A Classical Tibetan Reader' answers a long-standing need for well chosen readings to accompany courses in classical Tibetan language. Professor Bentor has built her Tibetan reader out of time-tested selections from texts that she has worked with while teaching classical Tibetan over the past twenty years. She has assembled here a selection of Tibetan narratives, organized to introduce students of the language to complex material gradually, and to arm them with ample reference materials in the form of glossaries customized to individual readings. Instructors will find this reader an invaluable tool for preparing lesson plans and providing high-quality reading material to their students. Students, too, will find the selections contained in the reader engaging. Even novice readers of Tibetan will feel welcomed and encouraged, thanks to the author's astute judgment of student capacity.

Classical Tibetan Reader: Selections from Renowned Works with Custom Glossaries, Yael Bentor, Wisdom Publications, Paperback, 160 pp, $18.95

Yael Bentor received her PhD in Tibetan Studies from Indiana University in 1991. Since then has been teaching Classical Tibetan language as well as classes on Tibetan Buddhism and culture, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Among her publications are: Consecration of Images and Stupas in Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996); A Classical Tibetan Reader: Excerpts from Renowned Works with Custom Glossaries (Wisdom Publication), The Essence of the Ocean of Attainments: Explanation of the Creation Stage of the Guhyasamaja, King of All Tantras, by the First Panchen Rinpoche, Blo-bzang-chos-kyi-rgyal-mtshan, translated with Penpa Dorjee (New York: The American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in New York with Columbia Universitys Center for Buddhist Studies and Tibet House US).