Arnold Books

Being a French student, I have been able to read the French text. Hence, I find it quite difficult to comment the style, since "tradutore traditore". However, I would like to insist on the philosophical content of the book. Of course, it still remains plain litterature and therefore cannot be compared to a full philosophical work. Malraux reaches the deepest essence in the XXth century : every character is fleeing his own existence, indulging in drug addiction and contemplation, or in political action. Who really overcomes his condition ? Can it be said ok Kyo : this is doubtful. The absurd dimension in the book must not neglected : the pitiful diplomatic negociation of Ferrat close the book, while the old Gisors engulfes in the blackest of nights, the same one that Tchen, in the very first pages, had vainly tempted to overcome. It is of course, the vnity of human engagements that appears, which already evokes Malraux's elvolution.

This is a reference among Malraux's writings, because it describes perfectly his own obsessions. Malraux has traveled a lot, and has experienced a lot of different concepts, and a lot of different situations.

He started by exporting stolen antiques in Thailand, and spent some time in prison there. He was a convinced communist, and went to several countries, where revolution were occuring in the 50s. He finally became a ministry of Charles de Gaulles, who is the symbol of liberal people in France. His ashes were recently transfered to the Pantheon by Jacques Chirac, as an acknowledge to his work, as a writer, and as a politician.

Malraux loved to build his books around historical situations, where it appeared clearly they were made by individual contributions.

This also might be one of Malraux's obsessions. Where does the individual stands in a nation. What importance should be given to the collective organism when it has to be opposed to the interests of a particular individual ?

During his life, Malraux seems to have explored all the range of possibilities, moving from a concept to another.

La Condition humaine really shows all the ambiguity of this duality Collective/Individual.

Some characters are folded up on themselves, and might represent the extreme individuality, some other die for the good of an idea, and might represent the collectivity. But at the end of the book, no one has achieved to find the Answer.

If you would like to learn about the French culture, I would highly recommend this book, for three reasons. First Malraux did a lot of interesting things at the end of the 60's, as a ministry of culture, and so impacted the current French culture. Second, the duality between collective / individual is something that perfectly describes France itself, and is the heart of the current situation of this country. And third, the book itself is really well written, and a pleasure to read.

On the banks of a dam at the Havelock Trout Farm in spring 1991 a white man is LEARNING from a black man how to cast a line when suddenly the former cries out. A fishing hook has deeply embedded itself in the left hand of Roelf Meyer, South Africa's Deputy Minister of Constitutional Development who has been coaxed into this weekend with the secretary general of the African National Congress Cyril Ramaphosa by a mutual friend.

Back in the lodge all attempts TO carefully remove the painful metal fail. There is only one way left. Cyril Ramaphosa fetches a pair of pliers and offers Roelf Meyer a glass full of whiskey before he takes a firm grip on the hook. Roelf, he tells the deputy minister, if you've never TRUSTed an ANC person before, you'd better get ready to do so now. He presses the hook down to make space for the barb and pulls it out with a powerful wrench. As his wife staunches the flow of blood Roelf Meyer mutters to the trout fisherman who like him will be one of the key figures in bringing about the new South African DEMOCRACY: Well, Cyril, don't say I didn't trust you.

The individual and social learning processes and the resulting transition from the racist apartheid regime to the democracy of the rainbow nation are the subject of this publication. The summit of this road is the date of the first free and fair elections open to all South Africans: April 27th 1994. The sociological microscope is focused on this single day: the day from which to look back and from which to look forward.

The outcome of an exemplary peace and democratisation process in South Africa was dependent on the success or failure of its founding Election Day. In the end, the new democracy emerged clearly victorious, which was seen by many observers to be a 'miracle'. But this miracle can be explained against the backdrop of media involvement in a large-scale pedagogical undertaking that was probably the most massive national educational communications campaign of all time.

This book shows how African, coloured and Indian voters learned the fundamental concepts of democracy and the role of the state in the new South Africa, as well as the purely technical procedures of voting. But the interpretation also elucidates another successful learning process that was as important to make that miracle happen: their LEARNING TO TRUST DEMOCRACY.

On the banks of a dam at the Havelock Trout Farm in spring 1991 a white man is LEARNING from a black man how to cast a line when suddenly the former cries out. A fishing hook has deeply embedded itself in the left hand of Roelf Meyer, South Africa's Deputy Minister of Constitutional Development who has been coaxed into this weekend with the secretary general of the African National Congress Cyril Ramaphosa by a mutual friend.

Back in the lodge all attempts TO carefully remove the painful metal fail. There is only one way left. Cyril Ramaphosa fetches a pair of pliers and offers Roelf Meyer a glass full of whiskey before he takes a firm grip on the hook. Roelf, he tells the deputy minister, if you've never TRUSTed an ANC person before, you'd better get ready to do so now. He presses the hook down to make space for the barb and pulls it out with a powerful wrench. As his wife staunches the flow of blood Roelf Meyer mutters to the trout fisherman who like him will be one of the key figures in bringing about the new South African DEMOCRACY: Well, Cyril, don't say I didn't trust you.

The individual and social learning processes and the resulting transition from the racist apartheid regime to the democracy of the rainbow nation are the subject of this publication. The summit of this road is the date of the first free and fair elections open to all South Africans: April 27th 1994. The sociological microscope is focused on this single day: the day from which to look back and from which to look forward.

The outcome of an exemplary peace and democratisation process in South Africa was dependent on the success or failure of its founding Election Day. In the end, the new democracy emerged clearly victorious, which was seen by many observers to be a 'miracle'. But this miracle can be explained against the backdrop of media involvement in a large-scale pedagogical undertaking that was probably the most massive national educational communications campaign of all time.

This book shows how African, coloured and Indian voters learned the fundamental concepts of democracy and the role of the state in the new South Africa, as well as the purely technical procedures of voting. But the interpretation also elucidates another successful learning process that was as important to make that miracle happen: their LEARNING TO TRUST DEMOCRACY.

Arnold's geometric point of view of differential equations is really intriguing. These lectures treat the subject of PDEs by considering specific examples and studying them thoroughly. By this approach the author aims at presenting fundamental ideas in a clear way. However, the interetested reader should be acquainted with some geometric ideas of differential equations.

OK, I did not read the book, just browsed through the pages. My first impression is that this is an excellent book, like most of Arnold's books. It is not trying to cover the theory of Partial Differential Equations, and this cannot be done in a single book anyway - just selected topics on a very accessible level. The geometric insight is excellent and even a specialist can benefit from that. I highly recommend this book to undergraduates (and higher) that are passionate about analysis.

I will update my review after I actually buy the book, I understand that I am not very helpful at the moment.

Update: I read parts of the book and I still like it a lot. I however found to be aimed at more advanced readers. It is an excellent book to complement any of the standard PDE texts.

This book has beautiful detailed drawings. My six year old and three year old love to look at it. There is a glossary at the end - my six year old has learned tons from it. And it really motivates us to look around more during our nature walks - my son even asked to begin a nature journal so he can draw pictures of the things we see. It's just a lovely book.

This book is a gem! I hate to compare it to an I Spy - but it's the same basic concept. Items on the lefthand side are "hidden" in the beautiful painted scene on the right. There are bugs, plants, flowers, animals, and birds to look for and adventures of a dog and cat to follow. My kids find something new each time they "read" the book, and they make connections between what they have seen in the book and what we see when we go for walks. I can't praise it enough!!!

Art deco buildings and details of them are categorized into chapters on department stores and shops, hotels, London transport facilities, civic buildings, residential buildings, and factories. There's also chapters on memorials and the decorative items of lamps, clocks, and signage. The book is mostly one of about 200 color photographs of all these subjects put together by an award-winning filmmaker from London. Schwartzman has a long familiarity with this dominant style of the 1920s and '30s from being introduced to it in walks around London with his parents when he was a young child. Art deco became an international style in the decades between the 20th-century's two world wars after being featured at a Paris exhibition in 1925. The many photographs display London's application of this style in varied ways from building design, their features, and public art down to clocks and napkin rings. Informative captions not only identify the numerous attractive London art deco objects shown, but also relate points of interest about them.

The best of London Deco captured by Arnold Schwartzman and in the same style as his previous excellent Deco LAndmarks: Art Deco Gems of Los Angeles. Both books work well because he took all the photos and so there is a consistency of color and composition. I thought one of the strengths of the LA book was the many photos of architectural detail work, whether inside a building or out and the same applies to this London edition.

All types of Deco buildings are covered though very little of residential buildings, apartment blocks in the city and individual houses in the suburbs, a good selection of these in the capital can be found in The Modern House Today. London Transport rightly gets a good showing with twenty photos and cinemas have a fine selection of detail that I bet passers-by never notice. One of the great Deco buildings in Britain is the Hoover Factory on the western outskirts, opened between 1932 and 1937 and now a supermarket, though the owners Tesco thankfully took the trouble to preserve all the original features. The amazing entrance suggests it might be the headquarters of Aztec Airways.

Overall a handsomely produced book and a lovely tribute to London Deco.

***FOR A LOOK INSIDE click 'customer images' under the cover.

Hardman manages what few people have done about Louis XVI: take a balanced view, and focus on him rather than Marie Antoinette. In this book, he draws on the enormous literature on the subject to shed light on the king from many directions, creating a balanced picture, not too rosy, not too bleak. He builds a very complex picture, addressing various stages in the king's life, showing how his behavior changed. The book also has the advantage of drawing on newly available material, especially the letters of Louis with his minister of foreign affairs, Vergenne, to give Louis a voice, and pay attention to what this king of few words actually said.
The book is well written, balanced, clever. I strongly recommend it.

I love this book. Mr. Hardman depicts Louis XVI, the commonly misunderstood King of France, in a way that actually shows Louis as a real person, instead of a lazy old king who treated his people unkindly. I am a big fan of Louis XVI, and when I got this book, I was sure that I was going to love it. If you buy this book, open the first page, and you will love it. Louis XVI: The Silent King, does not show Louis in the more commonly picture of him as a lazy old king bossing everyone around. This book shows the image of a king young king, who tried his best to treat the French people well, but was overshadowed by several prime ministers and a duke. This book is pictureless, but you can imagine pictures in your head as I did.

A current resident of Massachusetts, Arnold Skolnick first gained notoriety as the graphic designer who created the infamous dove & guitar poster for the 1969 Woodstock rock festival. During this same period, in the early 1970's he crafted an epic body of work showcasing the sexual union of man and woman. Although a few of these photos were exhibited at the Neikrug Gallery in 1973, this work was largely set aside by Skolnick, mostly out of fear (people were still being prosecuted for distributing sexual materials).

But now, in teaming up with Quantuck Lane Press, Skolnick has published this almost forgotten work in a stupendous satin bound book designed for collectors and limited to only 3,000 copies. It features 85 tritone photographs that are breathtakingly beautiful. The human sexual dynamic is featured here in all its tender, beautiful glory. There is a realistic quality to this work that makes it all the more striking. Each duo are entwined in each others form, engaged in what seems to be real, genuine lovemaking. These subjects are not fitness buffs or even professional-looking models, but appear to be real-life lovers. And this makes it all the more exciting.

Skolnick's imagery will almost certainly remind one of sculptor, Rodin's work (as noted by a critic of the Neikrug exhibit) more than anything one would see in a stag film. This book is a magnificent tribute to both its subject matter as well as the artist himself. This is one production that all collectors of fine art photography will want.

Any one book is two objects at minimum, maybe more. This first presents itself as a luxurious object, plainly hard-bound and slip-cased in elegant, silky cloth coverings. Dense printing adds drama to each B&W picture, on bright and glarefree paper. The paper's density prevents any picture from being impaired by another visually bleeding through from the back. Design serves the imagery well - a factor you might not appreciate until you've seen a book where layout actually interferes with the content. Just this once, I might have recommended the European affectation of putting the copyright notices at the back. Before you even open it, the physical presence of this book prepares you for its sensual content.

The second aspect, the content, keeps the promise made by the format. I don't know the exact number of photos - probably seventy or eighty - but that hardly matters. Each one is a jewel. Each features one couple, intimately engaged. This is love-making, in all of the common ways for a man and woman to try to become one being. These pictures languished since the 1970s (they were too hot even for Playboy back then), but the imagery carries almost nothing of that time - just its hair styles. Only now did Skolnick feel that an audience could accept this work. Because of that inherent time-travel, the timelessness of figure and conjunction truly stand out.

I recommend this to any couple who values their coupling, and who wants art that celebrates their own experience. This documents the deep beauty of the human animal, as Nature invites these handsome people into the ongoing act of Creation.

-- wiredweird

The poetry at the end of the text on the death of Walter Kaufmann's mother was one of the main reasons I bought this book. I was not perfect in claiming in reviews that I wrote years ago that Walter Kaufmann's best reader was his mother, a ridiculous idea that I must have based on poem XVII on page 142 of WHAT IS MAN? (the final third of MAN'S LOT):

"I was not beautiful
my sister was."

You were
unknown to you

but only age and death
wrung verse from me.

"No one I love to read
like you."

Of you I write
what should not be remembered.

Another selection from the poems in the Epilogue: Death and Survival by Walter Kaufmann:

XX

Stop grieving
stubborn heart
wake up.

XXV

Boxes of letters
and old photographs.

Less than three hours' sleep.
I sorted
and forgot
the nightmare
and all sleep

I was with you
the way you were
not were but are
in words and pictures
and in me.

Oh, time was cruel
but not you.
You saved us misery
by being as you were.

XXVIII

Your death was like an earthquake
that set free
the hidden fires of my soul.

Three hours' sleep
is more now than I need
The rest is writing.

The big questions I had were about words, and some of them became pretty obvious.

XXXII

Once in your ninety years
you used a lipstick
and you lied.

You told me you would do it.
I could not picture it
but you did pass for ten years younger.

In London you had worked for seven years
all through the Blitz
but who would hire you at sixty in New York?

And then you worked twice seven years
as long as Jacob served for his two wives
with boys they gently called disturbed.

You learned new words
that nobody is taught in school
and you grew younger.

My lawyer father found no work
but when he died you feared
retirement would be a living death.

An hour's visit at your school
exhausted me.
You took it fourteen years
and thrived on being loved.

XXXIII

...
Your little brother asked why all times were exciting
and only ours empty.
The Russians shot him off his horse in World War I.

...
Who could imagine Louis or your father in your school
hearing those boys or even just your stories?
Your mother there seems like an evil joke.

You had their elegance and pride but more than that
more than they knew
you did them proud.
~ ~ ~ (p. 145).

Walter Kaufmann's significance as an artist and philosopher has yet to be thoughtfully assessed either by academicians or by the educated public. MAN'S LOT is perhaps Kaufmann's masterpiece, a series of artistic photographs which perfectly amplify and explicate the philosophy and poetry which accompany them.

I never grow tired of these images themselves. They are both personal and universal, illuminating the human condition in its many forms and variations on planet Earth. The first section focuses on the poor in Calcutta; the second on the effects of time on humans and the planet; and the third compares humans from a variety of cultural and historical settings, revealing our basic constancy within a framework of constant change.

We once respected thoughtful people who shared their wisdom with humanity through their art and writing. It is, for me, a sad commentary on our times that Kaufmann's work has been so thoroughly ignored. He sought to be accessible to the educated masses. It is grossly ironic that his works of genius are ignored by specialist and layperson alike.

And it is not that Kaufmann is NOT accessible. MAN'S LOT is written in clear and forceful prose. Its arguments are easily grasped, and its messages are potentially as transformative as are those of Plato's REPUBLIC.

For anyone who loves art, the act of thinking, and the pursuit of wisdom itself, there could be no better gift than a copy of this long out-of-print masterpiece. It should be cherished by the many rather than utterly ignored by the same.

Along with Kaufmann's RELIGION IN FOUR DIMENSIONS, there exist no better record of a life--Kaufmann's--devoted to understanding life and participating in its mysteries.

Though this story was first published almost forty years ago, it still remains charming. The book tells the story about a little mouse named Martha. Martha is hungry, cold, and starving on the street. Then one day she sees a movie theatre and sneeks inside. Dan, the man who runs the theatre, is glad to see Martha and the two quickly become friends. Martha soon falls in love with movies. She finds herself getting caught up in the action, imagining new places in her mind, and sometimes even acting out what she sees on screen. However, not everyone appreciates a talking, singing, dancing mouse as much as Dan and soon there is trouble.

The story is written in rhyming couplets and the illustrations that accompany the text are a joy to look at. As a huge fan of movies, I'll read just about anything having to do with film or cinema and I have a great appreciation for children's literature, so I thoroughly enjoyed this quaint little story. This would be a good book to read to children from preschool through about the second grade. It also makes a nice gift for anyone who appreciates older children's literature or anyone who is a fan of Arnold Lobel.

This is a very sweet book by one of the greatest children's authors and illustrators of all times. "Martha" tells the story of a lonely mouse who befriends a lonely man who works in a movie house. Martha becomes enchanted with the movies, until some movie-goers discover her and scare her off. She eventually makes her way back to the movie house to save the day with her brilliant stage performance. I read it aloud each year to my second grade classes, and the kids applaud every time. If you can find a copy, I highly recommend it.

Samuel Bland Arnold was the only one of the convicted conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln to later write his memoirs. Mr. Kauffman has done an excellent job of editing in this fascinating account of Arnold's time in the prison at Fort Jefferson.

Fascinating account of John Wilkes Booth's conspiracy told by a co-conspirator. The "Notes" section alone is worth the purchase price of the book!