Video Books

What a great pleasure it is to thumb through my buddy Tim's (and Ahui & Steve's) hard work and see the big payoff. Guys, this thing is great. Sits perfectly alongside any computer/instructional/technical/howto book. Things are made easy and very well explained throughout. And hey, any book I'm in can't be a bad one. :-)

Dude i know the guy that wrote this book. I had a beer with him one night and he told about this book and i was like wow. I think i might have to buy it. TIM YOU RULE

This book is excellent in almost every respect.
It does a great job of introducing the reader to the LDraw suite of tool for making LEGO creations on your computer. Though this book is geared toward beginners, it is also a great tool for those intermediate users looking to expand their LDraw horizons. I especially liked the sections on creating building instructions. Additionally, all the reference sections make this book worthwhile for even the seasoned LDrawer; I loved the visual color reference on the inside front cover. This book would make a fine addition to any LEGO enthusiasts library.

This is an EXCELLENT book for people SERIOUS about building simple AND complex models using LDRAW. While working with the program I found myself constantly referencing the book--which can be read front-to-back... but ALSO be used as a quick reference book. This has earned itself a permanent position on my bookshelf--no wait--next to my computer!

If you want to do lego CAD, this book is for you! I had used MLCAD and LPub before I got the book to some degree, but my abilities exploded after going through the tutorials. LSynth is also very clearly explained. The CD that is included is a big plus for those who have had difficulty installing the software (all of which is free from the internet though) and also includes some tutorial models for use with the book. The additional resources described in the book show that he is interested in getting as much use out of Lego CAD from the general populace.

All in all, well worth the money and the read!

When I first saw Visions of Armageddon on sale at the bookstore, I often found myself looking at it more and more. So, finally, I bought it.

This has to be a great book on the 1998 blockbuster film. It contains information on all subjects from the film's genesis to final production. Hundreds of lavish photographs and drawing make it even better. It includes interviews with the cast and crew.

However, for people looking for a good book to read, ignore this. The information skips back and forth. One moment they are telling you about how the film began. Then they are telling you about how the special effects were made. Then they are telling about the genesis and so forth. But the lack of definite timeline does not at all hurt the story of the most overcritized film of all time. As Michael Bay said "There is nothing wrong with entertaining people."

If you love the movie, you might want to have it as one of your book collections. It shows the making of the movie & its illustrations. There are also some nice pictures of the cast for those fans who love Bruce, Ben & Liv. Don't miss it!!!

i love this book. it is printed on wonderful paper. it
will last & the fotos are GORGEOUSE! it explains a lot
the stuff behind the scenes & how it was done. more than
just a quickie movie-tie-in. it is worth having on it's
own!

One word on the movie: bad. Still even though the movie sucked, I found myself just peeking at the book while at bookstores. Needless to say I bought the book, and I enjoyed it ten times more then I did the movie. So if you have a choice between the book and the movie, buy the book. You won't regret it.

If you saw the movie, and loved it, go get Visions of Armageddon because it was so good and shows Dreamquest and Vfx how they did those spectacular Special FX. Great pictures from the movie. Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay makes a great team for a fun, high-paced, action-packed movie for the summer! One of my favorite movies of the summer, IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ARMAGEDDON GO SEE IT AND YOU'LL BE FEELIN' LIKED YOU GOT OUT OF AN KICK ASS ROLLER COASTER RIDE!!!!

I have always been a fan of Orson Welles on radio and television. Having collected a ton of radio broadcasts on CD and audio cassette and having watched most of his movies, I appreciate the genius of his work. I picked up a copy of this book recently and am amazed at the amount of research put into it. An aspect of Welles rarely discussed is his magic career. At the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention this September in Aberdeen, Maryland, I plan to attend the presentation about Orson Welles and his magic career so I can watch rare footage and films with Welles, and get an even deeper insight to his trickery. Book comes recommended.

Everyone knows that Orson Welles made _Citizen Kane_, possibly the most audacious and most analyzed movie to come out of Hollywood. And then what happened? He had been called a "boy genius", having made the movie (co-written, directed, and starred) when he was but twenty-five years old, but within a decade the term was used with sarcasm, and Walter Kerr wrote that Welles had become "an international joke, and possibly the youngest living has-been." Welles had been knocked down, and in the view of many, he never got up. Certainly, he never made anything like a _Kane_ again, but that isn't really fair: no one has. It is true that he never produced the sorts of films that were Hollywood-popular, but he did not at all disappear. Joseph McBride, a film historian who knew Welles, has answered the title question in his book _What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career_ (The University Press of Kentucky). The answer, quite simply, is that Welles worked and worked for decades in film, writing scripts, making movies, and (perhaps because few would bankroll him) doing things his own way. It's a sad story, in many ways. No one could doubt Welles's genius, and there are so many "if only" episodes in this book that it is often a depressing account. But Welles was not a tragic figure; he reflected years later that he might have made a mistake in staying in films (rather than, say, returning to the theater in which he had previously made his mark). But he would not have had it any other way: "I'm just in love with making movies," he said, and indeed, it was only death that stopped him.

McBride necessarily describes the problems that beset Welles immediately after _Kane_, when Welles could no longer get anything close to the full control of a film which he had practiced on his first movie. Still wanting to make movies, he left Hollywood to continue in Europe. McBride makes the case that contributing to Welles's decision for self-exile was his fear that he would be called to testify in the Communist witch-hunts. Welles loved shooting films and he especially loved editing them (as anyone who has seen _Kane_ can tell). There are plenty of pictures Welles worked on whose footage has been lost, but many others have the footage saved by fans or by creditors, and they frequently propose bringing out a finished version, hiring someone to pull the scenes together into a finished movie even so long after Welles's death in 1985. One producer mentioned she'd like to see a particular film screened not as an unfinished work by Welles, but as a film the way he might have finished it; but she says, "Finished by whom? Who can you substitute for Orson Welles?"

McBride does not go deeply into Welles's inability to finish things. Certainly it was attributable in a large part to Welles's way of skin-of-his-teeth filmmaking, whether or not it was some deep-set psychological disability. Welles could have written a magnificent autobiography, but when he got advances for such a work, he always returned them to the publishers. McBride writes, "Welles was deeply ambivalent about reminiscing, perhaps because he would have had to address issues he usually found too painful or delicate, such as his sexuality, his family life and some of his more traumatic experiences in Hollywood." Some of the stories of incompletion here, however, are extraordinary. His finished negative of _The Merchant of Venice_ was simply stolen from Welles's production office in Rome. The Iranians held funding for his meditation on filmmaking in the sixties, _The Other Side of the Wind_, and then the Shah was overthrown. "It's hard to imagine a movie career more littered with sensational catastrophes than mine," Welles admitted. He seldom admitted that he was the source of the less sensational catastrophes; a cameraman who worked with Welles late in his career said that Don Quixote was never completed because Welles "moved around too much, stuff got lost." For sensational and unsensational reasons, the losses recounted here are staggering. Nonetheless, McBride shows that they cannot be blamed, as some critics say, on Welles's being lazy or dilatory. The decades were filled with work for him, and he was pounding out a manuscript for a brand-new project on the night he died. As an independent filmmaker, Welles may have never fully lived up to his potential, but with a record of films that includes _Touch of Evil_ or the supremely weird _Lady from Shanghai_, his pattern of incompletion must be a minor sin. Much of McBride's personal account comes from his being an actor in _The Other Side of the Wind_ (of course, never finished) as were such droppable names as John Huston and Dennis Hopper. McBride's story won't re-make Welles's post-1950 career, but it isn't just a story of loss and lost opportunities; it is one of real movie history and at least some genuine artistic success.

Along the cinema's history - from time to time - the lucid conscious tends to appear in certain regions of the world. If Griffith gave the first step with (Intolerance and the Birth of a nation), Stroheim made the same with Greed , Robert Wiene with Dr. Caligari, Lang with Metropolis, while the comedy counted with Chaplin and Keaton, then Renoir with The rules of game and The grand illusion and Jean Cocteau emerged as if the same spirits of the Greek dramaturges would have reappeared with his wild mythic expression. Then came Orson Welles , while Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi showed us unknown facets of Japan, Luis Buñuel , the lavish son of the Surrealism in the cinema, half Spanish, half Mexican but France would have among his most sharp and talented artists as the portentous and unique Robert Bresson, and other not less relevant figures such as Marcel Carne, Max Ophlus, Rene Clement; Denmark with Dreyer, Italy would count with De Sica, Visconti and Fellini , Russia with Tarkovsky, Sweden with Bergman and Germany would have to wait until the early sixties for Scholondoff, Fassbinder, Wenders, Herzog, Von Trotta sisters and Hauff. And so, during the early eighties in Italy the brothers Taviani, Bernard Tavernier in France, Kaurismaki in Finland, The Coen brothers in North America , Quedraogo in Africa, Angelopoulos in Greece, Jarmush, Lars von Triers, Kim Ki Duk, Shohei Imamura and more recently Alexander Sokurov in Russia. Because more than artists this constellation of artists-filmmakers had something to say and how they did it.

But the case of Wells is particularly worthy to pay attention, because he embodied like nobody else the status of Shakesperian tragic personage, his ceaseless mind, his countless projects that never became materialized, the enormous efforts he had to do to make a film without abdicating in his ethic principles.

His devotion and everlasting admiration by Griffith, his sharp opinions, profane irreverence, mordacious opinions, his gastronomic excesses, among other singularities gained him respectable and unsaid enemies who neither didn't share nor understand his vision of the world. It's not easy to fit his hat, but the true of the case is he appealed to many filmmakers around the world, (Fuller, Casavettes, Allen, Saura, Almodovar, Waters, Loach, Huston, Roeg among so many others) to make the humanity would be aware (and I borrow a famous Buñuel's statement) we are not living in the best of the possible worlds. A biography that will absorb you from start to finish.

This excel essay allows us to approach the creative universe and the effervescent mind of a propulsive human being, who refused to accept outer impositions, filming what he wanted along his lifetime.

"A filmmaker is really great when the camera is an eye in the mind of a poet."
ORSON WELLES

Mention the name Orson Welles and his most famous involvement - with the radio scare 'War of the Worlds' - immediately comes to mind; but for a deeper understanding of Welles' life and career you need What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career. His later projects were largely self-financed and erratically distributed, but film critic and biographer Joseph McBride has a personal familiarity with Welles from previous projects worked on with him and here shows how the Hollywood studio system forced Welles out of the industry. Its value thus is twofold: as a biography for Welles fans, and as a history of film industry operations and politics.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

While I might be biased because a many parts of this book included stories about my father, Gary Graver, this is not something you want to miss out on if you have any interest in Orson Welles or the inner workings of the Hollywood movie industry. I knew Orson when I was a young boy and teenager during the time my father worked with him, but my memories are nothing compared to the vivid details and thoroughness of Joe's writings.

This book taught me a lot about a man whom I admired and feared. He was rather scary from the perspective of a ten year old, but he often took time to have me sit with him while he taught me card tricks. I am so grateful that these stories are now available for everyone to read. Thank you Joe for your commitment in documenting what no one else ever has and sharing these wonderful stories.

This is an adorable love movie for anyone. It's witty humor and charming story combine into making it the perfect romantic-comedy! It's great for watching any time, or even when you're feeling blue! It's sure to lift the spirits!!!!

I have been a fan of this movie for years and have seen it well over 500 times. Although I found three minor erros in the transcript while I read the book, It was still great.

...and will never be surpassed. There's nothing i can add. This simply has to be seen to be believed.

I have seen this movie several times, and I still like it. Each time I review this movie, I can gain different thinking. You'll love it if you have it.

As a screenwriting instructor, I'm always looking for material that will help my students understand the language of story. This is it!

World Leader Pretend is a novel populated by people that are funny and clever and tragic. It's a story told in a world fueled by hopefulness and misery, a world where continents seem to be endlessly torn apart and thrust back together--our world. Some of the characters in this novel hand out trust like free pull tokens for a seedy casino; some of them aren't even sure the sun will ever come up again. The stakes are high, in the game and in the world. Not everyone can win. Some people are going to lose everything they have--some are going to get back something that they lost.
Frost tells the story with a crisp modern style, and he has a way of using a phrase the way another writer might use a single word that I loved. He's written an inventive book full of persistent images and surprising changes. A terrific read.

I loved this book. I'm kind of a lazy book shopper - I typically only buy books that certain friends have recommended or that have received (or nearly received) awards - because I don't have time to read bad books. But something made me pick up this book, read a few paragraphs, and buy it ... and I'm super glad that I did. The story is engaging, the characters are interesting, and the prose extremely well-written. I'm used to reading books with little gold seals on them ... and with any luck, World Leader Pretend will soon be one of those.

The Realm is the fictional on-line world vividly created by author James Bernard Frost in his first novel World Leader Pretend. It is a naked peak into the cyber-lives of otherwise ordinary people. Who would you be if you could be anyone else? How many orcs can you take down with how many troops? How's your Queen, your Wizard, your Dragons? And what about the pesky thing called "Real Life"? Which one is more important to you?

I don't play games like this but I have often wondered about them and who it is that has so many free hours that they disappear into their computers. Frost is a madman. I like this book. Buy it.

It's not easy for me to review a friend's book, especially fiction (as you'll see from my other reviews, I've exclusively posted reviews of non-fiction). I've known Jim for about a dozen years so it was kind of a guilty voyeuristic experience to read the book and try to pry out the biographical from the pure flights of fancy.

Some of the objective reasons why I think it's a worthwhile read and why others may love it as much as I did:

- the writing style and observations are very quirky and catch you off-guard. Without fraying, the plot weaves between multiple points of view, locations and story lines. It is complex but coherent.
- the characters each really have something special about them. They are presented in a consistent manner throughout and remain true to themselves and their journey. Each one speaks, thinks and behaves both in the virtual world of the game they are playing and in the "so-called real world" in a way that is truly genuine. The characters have their limitations and flaws and moments of sef-reflection.
- the underlying message seems to be that we matter, all of us. That our thoughts and actions, whether online or in-person, have ripple effects and form bonds with other lives. In this last respect, I was reminded of Malcolm Gladwell's THE TIPPING POINT and BLINK where the social impacts of individual actions and the power of context on the individual are described.

It was a really engrossing experience to stay up almost all night reading WORLD LEADER PRETEND and feeling that giddy unreality that gamers experience after pulling an all-nighter with head buried in some virtual world.

This book lures the reader into the world of anonymous internet relationships in contrast with relationships in the real world, in complete honesty. The book describes how much easier it is to converse and interact with people who are literally virtual and how this affects one's real-life social relationships. The characters are strikingly unique, interesting and full of grit. The detail leaves you entranced. A book full of characters you want to know everything about and then some.

if i could,i would give the book SIX STARS!!!!! this book is da bomb!!!

grea

The only reason I gave this 5 stars is because I like the wwf. It is true what the other person said it is not very organized and it sure beats surfing the web.

the pictures were real good i under stood it more than other stratiegies

This book is cool. It has very good graphics in it and a lot of moves. It's somethimg everyone wants who has the game. Don't take my advice try it out yourself

More than you ever wanted to know about the making of the Film Zulu. Superb, but for Aficionados only. Not A History book of the campaign, but it is fascinating to read (in its Unedited Entirety) the Short story which became the source of the Film. Excellent

Do you know all the words to "Men of Harlech"? Do you long to tell some slacker whining about why you got stuck with a dirty job: "Because we're here lad and nobody else. Just us." Do you believe that one of the component parts of a miracle can be, "a bayonet... with some guts behind it"? Well, my lad, then this is the book for you, the book that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know and more about the greatest war movie ever made: Zulu.

This labor of love by Sheldon Hall is chock full of surprises, like the fact that the creative partnership behind it was composed of three flaming leftists: a couple of youthful Communists, John Prebble and Cy Endfield, who avoided the United States during the McCarthy Era, and an unrepentant socialist, Stanley Baker. Contrary to what one might have expected, surprisingly little of their leftist politics showed up on the screen (some of it Sheldon shows ending up on the cutting room floor in what is either dumb luck or good thinking on somebody's part) in a movie that is often condemned today as a tribute to British imperialism. Why? Well, partly it was just a better grasp of reality. They would have realized what contemporary leftists in the film industry are incapable of understanding anymore: that there is more money to be made in celebrating military heroism than in trashing it. But there was something else that IMHO made a world of difference: they had all lived through WWII, and they had all served in the military as well, making it MUCH more difficult for them to despise the common soldier as the subhuman tool of imperialism that modern leftists who have neither served themselves nor faced the realistic prospect of losing their freedom on the battlefield do so easily today.

Mr. Hall's thoroughness is evident throughout. Among other things he exposes Jack Hawkins' famous claim to have walked out on his own premiere to have a serious problem: the scenes he complains about were never in the movie, and then offers a plausible explanation for it. He also devotes a full chapter to the difficulties inherent in making a film on this subject in South Africa during Apartheid. The later prequel Zulu Dawn is also briefly discussed.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of all was Mr. Hall's spirited, and I must say to me quite convincing, defense of the movie against nitpickers looking for historical errors by pointing out that:

1. the subsequent explosion of research on the Anglo-Zulu War, much of it inspired by the movie itself, was rather obviously not available to the filmmakers,
2. some of the nitpicks are hardly settled questions and in any case reflect PREVIOUSLY made stylistic choices: (Should Chard as an Engineer have been depicted in a BLUE coat? In a contemporaneous painting of the battle HE POSED FOR he is shown wearing a red coat.)
3. during volley fire scenes, you can see in the closeups that Michael Caine possesses anachronistic dental work for the period -- I'm forced to agree with the author that, "this is madness!"

I was a bit dubious at first about Mr. Hall's superficially cutesy layout: dividing the book into three parts before, during, and after the film shoot respectively titled: "Preparing for Battle", "Dispatches from the Front", and "Victory and Aftermath", and further subdividing it into chapters titled with quotes from the movie, for example 8. "Fall them in, call the roll" -- Casting the actors and 18. "Volley fire present!" -- Reviews and criticism, but as in the examples cited, I cannot dispute their appropriateness. (I wonder how long it took Mr. Hall to come up with them all?)

Defects? The only one I can think of is an unfair one: I only wish Mr. Hall could have written this a few decades sooner. After forty years so many of the principals are gone, some to the simple ravages of time and many more to the Big C. Fortunately devoted spouses and children, justifiably proud of their lost loved ones' achievements, were able to fill in many of the gaps.

Note: if you want a complete audio recording of the movie's version of "Men of Harlech", which is slightly different from any other, your best choice is the first track on the Best of Ivor Emmanuel, who sang it in the movie as Private Owen. This isn't precisely the musical track heard on the film, but unlike the version heard on the film's audio track, it is complete and in one piece. (A more recently recorded choral version without Ivor Emmanuel is also available: Zulu (1964 Film) (Includes Other John Barry Film Score Selections))

With the market glutted with works supplying overviews of both the whole of filmdom and specific film genres, more and more authors are turning their attention and critical eyes to the study of individual movies. One of the best of these, and a model for future works of this sort, is WITH SOME GUTS BEHIND IT by Sheldon Hall which deals with the making of the film ZULU. To call this work definitive would simply not do it justice. Frankly, it is hard to imagine any area of the creation of this motion picture that Hall has not covered. No nook or cranny has gone unexplored. In addition, it is gloriously illustrated. The absolutest highest marks in all departments. It was a long time in coming but for once the wait was definitely worth it. Bravo!

Of course the real star both in front of the camera and behind it in Sheldon Hall's book, is actor Stanley Baker. Not a household name in America, but one who was certainly a presence in Britain. Enough that is, to personally get this exspensive epic into production. Together with writer-producer-director partner Cy Endfield, they had just as much trouble making the 1964 Paramount release "Zulu", as John Wayne had in filming his version of "The Alamo" four years earlier. Hall is certainly one dedicated "Zulu" movie buff and it shows in his exhaustive research and attention to detail in this book. It's everything you ever wanted to know about the movie and the real event at Rorke's Drift, South Africa in 1879. When a mere 150 soldiers of the British Army, were forced to take on over 4,000 Zulu warriors.

Stanley Baker sadly never achieved international stardom, but a young "pre-Alfie" Michael Caine was introduced to the world in this film -without the cockney accent though. Indeed, this is a good-read, well illustrated with script pages, shooting schedules and set designs etc. I remember myself seeing "Zulu" on it's first release in London, at my local ABC cinema and the place was packed. A schoolboy's dream of an action picture and it was British produced, well American Joseph E. Levine did help to get it financed...

The book Zulu:With Some Guts Behind It is a great book for people who like the movie Zulu. It explains every stage of the film-making, and tells you about the actors and their own carrers. I love the movie Zulu, and I think that the book has, if it is even possible, made it so I enjoy it more! Another great thing about this book, is that it has alot of pictures, so it is not as intimidating if you were just going to start reading, and say to yourself, Wow, thats alot of pages, of alot of words, and letters. And the author breaks it down, so if you just want to read for a short time you can pick the topic you want to read about, and not have to go through the book to find something you are intrested in that is not too long. All and all, it is a fantastic book that you could read over and over.

Gorgeous color reproductions of great movie posters remind you how captivating the appeal of movies has been. Bruce Hershenson's books are a tremendous value, and his efforts to record movie history through poster art represent a real service to movie lovers.

For lovers of film, film history, and specifically, poster art, Bruce Hershenson's series of full-color books is the cream of the crop! And, the quality of printing and photography is superb, with razor sharp images and vibrant colors.

Bruce Herhsensons' series of poster books have become the bible of the poster world. The images captured are of extremely high quality and are a must have for any collector of movie materials. I highly recommend these series of books to anyone who is interested in the subject matter.

This book, along with its companion volume, "Best Pictures Movie Posters" is part of movie poster maven Bruce Hershenson's exhaustive multi-volume series of books highlighting the history and beauty of what much of mainstream America has only in the last ten years begun to recognize. And that is movie posters are a "popular art" form that can stand proudly next to all other styles of art from gothic to modern, from expressionist to impressionist. Great film art borrows from all of these styles and this volume, which focuses only on posters associated with Academy Award winning movies, illustrates innumerable examples. A fine book for any collector (get the hardcover edition if you can, it's harder to find; if Amazon doesn't have it, it's available from Mr. Hershenson directly at mail@brucehershenson.com.

This review can easily apply to any of the books in the Bruce Hershenson edited series of film poster history. Hershenson rightly treats film graphics not just as pop culture artifacts but true works of art. His books are filled with a curator's eye for superior choice and reproduction, each poster in striking color and with a clarity of printing that rivals most any coffee table art book. Somewhere between advertising and illustration, film posters, like book jackets and record covers, inhabit that imaginative and atmospheric zone where one art reflects another. It's not just the history of film or the history of film design, it's a history of twentieth century Saturday afternoons and Saturday nights. How often we would go into the dark theatre armed only with the ideas and ideals of the posters outside, and then return to them afterward, perhaps with nodding affirmation or smirking disillusionment, but still a vision of what could be. This series of books should be subtitiled: THE FINE ART OF ANTICIPATION, for no matter if expectation was filled or emptied by the films behind them, their posters kept on shining.

I had difficulty finding guitar instructors in my area for the first 18 months of owning a guitar, so I turned to Bert Casey's 2 volume series: Acoustic Guitar Primer, and Acoustic Guitar Part 2. These are extremely well done and easy to follow, and each lesson builds nicely on the previous ones, so that by the end of Book 1 you know several chords and techniques such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, and particularly country bass runs The only drawback is that most of the material in book 1 is traditional or folk songs, which doesn't necessarily hold my interest as well as rock or blues, but this is a relatively minor criticism. I found the DVD somewhat helpful, but a bit distracting. Listening to the CDs included with the books helps focus one more on the feel of the strings and the sounds, instead of encouraging one to look at what the left hand is doing.

Bert Casey's Guitar Primer book is excellent. This book can be used for the first year or more of your journey with guitar. The lessons are well planned and presented, easy to follow also. Very good progress can be made following the material laid out in this book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to play guitar well and move beyond simple chord structures. All A++++ for this book.

I've been fooling around with the guitar off and on for 25 years. After all that time I still consider myself a beginner. This summer I was having another "serious" go at playing when I bought Casey's book on the recommendation of a guitar shop owner. One of my problems is that I know the intro and "signature" lick of many songs, but when asked to perform for friend and family, I just didn't have a repertoire of complete songs (either standards that everyone can sing-along with or instrumentals that stand on their own). Casey's book has solved this problem, the first dozen or so pages are pretty basic, but then things get interesting. Casey has excellent (yet simple) arrangements of traditional bluegrass and country songs that make great additions to one's repertoire while also teaching playing techniques: alternating base, bass runs between chord changes, combining hammer-ons and pull-offs with strumming, etc. They are easy enough for the beginner to play while having enough fancy licks to impress non-players with your chops. The included CD has all songs at slow and performance tempos to help with learning the songs. Some of my particular favorites are "Rolling in my Sweet Baby's Arms", "Sitting on top of the World", and "Wabash Cannonball". I've been having a lot of fun with this book for the past couple of months. The information in this book is also available on Video and DVD, which I am considering buying.

Acoustic Guitar Primer is a good book written by Author Bert Casey.

This is a cover of an acoustic guitar?

Bert Casey is an excellent guitar instructor. If you use this book in conjunction with the video or DVD you'll get a pretty comprehensive understanding of acoustic guitar techniques. Casey uses classic songs like "In the Pines", "Going Down that Road Feeling Bad", "Banks of the Ohio" (and more) to effectively teach you how to play. The video is great for those who would profit from visual demonstration.

There is also a follow up book that has recently become available that goes into even more depth. But this book/CD should keep you busy for a while.

The intercut of the church & prison was strange yet wonderful. The abolitionists gave Yomba an illustrated Bible and he gave his heart to Jesus[alternate version]. Cinque was the man who subsequently gave his life for his clan...Yomba was the informer who died beside Cinque in remorse. Cinque did what he did because he had to.

Put yourself in the shoes of the victims of slavery. Allow yourself to really, really feel what it would be like to have every aspect of your culture, values, language stripped from you. Imagine having to sit by while someone rapes your wife, mother, 11 year old daughter. Imagine having to eat an animal which you have been taught is poison. Imagine not having freedom to marry and having to watch your baby being driven away in a wagon, never being seen again, because one man has taken it upon himself the right to sell another. Sit there, close your eyes and then you will be brought into a deeper understanding of the people of the Amistad.

MAYA ANGELOU opens this moviebook with truth. The answer to why our story must be retold over and over again. The shocking truth that a black man's skin could be cut into a postage stamp size flap and sold as souvenirs by his racist white murderers. The generational truth that Cinque's remarkable, chilling story lives on beyond the relic flap of that lynching. America today is the reason AMISTAD must live another generation in hopes that we try to do better.

In the palpable words of Debbie Allen, the inhumanity of slavery in America was put on trial. When Joseph Cinque courageously and unselfishly challenged America's Declaration of Independence, its Constitution, its President of the United States, its abolitionists, its Supreme Court, and the Queen of Spain, the entire world watched. The truth about America's slave system was revealed. That truth must continue to be discussed and explored and remembered from one generation to the next. AMISTAD, therefore, should never die on a bookshelf or in history. AMISTAD forces Joseph Cinque's story into eternity. The pictures and quotes in this fine moviebook should continue to shame and inspire all of us today to paint a better existence for all mankind.

Ask a man of extraordinary intellectual power who is equally creative such as Steven Spielberg to define "truth" and he will show you it in living color page after page, clip after clip. You will beg to discover it over and over again because AMISTAD commands that type of loyalty to tell our story repeatedly to our children, black and white. Readers will gain a different perspective on "Give Us Free" each time. You will cry your own script to the young and help keep Cinque's purpose alive to make life better. The truth not only sets us all free, it keeps us free. AMISTAD is indeed truth.

The post list of additional reading resources about Amistad for both the young and the old are an integral part of this masterpiece.

Reviewed by Swaggie Coleman
for The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Just like his film on it, Steven Spielberg's work on this book, "Amistad: 'Give Us Free'", was well-executed. It reminds one of Alex Haley's "Roots". Both stir emotions. Every bit of the story shows how cruel a man can be to his fellow man. And, I disagree with all those who term this true story "a story of illegally enslaved Africans", (Mr Spielberg didn't). We are shying away from the truth, which is that no African, (not even one), was a legal slave. There is nothing that made one slave legal, and the other illegal. There is no legality in slavery. Absolutely! That treacherous and heartless people overpowered, kidnapped, and transported, (in the most inhumane manner), their fellow human beings to America and other places does not, in any way, make those victims of inhumanity "legal slaves". Regardless of all the face-saving tales that those who defiled our lands with the innocent blood, tears, and sweat of millions of Africans will like us to believe, the truth is that not even a single African volunteered to become a slave in any circumstance. They were all forced into it: with no option but death. Those who ripped and enjoyed the bloodied fruits of slavery merely sought cheap excuses in order to justify what they did. But we know that there is nothing legal in kidnapping and subjecting human beings to such a horrible condition.
'La Amistad' tells a soul-eroding story. Cinque and his cohorts are true heroes. They are heroes of freedom, heroes of justice, and heroes of human rights. Songs have been composed about them. Books have been written about them. Films have been made about them. And, history will forever appreciate their gallantry.

"THE BEST!", Its inspiring on one's will to keep himself and other Africans from the early slave trade which destroyed many families in America. Exciting effort to fight in a foreign country without knowing its language or laws. Very forth right in telling truth of American's untold "ugly" slave trade and what slave traders were willing to do just to keep it alive. Amistad's truth about slavery was very emotional, determined to express the will of any free man who's fighting williness to remain a free soul. A Heartfelt story about a lone struggle for Africans coming to America for the first time and having to face the ugliness of slavery, this was not right and should not have happened. All wasn't lost in the end and my true thanks to the many allies: former President - John Q. Adams, Mr(s) Baldwin, Gibbs, and former slave Joadson for their unyeilding efforts to abolish this ugly sore(slavery) which infested deep within America. I truely loved this story, because it was simply "THE BEST!" Also, thanks to Alex Pate and Steven Spielberg and the many others for bring out this ugly hidden part of America's history, I never knew this happened. This could have been me and I cried when I saw the movie. "THE BEST...."