Book Description
Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman's groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining controlof our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding book - must read.......2007-09-27
One of the best books on the danger posed by entertainment to our civic community.
Important read.......2007-09-04
This book asks questions that we need to be asking but aren't. How can we not at least question the media and technology that we take in like oxygen? It's an important read and I recommend it to anyone who isn't apathetic.
The Audio Was Great.......2007-09-03
If you like people like Colin Wilson, you will love this well written and well thought out book. It is like listening to Colin Wilson without the references to literature but the lessons are intact.
Another "Thin" Classic From Postman.......2007-06-22
This is Postman's most famous and widely read book (as is attested by the more than 100 customer reviews here on Amazon) and it is, as other reviewers have suggested, a classic in the Media Studies field. The songwriter Roger Waters was inspired enough to title his album "Amused to Death" after reading Postman's book (although Postman states in one of his later works that he himself would never stoop to listening to the likes of a "Roger Waters").
Instead of giving the usual plot synopsis here as other reviewers have done, I would like instead to perform for you a Media Studies reading of the book. That is to say, instead of reviewing the book's contents, I would like to draw your attention to the medium and format of the book itself, and in doing so, point out what this reveals about Postman as a philosopher.
To begin with the most important point: there are no pictures. Anywhere. And not only is this true of Amusing Ourselves to Death, it is true of every single one of Postman's books. This should alert us to something very important here about Postman: he is iconophobic. He is engaged in a battle against images of any, and every, kind. Not even Marshall McLuhan was so antipathetic to the use of images and illustrations, for his very first book, The Mechanical Bride, is a series of commentaries upon advertisements. In the age old battle of the Word vs. the Image -- a battle which goes way, way back before the twentieth century to the Iconoclastic debates amongst the Greek Byzantines whose iconophobes were in fact influenced by the aniconism of Islam, an entire religion which, like Judaism, had been based upon a rejection of images -- Postman, in this tradition, definitely aligns himself on the side of the Word against the iconophiles, be they Catholics or Hindus or lovers of comic books, or whomever.
Also, you will not find any references to works of art of any kind in this book. Postman apparently has an antipathy to painting and imagery of any kind whatsoever, be it "classical" or electronic. It is important to point this out because it reveals, in the tradition of Harold Innis, Postman's essential "bias" in this book. Indeed, Postman's dialogue with Camille Paglia, published in an old issue of Harper's, underlines this point, for Paglia is as much an iconophile as Postman is an iconoclast. "In the beginning was the Word," Postman quotes, as though to clarify his own personal theology, before proceeding onward with his dialogue with Paglia.
The next thing to notice about the book is its brevity. It is very short, as in fact, are all Mr. Postman's books, for Postman has been quoted as saying that he does not believe in writing long books, and that if one cannot express oneself in two hundred pages or less, then one has no business writing a book. The bibliography, accordingly, is also short, and so apparently Mr. Postman did not feel the need to read many books in order to write this book.
For Postman really only has a single point to make here, and it is an important point which he argues persuasively and eloquently: television is taking over our culture, and all our thought patterns in every aspect or division of our culture is taking its cue from the syncopated, discontinuous and ahistorical "mentality" of television. How this has affected our reading habits, and whether those reading habits still continue, albeit in a changed manner, Postman fails to address. For people have not stopped reading books; instead, they continue to read books, but their expectations of the book have changed. The brevity of Postman's book is itself perhaps an example of what happens to sustained intellectual discourse in the Electronic Age: books get shorter because our attention spans (Postman's included) have shrank. Nobody wants to wade through books on the scale and magnitude of Spengler's Decline of the West or Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit. I notice, furthermore, that the sorts of books which Postman exhibits in his Bibliography are, one and all, short books.
Thus, here is the secret of Postman's book: Postman himself suffers from the very same attention deficit disorder that he castigates others for having suffered at the hands of Electronic Society.
Hmm. One would expect a professor of Media Studies who was as well read and thoughtful as Postman to engage our attention for a while longer. If this book is the greatest thing Postman ever wrote, then we must confess, alas, that Postman's work does not contain a single magnum opus on the level of a Gutenberg Galaxy or an Understanding Media. Perhaps this fact in itself is evidence of a general decline in intellectual and literary ability in our culture during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The reader should not understand that I am saying that there is anything wrong with Amusing Ourselves to Death. But we should learn to understand its limitations in order to appreciate its place in the pantheon of Media Studies classics, upon which list, after all is said and done, Amusing Ourselves to Death places relatively low.
--John David Ebert, author Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society
Deserves to be Called a Classic.......2007-06-19
It seems unlikely that a book labeled "Current Affairs" could have a shelf life of more than a few years. It seems preposterous that a book dealing with television and referring to Dallas and Dynasty could have anything to see twenty two years after being published. Yet Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, now in it's "20th Anniversary Edition" continues to be read and studied and to hold influence. Even today it is used as required reading in many high school and college level courses. Though written by a man who made no claim to Christianity, few modern books written by an unbeliever have been more widely read and quoted by Christians. It truly is a remarkable little book.
Postman had that rarely quality of being able to see behind a fad, behind what was late and great. He saw the significance of the rise of the image and the fall of the word, the rise of amusement and the decline of discourse. He saw that television would soon saturate every area of our lives and taint the way we understand politics, religion, education and every other area of importance. As we now transition from a television-based culture to a computer-based culture the image remains central. Perhaps we have already amused ourselves past the point of no easy return. Television is remarkably effective at doing what it does best--entertaining. Postman had no argument with television is a tool of entertainment. In fact, the best things on television are its junk and no one is seriously threatened by this. Where television fails is in attempting to do the more serious work that has traditionally been carried by the written word.
Postman makes it his goal in this book to make the epistemology of television visible, demonstrating that television's way of knowing is hostile to typography's way of knowing, and not only that, but it is inferior to it. "Serious television" is a contradiction in terms for television speaks only in the voice of entertainment, never of serious, weighty, discourse--the kind of discourse that is essential to politics, religion and education. Television's influence has been relentless, transforming our culture so that every area is now considered a venue for entertainment.
Electronic media, led by television but being superseded by the computer, has changed the way we view the world and the way we carry on any kind of public discourse. Gone are the days when content was of overwhelming importance. Instead we deal with sound bites, with discordant images torn from any kind of context, and with style when in former days we relied on substance. Politicians win and lose election campaigns not on the basis of what they say, but on the basis of how they look when they say it.
Throughout the book is an interesting interplay between Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. In the latter an oppressive regime dominates the world while in the former the people allow themselves to be overcome by levity, by entertainment and by pleasure so that they have no need of an oppressive regime. They were controlled by their amusements. Huxley, Postman argues, had it right. And I would tend to agree.
Amusing Ourselves to Death is a good read, a disturbing read, a thought-provoking read and, dare I say it, a must-read. It deserves its status as a classic and, though already two decades out of date, it is as timely as ever.
Average customer rating:
- Tells ABOUT gossip...and includes some! GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Good but feels like the author rushed to print
- The best book on the gossip industry
- Try to put this one down!
- The growth of gossip provides entertainment
|
Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip
Jeannette Walls
Manufacturer: William Morrow & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Popular Culture
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Social Situations
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Media Studies
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Linguistics
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Reference & Tips
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
| Beaches
| Business Travel
| Cruises
| Essays & Travelogues
| Food & Lodging
| Guidebooks
| Pictorial
| Reference
| Spas
| Tips
| Tourist Destinations & Museums
| Travel Writing
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Entertainment Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Nonfiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Travel Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
The Glass Castle: A Memoir
-
Falling: The Story of One Marriage
-
The Count and the Confession: A True Mystery
-
The Liars' Club: A Memoir
-
I Watched a Wild Hog Eat My Baby: A Colorful History of Tabloids and Their Cultural Impact
ASIN: 0380978210 |
Book Description
Love it or hate it, create it or repeat it, America is obsessed with gossip. Here is a fascinating look at five decades of dish: a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the personalities that control what we read and see; the unholy and unchanging trinity of celebrity, publicist and reporter that has stoked the American appetite for gossip from the salad days of silver-screen magazines to the instantaneous communication of the scoop-filled Internet.
Insider Jeannette Walls delivers a tantalizing tell-all that features not only gossip itself, but its history, its movers and shakers (including quite a few tony Ivy Leaguers), high and low points, and the watershed events and personalities--like Elvis, Diana, Michael Jackson and O. J.--that altered it forever. Here is the famous formula for People, the astonishing magazine that began amid sneers and snipes but went on to become one of the publishing industry's greatest success stories. Here too is the incredible truth behind explosive material that didn't see the light of day.
From the humble beginnings of the National Enquirer, aided by the avuncular beneficence of crime kingpin Joe Costello, to the lurid Hollywood trial of Confidential magazine, where the "libeled" stars were proved more guilty than not of the salacious episodes the publication revealed, Jeannette Walls expertly traces the formation and development of the hush-hush industry. She shows us that tabloid TV shows are nothing new: they were preceded in the Fifties by the wildly successful Night Beat, hosted by none other than Mike Wallace, who turned the show into a forum for sex and scandal with his relentless prying and probing into the lives of celebrated figures.
Customer Reviews:
Tells ABOUT gossip...and includes some! GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......2001-09-17
This book completely EXCEEDED my expectations! As a former journalist (who is now a ventriloquist believe it or not) I've always been interested in how and why gossip has grown in our news media.
I got THAT answer in this wonderful book written in a breezy, solid style that made it hard for me to put -- plus a LOT MORE.
Starting with Matt Drudge's meteoric rise, DISH backtracks to trace the growth in gossip over the years. You'll also find new revelations in here. In the end our news media (what it printed and NEGLECTED to print over the years) will make sense to you. And it reads like a novel. Some tidbits:
1. The overnight rise of Matt Drudge, using a computer his dad gifted him. Everything you wanted to know and what you didn't want or need to know (i.e. his alleged sexual preferences; media suspicions that he got some scoops through hacking) about him and how his lively internet column took over, confounded mainstream media and made him a huge multi-media star.
2. How the Hollywood studios along with fawning California politicos crushed Confidential magazine, the 1950s gossip sheet which dared to undermine the carefully-constructed phoney public relations images of many stars (some stars are named in the book).
3. Mike Wallace's pioneering role in bringing show biz to news, his fall from grace and professional rebirth on 60 Minutes.
4. The birth of the National Inquirer and why it's located in Florida (fears of problems from the Mob).
5. Why there wasn't more MAJOR NEGATIVE published gossip on the Kennedy administration (they virtually destroyed one person dabbling in info about them and many journalists were intimidated.) JFK's other marriage.
6. The OJ case, Elvis Princess Diana case, the gossip columnists of the 40s and 50s and their replacements, the explanation of why Rona Barrett had such a sudden rise and fall. The birth of People Magazine and it's influence on pushing tabloids to another level...which pushed the national media to a new level (or low?).
7. Hardball-playing p.r. and private detectives who contolled their clients images and staved off major scandals -- and how they do it (bullying, getting the dirt on and confronting critics and making sought after clients inaccessible to offending journalists).
This is a highly ENTERTAINING book, with lots of facts, quotes and info that you haven't read elsewhere. It's solidly written but an EASY read and you'll REGRET it when you come to the last page. It answered a LOT of questions for me about what "really" went on and why our news media is the way it is today. SUPERB!!!
Good but feels like the author rushed to print.......2001-07-19
I found "Dish" very entertaining as well as educational. I think the historical aspect is very good. However, after reading another reader review that criticized sloppiness with names (spelled wrong, first and last names transposed), which now does make me wonder just how truly careful and thorough the research was. The way I feel right now is that fumbling the names was not due to the author not knowing what she was writing about, but just that her writing (editing, proofreading) wasn't great. I did get the feeling that this book was rushed to print, which might have led to the name fumbling. The different chapters read like separate articles, without much of a transition from chapter to chapter so there wasn't a real cohesive feel to the book as a whole. I wish I could rate this book higher, because I think there is good content but it's not presented as well as it could be.
The best book on the gossip industry.......2001-06-01
If you read The National Enquirer, The Globe or Star weekly or enjoy gossip columns or shows like Entertainment Tonight, this book is for you. Full of history and detail, you get the inside scoop on how gossip is made and reported, and how it's changed the face of "legitimate" news organizations. It's a great read and very informative. I couldn't put this book down. Sure, stars complain about the tabloids, but wait to you hear celebrities' true role in it all.
Try to put this one down!.......2001-05-12
I picked this book up on a whim and what a treat. Gossip, whether you like it or not, has definately altered the course of history. Dish definately introduced some concepts I would have brushed off as trivial in the past.
I couldn't put it down.
The growth of gossip provides entertainment.......2000-12-21
Not as lightweight as the title would have you believe, this overview of the growth of celebrity gossip is fascinating. The author chronicles the events which took gossip from a limited group of tabloids to the pages of some of the world's most prestigious newspapers as well as the surprising successful efforts of celebrities to control their public image.
Book Description
Praise for the Second Edition
"Croteau and Hoynes have written the clearest, most comprehensive, and useful textbook I’ve seen on the media, American Society, and their interconnections. As sage as it is thoroughgoinga, it serves as an encyclopedic reference book as well as a cogent summation of what scholars know. My congratulations to the authors."
-- Todd Gitlin, Columbia University
"The most comprehensive and insightful book on the role of media in life and society. If students, scholars, and all those concerned about our culture had to pick one book to enlighten and inform them, this would be the book."
-- George Gerbner, Bell Atlantic Professor of Telecommunication, Temple University
In a society saturated by mass media, from newspapers and magazines, television and radio, to digital video projects and the worldwide web, most students possess a great deal of media knowledge and experience before they ever enter the classroom. What they often lack, however, is a broader framework for understanding the relationship between media and society.
Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences provides that context and helps students develop skills for critically evaluating both conventional wisdom and one’s own assumptions about the social role of the media.
The first two editions of
Media/Society introduced thousands of students to a sociologically informed analysis of the media process. The
Third Edition builds on this success with revised Internet resources, the latest data on the media industry, new examples from the independent media sector, and updated discussions of media policy, online media, and independent media.
Media/Society is unique among media texts in that it offers:
- A sociological approach that examines overarching relationships between the various components of the media process—the industry, its products, audiences, technology, and the broader social world
- An integrated study of mass media that looks at media technologies, collective influences, and connections between mass media issues that are often treated as separate
- An examination of how economic and political constraints affect the media and how audiences actively construct their own interpretations of media messages
Media/Society: Industries, Images and Audiences, Third Edition engages the reader with accessible analyses that are historically grounded but draw upon current media debates such as regulation of the Internet, concentration of media ownership, portrayals of gays in the media, and the growth of global media. Media/Society an outstanding text for courses in mass media and sociology.
Customer Reviews:
Life in all its strangeness.......2005-04-04
Unquestionably, the strength and courage shown by the modern day media has been the sole driving force in bringing forward the various viewpoints that would eventually change the world for better. It is like the words - "It sometimes takes a stranger for us to be able to look into justices' beautiful eyes". That is true at so many levels, both at an individual and personal level but also in terms of the relationship between the citizens of this world and the media. And therein lies the genesis of everlasting love as well, no matter how much doubt is cast by slander. However human nature is strange in that one often ends up hurting the most those that they actually love dearly. Words, in that context, are also strange since they can be sometimes be so vitriolic, if not being utterly cruel. There once was an ordinary man who sat in his home looking at his television screen, as if looking through it and asked for forgiveness and hoped that one day he would be forgiven by everyone he hurt. It was at times like this that he wished he could get himself to walk away from the television and return to his ordinary world of man and machines or even to his essence, not out of fear of retaliation but out of the pain he kept causing others. After all he was just a human being! He was such a person who could see the truth in every perspective and ideology and at the same time felt that the modern world would be writing its epitaph if it did not bravely face the reality of the every changing world. It was something as simple and pure as seeing the truth in the different ways of life chosen by different human beings who lived on this land even if he did not agree with all viewpoints. It is like being able to walk in every stranger's shoes and realizing that in essence some face of the ultimate truth shows itself no matter how different this truth looks at face value. It is analogous to the different faces of a diamond and that it would take a miracle to be able to see these myriad, if not infinite, faces of the same diamond in one glimpse. In this regard, the narrower the tunnel vision, the more mistrust there is against other viewpoints. That is the essence of life. Well, what can you say other than - "shine on you crazy diamond..."
your superego.......2005-03-07
Complete moral degredation of society, eh? Dimwit zealots interspersed with egotistical invaders of privacy and the silly immature masses of disgusting protoplasm seeking fun at others' expense, all trapped in the tragic duplicity and hypocrisy of their own self-glorified beliefs...the self-proclaimed intellectual class, the so-called saviors of modern society? Has the rabid journalistic and entertainment and advertising (aka the modern day devils) media gone berserk with no one around to save them from their mental illness except maybe their own slow but inevitable slide down into oblivion?
Shooting history on the wing.......2000-04-15
Media-disseminated messages flood our every waking second, affecting us in ways we often do not readily discern. Croteau and Hoynes take the reader on an exploration of these media forces in a sociological journey that walks then leaps from the birth of printed words for the masses to cyberspace for the individual. In the process, we learn a lot along the way. Not only about media, but, about ourselves. Unlike most college course texts in Media and Society (in sociology or journalism), "Media Society" is written in understandable English and is not ruefully Marxian in ideological slant. The work plays it straight down the middle. The authors' goal, to which they succeed, is to provide information that shows the complexity of social relationships in, around and through which information from all sources is sought and internalized by "receivers" then, through feedback, subtly affects the "senders" and subsequent messages as well. Surprisingly up-to-date in information, especially concerning the so-called New Media (a synthesis of current technologies, traditional entertainment programs-turned-political,and old news media). Croteau and Hoynes not only introduce the reader to the media mileau in society, they show how economics drive news coverage. At the same time they explain that media consolidations have not shrunk the markets as first feared, but have actually led--perhaps inadvertently--to an explosion of different, often smaller and more intimate media. The media pie, they attest, is growing bigger as the number of slices inexplicably increase. In later chapters, the authors do a commendable job acquainting the reader with communications theory, especially explaining how opinions are formed. My favorite chapter, given my predilections, are the chapters dealing with media and the political world (and the rest of the chapters in Part 4). The authors also enter the globalization fray by demonstrating not only how American pop culture is transforming traditional cultures (see Barber's McWorld v. Jihad for greater detail), but also how traditional cultures are influencing American pop culture in ways greater than we had intuited. Anyone interested in gaining a sense of how media is impacting his or her daily life and how we, as social beings, react to that impact, should certainly read this wonderful book.
Book Description
The number one New York Times bestselling author of Bias delivers another bombshell—this time aimed at . . .
100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
No preaching. No pontificating. Just some uncommon sense about the things that have made this country great—and the culprits who are screwing it up.
Bernard Goldberg takes dead aim at the America Bashers (the cultural elites who look down their snobby noses at "ordinary" Americans) . . . the Hollywood Blowhards (incredibly ditzy celebrities who think they're smart just because they're famous) . . . the TV Schlockmeisters (including the one whose show has been compared to a churning mass of maggots devouring rotten meat) . . . the Intellectual Thugs (bigwigs at some of our best colleges, whose views run the gamut from left wing to far left wing) . . . and many more.
Goldberg names names, counting down the villains in his rogues' gallery from 100 all the way to 1—and, yes, you-know-who is number 37. Some supposedly "serious" journalists also made the list, including the journalist-diva who sold out her integrity and hosted one of the dumbest hours in the history of network television news. And there are those famous miscreants who have made America a nastier place than it ought to be—a far more selfish, vulgar, and cynical place.
But Goldberg doesn't just round up the usual suspects we have come to know and detest. He also exposes some of the people who operate away from the limelight but still manage to pull a lot of strings and do all sorts of harm to our culture. Most of all, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America is about a country where as long as anything goes, as one of the good guys in the book puts it, sooner or later everything will go.
This is serious stuff for sure. But Goldberg will also make you laugh as he harpoons scoundrels like the congresswoman who thinks there aren't enough hurricanes named after black people, and the environmentalist to the stars who yells at total strangers driving SUVs—even though she tools around the country in a gas-guzzling private jet.
With Bias, Bernard Goldberg took us behind the scenes and exposed the way Big Journalism distorts the news. Now he has written a book that goes even further. This time he casts his eye on American culture at large—and the result is a book that is sure to become the voice of all those Americans who feel that no one is speaking for them on perhaps the most vital issue of all: the kind of country in which we want to live.
Download Description
"
The number one New York Times bestselling author of
Bias delivers another bombshell -- this time aimed at ...
100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
No preaching. No pontificating. Just some uncommon sense about the things that have made this country great -- and the culprits who are screwing it up.
Bernard Goldberg takes dead aim at the America Bashers (the cultural elites who look down their snobby noses at ""ordinary"" Americans) ... the Hollywood Blowhards (incredibly ditzy celebrities who think they're smart just because they're famous) ... the TV Schlockmeisters (including the one whose show has been compared to a churning mass of maggots devouring rotten meat) ... the Intellectual Thugs (bigwigs at some of our best colleges, whose views run the gamut from left wing to far left wing) ... and many more.
Goldberg names names, counting down the villains in his rogues' gallery from 100 all the way to 1 -- and, yes, you-know-who is number 37. Some supposedly ""serious"" journalists also made the list, including the journalist-diva who sold out her integrity and hosted one of the dumbest hours in the history of network television news. And there are those famous miscreants who have made America a nastier place than it ought to be -- a far more selfish, vulgar, and cynical place.
But Goldberg doesn't just round up the usual suspects we have come to know and detest. He also exposes some of the people who operate away from the limelight but still manage to pull a lot of strings and do all sorts of harm to our culture. Most of all,
100 People Who Are Screwing Up America is about a country where as long as anything goes, as one of the good guys in the book puts it, sooner or later everything will go.
This is serious stuff for sure. But Goldberg will also make you laugh as he harpoons scoundrels like the congresswoman who thinks there aren't enough hurricanes named after black people, and the environmentalist to the stars who yells at total strangers driving SUVs -- even though she tools around the country in a gas-guzzling private jet.
With
Bias, Bernard Goldberg took us behind the scenes and exposed the way Big Journalism distorts the news. Now he has written a book that goes even further. This time he casts his eye on American culture at large -- and the result is a book that is sure to become the voice of all those Americans who feel that no one is speaking for them on perhaps the most vital issue of all: the kind of country in which we want to live.
"
Customer Reviews:
GREAT.......2007-09-01
Bernie Goldberg is by far one of the best political analysts in the Business. Honest and fair. Audiobook even better to hear him.
The Truth Hurts.......2007-08-29
Humorous, clever, insightful, painful at times, it's a valuable commentary from the kid from the Bronx.
Don't hate me because I'm a democrat!.......2007-08-07
On my list of 100 things screwing up America, #1 would be the narrow-minded comments that liberals and conservatives alike will make, and more alarmingly -- believe, about other human souls.
Here's a quote from another review posted on this site - about this book.
" There is little decency left in this world due to the people he talks about in this book."
Given that this book (and please don't be fooled into thinking otherwise) is an unobjective look at liberals, that comment is so alarming to me.
I don't disagree that many of the people and their words or actions cited in the book are "screwed up." Does that make the other ?? millions of liberals equally detestable? If the book would have talked about 100 idiots (equal opportunity political parties represented) that comment would be benign. But as the book makes no effort to answer it's title question objectively, it's credibility is lacking to say the least -- and it makes that comment an over-reaching comment to all liberals, and it's offensive. Not just to me, but to any sensible person.
A mildly amusing rant for the right, the book may be... but that quote demonstrates something really completely "screwed" up with many people. We need to think for ourselves, and have a little respect for mankind.
Full disclosure -- yes, I am a democrat and I spent my own hard earned money for this book (gasp) I was fairly certain it would be a one-sided rant, but I like to read all types of authors, consider other points of view... you get the picture. (I dare one of you on the right... to read one of Al Franken's book... or to go see "An Inconvenient Truth.")
Don't get me wrong... I don't mind a rant... even one-sided rants (because I think I'm smart enough to pick out the nonsense and it's interesting to hear them once in a while -- on either side of the fence.)
What an excellent concept for a book. How interesting and utterly smart it would have been if it were presented in a non-partisan manner. Come on..... we can't really believe that 50% of the population really make up 100% of the reasons America is screwed up. It's irresponsible. Don't we all know, love and respect friends, family, and neighbors who are on all sides of the political spectrum?) Sadly, the author is either that narrow-minded -- or he believed this would sell more books. (I think it's the latter to be honest with you. While he doesn't have a moments hesitation to dish up a one-sided rant - he obviously knows it's one-sided... but it's his side so --- who cares right?)
Sensible, objective, lover of mankind. (Even conservatives... except... I must admit... Ann Coulter:-) But then she would expect nothing less.
ARW
Interesting but closed-minded.......2007-07-27
I consider myself a conservative, so in many ways I agree with Goldberg's list of mostly-liberal individuals who are screwing up America by promoting a morally relative world-view rejecting all traditional value systems and by embracing their own hypocritical, extremist version of what they call "diversity." However, instead of presenting well-researched and well-reasoned arguments, Goldberg pulls the common-sense card and expects readers to see the names on the list, roll their eyes at the hapless politicans/celebrities/intellectuals, and accept that they are responsible for the crumbling of America because it's soooo obvious. This shows that Goldberg is writing not to persuade but to make some cracks at those who have different views than him and pat his fellow conservatives on the back. The book has the potential to be thought-provoking reading if it utilized facts rather than obviously out-of-context quotes and anecdotes to assail the listed and garner cheap laughs.
What is more, Goldberg completely disregards feminists as "crazies" and essentially denies that domestic violence is a HUGE problem in the united states today. On the contrary, I would argue that the indifferent attitudes toward domestic violence and those who express them are more detrimental to America than some of the feminists out there. And calling any group of people names is no way to work towards positive change, anyway. When will feminists on-the-fringe and dear Goldberg realize that, rather than isolating insults lobbed at opponents, balance and true open-mindedness and a seeking of middle-ground is the key to everything?
Ultimtely the book was mean-spirited and poorly researched, despite its glimmers of humor and sense. There have to be better conservative writers out there, or America really is going to have problems.
Bush should have been included!.......2007-07-26
The book starts with the Hiltons, and of course, the most notorious of them all, Paris! Paris is known worldwide, gaining a wide audience from both youngsters and adults. Shout the name Paris Hilton in the streets of say, Zanzibar or Timbuktu, and you will be instantly rewarded with facial expressions of instant recognition from the crowd. But why, and most importantly, how has she become a household name? Is it her home made porn movie seen by millions in the internet? But is she really screwing up America, or herself? Or is she entertaining America and just screwing around?
The author explores many other characters he feels are screwing up America. Some you might have never heard of. It would have been nice to include pictures of each person. Sometimes the name might not be recognizable but the face always is.
Two of his characters get little words to describe them: Courtney Love (# 95), gets two letters: Ho; and Michael Jackson (# 90) gets the following sentence: "If I have to explain it to you, you shouldn't be reading this book!" Amazingly, Jimmy Carter is ranked at number 6! And who gets the number one rank? You probably haven't guessed it: Michael Moore. And he gets a full page picture of himself too (the only one with a picture), and just the following quote: "They are possibly the dumbest people on this planet..." Moore is speaking of his fellow Americans.
Honestly, I am surprised he did not include President Bush Junior in his list. According to Europeans and probably the rest of the world, President Bush screwed up the image of America big time!!!!
I could not stop laughing. Was this book meant to be a serious work or comic, or both? I loved the exchange between Goldberg and Al Franken. It was just hilarious.
If you want to laugh out loud then pick up this book! If you are a believer in let bygones be bygones, then better not to read this book.
Book Description
This radical new aesthetic vision from the founder of Adbusters Magazine looks unflinchingly at contemporary art and graphic design and implicates their seemingly innocuous practitioners in crimes against our culture and our planet. Design Anarchy pioneers a hybrid graphic/text language that is by turns intimate, anarchic, abstract and accusatory, to explore the responsibility of the visual designer and artist in the pollution and redemption of our mental and physical commons. It makes an urgent call for artists, graphic and industrial designers and architects to reengage with the world. And it includes work from some who have already heard that call: Jeff Wall, Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ryan McGinley, Gregory Crewdson and Barbara Kruger. Kalle Lasn is the founder of Adbusters Media Foundation, and as its head has launched international social marketing campaigns such as Buy Nothing Day and TV Turnoff Week, and has pioneered the spoof ads, billboard liberations and TV mind-melters featured here. In the battle for a new kind of meaning, Design Anarchy is a 400 page mind bomb without precedent.
Customer Reviews:
Change Your Paradigms.......2007-05-29
Awesome book, if you're just curious about it, it makes you more aware of what surrounds you, if you work with propaganda, publicity, marketing or is an graphic designer or something similar, it makes you think about the road you're taking, where you are and where you wanna be, or if it's all worth it.
is it what it seems to be?.......2007-02-19
in this book there are a lot of things i agree with. its a hard time right now for a graphic designer, if you really want to do interesting things and at the same time you have to manage to work for the right people and to be somehow "politically correct".
apart from the huge format and the shiny pages that are used (which are not really ecological) - without any doubt a pure design question... maybe i am just a young graphic design student without much experience, but the last page let me think:
"printed in china"
this fact just changes the sense of the whole book. credibilty is gone. kalle lasn is taking himself serious?
or did he eventually pay them the same wages as in western countries?
Purposeful Design.......2007-02-07
A book that reminds the artist or designer the importance of design, its purpose, and its message. The total collection of adbusters purposeful imagery is a wonderful treat, especially for those of us who are in agreement with all the anti-consumer, and anti-media campaigns.
Design Anarchy is a must have, its not a poster book, or just another graphic design book, since each image provides a pool of creative idea's that will keep you both politically and artistically active.
"Undesign".......2007-02-04
Design Anarchy- is one of those books which reminds a Graphic Designer's actual duty; how to speak visually?, how to make cool things uncool and vice-versa, how we "graphic designers" are helping our brothers and sisters to live a totally false life...an Uncool one!
DA is an eye opener and mind opener aswell. When i was a design student i used to love Tibor Kalman's philosophy and Adbusters activism... Now when i am teaching my students, DA is my weekly guide to breathe the air of Creative Activism towards Corporate Culture amongst my students and fellows!
If "Art of Looking Sideways" was the Design Bible for me... Design Anarchy is the [Resurrection of Designers] for me.
How to react when you accept reality..........2006-11-27
While I agree with an earlier reviewer that the title is in itself amusing, I would say that this bit of ironic self-reference is in keeping with the idea of detournment pioneered by Guy DeBord to which a chapter is dedicated. In an era when everyone wants to tell you what is going wrong with the world a perspective that offers suggestions as to what you might do right in it is indispensable. For making the attempt alone Kalle Lasn achieves 5 stars, but when you add to that the visual delights and practicality the book offers, one need not turn to the background to find a reason to give this work the highest possible rating.
Amazon.com
An insightful, witty, and well-written analysis of the effects of mass-media on women in late 20th-century American culture. Douglas cuts through the fluff that spews from the tube with a finely-honed sense of the absurd that can forever change (or minimally, inform) how you perceive the changing portrayals of women by the media. The only book I know of that has been given highest recommendations by Gloria Steinem, The McLaughlin Group, and Amazon.com.
Book Description
Media critic Douglas deconstructs the ambiguous messages sent to American women via TV programs, popular music, advertising, and nightly news reporting over the last 40 years, and fathoms their influence on her own life and the lives of her contemporaries. Photos.
Customer Reviews:
Obscure references.......2007-01-18
For anyone born after the baby boomers, the constant references to TV shows, music, and movies for illustrating points makes the book nearly unreadable.
She draws almost exclusively on the feelings people felt while watching or listening while growing up. Having missed that generation, I can't identify with that woman. I believe her premise, that women are shaped by the messages they receive growing up, is accurate, but she does a poor job of illustrating it to anyone outside her generation (and maybe inside, I don't know).
I'd love to see this book redone with a little more relevance to all women.
witty pop culture tour.......2005-09-28
"Where the Girls Are" is a tour through and a look at how pop culture affected girls and women. It is a thought provoking, sarcastic, and very witty portrayal from a woman who admits to having an "attitude problem." The targets are taken from literature, movies, TV and music, and include everything and everyone from "Bewitched," The Shirelles, "Sex and the Single Girl," Charlie's Angels, Murphy Brown and Madonna. She also examines famous feminists'impact including Kate Millett, Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. The book contains plenty of quotes from anti-feminists, as well, to show (at least in this reviewer's eyes) just how ridiculous if often effective the opposition to the Women's Movement was.
One thing. The author laments that role models in children's literature are "few and far between." Either she is making a blanket statement, or she has no experience. Young adult and children's lit, even back in 1994 when the book was published, are a treasure trove of strong, positive female heroines.
easy to read, but..........2004-05-27
this book is very readable, but I found if you do not know much about the tv shows she talks about, it really isn't that interesting or imforative. I do know a bit about I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched, so I found the particular chapter on these two tv shows very informative. However, some of the other chapters seemed a bit dull if I had no other knowledge of the shows, movies, etc that were being talked about. Don't get me wrong, it is very readable, but for me it was harder to stay with it if I had no prior to fall back on. Also, maybe it was me, but I don't know if it went deep enough into the issue of mass media and how it reflects on women.
Unfair review by uniformed republican from Alabama.......2004-05-04
To begin with, feminism is about finding a suitable subject position for "female", "feminine", "woman." Douglas explores the subject position of the feminine in pop culture -- and does it rather well. Some attacks listed here are uninformed about the purposes of feminism, or assume that feminism is designed to do something anti-male. For instance, "Harpe" you claim that "Government-funded child care, taxpayer-supported abortions, national health insurance, Social Security for homemakers, and many other socialist policies" are socialistic rather than feministic. But maybe that's because your idea of what feminism is remains limited to the outmoded belief that feminism is about equal rights with men (well, white men). What Susan Douglas does here IS feminism and the only way your Civil War nostalgic mind can get past it is to disregard it as socialist (and since when did social responsibility become a BAD thing?). The things Douglas addresses in this book support equality not special privileges -- for instance funding for homemakers provides security should the heteronormic imperative (also known as marriage) fail or be, gasp, undesirable. Why do some readers fail to see that it is men who have special rights by having independence from domesticity in a way that women do not have (particularly in Alabama -- I know, I live here too). For those of you who might have picked this book up to find out "Where the Girls are" for your own misogynistic reasons, put it down now; go read something like Susan Bordo's _The Male Body_; find out what feminism REALLY is and what it hopes to achieve; then come back and read Douglas's book. Until then, vote for Bush and Riley, admire Thomas Jefferson, attend a Civil War re-enactment and stay out of the new millennium.
Women Portrayed Unrealistically on TV.......2003-11-24
I have read some of this book, and I know what writer Susan Douglas means when she talks about how the media unrealistically portrays women. Take, for example, today's commercials. Even though we are already in the 21st century, the commercials I see on TV look like they never left the 50s. Just about every commercial for food, baby, cleaning, and other products portrays women as wives and mothers. These commercials constantly say, "Moms know...", "Moms need...", or "Mama's got the magic...". These commercials give the impression that every woman out there is a wife and a mom. Needless to say, that's TV, not reality. Not every woman in real life is a mom or wife. Some, like me, are neither. In addition, a lot of us (even the married ones with kids) work outside the home. We women know what we're really like, and we don't buy those unrealistic images.
Book Description
View the
Table of Contents. Read the
Introduction.
"Jenkins is one of us: a geek, a fan, a popcult packrat. He's also an incisive and unflinching critic. His affection for the subject and sharp eye for 'what it all means' are an unbeatable combination. This is fascinating, engrossing and enlightening reading."
—Cory Doctorow, author of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town and co-editor of Boing Boing
Henry Jenkins's pioneering work in the early 1990s promoted the idea that fans are among the most active, creative, critically engaged, and socially connected consumers of popular culture and that they represent the vanguard of a new relationship with mass media. Though marginal and largely invisible to the general public at the time, today, media producers and advertisers, not to mention researchers and fans, take for granted the idea that the success of a media franchise depends on fan investments and participation.
Bringing together the highlights of a decade and a half of groundbreaking research into the cultural life of media consumers,
Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers takes readers from Jenkins's progressive early work defending fan culture against those who would marginalize or stigmatize it, through to his more recent work, combating moral panic and defending Goths and gamers in the wake of the Columbine shootings. Starting with an interview on the current state of fan studies, this volume maps the core theoretical and methodological issues in Fan Studies. It goes on to chart the growth of participatory culture on the web, take up blogging as perhaps the most powerful illustration of how consumer participation impacts mainstream media, and debate the public policy implications surrounding participation and intellectual property.
Average customer rating:
|
Television Culture (Studies in Communication Series)
John Fiske
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Communications
| Skills
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General Broadcasting
| Radio
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Television
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Media Studies
| Mass Media
| Current Events
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Media Studies
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Performing Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Business Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Entertainment Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Nonfiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Arts & Photography
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Business & Investing
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Entertainment
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Inside Prime Time
-
Understanding Popular Culture
-
Film as Social Practice IV (Studies in Culture and Communication)
-
Television: Critical Methods and Applications (Lea's Communication)
-
Television: The Critical View
ASIN: 0415039347 |
Book Description
Television Culture provides a comprehensive introduction to television studies. Fiske examines both the economic and cultural aspects of television, and investigates it in terms of both theory and text-based criticism. Fiske introduces the main arguments from current British, American, Australian, and French scholarship in a style accessible to the student, providing an integrated study of approaches to the medium.
Customer Reviews:
Enlightening.......2000-03-31
John Fiske takes us into the television world that we take for granted. He analyzes such aspects as Professional Wrestling, Dallas, daytime soap operas, M.A.S.H., the A-team, Miami Vice, Magnum p.i. and Saturday Night Live. He incorporates magazines (Playboy, Vogue), movies (Rambo, Mad Max) and famous celebrities (Madonna). He even looks into game shows such as the Family Feud, and The New Price is Right. He takes a look into the white culture of American media in order to examine televisions influence in popular culture. He explores the questions of why mass population consumes this form of cultural industry. He answers such questions as, who watches what programs and why? How does televisions become so aborted into social lives? Fiske explores the cultural process in which gives these show their meanings. It is an interesting and enlightening insight. It is useful when exploring other sociological theories relating to mass media and popular culture.
Average customer rating:
- WONDERFUL Scrapbook of SF history
- Breathtaking
- Science Fiction of the 20th Century
- Worth 60 Bucks and Then Some....
- visually great, slightly self-serving
|
Science Fiction of the 20th Century : An Illustrated History
Frank M. Robinson
Manufacturer: Collectors Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Popular Culture
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Media Studies
| Mass Media
| Current Events
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
History & Criticism
| Fantasy
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
History & Criticism
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Fantasy of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History
-
Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia
ASIN: 1888054298 |
Book Description
10"X13", cloth, 256 full-color pages, embossed and foiled dust jacket, vividly illustrated with images of film posters, magazines and books. This is an insider's view of the writers, illustrators and editors who made science fiction the most popular form of entertainment in the 20th Century.
Customer Reviews:
WONDERFUL Scrapbook of SF history.......2002-03-21
I'll be honest; when I first saw this book in a local store I wasn't sure I wanted it. It's very heavy (about 10-15 pounds) and expensive (about $60), but I sprang for it because I love SF and I wanted to see what a writer who loves it too had to say.
Frank Robinson is a dedicated writer, fan and historian. Not as dry as John Clute, but not as irreverent as Harlan Ellison, Robinson shows his love by sharing some truly amazing and wide-ranging materials dating from as far back as the 1890s.
A good, friendly companion if you want to take a SF literature course, or if you just want to sit down for a few weeks and read. HIGHLY recommended.
Breathtaking.......2001-05-01
This book is a beautiful collection of some stunning science fiction art.
Two things should be mentioned right away: first, that this is a book of science fiction art, not fantasy (there are no dragons, no unicorns, no elves), and second, that with the exception of a few science fiction movie posters, the art featured within are book covers and magazine covers.
This book itself is a work of art. It's large, it's heavy (printed on thick glossy paper), it's very colorful and has very fancy graphic designs. The layout is easy to see, eye-catching, and well spaced. Some of the featured covers are full-page. Most pages have two or three covers, a few have four. In other words, the pictures are never crowded together, and remain large enough to show detail.
Many of the covers are astounding. There are assorted rockets, saucers, aeroplanes, even a few flying globes. There are furry aliens, tentacled aliens, winged aliens, reptilian aliens, aquatic aliens, some tiny humanoid aliens. Heroes in skintight clothing, heroes in coverall jumpsuits, heroes in metallic spacemechs, heroes in Roman Centurion gear (go figure), heroes in clanky armorlike spacesuits. The women, especially in the earlier pulps and books, tend to be either scantily clad or in skintight clothing, and most are in various states of distress (being carried off by aliens). There are vistas of deserts, oceans, mountain ranges, desolate moonscapes, fantastic alien forests, fabulous spaceports. Many moons hang in the sky, and fantastic ringed planets.
Among the magazines included are Analog, Asimov's, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Argosy, Astounding, Amazing Stories, Planet Stories, Science Wonder Stories, Locus. And more. Book covers range from forgotten novellas to bestselling classics. Movie posters from B-movie creature features to contemporary blockbusters. There really is a lot of art in this book.
The narrative, which is actually extensive, mostly follows the history of the sci-fi magazines and their circulation. The data is informative, but when the art is this beautiful, you won't be reading the small print except to see who did the drawing anyway. You'll lose yourself in this book!
There is only one reason I took one star from the review: some of the art is not identified. The publishers really ought to be ashamed of themselves for overlooking this, in an art book of all things. The entries are identified (although some of the artists' names have been lost, the publisher or sources are named), but the graphics of the cover (of this book) and the chapter introductions are not identified. Shame, shame! The chapter introduction plates are breathtaking, as are the inside-cover and dustjacket art.
This is a book of dreams and imagination. Normally I'd call this a "coffee table book" but not this time. HIDE this book and hoard it for yourself. It's a treasure.
Science Fiction of the 20th Century.......2000-07-14
Science Fiction of the 20th Century Author: FrankM. Robinson
This fascinating book is 100 percent sciencefiction/fantasy memories. I was especially intrigued because it was a birthday gift from my son, and I was one of the writers for Weird Tales magazine and a Brown University veteran-student during the late 1940's. Superb Magazine Cover Photos.
At first, I did a lot of skimming and admiring the book covers, but I recommend you read the book in chronological order, from beginning to end. Robinson's Science Fiction of the 20th Century is thoroughly researched and very well written. Delightfully, exciting and wonderfully informative, Robinson's book contains hundreds of superb, full-color photographs of science fiction and fantasy magazine covers, (wherever did they find them? and they are printed even sharper and more brilliant than when new!).
You will enjoy the beautiful, digitally-created science fictions pulp covers, many enlarged two times actual dimensions. (The average size of early pulp magazines was 6"x8", but they varied, depending on the availability of paper stock during four wars and the fluctuating prices of the pulp paper.)
Writers of Yesterday
Science Fiction of the 20th Century dates from the beginning of science fiction and fantasy genre, to the present revival in books, TV, Movies and Magazines!
The author, Frank M. Robinson gives fascinating and informative data on science fiction writers of past and present. He even reports that Hugh Heffner of Playboy fame, was a sci-fi addict. Playboy magazine has published outstanding science fiction stories and authors, such as Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury.
Final Notes
Robinson's book gave me an exhaustive, warm and nostalgic visit to fond friends, illustrations, covers, and writers of yesterday, and today.
Robinson's book even stimulated me to forage in my attic where I found a treasure chest of dozens of stories that I had written and published decades ago. I typed them into my computer, formatted them, edited, and now have a new book titled, Really Weird Weird Tales!, a compilation of science fiction and fantasy stories for a huge market, now reborn.
Worth 60 Bucks and Then Some...........2000-04-01
Although I'm not an expert on science fiction,I'm hoping to learn more about the genre so I can figure out what is best to invest time in reading, having already read Dune, Lord of the Rings, H.G.Wells, Jules Verne and some of the other basics. Buying this book was in part motivated by my desire to seek out some context and history of the vast sci-fi universe. The other motivation is that I collect particularly high-quality and esoteric art books and the other reviewers described the book as possibly meeting that criteria.
Having just received the book earlier today let me emphatically express that this is a fantastic work, beautifully illustrated, meticulously manufactured, and what I've read is very well written. This book emanates the kind of vital and exciting energy that I find to be most compelling in a "coffee table book." It really rouses interest in the subject matter it presents.
I've checked out other coffee table books on sci-fi, and some have looked good but none come close to this.
visually great, slightly self-serving.......2000-02-02
The book is a lavish, beautifully put-together work, with plenty of big colorful reproductions of classic pulp and contemporary cover art. There are a few mistakes (no, Cronenberg didn't direct the original Vincent Price version of 'The Fly'), but there's really one simple reason why I couldn't bring myself to give this book a 5-star recommendation. After having read it from cover to cover, there was a slight bad taste left in my mouth. Why? Because the author/editor, James M. Robinson, seemed a bit too relentless in his attempts to establish his own reputation and history in the field. Now I've read a LOT of science fiction in my time, but before I picked up this book I'd never even heard of James Robinson. So I was surprised by how often I came across reproductions of his book covers and/or mentions of his work. And they weren't presented in any sort of a 'personal note' type of format, nor do the captions for the illustrations even identify that the person who wrote the book being shown is the same as the editor who chose to include the image in this history. Rather, in most cases, you'll see Robinson's work discussed from the same third-person perspective as the other important works that surround it. This even extends, in one case, to including the work of another minor author apparently because it affords the opportunity to mention the fact that they'd collaborated with Robinson on OTHER projects. A quick count reveals cover reproductions of three of Robinson's novels (i.e. ALL of his science-fiction novels - he wrote a couple of techno-thrillers as well), a reproduction of a movie poster for a film based on one of those novels, and about five other mentions of his work in the text. A few of these would be fine - and the reproduction of one of his self-produced fanzines from the 1940's is a nice piece of nostalgia that certainly establishes his love of the genre. But it really felt like Robinson is trying to present himself as one of the more significant contributors to the genre. Personally, I just don't feel that Frank M. Robinson's fiction should be discussed more often than the work of Poul Anderson, or Robert Bloch, or Hal Clement, or Lester Del Rey or (to move to the end of the alphabet) Jack Vance or Gene Wolfe or Roger Zelazny. (Strangely enough, if you look up Frank M. Robinson in the index at the back of the book, he's not even listed. (Perhaps to make comparisons like this one a bit harder to do? Or maybe it's just sloppy indexing - SPIDER Robinson isn't listed in the index either, yet he's mentioned at least three times in the body of the book). At any rate, it really IS a beautiful book, and if you love this stuff as much as I do then you won't be disappointed by the overall package. It's just too bad that an editor somewhere didn't make an attempt to curb the author's self-promotion a little bit.
Books:
- Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000
- Barbaro: The Horse Who Captured America's Heart
- Beany Malone Series - 14 Book Set (Beany Malone)
- Black Womanist Ethics (American Academy of Religion Academy Series ; No. 60)
- Black Working Wives: Pioneers of the American Family Revolution
- Bobbi Brown Living Beauty
- Bordering on Madness: An American Land Use Tale
- Brit-Think, Ameri-Think: A Transatlantic Survival Guide, Revised Edition
- Brown Bag Success: Making Healthy Lunches Your Kids Won't Trade
- Buyers Are Liars & Sellers Are Too!: The Truth About Buying or Selling Your Home
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Marketing w/ PowerWeb
- Burpee : The Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener : A Guide to Growing Your Garden Organically
- What Is Cinema
- 20th Century Space History: X-15 Rocket Airplane and Spacecraft, Hypersonic Test Program Transiting
- A Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam, and the Hard Lessons of War
- Custody for Fathers : A Practical Guide Through the Combat Zone of a Brutal Custody Battle
- Cactus Desert
- Credit Derivatives and Structured Credit: A Guide for Investors
- Working Papers for Selected Problems in Advanced Accounting: Concepts and Practice
- An Imperfect Lens: A Novel
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School
The Disappearance of Childhood
Teaching As a Subversive Activity
Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future
