Pennsylvania Books

Art And Its Discontents: The Early Life Of Adrian Stokes by Richard Read (Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Western Australia) is a definitive study of the provocative art criticism, poetry, and other writings of Adrian Stokes' (1902-72). Stokes was one of the first (if not the first) critical writers in Britain to connect psychoanalytic theory to art, -- a talent that might itself relate to his entry into psychoanalysis in 1929 in order to cope with his own dilemmas of sexual identity and self-consciousness. Art And Its Discontents is a masterful written, exceedingly thoughtful, and highly commended study of a singularly articulate individual.

This is THE resource on PA Dutch pottery of the 18th and 19th century. It is filled with references to long forgotten potteries in Eastern Pa., especially the Upper Bucks County region once called the Nockamixon Swamp. He details the history of the potteries and the tools and techniqies used by the potters. This book is out of print but well worth searching for.

Hacker Martin, a very accomplished gunsmith, once said "it is impossible to write a good book on building the flintlock, and who is fool enough to try using their instructions?" - Foxfire. This book, however, is more than good enough. It gives detailed instructions and diagrams on every step of building a rifle, from choosing the right wood, to inletting the lock and barrel, to carving and engraving. I've already built a longrifle using this book.

The art of innovation: Using intelligent fast failure
by Jack Matson

In reality, this is the precursor to the 'Innovate or Die: A Personal Perspective on the Art of Innovation' book by the same author!. This original book has been published in 1991 by The Penn State University (The Leonard Center for Innovation & Enhancement of Engineering Education).

I had read it enthusiastically (as I got it directly from the author) during the early 90's when I felt, as a mechanical engineer by training, I could relate readily to the author's teaching philosophy. I also felt that the author's unique concept of experimenting with creativity would empower me to go forward & experiment with other aspects of my life - research, consultany, training, coaching & personal hobbies. I then moved on, with further inpirations from other authors/books, to establish a strategy consultancy business, run a newsletter as well as operate a small retail outlet in early 1992.

To this day, I still think that this is an excellent book about creativity & innovation in action. It is based on the author's personal experiences in exploring creativity & innovation with some six hundred students who took his 'Failure 101' course at the university. His premise in the book is this: "No issue is more important to the engineer, or entrepreneur, than intelligent failure." He has taught students to unlearn years of practising risk aversion, stressing the connection between creativity & risk. He has encouraged them to realise that failure is essential in developing design skills & judgement.

I strongly recommend reading this book (or the latter book) if you are serious about wanting to learn how to manage failure & to develop an appetite for risk in your life &/or your work.

Burton Raffel, the author of the book The Art of Translating Poetry, is an experienced translator, critic, and poet. Such a combination of different talents allows Raffel to comprise many aspects of translation and to include both theoretical and practical parts in his volume. Although the author agrees with those scholars who deny the possibility of full rendering, he strongly believes that "it is certainly possible to satisfactory translate - that is, to translate most things and to translate them well" (Raffel 11). Therefore, Raffel's main purpose is helping a translator to achieve that satisfactory level of translation in poetry.
The first part of the book is wholly devoted to elucidating the linguistic aspects of poetic translation. Comparing different languages, Raffel shows the basic impossibility that a translator face. According to Raffel, there are five difficulties that may prevent one from the producing an ideal translation:
1) impossibility to reconstruct the phonological peculiarities of a source language into target language;
2) impossibility to reconstruct syntax of the original;
3) impossibility to fully reconstruct lexical units;
4) impossibility to reproduce certain literary forms and genres;
5) impossibility to reconstruct prosodic elements.
The author dwells on each of these problems in details and demonstrates how they were solved by different translators in the course of history. By juxtaposing various renditions, Raffel analyzes their advantages and disadvantages. The quantity of languages he works with is quite impressive (Latin, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Old English, Indonesian, Russian, and several others).
In the second part of his book, Raffel examines practical aspects of poetical translation. Depending on their addressee, Raffel distinguishes four types of translations, namely: formal, interpretative, expansive, and imitative. Each of these types aims at different audience. Thus, formal translation is characterized with a tendency towards excessive fidelity and exactness and it may be interesting only for scholars. Raffel illustrates formal approach with works by Alan R. Press, the editor and translator of Anthology of Troubadour Lyric Poetry, and by Frederic Goldin, a translator of Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouveres. The second type of translation, the interpretative one, directed mainly to general audience. In contrast to the previous type, this translation aims at correct transferring cultural rather than linguistic peculiarities of the original. Several poems translated by Ezra Pound, "the father of modern poetic translation," can be taken as examples of this type. Like the interpretative translation, expansive (or free) translation is oriented for general audience. The translator, however, can include his/her comments (or passages) into the translation. However, as Raffel points out, this type is not very popular and translators resort to it only sporadically. The imitative translation is basically adaptation of the original, i.e. when original only inspires an author for creating something similar. Raffel considers the poetry of Robert Lowell as an instance of this type of translation.
Generally, the book is written in clear and easy to read style, contains many valuable observations and good examples from different sources. While choosing the materials for his analysis, Raffel shows himself as a scrupulous and gifted scholar. His vivid comments about peculiarities of different types of translating poetry bring a new vision of translator's possibilities and tasks. After having read the book, I have an impression that it can be interesting not only for specialists but also for general audience

In a world where medical revolutions in animal health occur each day and where sound diagnosis and effective treatments are stressed, the pet owner often gets lost in the shuffle. The Art of Veterinary Practice: A Guide to Client Communication by Myrna M. Milani addresses how to deal with complex and emotional client-patient relationships and formulating a personal philosophy. This text discusses common client-practitioner limits, such as financial, life style, and emotional restrictions, as well as dealing with controversial issues, such as alternative therapies, animal rights, death, euthanasia, and practitioner burnout. Milani writes, "Much of us who say we got into veterinary medicine because we wanted to help animals (and even may believe animals warrant our help more than people) may chafe at finding ourselves agonizing more over the human than veterinary aspects of the problem, such constitutes the real world of veterinary practice (pg.75). This book is designed to help students and practitioners examine their own feelings and beliefs about these issues so that they can communicate more effectively with their clients and colleges (inside cover)." The running theme throughout The Art of Veterinary Practice is communication and socialization - a key element in any veterinary practice. These abilities are just as important to the animal's health as a vaccine or medication. Through communication and socialization, owners can share their concerns, better describe the animal's symptoms, or views on certain issues. The practitioner can better explain diagnosis or illnesses, educate the owner on preventative medicine, describe procedures, relay medication schedules, or talk about payments. Communication opens the doors to knowledge, understanding, and acceptance. This book presented an incredibly thorough and informative array of information dealing with client communication, common issues, positions, and situations, giving both the pros and cons of these issues and listing examples of more complex ideas. This book is a wonderful reference, which touches on social issues not commonly found in a veterinary text. The topics were well researched and interesting; anyone could understand and relate to this book - veterinarian, student, client - and even possibly pet. This book opens ones eyes to better communication and socialization, which benefit all in the long run.

The Arts of Democracy: Art, Public Culture, and the State is an anthology of essays by learned authors concerning the historical interplay between the arts, public culture, and the state in modern-day America. Individual contributions include "Norman Rockwell, Public Artist", "Exporting America: The U.S. Propaganda Offensive, 1945-1959", "The Public Display of Religion", and much more. Written in a scholarly tone, with extensive notes, an index, and a handful of black-and-white illustrations, The Arts of Democracy dares to break fresh ground in the vibrant academic confluence between aesthetics and public policy. "The postmodern aesthetic begins with a challenge to realism. It is by no means the only art hostile to realism. Nor is hostility to realism the sole defining feature of the postmodern aesthetic. Nor is all contemporary art postmodern... Important recent forms of art, though markedly different in many ways, nevertheless shared a common way of distrusting realism."

Many beautiful photographs, exceptionally well written and a joy to read and use.

In so many ways this is a stunning book. De Witt Douglas Kilgore, an English professor at Indiana University, employs the tools of post-modern analysis to pro-space advocacy from David Lasser in the 1920s and 1930s to Robert Zubrin at the end of the twentieth century. He suggests that advocates of spaceflight have long believed that it is human destiny to become a multi-planetary species, but not just as an end in itself but because of the desire to create a utopian society free from the constraints of cultures on Earth. His term for this is "astrofuturism," an extension of the American tradition of technological utopianism that has been so much a part of the political upheavals of the twentieth century.

Kilgore asserts that the pro-space utopian impulse was founded in the imperial politics and utopian schemes of the nineteenth century, but envisions outer space as an endless frontier that offers solutions to the economic and political problems that dominate the modern world. Its advocates used the conventions of technological and scientific conquest to express the ideals and contradictions endemic to American culture. Astrofuturists, according to Kilgore, imagined space frontiers that could extend the reach of the human species and heal its historical wounds. Their efforts both replicated dominant social presuppositions and supplied the technologies necessary for the critical utopian projects that emerged in the latter twentieth century.

Kilgore's scintillating narrative explores how this has played out in the writings of several pro-space advocates. He begins with David Lasser, an American who worked as an editor on two of Hugo Gernsback's science fiction magazines. Lasser wrote "The Conquest of Space" in 1930, laying out a leftist agenda for societies in space. He later went on to work as a union organizer but never abandoned his commitment to spaceflight as a way in which the oppressed might achieve an egalitarian society. From there Kilgore explores the work of science fiction authors Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ben Bova. He also offers an in-depth exploration of the thinking of Princeton University scientist Gerard O'Neill, who excited numerous counterculture refugees in the 1970s with his vision of colonies in space. Finally, Kilgore extends this search for a perfect society to current explanations of colonies on Mars and other planets.

Throughout this book Kilgore is concerned with the envisioning of futures that are inherently better in space than what exists on Earth. The novelists that he discusses always display a strong sense of justice, meritocracy, and, at least in the case of Heinlein, not a little libertarianism. A special theme that he investigates in this study is how the astrofuturists dealt with the racism so prevalent in American society, showing that in the science fiction discussed here it is overcome by a belief in the worth of all persons and an acceptance of others based on their capabilities. As Kilgore demonstrates, all of the astrofuturists, whether science fiction writers or not, always posit an open, boundless future for all humanity in space. It would be a place in which justice ruled and all had enough of every necessity of life. Space exploration would bring that, the astrofuturists believed, helping people to live together in greater harmony than ever before by ending the need to compete for resources. Kilgore maintains that this is a very important aspect of a positive future. He insists that "It is through this kind of imaginative work that we develop the tools we need to change the future" (p. 238).

"Astrofuturism" is a provocative discussion of how we have looked at a positive future in space. Kilgore notes that those involved in promulgating the astrofuturist ideology have emphasized the synergy between human and machines, social concerns and possibilities. Highly recommended.

I really appreciate what mark stang does. Culling from wire photos, collectors and the hall of fame, Stang builds a great photo history of players and teams. He manages to focus on players who are not famous, and photos not often seen. His books are invaluable to anyone who collects vintage baseball material.