I had tried to get this book ever since I read the Gormenghast books a few years back, but was informed it was unavailable. Imagine my surprise when it shows up on Amazon as available. I bought it as part of a deal with Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor. Had a slight twinge of anxeity when Slaughterboard showed up by itself, but Progress showed up about a week and a half later. Talk about worth the wait. Short stories, plays, illustrations, poems, Peake's Progress is a great collection of major work and oddities that showcases this amazing talent. My personal highlights are the Titus Groan in all but name story "Boy in Darkness" and his full length play "The Wit to Woo". If you are a Peake fan, you should have this, if not, why aren't you?

Excellent stuff. The Gormenghast Trilogy is still the book you must read, but this volume is a fine introduction to Mervyn Peake. Btw, ignore the previous reviewer. I'm an admirer of Tolkien and I have no trouble at all appreciating Peake.

This is a perfect introduction to the work of Mervyn Peake whose great Gormenghast trilogy reprsents the 'other' tradition in British fantasy writing. For me this is altogether much more satisfying than, say, Tolkien. Here you can find Peake's short stories, plays, drawings -- everything that made him the creative genius he was. If Tolkien isn't for you, Peake probably is!

I am a student in a Culinary Program for breads and specialty desserts and my chefs stand behind these books 100%. The step by step instruction that includes illustration as well as the history of the preparation make these books invaluable if you are at all interested in baking.

I OWN A LOT OF PASTRY BOOKS THIS IS THE BEST.I RECOMMAND THIS BOOK TO THOSE WHO REALLY WANT TO LEARN THE GOOD PASTRY .IT CONTAINS ALL THE BASIC OF THE PASTRY.WITH STEP BY STEP PICTURES WHICH MAKE MORE EASY TO FOLLOW THE RECIPE.IN HERE WE DO NOT HAVE THE GOOD PASTRY SHOP LIKE IN EUROPE THIS IS ALLOWED ME TO PREPARE THOSE FRENCH PASTRIES : ECLAIRS,MADELEINE,LES TARTES WITHOUT FAILURE.I BOUGHT ALSO THE VOL2.SO GO AHEAD A BUY IT YOU WILL NOT REGRET I PROMIS

Have you ever wondered why your pies shrink, and what to do about it? How about differnt types of pie crust?

This books attempts to tell all about the basic preparations used for bases in french patisseries. It is very good, and with the red.food.cooking FAQ, you can convert measurements and ingredients to suit almost any part of the world.

Recipes are mostly professional quantities, with extra small-quantity versions for the home user.

The book gets five stars from be because it tells how to avoid the most common mistakes, and any tips or tricks which may help save something that has gone wrong.

I have purchased this book a few weeks ago and think its great. Brief explanations and to the point. I am just learning Java and I can quickly find help when I need it. It makes a great desktop reference.

A good programming book doesn't overdo it. It doesn't necessarily give you entire batches of production ready code. What it does is give you core routines you can drop into your code to accomplish the task you're trying to do, especially if you're in the beginning to intermediate range. Then it's you're job to assemble the parts into a production whole. This book does that well. The code is very understandable and drops in nicely. Trottier also shows you some optimization techniques as well.

This Core name for this book really summarizes it. This is core 101 and everday Java. If you know a little Java this is a good book to get comprehensive with it. If you're advance there might be a few areas it covers you haven't gotten to yet.

For me I just wanted to be able to create some simple applets that took data off the Internet and from a database and did some special calculations and presentations with it. This book was helpful in getting that going. I knew little Java before that but did know some C, a lot of PHP and SQL.

I used the Core Language as a supplement to the Java Reference docs I downloaded from Sun and it helped a lot. It's sometimes hard to use the reference style of stuff until you've got some working code up. That's what makes this book useful, it got me going enough so that I could start experimenting outside of the core language using the free reference stuff on the Internet.

This is a wonderful book for both beginning and advanced programmers. It has great examples and good analogies. Good detail about many lesser known aspects of Java. Easy to read and follow. Simple code examples help to illustrate the learning. Most of the code is usable.

This book deserves more than five stars.

Before going further, let me mention that Brassai's images contain many sinners and show the seamier side of Paris. For example, there are many photographs of prostitutes here. If such subjects upset you, do avoid this volume.

The collection of Brassai's work at the Musee National d'Art Moderne at the Pompidou Centre in Paris was recently expanded from 300 to 500 items due to a large deposit by Mme. Gilberte Brassai, his widow. This monograph greatly benefits from these additions. The monograph also commemorates the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1899.

Best known for his photography, Brassai had many other dimensions: collector, scholar, sketcher, sculptor, and writer. His self description was as "a creator of images." This book does an excellent job of capturing all of these elements so we can better understand the entire man and his work.

As Brassai said, "The meaning of art is not authenticity . . . but the expression of authenticity." Why does he say that? Well, his method of photography required careful staging because of the bulkiness of his equipment and its slow speed. So, although an image may seem like something taken by a news photographer from the Daily Blurb, Brassai's techniques required that subjects hold their poses for long periods of time. Much like Cindy Sherman does today using herself as the model, those in the photographs were often friends of Brassai's who were posing as someone else. So what is remarkable about these "candid" photos is his "use of re-creation and reconstruction" to produce them.

Taking the photograph was really just the beginning. Using darkness as his ally, it is the print that makes the difference to his representations. "A negative means nothing for my kind of photographer." "It's the artist's proof that counts."

Here are my favorite photographic images in the book:

Notre-Dame, c. 1930-32

The Pont Neuf, c. 1932

The Viaduc d'Auteiul, 1932

The Baker, c. 1930-32

Public Urinals, c. 1932

For a Detective Story, 1931-32

The Big Night at Longchamp, July 1937

False Sky, 1934-35

Nudes of 1934

Matches, c. 1930

Picasso, His Studio and Works, 1932-46

Montmartre, c. 1935-37

Metro Pillar, 1934 (you will see a man's face in the shadow of the pillar)

Odalisque Transmutation, 1934/1967 (this is clearly influenced by Picasso)

The essays in the book are excellent. I especially liked Alain Sayag's comparison of his work to Chinese painting.

I also learned a lot about his life. Like many famous photographers he had to earn a living by doing more commercial work. These images often were done on his own time, late at night. Interestingly, many great photographic images were created in only 1-3 takes. In part, this reflected his poverty.

Actually, he had earlier earned a living from writing about France for German newspapers. The Depression began to cut off that source of funds, and photography was taken up in part to supplement his income. By selling the story and the images, he could get paid a little more. He also worked for Harper's Bazaar taking photographs by day for many years.

The text also contains many selections from what Henry Miller and he had to say about each other and their long-term friendship. This emphasizes "seeing only what is."

My appreciation of the photography was improved by seeing his drawings and sculptures. Clearly influenced by prehistoric and primitive art, many of these images look like fertility gods. His women are all bottom. From these, I could understand his graffiti photographs of images that could literally have come from the caves at Lescaux. So in looking for the "reality" Brassai was reaching deeper into our ancient psyches than other photographers before and since.

I came away very much more interested in Brassai, as I am sure you will be.

After you finish consider Brassai, I suggest you ask yourself how you could add more dimensions of expression to your personal life. What can you share that is both "real" and important for others? How can you best accomplish that?

Au revoir.

It was only several years ago that I had noticed the brilliant work of Brassai. The Chicago Institute of Art was having a special exhibit featuring his work. I stood before each photograph for what seemed like an eternity. The way that he captures the essence of the human life, the laughter along with the tears, brings a flood of emotions to any observer. My interest in Brassai only grew from this exhibit. I then started to hunt out books on him, his life, his work but I wound up a little disappointed due to most of his work is out-of-print. When I had been scanning Amazon.com and found a new book, Brassai, I was highly interested. I awaited the day that it would finally be published. That day came. As I turned the pages of the book, I felt as if I am back in the Art Institute. The quality of the photographs, the meaning of the words, by close friends, and from Brassai himself add to the pleasure and overall joy of the book. He depicts a time in history that is meant and needed to be cherished. Brassai reaches into the human heart and soul and brings out strength, determiniation, and a smile. These feelings are only emphasized on the pages of this magnificant book. I only hope that more will follow so that Brassai can touch more lives, touch more hearts, and bring emotions to the forefront of everyone's lives.

When Abrams released their long-delayed book on Brassai last December, THE EYE OF PARIS, I was very critical of the entire piece. The images weren't well-printed, the selection was mundane, and the whole thing had an oddly slapped together quality, especially for such a major publisher. Now we have Bullfinch's answer to the recent Brassai gap, and it is a clear success, head and shoulders above this earlier release. After only a relatively cursory look at the book, it is clear that this is what we've been waiting for. The selction of images is deep and varied, mixing both the iconic with the lesser known, the printing is lustrous and dimensional, and the layout is both attractive and compelling. The production may not match the incredible PARIS BY NIGHT reissue of the late 80's, but nothing probably ever will. That said, this book looks very good indeed. I haven't read the impressively credited text yet, but the visuals are certainly terrific, the most important thing, obviously, in a photography book. It is hard to imagine a superior monograph on this seminal figure forthcoming anytime soon. Grab it and feast.

The whole book is devoted to the second world war,every aspect of it(a turn off for many women).The shadows of HITLER and STALINE are of course omnipresent.So are the unavoidable horror of the concentration camps.The stories of HENRI LAFONT and JEAN MOULIN which deals with the FRENCH résistance;the retreat of MUSSOLLINI after being turned over by his government;the incredible saga of PETIOT who kills people and leaves no evidence.You've got to read this to beleive it.Like the preceeding two,this is still essential reading about a time of terror in the history of the previous century.

The second book of the series focuses mainly on the emerging power of the regimes totalitaires in GERMANY,ITALY,SPAIN and RUSSIA during the thirties.The terrible massacre of GUERNICA;HITLER destroying the SA to clear the place for his SS;the way he also eliminates DOLLFUSS the AUSTRIAN chancelier;the crimes of STALINE who kills his own collaborators to clear his conscience.All those stories are unfortunately true and were part of the previous century.ALAIN DECAUX scored again with this history book that also features STAVISKY the FRENCH crook,ALEXANDRE 1 the YOUGOSLAVIAN king and TROTSKI the RUSSIAN opponent of STALINE.Essential reading.

I have read the first book of the series,and it's great from the beginning until the end.ALAIN DECAUX is a marvellous historian who can make you an addict of his numerous books dealing with history.On this series,he has chosen to dig from stories who made the previous century.These particular stories were at the front of our everyday life at the time.Once you lay your hands on this book you'll be hooked,beleive me.When it was possible,DECAUX met surviving witness of these stories to verify the facts in a true historical round up.BLÉRIOT the pioneer of aviation;LANDRU the archetype of the serial killer of women who leaves no evidence of his murders;the incredible story of VINCENT MOULIA during the first world war and his late réhabilitation by the FRENCH authorities ;LINDBERG who of course needs no présentation etc.If ALAIN DECAUX is not able to sustain an interest in history matters that are about true people who accomplished great feats in their lives,then nobody will.Remember the famous saying:le passé est garant de l'avenir.The series is also available in one book that reunites all the separate parts.

I have purchaced this book just because i like french pastries and like to try myself to make those wonderful pastries that we see in the vitrine. And i did not regret that.Now I am going to purchace the full series.After reading ,this book I can now prepare brioche,eclair,petit pain,cream cormet.Buy them I promise you will not regret at all.All my friend do not believe that i cook them myself.

This book stands out from most of my other cookbooks because it does not only focus on what to put into the things it describes, but how to do it, and what not to do. The latter is, for some reason, quite hard to find.

Don't expect a book for keeping on the table in the living room because of its pretty pictures, like the latest trend in cookbooks seems to mandate. This book is directed towards people who need to do something in the kitchen, and tries to tell them how in a relatively simple way.

A very nice book, although it is directed towards learning in a professional environment. You will also need volume 1 to get the full benefit of this book.

An excellent and complete manual for French pastry. These classic techniques are taught to every French pastry apprentice. They are all basic instuctions but very detailed and can be built on very easily. Only caveat: the ingredients used are French and/or European and American equivalents aren't suggested. Only the language has been translated-but not the culture!

For the Noir Geek, this is THE Sacred Book. Over 300 titles from the genre's "classic" postwar period are given the synopsis/analysis treatment. Reviews can be a bit "scholarly" (depending on the particular contributing writer) but overall very enlightening for fans who want to "go deep". As a collector who obsessively videotapes and archives obscure noir, I have reached for this book again and again and found it to be a valuable reference tool. One warning to those who wish to use it like a standard "movie guide"- the synopsis capsules are clinically outlined to the point of effectively becoming "spoilers", so you may want to see the film first, then read about it. Some reviewers have taken umbrage with the book's U.S.-centric focus. To them I would point out that while this volume excludes European-PRODUCED cinema, if one takes a closer look, a number of the films included were DIRECTED by people like Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang and Roman Polanski, all in fact native Europeans, so referring to them as "American" noirs may be a matter of semantics. Highly recommended for genre fans.

The casual film fan will be overwhelmed with this...academic jargon, much discussion of film theory, sensory overload of details. But, the obsessive film fan, who is a student (professional or amateur) of this genre will revel in the scope of what has become one of the standard texts on the genre (assuming there is any standard....whatever). A basically complete rundown on the Hollywood output of noir in the 30s through the early 60s...with all the detail on the films that it never occurred to you to ask in the first place.

It also has rather thourough essays on themes, threads, influences, settings...more than enough to explore other sources of noir citicism. It can be dry, it is sorely lacking in coverage of film noir outside the USA, the selection of neo-noir can be quibbled with (perhaps because the post-noir style still isn't settled..."Mullholland Drive", "Novocaine", and "Memento" are examples of how the genre is still evolving).

But all in all, an essential volume for the noir aficionado.

This encyclopedia is a valuable addition to any Film Noir library. It contains production credits, plot summmaries, and brief analyses of hundreds of films noirs, as well as excellent appendices which include summaries of the Film Noir genre and a chronology. The analyses are in general quite good, if brief, with those by Robert Porfirio the most perceptive and well written. I question the book's stance that period films should be excluded based on the concept that "the action of film noir must be grounded in a contemporary setting." This not only eliminates many worthy films noirs, like Robert Siodmak's The Suspect (1945) from the book, but neglects those like The Suspect whose roots are clearly based in French Naturalism, itself a literary antecedent of Film Noir. However, the book's overall value supercedes their omission.

The stories featured in A. P. Martin's Harnessing the Power of Intelligence are fun to read and talk about, at work and at home. I have used some of them to alert my customer-service team about hidden risks and untapped opportunities. We have been applying the ideas of the first six chapters (Part I) for about three months. Our interactions with customers are yielding better results. We are now moving aggressively to prevent tampering with our information assets as noted in the section titled "How Good Organizations Lose Intelligence".
Four of my high-school educated supervisors, who read the book, found Part I a down-to-earth eye-opener, and right on target, for making wiser choices and avoiding costly errors. They, however, thought Part II would be more applicable to middle and senior management. A drawback: the cases in the chapter on Psychographics lack the detail necessary to be useful.
I have also read C. S. Fleisher's Strategic and Competitive Intelligence. Both books represent, in my opinion, two different, credible and complementary approaches to intelligence-based decision-making. Except for some references, there is virtually no duplication of content. A big bonus!

Alain Paul Martin gives us a new, non-traditional, and thought-provoking guide to intelligence gathering and strategic planning. This book is must reading for decision makers. Its incisive analyses, practical framework, and real-world examples provide valuable lessons that can be immediately put to use as we cope with our ever-changing world. Mr. Martin deserves our congratulations and our gratitude for this masterful work.

"Ninety percent of the information used in organizations is internally focused and only ten percent about the outside environment. This is exactly backwards." -- Peter Drucker

As usual, in one pithy phrase, management sage Peter Drucker captured the central problem facing organizations in uncertain environments -- they look in the wrong place. In volatile times, humans tend to hunker down in the cocoon of the controllable. Effective leaders embrace such times as an opportunity for greatness, when the prepared organization can jump ahead of ostrich-like competition.

Yet, few management advisors opine on how to combat these human tendencies and systematically scan, analyze and act in uncertain environments. Michael Porter's classic works on Competitive Strategy and Competitive Advantage did dispense advice on competitive intelligence gathering, but did not attend to the conversion of intelligence into commercial advantage. Alain Martin's new book "Harnessing the Power of Intelligence" compiles tested processes which create such value.

Martin's frameworks are based on research at American Express, Boeing, Dell, DuPont, GlaxoSmithKline, and Microsoft as well as application of his ideas in businesses, government, and the military. The book has the most up to date, and complete list of intelligence sources. For example, Martin cites the University of California at Berkeley "invisible web" project, which has shown that search engines only document about 15% of the business intelligence available publicly, because the vast majority of it is either not in a standard hypertext format or not linked to a public domain name (the silent campers). His framework on issue incubation, shows that large scale issues go through a relatively predictable process of incubation and development. Many leaders make the mistake of getting on an issue too early or too late. The issue incubation process delineates ways to recognize the progression of topics, and provides advice on if, when and how to intervene. Martin also has a tool called, Factional Analysis that helps a manager analyze who is likely to influence a volatile situation (from allies to adversaries). This tool is much richer than the traditional stakeholder analysis for it includes roles that do not fit in the normal economic calculus. For example, he includes "fanatics" in the analysis -- people whose sole purpose is to disrupt.

A leader can take the advice in this book and use it to guide outward looking intelligence, assess the current state of issues (or do a triage on a surprise event), and then take concerted action.

At points, the book does suffer from the same weakness of Porter's books in that its desire for completeness, the text often has a "list-like" feel. But, on balance this book provides a framework full of tested tools to turn uncertainty into value.

Perhaps I expected something more. The essays in this book are often repetitive and non-progressional in subject matter. The softcover version of the book has stills that are more brown and white than black and white... For my money, I am a bigger fan of Hirsch's "The dark side of the screen". It is a well thought, well researched look at noir with a cohesive structure. This all is not to say that a majority of the essays in the Reader are not helpful. Of course it is great to read Schrader's piece and some others which deal with nice specifics (how economics affected growth of B genre, lighting, etc.) but at the end of the day I feel too many of the essays are only about defining the genre (or not genre) rather than delving into other things. Also, I probably will buy more books by these authors simply because their care for noir is so true and strong...

Film Noir Reader 2 is as interesting as its forerunner. Not every article is great, but there is a lot of interest here.

The book opens with film writings from the Forties that show that while Americans did not coin the term film noir, some writers did notice a trend developing.

There are interesting articles on Cornell Woolrich, Sam Fuller and noir and painting. The article on British Film Noir is quite fascinating.

At the end of the book is a piece by a professor who discusses how he teaches a course on film noir. So this book traces film noir from a barely discerned trend to an academic course of study. Neat.

This is a very good anthology of noir criticism. It contains three of the first assessments of noir in English, by Higham, Durgnat and Schrader right next to each other - boom, boom, boom - so one can see the criticism of noir developing before one's eyes.

The rest of the essays/arcticles are mostly very interesting. There is one on John Farrow, who is usually overlooked, so it is good to see his films grouped together and examined. The essay on Anthony Mann's noirs is quite strong, and Ursini's article on noir TV, shows such as "Peter Gunn" and "The Fugitive" is very interesting and makes one wish that there were more written on this part of TV history.

I think this would be an essential part of any noir fan's library.

This is a beautiful guide to the classic television series, The Prisoner. It is richly illustrated with many color photographs from the series, and its location of Portmeirion, Wales. It's a terrific vehicle to re-visit the series and learn about what it took to produce this program. Since A&E is currently re-releasing The Prisoner on VHS and DVD, it is too bad that this book is out of print, since I think viewers would enjoy some of the background that this book provides.

At the heart of the book is an in-depth summary of the 17 episodes that make up The Prisoner. However, it is more than just an episode guide. The book also contains a brief interview with Patrick McGoohan (circa 1989), a series of essays about the program, a description of Danger Man (McGoohan's secret agent series before The Prisoner), a biography of McGoohan, background on the creation and filming process, information about the real village of Portmeirion, and information about Six of One, the official Prisoner fan club.

It's a very informative and fun book written by two fans, who are still able to turn a critical eye on the series. The essays about the series by various authors are also very enjoyable. I especially loved the one by Isaac Asimov. The one negative I have about the book, is that there seemed to be a printing problem with my book. In the chapter outlining the creation and production of the series, I had one section repeated twice, and another section appears to have been omitted. In spite of the printing defect, this is a fun book for Prisoner fans, and if you can find a copy I highly recommend it.

This book has a wealth of source material. Sometimes watching the series can be a bit nebulous. This book easily aides you in knowing what each episode wished to convey. There are a massive amount of photos for each episode, and in making. The book also has several in dept articles in which Patrick McGoohan tells his motivations, and about making the series. If you are a Prisoner fan, you know that information about is pretty scare, then again it was all about information wasn't it?

A superb collection of photos & an interesting & fairly recent interview with the master McGoohan.A MUST for every collector or appreciator.