This is a great book that shows you how to draw many animals including elephants, bears, horses, cattle, deer, sheep, primates, cats, dogs, squirrels and rabbits.

For each animal there is a complete sketch of the front, side and three-quarter view as well as close-up front and side head views. Next, sketches using basic shapes show the animals from several angles. Then, skeleton, musculature and surface anatomy are shown and discussed. A brief three-step demonstration of how to draw the animal follows.

Complete drawings of the animals doing various activities such as drinking, touching, sitting, and resting are also shown along with sketches of the animals' young. Sometimes different species of animals are shown such as polar and black bears. Animals sharing a similar shape such as zebra, buffalo, hippopotamus and burro are shown sometimes as well. Drawings include brief commentary.

Though I do like this book and did find it helpful, especially the anatomy/muscle diagrams, I wish the written instructions were a little more detailed. Overall, I would recommend it to any beginning to intermediate artist who wishes to improve their animal drawing technique.

If your into drawing animals, this is the book for you! Tips on shading and bases are included. Clear pencil drawings or just outlines you can try to draw. It's the best drawing animal book ever!

This book really enlightened me. It gives a lot of information about a very important man who was a great historian, among many other things. I had heard so much about Dr. J.H.Clarke but knew nothing about his personal life before reading this book. Also, although I had read some of his books I never had the opportunity to attend any of his lectures, seminars etc. and... see him in person to learn more about this man - I know he frequently enlightened many with his small group settings at "Clarke House" in Harlem, New York and that he also gave lectures at many of the City of New York colleges, and at other sites for those who were fortunate enough to attend. Many questions I would have asked him, if I had ever met him, were addressed in the book. I often wondered about his path in life and gained a lot of information about his path while reading this book. The book is easy to read and just about the right length. I suggest the reader digest the words a bit at a time, to retain the information given. It was pointed out to me that this book was shaped by information the writer gleaned from Dr. Clarke himself. It was not just a compilation of information obtained from other books. The writer actually heard Dr. Clarke tell her about his long life from his humble beginnings to the later years. Dr. Clarke enlightened many and so did this author.

THIS BOOK IS EXCELLENT, IT GAVE VERY GOOD INFORMATION AND PICTURES ON A MAN WHO HAS DEDEICATED HIS WHOLE LIFE TO THE AWAKENING OF THE AFRICAN MIND AND THE INVESTIGATION OF OUR HISTORY. HE WAS TRULY A MASTER TEACHER AND A TRUE PAN-AFRICANIST. I HAVE READ SOME OF HIS BOOKS AND I HAVE SOME OF HIS VIDEO LECTURES ON TAPE. I JUST SHURE HATE THE FACT THAT I NEVER GOT TO MET DR. CLARKE IN PERSON. HE HAS BEEN A TRUE INFLUENCE ON MY LIFE AND THE LIFE OF MANY OTHERS. I WILL MAKE SHUREM PERSONALLY THAT HIES DREAM OF AFRICAN-CENTERED, OR AFRICAN-CENTRIC SCHOLARSHIP AND PAN-AFRICAN NATIONALISM AS WELL AS AFRICAN WORLD LIBERATION IS KEPT ALIVE.

An excellent and well documented introduction to Weston's oeuvre and philosophy. One of the true and underrated innovators in photography. If you love Adams, Depardon or Cartier Bresson's landscapes,welcome home ! Some stunning pictures of the desert. Very very good repro quality. Buy with confidence.

This book will appeal to all of those who appreciate high quality reproductions of Edward Weston's finest works. Dunes, cypress, nudes, and portraits are all conjured up by the name of Edward Weston, and each is well represented in this gorgeous volume.

Before going into a description of this book, let me further caution those of you who do not know Edward Weston that he much favored nude photographs of women and had intimate relations with many women in his life which are described in Terence Pitts' interesting essay. If such things offend you, I suggest that you avoid this volume.

"Edward understood thoughts and concepts that dwell on simple mystical levels." -- Ansel Adams

It is appropriate that this volume contains some comments by Ansel Adams about Edward Weston. The two have many similarities in their work, and were friends. Both were attracted to the underlying grandeur of nature, and looked for the connectedness in all things (a sort of fractal-based perspective on unity). Weston was especially successful in integrating images of people with his nature images.

The works speak for themselves. "Edward Weston, contrary to so many now practicing photography, never verbalized on his own work." -- Ansel Adams

The potential for each of us from considering these images is very great from Adams' point of view. "You might discover, through Edward Weston's work, how basically good you are, or might become."

Edward Weston was formally trained to be a studio photographer, and soon sought to escape the limitations of doing commercial portraits. He was very skilled in this area, and there was always demand for his work. After 1930, he was able to stop retouching portraits which was a great relief to him.

Nature always fascinated him, and in the latter part of his life he was able to focus on the potential of his work rather than on eking out a living. In the 1930s he received the first Guggenheim Fellowship to travel for photography, and made good use of this to see locales he would not otherwise have reached.

Weston's influence is important in the 20th century for establishing photography as an art, rather than as representation.

Weston did his best work in California and Mexico, where he traveled extensively. I was also impressed with his industrial photography, which I had not seen much of before. He had an amazing eye for form in industrial settings and in designs of mundane objects.

The images here are well reproduced in almost all cases, and the size of the pages is excellent for the images involved.

Here are my favorites from the images in this superb book:

Epilogue 1919

Sunny Corner in an Attic 1920

Ruth Shaw 1922

Armco Steel 1922

Lois Kellog 1923

Rose Roland, Mexico 1926

Shell 1927

Shells 1927

Cabbage Leaf 1931

Cypress Root, Seventeen Mile Drive 1929

Cypress Root and Succulents, Point Lobos 1930

Bedpan 1930

Charis 1934

Sheels and Hill, San Juan 1934

Dunes (5), Oceano, 1936

Iceberg Lake 1937

Juniper, Lake Tenaya 1937

Nude (#4 and #5) Oceano 1936

Dante's View, Death Valley 1937

Church Door, Hornitos, California 1940

Potato Cellar, Lake Tahoe 1937

Stonecrop and Cypress, Point Lobos 1939

I believe that a rewarding way to enjoy this work even more is to give yourself the equivalent of a Guggenheim fellowship for a shorter period of time, and visit many of the locales where Edward Weston produced these images. Take along your camera, and see what you can capture for yourself. It will increase your appreciation of what he saw, and the issues of capturing it for others.

Enjoy the beauty around you, in all of its natural forms.

Adam Bagdasarian offers up several short, wonderful tales of the trails, indecision, fears and strange motivations that make being a teenager such a strange and magical time in anyone's life. Whether you are a teenager going through those times or an adult who can now look back at them in humor, "First French Kiss" is a delightful read. With stories depicting such common problems as social acceptance, camping, and an overactive imagination, the memories just come flooding back. Every reader will find at least one of the short vignettes that will speak directly to them. For me it was the experience of Little League, Going Steady, and, of course, that First French Kiss. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip back to my teenage years and the traumatic (but now humorous) times. A fun read for teenagers and adults.

My friends both recommended this book and I really thought it was both funny and amusing (yes...they are different things). This story of a boy's life is full of many anecdotes, some insightful, all funny. I really recommend

When we were considering what to do during our month in New Zealand, travel agents were pleading with us to have everything lined up before "the Y2k rush." So, being the literal engineering types, we bought a couple of books -- the Lonely Planet NZ and the Frommers for Under $50/day -- and started poring through them.

Our initial impression of the Lonely Planet book was too dense to be useful to us. The Frommer's guide, however, had suggested itineraries based on the time one could spend in New Zealand. Even better, the author, Elizabeth Hansen, was available to "consult" on the trip on an hourly basis. Because we'd be toting our 18-month old, we used her services and pre-booked the entire trip.

Once there, we found the Lonely Planet book much more useful. The Lonely Planet guide excels at providing abundant information about towns, including attractions, restaurants and maps giving a rough layout.

For example, one of the folks at a Visitor center clued us into Farewell Spit, an area we were going to forego because it was well off our chosen route. As it turned out, Tahuna Park, our campground in Nelson was pretty bad (right under an airport takeoff path; lots of people permanently living there; undermaintained kitchens), and we didn't relish the idea of spending three days there as originally planned.

The side trip to Farewell Spit was long and we'd have to find some place relatively nearby to the Spit to make it a reasonable trip. Unfortunately, this is where the Frommer's guide was very weak. It caters more to the B&B crowd, and there isn't that much north (or west) of Nelson. The Lonely Planet book, however, paid for itself by suggesting a lot of options, providing maps of the little towns, and listing restaurants where we might stop at for "snack time."

In summary: The Frommer's book is helpful for initially planning your trip.

The Frommer's book has more of a focus on higher-end accomodations, e.g., motels or beds and breakfasts, and covers a smaller area. This is not such a big deal unless you want to venture too far off the beaten path.

We felt the author's services were worthwhile.

Don't underestimate the value of the Visitor Centers scattered throughout New Zealand. They were generally very good at providing local information. Most will also book special activities for you.

I recently spent two weeks in New Zealand. This was the only book I took with me and it was the best choice. I had looked through others but, I would recommend this book to anyone who is planning a holiday there. The pricing was a bit outdated due to the exchange rate, but all the other information was dead on! I did the things recommended in Rotorua, Taupo and Napier and I was well prepared! The for free or nearly free things to do and see were the best. I cant wait to go back!

This book is a companion book to the television series of the same name. The book itself is lovely, with pictures of the animals and habitats of future Earth with details about behavior and the changing planet.
The only problem is that the book does not go beyond the series. There is no extra information about the future creatures and the only real add on is the small glossary in the back. If you had to pick between this or the series on video or DVD, buy the video or DVD.
With 160 pages I wanted more. It took less time to read the book than watch the television series!

An impressive companion to After Man, another book by Dougal Dixon written on the same genre. However, After Man is less far fetched in its animals than in this book, which are computer generated rather than illustrated. Extremely detailed verbal sketches are accomplice to beautiful graphics of astounding animals of the future. My only complaint is that occasionally there is a bad computer generated image that probably would have done better as an illustration. After Man, Dixon's most masterful book, is best read either immediately before or after reading this one.

This is a good book, however the small size is more meant for ratbert to read. Too small, too short and the price is too much. My advice? Get a larger book with more comics. I was done reading it in a few minutes.

Alice is the best character in Dilbert and she is the woman who will take action. You gotta love her and this book highlights some of her funniest moments!

I have been keeping mantellas for a number of years and aside from a few articles in various magazines have found no decent literature on these fabulous frogs. This book gave me in-depth knowledge on how to keep and breed these frogs and I thought the photo-diary on hatching eggs and rearing the tadpoles was wonderful. The centre-fold of the book also has some stunning colour plates of these frogs. My only gripe is that it is a little pricey, however having said that it is a limited edition book and good, solid information on any subject one is interested in is almost priceless. Can't wait for the next book Mark!

This is a must have for anyone that loves these tiny little jewels. Mantellas are often thought of as difficult creatures to keep. This book gives away all the secrets to keeping them in captivity, happy and healthy, for years. Thanks Marc!

First, the good news: this contains the complete Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel, one of the greatest books ever written. Problem is, the photos and art that accompany this particular version only serve to distract the reader and snap him/her out of the fictional dream. Die-hard Adams fans are the only people who will really want this, and then purely as a conversation piece. If you are new to the world of the Guide, you would be better served by getting The Ultimate Hitch-Hiker's Guide, which has the text of this book plus the other four in the series and a short story, and no pictures.

The story :
It's a thursday when the earth get's destroyed to make space
for a new hyperspace highway. The human Arthur Dent and
his friend, Ford Prefect from the Planet Beteigeuze, are
flagged up to the Vogon spaceship. From now on begins a
crazy travel through the Universe (and beyond) ...

Specials about this book:
If you are a real Douglas Adams fan, you MUST own this book.
The whole story is described with funny looking pictures,
and even Adams itself has a guest-role.

Spatial relationships are very close to the first intelligent concepts that infants grasp. To explore the world we need to recognize locations and faces. Some of the first formal mathematics learned deals with the recognition of shapes such as circles and triangles. While numbers are learned and then abstracted to do arithmetic, the generalization of shapes is almost always left out. Which is unfortunate because the modification of shapes into new forms is the foundation of much of our lives. For is the recognition of faces not the classification of a small subset of basic shapes into an infinite set of possibilities? The abstraction of shapes into topologically equivalent sets has been sadly neglected in education and this book is an important part of the cure.
Children love to explore their world, taking the familiar and extending it into the unknown, developing new ideas about physical relationships that can be used in many areas. This book, containing no arithmetic problems, takes that approach and manages to teach an enormous amount of mathematics. The basic ideas of inside and outside a curve are explored in ways that forces the reader to grasp that the content is simple, but complex in the ways it can be used. The Mobius strip, which shows that objects can have only one side, forces thinking at a level that is simple while also profound. Recognizing the distortion of one object into another can also have fundamental benefits in many areas. As someone who has struggled with Chinese ideograms, I am convinced that the skills taught in this book will help open up another avenue for children. It would be very interesting to determine if children brought up writing in pictures are better at topological abstractions than those who have not.
Learning mathematics can be fun if properly presented. This book truly earns the highest of possible praises: "It helps to make learning fun." It belongs in school libraries at every level.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

I gave it as a gift to my 10 yr old neice to try to expose her to another aspect of mathematics where it deals with shapes rather than numbers. She loved it and couldn't stop working on the "problems". I spent more money on the tracing paper than the book because she didn't want to mark-up the book in case she wanted to share it with her classmates.