I admit that the most interesting thing I found about this book was the premise; a man, frustrated with his humdrum identity, assumes that of Mark Frechette. Frechette, as the novel reminds us, was the young male actor who starred in Antonioni's ZABRISKIE POINT; he became somewhat of a revolutionary, or at the very least a criminal, after the making of the film, and was involved in bank holdups (sorry, don't recall how many). He defended his actions in radical terms. He was arrested and sent to prison, where he tried to get several social programs going to better the life of inmates; he was a little more outspoken than was safe for him, and was eventually found murdered in a weight room. All this is true, and a rather fascinating bit of recent history, particularly in that the making of the film probably had a lot to do with Frechette's choices in later life -- life imitating art and all that. It's even more interesting that someone should then, years later, write a novel that has its main character attempting to hide under Frechette's name. The swapping-of-identity theme -- man seeking freedom from his former self, while pursued by his family -- is also, of course, familiar to Antonioni fans, as a device exploited very effectively in THE PASSENGER. It's been a long time since I read this book; at the time, I recall being VERY engaged by the first half, then thinking it was losing focus, turning into more of a detective thriller than a meditation on identity. Alas, now that I'm hungry to reexplore it, it's out of print. I *think* other people would find it interesting, tho'... Y'gotta admit, the premise is quite something...

The see how they grow series is yet another quality series put out by Dorling Kindersley (aka DK). Purchase them all if you can! Both children and adults will enjoy "watching" the chick grow. The last two pages are a pictorial summary of how the chick went from egg to eight week-old rooster.

Although words are scarce in this lushly illustrated book, the adventure story is fascinating. We travel up mountains, through jungles, across fields and every other landscape imaginable with Leon in search of his hat. This book makes a fabulous gift for children and fanciful adults. The vibrant colours and detailed compositions will have you returning to Pratt's world again and again. But will you ever get the hat?

Every year I am the envy of onlookers as I write my daily notes in my French Country Diary. Every other page is a beautiful picture of some site from the French countryside or a quaint cafe in the region. It is a quality hardback journal/datebook/diary that is easy to store and keep in a desk drawer for future references. The new 2000 book is now available.

I have purchased the French Country Diary for the past six years. It never leaves my side. The daily space is large enough to keep appointments and diary entries. The hard cover helps keep this book looking good all through the year. At the end of the year it goes in my bookcase for my business and personal records for years to come. The bonus....everytime someone sees this calendar/planner they ask me where they can buy one just like it! Enjoy!! P.S. The pictures are absolutely wonderful as well.

Pierre Capretz of Yale University stands alone in his way of teaching
language AND culture. It is the equivalent of an immersion experience in
France. He tells a very compelling story and structures language learning
around life experiences and not grammar. You find yourself speaking
colloquially and grammatically without knowing why. It is incredibly charming
and rewarding.

The book begins with an introduction to the theory of Profinite groups and their cohomology. This is an important issue as one has to know that Galois cohomology is the same as Etale cohomolgy of a point. This introduction to Profinite group is very short and would not cause you to get bored. Next, cohomological dimension of fields has been introduced with a detailed considerations on low dimensional cases, which is in turn very much in sprit of non-commutative algebra and would be re-considered in an appendix to chapter II about non-abelian Galois cohomology.
Book is very well written and full of interesting results, albeit for trivial reasons the proofs are not given so often.

I have tried for several months to find a book wich could give me some inside of "GALOIS Theory", an idea of how people came to such abstract considerations.
I think I've found it!

That only taxes and death are certain would sum up what we know for sure about GEORGES du Mesnil DE LA TOUR AND HIS WORLD. Just as his native Lorraine lost its independence to France, so was he factored out of the art world during the 250 some years after he died in 1652. His "flea catcher"; "hurdy-gurdy player," variously mistaken as the work of 17th-century Spanish masters Herrera the Elder, Maino, Murillo, Rivera, Velazquez, and Zurbaran; and my favorite, Jacques Callot-type "newborn child" have been recognized as the most beloved of his art of Dutch- and Flemish-type earthy realism and luminously softened colors, eerily flickering light and spectacular lighting effects, finely drafted clothing and hair, highly focused and tensely concentrated mood, and minimal expressions, forms and gestures subtly cluing character. He excelled in not only the theatrically controlled daylight manner, with the henpecked "old man" and thin-lipped "old woman" of the piercing eyes and the careworn "old peasant couple eating" in worn clothing with pulled stitches accented by light brushstrokes and rubbed-thin paint, but also the deeply shadowed and dramatically night-time style, with "denial of St Peter" and "dream of St Joseph." His subjects ranged from the everyday life of ordinary people, as in his boys blowing on a charcoal stick and a firebrand, "girl blowing on a brazier," and my favorite "payment of taxes" with a Jacques Bellange-styled unsettling atmosphere of crowded space, deeply shadowed eyes, meticulously folded drapery and unusual candle-cast shine to arms and faces; to music, with "cornet player," "musicians' brawl" of gesturing arms and gnarled hands around beautifully painted musical instruments and lively highlighted weather-cracked and wrinkled faces, Jean Appier aka Hanzelet-type "woman playing a triangle," and "young singer"; to nonreligious moralizing with all the furtiveness and sideways glances by cheats with the aces of clubs and diamonds in Fontainebleau school-styled solidly brushed half-length figures and Simon Vouet-type colorfully light fine materials, "dice players," and my favorite "fortune-teller"; to religious meditations with "adoration of the shepherds," Job with his broken bowl for scraping sores and his Jacques Bellange-styled highwaisted wife, and such Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio- and Hendrick ter Brugghen-type ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events as saints Alexis, Andrew, Anne mothering Mary and grandmothering Jesus, Francis in ecstasy, James the Less of the brushy arthritic hands, Jerome the scholarly ascetic with a bloodstained knotted rope against self-indulgence, John the Baptist in the wilderness, Jude Thaddeus, Mary Magdalene sorrowing over her sins, Philip of the crystal buttons ingeniously refracting light onto his jacket, Sebastian tenderly cared by Irene and her tearful assistant, and Thomas transformed from doubt to toughly unflinching faith. I particularly like the way he showed children behaving goodly with "Christ with St Joseph in the carpenter's shop" and "education of the Virgin." Ever since reading Aldous Huxley I have wondered which three books I would take to a BRAVE NEW WORLD: chances are that one would be editor Philip Conisbee's carefully written, gorgeously illustrated and well-organized book, because I have loved de La Tour's art ever since learning about him from my artist mother and sister during my student years and because this one-of-a-kind, reader-friendly book plants his first American exhibition so firmly in the art world that, what with GEORGES DE LA TOUR in French by Paulette Chone, Pierre Rosenberg and Bruno Ferte, and Jacques Thuillier and what with David Huddle's upcoming LA TOUR DREAMS OF THE WOLF GIRL and Christopher Wright's THE MASTERS OF CANDLELIGHT, he should never be dislodged again.

Impressionist and post-Impressionist authority Pierre Courthion says that first tries often show the full range of an artist's talent: "Man at a parapet," aka "The invalid," painted harmonious curves, modulated planes, and straight lines; and "Head of a girl" brushstroked dark against light with the turned away face of an Italian painting and without contour lines. In fact, GEORGES SEURAT became the first painter to draw boundaries as spreading surfaces in lighted areas and as silhouettes in shaded areas. He went on to paint Impressionist-style themes of bourgeois city and countryside life, cafe and circus scenes, seashores and summer landscapes with dots blending into shimmering light and subtle color variations at a distance. The book's 40 colorplates, along with John Russell's SEURAT, show the most important of his 700 drawings and 200 paintings: the blue of "Bathing at Asnieres" and the immense scale of "Bec du hoc" from Bruegel the Elder; the dancing diagonals and slanting double bass of "Le chahut"; "The circus" clown, horse and lady rider galloping and jumping before a captivated audience in a composition of ellipses, ovals and trapezoids worthy of Raphael's "Transfiguration"; the frontal sunset of "Evening, Honfleur" hallmarking a great artist; the ancestors of abstract art in "Port-en-Bessin" and "Rue Saint-Vincent"; the differently brushstroked beach, cliff, mist, sea, ships and vegetation of "Shore at Bas-Butin"; and the David-Pierre Humbert de Superville-styled plumbline straight figures among sultry summer lights and shadows of the masterpiece "A Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte". Readers can put pointillist art in context with Bernard Denvir's POST-IMPRESSIONISM, Walter S. Gibson's BRUEGEL and Wolfgang Stechow's PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER.