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For more than 40 years broadcaster and comedian Kenneth Williams kept a journal of his experiences. This book is a selection of these diaries. In addition to offering evidence as to the nature of Williams's death in 1988, the diaries reveal a side to his character that many suspected but only few understood. They look at his own tortured sexuality, his relationship with Louie his mother, his thoughts on religion and his verdicts on friends and colleagues such as Noel Coward, Tony Hancock, Sheila Hancock, Maggie Smith and Joe Orton. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Zing!
This huge volume contains a shatteringly witty man, day in and day out, for decades.If you're a fan of London theatre and film, it's a must.But even if you're unfamiliar with the subjects, his withering wit and self-deprecation transcends the need for total familiarity.It can be read in any order and is a great book to keep in the car to read while in long lines, etc.On top of its hilarity, it's a genuinely intimate portrait.Considering how cheaply it can be had through the Amazon Marketplace, this book is a steal!

Compulsively readable
I find this book unputdownable, even though it fills me at times with despair, disgust and irritation. Kenneth Williams was a British actor and comedian of the 50s, 60s and 70s with an acute intelligence and a unique gift for comedy. He was gay, and for many years of his working life homosexuality was illegal. His comic persona used the "camp" stereotype and private language in a way that was far funnier than others in the same (small) field, or anyone since (Julian Clary, Graham Norton). He was widely read, inventive and gifted at ad libbing and eventually earned a living on chat shows and panel games. He had many friends in the theatre who obviously enjoyed his company. He was an excellent writer, one of the things that makes this diary worth reading. His writing is often as funny and perceptive as you'd expect from his public persona, revealing the surreal in the ordinary. But the diary also reveals a man with a dark side, someone who never found a way of living that made him happy. You long to say "Kenneth! Get some therapy!" His self analysis too often turns into navel gazing. He was tortured by guilt over his sexual feelings, constantly making contradictory statements and apparently trying to persuade himself he was above all that. He could also behave appallingly to people -- all faithfully recorded. He clearly came home and wrote the diary, justifying what he'd done. He certainly brooded over wrongs, but he often records apologising and making up. He has flashes of self-insight - that he really only feels at home among people outside his theatrical set. He really was extremely talented - and bigheaded with it. He must have been a nightmare to have in a cast, constantly thinking he knew better and trying to take over. Particularly in the early entries, he sometimes waffles on pretentiously, using long words you feel he doesn't quite understand, and giving an imitation of someone being profound. Then he'll follow the pomposity with a hilarious bit of observation written in a direct and slangy way. As a warts and all portrait, this is unequalled. And incidentally gives a fascinating insight into the stage/screen/radio/TV of the period. Sadly, he took his own life.

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This is Kenneth Williams’ collection of his favourite barbed stories and malicious bon mots in an A to Z of unsurpassed cruelty, including cartoons by Graeme Garden and introduced by Gyles Brandreth who knew Williams for many years and is an executor of Williams’ estate. Kenneth Williams is regarded as one of the great raconteurs and comedy actors of the century. His bestselling diaries, edited by Russell Davis, reveal a complex, deeply insecure character whose bitter, excoriating wit alienated just about everyone who crossed his path.The brilliantly crafted vitriol in his private diaries found life through his TV interviews and appearances on radio shows such as Just a Minute.These outbursts have made him synonymous with the wicked story and the caustic put down.Since his suicide in 1988, his popularity has grown.A two part Omnibus programme on his life appeared on ITV and a touring one man show of Williams’ life has been playing to full houses for the last two years.Terry Johnson’s play Cleo, Camping, Emanuelle and Dick, exploring Williams’ relationship with Barbara Windsor and Sid James, ran to rave reviews and ‘The Diaries’ continue to sell. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

'Two Of The Nicest People If Ever There Was One'
You get a feeling after reading 'Acid Drops' that however good it is, a collection of Williams' home-grown insults and put-downs would've been even more rewarding.
It seems lazy and a tad wasteful that Williams' own acid bile and verbal whiplash isn't better chronicled for modern audiences than a few blurry You Tube clips.

However, that's a minor gripe from some-one who unashamedly can't cram enough Williams into his day. I've loved him since childhood, not til later in life to uncover his brilliantly nasty personality: high level intellectualism mixed with lavatory level vulgarity. Both extreme symptoms of his solitary nature and consequently his depressing societal failures.
A one-off, insecure loner with the most complex (in both senses of the word) and misunderstood sexuality in human history. To know him and his work is to be completely enchanted....

'Acid Drops' is an accumulation of cruel come-backs and wounding witticisms from such as Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, Groucho Marx, T S Eliott, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill ~ you get the idea. Hundreds of anecdotes and vignettes, lovingly divided into chapters (nb: KW was one of the great compartmentalists) by Williams who then delivers his own deliciously forthright opinions on the likes of Malice, Pique, Obloquy and Ridicule, in the context of stabbing tiresome people with them.

Kenneth Williams 'Complete Acid Drops' is a truly fine read. If I was luridly inclined I'd offer it as a perfect 'toilet book' (a useful analogy when you consider the ghastly cover: Williams smugly looking as though he's just dropped something!), bearing in mind the brackish scatological obsessions for which he was sporadically renowned. ... Read more

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Following the publication of "The Kenneth Williams Diaries", this is a collection of his letters. Corresponding with all manner of people, including Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith, Joe Orton, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and the Stokers' Mess of "HMS Leverton", the letters call forth the performer in Williams - many are virtual comic monologues. They evoke the likeable and constructive nature of a man who remains, neverthless as outrageous and "difficult" as ever. ... Read more

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Fifteen top-rated professors from twelve leading Christian colleges and universities have collaborated to write this succinct, accessible New Testament survey. Unlike similar entry-level textbooks, all the contributors teach undergraduate students and understand their culture. Includes fifty-three color photographs, six maps, and more than one hundred sidebars. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Used as a Textbook
I used this last semester for a couple of sections of freshman-level, New Testament Survey courses at our 4-year, liberal arts college. It's an excellent resource with understandable, conservative scholarship. It's well-illustrated and I appreciate the diversity of evangelical contributors.

Good tool for teaching New Testament
I teach adult college students (usually over 25 most in their 30-early 50's).What I needed wasn't a major academic book to refer to (I also own Geisler's NT and EBS NT) but a book that could give me a quick overview of the author's perspective, audience, key points and specific events unique to the author and that writing.

The book is arranged by author not by order of the NT text.This helps you get into the thinking of the person who wrote more than one book and makes it easier to see key ideas being repeated or being expanded in other writings.It is well organized with answering Who, Why, When, Where questions at the beginning along with key ideas on the first page and several important verses from the text.Each key point is then developed further within that chapter.Pages are colorful and many photos that use a shadowing technique to make them "pop" off the page.Small little "post it notes" highlight a question or a thought provoking statement.At the end of each chapter are a list of key words found that were used in the text.The end of the book contains one page of notes from various chapters and a small index.

One thing that would be helpful is to add a small summary at the end of each chapter and/or each author to get the overall perspective of what has been covered.Although the book isn't designed this way, perhaps a link to a website to give additional information on the key words mentioned at the end of the text would be useful.

I would recommend this book for students who are not digging for academic depth, on a short semester (our class last for only 5 sessions of 4 hours each), and supplement for instructors as needed.What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Their Writings

Takes a look at the men behind the Bible and tries to interpret their true intentions
Although perhaps inspired by God, the Bible was written by men. "What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Their Writings" takes a look at the men behind the Bible and tries to interpret their true intentions. Breaking down each of the authors and trying to dig into their mind, it dives into their true intentions and how their ideas may be applied to today. Enhanced with many full color photos and the history of the New Testament, "What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About" is a dissection of one half the book that has impacted billions of lives.

very good
the item i received was in tip top condition and i was very pleased with the service i received during this transaction. thank you and i will be using amazon in the future as well as referring others to this site. have a great day!

Good Overview
This book is unusual in that it really gives you the main point of the books of the New Testament.It is helpful in being organized by authors rather than by book order (this brings the Gospel of John, the Letters of John, and the Book of Revelation together).I find it to be accurate (I am a seminary graduate) and concise.I plan to use it in teaching a Bible Institute at our church, as the New Testament survey. This book really does get the main points across, I know many pastors and students who have a hard time summarizing what the Book of Ephesians is about, for instance, and yet it really is centered on a theme.The same goes for all of the New Testament.This book helps you to see that for yourself, and you will then have an easier time understanding the Bible as you read it. ... Read more

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The Collaborative Administrator: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community explores the nature of leadership in a PLC. Using insights from a variety of experts who have implemented and sustained collaborative cultures of continuous improvement in schools around the nation, this anthology offers answers to the most important questions surrounding PLCs. ... Read more

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My first Kindle purchase...
As my first Kindle purchase, I loved it. The material was rather dry, but since I had no choice with what I purchased since I needed it for a class, I can't complain. The speed and ease with which it arrived on my computer was amazing. I love KINDLE! ... Read more

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Significantly deepening our understanding of two key figures from the modernist period, The Humane Particulars collects the letters between William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Burke. Written during forty-two years of close friendship and literary debate, these nearly 250 letters span two long lives, two complicated personalities, and two brilliantly productive careers. The animated exchange between a canonical poet and the leading American rhetorical critic of the twentieth century offers a more complete vision of their outlooks and their contributions to the shape and tenor of the modernist scene.

Set in context by James H. East's introduction and explanatory notes, the letters begin just after Burke and Williams's initial meeting in 1921 during a tramp through a New Jersey swamp and surrounding meadowlands. Their written exchange follows the maturing of their friendship and professional regard. The correspondence shows that Williams and Burke were fast friends during the experimental twenties, preoccupied by individual and divergent projects in the thirties and early forties, and reunited as enthusiastic correspondents after the Second World War.

The letters refer to happy times spent together--walks in the woods, picnics and swimming, and visits to Burke's farm in Andover, New Jersey. They reveal, among other interesting personal matters, Burke's fascination with Williams's double life as physician and poet, Burke's hypochondria, and Williams's at times chastising medical advice to Burke. But, more important, the letters preserve the continual wrangling over the origin and nature of literary form that enlightened the pair's many disagreements. Of particular interest, the correspondence documents a largely unexplored aspect of Burke's career--his reciprocally influential relationship with the writers of the late modern and midcentury periods. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Overloaded
My review refers to the two Ten Williams volumes of the LoA.
I love the LoA. The books give me the supreme pleasure in reading. They are so beautifully printed on optimal paper in an optimal size, that I sometimes read stuff that is not worth reading.
I have read '10' for two reasons: 1. because I had bought theLoA, and 2. because I had read a lot about the 'glorious bird' in Gore Vidal's 2 volume memoirs. And then, of course, I had seen the Glass Menagerie on Stage and the Cat on the Hot Tin Roof in the movies. Can't remember what else I might have seen before I read this. I saw Suddenly Last Summer only after I read it. I never saw A Streetcar or the Iguana. Pity.
Let me say straightforward, that I love half a dozen to maximum 10 of TW's plays. They are pulp material, they are trash, they are melodrama, and they are true, and gripping, and honest, and vulgar...
And they are great.
But the early plays are plain nothing, while the last few ones are abominable.
It is impossible to draw a strict line when he started to write readable stuff and when he declined so badly that he stopped doing that. But for me it is clear: his early attempts are trash, and so are his last.
My conclusion: the LoA would have done better to restrict themselves to one volume and then focus on the main phase.
If they want to re-issue, I can offer advice as to which plays to include and which ones not.

The Lyrical Voice of Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams represented a major advance in American drama as he introduced a lyricism that had previously been missing.Eugene O'Neill helped the American theatre grow up, but Williams was the one who made it sing.

Williams was able to create complex, vibrant plays which gave intense life to all of the contradictions, nastiness, dysfunction and beauty of American life and families.America has never produced a more honest or sincere playwright.His characters are always searching for ways to hang on to their humanity as the forces of repression and authoritarianism threaten to swallow them up or destroy them.

But above all else, Williams' dialogue is superbly, sublimely poetic.For Williams, the drama is in language itself, and no one has ever used words to greater effect than Tennessee Williams.Both Library of America volumes of Williams' plays are essential reading for people interested in theatre, America, and/or the possibilities of hope and grace in turbulent times.

Am I allowed to review a review?
I, for one, worship the pulp Tennesse Williams typed upon, but I think Mark E. Baxter's review below might just give Tenn himself a run for his money when it comes to audaciously witty, ironic, shocking, and ultimately moving writing.At the very least, Williams (a man who was once seen at a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" cackling "Haha, she's off to the nuthouse now!" as the curtain fell) would have enjoyed this hilariously, astonishingly off-kilter review.Brava, Mark E. Baxter!Well done!

Ho-Hum
Why American critics are so desperate to make Tennessee Williams into the "great" American playwright is beyond me -- perhaps they feel inadequate when compared to the genius that's come out of England and Continental Europe (e.g., Shaw, Shakespeare, Moliere).

The characters are seldom well-developed, and frequently, I found myself not caring what happened to them.Or rather, I hoped that Mr. Williams would kill them all off a little quicker so he could end the wretched work.

One of the greatest
Tennessee Williams is in the top ranks of American playwrights.His works are a MUST for serious students of the American theatre.Moreover, they are wonderful works for actors to read and learn from -- some of the finest characters, most poignant scenes, and brilliant insights on human nature AND theatrical staging that you can find anywhere.Cheerful?No.Uplifting? Usually not.Brilliant, stageworthy and gripping?Always.This collection, both volumes, gives you all the plays, plus some very worthwhile notes and prefaces from Williams himself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Disappointed
Having read his diary entries encapsulated in two early tomes 'Acid Drops' & Back Drops' which indeed did entertain, this autobiography sadly disappointed. An erudite raconteur and seasoned thespian he certainly was, but how he came to sign off on this monotonous disjointed recollection of theatre and film appearances surprised me.
Although I do not recommend this title, I can declare the man had a natural ability to entertain a 'live' audience. ... Read more

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V. 3. other two volumes, one and two, available. The set is in 3 volues. a complete guide to a unique system of mathematics. ... Read more

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Poetry and Consciousness brings together C. K. Williams's meditations on psychology, an epistemology of poems, considerations of poetry and its relations to history and to the novel, exploring the causes and consequences of that fruitful breakdown of language the author calls "narrative dysfunction." A former Guggenheim fellow, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and noted critic, Williams reveals the influences that helped spur and shape the development of his art.
The essays explore the world of poetry and of poets, tracing the curious forces that generate the deeply rooted but richly unfamiliar languages of verse. Williams addresses a broad audience, justifying poetry as a form of embodied consciousness that helps us situate ourselves in history, a concrete form of opportunity and responsibility. The essays examine the very structure of consciousness and suggest tools for living that enable both writers and readers to approach their own situated selves as well as other selves and other poets.
C. K. Williams has authored ten books of poetry, including Flesh and Blood, A Dream of Mind, and The Vigil. He currently teaches in the Writing Program at Princeton University.
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Customer Reviews (1)

Valuable Insight Into Williams's Poetry.
While initially I read the essays in this collection as sources for a paper on Williams, I found it extremely useful to my own writing to read his thoughts about poetry and discussing his ability to briefly focus on his surroundings in so many of his poems that result in powerful and deeply felt poems. In one essay, "On `From My Window' " Williams discusses the actual events that inspired the poem, mentioning,"much of our moral education consists in.... apparently minor, oblique encounters." ... Read more

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Volume one. two other volumes also in stock ... Read more

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v. 2 of the manual, volume 1 and 3 also available ... Read more

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Joseph Liouville is recognised as one of the great mathematicians of the nineteenth century, and one of his greatest achievements was the introduction of a powerful new method into elementary number theory. This book provides a gentle introduction to this method, explaining it in a clear and straightforward manner. The many applications provided include applications to sums of squares, sums of triangular numbers, recurrence relations for divisor functions, convolution sums involving the divisor functions, and many others. All of the topics discussed have a rich history dating back to Euler, Jacobi, Dirichlet, Ramanujan and others, and they continue to be the subject of current mathematical research. Williams places the results in their historical and contemporary contexts, making the connection between Liouville's ideas and modern theory. This is the only book in English entirely devoted to the subject and is thus an extremely valuable resource for both students and researchers alike. ... Read more