There was one another 50's icon who rivals Marilyn in popularity today--Bettie Page. True, she didn't make any A-movies, but like Marilyn, embodied that woman who drew a fine line between good girl/bad girl and crossed the lines as easily as one drank Coca-Cola. Unlike Marilyn, Bettie survived, but like Marilyn, her legend lives on for one simple reason: she dropped out of sight in 1957 following the fall of Irvin and Paula Klaw by the Kefauver Committee on indecency and pornography and refused to have herself be photographed as she is now. Thus, she is remembered as she was back then. And as her life has become simpler, she values her privacy. She says so as much in the hand-written foreword, at the same time surprised and honoured that so many people are interested in her.Karen Essex and James L. Swanson book is a great place to start for those curious about Bettie Page. Basically, it's a biography accompanied by lots and lots of colour and b&w photos, many of them topless. There are two of them which has her completely nude. She also posed for countless magazine covers and photographers. Art Amsie's photos are the best of the lot here. Bunny Yeager is touched on briefly, but that woman has a book on herself so... Looking at the early Bettie, before she became a pin-up from 1947, is also quite a revelation. She is still beautiful, but in an ordinary way, like a typical girl growing up in 1940's America.There is clearly a dualism going on here. There's the pretty wholesome girl in the bathing suit or maybe not, and then there's the darker leatherbound fetish girl, be she receiver or giver. That latter half led to her downfall. The point also was that she enjoyed her work, mainly the lighter beach stuff. You can see it in those twinkling eyes and smile of hers.The last section of the book features models who have been influenced by her, be they in clothes or just looking like her. Of the lookalikes, Eva Herzigova, Debi Mazar, and Janice Dickinson have got it down to the bangs, (it's the bangs that did it for Bettie, after all), long black hair, and prominent eyebrows.Apart from being one of fantasy artist Olivia's favourite subjects, Bettie's images appear on album covers by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and the David Lee Roth Band. Her three videos, Teaserama, where she acts opposite stripper legend Tempest Storm, Varietease, and Strip-O-Rama have come out. She'll live on, no doubt about it.Anyone interested in Bettie Page-start with this book. You won't be disappointed.

This is the ultimate book on Bettie Page. This book is for every true Bettie fan. Even contains an introduction from Bettie herself.

If you really want to follow the history of legend, this is the ultimate book on Betty Mae Page!

So said one of her photographers. What a marvelous book. If you're like me, and have been a Bettie fan for years, you've been waiting for this book. For years one could find stuff on her only in comic shops and the like, dealing in old memorabilia from the Fifties, or in various "alternative" shops that sold her image on T shirts. As a teen that's where I learned about her, thanks to "The Rocketeer," the comic "The Bettie Pages," and psychobilly trash-punk band the Cramps, who for a short time had a bass player the spittin' image of our fair maiden. Now that we've finally opened our eyes, we can buy several books on her, this being by far the best. It is the ne plus ultra of Bettiebooks, of pin-up books in general. What a trend-setter; a humble, troubled, open and honest woman who was not exploited, who has not turned herself into a PC victim--she's idolized by smart, hip young women who see in her freedom, sexuality, playfullness, life itself. This book had better be reprinted--it's an absolute crime to be unavailable. Get this book by any means necessary!

I'm a comic book French fan and I was looking for a gay comic book that was drawn with talent. That's what I've found with the brothers of new essex. Belasco is a great artist who has his own style. He as a great sense of anatomy and brings to gay comic fans amazing pages of sex with style. Such an awesome book should be bought by every gay guy who likes comic books and drawings.And if you find black men particulary hot like I do, go ahead and admire Belasco's splash pages !!

Not only is the eroticism as powerful as that seen in works by artists like Zack and Tom of Finland, it presents an individual art that is realistic (in contrast with the Tom of Finland clones) and empowering in that it pertains to people we can identify with. Extremely hot!

This book is both sensual and soothing to the gay african-american. This magnificent book contains alot of scenes that explore the innermost fantasies of the gay male. Belasco is a very gifted and talented artist and writer. Through his artwork, he vividly depicts gay sex lives and encounters, while relating to a black audience. This book is just what I needed. Job well done. I can't wait for the nxet volume.

"I have nothing to lose tonight" -- the line that starts it all. "Ceremonies" by the late Essex Hemphill is a collection of the poet/essayist/activist's remarkable prose and poetry culled over his many years of writing.

A DC native, Hemphill includes many of his experiences coming-of-age and living in the nation's capital all of which are detailed and brought to life through his rich and deeply-profound poetry. My favorites include "Heavy Breathing" -- which addresses the need we have for love and the misguided steps we sometimes take along the way. In the poem, he talks about his experiences roaming the halls of bathhouses "in search of Giovanni's Room" and the fatal killing of a middle-aged woman in a public park. In addition, I was struck by "In the Life." The poem, with its calming yet reassuring tone, is a gay man speaking to his mother about his lifestyle -- "Mother, do you know I roam alone at night? / I wear colognes, tight pants, and chains of gold, as I search for men willing to come back to candlelight / I'm not scared of these men though some are killers of sons like me. / I learned there is no mercy for men of color, for sons who love men like me." His poetry is rich with detail and his experiences are ones you can feel even if you've never experienced them for yourself. It's an adventure uninhibited by structure or convention.

Like many SGL brothers, I was introduced to Essex Hemphill when he appeared in Marlon Riggs groundbreaking PBS documentary "Tongues Untied." Many of the poems found in Ceremonies appear in the documentary including his famous poem "Homocide" -- "Grief is not apparel. Not like a dress, a wig or my sister's high-heeled shoes. It is darker than the man I love who in my fantasies comes for me in a silver, six-cylinder chariot."

With all of his words, I found identification and a narrative voice that reflects me and my experiences. Hemphill speaks with erudite intelligence, but none of it is pompous or hard-to-ascertain. Ceremonies challenges the conventions of what it is to black, what it is to be gay, what it is to be both and how one operates in such parameters. It touches on subjects that are still not addressed in the mainstream, even by countering the "sacred cows of gay culture." Hemphill exposes the hypocrisy and the cogs in the homo-hate machine fostered by the white-centered, patriarchal gay mainstream media. ("We have to be there for one another and trust less the adhesions of kisses and semen to bind us.")

The prose of Ceremonies is on-target and carefully assembled. From his deconstruction of the popular "homosexuality-as-antiblack" rhetoric being pumped by certain prominent black intellectuals (with the gem, "If Freud Were A Neurotic Colored Woman") to his graphic accounts of an out-of-the-closet exchange by two middle-aged black men on a public bus (with its shocking finale). Hemphill's book is definitely a page-turner. I found myself re-reading many portions over and over, not wanting to put it down.

The accounts are not only identifiable to just black gay men, they are profoundly human and transcendental. His words give voice to the marginalized, the misunderstood and the unspoken, muffled denizens of our era. I strongly recommend this book to any person who is "in the life" or anyone who would like to hear the selected experiences of SGL black men in contemporary America vocalized in a fascinatingly powerful way. Hemphill succumbed to AIDS complications in 1995, but his ideas and gifts continue giving in this and other works. A must read.

Ceremonies is an impressive collection of memorable poetry and commentary by Essex Hemphill, one of the few authors who dares to openly portray African American gay life. Raw, compelling, gut-wrenching verse is the hallmark of this serious and powerful compilation. American Hero: I have nothing to lose tonight./All my men surround me, panting,/as I spin the ball above our heads/on my middle finger./It's a shimmering club light/and I'm dancing, slick in my sweat./Squinting, I aim at the hole/fifty feet away. I let the tension go./Shoot for the net. Choke it,/I never hear the ball/slap the backboard. I slam it/through the net. The crowd goest wild/for our win. I scored/thirty-two points this game/and they love me for it./Everyone hollering/is a friend tonight./But there are towns,/certain neighborhoods/where I'd be hard pressed/to hear them cheer/if I move on the block.

I don't remember when I first encountered Essex Hemphill,( all I recall is that I heard him at some poetry reading) but from the start I found his talent overwhelming. His dynamic writing captivated my imagination and has inspired part of my committment to articulating Black lesbian/gay experience. I am particularly struck by how few words it took for him to drive home his powerful points. A spare, but spiritually and artistically charged wordsmith, the literary world lost a giant when he passed. I simply adored this fine gay brother whose writings showed him to be a strong, loving and insightful spirit! BUY THIS BOOK!

PHARAOH is, in a word, breathtaking. In more than a word: barbaric, sensual, entrancing, romantic, tender and cruel, with a lusty cast of characters. Karen Essex presents her vision of the great queen of Egypt in this captivating novel rich in detail and, if anything, filled with more historical minutiae than the first volume, KLEOPATRA. It is a kaleidoscope of Roman and Greek trivia.

With a familiar cast of characters, including Cicero, Cato, Octavian, and of course, Marcus Brutus, comes a fresh slant on this timeless tragedy. Kleopatra is not painted as the philandering vixen of the movies. Her fabled charms surface in small ways throughout the story, but Ms. Essex focuses on Kleoptra's political cunning and war tactics in her efforts to forestall takeover by the greedy Roman empire.

PHARAOH continues the mystique of KLEOPATRA, published last year. It begins in the 20th year of Kleopatra's reign as she is trying to rejuvenate a listless Marc Antony. Within a few pages, we are back in the third year of her reign. We join her at age 22 as she returns from exile, devising a clever ploy to evade her brother's army and seduce her way into an alliance with the great Julius Caesar. The book tells her life story from then on and only occasionally do we get a sense of foreboding in the chapters that jump ahead to the 21st year of her rule.

I won't bore you with a synopsis of the plot, for the story has been told many times. We all know of the betrayal of Caesar and the disastrous end Antony and Kleopatra came to. Yet Ms. Essex managed to grip and hold onto my attention from the very first page.

The author's ability to mesmerize her audience is showcased in myriad scenes, one of the best being Ceasar's murder. She personalized it for me by putting me right there beside him in the Senate, facing his assassins. The scene is not shortened in an effort to spare the bloody gruesomeness. Each blow of the dagger brought an empathic sort of pain. Caesar's thoughts as he lay dying --- imagined, by necessity --- ran through my head, leaving behind seeds of ideas and philosophical musings to mull over later.

But Kleopatra's horror at the realization of her predicament snapped me out of the reverie created by Caesar's joining with the gods. The serious position his death placed her in stole my attention and I could do nothing but read on, spellbound, anxious to see how the gods would favor her escape.

Sex pervades the story's atmosphere. This was an era when sex was used to further political strategies. But Kleopatra's best advice from her Prime Minister takes precedence more than once: "In matters of state, let your blood run cold." For a woman of her intense passion, this proves to be very difficult.

Although a highly engrossing read, I could not bring myself to move through the story with any speed, choosing instead to savor each of Ms. Essex's exquisite words. The last 30 pages or so took a couple hours to read, for the beauty of the writing mixed with the tragedy of the lovers' last days kept me running for Kleenex and tracing the keenly detailed events again and again.

...Reviewed by Kate Ayers

This is great second book in the Kleopatra series. Ms. Essex does a wonderful job bringing the thoughts, actions, and mystery of Kleopatra to life. The book begins with her concerns about Antony's depression and self-degredation after the battle at Actium. She well knows what brings him to life and has summoned the most beautiful harlots in the kingdom and rallies their support as though they were an army to bring him to his senses. Then the story jumps back to her beginnings with Caesar and jumps back to Antony again. The switch in story line is well placed and doesn't detract at all from the seamless flow of the book. A well written, in-depth story that keeps you turning pages and makes you feel like you are there experiencing it all along with each character. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is an arm-chair Egyptologist and enjoys the lives and tribulations of the ancients.

Beth Chatto's GARDEN NOTEBOOK is a delightful and instructive read for advanced gardeners, nursery folks, landscape designers, and/or horticulture majors. Thomas Fischer, Executive Editor of Horticulture Magazine updated the Latin nomenclature for the 1998 edition. Amateur or new gardeners will probably enjoy the book, even if they stumble over many of the plant names. Chatto includes many interesting personal notes about herself, her family, and other folks-including the odd visitor to the nursery.

Chatto operates the Nursery for Unusual Plants at Elmstead Market, Essex, England. At the time she wrote her book she had been awarded the Royal Horticulture Society's Victoria Medal and had won many gold meadows at the annual Chelsea Flower Show (the largest in the world) held every May in London. Folks who have seen the film GREEN FINGERS with Clive Owen and Helen Mirran can appreciate the work involved with an exhibition at Chelsea.

GARDEN NOTEBOOK was based on Chatto's observations and activities over the course of one calendar year in the 1980s. Sooner or later, every garden writer uses the annual cycle as an organizing principle, but Chatto's book is quite original. Unlike many writers for whom gardening is a hobby, Chatto is the consummate professional nursery gardener-one who gardens herself and maintains stocks and seeds for others. Over the course of a year, she manages her nursery and prepares for her entry in the Chelsea flower show. She says she begins to think about the next show as far as a year ahead. Many plants must be prepared for a climax showing on a particular date, and as anyone who gardens knows timing is everything. Temperatures, light, and many other factors affect outcomes. Chatto uses all sorts of tricks to speed up and slow down the development of the plants she intends to show in May.

I enjoyed Chatto's narrative about the "running of a nursery for unusual plants" more than her discussion about the prep work for Chelsea, meeting the Queen, or visits by illustrious people like Elizabeth David (for whom Chatto prepared lunch and shares her menu and recipes with the reader). Nursery owners (not to be confused with the managers of solely profit-based garden center factories carrying only best-selling lines) have quite a challenge. In addition to the many ordinary tasks any gardener faces, the nursery owner must stay abreast of current developments in the seed and plant world; determine the suitability of various plants for the area served; train staff to recognize plants and learn about their proper care and feeding; as well as a miscellany of other chores. Chatto has been able to operate what is clearly a successful enterprise; participate in a seed bank; work for the preservation of endangered plant species; write several books; and enter Chelsea year after year and win medals. She says she is very reliant on her staff, but it takes talent to train and retain a good staff. She also maintains good connections with other nursery folks around the world. She deserves her medals for Chelsea and more. If you enjoy this book, I also recommend A YEAR IN OUR GARDENS by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy.

The Essex Design Guide was the original design book for residential areas. This ground-breaking publication soon got well-earned respect across the country and was subsequently copied by many other local authorities. Its success also had a huge impact on national housebuiling companies who soon added vernacular Essex neo-traditional styles to their other off-the-peg designs. Soon, towns the length and breadth of the country were to have their own little part of Essex. Now, the ideas in the book are a little dated, but the naivety of the line drawings and the 1970s style are charming none the less. In February 1998, the long awaited sequel to this was published by Essex County Council, incorporating the best ideas of 1973 with the new ideas of the 1990s.

Here are the Anglo-Saxon charters of Essex, as were known at the time that this book was published. It is indispensible to anyone interested in the history of Essex, England.

It is high time that the two volumes were conjoined into a second edition, supplemented by the newly discovered charters, and as many Anglo-saxon wills mentioning Essex property as possible. This material has to be considered by all local historians of the county.

Anthony W. Fox Cranham@aol.com

I read this book over 10 years ago, and have not forgotten it. It is a wonderful evocation of day to day life in a small English village during "The Great War". Not a description of the war itself, but rather of the life of the village people during the war, and how they were impacted by the events of war, this book fleshes out the war as it was lived by non-combatants. I highly recommend it.

My Christmas gift to myself was to read Delia's Way. I want more - when is the next book? Or else I am coming to Paso Robles to sit at your feet and listen to stories about growing up in Panama. I particularly liked the mixture of English and Spanish, not necessarily having the English right after the Spanish. It stretched my language abilities, and I enjoy the use of Spanglish (mixing English and Spanish words together in the same sentence).
;-)

Thank you for a great read!

(...) I couldn't put it down and I found it superior to many Oprah Book Club selections. It's an elegant coming of age story set in Panama. It brings the Latin American culture to the reader in a gentle and accurate portrayal of a family with its conflicts and passions. This book reaches readers from teen age girls to adults with its exotic setting and compeling plot.

I read this book because BOOKLIST recommended it as "After Oprah Read-Alike". I couldn't put it down and I found it superior to many Oprah Book Club selections. It's an elegant coming of age story set in Panama. It brings the Latin American culture to the reader in a gentle and accurate portrayal of a family with its conflicts and passions. This book reaches readers from teen age girls to adults with its exotic setting and compeling plot.

I fall immediately under the spell of good sea stories. Essex is among the frontranks. Phibrick supplies a richly textured background to his subject. The author always respects his readers curiousity and interest. He presents various theories and sociological information in an even handed and non judgemental manner. My only regret was the unresolved nature of the ending. I sensed the author had run out of interest towards the end. Yet one must admit that life has a way of being existential and not part of a process but punctuated by moments of crisis and survival. One is left with a greater respect for men and whales.

This a terrific collection of personal accounts gathered together for the first time in one volume. For well over a century Owen Chase's story of the sinking of the whaleship Essex has been the only firsthand documented account. Now side by side with Chase's tale is fellow shipmate Thomas Nickerson's account of the sinking and trial of the Essex crew lost at sea. As is to be expected, the style of the period makes itself felt throughout via word choice, spelling, etc. but more so in Mr. Chase's recounting. The real gem in this volume is Nickerson's retelling of the tale from his point of view, in spite of the strange twists of phrase his warmth and humor show through. If you enjoyed Philbrick's "In the Heart of the Sea" and want to delve a little deeper and explore some of his resources this is the perfect place to start.

This book is a collection of accounts, remarks, annotations, and letters from the people involved in the tragedy, their rescuers, and other notable persons, which paints a vivid portrayal of the life of a Nantuckett whaler in the 1800's.

After having killed off the whale population in the Atlantic, the New England whale ships pushed farther into the ocean to find their prey - the spermacetti whale. Hunting grounds in the Pacific were discovered and, after a year's journey rounding South America in which it lost half of its boats in a sudden gale, the whale ship Essex set out to fill its hold with the valuable whale oil armed with only 3 small boats. During a hunt, one of the boats was stove by the death throes of a speared sperm whale and returned to the ship. While enacting repairs, the pings of the first mate's hammer attracted the attention of a large bull sperm whale, a creature uniquely designed for ramming. The bull made two charges, collapsing the bow of the ship on either side of the keel, and 20 men found themselves alone, in 3 open boats, deep in the heart of the blue Pacific, with only faint hopes of rescue.

The Essex did not sink immediately, and the men were able to salvage a few casks of water, some navigational instruments, and hard biscuits (which would later be fouled by ocean spray and induce dehydration in the men). The first mate also had paper and pencil, which he used for keeping a daily diary of their attempts to survive the ravages of storms, thirst, hunger, and attacks by killer whales and large sharks.

I read this book prior to reading "In The Heart of The Sea", also by Nathaniel Philbrick, and I was glad I did. The first-person narratives really bring home the tale, and Philbrick's other book helps fill in the historical background. I would recommend reading this book with a good atlas, so that you can plot the narrator's progress as he tries to bring his ship to South America, against the wind, the current, and his dwindling strength, and realize just how screwed these sailors really were.