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Simple. Consciouness. Presence. Each time I sit with Leonard's books, no matter how often I have read a passage, it speaks to my soul.

This is a wonderful book, but it is best understood if one first receives his own direct spiritual awakening by connecting with the Power of God. I was able to receive this contact through the association of Subud. Reading Leonard's books helps guide me in putting my spiritual experience into practice. I recommend all three books.

This book is a definite help to understand the play of unconscious mind in life. The smooth flowing poetry like sentences run around the themes of man's reality perceived through conditioned mind, childhood experiences and formation of unconscious mind, passing reference to collective unconscious mind, man's fear of the unknown, relationships Vs relating, looking for unconditional love and acceptance, fear of rejection, fear of failure, unconscious beliefs, emotional pain etc.

Author's definitions on the three levels of consciousness viz. level of mind, level of Being (Christ Consciousness), and level of Eternal (God consciousness), and five keys to awakening provide the beginning lessons for a seeker interested in specific instruction.

References to words and phrases, on pages 5, 72, 161, 229, 249, listed at the end of this review, such as 'God and my Being', soul, past incarnations, future lifetimes, 'moments of transcendence', 'offer yourself to God' etc go against the only ultimate Truth of 'Only God Is'. This contributes its own confusion. This is more so because the author does not make himself clear about 'God Consciousness' in comparison to 'Being Consciousness'.

The author's note on Page 8 recognizes its purpose as:

The words in the book are powerful.
They can inspire you towards your own
awakening or they can act as a guide
for those already on the path.
Some of the words
need to be meditated upon.

Comments on Christianity and its psyche built on the past, on page 93, is a very interesting observation:

Christianity is a major obstacle to the
awakening of human consciousness.
There is a very simple reason for this.
To awaken, it is necessary to let go
of attachments from the past and
move into the present moment.
The present moment is the
doorway to God and the Eternal.
Christians are focused on the past.
On Jesus.
It is time to take Jesus
down from the cross.

Please read a few other helpful sentences from this book, below:

Page 55

I think.
Therefore I am not.
I think not.
Therefore I am.

Page 58

The present moment
is never involved in thinking.
Whenever you think,
you must be thinking of something
from the past
or something in the future.

Page 61

If you give up the dream,
you also give up the nightmare.

Three levels of consciousness:

Level of mind (Page 68)

At the level of mind, the focus is on the past
and the future, which are constantly projected
onto the present moment.
The reality of the present moment is never truly
experienced and the illusions projected
by the mind are mistaken for reality.

Level of Being (Page 69)

You are focused in the here and now,
experiencing the reality
of the present moment.
You are free from the bondage of the past.
You have no anxiety about the future.
Life is lived in freedom and joy.
You have become grounded in silence.

Level of Eternal (Page 69)

Very little can be said about this level.
It cannot be described or even imagined.
It is what Jesus refers to
as the Kingdom of Heaven.
There is no time.
Everything is in perfect harmony.
It is the realm of Gods.
God. Silence. Eternity. Oneness. Union.

Page 92

God consciousness is the final
stage of the journey.
Christ consciousness indicates that
you are almost there.

Meditation:

Page 75

The aim of meditation is to bring
the whole play of mind to consciousness.
If you really understand the nature of the mind
and if you see clearly what it is doing,
you open the way to transcend it.

Enlightenment:

Page 79

Enlightenment is an ongoing process of allowing
everything up from the darkness of the
unconscious mind into the light of consciousness,
until one day, the darkness has disappeared
completely. You are fully enlightened.

Helping:

Page 85

Be very wary of allowing your ego
to become involved in helping others.
The ego always has a hidden agenda.
It is subtly trying to place itself
above the ones being helped.

Page 105

Repentance is not true repentance
if there is any sense of
spiritual reward.

A Bird's Eye view of the Mind:

Page 128

The beliefs which were formed in early childhood
about yourself, others and life are programmed
into your mind, at an unconscious level,
and define you and determine
your experience of life.

. . . .

Page 129

The more you are watchful in a spirit
of unconditional love and acceptance,
the more you will become awakened.

Keys to awakening:

Page 142

The most important key to awakening is to be
unconditionally loving and accepting
of yourself at the level of mind,
which includes all those things
you would like to change about yourself.

Page 143

The second key to awakening
is to allow your emotions full expression.

Page 144

The third key to awakening is confession.
If you confess these qualities to some one
who is absolutely non-judgmental,
and who is fully present,
it helps you to own the quality
to which you are confessing.

Page 145

The fourth key to awakening is to accept
full responsibility for yourself.
This will release you from the world of
expectation, resentment, blame and guilt.
It will lead you into total freedom.

Page 145

The fifth key to awakening is to let go.
Dance.
Lose control.

Looking back:

Page 232

If you must look back into the past,
then look back with understanding
and compassion.

. . .

Your parents didn't know anything about
unconditional love and acceptance
because they had never
received it from their parents.
And their parents had never received it.
So you can see that
no one is to blame.

Page 233

It just happened, because of the degree of
unconsciousness at a collective level.
All that can be done now is that you take
responsibility for your own awakening
and the chain of unconsciousness
will be broken, at least for you.

Page 234

Whenever you are lost in the mind,
don't try to sort it out.
Don't try to fix yourself up.
Just ask yourself,
"How do I return to Being?"

Page 235

When you are caught up in
something at the level of mind,
the way back to Being is simple.
First clearly identify what it is
that you are caught in.
Is it jealousy, fear, unworthiness
or something else?
Identify it. Feel it. Own it.
Express it. Confess it.

Confusing statements that confirm reality of Individuality:

Page 5

God was an allowing God who filled my whole Being with an overwhelming sense of unconditional love and acceptance.

Page 72

And it is not just the child
who is walking behind you.
All the identities from past incarnations
are still with you.
The seeker. The pirate.
The highwayman. The sage.

Page 161

Repentance must be true repentance.
It must be felt in your heart.
It must occur at the level of soul.

. . .

The rest of your life will have to be a living
demonstration of the truth of your repentance.
It must continue into future lifetimes.

Page 229

In moments of transcendence,
I disappear and only God remains.
In those sacred moments,
I know that God is and that I am
and that God and I are One.

Page 249

The highest form of prayer
is to offer yourself to God.

* * * * *

This author is very poetic and the many of the passages in this book are extremely inspiring. Just reading his writing in incredibly soothing. The author believes that there is a simple way to reach an awakened and enlightened state of mind. Though this sounds appealing to people in our modern fast food/fast everything/instant gratification culture, I feel that this may be a little too optimistic. I think that although we can all experience temporary states of mind like this, this is not the same as the state of mind reached by a person who has reached this state through many years of experiences in life. Toru Sato in his book "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" explains this long and emotional process in a very clear way. I'd highly recommend this book if you are interested in personal growth and happiness.

I purchased this book because of the high ratings given by Amazon reviewers. What I found when the book arrived was 256 pages that could easily have been put into 50 pages or less. There are many pages with a sentence or two in the middle of the page. The author states that the words are so powerful that they need that whole page. I think it was to extend a short manuscript to an appealing length. There doesn't really seem to be a theme, other than the author says he has had religious experiences and what he has learned is in the book. I would have liked to have known what the religious experiences were. I perceived the book as a collection of awakened-sounding phrases and attempted parables that didn't seem to go anywhere. The other Amazon reader reviews on this book are much clearer and more interesting than the book itself.

Ken Hultgren's animal drawing book is by far the best I've ever seen. The drawings are not only beautiful and full of life but rich in anatomical information as well. Studying and copying these drawings, combined with a few trips to the zoo and a horse ranch, enhanced my awareness of animal anatomy and movement enormously.
I used this book as my primary resource for modeling, rigging, animating a horse in Maya. It's a great asset for animators, modelers, sculptors -- artists of any sort-- or anyone who loves animals and good drawings.

Excellent art reference for the developing artist who wants to understand animal anatomy and motion.

The book has lots of great drawing. I wish it had more explanations. But I still love it.

if you are studying animal drawing, this is one of the best books ever. this concentrates on the motion and line of action, as well as the construction!

This book is somewhere right between a "How to Draw Animals" book and a detailed anatomy book. It gives you the basics of the muscles for each animal in beautiful, dynamic sketches that take you from drawing static (but proportional) animals to leaping, rolling, fighting animals. If you're really serious, you'll still need a more detailed anatomy book, but for movement (especially of horses and deer and their running patterns) this one is awesome. Just a warning though, the section on dogs is awesome but smaller than the horses, the section on cats is extensive but focuses mostly on big cats, and the section on wolves/foxes/wild dogs is pretty brief - much more of the book is spent on the larger herbivores and some less commonly studied animals like kangaroos, camels, rabbits, and a big section on bears.

I was so impressed with this book I would wake up in the middle of the night and want to read more sections of it. It has given me a strong desire to learn more about the Hebrew alphabet and what relevance it has in understanding the nature of the true Master of the Universe!

Very interesting book, full of wisdom and revelations.We highly recommend this book for all those who want to know about Hebrew letters.

This book is very helpul in gaining a personal and deeper understanding of this "creation lanuge." I have found it simply profound - meaning for the complexties it covers, it is put in such a written word that I found it easy to understand and relate to our world of today.

What if you had the chance for all of your dreams, as easy as A-B-C, or should I say A-B-D, to come true? Read above the pages - this book is worth it. If you want to learn Hebrew, this book will give you such a closeness to the letters, the hard parts of learning this language will remove the blockage. If you want greater insight into the secrets of life, and how to make life doable - PURCHASE THIS BOOK! If you are a serious scholar related to this area, read and make this book a part of your library.

The Hebrew Alphabet is rich in both heritage and meaning. Every letter has special meaning. Rabbi Munk brings this out in a way that will bring light to torah and bible study. May your study be blessed as you open the hidden, and reveal a new demsion in God's word.

To be called a lady--a woman at her best-- is a compliment, but the meaning quickly transforms to an unwanted stigma when the word `bag' is added. Bag lady--a woman at her worst. Songstress Erykah Badu popularized the phrase "bag lady" in a song by the same title. Her song wasn't about homeless women pushing shopping carts containing everything they own. Yet, the women she sang about were just as lost and overburdened. Badu's bag ladies carried all of their fears, disappointments, anger, lack of self-worth--all their "issues"--like massive bags of garbage. Why would a woman continue to carry such a load, blocking her blessings that would surely come if she'd just dump the garbage? Badu doesn't tell us why in her song, but author Alethea Pascascio picks up where Badu's song ends. Pascascio's debut novel, Bag Lady, is the twisted journey of how one woman came to be a bag lady and why she can't seem to put down her bags filled with lies, rejection, low self-esteem and deception.

Is it possible to find love in another if you've yet to discover love within yourself? Pascascio's main character, Faith, sure seems to think so. Ever since she was a little girl Faith has been searching for love, only to have it elude or betray her. To understand Faith's history one just needs to know her full name--Faith Taylor Donnovan Felderman Payton Herrera. All of Faith's issues can be traced back to the men that have put a claim and name on her life.

Faith's biological father (Taylor) was killed by a stray bullet when she was a baby. Maybe this man could have been the positive male figure she needed, but life robbed her of the opportunity to ever find out. Instead she and her two sisters ended up with her stepfather, Mitchell Donnovan, for a role model of manhood. The Donnavan household is dysfunctional and Faith stores all of her memories of physical, emotional and sexual abuse deep within her only to have them resurface in her future relationships.

Faith falls "crazy in love" with a string of dysfunctional men--whose vices include drugs, other women and in one weird case, the occult. After two disastrous marriages (Felderman and Payton), Faith meets Justin Herrera. Justin offers the hope of real love, but can she cast her past aside and truly love him? Will he hurt her like the others? Justin's presence also puts a riff between Faith and her older sister, Nicole. Nicole believes Faith's love life has been picture perfect, but doesn't understand that quantity isn't a measure of quality.

Bag Lady is drama-filled, at times making you feel frustrated with Faith because she keeps putting herself in the same bad situations. But, that's what makes the story so real. The reality is bad habits are hard to break, especially when it comes to love. Beyond the frustration you'll root for Faith to find peace and healing as you travel with her on her journey of ultimately dumping her bags.

The debut novel of poet and storyteller Alethea Pascascio, Bag Lady is a story of misfortune, hardship, and the search for redemption. Faith Donovan is lady weighed down by emotional baggage - an unhappy childhood, host of poor choices in men leading to dead-end relationships, and two-failed marriages haunt her. At thirty years of age, her life seems to turn around as she meets Justin, a Central American who helps her face her past and learn how to love herself. But even as she tries to extricate herself from her past, her sister's jealousy and rage threaten to pull her back in. A selection of fourteen discussion questions such as "How do characters change or evolve throughout the course of the story? What events trigger such changes?" enhance this cathartic tale of the painful process of self-transformation, highly recommended.

Author Alethea Pascascio picked the perfect name for her main character: Faith. As a woman who keeps choosing the wrong man, faith is what she eventually calls on to break the cycle. This story is about the desire for love at any cost, and Faith finds herself repeating the same mistakes as her mother.

The story starts off a little slow. It begins at the funeral of Faith's beloved grandmother, G-ma. The reader is introduced to Faith's dysfunctional family and her new husband, Justin, who G-ma predicted as "the one." Soon, we learn about Faith's past, and how she ended up in one toxic relationship after another filled with drama, drugs, and despair. We also learn how she found trust in love again.

BAG LADY is a tale about emotional baggage, and a woman who is determined to hold onto it. Only until she faces the pain she has kept bottled up since childhood, does she learn how to love herself. With a bevy of interesting characters, including Mitchell, Faith's abusive, alcoholic stepfather; and her mother Linda, who chooses Mitchell over her own daughters, this book will make you laugh, cry, and testify.

Reviewed by Angela Watkins
for The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Faith takes you down memory lane to show her sister that life hasn't always been easy as it was looking at G-Ma funeral.

Faith and her siblings went through pure hell. The only person was there for them was G-Ma. Because her mother was to busy trying to keep her no good husband. Faith lived with the lies, deception, rejection, unforgiveness,abuse,secrets,lust and low self-esteem. Until she turned it over to God.

Over all I like the book and it was a great read, but Faith was really getting on my nervous. The author did a great job with getting her point over.

Reviewer-Big Time Publishing Magazine
Claudia Mosley

"The word amazing fails to adequately depict this emotional story that will literally touch the souls of readers. The novel Bag Lady will take readers down memory lane recalling instances in their lives that caused them to develop their on baggage."

"Faith Donovan has a difficult childhood that is a direct result of her self-esteem issues that lead her into challenging relationships."

"It takes the demise of several relationships and the entrance of a true gentleman into her life for her to break free from the load of baggage that's been holding her hostage. She ultimately learns that forgiveness is the key to releasing her unhappiness."

"Alethea Pascascio has orchestrated a wonderful encouraging story that readers can learn from."

I bought this as a gift for my mom, and she loved it. It is a great book that keeps you interested, you won't want to put it down.

No te arrepentiràs, me encantan todos los cuentos de este libro, so tan originales y tan fuera de lo común, que te transportan a otro mundo en tu imaginación!!

Cuentos de Eva Luna arrived rapidly. I am reading it for pleasure and I'm not being disappointed. The book is well bound for a paperback, comfortable to hold, easy to read for a student of a second language.

A friend introduced me to this collection this summer. It's a relatively easy read for anyone with a college education in Spanish. Allende uses modern stylistic devices and vocabulary.

The frame is a Scheherazade set up... a series of stories about love relationships.

Some stories are a bit schematic and unsatisfying but when she hits paydirt, it's killer. I especially liked the stories 'Si me tocaras el corazon' and 'Walimai.' These felt almost like deep folk/ fairytales.

If you enjoyed A.S. Byatt's "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye," you'll like this one too.

What a collection of characters! An illiterate woman who sells words. A man obsessed with a little girl. A woman whose marriage was based on letters written by the wrong man. A woman who spends her life waiting for revenge. A rich man who keeps a girl prisoner. Rascals trying to break into society. A lonely dictator. Invisible Indians. Every character is flawed in some terrible way, and yet, somehow appealing. Somehow you become attached to each of the characters and you want to hear their stories. There is something absolutely magical about these stories by Isabel Allende, stories you can't put down.

What is her secret? I don't know. I think she writes with magic ink. But, there is something else, too. Her characters never give up. No matter how bad, how flawed, how actually depraved they may be, they keep struggling toward the light. And so, each of us, with our own struggle to escape from darkness, can relate to these people and their stories.

These are some of the finest stories I have ever read. I recommend the collection most highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

This is a wonderful, uplifting, inspirational book. Perfect for daily reading because of the way it is written in essay form, you can sit down and read the whole thing or use it for daily inspiration reading one chapter at a time. Love love loved it!!!

I so like this book. I finished 80+ pages already. I have read a lot of Zen philosophy, have experience with spiritual type books including Eckhar Tolle's books. What I like about Alan Cohen is that he shows how people come from nothing are like nothing and become greatness in a way, and that greatness is not exactly as we think it is.... It comes from our inner world. We don't need to arrive at some time in the future, to have that dream job, dream husband or wife, we are precious already.

The book is easy to read, can be taken in short bites or read in large chunks, but all of the chapters affirm life, love and the beauty of the human experience. I read this book at my father's hospital bedside for ten days, and it made the long days bearable. It's a book I'll keep on my "daily" shelf to read over and over again.

He writes as if he is in touch with Spirit the whole time-- It takes you on a journey gently!!

I picked up one of Alan's books on clearance last year and have been hooked on his wonderful outlook, sense of humor and writing style. Everything I read by him gives a boost to my spiritual center and I feel I'm communing with a soul mate. This book speaks in everyday language about very powerful universal messages. I would recommend it to anyone of any age.

I absolutely loved this book. It would be a five star review, except for the fact that I've already read the two follow-ups. They betray the fact that RAW burned through all his best ideas on the first book. What appear in EWS as great set-ups for subsequent books turned out to be one-shots, left to die on the vine in the rest of the series. The Widow's Son is also a good book, but RAW spent too much time on farcical footnotes and not enough on character and plot development. So some of the genius of The Earth Will Shake is ruined by lack of cultivation.

Still, I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in historical fiction, conspiracies and using the arts to help liberate mankind.

Anything by Robert Anton Wilson is worth reading. His Illuminati stuff is doubly so. The original Illuminatus Trilogy is one of the greatest scifi, horror, thriller, political, historical, adventure and pornographic novels ever written. All of the Historical Illuminatus books are equally well done, equally fun to read, and equally true historically.

I read this book back in the late 80's when it was printed by a mass-market publisher (Signet, I think) containing two abridged volumes; The Earth Will Shake and The Widow's Son. I loved it then and was never able to find Nature's God. Now I have all 3 books. After re-reading this edition, I've enjoyed it twice as much!! There is still yet an unpublished forth book, "The World Turned Upside Down" and we're all awaiting this gem to be published. Earth Will Shake is a coming of Age novel set in the enlightenment era where a murder happens in church during an Easter mass. From that point on it's a roller coster ride of wicked but serious fun. You are enlightened by the sheer weight of the subject matter that continues to this day. In these works you meet diverse characters who are historically real. I.e., the young Mozart, Count Cagliostro and Casanova, just to name a few. Dan Brown though entertaining, is comparatively an amateur hack when writing about the Illumniati (see for yourself and read this. You won't be disappointed). When the Da Vinci Code got ALL the attention, there was no mention of this work and I find that a sad reality though parr for the course in these "shaky" times. Remember, "reality is what you can get away with"...

In the early 1980's, I lived in San Francisco. I knew actual members of the OTO, mysterious avant garde musicians, punk rockers and performance artists, bicycle messengers, typesetters, cabinet makers and optical laser artists. My life was going to hell on drugs and alcohol. I regret not a moment of it, but several things got me through the bad time. One was a book by Robert Anton Wilson called THE COSMIC TRIGGER. He somehow manages to mix mysticism and skepticism and pragmatism and wit. This Robert Anton Wilson is a metaphysician, good for the angst that might take your very life.

He had also written the famous ILLUMINATI! trilogy, the Schrodinger's Cat series,but had not yet started the series that begins with this very book.

This book is a prequel to the Illuminatus trilogy, in exactly the same way that Neil Stephenson's QUICKSILVER preludes CRYPTONOMICON, only in a much more profound vein.

Meet Sigismundo Celine (obviously the ancestor of the pirate Hagbard Celine we meet in Wilson's earlier/later tale) he is Parsifal, and his tale begins with the death of his father, or not his father, but then he kills his own father. Get out your secret decoder ring, kids--Wilson was on a deeper plane here than either Dan Brown, the aforementioned Stephenson, or even George Lucas--yet mining much of the same territory.

Magic and Madness. Sin and Redemption. Conspiracies and Initiation. If you are smart enough to read this book--the next one is a real doozy--certainly the best book Wilson ever wrote.

Then there was a break of more than a decade. Every time I heard Wilson on the radio (KPFK in the dead of night--he has a fan base out here in California)I would call and beg him for the third book. When it did arrive it was excellent but had lost the wind, somehow. Possibly it was me. Readers are half the reading.

But these books are the REAL MAGILLA. If you understand what RAW is saying here--it will enter your mind like a virus and it will change you. This is not just fiction. You are warned.

Sixteen years ago I appeared in a play by Robert Anton Wilson called WILHELM REICH IN HELL. It was in a small nightclub in Long Beach--but I got to meet the great man. As Tim Leary once said of him, Wilson was glowingly sane. (or was that what wilson said of leary???) The proof is on the page, and this one waits for YOU.

(Robert Anton Wilson--if you read this review, please write us the fourth book. I have read nearly every word you have ever written, even magazine articles and this is the one to leave us gasping--if you can't, I understand. We face tomorrow unafraid and carry the meme of freedom. Persevere.

Robert Anton Wilson has proven to be capable of extraordinary talent with this series. Mixing fiction with non-fiction he weaves one of the most satisfying Masonic related tales to be discovered and published. The Earth Will Shake, The Widows Son and Natures God are a type of writing that I had previously not encountered through Wilson. This series can actually be very inspiring, and it's written in such a dramatic way I am convinced it would make an excellent movie. Yet, at the end of the series, the reader sees reference to the fourth book "The World Turned Upside Down", and alas, it is non-existant. Whatever reason Bob has for abandoning us devout readers of this series (I have read all three books three times and stolen much wit from them) I urge you, dear Bob, please don't leave us hanging, finish the fourth book! More! More! Your Friend, Joey

Eboni Chronicles is a thought provoking book that can help anyone become more effective in managing their emotions, problem solving and decision-making. It allows you to learn how to manage your emotions for maximum results in your relationships.

In Eboni Chronicles, Ms. Jones has provided a platform for the unsung heroines of Black America. It is a passionate plea to and from mothers, sisters, aunts, and friends alike on the subject of self-esteem, beauty, God, children, and money. Pain, despair, triumph, hope and love leap from the pages of Eboni Chronicles. Kudos to Ms.Jones for sharing "Black women's ideas, beliefs and lifestyles" in a new way. I encourage you to buy this book. It's real. It's raw. And in some instances, it's remarkably funny. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Eboni Chronicles, and know that you will too.

Rashun writes from the heart. This is a excellent book with valuable lessons for everyone.

Eboni Chronicles gives a honest look at how Black women have demonstrated resilience in their day to day lives. It contains a inspiring educational message for Black women regardless of their age, background or life experience. I recommend this book to all black women.

Eboni Chronicles is a informative book for young women in the 90's. The "true" stories from the women in this book can help one deal with issues of racism and sexism. Issues that are often experienced but rarely ever talked about in such a open and honest manner. It also focuses on the everyday dilemmas like self esteem, work/education, managing emotions, problem solving, resolving conflicts and spirituality. I really enjoyed this book because it helped me see a lot of issues that I was dealing with and positive solutions to these issues. Eboni Chronicles contains a inspiring educational message for black women regardless of their age, background or life experience. It would also be useful to anyone interested in learning more about the ideas, beliefs and lifestyles of the Black woman from the eyes of the Black woman. I recommend this book to all Black women. Alicia Prince, Reviewer

Nita Leland has a wonderful way of inspiring her readers and making them feel more comfortable with color and paint. Doing the exercises in the book are an essential part of the experience and should not be skipped.

This book is everything I hoped it would be. I am a novice painter, working in acrylics, and wanted some basic info on color theory. This is it. The information is comprehensive yet easy to understand with exercises for the reader to do in any medium. I was so impressed that I bought her Exploring Color Workbook to go with it. This is highly recommended for the artist wanting to expand her color theory expertise.

One of the first books I've looked at that explains color in non technical terms. It has examples of how to use these colors in your paintings. There are several step by step instructions on using different color combinations as well as many exercises for you to do on your own. There's a companion coloring book which is helpful but not necessary. An outstanding book for beginners wanting to know more about color theory. The author has a web site and is very helpful in answering any questions.

Before reading this book I'd had an attitude about 'color theory' and such - or at least the teaching of it. Anything I read was either imperious and demanding or so complicated that I'd be lost in the first chapter.

But this book doesn't order you to do things a certain way. It explains what results you will get doing this and what results you'll get doing that. There is no highbrow judgment here about the only "correct" way to do anything. It is clearly written, with lots of pics and examples, and is completely accessible. What a breath of fresh air!

The book begins with a little bit of the history of color in paintings and the physics of color mixing. She doesn't bog down the book with it though. She gives just enough information to put the use of color in painting into context and as a starting point if one wants to do further research.

Then comes the more detailed information. This starts out simply and builds with each chapter. She explains why things happen in color combining and mixing and how to get the desired results. Color in painting is a detailed and complex subject, but, while she encourages you to learn it all, she is never demeaning or rigid that one has to know all this front and back before painting. She explains why knowing all this will help and improve your painting.

In other words she makes me *want* to learn all this rather than making me feel like I *have* to learn it.

One thing to note is the she uses watercolor in her examples and exercises so some adjustment may be necessary for oils.

There are also lots of things to practice in the book. She has exercises for everything she teaches. So when you're done you will have a tremendous visual reference library. I have lots of art books but this one will stay OFF the shelf and easily accessible. The use of color isn't something that can be learned overnight, so do yourself a favor: get this book.

I bought this based on other reviews about it. I don't know doodley about color and have always gone on gut instinct...and I've painted over a lot of ruined canvas and wasted a lot of paint.
This is an excellent little book with a lot of exercises to make it all quite clear. Every page teaches me something - I have so far had quite a few "AHA" moments. I am beginning to understand why sometimes a color works and sometimes it is just a little off...
I recommend this for everyone. Thank you Nita Leland.

This is written in a more story-telling way. THe graphics weren't as professional as I had hoped, but overall it was/is still a decent book for Shelling information.

I have purchased many shell books over the years. After finding this book at the public library, I had to have a copy for myself. It is by far the most informative book on Florida and Gulf Coast shells I have run across. If you just like shells, love finding your own, or are just curious about the sea creatures of the region, this is the book for you!

I was completely surprised when this book arrived at the size of it. For the price, I expected a small book, but it's quite large and full of beautiful pictures. My kids are crazy about the beach and we have amassed a large collection of shells over the years, so it was a lot of fun identifying the ones that we already had. We also took it on our last trip to the beach, which made shell collecting a lot of fun! This is also a very beautiful book even if you aren't going to the beach. If you are a beach goer or a beach lover (or both) you should pick this book up!

This great book is packed with trivia, great photos, humor and education. The kids in our family love looking at the pictures and I love the color photos identifying not only many of Florida's seashells but also other mysterious matter that you may happen to find on the beach. I've read it over and over and still find something new each time I read it. There's a section on cleaning shells, how shells reproduce (this is mind-blowing!). What is so interesting is many shells are shown with their inhabitants inside so you now know exactly what kind of animal made that beautiful shell you now have in your hand. The book covers areas in Florida such as the famous Sanibel, as well as other beaches on the West Coast, the Keys and South Florida. You'll discover which shell is worth thousands of dollars, which lump of stuff found on the beach is more valuable than gold and so much more. I've ordered extra books for my nieces and nephews because it is so rich in knowledge.

This book has beautiful full color photos of seashells which can be
found in the state of Florida. The descriptions of the shells are
excellent and if you are a collector, you will gain a lot of knowledge
from reading this book. Whether you are a native of Florida or a snowbird,
you will start to recognize the pictured shells as you explore the sandy
beaches on your own. A very enjoyable book for anyone interested in sea-
shells.