No comments about Goldscheider: History of the Company and Catalogue of Works.

No comments about Eddie Martinez & Chuck Webster.

3 comments about Hull Pottery: Decades of Design (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. I should have read the editorial review more closely. It means it when it says this is a sweeping survey. Not even close to being a helpful book for buying Hull. I bought it hoping it would be of help when looking through ebay listings. So far, I am batting less than 50% at finding items in this book. Patterns are not complete listings, only 'surveys' as the editorial review says. Patterns are not even always grouped together in the same pages of the book, either. And there is no kind of listing by Hull ID number to be able to find items quickly. Even when they are, pictures show many items in one picture and the description is sometimes confusing as to which piece is what. Labeled pictures of collections are sometimes shown, but not priced, and some of the items show up no where else in the book. I am very dissapointed. On the positive side, the pictures are great, and as promised it shows a wide variety of the types of items Hull made. Prices are right next to each picture, so you don't have to do the annoying 'flip to the back' unless you are doing it to try to find your item in the idex because it isn't with the rest of the pattern on its page! Overall, a nice book to look at and read, but if you are planning on using this for identification and pricing, get something different.



2. I am an amateur collector, and I reviewed more than a dozen books on Hull Pottery at several book stores (then, of course, I purchased it from Amazon). This one was by far the best of the lot. Best photos. Best variety of items. Best organization. If there is a better book out there on Hull Pottery, I sure would love to know about it, because I haven't ever seen one. Highly recommended to anyone interested in Hull pottery.



3. This Hull reference is thorough, but certainly not definitive. Synder's photos are vastly superior to those in Brenda Robert's The Collector's Encyclopedia of Hull Pottery. Color quality is better and shows the subtle variations found in the same lines of Hull art pottery making accurate identification much easier for the novice. Prices are also included in the cutlines with the pictures eliminating the need to flip back and forth between the photos and a price list somewhere else in the book. All in all I would recommend this book to any serious Hull collector.

No comments about Chinese Armorial Porcelain for the Dutch Market.

No comments about The Big Bad Bitterkomix Handbook.

No comments about Stories of the Prophets: Illustrated Manuscripts of Qisas Al-Anbiya (Islamic Art and Architecture Series, No 8).

1 comments about Liber Necris: The Book of Death in the Old World (Warhammer).

1. In all of the warhammer stuff there is repetition. I guess you just have to get used to that. The writting in this book was especially good though, and I think it is far better than most of the warhammer material. If you have all of the tabletop army books you probably won't find too much new information here, but if you don't this is a great book. Here you get everything in one place and quite a bit of new info. All in all, I would recommend this over most other supplements. The book was also free of typos and editing errors, which made reading it enjoyable instead of annoying. I would recommend it, but don't pay the full retail price. Get it here, on ebay, or somewhere you won't have to pay over $20.00. I liked it but not enough to pay $30.00 dollars (or more).

No comments about Atelier Le Tallec: Hand Painted Limoges Porcelain (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

4 comments about New Media in Late 20th-Century Art (World of Art).

1. If I remember correctly, this book was the assigned text for the digital art class I took Spring '01 at SMCM. Interesting book with a lot of good intro material on folks like Nam June Paik. It gets a bit tedious at times but also has some pretty great color images throughout; too bad it's not an over-sized art history text -- now that would have been awesome.



2. This book was informative and enjoyable to read. As a visual artist working more and more new media and in desperate need of knowledge on this subject it gave me a basic background and encouraged me to jump in and explore the medium. I would like to contact Michael Rush if someone can supply an address.



3. This book was informative and enjoyable to read. As a visual artist working more and more new media and in desperate need of knowledge on this subject it gave me a basic background and encouraged me to jump in and explore the medium. I would like to contact Michael Rush if someone can supply an address.



4. Even when I don't know a lot about the subject, I like books that say a lot to me through their format, their content, text layout, photographs quality. Nothing such with this ordinary treaty considered as an exam composition. Disappointing for such an explosive topics. Would "new media" be already out of fashion at the beginning of this century?

1 comments about Francis Alys: When Faith Can Move Mountains.

1. In 2002, 500 Peruvian volunteers, mostly students at the University of Lime, gathered in a long line by a giant sand dune on the outskirts of Lima. In the period after the end of the lengthy, troublesome autocracy of Peru's leader Fujimora, the tensions caused by his regime continued to unsettle Peruvian society. Many continued to feel anger over the violence and coercion of the Maoist Shining Path radical group. The largely-ignored poor were looking for answers to their conditions. Rival groups clashed in the streets of the major cities. And lawlessness was threatening to further fray Peru's historically-precarious social fabric.
   
   In this atmosphere, the artist-activist Francis Alys got the idea for a large-scale community project--namely the moving of the mountain of sand. This impractical project was intended to be not only symbolic of the power of persons working together toward a goal, but also a model of a physically challenging activity to release pent-up angers and thwarted hopes and reorient these toward something productive. Alys' idea attracted much attention, and accomplishing its symbolic aim and immediate purposes. As the sand dune and the hundreds of volunteers moving it but a few inches around its edges were visible from the impoverished shanty towns set up by rural Peruvians fleeing Shining Path, the project's message was absorbed by this dislocated, restive population especially seeking new ideas, activities, and directions.
   
   The planning, execution, and the intentions and hopes entailed in the impractical, encouraging outsized project are covered in the varied content of interviews with the project leaders, remarks by many of the student participants, and commentary by other activists and artists involved in different ways giving different perspectives. The many photographs and illustrations from topological drawings of the sand dune, the long line of volunteers at work, and faces of individuals convey the varied psychological, political, and social aspects of the imaginative project. A collage-like format represents the anomalies and multiple aspirations of this unique project with aspects of performance art and social ritual.