Product Description
From the pages of Little Lulu comes Tubby! The comedic genius of John Stanley couldn't be contained by one series alone, so in 1952 Lulu's pal Tubby made his solo debut in his own hysterical comic. Filled with all the charm and hilarity of Little Lulu, Tubby is a familiar but different delight from comics legend John Stanley. Dark Horse is proud to present these never-before-reprinted gems from comics' golden age in a new series of paperback collections. Like Dark Horse's new Little Lulu series, Tubby is printed in full color, just as the comics appeared over fifty years ago. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Great stuff!
Many fans have expressed dismay at the lack of "special features" here, i.e., no introduction or bibliographic information, no covers, etc.While that is true, I feel that this complaint fails to appreciate what is magnificent about Drawn and Quarterly's John Stanley Library. First and foremost, the books are beautifully designed and bound - made to last a lifetime. And the reproduction is perfect, far superior to the much-lionized Dark Horse rereleases of Stanley's work - which are only in paperback.The colors and printing quality far outshine anything else available. These are gorgeous volumes. I really think sometimes fans, particularly in this kind of publishing effort, can bite off their own noses to spite their faces. These are great comics, beautifully presented! True Tub fans, as well as fans of Nancy, Melvin Monster, and Thirteen "Going On Eighteen" have true cause for celebration! I love these volumes and, frankly, don't mind terribly that covers aren't reproduced. Stanley's genius is what matters here, and these volumes represent the best publishing effort to date to preserve his art. -- Mykal Banta

Five star content, one star presentation...
Any fan of John Stanley probably already got this, so no hard sell on the man's talents are needed... but I (along with many others) sure wish Drawn & Quarterly would get their heads out of their rear ends and do these Stanley collections better!! No biographical/historical info is included (except for a brief end piece and a sticker on the back of the book that always falls off), no info to at least explain why this collection didn't start with #1, and worst of all, no covers!!! It's especially infuriating because D&Q have done so much quality stuff over the past 20 years... they know how to do it right!! I mean, you'd think the editors would actually pick up one of the other historic collections that are out now and see how to do it right!!! Not including the covers is unforgivable!! C'mon, D&Q, these Stanley reprints could really be something special if you'd do them correctly!!! So far, only the "13 going on 18" collection has been close to great (big, thick book with a great intro by Seth), although the covers were left out of that one, too!! Sigh... I suppose I shouldn't complain, though... any Stanley is better than none at all!! It's just sad to me to see Dark Horse do such a good job with the Lulu/Tubby material when compared to the lackluster effort put out by D&Q... ... Read more

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Product Description
Pope John Paul II was born Karol Wojtyla on May 18, 1920, in Poland. As a child Karol excelled in school -- especially in religion and literature. He was a star soccer player and also hiked and kayaked. But most of all Karol loved poetry and theater. Although Karol was liked and respected by his peers, his childhood was touched by tragedy. His mother passed away when he was only nine years old, and three years later his beloved older brother, Edmund, died from scarlet fever.

Karol grew up in a time of great uncertainty for Poland. Although he was born into an independent Poland, he was a young man during the Nazi occupation of his homeland in World War II. When many Poles were anti-semitic, Karol had Jewish friends; when his country turned its back on religion, Karol studied in secret to become a priest. This fascinating biography details Karol's childhood and the events that led him to be named Pope John Paul II in 1978. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This Pope is Cool
AtfirstIthoughtpopeswere kindofboring, butwhenIreadthisbookIthoughttheywerecool!If you like biography, fun, and learning about chilhood of world figures ,this is the perfect book for you.Pope John Paul II went through a lot of sorrow in his life; when he was 9 his mom died,when he was 12 his brother died and when he was 15 his friends went away because of the Nazis.What I learned is that no matter what happens, life goes on and things will get better.I can't wait for you to read Pope John Paul II, Young Man of the Church!!! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Informative, Interesting, Exhaustive
The sine-qui-non of tool collecting references. If you can't find it in Walters book chances are you won't find it anywhere. Okay you have a #3 plane but what type of #3 plane? The differences can be subtle butimportant (like a fine wine). Any serious tool collector or curious tooluser will enjoy this book.

THE BIBLE for Stanley tool collectors and researchers
This extensive book covers almost every tool made by Stanley.The author had assistance from the Stanley Works in Conn and many major tool collectors.Tools are very accurately described so that amature collectorscan determine the model , manufacture date and current value of mostStanley tools.A very detailed review of the major categories of planesand patents is presented in the back of the book along with a completeindex by tool model number.If you collect Stanley tools, this book HAS tobe in your workshop. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

second collection of John Stanley's work on Nancy
This is the second volume of the Nancy collections from the John Stanley Library, which is Stanley's comic book work on Bushmiller's character.

this volume collects 4 issues: #167-169 of the Nancy comic, and Four Color #1034, which is Nancy & Sluggo Summer Camp.NONE of the covers are reprinted (but we shouldn't be surprised).And there is NOTHING on the cover to indicate this is the second volume (you need to read the indicia for this info).As the "Nancy" comic had that title thru #173, afterwhich it was re-title "Nancy & Sluggo", I think we will have one more Nancy volume, afterwhich it will be "Nancy & Sluggo" for 2-3 volumes.

Stanley did his work on Nancy after doing Little Lulu.I was surprised to figure out he did this while Dell was still working with Western, as I had assumed (wrongly) he did this after the Dell/Western split, as he DID do work for Dell after the split.So in many ways he is doing Little Lulu-type stories with the Nancy characters.The FC issue is Nancy & Sluggo & the gang going to summer camp, as Lulu and gang did.

... Read more

Product Description
This is a poetry collection of pain, confusion, and ultimate triumph of a man who refuses to submit to the shattered nature of the modern experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Not Fading, Vivid, Explosive Verse
John Amen's More of Me Disappears is broken down into three separate sections and each poem in each section is accessible, vivid, and explosive.In a number of poems, Amen's musical and song writing talents permeate the lines.However, these are more than rhythmic dances, his work gradually moves toward a vanishing point.

From Verboten (Page 17)

"They are drinking wine and speaking
of French-U.S. relations when the long
sleeve on her arm falls down.Before
she can clutch it, I see the faded blue
tattoo on her flesh."What are those
numbers?" I ask.A silence explodes
through the room like spores."

Each poem in this collection tells a story, reflects on a bright memory, and picks these events apart to reveal the truth beneath.There are times in this volume when the narrator is sure of his path and at other times ideas run contrary to one another.Some of my favorite lines will leave readers squirming or gritting their teeth.

From Walking Unsure of Myself (Page 65)

"The fortune teller is battling a migraine.
Wind has swallowed my itinerary.

A man in blue goggles is on his knees outside the bank.
The rape victim is scrubbing herself with a steel brush."

Readers will enjoy the music of these poems and how these poems pop off the pages, with an in your face quality.Subtlety is not a prevalent style in Amen's work, but readers will appreciate his frankness.From poems where the narrator takes an active role to poems to observances from a distance, Amen draws the reader in with immediate and concrete details.More of Me Disappears is one of the best collections I've read in 2009.

Life through an Array of Startling Reflections
John Amen' poetry resonates with the artistic flair of atalented musician who has a sense of how music can captivate the listener with influences from the Bob Dillon type of music; in terms of his poetry,John Amen accomplishes this transition from an established musician to a poet who expresses the beauty of life, nature and natural beauty, as well as death and life within death, vividly.
It's almost like capturing the impressionistic colours of a Renoir, Matisse or a Turner by choosing certain metaphors to reflect and sometimes deflect the light shimmering on the surface of the words used:
In `The Legacy
For Rochelle
(p.23)
The first stanza has that `shimmering' impact on your mind's eye:

Steel fingers clawing..... sand,
........
like a burning tail.

On first reading this book of poetry, I thought of Seamus Heaney's Blackberry Picking and Dog of a Bridgend by Andrew Motion (former Poet Laureate) who both use the landscape to create memorable imageries which stays with you and which evokes even a poetic response to the natural environment, when seen close up.

John Amen's poetry paints a scenery of colours reminds the readers that life can be a starkingly surprising array of reflections which touches on the natural process of life, death and rebirth through his experience.

As in:

In a Given Moment (p57)

`............. dry bones
In my pocket grow new flesh.

The dice ........ tumbling.'

The metaphors portray a startling reality that live goes on, we take chances and the charms we use to gamble with life, grow afresh.

His inspiration comes from his art, music and just perceptions of life.

Plumbing for new symbols
To gain entry to the John Amen's surreal, apocalyptic world, the reader accepts a solipsistic universe in which random events become symbols for the modern existential climate, "metaphors for a certain way of being," as the author explains in an interview. Perhaps that's why he advises us to "Plumb bright places for new symbols" (What I Said to Myself). He does not consider himself to be a political poet, but the bad news enters his poems anyway, juxtaposed between intense images that thwart expectation and flirt with disgust.

In Walking Unsure of Myself, short lines slap the reader with images that blink off and on, mirroring the relentless ruminations of an anxious mind.

A black dog snarls behind a white fence.
I'm changing my clothes like a good American.
A man gives birth to a war; his wife
suckles it until her breasts bleed like IV bags.
Handprints on a Christmas card.
The receiver has not been hung up.
The taxi driver keeps honking his horn.
What occurs between breaths is a red herring.
The kettle has been whistling for an hour,
and I think something is wrong downstairs.

Autobiography brings the element of confession into the narratives. Images and startling comparisons turn into and against each other, the mundane coupled with the epic. A poem is bound by its own rules, says the author.

New York Memory #14

It wasn't so bad, that November, that sad month,
bleakness settling into the New York landscape.
Wind came off the East River, carrying dank secrets,
tickling the manes of gargoyles, cutting through
layers of clothing. I didn't write those days, took up art,
large canvases, big, loose strokes with acrylic paint.
I walked down Court Street in the evenings, sat on
the Promenade sometimes. My father was dead;
we were just married, and I wasn't happy, but
maybe things seemed all right. We were eating
fattening food, not arguing too much. In a department
store near St Mark's, we decided to have a baby.
Nothing was ever enough. But I don't recall it
as a bad time, that November, that sad month,
kind of like every day was a Sunday evening,
a slow parade of hours leading us toward
the hysteria of a weekday, our usual lives.

"There's often great energy in being a malcontent," Amen says. To witness the poet connect to his "instinctive now" is to watch a poem emerge "that announces itself in the absence of self," as the poet Ai notes on the back cover. "Every day more of me disappears," Amen tells us in Vacillations, one of a sequence of fourteen short poems. Here, the poet turns inside-out for us: "My liver clutches grief." "There is a witch churning in my pancreas." "I cannot put my finger on what/is stomping up and down my spine," the self so minutely detailed that the poem paradoxically lifts the personal to the universal."Paradox is my native tongue," the narrator says in Angelica Tells Her Story, whose tale ends with this plea: "Oh Marta, when late April dawns/ when snows melt and spring is finally suckled, I want to remember/where I come from. If I forget, please, will you remind me?"

The rhythms of the longer poems are often followed by short, lyrical explosions, keeping the reader on his seat's edge. The resulting tension could be read as ambivalence toward God, or whoever is to blame, as in the nightmarish Manic Summer:

Every August I go mad,
Overdosing on dream pills,
Waiting to be a hydrangea
Or the satyr on the side of the birdbath.
I sprout grass from my armpits;
My naval becomes a rose garden.
Midnight drapes its arm over my neck
Like a serpent dangling from a tree branch.
"You are God", it whispers.
Tonight I believe it.

Better paced than the author's first book, More of Me Disappears sacrifices nothing with its more expansive sense of space. The book is divided into three sections that build in density until the volume feels less like a collection than a single, singular poem. Poems that range over history and geography into the human psyche voice concerns both modern and timeless. Are we going nowhere, like the writer's madman who "beats his oars against the water"? We hope for the best, even as Amen's arresting work leaves us with this ominous toast: "May your armageddons be fruitful."

Every poem an adventure...
I've been a lover of John Amen's work for several years.

His poems never fail to take me with him on wonderful journeys sharing his magical visions.

John's poetry is a gift I give myself.

Exquisite--just exquisite!!

Frank and earthy
(Reviewed for VLQ by C. E. Laine)

I loved John Amen's first book, Christening the Dancer (Uccelli Press, 2003). His second collection, More of Me Disappears (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2005), is an engaging encore, building on a strong poetic voice. More of Me Disappears feels familiar, yet pushes in new directions. The poet's voice is varied within its pages, sometimes an intimate whisper, other times a sandy growl, or a shout at the cosmic injustice that sometimes swallows things whole.

In these poems, it is as though the reader holds hands with the poet, exploring observations, insights, and a deeply personal history together. Amen makes clear how one can study the same pattern or object in different lighting; he shows us how the shadows tend to shift. He puts on the coat of a storyteller, giving us narrative that doesn't leave its imagery behind. In poems like "Verboten", we glimpse something of Amen's history, intertwined with events that marked the world forever, as we see the effects of the Holocaust in the unique cast of Amen's light.In other narrative pieces, we see his parents, skirt around missing segments of memory, visit streets both seedy and beautiful.

Opening the collection with unassuming candor and a touch of suspense, Amen writes (The Consummation):


"Without warning,
the river runs dry, its spine
as glutted and songless as any morgue."

This poet doesn't just observe life. Clearly, he's in it, living hip deep, embracing whatever gets tossed his way: (In the Making) "My name is a boa. I am the canary writhing in its throat."

Amen shakes out the rugs we sweep things under, inspects what is found there. His awareness of sound is compelling, and his imagery often unexpected. A cool stream for a warm day, this collection is both gritty and tender.My favorite aspect of this book is its tenacity and its unadulterated sense of hope:

(What I Said To Myself)

Choose the butterfly over the chrysalis.
Choose light, the ballroom, the well-lit restaurant.

You have for lifetimes strummed minor chords
on the coast of a dead sea. Think major, spindrift.

The sex between you and grief is becoming mechanical.

Despite your vestigial sentiments to the contrary,
a scab's story is much greater than that of a scar.

Your cock is not an umbilical cord, it is your
heart's mouthpiece. Choose sunrise, please.

It is time to do something that might cause
embarrassment. Let emptiness mother your child.

Put away the map, where we're going won't be on it.

There is nothing particularly inspiring about a death wish.

You have learned all there is to learn from the woman in black.

It is time to stop insulting ecstasy. Masochism
is an empty udder. What was is a cipher. Pick
the rose over the injured dove. Pick warm waters.

Attend a circus. Go for the comic. There is nothing
more mediocre than the association of dysfunction with genius.

Indulge in color. Believe me, there is not a problem.
Plumb bright places for new symbols.

Recommendation: study evergreens.
Find me. We have much to talk about.


More of Me Disappears is a frank and earthy collection, one that embraces life with the lights on, unashamed of whatever the mirror decides to reflect. Like it's predecessor, it is a book I am sure to revisit often. ... Read more

Product Description
Renewing the Center has been an influential catalyst for many in the emerging church. With a new foreword by Brian McLaren and a new afterword from John Franke, the second edition updates the book for the contemporary church scene and shows how Stanley Grenz's theological insights continue to shape postmodern church movements.

In this book, Grenz challenges evangelical Christians to take stock of their faith and its relationship to the world around them. According to the author, "The postmodern condition calls Christians to move beyond a polarity that knows only the categories of 'liberal' and 'conservative' and thus pits so-called conservatives against loosely-defined liberals. The way forward is for evangelicals to take the lead in renewing a theological 'center' that can meet the challenges of the postmodern--and in some sense post-theological--situation in which the church now finds itself."

Grenz begins with a historical survey, considering the influence of two major strands within evangelicalism. He goes on to sketch a creative vision for a renewed evangelical theology that faces the intellectual challenges of its time. He further envisions an "evangelical center" through the establishment of a "generous orthodoxy" that enables the church to fulfill its mission in the world.

Renewing the Center is an important book for professors and students of theology, pastors, and church leaders. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Appreciation and critique of postmodernism in theology
Stanley Grenz, Renewing The Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000)

Grenz articulates a fresh evangelical theology for our transitional time. He describes the history of evangelicalism through to current post-evangelical and charismatic influence. He calls Christians to move beyond any polarities of liberals and conservatives to a renewed `center' that can address the needs of post-modern (and perhaps post-theological) context. (`Post-theological' is not to diminish theology in itself but to recognise the emerging non-academic, non-huge-systematic-foundationalist text based approach to theology.) He articulates a belief mosaic for our times, champions a move towards Trinitarian local theologies, explores the place of science and other religions, and emphasises the role of the gathered community and their witness. Thus rather than bemoaning postmodernity and its influence on theology, he calls for a critical appropriation of postmodern insights in the evangelical theological task.

Originally reviewed in Darren Cronshaw `The Emerging Church: Spirituality and Worship Reading Guide.' Zadok Papers S159 (Autumn 2008).

caving in to postmodernism
This is a book that reveals the breadth of what has become "evangelicalism" and reveals the degree to which evangelicals have capitualted to postmodernism to their own detrement.For example, Grenz on how we respond to other religions reaches the startling conclusion that our answer will come from the question: "Which theologising community articulates an interpretive framework that is able to provide the transcendent vision for the construction of the kind of world that the particular community itself is in fact seeking?"(p281).Clearly each religious community believes that its own vision is the best way to produce the kind of community it desires - but the question remains, who or what decides whether any goal or approach that pertains to any particular community is valid or superior to another?Without any obvious recourse to objective Truth (i.e. the revelation of Scripture) we are left helpless and only able to offer "well it works for me" apologetic.Grenz's reluctance to talk in Truth categories risks producing a "Christianity" that is so far removed from that of the New Testament as to be unrecognisable. It is right that Christians engage with our postmodern world and seek to understand it and respond to it - but this response causes me great concern.

Read it and decide about the premises for yourself
I write this to encourage you to look beyond the only customer review this far. For example, start by simply clicking above to view all of the editorial reviews of this book. Many good minds have commended it to you.

I'd hate to see you decide not to read this book based on one other person's conclusions. I happen to disagree with him about the 'faulty historical premises', 'fallacies', 'tired old dichotomy' and 'caricatures'. But this is not the place to argue that. If you don't have your mind made up in agreement with that critic about this one, basic premise, then I encourage you to read the book and then decide what you think.

Intriguing, but based on faulty historical premises
This is a well-written and intriguing book that ultimately fails to deliver on its promise to provide a way to renew the theological center. The book's proposals are based on well-worn phrases that caricature nineteenth- and twentieth-century evangelicalism. Grenz is still pushing the old fallacy we saw as far back as the 1970s in books like Theodore Dwight Bozeman's book on Scottish Common Sense and Baconianism. That fallacy is this: intellectual types like the Princetonians were the only ones who believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. Pietists in the Anabaptist and holiness and other anti-Calvinist movements did not buy this Enlightenment line until the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy, when they felt intimidated by the liberals and higher critics into casting their lot with the Fundamentalists, thereby taking shelter in that movement.

The implication of this is that tired old dichotomy that evangelicalism can be divided into doctrinaire and pietist wings. But things are not that uncomplicated and neat. There is an apparently neglected body of research that shows all manner of pietists, Anabaptists, holiness, Arminians, Restorationists, Mormons, etc., etc., who held strong notions of propositional revelation and the inerrancy of the autographs before the the Princetonians had time to have an impact on the intellectual landscape of American Christianity. Grenz's data is very obviously based on secondary sources, and then they are the best known historical works, rather than scholarly articles or monographs that provide counterevidence to the thesis on which his book is based (intellectualism vs. pietism).

I realize that the wisdom he appeals to is quite conventional (e.g., Calvinist Joel Carpenter's assertion that inerrancy is not the kind of category that Wesleyans related to, etc.), yet if he had probed beneath the surface, even reading sermons, periodical articles, and other "non-theological" sources from uneducated pietists in early nineteenth-century American Christianity, he would have found that the dichotomy on which his book is based is a caricature, and he would have had to retool the way he explains the "Princetonian" and "Fundamentalist" reliance on "Enlightenment categories."

One more thing that I found disappointing from a scholar of Grenz's magnitude. In discussing the "Neo-Evangelical movement," he said that "some in the movement" held to the dictation theory of biblical inspiration, yet he didn't go on to cite any sources. This is just irresponsible.

I am sympathetic to some of the proposals Grenz made in the final chapter of his book, particularly about ecclesiology, and I do think we must reckon with postmodernism. Yet, I think we must get our account of just how modernism impacted evangelicalism beyond caricatures and easy dichotomies if we are to understand how to forge a viable evangelical theological witness in a postmodern context. ... Read more

Product Description
Renewing the Center has been an influential catalyst for many in the emerging church. With a new foreword by Brian McLaren and a new afterword from John Franke, the second edition updates the book for the contemporary church scene and shows how Stanley Grenz's theological insights continue to shape postmodern church movements.

In this book, Grenz challenges evangelical Christians to take stock of their faith and its relationship to the world around them. According to the author, "The postmodern condition calls Christians to move beyond a polarity that knows only the categories of 'liberal' and 'conservative' and thus pits so-called conservatives against loosely-defined liberals. The way forward is for evangelicals to take the lead in renewing a theological 'center' that can meet the challenges of the postmodern--and in some sense post-theological--situation in which the church now finds itself."

Grenz begins with a historical survey, considering the influence of two major strands within evangelicalism. He goes on to sketch a creative vision for a renewed evangelical theology that faces the intellectual challenges of its time. He further envisions an "evangelical center" through the establishment of a "generous orthodoxy" that enables the church to fulfill its mission in the world.

Renewing the Center is an important book for professors and students of theology, pastors, and church leaders. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Appreciation and critique of postmodernism in theology
Stanley Grenz, Renewing The Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000)

Grenz articulates a fresh evangelical theology for our transitional time. He describes the history of evangelicalism through to current post-evangelical and charismatic influence. He calls Christians to move beyond any polarities of liberals and conservatives to a renewed `center' that can address the needs of post-modern (and perhaps post-theological) context. (`Post-theological' is not to diminish theology in itself but to recognise the emerging non-academic, non-huge-systematic-foundationalist text based approach to theology.) He articulates a belief mosaic for our times, champions a move towards Trinitarian local theologies, explores the place of science and other religions, and emphasises the role of the gathered community and their witness. Thus rather than bemoaning postmodernity and its influence on theology, he calls for a critical appropriation of postmodern insights in the evangelical theological task.

Originally reviewed in Darren Cronshaw `The Emerging Church: Spirituality and Worship Reading Guide.' Zadok Papers S159 (Autumn 2008).

caving in to postmodernism
This is a book that reveals the breadth of what has become "evangelicalism" and reveals the degree to which evangelicals have capitualted to postmodernism to their own detrement.For example, Grenz on how we respond to other religions reaches the startling conclusion that our answer will come from the question: "Which theologising community articulates an interpretive framework that is able to provide the transcendent vision for the construction of the kind of world that the particular community itself is in fact seeking?"(p281).Clearly each religious community believes that its own vision is the best way to produce the kind of community it desires - but the question remains, who or what decides whether any goal or approach that pertains to any particular community is valid or superior to another?Without any obvious recourse to objective Truth (i.e. the revelation of Scripture) we are left helpless and only able to offer "well it works for me" apologetic.Grenz's reluctance to talk in Truth categories risks producing a "Christianity" that is so far removed from that of the New Testament as to be unrecognisable. It is right that Christians engage with our postmodern world and seek to understand it and respond to it - but this response causes me great concern.

Read it and decide about the premises for yourself
I write this to encourage you to look beyond the only customer review this far. For example, start by simply clicking above to view all of the editorial reviews of this book. Many good minds have commended it to you.

I'd hate to see you decide not to read this book based on one other person's conclusions. I happen to disagree with him about the 'faulty historical premises', 'fallacies', 'tired old dichotomy' and 'caricatures'. But this is not the place to argue that. If you don't have your mind made up in agreement with that critic about this one, basic premise, then I encourage you to read the book and then decide what you think.

Intriguing, but based on faulty historical premises
This is a well-written and intriguing book that ultimately fails to deliver on its promise to provide a way to renew the theological center. The book's proposals are based on well-worn phrases that caricature nineteenth- and twentieth-century evangelicalism. Grenz is still pushing the old fallacy we saw as far back as the 1970s in books like Theodore Dwight Bozeman's book on Scottish Common Sense and Baconianism. That fallacy is this: intellectual types like the Princetonians were the only ones who believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. Pietists in the Anabaptist and holiness and other anti-Calvinist movements did not buy this Enlightenment line until the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy, when they felt intimidated by the liberals and higher critics into casting their lot with the Fundamentalists, thereby taking shelter in that movement.

The implication of this is that tired old dichotomy that evangelicalism can be divided into doctrinaire and pietist wings. But things are not that uncomplicated and neat. There is an apparently neglected body of research that shows all manner of pietists, Anabaptists, holiness, Arminians, Restorationists, Mormons, etc., etc., who held strong notions of propositional revelation and the inerrancy of the autographs before the the Princetonians had time to have an impact on the intellectual landscape of American Christianity. Grenz's data is very obviously based on secondary sources, and then they are the best known historical works, rather than scholarly articles or monographs that provide counterevidence to the thesis on which his book is based (intellectualism vs. pietism).

I realize that the wisdom he appeals to is quite conventional (e.g., Calvinist Joel Carpenter's assertion that inerrancy is not the kind of category that Wesleyans related to, etc.), yet if he had probed beneath the surface, even reading sermons, periodical articles, and other "non-theological" sources from uneducated pietists in early nineteenth-century American Christianity, he would have found that the dichotomy on which his book is based is a caricature, and he would have had to retool the way he explains the "Princetonian" and "Fundamentalist" reliance on "Enlightenment categories."

One more thing that I found disappointing from a scholar of Grenz's magnitude. In discussing the "Neo-Evangelical movement," he said that "some in the movement" held to the dictation theory of biblical inspiration, yet he didn't go on to cite any sources. This is just irresponsible.

I am sympathetic to some of the proposals Grenz made in the final chapter of his book, particularly about ecclesiology, and I do think we must reckon with postmodernism. Yet, I think we must get our account of just how modernism impacted evangelicalism beyond caricatures and easy dichotomies if we are to understand how to forge a viable evangelical theological witness in a postmodern context. ... Read more

Product Description
Offers parents of children with disabilities inspiration and advice from those who've been there

Reflections from a Different Journey presents 40 stories by successful adults who grew up with disabilities. They provide insights into what it is like to persevere in the face of community prejudices, and what it takes for families and children with disabilities to work together toward fulfillment.

While there are many books for parents on raising a child with a disability, this is the first to help them learn from people with disabilities, and to help children face the unique challenges and rewards of growing up with a disability. Reflections from a Different Journey will also encourage and inspire older children and adults with disabilities, other family members, and education and health care professionals who serve these families. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Unique and compassionate
As the mother of a 33 year-old son with spina bifida, I have read hundreds of books over the years about disability and parenting issues, many of them quite useful. But this book--comprised of the diverse voices of a large variety of adults with disablities and chronic conditions--hit home in ways that other books haven't. To learn from the point of view of the grown-up child is really fascinating. Several of the writers expressed extreme gratitude for their parents, but some wrote longingly about not being listened to, or heard, as children. Quite a few incorporated the theme of "Honesty is the best policy" into their essays: a favorite quote of mine is "Be open and honest with your children in all aspects of their lives, from the most trivial to the major ones." The personal stories and writing styles vary, so I was never bored. This is a compassionate and much-needed book, and I hope it finds a very wide audience. Highly recommended. Mary Lee Moser, author,There and Back: A Journal Companion for Special Needs Parents

Must read for parents of children who struggle with disabilities of any kind!
I have learned alot from reading this book! As a parent of a teenager with a disability, I often wonder if I am doing everything possible to help her reach her full potential. This book is helpful as it it a voice from different adults who have had disabilities since childhood and how their families impacted their future in both positive and negative ways. I highly recommend this book!

Good challenge for parents and families
As a parent of a child with a disability, this book challenged my "over protective-ness" and helped me see things the way my child may see them.The insight given is amazing, and has assisted me to see that my child can do more than even I give him credit for.A must read for parents!

I have been looking for a book like this!
This book is a collection of personal narratives by adults with a variety of disabilities.As the parent of a child with cerebral palsy, reading these stories is a great experience.I have absolutely no doubt that my son will be a happy, loved, employed adult - but at the back of my mind is always the question of "are we making the right choices."It is really hard to balance all the "work" that comes with the territory of CP (physical therapy, OT, medical appointments, etc.) with the "play" part of being a child - and it helps to read stories of grownups on the other side.I recommend this book highly.

Well Done!
Fantastic book for those who live with disability and those who don't. Truly a masterful tool in helping the nondisabled understand what it means to live with a disability and know that we are NORMAL people. At a time when most books tell the story of a disabled person for them Mr. Klein has done an excellent job in letting the authors speak for themselves. A must have for parents and families raising children with special needs. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (46)

A true masterpiece
Some troubledom just figured that if you allow for every codder and shiggy and appleofmyeye a space one foot by two you could stand us all on the six hundred forty square mile surface of the island of Zanzibar.

John Brunner is the type of author that you should be careful with. His work could be easily divided into different periods, and not all of those are equally good. However, there is no question of quality when it comes to his cycle of catastrophic SF books. Stand on Zanzibar is a colossal work - both literally, and figuratively. Completely revolutionizing the stylistic conventions of SF, it is one of the most significant pieces of dystopian fiction I've ever read, and a shining example of the many ways New Wave reinvented the genre.

Forty-year old predictions are rarely any good, and when you reach the year of an SF novel's "distant future", it is easy to smirk at the author's naivete. Not so in this case. Even if Brunner's vision did not come entirely true, the patterns he saw decades before mostly anyone else, are undeniable. And we can't really smirk at Stand on Zanzibar without the little nagging feeling that its prediction is just biding its time.

The year is 2010 and the world has gone crazy. Population has long since passed the seven billion mark, and the twenty first century is a whirlwind of hysteria. Computers on the verge of becoming AI take humanity's decisions for it, drugs are legal and used by everyone; politics are done through assassination in the shadows, and scientists burn incense to appease volcanoes. People could turn into mass murderers with no reason whatsoever, while simply crossing a street, commercials are all over the place and Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere have your faces and speak with your voices while taking you through your TV to places where you could never go in the real world. And as every advanced country has accepted laws for genetic purity that deny anyone with hereditary diseases the right to reproduce, and tensions between the superpowers constantly escalate into armed conflicts, two small countries focus the world's attention on themselves.

Beninia is a fictional African country that should have been assimilated by its more powerful neighbors, but for some reason hasn't been. And even though it is poor and underdeveloped, there are no internal conflicts there, while the rest of the world devours itself. Meanwhile The Enlightened Democracy of Yatakang (another fictional country, possibly cover for Indonesia) makes a startling announcement - a break-through in genetic engineering that could change the world forever.

The pacing of the story is slow and measured, but the plot is just one of many devices that John Brunner uses to paint the mad reality of a world where people are packed so close to each other that they've reverted to a state of neo-barbarism that I am pretty sure wasn't nearly as plausible in 1968 as it is today. Stand on Zanzibaris as much a warning as it is a prediction, and a disquieting quantity of elements from its monstrous reality are all too easy to recognize in our own. The author has been meticulous with every detail of his world. The book is written in an entirely fictional slang - a mirror of the hysterically fast day-to-day lives of the people in this dark twenty first century. Every other word is a combination of two longer ones. Everything is shortened, simplified, mass-produced, a tool for word-games. "Bastard" is no longer an insult, but "Bleeder" is - there is no greater fear than being found to have a hereditary disease. Drugs are so widely used, that everyone is "out of" or "in orbit", depending on whether some form of communication has been achieved.

The panoramic view of Stand on Zanzibar's world shows us a number of social phenomena. There are the "shiggies" - a class of women that have no home of their own (living space is now the greatest luxury and even the richest could rarely afford an apartment of their own) but change partners and live with them. Tobacco is no longer used, but marihuana is legal and more widely used than tobacco ever has been. But the most frightening example of Brunner's dystopian society are the "muckers". Derived from "amock", the word is used to describe people who couldn't stand the pressure and rhythm of their lives. When they break, they turn into mindless berserkes, killing sometims tens of people before being killed themselves. Even without the muckers, the world is filled with terrorists and saboteurs, often wreaking havoc and destruction just for the heck of it, as a hobby. Humanity's drive for self-destruction, fueled by something as simple as lack of space, is one of the most powerful points of the book, and one of the most horrifying.

Meanwhile, back at planet Earth, it would no longer be possible to stand everyone on the island of Zanzibar without some of them being over ankles in the sea.

Stand on Zanzibar's most interesting quality, however, is the structure. Its chapters are more or less equally divided between four completely different categories, but mixed together and following no distinguishable order. Each chapter starts with the label of its category and there are four separate contents for each, although reading them separately seems to me to be completely pointless.

continuity is the main story-arc that follows the few "main" characters of the book and the events around the countries of Beninia and Yatakang. Although Brunner isn't overly concerned with character development, the protagonists are still fully developed and believable. The story itself is nothing special and on its own wouldn't merit any attention. Good thing it's not on its own.

context gives us background information on Stand on Zanzibar's world through different means - news snippets, articles, book excerpts or interviews with various people.

tracking with closeups follows little story-lines that have n influence over the continuity line (although a few tracking characters appear there in minor roles), but give broader view of Brunner's Earth of 2010. Almost none of the lines appear in more than two tracking chapters, and yet characters are just as fleshed-out as those in continuity.

the happening world is possibly the most innovative and atmospheric part of Stand on Zanzibar. It is also the hardest to digest. It follows context's idea, but goes to the extreme. Each happening world chapter is a seemingly random collection of little pieces of commercials, messages, word-games, songs or other symbols of this new world. Brunner plays a lot with rhythm in those parts of the book and combines different snippets in monolithic walls of text, changing the source faster and faster until every word comes from a different place and the reader feels like his or her head is about to explode.

Stand on Zanzibar uses those four drastically different ways to offer its content, but all of them are united under the single purpose of world-building. The effect is so powerful, that at times I wanted to close the book just to catch my breath. The psychic intensity of the novel could actually be partly a weak point. The information overload is intentional, but that doesn't make it any less... well, overloading. This is not a book you read in huge chunks. It is just too intense for that.

That said, Stand on Zanzibar is still extremely engaging. It pulls you in and never lets go, even when you want to take a break from its psychedelic, self-destructing world. True, it is a bit outdated - computers haven't been taking up whole rooms for decades, and we're halfway through 2010 already - but Brunner's tale of an inverted apocalypse is still so shockingly plausible and compelling, so thought-provoking and unsettling in its accuracy, not to mention so darn well written, that it fully deserves a place in SFF's hall of fame.

10/10


[...]

Takes place in 2010 in an over populated world
Interesting to read a book that takes place this year with one President of a small African country with a name uncannily similar to the current US President!Be that as it may, this is a tough read until you grasp that much of the content is simply there to set the stage for this society where population numbers are extreme and drugs are there for everyone and for every ailment and cloning is a possibility.Although written in the sixties, much is valid today and the ideas and predictions do resonate somewhat (advertising is everywhere, for instance).The plot is scattered among all the little chapters that provide context, and this is somewhat irritating, although the writing does hold one's interest.Only read if you like Brunner in general and have the time to devote to this work!

Too little time and too much book
I've attempted to wade through this tome several times over the years. Although my home has so many books that it's almost a library, this book has defeated all my attempts, although I love to read.

It reminds me of the required reading books from both high school and college - it's both ponderous (maybe endless) and depressing, and it's also a great way to put oneself to sleep. A book that doesn't start until you've read 100 pages has a problem.

Still a Classic and Still Worth Reading
Sure it's frequently called a classic science fiction novel, but it's also one of that variety that can date horribly fast:the near future novel.Is it still worth reading 40 years later?On the whole, yes.

The novel surprises for what it isn't.For a novel with the reputation ofbeing about overpopulation, it doesn't have the squalid and packed future of Harry Harrison's classic (if extrapolatively dishonest) Make Room! Make Room!.There isn't a lot of mention of scarce commodities.Technology continues to develop.Wars continue to be fought.New entertainment media still is invented.The effects of overpopulation mainly seem to be an extensive adoption of worldwide government eugenics programs to ensure only the healthy procreate and the appearance of "muckers", people driven into mass killing sprees by the pressures of overcrowded living.And, from the author who went on to write the famous polluted dystopia of The Sheep Look Up, there is little talk about the effects of overpopulation on pollution.

The plots involving the main characters are pretty straightforward.Hogan, a seeming layabout who spends all day reading, is activated as a spy.The American government wants him to discredit or stop the announced program of the Yakatang government to edit human genes.It fears the population pressures resulting from the millions, denied the right to reproduce, suddenly allowed to via gene editing.House, an angry, young black executive (and, in this future, living space is expensive enough where even corporate executives have to share apartments) gets put in charge of his company's collaboration with the American government to bootstrap the poor African country of Beninia into prosperity, protect it from its neighbors, and use it to process ore from deep sea mines.Along the way, he has to find out why the impoverished Beninia is so lacking in the social pathologies of wealthier countries.Oddly, their stories lag a bit at times when, in the second half of the book, they arrive, respectively, in Yakatang and Beninia.

Like Brunner's literary model, John Dos Passos' U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money (Library of America), the joy and interest of the book is when the focus is off the main characters.Their lives are covered in the Continuity chapters.Brunner alternates those chapters with others labeled Context (usually news reports), The Happening World (a scattershot of vignettes and quotes from books, ads, and tv as well as just brief statements of fact about the world and variouscharacters),and Tracking with Closeups (following several minor characters and their lives).To my mind, this Dos Passos technique is perhaps the most dramatic, interesting, and effective expository method a science fiction writer can use to show off his world building.

And there is an impressive amount of world building.I suspect that Brunner's serious look at the possibilities of genetic engineering (allowing for changes in terminology, they seem pretty accurate predictions) and pheromones was among the first in science fiction.The man who is credited with inventing the computer worm in the The Shockwave Rider gives us the beginnings of artificial intelligence and sort of an internet service (asking questions of an automated service via phone of an automated service).

Some of that world building, though, is bound to be dated and especially so given its origin in the 1960s.Like so many other authors of the time, he thought the future would hold many new and bizarre art forms.Instead, the computer game is really the only new art form of the last 40 years. His picture of Communist China was too kind, his opinion of the tractability of African problems too kind. He thinks too much of Marshal McLuhan.

Critic John Clute has contended every novel has three dates:when it was written, when it was set, and the year it's really about.Brunner's style makes this novel enjoyable even though it's now more a time machine back to the late sixties than any credible view of the future.But it is a glorious example of a technique still not used enough by writers.

And Brunner was smart enough to know what his novel's ultimate fate would be.There's a scene at a party where the fashions from the late sixties until the novel's year of 2010 are closely described.I like to think Brunner was brazenly rubbing it in that he wasn't trying to be a true prophet, that he was going out of his way to risk looking silly someday - and was going to proceed anyway.

Stand on Zanzibar
Was very happy with the service I received and the fast delivery. Gave the book as a gift and the receipent was very happy. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (9)

Great content, yet incomplete...
Drawn & Quarterly (much like Fantagraphics) has championed artists rights and the artistic merits of cartooning/comic books since they came into existence. So how in the world could they think leaving the covers out of this collection is a good idea? It seems like a DC/Marvel decision to me. No real historical text about Stanley, the comics industry at that point or the importance of the Melvin character in general. The cover and design (by Seth) are handsome, but sorely lacking without the covers and other stuff mentioned. D&Q similarly dropped the ball on the Nancy collection. Please D&Q, get on the ball with the remainder of this series!!!

great! but one problem
Memories came flooding back. As a child I just loved Melvin Monster. But a huge part of that love and fun were all the funny little side jokes and I think, pseudo ads. It was a long time ago but I recall quite vividly quirky little side bits like monster recipes and funny words to familiar tunes . I may have been confused with other comics of that era but I was truly certain it was Melvin Monster, yet there were no such joke sections in this first publication. Does anyone else remember this???

aaah...Nostalgia
Several reviews have already informed us so much about Stanley and the place of Melvin in his work, I couldn't add more, but I wanted to add how much I enjoyed the quirky humor of these stories which will seem very "corny" to many readers today. I was even pleasantly pleased by the fact of the coloring being from the original pages, instead of updating it with modern techniques. Would it be cooler if they had the complete run in one volume (there were only nine original issues, and #10 was a reprint of #1), and the covers,Yeah, that would be nice. But would the market bear the price? At the Amazon price of $13 and change this is a great item, easy to handle while reading, unlike the "Absolute" editions, and has beautiful design by Seth.

You must be a monster to fit into a monstrous world...
This collection was a very pleasant surprise. I actually remember when these first issues of Melvin Monster were originally published. There was a heck of a lot of "funny monster" material back in the 60's- with a few rare exceptions most of it was pretty forgettable. But not Melvin. Looking back at these stories from a four decade perspective I think I know why they are so memorable. These aren't primarily monster stories, but are really stories of dysfunction and alienation. Don't get me wrong- these are extremely funny stories, it is just that the humor flows from deeper wellsprings...

First of all, Melvin's family is the perfect picture of dysfunction. There is "Baddy" who can barely contain his disappointment and rage at having a son like Melvin. Then there is bandaged, wounded, remote "Mummy" who goes along with "Baddy" and gives no real support. The family pet constantly dreams of killing and eating him, so there is no comfort there. Even his relationship with his cute little witch girl friend is essentially a masochistic one- Melvin is so starved for affection that he puts up with the abuse. Even his guardian demon can't remember his name.

Then there is the fact that monster society (which runs parallel to human society like a monster "ghetto") is absolutely at odds with all of Melvin's instincts. He tries to do what he feels is right and good but it is always condemned as weird and abnormal. The best example of this is the way all "real" monsters are expected to hate school and play hooky. Melvin on the other hand loves school and shows up everyday- only to be punished and scorned by the teacher.

He doesn't fare any better in human "bean" society either. While his impulses should win him admiration and respect, he is instead automatically rejected and feared simply for his appearance and the fact that he is a monster...

That's the whole thing about Melvin, he follows his instincts and tries to do good but he is everywhere and every time rejected by a sick, dysfunctional society that he never made. There were a lot of baby-boomers that could identify with that situation...

I wonder if there wasn't a lot of John Stanley in pointy-headed little Melvin. After all, he worked hard for most of his life to do his best work in an industry that neither appreciated nor adequately rewarded his efforts. In the end he became "Baddy" and could not contain his contempt and rage at the system- even rejecting his own creations.

One last thing- Stanley is often criticized for a lack of originality. Some say that his best work was in embellishing other people's creations. Well, these stories are purely original. They are so original that I didn't even recognized they were his work for many years- and even as a kid I could usually recognize most artist's work even if I didn't know their name. For instance, I could always spot his work on Little Lulu and Nancy. Come to think of it though, I probably should have made the connection between Melvin and Stanley's "Oona Goosepimple" work in Nancy. They share the same sort of weird, wonderful originality.

This also a well-designed book. The scan really does not do it justice. The silver lettering on a black background is sharp, as is the emerald green graphics by Seth. There is no jacket, it is all printed on the leatherette cover of the book. There is an especially nice large silver seal on the back cover for the John Stanley Library. Oh yes, this book also has more nice custom endpapers than I have ever seen on a single volume. The paper is thick and of good quality- there is no "yellowing"- any background coloration appears to be an exact reproduction from the original newsprint.

Monstrous Fun
The John Stanley Library from Montreal's Drawn and Quarterly has been the talk of 2009, as fans look forward with eager anticipation. The first volume, Melvin Monster, is out at last, after a 32 page teaser comic for Free Comic Book Day that was half Melvin/ half Nancy. That comic gave a pretty good preview of things to come. Like the Library, it was designed by Seth, who gave such a retro look to the Peanuts hardback sets The Complete Peanuts 1950-1954 Box Set. Unlike the Peanuts sets, however, the Melvin cover depicts a stylized design by Seth, rather than Stanley cover art.

Melvin Monster was published by Dell from 1965-1969. There were only ten issues, and the tenth is a reprint of the first. This hardback, color volume includes the first three comics, so there could be two more volumes to cover the entire run. However, unlike the Another Rainbow Little Lulu Library, you don't get the original comic covers, only the stories. There are about a hundred pages of color comics, printed on quality paper, but which looks like the original newsprint, in a handsome, library quality 11 X 8 inch hardback binding. Certainly more archival than the original comics.

Collectors will still likely want the original issues, as some of the covers, at least, have Stanley art. Everyone else may be wondering what's the big deal about John Stanley? In the realm of humorous kids' comics, he was simply without peer, and most of the exceptions one might name turn out to also be by him. The last page in this volume includes a brief bio, and he turns out to be the motive force behind not only Little Lulu and Melvin, but also Dell's Nancy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Woody Woodpecker, and a half dozen other titles. Not to mention his own teen comics, Thirteen Going on Eighteen, Dunc and Loo, and Kookie, in which he hit his stride, with a deft hand and easy style.

Melvin Monster is not to be confused with Atlas Comics' Melvin the Monster (Dexter the Demon), an offering in the mischievous kid genre, along with Marvel's Peter the Little Pest, neither of which were monster comics. Drawn and Quarterly lists Melvin Monster under "Comics and Graphic Novels/ Horror" but it could also be "humor", hailing as it does from the 'sixties, when the zany monster craze was at its height. Gold Key's The Little Monsters was another whimsical entry in the monster antics genre.

That said, Stanley's writing in Melvin is freewheeling, as few writers before or since, and his art style might be described as primitive. In the Halcyon days when Dell and Gold Key ruled the comics racks, however, it was merely perfect. What Stanley lacked in intricate artistry, he made up in vigor and verve. If this volume included the covers, I'd give it a five. That curious omission aside, here's the series Stanley fans have long waited for, and he may at last take his rightful place in comics history. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Chicago is universally recognized as the cradle of modern architecture. It is known worldwide for the development, beginning in the late 1800s, of the renowned "Chicago School" of commercial building. In the early 1900s, Chicago saw the birth of Wright's "Prairie School" of residential design, which gave rise to the modern, open-plan house we know today. Other world-renowned architects were also based in Chicago, such as Louis Sullivan, who designed the Chicago Stock Exchange, and Daniel Burnham, architect of the famous Rookery Building of the 1890s.

The 1940s were to see the completion of Mies van der Rohe's revolutionary Illinois Institute of Technology and his astonishing Lake Shore Drive apartment buildings. Skidmore Owings & Merrill'slandmark Inland Steel Building was finished in 1954, their John Hancock Center in 1970, and their Sears Tower in 1974. Philip Johnson and John Burgee's 190 South LaSalle Street office tower went up in 1987.

The 200 illustrations in this volume all come from The Art Institute of Chicago's repository of 150,000 architectural drawings, vintage photographs, models, and building fragments, which comprise one of the most important such archives. These illustrations reveal interiors and details that give us a greater appreciation of Chicago in particular and architecture in general. With its definitive text, the book is a striking record of Chicago's great buildings and will be an important reference on the subject for years to come.
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Customer Reviews (3)

perfect gift
I bought this huge, beautifully bound and photographed volume of chicago architecture for my uncle, a transplanted native of chicago.He misses his city greatly- and loved this.It was perfect.

Gorgeous, impressive, a little frustrating
As a survey of many of the best-known examples of Chicago school architecture, replete with handsomely large reproduction of photos and (the real treat) often dazzling architectural drawings (Walter Burley Griffin's for a tract development in Iowa is especially lovely), there's a lot to admire about this book, and it deserves a place on many coffee tables.

Still, the title says "Chicago school architecture," which means that architecture that belongs in the club of well-known Chicago architects is in, and architecture that stands out of that group is not.The result is that there's an awful lot of post-1950 glass and steel office buildings toward the end, few of which evidence any reason to love them (only Marina Towers, perhaps); while art deco gets short shrift (where's the beautifully detailed Powhatan in Hyde Park?Where's the Civic Opera?Where's the Chicago Motor Club?) and semi-obscure one-shots-- Louis Bourgeois' contemplative Bahai Temple in Wilmette, the stunning Arts and Crafts-era Carl Schurz High School on the northwest side-- get no attention.Indeed, apart from the occasional McDonald's, there's little sense that architecture means anything other than skyscrapers-- few retail buildings or restaurants, no factories, few churches, only one recent school, few private homes (although if you want that, you might as well go straight to the book on David Adler).By the last pages, it seems a collection of the buildings that architects keep trying to convince us we should like, and we won't, any more than we'll all go around humming Schoenberg.Buy it for the first half, and for the beguilingly beautiful draftsmanship of early 20th century renderings above all.

Another tour de force on architecture from Rizzoli
If you are visiting Chicago an el ride around the Loop will transport you through 100 years of architectural history in about 20 minutes. Chicago is a living architecture museum always in flux; new buildings are added to the skyline, old ones re-imagined and re-used, whole neighborhoods rising from decades of urban decay. Daniel Burnham, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mies Van der Rohe all left their imprint on the city and contemporary masters such as Helmut Jahn, Frank Geary, and Rem Koolhaas, are shaping the Chicago of today.

For those attracted to architecture Masterpieces of Chicago Architecture is another tour de force from Rizzoli. Masterpieces of Chicago Architecture presents the first 100 vibrant years of built and un-built projects by the masters and their disciples. Generously illustrated with more than 200 photos, illustrations, models, and plans, from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.The authors and curators of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago add thoughtful commentary and unique insights on the city to bring the past, present and future together in one glorious package. Chicago is the leading force in American building trends and to understand where Chicago is going is to understand something about the future. ... Read more

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"?Monsieur is easy to swindle?when he plays with a mirror behind him ? I answered tartly." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Swashbuckling Adventure
A swashbuckling adventure written in the first person, this is a wonderful and exciting story taking place in the France of Louis XIII, and Cardinal Reichleu.De Berault, the main character, is a notorious duellist.He is arrested for for killing a man in a duel, despite the Cardinal's eddict against duelling.He is given a choice, either he hangs, or works as an agent for the Cardinal. Guess which he chooses... ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (36)

THE SHEEP LOOK UP
THE BOOK WAS WRITTEN IN THE EARLY 70'S AS A NOVEL.BUT HOW VERY PROPHETIC IT IS. THE THINGS IT REFERS TO SUCH AS; SUPER POLLUTION OF OUR AIR , WATER AND ENVIRONMENT IN GENERAL AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUPERBUGS THAT ARE ANTIBITIC RESISTANT.THIS AUTHOR WAS REALLY SPOT ON.THE VENDOR I ORDER FROM HAD THE BOOK IN MY HANDS IN A MARVELOUSLY SHORT TIME.WELL DONE AMAZON AFFILIATE, WELL DONE. THOROUGHLY SATISFIED WITH THIS PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.

The Sheep Look Up, by John Brunner
First read Brunner's The Sheep Look Up when it came out in 1972.It was cutting edge back then when the world he wrote about was only a prediction of what we may be faced with.Today, nearly 40 years later...in only 40 years...we stand at the precipice of Brunner's "future" world where everything from the food we eat to the air we breathe is making us sick and our world "leaders" are anything but.An excellent read; more timely now than when it was first written.

Read this book!
I am SO glad this book is available again! Years ago I found it in a second hand shop and since then I have been looking for it everywhere, in order to be able to give it to other readers.

When you start reading, please be patient. The first 60 pages or so, you probably won't understand what it's all about. Then, suddenly, you will realize you are 'in' the story, and that the prime character is... humankind as a whole. This is rather shocking, because individuals you thought to be very important may die or vanish, and others may fill their niches, just as in real life. And, just as in real life, don't expect a happy end. Although the details may be dated, the overall story is still as valid as ever.

This is one of the most intelligent books I ever read. I welcome it back, and will order several specimen at once!

A powerful vision of an unlikely future.Read it with relief and amusement.
Let me start by saying that I enjoyed this book.The fast-paced and unmerciful brutality of the story brings the horrible future to life in a frankly scary way.The choppy an abbreviated structure of the book provides a sense of panic as far too much is happening much too fast, just as Brunner intended.While the characters are empty shells, their horrifying experiences give this story the power to scare.This is the first Brunner book I've read, and I have to say I was impressed by his style and power.I hope to check out his other work sometime soon.

As I made my way through this book, most of what I felt was relief and amusement.Relief that this vision (or anything close to it) has not come true.Think about the very worst possible ecological and environmental situation the world could be in, and the vision Brunner presents here is probably worse than that.Air and water are poison, disease is the norm, Earth is unstable, super-pests have us confounded, and society has regressed.Thank God, none of these things have come true.I felt amusement because Brunner (and many people of the time) really did believe that this was the future.And, they saw this future coming before 1980!Almost 40 years after this book was written, it is fair to say that we have made positive progress.While I understand that the dawning of realization about ecology and environmentalism that occurred in the 60's and 70's profoundly impacted many people, I can't help feeling somewhat amused by the mortal fear and hysteria which people had for the future.Brunner and many of of his readers would have never believed that the world would be as beautiful today as it is.

What really surprised me was looking through the other Amazon reviews before I got ready to write my own.Nearly everyone seems to think Brunner's vision has come true or is just about to.Statements like:

"I think we're doomed"

"..much scarier because it is closer to the way it really is. Read it and weep."

"All of these ... visions of the future have come true."

"Scariest ... predictions about the future environment are correct."

"It is still coming"

Is it just that the people who tend to read this book are still convinced that the world is crumbling around them?Are these people who just cannot accept that positive gains have been made?Do they not believe that the air is cleaner now than when this book was written?Or that more attention and awareness of the environment are prevalent around the world than ever before?Or that resources and protections are being placed (with great success) on endangered animals that nearly went extinct in the 70's but are now on the road to recovery?Or that we now live in a more affluent society, with more people being more successful than ever before?Or any number of ways that life is better now than when this book was written?I suspect that most of these people have lived their lives with the constant feeling of impending doom.Reading books like this only help them justify their impulses of fear.

I am not trying to say that we shouldn't continue to be concerned about the environment or about the future of mankind on Earth, but at least let's acknowledge than in many respects, things are looking up.Thank God they haven't turned out the way Brunner predicted in this book!I encourage people to read this book.It is an exciting and scary story that is well told in a vivid way.And keep in mind that while it may come across as seeming ridiculous now, it was written as (and taken as) a very serious warning to the world.Might help give you some insight into the thinking of radical environmentalists even today.The future used to scare the [poop] out of some people, and visions like this help us see why.

The version of this book I read (published 2004) contained an afterward by a noted environmentalist.It followed along the same lines of most of the Amazon reviews here, supporting the myth that Brunner's vision has come true.It also celebrated the encouragement this book has given the more radical wings of the environmentalist movement (think planting bombs in Hummer dealerships), and gleefully noted the similarity (in his mind) between our former President Bush and the figurehead Prexy.Finally, it lambasted the field of crop genetic engineering with a fear mongering tirade sure to turn off anyone with real knowledge of the field.A poor choice for an afterward, left a very negative impression on me, and partially ruined this otherwise enjoyable book.

fantabulous book, a must read for modern times
Anybody living today can relate to this book.All of John Brunner's work is amazing but this one is particularly on point.I read it a number of years ago and reread it about every three to five years.It does not get less true over time.
highly recommend ... Read more

Product Description
Noted publicly for such films as Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining, among others, privately Stanley Kubrick lives in seclusion. Now biographer John Baxter breaks through the mystique to reveal the man behind the movies, timed to coincide with the release of Kubrick's latest film--Eyes Wide Shut. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Vampiric Baxterization
Skip this one!
Like a deaf dumb and blind troll attempting to describe why he thinks Rodin's The Thinker aint so great.
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the real Stanley Kubrick will quickly suss out what a snarky gossipy little twit this author is.

Distortions, misquotes, anecdotes taken out of context -- every chapter larded withLord Baxter's porky opinion masquerading as enlightened analysis.
Cinema parasitism at its worst.
Baxter should stick with Page 6 trash at the Daily Mail.

Never thought I'd ever be sympathetic with Ken Russell, but noticing
that he's already suffered this same sort of Baxterization gives me pause.

Enigma
Stanley Kubrick was an enigma of a man.Because of the secrecy that shrouded his life, there is much that fans of his work may never know.John Baxter's work is gives insight mostly into Kubrick's films and their creation.

Baxter's first two chapters seem irrelevant and tedious in the scope of the book.They only serve to allow Baxter to praise Kubrick's work.After these chapters, we are introduced to Stanley's growth and development in films.Kubrick's early films which he thought were bad in hindsight, show his growth and experimentation.Going through his other films, I found the chapters which discussed "A Clockwork Orange" and "2001" to be the best presented.This is adventageous because these are his best loved films.

I believe that it was merciful for "Eyes Wide Shut" to be given so little coverage since Kubrick never truly was able to put his final stamp on the film.He tinkered with work often up until days before its release.Aside from his horrid choice of actors, his death left this work unfinished.

Kubrick's idiosincrisies, including his fear of cars, flying, and distrust for machines, are discussed in the book.While they may seem irrevelant, these discussions help us to know who Kubrick was.The discussions are no more irrelevant than some sections of the book which talk about events regarding his movies that have little to do with the overall picture.Also, I felt it was unnecessary to go into discussion of every script he rejected.Some ideas he rejected to quickly to be important enough to mention.

I was grateful that Baxter mentioned "Artificial Intelligence", being developed by Kubrick.Fans are curious as to how his final script may have looked.I am certain that it would have been better than Speilberg's.

A Suetonian Biography!
Uncompromising to Stanley Kubrick, STANLEY KUBRICK: A BIOGRAPHY (c.1997) by John Baxter, is a first order inquiry which took the Suetonian view towards biography and depicted its subject as a gelid autuer director motivated by an obsessive/compulsive need to control his environment in order to materialize his artistic vision on film. John Baxter focused on the opinions, observations, and views of those who worked for Stanley Kubrick; and also those who claimed to have been alienated by him.

Apparently following the advice of former British prime minister Lloyd George when that prime minister stated:"All biographies should be written by an acute enemy", John Baxter picked up on every error, mistake, and indecision of Stanley Kubrick in the course of his career. This gave Stanley Kubrick a historical perspective which included a somewhat realistic account of the man behind some of America's most influential motion pictures ever produced.

Yet biography is not history and John Baxter's work contained some obvious logical and historic errors as when he included a photograph indicating actress Ms. Suzanne Christiane as Kubrick's future second wife; or in his bibliography giving Vincent LoBrutto's book of Kubrick a copyright of 1996- yet in Lobrutto's work, the T.P. verso indicated 1997 as the copyright.

Kubrick's intelligence, or motive, was also brought into question by John Baxter as he included in his book an explanation of Kubrick's compulsive notetaking by erudite British actress Ms. Adrienne Corri that "All this notetaking is just a way of accumulating what other people know" and also, "He (Kubrick) was not an intelligent or a curious man". But one need only to have seen in 1968 the premeire of'2001: A Space Odyssey' in 'Cinerama' (with the wrap-around screen) to be convinced that there was a brilliance behind its direction. But Baxter alluded to brilliance only in the sense of a Bobby Fischer or of a Thomas Edison - that is, brilliant in a limited and focused capacity.

While John Baxter's bibliography on Stanley Kubrick included some obvious short-comings to the careful reader, it also contained some undeniable eyewitness observations of the subject's character.

A good book to read in accompany with John Baxter's view is: 'STANLEY KUBRICK: A Biography'(c.1997) by Vincent LoBrutto, which gives a kinder Plutarchian view of its subject. It would be advantageous to also read: 'STANLEY KUBRICK: A Life In Pictures' (c. 2002) by Mrs. Suzanne Kubrick, with her objective collection of mostly black & white Kubrick photographs, mostly shot in his studios.

With new information appearing all the time, the definitive biography on Stanley Kubrick has yet to be written (there are 400 biographies on Mahatma Ghandi) and both John Baxter and Vincent LoBrutto's account are good starting points on the life of Stanley Kubrick.

Enjoyable read for non-expert movie lovers.
Helps you realize why you love Kubrick, if you can read between the lines and if you don't get fixated on the tales of Kubrickophobism. While entertaining, they are not all that the book is about. The author does not present Kubricks work in 5-syllable Aestheto-socio-philosophical terms, nor does he fuss about the geometrical aspects of panning and scanning, yet he encourages you to re-visit Kubrick, and multiply your viewing experince!

Not a text book, for sure!

A look at the man, not the movies
Not being a Kubrick fundi and not knowing all that much about the man behind the (enormous) myth, I found this book readable and interesting.I have to agree that it does not contain much in the way of analysis of Kubrick's movies, but that is probably not what the author had set out to do.It would have been a colossal and much less accessible work had he dealt at length with each of the movies.

What I cannot understand is the reaction of some of the reviewers, saying that the author was intent on crucifying Kubrick.That was certainly not my impression when I read the book, but then I do not regard Kubrick as per se a wonderful person becasue he made acclaimed movies.He comes across as a much warmer and more human person than I expected, give his reclusive lifestyle, but also as someone who had some flaws, like an inability to start and finish projects.And that is also what was said about him after his death, so I think Baxter is maybe not that far off the mark in his portrayal. ... Read more

Product Description
Seen as merely a thought experiment for over a century, the space elevator is now understood to be achievable in our foreseeable future. It promises to open up the Solar System to all of humanity, and this book gives you a peek at that future.Interweaving both science fiction stories involving the space elevator along with non-fiction articles on the basic technical, financial, legal, social and political issues surrounding the space elevator, this book will give you an entertaining and informative crash course in the space elevator.After reading this book, you will understand both why we want to build a space elevator as well as how it will be built. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Space on my book shelf
If you are into the science, technology and engineering of a (potentially) real space elevator, you might find this book a waste of your time and money. I did. For current, up to date information the "Space Elevator Blog" and the world wide web in general are the only places to look. If you want to read some (fairly weak) science fiction, this book might suffice but don't get your hopes up too high.

Love it!
I love this book. I'm interested in space projects and science fiction. This was a great combination of fact and fiction. Both informative and entertaining. It's great for the laymen. You don't need to know much about space technology to understand and enjoy this book.

Doorway to planets and stars
A terrific overview of the various steps needed to build the space elevator.Can't wait to see it happen.Hope it's soon.

A project to change our future
This collection of fact and fiction centers on the proposal by a startup company, Liftport, to create a new way to get into space: an elevator. The idea is not new, and the specific means they propose to do it has been discussed in technical papers; nevertheless this is likely the first popularly accessible book that describes the new near-term practicalities of construction, operation, and business for such a system. Liftport plans to get their first elevator up and running before 2020, and this book describes how they may just be able to do that.

The format of the book is a collection of independent essays (the factual portions) and stories, some of which are reprinted from separate novels (by Arthur C. Clarke, David Brin, and Charles Sheffield) and the rest seem to have been specifically written for this collection. The quality of the fiction is rather variable; unfortunately some of the authors would perhaps have benefited from reading the technical sections, as some details are rather jarringly wrong. For example, the "Hermit of the Skies" would not plummet and burn up from the top station, but would be thrown out away from the planet - that's sort of the whole point. In "High Space", you can't be in orbit 300 miles above Earth's surface and stay over one spot - you have to be going a lot slower than orbital speeds. And the troposphere is the lowermost portion of Earth's atmosphere, not what you would hit first on the way down! But of course the technical details aren't the central point of the stories, so maybe it's silly to be picky about it.

The longest fiction section, "The Rings of Earth", by William H. Keith, is among the best of the contributed stories. The vision it paints, of a future Earth-bound society knowing of "gods" above, and the stunning reality of the ending, is almost worth the price of the whole book.

The technical essays describe the project in good detail, though somewhat redundantly and at different levels. It would have helped if the editors had given the authors a better picture of what the other parts of the book would cover.I wrote (and donated) one of those essays, so I'm somewhat familiar with the way it worked - I have met a number of the authors in person as well.

The elevator physically consists of an anchor station on Earth's surface, a counterweight beyond geosynchronous orbit in space, and a strong ribbon connecting the two. A "lifter" climbs the ribbon; technical essays cover each of those components. Additionally, power to the lifter must be supplied without physical contact which would add precious mass - a power beaming system is described that could do the job. Construction steps and safety issues are also discussed.

The remaining essays discuss business, law, and political issues more than technology. How the elevator will make money, what it will do to the space launch business, is covered in several chapters. Who will have legal jurisdiction is one central question - from these essays it seems clear the United States will at the least have a strong claim, but inclusion of many international partners would probably be safest.

One of the applications that may be enabled by the cheaper space launch services the elevator will provide are solar power satellites. An essay here by Ralph Nansen discusses the enormous potential and environmental benefits from this alternative energy solution.

Finally, the Liftport staff call on all of us to "get involved" - including sponsoring a contest to win options on 1000 Liftport company shares. This book demonstrates the company has a potentially feasible plan to radically change the relationship between Earth and space - if they succeed it will change our future. Are you ready to join?

Interesting, even for a casual reader
I have no science degree and spend little time pondering space elevators, but the subject is interesting and this book is well organized.Different authors took specific topics and created one or two chapters each.Famous sames such as Kim Stanley Robinson contributed.I received this as a present prior to a week at the beach and enjoyed the book more than expected, flipping to chapters that interested me and skipping others.

By coincidence, I visited the Wright Brothers' museum near Kitty Hawk while on vacation.It is striking how rapidly air travel developed from the "cranks and weirdos" stage around 1900 to a substantive business.I do not know if the analogy translates, but you never know. ... Read more