The authors provide unique case studies of how and where to use PHP drawn from their own extensive Web experience </ul>
Download Description
* This comprehensive tutorial and reference covers all the basics of PHP 5, a popular open source Web scripting language, and MySQL 4.012, the most popular open source database engine
* Explores why users need PHP and MySQL, how to get started, how to add PHP to HTML, and how to connect HTML Web pages to MySQL
* Offers an extensive tutorial for developing applications with PHP and MySQL
* Includes coverage of how to install, administer, and design MySQL databases independently of PHP; exception and error handling; debugging techniques; PostgreSQL database system; and PEAR database functions
* The authors provide unique case studies of how and where to use PHP drawn from their own extensive Web experience
Customer Reviews:
Worth every penny.......2007-05-14
Most of the Bible series of books are worth the money you pay for them, and this one is no exception.
Good informative book, great for the beginner and a good read for the advanced.
Not good for reference, but then it isn't supposed to be.
Poorly organized.......2007-04-25
I purchased this book off the shelf before reading any reviews. I was looking for a specific solution for one of Viking Water's clients, so I reviewed the books by looking through their indices. Of all the PHP books on a well-stocked shelf, this was the only one to tackle dynamic drop-down lists, which is my heartburn of the moment.
After reading through 1/4 of it (skimming in some cases), I agree with other reviewers that it may not be the best way to learn PHP from scratch. If you're conversant with "C" or Perl, it can be a slightly useful tool. However, if you're new to programming this may not be the book for you since a lot of PHP is modeled on "C" and the authors unconsciously assume a basic familiarity with that language, even though they attempt to cater to the non-C programmer.
One of the interesting features of the book is that the authors often explain surrounding HTML code, even though the book assumes a familiarity with the HTML language. If you're not an HTML guru, it will be nice to have the explanation right in front of you rather than having to haul out (or look up) your HTML reference. For instance: their explanation of the subtle difference between POST and GET would be very interesting to someone who is weak in that area.
However, the code examples are poorly commented which can make them difficult to follow if you are trying to learn the language(s) involved from scratch.
confusing book. Not well written, probably made in a hurry........2006-08-23
This book often uses concepts and code explained only in following chapters. I should have read the other (bad) reviews on Amazon before buying my copy in a library. Unfortunately I was in hurry. Now I am at page 202 and I am not sure whether I should continue or quit and wait 8 more days to get a better book.
educational AND entertaining.......2005-09-27
This book is not meant to be a profound cache of code-snippets. Indeed there are some coding errors. I freely admit that I learned raw html "OJT" years ago, with little reason or time to learn anything more involved that wasn't required of me. I was a designer, typesetter and layout hanger, not a programmer. I have no experience in C or in Java. Call me a programmer groupie, I have dozens of family, friends and acquaintances who program miracles daily in all different alleys while I play a "very aesthetic game of tiddleywinks". When I began getting clients who wanted websites that DID things instead of just glorified yellow-page ads, this "turkey" asked all of the "eagles" which way to turn -- they looked at what I needed and what paths that might lead to, and they all said PHP. I started playing around with canned PHP webapps about two years ago, and I quickly picked up how to install mods and then modify those same mods no sweat, but even with a few different sorts of PHP/MySQL in 24 hours, one week, etc. books -- I never really understood the WHY's and HOW's of the GUTS of those webapps [framework, huh?!], let alone how to create even the simplest of freestanding flat calls, all of which have recently begun to make my life SO much easier. I quickly learned that those 24 hours/one week/etc. style books are ALMOST STRICTLY made for folks with C and Java experience even though the books desperately claim otherwise. Why did I choose this book? Because a few friends of mine who have been working with PHP since near the beginning told me that this was one of the few version'd books that always has a worthwhile amount to offer both beginners and seasoned pro's, as well as everyone in between. I actually started reading this one cover to cover, and was not the slightest bit disappointed in my investment. Let me clarify -- I actually COULD read this one cover to cover without wondering what magical decoder ring I was missing. Instead of a code snippet "Instant PHP" book, I finally wound up with one that I can look at the examples in the book, and without even trying the examples verbatim, write my own similar but original code for what *I* want to accomplish. I don't know Jane Adams, I am not her banker, and I don't know what I would do with her recipe database so 6 page long examples of how to code any of that to be used verbatim in 24 hours are of little value to me. Yes, the book jumps around -- there's a heck of a lot to cover here! 1000+ pages might seem rather hefty, but it has been a godsend for me. Take the reviews however you will; I found it extremely educational AND entertaining, and having seen dog-earred copies in the offices of some of said "eagles" -- I am fairly certain there is some great stuff in here for PHP pro's too. If you really feel the need, give it a few minutes at your local bookshop -- then come back to Amazon for the killer discount. You won't be disappointed!
Worth Reading.......2005-08-30
As the other reviewers have stated, there are quite a few code errors. However, I was impressed by the content. The dialog within the book is comprehensive as well as enjoyable. This is not a dry manual. It does jump around, but with so much covered, there's no correct navigational path to develop each topic in succession. I found it great to read the book, but create my own code based on examples found in the book. (Copying the code line by line didn't help me. However, copying the general information contained really expanded my knowledge.) This is a book for beginner and intermediate programmers interested in PHP.
Average customer rating:
- Breakdown
- I Agree
- A painstaking, plodding read
- Wonderful book by a remarkable writer.
- Very slow and dissapointing
|
Europa
Tim Parks
Manufacturer: Arcade Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Contemporary
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Literary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
- Adultery and Other Diversions
- Italian Education
- A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals!
- Burmese Days: A Novel
- Destiny : A Novel
ASIN: 1559704446 |
Amazon.com
Jerry Marlow is on a coach hurtling from Milan to Strasbourg, even though he loathes coaches and everything they stand for: <blockquote>...all the contemporary pieties of getting people together and moving them off in one direction or another to have fun together, or to edify themselves, or to show solidarity to some underprivileged minority and everybody, as I said, being of the same mind and of one intent, every individual possessed by the spirit of the group, which is the very spirit apparently of humanity, and indeed that of Europe, come to think of it, which this group is now hurtling off to appeal.</blockquote> Jerry, suffice to say, is not a team player--not even when it comes to saving his own job. Together with a group of colleagues and students from the University of Milan, he's off to the European Parliament to protest new Italian laws against hiring foreigners--a cause which he opposes, appealing to an institution he's not sure should exist.
So why is Jerry on the coach in the first place? Because she is there--the same she for whom Jerry left his wife and daughter and who has since broken his heart. The unnamed she in question is a beautiful French woman (of course), a hellcat in bed (it goes without saying), and an intellect of notable refinement (naturellement). She was also unfaithful, and now they scarcely speak to one another. The rest of this dark and often savagely funny novel (shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize) consists of one great Joycean rant, a stream-of-consciousness harangue that circles obsessively around sex, the treachery of she, and Jerry's boundless misanthropy. In between we get glimpses of the bus and its motley cast of characters, including, most vividly, Vikram Griffiths, part Welsh, part Indian, with his nervous tics and his self-consciously Welsh accent and his shaggy mutt, Dafydd. As one might deduce from the title, the dream of the new, unified Europe looms behind this tale like--well, like a big, unwieldy metaphor, given expression in the form of Jerry's affair. As a meditation on the continent's future, the novel works surprisingly well, and though it initially takes some time to sort out the looping rhythms of Parks's prose, the reader's patience is repaid in spades. --Mary Park
Customer Reviews:
Breakdown.......2001-12-26
Of all the thousands of books I have read, this is my all-time favourite. The most beautiful prose I have ever read is contained within these pages. The style is deeply contemplative and finely detailed - reminiscent, at times, of Proust's Recherche Du Temps Perdu. The story meanders through the obsessive musings of the narrator as he allows himself to be led reluctantly on a bizarre and seemingly pointless expedition. Like Hemingway, Tim Parks possesses a distinctly expatriate view of life in continental Europe. His wry commentary on the idiosyncracies of the European Union is strikingly apt even today, as anyone who has had the dubious pleasure of living within its borders will swiftly realise.
Europa is a story of and for the introspective among us - those prone to incessant reflection and, inevitably, regret.
I Agree.......2001-06-05
Pretentious appears to be a common observation about this book and its central character Jerry Marlow. The word is really not intense enough, for if there is a superlative form of pretentious this book and most of its characters would qualify for the description.
Hypocrisy would be another apt description as the main character believes in nothing that he participates in, and this is the man who is to give the presentation of grievances to the European Union that are being brought via, "The Shag Wagon". The members of this tale are firstly the academics and secondly their blindly supportive students. For the former group of Academic males the later groups of students are essentially targets of opportunity for personal romps.
The book appears to be a commentary on the absurdity of the European Union and that requires the affected pretensions of the characters to communicate the idea. The, "United States Of Europe" sounds like a punch line from a joke to begin with, and only gets better when the country that will function as the central bank for this United Europe is Germany. And people wonder why England wants nothing to do with this mess! The 20th Century's History alone is enough to ensure this Union never prospers. In the book one currency is being devalued as if its the 1920's and 30's of Germany, and in real life the value of the Euro started sinking virtually the day it was initialized.
At times the story is funny in a gray pathetic sort of way, but it also becomes tragically dark and exploitative as it winds down. The Author uses a variety of ways to show just how artificial the links to a United Europe are. There is Vikram; a man who is Welsh, but due to an Indian background is dark of complexion, so he exemplifies Europe without borders as he is also discriminated against because of his complex ethnicity.
Jerry Marlow like his fellow teachers is an instructor in languages. However regardless of the language an event takes place in, his memory can only recall it in English. Personal conduct is also brutally contrasted between characters of different nations, and may bother a few readers for the cliché's they reinforce.
As a final comment the Author's style takes some acclimatizing as well. Mr. Parks likes to write in paragraphs that run to multiple pages, and sentences that should be multiple paragraphs. This makes for a run on stream of consciousness that you will either embrace or detest. This is the first work I have read by this Author, I may try again but it is not a priority.
A painstaking, plodding read.......2001-03-28
I wanted to like this book, I really did. The seductive cover, high praise on the jacket, and the fact that this novel was "shortlisted" for the famed British Booker Prize whet my appetite. But I must say, having just put it down, that the book was one agonizing read.
The premise for the novel is hopeful - a 45 year old visiting professor at the University of Milan, against his better judgment, joins a motorcoach full of academics and students on a trip to the European Parliament, to protest perceived discrimination by Italian laws restricting their employment. Apparently many of these visiting professors took their jobs as a temporary measure, on a break from writing books or furthering their academic careers elsewhere, and then realized they wanted to keep teaching despite agreeing to term limits.
In any event, Marlow agrees to accompany the motley crew despite having no real passion for the cause. There is some unspoken belief that the trip will result in decadence and romance among the students and their older lectors, whose jobs they are all presumably fighting to retain. In fact the whole idea was hatched by a Welsh Indian named Vikram, who chases anything in a skirt, with a wink to our narrator. The reader is reminded a little of the "key party" of The Ice Storm as the riders of the bus begin to nervously sort out their roommates for the hotel.
We soon learn that Jerry is plagued with guilt, and that he is obsessed with one of the younger members of the entourage, referred to throughout the book namelessly as "she," with whom Jerry previously carried on an extended torrid affair that ended very badly. Jerry feels guilty for striking the girl, and is likewise guilty about walking out on his wife and teenage daughter after confessing of his affair. At the climax of the novel, as the group makes their pitch at Parliament, Jerry's daughter turns 18 back home without him.
Europa is told in the first person, and Jerry's account of the trip is endlessly interrupted by long, looping narrative histories of his affair, of his prior philosophical discussions with his girlfriend, and of his chauvinistic rambling with other male professors discussing conquests of their "totties" (apparently a British term for loose women). The action is never in the here and now, as the reader is taken on one digression after another. For example, a simple question posed to Jerry, when his fellow bus rider asks him what he is reading, leads to pages of self-analytical nonsense that leaves the reader numb. Parks never stays with the action long enough to engage the reader's attention, even when the plot seems to be moving toward an engrossing idea or event. I know it's stream of consciousness, and perhaps we all think like Jerry narrates, but I still like a little bit of plot and narrative structure to my novels.
There were a few memorable parts to be sure. Jerry's devastating skewering of the film Dead Poet's Society (which the party watched on monitors on the coach) forever changed the way I view that movie. And the bittersweet tale of a past dinner party involving Jerry, his wife and daughter, and a clearly disturbed Vikram and his young son left a lasting impression. Unfortunately, these lucid moments came all too infrequently in a book dominated by rambling, middle-aged angst. This would have made a better novella than a full length novel.
Wonderful book by a remarkable writer........2001-03-10
I read this rather lenghty book in two consecutive days, immersed in Park's looping, breathtaking, inner monologue, stream of conscience writing. This novel is about an obsessive love afair, a troubled, alienated, at times self-loathing academic with his heart not in the academic game show at all, a tale about the "other" as another reviewer succintly put it, about the complexities of life and the self, and more. A tour de force for this remarkable but underrated writer, with a writing style unlike anything you 've read recently, managing to be literary without being tedius and artificial(see m. amis, pynchon, barth et al.for that), and a striking, powerful ending. Park's musings on life and philosophy, european history and themes are never out of place or turgid, and they make very good reading material, adding a texture to the words.
Caught up in an unsatisfying marriage, a dead-end lifeless job, a failed yet once passionate and potentialy life-changing love affair, conflicting feelings and instability, Jerry the protagonist somehow agrees to take a trip to the European parliament to express his disagreement with the wage cuts on his job, which he does not particularly like, with a few fellow academics and a number of female students at his Italian university, and, of course, the french woman who is the cause (or is she just the pretext) for his recent worries. Riding on a bus through Europe and at the same time travelling intensely in his thoughts and memories, Jerry Marlow finds himself thinking more and living less in the present. While all too human interaction takes place, he stays a shadowy figure for the most part of the book for any outsiders to his consciousness. Memory mingles with outer reality, obsession takes hold of him, until they finally arrive to their destination (to his destination possibly) where the last act is played.
The mental images from the various settings of the book come back to me very vividly as I write these lines. This is a really good book and I am not going to spoil it any more for you with my mediocre analysis. I hope I made clear that this is not your average type of novel.
Do read it.
Very slow and dissapointing.......2001-01-25
Yet another novel written about the field of the author, full of boring and self indulging insites into the world of academia. Pretentiously written - how many words can he fit in one sentence? I've read almost all of Parks work, including the excellent Cara Massimina and the pathetic Shear, and this is by far the worst. Don't waste your money.
Average customer rating:
- Medici Lite
- Informative book that also makes for a good read
- Brilliant History of the Rise and Decline of the Medici
- All In The Family
- Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art of Fifteenth-Century Florence
|
Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence (Enterprise) (Enterprise)
Tim Parks
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Communications
| Skills
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Economic History
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
| Albania
| Ancient
| Andorra
| Austria
| Belgium
| Bosnia and Herzegovina
| Bulgaria
| Central Europe
| Croatia
| Cyprus
| Czech Republic
| Denmark
| Eastern
| Eastern Europe
| England
| Estonia
| Finland
| Former Soviet Republics & Siberia
| France
| General
| Germany
| Greece
| Hungary
| Iceland
| Ireland
| Italy
| Latvia
| Liechtenstein
| Lithuania
| Luxembourg
| Macedonia
| Malta
| Moldova
| Monaco
| Netherlands
| Norway
| Poland
| Portugal
| Romania
| Russia
| San Marino
| Scandinavia
| Scotland
| Serbia
| Slovakia
| Slovenia
| Spain
| Sweden
| Switzerland
| Ukraine
| Vatican
| Wales
| Western
| Yugoslavia
Look Inside Business Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside History Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
- The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets
- The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall
- Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence
- The Cardinal's Hat: Money, Ambition, and Everyday Life in the Court of a Borgia Prince
- The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism
ASIN: 0393328457 |
Book Description
<B>The remarkable story of the Renaissance's preeminent financiers. "A swift and brilliant synthesis of finance, politics, and history."—Ben Sisario, New York Times Book Review</B><BR><BR>Their name is a byword for immense wealth and power, but before their renown as art patrons and noblemen the Medicis built their fortune on banking—specifically, on lending money at interest. Banking in the fifteenth century, even at the height of the Renaissance, meant running afoul of the Catholic Church's prohibition against usury. It required more than merely financial skills to make a profit, and the legendary Medicis—most famously Cosimo and Lorenzo ("the Magnificent")—were masterly in wielding the political, diplomatic, military, and even metaphysical tools that were needed to maintain their family's position.<BR><BR>In this brisk and witty narrative, Tim Parks uncovers the intrigues, dodges, and moral qualities that gave the Medicis their edge. Vividly evoking the richness of the Florentine Renaissance and the Medicis' glittering circle, replete with artists, popes, and kings, Medici Money is a brilliant look into the origins of modern banking and its troubled relationship with art and religion. 14 illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
Medici Lite.......2007-03-28
Entertaining, light-hearted summary of the Medici family fortunes at their height in Florence, in a most non-academic style. Definitely for anyone interested in the Renaissance and especially art patronage who doesn't want to plough through a heavy piece of work of the era. Also thought the book provided hints of other aspects of Florence and its personalities to explore, especially about business entrepreneurs turning their fortunes into art collections.
Informative book that also makes for a good read.......2006-07-26
Parks' book encompasses the lives of the five heads of the Medici family, and simultaneously through the history of the city of Florence. Through the eyes of the city of Florence, we see Italy, and through slightly foggier lenses, all of Europe.
Parks clearly has a deep love and respect for the more medieval (as opposed to Renaissance) parts of his tale. If you are expecting a hagiographical account of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his great contributions to art, architecture and learning, this isn't the right book.
I picked this book up because I had an interest in the economic side of the Renaissance. For me, one of the more fun sides of history is following the dollars and cents to find an alternative rationale behind the traditional story. And in the first half of this book, Parks provides the goods.
Without talking down to the reader, he makes VERY complicated financial transactions seem simple enough that with a little extra care and attention, they are not only able to be followed, but able to be understood. The multiple types of profitable banking transations are complicated enough for a non-finance major, but when added to the necessity of covering their tracks to avoid falling afoul of Florentine law, Church law, the laws of England, Germany (and even Poland!), personal ethics and morals, and even the taxman, it is amazing that I finished the book, nonetheless enjoyed it and remember it.
The book is more or less chronological. He concentrates on five Medicis, and the chapters covering the first two, Giovanni and Cosimo, are by far the best. And if you are going to study the Medicis as bankers and politicians, rather than as art patrons, poets, and humanists, this makes sense; but it does mean that the book ends weakly. It does read a bit like "The Rise and Fall of the Medici Family", and he spares little when describing the fall. Much of the blame is placed on Lorenzo's unwillingness to learn the family trade (banking), considering it almost beneath him.
A surprise bonus in this book is the detailed account of Florentine politics during these 100 years. Parks is almost as gifted describing the complicated nature of a republic illegally ruled by an autocratic family as he is a bank illegally profiting from interest bearing loans. He falters slightly when inserting his personal opinions and when unable to refrain from making occasional comparisons to modern politics, but all-in-all, his description of the political situation is just as fascinating (and complicated) as the economic portions.
Brilliant History of the Rise and Decline of the Medici.......2006-06-23
This is mainly a history of the Medici banking enterprise, and it is fascinating to learn just how the bank declined. The problem was the passing of generations of bankers who loved banking. Their successors, unfortunately, were more interested in the social aspects of belonging to the Medici banking family. This lead to their spending more time being friends with royalty and other high potentates than on the bank itself. Consequently, the Medici banking house went into decline that ultimately proved terminal.
The fate of the Medici bank has been repeated over and over in history as there are all too often cases of virtuous and hard working founders whose creations were ultimately wasted away by relatively lazy successors.
In event, this is a great book that sheds new light on a subject that had already been heavily written about.
All In The Family.......2006-05-03
I read this book the same week I watched the fifth season of the Sopranos. The combination was serendipitous. Cosimo Medici has more style and class than Tony Soprano, but in many other ways they are remarkably alike. They're such family guys!
Tim Parks is an excellent writer, a witty and companionable guide to a time and place not nearly as remote from our modern age as we would like to imagine.
Parks successfully and succinctly portrays the Medicis, their contemporaries, their passions, and their flaws. Medici Money has everything: money, power, religion, war, politics, even a little sex.
You'd have to attend a Washington, D.C. power prayer breakfast with a herd of hungover lobbyists, a few calculating Pentagonistas, some self-satisfied lawyers and several jackleg congressmen to find a similarly fascinating and amusing engagement of these themes.
Yes, in many ways we're really not that different from those Florentines of five centuries ago. Sadly, some of the ways in which we are different do us no credit.
The art in the meeting room of the Marriott where these modern notables meet to pray and greet will consist of risible facsimiles of real paintings produced by an assembly-line gallery incorporated in Delaware. The breakfast itself will feature chewy scrambled eggs, unconvincing croissants and mock-designer coffee. Later, they'll go to work in boxy offices in boxy triumphalist buildings, and at night they'll drive their boxy SUVs to their boxy lairs in boxy D.C. suburbs. Their dinners will come out of (you guessed it) boxes.
One of the delights of this book is the author's loving depiction of some of the extraordinary works of painting, tapestry, sculpture, and other art commisioned by the Medicis and their contemporaries and rivals. And aaaah! The food of 15th century Florence! The architecture! The music!
The rich we have with us always. But they're far more tolerable when they choose to display their wealth and power with great works of art instead of Hummers, plasma TVs, and McMansions.
One of the charming sub-themes of Medici Money is that if you're going to hell, you might as well go in style and enjoy the good things of life along the way.
Happily, those of us who not only lack the financial resources to go to hell in fabulous style but can barely afford to indulge our book addictions are able to enjoy a few good things of life, too.
This book is one of them.
Ba-da-bing!
Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art of Fifteenth-Century Florence.......2006-03-22
This is a must read for anyone interested in fifteenth-century Italy. Tim Parks has drawn a picture that illustrates how the banking system worked and how money was circulated with the polical pressures of the day. A great fun read.
Average customer rating:
- The Garden is lush
- The Italian Jewish Novel
- A beautiful Garden
- haunting love story
- Fine Novel
|
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)
Giorgio Bassani
Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Literary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Historical
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
- The Leopard
- The Garden Of The Finzi Continis
- The Conformist
- Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism
- Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year
ASIN: 1400044227
Release Date: 2005-07-19 |
Amazon.com
Giorgio Bassani's masterwork has Vittorio de Sica's 1971 film adaptation to thank for its dual success and obscurity. Not enough people know that this tale of a middle-class Jewish youth's obsession with the far more aristocratic Micol Finzi-Contini stems from a novel, not a novelization. Bassani's doom- and tomb-ridden examination of one-sided love is far more complex--about individuals' inability to contend with personal and political annihilation. Events call for heroism, yet it seems "downright absurd that now, all of a sudden, exceptional behavior was demanded of us." The narrator writes in retrospect, 13 years after World War II's end, and reveals the Finzi-Continis' 1943 deportation to Germany right from the start: "Who could say if they found any sort of burial at all?"
As Fascist racial laws go from strength to strength, the family, which had long isolated itself from the other inhabitants of Ferrara, opens its walled grounds and tennis court to other young Jews and even returns to the local temple. Unfortunately, the situation encourages the narrator's dream that Micol will return his love, and she is forced into cruel honesty. "She looked into my eyes, and her gaze entered me, straight, sure, hard: with the limpid inexorability of a sword."
The author has re-created a tragic era in which even nobility could not outrun events, let alone admit they needed to. (For a nonfiction account of the fates of five Italian Jewish families under fascism, see Alexander Stille's Benevolence and Betrayal.) Bassani's elision of historical and personal agony is furthermore superbly translated by William Weaver. All is foretold in the novel's Manzonian epigraph, "The heart, to be sure, always has something to say about what is to come, to him who heeds it. But what does the heart know? Only a little of what has already happened."
Book Description
Giorgio Bassani’s acclaimed novel of unrequited love and the plight of the Italian Jews on the brink of World War II has become a classic of modern Italian literature.
Made into an Academy Award—winning film in 1970, The Garden of the Finzi—Continis is a richly evocative and nostalgic depiction of prewar Italy. The narrator, a young middle-class Jew in the Italian city of Ferrara, has long been fascinated from afar by the Finzi-Continis, a wealthy and aristocratic Jewish family, and especially by their daughter Micol. But it is not until 1938 that he is invited behind the walls of their lavish estate, as local Jews begin to gather there to avoid the racial laws of the Fascists, and the garden of the Finzi-Continis becomes an idyllic sanctuary in an increasingly brutal world. Years after the war, the narrator returns in memory to his doomed relationship with the lovely Micol, and to the predicament that faced all the Ferrarese Jews, in this unforgettably wrenching portrait of a community about to be destroyed by the world outside the garden walls.
Customer Reviews:
The Garden is lush.......2007-03-18
Bassani's Garden is a book worth reading. I enjoyed it because it seemed to capture a world about which I knew little before: aristocratic and middle class Italian Jewish society before the second world war. It is a melancholy world to be sure, but not unpleasant. Tim Parks' introduction to the always well-produced Everyman edition was well done, and shed light on aspects of the novel of which I was not aware. Readers of Lampedusa's The Leopard will likely enjoy The Garden, as both take a literarily mature and nostalgic look at a society which no longer exists. For myself, I enjoyed The Leopard better, but this is to take nothing away from The Garden, which is fine in its own right.
The Italian Jewish Novel.......2004-11-23
If you are looking for a narrative investigation into the Jewish identity in Italy, you will love "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" and its insight on the awkward years after the approval of the racial laws in Italy. Similarly, the protagonist's vain and self-defeating struggle for love in times of impinging war deploys a tension worth of such classics as Stendhal, Henry James, or the Brontes. (A painstaking quote of a poem by Emily Dickinson signs a major turn of the plot, and could possibly disclose the whole meaning of the novel.) I wish other books by Bassani were currently available in English.
A beautiful Garden.......2004-02-21
We know so much about German Jews and the problems they faced with the Nazism, and so little on the Italian Jews in the same time, that Giorgio Bassani's `The Garden of Finzi-Continis' stands as a remarkable thing. This is not the only reason to read and praise this novel. This book is filled with wonderful characters that make it a great work of fiction.
Set in an Italian small town called Ferrara, `Garden...' follows a couple of years in the life of the narrator. Years after the events, he is forced to remember the whole story, and that's the beginning of the narrative's journey. We follow him from a small and naïve boy worried with school grades until when he is a grown-up in love with the Finzi-Contini girl and has his political sense developed.
Bassani has a wonderful prose. Many pages of the book are devoted to beautifully evocative descriptions of things like the house, the city, the garden. That is one of the things that make this book so magical.
Another one is its vivid characters. Everyone seems to be real people and not literary creations, and this is a great achievement for a writer. The narrator is the person who goes through the most drastic transformation. Throughout his story he learns the importance of his past and roots, and how they are place in contemporary history.
`The Garden of the Finzi-Contini' is one of those books that don't take too long to read, but take a very long period to be forgotten. And to some people it will never be forgotten.
haunting love story.......2003-08-30
This is a love story, a story about growing up, a story about discovering one's three rich heritages (Italian and Jewish and literary). And it is a story about a boy becoming a writer.
There must be thousands such coming-of-age stories; thousands of stories about that first (and naturally unrequited) love; and, since most of the people who write these stories are authors there are even a few tales of how boys grow up to become writers.
And yet this tale is haunting. It grips the reader and never lets him go till the end and even long after. And that is because this is also a story about a murder.
The murder is barely mentioned. Oh, the narrator invokes it once or twice when for example he tells us that when he looked out at his family members during a Passover meal "most of whom, a few years later would be swallowed up by German crematory ovens" he found almost all of them terribly bland and bourgeois. He also mentions it at the beginning when he informs us that his first (unrequited) love, Micol, her father, her mother, and her Grandmother were all "deported to Germany in the autumn of `43". But that's not what this story is about.
This is not a story about concentration camps and the mechanized degradation there. This is a hauntingly, heart-breakingly beautiful story about a young man and a first love in a wondrous garden. A story that comes to an abrupt end because the children (the real flowers in the Garden of the Finzi-Continis) are made to pay the ultimate price because the Italians around them first resented that "the Jews were not enough like the others and then, having ascertained their almost total assimilation into their surroundings, [resented] the opposite: that they were just like the others."
It is, in the end (to paraphrase Amos Oz), about Jews who were not to be special and who were not to be banal; who were not to be.
Fine Novel.......2003-04-27
Some readers will be familiar with this story because this novel was the basis for the beautiful and haunting film of the same title. Comparisons between the film and the book are inevitable. The basic story is identical in both. The narrator is a young, middle class Italian Jew in the provincial city of Ferrara. The events take place on the eve of WWII and are set against the background of the anti-semitic legislation and policies of the Italian fascist state. The book recounts the hopeless infatuation of the narrator with the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family. This doomed and largely one-sided passion is presented subtly as an allegory of the fate of the Italian Jewish community. Not surprisingly, the book is considerably more detailed than the movie, more detached, and at times almost ironic in tone. The quality of writing is excellent, even in translation, and the characterization of pre-war Ferrara is evocative. The gradual constriction of the life of Italian Jews emerges slowly and indirectly, but with great power. The book also features an important subplot concerning the narrator's relationship with his father which is also presented with delicacy and real pathos. This is one of those books whose impact tends to linger well after you finish reading it.
Average customer rating:
|
An Italian Education: The Further Adventures of an Expatriate in Verona (An Evergreen book)
Tim Parks
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Authors
| Arts & Literature
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Company Profiles
| Biography & History
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Production & Operations
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Italy
| Europe
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Biographies
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Business Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Entertainment Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Travel Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
- Italian Neighbors
- Giovanni and Lusanna : Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence
- Dances with Luigi: A Grandson's Search for His Italian Roots
- The Oxford Illustrated History of Italy (Oxford Illustrated Histories)
- The Italian Way
ASIN: 0802142850 |
Average customer rating:
- Living in Italy/Italian life
- A Good Book to Put You To Sleep
- Interesting read
- Expendable Italians?
- Italy
|
Italian Education
Tim Parks
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Essays & Travelogues
| Reference & Tips
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Italy
| Europe
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Adventure
| Specialty Travel
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Italy
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside History Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Outdoors & Nature Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Travel Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
- Italian Neighbors
- The Italian Way
- A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals!
- The Italians
- Italian Neighbors: Or, A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona
ASIN: 0380727609 |
Book Description
Tim Parks' first bestseller, Italian Neighbors, chronicled his initiation into Italian society and cultural life. Reviewers everywhere hailed it as a bravissimo performance. Now he turns to his children -- born and bred in Italy -- and their milieu in a small village near Verona.</p>
With the splendid eye for detail, character, and intrigue that has brought him acclaim as a novelist, he creates a fascinating portrait of Italian family life, at school, at home, in church, and in the countryside. This panoramic journey winds up with a deliciously seductive evocation of an Italian beach holiday that epitomizes everything that is quintessentially Italian. Here is an insider's Italy, re-created by "one of the most gifted writers of his generation" (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post)</p>
Customer Reviews:
Living in Italy/Italian life.......2006-11-05
I have read two of Tim Parks books and have even sent them to my daughter who recently moved to Italy. His books talk about real life things in Italy that she has also encountered.
It was enjoyable reading them in succession because I could see how he had been adapting to the new culture and different ways of doing things.
A must read for anyone thinking about moving to Italy and a pleasant read for anyone who wants to learn more about the "real" country of Italy. It's not the touristy stuff it's the regular people stuff and it's a fun read.
A Good Book to Put You To Sleep.......2006-04-19
I have read several books in this genre, and this has to be one of the dullest books on the market that deals with life in Italy. I've lived in Italy on two occasions for short periods of time and can't help but wonder - if Mr Parks dislikes Italy so much, why is he still there? He certainly comes across as disliking Italy and Italians. This has none of the humor or whimsy of other similar books. Very disappointing. I should have know better since I also read "Italian Neighbors" and was unimpressed by it.
Interesting read.......2005-10-26
I enjoyed this sequel to Italian Neighbors. Mr. Parks gives us a glimpse into the real Italian family and day to day life.
Expendable Italians?.......2004-09-02
Tim Parks writes remarkably well and can describe situations with painstaking insight. Yet, when he deals with Italy, he may become unbearably patronizing. I often wonder whether his books generally aim at explaining Italy or at reassuring English readers of their supposed superiority to the Italian comedy of questionable manners and corrupted politics.
In the past, Tim Parks has lived in the United States for long. Will he eventually have the courage to contend with American social mores with the same acerbic wit he employs with the Italians?
Italy.......2004-03-26
great book. funny and insightful take on Italian life. Highly recommended
Average customer rating:
- Social Commentary Gone Wrong
- Great
- Parks: the next Fowles?
- Great Book
- Great blend of gruesome murders and macabre humor
|
Juggling the Stars
Tim Parks
Manufacturer: Arcade Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Mystery & Thriller Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
- Italy in Mind: An Anthology
- Italian Neighbors
- Daisy Miller
- The Marble Faun: or, The Romance of Monte Beni (Penguin Classics)
- Rome (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
ASIN: 1559705515 |
Customer Reviews:
Social Commentary Gone Wrong.......2002-04-28
This book is a prime example of one where you can admire the author's writing skill, find it hard to put down, perhaps acquire a grain of insight into the human condition, and still intensely dislike the book. It is, indeed, a thriller. Things constantly go wrong with the protagonist's plans to enrich himself, forcing him to improvise. Even though this pretentious working-class Englishman is not likeable in the slightest, the reader feels compelled to find out how he's going to deal with each unforeseen obstacle. In addition to creating a fast paced story of love and crime, Parks may also have something to say about the consequences of social class and economic disparity. By depriving the central character of any sense of moral integrity, however, Parks has taken too great a risk. A reader needs to connect with the main character in some way, and to finish the book with some sense of time not wasted. I suspect that this clueless character was intended to be funny, or darkly funny, or scarily familiar, but I'm at a loss to see the humor, and the class consciousness may lose impact in transition across the Atlantic.
Great.......2001-12-20
Parks use of the sympathetic narrator is ingenious. Through all Morris' self-congratulatory highs to his self-loathing lows, the narrator keeps us tuned in to the thought process of this likeable 'serial killer.' The Fowles similariy struck me as well, especially in another book of his, Shear. However, I emailed Tim Parks asking how he felt about John Fowles, and he claimed not to be a fan. Either way, both are master writers, and for my money, Tim Parks is the best writer around. Mimi's Ghost, the sequel to this book, is an absolute must read, as are Shear, Europa and Goodness, to name but a few.
Parks: the next Fowles?.......2001-11-20
This is the first book I've read by Tim Parks and I plan to follow it up immediately with the sequel, "Mimi's Ghost". Park's style can be compared favorably to a young John Fowles' , especially his earlier works such as "The Magus" and "The Collector".
As in "The Collecter", Parks creates a disturbing story told from the perpetrator's POV wherin the main character attempts to justify his own deviant behavior and digs himself deeper and deeper into into trouble. The effect is chilling and Park's eye for detail is evident throughout, not surprising as the book's main character is an English teacher in Verona, Italy where the dust jacket states that Parks himself teaches English. Hopefully that's where his similarity to the books main character, Morris Duckworth ends.
Great Book.......2001-07-29
This book is a real page turner and I really loved reading this book. This is the first Tim Parks book I have read but It won't be the last. I highly recommend reading this book.
Great blend of gruesome murders and macabre humor.......2001-03-11
Tim Parks has it down for those looking for a touch of humor in the scrutinized look into a killer. Far superior to the latest Thomas Harris try, Hannibal, although that may not be a good comparison. Give this author a try if you like alternating between feelings of nausea and laughter. The writing is solid, the psychology compelling, and the story moves along quickly. Great effort.
Average customer rating:
- A Journey into Latinization
- A Journey Into Latinization
- Not Quite a Gentleman from Verona
- Witty, without any treacle
- Dog lovers won't like this book
|
Italian Neighbors: Or, A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona
Tim Parks
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Essays & Travelogues
| Reference & Tips
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Italy
| Europe
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Italy
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Travel Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
- Italian Education
- A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals!
- Pasquale's Nose: Idle Days in an Italian Town
- A Valley in Italy
- Italy in Mind: An Anthology
ASIN: 0449908186
Release Date: 1993-06-01 |
Book Description
Tim Parks and his wife, Rita, came to their flat on the aging, eccentric Via Colombare in Montecchio twelve years ago for a short stay. There was trouble from the moment they moved in--under cover of night--and it has gone delightfully up and down hill ever since. In this amusing and loving tribute to the glorious country he has embraced, British novelist Tim Parks shares his secrets of survival, tales of the unexpected, and treasured friendships with new-found friends and Italian neighbors.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
Customer Reviews:
A Journey into Latinization.......2002-05-28
I borrowed this book from a British friend after my first trip to fascinating Italy. I read it in one sitting- just couldn't get enough of Park's (VERY dramatic ) accounts of his move into a culture of wild Latins who waste no time with proper rules of conduct and infinite responsibilities, but instead rejoice in a world of emotional chaos and random events.
Being Latin myself, I can trace Parks' transformation into a true specimen of our kind. His journey into Latinization encompasses some very familiar events: learning to deal with strangers' hysterical displays of unresolved issues in a most kind and sympathetic manner, cohabiting with invincible insects and volunteeringly engaging in the murder of a harmless animal for the sake of restful sleep.
Fellow Italy lovers-you MUST follow Park in his adventure. His bitter and skeptical narrative provides us indispensable pieces of the puzzle of what it takes to develop a real passionate and impulsive Italian character. If nothing else, you'll certainly get a good laugh out of it!
A Journey Into Latinization.......2002-05-28
I borrowed this book from a British friend after my first trip to fascinating Italy. I read it in one sitting- just couldn't get enough of Park's (VERY dramatic ) accounts of his move into a culture of wild Latins who waste no time with proper rules of conduct and infinite responsibilities, but instead rejoice in a world of emotional chaos and random events.
Being Latin myself, I can trace Parks' transformation into a true specimen of our kind. His journey into Latinization encompasses some very familiar events: learning to deal with strangers' hysterical displays of unresolved issues in a most kind and sympathetic manner, cohabiting with invincible insects and volunteeringly engaging in the murder of a harmless animal for the sake of restful sleep.
Fellow Italy lovers-you MUST follow Park in his adventure. His bitter and skeptical narrative provides us indispensable pieces of the puzzle of what it takes to develop a real passionate and impulsive Italian character. If nothing else, you'll certainly get a good laugh out of it!
Not Quite a Gentleman from Verona.......2002-04-13
For me it began with A Year in Provence. Since then I have read a string of books about the experiences of expatriates living in distant and romantic lands. Although most of the authors I have read insist that they have made a new home, their books read like extended travelogues. And that's what I like. When the authors depart from discussions of good meals, quaint local customs, and the details of remodeling their charming old estates, I am displeased. When they start ranting about the failings of the natives, I lose interest. So it comes as a bit of a surprise to me that I was able to get through Mr. Parks' book, though it did take me two attempts.
Italian Neighbors is a study of the foibles and peccadilloes (quite literally, in some cases) of Italians, focusing mainly on his neighbors along Via Colombare and acquaintances made in the village of Montecchio. I do not doubt that these are essentially accurate characterizations; it is just that they are not particularly pleasant to read. Whereas my favorite books of this genre do a good job of describing the beauty of romantic lands, Mr. Parks has a knack for describing the ugliness of certain individuals. Some of my neighbors are jerks too, but I'm surely not going to memorialize them in a book.
Of course, now I know why Mayle advises against taking up residence in French villages: they are probably a lot like Parks' adopted home of Montecchio.
Witty, without any treacle.......2002-04-11
I enjoy _Under the Tuscan Sun_ when I'm in the mood for a touch of poetry, as melodramatic as the book sometimes gets, but I have never made the mistake of believing that it describes the reality of living in Italy. With Tim Parks, however, what I get is a sympathetic, yet not rosy-clouded story about why he decided to make Italy his home, and what happened after. Told with humor, a good eye for dialogue and character, and with an underlying affection for his adopted country that comes through. Yes, the incident with the dog threw me a little, although I'm not sure it wasn't a bit of hyperbole to emphasize how miserable it is to have a howling dog outside your window at all hours. I also realize that my American attitude towards pets can be very different from the Italian attitude, as the abandoned dogs at Pompeii demonstrate. Either way, it shouldn't be enough to spoil the book for you, especially since the dog is not harmed.
Dog lovers won't like this book.......2002-03-10
This book may be a realistic portrayal of Italy and it 's people, though I really couldn't get past the author's hatred of animals. He is English and I was under the impression that the English people loved dogs-I guess Tim Parks is the exception. In one of the earlier chapters-he and his wife contemplate poisioning a dog in a country where they are a guest. In this country-the ASPCA would be after him. He also indicates that Italians don't seem to like dogs as a whole. Well-one of my favorite memories of Italy was going through a street in Genoa and seeing a little old Italian man with a Chihuahua in his pocket. I took a picture of it, and that is my sense of Italians and their animals. The writing is very descriptive and gives you a good sense of how the Italian people live day-to-day, but I probabaly would have enjoyed it more if I didn't know the darker side of the author's personality.
Average customer rating:
|
Erotic Tales
Alberto Moravia
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Adult Fiction
| Erotica
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Erotica
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Anthologies
| Erotica
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Anthologies
| Short Stories
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Romance Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
- The Woman of Rome: A Novel (Italia)
- Contempt (New York Review Books Classics)
- Conjugal Love
- The Conformist
- Boredom (New York Review Books Classics)
ASIN: 0374526516 |
Authors:
- Parra, Nicanor
- Pasternak, Boris
- Pastior, Oskar
- Patchen, Kenneth
- Paton, Alan
- Patrick, Vincent
- Patterson, James
- Paul, Barbara
- Payne, C. D.
- Paz, Octavio
Authors
Authors
