New York Books

This is the splendid autobiography of Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangrol (1781-1851), a yogi who wandered far and wide expressing his realization, as a fully accomplished adept of the Great Completion (Dzogchen).

From the Foreword by HH the Dalai Lama: "Regarded by many as the greatest yogi after Milarepa to gain enlightenment in one lifetime (...) as source of inspiration to Buddhist practitioners and general readers alike." HH Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoche: "As one reads it, one's mind cannot resist being turned toward the Dharma."

This autobiography is full of humor, wit and playful joy, intense self-discipline as well as magnificant flights of imagination. An accessible book full of telling stories, a must-read, must-own for those interested.

"Man -
If you have any self-respect,
A heart in your chest,
Brains in your head, and
Some sympathy for yourself,
Regret your past actions and
Improve your whole behavior.
It's time! It's very late!
- Shabkar

Never have I come across such an inspiring piece of buddhist literature. Plan on having your life and your practice changed forever after reading the life story of this amazing yogin.

Considered as one of the master works of Tibetan religious heritage.
For people who have a connection with Tibetan Buddhism this book is a true treasure. And, dear vegetarians, you are right :-), many Tibetan Buddhists might prefer to ignore the fact, but Shabkar as a non sectarian Tibetan yogi gave up eating meat for the rest of his live when he was 27 years based on his sincere conviction that a Buddhist - at a certain stage - should gave up "the negative act of eating the flesh of beings" (p.232). See also his book Food of Bodhisattvas: Buddhist Teachings on Abstaining from Meat, ISBN 1590301161.

Matthieu Ricard has created a work of art. Remaining true to the poetic beauty of the Tibetan original he has for the first time presented this important work to the west. Also, his notes and appendixes on historical and buddhist backgrounds are invaluable. For the first time the reader is presented with the life of a Tibetan saint and his lineage formerly largely unknown among western students of Tibetan buddhism. A tuely inspiring page-turner !

It is a book about a hero that evrybody thought was perfect. In this book you get to see the life behind the face. There are so many legend and this book so the truth and tells you the miths.

every sentence filled with facts. research done is tremendous. best sports book i ever read.

This biography, although scholarly, is entertaining throughout and easily read. Smelser was a life long baseball fan and his love of the game animates every page. As an undergraduate at Notre Dame, I studied under the author. Now deceased, he was a professor of history. Smelser demanded from his students the thorough research he displays in this book. But he was also a wonderful storyteller. Both qualities are apparent in this work. Like the best biographers, the author has only mild affection for his subject. The Babe's qualities and failings get equal attention. But today, when the word "superstar" is wildly overrused, you see the extraordinary level of fame this man achieved. If you really want to understand the Babe's life, read this book.

Some legends are larger than life. Some legends are made up. Then there's Babe Ruth, than man by which all other baseball players are measured, even today. George Herman Ruth comes to life in this riveting, yet easy to read biography by Marshall Smelser.

You follow the bambino from his early days at St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys to his early days with the Boston Red Sox. You read about his turmoil with the fans, his trade to the New York Yankees, that later became the curse of the Bambino.

Smelser's accounts of Ruth's life from his first wife to the run ins with Yankees manager Miller Huggins to the called shot in the 1934 World Series and so many others, will have laughing on minute and on the brink of tears the very next.

I have always been a great Babe Ruth fan; so reviewing this book was a no brainer. Smelser writing style made it easy for me to read along and finally get a true picture of the man so many either loved or hated. I would highly recommend this book to any serious baseball fan!

"Life's Pleasure: The Ashcan Brush with Leisure" is a wonderful reminder of the Ashcan artists show at the Detroit Institute of Art. Beautifully written and illustrated, "Life's Pleasure" comes highly recommended, especially if you cannot get to the exhibition to see in real life what is rendered by the presses.

While this book is well illustrated ,it has many fine full page reproductions it has many painters of minor importance to the Ash Can school.Gifford Beal looks like an uninspired Dufy..Jerome Myers ,Edward Manigault I can do without. It is interesting to see some of the early work( of the later abstract art) of Arthur B Davies and Alfred Maurer.Few books on these artists discuss the techniques they used. The focus is on subject matter. Something that docents and guides are always talking about when you hear them in the gallery. Maurice Prendergast ,seems a gentler soul than the others,he fits here where he doesn't in other studies of the group.A uniting factor I think is the fluid brushwork of the Ash Can Painters. In the case of Bellows and Sloan composition and unity of the artist brush/touch were hard fought.Doezema's "Representing Woman" essay is a bit superficial Sloan and Bellows had complicated feelings about woman. Dolly was often in his pictures as he wanted to show her as central to his art and life.There is an in depth discussion of the groups use of frames.This is a good companion book for the show at Detroit's Institute of Art.The exhibit will be there thru this month and May 25th. Later it goes to Nashville and then to New York City, You will get more out of seeing the show then what is in this book. I am satisfied that I will be able to see Sloan's "New York" at the Smart Museum of the University of Chicago.Life's Pleasures still has the dark palette of these painters. Their interest in color is something that is only hinted at in the biography of Sloan.It is this limited palette that may have led Maurer and Davies to become all out abstract artist.My fault isn't with the book it is the focus of the exhibit.We are seeing more art shows nowadays that seek approval for a hungry subject matter public , in the Fifties there were many shows that sought to expand the awareness the public have of the visual principles of first rate artists. Katherine Kuh for one was instrumental in putting on shows of Leger,Rothko . With helpful commentary that showed that she knew what it was all about. But! I am glad to see a revival of interest in publications of this important school of American Art.

We are finally recognizing the importance of the Ashcan Artists to American and world art. This book should be in everybodys' library who likes art, particularly American Art.

Relatively few primers offer in-depth details on the Ashcan artists: a school of early 20th-century American artists whose work centered around New York City life. Here the underworld of the City was often displayed - and LIFE'S PLEASURES is the first book to explore the lighter side of the Ashcan artists' works, featuring leisure scenes in cafes, bars and parks and movies. You'll recognize the artists' names ' Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, John Sloan - and the essays offer further insights on New York culture and artistic sentiment, making LIFE'S PLEASURES a top pick for both New York and college-level art libraries.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I always enjoy this series of books. Contains a variety of creative genres suitable for different interests e.g. stories, poetry, etc. Makes a great gift for a bride-to-be.

This is a fun book to browse through. Our family tradition is that it is passed from bride to bride.

A LOVELY GIFT FOR A BRIDE WHO EVER WAS OR WANTS TO BE OR PLANS TO BE. FILLED WITH LOVELY THOUGHTS AND IDEAS.

Collaboratively compiled and organized by Katrina Fried and Lena Tabori, The Little Big Book For Brides is filled with advice, traditions, stories, activities, poetry, essays, recipes, and some just plain humor about and concerning brides everywhere. A fun book to read through, nicely illustrated from cover to cover in full color, and projecting it's own unique brand of whimsy, The Little Big Book For Brides is the perfect gift for the bridal shower as well as being an enthusiastically recommended read for its enjoyment and introduction to American marriage customs.

I always enjoy this series of books. Contains a variety of creative genres suitable for different interests e.g. stories, poetry, recipes, etc.

I received this book as a gift from a co-worker, and really enjoyed it. The contents run the gamut from recipes, crafts, old-fashioned drawings and nursery rhymes to hip, modern advice about the birth of your baby and beyond. Because everything is an excerpt or snippet, you'll find yourself wanting to go out and read the rest of some of the works featured inside. From sentimental to sassy, this book has a bit of everything and makes a perfect gift for 1st time moms-to-be.

Everything from oldwives tales to a chicken salad recipe can be found here. Cute little square book that really packs a punch. Poignant stories, tips, recipes, idea, crafts. Lovely.

This book has entertained, delighted and touched me over two pregnancies. I read this book when I was pregnant the first time and teared up at the poems and short stories, laughed out loud at the funnier passages and was amused by the old wives' tales. If I were more into cooking, I would try some of the recipes, but must confess I am not.

This afternoon, I read some of it again and (true, I'm hormonal) and found myself bawling hysterically at some of the quotes and poems.

It's kind of like a Chicken Soup for the Pregnant Women's Soul, but for pregnant women who read The New Yorker. Sharon Olds, Anne Lammott, Tolstoy and Sylvia Plath are some of the authors...but so is Paul Reiser and the author of Girlfriend's Guide.

I give this book as a gift to my closest girlfriends who are pregnant for the first time and highly recommend it to anyone who wants a good read, a good laugh and a good cry.

P.S. Carl Sandburg says that having a baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. Isn't that cool? (sniff sniff)

Terrific novel. Such a genuine, non-judgemental look at extra-relational relations (a euphemism if there ever was one), and so skillful at portraying how society deals with pedophilia. I was also impressed that a man caught the classic "Queen Bee-ness" of Mary Ann's character, and how her sidekicks were so driven by fear of her disapproval. I sympathized will all the characters, even the slimeballs. I sensed that the author didn't quite catch the "dialect" of three-year-old speech. Something to work on for his next great novel!

This is a wise and humane novel and one of the very few American novels to deal with marital and extramarital sex with honesty and understanding. Both the plotting and the characterization are exceptional and I hope this book finds a much wider audience.

I haven't seen the movie and don't know if I intend to. I just wanted a great book, and this was definitely a perfect choice! It's the kind of story that pulls you in immediately, and you can't put down, even though it's really time to go to bed!

There is suspense, electricity, and a twist. It should go on your list if you ever wonder about having a lover. Or want to read about someone who took the plunge.

Little Children was my favorite movie of 2006, and also my sister's favorite. So someone gave my sister a copy of the book it was based on. After she finished it, she gave it to me. It is a lot like the movie, only longer, since it doesn't have a two hour time limit. There are many extra scenes here that didn't make it into the movie. Much more background into the characters' past. One main difference between the book and the movie is that the actors in the movie don't match the descriptions of the characters in the book (not that they have to). The main difference plotwise is that the character of Ronnie meets a different fate in the book and the movie. Anyway, this is a great book which I enjoyed very much.

This book is a treasure and a new classic. I've given several copies to friends and family. If we're very lucky, this story of a six year-old boy 'Little Lion', will be just the beginning of a long-term relationship between children and a wholy original character that is adorable, eccentric and very special.

In addition to being an engrossing, colorful read, and a great way to introduce or reinforce the values of tolerance and individuality, Little Lion is also a beautifully written, poetic work of children's literature. In the much more eloquent words of Jamaican scholar Dr. Elsa Leo Rhynie, "Little Lion is a book that should be in the library of every Caribbean boy and girl...The flow of rhyming is like music to a child's ear."

With great animation and just the right inflections, this book is perfect fodder for bedtime reading for toddlers.
Since I am determined for my chil to be literate by the time she is 3, I have been reading to my daughter since infancy and now she mocks my behavior by grabbing one of her numerous books and reading to herself.
I introduced this book t her after meeting the author in a bookstore and having it signed. My 2 year old fell in love with it immediately ! The next day I saw her in her favorite chair, trying to mock my voice while flipping through the pages. Mind you, this was only after ONE reading!
Ms. Magnus has that "it" Oprah raves about .. to write outstanding children's books. This book has a storyline any child can relate to and appreciate. This is a highly recommended one for your child's library.
The illustrations are outstanding as well.
This one is right next to my other favorite "Please Baby Please"
PICK THIS ONE UP... YOUR CHILD WOULD LOVE YOU FOR IT!

I simply love this story! Little Lion is truly an inspiration to children and adults regardless of ethnicity or cultural background. The illustrations are vibrant and fun, and the themes and tenets of the story are witty and heart warming.

I fell in love with this inspiring story. I'm Jamaican so I really appreciated the cultural references, but I've shared Little Little with some of my American friends and they enjoyed it too. My son, who is almost two, also loves it. He's particularly fond of Little Lion's shoes and socks (the illustrations are great).

There's a sea-horse race in this book. Not just a sea-horse race, but a sea-horse race inside a giant diamond-shaped tank of oxygenated fluid that also holds a beautiful submerged woman dancing and creating music with the movement of her locks of hair, sometimes enhancing the gyration of her head with sudden tosses and jostles of her hips. There's not only that, but several automaton devices that use flotation and buoyancy to drive their mechanic parts and act out various historical and mythological scenes. Like Voltaire suddenly doubting his atheistic doctrines, or Atlas kicking a celestial object, or Pilate being branded on the forehead.

All of that takes place inside the gigantic diamond-like tank of oxygenated fluid. A very lustrous fluid.

By the way, the English translation sometimes calls the sea-horses "hippocampi." Don't be confused: in context, it means sea-horses. It's not talking about parts of a brain. You might be thinking, "well there's no possible room for confusion there!", but au contraire. Because inside the tank is also a floating head/face of Danton, composed exclusively of the preserved nerves and musculuture, without any bones or skin. And re-animated with expertly applied electrical currents, courtesy of Canterel and his cat.

And they're not just any sea-horses. They're sea-horses equipped with "setons" attached to a shining golden sphere that they themselves created by kneading together small globulets of golden wine that Canterel pours into the tank and lets float down to them.

The entire episode I'm talking about took place long after the book had already left my jaw on the floor. In short: read it. You know that "dream-like" quality that hyped books supposedly possess? Say, like "Amnesia Moon"? Well Raymond Roussel accomplishes all that without any narrative tricks, without any deception, without any ill-defined or sensationally blurred "boundaries between dream and reality" or any of that nonsense. Roussel accomplishes his feats the old fashioned way: with elbow grease, and imagination. He accomplishes it by giving everything to you, not hiding things from you.

Who is the Canterel I mentioned above? Canterel-- a name that one should never utter aloud except on bended knee-- has the wealth and quirk of Willy Wonka, combined with the wealth and ingenuity of Bruce Wayne. Which makes for a very rich, very marvelous fellow. His estate and private collection puts both of those men's assets to shame, quite extravagantly.

As you already know, the book is a narrated trip through some of Canterel's exhibits. He aims to please, though. So don't think that the book will lack character, plot, or suspense just because it's a sort of museum-tour. There's stories within stories that explain the exhibits. And they have everything that archetypically good "stories" have, and more: love, betrayal, forgiveness, fantastic magnanimity, loss, disgrace, lust, vindication. I was breathless waiting for the resolutions of certain tales, practically jumping off my reading-bench to cheer for the characters, or otherwise immobilized by the revelations and vicissitudes.

Did I mention that nerves/musculuture of Danton's head are set into physiological motor motion by an electric current provided by a swimming cat whose hairless body acts as a battery after eating a specially-designed pill and is trained to stick its head into a long metal hat-like cone which becomes its electrode terminus?

And it's all described soberly, no tricks. By the way, Roussel (though there's a chance it's the translators doing, since I haven't and couldn't read the original French) tells his stories, tells the motivations and actions of characters, with a very skillful use of words, using strong descriptive verbs and nouns. The sentences held together with a unique power. Many times I took great pleasure in re-reading certain sentences, because they were said so absolutely perfectly. Of course, that should be the hallmark of a professional writer, but I don't find it too often.

So anyway you'll feel like you're there. You won't even have any disbelief to suspend. At certain points, like a particular early exhibit that I won't name, I said to myself, "There's no going back, this is too fantastic, there's no POSSIBLE EXPLANATION of this, Roussel has crossed the line, this is uncanny and totally unrecoverable at this point, I feel exploited!," and I kept reading, kept reading-kept reading, "by god, no, by GOD HE'S DONE IT!, he's doing it, by god Canterel, Roussel, you've done it, my good holy god unbeliEVABLE!!! Whew. Wow." I had to close the book for a minute and lean against a fence, nodding my head uncontrollably. When you close this book and put it on your shelf when done, you'll keep suspecting that it's about to burst open and spill out its contents all over your room, neighborhood, and city-- and you'll feel like an angry god for actually having the ability to close the book and contain it.

Book will take your breath away. If not check your pulse. Or, try something else. Bye.

I used to have so much fun reading this book. I remember I miraculously found a copy in some book shop on the far southside of Chicago for $8. One night I was drinking with some classmates shortly after class and I made the mistake of lending this irreplacable book to one of them, which of course the fool never returned nor probably ever read or if he did appreciated. May every curse be piled upon your perfidious little name, punk, which it is a blessing I can't remember it was so long ago.
I remember the first time I read Impressions of Africa, right after graduating high school. I was a naive young admirer of Duchamp at the time, and I kept seeing these references to Roussel, and the description of Impressions made it sound like a travel book. Had I known him then I might have expected something like a French William Cobbett. Ha! I don't think I realized something definitely strange was going on in those pages until I reached the part with the father and his sons echoing their voices off of each other's chests with their shirts being stuck to their skin "by some sticky substance", -- the word "substance" somehow set me laughing for a solid twenty, thirty minutes, and all the hilarity, the absurdity of the Incomporables' show that had gone on before were finally apparent to me. I have been a lover of Roussel ever since; the only casualty was my perspective of Duchamp's accomplishment, which is as Duchamp himself admitted greatly indebted to Roussel's.
Locus Solus is the book Roussel wrote after Impressions and the two make a pair unlike any other in literature. Locus is presided over by Martial Canteral, a figure right out of Jules Verne, who Roussel once said was a name that should not be spoken aloud "except on bended knee," -- hm, yes -- Canterel is a famous scientist and inventor, and the book is set at his estate where a group of distinguished figures have been invited to a tour of guided by none other than its owner and director. The book follows the tour as one of the eyewitnesses, and the sights along the way are so bizarre, the machinery so complex and beyond any reasonable utility, it quite defies any attempt to describe the effect here. One impression I think that merits a word or two is the apparent lack of emotion in the book. I would say that there is a great amount of sadness and tragedy in the book that adds a kind of under-layer parallel to the encoded sentences of Roussel's method. The vitallium episode, in which Canterel invents a "certain chemical" that makes the bodies of the dead become animate again (but are still dead) has a very particular strain of anguish and loss inherent in its concept. And then there is also the weariness of the visionary experienced by the reader, the author, and the characters being audience to so many impossibilities one after the other piled up so high there is an actual physical exhaustion after the conclusion. And then of course there is also the tragedy of the author himself, who had both novels lavishly adapted for the theater, and created two of the most colossal failures in the history of drama, causing riots and scandal at the showings and humiliation to the author. He ended up a pitiful man, addicted to drugs and having spent all his fortune, he killed himself in his forties with a great dream "of a glory that shall outshine that of Victor Hugo or Napoleon."
This is not a book for everyone, perhaps even for very few. However there is no good reason these two books are out of print. It is long past time they are reprinted and Roussel be given the honor he deserves.

i read this book when i was about 13 and i have been wanting to read it again for 17 years. i remember it only vaguely, but i know it was good. please mister publisher, print it again.

Roussel's novels are giant puzzles, in which he describes images and stories that have a unique carnival logic. Punning relationships generate textual rebuses (rebi?), in a way that makes the reader aware of the book as a mechanism, but Roussel gives too few clues to really understand it. In Locus Solus, Roussel gives a tour of the museum garden of an eccentric millionaire, who, like Roussel himself, collects with a frenetic and psychedelic rationalism. Please, Riverrun Press, reprint this book.

I am a commuter from Connecticut and drive in to the city at least once or twice a week (for meetings). Parking is a real killer, as I have meetings all over the city and never really know where to park. My wife used to give me a hard time about how much I spend on parking and bought me this book so I would spend less. At first I was reluctant and I didn't understand how to use it very well, but as soon as I read the "how to" it was a breeze. Now my wife is happy because I spend less parking and I am happy because it is one less thing to worry about when I know where to park. Anyone who drives to the city knows that a bad parking experience can ruin a day.

Don't Drive in NYC without it!
Driving through Manhattan's over 1000 garages is one of the most stressful experiences. You don't know if you're getting ripped off until you pull into the garage, and by then it's too late to back out because there are 2 cars behind you (I'm sure all NYC motorists have experienced this). Having LOTS in your glove-box eliminates this problem since it lets you know where the garages are and how much it will cost you to park. I was also impressed at how easy it was to use. You would think that a book that has anything you could possibly want to know about 1000 garages (rates, locations, address, phone number, specials, etc.) would be confusing, but it is actually very simple. It never takes me more than a minute to know where to park, and the first time I used it I saved the price of the book.

I find that this manual is very easy to follow. This past week I have saved over $30 in parking, so I was compelled to write this review. Anyone who has ever driven in the city will appreciate this guide.

This book is very cool. It has around 100 color-coded maps that compare garages based on price. All you have to do is flip to the neighborhood you are parking in and it will immediately tell you which garages are the most expensive and which are the cheapest :)

Another great thing about the book is that you know where all the garage locations are so you know exactly where to park. One of the most frustrating things I've experienced as an NYC driver is pulling into a garage 4 blocks from my destination because I don't know if there is a garage closer to where I'm going. When I get to where I have to be I realize there was a garage across the street and it was cheaper to park in!

I want to start out by thanking Christian for writing this book. He takes you deep into her personal and professional life and shares all the details. I agree this is a great book for any EMS professional to read. What a great insight it gave me even with my EMT experience. GREAT BOOK>

I am a senior Paramedic for a major municipal 911 EMS system in the US. I am also a tactical medic for a regional SWAT team. I missed working a good part of 2007 due to a motorcycle accident. While I was recovering, I bought a copy of your book. I had met some great NYC EMS on the EMS Memorial Bike Ride in 2002. (I realize it was already FDNY then but...) I wanted to find out what it was like pre 911 in NYC and I found this book.

I could not put it down. It struck familiar chords in my own life. But I was feeling burnt out, frustrated, and beaten. This book portrayed him as a leader in his service,a role model, much like I once was, and like I wanted to be again. The more I read, the more I felt empowered to make positive changes in my own life and attitude.

I was out of work six months. When I went back to work, I had quit smoking, gotten back to the gym, and had the positive mental attitude of a newbie. I am no longer the feared senior burnout, but the respected senior tac-medic.

Thank you Christian, I can't wait for your next book!

A great story giving the reader both adrenaline highs and heartbreaking lows.

Concepts and terms of the trade are well-explained throughout the book, which makes it an easy (and yet educating) read for someone like me who knows very little about being an EMT. Although after reading this book I suddenly want to become one...

I'm just waiting for Hollywood to wake up and make movie out of it. That would probably recruit more young EMTs than Top Gun did Air Force pilots.

Anyone who has worked for any length of time on the street in EMS (Emergency Medical Services) has said it. "we should write a book about our experiences". Well that time has apparently come. Mr. Garris's account of life on the street as a NYC EMS Paramedic is the closest thing I've have ever read to actualy being there. While not working in NYC myself, I have served for 14 years as a Paramedic in a major metropolitan area. The stories and accounts in this book can be related to by any practicing EMT or Paramedic in a major urban area. I highly recomend this book for ALL EMS workers, and for those not in the field but wishing to get beyond the image portrayed on T.V. of this often frightening but allways rewarding industry.

Mr. Garris pays tribute to not only those EMS workers who lost their lives on 911, but also the numerous, allmost allways unheard of providers who have lost their lives over the years since our industries inception in the early 1970's. Again well worth the read. Great book!