Twelve Stars
In our
General Index,
we award stars to those
books we believe
to be the best.
Here are a dozen or so
we found to be
especially fetching.

NEW REVIEWS
Twelve Days in Persia
"One of those ladies
who went everywhere
with a canvas tote-bag,
a foldable portable chair,
a kerosene lamp,
a tea cozy ...
and her own indomitable self."

Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes
"He created this
whole terrible situation and
here you are now wanting me
to stick my nose in
what is, essentially,
other people's business."

Your Presence Is Requested in Suvanto
"It turns out to be
good medicine for any
in the medical profession
who think that they
know more than
they ought to."

Bright Wings
"I could not bear the Bees should come,
I wished they'd stayed away
In those dim countries where they go
What word had they, for me?"

What is God?
"We must be prepared
to see the divine
not up above in the heavens,
nor out there in the wide world ...
but solely in the mirror.
It is all within."

Over Autumn Rooftops
"On a rainy night a cow thief
steals me
from my human body
I am still deeply sleeping
I am taken beyond my body
beyond the sunflowers."

The Illuminated Landscape
"Once there was
a time when there was
nothing in the world
but water."

The Alternative Kitchen Garden
"U is for urine
covers the practice of
using your own diluted wee
to water your garden."

The Best Spiritual Writing 2010
"If Christianity is
the focus of this volume,
then it must be feeling
a terrible weariness ...
running on and on.
No ecstasy, no passion,
no burning fire;
scarcely even (even!) rage."

Great Reviews of the Past
A Portrait of Lost Tibet
"100 lashes is
not considered severe for a misdemeanor.
For thievery, armed brigandage, or murder,
the penalty is loss of one or
both hands or legs,
which are cut
above the knee."

LETTERS
Gutzon Borglum
Les Belle-lettres en RALPH

MORE LETTERS
Browning in Jamaica

EVEN MORE LETTERS
Cryptic Letters of the Month
I Am Miss Nicy
Selling Sheers

YET EVEN MORE LETTERS
Letters We Never Finished Reading
A Little Quell
In the Hospital Writing You
with Tires and Sorrow

ARTICLE
Retail (and Tribal) Politics
"We might call it
retail politics,
or more precisely,
retail patronage politics.
It is the ability to weigh up
the price, in money, of
a particular individual's loyalty ...
and make him an offer."

READINGS
Crispbread from Stockholm
"Eggs, butter, and canned goods
are nice to have,
but we have access to
a small supply of
something even more important:
bread."

Great Readings of the Past
Frying the Flag
"MINISTER FINED FOR KISSING IN PUBIC.
WEDDING BULLS RING OUT FOR PRINCESS.
QUEEN OF HOLLAND GIVES PANTY FOR EX-SERVICE MEN.
MORE DOGS HAVE BABIES THIS SUMMER IN BELGRADE."

POETRY
Five Ways to Kill a Man
"These are, as I began, cumbersome ways
to kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat
is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there."

The Swan at Edgewater Park
"But not like Lorie at 16, when
Everything was possible --- no
More like Lorie at 27
Smoking away her days off in her dirty kitchen,
Her kid with asthma watching TV,
The boyfriend who doesn't know yet she's gonna
Leave him, washing his car out back."

THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month

GENERAL INDEX
All the back-issues of RALPH,
including titles of books under review,
along with author, subject, and publisher,
plus links to readings, articles, and poems
that have appeared on-line
since 1994.

A PITHY SAMPLE
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"

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