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1.The Glass Menagerie by: Tennessee Williams 1999-06
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $10.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $8.76 You Save: $2.19 (20%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $0.98
This classic tale by Tennessee Williams captures the reader's emotions by so forcefully displaying those of its main characters. This is a story of longing and frustration, set in a frustrating time (The Great Depression). The story is narrated by Tom, who hates his factory job and desires to run to sea, but is the main support for his mother Amanda and sister Laura. The matriarchal Amanda clings desperately to the past, while fragile Laura is devastated more by shy self-consciousness than her slight disability. The plot is simple - helping Laura's social life - but moves at a relentless pace. We see Amanda pain her daughter with wistful talk of gentleman callers from a generation past, then place false hopes on the singular visit of Jim - with resulting further desperation and loneliness. ... Read More

2.A Streetcar Named Desire by: Tennessee Williams 2004-09
Average Rating: >>More Details		Off The Bookshelf's Price: $9.95 Prices subject to change. Used Price: $3.96
This was a very passiont film from the south drenched with liquior, romance, and confrontation. By far the best actress in the movie was blanch. She showed every possible emotion a human can have while acting in this play. She sold the movie for me from the second she started speaking. She goes though her up and her downs throughout the whole play. She tries to keep cool and calm throught the whole fil but battles to be considered sane but stanley pushes her over the edge in many parts of this film. From what i have known about this culture and this time the play was played out just the way the times have been presented to me. The male domination with the drinking problem who hits his wife and she comes back and loves him every time. Then you have that one woman who defies everyone and acts like a male ... Read More

3.Tennessee Williams: Plays 1937-1955 (Library of America) by: Tennessee Williams October 01, 2000
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $40.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $26.40 You Save: $13.60 (34%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $16.95
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 the LoA, 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 ... Read More

4.Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by: Tennessee Williams September 01, 1958
Average Rating: >>More Details		Off The Bookshelf's Price: $7.99 Prices subject to change. Used Price: $0.11
Like the other great American playwright Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams was not afraid of creating controversy through his work. Touching on themes of money, social status, and sexuality, Williams presents the dark side of each character. While it is hard to like any character, it is difficult not to be compelled by them. Brick Pollitt is the favored son. Failing to recover from the death of his best friend and fight the demons that come with booze, he has no desire to gain the good graces of his dying father and inherit his wealth. His brother Gooper and his wife Mae, that "monster of fertility", are engaged in a competition for the father's favor. But even nearing a sixth child, they can not measure up to Brick. The climax comes as Big Daddy and Brick attempt to reach the resolution that Brick has no ... Read More

5.Reflections In A Golden Eye by: Carson McCullers 1977
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With its short page count, "Reflections in a Golden Eye" is more of a novella than a novel. What is disappointing about it is that it takes about fifty pages (the majority of the novella) to get involved in the characters and the plot. It starts intriguingly enough, with the promise of a murder involving the central characters ("two officers, a soldier, two women, a Filipino, and a horse."), but McCullers' prose is so cold and distant that it makes the plot inaccessible to the reader. The descriptions of the setting benefit from this and become starkly beautiful -- "Then suddenly the sun was gone. There was a chill in the air and a light, pure wind. It was time for retreat. From far away came the sound of the bugle, clarified by distance and echoing in the woods with a lost hollow tone. The night was near at hand." - ... Read More

6.The Night of the Iguana by: Tennessee Williams 1998-01
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The review under mine is ridiculous. This person obviously knows nothing about Tennessee Williams. And incidentally, I have no interest in his email address which he egomaniacally implies one should look for. The characters in this play are not hysterical (except Shannon once when he goes off the deep end, and that's not hysteria come to think of it). This is a beautiful, moving, perceptive and exceptional play. I won't give away the plot in case anyone wants to read it. Williams wrote lots of good and some great plays. This is a great one. I came upon this review (and the one under it which is just inaccurate, the reviewer apparently has a hard time grasping what he reads, if he read it) because I just saw the movie of this play and want to reread it again. I've read it many times, and I love it. I think (though I'm not sure) ... Read More

7.The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 3: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof / Orpheus Descending / Suddenly Last Summer by: Tennessee Williams 1991-09
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $22.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $15.61 You Save: $7.34 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $3.99
Tennessee Williams (Born Thomas Lanier Williams) has always been one of my favorite American authors. I highly recommend this reading for literature students and blooming actors alike. TW has the ability to add colorful symbolism to real emotions coming out of real people without sounding pretentious. These books should be required reading in advanced high school. But are probably omitted due to the sexual undertones that are in TWs writing. Certainly books that can be enjoyed later in life.

8.Notebooks by: Tennessee Williams January 30, 2007
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $40.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $26.40 You Save: $13.60 (34%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $17.08
Thornton, Margaret Bradham, ed. "Tennessee Williams Notebooks", Yale University Press, 2007. A Brilliant Mind Amos Lassen What a job it must have been compiling the notebooks of Tennessee Williams. They cover almost every aspect of the playwright's life and Margaret Bradham Thornton has done an amazing job. Through his own words and Thornton's meticulous editing, we get a look into the unique life of an American literary titan. The man who penned such beautiful works for the American theatre led quite a life. He suffered from his only internalized homophobia even though he was himself a gay male--he felt somewhat out of place in a world that did not approve of his sexuality. He was haunted by his sister, Rose, and the guilt he felt about allowing her institutionalization and with these two strikes that ... Read More

9.27 Wagons Full of Cotton by: Tennessee Williams 1966-02
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $13.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $11.86 You Save: $2.09 (15%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $0.63
The edition was as expected: traditional, simple with no annoying comments. Though, I would prefer a more extended introduction. As for Amazon's services, I was amazed by its reliability. Thanks guys!

10.Summer and Smoke. by: Tennessee Williams 1998-01
Average Rating: >>More Details		Off The Bookshelf's Price: $7.50 Prices subject to change. Used Price: $3.29
Summer and Smoke has always been my favorite Williams' play, even though he himself thought it was too melodramatic. The story concerns a woman named Alma Winemiller, an Episcopal minister's daughter in the town of Glorious Hill, Mississippi at the turn of the century. She's been in love with the boy next door since she was a little girl; John Buchanan, Jr. John, Magna Cum Laude from Johns Hopkins, has recently returned from medical school. However, he spends his summer drinking and womanizing as an outlet for his doubts and fears and doesn't want to be a doctor anymore. The course of the play revolves around Alma saving John's body and soul, but in the process of doing so she loses herself. I love this play (as if that means anything to anyone) and it is worth your time in reading it. Enjoy!

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