In my opinion, this book needs to be actively published again! I used this book as a guide to grow my first vegetable garden in Richmond, VT. It thoroughly explained EACH step in the process with text and illustrations/photos. My neighbor, whom I hadn't met yet, left a letter in my mailbox around August of that year. It contained a photo of my garden and a note saying that mine was the most beautiful vegetable garden she'd ever seen and thought I would appreciate the picture of it! I have checked this book out of the library each spring since and this year it was listed as "lost!" That's why I'm here on-line: buying an "acceptable" condition copy used rather than do without! BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU CAN!

I just want to emphasize the earlier reviews: This is a great, enormously helpful guide to gardening just about anywhere (I live in southern CA and I enjoyed the section on cold weather gardening even if I never use it). The author isn't clearly part of a gardening school of thought (square foot, raised beds, biodynamic), he is just vastly knowledgable about gardening and will meet you wherever you are - a sign of a great teacher. He wrote the best section on homemade garden structures - A frames, cold frames and the like - I have seen. Not a useless or wasted page. Please bring it back!

I have borrowed this gem from the library every spring for 3 seasons, and now I am desperate to get my own. There is no better gardening book dedicated to vegetables, and the month by month schedule saves me hours of planning. No other gardening book I've found has this month by month format, and it is unbeatable! I love this book - a reprint would sell a lot of copies in Indiana, because every gardening friend and relative I have would receive a copy as a gift from me.

Vincent van Gogh is one of the truly influential painters of his day and painted art revealing complex spirituality and intense emotion that continue to impress art students, connoisseurs, and artists today. He was able to imbue his work with his own psychological presence as is especially evidenced in his many self-portraits. In Van Gogh, art historian and Post-Impressionist expert Belinda Thompson has assembled his paintings and works drawn from the archives and collections of the Art Institute Of Chicago including such famous works as an 1887 Self-Portrait, The Bedroom, and Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle. Thirty of the images are reproduced in full color, together with another twenty-two duotone comparative illustrations. Van Gogh is further enhanced for the reader with an informative account tracing the great artist's development as a painter in Holland, England, and France in a career that was to last less than a decade. Van Gogh is a very highly recommended addition to any personal, academic, or community library Post-Impressionist art history reference collection in general, and to Vincent van Gogh enthusiasts in particular.

These stickers are approx. 1 3/4" x 2 3/4" and include the title of the painting and artist name.They are clear, good quality despite being sticker size. There are many applications for these including stationary, envelopes, etc. or make great stocking stuffers.

Beautiful and affordable. They make wonderful additions to letters for friends, and my young son likes to make his own stationery with them. We also contributed some art stickers by Matisse and Degas to his classroom for a celebration of spring.

This book was the most enjoyed book by my children when they were small. We checked it out of the public library over and over again because my girls could not hear this story enought times. My daughter is about to leave for college and I want to get her a copy to remind her of the great times we had when sharing the story. She is 17 years old and to this day she says that that is the greatest book she ever read.

A good book about being afraid at night, something that most kids can relate to. As always, Grandpa has a story for Mary Ann and Louie. He tells how he was once afraid of all the frightening things he heard at night, but the kids identify the sounds as ordinary (not scary) things. This was the first book I read from the series of books about Mary Ann and Louie and Grandpa. It is also my favorite, and a favorite of my 4 year old son.

This team of Thompson and Warhola has illustrated a few fairy tales that are great introductions to fairy tales for small boys -- and for girls as well, of course! Realistic, humorous illustrations with exuberance and robust humor. The expressions on the giants' faces in this book gave my five year old son the giggles! It was a real favorite at our house. Worth bringing back into print!

Whoever reviewed this book in "editorial" needs to have their eyes examined. Grotesque watercolors? Inept humor? What are they talking about? This is the FIRST version of the Tinderbox by H.C. Anderson, one of my favorite fairy tales that I've really found to be pleasing. The three dogs with humoungous eyes are delightfully fantastic, and the hero and heroine well rendered. The more bloodthirsty and amoral elements of the tale are changed (ie: the soldier doesn't lop off the witch's head but instead traps her in a deep pit) to its improvement, IMHO. Warhola's watercolors are cheerful, fairly realistic, quite appropriate for the lighthearted and rambunctious story.
A great introduction to an exuberant tale for the young, especially for boys. It's not a wimpy fairytale by any means, even if there is a princess and kissing at the end. Warhola and Thompson do a commendable job. Should be reprinted!

This book has something for every event in a garden. Planting, designing, what to grow and how to grow it. It is one of the most useful gardening books that I have on my shelf and use it often. In the winter its great to read and work out any previous season problems and plan for the new year.

"You think I am weak and must submit
Yet I but scratch you with this poisoned blade,
And you are dead as if I clove with it
That false fierce greedy heart.Betrayed!Betrayed!"

As I think of those bone chilling lines they ring ripples of fright and despair through my still salivating soul, because there's a part of me that longs for more. I remember the first time I encounted Mr. Thomson's masterpiece. It was only a few lines, but it left me starving for more. It soon became a small obsession. I had to have it! I read Thomson's "The City of Dreadful Night" and he became an instant favorite for me as far as poets are concerned. I have read Dickinson and Whitman and Poe, but none of them compare in my opinion to Thomson's morbid metaphors and detrimental descriptions of pain and suffering. I could almost feel the words literally penetrate the deepest recesses of my darkest heart of hearts. Emotions are impossible to put into words exactly, but I believe Thomson damn near succeeded in his "melancholia" as he would put it. You almost have to take breaks in the middle of reading in order to gather your now shattered positive emotions and regain a stronger than steel composure to take in just a little bit more. I feel like Thomson is one of my best friends now because I can relate to everything that he's feeling through his darkest times. He totally discouraged me as a poet myself and crushed whatever confidence I had in my own writing abilities. But it's okay, I'll recover and resume my own confidences denial about actually having skills...I think. For all of you who haven't read this masterpiece to mankind, I strongly suggest that you sink your teeth in and experience first hand how words can be daggers in your consciousness by the absolute best there is. For everyone with insomnia, scream loudly with me the words that should be echoed to the edges of the universe...

"A NIGHT SEEMS TERMLESS HELL!"

This late-nineteenth century long poem falls somewhere between "Paradise Lost" & "The Waste Land." It contains enough beauties to be a rewarding read, yet its flaws are hard to ignore. Chief among these flaws is Thomson's readiness to insert archaic words like "doth" and "feign" to fill out his meter & rhyme. In praising the poem I enlist the support of Melville, who admired it, & Eliot, whose "The Waste Land" appears to echo it. Eventually, after taking time to search for the least-flawed section or canto of the poem, I decided that section XIII seemed the least-flawed. Then I wondered if Thomson had arranged it that way intentionally, perversely saving his best work, his im-mutabilitie canto, for unlucky thirteen.

James "B.V" (stands for Bysshe Vanolis, a pseudonym he sometimes adopted) Thomson composed this long poem while wandering the streets of London, tormented by insomnia and what he called "melencholia," what we would probably call clinical depression.

His portrait of his mental state also became a portrait of an industrial society, and the vanity and pointlessness of its various sorts of activity and effort. His City of Dreadful Night, a true city of despair, held up a dark mirror to the urban England of his day, filled with faithless churches, empty and ultimately unrewarding activity, and the despair of grinding poverty.

In an age so filled with self-improvement twaddle and the cult of positive thinking, such a poem actually seems like a breath of fresh air. It ends with a splendid portrait of Dürer's Melencolia.

Really entertaining and fun!

If Aristotle is right, and plot is the soul of drama - and by extension, of all storytelling - then Jim Thomson is the Fiction Godfather of Soul. One of his stories has enough plot to keep Proust going for another seven volumes. The characters are quirkey, the ideas original and often deep, and those plot twists just keep on coming. If you like the macabre, the perverse, the horrible, the wonderful, and the sublime, then you have a treat in store for you. Hook up with "All Knowing, All Merciful."

This book of twisted short stories by James Thomson is well worth reading. The author is clearly one of the most brilliant up-and-coming young writers of our time. WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART! If you are squeamish or sensitive to certain subject matter, do not read this book. However, if you have a good sense of humor and your tastes run toward the outre, then this book is definitely for you. I highly recommend it, especially "The Secret Legation."

As an afterthought: If the Government re-institutes censorship, this book will definitely be at the top of the list, so buy now while you still can!

Wow! Want to get beneath the saccharine veneer most historians put on America's Federal Period? Want to see politics-as-usual so bad that you'll think today's politics-as-usual is positively altruism? Want to find out what life was like for newspaper editors in the days when truth was no defense against libel suits? Read Safire's Scandalmonger. Using their own letters and speeches, Safire gives us the Founding Fathers as we never saw them in our school rooms: the proud George Washington obsessed with his public image, the erratic and volatile John Adams, the dreamy and sensual Thomas Jefferson, the practical and flawed Alexander Hamilton, the crafty and self-assured Aaron Burr, the naive but loyal James Madison, and the coldly calculating, slightly reptilian James Monroe. And through it all walk two of the most remarkable, powerful newspapermen in American history, William Cobbett and James Callender, bitter enemies in politics but accidental allies in promoting freedom of the press. Adding to the book's educational and entertainment value, Safire reveals his sources and separates truth from fiction at the end of his novel. Novel? Well, maybe.

Twistery is the word used by the Author, William Safire, to qualify where he strayed from known facts. He provides a detailed explanation at the end so there is no confusion. It is impossible for me to judge, but I am confident that to the extent he twisted known history, it is a small part of this book. If he had stayed absolutely faithful to facts as they are known, but continued the novel-like style, as opposed to dry recitation of fact like many textbooks do, the book would be diminished just a bit.

The Players are not new, nor are the stories. Mr. Safire's gift is his ability to transform what can often be the tedious study of dates and facts, into a thrilling read. If he were to write textbooks, without literary license, the study of our Country's History would reach new levels of popularity.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, James Monroe, Dr. Benjamin Rush, all old and familiar, but all new here. Duels, stolen letters, written admissions of guilt, peculation, and pecadillos, these bits are all true. The Alien and Sedition act, one of the most notorious pieces of legislation in our Country's History plays a prominent role. Add then murder, wrongful imprisonment, treason, and trials with "The Hanging Judge" Samuel Chase.

And to bring the story into the present, the analyses of certain persons DNA to at once settle 200-year-old questions/accusations. Or do they not?

It may sound strange to say that I don't want to give any of the book's stories away, for how can you give away what is historical fact? But with or without the twistery, the book makes old information fresh, and shows that our elected officials today, and the press that follow their every breath have changed oh so little.

Buy it, you'll love it!

This book dovetails nicely into the same period and subjects of two other works I have read recently, "Founding Brothers" and "American Aurora", both of which I enjoyed. This work details the Federalist period from 1790 onward, and the opening years of the Jefferson presidency, and covers the ground very well. It is a novel, of course, but so well written it seems as if Safire was a fly on the wall in the various locales of the tale, and took down verbatim the words of the characters, historical figures all. His language is excellent, as is to be expected from this writer, who is a grammar maven. Once or twice, however, I seemed to detect a hint that some of the historical events were talked about a tad before they acutually happened, and once or twice there was some duplication, which should have been caught by a more zealous editor. They didn't detract from my enjoyment of this work, and I recommend it to anyone interested in this period of American history, and in particular, interested in the human side of the historical drama.

If you are building or buying a house, you really need this book. It will give you so much information on the ins and outs of plumbing that you can't possibly go wrong if you read it. This book is a great buy, for both plumbers and potential homeowners.