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| The Principles of Uncertainty | 
 enlarge | Author: Maira Kalman
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $16.14
You Save: $13.81 (46%)
New (44) Used (9) from $16.14
Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 9856
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 159420134X
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.6092
EAN: 9781594201349
ASIN: 159420134X
Publication Date: October 18, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Get at that itch... January 10, 2008
6 out of 25 found this review helpful
My cat Sadie really enjoyed the hard edge of the book's spine. When I lay on my back and propped the book up on my stomach to read, she used it as a chin scratch. She wishes I would write a novel with a special binding made specifically for cats to scratch their chin, and I promise to try. For now, she will make do with this fascinating tome about the ephemera of life, collecting hand-written thoughts with full-page, full-color paintings that, when strung together, somehow get at the meaning of things. Or, at least, the poetry hidden behind it.
 Lovely, lovely November 22, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is such a sweet book. I have given it to everyone... friends, family - all ages.
I am getting through one of those years, many deaths in my family, and this book really helped me remember how grand life can be. Exquisite!
A reminder that life's a joy January 16, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is such an unusual book: a pictorial monologue about a year in author/illustrator Maira Kalman's life, in which she tackles issues like life, death, family, history, travel, food and all the big philosophical questions of existence.
It has more than 300 pages, almost all of them with quirky Magritte-style illustrations that are often as humorous and charming as the text.
Maira Kalman's Jewish family fled Russia after the revolution and went to Palestine before settling in America. As I imagine many of those do whose families have endured lives fractured by the events of history, and so closely touched by atrocities like the Holocaust, Kalman seems never to take life for granted -- she often expresses her concern about the point of it all, and the mess so many people make of it.
But for all that, this book is imbued with Kalman's overriding and utter joy in being alive. Joy shines out of every page.
For example, while she's in Israel she writes of her despair about the embattled state of the Middle East, but once back home in New York she finds immediate reassurance and an antidote to her distress simply by observing the life on the streets -- the colours, the people, the eccentricities, the humanity of it all.
On other pages she'll share her delight in wonderful hats, bravely-dressed women, old people, the collections of weird objects she keeps at home, and many of the amazing sights she observes and records on her travels at home and abroad.
I'd love to meet her: from my reading I imagine a strong New York humour and an infectious fascination for the cities she loves.
Recommended.
The Beauty and Wonder of the Ordinary December 31, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I love this book as it reflects the author's sensibility of embracing every bit of life that catches her eye and warms her heart. Reading it makes my eyes more keen and my heart more open. I also want to embroider, collect sponges, watch people walk, wear hats and paint pictures. Can't go wrong with that.
Great fun March 3, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I LOVE this book! If you are a fan of quirky, creative, playful picture books for grown-ups, you will like this book. I think you will also like it if you like long illustrated poems, because this book seems to unintentionally be one.
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