Issue #150
www.ralphmag.org/EB/indexEB.html
Mid-Summer, 2006

RALPH:
The First 150 Issues
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
The Most Characteristic Reviews, Poems,
and Readings from the
Last Twelve Years of RALPH

Keep Your God Waiting[B]
Dynamic Health and
Great Sex
Michael Coleman
[Trafford]
Pointers on How to
Live to Age 120

City of Lights[B]
Patrick Neate
[Riverhead]
Mystery of a Paki-Londoner

Tracking the Black Dog[B]
Fairy Tales and Historical Legwork
From the Black Dog Institute's
Writing Competitions
Kerrie Eyers, Editor
[University of New South Wales Press]
The History of and
Thoughts about Depression

Daughters of
The Vicar[B]
D. H. Lawrence
[Hesperus]
One of Lawrence's
Early Novels

Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin[B]
Writers Running Wild
In the Twenties
Marion Meade
Lorna Raver, Reader
[Blackstone]
Four of the most Important
American Women Writers of
the '20s Revealed

A Reading Diary[B]
Alberto Manguel
[Picador]
Writings about Reading

The Village Under the Sea[B]
Mark Haddon
[Vintage]
Contemporary Poetry

The Rainbow Trail[B]
Zane Grey
Michael Prichard,
Reader
[Tantor]
A Reading of the
Famous Author's Novel
of the Wild West

Beautiful Dreamer[B]
Christopher Bigsby
[Thomas Dunne/
St. Martins]
Racism and Violence in
Tennessee in the Last Century

Nature-Friendly Garden
[Creating a Backyard Haven
for Plants, Wildlife, and People
Marlene A. Condon
[Stackpole]
A Garden for
All Creatures
Great and Small

Godbole's Song
E. M. Forster
[Reading]
Music of India

The Condor and the Cows[G]
A South American Travel Diary
Christopher Isherwood
[Minnesota]
Isherwood and Companion
Traveling through South America

Baps
In Memory of Hawks
ragie44@yahoo.com
Jack Estes
[Letters]
Correspondence with RALPH
about Previous Reviews

The Maori
Reynolds Price
Clancy Greene
Ruth Deming
[Letters]
More Correspondence with RALPH
about Previous Reviews

The Mercy Room
Gilles Rozier
[Little, Brown]
Novel about Life and Love
(and Terror)
in Vichy France

A Passage to India*
E. M. Forster
Sam Dastor,
Reader
[Audio Partners]
A Reading of the Classic Story
of the Raj in India

An Episode in
The Life of a
Landscape Painter*
César Aria
[New Directions]
A Startling Novel
about Johan Moritz Rugendas
in Argentina

Don't Kidney Now
L. W. Milam
[Article]
Living with a UTI
in Mexico

Writers
Nancy Crampton,
Photographer
[Quantuck Lane Press]
Photographs of 104
Famous Writers

Issue #151
www.ralphmag.org/EC/indexEC.html
Very Late Summer 2006

The Russian Anarchists
Paul Avrich
[AK Press]
Kropotkin, Bakunin, and the
End of the Revolution

Written Lives[B]*
Javier Marías
[New Directions ]
Twenty-Six Writers Briefly Described ---
Joyce, Nabokov, Faulkner et al

The Cloud-Spotters Guide[B]
The Science, History, and
Culture of Clouds
Gavin Pretor-Pinney
[Perigee]
A Young Person's Guide to the Nimbus

The Last Town
On Earth[B]
Thomas Mullen
[Random House]
Modern American Novel

Viruses vs. Superbugs[B]
A Solution to the
Antibiotics Crisis?
Thomas Häusler
[Macmillan]
A Solution for the
Disaster Awaiting from
Drug-Resistant Bugs

When I Was Elena[B]
Ellen Urbani Hiltebrand
[Permanent Press]
A Peace Corps Volunteer
in Guatemala

Human Traces[B]
Sebastian Faulks
[Random House]
A Novel about 19th Century Psychiatry

Wu Wei*
Tom Crawford
[Milkweed Editions]
Contemporary Northwest Mystical
(albeit Realistic) Poetry

The Dead Cat:
Schrödinger's
Experiment
A. Pablo Iannone
Reading
A Suicide Who Dies
(and Continues Living)

Now Let Us Praise
The Very Old
(And the Very
Detached)
L. W. Milam
Article
The Old and All Their
Detached Retinas

Ringside Seat
To a Revolution
An Underground Cultural History of
El Paso and Juárez: 1893 to 1923
David Dorado Romo
[Cinco Puntos Press]
El Paso and the Mexican Revolution

William Faulkner
Novels, 1926 - 1929:*
Flags in the Dust
William Faulkner
The Library of America
A Complete Edition of
the Author's Early Novel Sartoris

Arresting Time:
Erich Lessing*
Reportage Photographs
1948 - 1973
Alastair Crawford, Editor
[Quantuck Lane Press/Norton]
400 Photographs from
Lessing's Works

The Nature-Friendly Garden and
Divine Intervention in the RALPH Mailroom
Susan Wallis
Marlene A. Condon
Letters
Correspondence with RALPH about
Previous Reviews

Maori Moko
The Middle East Holy War
A Round-Heeled Woman
Paula Guy
Larry Walsh
Liliana Komorowska Ahmed
More Letters
Further Correspondence with RALPH
about Previous Reviews

Letter to Dufu in Chengdu
Tom Crawford
Even More Letters
Correspondence with the Master Poet

St Paul's Architecture
A History
Jeffrey A. Hess
Paul Clifford Larson
Minnesota
A Look at Early St. Paul Buildings

Stiff:[G]
The Curious Lives
Of Human Cadavers
Mary Roach
Norton
What Really Happens to Us
When We Cack

The Eradication of Yellow Fever
Jack McCallum
Reading
Leonard Wood and
the Spanish-American War

Issue #152
www.ralphmag.org/ED/indexED.html
Very Early Fall 2006

The First Be-In
Eva Diaz
Reading
John Cage, Merce Cunningham,
and other radical artists at Black Mountain

Starting at Zero:
Black Mountain College
1933 - 1957
Caroline Collier
Michael Harrison
Editors
[Kettle's Yard/
Arnolfini]
The World of Art at
Black Mountain College

The Practices of
The Six Yogas
Of Naropa[B]
Glenn H. Mullin,
Translator
[Snow Lion]
Various Commentators on the
11th Century Buddhist Monk

Brooklyn Is[B]
Southeast of
the Island:
Travel Notes
James Agee
[Fordham University Press]
The Writer Visits
Brooklyn, 1938

AA Gill Is Away*
A. A. Gill
[Simon & Schuster]
The Famous Travel Writer in Africa,
the Sudan, Japan, and Van Nuys

Courthouses of
Minnesota
Mary Logue
Doug Ohman
Photographer
[Minnesota Historical Society]
County Courthouses and Appropriate Statues Investigated

Pornographia:
A Matriarchal Society
A. A. Gill
Reading
The Travel Writer
Makes a Nasty Film

Contemplating
Hell
Berthold Brecht
[Poem]
The Dramatist/Writer
Explains Los Angeles 1946

Truth is a
Pathless Land
J. Krishnamurti
[Sounds True CDs]
The Late Philosopher on
The Observer and the Observed

A Dead Cat
Blasphemers at RALPH
Rachel Suarez
gjrogers55@spcbell.net
Letters
Response to Reviews and
Readings in RALPH

This Bloody Life
zach strobeck
More Letters
Even More Responses to
Reviews and Readings
in RALPH

(CONTACT WITH THE DECEASED
(stepwise technique))
Michael Raduga
Even More Letters
Even more Responses to RALPH's
Reviews and Letters

Marshall McLuhan
Unbound
Eric McLuhan
W. Terrence Gordon
Editors
[Ginko Press]
The Philosopher of Media
In Twenty Bound Folios

Publish and Perish:
Three Tales of
Tenure and Terror
James Hynes
[Picador]
Novel about Wars at
Academic Conferences

Underground
Tour
Dr. Phage
Article
The Perils of Home Plumbing
(and Plumbers)

J. Bruller's 21 Recettes Pratiques
de Mort Violente
H. L. Mencken
Reading
Suicide as Seen by the
Editor of The American Mercury

The Encyclopedia
Of World War I:
A Political, Social,
and Military History
Spencer C. Tucker
Editor
[ABC-Clio]
175 Historians with
1200 Essays on WWI

Issue #153
www.ralphmag.org/EE/indexEE.html
Mid-Fall 2006

Guide to Aging[G]
What Everyone
Needs to Know
Christine K. Cassel, Editor
[New York University]
What Every Geezer or
Would-Be Geezer
Needs to Know

Snapshots of Bloomsbury
The Private Lives of
Virginia Woolf and
Vanessa Bell
Maggie Humm
[Rutgers University Press]
Astonishing Home Photographs
of the Bloomsbury Set

Buddhist Meditation
for Beginners[B]
Jack Kornfield
[Sounds True]
A Compendium of Advice
for the Mystical Novice or
The Novice Mystic

Mud:[B]
A Military History
G. E. Wood
[Potomac]
Just What It Says:
A Bloody History of
Mud, No Less

The Discomfort Zone[B]
Jonathan Franzen
[HighBridge]
The Author Reads
His Most Recent,
An Autobiography

Butterfly Boy
Memories of a
Chicano Mariposa
Rigoberto González
[University of Wisconsin]
Growing Up Gay ---
And Chicano

Islamic Calligraphy
Sheila S. Blair
[Edinburgh University Press]
An Exhaustive Survey
of Arabic Script

Animal Quackers
L. W. Milam
[Article]
Lives of Young Pekins ---
Fifty Years Ago

Death of a Dreamer
M. C. Beaton
Graeme Malcom, Reader
[Audio Partners]
Another Hamish Macbeth Mystery

The Year They Tried
To Block The Deputy
Warren Hinckle
[Reading]
A Charming Rendering of
The Deputy's
Earliest Performance
in New York

Martin Gilbert
Mark Thornton
Sarcastic Reviews
Francis Wakefield
Fiona Hayhoe
[Letters]
Responses to Reviews and Articles in RALPH

Disability and Pain
Darlene Cohen
Andrew Cooper
[Letter]
Response to a Reading in RALPH

On Teaching
James Kimprell
[Poem]
Love in the Classroom

Rural English
Copulation --- 1780
Verlyn Klinkenborg
[Reading]
Rural Love-Life in
18th Century England

Timothy;* Or, Notes of
An Abject Reptile
Verlyn Klinkenborg
Josephine Bailey, Reader
[Tantor Media]
A Fine Rendering of
The Voice of the Turtle

The Wisdom of Wilderness
Experiencing the
Healing Power of Nature
Gerald G. May
[HarperSanFrancisco]
The Late Writer's Take on
Christian and Psychological
Transcendentalism

Issue #154
www.ralphmag.org/EF/indexEF.html
Late Fall 2006

Everyman*[B]
Philip Roth George Guidall,
Reader
[Recorded Books]
The Famed Author's Novel
On Death and Dying
(And Ageing Lust)

The Life Cycles Of Butterflies[B]
Judy Burris
Wayne Richards
[Storey]
From Egg to Maturity,
A Visual Guide to 23
Common Garden Butterflies

My Nautical Career
Dr. Phage
[Article]
A Week in the
Wilds of a Cruise Ship
Dining Room

A Visit from Ms. Death
Oscar Hahn
[Poem]
Lying in the Arms
Of the Grim Raper

James A. Garfield
Ira Rutkow
[Times Books]
A Medical View of the Death
Of the Thirteenth
American President

Biased Comments in RALPH
Sacco and Vanzetti
Terry Wiley
Richard Newby
[Letters]
Correspondence with RALPH
About Previous Reviews and Articles

Tom Cruise and
Sumner Redstone
Daisy Lee Myers, RN
[More Letters]
Even More Correspondence with RALPH
About Previous Reviews and Articles

Memoirs of Montparnasse*
John Glassco
[Viking/Compass]
Two Years with Artists
in Paris (1928 - 1930)

Moon Dog Song
Angel Pérez
[Poem]
Love on the Tracks
To Madrid

Willy-Wagging
At NASA
John Lanchester
[Reading]
The Truth Behind
NASA's Various Missions

Uneasy Listening:
Pacifica Radio's
Civil War
Matthew Lasar
[Black Apollo Press]
The Varied (and Endless) Wars
At Pacifica Foundation/KPFA

Paris Review
Interviews, I
Introduction by Philip Gourevitch
[Picador]
Sixteen Writers and Editors in Interview

Pepys' Diary*
Samuel Pepys
Kenneth Branagh,
Reader
[HighBridge Classics]
The Life and Loves
(And Business and Seductions)
Of the 17th Century Gentleman

Recalling War
Robert Graves
[Poem]
The 1938 Poem about
World War One

The Instruction Manual
For Receiving God
Jason Shulman
[Sounds True]
108 Truisms for
Receiving the Divine

Who Will Be Fed?
A. A. Gill
[Reading]
The Starvation of the Dinka of Africa

Unholy Ghost[G]
Writers on Depression
Nell Casey, Editor
[Morrow]
Various Novelists Tell of
The Black Dog

Issue #155
www.ralphmag.org/EG/indexEG.html
Early Winter 2006

Billy Wong
Michael Ingall
[Article]
Dr. Ingall's Memories of
One of His More Eccentric Patients

Dancing Under the Red Star[B]
The Extraordinary Story of
Margaret Werner,
the Only American Woman to
Survive Stalin's Gulag
Karl Tobin
[Water Brook]
Ten Years in the Gulag

Hebrew Illuminations[B]
Adam Rhine
Louise Temple
[Sounds True]
The Twenty-Two Letters of
Hebrew Rendered in Color

Penetrating Wisdom:[B]
The Aspiration of
Samantabhadra
The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
[Snow Lion]
Commentary on an Obscure
Text of Tibetan Buddhism

My Chaos Theory
Steve Watkins
[Southern Methodist University]
Modern American Short Stories

The DNA Detectives
How the Double Helix Is Solving
The Puzzle of the Past
Anna Meyer
[Thunder's Mouth Press]
Ancient DNA Research

Moscow Stories*
Loren Graham
[Indiana University Press]
An American Researcher
in Moscow, 1963 - Present

A Ten-Year-Old in Hernia Operation
Philip Roth
[Reading]
The Fears of the Young

Michael Ingall
Lolita Lark
[Article]
Memories of the Late Psychiatrist

Tomorrow in the Battle
Think on Me[G]
Javier Marías
[New Directions]
A Book on Love & Death from Spain

Time at War
Nicholas Mosley
[Dalkey Archive]
A British Writer Remembers
WWII in Africa and Italy

Owls
Cynthia Berger
[Stackpole]
The Memorable (and Sometimes Disgusting)
Living Habits of Owls

Falling in Love with Rosemary
Nicholas Mosley
[Reading] Memories of Love and War
in 1940s England

Dorothy Parker,
The Instruction Manual
for Receiving God
Wanda Felix
guttermth8@aol.com
[Letters]
Correspondence with RALPH
About Previous Reviews

Maori Hongi
TeHamua Nikora
[More Letters]
More Correspondence
With Ralph About
Previous Reviews

The Road to
Real-Estate Wealth,
Of the King Who Had Even
mplycomo@plycom.com
twic@mac.com
[Even More Letters]
Even More Correspondence
With Ralph about Previous Reviews

Issue #156
www.ralphmag.org/EH/indexEH.html
Mid-Winter 2006 - 2007

Sixteen Stars
From the Pages of
RALPH
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
16 Books from 2006
That We Feel Are
The Very Best

Malinche
Laura Esquivel
[Atria]
A Revised Tale
Of the Woman Who Betrayed
Mexico in 1519

Tales from Nowhere*
Unexpected Stories from
Unexpected Places
Don George, Editor
[Lonely Planet]
Thirty or So Stories of Being
Stranded in the Middle of
Nowhere --- and Surviving

New and Selected Poems
Stanley Moss
[Seven Stories Press]
A Collection of Contemporary Poems
On Astonishing Subjects

Thriller
James Patterson, Editor
[Mira]
Thirty Short Stories of Suspense

Blood Brothers
Among the Soldiers
Of Ward 57
Michael Weisskopf
[Henry Holt]
Following the Lives
Of Four Amputees from
Service in Iraq

Presence in The Flesh[G]
The Body in Medicine
Katharine Young
[Harvard]
What Happens --- Really ---
In the Physician's Examining Room

Desert Cities[B]
The Environmental History of
Phoenix and Tucson
Michael F. Logan
[University of Pittsburgh Press]
The Ecological and Aquatic
History of Two
Arizona Cities

The Jews in
Mussolini's Italy[B]
From Equality to
Persecution
Michele Sarfatti
[University of Wisconsin]
A History of Jewish Families
In Facist Italy

Michael Ingall and
Sumner Redstone & Viacom
George Lally
Daisy Lee Myers
[Letters]
Correspondence with RALPH
About Previous Reviews and Articles

Louis XVI &
The Sistine Chapel
William John Meegan
Dorothy Wood
[More Letters]
More Correspondence with RALPH
About Previous Reviews and Articles

Animal Rights &
Cryptic Letters
Of the Month
bjryder12.aol.com
Rodrican26@aol.com
[Even More Letters]
Even More Correspondence
with RALPH About Previous
Reviews and Articles

Mosquitoes and
Tow-Trucks
C. Amantea
[Article]
Speed-Traps and
Dengue in Mexico

Sanlúcar:
The Las Vegas
Of Spain
Norman Lewis
[Reading]
Southern Spain in the 1950s

Another Victory Like This
And We Are Doomed
L. W. Milam
Jon Gallant
[Reading]
A Reworking of "Wars"
From Gringolandia

The East-West Border
Jaan Kaplinski
[Poem]
Poetry of Divisions

Twelve Stinkers
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
12 Books from 2006
That We Feel Are
The Very Worst

Mencken:
The American Iconoclast
Marion Elizabeth Rodgers
[Oxford University Press]
The Writings, Social and
Political Life and Loves of the
Terror from Baltimore

Apt. 301
Will Anderson
Yewtree Press
Photograph Album, with Interviews,
of Would-Be Male Models

The Avenger
Takes His Place:
Andrew Johnson and
The Forty-Five Days that
Changed the Nation
Howard Means
[Harcourt]
A History of the
Days Immediately Following the
Seventeenth President's
Inauguration

Tigerland:*
And Other
Unintended
Destinations
Eric Dinerstein
[Island/Shearwater]
A Charming Retelling
of the Events in the Life
of a Bat-Catching Naturalist

Brides and Sinners
In El Chuco
Christine Granados
[University of Arizona]
Stories of Hard Lives
of the Mexican-Americans of El Paso

Untamed Seas:[G]
One Woman's True Story of
Shipwreck and Survival
Deborah Scaling Kiley
[Mariner]
Surviving at Sea
(with a Bunch of Crazies)

Uncoded Woman[B]
Anne-Marie Oomen
[Milkweed]
Poems of Rough Love
(Drawn from the U. S.
Defense Mapping Agency)

Howl on Trial:[B]
The Battle for
Free Expression
Bill Morgan and
Nancy J. Peters, Editors
[City Lights]
Howls from the 50s;
The Trial of Allen Ginsberg's
Barbaric Yawp

Jagged with Love
Susanna Childress
[Wisconsin]
Poems on Love and Travel
and Birds and Passion
and Tears

Mme. Spivy
Madness at RALPH
John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Dancing Under the Red Star
RALPH Goes Commercial
Wikipedia and Nature Magazine
Louis XVI and Peanut Butter
Samuel Pepys' Catamaran
Charlie Rose Blowing Brass
Rock Gardening in the Ukraine
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings,
Correspondence, and
Any of the 3,000 (or More)
Pictures, Drawings, and
Photographs
That Have Appeared
Over the Past Thirteen Years

The Museum
Dr. Phage
[Article]
When the Skeletal Remains
Come Alive at the
Museum of Natural History.

How Not to Lie
Philip Roth
[Reading]
The Speech of a Wife
Badly Wronged

Going Bats
Eric Dinerstein
[Reading]
How to Love
(and Study)
Nocturnal Winged
Mammals

I Inspect My Face
Susanna Childress
[Poem]
A Face After Weeping
"The Death of
The Ball Turret
Gunner"
"Hope"
Randall Jarrell
[Verse]
Two Poems from the Forties

Issue #158
www.ralphmag.org/EJ/indexEJ.html
Early Spring 2007

Eyes to See Otherwise[G]
Ojos de otro Mirar
Homero Aridjis
(New Directions)
Contemporary Poetry from Latin America

The Sights Along the Harbor[B]
New and Collected Poems
Harvey Shapiro
(Wesleyan)
Poetry from New York City

An Alphabetical Life:[B]
Living It Up in
The World of Books
Wendy Werris
(Carroll & Graf)
A Publisher's Rep Tells Her Story

Many Worlds in One[B]
The Search for Other Universes
Alex Vilenkin
(Hill and Wang)
Obscure Aspects of Physics,
Time, and the Universe

Flashlights
Ed Rossman
[Article]
The Prep School Culture of the 1950s

Facing Down Evil
Life on the Edge as an
FBI Hostage Negotiator
Clint Van Zandt
(Putnam)
Negotiating with Those Who Take Hostages

Jorie Graham
Aquiles Nazoa
Apt. 301
Maori Tattooing
Joachim Stempel
Barney Rosset
Samuel Pepy's Catamaran
H. L. Mencken
Dr. Paul Nickel
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings,
Correspondence, and
Any of the 3,000 (or More)
Pictures, Drawings, and
Photographs
That Have Appeared
Over the Past Thirteen Years

I Golfed Across Mongolia
How an Improbable Adventure
Helped Me Rediscover
The Spirit of Golf
(And Life)
André Tolmé
(Thunder's Mouth Press)
Going Across Mongolia with a #3 Iron

Telling True Stories
A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the
Nieman Foundation at Harvard University
Mark Kramer
Wendy Call
Editors
(Plume)
Fifty-Two Professionals Reveal
The Secret of Nonfiction Writing

Oil on the Brain*
Adventures from the Pump
To the Pipeline
Lisa Margonelli
(Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)
A Riotous Account of
The Dark Energy Going from
Well to Gas Tank

The Painted Desert
Land of Wind and Stone
Scott Thybony
David Edwards,
Photographer
(University of Arizona)
A Sparing Account of the
History and the Present
of the Painted Desert

From an Autobiography
Harvey Shapiro
[Poem]
The Wonders of Growing Up
In the Grave of Another

Arachnophobia
Jenny Diski
[Reading]
Spider Fear and Fear
Of Spider Fear Workshops

The Ice Palace
That Melted Away[G] How Good Design
Enhances Our Lives
Bill Stumpf
(Minnesota)
A Futurist Trying
To Make Our Lives
More Interesting

[B]To be found under "Brief Reviews"
[G]Great Reviews of the Past
*Indicates a book that we found of especial merit

Issue #159
www.ralphmag.org/EK/indexEK.html
Mid-Spring 2007

Guide to Pruning
What, When, Where &
How to Prune for a
More Beautiful Garden
Cass Turnbull
(Sasquatch)
A Master Gardener
Tells Us How Not
To Prune Prune Trees

Wanting Enlightenment
Is a Big Mistake
Teachings of Zen Master
Seung Sahn
Hyon Gak, Editor
(Shambhala)
The Late Korean Buddhist in
Fifty Short, Pithy Stories

African Intimacies*
Race, Homosexuality,
and Globalization
Neville Hoad
(Minnesota)
A Rich Study of Neo-Colonialism
in the Guise of
Religious Intolerance

The Somme*
The Coward
A. D. Gristwood
(South Carolina)
Trench-Warfare Through
The Eyes of Someone Who
Did It (For Two Years)

Best American
Magazine Writing 2006
Graydon Carter,
Coordinator
(Columbia University Press)
Sixteen Articles, Reviews and Stories ---
Reputed to Be the Best of
The Year 2006

Learning To Fall[G]
The Blessings of
An Imperfect Life
Philip Simmons
(Bantam)
A Writer with
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Ruminates on the Loss of Body
(But Not Hope)

Suicide [B]
Pastoral Responses
Loren L. Townsend
(Abingdon)
Religious Answers for
Would-Be (and/or Unsuccessful)
Suicides

True Meditation[B]
Discover the Freedom
Of Pure Awareness
Adyashanti
(Sounds True)
A Young Buddhist on Awareness

The Best Buddhist
Writing 2006[B]
Melvin McLeod Editor
(Shambhala)
Thirty-Five Articles ---
Purportedly the Best --- o
n Buddhism

Northwest Art,
Charles Krafft,
Edward Curtis,
Benedicte Wrensted,
The Rooster in the Wristwatch
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings,
Correspondence, and
Any of the 3,000 (or More)
Pictures, Drawings, and
Photographs
That Have Appeared
Over the Past Thirteen Years

Hugh Gregory Gallagher
(October 18, 1932 - July 13, 2004)
L. W. Milam
Memorial Article
The Man Who Framed
American Disability Rights Remembered

His Picture Nowhere
Joshua Clark
[Reading]
A Reporter in Buras, Mississippi,
Shortly After Katrina
Passed Through

What the
Cults Believe
Irving Robertson
(The Moody Bible Institute)
Christian Attacks on the Mormons,
the Unity Church, and the
Rosicrucians by the Moody
Bible Institute

Issue #160
www.ralphmag.org/EL/indexEL.html
Late Late Spring 2007

Resolute:
The Epic Search for
The Northwest Passage and John Franklin, and the
Discovery of the Queen's Ghost Ship
Martin W. Sandler
(Sterling)
The search for the Northwest Passage
and the Search for the Searchers

Fighting for Franco[B]
International Volunteers in Nationalist Spain
during the Spanish Civil War, 1936 - 39
Judith Keene
(Hambledon Continuum)
Biographical Notes on the 1300 or so American,
Irish, English, Portuguese, and Russians Who
Fought the Spanish Republic

The Collected Poems of
Muriel Rukeyser[B]
Janet E. Kaufman
Anne F. Herzog, Editors
(University of Pittsburgh Press)
600 Poems from the
20th Century American Poet

Rogha Dánta
Selected Poems
Gabriel Rosenstock
(Cló Iar-Chonnachta)
A Selection of Poems by the Gaelic Beat

Locating Medical History[B]
The Stories and Their Meanings
Frank Huisman,
John Harley Warner, Editors
(The Johns Hopkins University Press)
The History of Medical History

Cycles of Time and Meaning
in the Mexican Books of Fate
Elizabeth Hill Boone
(University of Texas Press)
A Review of the Nine Existing Codices
of Pre-Conquest Mexico

Goodnight, Texas*
William J. Cobb
(Unbridled Books)
A Novel about the Blighted Coast of Texas
(And Its Blighted Inhabitants)

Ho-Chunk
Autobiography
American Indian Courtship
Crashing Thunder
[Reading]
Wisconsin Indian Courtship Routines

The Rooster in the Wristwatch
Apt. 301
Unprincipled Attack on Buddhism
This Bloody Life
Time Leap
Relativity and Alzheimer's
VacuumKitty
The Huns at the Gates
RALPH Goes Commercial
Dr. Laura and E-Mails
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings,
Correspondence, and
Any of the 3,000 (or More)
Pictures, Drawings, and
Photographs
That Have Appeared
Over the Past Thirteen Years

On Looking:
Essays
Lia Purpura
(Sarabande Books)
Unusual Essays from
One Who
(Apparently) Looks

The Songs of
Wild Birds
Lang Elliott
(Houghton Mifflin)
Several Dozen Wild Birds --- and
their Calls --- Identified

Emanuel Swedenborg's Journal of Dreams
Commentary by Wilson van Dusen
(Swedenborg Foundation)
An Introduction to the
Dreams of the Swedish Mystic

The Zen Monks and
The Governor
Zen Master
Seung Sahn
[Reading]
A Tale from the Korean Zen Master

Issue #161
www.ralphmag.org/EM/indexEM.html
Very Early Summer 2007

Dada East
The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire
Tom Sandqvist
(MIT)
Seeking Out the Earliest Roots of Dada

The Volcano Adventure Guide
Rosaly Lopes
(Cambridge University)
How to Find (and Explore)
the 1,500 Volcanoes --- in the World

When the Impossible Happens
Adventures in Non-Ordinary Realities
Stanislav Grof
(Sounds True)
Journeys in the Mind ---
Going Everywhere Your Mother
Told You Not to Go

The Edge of Sadness
Edwin O'Connor
(Loyola Classics)
Being a Good Catholic Father:
Drinking, Despair, and the General Blues

Farewell to the
Starlight in Whiskey
Barton Sutter
(BOA Editions)
Poetry from the
Upper Middle West Lake Country

Serve It Forth[G]
Mary F. K. Fisher
(North Point Press)
Memoirs of One of the First
To Lead Us From Marshmallow Salads and
Overcooked Roast Beef

Dream Whip No. 14[B]*
Bill Brown
(Microcosm Publishing)
A (Modern) Classic American
On the Road Trip

To Have and Have Not [B]
Ernest Hemingway
(Recorded Books)
Classic Hemingway at His Best
(and Worst)

Gimpel the Fool[B] And Other Stories
Isaac Bashevis Singer
(Audio Partners)
Three Old Singer Tales of
European Jewish Life

Bad RALPH
RALPH Goes Commercial II
"Geek Love"
Gray-Hair Pornographia
The Lusitania
Charles Krafft
My War Gone By I Love It So
Stephen Hawking
Suspected Anarchy at RALPH
Gravity-Fed Water Systems
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings,
Correspondence, and
Any of the 3,000 (or More)
Pictures, Drawings, and
Photographs
That Have Appeared
Over the Past Thirteen Years

Open When Needed
Dianna Robin Dennis
[Article]
Memories of an Eccentric Family in Maine

Ángel
Carlos Amantea
[Reading]
A Tale of Death in Santa Clarita

From Versailles To Cybernetics
Gregory Bateson
[Reading]
Thoughts on Revenge and
World Wars I & II

Tradition
Quan Berry
[Poetry]
Female Circumcision

Issue #162
www.ralphmag.org/EN/indexEN.html
Mid-Summer 2007

Past Tents
The Way We Camped
Susan Snyder
(Heyday/Bancroft Library)
Camping in the Mountains
A Hundred Years Ago

Dancing With Joy:
99 Poems
Roger Housden
(Harmony)
A Selection of Poems
To Make Us Happy
(If Not Sane)

What Do I Say
Talking with Patients
About Spirituality
Elizabeth Johnston Taylor
(Templeton Foundation)
Advice on Reaching Out
To the Sick or Dying

American Windmills
An Album of
Historic Photographs
T. Lindsay Baker
(University of Oklahoma)
200 Photographs from
The Heyday of Wind Power

The Bloomsday Dead*
Adrian McKinty
(Blackstone Audio)
Detective Novel about
The Irish-American Mafia
in Belfast

Cold Skin*
Albert Sánchez Piñol
(Canongate)
Life on a Desert Island
With Creatures that Try to Eat You
(In the Night)

An Old Wife's Tale[G]
My Seven Decades
In Love and War
Midge Decter
(Regan/Harper/Collins)
Memoirs from a Decidedly Snappy
Older Conservative

Hiroshima[B]*
John Hersey
Edward Asner, Reader
(Audio Partners)
The 1946 Journalistic Masterpiece
in Reading

Telegraph Days[B]
Larry McMurtry
Annie Potts, Reader
(Recorded Books)
The Old West

A Caribbean Mystery[B]
Agatha Christie
Rosalind Ayers, Reader
(Audio Partners)
Murder on a Caribbean Island

My French Whore[B]
Gene Wilder
Scott Brick, Reader
(Books on Tape)
Novel of WWI and an American Spy

Dada
Billy Joel
Wild Birds
Waking Up in A Just-Buried Coffin
The RALPH Folio
The West Coast Review of Books
Auditory Hallucinations
Spatial Location and
Persecutory Delusions
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings,
Correspondence, and
Any of the 3,000 (or More)
Pictures, Drawings, and
Photographs
That Have Appeared
Over the Past
Thirteen Years

Pier-Luigi Zucchini
L. W. Milam
Dr. Phage
[Article]
Biography of the Famous
17th Century Composer

Dream Whip #14
Bill Brown
[Reading]
Travel in New York City, Vienna, Zagreb

A Plague Of Locusts
Ellsworth Huntington
[Reading]
Travel in Turkey
A Hundred Years Ago

The Search for
Unpolluted Drinking Water
Steven Johnson
[Reading]
A Selection from The Ghost Map

Instant Sonnet
Lope Féliz de Vega Carpio
[Poem]
A Poem about
Writing a Poem

Cow Worship
Gerald Stern
[Poem]
Kissing Cows

Grammar
Tony Hoagland
[Poem]
Conjugating Verbs
(And Love)

Issue #163
www.ralphmag.org/EO/indexEO.html
Late Mid-Summer 2007

Twenty-One Hits
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
Links to the Articles, Reviews,
Poems, Readings and Letters in
RALPH that Continue to Receive
The Most Monthly Hits

The Past from Above
Aerial Photographs of
Archaeological Sites
Georg Gerster
Charlotte Trümpler,
Editors
(The J. Paul Getty Museum)
Two-Hundred Fifty Ancient Sites
As Photographed (and Described) from Above

The Collected Poems of
Tennessee Williams[B]
David Roessel,
Nicholas Moschovakis
Editors
(New Directions)
Occasional (and Often Merry)
Poems of the Dramatist

An Absolute Gentleman[B]
R. M. Kinder
(Counterpoint)
Anatomy of a Serial Killer
In Novel Form

Body, Remember[B]
Kenny Fries
(Wisconsin)
Memoirs of Growing Up
Poor, Disabled and Gay

My Brilliant Career
Dr. Phage
[Article]
How to Survive Academic Meetings;
Basic Responsibilities of PhDs;
Cats

Dappled Things
Michael Foley
(Dufour Editions)
Parental Loves
(and Others)

Glory in a Camel's Eye[G]
Trekking through the
Moroccan Sahara
Jeffrey Tayler
(Houghton Mifflin)
Forty Days and Forty Nights
By Camel Across Morocco

Fasting
Spiritual Freedom
Beyond Our Appetites
Lynne M. Baab
(Formatio)
Many Different
Forms of Fasting Described

Ham and the Moon
Jesse Lee Kercheval
(University of Iowa)
A Great Home-Cooked Meal
(While Dying)

My Life In France
Julia Child
(Random House Audio)
The French School of Cooking
(And of Living) Remembered

Neither/Nor
W. H. Fowler
Modern English Usage
"Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer"
La Uña del Gato
Multiple Personality Disorders
Functional Auditory Hallucinations
My Bloody Life
Reymundo Sanchez
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings,
Correspondence, and
Any of the 3,000 (or More)
Pictures, Drawings, and
Photographs
That Have Appeared
Over the Past Thirteen Years

Medieval Obscenities
Nicola McDonald, Editor
(University of York)
Some of More Lurid Passages
Drawn from the Tenth -
Fifteenth Century Poems,
Church Ornaments and Official Records

The Verbover Rebbe
Michael Chabon
[Reading]
The Head Rabbi from
The Yiddish Policemen's Union

On Retirement*
75 Poems
Robin Chapman,
Judith Strasser,
Editors
(University of Iowa)
A Multitude of Poems on Ageing

Mornings on Horseback
David McCullough
(Recorded Books)
The First Thirty or So Years
Of the Oyster Bay Republican

World-Wide Slum Growth
Jeremy Harding
[Reading]
The Coming of the
Mega-Slums

The Yiddish Policemen's Union*
Michael Chabon
(Harper Audio/Recorded Books)
A Dark Detective Story about
"The Frozen Chosen"

Issue #164
www.ralphmag.org/EP/indexEP.html
Very Early Fall 2007

Twelve Stars
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
Books from the First Half of
The Year that Were Our All-time Favorites

Frogs:
Inside Their
Remarkable World
Ellin Beltz
(Firefly)
Pretty Frogs and Their Progeny

Debussy
The Quiet Revolutionary
Victor Lederer
(Amadeus Press)
The Life and Times of
the Romantic Composer

The Book
That Changed
My Life
71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate
The Books that
Matter Most to Them
Roxanne J. Coady
Joy Johannessen, Editors
(Bantam)
A Compendium of
Titles that Rocked Writers' Hearts

Thoreau's Laundry*
Ann Harleman
(Southern Methodist University Press)
Twelve Short Stories by
A Modern Master

True Grit
Charles Portis
(Recorded Books)
The Wry Old West

Generals Die in Bed*
Charles Yale Harrison
(Annick/Firefly)
A WWI Novel from
1920s Canada

The Ghost Map:
The Story of London's
Most Terrifying Epidemic ---
And How it Changed Science,
Cities, and the Modern World
Steven Johnson
(Riverhead)
Dr. John Snow and Cholera

Horse Latitudes
Paul Muldoon
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Jim-Jams from Princeton

Where Stuff
Comes From:[G]
How Toasters, Toilets,
Cars, Computers, and
Many Other Things
Come to Be
As They Are
Harvey Molotch
(Routledge)
A Strange (and Funny)
Compiliation of the
Origin of Things

Ooga-Booga[B]*
Frederick Seidel
(Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
Weird (and Wonderful)
Poetry from East Hampton
(And Thereabouts)

Not that You Asked[B]
Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions
Steve Almond
(Random House)
Essays from a Somewhat Funny Almond

Falling Man[B]
Don DeLillo
(Recorded Books)
9/11 Through the Eyes of
A Somewhat Jaded Novelist

Sleeping in Academia
Dada
Old Texas Towns
Snakes and Earrings
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH
That Have Appeared
Over the Past Thirteen Years

Samovars and Bedlam
Michael Ingall
[Article]
Memories of Working in
A Psychiatric
Unit in Boston

Blue-John and Bust-Head
Charles Portis
[Reading]
Looking for a Cowboy
Detective in Arkansas
A Century Ago

An Interlude
In the War
Charles Yale Harrison
[Reading]
WWI Soldiers on Billet

The South Berkeley Branch Closes
Ishmael Reed
[Poem]
Reading from 75 Poems
On Retirement

Riddle of Self-Worth
Christopher Kennedy
[Poem]
Dinner at Six for the Cannibal

East Hampton Airport
Frederick Seidel
[Poem]
Long Island Airport (In Verse)

Issue #165
www.ralphmag.org/EQ/indexEQ
Mid-Fall 2007

Vintage
Amis[G]
Martin Amis
(Vintage)
Essays and Fiction of the
Contemporary Literary Figure

Las Soldaderas:[B]
Women of the Mexican Revolution
Elena Poniatowska
(Cinco Punto Press)
Pictures of Women from the
Revolution: 1912 - 1920

The Secret River[B]
Kate Grenville
(Canongate)
Novel about English Prisoners
and the Aboriginal Wars of Australia

Openwork[B]
Adria Bernardi
(Southern Methodist University Press)
Novel about Italian
Immigrants in America

When Illness Goes Public[B]:
Celebrity Patients and
How We Look at Medicine
Barron H. Lerner
(Johns Hopkins University Press)
Thirteen Stories of the Famous
(and Not-So-Famous) Ill

Unknown Friends
Carl Dennis
(Penguin Books)
Poems by the Pulitzer Prize Winner

Exit Ghost
Philip Roth
(Houghton Mifflin)
Zuckerman Revisited
(With Diapers)

Carl Friedrich Gauss
Meets Immanuel Kant
Daniel Kehlmann
[Reading]
Meeting of the
Two Famous Scientists

Grass
Carl Dennis
[Reading]
God and Lawn-Covering
(Without Fertilizer)

Measuring the World*
Daniel Kehlmann
(Pantheon)
A Fictional Retelling
(With Gusto) of the
Life of the Scientist

Elena Pat
Mora
[Reading]
Poem of Immigrant Women

Ram Dass
Dada
Old Texas Towns
Unforeseen Consequences of
Cataract Operations
Edgar Allen Poe
D. H. Lawrence
Trumpets
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

Medieval and
Renaissance Treasures*
Paul Williamson,
Peta Motture,
Editors
(Victoria and Albert/Abrams)
Works of Art from
600 A. D. - 1600 A. D.

The Last of the Mohicans
James Fenimore Cooper
(Books on Tape)
Indian (and French &
Indian War) Lore from 1826

Muni Court (and the Ants)
Dr. Phage
[Article]
Some Thoughts on Municipal Court
Jury Service (and Intractable Insects)

Your Own, Sylvia:
A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath
Stephanie Hemphill
(Knopf)
Two Hundred Poems about
The Life of Sylvia Plath

Defining the World:*
The Extraordinary Story of
Dr. Johnson's Dictionary
Henry Hitchings
(Picador)
A History of the First Real
Dictionary of the English Language

The Making of
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary
Henry Hitchings
[Reading]
The Room Described
In which Johnson Made the Dictionary

The Laws Field Guide
To the Sierra Nevada
John Muir Laws
(Heyday Books)
The Birds and Beasts (and
The Scat) of the High Sierras

Issue #166
www.ralphmag.org/ER/indexER.html
Late Fall 2007

Fire in the City
Girolamo Savonarola and the Struggle for
The Soul of Renaissance Florence
Lauro Martines
(Oxford)
The Life and Times of the
Inventor of "The Bonfire of the Vanities"

Analogue
Zoe Leonard
(Western Center for the Arts/
MIT Press)
Stark photographs from Uganda, Cuba,
Mexico, Chicago, New York

Where Have All
The Soldiers Gone?*
The Transformation of
Modern Europe
James J. Sheehan
(Houghton Mifflin)
How Europe Lost Its Militaristic Impulses

Mr. Sebastian and
The Negro Magician
Daniel Wallace
(Recorded Books)
Life and Times in an Old Circus
in the Old South, 1950s

Trespass
Valerie Martin
(Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)
A middle-class New Yorker Falls in
Love with a Croatian
(and Her Family)

The Canon
A Whirligig Tour of
The Beautiful Basics of Science
Natalie Angier
(HighBridge Audio)
A Tour through the Five Basic Sciences

Prometheus
The Triumph and Tragedy of
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Kai Bird
Martin J. Sherwin
(Blackstone Audio)
The Life of One that Some Dubbed
"The Galileo of the 20th Century"

The Illness Narratives[G]
Suffering, Healing, and
The Human Condition
Arthur Kleinman
(Basic)
A Doctor, Working with "Incurables,"
Describes His Feelings

Sex Texts from
The Bible*[B]
Selections Annotated and Explained
Teresa J. Hornsby
(SkyLight Paths)
One of the Faithful Explains the Why of
Certain Scandalous Parts of The Bible

The Last Voyage Of Columbus[B]
Martin Dugard
(Recorded Books)
The Fourth (and Last)
(And Perhaps the Worst)
Of the Navigator's Trips

Ambers Aglow:[B]
An Anthology of
Contemporary Polish
Women's Poetry
Regina Grol, Editor
(Host Publications)
Twenty-Nine Poets and
Two Hundred Poems
From Modern Poland

What Happens to Review Copies
of Books Sent to RALPH?
Also: H. L. Mencken
Wislawa Szymborska
Claude Debussy
The Dew-Line
Wall Street and
Ads in RALPH
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

The Dew-Line Bears
Paul Nickel
[Article]
Should We Fret about
The Polar Bears?

Comme Les Autres
Jon Gallant
[Article]
Growing Up with "A Downser" Child

Filming in Africa
Alexander Kluge
[Reading]
The Revolution
(DVDs over Film)

Friesenhahn's Act
Alexander Kluge
[Reading]
A Circus Act
(Complete with Hyenas)

A Gypsy Child
Salomea Kapuscinska
[Poetry]
Contemporary Polish Poetry

The Touch and The Taste
Urszula M. Benka
[Poetry]
Contemporary Polish Poetry

Advice for Her
Who Was Named
A Woman
Julia Hartwig
[Poetry]
Contemporary Polish Poetry

Issue #167
www.ralphmag.org/ES/indexES.html
Very Early Winter 2007

Afghanistan
Paul Clammer (Lonely Planet)
How to Get into,
Around (and Out of)
this Treasured Travel-Spot

Beethoven's Oeuvre
Dr.Phage
[Article]
Thoughts on Available
Recordings of the Master

Beethoven:
The Universal Composer
Edmund Morris
(Recorded Books)
A Concise (and Entertaining)
Biography of the Composer

Chopin:[B]
A Listener's Guide to
The Master of the Piano
Victor Lederer
(Amadeus Press)
A Biography (with CD*)
of the Romantic Master

Beowulf:*[B]
A New Verse Translation
Seamus Heaney
(Recorded Books)
Life and Good Times in
10th Century Mead Halls

Gentlemen of The Road[B]
Michael Chabon
(Random House Audio)
Other 10th Century Antic Vagabondages

The Coldest Winter:
A Stringer in
Liberated Europe
Paula Fox
(Picador)
Memories of London, Paris,
and Warsaw --- 1946 - 1947

The Dew-Line Bears
The Field Guide to
the Sierra Nevada
Mark O'Brien and
Self-Publishing
Hitler and Syphilis
Sylvia Plath
Contact with the Deceased
(Stepwise Technique)
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

Inventing Los Alamos:
The Growth of
An Atomic Community
Jon Hunner
(Oklahoma)
The Creation, Life, and Old Age
of a Very Special City

Leopoldo Méndez:*
Revolutionary Art and
The Mexican Print
Deborah Caplow
(University of Texas Press)
A Luxurious History of
One of the Supreme
Artists of 20th Century Mexico

Molvanîa[G]
Santo Cilauro, et. al.
(Overlook Press)
A Strange Travel-Guide to a
Very Strange Country

The New Earth from Above:
365 Days
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
(Abrams)
A Stupendous and Gorgeous
Day-by-Day Overview
of the World

A Society Marching
to Its Certain Ruin
Barbara Tuchman
[Reading]
The Edwardian Age
Seen in Self-Destruct

Who Beats Your Heart?
L. W. Milam
[Article]
What to Do When
They Stick a Pacemaker
in Your Chest

Ticket to Exile:
A Memoir
Adam David Miller
(Heyday Books)
A Soulful Memoir of
Growing Up Black
in South Carolina

The Birth of the
Unknown Soldier
James J. Sheehan
[Reading]
Western Nations Learning
How to Commemorate
the Millions Who Died in Battle

The Year of
The Fog
Michelle Richmond
(Blackstone)
A Novel about
a Missing Child

Issue #168
www.ralphmag.org/ET/indexET.html
Mid-Winter 2007 - 2008

American Skin
Ken Bruen
(Kate's Mystery Books/Justin, Charles & Co.)
Yet Another Tale of American Mayhem

Tibetan Cooking[B]
Recipes for Daily Living, Celebration and Ceremony
Elizabeth Esther Kelly
(Snow Lion)
Food (and Caring) for Dignitaries and
Friends in the Tibetan Style

The Power of Flies[B]
Lydie Salvayre
(Dalkey Archive)
Story of a Man
Obsessed with Blaise Pascal

Hypnotherapy, Schizophrenia and
Drinking a Glass of Water
Jay Haley
[Interview]
Thoughts of One of the Originators of
the Concept of Family Therapy (and "The Double Bind")

Starting Out in the Evening
Brian Morton
(Harcourt)
A Novel about a Forgotten Novelist

The Airmen and the Headhunters
A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen
and the Unlikeliest Rescue of
World War II
Judith M. Heimann
(Harcourt)
Seven U. S. Airmen Lost for Six Months in Borneo, 1944

Korean Love Poems[G]
Tom Crawford
[Poetry]
Ginkgo Trees and Love in Kwangju

The Seder
The New RALPH
(Without the Name)
Sexy Haiku
Robin D. Gill
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

It's "Nudnick," Not "Noodnick"
S. J. Perelman
[Interview]
Back-and-Forth with the Curmudgeon of
20th Century America

A Poem of Hope
P. J. Weise
[Poem]
Contemporary American Poetry

Contemporary Russian Poetry:
An Anthology
Evgeny Bunimovich
J. Kates, Editors
(Dalkey Archive)
Works of Fourty-Four Poets from
the Last Half of the 20th Century

Saraminda*
José Sarney
(Aliform Publishing)
A Lusty Novel from
the Gold-Fields of South America

Isaac Bashevis Singer and
The Lower East Side[G]
Bruce Davidson, Photographer
(Mead Art Museum/
University of Wisconsin)
One of Singer's Great Stories
Accompanied by Fifty Photographs

The Woman
Sandzar Yanyshev
[Poem]
Contemporary Russian Poem

Woodward and Bernstein
Life in the Shadow of Watergate
Alicia C. Shepard
(Wiley)
Scandal (or Lack of It)
In the Lives of the Washington Post Duo

Issue #169
www.ralphmag.org/EU/indexEU.html
Late Winter 2007 - 2008

The 3rd Ave. El.
Dr. Phage
[Article]
A Visit to the Late Great
New York City Transportation System

Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth
Poems 2004 - 2006
Adrienne Rich
(Norton)
Contemporary American Poetry

After the Fall*
Poems Old and New
Edward Field
(University of Pittsburgh Press)
Words from an Old East Coast Bohemian

Ten Poems to Change
Your Life Again & Again[B]
Roger Housden
(Harmony Books)
Another Series of Poems with Commentary

Romance in the Ivory Tower[B]
The Rights and Liberty of Conscience
Paul R. Abramson
(The MIT Press)
Professor-Student Love
Seen as a Civil Right

Battle Creek[B]
James Sallis
(Walker)
Murder Mystery from Tennessee

How Now Shall We Live?[G]
Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcy
(Tyndale House)
Religions Old and New through the
Eyes of the Ex-Nixon Aide

Curse of the Cat Woman
Edward Field
[Poem]
Modern American Poetry

The Farther Shore*
Matthew Eck
(Milkweed)
Story of an Unknown War in an Unamed Country

Sex and Violence and
the Federal Communications Commission
L. W. Milam
[Article]
How to Get Broadcasters to Clean Up
The Airwaves without Government Intervention

The Jew of Home Depot
And Other Stories
Max Apple
(Johns Hopkins)
Stories of Love and
Cultural Wars in Texas

Charles Colson and
How Now Shall We Live
Quantcast and Counting
Hits on the Internet
Foot Orthotics and RALPH
My Bloody Life
Clock and Skull
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

A Dynamic God
Living an Unconventional
Catholic Faith
Nancy Mairs
(Beacon Press)
Disability and Living
One's Own Faith

The Great Arc[G]
The Dramatic Tale of How India Was
Mapped and Everest Was Named
John Keay
(Harper Collins)
Adventures on Topography
(from 150 Years Ago)

The Queen Is in the Countinghouse
Leslie L. Seamans
[Poetry] Contemporary American Poetry

Echo Location
John M. Hull
[Reading]
How the Blind "See"
Objects by Feel

Winged Wonders
A Celebration of Birds in Human History
Peter Watkins & Jonathan Stockland
(BlueBridge)
Sixteen Birds Considered

Issue #170
www.ralphmag.org/EV/indexEV.html
Late Late Winter 2007 - 2008

Fifteen Stars
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
Fifteen Great Books from
the Ultimate Months of 2007

The Seventh Well
Fred Wander
(Norton)
Times in Concentration Camps by the
Famous East German Writer

Real Stinkers
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
Eight Recent Books We
Just Couldn't Get Through

My Father Says Grace[B]
Donald Platt
(Arkansas)
Lyrics about a Nursing Home for
the Very VeryOld

The Gateway[B]
T. M. McNally
(SMU)
Seven Short Stories from
the Dark Side

Sex & Isolation[B]
Bruce Benderson
(University of Wisconsin Press)
Essays on the Loss of the Old Times Square
and Hustling on the Internet

Churchbells
Guillaume Apollinaire
[Poem]
Translation by X. J. Kennedy

Crazy for God
How I Grew Up as One of the Elect,
Helped Found the Religious Right, and
Lived to take All (Or Almost All)
Of It Back
Frank Schaeffer
(Carroll & Graf)
Memoirs of a One-Time
Fundamentalist

The Exodus
J. M. Coetzee
[Reading]
What Happens When
the Soldiers Come to Town

The Electrical Century
Iwan Rhys Morus
[Reading]
The Selling of Power

Teach the Free Man*
Stories
Peter Nathaniel Malae
(Swallow)
Prison Life from the
Inside (and Out)

The Crazed[G]
Ha Jin
(Pantheon)
Caring for a Very Crazy
Old Man (Chinese Style)

Afghanistan by Paul Clammer
The 3rd Ave. El.
The Purpose of RALPH
Subagh Singh
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

The Murder of Mexican Musicians
C. Amantea
[Article]
The Reasons behind
Recent Violence to the South

Warm, Soft,
Chewy, Delicious
Flesh Tortillas
C. A. Amantea
[Article]
The Omnipresent Staple of Mexico

The Wisdom of Yoga
A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living
Stephen Cope
(Bantam)
The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali
as Set in Lenox, Mass.

In a Prominent
Bar in Secaucus*
New and Selected Poems, 1955 - 2007
X. J. Kennedy
(Johns Hopkins)
A Captivating Collection of Verse
by the American poet

Issue #171
www.ralphmag.org/EW/indexEW.html
Very Early Spring 2008

Twenty-Three Hits
The Readers of RALPH
[List]
Twenty-three Reviews, Readings,
Articles or Poems Most Often Called-up
by Our Readers.

Fulgencio Batista
From Revolutionary
to Strongman
Frank Argote-Freyre
(Rutgers University Press)
The First Forty Years in
the Life of the Cuban Dictator

"The Birth of History"
"The Prophet of Literature"
Roberto Bolaño
[Reading]
Two Choice Passages
from Amulet

The Surgeons[B]
Life and Death
In a Top Heart Center
Charles R. Morris
(Norton)
Top Cardiology Practitioners at
Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, New York

Amulet[B]*
Roberto Bolaño
(New Directions)
Street-Life and Lives of the Poets,
Mexico City, 1968

Cantos de Adolescencia
(1932 - 1937)[B]
Américo Paredes
B. V. Olguín
O. V. Barbosa,
Editors
(Arte Público Pess)
Early Poetry of the
Cancionero de la Frontera

Soup
Enid Dame
[Poetry]
Life in Brooklyn
(and the Vilna Ghetto)

The World at Night
Matthew Rohrer
[Poetry]
Getting Blind Drunk
in Brooklyn

Broken Land*
Poems of Brooklyn
Julia Spicher Kasdorf
Michael Tyrell,
Editors
(New York University Press)
Anthology of Poetry from
the Other Side of the East River

City Requiem, Calcutta[G]
Gender and the
Politics of Poverty
Ananya Roy
(University of Minnesota Press)
Life of the Urban Poor in India

Sister Bernadette's
Barking Dog*
The Quirky History
And Lost Art of
Diagramming Sentences
Kitty Burns Florey
(Harvest)
A Loving Study of the
Ancient Art of Parsing Sentences

Adverse Outcomes of
Cataract Operations
Multiple Personality Disorder
RALPH and Sunglasses
Cryptic Letters of the Month:
I Am Pretty Female
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

The First Total War
Napoleon's Europe and
The Birth of Warfare
As We Know It
David A. Bell
(Houghton Mifflin)
The Birth (and Death) of
Massed Armies, 1792 - 1815

The Øresund Fixed Link
Jon Gallant
[Article]
The Connection Between Denmark
and Sweden Revealed

Couples Therapy
For the Disabled
Susan Parker
[Reading]
A Passage from Parker's
Tumbling After

Sibelius:
The Orchestral Music
David Hurwitz
(Amadeus Press)
The Seven (or Nine) Symphonies
ofthe Finnish Composer

Behind Closed Doors*
Her Father's House and
Other Stories of Sicily
Maria Messina
(The Feminist Press at CUNY)
Hard Times and the Poor
in Turn-of-the-Century Mistretta

The Most Paradoxical
of Paradoxes
[List]
The Readers of RALPH
A Collection of the Most Favored
"Paradoxes-of-the-Month"

Issue #172
www.ralphmag.org/EX/indexEX.html
Spring 2008

All-Time Hits from the Early Days of RALPH[G]
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
Twenty-One Reviews, Readings,
Articles or Poems From the First Days of the Magazine.

The Song of Kahunsha
Anosh Irani
(Milkweed)
A Novel of the Lives of
Poor Street-Children in Bombay

Billionaire[B]
John D. MacArthur:
Empire Builder, Reluctant Philanthropist, Relentless Adversary
Nancy Kriplen
(Amacom)
A Quickie on the Insurance Magnate

Bill Mauldin[B]
A Life Up Front
Todd DePastino
(Norton)
The Life of the WWII Cartoonist

A View of The Ocean*[B]
Jon de Hartog
(Pantheon)
The Last Days of the Mother of the Author

Cancel Your Own
Goddam Subscription
Notes & Asides from National Review
William Buckley
(Basic Books)
The Late Editor's Writings on Everything Under the Sun

The Death of a Moth
Milorad Pavic
[Reading]
Why There Is Death in the World

"Gertrude Stein and Grammar"
Kitty Burns Florey
[Reading]
Diagramming, Grammar, and the American Poet

IN MEMORY OF THE HORSE DAVID,
WHO ATE ONE OF MY POEMS
James Wright
[Poem]
Obscurantist Poem on Literary
Eating Habits of Horses

Journey to the East
Le Corbusier
(MIT)
The Young Le Corbu in the Middle East, 1911

The Ethics of News Photographers
"The Weeping Frenchman"
Pekin Ducks
Poems of Brooklyn
Ezra Pound
The Barnes Foundation
Impressionism
World War One and Gas
Onanism and the Importance of Time
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

James Joyce and
The Glory of the Outhouse
Carlos Amantea
[Article]
Ulysses and the
Construction of "El Baño Seco"

Life Class
Pat Barker
(Doubleday)
Novel of English Painters
and World War I

Foreskin's Lament:*
A Memoir
Shalom Auslander
(Riverhead Books)
A Cockamanie Story of Growing Up
in the Contemporary Orthodox
Jewish Middle Class

Song of Welcome
Joseph Brodsky
[Poem]
Growing Up, Growing Old, Dying

When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It*
The Parts of Speech
For Better and/or Worse
Ben Yagoda
(Broadway)
A Merry Chase through
the Parts of Speech in English

Issue #173
www.ralphmag.org/EY/indexEY.html
Late Spring 2008

Twenty Great Poems
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
Twenty Poems from the
First Days of the Magazine

America's Child
A Woman's Journey
Through the Radical Sixties
Susan Sherman
(Curbstone)
Autobiography of a Feminist Radical

The Big Switch:
Rewiring the World,
From Edison to Google
Nicholas Carr
(Norton)
The Goods and Bads of the
Computer Age and the Internet

The Computer and
Centralized Power
Nicholas Carr
[Reading]
The Computer as
Reporter on Your Life

World over Water[B]
Robert Gibb
(Arkansas)
Poetry on American Radicals
In the Steel Mills

A Force of Nature[B]
The Frontier Genius of
Ernest Rutherford
Richard Reeves
(Atlas Books)
Life Story of the Scientist Who
Split the First Atom

In Search Of the Blues[B]
Marybeth Hamilton
(Basic)
The Myth of the Delta Blues Revealed

Sometimes I Feel Like
Stephen Hawking Must Feel
After A Bad Night
L. W. Milam
[Article]
The Real World of Disability

A Curious Earth
Gerard Woodward
(Norton)
Story of an Old but Respectable
Drunk in Modern-Day London

Neither - Nor
Reginal A. Fessenden &
The Caspian Sea
Synanon
Andrew Harvey
Azerbijan & Pakistan
H. L. Mencken
The Aedii Eechii
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

The Making of a
Tropical Disease:
A Short History of Malaria
Randall M. Packard
(Johns Hopkins)
The Facts about the World's
Most Debilitating Disease

Midlife
Joseph Millar
[Poem]
The Midlife Crises

Radical Compassion[G]
Finding Christ in the
Heart of the Poor
Gary Smith, S. J.
(Jesuit Way/Loyola)
Working with the Poor

Whatever You Do,
Don't Run*
True Tales of a
Botswana Safari Guide
Peter Allison
(The Lyons Press)
What Not to Do When Faced
With a Pride of Lions

The Slave Ship:
A Human History
Marcus Rediker
(Viking)
The Economic Facts of the Slave Trade

Tapping In:
A Step-By-Step Guide to
Activating Your Healing Resources
Through Bilateral Stimulation
Laurel Parnell
(Sounds True Books)
Physical Resources for Relieving Psychic Symptoms

Issue #174
www.ralphmag.org/EZ/indexEZ.html
Early Summer 2008

Immortal
Traci L. Slatton
(Delta)
The Horrors of 14th Century Italian Street Life

Taxi
Khaled Al Khamissi
(Aflame Books)
80,000 Reasons Not to Visit Cairo

The World on Fire
1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism
Anthony Read
(Norton)
Several Characters in Search of a Political Religion
(Including Lenin, Mother Jones, Tolstoi, and Churchill)

My Mother Wears Combat Boots
A Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us
Jessica Mills
(AK)
Having and Caring for Babies
(While Being in Love with the "Subhumans")

When Huai Flowers Bloom
Stories of the Cultural Revolution
Shu Jiang Lu
(SUNY Press)
Surviving the Cultural Revolution

The Associates
Four Capitalists Who Created California
Richard Rayner
(Atlas & Co.)
Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker

The Accidental Explorer
Wayfinding in Alaska
Sherry Simpson
(Sasquatch)
How to Be Terrified on Foot in the Snows of Alaska
(With Your Friendly Dog)

The World's Most Dangerous Places[G]
Robert Young Pelton
(Fielding)
How to Be Terrified while on Vacation

Dragon Thunder[B]
My Life with Chögyam Trungpa
Diana J. Mukpo
(Shambhala)
Strange Times (and Stranger Parties) with the
Tibetan Buddhist Master

Natural Shocks[G]*
Richard Stern
(TriQuaterly/
Northwestern University)
Negative Capability and Goethe, Tolstoy,
Dr. Johnson, Sandy Koufax and the Sage of Vienna

Red Parrot Wooden Leg [B]
Gregorio Kohon
(Karnac)
Two Young Stoned Poets
Afloat in Rio de Janeiro

Flags in the Dust
Dugustus Goop
X. J. Kennedy
Bush Hog
Cryptic Letters of the Month
Think You
Czechoslovakian Recipes
Love Letters
Abortions
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

Lifestyles of the Blind and Paralyzed:
Mark O'Brien
L. W. Milam
[Article]
A Short Obituary on the
Foremost Disabled Poet

Leadbelly and John Lomax
[1934 - 1935]
Marybeth Hamilton
[Reading]
The Folk Collector and the Black Singer
On the Road Together

The Funeral of Nikolai Vorontsov
Loren Graham
[Reading]
Death in the
Last Days of the USSR

Brooklyn College Brain
Allen Ginsberg
[Poem]
The New Teacher in New York City

Riding the D-Train
Enid Dame
[Poetry]
Poetry in the New York Subway

Issue #175
www.ralphmag.org/FA/indexFA.html
Early Mid-Summer 2008

Twelve Famous Readings
The Editors of RALPH
[Readings]
A Selection of Readings from the Early Days of the Magazine

Twentieth Century
United States Photographers:
A Student's Guide
Kristin G. Congdon
Karas Kelley Hallmark
(Greenwood Press)
A Textbook on Seventy-Five
Important American Photographers

Testy Mail
The Editors of RALPH
[Letters]
A Collection of Pained Communications
Addressed to the Magazine

Ants at Work[G]:
How an Insect Society Is Organized
Deborah Gordon
(The Free Press)
A Survey of Survival Habits
of Ants in the Desert

Pioneers of Balinese Painting:*
The Rudolf Bonnet Collection
Helena Spanjaard
(KIT Publishers)
Important Artists from mid-
Twentieth Century Java

Impressions of The East[B]:
Treasures from the C. V. Starr
East Asian Library
Deborah Rudolph
(Heyday Books)
Japanese, Chinese, and Korean
Art and Books in the Famous California Collection

Ten Books that
Screwed Up the World[B]:
And Five that Didn't Help
Benjamin Wiker
(Regnery)
Darwin, Freud, Kinsey, and
Hobbes Are Among the Villains Here

It Was Never about
A Hot Dog and a Coke![B]:
A Personal Account of the 1960 Sit-in Demonstrations in
Jacksonville, Florida and Ax Handle Saturday
Rodney L. hurst, Sr.
(WingSpan Press)
Memories of Early Civil-Rights Demonstrations
In North Florida

Living Abroad in China
Stuart and Barbara Strother
(Moon)
How to Get a Job
And Be Happy in
Communist China

Help Your Dog
Fight Cancer:
What Every Caretaker
Should Know about
Canine Cancer
Laurie Kaplan
(Kaplan)
Advice for Dog-Owners on Cancer

On Empire:*
America, War, and
Global Supremacy
Eric Hobsbawm
(Oxford)
The Famed Marxist Historian
On America's Latest Venture in
The Middle East

Maxine Kumin
A Latin King
Dugustus Goop
X. J. Kennedy
Ordering Water Closets
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

Night Haunts:*
A Journey through the London Night
Sukhdev Sandhu
(Artangel/Verso)
Reports on What Keeps London
Alive and Well During the Night

Pulling at Broken Strings
Laurie Lee
[Reading]
Mothers and Madness in Edwardian England

Wild Edges:
Photographic Ink Prints
Gregory Conniff
(University of Wisconsin)
Black-and-White Images of Nature

The Case of
The Disappearing Video
Dr. Phage
[Article]
How to Lose Orson Welles
In Your Home Video

Issue #176
www.ralphmag.org/FB/indexFB.html
Early Late Summer 2008

Varieties of Liberalism in Central America
Nation-States as Works in Progress
Forrest D. Colburn
Arturo Cruz S.
(University of Texas)
Economics and Politics in
Five Central American Countries

Away*
Amy Bloom
(HighBridge Audio)
The On-the-Road Adventures of Lillian Leyb
Refugee from 1920's Turov

500 Butterflies[B]
From Around the World
Ken Preston-Mafham
(Firefly)
512 Butterflies
Explained and Pictured

Gulf Music[B]
Poems
Robert Pinsky
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Poetry from the Contemporary
American Worry-Wart

The Nuremberg Legacy[B]
How the Nazi War Crimes Trials
Changed the Course of History
Norbert Ehrenfreund
(Palgrave)
A Participant in the 1946
Trials Views the Implications

Comfort
A Journey
Through Grief
Ann Hood
(Norton)
On the Death of the
Five-Year-Old Grace Hood

Illness and Devotion
Manoel de Barros
[Poetry]
New Poems from Brazil

The Last Barrier[G]
A Journey into the Essence
of Sufi Teaching
Reshad Feild
(Lindisfarne Books)
The Tortured Path of
Suffering for the Sufi Divine

Living Everyday Zen*
Charlotte Joko Beck
(Sounds True CDs)
Thoughts from the San Diego
Zen Master

Bonfire of the Vanities
Slaves
Finding Work in China
Distance, Age and Color
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH

Choosing to Love the World
Thomas Merton
(Sounds True)
150 Thoughts on Holiness and Surviving
(And Surviving Holiness)

The Death of Thomas Merton
John Howard Griffin
[Reading]
A Report on the Tragedy
from a Close Friend

More Harm Than Good
What Your Doctor May Not
Tell You about Common Treatments and Procedures
Alan Zelicoff, M.D.
Michael Bellomo
(Amacom)
Various Medical Procedures One
Can and Should Avoid

What I Was
Meg Rosoff
(Viking)
Adventures of the Rich and Poor
at an English Public School

[B]To be found under "Brief Reviews"
[G]Great Reviews of the Past
*Indicates a book that we found of especial merit