This book is the ideal popular introduction to one of the most remarkable design companies in existence. Its products are so unique and so daring that in the future, I believe, they will coveted as those of Art Nouveau or the Viennese craft and Mission movements. Unlike the earlier "Design Factory" book, which is very difficult to get through, this book is a delight to read and a visual feast for the eyes. THe reader gets to know not only the great designers who dreamed up the many pioneering products of Alessi, but the methods and thoughts of its current design guru, Alberto Alessi, and his methods. Above all, his considerable charm comes through the writing, which is clear, very personal, and of great interest.

Make no mistake about it: this company is important because of its uncompromising vision, its unorthodox marketing methods, and its consistent commercial success. It deserves study by those interested in management as well as design. This company is peerless, as much a culture or mindset as a commercial operation.

Warmly recommended as a true gem.

This book is highly recommended. The information available within the covers is something that I could not find in my art history book. The reader will gain insight into Duchamp's views and his thoughts leading up to his decisions to take the road, artistically, that he did. Wonderfully written, glorious color photos and beautiful insights, I would recommend this book to anyone looking to add to a library.

The eminent critical educator at UCLA, Carlos Alberto Torres, looks at (engages)the professional biographies of a select group of social thinkers who have, more or less, shaped some of the most salient propositions in critical pedagogy and related issues of social development in the USA, UK and Latin America. Among those interviewed are the late Brazilian philosopher of education, Paulo Freire; the prolific critic of culture and cultural studies in education Henry Giroux; the social and educational scholar Michael Apple; and Maxine Greene, the brilliant philosophe engage. The dialogues are lively, revealing in many interesting ways, and, may be more than anything else, inspirational in concretizing the possibilty of "winning" against many odds with the simple combination of forward-looking intellect and "responsible" posture and praxis firmly expressed on a sheet of paper. If the newly modified maxim, "the pen could be more powerful - please relativize power in this context - than the establishment", has any post-colonial implications, the intellectual history of these educators and social critics may, in effect, apply for candidacy. If Henry Giroux was not wanted by his former university - indeed that has been the case - then looking at power in the eye is not easy. If Maxine Greene could not get intellectual access within her school, then humanistic scholarship must be frightening. And if Carlos Alberto Torres, without a doubt, one of the brightest and most productive scholars in education and social critical thought, was accused of getting his current job at UCLA because of affirmative active, then one may be tempted (tempatations are hardly real and generally dangerous)to advise the brilliant academic to simply move to Harvard (I am serious), Oxford, Heidelberg or McGill (this last one is little bit personal). Who would not want Carlos Alberto Torres in their department or faculty. But the "who" in this context applies only to those who measure men and women based "on the contents of their character". Too good and specially delightful, I might add, that Carlos Alberto Torres actually uses this type of measurement: he admires and dedicates this seminal work to those who stand (that is in person) for the essence of social justice and long overdue human emancipation - Rosa Parks; Martin Luther King Jr, And Others. And to add to the momentous joy of the decades as they went and will go by, this work opens with a poetic memory of that great education and liberation philosopher Paulo Freire. The author also talks how he would have liked to include Cornel West, the philosopher at Harvard. That, of course, would have enriched the book; and even a richer version, I may be permitted to suggest, could have included Ratna Ghosh, current Dean of Education at McGill, and that other no nonsense UCLA educator and authentic cultural critic, Peter McLaren. But again, we should know, that is if we try harder, that there is more to publishing a book, beyond the desires of the editor and especially in critical education, than one may have wished. In all, this is a five star "stuff", and it should be read by all those who see education as a contentious terrain for analyzing and devising social development. Even those who still tenaciously and faithfully cling to the structural-functionalist "wonders" of education, may still learn one or two things from this precious enterprise. A luta continua.

Perhaps one of the broadest accounts of the violin ever written, An Encyclopedia of the Violin is a well-written, fascinating, and at times nostalgic account of violinmakers, performers, violin literature, and more. This is truly an epic and groundbreaking book that covers more information than one would expect from a volume several times larger. Published in 1925, it contains rare photographs of distinguished violins and bows, as well as well as vivid descriptions of intricate details of these instruments, as well as a guide on how make them! Another section is devoted to violin technique, including advice on how to play difficult passages from the violin literature. In addition, there is also a massive dictionary of violinists, containing the author's often insightful analysis into the style of the performers, and also includes their biographical information. An Encyclopedia of the Violin is so all encompassing that it could easily be split up into several fine books-Great European Violins and Their Makers, Guide to Violin and Bow Making, The Art of Violin Playing and Teaching, and Violin Performance from 1800-1925 are just a few of the hypothetical titles that the reader can create exclusively using the material in this unique and monumental book. To top it off, the introduction was written by the famous Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye, one of the greatest players of all time, and the author's idol as a performer. While some of the material and ideas in An Encyclopedia of the Violin may seem dated to the modern reader, there is much that is timeless and invaluable and will appeal to professional violinists or anybody else that appreciates the sound and beauty of the violin.

Surrealism founder Andre Breton wondered if random creating could work in art as it had in poetry. His friend Max Ernst made the effort by drawing on experimentation with hypnosis and mind-altering drugs, his own studies in philosophy, his years as an Expressionist and then Dada artist, and influences from fellow Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico. ERNST's collages, decalcomania, drippings, frottages, and grattages personalized images from the conscious and the unconscious into an eerily mysterious, unexpected super reality different from the waking world and not so easy to understand. He went on to influence post-war Abstract Expressionists and Pop artists, as seen by reading Carter Ratcliff's THE FATE OF A GESTURE and by viewing "Pollock." I used to think that the Dali dream sequence in the film "Spellbound" was the best glimpse of what Surrealism was about, but editor Jose Maria Faerna also gives a clear, compact view. This well-illustrated and organized book, along with his DE CHIRICO, shows what happened after William Vaughan's GERMAN ROMANTIC PAINTING. It also pigeonholes Ernst's place in Robert Motherwell's THE DADA PAINTERS AND POETS, Herbert Edward Read's A CONCISE HISTORY OF MODERN PAINTING, Peter Howard Selz's GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST PAINTING, and Patrick Waldberg's SURREALISM.

This book is now available in reprint under the new name "Contempt." Check it out, it is one of the best psychological studies of a relationship you'll ever read.

I hate most poets, but I love out-of-whack word juxtapositioning and eerie language. This nugget of a book transported me into the movie "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez" as it might have been directed by Luis Bunuel -- starring Neal Cassidy, and with additional dialogue by Jorge Luis Borges.

Moravia had to publish this book by himself with this money after WWII, and immediately this book become one of the most important piece of the afterwar literature. Must be read.

A straightforward approach to using world equity markets, or equity index markets, to add diversification to your portfolio. Contains an interesting history of how investors in different countries use their capital markets, followed by a timing strategy. The book contains explanations of the extent of diversification reached by using world markets and shows how risk is substantially reduced relative to returns. The investment method offered can be used by anyone wishing to participate in international markets.

It's like an evening at the Met. Well done!!!!!!