Reviews two books by Ivan Doig: "This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind" and "English Creek." Notes that both books provide a picture of life in the American West that is not pervaded by Western stereotypes of cowboys and Indians. (MM)

Discusses a pair of books (Annie Dillard's "An American Childhood" and Maxine Hong Kingston's "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts") that are well-written, discussion-worthy, and sufficiently alike in content that they can be taught in tandem for comparative purposes as part of a contemporary-literature unit. (RS)

Reviews two videocassettes focusing on modern American poetry: "Moyers: The Power of the Word" and "Voices and Visions." (MM)