Festivals Books

Now in an updated and expanded new edition, The American Book Of Days features 850 essays marking important anniversaries and the birthdays of history-making Americans throughout the 366 days of the year (including February 29th). All American holidays and pivotal moments are noted as readers can delve into fascinating and often overlooked accounts connected to otherwise familiar facts of American history from the discovery of American by Europeans down through to today. Cross-reference and an extensive index make information easy to find, while expanded appendices feature historical documents. A highly recommended, core title for school and community library American history and reference collections, The American Book Of Days is enhanced for students and researchers with approximately one hundred photographs and other illustrations.

This beautiful offering from Rain on the Earth illuminates the ancient tradition of the holiday season, hidden in the song "The 12 Days of Christmas". The rituals are designed to restore balance to the world at this time of great need, along with more personal balance to the soul of the practitioner, community, and family. Blessed Be!

Angel Mae is a touching story. It gives me the opportunity to talk about many issues with my 3 year old : jelousy, anger, anxiety, excitment, happiness. Yet the story is natural, funny, and definately not soppy. The illustrations are excellent.

A great children's version of the classic Christmas Carol story. Beautifully illustrated with a simple, yet heartwarming tale.
I highly recommend it!

In an age where children are coaxed by Sony Playstations, and the wintery outdoors; it's hard to find something simple that they can cuddle up with in the corner and quietly explore.

The story of Annabelle's Wish seems to facinate both younger children and more experienced level reader's.

Because its from Golden Books interactive series the child could "sound off" characters at any point in the reading. The book offers large bold illustrations, a clever plot twist, and original narration.

As all Christmas classics remind us, this book does make you think about the reason of the Season, and try to make your Heart feel warmer. It builds on the folklore of Santa giving the farm animals "voices" once a year on Christmas. And the friendship that builds between a mute boy and the calf, Annabelle, born on this Holiday.

Although Tommy and Annabelle are its main characters, the storey is about more than the "special" gift they exchanged. It was about how others around them put aside their personal differences to come together in Friendship.

Your child can easily relate to the animals and the frienships found in the storey. And if they understand what is being shown by "unselfish giving" recreate for your Family a special and powerful magic.

This author has a wonderful way of grabbing the hearts of readers and warming them like a cozy fire. Her love of horses is evident and makes the reader want to live in a small country town and own a dozen of them! This book is PERFECT for audiences from 1-100 years old - never a dull moment and always uplifting. This book is perfect to read to the little ones and young readers will enjoy reading it themselves.

Buy this book for every young person and horse lover you know!

This book was excellent. Starting with Monterey pop in 1967, and ending with Cal Jam 2 in 1978, every large Rock Festival is covered. All aspects: fiancial, political, and social are covered in a detailed yet interesting manner. Very solid writing about these Festivals make you feel as if you were there. Robert Santelli is an excellent writer, a must read for anyone interested in the Rock culture of this era. His other book Sixties Rock: A Listerners Guide is just as good. I have had that book for 20 years and still refer to it all the time. Both these books compliment each other.

The cover image (La Virgen de la Soledad) and the Macarena Madonna inside alone are worth the price of the book, but it's a fascinating account of a vibrant "performance art" (street processions). See also The Madonnas of Europe and, for another kind of devotional outreach, Gardens of Revelation.

I have taken the content for this review from the Monterey website. Make your own assessments:

celebrates the historic images that were created to promote and memorialize the Festival. In the last 50 years, the MJF posters have become legendary for their representation of the time, place and attitude. From the early days when the posters were created as hand-pulled silkscreens to the present era with contemporary prints produced through the offset process, The Art of Jazz: Monterey Jazz Festival / 50 Years features reproductions of posters by such artists and designers as Earl Newman, Eldon Dedini, Batista Moon Studios, Judy Anderson, Ron Grauer, Harry Briggs, Jeeun Lee and the book's designer, Jerry Takigawa. The posters feature abstract and figurative designs and are noted for their constantly striking and memorable images. Vintage MJF posters are still on the market today as collector items, and are available at www.montereyjazzfestival.org.

"As we approached our 50th year, we wanted to have a book that showed literally the `art' of the Festival," says Tim Jackson, the General Manager of the Monterey Jazz Festival since 1992. "There have been so many posters that have stuck in our minds over the years, yet they had never been assembled in a single place. Some of them are so colorful; some from the early years approach the twenties' Bauhaus movement, very dark, sparse and minimal. Some are more graphic, and some utilize photography, with the classic image of the trumpet on the chair. The posters demonstrate the progression of the Festival's artistic statement, not just on stage, but how its images have changed over the years. It honors the people and artists who have made the Festival one of the leaders in the world of jazz."

The Art of Jazz: Monterey Jazz Festival / 50 Years includes a foreword written by legendary actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood (a member of MJF's Board of Directors), and a decade-by-decade look at the world and the Festival, explored through essays by noted music and culture writers Keith and Kent Zimmerman.

The essays reflect on both the history of the era and the music that was produced. Punctuated by striking photographs of legendary musicians important to the history of the Festival, The Art of Jazz: Monterey Jazz Festival / 50 Years is a visual cornucopia of graphics, words and photography. The book contains historical and contemporary photographs of legendary jazz musicians, captured by longtime Festival photographers Jerry Stoll, Tom Copi, Ron Hudson, Veryl Oakland, Tony Salazar, Craig Lovell, and Cole Thompson. A number of photographs from the archives of the Monterey County Herald are also featured--some of which have never been seen before.

Photographs include rare shots of Dizzy Gillespie (one of the influential artists who called MJF his home over the years), Duke Ellington, B.B. King, Herbie Hancock, Tony Bennett, Diana Krall, Dave Brubeck, Louis Armstrong, and many more. Striking the balance of historical precedent and aesthetic excellence, the photographs reveal an insight into the Festival and the artists.

Alongside the essays, posters and program covers, The Art of Jazz: Monterey Jazz Festival / 50 Years also has a comprehensive list of artists who have performed at MJF since the beginning, including the 50th celebration which will take place September 21-23, 2007.

The book was designed by Monterey graphic designer Jerry Takigawa, who also has designed the posters for the Festival for the last three years. "From a design perspective, it's fascinating to trace design and color trends of the artwork of the Festival across the decades," said Mr. Takigawa. "Keith and Kent Zimmerman's insightful narratives parallel design trends with music trends as well. The Art of Jazz is a tribute to all of the artists who performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival as well as the visual artists who captured each year in a form suitable for framing."

The Art of Jazz: Monterey Jazz Festival / 50 Years is released in celebration of the Monterey Jazz Festival's 50th year, and is also an intriguing companion piece to the Festival's previous publication, Monterey Jazz Festival: Forty Legendary Years which was released in 1997 and contains the history and story of the Festival, told by the noted jazz writer and critic William Minor, with photographs edited by Bill Wishner.

I called this Artarchy, playing off "anarchy" in an attempt to echo the witty title of this slim volume, Art Rageous. These essays were compiled by Cornerstone Press from participants at the 1991 Art Rageous seminars at Cornerstone Festival.

My initial interest in this book was in the three Steve Scott essays, here grouped under the heading, "Scratching the Surface". As the editor and compiler of Steve Scott's recent book, Crying for a Vision and Other Essays, I attempted to track down all the extant Steve Scott I could find. Hence the book's subtitle, "The Collected Steve Scott, Vol. One. The core of the new book is Crying for a Vision, a brief collection of essays which was published by Stride Books in England in 1991, and distributed in the US by Cornerstone Press.

The additional four "collected essays' in part two of Crying are ironically grouped under the same heading, "Scratching the Surface", which was also the title of one of Steve's essays. That such good things are scattered hither and thither is the impetus behind attempting to collect them. Steve often connects the pieces in various works (one of the essays in Art Rageous is called "Like a House on Fire", also the title of a book published by Cornerstone Press and reprinted by Wipf and Stock). But I had no idea how many pieces there were. They range through the ongoing poetry series, The Boundaries, musical and spoken word albums (which also include music), gallery installations, essays, conferences, and workshops. In interviews both in Crying and at alivingdog, Steve reflects on 1991 as a seminal year both in Britain and the US.

This book shows why. It's subtitled 'Essays and Lectures" but that's really too safe sounding to hint at the vitality waiting to leap from the pages. Another British artist included is Rupert Loydell, whose "Raids on the Inarticulate" includes artwork, essay, and then breaks out into poetry. But I was knocked out reading the dialogue by Rick and Brenda Beerhorst, which reads like a real life On the Road. Not to mention the three essays by Colin Harbinson. As this book shows, artists often live outside of community and communion as loners, and the church is poorer without them. Could they find a home there, the result could be art rageous.