EG Books

Although I am a "child of the city", I must say that this elegant book gives me some pause. Not in this lifetime, but perhaps in the next, I will be fortunate enough to find myself among such lovely people doing such lovely things. See for yourself!

While the "how-to" part of this book is important and useful, I especially like the sense of community that is communicated by the numerous quotes. (I would have enjoyed even more quotes.) The photographs in the book are beautiful, and the quality of the paper (it's nice and heavy) ensures that the book can withstand lots of use.

This unique book records 25 years of quilting by a special group of women who live in a close knit community in rural North Carolina. These quilts were made for friends and neighbors, births and anniversarys, marriages and moving away. They are works of art. CQ gives much insight into the planning and production of these quilts and the recipients pleasure in receiving them. If you are interested in knowing just how to put a quilt together, this book will help you step by step. The group actually made a quilt to demonstrate for the book. The quilt will be donated to raise money for a new county library. The beautiful color photos and heartwarming stories make this book very appealing to quilters and others alike.

this is a magnificent collection of quilts. like many other quilters, i have quite a few books devoted to antique quilts--whether museum or state project collections or the quilts of other countries. this is one of the best.

many of the quilts shown are unlke any others i've seen in any source. the range and wealth of design and originality are breathtaking and inspirational.

the sections dealing with women's roles in 19th century america and their relation to botany is well written and very interesting.

the photos and written descriptions of the quilts are very good. it would, of course, have been lovely to have had detailed shots of the quilting, but that is possibly the only criticism i have about this book.

definitely a book for any quilter's library, and also valuable to anyone interested in the lives of 19th century women.

This book presents 53 full color quilts from the Ardis and Robert James collection at the Nebraska State Museum. The quilts are all superb examples of cut-out chintz applique, album style, applique, pieced and some crazy quilts. It examines the influence of gardening and botanizing on 19th century quilt designs. I highly recommend this book to the quilter, or quilt lover. It gives a detailed description of each quilt, and brings out design elements that might otherwise be overlooked. I own many quilt documentation books and have not seen most of the quilts in this book before. Many have never been publicly displayed before. It is absolutly gorgeous. Buy it!!! You will not be disappointed.

Enhanced with 53 color plates, 11 b/w illustrations, five charts and an index, A Flowering Of Quilts is a superbly presented compendium of the quilter's art with selections drawn from the Ardis and Robert James Collection of the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska. A spectrum of quilting styles is presented including cut-out chintz applique quilts, album-style quilts, red-and-green floral applique quilts, pieced quilts, crazy quilts, and more. Each botanically inspired quilt is supported with a detailed description of its applique, piecing, and quilting techniques, as well as historical, horticultural, and botanical background information on the quilt's design and execution. Informative essays explore the nineteenth century women's sustained interest in botany and examine the parallels between their flower garden designs of the era. A Flowering Of Quilts is a strongly recommended addition to any personal, professional, academic, or community library needlecraft reference collection.

The chapters are short and to the point. The book will not make a person fall asleep. Very informative and interesting. Includes case studies of different techniques used with different populations.

As a recent counseling graduate (PhD), I was always put off by the art therapy books on the market. They were all so poorly written and talked about antiquated theories of counseling and therapy. Now, finally there is a wonderfully readable text and I am glad to have found it as I begin work with clients. This book is for anyone who is interested in using art in their work with adults, children, adolescents, and groups-- there are helpful chapters on trauma, medical issues, autism, ADHD, etc. There are also sections on art therapy assessments that are very well written and concise.

This is the state-of-the-art art therapy book for your counseling, psychology, or art therapy library. Also, if you are a beginner, see Malchiodi's Art Therapy Sourcebook, another readable volume.

Malchiodi's book has a wide range of topics regarding the practice of Art Therapy. It has information ranging from art based evaluations to the practice with various populations to ethical issues in our field.

This huge and beautiful book is an achievement in itself, but I really meant Hiroshige's original cycle of prints, 118 in all. They cover every aspect of the bustling city: summer and snow, crowds and quiet, industrial sectors, temples, and pleasure quarters. In some, the city's people are clearly the focus of attention. In others, they are implicit and unseen. Even when birds, exotic trees, or vast landscapes dominate, the human presence remains. This is about the city, after all, and the city is always there.

Hiroshige's composition displays distinctive layering. His strong, immediate foregrounds place the viewer directly in the scene, then lead the viewer inward and onward to skies and mountains in the distance. It's dramatic and engaging, and striking by its absence in the very few images composed by his successor.

Japanese prints are hugely more complex and subtle than nearly anything in the Western canon. These masterworks are built up from images on a dozen or more blocks, perfectly aligned on the printed sheet of paper. That comes through beautifully in these large reproductions, even in the subtleties of "bokashi" gradients of color. Even so, the commentary reminds us of how much we're missing. The originals are often overprinted in lustrous mica, in glossy inks that emphasizes an eagle's claws, and in un-inked embossing or "cloth printing." Between the dramatic printing in these reproductions and the authors' description, we get nearly the whole effect of the imagery anyway.

I recommend this book to any reader, whether a connoisseur of fine prints already or some who can learn to love them - in otherwords, to everyone.

//wiredweird

In college I met one of the sons of George Braziler, the publisher, and feel that the wonderful quality of their art books reflects the generous and thoughtful nature of their family. The prints are meticulously reproduced, complete with woodgrain. The written text takes the reader back to another time within a totally different culture with subtle details explained. More generally, Japanese prints represent an effort to provide art to the normal working people, not just wealthy aristocrats. Hiroshige memorializes the exquisite and delicate mood of ancient Japan and lets you feel their experiences.

Darcy Kishida (midk@crisscross.com) Anyone who has ever visited modern Tokyo knows what a dreary and uninviting place it can be. Monotonous rows of offices, apartments with no charm whatsoever, and a shocking lack of architectural originality conspire to rob the metropolis of most of the character it once had. "One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo" will, if not completely change your opinion of Tokyo, at least make you see the city in a new light, enabling the reader to look past the run down buildings and aging neon and view the city as it used to be: an enchanting place virtually untouched by foreign influences and filled with ancient shrines, women in kimono, swaggering samurai, Kabuki theaters, the pleasure quarters, and everything else we associate with old Japan. It will also, if you're not already, make you fall in love with the art of ukiyo-e. "One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo" succeeds in two ways. First, from a purely artistic point of view, it is a stunning collection of all 118 prints in Hiroshige's "Meisho Edo Hyakkei" series (One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo), full-size and faithfully reproduced from the Brooklyn Museum's high quality set of mostly first edition prints. The book is unique in that it includes, in addition to the acknowledged masterpieces such as "Plum Estate, Kameido" and "Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake," many inferior prints which are rarely, if ever, seen. Here though, every print, even the obscure ones, is given its own commentary. Henry D. Smith II, a professor of Japanese history at Columbia University, wrote the commentaries accompanying the plates and explains in his introduction that only focusing on the stronger designs "discourages the appreciation of the many strong features of the lesser designs, and it also distracts attention from the descriptive qualities that clearly appealed to Hiroshige's audience and that can teach us much today about the city of Edo and its culture." Also significant is the fact that "One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo" shows us the series as it was meant to be seen. Those who are familiar with Hiroshige already know that this was his last series and it was enormously popular. As was the case with most ukiyo-e prints, the first edition copies were generally of the highest quality, with sharp, clear lines and delicately graded colors. In later printings, which are comparatively plentiful, a sharp drop in the subtlety of color becomes obvious and the once clean lines begin to blur. The majority of the prints from the Brooklyn Museum fall into the former category. As Professor Smith notes, the great success of the series "led to countless later impressions of far inferior quality, eliminating the most refined printing effects and transforming the color schemes in ways that utterly destroyed the expressive intent of the first impressions." Even to the untrained eye, a side-by-side comparison between a high quality, early impression and a hastily made later one will quickly make this clear. Any ukiyo-e connoisseur will tell you that there is really nothing else like a well-preserved, first edition copy of a favorite print and these are in abundance in "One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo". As impressive as the prints are, however, the commentary is what steals the show here, giving the reader fascinating glimpses into what was the city of Edo and its inhabitants. It has the effect of turning the prints into virtual postcards, which, in the absence of Edo era photographs, serve as a precious visual record of the city and its customs. In his commentary, Smith has the uncanny ability to make even the most mundane details fascinating. Mediocre plates, which would normally hold your attention for only a few seconds at most, are given substance and life by Smith, whose keen eye and attention to detail turn these lesser designs into mini history lessons, travel guides, or short biographies. A good example is plate 70 (Nakagawa River Mouth), which, artistically, this writer considers among the worst of the series. Here were are given a short history of Edo's canal system, learn where its citizens procured their salt, and discover how the scene has changed in the last 150 years. The print is thus saved from obscurity by, ironically, acting as a sort of visual supplement to Smith's text instead of the other way around. The amazing variety of the locations and subject matter of the 118 views and their astute commentary combine to bring Edo alive for the viewer, making it seem strangely familiar and real. We regret the loss of so many beautiful places to modernization and cherish the few precious gems that remain. "One Hundred Famous Views Of Edo" will make those who have never been to Tokyo want to go and former residents want to return for a visit. As for the fortunate who live there now, this book can only increase their appreciation of the city and its unique history.

Clearly the authors have taken an intensive, comprehensive approach to the many areas of special needs in a variety of diagnosed populations, especially Autism and other childhood functionality. This comprehensive guide to observing and documenting behaviors, cognitive, emotional and physiologic functions, will serve to illuminate specific needs that can serve to focus goals and objectives for the music therapist. It is surely an excellent step toward developing a "clinical eye".

This is the first comprehensive assessment that I have encountered which takes a look at the whole being from many angles. It is gratifying to know that there is, finally, a substantial evaluation process that parallels medical protocol, and can be respected by a large majority of health care professions. Bravo to the authors for their thinking and concerns, and for this major contribution to the still-developing profession of Music Therapy.

I am a board certified music therapist currently working with various children and adults. The IMTAP is one of the assessment tools I use when assessing children with various special needs. I highly recommend it. I find it very thorough, individualized, and adaptable! The IMPTAP gives me a very clear picture as to what the clients' strengths and areas of need are helping me determine more efficiently where the client is at and what the focus of therapy should be. Another big plus is that b/c I handle various assessments on a monthly bases, I think it is important to utilize assessment tools that are easy to use... I think it's a bit hard to find reliable and comprehensive assessment tools that are easy to navigate... this is one!

I am a board certified music therapist and used the IMTAP recently with an adolescent with developmental disabilities. I found it to be very comprehensive and easy to use. The detailed and easy to understand graphs that it produced were very helpful in determining the student's functioning levels. They were easy to present to her IEP team and were well received by the other professionals and administrators. I look forward to repeating the assessment with this student to see how her progress changes over time.

** Mahler (1860-1911) must have lost heart of composing after seeing Freud?

The circumstances surrounding the composition of the Tenth were highly unusual - the revelation that his young wife had had an affair with the architect Walter Gropius
The unsettled frame of Mahler's mind found expression in the despairing comments (many addressed to Alma) written on the manuscript of the Tenth, and must have influenced its composition: (True?) on the final page of the short score, Mahler wrote, "für dich leben! für dich sterben!" (To live for you! To die for you!) and the exclamation "Alms chi!" underneath the last soaring phrase.(Alms=money for the poor???) Alma kept the score with its final tribute in her living room - like a hunting trophy - the score refers to his unfinished 10th symphony. Was it inscribed on the score of the 10th? Mahler composed sketches of five movements!!!!

There is no sign that Mahler ever worked on the 10th Symphony again (Started in July 1910) after his visit to Freud in August 1910 - until he died August 10, 1911. Could it be that he intentionally kept his 10th unfinished - In Sept 1910 Mahler ended his efforts on the 10th Did he leave it unfinished for Alma to complete the work after he's gone; as to make up for his mistake when (1902) he ruled Alma out of composing. Or he did not finish it and temporarily put it aside to be able to make final revisions to the Ninth?

Mahler struggles in the 10th. a) Dissonance piled on dissonance and pierced by a high trumpet A, which erupts in the first movement. The shock of Gropius letters? Alma's accusations? (of WHAT??) Hardly less appalling is the muffled drum stroke which ends in the fourth movement and is repeated in the fifth. Alma links it to the episode when they heard together from a funeral cortege which passed far below their hotel window during their first winter in New York (Mahler's gloom during his happiest days-backlog of anti-Semitic complexities!!). Perhaps that is where Mahler got his raw material, but doesn't he use it here to a deeper and more recent movement with the echoes of the song about a child left to starve to death. Isn't Mahler now (or again) the abandoned one? - Again backlog of anti-Semitic complexities!!- He scrawled tortured words on the manuscript among them "" Mercy!! Oh God! Oh God! Why hast thou forsaken me?""--""The devil dances it with me/Madness seize me, accursed one/Destroy me/That I forgot, that I am"" like several notes Mahler left for Alma in the farmhouse. He may have written something more shocking on the bottom half of the Purgatories' title page, but the section has been sliced off, presumably by Alma.

After Mahler sought counseling from Sigmund Freud and on the verge of its successful première in Munich he dedicated the Eighth Symphony to Alma in a desperate attempt to repair the breach. ((Premiered in Munich on September 12, 1910 featured a chorus of about 850, with an orchestra of 171)) Did Freud recommend that Mahler dedicate his 8th to Alma?
Emanuel Garcia - an American psychoanalyst - puts this case eloquently in a paper made public in 1994.
Mahler suffered from Oedipal Conflict - A complex of males; desire to possess the mother sexually and to exclude the father; said to be a source of personality disorders if unresolved -

Quote"" In the unending debate about the effectiveness of psychotherapy, the creativity question remains unresolved. What happens to art when medicine meddles with an artist's mind? There are two known instances of composers who sought psychiatric help. On the afternoon of 26 August 1910, Gustav Mahler spent four hours discussing his marital difficulties with Sigmund Freud as they strolled through the Dutch town of Leiden. The two great minds achieved instant rapport. Freud said later that no-one had ever grasped psychoanalysis so swiftly. Mahler, for his part, felt much better. 'Be joyful!' he cabled his young wife, Alma. unquote

***Two persons must have shaped Mahler's personality:
1)Leo Pinsker (1821-1891) was born in Poland.
One of the first Jews to attend Odessa University, he studied law, but realized that, as a Jew, he had little chance of becoming a lawyer, so he studied medicine at the University of Moscow, returning to Odessa to practice in 1849. When pogroms started in Odessa in 1871, enlightened Jews were distraught. Assimilation activities ceased and Pinsker returned to medicine, becoming prominent in public life. Within a few years, these activities were renewed, but they were brought to a sudden halt in 1881, when another wave of pogroms began in southern Russia.
The concept of channeling Russian Jewish emigration to one country was rebuffed in Vienna and Paris, where Jewish leaders favored emigration to the U.S. rather than a Jewish homeland.(Mahler also did so) .
"... to the living the Jew is a corpse, to the native a foreigner, to the homesteader a vagrant, to the proprietary a beggar, to the poor an exploiter and a millionaire, to the patriot a man without a country, for all a hated rival."

2)Sigmund Freud: 1856-1939
Was Freud interested in music at all? Exactly what Freud cured is unclear. Emmanuel Garcia, psychiatric consultant to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, has postulated a theory that Mahler's libido ((psychoanalysis) a Freudian term for sexual urge or desire) was restored by talking to Freud. If so it made little difference, as Alma continued seeing her young lover, the future Bauhaus founder, Walter Gropius. As for any effect on Mahler's music, there was none. He died nine months later, of heart disease. Freud, seeing the obituary, sent the estate a back-dated invoice. Privately, Freud acknowledged that his treatment of Mahler had been superficial. It was, he said, 'as if you would dig a single shaft through a mysterious building'.""

*** Alma MARIA Mahler?? (Maria) - Maria is Mahler's mother name!!!! Mahler's first daughter' name was Maria too - she died of scarlet fever!!!

**His last words were "Mozartl" - (a diminutive, corresponding to 'dear little Mozart'

Now, let me go back in time:

**In 1902, Mahler married Alma Maria Schindler, the daughter of a Viennese painter; she was very much younger than her husband. The same year the Second Symphony was performed again, this time to great acclaim. His symphonies were being published and interest was being shown in performing his works. Mahler's scrupulous ethics - Characterized by extreme care and great effort - meant that he would not promote his own works; he rarely conducted performances of his symphonies and disapproved when singers from the Vienna Opera performed his songs as part of recitals, but beyond Vienna his reputation as a composer was growing.

**Did Alma love their first born daughter (who died in infancy) -Putzi (1902-1907) because the baby caused great pain on delivery - breech deliver - ?? > Mahler joked `'baby has come out with her tattouz facing the world''

**Mahler's Sixth Symphony "tragic"" written during his happiest periods. Married in 1902, two babies 1902-1904, isn't that strange? Same as in (Songs on the Death of Children), for voice and orchestra (1901-1904

**Alma loved her husband AFTER he was gone (Not before!!)(Was it so ??) She simply saw the difference when she married her lover Gropius. Strange that when she was not married to Mahler, she loved him and hated her husband after marriage. When she was not married to Gropius, she loved him and only hated him after marriage... was she a balanced woman??

**Das Lied von der Erde - the song of the Earth - 1908-1910- is having Chinese characteristics - taken from Chinese Poetry... he completed (The Song of the Earth), and his Symphony No. 9, that Mahler avoided numbering it as a symphony due to a superstitious fear of the. However as Song of the Earth he did it late in his life (1908-1909) was that to demonstrate his growing disgust with Western Culture that was anti-Semitic.

**Mahler rose to prominence as musical director of the Vienna Opera, and under his leadership the VO experienced its golden age.

**Complexities of being a Jew. Mahler was born in Kalischt, Bohemia, on July 7, 1860. At the time, Bohemia (later to form a major component of Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic) was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, then enduring its final crumbling decades, and the region where Mahler spent his youth was strongly associated with the Czech independence movement.
However, Mahler also was a Jew, and Jews in the region were associated by ethnic Czechs with Germans. Mahler famous quote is: "I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as and Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder never welcomed."
Then add to that the fact that the public considered Mahler to be a gifted conductor (not a composer!!) with a habit of writing long music. Mahler is also known for the length, depth, and painful emotions of his works. - so public initially must have treated his composing same as Mahler's treated Alma's!!)

**He loved nature and life and, based on early childhood experiences, feared death (family deaths, a suicide, and a brutal rape he witnessed). This duality appears in almost all his compositions, especially in the Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Deaths of Children"), which are actually about the loss of an innocent view of life.

**During his leadership of the Vienna Opera he attempted to present Richard Strauss' opera, Salome. Mahler was a basically prudish man, and his wife, Alma Mahler, later stated that he had argued against Strauss setting Wilde's Salome. Strauss, of course, went ahead and composed the piece, submitted it for production by the Vienna Opera, and was informed that the Censorship Board had banned the work due to Strauss' references to Christ and "the representation of events which belong to the realm of sexual pathology..." Rather than agree with the Censor, Mahler instead argued to "...in matters of art only the form and never the content is relevant, or at least should be relevant, from a serious viewpoint. How the subject matter is treated and carried out, not what the subject matter consists of to begin with-that is the only thing that matters. A work of art is to be considered as serious if the artist's dominant objective is to master the subject matter exclusively by artists means and resolve it perfectly to the 'form...'".
Mahler's reign lasted until 1907. He then accepted an offer to conduct the Metropolitan Opera. He conducted two seasons, and then accepted a two-year contract from the Philharmonic Society (now the New York Philharmonic.)

Mahler's time in New York was not positive--he had a low opinion of American concertgoers and musicians, did not get along with the New York critics, and fought with the management of both the Met and the Society. Mahler died in 1911, in poor health and exhausted from his New York battles.

**As Mahler was forced to spend most of the year conducting, he was, throughout his career, a summer composer. He conducted fall through spring, and then retreated to the country to compose. Mahler thus limited his composing to only two genres--the symphony and lieder. Although Mahler had a thirty year long composing career, his complete works could be assembled on fifteen or sixteen CDs.

**His trip to New York. He still needed to provide an income to support his wife and second daughter and so, in late 1907; he accepted an offer from the Metropolitan Opera in New York to conduct the season of 1908. For the next four years, he travelled between Europe and America.

I cannot improve upon the excellent review previously posted, except to add that the book includes a nice year-by-year biographical section near the beginning of the book, AND dozens of photographs, including an illuminating silhouette sequence of Mahler conducting. This gives us a rare look back in time, at what those watching Mahler in action were able to see.

This brand-new paperback edition of the 1991 revised English translation of a 1976 indispensable "classic" is superior to virtually any combination of individual Mahler biographies that come to mind. I hope I'm able to explain why in this review, and to further explain how it is that a book on Mahler can be a "page turner."

The music of Gustav Mahler has been the centerpiece of my musical listening for virtually all of my adult life, in excess of 40 years now. It's fair to say that it started for me, as it did for others of my generation, with the recordings of Bruno Walter in the late '50's and Leonard Bernstein and others throughout the '60's. It's also fair to say that Mahler's music engenders intense personalization on the part of a listener who is drawn in, to the extent that there is a never-ending desire to know more about the man, his creative processes, his quite obvious contradictions, and the bipolar way in which his contemporaries, his critics, his musicians, and audiences and critics ever since his death, have characterized the man and the music.

I have yet to read a Mahler biography or critique that is not in one way or another colored by the thoughts and opinions of the biographer, starting with the first Mahler biography I read about 30 years ago, by his widow, Alma Werfel-Mahler. Each has had a "pitch," an agenda, which has left rather an incomplete, and often judgemental, picture of this complex human being. Perhaps, had I read all of them in an attempt to weigh matters in the balance, I would have been satisfied in having reached a reasonably accurate overview.

Kurt and Herta Blaukopf, in their "Mahler: His Life, Work & World," have done something quite different and remarkable. As a result of reviewing what must have been millions of words by and about the man and his music, incorporating the most up-to-date research on the availability of these materials, and selecting and incorporating those pieces that illuminate the man, his music, his life, and the times in which he lived, a gripping yet balanced portrait of Mahler, from birth to the first posthumous performance of his "Das Lied von der Erde," conducted by Bruno Walter on November 20, 1911 (six months after his death).

Along the way, we follow him through success and failure, appointments gained and appointments lost or surrendered, works that came relatively easily and works that resulted only from Herculean struggle, through his own words and the words of friends, associates, subordinates, superiors, acquaintances, rivals, and critics (who, it is clear to see from the selections chosen for this volume, were clearly on one side or the other in the matter of the worth of his music). In several instances, the juxtaposition of critical reviews by admirers and detractors, published the same day but in different papers, lead one to ask "Were these two critics at the same concert?"

The pages literally fly by. When, in the last year of his life he experienced his greatest triumph (the first performances of hs Eighth Symphony) in the face of mortality, the narrative becomes absolutley gripping, despite its being comprised of nothing more than what is in the written record. The last dozen or so entries are simply heartbreaking in their poignance as the end approaches, a fellow composer places a valuation on his estate as testator, and, six months after Mahler's death, Anton von Webern corresponds to Alban Berg about the text to the final poem in "Das Lied von der Erde" and how, in planning for the two of them to travel to Munich to hear this as-yet-unplayed music, in the premiere conducted by Walter, he knows that they will "...expect to hear the most wonderful music that there is. Something of such magnificence as has never yet existed." And of course Webern was absolutely correct in his assessment.

The Blaukopfs note in their Preface that "The biographer who seeks to portray an artist is unable to resist colouring the picture with his own ideas. Documentation, on the other hand, is more disciplined: it provides the reader with the factual components of Mahler's life and identifies their sources. Each individual can then fit these pieces together to form their own Mahler portrait." At barely 250 pages, this book is a treasure for the Mahlerite. It could have been twice or three times as long and still have been the page-turner that the Blaukopfs have created from the private papers and public records of Gustav Mahler.

Every Mahlerite should have this volume in his or her collection.

Bob Zeidler

An excellent, well written, concise, comprehensive and clear introduction for professionals and lay people as well, curious about and interested in understanding drawings. Actually, the best book I have read in the field. I especially appreciate, that it offers GUIDELINES in interpretating pictures, without presuming to have/posess a set of rigid assumptions about the exact meaning of any of the components (size, color, figure, motion etc.). It is a book, which, however, must be read several times, most of all because of the amount of information it containes. It is an absolute MUST, for everbody, fascinated about and deligthed in deciphering the (mostly) hidden world of our uncounscius Psyche!!!!

This was a great book for beginners in art therapy. It explained the basics and was easy to read. One has a good explanation of what to look at and how to identify what the artist is saying through his/her art. This book gets a big "OK" from me.

This book opened up my child's world to me in a way that I hadn't expected. Even if you are uncertain of the efficacy of picture interpretaion, this book offers wonderful insight into family dynamics.

One of the best books I have ever read!

Although the book indicates developing prints from other media than wood blocks, those are very few. Yet the guide to using wood to produce amazing print blocks, with imagery from those made in the past, encourages an artist to use this media. The beautiful projects, tools needed, step-by-step instructions gave the book a 5-star ranking. There is even a project that shows the steps in simple book-making. You won't be disappointed in this book on printmaking/stamping, particularly in the modern frenzy in multi-media artwork.

Never took a printmaking class in college...I've been carving erasers and wondering about this new world of relief printing. This book is wonderful.

Not too much information on complicated techniques. Enough info to have me working on new ideas. If you're beyond the commercial rubber stamps and/or are an artist hoping to incorporate printed images into
multimedia work...buy this book! Great reference! It'll fill in the blanks for those who have an art education but no basic printmaking.

This book is aimed at relief printmaking without a press using a range of techniques from linocuts through to using found objects. The techniques are clearly described and are applied to a number of simple but attractive projects such as single pamphlet books. pillows or cards. The photographs are clear and helpful. I particularly liked the fact that Gwen Diehn went through the clean up process, which is often not covered in much detail, and that she used vegetable oil rather than the more noxious kerosene. Throughout the book are a number of inspiring examples by past and present printmakers which help to extend the processes described. Whilst this book is aimed primarily at beginners, it offers stimulus and information of use to the more experienced printmakers too.

This is the book to begin an inquiry
into narrative therapy. Highly recommended
for its compassionate approach to postmodern
constructionist ideas. A must have book for
therapists.

I have not come accross a better book on narrative therapy yet. The authors provide a unique blending of theory and techniques. A must for any therapist who wishes to incorporate postmodernist thinking and narrative in counseling

This book makes a postmodern approach therapy clear and accessible. Using both theory and concrete examples, it lays out how therapists can help their clients re-vision and consciously edit the meanings they experience in their "scripts" of life. Doan and Parry present techniques which can be used with individuals as well as families or groups. Many of their techniques can be used effectively with other styles of therapy.

The approach to therapy, presented in this book, empowers the client to consider her/his life story, to notice where others have scripted how they live and how they view their experiences. It provides tools to help clarify where these contstructs are helpful and where the client would like to create his/her new constructs to replace those which no longer serve.

Doan & Parry also encourage clients to "give back," to share their experiences with other clients, helping to not only solidify progress, but to encourage those who have not yet made much progress in therapy.

Dr. Wiggins has carefully formulated a guide to constructivist musical instruction that is accessible to all in the education field. The book is clear and specific, offering many example lessons and modeled approaches for classrooms. While the book is aimed primarily at elementary school educators, there are serious implications for music education at all levels. Do not miss out on the companion CD, an essential piece when using the sample lessons in the classroom.

While I have not had the honor of meeting Jackie Wiggins, I am never the less very impressed with this book. I especially found the first four chapters helpful. This textbook was referred to frequently during my recent Curriculum Planning class taught by Northwestern graduate, Dr. Michelle Kaschub.

I have studied with the one and only Dr. Jackie Wiggins and still have more to learn from her. She has helped me realize how much I will love to teach music. This book will surely help me through many a curricular dilema. How do I do this and still accomplish that? Yes it is possible!

If you teach music or plan to teach music in the future, do yourself a favor and buy this book. It will certainly help anybody, from the experienced teacher to the undergrad student waiting nervously to teach an entire class for the first time (like me).