Published in 1973, DKH tags along with Larry Mahan, to the Pendleton Round-Up, talking with folks like Phil Lyne, Gary Leffew, Don Gay, Chris LeDoux and many other great World Champions of this era. This book is about the blood, guts, glory, waking up in a bathtub (12 to a room), life of the rodeo cowboy. Has a few B&W photos.

Douglas Kent Hall has a way of capturing the work and the manner of real cowboys that makes this book both a terrific photo album and a well-written description of these men and the world they work in. Hall snaps many shots of branding, roping, bronc riding, and working cattle, but the best photos are the full-length portrait shots of cowboys standing or leaning against a door frame or fence, having their pictures taken. They look into the camera, with a serious expression, portraying visually the stoic-romantic, cowboy-up way they are recorded in the words of Hall's text.

Hall sees them and describes them in the way they see themselves. Hard-working, often silent, resigned to the conditions of an occupation that pays little but gives them pride, self-reliance, and a belief that they stand for a way of life superior to any other. They are both fiercely independent individuals and members of a fraternity with a strict code of behavior and values. Given the opportunity, they may complain about less-than-perfect conditions of employment, and they're ambivalent about the modernization of ranching, yearning for the good old days before attempts to mechanize the business of raising and working cattle changed the nature of the work they love.

Hall has a great eye for detail both in his images and in his text. He wants you to see the way cowboys individualize and put their own stamp on the universal uniform of hat, boots, jeans, and shirt. By putting photos of young and old cowboys together on the page, he also wants you to see the toll that this kind of work takes on their bodies and physical features. His descriptions in prose are also rich with details as he describes the predawn rituals of saddling up, or the ambiance of sitting in front of a fire in a camp house without electricity, or a long ride over rough rangeland in a pickup, which eventually gets stuck. He also seems to have recorded and transcribed his interviews with cowboys, because the text is realistically rich with their turns of phrase and their long ramblings on various subjects.

The author has considerable credits, including the scripting of "The Great American Cowboy," a documentary which won an Academy Award in 1974. As of this writing, this wonderful book is out of print. If you can find a copy, get one and hang onto it. It's a gem. For a similar, though less handsome book of photography and interviews, there's Darrell Arnold's "The Cowboy Kind."

If you keep your perspective in check, this is an excellent resource. Good, basic advice. I was struggling training my girlfriend (I am advanced, she a beginner), and this book made it much easier to convince her that I wasn't crazy with my training advice. It is a simple and clear book, pretty basic, but I am a big believer that 90% of the results come from the basic stuff, and the last 10% is for when you hit sticking points, or reach an advanced level. But the book is getting on in age these days; still, don't let that disuade you if you can pick up a copy.

I came across this book at a used book store and love it. It is one of the best pure women bodybuilding books for females available.

And who is more qualified than the greatest bodybuilder of all time?

I understand that Arnold used to run a gym in Germany back in the 60's and he was one of the first to promote bodybuilding for women to develop a shapely figure.

Some people think you will build big bulgy muscles like a man, as Arnold explains, that is not possible since women have different hormones than men and are not likely to train with the intensity of a male competitive bodybuilder; 6-7 days a week, twice a day plus three to four days of running 3 miles per day and a spartan diet.

For me, I found Arnold was right. I developed a more shapely figure. Better tone and looked more feminine.

Arnold has another winner her. I think other women avoid it because they don't understand it.

I also recommend Arnold's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding to help break plateaus and get more exercise variations.

My wife has several workout books but as she states, "not one matches Arnold's". This book not only covers subjects like what to eat, it also goes into great detail on what workouts work what muscles. Great book!

I picked up Prison Tattoos at a college bookstore because it was on sale. It included temporary tattoos made from some of the convicts' designs, which was also novel.

I mainly enjoyed the introduction and conclusion of the book, discussing prison and tattooing, the reasons, the methods, the meanings, everything. It included a discussion of the penal system's dislike of tattooing in prison facilities.

The images were striking, but they were mostly of full bodies and torsos, so the actual tattoos were hard to see any detail in. Also, being a showcase of prison work, there were few pieces that looked particularly good. However, as a gallery of the genre, it got the point across.

I am glad I purchased this book, as I found it interesting, but it was not the valuable guide that I had hoped that it would be.