This is an outstanding book for all those frustrated in their search for creative fulfillment.

In it, the author puts forward some very interesting hypotheses. For example, he argues that it is creative frustration that is basically the root of all that ails society. To someone who suffers from it primarily, I guess it can look that way, and may even in fact be that way.

I'm not certain everything in the book is correct or the best approach to looking at the problem. But I think people struggling with these issues should read it thoroughly and decide for themselves.

In some ways a more masculine approach that Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones or Cameron's The Artist's Way, Pressfield anthrpomorphises artist's block as "Resistance", an enemy to be fought and defeated daily. Seems exhausting, and it probably is.

I'm currently looking around for really effective solutions to this issue. Most advice comes down to "just do it" but this book provides an interesting framework to think about the problem.

I would very much enjoy living in a world where the problem of creative block was solved comprehensively.

This book provides tremendous insite and guidance into increasing your awareness and changing your perspective as a blocked writer. You'll be doing yourself a great favor by reading this book which uses practical, common sense ideas bypassing the huggy feely pandering that other books on this topic subscribe to.

I've recommended this book to every writer I know, plus bought copies for my closest friends. Be prepared to look yourself squarely in the eyes and kiss your excuses goodbye. It's a book you'll read more than once...and be better for it.

an excellent book with excellent reproductions. i enjoyed it.

After working this past summer in the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC and being there for the opening of the Thiebaud show, I can certainly say that I have become filled with a nostalgic longing and a love for both Thiebaud's art as well as the manner in which he comports himself as an artist and as a person. I could have received no better gift from my supervisor at the end of my summer employment than this beautiful and gentle book. Though certainly there is nothing like looking at the works of art themselves, this book was fully capable of stirring my memory...much the same way as Thiebaud's art itself had a few weeks prior. This book is a highly treasured part of my collection of art books...truly a high point of my books in general, and I would highly recommend it to those well versed in the works of this gentleman as well as those who have not yet had the pleasure of his honest and warm friendship. ~greg

I purchased this book right after walking through the Thiebaud retrospective at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. I usually don't like to buy books after I've seen the work firsthand as the color never compares with the paintings I had just seen. In this case, though, I was impressed with the reproduction color. As an artist I get to use this book to study how Thiebaud makes his works "sparkle" by painting one color next to another.

Author Steven Capsuto chronicles the history (1930-2000) of gay and lesbian characters on Network TV and in doing so mirrors the history and struggles of the gay community to be shown as real, full human beings. Even as a reader familar with much of the material mentioned here I even discovered new things that I didn't know. While heterosexual television character continue to romp all over the screen in wanton abandon, even the smallest, simpliest signs of affection between two characters of the same sex is treated with scorn. Has the gay community actually progressed? Given the choices of lonely Will on "Will & Grace," the constant in your face gay sex on "Queer as Folk" and the little screen time of the now lesbian romance and soon child for Dr. Weaver on "E.R." I'm not sure. Media (especially televison) and gay and lesbian studies scholars should take note, there is such a wealth of a history and knowledge here that it can't be ignored. A rich, acurate and very well written text.

The first striking thing about this book is the amazing amount of research that would have been necessary to have written it. Just how does a person master this much material, run down particular episodes of "Medical Center" from the early 1970s or "Hill Street Blues" from the 1980s, and dozens of more obscure programs? I don't know, but Steven Capsuto has managed to do it.

The result is a singularly fascinating book, and a worthy companion to Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet. And since television plays a more important role than movies in shaping public perceptions of gay people (and in helping young gay people to understand their places in the world), Capsuto's project is arguably even more important.

For gay readers over 40, this book is likely to produce some strong nostalgic feelings. Reading the author's accounts of such significant broadcasts as "That Certain Summer" (with Hal Holbrooke and Martin Sheen) or "A Question of Love" (with Gena Rowlands and Jane Alexander), one can't help but reflect on memories of a former self and how the world was then.

For younger readers, this book will fill an important gap in their cultural knowledge--what happened many years before Ellen and Will & Grace, "lesbian chic" and heightened gay visibility. It also tells the story of lesbian and gay media activism, of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and its forerunners. And Capsuto covers television and radio depictions of bisexual and transgendered people in his thorough account.

Perhaps most important, the book also helps to illuminate a continuing flaw in television depictions of gay life: for all the progress of the past decade, there continues to exist a kind of unwritten Hays Code that bars most expressions of affection or sexual desire between persons of the same sex from American network television.

Will & Grace continues to depict what may be the only attractive, witty, smart and successful gay man in Manhattan who has no sex life. In its own way, this show is as deficient today as was "The Andy Griffith Show" in depicting (during the height of the civil rights movement) the only town in North Carolina with no black people.

Television provides a crucial window through which we see our lives and our society. Capsuto's book helps us to remember how skewed that vision has often been, and to realize the important changes that are still needed. This is an important work of cultural and social history.

Witty, insightful, daring, complete, and as non-dry as you can get, this book goes where none have gone before, not only regaling us an authoritative on-screen compendium of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered images, but the "stories behind the stores" - lesbians invading NBC studios, gay activists interrupting Walter Cronkite on the air, from the tortured, pitiful images of the early "exposes" of "the gay lifestyle" to full, responsible news coverage of activism. Neatly divided into small chapters, it weaves the tale of the first whispers of the "love that dare not speak its name" through to the out and loud shouting of "Ellen" and "Will & Grace" (and the format, for better or for worse, makes for great bathroom reading). An absolute must-have for every queer library and TV fan.

Anyone who would like to put a few animals in the backyard for eggs or meat or milk or everything altogether, will save hundreds of headaches, and probably hundreds of dollars, by buying this book and taking Steven Thomas's suggestions seriously. There are now dozens of these kinds of books out there, and I own a number of them (including "Barnyard In Your Backyard" which is nowhere near as good as this) but none of them comes close to "Backyard Livestock" for practicality of advice, conciseness of expression, and comprehensiveness. I have sheep, chicken, etc., and this has been far more reliable than any competing manuals that I own or know of. You can't not get it! It's indispensable.

To get information easily and quickly, this book is concise and informative. We bought this book when we first started our little farm and 10 years later are still referring to it! An excellent buy.

This book was very beneficial in all aspects of raising small-farm animals. Great reference manual for beginners. I certainly listed this book in the resources directory of my new title, Farm Animals: Your Guide to Raising Livestock, because I felt it would be an awesome addition to my own farm related books!

I suggest this book for anyone who has a love for the game of golf. It puts simple movements of martial arts into your swing and gives your great results! It's the best.

If you will spend 15-20 minutes a day doing the drills, eastern and western, you will really improve. The 123 drill was particularly helpful in reducing my last round by 8 strokes. His drills work they really do!

I got the opportunity to work for Ted Kiegiel at Carolina Country Club while I was in school at NC State University. I got to see him play golf and give lessons. You can really see his results in the game of the junior golfers. I have never seen so many junior golfers shooting so close to par. Everything he teaches is easily understood and easily reproduced in your golf game. Although, I never had the opportunity to get a lesson from Ted himself, I did have the opportunity to get one from one of the assistants. His teaching was similar to Ted's because all of the assistants listen to what Ted says and puts it into their own lessons. Ted Kiegiel has discovered a way to help the average golfer master the game and improve his score tremendously. If you read the book and do what it says, you will be playing balanced golf in no time.

This new reprint edition keeps in print all the great information found in the previous edition "Wet-Scrape Braintanned Buckskin", but adds some new minor revision, some new illustrations, and a new more attractive title and cover. We hope you will like it, we do!

This book is not really "out of print", but has been reissued under a different title and ISBN #. The new title is "Buckskin: The Ancient Art of Braintanning" ISBN# 0-9654965-5-4 and is available on Amazon.com. This new reprint edition features a more attractive title & cover and some minor revisions, but is essentially still the same great book. Thanks for your interest.

There is a lot of information contained within these pages...written by two excellent brain tanners and experienced teachers. It is the kind of book that you can go back to time and time again and find new and valuable information that you missed the first time. I do think its a little hard for the beginner to find the simple and straightforward how-to do it information in, but it is there, and it will teach you what you need to know, and then some.

"Wetscrape Braintanned Buckskin" has a particularly good bibliography, section on tool sharpening, troubleshooting, museum quality illustrations, good humor and a whole lot of excellent information. I've been brain tanning for a living for 11 years, teach it regularly and have written a book on it myself, and all I can say is that if you are considering getting this book, just do it!

I was given this book my a friend and found it to be totally fascinating. It is filled with interesting and useful quotes and stories (much of which I have never had time to read, or have forgotten about). It is all here in compact form! I have shared this book with my son and best friend and also have used the quotes whenever I want to put something in words that are profound and meaningful. GREAT READING I KEEP IT MY BRIEFCASE!

We all have a list miles long of books we'd like to read. But who has the time? That's where Compact Classics comes in. In two pages you'll get enough info to speak intelligently about any number of the greatest pieces of literature ever. Read this book and come off erudite, not just a trivia buff.

Are you short on time but love to keep up on your reading? This is the book that gets to the bottom line. Everything you ever wanted to know about classic literature, famous quotes, trivia and leaders of our time is neatly packaged in a concise format in this book. Every professional bookcase should have one.

DSP can be a daunting subject at the best of times. To make matters worse, most standard texts such as the definitive "Discrete-Time Signal Processing" by Oppenheim et al, lean heavily on the mathematical theory behind Fourier analysis, filter design, etc., which can leave most readers dazed and confused. Precious little insight is to be gained from studying page after page of equations which stare blankly back at you.

This is where Smith's practical guide steps in. With economical use of mathematics, this book provides clear and concise explanation of all the essential elements of DSP, providing the overall picture so sadly lacking in more technical texts.

There are only a few texts that match up to Smith's guide, the next best being "Understanding Digital Signal Processing" by Lyons. While much of the same material is covered and with the same sensitivity to maintaining your sanity, the real selling point that separates these two is the CDROM that accompanies Smith's book. On it you'll find all the code that is littered throughout the book, as well as the book itself! Simply put, this book is the one all others have to aspire to.

This is a great book. You wouldn't expect to be able to read a DSP text from cover to cover like a novel, but this one makes it enjoyable. The information is presented with basic math, allowing the reader to concentrate on the concepts and the mechanics at a manageable level (no painful derivation type discussions). I highly recommend this text to those that want to get a working knowledge of DSP without having to have a pencil, paper, calculator, etc. to follow through the text.

This book gives you all the neccessary tools to understand the fundamental principles that drive DSP. One example would be the chapter on the Laplace Transform. He takes a topic that most other DSP books give a cursory glance, treats it with great care, trying to let you grasp the fundamentals of Laplace transform so that you would'nt have trouble in understanding the significance of poles and zeros.

And Steve gives you many ways to look at a DSP topic :

- Through carefully selected figures that mesh well with the topic - Through less maths -Third and the most important, simple to understand programs written in Basic to enable you to visualize the algorithm though programs.

His style is steeped with practical wisdom and with painstaking attention to details. It is no wonder that this would be one of the most important books for the beginner in DSP that would equally rank with that of Richard Lyons.

Where ever the Steve uses maths, you almost always expect him to explain its physical interpretation and its practical significance.

I loved his convolution Machine analogy. I hope you will find many more gems in this wonderful book on DSP.

Put yourself in the shoes of the victims of slavery. Allow yourself to really, really feel what it would be like to have every aspect of your culture, values, language stripped from you. Imagine having to sit by while someone rapes your wife, mother, 11 year old daughter. Imagine having to eat an animal which you have been taught is poison. Imagine not having freedom to marry and having to watch your baby being driven away in a wagon, never being seen again, because one man has taken it upon himself the right to sell another. Sit there, close your eyes and then you will be brought into a deeper understanding of the people of the Amistad.

Just like his film on it, Steven Spielberg's work on this book, "Amistad: 'Give Us Free'", was well-executed. It reminds one of Alex Haley's "Roots". Both stir emotions. Every bit of the story shows how cruel a man can be to his fellow man. And, I disagree with all those who term this true story "a story of illegally enslaved Africans", (Mr Spielberg didn't). We are shying away from the truth, which is that no African, (not even one), was a legal slave. There is nothing that made one slave legal, and the other illegal. There is no legality in slavery. Absolutely! That treacherous and heartless people overpowered, kidnapped, and transported, (in the most inhumane manner), their fellow human beings to America and other places does not, in any way, make those victims of inhumanity "legal slaves". Regardless of all the face-saving tales that those who defiled our lands with the innocent blood, tears, and sweat of millions of Africans will like us to believe, the truth is that not even a single African volunteered to become a slave in any circumstance. They were all forced into it: with no option but death. Those who ripped and enjoyed the bloodied fruits of slavery merely sought cheap excuses in order to justify what they did. But we know that there is nothing legal in kidnapping and subjecting human beings to such a horrible condition.
'La Amistad' tells a soul-eroding story. Cinque and his cohorts are true heroes. They are heroes of freedom, heroes of justice, and heroes of human rights. Songs have been composed about them. Books have been written about them. Films have been made about them. And, history will forever appreciate their gallantry.

The intercut of the church & prison was strange yet wonderful. The abolitionists gave Yomba an illustrated Bible and he gave his heart to Jesus[alternate version]. Cinque was the man who subsequently gave his life for his clan...Yomba was the informer who died beside Cinque in remorse. Cinque did what he did because he had to.

I didn't know what to to expect. What I got was something at once exhilirating (the written part) and disturbingly beautiful (the paintings and photos). You can't look at these pictures and not cringe at some while at the same time appreciating the painstaking (pardon the expression), and obviously loving work that went into them. The manifesto is a good read for anyone interested in Lavey's Satanism as well as revealing the artists' stance against and rejection of the consumer culture. An Apache, Satanist, and a radical artist rolled into one, the Reverand is certainly not for the squeamish.

This is a man who started creating his books with (...) raw, unapologetic rage, and a whole (...) load of creative genius. I personally have met with the author of this book, Rev. Steven Johnson Leyba and have attended his exhibitions. In no way can one easily sum up the power behind this man's words and ideas. Unspeakable? Maybe. Bold and intense? Definitely. Satanic? You bet (...).
This is a definite must read for any cynical, misanthropic, and/or Satanic individual.

As a foot note: I believed in, and was moved so much by, this man's writings that I collaborated with Rev. Steven Johnson Leyba to produce background music for his passage "I Don't Believe", contained on page 37 of this book (...)

Rev. Steven Johnson Leyba, an ordained Priest of the Church of Satan, now offers his highly evocative and caustic work to the masses. Included are artwork and writing truly exemplar of the Satanic philosophy -- that is, Satanism in action. Not just talk, but true action! Herein, you'll find work spanning five of his most prominent main books, plus rants and diatribes representing his disdain for mass-think, his ponderances on the history of his Native American culture, as well as his fetishes, reviewer comments on his work, interviews, photos, and more. This is the definitive work on Leyba ...