Letters from the Avant-Garde: Modern Graphic Design (Kiosk Books)

Book Description

Letters from the Avant-Garde presents designs for business?ephemera -- including stationery, envelopes, postcards, and?business cards -- created by F.T. Marinetti, André?Breton, Herbert Bayer, Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, Mies van der Rohe,?Jan Tschichold, Ladislav Sutnar, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and many others.?

?Working in Europe and the U.S. between 1909 and 1950, these designers used?printed stationery to project the public identities of avant-garde?movements to an international community, disseminating modernist theory?and practice around the globe via the postal service. Letters from the?Avant-Garde features over 150 illustrations, in color and black and?white, of printed ephemera from the collections of Elaine Lustig Cohen and?other sources. Letters from the Avant-Garde is an invaluable?resource for all those interested in graphic design, typography, and the?history of modernism.?

?Critical essays show how artists and designers mobilized the techniques of?commercial communication to promote their ideals and ambitions. Gathered?together for the first time, the materials presented in this book are?typographic self-portraits of the most influential people and institutions?in the development of modern design.?

Customer Reviews:

Paul is Right.......2000-09-16

As Paul said, a great book. I first met Paul out dancing out at the Limelight. I trust him with my life. You can trust him with this book review.

a hard book to find.......2000-03-26

A nice solid spark if you do identity work. Untitled Books in Soho and Amazon are the only places I've been able to find it, a good inspiration-resource and a refreshing alternative to the overflow of tacky pretentious desin books like Flatness Is God and 007 License To Design.

Book Description

This remarkable series of practical, step-by-step guides brings together the most comprehensive collection ever published of Celtic designs and decorations and provides an invaluable source of inspiration for artists, designers and craftspeople of all kinds. Both freehand and canonical geometric methods are explained and detailed instructions are given on drawing and decorating letters in an authentic Celtic style, as well as on creating your own illuminated manuscript pages.

Customer Reviews:

Very interesting.......2006-03-20

Getting to know how this art was born, I strongly recommend to those who appreciate Celtic Art

Knotwork.......2006-03-14

I have not yet drawn knots from this book, but I have worked through Celtic Knots-Mastering the Traditional Pattern which I recommend at a first book for beginners like myself. However, I had read this book and can't wait to start drawing its knots.

If you're only buying one.......2006-01-19

If you're only buying one of Meehan's books, get this one. It's earned its cost 100 times over in helping me design my own knotwork patterns. The history is interesting on the first read; I'm not working on (nearly) priceless vellum so I can afford rough drafts on scrap paper and don't follow the formal construction methods. But there's plenty of material to serve as a starting point.

The collection of Trinity knots in the back is fabulous--try them in balloon art for a change of scale.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly.......2006-01-03

This book will show you how to make Celtic knots and it does contain detailed diagrams, however what this book shows you in 20 pages can be easily shown in just a couple of diagrams while at other times the book shows you in just a couple of diagrams what it should have shown you in 20 pages...So there is alot to be desired.

"What a tangled web we weave".......2002-11-16

Several years ago I was having a guitar made and wanted to use a Celtic theme for some of the inlay work. As usual, I discovered that this was a more complicated task than I had originally thought. Not all places on a guitar are equal, and trying to find a set of ideas that would work as a whole is almost as challenging as designing an illuminated manuscript page.

I my frantic search through the catalogs for books that provided more than pretty pictures, I stumbled across several volumes by Aidan Meehan, including this one on knotwork. Meehan's focus is as much on design as it is on imitation, which was perfect for what I was trying to do. The book is done in clean legible calligraphy with countless illustrations of both technique and results, making it a bit of an artwork itself.

Whether 'secret' or not, Meehan presents knots, their creation, and use in fine and methodical detail. He works through some important knots, then turns to panel design, plaitwork and spiral knots. Probably much more than I will ever need, but making this a valuable resource for the artist and the historian.

Classical Border Designs
Average customer rating:
Classical Border Designs
Pepin Press
Manufacturer: Pepin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Graphic Arts | Graphic Design | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Drawing & Modelling | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
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Graphic Frames (Agile Rabbit Editions)

Graphic Ornaments (Agile Rabbit Editions)

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Japanese Patterns (Agile Rabbit Editions)

1000 Decorated Initials (Agile Rabbit Editions S.)

ASIN: 9057680173

Book Description

This book contains stunning images for use as a graphic resource, or inspiration. All the illustrations are stored in high-resolution format on the enclosed free CD-ROM and are ready to use for professional quality printed media and web page design. The pictures can also be used to produce postcards, or to decorate your letters, flyers, etc. They can be imported directly from the CD into most design, image- manipulation, illustration, word-processing and e-mail programs; no installation is required. For most applications, single images can be used free of charge. Please consult the introduction to this book, or visit our website for conditions.

Average customer rating:

Clear instruction for creating your own intriguing borders

Celtic Borders
Aidan Meehan
Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Ancient & Classical | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Byzantine | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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

General | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Celtic Knots: Mastering the Traditional Patterns (Celtic Design)
Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction
Celtic Design: Knotwork : The Secret Method of the Scribes (Celtic Design)
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Celtic Design: Spiral Patterns

ASIN: 0500280673

Book Description

Borders are a natural development of Celtic patterns, whereby an abstract or animal pattern may be repeated to fill a band or frame a panel. Aidan Meehan shows how to create a variety of rectangular Celtic borders, based upon a simple square-grid. The borders are proportioned to fit a standard letter-size page, but are equally suited for stationery or illuminated pages, and are readily adaptable to any number of craft applications.

Customer Reviews:

Clear instruction for creating your own intriguing borders.......2000-03-29

This book is intended to instruct and inspire an artist to create their own Celtic borders. Aidan Meehan is passionate about Celtic design and hopes that this book will aid in a resurgence of fresh invention and creativity in the field of interlaced art.

Aidan has identified consistent principles and techniques that will enable even a beginner to draw gorgeous celtic borders. He begins by introducing the conventions that underlie all Celtic borders by clearly explaining the use of a layout grid.

Next he constructs a series of borders, each building on the previous example. He clearly explains how borders are connected at corners, which I have found difficult to understand in other texts. He explains how to draw delightful animal borders that are often considered too difficult for a beginner to attempt. Although a beginner, I had success by using his techniques. Follow them and you will be able to draw wild men interlaced with biting dogs!

The text is also fun because it is sprinkled with his observations on optical illusions, brain teasers, and how the left and right side of the brain are affected by the designs. He feels, and so will you, that this is the secret of the enduring charm of Celtic border designs.

Full-Color Celtic Frames and Borders CD-ROM and Book (Dover Pictorial Archives)
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Celtic Frames and Borders CD-ROM by Mallory Pearce

Disappointing

Full-Color Celtic Frames and Borders CD-ROM and Book (Dover Pictorial Archives)
Mallory Pearce
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Ancient & Classical | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Clip Art | Graphic Design | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Illustration | Commercial | Graphic Design | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Ireland | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Full-Color Celtic Designs CD-ROM and Book (Dover Full-Color Electronic Design)

Classic Full-Color Illuminated Borders CD-ROM and Book (Dover Full-Color Electronic Design)

Celtic Designs for Artists and Craftspeople CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art)

ASIN: 0486995216

Book Description

Eye-catching labyrinthine designs, faithfully adapted from 59 authentic Celtic motifs, incorporate mythical creatures, birds, mermaids, abstract patterns, geometrical and animal forms, a handsome Celtic cross, and more. Perfect for adding a unique touch to almost any commercial and artistic project, these dazzling images are suitable for computer or traditional cut-and-paste use.

Customer Reviews:

Celtic Frames and Borders CD-ROM by Mallory Pearce.......2007-02-11

Book has been enjoyed by my husband. The book was in excellent condition.

Disappointing.......2003-12-08

The images in this production are to Celtic illustration what imitation crab meat is to the real thing. Sad to say the quality of the images are just a couple of steps above cartoon art. Also disappointing is the fact that the images were scanned at 300 x 300 dpi. In this day and age, when many printers are cranking out 2,500 dpi, this low level of scanning leaves a lot to be desired. I have purchased other Dover products in the past and have been very pleased. The purchase of this book is one I regret.

Average customer rating:

Music and Modern Art (Border Crossings)
James Leggio
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Modern | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Media Studies | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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

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Biographies & Memoirs | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Entertainment | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0815331010

Book Description

Music and Modern Art adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the relationship between these two fields of creative endeavor. Its subjects are diverse: the musicians range from Alexander Scriabin to the jazz bandleader Paul Whiteman, and from Arnold Schoenberg to Edgard Varèse. The visual artists include Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustav Klimt, Vasily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian.

Average customer rating:

Classical Border Designs
*
Manufacturer: PEPIN PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K2SZPU

Classical Border Designs (Agile Rabbit Editions)

Average customer rating:

Classical Border Designs (Agile Rabbit Editions)

Manufacturer: Pepin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 9015768013

Customer Reviews:

Yep.......2004-12-20

It's a keeper, and very worthwhile. First of all, this book has been well constructed with quality paper and binding. It lays flat when open and the pages won't fall out because they are sewn in. The images are wonderful, and placed by general category which is more than helpful. Each image is also labeled on each page as to what the subject matter is. I don't know what other information the other reviewer wanted, but honestly, a woman washing clothes is a woman wishing clothes & etc. Read the back cover here, you can look inside this book. Stuffed with images, this is an awesome reference book. If you want a history lesson, get a history text-book. This is for artists and artisans. Top quality for what it is.

great pictures - little explanation.......1999-06-26

This is a typical Dover clip art book, with lots of illustrations haphazardly placed throughout the volume. There is a brief explanation at the beginning, and then you wonder what these pictures are all about. Most of them derive from Wm. Henry Pyne's "British Costume" of 1805, which was beautifully reproduced in full color seven or eight years ago for a very cheap price. The Dover book is OK, but if you want to know more about the subject matter then you should look for the other book.

Amazon.com

Everyone will compare Kurt Andersen's scathingly funny first novel to Tom Wolfe's fictional debut, The Bonfire of the Vanities. Like Wolfe, Andersen is a merry terrorist, a status-attuned assassin with liquid nitrogen in his veins, a prose style with the cool purr of an Uzi, and the entire society in his crosshairs. And like the Man in White's protagonist, Sherman McCoy, Andersen's George Mactier is a master of the contemporary universe--not just Manhattan, but decadent post fin-de-siècle Hollywood, the globe-gobbling, infotainment-tainted news media, and cyberspace from Seattle to Silicon Valley to Silicon Alley.

Turn of the Century opens in February 2000, in a bizarro world with just a tangy twist of futuristic extrapolation. George has parlayed a Newsweek writing job into a PBS documentary into a $16,575-a-week job as a producer at the sinister MBC network. His series, NARCS, is a veritable Cuisinart of fact and fiction in which the actors get to participate in real drug busts and get all the best lines, since they're working from scripts. In the most notorious episode, the dealer they arrest turns out to be an Actors Equity member (thanks to Rent), so he gets union scale and a recurring role.

As George stumbles into a Wolfesque calamity spiral, his wife, Lizzie Zimbalist, ascends to power. Lizzie is a brilliant software entrepreneur: her "force-feedback technology" alternative-history game can sense players' fear. "If you travel to 1792 Paris, for instance, you are designated a besotted peasant or a frightened aristocrat or an angry sansculotte according to your heart rate, blood pressure, and skin conductance; too many twitches, the wrong sort of palpitation, and you're a marquess (or marchioness) headed for the guillotine." Needless to say, her insights into the year 2000 earn her bigtime interest from George's boss and Microsoft. Lizzie is a character at least as vivid as George, and their hectic family life is uncloying and acutely observed.

Andersen's plot (involving Bill Gates's potential death) has more hairy turns than the Hana Highway--read carefully or you'll go off the road. But you're guaranteed a wild ride with amazing characters: an irreverent investor inspired by James Cramer, a hilarious MBC toady, Timothy Featherstone--who's as marvelous a creation as Tony Curtis in The Sweet Smell of Success--and worlds' worth of social caricatures. Kurt Andersen has an uncanny ear for the way we talk now and Turn of the Century is sharp, knowing, and subversive. Let's all pray that it isn't prescient as well. --Tim Appelo

Book Description

As big and exciting as the next century, this is a novel of real life at our giddy, feverish, topsy-turvy edge of the millennium. Turn of the Century is a good old-fashioned novel about the day after tomorrow--an uproarious, exquisitely observed panorama of our world as the twentieth century morphs into the twenty-first, transforming family, marriage, and friendship and propelled by the supercharged global businesses and new technologies that make everyone's lives shake and spin a little faster.

As the year 2000 progresses, George Mactier and Lizzie Zimbalist, ten years married, are caught up in the whirl of their centrifugally accelerating lives. George is a TV producer for the upstart network MBC, launching a truly and weirdly groundbreaking new show that blurs the line between fact and fiction. Lizzie is a software entrepreneur dealing with the breakneck pleasures and pains of running her own company in an industry where the rules are rewritten daily. Rocketing between Los An-geles and Seattle, with occasional stopovers at home in Manhattan for tag-team parenting of their three children, George and Lizzie are the kind of businesspeople who, growing up in the sixties and seventies, never dreamed they would end up in business. They're too busy to spend the money that's rolling in, and too smart not to feel ambivalent about their crazed, high-gloss existences, but nothing seems to slow the roller-coaster momentum of their inter-secting lives and careers.

However, after Lizzie, recovering from a Microsoft deal gone awry, becomes a confidante and adviser to George's boss, billionaire media mogul Harold Mose, the couple discovers that no amount of sophisticated spin can obscure basic instincts: envy, greed, suspicion, sexual temptation--and, maybe, love. When they and their children are finally drawn into a thrilling, high-tech corporate hoax that sends Wall Street reeling (and makes one person very, very rich), George and Lizzie can only marvel at life's oversized surprises and hold on for dear life.

Like Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, Kurt Andersen's Turn of the Century lays bare the follies of our age with laser-beam precision, creating memorable characters and dissecting the ways we think, speak, and navigate this new era of extreme capitalism and mind-boggling technology. Entertaining, imaginative, knowing, and wise, Turn of the Century is a richly plotted comedy of manners about the way we live now.

Customer Reviews:

a big messy satire.......2007-09-28

I can understand why so many people gave up on this book, but I can't help but feel sorry that they did. For me, Kurt Andersen wrote a novel that perfectly reflects the CNN/Fox News sound bite journalism and MTV/YouTube short attention span entertainment that rules our culture today not just with his story, but with the structure of the book. He overloads the reader with information which he repeats again and again until it finally comes together like the sections of a pointillist painting to present Andersen's very cynical and very funny view of the Information Age. It's like a mirror reflecting a mirror, reflecting a mirror, ad infinitum. I admit it's not an easy read, but if you can dance through it, you'll find a story and point of view that's unusually original, entertaining, and most definitely worthwhile. As for me, I'm off to buy Heyday.

A meditation and satire on America's media culture.......2002-12-02

I picked up Andersen's long novel with hesitation but found it all but impossible to put down. His plotting is intricate but impeccable in terms of plausibility and every thread was quite satisfyingly resolved. His characters, down to the marginal bit players, are nailed in three dimensions. Finally, as a contemporary morality tale it will stand the test of time.

Is it art imitating life, or the other way around?.......2002-05-26

This book has marvelously drawn characters and a deft plot. But what lingers in my mind are the constant, droll little absurdities that abound in the characters' world, understated seeming little asides which charactertize postmodern American urban and media life. And give Andersen credit that he was actually prescient, in that things we accept as unremarkable are getting more postmodern and more absurd all the time. Every time I see or read about something like the Secretary of the Treasury touring the Third World with Bono, I think to myself, "this is just like something out of 'Turn of the Century.'"

best book on cultural mores since Count of Monte Cristo.......2002-05-03

Anyone who worked on the net or in media will relate in a big time way, especially if they can keep up with the cultural references - Incroyable...even better the second time through.

A Truly Inventive Satire.......2002-03-13

Kurt Andersen's got one heck of an imagination. Some of the scenarios he comes up with for the not-so-distant future are just downright neat!

I also enjoyed the almost soap-operatic feel of watching George and Lizzie's day to day lives progress, both at the office and in their home. It was interesting to watch how different they were to each other in the world of business and the world of matrimony/family. (Brings to mind the saying, "One never really knows anyone.")

I've heard that perhaps the book doesn't appeal to people who live too far outside large urban centers, but I can't see why that would be true. Most of us are attached to the Internet these days, most love "modern conveniences," and most would like to have more money than we do. Seems like that would be enough to make this a book that could appeal to anyone, despite geography. I mean, yes, it might appeal to New Yorkers MORE, but that's because we're reading about our hometown here. I also love Motherless Brooklyn (which takes place in the neighborhood where I grew up), but just because I can recognize what deli Letham's talking about doesn't mean it isn't worthy of its National Book Critic's Circle Award, ya know?

Book Description

Are you tired of going to weddings instead of having one? Here is a unique and empowering guide to meeting and marrying the right man -- for women 35 and older who don't want to leave their chances for true love in the hands of fate.

In How to Get Married After 35: A Game Plan for Love, Helena Hacker Rosenberg, a relationship consultant who got married in her 40s, offers a concrete program to help singles maximize their opportunities for marriage. Achieving the goal of the book's title requires a strong commitment, for after 35 we often succumb to habit and routine -- the twin enemies of those seeking a mate in midlife. Now you can change course and be on your way to success -- and even have fun in the process!

The author's fresh, step-by-step approach to finding lasting love is drawn from her own experience and the experience of scores of other women whose stories she shares. Whether you're looking to marry for the first time or hoping to remarry, How to Get Married After 35 leads you through the process with sensitivity and humor and shows you how to:

Take personal responsibility for your lifeFocus on your goal and clarify what's in your wayDetermine what you need in a partnerKnow how to recognize him once you meet himAvoid men who are destructive or unmarriageable

Finally, with wisdom and encouragement, Helena Hacker Rosenberg offers practical advice on where to find eligible men (they do exist!), how to assess a man for his marriage potential and why marrying the man of your choice after 35 has almost nothing to do with luck.

If you have marriage on your mind, read How to Get Married After 35 and take the most important step on your journey to the altar.

Customer Reviews:

Read the Book - Met the Guy.......2004-10-06

This book changed my life. It helped me to identify the things in me that were blocking me from getting married. It helped me to clarify what were important qualities to hold on to and what were superficial qualities to let go of when looking for a mate. It helped me to define for myself what I really wanted in a guy and to recognize when I was getting it and when I was not.
It completely revolutionized my thinking and years later when I met someone who possesses the qualities I held as important, I did not let the fact that he did not have the superficial qualities, I once thought important, get in my way. We have been together for almost 5 years now and I recommend this book to anyone over or under 35 who complains that they can't find a nice guy.

Not worth it.......2003-09-13

This book is a lot about the psychological issues for unmarried women. It's very long-winded. I was hoping to learn some specific tips on how to find the right man-- hoping for some new advice. I didn't get that here.

Worth the time to read it.......2002-07-22

I was pleased with the book -- it's well-organized and upbeat and the lists of questions Rosenberg asks are helpful.

I do think she is overly rigid on her views about what she considers unhealthy "addictions" but her point is well made that those of us who want to get married ought to examine compartmentalizing our work lives better.

She also seems to have a very limited view of peoples' relationships with their pets -- in my opinion the guy with the dog "Elvira" was fortunate that his relationship with the author didn't progress. I got the sense that she views relationships with animals as very "second-class" and I certainly don't agree with that.

Overall, though, I am glad I ordered the book and expect to loan it to friends.

Read THIS book!.......2000-12-14

I'll admit I didn't expect too much when I purchased this book. I thought it might end up to be very superfical and blame me for not being married at my current age. How surprise I was to find out that was not the case at all! This book puts getting married in to proper perspective. Without blaming anyone or giving quick fix advice on how to "find that special one" it breaks down the ultimate objective step-by-step. The books asks you some hard questions - "Do you want to get married or does someone else want you to get married?" It makes you examine yourself truthfully and gives control where it belongs - in your own hands. I am very eager to try out what I've learned. Read this book - it'll change you like it changed me!

A focused, ethical, inspiring approach to dating.......2000-02-26

This book is well worth reading even if you're under 35. I really appreciate Rosenberg's balanced approach. She aims the book at accomplished, well-educated, independent women, but she makes it clear that she values marriage, parenting, religion, and other traditional values that seem to be given short shrift in many books about relationships. This is also a highly literate book-- Rosenberg illustrates her points with examples from literature and popular culture as well as her clients' stories, and includes a short bibliography for further reading.

Average customer rating:

I Married an eBay Maniac
Jayne Perry
Manufacturer: Que
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Manager's Guides to Computing | Business & Culture | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

eBay | Business & Culture | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

What to Sell on eBay and Where to Get It
eBay Powerseller Secrets:Insider Tips from eBay's Most Successful Sellers
The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site

ASIN: 0789735628

Book Description

Has your spouse been spending more and more time on the computer? Do they hide the screen when you walk in the room? Have new items been appearing in your house while your older possessions seem to disappear? Perhaps the explanation is in "it" - eBay mania!

I Married an eBay Maniac offers a glimpse into the world of eBay. Get up to speed on the basics of buying and selling on eBay, and find how to bring every family member to eBay so that you no longer have to eat dinner with your spouse clicking away on the keyboard. Turn their obsession into a family affair. This book describes how to play off one another's strengths and weaknesses, how to divide tasks to maximize efficiency, fun, and profits, and how to arrange a household to separate eBay from the non-eBay life. You'll be able to keep frustration levels down and income levels high! With tips, tricks, and insight from an experienced eBayer, this book shows how much family fun and income can be had when the Maniac is no longer alone.

Average customer rating:

Fun and satisfying
A wonderful journey...
Not worth the time
A Great Woman's Book
funny and insightful read

Lucy Crocker 2.0: A Novel
Caroline Preston
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Gatsby's Girl

ASIN: 068485449X

Book Description

Caroline Preston's debut novel, Jackie by Josie, a 1996 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, was published to stellar reviews. Critics and readers echoed the words of The Cleveland Plain Dealer, which proclaimed that "Caroline Preston has written something rare: 'a woman's book' that smart women can pick up without embarrassment. Jackie by Josie establishes Preston as an American Joanna Trollope." The good news is that Preston's eagerly awaited second novel finds her back in top form.

Nobody -- not her kids, not her MIT math-genius husband -- could have predicted that Lucy Crocker, former children's librarian and unabashed computer ignoramus, would be the one to save the family's software company. Nevertheless, that's exactly what happens when she has an unexpected brainstorm to create a fantasy computer game called Maiden's Quest. Suddenly, Lucy, of all people, is a cyber-guru.

But now trouble is brewing in the Crocker family. First, Lucy is creatively blocked on producing the Maiden's Quest sequel in time for the crucial Christmas season. Then she discovers that her husband Ed is receiving erotic Tantric massages from their publicity director and her kids are ogling smut on the Internet. Lucy decides it's time to flee the corruption of the modern world, so she packs herself and her sons off to the north woods of Wisconsin, leaving Ed home alone to deal with the glitches at Crocker Software.

Lucy Crocker 2.0 is the amusing story of how Lucy weans her pasty-faced boys from their computer addictions, restores order to her marriage, and comes up with a sequel to Maiden's Quest in the process. All the qualities that made Jackie by Josie so admired -- wit, insight, and a light touch -- are on full display in this novel about the comic and not-so-comic effects of technology on life and love at the dawn of the millennium.

Customer Reviews:

Fun and satisfying.......2003-11-04

Readers of Alice Hoffman and Katie fforde will enjoy this romping adventure. Lucy Crocker is experiencing secondary infertility and has a husband with a roving eye. So she takes on every mother's secret wish and runs away from home. Delightfully plotted, well written, with a terrific ending, I highly recommend this book.

A wonderful journey..........2003-06-20

Having read Jackie By Josie a couple of years ago, I knew I would enjoy Lucy Crocker 2.0 just as much. However, when a book sits on my bookshelf for so long, the excitement about reading it tends to go away. I finally decided to read it, and now I'm wondering what took me so long. Lucy Crocker 2.0 is a delightful book and one that speaks volumes about marriage, motherhood, and self-identity.

After many miscarriages, Lucy Crocker found solace in designing a #1 best-selling computer game, Maiden's Quest. Ed, her husband and founder of Crocker Software, encouraged her in this process, but is now nagging her about the sequel. But Lucy's got writer's block, cannot concentrate for the life of her, and therefore, the progress meeting with Crocker's game team did not go over so well. To top it all off, Lucy finds a questionable e-mail to Ed from his sexy employee, Ingrid. But that's not the end of it -- Lucy's twin boys, Benji and Phil, who run their own business installing software and designing websites for businesses, are spending their free time browsing porn sites. Oh yes -- Lucy is having a very bad day.

While Ed is away at a gamer's convention, Lucy decides to take control of her life that seems to be quickly unraveling. With a retreat to her father's old cabin at Little Lost Lake in Wisconsin, Lucy is certain to figure it all out. But Benji, Phil and Ed are in for some adventure of their very own....

I enjoyed this book a lot and thought it rang true about marriage and being a mom. Caroline Preston's writing style was very refreshing and made perfect sense. But there was something else about it that I can't quite pinpoint -- maybe it was the tone of a frustrated housewife that kept me turning pages. One thing is for sure: Lucy Crocker 2.0 is a journey of discovery. Readers will no doubt be glad they rode along.

Not worth the time.......2002-10-09

The only believable character in this book is Lucy Crocker, who, luckily, is also the main character. Lucy's husband, whose character is completely wooden, temporarily falls for a "punk." Ms. Preston has obviously never met a punk. You can spot a mile away that Lucy's woodland lover is planning to involve her in his PETA-wannabe animal rights stunt. This book is utterly predictable and its stereotyped characters are lame. Don't waste your time on this one.

A Great Woman's Book.......2001-11-08

This is a fun read -- perfect for the plane, beach, or rainy day. It's about marriage, motherhood, and redefining oneself. And just because it is fun, does not mean it cannot tackle big issues: the impact that technology has made in our lives, what happens after instant success, and the importance of self-discovery.

Caroline Preston has crafted a great story, tackling big issues with a light touch.

funny and insightful read.......2001-09-10

I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys a story about motherhood, marriage and self-discovery, but with lots of humor and wit. I found myself not being able to stop reading it after I started it, so I read it very fast,and immediately went back to amazon to see if I could get this author's other book.(you'll have to check that page for my review on that). Read this and enjoy, you're in for a treat!

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Married to a Computer
Herbert Kavet
Manufacturer: Ivory Tower Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0880324295

These High, Green Hills: The Mitford Years, Book 3 (Unabridged)

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These High, Green Hills: The Mitford Years, Book 3 (Unabridged)
Jan Karon
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download

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