slimepsychic

Being interested in mindfulness and on the verge of learning to knit I was pleased that there were actually books on the subject. Initially I thought this one was the bad one of the bunch I ended up picking it up first since I don't own any knitting supplies and this is the only knitting book that doesn't actually have any instruction.What you get is a memoir of a period in Lydon's life where she found the act of knitting bringing her to a mindful state. From my experience in making repetition a part of artwork I can attest that Lydon is on to something here. She describes scenes from her recent past and relates it to the ancient craft of knitting, mostly by telling of how different cultures understand the act of weaving and knitting and how it relates to their spiritual side. I'm on the verge of giving it three stars but honestly the advice is good advice, it's just that the way it was written felt a little schmaltzy. My hunch is that if you made it through [b:The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity 615570 The Artist's Way A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity Julia Cameron http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176346423s/615570.jpg 2210934] or [b:Writing Down the Bones 44905 Writing Down the Bones Freeing the Writer Within (Shambhala Pocket Classics) Natalie Goldberg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170271469s/44905.jpg 937841] then this will be a breeze and you may enjoy it.

The watercolor/gouache/collage illustrations were terrific. I also liked the dip pen writing style employed throughout the book. The story was interesting though I felt it could have been more exciting.

Modern twist on the story. It was OK but I prefer the older ones.

Looks to be a great reference manual for canning. I'm a little bummed that they mention how dire it is to make your own recipes and to stick to these. I haven't tried them (as I do not own a canner yet) but ingredient–wise I would prefer my recipes for sauce to theirs. The book is adamant that it is fatal to deviate.

This book is a bunch of terrific watercolor and ink illustrations. Trying to read this as a book was a mistake. It's more of a reference book to come back to when perplexed how to illustrate rust, waves, flora, fauna, etc. I feel the actual instruction in this is a bit lacking but that is because it takes practice to learn these techniques and incorporate them into your work, not smaller steps.

This book is interesting in that at the bottom of each page there is an illustration of the ballet version of The Firebird while the story is told in text and illustration above. I wasn't a huge fan of the colored pencil work but it was quite colorful. There were a lot of double page spreads throughout the book.

This is a retelling of the folk tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, a story of a girl sent to the witch Baba Yaga who forces her to work else she will eat her. I liked the action in the colored pencil illustration but disliked the decision to make Baba Yaga a pointy–nosed, green–haired witch.

I enjoyed these simple Russian folk tales. The gouache and ink illustrations are terrific but I felt they were reproduced poorly... perhaps lost when resizing from the original artwork. It wasn't terrible though and I felt the stories were better for them.

I'm not really sure what happened but it was creepy and I'd not mind reading over and over. I think there is a bunch of hidden details in the delightful illustrations.

This book should be called How To Be A Freelance Illustrator. It mainly focuses on editorial and advertising illustration freelance and targets upcoming/recent graduates. I'm not interested in those fields nor am I a recent graduate. It just didn't really click for me. I skipped the last chapter because it had to be returned.

This book was a terrific read. I took it out of the library and immediately wanted to purchase it. I didn't get around to it and now I still want it but don't remember so much why I wanted it. But that is related to the main advice of the book: just do it.

Aside from just taking all the stupid crap out of our daily routine that prevents us there is a few other things, like knowing when to quit and when to keep going and knowing when to shut people out and when to get their advice.

Nice, quick read of some Potter flavored fairy tales with some notes that tie it into the lexicon. Perhaps unfair but comparable to [b:The Adventures of Tom Bombadil 1537134 The Adventures of Tom Bombadil J.R.R. Tolkien http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184885184s/1537134.jpg 2963754].

I've been keeping aquariums on and off for the past 25 years. I picked this up to read the chapter on live aquarium plants. It seemed a bit short but insightful but to see how much faith I should put in the authors opinion I skimmed through the rest of the book. What I found was recommendations that contradicted what I generally believe to be good aquarium keeping advice. Example: for my size tank he recommends 400% more fish can occupy a tank than what I've read elsewhere. I found quite a few questionable items, enough that I would not recommend this book to anyone.

This books is comprised of two parts: part one is a retelling of the quest for the perfect pizza; part two is the recipes derived from the quest.

The first part is mouth–watering to the point of being pornographic. If you want to win me over it's apparently very easy to do so by telling me tales of crisp crusts with molten, bubbling blends of cheese. It's a story really ...but worth noting because the lesson is that there is no perfect pizza, just a confluence of pizza made with care and the moment it is created in.

The second part is recipes Reinhart has invented that mimic the ones he tasted, only they're better. I hope you like transcription because you'll probably want to copy the entire second half of the book down to your cookbooks.

As will agree with another review I read: After reading this book you'll never look at takeout pizza the same way again.

I loved Shadows Over Baker Street. Though some of the stories weren't as great as others I think they all conveyed a real feeling that Lovecraft's world was in always lurking in the shadows of Doyle's world. Despite knowing there would be a supernatural element to each story I found myself suspending disbelief, thinking that it would be a normal Holmes story. Now that I finished this book I don't think I'll be able to read a Doyle penned Holmes story now without considering there will be something horrible and unexplainable around the corner.

A couple of other thoughts:

* The short story format is a good choice, considering both Doyle's and Lovecraft's work was in the same format.
* The characters from both works (Chthulu, Moriarty) are emphasized more in these books than in the original authors creations, it's a bit heavy handed and feels more kool-aid to the original 100% juice.
* There were quite a few typographic errors toward the end of the book. I didn't feel they detracted enough to reduce the rating though.
* If you are a fan of both genres then this is a terrific book. Definitely pick it up.

This book was so important to our vacation that we called it the book. I didn't read 70% of it but the parts going over how Fastpass works, what to expect from each of the parks, etc. was well worth it.

We also used the tear-out planners each day and definitely helped cut possible wait times from 70 minutes to 20-30 minutes.

I read this in my Illustrating Children's Books class. I really loved the artwork and that the surreal plot which bleeds into reality (it's a red book and the story involves a red book). The book as a whole feels like a keepsake - the book is canvas covered while there's a small graphic plate stuck to the front... very unlike most Children's books.

I read this book as part of my Illustrating Children's Books class. Selma is wonderfully and simply illustrated and has a great zen-like meaning to take away from it. I found it delightful.

I read this as part of my class on illustrating children's books. I was surprised by and enjoyed the wordy style of writing.

I read this in my Illustrating Children's Books class. Ilse recommended it to me because of the similarity between his work and Richard Scarry's. Like Richard Scarry this book is done with loose ink drawings and watercolor and features some scenes that are very busy, while other smaller scenes are similarly labeled. This book isn't about animal people though, it's about human people and how though we're all different we're also all the same.

I read this book in my Illustrating Children's Books class. It's a difficult topic to write about in Children's Books — the material fits the older reader who is probably getting too old for the picture book format. This book does a terrific job of simplifying Big Bang Theory, though I feel like it's a bit heady still.

I read this in my Illustrating Children's Books class. I liked the idea but the “space between pages” was too much and it was difficult to understand what was happening.

A classmate brought this book in to our Illustrating Children's Books class. This is a story of three kids who meet Stillwater, a Panda neighbor. Within the context of this story Stillwater tells zen stories to the three kids. It's cool without beating it over your head... a similar book, [book:Samsara Dog], felt very heavy handed.

Artistically the book switches from realistic watercolor to quick ink for the zen shorts to great effect. It's definitely a book that I'd keep around for kids.

I read this as part of the Illustrating Children's Books class I'm taking. If I had read this alone I'd probably give it five stars but I was introduced to this at the same time as [book:Flotsam], another of his books, and preferred Flotsam. It's a terrific story about an average Tuesday when strange events involving bullfrogs start happening. It's told without words and is quite similar to comics in layout and storytelling.

I read this in my Illustrating Children's Books class I'm taking. It's a wordless story of a kid finding a camera on the beach. It's visually similar to a comic book — there are a lot of action to action moments broken up into panels on the page. I've come to discover the artist's style often is somewhat realistically rendered yet the events that comprise each story are quite bizarre.