This book brings back the many forgotten works of William Wurster. It balances the architect's story and illustrations well. I recommend this book to architecture enthusiasts who want to reach beyond mainstream architecture.

The book is easy to read and well set out. I often notice a characteristic of someone's face and look it up when I go home. Like most arts, face reading is not going to be 100% accurate all the time, but I am surprised at how often it's given me insight into someone's nature that has turned out to be true!

The Grand Review is not only about the climatic end of the Civil War, but rather the beginning of modern America. For students of Civil War history, this book provides rare insights into an event that is still part of America. The writing that describes the two-day parade marking the end of the war is griping in its detail. And the authors forcefully make the point that although the fighting has long since ended, many of the forces that led to war remain with us. A compelling read for any person interested in American history.

To be honest, the reason I bought this book was it came with a small pair of gardening gloves, which my tiny gardening apprentice (aged 5) could don when he "helped" in the garden.

Then I had a look at the book, and it is good. It has some good basic growing thing projects for kids - eg planting a window box, growing a runner bean in a jar.

Good for parents to give them ideas and to read with kids- I don't really think the age group that would be interested in these activities would read it independently!

Beautiful illustrations in the sharp photographic house-style of Dorling Kindersley.

Fialka served as a reporter during the first Gulf War in 1991. This small volume documents the trials and tribulations of FIalka and other members of the press corps dealing with the military, which in most respects was wary of the press, based on experiences lingering from Vietnam.
However, Fialka has more criticisms...his own peers in the press share an equal blame in his eyes, based on the way they handled themselves within the press pool, frequently trying to one up the other. He also criticizes the press organizations who sent reporters with no experience dealing with military matters to cover, what up to this point, was the largest military story since the Vietnam War.
Fialka does have some positive things to say: his praise for the Marine Corp's ability to handle the press stands in stark contrast to that of the US Army. He also praises the tenacity of the reporters that bucked the pool system to get the real story, even risking their own lives to do so.
THis book is an interesting read, based on the complete reverse situation recently demonstrated in the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom. It would be interesting to see what Fialka would say about his brethren who were embedded, and how that may or may not have contributed to getting the best face on a story.
A quick read, and if you can cut through some of the "its not fair" dialogue, a good review of press operations during the first Gulf War.

Maas is a good story teller and he keeps your attention the whole while as he takes you from the beginnings of Wilson's thirst for money at age 8 to his acquisition of prime property in the Washington, D.C. area as a result of his secretive and illegal dealings with foreign powers. Though CIA senior officers were members along with him in phoney corporations he set up to conduct his "import-export" business), any official connection to the CIA while all this was going on isn't clear. Yet the prospect of any CIA connection to Wilson's shipments of thousands of pounds of C-4 (plastique) to Libya and Mohamar Kaddafi is, indeed, very troubling. As the author pointed out, when jets started falling out of the air (Lockerbie) and discos blowing up (Rome), you couldn't help but feel that if not for Wilson, many of these things might not ever have happened. It seems that whereever 20th century evil was to be found, the CIA was either right there, or not too far behind.

This doesn't give you any great insights into the inner workings of the world of spooks, but it is certainly an interesting read and does afford at times a look at how the Justice and State Departments work--or fail to work.

They weren't kidding when they called this "a complete guide." Practical techniques for every conceivable low-light situation. You need a manual camera to use these methods-they won't work with a fully automatic point-and-shoot, but I think anyone interested enough to buy this book would already have a manual camera.

Loses one star because some of the information about specific films and equipment is a little out-of-date.

This volume is an excellent introduction to the breadth of Shaker experience, the diversity of writings, and the depth of thought. Shakers are often unfairly associated with an idealized view of a lifestyle or fine furniture rather than their groundbreaking theology, vital interaction with society at large, and unprecedented ability to take themselves both lightly and seriously. This volume respects "the Believers" and kindly reveals them to ecumenically minded folks. Students who can appreciate a tradition with a fluid nature will enjoy this book.

I had hoped this book would provide some useful information on older SO shotguns. The book devotes lots of pages to the subject, but it seems that almost all of the information is available through the old catalogs that are downloadable from Beretta.com. There seemed to be an effort by Wilson and Beard to build more romance and mystique into the Beretta brand, hey guys that's what Beretta has a marketing department for!

This is a beautiful book for the coffee table but if your looking for a book with useful data then keep searching.

It's beautifully illustrated and he relates many interesting and deliteful anocdotes about the Beretta family. Less attention is paid to the technical side, I do agree that Beretta firearms are uniformly of a high quality but Wilson's appaissels are uniformly glowing, fail to acknowledge some shortcomings (as gangarosa did) and are technically no more informative than the catalogs (which he excerpts from often). I read this book after reading Gene Gangarosa's Modern Beretta Firearms (which I also reviewed) and it compliments many of the shortcomings of the Gangarosa book. There is much more focus on their shotguns and sporting rifles. Unlike Gangarosa's book where Berettas are often talked about in relation to other inovations in firearms. Wilson's book is narrowly focused in talking only about Beretta products.

The worst part about this book is when he talks about James Bond. It sounds like such a sales pitch because while he mentions that James Bond originally had a Beretta .25ACP pocket pistol he doesn't tell us what model (Model 418 which is out of production, perhaps the company wanted us to buy one of their fine current production pocket pistols?) and remarks that in the first movie Dr. No he had to replace it with "a .380 caliber semi-automatic pistol." Like he couldn't possibly say another companies name (he even gets it wrong, Bond had a Walther PPK in .32ACP). There are other technical innacuracies. Your best option as a fan is to buy both Wilson's (the human side and colourful history) and Gangarosa's (the more technical and firearms hobbiest oriented) book. This one is well written and might have been the definitive beretta book if Wilson had Gangarosa's in depth knowledge.

Why is this book the more sales pitch and coffee table-like book? It would seem that that would more likely describe the Gangarosa book because it was published by Stoeger (which is owned under Beretta holdings). I would read another Gangarosa book because he writes more generally of firearms history, hobby, and innovation but Wilson's book is of interest only to the fan.

If you love all things Beretta, then you will appreciate this superb book. Wilson magically transports you through 475 years of history to Gardone, Val Trompia, Northern Italy, by way of some of the most delightful examples of the perfect blending of walnut, metal and handcrafted artistry.

This book fills in some background about the movie that might have been cut from the final version. Enjoyable sidelight about the Pinkertons, and also, you understand why the horses were so upset at the start of the movie.

I agree wholeheartedly about the annoyance of "Cindy Crawford hair". Where in the heck did that come from. It took me a while to get back in the mood after that ridiculous anachronism.

After Reading this book, and listening to the Movie, I think that he needs to do A little more movie watching.

I bought this book for my daughter because she really liked the movie and wanted to read the story. It reads very concisely yet has enough meat on its bones to make it interesting. It also contains eight pages of color photographs from the film. Very good!