Q Books

Terrific book with detailed instructions for creating very different and unique quilts using the same blocks. The colored photos are a great guide for completing the quilts.

I love this book as it gives some great new ideas on using the old classic 'storm at sea' block. The color pictures provide lots of inspiration and the instructions are written so that quilters of all levels can understand them. A great addition to any quilters library.

Quilts: A Beautiful History by Zaro Weil is one of the best books I have read on quilt history. IT is well researched and nicely presented. I have reccommended it to the museum where I work as a must have. Quilt blocks have so many different names, there are no right or wrong names. I would have liked the print and the pictures to be bigger but perhaps the size of the book made it more affordable. There are so many quilt history books around that confuse quilt history with quilt traditions, folklore and myth and just not likely, that this book is refreshing and gives a nice survey of AMerican quilting history.

this is a nice little book, a good choice for a gift to a quilter. the gallery contains photos of a nice array of quilts, some of which have been published elsewhere, others that have not. the small dimensions of the book make close ups of the quilting impossible, which is a great shame, especially for the amish quilts pictured.

the prose is another matter. when it isn't turgid, it's purple. there are errors of history and block names. the author may love quilts, but she doesn't seem to know that much about them.

if you don't know what to get a quilter, this, as i've said, would be nice. after all, most quilters are also bibliomaniacs, too, so any book is a good book. as a reference, it's nearly worthless.

This book did not really tell me a whole lot that I didn't already know. Why, then, did I give it 5 stars (you ask)? Well, it's because I know a great many people who would gain a lot from reading Levine's book.

Unfortunately, the people who would benefit the most from this book are also the least likely to read it. Most of the people I know who are guilty of the most egregious social practices that Levine details are also COMPLETELY oblivious that they are doing anything wrong. Sometimes it amazes me how some people are consistently so thoughtless, yet they never give a 2nd thought to their words or actions.

It is a quick read, even quicker than what it looks [thanx to several mini-quizes]. That is a good attribute of a Self-Help book. It means that it is focused on discerning tangible problems and finding tangible problems. Self-Help books that are 600 pages long frequently meander around so much and try to solve all the world's problems @ once. In doing so, they many times leave the reader dumbfounded as to what he / she just read. Not so this book. The length is adequate to what Levine is trying to accomplish.

In Plato's APOLOGY Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." In saying this he was not just talking about philosophers. One need not have a degree in philosophy to do some introspection and learn how to become a better person.

To that end, this book is highly recommended to the general populace. The more you think you don't need it, the more I would recommend it anyway. Even if you find that your life's practices are equivalent to what Levine writes, it's good to know that you're on the right track.

This book is great. It not only tells you how certain situations should be dealt with, but it also has short quizzes to show whether or not your social IQ is up to speed. Deals with topics from friend and dating issues to life at the office.

This is very, how shall I put it, interesting book. It is really rather good and gets better and better page after page. I don't want to write to much but read the book and you'll find out what I mean for yourself.

Bill Cohen introduces a new discourse to the Victorian Sexuality academic world: the Scandal. This book looks at the way in which Wilde's trial and sexuality during the late 19th century evolved into scandalous acts. I don't want to take too much time developing his ideas in this review but one must read this book in order to understand another discursive element in Victorian literature. Cohen developes the homology between sexuality and literature as the unspeakable, and uses these concepts to look at the Wilde trials, Wilde's literature, and other contemporaneous writers' works like James.

Sue Fulton's Shake It Off is a romantic read with a whole lot of corporate backstabbing.

Meet Benita, Denise, Melvin, and Roy, the boss that most everyone would love to hate. Add a fine doctor to the mix who is not a workaholic, while Benita is the career climbing workaholic, and a jealous certain someone who quietly envies Benita's top spot, then things begin to turn very ugly. Although some may conclude that the novel starts out a bit slow, as the chapter's progress, you will find yourself pitying poor Benita--probably because you or someone you know has been forced to wear her shoes, at some point in time.

As this novel progresses, you'll understand why the foundation was laid, so please stick with the read and give the drama time to unfold. This novel transcends race, age, sex, and socioeconomic status. With that said, most women--especially single career women--can relate to Benita's dilemma best. Sometimes naive and sometimes strong, she is an imperfect but realistic character. Most female professionals want to feel like we can have it all, but what is having it all...really? Moreover, what defines friendship, and who are our real friends if actions speak louder than words?

Sweet, true-to-life, and witty, Ms. Fulton makes an impressive debut by penning Shake It Off. I was pleasantly surprised by the manner in which she dovetailed many issues together while keeping the language pretty clean, and maintaining a spicy storyline. Thus, I highly recommend this read to those that are diehard fans of chick lit and romance stories.
Reviewed by: Andrea Blackstone, Black Butterfly Review

Hard work pays off. If anyone knows that, Benita does. She started off at an entry level position and is now on the verge of a promotion as the Human Resource Manager. Benita never minded the extra hours because her social life didn't consist of much. That all changes when she meets Dr. Tyron Coleman. Soon Benita finds herself being pulled in different directions and jealousy has reared its ugly head. Tyron wants to spend more time with her as they build their relationship. As the promotion nears, Benita's work load increases leaving her with little time for anything else. Denise, Benita's good friend and step-niece, has been acting differently now that Benita has found someone. Since they were kids, there was always some form of jealousy on Denise's part, but something about this time is different. Denise's demeanor has changed. Work, her man, and her friend, why can't Benita have it all? Will she be forced to choose, or will the decision be made for her?

Sue Fulton gives readers an all-too-real glance into what some suffer being on the wrong end of office politics and sexual harassment. While Shake It Off was an enjoyable read, it was slow and at times dragged. I think that could have been remedied with more focus on character development and less on Fulton County Recreation, Benita's place of employment. I still don't really know much about Benita and even less about Tyron, Denise and others. Knowing them would have helped explain and maybe justify their actions. So many details about Fulton County Recreation weighed this novel down. Overall, Shake It Off is a solid debut effort. Anyone who has worked in an office setting will find something they can relate to.

Reviewed by: Toni
3.5 stars

This book is a most excellent read. It is good for people casually interested in espionage and those with more background in it. One of the most overlooked areas was the periods between the world wars and the late 19th Century which is well treated. It is also written in a fast paced style that is never boring. I highly recommend this book. I have several other books by the author after reading this one and have been impressed with them all. A definite "can't miss" book.

John Wortman p.4 The Fine Art of Spying is a collection of true, and truly amazing, stories written by Somerset Maugham, Anthony Abbott, Winston Churchill, Fletcher Pratt, Alan Hynd, Kurt Singer, and other famous authors. But The Fine Art of Spying would not have come together without the editing of Walter B. Gibson. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about clever and incredible strategies that people use when they find themselves in difficult situations. Although The Fine Art of Spying is a book about the exiting events and missions that certain spies go through, the book does not include 100% concentrated action. So, if you are looking for a pointless, plotless, "everybody dies" novel, (which I DO enjoy reading) I don't recommend this book to you. Otherwise I recommend it to anyone. Although this is a great book, it does have a couple of boring parts. There is a story in The Fine Art of Spying entitled "The Traitor." This is one of the book's less enjoyable stories, in fact, I think it is the worst one in the book. "The Traitor" is about one spy trying to get another spy to work for his network. This may sound okay but it wasn't because the first spy did nothing to persuade the other spy. This makes it bad because there was no conflict and without conflict there is no action. Don't worry, however, there are really only two bad stories. "The Traitor" and "Prisoner in the Legation" are those stories, but I found "Prisoner in the Legation" not to be as boring as "The Traitor." There are, however, many good stories in this book. One of my favorites is called "Encounter at Treasure Island." This story is about an ordinary guy who gets tangled up with some Japanese spies and tries to get on the inside of their network and obtain enough information about them to get them arrested and convicted. The Fine Art of Spying is a great collection of some excellent spy stories. I liked this book because most of the stories were extremely exciting and they told what real people have done in actual situations. Many of the strategies that these people thought of I would not have dreamed of, so my attention was held. Even though the interesting aspects varied from story to story, some stories were very boring, while others almost forced the reader to continue. Over all I highly recommend The Fine Art of Spying.

Most books about birds present the species in 'phylogenetic' order, a conventional sequence intended to show the apparent relationships between species. This book, for example, begins with a loon (long considered the most primitive of extant North American species, though recently replaced by the waterfowl) and ends with a hummingbird (a relatively advanced family of 'pre-passerines'); the owls, for example, are kept together to show their relatively close evolutionary ties. Ordering the birds alphabetically, by color, or in any other of the artificial schemes one occasionally encounters, results in scattering closely related species throughout the book, and in the case of alphabetical order, requires revision with every nomenclatural change (does that funny-looking red-billed rallid go under 'm' for 'moorhen' or 'g' for 'gallinule'?).
It's great that the reviewer prepared an alphabetical index, but all birders eventually grow accustomed to phylogenetic order and use it without thinking about it at all.

The Stokes Guides to Bird Behavior are great little references for backyard bird-watching. You may have to wander a little further than your backyard to observe some of these species, but the birds in your neighborhood are probably in one of the three Stokes volumes. Each Stokes Guide to Bird Behavior features 25 common North American bird species. For each species, the authors explain visual displays, auditory displays, territory courtship, nest-building, breeding, plumage and seasonal movement, and provide a calendar so that you can clearly see when these behaviors occur. I wouldn't take any generalizations about bird behavior too seriously because many birds are very individual, and their behaviors and social customs vary accordingly. But these books will give you a good basis for understanding and predicting the behavior of your avian neighbors. You'll enjoy watching your little feathered friends all the more with the added understanding the Stokes Guides provide.

My one complaint about these books is that the bird species are not in any particular order, and neither are they indexed. If you look at the table of contents you will see that the species are not in alphabetical or any other order, and there is no sense to which birds are in which volume or where they are placed in the book. In other words, you have to read through the entire list of 25 species in the table of contents, in each book, to locate the species you want. I have no explanation for this, and I made an index for the books myself to save me from the frustration involved every time I want to look up a species. That is the reason I gave the book(s) 4 stars instead of 5.

In Volume Three: Common Loon, Great Blue Heron, Wood Duck, American Woodcock, Common Tern, Bald Eagle, Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Northern Goshawk, Broad-Winged Hawk, Red-Tailed Hawk, Osprey, Peregrine Falcon, Northern Bobwhite, Rig-Necked Pheasant, Great Horned Owl, Barred Owl, Eastern Screech Owl, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Pileated Woodpecker, Purple Martin, Common Raven, Eastern Bluebird, Dark-Eyed Junco, White-Throated Sparrow, and Bobolink.

Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I should have known that a greatest hits compilation is never as good as the original pressing. After all that, it was R. Crumb. He is a genius, but a rehash of some of his old drawings showing a "a gentler, kinder Crumb" does nothing to assuage my mistake of not having purchased the full story of Angel McSpade or some old Zap comics.

I purchased this for a friend who is an R. Crumb lover and who has converted me. Of course, I read it before delivering it. This book is as all R. Crumb books are--excellent, funny, endearing, and insightful. There is something in there for everyone. I'm a cat lover and his drawing of his cat was just super. All in all, worth every penny.

I can say that it was defenitely my pleasure to read such an intriguing creation! The Author leaves you in suspence, anticipation for the next surprising twist, and eager - extremely eager to dive into Q's other master pieces.

Having met the author, Q; it is immediately evident how profound and deep his creative juices run. I recommend his books to all book clubs, single readers, and couples alike.

Truly.........fabulously delicious and intense.....great imagination and ability to involve a sense of reality into such a powerful novel.

This book was recommended to me. I was hesitant at first, but I know I need to be more open-minded. I could not put this book down. I sent me through a wave of emotion and had me thinking back on some of my friends that I questioned. It was enjoyable book that raised my brow many times.

I feel compelled to write a review on this book because the other reviews do not provide much information. This is a book of tough chess combination puzzles. Yes, many of the puzzles will challenge a grandmaster. If you are below 1900 ELO in strength you might want to think about getting the other two books in this series. If you are a good chess tactician and love a challenge, then this book has it for you. Not for the faint hearted and not for the casual player. For the average club player, I can heartily recommend the Encyclopaedia of Chess Combinations (not available from Amazon, but I think it is available from USCF) which will provide a very good tactical training program.

There is no better book for the expert chess player. Learn the secrets of the world's greatest chess players by figuring them out for yourself. This book is a test. The hardest one you will ever take. See how you measure up against the best of the best. Let this unforgiving venue expose your many weaknesses, only then will you become strong.

If you are truely serious about chess, this book is a bargain at any price.