All-American Girl: The Art of Coles Phillips

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All-American Girl: The Art of Coles Phillips
Michael Schau
Manufacturer: Outlet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Drawing | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0823001733

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All-American Girl, The Art of Coles Phillips
Michael Schau
Manufacturer: Watson-guptill Publ.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JV3GF6

Book Description

The beautiful Ansel Adams wall calendar is a favorite year after year, with over five million copies sold since it was first published in 1983.

Thirteen photographs by Ansel Adams, chosen to reflect the changing seasons, grace this handsome wall calendar. Well-known classics combine with less famial images of the American wilderness to present a wonderful variety of photographs throughout the year. The superb duotone reproductions and gracious design make this a wall calendar that is welcomed as a gift or treasured as a monthly reminder of the work of this great American photographer.

Customer Reviews:

Gorgeous!.......2007-06-27

Gorgeous beyond words! But make these calendars cheaper, so more people can get access to these exquisite photos. We certainly need more beauty in this world!

Ansel Adams 2006 Wall Calendar.......2006-04-02

What can be said about the beauty of Ansel Adams work that has not already been said? The calendar will highlight any wall and make any room glisten. Great price too!

Annual Ansel - They're The Best.......2006-03-08

I have had Ansel Adam calendars for sometime now. They are always interesting and high quality. The prints used never let me down.

Masterworks of Classical Photography.......2006-02-27

My family likes this calendar so much -- we have been using it regularly since 2001. Congratulations to Amazon for making the purchase of this calendar so easy from any part of the world! Guido Milanese, PhD, Genoa, Italy

Ansel Adams 2006 Wall Calendar.......2006-02-19

He is one of the best American photographers. The pictures in this calender reflect his choice of the pictures he wanted shared with us. I am looking at it right now as I write this review and the breaking waves are soo beautiful

Marilou Fallis

Book Description

In a long-forgotten walled town, humans coexist with the Haibane, angelic beings of unknown origin. Rakka becomes the newest Haibane after she awakens from a strange dream and finds herself hatching from a massive cocoon. With no memories of her previous life, Rakka struggles to adjust to her new surrounding, however burning questions remain in the back of her mind. What are Haibane and what is their purpose? What lies beyond the town walls? Thus Rakka begins her wistful journey of self-discovery and wonderment. The Haibane Renmei anime manga is a full-color adaptation of Yoshitoshi Abe's fantastic anime series, presented in the "non-westernized" manga format for a fun, Japanese-style reading experience!

Customer Reviews:

Not really worth the cost.......2006-09-19

Not really worth the cost if you've seen the anime. The book is full color, but the screencaptures used seem to be of a poor quality, occasionally being grainy or fuzzy, and really take away from the reading experience. Goes through the first six anime episodes. A very limited use of any sound effect descriptors, and a lot of poor choices for images when used with the speech bubbles; which incidentally seem to pop out of the page and make it harder to read. Anyone who was new to this particular series would probably have a hard time following the plot simply from the book itself.

Boo! Just screen captures of the Anime series!.......2006-09-14

Beware!

As I said above this is just screen captures of the anime series! Not the original manga by ABe (which is only a few pages long believe it or not.)

The anime series, 5 stars all the way! Darkhorse and Geneon 1 star just to be polite!!!

Skip this if you have seen or own the anime, you WILL be upset to say the least .....

Book Description

Why is God Has Brought Me Laughter different from all other joke books? Some joke books are arranged by subject or theme. Some joke books are arranged alphabetically. Some joke books are arranged by author. This book is not like any of them. This book is arranged by the Torah portion of the week. Author Steve Sheffey takes you through the Torah (five books of Moses) and provides jokes inspired by the Bible itself.

Every week, in traditional Jewish synagogues, the Torah portion of the week is read. As there are 54 portions, some weeks more than one portion is read, culminating in reading the entire Torah once a year. Looking for just the right joke to illustrate a Biblical theme, or just a great joke? Look no further, for here you will find just the right joke for each weekly Torah portion.

You don't have to be Jewish or even familiar with the Bible to enjoy God Has Brought Me Laughter, although it will add to the laughter if you are. So turn to any page in this book and allow yourself some humor that is simply divine. If not now, when?

Customer Reviews:

Very Funny!.......2004-07-20

I loved this book! It was witty, intelligent and very entertaining. This book would be good for anyone, believers and nonbelievers. Would make a good gift for any occasion.

God Has Brought Me Laughter.......2004-07-19

Great, clever book, with very funny jokes. Various jokes can be good for use as a resource in developing speeches. Also, can make a good gift for many different ages. This writer is right on target and has tremendous talent. Takes a very dry subject and makes is it more interesting by adding very good humor to each topic.

Customer Reviews:

A great book for newbies!.......2002-05-12

If the films of Jackie Chan and Jet Li have just gotten you interested in Hong Kong cinema, then this is an excellent book to read to learn more about the HK film industry and what other movies you might want to check out. It's a fun and easy read, featuring reviews and commentaries by several "guest authors" that help make it a rounded volume. From old school kung fu films to new wave filmmakers, this book touches on almost all of them and will leave you excited and ready to explore the wacky world of Hong Kong cinema.

Great insight to the HK movie industry.......2001-08-11

Stefan has written an excellent book on the much misunderstood world of HK cinema. This is a cleverly written train of thought book on all aspects of the industry. It is imformative enough for the true HK buffs and easy for the uninitiated to understand.

Hong Kong cinema buffs rejoice!.......2000-05-03

A wonderful follow-up to Hammond's first foray into Hong Kong cinema, Sex and Zen & Bullet in the Head, Hollywood East is a more detailed account of Hong Kong cinema today. The book has a forward by Michelle Yeoh. The book is organized in the following manner: 1) an overview of Hong Kong, the city, where to purchase movies and memorabilia, where to see movies, and a funny aside of the top ten Hong Kong imagined dangers followed up by the top ten real dangers. Hammond seeks to dispel the mythical Hong Kong as porrtrayed by film and present briefly the real Hong Kong where millions reside. 2) An intro to the astounding work of Johnny To and Milky Way Productions. For those in the know, it will be a fun review and to the uninitiated, Hammond provides a starting point of these must see films 3) a similar overview for Wong Kar Wai 4) an overview of cop/triad films 5) an overview of martial arts films including an extensive review of Shaw Brother's filmography - a must read for Shaw Brothers junkies! 6) the Hong Kong horror genre 7) Jackie Chan and his films 8) sexy chick flicks and girls with guns 9) Jet Li and his films 10) John Woo and his films 11) crazy stunts and the stories behind them 12) extreme cinema, shock cinema for example: the Untold Story 13) other resources including web listings Also included are very funny inserts called "Hex Errors" that have outrageously translated subtitles for each section and a glossary of terminology. There is also a 16 page color insert of mini biographies of up and coming stars including: Michelle Yeoh, Shu Qi, Karen Mok, Michael Wong, Aaron Kwok, Pinky Cheung, Aimen Wong, Athena Chu, Christy Chung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Kelly Chen, Gigi Lai, Sam Lee, Wu Chien-Lien, Michelle Reis and Gigi Leung. One does wonder how Yeoh fits in this category though. The book is fun, easy to read and factfilled for repeated reading. A must for all Hong Kong cinema buffs!

Great Introduction to Hong Kong Cinema.......2000-03-25

Stefan Hammond provides a very timely update on the current Hong Kong cinema scene with his latest gonzo effort, which ranges from a superb chapter on Jackie Chan to some decidely offbeat themes such as "Bad Eggs and Naked Killers" and "Dodge that Flying Witch's Head." The photographs are wonderful, the sidebars such as "Seven Little Stunt Nuggets" provide an inside look at the industry, and his writing style perfectly fits the zany, expressionistic world of H.K. cinema. I'm no expert in the subject, but I found the book fascinating, informative, and highly opinionated, though my only question is: "Who's the babe-in-blue-with-gun on the front cover?"

Something Wild.......2000-03-20

Imagine if Hunter Thompson, Siskel & Ebert, and Rosanne combined to critique a Dali picture, and you'd get a pretty good idea of what to expect. Hollywood East is chop-socky gonzo journalism. If you don't particularly care or know much about HK movies beyond Jackie C and The Bruce, you will after you read this book. In fact, Stefan Hammond seems to write with the frenetic action and dark humor that permeates the very fabric of the movies and people he's describing. If anything, HE has it over S&Z&ABITH in the depth of descriptions and background: HK itself, the movies, and the people who make them. He's got a sense of humor that would be declared a national treasure if he were Japanese. F'rexample, describing myths about The Kong, he assures you that when you order ramen with slices of pork it ain't gonna be 'Poodle Noodles.'

To sum it up, I've never read a book written in a style so evocative of its subject. It's clear that he's writing about something he loves.

Book Description

The printed songbook contains 13 of the duo's most popular performance pieces, spanning an array of topics from the separation of church and state to Led Zeppelin groupies. The CD, produced by Virgil Moorefield, combines electronic soundscapes, beats and voices, and also features several live performances.

Customer Reviews:

Publisher's Weekly, Jan. 2005.......2005-02-04

Present at the creation of performance poetry, Emily XYZ acquired a cult following with her live gigs, punk stylings and recordings for indie-rock labels through the '80s and '90s, lighting up the stage at the now-famed Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Despite her relative prominence (including appearances on television and in high-profile anthologies), XYZ has produced no previous book: she may have felt, and her fans might have agreed, that her performance style, vocal delivery and musical accompaniment contribute as much to her work as the words themselves. This breakthrough volume collects 13 of XYZ's texts, each scored for two simultaneous speakers, along with notes on their composition and performance. "I think of them more as something to be heard than read," XYZ writes in her introduction, and indeed the texts can fall flat on the page; they are saved, though, by the wonderful accompanying CD, in which XYZ's own readings-along with Virgil Moorefield's compulsively catchy electronic musical settings-demonstrate her real powers for all to hear. Several works rely on insistently repeated phrases, reducing the voice almost to a percussion instrument; others imply a traumatic early life or promulgate an inspiring, sometimes sarcastic feminist politics.

Book Description

BradyGames’ Su Doku Addict Volume 1 includes the following:

More than 150 puzzles!
Six levels of difficulty to keep challenging users as they get better and faster at solving the puzzles.
Puzzles with radial symmetry - that is, symmetry around the center box - which is a necessity for true and pure Su Doku.
The puzzles in Su Doku Addict have only one solution, which is a necessity for true and pure Su Doku.

Genre: Puzzle (Sudoku, Su Doku)

This product is available for sale worldwide.

Average customer rating:

Best book on Japanese business practices I've seen yet

One well chosen case to illustrate a systemic problem

Enjoyable worthwhile read in Japanese economics

Get an insight of Japanese Economy

Culture clashes and financial mismanagement on a large scale

Saving the Sun: How Wall Street Mavericks Shook Up Japan's Financial World and Made Billions
Gillian Tett
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Hedgehogging

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ASIN: 0060554258
Release Date: 2004-09-07

Book Description

Saving the Sun tells the story of the world's largest private equity deal where American investors made billions of dollars rehabilitating Shinsei, a failed Japanese bank. Within that business saga is the dramatic tale of Japan's brightest financial minds, the men who made the Japanese economic miracle come to life, and their struggle against the economic failure in the 1990s. Into this climate of despair, where Japan seemed incapable of reviving prosperity, came a group of wily and determined Americans who would discover just how different the Japanese really are.

Customer Reviews:

Best book on Japanese business practices I've seen yet.......2007-01-20

In the 1980's, Japanese business could seem to do no wrong. From business publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, to the mainstream press (Newsweek, The New York Times and CNN), the press wrote glowingly about Japanese business. For over a decade we read that our western practices were too short sighted and antiquated- we clearly needed to take a more "Japanese approach" to doing business, and in so doing, could be successful as they have been.

But a short time later Japanese companies were in big trouble in the US and back in Japan. Their stock market crashed, the real estate boom crashed, and the entire Japanese economy seemed to be not just in serious trouble, but in a meltdown of catastrophic proportions. What went wrong?

This book does an extremely credible job of explaining both how and why, and in simple layman's terms that anyone can easily understand. Using many specific examples, Gillian Tett shows how American and Japanese thought and business practices are polar opposites. These differences are not just a matter of the differences in culture between east and west--they go considerably deeper. But by the end of the book, the results were able to speak for themselves. By bringing in a new international management team made up of Japanese, American, Indian and Australian management, an insolvent bank that had been bought out for the first time in history by a group of western investors (!!) became a success story.

I'm an investment banker myself that has (in previous lives) worked for two different Japanese multinationals over a 7-year period in the 80's and 90's. My own experiences with Japan are mixed. I made some great friends, and have developed a high level of respect for their work ethic and their dedication to their employers, and usually, to each other. But in my opinion, the extreme xenophobia that permeates Japanese culture will not be lessened anytime soon. The term "gaijin" when politely translated means "foreigner." But to many (but not all) Japanese the term is not polite at all.

Get this one. I don't give out many "five star" ratings, but I so for this book without quibbling. I look forward to future works from Ms. Tett.

One well chosen case to illustrate a systemic problem.......2006-09-27

Saving the Sun is about the corporate culture of Japan's financial industry and how it is changing. Gillian Tett focuses on one institution, The Long Term Credit Bank, to illustrate what happened and how the financial environment in Japan is changing.

The LTCB was a key player in Japan's post war miracle. It lent money to fund business operations and new ventures, working in close cooperation with the elite bureaucrats of Japan's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Then in the 1980s, drunk on its spectacular success, Japan Inc. excessively invested in thoughtless projects, all funded by the LTCB and the rest of the financial industry, with no thought at all given to making money. Prestige was everything.

As a result, the Japanese financial system almost collapsed; what survived had to change. Banks began failing despite attempts by the Ministry of Finance to organize rescues. Some failed banks were nationalized, among them the LTCB; these institutions were then put up for sale but no one in Japan wanted them.

There were tragedies. Katsunobu Onogi, a fatherly and admirably responsible gentleman of the old school, was arrested and charged, spending a month in custody before being found guilty and sentenced to three years in jail, suspended. A colleague, Takashi Uehara, committed suicide, which in Japan is a gesture of atonement, not an escape. At another bank, the president parachuted in from the Bank of Japan, Tadayo Honma, also killed himself again to atone for the system's failure.

Then Tim Collins's Ripplewood, an American fund, arrived and offered to rescue the LTCB. This was politically difficult. The Japanese don't like foreign ways, and the thought of a pillar of Japanese finance being bought out by foreigners provoked public outrage. In the end MoF had no choice and the deal went through.

The bank was renamed Shinsei, meaning "Rebirth" in Japanese. A remarkable man, Masamoto Yashiro, was hauled out from a second retirement after a full career at Esso Sekiyu (Exxon's Japan operation) and the creation of Citibank's Japanese retail business, to oversee the reconstruction. Clash was inevitable. The conservative rank and file employees had no idea how to work with the hyperactive can-do go-go-go managers now running the show. A new Indian head of IT, Jay Dvivedi, junked the old mainframes and installed, in mere months, a new state-of-the-art system featuring PCs on every desk and instant access to whatever reports management wanted. The corporate planning department, which decided new products, disappeared: henceforth Shinsei would listen to its customers to determine their needs.

The financial revolution isn't over. Shinsei's success wasn't total. Major clients were allowed to fail, Sogo department store went bankrupt. Politicians blamed Shinsei for not being kinder to its debtors.

I've worked for the IT departments of foreign banks in Japan since 1995 so this book strikes particularly close to home for me. I can even see the Shinsei headquarters from my desk. Interesting and informative. Recommended.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

Enjoyable worthwhile read in Japanese economics.......2005-06-14

I don't usually read books like these but I decided to purchase it anyway. How can something as dry as Japanese banking reform be interesting? Well Gillian Tett made it interesting enough. As with her style of writing, I note that the chapter headings fully telegraph what is about to take place in the narative, I thought, well whats the fun of reading on if you know what is going to happen? With that, Tett's narative is replete with all the drama one can ever read in a good novel. There are deaths, gangsters, flamboyant characters, politics, society, culture clashes, and mix in with all of this, economics.

The Japanese are suppose to be the smart ones. They excel in many areas requiring technical knowledge. The media never misses an opportunity to point out how inferior Americans are when it comes to math and such knowledge. I was therefore amazed when I have read that the Japanese don't have a grasp of the simple relationship between risk and return. I would have thought that they'd have overly complicated financial models using high level math. But it turns out that, from my perspective, the way the LTCB bankers did business was bizarre. Why would anybody be paternalistic when it comes to money?

I won't spoil the ending but it seems obvious from the title of the book what will unfold, in fact, it is the heading of the final chapter. I belive but am not sure that the paperback has an epilogue, revisiting the many chracters as further back as 2004. There are classes offered at university focusing in Asian economics and also Japanese economics as well. Gillian Tett's tract would be apposite as reading material if you are into that.

Get an insight of Japanese Economy.......2005-03-25

This is the first book I read about Japanese banks and this has not only given me an insight about their banking system but about how the Japan's Economic Policy is the face of Japan's Banks. It is about the clash between Japanese Traditional way of life against the changing face of the world. This book is about Globalization, this book is about dreams, this book is about Japanese pride. Go read this book.

Culture clashes and financial mismanagement on a large scale.......2004-10-01

In the 1980's, Japan was considered an economic powerhouse and their sun was still rising. There was genuine fear in the United States of that power; the news broadcasts of the time were full of new Japanese purchases of properties in the U. S. and there was talk of restricting how much could be purchased. Much of this was based on real estate prices in Japan and some of the figures are incredible. At one time, the land area of the imperial palace, approximately 1.15 square kilometers, was estimated to be equal in value to the entire state of California or the entire country of Canada.
However, most of this value was nothing more than a speculative bubble, and very early into the nineties, it crashed. This left the Japanese banks with billions of dollars of uncollectible loans and looking for a way to survive. With deepest reluctance, some original thinkers in the Japanese banking community looked to American capital vendors to assist in their recovery. This is the story of those events, but it is just as much a story of the contrast and clash of two cultures.
In America, the flow of capital is largely freewheeling, the ideal is that it will always move to where it can most quickly be reproduced. However, in Japan, that is not the case. Lending is done based largely on personal and institutional relationships. Cooperation, even to the point of losing money, is the cultural imperative, reinforced by tradition and social pressures. It was considered very unacceptable for banks to call in unserviceable debt, with some banks referring to insolvent companies as "their children." Therefore, when the bubble burst, most banks themselves were insolvent.
However, the leaders of the banks did not come clean, preferring to hide their problems with accounting tricks. One humorous incident is related where the true records were hidden in a closet when Japanese government inspectors were conducting an on-site audit. This behavior, considered criminal in the United States, was much more acceptable in Japan, which points out what are the real lessons to be learned from this book.
Although the economic might of Japan leads those in the western nations to believe that it is economically similar, in fact it is not. The differences are dramatic and the explanations of how those cultural differences make economic differences make this book very interesting. Without the cultural contrasts, this is just another story about a weak, bankrupt company being taken over by another. While interesting, there is no real intensity to the story.
I was amazed at reading how an American company that specializes in takeovers managed to purchase an interest in an insolvent Japanese bank and how all parties handled the event. There were political repercussions on both sides of the Pacific and it was necessary for some fundamental changes to be made in the Japanese financial systems. The events took place in the early 1990's, well after the economies of Japan and the United States had two decades to get to know each other. And yet, there was still a lot of misunderstanding and some naiveté on both sides.
The Americans made the typical mistakes of thinking that the circumstances were no different than when they were on Wall Street. As soon as the company was saved and the price had gone up, they wanted to take their profits and run. This is anathema to the Japanese, and they should have known that. Their attempt to do so created a lot of unnecessary ill will that needed to be smoothed over. The Japanese also made the typical mistake of thinking that the Americans would act like Japanese after they purchased a Japanese company.
This is an excellent book on international finance and the recurring problems of the Japanese economy. For years, the Asian form of crony capitalism was considered the model for economic growth, and a force that could not be stopped. In this book, you learn the fundamental flaws of such a system and how difficult it is for two cultures to engage in an economic marriage of convenience, even when there is no choice in the matter.

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