I'm a collector of stuff, and most of the price guides I see are simply lists and prices, or slight variations on that theme. Here, finally, is a price guide that not only gives you lists of things with prices, but also offers you some insights into the background of the material priced. Misters Sodaro & Malloy have delivered an extended, clever, insightful look into the world of fast food toys and collectibles. most of the 40 or so resturants that are listed have company profiles, plus there are articles about the backgrounds of the various types of toys available at the various franchises. There could be more color photos, but they do have plenty of them in black and white. Hopefully they will issue an updated version of this very fine book soon.

I first read about Mr. Sodaro's book in my local newspaper (The Hour, Norwalk, CT), and found his concept for a book to be facinating. I later heard him speak on the topic of fast food toys and (of course), his book, at a couple of events in the area, and determined to seek out the book and purchase a copy for myself. Sure enough, it proved to be every bit as interesting as Mr. Sodaro was in person. While I am a collector of toys and such, I really had never given much thought to fast food giveaways as legitimate toy items until I heard Mr. Sodaro speak, and then read his book. Very informative. I recommend it to anyone who collects toys, or has eaten at a fast food location.

I enjoyed this book and think many collectors of Fast food toys would appreciate the depth of coverage of the many collectible restaurant toys out there. Has an accurate price guide which is always nice since myself as a collector and collectible store owner can't always seem to find prices for some of the more obscure toys out there. I will recommend to my customers who I sell to and buy from. Great photos and overall a worthy book to add to the collector of hard to find toys and items from the too many fast food chains. I enjoyed it and think many collectors will too.

This is fast-moving book that draws you along as you wonder what size comparison lies on the next page. The comparisons deal with many things...not just whales!

Fourth graders find this book amazing when beginning a unit on the solar system. It helps them put the size of the Earth in perspective compared to the sun and other planets. I use an accompanying sheet that asks the children to number all of the objects from the book (a whale, the sun, etc..)in order according to size. Then they check their answers as I read the book aloud. It's a wonderful way to open the unit! Definitely get this book and try it!!

Fantastic book, despite the nit-picking in one of the editorial reviews above.

This book really helps little kids come to grips with the idea of relative size. My preschool and kindergarten ESL students will founder when asked to understand/believe that a little patch of color on a globe is their country (Taiwan). Heck, kids this age don't even have much idea what a country is, let alone how big it is in relation to anything else. But this book sure set some lightbulbs to poppin' over kid's heads! That's how I measure the success of my classes and the materials I use in them, and by that measure, this book is a clear winner of the Darryl Award for Excellence in Children's Literature in the Field of Science and Mathematics!

The perfect book to partner with this book is the excellent Big Blue Whale by Nicola Davies (see my review of it). The focus Ms. Davies book is the whale itself. I found that using Ms. Davies' book before Mr. Wells' worked very well indeed.

This book has helped immensely with my anxiety disorder. When it first hit me I had no idea what was happening. If I did not acquire the book and follow the steps outlined in it, I would be incapacitated by now. I confronted the fear--it was tough--but succeeded and am so much better off because of it. I highly recommend this book for anyone who suffers from any kind of anxiety disorder.

Very helpful. Clearly written, good practical advice. Relates the importance of facing anxiety. The authors explain that denying or trying to minimize fears actually make them worse. The trick is to explore what is behind the anxiety and allow yourself to experience the fear. This can be done with small managable steps. The fear then loses its power over you. Also contained are helps and guidelines for support people. This book lives up to its name and is recommended.

I have just recently acquired this book, and within an hour I felt like I was on the right track to deliver a knock out punch to this little dragon that has been messing with me for many years. I fully expect to win this one, and as I progress, I'll tell you more.

This cookbook is full of country food. Most of the flavors come from herbs and olive oil and the recipes call for very fresh ingredients, so they are fun right from the beginning. If you live near a farmer's market, these recipes will do justice to the produce there.

The recipes are laid out well, with measurements given in both metric and imperial notation, and there are plenty of substitutions listed for the more obscure ingredients. Be warned, though. . . this is not a beginner's cookbook. Each recipe uses a lot of ingredients and assumes a) that you know what all the ingredients are (lamb's lettuce? orange flower water? sheep cheese?) and b) that you know to prepare each ingredient to the point where it joins the rest of the recipe (grating zest, stemming thyme, cutting basil into chiffonade). The recipes also benefit from close reading and planning beforehand. For this reason, even though the style is "country food," I mostly end up using this book for somewhat fancier dinners.

Once you've started, though, the resulting food is truly superb. No one has ever complained when fed a dish from this book. The Tomato Clafoutis is a summer standard at my place. I served the Winemaker's Grape Cake at a party today, and it was gone in fifteen minutes. There is also a nice section at the back for sauces, relishes, homemade liquors and pantry items called for in the main body of the book. These recipes are simple and keep for a while, so if you are in a place where you can't nip out to the local French-Arab market for preserved lemons, you can put your own up for when you need them.

A word to the wise, though. Spring for a hardbound edition. Although the paperback is lovely, the binding is terrible. The spine glue is weak, and your pages will start falling out in clumps, starting with the two glossy photo sections. It started to fall apart the moment I opened the book, and it just can't hack the heavy kitchen use that cookbooks tend to get.

I wrote this review several years ago, but thought it should be redone and credited:

Of all the countries in the world, France in one of the most influential to the culinary arts. In the Southern part of the country is a superb region known as Provence where Patricia Wells has lived for over 13 years. Patricia Wells at Home in Provence is her 'scrapbook' of recipes that have been inspired by her living in her farmhouse in Provence, France.

This book is printed on a high gloss paper making it great for use while cooking. Several full color pictures help the reader with the food styling of many recipes. While many recipes sound like they should only be made by the highly trained chef, Ms. Wells has not only made them easy to make, but has added several types of hint or suggestions under most recipes to make it fun and exciting to try. Suggestions that are added to many recipes may be for a wine-paring, a variation, a description or suggestion of several ingredients, or a source on where to find harder-to-get ingredients.

Smoked Trout Tartare, Monkfish Bouillabaisse with A(oli, Braised & Gratin3/4ed Fennel, Fettucine with Roquefort Lemon Zest & Rosemary, Crusty Wheat & Polenta Bread, Monkfish "Carpaccio", The Winemaker's Duck with Olives & Artichokes, Lemon-Thyme Lamb Chops and Cherry & Goat Cheese Gratin are just a few of the titles of the extraordinary recipes found in this book.

Wells' award-winning journalistic style shows in her layouts of each recipe giving the reader more then just ingredients and preparation details. Patricia Wells at Home in Provence with the Author's name in the title is also published by Scribner. An exclusive compilation of personal recipes 'inspired by her farmhouse in France'

A perfect addition to anyone's shelf, this book will add a vast array of recipes to everyone's pallet

I have owned this cookbook for over two years now and I still pull it out just to read the recipes and look at the beautiful photographs. I have made dozens of the recipes and have found them all to be wonderful - well written, simple to prepare, and always delicious. If I had to limit myself to only one cookbook (and I have many,) this would be the one I'd choose.

This, reader, is an unvarnished narrative of one doomed by the laws of the Southern States to be a slave. It tells not only its own story of grief, but speaks of a thousand wrongs and woes beside, which never see the light; all the more bitter and dreadful, because no help can relieve, no sympathy can mitigate, and no hope can cheer. -William Wells Brown, Clotel, or The President's Daughter

Clotel would have historic interest simply by virtue of the fact that William Wells Brown appears to have been the first African American to write a novel. But it's not merely a literary curiosity; it is also an eminently readable and emotionally powerful, if forgivably melodramatic, portrait of the dehumanizing horrors of slave life in the Ante-bellum South. Brown, himself an escaped slave, tells the story of the slave Currer and her daughters, Clotel and Althesa, and of their attempts to escape from slavery. The central conceit of the story is that the unacknowledged father of the girls is Thomas Jefferson himself.

There is an immediacy to the stories here--of slave auctions, of families being torn apart, of card games where humans are wagered and lost, of sickly slaves being purchased for the express purpose of resale for medical experimentation upon their imminent deaths, of suicides and of many more indignities and brutalities--which no textbook can adequately convey. Though the characters tend too much to the archetypal, Brown does put a human face on this most repellent of American tragedies. He also makes extensive use (so extensive that he has been accused, it seems unfairly, of plagiarism) of actual sermons, lectures, political pamphlets, newspaper advertisements, and the like, to give the book something of a docudrama effect.

The Bedford Cultural Edition of the book, edited by Robert S. Levine, has extensive footnotes and a number of helpful essays on Brown and on the sources, even reproducing some of them verbatim. Overall, it gives the novel the kind of serious presentation and treatment which it deserves, but for obvious reasons has not received in the past. Brown's style is naturally a little bit dated and his passions are too distant for us to feel them immediately, but as you read the horrifying scenes of blacks being treated like chattel, you quickly come to share his moral outrage at this most shameful chapter in our history.

GRADE : B

This is a exemplary novel that also deals with the harsh realities of slavery. This novel distinctly tells a true story, which is relevant to ALL Americans (believe it or not. This is a must reader for ALL.

Once in a while, I read a book that makes me question something I always took for granted. For example, it was Ageless Body, Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra that showed me people don't have to grow old and brittle before they die. It was Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki that taught me what it really means to be rich. And I credit Mortgage-Free!, by Rob Roy, with being the book that proved how people can own a comfortable, beautiful home without taking out a mortgage.

I decided to read Mortgage-Free! because the title intrigued me. Little did I know that it would be such a fantastic book, or that it would relate so closely to the theme of my website, SustainableWays.com (for which this review was originally written).

I always thought that having a house was synonymous with having a mortgage. But when you really think about it, a mortgage is not much of a good deal. The author shows how most people who take out a mortgage end up paying nearly three times as much as the house they live in is worth. Even worse is the inevitable nature of debt as a work trap:

"An unholy percentage of American men and women are working largely for their houses, at jobs they would not choose were pay not the overriding consideration. I spent nearly five years at that game, surrounded by co-workers caught in the mortgage trap. My escape was made possible largely by our mortgage-free home." -Rob Roy, Mortgage-Free!

It's the author's own experiences in walking the talk that really makes this book and excellent investment. Yes, the ideas may seem outrageous, but Rob Roy makes it undeniable that they are, in fact, do-able. Not only does he describe his own 25-year success in building and owning mortgage-free homes, but he also provides a number of examples of others doing the same thing. On top of that, this book is rich with book recommendations, phone numbers, and other starting points. Basically, he covers every base so well that the only reason you'd have NOT to follow his advice is down-right laziness.

This book will best serve people who are independent, open-minded, and logical. But if you're a die-hard conformist that scoffs at anything unconvential, then this book is not for you. Even though the ideas and methods presented in Mortgage-Free! will be most useful to people living or willing to move to rural areas, anyone can benefit from the knowledge provided in this book. Even now, as I'm flipping through it, I'm continually amazed at how helpful and thorough this book really is. It touches on everything from eating well, to helping the environment, going to college, and so on. This is definitely a holistic, integrative piece of work.

Ultimately, this is a book I felt I had to buy because of its usefulness as a reference. If you read it more than once, you'll realize that Mortgage-Free! isn't really about owning a home. Even if you don't end up owning or building a house, this book will have served you well in that it'll have made you question something that you normally would've accepted. Avoiding a mortgage is just one of the many aspects of a better way to live: On your own terms.

Most people go through their lives blindly following a set way of accomplishing the act of living. A few question that path. Rob Roy has produced a book that can lead to a profound change in doing life. If you want to step out of the normal and to reexamine the way most people go about finding and buying shelter then read this book. Based on a few simple and old ideas, this book leads you down a path toward financial independence. How to acquire shelter and not end up owing your life to financial institutions is a mind opening exercise, well worth the price of this book. Step by step he teaches you how he accomplished his goal of mortgage free living. Even more importantly he encourages the reader to do the same. What would you do if you had a mortgage free home? Following his strategies could open up a whole new world for the reader. A world of infinite possibilities!

Far from being just another book about ways to buy real estate, Rob Roy's book 'Mortgage-Free' encompasses an entire way of life that can set you free from the oppressive, credit induced, treadmill existence that ever-increasingly dominates & enslaves people to debt & by doing so greatly decreases their quality & enjoyment of life. Rob combines Thoreauvian based economics & plain old down-to-earth common sense with wisdom gained from his many successful years of Mortgage-Free living. He offers hope, inspiration & practical, proven techniques to those who would dare to actually take charge of their own lives & realize that there are alternatives to huge indebtedness. Filled with genuinely useful information & examples, Rob reveals not only his own personal triumphs, but also mistakes he has made along his own Mortgage-Free journey & he does this in a very readable, entertaining, as well as enlightening fashion. Buy a copy or use one of Rob's own money saving techniques if you must & check with your local library- Either way I think you truly owe it to yourself to read this book before you set out on your own personal home-ownership journey. Good Luck to you all!

Relaxing and inspiring ideas are contained in this lovely little book. It was very refreshing to see such simple ways to treat yourself or sooth your soul. I am definitely stocking up to give as bridal shower gifts, etc.

The cover could be a metaphor for the book: the soothing comfort of sitting in a sunny country garden enjoying flowers or the meanderings of a stream. This book is a collection of experiences, recipes, ideas, and quotes on savoring life's simple pleasures: warm socks, homemade vanilla ice cream, beading, etc.. Separated into seasons, this is a wonderful book to browse around through when you need to take a mini-vacation from the hectic schedules and stress.

Within the four Seasonal sections (Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter), there are four categories: Home... Garden & the Great Outdoors... Body & Soul... Family & Friends. These are further broken down into sub sections sprinkled throughout the categories:

- Things To Do, for example, has recipes, crafts, and suggestions for taking advantage of the season. These are easy to follow, even offering suggestions for upkeeping the house and getting the family involved.
- Stories of simple pleasures are very short, almost like thoughts, but are presented in the form of advice or wisdom.
- The quotes remind us to take things slow and enjoy life.

Easy to read, and wonderful to poke around through. I recommend it to anyone whose ever had one of those "nothing is going right" days. You don't have to read it every day, or even every month, but even a chancing glance after a hard day made this a worthwhile purchase for me.

I love the soft illustration on the cover. The image of the wicker chair and wide open front porch invites the reader to come sit for a while. This book is perfect for the women in your life who needs to learn how to 'live in the moment'. Most of us are too busy being busy that we forget what's important in life, what will truly matter in the long run. The authors offer suggestions on how to slow down the world in their recipes, tips and the stories they've selected for the book.

I was supremely disappointed with the book, particularly in light of the rave reviews seen on this page. There are no recommendations beyond what could have been provided in a brochure. While the spas are rated, there is no explanation provided on how the rankings were determined. The first section also seemed to indicate spas could get listed simply by sending in material. I was hoping for some indication that someone had actually visited the spa or spoken with someone who has, thereby confirming the information and adding value with meaningful comments about specialities.

This book was useful on my trip!

This 420 page spa guide is EXCELLENT! It includes a huge list of Invigotry, health, and fitness spas, rating each from "tourist guide" to "deluxe". I was most impressed with its well written reviews- especially the one on the Amadeus Spa. Read it and find the spa best for you!

This was the first book I read by HG Wells, at the age of 12. (I saw the film first.) After taking a trip into the future, a Time Traveller returns to the 19th century and tells his colleagues what he saw.

In the distant future there is nothing, not a trace, of our world left. The Time Travller discovers a new society and finds that we have evolved into a puny, ineffectual race called Eloi. At night he discovers the other half of the society, the hideous, carniverous Morlocks. The Eloi live simple lives and play in the sun. They are food for the Morlocks, who live underground, operating machinery. The Time Traveller goes even further into the future, to a depressing world where the sun is dying and monstrous creatures roam the surface.

Getting away from the point for a moment, there was once a "Doctor Who" story called "Timelash". In that story the Doctor travels back in time and meets a young writer called Herbert, who accompanies the Doctor on a journey to the future on another planet. There are monsters called Morlox. At the end of the story the young writer gives the Doctor one of his cards, which has the name HG Wells. The story implied that HG Wells' novel was inspired by the Doctor! But in reality "The Time Machine" paved the way for "Doctor Who", one of my favourite childhood shows. So we owe a lot to Wells.

Time travel looks like a fun thing to do but sometimes it's best if the future is left unknown. Would you want to know your own future and find it's not what you hoped for?

HG Wells' Sci Fi classic, about a Victorian scientist's trip forward in Time, differs greatly from the movie version, so if you don't recognize the details of the story in this review, it's because I am referring the original. The tale is narrated at the beginng and very end by a good friend of the Time Traveler--whose name we never learn. Nor in fact are his skeptical dinner guests named, for the emphasis sis Not on the present. Ninety percent of the short novel, however, is a direct narration by the Time Traveler himself, of his incredible journey into the future. The year is hard to credit: 208,701!

Wells loses no opportunity to expound on his theories of Mankind's self-destructive and degenerative "progress." He launches into fervid warnings about the separation of diametrically opposed yet critically enmeshed aspects of human nature--both vital while openly at war--which result in the total Human Being. Yet he never considers what Right his hero has to go back the Future, in a vain, foolish and risky attempt to alter the bovine existence of the beautiful people called ELOI or to reduce the subterranean population of the hideous MORLOCKS who repel us with their bestial behavior? (No Prime Directives here about not meddling with the Past or the Future!) We can only guess at Weena's grim fate, but why did Wells include an eerie chapter with the TT contemplating the primoridal tide at the end of Time itself? Still spell-binding despite the intervening years, The Time Machine enthralls us with its daring concepts of futuristic invention and social speculation. Despite uneven literary pacing, these pages offer great Sci Fi reading for all ages!

OK, we've all seen at least one of the movie versions of H.G. Well's The Time Machine, but none of them truly compare with the oringinal Sci-Fi classic. The book tells the story of the Time Traveler's journey nearly a million years into the future and the very unexpected and disturbing society he finds there. The Time Traveler formulates various theories based on what he observes of the society, which each, in turn, prove to be oh, so wrong! [Warning: mild spoiler] In the end, his realization of the future is especially terrifying considering it is the result of our current social structure (or H.G. Well's, anyway).

I especially recommend this book for those of us with short attention spans - it's only 140 pages (and that's the large print version). But don't get the wrong idea, this book still has more depth and creativity than most 500 page books i've read and is a great read, even compared with today's science fiction standards.

This book has to be considered a classic considering it spawned a whole genre of time traveling books, movies, and tv shows whcih imitated it. Get a hold of a copy and read it today!

One of the most famous science fiction books to date is H. G. Wells' classic War of the Worlds, which has become national paranoia in the late 30's with Orson Welles over the radio. And later in the 50's become a national hit with the movie goers. Well, neither the radio broadcast or movie rendition really took the book to its letter by letter copy, but rather improvised like most non-literal entertainers. The book begins with suspicion, suspense and wonder as a meteor passes the sky without any real notice to anyone. While the book is told in the perspective of the scientist (whose name I cant seem to recall at the moment), later, somewhere after the mid-point the gears switch and we learn what the scientists brother is doing elsewhere. For the majority of the book, once the aliens have control over the earth, which is within the first 4 chapters, things calm down and become a bit stale. Only after we come back to the scientist from the brothers story, things pick up, but mind you, they pick up slowly. I am happy I got the chance to read this book, but was a little dissapointed in how the story unfolded which is why I gave this book 4 stars. Nonetheless, certainly a required reading for science fiction fans, and even now, amongst those persuing literature.

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own...." Thus begins The War of the Worlds, written by science-fiction mastermind H. G. Wells, who brought you other incredible novels, such as The Time Machine.

This suspenseful story of Martians invading Earth is full of surprises. The narrator tells of his encounters with the powerful Martians and their stunning technologically advanced weapons and machines, which range from iron-melting heat rays to death serving war machines.

This novel has its ups and downs. One down is that the author sometimes describes the surroundings too much. But, the book does have the eerieness of a suspenseful book, keeping you on the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen next. Will mankind survive? Will the invading Martians take over the Earth? Will the Martians destroy the Earth? Find out when you read the spectacular book, The War of the Worlds.

This is the book that got me interested in Science-Fiction in the first place, and i've never really read anything else that has drawn me in in quite the same way. It is along with two other H.G. Wells books (The Invisible Man, The Time Machine) quite possibly the blueprints for everything else that followed. For me the only apocolyptic books that came even come close to War Of The Worlds, are The Stand and The Day Of The Triffids.

It works on a number of levels. You can read it as a novel about a Martian Invasion and it works, or you can reads it as a political commentary on the British empire and it still works. It also gives you a pretty good account of life and attitudes in England a century ago.

Quite simply in my humble opinion it is the best piece of literature written in the last 150 years. Now if only Hollywood would make a proper adaption of it. One set in England in the 1890's and with proper tripod fighting machines.