A book where architecure doesn't follow a school of thought. Rather the liberty of artistic expression. The kind of work that must be seen before starting an architectural magazine.

a long waited and very well conceived series of reflections on architecture.
A must to have in every creative library.

There are a great number of Ted Williams books available, ranging from those that are primarily illustrations to those that are only text. This fine book, which was a NY Times Notable Book of the Year when it was first published, is now back in print and offers the best of both worlds. I think it also provides the best portrait of Williams ever put together, stripped of the sentimentality of most other books, and full of information not revealed elsewhere, such as the when the shift was really first used against Ted and what really happened in the 1947 MVP vote. The essays add to this portrait, and the photographs, while all in black and white, are absolutely classic. Stout and Johnson also wrote the extraordinary Red Sox Century - if you already have that you must get this.

For many Ted Williams remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma. This well written and nicely crafted book does much to untangle the mystery, intrigue, and controversy that seems to orbit Ted Williams to this day.

Williams, like Ruth, was both wonderfully flawed and wonderfully talented. This book reveals both with honesty and candor.

It has been said that in learning about others we find ourselves. I found this to be the case here. For example, which is not specifically a book about and for adult children of alcoholics Ted Williams definitely was one (in his case, the son of a religious addict). If you find yourself on the recovery path you will find much to glean from here! I found myself in this book time and time again. Perhaps you will too. Now if only I could HIT like Williams...

And on top of everything else it's a Baseball book with photos and stats galore! What more could you ask for?

I adored this book and believe that you will too!

Richard Matheson (author), William Stout (illustrator) and Gauntlet Press (publisher) have created a thoroughly entertaining and clever book about Abu, a woodcutter, who in order to marry the beautiful Princess Alicia, must find the seven marvels and return a token from each to Alicia's father, the Sultan Kasim El-Haroud. Abu's quest is aided(?) by a crotchety genie and hindered by the Grand Visier Zardak and his associates. A spendid offering from Richard Matheson with beautiful color and black and white illustrations by renowned artist William Stout, that the whole family will enjoy. This one is sure to be a classic!!

This book takes on a very difficult subject, African fetish statues, and with the help of wonderful photo plates, and a discussion of African American artist Renee Stout's contemporary interpretations of the subject, the work explains brilliantly the meaning of some of the most extraordinary works of art produced by humankind. Have you ever wondered why pins are stuck in voodoo dolls? Read this book and enrich your understanding.

When I was a young teenager who was really into dinosaurs, I discovered this very curious and mysterious book all about dinosaurs in a local library near my home. It was oh, so lavishly illustrated by the reowned fantasy artist, William Stout and this means it is simply NOT still another scientific book on prehistoric life. Instead, it is a very intimate insight into the lives of each of your most favorite dinosaur which reads just like a very gothic novel-style tale that describes just about EVERYTHING from a dinosaur's shudder at the very first nip of cold to its very last moaning gasp right after it was killed in a battle. And boy, the art is NOTHING like you've ever seen before! In fact, the whole book is so lusciously painted in the gothically fantastic style - that HUGE picture of the great, hulking stegosaurus slowly drawing back to strike back at its toothy foe just about BLEW my socks right off! Too bad it's out of print right now - but if you're a dinosaur fanatic, you'd thank the stars again and again if you could get ahold of this marvelous book!

Forget "Jurassic Park," "We're Back!," or "Land Before Time" I through VII. For a truly wondrous dino-adventure, dig up a copy of "The Little Blue Brontosaurus."

The voice-acting is stellar, and the music and sound effects pull you right into the lush jungles of the early Cretaceous Period!

When Li'l Blue faces off against the mighty Gorgosaurus, I had to cover my eyes, even though it was only an audio tape!

When I was younger, the adventures of Li'l Blue made me wish for a pet Brontosaurus!

You'll never look at (or listen to) herbivorous thunder-lizards the same way again.

This is a big, beautiful book portraying the works of an architect who strived not to design monuments with a signature style, but instead create wonderful places that fit their landscape. The book chronicles twenty of Turnbull's projects beginning with the Sea Ranch Condominium (with MLTW) and ending with Turnbull and his wife's own weekend retreat, Teviot Springs Vineyard. All but one of the projects (Sea Ranch Athletic Club)are residential, which reflects the nature of Turnbull's career. The book contains essays by Mary Griffen (Turnbull's wife and business partner), William Stout, Mitchell Schwarzer, and Donlyn Lyndon. Turnbull's buildings contain innate beauty, sensitivity to site, and the ability to bring common, conventional construction to a high art. Morley Baer's black and white photography is powerful and captures the wonderful subtleties in Turnbull's sometines simple and conventional structures that are truly "GOOD" architecture.

The title of this review is the lead quote from chapter 27, "The Philosophy of Nero Wolfe." :)

Originally published in 1969, the bibliography, though not the internal chronology, are complete up to _The Father Hunt_ (i.e., the last 4 novels and _Death Times Three_ had not been published as yet), and naturally Rex Stout's own name graces the top of the dedication list. Both Stout and Baring-Gould were noted Baker Street Irregulars; Baring-Gould gave the world his excellent Annotated Sherlock Holmes, while Stout authored the infamous "Watson Was a Woman" theory.

It's a pity that Baring-Gould couldn't give Wolfe the full annotation treatment that he gave Holmes; apart from the problem of copyrights, Wolfe has a far larger canon than Holmes did. Part Two of this volume devotes chapters 12 - 26 to Wolfe's cases in chronological order, up to _Death of a Doxy_. Each case's salient points are briefly outlined without giving too much away; those which weren't explicitly dated are analyzed to place them in time. I personally found this of less interest than the rest of the book; some extra material giving the flavour of the time in which the stories were set would have seasoned it more to my taste.

The rest of the book, though, gives Baring-Gould more scope. Chapter 1, "The Private Detective", lovingly analyzes the quirks that make Wolfe fun to watch (e.g. "Contact is not a verb under this roof"; as you may recall, a client once paid an extra $1000, though he never knew it, for using it that way in the office). This is followed, of course, by "The Man of Action" (analyzing Archie), "An Old Brownstone House" (hey, it's practically a character itself, and a floorplan is provided at the end of the book), and "The Major Domo" (Fritz, of course; we also get "Wining and Dining with Nero Wolfe" later on).

Theodore never got enough time on stage to provide enough material for a chapter of his own, but we do get "A Wolfean Guide to the Orchidaceae" (I wish the publisher had sprung for colour illustrations). Zeck, however, does get a chapter, as do the homicide squad and the irregulars (Saul, Fred, Orrie, et al.)

Chapters 9 - 11 - Baring-Gould's theories about how Wolfe might be a blood relative of Holmes, Wolfe and Marko might be brothers, and Archie might be Wolfe's nephew - can be best appreciated if you think about them as poetic justice for that "Watson Was a Woman" business Stout pestered the Baker Street Irregulars with; I don't take them seriously, myself.

All in all, good stuff, as any serious treatment of Wolfe should be. The final case-by-case chronology (starting with Wolfe's probable birthdate, and including cases mentioned by Archie but never published) is *very* nice.

Baring-Gould has written the essential reference book for any and all fans of Rex Stout's wonderful creation. Not only does he provide a superb career summary of Wolfe's adventures, he gives a plan of the first floor of the famous Brownstone on West 35th Street, a summary of each of the mysteries and a chronological sequence for the mysteries. This book tells you everything you want to know about the great detective, his assistant (and gadfly) Archie Goodwin, and all of Stout's wonderful cast of characters.

See my review of the large print edition -- basically the solution doesn't make good sense. Still goood for fans of Wolfe and Archie, though.

-DES

her opening is good, but the solution is not.Havinggiven clear reasons why one person can not be the criminal (motive not yet ripe) that person winds up being guilty, with the only reason give being that the person didn't realize that his chance hadn't really come. not up to stout's usual plottign standard, but still worth reading for a nero wolfe fan.

-David E. Siegel

Note: The A&E adaptation with Maury Chaykin as Wolfe is remarkably faithful to the story. If you're interested in an audio edition, Michael Pritchard's unabridged narration is good. My review assumes that you have some familiarity with Wolfe & Archie; the series begins with _Fer-de-lance_ if you aren't already acquainted with them.

Wolfe has been goofing off lately, refusing 4 cases in a row, so the bank balance is at its lowest point in 2 years. Archie, fed up with sitting around, asks for a weekend off, and gets it, but when Wolfe makes a snide remark upon his departure, Archie tears up his salary check to help out (!). All of which leads to a certain tension in the brownstone the following week, so that when a pretty girl shows up (with luggage) asking to stay anonymously in the South Room for a few weeks, Archie says sure, come in and we'll try Mr. Wolfe. :) He manages to get a replacement salary check out of the incident, but due to a combination of circumstances, Wolfe doesn't throw the girl out until nearly midnight. By morning, Inspector Cramer is at the door, asking Archie how his fingerprints came to be on the luggage of a murder victim - the second victim of a double homicide.

Had the girl - Priscilla Eads - lived, Wolfe would either have taken a job from her trustee, Perry Helmar, to produce her, safe, in New York by her birthday, or taken a check from her (equaling the amount of Helmar's fee) to conceal her whereabouts as she originally asked. Unfortunately, when Helmar had offered the job, she had already been in the house, and she walked out rather than replace Helmar as Wolfe's client. Consequently, her murder leaves Wolfe with no client and no chance of a fee, and he won't investigate. But Archie can't stand the thought of a murderer being grateful to him for putting Priscilla in harm's way, and takes a leave of absence to hunt down the killer on his own.

Priscilla would have inherited 90% of the stock of Softdown, Inc. had she lived to see her birthday; since the stock now passes into the board of directors' control, Archie begins by interviewing them. (They talk to him, thinking he's a cop because they didn't check his credentials.) Archie gets arrested (falsely) for impersonating an officer, but by the end of the day - 14 minutes to six, to be exact - Wolfe has a client and he and Archie are on the case.

A case with some beautiful touches: a few really clever moves by Archie to get cooperation from various people, some spectacular confrontations between the brownstone's inhabitants and the forces of the law, and a surprising amount of cooperation with the law at other points. (Archie *really* wants to catch the creep who did this.) See if you can find the solution before the traditional finale in Wolfe's office; Stout plays fair and gives you all the information you need to solve it.

I highly doubt this is the best sportswriting of 1998! Littlefield picks two mediocre efforts by Charlie Pierce, and neglects the superb '98 writings of S.I.'s Steve Rushin and Franz Lidz. One has to wonder if a sort of reverse "race card" has been played here. This series grows increasingly mediocre. You'd be better off reading Rushin's great "Road Swing" and Lidz's astonishing "Unstrung Heroes."

Bill Littlefield made a couple of odd choices, and this series is a bit too narrow (given that it limits to a year's writing).

Try Halberstam's "Best American Sports Writing of the Century". Much better

The Moehringer, Hendra, Remnick, and Sterling pieces are standouts, but almost all the pieces sparkle with originality, integrity, and wit. It's particularly nice to see Sterling's "Soccer Parents" included alongside more standard fare, since it's somewhat experimental. Sterling has a lyrical voice and a sharp eye for detail; one hopes to hear more from her in the future.