Rubens Drawings: 44 Plates (Art Library)

Book Description

A generous selection of Rubens' best drawings, chiefly portraits and religious and mythical scenes, that fully reveal his supreme artistic gifts. Publisher's note.

Customer Reviews:

artist/ architect.......2005-06-30

Contrary to Redmund's review, this is a tidy collection of one of history's most underrated daughtsmen. For those like me, who do not like Ruben's paintings (note to Redmund: Rubens had a virtual factory of workers who did most of his painting), this book is both surprising and delightful.

A Great Collection This is Not.......2002-09-19

This book is not one of the best among those in the Dover Art Library. A handful (about a half-dozen) of pictures are good with sufficient details and/or a tight organization to be appreciated. Most are so-so. Some are definitely fillers. It does not help that Rubens himself, according to the Publisher's Note, did not think highly of his own drawings and did not even sign a single one of them. All told, this selection is not impressive.

Rubens's paintings, rather than his drawings, should rightly be his legacy.

excellent.......2001-01-16

This is an excellent book on the drawings of Rubens. The works are very diverse and a whole range of different media are used. This is a great book to study for an art student.

Book Description

This beautiful book takes the reader on a journey through Canaletto`s native Venice. Through a spectacular group of Canaletto`s masterpieces in the National Gallery Collection and other works relating to them, the authors explore the artist`s painting technique and treatment of the topography of Venice, showing how Canaletto altered scenes to emphasize certain aspects and moods of the city.

National Gallery, London, Publications Paper ISBN 0-300-07696-7

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Venice through Canaletto's Eyes (National Gallery London Publications)
David Bomford
Manufacturer: National Gallery London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OS7W7C

Book Description

88 Bagel Cartoons is exactly what the baker ordered. It's chock full of flavorful humor, which goes well with a great cup of coffee or tea. No two bagels are exactly alike; they all have their own unique "personalities." These characteristics are reflected in the 88 delightful and clever cartoons. Why 88? Because those numbers were inspired by bagels! This lighthearted look at bagels is a perfect gift for anyone who's ever eaten a bagel and wondered . . . Why?

Never before seen, clever cartoons about bagels that will boggle the mind.

Trillions of bagels are consumed internationally every year and that's one heck of a potential book market.

A perfect item to throw into your brown bag or picnic basket.

Creative and delightful. Light and fluffy. There's nothing else like it anywhere.

Customer Reviews:

Put a smile on your face . . ........2005-05-04

This is a collection of enjoyable humor by 11 cowboy-writers and folklorists, plus one cartoonist. Selections range from straightforward stories of comic mishaps and misadventures to tall tales in the tradition of Pecos Bill, told in cowboy vernacular. There are also cowboy poems by Baxter Black, short essays on cowboy nicknames and practical jokes, and selections from the fiction of western authors, including Elmer Kelton, whose historical novel "The Day the Cowboys Quit" is one of my favorites. The cartoons are by Ace Reid. Excellent addition to any bookshelf of western (Texas in particular) literature.

Horsing Around, Contemporary Cowboy Humor

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Horsing Around, Contemporary Cowboy Humor
Editor Lawrence Clayton
Manufacturer: Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock, TX
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OAW1CG

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The Norton Scores, An Anthology for Listening, Volume II: Schubert to Glass (Fourth Edition Expanded)

Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0393953106

Customer Reviews:

I'd give it a zero rating if I could.......2007-04-07

I picked up a copy of this book from my University library to help me write a paper on the effect of video games on popular culture in 20th/21st century America.

I have a vague knowledge of video games and their history and let me say, that even I know more than this guy. Even though he's written several popular culture books that I have not read, his book on video games is sub par to say the least.

What really drives me crazy is that he is supposed to be a reputable author with several published works. Yet, he cannot seem to grasp the concept of hard figures. I cannot count how many times the author says "somewhere near" or "something like [insert vague figure] games." I find him to be an untrustworthy source and now have to go back to the library.

What a complete waste of time.

Clumsy and shallow.......2003-03-17

This is a clumsy work most notable for what it lacks rather than what it presents. Despite handy bullet points at the beginning of each chapter, one finds that half way through a chapter one must start again after the author reveals a hidden limitation such as only being concerned with games for children.

I was disappointed with the way Berger allows his personal suppositions to dominate his arguments without any basis in either research or the existing literature (and occasionally with no basis is common sense). At one point Berger claims that playing video games means you are not interacting with family and friends; despite that he earlier included a set-up cost analysis for a system with two controllers (for 2 players).

This book is of little academic interest, but may be suitable for media scare-mongering or to back up the dogma of certain interest groups.

Author is completely new to video games!.......2003-03-10

this book is very simplistic, and tends to make large claims whilst discussing only the most basic details. It's clear that the author is very new to video games, and may only have been introduced to a few games for writing this books. Many times, he will make the most obvious observations e.g. a scifi-themed game has a narrative similar to a scifi movie - and write 3 or 4 pages about obvious observation.
Also writes in a rather old-fashioned way .

... universal communication and digital lifestyle.......2003-02-24

In my mind's eye, while walking the wooded hills of southern Indiana on any sunny day, I can viscerally imagine being immersed in a natural cathedral-like theatre of abruptly changing Light and Shadows with senses like phototropic sensations common to video games. Perhaps there are mnemonic roots present in the human experience responding to various "natural theatres" of luminous immersion, such as illustrated in traditional media by the atmospheric landscapes of the Hudson River School (and the Hoosier Group) of painters. As a young research assistant at the Army's Human Engineering Laboratories in 1960, I briefly sampled a prototype trial for training of human interaction control of missile guidance with a souped-up oscilloscope/CRT visualizing system. The accelerating feedback on the screen of joystick control, produced the "wow effect" very much like the rush consumers would experience in the primitive video games of the '70s and later [alas, my eye doctor soon after suggested I had been "working too close to microwave transmission"].

From repose to the wandering mind and through its disconnects, the subject can feel as though navigating through a metadata atmosphere not unlike a video game interface for the 9 year-old player. Video games are not just a fantasy theater, as some fear, for the furious expression of male adolescent rage fueling new ideologies of terror, misogyny and brutalization throughout the modern world. In our "modern times", some groundbreaking museum venues are beginning to provide a quiet, safe harbor for contemplating and celebrating the best of this new American media, even while acknowledging the fears emanating from among its dark shadows that can be millions of times more [exponentially] powerful than the limitations we've known of the Gutenberg effect. For example, Rochelle Slovin, the Director of the American Museum of the Moving Image (ammi.org), has pointed us along an insightful path beginning with "Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade" 1989, then continuing through "Expanded Entertainment" 1996, "Computer Space" 1998, and " Digital Media" 2002, (see elsewhere "The Medium of the Video Game" by Mark Wolf, 2002). Ms. Slovin's new path markers extend an historic trail of kinetic luminism tracing back through recent television and 100-year old movies to the magic lantern Phantasmagoria of the Renaissance and to the Shadow Puppetry Theatre in Bali 1000 years earlier.

This slim volume by Arthur Asa Berger, a prolific writer, is a serious look at biological, psychological and social significance ands provides a social perspective of sexuality not usually found. For instance, his comments "Lara Croft, scopophilia and the male gaze..." frames a valuable context of sexuality. Let me suggest that Berger in this essay, like too many reporting scholars, doesn't always clearly distinguish between anecdotal references and more organized research statistics. "A neurologist ... has suggested that video games may affect [not effect?] changes in neural pathways in players in a manner somewhat like biofeedback ...". "This 'conditioning' must be seen, of course, as an unintended consequence..." This is highly recommended for critical reading because its sometimes seemingly shallow predispositions do reveal the underlying, crucial, fundamental questions. So, as critical readers of Berger's essay, we need to tiptoe through and dodge around the rhetorical thickets. In summary, we see Berger's essay frequently posits whether video gaming is alienating. His conclusions, anecdotal and otherwise, put into perspective that this is indeed the Question to be centered in the limelight. But the reader can find enough evidence elsewhere in Berger's musings that the power of the enveloping digital lifestyle may in fact be in the connecting, involving and the socializing of shared values. The reader might also look at the "Ultimate History of Video Games" by Steven Kent, 2001 for putting David Grossman's fiery challenge to video game violence (Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill) into an expanded context.

"What-if" in twenty years a 9 year-old kid comfortably uses a common, personal digital tool that is a million times more powerful than that NASA used to put a man on the moon? Let's reflect on the Gutenberg Effect. Victor Hugo might now opine about the invention of our digital lifestyle (instead of the printing press) as "... thought is more imperishable than ever; it is volatile, irresistible, and indestructible. It pervades the air... Now she is a flock of birds, flies abroad to all the four winds of heaven, and occupies at once all the points of air and of space...".

Not for True Scholars of Video Games.......2002-09-27

As a scholar of video game research and a graduate student in Anthropology I was extremely curious and happy to get a copy of this book to include in my library. I was however extremely disappointed. This book presented numerous problems and oversights of video games in general. Although there are many areas covered, none of them are covered in any serious depth or scholarly attention. Too often, Berger makes personal comments (typically negative) without backing them up. When comparing books to video games and other narrative forms, he really splits hairs in trying to bring out differences. His compartmentalization on the subject is extremely artificial and disturbing. The typos and spelling errors are enough to keep a reader frustrated. Even if you are not a scholar of video games, I would not recommend this book. There are numerous other books out there that are better written and look at video games on a much more even level.

Computer Games as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: Games Without Frontiers, Wars Without Tears

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Computer Games as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: Games Without Frontiers, Wars Without Tears

Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Video & Electronic Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Video Games | Games & Strategy Guides | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0230545440
Release Date: 2008-02-05

Book Description

In the course of their increasing sociocultural importance, the academic interest in computer games has been growing considerably in the last years. This profound anthology comprehensibly introduces latest approaches in the central fields of game studies and provides an extensive survey of the contemporary game culture. Internationally renowned media and literature scholars, social scientists, game designers, and artists explore the cultural potential of computer games and present new concepts of researching sociocultural, industrial, and aesthetic aspects of digital entertainment.

Book Description

It happens every day. People are deeply wounded by the words and actions of those around them. And it affects them for the rest of their lives. We've all been there - we've all been wounded and we've all wounded others. But it's time to become "wounded healers," loving and protecting the people around us. The Wounded Spirit has become more than a book. The message has connected with thousands and has become a national movement. This 64-page call to action, entitled No More Victims, is designed as a giveaway to students for them to join in the fight against bullying.

Customer Reviews:

Poet, Preacher, Prophet Peretti speaks from the heart!.......2004-10-02

I was moved beyond words after reading this book. Peretti has a way of touching you and challenging you to meet the issues of our day with the love and compassion of Christ.

A New View on Society.......2004-06-22

This is such an awesome book and maybe one of Peretti's best. He speaks of the dangers that our words and actions have on the outcome of ones personal as well as emotional life, if our society and schools keep going the way that they are. I definitely recommend this book to everyone who feels they are 'different' inside. Actually, everyone still in highschool and college should read it before it is too late.

Powerful and vivid, personal, and to the point........2002-07-18

This is the book that youth groups should mass order. Peretti recounts his own childhood growing up as a victim of both cystic hygroma (causing stunted growth and a speech impediment, among other problems) and bullying. He shares with painful detail how constant bullying effected his self-image ("I thought I was a monster") and how the school system typically does little or nothing to protect the weak. Even further, he illustrates his view of the world as governed by a higher system of rules, explaining why "Might makes right" is both a dangerous and a flawed philosophy. Peretti even confesses his own faults as an occasional bully, his failures to stick up for those weaker than himself. This is a super-quick read that will challenge adults to a new awareness of the bullying problem and will benefit every teen/pre-teen reader, whether he is a bully, a victim, or someone caught in the middle who doesn't know how to change "the way things are."

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Stop Bullying in Your School
George Varnava
Manufacturer: David Fulton Publish
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books

General | Education | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Accessories:

ASIN: 1853469386

Book Description

By providing teachers with a practical intervention program to prevent bullying in their schools, this book gives the reader tried and tested strategies to tackle a very challenging problem.

Creating a safe school environment where pupils feel secure is increasingly difficult, but this book shows how to devise a strategy, put it into practice, measure its effectiveness and extend the good practice into the wider community. The involvement of young people is a key element of this process.

With its roots firmly in practice, the book is based on a study of' common characteristics of schools that have successfully reduced bullying; case studies that show how change can be achieved; raising whole-school awareness of the problem; how to tackle bullying as a whole-school issue; involving the students and the student council; delivering in-service training to colleagues.

Primary and secondary school teachers, the school management team, learning mentors, teaching assistants and governors will find the guidance clear and suggested approaches helpful.

Product Description

A haunting memoir that evokes the ugliness and brutality of war. Hundreds of combat soldiers who have read the book say it is an accurate and realistic portrayal.

Customer Reviews:

Red Bluff Daily News November 14, 2001 Feedback- Minch.......2001-11-16

Much has been written about heroes these days. No dought the efforts and sacrifices of the New York Firemen and Police officers qualify them as authentic hereos. Heroes of a different sort have defended our country in the past wars, yet many acts of courage and sacrafice went unreported. This book rectifies some such omissions. Odor of war is agraphic portrait of an infantry man in World War II. The purpose of this book is to show the brutality and ugliness of war. It also serves to shpw the important part infantry soldiers play in the defense of our country. It does that in spades. If reveiwed by any of the TV series "Band of Brothers" you saw a gripping yet arm chair version of war. For close-up, in your-face experience however, check out Andy's first person account. It is non-fiction at its best. Article written for red Bluff Daily News

Odor of War.......2001-09-22

It tells the true story of all the unpleasantness the soildiers went through day after day defend our country and so we can be free today. It's a true story of one young man and the day to day struggle and stead fast courage our soldiers have. It's a very eye opening for any person that hasn't been involved in a war. Such as our young people today. I recomend it for all ages.

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Does it have a slight odor of Goebbels?
Arthur Szyk
Manufacturer: s.n
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

With the CIA at the core of the war on terror, no agency is as important to preserving America's freedom. Yet the CIA is a closed and secretive world-impenetrable to generations of journalists-and few Americans know what really goes on among the spy masters who plot America's worldwide campaign against terrorists.Only Ronald Kessler, an award-winning former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, could have gained the unprecedented access to tell the story. Kessler interviewed fifty current CIA officers, including all the agency's top officials, and toured areas of the CIA the media has never seen. The agency actively encouraged retired CIA officers and officials to talk with him as well. In six years as director, George J. Tenet has never appeared on TV shows and has given only a handful of print interviews, all before 9/11, but Tenet agreed to be interviewed by Kessler for this book. He spoke candidly and passionately about the events of 9/11, the war on terror, the agency's intelligence on Iraq, and the controversies surrounding the agency.The CIA at War tells the inside story of how Tenet, a son of Greek immigrants, turned around the CIA from a pathetic, risk averse outfit to one that has rolled up 3,000 terrorists since 9/11, was critically important to winning in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now kills terrorists with its Predator drone aircraft.The book portrays Tenet as a true American hero, one who overcame every kind of Washington obstacle and the destructive actions of previous director John Deutch to make the agency a success. As Tenet said in a recent speech, "Nowhere in the world could the son of an immigrant stand before you as the director of Central Intelligence. This is simply the greatest country on the face of the earth."The CIA at War discloses highly sensitive information about the CIA's unorthodox methods and its stunning successes and shocking failures. The book explores whether the CIA can be trusted, whether its intelligence is politicized, and whether it is capable of winning the war on terror. In doing so, the book weaves in the history of the CIA and how it really works. It is the definitive account of the agency.From the CIA's intelligence failure of 9/11 to its critical role in preventing further attacks, The CIA at War tells a riveting, unique story about a secretive, powerful agency and its confrontation with global terrorism.

Customer Reviews:

So-So.......2007-08-31

You can tell this is written from an outsider. No matter how much access he had to "secrets" he doesn't understand what he is talking about like someone who has done it as their career and written about it from the inside. The beginning of the book is very hard to follow and repeats information, often in random order. Names are thrown in so fast it is hard to keep track of who he is talking about or what the person's job is/was. It does settle out toward the middle and becomes pleasantly readable until the end.

CIA at War.......2006-09-22

Detailed look at the workings of the Agency and the influence of its Directors on work and morale; however, the author presented an uncritically positive characterization of Tenet and an equally rosy portrayal of President Bush's handling of foreign affairs. The author ignores lingering questions and concerns (e.g. where are the weapons of mass destruction, statements by the Administration linking Hussein and al Qaeda), frequently uses partisan language and soundbites to describe President Clinton, and, overall, comes off as an apologist for the current Bush Administration.

Tantalising but unsatisfying.......2006-07-13

Ronald Kessler, a New York Times journalist and best-selling author, gained impressive access to the CIA and recorded interviews with many of its highest officers, past and present. The result is the CIA at War, a tantalising journey into the organization, its history, secrets, travails, and successes.

From a Cold War operation run by Ivy League East Coast insiders to an enormous apparatus of human and technological counterterrorism headed by a son of immigrants, the CIA has chalked up remarkable successes (identifying the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba) and astonishing failures (being hoodwinked by a brace of double agents, many of whom continued in their ruinous ways after failing polygraph tests).

What emerges is a CIA that suffered long bouts of institutional atrophy, congressional hostility, and public lack of confidence, all of which made for staggering lapses in national security. A long period of patient reconstruction and success in the post-September 11 war on militant Islam has since followed. Kessler's access to contemporary officials, not least the media-shy George Tenet, makes by far for the book's greatest interest.

Allowing for Kessler's clear partisanship for Tenet, this book makes for a corrective to the view of the CIA as napping while dangers multiplied. The CIA's failure to preempt Al-Qaeda is located in a combination of Clinton administration uninterest, legal and technical shackles, and a prevailing mood of complacency in Washington.

Kessler offers teasing glimpses, interesting anecdotes, and occasionally absorbing testimony, but in the end, these fail to satisfy as the author ultimately is limited by his sources. Whether they have truly been forthcoming and whether he has given due weight to the variables involved are matters for judgment. Kessler's story is additionally fitful and riddled with digressions (for example, five pages on the CIA's public image immediately following the September 11 attacks).

Best Reasoning Yet for Iraq War.......2006-06-26

I've read other books by Ronald Kessler, and I like his style enough to have bought this one. I'm glad I did. I wanted to learn more about intelligence and it's application in government and military decision making, and this book takes an inside look at just that.

The most striking element of the book is the well-reasoned and compelling justification for the war in Iraq. I've been military for over a quarter of a century, but didn't understand the argument for attacking Iraq until after reading Kessler's book. President Bush never made so cogent a presentation to the American people, but the logic and moral imperitives Kessler lays out may open the eyes of all but the most blindly critical reader. Before conservative/liberal loyalties comes survival as a nation, and Kessler makes it clear that such are the stakes on the table today.

A quick and extremely relevant read, this book is for anyone who has an interest in intelligence and the much-debated war on terror.

boomer sooner.......2006-05-01

Instead of providing great insight into the "secret campaign against terror", the author decides to give a very pro-republican view of american leadership with respect to intelligence. The author keeps his train of thougt for about one page, then gives a page of background or set-up, then another page of his original thought, then another of background...you get the picture. While the book contains some interesting facts there are definitely much better books available about the CIA.

The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror

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The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror
Ronald Kessler
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTF2P0

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