The day Cityscapes arrived brought me back to the city of my childhood and of my family and closest friends. Page after page of wonderful photographs, of history remembered and learned yet again. So many places visited with my elementary school field trips and then revisited years later on my brief stays in New York. Cityscapes offers a visual feast as well as an intellectual journey to places and people seen years ago, but only now understood in historical context.

A month or so after I fell into Cityscapes, I was delighted to host a young couple from New York. They saw the book on my coffee table and picked it up. Hours later, the two of them were still pouring over the book, learning new and fascinating slices of urban life in their recently adopted city.

Just as New York offers something for everyone, Cityscapes brings light to the eyes of anyone who opens its cover and enters its world.

There is no place like New York, and there is no book about New York like this one. As revealing as the superb choice of photos, sketches and maps are, so is the narrative story linked with the visual: colonial seaport blossoming into a republican town, fragmented city becoming the immigrant metropolis, and finally the cosmopolitan community and global village we celebrate today. The authors have opened for us vista after vista and close-up after close-up of the poignancy and power of this magnificently restless, creative and changing Empire City.

The destruction of the World Trade Center has altered the New York City skyline forever and has forced people to confront a new image of New York. The next generation of New York observers will only know the Towers from their images - several magnificant ones appear in this book's final chapter.

Cityscapes is more than just a history of New York City and it is more than simply a book of beaufitul pictures. It is a unique social history that explores the timely question of how New York, the City, has been both constructed and reflected in images captured over four hundred years.

So far, this is my favorite book of New York City history.

The shaman predicted that Howard Rock would become a great man. He was born in 1911 in a sod igloo in Point Hope, an ancient Eskimo village in northwest Alaska where the people had hunted whales and lived off the land for centuries. Instead of becoming a hunter, Howard became an accomplished artist and crusading newspaper editor. He helped defend his people from a controversial Atomic Energy Commission proposal to excavate a harbor near the village with an above-ground atomic blast. Then Rock founded the Tundra Times and helped Alaska's Native people press their aboriginal land claims before Congress, ultimately winning a settlement. Deeply moving.

it probably went out of print because of the stupid title!

Packed with over 150+ b&w and color photos in it's 96 pages, this informative and visually stunning book follows each member of Led Zeppelin from their musical influences on through to their historic first rehearsal, and on to the tragic death of the late great John Bonham in 1980. The text of the book follows the band from their earliest gigs (with RARE photos of those gigs, of which about 85% are exclusive to this book) and is a fascinating account of Led Zeppelin live in concert. I've been collecting Led Zeppelin books/rare magazines for years and I have to say this one of if not THE best books I own on Led Zeppelin. A must for any Zep fan!

As I read this book, I, without acknowledgment, became a prisoner. Lost in worlds, too many times dismissed; of tragedy, in hopelessness and exasperation struggling for my central stability. Longing for an insight which only comes from confinement. To believe a government's (ours) coup could insistantly(to this day) project such a non-chalant attitude towards out-right dehumanizing treatment, is absurd, and can only come from... well.. our government. No, I am not an adversary of American government just a skeptic of it's "Agenda." (Just like our population) We are people and so are convicts. What is incarceration other than devices?

Howard examines the ingenious but failed escape designed by Bernie Coy to break out of the fortress known as Alcatraz. Howard's research examines the mind of a man determined to gain his life back and accomplish the impossible in escaping from the harshest prison in US history

Great book!A combination of facts and novelization. Very good insight into the minds of the escapee's and the prison gaurds that went through the ordeal.I visited Alcatraz shortly after its opening as a tourist attraction and this book brought back all of the memories I have of that experience. The details of the prison and its environment are greatly put into words. Read this book and you will plan a vacation trip to "THE ROCK"In my opinion this attempt to crashout of Alcatraz far outweighs in drama the attempt depicted in the movie by Clint Eastwood, "Escape from Alcatraz".Read the book, you'll love it !

"Rock of Ages" is the best superhero comic book story ever written. Part 5 was so good, I needed a cigarette.

Grant Morrison's talent on the JLA is that he handles all of the characters better than anyone else. His Superman is very Superman. His Batman is extremely clever and competant. The Martian Manhunter is patient and wise, Wonder Woman is strong, and Green Lantern is a bit clueless but very capable. This is pure fun the way superhero comics are meant to be.

This book is truely the best ever, as I said in my last review. I recently re-read this book, and I was blown away by it's amazing story line, brilliant characters, and superb illustration. I don't think that words can do this excellent book credit. If you only buy one thing ever, buy toilette paper, if you buy two things buy JLA ROCK OF AGES!

Rock of Ages is, in my opinion, the best part of Morrison's highly entertaining run on the JLA. The story is brimming with cool ideas and un-restrained day-glow heroics, and the whole thing has a rediculously FUN feel to it.

It's not as good as Morrison's mind-blowingly surreal work on Doom Patrol, The Invisibles and Flex Mentallo, but few things (in any medium) are.

A thouroughly enjoyable slice of superhero madness that captures the sheer buzzing energy of the best silver-age comics without ever feeling retro, this is a must for fans of OTT superhero action!

i bought this book a few years ago to compare the
recorded amounts of unauthorized material
and knowing if i had ever kept up with
the out put, from the time i was a teenager.

the book was historical, informative and shows
what exactly what the fans, collectors want.

it's a must have book for a serious collector

I have had this book for many years, and as of the publication date it was the most complete source available for the illegal recordings of Elvis Presley. Cotten and Dewitt must have heard every single Elvis bootleg record ever issued, and the authors provide information of when the recordings were made, the packaging, and highlights of each record. The book is a consumer guide of sorts directing collectors to the best bootlegs available.

Of course, the main problem with this book is that it is close to twenty years old. I would like to see an updated book, which would include CD issues.

Apostles of rock is an interesting look at the world of Contemporary Christian Music. It is part history, part study of the tension between christ and culture. The authors try to show how Christian muscians attempt to reach a wide audience and still remain true to their Christian ideals. The book is well researched and enjoyable to read. I would recommmend this to students of modern chrisitan culture and artists trying to balance their faith and the world of entertainment

A Darker Shade of Pale is a very good book for anyone who likes Bob Dylan or is interested in early influences on modern music. The book deals with many aspects, especially influences on Dylan. It tells about people such as Blind Lemon Johnson, who were essential to Dylan's music. It also gives a sort of history of Dylan's life, from his humble beginnings near Hibbing, Minnesota up to his stardom at the time of the books publishing. The only potential problem with the book is that it isn't the easiest read. Many younger readers will be certain to have problems with the books content, and may even stop reading it. Older readers, especially Dylan fans, will probably enjoy the book much more. On a positive note, unlike most books about music stars, this book lacks the fluff. It tells the story how it was, no holds barred.

You may find the prose a little bit too much like a Bible story, and the black and white moral clarity a little out of kilter with our present-day tendency to equivalency and pandering. But this book hits the mark in its ability to depict a great man triumphing after going through some really tough times. George Washinginton is the man, and the time is the summer and fall of 1776 - not a good stretch for the Revolution. Mr. Fast gives us an inside look at what Washington might have been thinking as he literally drags his army in retreat from one disaster after another, from Brooklyn Heights, to Manhattan, to New Jersey - with the British army and Hessian mercenaries breathing down his neck, soldiers deserting on a grand scale, fellow generals looking for ways to stab him in the back, and all the while not getting much support from the Continental Congress. The truthfulness of the portrait is striking, we see Washington is not necessarily the demi-God we have grown up to believe in, but a simple man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, grasping for a way out, as he watches his army disintegrating like "grains of sand falling through his hands." Fast also gives us facinating insights into characters, such as Nathan Hale, Gen. Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton, and others. Mr. Fast wrote this historical novel in the early dark days of WWII to rally his countryman by illustrating that tough times weren't new to America. If you think you're having a bad day, or that you live in tough times, or that America is in a jam it can't get out of, this book is a jolt and a tonic. Washington retreated, but believed he would ultimately win. As the British, Japanese, and Germans learned - don't ever count us out.