At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Is there anything Bill Bryson isn't interested in? He moves from one subject to the next with equal amounts of genuine enthusiasm. And we're not talking about just the really remarkable stuff - a lot of what gets Bryson going seems quite mundane. Mousetraps, for instance. Once he has you hooked, you too realize that even mousetraps are pretty fascinating after all.

There's no point looking for a theme to At Home, even though it's nominally a social history of the home, specifically Bryson's home, a former rectory in Norfolk, built in 1851. Going from room to room is just an excuse for Bryson to expound on whatever he finds interesting. It might be best to take the book as a series of loosely connected magazine articles or short essays. You can skip around without losing the thread, because there isn't one.

Most of the history is Victorian, but there are side trips to the prehistoric Britain, 19th century America, and the recent past. This is not an academic book, so there are no footnotes, which is a shame. Although Bryson usually credits sources within the text, now and then he makes an outrageous statement without attribution. One that had me scrambling for some supporting evidence was a claim that Elizabeth I admired, then scooped some silverware into her purse at dinner in a nobleman's house while on her annual royal progress. Even more remarkable was a statement that one third of all women in London aged 15-25 in 1851 were prostitutes. Really?! After browsing through the lengthy and excellent bibliography, I found the instruction to go to Bryson's website for notes and sources, but found only that they are "coming soon."

Chances are you won't be interested in everything that takes Bryson's fancy, but no worry. If you find your attention waning during a discussion of furniture varnishes, it isn't long before he's off to vitamins or Thomas Jefferson's wine collection or Ötzi the Ice Man.

I'll admit that I might have skipped this book if Bryson's name wasn't on the cover, and wondered if it could have been published at all without his name and popularity. His early works are still my favorites, more or less in the order they were written. The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America still makes me laugh, so does Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, and Notes from a Small Island, and I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away (Notes from a Big Country). I expect I'll continue to read just about anything Bryson writes, but I have to agree with some other reviewers who look forward to his travel writing more than his excursions into weightier topics.

Fundamentals of Risk and Insurance

Product Description

This classic book presents a thorough and comprehensive introduction to the field of insurance while emphasizing the consumer. The new Tenth Edition first examines the concept of risk, the nature of the insurance device, and the principles of risk management. It then discusses the traditional fields of life and health insurance as solutions to the risks connected with the loss of income. And it deals with the risks associated with the ownership of property and legal liability.

From the Back Cover

Take no chances!  Learn about risk and insurance from the premier text.

Why learn about risk and insurance? You might be thinking of a career in the diverse and rewarding fields of risk management and insurance. If you plan on managing a business, you’ll need to know how to protect your organization from risk. And as an individual, you’ll want to make informed decisions about protecting yourself and your family with life, medical, home, auto, and many other kinds of insurance.

Whether you want to prepare for our career or simply become a more knowledgeable consumer, Vaughan and Vaughan’s Tenth Edition of Fundamentals of Risk and Insurance gives you a comprehensive, consumer-oriented introduction to the many facets of risk management and insurance.

The Tenth Edition presents the principles of risk management, summarizes the nature of pure risk on the individual and on society, and illustrates how insurance can be used to deal with the problems posed by such risk.  In addition to clear and engaging coverage of insurance principles and theory, you’ll walk away from this book with practical, how-to advice that will come in handy in both your professional and personal life.

NEW FEATURES

• Includes the changes to pension regulation introduced by the Pension Protection Act of 2006.
• Reflects changes to the Medicare program that were introduced by the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, including Medicare Part D.
• Updated discussion of the personal auto policy incorporates changes introduced in 2005.
• Incorporates changes in commercial lines forms, including the 2004 commercial general liability form, 2006 commercial crime program, and 2006 business owners policy.
• Revised to reflect the 2001 CSO mortality table.
• New discussions of enterprise risk management, insurance-linked securities, developments in auto insurance pricing and underwriting, and recent innovations in life and annuity products.

Historic Photos of Fort Worth

Review

The photography was tastefully compiled…the captions were brief, yet usually thorough enough in detail…I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to see what downtown Fort Worth looked like before 1965. --Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

Product Description

Fort Worth is an American city quintessentially founded upon change. From its birth to the present, Fort Worth has consistently built and reshaped its appearance, ideals, and industry. Through changing fortunes, Fort Worth has continued to grow and prosper by overcoming adversity and maintaining the strong, independent culture of its citizens.
Historic Photos of Fort Worth captures this journey through still photography selected from the finest archives. From the Texas Spring Palace to Armour and Swift, the Carnegie Library to the Casa Manana and Frontier Centennial, Historic Photos of Fort Worth follows life, government, education, and events throughout the city's history.
This volume captures unique and rare scenes through the lens of hundreds of historic photographs. Published in striking black and white, these images communicate historic events and everyday life of two centuries of people building a unique and prosperous city. 

 

 

The New Yorker Book of Lawyer Cartoons

I'm surprised at how small this collection is. Attorneys are such an inviting target for comedic attacks that it amazes me that as long as the New Yorker has been around, it only found about 85 attorney cartoons worthy of collection into this 1993 edition and that it hasn't found enough worthy cartoons since then to fill out a second edition.

Originality isn't a feature point of this New Yorker collection of cartoons, but talent is.

The 85 attorney cartoons largely revolve around two themes. One is surrealistic art which makes attorneys look as uncharacteristically undignified as possible (many of which are variations on the old "shark" joke that shows attorneys in the open water with fins and teeth).

The other is animated commentary on the ubiquitousness of attorneys in everyday life, a ubiquitousness that deprives each attorney of his individuality ("Would everyone check to see if they have an attorney?" asks a meeting-organizer. "I seem to have ended up with two.")

As I say though, the talent of the cartoonists is great enough that the same joke can be replayed several times and still retain a certain amount of freshness each time.

Still, the funniest cartoons are those which break the mold and display some actual knowledge about the profession such as the courtroom setting on the moon, in which judge, jury, and counsel are dutifully wearing spacesuits. The spaceships that transported them there are displayed in the background. "Not ANOTHER change of venue, counselor," the judge protests to one forceful advocate.

But as for the garden-variety attorney jokes, to my mind as a member of the bar myself, the joke is always on the jokester.

The public that enjoys these cartoons hates attorneys so much that they place their kids on an ever-increasing basis into law school and hire attorneys with the same frequency, expecting their own attorneys to engage in the same tactics that they would object to in anyone else's attorney. The public even hates attorneys enough to recently forgive an attorney who happened to be President of the United States for criminal and unethical conduct in a litigation setting.

Sure, this collection has a funny wedding-cake cartoon, in which the plastic bride-and-groom at the top of the cake are both accompanied by their respective plastic lawyers. In a world in which the divorce rate approaches 50 percent and pre-nups are necessary legal insurance, the bride and groom have created the need for counsel.

Sure, there's a cartoon in this collection that shows attorneys sold over the grocery counter in six-packs. Since 1993, at least one organization has taken to marketing legal services on a multi-level marketing basis in the same way that Amway or Herbalife market health products. Legal services ARE becoming like food, drink and health to the public.

Who creates such demand? Who's responsible for the proliferation of attorneys? The cartoonists who lampoon us and the public who laughs at the lampoons; that is, you, me and all of us because we've created the demand for that which we outwardly disdain. And I have a feeling that the cartoonists themselves know this.

It's OK to laugh at cleverly-delivered jokes ostensibly directed at the legal profession, but you'll probably enjoy the jokes more if you don't peer too closely to see if the joke isn't really on you.

A Superhero for Hire: True Stories from the Small Ads

Everyone has had their eye caught by an unusual classified advertisement and wondered about the story behind it. For the past two years William Shaw has investigated the eccentric, sad and occasionally alarming truth behind these ads and written about them for the Observer magazine. This book brings together, in expanded form, the most remarkable of those pieces. In it we encounter, among many others, the mother searching for the death certificate of her dead Bulgarian husband; the young woman investigating the healing power of crop circles; and the angry man, adopted in childhood, who after twenty years searching for his birth father was rejected by him and now wants to form a rock band with other adoptees. Small Ads is a transporting book that satisfies our insatiable curiosity about other peoples lives. It is as surprisingly moving as it is highly entertaining.

William Shaw writes the 'Small Ads' column in the Observer OM magazine. He works as a journalist in both the UK and the USA, writing for the Observer, the Sunday Telegraph and the Independent on Sunday, and for magazines such as GQ, The Face and Arena. His books include Spying in Guru Land (1994) on a year joining religious cults, Travellers (1993) on New Age travellers, and Westsiders (2000) on young men trying to make it in the hip hop industry. 

The Book of Bad

Review

"The Book of Bad reads like a textbook full of lessons on all the immoral sh-t you've always wanted but never knew quite how to do. Learn countless, awesome activities." -- Playboy online, TheSmokingJacket.com

"I LOVE this book!" -- Mancow Muller, The Mancow Show

"If your guy likes Maxim magazine he'll love this book. It's laugh out loud funny ... and surprisingly insightful." --TheGuysPerspective.com

"Yes, much of it is crude and misogynistic, but therein lies the fun. Pick it up now before somebody blames the "Rob a Bank" chapter on their crime spree and the inevitable book banning will begin." --Bookgasm.com

"A significant leap forward in the field of debauchery." -- Ben Applebaum, author of The Book of Beer Pong

"The Book of Bad is a hilarious and necessary guide to starting a life of crime" - -ForkParty

Product Description

Unleash Your Dark SideLet your ass-kicking side kill your ass-kissing side.

Now is the time to be bad. Being good is for the afterlife. Learn the secrets that felons, cops and epic badasses have known for years.

• Rob a Bank
• Produce Porn
• Fake Your Death
• Pick a Lock
• Rob a Vending Machine
• Beat the Dice
• Acquire a Harem
• And much, much worse

Embrace your Bad. Don’t get caught.

Christopher Lee Barish has experienced all degrees of being bad firsthand. During his mobile youth, he was indoctrinated in the art of career gambling and illegal crop growing, and he began to research other criminal activities out of personal and creative interest. The Book of Bad is the result of that research. Today he is a copy and concept director at an advertising agency in New York where he has won Webby awards for his copywriting and concepts. He lives in Nyack, New York. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

-Some of the stuff in here is interesting, while other things are downright ridiculous, implausible, or even fictional. It's restroom material at best, entertaining from a narrative standpoint, but even if you were intent on doing nefarious deeds, you won't find any real useful information in here. 

A**holeology The Cheat Sheet: Put the science into practice in everyday situations

Whatever the problem, an asshole knows how to deal. And for those who don't--but want to--there's this guide. It takes the concepts covered in the bestselling original and applies them to everyday life.
Now you can quit being a pansy and get what you want without looking like a douchebag. It's spelled out step by step. Need to sign a new account? Done. Score better seats to the playoff game? Handled. Pick up that girl at the bar? Easy when you're an asshole.
Class was dismissed at the conclusion of A--holeology. Now it's time to take to the field with The Cheat Sheet.

Chris Illuminati is a freelance writer and fulltime a**hole. He's a regular contributor to sites such as AskMen.com and The BachelorGuy.com, and pretends to be witty daily on www.chrisilluminati.com. He lives at home with his wife and son.

This follow up to the debut Assholeology is as easy to read as the first. It is written so that it can be understood by all, but doesn't feel dumbed down at all. If you have the first book, you MUST have this one. If you don't have the first one, get this one, and you'll love it so much, you'll go buy the first one. Promise.

The first book Assholeology: The Science Behind Getting Your Way - and Getting Away with it told you what you already kinda knew to be true, but didn't really know how or why. This is the 'Applied Science' of being an A**hole in real life. If this book were to have come out 10 years ago I swear I would be making more money driving a sports car - these little nuggets of truth are MONEY! Buy this now or forever remain a loser.

Coldplay: Look at the Stars [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

I borrowed this book from a friend and I'm buying my own copy after reading about what is the complex group of individuals known as Coldplay.

I was very perturbed at the few mentions of how much Chris Martin was teased as a kid because people believed he was gay (so what if it was the case, which it isn't?) and how critics continue to put down the most original group that has graced music in about a decade. I'm also a bit tired of hearing the wisecracks about Martin's looks (I think the man is cute and very charming, along with the rest of Coldplay).

The first Coldplay song I heard on the radio was "Clocks" (from "A Rush of Blood to the Head") and I, at first, thought it was a new U2 single (not realizing, until I read this book, that Coldplay idolizes U2). I was hooked from then on.

I recently sat down and listened to the entire "X&Y" album again and appreciate their songwriting and vocal abilities more than ever. The group is a welcomed breath of fresh air in this day and age of corporate "music" (undertalented and overexposed starlets doubling as singers, rappers rapping over drum machines calling women every derogatory name in the book and videos being nothing more than glorified porno film shorts).

Phil O'Brien exposed Coldplay for what they really are: A complex group of individuals who value their art and their talent is appreciated (screw the naysayers!).

Roadie: My Life on the Road with Coldplay

With a foreword by the band and exclusive photography by their bassist, this backstage, on-the-road account of Matt McGinn's life as a roadie describes touring with Coldplay, a band at the pinnacle of their success

Stuffed with insightful and authoritative tour stories about daily roadie duties, this is an insider's guide to what it means to live and work with global superstars in the world of rock 'n' roll. This memoir covers the job, the road, the gigs, the band, the relationships, the fame, the failing equipment, and the cold beers after a great show. As Coldplay moves from club gigs to arenas and stadiums worldwide, Matt goes with them; faking it as a band member on U.S. talk shows, flirting with Kylie, saving a life on a French motorway, and even pitching in with the odd guitar riff in the studio. Tales of hurricanes and heat waves, helicopter chases and private jets, plectrum hunters and projectiles all come together as Matt explains in his unique way—and regardless of the mountain (and gear) to move—that the show must always go on.

About the Author

Matt McGinn is a full-time roadie for the band Coldplay, and a key member of its touring force and trusted friend. He was present during the recording of the last two albums, and has circled the globe many, many times.

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

Pops isn't just a good biography of Louis Armstrong's full and varied life. It's an exceptionally good biography. It shouldn't replace Laurence Bergreen's excellent Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant life (New York Times Notable Book for 1997) in anyone's library. But Teachout's book complements Bergreen's and it stand on its own as a model of sympathetic, scrupulously researched biographical writing. For those who are interested in him, there is little new that they can learn about the well examined life of this American icon.

As soon as popular critics and serious scholars started writing about that uniquely American pop music, jazz, they wrote about Armstrong. They couldn't avoid it because Armstrong, more than any other individual, set the standards and many of the conventions for jazz, in his playing and his singing. (Where would Bing Crosby have been without Louis to imitate?) He wasn't the first great jazz soloist: Sidney Bechet holds that honor by a few years. And Armstrong's seminal group, the Hot Five (later Hot Seven), played outside the recording studio just one time. It was never a working group, never a combo formed to play in the clubs and dance halls where jazz was being forged in the twenties and thirties.

Trying to imagine jazz without Armstrong is like trying to imagine modern art without Picasso or the essay form without Montaigne. His contemporaries knew it and admitted it. Even those who were on the outs with him -Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins--knew that Louis was The Man. Red Allen, the trumpeter with (to my mind) the most beautiful sound in jazz, wanted nothing more than to sound like Louis. Jack Teagarden tried to play him on the trombone (and succeeded). Even harbingers of modernity like Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, who were offended by what they saw as Armstrong's Uncle Tom antics on stage, admitted that Armstrong was The One.

A virtue of Teachout's fine book is to place Armstrong's on-stage antics and off-stage persona in context. Armstrong was by temperament, especially while performing, a sunny person, who enjoyed performing and did not draw a line between clowning and serious music making. (That's not quite accurate. Music making was the thing he cared about most in the world -even over home and his much beloved wife Lucille--and he was deadly serious about his music, but he didn't find it incongruous to perform well, to appeal to the audience. In short, as Teachout eloquently explains, Armstrong, like many performers of his generation, saw himself as an entertainer as well as and complementary to a musician. He wanted to do well in both guises, and did.

Teachout also does the reader a favor by his sympathetic and wise assessment of Louis's later performances and recordings, from the 1930s on. This is a body of work that many critics dismiss as the wreckage left over after Louis's artistic vision left him. (Even so savvy a critic as Gunther Schuller dismissed Louis's later work as uninspired.) Teachout does not argue for virtues that aren't there in Louis's often dreary big band recordings from the thirties, but he does point to individual recordings of excellence, and I found his assessment of the small group Louis led from 1947 on, the Louis Armstrong All-Stars, convincing. (Like me, Teachout finds Russ Garcia's arrangements for Louis in the late fifties an embarrassment, and, like me, wishes that Ellington and Armstrong had made more out of their one outing together, when all that happened was that Ellington sat in on piano with Louis's All-Stars.) I have decided! It's time for me to listen to more of the Louis of the thirties and forties. I've been missing out on a potential treat! I bought my first jazz record sixty years ago, when I was thirteen. It's time for me to listen to ALL of Louis, not just cherry pick across the decades.

Put The Book Back On The Shelf: A Belle And Sebastian Anthology

This is a pretty interesting idea: build a comics anthology around the works of a musical group. I don't know how or why the Scottish indie band Belle & Sebastian became involved in the project (the book certainly doesn't say anything), but this collection of 24 original works (generally 5-10 pages each) is inspired by songs from their various albums. I have to admit while I more or less like B&S when I hear them in the background of parties or in people's cars, I've never been moved to buy anything by them and I couldn't name a single song of theirs. So, while I'm sure B&S fans will have plenty of fun arguing about the visual and narrative interpretation of the songs in this collection, the only basis I have to evaluate the anthology are the comics themselves. Unfortunately, this means I'm missing a rather crucial layer of understanding, but so be it.

In terms of pure story and art, my favorite piece was "Expectations", written by Christopher Butcher and inked by Kalman Andrasofskzy. In ten pages, they skillfully cover a young woman's passage from angry 9th-grade outsider to mature young writer. Another very good piece is Mark Smith and Paul Maybury's five-page "We Rule the School", about a little boy who discovers a little ninja in his backpack. Jennifer de Guzman's story and Brian Beluw's art for "Fancy Dress" combine for an interesting version of the dangers of not speaking one's feelings. Ian Carney and Jonathan Edwards combine for a clever take on office sexual tensions in "Step Into My Office, Baby!" with its weirdly Nixonian protagonist. And Steven Griffin's "If You Find Yourself Caught in Love" ends things on a nice up note, as a young man overcomes post-breakup depression and moves on with his life.

In addition to the above, there were several other pieces I liked simply for their artwork: Andi Watson's Jetsons/Spy vs. Spy pastel stylized '60s art in "I Could Be Dreaming", Brazilian artist Kako's wordless, slick and commercial"Dog on Wheels" (very different from the rest of the book with its "The Fast and the Furious" style), Mathew Armstrong's ink and watercolor "You Made Me Forget My Dreams" (reminiscent in some ways of Gorillaz), Charles Brownstein and Dave Crosland's very nice example of how drawing and collage can have vitality in "Beautiful", and John Heebink's semi-retro ink and limited palette in "Nice Day for a Sulk".

Anyway, it's an interesting concept, albeit one that B&S fans will get a lot more from than readers without a strong interest in the band and its music.

Mozipedia: The Encyclopedia of Morrissey and The Smiths

Steven Patrick Morrissey is undoubtedly one of the most original musicians of all time. With The Smiths, he led the most influential British guitar group of the 1980s, and his enigmatic wit and style defined a generation. As a solo artist, he has continued to broach subjects no other singer would dare. The summation of years of interviews and meticulous research by acclaimed music journalist Simon Goddard, Mozipedia is the most in-depth and exhaustive book about the man, the myth, and the music that's ever been published. Bringing together every song, every album, every collaborator, and so much more in over 600 entries, this is a unique and sensational find for music fans and a must-have for Morrissey's legions of devoted admirers. 

MOZIPEDIA: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MORRISSEY AND THE SMITHS provides the first in-depth examination of Morrissey and his music, and is a 'must' for any Morrissey fan. Years of interviews and research into his life results in a gathering of every song, album, and idea relating to Steven Patrick Morrissey. 600 entries and two photo inserts lend to a 'must have' for any rock music collection or Morrissey fan. 

Art at the Speed of Life: Motivation and Inspiration for Making Mixed-Media Art Every Day

Having taken several of Pam's online classes, I was excited to see her techniques and inspirational color palette memorialized in print. Art at the Speed of Life concentrates on providing artists with a road map to incorporating art into their every day lives with helpful instructions on creating art in a more efficient manner. Interspersed throughout the book are chapters from some of my other favorite mixed-media artists and they share how to incorporate and manage an artful life in our normal routines as well. Of course it wouldn't be the perfect Mixed-Media book if it didn't also include methods on building backgrounds, adding focal points, and interesting imagery. I'm excited to try many of the techniques, such as toilette papier-mache and beeswax collage (encaustics). Instructions are clearly written and supporting photographs and sketches are meaningful and helpful. Just looking at the contents page, I have counted 22 projects/techniques and I can't wait to sit down and try them all. For me it always comes back to one question, would I buy this book again 5 years from now? For Pam's new book, the answer would definitely be YES!

"Pulp": Truth and Beauty

Pulp are considered by many to be one of the most innovative and popular bands of the late 20th century with top ten singles including "Common People" and "Disco 2000" and acclaimed albums including "This is Hardcore" and "We Love Life". However, their history goes back much further than that. The band was formed at school by Jarvis Cocker as far back as 1978. In the 15 years it took before the band enjoyed any success, they went through copious line-ups, bizarre stories and many records. From the late 1990s, long-time Pulp fan Mark Sturdy has been uncovering Pulp's history, speaking to members, ex-members and associates of the band, from their first ever bassist David "Fungus" Lockwood through to the people who were there for those now legendary early concerts and recordings. He also talks to Jarvis Cocker's sister Saskia and band member Nick Banks. The vast majority of people interviewed have never spoken at length to the media before and the result is an exhaustive exposition of Pulp's untold story, both before and after the band's mid '90s breakthrough. 

the strength of this book lays in the 80`s pulp .The pulp before the common people glory. Despite not interviewing jarvis himself he interviewed almost everyone else including russle and nick . Mark Sturdy
the author is a true passionated pulp fan ,ths book was written with love and respect for the band and the music 

Black Earth: The Broken Daisy

David is a happily married, self-published author and follower of Christ. His goal in this life is to write compelling fiction that is entertaining but that also portrays the power of redemption and the overcoming of evil. David's work can be seen as science fiction and fantasy, but that's not really calling it for what it is. It is Christian fiction but it is edgy. It is dark at times and it is hopeful at others. David loves to explore the deepest strands of human emotion. The stories David writes are filled with heroes and villains, time travel and galaxies, murder and rape, love and war. His exploration of redemption and of good overcoming evil will sometimes find him at controversial themes in his work, but he will always be true to the story and to the characters within. 

Picking up right where the first novel left off, Black Earth: the Broken Daisy finds Nathan Pierce and company on a mission to save his condemned sister, expose the power-abusing president to the world, and defeat the all-consuming Legion from destroying Earth.

Like the previous novel (which most-certainly needs to be read before this one) The Broken Daisy boasts a full cast of realistic, well-developed characters, and mind-blowing plots twists. Edgy and honest, the novel bites into the reader and doesn't let go page after page after page.

While there are certainly forthcoming installments in this series, the ending of this book climaxes with a crescendo that both satisfies and builds anticipation for the next novel. 

The Andy Warhol Diaries

A fantastic look inside the head of one of the world's biggest mysteries! And the guide is none other than the man himself.

Under the platinum fright-wig, there was a swiss-made machinery that went on 24/7. This is a description of Andy's last 9 years. At times funny and piquant, at others annoying, it offers the closest thing to an autobiography there ever will be about both man & myth.

A veritable who's who and who's what (and where) of this era is there in vivid detail. From the '54 days, to Bianca and Mick's ugly split, John Lennon's murder which left Warhol aghast, to Truman Capote's passing which made him cry. Phone chats with First Ladies and litterbugs, crushes on rock stars, celebrity weddings and celebrity parties, taxi bills (oh, how he kept track of money!), loneliness in crowds and funny, catty comment on friends and foes alike with the deadpan charm that was his trademark.

This is a most precious document on pop culture and history, as seen through the eyes and lenses of a man who was gifted with talent and was virtuous enough to be totally observant.

Read it and keep it forever!

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol : (From A to B and Back Again)

Seriously, at a certain point when I was around 18 or 19, this was my Bible, or my Little Red Book - I and a handful of friends (Warhol died at about the same time) took every syllable here very, very seriously.

This is kinda funny to me now, but it's a great book still, a truly unique cultural artifact. Warhol - as always maintains the trademark deadpan aloofness here, which had a few odd purposes beyond simply looking cool: there were rare instances when he'd drop his guard and a hint of social relevance would enter the frame, which did run contrary to most of what Warhol did, here especially. Doing so would turn art into something didactic, and - as a joke doesn't work if you have to explain the punch line, art flops if you have to lead your viewers, or readers, by the hand into your meaning. Thus Warhol's stylish glibness and affected cool served a brilliant purpose - it made demands of everyone who came into contact with it.

Here we have Warhol's epigrams - spread out like some artboy approximation of 'Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung,' all about equally quotable, useless, devoid of literary merit, yet (unlike the leaden and ideologically bankrupt Chairman) also stylish and memorable, even at their most zoned out.

The other great method behind Warhol's facades is here as well - the same impulse that turned canned soup into the artworks of a once very, very poor 2nd-generation immigrant's child (if you were going hungry, Campell's soup would in fact become, and possibly remain, a beautiful thing, and we all know that beautiful things are and always will be one of the most fitting of subjects for art). These cryptic sayings and jottings all seem constructed to get us all to see the small stuff for what it is, and learn to appreciate it for that.

Warhol was like Elvis - all things to all people. And about as maddening, contradictory and semiotically intriguing as Elvis. This slim little book is one of his strangest and most magnificent achievements.

The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Search for His Disabled Son

Walker Brown was born with a genetic mutation so rare that doctors call it an orphan syndrome: perhaps 300 people around the world also live with it. Walker turns twelve in 2008, but he weighs only 54 pounds, is still in diapers, can’t speak and needs to wear special cuffs on his arms so that he can’t continually hit himself. “Sometimes watching him,” Brown writes, “is like looking at the man in the moon – but you know there is actually no man there. But if Walker is so insubstantial, why does he feel so important? What is he trying to show me?”

In a book that owes its beginnings to Brown’s original Globe and Mail series, he sets out to answer that question, a journey that takes him into deeply touching and troubling territory. “All I really want to know is what goes on inside his off-shaped head,” he writes, “But every time I ask, he somehow persuades me to look into my own.”

Ian Brown is an author and a feature writer for The Globe and Mail whose work has won a total of nine Gold National Magazine and National Newspaper awards. He is the host of CBC Radio’s Talking Books, as well as the anchor of TVO’s two documentary series, Human Edge and The View from Here.

Warren Ellis' Apparat Volume 1

Warren Ellis tried to figure out how adventure comics would have developed without sixty-odd years of super hero comics. The result is a series of one-shots that follow some of the classic themes of the old action comics. This volume collects the first four.

Science Fiction is up first with a very bizarre tale and amazing graphics (you really have to pay attention to all of the little details in the graphics).

Detective fiction takes an interesting turn with a detective who has a tendency to sleep in dumpsters. He and his new partner have a murder to solve.

The wonder of Pilot heroes follows as a flying ace retires from a team of hero pilots. This one is a little strange as well as being a pilot has little to do with the story. Also the art was unstable with characters looking young one moment and beyond middle age the next and vice versa.

The final story takes the mantle of Doc Savage, The Shadow and The Spider with a different eccentric millionaire fighting crime with the help of strange substances. I felt this was the best overall considering both story and art.

Readers will be a little disappointed to find out how long we might have to wait for any more of these stories and there is also a tendency to want to see more stories about some of these characters (I really liked the detective). Check it out.

Ableton Live 8 and Suite 8: Create, Produce, Perform

Learn how to create, produce and perform a whole new way; prepare to unlock the power of Live!
In this brand new title for Ableton Live 8 and Suite 8 users, author Keith Robinson details exactly what Abelton Live can deliver. The book is engineered to follow Live's non-linear music environment - the book look and feels like the program! Its unique format utilizes the terms and creative features of Live - tabs, keys, pointers, and labels.
Packed with professional testimonials, concepts, definitions, hundreds of tips, tricks and hidden features, Ableton Live 8 and Suite 8 covers the software's nuts and bolts and creative technique to create, produce, perform and make music on the fly.
The accompanying website contains "Live sets" and web pointer information to sync and download as well as interviews, additional hints, tips and video


* Inspiring and exciting structure and graphic format mirroring the GUI of live * Author is worldwide lead clinician and training manager for Ableton Live, learn from the industry experts * Includes new and inventive tricks, be a successful and proficient Live user * Understand Ableton Live terms and features, provides a comfortable transition from other DAWs

From the Back Cover

Learn how to create, produce and perform a whole new way; prepare to unlock the power of Live. This book and DVD combination shows, if you get it right, exactly what Ableton Live can deliver. Engineered to follow Live's non linear music environment the book looks and feels like the program, its unique format utilizes the terms and creative features of Live- tabs, keys, pointers, and labels to learn the littlest things that make the biggest difference. Packed with professional testimonials, concepts, definitions, hundred of tips, tricks and hidden features the book covers the software's nuts and bolts and creative technique to create, produce, perform and make music on the fly. The accompanying DVD contains 'Live sets' and web pointer information to sync and download as well as interviews, further hints, tips and video