Block

Harland Hubbard's simplisitc woodcuts are an excellent source of inspiration for printmakers and artists. He captures the true meaning of life through his work. Next to his art in the book, are selections from his journal during his shantyboat home,and farm life in Northern Kentucky. This is the next best thing to viewing his original works at the Berringer-Crawford Museum in Norhtern Kentucky!

This is the best book I've ever read about overcoming writer's block. I want to recommend it to friends, but sadly it's out of print.

Please consider re-issuing it. It is too valuable to let slide into obscurity!

ukiyo-e woodblock prints. I have been searching for this book for a couple of months. I orginally saw a copy of it in a japanese tattoo shop and fell in love with it. This book is printed on high quality paper using the best copies of the prints that can be found. The color is reproduced perfectly and it is an excellent example of this art form. If you can find it, buy it.

...for lovers of Ukiyo-e. The whole series "Thirty-Two Aspects of Daily Life" is beautifully presented in full-colour and full-size plates. The book features in-depth information about each print, Yoshitoshi's life and the time he lived in. I strongly recommend this book!

from a ukiyo-e lover's standpoint, this book is one of the best ever. Not only is it an indespensible part of my library, it makes a wonderful coffee-table book!

nice theory,but,when the "workbook" will be available???....
lots of likely books neglect the same point: a practical application section (or book) is not included.
just a nice book.

I am a working visual artist and spiritual seeker and I have never read such an honest account of what it's like to be an artist in the modern world. So often journalists, especially self-help authors, tell the reader what they want to hear; things like "do what you love, and the money will follow," leading the reader blindly down pathways based upon wishful thinking. Bayles and Orland explore the reality of being a creative person a materialistic world and how to survive by knowing yourself and what art making is about for you. If you find yourself with the impulse to quit for whatever reason: lack of sales, rejection, burn out, bad reviews, or creative blocks, reading this little book may help you reexamine and rekindle your creative impulses in a new light.

Art & Fear is an easy book to rave about, but it is a particularly difficult book to write about. The authors have chosen their words so well, that it seems as if there ARE no other words with which to talk about this subject or this book. I'll try anyway, fully knowing that whatever I might say surely will not please me as much as what I have read in their pages. And this is part of the message of Art & Fear, one of the lessons to be learned - just do it and learn from it.

Art & Fear is an unpretentious little paperback, written by two lifelong friends who have been artists, as well as other things, for most of their lives. Both of them have their feet firmly rooted in the real world that we all live in (however high their ideas and ideals might fly), and both of them have keen insights into what enables individuals to produce good art and to continue to produce good art, and what stumbling blocks stop many individuals. These insights are of value to artists in any medium whatsoever, and are in fact likely to be of significant value to many individuals who don't think of themselves as artists at all. One doesn't need to be an artist to be struggling with goals that seem beyond your reach and a lack of appreciation from others; it's just a little more pervasive in the artmaking world.

Reading this book is like sitting down with the authors for a long and lively conversation. You'll learn something of them, and something of yourself, and good things are sure to come from it. I've actually found it too good to keep to myself - I'm on my 6th copy now, as I keep giving them away to friends!

First of all there is nothing in this book that is really new to moms living in South East Asia (like myself) as most of the 5 S's are widely implemented. I read this book as i thought it may provide me an alternative to the crying out method of putting baby to sleep. Now that my baby No2 is 4 months old, i have to wean her from the pacifier and swaddling. She has been sleeping badly at night (waking up every 1/2 hour)as the swaddling cloths are getting too small and the pacifier keeps falling out! The book is great to calm your baby in the 1st 3 months, esp if they are very restless. BUT...the book doesnt really tell you how difficult getting rid of the binky and the sawddling will/may be. (He wrote that a mother took only 3 days to remove the pacifier but did not elaborate how-made it sound easy but its not! I have tried for weeks) So it looks like I will have to resort to the crying-out method to help her sleep (like i did with my firstborn) It is painful to hear your child cry, but when the baby smiles and coos at you in the morning after a good night sleep, it's worth it. For this I recommend Dr Marc Weissbluth's book. (BTW, I also tried the Pantley book-sounds like a better alternative to those who want a gentle approach but honestly, I am too tired to wait for a month for it to work!) So 2 stars as this only helps in the early months (for me, at least)

It's interesting reading all of these posts, and I'm happy that these methods worked for so many people. However, they did NOT work for us. My second son is now 10 months and he's delightful. However, he screamed all the time until he was 4 months old. When I read Dr. Karp's book I was sure that I could make life easier for the baby, but he resisted all of the "S's." He hated being swaddled and still hates being pinned in or down, meaning that he hates the carseat and always hated the swing and the infant carrier. He rolled over at 3 months and started to crawl at 5 months. Saying "SSHH" to him? HA!! That just angered him more. Seeing how active he is now and how much he loves to communicate with us through sounds and gestures, I can understand how difficult infancy was for him. I appreciate the idea of the 4th trimester, but I wish that there was some indication in the book that some babies, quite typical and even wonderful ones, will resist these methods. I'm writing this post for those parents at the end of their ropes -- hang in there. If the baby is crying a lot, as long as you're doing all you can, just know that things will eventually improve on their own!

This book saved our lives! Our little girl came home from the hospital wailing and it never stopped. She would cry for hours upon hours and nothing would soothe her--not cuddling, not feedings, not burping, not changings, not my mother-in-law (the baby soother extraordinaire), nothing...until this book!

The horror is finally over--the technique absolutely works every time. The book is well-written, easy to follow and the examples of other parents going through this are so reassuring. I am happy to report that now, at 7 weeks, we have lots of cooing, many smiles, bonding (nearly impossible with a screaming baby) and a lot more sleeping. You can call the author Dr. Karp, but in our house he is reverentially referred to as Saint Harvey--our patron saint of babies. If you have a fussy baby I can not recommend this book enough. It truly works miracles!

If I were the Queen of Everything I would make sure all new parents and hospital nurses learned this method. It could save so many, so much. Thank you Saint Harvey!

I dunno, this book just didn't cut it for me. Maybe it was that I expected something else from it, or maybe its just not my style. Whatever it was though, it left me with a very very sour taste in my mouth after giving up halfway through.
From the cover as well as the title, I expected fantasy or a storyline where a magical/powerful influence surfaces on modern day life. I was disappointed to find, well, this.
If I had been reading something like this online, I would have stopped about a paragraph in. Sadly for me though, I had spent good money for it, so I figured I should give it more of a chance. Enough of that though, this is about the book.
The author dwells a lot on unneccessary detail. We don't need, nor want, to know the specifics of what Wheetzie ate for lunch, nor do we need a documentary of her wardrobe. Several of the characters are introduced without warning. Weetzie's dog, for example, comes in midsentence. It seems almost as if the author is expecting us to already know the people she's supposed to be describing.
I got the strong impression that, despite this author's previous experiences in other books and magazines, this was amateur work. The setting and events that unfolded mirrored the written fantasies of a pre-teen. It was too unrealistic.
I'm glad that other people seem to like this book. I'm not trying to say I think you're wrong in any way for enjoying it. But I felt the need to express my opinion on my soon-to-be-returned book.

~Farewell~

I'd read the whole Weetzie Bat series before purchasing this book, but the problem was that no-one I'd loaned my individual copies of the stories to ever returned them. (Which may, in and of itself, be a testament to the kick-butt slinkster coolness that is intrinsically a part of this book.)

So anyway, as I was falling in love with a girl with whom I go to college, I read her Weetzie Bat. It was really cool. Especially the part in which My Secret Agent Lover Man expresses his undying love for Weetzie (I liked the part about "You are my martini..."). Since that time (about a month ago), however, this person has emotionally crucified me, and started dating an extremely goofy-looking boy.

Alas, that's the life portrayed in Ms. Block's novellas: hartbreaking and inspiring, exhilirating and melancholy. Read as modern day fairy-tales, they are wonderfully crafted pieces of fiction. Not surprisingly, however, I've read many scathing reviews of this series on Amazon.com. I think that for people to review it poorly, they have to miss the point--that these are fairy-tales. I wouldn't want a 13-year-old kid reading this as an instruction guide to life, but then again, how many people take fiction that seriously? (At least a few people do, as evidenced by the reviews.)

As with all fairy-tales, there is a moral behind the narrative: that love and universal acceptance goes a long way to make people happy, to heal hurt, and to generally make the world a better place--but also that things that some people take for love (that is, sex) can be devastating and hurtful. Love *IS* a dangerous angel. On that level, this book is not only a beautiful piece of prose, but of perhaps immeasurable value to a world torn by conflict, hurt, and hate. I just wish that more people would see the good in this book, instead of the bad.

(Good for high-school aged and up readers, but I'd probably have it tempered by parental guidance for anyone younger than, say, 15.)

Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block is a wonderful poetic fairytale. The people who bash it need to realize just that: it is a fairytale.
The simplistic sometimes irrelevantness of it adds to the fantasy world that Block wraps around Weetzie and her friends. I have read this book repeatedly and love it each time. Block knows exactly what audience she is aiming at and she caters to it. The creative minds of teenage girl crave fiction like this: fiction that can take them to a different place, and what teenage girl is not fascinated with the concept of falling in love.
Weetzie Bat is well written and conveys precisely what Block is trying to get across, that love is a "dangerous angel". The fairy tale aspect of the story is what makes it so appealing. Where else could one find characters named My Secret Agent Lover Man, Weetzie Bat, Dirk, or Duck?
This story, much like Blocks others, is a story of teenage love affairs and what it does to a girl trapped in a world of in-between. The fact that it is told, at a couple different times, from other characters point of view, instead of just Weetzie's, is interesting. Block is truly a magnificent writer. This book is full of clever quotes and language that will stick in the mind of a 16-year-old girl forever. It expresses the pains, fears, and heartbreaks of falling in love, as well as the elation, happiness, and hopefulness that love entails.
I also would not suggest this book to anyone younger than maybe 15. I can understand where some parental concerns may come from, but as long as the teenager knows the difference between real and fairy-tales, and knows that it is just a fairytale, it is all right to read.

In a moment of confusion, I bought the so-called "fifth edition" of Security Analysis ... what a scam! This almost unreadable text may be more "up to date" than the 1934 or 1940 editions, but it completely lacks the beautifully elegant prose of the original.

The "fifth edition" is just another fat and overpriced textbook, taking advantage of the Graham and Dodd brand to sell a quite unrelated product. By all means, buy the classic written by the original authors (1934, 1940 editions), but stay away from this "fifth edition." It's really the "first edition" of something quite different and not very impressive.

This is the BIBLE of security analysis written by Warren Buffett's mentor. It is possibly the most famous book on the market. My recommendation is for readers to use it, read it, and apply it.

The Problem: Extremely hard to understand and lack of examples. You pretty much have to master your accounting to understand this book completely(...)

Someone wrote reviews to this book indicating that the major downside to it is its age. The book was written in 1934 therefore it misses all the modern developments of finance - modern portfolio theory for example - and all the new techniques that Wall Street "experts" use today.

As an answer I give an anecdote from Warren Buffett's life:
When stock investments started to become popular, the volume increased ten fold, and the modern techniques to make a profit were developed, Warren Buffet was extremely worried. He remembered what happened in 1929. He loathed the new trends in investment that tried to predict the future price of a stock. Therefore he had a meeting with all his fellow Graham students, he expressly forbid to bring anything newer than the 1934 edition of Security Analysis.

This happened decades ago, but history repeats. We all know what happened 3 years ago. We all know how "experts" thought that the market was booming, and how they let it crash. We all know how they made a profit on the money that private investors lost.

Nowadays when I go shopping for a book I always look at the date of pubblication, if it is between 1997 and 2000 I'm very wary. All those books about "new economy", "digital era", "e-commerce", "dot coms", etc. have to be taken with the maximum attention. Usually they contain a lot of inflated ideas that as we look at what happened after they were written we understand how much those "experts" really understand about stock investments.

If they were wrong then, why should they be righ now?
Trust me, but more importantly, trust Graham, trust Buffett, (those that have been consistently right for 50 years) this is the book to buy, "anything newer looks suspicious."

If you've read The Gold Coast, Up Country, The Charm School and Word of Honor, you would never guess that Mayday was co-written by DeMille. The characters are flat, their dialog is hollow, and they're devoid of personality. The author tells you how to think and feel rather than the reader making those decisions for themselves. A page turner, but only to get to the end of the book. In fairness, the book started out presenting an interesting scenario of the chaos found when a supersonic plane is hit by a missile but it was all downhill from there.

Ever suspect some underhanded cover ups by our own military and government? Ever think that TWA 800 out of NY was part of some ghastly hush-hush job by higher ups?

DeMille urges us to believe anything is possible. He and co-author Tom Block are right on target in this updated and re-released disaster novel.

In "Mayday", we meet John Berry, a survior of an errant missle blasted Straton Flight 52. He is a private pilot and takes on the responsibilty of landing this flying coffin. The dead and brain damaged souls aboard are grahically depicted as decompression at 66,000 feet would dictate.

I am an avid DeMille fan and have been working my way through all of his books since "The Lions Game". DeMilles talent for drawing us in with smooth dialouge, taut as tight-rope riveting action, and dabs of comic or romantic relief with his well defined characters makes him one of my favorite authors.

I could go on and on about this laser paced read. However, I'll let you find your own copy. Simply put..."Mayday" is to the sky what "Jaws" is to the sea.

Thanks for your interest in my comments--CDS

This book had me from the first page i read. I am the type of person who likes the thought that im actually reading a book. Then , after about 50 pages i put it down for ever. well not with this book. If you are the type of person who gets bored with books or doesnt like reading this is the book for you. This novel would not let me put it down. The plot is constantly changing and keeping me interested until the last page. I highly reccomend this to everyone.