2 comments about Arizona Getaways for the Incurably Romantic: 45 Sensational Destinations for Lovers.

1. Arizona certainly qualifies as one of the most romantic states in the USA with so many places to explore, and unfortunately for many of us, so little time.

   Pam Swartz, author of Arizona Getaways For The Incurably Romantic, has written an extremely informative guide providing the reader with a very good exposure of forty-five of the most uniquely romantic lodgings located in various areas of the state.

   Through the eyes and ears of the author, readers have the opportunity to discover secret hideaways and romantic ideas that were accumulated over a number of years.
   Swartz's familiarity with Arizona, where she moved to in 1978 from Buffalo, personalizes and adds a great deal of depth to her clear and concise text.

   The author informed me that it had taken her two and one half years to research and write the guide- book. After reading the 254 pages crammed with extremely useful information, you can well understand why it had taken this length of time.

   A good guide- book can go a long way in making a vacation trip much more pleasurable, particularly if the book is well organized and reader friendly.
   Herein lies the strength of Arizona Getaways For The Incurably Romantic.

   Divided into eleven chapters and an appendix, the reader receives a well-rounded picture of how to evaluate romantic lodgings and locations.
   Essential ingredients such as: surroundings, ambience/atmosphere, level of privacy, uniqueness, distance from home, overall quality of service, are dealt with at length.

   In addition, there is a detailed description of each of the forty- five properties that the author had visited.
   Moreover, sprinkled throughout the guide-book are sidebars providing various tips about which rooms to reserve in the inn or resort to reserve, what to expect in the way of extras such as, wine and appetizers that may be served on certain evenings, which cottages have Jacuzzis, etc.

   Swartz also provides suggestions as to how to plan the romantic getaway, setting the stage, whetting the appetite, making the trip magical, where to travel, and ideas as to how to spend your days and nights.
   Comprehensive charts listing amenities and features for each selection and comparison of accommodations are included at the back of the book.
   All of this information gives the book a substance well beyond the usual mundane guide- books.

   I do hope this author continues her travels and tells us more about the various pearls and gems that can be discovered in Arizona.

   This review together with an interview with the author first appeared on the reviewer's own site: Bookpleasures.com




2. Arizona Getaways For The Incurably Romantic: 45 Sensational Destinations For Lovers is packed by travel author Pamela Swartz with locations, ideas, suggestions, and features to add color to any romantically involved vacation. Filled with listings of top-class hotels and breathtaking natural splendors, Arizona Getaways For The Incurably Romantic makes for a wondrous vacation-planning reference for honeymoon bound newlyweds -- and anyone else seeking a romantic adventure for a weekend or a week!

1 comments about Museums of San Francisco: A Guide for Residents and Visitors.

1. I live in SF and find this book very handy. There are many SF museums I've heard of but didn't know much about. This book provides a great overview of all the museums (even the really small ones) and gives the relevant info i.e. hours, websites, phone numbers, etc. I think both tourists and locals will get a lot out of it.

2 comments about Yosemite: The Grace & Grandeur.

1. Most people who have viewed the many natural wonders in the United States place Yosemite somewhere near the top in terms of remarkable beauty, grandeur and spirituality. If you have not yet been there, I certainly hope you will plan to do so. You probably already know the area from having seen many of the remarkable landscape shots done by Ansel Adams.

   Many people who have been to Yosemite feel that they know it well from having seen it from the bottom of Yosemite Valley and having viewed Mr. Adams's remarkable photography.

   I have had the pleasure of visiting Yosemite many times from when I was just a youngster growing up in California. Each time I go, I plan to see another part of the park. Interestingly, I find myself drawn more to the areas outside of the bottom of Yosemite Valley than to those areas where most visitors congregate. For example, when I took my wife there for her first visit, we went first to the Mariposa Grove to see the giant sequoias. I was hooked on this book when it started out the same way, after an introductory section that focuses on the geological, historical and political background of Yosemite. When I discovered that the book pays a lot of attention to the high country where most visitors never go (even though you can drive through Tioga Pass), I decided that it was important to encourage people to read this book. It will open your eyes, mind and heart to the full scope of Yosemite.

   By being in color, those images provide a totally different perspective on Yosemite. These views will help those who have been to Yosemite recapture the feelings that they had while there. For potential visitors, the book is an excellent resource for planning a worthwhile trip. I was especially pleased to see that the wildlife were well captured in the images.

   No book that I have read and enjoyed captures Yosemite so well for me as this one. I hope you will decide to read it.

   After you have finished the book, I urge you to find ways that you can commune with nature more frequently in places that inspire the positive parts of who you are.




2. "Yosemite - the Grace & Grandeur" is a must-have for anyone who plans to visit this beautiful park or who wants to re-live the memories of having visited it. While it's chock-full of beautiful photos (it's also called "A Pictorial Discovery Guide"), it also contains wonderfully written text about everything from the Park's history to its wildlife. We just got back from a visit to the park a couple of weeks ago, and immediately knew this one was a keeper!

No comments about The Art Museums of Louis I. Kahn.

3 comments about N.C. Wyeth: Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings.

1. I do understand why other reviewers are miffed at the small reproductions. But in balance I felt there were an ample number of decent single page images. Yes there is heaps of whitespace but the worst excesses are around the chapters of text, it's not so bad in the image sections. The reproduction quality and colour balance is gloriously good, so the full pagers are a real treat and even the 1/9th page images are enjoyable. The best thing about the volumes is the quantity of images - there are literally thousands that have been tracked down and reproduced. If they were to give each the full glory treatment of a page apiece, then there would be several more volumes and a price tag many times higher. I would commend that Wyeth fans buy this set and, rather than moan to Brandywine about the average image size, lobby the publishers to produce some supplementary volumes that can expand on themes within his work - eg: Wyeth pirates, Wyeth cowboys, Wyeth civil war etc. It would be great if supplementary volumes could be done in a similar manner - slipcased, cloth bound hardcover and at this large folio size.



2. I have long awaited the arrival of a good N.C. Wyeth book. When I saw this book was released I was elated...a bit taken back by the price though. Well I justified it seeing that it is a 2 book box set. When it arrived the first dissapointment was bad shipping. This set had inadequate protection and recieved a hole through the box from an shipping. Secondly, and most disappointing, was the fact that the images were often soooo small. Some that I've seen previously published much bigger are shown so small I felt compelled to get a magnifying glass. Because I'd seen them larger I knew it was a possiblity. I personally feel that the Brandywine museum should be ashamed of this publication. The Wyeth family should be outraged! As the first reviewer stated, the white space is huge. In some areas, 4-5 inches large, while the images are small! I have to say, since I so longed to see this publication, or at least the one I had hopped to see, my heart actually ached after the waiting and the cost of this item. My recommendation is to save your money till they lower the price even more and do what I plan to do, send a letter of complaint to the Brandywine Museum. After all the great publications on Andrew, this is what we get to represent N.C.? How disappointing!



3. It's great to see the length and breadth of N. C. Weyth's work, but this Raisonne despite its size (at 10 pounds a book) and quality printing, suffers from the artists own prodigious output. So exciting too see so much unseen work, but so disappointing to see so much of it so small. The exhaustive technical descriptions and layout choices to leave tons of white space around everything makes it time and again feel like a collection of stamps. A third volume was needed to do this the right way so the best of the art could be shown at the size it merits. More is less in this case.
   That said this is a long overdue book that clearly shows the N.C. Weyth was unfairly overlooked in the art histories as a master who should have not been over shadowed by his talented, but rendering oriented son. N.C. was a painter; Andrew is a fastidious observer of detail. The combination of Weyth seniors style exploration, staying to long in illustration, his early death, the ugly discrimination of the art world, and his son's overriding pureness of personal vision prevented N. C. from being considered one of America's most important artists. I hope this book corrects that perfect storm of ignorance of his greatness. I urge the publishers to a expanded version that shows more the art at a good size, I'll buy it too.

No comments about Milton Resnick: Monuments.

2 comments about In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O'Hara and American Art.

1. Frank O'Hara poetry makes constant references to painting. He was friends with many painters, and was a curator at MOMA. This book provides a convenient visual tour of O'Hara art-world connections, including many paintings, drawings, and photos of the poet, along with his collaborations with Larry Rivers and Joe Brainard.



2. In Memory Of My Feelings is a collection which examines contemporary artist Frank O'Hara and his influence on American art, providing an excellent catalog of both his works and portraits of O'Hara as presented by his contemporary artists. Color pictures on almost every page accompany a scholarly survey of his life, times, and the art circles he worked with. An excellent catalog.

2 comments about Gardens of Pleasure: Eroticism and Art in China.

1. Maybe it wasn't altruism that led Bertholet share his collection in this book. I'm grateful anyway. It's an outstanding collection of Chinese erotic art, from about the end of the 17th century to the late 19th. The works here are all silk paintings, except for a few drawings. They are printed in beautiful color, large enough for easy reading, with expanded details of a few. Bertholet adds plenty of useful commentary (much of which I skipped, I admit). He also adorns most pages with brief extracts from classic Chinese poetry, all on the topic of physical love.
   
   Two things stand out in every artwork and in the collection as a whole. First is the gentle, consensual tone. The closest thing to aggression is a jealous wife twisting the ear of a husband caught 'in flagrante,' and that's more humorous than anything. Voyeurism, whether peeking in on a lady's solitary pleasure, secret viewer of a couple's engagement, or the reader's own participation with the artwork, is always un-threatening. Humor is always close to the surface, the natural good humor of happy people.
   
   The second thing that strikes a Western eye is the very non-Western conventions these artists followed in rendering men and women. The figures are very similar - women aren't given the guitar figure one might expect, and men have rounded and nearly hairless bodies. Women's breasts get only a little attention, and are covered by a bandeau or bib in many scenes. Genitalia aren't exaggerated, and their realistic scale may jar an eye that expected size and importance to go together.
   
   But that's why these works are so enjoyable. They aren't Western, they're a very different look at the thing all people have in common. They're still beautiful, both in the Chinese tradition and in the visual celebration of sex.
   
   //wiredweird



2. This stunning collection of more than 100 color illustrations from the Bertholet Collection is a magnificent achievement. Prestel has created a thoroughly engaging publication here, and never before has the world been able to view most of these breathtaking visions of love and sex from pre-modern China. Much of the visual works date to the 18th century. But, in addition to the visual feast, the entire book overflows with verses that match the age and mood of each work of art, as well as essays on the history of the art form, the effect of Taoism on erotica, Confucianism, the trials a husband undergoes getting his wife to accept a concubine, and even the history of Bertholet's collection itself, and lots more. This is a fascinating read! Intellectual, artistic, and even at times, quite humorous, this is a superb collection of erotic imagery and one of the most enjoyable publications one will find in this genre. This is one book that owners should proudly display on their "coffee-tables" for all to enjoy.

1 comments about Grant Wood: An American Master Revealed.

1. "Grant Wood's (1891-1942) paintings epitomized the Regionalist movement and attracted an immense popular audience. This book, published as the catalog for the traveling exhibit which premiered at the Davenport Museum of Art in Iowa (1995), is richly illustrated with some sixty of Wood's paintings and preparatory studies. The text examines Modernist influences on the artist, specifically in relation to his abstract design principles and the lasting influence of Neo-Impressionism on his painting.
   
   "By Brady Roberts, James M. Dennis, James Hornes, and Helen Mar Parkin, Davenport Museum of Art. 128 pages, 60 full-color reproductions, 27 black-and-white illustrations, size: 11 x 9". Smythe-sewn paperbound book. ISBN: 0-87654-485-5."--© Pomegranate

No comments about French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth.