This book might look good on a coffee table, but that's about all. It gives little information on how to build treehouses and lacks the genearal knowledge of other treehouse authors. If you want the best book on treehouses, check-out the original, The Treehouse Book, by David Stiles. His book gives detailed designs on how to build many different treehouses and helps you decide which one is best for you. Mr Stiles has written on the subject for over thirty years and has published several other books on treehouses, including, Tree Houses You Can Actually Build. These books enlighten and inform, rather than just visually stimulate. Anyone interested in learning about or building a treehouse would do well to pass on this book and go straight to the source--Mr Stiles--the treehouse guru.

What a delightful book filled with mystical wonder and beautiful photography. We generally associate treehouses with children and the exuberance of youth, but....I want one! My own space, a private place to recapture lost youth, a place to dream, recollect thoughts, be at one with the stars and the universe - how magical life could be. There is no question my talented husband could build one; though not a professional, he truly is talented at that sort of thing as a hobby. But, there is a chance I would appear in the backyard on a bright summer's morn, only to hear him exclaim, "Treehouse? You wanted a treehouse? I thought you said "birdhouse," and then I do have a problem because how would I ever fit through that that tiny little round hole in the centre? Even if he did get the plans right, there is also the off-chance my family would insist on building a safety net around the treehouse, just in case dear old granny fell OUT of her tree! Possibly, they would insist the resident counsellor also have her own "branches checked out," just in case she was missing a few twigs off the upper branch.

Well, whether you are simply dreaming or actually making a treehouse a reality, this is a wonderful book filled with beautiful photography and treehouses galore of every description. The authors have put extensive research into this intriguing and attractive book, so if you are fascinated by treehouses, this is a book you are sure to enjoy.

I have read every one of Peter Nelson's books, and he is not only a beautiful writer, but also a gifted craftsman. If you want to dream about living in the trees or even make it a reality...each of these books will give you a wonder-filled ride through the pages as well as technical information and all the motivation you might need to build your own. The stories and photographs are breath taking and alive. I have been lucky enough to witness Peter Nelson's craftsmanship in person, but it also comes alive through the pages of all three of his books. Go buy each one of the books right away and see for yourself the wonder of "living out on a limb". Fantastic!

Woods' book is an exellent introduction to Greenaway's films. Woods' covers all of Greenaway's film's up to the Pillow Book. Primarily, as the title suggests, Woods is concerned with the coporeal qualities of Greenaway's cinema (and other things as well but being naked and playing dead is Woods' focus). The book can be a bit thick for those not interested in really getting into Greenaway's films. However, for those who are interested in very astute commentary on one the most interesting and challenging filmmakers working today, I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

I have been interested for a long time in the history of golf clubs, but there are few good books on this subject. Pete Georgiady seems to be the only real expert out there who has put it in writing. In addition to lots of good information about many club makers, he supplies almost 300 pictures to help identify old clubs. A great aid to any serious golf club collector!

Every once in a while you read a book that absolutly floors you. Mystery, the second book in Peter Straub's Blue Rose trilogy, does just that. It starts out with an excellent opening, a near death experience to the book's main charechter Tom Passomre, and takes off. Tom comes out of this experience with a strange fascination for death and murder and is confronted by an old man named Lamont who shares his obsession. Together they begin to investigat two murders, one past and one present. What follows is an excellent tale of suspense, deceit, and of course murder.

What makes this novel work so well is how intimatlly Straub understands his charechters. He's not satisfied to leave this excellent story with card board cut out charechters. Instead he breathes life into it and before long they are no longer just people on a page. Instead they are old friends who you come to know very intimatley. For me the main thing that makes charechters work in a novel is dialougue and Straub has no problem with this. He makes every word and emotion believable. He engulfs you into these people's lives and you genuinlly care about everything that happens to them.

I don't dare to give away the end but let me say it will certainly come as a shock to even the most experienced readers of mystery novels. With this book Straub has catapulted himself to the top of my list of favorite author. Here's hoping for many more years of excellent writing just like this from one of today's best but least known authors.

The "hook" with Peter Straub's novel was that a popular horror author has written a book titled "mystery". Had the author changed genres? This was what I wondered in High School when I first picked up the book. I had read Ghost Story (excellent) by Mr. Straub and was intrigued that he would write a book titled "mystery" with no apparent supernatural creatrues or doings found in the pages. But what authors like Peter Straub remind us of is that horror and fear and dread are all psychological in essence and that you can be scared and affected by a book that has no ghosts or no monsters. "Mystery" stands as a perfect novel in my eyes. While Ghost Story may be Straub's best "horror" novel, and one of the best ever I might add, this novel achieves greatness amongst ANY class of fiction. The characters are wonderful. Straub not only makes you love them, namely Tom Pasmore the antagonist and his mentor Lamont Von Heilitz, but he makes you be there WITH them. You long to learn the mysteries of the past. You long to learn the ways of a sleuth. I was right alongside Tom Pasmore in this story. I felt for him, I grieved with him, and I detected with him. Simple as that. The plot sounds simple but is so much more complex. Tom Pasmore, a young boy who is nearly killed in the beginning of the novel, takes up the art of mystery solving. He is fueled by a wonderful, reclusive neighbor who was once a "detective" himself. Tom then applies his knowledge to try and find a killer in the present and ultimately in the past. Mystery is about a young man's journey into adulthood and the hard truths about life. It is about realizing that secrets and untold truths swirl around us every day and that sometimes finding them out can be satisfying and other times dreadful. I left this story with a sadness in my heart. I simply didn;t want to leave the story. Mystery has suspense. Mystery has heartache. Mystery has, of course, a mystery. But what Mystery has most of is heart. It is simply one of the richest and most haunting stories you will ever read. One final note in case you didn't know. Mystery is the middle book of a trilogy that beings with Koko and ends with The Throat. You don't have to read Koko to read Mystery, and vice versa. But you DO have to read them both before reading The Throat. One more thing... The Throat is almost as good as Mystery. Almost.

Let me prefrace this by saying this happens to be my favorite book of all time. That having been said; Peter Staub, like Stephen King, is no Dickens here people. I will not try to compare him to Dickens. What Straubs writes are great characters and even better plot twist. "Mystery," his best work, is about Tom Pasmore a boy who view of the world is changed forever by a near death experience. With a new respect for his life and a fascination with death, Tom Pasmore begins a journey into his small town's past (as well as his own), to solve two murders; one commited in the present and one commited 3 decades ago. It is an amzing story of a boy growing up, finding himself. This is a taught thrilling adventure that I am SURE will become one of your favorite novels.

It's fast fun read that you will not regret.

The first of Straub's "Blue Rose" murder mysteries, and my least favorite, though it is - like all Straub's novels - very well written. Koko is often reminiscent of The Deer Hunter, a film I frankly didn't care for at all, and is all about the Viet Nam war, which I care for even less. The book is far too long for the simple serial killer story it is, and isn't terribly involving if you're not into the military or Viet Nam.

I liked Straub's other "Blue Rose" books, but this one took me years to finish and I wasn't glad I did - in fact, I didn't read another Straub book for years, afterward - however, if you're into Viet Nam or military matters, you might enjoy Koko a great deal.

"Ghost Story" ranks as one of the most terrfying novels I have ever read and I picked up "Koko" with expectations for a sequel in intensity, prose and effectiveness. Although it has its moments, "Koko" is two stars down from my favorite Straub novel.

It is way too long to endure for the 100+ pages of brilliant writing. I understand that the writer takes his time on detail and background to introduce real and complex characters involved in the story. But still, I think it was way over-written and yet the ending seemed as a result of pages running out instead of what was being told...

Still, Straub makes up for some of the time you spent with him in the last chapter. He, too, is relieved that the book is over and lets his talents out. You might try to read this one from page 500 to the end.

I can count the books I've felt the urge to read twice on one hand...Koko is one of the elite few. Vietnam vets go in search of a man from their old unit after hearing about a series of murders in the Far East. Koko is a well-written, terrifying journey into the lower depths of hell on earth. Be warned, this book does start off rather slow(I almost didn't keep going), but the rewards are more than worth your perseverance. It was released the same year as Silence Of The Lambs...it is a superior novel. The shared Vietnam experience of the main characters gives this book a believability that is absent in many thrillers. This is the first, and best, entry of a trilogy that includes Mystery & The Throat. I have turned my mother, old girlfriends, and other friends on to this experience. They all thanked me afterwords. You will too. I was eighteen the first time I read this. I was twenty-five the second time. Nothing was lost, it was even better the second time. This is a mature adventure through a nightmare psychological landscape. Do yourself a favor...READ KOKO! For Straub, this is the pinnacle of a wonderful career.

I read this book about every five years or so in
order to take inventory of my personal life. Soon
I find myself forgetting about DVD players and software
applications and begin to focus upon bringing
my life much more in tune with the harmonics of
nature. Thoreau has the ability to cut through the
messages of nonstop consummerism and force the reader to
evaluate the cutural norms of greed and individualism.
Why is it so hard to accept that man is of this planet
and we must learn how to balance our species goals and
desires with those of the other species of life which
inhabit this biosphere?

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately," Thoreau writes in his most familiar work, WALDEN, "to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get to the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion" (p. 86). These were the words that forever changed my life when I first read WALDEN more than twenty years ago. I have since returned to WALDEN more than any other book.

Recently reading another Modern Library Paperback Classic, THE ESSENTIAL WRITINGS OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON, prompted me to revisit Thoreau in this new paperback edition of his collected writings. It opens with a revealing biographical Introduction to Thoreau (1817-1862) by his friend, Emerson. Thoreau "was bred to no profession, he never married" Emerson writes; "he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely no doubt for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and Nature. He had no talent for wealth, and knew how to be poor without the least hint of squalor or inelegance" (p. xiii). This 802-page edition includes WALDEN in its entirety, together with other writings one would expect to find here, A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, "Walking," and "Civil Disobedience," among others.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desparation" (p. 8), Thoreau wrote in 1854. Few would disagree that WALDEN remains relevant today. "Most men, even in this comparatively free country" Thoreau observed more than 150 years ago, "through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that" (p. 6). "Our life is frittered away by detail" (p. 86); Thoreau encourages us to "Simplify, simplify" (p. 87). "To be awake is to be alive," he tells us (p. 85). "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak" (p. 305). Truth be told, WALDEN is as much a about a state of mind as the place where Thoreau spent his "Life in the Woods," 1845-47.

WALDEN is among the ten best books I've ever read. Thoreau was a true American original thinker, and the writings collected here could change your life forever.

G. Merritt

As a professor of philosophy, I at one time regularly took classes of first year college students to Concord for a week-long intensive seminar on Emerson and Thoreau. I eventually abandoned the seminar, because I discovered that each class was progressively more hostile to what these two wonderful persons stood for. The ..... reviews written by young people of this edition of _Walden_ are, then, disconcertingly familiar to me. I obviously disagree with their evaluations of the book and of Thoreau's character. But what's interesting is why they have such a negative reaction to a book written, as Thoreau says, for young people who haven't yet been corrupted by society. What is it about the culture in which we live that encourages such hostility to his eloquent plea for simplicity? It's too facile to suggest that the backlash is motivated only by resentful pique at what's seen as Thoreau's condemnation of contemporary lifestyles, although I suspect this is part of the explanation. I'd be interested in reading the thoughts here of other readers who are likewise puzzled and disturbed by "Generation Y's" negative response to Thoreau.

I bought this book to help me discern chinese porcelain and learn a little more about the oriental collectables. This book has too many black and white photos and falls short of being a necessary refrence guide.

Encompassing 2000 years of history, and everything from ceramics to furniture to Mao era propaganda, it isn't a comprehensive guide to any one subject. It isn't meant to be; nevertheless it serves as a full intro to the field in one portable volume. Several thousand pieces with prices in Brit pounds (most for museum quality specimens, not the more everyday kind). About 70% b&w, though does include some lovely color sections. Still a bargain.

Polygon Wood was a major battle area for several of the Ypres phases, but the book only deals with the third phase (1917). In particular, the fighting in Second Ypres (1915) and the early use of gas is completely ignored. This is disappointing and is not identified as such in the advertising. The coverage for the third phase is very good however.

I bought this book to provide me with some background information on bentwood furniture and it seems to me that it performs this task quite adequately. There are plenty of high quality color photographs of surviving furniture; these are combined with historic black&white photographs. The accompanying text describes basic principles clearly and provides a fair bit of history.

I am not a Thonet buff, so I dare not compare it with other literature on the topic, but viewed in isolation it seems nice enough. At good coffee table book, or better.

This is a pretty handy book for beginners in woodworking. It has the basics of mos of the necessary skills, use of tools etc. But for serious enthusiasts I would not recommend it.