This book has the most outstanding photos and directions for making amazing cakes- all created by this talented woman. From the most basic of instructions to the finest detail of a work of art!! This is the first book I bought on wedding cakes when I opened my own cake business and made my first sugarpaste flowers following her instructions. Very contemporary in style, whilst still capturing the wonder of a romantic and unique wedding day. Definitely a must-have!!

I have always enjoyed cake decorating but most of the books I looked at seem to lack interests and seem to repeat much of the same (Pretty) cakes. But Anna Von Marbug's Cakes in Bloom is in a class by itself. It is pure art. These cakes should be in galleries. The color photos are very well taken showing these lovely and quite unique decorated cakes. Also this book offers guidance on what equipments is used to decorate, including step by step illustration in B/W photographs, cakes and frosting recipes, plus advice on which cakes works well with what style of frosting for decorating. The only problem I have with this book is that I wanted to see more. I hope she comes out with a nice chunky cake decorating book with new design soon.

If you have to have a book in your personal library that can be used as both a reference and a motivator, then search no more. Anna's talent is phenomenal! The visual beauty, the fluid structure of her creations need to be seen in order to be appreciated. She is truly a talented and gifted artist. If for no other reason, the photography is fabulous (even a hesitant baker would be inspired to make her creations!) This is one of my most prized cake decorating books and I refer to it constantly. To achieve her level of talent may seem overwhelming at first but with patience and practice, you will be able to create the fantasies in the book. Another great piece of news is that she will be coming out with a new book entitled "Birthday Cakes" some time this year. This will definitely need to be another addition into your reference library!

Pay attention to the photos in this book.

It's true what they say: many of the finest photographs you will ever see come from people you've never heard of. For every Ansel Adams, there are a dozen Arthur Lazar's hard at work. Perhaps you don't know their names, but the plain fact is, their images demonstrate not only a technical mastery, but a more human understanding of the medium as well.

I owe much of what I know about photography to Arthur Lazar, so I'm less than neutral. But that doesn't make the imagery in this book any less superb. Several images are among the very best I've seen; I wouldn't hesitate to compare them to the works of more famous artists like Adams or Weston. I was fortunate to be able to learn from this man; I just hope that with time my images will be equally compelling.

If you love B&W photography, get this book. You won't regret it.

Arthur Lazar's photograghs are spiritual and captivating, he is truly one of the finest photographers today.

"Intimate Landscapes presents for the first time many of Arthur Lazar's finest landscape photographs. Uncommonly sensitive and lyrical, these pictures reveal a world which is intricate, mysterious, and sacred. Lazar's work celebrates what is worth caring for in the natural environment and offers a vision of what is important to nourish within ourselves."

Sublime and enchanting is how John Hay has the reader feeling. It is truly a superb book, well written and thoughtful as well as thought provoking.

I first read this book in the early 1970s when I was conducting my Ph.D. thesis research, which dealt with the migratory behavior of a fish called the alewife, also known as river herring. Alewife are like small, silvery salmon. About 10 inches long, they migrate into small streams and rivers along the East Coast in the spring to spawn, and the juveniles then migrate to the ocean in the fall, where they live for four or five years before returning to their home stream to spawn. John Hay captures the mystery and delight of an alewife run. Unlike salmon runs that occur in large rivers where the fish can't be seen, alwife migrate into many very small streams, many of which pass through towns and under old mills, such that the fish are readily visible to people. To see thousands of fish stacked up at the base of a dam, knowning that they had traveled thousands of miles in the Atlantic for years before finding their way back to the location where their life began as an egg, is almost incredible. John Hay describes the essence of the alewife in a very informative but tremendously readable style. This is a must read for anyon who enjoys fine writing and has an interest in the natural world.

John Hay's "In The Company of Light" is a book that you will read over and over, finding new insight into the wonders of the natural world each time. Hay is the Dean of Cape Cod nature writing and his verse is never more inspiring as in his latest book, released in the year of his 82nd birthday. Hay chronicles the timeless natural mysteries that the seasons bring outside the door of his summer home in Mid-coast Maine and to the former "worthless woodlot" on Cape Cod where he lives for the remainder of the year. Like Henry Beston's "The Outermost House" this book celebrates the cycles of the solar year and its stunning hallmarks. Whether he is writing about the company of swallows nesting in his barn in Maine or the strange glow emanating from the mushrooms in the woodpile on Cape Cod, Hay speaks for the reader's unarticulated awe for and love of the multitudes of life forms with whom we share the planet. This book is the one piece of nature writing, above all others, that you must have in your collection.

Hay, the young Assistant Presidential Secretary, was like a son to Lincoln. The President, in the diary often affectionately and irreverently referred to as "The Tycoon", relaxed around Hay as around few others, giving the diarist an insight into the character of Lincoln which is almost unique. This alone would make the book worthwhile, but Hay's views on other personalities and events of those dramatic days are also valuable, and engagingly written.
Hay's diary has been published before, but incomplete and poorly edited. This is the first complete edition, with all the entries restored and with extensive explanatory notes, which are necesary to follow Hay's refernces to obscure persons and events.
Essential for the Lincoln scholar and highly recommended for anyone's Civil War shelf.

(The numerical rating above is an ineradicable default setting within the page. This reviewer does nort employ numerical ratings.)

Fantastic book, 105 Illustrations, Beautifully done. The presentation is excellent. Everything about this book is a delight.

This excellent introduction to the archaeology of Cape Cod can open up a whole fascinating world, for anyone who takes the time to read it. The technical, academic jargon of archaeology is kept to an absolute minimum, and what jargon exists is always painstakingly explained.

I'd like to make a few general comments. First of all, you should be aware that the printer made a small error in the table of contents. The foreword, introduction, and acknowledgments are numbered in the text with Roman numerals, but in the table of contents they were assigned "normal," Arabic numerals. For example, "17" is written in the table of contents as the page number for one prefatory section, as opposed to "XVII." This throws off the table of contents for the first couple of chapters. Please don't give up on the book as a whole because of this minor error -- you'd be making a big mistake. Just be careful, and spend 2 minutes with a pencil to correct the table of contents in your copy. For a second general comment, I'd just like to alert you to the fact that this book is almost exclusively devoted to pre-colonial, native American archaeology. There are a few pages about remains left by the early settlers, in the chapter on Wing Island in Brewster, but most of the book focuses on the pre-historic period.

The introduction and foreword are nice to read through. They contail some personal statements by two people who worked on the book, about the importance of maintaining a childlike sense of wonder, and childlike curiosity. This excitement and wonder is part and parcel of the book -- we encounter it again, periodically throughout the text, as we read about local students and Cape residents who participate in various excavations.

The whole book is peppered with a terrific selection of maps, illustrations, and photographs. All of them are in black and white. These visual aids really add a lot to the book, and help to make it more approachable. I'd like to particularly draw your attention to the two graphic chronologies, or timelines, on pages forty-one and forty-six. You might want to bookmark those pages, because you'll find yourself referring back to them quite a bit, to get your brain oriented in anthropological or geological time. One other useful section, that you might want to pay extra close attention to, is the historical overview of Cape Cod archaeology given on pages sixteen and seventeen -- and that's in Arabic numerals, not Roman.

Part One is designed as an overview of the topic as a whole. The chapters here explore the history of the field of study of archaeology on the Cape; an anthropological overview of early native peoples in the region; and a survey of local geological (pre-)history. The geologic chapter is a good one. It includes all kinds of maps, illustrating such phenomena as glaciers, dunes, forests, etc. Make sure you spend some time on these chapters. They will help you get much more out of the second part of the book, which focuses upon specific sites.

Part Two deals with sites at Upper Mill Pond, in Brewster; Sandy Neck, to the north of Barnstable; Pochet, "the dividing place," in East Orleans; and Wing Island, in Brewster. A final chapter tries to tie together what you've learned, in an effort to create a composite overview of daily life among the Nauset peoples of Cape Cod.

The book finishes up with a glossary of archaeological terminology (which is always very user-friendly, as I mentioned earlier); a bibliography for further reading, and an index.

If you enjoy this book, I would like to alert you to the existence of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. It's simple to find on the internet. They maintain a little museum, in Middleborough, which is a terrific resource for the archaeology of the entire state. If you'd like to specifically learn more about the archaeology of Cape Cod, try using your internet skills to find a website for the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History. They're the folks behind this fine book.

Basically, I really liked this book, and I think you will too. Two thumbs up.

Shell of wonder opened new doors for me. It was exciting and beautifully written. It was very imaginative and and was illsutrated quite well.

First I am from Texas. That would normally bias me to any historical figure from Texas. However, without a doubt this man did more in a lifetime to fill any biography. As a Texas Ranger captain fighting Indians, fighting Mexican bandits, scouting for the US Army in the Mexican-American war, to California sheriff and land developer...everything is done in a big way in his life. James Greer writes a biography that is historically-fact based...he doesn't have to make Jack Hays larger than life...he lived larger than life.

As an avid reader of biographies from the wild west...this is no history book review of a man...this is the best lawman book I have ever read. This guy is now my number one wild west hero!

I highly recommend the book...you won't believe the bravery!

This book was good and was breath taking, but the margins were big.