News and Media Books

This is a great resource for anyone taking a French class. From a beginner to an expert, anyone could benefit from this little guy. The verb charts at the end really help.

When I started my French class, I had the textbook and the workbook. I decided that it would be good to get a French dictionary. This dictionary has been great. I have learned several new words that I won't have learned in class. Using the concepts for verb conjugation in class, I was able to apply what I had learned to the words I was looking up in the dictionary.

The back of the dictionary has a section on French verbs. Since that has been my major weakness, I thought that it was a great resource for studying.

I watched the Alex Mack series finale (right before my cable went out, darn it) and then just three months ago I bought the novelization here at Amazon. I find the book to be more enriched in detail and character's feeltings than the show did. I suggest this book to complete any TV guru's collection.

I liked this book because It had a lot of action in it and sometimes I was scared for Alex. But I wish she didn't have to give up her powers and have everyone know she was the GC-161 kid. If your an Alex Mack fan I think you should read this book and find out more about Alex and her powers.

Deibert has written a book that gives an awesome portrayal of the way in which information technologies interact with society and political forces. I would say that after having read this book I now have a much better grasp of a truly sophisticated understanding of the causal relationship between society and communications. This is a great contribution to medium theory.

This book is a stellar contribution to the understanding of how communication technologies affect world politics. Its rich in historical detail, wonderfully well written, and provocative in its conclusion. A must read.

This book has got everything and anything a nascent patent seeker needs to go it alone, and even the tools if one needs more than one's own help. It is full of example after example of those who've gone before and succeeded where naysayers so often have said "it can't be done." Art and entertainment are supposed to be too elusive to define and patent; yet, this book brings to light the fact that it's possible to pin those definitions down after all - then patent them.

You can't go wrong with all the possibilities shown in this book. Gregory Aharonian and Richard Stim have you covered on so many fronts within the art and entertainment venues, you can only succeed. Even better, you've got nothing to lose. Even if you're denied a patent by the USPTO - and they're blunt about that possibility here - you won't always regret not having tried, or even wonder, "What if I had tried"?

Patenting is part art unto itself. Add to that the eclectic theories and arguments pro and con of this still-growing discipline, and you have a very unique niche of law of which to be part.

This book gives you every tool you could need as a novice (and even not-so-novice) self-patent seeker. It even gives detailed advice on how to get a professional, a.k.a., lawyer, to help you on more complicated matters best not left to one's self.

I picked this book up thinking that applying patent and related law to art and entertainment was a rather narrow focus but found the book to be both interesting and comprehensive. Changes in the area of intellectual property protection in recent years, particularly regarding the practices of the US Patent and Trademark Office, have blurred the lines of protection in some areas of the law. The art and entertainment areas are good examples where the changes have had the most effect and practitioners in those fields are well advised to become familiar with them. The book clearly describes some of the most ambiguous areas and does an excellent job of describing why and when some forms of intellectual property protection may be more suitable than others. It also deals concretely with the issue of costs and - egads - when someone might actually want to retain an attorney. My quibbles with the book are minor. Patent infringement cases do not necessarily cost $500,000 to prosecute and many cases involving inventions with modest commercial success are resolved at much less cost. Also, in terms of the efficacy of protection, nothing beats a timely registered copyright in terms of recovery for time and cost expended. But these are my opinions and others may (and probably do) disagree. In any case, the candid and practical guidance in this book will be of interest to anyone working in the creative fields irrespective of whether they have invented new ways to create art, designed bigger and better inflatable dolls, or developed new designs for clothing and accessories.

I loved the movie, and I loved the book. The book built on the movie, adding parts and info on scenes and the characters, explaining technical info, and more. It went more into the movie, adding on what happened at Mount Baker in the 1970's (Mentioned in movie, but not explained), and going into other Cascade Volcanoes (Rainier, St. Helens, Baker, Crater Lake). Anyone who loves disaster stories, volcanoes, or Washington State should read this book.

I loved this book. The Movie was Great but the book was even better. Get this book.

"Michelle stare at the apple on her teacher's desk and smile.She was in the father-daughter apple pie baking contest.And Michelle knew she couldn't lose."

DJ and Stephanie had already won a blue ribbon for their pie.Now Michelle wants to follow her sisters steps and win a blue ribbon too.Michelle is sure she is going to win with her gramma's secret recipe.But will Michelle win with Rachel Tilly (a new girl from school)whose dad is a chef and learned how to cook in a school in Paris.Michelle is not sure she'll win now.Will Michelle win?

I was very excited by this book because I wonder will she win or not.

I really enjoy this book because it was fun,exciting,and suspenful.

I recomend this book to everyone and anyone who likes fun and comedian books like this one.

I really think someone will like this book because it makes you wonder alot and its very interesting and you can know that just by reading the first paragraph.

I am 8 years old and was able to read this book in one afternoon because it is so great. It was easy to read but a little challenging...just the way I like my books! It was funny when the pig ran into the tent and caused all kinds of chaos! I think most kids would enjoy reading this book as much as I did.

I am writing this for my grandson age 10. He absolutely loves this series and read this last book in 1 day. He can't wait for the next one.

I've read all the Jack Sparrow books to my sons and every page is filled with edge of the seat excitement as well as great humor as only Jack Sparrow can provide.

In "Bold New Horizons," Jack meets up with his old crew and encounters the merfolk, once again. This time the merfolk need his help. But is Jack going to give it?

He finds himself trapped suddenly in a cavern with his old crew from the Barnacle and Capt. Laura Smith from the Fleur de la Mort. Now he has to try to find a way out. But, the mermaids, from "Siren's Song," are the only ones who can help and they won't unless Jack helps them get back Poseidon's Trident from the evil Capt. Torrents. From then on, it's a fight to the death- Jack's and his crew or the merfolk who are under control of Capt. Torrents. Leave it to Jack to save the day.

"Bold New Horizons" is a fantastic end to the Jack Sparrow series, filled with action, danger and surprises at every corner! Although I am sad for it all to be over, my sons and I look forward to the next series "Legends Of the Brethren Court."

Can't get enough of Jack Sparrow!

Tom O'Connor's "Poetic Acts & New Media" may be defined in two distinct ways. First, it is a work offering tight, original readings of poetry and film. In specific, O'Connor's readings are free of the totalizing weight of either traditional critical camps (Deconstruction, psychoanalysis), or their 21st century 'post-theoretical' reconfigurations. These are first and foremost close textual (film and poetry) readings, lucidly composed with a narrator-voice that replaces the strained conclusions and over-emphasized hyperbole that have come to be a hallmark of cultural critics with ever-thoughtful ellipses and question marks. There are no 'thick' conjectures about Agent Cooper's love of black coffee, nor any determinedly political reductions of Walt Whitman here. Instead, O'Connor seeks to show rather than tell us that the 'texts' that we have come to know as mere representations of experience actually exist in ways that go far beyond copies of images, thoughts, etc. and are, in fact, reality looked at not from the dialectical perspective of true/false, real, imaginary; rather, a new perspective emerges, one that is not 'a' perspective, but which is the very possibility of representations, the very idea of experience and emotion. This is in direct contrast to the view held by epistemological skeptics who consider the battle to be one of a re-articulation of modernity in different terms (that is, less 'high' and exclusive ones). O'Connor agrees with and elaborates on the Deleuzian non-dialectical project which seeks radical and perpetual transformation via the virtual, a process that leads to a combative re-assessment and re-conceptualization of the self and our world in heterogeneous terms (i.e. McLuhan's "global village").

The second way O'Connor's project might be characterized is as a critical assessment of postmodern thought and media theory of the last quarter-century. In fact, his engagement with Gilles Deleuze and Marshall McLuhan in particular, coupled with his 'new' look at filmmakers like David Lynch and poets like David Trinidad puts him in dialogue with Zizek, Matsumi, Hayward & Co. That is, O'Connor distinguishes himself as a media theorist in his own right - be it through re-assessing Deleuze's later work in a positive light contra Zizek and other Hegelians, or railing against politically aspiratorial psychoanalytic takes on Roy Orbison's "Crying" - and this in itself merits attention by those critically engaged in the postmodern/anti-postmodern debate. Highly recommended for students in continental philosophy (the readings of Nietzsche are extensive and highly pertinent).

With film, television, and now the internet dominating the media landscape, one might question the relevance of...poetry. After all, aside from a select few of the population, who writes poetry, much less reads the stuff? However, as O'Connor shows in his first book, poetry remains crucially relevant in our contemporary world, and not merely as words that can be read on the printed page. Rather, O'Connor conceives of "poetry" as something that can be found in those very areas--film, telelvision--where poetry, due to the often pre-established status of meaning, is vastly needed.
Utilizing the writings of Gilles Deleuze, O'Connor identifies "poetry" as a simulated form of expression that generates meaning within the contingent, contextual circumstances of its making. Thus, in "poetry," no meaning is predetermined, making its world-view fundamentally in opposition to the far more "popular" approach towards meaning a representational" view offers--where meaning has already been codified or pre-established.
After defining his approach to "poetry," O'Connor begins with a discussion of poetry as it occurs in its traditional, printed-text format. Specifically, O'Connor highlights how "media poetry" (the name for his specific conception of "poetry") can be distinguished from L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, which also wishes to distance itself from a representational mode of thinking. While L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry conceives of verbal language as consisting of a series of arbitrary signs that do not refer to reality, but at best, only themselves, O'Connor's distinguishes his "media poetry" by noting how it conceives of meaning not as arbitrary, but rather as contingent upon context, and thereby, the very real, lived moment of its creation.
O'Connor then shifts his attention to the presence of "media poetry" in film through a discussion of three films: Mulholland Drive, Vanilla Sky, and Being John Malkovich. As these films contain narratives which deal with the dangers of living a representational mode of existence against the need for a poetic sensibility, so all three central characters are shown to engage in a "poetic" journey whose ultimate "destination" is identified not as an ideal place or "happy ending" (typical of a representational point-of-view) but a contingent perspective more in line with the possibilities of what their lives can be.
Having touched upon each of these films, O'Connor then takes us into a discussion of television, first via the short-lived, prime-time series Twin Peaks. Here, O'Connor shifts and expands his theoretical approach to focus upon the presence of "bourgeois mythology" as a particular embodiment of a representational mode of thinking, while locating a particularly "poetic" sensibility in the teenagers of that show, most notably the female characters.
Then, O'Connor sets his sights upon a second television program, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, while further extending his perspective by equating a "poetic" sensibility with Nietzsche's Noble Ethics and Will-to-Power. O'Connor locates these Nietzschean "poetic" sensibilities within Buffy herself as well as many of the show's supporting cast who are likewise engaged in an ongoing battle against those forces who are not merely supernatural in nature (vampires, etc.) but all-too-indicative of a timeless, and thereby, anti-life perspective which seeks to eliminate any contingent vantage point from which to generate one's own life and the possibilities inherent in it.
O'Connor then comes full circle in his Coda with a return to "poetry" in its traditional verbal form, though ironically, the poem he chooses to discuss, John Kinsella's "TV," suggests that "poetry" and the more popular mediums of expression are not necessarily antithetical. Indeed, as the powers-at-be which dominate these mediums tend to operate from a representational perspective, O'Connor steadfastly believes that the presence of poetry both in its verbal form and in our more popular media is vitally important because it can resist and thus transform any dominating bourgeois mythology or representational world-view.
All in all, O'Connor's first book is both enlightening and accessible, while its most notable attribute is its willingness to not merely assume a stereotypical view of popular media as somehow "bad" in and of itself. Rather, O'Connor turns many assumptions we have about such media on their heads, and in the process, highlights the actual achievements and possibilities inherent in a more "poetic" way of approaching them. In short, if you hold any interest in "new media" studies or even a basic interest in television and/or film as mediums of potential meaning/significance, O'Connor's book is a must.

Thank you Dr. Homerin. I discoved Umar Ibn Al-Farid 15 years ago and he changed my life. At that time I had only Arberry's dated translation of The Poem of the Sufi Way but none the less this remarkable mystical masterpiece sliced my soul like a razor. One of the few religious classics that uses erotic images addressed toward a female, it's a remarkable celebration of the creation and Dr. Homerin has made it accessible to everyone. Although there are two other works in this volume, it's the Poem of the Sufi Way that moves me most. I'd recommend trying to read it the first time in one sitting without looking at the foot notes or introduction. Then go back and read it again, this time looking at Homerin's notes. Then read it a third time straight through again. It's message pierces deep into the heart where the meanings are and at this point in our history it's not a bad thing to read a Muslim mystic who speaks so poignantly about the oneness of all things. Congratulations to the Paulist Press and Dr. Emil Homerin for this incredible and very timely publication. I actually wrote the Paulist press a decade ago and suggested that Farid would be an excellent addition to their "Classics of Western Spirituality" series so I'm very pleased with this new beautifully presented and wonderfully translated volume.

Homerin has performed a great service by making Ibn alFarid's life and work available to English readers in fine translations and commentaries. I have to wonder why westerners don't know more about the Sufi Moslems throughout history. Wouldn't a dose of this Umar cure Islamophobia?

When I started to read this book to my son he said Hey I saw thi on tv before. He really enjoyed this book! A must read from your powerpuff girls fan!

This book is a telling of one of my very favorite episodes, and I love having it around when I can't watch the show. If your favorite Powerpuff Girl is Bubbles, you'll be glad to see her featured in this book. She's just so darn cute, and her quest to become "hardcore" is hilarious!