Richard Haas is a trompe l'oeil artist (a style of painting that gives an illusion of photographic reality). Not content with the usual practice of painting to canvas, he applies his art to the sides of buildings. He takes boring, blank building walls and transforms them into unbelievable elegance. Adding realistic looking windows to these walls is child's play to him. His true talent lies in creating three-dimensional scenes. What was once bare brick is now fully windowed with a grand curved stairway entrance complete with sculptures and fountains.

A dreary Con-Ed substation comes alive with a new architectural style. Windows and doors appear, and the crowning touch is an open courtyard that penetrates the entire building and shows the Brooklyn Bridge behind it - remember this is a flat brick wall.

The photographic realness is truly awesome. The book is full of high quality color prints on glossy paper. If you like photography, art, and architecture, then this is a must read book.

Richard Haas is an extraordinary artist who uses buildings rather than conventional materials for his artwork. His work is displayed on historic buildings in some of the world's greatest cities. Because of his art, some of these buildings have been saved from the wrecking ball. Not only is Mr. Haas's work exciting and interesting to look at, but it also brings life back to aging cities. Definitely a great coffee table book.

If you enjoy with the Sandman histories, you're gonna love this book. In this book you can find a description of a lot of customes in the Dream. Many times in The Sandman i've heard about several customes, that i didn't knew it, and because of that i don't get what the history was about. If you have this problem, this is what are you looking for, or if you love The Sandman histories like I do, your are gonna love this book too.

Don't be fooled by the title- although it focuses on the dark side of every Wraith, this outstanding book contains tons of important information on all sorts of subjects- from exactly what your Eidolon IS, and when it comes into play, to roleplaying romance and love.

Other important topics covered include exactly how Castigation affects your Shadow- and while your Shadow is by definition your adversary, the isn't always your enemy. There is a lot more to Psyche/Shadow interaction than just "I'm the Good Guy, he's the Bad Guy."

Every Circle of Wraiths should have this one- you owe it to yourselves... and to your Shadows. :)

Richard Garfield is the creator of Magic The Gathering card game. This book gives the reader an in-depth look into the game and shows the beautiful illustration that each card contains. This is a must have for all players and collectors of the card game.

If you are currently collecting or playing Magic cards, I suggest buying this book if you dont have it NOW! It is filled w/ information, fully illustrated cards, interesting facts, playing tips, etc. Also, buy the Magic Encyclopedia Volume 1.

Great book of pictures of Mirage, Visions, 5th Edition, Weatherlight & Portal. Helps alot with viewing the cards for collecting.

Volume 4 covers Urza's Saga, Urza's Legacy, Classic, Urza's Destiny, Portal: Three Kingdoms, Unglued, and Starter. As always, this volume covers ONLY those expansions released since the previous volume of the encyclopedia. After covering the individual sets, the book gives an overview of 1998 World Championship decks. The book concludes with a "Deckbuilders Indexes" section, as in the earlier volumes of the Magic encyclopedia, but this is now out of date (see Volume 6 or higher).

The introductory material (i.e., the section before the expansions are presented) is a bare minimum in this volume: "How to Use this Guide" and "A Visual Guide to Magic Cards". Each expansion covered in Volume 4, as usual, is provided with an introduction, describing any new twists added for that set (including new types of decks that came about as a result), and any noteworthy cards in that set. The introductions provide an informative overview (including descriptions of storylines that were added or updated by the release being described). The entertainment value of the introductions is in inverse proportion to the number of broken cards in the expansion and the severity of the flaws, so with the exception of the deliberately broken Unglued expansion, the introductions in this volume are rather bland. The individual cards for each expansion are listed in alphabetical order; they're shown at about 3/4 actual size. The versions of Magic that included those cards (at the time of printing) are specified, as well as any errata. The card lists' images artwork and flavour text came out well.

Having said all that, I would rate this as a mediocre, and even dull volume of the encyclopedia. Consider, if you will, that I have ranted about the encyclopedia's policy of dribbling out a few expansions at a time instead of waiting until they have a substantive amount of material built up. So why have I rated this volume as highly as I have?

I'm very fond of the Unglued expansion: that deliberately broken expansion put in for fun, deliberately designed to wind up the rules lawyers, and stuffed with in-jokes about broken cards in previous expansions. "Blacker Lotus", for example, has artwork similar to Black Lotus, and it's even more powerful - but you have to tear up the card to play it, and it's rare. Lots of cards for summoning chickens, squirrels, and clams (Clam-I-Am, Clam Session, and Clambassadors are all cute). The introduction for Unglued points out lots of little things you might miss on your own (e.g., each card has a word down by the copyright; placed in numeric order, the cards spell out a hidden message from the designers).

As is typical with this series, the books are great for collectors looking to complete sets. These books are also useful to anyone who plays regularly and is looking for information on cards that can help them beef up their decks.

Volume 4 contains Urza Saga, Legacy, Classic, Portal-3K, Unglued, Starter as well as Top 1998 World Championship Decks. Wizard of the Coast really should wait until at least Urza Destiny come out before relasing this volume. But this is again a great book with nice picture, information as well as the printing quality is great. Although it might not be the right time to issue it but as a M:tg collector, this is one of the book that should be on your bookshelf (Volume 4).

The characters were well defined but not believeable. It did win me over in the end but it was hard getting there. Especially the 9 year old daughter. Her dialogue was not like any other 9 year old I have ever heard.

Although I enjoyed reading this book, the plot was a littleunbelievable. How typical would it be for a woman to instantly sleepwith a man who she had not seen in fourteen years, and who had abandoned her and their son? Otherwise, the story was a little on the sad side, and I felt bad for the characters at the end. It was also a quick book to get through.

Let's face it. It's not your usual everyday occurrence. A married woman, with two children from this marriage and a teen-age son from a very early liaison, does not, as a rule, take up with the teen-ager's father whom she had not seen since he had abandoned them when the child was an infant. Not only that, but the woman's husband, who at first is thunderstruck and rather radically over-reacts, ends up by accommodating said terminally ill lover in the couple's home. Strange - But - it works. EVERY DAY by Elizabeth Richards, is a beautifully written book. If you can suspend your disbelief somewhat you will be rewarded by a story of living, breathing three-dimensional characters who think and feel and suffer and eventually come out better and more human than when they began. If at times you want to shake the protagonist, Leigh, out of her self-absorption which is so monumental that she permits family and friends to condemn her without so much as a peep of self-protection, by the end of the book, most all is forgiven by the reader, at least, as this flawed family somehow picks up the pieces and moves on.

This book was superbly illustrated and organized. It listed and evaluated every card for both sealed deck and tournament play. This was very helpful for myself, only an average player. However, I wish that it had included more overall combo techniques and discussed some of the trends and changes in deckbuilding schemes which Tempest unleased on the tournament level of play. This would have been helpful for evaluating Tempest cards in relation to previous expansions.

In modern times, legal firms scour the internet looking for ANYTHING which comes up as a hit for a trademark, regardless of any actual infringement. To make things worse, they are attacking noncommercial activities, and squelching free speech because of the simple finances involved in defending yourself. This book does a FINE job of explaining exactly what THEIR rights are, but not a very good job at all of explaining fair use with trademarks, what constitutes infringement, and what makes up commerce. If you're looking at this book to help defend yourself from some 'cease and desist' letter you unfairly received, sadly it is of little help. I hope in the future they add items for the common man.

I bought this book for my job when I realized that there was a dirth of trademark knowledge in the office (and in my head!)

It has proven to be very useful. I find the book's organization to be very intuitive. Each section (patents, copyrights, trademarks, etc.) has alphabetical definitions of the related terms. There are even examples of official correspondence.

Although my main goal was to learn more about trademarks, I have learned a lot more about patent terms by reading the book. This book finally helped me understand continuations and divisionals.

My only complaint is that the book tends to focus on U.S. filings and doesn't include a lot of foreign information. I know this would probably make the book longer, heavier, and more dense -- but I tend to have more foreign maintenance fee questions come up in my day-to-day job.

Still, I'm very happy with the book and find it very useful and well-written.

An analogy would be Webster's Pocket dictionary compared to the full text. This book is more like the pocket version. I really liked the layout. I thought it was very easy to read, understand and find things. The statute summaries were accurate and insightful. Still, the definitions weren't exaustive, the summaries were cursory and the text would have to be supplemented to be a complete reference.

I would recommend this book, esp. to a non-lawyer. But as for what I was expecting it just needed more depth.

I recently returned from a 3 month tour of Europe and took this book with me. While it did have a number of major European cities in it the actual information about them was definetly lacking. I found my self usually better off with out a book at all as opposed to only having this one. Several other travelers we met felt the same way and some were lucky enough to have Lonely Planet guides. For the money spent I'll stick to them or Rick Steves in the future. i.e. This book would take you to the train station/ subway but then fall short on what the heck to do to get a ticket!!! Which is important information stranded in 20 different stations/ subways a month each with different customs. Frommer's did do an excellent job of pointing out all of the gay and lesbian districs and bars in each city and the gay friendly hotels and shops... but they also have a strickly gay guide to Europe as well. The amount of space used for this information could have been better allocated for more pertinent information. I'll have to give a thumbs down on this book. Take something else with you or take nothing at all.

Frommer's does a good job with the general hints on travelling cheaper, but unless you plan on visiting only the major cities and capitals only, look for another book. There are 24 major cities and surrounding areas covered from Ireland to Budapest, but that's not many cities in comparison with all of Europe. I only will have a short time in Europe and that means that I will only be able to visit two of the cities listed and have to use another book for everything in between. Lonely Planet is much more inclusive and definitely covers the lower price scale.

Just returned from a 2 month trip using the 2002 guide. I found the recommendations for the restaurants to be excellent. After realizing that the Frommer's writers and I had the same tastes, I made it a point of seeking out all of their 'starred' recommendations for restaurants. The sightseeing descriptions and recommendations were also quite good. The hotel recommendations were not as good. A few of the hotels we stayed in that were not 'starred' or listed as a 'Find' were not as comfortable as hotels in other books.

We traveled with this Frommer's, Rick Steves, Lonely Planet and Rough Guides through France, Belguim, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Italy. We liked Rick Steves' recommendations for lodging, Frommer's for restaurants and both for sightseeing. Lonely Planet and Rough Guides were not used if in a Frommer's city. If in a Rick Steve's city (but not Frommer's) we used Lonely Planet for restaurant recommendations (not as good a Frommer's but better than Rick Steves).

Background: Two travelers, professional, early 30s with enough money to stay out of the hostels, but did not want to blow the bank of 5 star lodging. Rick Steve's packing philosophy. Both traveler's love to eat!!