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- Textbook
- Careful...
- Great bookq
- Misleading Title
- not the actual book
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Looking Out, Looking In (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac) (Wadsworth Series in Communication Studies)
Ronald B. Adler ,
Russell F. Proctor II , and
Neil Towne
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0534636284 |
Book Description
Used by more than a million readers, LOOKING OUT, LOOKING IN has been the leading interpersonal communication text for almost 30 years. Written in a reader-friendly voice that links scholarship to students' everyday lives, this popular text motivates students to improve their interpersonal skills and sharpen their critical understanding of the process of communication. Through thoughtful, diverse examples that include fine art, music, poetry, film, and more, students can consistently see the importance of interpersonal communication and how it affects their society and their lives.
Customer Reviews:
Textbook.......2007-03-03
It has a clear organization, and interesting insets. For a textbook, it intrigues. The comic inserts are a tip of the hat to culture, and everything is up-to-date.
Careful..........2007-02-24
This is an okay book for note taking and has a lot of the terms identified, but please note THIS IS NOT THE TEXT BOOK!!! I'm not sure whose fault it was but when I went to buy it it only stated the tilte and cover of the textbook. I had to go back and buy the book elsewhere. Please be careful! As for the book itself it is a thin paperback notebook with key tearms (arbitrary as well as book terms) on the left side and a blank sheet to write notes on the left. The terms are pretty well chosen and helped me on a test. If this is all you want then get it but once agian be careful.
Great bookq.......2007-02-17
I love the book. I am using it for a communication class I am taking and it is extremely helpful and easy to read. It uses today's terminology and is very up to date in regards to examples used and the way that its worded. It is a great book to learn a lot about communication that we don't necessarily learn from day to day interaction.
Misleading Title.......2007-01-19
Was very disappointed when I received 'Cram101 Textbook Outlines' to accompany "Looking Out Looking In". I thought I had ordered the book "Looking Out Looking In". Very misleading when purchasing this. I don't know if something was listed wrong or not, but when ordering I usually type in the ISB # to find the book I need. Somehow I got the Looking Out... Textbook Outlines.
not the actual book.......2007-01-19
This is the Cram101 textbook outline, not the actual book. I was unpleasantly surprised by this when I received it in the mail after paying to have it expedited. The title that amazon puts is misleading, even the other customer reviews are misleading. The only place that mentions Cram101 is the publishers review - which I found only after I got this worthless book.
Book Description
This comprehensive and engaging introduction to visual culture provides an overview of a range of theories about how we understand visual media and how we use images to express ourselves, to communicate, to experience pleasure, and to learn. Using over 175 illustrations, Professors Sturken and Cartwright examine how images - paintings, prints, photographs, film, television, video, advertisements, news images, the Internet, digital images, and science images - gain meaning in different cultural arenas, from art and commerce to science and the law, how they travel globally and in distinct cultures, and how they are an integral and important aspect of our lives. These images are analyzed in relation to a range of cultural and representational issues (desire, power, the gaze, bodies, sexuality, ethnicity) and methodologies (semiotics, marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonial theory). Practices of Looking provides an explanation of the fundamentals of these theories while presenting visual examples of how they function. Central concepts such as ideology, the concept of the spectator, the role of reproduction in visual culture, the mass media and the public sphere, consumer culture, and postmodernism, among others, are explained in depth and in accessible, informative language. Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright provide the best introductory book for students coming to the study of visual culture for the first time. Truly interdisciplinary, this book aims to be the key text for courses across a range of disciplines including media and film studies, art history, photography, and communication media.
Customer Reviews:
one of the best books about visual culture.......2007-09-21
The authors of this book very clearly articulate the considerable factors of the visual culture in mass media and visual art. Not only the pictures cited in the texts are also quite helpful to better understand the details of description, but also more importantly this book provides knowledgeable contents and information enabling readers to be aware of the significant roles of visual culture and how it is embedded in our lives, influencing the whole culture, society, industry and other many impacts of social forces.
excellent!.......2007-02-26
This is an excellent book for anyone interested in media studies. The language is simple and articulate. The authors provide plenty of visual evidence in each chapter. If you enjoy reading about popular culture, even advertising strategies- this is the book for you.
Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture.......2006-03-25
I actually returned this book after leafing through it. It was a little disappointing and did not have much information other than common sense kind of info. Where was the meat?
Review of Chapter Nine.......2003-09-30
As a class assignment, I closely studied chapter nine of Practices of Looking, and researched several of the listed source materials. This chapter is entitled "The Global Flow of Visual Culture" and deals with the globalization of Western media, primarily in the form of television and the internet. The authors explore such topics as the history of media globalization, its effects on non-western cultures, pros and cons of the internet, and possibilities that new global technologies afford us.
This chapter was well-presented, persuasive, and useful. It offered a cohesive and informative discussion of a broad variety of topics, dealing with each one in satisfactory depth and detail. After researching a few of the listed sources, I found that while some of them seemed to be surplus to the actual chapter content, those that were used were, on the whole, represented accurately and fairly.
I recommend this book to anyone studying visual culture, due to its detailed and informative treatment of this broad and varied topic.
Brief on Practices of Looking (with emphasis on Chapter 8).......2003-04-26
In Practices of Looking, imagery in culture is shown to play on the way we perceive, initiate, and direct ourselves in our daily life. This book, indicates that we rely on imagery to guide us daily. This book explains how imagery is the most relied upon role model of today; basically, due to the fact that it is the most direct measure for a humans consumption of information. It provides input on how imagery sells goods through advertising, how images evoke personal memories, and how images can provide us with scientific data. In Society, Imagery can be found in all areas of the social arena. Influence of imagery is never counted alone in any arena. It is quoted in Practices of Looking "That images are never singular, discrete events, but are informed by a broader set of conditions and factors. The identity of science in correlation with imagery is explained in a wide spectrum of social engagements. Anything in the fine arts, film, television, and advertising, to visual data, can provide insight into the way we see things.
In Practices of Looking, written by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, mediums of influence and expression for Science and Imagery are identified in Chapter 8, Scientific Looking, Looking at Science. This chapter projects ideas with scientific imagery from the early 19th century to modern day. The chapter opens your eyes to the realization that we are constantly being fed ideas from imaging dealing with any subject matter. Whether the ideas are correct or not, most people today take the information and the images they see very seriously, especially when there are relations to science. Maybe due to the fact that science has proved itself in time, at least this is one opinion written in Practices of Looking; life science is seen as the "truth" and is accepted as objective knowledge due to the fact that doctors have a clearer understanding for the body through their experience. The understanding and the experience of Doctors is covered very thorougly throughout this chapter. It explains how imagery even comes into play in arenas we would never correlate influence from imagery, like (law and medicine). This chapter provides us with archival proof, predictions, perspective for current and past issues, time frames, and also developmental measurements. I found this book to be a great resource for understanding the influence that imagery has upon us in society. It really gives one a great look at the daily impact that imagery plays, and how it effects the publics outlook. I would definately recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about "how art and media plays a role in society".
Book Description
Shaped by Richard Barsam's more than twenty years of classroom experience, Looking at Movies uses students' natural enthusiasm for the subject as a foundation for going beyond enjoyment toward intelligent, analytical understanding of movies. Professor Barsam's clear writing, thorough presentation of fundamental film principles, and unique pedagogical additions to the traditional introductory text—including an entire chapter devoted to analytical writing—ensure that students approach screenings and writing assignments equipped with the analytical tools necessary to be active, insightful interpreters of movies. Looking at Movies is accompanied by two outstanding multimedia resources, the Student website and CD-ROM, both of which are integrated directly with the text.
Customer Reviews:
ontime and in good shape.......2007-01-10
It was in good shape, and I received it ontime.
Easily worth a look.......2004-01-03
Barsam's is a welcome addition to the field of introductory film texts, superior in many respects to similar entries (Giannatti, Phillips, etc.). The style is reader-friendly but in no way condescending; the examples are generous and representative of classic as well as current developments; the coverage is comprehensive. Indeed, with the accompanying CD-Rom and Website, the text is a virtual encyclopedia of information about the cinema, thereby justifying its slightly higher price. Moreover, this is the first text that begins to realize many of the media-specific qualities of the subject it attempts to illuminate.
This is a first edition, and understandably there are problems, some admittedly attributable to individual preferences. A few things I've noticed:
1. The website can be "buggy," at least to a Macintosh operating system. Numerous "Java Script" messages are appearing along with failures to play visual and audio files. Even with the misfires, the website is the most impressive I've ever used in conjunction with a text. Because of it, an instructor need have no apologies about using a text that includes discussions of numerous films unknown to students and impossible to screen in class.
2. The accompanying VCD contains valuable film examples but unfortunately doesn't include any clips from "Citizen Kane." I would hope that a future edition includes a DVD with Kane and other useful illustrative and instructive materials. Website information and quizzes often have too many technical glitches to make them effective time-savers for a teacher, who now must solve each student's difficulties with the website (the required 8-digit password doesn't help).
3. Barsam uses much personal and arbitrary descriptive language that subsequently becomes "reified" in the quizzes about the components of film. As a result, the quiz becomes as much about remembering the specific language of the author and textbook as about the properties of a filmic element (equally true of the book's competitors).
4. The order of topics will not appeal to every instructor. For example, the most basic element of film--the shot--isn't addressed until the discussion of photography in Chapter 4. Also, the attention to previously marginalized films and filmmakers can be quite uneven. African-American issues receive considerable space in several chapters in the book and on the website whereas feminist issues receive a couple of paragraphs. Moreover, there is very little consideration of "auteurism," the enabling and prevailing approach of academic cinema studies.
5. The author's lack of experience with literary and composition issues is frequently apparent, though to the book's credit ample space is given to student writing. Still, the treatment of point of view in cinema becomes problematic, especially when the author refers to the camera's perspective as "omniscient." Also, the inclusion of an exemplary student essay, while extremely welcome, represents an unfortunate choice, in my opinion, since the essay is somewhat sophomoric, exhibits clumsy writing and omits a thesis(!).
All in all, a promising production by Barsam and Norton. I look forward to giving it a test drive.
a very good and comprehensive introductory book.......2003-09-18
Just got this book and found it to be very well structured, with a comprehensive yet easy to understand language that made the material very compelling. It comes with a cd rom with film clips and it also offers website interactivity that supports and expands on the material covered by the book. The layout is very sleek and although a bit pricey ($ 70), this is what college textbooks go for now, so even at this price this book compares more than favorably to what's out there.
Book Description
Since 1930, when the museum accessioned its first photograph, a vast and unique archive of pictures has been assembled for study, preservation, and exhibition. Among the photographers whose work is reproduced and discussed here are Hill and Adamson, Cameron, OSullivan, Stieglitz, Strand, Weston, Cartier-Bresson, Lange, Ansel Adams, Minor White, and Robert Frank. Some of these photos are classics, familiar and well-loved favourites; many others are surprising, little-known works by the masters of the art, and a number are hitherto unpublished works by unknown photographers of the past.
Customer Reviews:
Learning to Look at Photographs.......2007-07-23
When John Szarkowski recently passed away at the age of 81, the world lost one of photography's most important figures. He was the "Stieglitz" of the 1960s and 70s, changing the way audiences look at photographic images and he shaped the way future audiences will come to appreciate the pioneering work of Arbus, Eggleston, Friedlander and Winogrand. When he took over the reins of curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from Edward Steichen, photography's early twentieth century grand master, Szarkowski promoted a "new" photography that incorporated the everyday moment as it was unfolding on the streets around cities and towns across America.
His great gift to all of us who love photography besides his championing of new talent, was his incredible skill at writing texts, essays, criticism, books on photography. With his talent as a writer, and his background as a photographer, he was able to open a window onto this two-dimensional world of form and tone, shape, texture and composition, explaining the ins and outs, the subtleties, and the intuitions of image makers, their techniques and their medium in all its finesse.
Having simply tried to take a good photograph all his life, he simply knew a good photograph when he saw one. It is what made him such a great curator. His own best known books of photographs, "The Idea of Louis Sullivan" published in 1956, contains photographs of the architecture of Chicago, and his other, "The Face of Minnesota" published in 1958, contains haunting landscape images of his home state. He wrote the way he carefully crafted his own images. He framed each paragraph paying close attention to his ear, to diction and all the elements of style. It is why I love to read him and why I think he was the greatest writer to take on this visual art form.
Two books of his about photography that in my opinion are indispensable are "The Photographer's Eye" first published in 1966, and "Looking at Photographs" first published in 1973. With these two collections, the reader will gain an historic appreciation of photography from its earliest innovators beginning in the 1830s to the period of high modernism in the 1970s. With Szarkowski as your guide, readers will appreciate how the medium advanced, yet they will also understand how it has remained fundamentally the same picture-making process when it comes to handling two-dimensional space.
In The Photographer's Eye, Szarkowski covers what a viewer needs to take in from a photograph, how it was framed, cropped, what the subject is, what the detail is, the focus and the vantage point. In each of these wide areas, he supplies important photographs from the Museum of Modern Art's vast collection that illustrate these points. He begins with "The Thing Itself" the "what" of photography, the landscape or still life, or portrait that the photographer has aimed his camera at. From there he moves on to how photographers fix on detail, the synechdocal "parts" that make up the "whole" and that produce visual metaphor: the close up of the hands, the side of a face, a rifle, a window, a headlight of a car, a door latch.
He then illustrates how photographers carefully frame their images, how they crop, how they envision the image from its interior picture plane to what is left out, alluded to, outside the frame. And finally, he shows how photographers measure time; freeze moments, single out the present for the past of some distant future. Added to this element of time is vantage, that trick of where to place the picture plane in terms of its perspective, foreground to background, its recession to a vanishing point or points, whether it is head-on and flat, or deep and endless, looming up or slanting down, the world from above, or the world from below.
In Looking at Photographs which is subtitled--"100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art," Szarkowski leads the reader across time, from the earliest best works of the 19th century masters: Timothy O'Sullivan, Fredrick Evans, Lewis Hine, and Jacob Riis, all the way to Robert Frank, Roy DeCarava, Paul Caponigro, and Joel Meyerowitz.
The book is printed so that there is a one-page essay facing each of the 100 photographs it describes. Within that compact structure, Szarkowski is able to move from one idea to another across the history of photography as the reader turns the pages, and he is able to pinpoint for the reader, the attributes that each photographer brings to his medium. In this way the reader learns to read images for their wealth of craft, form and subject matter. It is like having the curator take you on a personal guided tour of the museum's photography galleries.
I learned from reading this book that Timothy O'Sullivan's "white skies" were a result of the wet plate's over-sensitivity to blue light and that "sky areas were thus automatically overexposed, and rendered as blank white." I also learned that O'Sullivan "...accepted the white sky and used it as a shape, enclosed in tension between the picture's visual horizon and the edges of the plate." Knowing this, I can never look at O'Sullivan's work again without understanding how much this 19th century photographic pioneer wanted the figure-ground relationship of sky to land to feature in his compositions. And this is only one example from the book. There are 99 more.
Owning this book is like having your own private collection of the world's most famous photographs. The way you look at photographs will be enriched. On your next visit to a gallery or a museum, you will be able to see so much more thanks to the intelligent and thoughtful writing of John Szarkowski. His precise, clear and uncluttered prose style will make your reading experience a pleasure in itself.
A Collection, New Yorker style.......2002-01-30
A Collection, New Yorker style
It is difficult to make a collection of photographs by different people and not make it haphazard, unless there is an underlying theme. The book consists of 100 pictures by 100 photographers in bw, taken in the 100 years or so up to 1960's, accompanied by a page of text each. The writing is insightful and while is not meant to be a systematic introduction to the history of photography, nonetheless is quite educational if you are interested in the subject. While the photographs range from the concrete to the abstract, the book is coherent helped largely by text. I enjoyed reading the text and looking at the photographs.
The book's strength and its weakness is that it strives to be stylish and original; the writing is 'sophisticated' and snobbish, a la New Yorker. Some of the 'deep' comments I did not much care for. Perhaps more importantly, a majority of the photos chosen for the photographer are not the ones that are usually considered the photographers' most representative works.
You should not read the book to study the history of photography nor to find the standard representative works of the famous photographers. I think people who are familiar with the rough history of photography and the more famous photographers will enjoy looking through the book - perhaps checked out from a library.
Wonderful Images; Beautifully Written Commentary.......2001-11-18
John Szarkowski has selected 100 worthwhile images and has crafted exceptionally well written commentary about each image. The value of the collection far exceeds the sum of the parts. The book is an education about photography. It doesn't matter how much you like an image or agree with the commentary because by seeing the image and reading the commentary you will learn about photography and about life.
See More . . . Through Photographs.......2000-11-19
Although this book has much less female nudity than many photographic books, there are two such pages in the book. If this type of representation is offensive to you, either skip this book or avoid those pages.
This book has modest purposes. "This is a picture book, and its first purpose is to provide the material for simple delectation." Beyond that, it is "a visual interim report [as of 1973] on the results of collecting photographs at The Museum of Modern Art." These purposes are magnificently fulfilled, and your eyes and mind will be filled with many useful new perspectives and thoughts as a result of your delectations here. Your life will be expanded by seeing much more, both in photographs and in life, as a result.
Mr. Szarkowski, head of the photography collection at MOMA, points at that photography "has received little serious study." As a result, a language and analytical framework for considering photography are not yet developed. To overcome that limitation. Mr. Szarkowski has provided a number of perspectives in the one-page essays that accompany each page of photography. These perspectives include the utilitarian purpose of the image, the style of the photographer, the technology of the methods used, and the significance of the subjects or subject. He also draws your attention to detail or information that expand your knowledge. It is like having the best docent's photography tour of your life, as you go through the images.
These essays are modestly described as simply "an attempt to describe photography from a somewhat more liberal and exploratory perspective." Well, they are much more than that. They are like turning the light on to see the photographs for the first time, unless you are a talented photographer already.
In creating this book, a great decision was made to limit each photographer to one page of work. In this way, you get to see more types of images and styles. I think this added greatly to the knowledge and enjoyment that can be gained from this wonderful book. A great benefit of this approach was to allow selecting photographs that would reproduce well in this page size format. I heartily approve of that approach!
In the book you will find portraits, sketches for painters, ways of recording far away places, Civil War reporting, aerial reconnaisance, methods of encouraging connections, insights into the physics of life, and efforts to be a successor to painting. As the author says, "Photography has remained . . . radical, instructive, disruptive, influential, problematic, and [an] astonishing phenomenon of the modern epoch."
Here are my favorite images:
D.O. Hill and W.B. Johnston, David Octavius Hill, Celotype, c. 1845
Baron Isadore Taylor, Nadar, Woodbury type, 1872
Madonna with Children, Julia Margaret Cameron, Albumen print, c. 1866
Sugar Bowl with Rowboat, Wisconsin Dells, Henry Hamilton Bennett, 1911
Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, Paris, Jacques Henri Lartigue
Georgia Engelhard, Alfred Stieglitz, 1921
Torso of Neil, Edward Weston, 1925
Babe Ruth, Nikolas Muray, c. 1927
James Joyce, Berenice Abbott, 1928
Wes Fesler Kicking a Football, Dr. Harold E. Edgerton, c. 1935
A Boy with a Straw Hat with Flag Waiting to March in a Pro-War Parade, New York City, Diane Arbus, 1967
The Museum of Modern Art added a photograph to its collection as only the 23rd object acquired in April 1930. From the beginning, the museum has been committed to photography and was the first museum to establish its own independent department of photography. Invariably, there are copious hangings from the collection available for viewing whenever you visit MOMA. The museum should be proud of creating and now reproducing an improved version of this wonderful set of selections from its extensive collection. Perhaps it is time to create a larger version of this book that is more representative of the whole collection.
After you finish expanding your vision through these marvelous essays and photographs, I urge you to do some photography of your own to express yourself. You will appreciate what you see even more when you create your own images. A good way to begin is to find a subject that is covered in this book and create your own version of that subject. In that way, you can get "inside of the camera" with the photographer. After your photographs can be seen, compare them with the book. Go back and try again. Repeat the process . . . until you have captured the image you were seeking. Like truth, images can be fleeting and transparent.
See more and be more through your improved vision!
The book I was REALLY hoping for !.......2000-04-09
This book fills the reader with emotion and knowledge about photography and photographs. I will never look at a photograph the same way after having read it. The language is beautiful and inspiring and photographs wonderfully reproduced. Anyone who loves the subject or art in general will find excitement on every page. NOW I can begin to know which photographers to study first and how to approach an enormous subject.
Book Description
Good news: You don’t have to sacrifice style just to pay your electric bill. Kathryn Finney, a.k.a. the Budget Fashionista, is the expert on all things chic and cheap. Now she opens up her Prada bag of shopping and style tips to make you fashionably frugal, with change to spare. It’s as easy as 1-2-3!
1. Know your budget: Learn innovative, money-saving ways to increase your clothing funds.
2. Know your style: Get helpful hints from fashion insiders and use them to develop your own mode of self-expression.
3. Know your bargains: Discover the art of scoring exclusive friends-and-
family coupons for your favorite department stores
Whether you’re a homemaker from Houston, a grandma from Grand Rapids, or an M.D. from Manhattan, you don’t need to break the bank to look your best. With great cost-cutting tips, at-home spa secrets, designer discount websites, and access to exclusive deals, The Budget Fashionista is like having your own personal stylist at your beck and call. So before you go out and commit the eighth deadly sin–buying a fake Louis Vuitton–read this must-have guide and learn to be style-smart and budget-wise!
Customer Reviews:
A Great Find!!!.......2007-08-26
I stumbled across this book while checking out at my local library. I have to say that this book was a great find! I got home w/ it and could not put it down. I immediately took out my notebook and made notes. Unfortunately I could only keep this book for two weeks, so I made a promise that I would buy it one day when I had the extra money. This book really inspires and teaches. Ms. Finney shows you how to build your wardrobe and even make your own products at home to pamper yourself. I signed up for her daily newsletter and even her fashion gab forum. I am on it everyday to soak up all of this fashionista's knowledge. As a treat, she even sent out invites to her fashion gab forum and after you completed so many posts, she sends you a copy of her book. I received mine today and it's signed also. This book will defintely be my go book and it stays in my tote bag when I am out shopping. Again, a great resource!!!
great find.......2007-08-25
This guide is a concise, well written, informative and funny guide to the world of savvy shopping. It's particularly aimed at those of us who know very little about what's out there and how to get the best deal. The book is a quick read. The websites provided are awesome. I now have a crick in my neck from checking them out (and ordering from them!). I can't decide whether to share the wealth of information or keep it to myself! Have fun!
If you like thrift and 2nd hand stores...........2007-08-24
I personally prefer to buy new clothes and not used. This book focused a lot on incorporating 2nd hand clothing. I'm so disappointed with this book, I plan on returning it!
Love It! Great tips even for pro bargain shoppers.......2007-08-09
I just read this book, and I have to say, I've found my shopping soulmate! As a professional shopper who's shopping motto is "Don't buy it unless it's at least 90% off retail," I didn't expect to learn much from this book. After all, for the last 7 years, I've traveled the country in search of bargains to pass on to my ebay customers. I often hear salesclerks gasp in amazement as I buy a large bag full of designer items for under $100.
But this book goes way beyond the basics. Written in a straightforward, upbeat style that's fun to read, it covers the full spectrum of tips and tricks for buying a designer wardrobe for less.
My copy is now thoroughly dog-eared and underlined, and I'm ready to take my shopping to the next level. The Budget Fashionista offers amazing tips for scoring the best deals at outlets, online, at consignment shops and even at department stores. I love how she's so specific about when, where, and how to score the best deals. I learned about some new sources I hadn't considered, like DSW Shoe Warehouse, Loehmanns online, and sample sales.
The Personal Style quiz was a great tool for analyzing what I already have that I love, helping me focus on the pieces that really build my wardrobe. In the style of the "Look For Less" tv show, she even explains in detail how she helped a friend buy a full professional wardrobe for under $600. This book is so inspiring and fun to read, and I recommend it for anyone, from a novice to a professional, that wants to buy more great clothes for less money.
The book is Okay..........2007-08-07
I read this book in about two days. It was a quick read and she has some good tips for budget shopping, but I don't appreciate all the stuff about consignment shops, pruchasing off ebay and trading clothes. I will not buy used clothing, who knows where it has been or who the previous owner was.
It's nice to find a good deal at an Saks Off Fifth or Nordstrom Rack, but if outlets and discount retailers are the only place to go then that doesn't work for me. I am not the type to go digging through every rack of clearance items hoping I find something. I do appreciate the insight on looking for certain things like basic tees from low-end retailers but the repeating references to Old Navy and Walmart is starting to get to me. Sales are always nice, but if you are in the average size range whether for shoes or clothes you will not find as many good deals as someone on either extremes. Not everything in the book is new, but it does give you insight to hear it/read it from someone else. Take what you need from the book, but don't follow all the guidelines religously.
Book Description
GroupHug (www.grouphug.us) was started as a place for people to totally anonymously post their deepest, darkest secrets. To confess them to the world. GroupHug received 13 million hits in the first three months, and is the fastest growing confession site online.
Customer Reviews:
ok at best.......2007-08-05
Some of the confessions are good but 90% of them are boring crap tha you hear everyday. Buy it if it's dirt cheap.
A voyeristic treat.......2007-07-23
This book is an exciting ride of emotions. You tap into the secret lives of complete strangers. It's fun not even knowing their real name and yet you know their deepest darkest secrets...it could be written by someone you even know. :) How exciting! 5stars!
Keeps you wanting more!.......2007-07-03
I read this book all the way through the minute I got it. Now I occasionally when bored go back and pick a random page just for fun, I usually end up sitting down and reading half of it all over again because it is just so...enthralling! nothing like it, it is not like postsecret in the sense of no pictures, its more like reading 1 entry out of a thousand peoples diaries.
"Xylophones Are My Only Friend.".......2007-02-24
I picked this book up in a bookstore, and now I kind of wish I hadn't. These confessions come from an anonymous web site, and while some are hilarious, many are depressing. The positive about this book is that it is very reassuring, in that the vast majority of readers are exceptionally normal compared to the people doing the things in this book, while on the negative side, reading this is borderline creepy in that it ventures into parts of the human psyche that maybe are best left unexplored (at least in public.)
Here are some of the more notable snippets I discovered:
"I have a velvet robe and smoke a pipe with bubbles. I feel unstoppable when I wear it."
"I have a mitten phobia. Anytime anyone wears knit mittens, and tries to touch my arm or any part of my exposed skin with them, I freak out and run."
"I fantasize about having tuberculosis. Every time I cough, I check for blood. It's so sexy and I know I would have lots of attention if I had TB."
"Xylophones are my only friend."
...and my very favorite...
"I forged a 'free pie' coupon at Marie Callender's, and gave it to my wife. I didn't tell her it was a forged coupon, and she got arrested. Bail is $750, and I can't afford it, so she's still in County Jail. Sorry, honey!"
This book is frequently depressing, often disturbing, strangely mesmerizing, and totally scary. It is unvarnished, and while these were consensual confessions, it frequently seems wrong to read them, even if they are anonymous.
Grab your belly and slap your knee.......2007-01-02
I LOVE this book. It was one of my recommendations from Amazon. From the book description and the reviews, I knew I had to get it. When I first got it, my husband and I sat in the bed reading (and cackling) together over so many of the entries- there was a lot of, "Oh my God- did you read this one?" After reading from it together that one night, we began to fight over it. One of us would get it, read from it, and hide it from the other. Luckily, it is quite addictive which makes for a quick read. Now that we have both finished it, it sits in our guest bathroom. So many of the entries are super short- some are one liners, and you can flip to any part of the book, and start reading. It has lead to many a person spending much longer in the restroom than necessary- and everyone comments on it. Though some of the entries are slightly disturbing and some just downright baffling- for the most part, they are grab your belly, and slap your knee funny. You will not regret buying this book!
Amazon.com
Alan Fletcher's The Art of Looking Sideways is an absolutely extraordinary and inexhaustible "guide to visual awareness," a virtually indescribable concoction of anecdotes, quotes, images, and bizarre facts that offers a wonderfully twisted vision of the chaos of modern life. Fletcher is a renowned designer and art director, and the joy of The Art of Looking Sideways lies in its beautiful design. Loosely arranged in 72 chapters with titles like "Colour," "Noise," "Chance," "Camouflage," and "Handedness," Fletcher's book, which he describes as "a journey without a destination," is "a collection of shards" that captures the sensory overload of a world that simply contains too much information. In one typical section, entitled "Civilization," the reader encounters six Polish flags designed to represent the world, a photograph of an anthropomorphic handbag, Buzz Aldrin's boot print on the moon, drawings of Stone Age pebbles, a painting of "Ireland--as seen from Wales," and a dizzying array of quotations and snippets of information, including the wise words of Marcus Aurelius, Stephen Jay, and Gandhi's comment, "Western civilization? I think it would be a good idea." Fletcher's mastery of design mixes type, space, fonts, alphabets, color, and layout combined with a "jackdaw" eye for the strange and profound to produce a stunning book that cannot be read, but only experienced. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
The ultimate guide to visual awareness. Compiled over decades by one of today's most brilliant graphic designers, this is a panoply of curious facts, visual puns, anecdotes, serious science, insights, images, jokes, memories and reflections, with 700 illustrations and quotes from over 1000+ writers.
The Art of Looking Sideways is a primer in visual intelligence, an exploration of the workings of the eye, the hand, the brain and the imagination. It is an inexhaustible mine of anecdotes, quotations, images, curious facts and useless information, oddities, serious science, jokes, memories all concerned with the interplay between the verbal and the visual, and the limitless resources of the human mind. Loosely arranged in 72 'chapters', all this material is presented in a wonderfully inventive series of pages that are themselves masterly demonstrations of the expressive use of type, space, colour and imagery.
This book does not set out to teach lessons, but it is full of wisdom and insights collected from all over the world. Describing himself as a 'visual jackdaw', master designer Alan Fletcher has distilled a lifetime of experience and reflection into a brilliantly witty and inimitable exploration of such subjects as perception, colour, pattern, proportion, paradox, illusion, language, alphabets, words, letters, ideas, creativity, culture, style, aesthetics and value.
The Art of Looking Sideways is the ultimate guide to visual awareness, a magical compilation that will entertain and inspire all those who enjoy the interplay between word and image, and who relish the odd and the unexpected.
Customer Reviews:
The Master's view.......2007-07-22
The effect of Alan's work cannot be measured. Many generations of graphic designers around the globe could consider, even if it sounds irreverent, that the influence of his thinking exceeds that of his graphic works. Or, maybe, they are a part of the same view. I had the joy of working with (for) him surrounded by the mystic of a company where innovative values, methodology, and productive manner form a paradigm largely imitated, but never equalled.
The Art of looking Sideways is a real haemorrhage of precious stories, quotes and unique images taken from mankind's (and his) visual memory and it is a treasure not to be lost. The delicious, nonconformist, iconoclastic words and style create labyrinths and paths that merge with the contents in such a way that interaction is continuous and surprising. Each page is a different world. A reveal. Every page could be the last and we would close the book with a smile. Yet there is always another, even more exciting than the previous one.
We have always dreamt of this book. It really seems this work has been around for ever, not just now. Being timeless, plural, and with an enormous and generous vision becomes a milestone of design and its long history. (Could it also be a milestone in the history of every book?). This book had to exist.
Years of hard work, search, analysis, compilations, trips, references, treasons, stories, memories, fantasies and thoughts give way to this book with the most delicate and human sense of humour. A book lightened by a smile of genuine wisdom, that of somebody who has learnt everything from deep practice and tells it with the asceticism and the greatness of great folks. He mentions every day stuff, things that less sagacious views would have missed. As a street encyclopaedia he is saying, as Macedonio Fernandez once said "not everything is wakefulness when eyes are opened."
It is not a history of design, not even close. Nor an essay on semiotics. Nor a book on the theory of shapes. Nor a random encyclopaedia. It is nothing that could be explained in editorial terms. It is a book for designers, scientists, housewives, doctors, astronauts, children and adults, a book for everybody. You just need an open mind and to sit back and experience the difference between seeing and looking. As Jeremy Myerson says on his review, "I think Alan wrote this book for me". I believe we all feel the same. We all sense we had something to do with this piece of work, something that involves us, because it involves everybody. And everything. We all believe it has been dedicated to us.
Alan said: "This book is about many things that I have never been taught".
My "Giant Book".......2007-07-20
This has to be one of the most amazing books I have ever read / seen / encountered. First, although I have read every word of this amazing text, I cannot say that one reads it as much as experiences it. I received it from my amazingly perceptive and wise wife for Christmas of 2006, and I took it to the relatives' house that day. All day, while everyone else was playing Rummikube and watching football, I was browsing through my "giant book."
The design is gorgeous, with fascinating fonts and colors and layouts on every page. The content is an adventure, with information on everything from Salvadore Dali to ancient runes, to the power of an elephant's trunk. There is an amazing "shadow motorcycle" on page 48 which you must see to believe, and there's a photo of a faded cardboard box that the author found to be interesting.
When I finally finished it, I closed it sadly and told my wife that I'd read every word and studied every image in the "giant book." She asked, "What will you do now?"
"Read it again, of course," I replied.
When I was considering a birthday present for my 29 year old son who is a web designer for an advertising firm, this was my first and only thought. He liked it so much that he brought it to his workplace and told his colleagues to dip into it when they needed inspiration. They did, and they love it too.
Get this book. It will change your life! (A little).
sounds cooler than it is.......2007-05-12
I guess because this is such a huge book, they had to print on cheap, thin paper or else it would have weighed 100 pounds. It kind of took away from the designs however . The paper is a little thicker than newsprint. I also didn't see why it had to to be sooo honkin' big. I get the idea that you open the book at random and are exposed to different ideas and designs. I just thought it could have had a bit of editing as I found many of the designs and ideas repetitive. There is some interesting stuff here no doubt, but I was just not bowled over.
Amazing book!.......2007-03-11
This is one of those delicious finds that can reenergize any designer who's bored and needs a kick.
The book is full of ideas waiting to be created by you........2007-03-08
I buy books at random, not by selection. I look at something on the shelf and decided if it's inspiring to have. The Art of Looking Sideways is just that, the perspective is left up to the reader. You can flip through its randomness and find something that will spark your imagination and creativity. The book is so big that every time I look through it, I always find something new to read, enjoy, and ponder.
Like any art book, this ISN'T for everyone. This is for someone that can respect anything that's everything created by and made out of nothing. If you want to be intrigued, or just want something interesting to read, this is the book.
Customer Reviews:
getting past writer's block.......2007-02-19
This is an excellent idea book for the writer who is having difficulty with productivity or inspiration. The different ways to inspire yourself or find a poem will have you writing. An excellent resource book for the writing class. I refer to it for unique or novel ways of looking at the world.
Delightful Sophistication.......2003-09-25
This textbook could be used by college creative writing students just beginning the study of writing poetry as well as advanced students, honing voice, craft, and expressive forms of poetry. Wendy Bishop writes a friendly, well-organized textbook that makes learning sophisticated poetic techniques enjoyable. This trade paperback is a fairly big book 9.09 x 6.28 x 0.83, with 437 pages, presenting a wealth of material in an interesting and accessible manner. Chapters are organized by "forms," broadly conceived as patterns of sound, rhythm, and meaning. Such forms include free verse, metered lines, rhymed and unrhymed couplets, elegies and aubades, ghazals and pantoums, haiku and haiku-like sequences, listing and repetitions, odes and praise songs, prose poems, quatrains, sestinas, sonnets, tercets, terza rima, triplets, and villanelles. Each chapter begins with a clear discussion of professional examples of the form. Next model poems are considered to move from "Reading into Writing." Then an extensive and expansive series of "Invention Exercises" appear, containing drafts of poems by students based on the exercises with additional professional examples. I give my highest recommendation to this text for students of poetry.
Book Description
Looking for Information explores human information seeking and use. It provides examples of methods, models and theories used in information behavior research, and reviews more than four decades of research on the topic. The book should prove useful for scholars in related fields, but also for students at the graduate and advanced undergraduate levels. It is intended for use not only in information studies and communication, but also in the disciplines of education, management, business, medicine, nursing, public health, and social work.
This second editon of Looking for Information reflects a vastly increased literature on the topic of information behavior. Among the additions are over 400 new citations to relevant works, most of which appeared between March, 2002, and January, 2006. Many new studies are described in the section reviewing research findings (Chapters Eleven and Twelve), Chapter Nines examples of methods, and a widely expanded discussion of theories applied in information behavior research (Chapter Seven).
*Reviews over 1,100 works -- 60% more than the first edition
*Adds many new studies conducted from 2002 to 2006
*Expanded coverage of models and theories of information behavior
*Many new examples of occupations and roles -- the contexts of information seeking
Customer Reviews:
I'd prefer a 3 1/2 for this book.......2006-04-04
As a graduate student in Library and Information Studies, I was assigned this book in one of my courses. As textbooks in this field go, Case's book is more readable than most. As mentioned by an earlier reviewer, it is an in-depth literature review, and since it is for one of the required courses which had to be taken early on, it will be a useful reference in future classes. In fact, it is a book that I will retain simply as a source of information on possible research material.
The book is well organized and frankly, is one of the nicest as far as materials and construction. The questions at the back of the book, supposedly relating to each chapter, were confusing in that there seemed to be no relationship in many instances.
The one serious complaint that I can make is the tremendous need for editing and proofreading in this edition. The book is replete with incorrect grammar, misspellings, missing words, extra words, etc. Hopefully, these will be corrected in the new edition.
I have to disagree with a Reader from England..........2003-11-06
I'm currently enrolled in a doctoral program in Information Science and, while this book isn't the sum total of all LIS knowledge, I've found it invaluable as a reference on Information Seeking. Few other places will you find this level of literature review laid out in such a compact way. I use it nearly every day in my studies and I'm grateful that Don Case wrote it. It's a roadmap and guidebook for my studies.
- A reader from Texas
The case of a failed survey mission...........2003-01-17
I was excited by the possibility of a suitable overview of information seeking, I obtained the book a.s.a.p. I was willing to forgive the high price in favour of a good text.
It was downhill from there: Unfortunately the text of Donald Case's book fails to impress on any level.
For the scope of the subject matter the book is surprising in the selection of items included and omitted. With some areas appearing rather bald in references and general coverage.
By giving focus to a selection of models that embrace need and sources, and in different aspects e.g. information overload, the portrait is skewed.
To use this book in teaching it would require much more support from supplementary texts and journal articles to correct the omissions.
I cannot recommend this text to students nor to academics seeking a suitable class text.
Book Description
Attentive observation of art provides an excellent opportunity for better thinking, for the cultivation of the "art of intelligence." The arts are important in an educational setting, therefore, because they can cultivate important thinking strategies in children and adults alike. With
carefully chosen illustrations, Perkins demonstrates how the reflective approach to art can develop broader, more adventurous, and clearer avenues of thought.
Customer Reviews:
excellent content in a brief package.......2006-10-09
Recently I bought at least 5 books regarding the modern art analysis. May be this one is the book that most cleverly resolved the question on how to approach the complex modern art. It presents a strategy to open up your mind and get the most of every piece of art that you confront in a museum or a gallery. It does not dwell upon art history but emphasize on what to look and how to look. Unfortunately, at the end of its barely 90 pages, you ended asking for more.
Intelligent Eye.......2006-03-14
This book is interesting for artists. It opens up your mind for different ways of thinking.
Learn to use Reflective Thinking while looking at art!.......2000-06-27
The Intelligent Eye is a great way to teach students (or anyone) how to think by looking at artwork! This book has an easy to read, conversational style to it as it shares some very basic truths about thinking.
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