european

Flipping through the Kallir/Vartanian book on Schiele's drawings and watercolors is a guaranteed way to make several hours of your life disappear without you even noticing it. The reproductions, presented in chronological order from 1907 through 1918, are a joy to ponder and get lost in. Schiele scholars and fans have been given a lavish gift. The biggest mystery is how the publisher, Thames & Hudson of London, could produce this marvel-like book for a such a miniscule cover price--it has the look and feel of a hundred-dollar book.

This is publishing at its absolute finest.

The price is amazing, considering the amount of images and written material. More than just the usual "greatest hits" compendium, this one book covers Schiele's output with chapters devoted to specific years of his life. The images take up full pages - rather than being small, irritating reproductions - so you can actually SEE the drawings and paintings. These are the best reproductions of his work - yes, I've seen some of the originals - in the largest number (save for Kallir's catalogue raisonne) and with an enormous amount of biographical information. This book thrilled me. Go. Buy. Now!

I've bought several books on Schiele's work over the years but this is, by
far, the best book I've seen so far on the artist's drawings and
watercolors. Plus, it's a great value! It's double the page count of any
other book and has more than double the reproductions of any other book. But
it is the same price (or cheaper) than a lot of other Schiele books out
there. The reproductions are fantastic and the text is really great. A great
buy for all art lovers.

Bennedetti es un autor que nos tiene acostumbrados a lo cotidiano, a lo urbano, al sentir de seres normales ante situaciones que se le dan a cualquiera. Su poesia, a diferencia de lo tradicional, es abierta, amplia, sutil en su forma de hacer llegar el mensaje, pero sin tabues ni complicaciones. Este libro viene en dos ediciones, una de ellas incluye un disco compacto con todas las poesias leidas por el autor mismo. En todo caso, es la mejor recoleccion de poesia de Bennedetti. Disfrutela

This is a wonderful selection of Benedetti love poems made by the author. Very enjoyable even to those for whom poetry is not a favorite genre, as the language is easy, most poems short, and we can all relate with the feelings described. A good start to get acquainted with the wonderful work of this man... the book also makes a great gift to give a girlfriend.

No itroduction is necesary when we are talking about Mario Benedetti. His capacity to comunicate with the reader, the simplicity, and the humanity of his works is what makes him famous all through latin america. "My estrategy is deeper and more simple My estrategy is that same day I don't know how or with what pretext you finally need me" Benedetti. Beautiful indeed

El Quijote es de esos libros que invitan al lector a repensar en su propia vida, a buscar nuevos caminos para expresar la maravilla de vivir. Quien tiene contacto con este bello texto termina pareciéndose un poco a Don Quijote, esto es, una persona que no se resigna a ser un pobre diablo y se inventa para si un mundo lleno de fantasia, retos, desafios, y por supuesto de amor, logrando de este modo una nueva experiencia vital

NADIE LO SABE PERO CERVANTES ERA DEL MADRID, PERDIO LA MANO EN UN MADRID-BARCELONA

ESTE LIBRO ES CHACHI Y TODO ESPAÑOL DEBERIA LEERL

This is a terrific book. It not only gives a good look at the Hardwick Hall textiles, but also interesting insights into the motivations and prejudices of the Hardwick family at that time.

Great photographs and descritpions give a total view of the textiles and the life and interests of one Elizabethan family.

I haven't put this book down. The pictures and illustrations are beautiful and the text is interesting and informative. As a member of an historical recreation group I find this book is a "treasure" itself. I have been inspired by its contents and am all ready planning several projects. If you have an interest in the history of embroidery, textiles, or the history of Bess of Hardwick Hall and the Elizabethan world, this is a book you will enjoy!

Santina Levey is well known and admired in the circles of textile history, research and curatorship. This is a book that will appeal to the historian, the feminist, the needleworker, the restorer and the reader who simply wants to hear a rousing good story about fascinating characters. The plates are excellent. A good read and a good reference all in one. Well Done Ms. Levey, as usual. I eagerly await the catalogue.

A usual Oxford Press is top rate! From the clean voice leading to the acurate translations - you simply can't beat it. For my madrigal choir this is a required book.

This compilation of choral gems is one of my prized possessions! It has some tried and true classics like the Cantique de Jean Racine (Gabriel Fauré) and some less mainstream but equally gorgeous pieces, like the Salve Regina (Francis Poulenc). There are some historical and performance notes included. To a teacher, a conductor, student: this is a book you will use and use; there is something for everyone!

This is an excellent book of some of the better choral classics. I have sung some of them for years (Mozart's Ave verum) but others are not so familiar (Viadiana's Exaultate justi) to some old friends in a different arrangement (Franck's Panis Angelicus in SATB). Difficulty ranges from fairly easy to difficult, with something for everyone. A good collection for any serious classical chorus or church choir.

Mr. Traina's book about his incomparable collection is a masterwork of photography, reproduction and scholarship. The crystal clear and remarkably close up pictures of the three hundred or more cases in Mr.Trania own passionately gathered Faberge masterworks gallery make the objects themselves almost palpable. This book is also welcome for the subsidiary essays, with the sole exception of a rather sour personal note by Mr.Traina's ex- wife, Danielle Steele. As a work of art about a long lost era of grace and elan and terrible contrasting poverty and violence, The Faberge Case makes many of the forever lost emotions and dramas come to life in a most vivid fashion.

This is a BEAUTIFUL book. The cases are works of art. It's amazing they didn't go blind making them!

This sumptuous volume of amazing color photographs showcases the largest collection of Faberge cigarette cases in the world. Objects ranging in style from fokeloric or rococo to modernistic and even sexy are included in this book, pointing out that the most utilitarian object( although hardly of vital importance to the average Tsarist Russian) done by the most decadent of jewelers would be a masterpiece in miniature Mr. Faberge would be astounded at Mr.Traina's obsession with these politically incorrect objects. He would also hope that the owner of so many casas would at least be a smoker and use the casas once in a while.

This book is a amazing voyage to the most deepest places of the mind. Here you live, and on this book you will really live, the life after the african colonial war of four portuguese veteran. Their most inner desires, feelings and thoughts are exposed in a really vivid picture. You almost see them in a Lisbon City long lost.

I agree with the previous reviewer. Antunes is a marvellous writer. Once you get into his way of writing it is hard to put the book down. His poetic language is so filled with images that you could actually feel the smell of Lisbon. In this story we follow the life stories of a couple of war veterans before, during and after the revolution in 1974. They come from different social backgrounds, so Antunes succeeds in portraying many aspects of his society. But to me is that not the main issue, no it is the moving life-stories of his characters. It is not an easy read but he can also be very amusing in a rather absurd way. Antunes has bee critizised for writing the same book over and over again. This is the second novel I read. His style is very similar but once I get into it I'm moved by the beauty and captivated by the energy of his prose.

Anyone interested in modern fiction must have a go at Antunes.

Secker published a couple of Antunes' books in the UK in the late eighties, but then they dropped him. On a trip to the US I found Fado Alexandrino. I was astonished. It is rare that you come across an experimental novel which is a page turner too. It is the story of a handful of army vets who have a reunion. The narrative weaves from one man's disturbed thoughts to the next man's. This creates a confusion in who is speaking, but - like I say - this is not off putting: it adds to the effect of the novel. The book looks daunting, but I unreservedly recommend it. It is moving. It is well written. It is thought provoking. Antunes is a devastating writer.

I really liked reading Han's Christian Anderson's biography. You learn a lot about him, and his stories from this book. He is one of the greatest writers ever. He tells the story of his life beautifully. It was full of adventures and travels, of which he tells a lot about in his book. He truly liked all people. I highly recommend this book, and would give it more stars if I could.

The Fairy Tale Of My Life is Hans Christian Andersen's autobiography. Andersen (1805-1875) had an undeniable gift for storytelling that led to the creating of a series of classic fairytales that included "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", and "The Snow Queen. His sense of fantasy, descriptive abilities, and sensitivity to human emotions are also evident in the candor and engaging self-told story of his life from the extreme poverty of a provincial childhood to the international celebrity of his final years. Careful readers will also find valued insights into the sources for many of his most famous and enduringly popular stories. The Fairy Tale Of My Life is a "must" for the legions of Hans Christian Andersen fans!

The Fairy Tale Of My Life is Hans Christian Andersen's autobiography. Andersen (1805-1875) had an undeniable gift for storytelling that led to the creating of a series of classic fairytales that included "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", and "The Snow Queen. His sense of fantasy, descriptive abilities, and sensitivity to human emotions are also evident in the candor and engaging self-told story of his life from the extreme poverty of a provincial childhood to the international celebrity of his final years. Careful readers will also find valued insights into the sources for many of his most famous and enduringly popular stories. The Fairy Tale Of My Life is a "must" for the legions of Hans Christian Andersen fans!

Tony Blair says that his programme of making New Labour a "party of business" is the modern form of socialism, or, at least, "social-ism". The Chinese Communist Party says that fierce repression of workers' rights, together with fast and furious cutting of deals with capitalist multinationals and the open and avid pursuit of individual profit for the privileged, is socialism in a form suitable to China today. For others, socialism is what used to exist in the USSR and is now - to the sorrow of some, the joy of others - off the agenda. What is socialism? Even 150 years ago, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels marked off their working-class socialism sharply from a wide range of other socialisms, which they called reactionary socialism, bourgeois socialism, petty-bourgeois socialism, and utopian socialism. They had already criticised what they called the "crude communism" of levelling-down to equally shared poverty. Early radical socialists in Britain, people like William Morris, argued against anarchists but also saw a huge gulf between their own working-class politics and "state socialism", which they regarded as no better, or worse, than capitalism. Yet the accomplished fact often weighs heavier than a thousand good theories. The fact that state-owned industry gave the Stalinist USSR something approximately socialist in common with the heroic years of the revolutionary Russian workers' state after 1917 convinced many that there must be some real continuity. The USSR must, at the very least, be a distorted version of a system moving towards socialism, if not actually reaching it, and therefore deserved the loyalty of the labour movement. The events of 1989-91 put an end to all such hopes, and compelled many socialists to rethink. This book will be an immensely valuable contribution to that rethinking. It presents, with clear and informative commentary, the key "lost texts of critical Marxism" from a long-dispersed, long-marginalised, but brilliant, group of radical thinkers who demonstrated the fundamental conflict between working-class socialism and bureaucratic statism in the era when the USSR was at the peak of its political influence.

Well I've read this book and quite frankly, I wasn't particulary impressed. But you have to hand it to Mr Matgamna, he sure does know how to write an introduction! In many ways, the intro is more useful, though I would wholeheartedly disagree with many of the points made, than much of the "critical texts" included thereafter.

The fact is, Shachtman went over to the right wing at the end of his life afterleading the SWP for many years. I blame his views on the USSR and one notices how many ex-trots do this. Obviously their views on the USSR have a lot of factual basis to them , but it was the best we had and therefore worth defending to the hilt and fighting for. Stalinism was "actually exisiting socialism" and anyone who denys this, contradicts the actually existing state of play at the time up until the end of the Cold War, and in particular, up to the mid 1960s.

Any socialist who wants to be educated should read this book, and then argue with it!

The Fate of the Russian Revolution Lost Texts of Critical Marxism Vol.1 Edited by Sean Matgamna. Published by Phoenix Press London ISBN 0-9531864-0-7

This book opens with a quotation from Albert Einstein, stating the case for socialism. Einstein, like almost every great mind of the 20th century who concerned himself or herself with the welfare of the working people, wanted common ownership and a democratic planned economy. But Einstein was stumped by the enigma of the USSR. He saw that there "the planned economy" was "accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual" and so was "not yet socialism". It seemed to represent, on the one hand, a step in the right direction, because of the planned economy, but on the other hand, not a step that Einstein wanted to take.

Very few thinkers got anywhere near resolving the paradox. The greatest was Leon Trotsky. But Trotsky got no further than assessments of the USSR which he himself described as provisional and needing review if the system proved to have some solidity and viability, rather than being only a freak concatenation of counter posed forces.

When the Stalinist USSR showed that it did have that viability - by becoming the world's second superpower, in the 1940s - the task of reworking Trotsky's analysis had to be undertaken, not by well-provided professors in famous research institutes, but by tiny groups of Marxists harassed by the exigencies of day-to-day political activity in hostile circumstances. They have not become as famous as Einstein, or Trotsky. Their names - Max Shachtman, Joseph Carter, Hal Draper, C L R James - are largely unknown.

But the "lost texts" of those "critical Marxists" - here unearthed for the first time from dusty archives, and well-presented with a substantial introduction - are a central part of the intellectual history of the 20th century. Every educated person needs to know about them, just as much as he or she needs to know about Einstein's theory of relativity.

This book is the emotional first hand account of the author, Pierre Clostermann's, flying days for the RAF during WWII. Pierre Clostermann became a fighter ace by a wide margin. He tells a harrowing tale of bravery, fear and that of being a fighter pilot in the chaotic, trying times of World War II. His tale is a gripping one, and if you have any interest at all in WWII, fighter aircraft or aerial dogfights, you are sure to be carried away by the sheer excitement of his real-life exploits.

The book spans his whole war experience, from his humble beginnings as a novice fighter pilot for the RAF with the chaos and absolute fear of his first dogfight, to the final days of the war when he's a very experienced and calmer fighter pilot. It's a very unique and detailed account of life on the ground and life in the air.

This is a must-read if you are interested in the aerial war over Europe in WWII.

A fantastic book, and I give it 5 STARS without hesitation.... I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!

This book shows many of the problems faced by those who served in the front air war during the second world war(1939-1945). It also talks about the hardships of gaining recognition to an airman for a gallant deed. A well written and historically correct book that is extremely interesting to read and enjoy

This book is the best one I've ever read, Clostermann tells you real-life stories from various scenarios spreading over the world, from the Pacific to the Desert and France. I haven't read a book this good before, and I don't think I ever will read one in the future.

MagJaM (Virtual Pilot, Warbirds Tm)