Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good essay book
Comment: This is my secondary textbook for my college english course. But there are some essays and stories that I could see people reading just to read.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A college instructor's perspective...
Comment: As an English instructor at a community college, this collection as a text for essay writing offers great appeal with its diversity in voices, cultures, topics, and points of view (though the explanation of POV needs greater scope). In addition to the writer's bio before each story, one of my favorite features is the writer's shared insights afterward about his or her story, writing process, personal background, or career development (students enjoy this feature, too); and, there are discussion questions with "Suggested Journaling ideas," and suggestions for rewriting "Journals into Essays," that help students who always ask "What do I write about?" Story length as reading assignments are manageable for time-crunched, back-to-schoolers with already-full plates--juggling jobs, kids, and classes--and little time for 400-page novels. It may not be my text of choice for teaching argument and research, but as an introduction, it works.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I was coerced into buying this
Comment: What sort of psycho would ever buy a book like this if they weren't forced to, and where do these sadists get off charging this much for this load of crap? You can buy a handsome boxed set of the Iliad and Odyssey, Don Quixote, The Tain and Penguin's collection of the Norse sagas and still pay less than you would for the Bedford reader . Do you think the bedford reader comes close to being a fraction as significant, worthwhile, enlightening or entertaining as any of those books? Neither do I, but the ego-maniacal swine who publish this would apparently beg to differ with you.
About the book's contents? It's a bunch of watery, PC, multiculti crap. Do you think your fatuous, lefty professor would assign you anything that wasn't? I didn't learn a friggin thing from it, and I resent every second I had to spend skimming through it. The only reason I resold it instead of burning it at the end of the course (which I got an A in) was that the company that publishes it made one less sale thereby.
In summary, I assume that if you're looking at this book it's because it's been assigned to you. Poor you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Brief Bedford Reader
Comment: This book is filled with lots of different stories that are very interesting.The story that I liked was the Champion of the World by Maya Angelou.In this story she writes about how African Americans were treated and how afraid they were.She telling us about a fight between Joe Louis an African American and a white boy.She says if the white man wins they'll have to go back to slavery.The store they were watching the fight at was full with people watching the fight, who didn't leave until the fight was over.It was a close fight.But at the end Joe Louis is the winner.The blacks were afraid to drive home after the fight so they spend the night in town.Who knows what could of happened if they did drive home after Joe Louis had defeated the white boy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Power of the Essay
Comment: The Bedford Reader provides the teacher of writing with a powerful tool. Provocative, interesting, varied essays are presented within a coherent framework of rhetorical strategies.
I have used it with 9th and 10th graders, but will use it with older students as well. If your concern is with rhetoric, if you want to teach your students to think and write effectively, this is a great resource.
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