Online Writing Books

I know next to nothing about visual art. I'm the quintessential "knows what I likes, and likes what I knows" type of guy. On the other hand, I'm a graduate student in English, so I'm well-practiced in writing essays and in applying various theoretical and critical methods. I read this book in the hopes that it would help me to better understand art. That is, I wanted to learn, as Sylvia Barnet puts it, "How does art mean?" The beginning of the text does introduce some basic questions and ways to think about different kinds of art, ranging from painting, to sculpture, to architecture, to photography, to video art, etc. However, this is not meant to be an instructional book to teach someone about art. It is more like an assistant text for a freshman-level art history course. A great deal of the book is spent discussing how to organize essays, sentence structure, revising, formatting, and some instruction on critical methods. But, again, this book is not a book on writing. It's not about art, it's not about writing, so what is it? Well, like it says, it's about writing about art. A good deal of this book was useless to me, but some of it was enlightening. If you've already got some experience studying the visual arts, or some experience writing, or you just want a really indepth study on either, pick out something else. If, however, you just want an easily understood, basic primer on writing and art, this isn't a bad choice at all.

The stories, from street prostitutes, call girls, massage parlor workers, and strippers are often quite touching. The women, many of whom are lesbian, I've discovered in this book, choose to become prostitutes, prostitution doesn't choose them. They profess to either enjoy their job or to suffer through it not unlike clockwatchers do. Still, I can't help but read pain between the lines in these women's stories. These women are used -- well used, poorly used -- for others' whims. All of us prostitute ourselves to some end, but these women live short careers. To them, there is no glass ceiling, only plaster and dim lights in dingy rooms.

The academic essays supply some fascinating insights into how prostitution started. The authors offer facts about who prostitutes are, where they live, how the law applies to them, and how prostitutes are grouping together for safety and power.

This book, an amalgam or heartbreaking stories and academic consideration, is really a college-level reader, but for those of us who didn't study this stuff at school or are simply interested in the way prostitutes live, it still makes for interesting reading.

With all that said, I would definitely recommend all of u Photography fans to read it at least once if your local library carries it.

Sure, many in the advertising game will disagree with Joe. They'll tell you it's image, image, image that works. Bull! The stuff in Joe's book really works and anyone involved in direct mail, or internet marketing should take the time to read this book with an open mind.

While some of the advice offered by this book was well recieved and noted, much of the book was about writing effective spams (thus rebuking the subtitle, "Without getting Flamed"). Also, much of the web information was badly out of date; at one point he claims that a mere 15% or web users can view graphics.

Say What? Sorry, but "forget using graphics" does *not* imply good marketing strategy to me. While I understand that Vitale was trying to avoid being technical, he would have done well to drop a few web tips like "forget black-on-grey".

If you want to write spam, buy this book. If you're overly new to the internet and need help with the basic culture, buy this book. If you want to write effective web pages (like I do), do yourself a favor and search "David Seigel". His book on third-generation web sites laps this book in effective web sales.