Breton Books

I have not yet received my book. Its over a month. I have not yet got the courier name or tracking no also.

First published in 1919, this oracular book was lost for many years. It has been brought back by Red Wheel/Weiser for all of us to have and to use as a wonderful guide for divination.

Monte Farber writes a beautiful introduction, bringing together all the pieces to the puzzle of what is known as "The Tablet of Jupiter." Mrs. John Le Breton gives us this magickal oracle based on nine of the astrological signs and seven planets. For this reason it is believed "The Tablet of Jupiter" dates back to the middle ages. But can it be used today, in everyday life? Not only can it, but it does. I use it every morning and it hasn't failed me yet.

Pick up The White Magic Book each morning and let it guide you through the day. No matter the tool of divination you use, from tarot or crystals to scrying, this oracle is the one to use. Whether you are a beginner or an adept, this book is one of the easiest to use.

M.L. Benton, Publisher, Echoed Voices.
Copyright © November 2001

This is a work of devotion by the late David Gebhard, and others at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), on an important mid-century California Architect. The research on Gregory Ain's career is solid and the booklet lists all of his known buildings & projects and publications on his architecture. The lists show that Ain was a well published architect during his own lifetime and indeed during his more active professional years from the mid thirties to the mid fifties. Yet this remains the only publication on his career and was produced for an exhibition of his work at the UCSB Art Museum in 1980.
The document includes a short essay on Ain and his work and a 2 page note on the importance of his architectural drawings. The photo essay at the end of the booklet shows very dated, fading, period images of the buildings and drawings.
At 95 pages with no contents or index; no specially commissioned photos or drawings, no essays positioning his work with his contemporaries like Harris, Koenig, Soriano etc. and a total absence of colour the work is overpriced at $24. Simply, the work lacks depth but remains a good start on the life work of an almost forgotten mid century Modern California Architect.
Maybe there is not enough material to force a better book devoted to Gregory Ain but a book including other architects of the region and period who have similar problems of lack of documentation (Davidson, Soriano et al) could result in an interesting and viable contribution to the scholarship.

This book is a fairly broad review (but with only modest depth) of various elelctronic communications systems. It covers the classics: AM, FM, NTSCS TV, POTs, modems, satellite, optics, etc., and was probably fairly current in the mid 90s. The problem is that much new technology has been depolyed in the last 10 to 15 years. Some background in electronics is necessary, and given that background, this book provides a nice overview than can fill in various knowledge gaps. So, as a somewhat dated broad review, it's a nice used book resource (for a few dollars). As a brand new and very expensive book lacking current technology, it is VERY VERY overpriced.

I'm sorry to say I was disappointed in this book. It was written by dieticians, and that really shows. A lot of the recipes are "healthy" to the point of sounding unappetizing to me, and I know my husband wouldn't touch them. Examples: Broccoli and Apple Soup ... Tofu Greek Salad ... Alfre-Tofu Fettucini ... Multi-Grain Prune Muffins ... Orange and Almond Tofu Shake. Some of the recipes also call for ingredients that I would be unlikely to have on hand or want to cook with, e.g. skim milk powder (in some of the shake recipes), corn syrup, canned creamed corn, "light" soy sauce (why not just use "real" soy sauce in a reasonable amount?), "spreadable processed cheese product" (what does that even mean??), vegetarian pizza pepperoni (gotta love those fake meat products - bleagh!), etc. etc. They are really big on tofu and vegetarian imitations of meat products.

My own cooking philosophy is more "natural whole foods" based, and I prefer to use good-quality non-processed, non-diet ingredients, so this book doesn't really fit in with that. Also, I prefer to have things like real butter and cream and eggs with yolks and meats and sugar and so on in moderate amounts, rather than replacing these with diet substitutes like skim milk or Tofurkey or Splenda. Basically, I was looking for more gourmet/epicurean type recipes in a lunchbox cookbook - something along Williams-Sonoma lines. This book isn't that!

This is not a good artbook. The images are way too small to be satisfying. This book could have been great, but falls way short of its potential. Don't buy it, you will be disappointed.

DRAWING from the MODERN is the first of a three part series published by MOMA as catalogue to accompany the chronologically arranged exhibitions of their drawing collection; in part, celebration of the seventy fifth anniversary of the founding of the Museum.

This first book looks at the late nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. Care and preservation of these drawings dictate that they are displayed infrequently, paper being a delicate medium, subject to fading, discoloration and brittleness. The publication of this series then allows us to have at hand a history of drawings seldom seen, and a visual education demonstrating how problems of that era both evolved and worked themselves out.

The introduction by Jodi Hauptman is broad and well worth reading. Aside from her entertaining "end of art" stories, she addresses artists and process leading to the dissolution of prevalent notions: relationship of "mark" to "ground", took new form; spatial notions of an orderly page, questioned; the element of chance, explored as process; the ego relationship of an artist to work, dissolving. New imagery happened: collage, abstraction, grids, enhanced emotions, metaphors of feeling, the sublime re-imaged. New subjects explored brutalities of war, notions of "city", identity, the spiritual, and the abstract.

As perhaps with all process of art, the uncertainty of change brought forth much that is new. The 139 plates of drawings both demonstrate and give testimony by leading artists of the time to new era in process. Drawing as subject matter is fascinating. To be expected, the book is well printed. Of course, what is book one without book two and three?

Nancy Gutrich

I purchased book 1 & 2 from Amazon. The illustrations are far too small to be a professionally represented art book from MOMA I've decided to save my money rather than pay out for the 3rd edition. It sounds a good buy from its description but I don't consider this trilogy to be very satisfactory.

" this is not it... " G. BARTO reviewer accurately said. The best Breton / English , English Breton dictionary that I know of, is the
" brezhoneg saozneg / english breton Geriadur divyezhek / Bilingual dictionary" by Raymond Delaporte / Remon Ar Porzh. Editor: Muladuriou' Hor Yezh. 1995. available on Amazon.fr / Amazon.co.uk ( or local ( Brittany ) internet bookshop ( so postage will be medium for European deliveries but high for USA / other non-European continents. )) with 544 pages.
On Amazon.com, the publisher is Schoenhofs foreign books inc. ( 1995 )with 544 pages also , it says.
Beware of the shortened Elementary Br / Eng Dict / GeriadurIG Br / S , publishers Cook University Press at 110 pages only. I do not personally know this version, but it might be of the same " lightness " as this Hyppocrene book.

Conroy's Breton Dict. and Phrasebk. contains a fair amount of useful information, but it can be hard to find. For starters, it would be helpful if the phrasebook and grammar sections were either indexed or broken out in the contents. Instead, one is left to flip through the book if seeking information about, eg, numbers, verb conjugations or greetings. And the dictionary section is woefully incomplete, often omitting words that are covered in the non-indexed phrasebook section.

On the plus side, the sections on question words is full of good examples and the phrasebook - once you've found the desired section - contains far more of the sort of phrases you might need than show up in most phrase books.

If you're looking for a good Breton dictionary, particularly for translating, this isn't it. It is, however, a nice book to thumb through while working to expand your range of conversation in Breton.

This book was disappointing because it has an inadequate range and many famous perfumes are absent. It is frustating to read because the names of the perfumes are hidden in the text, not even in bold type and you have to hunt for them. No information about who designed the bottles in most cases.

Although this is a cute little book with nice pictures, it is lacking in content. Too much history and not enough pictures of what is available today. It did not include any monetary values, not enough pictures of miniatures from the past 25 years, not very interesting ...actually it was nice to look at once, but otherwise a waste of money. I have about 40 of these little bottles and only about 8 were pictured in the book. Pay a little more and get a true reference book.

Translated from the French of the authors, this book suffers from the unsuccessful results. The translation is choppy and the text subsequently hard to follow. Several of the authors have backgrounds in geology so the rocks of Britanny figure prominently in a book you would expect to be about ancient sources and archaeology in the ground, not the ground itself.

The subject matter is very interesting regarding the Dark Age migrations of the British to Britanny. The major written sources, their limitations and silent periods are discussed in detail.

The authors assume the reader has a working familiarity with Britanny's geography and its post-Dark Age past. I could only give the book two stars due to its various difficulties.

When the first draft of my 2nd book was finished it contained 99 dive sites so I just had to find one more. Similarly, my recent book had featured 19 chapters until we found another wreck to include. This book contains the stories of 11 wrecks and it is that number which gives the impression the work was not complete when it went to press.

Yes, the stories are there - but they do not contain the sort of information which suggests the author has undertaken any research at all. At best we are told the ship was of so many tons but whether this is net, gross or deadweight is not mentioned. There is no further information about dimensions, machinery, when or where built, cargo or even the journey it was on when lost. These details are, therefore, left to the imagination of the reader.

The point being, imagine your neighbour is all excited because an aircraft flew low overhead this afternoon. Now was that aircraft a single engined Cesna from the local flying club or a ruddy great 747 in serious trouble? You get the idea.

Without such attention to serious research, there is no point in reading on - because you simply cannot trust the author to have researched the stories themselves. The Eastern Coast of Canada is renowned for it's shipwrecks. They include stories of accident, tragedy, bad luck and downright incompetence - many of which led to a tragic loss of life.

In short, there is so much material for an excellent collection of short stories to rival any work of fiction that I can only suggest this author tries again.

Finally, the book itself changes from small print to large print - even on the same page, for no apparent reason.

NM