slimepsychic

I'm not a King fan but picked up the book after some bits were featured on the 37signals blog [http://37signals.com/svn/]. It's a funny book about his childhood, how he became a writer, and the accident he was in that almost killed him. Strunk & White have laid out the basics of being a good writer; King retells what it was like to fail and achieve.

Also, there's a lot of fart jokes.

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].

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.

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.

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.

This book is essential to understanding the basics of the Thoth Tarot. The LWB that comes with the deck is incredibly obtuse and short when compared to the amount of sheer data that each card includes. It's a obtuse book as well... part of the reason is that it's old and uses terms to describe things that we use other terms for nowadays. [bc:Absolute Promethea 6272009 Absolute Promethea Alan Moore http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266608682s/6272009.jpg 6455354]Another terrific companion to the Thoth Tarot (believe it!) Alan Moore's graphic novel [b:Absolute Promethea 6272009 Absolute Promethea Alan Moore http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266608682s/6272009.jpg 6455354]. A huge chunk of the story involves a deep exploration of the Tree of Life through the symbolism of the Thoth Tarot and Crowley.

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.

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 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.

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.