This is my fourth blog for book reviews.

My mom sang a funny tune to us when we were kids: "Vhen da vind blows, in da vintertime, look da vindow out
da vay da street goes. See da vimmervolk from da vaudeville ride vilasepedes around da vestibule, in da Viking Hotel!" Years later my brother quoted it to our guide in Norway and she wanted the ryme written down so she could see the words. Did she think that was typical of the songs we sang in America, I wondered? Or was she looking for some tie to the Scandanavian coulture?

One of my college history textbooks had in huge letters: WE ARE ALL EUROPEANS! Well not true, even then and especially not now. But here in the rural prairie states our ethnic background is never very far from our daily lives. Willa Cather tells the story of a young Bohemian girl who came to Nebraska in her book, "My Antonia."
It is a novel concerned primarily with farming and the rural experiences yet with many references to other aspects of American life. It is considered by many to be Cather's masterpiece.

The introduction to the story was created by Ms. Cather, and sets some background to the early years of immigration settlements. "We were talking about what it is like to spend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate........We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was like a kind of freemasonry, we said."

The enjoyment of reading this story for the first time; of the courage these pioneer people had in facing all that nature and circumstances could throw at them; and their failures at times, and their triumph in just perservering,
is all yours when you begin "My Antonia." If you have read it before the pleasure is even greater in reading it again.

Cather's descriptions of people and her insights into their emotions and thoughts is excellent She has Antonia's husband exactly captured and makes him come alive completely. She manages a comment about married life," I wondered whether the life that was right for one was ever right for two." Interestingly enough, Cather spent her entire life living alone or with another woman. Make of that what you will.

Give yourself a treat and check out "My Antonia." Good reading!

This is my third blog for reviewing books

When the television is filled with ugliness and sadness, this blogger finds relief in a rant. I was near the end of what I considered one of my very best when I noticed that my partner had fallen asleep. A sharp reality check.

My suggestion to you for your respite is that you open the door of the Bowman Library and find a window into another time and another place. A new CD is available there for a book, "Will in the World, How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare" by Stephen Greenblatt.

To ask a passionate reader to listen rather than read is as if you were to ask an avid gardener to live in a third floor apartment . That is however, exactly what I did: I listened to the reading of the entire book and it was a very pleasure filled several hours.

This is a scholarly book by a very well known and brillant author. It is not a bon bon of literature; it is gourmet.

Confession: There were a few times when I nodded off. But NOT because the subject was boring. The book was read by a Shakespearean actor, Peter J. Fernandez, whose voice is so mellow and soothing one becomes utterly relaxed while learning.

But I don't know Shakespeare, you protest. Ah, but you do know and use his words almost daily: "The course of true love never runs smooth..." "What fools these mortals be ...." "This was the unkindest cut of all..." "Cowards die many times...." "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." "If music be the food of love..."
"What's in a name. That which we call a rose....." and of course, "To be or not to be..." One researcher says there are 2,283 famous quotes from Shakespeare.

The door which the author opens to the late 16th and early 17th century is one of dangerous political and religious conflict. How did a young man of that time from a small provincial town, with no wealth or connections and very little formal schooling become the world's most revered and honored playwright? While there are many "He may have" and "It might have" phrases, the author does a clear and convincing job of presenting to us Shakespeare's family, friends and business associates. And he gives us such a clear idea of what Shakespeare was like, that we can journey with the author in finding the human Shakespeare.

The most memorable part of the book for me was Shakespeare's Shylock from the Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare made him a Jew and a buffoon as well as villain. Jews were rare in England, having been driven out years ago, but they were reviled. Yet Shakespeare puts these words in Shylock's mouth:

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means......
If you prick us do we not bleed?"

If we change the word Jew to Arab, or African, or Hispanic, or American we are in the present day world problems with Shakespeare's insights to guide us.

The author has opened one door. It is easy for you to open another. Good listening!