It's very nice pictures and everything but I thought it would contain Maori tattoos. There were only 5-6 of those.

Atomic Field: Two Poems is an epic adventure into the childhood of Nicholas Christopher. Each extended poem is made up of forty-five parts and each part describes events within a particular year. The first poem is look at the experiences of a young boy growing up in 1962. Christopher succeeds in presenting several images that are vivid, surreal and truly capture the mind of a child. The second poem is a success as well, delving into different adolescent experiences a decade later in 1972. As in Christophers previous poetry the images are crisp, and he achieves a very authentic voice. This entire collections reads in a dream-like manner so successfully woven together one can hardly put it down.

How fortunate we are when blessed with parents to love & raise us! Reading this book made me realize how hard life was in the early 1900's. Illness causing parents to give their children up to orphanages in the hopes that there would be someone to save them.I could feel this little boys pain as he longed to have a family of his own, but was treated as an outcast. What a difficult road one must travel without the love and guidance from ones parents. The stories shared by Mr. Besker ranged from humorous to very sad. I found it hard to put the book down because I wanted to know what life would hand this young man next. Through hard work and a very obvious determination he found success. This book reminded me of the importance of treating others with kindness and respect because we never truly know where one has come from, how they got there or the struggles endured!

Nicholas Jennings is the first author to write an entire book devoted to the Toronto music scene of the 1960's. He follows the making of the Toronto Sound, starting with the folk movement, through rhythm and blues, touches on garage bands and the jazz/country/rock/soul sounds which defined Yorkville music in the late 60's. The volumes of information imparted are astounding, and the story is very interesting, especially for those with an interest in the Sunset Strip, Bay area, Soho and Greenwhich village happenings. Jennings keeps the book flowing by using a time-line style, and manages to throw some of the more obscure names in the Toronto scene around. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a fascination for the music of the 60's, and I urge Jennings to keep on writing his fantastic books!

My four year old really enjoys listening to the story and unknowingly has picked up Spanish vocabulary. The book art is good too. I would recommend this for a child who has some (but not necessarily a lot) of familiarity with Spanish.

Clowe, West and Kassow gather a collection of 22 essays that address from every conceivable angle the subject of Russian civil society, and civic identity-- aka "obshchestvo" and "obshchestvennost"-- all during the transitional period from imperial rule to the Russian Revolution. The volume looks through the lens of social history, work ethics, civic associations, professions, classes, and many more perspectives to create a definition of civil society (or "middle class" as Clowes, West and Kassow choose to identify it in the title.)

For those of us attempting to make sense of what is occuring in Russia today, it is critical to take a long hard look at its past. And, that is just to start the road to understanding. I recommend this book to the hard-core Russophile or anyone wanting to build a historical literature review of Russia.

"The Bird" is a quirky story with both humorous and poignant illustrations that takes simple, vivid narrative and a light style to relate a hermit's trials with bird-company, and the alternative: loneliness. This tale combines a charming surface myth connected to the story of Noah and the ark with an underlying proverb for today about accepting what comes along with life and the living. Kids will love the colorful illustrations and the "splats" (excretions) and perhaps think about how they feel and act about living with siblings. Adults will appreciate the overtones of the difficulties all humans have co-existing.(The book reminds me a little of both St. Exupery's "The Little Prince" and "The Big Orange Splot" by Daniel Manus Pinkwater.) From time to time, we can all relearn the book's cute lesson that if we want the joys brought by any friend or relative, we must accept a little dirt and/or disorder of some kind. I gave the book to my neat-freak sister and her one-year-old son to read together. It's a good thing, too, because they are moving in with me in December...

Blackhawk, along with Sgt Rock, is arguably one of the finest war comics ever. Months before America entered World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor, readers thrilled to the adventures of these seven international aviators, none of them American, rallying behind Blackhawk, a Polish flying ace. While these stories are sheer pulp adventure, they possess a hard edge marking them as more than mere kiddie fare. Perhaps not as sophisticated as today's adult-oriented comics, but I found the stories to be engaging and exciting nonetheless. The emphasis is on plot and action, but there is also a surprising amount of character and emotion, compared to other stories from the period. Some of the stories hold up better than others, but overall, this is an entertaining collection.

What truly makes it special, however, is the art. In his introduction, Mark Evanier describes how the late Chuck Cuidera and Reed Crandall were responsible for making Blackhawk one of the best looking comics of its time, and he's not kidding. The art, reminiscent of the great Milt Canniff, is dynamic, expressive, detailed, and cinematic. Even the clunkiest of stories in this book is redeemed by the art.

Having said all that, politically correct readers should be warned that this volume does feature horribly negative stereotypes of Germans and Asians. While this is understandably a by-product of the time in which these stories were produced, I don't think they should simply be dismissed with a simple, "Well, that's how people thought back then." I do think these sorts of stories should be kept in print, warts and all, not just because they are good adventure stories with a great deal of artistic merit. Seeing how recently such racist attitudes were viewed as acceptable helps remind us how far we still have to go in terms of race relations. This sort of casual racism should be acknowledged as having existed, and not swept under the carpet.

Still, occasionally awkward stories and overt racism aside, this is still an excellent volume, and a worthy addition to any comics lover's collection.

Bones of the Earth, Spirit of the Land: The Sculpture of John Van Alstine will be of interest to working artists, as well as to all readers with an interest in contemporary art and the process of turning ideas into visual form. An extensive collection of color photographs (images of sculptures supplemented by drawings and landscape photographs, a less well-known aspect of his work) documents the evolution of Van Alstine's stone sculpture, from a smooth, polished Modernism to the aesthetic of raw, unfinished stone favored by Noguchi and the land-based Postminimalist strategies of Richard Serra. In the 1970s, he began assembling unworked stones, adding wood and metal to create works that respond to the landscape and allude to a narrative impulse beyond the rigors of form. His later works continue to synthesize stone and metal (the signature of Van Alstine's sculptural vocabulary), now throwing found objects, such as a fuel tank and anchor, into the mix. These recent sculptures move from a response to the landscape to an exploration of humanity's relation to the land through forms that evoke tools, vessels, and transport. The introductory essay by Nick Capasso reinforces the story told by the photographs, discussing the sculptures, public art commissions, and works on paper. Here we learn of Van Alstine's early memories of stone and his various personal experiences of the landscape-whether in the Adirondack Mountains of his childhood or in Laramie, Wyoming, where he taught in the '70s. Capasso provides a succinct and informative discussion, guided by the principle that for Van Alstine "stone is everything," and shows an acute sensitivity to the artist's feeling for his chosen materials and the nuanced changes in their treatment over the years. Van Alstine also has the opportunity to speak for himself in an interview with Glenn Harper, Editor of Sculpture magazine. (Another version of the interview appeared in the May 2000 issue of Sculpture.) In this illuminating discussion of materials, process, and content, the artist identifies key technical realizations and pivotal conceptual leaps behind the changes in his work. Harper draws out several fascinating explanations of the layered meanings underlying the abstractions and found objects in Sledge (1992) and Ara (1989). Bones of the Earth as a whole gives a detailed portrait of an artist committed to his materials, his craft, and his place in the real landscape. Its pages reveal Van Alstine's unique mediation between, in Capasso's words, "image, object, and place."

The book has excellent color pictures and is very informational on aspects of the dog. I would rank this book five stars if it was more recent. Beautiful pictures of a very tough and protectful breed.