New York Books

A provocative and revealing window into some of the most influential art of the 20th century, filled with wickedly subversive art, much of it never seen before.

This book is very interesting to me, and I am slowly reading through it. It appears to cover its ground in a very through manner. It is beautifuly designed and of course many of the illustrations are knock outs! They communicate in many different ways---pushing the boundries of black and white. And the wit!

If you've ever wondered why the Old Gray Lady is so gray, read this wonderful book about the illustrations that have appeared in a prime spot on the pages of The New York Times. The images presented here are easily worth the price of the book by themselves, but the anecdotes and explanations raise the work to a higher level for what they reveal about the way the events of the day are processed into the News at America's foremost paper.

The saga of an art form that gets little respect from the newspaper that has profited from its remarkable qualities for nearly 4 decades. A book packed with wonderful examples of the art of the modern political cartoonist. Everything from the most famous to the mere grunt.

This is a fascinating and exciting book about the power of editorial illustration and all the political events the art covers. Not only does this book allow readers to get an almost tactile experience with the process and creation of OpEd art, it also let's us in on the intrigue surrounding scenarios which unfolded once the art was delivered. The book is such fun to read--it's loaded with facts and anecdotes about world events as well as biographical information about artists we want to know about. Reading about the way in which art was perceived by editors at the New York Times is utterly the most enjoyable and humorous thing about the book because art was turned down for often such absurd reasons. The art in this book is incredible--and the book reveals how potent art and visual communication is in our society. Jerelle Kraus shows us how art takes us places and yet how misunderstood it can be. Reading this book, I feel I just took a great ride through art and culture. Jerelle Kraus has masterfully taken us on an amazing adventure and has written a beautiful and enormously important book!

Mr. McDonald offers a grounded, intelligent snapshot of life on Wall Street and beyond, peopled by a variety of memorable characters. Perhaps surprisingly, given the Wall Street setting, the older personalities are drawn with particular flair and heart. The protagonist, too, emerges as vivid and real: more someone you know than just a character in a book. A fine first novel.

The Altar Boy is a quick, fun read. McDonald's tour through the twisted world of investment banking and the frenzied world of big city romance, left me laughing. It was a treat.

For a first novel, Mr. McDonald did a very nice job. Good characterizations and very believable dialogue. The story line was good. He writes about what he knows, that being the world of finance. I read his bio....what is a mud engineer?

This is one of those books that you enjoy not only once, but again and again, savoring each phrase. The dialog is hilarious, the author's description of people and places make you feel as if you were really there. I'm hoping for a sequel.

Finally, a book with heart, set on Wall Street. Crisply written, laugh-out-loud funny, and, in the end, deeply moving. A fine, lovely read.

I think this cookbook provides some good basic recipes. A friend of mine recommended it to me, and I had higher hopes than what the book provides. But, I do plan to use some of the recipes. I like the concept of the book - providing tested recipes from real home cooks. I may try another Junior League edition as well.

What a great cookbook! I grew up in Rochester & remember these recipes above all others. Do yourself a favor & try the carrot cake.

I have successfully used recipes from this wonderful book ever since its publication. Upstate New Yorkers know how to cook!

This cookbook is fool proof and red hot. Buy multiple copies and give it to your friends. I am a Southern food aficianado, but I enthusiastically admit that those western NY Yankees sure can cook.

My mother has been using this cookbook since it was published in the early '80s. The recipes go from quick and easy family pleasers to elegant evening fair. Some of the recipes are still weekly meals in not only my mom's house, but my own too!! We were so excited to find it here! Now it's not only graces my mother and my cookbook libraries, but we also give it as shower and wedding presents! Everyone should own this cookbook! It is the best ever!

As a doctorate student working on my dissertation concerning the impact multicultural tradebooks have on attitudes of children I found this book an excellent source needed in the classroom. Prejudice and misconceptions of "others" who do not look like or act like the mainstream culture causes an intolerance from too many U.S. citizens whose family endured the same years ago. Children can learn and sympathy through the reading of this fabulous novel.

This book is amazing and tells the story of a family from Bangladesh who gets a tourist visa to America and ends up staying- illegally. However after 9/11 our country started caring about who lived in our country and made men from certain countries register with the government.

This book has allowed me to think about things from another's point of view and re-think my opinion on illegal immigration (which I am still thinking about). I think it's great that Marina Budhos writes a novel like this to allow young adults to think critically about this hot topic and form their own opinions on it. Amazing class discussions could come of this book if used in a classroom setting!!!

It's hard to be a teenager...trying to fit in with the crowd while also trying to figure out who you are and what you want to be. But when you are seemingly invisible to the society around you, it's a lot more complicated.

High school students Nadira and Aisha are immigrants from Bangladesh. They have lived in NewYork City since they were young children surrounded by friends and family. Their father (Abba) has been working with a lawyer to acquire the papers to become legal, but for now the family is living on expired visas. Their status as illegal aliens is not a problem, really, until September 11, 2001 when everything changes! Muslims are now targets for harassment and having proper papers is crucial to avoid deportation or even imprisonment!

The family tries to flee to Canada where they hope to receive asylum. Unfortunately, when they reach Canada, they are turned away due to the huge numbers of people also seeking asylum. When they try to re-enter the U.S., they are stopped. Abba is led away for questioning and Ma must stay in a Salvation Army shelter in order to be close to him. Nadira and Aisha are sent back to New York City where they are told to stay with an Aunt and Uncle and go to school as if nothing has happened until the situation is straightened out.

Aisha is a senior in high school and has always been the smart and pretty one. Her grades place her in the top of her class. She is a member of the varsity debate team and she has been nominated to be valedictorian of her class. Aisha has always been sure to fit in with those around her. She wears the right clothes, listens to the right music and has the right friends. She is the "star"of the family who will go to college and be someone rich and important someday. Nadira is quiet and a little chubby. She must work for her grades and she has always been outshone by Aisha. But suddenly, Aisha stops trying. She skips classes, misses the championship debate meet and even misses her entrance interview with Barnard College. She believes that it's not worth trying anymore since they will probably be deported anyway. Now it's up to Nadira to come up with a plan to save the family.

Budhos has written a compelling story that humanizes the situation experienced by Muslims right after 9/11. The title, "Ask Me No Questions" refers to the fact that illegal aliens often live and work in a community with the full knowledge of its citizens. No one asks for their paperwork, so they don't have to worry about producing it. In the climate of fear after 9/11 many Muslims were suspected of being terrorists and the need to have proper documentation was critical. In this book, Nadira and Aisha have lived in New York for years with no problem. As far as they are concerned, they are Americans. Suddenly everything they have come to expect about their future is in question. Because the story is told through Nadira's eyes, the reader experiences her confusion and fear first hand.
Much of young adult literature focuses on teens "coming of age" and "finding their place in the world". Budhos has created a story of two teens who experience all of that and more. Readers are provided with insight into a problem experienced by more teens than we might imagine. This is a thought-provoking and eye-opening book to which teens and adults can relate.

"...And it's a story, ladies and gentlemen, that I didn't read in a book, or
learn in a classroom. I saw it and lived it, like many of you. I watched a
small man with thick calluses on both his hands work 15 and 16 hours a day. I
saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came
here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed
to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example. I
learned about our kind of democracy from my father. And I learned about our
obligation to each other from him and from my mother. They asked only for a
chance to work and to make the world better for their children, and they -- they
asked to be protected in those moments when they would not be able to
protect themselves. This nation and this nation's government did that for them.
"And that they were able to build a family and live in dignity and see one
of their children go from behind their little grocery store in South Jamaica
on the other side of the tracks where he was born, to occupy the highest seat,
in the greatest State, in the greatest nation, in the only world we know, is
an ineffably beautiful tribute to the democratic process..."
--Mario Cuomo, from his keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National
Convention.

So here we are, counting down the days leading up to the fifth anniversary
of 9/11. For some of us who are in the fortunate position of having had
ancestors come to America a century or more before, and who recognize that good
fortune, such commemorations heighten the recognition that we sit today in
collective judgment as to whether those currently outside our borders (or
illegally within our borders), who dream the same dreams our forebears did, should
be permitted similar opportunities as those from which we benefit.

"I like the shores of America!
Comfort is yours in America!
Knobs on the doors in America,
Wall-to-wall floors in America!"
-- Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, America from West Side Story
(1957)

Of course, many would say, the world of my own immigrant Sicilian
grandparents was a different world -- different circumstances. And they would be
right. My grandmother arrived by boat with her siblings and parents a few years
before the Wright brothers' first successful flight; my grandfather sailed
from Palermo a few years after Kitty Hawk became a household name. Now the sort
of aircraft that Wilbur and Orville could never have imagined in their
wildest dreams have been used to change the world forever.
But what of those people who, like my grandparents, have done their best in
today's world to make those American dreams come true for their own children,
even if their efforts aren't always one hundred percent legal? Where does
the crackdown that 9/11 spawned leave them?

I expect that this will be a potentially frightening week for anyone in
America who is Muslim or who might be mistaken for being Muslim.

"The thing is, we've always lived this way -- floating, not sure where we
belong. In the beginning we lived so that we could pack up any day, fold up
all our belongings into the same nylon suitcases. Then, over time, Abba
relaxed. We bought things. A fold-out sofa where Ma and Abba could sleep. A TV
and a VCR. A table and a rice cooker. Yellow ruffle curtains and clay pots
for the chili peppers. A pine bookcase for Aisha's math and chemistry books.
Soon it was like we were living in a dream of a home. Year after year we
went on, not thinking about Abba's expired passport in the dresser drawer, or
how the heat and the phone bills were in a second cousin's name. You forget
you don't really exist here, that this really isn't your home. One day, we
said, we'd get the paperwork right. In the meantime we kept going. It
happens. All the time."

9/11 was a personal and deadly tragedy for thousands of Americans and their
families. And it was also a black day for illegal aliens like Nadira, her
big sister, Aisha, and their parents who had the ill-fortune a number of years
ago of hiring an incompetent attorney when they'd attempted to stay in the
country legally. Nadira's older sister Aisha is within striking distance of
being valedictorian of her high school class when, in the wake of 9/11, the
government begins tightening laws and hauling in Muslims and the girls' father
decides the best thing to do is for the family to head for the Canadian border
with their expired visa and request asylum. When they reach the border they
are forced to turn around and the girls' father is promptly arrested because
of the expired visa. Mom finds refuge in a shelter near the border where
her husband is being held, while the girls are forced to return to New York
City to be looked after by relatives and pseudo-relatives, to try to continue
their schooling while waiting indefinitely for the American government to make
its next move.

Nadira, who narrates the story and has always existed in the shadows of her
brilliant and fashionable older sister, finds herself having to step out into
the light as Aisha falls into despair over the loss of her American dreams.

"On the way back from school Aisha repeats to me, 'We're going to hear from
the lawyer, Nadira. Today. Or our letter, it's going to be answered. I
know it.'
"But when we get to the mailbox, it's empty. And there are no messages on
the machine.
"Aisha becomes obsessed. Every day there's no letter in the mailbox from
Homeland Security, no phone call from the lawyer. Every evening that we speak
to Ma and hear there's no news there, either. Aisha grows more frantic. At
night she goes over her homework again and again. She gets up early to go to
school, studying in the empty classrooms. She's like a boxer, jabbing and
hitting, trying her old moves, but this time she's up against something that
so much bigger than her, beyond her power.
" I wish I could just put a hand to her skin, stop her whirring inside.
"Soon Aisha is barely going out. She sits in Taslima's room and stares out
the window. Her hair looks greasy; she hasn't even bothered to press coconut
oil into her scalp or run her fingers through the kinks. She keeps wearing
that stupid Destiny's Child T-shirt, and when no one's home, she sneaks into
the living room and watches soaps on TV."

Imagine what it would be like to be an American in the wrong country at the
wrong time with all the rules changing, just when after years that country
was feeling like it was home.

I loved this compelling and terrific look at a very important subject. Illegal immigration is much in the news these days, but people rarely seem to see or think about the human faces and stories behind the headlines. This story of a Bangladeshi family who have successfully "passed" as legal for years in New York but are caught up in the post-9/11 crackdown on anyone Muslim is a heartwrenching look at the people affected every day by bureaucratic tangles and injustices, as well as American prejudices and fears. The father wrenched from his family and detained for months, the "star student" daughter who is afraid to tell anyone at school her family's situation, the younger, quieter daughter who works to find a way out of the catastrophe that has befallen the family--these characters come vividly to life and it's impossible not to imagine what it would be like in their situation.

I have not yet heard from my sister and brother-in-law, who were the recipients of this Christmas gift. They have an apartment on Central Park, but also have a place in Key West and may not yet have received the present. I thought it was a handsome book.

If you like birds, you'll love the unbelievable photographs. If you like Central Park, you'll enjoy the map on the front and back flats which help you identify where the pictures were taken. Glad I purchased this book.

Birds flying up and down the Atlantic flyway inevitably encounter a huge patch of concrete, asphalt and brick. In the center they see a large patch of green, with plants and insects. That's why Central Park in New York City is one of the best birding spots in North America. Several hundred avian species can be found there. In addition, there is another species there in large number, Homo sapiens birdwatcher and still another smaller subspecies, Homo sapiens bird photographer.

With all these birds, birders and bird photographers, there was a huge niche for a book called "Birds of Central Park". Cal Vornberger has filled that niche.

Vornberger has digitally captured the wide variety of birds that pass through Central Park. He presents these birds by season rather than in taxonomical order, which helps to give an impression of the bird life in the park the way that a birder would see it. Like all good photographers Cal is concerned with the light. But his style is different from those of other bird photographers, like Art Morris or Tom Vezo. Instead of being concerned with artistic composition, or deep focus to give a sense of the environment, the author seems aimed at a sense of intimacy with the individual birds. Most of the birds pictured fill the frame completely, forcing us to focus on the individual.

What is amazing is not only how close Vornberger has gotten to his subjects, but how he has caught them in the details of their daily lives. I have never seen so many photographs of birds with food, whether insects, berries or crustaceans, in their mouth. And he has caught many of these birds in flight, reminding me of the bird pictures of the great Eliot Porter. But the artist that Vornberger's portraits most remind me of is the great John James Audubon. There is this same sense of intimacy and presentation against a subtle background.

Occasionally, Vornberger brings his own special aesthetic to the book, as when he pictures a cardinal taking off in the snow on the face page to the winter section. The bird's wings are cut off, the bird faces away from us and the only way that the reader can tell that the white background is snow is from the white snowflakes that follow the bird's ascent. And yet this picture captures a moment better than most technically perfect photographs.

Vornberger's occasional remarks interspersed with the pictures often present a little known fact about the subject or give a hint to other bird photographers hoping to duplicate his accomplishments.

This book should not be considered a guide to Central Park's birds, although there is a convenient pocket guide in a slipcover in the back of the book. Instead it is a testimonial to the birds of Central Park. New York lovers, birders and photographers will want to page through this book to recall the avian pleasures of the park.

I'm not an ornithology buff, but I am a serious amateur photographer. I also happen to live in New York City and do a lot of shooting in Central Park.

I've seen Cal Vornberger a few times as he was going about his business and intensely bringing his huge 600mm lens to bear on some unsuspecting bird.

Until purchasing the book, my exposure (no pun intended) to Vornberger's work was limited to a few looks at his website.

While there are some standard "bird on a stick" shots, they do not by any means make up the majority of the photos. Frankly, anyone with a long lens can take a picture of a perched bird.

What sets Vornberger apart is his knowledge of each species and having the patience to wait for his subjects to be doing something interesting. His shots of so many different species going about the business of feeding, nesting and simply interacting with each other are outstanding.

The printing is excellent and the essays by Vornberger and Marie Winn are informative and very well written. I spend a lot of time in Central Park shooting general nature subjects, but Vornberger's maps led me to discover some areas of the park that I'd never before explored.

If you have any interest in birds, Central Park or photography, this is a must buy.

Just one look at the images of the beautiful Warblers amongst the tree limbs will melt your heart... This is one to definately have on your coffee table!!!

The Birth of Graffiti...I will begin by saying that if you have an inner soul of graff...the curiosity of where it was conceived...of how it was back in the day...the day where you werent even thought of...THIS IS THE BOOK THAT SPEAKS TO YOU THROUGH VISION.

I have never seen a book where the images speak to you as strong as they do in this book...but that is maybe because I have a love for NY and its Graff.

I have a GREAT amount of respect for Naar, and I thank him for bringing us these images of art(as we see it). He did not have to give us this gift, but he did. And the best way you can thank him is by purchasing this book AND adding it to your personal collection, as I have.

The photography is amazing...the shots are unique...and you can tell that the subject of the book IS the begginings of graff...where it all lived up to the hype that we are know. I was born in '79 and arrived to the USA in '84...so I never lived the days of which NYC was NYC...where the walls spoke in MANY voices and many ages in many languages. I have caught a glimpse here and there, but never what I have now captured with this BEAUTIFUL book of NYC-a city I love and GRAFF-the form of art I love.

If you really desire to know what it was like back in the day-on the real-how NYC really was...not no postcard propoganda stuff...GET THIS BOOK.

GREAT BOOK...take it from a cat who's introduction to graff was back in '92 seeing all the Kez5-Bruz-MsMaggs-FLone-Ench throw-ups all over Queens...

Get the damn book...you won't regret it.

NAAR...thanks man.

It was thrilling to see such a vivid documentation of early seventies New York and the graffiti of the period. The prints in this book mark an important period of graffiti's history where the building blocks of the craft were being developed for the first time on the walls, buses, and subways of New York City. Graffiti, for the first time became means of expression for a generation of urban youth in New York. The Birth Of Graffiti demonstrates the inception of style which was evolving on the walls of every borough of the city. Today the techniques and traditions pioneered during that period have been passed down through generations of graffiti writers to develop into one of the strongest and most innovative art movements of the last century. Before graffiti was on every brand of clothing, on billboard advertisements, and used for marketing schemes across the world, it appeared on, city buses, subway cars and the gritty brick walls of 1970's New York City. The youth of New York who created this work were the first innovators of this powerful craft which has now evolved into a worldwide art movement. Jon Naar's photography captures many important moments in a period of great change and turmoil for the city of New York.

this magnificent book speaks to me like no other book on graff, and i have many. aside from a nice introduction, there are no explanations about the photos, nor interviews with the writers, and none are needed. there is such a profound simplicity to these photographs. they expose the beautiful ugliness of urban blight in a sad and delicate light. you want to go there to relive a moment when things were louder, smellier and uglier but that much more innocent.(or so it seemed.) before digital, micro, macro, and the information super highway there was this; innocence, ignorance and bliss. there were no books, magazines or videos about it, there were no websites and rest of the world to share your passion with. there was just you and somewhere out there others like you. whole youthful identitys condensed into an alter ego embellished onto a steel messenger then sent to announce "you were there". unknown in the flesh but known in word and deed. we all spoke and wrote an esoteric language that only a choosen few really understood. to have been there, to have seen it, to have breathed it, ate it, sleeped it, to have known it as it was, not as it is now will remain to me always, a privlidge. how lucky we are that jon naar choose to preserve these precious moments in time as if it truly might mean something one day. i thank you sir. p.s. great review by j.son.

Birth of Graffiti could easily have been titled Faith of Graffiti 2. It is basically Faith of Graffiti with added photos from Jon Naar's archives. Some of these photos such as a The Man 550 piece and marker tags on long extinct subway vending machines bring me back to the days before a slew of talking heads with erroneous sociological and psychological theories started writing books explaining our culture. Mr. Naar's photos are striking and capture graffiti in the transitional period between tagging (single hits) and piecing. Many of the writers documented quit before piecing became the fashion , but the emphasis they put on handwriting style is more formidable than the signatures most writers throw up today. I watched this movement from birth to death on the NYC subways and was lucky enough to participate in it. Although not as visually dynamic as the work that came later, this period fascinates me more than any other. I grew up seeing the names featured in Naar's photos, wanting to meet them and follow in their footsteps. We all owe Jon Naar a debt of thanks for preserving the roots of an ever-changing culture. The book is a must have for any old-timers who want to re-live their glory days and neophytes who want to learn who the real pioneers of the culture were.

This is a really well done book - the photographs are incredible and the printing is perfect. Unlike many graffiti books, this one is very well laid out and is "arty." A very professional treatment of the rough edges of the first spray can art. If you lived in NYC in the 1970's this book will take you down memory lane. You will pick this book up time and time again.

This is a uniquely valuable and fascinating book, but first let's say what it's not. It isn't going to help you with your practice of yoga-postures and breathing. It isn't going to help you (much) with your spiritual practice of yoga.

Over the last 60 years a lot of effort has been made to adapt Asian spiritualities to the West. With an intimidating depth of scholarship, Eliade does the opposite. He discusses Patanjali's Dualistic Yoga, Shankara's Nondualism, Tantra, the "heretical" systems of Jainism and Buddhism in their original context, showing that all are variants of a single sublime and terrifying Idea given to us by India: that the whole universe of time, space and matter must be rejected because it is subject to change, decay and death; that it is possible to transcend the human condition entirely and to attain a diamond-like state of eternal purity, peace, changelessness and boundlessness devoid of specific characteristics. He shows too how these ways of liberation are all thoroughly intertwined with archaic cosmologies, physical theories and images of the body.

Instead of asking, What can the Buddha mean to us? he asks, What did the Buddha himself actually mean? The answer is stranger than you might imagine, and a hundred worlds away from contemporary Western-tailored Buddhism. This book is not for the faint-hearted: threaded with long Sanskrit word, capped by 65 pages of Notes. But persistence will be richly rewarded: with your newfound knowledge you will be able to infuriate your spiritually-minded friends and start any number of futile arguments.

Eliade researched for this book, while staying with Surendranath Dasgupta in India, who was the formost scholar of indian philosophy and thelogy at his time. Eliade meticulously analyzed the indian scriptures and commentaries on sankhya and yoga and presents yoga as a huge, complex and precise system of practice and philosphy with the goal of kaivalyam (libration). This book is a lighthouse in the present time of publishing as much as the printing press can print.

Eliade is the greatest of the modern interpreters of myth and religious practice, and Shamanism, along with his Yoga: Immorality and Freedom, are his two most brilliant works. If you love the study of comparative religion any myth, you'll love this book. Bear in mind that these books are about what people believe and how they think about those beliefs. Eliade is a scholar, not a pseudo-mystic, so expect brilliant analysis and insights, not a how-to book on New Age levitation, hepatoscopy, and Oomantia (divination using egg whites!).

I have the Bollingen paperback third printing of the Second Edition of 1969. I have little doubt that they used the plates from that hardcover edition, so the text is identical. The edition of 1970 currently available is the same as the one I have except for a new cover. The original was in French, published in Paris in 1954. This edition is professionally translated by William R. Trask.

Eliade was a nearly legendary scholar of indefatigable energy, and so it is not surprising that this is the definitive single volume academic work on yoga in English (that I am aware of). George Feuerstein's coffee table sized The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice (1998) is a different sort of book, covering yoga from a more practical point of view, and is accessible to a general public. Eliade's book is aimed directly and just about exclusively at academicians. Furthermore, while Feuerstein is a practitioner as well as a scholar, Eliade makes no pretense of first hand experience. As he relates in the Forward, he is interested in the discovery and interpretation of yoga by the West. He wants to explain that in detail. His is a "comparatively full exposition of the theory and practices of yoga...[a] history of its forms, and...its place in Indian spirituality..." (p. xx) The qualifying "comparatively" is a bit of modesty on the part of Eliade. This book really is a "full exposition" (insofar as that is possible) including the ideas, symbolism and methods of yoga "as they are expressed in tantrism, in alchemy, in folklore, in the aboriginal devotion of India." (p. xxii)

The text, which includes lengthy chapters such as, "Yoga and Brahmanism," "Yoga Techniques in Buddhism," "Yoga and Tantrism," "Yoga and Alchemy," etc. runs for 362 dense pages. Sixty-six pages of notes follow, and then a most extensive and valuable bibliography. The Index itself is 47 pages long and concludes with a by-line(!), "Index by Bart Winer," which is only right considering the text was written and set before the age of computers.

This is not a book for practitioners of yoga but a book for students and scholars of the literature of yoga. It is a challenge to read and appreciate and only really accessible to those with some experience with the literature. There is probably no serious yoga book written in the past quarter century that fails to cite it.

This book was my first introduction to yoga in the late 1960's, when the author taught at the University of Chicago and I did graduate work in South Asian Studies. Many decades later, after yoga teacher's training, studies in Carl Jung's archetypal psychology, alchemy and dreamwork I still find it a valuable reference book. It's a good introduction for anyone interested in following the development of yoga theory and practice in India: the major traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and even aboriginal cultures. Eliade's discussion of the art and practice of Tantric ritual is still among the best I've seen; it clarifies an otherwise confusing topic for the Western reader. A classic not only for yoga teachers' libraries and academics, but recommended for anyone with an interest in what yoga's really about, and where it orginated.

One of the best books every written about the Broadway Theatre. Lots of little known facts, lots of pictures. A fountain of knowledge and a must have for every Broadway buff.

This is an amazing book that covers from Gilbert and Sullivan to (almost) present day.
It is very much worth it's weight in gold if you love Broadway and Music Theatre.

This book is great for anyone - from the Broadway musical savant to the average curious person to the theatre student.

If you've seen the PBS television series, Broadway: The American Musical, this book acts as a fantastic companion and will look great on your bookshelf or coffee table!

It's virtually exactly the same as the DVD in terms of following the chronology of the development of Broadway but the great thing about it is it seems to come with additional pictures not seen in the series and great quotes. Forget about flicking on your DVD! If you need a quick reference you could turn to any page and find something interesting about Broadway to read about.

If you enjoyed the series and are passionate about Broadway, I would thoroughly recommend this book as it has everything in there that you'd need to know. Enjoy it!

If you're into theatre, this book is a must-have! You won't find any other book that gives you such a detailed and accurate history of Musical Theatre. The pictures are great and the reading is outstanding!

125 stories packed with interest. If Chicago is the city of big shoulders, we learn, Brooklyn is the city of big mouths. Mel Brooks growing up in Williamsburg. Coney Island weirdness. Neighborhoods decline and are reborn. The world's handball champ. Blacks, Jews, Italians. Park Slope, Bed Stuy, bensonhurst, Flatbush, Midwood, Gravesend. A black themed B&B in a Victorian mansion. Comedians, musicians, crooks, athletes , writers all tell their stories. Rivoting.

Great packaging, index, photos.

the most enjoyable book i have found to bring back the days of growing up in the wonderful, diverse city of Brooklyn. i keep 5 copies on hand and give them out to people i meet of my generation frim Brooklyn.

BROOKLYN: A STATE OF MIND, edited by Michael Robbins, is a treat for anyone who wonders about the place they always hear about in movies and t.v. or who was born and raised in the greatest borough of the greatest city on Earth (ahem). In spite of the gimmicky subtitle, this collection of essays and stories, photos and cartoons, film scripts and stills, is as informative, inspiring, stunning, human, and a little bit scary as the place itself. Some of my favorite pieces are:

1) David McCullough's "Harry Truman: Live and In Color in Brooklyn". (I'm a sucker for anything by McCullough, anyway.)

2) Glenn Thrush's "The Mistake of '98". In 1898, when Manhattan (which was New York City back then) incorporated the surrounding four boroughs to create Greater New York City, everyone thought it was a fantastic idea--everyone, except for Brooklynites, that is. Brooklyn, which at the time was the third or fourth largest city in the U.S., really didn't want to be associated with the dirty, corrupt and immigrant-filled island on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. (Brooklyn wanted to be its own dirty, corrupt and immigrant filled place.) Thrush's piece is a fascinating look at the events leading up to and years after the consolidation.

3)Jon Gartenberg's "Brooklyn on Film: The Guy from Brooklyn in World War II". I had always remembered watching old WWII movies and, sure enough, there was always the Brooklyn guy. Even in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, the character, Reiben (sp?), is from King's County and wears a Brooklyn bomber jacket. Gartenberg explains why this staple became so common in this movie genre.

Lastly, the photos, some of the best are by Stanley Greenberg and Genevieve Naylor, provided some breathing room around the enormous amount of text. BROOKLYN: A STATE OF MIND is one of the best books about the greatest place on the planet. Got a problem wid dat?

Rocco Dormarunno, author of The Five Points

This is a scrapbook of the world's greatest city from the end of WW II to about the beginnings of television. It's necessarily sentimental because almost everyone who contributed to the volume doesn't live there any more. They (we) did our best and went elsewhere and although we may have succeeded because of the place we came from, most of had to leave to be who we are.
So this is a sentimental tribute to the old country. The photographs are wonderful-that is, they tell the truth as I remember it and some of the essays are great.
This is another bedside, bathroom, waiting room book best sampled in small doses and savored.

Lynn Hoffman, Brooklyn Tech '61 and author of New Short Course in Wine,The and the Brooklynesque bang BANG: A Novel

I grew up in Brooklyn in the 50s/60s. I now live in Los Angeles but I still miss the old neighborhoods. The stories in this book bring me right back. It's a great read for people who want to reminisce or for someone who would like to get a taste of life in a time of innocence in a place of unparalleled sense of community.

One of the more unlikely writers currently making waves in the crime fiction genre is Charlie Stella, who, at first glance, seems more likely to be a character on "The Sopranos" than a dazzlingly gifted novelist.

With his fourth book, "Cheapskates," Stella has combined his playwright's gift for crackling dialogue with another strong, character-driven story that resonates with authenticity and emotion.

Two friends have just gotten out of prison, determined to live life on the straight and narrow. That proves to be almost impossible, though, when the ex-cons run up against the mob and an offshoot of the Nation of Islam. When one of the men is murdered, the other is left to deal with an indifferent police force and find out why.

Stella writes with intelligence and wit, infusing his stories with the reality of the streets and a sly sense of humor. He might just be the best crime writer you've never read.

Charlie Stella is original, and is easily one of my favorite writers. This is NYC-Realism you won't find anywhere else. The characters speak, and you can smell their breath! You haven't heard characters speak to you until you know Stella. All of his books are great to read and learn from. Google his name and check out his site--his Knucksline and Plays are fun to read, but his novels are really the best.

Charlie Stella writes like he has more insight into
this dark world than a "good man" should.
Fabulous dialogue.
Page to page action.
Full of plot twists and double crosses.
A fitting follow-up to "Charlie Opera"
This is his best book so far.

Hopefully, soon, there will come a point where readers won't have to "discover" Charlie Stella because he'll have the recognition he deserves as one of our best crime novelists at work.CHEAPSKATES is a page-turner in the best sense of the word, both funny and suspenseful, with engaging characters, and a wonderfully orchestrated ending. Check out CHEAPSKATES and then go back (if you haven't already)and read EDDIE's WORLD, JIMMY BENCH-PRESS, and CHARLIE OPERA.

You know, life really isn't fair. Talented writers - really talented writers - like Charlie Stella languish in back rooms and low shelves while hacks like James Patterson make everybody's bestseller list.

"Cheapskates" is another crime fiction jewel from the wily Stella, a clever and darkly humorous tale of crooked deeds and undying, if misplaced, loyalty. Reese Waters and Peter Rizzo are roommates - roommates at upstate New York's Fishkill penitentiary. Reese has served his time, and upon his release, he promises Rizzo he'll do what he can to recover $50,000 his ex-wife chiseled from him. If the well-meaning Reese thinks he's getting the runaround from the pathologically greedy ex-wife, Janice Barrett and the low-rent New York gangsters her contractor dad and brother hang out with, he finds that life can get really ugly when buddy Rizzo turns up murdered.

What separates "Cheapskates" - and Stella - from the mob is the cast of offbeat characters that breeze through the pages of his novels. There's Jimmy "Wigs" Valentine, the slime ball Mafioso with lots of disguises but zero class. Then you have Micheal Barrett, the sixty-eight year-old self-made millionaire, who is so cheap that he stocks up on day-old and damaged Entenmann's pastry that he eats for breakfast - and lunch - all week long. Or Arlene Belzinger, the tough-as-nails NYPD detective with a body and attitude to match. But the real star here is Janice Barrett, a bitch in every one of the meanest ways the name conjures. A woman so miserable that Rizzo pines, "Sometime I think that if I ever got cancer, I'll run her over on the way to chemo." Combined with her cheapskate father and slacker brother, Stella creates a whole new dimension to the dysfunction family. Couple this cast with Stella's own brand of slick, hip dialogue and you've got some of the most engaging fiction of vice and corruption this side of Elmore Leonard.

So do yourself a favor - get off the well beaten track and get introduced to Charlie Stella. The Goodfellas and Godfathers have never been so entertaining.