The material itself is well presented, follows a logical pattern, and is complete for exam purposes. This book will not make you an NT guru, but is quite adequate for the exam.

There is no other book, to my knowledge, that does what George Gruhn does here.

First, let me say that I respect Mr. Gruhn's knowledge. There are probably few people in the United States with his encyclopedic knowledge of guitars. I have corresponded with him myself, and he was very helpful

But, I am disappointed in one aspect of the book. I own an 1897 model George Washburn guitar which was made in the nineteenth century by Lyon & Healy. It is a small bodied "Parlor Guitar," with Brazilian rosewood sides and back, spruce top, and ebony fingerboard and bridge. It has beautiful tone, and I love the instrument. It is almost as beautiful as when it was built, and because of the aging of the wood, I'm sure that it plays better.

In this book, Gruhn only briefly discusses Washburn's guitars, and the short reference is buried in the Gibson pages (which is very detailed), because in the late '20s, when the Tonk Brothers acquired the Washburn brand from Lyon & Healy, Gibson built a few of them between 1938-40.

George Washburn (someone has said that his last name was actually Lyon, hence Lyon & Healy) was an American guitar maker, and he built superlative guitars. I've heard that his closest competition at one time was Martin. To give him short-shrift in such a book as this, I find incomprehensible. It isn't as if Gruhn did not know about the guitars--he told me much of what I know about them.

But, perhaps I nitpick. This is a fine book. I recommend it to any guitar aficionado who is buying, selling or trading guitars--especially American-made guitars--or even one who simply wants to learn more about these wonderful instruments.

Joseph Pierre

In this book they go to the south of France so Hillary cn attend a prestigious cooking school. Hillary wants to rent a house that is expensive (even for her) so she gets other people from their Alabama town to go to France with her. Of course there are murders and Hillary and Jane are in the thick of things but end up solving the murders.

I actually wondered about the people who ended up being involved. I didn't solve it exactly but was on the right track. I can't wait to read the other books in this series: Deathday Party and Leading an Elegant Death.

Nanette Hayes may be smart and sassy, but she's rather directionless. Armed with a master's degree in French, a love for Paris, a taste for Rimbaud, a refined palate on a beer budget, and a true love affair with jazz, she spends her days playing saxaphone on the streets of a New York that Ms. Carter captures so lyrically.

This novel reminded me of the seminal French film 'Diva', with all the plot twists and unusual characters - crooked cops, $60,000 stashed inside a saxaphone, an elegant yet aging criminal who worships Charlie Parker, and a no-nonsense exotic dancer with a taste for Wall-Street investments. Oh, and a gay lower-level mobster who becomes Nanette's confidente of sorts.

The story centers around the urban legend of the Rhode Island Red, a saxaphone that was supposedly given to Charlie Parker from a mobster as a bribe to play at a wedding. A saxaphone that was reportedly filled with heroin.

Charlotte Carter writes in the breezy rhythmic style of a jazz musician, and the book was a joy to savor. I can't wait to get my hands on the next book, 'Coq Au Vin'. Our heroine goes to Paris...ooh la la!

It doesn't have aarons birthday on it, but thats okay, if you love him you'll buy it anyway :)...its really good

Instead of using the boring text sample that litters the letters sampled in font catalogs, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," Carter gifts us with vignettes. The font Scotty Normal is shown with the sample, "Would I have been a PGA Champion?" This could be read as a stream-of-conscious novel if it weren't a font book. With each sample, he lists the name and which type house sells it. The sources for the fonts are listed at the end, including several listings for free fonts.

It is indispensable for a new designer, or a student of typography. For me, as someone who uses typography as a secondary part of my job, I found it a strong tool for familiarizing myself with font families. I'd say a seasoned might not find it as useful, as much of this kind of information can be found elsewhere.

Anthony Trendl

The book is great if you're a would-be font designer and are looking for inspiration. It's great if you're looking for a font to add pizzazz or personality to a graphic or flyer. It's also great for the casual typeface fan who simply enjoys looking at typefaces.

I agree with the author's statement in the book's introduction that he wanted a font book that "didn't have one mind-numbing sentence repeated time after time" throughout the book. While pangrams such as "The quick brown fox..." are standard and useful in that they (by definition) show every letter in the alphabet, it can become tedious to see the same words again and again. Having the fonts set in different sentences also adds interest to the look of the pages, and benefits those who wish to see how a font looks in a different combination of letters.

There are a few of problems with the book:
1. Fonts are listed by general category and then alphabetically by name. This makes it difficult and time-consuming to search for just one font if you don't know its name and have only a limited idea of what it looks like.

2. There just isn't enough sample text to truly get a good taste the font. The sentences and snippets probably average 8 words long and consist of a dozen different letters, which, in my opinion, is not enough to truly get a sense of the typeface.

Identifying fonts using this book will inevitably prove difficult. Each passage is unique and does not use every letter in the alphabet. So if you are relying in the distinct gap between the strokes of the letter G in a font to help you ID it, you may be out of luck if the sample text doesn't have words with G.

Ideally, font samples should display every letter twice (in capitals and lowercase forms), numbers, and punctuation characters. Granted, it's not realistic to expect that a book covering 5,000 fonts would be able to accomodate such thorough samples.

Of course, these are only problems if you're relying on the book to ID fonts for you. And in this book's defense, these weak points are common to a lot of font books.

On the whole, I found this book a welcome change from other font books that seem to think themselves pieces of art and are bent on showing me how modern and cool typography can be. If you just want a really big font book that will show you nothing but ton of samples, this is the book for you.