Product Description

Customer Reviews (13)

A beautiful mosaic
I am in the middle of this book, after having read Jane Kenyon's collection, Otherwise, and Donald Hall's collection, Without. For days I dove into their poetry and was overcome by the love they shared not only with each other, but with their readers. I am also grateful to them both for having the courage to write about all the difficult things: depression, cancer, death, mental illness, sexual frustration and fear.

Coming to this book after the poetry puts me in a place where I find myself saying out loud "Oh, yes..." Mr. Hall's plain and straightforward narrative fills in between the poems the stories of how they came to be as a couple, how they loved, lived and saw one another through whatever arose. The cadence of each chapter moving forward and back, forward and back creates a mosaic that is at once joyous and horrifying. Each chapter holds the other up and together they make this story buoyant and beautiful. I for one am grateful to Mr. Hall for opening up his memories of his and Jane's life for me to witness and cherish all the same. Thank you.

Heartbreaking, eloquent and real
Although this is so overtly a chronicle of losing a loved one, about the horrors of cancer and its various treatments, it is also a very real picture of what makes a good and lasting marriage. Although Hall and Kenyon knew the odds of their union lasting were very slim, given the 19-year age difference and her bipolar illness, they took the plunge, Hall noting that "all marriages start in ignorance and need; what matters is what you do after you marry." Fifty-five pages later, Hall affirms what makes their marriage last -

"What we did: love. We did not spend our days gazing into each other's eyes. We did that gazing when we made love or when one of us was in trouble, but most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages ... Each member of a couple is separate. The two come together in double attention."

He speaks further of what, for them, constituted those "third things" - John Keats, the BSO, children, pets, or Eagle Pond. The twenty-three years Hall and Kenyon had together had their ups and downs to be sure, but in the end love prevailed. This book is Hall's very personal love song, written just for Jane. Read it and learn what love is really all about. - Tim Bazzett, author of Pinhead: A Love Story

Most Intimate Memoir
The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon
This compeling memoir took me into the most intimate life of these two outstanding poets.The details are such that I felt that I was actually a part of their lives.Jane Kenyon's life and death are contrasted in words that bring her to life by one that knows her best.A most excellent read.

Best Day and Worst Day:Life with Jane Kenyan
Donald Hall's memoir of health and illness with his wife Jane Kenyon has stood in my mind years after I read this book.It is an understanding of issues in living through a bout of illness, of survival to regain health, or the fall when one loses the fight.

Above all the book is of a poet who loves another fellow poet.

But I think poetry is secondary to loving a wife who shared his home and passions for animals, people, words and social engagements to be with people who appreciated their love of literature and the love in the marriage.

Very moving memoir
I thought this book was a wonderful, loving tribute to the author's wife.:) ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (9)

A Hall of Surprises
To add to the ranks of the surprised ones... It was boringly browsing the other day through my landlady's bookshelves, and I found an intriguing volume of prose called "Seasons at Eagle Pond" by a name that rang a bell but didn't quite make it to my conscience... This was only a few weeks ago. I began an incessant search for Donald Hall's poems within my collection of anthologies, local libraries and the Internet. Then I purchased "White Apples and the Taste of Stone" and my embarrassment for not knowing Hall previously only yields now to the pleasure and comfort of having, at last, come across him. These are human poems; they speak to you and befriend you; later they may haunt you... Among them you will find pieces that are witty, fast, meditative, funny, horrific, mad and yes, very very sad. This collection exudes the world and vision of a keen observer of life. It will leave a reek of charged life around you! Simply great.

A lovely retrospective
Donald Hall, past Poet Laureate of the United States, has had a long and fruitful career. This compilation is well done - hardcover, good paper, clean printing and attractive typeface, and includes Hall's best work. His poems can make you laugh, or sigh, or weep. This is a "must have" for anyone who loves and values poetry.

On Donald Hall
Having met Donald Hall and reading his poems, I am convinced he is a modern day Robert Frost. If you love poetry read this book. If you love New England read this book. If you truly love life as Mr.Hall does, read this book!

Beauty and Power
I feel somewhat embarrassed to say that Donald Hall was not a poet I was familiar with until just recently.And what a great thing I have been missing.I realized that Donald Hall was in a very old anthology I have from 1963 called "The Modern Poets."There is a jaunty photo of him smoking a cigar.The Bio does not mention his wife Jane Kenyon.

What a powerful effect these poems had on me.The come alive in a way I cannot accurately describe.They bring me closer to things I seem to remember, and with simplicity and depth, deliver the earth to my feet.Don't take my word for it.Take a look into this world for yourself.

Even a Baseball Fan Will
Even a baseball fan , such as myself will love this collection of Poems.I knew Donald Hall from his baseball writings and love of the game.Now as U.S. poet laureate, I had to see more of hime as evidenced by this book.Not a one night read, but a pleasure to pick up and dwell on and savor slowly.
Ernie Grassey ... Read more

Product Description
Distinguished poet Donald Hall reflects on the meaning of work, solitude, and love

"The best new book I have read this year, of extraordinary nobility and wisdom. It will remain with me always."
—Louis Begley, The New York Times

"A sustained meditation on work as the key to personal happiness. . . . Life Work reads most of all like a first-person psychological novel with a poet named Donald Hall as its protagonist. . . . Hall"s particular talents ultimately [are] for the memoir, a genre in which he has few living equals. In his hands the memoir is only partially an autobiographical genre. He pours both his
full critical intelligence and poetic sensibility into the form."
—Dana Gioia, Los Angeles Times

"Hall . . . here offers a meditative look at his life as a writer in a spare and beautifully crafted memoir. Devoted to his art, Hall can barely wait for the sun to rise each morning so that he can begin the task of shaping words."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"I [am] delighted and moved by Donald Hall"s Life Work, his autobiographical tribute to sheer work—as distinguished from labor—as the most satisfying and ennobling of activities, whether one is writing, canning vegetables or playing a dung fork on a New Hampshire farm."
—Paul Fussell, The Boston Globe

Donald Hall is the author of numerous prizewinning volumes of poetry, including The One Day, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, essays, children"s books, and criticism. His new collection of short stories, The Willow Temple, will be published by Houghton Mifflin this spring. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

reflections on work to reflect on
I don't like to read novels, but a friend, who enjoys history, had recommended String Too Short to Be Saved (Nonpareil Books, No. 5) after I had told her about Home Life in Colonial Days, Everyday Life in Early America and The Reshaping of Everyday Life: 1790-1840 (Everyday Life in America) - so I thought I would read this biographical book and then decide if I wanted to read his novel (which I just ordered and received and will start tonight).I loved this book; it was extremely engaging and I like Donald Hall as a person and I enjoyed his thought patterns. It was fascinating to read about historical accounts of work in this world, his personal day, history of his work life and his daily work life, or Life Work.The second part of the book was more about his family history of work, his father's work and how it affected him and his life on his grandfather's farm which was fascinating and wonderful.When I read the last page last night, I decided to reread the preface because the last sentence was the first sentence and when I read it the first time I didn't understand. This book is a beautiful meditation on work and a reflection on life and history and it is a super choice for your next read.

Live differently
"Life Work" could be called "Ode to Work".Hall writes lovingly about his work on the family "home" place from his beginning farm work with his grandfather to his own writing work as an adult and inhabitant on the old farm where he now lives with his wife, poet Jane Kenyon.I found his attitude toward work refreshing.I appreciate his reflections on the meaning "work" gives to life.A life well-lived involves work one loves.Work can have a negative connotation in our culture.He upends that view.Not all of us can live his life, but we can find "work" we love be it tending a garden, caring for our family, flying a plane, cooking or something else.

Hall's best book
I am a big fan of Donald Hall's writing, both poetry and prose. This is my favorite and the one that made me think the most.It allows one to put one's life in perspective, realize the importance of life and work.We all aren't as lucky as Hall has been to work at what we love, but the book makes you think about how work can become more worthwhile.Deep and enjoyable.

A Sense of Time, Place and Self
Reading this book is work -- in the Donald Hall definition, for to read it is to become absorbed in each word to the exclusion of all else.Hall writes of his ancestors, of the rocky farms of New England, a small dairy,his father's early death, his wife's gardening, and then quite suddenly ashis colon cancer recurs, of the possible end to life and the very prosaictasks of cancelling readings, putting papers in order for survivors. Throughout, he achieves a sense of time, place and self which crossesgenerations.He charts both the constants and the increasing changes ofthe farm which has been in his family for more than a hundred years and thecountry around it.Hall, like God, love and grace--all of which are foundin abundance in this book, abides.

A superbly crafted memoir of life, aging, and grieving.
Donald Hall's memoir, The Old Life, is beautifully crafted in prose form. It is full of personal recollections as well as literary references. It is intense, deeply personal, funny, and wonderfully readable. One has a very real sense of who Donald Hall is - his views of life, his passion for baseball and his family, his trials with his own ill health, his love for his wife, Jane Kenyon, also a poet, and his agonizing grief when she dies quite unexpectedly. A beautiful, poignant, literary triumph ... Read more

Product Description
Donald Hall's poignant and courageous poetry speaks of the death of the magnificent, humorous, and gifted Jane Kenyon. Hall speaks to us all of grief, as a poet lamenting the death of a poet, as a husband mourning the loss of a wife. Without is Hall's greatest and most honorable achievement-his gift and testimony, his lament and his celebration of loss and of love.Amazon.com Review
Eagle Pond Farm, familiar even to casual readers of poetDonald Hall (author of 13 volumes of poetry spanning over 40 years),constitutes his spiritual and geographic center. He moved therepermanently in 1975 after marrying the young and talented poet JaneKenyon. His long relationship to Eagle Pond Farm and the creativehaven the two poets created gives Without a specialpoignancy. It is where, in 1995, Jane Kenyon died.

The facts arehard but simple. In 1994, Jane Kenyon--who at 46 was beginning toenjoy the growing recognition of her work--was diagnosed withleukemia. Kenyon and Hall opted for the harrowing bone marrowtransplant, to be performed in Seattle. It was not successful, and 12weeks later, she was dead. Hall began drafting Without duringthe procedure and subsequent treatment, an act almost impossible toimagine--or perhaps for a poet, the only act possible in the face ofwhat for most would be unspeakable. The magnitude of such sufferingmight indeed explain the collection's flatness of tone, as if griefcan be touched only across great distances.

However restrained thepieces, Hall's gaze is fearless. Shifts in voice (he writes both infirst and third person) create a tension that pulls the readerforward, as if compelled to consume this moving, raw account in onesitting. The quality of reader attention is more akin to what onegives a story. Narrative elements include a terse account of thebone-marrow transplant and Kenyan's subsequent radiation treatments("It was as if she capped the Chernobyl pile with herbody"), and it's here that the poems become almost unbearable toread.

Without captures the tedium of dying, jolted by surgesof rage and "witless" love. Numbly, it lists the flintydetails of Kenyon's last days, spent choosing the poems for her lastvolume, Otherwise: New& Selected Poems. It describes the moment of her dying in away that makes one wonder if the ultimate experience of intimacy is towatch the beloved die, to be the one to close her eyes. "Backhome from the grave," Hall writes toward the end of this volume,"behind my desk I made / a gallery of Janes," but it can besaid that every poem presents a facet of his wife while dying,accruing finally to a gallery of love and grief.

There are somedistinguishing jolts to our familiar concepts about death as in, forexample, the poem showing the couple, with their minister, praying andholding hands. And when they prayed, "grace was evident / but notthe comfort of mercy or reprieve / The embodied figure / on the crossstill twisted under the sun." By and large, however, it's avolume not remarkable for bold imagery or shocking connections; ratherfor the expression of raw grief that follows, unwelcome, all of ournecessary losses. --Hollis Giammatteo ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Perfect
Without a doubt the most perfect, most human example of poetry I have ever read. I could not make it through this very slim volume in a months time. I both ached for and feared the next page. I love my Wife more than I love my next breath. This is how that love feels. This is what it is like to live without.

The best book I read in 2008.
Donald Hall, Without (Houghton Mifflin, 1998)

Donald Hall is one of America's most accomplished men of letters, and never has he been more so than in Without. Published on the third anniversary of the death of his wife, the late poet Jane Kenyon, Without is split into two sections. The first details the months leading up to her death, and as expected, the poems in this section are fraught, fast-moving, tense, full of alternating hope and fear, as well as the quotidian agony of chemotherapy and imminent death:

"He woke at five, brewed
coffee, swallowed pills, injected insulin,
shaved, ate breakfast, packed
the tote with Jane's sweats he washed
at night, filled the thermos,
and left the apartment on Spring Street
to walk a block and a half
to the hospital's bone marrow floor."
("Her Long Illness")

The second half consists of the epistolary poems Hall wrote in the year and a half afterward. In contrast to the first section, the fear has turned to despair, and the poems are slower, languid, at times almost suicidal:

"I wanted this assaulting winter
to end before January ended.
But I want everything to end.
I lean forward from emptiness
eager for more emptiness:
the next thing! the next thing!"
("Midwinter Letter")

Hall is one of those poets who is capable of taking natural language and elevating it not by changing the vocabulary he uses, but by imposing rhythm and phrasing to simply make ordinary conversation (albeit one-sided, mostly, in this case) sound as good as it possibly can. This is absolutely stunning work, and with just eight days left in the year as I write this, I feel quite safe in calling Without the best book I read in 2008. I can't recommend it highly enough. *****

I am familiar..
I am very familiar with the author of Without..I have read the book The Best Day the Worst Day. This book may be short but every one of Donald Hall's poems is packed with a punch. When I sat down to read it I was absorbed..I didn't put it down until I had read the whole thing. Donald is an awesome writer and I will be looking to buy other books of his poems. The day I found this book in one of my favorite bookstores I picked up a book of poems by Jane Kenyon--that is who Donald is writing about in this collection of poems--and the book The Best Day the Worst Day is about his wife's illness.

Very moving
This is a deeply personal, moving account of one man coming to terms with his wife's illness and her eventual death. His poetry is deeply affecting, beautiful, and poignant. I highly recommend this for anyone.

A Wonderful Memorial
I wanted to read this collection of poems because I was so moved by Mr. Hall's memoir of his life with Jane Kenyon, The Best Day The Worst Day.The poems here are inspired by the same sequence of events; that is, Ms. Kenyon's death from leukemia.This unity of purpose alone, so rare in poetry collections, gives the book incredible power.Of course, this unity is not enough.Fortunately, despite the sad theme, there are a number of wonderful poems here.

I found the poems in the first half of the book--those leading up to Ms. Kenyon's death--the best."Song for Lucy," "The Porcelain Couple," "The Ship Pounding," and, especially, "A Beard for Blue Pantry" and "Blues for Polly" very moving, filled with great images like "Jane made bread so honest/it once went blue in the pantry//overnight in a heat wave" (Pantry) and "She sang blue: soulful, erotic,/skeptical, knowing everything/turns out bad in the end."Not surprisingly, blue is a linking color here.

Mr. Hall also intersperses a poem, "Her Long Illness," throughout the first half of the book.It's a risky strategy but it works well.Some of the best lines in the book come in this poem.

I didn't feel the second half of the book, which focuses more on Mr. Hall's loneliness, stood up as well as the first.The title poem, the first of the aftermath poems, is the weakest in the book.There are some passages in the various "Letters" poems that make up most of the second half that are very nice (my favorite, from "Letter in the New Year": "If someone had told us then/you would die in nineteen years,/would it have sounded/like almost enough time?") but, for the most part, they are very uneven.I was also put off by some of the semi-profane and sexual language in some of these poems.Not that these experiences aren't appropriate but they didn't ring true with the rest of the work.

It may be that the first half has the advantage of the tension of Ms. Kenyon's illness which dissolves into a less satisfying depression and loneliness in the second half.Perhaps my knowledge of the memoir interfered somewhat with my reading of some of the poems.Still, as a whole, this is definitely an excellent collection. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (9)

A Memoir of Compelling Grace
Like many people who do not follow contemporary poetry, much less read it, I wasn't conscious of Donald Hall until I read a review of his Unpacking The Boxes in the New York Times. Immediately it went onto my "To Be Read" list, and I'm glad it did.

What struck me beyond all else is Hall's balance as a person, and his willingness to write about himself honestly. In these days of so many confected, fictionalized "memoirs" this is a distinguishing element.

While the book, written when Hall was about 80, is plangent, it is also laugh out loud funny, and, therefore, hopeful. Hopeful for us all as our lives arc into their final quadrant.

Having now discovered Hall the memoirist, I'm off to discover Hall the poet. I can't wait.

"The weeds rise rank and thick"
One might be excused for thinking that Donald Hall, Poet Laureate of the United States in 2006-2007, has written as many memoirs as he has books of poetry.I may well be off by one or two (either way), but by my count UNPACKING THE BOXES is his seventh memoir.Years ago I read two of his earlier ones ("String Too Short To Be Saved" and "Life Work"), and they proved to be easy, moderately interesting and literate reads.UNPACKING THE BOXES can be described in the same way, but it doesn't quite measure up to those previous two.Maybe it has something to do with my own aging, rather than (or in addition to) Donald Hall's.

In any event, UNPACKING THE BOXES basically covers the stages of youth and old age of Donald Hall.The first three-quarters of this memoir cover his childhood in Hamden, Connecticut, schooling at Exeter, Harvard, and Oxford, and teaching at the University of Michigan.Throughout this discussion, Hall gives particular emphasis to his enthusiasm for poetry and his education and development as a poet.As a parenthetical, it is remarkable how many other distinguished poets were fellow students with Hall at Harvard circa 1950 -- for example, John Ashberry, Robert Bly, Kenneth Koch, and Adrienne Rich.At Michigan, Hall met Jane Kenyon (she was one of his students) and eventually she became his second wife.In other books, Hall has written about their 20+ years together, mostly in New Hampshire, and about her death from leukemia.The last quarter of UNPACKING THE BOXES deals with Hall's life after Jane's death, including three years of intense and debilitating grief and then Hall's own struggles with the decrepitudes of old age (he writes the book as an octogenarian).

Throughout, Hall seems to be forthright, even when the result does not reflect very favorably on him.At times, especially in the last quarter of the book when discussing his inner psychological turmoil brought on by the illness and death of Jane Kenyon, Hall's account becomes rather uncomfortable, and once again I encounter a writer who has relinquished drapes of personal privacy that I would never let drop.Does art really demand such baring of the soul or psyche?

UNPACKING THE BOXES should be of moderate interest to devotees of post-WWII American poetry, and perhaps of keen interest to fans of Donald Hall or Jane Kenyon.For the rest of us, it is, I fear, somewhat on the tepid side.

Award-winning writer, disappointing memoir
I'm disappointed. I guess I wanted more from the former poet laureate, more meat about his working his craft, rather than just pages and pages filled with the names of literary acquaintances; names of streets on which he lived; Harvard and Oxford society groups; and the receiving of grants, fellowships and awards. Beyond telling me - repeatedly - that he works on poetry from 6AM until 8AM each morning, then takes a midday nap, Hall told me little about the details of his workings.

Again...disappointed, as I am particularly fond of Hall's poetry.

A Tour of Schools--and Old Age
Hall leads readers from his earliest experiences with poetry as a public-school student in Hamden, Connecticut, before taking us to Andover (he almost flunked out), Harvard (where he began a lifelong friendship with poets such as Robert Bly and Adrienne Rich), to Oxford, Stanford, and finally to the University of Michigan, where he taught until he was able to abandon schools of all kind. He then settled on his grandparents' farm in New Hampshire, known to readers from String Too Short to be Saved, Seasons at Eagle Pond, and other books.

The last two chapters chronicle the death of his second wife from leukemia, and his struggles with various ailments in recent years.

Objections: I could have done with less about his late-in-life romances; a little too much information in some cases. Also, I found his brief excursions into politics tedious. They had that right-thinking, in-crowd tone of "of course anyone reading this book must be on my side." A sourness creeps in that is otherwise absent from the rest of the book.

Otherwise, however, this is a quick and stimulating read in Hall's characteristically simple, direct prose.

This is a How To Book - a truly inspiring story
I agree with the other reviewers here however I found a slightly different, entirely practical perspective in this book that hasn't been mentioned. Mr. Hall says that he decided to write while still a child and methodically set aside time every day to practice and perfect the craft, decades ahead of widely published research showing that mastery requires habits along these lines. He subsequently developed a disciplined process for finding inspiration, working through countless revisions and assembling collections. He shares details of building a successful freelance writing career and networking that could be a blueprint for any entrepreneur in any field. Mr. Hall's story could transition to the management books section quite easily!

I have one editorial quibble about the politics. There are reasonable arguments to be made on all sides of current issues. A clear distinction should be made between people and their views - reasonable people should be able to disagree and retain mutual respect, and reasonably skilled writers ought to articulate their points accordingly.Broad rants to the effect that 'democrats are socialists' or 'republicans are evil moneymongers' are appropriate for a devoted fan defending a favorite sports team, not for a citizen that hopes to engage in rational discourse about the issues of our times. I was very disappointed that several pages of this book were a repeat of the type of childish sniping that we can easily see on Comedy Central, or any playground for that matter, as Mr. Hall is surely capable of articulating a rational argument to support his political views. It was a dreary detour in an otherwise extremely moving and motivating story.

One other technological note - this is the first book that I read on my new Kindle and I was extremely pleased. It was easy on the eyes and easy to use. ... Read more

Product Description

Depression affects a person mentally, spiritually, and physically, greatly impacting their lives and the people they love. With empathy and clear language, psychiatrist Donald Hall explains recent scientific discoveries about the role of chemicals in the brain, and how depression, like other illnesses, has symptoms and cures.

Hall integrates spiritual, medical, and psychological principles in his SMART model that leads those suffering from depression to the hope of recovery and healing.

• Stop Addiction: Don’t make depression worse by substance abuse
• Medicate Chemical Imbalances: Have wise counsel for antidepressant management
• Adjust Expectations of Yourself: Release burdens and evaluate self–image distortions
• Revise Your Relationships with Others: Set boundaries, talk, practice forgiveness
• Track with the Holy Spirit: See your brokenness and lean on prayer and fellowship

For readers who are suffering from or living with someone dealing with depression, Hall shares fresh scientific discoveries while standing firmly on the good news of God’s hope.

Customer Reviews (5)

Great primer on depression
This book takes a very holistic view of the patient.It's nice to find a tome that doesn't claim "all you need is enough faith."I get upset when people try to limit God by saying what He can and cannot do to heal someone.

IF ONLY
This is an excellent book for both the caregiver and the victim of depression.My 20 year old college student precious soncommitted suicide as the result of deep depression 35 years ago.If only this book had been available at that time, I feel that the outcome would likely have been different bygiving me insight as a parentto openthe door of that depression and let in the sunlight that likely would have overcome my son's darken state of depression.And that to the extent that he could then avail himself of the many steps to cure as is illustrated in Dr. Hall's book.

Expert Counsel from a Top Doctor in the field.
This is an easy read and presents complex issues in a simple and meaningful manner.I highly recommend it for any one to better understand very common difficult problems and how to more effectively deal with them. Dr. Hall is one of the most expert in his field and doesn't sugar-coat issues. This is a valued resource and I have bought copies for numerous friends and family.

A MUST for pastors and churches
A GREAT BOOK THAT SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH LIBRARY AND REQUIRED READING AT EVERY SEMINARY
IT PROVIDES AN EXCELLENT LAYMAN"S EXPLANATION OF A COMPLEX MEDICAL CONDITION THAT AFFECTS SO MANY

breaking through depression
At last-a book that both enlightens and encourages.Breaking Through Depression
is a must-read for anyone who suffers from this debilitating illness, or has a friend or family member affected by depression. I wish this book had been availabe years ago.However, I am thankful it is available now. The outline given by the author makes the steps to recovery more understandable and attainable. I especially appreciate the way the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of depression are interwoven throughout the book. I intend to make Breaking Through Depression available to family and friends. ... Read more

Product Description
Paul Graves is coming of age during a time when horses and carriages shared roads with Model Ts, and new technology changed old ways of doing things. His father, Henry Graves, owner of the Graves Family Dairy, calls the new invention of pasteurization nothing but a fad . . . until one day a fever strikes Paul's sister, and his family learns a hard lesson about the need to balance change and tradition. Full color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great story line.
Good story line from when milk was fresh from a neighborhood dairy.Nice living book, plus we received an excellent price on it.I'm glad we have this in our children's library of books.Wonderful pictures.

A Short History of Milk
This is a great story of a family who runs a milk business in the days when milk was delivered by horse and wagon and pasteurization was just getting underway.It tells the joy of the work the family did and how they realized how important pasteurization was to people.Good simple history told by one family's experience.

Wonderful story and illustrations
This is a wonderful story about a family dairy farm at the turn of the 20th century and how they struggled to adapt to changing technology and the growth of the population around them.The illustrations are also beautiful and give the story a warm, historic feel. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Rare Find
Marvelous, humorous, laconic look at life in New Hampshire seasons by eminent New Englander, prizewinning poet and essayist Donald Hall.
If your family keeps everything, you will love this book. If you are from Vermont, you won't. But you must delight in Donald Hall.

The Sense of Place
I attended elementary school in a New Orleans suburb. Because we only had three seasons (summer, July and August), events like leaves turning colors in the fall or snow were theoretical concepts unless one traveled north. My only familiarity with fall and winter was a series of coloring books distributed at school, one for each month. The October one always included fall leaves, and either the December or January one would have pictures that included snow. I was always fascinated.

The changing of the leaves is one of the events that former U.S. poet laureate Donald Hall describes in "Eagle Pond," a collection of essays (and one longish poem) about New England in general and New Hampshire in particular. His mother's family came from New Hampshire and it's where Hall now lives, in a family farmhouse somewhat modernized but still close to what his ancestors knew.

The essays are divided into four sections: the Seasons at Eagle Pond, Here at Eagle Pond, Daylilies on the Hill and News from Eagle Pond. Hall takes the read on a long journey within a confined physical geography, and we're introduced to people, to an area's history, to farming as it was and is, and to the landscape. The landscape includes Eagle Pond, which is more of a lake than a pond.

As I read about the farm, the community and the state where he lives, I learned how important the sense of "place" is to him, and how it informs his poetry and writing. Place is as real to Hall's writing as Port William is to Wendell Berry and Yoknapatawpha County was to William Faulkner.

"When I was young," Hall writes, "I thought maybe the old didn't see, didn't relish the beauty they lived in. Then I learned: For more than a hundred years, anybody willing to leave this countryside has been rewarded for leaving it by more money, leisure and creature comforts. A few may have stayed from fecklessness or lack of gumption; more have stayed from family feeling or homesickness; but most stay from love. I live among a population, extraordinary in our culture, that lives where it lives because it loves its place. We are self-selected place-lovers. There's no reason to liver here except for love."

Hall says that it's likely only native New Englanders and Southerners who truly understand this notion of place. Perhaps that's a slight exaggeration, but I do know that when people ask me where I'm from, I always say "I was born and raised in New Orleans" even though I've lived far longer elsewhere than I did in New Orleans.

But that's what place does to you. That's what it does to Donald Hall.

New Hampshire Exposed
When I was growing up in suburban New York, my parents sent me to a summer camp in rural New Hampshire for a number of summers.During these summers, I fell in love with the beauty and ruggedness of New Hampshire.I spent my summers riding horses, hiking mountains and swimming in ice cold lakes.I also spent my summers swatting mosquitoes and battling poison ivy.Donald Hall's anthology, Eagle Pond, brought back memories of these summers long gone, evoking memories both sweet and bitter-sweet.Hall's writing is lyrical and poetic, using words sparingly to evoke sounds, thoughts and memories.His commentary on the shallowness of our lives when they are based purely on the present and lack historical depth is right on target.

I wish that I had read Hall's works separately.Unfortunately, they do not work too well together in anthology form.There is too much repetition, which sometimes gets annoying.This repetition is necessary if each volume stands alone, but it becomes redundant in anthology form.This does not decrease the beauty of the writing, but it does lessen the beauty of the book as a whole.
... Read more

Product Description
A lyrical journey through the seasons and passing years of one New Englander's family evokes the feeling of historical America. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (34)

The bomb!!
The Ox Cart Man is probably my favorite kids book of all time.
A Caldecott award winner.Educational and very well illustrated,
it 's worth every penny.

A Two-Year-Old's Favorite
A darling story that is beautifully illustrated. We see something new in the story every time we read it to our son. Such a nice change of pace from the usual fare.

Like folk art for kids
Oh, do I love this book! My 6-year-old has requested this book periodically since age 3, and I'm glad it's still in circulation in my house, because it gives me great pleasure to read. The illustrations are in the folk art tradition, and really capture the feeling of this early period in American history. The text is very simple, almost poetic in cadence, and yet magically detailed. I love the inventory of all the things the Ox Cart Man is bringing to market (really paints a picture of colonial farm life), the details of how he sells every last scrap (and kisses the ox goodbye), and the spare descriptions of winter and spring chores. There's something tremendously appealing in the flat simplicity of words and pictures, and their power to speak volumes on an era in history.

love this book!!
I have always loved the story, "The Ox-Cart Man". I bought this book so that I could share it with my son. We both enjoy it very much. I would recommend it to all!!!

Kind of blah, definitely not a favorite
This children's book, which looks by the illustrations to be set in the 1700s or 1800s, tells the story of a man who loads up his wagon in the fall with all the extra things his family had made or grown in the last year.He then walked 10 days to the market to sell everything (and I mean everything!), bought a few small things, then walked back home by himself to do it all over again next year.You see the cyclical nature of life when people work to grow and raise pretty much everything they need.

This book won the Caldecott medal for illustrations.The illustrations are fine, but not really my style.

The text also drags to me, too slow and repetitive:

"He sold the bag of wool.He sold the shawl his wife made.He sold five pairs of mittens.He sold candles and shingles.He sold birch brooms.He sold potatoes.He sold apples.He sold honey and honeycombs, turnips and cabbages.He sold maple sugar.He sold a bag of goose feathers."

Reading it once when we first got it was more than enough for me; I never wanted to read it again!And my children (now ages 8, 6, 4, 2, and baby) have probably asked me to read it to them only once or twice in the two years since we first got it.So, it's not a big hit with them either.Since we have the book, I'm keeping it, but I certainly would feel no need to go out and get it again when this one wears out.And, if I ever need to pare down the number of children's books we have, this would definitely be one to go.

... Read more

Product Description
This book introduces the three principal types or genres of literature: fiction, poetry, and drama in a way that helps students read literature with pleasure, intelligence, and discrimination. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

text book
I was really satisfied with my purchase. The new one in stores was about $80, but I bought this book from Amazon for $17. I received the book a little bit late, but it was a good deal. I recommend this seller to everyone who wants to buy text books.

Donald Hall's Critical Analysis Masterpeice
Donald Hall takes his College and University Audience through all phasesof the critical analysis process for Fiction, Poetry and Drama. He makes,asdo all geniuses, his subject accessable to all levels and needs.Hisexplication of symbolism and imagry is especially useful.

This is a"must read" for every aspiring student and teacher of literature. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a collection of stories diverse in subject, but sutured together by the limitless affection the author holds for the land and the people of New England. Donald Hall tells about life on a small farm where, as a boy, he spent summers with his grandparents. Gradually the boy grows to be a young man, sees his grandparents aging, the farm become marginal, and finally, the cows sold and the barn abandoned. But these are more than nostalgic memories, for in the measured and tender prose of each episode are signs of the end of things a childhood, perhaps a culture. In an Epilogue written for this edition, Donald Hall describes his return to the farm twenty-five years later, to live the rest of his life in the house of string.

We take pleasure in bringing back into print this classic account of boyhood summers in old New England, with the addition of an Epilogue and an album of family snapshots. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

delicious read
I loved every bit of this book; the descriptive writing of Donald Hall took me to another world and my only complaint is that it was too short. This book is memories of Donald growing up and spending weekends on his grandfather's farm and his experiences haying, blueberry picking and the people he spent time with. From my own farm experiences, I feel his descriptions are very true, especially haying. I read this book after Life Work which is auto-biographical, and they were terrific to read one right after the other.Next I just received Eagle Pond.If anyone has any recommendations of books like String Too Short To Be Saved, please let me know.Happy reading.

Elegies to a rural New England past...
Donald Hall first published this collection of short stories, set in the rural area of central New Hampshire, in 1960. Most of the stories reflect his summer-time experiences with his grandparents, on their farm, during the `40's. There is a Marcel Proust "Remembrance of Things Past," quality to Hall's reminisces of his youth, and the joys he experienced with his grandparents, just as Proust did, in a rural corner of his native France. A portion of that joy was the heritage that his grandparent's conveyed to him, going all the way back to his great-great grandfatherwho had participated in the Battle at Vicksburg. And the wonderful title, one that beautifully conveys the frugality of farmers who performed their life's work in a less than optimum environment for raising crops or livestock. It was derived from the label on a small box Hall found in the attic, after his grandparents were deceased, filled, as you might now guess, with small pieces of string.

But Hall is not uncritically nostalgic for a paradise lost. One of his more biting reflections is conveyed in the story "A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails." The story concerns Washington Woodward, the character who would retrieve nails from timber, and attempt to straighten them, so that they could be reused. At the beginning of the story Hall describes such people as: "So many of them lived a half-life, a life of casual waste." Hall's conclusion at the end of the story: "He has saved nails, but wasted life."..."... and his straightened nails had rusted into the dirt of Ragged Mountain."

But the preponderant aspect of his stories is nostalgic warmth, and for me, and possibly for the potential reader, the stories that may forever linger are the ones concerning a summer haying, or the picking of blueberries high on Ragged Mountain, with the attendant concerns about his grandfather's health; for his grandfather was "pushing" it to the limit. In "Luther, Nannie, and the Callers," Hall recalls the era before TV, when "The late light of the evenings of early summer invited people to ride in their automobiles, and they gave themselves reasons by paying visits." And, "He was older than my grandfather, and I remember him snatching flies out of the air with his fast hands when he was more than eighty."

Overall, Hall recounts the past that is not dead, and he says: "To be without a history is like being forgotten. My grandfather did not know the maiden names of either of his grandmothers. I thought that to be forgotten must be the worst fate of all," which was a passage that moved another reviewer. As he said in "Old Home,": "... but for many years I had daydreamed of a self-sufficient life in the country." Fortuitously, his daydreams never took the nightmare form that eventually consumed Hester in the same story.

The curious aspect of these stories is that his parents are almost completely missing, both in relationship to their parents, as well as to the author.

In the epilogue, Hall says that: "...I made that familiar confusion of personal loss with social decay; in the death of one man I saw the death of his people and his landscape." Yet life came full circle, and he decided that this particular piece of rural landscape in central New Hampshire, with its views of Mount Kearsarge, would be his final resting place. Departures, yet continuity. A solid, 5-star read of life, as it once was, in rural New England.

Hails For Hall
If you claim to like poetry or writing where the ink squiggles can actually allow you the experience of feeling the grist and sand of a place between your toes...take out any work by Donald Hall and you'll feel the tide of the New England coast coming in over your feet...Often mislabled with the churl quip, "regional writer", Mr. Hall is much more....
a master of making you feel you are where he wants to
take you...His characters come with the authenticity of having either been known, met, or viewed by Hall, or conjured from his collective memories and boiled down like a fine cider from actual sips of experience he's had with like individuals in his native New England...
...And what individuals he finds and has found in the ernest incredibly delicious confines and environs of the North East...In "String Too Short", Hall takes on the not inconsiderable task of fleshing out the rich hues of his own New England ancestory..You can smell his grandmother's kitchen, taste the dusty hay from his grandfather's barn, and feel the New Hampshire sun on your face via his entrancing and detailed prose...
Mr. Hall? Are you out there? As a one time correspondent known to him as "John-Tom" I hope all is well with the venerable "Don" of Eagle Pond...Mr. Hall has taken himself off the pony express of fans he has deservedly developed over the years...and as one who has come across his work and spent pleasant minutes and hours in fine examples of his work, recommended to other readers here such as " Their Bright And Shining Eyes", " Without", " Here At Eagle Pond", and lately, " The Painted Bed", Mr. Hall has well earned praise and a rest in the bright sun of poetry and masterful observations on life around us he has picked up through his well lived adventures and travel...ALL OF HIS WORK..highly recommended!

Excellent
A very poetic and wise account of a fading world that the author was lucky enough to be a part of. Quite moving in places, funny in others. A very satisfying book.

A Celebration of life - present and personal history
Donald Hall is a writer beautifully tangent to and cognizant ofthe New England spine we all wish to immulate in our thoughts of the 'old American spirit', a spirit too seemingly on the wane at present -even on 4th of July celebrations this year.His most recent collection of short stories , WILLOW TEMPLE , was my introduction to this Whitmanesque, Robert Frost-like wonder boy of observation.In returning to his early work in the Nonpariel Books reissue of STRING TOO SHORT TO BE SAVED one wonders why he has remained in the background, and hasn't found the wide audience he deserves.

"STRING..." is a series of short stories of Hall's recollections of spending his summers with his beloved grandparents in New Hampshire.All phases of farming and maturing from a small child to a young adult are addressed in a wholly readable, poetic, illuminating fashion.Hall knows how to describe nature as well as anyone writing today.He also revives an appreciation for his roots that we could all study as journeys towardfinding ourselves."To be without history is to be forgotten" he writes."My grandfather did not know the maiden names of either of his grandmothers. I thought that to be forgotten must be the worst fate of all."Hall invites us to accompany him on his memories of haying, picking blueberries, visiting the odd group of people who have become indelible American daguerreotypes for him. "The farm was a form: not a set of rules on the wall, but like the symmetry of winter and summer, or like the balance of day and night over the year, June against December.My grandfather lived by the form all his life, and my summers on the farm were my glimpse of it."

Simple gifts, these.And the simplicity of Donald Hall's writing is what makes it so readable and so memorable.The book stands solidly on its own as a definitive New England memoir. In this new reissue there is an added Epilog which traces Hall's return to his Hew Hapshire memories and farm after many life changes. This Epilogue is worth the price of the book.If only this edition weren't tainted by the crudely inappropriate pen and ink pictures imposed on the pages of each new chapter.But that is the only unnecessary clutter in this otherwise tender book. ... Read more

Product Description
Distinguished poet Donald Hall and award-winning artist Barry Moser have teamed up to create a hilarious, affectionate portrait in contrasts of our companions, and often best friends, a cat and a dog. With evocative words and masterful paintings, they delineate the doginess and catlike qualities that everyone will recognize. Full-color illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Item good.Amazon bad
The item was fine, but due to a glitch in the system, I was sent two items instead of one.I sent the extra item back to Amazon within the required time period with an explanation of my dilema.I requested they notify me when item received and my credit card be credited the amount of the returned item purchase price.
Upon receiving my package, they (Amazon) quickly repackaged the same item with my note attached and sent it back to me with NO explanation of why they wouldn't accept my return.
I've done alot of business with Amazon in the past as well as all my family Membere. My daughter had mentioned to me that Amazon was difficult with returns, but I didn't think it would ever happen to me. None of us will ever purchase from them again.These items can be purchased directly from the manufacturer, or other retailers. No one needs to deal with Amazon.I also noticed they raised a few of their prices now thatthe holiday season is here.Thanks Amazon for showing your true colors!

Cute book!
I thought this book was the best when I was a kid, and I still love it!It is one of the cutest books I have ever read!I am now in the 8th grade, and I used this book for a speech competition with my friend.We got a superior (not to brag or anything).This book is probabally for kids from ages 5-8.

Beautiful illustrations
This is a great book for primary grade students.The illustrations are large and wonderful to look at.The text captures the devotion of a dogand the aloofness of a cat to perfection!I loved it!

A Perfect Depiction of Dogs and Cats
I Am the Dog I Am the Cat doesn't tell a story - instead it tells about the characters of a cat and a dog.Anyone who has ever owned either will recognize the essence of the animals in Hall's excellent verse, whileMoser's elegant illustrations capture the dog and the cat beautifully.

I recommend this book to anyone who has ever had a pet or ever hopes tohave one.Excellent for reading aloud, but be prepared for some ratherurgent requests for a dog (or a cat) when the book is done. ... Read more

Product Description

Co-authored by two esteemed writers, Writing Well, is a beautifully-written and thoroughly readable guide to the craft of writing prose. 

Customer Reviews (1)

good writing resource
There are a lot of books out there that tell you how to write, some are inspirational, others teach grammar. This book mixes the two to emphasize proper usage of sentence structure and linguistics to write the strongest prose. The book also centers on revision to ensure better, polished writing. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a story about a man who lives alone because he chooses to. In his cabin in the New England woods, he lives with his collection of old newspapers and carefully saved nails, his mule and his owl. His much loved cousin, Nan, is just close enough to him to visit now and then. The man who lives alone leads a solitary life: quiet and content.



In simple, lyrical prose, Donald Hall creates a moving and believable portrait of this affectionate, eccentric man, from childhood to old age. We understand why he is the way he is, the names and pictures of his days, and, finally, how those days will end. It's a story about self-sufficiency and about solitude, about the difference between loneliness and being alone, about living and about dying. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A fantasy that many modern adults entertain from time to time
It seems to be a sociological law that every rural neighborhood must contain an eccentric old man. This story is about a man that lives quietly among the animals and other living creatures of the forest. He is not a hermit avoiding contact; he does odd jobs to pay his bills and has pleasant visits with people on a regular basis. Content with his self-selected lifestyle, the man has lived alone in his small cottage nearly all his life. Yet, he is not by himself, the spirit of nature is with him always.
There is an infinite set of paths that a person can take through life and some of them are uncommon yet extremely fulfilling. To live a life outside the rushed and competitive environment of the modern world is a fantasy that most people entertain from time to time. This book is not only an expression of that fantasy, but it is also a lesson for children that the eccentric person that you may be tempted to make fun of might have a sustained better quality of life than you will ever enjoy.

Peace
I love four things about this book. First, this great contemporary poet wrote it. It also reminds me of Fisherman Simms, a book from my childhood featuring a similar character and pastoral setting. I love the simple but elegant black and white pen and ink illustrations.

I also love the story. The nameless man built a camp on Ragged Mountain and lived alone collecting things, thousands of rusty nails, deer pelts, old newspapers and clocks, and "wasps nests hanging from railroad spike." He built a shed for his mule, who does have a name--Old Beauty. He survived a terrible childhood, a house fire, and when he was 14 left home and tramped around until he returned home to visit his cousins, who made a few years of his youth happy. He liked eating vegetables because "that is what the woodchuck ate." He made friends with an owl named Grover Cleveland. He worked as a carpenter and could do everything else too.

Not much happens here. But this story offers an intense tranquility that others lack. In our harried age, children need this kind of peace. Alyssa A. Lappen

One of if not the most wonderful books I have ever read
I read this book as a fresh eyed 18 year old.I am now a 40 year old woman tattered but not shattered.This happens to be one of those books so rare to me, I feel the same way about it today as I did the first time I ever read it.I gave my copy to my sister an English Lit. teacher.She uses it every semester.Mr. Hall signed it for her.I now only have a photo copy of it and it breaks my heart that I don't have the book. God Bless Mr. Hall and his most magnificent literary ability. ... Read more

Product Description
This explores the history of theories of selfhood, from the Classical Era to the present, and demonstrates how those theories can be applied in literary and cultural criticism. ... Read more

Product Description
Affirmation

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond"s edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

the lives of poets
living from day to day, donald hall quotes himself from an earlier book, The Long Day' for a section epigram:

`Work, love, build a house, and die.'

a shakespearean summation ofhall's life with his wife, the poet, jane kenyon, expressed after her death.one must appreciate the difficulty overcome to write the poems in The Painted Bed.

`When she died, he died also.For the first year
his immediate grief confused him into feeling alive.
He endured the grief of a two-month love affair.
When women angry and free generously visited
the frenzy of his erotic grief, melancholia
became ecstasy, then sank under successful dirt.'

the above stanzas from the first poem, Kill the Day, tally the tones as prologue of a collection of what, with the exception of the poem `Day Lilies on the Hill' could be considered one long poem. the death of hall's wife, his stages of grief, the subsequent number of women as lovers who arrived later, and anaffirmation of `delicious' resignation written inthe collection's final poem , `affirmation' :

`To grow is to lose everything.
__________________________________________

Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.'

hall is due immense respect for a work ethic he brings to the life of the poet, a profession without time clock, by going to work even on the worst of days.the work of the poet is not lost.

' "The days you work," said O'Keeffe, "are the best days."
Work without love is idle ...'

poems in `the painted bed' are presented in different forms.hall also draws psychological sustenance from the poets who wrote before him.one of them thomas hardy, from his poem `The Voice', hall borrows for an epigram:

`Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward
And the woman calling.'

most telling is the hardy's first stanza:

`Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.'



Daylilies on the Hill, composed in unrhymed sestinas, between 1975-1089, chronicles in part the personal history of hall's grandparents, the house of theirs built in the 19th century, inherited by donald hall, and of the neighbors and rural new england farm life.

Intimate musings
Donald Hall continues to share with the reader his pain of loss, the loss of his beloved Jane.Many of the poems are similar to the prose/memoir he wrote of her.His pain is palpable and intimate.

gets a bit weighty
Donald Hall's collection The Painted Bed sort of does more of the same, lamenting the loss of his wife. A poem or two is one thing, but whole book? There are some good poems in this book, both of the long poems are pretty good ("Kill the Day" & "Daylillies on the Hill"). Hall's painted bed is just too much, though I also thought "Impossible Lovers" was pretty good.

Magnificent
Heartbreak recollected in sublimity. The long "Daylilies" poem tells of the loss of the poet's family members over two centuries in his New Hampshire farmhouse. Walls, beams, lathe, handmade nails, everything about the house goes into a sense of infinite loss over the centuries and parallels the loss of his wife. We all go into the night, but it's great to go in the hands of a poet like Hall.

On Death and Dying
At 47 Jane Kenyon, much younger than her husband Donald Hall, should have buried him; but that was not meant to be. In this slim volume of poetry, Hall writes eloquently of his wife's death, his love for her, his grief, despair and eventual acceptance of life without his wife. The poems are best if read straight through. They are highly personal, sometimes almost embarrassingly so. We should thank Mr. Hall for sharing his most intimate thoughts on such a private and painful subject.

Mr. Hall's imagery is beautiful. Listen to the opening lines of "Kill The Day."

"When she died it was as if her car accelerated
off the pier's end and zoomed upward over death water
for a year without gaining or losing altitude. . . "

In the poem "Ardor" lust is described as "grief that has turned over in bed to look the other way." Finally in the concluding poem in the book "Affirmation" Hall describes the indifference of the young to growing old with this wonderful image: "we row for years on the midsummer pond, ignorant and content."

These poems bring, if not comfort, at least the knowldge that we are not alone in our own losses. As in all good art, the particular becomes the universal. ... Read more

Product Description
The standard reference in architecture and building construction, this Seventh Edition has been completely rewritten and revised with new contributions by over eighty world authorities and specialists. Now in a convenient single volume, it reflects essential changes and new knowledge in the field of architecture since the last edition 15 years ago. Part I contains new reference articles on the fundamentals of architecture and design. Part II contains design data on all aspects of architectural design and building construction, including substructure, superstructure, building shell, interiors, and services, and is formatted according to the Uniformat II classification system. First published in 1946, McGraw-Hill's Time-Saver Standards is one of the world's most widely consulted and respected references on architectural design and building construction fundamentals and data. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

contens of the I want to read
The main contents of the book,please ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of essays by contemporary American poets on the subject of their art
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Love it
It was assigned as a textbook for class, but I've fallen in love with this book.It helps clarify my own opinions about poetry and writing in general.There's not a lot of poetry in it, but a lot of amazing opinions about it.Highly recommended reading. ... Read more