5 comments about The Secret Techniques of Bonsai: A Guide to Starting, Raising, and Shaping Bonsai.

1. This is a fine work on Advanced Techniques for the Bonsai enthusiast, in particular giving full particulars on specialty tools and pruning shears in Bonsai Culture. It is kind of surprising the great tips one can get, from just the one paragraph tips that the authors son added after his father death. Very concise and precise is a great summary for this book.



2. The Secret Techniques of Bonsai: A Guide to Starting, Raising, and Shaping Bonsai An understandable, complete book on Bonsai .



3. In short, my opinion is that this is an excellent book if you are serious about bonsai and would like to get started, or to complement your knowledge from other books.
   
   Before I purchased this book, I checked out several books from my local library. Some books seem to show many pictures of finished bonsai without really getting into details and I feel as if I still don't have the knowledge to even start on a bonsai. This book is a bit more helpful with step-by-step pictures from repotting to pruning, diagrams of undesirable branches, and methods of propagation.
   
   There is a lot of information in this book that I read in this book that other books brush by, but I found helpful to me. Without a doubt, it is important to read different books because each author has their own views on certain issues.
   
   Other books that you might want to look into are "Bonsai (101 Essential Tips)" by Harry Tomlinson and "The Bonsai Workshop" by Herb Gustafson.



4. This is a great little book for the beginner because it explains everything simply but thoroughly.



5. I do not recommend this book to the beginner who is just getting into Bonsai care-taking. This is more of a comprehensive book explaining how to create, shape, and nurture Bonsai trees. This book is very well written for and advanced level Bonsai owner. It goes into detail about how to start Bonsai trees, wire them, how to pick out the right environment, etc.
   So if you're beginning, I think you should pass this book by at first. If, however, you have been into Bonsai trees for a while, this is the book to go with.

5 comments about Writing Short Films: Structure and Content for Screenwriters.

1. Arrived quickly and in great shape. What more can one ask???



2. I bought this book thinking it would really get me motivated to write more scripts or give me some knowledge that I could really use. Much to my disappointment--neither was true.
   I give this book 3 stars because it does contain some valuable info on scriptwriting if you don't know how to format a script. Pick it up for a few bucks at a used book store for reference.



3. While the subtitle of this book is accurate ("structure and content for screenwriters"), the main title is incredibly misleading. While many short films are used as examples, I can sum up what the book says about writing the short screenplay with: They must be focused, because they are short.
   
   The information in the book about writing a story for film is informative and worthwhile, and could be applied to any form of storytelling. But, as I was looking for specific information about working in a short screenplay format, I found that this book has very little to offer on the subject.
   
   4 stars as a book on story structure
   0 stars as a book about writing short films



4. Excellent resource for teaching high school video production. Some very helpful easy to follow directions.



5. While this book is by no means horrible, it certainly falls short in terms of it's title. A GREAT book for learning how to construct a screenplay. There's a wealth of information about the progression of a story, the importance of themes and subtexts and meaning...all the stuff that makes a great story great. BUT, THERE IS VERY LITTLE advice or insight about writing a great short film. That being said, if you finish this book you'll be more than ready to start writing. Lastly, be aware each chapter is poorly organized with many many many sections which introduce new subjects but consistently seem to recycle many old ideas.
   
   Check this book out from a library before you buy it. Or, buy it but dont expect inspiration for writing your short film.
   
   For a better book and resource, I'd recommend "Writing Short Scripts" by William H. Phillips. This book contains practical advice, and specific advise about writing based off of 5 scripts contained within the book (two of which were very successful short films in the festival circuit). Phillips has far better insight into the process of writing an short script. "Writing Short Scripts" is so much better than "Writing Short Films, Structure and Content..." that it is almost a crime.
   

4 comments about Gardening All-in-One for Dummies.

1. Great book. Wonderful service and fast delivery. Thank you.



2. checked this out from the library, but had to purchase it! first of all, i knew NOTHING about gardening, so this gave me a starting point and help with the basics. i am slowly learning ... and have started my first vegetable garden! while there are very FEW pictures, the info itself was valuable to me. i have a book that is chock-full of pics, but the text is designed for a more advanced gardener. i love to look at that (other) book, but i needed something very basic to begin with- and this is it! good price for all the info you get. a must for those just starting out from scratch! good luck & have fun with your hands in the dirt!



3. A must read to all those new to gardening. It is a simple, easy to read and will give you a general understand of all aspects of gardening.
   
   This book is written in the typical style and format of all the Dummy books and is great!



4. I was looking for more specific information on plants, this is truly a "gardening" book, helping with layout, soil, etc. Good value, though

5 comments about Green Roof Plants: A Resource and Planting Guide.

1. While I knew from the title of the book that this is a source of information for green roof plants, I still expected to find information on installation techniques, either very specifically or at least with a list of companies or other sources cited where I could find installation techniques. Only a couple of companies are cited, but with no Sources section in the back of the book -- only nurseries. Many subjects directly connected to planting and building a green roof are only generally touched on with broad explanations. The plant selection pages are great, with lots of color photos and good description.



2. This book is the most comprehensive green roof plant resource available; a must-have for anyone specifying, designing, or constructing green roofs.



3. Once you commit to the vegetated roof concept, you are very soon confronted with what will work up there. This book is a great point of departure!



4. I first must confess that have a green roof on my 2 car rear garage here in Washington, DC and worked directly with the author on choosing the proper plants to thrive in our little micro-climate. So I already know the Snodgrass' are the pre-eminent experts in the United States on the types of plants suitable for a given situation.
   
   That being said, this book provides an invaluable resource for those interested in, or who may become interested in, having a green roof for their home. When we installed our roof 4 years ago, had we not met the authors we would have had great difficulty in even knowing where to begin. Now all of us have that starting point: by reading Green Roof Plants.
   
   And don't think you must be an environmentalist to consider installing a green roof - many do so simply for the aesthetics. In fact, as city dwellers with limited space, we chose a green roof to have something beautiful to view from our kitchen. I suspect there are many of you who really never have thought of having a green roof and would be consigned to a lifetime of looking down or up at a plain shingled, painted or tarred roof. Don't be that homeowner! Installation of a green roof adds perhaps 10-20% to the cost of a painted roof, extend the roof's life and provides significant environmental benefits. Go for it, and buy this book first!



5. A great resource for design professionals. I greatly appreciate the honest real world look at vegetated roof planting. Simple plant mixes that have been tested and photographed are really all i need to spec out a system and sound like the genius architect i pretend to be. This little book has already saved me thousands in consultants. Thanks.

5 comments about Tom Brown's Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants (Field Guide).

1. This book contains a description and uses of the plant comfrey.
   [...]
   Before you go out ingesting plants you should look them up at reputable medical sites to see if they can cause problems in people or interact with prescription drugs.



2. This book is written from the standpoint of someone who needs to use plants either for survival or bush medicine. It is not the best or most accurate filed guide for identifying or classifying plants. I found it best to use this book in conjunction with an Audubon field guide. The Audubon filed guide will give you a picture and a better description of the plant that you are looking for, Tom Brown's book tells you what to do with the plant when you find it.
   
   Tom browns book is the more important part of this equation, what good is knowing what a plant looks like without knowing what it is used for? So, I recommend using a different field guide for finding a certain plant, and then using Tom Brown's guide and practice making the medicinal applications and teas that he has. This book was not designed to take the place of a standard photographic field guide. It is designed to be used first in conjunction with a standard field guide until you know the plant and can identify it, then the illustrations and such are only to jog your memory in the field if you are looking for a certain remedy plant but its been a while since you messed with it.



3. I love Tom Brown, and his stories about plants are an important part of how I practice herbal medicine. But this book would have been much much better if it had illustrations or at least drawings. As a result, I leave the book at home and read it for enjoyment, cross-referencing it with a field guide if need be.



4. In this book Tom isn't really trying to make a field guide to identify edible/medicinal plants. He is trying to get you to enjoy those plants, not just use them. Each plant that he talks about has a story that goes along with it. Whether it is the first time he took a sip of catnip tea or an adventure down the river on a raft made from sassafras trees that had been cut down. I have found this book extremely helpful in enjoying and getting to know the types of plants described. Which i find in turn helps me a lot with identifying them from look a likes and really appreciating what i do find to eat.



5. This is a book of possibilities. Tom covers about Fifty plants... Deeply.
   He gives their personalities and the stories of how they came into his life and Grandfather's instructions on use. By no means encyclopedic, He covers the few plants on a practical and spiritual level. A very unique book, very inspiring.

5 comments about The Southern Living Garden Book.

1. this is a wonderful guide to all the plants growing in the SouthEast. i treasured this book thru gardens in maryland, virginia, and south carolina. however, if you move to Florida, this is not the book for you. here, the growing seasons as well as many of the plants change. but it is a fantastic reference for everyone else.



2. This book is an indispensable resource, both for my work answering homeowner gardening questions and for my own gardening interests. The plant descriptions are easy to find (both common and Latin names are in the index) and a breeze to understand. This is a great reference manual for Southern gardeners.



3. This is the most comprehensive book on a single subject I have ever seen. An absolute must for the beginner or seasoned gardener. If you have only one book on southern gardening then buy this one and forget the rest. Steve Bender and Southern Living have created a reference work of true beauty. I am retired and considered the extent of my gardening knowledge was my ability to dig a hole and turn on the water. This book gave me the confidence to discover the joys of home gardening.
   
   I ordered my copy in soft cover and may order a hard cover edition to pass on to my children as a sourthern classic.



4. This book is very informative. It's everything one would expect from Southern Living. Nice pictures. Up to date varieties. Would strongly recommend to Southern gardeners.



5. I am new to the world of gardening and also the south. I found this book helpful in picking native plants for my area and how to keep them looking beautiful year after year.

5 comments about Gardening with Guineas: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Guinea Fowl on a Small Scale.

1. I had tried raising guineas for several years without success. After reading this book, I have discovered many of my mistakes. No longer will I lose guineas to frostbite or overnight predators. I will provide proper housing and feed as well. I wish I would have read this book much earlier and spared the lives of many guineas. I love guinea fowl and feel better going into the new season with this book in hand!



2. If you're at all interested in Guinea Fowl, this is the "Bible." Everything you need to know. We're going with Guineas for the same reason as the author...insect control.



3. It all started with ducks, actually. Or maybe bugs. I hate June bugs all over my vegetable garden, and I'm not overly fond of other bugs, either. A place near where I work has all kinds of ducks wandering around, and I thought I'd borrow one to eat the June bugs. Then I remembered guineas. When I threw the idea out there, I thought my boyfriend would just ignore it, but he seemed interested, too. I started doing some research on the web and found Gardening with Guineas. We read through it, and picked through it, and now we have guineas. My boyfriend is not much of a reader, but he read Gardening with Guineas. It helped us decide that we could raise them. It is full of information on how to house them, how to train them, and how to take care of them. If you want guineas on a small scale, don't even get any birds until you read this book.



4. I purchased this book in preparation for raising some guinea keets I received from a friend. As a gardener, I was particularly interested in their function as an "organic insecticide".
   
   The information was sufficient, but not well-written or proof-read, more like a newspaper article. Not enough focus on the gardening aspect, other than that they like certain bugs that harm flowers and veggies. The taming process described is impossible to achieve if you have other things to do than playing with the birds. It is not necessary to keep them caged in the chicken coop for 6 weeks - mine are roaming the chicken yard at 6 weeks old with a bantam hen that adopted them. They stick very close to the coop.
   
   All the information presented can be found on the internet without having to shell out almost 15 bucks.



5. Was a great help with starting my Guineas. Thank You very much to the Author.

5 comments about Design with Nature (Wiley Series in Sustainable Design).

1. Anyone studying environmental planning or LA should read this book.



2. this highly recommended book started out as a compelling read, but became something i had to force myself to finish. it seems to be a series of lectures strung together, which may have been interesting as lectures, but is not cohesive enough to be a book. the good information is lost amidst the rambling style.



3. No has estudiado arquitectura si este libro no ha caido en tus manos. Sin Ian Mcharg la arquitectura sostenible no seria posible. Por lo menos la arquitectura sostenible pensada a escala regional."



4. As a former colleague of McHarg's at the University of Pennsylvania during the 1960's, and currently working in a planned community he designed (The Woodlands, TX), I decided to buy this book to try to understand the strange idiosyncracies of The Woodlands, TX.
   
   The book is very wordy, but it is well illustrated. McHarg successfully blended community design with natural boundary conditions (watershed management, geology, forestry, slope properties, etc) with the case histories he presented (some of which I remember when serving on an invited basis on jury's in McHarg's academic program). The book's strength is his advocacy of melding human planning needs with nature's boundary conditions.
   
   BUT, does it really work? Only at the expense of the time of people working and living in such a planned community. The inconvenient practices that go with such a planned community require a lot of adjustment that asks a bit much of people who work in such places but don't live there.
   
   But it works fine for the affluent and the unhurried who can afford it.



5. My husband is a landscape designer and architect. So, he loves this stuff! I bought it for him as one of his birthday gifts. He has been wanting something of high quality and loves McHarg. I would recommend this book. We keep it on the coffee table because the pictures are wonderful and the design shows through. My husband and I love it!

3 comments about Sunset Barbecues & Outdoor Kitchens.

1. This is an updated version of Sunset's best selling title. This new edition benefits from an array of new projects and many updates that include expanded how-to information for some popular outdoor kitchen projects, including step by step photos for building wood fired pizza ovens and concrete countertops.
   
   The book is divided in three large sections as follows:
   
   - Planning your outdoor kitchen
   Planning and design, Pizza ovens and other cooking options, Fire pits and fireplaces, Overheads and protection from wind, Counters, Countertops, Cooking appliances, Cooking Amenities, Comfort Systems and Drawing up the plan.
   
   - Barbecue Projects
   Cobblestone couter with granite, Barbecue Bar, Brick and tile counter,Tile and stone beauty, Family grilling counter, Full of surprises, Covered brick kitchen, Wood Cabinets in a niche, Tuscan setting, Pizza Oven, Winged Counter, Adobe oven, Fire pit with bench, Chimney smoker, Stackable barbecue kit, and Full-service kitchen.
   
   - How to Build Them
   Tools, Planning the grill opening, running utility lines, Pouring a concrete slab, Working with mortar and block, building a block counter, Building with brick, Building with metal framing, Building a wood counter, Finishing a counter with stucco, Facing with stone, Facing with tile, Tiling a countertop, Forming a concrete countertop, Gas and propane hookups, Electrical connections, Plumbing hookups, Installing grill and doors, and Building an overhead
   
   The book also includes a small section on Grilling tips and Recipes as well as a Resource guide.
   
   Overall a great title for anyone planning or building an outdoor kitchen project.



2. Good pictures, however, I would have preferred more detailed "how to" instructions.



3. My husband wants to install an outdoor kitchen and this book gave great ideas and I think installation tips too

5 comments about Pruning Made Easy: A gardener's visual guide to when and how to prune everything, from flowers to trees (Storey's Gardening Skills Illustrated).

1. This book was very helpful for the gardener with lots of trees and shrubs



2. I like this book so much - this is the third copy I have purchased this year! (I keep giving my copy away to family members who desperately need it.) The black line drawings are what keep bring me back to this one book for all of our pruning needs. We have berry bushes (some wild and some we planted ourselves), flowering shrubs, fruit trees, a bonzi tree, a dogwood, grape vines, 3 old Oaks trees and 2 young Walnut trees. This ONE BOOK has helped us to care for each of them according to their needs and age. It has helped turn my brown thumb into green.



3. An excellent guide for pruning everything in the garden. Diagrams are clear and easy to follow. After looking at more that 20 books on pruning, Pruning Made Easy was my choice and I am very satisfied.



4. I kill plants! Not on purpose just some people are green thumb challenged. My husband and I bought quite a few fruit tree last summer and we had no idea how to prune them this book has saved me it is easy to understand(for those of us who are not gifted in yard care things) and easy to follow. It also is not a pruning for dummies book it really is for anybody I think even experienced gardeners would love it. It is just clean and uncomplicated.



5. This is a beautiful writen and excellent explained book. If you have never don't prunning before you will feel like a pro when you finish reading this book. And for the price amazon offers is even better.