Worth every dime! What an excellent book! Easy to understand and an absolute pleasure to read and read again. It's beautifully put together. I so much appreciate the generosity of artists who share their knowledge (and 'how to's) with me. I have just begun to include toy theatre workshops in my repetoire of SKY HIGH workshops and this book is an incredible resourse. I will encourage all my students (and creative friends) to purchase Robert's book.

Robert's book is visually stimulating in colour and design and easy to understand.... This book would make any paper arts enthusiast want to start making paper theatres.. It also includes a Card Theatre that can be mailed.... Well done! The only problem I had was finding Mr. Burgess' website, the address must have changed.....

how refreshing to find such an exquisite book on this very interesting subject. I made all the theatres and they were a joy to construct following the easy to understand directions. Robert burgess' hand drawn illustrations are beautiful. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a slight interest, young and old

a book with a text written by one of the most important art critics. Finally quilts seen as art pieces. An incredibly beautiful collection of amish quilts to show you the world of this religious group artistic crafts. If you look for new ideas for your quilting palette, don't miss this book.

Amish: The Art of the Quilt by Robert Hughes chronicles the quilt collection at Esprit corporate headquarters in San Francisco. Begun haphazardly by Doug Tompkins in 1971 as a way to cover bare office walls, it has evolved into a showcase of exquisite examples of Amish artistry.

Robert Hughes writes a concise history of the Amish people and their distinctive quilts. But best of all are the 9" by 9" full-color plates of 82 representative quilts. Julie Silber, who became the collection's curator in 1983, shares her comments on each quilt, pointing out its adherence to or deviation from Amish tradition.

This book represents an excellent investment for all lovers of the vibrant colors and intricate stitching so characteristic of Amish quiltmaking.

reviewed by Andrea R. Huelsenbeck

The best reference book on Meissen I have in my collection. The detailed chapter on marks, both fake and true, has proven invaluable. Buy the book you won't regret it.

This is simply the best book on Meissen porcelain in the English language. Rontgen covers the history of the firm, including information concerning Meissen during the time of the GDR. Photographs, including many in color, make this an important contribution to art literature.

"Ceramics in America" is a wonderful publication. For the first volume of this journal, it is very well put together. The journal has lots of information on ceramics made and used in America. It is very helpful to those who are not very familiar with American ceramics.

This book is a must-have for ceramics enthusuasts! Having worked with historic ceramics for several years, I was familiar with many of the authors selected to write for the first "Ceramics in America" monograph. As much as I eagerly anticipated the work, I was not prepared for the level of excellence which has been achieved here. This volume contains cutting-edge ceramics research, illustrated with the latest in pottery technology and documentary history of the field. I was particularly impressed with two articles highlighting pottery techniques: the submission by Don Carpentier and Jonathan Rickard on annular or "dipt" wares, and also the work of team Michelle Erickson/Rob Hunter, who demonstrate early English slipwares production. This is yet another triumph for the Chipstone Foundation, who has successfully sponsored Luke Beckerdite's "American Furniture" series for years. This book is very highly recommended for archaeologists, collectors, curators, and other material culture specialists.

If you're new to NC coastal fishing and/or just want to be a freshwater/saltwater switch-hitter this is the book you've been hoping to find.

Surf and Jetty fishing is a whole new ball game for us largemouth junkies and even MORE complicated and interesting in it's subtle presentation and water reading techniques. (if that's possible).... and THAT'S why you need this book.

Get "Coastal Fishing in the Carolinas", get to the coast, fish your brains out and have the time of your life.

...

GH

The book is very informative and a must for the fisherman that has never fished the Carolinas. The author explains in great detail species, techniques and locations. I have used some of his suggestions, with good results. I highly recommend the book for the true fisherman that is going to the Carolinas for the first time.

Robert Taibbi's Doing Family Therapy is a great text for beginning family therapists. Taibbi presents a balanced perspective regarding family therapy's ups and downs for the therapist. He succintly synthesizes the basic skills needed to conduct a successful and productive course of treatment with any family. His case examples are especially helpful because he allows the reader to explore alternative paths to treatment decisions and then explains the path he took in the actual development of the case. I will always be grateful to the colleague (MBM) who recommended this book to me!

This is a superb book, written with humor and insight as only an experienced clinical social worker can provide. It is highly practical, extremely well written, concise, and entertaining to boot! It combines wisdom and advice on the various stages of family therapy and takes the reader on a fast-paced tour of what one can expect as a newcomer to the field. A must-read and must-have for all those new to this profession!

There is a typo on the last sentence of my review that I did last week for this book where it states I I've, please remove the I.

Thanks Nate Richey

Although Duck Calls of Illinois, 1863-1963 by Robert D. Christensen is limited to Illinois calls made prior to 1964, it encompasses all of the early documented history of the modern duck call. This is because all of the documented history happened to occur in Illinois.

This is a fascinating and very well done book that no duck call collector could possibly do without. Over 100 Illinois call makers are represented including Charlie and Haddon Perdew, Clifford, Grubbs, Martin, Trutone,Barto, Olt, Allen, Ditto, Leonard, the Glodo family, and the Roseberry family. The great photography will help in identifying many of your unknown calls.

$65 might seem like a lot of money for a book, but considering the rather limited market it is a bargain. The best $65 I I've spent since I started collecting calls.

Nate Richey

This book, based on a series of talks given at the New York Library, biographers Robert Caro, David McCullough, Paul C. Nagel, Richard B. Sewall, Ronald Steel and Jean Strouse explain how and why they went about writing biographies in the way that they did.

Each biographer explains well how the life of the biographer becomes intertwined with that of the person they are researching. In each case, they stress that biography writing is both intense and time-consuming.

Lyndon B. Johnson biographer, Robert Caro, recommends Francis Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe" for two reasons. One, to show that the job of the historian is to try to write at the same level as the greatest novelists. Second, that the duty of the historian is to go to the locales of the events that will be described, and not to leave, no matter how long it takes...until the writer has done his or her best to understand the locales and their cultures and their people.

In the end, it means that the biographer must not only understand the person, but also needs to intimately know the area where the person grew up and lived.

This book gives its readers new insights into the lives of some of this nation's most prominent figures, through the eyes of six well-known biographers. In "The Unexpected Harry Truman," David McCullough shows the life of Truman through new eyes. McCullough stresses that a biographer must genuinely care about his [or her] subject because you are living with that person every single day. The process is like that of choosing a spouse or roommate, therefore, the subjects that he chooses must have a degree of animal, human vitality. In Truman, he said, as with Theodore Roosevelt, he found no shortage of vitality.

McCullough created a detailed chronology, almost a diary of what Truman was doing from year to year, even day to day if the events were important enough. He also used primary sources, such as personal diaries, letters and documents from the time period. Truman poured himself out on paper and provided a large, wonderfully written base of writing for McCullough to sort through and "find" the man.

McCullough says that the magic of writing comes from not knowing where you are headed, what you are going to wind up feeling and what you are going to decide.

Richard Sewell's "In Search of Emily Dickinson," research process took twenty years and he says, "In the beginning I didn't go searching for her, she went searching for me." The process took him two sabbaticals, years of correspondence and meetings with Mabel Loomis Todd's daughter Millicent Todd Bingham to uncover the whole truth.

Paul Nagel's "The Adams Women," gives readers a sense of how important the women in the Adam's family were. Nagel said that contemplating the development of ideology is good training for a biographer. After all, he said, the intellectual historian takes an idea and brings it to life. For Nagel, working with ideas establishes a bridge into the mind and life of the people who had the ideas he studies.

Nagel said that he likes and admires women and this is why, after writing about the Adams' men, he wrote about the Adams' women. Nagel also said that he has learned and taught his students that our grasp of history must always remain incomplete.

Ronald Steel said, that the hardest job a biographer has is not to judge his or her subject, however, most fail to keep their judgements out of the biography.

In Jean Strouse's, "The Real Reasons," she explains that the modern biography examines how character affects and is affected by social circumstance. Biography also tells the reader a great deal about history and gives them a wonderful story.

In writing about Alice James, Strouse found that there was not an interesting plot line to her life other than that her brothers were writers Henry and William James.

Strouse, when asked by another writer about the descendents of the three James' children, she said that William's great-grandson in Massachusetts, tired of being asked whether he was related to Henry or William, moved to Colorado where he was asked whether he was related to Jesse or Frank. Strouse reported that he stayed in Colorado.

Strouse realized that in order to tell the story of the James' family, she was going to have to use her own voice to give life to the family, especially Alice. This is not recommended for all biographies, but in a case such as hers, it needs that biographer's voice to connect all the information for the reader.

In Robert Caro's, "Lyndon Johnson and the Roots of Power," he talked to the people who knew Johnson to get a sense of the former President from Texas and what made him worthy of a new biography. He wrote the biography to illuminate readers to the time period and what shaped the time, especially politically.

This book will help writers understand the steps he or she will need to take to write a biography. It shows the difficult research processes and makes the reader want to either write a biography about an interesting person or never want to write again. Either way, this book provides new insights that one may have never thought about before. I recommend this book to both beginning and seasoned writers

This hard cover book was a joy to read. It explains most of the history of Masonry, as well as documenting the more famous Masons throughout time, although a little of the history is a bit dry. It explains many interesting facts about how Masons affected the United States, as well as Europe, from the 1800s until today. It has an easy-to-read, good looking typeface with beautiful illustrations, and would be a welcome addition to any Mason's library.

Newer bretheren to the Craft will find this book to be easily digestible as well as illuminating. Established Bretheren will no doubt find a few pleasant surprises. Starting with an interesting forward by HRH The Duke of Kent, current Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, the book takes the reader through the history of the Craft (and the versions thereof), dispelling certain myths as it does; then goes on to describe the significance of Freemasonry in British but more so in American society (being an American publication). Who would have known, for instance, that the Statue of Liberty was designed by a Mason, paid for by Masons, and that even the cornerstone was laid by a Mason (the Grand Master of New York) in a public Masoic ceremony? The book finnishes with a descriptive list of 250 of the more famous Masons from around the world. A fine addition to the bookshelf of any Brother!