This book gives an excellent overview of the coin grading and the attempts to artificially alter coins to enhance their apparent value. The book is organized in essay format, with good flow between chapters. Numerous diagrams make this an easy read. As might be expected in a general work, some aspects of the work deserve a more complete treatment than they receive here. This is a good read, and a worthwhile introduction. I am not a "coin person", but I found this quite diverting.

This is a real good book I would recommend for anyone. There is a whole lot in this book to explore. Sometimes I almost think it is WAY TOOOOO BIG!!! But it isa wonderful book, and it is at a WONDERFUL price here!! Pick it up! It is a good book!

There is more knowledge packed in this book than any 10 coin books combined. I now know the standards involved in Mint State grading, although the average collector like myself should understand that you probably won't be able to sit down after reading this book and tell the difference between an MS-64 and an MS-65 if you couldn't before. Still, I am much more comfortable now in all stages of grading, and much more confident when buying and selling coins. The counterfeit detection part is probably not relevant to the average collector, but it is interesting information that adds to your knowledge of the hobby and the enjoyment of collecting.

As novice birdwatchers, this book was indispensable for planning our birdwatching trip to SE Arizona. It gave specific locations to visit for birds that you could expect to see there. Directions were clear and concise. With help from this book, we saw nearly every bird species we had hoped to see. This book is a must for this region!

Having taught B&F in my early 17th cent. drama class, I can recommend Wit without Money and, to some extent, The Wild-Goose Chase. I would not bother with Wife for a Month, one of the weakest and poorly written of their collaborations. Nevertheless, this is a handy book.

This an excellent book, that teels the reporter what needs to be done when writing engineering and techincal reports. I like its organization and skillful thoughts. The book provides hints on how to write lab and project reports. It has 14 chapters. It answers many questions on Writing Style and Report Format. I really like the samples that the author presents. He provides exampls of miscues in technical writings and suggests solutions. The book talks about how to deal with equatins, figures, photographies, and many important elements in report writing.

Specifically written to be accessible to the lay pet owner by experienced veterinarians John Bower and David Youngs, The Health Of Your Dog is a solid and reliable guide to taking optimum care of a canine companion. From house training a puppy, to dealing with behavior problems, keeping an eye out for symptoms of diseases and veterinary care options, The Health Of Your Dog is an extremely practical reference for dog owners everywhere and a highly recommended addition to community library Pets & Wildlife reference collections.

I am certainly recommend to any body who is involved with basic design education in communication design

This book profiles and explores the lives of four doctors who helped advance the medical practices of the Japanese during the Tokugawa shoganate's regime. It explains the the obstacles of teaching in a closed society and Japanese reverence for health and medicine. This is a wonderful resource and an interesting read.

I found this book to be very enjoyable reading. The book goes into depth about the battle that occured at Chickamauga and Chattanooga, but does not require the reader to be familiar with Civil War history. I found this book to be easy to read as well as enjoyable. Unfortunately, Bowers writes with a sympathetic viewpoint towards the CSA and goes into detail about Chickamauga (which was a confederate victory) but barely gleems over the battle of Chattanooga. good book for the lay reader, but you historians and civil war buffs may be disappointed.

No one will ever accuse John Bowers of letting historical facts get in the way of telling a good story. Hyperbole? Lively? This is a good overview of the campaign, especially for beginners, but Bowers is really interested in telling dramatic stories about the major figures. But he needs to check his facts. For example, on page 101 he introduces Ambrose Bierce, a lieutenant in the 9th Indiana Infantry, and uses an excerpt from Bierce's post-war short story "Chickamauga" to illustrate the fighting. But on page 146 Bowers calls him Captain Bierce, an officer in an Ohio battery and chronicler of the battle. Although a serious student of the battle will do much better to read Steven Woodworth and Peter Cozzens, many will find Bowers very entertaining. Bowers is from East Tennessee and is the grandson of a Confederate cavalryman who fought in the battle. Bowers' best story in this book is in the Acknowledgements and concerns a Virginia patrician historian at the New York City Civil War Round Table. This alone is worth the cover price!

This book is one of the best history books I've read in ages. The story is presented in a gripping style and the characterizations and revelations are done majestically. Take for example this description of Leonidas Polk: "A handsome man with a full head of wavy graying hair and strong Roman features, he always seemed on the verge of giving a benediction or asking that the fried chicken be passed."

Mr. Bower's descriptions are entertaining and enlightening. Chicamauga isn't about strategy, it was a soldiers fight. What mattered was the character of the men involved. This book goes into the details. I cannot recommend this more highly.

As the other reviewers write, this is a great literary companion, especially to Ulysses. Nabokov writes wonderfully. I can imagine that most people would read this book as they read Mansfield Park, Madame Bovary, Bleak House, etc and would flip back and forth. However, my paperback copy was very poorly bound and fell apart. So my advice is get the hardcover edition.

In his opening lecture, Nabokov says, " ... great novels are great fairy tales -- and the novels in this series are supreme fairy tales." The tales discussed are Austen's "Mansfield Park," Dickens' "Bleak House," Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Proust's "The Walk by Swann's Place," Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," and Joyce's "Ulysses." In addition, there are lectures "Good Readers and Good Writers," "The Art of Literature and Commonsense," and "L'Envoi" -- the first being his opening and the last being his closing comments on the course. These are lectures not polished by Nabokov for publication. There is a companion volume on Russian literature.

The examination of the works here is purely literary. The works are examined in minute detail. For example, in "The Metamorphosis," Nabokov goes to some length to determine what insect Gregor became. Not a cockroach, as some suggest, but rather a beetle. And he draws pictures. He wants us to understand the layout of the rooms in the Samsa flat. The devil -- that is, the art -- is in the details. Some might object that there is more to some of these works than is discerned by such a point of view. Granted, but nothing precludes looking elsewhere for (say) a more philosophical treatment of "The Metamorphosis," or God forbid, thinking about it on one's own.

In his closing comments, Nabokov says, "In this course I have tried to reveal the mechanism of those wonderful toys -- literary masterpieces. I have tried to make of you good readers who read books not for the infantile purpose of identifying oneself with the characters, and not for the adolescent purpose of learning to live, and not for the academic purpose of indulging in generalizations. I have tried to teach you to read books for the sake of their form, their visions, their art. I have tried to teach you to feel a shiver of artistic satisfaction, to share not the emotions of the people in the book but the emotions of its author -- the joys and difficulties of creation. We did not talk around books, about books; we went to the center of this or that masterpiece, to the live heart of the matter."

just a correction: Nabokov wrote two different books "lectures on literature" and "lectures on Russian literature." most reviewers here are talking about the wrong book.

When rating Shakespeare, I am rating it against other Shakespeare; otherwise, the consistent 4-5 stars wouldn't tell you much. So if you want to know how this book rates against the general selection of books in the world, I suppose it might rate four stars; it certainly rates three. The language, as usual in Shakespeare, is beautiful. Still, it's far from Shakespeare's best.

For one thing, this is one of those cases, not uncommon in Shakespeare's comedies, in which the play has suffered a great deal by the changes in the language since Shakespeare's time; it loses a great deal of the humor inherent in a play when the reader needs to keep checking the footnotes to see what's happening, and this play, particularly the first half of it, virtually can't be read without constant reference to the notes; even with them, there's frequently a question as to what's being said. At least in the edition that I read (the Dover Thrift edition) the notes frequently admit that there's some question as to the meaning of the lines, and there is mention of different changes in them in different folios.

But beyond this, as an overweight, balding, middle-aged libertine, I object to the concept that Falstaff is ridiculous just because he is in fact unwilling to concede that it is impossible that a woman could want him. Granted, he's NOT particularly attractive, but that has more to do with his greed, his callousness, and his perfect willingness to use people for his own ends, to say nothing of his utter lack of subtlety.

Is it truly so funny that an older, overweight man might attempt to find a dalliance? So funny that the very fact that he does so leaves him open to being played for the fool? Remember, it isn't as though he refused to take "no" for an answer; he never GOT a "no". He was consistently led on, only to be tormented for his audacity. Nor is he making passes at a nubile young girl; the target of his amorous approaches is clearly herself middle-aged; after all, she is the MOTHER of a nubile young marriageable girl. And given the fact that she is married to an obnoxious, possessive, bullying and suspicious husband, it is not at all unreasonable for Falstaff to think that she might be unhappy enough in her marriage to accept a dalliance with someone else.

If laughing at fat old men who have the audacity not to spend the last twenty years of their lives with sufficient dignity to make it seem as if they were dead already is your idea of a good time, you should love this play. I'll pass.

i've just finished reading/watching all of shakespeare's comedies and mww is one of the funnier ones. it is a lighthearted look at marital jealousy and features one of shakespeare's great fools, falstaff (of henry iv fame). the out-and-out funniest shakepearean play is still "taming of the shrew", imho, but mwv runs well ahead of the laggards, and certainly well ahead of such better known plays as "twelfth night" and "as you like it".

Shakespeare, considering he wrote this little gem of a comedy in a mere 14 days for the Virgin Queen, pulls off a play that proves both witty and fun. Unequivocally, The Merry Wives of Windsor makes for a more enjoyable play if seen live. Nonetheless, reading it is the 2nd best thing.

Sir John Falstaff is once again such a fool - but a lovable and hilarious one at that. Having read Henry V - where Falstaff ostensibly had met his end - I was pleased to see him so alive(pardon the pun) in this short, albeit clever play. It is no surprise that The Merry Wives of Windsor enjoyed such a long and successful stage run during Shakespeare's day and continues to be one of his most popularly staged plays. Recommended as a fun break from the more serious and murderous Shakespearean tragedies.

"Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open." - Pistol