This book is the combination of "Sculpture for Beginners" and "Scuplturing with Wax". The anatomy is dealt with very tastfully, mostly using skelital and muscular charts. One female torso is developed. I enjoyed it for its attention to detail in both the text and pictures. The extensive content spans these 18 chapters:
1) Getting Acquainted with Clay
2) Make Some Simple Sculptures
3) Tools You Will Be Using
4) Make Some Figures
5) Decorating Your Home with the Objects You Make

6) Learning from Plaster Casts
7) Using the Armature for Support
8) Making a Head in Clay
9) Learning More About the Head
10) Learning the Anatomy of the Body
11) Making a Torso
12) Draping the Figure
13) Casting
14) Textures
15) Finishes
16) Some Larger Sculptures
17) Bas-Relief
18) Sculpturing with Wax

A Secret Location on the Lower East side is an excellent overview of independent publishing from 1960 - 1980. It focuses primarily on the mimeograph revolution and is particularly inspiring for those who wish to become independent publishers. However, this book should also be of interest to readers who are interested in the Beat Generation and the poets and writers who were inspired by the Beats.

The book contains an introduction by Jerome Rothenberg, and the majority of the book consists of burbs describing the individual small presses. As a result, the book combines the best aspects of a coffee table book (accessibilty and short pieces) and solid journalism.

Though the price may be a little high, it is a worthwhile investment for writers, publishers, and anyone interested in the literary movements the second half of the 20th century.

This is an interesting account of the tragic plane crash in the Andes mountains in October 1972, which saw forty five people go down with the plane, many of them members of a Uruguayan rugby team. Of those forty five, ultimately sixteen would come off the mountain alive, but it would not come to pass until they had spent approximately seventy horrific days and nights trapped in unforgiving and alien territory high in the Andes mountains.

This book recounts for the reader the travails of those trapped in this remote and inaccessible place, as well as the faith that helped see them through their horrific ordeal. A few of the photographs in the book are a little shocking, as they show the remains of the survivors' anthropophagy. They did, however, what they had to do in order to survive. It is definitely an amazing story. It makes one ask of oneself, "What would I have done under the same circumstances?" Read the book to see if you can answer that question.

I am a twenty year old budding artist, and i have found this book to be an excellent source for clay sculpture. I highly recommend this book to anyone new or intermediate in sculpture, or even for someone who's trying to find a new technique to save time. It's especially beneficial to the experienced artist who hasn't done much in the media of sculpture. Due to the step-by-step illustrations and simple instructions it is especially instrumental to those who are more visual learners.(as we artists tend to be!) Best of luck in your sculptural endeavors.

"Victorian Houses: A Treasury of Lesser-Known Examples" brings together 116 richly detailed black-and-white photographs of Victorian houses. This is an eclectic collection in terms of architectural style: Italianate, Second Empire, Carpenter's Gothic, "steamboat," octagon, and other elements can be found throughout the book. The houses come from towns throughout the northwestern United States, as well as from Canada.

Most of the photographs are by Edmund V. Gillon, and his excellent work is accompanied by the commentaries of Clay Lancaster. Although Lancaster's insights are informative and frequently entertaining, he often uses a disparaging tone which is unnecessary, and which some might find arrogant.

Throughout the book Lancaster uses phrases such as "a strange conglomeration" (plate 5), "a tight clutter of naive elements" (plate 16), "dull proportions" (plate 53), and "[m]ore gross than odd" (plate 92) in discussing various houses. I think it would have been better to simply have described the stylistic classifications of the architectural elements, and left value judgments to each individual reader.

Despite my dissatisfaction with some of the commentaries, I find "Victorian Houses" to be an excellent book. It is a superb record of and tribute to a remarkable period in North American home architecture. Mansard roofs, abundant verandas, ornate iron cresting, elegant pillars, towers, cupolas--all this and more can be found in here. If you love Victorian houses, you will definitely want this book.

I found this book very enjoyable: convincing as a work of history, vivid in detail and surprisingly light in touch given its subject matter. The book is more about the origins and development of right-wing extremism in Bavaria as a whole, rather than just Munich. But of course it is the capital that has always attracted most attention, thanks partly to its cultural pre-eminence in German life and rather more to the fact that Hitler and the Nazis started up there. What the book brings out most clearly is a) the existence of far-right attitudes and anti-Semitism many years before Hitler's arrival in Munich, and b) the way in which Bavaria's abortive Soviet revolution in 1919 turned most of the population into ultra-conservatives unable to see clearly the terrible dangers inherent in Nazism. Even today, Bavaria is the most conservative of German states, and there are still Bavarians alive who prefer to remember the war more for the Allied bombing of Munich than for the abominations committed by the Nazis and SS.

I've read all of Clancy, Cussler, Dale Brown, most of W.E.B. Griffin, Ludlum, and Stephen Hunter, and others, and I find this book refreshing with action. It is refreshing because of Clay Harvey's good sense of humor that fits naturally with the characters in this story, his development of characters who have close friendships, and his development of a realistic relationship that the main character, Tyler Vance, has with his five year old son. It is also refreshing because of Harvey's ability to describe fighting scenes, as well as his knowledge of guns (which reminds me of Stephen Hunter). Harvey knows how to tell a story and to keep the plot moving, while still spending interesting time in character development - even with the bad guys. And his descriptions of the interaction between Tyler Vance and the local police puts you right there, with some interesting - and humorous - twists.

This book is refreshing because it is not just macho action. It is not just plot driven, although the plot is good and believable. It is also character driven - some of whom you may find yourself wanting to meet. Tyler Vance has some characteristics similar to Clancy's Jack Ryan, in that Vance doesn't have a "dark side" that is so popular in many modern action heroes. Vance is just a good guy - with a real personality - period.
I enjoyed this enough to purchase and read the sequel, "A Whisper of Black", and then the delightful prequel to both, "Dwelling In The Gray".

I throughly enjoyed this book, and found the action to be top notch, and the characters to be well-defined and interesting. A key element in this type of book is a believable, capable villain, and the bad guy in this book fills that requirement. A couple of the previous reviews missed the point, and were politically correct in their comments. This type of book would not make much sense without the use of guns. And the author did not focus on religion, but rather showed his characters' faith in a way that was appropriate for the Southern culture. All in all, an excellent read, and far more entertaining than the latest, tired Robert Parker novels.

This is the first Harvey book I have read, and I hope to read more about Tyler Vance. He is the witty, savvy, and quick thinking hero of this book. Unlike several other "action" books I have read, Harvey gives his characters a moral backbone. There is a definate reason for the events as they unfold, and a strong sense of family ties. I have read this book 4 times! It is an excellent novel, and I'll will buy as many books as Harvey can write. Highly reccommended!

I often imagine the producers of the beloved Weekend At Bernie's [or WAB] films pacing madly in some plush Tribeca office. "How can we move forward with these beloved films while retaining our reputation for wit and originality?" they'd ask.
Luckily Miss Corpus has been written. Now it's not quite at the WAB level. The jokes too often fall flat, the situations strain credulity and the characters never amount to more than cardboard but in the right screenwriter's hands and with the benefit of Andrew McCarthy and Johnathan Silverman [not to mention the guy who plays Bernie!] to breathe life into the characters, Miss Corpus could be the most chilling installment of the WAB franchise, marking a turn toward true black comedy and reinvigorating the careers of some top notch actors. I understand the writer works by day for Bacardi and I think that this is the Bacardi of writing. Which is a good thing.

Clay Chapman fuses the emotional intensity of dramatic monologue with a more traditional tale of epic journey. While its plot seems to focus on two men who are unable to let go of the past, the focus is on the shifting landscape of the country across which each is travelling. The result is riot of voices, each fighting to tell its own story. Clearly this book, has generated a lot of debate-- That alone, proves the work thought-provoking and deserving of a reader's attention.

Chapman weaves us a tale of death, regret and hope in this gorgeous story of trying to tie up loose ends. I didn't like the book at first but I got sucked in and deeply moved by the author's imagery and heart. With a compassionate voice, Chapman takes on this journey through the South with two men in search of some understanding of what to do now that the fate of their loved ones has been sealed. He is a brilliant author who actually does NOT work for Bacardi by day but I understand that this belief may be more comforting to far less accomplished "writers".

This book is a sequel to "A Flash of Red". I did not read the first book and I feel I missed a little something (which makes me want to purchase the first). The characters come to life in this book. The dialoge is written, such that I can understand who these characters are and relate them to people I know. It is this dialoge that makes for the quick reading. During the action scenes you will be hard pressed to put the book down. Harvey does not over detail the action that takes place, thus action is fast and enticing. His two main characters display a smart alec personality that is reminicent of people I know. This leads to a humorous book that reads quick.

This book was a good book. It fell a little short of "A Flash of Red", but it was still an enjoyable book. Harvey is a great writer who makes his characters come alive with humer and wit. I will definitely check out his next book.

Tyler Vance returns in this Clay Harvey novel that I was eagerly awaiting. While not quite as good as his original offering, I can't complain. Mr. Harvey, while obviously knowledgable about the martial arts and firearms, writes this novel in a down home, smart-ass manner that actually made me laugh out loud for the first time while reading, since the great Lewis Grizzard died. Vance is once again an admirable protagonist who is placed in a quick paced, yet developed, and original storyline that allows each of the characters to be portrayed with distinct personalities. Where else will you meet a smart aleck, who deals with his problems with the help of a Antogonistic mother in law and an equally smart assed Father and best friend. All the while dealing with his new girlfriend and her gay ex-husband in a friendly manner. True there sounds like a lot seems to be going on, but Mr. Harvey pulls it off perfectly. Four Stars and I eagerly await Mr. Harveys next foray into the book world, hopefully with the same cast of characters.