"Andre Kertesz," a book in the Aperture Masters of Photography series, brings together a rich collection of photographs by Kertesz. The book also includes the following: (1) an essay, written by Carole Kismaric, on his life and career; (2) a chronology of his life (1894-1985); (2) a list of his major exhibitions; and (4) a bibliography.

Kertesz' black-and-white photos include many scenes that are haunting, touching, or whimsical. I especially like his street scenes, which capture everyday people. His many photos of Paris life in the 1920s and 30s remind me of the writings of Henry Miller (see, for example, Miller's "Tropic of Cancer").

Some memorable images: a young boy in Paris holding a delicate-looking puppy; a wandering violinist on a street in Hungary; a snowy view of Washington Square; a grubby old man urinating on a street in Paris; a portrait of an imperious Colette. There are some witty captures, particularly one delightful shot of umbrella-wielding pedestrians on a Tokyo street. Kertesz had a keen eye and a marvelous sense of composition; this book is a visual treat from start to finish.

You really only need to two things about this book: one, that Andre Kertesz was a genius, and two, that this book published by Phaidon Press, so it's going to be very well done. The photographs in this book are sharper, more luminous and of a better variety than any other Kertesz book I've seen. The text blurbs that accompany each photograph (in addition to the excellent bio at the front) are informative and sophistocated, going well beyond the usual spartan location/date/f-stop infomation that many other monographs offer. As if that wasn't enough, it usually runs at least half of what other monographs will. Perfect stocking-stuffer.

I would rate this book like this, because I thought it was incredibly moving, the photography was some of the best I've ever seen.

...but fear, in this day when psychobabble, family values, and the like are taken far too seriously, the "American Dream" as related to Dick and Jane is as well.

Most of us "Depression Era through Baby Boom" kids (I'm the latter) can enjoy some memories of the Dick and Jane we knew so well in first grade. But anyone whose memory is keen enough will know that the "Dick and Jane" family were hardly those we'd have wished to imitate. The kids apparently had no friends (though the book shows that, after "my time," they did acquire a few); were not terribly bright; hardly had a decent conversation (remember story one: "Oh, Look!"?); their prime concern seemed to be "helping mother," and they might have been an adult's dream (never caused trouble, and so forth) but were not a fellow kid's.

Somewhere between the boring textbooks of cultural studies and the objects of culture which the field explores, this book offers an excellent overview of the Dick and Jane readers' evolution over time as the ideals of the society in which Dick and Jane were grounded evolved as well. And what a tumultuous time it was! Through illustrations from the original texts and photographs of cultural change, short essays on subjects and eras, and even the inclusion of Dick and Jane cut-out dolls to stand on one's desk, the authors take us through the evolution and meaning of Dick and Jane, from Dick and Jane's depression-era origins to the loss of their relevance in the sixties, when the books stopped being produced. Both a reminiscence and an excellent analysis of cultural change through a single set of broad-strokes ideals, this text is both a fun read, a strong cultural text, and a solid way for me (or any teacher) to introduce high school media and communications students to the ways in which ideals, ideas, icons and culture affect and are affected by each other over time.

Those who look to this book for an explanation of Dick and Jane as representing complexity, as one reviewer does below, seem to have missed the point -- Dick and Jane represented cotton-candy ideals of a conservative and young-minded nature; to ask them to have represented more is to completely misunderstand what cultural studies assumes as a foundation. Those who come to this book with an open mind and an interest in mid-19th-century american culture as seen through the evolution of its primers and iconography will find this an excellent, well-presented, and fun work of scholarship.

There are so many times that I had wished I were a child again to experience the slow pace of life as opposed to the way it is now. This book has allowed me to do that. It's a wonderful book and I would highly recommend it. As I read each chapter I found myself recalling memories of childhood...friends, school and family. Because we cannot reach back in time, I would sincerely and strongly advise anyone who experienced the original texts in school, to read this book. It will take you there, even if it's in memory.

The battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack in March 1862 is one of the most significant naval battles in history. This was not because of the outcome, which was tactically a draw, but because it heralded the end of wooden warships and the ascendancy of steam, armor, exploding shells, and the revolving gun turret. The contrast of the floating iron fortress with the "cheesebox on a raft" has inspired many artists and the chief attraction of this Spotlight on History volume is the detailed artwork and diagrams by Fred Freeman. The text by Carole Kismaric starts with President Abraham Lincoln worried about reports the South was building an ironclad and details the construction of the Merrimac and then the Monitor, which led to their famous battle. Note: the book follows the notion of alliteration rather than history since the Union frigate Merrimack was cut down to make the Confederate ironclad christened the C.S.S. Virginia; I should also point out the North won the war and wrote most of the histories about the battle.

For me the most impressive parts of this little volume are the excellent two page spreads that provide diagrams and cross-sections of each ironclad. With the Merrimack there is a drawing of the original sailing ship with the portion of the hull used shown in blue, a cross-section view, two overhead views on the inside and top of the ship, and a frontal cross-section. A similar approach is used for the Monitor with additional cross section views. The only complaint would be that the Monitor is done to scale vis-à-vis the Merrimac, which makes it on the small side; a chart lays out a direct comparison of the ironclads in terms of construction, size, and armament and there is also a map of the James River where the battle took place off Hampton Roads. The illustrations are equally good, especially the ones detailing the battle between the two ironclads. Those pictures are in color, while most of the early ones in the book are in black & white with gray tints. The cover painting, of the Monitor's captain talking to that of the grounded U.S.S. Minnesota while the Merrimac approaches in the distance, is the best of the bunch. Both the text and the illustrations are informative, although the publisher does have to play with the text font from page to page to get everything to fit alongside the appropriate illustrations. This is a nice little history of the "Duel of the Ironclads" that should not be forgotten. At the very least the artwork by Freeman could be salvaged for future use; after all, that is what they did with the Merrimac.

Jack was a friend of mine. I first saw him perform Thanksgiving night, 1979, up the stairs at the O-P Screen Room in lower Manhattan. He called it a Jungle Jack radio adventure and he read into a big old microphone from pages stored in a shoebox. He had a belly dancer whom he called Scheherezade Thompson read from Somerset Maughn's Rain. The audience was tiny and appreciative, but it went on for hours and hours. I felt privileged to be there, like I was watching the dust settle at the edge of eternity. This collection of essays about Jack is a necessity, because it can evoke his world, and it was a fascinating one. His humor and his eccentricity and his seriousness are all reflected in this collection. Today he is spoken of as a gay icon, but Jack did not regard his gayness as political. He was about glamor. I wish this book wasn't so expensive, because that will put off some of the folks who would benefit most from this. But it's worth it, folks. And, by the way, thanks a lot, Jack.

I was hoping that this book would be on a par with Wegman's clever Weimaraner photos such as we see on calendars. It was not. The costumes were overpowering and I could barely discern the sad Weimaraner faces amid all the pomp and frippery. On a positive note, the puppies hitched to the pumpkin were adorable.

I love Weimaraners - I have an adorable 9 year old named Fiori and he looks just like the ones in William Wegman's pictures. The only thing that I do not relish about the book is the evidence of Wegman's stylish move toward putting people hands onto some of the dogs. It's odd and a bit disconcerting. However, the text is charming and many of the photos are sweet (the sleeping pooch in bed with the fairy dog-mother over her). It is a fun book to read to kids and, though it perpetuates the entire Cinderella myth among girls, one can always explain that sweet princes only come along for Weimaraners!!

My wife and I were Wegman fans before he did children's books (and before we had children), and now our two daughters are fans as well, particularly of "Cinderella." The language and photography are both beautiful and funny.

This book is fun to look at. Dozens of photos, large and small, pay tribute to the most popular series characters in English-language fiction. As a child I used to stand in front of rows of these books in bookstores, poring over the covers, for hours at a time. The covers have a talismanic quality this book neatly captures. Interior line drawings (including the "frontispiece" illustrations in each book) also appear throughout this large-format book. Unfortunately none of the Drew/Hardy pictures are labelled, so unless you know the originals you can't pair them to the book. The potted history of the Stratemeyer syndicate is clearly if breezily presented, with excerpts from letters indicating the tensions behind the scenes between publishers and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who assumed control of the empire after her father died in 1930, just as the Drew series was about to start (three years after the Hardy series had taken off). The authors document almost nothing, though, so you can't easily use the book for research purposes. Still, these authors condescend to the series characters far less than most academic writers have -- it's nice to read complimentary things about the power of the books on kids who have literally read them to pieces over the decades. The main problem with this book is that it goes far afield to encompass a general social history of the last century. We get inset mini-essays on adolescence, "model dads" (from FDR to MLK), juvenile delinquents, "Seventeen" magazine, the influence of TV, etc. The inset coverage is superficial, reading like canned newsmagazine features. Anyone who picks up the book to read about Drew/Hardy is unlikely to care about this material. Fortunately, there is still plenty about Drew/Hardy, with generous quotes from both the original books and updated rewrites of the Grosset and Dunlap series. The authors treat each series as one long book, looking for trends in plots and characterizations -- Nancy is "locked in closets, attics, gymnasiums, cisterns, caves, and submarines," they note. They're also good on the media and pop culture variations of the characters, from Disney TV adaptations to board games. The paperback watering-down of the characters in the 1980s gets softer treatment than it deserves, since this book's publisher (Simon and Schuster) owns the Stratemeyer Syndicate now and published them. The book is worth seeing, as long as readers knowit lacks full focus on Drew/Hardy, and often doesn't reveal its sources.

GREAT info for the Nancy Drew lover. This would get 5 stars for the inclusion of photos from the books alone. The writing could have been more detailed and written a bit better. I DID like that the authors included information from the period during which the NDs were written -- the '30s through today -- and how teens were changing over the years. Nancy Drew changed and grew along with today's teens, although die-hard fans wish the syndicate hadn't changed a WORD.

I was a little disappointed with the reading of the book, but had just finished "The Nancy Drew Scrapbook" which is AWESOME, so that might be why I was expecting more from this book. I LOVED all the photos, tho, lots of nostalgia!

This beautifully packaged, colourful, but thin paperback unearths the long history of the Stratemeyer Syndicate's greatest heroes, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. Blown-up covers from both series liven up the book, triggering memories of adrenaline surging through the veins of teenagers everywhere.

The material on how the books changed over the years -- especially the evolution of racial stereotypes of "Negroes," Jews, and Italians -- is truly fascinating. I never realized that the books I read in the seventies had been homogenized by a factory of authors. I now want to read the original books, if I can find them (eBay here I come!).

I could do without most of the overlong and annoying sidebars. Again and again they fill us in on how teens have changed over the last century, but seldom are the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew even mentioned in them!

I give this book an "A" for the terrific images and accurate and enlightening history, but overall, marred by some poor editorial decisions, the book deserves a "B." Still, this is required reading for those interested in pop culture and the literature of our youth. Now I'm off to solve the Secret of the Caves . . .

As a fan of William Wegman's for years now I always enjoy his works on some level. Unfortunately, this is not one of his best attempts. The photographs are often repetitive and sometimes make it difficult to see the dogs. The pictures really don't work when the wolf is dressed as grandmother. It is hard to understand how Little Red Riding Hood can exclaim how different the wolf's eyes and ears look when they look exactly like her grandmother's. I also had some problems with the story, particularly the ending. The changes were disconcerting and I found the epilogue, in particular, a real let down. I think Wegman's version of Cinderella worked much better than this story did.