this is a very nice book. the design is not that great, but otherwise it is great. the art and pictures are very nice. the book was published in 93 so it shows a lot of earlier work by this very important artist. essays by baraka and mcevilley are insightful and should be read by anyone interested in art, black culture, or the politics of art and race. dial is in the 2000 whitney biennial, and this book makes you wonder why he wasn't in it earlier. the titles of the works alone make this worth reading. another book of note very much worth reading is souls grown deep: african american vernacular art of the south, published by tinwood books.

When I first saw this book for sale, I was very keen on getting a copy as soon as I could (I was on a kind of Lenny Bruce book-finding mission--and still am). After going everywhere to try to find a used copy and could not, I put out the 27 bucks. Anyway, here's why I, with much reservation, give it only three stars (should be two really). It's not about Lenny Bruce! In fact, at best, he's a bit part in a not-so-interesting story about this Thomas guy (Lenny talks about him a little in his writings here and there, but he's just another guy in the life of Lenny). If you're interest in the author, get the book. If you're interested in Lenny Bruce, there are a least ten books that you should read before this, mostly, non Lenny literature.

This fairly thin book is a first hand account of the time the author spent with Lenny Bruce. Probably the best part of the fairly pricy book are the photographs which were taken by the author.

Lenny Bruce never waited for the television censors to not be listening before he delivered his punchlines. Lenny Bruce was never afraid to improvise a skit where the characters were shallow one dimensional vehicles whose sole purpose was to give life to his punchline, much like Karl Marx who created characters of similar depth in his monumental work, "Das Kapital" characters who were used to breathe life into his economic examples. Lenny Bruce was a stand up comedian who traveled across the country from gig to gig with two suitcases, the first suitcase was packed full of paperback books, the second suitcase was packed full of newspapers and magazines. When Lenny came on stage he did so with a newspaper tucked under one arm, he would clutch the microphone with one free hand and hold a cigarette in the other hand. He looked like, "a late night existential detective who was solving one case while beginning to investigate a new one." Lenny bought black silk oversized "kleenex" suits for each night he had a gig, he hired fraternity house renegade jazz drummers who dropped out of college. He would ask the college renegades, "What were the most influential books you have ever read?" Lenny would then track these books down, read them and discuss them with the jazz drummers. It was not drugs or four letter words that made Lenny Bruce dangerous, it was his ability to not only be literate but to comprehend what he had read, but what makes the material of Lenny Bruce transcend the label "dangerous" and allows it to enter the realm of entertainment was his ability to sew it all together and aim it at the hypocracy of society or his audience, this is what makes the comic ability of Lenny Bruce a gift and not a gimmick, very few comics have come close but none will hit the mark the way Lenny Bruce did. If you, the reader, want to learn the truth about Lenny Bruce from the perspective of a man who was his friend in the final years of his life then buy and read this book, "Lenny Bruce: The Making of a Prophet" by William Karl Thomas. In conclusion I can only qoute from, "Constantly Risking Absurdity", by Lawerence Farlenghetti, "And he a little charleychaplin man."

Concise collection of texts treating all aspects of Renewable Energy in a grown up manner. Valuable as a starter's information source but also for experts.

Concise collection of texts treating all aspects of Renewable Energy in a grown up manner. Valuable as a starter's information source but also for experts. Covers all the aspects of renewable energy sources and many ways to transform one form of energy to another. Spans from biomass, biogas, solar collectors, solar cells to fuel cell cogeneration.

I was impressed with the depth of this book. Although I haven't had the opportunity to read the whole book, I have been very pleased with the information supplied thus far. This book can be a valuable resource to anyone contemplating entering the publishing field.

William Price is indeed an overlooked architect. While I'm hesistant to call him a genius, his work has a breadth seldom seen in the work of his contemporaries. He was one of the last of the Philadelphia architects to come from a background of manual training rather than an academic background, but clearly he was able to apply the lessons of contemporary practice learned from books, and stretch into new areas of the Arts and Crafts movement and advanced design in reinforced concrete.

The author spends an inordinate amount of time in the book describing how Philadelphia, with a strong heritage of innovative industrial design is left behind in the architectural world due to an academic bias of the press based in New York and Boston. While this is important to Price's reputation, it has little to do with his actual work. The prose in the book is repititious, reading as a series of loosely related lectures rather than a single thesis, and the book design does not help the reader.

The illustrations, largely drawn from the firm's archive now held by the author, are very well produced, but could have been supplemented by more new photography. A significant number of Price's buildings do survive, and color photography would bring out the great qualities of material, color, and texture that were so important to his work.

In summary, a book on Price was long overdue, but one would have hoped that it would focus more on the great qualities of his architecture.

It's hard to believe someone who is a so-called "publisher" published this book as it was full of typographical errors. There was even one place where a reference was made to "the following illustration" and there was no such illustration to be found! This book gave a light overview of the publishing industry and the market but did not give me what I was looking for - technical, step-by-step information on how to actually produce a regional guidebook. This book would be useful for someone trying to decide whether or not to publish a guidebook, but not for someone who has already made that decision and needs in-depth guidance.

what does it take to put a book together and get an exhibition done at a regional museum, with funding from a major foundation? apparently nothing. this book does nothing to further the cause of art and artists of the south. why doesn't somebody do a good survey book on self-taught art? and why does the university of mississippi press publish every book on self-taught art? black folk art 1930-1980 was a decent book on a then emerging field, but that was done in 1981. that was almost twenty years ago. and here we are in the year 2000, and no one has done a book that is any better than that. there is great art out there by these talented artists, there must be someone out there with half a brain to do a good book. when they do, email me and i'll buy it. i wonder if because the artists are self-taught, someone out there thinks it is cute to let elementary school students write about them. much of the art is very sophisticated and cerebral, and it is time the scholarship in this field rises to the level of quality that the art deserves.