Cloisters of Europe: Gardens of Prayer (Religion)

Book Description

If the church is said to be the soul of an abbey, the cloister is surely its heart. The cloister, a space secluded—as its Latin derivation suggests—within four galleries is at once a place of peace and a ceaseless crossroads. As the hub of all activity, through which monks progressed from task to task and prayer to prayer throughout the day from matins to vespers, its classic layout inspired some of the most extraordinary and varied architectural treasures of the world. Cloisters of Europe covers the cloister throughout western Europe—Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, and Britain—between the ninth and fifteenth centuries and is a celebration of art and architecture from stark pre-Romanesque to flamboyant late Gothic. With an enlightening introduction to the history of religious orders and their devotional life, it is a magnificently illustrated monument to art, antiquity, and spiritual profundity.

Photographs by Daniel Faure.

Customer Reviews:

Thin.......2007-02-20

I've aready sold the book on - good quality production - but very very thin

Average customer rating:

Cloisters of Europe: Gardens of Prayer
Daniel; Rouchon-Mouilleron, Veronique; Mouilleron, Veronique Rouchon Faure
Manufacturer: Viking Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OM29NU

Average customer rating:

Cloisters of Europe: Gardens of Prayer

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0742993973

Average customer rating:

the worst of what art should be

Wonderful introductory book

Sculpture As Experience: Working With Clay, Wire, Wax, Plaster, and Found Objects
Judith Peck
Manufacturer: Chilton Book Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Sculpture | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0801979781

Customer Reviews:

the worst of what art should be.......2003-02-13

Heaven help us in the arts if anyone thinks this book is useful for creating works of art. One of the projects uses foil as an armiture and then covers it with pariscraft gauze. I found this to be a very poor guide for creating sculpture, and an inforcement of the worst of what sculpture can be. There was some useful information here and there for the beginner, but not enough to make it worth the price of the book.

Wonderful introductory book.......2000-10-06

Peck's book gives a great overall look at the basic forms of sculpture. As an art teacher, I found it invaluable. She covers the main types of sculpture and helps you to create your own work with a limited budget (a great bonus). There are a lot of pictures to go with her easy to follow directions. If you are just starting, this is a great book to help you on your way.

Book Description

Offering a comprehensive coverage of the entire digital chain, from capture to output this is a must have guide for any student needing to get to grips with digital imaging.

The approach taken is very practical, focusing on building on the users competence throughout the book. Creative assignments and practical activities also encourage the reader to put their skills into practice.

This second edition will include more images and examples relating to the new features from the latest version of Photoshop 7.0 and new sections on preparing images for the web and preparing images for the print.

This is an inspirational text; as well as encouraging you to express yourself visually; it is a highly structured learning tool that ensures all the essential skills are learnt and applied to help improve your digital photography.

* Learn all the principles of digital imaging

* Put your skills into practice with practical exercises

* Understand the entire digital chain, from capture to print.

Book Description

Eevee tries to sneak some candy to its owner, Coconut. But Primeape thinks it's the target of the delivery. Can Eevee convince Primeape that their love just isn't meant to be? Next, Pikachu tries to make a picture frame for Hazel.

Download Description

During World War II, a small-town Pennsylvania girl with a taste for adventure began her journalism career as an advice columnist for teenagers. Next, she worked as a reporter, first for the Washington Times Herald and then the Fairbanks (Alaska) News Miner. From Alaska, Pegge Parker headed for China, where she met and married Douglas Mackiernan, an undercover CIA agent, and gave birth to twins. When China fell to Communist forces, Pegge and the children were evacuated while Doug stayed behind to close down his station outpost. Soon after, Doug was killed by border guards near Tibet. Pegge accepted a position as Vice Consul at the American Embassy in Pakistan, where she met the man who would become her second husband

Customer Reviews:

Pegge Parker, a fascinating life!.......2004-10-27

My mother bought this book for me as a birthday gift. Pegge has lead an amazing life in many other countries and raised 5 children all the while working as a writer in less than perfect conditions. It was great escape reading.

Thank you Mom!

Customer Reviews:

scotia.......2003-11-26

Anyone with the minutest drop of scots blood running through their veins will love this book. It's about a family of travellers roaming scotland in an old bedford bus in the 50s&60s.
One minute you'r laughing the next you'r crying, It is a wonderful book

Jessie's Journey: Autobiography of a Traveller Girl (Mercat Press)

Average customer rating:

Jessie's Journey: Autobiography of a Traveller Girl (Mercat Press)
Jess Smith
Manufacturer: Mercat Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N76VWG

Average customer rating:
The Father's Book: Shared Experiences
Carol Kort , and Ronnie Friedland
Manufacturer: G K Hall & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0816190526

Customer Reviews:

Good memoir .......2006-02-24

Good little read by an Air Force member during the end of WW II in Europe. Interesting take on how peace loving boys became men of war during this era. A quick and enjoyable book by a man who was not trained as a writer but can still tell a good story. At time, the book was a little bit bland, but don't let that stop you from picking this up.

Good book!.......2002-05-18

Ken is an unusual writer - not only was he "there" but he also has a grasp of the mood and color of the times.

Read this book, not so much as a history of the B-26 (there are better books for that) as it is the life of a bomber crew in the closing months of the war.

Enjoyable, enlightening reading from a guy who writes more like a classic author than a navigator on a WWII bomber.

Recommended reading for anyone with an interest in WW II.......2001-12-14

Marauder Man: World War II In The Crucial But Little Known B-26 Marauder Medium Bomber is the memoir of Ken Brown, a born Quaker and nonviolent by nature, who nevertheless volunteered for service in the United States Army Air Forces during the era of WW II because he recognized fascism for the evil that it was. He became a lead navigator for the Ninth Air Force's veteran 391st Bombardment Group, and learned to admire the strength and reliability of the Martin B-26 Marauder plane in which he and his fellow servicement entrusted their lives. Marauder Man is a firsthand account of the danger, death, and heroism of aircraft combat life. Marauder Man is recommended reading for anyone with a strong interest in World War II aviation history, and a much appreciated memoir for academic and community library military history collections.

Book Description

Few historical figures have continued to captivate attention for centuries after their death as has Queen Isabel I of Castile. Yet the realities of Isabel's life and works are obscured by the legacy of a persona carefully crafted by Isabel and a cadre of historians in her employ or that of her successors, who recognized the benefits of an image of benevolence and piety. This volume includes original essays that examine the world into which Isabel was born; the public and private facets of her marriage and reign; her intervention in the areas of religion, medicine, the arts, and the reform of political, social and economic institutions; and the construction of her image in literary and historical works from the fifteenth century onward.

Customer Reviews:

superior scholarship.......2003-12-13

While there are several major studies of political and social conditions during the reign of Isabel I of Spain, her letters and oratory have remained almost untouched until now. The two essays by David A. Boruchoff in this collection address this deficiency with brilliance, affording a profound understanding of the inner workings of her approach to national and international relations, and of the reservations expressed by those commonly seen as her promoters and allies. The remaining essays are more varied in their interest and quality. These range from serious analyses of religious and social minorities (Jews and Muslims), of medical practitioners within the new political order, and of Isabel's education and struggle to become queen, to more run of the mill pieces on her place in literature, art, and theatre. Nevertheless, the volume as a whole benefits from wonderfully acurate and vibrant translations of primary texts, many never before available in any form in English. Readers may therefore wish to pick and choose among the essays, but this collection is required reading for anyone wishing to know how Isabel's rule really worked, and why she was so successful.

Uncommonly insightful and well-balanced.......2003-10-06

Most books about the Catholic Monarchs are either apologetic or censorious, either panegyrics to the crown's magesty or cruel in condemning its abuse of power. This collection is instead a well-balanced and thoughtful reconsideration of both the good and bad aspects of an extraordinary reign, in which Isabel I of Castile had to confront, and overcome, challenges in both her public and private lives. Some of the essays published here achieve even-handedness by merely presenting the facts of Isabel's engagement in events such as the struggle to become queen, the conquest of Granada, the discovery of America, and her support for the arts and learning. But most are also critical (as the title promises) in a good way: by dissecting the way that she left her mark on history and is remembered by it. There are many new insights here, even in much analyzed areas such as the Catholic Monarchs' dealings with Jews, Muslims, and the Inquisition. But best are the chapters that examine the language of history itself, because in these (especially the first and last essays by the editor) one finds original and thought-provoking insights into problems that go well beyond Spain and Isabel herself, so as to illuminate the relationship between writing and power: history, the scepter and those who wield them.

History at its finest!.......2003-10-01

This collection is an excellent introduction to the reign of the Catholic Monarch, Isabel, and especially to the works written by and about her. While the chapters on her role in religion and on her figure in theater are a bit too general, most of the essays are full of new insights, well-documented commentary, and useful leads for further reading. I was particularly impressed by the two chapters on Isabel's historiography, and that on the crown's relations with its medical officers. These were fascinating and beautifully written, and I have seen nothing on these topics in the many books and articles that I have read about Isabel, both in English and Spanish. In summation, this is a first-rate book, and a "must" for anyone interested in Spain, early-modern women, monarchs, and the way that history is really written.

Book Description

to follow

Customer Reviews:

Ignore the previous comments on "trick philosophy".......2005-04-24

The Chinese Room Argument (CRA) has nothing to do with the speed of computers or any future developments in artifical intelligence (at least as understood as following from Turing). The CRA is a purely formal argument intended to refute the claim that computers (defined as Turing machines) can think, or can understand, or are minds solely by virtue of their formal description. (This claim is the essence of "computationalism," after Turing's original formulation.) The CRA is that: 1) Syntax is not semantics. 2) The implemented synatactical or formal program of a computer is not sufficient to generate semantics. 3) Minds have semantics. 4) Therefore, computers (so defined) are not minds/cannot think/do not understand because they are not sufficient to generate semantics.

For example, the concepts we employ to think and the words we use to speak have meanings. But there is nothing in computationalism as syntax that has any meaning whatsoever. Whatever meaning an implemented formal program has results from its being programmed or interpreted by us. Syntax (e.g., a computer program) has no causal powers. Whatever causal powers computers have (e.g., to fly airplanes) results from our programming and our assigning interpretations to the electrical charge insides a chip, not from the program in itself.

The chapters in Views Into the Chinese Room attack different aspects of the CRA. But they address it as an argument that stands or falls on the truth of the premises and the validity of the inference, not on engineering questions such as the speed of computers, which are irrelevant. Searle believes that there are, in fact, thinking machines -- we human beings are biological machines that think. And he believes that there also could be artificially made machines that think. The CRA is meant to show only that an implemented computer program by itself cannot generate mental content or semantic content.

For a clear explanation of the CRA, see chapter 15 of this book, by Stevan Harnad, the editor of The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, where Searle's original paper appeared twenty years ago. Do not rely on reviewers who do not understand the argument in the first place.

Trick philosophy.......2004-07-13

The human brain evolved to assist the survival of its owner while the owner navigated the dangerous jungles and forests of ancient times. Its ability to extract patterns from the information provided by the retina and optic nerve is quite phenomenal. The process by which your brain is recognizing my words and understanding my meaning is astounding.

Yet if you are asked to act like a computer by reading numbers, moving paper tape, erasing things and following instructions given on the paper tape, you will prove to be one of the slowest computers in the world. The original word `computer' referred to a man sitting in a room with paper, pencil and eraser. These human `computers' were replaced by machines a long time ago because they are too slow.

In summary, humans are fast and intelligent at being humans but slow at being computers. In the Chinese Room Argument, John Searle states that although we have a human mind which could otherwise be used to understand Chinese, this particular human mind does not in fact understand it. Given this stipulation, the human mind's ability to process language cannot be used and the only method of "understanding Chinese" is left to the "Chinese room" which consists of a computer run by the very slowest of CPUs, the human being sans abacus, sans calculator, sans silicon chips and sans hope.

The Chinese Room Argument is a trick argument that proves nothing. The computer room is so slow that it cannot ever think or understand Chinese. On the other hand, this doesn't say anything about whether a high-speed computer with the memory and processing power of the human brain might one day speak and understand Chinese quite well.

Average customer rating:
Views into the Chinese Room: New Essays on Searle and Artificial Intelligence
John Preston
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Artificial Intelligence | Computer Science | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000OKSDCS

Average customer rating:

The Landscape Urbanism Reader

The Landscape Urbanism Reader

The Landscape Urbanism Reader
Charles Waldheim
Manufacturer: Princeton Architectural Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Landscape | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Urban & Land Use Planning | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Landscape | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Light Zone City: Light Planning in the Urban Context

ASIN: 1568984391

Book Description

With populations decentralizing and cities sprawling ever-outward, twenty-first- century urban planners are challenged by the need to organize not just people but space itself. Hence a new architectural discipline has emerged: landscape urbanism.

In The Landscape Urbanism Reader Charles Waldheim — long at the forefront of this new movement — has assembled the definitive collection of essays by many of the field’s top practitioners. Fourteen essays written by leading figures across a range of disciplines and from around the world — including James Corner, Linda Pollak, Alan Berger, Pierre Bélanger, Julia Czerniak, and more — capture the origins, the contemporary milieu, and the aspirations of this relatively new field. The Landscape Urbanism Reader is an inspiring signal to the future of city making as well as an indispensable reference for students, teachers, architects, and urban planners.

Customer Reviews:

The Landscape Urbanism Reader.......2007-04-11

this book is really good to students who study Landscape Architecture.

The Landscape Urbanism Reader.......2007-01-15

This was a gift for my architect brother. He was thrilled with it. It was received as promised, with quick shipping and arrived in pristine shape. It was indeed a merry Christmas.

Book Description

There is renewed interest among art photographers in a number of historic printing techniques because of the remarkable effects they produce. The reader will discover how to create beautifully tinted mono- and polychromatic gum and oil images using the author's version of this 19th century technique. Step-by-step illustrated instructions with directions for further experimentation provide a perfect source for learning this new, yet old, printing technique.

Gumoil printing involves contact-printing a positive transparency onto gum-coated paper. Oil paint is then applied and rubbed into nongummed areas of the print. With bleach etching, mono- and polychromatic variations are possible. A chapter on digital printing combines the new and the historic, making this technique even more accessible for the art photographer.

Includes a new chapter on digital printing techniques

Step by step instructions for using this technique

Eight page insert containing 10 beautiful color images

Book Description

Adorable costumed babies grace the pages of this journal. While there are places to record baby's growth, first words, etc., there is also lots of room throughout for parents to record their own thoughts and to paste in photographs and other keepsakes. 2 pockets on front and back covers, 112 pages, 8 x 8"

Customer Reviews:

Great baby book.......2006-08-23

Organized very well, includes all information you would want in a baby book. There is plenty of space to write what you want without it being so vague that you don't know what to write. Excellent! I loved it so much when I received it as a gift for my first daughter that I bought it for my second.

A Great Gift- I Love This Book!.......2003-08-06

I received this book as a gift for my baby, and now I give it as a baby gift to my friends and family. The format makes it easy to journal all the special moments that you want to never forget,a place to write all those wonderful thoughts that run through your mind, and to note all the exciting developements that they make in that first year, from the first bath and outing, to the first holiday and haircut- this book has a place for it all, and a place for all those pictures, too! It is kind of a "fill-in-the-blank" type journaling, to help get the memory going about the things you want to remember and the ones you might have forgotten. It starts before the baby was born, with how the parents met, married, the pregnancy, and day of birth through the first year. Including some pages for an adopted child. Examples of the fill in the blank would be something like, labor started on....at the time mom was...labor and delivery lasted....when mom and dad first saw me they...
I Loved this book, It was perfect for me, I highly recommend it!

Average customer rating:
Real Estate Investing in New York City: A Handbook for the Small Investor
Robert L. Lewis
Manufacturer: iUniverse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Real Estate | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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If You're Thinking of Living in ...All About 115 Great Neighborhoods in and Around New York

Keys to Purchasing a Condo or CO-OP (Barron's Business Keys)

ASIN: 059527742X

Book Description

Learn Advantages of real estate investing over other investments, like leverage, inflation hedging and tax benefits

Understand the New York City area real estate market like an expert

Pick which real estate investment suits you --
Strategies from conservative to aggressive, lots of time or little time, plenty of funds or almost no funds

Discover what areas of the city offer the best prospects for success

Book Description

South America, though home to about one-third of the world's bird species and twice as many endemic families of birds as any other continent, has the world's sparsest population of birdwatchers. Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica illustrates and describes all the known species--more than 1,000 of them--in a vast swath of this underexplored birder's paradise, from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, southern Brazil, and Uruguay to parts of Antarctica. Just some of the birds it covers are teals, tinamous, chachalacas, conebills, cuckoos, macaws, parakeets, parrots, penguins, nightjars, hummingbirds, ovenbirds, tyrants, and tanagers. The habitats range from torrid rainforests and cloudforests to grasslands, the world's driest desert, second highest mountain range, and ice caps.

The 97 color plates depict each species' male in breeding plumage, with the female and young often shown as well. On the facing page are concise textual descriptions of each species, highlighting not only salient physical features and behavioral patterns but the calls or songs of each. Casual birders and ornithologists contemplating a journey to the region, or simply interested in a one-volume overview of its bird life, will not want to miss this book.

Customer Reviews:

Weak.......2007-08-09

I don't believe there is a good choice at this time. We are headed to Brazil on a birding trip soon. Of about 720 birds that we might reasonably see in the areas we are to visit according to various compiled trip reports, this book only covered 60%. In addition, the pictures on the facing page from the text, were in almost random order. I used the Clements book on Peru to fill in 3/4 of the missing birds.

Consider an alternative guide!!.......2007-02-25

This guide book covers a wide range of habitats: from the jungle tropics to the southern tip of the continent and even Antactica. If you are going to be traveling widely, this guide might well be your best bet. The illustrations are good and the descriptions on the facing page are quite useful. The major drawback is that the distribution maps are at the back and that's annoying. (Once you've found an illustration that seems to identify the bird you're seeing, you need to note both the plate and illustration number before heading back to the range maps to see if it's likely to be found in your present location. All too often I found that wasn't the case!)

If you're going to do your birdwatching in or near the mountains or along the southern coast, I'd suggest that you carefully consider, instead, Birds of Chile by Jaramillo et al, a Princeton Guide. It's a superb field guide with many illustrations of the birds in flight, as well as sitting still; its descriptions are excellent and the range maps are on the facing page. I bought a copy of it on my return from Patagonia and it's definitely the guide I'll take next time -- not only to Chile, but to southern Argentina, as well!

Very Portable and Useful Little Guide.......2007-01-18

I am going birding in Bolivia -- which does not yet have it's own field guide -- later this year. So instead of carrying one guide I need to figure out which combination of books will strike a balance between usefulness and space/weight. I have a feeling this is going to be one of my main resources. It is very portable and so far about 85 percent of the birds I may potentially see are in here. In no way is this book intended to replace a full scale field guide such as "Birds of Columbia" by Hilty or "Birds of the High Andes" but then again it is less than one quarter the size and weight. Also, FYI -- it is quite a bit more than merely an illustrated checklist: you do get a small one paragraph description for each bird, a range map at the back which is a little inconvenient but many full size guides use this format also. The book is probably a little out of date as far as some of the finer points of taxonomy -- but many of the recent arguments are at least explained. All in all -- I feel this will be a very useful book to have along, though it will definitely not be the only book I'll have along.

Southern South America Field Guide.......2007-01-11

This appears to be a compact but comprehensive field guide to the birds of southern South America. The art work is adequate, but the plates are crowded and disorganized, and it is sometimes difficult to find the specific number you are looking for to coordinate with the printed information. The other drawback is that the range maps are at the back of the book, a failing common to many older guides. In the absence of anything better, this should serve the purpose well.

A better guide for Argentina..........2006-07-06

I found this guide to be occasionally inaccurate and lacking much needed info for any serious birding, though it is useful as a backup/reference for other area guides. Instead of this book, I recommend you consider "Birds of Argentina & Uruguay" by Tito Narosky and Dario Yzurieta. If not easy to find on Amazon, try Birdlife International, or just pick up a copy in Buenos Aires.

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