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I get this calendar every year for my sister who lives out of the country. She enjoys it every time. Beautiful inspirations. I was however, disappointed the other Smith and Hawken calendar was not available for 2009.

If you like unhappy endings with mischief, then Unfortunate Events is a good book for you. It is very exciting with lots of creepy stuff going on, from finding rats in your kitchen, and bugs in your bed.
-MB, student

It is sad to read some of the pathetic one star reviews here on Amazon. These adults seem to not understand the book at all. Which does not mean it is not a great crossover book to be enjoyed by adults and kids alike.

First of all the entire premise is delightfully original. You get hooked in knowing all the misfortune that haunts the Baudelaire children. Lemony Snicket tells you it is not something you want to read if you like sugary happy endings which makes me wonder why the idiots who gave it one star wouldn't heed this good advice.

Compared to the dull snoozefest that is Harry Potter, this is very much more entertaining, engaging and well written.

He has a way with words and with every book in the series using alliteration in the title and every one with 13 chapters to form the 13 books in the series, makes you more curious about it all. I especially enjoyed his way with explaining some words and phrases to the young reader - noteworthy being - difference between "literally" and "figuratively" and the word "standoffish".

Bad things indeed happen to these young ones and as in all children's book the adults don't seem to understand the evil plot until it is too late. All children's book from Enid Blyton to any book of today shows kids as the brave, enterprising, adventurous and witty ones. It is sad that some adults find this insulting but these protagonists are the "heroes" of the novel and if there is an adult hero in some novel, no one complains about the kids being portrayed as stupid.

The Bad Beginning starts with very bad news indeed. And the orphans now seek peace of mind in various ways. Children could learn humility, kindness, adventurousness, being polite and also grace & modesty in adversity. These kids are resourceful and stick together and know how to deal with negative and positive influences. There is a lot to learn here for kids and adults alike (especially the one-star rating adults).

The movie version is a very different story from the book but Jim Carey plays Count Olaf by the book.

You will enjoy this book and like me probably collect the entire series. I got all 13 on a Sale at USD 2 each at a local bookstore chain. All hardcover printed in Italy it is a bargain of a lifetime I pulled off.

The wonderful Baudelaire kids with the pretty inventor Violet and the thoughtful all reading Klaus and the cutest baby in literature - Sunny, make for wonderful light reading and I bought these 13 books yesterday and am already into book 2.

Buy the first one and give it a try. Unless you are one of those parents who thinks their kids will become Devil worshippers through something as lame as Harry Potter or are overprotective enough of your kids to bar them from going to a regular school, preferring home education under lock and key - unless you are that type of person - your kids will surely enjoy it very much.

An inspiring story. Better than Dicken's orphans but not as thrilling as Mark Twain's orphans.

I am not a violent man. In my lifetime, I have never been in a fight. I've never seriously threatened anyone with violence, never made anyone feel afraid by my physical presence, never even really seriously considered doing violence to another person.

Having said that, the feelings this book evoked in me were... violent.

Not because Lemony Snicket has written a book where terribly unfortunate things happen to small children - I have no problems with that and in fact encourage it; it builds character. I want to do violence towards Lemony Snicket because he's a terrible writer who should never have been allowed to have his words put to paper. His pens should be broken, his notes burned, his hard drive wiped and, if possible, his writings should banned by an Act of Congress. The First Amendment can only go so far.

You may be wondering what has roused this level of bibliorage in me. By all accounts, this series is extremely popular, loved by many. On various book review websites, this book routinely gets at least four stars and high praise. It was even made into a movie starring Jim Carry, and if that's not the Seal of Public Approval then I don't know what is. It would seem that one of two things is true: Either I'm seriously overreacting to a tiny aspect of Snicket's (AKA Daniel Handler's) writing style or the rest of the world is full of blind ignoramuses who wouldn't know decent writing if they woke up in bed with it after a bender in Vegas.

As a reviewer, I, of course, choose to believe the latter.

Snicket has taken what should be an entertaining story, filled with untimely death, physical violence, extortion, deception, and pedophilic overtones, and corrupted it by treating its audience like a bunch of drooling idiots.

I am, of course, referring to his habit of defining "difficult" words within the text, with no regard for the flow of the story or the necessity of the definition. For example:

Page 2: "...occasionally their parents gave them permission to take a rickety trolley - the word 'rickety,' you probably know, here means 'unsteady' or 'likely to collapse' - alone to the seashore...."

Page 13: "...over a dull dinner of boiled chicken, boiled potatoes and blanched - the word 'blanched' here means 'boiled' - string beans."

Page 18: "'Please get out of bed and get dressed,' he said briskly. The word 'briskly' here means 'quickly, so as to get the Baudelaire children to leave the house.'"

Page 44: "...the kitchen grew cozy as the sauce simmered, a culinary term which means 'cooked over a low heat.'"

And so on.

There are a few occasions where a word is defined well, in context and occasionally in character, and I don't mind those. But the constant shoehorning in of definitions made me want to take a sharpened number two pencil and work it under Mr. Snicket's fingernails until he apologized sufficiently for being a hack.

I've gotten feedback from people who like this style, especially parents, who say that it saves them from having to put down the book and explain to the child what "blanched" means. Full disclosure: I am not a parent, nor am I likely to ever be one, but I think that teaching a child to figure things out for him or herself - or, god forbid, learn to use a dictionary - is part of what will make her or him grow up to be an inquisitive, intelligent adult. In my real job, teaching English as a foreign language, I find that my students are more likely to remember a word if I make them work for it, rather than if I just tell them what it means.

Let's face it - if this book is written for adults, then the author should treat his readers like adults. If the book is written for children, which this ostensibly is, then the author has to choose whether to talk up or down to them. In a book where the main characters' parents die before the first page and where the eldest daughter nearly becomes a child bride to her blood uncle, one would think the author has judged his audience mature enough to deal with these themes. If that's so, then overtly defining "difficult" words is an insult to his readers, and that is unacceptable to me.

I am reminded of a passage in Terry Pratchett's book, Wee Free Men, where the main character, a nine year old girl named Tiffany, asks an itinerant teacher about zoology:

"Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it."

"No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short."

I think Mr. Pratchett may have read Mr. Snicket's book as well.

I almost reviewed A Series of Unfortunate Events several weeks ago, but I decided to get to book two in the series before I did. Book one had convinced me that "Lemony Snicket," as whoever writes these books insists on calling himself, can write. I had been suspicious of these little books because they seemed a bit too conveniently packaged. I suspected Mr. Snicket would be better at marketing than he was at tale weaving. However, A Bad Beginning convinced me that he is a clever, quick fingered weaver, an expert in a strange, flippant but dark way. Never judge a book by its cover design.
I wasn't sure though that there was enough material in this formula to create a good series. Series are always a little formulaic, and with some the story doesn't alter much after about book four and it is the same story with different place names (Nancy Drew, anyone?) . . . and I knew there were at least eight of these little novels. I also realized that the movie (which I enjoyed) was made up by combining at least the first three books. I braced myself for the second to be episodic (is that a word or did I just make it up?).
In many ways I was right. The story is a bit sparse for the length and towards the end I found myself wondering how much longer they could stretch it out. However, the writing makes these books worth it. The style is clever and funny. It does fall back on stylistic tricks (If Mr. Snicket works in one more "definition" I am going ot hit him with a dictionary) but it makes me laugh. I will be holding my breath for the remaining books in this series to continue in the set tradition. Or not. . .

Absolutely enchanting. If grief and horror could ever be so practically and charmingly applied in the real world, it would probably be a better place. The writing style may off-set some, but it's quirky, odd, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's an off-beat story with unexpectedly powerful heart.

Microsoft Access is a well written book, it has greatly help me understand how the program work.

Viescas certainly deserves his status as a Microsoft Access database expert. He packs a lot of information into this book and, at over 1200 pages, there's a lot of room for packing!

The book is very well organized and walks you through the many aspects of developing an effective database and using Access' many features. It's also well indexed so you can find what you're looking for when you need detail.

Given these positive aspects about the book, it's truly a shame the writing's so bad. If something can be described in 10 words, Viescas uses 100. Here I put the blame on the editors. Writers are frequently over-verbose and it's the editor's responsibility to ensure writing is concise and clear. Perhaps the editors were intimidated by Viescas' database knowledge and were afraid to cut anything out; perhaps he's given such high status by the publisher that the editors had no clout. Whatever the case, the writing's a detriment in that it makes it very hard to read.

One example where Viescas gives his IT background precedence over his writing background is his naming of the database elements. He gives all elements (such as tables) long, drawn out descriptive names. This results in sentences like 'you might be tempted to start a new query on tblContacts and add the tblCompanies, tblContactProducts, and tblProducts tables.'

While anyone doing major database development knows naming conventions are VERY important, applying the most detailed of these conventions in a manual aimed at explaining concepts is nothing but confusing. Viescas should have used very simple element names in the text, then added a chapter about use of proper naming conventions in your development.

Additionally, the naming concepts he applies are his own - not any 'standard' that readers might be familiar with. In fact, he waits until page 372 to include a sidebar explaining what the little prefixes he uses indicate. Until that point, they're nothing but annoyances to the reader. After that, they're explainable annoyances.

Again, with all the valuable, well organized information in this book, it's really a shame the writing is so poor. The difficulty in this type of book should be gaining understanding of the concepts - not trying to make it through the poor writing.

This book is incredibly helpful to the relatively experienced user. There were quite a few things I was having a great amount of difficulty understanding, but this book explained things in such a way that I now understand and have since completed my databases I was creating for work. Not recommended for the beginner user.

PROS:
- Thorough read on the essentials of Access 2003 and building databases in Access.

CONS:
- The author is dry.
- Other parts of the book dealing with VBA and SQL Server (.adp files) frequently assume more information than the reader is introduced to making it necessary to have multiple reference sources to understand what the author is talking about.

OVERALL:
- A really good book for someone with prior Access knowledge who would like to have a through understanding or fill in missing gaps to complete their understanding of working with MS Access 2003. However, it is not a good book for a beginners understanding or gap filling knowledge of SQL Server, ADP files or VBA, which is ½ of the book

- A questionable book for someone with no Access experience because the volume of information is overwhelming.

- This IS NOT a reference book!

SUMMARY:
The book is over 1,000 pages long. Not that it should matter but it is kind of bothersome that the author's picture is in the book at least 30 times; what's up with that?

The biggest drawback to the book is that the author jumps into deep material without providing enough clarification and background information about what he is discussing prior to starting a discussion.

The section on VBA can only be read if you have other reference material in front of you that defines words and terms that are being used to tell you about VBA. In this regard, the author fails the reader and may as well have not written the last half of the book because there is too much information to introduce to do a good job discussing the primary points without having to assume the reader is familiar with all the extended topics that are involved with learning VBA as written by the author.

Overall it is a good book but certainly did not meet my expectations given the reviews written on this board.

I have been tasked with developing a new database for tracking and reporting city inspection data, permits, citations, etc. I had limited previous experience in using Access. I did take a one-day class in access programing, which gave me a leg up on getting into some programming. The Beginner type Access books that I previously used did not provide enough depth to help me develope the database. So, I was looking for a more advanced reference book. The great reviews for Access 2003 Inside Out encouraged me to give it a try. But, after daily using the book for the past several months, I found that it was not very helpful. The Microsoft website help function provided much more understandable help to me than is book. Perhaps if I had time to read the book from cover to cover to get a comprehensive view of how everything works, this book would be useful. Perhaps it is a good comprehensive reference book for people who have more experience with Access. But, for me, who had limited prior experience, it was not very useful.

Michelle Long's books was comprehensive yet straight to the point. I couldn't put the down the book and finished it all in the same day. The book was very re-assuring and truthful about the rewards and trials. I recommend the book to anyone who is considering starting their own QuickBooks Practice.

Great primer and an easy read. I liked the conversationalist tone and content driven straight forward style. A great resource for me as someone who is incorporating QB in their accounting and consulting business.

This book is a must have for bookkeepers and accountants considering starting their own business. Michelle has written the book for easy understanding while providing INVALUABLE information that would otherwise take years of experience to acquire. BUY IT TODAY!

This is a fantasic well written book. I have been using Quickbooks for over 15 years and have gone back and forth with opening my own business. After reading this book from front to back, I am now convinced to start my own company. Very informative. Actually hope Michelle writes another book soon.

I heard others talk about how great this book was, so I had to check it out for myself. I was quite happy when I got my copy and had a chance to review it from cover to cover.

Each chapter stands for itself so you can read it on a 'what is important to you first' basis. Information is well laid out in an easy to read, concise format.

I've been in business for 5 years - I find that the information that Michelle shares is not just for businesses just starting out. I wish that I knew about her book earlier. I purchased a book for myself and one to share, and I'm glad I did.

Helpful, I have them hanging on my wall as a walk thru.
But at 22.50 the price is highe for 4 11x17 laminted posters

These posters are great! Laminated to avoid mess, concise exercises, wonderful pictures and explanations. I have them hanging in my work out room on different walls, so I can work on the designated body parts on alternating days, and not have to re-hang the posters as I use them.

Bought this for my teens who are just learning how to strength train with light weights. Very easy to follow for them and for me.

Laminate is somewhat flimsy - I expected the heavier laminate, but these are decent considering they're the only ones I could find

My wife and I are both beginners and these instructions are clear and easy to follow.

This is the best book I have read on alternative buildings. The author is very sensible about the whole project without being to much of a hippie. If my wife hadn't threatened divorce I would be building one of these houses right now. I HIGHLY recommend it!

This book is phenomenally wise, useful, easy to read, and plain inspiring. I picked it up this morning intending to get back to it tonight and ended up not putting it down at all.

I have bought and read a number of underground building books as well as log cabin books, and would sort them into three categories:

A Expensive log homes for the really rich

B Moderate earth-covered (not quite underground) homes for the middle

C This book, for those who truly want to integrate innovation and low cost with deep Earth comfort and resilience and all the good stuff that goes with it.

This book, in short, is in a class of its own. Most will notice that it was first offered in 1978. As the USA goes through a major financial crisis that proves nothing has changed--Wall Street and the two "parties" it has bought down to their lost souls are still here, still looting the commonwealth--this book proves that it is timeless.

There is indeed a great deal of land across this great country where one can still afford to "dig in," and this could not be a better time to be thinking about renting what you have now in the close in fragile areas, and setting up alternative housing with adjacent land for a basic Life Garden.

As I went through each chapter I found the list of materials, the prices, the diagrams, and the text all coherent, concise, and totally "on target." Black and white photographs throughout, and a handful of color photographs in the middle, round the book out.

The book ends by discreetly recommending a tape series on design as the key element for success, and one that professional architects generally overlook (as we are all learning, the "experts" in finance and other areas are really "credentialed" but NOT experts).

I LIKE THIS BOOK. As an afterthought, it is recommended by just about every major alternative living, green energy, and sanity outpost (Vermont, Oregon, Washington State) reviewer. This book is a "good deal" and inspiring to boot.

First off, the reason for four stars instead of five. It's because the author was very narrow minded in what he thought you would be reading the book for. The title makes it very clear that it's going to be a cheap house, but it still came as a surprise to me that it is not about making a modern house. The most modern thing in the houses described in this book is a polyethylene layer for waterproofing. He does not describe the use of anything that cannot be found on site (excluding polyethylene). This has its merits, but I quote him out of the book saying "cement has no soul" And his total refusal to see the use in a design he dubbed the "first thought design" which would easily work as well as his own "basic design" if only you use a slanted roof. (a method he chose not to consider mentioning.

Now, what this book did cover I thought it did very well at. It describes with photos and clear instructions how to make a house with natural or easily obtainable supplies at a low cost. He has some very good ideas like his uphill patio which eliminates the force of the hill pushing down on your home and puts the load on a much easier to maintain retaining wall. Also, a feature he calls clerestories (basically windows that are put in a sudden drop of ceiling height) make the interior much brighter.

All in all it's a very good book on how to make your own fallout shelter or summer cabin, but not a good manual on the finer points of making an underground home. The houses in this book exhibit many features that you would need in a modern home, but they are not a replacement for your current house.

I bought this book based on other reviews and was disappointed in the author's narrow mindedness and intolerance for anyone who thinks even a little different than he does. The author gives ammunition to the very people he despises to rightfully call him a "wacko". It's sad that he can't just let people see this for the beautiful idea that it is and not a political statement. Still, if you look past the seriously disturbed rantings, this is an interesting "how I did it" book with some consideration for how you can do it too.

I enjoyed this book very much and used it as a basis for designing an underground building for my plantation resort in India. Mike goes into good detail concerning how to build an inexpensive home using his techniques and there are plenty of pictures to help you understand the procedures. I haven't seen anything else out there as good as this for underground building...if you do please let me know.

Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story

I used this book for my own countertop porcelain tiling project. It went so well that I decided to tile an entire wall and a floor too. Looks fabulous- this book gave me the options and knowhow to succeed. Highly recommend! I've never read a Taunton book that wasn't top-notch.

I bought this book when we decided to tile our kitchen backsplash...our first tiling project. The book was helpful but could have elaborated on the types of adhesives for different tiles and different applications a little more. However, it is still overall a good book that I would recommend. It also includes how to repair tiles.

Having some previous tiling experience, I was pleased to discover that "Tiling Complete" contained many well-informed tips and clear, straight-forward instruction -- simplifying and illuminating each step involved, including the handy features addressing mistake-prevention and trade tips. This is the clearest, most thorough book on tile-setting I've come across.

This book gave me the courage to tackle the floors and walls of my master bath, project is going great using the tips and techniques in the book. The "what can go wrong" feature has helped me from making shortcuts and costly mistakes.

This is an outstanding book. We have done a variety of projects over the years and I have learned the hard way many of the lessons that these authors highlight in their book. If you want to tile, and you don't want to waste your time and money making stupid mistakes (as I have done in the past!!), buy and read this book.

This book was fine for my sight impaired mother..... however the packaging from Amazon was very poor....two loose books in a cardboard box. substandard for Amazon!!!!!

The first of the Mitford series, this book takes you to a town where we all wished we lived, where there are friends wherever you look and characters aplenty! Jan Karon writes the way these North Carolina people talk, and the reader can actually "hear" them chattering away. Once you go to Mitford, you can't wait to go back, can't wait for the next book, and the next and the next! There are pages that will make you smile, laugh out loud, make you cry, too, and send you down your own memory lane because many of the people in this book are like people that you know. So, start reading about Father Tim, his nosey secretary, and his huge dog Barnabas who responds to commands so much better when they're accompanied with a Bible verse--and it doesn't matter what verse, any will do. And that's just the beginning of the list of citizens of Mitford who await you!

It's an endearing series about christian faith and small town living. I have read the entire series. The characters become more and more lovable as you go along.

I am currently working on finishing the rest of these series, but I must say this one is a total and complete charmer! Being a fan of the whole small-town vibe I was very much taken in by the pure sweetness and hilarity of this book. Jan Karon is rather sentimental in her writing, but if the reader is all right with that then this book will be sure to please. Its lead character is a priest of a quirkly little town that does not even have a Wal-Mart. His life is changed when his a new neighbor enters the town--not to mention the quirky lives of a dozen loveable characters. It's smartly written and a pleasure to read.

I didn't think anyone else would mention this so thought it could be helpful to SOME people but there is some mild bad language in this book.

I can understand why people love this kind of book, just everyday life centered around a clergy and his staff. I did find some nice Christian thoughts etc BUT a warning for those of you christians that really like a 100% clean language book. This isn't it sadly. I am not saying its really bad but I stopped reading it as there were too many "oh my G**" and not done in a 'prayer like way!' There were other few mild language. The first one I could see as a non christian character and the pastor putting up with it but then there were more that didn't fall into this category.

I realise that this warning may not be applicable to a lot of people but for those including myself that like a 100% clean language book then I am just letting you know, that there is that small anount in there.

"What exactly is a doll?" With that question doll artist Akira Blount begins her introduction to the book. By the end of the book we have been shown 5oo possible answers but left with the impression that we have only scratched the surface of possibilities for doll makers.

This is not a "how to" book, there are no instructions; just 500 beautiful color photos to inspire you. Some of the dolls left me scratching my head and wondering "why?" But even the dolls that I personally don't care for had something to teach. Materials I was not familiar with, tried and true materials used in different ways, this book is fascinating.

If you are new to doll making this is probably not the first book to buy; but maybe it is just for the inspiration. Worth the price just for the breathtaking photos. This could be a coffee table book, but is so much more.

I bought this book for inspiration and ideas. I can't say enough how pleased I am with the book. I look through it almost every day. I highly recommend for any doll artist or collector.

A compendium of figurative art, 500 Handmade Dolls opens the door to a facinating subject and the artists who work in the human form. Highly recommended.

This is a wonderful inspiring book full of all kinds of dolls. The photographs are fabulous, I've purchased 2 books, gave one to a friend and kept one for myself, and she loved it too.

I found this book to be a very good resource for inspiring examples of mixed media sculpture and 3 D art. The
photography is excellent and the color vibrant. The level of examples ranges from very complex to simple and
readers will be able to gain know-how and the boost to try this art form themselves.

The workbook is very easy to follow as it leads you through a complete set of considerations and thought-processes to end up with a tight, structured business plan and summary. At completion you have a 30-second "elevator" summary of your plan, a written executive summary (the One Page plan), and all the details and decisions behind the summary you need for creating a more formal business plan to present to a board or bank. The accompanying disc provides great templates and tools. I'd recommend this book to anyone who has never written a business plan, or hasn't written one recently.

I like to think that life is like an old wooden stool I got in Blaine, MO. It rests on three legs: Truth, beauty, and the money to obtain the first two.

If "Chicken Soup for the Soul" is the truth that guides you each morning, and if you found beauty in the remarkable riddles of "The Da Vinci Code", then this book is the third leg you've been looking for.

I have several texts and templates for writing business plans and have written a number of very long and complicated business plans. I wish I would have come across this book sooner. Jim Horan has a way of distilling
the jungle of information that needs to be researched and thought through to the core and most important elements providing a very clear picture of the business vision both for the writer of the plan and any investors.
Highly recommend.

I found that each time I sat down to work with the book, I was easily drawn into the "zone" of creating and brainstorming, and came up with new ideas that will make a big difference in my business. It was so satisfying to be that productive at each session, and in the end, I spent only about 10-12 hours to come up with my One Page. I now feel clear about my goals for this year, and feel that they are doable and well organized. Not only did this book help me develop my plan through the exercises and examples, but now that I have completed it, I am excited about implementing my plan. I broke down the bullets in my Plans section into action steps on a separate page, and then used the provided worksheet templates to create budgeting and sales goals. Thanks to Jim Horan for offering such an inspiring and useful set of tools!

I think this is an excellent book for any small business owner, or even for any one in business. I have my one-page plans displayed predominantly in my office where they help me focus. I enjoyed getting coached through the book, as the accountability and professional advice made it come alive for me. So, if you have a personal coach of your own, you may want to have them go through this book with you.