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Communication and Human Behavior (5th Edition)
Brent D. Ruben , and
Lea P. Stewart
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Media and Culture with 2007 Update
ASIN: 0205417906 |
Book Description
The principles of tuning OBDII vehicles are outlined for do-it-yourself novices and repair professional alike in this introduction to automotive electronic diagnostics. Beginning with basic automotive concepts of engine operation and the powertrain control module, topics span the history of OBDII, anatomy of the scan tool and its components, and the language and protocols that the OBDII uses to communicate faults. Diagnostic tips and detailed fault code descriptions for major domestic automobile manufacturers including General Motors, Ford, and Daimler-Chrysler accompany tips for Asian and European vehicles. The straightforward prose and cooking recipes listed at the end contribute to this comprehensive primer to electronic diagnostics.
Customer Reviews:
Not what I needed.......2006-10-14
I was looking for hardcore material on OBD. I too was fooled by the preview. You can find the same info on the Internet. The book publishers have done a fantastic job of packaging and making an ordinary book with common information look exceptional. What people want to know is how to use the information in the powertrain control module to solve problems. This book simply tells you what's available in OBD 2 not what to do with the info. Pages are devoted to OBD 2 codes that can be found on the Internet. If you need a glossy intro to OBD 2 this is it.
Doesn't deliver the goods.......2006-06-12
This book doesn't reveal any secrets,or for that matter much information. It is rather long on OBD II theory and has a fairly good chapter on scan tool selection but falls far short in the diagnostic department. I had hoped this book would have information on acceptable sensor values, troubleshooting / diagnostic charts, etc. As far as diagnosis goes, this book is just one small step ahead of a trouble code chart. Since most of the newer scan tools incorporate this information in the tool itself I would recommend that you save the price of this book and apply it to a better tool.
Not what I expected.......2005-03-28
I thought from reading the sample pages that this book would explain codes and a brief explanation as to what to check for each code. It was more of an overview of ODBII with some details I could use.
Poor.......2005-03-15
This book is only good for a reference guide for Ford and
GM trouble codes. The book doesn't help any one who is trying
to repair a really troublesome problem;in fact, it doesn't
help in trouble shooting simple problems. Problems that could
be fixed by simply turning the gas cap an extra turn or two.
I only blame my self for wasting my hard earned money. Please
take my advice and don't be fooled by the books good reviews,
wich are odviously writen by people who are not professional
technicians.
OBDII Diagnostics Secrets Revealed.......2004-03-18
I can only 1/2 recommend this book.
Given in CA every other car is Audi, VW, Volvo, Saab, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, MB, etc.
This book only covers Ford GM and Chrysler.
However, given there are so few books of any description on OBDII or EOBD, this serves as a good beginner for the DIY enthusiast.
However, I would appreciate if a similar book existed to cover all the missed applications above.
In addition, the named missing names above are also the most likely NOT to provide this type of information in their Official Workshop Manuals, so the need is even greater than for Ford, GM and Chry.
Book Description
The techniques automotive industry professionals use to tune Ford vehicles for peak performance are detailed in this in-depth guide to the operation of engine computers. The entire tuning process is exhaustively presented with information on the operation of Ford Electronic Engine Control, performance chips, and OBDII diagnostic tools. Beginners as well as experienced tuners will benefit from key information on numbers and buttons that should not be touched, the use of a home PC or laptop to tune like a professional, and changes to recent Ford models. The nontechnical approach integrates humorous stories and recipes into the practical automotive instruction.
Customer Reviews:
Waste of Time & Money.......2006-06-24
This book covers very basic information about tuning. There is no actual tuning information. It's just a glossed over description of how engines work and minimal information on performance tuning. The cover states "This is the first complete guide to electronic performance tuning of Ford vehicles". BS.....this is not a guide to tuning. There is a section covering Diablo tuners and how they work. Hmmmmm, wonder if this section was included because the author has an interest in the company? There is a section on cooking the author's favorite recipes...WTF!!! If I wanted a cook book, I would have bought one. I want my money back.........not worth the price!
Very Disappointing.......2005-01-11
I read the entire book in an hour. Lots of pictures and other filler. There was virtually no information on tuning. The book was mostly just a product brochure for diablo's products and how they work. If you want to know how their products work then this book would be fine for that. I found tons more useful information on actual tuning for free on www.fordfuelinjection.com. As a an example the book would say, "the tuner modifies the fuel table to achieve maximum performance". Well no duh! I was hoping to see a bit more detail than that.
Great book!.......2003-08-28
Since I own a company that manufactures tuning hardware and software, I was curious to what this book was about.
After reading it, it does alot to help the reader understand what is involved in tuning the Ford PCM. It is not a "How-To" book but more of an in-depth guide on the process of tuning.
The book is full of colorful diagrams and picture that take the reader through each step in the tuning process. How the Ford EEC works, how chips work, how OBD-II scantools work and how the whole process is put together to tune a vehicle. The writing style is not dry like a technical manual, but well written and rather humorous at times.
I personally use the OBD-II code list in the book on a regular basis. The recipe section at the end is something unique.
If you want to know how the chip companies develop thier products, then this book is for you.
THIS BOOK IS ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE.......2003-06-25
I purchased this book last summer and was extremely disappointed.
From memory, here's a summary of what the book contains:
1) how engines work (2 pages or so). This is 101 material.
2) how processors work
3) how OBDII works, including signal processing (useless info for tuners)
3) anecdotal info on the Diablo chip, bordering on a sales pitch.
4) anecdotal info on Dario Orlando/Steeda.
5) lots of useless colorful pictures (PADDING) -- e.g. Dario sitting in his car tuning it (This really helps me tune mine).
6) lots of big print.
7) lots of margin space.
8) narrow columns of text.
9) a bunch of blank pages in the back for notes. PADDING.
10) a cooking (yes, COOKING) chapter on some stupid favorite recipe of the author.
11) OBDII scan codes. PADDING.
The author clearly was told to fill [n] pages so they could hardbound the thing and charge $... It reminded me of grade school when I was told to write an [n] page essay on [subject x]: Using the usual tricks, I wrote long winded sentences with no contractions, double spaced lines, and big margins. The only difference between my essays and this book is the price.
I was so mad after skimming this book that I threw it away the day I got it. I bought the book because I just purchased an EEC-Tuner and was interested in learning more about the subject. Even with my very limited knowledge on the subject, I was underwhelmed with the info presented in the book.
Don't waste your money like I did. Even thinking about this book is making me angry.
how the magic works.......2003-05-23
I am an ASE Master auto technician. 25 years of factory and aftermarket training left me with no information on the magic inside the engine control module. Now I know how the magic works. Any tuner modifing a Ford engine needs this book.
Book Description
With this new edition, Science and Technical Writing confirms its position as the definitive style resource for thousands of established and aspiring technical writers. Here are just a few comments from reviews of the first edition:
"If you are a technical or science writer or editor, you should own this book."
--AMWA Journal, American Medical Writers Association
"A must for all scientific and technical writers, editors, educators and students."
--American Library Book Review
"Authoritative, exhaustive and well-organized."
--Library Journal
Editor Philip Rubens has fully revised and updated his popular 1994 edition, with full, authoritative coverage of the techniques and technologies that have revolutionized electronic communications over the past eight years. His new Manual provides both professionals and would-be professionals with the latest style guidelines for the field - including information on the more complex issues facing the sci-tech writer:
Designing on-screen information
Working with linked and archived web sources
Selecting infographics
Writing Global English and using illustrations for non-native-speaking audiences
And much more
This is the most up-to-date guide to cover the entire range of scientific and technical writing in virtually every medium - an essential for writers, editors, publishers and anyone associated with the field!
Customer Reviews:
just view the excerpt.......2005-01-18
I encourage you to view the excerpt of this book; it will help you, more than any customer review, to see if this book is what you expect or imagine. In the excerpt, I found that chapter 2 starts with a bulleted list of items, without any introduction, any motivation, any explanation, nor comment, exactly like a table of contents. Next, using the same style (bulleted list or table of contents), "develops" each item of the bulleted list. I feel that this type of book would not give much help to write anything. To buy this book is like buying a power point presentation.
One of the four essential books for the technical writer.......2002-03-11
This is the best style guide for technical writing I have ever found. It gives more every day practical information than any of the other technical writing books and gives that information in a highly usable format.
My only complaint--my standard complaint about my reference books--is that the index is far less comprehensive than it ought to be. Given modern computer indexing capabilities, one would think authors and publishers could do a better job.
However, with this is one of the four essential books: 1. Strunk and White, Elements of Style, 2. Prentice Hall, Words Into Type, 3. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (for the British tech writer, Fowler's Modern English Usage) and 4. Ruebens, Science and Technical Writing. With these four, a technical writer can handle almost any situation that arises. There are other books covering special fields that can be added, but these four will always be the bedrock.
If you are a professional technical writer or only an occasional one, you can't go wrong having this book handy on your desktop.
Very useful.......2000-09-08
While Robert A. Day's How to Write & Publish a Scientific Paper gives a good overview of the writing and publishing process on a macro level regarding organization and presentation of material, Science and Technical Writing provides great detailed advice on a micro level. Philip Rubens gives very clear instruction on paragraphing, grammar, punctuation and spelling as well as the intricacies of how to present numbers, mathematical symbols and scientific notation. In addition, there are illustrated guidelines on how to design a variety documents such as brochures, manuals and newsletters right down to the page-level including representing information in charts, tables and diagrams. The book itself is well-designed and well-organized giving testament to its own advice. This is a good general reference for both writers and editors of science and technical documentation.
Customer Reviews:
The Business of Gaming: Economic and Management Issues.......2002-09-25
i whant to read it, please help me
Average customer rating:
- Vampires? Oh, no....
- A real page turner
- Wonderful mystery
- Do NOT read this book, out of order
- Average Book -- If You're a Patterson Fan, Read It, If Not Don't Start Here
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Violets Are Blue
James Patterson
Manufacturer: Hachette Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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Similar Items:
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ASIN: 158621196X |
Amazon.com
Fans of James Patterson's resourceful cop Alex Cross will be relieved to find that he's back on familiar territory with Violets Are Blue--and, more importantly, that this is one of the best Alex Cross thrillers yet.
The malign criminal genius of Roses Are Red is fixing to give Alex a hard time once again. The FBI joins Patterson's dogged cop in a particularly unsettling investigation: two San Francisco joggers have been viciously murdered and are found suspended by their feet, with all the blood drained from their corpses. And when further brutal deaths follow in California and on the East Coast, Alex is forced to contemplate the bizarre possibility of modern-day vampires, although his instincts point him to one of the many sinister religious cults that flourish on the West Coast. Aided by Jamilla Hughes, a streetwise young woman detective from San Francisco, Alex finds that he has to crack not one but two impenetrable mysteries to stop further bloodletting.
Patterson fans expect the extremely concise, page-turning chapters (116 of them here!), along with a reluctance to dawdle over details of his hero's personal life, and both characteristics are firmly back in place. If you can resist reading this one in just a few sittings, you deserve some kind of a thriller reader's medal. --Barry Forshaw, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
Two joggers are found murdered in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and the killings are bizarrely reminiscent of a Washington, D.C. case that Alex Cross has been unable to solve. He is called to San Francisco, and then learns of similar murders in eight cities from Las Vegas to Charleston. Together with a female San Francisco detective, Cross plunges into a menacing world where posing explodes into bloodlust and frenzy, even as he is being stalked by a terrifying criminal who calls himself the Mastermind.
James Patterson is at his most shocking and suspenseful best in a novel that will stun and satisfy his vast audience.
Download Description
Alex Cross has never believed in vampires. But when two joggers are found slain in a manner that suggests a macabre ritual, he has to reconsider. Someone believes in vampires enough to have committed a series of bizarre murders that appear to be the work of one. Local police are horrified, and even the FBI is baffled.
Cross takes on the case and plunges into a netherworld of secret clubs and role-players, a world full of poseurs and playactors--and someone demented enough to have crossed the line from dark ritual to real blood. At the same time, a lethal supercriminal from Cross's past known as the Mastermind is stalking him, taunting him, and threatening everything he holds dear. Cross has never been closer to defeat, or in greater danger. In a shocking conclusion, Alex Cross must survive a deadly confrontation--only to discover at last the awful secret of the Mastermind.
Customer Reviews:
Vampires? Oh, no...........2007-07-27
While this may not be James Patterson's worst novel, it is not his best either. I just can't accept the premise that there are vampire cults or cells across the country and that these weirdos actually kill people to drink their blood. I could accept it in Bram Stoker and Anne Rice, who wrote romances, what ifs, in artistic fashion. I was able to suspend my disbelief mechanism for them, but not for this book.
Another serious problem is the re-introduction of the downright silly villain, "The Mastermind" from "Roses Are Red." It felt as if Patterson couldn't deal with the blood suckers any longer and still had pages to fill, so he tossed in a second plot that wasn't really connected.
In the rush to get books out, perhaps the writer is not thinking these plots through. Or maybe the editors just aren't paying much attention in their drive to get another best seller.
A real page turner.......2007-07-21
Alex is at his best and worse in this fast moving tale of modern vampires who are making their way across country virtually slaughtering their "prey" and hanging them by their feet, then draining and drinking their blood. Alex finally uncovers the mystery of the Mastermind and is against all odds, falling in love again. Pick this book up to read and you won't put it down until the very last page.
Wonderful mystery.......2007-07-03
Great read. You should read the books in order of when they were written. They are always fun and fast moving reads with Alex Cross the supper cop or what ever he is or detective psychoanalyst. If you like a good mystery don't miss the Alex Cross books
Do NOT read this book, out of order.......2007-06-04
Do NOT read this book if you haven't read his earlier books. Not only are there lots of confusing references to his earlier books, but also lots of spoilers. Much of this book did not make sense. Also the 'sidekick' Sampson is always wasted in these books. It's like he's just waiting around to help Cross or console him and doesn't have much to do. Big disappointment compared to Spenser and Hawk (I recommend Robert Parker novels BY FAR over these.)
Average Book -- If You're a Patterson Fan, Read It, If Not Don't Start Here.......2007-04-16
I think there are two themes in the reviews to this book.
1. The book doesn't come up to those in the rest of the Alex Cross series. Its not a *bad* book, but its just a weak effort in the series.
2. The two stories in the book -- the vampires plus the mastermind, just really don't mesh. I understand what Patterson is trying to do here, in a theme within a theme, but even given that the connection between the two should be a little more evident.
I would add another piece that I thought the vampires piece wasn't a strong story in and of itself. It had the set-up to be a good story, but ultimately in my mind it just didn't all fully hang together for me logically. Without going too deeply into spoilers, I was left asking is it supernatural, or is it not?
Finally while I bashed this a little in this review, its not a bad book. Its a decent page turning thriller and if you grab the book in a used book store or otherwise need something to occupy your time on a long flight, you won't be disappointed.
Book Description
This essential text assists health care students and practitioners in delivering skilled and appropriate care to all patients, no matter their ethnicity, country of origin, cultural history, or access to services. Presenting need to know and often hard to find information on differences in access to heath-care, immunization histories, disease prevalence, attitudes about health and provision of care, and much more, this resource provides practical, authoritative and specific guidance.
Amazon.com
Not since Ted Conover's Coyotes has a book revealed the underground culture of illegal immigration from Mexico as well as Crossing Over by Rubén Martínez. This up-and-coming author writes of what he calls "a Mexican Manifest Destiny" that continually pierces the southern borderline of the United States--a "line [that] is still more an idea than a reality." Martínez begins with the awful story of the three Chávez brothers, all killed when a truck carrying them and some two dozen other illegal aliens tried to outrace border patrol agents and flipped. Martínez learns of their fate and travels to their peasant hometown in southern Mexico to distil the motives of migrants. Then he follows the rest of the family north as they fan into the United States. Crossing Over is written in the first person and is highly anecdotal, but Martínez constantly makes observations that break free from these narrow confines. "Mexicans have always had an uncanny instinct for finding the soft spots of the American labor economy," he notes at one point, explaining how it is that millions of poor people who barely speak English can thrive, in their way, north of the border. Crossing Over is an outstanding book, and required reading for anyone interested in Hispanics and the new America. --John Miller
Book Description
The U.S.-Mexican border is one of the most permeable boundaries in the world, breached daily by Mexicans in search of work. Thousands die crossing the line and those who reach the other side are branded illegals, undocumented and unprotected. Crossing Over puts a human face on the phenomenon, following the exodus of the Chvez clan, an extended Mexican family who lost three sons in a tragic border accident. Martnez follows the migrants progress from their small southern Mexican town of Chern to California, Wisconsin, and Missouri where far from joining the melting pot, Martnez argues, the seven million migrants in the U.S. are creating a new culture that will alter both Mexico and the United States as the two countries come increasingly to resemble each other.
Customer Reviews:
We moved to Mexico ..........2007-08-09
We got sick to death of Bush et all and left. Moved to Mexico and are having a house built here. Will never live back in the US again.
So we were wondering why people of Mexico would want to risk death getting there - it's for the money.
The earlier book "Coyote" is also very good.
Brilliant.......2006-12-20
As the U.S. Congress pushes forward with their plans to create a three layered fence across the entire length of the U.S.-Mexican Border, thousands of illegal migrants cross over each day through the porous border. Ruben Martinez's work, "Crossing Over", begins with a devastating account of the last moments of life for the Chavez brothers and other hopeful migrants. As he travels to the hometown of those migrants, Cheran, Michoacan, Martinez imagines his own family's immigration to the United States. With the skill of a master composer, Martinez weaves together a picture of life in Cheran after the tragic accident by living among the people and sharing their stories. He recounts time spent with the Chavez family and the local people of Cheran. Martinez uses this personal touch to bring the reader along on his journey that leaves him in St. Louis with the reuniting of a Cheran family.
Martinez picks up the second half of the book at the border, where he spends an evening with the Border Patrol. He continues this journey through Texas to Warren, Arkansas to visit another family from Cheran, who have "hurtled into the middle class." From here his trail leads to Norwalk, Wisconsin, the site of a slaughterhouse where migrant laborers often put in 70 hours a week, day in and day out without seeing the sun. Then back to St. Louis where the stark difference between life in Mexico versus life stateside becomes as clear as day. Finally, Martinez ends up in Watsonville, California, where the Chavez brothers were traveling when tragedy struck, and the location of the two remaining Chavez brothers. Here in Watsonville the seeds of a new Chavez family are planted.
"Crossing Over" shows us the real face of immigration: not criminals illegally crossing the border to steal American's jobs, but mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters crossing over to secure a better future for themselves and their families. As America's fear of immigration grows ever larger each year, this book reminds us that America was founded on immigration; and Mexico and America's future will depend on immigration and the migrant worker's story for many years to come.
I read this book for a Latin American History class and I found it to be extremely relevant, even five years after it was published. Martinez's writing style is clear and descriptive; he makes you feel as if you are with him on his journey. After reading this book it is easy to see why, and how, many migrants risk their lives crossing the border each year. It would make an excellent source for studying the social, political, and economic aspects of migration, a certain hot topic among today's ongoing events. I would recommend this book to anyone who has sympathized with recent immigrants, but especially so for those who have not. This book should be required reading for policy makers along border states as well as for the U.S. Congress. "Crossing Over" will open your eyes and with clarity show you both sides of the battleground that is the U.S.-Mexican Border.
A must read.......2006-07-28
For anyone curious about the Mexican immigrant mentality, this is definately a book to read. I live near where the 3 brothers were killed, and have been to this spot on several occasions. For those who wonder why so many people are coming to this country to work, this book will answer many of those questions. It brings an understanding and a respect for those who risk their lives for a chance at the American dream, a dream that many of us take for granted.
Poignant but Flawed.......2006-07-12
A deeply empathetic portrayal of individual Mexican and Central American migrants chasing a livelihood in El Norte. Martinez suceeeds in his primary and most basic goal of humanizing the faceless tide of illegal immigrants to a fairly high degree and commendably does not seek to idealize them: the implusively destructive behavior of one character in particular rings true. Where he is less successful is his analysis of the larger macroeconomic and cultural consequences of this immigration (whether in this case illegal or legal). Martinez injects some Chicano pride-based politics fairly uncritically, and caricatures the 'Minuteman' groups on the border, even seeming to dismiss the concerns of property owners who are forced to contend with a de facto invasion. Much of his uncritical political perspective likely stems from Martinez's Southern California roots, where there is far more tension between the Latin American community (or better, communities) and others, than say in Texas, which is a model of peaceful cultural integration, or at least the closest thing we have to it now.
Martinez does succeed in showing especially the Mexican experience and economic relationship to the United States from the impoverished southern Mexican states, to and across the border, and to a lesser extent the conditons and context of the typically menial labor and uneasy and lacking cultural integration once in the United States. I suspect that Martinez has attempted to mute his political agenda so to focus more exclusively on the immigrant experience itself, and rightly so. But still it bleeds out, increasingly shrilly in his book's concluding chapters. Given this tendency, his credibility is compromised, transforming a book that most Americans could benefit from reading into one that will probably only find a limited audience of those who already agree with him, or those who are forced in a course to read it. I would still recommend it, with a rather large grain of salt.
Crossing Over.......2006-07-09
Fabulous account of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants to the US. Clearly written. Easy to read. Extremely insightful and very timely given the current political debate. It gave me an understanding and sympathy for what Mexicans are looking for in the US and the hardships they are willing to endure to get it.
Eve/Boise
Customer Reviews:
a lotto bible.......2007-05-25
Incredible complete book.It's a must for a professional lotto player.A lot of wheels.Perhaps the most biggest collection de wheels that I've seen in one book.Methods of choose numbers,etc.
Amazon.com
The great 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn left us so many arresting self-portraits, painted at every stage in his eventful life, that his distinctive face and bearing are a familiar part of the 20th-century cultural landscape, a recognizable presence in galleries across Europe and North America. Nonetheless, the artist himself remains an enigma. Rembrandt was a notoriously difficult man and an inveterate risk taker in life and art: his aspirations to a grandiose Amsterdam lifestyle in the heyday of his popularity as a painter of portraits and large-scale historical works bankrupted him, and he died in relative poverty. His personal effects and treasured collection of paintings and natural rarities were sold off and dispersed, leaving the historian with a tantalizingly scant body of fragmentary records around which to build a convincing biography.
In Rembrandt's Eyes, Simon Schama--the leading historical craftsman of our era, with a career-long commitment to Dutch history--succeeds with consummate skill in bringing the heroic painter of such masterpieces as The Night Watch and Portrait of Jan Six vividly to life. Returning to the bustling Dutch world with which he first made his reputation in the bestselling Embarrassment of Riches (1987), Schama re-creates Rembrandt's life and times with all the verve and panache of a historical novelist--while never for an instant losing his scrupulous grip on recorded fact and detail. The telling surviving fragments of archival information about Rembrandt's personal and professional history are skillfully embedded in a rich, dense tapestry of the commercial whirl and political hurly-burly of the 17th-century Low Countries--a divided territory, split between the Catholic and Protestant faiths and the contested powers of the Spanish Hapsburgs and the Dutch Republic--with the tentacles of the tale reaching into the most unexpected shadowy corners of European love and war, aspiration and intrigue.
Rembrandt's Eyes is, in fact, two biographies for the price of one. From the outset, Schama contrasts the life of Rembrandt with that of his older, equally talented countryman Peter Paul Rubens, whose meteoric rise and sustained success as a society painter forms a revealing contrast with Rembrandt's unhappier relationship with fame and fortune. The comparison is a telling one. Where Rubens furnishes the wealthy and powerful with glorious reflections of, and visual foils for, their social and political aspirations and glory, Rembrandt can never resist testing the envelope of taste and stylistic acceptability. His challenge to his clients to embrace the shock of his painterly experiments with technique, texture, and composition ultimately produced his downfall. The Amsterdam town council took down his The Oath-swearing of Claudius Civilis, rolled it up, and returned his masterpiece to him to be cut down in an attempt to sell it to a suitable buyer.
This is a gorgeous book to own, too. Rembrandt's Eyes is printed on heavy, high-gloss paper and lavishly illustrated throughout in full color. The double-page color spreads of the most memorable of Rembrandt's works will take readers' breath away. But above all, this is narrative history at its very best, a page-turner and an adventure story that will make the reader laugh and cry by turns in the time-honored tradition of masterly writing. --Lisa Jardine
Book Description
For Rembrandt as for Shakespeare, all the world was indeed a stage, and he knew in exhaustive detail the tactics of its performance; the strutting and mincing; the wardrobe and the face paint; the full repertoire of gesture and grimace; the flutter of hands and the roll of the eyes; the belly laugh and the half-stifled sob. He knew what it looked like to seduce, to intimidate, to wheedle, and to console; to strike a pose or preach a sermon; to shake a fist or uncover a breast; how to sin and how to atone; how to commit murder and how to commit suicide. No artist had ever been so fascinated by the fashioning of personae, beginning with his own. No painter ever looked with such unsparing intelligence or such bottomless compassion at our entrances and our exits and the whole rowdy show in between.
More than three centuries after his death, Rembrandt remains the most deeply loved of all the great masters of painting, his face so familiar to us from the self-portraits painted at every stage in his life, yet still so mysterious. As with Shakespeare, the facts of his life are hard to come by; the Leiden miller's son who briefly found fame in Amsterdam, whose genius was fitfully recognized by his contemporaries, who fell into bankruptcy and died in poverty. So there is probably no other painter whose life has engendered more legends, nor to whom more unlikely pictures have been attributed (a process now undergoing rigorous reversal). Rembrandt's Eyes, about which Simon Schama has been thinking for more than twenty years, shows that the true biography of Rembrandt is to be discovered in his pictures. Though a succession of superbly incisive descriptions and interpretations of Rembrandt's paintings threaded into his narrative, he allows us to see Rembrandt's life clearly and to think about it afresh.
But this book moves far beyond the bounds of conventional biography or art history. With extraordinary imaginative sympathy, Schama conjures up the world in which Rembrandt moved -- its sounds, smells and tastes as well as its politics; the influences on him of the wars of the Protestant United Provinces against Spain, of the extreme Calvinism of his native Leiden, of the demands of patrons and the ambitions of contemporaries; the importance of his beloved Saskia and, after her death (Rembrandt was later forced to sell her grave, so complete was his ruin), of his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels; and, above all, the profound effect on him of the great master of the immediately preceding generation, the Catholic painter from Antwerp, Peter Paul Rubens: "the prince of painters and the painter of princes" with whom Rembrandt was obsessed for the first part of his life, and whose career was the shaping force that drove Rembrandt to test the farthest reaches of his own originality.
Rembrandt's Eyes shows us why Rembrandt is such a thrilling painter, so revolutionary in his art, so penetrating of the hearts of those who have looked for three hundred years at his pictures. Above all, Schama's understanding of Rembrandt's mind and the dynamic of his life allows him to re-create Rembrandt's life on the page. Through a combination of scholarship and literary skill, Schama allows us to actually see that life through Rembrandt's own eyes. In overcoming the paucity of conventional historical evidence, it is the most intelligently true biography of Rembrandt that has ever been written, and the most dazzling achievement to date of the art historian whose work has been hailed as "marvelously rich and eloquent" ... "rare, imaginative" ... "provocative" ... "astoundingly learned with verve, humor, and an unflagging sense of delight" ... that of "a master storyteller ... and a master of history."*
Quotes from the New York Times Book Review, Time, the New York Times, The Independent on Sunday, and Nature, respectively.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book about Rembrandt and his times.......2007-07-12
Being Dutch, I remember as a kid how my teacher was mesmerizing about how wonderful it would be to have a big enough telescope to catch all the emitted light from long ago and to be able to see Rembrandt paint. I did not know why then, but now I do agree. How wonderful it would have been had he only lived 300 years more to light up all the museums in the world!
This book is about, to my opinion, the best painter of mankind, his life and work. It is also a dual biography about Rubens, since he was so important for Rembrandt.
The book works nicely chronological and winds its way through the younger years of Rembrandt til his last years. In the mean time we also learn a lot about not only his life in Leiden and Amsterdam, but also about the history of Holland of the 17th century. It is absolutely great to learn about for instance the Night Watch, for whom it was painted, who the people are on it, why it was so revolutionary and still the most stunning 17th century painting.
I always wanted to know, as far as recorded history allows us, about the background of his paintings; who ordered it, did they and Rembrandt like it themselves? And most of all: analysis of the paintings themselves: what 'effects' are used, and how? This book goes into wide details of this all without getting repetitive or boring.
Rembrandt is unique among all painters in his combination of talent and 'raffinement'. He could do anything: super precise works, impressionistic style where the paint itself was the 3d effect, portraits, group portraits, history paintings, landscapes, the best etches off all time. His touch and well-aimed strokes immediately got to the essence. His works under scrutiny come out even more unsurpassable and amazing. It is true that none of his students ever came close to his talent, and some of them tried for the rest of their life to master just some aspect of his art (for instance the light effects) while Rembrandt moved on to a more 'rough' style, although it was justly called in this book deceivingly easy to imitate, and of course, 'rough' here does not mean carelessly painted.
Basically he is the first (and best) impressionist in the history of painting.
I have been at the Rijksmuseum many times, and it does not matter which work you look at: Jeremia, his mother reading, the Jewish Bride, his hypnotisingly beautiful self portrait at a young age, it just shows that this is a once in a mankind kind of thing. Rembrandt has shown us once and for all what the art of painting can do, how it can lift our lives by trying so dramatically to imitate it. Indeed looking at his work, it almost seems that his paintings are triumphant over reality.
This book is a great read and the many colour pictures of his work are, needless to say, a pleasure to look at.
Only minus is, that Schama to my opinion is a little too modest about Rembrandt's genius.
Returning to Rembrandt's Eyes: An Appreciation.......2006-12-15
One of the pleasures of reading books from your own library is that they are always there for return visits. Reading Hockney's 'Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters' stimulated this reader to probe more deeply into some of the venerated painters. Simon Schama's fine book REMBRANDT'S EYES is like an old friend, an excellent resource book for facts about Netherlands painting, social and political history that so affected the works of the two featured painters Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens, a page-turner novel, and a catalogue of brilliant reproductions of paintings. This book satisfies - even more the second time around!
A hefty book at over 750 pages, there is not a page that Schama does not use his charming style of writing to slowly inform. We learn about the atmosphere into which Rembrandt was born, follow his works from the earliest examples through his entire career, encounter his passion for elegance and his fall into poverty, and understand his envy of the creatively and socially successful Rubens. Not a book of gossip, this, but instead a biography well documented in a fine bibliography (no mean feat for a history of a great man without much written contemporary documentation!) and a survey of illustrations that augment the story as well as any yet written.
For those who hunger for knowledge about a famous painter yet who deign to wade through the usual dry treatise format, welcome to the class with Schama. This is a book that will endure (first printed in 1999 and now available in paperback) because of the stature of the subject AND the stature of the author. Hats off to Simon Schama who so entertainingly and successfully takes us behind Rembrandt's eyes to see his work as few have shown it. Grady Harp, December 06
A MUST READ.......2006-02-17
I think most of the reviews below cover the bases pretty well, the only criticism I can think of is the book might have been better off printed in the full "coffee table art book" size so the reproductions cited in the text would have been larger...but what a fabulous work it is, an utterly fascinating evocation of a time and place. Even if you only have a peripheral interest in the subject, you will be drawn into the sweep of the narrative through Mr Schama's depth of knowledge and skillful intertwining of the personal and the public world of 17th century Holland. I cannot think of another recent book that I have enjoyed so thoroughly.
Doesn't have a focus and objective....very boring.......2004-07-10
When i bought this book, I thought that it would be an amazing and definitive book about one of the most brilliant genius of art.
But i was wrong, this is doesn't have a point, it goes to the biography of Rubens fathers, passing thru history, economy, and anything else you imagine, this is so borring for the people that actually want to know about Rembrandt and his work. So if you are looking for a book abou Rembrand and his work, this IS NOT....
A masterpiece worthy of Rembrandt's life and works.......2002-09-26
Simon Schama's REMBRANDT'S EYES is undoubtedly one of the authoritative works on Rembrandt's life and paintings. Schama vividly depicts the unparalled and tortured genius of Rembrandt, a man who was brilliant in success and even more so during tragedy. To understand Rembrandt's paintings is to understand the man behind each brushstroke: strong-willed, prideful, and uncompromising in his art. Schama conveys the essence of Rembrandt with such force and effectiveness that we cannot help but appreciate Rembrandt's tragic life and artistic genius.
REMBRANDT'S EYES contains beautiful illustrations of all of Rembrandt's major works; the analysis of each is detailed, clear, and interesting. Through the course of the book, you will be fascinated by Rembrandt's self-portraits and the level of understanding with which he painted himself. Perhaps no other artist has given us such a powerful autobiography without the use of a single written word. This deep understanding of the human soul is evident in all of his works. Schama explains Rembrandt's paintings and his techniques in a comprehensive and powerful manner. If you are interested at all in the truly unique and fascinating genius of Rembrandt, REMBRANDT'S EYES is a must.
I would highly recommend REMBRANDT'S EYES to any person interested in art history, Dutch painting, or just Rembrandt. This book also serves as a powerful autobiography of a man with a very interesting story. Be forewarned though: this book is very long, and putting it down may be hard.
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