Abstract Books

This is good stuff. I wouldn't lie to you. It's like a dramedy T.V. show in the form of a graphic novel. You can't put it down once you start to read. Just get it - no need to thank me for the advice.

Katchoo and Francine are roomates, and Katchoo has a crush on Francine. Francine thinks she loves Freddie who is only out to get what he can, which he can't since Francine won't sleep with him. David is in love with Katchoo, but she hates men. Thus begins Strangers in Paradise which is a tightly scripted graphic comic that is now being released in a paperpack book series.

In volume one we learn the secret of Katchoo's past, and the three main characters struggle with their feelings for each other. Having been written for comics, similar to 19th century novels of Dickens and Dumas that began life as serializations in the magazines of the time, the plot keeps coming up with surprises. In book form this comes across as lots of plot twists and surprising revelations.

The drawings are fantastically well-drawn and expressive, and they are broken up by occasional pages of poetry and text (as if the artist got tired of drawing in her rush to fill in detail and get back to the story).

Despite the strong characterization, the true hero of the book is Love, the motivator and inner spark of all the main characters. In reality the book is about the healing power of Love. The title comes from a play of the same name that Francine was in while she was in high school. The book provides a flashback to the stage when one of the actors is saying "Without Love, we're never more than Strangers in Paradise."

Terry's story is constantly on the verge of being overcome by it's soap-opera tendencies and it's editorless meanderings, but that stark fact still remains that Katchoo, Francine and David are probably the three most believable and engaging characters you're going to find in contemporary fiction (in any media). He hold his characters reverently, and sees life well. Strangers is extremely gripping when it dabbles in the ordinary, day to day heartache of caring about friends and family, which more than makes up for it's weakness when grasping at mob-related international suspense. Compulsive reading. And don't be put off by the goofiness of the first few issues/chapters. It takes on a life of it's own, it just takes Terry a few months to pull of that miracle.

I read this after the Strangers in Paradise Pocket Book 2, so it is only now that all the niches fit together and this wonderful series is laid out before me.

The strength of this series is undoubtedly its characterisation. Very few comics have such a powerful and realistic portrayal. 'Strangers in Paradise' is an ode to the hidden depth and powerful beauty of women, irrespective of size etc. I think that is such an important message in contemporary times, and this series is incredibly empowering to actually read.

The art is beautiful and detailed and the storyline is gripping and completely addictive. This is a particularly good value buy, since all the 'Strangers in Paradise' books are correlated. The compilation is also an excellent way of developing a depth of understanding and appreciation for its entirity, while reading each edition tends to segement the series. The pocket book size is also wonderful and little, but meaty enough to have long hours curled up reading.

I am beginning to develop a few dislikes to the series, but certainly not enough to give it anything but five stars. Primarily, I think Katchoo is almost a caricature of herself, and her repetitive anger bursts are somewhat irritating and more aligned with the comic 'Hothead Paisan'. Undoubtedly, Francine is the better more realistic more developed character.

Irrespective of this, 'Strangers in Paradise Pocket Book 1' is a neatly correlated engrossing saga of friendship and so much more. Highly recommended.

If you try to read this series in the individual comic issues, you won't get nearly half of what you get in these pocket book series. With individual issues, you have to look for the correct volume as well as issue numbers. Here, the story is perfectly laid out. We get a long look at the characters of Francine, Katchoo, and David and their development over a period of time. This is lost when reading the indiviual issues.

I have to say that the writing is top notch with every conceivable twist and turn. I found it hard to put down and was glad when volume 2 came out. Volume three hits the racks next week and will certainly find it's way into my collection.

Smith's style is so detailed and colorful it is almost hypnotic. The rich blacks set the stage for everything that follows. There is an honesty in these paintings that brings the women to life, it feels as though you know them just by looking at their portrait...amazing work.

Zak Smith is a brilliant alchemist. For my taste he is one of the first bona fide twenty-first century artists. I collect artbooks, and art when I can scrape the coin together. If I had the money today I would buy an original work by Zak Smith, (that is if there were any available for sale), but in lieu of an original work I bought his book. The full color pages of his art capture some of the excitement I feel whenever I look at his work. His use of color is outrageous especially when combined with the black and white tones of the ink drawing. The book Zak Smith pictures of girls shows off his mad skills, and I only wish it were a bigger book. BUY THIS BOOK!

Victoria Gladstone

I first saw work by Zak Smith when in New York for the Whitney Biennial in 2004. His illustrations for Gravity's Rainbow were included in the show, and I was stunned not only by the scope of the project but also by the remarkable amount of attention and care that he clearly poured into those pictures.

Having recently purchased the book Pictures of Girls, I must say that I'm as blown away by the work collected in this volume as I was by what I saw at the Whitney. Smith is obviously enamored of his subjects - there's no other way someone could capture so precisely the mood, the sense of place, the idiosyncratic beauty that the artist manages to convey. Stark lines and bright colors provide an arresting framework for the overwhelming degree of intricacy with which Smith infuses his paintings of the "girls." Gorgeous.

I also enjoyed the interview with Smith by curator Shamim Momin included at the beginning of the book - it's a great glimpse into the working methods of such a talented artist, and it will certainly inspire the next generation of artists to pursue their vision with the same unapologetic abandon.

As an avid collector of art books, trust me when I say that if you care even the tiniest bit about the state of contemporary art, Pictures of Girls is a necessary addition to your library. Every time I look through it, I notice something new to like about Smith's work. It's fresh, vivid, infinitely absorbing, and just plain beautiful. Whether you're an occasional museum-goer or a fanatical connoisseur, I honestly believe you will adore this book.

The first thing that I notice about this artwork is its stunning complexity - papers and animals and characters repeating in almost fractal-like patterns. This may sound odd since they are all 'Pictures of Girls" - and the girls are also gorgeous, with bedroom eyes and clothing of varying scantiness. Nevertheless, it's the colors and lines and shading that capture my imagination. Sometimes I am shocked to find that I am staring at pictures of girls in compromising positions with octopuses - so beautiful but yet somehow underscored by a tingle of creepiness. That ambivalent excitement is the mark of true art, in my opinion. This is a great book.

A fantastic group of pictures by an artist that deserves a much bigger audience.
They're all paintings and drawings--this business about a "photochemical process" is clearly a mistake.

This remarkable collection demonstrates once again how Ballard is one of literature's best kept secrets. Fourteen intelligent, intense and vividly written short stories challenge our theories of the recent future. It is one of the mysteries of our own time that someone casting as long a shadow as does Ballard, is virtually unknown in his native England, let alone America. This book, with its visions of dystopia, contains some very intriguing ideas: A middle east guerrilla has an idea for ending the fighting there, only to discover that the UN has a quite different agenda. World War III is played out against the larger concerns of President Reagan's health problems. The index from an unknown and perhaps suppressed autobiography provides tantalizing details to the life and times of one of this century's most anonymous titans. Ballard shines brightest in the short form; these stories are no exception. Enjoy!

I'll let the scholarly types explain all the deep insight contained in these stories. All I can say is this is the collection I hand out to people who want to explore Ballard's work. Some great stories in there.

These are some of the most creative short stories I've read. Ever. A sailor wrecks his chemical-laden ship on a remote Caribbean island, and the island environment reacts surprisingly well. A young assassin escapes an English mental institution and begins targeting astronauts. A man locks himself in his house and locks the rest of the world out...forever. Intelligently written, well-researched, and ever fascinating, these stories represent Ballard at his visionary best. I couldn't put it down!

J.G. Ballard is a rare find, a dystopian with a very, very dry sense of humor. The future isn't the bestiality of "1984" or the state mandated hedonism of Huxley's vision. Rather it comes from the constant tidal pressure of creeping suburbia puncuated with moments of surreal violence sputtered out of a TV set. Kind of like life. I recommend it highly

Ballard novels have never really impressed me - they seem too unfocused and convoluted. I am a big fan, however, of his short stories - generally well-written, interestingly plotted, and providing just the right amount of alienation, making even a mundane situation seem like an otherworldly experience. "The Best Short Stories of..." is a great place to start, with many fiction and sci-fi classics, a great representation of the short story form. "War Fever" is a worthy follow-up. I don't know why it took me so long to try these stories, but they are definitely worth it. Here, he doesn't really go out of his way to write in any established genre (sci-fi, horror), but his stories seem to drift that way ever so slightly, as if trying to just tread the edge of such. He uses some interesting variations with form as well, seeing what the reader will accept as a story: a questionnaire? An index? Both are equally valid, and Ballard uses them to great effect. Give this collection a try and see how well the stories hold up to his more classic works. I think you'll find that his output from the mid to late '80s was just as good.

This is the catalogue for the landmark Pollock exhibition held at the Moma and the Tate in 1998-1999. Considering the steep rise in the insurance value of Pollock's paintings, such a comprehensive retrospective is not likely to be repeated in the near future and we are therefore fortunate to have such a brilliant book to help us remember it. The late Kirk Varnedoe was one of the best interpreters of contemporary American art and his text, never anecdotical and always informative without being pedantic, does justice to the masterpieces without falling into any of the cliches that often pollute our view of this great artist.

Beautiful illustrations make this book an indispensable presence in any arts library.

Having just taken in the MoMA show, I was very satisfied with the Pollock catalog. Very nice job reproducing the works (a difficult task in the printing of art catalogs!) Many fold-outs assist in conveying the size of Pollock's larger works. Large, full-bleed detail shots add a nice touch, complimenting the entire painting. While I'm not thrilled with the cover design, the interior is well-written, well-presented, and well-worth reading.

I picked this book up at the MOMA Pollock retrospective a couple years ago and have used it extensively. Having seen many of the paintings in this book firsthand, I can say that these are some of the best reproductions offerred in book form on Pollock's work. Another plus is that several paintings are printed on fold-out pages, so that the work doesn't cross the book's seam. So many of his paintings are extremely wide that this makes a lot of sense (otherwise, there would be hardly any resolution in the height dimension).

If you're interested in Pollock and need to refer to the reproductions, I absolutely recommend this book above all others out there.

This breathtaking catalogue is simply the best single volume available on Jackson Pollock, and this is primarily--but not only--because of the number and quality of the reproductions it offers. Almost every one of the dozen or so Pollock books in my library contains a painting not available in the others, but this book collects and beautifully photographs the greatest number and variety of his canvases--outside of a catalogue raisonee.

As the other reviewers state, there are many generously-sized fold-out pages here, and the crispness and resolution of these big reprints and of the more modest pages are simply amazing. To take two essential examples, this book's reprints of "One: Number 31, 1950" and "Blue Poles: Number 11, 1952" are astoundingly clear, better than any of the many other versions I've seen in art books, even in Ellen Landau's large-format survey, a book which also includes gatefolds.

(Another reviewer, by the by, states that "Lucifer" is not available in any other book, which is not true. Among other places, it appears in Landau, in Elizabeth's Frank's concise volume, and as the sole color reproduction in the book for the 1965 MOMA retrospective. Anyway, it gets terrific treatment here.)

Another invaluable inclusion in this book is a great number of full-sized detail photos of the canvases. For example, on a page adjacent to "Lucifer" and "Autumn Rhythm" and "Full Fathom Five," we see another photo of just one small section of that same painting but in 1-to-1 scale; these details reveal much of the dynamic, kinetic, urgent quality of these works, their encrustations of sand, glass, pennies, paint caps--traits which even this book could otherwise never offer a livingroom Pollock-viewer.

Further, having seen the exhibit in January of 1999, I can attest to the generally excellent fidelity of the color-balance. (Curiously, no one seems to be able to capture "Autumn Rhythm"'s grey-teal passages in a book, but if you were at this show or have viewed the painting at the Met you've seen them.)

The accompanying articles are excellent. Kirk Varnedoe overviews of Pollock's life, artistic aims, his accomplishments, all illustrated with family and archival photographs and drawing on Pollock quotations. Pepe Karmel uses the extensive photographic and film record of Pollock painting to analyze Pollock's physical movements. Most wonderful are Karmel's computer reconstructions of early states of the painting "Autumn Rythm," based on Hans Namuth's photos of Pollock at work.

In sum, this book gives the finest, fullest offering of both Pollock's life and art.

Excellent companion piece to the MOMA show (which traveled to London's Tate) goes beyond all other Pollock explorations. A "must" for students of modern American art as well as those just wanting to get a better understanding of what Pollock was REALLY DOING.

Large format features fold-out reproductions of breathtakingly high quality. Among these, incredibly, are paintings not found in any other published sources. (The incomparable Lucifer (1947) is one such work).

The text is scholarly but readable, and although there is a considerable amount of it, each open page of writing offers at least a couple relevant and highly interesting photos or other illustrations. The many large color plates would certainly make a gorgeous and impressive coffee table book for anyone who doesn't choose to read it.

Kirk Varnedoe writes definitively about Pollock's mercurial life & career. Varnedoe's nearly 75 pages of biographical analysis are a welcome alternative to the kind of misguided mythologizing about Pollock that has for a long time colored the artist as an overrated art "star."

Pepe Karmel's contribution to this book is an amazing analysis of Pollock's painting process through an exhaustive examination of the famous films and photographs of Pollock at work. This was a fascinating, ground-breaking part of the exhibition, and is equally wonderful in the book.

Well worth the price.

I loved the designs in this book. I would definately purchase this again as a gift for a young artist.

Thank you for bringing these wonderful coloring books to Amazon.com! Year after year, at Minneapolis's Art a Whirl I look forward to finding Kendall Bohn's art studio because of the colorful and intellectual art he produces. Kendall is an artist who has not forgotten our children (and the children at heart) and their need for abstract, creative and fun art. Each coloring book is a flawless masterpiece which makes them a fantastic gift for cultivating imagination. At any age, anyone can color one of these beautiful pages to match any room and frame them for all to admire. I look forward to your continued releases!

Get out your crayons, colored pencils, gel pens, paints, or any combination of all of them and prepare to have hours of relaxing creativity turning out vibrant finished pages that will amaze you with their beauty.

Photocopy the pages so you can rework the designs over and over again, incorporating them into greeting cards, post cards, scrap books, or any crafts project you can devise!

Now, how can you resist that much fun?

I love abstract coloring and when I ordered this product I came to find out that this was like no other abstract coloring I had experiened. I love this abstract coloring book and I would most definiatly recomend this to anybody that loves to color abstract coloring pages. There is so many posibilites with each coloring page in this book. No two people would get the same out of the same coloring pages. This is the most wounerfull book that i have ever spent money on . I LOVE THIS BOOK. i hope that you also get to have as much fun as i did with this book.

I have admired Gloria Steinem since I came to this country in the 70's to go to college. She has had to make some tough choices in her life and I respect her greatly for the path she took. I particularly liked to read about her early years, her childhood and family, prior to the more public New York life of the sophisticated writer and feminist persona she became. After reading this book, I feel that I understand much better where her strong motivation came from. The author deserves much praise for this biography.

I read this book nonstop while on a lengthy car trip. I found it to be incredibly interesting, informative, well-researched, and enjoyable to read. If you've ever wondered how Gloria Steinem got to be the icon that she is, this book explains it all. Whether you are researching Steinem or just looking for an interesting non-fiction, this book is for you!!

A sympathetic biography of one of the most famous leaders in the women's movement. According to Heilbrun, Steinem's beauty and ability to remain constantly in the public eye have been a constant source of irritation to other feminists. She presents Steinmen as a slightly naive, well-intentioned and empathetic individual who never intended to lead the feminist movement and indeed would have preferred remaining in the shadows as a reporter and writer.

Growing up in the early 80's, I had a vauge idea who Gloria Steinem was and what she did. I was delighted to pick up this book and read the first (and probaly most accurate)book on such a revolutionary leader.

Denounced by the extreme right and extreme left, Steinem's life has taken her from Ohio to Massachusetts to India, Washington DC and NY. Having cofounded Ms. the National Women's Political Caucus, the Women's Action Alliance and Voters for Choice, Steinem is truly an example of a good role model.

Heilbrum's superb prose takes us into the infamous resentment born by Betty Friedan and Kathie Sarahchild. Although both of these women are famous in their own right, their inexcusable and childish tantrums undid their own feminist reputation without any help from Steinem. Also deserving of their repuation is Betty Harris who's paranoid delusions and lax work ethic jepordaized the working environment at the early MS. Steinem is a saint for having dealt with these crazies and still keeping cool.

I am currently taking a 300 level course on proofing and Bridge to Abstract Mathematics is one of the required texts. This book is an excellent introduction to proofing. There is a huge intellectual leap between 200 level and 300 level proof based math courses that is often very difficult for college math students to make. This text does an wonderful job of bridging that gap. Many teachers and curriculum's in proof based courses expect students to somehow magically pick up the art and skill of proofing on their own. Morash takes the time to show the logic and art behind proofing that teachers often don't or can't teach. (Because they consider it trivial or they don't really understand it themselves!) The logic sections can be boring if you're not into truth tables but it is infinitely useful material if you want to learn to proof well. I've seen other books on proofing and they don't hold a candle to this one. Many of my math profs. recommend this book because it is the one they learned from when they were undergrads.

I am currently taking an Intro to Abstract Mathematics course and am using this book as a supplement. All of the topics are VERY well explained and to the point. I refer to this text more than I do my lecture notes and the appointed text for the class. I also have two other books on the subject and this text is by far the best in my opinion. If you want clarity, I recommend this book.

This is an excellent book to help guide a student through the upper division mathematical courses.

Simply a must for any upper division math student or any one heading into rigorous theory.

Analytical abstracts and chemical abstract

Analytical abstracts and chemical abstract

Analytical abstracts and chemical abstract

the cyclic voltammetric behaviour of Copper nitrate or other inorganic salts of copper salts in acidic solution such as nitric acid

A few of my favorite painters are contemporaries of Still, so I saw it as my duty to see the Hirschhorn exhibition. Well, I picked a dead day and had the show to myself and simply put I am now a fan. The book is great and David Anfam's addition to the book is especially enlightening about the work of Still.

I am a painter who has largely avoided Clifford Still but this book has turned me into a great admirer. Particulary influential was the contribution by David Anfam, the art historian who was responsible for the magnificent, award-winning Mark Rothko catalogue raisonne. Anfam's essay is insightful, far-reaching, beautifully written with poetic underpinnings, a pleasure to read. All you'll ever need to know about Clifford Still, his work, and his place in art history is covered in this essay. The color plates are also wonderful and, even as reproductions, offer a great chance to appreciate the paintings.

Clyfford Still is one of the giant figures of the art world and this book puts his paintings in a proper perspective. The book contains many color reproductions of his large non-objective canvases. Still himself wrote the book and gives us a very good insight into his life and thinking process. He discusses what went into his paintings and how his unique canvas numbering system worked absent dates and titles to identify his work. It is also a journey through his body of work. His paintings were skillfully balanced with positive and negative spaces and his unparalleled use of color is well documented. This book is a must for any art lover in general and for students of American art in particular. I liked this book not only for the well reproduced paintings in color but also because it let's us into the painter's mind to get a glimps of his true genius.

An excellent catalogue written by leading authorities on a great artist whose unique body of works has remained hidden in the estate (only about 150 paintings are scattered in public and private collections), and who, as a consequence has been neglected by the general public. It is the only such publication on Clyfford Still to be published since the late 1980's and I strongly recommend it to any art lover interested in the Ab-Ex movement.

This is definitely one of my best math books. The main feature of this book is that the readers feel very easy to follow the provided concepts and understand what is important. I really don't know any other book as good as this one. Probably only David C. Lay's "Linear Algebra and Its Applications" can compete with this one. I truly recommend anyone who studies modern algebra to take a look at this. Good luck!

I found the ideas in this book to be very accesible to the student with little mathematics experience (as I have). It is very straight foward, contains illuminating example problems, and even has an application section at the end of each chapter. Many abstract algebra books assume that you can prove anything. However, Gilbert's book focuses on the techniques of learning how to prove.

It is surely one of the books I most enjoyed!!
But its pricey, thats why a lot of colleges (or professors) try to avoid it.

The book has eight chapters:
1) Fundamentals
2) The integers
3) Groups
4) More on Groups
5) Rings, Integral domains, and fields
6) More on rings
7) Real and Complex Numbers
8) Ploynomials.

Definitions and Theorems stand out in Boxes, then later comes the examples!! (Plz Mathematicians who write books, just take a look here, see how nicely a book can be written, then go for the challenge).

one of the good things in this book, is that it does not assume you took a class in number theory before, so it introduces in the first two chapters everything (from a typical number theory class) that you would need in modern algebra class. (that might be a drawback for a student who took number theory class, and his professor is determined to start from the first chapter in this book).

other than the definitions and theorems stand out clearly, The author give examples on how that theorem can be used!! and The examples sometimes are really good!!

What's best in this book, are the problems after each chapter, they rank from direct applications to theorems, to CHallenging problems! (at least challenging for me). But note that some of the problems depend on each other! so if ur stuck on one problem, that means you might need to use a result from an earlier problem in the same chapter. its a drawback that the author does not say "use problem ... to solve this one", I think they assume that anyone solving the problems, is solving all of them in sequence, which what students SHOULD do. There is no way you can get a good grasp on the material in this book, unless you are a genius, or you solve ALL the problems after each chapter (at least a very good amount of them). I found best thing to do is try solving them in sequence, if you dont have time to solve all of them, then skip the ones that you REALLY think you can solve, and this way you can use the result later on.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in modern (abstract) algebra! But I think a pre-requisite to self-study in this book is exposition to how to write proofs rigorously. (well sure thats the pre-requisite for any math course, but usually this subject is one of the first subjects studied in upper level math courses, and you better take another course that exposes you to how to write proofs, if your buying this book for self-study).

I thoroughly enjoyed my modern algebra class, with an excellent professor and this excellent book. The book is very clearly written, and the concepts of sets, groups, rings, fields, and number systems are explained with detail. This is especially important since my summer research in number theory requires an understanding of these algebraic structures.