2 comments about Furniture in History: 3000 B.C. - 2000 A.D..

1. The book I ordered arrived on time, in a quickly manner. It was in excellent condition- brand new. I will use this service again.



2. Very helpful and well done text covering the period of study.
   pictures, drawings and details.

5 comments about Thrown Pottery Techniques Revealed: The Secrets of Perfect Throwing Shown in Unique Cutaway Photography.

1. If I could only have one book on throwing pottery this would be it, hands down! I've gone through alot of books and found this one to be far and above the best for addressing all of the steps to easier learning and is presented in the most effective way. It is much more detailed than most of the other books. These details of advice and the cutaway photography make all the difference. Having this book as a supplement to my pottery teacher's instruction has been so beneficial. The book covered details that my teacher didn't think to give me and the cutaway photography gave me the visual tools that can't be demonstrated as easily in a live class. Having this book to refer back to often during the learning process continues to be of great value.



2. it doesn't contain glaze recipes of the finished pieces that are pictured in the book. that's the only complaint i have. it was given to me when i first started throwing and i've found myself going back to it even as i advance.



3. This is an excellent book to have, if you enjoy and want to learn more about hand-building with clay. It has projects connected with all three approaches to handbuilding: coiling, pinching and slabbing. It also teaches how to make plaster molds, including 2-part molds. This is a great skill to learn if you want to be able to make reproductions of your own clay pieces. I've been working with clay for about 2 years and I found lot of tips and tricks that I didn't know. Definitely a worthwhile book to own.



4. this replaces the same book that i mysteriously lost. it's a great book for a beginner, which is what i am. easy to understand with good photography and projects. it's the book i use the most when hand building.



5. 
   Gt to get a copy of mary chappelhow's book - very helpful to get help a budding potter.

5 comments about Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books.

1. This book is the last present I bought my grandfather before he died. I walked into a small bookstore and the owner recommended it to me (you simply cannot get this kind of service from the major book chains). I must have read half the book in a day, before I sent it to him, and got to finish it only after he passed away.
   
   I'm glad I bought this book, he loved it and so did I.
   
   The book tells the story of a graduate student trying to rescue Yiddish books from elimination, and all the characters he meets along the way. The book is easy to read, funny, inspiring, well writing and a page turner. A story of how one man's passion triumph over the odds.



2. This desire to hang on to history and heritage is noble and necessary. Bravo to the author and his colleagues. There are things that can be expressed in Yiddish, that when translated, need twice as many English words to convey their meaning. Unfortunately, this book is incorrectly marketed as an adventure---we expect to encounter Indiana Jones! With so much built up anticipation, the reader is left with a "hmmm" instead of a "WOW!" at the end.



3. 
   The best book I have read in a while. A must read. Dont waist time reading this review, just get it and read it. Enjoy. I did!



4. Aaron Lansky tells us about a lot more than just his efforts (and those of his many, many supporters) to rescue Yiddish books. He interweaves his stories with a history of Yiddish language, culture, and literature. Although these brief history lessons are not nearly as entertaining as his anecdotes of traveling around the globe (although mostly to New York) to collect the books, put together they make for an engaging, even enlightening read.



5. Yiddish is (in some ways) more than a language; it is a history--a civilization. (Not for nothing does the very word Yiddish mean Jewish). And it is a civilization everyone tried to destroy. The Nazis destroyed it; the Jews desperately trying to assimilate into Western countries destroyed it; Zionists who wanted to do away with shtetl culture destroyed it; Hasidim who felt that the mame loshn with its worldly literature takes time away from the Torah destroyed it until, by the time Lansky a graduate student who (oy vei!) decided to study Yiddish, he and his classmates had no books from which to study. The People of the Book had no books.
   
   And so Lansky and his classmates started looking for Yiddish books. It began as a selfish exercise--they were taking a class and they needed books and can starving students afford antiques sold at auction? But, as they heard the stories of the elderly people giving them their books and their histories, it became much more than that. It became an effort to save a civilization. To ensure that Jews today can explain to themselves and others who and what we are.
   
   Which is how the National Yiddish Book Center was born.
   
   And through stories filled with yiddishkeit (and of course books) Lansky introduces readers to that Jewish (Yiddish) civilization. A world we heard about -all of us, Jews and non-Jews alike--but a world we have thought we could never visit again. But maybe, just maybe we can. And maybe Lansky's Outwitting History is the first step on that journey into our history.
   
   I highly recommend this book.

No comments about An American History Album: The Story of the United States Told Through Stamps.

5 comments about Oriental Carpets: A Complete Guide - The Classic Reference (Oriental Carpets).

1. This is a beautiful book, but the coverage is overwhelmingly for geometric oriental rugs, with a large section added for Chinese. I was looking for the more ornate styles (Heriz, Tabriz, Sultanabad, and so on) that are so very beautiful. These are grossly underrepresented in this book, if at all (e.g., most are not). I am sorry I purchased the book.



2. Easy to use and I think a must for anyone seriously wishing to acquire a sound knowlege of oriental rugs whatever his or her aims. Delighted with the clear and elegant text. Good image collection too.



3. Bought for myself as a tool to help teach myself about Persian rugs, this book is so wonderful I gave it as a housewarming present to a friend of mine, freshly divorced who is decorating his new house. Perfect! The authors, the Murray Eilands Jr. and III, a father and son team, are experts in their field. The father, a practicing psychiatrist in California, has been studying and collecting Oriental rugs for almost 40 years, and his son has a doctorate from Oxford in Near Eastern archeology (including textile development), so you would be learning from very special, knowledgeable accomplished folks who love their textiles and rugs. I recommend this book highly.



4. This is an excellent way to learn about rugs from top to bottom -- it eases you slowly into a comprehensive knowledge of rugs. I feel that this will help me greatly in my work - I just started doing customer service for a rug company. Great buy to anyone who wants to be educated thoroughly on the business of rugs.



5. This book is a good introduction to rug basics, with rich illustration and good coverage of the main carpet-producing regions in Asia and the Middle-East. However, the book leaves much to be desired as a genuine tool to help one actually collect rugs. It gives out basic information in a general lecture-like fashion (which is not necessarily a bad thing), but does not really make an effort at reaching out to the reader in terms of the actual experience of buying/handling/trading carpets (which is definitely a bad thing). One glaring weakness is the paucity of information on Central Asian rugs outside of Turkmenistan (arguably because the book was written at a time when Central Asia was not as easily accessible as it is now). There is also, it must be said, a somewhat superior tone to the writing that is not necessary and does take away from the pleasure of reading on the subject. Still, all things considered, this is a valuable book to own.

5 comments about Eric Sloane's An Age of Barns: An Illustrated Review of Classic Barn Styles and Construction.

1. and I understand that barn so much better now that I have read this book. Sloane gives a brief overview of the history of barns, regional types of barns, and even the tools to raise a barn. A lovely book.



2. This has some interesting history of early barns, especially those of New England. Drawings are well done, as usual. If you are interested in barns west of the Mississippi look elsewhere.



3. Sloane's books capture the romanticism of the past better than any picture books, and that is certainly true for his An Age of Barns. The beautiful line drawings range from evocative perspectives to working sections, giving you a good idea of how these barns worked. There are Shaker round barns, traditional gambrel barns, Amish barn raisings and a wide variety of outbuildings associated with the early American farmstead. He lovingly focuses on hinge details, stairs and ventilation openings. Sloane's eye never missed a detail, and for anyone who loves old barns this is the book to get.



4. Eric Sloane is known to many of us who love traditional country things as the superb and prolific American artist and author who gave us books with good words and even better drawings. Sloane was an accidental historian of that era of American life when agriculture was king. I cherish my copies of his A Museum of Early American Tools and A Reverence For Wood.
   
   The Age of Barns was first published in 1967. I saw this 2001 version lying on a table in a friend's house and begged to borrow it. The sub-title is An Illustrated Review of Classic Barn Styles and Construction. It is more than that as it also shows silos, root cellars, springhouses, sugarhouses, corn cribs and smoke houses. Also shown are tools of barn builders, construction methods, types of ventilation systems and even hinge design.
   
   Sloane shows the evolution of this most important structure with examples large and small and from many places. Medieval, English, German, American barns. Small and large log barns. The Appalachian overhung-loft barn built on two cribs, decorated Pennsylvania barns, a Georgia barn, a Maine barn, a Tennessee saltbox barn. Pent roofs, gambrel roofs, extended bays, threshing bays. Connecting barns, built so the farmer could do a winter day's chores without going outside.
   
   I have known two barns intimately. The barn on our Wisconsin farm was a classic two-story bank barn built of stone on the lower level with hand-hewn posts and beams above, a cupola topping it off. The farmer whose death allowed my parents to buy the farm had been an alfalfa producer so the barn had huge mows that were filled both from the outside using a hay hook and from the inside where teams and wagons were taken straight in and through. The dairy herd was housed in the lower section next to the sixteen-foot silo. I pulled a lot of, um, teats in that barn.
   
   The humble hillbilly barn at Heartwood in Missouri has two sections separated by a drive-through. In barns this design is called double-crib; in houses it is called a dog-trot. The construction is of hewn oak logs with half-dovetail corners. The logs are held off the ground only with loose stones, so early deterioration was inevitable. When the barn was still in pretty good shape we took a family photo one Fourth of July. My cousin and I hung the huge American flag that was hand-sewn by a grandmother for Lincoln's inauguration and we all posed in front of it on the ground.
   
   Born in 1905, Eric Sloane died in 1985, walking to a luncheon in his honor celebrating his memoir, Eighty: An American Souvenir. His fine books will live on long after him, a legacy of focus and craftsmanship.



5. Other reviewers have done a good job of describing this and I agree with them. I'll just add that this wonderfully illustrated book really brought the memories flooding back.

2 comments about American Costume Jewelry: Art & Industry, 1935-1950, N-z.

1. anticipating the release of Roberto Brunalti's set translated into English. The photos of high end items shown are lovely, making the set a coffee table show piece. I was extremely disappointed in finding no prices included. As a dealer I am already aware of what is high quality. What I needed was up to date information on pricing them.



2. I recently received both books (A-M and N-Z) in this series and they are truly an outstanding set of books! I also own Brunialti's "Tribute To America" and "American Costume Jewelry 1935-1950" books but this series with newly updated and researched information along with 300 new photos is a collector's dream! Besides glorious photos, it provides patent information, detailed descriptions, along with any advertisement information these pieces were featured in. Anyone familiar with Brunialti's books, know they are not pricing value guides, but informative books designed to showcase the most highly sought-after collectible jewelry desired by a beginning collector to a seasoned experienced collector. Any true collector will appreciate having these books in their reference library.

5 comments about Golden Legacy: How Golden Books Won Children's Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became An American Icon Along the Way (Deluxe Golden Book).

1. For the last 65 years, children have grown up on The Poky Little Puppy, The Color Kittens, The Saggy Baggy Elephant, Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever, dozens of other Golden Books titles. To celebrate the legacy of this innovative publishing venture, Leonard S. Marcus has released the art book "Golden Legacy: How Golden Books Won Children's Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became an American Icon Along the Way." The collection is not only an exquisitely beautiful celebration of our collective childhood, but the rich history of the publishing company that changed the face of literacy in America.
   
   The first Golden Books, published in 1942, were distributed through supermarket chains at a retail price of 25 cents. At the time, paper shortages had increased the average cost of children's picture books to $2, putting them financially out of reach for many consumers. Librarians initially resisted the mass-produced books with a place to draw your name inside, but parents could purchase a title a week, children could devour the books on the go like any other toy, and television and cartoon marketers quickly seized cross-promotional opportunities. Golden Books succeeded at their goal of democratizing reading and personal book ownership for families across America.
   
   Given that this title was published by Golden Books, the overall tone is rather celebratory, but author Marcus does not censor all detractors. He covers the controversial flat fee payments to the creative talents behind early titles. Those authors and illustrators have received no residuals from books which are still bestsellers today, 65 years later.
   
   A 2007 copy of The Poky Little Puppy is nearly identical to the original 1942 edition that launched a publishing empire. After reading Golden Legacy, the reader may well be inspired to seek out copies of both for his or her personal library.



2. I ordered this book because I worked for the company for 5 years and so I had a special interest in the subject. Honestly, I can't imagine why anyone else would have a burning interest in the subject. Too bad I wasn't able to read the book before I went to work for the company...I would have known who was most important there and why. In any case, I liked the book but am not sure I would recommend it.



3. If you grew up reading Little Golden Books, you will likely find this book very worthwhile. Along with it being an enjoyable trip down memory lane, it's full of interesting "behind the scenes" information. 2 things prevent me from giving it 5 stars: narrative is not the author's strong suit, so it's often difficult to keep track of the various people and logistics of the company, and the book ends rather abruptly. The other minor aggravation is that the captions for all the pictures on any 2 facing pages all appear under one picture. Nevertheless, I'm glad to have this volume in my library.



4. If the names Poky Little Puppy, Tawny Scrawny Lion and Tootle bring a smile to your face, than this book might just be for you. Golden Legacy is extensively illustrated with a detailed history of the writers, artists and publishers of the Golden Book series. As a Disney fan, I especially appreciated the piece on Mary Blair's Golden Book work. I would have given this book 3-4 stars if I were just interested in the illustrations, but it is definitely a 5 star book because of the extensive history of the books.



5. Do you remember Golden Books as a child. Do you still read them to your children? Then you won't want to miss this fascinating history.

5 comments about The Craft of the Japanese Sword.

1. This book is an excellent introduction to Japanese swordmaking by looking at modern masters and how they make swords. If you are just beginning an interest in Japanese swords and how they are made, this is the book for you. The book takes you through the process of forging the blade, polishing, making the habaki and finally the scabard. This book is highly recommended!



2. It's a good book, good information!
   Photos should be color, that's the only thing I don't like!
   But anyway, I like it!



3. An excellent book. It has all you need to know to either understand the craft of the sword or to begin your own explorations into the craft. Or both.Craft of the Japanese Sword is well written and illustrated, with an emphasis on the artisanship and detail of each step in creating these beautiful works. Ken wa hito nari.



4. An excellent book, getting a bit old now but still extremely relevant.
   
   Well written with excellent descriptions and photos.
   
   Good to see Yoshindo Yoshihara is still alive, but he looks a bit older than the book photo!
   
   I throughly recommend this book to anyone starting out in Japanese swords.
   
   Steve



5. Worth every penny. It doesn't go very deep in each subject, but enough to better understand and appreciate Japanese swords. The described forging techniques are detailed enough in my opinion for someone who wish to start trying forging his own blades (most probably knives for beginning). Lots of stuff can't be learned by books, and this one is no exception, but at least you'll learn basic forging techniques instead of starting from scratch, on your own.
   
   It has a great deal of information on Japanese swords, how to identify them according to the era they were made, etc.
   
   I highly suggest this book for every Japanese sword enthusiast.

5 comments about Vintage Rolex Sports Models: A Complete Visual Reference & Unauthorized History.

1. Great book for watch enhusiast. Although it only takes us up to 1997, so I was dispointed, The pictures are good, the history covers the basics. I would recommend to add to the collection



2. Pictures are of good quality. A good book to add to the collection, each watch has good description and on the watch movement.
   It is a limited market, you have to remember its a book on the vintage watches and not modern Rolex watches.
   Saying that I would not be without it, But I am a watch Nut.



3. A most impressively comprehensive and finely detailed reference that will prove to be of great usefulness and interest to me when handling Rolex watches, and when talking to and advising collectors and enthusiasts.



4. This book is completely stated sports models and really can help user when buying a vintage Rolex!



5. This book only has old watches in and not all of them at that. Some details are incorrect.
   However it is just a book on Rolex sports watches, but it has nothing new, the most modern watch it has is a 1975 GMT. So if you want to know something about Rolex wathes in the last 33 years, its not alot of good,