Home Books

This is THE book that every "handyman" needs to have around the house .

I bought the original when it came out in the middle eighties and I bought this one as a gift for my son in law.

Covers a wide variety of the typical repair and renovation work that you will encounter around any house. Very well illustrated - both photos and drawings.

I am a professional handyman and this book has helped me immeasurably over the years. Can't say enough good things about it. This edition is better than the original.

I manage a green building company in Berkeley, California. We don't have money to burn, so before I buy a book for our library, I scope out the competition. Mike Litchfield's RENOVATION: 3rd Edition is by far the best in the category. It's extremely detailed, yet easy to read. Its coverage is broad and deep, it's well illustrated, its photos are clear and helpful and--perhaps most important--it rings true. It's field-tested, full of tips from hundreds of veteran builders. Our guys love it. So much so that I have to replace RENOVATION 3 every three or four months, when it goes missing from the library. By any measure, it's a brilliant book. It was one of the first mainstream building books to champion energy conservation, and Litchfield helped launch Fine Homebuilding magazine. If you buy only one book on home renovation, this is the one to buy.

Bought this for our nephew the master carpenter who has been devouring it and says he always wants to have it handy. He learned a lot even after 20 years experience.

Only buy this book as an overview of what you are going to have to do. If you need specifics you'll need more books.

This should be required reading for any first time home buyer! Last year we bought our first house.....built in 1912 it has plenty of charm (read: money pit). We fell in love with it! Lots of character (read: money pit). Who do you call? Who do you trust? Who can give you the answers you are looking for? Look no further. This book has helped me TREMENDOUSLY from the first day I got it. It taught me a lot, and just as importantly, it helped me in my dealings with contractors (at least in knowing who did not know what they were talking about or were trying to do things in a cheap manner. The explanations and instructions are very clear and easy to follow. If you know anyone who is buying a house, or is THINKING of buying a house, buy them this book right NOW. They will love you for life. This is probably the only time I would ever say, "This book should get 10 stars."

In a sea of poker books this stands tall as the best introduction and strategy to the most popular poker game of them all Holdem.

This book is the first step on the journey to becoming a winning poker player.

This is a solid book on poker. The book assumes that you know how to play poker - and focuses on teaching you the strategies to use to beat opponents. Everything you need to know is here - in an understable form. I recommend this book.
--- Glenn G. Thater - Author of 'Harbinger of Doom'.

Read this along with Warren's book and you'll have most of the basics for low limit HE down pat. Play solid hands from the back and let the sheeple donate their cash to you. Also prepare to be drawn out on a whole lot!
Low limit players bitch about all the "suck-outs", but that's what gets you paid after a few thousand hands even out the luck factor. Just be ready for variance and lots of it when you start out. If you can't stand the swings, try chess....or play higher, where a raise means something (at least that's what they tell you, until they play the 40-80 at the Commerce).
You'll be a good tight player once you put this book's advice into practice, but you'll still be a long way from truly solid. Until you can shift gears hard and fast, you won't ever run over a game like you should when you're running good.
Start out here, though, and you'll be well-prepared to get to the next level or two. Then you'll learn to read players well, or go broke. Simply playing tight only goes so far...but you need to be good at it before you move up.

One of the first poker books I ever bought, six years ago, was the first edition of this book. Now it has been updated a couple of times and has definitely improved. The preflop standards are pretty tight, and this will pay off under the proper conditions.
It seems that limit Hold-em games are slowly dying out online. They seem to be tightening up little by little, as well. But if you take advantage of the best rakeback programs (where you get a piece of the rake, whether you put money into the pot on that hand or not), and if you play tight preflop as recommended in this book, you should make a solid income with very little risk. I originally built my bankroll using the advice in this book, but have switched to the no-limit sit and goes now because they are so juicy. Limit tables are tougher to find now, especially during non-peak hours. Still, if you are just starting out at poker, and want to build your bankroll with minimal risk, I suggest you buy this book. But buy the most recent edition! There have been substantial changes.

I started playing Texas Hold 'em about a month ago. I consistently lost money until I started reading this book. Now I'm winning consistently, and I'm only halfway through it. I don't mind the term "low-limit" being considered synonymous with "beginner-level," because that is what I am. I play 10¢/20¢ tables online right now. I "graduated" from 1¢/2¢, then 2¢/4¢. Next month I hope to hit the 25¢/50¢ tables.

The point is that I haven't deposited a penny from my bank account since I began reading and applying the words of Lee Jones.

The two best pieces of advice I could possibly give to a new player are to read this book, and never sit at a table with more than 10% - 20% of your money. If you can't afford to lose and have another five or 10 chances to play again another day, you're giving your money away to people like me. This may mean playing for pennies (like I do). Don't feel low-class. Let the bad players build your bankroll to prepare you for the big tables -- not your paycheck.

I guarantee I will re-read this book enough that I'll want another copy -- so I just placed one in my Amazon cart. I hesitated to write a review at all -- thinking that I could only help other people take my money. Then I realized that there are already a ton of positive reviews, and I'm still winning barely a month into the game. So if you're smart enough to actually read a book instead of watching tournament play for your poker education, good for you. I hope to see you winning at the next table over.

A Series of Un-fortunate Events is good reading material for younger children. They probably will want to emulate some of the characters in the books, which would be fine... especially the calm and intelligent Violet. They are interesting stories and well written, I find some of them slow.
Anna del C.
Author of "The Elf and the Princess"
The Elf and The Princess: The Silent Warrior Trilogy - Book One (The Silent Warrior Trilogy)

Alright. I realize most people here are die-hard Snicket fans.

That said, Grim Grotto is where it starts to go downhill. It takes a lot more work to slog through than the other books. For one thing, this is a plot advancement book (finally!) with an abrupt cliffhanger ending rather than the usual clean wrap-up. The repetition is really obnoxious here (how many times does Handler have to copy/paste that essay about water stages?) and it's starting to feel like clever filler that cheats the reader out of substance rather than a narrative device.

There could be some good thrills and chills here but it suffers from too many irrelevant asides.

Come to think of it, The Carnivorous Carnival is looking pretty good in comparison. CC had meaty dialog that moved the story forward, suspense, surprise twists and emotional clout (bummer about the fortune teller).

If we were talking cheese, CC would be a punchy English stilton and GG would be a generic American cheese single. Or that shaky green wannabe parmesan cheese.

Rabid Snicket fans are gonna eat this up - just want to say that of the books, this is the one where I started skipping whole paragraphs and pages because Snicket seemed unable to get to the point. I think Klaus would have done the same.

I loved this book. I loved Klaus' ill-fated connection with the mysterious Fiona, the crisis with the mushrooms, and above all the last chapters, where the bigger mysteries of VFD finally begin coming together. The ending is probably the single best ending in the series...

I am now ready for book 12, which unfortunately I am getting only for Christmas. In the meantime a discovered a new very interesting series titled Why Some Cats are Rascals, Book 2 Totally different story, but how captivating! I am giving it for my younger sister as a Christmas gift.

The Baudelaire orphans continue their search for the VFD and the sugar bowl with the hidden message as they escape down the slippery slope of the Mortmain Mountains and away from the evil Count Olaf. Their toboggan ride down the stream leads them to discover a submarine manned by a Captain, his stepdaughter, and Phil - a man the siblings met previously, all of which are friendly to the search for the sugar bowl and interested in keeping it out of Olaf's clutches. But just when it seems as though the Baudelaires have other people to work with and confide in, Olaf manages to strike again and keep the children on a collision course with disaster. The children must work together and keep their wits about them if they are to hope that they will someday escape from Olaf and his evil henchmen for good.

This installment contributes almost nothing to the overall plot line of the series. After a slight increase in the pace of the series, this one brings the fun back to a screeching halt. The concept is frustrating at this point and ready for the big conclusion. As in some of the earlier novels, the writing at the beginning of chapters is often disjointed and seems in need of good editing. It is good that there are only two books left because if there was no end in sight, I would likely put an end to it myself.

Dear Reader,

When we last saw the Baudelaire children, they were being swept out to sea after having fallen down a mountain. It was most dreadful. I should have just left them there and not continued reading about their unfortunate lives in THE GRIM GROTTO, the eleventh chronicle of those poor, unhappy Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny.

THE GRIM GROTTO finds them even in more dire circumstances than before. They are misled into believing they have found a former ally of the VFD. Then they have to live in the cramped and tight living arrangements aboard a submarine with no chance of getting out unless they put on these horribly heavy underwater-breathing suits. Aboard the submarine they are threatened from the outside by a giant mechanical monster and Count Olaf and his crew. Then we they finally do get out to walk around they are almost killed by poisonous mushrooms and despite all the precautions they take, disaster strikes anyway.

You'd best stay away from this one. But if do choose to read THE GRIM GROTTO, it's not my fault if anything happens.
Sincerely,

Uncle TV

Not only does this book have lots of useful, step-by-step instructions but it also has clear and detailed photos to help you along! Highly recommended!

Between this and the B&D Home Improvement book, pretty much everything you need to know for basic homeowner do-it-yourself projects and repairs is covered. I've used it several times in a few months, and it is wonderful to have on hand as a reference. The book is sturdy and easy to understand too. It would get 5 stars if there weren't so much overlap with the Home Improvement guide--the two should be better coordinated to avoid redundancies.

Excellent book! Very comprehensive book on materials, techniques and just a very detailed how-to DIY manual in general. Tons of detailed pictures and small steps to help the biggest layman out there. I am very happy with my purchase, got exactly what I wanted.

The recipient of this book, a new homeowner, was thrilled with this gift! His father, a homeowner for over 30 years, wished he had been the recipient.

Good book with lots of color photos, helped me replace all elecrical outlets in a couple of rooms. Great to look at to get an idea for projects and "how to". Very informative on tool types and also the items you will encounter during the project. I would reccomemd to a rookie homeowner to an advanced. Wish had some info on ceiling fans, washing machines and dryers. But altogether great!! Want to buy the new one coming out!

Awesome read! Has a lot of information that could be very useful for the real world. I loved this book!

THIS BOOK WAS A WASTE OF MY TIME AND MONEY I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND IT.

this guide has everything u can imagine. it is chalk-full of tips! this is the best book ever. every gal should own one!

Newly married and on my own this book is an easy how to guide for the married but independant woman. LOVE IT!!!

I have a large collection of books to help me save money, time and energy, so i can say this is my ultimate "life" book. It covers all the subjects I knew nothing about and updated me on the subjects college already introduced. This book is a course college never offers (and wouldn't price so cheaply).
Any parents worried about their daughters learning to lead their lives here is the first step. This is written for the modern woman without the trash and sleaze. There isnt a plethora of tips per section, but an in depth guide.

I am using this book as a research and knowledge base for my pending Plug In Electric Vehicle (EV)project. I am converting a 1992 Mazda MX-3 to a plug in fully electric auto.

This book is the best place to begin, it conceptualizes the whole environment surrounding the need for conversions providing historical back ground, economic understanding, and environmental impact information. Although the book was published in the early 90's it's predictions of the future for energy dependance and economic turmoil are right on. The Books prime function is as an excellent technical reference on the "how to" of EV conversions. This book goes into great detail about chassis selection, energy calculations, motor and component selection, range and speed expectations, and gives many examples, tips and techniques to use in building an EV.

This book also goes through from beginning to end a conversion of an auto conversion (a light pick up truck) from internal combustion engine powered to plug in electric powered. It is impressively simple to do and this book shows you just what to do. It also provides a great amount of contact information for parts suppliers and businesses already engaged in the conversion market place.

So if your sick of paying high fuel prices, want to do something personnally to reduce the effects of human impact on the environment, or are an engineering weenie who wants a fun and cool project to obsess over then pick up this book and start today!

Have Fun and Good Luck!

David Fink "Shade Tree Mechanic"
My first EV conversion project (1992 Mazda MX-3)

A good review of history of the electric car, best vehicles to convert, lists of sources for kits and parts, diagrams of how to do it, etc.
Highly recommended.

A good place to start if you prefer to look at paper vs. the computer screen. Much more & better info available on the internet.

Does cover the basics - what exactly is involved in a conversion, batteries, controller, charger, motor & the "extras" - main contactor etc.

Others complained about too much math, but I found it was too basic to make any engineering decisions or judgments.

I've read several books on Electric Vehicles and this is, by far, the definitive resource for the DIY Electric Vehicle designer. It provides details and pictures on every topic necessary to design and build an electric vehicle from an existing gas vehicle.

I read the book because I was interested in converting a car. At times, it became waaay more technical than I bargained for. But it gave me the confidence to go ahead with my project.

I later learned that what I wanted to build was going to be so expensive, that I would not be able to afford it. This led me to see the book on a different light. For example, I would have liked it to be more specific info on the ranges and speeds one could get with a certain system. I did not find that... maybe I skipped it when I blew off the extremely technical info.

But other than that I thought the book was AWESOME. I would not recommend anyone to start a project like this without first talking to people who have done it already. (That is how I found out that I was being too ambitious).

I have not converted a car yet, since I decided to wait until batteries get better so I can get the range and speeds I need. But when the time comes, I going to pick up this book again. This puppy is NOT going to the used-book bookstore.

What is Pride ? Is it `Pride' to Review a Classic ?

I've always loved the movie version of `Out of Africa' with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. Whether it was the character development, or the wild life, or the Mozart throughout the film score, the symbiosis of all of the above consistently moves me & holds my attention. Then there were the excerpted portions of the book I was introduced to in Literature class. Somewhere among the multitude of reviews of this book are plenty of words to describe how I `feel' about the prose and the somewhat dis-similar treatment by the movie.

But who can compete with the authors own words ?

"The discovery of the dark races was to me a magnificent enlargement of all my world."

From the view to promote the perspective of a tribal native, in this country or any other, I'd like to point out that Baroness Karen Blixen/ a.k.a. Isaac Denison has recorded some highly unique perspectives about the Kenya tribal peoples and their respective roles in the predator vs prey aspects of human slavery.

How the Mohammedans played the role of predators in concert with Arab slave traders to capture and sell Africans to the European slave ship masters is treated with pragmatism. The proud people of the Masai game reserve were sometimes assisting the Mohammedans, but if captured and sold themselves were unlikely to survive in captivity. The 'prey' class of social strata, named Kikiyu, who were beneath the 'marriage' qualifications that would suit the upwards-mobility of the Mohammedan women were yet accounted acceptable breeding stock as wives of the Masai, noble and proud.

These variations are irregular to the politically correct assumptions of our society, yet as real as they may be in middle eastern cultures, they were described in pre-World War I central Africa. What the American descendants of Mohammedan Africans might be 'sensitive' to or 'offended' by in our culture were matters of 'pride' to the Kenyans of the post Colonial era leading up to World War II. Some readers might enjoy discovering what praise Baroness Blixen had to report about her Mohammedan servant Farah, or the Holy man from India who visited her farm, or the virtues of the Mohammedan women in obtaining a husband.

Our culture is perfectly content to adopt a presidential canidate for the sake of lauding his skin color, without appreciating any of the virtues of the Kenyan ancestors who brought him to American territory. But this is one author who has uniquely appraised the strengths of the Kenyan people she knew, from living with them and learning to respect and love them. Consider a bit she writes about 'pride',

"...Very proud things were about, and made their presence felt...Pride is faith in the idea that God had, when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards a happiness, or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God's idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny...the fulfillment of his fate."

"People who have no pride are not aware of any idea of God in the making of them, and sometimes they make you doubt that there has ever been much of an idea, or else it has been lost, and who shall find it again ? They have got to accept as success what others warrant to be so, and to take their happiness, and even their own selves, at the quotation of the day. They tremble with reason, before their fate."

[she distils a faith like to, but not to be confused as 'Christian' faith, thus]

"Love the pride of God beyond all things, and the pride of your neighbour as your own. The pride of lions: do not shut them up in Zoos. The pride of your dogs: let them not grow fat. Love the pride of your fellow-partisans, and allow them no self-pity."

"Love the pride of the conquered nations, and leave them to honour their father and their mother."

`Out of Africa' is filled with beautiful descriptive prose. But someone also learned from Africa and her people, and was good enough to leave us a chronicle.

Now eclipsed by the Streep-Redford film presentation that appropriated its title, Karen Blixen's memoir of life on her Kenyan coffee farm speaks movingly of the more benign side of colonialism in Africa and of one European's self-evident love for the land she had made her own.

Sadly, Blixen's lush descriptions of 'her people' are often judged too quickly by modern criteria of racial attitudes, a game that is like asking this early twentieth-century writer to wrestle with one arm tied behind her back. If it can be granted that there was anything good about Europe's colonization of Africa, then Bliksen (Isak Dinesen was her pen name) is its face.

She loved the land and its people, entering about as far as was plausible in her time into the remarkable rhythm of both. What more can be asked of any of us, all children of our moment and enveloped in its limitations?

This is a book for lovers of Africa, no matter whence they come. Blixen not only pushed an eloquent pen, she was herself shaped in the biblical and classical language of educated Europeans in a way that prepared her to bridge Africa and Europe in a day when few were equipped to do so.

Blixen's Africa no longer exists, as she already realized within the window of her writing of OUT OF AFRICA and SHADOWS ON THE GRASS. Yet the Africa Blixen knew has children, not to be disinherited for the generations that have passed and the unsavory disease that a legacy of failed leaders has wrought upon this great continent. Though the primary fruit of reaching behind the celluloid to *read* OUT OF AFRICA is the satisfaction of the read itself, it is also true that today's Africa and today's Africans can be glimpsed in the great-grandparents who knew and lived in proximity to this enigmatic and uniquely gifted Danish colonist in a land she mistreated only by calling it hers.

I came to this book expecting to read one woman's personal experience of living in Africa, and that's what I found. There is no sociology here, and very little historical context. She does not illuminate THE African experience. She records HER African experience. Certainly that is all she owes the reader? One woman's experience, one woman's life in a time very different from our own.

Do some of her observations shock the modern reader's sensibility? Oh certainly. There are things one simply does not SAY, and back when she wrote, she did. On the whole, her love and respect shine through when speaking of the people who entered her life as neighbors, employees and friends.

Dinesen brings to life a physical landscape that most of us will never get to see. She takes passionate delight in her work, her companions, and her surroundings. Even her setbacks are embraced, as they compose part of a life she knew was slipping away from her.

I was intrigued by what she didn't write. The book maintains almost complete silence about her husband, her health, and her relationship with Denys Finch Hatten. It is only in writing of his death that we understand how deep her feelings were. She writes around that love. Her discretion made my heart ache.

Very highly recommended.

I find most autobiographies to be masterbatory exercises in which the authors attempt to explain themselves.

But in Out of Africa, Denison does no explaining, no apologizing. It is love poem to the Africa she knew, and while she does display racist views, it is as she unashamedly shows her heartbreak over a world she loved and was lost.

Denison also wrote some very powerful short stories, most notably the ones in "Winter's Tales." "The Sorrow Acre," is technically one of the most masterly presented short stories I have ever read. Despite her later skills, though, Out of Africa sets itself apart as a masterpiece for its ability to elegantly show an individual's gushing sense of loss.

Underlying Blixen's tale of early 20th century Africa is the presumption that there was such a place; that is, a people or nation of peoples existed to which she went and from which she was forced to depart by economic circumstances. This presumption a priori allows her to reminisce about Africa the way it was or was supposed by her to have been.

As she observed, Africa was, in a sense, leaving her. Peoples were being moved around, new laws restricting tribal behavior were being passed, and the Ngong Hills were being laid out as a suburb of Nairobi. She was there, she professed, before all these changes began.

But was she? Was there a time and place, "Africa", or is this concept mainly her and the European view of the times? Blixen's Africa in fact was not any sort of original. Europeans had already produced vast changes: the tribes were by then being herded into reservations and European ways and goods prevailed. European reporters never reported Africa the way it was or had been. That information remained "dark."

The informational darkness is not entirely their fault. An observer always alters that which he sets out to observe. It is only a presumption that his observations are an approximation of the reality the way it would be without him observing it. That presumption is least justifiable in human affairs. We will never know what the original Masai or Kikuyu were like, or the exact configuration of flora and fauna among which they dwelled, or how they reacted to their environments or each other.

Similarly Blixen's little white light doesn't shine very far. We get some ethnic generalities as the vehicle of which she devises some stock identities, "the Kikuyu", "the Masai" and the like, which, on closer examination, turn out to be of European origin. Blixen manufactures masks and tries to get the Africans to wear them. Sociological and anthropological data are nearly entirely in deficit from these supposed traits. She probably is not alone in this process of inventing peoples. It accounts, perhaps, for why the Mau-mau insurrection caught the Europeans totally by surprise, as though you were to paint doodles on a sleeping man's body and he were to awake suddenly and demand angrily to know what you were doing.

except perhaps the late Ms. Nancy Lancaster! Mr. John Fowler would not have been who he was if it were not for Ms. Lancaster, period!

Another reviewer said it best: If only our decorators of today can know the histories about such people as these, they would have a better direction of where they're going. This is my opinion of course. Let's forget about the word decorator versus designer. My gosh, real decorators of yesterday are doing the same things that designers are doing today! The term used is just different. Forget all that, and know the history of interiors.

John Fowler was an extremely talented, true creator in every sense of the word. He was good at everything when it came to beauty and function. Nancy knew the right people to uplift him to new heights, and she was a damn good decorator in her own right. These people created rooms; rooms that will never be forgotten. These were creators! Their exquisite taste only accented their natural talent. Henrietta Spencer-Churchill carries on their spirit very well, and I only hope to be as good as they! :)

One can be aristocratic and have poor taste. Money does not give you good taste. Taste comes from within, and has its own solid foundation. This is a great book, and recommend it to every designer student highly.

I bought this book as a companion to the one I have on Colefax and Fowler. Have always admired the work of the firm. Enjoyed reading more about John Fowler and the projects he worked on.

Book's pictures are of poor quality and worse still, small in frame. Not worth the asking price.

John Fowler has and will continue to inspire the way I decorate my home...this book is full of lovely illustrations and photos and a very interesting read

I was dissapointed with the lack of quality "full page color photos" inside this book. One can not get a sense of the cozy details in Fowler's designs, in the pics represented within. I found the book mostly a biographical story rather than an inspirational journey through Fowler's career. Don't be fooled by the intimacy presented on the cover...once inside you might be surprised by the lack of warmth.