I thought TV Towns was just fabulous! It's fun, informative, and full of interesting facts about a variety of television shows. I couldn't stop reading about all the programs I watched as a child-from 'Dark Shadows' to 'Petticoat Junction'. It really brought back fond memories of my favorite shows growing-up along with some more recent addictions like 'The Simpsons' and 'Dawsons Creek'. If you want to know where to dine in Cicely, Alaska or how high the murder rate is in Cabot Cove this is where to look. I especially enjoyed the "Did You Know" sections for each chapter. Mr. Tropiano is an informed, witty writer. This book will make a great gift for anyone, including yourself!

This is an excellent book for intermediate German students. Short native fables are written in German with easy to understand vocabulary and grammar. A good appendix explains the grammar techniques presented and a glossary of words you may not know yet. This makes it an easy book to carry around and read when time permits (you don't need to haul around that German dictionary). Also in the appendix is a short history of the story in English, which helps enlighten you on the culture around these tales. I found it a fun way to practice my German skills.

If there has ever been any question about the legitimacy of Vonnegut's work as literature, The Vonnegut Chronicles dispell all doubt. Unlike other criticisms, the Chronicles is a page turner, and one that you will come back to time and time again...I know I have!

A handy guide for waitstaff" everything from proper positioning while pouring water to cutlery placement.
Easy to read and well recommended by this FOOD INDUSTRY NEWS staffer!

If you enjoy reading - and playing around with ideas and tools from Roger von Oech's A Kick in the Seat of Your Pants and A Whack on the Side of Your Head,- you will definitely like to read this book. It provides really great whacks for your brain. I have always enjoyed reading - and playing around with the ideas from - Kurt Hank's books. I have all his books, which include Rapid Viz, Design Yourself, The Change Navigator, Up Your Productivity. Like his other books, this book is very well illustrated, graphically and conceptually. It provides a step by step approach to the practical strategies of developing your creativity.

"A work of meticulous detail, bounded by academic discipline, that still manages to scream off the page and impart a burning passion for its subject. ... A prose style that stays thankfully close to good storytelling. ... mark[s] Kurt Lancaster's arrival as a welcome presence ... Will surprise the most inventive thinker." -Neil Nixon, Fortean Times

The Friedman brothers are without a doubt two of the most brilliant satirists alive. Warts and All contains capsule biographies of a variety of obscure individuals and bygone celebrities. There are odd juxtapositions of serial killers and celebrities. The artwork (meticulously crafted with rapidograph) is excellent. Warts and All is dark, very dark comedy. It is not for everyone. However, if the reader is familiar with the references, one can appreciate what a virtuoso work this is. Highly recommended for the twisted lay person.

Where the Echo Began covers oral traditions from Southwest Alaska, recorded by Hans Himmelheber and observing the life patterns of the southwestern Alaskan peoples as observed by a young university graduate who recorded their lives. Where the Echo Began features the translated contents of Himmelheber's notes, with the editor's notes and discussion of his role as an observer supplementing excellent observations of native peoples. Black and white photos round out the presentation.

Whether you are interested in toy vehicles or real buses, this book offers a feast for the eyes. An astounding array of model buses from some 20 nations - diecast, plastic, tin-plate, and cardboard - awaits you; the material is extremely captivating. But beware, if you do not already collect model buses, you may find yourself doing so after perusing this book. Also included are many antique and rare models one doesn't see all the time. Granted, not every model is included and the survey could be a little stronger regarding models from the former Soviet Union. Nevertheless, this book has a lot to offer and I heartily recommend it to anyone with more than a passing interest in buses.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is a great anti-war masterpiece. Vonnegut takes readers on a journey of life both pre-war and post-war as experienced by Billy Pilgrim. The psychological characteristics that define Billy are a direct result of his war experience and eye witness account of the bombing of Dresden.
Billy's 'ability' to travel through time allows him to view the dramatic events of Dresden several times, it also allows him to view his own birth, death, and everything in between. Some discredit Vonneguts writing as containing little to no focus; however, he wrote in such a jumbled fashion for a reason. Vonnegut is quoted as saying " it is jumbled and jambled, moves all around, it doesn't make sense, nor does war."
After reading Slaughterhouse Five I re-evaluated my personal opinion on war; Vonnegut paints a vivid picture of the traumatic effects of war on the individual in combat that war no longer seems justifiable by any means.
I began reading this book at an ironic time, immediately before the events of September 11. As I continued to read and gain an understanding for the novel, the devastation that the United States is currently dealing with can in no way compare with the devastation as a result of the bombing of Dresden. In both events the side taking action effectively made a point; however, they did not do so without claiming the lives of several innocent civilians. The bombing of Dresden is a part of American history that cannot be erased and puts a damper on American pride.

Kurt Vonnegut creates an intricate and creative story of science fiction while still writing an anti-war novel. " Slaughterhouse-Five " focuses on an incredibly silly character named Billy Pilgrim. After a series of tragic events, aliens called Tralfamadorians abduct Pilgrim. These aliens have the ability to travel to any moment in time whenever they wish. They teach Pilgrim how to travel through time and we find him constantly traveling back and forth through his own life at random. We find Pilgrim one moment reliving the firebombing of Dresden and on the very next page teeing off at a country club ten years later. Incidents exactly like this can be found adorned through the book along with Vonnegut's distinct wit and black humor. One of the stronger points in the book deals with free will and predestination. Billy Pilgrim and the aliens believe that everyone's life is set in stone and everything that we do was destined to happen. One Tralfamadorian tells Pilgrim, I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will." If such a thing were true then obviously the notion of free will is nothing more than human imagination used to fool ourselves. Thought provoking subjects such as this grab the reader's attention and never lets go. Although the writing style is a bit strange and takes time to get used to, Vonnegut manages to weave an intricately detailed world of laughter, war horrors, and moral issues. Slaughterhouse-Five is a truly creative and incredibly entertaining read which comes highly recommended.

On February 13-14, in the year of 1945, 65,000 incendiary explosives were dropped upon the peaceful and beautiful German city of Dresden by British and American forces, burning 135,000 men, women, and children to death (15,000 more than the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima). So it goes.
The author of Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, was one of the 100 people to survive the bombing, and then only because he was deep under the ground in a slaughterhouse being held as a prisoner of war. For the main character of the story, Kurt Vonnegut invented Billy Pilgrim, the imaginary protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five, to also witness the somewhat unknown firebombing of Dresden. The damage that the event inflicted upon Billy's mind becomes apparent throughout the course of the book, beginning with the fact that he experiences time by jumping from event to event in his life, similar to a severely shell-shocked individual.
The story is presented in a calm and informative manner, with absurd, disturbing, and often unexpected events mixed with the often mundane and uneventful story of Billy's life. It is through these bizarre events that many of the book's main points are presented; for instance, aliens known as the Tralfamadorians (who view the universe through the fourth-dimension) kidnapped Billy Pilgrim in his warped mind and showed him that the true way to view the universe was to see it all at once, as a huge picture, and then to focus only on the times that were pleasant.
In my opinion, Slaughterhouse-Five is a book that should be read by every human being on the planet. Who knows, maybe people might realize that destroying people's lives and minds over issues they don't have anything to do with won't make the world a better place.