Owen Books

I got this wonderful book in 1992 and I've recently re-read it and I still think it is the best survey of magazine design. Magazines (and newspapers) are rather unique in their design because the words and the visuals are so tightly connected. Other areas of print design can be taught in design schools but to adequately cover publication design schools would have to employ sub-editors and other wordsmiths, not a very practical solution! Bill Owen's book is not a how-to manual but a good solid history in words and thankfully plenty of covers and spreads.

This design history starts in the early years of the last century but to my mind the story really comes alive in America during the Thirties and Forties. Great titles like Fortune, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, Vanity Fair and others had publishers who realised the importance of strong visuals and having a good Art Editor. During the Fifties and Sixties a whole raft of talent was creating stunning looking magazines. My favorites were Otto Storch on McCalls (the things he could do with Baskerville Old Face were just amazing) Herb Lubalin and his rather short run on the Saturday Evening Post in 1961 and Willi Fleckhaus on Twen (a stunning looking German monthly that made a design virtue of black pages and a condensed typeface called Schmalfette Grotesk. A German book devoted to this very influential title is 'Twen, revision of a legend' by Michael Koetzle, ISBN 3781404382).

The text has plenty of spreads (in color) and in the latter part of the book the pages are filled with these and long captions. The survey ends about the late Eighties so it does not cover a lot of the contemporary US and European publications. Editorial design in so many of these, it seems to me, is a bit of a free-for-all because it is so easy create something using the latest software.

If you are interested in the history of magazine design over the last few decades Owen's book is the one to get. A book that covers the history of one corner of the magazine business, the weekly news titles, that I found fascinating is 'Kiosk: A history of photojournalism' by Robert LeBeck (ISBN 388243791X) and I particularly liked it because it has hundreds of spreads, rather than just individual photos, from the great weeklies like Life, Stern, Paris Match, Picture Post and others.

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

If you are a fan of number coincidences, or believe in any form of numerology then this is a book to drool over. It consists of page after page of relationships between numbers and events. Owen O'Shea has an amazing ability to identify curious combinations of numbers. To give you some idea of the unusual relationships that he is discovered, here is a list of the chapter titles:

*) Digit curiosities
*) The 9/11 atrocities
*) The professor speaks on the U. S. and Ireland
*) Curiosities in armed conflicts
*) Number and word palindromes
*) The U. S. - Iraq war
*) The number of the beast
*) Curios of the Lusitania and other curious matters
*) Wordplay and other curiosities
*) New coincidences on Lincoln and Kennedy
*) Dart and card curiosities
*) The professor gives some number patterns
*) The King James Bible and some currency conversions
*) The professor at the university

I was amazed at some of the coincidences, wondering how O'Shea managed to find them. It appears that he has a very accurate sense for these relationships, as some are quite obscure. When reading the book, there were few, "Now, why didn't I think of that?" moments. However, there were many times when my thought was, "I would have never thought of that."

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

Wow-this book really simplifies the stock selection process. I'm an experienced investor who has lost money in pure momentum stocks. I see this guy on CNBC and Bloomberg quite a bit and he seems to know his stuff. I agree with Standard & Poor's great endorsement "Magnet Investing provides an insightful look into the stock selection process. It will be a great boost to professional investors, as well as ones that only dabble in stocks." The first several chapters teach investors how to develop a disciplined approach to the market and then describes a new trademarked system that selects stocks based on a well defined set of criteria, combining value and momentum. If you have a PC, you can access this program through Telescan or set it up with another screening service. Then, with the click of your mouse, you can pick a pool of stocks that have the potential to be great performers. The system has averaged a 30% return per year over the past ten years. The trial CD from Telescan is an added bonus. I think the author's system is one of the best I've seen.

When I was in middle school I read this book for a book report. I had been going through a violent phase and acting out quite a bit. After reading this book I never took my anger out in a violent way again. I can honestly say this book changed my life, forever.

"The innovative ideas presented in this book are intended to provide incentives to the private sector to conduct research and development to address the major killer diseases of the poor in the developing world. It offers specific and creative proposals for utilizing market mechanisms to address one of the critical challenges facing the world today. These proposals merit the support of all those concerned about these global challenges. I certainly endorse and fully support the proposals."

- Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia


"This is an innovative and practical idea which would unleash the resources of the private sector to develop vaccines that would protect millions of people from terrible diseases. Making Markets for Vaccines is policy analysis at its best: realistic, evidence-based and focused on the world's most pressing challenges."

- Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom


"Deadly diseases like AIDS that devastate developing countries are not only a humanitarian issue, they are a security issue for the United States. To develop vaccines against the world's most dangerous diseases, the international community will have to think more strategically and act more collaboratively than it has in the past. This book is an important contribution to that effort."

- Senator Richard G. Lugar, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee

The children in this story know ABOUT Uncle Joe, but they don't know him personally because he has been in a special home for the mentally retarded--a place they never visit, only their parents. Now, Uncle Joe is coming to live with them, maybe for quite a while.

A neighbor boy is sure that "all retarded people are funny looking and most of 'em drool; you'll have to wipe his chin all the time." Teenager Beth doesn't want this little-known uncle to be "creeping around" and causing her friends to make fun of HER, too.

And, it turns out, Uncle Joe does have to be cleaned up after, and be reminded to wear his glasses, comb his hair, put on matching socks, and take a shower.

Does the family and Uncle Joe become unhappy? Does Beth lose her friends? How does young Dan react when his school friends see him in public with Uncle Joe? Why does five-year-old Amy cry and hug her uncle? What decision is finally made about Uncle Joe? [Suitable for grades 2-4/5.]

A Non-Workbook, Non-Textbook Approach to Teaching Language Arts: Grades 4 Through 8 and Up

Gentle, droll, English humor at its best. These stories combine the murder mystery with the politics and culture of Colonial life and the Middle Eastern mystique in cosmopolitan turn-of-the-century Cairo. These books can't be allowed to disappear off the shelves.

The Man Beneath Union Lake is my first taste of a micro-adventure book, and it has definitely whetted my appetite for more. C.L. Vaughn introduces us to Owen Ruger, a fearless adventurer who is not afraid to get in the middle of danger--especially when there is a beautiful woman needing his assistance. Vaughn jumps right into the action and never lets up until the last page of the book. If you love action/adventure books, then give Vaughn's The Man Beneath Union Lake a try. Be warned, however, these micro-adventures can become addictive. Let's hope that this isn't the last we see of Owen Ruger.

This book is essential for Pediatricians or Family Practitioners. It can aid you in the diagnosis of a variety of neurological syndromes, and assist you in caring for those children who are followed by a neurologist. Dr.Evans is perhaps the best Pediatrican/Pediatric Neurologist/Departmental Chairman in the country!!!!

The name "Marquis de Sade", has marked itself in the English language and few know why. He is a writer who is "...more talked about than read." However, after reading this text on the controversial author, the reader gets a more realistic view on who this man was and why he is controversial.

Margaret Crosland intertwines Sade's work with her own analysis and provides background and rationale behind his logic. Of course, there are several passages that can be quite stimulating (and just plain gross). However depraved you may think Sade is (and this is speaking from an avid researcher of his work) the value in de Sade's writing comes from your reaction to his work.

Bravo to Crosland for giving us an objective viewpoint into de Sade!