Book Description
In 1995 Cornelia Parker put actress Tilda Swinton in a vitrine, sleeping on display at London's Serpentine Gallery. (Unlike Damien Hirst's lamb under glass there, the artist had the subject's full cooperation.) Parker's brand of conceptual art takes iconic and historically powerful objects, such as a feather from Freud's pillow or soil removed from under the Leaning Tower of Pisa to prevent its collapse, and transforms it into art that both resonates with that power and becomes something new--and often beautiful. In the case of the Pisa dirt, the suspended clumps, exposed to air for the first time in 800 years, float as if released from gravity. Perpetual Canon features Parker's installation in the historic cupola hall of the Wrttembergischer Kunstverein art center in Stuttgart, along with a number of her works on paper. In this collection, the artist again and again unearths the subconscious within the familiar and the clicha, causing us to see them anew. Whether drawing out a filament from dental-filling gold or splitting objects with the same guillotine used to decapitate Marie Antoinette, Parker constantly challenges what we know and what we think we know. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

$500?No Way!!!!
I saw this thinnish book at a small NYC gallery, and hoped to find a copy.
She's a terrific artist, but there isn't enough of her best work to justify
even a $100 pricetag.
The real value looks to be around $27, and since it's out ot print, I'd pay $40 to
have photos of one or two of her exceptional pieces in the book.
I guess with the deflated dollar, Europeans will find $500 a bargain for an
unexceptional book on this outstanding artist. ... Read more

Product Description
A Couple That Prays Together Stays Together is a remarkable resource for newlywed couples that want to overcome obstacles that may arise in a marriage in a spiritual and healthy way, explains how truly wonderful marriage can be when God is placed in your marriage. Author Andrea Conrad-Parker brings Scriptures from the Bible and experience along with short fiction stories to guide couples on the right path to having a healthy spiritual marriage. In an candid and easy to understand concept, Conrad-Parker shares the secrets to having a healthy marriage and the key to keeping your spouse happy. ... Read more

Product Description
The volume Celebrations and Connections in Hispanic Literature is itself a celebration of a tradition of scholarly dialogue in a relaxed, festive atmosphere.The articles included here began as papers presented at the 25th Anniversary Edition of the Biennial Louisiana Conference on Hispanic Languages and Literatures, held in Baton Rouge Louisiana, February 23-24, 2006.Each of the authors responds in innovative ways to the idea of connecting texts, contexts, and genres, as well as to the disconnect that is often present between what we perceive asHispanicidentity and the experience of those left on the margin. Topics includeCelebrating and Rewriting Difference: (De)colonized Identities, Word and Image in the Spanish Golden Age,andLatin American Literature and Politics,among others. The collection is demonstrative of current trends in Hispanic literary and cultural criticism, which are increasingly less bound by traditional regional and temporal constructs.While each author s research is rooted in a specific socio-historic context, their combined contributions to the present volume provide a far-reaching perspective that expands the notion oftextto go beyond the literary and engage a multitude of disciplines. ...it emphasizes the often illuminating connections among literary and cultural texts which can be drawn when one conceives of Hispanism and its literary and cultural fields as shaped by trends and issues, rather than divided by periods and regions (...) What strikes me most is the newness of each piece. While each is very well informed, none rehearses old historical or theoretical ground more than is absolutely necessary, but rather presents either a new or overlooked text or offers a new approach. Leslie Bary, University of Louisiana, Lafayette An impressive array of well-established and younger scholars has produced a volume whose scope is the entire Hispanic world extending from the Golden Age to the contemporary era. (...) This volume will be of interest to all scholars and critics of Hispanic literature as well as to historians and political scientists.Many of the essays challenge traditional assumptions about the colonization of the Hispanic world as well as the motivations for the revolutions for independence whose influence is still strongly alive in contemporary treatments of fundamental questions of national identity, race, class, and gender.C. Chris Soufas, Jr., Tulane University ... Read more

Book Description
Description: "Fashion girl" Sylvie Fleury's work looks like a confirmation of the values of a consumer society, but it is much more of a bang for your buck than that. Subtly commenting on appearance for appearance's sake, she appropriates logos from fashion houses, perfume stores, and glossy magazines and uses them to identify the human passions and desires connected to them. In her attempt to come to terms with the fetishistic attachment to material goods that is the defining feature of the world of fashion, Fleury has recently turned to magic light phenomena, colorful rooms, flossy surfaces, magic auras, pendulums, and crystals. 49000, with a layout by the Swiss artist herself, presents work from the last two years along with classics from the 90s. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

beautiful
Wonderful package, beautifully designed, looks more like an artist's book than a basic catalog.NOTE: there's one Q&A in English, but three-quarters of the text in is German. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Gerald the giraffe doesn't really have delusions of grandeur. He justwants to dance. But his knees are crooked and his legs are thin, and all theother animals mock him when he approaches the dance floor at the annual JungleDance. "Hey, look at clumsy Gerald," they sneer. "Oh, Gerald, you're so weird."Poor Gerald slinks away as the chimps cha-cha, rhinos rock 'n' roll, andwarthogs waltz. But an encouraging word from an unlikely source shows this glumgiraffe that those who are different "just need a different song," and soon heis prancing and sashaying and boogying to moon music (with a cricketaccompanist). In the vein of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Gerald'sfickle "friends" quickly decide he's worthy of their attention again.

With this rhyming, poignant (in a cartoonish way) tale, Giles Andreae, author ofRumble in the Jungle, andnumerous other picture books, shows insecure young readers that everyone can bewonderful, even those that march to the beat of a different cricket. The rhymesare somewhat awkward, but the bold, bright watercolors by Guy Parker-Rees willinvite readers to kick up their heels and find their own internal harmony. (Ages3 to 6) --Emilie CoulterBook Description
Gerald is a giraffe who simply can¹t dance. Try as he may, his long, spindly legs buckle whenever he starts to boogie. Every year he dreads going to the Great jungle Dance, until one night he finds his own special music. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (42)

Wow!
This is one of the cutest stories I have come across and is not one I mind reading over and over again to my small children.The pictures are bright and interesting, the words just roll off the tongue, and the message is sweet.At first I was afraid it would be a little wordy since my kids are just one and two but they like it and it definitely keeps their interest.It is also the reason my kids have learned the name of jungle animals! They point out the giraffe, monkeys, elephants etc. when even Baby Einstein wasn't able to teach them that.

Marvelous book!
This book is a very lyrical, very touching story of a giraffe who feels out of place and out of step with the other jungle animals.The rhyming is fantastic, and it isn't sappy.My children love it, and I love reading it out loud.It's just marvelous.

Dance like no one is watching!
The artwork in this one just pops off the page!The story is precious and it catches a lovely rhyme!Tango, Salsa and ChaCha are all within your reach as you cheer for this awkward giraffe to bust a move! A great read aloud!

Great story and art work
This is a great must have book for your child's library!It is good for ages 0-6 years at least!I checked this book out from the library and just had to buy a copy for home!Great for gift giving also!

Beautiful Book
This book is such an enjoyment for myself as well as my two year old. I love the illustrations, which is what caught my attention at the store and led to the purchase. However when I came home and read it to my daughter I also fell in love with the story. This is a definate must have in your library, and I think Giles Andreae's best book. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Let's get this settled right away: Sunny Randall is nothing like Spenser. True, she's a private eye in Boston with good connections to the cops, and she also knows a lot of bad guys. And yes, she happens to have a trusty sidekick named Spike, and a close friend who could easily be related to Susan Silverman, (Spenser's long-term companion). Oh, did I mention the cute dog? Aside from that, though, there's absolutely no similarity between this new series from Robert B. Parker and his long-running Spenser books. Just because the case Sunny is working on--finding a missing 15-year-old girl who has run away from her very rich parents--sounds similar to the Spenser favorite Thin Air doesn't mean Parker is repeating himself here. Think of it as more like a homage, the kind of thing the author took on when he agreed to finish Raymond Chandler's Poodle Springs. Only in this case it's a homage to himself--but what the hell.

Written specifically with Parker's good friend actress Helen Hunt in mind, Family Honor is all in good fun. At one point, a no-nonsense nun looks down at Sunny's bull terrier, who is lying on her back begging for a tummy rub. "What's wrong with this dog?" Sister said. "It is a dog, isn't it?"

Parker is so good that with one hand tied behind his back he can create characters that are more memorable than most writers can even when pounding away with both fists. In just a few short pages, he tells us all about Sunny's career as a painter--and about the complicated relationship between her cool policeman father and her irritating pseudo-feminist mother. Parker even makes a direct dig at Spenser (who, before turning to private investigating, had a short and fairly unsuccessful career in the boxing world). When the runaway girl questions Sunny's ability to protect her from dangerous criminals--"you're a girl like me, for crissake, what are you going to do?"--Sunny replies, "It would be nice if I weighed two hundred pounds and used to be a boxer. But I'm not, so we find other ways." Exactly. --Dick Adler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (110)

"You Wouldn't Understand," she said - Rachel Wallace.This novel is Spenser's Reply.
FAMILY HONOR lived up to its title as the pilot for this delightful series which felt at first like Spenser was toning himself into a female roar heard round the literary arena, while extending his slant on gangster Vs cop family backgrounds (in which neither is all bad or all good) in this Juliet and Romeo romance.

I hadn't thought I'd be able to get into a female private eye series by Parker, especially after having become addicted to his 34 Spenser novels.But FAMILY HONOR was a perfect appetizer with appealing percolation.I don't doubt that Parker can carry both his new series (see my review of NIGHT PASSAGE, Jesse Stone # 1).

It didn't take more than a few chapters for Sunny to split off from the long-wrought, well-writ Spenser mystique and into her own, as a full character... maybe with Spenser speaking into her ear as an angel from an alternate reality, for a while.I enjoyed the slips connecting to Spenser, i.e., how Sunny might deal with a particular hairy situation if she were a 200 pound, male boxer.In humorous yet realistic contrast to Spenser and Hawk types, Parker dramatized what a small female can do to compensate for not being a testy, taut, towering gorilla-with-gonads, in a plot which will had me smiling.I'm excited about this series; I enjoyed the upbeat feeling of this first offering in it.I relished hearing Randall use Spenser's trademark words in dialogue, like "some more" and "eek."

Reading the first few chapters of FAMILY HONOR I kept seeing Spenser in high heels, noting how uncomfortable they were, and wondering where/how to effectively house a big enough gun on a 115 lb, 5'4" body... as he seemed to be having great fun adapting to this recent female incarnation, shaking out the form and personality.Of course, that image alone got me grinning.By the time the intense ending called up, I was liking Sunny Randall every bit as much as Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton's P. I.).

For this unique pilot, Parker designed a stylish, italicized prologue in third person observation of Sunny and Rosie, accomplishing an artistic, literary feel, giving a light-touch, sensitive contrast to chapter one opening into a first person narrative style with Sunny telling her own story in the classic private eye genre mode.

The included cultural icons of cooking, dress, habits, and thinking were precisely on target with the copyright date of 1999, when the Great Chefs TV episodes were running hot and heavy, with their long-handled saute pans being shook (contents were no longer stirred on TV) above gas-lit burners on commercial grade stoves, featuring Spike, Sunny's gay, tough-guy chef friend.

The plot here gave hints of EARLY AUTUMN (# 7 Spenser) and CEREMONY (# 9 Spenser) as Sunny took in a young teen, Millicent Patton, runaway, hooking daughter of her clients.Enlightening entertainment was easily obtained through Sunny's ways of dealing with and drawing out this young human lost in the sump and shrug of a lack of love.

A few quirky questions came to mind as I began reading this novel:

What might Rachel Wallace (# 6 SPENSER, Looking for Rachel Wallace) say about Spenser's (Parker's) ability to understand being female, if she were to read FAMILY HONOR.And what would she think about macho if she had read all 34 Spenser novels.Can novels help us understand that which we would have to stretch outside our bodies and into another form to get?I'd say they can, especially if penned by Parker.

Rachel Wallace may have to give the gauntlet on this one.Spenser understands.

Yet... can testosterone ever fully comprehend powerlessness...

Maybe any person who has ever been depressed, grieved loss of a loved one, or desperately wanted something he couldn't have, for whatever reason, has the capacity to comprehend the initial feeling of hopelessness which sometimes comes at those times of leached strength and slow coming answers.We each have a spirit, though, which seems to believe that morning comes daily.Parker has made a good case that sunny weather can dog the footsteps of storms.

Linda Shelnutt

More Sassy than Sunny
This is the first book I have read by Robert B. Parker so I cannot compare his newly minted heroine, Sunny Randall, to his previous protagonists or previous books.

Sonja "Sunny" Randall is a 35-year-old chip off the old block.Like her father, she was a cop, but then left to become a private detective.She's tough and beautiful, but frankly there is little about her disposition that seems to evoke her nickname.She's actually a rather abrupt individual who is a little too much of a smart alec to be truly endearing.Her wit is clever, but often a bit abrasive and she prefers witty one liners to deep thought.After a while, the one-liners become tiresome and seem to be mostly a way for Sunny to cover up her own issues with a fiesty shell.She's a loner - in fact, it's what led her to leave the police department for private practice, and it's a large part of what led her to divorce her husband of 9 years, Richie, with whom she remains good friends.Her constant companion is Rosie, a miniature bull terrier who Sunny seems to like much better than most people, particularly children.

The plot of this book centers around Millicent Patton, the 15-year-old daughter of a wealthy Boston banker and his socialite wife.When Millie runs away from home, Sunny is hired by Millie's parents to find her and bring her back home.It isn't long before Sunny catches up with Mille, but when she finds out what drove Millie out of the house in the first place, she has a decision to make: should she return Millie to her parents or not?The plot weaves the lives of Millie, Millie's parents, and Sunny directly into the middle of Boston's organized crime, and what starts out as finding a runaway teen ends up being an elusive contest to keep them both from getting killed.

I still haven't decided if I really like Sunny Randall.She's just a little too fearless and flippant for my tastes.Also, Parker's writing style is rather terse.He seems to prefer language that spurts rather than flows, with prose that is often truncated.In fact, I don't think I've ever read a novel in which so many sentences had less than 10 words in them.It's OK for periodic busts of dialog, but as a steady diet in narrative and dialog, it isn't really my cup of tea.I often found myself feeling as though two or three sentences should have been joined by commas or some other punctuation besides periods.

There isn't generally a whole lot of suspense here, as Parker reveals the answers slowly throughout the book rather than taking us breathlessly to the final few pages for the climax and resolution.

Although it's nice to have discovered a new author in this genre, I'm not sure I can count him among my favorites.I will say this: he certainly beats James Patterson, but that isn't saying a whole lot these days with Patterson churning out mediocre books like a drive through window.

If I were to award a letter grade, I'd give this book a B-.I'd also recommend starting with this book since it is the first in the Sunny Randall series, and the other books sort of build chronologically with many of the same characters appearing over and over again, such as Sunny's friend Spike, her ex-husband Ritchie, her sister Elizabeth, and her friend Julie, not to mention several repeat appearances by member's of Boston's underworld.If you like this book, continue on in the Sunny Randall series.If not, you'll probably want to pick something else since I'm now on my 3rd Sunny Randall book and have found the style of each to be essentially the same.

The master at work
If you thought Parker was good, you don't know how good he is until you read this one. The confrontation in the restaurant is the best scene I have read in a mystery. Hold your breath!

Sharp, witting and entertaining...
Family Honor by Robert B. Parker is the first in his Sunny Randall series, and like all of Parker's books, it's sharp, witty and entertaining.

Sunny Randall is a young and pretty cop-turned-private eye who is just getting over a divorce. Her former husband, Richie Burke, comes from a Boston mob family.Although they still love each other,the cop-mob conflict got in the way (Sunny's cop father kept trying to put Richie's father in jail).Sunny is hired by a prominent Boston couple whose 15 year old daughter has run away.The father has political aspirations but when Sunny starts digging, it turns out that the daughter has many reasons to not wish to return home.Sunny finds herself in the middle of a mob war that involves the Italian Mafia trying to move in on the Irish Mob.

I don't think that anyone writes dialogue as sharp as Parker.Sunny is actually a female Spenser, and while Spenser has one sidekick (Hawk), Sunny is surrounded by a host of oddball characters.In addition to Richie, there is Spike (her gay bodybuilding friend), her therapist/friend Julie and her dog, Rosie.Sunny needs the assistant of all her friends while trying to solve this mystery and stay alive at the same time.

As a Spenser fan, I'm not sure how close Parker comes to the success of his Spenser series with Sunny Randall.However, I definitely plan to read more.

Sunny is sentimental and deadly even when not dressed for the role
Sonya (Sunny) Randall is the daughter of a retired cop, ex-wife of Richie who is the son of a mobster, beautiful, yet capable of deadly force and a private investigator in the Boston area. She is also a painter and pursuing a degree in the fine arts. The parents of Millicent Patton, a fifteen-year-old girl who has run away from home, hire her. Sunny immediately realizes that all is not well in the Patton household, as there seems to be no great concern or passion in her parents regarding her disappearance.It is also clear that Millicent is probably hooking to stay alive, as there is very little else that she can do.
Although she is reluctant to seek his aid, Sunny asks Richie to help her locate Millicent, which turns out to be rather easy. Once Millicent is found, Sunny finds herself becoming a parent to Millicent and when two men arrive at Sunny's apartment, she blows one away with a shotgun while dressed in nothing but a silk robe that flows in awkward and revealing ways. There are many characters in the story, Spike the gay man who dresses like a dandy but is as deadly as a venomous snake. Mobsters and vicious killers are everywhere, and she actively seeks out their assistance, talking with then as an equal. Sunny also makes friends with cops, eventually having intimate relations with one.
While she is female, Sunny shares many characteristics with Spenser; one of Parker's other great P. I. characters. She is sentimental and emotionally entangled much beyond what her job requires. Spike is very similar to Hawk of the Spenser series, a dear friend who stands by her even in the face of danger and without pay. Nevertheless, the combination of similarities and differences makes it a great story worthy of the Parker tradition of deadly sentimentalists.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Disappointing and incomplete.
I have found that I can't trust the data in this reference book at all.

For instance, under guaifenesin (an expectorant) it lists 22 over-the-counter liquids/tablets/capsules that contain guaifenesin, but it doesn't say which is in what form! So, if you are looking for guaifenesin in capsules (without the sugars and dyes found in the liquid), good luck! You'll have to contact 22 companies to find out which ones make it in capsule.

Then it mentions when to stop giving your child the medication - for instance, ifyour child becomes drowsy or develops nausea. Now, everything I've ever seen about guaifenesin indicates that rare nausea is the only known side effect, so this other warning about drowsiness doesn't make much sense to me. Why would a child become nauseated? No more info is given on it, so I'm left with a mystery...

Then, onto Ritalin, which I checked, just to see what it had to say. First of all, Ritalin doesn't have a listing by that name - but in the index it directs the reader to "Methylphenidate Hydrochloride", it's scientific, but little-known name. It mentions that Ritalin is a "mild central-nervous-system stimulant", but fails to mention that it is a Schedule II CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE, in the same category as cocaine and methamphetamine!!!

It does list the serious potential side effects, such as Tourette's syndrome, seizures, hallucinations, convulsions, delirium, etc., as well as the importance of not keeping a child on Ritalin for long periods of time. But it does not mention the possibility of suicide in children when they are taken off the drug, nor the very high percentages of children who use other drugs once Ritalin is taken away from them! The entire addiction factor of Ritalin is ignored by this reference book.

Another example is the Talcom Powder listing. It doesn't mention that talcum powder sometimes contains asbestos, and that a relationship between talcum powder use and ovarian cancer has been established.

All in all, this is a very poor reference book, and I feel it's a potential liability to anyone who trusts the data within. ... Read more