Publications Books

A comprehensive survey of the artist's work, it covers not just his paintings, but also his posters, advertising and magazine and book illustration and the murals. Very well illustrated and with a comprehensive text it chronicles the artist's development and his vast array of work.

One of the most interesting chapters is that which explains in detail the methods Parrish employed to achieve his remarkable results. This includes his use of photography and the painstaking glazing techniques he employed.

A very interesting and useful publication; it is not one that sits idly on my book shelf.

The version of this book that I own is from the second printing (1974). What a beautiful book! In some ways Parrish seems to be the dreamy counterpart to Norman Rockwell. An amazing attention to detail and lighting. To reiterate a point raised in other reviews, this book would benefit from more color plates, but that is a minor criticism. While I have not yet purchased any of the other books in print on Maxfield's work...this is a fine place to start. There is a generous sampling of landscapes, product advertisements and magazine covers. Recommended!

Note: I made some immature person angry by giving negative reviews of books written to "prove the Book of Mormon." Rather than answer my criticism, this person automatically gives my reviews negative votes. Oh, well.

Your "helpful" votes are appreciated, and please remember that a short review is not necessarily a bad review if it leads you to a great book.

I love "Daybreak" (see cover) with a nude figure standing above a girl sleeping in a columned pavilion. If you like this painting, then check out different reproductions (the colors vary widely and change the nature and mood of the painting. Really change it.

"Twilight" is another great painting. For me, it is evocative of a great mystery. You want to step into that farm yard and explore the house and barn. No people are shown, but it gives me the feeling that ghosts live there (without being scary--in a dreamy sense).

"Afterglow" is also intreguing, showing a New England church as the stars come out.

The book is full of both color and black-and-white illustrations. I would love to see "Landing of the Brazen Boatman" in color. A robed figure is walking down some stairs of a strange temple while a boatman awaits.

What a gift of imagination Maxfield Parrish left to the world!

Highly recommended.

This book has always been the "essential" Maxfield Parrish reference for me. It contains page after page of information about the artist's incredible personal and professional life. It also goes into great depth detailing the illustrator's perfected (and tedious) technique of creating illustrations. From crafting meticulous miniatures for layout to the final process of layering oil glazes onto the canvas. It's all there.

I would highly recommend this book to Illustrators, art teachers, and overall art enthusiasts who want to expand their knowledge about illustration and a true master of the past. This book has been cited in other publications such as "Step by Step Graphics" for the depth analysis of his technique.

My only small criticism is that I would've liked to seen more color prints within the book. A few too many black and white reproductions of the artwork. That aside, I feel this book is of tremendous value.

I, like you, want to own Daybreak--perhaps more so than any other painting. Sometimes an illustration entertains, perhaps greatly. Some evoke admiration, even gaping admiration. In the case of several Parrish paintings, admiration is merely the aftertaste of a much more powerful emotion: the craving to be in the space the artist has created, to have or to be the characters therein. A desire to truly exit this world and remain in the other. The list of works that affect me in that way starts off like this: It's A Wonderful Life, Oz, Narnia, Harry Potter's magical England, Parrish's Daybreak & Land of Make-Believe & Air Castles et al., Robert Heinlein's Glory Road, ERB's A Princess Of Mars... We read or watch or view them over and over again in an attempt to ease the longing.

This volume satisfied that craving long enough for me to catch my breath.

The book is well written. I have been enjoying reading it. However, I can't give it 5 stars because the author takes drugs and writes about it. How about a kid reads this book? So, the kid will think is cool or ok? I don't think the author has the right to inspire people to do what he chooses to do with his body. The body is a temple to take care of not to abuse it and exploited in actions, words, thoughts or writing.
He also mentions the dark side of his nature that it's too personal and too dark. Almost evil to the point, that I felt he should have left it out. Nobody needs to know about this of his past. Only God should judge, and he knows all our sides including the dark ones.
If you are spiritually sensitive, you will feel the darkness of his spirit in the past while reading his words. Words are powerful and words can manifest.
Some parts of the book with these are repulsive!
The rest is excellent! He has great thoughts and ways to present his visions of art. The author can also inspired other artists.
To the Author, I would suggest asw a friend reader for him to see "The Secret." Hopefully, he won't repeat writing events of his inner demons. Sorry, but nobody cares...besides this should be in a personal journal or talked with a theraphist.
The author uses his writtings to heal and confess himself. The bible says, to confess to God only. If you don't want criticism like this don't exploit your past weakneses by writting to the world!
This book should not be given to kids under 25 yrs old. When you are 25 yrs old. your thoughts patterns are mature to make the best judgement before then your brain is still developing and is highly impressionable. This is a fact and one can google it too.

I bought this for my fiance and he ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. I really enjoyed it too. My fiance is a HUGE Alex Grey and TOOL fan and if you are too you will love it too!!!

Soul Expression Can Be Visionary Artistry
Imagine, for a moment, the Creative Forces. How do you envision the Spirit of Life, as it expresses itself within you? When I suggest this meditation in my classes, people usually enjoy it. When I suggest to pick up a colored crayon or two and help the Creative Spirit express itself on paper, this second instruction creates more anxiety than pleasure. I hear the protest, "But I can't draw what I envisioned!" I might reply, "Just allow yourself to enjoy the process and don't be worrying so much about how you think it should look. Let it be easy, let the vision guide the drawing, let it do what it wants with itself."
After we have made our drawings, people share a little of what was experienced during the meditation and we get to see how it came out on paper. The drawings are so different, yet group members usually recognize the mark of the Creative Spirit in them. Their sheets of paper contain precious revelations. People remark favorably, of course, about those that are more "artistic." Some may denigrate their own work when comparing it with those that win the group's "artistic" award. I try to draw their attention elsewhere. It's not about being "artistic," but about honoring one's experience as best one can.
Alex Grey, author of The Mission of Art (Shambhala), writes that the purpose of making art should not be trivialized into a career path toward fame and fortune. The essential purpose of making art, he reminds us, is to honor Spirit, to make it visible, to make it real in this world. If we create also for the purpose that it might further awaken Spirit in others, then making art becomes a spiritual mission as well. If sufficient talent, dedication and hard work are present in the mix, then it can also be a profession. He calls the professional artist to a higher mission, explaining how to invite Spirit into the work. If the artist commits to bringing Spirit into the work, he claims, Spirit will collaborate with the artist.
Creating is an essential part of the soul's activity and thus belongs to everyone as their natural birthright. So he aims his book also at the rest of us, just as he does his painting. He writes, "When people are profoundly moved by art, they recall from their depths their own intuition of spiritual truth." Like Edgar Cayce, he would have us all involved in some sort of creative activity and wants us to appreciate the spiritual importance of doing so.
Even if you do not recognize the name of Alex Grey, very likely you have seen a reproduction of one of his visionary paintings. Best known are his stunning, anatomically correct renditions of a person with transparent skin, revealing the inner body as well as the spiritual energies flowing through that body. In his painting of the kissing couple, for example, you can see the spirit of the man and woman intertwine. His paintings show beautifully the truth of Spirit's activity in this world.
The fact that his stuff is extraordinarily good--dazzlingly good--doesn't take away from the fact that he is sincere when he writes that each of us is an artist. He urges us to recognize that our soul yearns to find outward expression in creative acts. Echoing the understanding of Edgar Cayce, he writes, "Seeing with the eye of the heart, the mystic eye, is seeing with the soul." Responding to the creative itch, taking the time to express it, in poetry, in cooking, in painting, honors the source. Allowing the imagination to become involved in our activities invites the soul's involvement in what we do.
I explain to my students that our doodling exercise is something of a sacred ritual. I note that we attuned ourselves to a very special inner reality, and then expressed it outwardly as honestly as we could. In other words, we gave testimony to our own experience of Spirit. By sharing our drawings, our spiritual intuitions made visible, we treated ourselves to witnessing several reflections of Spirit, expanding and sharpening our sensitivity to its qualities.
But the exercise was not without struggle. It took something akin to what Grey calls "egocide." We had to let go of notions of what the drawing "should" look like, and allow the expression of something greater than our own willful abilities." It requires turning our focus away from the ego's perceived "artistic" outcome and focus instead upon the authenticity of having honored our experience. In the back of my mind is one of my favorite ideas from the Cayce material, that the one of highest service we can give to one another is to share our experience of the Creator. I am also aware of his teachings about art being an essential path of spiritual experience. The purpose of our exercise is not to see who can make commercial art, but to enhance our connection with Spirit. We can not all be commercial artists, but by honoring the muse and being willing to share, we can all serve as visionary artists. [...]

Warp your mind and you just might see God. Haven't tried LSD. Have tried "Salvia Divinorum" (still legal as I write this in most areas) I don't smoke and rarely drink, and I've never even tried pot, something most who know me don't believe since my parents were hippies.

But, after being stuck in a 70 hour week overtime job for 3 years, I had an art block that made me feel almost suicidal. The flood of ideas trying to focus through that tiny speck of time I had burned me out.

So, against everything I'd ever done in life, I got some Salvia Divinorum after a lot of net research on anything "Psychedelic". And after a few trys had a hallucination beyond comprehension. Literally seeing God and his infinite love and creativity and how bright that burns in all of us, even as tiny and insignifigant the universe is in the greater universe beyond.

Reading this book I felt kinship. Someone who'd used a psychoactive and seen his true purpose.

I reccomend to anyone who wants to do art (with or without earning a dime from it) but feels limited or blocked by stress interferring with creativity to do this. Try a hallucinogen ONCE (or a couple times) and check out visionary stuff like this.

In The Mission of Art, Alex Grey shows that his prodigious artistic gifts are moored in intellectual depth. Grey discusses art history, aesthetics, mysticism, religion, postmodernism, and processes of art reception with equal facility. This kind of writing is a rare treat. Only a small number of American artists have articulated their ideas in writing and fewer have done so with as much skill and alacrity. Grey's writing is reminiscent of G. Albert Aurier, the French Symbolist critic who shared Grey's mystical inclinations and his views about the spiritual and moral potential of art. Grey believes that mystically inspired art can in turn inspire its viewers to transcend today's oppressive consensual values of materialism, utilitarianism, and consumerism, and become aware of more authentic spiritual realities. There are a couple of factual inaccuracies, perhaps due to exaggeration or oversight, as where Grey states that mystical art was virtually absent in late nineteenth century Europe (p.37) and that Van Gogh labored in "complete obscurity" (p.90). Many prominent artists of the late nineteenth century French Symbolist movement were deeply inspired by neo-Platonic mysticism. Though Van Gogh never achieved material success, he was well known and respected by some major artists of his time. Aurier praised Van Gogh's art in a published review shortly before the latter's death. As the world seems to plummet ever deeper into eco-devastation and strife, to continue to hold out faith in general processes of human spiritual "evolution" which are aided by art, as Grey does, appears to demand ever more credulity. In my view, one can now realistically expect mystical art only to be a source of some personal inspiration and an exemplar of humanity's highest but tragically failed ideals. Its ideals of spiritual perfection might still be realizable, or approachable, by the minority of persons and minds which are receptive to it, but it has been virtually impotent as a means of producing a generalized social-spiritual transformation. Indeed, our society seems to appropriate such art as a means of a repressive desublimation of mystical idealism. Mystical art might tend to palliate and pacify idealistic urges, lulling some viewers into complacency by its pleasant presentations of images of spiritual self-actualization, images which, as wonderful as they may be, are only shadows of real conditions of actualization. Our society allows access to these images while doing its best to restrict access to the kinds of experiences which might truly facilitate such an actualization, such as the entheogenic experiences which largely inspired Grey, and competent shamanic guidance. Nevertheless, such mystical representations of what might be more realizable in a better world may for some others highlight the differences between what is and what ought to be, inspiring greater efforts to close the gap. Mystical imagery, as a means of Bildung or of the cultivation of consciousness, is capable of helping to "magnetize" the minds of receptive viewers, helping to keep some minds freed from Plato's cave and aimed toward the light.

An amazing book from an amazing artist.
I have been a fan of R.C.Crumb for a long time and was estatic when I came across this book.Several times when you are going through this book you'll see mention of the movie "Crumb".By all means ,find it and watch it. It is much more about RC,but Aline appears in it many times. And why wouldn't she;she has been an essential part of his life,and he of hers, since 1973.And what a life it has been for these two artists feeding on one another's talents,imaginations and love of life and freedom of expression. The reason I mention this movie is that it brings you into their lives so well as you listen to them talk about their lives ,art and lifestyles. And most important, many of the people you encounter in this book are in the movie and play themselves--in what seems to be virtually unrehearsed. I wrote a Review on that movie on February 14,2007.
I have loved the Comics since I was able to read,starting in the early 1940's. Very much a part of Comics ,has in addition to the storyline ,been the fabulous art that these great strip writers have produced. I find it impossible to pick a favorite since each is such a personal expression of their imagination and skill.
It this book Aline bares her soul to us all ,probably even to a greater extent than most people are able to bare their own to themseles.
The thing about an artist with the love of life ,imagination and skills of Aline ;is that she is able to show the way one reacts to the world around them. She is able to see and tell about things where others only look and wonder why.
Throughout the book, her artist's soul is displayed in every part of her life.From the time she was a child,the families around her,her friends,her art,her choices of homes and what ojects and artistic surroundings she creates;and toward the end of the book she becomes very open to us and tries to show what has been important in her life and what a struggle one must make if they are to really live their life with gusto;or simply let oneself flow along with the stream.
If you are a fan of the Crumbs or Comics or Art or Life itself ;you can't help but be enchanted with this book.I notice that this book was listed at $30 and now offered at a Bargin Price of $8.99 --an amazing value for such a treasure.It has 384 pages,and superbly constructed with glossy covers and dj.The color rendition is excellent as well as the printing ,and on very heavy stock paper.
I really wanted to rate this 5*,but for some reason,only 4* registered.It is definitely a 5* book.

I was amazed at how easily Aline Kominsky Crumb seems to open up to the reader in this plump autobiography. You can tell when you first pick up this hefty book, that Aline has alot to say about her life, her loves, and her work. Even though I'm not a Jewish girl from the "guyland" (as she says it), I found her characters easy to relate to. Highly recommended!!

This is a good one to flip through - strange and funny. It's also quite revealing but I like the lighthearted tone of the author and I never know this much about her, though I knew a bit about Crumb. Can be kind of crude, but you should see that coming if you've seen Crumb...

I have always loved and looked forward to Aline K-C's work. She is about 11 years older than me and everything she goes through, well, a few years later, I go through it too! I think of her as a kind of sister, preparing me for the road ahead.

In this large and slightly unwieldy book, she gives us autobiographical data that might not go down too well with your average nerd-boy in the USA, even though this stuff she goes through and talks about are important aspects of a woman's life that every man who has interest in precisely one half of the planet's residents should get a feel for, at least!

She shows us her more recent artwork and it is wonderful! She has really changed what she does and it is magnificent work. She's always done collages but not quite like the ones she shows us in this book! I could feel my art lust welling within my breast. She's got a pretty good life right now and has done some extensive traveling in recent years, and this has been very good not only for her artwork but for her worldview. I'm glad this has happened for her, and have always believed that in some ways this woman far outstrips her mate.

Get it. It is very interesting and very amusing. Sacre Blu! Old Blabette is still alive and making her periodic appearances not only in Aline's strips but her granddaughter Sophie's as well, and believe me, that kid can draw and has a very level headed, healthy view of this world. It will be interesting to see where the kid goes in the time to come.

Get it. You can't be bored with it, between the pictures and the texts you will get many hours of amusement out of it.

There's nothing more appealing than when an unapologetic woman lets her big appetite hang out!

It's a thrill to see these stories, some of which have been parceled out to us piecemeal over the years, collected in one volume, with Aline's artwork, photographs, words lending further context and depth. It's so heavy, I'm afraid it'll fall off the shelf and crush me in my sleep! Actually, there are plenty of worse ways to go...

Much as I love her #1 husband's "aht", as far as I'm concerned, Aline's no second banana. She's the whole dang Bunch!

This book kept me up for several nights straight. It is not a long book by any means and the average reader can go cover-to-cover in a few hours. However, one WILL find one or two things they missed upon every subsequent reading of the book.

This book is not written by a "Hard-Core" fisherman. Rather, it is the story of a "Hard-Core" fisherman. Mr. Cinquemani, a former NYC English teacher employs his grasp of the English language and writes in a way that is not only understandable, but entertaining to his readers. While the book is about fishing, it is not a "How-to" book and Mr. Cinquemani's choice to not focus on the technical aspect of fishing (i.e. equipment, knots, strategy), combined with his writing skills, does not leave one feeling empty upon the first completion of the book, or all subsequent completions for that matter.

Night Tides is about Billy "The Greek" Legakis, a legend in the striped bass fishing world. It is the story of this man's ongoing pursuit for the "Largest" striped bass. Stories of this man's introduction to this fish, his obsession with this fish, and his unparalleled pursuit of this fish grace the pages of this book. Several pictures are also included in the book, adding to the whole experience.

Having read the book several times, I am not only astonished by the sometimes unbelievable accomplishments of this particular fisherman, but grateful that the paths of these two gentlemen crossed when it did. While the stories of "The Greek" are truly amazing, without Mr. Cinquemani's abilities, these stories may very well have been untold. My utmost gratitude to Mr. Cinquemani and Mr. Legakis for choosing to share their stories with the rest of the world.

The book is a very easy read. BTG is a unique man with a true obsession with the straiped bass and the sea. A great book if you are not a fisherman and an even better one if you are. I let a buddy borrow it and he is not a fisherman. He is three quarters finished on the second day of his read. Go for it!

A quick read for anyone who enjoys catching a few "Strippahs" from their local haunts. Billy has certainly mastered the art of catching the big ones, but it also comes at a price - Fishing is 1st - everything else, I mean everything else comes after. Catching 2,500 fish with a rod during a slow season was mind boggling to me, I had to do the math twice and was sure there was an extra zero in the numbers, but low and behold this guy is a true master of the species.

It was an inspiration to read and even got me up in the middle of the nite to go for the cows under a full moon and a high tide - I got skunked and humbled.

A great gift with some terrific photos.

If you are a striped bass fisherman, this book will not let you down. I read it in 2 days. Eccentrics like Billy make life interesting. On a sad note, I can't imagine what it must have been like to fish back in the 60's and 70's before we wiped out the majority of these monster bass.

Michael Cinquemani's bio of striper fishing legend Billy "The Greek" Legakis is an engrossing story. Whether they are committed fisherman or not, readers are bound to recognize in BTG the rare combination of wits, will, and sheer tenacity that marks any person at the top of his or her field. Any die hard fishing fanatic will plow through Night Tides in a single sitting. Casual observers of the sport will love it too. Cinquemani's writing mixes humor and awe to create a realistic portrait of a unique character. The fishing community is lucky to have such a literate, and readable, storyteller!

Having read just about all of the Nero Wolfe series, I have to say, this one contains all of the elements that make Rex Stout's detective novels wildly entertaining, without most of the elements that make some of them maddening

In this mystery, the utterly unswashbuckling Wolfe is revealed, in his younger, svelter days, to have been quite a romantic. Not only did he fight on the anti-Imperial side in Montenegro during the Great War, but he adopted and may even have actually sired a young girl.

To his shock, this young Yugoslav maiden--whom he had lost track of--reappears in his life, up to her neck in a particularly messy, intricate affair that may or may not include missing diamonds, a dead body or two, international intrigue, and a bellboy's uniform. For all of the peeks into Wolfe's previously unsuspected soul, he remains as crumudgeonly and as immovable as ever. Archie Goodwin, of course, remains the wisecracking, milk-drinking sidekick, flirting with anything in a skirt and even giving a Nazi agent a black eye just for the fun of it.

The joy of these books is their marriage of the American gumshoe attitude and the British cozy focus on character. Where they generally fall short is their plotting. This entry in the series is, without a doubt, the most successfully rounded out of the lot. Stout manages to keep the mystery truly mysterious, and yet never manages to confuse the reader so thoroughly that s/he can't find the exit. The plot actually ends on the last page--many of the Nero Wolfe mysteries fizzle out, wrapping up a chapter or two before the end, leaving nothing but rumination and grumbling for the final pages. Others seem never quite to wrap up all the loose ends. Here, the conclusion is both inevitable and unexpected--utterly satisfying.

Over My Dead Body is the seventh in the Nero Wolfe series. A young lady claiming to be Wolfe's adopted daughter from Yugoslavia asks for his help with a charge of stealing diamonds but this quickly evolves into a situation where she is suspected of murder. The case frustrates Wolfe no end, it gets more complicated all the while, but of course he manages to uncover the solution by the end of the story.

This book is a prime example of a Nero Wolfe novel. Archie Goodwin is in top form as a wise cracking pain-in-the-neck. Inspector Cramer is present more than a lot of stories giving Goodwin plenty of opportunities for zingers besides the ones he routinely fires at Wolfe. Wolfe himself is definitely out of his comfort zone dealing with the situation of his adopted daughter and this also adds to the potential for laughs.

This is a very entertaining book and I would recommend it for readers unfamiliar with Nero Wolfe as a great place to start or for established fans.

In this Nero Wolfe mystery-one of the earlier episodes-we encounter Wolfe's adopted daughter, who is in a bit of a fix. Wolfe comes to the rescue and along the way, shares little glimpses into his past: his tumultuous youth in Europe; the origins of his suspicion of all women; how he came to adopt a child. In this book, probably more than any other in Rex Stout's series, do we see the effect that women-especially those from the former nation of Yugoslavia-have upon Wolfe's psyche. It's a good read-a good mystery with a great plot-like pretty much all of Stout's works.

This book hits on all cylinders. The plot is excellent, intricate but clear. The characters are well drawn. The atmosphere, New York on the eve of World War II, is almost palpable. The dialogue is perfect. I'm at a loss as to what else to say about the book except, "Read it."

A Britsh undercover agent is murdered at a Manhattan fencing school, skewered by an epee with a gizmo attached that turns it into a weapon sans blunt end. Yugoslav women who are instructors there are possible suspects, one of whom is Nero Wolfe's adopted daughter from his days as an ill advised Austrian agent in the Balkans, pre World War, before we started numbering them. This alone is a startling revelation about Wolfe. Wolfe slender? Youthful? Abroad, outside, involved with people? I was astonished.

As usual, the beer drinking, orchid collecting, erudite, corpulent food lover Nero Wolfe declines, under any circumstances, to leave his brownstone abode with a greenhouse rooftop for his rare flowers. Using Archie, his assistant, as legs, Wolfe solves the baffling case. I knew he would. He's solved all the other mysteries in the Nero Wolfe books I've read.

Mystery fans who have not read mysteries from the golden age (pre-1950) do not know what they are missing. There is no sex to lure the lascivious reader, very little violence, no profanity. What there is (and this book is an excellent example of the sub-genre) is intelligence.
That's a rare commodity in most modern mysteries.

This is, at once, one of the best books in the series and one which translated brilliantly to TV on the A&E series.

Rex Stout decides to deal us a little shock in this one: Nero Wolfe, woman-hater, has a daughter he's not seen since she was a baby. She comes from Yugoslavia to New York, unknown to her pops, and gets into a real tight spot involving murder by "coldymort."

When Archie learns this, he considers resigning on the basis of his boss's morals. You just have to read this one to find out.

Or, again, buy the A&E series - they did a great job here.

Among the lighter and more overlooked sorrows of living in a post-terroristic era of conflict is all of the fun that could once be had, but no more, like - arguably - everything that takes place in this engrossing and extremely, extremely funny book, but one in particular: cleaning out one's refrigerator by mailing everything rotten (there's a way to do this with no postage, though you'll have to read this book to find out, and if you were to try it now, you'd have 10 SWAT teams on your doorstep in 36 hours or less) to everyone who might have ever annoyed you in some way.

Sigh...

Read this book, and I promise you'll never forget it.

-David Alston

This is the ultimate prankster handbook, an inspirational guide to mischief and mayhem. It is one of those books you can read bit by bit as there is a lot of material to absorb (not that you couldn't read it all at once, but it's like a rich cheesecake, you will want to savour each bite instead of gorging). The interviews are of varied allurement, some yielding more elation than others, but then you can't please everyone all of the time. Some of the stories told seem almost too wild to be real, until you see the accompanying photographs or news clippings and realize that some people have far better stories to tell than you or I ever will. And they aren't kidding, either.
Definitely makes my top 5 must-have "non-fiction or reference" books.

I lost my first copy of this in Nags Head in 1993. That's OK, it should be shared with as many people as possible because the pages are filled with shocking, playful, silly pranks from a host of prank 'generes.' A guy blows himself up at a high school reunion, another paints american flags on snails and on and on and. The books seems to capture a pre-PC time also: the 1980s.

What fun! This book is packed with great interviews with people who like to make trouble. All are amusing and all are inspiring. My personal favorites are the Henry Rollins and the Earth First! interviews. The Rollins interview makes me laugh just thinking about it, and the Earth First! interview is exciting to read. It makes me itch to go out and prank away. An excellent and informative read.

I love this book. I thought I was the only weirdo out there, but this book inspires me to be weirder. Great interviews with Dead Kennedy singer Jello Biafra, Abbie Hoffman and Henry Rollins. One of the few books I pick up weekly, even though I've read it from cover to cover many times. Still cracks me up.

A great book for paper enthusiasists. No matter you're a novice or an expert, you'll find challenges in this wonderful book. Mr Montroll is really brilliant in this book, the illustration and step-by-step explaination is easy to follow and yet challenging. Take out a piece of square paper and begin folding to appreciate his creation. It's not simply origami, it's truly paper engineering.

This book contains some wonderful models. Being a dinosaur enthusiast (what kid isn't?) in my younger years, this book provided a great amount of fun and challenge.

My sole complaint with these models are their relatively dated perspective on dinosaurs. These greatly resemble older views of dinosaurs where sluggish lizards lumber through swamps and marshes with their tails dragging on the ground. Of course, this gave me ample opportunity to try diversifying my skills by "improving" the final result.

I would highly recommend this book to both beginner and advanced folders. While the models might not be as challenging as those produced by Lang and Brill, the final results are well worth it.

I had the honor of proof reading the diagrams in this book before it went to print. (I'm the second Mark in the dedication). John Montroll is a brilliant author. His style is amazing, achieving maximum model size from the paper. This is a great book for everyone who enjoys dinosaurs and origami.

When i saw a dinosaur origami book i didn't think twice before buying it! I was bored with simple books making kitties and ducks, but these designs are very ORIGINAL! They are tricky and i often get frustrated with the complicated folds, but when i get a folded dinosaur all of my own in the end, I am so happy!! (No, I'm not a child either i just love dinosaurs!) I own a few origami books and have found this one is a favorite pick, besides the dinosaurs, i just love complicated folds! If you love dinosdaurs, origami, and a stiff challenge this book is for YOU!

A book about dinosaurs folded from paper, a simple idea, really. But take a deeper look, and this is one of the most engaging origami books on the subject ever-for that matter, perhaps it is one of the best origami books ever. I know it is one of my top ten books. Enough praise, you want to know what's in it. Well, as Montroll usually does, the beginning models are so easy, I think you could fold them from sheet metal...an egg, mountain, and tree. Soon though, the dinosaurs begin, and slowly but surely the difficulty rises, until culminating with a Stegosaurus. Other dinosaurs include, T-rex, a bunch of gliding dinos, and others such as Dimetrodon and Spinosaurus. I would recommend this to any Dinosaur fan, and/or origami fan. However, a true beginner would find this book to be boring, because after the three 'sheet metal' models, the difficulty rises 2 or 3 fold. If you can make the first 4 or 5, you can probably learn to make them all. In short, a great buy!

"The President's Astrologer" is a perfect summer read, although I'd recommend it for any season. It has all the ingredients that make a book hard to put down: an exciting, suspensful plot, appealing characters who make you care about them, and easy to understand information about a fascinating subject, in this case, astrology. I was sorry when it ended. My hat is off to the author. Her command of dialogue constantly made me feel that this book would make an excellent film or mini series.

"The President's Astrologer" is a perfect summer read, although I'd recommend it for any season. It has all the ingredients that make a book hard to put down: an exciting, suspensful plot, appealing characters who make you care about them, and easy to understand information about a fascinating subject, in this case, astrology. I was sorry when it ended. My hat is off to the author. Her command of dialogue constantly made me feel that this book would make an excellent film or mini series.

This book is a blast. I truly enjoyed it from cover to cover. As an Astrologer living in Santa Fe, I really got a kick out of all the locations that were used here in the Southwest...And all the astrological jargon was fun for me too. I think she did a great job and here's hoping she will write another. Kudos to you, Barbara

It is amazing that this novel didn't get snapped up by a major publisher, but perhaps a film maker will be smart and option it. I haven't read something this fascinating and surprising in quite a while. It's a bit of "Air Force One" mixed with Ray Bradbury and a little new age awareness. Very enjoyable, and highly recommended.

This novel successfully crosses genres, and is filled with drama, mystery, romance & intrigue. The science fictional elements come into play only late in the story yet are integral in making all the various story lines come together. The use of astrology throughout the book is represented in terms and language that are completely accessible to the layman, yet are done with the thoroughness of one who is an expert in the field. The debate between science versus astrology is approached through the protagonist's personal relationship as well as her credibility to the public at large. And Barbara Shafferman is likely to expand a few minds along the way. This is a "must read" for all and is a fine first novel for the author. Highly Recommended.

I just recieved this book some days ago and I just cannot put it down (well you know what I mean). It is VERY well constructed, and previous knowledge of the "Gemstone Files" and connected theories (I see them as truths) need not be a requirement for this reading. This is in NO way to undermind/understate this superb book. I have shown it to people who know little or nothing of the Onassis-Kennedy connection conspiracy, how even just reading the introduction sparked intrest in some of the most non-believers I know (or have talked to about these subjects). This is a true 5 star book... If any of the subject matter makes you wonder, question or as I said just spark some interest. Get this book! Other popular books on the Gemstone Files are also worthy reading... The full Gemstone Files will be released soon, and all the skeptics that still believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone will be in for a BIG surprise. The Kennedys were right on, dismantle the CIA, crack down on mob activity (well infused within the CIA) and get the United States of America back on a rightous track. Something we are suffering from since the "cold-war" and the "arms-race"...to today with the Bush (let's kill more people and lie to the American public) USA I feel so ashamed to be a part of. But I am only a man, a civilian, who feels he deserves to know the truth like the rest of the America and the world should. I am not a patriot at all (at least not in the right-wing way), I do love the USA and our country. This is why these books that reveal how corrupt our government is, and globally connected to other countries for well, POWER SUPREME are SO important. The couragious people who revealed these hidden truths, are primarily dead and from "suspicious circumstances" are no conincidence... Read for yourself. Be Aware, beware and be a "true" American. Big Brother is upon us and growing day by day. Project Seek is a great starting point for those seeking to piece the "Global Puzzle" together...piece by piece it will come out.

Peace everyone and I wish it was as simple as that...

Gerald A. Carroll spent years researching the Gemstone File history, and produced the best volume of documentation and analysis yet available. Well written and great reading, reads like an excellent mystery story but it's all true.

Gerald Carroll did a marvelous job of seeking out the truth behind the "Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File." With several hundred pages from Bruce Porter Roberts' original Gemstone papers published in "The Gemstone File - A Memoir", "Project Seek" is still an excellent, well-written and well-researched supplement for people who want to understand more about what has happened to our world over the last 50 years.

I worked for Hughes during the time of the event described as his "kidnapping." At the time, the entire Staff on Romaine street was in a major uproar, ostensibly because of a "falling out" between Hughes and Noah Detrich. However, the behavior of some members of the staff subsequent to this event have convinced me that a great degree of truth is contained in Gemstone.

This thick new volume on the famous Gemstone Files is complete with additional research and photos. An extremely valuable book that looks into the roles of Howard Hughes, (Aristotle) Onassis, World War II conspiracies and the Kennedy assassinations in the light of a mysterious document known as the "Gemstone File."

Imagine you have access to a collective. Imagine it is not hierarchical. Imagine your more persistent thoughts, while being illogical/irrational, are that link to the collective.

Somehow, suddenly, all the things in this life that are unbearable, the things you can't, will never, understand just make sense. Page after page, you re-discover who you are, why you can accept it, why it is just a matter of accepting that you don't understand but that, in the weirdest way, it makes sense. And that the power is not in controling knowledge but in knowing you don't know.

If you let go of judgement, just feel the words, then you are half-way there. Because these words just tell you to be yourself, at all levels. And if you don't trust them then this is part of your own path. Because this is a book for re-membering who you are, not for convincing you of being somebody else nor molding you.

In our world we are traveling at the speed of light. If you ever had the yearning to just stop and go home, this book will show you the way.

This is the first book of Steve Rother and the Group that I have read. It is spectacular. I have found at the turn of every page life changing information and empowering tools to implement into ones life. I will be purchasing more books by Steve Rother in the very near future.

Sometimes the day to day grind saps my energy making me a bit cynical and jaded about 'spiritual' matters. Reading spiritually oriented books always helps me maintain a more balanced perspective. For whatever reason, this book was just what the Dr. ordered for my latest bout with spiritual malaise. To be frank, I don't know what to think about 'channeling'. I believe Mr. Rother is sincere and presents a very positive and uplifting take on the current state of the world. He offers a refreshing perspective, and builds a strong case that in the midst of all the trouble and tragedy of modern times there is something of much greater significance going on. That all of humanity is playing it's role (quite admirably it seems) in bringing more light into the dense physical world.
We all like to think that our lives have some greater meaning and purpose and 'The Group' affirms that this is so. Through our lives, and on our planet, cosmic purposes are unfolding toward the dawning of a new day. It seems we are the cutting edge of evolution. As I neared the end of the book, I found myself feeling inspired, that life is indeed good, and worth all the trouble. It does no harm to believe that humanity's struggle toward greater understanding has repercussions far beyond what is apparent to us in our everyday lives. Is it true? I don't know. But I felt different having read it. I'm all for anything that brings a little more light into the world. Thanks Dan.

I just love this book. I re-read parts of it every time I need some spiritual nurturing. It is organized into 18 chapters on a miriad of topics, such as: tools for walking with spirit, synchronicity, the flow of universal energy, remembering the other side of the veil, and most memorably, the evolution of humanity. Each chapter is subdivided into topics as well, which makes it easy to read in short bursts if you are inclined.

The information is channelled through the author during some fairly prestigious speaking engagements, some in front of the United Nations. The amount of love pouring through from the beings that are being channelled (The Group) is enormous, and the sincerity is obvious. The information is very up-to-date and was mostly new to me, not simply re-hashing of other spiritual authors' works.

I can sincerely say that you will not be disappointed with this book, and I say this after reading 50+ spiritual books, including the classics as well as metaphysical and new age/new thought.