This book is packed with helpful information. It's easy to follow and to the point. I love the dvd tutorials and video lesson are great. If you do video you can't live without photoshop and this book will help get you on the right track.
Thanks Richard.
Bob Tate

If your going to Fairleigh Dickinson University you will need this book if your taking Digital Video and Animation Price is GOOD

At last here's a book which focussess solely on the areas of Photoshop that are essential for producing great artwork for video and television.

Richard includes tutorials based upon his fantastic live Photoshop demos which communicate complex tasks in an easy to understand, user-friendly way. He has a knack for making things simple to understand.

What's also very important is that Richard uses the software in his own work as a designer for television so is aware of all the pitfalls that you are likely to trip over. He anticipates these well and guides you around them, giving you solutions and workarounds whenever you should require them.

This book is a must for any designers wanting to cross over from other disciplines into designing for TV and video. It's also full of tips and tricks for the more seasoned Photoshop users out there. It's definitely one for your digital video book collection!

I also had this book as a child, (I got it 1975 for X-mas: I was 5)and never forgot it. It took me almost 10 years to find a copy of it, and now it is one of my most prized possessions. I remember that I was actually challenged by the activities in the book - it was not the typical 'color and connect the dots' activities. Mobiles, 3-D towns, greeting cards, as well as coloring and connect dots. It also teaches how to mix colors. It is divided into the months of the year, so activities coincide with specific holidays, etc. I am now an full-time artist, and I believe that this book had everything to do with what my career is now. THEY SHOULD REPRINT THIS! One of the best children's books ever! Definitely brings out an intelligent creativeness in a child.

I bought this book as a child about 25 years ago, and have never forgotten it. The activities and illustrations brought me hours of joy --it never got boring. As a parent, I am saddened to see that this book is now out of print, as I would love to be able to purchase it for my children and their friends. There isn't much out there which encourages wholesome fun and creativity these days -- bringing this book back into print would be a wonderful start.

I agree with the earlier reviewers. This book is the greatest. I have been looking for it for years, and would love to buy if for all my friends children (okay and for myself too.) Please re-release it!!!...

I was looking for a book or two (as luggage weight limits were tight)to enhance my first safari experience to the national parks of Tanzania. I selected this book based on Amazon.com reader feedback. It was a real help during the safari and continues to be used while reviewing video, photos, and books on African wildlife. I also took a good field guide (Audubon)--but these were widely available on the safari 4WD as well as at the lodges. What makes the Estes book unique is it describes the MEANING of the behavior and social groups you see on the game drives. Almost daily we would see sights that struck me as unexpected--like an all male group of 40 impalas, or zebras leading a line of hundreds of wildebeest; I'd look up that species in the Estes book back at camp and he would explain the meaning of the behavior. My safari mates were all very experienced and involved in zoos in the USA. They would often ask to borrow my "Estes" for their use.

In my opinion, if you can only take one book other than your safari journal--take this one. If you can take two, include a good field guide (like Audubon).

Most African Mammal guides are designed for people working in that field. Here, we have one specifically designed for the average enthusiast who wants to know a bit more than provided in the also essential Audobon Guide to African Wildlife. Let's face it - while you may get the occasional bird or even reptile enthusiast, it's the mammals that capture the imagination of the average person on the street when it comes to the wildlife of Africa.

You don't have to travel to the Dark Continent to enjoy this one, and - in acknowledgement that people can be interested in wildlife without necessarily being able or willing to go on Safari - it's also designed for use if you're fortunate enough (as I am) to be a regular at a quality zoo or even a regular viewer of "National Geographic" or "Nature".

The book is very easy to use and browse through, explaining habits and noting the best parks and reserves for each animal, as well as the animal's major predators or relationship with other predators. You don't have to look through it long to wish for similar volumes for Asia and North America.

Certainly worthy of being one of the first books on the shelf of anyone who loves African wildlife.

If you are going on safari, and you need to bring only one book, this is the one. Contrasts with other books in that its focus is on explaining animal behavior -- answers the "what are they doing?" query better than any other book out there. And its intellectually inquisitive aspect makes for interesting reading. Also --- we happened to meet the author by chance, and he was quite nice and interesting; a passionate scholar.

This is not a review. It is a complaint about the review I just read critisizing the editors of this fine collection. E.E. Cummings HATED that his publishers put his name in all lower case. He was not emphatic about it. He thought it was gimicky and exploitive of his publishes.
Whoa, when'd this horse get so high. ooop
S.

It really is a great collection of e.e. cummings - certainly everything I wanted.

But what's to review - it's e.e. cummings, it's great

Now I must get back to my toboganning into know

Enjoy.

P.S. e.e. cummings was emphatic about his name being in lower case, so I do have to criticize the Editors of this book for putting his name in caps

This review is from a strictly prose guy, as poetry usually goes right over my head. In my efforts to understand poetry, I have discovered that the work of e.e. cummings breaks through the stylistic barriers that make many people shy away from poetry altogether. cummings' use of bizarre spacing, punctuation, and phrasings keeps the reader away from the "sing-song" routine that tends to damage the credibility of many a poem, and cummings uses the art of style to say many things and make many points in just a few words. The most fascinating aspect of cummings' work is letting the small number of words in a poem really sink in until you gain many insights. This book usefully arranges cummings' most noteworthy poems into categories so you can more easily dwell on his major areas of subject matter. cummings did not live the hard life of many noteworthy poets, so a good number of his poems are musings on abstract concepts like life, love, mythology, and mortality. However, his much sharper observations on war, prostitution, politics, and the dark side of urban life can be truly shocking once you delve into their deeper meanings. Contemplating the title of this review, which is also the first line of the poem on page 181 of this book, will help any poetry-fearing reader to dive into cummings' world.

I admit it, I bought this book because I liked the cover. I have never read any Emilie Richards books before and I simply fell in love the cover and picked it up. The book just looked so welcoming with the pretty red door, I wanted to peek inside and see what was going on behind it. I was not dissapointed. I was hooked from the first page. The story of Faith and her family kept me turning the pages, staying up late, and taking way too lengthy lunch breaks at work! This book is full of heartache, mystery, love and family drama. Emilie Richards develops her characters so well, you can't help but keep reading. The characters come alive off the page. By the time you finish this book you will feel like a member of Faith's family, or at least a close friend. Buy this book! It may have a great cover but it has an even better story inside!

Faith Bronson believed she had the perfect marriage. After being married to her husband, David, for fifteen years, Faith accepted the fact that though her marriage lacked passion, they were still soulmates. Then on the evening that Faith believed would put their marriage back on track, it instead changed all their lives forever. For David harbored a secret in his heart that he didn't even admit to himself.

Now Faith is questioning herself as a woman, and a mother. The life that she has lived for the past fifteen years has been a lie. She now has two children who refuse to talk to their father and a house that has been in mothers family for generations. After talking to mother into letting her and her children move into the house on Prospect Street, Faith soon finds that the house is the only thing that is helping her hold it together. With all the fixing and cleaning and rentovating that needs to be done, Faith has little time for anything else.

Then the secrets of the past come to haunt the family that lives on Prospect Street. Along with neighbor, Pavel Quinn, who is more than he says he is, and her mother Lydia, they work together to uncover the truth about that tragedy that occured in the house so many years before.

Emilie Richards has a way of pulling the reader in so they never want to come out. Though it lacks the usual passionate spark that you find in most romances, you won't miss it with all the emotion that flows through in this book. Lydia and Dominik's story will make you cry, as will Faith's fight to find out who she really is. Pavel will make you laugh, for he is eccentric and doesn't understand why he should do anything that everyone thinks he should do. As a parent, the reader will sympathize with Faith's plight to teach her children that there is more to life than black and white.

Don't miss it!

Married for fifteen years to a man who directs a right-wing organization, Faith Bronson leads a charmed life. With the requisite beautiful children, a fourteen-year-old girl, Remy and an eleven-year-old boy, Alex, Faith has few complaints as wife, mother, and homemaker in their elegant northern Virginia home.

When she discovers her husband, David, at their West Virginia cottage with another man, her carefully built world crumbles around her. Forced to move to her mother's Georgetown home on Prospect Street, Faith begins renovations there as she researches the kidnapping of her baby sister from the house some thirty years prior. Eccentric neighbor Dottie Lee fills in the gaps of Faith's research as Faith begins a relationship with Pavel Quinn, dot-com guru and fellow Georgetown resident.

Ms. Richards deftly integrates all aspects of Faith's existence into one neat package. A new love interest, a troubled teen-age daughter, and disturbing facts about her older sister's kidnapping keep this novel brimming with tension. As the pieces to the puzzle of the thirty-year-old mystery begin to fall into place, Faith must come to terms with her husband's homosexuality and learn to trust again. Multifaceted, this is a read that will appeal to a reader searching for mystery, romance, and personal struggles all in one page-turning read.(thebestreviews.com)

Had to read this book for a college class. ... This is an awesome book. It's a military psychological thriller in which some POW US soldiers are brainwashed and sent home; all programmed to do damage to the government when they get there. Given that the men are war heroes, it isn't hard for them to get a foot in the door where they can really wreak havoc. The plot twists around in ways too creepy to be believed, yet too familiar to be completely discounted...heh heh heh. It's definitely readable as a thriller, but does good double duty as a quasi sci-fi conspiracy novel, not to mention the informed and responsible portrayal of US military intelligence. I wanted to call it Kurt Vonnegut meets Tom Clancy, but that's not doing it justice. Maybe it's out-of-print because it couldn't find a niche. Or maybe THEY don't want you to read it.

Why this book is out of print is a mystery. Track down a used copy or join a nearby library that has one. You won't be disappointed. Richard Condon delivers a masterpiece of political and psychological horror, inspired by the ridiculous heights of the Cold War and the scourge of McCarthyism. The book's tragic protagonist, Raymond Shaw, was a soldier in the Korean War. He was captured by the Chinese and hypnotized and made into a programmable assassin. But the most shocking aspects of the novel are not the brainwashing, but who truly sponsored it and whom Raymond is ultimately destined to assassinate. The intrigue and curve-ball plot of this book send the mind reeling, as poor Raymond is relentlessly manipulated by those who use him, while those who want to save him deal with insurmountable obstacles. For a book written in 1959 it is surprisingly harsh, with nasty political diatribes from Condon along with prostitution, hard drug use, incest, and also a level of sexism that seems over the top today. The most obvious example of that last issue is Raymond's incredibly loathsome mother, whose evil amply propels the story; but she is sometimes a little difficult to believe in her sheer evil megalomania. But other than that, for a political thriller that is impossible to put down, you can't do much better than this classic, and the finale is truly shocking and heartbreaking. This one is well worth tracking down.

For a person who does not like your Cold War spy novels I must admit that The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon is one of those rare books I consider to be simply brilliant. It is concise, very well-written, and has a story which is absolutely incredible (well okay, by today's standards it might be considered a bit over-the-top).

In The Manchurian Candidate we have a US platoon in Korea (during the war) captured by Chinese/Russian scientists who brainwash them. One sargeant in particular is targetted to be their assassin on demand after the war. This fellow happens to have a power-hungry mother (..to be kind; she is truly vile) and her bozo husband who is modelled after the commie-hating Senator McCarthy. From here the story gets more complex and interwoven, with a truly shocking and brilliant ending.

Bottom line: upon finishing this book you'll say "boy, that was GOOD". Compulsory reading.

(compared with the film adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate, the novel is superior ... as is often the case. However the film does capture the essence of the book albeit in a somewhat diluted fashion.)

"A Confederate General from Big Sur, Dreaming of Babylon, and The Hawkline Monster" is a collection of three separate novels by Richard Brautigan. The three books are bound together in one volume with separate pagination. Together they demonstrate Brautigan to be a witty, wacky, and altogether remarkable writer.

I actually found "Confederate General" to be the weakest of the three. This novel follows the misadventures of the impoverished narrator and his friend in California. It's a story, told with absurdist and satiric flourishes, of people on the fringes of society. I especially liked the narrator's unique approach to the biblical book of Ecclesiastes.

"Dreaming of Babylon" is a hilarious and delightful spoof of a hard-boiled detective novel. Brautigan's anti-hero, C. Card, is a poor, not-too-intelligent private eye working in San Francisco in 1942. Early in the book we learn that he is too poor to even afford bullets for his gun, and is hounded for rent by his landlady. His escape from this harried existence is an anachronistic fantasy life in ancient Babylon. This is a really fun book that effectively satirizes various popular entertainment genres. And despite being a lowlife, Card is a curiously appealing narrator.

The third novel, "The Hawkline Monster," is a remarkable blend of horror, science fiction, western, and absurdist comedy. Taking place mainly in Oregon in 1902, the book follows the adventure of two assassins who are hired to kill the monster of the title. The book is full of quirky characters and bizarre situations. Brautigan creates genuine suspense, and his prose at its best is vivid and crisply poetic.

Brautigan's work in this trio of novels reminds me at times of the writings of Charles Bukowski and Kurt Vonnegut. But despite certain similarities to these two, I believe that Brautigan is a unique voice, and his work is a wonderful addition to the tradition of American fiction.

There is a comic genius at work in each of these three novels. The theme of Confederate General at Big Sur must be that we all have been acting like we believe we are descendents of some confederate general, even if a private who was always off stealing chickens or some Yankee's boots would be a more accurate description of our past. Dreaming of Babylon might be the ultimate description, in a detective story, of the results of American intelligence when applied to the question of left and right (whichever one happened to be pointing straight up in the air went click instead of boom). The Hawkline Monster has a college professor working in ice caves until he was turned into an elephant foot umbrella stand. This must be about cold war intellectuals, and it might even be safe to say that, now that the cold war is over, but the intellectuals are still here. Trust me, I am not giving too much away about these books. There are so many jokes packed into these novels that offering a rubric for understanding how anyone could write this stuff and still feed chickens in Montana with his household garbage, the corn cobs of which seemed like skylab to him when one landed on a chicken's head, should not be read as an attempt to impose any limitation that would keep people who know how this stuff goes from thinking that my opinions about this stuff could easily seem as clueless as the thoughts of the detective in Dreaming of Babylon after a major league baseball pitcher practiced throwing fast balls at his head.

As a mystery author with my debut novel in its initial release, I want to clearly state my unabashed admiration for these three works. DREAMING OF BABYLON is the perfect send-up of the mystery genre (in which I write serious books). A CONFEDERATE GENERAL FROM BIG SUR captures the Sixties spirit as well as any other work of the time. THE HAWKLINE MONSTER is a fabulously fun read--whatever a gothic western happens to be. All these books are clever, playful, well-structured, and brilliantly done. My only regret is that Richard Brautigan himself cut his career tragically short nearly two decades ago. Take advantage of this collection to enjoy what we can still savor of the great writer's talent.

An entire book about beetles, houseflies, worms, moths, and leeches? With an entire chapter on slime eels--aka hagfish--which burrow into dead fish and consume them from the inside out? You bet. As the author points out, the above-named creatures are but a few of the species that belong to the group of animals known as invertebrates, which not only lack a backbone, but also, pound for pound, far outweigh any other form of life on earth. "There are only 4,500 or so mammal species on the planet. There are, however, between ten million and thirty million invertebrate species. They represent more than 99.5 percent of all animal species. A spaceship visiting the blue planet would take them, not us, as the typical earthlings."

And invertebrates are often far more interesting than us boring old mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Take a fire ant queen, for example, who reproduces so wholeheartedly that her human equivalent would be a 120-pound woman giving birth to 500,000 babies each year. Or how about the mysterious giant squid--at sixty feet long and with eyes the size of headlights, the largest invertebrate alive--who lives five hundred fathoms beneath the ocean waves. (Nobody has ever seen one in its natural habitat.)

So who's the audience? Any adult with a taste for the more slithery residents of earth--or any parents who want to wow their own offspring with bizarre true-life tales of the scaly and slimy. (Twelve-year-olds on up, or ten-year-olds with a deep curiosity for all things gross, should have no trouble with it, either.

If Steven King can become so popular writing books that totally freak people out by being gross, weird and scary, then Richard Conniff should be a household name by now. Of course, the big difference is that King makes up his super-natural characters! Conniff has discovered the freakiness of the "ultra-natural" world in Spineless Wonders. You don't have to be a true bug-lover or bug-hater to enjoy this book. From mosquitoes to fleas to giant squid, this book visits some of the incredible invertebrates on Earth. This easy and fun to read set of essays might leave you unsure if you still want to interact with the world around you, but will not fail to intrigue you, amaze you, and sometimes maybe gross you out. On the good side, you will have more knowledge, appreciation and respect for the lives of our neighbors, the invertebrates. BUGMAN loves this book!

Forget Jack Hannah and his media sound bites which teach you absolutely nothing about other species. This book is a must read for anyone who really wants to learn more about some of the most misunderstood and hated creatures on our planet. Easy to read, entertaining and educational, Richard Conniff spins tales guaranteed to shed new light on the invertebrate world and can be read and appreciated by young and old alike.

Recently I was fortunate enough to spend some time interviewing this talented author and was fascinated with his insight and true depth of feeling for the planet. It is a shame that the media suffers from tunnel vision when it comes to teaching the public about animals. Over and over we are presented with the same information about the same animals which limits our understanding of the importance of bio-diversity. Richard Conniff has worked for both the Discovery Channel and National Geographic and has travelled extensively, and with "Spineless Wonders" and his latest work "Every Creeping Thing" he has achieved what many strive for but very few accomplish.

Hats off to Mr. Conniff and if those talk shows had any sense they would book you immediately and discover what I already have, that you are an incredible resource for information about the relationships between humans and other species

I had a chronic clenched muscle on the left side of my mid back for about 7 years. Some days it would be no problem, some days the pain was almost totally debilitating--I couldn't sit still for more than 5 minutes, which was a huge problem since I spent most of my time on the computer or at a drawing table. I tried chiropractic, massage, rolfing, yoga. Nothing gave me long-term relief. Then I found this book through my rolfer. I was skeptical about the back exercises, because you work on the thighs, not the back at all. Well, after doing the back exercises twice, the pain was gone. Entirely. Doing them once every three months now is enough to keep me pain free.

The exercises on the arms are fantastic for relieving carpal stress. Both my girlfriend and I have had periods of intense computer activity where we can feel the tightness building dangerously. But running through the forearm, bicep and shoulder stretches offers *instantaneous* and sustained relief.

It seems too simple. But it works.

Half of this book explains Repetitive Motion Injuries (RMI), and the other half describes exercises to overcome RMI. I never read the half that explains RMI. I just read the half that describes the exercises. I had Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and was wearing a cast 24 hours a day. My doctor was ready to start injections and then maybe surgery. The exercises in this book completely cured my problem with no medical treatment needed. I then gave the book to my doctor.

As an office worker I suffer from the kind of back pain that comes from sitting in the same basic position for 8 hours a day - every day. I've got a great chair. I sit ergonomically correct. I just think God didn't design the human body to sit in front of a computer all day long!

The stretches presented in this book have been extremely effective at eliminating this pain.

I highly recommend this book to anyone that works at a computer and suffers from this type of repetitive stress pain.