Flowering Plants. Monocotyledons: Alismatanae and Commelinanae (except Gramineae) (The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants)

Book Description

Volumes III and IV of this encyclopaedia provide a novel classification of the monocotyledons, a group encompassing plants of most diverse life-forms such as aquatics, terrestrial and epiphytic herbs, and tall trees. Of the 106 families now recognized 104 are treated in the two volumes, while the economically or horticulturally important grass and orchid families are relegated to two subsequent volumes. The classification followed here is based on recent molecular studies as well as on the vast body of information available on this plant group. The wealth and precision of information, but also the keys for the identification of genera and details on their properties, including distribution and diversification, make this work an important source for both the scholar and the practitioner in the fields of pure and applied plant sciences..

Flowering Plants. Monocotyledons : Alismatanae and Commelinanae (except Gramineae) (The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants)

Average customer rating:

Flowering Plants. Monocotyledons : Alismatanae and Commelinanae (except Gramineae) (The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants)
H. Huber
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MUDDVQ

Average customer rating:

A helpful and worth having book.

best by far !!!

One of the Best..!

A Must for Planning a Trip to Ireland

Daytrips Ireland in my Carry-on Luggage!

Daytrips Ireland
Patricia Tunison Preston
Manufacturer: Hastings House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Guidebooks | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books
General | Ireland | Europe | Travel | Subjects | Books
General | Travel | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Ireland (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

Daytrips Scotland and Wales: 37 One Day Adventures Throughout Both Lands (Daytrips Scotland & Wales)

Frommer's Ireland 2006 (Frommer's Complete)

Rick Steves' Ireland 2007 (Rick Steves)

ASIN: 0803820038

Book Description

Daytrips Ireland provides 55 step-by-step one-day itineraries, covering eight areas of maximum tourist interest--Dublin, the Southeast, Cork, Kerry, Shannon Region, the West, Sligo and Donegal, and the North.

Customer Reviews:

A helpful and worth having book........2002-07-11

I don't know that I would call this book indispensible - the Eyewitness Ireland tourbook would win that title - but this book was helpful and worth having, particularly when one is stumbling into the car and trying to make some sense out of what one really WANTS to accomplish in a day's touring when one keeps getting sidetracked by interesting graveyards and undiscovered, delightful garden labyrinths. I used this book in some way every day or so during a 14 day Ireland vacation.

best by far !!!.......2002-02-28

If you can only get one travel book of Ireland to plan a trip, get this one. It contains not only the day trips with complete and thorough directions for most of Ireland's highlights, but has unique information lacking in most other guide books - like hours of operation and cost. We were actually able to plan our budget better since ALL costs could be estimated reliably. Used with Lonely Planet (my second choice of books) which has more lower-end lodging recommendations, I could plan a great low cost trip!

One of the Best..!.......2001-11-17

This book was a great help in not only planning my trip to Ireland but a valuable tool while we were there. We basically did a "plan as you go" type trip and were constantly referring to Pat's book as a base from where to start. The city maps that she includes are a great reference for every first time traveller. The only thing that I would have liked to have added in the book was more of her recommendations for lodgings. But on the whole a fabulous reference for everyone visiting the Emerald Isle...!

A Must for Planning a Trip to Ireland.......2001-09-29

Daytrips is an excellent book and a must when going to Ireland. It is very informative, thorough, and user friendly. Pat, the author, has broken the country down into 55 daily trips and in each one she suggests not only a complete set of tour directions and stops but also a list of places to eat as well as "practicalities" or very useful suggestions to make your time enjoyable. She offers an online forum where she will answer any question within 24 hours. Her website also has suggested places to stay that go along with her daytrips. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed her book and have used it extensively to planning our trip to Ireland. It will definitely accomply us there. With all the travel books on Ireland out there, this is by far the best.

Daytrips Ireland in my Carry-on Luggage!.......2001-09-27

Although I read Patricia Preston's "Daytrips Ireland" three times before traveling, I still took the heavily highlighted and underlined book with me. There was just more valuable material in the book than I could memorize. Especially helpful were the pages with little blow-up maps for day trips like through Connemara. Although I thought our meals would be casual, pop-in-wherever we were, I also ended up using the restaurant recommendations. Pat obviously knows the people in the places she recommends.

Inner Circles: How America Changed the World
Average customer rating:
Inner Circles: How America Changed the World
Alexander M. Haig
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
U.S. | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Federal Government | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy

Turmoil and Triumph My Years As Secretary of State

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The Politics of Diplomacy

RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon

ASIN: 0446395242

Inner Circles: How America Changed the World A Memoir
Average customer rating:
Inner Circles: How America Changed the World A Memoir
Alexander M. Jr. Haig
Manufacturer: Warner Books Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OFT4NK

Inner Circles : How America Changed the World
Average customer rating:
Inner Circles : How America Changed the World
Alexander M., Jr, with Charles McCarry Haig
Manufacturer: Easton Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Leather Bound
ASIN: B000IN4UW8

Inner Circles: How America Changed the World A Memoir
Average customer rating:
Inner Circles: How America Changed the World A Memoir
Alexander M. Jr. Haig
Manufacturer: Warner Books Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000RBWHKS

Customer Reviews:

Great read.......2005-02-22

This book was accurate and for someone who is intrested and enjoys reading about John Gotti this is a great book for you to read. A little dragged out in some areas such as the Trials but very interesting. I enjoyed reading this book very much, as i believe you will as well

[...].......2005-02-06

as far as i could tell, the book was ok. the best part out of the entire book for me was the pictures but they should of added more. reading some of the chapters were so damn booooring. theye need to get better writers or something. is jerry capeci was the best writer of organized crime how come this book was so boring then? i see other books and then see only half truths and authors twisting the words and stuff. someone needs to write a real book that has the real truth, not making it up or just writing it to get publicity for Gotti's name which i find very sick bcuz the authors glorified and even said in the book in the first pages or so that they and lots or prosecutors and FBI agents and judges and attorneys all became bestsellers and very very successful because of John Gotti's name. I swear. Especially since they glorified in saying that in the book, i find that very disgusting and very low for people like them who are suppose to be professionals, especially gloating from the man who died of cancer. I wouldn;t care if he was osama bin laden, i thought the thing about the authors saying that they became successful because of Gotti's name is disgusting and they're making money because of it. that's very very low. Disgusting. and Spare me about how gotti was a criminal if you were an author writing about him, you wouldn't brag that you became successful because of his name. total lack or professionalism in my view and very disgusting. [...] Some of the stuff that he typed in the first chapters saying that John Gotti blew a basketcase about how his grandson said that he wanted to become a criminal and how he yelled at his grandson for saying that was such a exaggeration because i heard the tapes. Complete and total exaggeration. I guess with books of [...] like these, you have to be really careful about what the author writes because they can exaggerate the truth since this is part of the media thing after all. i give it only one stars cuz the pictures were the most interesting part of the book. Rest of it [...]. It disgust me that people would do anything to make money. I guess the disgusting thing is money makes the world go round.

Not what it seems, BORING.......2004-03-20

When I picked this book up I thought I would get a nice history of Gotti. That was true to some extent but the majority of the book was devoted to the trials. If you are a lawyer or someone who is interested in that sort of thing then this book is for you. If you want a good read then pick up the Capeci book on Gotti,that is top of the line! You can also read this if you are having problems sleeping....

gotti.......2003-04-08

John Gotti started out as a nobody from Queens,New York, who would later become the biggest know name in the mafia today. After he assassinated Paul Castellano, the boss of the Gambino family John started to climb his way up in the mafia life.Through out the book the authors go into great detail about John and the family. John was always a fan of the press and media, he wanted his name to be know to all. That was also exactly what happend. John was the most feared man in New York for most of the 80's and the early 90's. After gettin extreamly popular the FBI and RICO started to fallow him and bug his hidouts and homes. In the mid 90's John and his two main men Sammy and Frankie were arrested and sentenced to life in prison.After that the Gambino family fell apart.

The book Mob Star was thrilling and exciting. After reading the first chapter it was hard not to put this book down. The way the authors go into great detail about what is going on and how it happens, you feel like you were in the same room with john at every moment.Mob Star is a very fast reading book,only because you can not wait to see what John Gotti gets into next.I would recomend this book to anyone who likes the Mafia or just wants to read an excilent book.

gotti.......2003-04-08

The book Mob Star was thrillin and exciting. After reading the first chapter it was hard not to put this book down. The way the authors go into great detail about what is going on and how it happens, you feel like you were in the same room with john at every moment.Mob Star is a very fast reading book,only because you can not wait to see what John Gotti gets into next.I would recomend this book to anyone who likes the Mafia or just wants to read an excilent book.

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti
Average customer rating:
Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti
Gene Mustain
Manufacturer: Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Criminals | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Murder & Mayhem | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0440202701
Release Date: 1988-12-03

Mob Star The Story of John Gotti The Most Powerful Criminal in America
Average customer rating:
Mob Star The Story of John Gotti The Most Powerful Criminal in America
Mustain Gene and Capeci Jerry
Manufacturer: Franklin Watts
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LCCIES

Mob Star (The Story of John Gotti)
Average customer rating:
Mob Star (The Story of John Gotti)
Gene/ Capeci, Jerry Mustain
Manufacturer: Alpha
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8V0RU

MOB STAR: The story of John Gotti
Average customer rating:
MOB STAR: The story of John Gotti

Manufacturer: Franklin Watts
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H27JKU

MOB STAR:The story of John Gotti, the most powerful criminal in America.
Average customer rating:
MOB STAR:The story of John Gotti, the most powerful criminal in America.

Manufacturer: Franklin Watts
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000ICR12A

Customer Reviews:

Great book, especially for European Dobermanns........1998-12-28

An excellent reference for Doberman(n) owners, and for looking up the breeds temperament for the prospective first time owner.

Average customer rating:

Pet Owner's Guide to the Dobermann
Clive Evans
Manufacturer: RINGPRESS BOOKS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K7XLUY

Book Description

A comprehensive and in-depth guide for amateur and professional ceramic tile setters. TILE YOUR WORLD takes the reader from the early history of the craft, all the way through to advanced residential tiling techniques. Projects range from kitchen and bathroom floors to custom tile shower installations. Kitchen counters and back splashes are also covered. TILE YOUR WORLD contains over 300 black and white photos and line drawings and 6 four-page color inserts. Eight appendices and a full index are included.

Customer Reviews:

A most.......2007-08-31

I rebuilt my bathroom and completely renovated the shower. This book was my bible. Of course I had other references and ideas to use, but pretty much kept to this book. I had it there by my side while constructing everything from the shower pan, shower walls and tiling it all. Sure I could have done it without this book and my wife would have made me hire a professional to redo my job.

Not to brag, but with the advice from this book people think that a professional DID remodel my bathroom. There is so much satisfaction in doing it yourself and to get a the results as good (and sometimes better) as a pro...

An excellent overview.......2007-06-22

John Bridge has put together an excellent reference for the experienced and novice tile setter alike, and if you're looking to learn the basics to put together a project for the first time, this book is a must read. John's light, conversational style makes the book a quick read, and as mentioned in another review, the online forum on the author's website is also an invaluable reference.

Highly recommended to those who need a to learn the ABCs of tile.

Tile Your World.......2007-05-13

I bought the bookas a gift for a friend who is quite interested in home renovation technique. She was thrilled by it and judging by her reaction, it must be an informative and well written book.

Everything you need to know!.......2007-02-13

This is the ultimate book for tile setters and for those who want to be tile setters. John focuse on all of the little things that the amateurs don't. focus on. The actual tiling itself is the last thing he focuse on. He will teach you the science of laying different types of tiles. You will learn everyting from floor deflection to room layout to determing the square footage and much more. I even learned of a new underlayment product made by Schluter that does not transfer cracks to the tiles due to structural movement and also a waterproofing membrane to use in shower tile installations! I have learned so much Thank you.

Great book for me - Novice/JOAT.......2007-02-06

We recently built our new home & I used this book & Setting Tile (Fine Homebuilding) to do all the tile work. One of our best & proudest features is the masterbath I built with lg garden tub and oversized corner dual head shower with dual niche all tiled together - We love it. I can't believe I was able to do it all with friends & family and alot of sweat/work.

Saved thousands over best few estimates. I see why the labor is so pricy now....

Recommend both books.

Beautiful Easy Herbs: How to Get the Most from Herbs-In Your Garden and in Your Home
Average customer rating:

Great buy, easy read and awesome reference

Cool Herb Book for beginners

Beautiful Easy Herbs: How to Get the Most from Herbs-In Your Garden and in Your Home
Laurence Sombke
Manufacturer: Rodale Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Herbs | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Your Backyard Herb Garden: A Gardener's Guide to Growing Over 50 Herbs Plus How to Use Them in Cooking, Crafts, Companion Planting and More

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Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs

New Encyclopedia of Herbs & Their Uses

ASIN: 0875968430

Book Description

Find all your favorite herbs, delicious recipes--even herbal crafts--in this elegant volume that shows gardeners of all levels how to successfully grow herbs indoors and out. Ten colorful, foolproof garden designs include a Potpourri Garden and an Herbal Tea Garden. An herb directory, special harvest chapter, and seasonal care calendar complete the sumptuously illustrated guide.

Customer Reviews:

Great buy, easy read and awesome reference.......2006-09-10

This is a awesome reference book for beginners with easy information about the size of the land to plant each herb.

A must have for beginner gardener looking to enhance his or her knowledge about herbs for the garden.

Cool Herb Book for beginners.......2000-05-12

I got this herb book the other day and i think its pretty cool its colorful and has pictures of different herbs their uses and facts about them plus recipes garden ideas and more.

Torn Asunder: Recovering From Extramarital Affairs
Average customer rating:

A Balanced Approach

Not just facts

Torn Asunder

Great Book in a great time of need

Torn Asunder Workbook

Torn Asunder: Recovering From Extramarital Affairs
Dave Carder , and Duncan Jaenicke
Manufacturer: Moody Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Marriage | Relationships | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Marriage | Relationships | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Surviving an Affair

NOT "Just Friends": Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity

After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful

My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me

Infidelity: A Survival Guide

ASIN: 0802477488

Book Description

Infidelity is at crisis level even within the church. No marriage is immune despite apparent moral convictions. Dave Carder wrote Torn Asunder to offer couples hope, healing, and encouragement in the face of adultery. He divides his book into first helping readers understand extramarital affairs and then offering healing for marriages dealing with this betrayal. Excellent resource for pastors, leaders, and lay people.

Customer Reviews:

A Balanced Approach.......2007-05-11

Goes beyond the simplistic notion of shallow forgiveness into the real work of repentance and reconciliation. Squares the responsibility between both spouses instead of placing an unfair burden on the spouse who has been betrayed to do all the work necessary for restoration of the relationship.

Not just facts.......2007-01-12

I was ready for a dry book with too many facts and statistics, but this book has been great. I'm only on the first chapter and have learned so much already.

Torn Asunder.......2006-11-03

This book and its accompaning workbook are simply the best resources I have found in helping folks recover from the devastating affects of marital infidelity, whether the couple chooses to remain married or divorce.

Great Book in a great time of need.......2006-08-31

This is a great book for anyone experiencing this traumatic part of life as well as anyone who knows someone going through this. It gives you hope when you think everything is gone and helps you break down the who,how,why when and where and then helps pick up the pieces.

Torn Asunder Workbook.......2006-08-08

THis book is excellent and follows the book. I would recommend it to anyone in this situation. God Bless you both as you try and reconcile your marriage.

Amazon.com

Historian Desmond Seward has written an indispensable book on Caravaggio--equally balanced and historically double-checked. But even with all its references, dates, names, quotes, and careful scholarship, this biography reads like a novel that is impossible to put down. Caravaggio, of course, with his "wild, wild spirit" and "very strange temper," according to contemporary accounts, is a natural subject for a galloping narrative. Caravaggio's religious and social status as a Knight of Malta, his protection by a famous cardinal, his street fighting, his fine silk clothes worn until they rotted away, his prostitute models and lowlife friends, his repeated failure to win a commission for St. Peter's, and his bitterness at the rise of mediocre rivals are just some of the ingredients of this good read.

What Seward does, to riveting perfection, is convey 16th-century life to the reader. He takes Caravaggio's renowned naturalism and shows us where it came from. He transports readers to Rome in the 1590s, where they explore the old stones of the ancient empire, step over the human excrement in the streets, and witness the pageantry of luxurious horse-drawn carriages promenading through the mud. Readers lurk with Seward in the darkness, light lamps and candles, and feel the damp as the Tiber rises, leaving behind more than a thousand corpses when it finally recedes after a terrible flood. They stand in the crowd and watch as the heads and bodies of decapitated criminals are quartered and hoisted on spears and ramparts for display. Gradually readers get the feeling that Caravaggio's predilection for severed heads was less the product of a tormented imagination than it was simply all in a day's observation for an unwavering realist. --Peggy Moorman

Book Description

Michael Angelo da Caravaggio (1571-1610) had an amazingly colorful and adventurous career, full of dramatic contrasts. He was a religious artist who used prostitutes and castrati as his models; a mystic with a police record; the favorite of Cardinals and the Pope's portrait painter, who committed a murder; an outlaw from the Roman hills, lionized at Naples; a Knight of Malta imprisoned in a Maltese dungeon; hunted by hired assassins in a vendetta with an unknown enemy; horribly disfigured by sword cuts in a Neapolitan brothel. Ironically, he died on a lonely Tuscan beach after receiving a pardon that would have allowed him to become an even greater painter.

Based on the latest research, but largely written as an adventure story, the book concentrates on the man and his personality, without neglecting the artist. It vividly re-creates his life in early Baroque Italy and as a "monk of war" on Malta.

Customer Reviews:

The Holy Sinner.......2006-06-07

I am fascinated by the combination in one person, of great creativity, in the service of religious ideals, with uncontrolled sexuality, violence and criminality, and depression. The relationship between these two extremes may be the modern temperament writ large. Thus, in the company of many people, I have long been interested in the art and character of the great Italian baroque artist, Michelangelo de Caravaggio (1571 -- 1610). Desmond Seward's short and readable biography, "Caravaggio: A Passionate Life" (1998) offers a good overview of a remarkable artist and deeply flawed and troubled person. Seward is an English historian who has written on the medieval and renaissance periods. He is a member of the Knights of Malta, as was Caravaggio for a brief time; and Seward's religious perspective undoubtedly has much to do with how he sees the artist. I was not convinced by parts of Seward's understanding of his subject. But he presents his materials well with room for his readers to disagree.

Caravaggio was born in the small Italian village for which he is named, and his father died a victim of the plague early in life. From 1588 -1592 he served an apprenticeship as a painter in Milan but fled to Rome, most likely as a result of killing a policeman. In Rome, Caravaggio ultimately received recognition for his extraordinary paintings but was forced to flee the city in 1606 after killing a man named Tommasoni in a duel. (He had earlier accumulated a long police record in Rome.) He received a dispensation to join the Knights of Malta but was expelled and forced to flee after another duel in which he severely wounded a superior in the Order. Caravaggio had strong defenders in Rome, greatly aware of his extraordinary gifts, and received a papal pardon. But, knowing that he had been pardoned, in 1610 Caravaggio died a miserable death en route to Rome after drinking contaminated water. During his years in Rome and thereafter, Caravaggio was an astonishing painter, creating many masterworks, mostly on religious themes. Many of his works have been lost, but some have resurfaced in recent years.

Seward gives a brief treatment of the little that is known about Caravaggio's life and makes an effort to separate knowledge from speculation in the original source material. He does a good job in putting the artist's life in the context of the Italy of his day, with its many states, cultures of endemic and pervasive violence, and susceptibility to natural disasters, such as floods, and plagues. He also discusses effectively the counter-reformation in the Catholic Church; and he places Caravaggio's paintings squarely within the goals and religious outlook of the attempt to revitalize Catholicism from the challenges of Protestantism. For all the violence and difficulties in his life, Seward stresses, Caragaggio never had doctrinal difficulties that might have interested the Inquisition.

Seward also discusses Caravaggio's major paintings (the book includes good color reproductions of 16 of them) emphasizing their naturalism -- Caragaggio's attempt to paint people and things as they were -- and, increasingly, their mysticism and religiosity. He is good at pointing out the violence in many of the paintings -- especially the scenes of beheadings -- and their use of light and of dark shadings. Seward is far less convincing on issues of sexuality. He is dismissive on issues of eroticism in Caravaggio's art, and on the artist's likely bisexual or homosexual orientation. The historical record may be sparse, but many viewers have found compelling evidence of eroticism in the paintings -- including the paintings reproduced in his book. Seward properly emphasizes, I think, the religious, mystical nature that finds expression in Caravaggio's art, but he downplays the violent, demonic, and sexual nature of the artist. Thus, while he properly subtitles his book "A Passionate Life", he gives the reader less than the whole of it.

As Seward points out, in many respects Caravaggio, with his great talent and equally great human flaws, is the prototype of the modern antihero. Undoubtedly, this combination accounts for much of the fascination the artist and his works continue to exert. Seward's book sets the stage for considering the tortured relationship between Caravaggio's life and his art; but in the end he fails to do his subject complete justice.

Robin Friedman

A Brillant Concise Biography.......2004-10-02

It is no secret among my friends that Michelangelo Merisi da Carvaggio is among my favorite painters. Because Caravaggio's paintings have a narrative quality, an almost universal appeal and real drama, they have long spoken to me. When the National Gallery of Ireland loaned its newly discovered Caravaggio - one of the best and notably, one that hasn't suffered at the hands of overzealous restorers of past centuries - to our own National Gallery of Art, I flew to Washington to see it. Even hanging in the gallery of Baroque masterpieces, it stood out as a sublime work of art. Like his paintings, Caravaggio's life was a study in contrasts. While he painted soaring religious masterpieces, he lived his life in the gutter, fighting, killing, gambling and whoring. So, enjoying his work as much as I do, it is with pleasure that I share a elegantly crafted, well-written little monograph titled "Caravaggio: A Passionate Life." The author, Desmond Seward, is not an art historian but a historian of the Middle Ages and because of the number of art historians with an agenda; this is almost certainly a good thing...instead of being filled with jargon or far fetched theories, he has provided readers with a consise, well-written monograph on a epoch creating artist!

Caravaggio is Caravaggio.......2002-10-14

Any biography of Caravaggio is bound to be immensely interesting because he was far from ordinary, someone who will never fail to shock and amuse modern readers. While several reviews I have read complain about the brevity of the book, I found its length appropriate-it did the artist justice without bogging the reader down with too much analysis and irrelevant details. It assumes some familiarity with Italy and European history, but it has several chapters devoted solely to discussing the time period, while always making a connection to Caravaggio's life. I found it particularly nice that nearly all of Caravaggio's paintings were discussed and analyzed within the biography. The book has several copies of paintings inserted in its middle, but lacks the majority. Therefore, I found it incredibly helpful to have my Caravaggio anthology nearby so that I could follow the author's discussions. Undoubtedly, anyone that is not a Caravaggio fan would find these sections tremendously boring, but I loved the opportunity to pore over his paintings with a new understanding of their significance and context.

you'll love it........2000-03-18

This may be the best of the new Caravaggio books. As a painter and a student of art history, I found this book by Seward to be absolutely absorbing. Seward not only gives insight about Caravaggio's life, but also delves into the events that may have inspired his paintings. Please read this exciting book!

Interesting Account of Caravaggio and his works.......1999-11-25

Firstly an admission, I had no prior knowledge of Caravaggio or his paintings. My main area of interest is military history but after seeing the beautiful cover on this book I picked it up and browsed through the wonderful colour plates. I had to have the book to read and after ordering it from Amazon.com and sat and waited. It was worth the wait! I enjoyed the story of this most interesting man, yes its a bit short (200 odd pages) but to a person like me who had no prior knowledge or interest in this subject it filled a gap in my education. This was an interesting book to read and I just loved the colour plates of the artists work (16 colour pictures). The book has sparked an interest to learn more of this man, his times and his art. For that alone the book was worth it and the author has done his job. I would recommend this book for those who want to learn a little bit more about this man and his art.

Average customer rating:

One of the Best
As clear a portrait as we can hope for, currently...
Hedging as a Writing Stype
Light inside the Shadows

Caravaggio: A Life
Helen Langdon
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Artists, Architects & Photographers | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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M : The Man Who Became Caravaggio
Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles (Eminent Lives)

ASIN: 0374118949

Amazon.com

Seventeenth-century painter Nicolas Poussin once said that Caravaggio came into the world to destroy painting. Helen Langdon's marvelous biography suggests that rather than destroying painting, the Milanese artist gave it a new lease on life. Upon his arrival in Rome, Caravaggio ended a tradition of Italian Renaissance painting with his radically new naturalistic style, which continues to dazzle and influence viewers today. Beautifully poised between biographical scholarship and artistic appreciation, Langdon's book provides the reader with a complex, fascinating portrait of Caravaggio, still the rebel and outsider of the popular imagination, but also immersed in the Roman world of art, politics, and patronage. Some of the finest sections of the book vividly evoke the streets and brothels of early 17th-century Rome, which provided Caravaggio with the inspiration for many of his early works. By contrast, the later sections--which deal with Caravaggio's exile and commissions in Naples, Malta, and Sicily--seem rather brief and truncated, giving the final third of the book a rather unbalanced feel. This is, however, partly due to the elusiveness of Caravaggio himself--with little direct contemporary documentation on the painter, he often slips into the shadows, evading the scrutiny of even the most persistent biographer.

Langdon's achievement here is to produce a compelling portrait of the artist that throws new light on his paintings. Here is a painter who was proud, difficult, and arrogant, yet highly intellectual in his appreciation of the changing face of both Catholicism and scientific enquiry. Written with great historical clarity, and supplemented by 42 magnificent color illustrations, Helen Langdon's Caravaggio is a worthy contribution to scholarly study of this artist. --Jerry Brotton

Book Description

A powerful and illuminating biography-the first in English in two generations-of one of the most popular painters of all time.

Of all the great Italian painters, the seventeenth-century master Caravaggio speaks most clearly and powerfully to our time. His early paintings of cardsharps, musicians, and street vendors convey his fascination with the Roman demimonde; his stark and brilliant religious paintings convey the world of the poor and the outcast and the religious experience of the individual with a directness our age can recognize.

Caravaggio lived hard and died young, having fled Rome for Sicily, apparently after murdering another man in a dispute; his life is one of the most colorful of any artist's. In this vivid and beautifully written biography, Helen Langdon tells the story of the great painter's life and times in a way that leaves the reader with a renewed appreciation of his art.

Caravaggio painted a fairly small number of works, many of them for settings in Rome, Naples, and Sicily, where they remain today; and he painted directly from human models. So the story of his life and times reveals Italian society of the period-involving powerful patrons, sybaritic cardinals, and saints, as well as street boys, prostitutes, and rivalrous painters.

Langdon has spent a lifetime studying Caravaggio; this biography, the first in English in two generations, shows us Caravaggio's genius with the striking clarity of his own paintings.

Customer Reviews:

One of the Best .......2007-02-23

This is one of the best Caravaggio books ever written. It is a shame it is no longer in print. The combination of Roman history, church history and art history along with the extensive use of art plates, provide the backdrop for a thorough look into the life of one of the greatest artists of all times.

Helen Langdon gave me the opportunity to understand not only who Caravaggio was, but how he progressed in his development as an artist. This is a thoughtful and thorough presentation. There are many excellent books available on various aspects of Caravaggio's life and paintings; this is the most complete. It is worth the effort to try to locate a used copy of the book.

As clear a portrait as we can hope for, currently..........2002-01-26

Langdon's research payed off in this beautiful look at one of the Late Renaissance's most powerful (and mysterious, and notorious) painters. Sadly, most of what we know of Michelangelo Caravaggio's life is through second-hand sources -- police records and such -- but Langdon seems to have pored through every bit of esoterica related to the painter's relation to his time, his culture, and his peers. What we get for her troubles is a portrait of a man whose devotion to religion was so strong that he would do anything -- including lying about his lineage -- to maintain a secure place as a "defender of the faith."

Sadly, the one-star review on this page has a point: many of Langdon's statements are qualified with "perhaps", "almost certainly," etc. This, however, is one of the prices we pay for any attempt to pin down an elusive person who lived on the fringes of a society which passed four hundred years ago. I much preferred this reading to, for example, Desmond Seward's CARAVAGGIO of the same year, in which the author ranted against any recent interpretations of homoeroticism in Caravaggio's sensual paintings, and even against the concept of Caravaggio -- a notoriously violent and tumultuous figure in the history of painting -- having actually earned his lifetime reputation as a criminal!

Beautifully illustrated, well documented, and written with both a sensitivity towards the subject and a refusal to let that sensitivity obscure "the dirt". ..this is a significant addition to the study of one of painting's more fascinating figures. I highly recommend it.

Hedging as a Writing Stype.......2000-04-30

Ms.Langdon has impressive credentials but the book is exasperating for anyone who is interested in Caravaggio the man. There is hardly a comment she makes that isn't qualified. The text drips with phrases like quite possible, perhaps, it may be that, could it be that, etc. When so little can be known for certain about a figure in history, why not just write a novel--historical fiction is a more honest genre and less frustrating for the reader.

Light inside the Shadows.......2000-01-02

I found this book to be very entertaining as well as educational. The author did a great job of recreating the setting of Carravaggio's life; the important characters and atmosphere of all the places the artist lived in his nomadic life. Also, I look at Carravaggio's paintings in a new light and am even more impressed and moved by them than previously. Carravaggio's was a tragic life. The author captures the sense of impending doom that hanged over the artist's head like an executioner's sword. The author did a great job of bringing the artist to life with what little is actually known about him, through records, accounts, and most of all his paintings. Through it all there is the sense of an awesome talent and fragile ego, that both humbles and angers all who knew him. I came away realzing that Carravaggio was a man of his times as well as an artist of all time.

Caravaggio (Life & Times) (Life&Times series)

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Caravaggio (Life & Times) (Life&Times series)
Patrick Hunt
Manufacturer: Haus Pub.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Caravaggio
Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History
Caravaggio (Icon Editions)
Caravaggio: Colour Library
M : The Man Who Became Caravaggio

ASIN: 190434173X
Release Date: 2004-03-01

Product Description

Nominated and Short-listed for the 2005 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing Born Michelangelo Merisi, as an adult he became known by the name of his birthplace, Caravaggio (1571-1610), he was the most revolutionary artist of the Italian Baroque. Consistently emphasizing the humanity of his religious subjects, he established a new way of painting. The intensity of his chiaroscuro style is matched only by the drama of his life. Outlaw, heretic, murderer, and sensualist were a few of the charges brought against him by his contemporaries. Patrick Hunt s wide-ranging professional and personal scholarship allows him to interpret Caravaggio s complicated religious and classical imagery while anchoring his art in his life.

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Passion of Christ

The Passion Of Christ
Erika Swanson Geiss
Manufacturer: Publications International, Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 141271074X

Product Description

Beautiful, New large coffee table type book, would make a wonderful gift for anyone, Hardback, Dustcover

Customer Reviews:

Passion of Christ.......2006-08-11

Purchased this book to replace one that had been loaned to me. Which I cannot find. This book purchased new. This is a lovely artistic book on Christ.

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Caravaggio : A Life
Helen Langdon
Manufacturer: Random House of Canada, Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0701160632

Caravaggio: Master of Light and Dark--His Life in Paintings

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Almost all I wanted
Vey Useful Guide to Caravaggio's Work
A little but complete book
Interesting

Caravaggio: Master of Light and Dark--His Life in Paintings
DK Publishing
Manufacturer: DK ADULT
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Leonardo da Vinci: The Genius of the Renaissance--His Life in Paintings

ASIN: 0789441381

Book Description

Enter the dark, compelling world of the 16th-century Italian artist Caravaggio and discover the drama and passion of his religious paintings and his masterful handling of color. The DK ArtBook series presents both the life and works of each artist within the cultural, social, and political context of their time. To make the books easy to consult, they are divided into three areas -- the life and works of the artist, historical and cultural background, and analysis of major works -- which are identifiable by side bands. Each spread focuses on a specific theme, with an introductory text and several annotated illustrations. Few art history texts contain such abundance of full-color illustrations. The index section is also illustrated and gives background information on key figures and the location of the artist's works.

Customer Reviews:

Almost all I wanted.......2000-09-15

I purchased this book while reading "M - the Man Who Became Caravaggio". "M" has almost no pictures and I was looking for a good source of his works. There is no index of works in this books, so I spent a lot of time thumbing back and forth trying to find paintings. Also, a few of the works discussed in "M" don't appear here. I enjoyed the format in which the paintings are presented, except for a couple of instances where a detail of a painting was shown, but not the whole painting.

Vey Useful Guide to Caravaggio's Work.......2000-01-15

The main reason why I purchased this book was to assist me in viewing this artist's complete works when reading other mainstream books about Caravaggio, namely: 'Caravaggio: A Passionate Life' and 'M' - both excellent books. The colour plates were lovely and each had detailed text to assist you in your studies of his work. This is a nice and easy to read guide book to this artists beautiful work. The narrative provides enough detail about Caravaggio's life and work to give you the basic idea but do not expect a detailed account, you will have to look elsewhere. Overall this a quick reference guide and is well worth a look.

A little but complete book.......1999-12-30

This book is useful because, I found a wide range of information about Caravaggio (historical info, pics)in few pages.

Interesting.......1999-08-01

This is very interesting because the writer is an historic researcher

Innocence: The Life and Death of Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio

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Innocence: The Life and Death of Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio
Frank McGuinness
Manufacturer: Quintessence Publishing (IL)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Italian Still Life: From Caravaggio to the 18th Century

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The Italian Still Life: From Caravaggio to the 18th Century

Manufacturer: Electa
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 8837023677

MICHELANGELO MERISI DA CARAVAGGIO His Life, His Legend, His Works

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MICHELANGELO MERISI DA CARAVAGGIO His Life, His Legend, His Works
Roger ; Caravaggio Hinks
Manufacturer: Beechhurst Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000CIO5T

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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: his life, his legend, his works
R. P Hinks
Manufacturer: Beechhurst Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007DX46M

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