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I found myself plodding on and on to get through this book. I thought the very early part of the memoir (about the first 1/4 of it) made for some very interesting reading. I liked the authors style--almost like reading a prose poem---but then the author took us in his early career as a journalist I read too many chapters about that; and that is when I shut the book for good.

This is not only a wonderful story, but written beautifully. Great for adults and teens alike.

This is one of the best well-written books I've read in a long time. His powerful story of a ragged, poverty-filled childhood with an abusive, neglectful, alcoholic father is very compellingly told.

Bragg's focus is on his strong and yet victimized mother. The only nagging thing that bothered me is Bragg's adulation of his mother to the point that he neglects the fact that she bears some responsibility for continually going back to the loser and exposing the kids to the financial and emotional depravation that occurred.

I will read his other books because the writing is so crisp and clean.

In this first volume of his trilogy of family memoir, Rick Bragg (b. 1959) takes us to rural Alabama's deep south, and through his deft story-telling introduces us to his people and their ways. With Shoutin' and his two subsequent bestsellers, Ava's Man (2001) about his maternal grandfather and The Prince of Frogtown (2008) about his father, Bragg has earned an avid readership. It's easy to see why. His family of origin epitomized the poorest of poor white trash. His grandfather could neither read nor write, his grandmother dipped snuff, they picked the banjo, danced a jig, cussed like sailors, drank their homemade moonshine like it was water, and brawled at the slightest insult to defend "honor." Bragg spent one semester in college, then started writing, first high school sports, local stories, anything. In 1993 he won a prestigious Nieman fellowship as a journalist to spend a year at Harvard, and in 1996 he won a Pulitzer for feature writing at the New York Times.

Shoutin' works well at many levels, but it's especially about embracing one's family with all its blessings and curses. Bragg introduces us to his violent alcoholic father who repeatedly abandoned his family until his early death at age forty-one, his two brothers, and most of all to his mother Margaret. In his telling, she's a hero's hero. She was effectively a single mother who raised three boys in destitute circumstances. She picked cotton and did other people's laundry at night, swallowed her pride and accepted welfare, and slept on the sofa in their tiny shack. His chapter on taking her to New York City for his Pulitzer award is worth the book alone. She had never been on a plane before and didn't own a suit case; for her few trips before then she stuffed her clothes in paper bags.

In an interview Bragg once described Shoutin' as a failed effort at revenge. His attitude toward his past is deeply ambivalent. On the one hand, he's deeply proud, as every person should be of their family. With brutal honesty he describes the angry chip he's carried on his shoulder about the endless putdowns and insults about his people. He'd prove the cultural snobs wrong, by God. On the other hand, his journey leaves rural Alabama as only a distant reflection in his rear view mirror as his professional reporting takes him around the world. The revenge he savored would come, he thought, when he finally saved enough money to buy his mother a real house for cash. And he did; it would be "a house of healing." But the day she moved in his two adult brothers brawled in the front yard, and his mother returned to her shack before settling in to the new house. And so, he admits, life and the power of place are far more complicated and rich. Bragg has now come full circle; today he teaches writing at The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.

Destined to be a Southern classic, Bragg's "All Over But the Shoutin'" rings true. It is not only a well-written, journalist's memoir, but offers readers who aren't from the South an insightful look at why Southern men often act as they do.

On the one hand the book is a rags-to-riches story about a poor white boy from the cotton fields of northeast Alabama who reads, works and writes his way out of poverty; from being a small-town sportwriter all the way up to to heading the Atlanta office the New York Times and winning the Pulitzer Prize. Like visiting with an old friend and having a glass of ice-tea and an all-afternoon, after-funeral conversation under the shade-tree in the back-yard back home, Bragg recounts his career via the Talladega Daily Home, the Anniston Star, the Birmingham News, the Miami Herald, the LA Times (very briefly), and the New York Times. Running throughout are stories and themes of: the homeless in the mean streets of Miami; the class-structure and deaths, rapes and tortures of Haiti (which he covered two or three times for the Miami paper and the NYT); his year at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow; covering Harlem and the violence experienced by the storeowners from robberies and murders; covering a tornado that hit on a Sunday morning near his hometown in 1994 (and the resulting shock to the faith of those who lost loved ones in a church that day); and, the 1994 Smith murders in Union, South Carolina and the Oklahoma City bombing.

That said, the real theme of the book is his love, concern and focus on his relationship with his mother back near Jacksonville, Alabama, his two brothers -- one older and one younger -- and, how to regard the life and his relationship with an abusive, hard-drinking and usually absent father. Having roots in the Sand Mountain area myself, I can attest to the fact that there must be something in the water (and moonshine) around there as meanness, drinking and sn snake-handling Sunday-morning gospel religion are "par-for-the-course." There's a tightrope facing folks around there trying to rise above their circumstances - it heads upward and, instead of a net, those who slip, fall into a hard life of factory-work, or worse yet, no work at all. Then, clutching for a Bible or the bottle -- and, sometimes both -- men and their families work like hell to survive.

This book will become a must-read for anyone interested in Southern area studies, Southern literature, or just understanding the Southern psyche. While we're all different, I have to admit that the "Southern man" I see throughout this book is similar to those of my own family, and men I've known all my life -- a different breed, with a hard, determined drive to succeed be it through books, muscle or whatever. And, as Bragg points out, though we're every bit as smart in our own way as well-schooled intellectuals, don't mess with the chip on our shoulders -- as that very well may bring out a bit of the rattlesnake that lurks in our dark side.

While not easy to read from cover-to-cover over a few days, it's a great book to place on the bedside table to read a few pages at a time.

How does Kimmel do it? She grips the reader into a tale (based on her very skewed childhood memory) and then she throws the reader a curve ball. Sometimes, it's the very last sentence of a memory or the last word. It is that insightful nugget of information that allows the reader to know so much more about the situation than the child-storyteller does.

I laughed out loud through so much of this book, and when I was done, I wanted more, so I picked up She Got Up Off the Couch. It's a book you will want to share.

This was the first book in the memoir genre that I have read, and I really enjoyed it. Zippy is told from the author's childhood voice, is full of humor, and takes you back to when you were a kid having the same thoughts. I'm amazed that someone could remember so much about their childhood and tell the story in such a fun way. It's a quick, easy read and will leave you feeling uplifted! I also recommend it's sequel - She Got Up Off The Couch...

ZIPPY makes the short list of books I would take on a deserted island; it makes my heart sing. It makes me want to write.

In the first 75 pages of this warm and fuzzy book, the following happens (and not much else): a piglet dies, a dog dies of worms, a hen and rooster are dragged off by dogs, the dogs get shot, a cat is stolen and starved in a basement, oh, and a rabbit has its ears stapled to a fence and its head chopped off. One would expect plenty of death on a farm but there's no farm in this story. Just a backyard.

Well written memoir. I think most people who read this book get the fact that though she was loved by her parents, her childhood was far less than perfect. I for one did not read this book and think "wow, what a refreshing a wonderful memoir of a lovely and decent childhood". It was cleverly written from a child's perspective so that we adult readers would read enough into what she was writing to understand that though her childhood was, in many ways, quite dysfunctional and disturbing at times, the author herself saw life from a different perspective. This could have easily been written as a 'woe is me' kind of memoir but it would have been far less interesting and real. I appreciate her humor and positive light. There were many times when I related entirely to what she was writing (I too grew up in a dysfunctional family in a very small town in Indiana) and many times I laughed right out loud. I really enjoyed this book.

this book is absolute garbage. the author has no concept of history and completely disregards the archaeological and historical record. If you you want to know more about ancient history, go to the experts. heck, even Livy is better than this guy!

Looking through this book reminded me of the movie "A Beautiful Mind". A brilliant mathematician constructs a fantasy world complete in every detail. The only problem is that it doesn't exist, and that he's as mad as a hatter.

Just two examples of the many "possibilities" suggested by our schizoid author:

(1) The Biblical flood and the Trojan War were the same event because Noah was Aeneas, who fled Troy to found Rome. (Noah and Aeneas had names that sound alike. Thus it is proven.)

(2) Nine kings fled the fall of the Tower of Babel and seven kings founded Rome. Therefore, Rome was founded by the kings who fled the fall of the Tower of Babel. (In the author's words, the Biblical figure of nine is "close enough" to the Roman figure of seven.)

Need I go on?

The professional historians faint as prominent mathematician Doctor Fomenko et al research the known historical data and come to fairly controversial conclusions.

For example, the English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. As the sign of recognition of the special role of the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Russian historians brand it as pseudoscience because Dr Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by over two centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called `Tartars and Mongols' were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a trilingual state and aspiring Global Empire with Arabic and Turkic spoken as freely as Russian.

The ancient proto-Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities and the hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called `blood tax'). Their `invasions' were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion.

Fomenko proves for a fact that official Russian history is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scholars brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs. Their ascension to the throne was the result of conspiracy, so they charged these German historians-imports with the noble mission of making Romanov's reign look legitimate.

Dr Fomenko et al prove Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. These rulers represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate Godounovs and the ambitious Romanov upstarts.

The European historians fume not only because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History but for asserting that all medieval European Kings and Princes were but breakaway vice-regents and vassals of the Global Empire who badly needed glorious and very `ancient' past in order to legitimize their new independence from the Empire.

Dr Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one: the Ancient Rome: the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the 14th century A. D., the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, the Ancient Egypt: the pyramids of Giza become dated to the 11th to 14th century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global Empire, no less.

The civilization of the `ancient'' Egypt is irrefutably dated to the 11th to 15th century A. D. following the breakthrough in decoding of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone and painted on the temple walls.

Arabic historians may find some consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire as a part of the Global empire in the 15th - 17th century. The trouble is that this Empire was initially a proto-Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, but built in 1550-1557 A.D. by Sultan Suleiman according to Fomenko and Islam with all its key figures is datable to 15th 16th century A. D.!

The Chinese historians are also an unhappy lot because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such history. Period. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the 17th 18th century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation.

The Divinity excommunicates Dr Fomenko because the history of religions according to Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the 11th century and Jesus Christ ), Bacchic Christianity (11th to 12th century, before and after Jesus Christ), Jesus Christ Christianity (12th to 14th century) and its subsequent mutations (15th to 17th cy) into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on..; and The Old Testament written after the New Testament in xiv-xvi cy A.D., if you please! Everybody served? Saint Augustine was quite prescient when he said: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RAZQNMXM4M9CL Has history been tampered with? Yes, it has! Did events and eras such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire , the Dark Ages, and the Renaissance, actually occur within a very different chronology from what we've been told? Yes, they certainly did!

The history of humankind is both drastically shorter and dramatically different than generally presumed.

Why is it so? On one hand, it was usual custom to justify the claims to title and land by age and ancestry, and on the other the court historians knew only too well how to please their masters. The so called universal classic world history is a pack of intricate lies for all events prior to the 16th century. World history as we learn it today was entirely fabricated in the 16th-18th centuries. It's likely that nobody told you before, but

there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artefact that is reliably and independently dated prior to the 11th century.

Naturally, after what you've learned in school and university, you will not easily believe that the classical history of ancient Rome, Greece, Asia, Egypt, China, Japan, India, etc., is manifestly false.

You will point accusing finger to the pyramids in Egypt, to the Coliseum in Rome and Great Wall of China etc., and claim, aren't they really ancient, thousands of years ancient? Well, there is no valid scientific proof that they are older than 1000 years!

The oldest original written document that can be reliably dated belongs to the 11th century!

New research asserts that Homo sapiens invented writing (including hieroglyphics) only 1000 years ago. Once invented, writing skills were immediately and irreversibly put to the use of ruling powers and science.

The consensual chronology we live with was essentially crafted in the 16th century by the Jesuits.

The world history was compiled from contradictory mix of innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts and other irrefutable proofs delivered by late mediaeval astronomers that were cemented by the authority of writings of the Church Fathers.

Early in life, we learn about ancient history. Children love the magical lessons of history - they are like fairy tales. Teachers recite breathtaking stories; very soon We learn by heart the names and deeds of brave warriors, wise philosophers, fabulous pharaohs, cunning high priests and greedy scribes.

We learn of gigantic pyramids and sinister castles, kings and queens, dukes and barons, powerful heroes and beautiful ladies, emaciated saints and low-life traitors.

Ancient history is based documents, manuscripts, printed books, paintings, monuments and artefacts - called primary sources.

The problem is that neither these ancient documents, nor events described therein can be irrefutably dated, moreover they contradict each other for the most part.

When a school textbook tells us that Genghis Khan in year X or Alexander in year Y, have each conquered half of the world, it means only that it is so said in some of the written sources.

There are no answers to simple questions:

When were these primary sources written?

Where and by whom were these sources found?

It is wrongly presumed that ancient and medieval chronicles, written by Genghis Khan's or Alexander the Great contemporaries and eyewitnesses, are readily available. Actually, only sources written hundreds or even thousands of years after the events are there, compiled mostly in the 16th 18th centuries, or even later.

As a rule, these sources suffered considerable multiple manipulations, falsifications and distortions by editing. At the same time,

innumerable originals of ancient documents under various pretexts were destroyed in Europe under various pretexts.

The names of persons and geographical sites often changed meaning and location during the course of the centuries.

Geographical locations became clearly defined on maps only with the advent of printing.

This made possible the circulation of identical copies of the same map for purposes of the military, navigation, education and governance tasks.

Historians from Oxford say: "hey, everybody knows that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C.

`Julius Caesar' statement is only a point of view as

there is simply no irrefutable documentary proof that Julius Caesar or any other great name of antiquity ever existed.

Better than that - extremely rare sources that can be reliably dated back to the 10th-14th centuries A D, do not show the polished picture of classical history.

They show a picture both contradictory and confusing.

All methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts are erroneous:

Radio-carbon C14 method produces dating with exactitude of plus minus 1500 years, therefore it is too crude for dating of events in historical timeframe!

The Almagest tractate, which lies as corner stone contemporary chronology, compiled in the 2nd century A D by Ptolemy, the founding father of astronomy, contains astronomical data of 9th to 16th century!

The Bronze Age,that has supposedly began 5000 years ago. Bronze is made of 90% copper and 10% tin, but the technology for tin extraction dates back to 14th century A D!.

All eclipses contained in manuscripts, like Thucydides one, relating 'ancient' events have exclusively medieval dating. All horoscopes cut in stone or painted in Egyptian temples, like Dendera have exclusively early medieval dating solutions.

Not quite what you have learned in school? Open your eyes, and, you will find sufficient proof to reach step by step the inevitable conclusion that the classical chronology is false and therefore, that the history of ancient and medieval world universally accepted today, is also false. Have a fresh outlook on everything said or printed about "ancient" and "enigmatic" Roman, Greek and Egyptian, medieval as well as all other "lost and found" civilizations.

Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th and polished in 19th 20thcenturies. Human civilization is in fact barely 1000 years old!

This book will change your perception of History forever!
What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
Sounds Unbelievable?
Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun (ie. closer), different tilt on its axis (ie. less than 23.5 degrees), different orbit (ie. more circular), different rotation (ie. in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different relative positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently from how we would today? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history or geography is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Many of the images in this book hold me totally spellbound, even after enjoying it (in hardcopy) for several years. I experience a sense of "beckoning", a call to enter the images and pursue the stories that most of them so strongly hint at. The cover photo so captivated me that I bought a official/authorized print of it.

I first came across this book about ten years ago and when I did I instantly became a Jock Sturges fan. But it wasn't until resonantly that I realized just how powerful and deep his art can be. Visiting an art gallery I was stunned by the detail, contrast and the three dimensional quality of Jock's full sized prints. The images you see in his books might have been taken with a medium format camera such as a Hasselblad. Viewing his full sized images, with all their extraordinary detail, you become aware of just what an 8 by 10 view camera can achieve in the hands of a true master. The models seem almost alive.

But this wasn't my only surprise. Many of the images I saw at the art gallery had never been published and I thought that these were Jock's most profound and challenging work. One such print, "Julien et Antoine, Montalivet, France; 2004", really knocked my socks off. We see two beautiful young twin brothers, as naked as the day of their birth, in a bedroom. We know this to be an adult's bedroom as there are no toys or other childish things about, only an adult sized backpack beside the bed. The translucent canopy draped over the large bed and the house plant visible in the upper left corner gives the room a romantic, almost feminine feel. Yet the boys, still a year or two from puberty, seem to own this very adult space.

Antoine is seated on the bed, very relaxed with his arms at his side. Julien stands before him and with an almost sensuous sence of self-confidence he establishes a relationship with us by gazing directly into the camera. His arms are crossed over his chest-perhaps for protection-but, like his brother, he makes no attempt to hide his exposed genitals. His weight is resting on his left leg and his body is shifted sideways in a pose that suggests he is well aware of his beauty and emerging sexuality. This little boy is no longer entirely innocent. He knows that evil exists. He is aware that there are those who would see his beauty as an obscenity and his trust as a come on. We feel privileged that this beautiful boy has allowed us, the viewers, to examine every detail of his stunning body as he meets our gaze without fear or shame. But at the same time we feel challenged. The boy knows that if there is any indecency the fault lies not with him, or with his brother, but with us the viewers. If there is evil then that evil is in us, not him. This picture is worth much more than a thousand words.

If "Julien et Antoine, Montalivet, France; 2004" were to be compressed to the point where it was small enough to fit in a book-or be posted on the net-the stunning technical skill and detail of the photo would be lost and as a result it might well appear pornographic. I felt as if Jock had lead us right up to the edge of the void and then, at the last possible moment, pulled us back to safety. This is surly one of the most beautiful, powerful and potentially disturbing images of the twenty-first century.

While Jock Sturges has almost flawless control of the technical aspects of the photographs in this book (excellent exposure and placement of the subject matter): the moments it captures leave much to be desired.

Perhaps it is simply that I am looking at it from the wrong perspective, and I am expecting of it something that cannot be expected of straight portraiture, but I don't believe this to be true.
The black and white photographs are very well done in that they have wonderful transitions of gradient tones, and the subject matter is always very clear and concise with little confusion as to what aspect of the photo you should be concentrating on. What i don't like is the overall emotional aspect of the photographs, and the reactions of the people in them. For me, there is only 2 photographs in this book that have any sense of emotive quality that i would actively seek out - and even those two photographs have problems.

- In the photograph of the boys holding hands, and in several others, I see apprehension on the faces of the subjects. I see someone looking at a camera not knowing if they should be going about there normal business, and someone who is unfamiliar with the person taking the photograph. It is not outright anger or dislike - just apprehension.

- In the photograph of the girl and the boy leaning on each other on the beach; it is a beautiful sentiment and it is well done, but you can see, you can FEEL the boy looking at the photographer with a sense of protectiveness, a sense of disconnection from his activities in order to be watchful of this person taking photos of them.

In all but a few of the photographs - the person being photographed is looking at the photographer or the camera itself. this is fine in most photography - but the setting of this book is not the studio, and it is among other people. I would like to have expected an interaction with the people around the subjects, with the surroundings, or at VERY LEAST, an internal reactions of the subject themselves (wonder, happiness, sadness, questioning, SOMETHING).

I am of the school of photography that believes in capturing the essence of a moment, the little tricks the body does to convey an emotion, that which is a moving changing thing, that has a reason, a direction; an engagement. You'll see them every now and again in the people your around a lot, a furrowed brow, an upturning of the mouth.
A big part of being able to capture such moments requires that the person never be looking at the camera. they should be looking at you. at the person behind the camera - and not at a photographer, at a person with whom they FEEL something towards. and if they are simply looking at the camera, there should be something more in it then simple apprehension.
Personally, this book fails in many ways for me. It is titled "Radiant Identities" - but I see no identities, I see no emotional personality, I see only bodies who are unsure and aware of a man taking photographs of them. I give this 3 stars because the techniques are well done; and because as a resource for artists, it has a few selections that are wonderful anatomical and surface muscle studies that are hard to find elsewhere. From the perspective of art however I would give it a 2 at best.

Read my review on "The last day of summer" if you are looking for a book to sexually excite you. In my opinion this is his second best book, maybe is the fact that the book is not as "complete", as it covers too many different surroundings. It still is a 5 star work of art, go ahead and buy it, you'll be pleased!

Mr. Sturges second book, by now he'd fully developed the style his fans all know so well. Some of his best nudes, and clothed portraits, are featured here. This is one of the better photo books I've got, maybe one of Sturges better books.
The most notable feature are perhaps the two contributed essays, the one at the front of the book quotes unidentified subjects of Mr. Sturges on their feelings about posing for him, you won't find anything else like that until the most recent book "Notes".

I read about this book on a online community for back yard chicken owners(Shout out to ya all!!!) It was written by a member that I havent met.
And it is so well written. I barely get time to myself so a book for me is a treat. And this was a well chosen one.
Funny and written with wit. A look inside the "addiction" that is chickens.
Story begins with the demise of her marriage and the subsequent sale of her large home in the ritzy part of town. The promise to her daughter of chickens and the intense research her daughter then does. A move to a small, close community with the usual, and unusual dwellers. And the lengths chicken owners then go through for their chooks.

From delivery to first brooder, to first coop. It is a learning adventure for the writer, her daughter and the reader.

Very highly recommended for all pet owners and anyone thinking of beginning a life with chickens.

What a wonderful story about life and about living with chickens. Her descriptions are accurate, insightful, and very funny. Loved it!

This is a charming little book,with a happy ending..Perfect reading for a long trip on a plane, train, automobile..or a waiting room.

There are numerous self-help books on the market that enable people to cope with major life transitions - divorce, the death of a spouse, the move to a new neighborhood, the onset of empty-nest syndrome. Nothing attacks life changes better, though, than the wit and mirth of Caterine Goldhammer's "Still Life With Chickens". Her conversational style is hilarious and reads as if she is sitting across the table from you over coffee and talking about her move to a fixer-upper house by the sea. My favorite paragraph is her observation about the simplicity of life as seen through the eyes of her brood of fluffy chicks: "The chickens went about their little chicken lives, eating and drinking and pecking. When I picked them up, they settled into the hammock I made of my shirt and went to sleep. Their beady little eyes drooped and they leaned their little heads against my thumb. Chickens are masters at living in the moment. I should stop worrying about them, I told myself. I should bow to their greater wisdom."
A must-buy book for giving to friends who need a good laugh during difficult times.

Christina Hamlett
Author of "Movie Girl" and "Screenwriting for Teens"

It's rare to find such a sweet, satisfying read on the topic of midlife changes and detours. While there's nothing terribly new in this memoir -- we've all read about painful divorces and renovating ramshackle houses in far-flung locations -- Catherine Goldhammer's voice and the clarity of her writing make this book highly relatable to women in the throes of change. As an empty nester facing transitions of another kind, I melted into the pages of this book and found comfort. Wish I could find more like it.

Hi, My name is@Hiromi and I just moved to the US this July@from Japan. Now I study English with this book. This book is good for me because:
1.@It is very easy to understand.
2. It is a very good level for me.
3.@The pages are colorful and fun to read.
As you can see, I highly recommend this book to you.

The service is faster I received the book in 3 days before the promise date..Very good service...

This is a very useful book for beginners. The topics are contemporary, the pictures are engaging, and it's not overwhelming for new students who don't want to be scared away. I have book number 4.

Excellent book for beginning English students. The material is presented logically, leads to great discussion topics and is useful for real life encounters.

I was from China and started my life in the USA as a graduate student in Engineering. Although I took the TOEFL before I came to USA, my English is not good enough to express myself clearly and accurately. I decided to improve my English about 4 months ago and started to borrow some ESL books from local libraries.

About 2 weeks ago, I found four "Side by Side" books (Book 1 to Book 4) from a local library and borrowed them. Now I am working on the Book 3 and I have enjoyed every book. I believe that "Side by Side" Book 1 to Book 4 will make very good textbooks for ESL (or ESOL) programs.

This book was certainly helpful. I especially liked the easy to draw faces. This book is great for people with intermediate drawing skills. If you only have very basic drawing skills, you will probably find it challenging, but with a bit of practice you should master drawing fairies.

This little book offers a surprising amount of material, not only to a new artist wanting to learn how to get started but also to artists with more experience seeking to refresh their knowledge of the basics and to expand their imaginations. Even non-artists would enjoy the illustrations, especially the collection of fairy paintings by a variety of fantasy artists at the end of the book. Beginners can follow the step-by-step instructions, and everyone can enjoy the Linda Ravenscroft illustrations throughout the book.

I was looking for a drawing guide for my daughter's 11th birthday and was hoping this book would be the key. We flipped through it at the craft store and it looked like a great instructional guide. The only hesitation I have and reason I did not purchase the book is the last few pages. There are some ill-clad fairies exposing more than I want my daughter to be drawing or her younger brothers to be seeing. I know it is common to have fairies naked even, so I was grateful there was only a few pages of what I would consider suggestive fairies. But, I wanted to share this review for other "carefully modest" parents who would rather not expose their children.

The best How to draw Fairies book for beginners available.
Filled with valuable drawing and paint tips, along with beautiful fairy prints for inspiration.

This book was not only wonderful to look at, it was very instructive also. A fantastic way to spend a rainy day!

This book should be owned by anyone who has ever done any kind of art or disciplined activity. The effort to take one photograph per day for a season instead of the thoughtless reliance on technology teaches an important lesson, one that we all could benefit from. It shows what slowing down and really looking means. And the layout and design are impressive.

If you haven't seen the DVD (Public TV?) program of this project, you should-great insights into what Brandenburg was after as a photographer-the great and the struggles. WOnderful book and photos!

I'm a verbal type; I'd rather read a beautifully written description of a frozen lake than stare at a picture of it anytime. Even knowing that, my mother gave me this book several years ago, and I fell in love. I sat with it for hours, seeing, dreaming, and I still take it down often to do the same again. The photographer, Jim Brandenburg, set himself the challenge of taking only one photograph each day for three months, in the boreal forest where he makes his home. The result is a portrait of life as many of us can never experience it: not just "calendar shots," but pictures that show the cruelty of man, the certainty of death, the very simple beauty of a single bright leaf burning on the dark, still waters of an evening pond. Some photos are amazing in themselves and some seem ordinary in the extreme, but it is important to take them as a whole, and see what you learn from the journey.

It's a nice conceit. A great outdoor photographer sets for himself the task to taking one, but only one, photograph each and every day for an entire season.

One can see all kinds of implications. Once the photographer finds a subject he must get it right the first time because he isn't allowed a second chance. Exposure, focus, composition - everything must be right and as good as he can get it. Moreover he is continually in peril. Should he pass by a good shot in the morning in expectation of a better shot in the afternoon? And what happens when no better shot is in the camera as sunset approaches? We can easily believe Jim Brandenburg when he says that the exercise was a transforming experience.

But the question for viewers of this book is whether the pictures are a transforming experience for us. Unfortunately, they were not for me.

I understand that some of the pictures were bound to be underexposed or out of focus. Plants blow in the wind; animals move. But while I examined the photographs in this book, I also looked at other work by Brandenburg. These other collections were always quite impressive, providing new ways of looking at the world. Many of the pictures in "Chased by the Light" showed a keen sensibility for the light. The silhouettes of loons and a small island with trees against the backlight of a clouded dawn were breathtaking. The photograph of a raven's feather against a lichen background with a few beaded drops of water on the feather caught my eye.

But for every great photograph, there was one that was pedestrian and one that was discardable. I certainly didn't need to see an out-of-focus mink or trees in the forest with no true subject.

To be fair to Brandenburg, this project was apparently not undertaken for publication but rather as an exercise for his own development. It was his editor who wanted to publish after seeing the photographs. To the editor's eye, at least, the pictures were enlightening and well worth the effort.

The greatest value of this book was not in the photographs but in the speculation in which I engaged about why this book was not outstanding. Is photography a stochastic process with each photograph taken possibly leading to an even greater photograph? Did forcing himself to elect when to take his daily picture cause Brandenburg to sacrifice opportunities, or even limit his willingness to take risks. Does the order of presentation of photographs have synergistic effects, which were lost, because this book almost demanded only chronological order? Does forcing the viewer to look at pictures that would otherwise be discards detract from the impact of good pictures?

For me this book was conceptual art. I found the idea of the task transformed my view of photography. The pictures themselves did not.

I gave this book to my parents several years ago and still leaf slowly through its pages whenever visiting their home in northern Minnesota. For amateurs and professionals alike, his is a fascinating photographic concept: your own property? a favorite park? your family? or pet? a holiday?

I just love the logolounge books, this is the first book of the series and it's not my favorite of them all but it does have a lot of logos that you can browse for inspiration. As a graphic designer I would recommend the logolounge books. Besides the beauty of pages and pages filled with logos it also let's you know the designer or the firm who created the specific logo. Also on the last pages it gives you specific information on each of the firms included in the book first by letting you know on which pages of the book their logos appear on and also by including their website, address, phone numbers etc. I also own logolounge 2 and 3 and will keep buying future series.

When i ordered Logo Lounge i wasnt to sure as to what to expect. After receiving the book I found it to be very inspirational and can really get the creative juices flowing. Especially when your stuck with a creative block (which sometime or another all designers get) It is loaded with examples of commercial and non commercial logos.

The first section of the book has a detailed approach as to how some design firms came up with their design for their clients. They talk about the design process, show great examples, and talk about some of the problems and solutions they had while doing the design.

The rest of the book has loads of examples of logos all sectioned out in a nice format (type logos, crest logos, animal logos, etc...)

Overall it's a good tool to have on any designers shelf at home or work!

I'm very impressed with the wide array and organization of this book (and the others in the series). Such great colors, and layout... everything just makes me want to study every last detail on every last page. I've bought the first two... and have added the third one to my wish list. If you want to be a good logo designer but experience "designer's block," this should get you over that [...]. Thanks, Bill Gardner, and all the fabulous designers who were featured in the book!

The larger format of this book, hard or soft cover, deserves 5 stars. This new pocket size (5.5" x 6") proves to be awkward and detrimental to the viewing and appreciation of the graphics.

I bought it last year, and it has been very useful for my job. I can find many different kind of logos.... it's one of my favorite books...

Not only is the book a great source of inspiration, Von gives you the tools to make it work for yourself. The files included on DVD are nice and big and there are sample files included so you can see how he applies them. Awesome book--I'm hoping there will be a volume 2...

I attended Von Glitschka's "Illustrative Design" session at the 2008 HOW Design conference in Boston and was so inspired by his presentation and work that I decided to purchase his book of textures.

The textures provided are manipulated from actual photos that he has taken almost daily. While it is true that he does not provide detailed instruction on how to use the textures in the book, he does provide links to his website where you can find tutorials. The textures are grayscale and not "clip art", but are intended to be incorporated into your own work to create your own illustrations and designs, which is why I suspect he has not provided specific instructions for their use. The 60 sample illustrations included in the book cover a wide range of application and showcase each texture. You also get 60 bonus textures included on the DVD that are not highlighted in the book.

Get this book, get inspired, get creative, and have fun!

I ordered this book thinking it was a paper back and probably not very big. It turned out to be a large hardcover with 60 full page images of projects various artists created using Von's textures, which by the way, are shown on the opposite page in black and white so you really get an idea of how versatile the texture can be. At first I wasn't sure how to use them and wondered how the color was added, but if you just use your noggin it is pretty simple to figure out. (I am a beginning designer/student and believe me if I can do it anyone can...)

I love the book, love the textures and have many ideas of how I am going to use them in future projects. I also think the title is very fitting, I would highly recommend this book because any worthwhile artist/designer is going to appreciate the many creative opportunities the textures provide. Way to go Von !!

An excellent resource for designers - graphic to photographic. The other reviewers have the details. This is my personal thank you to Von for creating an excellent resource for creativity.

Can't say enough about the prepped textures ready to use and the included DVD with all the textures plus more is invaluable. Only downside of the book was the repetitive and elementary examples. Too many vector style examples. Would have enjoyed more photographic to graphic design applications as examples. But, nonetheless, very pleased with the book and DVD. Great buy and timesaver!