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One of Shakespeare's early plays, written in 1598 or 1599, AS YOU LIKE IT is in many ways a typical Elizabethan romantic comedy, but it is also a satire in which Shakespeare ridicules many of the courtly-love conventions that were still current in his day: love as a disease, for example, and the lover as slave to his imperious mistress. In AS YOU LIKE IT, when these notions rear their heads, they are presented as silly absurdities. Orlando is in thrall to Rosalind, the simple shepherd Silvius is put through mental tortures by Phoebe--but ridiculing such formulaic excesses (Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love) and keeping the play grounded in reality, Shakespeare reminds his audience that true love can bring happiness and is a force for good. In Jaques's famously acerbic soliloquy on the stages of a man's life (which end in a second childhood followed by oblivion), he speaks of the naturalness and inevitability of change--and as the characters in AS YOU LIKE IT enter the Forest of Arden, they undergo changes that will ultimately lead to a transformation in their attitudes. Embittered men are reunited with the brothers they loathed, the rightful Duke is returned to his throne, and four absurdly warring couples are reconciled. The forest provides--as it does in many plays of the period--a pastoral interval in which the characters come to their senses and return to the city better people. In the course of the play, despite its light-hearted tone, Shakespeare does tackle some difficult questions involving love, aging, nature, and the coming of death.
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"Belva Plain is in a class by herself."
-The New York TimesNew York Times bestselling author Belva Plain has penned twenty internationally acclaimed novels.
Her tales of family, heritage, and history will resonate with anyone who knows what it is to love and what it is to be a part of a family, which is why her stories captivate readers by the millions.
Following up on the first omnibus edition of her work, here are three more rich, moving novels in one volume:
Blessings, Whispers, and Homecoming.Blessings is the deeply moving story of the beautiful and gutsy Jennie Rakowsky, whose hidden secret of her youth is about to ruin her brilliantly successful career and brand-new engagement.In Whispers, Lynn and Robert Ferguson seem to have the perfect marriage.
But behind closed doors, they hide a terrible secret that threatens to destroy everything.In Homecoming, family matriarch Annette Byrne makes one last effort to pull the fragmented parts of her clan together after tragedies have rocked their once comfortable world.
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
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Suffering from courtroom burnout, attorney Ben Kincaid heads to the picturesque Pacific Northwest for some much-needed R and R. But Ben's blissful getaway becomes a busman's holiday in the small town of Magic Valley, where a pitched battle between the local logging industry and crusading conservationists has led to brutal murder.Years earlier, professional activist George Zakin was successfully defended against a charge of murder by a fledgling attorney named Ben Kincaid. Now, accused of viciously killing a lumberjack, Zakin is counting on Ben to duplicate that long-ago courtroom coup. With the odds stacked against him, Ben walks into a war zone in the courtroom . . . and a potential killing field in Magic Valley, an explosive place where allies and enemies are hard to tell apart--and digging for the truth is as good as digging your grave.
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
All rights reserved.

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Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
All rights reserved.

Description not available.
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
All rights reserved.