As sais in the title this book provides some basic blacksmithing techniques. You'll find a lot of drawings showing the way to make the tools needed in your shop by using "scrap" metal.

A good initiation to metalworking but definitively not a book for the experimented blacksmith.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I actually purchased it in Switzeraland as a reminder of the year that I lived there. The book even mentioned things that I did not know about living there! I recommend this book for anyone interested in the culture, life, and government of the Bernese and Swiss people in general.

Although no photographs by Ellis are provided, this book is helpful for therapists who are familiar with RET or at least cognitive therapy. It touches on many therapeutic topics, basically providing the handful of irrational beliefs that are likely to be encountered in each problem area. Of course, these are always variants on basic irrational beliefs or faulty thinking, but the book is helpful guidance for eliciting and working to change these irrational beliefs. The range of topics is the real value in this book: super-romantic love/obsessive love/jealousy, divorce, healthy lifestyle, substance abuse, excessive religiously-based concern with sin and guilt, and death.

I just got this book from Amazon.com and I'm already enjoying it. It discusses very well many details on the Jewish Museum Berlin by Daniel Libeskind. Great photos and floor plans are provided as great visual aids. You can really gain an appreciation for this unique building by getting this book.

Cubre los aspectos más importantes acerca de las Bases de Datos. En la sección 3.3 los alumnos suelen encontrar los conceptos un poco ambiguos. Lo mismo sucede con al exposición de la notación del DER, donde a veces utiliza extensiones de la notación antes de presentarla. A pesar de todo puede decirse que, en general, es muy claro en su exposición y agradable su lectura.

"Happy New Year" will teach children not only that different cultures around the world celebrate the new year in many different ways, but that they also do it at different times of the year. This book also takes us into the past to learn how the ancient Greeks, Romans and Druids viewed the coming of the new year. Emery Bernhard explains how in ancient times people were not always sure that spring would come again and so there were rituals involved to help appease the gods and spirit. Consequently, this book explains not only how the people of Bali, Ecuador, Japan, Egypt and so on welcome the new year but why they do what they do. We learn why noise-making is important in greeting the new year, why the Burmese pour buckets of water on each other, and why Jewish families eat apples dipped in honey. Children will learn about customs from throughout the world, some of which they would even be able to do in their own classrooms. For example, in Columbia the tradition is to put an egg in a glass of water and watching how it changes to predict what will happen in the coming new year. Sounds like fun, huh? Artist Durga Bernhard provides colorful illustrations for each of the many lands children will visit in reading this informative book. Remember, this book can be useful for any time when people are celebrating their new year and not just at the end of our calendar year.

"Heaven: A History" is an excellent account of the varied & always-changing beliefs of Christian afterlife. Written in a clear language with fine scholarhip by scholars.

Essentially chronological, Chapter One is titled "The Dawn of Heaven" & discusses Semite & Hellenistic Jewish beliefs as they existed at the time of Jesus. The final Chapter 10, "Heaven in Modern Christianity." looks at fundamentalist, Mormon, Catholic, liberal, existentialist & mainstream conceptions. The book ends with a short, thoughtful essay of summation & 40 pages of fine print notes.

Other chapters are: Jesus & the Christian Promise; Irenaeus & Augustine on our Heavenly Bodies; Medieval Promises; The Pleasures of Renaissance Paradise; God at the Center: Protestant & Catholic Reformers; Swedenborg & the Emergence of Modern Heaven; Love in the Heavenly Realm; Eternal Motion: Progress in the Other World.

Especially intriguing is how our concepts of heaven reflect our ideals & hopes in Earthly life. Christian Heaven is hardly static. It has something for everyone, from estatic, egoless communion with the Divine Spirit, to endless angelic songs of praise, to the middle class family unit in a perfected state. & yes, Grandpa sitting on a cloud watching over us.

Some denominations make claims as to the definitive knowledge of our post-mortal destination. Others leave it up to the believers. The point is, dying is the most intimate experience we will ever know, so we seek reassurance where & how we can, with scripture, faith, reason & tradition; from the Bible, from Dante's poetry, from Paul Tillich's theology; from Jack Chick's cartoons. Indeed, here is one House with many mansions.

The writing in this book is easily 5 stars. Knocked down to 4 for lack of a good bibliography or color illustration. The black & whites are excellent choices.

The book itself is like the lime works in which the reader finds him/herself lost, the walls constructed of bits of hearsay and rumor collected and disseminated by various neighbors and acquaintances of the strange old man currently living in the lime works with his invalid wife of whom he takes cursory care and on whom he conducts strange experiments (of the auditory type) because he is gathering information for the book he is writing, the book he has been writing for quite some time, well, actually the book that he has been preparing to write for years but which he has not actually started because he is afraid that he might get it wrong and he knows that it must be a brilliant work -- for his research is of the most brilliant nature -- and he is simply driving himself mad with it, though he seems not to notice anything unusual except for his exceptionally keen sense of hearing and the most amazing thing about the book, not the book in the book, but the actual book by Thomas Bernhard, is that it is about writing the book that the reader is reading and it is difficult to put the book down even for a moment, not just because the book is intriguing and complex and disturbing, but also because the book is composed (to resemble the workings of a madman's mind) of several hundred pages of run-on sentences

This book might be helpful for graduate level students interested in values research. The chapters of the book are well-organized and the language used allows quick access to ideas in most parts. While a little overemphasizing the use of indigenous concepts with a concern for providing unconventional terminology the book remains as one of the few valuable sources outside mainstream values research in the US.

With a title like The Professional's Book of Gerbils, I expected a dense tome for the scientific minded, above-average reader, seeking information beyond the "Your First Pet" variety. Thus, the light-hearted, picture book quality of The Professional's Book of Gerbils took me by surprise. While it didn't deliver much new information, the book's striking photography and the author's genuine appreciation for gerbils' unique and endearing personalities makes it a worthwhile read (or look, as the case may be).

The multitude of clear, sharp, colorful photos is this book's strongest selling point. Those featuring gerbils interacting with people serve to highlight the animals' friendly, gentle natures, while others capture these inquisitive creatures enjoying a range of interesting habitats and toys. However, certain photographs depicting inappropriate housing or handling deserve cautionary captions which, unfortunately, are absent.

As a long-time gerbil owner, I know how important it is to provide adequate wood and cardboard items for gerbils to nest in, climb on, and to chew. Thus, I was disturbed when several photographs featured gerbils in enclosures with nothing but a layer of bedding. Another showed an obviously too small plastic cage (another no-no) housing two adult gerbils, while several other photos depicted gerbils housed on cedar chips, which are known to cause respiratory problems and liver disorders in some animals. In the handling section, the book did stress that gerbils' delicate tails should never be grasped at the tip, but only at the base if necessary. However, at least one photo showed a gerbil being handled in an inappropriate manner.

The book provides a fair amount of gerbil history, selection, husbandry, and breeding information, but what I liked best was the author's informal and lively commentary. His descriptions of gerbils and interpretations of their behavior, though somewhat anthropomorphic at times, reveal great compassion and fascination. As an animal shelter worker who witnesses the tragedy of pet overpopulation on a daily basis, I would have appreciated more comment from the author on responsible pet ownership and greater emphasis on the consequences of overbreeding. Other books, such as Gerbils: A Complete Pet Owner's Manual, by Raymond Gudas cover this topic more thoroughly.

I would recommend The Professional's Book of Gerbils to experienced gerbil-lovers who will marvel at the striking photography and hopefully overlook the book's few shortcomings. Aside from its rather misleading title, The Professional's Book of Gerbils is nevertheless a delightful visual foray into the world of these captivating creatures.