Ann-S-Thesia's Book Store

Most of the books I buy are related to graphics and art. You won't find any novels here. I find the Dover Clip Art and the Dover Pictorial Archive series (marked with an * [asterisk]) especially helpful in giving me ideas for creating my designs and dingbats. (I don't use their images, but they inspire my own). Dover's policy states, "You may use the designs and illustrations for graphics and crafts applications, free and without special permission, provided that you include no more than ten in the same publication or project," so they are perfect for aiding in the creation of your own webgraphics.

Art/Graphic/Computer-Related Books

Photoshop 5 Wow! I have the Photoshop 3 Wow! book. It came with a free CD of plug-ins and filters (as does Photoshop 5 Wow!) and was very handy in learning Photoshop and discovering new techniques.

More books on Adobe Photoshop

The Grammar of Ornament. (CD-ROM) Everyone must have The Grammar of Ornament if they are at all interested in design from a historical point of view. It is a must have. I was lucky enough to get a reprint of the original (the reprint itself is rarer than hard to find) as an Anniversary gift from Stan last year. Luckily, they've also made it into a CD-ROM.

Fonts! Yes, I know I also list these books at my Software Store, but I'm in love with them so much that I have to put in a plug here as well. After all, they're also books. This is the best deal around that I have found for Decorative and Display fonts. Each book/CD combination is only $13.45 and each comes with 24 unique alphabets. That means if you order all 3 of them you get seventy-two fonts for about $40. Is that a bargain or what? Most of these fonts I have never seen before, so when I received these in the mail the other day, I was overjoyed. They have just recently been put out by the great people from Dover Publications in what I am hoping is a trend of Dover publishing their clip art and font archives in electronic form. Maybe in the future we can hope for 24 Techno Display Fonts or 24 Grunge Display Fonts, but for now, these 24 Art Nouveau, 24 Gothic and 24 Victorian Display Fonts will do quite well. Hey, it's got me drooling. Each package comes with a book that shows the complete characters set and a CD-ROM with True Type and Postscript fonts for both Windows and Macintosh. The system requirements are minimal; Mac system 6 or later and Windows 3.1 or higher, and 5 MB of RAM and a CD-ROM drive.

24 Art Nouveau Display Fonts (Dover Electronic Display Fonts Series)

24 Gothic Display Fonts (Dover Electronic Display Fonts Series)

24 Victorian Display Fonts (Dover Electronic Display Fonts Series)

The following books are great resources for understanding the universality of patterns and designs, plus they're great to browse through for inspiration for your own images.

Handbook of Regular Patterns: An Introduction to Symmetry in Two Dimensions.

Japanese Optical and Geometrical Art*

Chinese Lattice Designs*

Arabic Geometrical Pattern & Design*

Celtic Art : In Britain Before the Roman Conquest

Handbook of Designs and Devices*

Handbook of Ornament : A Grammar of Art, Industrial and Architectural Designing in All Its Branches for Practical As Well As Theoretical Use*

Principles of Pattern Design*

Assorted Random Books

An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles. Stan and I first found this book at The Butterfly Pavillion in Westminster, Colorado during our vacation out there in 1998. (We didn't vacation in Westminster...we vacationed in Colorado...duh.) We were so enthralled by its beauty, but like prices at most museum giftshops and the like, this book was way out of our reach. So when we got back to Madison, one of the first things we did (after cleaning up the messes the cats made for us while we were away) was to sign on to Amazon.Com and buy this book at a much more affordable price! This book is exquisite in its presentation of the Beetle; all the large full-color plates are set up with incredible artistic flair and keen design sense. You will be amazed at the jewel-like beauty of these creatures. Even those of you who huzzzz out at the thought of "bugs" will appreciate the pure artful quality of the many photographs, and it may even change your perspective on the dirty little buggers. For Beetle afficianados (oops, almost typed Beatle...heh heh) like myself, it is pure joy. A must have book.

More books on Insects

The Book of Sacred Stones. If you're like me, you love beautiful gems, rocks and minerals. You also like learning the history of the mythology surrounding certain stones. But you also view any modern day mythology with total skepticism. That's why I liked this books so much with its very practical and sensible non-Disney Witch, non-New Agey approach to understanding the real properties of gems and minerals as well as those that society, religions, history and tradition has forced upon them.

More books on Rocks and Minerals

Delicious Memories. Back during a failed fishing trip Stan and I took up to Door County, we decided the only way to catch fish was to have Stan literally catch them by hand. No ordinary whiteflesh fish these, said fish were the much-maligned carp. Upon catching one of the two carp we would subsequently consume (pleasureably, I may add), a perplexed whitefleshed mountain-biking suburbo on vacation exclaimed, "I thought you had to be "ethnic" to eat those." Evidently he didn't understand our motivation, both of us having external whiteflesh characteristics too. To him, "ethnic" meant darkflesh. He didn't know, nor did I at the time, that there's an "ethnic" recipe for carp that hails from, of all places, central Europe. This book by Mary Stretton--sound familiar?--has recipes for a number of Czech dishes, including the carp dish, as well as short stories of growing up with an immigrant mother, my grandmother. Yes, my mom wrote this book! It's only fair of me to include it in my bookstore, no? Now realize that my mom and I are very different people...this is a very nice little book so you won't find any of Ann's crass humor in it. Of course that may be a deciding factor for many of you to get it!

More books on Cooking

Souvenirs

T-Shirts, Mousepads, Tote Bags, Ceramic Tile Coasters and Coffee Mugs

Dingbat Fonts on CD at The Dingbatcave

Web Graphics on CD

Monitor Environments on CD (Desktop Wallpaper)

Tarot CD

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