The photos are beautiful as promised. But if you're really looking for a sourcebook of ideas for your home, as this one claims to be, you may be disappointed. This book treats stone and tile with nearly religious reverence; all I wanted was something nice for the kitchen! Some of the treatments are absurdly elaborate, and the text even analyzes the provenance of many of the stones. More creative people might find inspiration here, but for me it was much ado about nothing.

This is definitely an idea book. Every page is saturated with the
origin of these primitive materials; the enormous variety of uses
beginning with carved stone and earlier. If this book doesn't awaken your imagination, nothing will. These are the materials of the ages. I found it to be very exciting.

The pictures and ideas are amazing. I didn't know such things could be done with tile. The book saved me from running from retail store to store to get ideas. I almost didn't buy the book because of another reviewer saying it only has pictures of product from Ann Sacks stores. I personally don't care where the product came from, the pictures and ideas were great all by themselves!

The photos in this book are very nice. However, there's not much to learn from the content. This isn't a "coffee-table" book. It's more of an "end-table" book. A much better book for a little more money is called, I think, "The Sax and Brass Book." It has even better photos, and it also has a big section at the end with the serial numbers through the years of many sax companies and lots of information about what years were weak, when companies sold or moved or burned down, etc.

A beautifully presented book. As the operator of a small vintage saxophone website, I really appreciate the information given.

This book is primarily a history from the player's perspective, but it also has some info about the design and manufacture of the horn.

Few technical or historical errors that I saw. I've seen that he's really tried to research his material -- he was a regular on a few vintage sax discussion boards.

I wish the book were longer and had more information on the horns themselves!

A delightful and fun overview of the history of the saxophone in music, with some wonderful photos. It's not an indepth study - which is part of it's beauty. Anyone can pick it up, open to any page, and enjoy a morsel of saxophone history. The pictures alone are almost worth the price of the book. Enjoy it.

I would say that only about 15 percent of this book has material that is really useful as lateral-thinking exercises. The rest of it is too vague to be of much use. Useful questions should be specific enough to narrow down a solution by exercising the various methods of lateral thinking. For example, you should be able to come up with a specific solution by considering ways in which your assumptions affect how you understand the question. This book has too many "why did the chicken cross the road?" questions that require you to be psychic in order to get anywhere near the solution or require you to pull some obscure fact out of the clear blue sky.

I picked up this book after completing "Archimedes Bathtub; the Art and Logic of Breakthrough Thinking" by David Perkins. The book expounded on the benefits of this genre of mind puzzle, and I wanted to check out some of them for myself. I was a bit disappointed in what I found for several reasons; the puzzles were identical to the most common puzzles I had come across (including "There's a man coming home"); many of the same puzzles can be found on any of the multiple lateral thinking websites; and finally many of them were so laden with historical knowledge that the problem was more a test of trivia knowledge than what could be considered a true lateral thinking puzzle.

That being said, the book was well put together with good hints and final answers located far enough from the answer so as to prevent haphazard skipping ahead to answers. Some of the puzzles were quite ingenious, and there were two review 'tests' which allowed you to monitor your progress. It is very clear that the author had spent some time with the puzzles, and the illustrations, while corny, did help to break up what would otherwise be a very short book. While the book was somewhat disappointing in the aforementioned areas, it did succeed in its most basic claim, and for that reason I would recommend it to anyone looking to learn a little bit more about the subject, as I imagine the book to be as good as any available (who knows, I may yet read a second).

If you are already well-versed in lateral thinking puzzles, this might not be the book for you. If you are looking to find out more about them, this is probably as good a place to start as any.

I got this book, along with 3 other Sloane & MacHale lateral thinking puzzle books for Christmas one year. At first it seemed like a sorry excuse for a gift, but as I read this one first, I found that it was a challenging endeavor of the mind. Lateral thinking, it seems, is taking a situation and finding a solution that is not the most obvious, but usually the most logical. That said, this is challenging to say the least. A good book for people who enjoy mind games.

Perhaps the most promising part of this book is Beyerl's astrological correspondences of the herbs. Unfortunately, it is also the part needing the most work. For example, Beyerl tells us that the energetics of a solar herb is hot and drying, and that a lunar herb is cool and moistening. This is actually very helpful information. However, he lists ginger as a lunar herb!! The logic of this absurdity defies comprehension! Ginger is one of the hottest and most drying herbs we have! Clearly it should be a solar herb! This most obvious contradiction calls into question Beyerl's other correspondence listings.

If astrological herbalism is to be taken seriously -- and there is no reason why it cannot be, assuming it accurately portrays the energetics of herbs -- it must become more rigorous, adopt accurate criteria for classification, and come up with a comprehensive and noncontradictory system that is also useful in clinical practice. Peter Holmes' book The Energetics of Western Herbs would be a useful place to begin, as he accurately describes the advantages and disadvantages of the Galenic system that astrological herbalism builds upon. Rather than attempting to interpret the planetary attributes of an herb according to its analytic effect upon isolated tissues, it would be better for astrology to develop a bodily energetics based upon the planetary archetypes. In this way, the energetics of a planet would nicely fit both physiological conditions and herbal properties, rather than trying to fit an energetic model into an anatomic model which it poorly fits. Planetary attributes of herbs must be distinguished in terms of various categories : medical/therapeutic, archetypal/active, etc. For example, certain plants have become associated with the activities of certain planets / gods which makes sense mythically, but not necessarily clinically in a medical or therapeutic sense. This does not invalidate either, but requires specific elucidation in an herbal, so we may distinguish amongst categories.

We need to be fair. Beyerl has done a great deal of synthesis in his book, especially on the magical properties of herbs, which does not particularly interest me. And he cannot be blamed for the rather pathetic state of modern astrological herbalism, which is in great need of intelligent, synthetic, and clinical revival. However, without dialogue with the author -- which I would welcome, by the way -- I cannot understand his method of planetary alignment with many of these herbs.

I will say that pages 434 - 453 ("Working With Astrological Correspondences") is one of the strongest parts of the book, which gives us an awesome and fairly comprehensive nature of the energetics of the planets. It is only when we come to the listings that I begin to question.

I picked up this version of the herbal Magick books because I wanted to see what mr Beyerl had t offer to this vast and sometimes conflicting magickal practice.

After reading through the book and using the index to find what I am nedding I must say where is "The Master Book Of Herbalism?" I want it..

Mr Beyerl has done tons and tons of research on this material (check out the Bibliography) and it shows. His entries are precise with magical associations, common names, and other names.. It also includes suggestions for use.

Not only that but, it takes the time to explaint he various ways to use herbs.

This is a wonderfull addition to any occult library..

I am always looking for books on herbs and herbal references. I took to herbs and their properties many years ago, healing being my original pursuit. Organic and natural healing and healthy alternatives attracted my attention back in the early 70's and its resurgence as Holistic medicine and Natural healing practices have encouraged a plethora of books on the subject.

What is different about this book is that it focuses on the magickal properties of each herb listed. As a Witch, I have always sought after these kinds of properties to include them in with the known healing aspects of herbs.

As you read through this book, you have to be amazed at the time and research Mr. Beyerl has put into this book. From the various names of each herb, (Latin, common and "also called") to the planetary associations and magical classifications to the historical references, lore and all the various associations, this book is just chock full o' information on the over 300 herbs he has listed.

The bibliography reads like a who's who of herbal references and is worth the read. This book has been very deeply researched, and the best part is that it also includes a wonderful "Part III" section of associations, correspondences and even astrological information. This makes the book a real value. The index is well thought out and very thorough, important to a book like this. If the index is lacking or poorly planned, the book becomes useless to use as a reference. Not the case here, as this is an easy to use reference book.

This is a great book and one I am glad to add to my library as a reference book for the magickal properties of herbs.

Julian of Norwich is the best-known medieval English anchoress, but her life is too sane for Dr. Moorcroft. His sado-masochistic novel features a little-known lapsed anchoress, Christine Carpenter of Shere. Raped by the Lord of the Manor only in Dr. Moorcraft's lurid fiction, she walls herself up in conditions no medieval parish would accept. He matches this with Michael Duval, a demented 1960s Catholic priest who kidnaps and tortures young women so that they may "become" his fantasy girlfriend, Christine. Dr. Moorcroft misses no possible cliche, no imaginable foolish error, no modern superstition about the actual Middle Ages. He hasn't got a good grip on the 1960s either. The last of Duval's victims, Marda Stewart, is a remarkably stupid young woman, who survives mostly by accident and her genuine cooperation with her captor's fantasies. In this book no one thinks; "instinct" and "intuition" rule. I felt extremely sorry for the real Christine Carpenter, a confused but earnest young woman, who honestly tried a difficult vocation and failed.

A well written book but the graphic description of rape and torture was gratuitous. The characters and the story were engrossing, the suspense and horror palpable but I found it difficult to keep going after the first violent chapter.

This book takes its time telling two stories intertwined on the page and in the mysteries of the past and the future. One story is that of Christine Carpenter, a young girl who voluntarily entombs herself as an anchoress in her 14th century church in the village of Shere... and that of Marda Stewart, who is violently entombed in 1967 in this same village of Shere by a pshychotic Priest who is obsessed with his fictional retelling of Christine's story. The narrative of the book is engrossing and very effective at pulling the reader into both stories simultaneously. Jettisoned between the harsh realities of the Middle Ages and the terrrifying events unfolding in the 1960's there are graphic descriptions of terror that are necessary in understanding the horror and exhultation that can be experienced by the body, mind and soul. Only through journeying through these graphic passages can the reader come to fully appreciate the final pages of the book which offer an eloquent and profound lesson in redemption.
The book is not meant to be a historical document on the dogma of the Church or the nature of anchoresses and instead the author uses these as the premise to paint a canvas of the evolution of faith and the power of the human spirit. But mostly, through the three main characters, the reader comes to see religion and especially faith (wether meek devotion or fanatical obsession) as an individual journey that has a mystery all its own.

i just finished this book and i found that it is a good book to get some back ground on the early years of kyle's green lantern adventures.it's funny how far kyle has come along.i missed the early years(having read the title the last two yaers or so).i found that the book had a good start to it but then it slowed down in the middle.the ending how ever was great!kyle finds out what it takes to be a hero while in a great battle with grayven. this book is deffently worth checking out!

Baptism of Fire collects most of the early Raynor GL issues. In them, you'll see a cocky, headstrong kid begin to grow into the responsibility of Green Lantern. Most of these stories owe themselves more to the classic Spider-Man stuff ('with great power comes great responsibility')than the Hal Jordan ('I have a magic ring and I play space cop between beers')era.

This is the second CrossGen title that I have read the first being Sojourn, which I unequivocally recommend. It's a total surprise how good these titles are, because I have resisted reading them. I've read DC and Marvel exclusively. I decided to purchase Negation Book 2 and was blown away by the artwork, the characterization and pacing. Each chapter if filled with tension and you quickly catch on that there is more to this band of former prisoners than meets the eye. I was impressed to say the least and I have read more than my fair share of comics. I will have to go back and purchase book 1. It's kinda exciting and yet frustrating to be hooked to a new title.

This book is perfect as a gift for kids who wish to start out in a/c modelling. It covers the absolute basics, and should get them up and running in no time.

However, the a/c covered in the book are of ancient kits, most of them from the 60's-70's. Technology and standards have improved by loads since then. How one is expected to procure them now is anybody's guess. If the author had taken up some of the recent kits, and showed his stuff, it would have been more useful.

Also, most of the techniques covered in the book are more than available in any of the good modelling sites on the Net now. So I don't see any reason why an intermediate modeler should put his money in this book. Ashey's two books cover most of this stuff and more, and are definitely my rerefences of choice, than this one.

This is a good book but it is very basic. It tries to use specific models building projects to show techniques. I like the way it starts with a basic snap-together F-117 and goes up to major modification of an existing kit. Unfortunately it doesn't go deep enough into each kit to really show the techniques. On the plus side, the photography is great and mostly in color. I would recommend this if you are just getting started but I think anything beyond that would be disappointed.

This book has several projects. Each one increases in difficulty. If you'r new to this hobby, this is a great book. You learn what tools and techniques are needed to produce good-looking models. An experienced modeler probably knows alot of the info in this books already. Only one, small chapter is dedicated to display so don't expect anything stellar in that area. All in all an interesting book on everyones favorite hobby.

While I found his concepts very interesting and many of his stories beautiful in and of thesmelves, Nabhan fails to bring his book into a cohesive argument. He vaguely alludes to his concepts of the importance of biodiversity to cultures, and how a diversity of cultures promotes biodiversity, I felt as if I were drowning in nostalgia as he told this and that tale without making their significance clear and... significant.

There were interesting thoughts and stories, but as an entire book, it disappointed me.

Gary Nabhan's book has images in it that are complex and, judging by some of the reader's reviews, too fine-grained for some people's tastes. Like all great written works, Gary has taken the time not to oversimplify or over-generalize, but the resulting ambiguities and lack of forcing these essays into a pre-ordained thread has left me with images that will stick with me for a long time. They, like the ecosystems and cultures that he describes, point to a complexity which reveals itself slowly and over time--lifetimes, in some cases. It is this complexity that he celebrates and mourns the loss of as the cultures and languages that have evolved close to the land become increasingly diluted and discarded in the rush of assimilation that has overtaken so many cultures,languages and landscapes. His case for breathing life back into our landscapes THROUGH our culture and language is compelling, and a challenge to us all, wherever we live.

So few nature writers (Barry Lopez being one notable exception) are concerned with dissolving the artificial wall between humanity and nature. Nabhan takes this objective one step further by showing that biodiversity actually depends on the survival of human communities. In specific, human communities that have adapted to and depended upon natural systems for their own survival. For those who are interested in conservation, environmental science, human cultures, Native American societies, ethnobotany, archaeology, and anthropology, this book is a must-read.

The best puzzle books start with problems that are interesting and non trivial, and offer unexpected solutions. They appeal to a crowd with different levels of education and offer a new idea or two to all. They will lead an unsuspecting layman to a new beautiful mathematical subject, and treat a pro with a lighthearted yet technically sound look at the concepts he is already familiar with.

"Dueling idiots" is none of that. To read it you must be more than familiar with probability theory, and at ease with going through rather tedious calculations and using mathlab. Yet all a sophisticated reader finds here is absence of fresh ideas and technical sloppiness.

I am giving it two stars rather than one because it could provide some probability theory buff with a nice set of "real life" applications -- good as an auxiliary text book for an undergraduate probability class e.g. Apart from that, you will find a better puzzle book almost anywhere you look.

There is surely a need for a book like this but sadly this one doesn't do the
job. The author clearly has no idea what's really required. On p 20 he has
the results of five runs of 10,000 simulations to estimate the probability
P(A) of an event A. Now P(A) is known here, so these simulations are just an
ATTEMPT to verify that the program is working correctly. The author merely
notes that "the estimates for P(A) are a bit on the high side." No kidding!
All five runs produced consistently high estimates, and combining the runs
there's only one chance in 87 that the overall estimate would be so high
(ASSUMING the program were working properly). Of course, it's POSSIBLE that
the procedure is correct, that such high estimates just happened by a long
shot, but my email suggesting that the simulations be rerun drew no reponse.
Given this failure to demonstrate that a KNOWN probability can be estimated
properly, goodness only knows how good/bad UNknown probability estimates are.
Little wonder so many bombs are missing their targets in Afghanistan.

Turning to how the random numbers were generated I promptly noticed the table
of autocorrelations on p 184. These are not only bad, the zero-lag
correlation (a variable with itself) is 1.023!!! Given that it should be
nothing but EXACTLY 1 I initially thought this was a social comment on the
age of the generator, but machines were NEVER THAT bad. Rather, you'll find
the reason in the mishmash just above the table.

Indeed, in what little I read, statistical concepts are massacred. Further,
on p 27 there's an expression for pi which is actually mathematical nonsense
(ie, it is incorrect). At that stage I quit reading, it's so painful.

Nonetheless, I'll give the author two stars for TRYING to fill a void. He
just needs someone to correct everything, which is obviously no small task.

Books on probability are often boring. (Remember all those tedious problems involving people obsessed with drawing balls from urns?). In "Duelling Idiots", Nahin actually makes the subject fun by describing offbeat problems with unexpected solutions. If you like solving math puzzles, then this is a great book to look at. If you're teaching a course and want to assign a book that students might actually read, then look no further.

I reviewed this book hoping to find a decent introductory overview of the history and basics of music. At the start, this text looked promising. It featured an accompanying interactive CD set with samples of the music overviewed in the text and appeared to cover a wide range of music.

What I found was thoroughly dissappointing - not necessarily the material itself, but the way the book was written. A reoccurring theme of political correctness made me want to gag at times, and at others it prompted only dissapointment at important parts of the history of music that were neglected in the place of politically correct anecdotes about multi-culturalism and entire chapters devoted to obscure composers who are included solely because they happened to be female.

The politically correct themes of this 500 page book ranged from the casual use of extreme PC terminology such as "Before the Common Era" (BCE) instead of the now politically incorrect "Before Christ" (BC) to more bizarre ventures into the realm of modern artistic "Electronic Music." At times the attention paid to modern eccentricism is an embarrassing reflection upon the author in my mind. He names and gives brief biographies of more obscure post modernists, figures in "electronic" music, and neo-romanticist composers than he does for the ENTIRE BAROQUE AND CLASSICAL PERIODS OF MUSIC COMBINED.

The detriment of doing this does not go unnoticed. The author completely neglected any mention whatsoever of the contributions of significant composers including Georg Philip Telemann, Dimitri Kabelevsky, Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan), William Byrd, and Gustav Holst. Similarly the contributions of Correlli, Johann Strauss, Elgar, Couperin, Gluck, CPE Bach, Orff, Borodin, and countless others recieve only brief mentions of a line or two.

Amazingly, after having left out so many significant composers, the author finds room to devote the better part of an entire chapter to the obscure Baroque era harpsichordist Elisabeth-Claude Jaquet De La Guerre and even features a composition of hers, even though she was known more as a musician than a composer and even though her musical contribution was far less than any of the above mentioned composers who were neglected by the author. Jaquet De La Guerre, at best, is an obscure footnote in the history of music, especially compared to giants like Johann Strauss (who was largely neglected) and composers of some of the most significant works of music in history, such as Holst (the Planets), Orff (Carmina Burana), and Corelli (father of the concerto grosso, an important musical form itself that was also discussed in only a sentence or two by the author).

Almost laughably, the author, in light of all his omissions, takes time out to mention modern "ska" music, Curt Cobain, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Ice Cube," Michael Jackson, and the Jefferson Airplane. At least the reader can rest assured that the Jefferson Airplane got paid more attention by the author than one of the most prolific composers in history (Telemann)!

There is a newer version - eighth edition

I had read this book when I was a music student, and thought, at the time, it was one of the most interesting books ever assigned by any teacher. I am now a music teacher and have been recommending this book to the students who came to me asking for a good music appreciation book. To say everyone is happy with the book is to understate the fact. The book, indeed, speaks for itself!