Games Books

I first picked up this book a few years ago because of the cover (I am something of book cover whore. I am easily pleased.) and I've never regretted it. I've never come across another book that was able to mix comedy and horror so well. As hilarious as this book was there were also numerous scary moments that didn't lose any of their power when it was preceded by a light humorous moment.

Anybody who reads it will fall in love with Fenberg and his multi-named brother who have to fend off curses, werewolves and vengeful rednecks to save the people they love. The story is off and running from the first page and you won't want to put it down, so don't!

My only complaint is why hasn't John Boston written another book?!

it was exhausting to read. Ingenious, witty, amusing, well-written, yes. But it's like being in the company of someone who is always "on," and quick with a witticism or comeback. Sometimes just a normal paragraph or two would have been nice, especially at 320 pages. There was a dip about 5/6ths of the way through that made me not want to pick it up again, but it does race towards the conclusion at least. Worth reading, but too clever for its own good.

It's great, great fun. Read it. Enjoy it. Lend it out and share the experience with others. "Naked Came the Sasquatch" has quickly become one of my favorite books and I recommend it to all. If you loan it to someone and they don't like it I believe you have justification for ending any relationship you have with that person. I knew I was hooked when I started to end my conversations with my brother with "ps - bed wetter".

The suspense in this book is great, but it isn't just the tense moments that make it so good. Normally when a book gives you a rundown of the character's life it's kind of dull. Boston takes these character development areas and makes them wet your pants funny. It's the first book I've ever read that didn't have a single dull moment.
Keep in mind that I have a warped sense of humor.

I was lucky enough to have been working in a bookstore when this book first came out. I walked past it everyday and it always caught my eye so I finally bought it. This may be the best book I have ever read. It has great characters, fantastic imaging from the descriptions, suspense, murder, humor, and monsters. It has gotten to the point that when I read this book, I actually visualize it as a movie with Bruce Campbell playing the main character Michael Fenberg and Janine Turner as Elaine Mitikitski(oh if it would only happen). It's a truly visualizing book from the reflections of Tuberski's See-Em-Dead Zoo Bar and Grill Massacre to Fenberg's giant truck to the Mogonogonovich Brothers brutish antics; it's a riot and so enjoyable. You'll read this book until it falls apart (then you'll tape it together over and over again).

I have recommend this book to numerous people and all of them are grateful for having got it. I got my wife to read it and well to make a long story short, we read it so often that I've had to buy three replacements because they get worn out (my prize one is I managed to snag a John Boston autographed copy). By all means, have no doubts, GET THIS BOOK! You will not be displeased.

This is an awesome game for in the car. It doesn't matter if we are going on a short trip or a long one, my son (9years old) always reaches for the deck of Rubberneckers first thing. We keep it in the car so we know we won't be without it. Even we adults have fun searching for the objects on the cards. Would definitely recommend it!

This game is the BEST. It is a lot of fun for all ages. It makes car rides much more interesting and fun. I would recommend this to anyone that likes to lighten it up once and a while.

This game is awesome! It makes the time fly by for our ADHD son. The whole family gets involved. After a long trip, we find ourselves still looking for items for a few weeks after we are home. Sometimes we let him make up the rules of the game.

This was definately a good purchase. My 9 year old twin girls loved it. The game challenges you to find certain road signs, types of cars, ect while on your road trip. The best part are the cards that ask you to get the attention of another car near you. The object being to wave or do some other instruction and get the other car to acknowledge you. It was a good time and did make the trip go that much quicker. It's great just to leave in the car even when you are on short trips.

Rubberneckers is a great game to keep in the car for longer rides. The cards tell you to look for various things - types of signs, license plates, cars, businesses and restaurants, etc.. Wave at someone in another car and see if they wave back at you, see if you spot a police car that has pulled someone over. You score points based on what you find. Our nine- and eleven-year olds love it!

Why do our snowmen look so droopy in the morning? They are out partying, sledding, making snowman angels and drinking cocoa! This is one of those books that I enjoy reading every time I read it. We put all of our holiday books on a special shelf and only bring them down after Thanksgiving, but this one stays out all year. The other awesome thing about this book is the hidden pictures! It has our kids picking it up over and over again. We LOVE the book at our house :)

Mommy's High Heel Shoes

This book is wonderful. I have a few books that I consider a must have, and this is deffinately at the top. First of all, the illustrations are beautiful! It is a work of art. The story is sweet, captivating, and leave your child feeling happy. I am so surprised to find many children's books scarey, innappropriate, or boring. The snowmen in this book have an entire life at night, sledding, playing, drinking cold cocoa, which explains why they're a little "slumpy" in the AM. I really love this book, and so does our 2 y.o. I purchase it for everyone w/ kids!

Why is it that the day after you build a snowman, the darn thing falls apart?

Forget science.

Everyone knows that what really happens it that the snowmen party all night.

This book explains everything in gorgeous rhyme that fits perfectly with beautiful, night-time illustrations.

My Special Education class loved this book. The pictures are delightful and the story is fun and exciting for my Kindergarten/First Grade Class. This book was selected by my department as a suggested book for use in my class.

The warmth and openness that the authors convey in this book makes you feel like you live in that neighborhood yourself. Cute story; beautiful artwork. Children as young as 2 are drawn in and fascinated by the magical storyline. Great read-aloud book!

This book is a must for any crazy quilter. I love the size and the fact that it can lie flat open when using. The drawings are large, clear and easy to follow. Even has directions for left handed. The color photos are wonderful "eye candy". This book sparked so many new ideas for me. It is a MUST HAVE.

This is a must have for every stitcher's library. An excellent stitch guide with wonderful diagrams.

Whether you are a new or experienced stitcher this book gives easy to follow instructions for a wide variety of stitches along with ideas to combine different stitches. I have referred to it many, many times on my current project: a crazy quilt. Money well spent!

The instructions were easy to follow and well illustrated. I am a novice at embriodery and this book was very helpful. It gave me ideas on how to proceed in my crazy quilt.

Bought the book as a gift. Recipient was very pleased with the book. It clearly describes the stitches and how to make them. Full of pictures that enable you to visualize the final result and the process of creating those stitches.

Simply Impactful. This was an easy read, direct and too the point and fundamentally changed my game of golf and reset my thinking in other areas of life as well. Know yourself, know the shots you are capable of making, know the odds and take your shots when the odds are in your favor. A recipe for scoring well and winning on and off the course.

An excellent read on the mental, mathematical game of golf!

Common sense approach to golf. Very well written. Play shots your comfortable hitting that you have practiced, recommended.

Course Management - master it, and you become one a scoring machne; this book shows you the way.

Not much swing instruction going on here. This book is primarily for the player who can hit good shots and has above average skill but is still putting up disappointing numbers. It's not really earth shattering stuff. You know that by trying for eagles on par 5 you end up brining bogey and worse into play. You know that when you are in trouble the correct play is to just get back to the fairway. If you are like me you just need someone like Raymond Floyd to tell you these things before you listen! He will tell you these things and plenty more in this great book. It's not watered down a bunch of boring anecdotes - just the goods from a guy who knows how to go low.

As posted previously, this book isn't about swing mechanics, but about playing smarter golf and being realistic about your game. I think this book would be extremely beneficial to the beginning golfer and would make a great gift. It's a quick read and well written. I try to read it a couple of times a year to remind myself to play within my abilities and keep a good attitude.

Highly recommended!

Michael Shapiro does a superb job not only of capturing the excitement of the Brooklyn Dodgers' last pennant-winning season but also of explaining just what the Dodgers meant to so many Brooklynites. Set against the background of the Walter O'Malley-Robert Moses negotiations that would determine the fate of the Dodgers, Shapiro provides logical proof that it was not O'Malley's intention to move the ballclub but that Moses kept making a fool of him to the point where remaining in Brooklyn would have been rather humiliating for O'Malley.

Though never elected to any office, Robert Moses was the most powerful official in New York City in the late 1950s. His power was further enhanced by the fact that the Mayor at that time, Robert F. Wagner Jr. was both lazy and indifferent, and would not have gone far in politics except for the fact that his namesake father was a very popular U.S. senator. If O'Malley was going to get the land and permits to build a new ballpark, he was going to have to go through Moses and Moses couldn't have cared less as to what became of the Dodgers.

O'Malley tired desperately to be taken seriously by Moses and the NYC politicians to where he even had the Dodgers play seven "home" games in Jersey City in 1956. In the end, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, not because O'Malley plotted to take them there but because L.A. politicians eagerly and actively courted O'Malley to move to their city while their New York counterparts, especially Moses, gave him the brush-off.

O'Malley wanted to build a ballpark at the junction of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, where multiple subway lines and the Long Island Railroad converge. Moses at first wanted O'Malley to build a ballpark in a hard-to-reach part of Bedford-Stuyvesant and later proposed having the city build a ballpark on the site of what is now Shea Stadium. Anyone familiar with Brooklyn knows that if you're riding the subway, it's easier to get to Yankee Stadium from Brooklyn than to go out to Flushing Meadows, where Shea Stadium is.

In any case Los Angeles made O'malley an offer he couldn't refuse--300 acres in the heart of the city, where multiple freeways converge. New York officials made no effort to compete as Brooklyn didn't count for much in their eyes. When the Mets were created a few years later there was no question in their minds that they should represent New York and use the orange "NY" logo formerly used by the New York Giants, rather than the Brooklyn Dodgers' "B."

50 years have now passed since the Dodgers moved, and Walter O'Malley has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The ballpark he built and paid for (which opened in 1962) remains one of the most beautiful and popular in major league baseball. Shea Stadium, on the other hand, built by Robert Moses with taxpayers' money and opened in 1964, will soon be torn down. What is more, New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner is currently trying to arrange to move his NBA basketball team to that same junction in Brooklyn that O'Malley originally wanted.

Michael Shapiro is an excellent writer and his book is highly recommended!

THE LAST GOOD SEASON, by Michael Shapiro, earns itself a provisional rating of FIVE STARS in my mind, based primarily on the quality of the writing (which is uniformly excellent) and the depth of the research (which, within limits, is exhaustive). Yet the book deserves, like Roger Maris' "61*", to be only a qualified ***(**) success.

Much of that qualification comes from Shapiro's heavily touted and slanted thesis that Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley was not responsible for the Dodgers' departure from Brooklyn in 1957, after Robert Moses refused to build a replacement for the aging Ebbets Field.

Shapiro's grasp of the facts regarding Brooklyn is somewhat fuzzy. He says, "Jews went to Midwood [High School], poor blacks to Jefferson." Yet in the Dodger era, Brownsville was predominantly (70%) Jewish. It was not until later that Brownsville became a black neighborhood. Shapiro waxes rhapsodic about Midwood (his childhood home?) but slights the rest of Brooklyn. He admits that by the time he became aware of the Dodgers they were gone. Ironically enough, even while granting O'Malley absolution in absentia he makes and supports every argument as to why the man did not deserve it.

Shapiro blames, among other things, "white flight" for the Dodgers' relocation, but then argues that fans come in all colors. It's as if, in pardoning O'Malley, he is trying to convince us of something he really doesn't believe himself.

According to Shapiro, "Robert Moses is the bad guy in this story." This is an incredibly strong statement, particularly since Shapiro admits in many places that O'Malley was mendacious, that he was arrogant, that his plans for a new Buckminster Fuller-styled stadium seemed, at best, to be for public consumption only (O'Malley stole the scale model from the actual designer, Billy Kleinsasser, and used it without permission or recompense at public events), that he dealt with player and staff salaries in increments of hundreds and thousands of dollars not hundreds OF thousands of dollars (i.e., star pitcher Preacher Roe claims his highest Dodger salary was a paltry $28,000.00 in 1955), that he did not understand the "Little People" who were Dodger fans, that he once (as a youngster) traded a stack of Dodger baseball cards for one Giants' Christy Mathewson, that he fined employees who mentioned Branch Rickey's name in his presence, and, in short, that he was not really a fan of the team he owned.

Shapiro wants to paint horns on Robert Moses' head, and in some sense they do belong there, but not necessarily in the sense that Shapiro would prefer. Like the Master Builders of Ancient Egypt he had virtually unlimited power in his sphere. The ironically-named Moses was a man with a vision for New York, and he set about creating that vision of shining, rising buildings (such as Lincoln Center), vast bridges (the Throgs Neck, the Whitestone, The Triborough, and the frighteningly huge Verrazano are all his), and endless parkways (as a sampling, the Cross Island, the Belt, the Northern State, the Southern State, the Meadowbrook and the Wantagh) linking New York City and its expanding suburbs in a net of urban development. Yet this visionary had pathological flaws. Monomaniacal in his sphere, he had no compunction about unilaterally razing hundreds of city blocks, evicting tens of thousands, and altering the neighborhoods and neighborhood patterns of New York without a thought. Such changes brought other, unanticipated changes---the "through" expressways of The Bronx relegated it to a kind of backwater status accelerating its descent into slum conditions, and Moses' chopping up of neighborhoods in Brooklyn balkanized the Borough into a patchwork of disconnected rich and poor enclaves. Moses was more successful on sparsely-settled Long Island and in Westchester, where his road network created rather than changed demographic patterns.

When these two prima donnas met head-to-head, they treated each other with barely-concealed contempt. Although Moses was at first favorably disposed to a new stadium in downtown Brooklyn, this agreement soured within days. Without access to O'Malley's papers (which he was refused by the O'Malley family), the reason for this sudden souring is unknown, and ripe for speculation. Moses pressed, at first, for a new stadium in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a declining neighborhood; O'Malley refused. Moses promised him a new stadium in Flushing Meadow, Queens (the future Shea); again, O'Malley refused, declaring that the team was to remain in Brooklyn---he countered with an offer to build in Brooklyn, on the site of a ramshackle meat market. Moses refused to condemn the property (a first for him).

This bickering was never about questions of civic-mindedness, fan appreciation, nor humanitarianism. This was strictly a personal issue between the two men that affected millions of people.

While this was going on, the 1956 Dodgers struggled successfully through their World Champion season. Shapiro's snapshot of the team is far more detailed than his portrait of the politics, and is a joy to read. Shapiro is at his best as he describes the dynamic tensions that existed between the various Dodgers, the great negotiator of personalities, Pee Wee Reese, and their fanbase. It is clear that Ebbets Field was no longer a suitable home, at least without major modifications. Parking was very poor, a serious concern in the emerging era of the suburban commuter fan; the stadium itself needed to be revamped, the plumbing fixed, the seating rearranged. Still, Ebbets Field was only 45 years old, and was a solid structure, despite its flaws.

If O'Malley was indeed "desperate to stay in Brooklyn" as Shapiro posits, then why weren't his efforts directed toward staying? Why was he engaged in a stalemated battle of wills with Moses over a new stadium? Perhaps O'Malley simply wasn't "desperate" enough. Certainly, Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park still stand in less than desirable locations, but they draw dedicated fans nonetheless. Had O'Malley spent a part of his considerable fortune buying up some surrounding properties and building a parking complex, and then incrementally improved Ebbets Field with better seating and new amenities, the Dodger fanbase would have continued to travel to Flatbush.

O'Malley did not do this. He wanted land, and a lot of it, on the cheap---had Moses condemned the meat market, O'Malley would have bought the property for pennies on the dollar, a very attractive possibility to a man who squeezed a penny hard enough to put a permanent wave in Lincoln's beard. Los Angeles offered him that and he jumped, literally across a continent, to get it, taking his team about as far from Brooklyn as it was possible to go in his desperation to stay. Yet, if he'd REALLY wanted to stay, Flushing Meadow beckoned. And despite the fact that Flushing is not Brooklyn, the New York football Giants play in New Jersey's Meadowlands and still remain a New York team (the O'Malley-inspired move of the baseball Giants from Manhattan to San Francisco is another issue). In 1957, many of Brooklyn's fans were Long Island transplants, and more would be as time passed. Queens, while not the best of all possible worlds, would have been a convenient waypoint for fans from the old and new neighborhoods.

For that matter, had either O'Malley or Moses given a damn about Brooklyn, they would have cooperated in building a new stadium and reinvigorating Brooklyn. Neither cared to.

"Walter O'Malley was not a bad man. He was devoted to his wife and his children loved him," Shapiro points out. That's nice to know. But O'Malley was also an S.O.B. in business. The two are not mutually exclusive. "Only a sentimental man," Shapiro writes, "would have stayed." Maybe so. But the Dodgers and the Dodger fanbase needed a sentimental man, they needed a fellow fan, they needed a man who loved the team and who loved Brooklyn. What they had was Walter O'Malley, who saw the team merely as a moneymaking concern. O'Malley's actions speak for themselves, regardless of Shapiro's revisionism. And if O'Malley was "not unique" among team owners but merely "so obvious" about his profit motives, the blame is still his for eroding the spirit of The Game, and beginning the slide to where we are today in baseball with its overly mobile nonentity franchises, bloated payrolls, stars on steroids, cupidity and stupidity, and fan disinterest.

In the face of necessity, sentiment oft-times does not serve. But in circumstances of choice, such as faced by the Dodgers, sentiment can be a hedge against callousness.

What O'Malley (and Moses) failed to grasp is that a ball team is more than an agglomeration of men in uniform standing around in an open field. He (they) failed to grasp that a baseball game is more than just nine innings and a cold toting of runs, hits, and errors. It is a conversation at a water cooler, a friendly argument over lunch, an invitation to meet at the ballpark on Saturday afternoon for dogs and beer and a chance to see The Duke of Flatbush. It is a sense of neighborliness, a sense of pride, and was---still is---an important part of Brooklyn's special identity.

As Roger Kahn says in The Boys of Summer, "In the best of all possible worlds the Dodgers would be in Brooklyn and Los Angeles would have the Mets."

That's as it should have been.

This book probably doesn't get the sales or the attention it deserves, because the title and the cover make it look as if it's intended just for baseball junkies. But it's far more than that. In just 332 pages, Shapiro tells four stories:

1. The story of the National League pennant race in 1956.
2. The story of why the Dodgers (and therefore the Giants as well) decided to move to California in 1958.
3. The social, demographic, and economic changes that Brooklyn (and, by extension, much of urban America) experienced in the post-World War II era.
4. Thumbnail sketches of the personal lives of the core players in the Brooklyn Dodger lineup from 1947 through 1956.

None of these four themes is given short shrift. Furthermore, Shapiro has organized this book beautifully. He seems to have done a perfect job in choosing exactly where to break the narrative of the Dodgers' wins and losses, and insert a section about the changing character of a neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Not only that, but Shapiro's writing is superb. Here is his account of the last pitch of the last Dodger game of the regular season - a game they had to win in order to clinch the championship, with Dodger Don Bessent pitching to Pittsburgh's Hank Foiles:

*****
Don Bessent went into his windup. The last thing he thought before releasing the ball was, he later said, "Tight, keep it tight."

Hank Foiles swung. The next thing he heard was the thud of the ball in Roy Campanella's mitt.
*****

You don't have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this book. You just have to enjoy good writing and a wonderful story, wonderfully told.

I have long been interested in the old Brooklyn Dodgers, having read multiple books on the subject. This is among the best. First of all, it is an excellent read. There is plenty of baseball included in its pages, and the Dodgers teams of the 50s were always interesting. But I learned much more than I expected from this book about the politics that led to the team's move to California. It's too bad the franchise couldn't have remained in Brooklyn, but the reasons they left were different than I would have imagined. The book also paints the picture of a post-World War II New York that was rapidly changing. As a lover of baseball, history and baseball history, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Wow. First let me say that I'm not a Brooklyn resident or a Dodger fan and picked this book up without knowing anything about it. The book turned out to be one of the best baseball books I've read in quite some time.

I was drawn into the book immediately. It is clear in the Prologue that Shapiro is a very good writer and that the book is as much about the fifties and Brooklyn as it is about a pennant race. The book is enjoyable on both fronts.

Shapiro does a great job of weaving a portrait of the changes going on in Brooklyn in the mid-fifties and giving younger readers a good idea of what it was like to grow up in that era. It is clear that Shapiro has done quite a bit of research and I think the reader really gets a good look into the personalities of the players and other characters in the story.

Any fan of baseball history will do himself a favor in buying this book. It truly deserves more acclaim than it has received.

This book literally launched my CG animation career. I later took a class in CG animation and modeling and the tutorials in this book were in that class. Its was an excellent class, since it helped you learn the book's content is covered in 3 weeks instead of 2-3 months of night time after work animation. But this book is $30 not $2k.
What a great book. It does assume you know the basics, so learn the basics first and then dive in head first.

not even worth giving it up to my dog to chew on.

I have read several books about 3D Max but I consider this book one of the best books ! and I have learnt a lot from it ...If you want to make professional media animations logos you have to own one !

I have read several books about 3D Max but I consider this book one of the best books ! and I have learnt a lot from it ...If you want to make professional media animations logos you have to own one !

Finally a book that merges great tutorial writing and impressive content. Going through this book, I was intrigued with every sentence. Not only did I want to read what Chismar had to say but I would learn things at random times. New techniques and tricks sprawl throughout this book, were at times I even felt a little guilty getting all this info for just a few bucks. Don't keep us waiting too long for the next one, John.

Even if I'm not working in vfx, so I haven't a great experience, I think this book should be in every comps shelf: very simple, well written, it deals with the math under every (even the simplest) operation you can do in your compositing package (it's quite software-indipendent). It explains several wonderful tricks too.
Globally, very useful in my opinion.

Ron goes over the very concepts of compositing that are essential to know in the computer graphics feild. I have bought several copies of this book as the disappear from my desk (no longer kept in public view)

This book is exceptional and a must for anyone pursuing this area of interest. The only disappointment I had in purchasing this item is that it is supposed to come with a CD, and the CD was never shipped to me. What's up, Amazon?

That can I say about Mr Brinkman. Well he's one of the God's of compositing and VFX. Mad about the math behind Node based compositing software, which incidentally is a good thing. This is not meant to be a 'Shake' bible as it is supposed to be non software specific. However it uses 'Shake' language and node naming. This is not a criticism as 'Shake' is the meccano kit of compositing. Understand the mode and the math behind it and you can do anything. I would also assume that this will still be relevant when shake is 'reborn'.

This is also essential for other composing software where the math is hidden. If you've ever considered what happens inside that 'magic button' after you've clicked.

I also think that Steve Wright's 'Digital Compositing for Film and Video, Second Edition' is a must too. Another great book from a great man of VFX.

Having not been personally taught by Mr. Brinkman and Mr Wright these books prove to be the next best thing.

This book is a in depth study of the techniques and technologies involved in the art of compositing. Not sooo technical that no one will understand it, but technical enough that it even explains in detail the algorithms and math used for antialiasing, blurs, the transfer operators like multiply, screen overlay., etc... I am a professional cg artist and highly recommend this book.

Brain Quest is a series of books written and designed to help children learn the basic skills needed to grow and thrive in the classroom. This particular guide, the Brain Quest Pre- K Workbook, is a very helpful, very useful guide that teaches pre- kindergarten age children some of the important skills they need to know before they launch into kindergarten and eventually into grade school. This book, like the others in the Brain Quest series, offers separate sections that cover many important areas of curriculum; from the alphabet to letter pronunciation with both verbal and visual exercises to expand a child's knowledge and skill.

Brain Quest is a series of books I am very familiar with but I never got the chance to completely put them to the test until I got hold of this book, for Pre- Kindergarten. My little ones are very close to the kindergarten age and I assumed there would be useful material in this guide to serve as a prelude to school. And now that I have used the Brain Quest Pre-K Workbook with my little ones, I can say the book has succeeded with flying colors. Before I even showed it to my girls, I looked through all of the pages and I was very impressed with what I saw. Not only are there plenty of exercises, but the exercises approach learning from many different angles. There are visual exercises, verbal exercises, and drawing exercises to make sure that children know more than just one dimension of the learning process.

Among the sections in the Brain Quest Pre- K Workbook, the first section, which covers the alphabet, is the longest. I suppose that learning the alphabet is very fundamental for kindergarteners and this book wastes no time making sure that kids know their ABC's. Letter recognition is the first exercise in the book, followed by exercises that teach youngsters how to draw each letter, both upper and lower case. I like this section for the way it teaches. First, it offers two examples of each upper and lower case letter with dashed lines and numbers/arrows that indicate each stroke of a pen/pencil needed to create the letter. Young students are asked to trace these two letters first, to get practice. Then, they are given several opportunities to draw each letter. Using a red dot as the starting point, young children will have no problem figuring out how to create the letters of the alphabet completely on their own. Some will require more practice than others, but all children will get the hang of it at some point and will be able to draw each letter with ease.

Because the alphabet section is so long, there is little remaining space for the other sections and some of these other sections are a little shorter than I would like. The Science section, for example, is very short and it doesn't delve into the world of science very much, with most of its pages talking about animals, the human body, clothing, and food. This isn't very much, but I have to keep reminding myself that Brain Quest Pre- K Workbook is intended for children between the ages of three and five. Science isn't a critical subject for kindergarteners, so it makes sense that only a small amount of coverage is given to this topic.

Taken as a whole, Brain Quest Pre- K Workbook is an excellent learning tool that teaches kids the basics from multiple angles for a well- rounded learning experience. Kids will love the interactive nature of this book, its coloring sections, the pages that depict animals, etc. It is a book that is almost certain to improve learning and interest in learning, making Brain Quest Pre- K Workbook an excellent learning guide that covers all of the most important learning material for a child getting ready to enter kindergarten in the next one to two years.

"Brain Quest Workbook Pre-K" is only one of the many great Brain Quest products by Workman Publishing. This book is an outstanding workbook for Pre-K kids. The curriculum covers everything needed for Pre-K, including ABC's, 123's, shapes, colors and much more.

I love the alphabet chart that is included in the back of the book. It is perfect to hang on your fridge, in your child's room, play area, or any place they will see it often. Of course, it wouldn't be complete without stickers, and Brain Quest does not disappoint the kids--there are plenty!

Another great product by Brain Quest is the card game for preschoolers,Brain Quest Preschool (Brain Quest). Any Brain Quest item would make a great gift.

The BrainQuest PreK Workbook is jam-packed with colorful, educational fun for your preschooler. The workbook has over 300 pages of full-color activities, a pull-out alphabet poster for your wall and two full pages of reward stickers.

The workbook activities are grouped topically by ABCs, 123s, Phonics, Vocabulary, Shapes and Colors, Sorting and Matching, My World, Science, Fun and Games and Extras.

ABC activities include writing the uppercase and lowercase letters, matching uppercase and lowercase letters, and an alphabet song game.

123s activities include counting exercises, writing the numbers, and number identification.

Phonics activities include handwriting practice, cirling pictures that begin with a certain letter sound and matching exercises.

The Vocabulary section teaches words like big/small, open/closed and stop/go.

The Shapes and Colors section has fun activities like coloring a rainbow. The rainbow exercise was my daughter's favorite in this section!

The Sorting and Matching section asks your child to pick out items that are the same or items that are different. It also asks the child to identify where things belong (for example, does a book belong in a bookcase or does a banana belong in a bookcase).

The My World section asks your child to think about their home environment. Draw a picture of your favorite thing to do at home. What things belong on the kitchen table?

The Science section is perfectly tailored to the preschool age group. They ask the children to identify where certain animals live. They ask the children to circle things that are living vs things that are not living. It introduces concepts like habitat.

The Fun and Games section was my daugher's immediate favorite. There were easy mazes and pages for coloring.

A terrific workbook for home use. It is a great resource to reinforce the concepts that your child is learning in preschool in a fun, easy to use way.

Brainquest Workbooks are a true workbook with pages that are designed to be torn out.

The workbook is designed as a supplement to go along with what your child is learning in school and is great for parents to use at home.

There are six Brainquest Workbooks in the series and each one is designed for a different age ranging from Pre-K through 4th grade.

The contents are excellent and are broken down into color-coded sections which include ABCs, 123s, Phonics, Vocabulary, Shapes and Colors, Sorting and Matching, My World, Science, Fun and Games and a section of extras which include stickers, an ABC poster, an award certificate and flash cards.

The content itself is fun, colorful and interesting. It brought back memories from school for me. I sat down with my boys and they were completely fascinated with the pictures in the workbook and wanted me to read more and more to them.

I recommend highly and plan on purchasing the rest in the series as my sons enter each school grade.

Whether a child is in preschool or staying at home in preparation for kindergarten, Brain Quest's PreK workbook will prove a valuable and fun tool. The book starts helping kids learn both colors and letters together (by instructing them to color letters a certain color), it moves onto covering simple numbers, some basic phonics and very simple reading basics, shapes, and some basic science. I would expect that most kids would have a difficult time with some of the exercises. Even the most intelligent will be midly pushed and some late bloomers may be overwhelmed, but under the oversight of a patient teacher or parent, a child will emerge with improved critical thinking skills, knowledge of alphabets, colors, and shapes, and maybe even be able to read some very basic basic words using phonetic concepts.

The Far Side Gallery is the first collection of Gary Larson's crazy comic strips featuring hordes of talking anthropomorphised fauna and fowl of all shapes and sizes.

These are generally very amusing, and generally very witty, and you are bound to get some fridge or door material out of one of these.

Gary is sorely missed. Almost no one saw it the way he did. I hope another comes along.

Gary Larson never ceases to amaze me. I've been a religious follower of The Far Side for as long as I can remember. I love the way he looks at the lighter side of life, yet some of the comics really hit home. My favourite still is the deer with the target as a birth mark! Go Larry - you're my super hero!

Some of my earliest memories are filled with reading The Far Side on my father's lap after the evening meal. Whenever I asked my parents for a one of the standard collections, they told me to wait, one day they would all be in one book. Then, for Christmas one year, I got this book.

What can I say, but thank you Mom and Dad and thank you Mr. Larson! The Far Side was, and still is, funny, original, and timeless. This collection gives you some of the best of the original strips and lends itself well to watching the progression of humor up and through until the end.

Larson's original gallery has so many classic Far Side cartoons that you can not justify not owning this sensational collection of his work. Larson may well have retired a while ago but the power of these works of brilliance to make the reader laugh will never fade. There have been many who have copied Larson's style but I have never come across anyone else who has even come close to achieving the quality of The Far Side.

Buy The Far Side Gallery along with its sequels, the original smaller books that make up these galleries are also great buys, along with the calendars and other merchandise. Larson's 2007 calendar gives all the proceeds to wildlife conservation (which obviously inspired a lot of his work) so get that too. You can never own enough of The Far Side.

In this volume (originally released in 1984) of the Gallery collections you will find such classic Far Sides as on Noah's Ark "Well that's it for the unicorns, from now on all the carnivores are confined to C Deck", the father being held up by his shirt collar by an invisible man with his son saying "BigBob is tired of you saying he doesn' exist, the smashed bottle falling from the clouds with humans running away with the word Uh-Oh! from the sky. The bears riding in the circus car saying "Looks Like a trap I said, nonsense no one would set a trap way out here in the woods you said...." The crocodiles on the river bank saying "That was incredible, no fur, claws, horns, antlers or nothing, just soft and pink" and of course the classic picture of dinosaurs smoking with the caption beneath "The Real Reason Dinosaurs Became Extinct" are just a small sample of the classic laughs within this sensational masterpiece.