Games Books

I learned to play chess from this book decades ago and have kept up a comfortable skill level just by following Purdy's precepts. Purdy was an Australian, and was a World Correspondence Chess Champion.

This book is really good for someone wishing to take their chess to the next level after they've learned some basic strategies and tactics.It can be read fairly quickly and will give you some general strategies that you can apply in many chess games. If you need a good introductory chess book, then this is the one to buy.

Purdy is unmatched as a chess writer and teacher...

get anything with his name on it! This is a foundational book that every player should own!

There are many "all in one books" that are designed to be a person's first chess book, or only chess book. The Complete Idiot's Guide does a good job, but Purdy's "Guide to Good Chess" is by far the best out there. He is an excellent writer, that can take complex chess concepts, and make them understandable.

All essentials skills are covered, and he does a great job in pointing you in the right direction to further your skills if you are looking to get serious about chess.

For a casual player who is looking to improve their game, or for someone who thinks they might want to study chess, this is clearly the book you should pick up.

PS I am very stingy with the 5 stars, but this book truely deserves them.

Purdy does an excellent job of laying the foundation for more advanced concepts. If you know how to play, but are perplexed by concepts that you're always reading, you'll find a lot of it answered here. If you read through this and the Seirawan Microsoft Press books, your chess will take a nice leap forward.

Beginning with suggestions for ways you and your little reader can get the most out of the book, Friends Forever is a collection of three very short stories about two friends. In Cleaning House, Hare and Rabbit clean their house, only to discover that they now miss the things they threw away. A toy from a cereal box, in Mind-Reader Ring, causes a little friction as Hare becomes uncomfortable with the idea of Rabbit being able to read his mind. And in Boo-Boo Bunny, Hare gets jealous when Boo-Boo, an old friend of Rabbit's comes to town and invites them to see her perform in the circus.

The stories are just the right length for first and second graders. The illustrations are cute. Definitely not for kids much older, though, as the stories are a little boring for them.

Hare and Rabbit:Friends Forever is my second grade daughter's favorite new book. She reads it over and over and can't wait to read more of Hare and Rabbit's adventures. Thank you Julia Noonan for creating such wonderful characters who bring our children into an imaginary world and teach them values in a fun and endearing way.

Julia Noonan's expressive book perfectly captures the essence of being best friends--with all its ups and downs. The warm, exuberant artwork has a classic feel, and the stories are sensitive and upbeat. Children I have read this with can't wait for more adventures with Hare and Rabbit.

These characters are SO marvelous! Ms. Noonan has got friendship (and the acompanying tribulations) down pat. Her illustrations are totally charming. A must read for all kids.

Hare and Rabbit, friends forever, are totally involved with each other as best friends are. They make their way through three humorous but tender stories, accompanied by delicious watercolor illustrations filled with details kids will love. Cheers for Hare and Rabbit, and for Julia Noonan!

It's obvious by his writing that Flores has spent many a day in "the field". One can further glean from his writings that he does so because, like so many of us, the outdoors and hunting is as much food-for-the-soul as it is for dinner table.
I rate this book 5-Stars because if you've been-there, done-that - you can't help but relate to every chapter in this book.
It makes me want to grab the Lab, my son and trusty boat and head to the blind.

I am a 16 year-old young man who has the pleasure and privilage of knowing the author of this remarkable book of hunting experiences. The book has given me a new perspective on hunting and life itself in ways I never expected. It opened up my mind to the hunting experiences that I never had. The way the author wrote in detail about the experiences he had as a young man and an adult touched me a lot. I would recommend this book to any young hunter who loves to hunt or any young man who dreams of hunting. Thank you for writing this book Mr. John, I loved it.

Being an outdoor person and one who really appreciates the outdoors, I really enjoyed John's book. Some parts made me cry and some made me laugh. Some of the sories were a little scary because I have been jin some of the same situations. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys God's great outdoors. Bill Heilman
This is a must read for the wife of a hunter. It will give you new understanding of why he loves the outdoors. Perhaps enough that you will want to go with the next time. I truly enjoyed it and we are both looking forward to more books from John. Katherine heilman

Being an outdoor person and one who truly enjoys outdoor life, I really enjoyed John's book. Parts of the book I could relate to. It made me laugh and it made me cry. I have been in some of the same situations and they were a little scary. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys God's great outdoors. Bill Heilman.
A must read for the wife of a hunter. It helps you to get a better understanding of why your husband loves the great outdoors. Perhaps next time you will want to go with him.
We are both looking forward to more books by John.
Kathy Heilman

John K. Flores is my friend and I was able to proof read this book before it hit press. This book is an oustanding read for all avid hunters as it takes you into the field for a view of hunting through his eyes, his sons eyes and his lovely wifes eyes. All hunters can relate to his "camp" stories as John calls them,you will love this book. Its funny, serious and uplifting from a christian author. If you have hunting buddies you may want to buy this book as a gift for them, they will thank you for it. John Flores has many books written already in his head, he is an exceptional talent and a real genuine God chaser! I am looking forward to his next book hitting the press it is an awesome book and you will really appreciate his writing talents and skills. Thanks John for being a part of the Darce Familys Life. We appreciate you and your family very much! God Bless You my friend. Edward "Eddie" Darce

Even though, many of these activies are geared toward school-age children, it's a great book. My favorite chapter is Rainy Day Fun because the day seems a lot longer when the weather isn't pleasant outside.

The activities in this book are great! It gives lots of examples and even more ideas than most. The best part is that anyone can use the samples or add/take away from one of the other activities listed to create a new one. Life saver when the kids are really bored. In fact, after we did many of the suggestions, my kids read them over and came up with even more games and ideas themselves. Now - that's a switch.

"Help@ I'm Bored!" is a lifesaver for parents with children between the ages of 2 and 12. You'll find everything you need to keep them busy and entertained. - - over 300 activities, including arts and crafts, super-easy tasty treats they can make, outdoor activities, games, and even fun ways to improve reading, writing, spelling and math skills. It's a keeper!

This book is a must have resource for any parent,teacher or group leader. As a busy mom,of children with a wide age range, the variety of activities, at my fingertips is so helpful. I will definitely recommend this book to my visitors at Amazingmoms.com...the Author must be an Amazingmom herself!

Help! I'm bored is filled with excellent activity ideas for children. Scouting leaders will find this book very helpful when planning their meetings! It is a wonderful resource book! -

This was purchased for our 4 year old who is a major Hot Wheels fan. He and dad pour through the colorful photographs and line up all their cars that match those found in the book. I am sure from a collectors point the information of the value along with the detailed picture would be very useful. It is a nice thick, heavy paged book that will be around this house for a long time.

I find this book extremely helpful in listing a very large percentage of the current (1989 onwards) Hot Wheels variations. The book follows on from the earlier editions and I find it a very useful refererence source.

Awesome very fast shipping. Arrived in excellent condition. Will buy from again. Thanks so much.

If you collect variations of Hot Wheels, you have probably heard of the Godfather of Variations, Michael Zarnock. This guy is nuts about variations and has put together one of the top 3 Hot Wheels collector books ever published. I love the book and have loved it since volume 1 because it has fantastic Blue Card identification pictures and very accurate price guide. If you don't know if a variation is real or fake, just check the Grail, it will let you know if you are dealing with fraud or not. In other words, if it is not in this book you are probably not dealing with a variation. Indispensible to a serious Hot Wheel collector. Gratzi, Don Zarnock.

I just got got this book today and It was more than I expected there were tons and tons of pictures, mr. zarnock give yourself a pat on the back because you did one heke of a job.

Herman has written a fascinating book that examines how Americans have thought about hunting over the centuries. He shows that colonial Americans were ambivalent about hunting; that Revolutionary patriots celebrated hunters as defenders of natural rights; and that popular writers made hunter heroes into paragons of both modernity and tradition during the nineteenth-century market revolution. Herman (like historian John Reiger) also shows that hunters loved land and animals long before the word "environmentalism" was ever heard.

As someone who has given some thought to hunting's history, I would add a few things that Herman left out: for one, Herman might have discussed the attitudes of Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln toward hunting. Both men deplored it. I'm not sure that I buy Herman's argument that the nineteenth-century popularity of sport hunting and the eagerness for the Civil War were related, given the attitudes of Davis and Lincoln.

Herman also should have given more information on settlers' tendency to kill off or drive away game from Indian hunting grounds. Thomas Jefferson commented on this, as did Tocqueville, William Henry Harrison, Philip Schuyler, and numerous others. More info on this would have strengthened Herman's arguments.

Those are small flaws. My judgment is: if you are a hunter or a history buff, you should read this book. It's well-researched, nicely written, and philosophical.

Herman is not so much interested in hunting itself as in ideas about hunting. He traces the path by which Americans--especially Theodore Roosevelt and others of the Progressive Era--came to think of themselves as a people who had been made great through hunting. Herman deftly draws on critical theory and on a vast repertoire of secondary literature yet he grounds his story (or, more properly, his series of stories) firmly in history rather than in literary criticism. The result is scholarship at its best.

My wife gave me this book because I was a deer hunter before I retired. I read the book and enjoyed it, although I had to look up a word now and then. This is a scholarly work. Some chapters are more readable than others. Herman certainly knows about the history of gun hunting, but I wish he had discussed the history of archery, which is how I hunted. Regardless, this book was a good addition to my library. The illustrations are great and the writing is accessible.

I liked this book a lot. It's well researched and engaging. I also appreciated Herman's balanced view of hunting. Though the book tilts toward political correctness in places, Herman, unlike the PETA crowd, doesn't posture about the evils of hunting.

There are some problems in Herman's book. For one thing, it's unfortunate that Herman cites Michael Bellesiles' Arming America two or three times. Herman seems to have bought Bellesiles' arguments about how scarce guns were in early American history (maybe Herman sent his book to press before Clayton Cramer shot down Bellesiles' "facts" in American Rifleman).

On the other hand, I was convinced by Herman's arguments that early Americans had mixed attitudes about hunting. Colonists thought that white men who became full-time hunters were too much like Indians, especially since farming, for colonists, justified the acquisition of Indian hunting grounds. Herman's argument that Enlightenment philosophers and statesmen often regarded hunting as uncivilized and/or cruel also has merit (here's a little fact that Herman could have used: Thomas Jefferson kept a deer park but never hunted the deer!).

More importantly, Herman's central theme - that in the nineteenth century hunters became indigenous American heroes, or as Herman says, "American Natives" - is on the mark. The best chapters in the book are about Lewis and Clark and Daniel Boone as "American Natives." The chapter on the first promoter of sport hunting in America, Henry William Herbert, is also fascinating, as is Herman's discussion of women hunters in chapter 16.

If you like history, Hunting and the American Imagination is provocative and well worth reading.

In Hunting And The American Imagination, Daniel Herman (assistant professor of history, Central Washington University) reveals that American hunting traditions are not based colonial or frontier cultures. In fact, the colonists and frontiersmen defined themselves as farmers and bringers of civilization to the wilds. Hunting was an integral part of frontier life, but was primarily viewed as a matter of subsistence rather than identity. It was in a post frontier era that the mythos of hunting was seized upon in the popular imagination and such democratic legends as those of Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Meriwether Lewis, and Native American cultures as the basis for America's sports hunters assuming a mantle of hunting oriented stewardships over the land and the wildlife. From John Smith to Theodore Roosevelt, what emerged in the 20th Century was a rich legacy of imagery and lore that gave rise to today's widely held, middle-class ideas about American hunting rights, privileges, and mores.

What a joy this book is. Our family fought over who could have the book until we got smarter and bought more copies, one for each person in the family (5 total). Maybe Pat's book did help make us smarter!

My husband,daughter and I had a lot of fun working out these word games. It's a really fun book that challenges your mind in many different ways. As I read some of the word games I was amazed at how incredible Pat Battaglia's imagination is to come up with the questions. I highly recommend this book.

The puzzles in this book are great. However, I liked the author's book Are You Smart, or What? better because, besides puzzles, it has lots of fun stuff including outrageous intelligent quotients.

but Pat Battaglia is! Another fun and engaging puzzle book by the master.

Once again Pat has me and my family laughing out loud as we team up to solve the riddles in this book. Some of the word plays are simple and the grade school cousins join in, sometimes even my latin-schooled father scratches his head. You'll love this one!

I purchased this book as a gift for someone who recently returned from a trip to Japan. The book is absolutely beautiful and for those interested in Japanese Flower Arranging, this is one of the greatest books available for high quality color photos of some lovely interiors. Great book for the decorator looking for ideas in a Japanese theme setting.

I bought a few of these as gifts.
Makes a great coffee table book.
This book exceeded my expectations.

This book is outstanding! It makes this beautiful art accessible to everyone. I have used it to introduce Ikebana to my students. If I were to own only one book on Ikebana, this would be it!

I bought this book because I love having flowers in my home, but I'm not very good at arranging them. I also bought the book because I like the spareness, the openness of Ikebana. What I especially like about this book is its simple illustrations that explain the various concepts, and that are easy to follow. I also like that it presents arrangements for each of the seasons. This book has definitely been worth the money. I highly recommend it!

I bought this book for the pleasure of viewing, rather than of flower-arranging. The book does a very concise explaining of What is ikebana? and of The Techniques. The picture instructions are simple and easy to follow.

What I love most about the book is the careful and thoughtful planning and presentation of ikebana through the seasons.

I've compared this book to other books at the bookstore, and this by far the only one that lived up to the philosophy and practice of Japanese aesthetics. From what I've read on Zen and its philosophy, there is a concept of "ma" and "wa" - one of which is about enough "blank space" around the art form, that helps the eye to appreciate the quality and beauty of lines / texture / forms / space. This book complies to that philosophy.

I am pleased with the quality of paper, and the general layout of the photos, and there is enough text to support each selected flower-arrangement which is helpful to someone who does not know much about the specific aesthetic discipline that is ikebana.

Thanks.

(On a minor note, the book I bought was printed in 2003, and the cover is different from what is shown on Amazon.com)

i need strategies & secret

I know that Imperialism 2 is a great game, and I want to make this cheaper, I bought a "internet cracked cd" that includes the game, so I played and liked it.when I saw the help issue (within-
the game),I saw the manual,and I asked myself what the heck is that manual.And so I wrote here and found out.

aleady out of words,
xxxxx!

I'm one of those people who buys every strategy guide for every game I have worth playing. The guide for Imperialism II is one of the very best I've read. It contains very helpful advice on sound strategies covering each aspect of the game and has a very helpful section outlining research options. Highly recommended.

I was pleasantly surprised by the information content, analysis, and true strategic content in the strategy guide. At a time when few strategy guides for war and strategy games are worth buying, this is a strong exception.

I was pleasantly surprised by the information content, analysis, and true strategic content in the strategy guide. At a time when few strategy guides for war and strategy games are worth buying, this is a strong exception.

While much of the fun of knitting is making colorful, comfortable clothing for relaxation, there are times when a knitter needs to look "presentable." "Jackets" is a terrific resource for any knitter who wants to look professional while enjoying the sense of accomplishment and individuality that a handknit garment can bring.

This book provides 21 patterns of office suitable cardigans and Channel style jackets, all of which would look as polished as a blazer or a suit jacket. The looks are sharp but traditional enough not to go out of style quickly. Each pattern runs 4 to 6 pages with several photo angles and detailed instructions. The end of the book features a section on finishing tips which is most appropriate given the tailored tone of most of the sweaters.

For those of you who can thumb through the book before ordering, here are some details that may be helpful:
1. Colorwise, there are 14 solid color jackets and 7 multicolor slip stitch patterns. The multi-colors are mostly tweedy looks. Most of the solid color sweaters are knit is stitches other that stockingnette - twills, nubby textures and such. There is only one lace project.
2. The writer/editors rate one sweater as easy; two as "easy plus"; fifteen as intermediate; and three as advanced.
3. The yarn weights are on the light side - one in sport weight; nine in DK weight; nine in worsted weight and two in bulky. Also, this book employees Knitter's Magazine's new generic yarn requirements system (with only small print notations of the specific yarn used in the model jacket).
4. The needles involved are also on the small side - four sweaters on US size 3; four on US size 4; two on US size 5; four on US size 6; six on US size 7; and one on US size 10. As one knitter who is getting pretty tired of the bulky look, this is one of the best part of the book IMHO.
In summary; a great book for professionals who've had to keep their knitting in the closet or the knitters who never know what to make to the young woman lawyer in the family.

As I begin finishing the first project I have made from this book, I have already selected my next project. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I want to make every design; however, the simple shapes of the pieces lend themselves to endless modifications. Ms. Frost's use of textured stitch patterns other than cables, ribbing and seed stitch makes this a great creativity "tickler." I like that the author is not promoting one line of yarns, but uses a variety of basic and widely available yarns for the model garments. This book is easily one of my favorite knitting book purchases.

I love this book. The jackets are updated classics, tailored and elegant without being cheap and cheesy looking. Super for the knitter wanting to create chic garments.

It's tough to find knitting patterns for sweaters with classic "jacket-like" lines. Vintage knitting patterns come close (e.g. the recent "Vintage Knits" book), but many vintage patterns were designed for much smaller sizes, say up to a size 34. The sweaters in the book are really beautiful, and the directions are for the most part clear, although not really meant for the beginning knitter. Most of the patterns are worked on small needles, so each sweater will take considerable time for the average busy person. There is a reference section at the back of the book which summarizes the various stitch patterns, which is helpful. However, there are numerous errors in the book that can result in disaster (I learned this the hard and painful way). XRX books is happy to send or email corrections (almost every sweater contains errors), and hopefully the changes will appear in subsequent editions to the book. I would recommend this book if you love the patterns, but would make sure that you call the company for corrections before starting a project.

I'm thrilled with this book! I'm so sick of bulky sweaters I can only wear on the weekend. I can't wait to make several of these jackets, which with a shell and a skirt or pair of pants, will look terrific in the office. I have just taken up knitting again after 30 years, and I don't want to waste my time with mittens. I have already ordered the yarn for several jackets, and my daughter is complaining because her stuff was put on hold! Don't be intimidated by the ratings - like I said, I have taken up knitting again after 30 years, and the first jacket I am making is rated advanced. But there are no complicated charts to follow, everything is pretty straightforward. I am confident I can make any of these jackets - and I would rate my skills at intermediate. Although I found the colors used for the jackets in the photographs kind of boring (I'm a lawyer, I'm not dead!) you can easily jazz up some of the colors.

Basically, I was looking for a book that would allow me to recreate St. John's knits for the office. Putting a simple pull-up skirt with these jackets does it, I think. And I can get the colors I really want, and the price will be 1/10 the price of St. John!