You can love this book for any one of three reasons:

1. You enjoy dogs (especially weimaraners) and enjoy seeing them unusually well posed to look like attractive humans.

2. The connection between haute couture model and the fashion fascinates you, and you are open to seeing how line, tilt of head, and connected ratios form pleasing images.

3. You love photography and want to better understand how much of the "art" is in the scene itself, versus how much comes from the photographer.

Naturally, if you like all three elements, you have a much more than five star book in your hands.

You have to see these photographs to believe how good they are, unless you already happen to know Mr. Wegman's work. Take a look at the cover to get a hint.

Basically, Mr. Wegman takes his weimaraners (Chundo, Batina, Crooky, and Chip) and treats them like human fashion models. He dresses them in stylish hats, wigs, dresses, suits, shoes, mannequin parts, and other accessories to create "human" poses. Think of this as being a little bit like what Cindy Sherman does in posing as a well-known actress in her own photographs of famous movie scenes.

The approach is mostly done in a slightly campish way, emphasizing bright and bold background colors which contrast and make a context for different bright accessory and fashion colors. The natural color of the weimaraneers is the "coolest" part of the visual image.

What was brilliant to me was "seeing" what draws my eye in a photographic composition. Normally, I think I'm looking at a model, but based on my reactions to these photographs I'm really drawn much more to a curve, a line, a tilt of the head, or an incline of the body in the model. Seeing the weimaraners anthromorphized in this way allowed me to understand the appeal of the photographs at a much more fundamental level. I thought that Mr. Wegman's works with hats and fur coats were especially successful from this perspective.

The brief essays in the book are also valuable for describing how similar it is to work with either human models or the weimaraners. That relieves a certain tension in your mind as you imagine this work being unpleasant to the dogs. But, reportedly they love it and get nice breaks during the day.

Here are my favorite images in the book:

Three hat photographs: Migratory, Calla Lily, and Ben Day -- all from 1999

Two fur coats: Polar Extreme and Blue Powder -- both from 1994

Evolution of a Bottle (Series of 5) from 1999

Bikini 1999

Glamour Puss 1999

Opening 1999

Melissa 1994

To extend your learning after you finish enjoying this book, I suggest that you try something similar with scarves, hats, and wigs with say chunks of wood, large crystals, or flowers. Whether you photograph the scenes or not, you will learn a lot in composing what is appealing to you.

See beauty and classic style all around you . . . always!

William Wegman, famous for incorporating clothed dogs in his photos, here presents a fashion statement to accompany a major traveling exhibition: anthromorphic fashion photos modeling some of the best designers' creations - with canines. The result blends comedy with fashion insights.

This book presents Wegman's most intriguing and provocative portfolio to date -- a series of eerily antrhopomorphic (and very funny), high-fashion photographs.

I read this book when I was pregnant with my second child way back in 1970. After having a medicated birth I knew their had to be a better way. With the help of books like this one, plus Grantly-Dick-Read's Natural Childbirth. I had a wonderful birth experience with my second and third child. After eons of being taught that we must suffer as part of the curse its great to learn and realize that it is labor; hard work. Very helpful book and a great inspiration. God is awesome. Men may think they've got it made by not having to have babies but to me it was an truly awesome, spiritual experience that I wouldn't trade for a million $$.

How should Christians view childbirth? Is "natural childbirth" some fad started by hippies and humanists? Should Christians use midwives? These were questions that were being batted around by a group of us fairly new mothers back when I was pregnant with my second baby. I wish I'd had this book then. It presents a Biblical view of childbirth...a view that tells us that childbirth can indeed be joyful. Is this pie-in-the-sky stuff only for "earth mothers" or women who delight in "toughing it out" or being martyr-like during labor? Not at all! I have had the sort of joyful birth that this book describes and teaches. If you want to be inspired and taught on a practical level about childbirth and its significance for Christian families, this is a must read.

If so, read this book! The late Helen Wessel studied the Scriptures in their original language, and discovered the truth about Eve's "curse". The first half of the book is written as a story, about a young Christian couple expecting their first baby. There is alot of information to be picked up in the story, and even more follows in the second half of the book.

Part 2 has such chapter titles as "Childbirth Through the Centuries," "Childbirth in the Bible," "The Medical Model," "Family Sheltered Birthing," "Birthing God's Way," "The Joy of Natural Childbirth," and "The Joy of Breastfeeding." One of these chapters alone makes the book worth buying. All of them put together makes it a must-read, even if you are not planning an unmedicated birth.

I Love this book. I am going on a fairly long road trip and this is one of the books going with me. This book has haunted me with its Loving touches and Ingrid's words are so gentle to the eyes that wish to see. Touch yoursElf. Touch others. Touch this book, and enjoy easy healings in oh so many sacredly easy ways. Thank you, Ingrid ... you share so easily how we are miracles in our bodies.

I read this book in one sitting! It is a very spiritual book and feels like you are reading a beautiful poem. Makes you want to reach out and touch everyone and heal them too. What a beautiful and wondrous gift Ingrid has. Especially interesting were her stories of when she worked with the children.

In The Secret Of Healing By Touch, Ingrid Middleton reveals healing massage elevated to a fine art. She goes into each of her massage session certain that the person she touches will be ultimately transformed by the power that flows through her fingers and the vision that allows her to take on the blocks to healing within her clients, and within herself. Middleton shows how the keys to successful therapeutic massage are connection, love, visualization, and empowerment. Very highly recommended reading for students of metaphysics, alternative medicine, massage, and mind/body spirituality, The Secret Of Healing By Touch is further enhanced for the reader with a simple list of twenty steps to a healing-by-touch session.

When I heard of a woman who had pancreatic cancer and who had been sent home to die, but had managed to save herself with these salves (self-administered under the guidance of a Naturopath), I was incredulous. I was told she actually had the growths in jars and was always happy to share her story with others who might benefit.

I made a point of meeting the woman and found her the picture of health, running a vibrant business, working harder than any of the men under her employ. She showed me the jars containing some evil-looking growths. She showed me an unusual scar where the cancer had exited her side. She told me how much it had hurt and how hard it was to kick the morphine they had her on in the hospital. And she told me of other "terminals" who had survived.

I got to know this woman well and I trust her implicitly. When I got the book "Cancer Salves" and showed it to her, she was ecstatic. Somebody had finally gotten it in print! How brave!

The value of the internet is that you have access to information that would otherwise be banned. With the bad (pornography, etc.) comes the good - voices long silenced by the heavy hand of institutional authority - facts about effective cancer cures that have saved many lives. Search the web for the life history of Royal Raymond Rife. Get the video "Hoxsey - The Quack(?) Who Cured Cancer" (Also renamed "Hoxsey - How Healing Becomes A Crime").

Make up your own mind, however incredible it all may sound at first. And get this book while you still can! Many less-threatening items have been banned by the AMA/FDA. If one out of every four people in America will get cancer, this may save you or someone you love. Knowledge is power.

Dr. Naiman writes an amazing and giving book detailing the use, the formulas, and protocols for working with herbs to remove tumors. The reasearch on the book is scholarly and exhaustive; the prose style light and angelic. I read it in manuscript form and was so amazed by the book's generosity - the author even provides recipes for creating the salves - and its clairity that I bought a copy for my Naturopathic Doctor. He is equally impressed.

As a cancer patient I heard hints and whispers about the amazing salves, like blood root and the black and yellow salves, but could find no one truly versed in the art of making or using the salves. All of the practitioners I consulted knew of the existance of the salves but knew nothing of how to obtain them or the proper way to apply them. With this book, Dr. Naiman gives anyone who believes in alternative cancer treatments a virtual howitzer to use in the battle against this killer disease.

I paid nearly double the low Amazon.com price for each of the books I bought and believe that I got an incredible bargain. If you have cancer, if you love anyone who has this dread disease, or if you treat cancer patients, you need this book. The herbs are a gift from the earth. The use of them is our legacy from generations of countless healers from decades and centuries past. Certainly we owe Dr. Naiman a debt of gratitude for putting it all in our hands via her very readable and accessible book.

It is nearly impossible to overpraise Ingrid Rowland's book. Strikingly original, _The Culture of the High Renaissance_ is a dazzling display of scholarship and one of the finest examples of historical writing in recent memory. There is exceptional erudition here--her work is a feast of information, rare insight, and compelling interpretation--and it is presented by Rowland from beginning to end with enthusiasm and considerable grace. Refreshingly, she always gives the sense of inviting the reader along to share in the discovery of a world she knows so well, and so clearly loves. The writing itself is something extraordinary. Here the fascinating world of sixteenth century Rome is presented with passion, affection, and humor--a more than welcome antidote to the bloodless prose of much current academic writing. This should come as no surprise to readers familiar with Rowland's pieces in _The New York Review of Books_ (her current article, "Titian: The Sacred and Profane" is characteristically dazzling and not to be missed). It is easy to see why Rowland was recently recognized for her outstanding teaching at the University of Chicago. Lucky students...lucky readers. Prof. George Lechner, Italian Renaissance (Honors), University of Hartford

From a review by Anthony Grafton in The New York Review of Books, March 4, 1999 (Vol. XLVI, No. 4), pp. 34-38. "Like Burckhardt, Ingrid Rowland sees the Renaissance as the birth of a new culture and society. Like Burckhardt, too, she brings this lost world back to three-dimensional life and vivid color, for, like him, she too is a splendid writer whose words evoke unforgettable images of Renaissance society. Rowland deftly describes the young artists and warriors we know from Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography, every ready to fight or fornicate. . . . More remarkably, Rowland does as much for the city's old scholars." "Though Rowland peoples her story with memorable characters, she also re-creates the institutions in which they had to make their way." "Especially effective-and particularly fascinating-are Rowland's recreations of particular Roman circles and their ways of making scholarship into art." "Rowland's remarkable enterprise in cultural history synthesizes earlier scholarship of many kinds: that of urban historian like David Coffin, Christopher Frömmel, and Charles Burroughs; of intellectual historians like John D'Amico and Charles Stinger; of historians of the classical revival in art and architecture like Otto Kurz, Elisabeth MacDougall, and Phyllis Pray Bober; of passionate delvers into Vatican manuscripts like Vittorio Fanelli and Massimo Miglio. But this book really rests more on primary than on secondary sources. . . . Her view of Roman intellectual life, her sense of personal interactions and intellectual collisions, derive directly form the cornucopia of documents she has discovered, evaluated, and edited." "Painters and writers, life as art, style as mediations, banquet years: Ingrid Rowland, like a contemporary Burckhardt, brings a lost world to life. She has given us a genuinely metropolitan High Renaissance, not only passionate and learned, but also sexy, urbane, and fascinating."

Not to sound biased or anything, but the author of this book is my first cousin. I am very proud of her accomplishments and the book. My four year old daughter loves the book. It has become one of her favorite bed time stories. There isn't a day that goes by when she doesn't have the book in her hand looking at the pictures.

I am very prooud to say that the author and illustrator of this book is a relative of mine. Keep up the OUTSTANDING work.

This book is wonderful. I enjoyed reading it to my 3 year old. He loves the book and even tries to read the book back to me. He wants me to read it to him everyday. The illustration is excellent. I look forward to new adventures with Ambrosia and the rest of the Gang!

I am sending this book out to all my young nieces, nephews and cousins. So they too, can dream with Ambrosia. Go Ingrid. You are truly a blessing to children of all ages.

I can't recommend this book highly enough... any loving parent wanting to increase the communication between themselves and their child should buy this book. But be warned, you'll end up lending it out to all of your friends, so maybe you should buy two! :-)

Ingrid's own experiences helped encourage me to try this with our own son, with astounding success... our son is out of diapers, but more importantly we are continually communicating about his needs and providing response to his inborn instinct not to soil himself. This is a great gift for an expectant mom, as Natural Infant Hygiene is best approached with an infant, although older babies and their parents can adapt the principles. A treasured book on my parenting shelf.

I read this book in just a day. I couldn't put it down once I started it. The author seems to speak from all mothers' center spot, where our intuition lies but might be covered up by confusing messages from the outside. Reading this book helped me get in touch with that part of myself. While Diaper Free! is about a natural, clean, instinctive way to help your child go potty, it is also about a straight path to building a strong bond of communcation and intuition between you and your infant. This book opened up a whole new world for me.

I'm not a brave jumper and this book has really encouraged me to incorporate more ground poles and cavalletti into my regular training regime.

My main interest is dressage but my enthusiasm for trying more pole and jumping work has been set alight by this book. They cover everything from the most basic information like boots for your horse, distances for different gaits and even how to adjust side reins correctly, right through to patterns and techniques to keep things interesting.

The language used is simple, conversational and incredibly useful. Each topic - lunging, straight work over poles, gymnastic jumping etc - is addressed in detail with troubleshooting solutions provided for common problems. There are sample work schedules and cavalletti patterns for most objectives. This is a true working book that will be valuable to all levels of rider.

This book helped me immensely with training my 3 year-old standardbred and 4 year-old thoroughbred. I would recommend this book to anyone who is training their horse(s) on their own. It gives great detail in instruction and the lessons explained really do work on young and older horses.

I found this book to be both informative and easy to read. For any rider who does not have the option of a regular trainer, this is an excellent resource for both horse and rider. The use of Cavaletti is becoming increasingly popular for both English and Western riders. The included training plans are well thought out and extreamly useful. The beautiful full color photos enhance the well written text. I highly reccomend this book to young riders and experienced trainers alike.

This book isn't about everything bad that Ingrid did, even though that's the impression the title gives. This is a well and thoroughly researched and very readable biography. Donald Spoto speaks about Ingrid with respect, and although he mentions her weaknesses and failings, I don't feel he's doing it to spread dirt around. If it happened it happened, but he doesn't spend half the book talking about it.

Except where it concerns Rossellini, and that is perfectly understandable, because everyone who knows about Ingrid knows that was a real and terrible time in her life. I think it's sad that she went through all that and the marriage ended up falling apart anyway.

Anyway, basically he speaks of her work. She went crazy without it, and really as I think about it her life was work. That's what I remember froming reading this.

It is a very good book, and like everything I have read by Spoto, is well-written and highly interesting. I recommend it very much.

Is this a creative review or what? I seem to be suffering some sort of blank as far as reviews are concerned this morning.

I was a young adult when Ingrid died and I was not aware of her fame and reputation as a film star. I saw her occasionally in old movies and was fascinated by her glowing beauty and talent. I was appalled by her appearance in her role as Golda Meir; she had changed so much, but now I know why. Spoto's biography about Ingrid revealed her intimately -- from her childhood to her death, throughout her marriages and affairs, the successes of her career, and relationships with friends and family. I didn't know that she had been banned from America for her "sins", and I didn't know she had other children besides Isabella Rosselini. In spite of her foibles, Ingrid still seems like a great woman, thanks to the passionate -- and compassionate -- telling of her life story by Spoto. The audio version of the book was completely compelling to listen to, enhanced by the reader, C.M. Herbert, whose voice had a quality similar to Ingrid's, and therefore made Ingrid come even more to life.

Spellbound, Notorious, Anastasia & many other films come to mind when one thinks of Bergman.

This is a detail packed book covering her personal & professional life.

If you want to learn about her relationships, romantic & professional, how she developed & utilized her talent as an actress, & why people the world over admired, loved her & for a brief time despised her, then this is the book for you.

A wonderful collection of photographs is included, as well as an excellent Bibliography & collection of notes.

This is the story of an actress whose performances on screen & her life off the screen changed peoples ideas of what it was to be a woman, & is a must read for Movie fans.

Very well thought out, however you really have to pay attention to keep track of everything that is going on. I'm the kinda guy that reads for awhile and sets the book down, it was hard for me to remember what was going on.

Not just for fans of miltary sci-fi, these adventures of Jack Storm, the last Dominion Knight, are enjoyable stories of adventure and a quest for justice. I applaud Daw Books for releasing these novels in this 3-in-1 paperback format that is a true bargain in these days of corporate greed. And it is a pleasure to be able to re-read these tales in order, as the individual books have been out of print for some time.

The universe created here by Charles Ingrid may not be filled with many new or novel scientific angles, but the very familiar feel of "The Dominion" and even of their foe "The Thraks," has a very comfortable feel. It is like picking up a well thumbed old Robert Heinlein novel, where the characters and their plots are different, but all else feels very familiar.

I remember reading this the first book many years ago, and now its finally back! I must admit thats its even better the second time around. I rank The Sand Wars up with my other favorite series. Hats off to Charles Ingrid fro creating this masterful series.