No comments about Other Worlds: Poems on Prints by M.C. Escher.

No comments about M. C. Escher®: 30 Postcards (Postcardbooks).

2 comments about M.C. Escher, Book of Boxes: 100 Years 1898-1998 (Taschen Specials).

1. This collection of boxes is full of beauty and simplicit



2. I rated this book 5 stars since it is exactly what is says it is and the designs are very inventive. This book conatins 21 thin cardboard, punch-out designs. After you punch them out, you are guided with pictures on how to fold them. So, this book is truly "a book of boxes", but if you are looking for more advanced oragami, you would not be interested.

No comments about The Graphic Work of MC Escher.

1 comments about M.C. Escher: Art and Science (Proceedings of the International Congress on M.C. Escher Rome, Italy, 26-28 March, 1985).

1. While I'm sure at the time of this conference, the works in this book were a bit more groundbreaking, there is little in the book that is outside the realm of modern mathematical models of symmetry and symmetry breaking.
   
   It is fantastic, mind you. And it's nice to read some of these authors in their own 'speech' - for it is obvious that many of the papers collected were delivered to a crowd as part of a presentation. Therefore much of this collection is a messy copy of many unedited (spelling/sentence errors) and hand written notes.
   
   It's great. But, I don't know that there is any work from this conference that was not published later, and, since that is the case, much of this is really available for free on-line at this point. There are some nice hand written black& white pictures by Penrose, but... for $70-100 dollars?
   
   I wouldn't recommend this for an Escher fan, certainly, and only the most die-hard of math fans.

1 comments about The Graphic Work of M. C. Escher.

1. M.C. Escher, make many contributions to the art and math-related sciences. This awesome book, a must-have relic, shows, the graphic work of this artist, showing us, the complexity and mistery of many of his works, from his popular "Metamorphosis" series to it's "impossible paintings", like "Waterfalls" or "Concave and Convex". The quallity of the illsutrations and content is excellent. This is, a must-have book, for any artist, graphic designer, scientist, or people, interested on contemporary, and impressive art.

1 comments about The Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher/a Revealing Look into the Life and Work of the Most Astonishing Artist of Our Time.

1. Probably the best book written about dutch graphic artist MC Escher (by Bruno Ernst, an admirer of Escher that would become a close friend). Not only the book contains a great deal of graphic material, but there are also details about Escher's life not known elsewhere. The books covers a great deal about his early life, his travels to Italy in the 1920s, his life there, his exile into Switzerland after the fascists imposed uniforms on his children, his return to the Netherlands right before the Second World War. Remarkably, this artist revered by mathematicians for his representations of different types of symmetry and mathematical concepts, knew little math himself. He was a rather introverted artist, who had an ambivalent opinion about his own work.

2 comments about M.C. Escher: Sticker Book.

1. If you like stickers at all, then this book is well worth your money. I used the stickers as decorations on photo albums, boxes, and letters. I ordered 2 more books after I received the first one.



2. There is quite a variety of Escher's work represented here. As well as having both black and white and color images, this collection also includes many designs in various sizes which I found very convenient. I highly recomend this book to any Escher fan. You won't be disappointed.

5 comments about The Escher Twist: A Homer Kelly Mystery.

1. It doesn't take long to figure out that Jane Langton's use of Escher prints provides creative foreshadowing in "The Escher Twist." Just like the Escher prints used throughout the book, you're not sure if you are seeing what you think you are seeing. The characters in this delightful story ramble through the plot at a relaxed, though never dull, pace. The main characters' child-like views of the world are just innocent enough to be charming without drifting over the "Dumb and Dumber" fault line. "The Escher Twist" winds down to a tidy and satisfying conclusion.



2. I am a big fan of Jane Langton's, having read all but two of her earlier Homer Kelly mysteries (no longer in print). I have to say that while this book is better than most mysteries being sold today, it is not great in comparison with her earlier efforts.
   In this entry, Homer & Mary Kelly set out to help a man, Leonard Sheldrake, find a woman with whom he has fallen in love (at first sight while at an Escher exhibition in a museum). The woman is not easy to find as she is attempting to avoid one of her relatives, a woman set on vengeance for the death of her baby.
   The plot of this book is not as complicated as others by Ms. Langton but still was sometimes a bit confusing for me, particularly with regards to some torn up photographs found by Leonard. I had to read the paragraphs describing the pictures a couple of times to get the images straight in my mind and even then I am not for sure that I had it all correct.
   But, when all is said and done, this is a good book and I would recommend it to anyone, particularly if they are already familiar with the series.



3. First off, I have never read Jane Langton before. I picked this book up from the New Mysteries section of my local library, based entirely on its intriguing cover (yes, I judged the book based on its cover).

   Having never read Jane Langton before, I knew only what the back of the book stated. After reading it, I am ready to rush out and find more of her books.

   I give this book five stars because it grabbed me. And it grabbed me right away. The characters were fascinating from the get-go, especially the way they were introduced. I have never been to Cambridge, but I felt that Langton painted the town with vibrant yet surreal colors.

   In addition, this book contained a lot of math concepts that I did not know about before, but were presented in such a way as to not seem confusing or above my head. In fact, I had to make my own Moebius Strip just to see for myself how wonderful they are. The theme was well carried in this book. Big thumbs up! A mystery like no other I have read. Cannot wait to read another one.




4. The Escher Twist is lots of fun for anyone who enjoys the drawings of M C Escher. This Boston-based murder mystery is illustrated throughout by reproductions of his art work, including those persistent ants on their twisted band of paper.

   Like Escher's parade of ants on the Möbius strip, the characters march around and around and end up back where they started. Like Escher's "Birds and Fish", The plot has repeating patterns that change subtly over time until they turn into something quite different. The images in Escher's "Reflecting Sphere" become Doppelgänger. (How many women in green coats? How many shy Leonards?) Most dramatically, there are the stark contrasts of dark and light: Here is love and hate; joy and tragedy; kindness and malevolence.

   The husband and wife detective pair of Homer and Mary Kelly struggle to relate the people in torn pieces of family photographs. Which is up and which down? Who is parent and who child? And just as the puzzle pieces begin to fit, the pattern breaks up again like a surreal dream. By the way, just in case you rushed to read the book without checking its cover, count carefully how many pillars there are in the pagoda.




5. This book is the sixteenth 'Homer Kelly' mystery, published in 1992, and is another charmingly offbeat journey through Cambridge, Massachusetts, this time concentrating on the Mount Auburn Cemetery and an exhibition of the twentieth-century Dutch artist Maurits Escher.
   
   Like many of the creatures in an Escher print, the characters in this book metamorphose into one another, one via plastic surgery and another by some kind of mysterious metaphysics.
   
   Unfortunately, although I enjoyed the book and the usual antics of Homer and his wife, Mary, I couldn't quite develop a relationship with one of the main characters: the little old landlady who pays daily visits to her deceased husband in Mount Auburn Cemetery. The author resorts to having people fall in love with Eloise Winthrop because of her beautiful smile (very sloppy, Jane).
   
   However, the mysterious and villainous woman in the green coat who lies on her son's grave in Mount Auburn Cemetery, and sends him letters via a metal box, more than makes up for the bland landlady. She is truly spooky. Wait till you find out how her two-year-old son died.
   
   There are many fatal symmetries in the plot, which kicks off when two people fall instantaneously in love with each other at an exhibition of the work of M.C. Escher. They drift together in front of his wood-engraving called 'A Dream.' (A sleeping or dead bishop with a praying mantis on his chest). Leonard, a crystallographer loses track of his new love, Frieda as she suddenly bolts out of the exhibition, wearing a green coat.
   
   Actually, two women in identical green coats leave the Escher exhibition together. They look very much alike, but can be differentiated by their actions. One tries to hide from the other, who proceeds to roll an old man down the stairs at a nursing home, and heave a geologist named Leonard out of a tower in Mount Auburn Cemetery, killing both of the men.
   
   Leonard, the crystallographer starts to metamorphose into Leonard, the deceased geologist. His hair begins to form a part on the wrong side of his head. He starts to see silent funeral processions at the cemetery, where his landlady visits her dead husband.
   
   It is interesting to watch the author weave her physical and metaphysical plot lines together, using Escher's prints and quotations as a constant theme. In her afterword, Langton quotes Albert Flocon concerning Escher: "His work teaches us that the most perfect surrealism is latent in reality..."
   
   That's a good description of the structure of this intriguing murder mystery.

4 comments about Visions of Symmetry: Notebooks, Periodic Drawings, and Related Work of M.C. Escher.

1. Doris Schattschneider's book takes a look at Escher's research on the regular division of the plane.

   1/8 on an iceberg is visible while 7/8 is hidden. Escher's prints are like this. The visible image is only a small part of the thought and preparation that lies beneath the surface. Schattschneider takes us beneath the surface and shines a light on this hidden behemoth.

   This volume is more demanding and difficult than other Escher books. But it is rewarding to delve into.

   Meticulous, tenacious, thorough, playful. My adjectives for Escher are driven home even more forcefully by this book.

   Ms Schattschneider did a fine job putting this book together.




2. This book has beautiful full color reproductions of Escher's notebooks, along with erxplainations and diagrams showing how Escher accomplished such a volume of work. It also includes anecdotes told by his friends, and reproductions of all three of the metamorphosis. Truly Brilliant! You can't go wrong with this book, be you mathemetitian, or artist



3. This book answered a lot of questions I had about Escher's regular division of the plane. It has highly enlarged my understanding of his work, and thus made me enjoy it even more. My initial interest was deepening my mathematical knowledge on tessallations, and I can tell I did.



4. As a child, Maurits Cornelis Escher fitted together irregular pieces of cheese in his sandwiches so that they would completely fill the space between the slices of bread. From the very beginnings of his career as an artist, in 1921, he devised ways of interlocking images so as to leave no empty space, and then of making these images repeat infinitely in increasingly complex ways. Professor Schattschneider's magnificently illustrated volume analyses this critical aspect of Escher's work, focussing on a series of 137 symmetry drawings and watercolors created from 1926 to 1971, which the artist kept in five folders throughout his lifetime and which he used as references for his continuing work on the regular division of the plane. Included are analogies from each of these works (which now sell for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars each) to his original prints and projects. As owner of and dealer in the main body of Escher's original prints, drawings and watercolors, which were previously on loan to the Hague Museum, I make extensive use of this book and commend it to all. Some of the text is written for the layman; other portions of the writing are technical and will be of interest to mathematicians and crystallographers. In addition, the quantity and quality of the full-page color illustrations, few of which are to be found in any other publication in print, contribute to making this book, which serves as a catalogue raisonné of the symmetry drawings and watercolors, eminently collectable.

   The other key books on Escher are M.C. ESCHER: HIS LIFE AND COMPLETE GRAPHIC WORK; THE MAGIC MIRROR OF M.C. ESCHER; THE GRAPHIC WORK OF M.C. ESCHER; and ESCHER ON ESCHER. Persons technically inclined may also be interested in ART AND SCIENCE, which constitutes the proceedings of the 1985 Escher conference in Rome.