Galleries Books

A trip around the world not on your calendar? No worries. With a copy of this abundantly pictured (400 color illustrations) volume you can visit some of the most spectacular, most extravagant buildings to be found. Nic Barlow's glorious photographs give you better than a bird's eye view with details and close-ups never seen through a tour bus window.

Yes, the structures included in this volume are spectacular and extravagant, yet they are unique in another way as Tim Cox notes in his eloquent introduction, These follies are ..."raised for the amusement or diversion - and occasionally for the residence - of inspired patrons and artists throughout Europe......Created by popes and plutocrats, princes and postmen, these buildings stand today as mute testimony to their patrons' taste and discrimination, their passions and peculiarities."

That they certainly do, but what is perhaps almost equally fascinating are the stories that these buildings tell. There is the Rushton Triangular Lodge built in 1593 by an Edwardian gentleman, Thomas Tresham, who converted to Catholicism in 1580. Constructed on the basis of an equilateral triangle, it represents the Holy Trinity with an angelic host under the roof , and the upper story at 33 feet wide represents the age at which Jesus Christ was crucified.

Quite a different sight is found with the Villa Torrigiani in Italy which was transformed from a Tuscan villa to the very latest Baroque style, highly ornamented, boosting a parade of statues in the niches of its facade.

Who will not be amazed and amused by what is thought to be the most outre building Scotland? Dunmore House is home to a pavilion topped by a 37 foot high stone pineapple.

And so it goes with each of the 256 pages revealing one more wonder and another intriguing story.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

This coffee table book is perfection. Michael Ringer's art graces the pages. A lone fisherman, an ocean liner running at night, a field of wild flowers, an island covered in pines, his art oozes the secrets of the River.

Antique boats, river skiff's and summer camps - a place where time stands still. A book for anyone who loves a river, fishing, ships, boats and islands.

And even better for those who've never been so lucky. May you discover a new world.

This work details the religious, political and cultural heritage of the Congolese people of Central Africa and how that heritage is evident in art throughout the Americas, including the American South. Ornamentation, like personal affects and shards of broken glass, in Southern graveyards reflect Congolese religious heritage; baton-twirling, by Cuban dancers and Southern cheerleaders, and jug bands in Louisiana reflect Congolese musical heritage. Other aspects of African-American and American Southern culture reflect not only Congolese religious and artistic heritage, but Congolese religio-political thought and practice. Some rightly advise caution in considering the consistency of a culture over several centuries. This work, however, is not only composed magnificently, but argued well and substantiated convincingly.

For works on the same region, see books by Wyatt MacGaffey, Jan Vansina, John M. Janzen and John Kelly Thornton, in addition to other works by Robert Farris Thompson. For similar themes of African culture in America, with a stronger caveat against thinking a culture does not change over time, see works by Mechal Sobel, Michael Angelo Gomez and Melville Herskovits. For studies of people from different African regions brought to different American regions, see Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census; David Eltis, et al., Routes to Slavery; and Daniel C. Littlefield, Rice and Slaves.

I've made >20 visits to France all together. Here are my reviews of the best guides....to meet you r exact needs.....I hope these are helpful and that you have a great visit! I always gauge the quality of my visit by how much I remember a year later......this review is designed to help you get the guide that will be sure YOU remember your trip many years into the future. Travel Safe and enjoy yourself to the max!

Blue Guides
Without doubt, the best of the walks guides.... the Blue Guide has been around since 1918 and has extremely well designed walks with lots of unique little side stops to hit on just about any interest you have. If you want to pick up the feel of the city, this is the best book to do that for you. This is one that you end up packing on your 10th trip, by which time it is well worn.

MapGuide
MapGuide is very easy to use and has the best location information for hotels, tourist attractions, museums, churches etc. that they manage to keep fairly up to date. It's great for teaching you how to use the Metro. The text sections are quick overviews, not reviews, but the strong suite here is brevity, not depth. I strongly recommend this for your first few times learning your way around the classic tourist sites and experiences. MapGuide is excellent as long as you are staying pretty much in the center of the city.

Time Out
The Time Out guides are very good. Easy reading, short reviews of restaurants, hotels, and other sites, with good public transport maps that go beyond the city centre. Many people who buy more than one guidebook end up liking this one best!

Let's Go
Let's Go is a great guide series that specializes in the niche interest details that turn a trip into a great and memorable experience. Started by and for college students, these guides are famous for the details provided by people who used the book the previous year. They continue to focus on providing a great experience inexpensively. If you want to know about the top restaurants, this is not for you (use Fodor's or Michelin). Let's Go does have a bewildering array of different guides though. Here's which is what:
Budget Guide is the main guide with incredibly detailed information and reviews on everything you can think of.
City Guide is just as intense but restricted to the single city.
PocketGuide is even smaller and features condensed information
MapGuide's are very good maps with public transportation and some other information (like museum hours, etc.)

Michelin
Famous for their quality reviews, the Red Michelin Guides are for hotels & Restaurants, the Green Michelin Guides are for main tourist destinations. However, the English language Green guide is the one most people use and it has now been supplemented with hotel and restaurant information. These are the serious review guides as the famous Michelin ratings are issued via these books.

Fodor's
Fodor's is the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here's which is what:
The Gold Guide is the main book with good reviews of everything and lots of tours, walks, and just about everything else you could think of. It's not called the Gold guide for nothing though....it assumes you have money and are willing to spend it.
SeeIt! is a concise guide that extracts the most popular items from the Gold Guide
PocketGuide is designed for a quick first visit
UpCLOSE for independent travel that is cheap and well thought out
CityPack is a plastic pocket map with some guide information
Exploring is for cultural interests, lots of photos and designed to supplement the Gold guide

Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet has City and Out To Eat Guides. They are all about the experience so they focus on doing, being, getting there, and this means they have the best detailed information, including both inexpensive and really spectacular restaurants and hotels, out-of-the-way places, weird things to see and do, the list is endless.

France,1001 Sights (Anderson & Lea, 2002, University of Calgary Press) will enrich your perspective on the country, its people and the evolution of their society. It provides detailed information about remnants of human activity in France from the dawn of man in Europe (about 900,000 B.C.) through the first millennium A.D . This window provides a glimpse of paleo-, meso- and neolithic civilizations through the Iron and Bronze ages as well as the Celtic, Roman, Gallo-Roman, Merovingian, Carolingian and Viking periods of the country's evolution. This interesting and compact book complements what is available in other tour books, which focus primarily on the heritage of late Medieval and Renaissance France, by providing an ancient historical background for those later periods. In addition, although existing books make reference to the most spectacular of the remnants of early civilizations in France (e.g., Carnac, Lascaux or Nimes), this book features not only those well-known sites but also many, many others of exceptional quality throughout the country.

Anderson and Lea begin with an efficient overview of human habitation, invasion, conquest and assimilation in France, with pertinent commentary on language, religion and governance as they influenced the country's architecture, roads, commerce and organization. This sets the stage for the detailed chapters that follow on historical and archeological sites across the country in which hundreds of individual sights -- dolmens, menhirs, bridges, aqueducts, baths, villas, forts, etc. -- are described.

The book is organized by regions, a presentation that fits well with the regional historical perspective provided at the outset. Then, within each region, sites are located within current French Departments and relative to major cities. Finally, each site is described thoroughly in terms of the sights it contains, their historical significance, and how to find them. Directions are explicit in terms of route numbers, compass points, landmarks, distances from local centers and relative difficulty of access roads and paths (e.g., where pavement may be lacking or some walking/hiking is required to reach a sight).

In addition to the historical context provided to enhance the reader's appreciation of each sight, other strengths of the book include a glossary for archeological and architectural terms that may not be readily familiar, numerous black-and-white and color photographs of many spectacular sights, a bibliography of useful resources and a list of additional sights beyond those featured, for those who cannot get enough of these historical treasures.

This book will enhance forever the way one looks at France and appreciates the ancient relics of its countryside and cities, its regional differences and the formative millennia of its history, which was influenced by so many cultural forces. Enjoy this guide before as well as during your travels in France, to make the most of your time there. And even if you cannot travel there, use this book to complement other historical accounts of French civilization from the dawn of early man through the influence of the Celts, the Romans, the Germanic tribes and the Vikings (among others). It is a fascinating history that the stones tell, and Anderson and Lea have translated it well.

This short book served as a catalogue for an exhibition at the Tate in London in 1999 and is one of the more sensitive explorations into Francis Bacon's artistic thoughts. Though known to approach unfixed canvas (in his much talked about trashy studio) with brush and paint and palette knife in hand and attack his story until it was complete, Bacon actually spent a considerable amount of time sketching ideas which often became his huge scaled painting. David Sylvester opens this Pandora's box with a pithy introduction and Matthew Gale presents a sophisticated, scholarly examination of this heretofore unknown aspect of Francis Bacon. The plates of the sketches, all included in the atalogue, prove startling even to the most ardent Baconophile. This is a treasure chest of nascent thought and aborted ideas.....and makes for splendid reading.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter could make anyone look pretty. Even Queen Victoria and her kin, if you see his portraits of them.

His paintings are flattering, make the subject look radiant and angelic, cherub-faced. His painting of Victoria's daughter Vicky is particularly beautiful, as are his portraits of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.

For anyone who's enjoyed Winterhalter's paintings, this is a great book to have.

Saw this book for less than 4 $ used this is one of the truley great buys on Amazon . Large books 10.5 x 13 aprox 304 pages several fold outs one the Waterlilly brings the picture out to 25 inches X 4 1/2 format makes you want to go see the real one at Musee de I'Orangerie even the architectural drawing of it are in the book . I read this book from cover to cover . I even bought a second copy .

From Front Jacket:


"Celebrating the first major display of painting to come to Britain from the USSR, this book covers three centuries of French art, from the Rococo and the Age of Enlightenment to the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist periods.

The Russian interest in French art began in the reign of Peter the Great. It continued under Catherine the Great, who established the Hermitage to house her own collection of paintings by Watteau, Fragonard, Greuze and other leading French artists. Her enthusiasm for French art was shared by Russian aristocrats, whose collections are now also in state museums.

The end of the 19th century saw a new phase of Russian connoisseurship devoted to French avant-garde. Two celebrated collectors, Ivan Morozov and Sergei Shchukin, bought important works by Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso, and their recognition of these artists, who at that time were not widely appreciated, accounts for the significance of the Russian modern collections.

In this book all the 38 pictures in the exhibition are illustrated in color. Soviet curators have written catalog entries to the paintings, and also an introduction which describes their acquisition by Russian collectors."

This book is amazingly well done. It is remarkably error-free, especially given the breadth of religious positions represented by the various faith groups in Manhattan. Dunlap understands religion and religious beliefs, and he understands architecture as well. I have been hoping (perhaps praying?) for such a book for years and to have my wish fulfilled -- and not have to do it myself -- has been joyous. I've only had it two weeks but I've already passed it around to others who are equally impressed. If the subject interests you at all, buy this book!