Shopping Books

This authors give the reader a clear understanding of psychics and the world of the paranormal. The book later explains the methods some phony psychics use to deceive the public for their financial gain Thumbs up for the writting style to authors McMahon and Lascurain. This is the book that should have been written years ago. A must read epic!

This innovative book is a must for those who like to shop in Connecticut. It tells you where to go, how to get there, and what you will find when you arrive. Ms. Habib is truly on to something, and should consider expanding to other areas such as Long Island and New Jersey. After you read this book, you will wonder how you ever went shopping in Fairfield County without it. If you like to shop and cannot live without a Hagstrom Map, then you have to have this book!

Given that much of the lives of us relatively wealthy people is devoted to finding things to buy and then buying them, it is fun to find out how people of different ages and places arranged financial transactions to keep their lives going. It's no surprise that they did a lot differently in Italy five hundred years ago, and not much of a surprise that much is the same. In _Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400 - 1600_, Evelyn Welch has drawn on letters, legal records, paintings, price lists, inventories, architectural plans, and a wide range of other sources to make this basic human activity visible. A problem is that it remains largely invisible; those Italians didn't shop mindlessly, but almost instinctively as we do, with the intricacies of social values involved well below the level of consciousness. Shopping can be opened up, Welch shows, to show the society's thinking and its emphasis on themes like artisanship, labor, honest dealing, and social strata.

In Renaissance Italy, shopping was fraught with possibilities of sin. One Lenten sermon reminded hearers that shopping involved misuse of the time God had sacredly granted us, and involved usury. Merchants would habitually do such things as claim their goods were better than they actually were, perhaps even swearing oaths in verification, or they would use false measures. They might even dress misleadingly; in Venice, for instance, it was illegal for a merchant to dress as a peasant to fool buyers that the offered produce was home grown, and those who were re-selling goods on behalf of others were to wear a red "R" on their clothing for _revenditrice_. Dressing wrong was an offense to God: "O merchant," ran one sermon, "if you wish to appear as a merchant, then wear the garment that is made for you." Governments and churches supported efforts to have true weights and measures. This was often difficult, as even within one market merchants would use different measuring systems, and measurements and coinage varied from city to city. It was important for such transactions to be visible, so that both sides would have reason to keep honest, but also would keep to their places. The standard shop was open but had a counter in the front of it; the counter might directly face the street. There was no door or other barrier to prevent a customer from going behind the counter, but it just wasn't done. The customer had to ask to see the goods on display in the shop behind, and the vendor would bring them to the counter, starting the transaction.

Who did the shopping? Decent women did not, at least usually. They sent courtiers out to do it, and the courtiers were generally men. The Marchioness of Mantua wrote to her servant Zigliolo in 1491, "These are the kind of things that I wish to have - engraved amethysts, rosaries of black, amber and gold, blue cloth for a camora, black cloth for a mantle, such as shall be without a rival in the world." The household accounts and expenditures were the work of the men, too. A review of account books in Florence shows that only men kept the books, except for widows that no longer had a man to do it for them. Wives, after a few years of marriage, were allowed to make small-scale decisions about buying day-to-day items, but they still did not interact with the sellers; of course, women of lower status had to do such face-to-face negotiations and did not risk dishonor. Welch's book is a detailed academic work, but given the topic, there is liveliness here, emphasized by the many gorgeous illustrations of sellers and buyers in action, and the goods which made it all happen.

This book is great for fashion stylists and costumers. It will help you find anything you may need in a quick and organized way. From movie dirt, fake blood, authentic bellbottoms, anything you can think of, you can find listed in this book with the store address and phone numbers where the products are sold. They also have a listing of studio services for almost every major department and many specialty stores that work with stylists and costumers... It's in every stylist and costumers best intrest to purchase this "bible". It makes your life much easier.

This is the best book I've read on secondary education. Most educators would agree that small schools--where teachers and students know each other well and cooperate on meaningful work--are incredibly effective. However, standard high schools are large and chaotic places where students and teachers go through the motions and not much of great intellectual significance ever happens. Rather, they are like shopping malls, where customers (students) go into stores (classrooms) and are offered goods (knowledge) by merchants (teachers).

We convince ourselves, though, that large, shopping mall-style high schools provide a "choice" for students, and grant them numerous "opportunities" to achieve. (Customers can choose whether they want to buy what the merchant is selling.) Writing in a similar style as "Horace's Compromise"--what Ted Sizer calls "fictional non-fiction"--the authors challenge the notion that big is better, and that more content equates to more learning. They demonstrate how truly ineffective schools are when they force teachers to see 160 students a day for only 50 minutes at a time.

The book wraps up with a detailed history of secondary schooling in the United States that demonstrates how we got to a place where we expect schools to do so much that they cannot do any of it well. If you are a secondary teacher in a large high school, I highly recommend this book.

The author takes the reader on a tour of the Mall of America, Disney World, and the suburban home and shows how each of these places communicate a whole world of desire. Of course, these places provide fun, entertainment, and comfort. Yet, these places also provide a different kind of world than say, the world depicted in the most grace filled texts of grace. So how do we reconcile what these very worldly places communicate and a faith filled, theological understanding of the Kingdom of God? This book is rare in that it is deeply theological and at the same time highly accessible and personal. Pahl does serious research but it is based on lived experience (you go with his family to the Mall of America). Ever wonder why malls make you "want to buy" or give you a headache or make you think really hard as to where you parked your car? Or how about this, how is the desire the Kingdom of Disney provokes different, strategically different, than the Kingdom of God? Read the book. Perfect for your own reading, or study it as part of a book club, or get your adult education church group to take a look. You'll learn.

"Shopping Town USA: The Planning of Shopping Centers" is the definative collection of architect and planner Victor Gruen's shopping center projects. Widely considered to be the father of the modern shopping center, Gruen's work shows an attempt at understanding suburban America's social and econaomic habits at a time when the whole concept of suburban city living was still in its infancy. His studies produced susch masterworks as Southdale Shopping Center in Edina, Minnesota, the first enclosed mall in America, and Cherry Hill Center outside Philadelphia, still one of America's most successful malls. The book is over four decades old, as of this writing, but it is still relevant because the ideas are still being used today. If you can find this book, and love malls and architecture as I do, buy it without hesitation

As part of my research into 'Shopping', I came across this incredibly well thought out book. Filled with lavish illustrations from the 2002 "Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture" exhibit, in additon to thought-provoking, informative background essays by selected artists themselves, this book stands out on its own.

The perfect coffee table book - and makes a welcome addition to anyone curiously fascinated with the 'art' of shopping. Highly Recommended.

This is an easy read and excellent explaination of how to shop the healthy way. The book explains food additives, chemical contaminants, pesticides in our food, understanding food labesl, pathogens, processed foods, comparison shopping and organically grown foods.

It also gives ideas for making nutritious school lunches so that your kids will eat healthy meals when away from home.

If you're trying to eat healthy and want to start buying organic foods, this is an excellent book to buy to begin your journey.

Wonderful pictures and well researched discriptions of the shops that are Still Open! Great gift from someone who loves London.