No comments about Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to their Organization and Terminology.

4 comments about Price Guide to Cookbooks and Recipe Leaflets.

1. Happy to receive this book, lots of information, hope to sell a lot of cookbooks. TY



2. I do not like writing a negative review, but the only plus about this was I bought it used on Amazon for around $3.
   
   I will not harp that it is outdated, that is understood by the copyright date. But, it is only a list and an incomplete and sporatic one at that. Seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why books are in the list or left out of the list.
   
   There are only 2 1/2 pages of actual text from the author and it really is not that informative.
   
   There are several other books for collecting cookbooks that I just bought, and they seem to be better by 10 times just by merely glancing through them. I won't mention them since I'm not through with them yet.
   
   Unless you want to add this to your collection, do not buy this as an informative tool



3. This book, original or updated, even if free, is NOT useful for any new or established collector TODAY.

   It is wholly inadequate in it's meager sampling (primarily performed in 1990) and it's lack of ANY pricing awareness or concern for a book's value being modified by being a torn first edition, or being a great later revision or mass produced reprint.
   
   A useful update of this book, and more inclusive, selective and useful, could be created by sampling current Amazon book reviews with prices. To be more inclusive for true pricing, sampling a week's ACTUAL SALES of cookbooks on EBAY (Thousands of cook book titles and prices WITH condition of book sold-TRULY- Up to Date!), collating the titles and prices, indicating if first edition etc., having a price spread for books in various conditions, and publishing it...here's a strong hint to any would be (and successful) Cook Book Price Guide writers-I'll buy YOUR book! Through these methods, a new collector could better learn what's a great cook book (by published reviews of historic or literary merits), and pass over the "Fluff" of many titles in this dated price sampling.

   Though "updated" again in the 1990's since 1990, over 15 years ago (as of 2004), it is still a small sampling and hodgepodge of titles and prices reflecting only as Ms. Dickinson freely admits.."actual sales within recent months in our area". Today we are, in this time of internet access, in a world far more encompassing than Ms. Dickinson's local community of 1990, 1995 or later. The prices of some books have skyrocketed since this publication. Pity the collector who might pass over a very valuable book today...just becaue it was not listed, or because it was priced at $2 back then...

   For example, it has listings only for the Settlement Cookbook's 1938 22 ed and the 1949 edition, never clueing the reader into the First Edition of 1911 and later editions. It ignores the wonderful 50+ set of Time-Life Foods of the World Cookbooks entire existence!

   Looking up Mrs. Beeton's Classic "Every-Day Cookery" or other classic illustrated books from before the 1880's and onward, this lists only ONE Mrs. Beeton book...and from 1967, at that!!! Oh yes, this price list is from books sold in Ms. Dickinson's limited local area over a few months sampling time..what should I, or another collector hope for then or now, from such a "sampling"?

   There are tens of thousands of cookbook titles currently available, and thousands now published each year! This outdated listing of few book titles gives no clue as to a book's importance, if any, to collectors overall. It does a disservice by not "starring" titles of books that are "perceived" by collectors as being of more historic or literary merit than others. Itdoes not indicate books, with or without "prices" that are considered just plain "enjoyable" readings ...and this modification could make for a useful book to be prepared for a beginning collector.

   The Recipe leaflet titles in this under 200 page book further dilutes any value of this book to cookbook collectors as well, as the few leafelets better belong in a booklet mentioning their all important Fine to Poor condition with prices.

   Read books like Cookbooks Worth Collecting by Mary Barile for a historical taste of cookbooks (despite the 1994 prices), and realize that you will have to cobble information gleaned from additonal books and the internet to get an idea of the vast history, daily life, and aspirations of the authors and readers in their times, reading recipes from Medieval times, to Iron Chef creations!

   This book has some black and white photos of books also selected willy-nilly, most have no copyright indicated, and why Favorite Dartmouth Recipes, Souffle Spectaculars (1969), Stocking Up (1977) have a photo, and many of the classics do not is again, limited to and by the painfully brief sampling performed back in 1990!!

   This is not a book written by a cookbook lover or true collector...and is shows in it's glaring omissions of classics, and included "fluff" of local cookbooks that expands it's apparent number of books sampled.

   If you want a book for pricing since the 1990's...this is NOT it! If you want to learn about cookbooks in any way, this is NOT for you, either! An enticing title perhaps, 15 years out of date, and not much more to offer.




4. New cookbook collectors will find this an invaluable reference tool for evaluating their collection. Although missing the historical information found in other reference books on the subject, the sheer number of cookbooks listed makes it well worth the investment. While my copy showed 1999 values on the cover, I found little difference in the few listings checked against a 1993 revision of the same book. Overall, Dickinson's values tend to be lower than other price guides, but this book is still a very useful reference. Despite any shortcomings, this book receives an enthusiastic 5 stars just for being the absolute SIMPLEST reference book on the subject I have found. All titles are listed alphabetically - no thumbing through different categories and trying to decode the author's mindset for classifying a particular book.

No comments about Papyrus of Nu (Catalogue of Books of the Dead in the British Museum).

No comments about The making of the Nuremberg chronicle.

No comments about The Holkham Bible: A Facsimile.

No comments about A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology: 1450 to 2000.

2 comments about Book, Spiritual Instrument.

1. This book measures the substance of meaning and relates its design, in the context of narrative associations and fixtures. The Book, Spiritual Instrument - is a truth book, a way we should think about writting and exploring language in the context of our lives. Explore it.



2. This book measures the substance of meaning and relates its design, in the context of narrative associations and fixtures. The Book, Spiritual Instrument - is a truth book, a way we should think about writting and exploring language in the context of our lives. Explore it.

No comments about The Censorship Files: Latin American Writers and Franco's Spain (S U N Y Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture).

1 comments about Li'l Abner: Dailies 1954.

1. Al Capp was on the verge of reaching his peak- a peak he would maintain for many, many years- in these great 1939 newspaper strips. The drawing style is getting bolder and funnier and Capp's visual and narrative satire is beginning to hit a stride that put him at the top of his medium and at the forefront of American popular culture. "Li'l Abner" is a great American work of art, and boy, is it funny stuff. This beautiful series of books is a Godsend from revered publisher Denis Kitchen, and reestablishes Capp's important place as a twentieth century artist and writer.

   My favorite sequence here has Abner posing as a college student ("Oh,Happy Collidge Days!!") as a couple of equally-disguised gangsters try to kill him. While being shoved off a cliff and into a river, tied to a boulder, Abner enthuses "This is mah first collidge hazin'!!" Buy all 27 volumes of this priceless series and take the phone off the hook for a few months.

5 comments about Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art.

1. This is a beautiful book. It has full color images througout and contains examples of several pieces that I have not seen in other books. I have a coleection of lllumination books and am thrilled with this addition.



2. good illustrations, intertaining book



3. The Pierpont Morgan Library's collection of manuscripts and printed works contains some truly beautiful works of art. I was privileged to see some of them at an exhibit in the Kimbell Art Museum. This book was offered as a catalog of the exhibit and I immediately bought it as a reminder of what I had seen. The illustrations in this book, though not quite as visually stunning, are nevertheless representative of the originals. Bibliographic information is rather sparse but the further reading section is nice.

   Painted Prayers gives both the structure of the book itself and the reason behind its popularity during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was the laity in general, and more specifically the female laity, that owned these works as a kind of, "direct, democratic, and potentially uninterrupted access to God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints." (p.14). It is fascinating to see the incorporation of Christian, and sometimes pagan, symbols and iconography, and even humor, in the miniatures and marginalia of the Books of Hours. The miniatures often depicted biblical, or historical, scenes in modern settings and dress. Patrons would often have their portraits, coats of arms, monograms, or intials incoprorated into the Books of Hours that they had commissioned. With the advent of printing in the 15th century Books of Hours, with their pictures, became even more successful as they could now reach out to a wider audience.

   If you ever have the opportunity to see an exhibit featuring Books of Hours I recommend you see it. Failing that, Painted Prayers is a good stand in.




4. While this book contains chapters of material e.g. introduction, calendar, Gospel Lessons, Hours of the Virgin, Pentitential Psalms etc., the core of the book is the descriptions of the illustrations themselves. These description provide a variety of information - bits of biography of the artist, history of the manuscript (confirmed and confirmed), information regarding the style, the imagery etc. The "chapter" material provides samples of the texts, the development of the specific portion of the Book of Hours, etc. This provides the overall context for the materials.

   The indices provide access by manuscript, artist, early owners; an appendex provides the outline of the major offices by incipit (first phrase) to place individual illustrations in the overall context of the prayer hour.

   Don't be intimidated - the text is easily followed but one unfamilar with the prayer book content or with illuminated manuscripts. But you can also enjoy the book simply going through the pictures - like a stroll through a museum without a docent or tape.




5. This well-organized survey of the Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance art takes the reader through the various parts of the book of hours illustrating both the historical and artistic development from the earliest manuscript examples to incunabula. Lavishly illustrated with examples taken only from the Pierpont Morgan Library, where Wieck is a curator, the book is also a mini catalog of that collection. While the "reader" could fully enjoy this book by simply looking at the pictures, Wieck's text is full of illuminating tidbits. The book also contains some detailed descriptions of medieval liturgy and religious practices that may be of interest to some readers.