Literature in Art Books

If you like Mosnters, or if you just like to draw, then this book is for you. Very cool, lots of fun, campy cartoon monsters. And one really easy to draw awesome dragon.

This is the first book I've bought for my son that he really loves. He adores all things monster trucks and is very artistic. Highly recommend for kids like mine.

My five year old daughter loves the step by step instructions and takes great pride in being able to draw the different animals in the book. I appreciate that it shows how to draw with various media. We have alot of fun doing art time with this book!

This is one of the drawing books in our collection at school.
Our students use this book along with 516 Sensational Cat Quotes, Proverbs, Quips and Jokes for Scrapbooking, Crafting and Fun to creat different class projects. We complete our drawings and add a quote to complete beautiful cards. We make copies from the original and save our originals so that we can reuse them.
I liked the step-by-step drawings.
The students enjoy the subject of cats and it makes our class time fun.

If you child likes dinosaurs, and what kid dose not, and likes to draw, most of them do, then this is a delightful addition to your child's collection. The author has given us quite a number of pencil drawings, simply drawn along with a very good text commenting on each drawing. To be honest, I have no tallent for drawing what-so-ever, but even I could come up with a credible picture of these ancient creatures using this book as a guide. This is also a good one to have setting on the class room shelf as it is a very good reference book and motivational book for those young ones who are into such. recommend this one highly.

I love this book and have borrowed it numerous times from the public library. I originally checked it out 2 years ago to learn how to make fun and amusing animal drawings for my then preschool-age son since I have little innate ability to draw. The book instructs you step-by-step through some stylized drawings of animals using simple letter and number shapes. Because you are combining familiar shapes there is the potential (with practice) to actually remember the steps. And, as it turned out, my son could draw some of the simpler animal designs himself, so we had fun using this book together. I recently tried to purchase this book and was disappointed to learn that the book is out of print.

I originally picked this book up at the College library, and I was so impressed with Epstein's work on this little volume that I immediately purchased it. As a student of Art History, I spend a lot of time combing through online as well as library archived journals for well-researched data on obscure symbolism. This book provided an excellent jumping-off point for branching out into alternate interpretation of medieval Jewish manuscripts.

The theme of the book is subversion, and Epstein demonstrates that for many of the common Christian symbols (such as the lion, the unicorn, and the medieval hunt)there were subtly opposing occurences in Jewish art. Epstein also ventures into less commonly known symbols, such as the elephant and the hare. Each chapter is devoted to a different symbol, its Christian meanings, and then an in-depth explaination of its Jewish re-interpretation. The cases are painstakingly researched and Epstein's bibliography is in and of itself a valuable research source.

Although each chapter of this book could potentially be its own entire thesis, as a whole it makes a wonderful short introduction to the study of medieval Jewish iconography.

College-level students of social and health issues will find DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE: AN ANATOMY OF INTOXICATION provides a strong cultural history of convivial drinking before the idea of drink as an addiction overcame alcohol's reputation as a creative and even a spiritual force. DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE focuses on the overall human history of drink from ancient times to the 20th century, following its treatment in the arts, religion, and through society. Alcohol holds a mixed history, being viewed as both miracle potion and as a poison: DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE reveals both aspects of alcohol's history.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Marcel Duchamp, the Puck of modern art, left copious notes on the 'Large Glass', which he left 'definively unfinished' in 1923 after seven years' work. The complexity and mischief in this piece, and in Duchamp's wider approach to art, has traditionally been subjected to analysis that places teleological art history ahead of the confusion of cultural history. Linda Henderson's approach places Duchamp in the context of the scientific understanding of the time, and her comprehensive research has cut through to the core questions with which Duchamp engaged.

Looking at the 1920s from our time, we are afflicted by a cultural blindness to ideas that have fallen from favour. Henderson looks beyond the prejudices of orthodoxy, and considers Duchamp's own writings and the popular understanding of science and technology that held sway eighty years ago. This clarifies aspects of the 'Large Glass' on which other writers have been silent; the significance of early wireless technology, the lingering concept of the 'ether', and early cathode-tube researches.

Despite the density and unfamiliarity of the ideas presented, and the inherent difficulty of explaining Duchamp's conceptual barrage, Henderson lively and clear approach is an exemplary and honest engagement with the conditions of art production. In no sense does she engineer the evidence so that a streamlined art-historical position can purr smoothly; she presents the material that informed Duchamp's ideas, shows how he processed this material, and argues persuasively for a Duchamp who responded to his setting rather than a deified modernist who worked in the vacuum of his own genius. Good art history enhances our understanding of art, history, and society. Henderson's honesty, and her sense of scholarly security, make for an invaluable contribution to the literature on a crucial and cunning giant of modern art.

Of scholars in the field who have published extended studies of Beckett's early prose (Dream of Fair to middling Women, More Pricks Than Kicks, Murphy, and Watt) three stand above the others and are required reading on the subject for scholars. Anthony Farrow's Art and Allusion ... is one. It is hampered by the lack of an index and extraordinarily poor proofreading. Lawrence Harvey's Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic is another. Published in 1970, it is out of print, a big shame. Harvey's is the only serious study of Beckett's poetry. The style of both Farrow and Harvey is discursive. Rubin Rabinovitz's The Development of Samuel Beckett's Fiction is the third, written in a more concise scholarly style that makes it the most entertaining of the three for the non-specialist. Rabinovitz is likely to be the most useful to the specialist as well, though of course this depends on what you're after. I have not read John Pilling's new book Beckett Before Godot, and there are, as one would expect, numerous article-length studies of the early prose that are required reading for the specialist.