If you really want to know Rothko, read Dore Ashton. Breslin tends to simplify things and I don't think that he really loves Rothko or has communicated with the paintings. Only for die-hard Rothkoites like me.

No book can do Mark Rothko justice. He painted on large
canvases. To know him is to confront his original work
on the wall before you. Find your distance, 10, 15,
maybe 30 feet back. Yet to make sense of his
colored rectangles tearing themselves apart in fission,
as well as his earlier, quite different work, some
background helps.

Breslin's book will become the standard reference, but
not perhaps the starting point. He writes engrossingly,
but the 558 pages of text, I fear, will discourage the
casual reader (who might do well to read Robert
Hughes's paragraphs in American Visions).

Still, for the motivated reader, James Breslin's bio is
awesome. The Latvian Jew, charity student at
antisemitic Yale in the early 20s, uncomfortable and
smarter than most there, comes alive, as does his love
for children and their art, as well as his tormented
first marriage to a wife commercially successful during
the Great Depression making jewelry that sold. Rothko
had higher ambitions: fine art spelled with a capital
"A". As Breslin relates, discomfort never disappeared.
Success and recognition did not go over well with
this self-described anarchist who, as a Portland
teenager, enthusiastically took in lectures by Emma
Goldman. Overall, Breslin provides a biographical and
historical foundation with which to understand Mark
Rothko's painting. I am grateful for that.

Finally, of the many biographies I've read, James EB
Breslin's stands out for another reason: in his
Afterword, he turns from Rothko to himself and
addresses his own motivations and challenges in writing
the biography. Biographies are never "objective", so it
makes sense that a biographer might address his own
motivations. In the descriptions of the dangers of
doing research in Rothko's birthplace of Dvinsk, in
interviewing art historian Clement Greenberg, Rothko
reappears again, this time indirectly, one step
removed. That Breslin can bring Rothko alive in these

different contexts is testament to the enduring value
of this long, challenging biography.

Within the power of a single Rothko painting is the power to inspire a deeply rich volume of subtle and large meanings. Breslin offers a non-stop flight through the creative intelligence and expressed worlds of Rothko. The reader is met with a gorgeous poetic escape from the mundane reality of worldly distress. Breslin could not have had more success. To read this book is to enter a cathedral: one finds reverence in the read and in the self. Rothko's suicide seems like a scribble on the wall. The wall may remain forever marred. The bitter marks, and this book, evoke so many lost possibilities for the artist and his audience.

Tansy is the master in retorical depth.

From the first time I saw Tansey's "The Innocent Eye Test" at the Met, I have been fascinated with his work. The illustrations in this book, along with the fabulous essay by Arthur Danto make it a must have for Mark Tansey fans. I only wish there were more books about him and his work. He is a brilliant artist.

Checking the worn copy of this book from the library numerous times had made Mark Tansey one of my alltime favorite artists. Everytime I went into a bookstore, I looked for it. Never any luck, until I was in a used bookstore in Bellingham, Washington. I had already scoured the Art section as usual. When I was leaving, my eye happened to catch the spine in a stack of randomly placed books near the register. For a mere 16 bucks and in perfect condition! I was ecstatic. The reproductions are amazing and the text is insightful, illuminating Tansey's underlying themes and content. If you admire Mark Tansey's work, its simply a must have

Huck Finn, I could take or leave. Conn Yankee is among my favorit e classics. Joan of Arc---better than other interpretations of
warrior women. I recommend this collection and "Damsel in the Rough" by Ann M. Tempesta.

for fans who wish there were another Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer, you will find Mark Twain's 'joan of arc' just as beautifully written as his more famous 'prince an the pauper' and 'connecticut yankee'. for catholics, 'joan of arc' is even more of a must read, a stunning proof how this great saint has captured the hearts of so many, regardless of their skepticism or creed. Library of America editions are beautifully bound, lightweight, and readable. here they contain the two most famous of his non-mississippi writings with a gem most of us never knew existed. a keepsake for the decades.

This collection contains my 2 childhood and all-time Twain favorites - Prince & Pauper, and Connecticut Yankee - and added the magical ingredient of a historical romance I never knew Twain had written - Joan of Arc. Now that I have read this as well, I see that it may be even better than the other two!

The wry sense of humor characteristic of Twain definitely is most in evidence in CT Yankee. All 3 of these works deliver Twain's wide understanding of human nature in different times and sociological conditions, and his admiration of human nobility and greatness of heart in adversity. Joan of Arc unquestionably is the most inspiring of these tales, being the story of the greatest hero (or heroine). The Prince and the Pauper, however, remains a jewel of an adventure story, which any child can identify with, and learn from.

It is a collection to keep forever, and re-read frequently.

Here's a triple-barreled detective story for you: a very badly composited book of Mark Twain stories with a warning label attached:

"Editor's Note: Certain characterizations and language of the author should be viewed as arising from the context of the time in which these stories were written. Any offense to modern sensibilities is unintended and does not reflect the attitudes of the editor or publisher of the current edition."

and an Editor's Introduction calling them "wicked", and a small note which reads:

"COMPILED, EDITED AND COMPOSITED BY FRANK J. FINAMORE"

Did I mention the compositing is of an order that would roil Shakespeare's bones? Mr. Finamore saw his handiwork and thought he would sell it anyway with a bit of bluff, so he wrote the Introduction. That wouldn't serve, as some distant near-relation of the accused might surface to claim retribution, so he slapped the warning label on it. Some angel looking over his shoulder made him sign his name to the whole business, and there you have it. Case closed.

When I was a young teenager (and that was many years ago) I read Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" and it had a most dramatic affect on my life. It was the summation of what my youthful mind had been trying to figure out. Let me preface my further comments by saying that I am a devoted (I hope) Christian and have been for over 15 years. However, there was a long stretch when I was a confirmed atheist and, if I was to point to a Bible for that point of view, for me it was this book. In this short novel, Twain tells his story through the experiences of some young boys who encounter a "mysterious stranger'. The stranger points out many of the inconsistencies of Christianity and the world around us. Essentially the issue is the question many people have asked over the years; Why do bad things happen to good people? Twain delves deeply into this issue and the numerous examples lead the young narrator to conclude that the rantings of the stranger are, indeed, the truth. I am comfortable today re-reading this fascinating story because it is such an excellently crafted expalantion of Twain's theology in his later years. As a student of Twain, I became exasperated by the many scholars who tended to dismiss his later writings as the ramblings of a grieving man. It is true that Twain suffered many personal losses and I am sure that it influenced his perspective. However, much of his later work was brilliant. The reviewers I read often dismissed these later body of writing. It seemed to me that most of them had the opinion that, if it didn't make you laugh or give you insight to life on the Mississippi, then it wasn't important. I heartily disagree and "The Mysterious Stranger" is an excellent example of the brilliance of his later works.

I looked over the table of contents of this collection and I noticed a lot of other good stories among them. Two that came to mind were "Captain Stormfield" and "The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg". This strikes me as a great introduction to the Mark Twain beyond "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn".

Highly presumptuous of me to review as I have not read the entire novella. However I am essaying this review to note how powerful I find Mark Twain's posthumously published thesis. The implications are truly demonic and deserve careful thought. Ironically the current film TRUMAN has a similar theme. Yesterday at a special UC Berkeley collection of Mark Twain's papers and works I saw this little book prominently displayed as number 44 in UC press's massive series on the great author. I will be interested to read the reactions of others---presuming, unlike Twain, that there are such ;!

I basicly see this book as an art book. Enjoy the design of old and contemporary trademarks and their functions. The text though, is very technical - as in other areas of marketing, the science of trademarks and branding is overacademized for nothing.

This is a beatifully designed book that is very complete. There are hundreds of examples of good design, and enough text to satisfy those who need detailed explanations. Quite simply, I have seen nearly all the books available on logo design, and this one of the best I have ever seen.

Per Mollerup's Marks of Excellence is an interesting and beautifully illustrated look at trademarks. The most interesting part for me are the little anecdotes which occur here and there about particular trademarks. For example the Guinness harp is based on the O'Neill clan harp, when the Irish State was formed in 1922 they had to reverse the harp because Guinness owned the copyright.
The look and feel of the book is similar to any of the Graphis range. The book begins with a brief look at the precursors of trademarks such as heraldry, monograms and brands for animals and goods. It then examines the design process looking at the type of corporate identities that can be created and their application. The bulk of the book though is the taxonomy of trademarks breaking them down into classes, such as birds, botanical, buildings etc. There is a brief look at the background to the trademark accompanied by the name of company which uses the trademark and the designers behind it.

A great system for Live Action Role Play, although it is not as great a system as the actual Role Playing books, it is a good system and can run upwards of 5 to 100 people. Great work White Wolf, Keep at it.

I have yet to read this Edition, however all other editions have been wonderful. This game has been great from the get-go. The book is easy to understand and a lot easier than the dice form of the game. Thumbs-up for a job well done

This book provides you with all the background information and rules you need to start or play a live-action role-playing game in White Wolf's World of Darkness. White Wolf has produced the best RPG to date, with hundreds of expansion books and tons of stories, art and resources. This game is the BEST!!!

if you are a fanatical bass player like me and you play heavy metal this is the best book you can ever buy personally i use more hip hop style but this book showed me a better way to do it and gave me a more metal sound so you should buy this book as soon as you can.....oh and buy all the jewel cd's you can JEWEL RULZ

It's another album with Cliff Burton, what else is there really to say? Between Battery, The Thing that Should Not Be, Orion and every other song you can't go wrong. Cliff Rules!

This book is great for any skilled bass. I've just started playing for about 6 months, and Its helped me with my playing. It is a good buy, I strongly sugest it. Oh and Mark Phillips rules!

Writing a book on the .NETcf is a challenge because there is a wide target audience to pick from...Each group has different needs e.g. introduction to programming for small devices OR to programming against the .NET libraries OR to differences with the desktop version etc. So, inevitably you will belong in one or more of the above categories with corresponding requirements and hence will find redundant info in a book that tries to please all people - such as this book.

You will find introductions to the classes of the .NET framework that exist on both desktop and CF. These are very good descriptions and even though there are deeper explanations in other books, here you have the confidence that everything described is applicable without having to check elsewhere for supported classes/methods. If you are very familiar with the desktop version you will be able to skim through a good half of the material in the book just noting the differences.

There are areas which are new to the CF or just very different from the desktop and these are covered well, including deployment, infrared comms and SqlServerCe. The winform controls have fewer methods than their desktop counterparts and as such you will have to create custom controls fairly often so the chapter on this subject is very valuable and well written. You will also have to interoperate with native code and the chapter on that is good including an excellent description of the CF-specific MessageWindow component.

Two areas are briefly touched upon and deserve much more attention: Targeting both the desktop and compact frameworks from the same projects and COM interoperability. I would have also liked a chapter on performance considerations since, naturally, speed and memory are of particular interest to anybody developing on small devices; a search on the cf newsgroup emphasizes this point.

The book ends with a useful appendix listing the framework namespaces and classes with a short description accompanying the ones that are supported on the CF. I am not including a list of the contents here but it is worth going through them to get a fuller picture. They are very accurate as you'd expect from a book that is well written with few if any grammatical/syntactical mistakes (although a couple of harmless factual errors crept in).

The .NETcf is in RTM and available through VS 2003 (public release expected end of April 03). It is no surprise that this is the only book on it available now which is why I could have given it 5 stars... However there are no groundbreaking ideas in the book and most info is available on the web...

I am half way through this book and I liked it. The authors are definitely doers and you can see it from the tips they provided. The samples are very extensive.

It's the book for Compact framework programming.

Don't forget to get the AskDotNet sample from GotDotNet.com, very good project too.

Jan Yeh

This book is good for .NET developers who want to port their application to .NET Compact Framework, and also must-have for eMbedded Visual Tools developers who want to migrate from eVB, eVC, VBCE, VCCE. Although this book is full of C# codes, there are samples for VB.NET as well.

There are many important topics included in this book, such as Data Accessing(ADO.Net & SQLCE), XML & XML Web Services, Multi-threading, Interoperating with Native Code, Custom Controls for .NET Compact Framework, and more than that.

If you want to learn more about .NET Compact Framework programming, or you are familiar with eMbedded Visual Tools, this could be your text book or survival guide.

After surveying books talk about .NET Compact Framework, this is what I can say, "NEVER MISS THIS"!

This book is great for intermediate & advanced players.I love and find the arangements different than other books for fingerplayers & it comes with a great CD to help. This book has plenty to keep you busy for the holidays and lots to learn in new tunings and standard tunings. Great fun!!

Great collection of songs in TAB and standard notation. It is very helpful that Mr. Hanson arranged these songs within the book in 3 groups, according to the skill level needed to play them. Even the "beginner" category songs sound very full and satisfying.

Hauntingly beautiful arrangement of "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence."

Only gripe is that the songs in the book are not in the same order as on the CD. No real harm done but it would have made it a bit more convenient to be able to listen to all of the selections in one sitting while paging through the book normally.

Highly recommended.

Between the 1-note "Easy-TAB" books and full-blown "As Recorded" tabs, there's been a void of playable tabs for the intermediate player. Mark Hanson has filled that gap, and is the top guy out there today producing interesting arrangements for the intermediate guitar player.

If you're an absolute beginner, you can safely pass this one up, but if you have a year or two of experience under your belt, this is a great set of solos for the Christmas season. Be sure to pick it up a few months early, though, because these are NOT easy. You'll have to work at them to get them sounding nice.

Mark hasn't forgotten those of you out there with more skills, either. There are a total of 12 arrangements here - 4 easy, 4 intermediate, and 4 advanced. By the time you get to the last couple of tunes, you have some serious show-off stuff going on - way over my head, but something the advanced player can dig into, and the intermediate player can aspire to.

Highly recommended for both intermediate and advanced players.

I used this book in conjunction with Exam Cram and found it more thorough, as well as more understandable. I got an excellent score on the test and purchased more books in this series.

I found this book good for my exam revisions. All the practise questions were useful as well. The format of this book is excellent, and Exam tips and traps are very helpful. And the section where they reverse-engineer several practise questions is excellent, as it show how the tests are made, and what the commonly used "confusers" are.

However, I must add a ", but". The book misses some of the things you must know for the exam. Even worse are the errors in this book. There are several errors that should have been spotted by the author and the technical advisors.

I like the format of this book, but it does miss out on some things, and there are errors in the book. A good alternative to this book is the Sybex "MCSE exam notes" series.

I used this book in combination with the Transcender exams and was seriously OVERPREPARED for the test.

It has tons of useful pointers and tells you which areas you are most likely to be tested on.

It also comes with a handy tear-out guide in the front that you can use as a quick reminder of key points from each section. Perfect for last-minute cramming!