To challenge myself, I decided to study in order to take the Technician amateur radio operating license exam. I picked up this book, which bills itself as a complete source of information. Not so.

Despite the fact that the book is in its 4th edition, it is poorly edited. Information jumps from basic to full jargon in the same paragraph, without any definition of the new terms used. Much of the information on the basics of electric circuits and electronics seems to be pulled from an electronics text.

I'm an engineer, but not an electrical engineer. It's been years since I studied electric circuits and this book did little to refresh my memory. The information on FCC regs is sparse -- the complete Part 97 is not included. The question pool for the multiple choice Tech exam is included, but only the letter answers are provided without any explanation of the answers (leaving the reader to try to find the information in the rest of the book).

I'll look to another source to help prepare for the exam.

A must? for beginners. Very easy to read. I'll recomend this book only if you have extra time. You can die without reading it.

This book shows how to model a toddler doll from head-to-toe as the title suggests, but the sculpting techniques presented are more appropriate for clays used in large masses, i.e. not polymer clays like Cernit and Sculpey. A better book for sculpting young children using polymer clays is Rotraut Schrott's "Making Original and Potrait Dolls in Cernit".

I agree with the previous reviewer - this is definitely a better book for people making porcelain dolls than dolls from polyclay. I am fairly disappointed and still have a lot of questions. However, it was very helpful regarding sculpting over an armature and gave me some what of an idea of how to then proceed to make a mold from my polyclay piece. I also have Rotraut Schrott's book and I honestly don't find that one all that much more helpful for my purposes. I am really trying to figure out joints and making mold at this point and I am having a difficult time finding a book that will help me as they are all geared towards porcelain. And the polyclay books all assume you are making one of a kind dolls. The pictures are good in this book though and I feel I have a little more grasp on what I'm shooting for now - so I give it 3 stars which to me means average. I wish I had thought twice before buying it. There must be a better book out there.

This CD is made up of images which are of such poor quality that the CD is totaly unusable. Polymer clay is a visual art and I purchased this CD in the hopes of seeing examples of another's work and learning from it. The images were so blurry and indistinct that it was impossible for me to do this...

...so I won't say anything...

IT'S GOT E V E R Y T H I N G!!
I LOVE the book!!  It is informative and very easy to follow.  Wonderful color pictures are included which give the clay artist at any level new ideas and a fresh look at this exciting medium.

I can only add that it is good to learn about all the different types of  clay available, since some of us are not familiar with all of the various new clays and their components, like the glazes.

And I especially loved the information given with regard to the metallic foil.  They look terrific when mixed with the clay...

J.

This book displays an in depth analysis on a tiny Mexican village on how people make their medical decisions. The authors did a superb job on analyzing intricate details. However, the level of this book is beyond the average reader. If one is not familiar with statistics and the medical anthropology jargon used here, then it is basically worthless to read this book. It is so dry that one would have a better time chewing cardboard. However, if medical anthropology is your cup of tea, then the book may just be the thing you need to explore the world of Mexican curers and phyisicians.

While alternative treatment is often considered the exception to the rule in the United States, this is not the case in many areas throughout the world. This book documents a study which examines why residents of Pichataro (a small, traditional, predominantly poor, Mexican town in Tarascan) choose one type of health treatment over another. The authors use their study to develop a set of rules which can then be used to predict what type of treatment the average villager will choose in any given situation.
I liked this book. It has any easy to read writing style, making for quick reading, and does not have the incessant statistics and jargon found in most anthropological studies. However, being an Anthropology book, I thought it talked down to its intended audience a little too much, in that I didn't like the way the authors used first person references to 'talk' to the reader or refer them to what they've already read.
Yet overall, I would say that this is a good beginner's Anthropology book, which offers great insight into the traditional Mexican community and the factors which contribute to their medical treatment choice.

This book has recipes that are impractical for good home cooking

When I ordered this book, I had hoped to find some basic, practical recipies. Instead, many of the recipies are based on ingredients that might do for special occasions, but not for everyday family dining on a modest budget. For instance, the author seems only to like "boneless, skinless" chicken breasts; I find that these "supremes" do not hold up well cooked this way - too dry. It's almost as if she is attempting to devise recepies that cater to the health- concious fanatics and yet produce an entree with a bit of flavor left! I tried the one whole-chicken suggestion, but found the anise had lost most of it's flavor by the time the bird was done. What a pity. Perhaps I'll do my own book-"Basic Meals in a Clay Pot"

Clay Dancers has a good mystery which I did not guess, two suspenseful chases, and an interesting ending. However, I was often confused by what was happening, when it was happening and who was involved. There were too many characters. It also seemed as if the author were trying, unsuccessfully, to imitate the book Falling Woman by Pat Murphy--a lonely, eccentric female archaeologist, on a quest, spirits from the past, people being killed. Dawkins attempted to develop some interesting characters (especially Hooper John). However, the book is billed as a mystery and as a mystery it was hard to follow.

Viel was a great man, but there are way too many errors in this Clay Giants book. The second and third editions were suppose to correct the errors made in the first book. All have great pictures, just don't believe everything you read and take it all with a grain of salt.

Alyson Publications apparently attempted to do for gay men what Harlequin, Silhouette, etc., have done for straight women - create a sexy, melodramatic romance novel replete with handsome men, exotic locales, wealth, and plenty of complications. A Different Love is one of their earliest novels, and like many others from the same period (the early to mid 80's), it's a modestly scaled little potboiler whose chief merit is as entertainment. Billy and Hal are a mid-West couple who relocate to San Francisco to live and love more freely. They're both exceptionally handsome, of course, but Billy is young and adventuresome, while Hal is older and more conservative. Their divergent natures lead to a breakup, as they explore relationships with others. The novel starts off with some promise, and there are occasional flashes of good writing, but there is much evidence of haste too. Things wrap up too quickly and too neatly. And the lead characters are, despite their beauty, a couple of dullards. It's the lovesick bartender Frank who is far more interesting, and Larkin, in a infuriating move, has Hal dump him rather unceremoniously. I was about ready to toss the book down at that point.
Still, one must appreciate Alyson's efforts in those days to provide positive pop fiction for gay men. For collectors of gay pulp, this, like most of the Alyson titles from that period, is worth looking for.

Wow, how disappointing. I am a grower/lover of bearded irises and automatically purchase any newly published book on the subject. This book is just set up poorly to read, the varieties depicted are from the author's garden(I assume) are bland, boring, and non representative of some of the finest varieties of bearded irises out there. I really didn't appreciate most of the photography either...a lot of that artsy "looking into the center of the flower" stuff. The only reason it got even two stars is that I appreciate the author's text in some areas and that she's endeavored to create a book to showcase and promote the iris. Unfortunately, the overall effort seems to fall short.

Frankly, this book sucked. The entire story focuses on a girl who witnesses her father's death, who is now being hypnotized by the mysterious "Mr. Midnight" via the telephone, who instructs her every few months as how to change her identity, and what new location to move to next. The entire story is incredibly silly and highly unrealistic. Also, there were a few pieces of it that were rather confusing, and left my brain scrambled trying to figure out what was going on. If you want a good romance, don't pick this one.