Amazon.com
Ever wonder why women can brush their teeth while walking and talking on various subjects while men generally find this very difficult to do? Why 99 percent of all patents are registered by men? Why stressed women talk? Why so many husbands hate shopping? According to Barbara and Allan Pease, science now confirms that "the way our brains are wired and the hormones pulsing through our bodies are the two factors that largely dictate, long before we are born, how we will think and behave. Our instincts are simply our genes determining how our bodies will behave in given sets of circumstances." That's right: socialization, politics, or upbringing aside, men and women have profound brain differences and are intrinsically inclined to act in distinct--and consequently frustrating--ways.
The premises behind Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps is that all too often, these differences get in the way of fulfilling relationships and that understanding our basic urges can lead to greater self-awareness and improved relations between the sexes. The Peases spent three years researching their book--traveling the globe, talking to experts, and studying the cutting-edge research of ethnologists, psychologists, biologists, and neuroscientists--yet their work does not read a bit like "hard science." In fact, the authors go to considerable lengths to point out that their book is intended to be funny, interesting, and easy to read; in short, this is a book whose primary purpose is to talk about "average men and women, that is, how most men and women behave most of the time, in most situations, and for most of the past."
Why Men Don't Listen, therefore, deals largely in generalizations, and this is bound to alienate some readers. "We don't beat around the bush with suppositions or politically correct clichés," the Peases claim. Those up for an irreverent and unapologetic take on why men and women just can't help themselves sometimes may just decide to read on. --Svenja Soldovieri
Book Description
Have you ever wished your partner came with an instruction booklet? This international bestseller is the answer to all the things you've ever wondered about the opposite sex.
For their controversial new book on the differences between the way men and women think and communicate, Barbara and Allan Pease spent three years traveling around the world, collecting the dramatic findings of new research on the brain, investigating evolutionary biology, analyzing psychologists, studying social changes, and annoying the locals.
The result is a sometimes shocking, always illuminating, and frequently hilarious look at where the battle line is drawn between the sexes, why it was drawn, and how to cross it. Read this book and understand--at last!--why men never listen, why women can't read maps, and why learning each other's secrets means you'll never have to say sorry again.
Customer Reviews:
Isightful.......2007-06-27
While the title is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I found the authors' approach both balanced and well thought out. The fact it is written by a couple helps credibility, but it also prompts thought towards further investigation through additional resources.
There are multiple points of humor that added to the book's charm and entertainment value.
Same Old Stereotypes, the author thinks we're idiots!.......2007-05-24
The differences between men and women is a sexy topic and I was definitely interested in reading about it, but I felt like I'd been duped after reading this book. It stinks of gender bias and old stereotypes. The book describes certain behavior- such as making decisions based on facts and reading maps- as being "masculine" and other behavior- such as nuturing the group and listening- as being "feminine". There wouldn't be anything wrong with that proclamation in itself... but as a basis for an entire book? Come on!
The first chapter goes into detail about how if a man behaves differently from what they define as "masculine" traits and vice versa, we should overlook these little differences because the book deals with overall trends. Please. Even I could write a book based on my general observations and claim that any discrepancies should be disregarded. I could even call myself an "expert" to sound credible. Well hey, what a coincidence! It turns out that the author isn't even a doctor or psychologist, just a self-proclaimed "expert".
The worst thing about the book is that it seems like the author/s are on a personal crusade to pound their personal OPINION into reader's heads by masquerading them as "facts". Most of these "facts" are based on primordial human behavior and evolution, which is obviously guesswork drawn from a lot of theorizing rather than from concrete evidence.
What a great book.......2007-05-18
One of the best books, explaining typical differences between male and female. Helps avoid totally unnecessary problems in communications and expectations. It gives great insights into why people behave the way they do (and not how we expect them to).
This Book is Amazing!.......2007-04-19
I learned so much from this book! It has amazing facts about how men and women are born different with pre-hardwired patterns regardless of how you are raised. Read this book! Also check out my new site on my upcoming book. DanArdebili . com
Dan Ardebili
Katie's Opinion.......2007-01-12
I think this is such a good book everybody should read it. It is not just about boy girl relationships in the traditional sense that you think of. As a mother of a 25 year old son, I wish I had read this book 25 years ago. I would have been far more understanding on some issues and more patient. Remembering my teenage years I could certainly see why I acted the way I did as well. I apologized to my son for some things, said a prayer to my Mom and bought a copy for my son and his girlfriend and for my sister and her daugher. I think it is a must read for all adults.
Book Description
To the list of writers connecting mainstream readers and cutting-edge science—Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Johnson, James Surowiecki—add Read Montague, with this exploration of what exactly determines the choices we make.
With a new perspective on the science of decision-making from the researcher at the center of the computational neuroscience revolution, Why Choose This Book? shows what the latest brain science reveals about the crucial events of everyday experience—the choices we make. From how we decide what we consume to what kind of art we like, and even the romantic, ethical, and financial choices we make, Read Montague guides the reader through a new approach to the mind with an accessible style that is both entertaining and illuminating.
In taking apart the mind's decision-making machinery, Montague first illustrates how our brains are like computers that are slow, small, fuzzy, and cheap—and began with goals like food, water, and sex. Second, he reveals how simple goals like these then turn into ideas like beauty, love, and terror with a life of their own. Finally, he explains how a value system in our heads controls those ideas so we can make good decisions—and how that physical system can break down leading to bad decisions, addictions, mental illness, and even large economic disasters.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting, yet vague.......2007-08-07
I found the book to be interesting, presenting many ideas about cognitive function that seem novel and even new. However, they were presented in a vague way with too many details glossed over. I understand the need to "dumb things down" for a wider audience, but it seems as if this went too far. The author is obviously very knowledgeable in this field and he is going out of his way to make the material accessible. This is where the problem lies, the feeling I got when reading this was that I was being treated like a little kid. I still would recommend this book to anyone who asks because it was a quick read and does give a nice overview of what is currently known and what is being worked on.
An Interesting Book.......2007-06-30
I really enjoyed this book, because I am interested in the brain and why we make decisions. Overall it used language I could understand, and made great connections between the anatomy of the brain and the structure of the mind. I would recommend it for anyone who is interested in why we choose what we do and what the brain has to do with it.
Deep information on the working of the brain.......2007-06-27
This indepth study of how the brain works is written so that the average person can understand it. Dr. Montague is an amazing author to be so knowledgeable and able to bring the information down to easily understood language. Everyone should read this.
Thought provoking - but very poorly written.......2007-06-10
Read Montague is probably a very intelligent man, but he is not a very good writer. In an attempt to popularize a very challenging area, he adops a rather breathless style. With testimonials from the likes of Steven Pinker, Antonio Damasio and V.S. Ramachandran, far be it for me to argue with his qualifications in his field - computational neuroscience. My compaint is that he lacks the communication skills of those three noted authors. Montague gets lost in jargon and trying to be cute.
On a more substantive note, I was disappointed with his lack of discussion of the role that emotions play in decision making, and his sketchy descriptions of neural processes.
On the whole, I was disappointed with the book. For anyone interested this area, Marvin Minsky's now book "The Emotion Machine" is better, although both works have very misleading titles.
Mind-blowing.......2007-03-31
I am only part way through this book but I am so excited by it that I've already had to get googling to find out more about the worlds it is beginning to uncover. As someone just starting to study science seriously, it has helped me find what I think might be my field - a convergence of biochemistry, computation, and economics that could lead us to create truly intelligent machines.
Amazon.com
Harold Bloom's urgency in How to Read and Why may have much to do with his age. He brackets his combative, inspiring manual with the news that he is nearing 70 and hasn't time for the mediocre. (One doubts that he ever did.) Nor will he countenance such fashionable notions as the death of the author or abide "the vagaries of our current counter-Puritanism" let alone "ideological cheerleading." Successively exploring the short story, poetry, the novel, and drama, Bloom illuminates both the how and why of his title and points us in all the right directions: toward the Romantics because they "startle us out of our sleep-of-death into a more capacious sense of life"; toward Austen, James, Proust; toward Thomas Mann, Toni Morrison, and Cormac McCarthy; toward Cervantes and Shakespeare (but of course!), Ibsen and Oscar Wilde.
How should we read? Slowly, with love, openness, and with our inner ear cocked. Then we should reread, reread, reread, and do so aloud as often as possible. "As a boy of eight," he tells us, "I would walk about chanting Housman's and William Blake's lyrics to myself, and I still do, less frequently yet with undiminished fervor." And why should we engage in this apparently solitary activity? To increase our wit and imagination, our sense of intimacy--in short, our entire consciousness--and also to heal our pain. "Until you become yourself," Bloom avers, "what benefit can you be to others." So much for reading as an escape from the self!
Still, many of this volume's pleasures may indeed be selfish. The author is at his best when he is thinking aloud and anew, and his material offers him--and therefore us--endless opportunities for discovery. Bloom cherishes poetry because it is "a prophetic mode" and fiction for its wisdom. Intriguingly, he fears more for the fate of the latter: "Novels require more readers than poems do, a statement so odd that it puzzles me, even as I agree with it." We must, he adjures, crusade against its possible extinction and read novels "in the coming years of the third millennium, as they were read in the eighteenth and nineteenth century: for aesthetic pleasure and for spiritual insight."
Bloom is never heavy, since his vision quest contains a healthy love of irony--Jedediah Purdy, take note: "Strip irony away from reading, and it loses at once all discipline and all surprise." And this supreme critic makes us want to equal his reading prowess because he writes as well as he reads; his epigrams are equal to his opinions. He is also a master allusionist and quoter. His section on Hedda Gabler is preceded by three extraordinary statements, two from Ibsen, who insists, "There must be a troll in what I write." Who would not want to proceed? Of course, Bloom can also accomplish his goal by sheer obstinacy. As far as he is concerned, Don Quixote may have been the first novel but it remains to this day the best one. Is he perhaps tweaking us into reading this gigantic masterwork by such bald overstatement? Bloom knows full well that a prophet should stop at nothing to get his belief and love across, and throughout How to Read and Why he is as unstinting as the visionary company he adores. --Kerry Fried
Book Description
Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?" is the crucial question with which renowned literary critic Harold Bloom begins this impassioned book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. For more than forty years, Bloom has transformed college students into lifelong readers with his unrivaled love for literature. Now, at a time when faster and easier electronic media threatens to eclipse the practice of reading, Bloom draws on his experience as critic, teacher, and prolific reader to plumb the great books for their sustaining wisdom.
Shedding all polemic, Bloom addresses the solitary reader, who, he urges, should read for the purest of all reasons: to discover and augment the self. His ultimate faith in the restorative power of literature resonates on every page of this infinitely rewarding and important book.
Customer Reviews:
Close, but not quite right........2007-03-05
... we all know children in today's grade schools are moving farther away from books and a whole lot closer to My Space for their reading pleasures. Bloom wrote this book to address this and one other concern, that being that universities aren't any healthier for us than My Space when it comes to reading, and reading the right way. Bloom says to read deeply, often, and for yourself without studying the how's and why's using this or that theory of criticism that we're taught in university. I can't agree more after having done a masters degree in English literature. I hated reading after graduating and it took me years to get back into reading for my own true pleasure. For that reason, I like this book. That being said, I think Bloom misses the mark somewhat on what we should read. I've read a lot of the books on his list (Western Canon my bum) and I have to say, many of them are about as interesting, engaging, and exciting as reading as those same My Space pages I mentioned earlier. There is a lot of good literature out there that isn't Shakespeare, Milton, Melville, Emerson, etc. All the good writers aren't dead, Mr Bloom. He's right about the problem but fixing it isn't going to happen by prescribing my fourteen year old a healthy dose of Ibsen, Milton and Emily Dickinson, though everyone could use a taste of Calvino once in a while.
I read somewhere that Bloom said something 'mean' about Stephen King's writing. I don't read King, but at least if my kid is reading that, she's not on the computer all day long. I wonder what Bloom thinks of JK Rowling.
Difficult Book with Some excellent Literary Summaries.......2006-10-11
After reading Harold Bloom's The Western Canon, I was interested in what this author had to say about the how and why of reading the major western literary classics. The author makes the following points; "WHY" to read, 1) to strengthen the self. Reading is a selfish act, to improve oneself as opposed to improving your neighbor or neighborhood "HOW" to read, 2) clear the mind of all the factional, and political ideas of the current time period when the reader is seeking the universality of the spirit. 3) the recovery of the ironic .
The author judges the works by looking for the unique way that certain universal human traits are treated in great works of western literature. The author explains the concept of reading by practicing "overhearing". The concept was lost upon this reader. This reader felt like he
missed some of the foundation terms and principals of the book. From the text one can tell the author has dedicated hours to reading and re-reading the classics. Harold Bloom is a Yale professor with many awards to his credit. I appreciated the quick synopsis of the text or selected poem to bring out themes and thoughts I would have otherwise missed., All in all, the author's concepts are difficult to fully absorb, but his summary of literary works has to spark some interest in some area of the literary classics.
So-So.......2006-09-16
Literary critic should have titled this little guide `What to Read and Why,' seeing as he devotes only a few paragraphs to why reading might be valuable. That said, Bloom is a terrifyingly accomplished reader, but he isn't much of a thinker or a critic in the way Benjamin or Derrida were. Bloom's incessant propensity to judge all literature from the `how is this compared to Shakespeare' lens is foolish and lacking in any insight. At times his criticism seems almost amateurish and rushed. He doesn't seem to be a very good reader of Hemingway, for instance. At the outset of a review of `Hills Like White Elephants,' Bloom writes that "Hemingway's personal mystique-his bravura poses as warrior, big-game hunter, bullfighter, and boxer-is irrelevant to `Hills Like White Elephants' as its male protagonist's insistence that `You know that I love you'" (47). Yet later in Bloom's review, he writes [on `The Snows of Kilimanjaro']: The irony is at Hemingway's expense, insofar as Harry prophesies the Hemingway who, nineteen days shor of his sixty-second birthday, turned a double-barreled shotgun on himself" (49). Bloom seems to have reversed tactics here. Never the less, Bloom is an undeniably great reader of poetry; in this volume he tells you all about his personal favorites: Stevens, Whitman, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, etc. Kind of fun, but far from great criticism.
Bloom: To Know How Is To Know Why.......2006-02-12
For those who purchase Harold Bloom's HOW TO READ AND WHY, they probably expect a companion piece to HOW TO READ A BOOK by Mortimer Adler. With Adler, there is truth in advertising; his focus is indeed on the how. He emphasizes the more traditional skills of main idea, inference, conclusion, and details, all of which must be used to come to terms with the author. Bloom, however, starts where Adler leaves off. Bloom assumes that the reader knows how to meld his mind with that of the author. His focus on the how is really quite simple: the reader should read slowly, reread often and aloud, and allow his own ears to hear and overhear what words of wisdom fall from the lips of literature's most immortal characters. When Hamlet laments the common fate of man in any of his seven soliloquies, Bloom urges the reader to do more than just read; the reader should become Hamlet and speak as the troubled Dane does. It is only when the reader intones along with Hamlet, as opposed to passively listening to Olivier or Brannagh, that this reader becomes Hamlet and insinuates himself into a world of irony that Bloom relentlessly insists forms the philosophical underpinning of Shakespeare's moral vision. The great poems deserve no less. Bloom claims that poetry, like drama, is best appreciated in solitude and when spoken aloud by the reader.
The why of reading is also uncomplicated. The purpose of reading immortal literature, to Bloom, has little to do with ideology or any other attempt to view that work through a critical lens of one 'ism' or another. The why of reading is more personal, more selfish than that. The reader reads to improve himself, to become a better person. The wisdom that infuses any classical piece of writing is useful only insofar as it contributes to the moral growth of the reader. Since most of Bloom's book resembles a digressive tour through a sampling of his favorite works and authors, the novice reader might walk away with the idea that HOW TO READ AND WHY is little more than a folksy rehash of Intro to Lit 101. The truth is more illusive. In his discourses, Bloom does more than simply analyze what makes one character act the way that he does. Bloom humanizes that character by taking that character's words, thoughts, and deeds and making them his own. To become that character, then, in Bloom's vision quest, is, in Adler's terms, to come to terms with that author. The metamorphosis of self is a process of slow accretion, possibly granting that each tick on the clock of rereading brings the reader ever closer to union with the author. The end, of course, to Bloom, to Adler, to anyone who wishes to know and grow is to witness the birth of a new reader, one who is infinitely wiser and happier than his predecessor.
Literacy Guide.......2005-08-19
Bloom's title could not help but appeal to a typical Language Arts teacher in a typical high school. I am facing a school with a history of poor literacy skills in a district with a similiar history. Most literacy programs use a 5th and 6th grade approach with high school students who have scored at that level, and wonder why they are not very successful. Bloom writes for adults, and his approach could well undergird an introduction to remedial readers in high school.
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Why We Read And How Reading Transforms Us: The Psychology of Engagement With Text
Nicola S. Schutte , and
John M. Malouff
Manufacturer: Edwin Mellen Press
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Book Description
"A sine qua non for Joyceans" (Clarence Sterling). "Certainly the best intro to the Wake I've seen" (Andrew H. Blom). This lively and readable essay provides essential background information and helpful reading techniques.
Customer Reviews:
Twenty-first Century Wake.......2005-09-24
It's good to find a new book on "Finnegans Wake," the first I've seen in this century. Most of the books written about Joyce's last "novel" were written a generation or more ago. This compact text is comprehensive and adds thoughts and ideas I've not found in some of the older, more voluminous works. It's also readable, not requiring an advanced degree in literary criticism. There's no way to make "Finnegans Wake" an easy read, but "A Word in Your Ear" offers practical advice that advances our understanding of Joyce's "book of the dark."
Book Description
More people read the Bible than any other book. Indeed, many try to live their lives according to its words. The question is, do they understand what they're reading? As Steven McKenzie shows in this provocative book, quite often the answer is, "No." McKenzie argues that to comprehend the Bible we must grasp the intentions of the biblical authors themselves--what sort of texts they thought they were writing and how they would have been understood by their intended audience. In short, we must recognize the genres to which these texts belong. McKenzie examines several genres that are typically misunderstood, offering careful readings of specific texts to show how the confusion arises, and how knowing the genre produces a correct reading. The book of Jonah, for example, offers many clues that it is meant as a humorous satire, not a straight-faced historical account of a man who was swallowed by a fish. Likewise, McKenzie explains that the very names "Adam" and "Eve" tell us that these are not historical characters, but figures who symbolize human origins ("Adam" means man, "Eve" is related to the word for life). Similarly, the authors of apocalyptic texts--including the Book of Revelation--were writing allegories of events that were happening in their own time. Not for a moment could they imagine that centuries afterwards, readers would be poring over their works for clues to the date of the Second Coming of Christ, or when and how the world would end. For anyone who takes reading the Bible seriously and who wants to get it right, this book will be both heartening and enlightening.
Customer Reviews:
biblereader.......2007-02-06
this is awful, angry, elitist, and boring. readers are better served by Brettler's book on reading the Bible. Mackenzie tries to be provocative, but it comes across as angry and condescending.
Terrible Book.......2006-07-07
Of all of the christian books I've read this one is the worst. If you are like me and know that the Bible is the inerrant word of God then you will laugh at this book. Not only does it say that Adam and Eve are just literary devices and dont exsist, it uses books not even in the canon of the Bible to prove nonsensical points. If you are a Christian don't waste your time reading the lies in this book. You could just save the trouble and read the ficticious Da Vinci Code.
Reading for context, not just words.......2006-05-14
Throughout history there has been no shortage of ways that people have read the bible: as literal truth, as an allegory, as history, as prophecy or as a guidebook. Professor McKenzie takes the bible as an important book, but one that needs to be read in context. The Bible was not written as a single book at a single time by a single author. Rather it is written by many, in many different ages for many purposes. Understanding the context that an author (or authors) prepared a book is important, or even crucial, to understanding the point the author is trying to get across. The prophets were not necessarily trying to tell what the future holds, but rather to point out what is going on in the world then, but in veiled ways to put their point across. We are reading the bible with hindsight, so we sometimes take the histories as accurate reporting, instead of stories with political or religious purpose, to create lines of events and people. The Gospels feature multiple traces of the lineage of Jesus, but each one differs, depending upon what the author wanted to emphasize, such as proving the unbroken link between Jesus and King David. The apocalyptic literature of Daniel, and the Book of Revelation can be shown to refer in context not to times yet to come, but the world situation when the author wrote the book - apocalypse meaning revelation in Greek. So instead of awaiting the end times, McKenzie shows how the books can be seen as a reflection of current political repression suffered by the Jews and early Christians.
Overall the book gives an interesting way to read and interpret the Bible - to make it a living book but in the proper context. Will this book convince the literalists and "end timers" a new interpretation of readings? Probably not. But for those who come in with an open mind, you may find something to make you think, or a new way of reading one fo the most important books in history.
Book Description
Here is a model of reading ideal for striving readers, focused on their personal interests, topic-specific reading, deep background knowledge, contextual reading strategies, and mentoring support. More important, the model moves away from a deficit approach to conceptualize striving readers in a new way.
Chapters share success stories of readers who overcome their struggles and highlight instructional strategies and materials you can use to develop activities and lessons for children and adults. Use this research-based model in the classroom or at home to help your striving readers achieve high levels of literacy.
Book Description
Audio CD version of The Gift of Dyslexia (Perigee; ISBN: 039952293X), read by the author.
At the age of 38, Ronald D. Davis made a discovery about perception that enabled him to read a book cover to cover -- for the first time. The methods he devloped have helped thousands of children and adults around the world to overcome reading, writing, study and attention problems. This audio version explains the concepts of Davis Dyslexia Correction (R) for people who would rather listen than read.
Customer Reviews:
gift of dyslexia.......2007-08-20
Average - but good relations and situations of real life. My partner and I listened in the car on a trip. She has struggled many years with feelings of being called "stupid" and "dumb". I encourage her self confidence continually.
Understanding Dyslexia.......2007-07-19
I bought this book originally to learn about my son who has been diagnosed with dyslexia. Instead, I learned so much more about myself who attended school undiagnosed. It has helped me understand why I process information like I do as well as to instruct my child. While I overcame my difficulties much in the same manner as the author Ronald Davis, and graduated from high school and college with high honors, my son has not faired so well. Instructional methods in public schools have changed since I attended, and Davis has reminded me of how I was able to overcome. My son is already exhibiting improvement with the methods prescribed by Davis. I recommend this reading for anyone who has encountered a person with dyslexia.
Great Resource for "Visual" Dyslexia.......2007-02-09
This book has been very useful in helping my 8 year old son who struggles with reading. I homeschool my son and have been working with him on reading using phonics based methods since he was about 6 years old. Phonics is necessary part of any reading program, but we just were not making progress. He could sound out any CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant, like cat) word you gave him, but he had to sound them out EVERY SINGLE TIME even after having read them dozens of times. In spite trying to keep reading low stress and homeschooling to give him more time to develop, he still disliked reading and it was a struggle anytime we worked on this subject. I have checked into many programs for dyslexia, but most of them address phonics based challenges where my son has no problem.
This book is the first resource that I have found that seemed like it might address my son's type of difficulties without spending hundreds of dollars a session on a therapy that might or might not be effective. After reading the book I set aside some time to be alone with my son and we did the assessment and orientation activities. We couldn't do it perfectly and had to take lots of breaks because my son is very squirmy, but in spite of our imperfect implementation it gave my son as sense of control over his mind that I had not seen before. We have now done the clay alphabets and are working on spell-read and he is already showing improvement in word recognition. Now, I will give the critics of this book one point, it is not "scientifically proven" to be effective and I am not sure whether the cause of dyslexia discussed by the author will ever be proven or not. I don't know if it will work for every type of dyslexia, but what it has done for my son is to give him a sense of control when he is trying to read. He is now able to get back on track and doesn't just "meltdown" when he starts to get confused. I would say for the price of a book and a couple of hours of one on one time that that is a tremendous result! So just ignore the "education experts", get the book anyway and use what works for you. Also, don't worry about about the mind's eye thing being wierd, it sounds kind of psychic or something, but you could just as easily think of it as a camera lens. It is just point from which you mind sees things. The best example that I can think of to how this works is when you look at a word and the spelling looks wrong even though you know that it is correct, but when you look at the word again later it looks fine. Your mind just automatically corrects what ever it was that made it look funny in the first place. Well basically what these activities seem to do it help the dyslexic use their mind to make the corrections that your mind makes automatically. Not really so strange when you think about it.
Best Help So Far for Learning Disabilities.......2007-01-14
Tutoring became a part of my life a few years back, and I struggled to help adult students with a learning problem. Finally, someone recommended this book and I ordered 2, one for my student and 1 for me, and I can see the lightbulb come to my students eyes, and she sees the same in me. What a better recommendation than that!!
PLEASE MAKE NOTE! Buy the book and AUDIO CDs.......2007-01-11
The audio set is awesome but you need the book for references and charts etc. I had to come back and order the book.
Book Description
'How to Read Superhero Comics and Why' brings literary critic Harold Bloom's thesis that the meaning of a poem is to be found in its relationship with an earlier poem to the study of the modern superhero comic book.
Superhero comic books are traditionally thought to have at least two distinct periods, two major waves of creativity: the golden age and the silver age. Reductively stated, the golden age was the birth of the superhero proper out of the pulp novel characters of the early 1930s, and was primarily associated with DC Comics. Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman are the most famous creations of this period. In the early 1960s, Marvel Comics launched a completely new line of heroes, the primary figures of the silver age: the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, the Avengers, Iron Man, and Daredevil.
An analysis of superhero comic books beginning with Frank Miller's 'Batman: The Dark Knight Returns' and Alan Moore's 'Watchmen' drawing on the literary and psychoanalytic theory of Harold Bloom and Slavoj Žižek, 'How to Read Superhero Comics and Why' argues for the recognition of a new age of superhero comic books. Klock builds through a discussion of 'Marvels', 'Astro City', 'Kingdom Come', Alan Moore's America's Best Comics and Grant Morrison's 'Justice League of America' to argue that 'Planetary', 'The Authority' and 'Wildcats' usher in the future of the superhero narrative: a future that will be what Spiderman and the Fantastic Four were in the early 1960s, and what Superman and Batman were in the late 1930s.
Customer Reviews:
Indispensible for understanding the future of superheroes!.......2007-03-22
Geoff Klock's book How to Read Superhero Comics and Why is absolutely essential reading for anyone curious about the ongoing evolution of superhero narratives. The book purposely eschews structural mythology and archetypal interpretation - because that thesis is already covered in a multiplicity of sources - most notably Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology by Richard Reynolds. Instead, Klock's book sets out to interpret the superhero narrative through the lens of Harold Bloom's literary criticism and explain which aspects of the superhero narrative need to be acknowledged and understood in order for the superhero narrative to continue to evolve.
It is commonly understood by superhero fans and scholars alike that superheroes started in what is considered the Golden Age of superheroes with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and others in the late 1930's. The second age of superheroes came with the Silver Age that some believe started with the appearance of the new Flash in the mid-Fifties and peaks with the appearance of the Marvel heroes such as the Fantastic Four, Spider Man, Daredevil, and the Hulk in 1961. Instead of ascribing to the common perception that superheroes just passed through a Dark Age from 1975 to 1995 - Klock posits that the so-called Dark Age was merely a redundant Silver Age - which actually culminates with Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore's Watchmen. Mostly using Harold Bloom's theories of literary criticism, Klock sets out to help us identify the direction the newest age of superheroes has taken with books like Planetary and Authority over the past ten years.
I'm not setting out to interpret Klock's theories for you here - because that's the purpose of the book. If you're interested in what I pointed out above - then read it. Some of the reviews posted here show a love for the reader's own opinions preventing themselves from comprehending what Klock was even talking about. I am not informed by Bloom's criticisms. However - I am informed by the superhero narrative and have studied every book Klock references in his book to the point of meme-like synchronicity. Anyone that states Alan Moore's Watchmen is not influential - should obviously stick to reading Harold Bloom and leave the superhero narratives to the rest of us - because you don't know what you're talking about. Geoff Klock goes to great lengths to explain how the use of realism and psychology in Watchmen and Miller's Dark Knight Returns influenced comics in the late Eighties and Nineties and laid the framework for every superhero to come. Their influence is still felt today - and if you don't believe that - then you simply must not read superhero comics anymore. However, if you still comb the monthly racks for something to read - then you will know the above statements to be resoundingly true.
The reason Klock seems to avoid Marvel comics is that there were so few Marvel comics in print at the time of the writing that followed Klock's thesis. Klock does describe the place of the mini-seires Marvels - but then moves on following the natural evolution of the superhero narrative - which DID NOT occur in Marvel comics at the time. Likewise, Klock points out in his book that he purposely detailed books that were easily obtainable in trade paperback format or reprints and avoided nascent books that the average reader would have a hard time obtaining.
One of the other "reviewers" complains that Klock focalizes on the writer over the artist - when Klock takes the time to explain the importance of not only the artist - but the colorist as well - and purposely chooses to identify with the writer due to the common practice of recognizing the writer as the progenitor of the superhero narrative - for simplicity's sake alone. This is not a book about comic book layouts and the artform itself. Anyone interested in the artform of the sequential illustration would serve themselves well to track down Scott McLeod's works and Will Eisner's seminal Comics and Sequential Art for a proper lesson - but that is not the stated purpose of Klock's book. Outside of Grant Morrison's metatextual works - the medium of sequential illustration has very little to do with the evolution of the superhero narrative - and no place in the thesis presented herein!
If you are interested in how the Silver Age culminated when the superhero narrative was brought into the real world by Dark Knight Returns and the Watchmen, and you want to see how books like Planetary and Authority have lead the superhero narrative through the real world and into the fantastic world of the newest age of superheroes via metatextual awareness - then this book is for you. How To Read Superheroes and Why is not about superheroes as mythology or archetype. It's not about why some stories are good and others are not. It's not about panel to panel relationships found in sequential illustration. Those theories are neither ignored nor refuted - they are for the most part - not a part of the thesis presented herein. This book is about the evolution of the superhero narrative via metatextual awareness and what superhero narratives need to address in order to keep evolving.
I am not a psychology student or literature major - so I had to keep the dictionary by my side to help me navigate through Klock's book. In the end, it is all worth it, as Klock's work gave me a new set of tools with which to examine the superhero narrative. Klock has given me the ability to recognize which superhero comics are simply regurgitating the tropes of the past - and which ones are pointing the way to the future and beyond.
Highly recommended and absolutely indispensable for anyone that wants to work with superhero narratives.
A must.......2005-01-09
Living in Portugal, and being, well, 47 years old(!), I remember my first dazled look into superhero comics through portuguese translations in brasilian editions (b/w) by Editora Abril when I was just 10 or 11 years old. I collected some of the titles, nevetheless confined to an offer of major superheros like Superhomem (Superman), Batman, Flash, Atomo (Atom), mainly from DC and later on from Marvel (Capitão América, Quarteto Fantástico (Fantastic Four)). But I had a penchant for the american editions in full colour with the striking Jack Kirby artwork from Marvel, like FF, and Giant Size editions (or republishings), as well as the titles of Spider Man, Daredevil, written by Stan Lee and with artwork from (for instance) John Romita or Gene Colan and others great pencillers (that's why I still own some editions of comics like Spider Man #70, the early Captain Marvel (yes!), DD, FF, Sr. Strange, SSurfer, etc., from circa 1969-1970. But as I grew older I got tyred of american comics and began coleccting european adult and mature readers comics, mainly from french and belgian sources, (much late with the exception of some post-modern new classics such as Watchmen, and Frank Miller's Dark Knight. Recently, however, I went to a comic book shop and bought Mr. Klock's book. I read it and I was absolutely appauled by the variety and deepness of new or renewed characters studied by Klock. I was so impressed that I began buying acomic books, mainly writen by Ennis, Morrison, Bendis, Straczinsky, Millar, Waid, Buziek, Kirkman, etc. And till this day I'm really delighted by the rich contours of the genre. I owe it, totally, to Mr. Klock's book, which can be read as a thesis, but also as entertainment, even if you don't know some of the comics described and studied by the author (you certainly will get the same "re-discovery" fever that I got...!).
Highly recommended -but only if you're willing to spend money on comic books...!
Good, but too one-sided.......2004-01-07
This book is an interesting study of superhero comic books, particularly the examination of the Dark Knight Returns, but it is one-sided, as Klock solidifies his argument (applying Bloom's anxiety of influence to superheroes) through a consideration of Crisis on Infinite Earths, an event that took place in the DC Universe.
This causes a problem because Klock overlooks Marvel almost entirely, which is truly ironic in terms of his intentions: he states over and over his dissatisfaction with the "archetype" idea about superheroes, and yet, DC's characters lend themselves to the "arcehtype" idea incredibly well, whereas Marvel has its own conditions under which to consider Klock's theories.
I for one, feel his dismissal of the archetype argument to be ill-founded and not entirely well-thought out, not to mention poorly supported in the text itself. Perhaps his youth contributes, but I think that Klock makes a fundamental mistake in his analysis of superheroes: he is in love with Bloom's theories, to the exclusion of many others. He complains about Joseph Campbell and Jung, but like Campbell himself, gets so caught up in the poetry of his own ideas that he becomes his own demiurge, trapping himself when he could consider the stories from multiple angles, thereby creating a truly revolutionary piece of criticism.
Definitely enjoyable, not exactly the most challenging read, or the most insightful, but worth a read-through. Interestingly, Grant Morrison's seminal Flex Mentallo, relegated to the "further reading" section already surpasses any theories Klock may posit, and the work does so by isolating itself from any one school of thought. Also dissapointing is his rash and entirely too flat reading of Alan Moore's Promethea, perhaps that writers best and most experimental work.
Finally, however, is Klock's demonstration of his ignorance of the language of comic books. He considers the writer, or at least the words to be running the show. He hardly examines the nature of the language, the interplay between word and picture. While a good read, this book also makes one aware of the immense lack of comics criticism. In the back of my mind however, it seems that the comic form is more suited to comment on itself than is the medium of prose.
Fresh insight, but poor taste: way too much Moore.......2004-01-06
4 stars, not 3 stars -- because Klock's use of Bloom's anxiety of influence is a great, novel way of reading comic books. I enjoyed reading (in about 2 days) although there were places where I don't think Klock really made his point well (and I consider myself somewhat informed by Bloom's criticism).
My recommendation is: if you are interested in an intellectual view of comics (90s, and 00s comics) then this book is for you. Moreover, if you like Alan Moore's comics and you want to read an interesting take on them, this is definitely the book for you.
The problem is: I don't like Moore as much as Klock does. I admit that his perspective on Killing Joke, ABC Comics, Miracleman, etc., -- this stuff is good -- but I don't think Moore is nearly as influential as Klock thinks. Yes, Watchmen is an important comic. Yes, it did change the industry back in the 90s. But to take Bloom's theory and say that Moore is the Shakespeare of the comics field, well, that's saying a bit too much. Moore's not all that.
One amazon reviewer above hit the nail on the head: Klock totally avoids dealing with Marvel comics (except to remind everyone how the Fantastic Four are getting grilled by Ellis in _Planetary_). For someone like me who favors Marvel comics over DC (while admitting that DC has been the arena of many original comics in the past decades), this book gets a bit tedious.
Other problems with the book (which the author acknowledges) is his way of focalizing the _writer_ over the artist. I feel that this project was only half-realized. It seems to me that if you going to talk about the future of comics, you have to take into account the blossoming of writer/artists -- and maybe that's why he avoids Marvel and deals more with the DC writer + artist teams. Only at various times does he talk about the layout of the comic page, but overall, the stylistics of the comic book get overlooked by the author which is a shame. It is difficult to talk about sequential art (Scott McCloud gets a lot of credit for boiling it down like he has) -- but this should be the main aim of anyone discussing comics. Yes, Alan Moore is incredible, but so are his artists Bissette, Sprouse, Gibbons, etc.
Bringing up Jack Kirby only to say that he was co-opted by Wildstorm as a character in one of their books isn't going to cut it. If you want to trace influence in comics, it comes from there (or maybe Siegel and Shuster, or Kane, etc.). Klock stresses the importance of the "writer" over characters, but he treats the Fantastic Four as characters with whom the third age (Moore, etc.) struggle to overcome -- why isn't it Lee and Kirby that they're struggliing to overcome? Inconsistencies like this don't help the book -- I also wish the author was more consistent applying Bloom's theory and terminology throughout the chapters (some may appreciate this) -- and at other times he's far too abstruse (where was his editor?).
Overall, this is a good book. Not great. Certainly controversial. I mean, come on: WildC.A.T.S/Aliens crossover is a starting point for the new age of comics? Gimme a break!
Misprision.......2003-11-05
No doubt about it; the superhero comic book genre is in a period of fundamental transition. The safe, juvenile realm of the 1940's Superman, the 1960's Spider-Man, or even the angtsy teen drama of Chris Claremont's mid-1980's X-Men have given way to something deeper and far more relevant. No longer is the genre simply about escapism into fanciful tales of Spandex-clad mortals with extraordinary powers who choose to fight for all that is good and just; this new generation of stories lay bare the most primal of Jungian archetypes and allow their readers to examine themselves and their place in the real world.
That was a pretty dramatic-sounding paragraph; allow me to clarify. Geoff Klock is in many ways picking up where Richard Reynolds left off in 1992's Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology, digging to the very roots of the genre (which, he contends, go back considerably further into the past than 1936's Action Comics #1). Klock expands his overview of the superhero genre to the point where he only makes a few passing references to the big-name comic book houses like Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and instead devotes most of his time to smaller-name publishers and less well-known independent titles. About the only exceptions to this are his dissections of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and the standalone superhero series The Watchmen (already covered at length in this reviewer's annotation of the aforementioned Richard Reynolds book). Like Reynolds, Klock cites these titles as pivotal transformations in the history of the genre, but he focuses more on their psychological impact than the stories or characters themselves. He also devotes entire chapters to exploring Kurt Busiek's Astro City, Alex Ross's Marvels, and especially Mark Waid's post-apocalyptic alternate future series Kingdom Come, none of which were previously familiar to this reviewer, and which have proven to be very difficult titles to locate.
It is Klock's contention that superheroes and the study of psychology frequently come into contact with one another; I am put in mind of the palpable sense of outrage among some superhero fan circles in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Some people honestly asked themselves: Where were Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four to protect their beloved New York City in its time of crisis? Why didn't Superman save those people who jumped off the World Trade Center, and why didn't Green Lantern put out the flames with his power ring? More than a few behavioral psychologists now find themselves in the difficult position of having to sort this out for their distraught patients. No question about it: superheroes are very real to many -sometimes so real that a few devoted readers have difficulty sorting out fact from fantasy.
The superhero-psychology overlap recurs partly because so many of the superhero characters represent more than mere wish-fulfillment in their readers; they represent a personification of one or another heroic archetype that is not fundamentally different from the roles once filled by the "superhero teams" of the Greek, Egyptian, or Nordic gods and their respective supporting casts of mortals and semi-mortals.
Unfortunately some of these elements tend to get lost in Klock's account; by skipping over so many of the fundamentals (and curiously ignoring outright the role of any of the characters from the Marvel Comics' "universe"), he periodically seems to lose sight of the overlying message. Ironically he never does seem to get to the "Why" portion of the book's title. The book is actually a bit of a paradox: while the psychology text gets bogged down in several places and, unlike Reynolds, Klock totally avoids the suggestion that modern-day comic book authors borrow liberally from ancient fables, myths, and legends for their story ideas. Yet at the same time he insists throughout that a new form of literature is evolving, one that is allowing us to explore ourselves and our collective consciousness through its reinforcement of larger-than-life heroic archetypes.
A surprisingly difficult read, all told: too much reliance on psychology and not enough attention paid to plain old-fashioned good storytelling. The author's emphasis on titles which (for the most part) are largely unknown, seems to also suggest that the more widely-consumed titles like Superman and Spider-Man don't help to fulfill the author's intended psychological conclusions (hence my use of the word "misprision" for this review's title, a word which ironically surfaces many times throughout Klock's narrative).
Book Description
This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
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