. This is especially true of Thompson, since his work and his life hugged and very tight line.

In other words, there's nothing in this piece that has any original information - a cut and paste of his original work would be just as appropriate than this shamelss piece that just feels gutless to me. Anyone who has read Thompson and knows his work would already understand these tenets to living the Gonzo way and the lack of original thought only shows that his wife was a mere Thompson fan with no special insight of her own.

An account by Anita Thompson about "her" life with Thompson would have been far more useful in getting to know the Man than what He's already said.


... Read more

Book Description
If you've ever battled tricky grammar, slippery syntax, passive constructions, pesky punctuation, or sneaky jargon, you know that good writing is never easy.But you can learn to write better with THE WRITE WAY, an ingenious guide that puts two English language mavens at your side. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

If you find Elements of Style a bit dry, try the Write Way
Word-master Richard Lederer combines his jolly sense of humor, common sense and experience as a top English instructor in a very enjoyable book about grammar, punctuation, spelling and style.

While Strunk and White's classic is a must on the shelf, reading the Write Way is a lot more fun, and a lot easier to remember. ... Read more

Book Description

This dynamic, process-centered paperback combines a rhetoric with readings. Based on a "whole language approach," The Writer's Way recognizes that people learn best by reflecting on what they do—and that writers learn best when inspired by compelling reasons to write, motivated by strong examples, and reinforced by immediate personal rewards. Offering frank advice in a supportive, encouraging tone, this text leads students step by step through the writing process, from pre-writing to polishing the final draft.

Part I, "Introduction to Writing," provides a broad introduction to the natural-language attitude toward learning to write, establishing the "hands-on" approach of the book. Parts II and III offer step-by-step walkthroughs of the writing process, beginning with generating ideas, drafting, and organizing (Part II: "Planning and Drafting"), followed by "Revising and Editing," in Part III, which includes coverage of peer critiquing. Part IV, "Modes of Writing," highlights the decisions about audience, purpose, structure, and language that writers face when writing in personal, informative, and persuasive modes. Part V, "Academic Writing," discusses writing for college courses and includes chapters on writing about literature, writing in the sciences, collaborative writing, and research. Part VI, "A Treasury of Essays," is a collection of 24 model student essays collected by the author from his classrooms over the years.

Customer Reviews (3)

It's fine
THE WRITER'S WAY is an acceptable (if not particularly well-organized) basic resource for writing skill development.

Spark the Creativity
Jack Rawlins' book is filled with practicle and creative ideas to not only get you writing, but get you back to your first love of writing.

This book is geared toward essay writers, however, I have found it very helpful in my own writing of novels and short stories. There are ideas for getting ideas, harvesting them, and planting the seeds to grow into proper essays, stories, novels or whatever else takes your fancy.

I recomend this to any writer, especialy those with frequent writers block. It will definitly help you get out of it, and hopfuly stay out of it.

The Writer's Way Review KG
I am in a composition 112 class at Mansfield University.We use your book almost every day.The book is very helpful.It has a lot of very interesting essays in it that explian what you are trying to teach.We also do alot of homework out of your book which really helps with many of our essays that we write.I used another book for my first english class here at college and yours in a much better addition.The Writers Way help explian many errors that i have made in the past on essays.The Writers Way has not olny helped me but has been very helpful for your teacher and other students in the class. ... Read more

Book Description
The Tiger's Way: A U.S. Private's Best Chance for Survival is not just fun reading for novice riflemen; it is mission-essential information for all ranks and job descriptions.The U.S. military lost on the ground to Eastern guerrillas 30 years ago, and its tactics haven't significantly changed.The Tiger's Way shows how to reverse this trend at a most opportune time.Without better tactical technique at the individual and small-unit level, U.S. forces cannot project minimal force.Without minimal force, they cannot win the hearts and minds of the people.Without winning the hearts and minds of the people, they cannot win a guerrilla war.The Tiger's Way reveals—for the first time—the state of the art in technique for every category of short-range combat.It does so through 100 illustrations, 1600 endnotes, and 31 battledrills.

But the book will also help U.S. forces to suffer fewer casualties in a total war.As Western weapons systems have become more lethal, Eastern armies have turned to tiny, surprise-oriented maneuver elements.Most now give their lowest ranks both conventional and unconventional abilities. Until the U.S. military follows suit, its nonrates will have less field skill, initiative, and tactical-decision-making experience than their Eastern counterparts.That means they will be at a decided disadvantage in any one-on-one encounter and die unnecessarily every time their firepower fails. It also means that their commanders will have trouble winning a "4th generation" war. The Tiger's Way will have a profound effect on how foreign war and homeland security are conducted in the future. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

A US Private's Best Chance of Survival
While preparing to deploy to Iraq last Summer I embraced two books.The Small Unit Leader's Guide to Counter-insurgency and this one.

Poole took his research of every Eastern military he could muster and outlined the training and expectations of thier lower enlisted, stressing not only the importance of empowering the lower enlisted of the US military and our allies, but just how skilled our enemies may be.
Rather than officers having most if not all of the say in how operations had occurred, or are to be run, Eastern armies such as the Chinese, let all men involved in a battle have a say in what had happened, and how things can be improved.

Having been trained in a top-down military organization I am skeptical of the value of Poole's reccomendations for us to emulate the Chinese and other organizations, but I am not skeptical of his insight that things must adapt to their time.In a recent conversation with him he made reference to the French, stating that they had been an incredible military strength, but lost it over years of remaining as they had been when they were the most powerful military force of their time.
In North Korea they have their men go 10 miles into S. Korea as part of their training.Knowing Marines who have performed sweep operations on the DMZ and having heard stories of S. Korean Marines disappearing from one day to the next, mines being set where they'd been cleared the day before, I believe it.

Poole believes that the US Private should be the greatest warrior on the battlefield, confident in his abilities as he is in his fire team leader.Poole also believes that we should be able to send a Sergeant, Lance Corporal, and two PFCs into Colombia without any officers, and they should be able to accomplish their mission successfully.
After two years in Vietnam and close to 30 years in the Marines Corps as an infantry officer and enlisted man, he may be onto something.

A fantastic implementation of Tokakure Ryu for the modern day
I have not finished this book, you should know.However, you should also know that this book made enough of an impression of me that I am writing a review before I have finished in violation of my own rules.I am an author myself and I value these reviews greatly - I wouldn't write if I didn't mean what I say.

This is a great book.In short, it takes the premises - as best we know - of Togakure ryu Ninjutsu and applies them to contemporary military arts.Squad mechanics - the focus of every lieutenant who has ever served - are the focus of Poole's tactical revision of the current philosophy of combat in the US military.

I am not a military man, but I am surrounded by them.I am a ninja, studying Bansenshukai Ninjutsu.We also have some Togakure ryu curriculum, and Poole hits hard on the right stuff.Early in the book he points out that the close combat ryuha are not his focus.Instead, he is looking at the understudied arts of Zanson, Intonjutsu, Shinobi Iri and Hensojutsu.This is a book about how to not fight if you don't have to.

Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu practitioners will argue that this `is not ninjutsu' because it isn't what Hatsumi teaches (in public anyway) but they would be wrong.The taijutsu that BBT teaches is just a small part of what the ninja represents, and this book covers practically everything else.Admittedly, the second chapter references books by Haha Lung and Ashida Kim, who are widely discredited.However, even quacks can have good ideas and Poole expertly extracts the choice tidbits.You will not be displeased.

good over view
This book is not a guide for people trying to get a grip on what is happening to our forces in Iraq. It is a good basic soldiers book that is made from many different types of 'field manuals', compiled and catagorized. Nothing new, but a good source for a yound Infantry NCO or Commissioned Officer who wants to keep his 'mind in the game'. Much of the information covers Infantry subjects, some of which is of no use in Iraq. However, we are a world-wide force and need to keep looking over our shoulder at the next conflict. The author speaks with some authority and it shows. As a graduate of the Infantry School at Ft. Benning (I wont say when) this book is a good refresher and contains some new information. If you go on patrol, regardless of you MOS or job title, this is a book you cna use.

Best book of it's kind.
John Poole has written a fantastic treatise on what will be needed to fight and win wars in the years to come. Though it makes for dry reading at times, this book is absolutely fascinating.It not only discusses enemy tactics, it recommends methods on how to develop ninjustsu-like tactics on your own. Spectacular book. A must-read for anyone in, or planning to join, the military. Top-shelf material!

An excellent book for warfighters
Readers of this book will look at the Army and Marines different.While the IG and other groups says they care about soldiers the readers of this book will actually care more about the thing that matters:YOUR SOLDIERS LIVES.

Here are two things a possible buyer of this book should consider.In WWII it was thought that the Japanese soldier was born in the jungle.Nothing could be further from the truth.Japan has as much Jungle as Oklahoma.What made the difference between the Japanese and American soldier was training.Their soldiers were taught stealth, hand-to-hand fighting, and all their other combat skills.Little noted in WWII was Japan won land battles against much larger American and British Armies in 1942.Only massive allied firepower turned the tide.Second, in Korea the UN forces often used the machinegun to excess.After a night of fighting the only result would be a few dead communist soldiers.Turkish soldiers, using eastern combat methods, had dozens of dead communists in front of their positions.All were dead by knife wounds.

If this book was followed the results would be nothing but positive things for the USA.First, we would have a better trained Army and Marines that would be able to handle the stress of combat better.We would have less dead men.Second, the Army and Marines could be smaller.We would have more warfighters but less of a logistics tail.Third, we would have less technological dependence.That means a savings of money.

I admire this book.John Poole goes through the combat tables and says what this reader long suspected; we often lose more men in combat with eastern armies.The only real reason we beat German forces in WWII is they wanted to be beat by us, the Soviets were their nightmare.Iraq could have had an eastern army but it was so over controlled and regulated by 2003 that nearly any good army could have taken them.

John Poole says that our infared night vision gear is of limited use.Tanks are not a great asset to any army.Good landmines and RPGs can take out any tank.The weird thing is the US Marines nearly issued the vast store of captured RPGs from Grenada to the Marines.The DoD killed this idea.The reason is American makes superior equipment and all that rubbish...

I really liked this book.This book should be required reading for any member on the House or Senate Armed Service committees.The trouble is our modern politicians are too busy trying to make the mothers of soldiers happy with training and not concentrating on the training of the soldiers to keep them from getting killed and accomplishing the mission.

This is the second book I've read from Poole in a week.It has been sent to my old ROTC school.Perhaps a future lieutenant can take wisdom from the pages of this book.

This book should be the vangard of the change needed in our Army and Marines.We need better training.We need soldiers who can take charge of the tactical situation.We need to get rid of the top-down structure that plagues the Army and Marines in tactical situations.

I wish some good soldiers, marines, and politicians could read this book and put it into use.

Until this book is followed our Army and Marines are little better than Activated Militia. ... Read more

Book Description
Americans are unlikely to lose their cherished rights because of a military coup or a foreign conquest, writes Michael Lind. The more plausible and frightening scenario is one in which foreign danger forces Americans themselves to jettison their way of life, sacrificing liberty to ensure security. To prevent this scenario from happening is the real purpose of American strategy. In The American Way of Strategy, Lind argues that the goal of U.S. foreign policy has always been the preservation of the American way of life--embodied in civilian government, checks and balances, a commercial economy, and individual freedom. Lind describes how successive American statesmen--from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton to Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan--have pursued an American way of strategy that minimizes the dangers of empire and anarchy by two means: liberal internationalism and realism. At its best, the American way of strategy is a well-thought-out and practical guide designed to preserve a peaceful and demilitarized world by preventing an international system dominated by imperial and militarist states and its disruption by anarchy. When American leaders have followed this path, they have lead our nation from success to success, and when they have deviated from it, the results have been disastrous.Framed in an engaging historical narrative, the book makes an important contribution to contemporary debates. The American Way of Strategy is certain to change the way that Americans understand U.S. foreign policy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Primer on Liberal Internationalism, Nothing More
This work reflects the liberal internationalist perspective of the author, a fairly comprehensive reading of first-person and related materials from past presidents, along with Op-Ed types of materials, and a somewhat stunningly naive and delusiional view that the American way of strategy exists to "protect the American way of life."

The author is clearly lacking in military experience or understanding, in strategic understanding, in contextual understanding such as can be found in books such as Derek Leebaert's The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World; Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project); Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People; or any of the hundreds of non-fiction books I have reviewed here at Amazon pertinent to devising and executing holistic national security and national competitiveness strategies.

Among other things, he naively assumes that most national security decisions have actually been intended to serve the public interest; he does not calculate in full measure the costs of unnecessary wars or unnecessarily oppressive wars; and he accepts at face value--for lack of broader reading--the conventional wisdom on why America entered specific wars.The author is, for example, sharply at odds with Gore Vidal, author of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace among many other works, and Vidal's documentation of the many undeclared wars that America has undertaken in the pursuit of empire.General Smedley Butler, USMC (Ret) agrees that War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It.For a really comprehensive understanding of the varied reasons Why We Fight see the DVD by that name, and first read the many many reviews of its content and meaning.

Among many subtle but telling errors, the author confuses the cost, size, and weight of the U.S. military with strength.The reality is that today we have a hollow military, and our heavy-metal military is relevant to only ten percent of the high-level threats to our security, and completely irrelevant to our more profound vulnerabilities with respect to national competitiveness and sustainability.

He makes a pass at including trade with security, and cites one book by my fellow moderate Republican, Clyde Prestowitz Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth And Power to the East but neglects the more important work, Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions.This book ("The American Way of Strategy") is a review of history desperate to find good intentions and leverage them for the future, but so lacking in coherent detail about the substance of reality and strategy as to fail to be truly useful--and it is most certainly not even close actual reality, at least at the strategic level.

There are some gems and I certainly recommend the book for purchase and reading, but on balance I put it down as too replete with idealistic platitudes.

The four jacket blurbs (Nye, Hart, Kupchan, and Walt) would certainly carry weight with me if I were buying the book in a bookstore, but after actually reading it, I find that each praises the book for the one or two sentences that stand out (e.g. nurture democracy by example, not force).These are platitudes.Saying that we consistently fight for "the American way of life" is about as moronic as young Bush's saying that billions around the world hate us for our ideals and our morality and our "way of life."Get real.This may be used to mobilize our youth and it may be why THEY fight, but it most certainly is NOT why our political and financial elites PICK fights.

Grand strategy, which Colin Gray discusses so ably in Modern Strategy requires a realistic appraisal of both domestic and foreign factors; it requires a balanced and transpartisan establishment of a national agenda, national goals, ways and means, and an explicit identification of desired outcomes.Its implementation requires a coherent inter-agency policy that is heard by both the public and the White House; endorsed by an activist Congress with the power of both the purse and the law, and executed by inter-agency leaders skilled at dealing with coalition leaders and at keeping the public informed, educated, and engaged.

This book is, in short, an appetizer, not the main course.The main course would require a full appraisal of the ten high-level threats identified by the High-Level Threat Panel of the United Nations (LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft as the US member); a coherent and reality-based budget plan for the next ten years across the twelve policies; and a deeply insightful understanding of the eight challengers (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, India, Russia, Venezuela, Wild Cards) such that our national security & competitiveness policies, budgets, and behaviors can both protect America in isolation, and also help those challengers avoid our grotesque mistakes that today consume one third of the world's energy and create one third of the world's waste.That level of strategic thinking is not to be found in this book.

I would endorse this book as a starting point, but urge the interested reader to consider using my lists (which Amazon does allow us to organize) and my reviews (which sadly can only be viewed chronologically) as a map to the thoughts of others.The next President does not need and will not benefit from a single advisor full of platitudes--the next President not only needs a robust team light on egos and armed with global rolodexes, but they need a team that can brief tradeoff decisions among the .

The American way of strategy is yet to be defined at the strategic level (at the operational level it has tended to be about mass, at the tactical level hey diddle diddle up the middle).When it is defined, at a proper strategic plane, it will combine access to all information in all languages all the time; serious games for change that can project alternative scenarios based on real-budgets in relation to one another; and coherent inter-agency and coalition campaign plans that wage peace rather than war, with war being the exception.Intelligence & Information Operations (I2O) will be the foundation for that strategy, which will have three objectives:

1)The restoration of the middle class and unionized blue-collar labor;
2)The revitalization of civic duty, infrastructure, and English; and
3)The provision of free universal access to education in all languages, as the fastest means to elevate and harness both our own working poor (see the book by that title), and to elevate and energize the five billion poor at the bottom of the pyramid--each of whom we could have given a free cell phone to, for the cost of the Iraq war to date.

The war metaphor DOES NOT WORK.We must wage peace, coherently, affordably, morally, and constantly.

On creating stabilizing wealth:
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization

Essential In Understanding American Security Policy
The first chapter alone justifies buying the book.Michael Lind's American Way of Strategy is essential to an understanding of long-term (200+ years) American security policy.The first chapter applies directly to America's true objectives in prosecuting the war on terror, particularly in regards to nuclear proliferation.I haven't been more enthralled with a book on this subject since Walter Russell Mead's Special Providence. ... Read more

Book Description
No pain, no gain. That's the phrase in the heads of most people who actively lift weights, but it isextremely misleading. While there aresensations of pain that indicate the activity inquestion is beneficial, the vast majority of aches and pains—severe pain in many cases—associated with weight training are indicators of the improper use of technique that result in tissue damage. Weight Training Safely shows readers steps they can take to dramatically increase the benefits of their training and, equally importantly, dramatically decrease their potential for injury. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A refreshing approach
Finally, here's a book that provides a detailed examination of weight training from the standpoint of injury prevention! Anyone whose past injuries have kept them from exercising specific areas will find the benefit/risk evaluations for each and every weight training exercise especially valuable. My neck and shoulders were damaged as a result of a couple of ski crashes in my 20's, and I had all but given up on training my upper body because of recurring pain and limited range of motion. The F.I.T.S. approach has let me safely resume exercising this neglected area with confidence. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description
Learning to count with Florida's own counting book, Sunny Numbers, is lots of fun for the little ones...from 1 Old Lighthouse to 6 Lipizzan Horses to 8 Long-armed Octopi and so on. Carol Crane, author of S is for Sunshine: A Florida Alphabet, continues to explore Florida's unique landscape, wildlife, history, and more with her counting rhymes and explanatory text. With beautifully detailed illustrations by Jane Monroe Donovan and many new Florida facts, students, teachers and parents will all enjoy Sunny Numbers.

About the Author: Carol Crane advocates education through reading. She travels extensively and speaks at state reading conventions across the United States. Her thematic approach to learning has been widely accepted and successfully used by many reading teachers. Eight years ago, she founded "Bed, Breakfast and Books," a summer institute for teachers and media specialists across the country. She lives with her husband, Conrad, in Bradenton, Florida.

About the Illustrator: Jane Monroe Donovan enjoyed sketching as a child, and one of her best-loved gifts was a book of Norman Rockwell paintings given by her parents. She is a self-taught painter whose favorite subjects are people and nostalgic scenes. Jane and her husband, Bruce, live in Michigan with their two sons, Ryan and Joey. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Literator, published by Thomson Gale on April 1, 2006. The length of the article is 3774 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: V.S. Naipaul's A way in the world: contesting liminality by translating the historical past/ V.S. Naipaul se A way in the world: om liminaliteit te beveg deur die historiese verlede te verklaar.
Author: Zhu Ying
Publication: Literator (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 27Issue: 1Page: 97(10)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description

Quintus was a poet who lived at Smyrna some four hundred years after Christ. His work, in fourteen books, is a bold and generally underrated attempt in Homer's style to complete the story of Troy from the point at which the Iliad closes. Quintus tells us the stories of Penthesilea, the Amazonian queen; Memnon, leader of the Ethiopians; the death of Achilles; the contest for Achilles' arms between Ajax and Odysseus; the arrival of Philoctetes; and the making of the Wooden Horse. The poem ends with the departure of the Greeks and the great storm which by the wrath of heaven shattered their fleet.

Customer Reviews (5)

Troy After the Iliad
I agree with the other reviewers that the language of this translation should be updated.It was made in 1913 and has a Biblical usage in words like "thy", "thou", "twixt', "twain" etc.The story Quintus tells has been told by other authors, such as the Aethiopis (which tells of Memnon's role in the war) but this book has put together these diverse stories in the 14 books of this volume.The author, known as Quintus of Smyrna, wrote his epic poem in the 3rd century.He speaks about himself in Book 13 lines 308-313 and that is all that is really known about Quintus.

Strangely, Quintus downplays some highly dramatic moments, such as the killing of Achilles by leaving Paris out of the shooting of the arrow.Apollo shoots what is obviously a poisonous arrow into the vulnerable spot if Achilles' heel but there is little in the way of dramatic description.However, Quintus makes up for this lack of drama in his telling of the madness of Aias and the fall of Troy in Book 13.The slaughtering of the inhabitants, caught off-guard by the trick of the wooden horse leaves a strong impression.Quintus has obviously been saturated in the spirit of Homer and it shows throughout the story, so despite some antiquated language, at times, this is an important epic poem filling in the story where the Iliad leaves off.The introduction is excellent in relating the influences of Quintus and how he differs in his telling of the fall of Troy. If you have an interest in the Trojan War than this book is a necessity.

Quintus preserved what would otherwise be lost.
Quintus had big shoes to fill when he wrote his epic "Posthomerica" ("After Homer"), which is another name for this book, about a thousand years after Homer.Set between the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey (and the Aeneid), "The Fall of Troy" tells the events that befell Troy after the burial of Hector, including its ultimate fate.Quintus tried hard to mimic the poetic beauty of Homer's language, using remarkably similar similes throughout, but his epic lacks the central themes that Homer used to hold his epics together.In the Iliad, it was the wrath of Achilles.In the Odyssey, it was Odysseus' struggle to get home.Quintus, on the other hand, had only a series of events to narrate in quick succession i.e. the deaths of Penthesileia, Memnon, Achilles, Ajax, Eurypylus and Paris followed by the destruction of Troy and the sinking of the Greek armada on their homeward journey.On the other hand, had it not been for Quintus, we would have nothing to fill the space between the Iliad and the Odyssey.The original epic poems (the Aethiopis, the Ileupersis and the Little Iliad) covering these events have been lost to us - it is not known whether Quintus merely reworked these sources into a coherent whole, or whether he wrote his epic based on extant summaries of these events found in Apollodorus, for example, or on fragments of the lost works.Whatever the case, Quintus' work completes a trilogy that begins with the ninth year of the Trojan War and the ends with the return of Odysseus to Ithaka eleven years later.We have no surviving works detailing the beginnings of the war - the Cypria has been lost to us.For this alone, Quintus deserves a place on my bookshelf.

A Homage to Achilles
In this book's introduction we are told of the author's critical failure to equal Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" although it details the events between them. It would nonetheless benefit the reader to take this book on its own merit. Whether alive or as ghost of the dead, it is Achilles - the major Greek protagonist of the Trojan War, who figures predominant in this sleek epic poem of 14 books.(We are told that Quintus lived around 400 a.d). We see Achilles touched by the beauty of Penthesileia, the Amazon Queen he has slain in battle; his defeat of the Ethiopian chieftain Memnon, his heroic death (unflinching yet struggling against the mortal wound of Apollo's arrow,) the funeral games held in his honor; and how his armor was contested - resulting in madness and a suicide; we see the arrival of his son Neoptolemus to the battle. The remaining events seem more inclined to the war's final days as revealed in Virgil's "Aeneid," except narrated from the Greek point of view.
The translation here by A.S. Way is reminiscent of theearly 20th century English, artistic and exalted, as one might study in school: it is a verse both challenging and rewarding.In many places quotes of wisdom are dropped as pearls from Mt. Olympus. Most of all, and this is the book's greatest strength, one is left with a hunger to pursue other epic poems of a classical nature. A small list of these are on the cover's reverse side.

What happens after the Illiad Ends
This story begins where the Illiad finishes with the death of Hector.The author is not near as good as Homer but it still is a very interesting story of the events that lead to the fall of Troy.The death of Achilles and Ajax and the cunning that leads to the Trojan Horse is a must read for all mythology buffs.For the best effect I would recommend that this be read after the Illiad and before the Odyssey.I rate it three stars soley for its readability, you can get spoiled by reading Homer and Smyrnaeus is not on his level but it still is a enjoyable read that is well worth your time.

yay.
The translation is mediocre at best, full of "ye" and "thou." However, access to Quintus Smyrnaeus is scant, making this book a valuable resource to anyone interesting in the classics. ... Read more