The Cocktail Shaker: The Tanqueray Guide

Book Description

The cocktail shaker, once a symbol of elegance, is now eminently collectible. This reference, designed for collectors and admirers alike, celebrates a golden age when designers from the famous luxury goods houses had a ball with novelty cocktail shakers. "Thirst extinguishers", skyscrapers, lighthouses, penguins, ship's lanterns and dumb-bells, decorative and practical, were favourite themes, and with the legalisation of liquor in the USA, following the repeal of the Prohibition in 1933, cocktail sets were in great demand. Art-Deco-inspired shakers exemplified the age and found favour with the smart set in New York, Paris and elsewhere. This volume features over 150 photographs of shakers.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent, basic beginner's guide.......2004-08-10

Jenny Keal's Landscapes In Pastel offers the beginner everything necessary to get started painting landscapes, from an introduction to sources of inspiration and equipment to techniques of creating detail, capturing sun and shadow, and depicting animals, landscapes and people. An excellent, basic beginner's guide.

Outdoors in Watercolour (Collins Learn to Paint)

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Alwyn Crawshaw's techniques simplify your paintings

Outdoors in Watercolour (Collins Learn to Paint)
Alwyn Crawshaw
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Watercolor | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Still Life | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0007199104

Customer Reviews:

Alwyn Crawshaw's techniques simplify your paintings.......2005-01-09

I admire Mr. Crawshaw's techniques in many ways; he gives you methods to simplify how you paint people, boats and animals. He's known as an equestrian painter, so it's a bit disappointing that there isn't more in this book about painting horses (perhaps he's leaving that for a separate volume.) I also find Crawshaw's palette a bit dull--he goes for the natural look of muted greens and browns and blues--very realistic but not as exciting as the bright tropical colors that are now more in vogue in painting. This is in the true English tradition of watercolor. Nevertheless, I find that I've learned more by doing Crawshaw's exercises for painting things like trees and sheep than from many other books or videos. To rate this book; visually--it's not so exciting. Technique-wise, if you try out some of these techniques, your brushwork for certain details and compositions will become simpler and less worked-over. Recommended for that reason.

Flower Portraits in Watercolour (Collins Learn to Paint)

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Flower Portraits in Watercolour (Collins Learn to Paint)
Elizabeth Conlon
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Watercolor | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Still Life | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0007199112

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Learn Paint-Skies In Watercolour
Ron Ranson , and Ranson
Manufacturer: Harpercollins Pub Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Landscape Painting | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Watercolor Painting | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Landscape | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Watercolor | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Still Life | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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Watercolor Painting from Photographs

ASIN: 0004133250

Book Description

Learn to paint with the guidance of experienced artists and teachers. Each of the guides in the Learn to Paint series is written by a professional and includes everything you need to begin: basic advice on paints and materials, a wealth of tips and techniques, simple exercises to develop skills, and clear, step-by-step demonstrations. Handsomely designed and filled with color illustrations, these are excellent guides for all aspiring painters.

Country Flowers in Watercolour (Collins Learn to Paint Series)

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Country Flowers in Watercolour (Collins Learn to Paint Series)
Ann Blockley
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Watercolor | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Still Life | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0007143826

Learn to Paint Seascapes (Collins Learn to Paint)

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Learn to Paint Seascapes (Collins Learn to Paint)
Ronald Jesty
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0004127846

Book Description

Jean Shepherd was one of America’s favorite humorists, his most notable achievement being the creation of the indefatigable Ralphie Parker and his quest for a BB gun in the holiday classic A Christmas Story. But he was so much more, a comic Garrison Keillor–like figure whose unique voice transcended the airwaves and affected a whole generation of nostalgic Americans.
The Ferrari in the Bedroom is Shepherd’s wry, affectionate look at the hang-ups and delusions of Americans in the 1970s. From his sardonic assessment of fads such as the nostalgia craze (“Thinking that the old days were good is a terrible sickness. Everything was just as bad then as it is now.”) to a modest proposal for the foundation of S.P.L.A.T. (The Society for the Prevention of the Leaving of Animal Turds), Jean Shepherd provides a generous measure of his special brand of wise and warm humor as an antidote for some of America’s more ridiculous obsessions.

Customer Reviews:

Not as good as the first two books.......2007-05-13

More great stories by Jean Shepherd. Some were retold again, but they are still very funny and enjoyable.

Ferrari in the Bedroom.......2006-11-05

This a very funny book. All of Jean Shepherd's books are funny and wonderful reads. It's to bad we have lost him.

Essays and Musings and Fiction from an American Master.......2000-02-15

Well, this isn't Shep's best, but it's still a hell of a good read. Not really a work of fiction, it's largely a collection of essays and musings on American culture. The stories are always funny and smart, and it's illustrated with Shepherd's own excellent pen and ink line drawings. Shep fans will love it and non-shep fans... Well, there aren't any non-Shep fans, only those who haven't read him yet.

A Shepherd's-eye view of America........1999-01-05

"In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" and "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories: And Other Disasters" are two books where humorist Jean Shepherd shows his mastery of the nostalgic anecdote laced with satire. A third book, "A Fistful of Fig Newtons", is also anecdotal, but with a more cynical, adult twist. Except for an occasional trip or two down Memory Lane, "The Ferrari in the Bedroom" presents a series of droll observations Shepherd makes of contemporary America ("contemporary" meaning the early 1970s). In a style of sociological humor only his, Shepherd takes on basic components of the American psyche: cars, road travel, consumerism, the battle of the sexes, television, just to name a few. The author also shoots some salvoes at 1970s precursors to 1990s political correctness. Much of the material in this book, albeit dated, will still make some readers reminisce on younger days; references are made to Playboy bunnies, real service stations (i.e., before self-serve), hippies, and the Generation Gap. Shepherd also treats us to amusing travelogues about Maine and Alaska, plus a "critique" of the Johnson Smith novelty catalog which also appears in "A Fistful of Fig Newtons", but under another title. After reading Shepherd's four books, "In God We Trust" and "Wanda Hickey's" stand out as my favorites.

A Shepherd's-eye view of America........1998-01-09

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The Ferrari In The Bedroom
Shepherd Jean
Manufacturer: Dodd, Mead & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UDSZV8

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A few factual errors cancel out critical excellence.

Essential.

The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (Texas Film and Media Studies Series)

Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
History & Criticism | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Gender Studies | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film

The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (Popular Fictions Series)

Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing (Suny Series, Interruptions - Border Testimony(Ies) and Critical Discourse/S)

The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror; Revised Edition with a New Afterword

The Horror Film (Inside Film)

ASIN: 0292727941

Amazon.com

Film critics of the 1990s contend that gender is central to understanding horror movies. As editor Barry Keith Grant writes, "Today gender roles are being tested, challenged, and redefined everywhere, and until such time as difference is no longer dreaded, this crucial aspect of the horror film will remain very important for us." The Dread of Difference is a solid starting place for exploring the idea of gender in horror cinema. It's a fat book with 21 scholarly (and reasonably lucid) essays, and plenty of black-and-white movie stills. The authors use a variety of theories to survey the history of horror/slasher movies and the work of individual directors, and offer "close readings" of a number of movies.

Related title: Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol Clover

Book Description

An undying procession of sons of Dracula and daughters of darkness has animated the horror film genre from the beginning. Indeed, in this pioneering exploration of the cinema of fear, Barry Keith Grant and twenty other film critics posit that horror is always rooted in gender, particularly in anxieties about sexual difference and gender politics.

The book opens with the influential theoretical works of Linda Williams, Carol J. Clover, and Barbara Creed. Subsequent essays explore the history of the genre, from classic horror such as King Kong and Bride of Frankenstein to the more recent Fatal Attraction and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Other topics covered include the work of horror auteurs David Cronenberg, Dario Argento, and George Romero; the Aliens trilogy; and the importance of gender in relation to horror marketing and reception.

Other contributors include Vera Dika, Thomas Doherty, Lucy Fischer, Christopher Sharrett, Vivian Sobchack, Tony Williams, and Robin Wood. Writing across a full range of critical methods from classic psychoanalysis to feminism and postmodernism, they balance theoretical generalizations with close readings of films and discussions of figures associated with the genre.

The Dread of Difference demonstrates that horror is hardly a uniformly masculine discourse. As these essays persuasively show, not only are horror movies about patriarchy and its fear of the feminine, but they also offer feminist critique and pleasure.

Customer Reviews:

A few factual errors cancel out critical excellence........2000-04-26

The amount and diversity of the crictical opinions expressed in this book should give it at least 4 stars. Sadly two essayists works contain errors so blatantly ignorant of the source material I had to dock the whole barrel a single star. Carol J. Clover goes into incredible, albeit wincingly inaccurate, detail when describing the stabbing deaths of two characters in a hot tob in the film Halloween 2. However neither of these characters were stabbed in the actual scene, one was strangled and the other scalded. In another example, editor Barry K. Grant, in his essay on legendary horror auteur George A. Romero, continually confuses Dawn of the Dead with Day of the Dead and vice versa. One would think that after supposedly studying these films so closely the writers would get the titles and scenes correct in the texts. Error quibbles aside THE DREAD OF DIFFERENCE is a fascinating and mostly positive study of a genre that has been critically maligned (if not out and out ignored) for far too long.

Essential........2000-01-25

For students of horror and film this book is indispensible. Taking horror film seriously is, many times, a losing proposition, but not for the writers here. The essays on the "Alien" films and David Cronenberg are worth the price alone. One of the best books on horror movies out there--intellectually satisfying and illuminating, worlds away from the tepid, incomplete "encyclopediac" fare usually published. My highest recommendations.

Book Description

The traditional music of black South Africa, and particularly its presence in ceremonies and rituals such as initiation and divination, is explored in this work. Through parallel chapters designed to facilitate comparisons between various musical cultures, the text identifies the primary black language groups of South Africa and provides their physical location within the country, the tribes and clans that live in each region, and a brief history. Numerous forms of music are examined, grouped according to the musical instruments played or by performance style—communal and solo music, songs with lyrics, and songs with dances. A sampling of musical scores, a look at well-known soloists or bands who embody the traditional music, and an accompanying CD will help readers more fully experience the highly individualized sounds and musical styles of this region.

Book Description

401 NEW PUZZLES BY THE BESTSELLING SU DOKU AUTHOR!

There are two types of people in the world today: those hooked on Su Doku, and those about to be.

Su Doku is the mind-bending and addictive number placement game that exercises your brain and helps you escape from the stresses of everyday life. Here is the ultimate Su Doku book, with 401 new puzzles divided into four different levels of skill: • Painless • Tricky • Nasty • Migraine

Amazon.com

Business leaders who maintain that emotions are best kept out of the work environment do so at their organization's peril. Bestselling author Daniel Goleman's theories on emotional intelligence (EI) have radically altered common understanding of what "being smart" entails, and in Primal Leadership, he and his coauthors present the case for cultivating emotionally intelligent leaders. Since the actions of the leader apparently account for up to 70 percent of employees' perception of the climate of their organization, Goleman and his team emphasize the importance of developing what they term "resonant leadership." Focusing on the four domains of emotional intelligence--self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management--they explore what contributes to and detracts from resonant leadership, and how the development of these four EI competencies spawns different leadership styles. The best leaders maintain a style repertoire, switching easily between "visionary," "coaching," "affiliative," and "democratic," and making rare use of less effective "pace-setting" and "commanding" styles. The authors' discussion of these methods is informed by research on the workplace climates engendered by the leadership styles of more than 3,870 executives. Indeed, the experiences of leaders in a wide range of work environments lend real-life examples to much of the advice Goleman et al. offer, from developing the motivation to change and creating an improvement plan based on learning rather than performance outcomes, to experimenting with new behaviors and nurturing supportive relationships that encourage change and growth. The book's final section takes the personal process of developing resonant leadership and applies it to the entire organizational culture. --S. Ketchum

Book Description

Daniel Goleman's international bestseller Emotional Intelligence forever changed our concept of "being smart," showing how emotional intelligence (EI)-how we handle ourselves and our relationships-can determine life success more than IQ. Then, Working with Emotional Intelligence revealed how stellar career performance also depends on EI.

Now, Goleman teams with renowned EI researchers Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee to explore the role of emotional intelligence in leadership. Unveiling neuroscientific links between organizational success or failure and "primal leadership," the authors argue that a leader's emotions are contagious. If a leader resonates energy and enthusiasm, an organization thrives; if a leader spreads negativity and dissonance, it flounders. This breakthrough concept charges leaders with driving emotions in the right direction to have a positive impact on earnings or strategy.

Drawing from decades of analysis within world-class organizations, the authors show that resonant leaders-whether CEOs or managers, coaches or politicians-excel not just through skill and smarts, but by connecting with others using EI competencies like empathy and self-awareness. And they employ up to six leadership styles-from visionary to coaching to pacesetting-fluidly interchanging them as the situation demands.

The authors identify a proven process through which leaders can learn to:

Assess, develop, and sustain personal EI competencies over time

Inspire and motivate people

Cultivate resonant leadership throughout teams and organizations

Leverage resonance to increase bottom-line performance The book no leader in any walk of life can afford to miss, this unforgettable work transforms the art of leadership into the science of results.

Customer Reviews:

Emotional Intelligence for Relational Leadership.......2007-09-20

If you smile at me, I smile back; you frown and I look down - emotions are not a closed-loop system, but an open-loop system that helps us learn or causes us to shutdown. Transference of positive emotions (resonance) drives organizations to higher performance, conflicting emotions drive dissonance and limit performance according to authors Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee. Thus, leadership is far more relational than transactional and good leaders are competent in all four domains of Emotional Intelligence - self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. The best leaders are also adept at applying a wide repertoire of supportive leadership styles - Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, or Pacesetting to drive resonance, but also Pacesetting and even Commanding when the circumstances dictate.

It all sounds like so much common sense now; nearly 10 years after Goleman first burst on the scene with his international bestseller "Emotional Intelligence". Still, it is sometimes useful to remind ourselves that management is a relational process and that the necessary skills can be individually learned and subsequently developed within a team and/or organization - as the second half of this book goes on to say. If you have the time to step back and contemplate how relational interactions might be better managed within your organization, this book might give you a few things to think about. Dennis DeWilde, Author of "The Performance Connection"

Very Insightful and Educational.......2007-06-24

I absolutely loved the information in this book. It hits on many points that you dont get in general business classes. It explains leadership styles, review processes, self development, and just an overall good book in general on how to treat and develope people under you effectively. It is amazing how many people run corporations, and dont know or understand the power of the information in this book. I purchased copies to develope my 2 levels of supervisors below me. Highly Recomended!

Team 2: Primal Leadership- Book Review- UWM/MBA Students (Edina, Keith, Dianne, Vicki).......2007-05-04

We thought the book has great ideas to share on the leadership theory. It is written clearly and is easy to read. The authors, who are clearly well educated in the field of Emotional Intelligence and leadership, offer a well written book on: Emotional Intelligence; leadership styles; and offer a model for self directed learning (with Richard Boyatzi's Theory of Self Directed learning).

The book has three main parts.

In the first part of the book, The Power of Emotional Intelligence, the authors provide a great introduction to what makes leaders great. The authors show that resonant leaders - whether CEO's, managers, politicians or coaches - excel not just through skill and smarts, but by connecting with others using the EI competencies. They make scientific connections to neuro-anatomy that support the idea that emotions do in fact drive human behavior. The concepts of resonance, dissonance, laughter and moods are laid as the groundwork for understanding primal leadership and emotional intelligence. Then, they outline the four foundations, or domains, of emotional intelligence and their associated competencies:

* Self-Awareness:

- Emotional self-awareness
- Accurate self-assessment
- Self-confidence

* Self-Management:

- Emotional self-control
- Transparency
- Adaptability
- Achievement
- Initiative
- Optimism

* Social awareness:

- Empathy
- Organizational awareness
- Service

* Relationship management:

- Inspirational Leadership
- Influence
- Developing others
- Change catalyst
- Conflict management
- Building bonds
- Teamwork and collaboration

An important piece of applying EI is developing a flexible leadership style that is designed to draw in and motivate employees via a repertoire of leadership styles that include:

* Resonant Leadership Styles:

- Visionary
- Coaching
- Affiliative
- Democratic

* Dissonant Leadership Styles (limited use):

- Pace-setting
- Commanding

The second part, Making Leaders, is about the process of making emotionally intelligent leaders. The authors argue the case of "CEO disease" which is the information vacuum around a leader created when people withhold important (usually unpleasant) information. This includes getting too little useful performance feedback. The authors argue that when it comes to building leadership skills that last, motivation and how a person feels about learning matters immensely. People learn what they want to learn. If it is forced, it will soon be forgotten. Consequently they offer the five stages of self "discoveries" which are essentially a self-directed self-evaluation process that help make changes more long-standing. The author brings hope by explaining that true leaders are made, not born. They explain that resonant leadership is achievable through experimenting and practicing new behaviors.

The third part of the book, Building Emotionally Intelligent Organizations, attempts to apply emotional intelligence concepts on a macro level. It begins with the application to teams, then moves to the ideal organization, and closes discussing how to create sustainable change. There is general agreement that the third part of the book is the weakest. It teases readers who want to know more about how to be more effective on the team and organizational level, but does not provide the necessary how to steps. The particulars of how all of this is achieved within an organizational context are disappointingly vague as a systematic research model is not presented.

Criticisms of the book:
The first and second part of the book were found to be well liked by all of our team members. However, the third part of the book was found to be strong in the development of the theory, but weak in the application of it to real life. Further weaknesses of the book are listed below:
- The primary focus seems to be on identifying the components and the theory supporting primal leadership, however, it is lacking specific guidance on implementing the steps.
- Examples sometimes speak to success, however at times they do not identify specifically what the person did to achieve that success. More detail would provide better learning for the reader.
- Most of the research was secondary data.
- The book does not discuss competing theories.
- A single minded focus on building good relations may create the "Country Club" paradigm, good feelings but little output. (Allio)

We liked the book because:
The following lists the many strengths of the book, which outline why our team liked the book.
* It is relevant to the challenges of today's business by offering ways to improve business performance through improving leadership.
* It gives great examples of how positive and negative leaders may impact success of the organization.
* It provides a comprehensive introduction to the importance of EI skills in our every day business life.
* It stresses the realization of the importance to put people first before strategy.
* Nature vs. Nurture? The author brings a hope (even though not all leaders are born with all self-competencies) that through incorporation of different leadership techniques one can potentially become an effective and resonant leader.
* It inspires the reader to look inward and develop their own emotional intelligence.
* It's timing is relevant to the advance of modern leadership theory.

This book, overall, is recommended to others, specifically including our team peers, colleagues, leadership at work, leadership at volunteer organizations, family and friends. This book serves as a great introduction to the concept of emotional intelligence in everyday business life, while crossing over to life outside of the business world too.

Forget that we are all people at your own risk.......2007-04-03

In sales training you are taught to analyze emotions, to identify the type of personality your prospect has, and then taught how to best make a sales pitch to that personality type.

In MBA school you are instead taught (usually by the case study method) that numbers are the bottom line and any ideas you might have of people not being interchangeable parts is silly if not outright incorrect.

Let's say you need to hire a physicist. On the one hand you have this physicist with an MBA (yes they exist, I'm one) and he understands the bottom line, how to sell, how to plan. On the other hand you have Einstein who looks funny and forgets to put on his shoes when he walks to lunch. You'd better decide carefully what you need. Princeton University decided - they built the only covered walkway between building so Einstein didn't get his feet wet going between his office and the cafeteria.

Above all else, this book says that we are people. Ignore that we have emotions and you will lose.

Refreshing.......2007-03-25

I picked this book up on a whim, and I was very surprised how much it pertained to my life. I found this book to be very insightful and refreshing. The ideas and concepts put forth seem so simple and full of common sense, yet very few people seem to practice them. I think this is a must read for people who want the most out of life and their relationships.

Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence (Unabridged)

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Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence (Unabridged)
Boyatzis, McKee, Daniel, Richard, Annie Goleman
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
ASIN: B000068ILJ

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