I discovered Charles Reid at my local library and was smitten with his loose, colorful, gorgeous pictures. This book is a clear, helpful guide to making juicy watercolors of still lifes that sing with color. He has practical tips on brushwork, contour drawing and composition that are easy to follow and clearly explained. He also has step-by-step instructions for several of his pictures that show you how he goes about making his own pictures (often from everyday objects and flowers on his kitchen counter). I'm fairly new to watercolors and I found this book invaluable to improving my pictures and getting me to loosen up and feel creative and find beauty in simple objects.

I wish I had had this book years ago. It contains exercises to enable the reader/student to experience and learn direct painting techniques that bring freshness, spontaneity, bright vivid color and realism to one's paintings--inspite of an "untidy" style. If you're serious about watercolor, Reid can take you where you really should go. Reid embodies the principles of the best of watercolor and painting teaching of the past (particularly Hawthorne, Henri, Manet). He puts it all together into what I call a meditative painting style (stroke on color and pause to consider, then soften, add other color wet-in-wet, and so on. Doing the exercises in this book can revolutionize your painting and will, at the very least, bring immediate and important improvements to your technique and approach to watercolor. If you like Reid's paintings--flower, figures, portraits, etc., do yourself a favor--get the book and the two corresponding videos.

I have just purchased this book, as well as 2 instructional videos by Charles Reid. I would highly recommend the set to anyone who needs to "loosen up" his or her painting style. He shows you how to get the color right with a minimal amount of strokes, and how to keep from overworking a painting. He is an excellent instructor and author. You won't be disappointed!

Una edición impresinante: mas de 500 fotos en calidad FOTO! parecen reales... toda la obra de uno de los mejores fotógrafos del siglo...

Elliott Erwitt's photographic style proves that elegance entails a simple purity of purpose. Once you open his latest book, you are drawn into a world that seems familiar, but with a twist. Erwitt sees what we all see, but captures a moment or a prespective that transforms the ordinary or odd into high art.

erwitt is a great master of photography and we are lucky to have him and this book. this book is extensive, and shows his best work throughout his career. his style, his eye, his heart, his mind - all come together very clearly in the pages of snaps, and the result is a must have volume for anyone seriously interested in black and white, documentary, or street photography. nothing can be said that will do this book justice, so just see for yourself. this one compares to any black and white book put out ever, no exaggeration.

"All the bourgeois fools who incessantly utter the words immoral, immorality, morality in art, and other silly things remind me of Louise Villedieu, a five franc whore who, when accompanying me one day to the Louvre - where she had never been - started blushing and covering her face; and pulling all the time at my sleeve, she asked, before the immortal statues and paintings, how people could put such obscenities on public display" ~ Mon Coeur mis a nu (My heart laid bare)

The ministry of interior declared in 1857 that "Les Fleurs du Mal" constituted "an act of defiance in contempt of the laws which safeguard religion and morality" and both Baudelaire, the publisher and the printer was convicted on grounds of immorality, and all available copies of "Les Fleurs du Mal" was confiscated.

The courts verdict stated that whatever mitigating comments "Les Fleurs du Mal" might contain, nothing could dissipate the harmful effects of the images Mr. Baudelaire presents to the reader, and which, in the incriminated poems, inevitably lead to the arousal of the senses by crude and indecent realism.

"You know that I have only considered literature and the arts as pursuing a goal unrelated to morality, and that the beauty of conception and style alone are enough for me." ~ Baudelaire

The ban on the censored poems was not lifted until May 31, 1949!!

With "Les Fleurs du Mal" Baudelaire came to spearhead the Symbolist movement as a reaction against the prevailing naturalism in literature at the time. Baudelaire sublimated debauchery, spleen and hideousness to an art of studied elegance, but people often forget the wicked sense of cynical, black humour permeating many of his poems:

"I've just seen an adorable woman. She has the most beautiful eyes in the world - which she draws with a matchstick - the most provocative eyes - the brilliance of which is the clue solely to the khol on her eyelid - a voluptuous mouth - drawn with cochineal - and, on top of that, not a hair of her own - in short 'A GREAT ARTIST !` "

In Baudelaire's own words "A translation of poetry... may be an enticing dream, but can only ever be a dream" and therefore this dual-language book of "The Flowers of Evil/Les Fleurs du Mal" definetly is the one to get...

Les Fleurs du Mal is a bittersweet compilation of poems by Charles Baudelaire, the master of forlorn sentiments who lived in Paris around 1850. Unique to his style is a juxtaposition of the realm of nature with that of the modern city (Paris). Baudelaire, like Gaugin, was one of the few artists of his cohort who had traveled out of his usual frame of reference (from Paris to the islands of La Reunion and back to Paris again), instilling in his vision a lust for the exotic and for realms of simple enchantment. While many perceive his works as pessimistic, it seems to me that the elements of humour and sarcasm woven throughout his works reveal an underlying transcendence over any serious lugubrious entrapment. The French-English text here helps to expose what may have been lost or altered in the translation. Ultimately the poems and their English counterparts here maintain the glory of Baudelaire- dark and uncanny rhymes often intertwined with florid beauty and intimations of the untarnished. A timeless works, the Flowers of Evil is sublimely written.

Very interesting item! The best works by Charles Baudelaire in French original and in English translation. Except the great qualities of Baudelaire's poetry the value of this book is also in the possibility to compare original with translation. There are many academic disputes about translating of poetry. This book is a fine example of an effort to offer every reader a chance to judge for himself about quality of each and every translation. "Flowers of evil" are enough for five stars themselves. What to say then about this book which offers double-language edition of the forst modern collection of poetry and also some additional texts?

Kathleen Alcala's "The Flower in the Skull" is a haunting, beautiful and well-researched novel that begins deep in Mexico's Sonoran Desert in the late 1800s and follows three generations of women up to the present. Alcala's language is clear, evocative and, at times, heart-wrenching as she tells this story of diaspora, lost family connections and personal discovery. One of the most moving chapters (titled, "The Girl in the Closet") is Alcala at her best as she captures the almost overwhelming fears of a woman beaten down by the sexual transgressions of her employer: "If I just stay here, I will be fine. Before I shut the door, I got a box of crackers from the kitchen, so I will be fine." This is a powerful novel.

In Flower in the Skull we see three generations of women trying to adapt to their sorroundings and at the same time make sense of their past. This is no easy task but the characters make an effort, and although they are not always totally happy, they manage to make it on their own. A very good book, very honest and informative.

No one since Isidore of Seville has tried to summarize all the scientific knowledge of his epoch as valiantly as Charles Flowers. The most fun is to be had from watching him try, especially if you've previously read much longer and denser books on one or all of the ten topics Flowers has chosen to elucidate. Instability rules is a bargain, both in money and in precious reading time; ten tomes in one. The writing is graceful, precise, witty, and merciful to the non-scientist. Particularly for the reader who hasn't kept up his/her humanistic education in the sciences, Instabilty Rules will provide a comprehensible introduction to ten of the most profound ideas of the past century.

The Big Ideas in science are always the most fun for the layman to think about, and this book gives us overviews of 10 of those ideas -- from the Big Bang to the human genome -- in 10 engaging essays. The material has been covered before, but what sets the book apart is Flowers is a writer first, a science writer second. The writing is a pleasure to read -- warm, lucid, enthusiastic ... interesting while not talking down to the reader. The only criticism is the photos, which are uninteresting head shots of scientists. There are certainly many more interesting visuals the publisher could have selected to illustrate Flowers's fascinating essays.

The translation here strays a bit from the original for the sake of making it rhyme. Although this may raise the eyebrows of some purists, I feel that the english version has charms of its own. The design of this book is really outstanding, and the old duo-tone photographs used to illustrate it are quite poetic in their own right, and seem even more so as a result of the way they are combined with the text. The book as a whole evokes images of a lost paradise, which I have never seen expressed so well outside of the writings of Proust. I even like the way it smells! This would make an excellent gift for any lover of poetry or photography.

This book is not only gorgeous to browse through yet exceptionally poetic and useful at the same time. It is a bilingual book- french and english with absolutely fabulous illustrations to aid the imagination. Sucha lovely work and an intriguing way to involve both adults and children into Baudelaire's complex poetry. Well done!

I'd hardly call this book of essays and poems soothing. Some of these folks are mighty disturbed. I don't think John Updike ever wrote anything I could call delightful--provocative, beautiful--but not delightful. And true to form, his essay is about the aftermath of a decision to divorce and his "farewell" to some leaves he's become intimately involved with via his study window is both beautiful and sad. Sylvia Plath scares the heck out of me and her essay "Fable of the Rhododendron Stealers" is a signature piece. Then we have Alice Walker's poem "Revolutionary Petunias" about a backwoods woman who raised a George, a Martha, a Jackie and a Kennedy, and Josephine Jacobson's "Jack Frost" is a bit nippy. Robert Graves (I, Claudius and The White Goddess) addresses the behaviour of avid composters in "Earth to Earth".

No, this book is definitely not restful, but, it's really, really good. If you're a fan of the short story, particularly those with a twist you will like this book (including the O'Henry tale, "The Last Leaf"). If you're a fan of good poetry (Billy Collins anyone) you'll like this book. LEAF AND FLOWER is not about gardening per se, though gardeners like the old woman who attempts to bring beauty into sordid surroundings in Eugenia Collier's "Marigolds" are sometimes featured.

If I had to assign an organizing principle to this work, I would say this...every human life intersects with a plant at some critical juncture. OF LEAF AND FLOWER contains one of the most artistically assembled sets of essays and poems on the importance of flora for human beings.

WHAT A WONDERFUL COLLECTION OF STORIES TO UPLIFT YOUR SPIRITS IN THESE DISTURBING AND TERRIBLE TIMES. WHETHER YOU ARE A GARDENER OR NOT THESE STORIES ARE A DELIGHTFUL WAY TO LOOSE YOURSELF FOR A FEW HOURS. WOULD MAKE A GREAT CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR THE GARDENERS IN YOUR LIFE - THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE BEAUTIFUL AND VERY SUBTLE.
ALL IN ALL A 1ST RATE COLLECTION AND A JOY TO READ AND A NICE BOOK TO HAVE AROUND TO PICK UP FROM TIME TO TIME AND REREAD.

A fascinating story of conquest, greed, and betrayal, written in a clear, fast-moving fashion. I've always wondered how a few Spaniards could conquer the massive Aztec empire, and now it makes sense to me.

Elliott Erwitt has a wonderful outlook on life. In this book, he focuses on the human hand and shows a lot of love, humor and humanity in the process. The variety includes a man kissing a woman's hand in Poland, an argument between an elderly couple in St. Tropez, people praying in Moscow, beautiful sunbathers in Rio, children playing in New Rochelle and travelers in Budapest. Most of the subjects aren't famous which is a strength. The book shows everyday scenes that could have happened anywhere. The book also includes some famous people including: Jacques Cousteau, John Updike, Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev. This book is a joy and a smile. Erwitt has great vision and compassion. Many people would have walked right past these scenes without even seeing the potential to communicate by capturing touching and humorous images.

Dr. Crosby manages to translate from one language to another while maintain CB's original rhythm and rhyme scheme. The dark musk of CB's words are undiminished.