Book Description
Sewing with a Certain Savior Faire!
The inimitable Céline Dupuy presents sewers of all skill levels with more than fifty projects, each with a touch of something wonderfully, whimsically French. Including easy items to sew for the home, fashion accessories, delightful gifts, and innovative ideas for customizing your favorite pieces of furniture, these chic patterns will inspire you.
From ultra-simple to more complicated designs, Simple Sewing with a French Twist helps you discover a whole range of skills and techniques for sewing by hand or with a machine. Céline includes clear instructions as well as recommendations about materials—from what you’ll need to get started to advice on pairing fabrics beautifully. From a charming bistro placemat to a stylish tote for jetsetters, to more challenging projects such as a sophisticated chemise or chic sunhat, you’ll love her inventive ideas.
With Céline’s passion for sewing featured on every gorgeous page, Simple Sewing with a French Twist contains only the crème de la crème of style!
Customer Reviews:
Really want to give this 5 stars!.......2007-08-31
This book is SO pretty and is FULL of cute projects. I cannot give it 5 stars, though I want to. Why? There are a few projects, trench coat, bathrobe, etc where you don't learn how to make the project, you learn how to embellish it. Trench coat and bathrobe are in the materials list! Also, the photos (though gorgeous) sometimes show only a fraction of the finished piece. And there aren't always finished dimensions for the projects. There is a definate learning curve.
That's all I can complain about... It is otherwise lovely. I am off to sew a cute wool beret!
Very Nice!.......2007-07-23
I adore making things for my home myself, and this book has many projects I have done, albeit in my own way. What I also enjoy about this is the clear explanations of how-to. I also enjoy pictures in rooms that are not so perfect, but the charm of "un-perfection" is appealing! I believe novice and experienced alike will enjoy this book
Cute.......2007-07-16
I enjoyed the patterns in this book. Contrary to an earlier review, their are patterns in the appendix, however they require an enlargement with the assistance of a computer/scanner/etc. I enjoy the variety of crafts. They are organized in to sections. Some include: romance (chamise, bed covers, bath robes, slippers), household (apron, refurbished umbrella, hammock), bedroom (drapes, ottmans). To be honest, I haven't sewn anything yet, I just enjoy reading craft books. But it seems straight forward. They also have conversions in cm and inches for those of you who care. I recommend this book.
Charming, but.................2007-06-15
This is a charming book and its great if you want simple projects but I wasn't impressed by much of the book. There were some cute projects but overall, I think this book trails Lotta Jansdotter, Amy Butler and even Denyse Schmidt wrt usefulness. The photography for the book had lots of style but seriously, think twice before buying this book.
beautiful, useful and inspiring..........2007-05-24
I absolutely adore this book. The projects are lovely and useful. All of her descriptions are easy and done in full. I especially enjoy the different ways to hem. Excellent projects for family gifts or things to make you and your home more beautiful. I look forward to more books from this author.
Average customer rating:
- Miracle: A Celebration of New Life
- She calls this a miracle?
- What a precious book!! And beautiful music.
- Great for new mothers
- Only God can create life
|
Miracle: A Celebration of New Life
Anne Geddes , and
Celine Dion
Manufacturer: Andrews McMeel Publishing
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Binding: Hardcover
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Miracle
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Until Now
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Thoughts With Love For Mother
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Pure
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Miracle (Special Edition with a 60 page version of the 180-page book)
Accessories:
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Health o Meter HDC100-01 "Grow with Me" Teddy Bear Scale for Babies and Toddlers
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Braun IRT 4020 ThermoScan Ear Thermometer
ASIN: 0740746960
Release Date: 2004-10-12 |
Book Description
Never before have two top artists created such a multimedia work to honor the unique and steadfast bond between mother and child. Vocalist Celine Dion and photographer Anne Geddes conceived Miracle as a way to express something deep within their own hearts, and now both the experience and the outcome will delight music and visual art fans throughout the world.Miracle features more than 100 stunning new Geddes images. Each frame reflects the beauty, grace, and magic of both the photographer and her subject. Babies enfolded in blooms, mothers embracing the life flowering within: Anne's artistic eye captures it all. The exquisite images are wedded with the lyrics to all-new songs by Dion, created and performed on the book-accompanying CD in Celine's unmistakable international superstar style. It's easy to hear how her clear and melodious voice has captivated millions throughout her career. A DVD rounds out this artistic package, exploring the genesis of the Miracle project and taking its audience behind the scenes to witness the making of this memorable production. Celine's title track music video highlights the DVD.As a complement to this many-faceted experience, Sony Music will release its stand-alone Dion CD concurrent with the book's debut. AMP is delighted to play a role in bringing this important collaboration to readers and listeners, providing a crossover experience rivaled by few others. Mothers, grown children, grandmothers, friends, and gift givers everywhere will want to join this celebration of wonder.
Customer Reviews:
Miracle: A Celebration of New Life.......2007-08-23
most incredible....Wonderful photography....I gave this as a gift to my expecting daughter...WE have loved wandering thru the book and enjoying the memories a mother and daughter make along life's path, some day her daughter will have the same experience..... WE LOVE IT !!
She calls this a miracle?.......2007-08-16
Some old fart blows his beans up her muff and the end result is a 'miracle'? Give me a break. If that's a miracle, so is taking a dump...which is pretty much equivalent to the entire recorded output of this overmarketed, overrated, so-full-of-herself commercial twit.
What a precious book!! And beautiful music........2007-02-22
This book and CD are so soothing. I LOVE to look at this book cover to cover. I think it's the most beautiful thing ever. I pop in the CD and look at this book and I'm so filled with awe on the miracle of life. These babies touch your heart, and are captured so beautifully in this book.
Anne and Celine have given me such a gift!!!
Great for new mothers.......2007-01-03
I received this book as a gift about 1 month after the birth of my first child. I loved it! I was so amazed with babies and how perfect they are when they are born. This book uses newborn babies in the most beautiful photos. You can look at the photos and appreciate what a miracle little babies are, especially if you have just given birth to one. The music CD has many songs that I sing to my baby when he is going to sleep. Many of the songs are remakes of classics, some are her originals. Again, as a new mom, I appreciate the words of these songs and they capture how much love I feel for my new little peanut!
Only God can create life.......2006-08-06
This book is truly a celebration of life. If you read this book and still think that allowing abortions on demand is okay, then your heart has grown too hard. dls
Amazon.com
When it was published in 1932, this then-shocking and revolutionary first fiction redefined the art of the novel with its black humor, its nihilism, and its irreverent, explosive writing style, and made Louis-Ferdinand Celine one of France's--and literature's--most important 20th-Century writers. The picaresque adventures of Bardamu, the sarcastic and brilliant antihero of Journey to the End of the Night move from the battlefields of World War I (complete with buffoonish officers and cowardly soldiers), to French West Africa, the United States, and back to France in a style of prose that's lyrical, hallucinatory, and hilariously scathing toward nearly everybody and everything. Yet, beneath it all one can detect a gentle core of idealism.
Book Description
The dark side of On the Road: instead of seeking kicks, the French narrator travels the globe to find an ever deeper disgust for life.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline's revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every page of this novel. Filled with slang and obscenities and written in raw, colloquial language, Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism. This book shocked most critics when it was first published in France in 1932, but quickly became a success with the reading public in Europe, and later in America where it was first published by New Directions in 1952. The story of the improbable yet convincingly described travels of the petit-bourgeois (and largely autobiographical) antihero, Bardamu, from the trenches of World War I, to the African jungle, to New York and Detroit, and finally to life as a failed doctor in Paris, takes the readers by the scruff and hurtles them toward the novel's inevitable, sad conclusion.
Customer Reviews:
The Finest Book About Humanity Ever Written.......2007-08-19
The book in question is a triumph in every sense of the word. If you aren't taken in from the first couple of pages then do yourself a favor and kill yourself immediately. What Celine is able to do here is not only to paint a portrait of a character, or of a type, but in the end the whole of humanity. Much of the humanity in question is not pleasant, nor are the situations they force the poor, but resourceful and essentially strong, protaganist into. If you've ever found yourself in a foreign country with little idea of what is expected from you, then you can relate. If you have had family members or girlfriends encourage you to go die in a useless foreign war, then you can relate. If moments of tenderness wash over you and then crash against the shores of existential absurdity, then you can relate. If have not only a heart, but an eye, and a head to perceive the world by then you can relate to this great work of art. Celine is called cynical, but his cynicism is the kind of a failed romantic, not of a mysanthrope. If you can see past the bitter veneer what you'll find is a person who always expects alittle more from his fellow human beings than he usually gets, and despite his protests he usually gives despite himself. This might be a bit harsh- but I don't think so- if you read this book and don't get it, don't see the humor and absurdity, or the love that runs beneath it, than you are a worthless mass of flesh and bone and should find a way to save the rest of the world from your continued prescence. This book is a litmus test of humanity.
You will be quoting this book for a while!.......2007-06-08
I can't think of a more original , funny and yet saracastic book than this one. Just when you think that the author had exhausted his brilliant use of words to describe an aspect of human nature and French society, he comes up with something new within the next paragraph or page. This book is tilted towards describing more of the negative aspects of everything but there are enough positive books out there for any one to read. For something with passages that will literally make you laugh out loud and get you to rethink the extent of free creative writing during the early 20th century , read this book at once! If you're easily offended or constantly critiquing a work of art as you read it, then this one is not for you.
One of those books you have to read before ..........2007-05-14
This review refer to Spanish version - " Viaje al Fin de la Noche" / Maestros del Siglo XX- Editorial Oveja Negra
I read this book in my early twenties, along a long list of nihilist, existentialist... the unavoidable Henry Miller.. I was captivated by the expressionisms of his own inner feeling as he travels here and there observing an absurd humanity.
I'm just picking up the book and looking at the notes I made so long ago, not so clear...
Definitely the book to read in the twenties, the book to review in your forties and I predict the book to quietly glimpse and flavor in your sixties.
Human spirit is contradictory, the pen that accomplished this fine work was an anti-Semitic and pro-occupations of the Nazis.. as one preface of the book says, he avoided the death sentence by a miraculously act.. Being I an absolute anti-Nazi .. I can only judge the literary creation and not its creator
My notes take me so far away.. I guess the notions of love and the uneasy feeling of trying to observe stoically the stupidly of nature, came in part from here... in those days my feelings of anti-Europeanism were forming from the study of its militaristic history and by the conviction that the last wars of humanity were going to start there.. all of that changed, of course, but the notion of how absurd the I WW was, came from the insight (I am not a translator so please forgive any fatal errors)
".. No matter how hard I tried to look into my memory, I cannot recall of any harm I had done to the Germans. I always was nice and educated toward them. I knew the Germans a little, I even assisted to a schooling Germany when I was a younger in the surroundings of Hanover. I had spoken their language. Back then they were a noisy screaming mass of howling punks. After school we went to the surrounding woods to fondle the girls, we also shot with pistols and arches that we bought for four marks. We drank beer with sugar. But form that to be here killing each others without further explanations, here in the middle of the road, there seemed to be emptiness even an abyss. Just too much of a difference"
Be ready to embark in a literary journey of fine XX century prose
Journey to the End of the Night.......2006-10-31
Louis-Ferdinand Céline delivers as a contemporary of both Ernest Hemingway and Albert Camus.
This novel written in the wake of World War I delves into the existential thought popular for the day. As a man who has experienced war, a voyage to Africa, a brief stay in America, and finally becomes a Doctor in a suburb of Paris, Louis travels the gamut of his own soul.
In his trek to the end of the night, he entertains the reader with his sarcasm, and insight into human nature. He sees the pig in all people.
However, I found myself lost in translation at times. Louis can become quite abstract in his thoughts. Ramblings change the scenery quickly. Suddenly you find yourself in New York city, when only pages ago you were reading about fevers in Africa. Don't get lost in the details . . . continue to forge ahead!
And in the end it wraps up like a Hemingway story with all the trappings of Camus. What does this all mean?
Unsurpassed.......2006-06-13
I first read this book during my freshman year in college. That was in 1990 - I have read it at least once a year since. I am a voracious reader, ingesting well over a hundred books each year and have not yet found another book that resonates with so much energy, grit, and beauty.
Book Description
Completely revised and updated, this second edition of a classic handbook provides templates of SOPs ready for immediate adaptation to readers' requirements, allowing them to benchmark their existing SOPs against an internationally accepted set of SOPs. It includes a CD-ROM containing an electronic copy of each of the SOPs and forms in the handbook so that readers can easily modify the text to reflect their organization's processes. The language ranges from the specific to the very general, depending on the activity described and the number of the existing regulations governing it. The handbook gives readers a starting point for the development of their company or institution's SOPs.
Product Description
Valentine Drakul longs for a mate, someone to share eternity with who won't be totally grossed out living on a diet of steak tartar. Could the sexy girl living upstairs fulfill his every fantasy?
Customer Reviews:
A fun read!.......2007-09-02
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I picked it up as recent sci-fi/fantasy convention, and where many vampire romance novels tend to be a little on the serious side, "Help! I'm Falling for the Vampire Next Door!" is funny without being campy. I really enjoyed reading about down-on-her-luck Melynda and super-sexy Valentine.
Not Worth The Money........2007-07-04
Poorly written. Uneven flow. Ditzy heroine, hero was dull. It is noted that the 1st review was done by the author using another name.
I really enjoyed this book.......2007-05-13
Melynda Kerpanik is lovely, strong and capable. She is not the kind of woman that breaks a heel and falls down so the bad guy can catch her. These qualities of strength are what endeared me to her from the moment that I met her on page one. She is also extremely funny in a way that made me laugh. I liked her. I enjoyed her company and I immediately missed her when the book was done.
Valentine Drakul is plain and simply HOTT in that dark and moody vampire type way. But there is something light, airy, naturally sexy and fun about Valentine that pulled him into a different realm for me. Torn between what he is and what he longs to be (human), Valentine is the perfect mixture of man and night creature. Valentine would be oh so sexy whether he was human or a vampire. Combined, and slightly tortured, he's irresistible.
And then there's Leo Van Helsing--who appealed to me even though I knew I should be running away from him at light speed. There is just something about a gorgeous guy who can get all up in your head...
Help! I'm falling For The Vampire Next Door is filled with likeable characters and hot, sensual romance between two people that I found myself really rooting for. Ms. Celine Chattillon did a marvelous job of drawing me into Val and Mel's world. The side characters are just as interesting in their own ways as the main characters.
Maybe I'm just bad...but the bad guy in this tale did interesting things to my mind. I'd be sensible enough to run from him, but I may have snapped that heel and took a tumble on purpose so he could catch me. I'd be sorry, oh yes...but oh well...
(Since I'm not a reviewer) I can't give Help! I'm Falling For The Vampire Next Door stars or angels or cups or anything, but I can tell you this...I really enjoyed this book.
Raquel Taylor, erotic-romance author of "Death and the Maiden"
Average customer rating:
- IT'S UP TO YOU TO READ THE BEST & SKIP THE REST
- Banal drudgery
- Dark, Bleak And Yet All So Brilliant!
- Aesthetically pleasing. Theoretically important. Absurdly relevant.
- Why bother reading another novel
|
Death on the Installment Plan
Louis Celine
Manufacturer: New Directions Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0811200175 |
Amazon.com
Louis-Ferdinand Celine's second novel continues the style of black humor and the delirious but immediate prose that made the author instantly famous in his native France in the aftermath of World War I. Celine's goal was to create a kind of literature that described people in honest terms, unembellished by the conventions of fiction, no matter how mean and crummy they were, and to portray them in the real language of everyday life and thought. He succeeds darkly and brilliantly in Death on the Installment Plan, yet it is also a sweet kind of book, a young boy's coming-of-age tale, struggling with his parents and looking for his own kind of personal freedom.
Customer Reviews:
IT'S UP TO YOU TO READ THE BEST & SKIP THE REST.......2007-08-12
It's the real deal ... read it ... Celine's created a narrator who can relate what he observes so that you see it too ... not so common ... read the 5-star reviews ... a big THANK YOU to John Dolan for writing reviews about Celine !! (all wannabe savvy readers should IMMEDIATELY seek out www.exile.ru to read Mr. Dolan's Celine reviews in eXile #206, 27 Jan 05 and eXile #174, 18 Sep 03)
Banal drudgery.......2006-12-22
Ignore the undeserving pseudointellectual hype surrounding this book. It is nothing but a displeasureable collection of banal observations and anecdotes, not the dark comedy which others profess it to be.
Dark, Bleak And Yet All So Brilliant!.......2006-12-14
In the spotlight review, one of the reviwers 'Bruce Kendall' has written an excellent review. I recommend viewers to read it: He hits the novel right on the nail. There are a few novelist's whose works I admire greatly: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mark Twain, and Louis-Ferdinand Celine. I first read Celine many years ago at the urging of a friend while in college. And I am forever grateful. Having first read "Journey to the End of Night," I pored headlong into Celine's Masterpiece [to me anyway] of "Death on the Installment Plan." And I must say [and write] that this is one of the greatest novels of this century.
This is one of those books you take down from your library shelf every so often and read. It's that great a novel. This is a novel that is funny in many ways, and yet very, very dark. Many who have written about Celine's style of writing write that he shows his disdain for humanity. Not so, his love for humanity is by writing both his disdain and love. He does not sugar-coat his writing. You the reader are given the full blunt force of his words. Celine's raging at humanity and the world are given full vent. You understand what he is writing about: Because he lets his words pour forth in unrelenting bucketfulls of rage. To whom you may ask? To the world.
However, Celine can be as hilarious as he is dark. Celine gives an honest description of the world around him. No one is spared. And this is what makes his novel so great and profound. You know that the venom he is spewing forth is an honest assessment of the human condition as he sees it. The pain of the world that Celine writes about is not a happy one; but it is a very truthful one. The world Celine writes about is the world of his experience; and the reality of a world that is suffering. And although he is suffering along with it, he is also struggling to stay above the morass. I highly recommend this great novel. My words don't do it any justice. It is a must read: Especially for today. [Stars: 5+]
Aesthetically pleasing. Theoretically important. Absurdly relevant........2006-08-14
The greatest novel of one of the greatest novelists of all time.
You would have to write a book longer than Celine's novel to do any justice to analyzing it. Thus I was shocked to find the Wikipedia article about this book was about five sentences long. I dropped what I was doing and spouted off a slightly-edited paragraph about the themes of the novel. It's a flawed and cursory view of a book that is difficult to put into words, but I'll offer it here.
"It offers a profound vision of the nature of individual human existence: rooted in loneliness, pettiness, and inertia. The antiheroic genius of Bardamu's search for a livable life in early 20th century Paris forms a direct literary metaphor for modern humanity: to search and search again for happiness and meaning in a complex world and to oftentimes come up empty. Or more precisely: to find words, stories, experiences, and ideas that stretch the boundaries of consciousness while providing little or no structure with which to assign any meaning to life as a whole. Life becomes merely a subjective personal experience in the midst of madness and savagery: beautiful in itself but with overtones of profound suffering and a lack of moral prerogatives, and at the mercy of the strange human forces that are both within and without. We become our own history, and our own suffering, and as as such we live: accumulating the pain, happiness, confusion, and death that life allows us to have on installment. Even if it will all be repossessed at the end, when it becomes less than a dream. And that is a moment we all live for."
The modern world belongs to Celine. As it more closely conforms to his vision of a future with little hope, a past with veiled lies and atrocities, and an incredible yet painful and ephemeral present, we see that his vision has only become stronger when referring to the world beyond his immediate comprehension or even prediction.
This is a fascinating work of art by a writer at the height of his powers. It belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who has ever cared about the realities of human existence.
Why bother reading another novel.......2006-05-06
Really there is very little to say other than I read it every couple of years and still find other fiction wanting compared to it. Apparently it is not read that often in France because the Argot has become obscure. Manheim's translation is superlative and this is reflected in the amount of writers I have heard cite him as a major influence. Underneath all his mis- this and anti-that is novel full of deep understanding, forgiveness and love of humanity.
Book Description
On hearing about the coming energy crisis and impending ecological collapse many people ask, "But what can I do?" Relocalize Now! provides the best answers to date.
This timely guide from the Post Carbon Institute analyses the full depth of the crisis of industrial civilization, outlines the centrality of the global economic system in this crisis, and then proposes a plan for the global relocalization of our way of life. It promotes the idea of people recreating local communities--or "outposts"--at the level of neighborhood and nation that can begin to build "parallel public infrastructures" for survival, along with ways of networking efforts together for wider support. It does this through presenting:
- specific programs to create local money, energy, transportation, governance and food systems designed to help communities become self-reliant right now,
- broader policy strategies that must be addressed at the political and institutional level as soon as possible to help communities create a long-term system adapted for a post-carbon age
The book's innovative project ideas such as a community retirement fund and corporate disobedience--nonviolent ways to disengage from globalization--are supplemented by practical tools for relocalizing and examples of charter outposts from LA to Alaska and Toronto. With a glossary and an extensive resources section, Relocalize Now! contains all you need to build the alternative.
Average customer rating:
- Empty of Ideas and Full of Itself
- nice book, far nicer object
- Outstanding
- Difficult to Follow
- A different point of view
|
Mutations
Stefano Boeri ,
Harvard Project on the City ,
Muliplicity ,
Jean Attali ,
Moulier Boutang ,
Daniela Fabricius ,
Reinhold Grether ,
Sanford Kwinter ,
Celine Rozenblat ,
Saskia Sassen ,
Yorgos Simeoforidis ,
Nadia Tazi ,
Mckenzie Wark ,
Francois Chaslin , and
Bart Lootsma
Manufacturer: Actar
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Turtleback
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ASIN: 8495273519
Release Date: 2001-03-15 |
Amazon.com's Best of 2001
"A city is a plane of tarmac with some red hot spots of intensity," Rem Koolhaas, the pathbreaking architect and author of such semiotically seminal books as Delirious New York and the more recent S, M, L, XL, remarked in 1969. More than 30 years later, there are more of those hot spots around the world than ever, and they're getting hotter every day. Globalization, standardization, and the high-speed innovations of our current information age are transforming urban centers from London to Los Angeles to Lagos, and more places are becoming more urban, and at a faster pace, than ever before.
Mutations is an eye-popping atlas-cum-analysis of this new urbanization, and much of it is composed of essays and meditations (from a variety of contributors) on the 21st-century international City (often un-)Beautiful. Most of them are written in language that will be familiar to readers of Koolhaas's past books: in other words, dense, abstract, and chock-full of references to Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari. If you like that sort of deconstructivist yammering, great; if not, the major small-type essays are best sampled (or, better, skimmed) one at a time, interspersed with the many other more accessible elements of the book that truly do add up to a vivid and fascinating mosaic of postmodern urbanism.
From Koolhaas and Harvard Design School's Project on the City come two engrossing and wholly straightforward explorations: one of the Pearl River Delta, which China has designated as a zone of unrestricted capitalist experimentation, and whose five major urban centers have consequently exploded overnight in all sorts of instructive and often frightening ways; and another of the chaotic, congested and Blade Runneresque megalopolis of Lagos, Nigeria, whose patterns of growth, housing, and commerce defy all conventional wisdom on how cities should develop. There's also a bounty of excellent (and often astonishing) statistics on all aspects of urban growth; a "snapshots" section of phenomena from cities all over the globe; a completely spot-on (and unintentionally funny) analysis of the evolution of shopping as the last truly unifying urban public activity (and the subject of Koolhaas's next full-scale book); and a trenchant look at Kosovo as ground zero in the first major war of the Internet age. (It should be noted that there's a separate section on the U.S., which with all its soulless, tacky consumerist excess gets the drubbing it usually can expect from the European intelligentsia, although the irony here is that more and more of newly urban Europe is starting to look like newly urban America.)
The exhibit-quality photography throughout is great, and, as you could expect from this unofficial successor to S, M, L, XL, the design is satisfyingly outré, right down to its post-Warholian plastic yellow easy-wipe cover with glued-on mousepad. But for all of Mutations's rich trove of facts and insights, and the impression that its high-tech design gives of an ironic embrace of the new urbanization, its deeper tone is one of disappointment and loss. The spirit of Jane Jacobs resides here, with all its yearning for the quirky, quaint beauty of human-scaled townhouses and shops, sidewalks and byways, and for the precorporatized glamour of grand old towns like New York, London, Paris, and Shanghai, before such metallic nouveau hubs as Atlanta and Kuala Lumpur were ever on the world-commerce map. Mutations was written and compiled largely by architects, after all, who hate ugliness as much as the next guy, whatever they may claim otherwise; its precisely for that reason that this densely absorbing new compendium betrays its wistfulness as often as it promotes its own air of cool, ethnographic bemusement. --Timothy Murphy
Book Description
The continuously accelerating phenomenon of urbanization continues to be one of the great challenges of our time, surfacing repeatedly as an issue in different areas of the world for two hundred years. In a world that has been redefined by a proliferation of communication networks and by a progressive erasure of borders, Mutations reflects on the transformations that these accelerating processes inflict on our environment, and on the spaces in which architecture can still operate. Organized as a heavily illustrated atlas/survey of contemporary urban landscapes, the first section of this exhaustive and essential book begins with revealing data on global urbanization, juxtaposed with a series of essays on the changing environment and economy of today's metropolis. The rest of the book is devoted to a selection of groundbreaking studies by some of the central figures in contemporary architectural urbanism, including the Pearl River Delta in Southeast Asia, a project of the Harvard Project on the City, directed by Rem Koolhaas; ''Uncertain States of Europe,'' a project by Stefano Boeri and Multiplicity; a survey of American cities by Sanford Kwinter and Daniela Fabricius; and a study of Lagos, Nigeria--one of Africa's largest cities--by the Harvard Project.
Customer Reviews:
Empty of Ideas and Full of Itself.......2004-02-25
This ridiculous book is nothing more and nothing less than a sad example of the disdain these authors feel for the world at large and for their poor readers in particular. Riddled with typos, filled with pictures of the poorest quality and utterly devoid of any original ideas, the book falls back, again and again, on worn, political cliches and pompous, unnecessarily complex phrasings that serve only one purpose: to conceal the fact that there is absolutely nothing of worth or merit being said here (beyond the incredibly, utterly astounding insight that cities, third world cities especially, are growing pretty darn fast!) At certain points it seems that even the writers can't follow their own ramblings. One particularly confused contributor (McKenzie Wark) writes " . . . technologies enclose, they count and rank what they enclose." Then, four sentences later, he/she writes: "Technologies do not enframe. There's no enclosure . . ." And that is about as coherent as that writer gets. One can only conclude that these people never expected anyone to actually read their book, since they obviously didn't take the time to read it themselves. Thank you Rem Koolhaas and your band of incompetent contributors for wasting my time and money on this utter disgrace of a book.
nice book, far nicer object.......2004-01-30
this book is packed with info. some of it is relatively hard to get at (your eyes are likely to glaze over at the reams of essays formatted in a narrow, sans-serif OCR-esque font) but the content and data is pretty good. it looks very nice in your bookshelf, but when hitting it up for a re-read, you may find yourself cursing the designers' decisions to go with form over function, IMHO.
Outstanding.......2003-05-03
This book is to be considered a piece of historical evidence of the tendencies of thought of the new era. Whether you may find the concepts proposed not suitable, every prospective or practicing architect, designer or urban planner must be aware of the latest tendencies of thought in order to be the best-educated he/she can be.
The Pearl River Delta investigation is impecable. For the "reasonably intelligent person" that wrote a comment above, it is a shame that you overlooked the whole analysis on shopping, perhaps because you are so immersed in it in the USA that you cannot see the forest for the trees.
I agree that the language is dense and often martian-like. This is the case of the introductory essay "Telegram from nowhere". But read between the lines. Reading is re-reading said Joyce. You will find a very smart concept regarding the architecture built for the media.
This book is all about cities in different parts in the world. It helps a lot if you are a culturally aware person. If you have had contact with diverse forms of living and thinking, may I highly suggest you get hold of this book. If you are not, you may either feel that the text is just wobbling on things you cannot be empathic with, or you may be on your way to becoming a more educated human being. And do not think by any means that this is a meek and mild pro-globalization text. This book is just rasing questions and proposing concepts, like all masterpiece limit themselves to do.
Difficult to Follow.......2003-01-09
This book was a required textbook for an urban planning class I took at college. I was very disappointed with the book overall. The photographs were very nice, but the text was utterly confusing, and difficult to follow. I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person, but I could not grasp most of what the authors were trying to say. The only parts of the book I enjoyed was the sections on the United States, which covered urban sprawl, gangs in cities, generic, look-alike architecture, etc. The rest of the book left much to be desired. The other students in my urban planning class agreed with my opinion of the book. Nobody seemed to get much use out of it except for the professor.
A different point of view.......2001-08-23
I bought this book because of the Pearl River Delta Study. For me who actually grew up in that part of the world I wanted to see how these "foreigners" look at my home town. It gave me new insights on how to look at cities... in a different way.. in different eyes. To me it is valuable at least in this sense.
Average customer rating:
- Not what I thought it would be....
- Revealing, truthful, eye-opening book on Celine Dion By Herself.
- Loved her story, her writings, her experience & perspective!
- Good, but write a sequel!
- Amazing Woman...
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Celine Dion : My Story, My Dream
Celine Dion
Manufacturer: William Morrow & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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Celine: The Authorized Biography
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Celine Dion: For Keeps
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Unison
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D'Elles
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Rene Angelil: The Making of Celine Dion
ASIN: 0060197978
Release Date: 2000-10-31 |
Book Description
Now, in her own words, the most dynamic vocal talent of our time-the international singing sensation whose recordings have sold millions, and whose performances electrify the world's great arenas-gives us her poignant, intimate, and inspiring life story . . . from the heart.
She was born into a working-class Canadian family, the youngest of fourteen children. She gave her first performance standing on a kitchen table and dreamed of becoming a superstar. Few in her field can rival the phenomenal God-given abilities of Celine Dion. Fewer still have experienced the love, sorrow, accomplishment, and ecstasy that have shaped her remarkable life and carried her to the pinnacle of the entertainment world.
In Celine Dion: My Story, My Dream Celine takes us backstage, on the road, into the recording studio, and behind the scenes to reveal the hard work that creates the magic. But her book, much more than a chronicle of early breakthroughs and professional high-water marks, of unforgettable encounters with the luminaries and legends of show business is, first and foremost, a story of love.
This talented and beautiful woman who has moved us with her singing now moves us with her words as she tells of growing up in a large, close-knit household fortified in its daily struggles by powerful bonds of heartfelt affection and the family tragedies their shared love enabled them to overcome. Here, also, Celine recounts warmly and intimately the storybook romance that remains her most enduring passion and greatest joy: Celine's marriage to Rene Angelil her manager and soul mate. She tells of the devastating pain they both experienced when a doctor informed them that Rene had cancer, and how fighting the disease together helped strengthen their relationship. And she shares her joy, anxiety, and breathless anticipation of the impending fulfillment of their most cherished dream: parenthood.
A true story of courage, perseverance, dedication, and devotion--told with the wide-eyed honesty of someone who, though she has basked in the glowing adoration of millions of fans, has never lost touch with her working-class roots--Celine Dion: My Story, My Dream is for anyone who has ever wondered about the real person behind the magnificent voice. Touching and funny, fascinating and uplifting, it is an exquisitely detailed portrait of a remarkable woman who has never backed away from a challenge . . . even the most daunting challenges of the heart.
Customer Reviews:
Not what I thought it would be...........2007-07-21
From someone who is a huge fan of Celine's music - from her early work to her most recent, this book was not what I was expecting.
It was a very easy read - almost like a fairytale. It was great thru the beginning of the book, but even her adult years were portrayed like they were thru the eyes of a small child. This doesn't bode well for my opinion of Celine as an adult, who spends half the book trying to assert her independence "because Rene wouldn't want me that way" if she didn't.
As for the love story between her and Rene - again, I liked the early years. She admitted she didn't think much of him when she met him- hey, she was just a kid then. Talked about Anne Marie, etc. What this book is missing is things like how she dealt with breaking their relationship to his adult children, how she relates to them good and bad, and how she justifies such great lengths for a child with a man who has already raised two.
Again, this story seems to brush over these kinds of topics in favor of defending Rene. We didn't read the book for Rene, we read it for her. She was real about her childhood. Not so real about her adult life.
Revealing, truthful, eye-opening book on Celine Dion By Herself........2006-12-29
I did find this book to be enjoyable at times and boring in parts as well:
I found Celine's early years of family/homelife interesting and oh my did she and her mother (her siblings as well) worked their butts off (and her manager/now husband Rene) to get Celine to where she is today.
I think the reader might take the "I'm rich and I deserve it" the wrong way (maybe the French translation into English). Yes, she admits she is rich and yes she does talk about decorating homes and her fairytale wedding and renewing her vows, but I she realizes that she grew up poor and to give back, etc (she gave her siblings $$, etc).
I found Celine to be heartfelt and truthful. She admits she doesn't hide "things" from the press/friends (such as fertility problems), she admits that she was kind of spoiled growing up, and she did finally come out and tell the world she was in love with her manager Rene.
Around the age of 17 or so (earlier maybe) Celine describes her "fantasies" and movies she made up in her head about her manager Rene. She realized she was in "love" with him. I think she went a little in detail,(this sometimes gets boring), etc. I don't know what to think of it. Rene maybe didn't realize or didn't want to realize her attraction to him and his to her (he goes away to fix his marriage which ends up in divorce, his 2nd wife was fed up with this workaholic/gambling ways). When she was 18 I think it offical came out between the two of them that they were "in love." Rene and her mother do question the 26 year age difference (and the twice divorce thing as well). What I took out of the "love" relationship is it is extremely power and important to her and age doesn't make a difference.
Celine outlines that she indeed is strong and independent and Rene did guide her on the path of stardom but she is more than capible in making her own decisions.
All in all an ok book. it seems unfinished, and rushed little, and it needs a sequel. It leaves off during her pregnancy. I think the real meaning could have gotten lost in translation from French to English as well.
Anyway an ok read and I read it in a few days and I'm a die-hard Celine Fan!
That's my review for celine Dion, My Story, My Dream.
Loved her story, her writings, her experience & perspective!.......2006-06-12
I am ofcourse in love with Celine Dion, so I was a bit biased at first. Reading this book took me through her life from the very start, and through her stardom. Her love with Rene Angelil, her feelings for this man 26 years her senior, her view of the world, of popularity, of discipline most of all, and of her working hard and intense attitude, I fell in love with her all over again. I can't recommend the book enough, but then again, you have to love Celine the way I do to appreciate her book as much!! :)
Good, but write a sequel!.......2004-03-28
When she finishes the book, she's finally become pregnant. She wishes it to be a little girl, because she feels that a little boy would be cold to her. She did end up having a little boy. I would like to see how this has worked with her career, her time at Caesar's Palace, and her fathers death. Many of the stories in her book are very touching, but she tends to be on the melodramatic side more times then not. I have to agree with the reviewer who wrote that it was disturbing to read about her ideas of seducing Rene Angelil when she was 14. Rene and Celine have a beautiful love story, but at 14 that would be wrong, and it feels invading to read it. She does come across as a diva in many points, but all of these shortcomings are minor compared to the wonderful story she writes.
Amazing Woman..........2004-03-12
I bought this book as a gift for John - although we are both huge fans of Celine Dion's. Her voice is amazing, but she has a rare quality in her personality that made me buy the book to discover more. I didn't read the book for over a year, but when I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. It was extremely well written.
I was so interested to learn of the role that David Foster had in her American recordings. David Foster is a master with talent. He also has introduced the world to Josh Groban. It is my utmost hope that Celine and Josh will do many duets and shows together. It isn't just their voices - it's their personalities. They are both confident, but they are both so unpretentious as well.
I was awed by the strength of Celine and her family. What a unique environment to grow up in! Additionally, Celine seems so honest about her life - both the good and the bad.
I was amazed at the details regarding her husband, Rene. Amazed that Celine had such a love for this man that it triumphed over YEARS when he repeatedly "rejected" her. She was famous and could have had any number of boyfriends, but instead her heart wouldn't allow her to love anyone but Rene. I believe that Rene was MEANT to be with Celine and her family; that he truly didn't begin to live until he met them. Likewise, I think that Celine is everything that she is because of Rene. Not just her voice, but her looks, style, education, etc.
Celine, a "homewrecker?" Give me a break! She was 14 and mesmerized by a cultured, attractive,genius agent who put her first in his life. I don't think that any marriage could have survived when one woman becomes such an obsession as Rene wanted the whole world to hear Celine. And in all fairness, the marriage had been over for a long time before he finally made love to her at 20. To me it is one of the greatest love stories of our time!!
Rene groomed Celine to become the woman she is. And he is her whole world. What man could resist this? Personally, I think he should feel as though he is the luckiest man in the world to have the love and loyalty of this gifted, funny, and amazing woman.
Book Description
Céline Dion has long been one of the world's most admired performers. Her unique blend of brilliant talent and an unstinting willingness to share her life has defined her career in the public eye. With new interviews and special memorabilia, Céline Dion: For Keeps will invite her fans to get to know the professional and personal parts of her life as never before.
Céline Dion is a very special collection: a combination of memoir, personal scrapbook, and looking glass into one of the world's most admired lives. Drawing heavily from Céline's personal archives and those of her husband and longtime manager, René Angelil, this book focuses on the key elements of her life, including her family, career, inspirations, courtship and marriage to René, show business hiatus, son René-Charles, and plans for the future-everything that makes her who she is.
Produced in the successful and stylish format of last year's The Sinatra Treasures, each of Céline Dion's chapters will include removable facsimiles of favorite mementos, stored in vellum envelopes. Everything from Céline and René's love notes and family photos to special letters and her wedding program can be examined and admired in detail. This is a remarkable opportunity to share in the unique and vital life and career of Céline Dion.
Customer Reviews:
Worst Book on the planet...........2007-09-19
This is really the most mush that I have ever read. Dion's life as told here is almost like reading something from ONE LIFE TO LIVE, If it is not mush, then it is just plain dull, and would put anyone to sleep.
She shines in this awesome book.......2006-12-21
This book of hers shines really brightly & is a must buy book one of the best of 2006 in the top 5. George
Every artist should have a book like this!.......2006-11-10
This amazing book offers a detailed overview of Celine's life in the spot lights. It has removable documents and photos from celine's personal archives.
The great thing is that it seems like a very honest book, even discussing her insecurities and the difficult times in her personal and professional life.
The book is quite big and heavy, so not for traveling, but ideal for reading on a lazy sunday afternoon.
Absolutely recomended for everyone who is interested in Celine's music and her life.
Best book written about a celbrity.......2006-07-18
This book has everything, huge pictures, an insightful history of Celine Dion, and well, some "memorable" memorabilia from her.
It is a once in a lifetime book and anyone who loves Ceeline and doesn't have it should get it now.
Absolutely amazing, from any point of view.
I was looking forward to this book for so long!.......2006-03-05
It's really a wonderful book with multiple and rare pictures
I love it very much!^_^
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