When I saw this book at this price I thought that it would be perfect for what I was looking for as a costumer and medieval recreationist. When I got the book I was very disapointed. It has many pictures, but they are poor quality and most are in black and white. The book isn't even worth half the price just based on the pictures. It has a huge bibliography, and I expected it to have a lot of information, but it just seems to skim over everything. It would be much better if it were bigger to allow room for bigger pictures and details, along with information worthy of the bib.

This book investigates the social history and mores of Venice in a 30 year period through analysis of the clothing, clothing industry and sumptuary laws of the time. It is NOT a costume book, and although useful for that end, if you buy it for that sole purpose you will be frustrated. If you want to know more than just how to put a Venetian outfit together, you will be delighted. Due to the dearth of female Venetian portraits, most of the book is on male clothing, with only 1 chapter on women. I found this to be an excellent, well researched and illuminating read, and highly recommend it. If you specialise in this period Venice in the SCA/historical renactment, it is an essential buy.

I've seen larger books with more plans, but this book does a pretty good job covering different houses and construction techniques. I wish it were a bit larger, covering different bird types, but, as an idea starter, was pretty good. I'm not into expensive finishing, so most of mine stop short of the touchy/feely bird home designs covered in the book. From this book and other designs found on the internet, I have been able to build several successful bird houses of my own design. I have also passed on the plan for building a glass bird feeder...still waiting for that one to come back to me as a gift.

What a fun little book. It's full of decorative ideas for your garden, as well as for your little bird friends. Besides the "thatched flint cottage" and the "folk art titmouse box" birdhouses, there are plans for a rustic feeder and and a very pretty copper bird bath. Plus a whole lot more. The only thing I didn't like about this book was that these creations are put together with a hot glue gun. While, this is simple enought to over come (if you can squeeze the trigger on a glue gun...you can probably squeeze out a little water proof glue and tack in a small finishing nail or two.) Most of the designs are not very complicated. This little book is defininitely worth every penny of the small price.

Here's the compendium of some of the most bizarre creatures ever found in D&D - this set includes the minions of Chaos that come "from beyond"... not only are they fun for pure Dungeons & Dragons, but we've successfully run a D&D/Cthulhu campaign using these beasties as the main source of terror. Too much fun, and hard to find!

Spelljammer MC is one of those accessories that an experienced gamer can't live without but a younger gamer will find totally uninteresting. Or perhaps not - it all depends on the taste and how likely he is to become a writer. As a monstrous compendium from a long-dead campaign, in the old hole-punched style, with black-and-white pictures, it attracts gamers like flies. Fortunately it is also relatively cheap (not for its worth, mind you, but in a general sense - it costs ten dollars in mint condition) and is easy to find either at the local large hobby store or online at the Wizards of the Coasts site (...). The compendium will not displease the refined, experienced AD&Der looking for something different: the closest thing I can compare it to is either the old Traveller or the new Alternity. Many alien, twisted, warped things, and a couple of robotic terrors spice up the melange. Don't pass it by.

In a Florida swampland Yoolee's father Velmer is a cruel man. Who one day he disapears on a hunting trip with some people from out of town. Then in the swamplands mysterious death's acure, so Yoolee must protect his family until the end... You'll have to read the rest to find out who or what it is. I thought this book wasn't that good, it could have had more detail. This book would be considered a Realistic Fiction. With twists of adventure,and cultural signifigance.

I enjoyed this book so thoroughly, I am looking forward to reading his well-known book, "A Day No Pigs Would Die."

Just one example to illustrate Mr. Peck's prose style. Yoolee and Havilah were watching their Uncle Bib's womanfriend, named Sugar, getting onto a hammock that the Uncle had hung up between two "black mangrove trees." Sugar, her "feet up and shoes off, her chubbiness sagged a big bulge in the hammock. She filled it like a breeze to a frigate." The bulge is as big as the reader's imagination allows. However, filling the hammock "like a breeze to a frigate," that leaves no doubt as to the size of the bulge!

This is a heartwarming story inspite of some really horrid scenes described in here because Mr. Peck has skillfully weaved in some comic reliefs throughout.

Having done a Ph.D. in optics, I have read quite some books on optics and out of curiocity I bought this book, but I am not very pleased with it. First, it is difficult to read because of the old English language and structure. For native English speakers this carries perhaps not so much weight, but for me it did. Second, because it is a collection of Newton's works, it contains of course also many not-so-interesting discussions which you have to 'consume' before realising it was not so interesting.

What is nice though, is that the book contains many so-called queries, which are possible explanations of various optical phenomena, explanations/assumptions Newton could not prove/disprove at the time. This is fascinating reading, because many of these turned out to be true (or false, but even then: still interesting to know what he thought).

Overall impression: if you are interested in the history of optics/Newton then it is a nice book. But just for browsing in the evening: no.

"Though Mr. Newton is no physicist, his book is very interesting." -- Father Nicolas Malebranche (1707)

Before discussing this book, let me caution readers that the book contains many examples of female nudes, a number of which are in overt sexual situations. This book would be at least "R" rated if it were a movie. Treat it accordingly. I saw nothing that was not in good taste, but people who wish to avoid such images should be forewarned. When originally published, some of these images were considered quite controversial.

The strength of this book is Helmut Newton's outstanding fashion photography. The weakness is that it is displayed in facsimiles from the magazines rather than as a collection of perfectly reproduced photographs. This approach allows you to see how the photographs work with the layouts and designs. Also, the poses and compositions (both strengths of Newton's) are very clear for your consideration. The actual images themselves are often reproduced very poorly, however, sometimes looking like something that came off of a bad copier.

Unlike many of the great photographers of the 20th century who saw themselves as artists first, Newton saw himself as existing primarily through publications. "I realized very early on that the most important factor would be to be published, with a by-line . . . ." This made him see the artistic life of his work as secondary. "If any of these photographs end up on gallery or museum walls or in the possession of collectors, well all the better . . . ." Think of him as the exact opposite of Ansel Adams in how he wants his work to be expressed and remembered.

This book contains more than 500 pages of color, and black and white images from over 3000 that Newton published through 1998. The examples come mostly from French Vogue (beginning in 1961), Queen, Jardin des Modes, British Vogue, Elle, Daily Telegraph Magazine, American Vogue, Nova, Marie Claire, Deutsche Vogue, Amica, Vanity Fair, Paris Match, Allure, and Stern. Most of the examples are from the 1960s and the 1970s.

Mr. Newton's style is very lively. His models have strong personalities, and usually dominate the scene. They are also active, creating an excitement that draws attention to them. For example, he has a great talent for capturing models as they start to fall into a swimming pool.

In many cases, suble humor adds to the picture, as with the swimming pool props. I especially liked the photographs where Mr. Newton appears in the photograph through his use of mirrors. Equally amusing were the photographs where the models photographed themselves using mirrors in the same way.

As sexual mores and tastes loosened up over the years, Mr. Newton's work became more playful and free. I also thought it worked better. I enjoyed the brief essays in the book in which he explained how his relations with editors affected his assignments and the style limitations which he had to observe.

Seeing these images made me hunger for a similar book filled with luscious, perfectly-reproduced images of just these photographs on large pages of great paper. Hopefully, a publisher will indulge me in the future. Now that will be a more than five-star book!

After enjoying the poses and compositions, I suggest you think about where in your life you may be presenting yourself or your ideas in ways that steal much of their power. How can you ovecome that tendency?

Put your best foot forward, whenever possible.

This retrospective shows Helmut's work as it appeared in numerous (mostly european) Vogue magazines. It's great to see how his photography was marketed through the decades. This collection is focused mostly on his 60's and 70's work.

This brief book is part of the Oryx Frontiers of Science Series, a series designed to explain major discoveries and issue in science-related fields and to provide "a useful resource for high school science students, college and university students, instructors, and anyone with an interest in current trends and issues in physics," according to the publisher's advertising. There is one brief chapter on Basic Research in Physics, one on Applied Research in Physics, one on Unsolved Problems, one on Biographical Sketches of 40 physics, and one on Social Issues in Physics. It is a book that can easily be read in one sitting. The author's writing style is interesting, but in my opinion he attempts to cover too much ground in 200 pages. It provides fleeting glimpses of many interesting subjects but never develops any of them in any depth. It is almost devoid of illustrations, other than a few photographs, which is quite unusual for a book that is designed to "explain" major discoveries. For the modest amount of content, it appears to be overpriced.

This is my first encounter with the Oryx Fontiers of Science Series. I picked this particular volume from our University Library to read Chapter 1--Basic Research in physics and Chapter 3 --Unsolved problems inb Physics. My comments are, therfore, restricted to those chapters.

Ch 1: I found the discussion on the Standard Model refreshingly simple, clear, accurate and current. It starts with a discussion of the discovery of the top quark in 1997 and goes on to discuss frontier topics such as exotic mesons, neurino masses etc. and it continues to discuss topis in Astrophics such as Inflation Theory (A modification of the Big Bang), dark matter, anitmatter, Antigravity, Bose-Einstein Condensates. It is remarkable that this topics can be discussed in a language that is accesible to even non physicists.

I did find minor historical issues that I question. The Book says Neutrinos were anounced by Fermi in 1930. Pauli annouced neurinos and initially called them neutrons in 1930. Fermi developed the first Weak Intercation Theory in 1934. By then,the real neutron was discovered by Chadwick in 1932. So, Fermi introduced the term neutriono (the little neutron in Italian). The Book also states the Genral Theory of Relativity was announced in 1905 by Einstein. It is common knowledge that Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 and the General Theory in 1916.

Ch. 3: I have no complaint but praise for any book that attempts to discuss unsolved problems in physics in a simple, non mathematical and non technical terms. Topics such as dark matter with strange acronyms such as as MACHOs, WIMPs etc. and their effects on the fate of the universe are clearly discussed. I found the discussion on the illusive Higgs Boson fascinationg. It is described as waterbug that gains mass as it swims on top of honey. The technical explanation on how Higgs Bosons gain mass requires knowledge of nonlinear quantum field theory.

Ch. 3 ends with brief discussions of String Theory and M-theory. These are highly mathematical topics that aim to unify all physics. M-theory is the latest modification of Superstring theory. [All this is dicussed in the the popular book "The Elegant Universe" By M. Green]. Ch 3 of the book in review says (correctly) that M intitailly stood for Membrane (instead of string). It aso states that some think M satnds for Mysterious, Marvelous, or even Mythical. I would like to add that some of us think M stands for Mother. i.e., M-theory is the mother of all theories.

Among the many virtues of this book(may be series) is the careful listing of relevant references to websites. Not ony does it give the URLs (www addresses) it also includes the dates when they were accesssed.

The title of the book promises software to aid in software measurement. Unfortunately the software installation is poorly designed. This makes installation diffucult if not impossible. The software support that is mentioned in the book is nonexistent and unresponsive. I don't recommend the book.

This books is the next step in the evolution of Dr. Barry Boehm's seminal work, Software Engineering Economics (it was NOT written by Dr. Boehm, however). It provides a logically laid out format that examines measurement at each stage of the development life cycle. I was impressed with the attention paid to testing and V&V. I have not tried the software that comes with the book (book includes a CD ROM with a product called PAMPAS); however, I view the software as an added bonus. It is certainly not required to gain an extradorinary amount of knowledge from reading the book from cover to cover. Highly recommended!

If you like books that make you laugh then you'll like this book! It's not really supposed to make you laugh, but it does{hehe}. This story is about a boy who has to vote in an election but he doesn't know if he should vote for his best friend or his true love{Oh! How rmantic!} for class president. This story makes me laugh because you don't expect the things that happen, to happen. Some of the parts that make me laugh are about him{Rob-main character}and his "love" because they're trying to act like they're teenagers in love{hehehaha}. If it makes me laugh then it'll at least make you smile{hehehaha}.

Have you ever heard of a book with a very close election? Well you've come to the right place.This book is very funny and its about a boy named Soup and his best friend Robert. Soup is running for president against Norma Jean Bissel. Shes a girl in the school that is also running for president. I gave this book 5 stars because its very exiting. I think you should read it it's the bom

I am a guidance counselor, and I am trying to get an elementary careers unit up and running in our school, and I was appalled when I read the page in this book about the musician. At the end of the verse, the author says "If the neighbors complain, they can lump it." Do I want my kids going around telling people to "lump it??" Is this what we should tell our students???? I hope not!! I also agree with the other review about the violence in becoming strawberry jam if you fall off a ladder. I had high hopes for this book, and the rest of it I loved. Take out the firefighter and the musician and you'll have a hit!

Funny and easy to use book. The children stayed interested with the poems that were in the book. What was really fun about the book was that there was a place to put a picture, so there was a face in all the illustrations. You could use a picture of yourself or one of the children. The poems were very humorous and gave a brief idea of what would be involved in a career. The book mentioned some jobs thta might interest young children and was very simple for them to understand. I would recommend this book to any teacher attempting a career guidance unit with young elementary school children.

This was a most hilarious and good natured book. For all ages, young and old. My children got a kick of seeing themselves in the book on each page. A big Bravo!