Daniel's Staff Picks

"She night and morning caught the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, Come buy:"- Beside the brook, along the glen, She heard the tramp of Goblin men." This long haunting fairy tale in verse is irresistible on its own but the illustrations of Arthur Rackham make this tasty fruit worth every golden lock and silver penny. "Take a seat with us, honour and eat with us," They answered grinning: "our feast is just beginning."

Don't judge this book by its cover. Why they didn't get Keith Thompson, the interior artist, to do the jacket art is befuddling. But it's a minuscule mark against what is otherwise a steam and gas powered mechanical marvel of intrigue and adventure. Are you a fan of alternate history? Does piloting a hydrogen jellyfish sound fun to you? How about steering a mighty metal walker beneath an eight legged heavily armed battleship? This is a rollicking good time full of flechette bats, krackens, talking lizards and honest to goodness likeable heroic characters trying to prevent their homelands from charging into a world war. Holy Clart this is great stuff!

I keep a nice hardcover copy of the Death-Bed edition of Leaves of Grass in my living room. Amidst a billion other books this one rests simply sideways on top of the others so that I can easily reach for it anytime. Any and all of these poems are filled with earth and flesh and blood. When I feel like a cold cloud blowing away from the land leaving feeling behind these poems can bring me back. Scaling mountains of flesh and stone with sounds of water lapping in warm weather with skin and bones young and old and a voice that speaks with bright life and love. Where have you gone Walt Whitman...we need you now.

Pogo Possum. Simple Pogo and all them residents of the Okefenokee swamp. Porkypine and Albert Alligator, Rackety Coons, Howland Owl and lil' worm childs. Walt Kelly is jes a master of cartoonin and the witty wordy turns of phrase language is a sure hoot. And if'n you isnt made up in your mind by the end of this shelfy talker then I gots a ree-quest. Stop your shilly shallyin' and jes dog gone buy the book already!