Anatomy of a waterfowl, for carvers and painters

Average customer rating:
Anatomy of a waterfowl, for carvers and painters
Charles W Frank , and Charles W. Frank
Manufacturer: Pelican Pub. Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0882892908

Book Description

Chinese dragon robes are among the most exquisite garments ever produced. With this fully illustrated guide, textile scholar and collector Valery M Garrett provides an introduction to the development, construction, and dating of dragon robes. This comprehensive book answers most every question
on the subject of dragon robes and is perfect for the beginning collector and anyone interested in costume design.

Customer Reviews:

A Primer for Chinese Dress.......2000-05-23

Book: CHINESE DRAGON ROBES Author: VALERY M. GARRETT

This would ideally be the first book one would read when beginning to research Chinese robes. Garrett divides her book into categories which include Early dragon robes, Qing dragon and court robes, construction, and symbolism. This overview is greatly enhanced by plates of a wide range of 24 different robes; each one representing a specific style, rank, gender, or age group. The only regret is that many of Garrett's illustrations and photos are in black and white. The beauty of the colors is a main feature of the dragon robes. It was an easy and enjoyable book to read. I began to skim the "construction" section, expecting it to be boring (I have no desire to make one!), but found so many areas of interest, that I read it in its entirety. I recommend this book for anyone who appreciates the grandeur of Chinese art. The robes are among the most important treasures to be found. It was sad to read that many of the best examples are in the West, and that the Palace Museum in Beijing rarely displays them. Perhaps as tourism expands, they will recognize the need to use the robes in drawing the crowds.

Average customer rating:
Chinese Court Robes in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin Reprints, 14)
Edmund Capon
Manufacturer: Her Majesty's Stationery Office
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JI5JX6

Product Description

11 pg. stapled booklet, 11 b/w figures, notes.

Average customer rating:

Chinese Dragon Robes (Images of Asia)
Valery M. Garrett
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000W24DOU

Average customer rating:
Instructions for Form 1066, U.S. real estate mortgage investment conduit income tax return (SuDoc T 22.51:1066/inst./)
U.S. Dept of Treasury
Manufacturer: Dept. of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Investments | Real Estate | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000108N9O

Book Description

Jean-Luc Godard's early films revolutionized the language of cinema. Hugely prolific in his first decade--Breathless, Contempt, Pierrot le Fou, Alphaville, and Made in USA are just a handful of the seminal works he directed--Godard introduced filmgoers to the generation of stars associated with the trumpeted sexuality of postwar movies and culture: Brigitte Bardot, Jean Seberg, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Anna Karina.

As the sixties wore on, however, Godard's life was transformed. The Hollywood he had idolized began to disgust him, and in the midst of the socialist ferment in France his second wife introduced him to the activist student left. From 1968 to 1972, Europe's greatest director worked in the service of Maoist politics, and continued thereafter to experiment on the far peripheries of the medium he had transformed. His extraordinary later works are little seen or appreciated, yet he remains one of Europe's most influential artists.

Drawing on his own working experience with Godard and his coterie, Colin MacCabe, in this first biography of the director, has written a thrilling account of the French cinema's transformation in the hands of Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette, and Chabrol--critics who toppled the old aesthetics by becoming, legendarily, directors themselves--and Godard's determination to make cinema the greatest of the arts.

Customer Reviews:

Godard.......2005-09-27

I'm a fan of Godard's work and really enjoyed this book. It is part biography and part history and tends to go off on tangents which make the book all the more strange and interesting. Towards the end it becomes more personal because of the experiences MacCabe had with Godard later on in his life. Although the form and construction of the book are not very tight, it does a nice job of weaving through the complex mosaic that is Godard's life. It has some really cool pictures too.

A blow-by-blow account of 70 long years.......2004-08-30

Once upon a time, Godard was the leading filmmaker in the world, and if he lost some of his stature after a run of didactic, neo-Rossellini and Maoist tracts in the 1970s, he never really wanted to be famous, just influential. MacCabe, who has written interesting books on Warhol and Nicolas Roeg, explicates the progression of a great artist from enfant terrible to a man most think has died. The chapter about Anna Karina is wonderful, and we get the impression that Karina remains for MacCabe one of the icons of femininity, whereas he is cool and respectful towards Anne-Marie (Godard's frequent collaborator) you get the feeling he's not turned on by her the way he is by Karina. Also, we see him being tremendously gallant I think, towards Jane Fonda, with whom Godard made a film TOUT VA BIEN and then after it failed, he turned on her with the vicious "cinema portrait" LETTER TO JANE, castigatig her for her vanity and her foolish liberalism. MacCabe delivers a reproof to Godard and Gorin that says it all.

I do agree that Godard has made too many films for any one critic to account for. It is not MacCabe's fault exactly, but he might have written two books, one on Godard's international career as auteur in the 1960s, and the other of the virtually unknown films. He makes you want to see them on the one hand, but on the other hand one realizes with a sinking heart, well, life's too short!

The viewer over my shoulder.......2004-07-20

For anyone who is only marginally curious about the vacillating fortunes of Jean-Luc Godard, which has dimmed to virtual darkness since the 1960s, Colin MacCabe's book Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy contains very little that is useful and a great deal that is both confusing and misleading. MacCabe is blessed with intimate knowledge both personally and professionally of Godard, and doesn't hesitate to demonstrate this. What he fails to demonstrate to this non-convert to Godard is precisely anything that might sway me from the conviction, cultivated over 30 years, that - at best - Godard was politically stupid, technically puerile and artistically bankrupt from beginning to end - an end which MacCabe is anxious to prove is as much the end of European culture as Dante's Divine Comedy was its beginning (he even cavils that this "is no exaggeration.").

Such admiration as this would be charming if it were to any degree justified. A little objective discrimination, presuming Mr MacCabe still believes in such things, would've been far more welcome. This book, however, is founded on the premise that Jean-Luc Godard (a co-founder of the French New Wave) is a film artist of unprecedented importance. That this premise is sheer flapdoodle tends to deflate most of the points Mr MacCabe attempts to make about Godard, or Film, or European culture for that matter.

Not the definitive biography.......2004-06-01

The French New Wave is one of the most interesting eras of cinema. Much has been written about the whole Cahiers du Cinema group. And now, we have this new book on the life of Godard.

The book is well divided, broken into 5 chapters. Godard's early family life, the Cahiers years, his early films, his late 60's political films and his years with Anne Marie Mieville.

Unfortunately, minus the index, bibliography and filmography, the text runs only 330 pages. Probably 40% or more of the biography is made up of tangents by the author. He often spends several pages explaining some historical event (such as several pages on the history of Protestantism in France) or spending several pages interpreting a quote of JLG's. This would be fine in a longer biography, but when several of his films aren't even discussed, or described in just a sentence, it is rather frustrating. Plus, since the author has also written books on James Joyce, he spends quite a bit of time talking about and quoting from Joyce when he should be talking about Godard.

So, this isn't the definitive Godard biography, which has yet to be written. Still, when he does focus on Godard, it is quite interesting and worth a read. I only wish there had been a stronger editor to keep it in focus.

vulpecula venenata.......2004-05-25

The author of this book writes aptly about the cultural and political contexts that frame the life of its protagonist and particularly well about Godard's experiences on or around May 1968. MacCabe shows himself as almost totally sympathetic (yet not completely uncritical) to a relatively unpleasant subject. Perhaps, Godard is too private for compassionate emanations, perhaps the priveleged scope of this work stretched only to the opus of the film maker and not beyond, but there seems to be very little evidence of the delightful emotions that mark most lives in the life of this subject. Will the brilliance of the films outshine the unkind specter of the living artist? MacCabe writes very well on the evolution of Godard's techniques and fascinations. Godard works autonomously, vigorously and in daring fashion from the beginning. There is no doubt that Godard is an innovator and a believer in his style and visions.

It's just that the creator of the films doesn't seem to be the sort of person who endures either the scrutiny of a biographer or the acquaintance of people who are not cinematic savants well at all. That surprise though is hardly grounds for the criticism of the book or its subject by one who stands wholly uninjured by both.

Average customer rating:
Godard: a Portrait of the Artist at Seventy.(Book Review): An article from: Cineaste
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Manufacturer: Cineaste Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00082RADU
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Cineaste, published by Cineaste Publishers, Inc. on June 22, 2004. The length of the article is 1401 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Godard: a Portrait of the Artist at Seventy.(Book Review)
Author: Jonathan Rosenbaum
Publication: Cineaste (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2004
Publisher: Cineaste Publishers, Inc.
Volume: 29 Issue: 3 Page: 58(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Average customer rating:
Avalon - In a Different Light
Avalon
Manufacturer: Hal Leonard Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0634005901

Book Description

All 11 songs from this talented contemporary Christian vocal quartet's 1999 release: Always Have, Always Will * Can't Live a Day * First Love * Hide My Soul * I'm Speechless * If My People Pray * In a Different Light * In Not Of * Let Your Love * Only for the Weak * Take You at Your Word.

Average customer rating:

Entertaining, informative and at times useful, too

Byrnes another treasure

A great piece of literature and "how to" book

Byrne's Wonderful World of Pool and Billiards: A Cornucopia of Instruction, Strategy, Anecdote, and Colorful Characters
Robert Byrne
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Billiards & Pool | Individual Sports | Sports | Subjects | Books
Look Inside Entertainment Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Look Inside Sports Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Byrne's Advanced Technique in Pool and Billiards

Byrne's New Standard Book of Pool and Billiards

Byrne's Complete Book of Pool Shots: 350 Moves Every Player Should Know

The 99 Critical Shots in Pool: Everything You Need to Know to Learn and Master the Game (Other)

Playing Off the Rail: A Pool Hustler's Journey

ASIN: 0156002221

Book Description

A treasury of amazing shots, inside secrets, and favorite stories from the renowned pool and billiards writer-the perfect armchair companion for would-be pool sharks everywhere. Index; diagrams and photographs.

Customer Reviews:

Entertaining, informative and at times useful, too.......2003-08-03

Highly entertaining, and informative to boot, with plenty of tips you can use in your game. Anyone who already has Byrnes Standard Book of Pool and Byrne's Advanced should also get this, and his Treasury of Trick Shots book, as all four volumes regularly refer to (useful) information in eachother. While this is MOSTLY a fun book about colorful characters, billiards history, tricks shots, and amusing stories, your casual, league and even tournament play can learn a few good pointers from the materials herein.

Byrnes another treasure.......2001-08-26

It's fun, informative and useful. I have several Byrne books and videos and I review them once in a while. I hesitated buying this in fear it was merely a revamping of old material. I found it used...and bought it anyway; I was so wrong, it's totally new and fresh and a great addition to my library. Byrne comes thru once again and shows why he's been inducted into the BCA hall of Fame.

A great piece of literature and "how to" book.......1998-06-30

Originally after I read Byrne's "Skyscraper" novel I thought he had absolutely no talent in placing words together, placing him in the moronic catagory, as well as a complete bore! But he swings and connects with this work! Bravo!

Byrne's Wonderful World of Pool and Billiards A Cornucopia of Instruction, Strategy, Anecdote, and Colorful Characters

Average customer rating:

Byrne's Wonderful World of Pool and Billiards A Cornucopia of Instruction, Strategy, Anecdote, and Colorful Characters
Byrne Robert
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Billiards & Pool | Individual Sports | Sports | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000UEB01Y

Average customer rating:

Byrne's Wonderful World of Pool and Billiards: A Cornucopia of Instruction, Strategy, Anecdote, and Colorful Characters.
Robert. BYRNE
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Billiards & Pool | Individual Sports | Sports | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000OJD3R4

Book Description

The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook is based on the same proven principles outlined in Schwarzs groundbreaking book. The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook is the next-step resource that offers consultants, facilitators, managers, leaders, trainers, coaches, and anyone that works within the field of facilitation, the tools, exercises, models, and stories that will help them develop sound responses to a wide range of challenging situations. The book spans the full scope of the successful Skilled Facilitator approach and includes information on how to get started and guidance for integrating the approach within existing organizational structures and processes.

Download Description

"The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook is based on the same proven principles outlined in Schwarz's groundbreaking book. The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook is the next-step resource that offers consultants, facilitators, managers, leaders, trainers, and coaches the tools, exercises, models, and stories that will help them develop sound responses to a wide range of challenging situations. The book spans the full scope of the successful Skilled Facilitator approach and includes information on how to get started and guidance for integrating the approach within existing organizational structures and processes.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent tool.......2007-05-12

I've read this book almost cover to cover and I've gained a lot of insight in using Skilled Facilitator approaches as a teacher and a minister. Mostly, it's given me insight into how to develop myself as a creative listener, and how to control my inner thought processes, and turn that back around into positive leadership for the good of the group. I find it particularly helpful to keep the RULES foremost in my mind as I interact with students and parishioners. And it's true that the more I model these rules, the more my students and the others around me absorb them and begin to use them in their own interactions.

A FIELDBOOK OF OUTSTANDING QUALITY-HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!.......2005-04-20

Central to this work is the Skilled Facilitator approach (TSF), a systematic, values-based approach to group facilitation; at its core is the idea that the way we act and the consequences we create begin with the way we think. Chapter one delineates the 10 key features of TSF approach. It is used to help groups and entire organizations address issues and make significant change, as well as in coaching, training, and conducting HRD/OD initiatives of all types.

This ambitious resource is bursting with 62 contributions clustered into seven parts:
1) Understanding the Skilled Facilitator Approach-main focus: summarizes the approach and describes its major principles and features (8 chapters)
2) Starting Out-main focus: using TSF in a variety of basic ways (12 chapters)
3) Deepening Your Practice-main focus: refining intervention and diagnosis skills, and increasing personal awareness (7 chapters)
4) Facing Challenges-main focus: dealing with the most difficult situations (5 chapters)
5) Seeking Your Path-main focus: integrating the TSF approach in practice and life (5 chapters)
6) Leading and Changing Organizations-main focus: creating major change in leadership and organizational functioning (15 chapters)
and
7) Integrating the Skilled Facilitator Approach in Your Worklife (and Non-Worklife)-main focus: shows how to integrate TSF with other approaches and roles (coach, trainer, consultant, leader, parent) (10 chapters)

The book is further enriched with: definitions; key points; examples; tools and techniques and samples of the outcomes they produce; reflections; model conversations; and resources.

As a consultant in organizational analysis, design and change, as well as a reviewer, I was particularly drawn to Chapter 51, "Do Surveys Provide Valid Information for Organizational Change?" by Peg Carlson. She concludes what we have found to be true of surveys-they are useful for spotlighting likely issues but they do not deliver the depth of analysis and meaning required in organizational consulting, nor the motivation for learning and deep change. This chapter is emblematic of the books' quality of content. In a nutshell, this book is outstanding! I highly recommend it.

Average customer rating:

Very insightful and useful
Great for me (techy person)
The Skilled Facilitator
What Facilitates Facilitator?
More Than Practical Wisdom

The Skilled Facilitator
Roger Schwarz
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Workplace | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Human Resources & Personnel Management | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Decision-Making & Problem Solving | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Entrepreneurship | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0787947237

Book Description

When it was published in 1994, Roger Schwarz's The Skilled Facilitator earned widespread critical acclaim and became a landmark in the field. The book is a classic work for consultants, facilitators, managers, leaders, trainers, and coaches--anyone whose role is to facilitate and guide groups toward realizing their creative and problem-solving potential. This thoroughly revised edition provides the essential materials for anyone that works within the field of facilitation and includes simple but effective ground rules for group interaction. Filled with illustrative examples, the book contains proven techniques for starting meetings on the right foot and ending them positively and decisively. This important resource also offers practical methods for handling emotions when they arise in a group and offers a diagnostic approach for identifying and solving problems that can undermine the group process.

Customer Reviews:

Very insightful and useful.......2007-03-26

The skilled facilitator introduces a facilitation approach that is based on 4 core values: Valid information, Free and informed choice, internal commitment and compassion. Most of the work on the values are based on the work of Chris Argyris and his work on Organizational Learning.

One of the key-points in the book is that most people work with a unilateral control theory-in-use. This will automatically make their facilitation in-efficient eventhough they do not realize it. The skilled facilitator approach is to try to move away from this theory-in-use and move to a "mutual learning" theory-in-use in which the facilitator tries to maximize the learning for him and his participants. The four core values provide a basis for that. Next to the core values there are 9 ground rules which are concrete enough to really act upon.

Most of the book explains the ideas behind the core values and the ground rules and shows how the ground rules influence your facilitation. This is done with scenarios in which the author shows a normal approach and a skilled facilitator alternative approach.

The book ends with a wonderful chapter on "the facilitative leader", which shows how you can combine the skilled facilitator values and ground rules and your role as a leader within the organization. This chapter alone would have been worth the book already.

I finished the book fairly quick. It's easy to read and kept me interested at all times. It also kept me thinking about the content when I was not reading it. Changing a theory-in-use is a difficult thing, but thanks to this book, I've become more aware of my own approach to facilitation and have the ability to improve it.

Great for me (techy person).......2007-03-09

When I first read this book years ago, I was a very technical IT person who preferred to work alone. I credit this book with helping to develop my people skills and making me a more effective team member.

The Skilled Facilitator.......2007-01-16

A good book but unfortunately both copies arrived damaged by water, one was still wet. They also smelled like rat's urine. I was able to retrieve one after a week of drying in 30 degree temperatures & turning pages every so often. The other is a total wreck. Probably should have been packaged in plastic prior to putting in the box. Disappointed.

What Facilitates Facilitator?.......2004-08-14

Many who want to be skillful facilitators are in a way "misled" by consultants, trainers or books on facilitation in the sense that techniques and recipes are cited and taught.

With many techniques and methodologies delivered, honest "facilitators" sense that they are not getting there - people do not get engaged, people among themselves are not connected.

Roger Schwarz, in his book "The Skilled Facilitator" shows that there is more to techniques, theories and methodologies. The very thinking, motives or mental models of the "facilitator" is an important part of the chemistry of the whole group.

By QuaSyLaTic, Andrew
http://www.360q.com

More Than Practical Wisdom.......2003-02-26

The subtitle of this accessible guide to facilitation, "Practical Wisdom For Developing Effective Groups", accurately describes the book's scope and utility. In four parts and thirteen chapters, Schwarz provides an overview, with countless meaningful examples, of how facilitators can most effectively help groups develop their capacity for improvement. He distinguishes between two types of facilitation: (1) Basic facilitation, which aims to help a group "solve a substantive problem"; and (2) Developmental facilitation, which accomplishes basic facilitation while helping a group learn "to improve its process". He argues that three core values underlie effective group and facilitator behavior. The first is "valid information", which means that relevant information is shared by group members and that all groups members can validate and understand the information. The second is "free and informed choice", which means that group members define their own goals and methods of achieving those goals using valid information. The third is, "internal commitment to the choice", which means that group members take responsibility for their decisions by making informed choices based on valid information. Using a basic or developmental approach, facilitators most effectively intervene by making explicit and modeling these core values. These values are maintained by a group agreeing and sticking to essential ground rules, which Schwarz lists on p. 75 and treats extensively throughout the book.

In the heart of Schwarz's book are seven chapters on intervening effectively in groups. In those chapters, he advises the reader on, among other things, how to intervene, meeting management, group problem-solving, following ground rules, and dealing with emotions. He closes with wisdom on serving as a facilitator in your own organization and on the facilitative leader. His opening sections on how facilitation helps groups achieve their goals and establishing the foundation for facilitation lay the groundwork for his later chapters.

In the opening chapters, he includes two models worth mentioning. In his "group effectiveness model" (p.23), Schwarz shows how group processes (the primary concern of the facilitator) interact with group structure and organizational context to contribute to a group effectiveness. Group effectiveness is assessed through three criteria: (1) The group's services or products meet or exceed the expectations of the clients; (2) The processes and structures used to deliver services or create products enhance the group's capacity to work together; and (3) The group's experience is satisfying, not frustrating, for the group's members. In the second noteworthy model, Schwarz presents the "diagnosis-intervention cycle" (p. 68). In this cycle, there are three diagnostic steps and three intervention steps. In the diagnostic phase, the facilitator observes behavior, infers meaning and decides whether to intervene. In the intervention phase, s/he describes observations, test her/his inferences, and helps the group decide whether and how to alter behaviors. Understanding and using these models are critical for effective facilitation.

For the would-be facilitator or group leader, this book provides exactly what the subtitle promises.

Average customer rating:
Serious readers only, please.(Review)(The Skilled Facilitator)(Book Review): An article from: Training Media Review
Lee Smedley
Manufacturer: TMR Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00082E31C
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Training Media Review, published by TMR Publications on January 1, 2004. The length of the article is 510 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Serious readers only, please.(Review)(The Skilled Facilitator)(Book Review)
Author: Lee Smedley
Publication: Training Media Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2004
Publisher: TMR Publications
Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Page: 11(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Average customer rating:

Skilled Facilitator
Schwarz
Manufacturer: WILEY JOHN
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GUDXM6

The Skilled Facilitator : Practical Wisdom for Developing Effective Groups (Jossey-Bass Management Ser.)

Average customer rating:

The Skilled Facilitator : Practical Wisdom for Developing Effective Groups (Jossey-Bass Management Ser.)
Roger M. Schwarz
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PS3AJU

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books