Book Description
This full-color book is designed to tap the exploding market in serious digital photography with over 250 pages of new and beautiful photos, essential photography how-to information and no-fail formulas for getting great digital pictures with the newly announced Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/400D. It goes above and beyond competitive digital SLR books with step-by-step techniques that cover exposure, composition, and professional shooting tips on perspective, impact, and more. Charlotte K. Lowrie, author of two previous Digital Field Guides (see below), is an acclaimed photographer who was managing editor of editorial content for MSN Photos and now writes online instructional content for Canon.
Charlotte K. Lowrie (Woodinville, WA) is a freelance editorial and stock photographer and an award-winning writer. Her work has appeared in Popular Photography & Imaging and PHOTOgraphic magazines, and she is the author of the bestselling Canon EOS Digital Rebel Digital Field Guide as well as Adobe Camera Raw Studio Skills, the Canon EOS 30D Digital Field Guide, and Teach Yourself Visually Digital Photography, Second Edition, all from Wiley. Charlotte also teaches photography classes through BetterPhoto.com.
Customer Reviews:
A must have for all Canon XTI owners.......2007-10-11
I purchased this book on preorder months after I purchased my canon XTi. Since I got the camera before this was available I found it frustrating to learn how to use this cameras abilities to it's fullest. The manual from the manufacturer is a joke,giving only the most basic info.
Tjis book does a good job of explaining techniques on how to use the creative modes of the camera to get artistic shots. Classes can do this too,but this book is a good reference to remind you of odd effects you may not use often.
I highly recommend XTi owners invest in this guide.
Not quite what I was looking for.......2007-09-29
I bought this book with the intention of learning more about my Rebel DSLR. I am pretty disappointed with this title.
The first issue I have with this book is the photos are entirely uninspiring. Next, everything you need to know to get started is available in the Rebel manual, which I have read and just paid for again apparently.
If you've never taken a decent photo before in your life, if you've never used an SLR of any type, if you've need a very rudimentary understanding of the histogram, apertures and shutter speeds, or if you've managed to lose your Rebel XTi Manual from Canon, you might want to pick up this title.
Otherwise I don't think there is anything offered here you can't obtain with experimentation and experience.
Great field guide.......2007-09-24
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/400D Digital Field Guide
This is an easy-to-read "how to" for Digital Rebel XTi users. Ms. Lowry is easy to understand and concise throughout this book, and I find that I turn to it quite often when shooting in different settings than I am used to.
If you're unfamiliar with your Canon XTi/400D, this really is the book to have!
A great book for a beginning digital photographer.......2007-09-21
This book is well written, especially for a beginning photographer such as myself. Well stated review of the photographic essentials, lots of good recommendations concerning lenses, styles, settings, and a fairly complete list of all of the "knobs" that are available in the Digital Rebel. The last chapter has a lot of great examples and experiments that are fun to attempt. After reading this book, I keep it in my camera bag for reference, and have been having a lot of fun shooting volleyball and football games for my kids, as well as trying my hand at some more "artistic" styles of photography and having some mild successes after only having the camera for 3 weeks. Spent one evening with a half full glass of wine, and a lamp, shooting low light shots, and trying all of the applicable "knobs". Very informative, and gave me lots of good ideas for utilizing the camera's capabilities.
Very good Easy to understand Book.......2007-09-21
This book is very easy to read and the writer speaks in plan english language. I have only read a couple of chapters but I found all of the instructions easy to follow. There are some photography projects in the later chapters that help you to understand more about how the camera functions and how you can get some great pictures from the Rebel XTI.
Book Description
Written by Stu Maschwitz, co-founder of the Orphanage (the legendary guerrilla visual effects studio responsible for amazing and award-winning effects in such movies as Sin City, The Day After Tomorrow, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), this book is a must-have for all those budding filmmakers and students who want to produce action movies with visual effects but don't have Hollywood budgets. The Orphanage was created by three twenty-something visual effects veterans who wanted to make their own feature films and discovered they could do this by utilizing home computers, off the shelf software, and approaching things artistically. This guide details exactly how to do this: from planning and selecting the necessary cameras, software, and equipment, to creating specific special effects (including gunfire, Kung Fu fighting, car chases, dismemberment, and more) to editing and mixing sound and music. Its mantra is that the best, low-budget action moviemakers must visualize the end product first in order to reverse-engineer the least expensive way to get there. Readers will learn how to integrate visual effects into every aspect of filmmaking--before filming, during filming and with "in camera" shots, and with computers in postproduction. Throughout the book, the author makes specific references to and uses popular action movies (both low and big-budget) as detailed examples--including El Mariachi, La Femme Nikita, Die Hard, and Terminator 2.
Customer Reviews:
Essential Reading for Indie Filmmakers.......2007-10-03
The DV Rebel Guide, by Stu Maschwitz, formerly a member of Industrial Light And Magic, explains in easily understandable, yet highly technical language, exactly how to create astounding visual effects using the kinds of cameras, computers, and software available to ordinary people. A Spielbergian budget is NOT required. In addition to his information, he offers many links to other websites of technical expertise and training,
You may be making a little family drama, rather than a shoot-'em-up, but the techniques in this book will increase your palette of possibilities. In other words, every indie movie maker can benefit from this book. It's essential reading, period. No one else has published anything like it.
Maschwitz assumes throughout that you are not an idiot or a dummy. Scores of color photos show exactly how every technique is done. He also runs an on-line forum; he and other digital rebels (some of whom are exceedingly experienced and clearly top pros) will help you through the rough patches.
Get this book, go out and make movies better than anything you thought you could do.
This is got the TRICKS!!!.......2007-09-23
Awesome book. My friends and I make ugly videos as a hobby and we've tried many things... but this book has some balls to the wall tricks. The guy is not a scaredy cat about shooting videos with minimal resources and lets you know how to make the most with what you've got. Also has great instructions on how to build your own stuff and pull crazy stunts. Grease up your baby, this is gonna have you running to your video camera with ideas as soon as you open it up!
love it.......2007-08-27
I've done video production professionally for several years and picked up some of these tricks from simple trial and error. What I love is how well Stu connects the techniques in this referrence and compares them to equivalent effects on film. And its not just informative, its enjoyable to read.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in making their videos stand out or looking to up their production value without spending a lot of money.
Love this book.......2007-08-19
I have read a lot of film making books and this is easily the most useful and informative. Anyone trying to make a film on their own needs to have this book!
Best Book for Independent Digital Video Production Ever!!!.......2007-08-12
This is it!!! If you want to produce an Independeant Film this is THE book to read. Don't be fooled. You still need to know what you're doing go to school. Read the manuals, watch the best movies, by the best directors, then read this book and make your movies!!!!!
Customer Reviews:
Rebel Withou A Crew.......2007-09-28
This book is very good. It is encouraging and helpful to any young film maker like myself. I highly recommend it. It's worth the money.
Great read, inspiring.......2007-09-23
Tells the story of how Rodriguez got to where he is. Everyone's road is very different but this is definitely an inspiring book. Hone your skills!
Excellent!.......2007-08-14
I bought this thinking it would be more of a guide then the journal it ended up being, and I couldnt have been happier. It was an interesting and easy read that I couldnt put down! I would definitely recommend this book to any young filmmakers or anyone interested in the independent process. Rodriguez really does a great job of showing how a lot of hard work, dedication and some luck can jump start a career. I felt inspired to go out and start working on films again, but I'm still reluctant to join any medical experiments to finance it.
Interesting insight into a very talented man.......2007-08-06
A great tale, but not so well written that I could recommend on its literary quality alone. I admire Rodriguez - even more, knowing what he went through to make this film (and I'm a fan El Mariachi more than the overly-produced Once Upon a Time in Mexico). The story-telling reflects his jagged style. At the very least, it should inspire you to make a few sacrifices in favor of pursuing one of your own dreams.
Inspired and Inspiring .......2007-07-03
This was a great read! Highly recommended for anyone thinking about putting a story on film.
Book Description
From the author of the widely acclaimed King Leopold's Ghost comes the taut, gripping account of the world's first grass-roots human rights movementthe fight to free the British Empire's slaves. In early 1787, twelve mena printer, a lawyer, a clergyman, and others united by their hatred of slaverycame together in a London printing shop and, combining fiery devotion with cool practicality, began one of the most brilliantly organized campaigns of all time. Masterfully stoking public opinion, the movement's leaders pioneered a variety of techniques used by citizens" movements ever since, from consumer boycotts to posters and lapel buttons to celebrity endorsements. A deft account of the precipitous rise of this popular crusade and its fierce, powerful enemies, Bury the Chains delivers all the drama, sweep, and surprise of Hochschild's previous histories.
Customer Reviews:
change is possible.......2007-06-21
Beginning in 1555 and lasting for 350 years, the British empire bought, sold, and enslaved about 11 million African people. This required some 35,000 voyages along the so-called triangular trade route: buying slaves from African slave traders along the continent's west coast, depositing their human cargo mainly in the Caribbean to work on Britain's sugar plantations but also to ports from Quebec to Chile, and then returning to England with imports for the empire. At the end of the 18th century slavery was hardly unusual; it was the rule for most peoples and places on earth. What was unusual was that in the space of about fifty years Britain outlawed the slave trade, and then a while later slavery itself (abolition was one thing, genuine emancipation another).
How did the unthinkable happen? How did an economic system that was so deeply embedded, so profitable, and so taken for granted as normal by almost everyone, disappear so swiftly? Hochschild describes the abolition movement as "one of the most ambitious and brilliantly organized citizens's movements of all time." Many of the political means that we enjoy today were perfected back then-- investigative journalism into the real conditions of slave life, sugar boycotts, 519 petitions to the British parliament with 390,000 signatures, public debates, media campaigns, and every day activism. Progressive women's groups far ahead of their time, missionaries (despised by the plantation owners), British evangelicals, Methodists, and especially the culturally marginal Quakers all provided principled moral argument. The herculean efforts of Thomas Clarkson, the parliamentary leadership of William Wilberforce, and the legal advocacy of the eccentric Granville Sharp were essential.
But Hochschild is careful to avoid the paternalism of self-congratulatory, aristocratic benevolence. After all, when all was said and done, it was the slave-owning planters who were reimbursed for their "losses" by the British government and not the slaves. Whenever possible he allows the slaves to speak for themselves, like the remarkable Olaudah Equiano, whose 500-page best-selling autobiography Interesting Narrative provided a first person narrative of what is still considered the best account of slave life (and is still available today); and Quobna Ottobah Cugoano's Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. He describes at great length the numerous slave revolts in which fearless and skilled leaders like Toussaint L'Overture led slaves to free themselves and force the British to face reality, however reluctant they were to do so. In these violent and vicious revolts the most beleaguered people on earth defeated the world's two greatest military powers, France and Britain, in Haiti and Jamaica.
Bury the Chains joins Hochschild's previous book King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1999) about Belgium's plunder of the Congo. The stories are depressing but inspiring, for however dark these histories, however deep our national complicity, the narratives remind us that we are nor fated to accept injustice to our fellow human beings. Whether in Iraq or Darfur, whether with malaria or HIV-AIDS, the abolition of slavery reminds us that effective movements of genuine social justice are possible.
How a group of activists changed the world.......2007-05-07
Hochschild tells the story of how a small group of Quakers, Anglicans and Methodists brought about the end of the slave trade. It is a story of enormous moral courage against an accepted, and economically powerful interest, and also the story of great organizational skill. The product boycotts, public opinion campaigns, demonstrations and political pressure that the campaigners invented at the end of the eighteenth century are still the mainstays of civil society. It is a wonderful irony that Napoleon's reintroduction of slavery in the French empire was the final, clinching argument for its abolition in the English one.
Useful but one-sided study of the abolition of slavery.......2007-04-12
The British Empire, so praised by our current rulers, was at root a slave empire, held together by slave-trading between slave colonies. Between 1660 and 1807, British-owned ships carried 3.5 million Africans, 40,000 a year, across the Atlantic, more than any other country carried. British property owners were the world's chief slavers.
The British ruling class, not the nation, owned the slave ships, the slaves and the plantations. British workers did not control their own labour power, never mind own other people. William Cobbett noted that in 1832, "white men are sold, by the week and the month all over England. Do you call such men free, on account of the colour of their skin?" Black chattel slavery and white wage slavery were parts of the same system.
The abolitionists ignored the eighteen-hour-days worked by children in Bradford's mills. They backed the laws that attacked trade unions and suspended Habeas Corpus. They funded their foreign philanthropy by increasing the exploitation of their white slaves at home. The trade unionist Oates said, "The great emancipators of negro slaves were the great drivers of white slaves. The reason was obvious. The labour of the black slaves was the property of others. The labour of the white slaves they considered their own." As the Derbyshire Courier noted, "We make laws to provide protection to the Negro: let us not be less just to the children of England."
Bronterre O'Brien wrote, "What are called the working classes are the slave populations of the civilized countries." From birth, they were mortgaged to the owners of capital and land, only nominally owning their own labour power, forced into wage slavery. Britain's property owners extracted far more profit from their 16 million wage slaves than from their million chattel slaves. O'Brien again, "We pronounce there to be more slavery in England than in the West Indies ... because there is more unrequited labour in England."
The empire was based on exploiting wage slaves and used the free movement of goods, capital and labour to extend its exploitation. The wars of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries were fought to keep, or add to, Britain's imperial and slave-trading conquests. For example, in the 1790s, British slave owners united with French slave owners to try to eat Haiti's revolution. The government sent more soldiers to the West Indies, and lost more, than it had when trying to crush America's independence. Of the 89,000 sent, 45,000 died, as did 19,000 sailors. France lost 50,000 dead. Haiti's freed slaves defeated the armies of the two greatest slaver powers, but the British forces laid waste to the island, destroying almost all its sugar plantations.
Slavery lost its former importance to the metropolitan economy. The slave colonies took an ever smaller share of Britain's exports. From 1820 the slump in the West Indies grew worse and worse. In 1832, an official wrote that the West Indies system "is becoming so unprofitable when compared with the expense that for this reason only it must at no distant time be nearly abandoned."
The years 1830-32 also saw the Swing Rising in Britain, revolution in France, a major slave revolt in Jamaica and the parliamentary Reform Act. All led to the 1833 Slave Emancipation Act, which freed the 540,000 slaves in the British West Indies. Parliament gave the planters £20 million (a billion pounds in today's money) as compensation for the loss of their slaves. The working class paid the money in tax, though they pointed out that the Church should have paid, as it owned so many slaves itself and as its priests justified the slavery of both black and white, at home and abroad. The Empire then imposed another form of servitude on the `freed' slaves of the West Indies - compulsory six-year `apprenticeships'. Later in the century, it used indentured labour, workers forcibly imported from India.
Slavery had been profitable in the 18th century; abolition was even more profitable in the 19th. The effort `to stop the foreign slave trade' was designed to damage rival empires and to protect the West Indies planters, now denied annual slave imports, from competition by sugar producers Cuba and Brazil, still reliant on buying slaves. The suppression of the slave trade on Africa's West and East coasts necessitated ever closer control of West and East Africa, at first by private companies like the British East Africa Company, later by the Empire itself. Abolition was a weapon to expand the empire.
Throughout the century, the Empire continued to steal people, land and resources from Africa, reinforcing slavery there and killing millions of African people. The Empire continued to contribute to and profit from the slave trade well into the twentieth century. As Marx wrote, we see in slavery "what the bourgeoisie makes of itself and of the labourer, wherever it can, without restraint, model the world after its own image."
Abolitionism was an early form of the fake internationalism we see today - LiveAid, Live Earth, Blairite calls to intervene everywhere, Oxfam's delusions about Britain being `a force for good on the world stage'. We should be satisfied if Britain was a force for good in Britain.
A Familiar Tale Told With Verve.......2007-03-03
"Bury the Chains" has little new data, but it is still a brilliantly written synthesis of a wide range of material on British antislavery. The subject is larger and more diffuse than the author's earlier "King Leopold's Ghost," but the outlook is similar, and appropriately so. Hochschild represents the neo-abolitionist perspective on slavery: it assumes the centrality of moral issues and the necessity for reforms, and reconstructs the world of antislavery advocates and slaves while also trying to understand the institution's supporters. The author balances several factors culminating in the end of the Old Slavery: humanitarian activism, structural economic changes, and not least slave revolts and revolution. Ultimately he gives primacy to the influence of humanitarianism. The book is rather conventional, even old-fashioned in asserting individual agency in history, though there is due attention given to more impersonal economic developments. A strong chapter on British women consumers as abolitionists adds a refreshingly different dimension to the story. Tragically, there is now a burgeoning slavery promoted by globalization. This New Slavery sadly returns abolitionism to the realm of current events, and enables future historians to shed more light on earlier antislavery movements. L. Sanneh, "Abolitionists Abroad" breaks new ground on African antislavery efforts; K. Bales, "Disposable People" is most enlightening on the New Slavery.
Wonderful writing, with some obvious bias.......2007-02-18
Hochschild has written a compelling, provocative book that I heartily enjoyed. In addition to good narratives and compelling anecdotes, he shines as he tries to make the social conventions and economic realities of the time period comprehensible today.
Mr. Hochschild is of the opinion that Wilberforce has received way too much credit for what was in reality a broad-based, complex movement of many decades. I have no problem with this and I respect his research and credentials. But he does seem to have an ax to grind with Christianity. No, I am not someone naive enough to hold that Christians can do/ have not done any wrong. But while Hochschild sometimes go to great lengths to make the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries comprehensible, he does not make this same effort for the Christians of that era.
Most notably, he singles out John Newton, author of Amazing Grace, for withering commentary. While I am not here to defend John Newton or assert he had no blind spots (like so many people of his day), I do think Mr. Hochschild trashes him unfairly. Christianity is not an instantaneous transformation but a lifelong process. The fact that John Newton left the slave trade, became a pastor but did not become a leader in the abolition movement somehow is incomprehensible to the author who infers that Newton's religion was a blind and hypocritical sham. This is most glaring sore point in an otherwise wonderful book that I am very glad to have read.
Book Description
Embers . . . Casanova in Bolzano . . . and now The Rebels: the third of the rediscovered novels of the great Hungarian writer—the jolting story of a troubled group of young men on the cusp of life, and death, in World War I.
It is the summer of 1918. As graduation approaches at a boys’ academy in provincial Hungary, the senior class finds itself in a ghost town. Fathers, uncles, older brothers—all have been called to the front. Surrounded only by old men, mothers, aunts, and sisters, the boys are keenly aware that graduation will propel them into the army and imminently toward likely death on the battlefield. In the final weeks of the academic year, four of these young men—and the war-wounded older brother of one of them—are drawn tightly together, sensing in one another a mutual alienation from their bleak, death-mapped future. Soon they are acting out their frustrations and fears in a series of increasingly serious, strange, and subversive games and petty thefts. But when they attract the attention of a stranger in town—an actor with a traveling theater company—their games, and their lives, begin to move in a direction they could not have predicted and cannot control.
Customer Reviews:
The Discontents of Youth in a Disintegrating World.......2007-06-04
In their final year of high school four boys - Abel, Tibor, Bela and Ernö - form a gang. It is May of 1918, the month of their graduation. Their nation (the Hungarian half of the Dual Monarchy) has plans for them - they will be conscripted, given only cursory training, and thrown into the battle-lines of one of the war's lethal fronts as hapless cannon fodder. They may be facing death in the near future. Another distasteful possible future presents itself to them in the person of Lajos, Tibor's older brother who participates in the gang as a senior observer and counselor; he has returned from the Isonzo battleground missing an arm. He is angry, he fears the future, he pities himself, and he conspicuously refuses to "convert" to full adult life. He is an able co-conspirator in the gang's activities, the purpose of which is to wage their own war against adult society, which they fear and despise. They hate authority in each of its incarnations, understanding that its purpose is to either intimidate them (the patriarchal fathers) or plead with them (the pathetic mothers and aunts). They sense that the adult world is withholding secrets and privileges from them but also suspect that when uncovered and experienced, these secrets and privileges will prove to be utterly banal. Parents and teachers are special objects of their wrath and disenchantment. The members of the gang steal, lie, smoke, drink and engage in elaborate hoaxes upon selected adult townsmen. They have even rented quarters in a shabby inn on the outskirts of the city as a hide-out and storage bin for their loot. Much of their stolen money is spent on fanciful objects which are never used or displayed - indeed, the wastefulness of their acquisitions is a conscious element of the gang's overarching principle, which is that each act of their war justifies itself because of the grandeur of their purpose and the unworthiness of their enemies. Yet they remain tentative and uncertain if their risky "games" are truly meaningful or merely a desperate attempt to hang on to the comforts of childhood which have already vanished.
Recently they have formed a strange alliance with an adult whose life and manners, like their "games", seem to gainsay the solid middle-class virtues which they flee and mock. This is the "strolling player" and stage-director Amadé Volpay. He is a large, perfume-scented, epicene creature who enjoys being the center of their attentions when he tells the boys tales of his adventures or when he comments dryly on their new way of life, analyzing without judging; he is not above accepting handouts and gifts from them. The actor also has an open (yet secretive in its aims) connection with the town's pawnbroker, Havas, who, obscenely fat and coarse in his habits while delicate and respectful in his language, both repels and fascinates the boys. As petty thieves they also have recourse to his services, establishing an asymmetrical bond which may prove to be one of bondage.
Within the gang forces are also not equal. With the exception noted presently, the members of the gang may not even be fond of each other in the way that more conventional friends are, but they are still determined to work and live together in their common enterprise of deceit as a form of ultimate self-honesty, signaling to themselves the authenticity of their rebellion. Abel is infatuated with Tibor, who is handsome, polite, generous and athletic; in Abel's mind he is an idealized love object, a feeling which both pleases and frightens him. Tibor is also accepted as their natural leader by Bela, the weakest and most malleable of the four, and by Ernö. It is Ernö who is the most enigmatic, and his true sentiments toward his companions remain opaque. He is a scion of the working class, the son of a cobbler. But, due to his intelligence and independence of spirit, he has been accepted by the other members of the gang (all middle-class) after a life of being patronized by their parents. His father, Mr. Zakarka, also fascinates and sometimes frightens the boys. Zakarka is a small, malformed man who speaks in prophetic Biblical idioms and tones about the coming "settling of accounts" between the haves and have-nots in Hungarian society. He is also proud of the fact that during his days as a soldier his aristocratic officers granted him the privilege of hanging three Czech officers whom they deemed treacherous; he feels that this has "cleansed" his soul, and he intimates that more cleansing of soul and society through murder is just around the corner. His relations with his son's friends and with his social superiors crystallize the class and ethnic divisions which permeated Hungarian society at the time. (On the latter point it is very likely that Marai, whose full name was Sándor Károly Henrik Grosschmied de Mára, and who originally wavered between writing in German or Hungarian, was deeply and personally aware of the unpredictable, and often unsavory, consequences of "strong ethnic claims".) Zakarka's character and mental world are reminiscent of Dostoyevsky's dark and obsessional creations.
Family life within the social circle of Abel and Tibor (whose fathers are, respectively, a physician and a career military officer, both absent at the front) is dispiriting, a natural medium for breeding contempt and discontent. The portrait of Tibor's and Lajos's mother, who feigns illness in order to establish control over her disintegrating family, is especially sharp and demoralizing. Abel's aunt is treated more sympathetically, but her horizons are as narrow as those of the colonel's wife and her situation equally futile. And the whole society of the Austro-Hungarian empire in its fourth and final year of war seems to be sinking into a terminal state of indifference and fatalism, perhaps more apparent to the adolescents than to their elders, who are still blithely willing to send their children off to the pointless war. Joseph Roth's "The Radetzky March" can be seen as an elegiac farewell to the twilight years of the Empire that arrived at "the beginning of the end" in 1914, a backward look tinged with melancholy and fond nostalgia. "The Rebels" looks at the same world four years later, just prior to its final collapse, as the harbinger of an unpromising future in which melancholy will turn into rage and nostalgia itself will become venomous.
Events move toward a crisis that will coincide with their graduation ceremonies and which may unmask them all before the adults. Each of them now longs to end the gang and hopes that the crisis, whatever shape it takes, will liberate them from their mental and emotional burdens - they all feel that "something has to break". One of the gang is a double-dealer, having his own private arrangements with the adult world and betraying their secrets to Volpay and Havas. I won't disclose the identity of the "traitor" or the nature of the group's final crisis here. Suffice it to say it is both surprising and extremely sad, and the book closes on a note which brings to mind the perfect combination of calm objectivity and emotional dismay that Chekhov evoked so well.
The theme of rebellious youth is an old one that has often been treated in literature, on the stage, and in films (of more recent efforts, the English movie "If" and the American movie "Rebel Without a Cause" come immediately to mind, especially in their depiction of the intensity of relationships among adolescent rebels). Marai's handling of the theme avoids the pitfalls of the trite and is exemplary in its sophistication. The translation by George Szirtes reads very well, and one assumes that it reflects Marai's style, which establishes the adolescent mind's inner convolutions in plain language that is used to build complex conditional sentences. The unnamed small city where it takes place seems to be Marai's hometown of Kassa (now Kosice). Marai himself graduated from gymnasium in 1918, so the temper of the times which he depicts so vividly here is based on personal experience. He has created a social and temporal portrait in which the most trivial details of the town's appearance and life are naturally saturated with meaning for its youth, while at one and the same time the place seems to be spiritually empty and devoid of intelligent purpose. This is an excellent novel that serves the reader well as an introduction to a long and accomplished literary career. It is the third of Marai's novels (along with a memoir) that have recently been published in English translations as an ongoing project of "rediscovery" of a very talented writer (noting that, although he spent much of his life outside his homeland, including his last forty years in exile, his reputation has always been high in Hungary). The Knopf edition is compact and handsome in its paper, binding and typography.
Product Description
Michael Guncheon is a contributing editor for PC Photo magazine and is author of "Helpline," one of the magazine's oldest and most popular columns. He has also written for Digital PhotoPro and Outdoor Photographer magazines. His resume includes a long list of professional assignments in video and film editing, which includes commercials, music videos, and documentaries. He has taught technical seminars and is a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. This replacement for the ever-popular Rebel XT is destined like its forerunner to become one of the top-selling amateur category digital SLR cameras. Written by the author of the Magic Lantern Guide: Digital Rebel XT, this information-packed volume covers every feature! This Magic Lantern Guide has the answer to all their questions, because it explains in detail how to use all the wonderful enhancements: its ability to save large and fine resolution images direct to the CompactFlash Card, its user-selectable metering; and its single plate, high sensitivity, high resolution color CMOS imaging sensor technology, and the XTi's special feature
Customer Reviews:
Half a bargain.......2007-08-27
Good content but all pictures are black and white! What's the point for a photo book? Not as interesting and to the same level of the book written by C.Lowrie.
Best guide out there.......2007-07-03
Magic Lantern guides are all very good, but this one is better than most. I had a Canon XT and upgraded to an XTi (the next, slightly newer model). I also had the XT lantern guide so was hesitant to get the XTi version, thinking it might be a rehash.
While there were a few overlapping paragraphs, almost all of the content is entirely new and is specific to the XTi. There are things I can do with that camera that I didn't know existed. There are tips and tricks that make relatively complex tasks easier. I very highly recommend getting this book if you have the XTi. You'll be glad you did.
Magic Lantern Guides.......2007-06-28
I have two other Canon bodies and have Magice Lantern Guides for both of them. They are invaluable. The Guides go further than those provided by the manufacturers in explaining how the camera works and the various functions.
'The' Guide for Cannon EOS400D.......2007-06-03
Many years ago I purchased a 'Magic Lantern' guide for my then state-of-the-art Cannon EOS 35mm film camera, and was impressed. Hoping for the same sort of book-partner for my first digital camera - the Cannon EOS400D - I purchased the new 'Magic Lantern' guide, and was not disappointed...all the camera functions are explained in easy and simple language, from the basic right through to the advanced. I had the Cannon EOS400D, read the instruction manual - and still wondered what all the functions did ... this book answered all (yes, all) my questions.
great companion guide.......2007-05-30
this is a good book to reference when learning your new camera. Would have liked color pictures as examples to explain different things tho.
Product Description
Michael Guncheon is a contributing editor for PC Photo magazine and is author of "Helpline," one of the magazine's oldest and most popular columns. He has also written for Digital PhotoPro and Outdoor Photographer magazines. His resume includes a long list of professional assignments in video and film editing, which includes commercials, music videos, and documentaries. He has taught technical seminars and is a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Canon's digital camera is going to be hot, hot, hot! It's high quality, reasonably priced, lightweight, and constructed to feel comfortable in the hand. And the many avid amateurs snatching up this great equipment will want to understand how to get the most of every one of its state-of-the-art features, from its superb resolution to its super-fast speed. This Magic Lantern Guide has the answer to all their questions, because it explains in detail how to use all the wonderful enhancements: its ability to save large and fine resolution images direct to the CompactFlash Card, its user-selectable metering; and its single plate, high sensitivity, high resolution color CMOS imaging sensor technology. 5 x 7-1/2". b/w illus. throughout
Customer Reviews:
Must have for Rebel XT owners.......2007-07-13
If you want to learn all about your Rebel XT camera, this is the book to buy. If you are happy with the manual, then you may not need this book.
great camera manual.......2007-04-13
After reading some of the other reviews, I was hesitant to buy this book. I did anyway, and found it to be exactly what I was looking for - a book on how to use this camera to it's fullest. If this is what you're looking for, then buy this book.
Great book!.......2007-04-04
This is a must if you have the camera. Like I've read, the instruction manual is lacking.....especially if you're a novice. I plan to buy one for my daughter who just now bought the camera. It answers a lot of questions.
Must have for XT users.......2007-03-13
Good book that goes in depth a lot further than the factory manual that comes with all XT cameras. Gives lots of detail and a no brainer when you consider the lost cost versus high value. You'll always keep this one in your bag, trust me.
Canon Digital Rebel XT.......2007-03-11
I bought the camera and read through the manual, and found it informative, but then found this book which I feel is easier to use then the actual manual. It is the manual PLUS MUCH MORE. I no longer use the manual - I have this book. Highly recomended
Book Description
The reigning master of grand historical fiction returns with the stirring conclusion to his bestselling Dublin Saga.
The Princes of Ireland, the first volume of Edward Rutherfurd’s magisterial epic of Irish history, ended with the disastrous Irish revolt of 1534 and the disappearance of the sacred Staff of Saint Patrick. The Rebels of Ireland opens with an Ireland transformed; plantation, the final step in the centuries-long English conquest of Ireland, is the order of the day, and the subjugation of the native Irish Catholic population has begun in earnest.
Edward Rutherfurd brings history to life through the tales of families whose fates rise and fall in each generation: Brothers who must choose between fidelity to their ancient faith or the security of their families; a wife whose passion for a charismatic Irish chieftain threatens her comfortable marriage to a prosperous merchant; a young scholar whose secret rebel sympathies are put to the test; men who risk their lives and their children’s fortunes in the tragic pursuit of freedom, and those determined to root them out forever. Rutherfurd spins the saga of Ireland’s 400-year path to independence in all its drama, tragedy, and glory through the stories of people from all strata of society--Protestant and Catholic, rich and poor, conniving and heroic.
His richly detailed narrative brings to life watershed moments and events, from the time of plantation settlements to the “Flight of the Earls,” when the native aristocracy fled the island, to Cromwell’s suppression of the population and the imposition of the harsh anti-Catholic penal laws. He describes the hardships of ordinary people and the romantic, doomed attempt to overthrow the Protestant oppressors, which ended in defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and the departure of the “Wild Geese.” In vivid tones Rutherfurd re-creates Grattan’s Parliament, Wolfe Tone's attempted French invasion of 1798, the tragic rising of Robert Emmet, the Catholic campaign of Daniel O’Connell, the catastrophic famine, the mass migration to America, and the glorious Irish Renaissance of Yeats and Joyce. And through the eyes of his characters, he captures the rise of Charles Stewart Parnell and the great Irish nationalists and the birth of an Ireland free of all ties to England.
A tale of fierce battles, hot-blooded romances, and family and political intrigues, The Rebels of Ireland brings the story begun in The Princes of Ireland to a stunning conclusion.
Customer Reviews:
Title clarifications.......2007-09-29
Confusing titles of the same books, led me to Rutherfurd's website under News. Outside of North America PRINCES OF IRELAND is titled DUBLIN: FOUNDATION and REBELS OF IRELAND is titled IRELAND AWAKENING. Now I can enjoy the correct sequel!
the reader.......2007-08-12
I have read all of Edward Rutherfurd's books in this series. I have not started to read the Rebels as yet. I will have time off soon and that will be a pleasure then.
Great stories, but too long!.......2007-07-31
Edward Rutherfurd is a great story teller of individual lives and of history, and he does a good job of mixing the two in `The Rebels of Ireland'. The folks seem real, and the stories twist and turn enough and are bizarre enough in many cases to seem real; you can seldom guess how things are going to turn out in the great flow of Irish history. I think he is better at character development and interaction than the esteemed James Michener and on the same level as Jeff Shaara, whom I especially admire as a historical novelist. I kept thinking what a good movie this would make; but let's face it, the movie would be a few generations too long. In fact, that is my only criticism of the book: there were perhaps too many stories being told, to the point that the book approached the size of Tolstoy's `War and Peace'.
The book is about the confluence of the Reformation and British colonialism and the years that follow, roughly paralleling the American story, except that the Americans rebelled earlier and more successfully than the Irish. (Of course, the Americans had the advantage of being an ocean away from England.) It seemed that the ordinary person was at the whim of whatever was being cooked up in the British parliament and that Ireland was more or less a vassal of England. As you learn in the first book of this two-book series, `The Princes of Ireland', the Brits were better organized than the Irish and simply took over the island centuries before the Reformation. After the 16th century, a strong division developed between Catholics and Protestants, Ireland being basically identified with the Catholics and England being basically Protestant. The book proceeds until just after Michael Collins and the takeover of the Dublin General Post Office in 1916.
It was a good book, but it was just a tad too long for me.
Irish History Comes to Life!.......2007-06-30
After having read Rutherford's earlier volume in this Historical Fiction series, I was anticipating a good solid effort that would provide an entertaining read with the added bonus of some grounding in Irish History. This book provided all of this and for me, actually raised the bar from the previous effort, The Princes of Ireland.
Intricately woven through several generations with effective literary devices maintaining the thread and providing strong story lines which keep the reader tied to the plot despite the span of years and movement through multiple historical contexts, this work succeeds better than most of the genre. You will leave with a stonger understanding of Irish History and appreciation of what it must have been like to have lived through those days.
Broad in appeal, this work will appeal to those looking for good strong historical fiction, a better appreciation of Irish History are a better connection to their own Irish Roots.
Wonderful Book About the Irish "Troubles".......2007-04-30
As other reviewers say this is a wonderful history lesson detailing the history of the conflict between Irish Catholics and Protestants. It starts about 1400 and goes to the beginning of the 20th century. I do have one nit to pick and that is that most of the characters are of the "well-to-do" class. They are fleshed out and good characters but, if one read only this book, one would hardly believe there was any poverty in Ireland. I recently read a book called "Wind and Shadow" by Carraher in which he writes of Ellen, a farm girl (the book starts in 1946 after WWII) and talks of all the people who must leave Ireland because there is no chance of making a living there. Carraher is speaking of a life (Ellen's) "outside of the great events of History". But isn't that the lives of most of us, those of us who don't make it into history books? So perhaps, with E. Rutherfurd concerned more about historical events than not, he had to write about members of the upper class who were more involved in parliaments and decision making. Still it is a lacking in this book that the "average" Irish man/woman is not really present. But the book, despite that, achieves much. It is heartwarming in spots, quite dramatic in others, and educational overall. Who knew that Benjamin Franklin visited Ireland just prior to the American Revolution? "Irish Rebels" is overall a wonderful achievement.
Book Description
Desperate to free his mother from a caste of ruthless elven assassins, Leesil joins his beloved Magiere, the sage Wynn, and their canine protector, Chap, on a difficult journey through mountains and harsh winter. Should they survive the hardships of wilderness, they still face the perils of the mysterious Elven Territories.
Unbeknownst to them, they've been united at the command of Chap's Fay kin to forge an alliance against the forces of dark magic. But now Chap must guard his companions from enemies and allies-not always certain which is which. And as they uncover the truth, they discover just how close the enemy has always been.
Customer Reviews:
Rebel Fay.......2007-08-01
This was one more step in the road for answers, will be happy to get to the end. The journey is fun though. The characters grow deeper, the mystery tries to.... and I hope it will be worth the wait.
I will buy the rest and find out anyway.
Looking forward to the last novel.......2007-07-31
I was introducd to this series by a friend of mine and since that first book, Dhampir, I haven't been able to put the books down. It seems that with each book the characters become more complex and the story more involved. Although Dhampir was a great book the overall feel was much more of a lighthearted adventure. Now in this latest book we learn more about the background of Magiere, Leesil and the entire world they live in. The presence of the omniscient Fay and coming of a war remind me of the type of saga that Lord of the Rings was.
Personally, I'm grateful to this series and these two authors for another reason. My father, who had given up reading the fantasy and sci-fi novels he loved as a young adult, loves The Noble Dead books. He hadn't read an actual novel in years (only car and computer magazines). Now we are both looking forward to the last book together.
If my dad became hooked you will too!
good .......2007-05-20
I found it enjoyable. I liked the fact that this book was not as negative as the previous ones. There is only so much dark and depressing I can take. For once, something works out. I liked the fact that the reader finally got to witnessed how much the two are in love and committed to each other and I really like seeing Chap come into his own. My only complaint is that there is so much details in these books (small details--that mean alot) but are difficult to remember from book to book unless you read them back to back.
I look forward to the next in the series.
Rebel Fay (The Noble Dead).......2007-05-15
I have read all the books in the series and have enjoyed them all very much. This is just another very good book in the series. I thoroughly recommend it.
One of the best books.......2007-05-14
Great book, must read this and all in the series
Customer Reviews:
Analyzing your Parenting.......2007-09-30
This is not about tattoos and rock and roll and controlling your child (like others have assumed), but about what you can do as a parent to help your child not turn away from the Christian faith they have been raised in (rebel). It might surprise you that Dr. Kimmel actually encourages you to allow your child to experience the world and not be sheltered by a "Christian everything" community. He talks about the importance of your child's faith being their own, and not a "hobby" they are a part of because the parent has a strong faith. He points out decisions that many Christian parents make, which actually backfire. Being a child who rebelled, he is right on the mark. It has helped me (now as a parent) as I can identify mistakes from my youth that I do not want to repeat with my children. I strongly recommend this for every parent who wants to encourage their child's spiritual growth and not hinder it.
Can't I give it 10 Stars?.......2007-07-12
Obviously, those who rated this book low, based on their comments, did not read the book.
This book has very, very, very few words about how to "raise" our children.
It will, however, cause the parent reader some uncomfortable moments as Dr. Kimmel shatters the standard American Christian ideas of "requirements" for raising Spiritual Children.
Dr. Kimmel will focus you on your own spiritual walk. What are you showing your children about what you believe real faith is by the way you live. He will allow you to see that how you live out your faith in your daily lives impacts how your children grow in their faith.
As a child raised in a strict religious environment, this book provided me a good framework for really understanding why I turned as far away as possible from "religion."
This book is a keeper - something to be reviewed at least annually as a spot-check on how am I walking in my faith - and to remind me that there are 4 little eyes watching how I live and what they see will impact them much more than what they hear at church or school.
One warning for those Christians who believe that by shielding your children from worldly influences you are benefitting them more than those who send their kids to public school, or allow their kids to read Harry Potter or go to movies, etc - this book might offend you. Give it a chance - get all the way through it and evaluate it with an open, prayerful heart. Ask the Lord if there is any truth He would like you to think about? Perhaps for your family, your choices are the right ones, but Dr. Kimmel definitely presents another way of looking at things.
Excellent book for every Christian parent.......2007-03-16
As a Christian parent I often feel intimidated by the task of passing my faith on to my children. I picked up this book from our church book table and am so glad that I did.
It was not so much about rebellion, as about how to raise your children to NOT see rebellion as an attractive option. What a weight was lifted off my shoulders as for the first time i really caught a vision of what path to follow to help my children grow up knowing and loving Christ.
The book has a message of truth and hope - not condemnation - though the author has strong things to say about what environments tend to breed rebellion. I highly recommend this book along with Grace Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel.
Biblical Parenting.......2007-02-19
Dr. Kimmel's book helped me understand a great deal of my own teenage rebellion years ago. I know that I am ultimately responsible. However, it comforted me to know why I was frustrated as a teenager and why I rebelled against my Christian faith for several years.
This book covers the different styles of parenting that breeds rebellion. It is a great read for students, adults, parents, and parents who no longer have children living at home.
I taught through this book in a parenting class. It proved to be very helpful to them. Some parents shied away from it because of the title. They didn't believe their kids were rebellious or ever would be. As Dr. Kimmel will state in his book, not every child rebels the same way. Their rebellion may come later when they are out of your house.
This book is for everyone. Even for those parents who believe themselves to be the model parents who do not need a lesson on biblical parenting.
As for the student on the front of the book. I have been in youth ministry for many years now. I have also taught in Public and Private Schools. Is this what many teenagers "look" like. Yes it is. But the question is, "Should it be?" Whether you are a teenager or an adult... you should give a great deal of thought as to what it means to be in the world but not of it.
If you are a Christian... I believe the real issue is not clothes, hairstyle, piercings, etc. The real issue is Christ-likeness, holiness, being aliens and strangers in our modern day Babylon. Real Christians will understand this. The world will scoff at it. If Christian teenagers desire to look like the world... you know there is rebellion lurking in their hearts. Man's sinful nature says, "Express yourself!" The world seeks to throw off all forms of authority. Trust me... I remember why I got an ear ring when I was a teenager. I remember why I rebelled against my parents and the faith. I didn't see biblical Christianity matching up to what was modeled to me. I was tired of fighting against the grain of culture. "If you can't beat them, join them." This was my thinking. I did what I did out of pure human "free will" rebellion!
Of course, if the parents are dressing like the world, acting like the world, and are not modeling Christ in every way... the rebellion lurking in the child's heart may be a learned thing. Most of the time... this is the case. Although, you will occasionally have children who rebel despite their parents loving guidance.
All mankind is born rebellious. Man ultimately wants to do his own thing. This is not just a problem for teenagers, but for adults too. Every child should be given the opportunity to choose their own way when they reach a certain age. If the parent is confident in the way they have raised their child, they will have no problem releasing them to make their own decisions when they reach the time to leave the nest.
I have seen two extremes among parents: some let their children do whatever they want AND some do not allow them to make any decisions for themselves at all. These children do not have the true love of God modeled to them. They have parents who parent by worldly wisdom. If you're not willing to let your child choose his own way at the end of high school (and possibly sooner) then you haven't done a very good job of parenting.
I highly recommend Dr. Kimmel's book. If you are a worldly person... this book will not be of much help to you. However, if you are a Christian and are concerned about biblical parenting or you were a rebellious teenager years ago... this book is for you!
Absurd, irrational, insane, and vomit-worthy.......2006-12-16
I would like to know what this author is a "doctor" of? I find it somewhat surprising that someone can go through that much schooling without once encountering information which completely counters the absurd beliefs he holds. Rebellion is about releasing humanity from the clutches of social conditioning. We have obedience and conformity to authority smashed into our heads from the moments we're born, brainwashed by television and school to believe in our nation, economic system, and give up your life and time to work for someone else, lead an insignificant life destroying the Earth to die at the end of it all.
Religion is a product of modern society. Humans have existed for over 2 million years and we've existed in our current species, homo sapien sapien, for over 100,000 years. Religion is only 10,000 years old and Christianity is only 2000 years old. Were we seriously "living in sin" for 99.9% of human history? And even when you look at us now compared to the amount of people who do not fully embrace evangelical christianity, are 97% of us "living in sin?" Religion was created as an arm of the state to help the coersion of humans into obedient workers for an absurd society. This is not a dissenting opinion, it's mainstream anthropology. Religion is made to enforce authoritarian ideals and beat people into a point where they submit willingly and do not naturally rebel against the horrible force of law and morality (Carefully crafted to meet the needs of the power elite), continuously using the truncheon physically and psycologically to control us from reaching our true potentials of real freedom, autonomy, and liberation. By society's definition, freedom is the ability to do what the government deems unimportant.
If you want to help your kids, tell them to think for themselves, live free of all restrictions and resist any social force which limits their ability to exist freely. Tell them that one day we will tear all this down and dance on the ashes of churches, corporations, governments, and economies, and once again embrace our truest and most amazing desires in voluntary association with humans, non-humans, and the Earth.
If you want a wakeup call from the horrible and miserable daily reality authors like this seek to defend and enforce, read books by Derrick Jensen, Daniel Quinn, Crimethinc, and Raoul Vaneigem
Plant your rebellious seeds, revolt against the prevailing artificial reality, fight the revolution of everyday life!
Books:
- Captive
- Chief Customer Officer : Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action
- Chocolate Covered Forbidden Fruit
- Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Space Poems and Paintings
- Dangerous Games (Riley Jensen, Guardian, Book 4)
- Elisabeth: The Princess Bride, Austria-Hungary, 1853 (The Royal Diaries)
- Essentials for the Activity Professional in Long Term Care
- Essentials of Skeletal Radiology (2 Vol. Set)
- Fatal Passion:, A: The Story of the Uncrowned Last Empress of Russia
- Final Justice
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- When Godly People Do Ungodly Things: Arming Yourself in the Age of Seduction
- The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God
- Energetic Materials, Volume 13: Part 2. Detonation, Combustion
- Laguna Heat
- Materials and Components of Interior Architecture
- Paris, City of Art
- Raising a Reader; Make Your Child a Reader for Life
- I Send You this Cadmium Red
- Graphic Design in Germany: 1890-1945
- Letters from the Pacific Front: My Father's Adventures from Guadalcanal to Okinawa
General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Canon Digital Rebel XTi 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black)
Canon Wireless Remote Control RC1 for Digital Rebel
Canon NB-2LH Rechargeable Battery Pack for Digital Rebel XT/XTi, PowerShot S30/40/45/50/60/70/80, G7 & G9 Digital Cameras
Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Edition)
SanDisk 2GB ULTRA II CompactFlash Card (SDCFH-2048-AC11, Retail Package)
Photoshop CS3 Workflow: The Digital Photographer's Guide (Tim Grey Guides)
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Workflow: The Digital Photographer's Guide (Tim Grey Guides)
