Forest Leaves: How to Identify Trees and Shrubs of Northern New England

Book Description

This revised edition contains his suggested changes and a number of new drawings. As Baldwin wrote in his introduction, "The purpose of this booklet is to provide brief, simple and easy identification of common trees and shrubs in Northern New England."

Customer Reviews:

fine field guide to the leaves of northern New England.......2003-08-08

This is a helpful guide for identifying trees and shrubs in the New England region. After a brief introduction on technique, over 120 species are described. Each entry is two pages -- one a b&w line drawing of the leaves/needles, and the other a text description that includes the common and scientific name as well as information about the specimen's range, habitat, profile, branching, shoots, leaves, buds, twigs, bole, bark and fruit. Species are organized by taxonomic family and include:yew, pine, willow, walnut, hazel, beech, elm, rose, sumac, holly, maple, dogwood, heath, honeysuckle and others. The book concludes with helpful identification shortcuts, a reading list and a good index.

This is not a perfect book: the introduction is helpful but not terribly informative, there are no maps, there are no color photographs (how about a color insert of transitional leaves?), and the coloring on the cover and spine make it almost impossible to read the title of the book; however, this is otherwise a solid and extremely helpful field guide that will add to your enjoyment of the New England forest, whether it's in the backwoods or your backyard.

Customer Reviews:

Not very helpful..........2006-12-25

Unlike most other travel books,it does not categorize it's contents by city or region. This book instead gives a "topic" with names like "Time Travel" or such to each trip. However,it's very difficult to people who aren't familiar with Alabama to plan a trip with only this book. There isn't any kind of detailed map for regions. I can't even know where the cities it talks about are. It doesn't say too much on each region's attractions but has 60% of it's pages advertising hotels and restaurants. Also,the rest information of the 40% can mostlikely be obtained easily from some public source. I think the yellow page can do the same job for free if i ever need those information. The entire book is printed on non-color bad quility paper which hurts my eyes so much. Overall,in my opinion,this book isn't very helpful and should be worth 1/5 of it's price.

Entertaining, factual, and helpful book........2003-05-18

I found this book to be exceptional. In addition to providing enticing ideas for weekend getaways in my state, it is historically interesting. It covers the entire state and includes ideas for everyone ... campers, romantics, history lovers, shoppers, etc. Although not the type book one normally reads for entertainment, I found I had trouble putting it down long enough to sleep. It brought back fond memories of places I've visited, made me mad that I'd missed things I didn't realize were in visited areas, and elicited a strong desire to TRAVEL more throughout my beautiful and historical state! A WONDERFUL BOOK!

Not what I expected.......2002-09-08

Book is great if you like to visit old houses and fancy restruants Having lived in Alabama all my life I was disapointed with the book.There is more to Alabama then this.

Visiting a wonderful state.......2002-01-21

This is a great book to have about visiting a wonderful state.

If your children are doing school reports on specific states, this book could make the difference between a ho-hum report and a top notch report. The school librarian should have this book.

I highly recommend it.

Makes me want to move to Alabama.......2000-10-05

This book is a work of art for travelers. Very well done. My wife and I use a lot of travel books and this one gets an A+. The text is well written, the organization is clear and the photos are pertinent. Also well indexed - many travel books are lacking in that department. The theme is from south to north, but the Contents and the Index make for easy hopping around. Even the use of bold type for key names, while not original, allows quick referencing. There are lots of web references as well as the usual names and addresses. I wish the photos were in color. I hope the author and her husband/photographer do some more states.

Away For The Weekend (r): Southeast Great Getaways: for Every Season of the Year in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina , and Tennessee (Away for the Weekend)

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Away for the Weekend: Southeast

Away For The Weekend (r): Southeast Great Getaways: for Every Season of the Year in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina , and Tennessee (Away for the Weekend)
Eleanor Berman
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

North America | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0517880520
Release Date: 1994-05-03

Book Description

For an unforgettable weekend in the Southeast, you can...

see 170,000 cherry trees in spectacular bloom
hear spellbinding tales at the National Storytellers Festival
cheer the Thoroughbreds at the annual steeplechase races
board the Christmas Carol Express for a melody-filled train ride through the Smoky Mountains

Or you can take a riverboat cruise, shop for Appalachian crafts, tour antebellum plantations, visit famous Civil War sites, join the revelers at a gala Mardi Gras celebration, or test your skills on some of the best golf courses in the country. In Away for the Weekend®: Southeast, travel expert Eleanor Berman provides exciting year-round itineraries filled with hundreds of ideas for mini-vacations in Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee--from such popular destinations as Savannah and Charleston to smaller towns and villages off the beaten track. Each itinerary includes a directory of restaurants and accommodations to fit every price range. Activities that are particularly fun for kids are noted, and you'll also find a section on resorts, both rustic and posh, that are ideal for just kicking back and relaxing.

Three area maps are provided to help you plan your destination, and driving directions make it easy to plot a course from Atlanta and major Southeast cities, such as Birmingham, Nashville, Charlotte, and Raleigh.

Customer Reviews:

Away for the Weekend: Southeast.......2000-04-07

Anyone living in the Southeast (Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee) will find this travel book to be a practical and useful tool. The author, Eleanor Berman, pairs seasonal activities and local attractions with various locales. For me, this opened my eyes to the many enjoyable short trips my family and I can take without going too far from home. The book contains telephone numbers, driving directions and suggestions for accommodations and restaurants that I likely would never have discovered on my own. My family and I have stayed in several of the book's recommended bed and breakfasts and have been delighted. I keep this book handy to refer to for travel ideas. I reccommend it highly as a thorough and "user friendly" guide to travel in the Southeast.

Book Description

"Unquestionably the most comprehensive treatment available on the subject. I found this book unique in its capacity to benefit executives, planning staff, and students of strategy alike."-- Robert L. Joss, Dean of the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
A successful business strategy enables managers to provide organizational vision, monitor and understand a dynamic business environment, generate creative strategic options in response to environmental changes, and base every business effort on sustainable competitive advantages. Developing Business Strategies provides the knowledge and understanding needed to generate and implement such a strategy.
This fully revised and updated edition of David Aaker's highly influential strategic manual offers copious new information on important emerging business topics. Numerous new and revised sections cover such critical areas as the big idea, knowledge management, the customer as an active partner, creative thinking, distinguishing fads from trends, forecasting technologies, alliances, design as strategy, downstream business models, and more. Other important new features of this comprehensive guide include:
* A new chapter on strategic positioning
* Many new illustrative examples from B-to-B, high-tech, and the Internet
* Increased focus on global leadership and global brand management
* Using the Internet to develop and support business strategies
For managers who need to develop and implement effective, responsive business strategies that keep the organization competitive through changing business conditions, Developing Business Strategies, Sixth Edition is the way to go.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding Book.......2007-10-16

I enjoyed reading this book which I found to be fascinating and enlightening. The book describes strategy and its role in ensuring that organisations achieve their mission. It is a comprehensive book on various aspects of strategy including the need to focus on customer needs, environmental analysis, knowledge management, strategy formulation, strategic positioning, strategy implementation, forecasting technologies, alliances, creative thinking, design as strategy, downstream business models, global leadership, among other informative topics.

The book is well written, well presented and easy to follow and understand. It is very practical and with many good examples and case studies. I would strongly recommend managers at all levels to read this interesting, practical and insightful book on strategy. The book is also useful and handy for strategy consultants and students doing an MBA or other postgraduate studies in business.

UK PERSPECTIVE.......2005-03-27

A "must have" for Management Consultants in Strategy.

John Courtney
Managing Director
www.strategyconsultinglimited.co.uk

Excellent reading.......2000-02-08

This book is one of the best for strategy framework and methodology formulation. It is also very useful for case interviews. I believe that every management consultant and related professionals should own a copy, and hope that it would be incorporated into the MBA curriculum of the top B-Schools for strategic management.

Classic and comprehensive guide to strategic planning.......2000-01-12

Unless you know where your company is going, chances are it won't get very far in today's global marketplace. That's why every business needs the strong vision and keen sense of direction that come from the development, evaluation, and implementation of business strategies-and why every business owner or manager should have Developing Business Strategies, David A. Aaker's classic and comprehensive guide to strategic planning, now in its fifth edition.

Using vivid case studies, Developing Business Strategies helps you to move beyond reactive problem solving toward the development and realization of sound strategic objectives for your company. Providing both the framework and the tools necessary to make strategy development and strategy review efforts effective, this book shows you how to:

* Conduct a structured external and internal analysis of a business with confidence * Develop sustainable competitive advantages by creating assets, competencies, and strategies * Make strategic investment decisions to generate growth * Organize to support strategies * Compete strategically in hostile, growth, and global contexts.

As compact and easy to use as ever, this new Fifth Edition offers new or revised sections on current topics such as strategic uncertainty, buyer hot buttons, shifting customer priorities, strategy as options, paradigm shifts, organizational stubbornness, and brand equity. You'll also find up-to-date research and fresh examples on economic value analysis, competitor image, total quality management, reengineering, the virtual corporation, and more-plus a set of useful sample planning forms to help guide you through the strategy development process.

Whether you're a business owner, manager, or planning executive, the key to your company's success is in Developing Business Strategies.

David A. Aaker is the E. T. Grether Professor of Marketing Strategy at the Haas School of Business Administration at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of numerous articles and ten books on strategy, including Marketing Research, Fifth Edition (Wiley) and Managing Brand Equity. His books have been translated into eight languages. Professor Aaker is an active consultant and speaker in the United States, Europe and South America.

Reviewed by Azlan Adnan. Formerly Business Development Manager with KPMG, Azlan is currently Managing Partner of Azlan & Koh Knowledge and Professional Management Group, an education and management consulting practice based in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo. He holds a Master's degree in International Business and Management from the Westminster Business School in London.

THIS BOOK MADE ME THE BEST BRAND MANAGER IN THE COMPANY.......1999-01-16

AFTER READING THIS AND SOME OTHER BOOKS FROM THE PROFESSOR DAVID A. AAKER, I'VE BECOME BETTER AT DOING MY MARKETING JOB.

Strategic Marketing Management, 6th Edition (Strategic Market Management)

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Leveraging Secondary Brand Knowledge to Build Brand Equity
Strategic Market Management - 5th Ed - Aaker
Exceptional book!
Simpe, Concise, Precise and Easy to Understand
An excellent book for marketing strategy

Strategic Marketing Management, 6th Edition (Strategic Market Management)
David A. Aaker
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Advertising | Marketing & Sales | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0471415723

Book Description

Focuses on the need to analyze the external environment and the competitive marketplace to make strategic market selections and competitive positioning decisions.
* The most complete, systematic approach to external analysis available.
* Addresses key current strategy issues, and is noted for its extensive use of business examples.

Customer Reviews:

Leveraging Secondary Brand Knowledge to Build Brand Equity.......2007-05-16

In my opinion the most clever chapter in the book discusses how brand equity can be built through secondary brand associations.

Strategic Market Management - 5th Ed - Aaker.......2004-02-19

The 5th edition is, in my view, disorganised, unnecessarily complicated and seems to have been hurriedly finished. This text book was required reading for my MBA (Warwick Business School)

Exceptional book!.......2003-07-22

This book was part of the required reading for my MBA program at UCI and so far it is the best strategic marketing text I have read. Prof. Aaker's writing style is both concise and eloquent, very well organized and easy to read. I will keep this book on my bookshelf for a long time, it is very "reusable" and goes way beyond the class room. A must-have for both corporate executives and enterpreneurs.

Simpe, Concise, Precise and Easy to Understand.......1999-07-29

I used this book when I took a strategic marketing class in my MBA program. The author of this book did an excellent job in explaining strategic marketing concepts in a simple but practical way. The main strength of this book is it is very well-organized and easy to follow. The author also used many real-world samples to explain and support marketing concepts presented in the text. I recommend that any business student who has to take business policy class use this book as his or her reference.

An excellent book for marketing strategy.......1999-07-23

I was first exposed to Aakers Strategic Market Management during a marketing strategy course at National University of Singapore. I really appriciated the disposition of the books. It is relatively thin, not many words are useless (which is uncommmon in the case of marketing text books).

Later, still a student, I got the opportunity to develop a marketing strategy for a smaller firm. During this time Aakers book was of the outmost value, being used for reference throughout the analysis. Highly recommendable.

Average customer rating:
Strategic Marketing Management Cases, 6th edition,paperback,99
David W. Cravens
Manufacturer: Irwin McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LSEFSE

Amazon.com

Long has written a friendly, conversational book about bentwood garden accessories, some fantastic, others prosaic or elegantly simple. In nine main chapters, he covers selecting wood, making a basic trellis, more elaborate and decorative trellis designs, bentwood gates, bentwood fences, arbors, and trellises made without bentwood. He discusses the selection of plants for your structures, and finally, adds a chapter on simply enjoying your bentwood structures, even going so far as to include a few yummy recipes for muffins, teas, and shortbread to savor in your newly created garden environment!

The techniques outlined by Long can be easily adapted to your own individual designs and creative ideas. As Bertha Reppert, the founder of the Rosemary House, says, "I shall never look at plant prunings the same way again." Bentwood garden structures offer a natural, eye-pleasing alternative to plastics and mass-manufactured garden installations, making use of the garden itself to generate construction materials that might otherwise end up burned or in a landfill. --Mark A. Hetts

Customer Reviews:

Recycle that brush!.......2006-02-25

This book gives good directions and shows many attractive ideas. I am going to try a living fence and some supports for pole beans in the garden-that should be much prettier than the metal posts and twine I used last year.

A Book for Dreaming and Doing.......2000-03-26

If you love the romantic look of twig trellises, arbors, gates and fences (not to mention wattling), this is the book for you! Using raw materials that most people have or can get for free (and Jim Long tells how to do this, too), the reader is led through the step-by-step process to make a variety of pictured designs.

Long also tells what tools and materials you need, how to make a work space, how to construct the basic trellis, and how to install it (including securing it in the ground). There's even a chapter on selecting plants for your new trellis. Best of all, Long reveals the trick for actually getting your creation to look like the picture (hint: it involves a picnic table).

This is a book for dreaming and doing!

A descriptive detailed book on how to make trellises........1998-07-13

The illustrations were very good as a first time person to trellis making, I found this book very exciting. The author made it simple for people to follow and do the project. I liked the detail he gave for making each project. Making arches to gates for your flower garden, they are all nice pieces of art. He tells also what is great to grow on the trellises. Thanks

Making Bentwood Trellises, Arbors, Gates and Fences

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Making Bentwood Trellises, Arbors, Gates and Fences
Jim Long
Manufacturer: Storey Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NZS8UQ

Amazon.com

The climax of this humane account of 10 years in Boston that began with news of Martin Luther King's assassination, is a watershed moment in the city's modern history--the 1974 racist riots that followed the court-ordered busing of kids to integrate the schools. To bring understanding to that moment, Lukas, a former New York Times journalist, focuses on two working-class families, headed by an Irish-American widow and an African-American mother, and on the middle-class family of a white liberal couple. Lukas goes beyond stereotypes, carefully grounding each perspective in its historical roots, whether in the antebellum South, or famine-era Ireland. In the background is the cast of public figures--including Judge Garrity, Mayor White, and Cardinal Cushing--with cameo roles in this disturbing history that won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

Book Description

Winner of 3 different awards, this is a story of the busing crisis in Boston.

Customer Reviews:

Best Modern History of Boston Ever.......2006-11-02

In you are interested in modern Boston history, and why Boston is the way it is, there is no better book. The subject of this book is busing, but that is only one (important) element of the book. Excellent, well-researched overview of Boston's different ethnic clans, geography, religious groups (the most fascinating history of the Boston Roman Catholic Church I have ever read), and Boston culture. Extremely well-written.

I've lived in Massachusetts/Boston my entire life. I regret not reading this book earlier.

one of the best political books I ever read - 6 stars!!!!.......2005-05-07

This book is an absolutely magnificent tableau of American politics in all its complexity and ambiguity. Lukas investigated the lives of three families in a fundamental controversy on the future of America: forced school busing.

The first family are brahmans, from Harvard Law and straight into the Mayor's office in a moment of idealism that would forever change his career. He is a mechanic of political change, who is trying to lead a good and honorable life. Then there is a working class Irish family, from the other side of the tracks. The widowed mother becomes a great adversary of the process underway, in no way racist but opposed for very practical and personal reasons to forced busing. Finally, there is a black family, struggling to get by amidst dashed hopes and pathological mental illness, the supposed benificiariers of a great social experiment. The portrayals of these lives - all real and thoroughly investigated by an absolutely first-rate investigative journalist - are beyond novellistic realism. The personalities are so vivid and well drawn that it is simply astonishing.

Then there is the wider political/historical milieu, Boston in the early 1970s. Lukas stops at nothing to create a composite picture: there is the mayor Kevin White (whom I was astonished to learn was considered by Jimmy Carter as a running mate in 1976), Ted Kennedy, and scores of others including the archdiscese and various minor politician-demagogues hoping to make a career out of the crisis. The portrait is as beautiful and detailed as the Sistine Chapel, exposing the best, the worst, and the unexpected in American politics of the period. Lukacs' talent to do all of this is simply extraordinary. Late in the writing, I learned, he had to throw out one of the three families and begin the entire process over again in the name of thoroughness. No wonder he won a pulitzer.

This book also spoke to me personally. I was in Boston for part of the time, in the very neighborhood where the brahmans lived as a personal social experiment, and I witnessed many of the events as they unfolded. Lukacs' evocation of it all struck me as entirely accurate, pitch perfect to where people were coming from and what they hoped and feared. As such, this book is a crucible of the American race conundrum, a turning point of the greatest political import, perhaps equal to the Vietnam war protests.

And the writing! It is elegant and clear beyond imagination, approaching what I would call genius, the product of an unusually driven mind. The characters are so vivid that I will refelct on them until the day I die. This is destined to become a classic, like Tacitus or Thucydides - the quality is truly that high. I have read HUNDREDS of political-historical books, and this one ranks as near the top as a handful.

Recommended as a true must-read. Get it, make the effort, for an excpetional reading experience.

Fabulous insight into Boston's 1970's busing crisis.......2005-02-11

I thought this book was breathtaking. J. Anthony Lukas does a masterful job telling the story of the Boston busing crisis from the perspective of 3 individuals involved (in 1974 a judge ordered the city of Boston to bus children into schools outside their own neighborhoods in order to achieve racial diversity; problems ensued). You learn about a young, idealistic upperclass white man who works for Boston Mayor Kevin White, a poor black mother who is concerned for her children and their education, and an Irish Catholic family living in Charlestown who resent the changes being imposed on them by others. Lukas tells you about each family's history and presents their story and perspectives in a way that you can understand and relate to.

As a resident of Boston, I really enjoyed learning more about an important period of time for the city. I think that by putting human faces to the story he personalized it for people who didn't experience it themselves. Boston still does not have neighborhood high schools - students submit their top 3 choices and then are assigned to a school - and I would imagine this is a vestige of the 1974 court ruling.

A great book.

current events raised to the level of art.......2001-04-09

Though Common Ground is non-fiction it reads like great literature.So detailed and moving is the story of the families and individuals that Lukas traces, that while you read this involving and complex tale of idealistic politics and failed expectations, you end up caring deeply for all the people whose lives over two decades are being traced.If you were going to read one book to understand the state of race relations in the late 20th century this would be it.There are only a few books that I have read that made me want to meet the author and thank him for writing it.This is one of those.

Hugely Important.......2000-06-08

A hugely important work, immense in its scope. This book is an excellent educational experience, on at least the levels of racial attitudes in the 60's and beyond, Boston and New England history, local and national politics, and social stratification. Common ground is detailed in its factual accounts, empathic with its central characters, and insightful yet unbiased. A must-read for anyone from the Northeast, and a should-read for everyone else. I hope to read this at least every other year, so as not to forget its importance and cultural significance.

COMMON GROUND A TURBULENT DECADE IN THE LIVES OF THREE AMERICAN FAMILIES

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COMMON GROUND A TURBULENT DECADE IN THE LIVES OF THREE AMERICAN FAMILIES
J. Anthony Lukas
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JWDTU2

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Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
J. Anthony Lukas
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000QYF2ZI

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Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
J. Anthony Lukas
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NUR8MU

Building bridges: Robert W. Snyder on J. Anthony Lukas's common ground and the author's determination to write with empathy.: An article from: Columbia Journalism Review

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Building bridges: Robert W. Snyder on J. Anthony Lukas's common ground and the author's determination to write with empathy.: An article from: Columbia Journalism Review
Robert W. Snyder
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Columbia Journalism Review, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2006. The length of the article is 2204 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Building bridges: Robert W. Snyder on J. Anthony Lukas's common ground and the author's determination to write with empathy.
Author: Robert W. Snyder
Publication: Columbia Journalism Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 45 Issue: 3 Page: 56(3)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Common Ground : A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
J. Anthony Lukas
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NUR83Y

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Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families
J. Anthony Lukas
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KFVD88

Book Description

Michelangelo`s first stay in Rome was a crucial period in his artistic production, a time when he created the life-sized marble sculptures Bacchus and the celebrated Piet... and worked on at least two important paintings now in the National Gallery, London-the Entombment and the Manchester Madonna. In this handsome book Michael Hirst presents the first coherent narrative of these years in Rome, and his perceptive comparison of the paintings and sculpture is supported by Jill Dunkerton`s lucid technical description of the making of the two National Gallery pictures. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the National Gallery in October.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent addition for the Michelangelophile........2001-10-28

This book covers the evolution of the young Michelangelo's abilities as an artist, as well as the available details of how he spent his time during the period. The authors give persuasive argument for Michelangelo's authorship of a controversial early panel painting, and there is useful discussion of the relationships between Michelangelo's ideas in paintings and sculpture, as well as of their possible antecedents in the work of others.

But what makes this book such a gem is the detailed analysis of the techniques used in the panel paintings. Michelangelo's paintings, like his sculpture, have a unique power, clarity and imaginative force. The panel paintings if anything hint at even greater achievements, but unfortunately only one finished example has come down to us. The latter painting, the _Holy Family_, is one of the most perfect examples of renaissance art, and a tour-de-force of image-making technique. Although this book does not provide direct analysis of that particular painting's technique, in its analysis of other unfinished paintings it provides a great deal of information which illuminates the results Michelangelo achieved in the _Holy Family_ (including a long-needed explosion of the ill-fitting presumption that the smoothly blended forms of the latter were executed in tempera). Well-illustrated.

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The Young Michelangelo: The Artist in Rome, 1496-1501 and Michelangelo as a Painter on Panel; Making and Meaning (National Gallery London Publications)
Michael; Dunkerton, Jill Hirst
Manufacturer: National Gallery London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORR8QI

Book Description

A unique, ruminative biography-a fascinating excursion into the American underworld at the dawn of the twentieth century, the life of an unrespectable Irish woman, and the hidden inner life of any woman who has tried to choose the unconventional path-by the author of the New York Times bestsellers Are You Somebody? and My Dream of You.

Nuala O'Faolain, the author of three consecutive New York Times bestsellers, has come upon a story that is not only a perfect match for her literary gifts but also takes her career in a surprising and rich new direction. This Irish woman writer who achieved international fame with a remarkably candid appraisal of her own unorthodox life has taken as her subject another daughter of Ireland-this one a notorious criminal and unrepentant, independent woman.

The legend says that May was a tall girl with glorious hair and big blue eyes, compellingly attractive to men. At nineteen, she stole her family's savings and ran away from her home in rural Ireland to America-first Nebraska, then Chicago at the time of the World's Fair, and then on to New York. In these new American cities, she worked as a grifter, a confidence trickster, a prostitute, a sometime showgirl-earned her moniker and was hailed in tabloids as "Queen of the Underworld." And then she fell in love with a big-league criminal, followed him to Paris where they successfully robbed the American Express, then were apprehended, tried, and sent to prison. May survived prison, returned to America, and was reborn again and again-falling in love, lapsing back into the criminal life, flirting with legitimacy, writing her memoirs.

O'Faolain brings a sympathetic scrutiny to this extraordinary life story, reaching across the decades for points of connection and understanding. May was born in post-famine Ireland and died in the world of telephones, sportscars, and movies, in 1929, just before the stock-market crash. Is there a woman's experience they can share? An Irishwoman's experience? An outsider's? In the hands of one of our most astute and gifted memoirists, The Story of Chicago May is not only a tale well-told, but an inquiry into the telling of any life story. "There are pioneer journeys still to be made to the edge of the territory where we know how to be sympathetic," O'Faolain writes. "Shine the beam of attention out there and the dark recoils, and the frontier of human settlement moves forward."

Customer Reviews:

She Did It Her Way.......2007-07-28

I first heard of Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain when I picked up one of her books in the WH Smith at Heathrow as I ran to catch a flight back to the States. Sometimes we are drawn to certain authors in mysterious ways, as if the moments were meant to be. Thereafter, I was led to her two memoirs, breathtaking in their candor about moving through stages of life as a young Irish girl, a writer, and mature woman coming to terms with her past.

Knowing this writer's work, I didn't expect "The Story of Chicago May" to be a traditional biography, and it most certainly was not. May Duignan, born in post-famine Ireland, nicked her family's savings and ran away to America. There, she achieved legendary status as "Chicago May," working as a thief, outlaw, showgirl and prostitute.

What I find remarkable is how the writer weaves in her own process of discovery and personal experience in researching and writing the book. This approach won't work for all readers. Some prefer the conventional biography, but others will find this book refreshing. No matter how a writer strives for objectivity, biography writing will never truly elude the subjectivity of the writer's own experience. O'Faolain did it her way, though she painstakingly researched her elusive subject. She literally traced the steps of May through city after city on two different continents.

Years of May's life were spent in prisons on both sides of the Atlantic, but she managed to survive a life on the edge. Exhausted and sick at heart, she later met police reformer August Vollmer, who convinced her to write her autobiography as a way toward the light. O'Faolain refuses to sugarcoat the "Queen of Crook's" struggle to make ends meet, her experiences in and out of prison, or her poor choices in men, several notorious crooks in their own right.

"Hope kept me up," May wrote in her last, desperate note to Vollner before her death as "a tired old prostitute" in an unmarked grave in Philadelphia. But the book is not about a character who tried to save her own soul, whatever that may be interpreted to be. It ends with just as many questions about the seeming lack of meaning in May's life, yet assures us that even such a life as hers is worth examining: "Out there, people are waiting in the dark. Shine the beam of attention out there. The dark recoils."

When History and Memoir Mix.......2006-11-09

Like some of the previous reviewers, I was annoyed and bewildered after the initial reading of this book. Not because it wasn't well-written. It is. But the intermingling of the author's experiences and what she perceives May Duignan-Churchill to have felt/experienced was disorienting because I thought I was buying a biography of Chicago May. Most historical biographies are devoid of personal observations unless the author happened to be there along with his / her subject, which certainly wasn't true in Nuala O'Faolain's case.

It didn't take me long, however, to appreciate "The Story of Chicago May" for the unique literary effort that it is. O'Faolain is using May Duignan's story to depict one woman's struggle for independence AND show how similar struggles go on today despite increased earning power and educational opportunity. The author is an accomplished memoirist, and in this book she uses her brilliant capacity for insight to help make sense out of a cheerfully unrepentant female crook's career.

By the end of the second reading, I loved the book. That said, I understand why other readers who expected a no-nonsense historical biography, packed with facts and no fancy, were disappointed.

Disappointing.......2006-06-12

I agree with the previous reviewer that this book is "unfocused, disjointed, unstructured, incoherent, and rambling." It was difficult reading and difficult to keep up with what is fact and what is the author's interjections.
Also, I did not care for the personal family information from Ms. O'Faolain. In my opinion, it only added to the adjectives mentioned above and to the book's boring length that could have been more interesting if it were not so lenghtly.

As expected.......2006-02-25

The biography was much as described in other reviews, where an interesting person was described both through the historical facts found and personal experiences of the author. I enjoyed O'Faolain's strategy and the story of May's life.

A Sensitive Biography.......2006-01-27

I was struck with the skill and insight that the author demonstrates to draw us to this character. May becomes an examp-le of a human soul trapped by her environment and able to discard the yoke of fear that holds us in a dead-end life. She emerges as a soaring butterfly but is conscious of the difficulty of returning to "comfortable" life after living on the edge of society and flaunting it. The author carefully guides us thru the difficult years of incarceration and rejection, and is most skillful in identifying with the character in a way that makes the reader both despise and embrace her. Truly a fascinating story told in a manner which traps and holds the reader in timeless suspension.

Average customer rating:

Fascinating historical account of survival

The Story of Chicago May
Nuala O'Faolain
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Irish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: B000IOEYXC

Customer Reviews:

Fascinating historical account of survival.......2007-01-10

Nuala O'Faolain does a remarkable job of humanizing a woman who otherwise would've remained just another fallen woman. This book is a captivating tale of survival, as well as a wonderful source of history. Anyone interested in what it was like to literally survive in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century will enjoy this tale. O'Faolain has a gentle, hypnotic writing style that really works here to evoke empathy for a woman who would otherwise be regarded as a common prostitute and petty thief. I loved it.

Average customer rating:

The Story of Chicago May
Nuala O'Faolain
Manufacturer: Large Print Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1594131686

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