Game Books

I bought this book several years ago when I was just learning to twist balloons. I really bought it as instructional material, but what a surprise to see how Addi and Charlie took something as simple as balloons and traveled the world bringing happiness and communication to so many different cultures. Don't get me wrong, the instructions are clear, and the hats are wonderful, but it's the pictures from their travels that makes this book so special.

There was also a documentary made by A.G. Vermouth called "Balloonhat", that is the story of how this book came about. You can find it by searching the internet. I would highly recommend it if you enjoy this book.

Great work Addi and Charlie.

The book came in a week's time. It's a very good book to learn all sorts of hat balloons. It's good especially for people who are not very creative, but can be by the end. If you are bored of making the same old jester or helmet hat, by all means, this book is for you. You will be amazed.

I've order several balloon book but this is the best! The colorful balloon pictures are magnificant and the instructions are easy to follow. What really stands out in this book is how they have traveled all around the world to bring smiles to people faces with their creativate balloon hats that they have made.

This book has all the basics. What you learn in this book will help you make any kind of balloon hat you can think of!

This is a great gift for any age. I got this book and kit for my 44th Birthday and did I have a ball with it. The book itself is beautifully photographed. It is amazing to see where the authors went and who they shared their wonderful, creative talents with. Even if you don't want to make balloon hats the book is a coffee table must. The kit part is loads of fun. The directions are easy to understand and within minutes we were making wonderful, goofy, silly hats, including my 5 year old son and his friends. A gift that will bring lightheartedness and lots of laughter and fun to all. I suggest buying extra balloons, once you get started you won't want to stop.

This book changed my life. As a 21 year old male who is trying to bridge the gap between adolescence and adulthood this book has been instrumental in my outlook on life. Primarily from the standpoint that im not alone with my feelings. I picked this book up by chance (something I do with all good books I read) and never put it down. I read it a second time right after I finished it, just to pick out all the nuance. Amazing!!!

I picked this book up at one of those outlet mall bookshops thinking there really was nothing else, but what the hell I could spend the $5. With no expectations I started reading the book and could not put it down. A good escape from the 20something chic lit. Finally a hilarious book on relationships from a guy's point of view. I am so glad I paid the $5 and would pay more if I could find another book that resembles this one in truth and wit.

One word - [great]. Gleacher has really hit on something with this book. I couldn't put it down from first page to last. Funny, serious, sad, happy - it has it all. I would thoroughly recommend it. Question is when is the next Gleacher novel coming our way??

Read it and weep (tears of laughter, that is). In between tournaments, I like to relax with a good novel. This one certainly fit the bill. In fact, as I was nearing the end of the book, I was so eager to get back to my hotel to finish it that I three putted on eighteen. But it was worth it. Great book.

So I'm reading this and trying to compare Jimmy Gleacher to other writers - "he's like Nick Hornby, no, he's like C.D. Payne, no..." and then it occured to me - he's not like anybody. He's like himself. His original style - a rare thing in pop fiction - is reason enough to check out his book. His humor is another good reason. His take on class is a third one. (How many reasons do you need, already?)
Yeah, it's a chick book, but it's darn funny, and not like anything else you'll read. Plus it has the Gooseman - the best reason of all. Try it, you'll like it.

As others have noted, it's an easy book to quickly read and underestimate, but it's a very useful book when you actively think it through. I can vouch for its value as I'm about to use it for the second time in my undergrad intro to Entrepreneurship class at Marquette U. Judging from the quality of the plans last time (following the general outline of the appendix) and from their comments, they really have managed to develop personally meaningful, realistic and actionable plans. The first clue I had that the book has this quality was when I noticed that my wife, who is a busy business lawyer, was spending a lot of care going over it in the evenings, while preparing for a major case. So I'd conclude that it is useful for a range of readers.

Make Your Own Luck is an excellent book, with more pragmatic, useful content than I've found in most business books.

My background is in engineering and science, then business. As an engineer, I really liked that there's a "right answer." Or at least, there are clear wrong answers (the bridge will collapse if we make it out of tissue paper, period). In business, things aren't so easy. Most situations have too many factors to identify, let alone consider deeply. Shareholders interact with managers who interact with technology and customer service people and engineers and operations and ... it's tough to know how to think about all this.

Make Your Own Luck lays out a 12-step process (hmm...) for taking risks. Some of the steps sound simple: Know your big goals before you begin, so when you make bets in your life, you're betting on what you actually want. Sounds obvious? Yeah, but in my own work with executives, I've found that people easily lose sight of their real goals(1). The power from Shapiro and Stevenson's approach comes from having a rigorous checklist to consider when making risky bets.

Some of their tools help evaluate risks that I've never known how to tackle. For example, the authors give us "prediction maps," a tool for identifying low-risk, high-reward opportunities. Simple, elegant, and practically useful. Their other big new tool is "uncertainty grids." Uncertainty grids let you quickly test your plans against combinations of uncertainties to realize whether you've unconsciously anchored yourself to a single scenario, or whether your plans can survive multiple uncertain events.

Behind the tools, they slip in some subtle thinking shifts that are worth pondering in detail. In a paragraph or two, they dismiss "high rewards require high risks" and claim you don't need high risk to get high rewards. Maybe in their world, but that's not how I think. Yet I've also heard Warren Buffett say something similar, so I'm changing my beliefs around risk/reward. That said, it would have been nice if they had pulled out some of their mindset shifts and devoted more time to helping me-as-reader explore what amount to big changes in worldview.

The writing style is fun, with thought experiments between the chapters, a final chapter of scenarios to analyze using the 12 steps, and haiku or other verse at the start of each chapter. I found it a pleasant change from the overly heavy style of most substantive business books, and it was an easy read cover-to-cover that did justice to its excellent content.

I heartily recommend the book. Go check it out!

- Stever

(1) Being a professional, of course, I never, ever lose sight of my own goals. Really.

This book has a lot of potential because it covers the hot topic of how to use "predictive intelligence" (PI) to make business or personal decisions. Unfortunately, the execution falters, since both the book and the topic exist at two levels: dry material vs. attempts to explain it. Presentations about probability are inherently dry, so to liven up their discussion, authors Eileen C. Shapiro and Howard H. Stevenson use real-world examples and creative images. However, in the end, their lively metaphors dilute their information delivery. Readers will rightfully wonder what "wallpaper jujitsu," "magic thinking," "strategic rat hole zone," "bolt-on bets" and the "OOPA! Process" are all about, and the authors don't always fully explain these intriguing-sounding devices. Teaching PI is challenging, but breaking it down into a dozen components doesn't help as much as the authors might have hoped. While we find that the book presents a clear process, interesting anecdotes and good analogies, it also ends with a series of quizzes that have more than one right answer - leaving you both puzzled and intrigued. However, those are pretty good starting points for learning about odds-making and PI.

This book is a must read for anyone who is serious about improving the odds that their actions will produce the intended results.

The book has at least four things going for it:
* The authors' deep, relevant experience in business, business theory and real-world decision making.
* A practical, straightforward approach to acting in the face of uncertainty -- based on the sequential application of 12 skills and processes that, taken together, should improve anyone's "predictive intelligence."
* Stories -- lots of engaging, memorable stories that bring the process to life.
* Interactive elements that allow you to test your understanding of the material.

For me, Make Your Own Luck has been more than just another good business book. As the CEO of a start-up business, I and my associates face more than our share of uncertainty. And, given our limited resources, the consequences of bad bets can be particularly unwelcome.

We faced just such a situation a month ago when an important part of our business was underperforming. So, we turned to Make Your Own Luck and quickly realized that the source of our problems laid in steps 5 and 6 of the Gambler's Dozen, where we had relied on too much "magic" while failing to deal with an "elephant in the living room" (read the book and you will understand). Fortunately, we had a Plan B (also covered in step 6) and we are back on track.

The book's advice was direct and effective - almost as though we had Shapiro and Stevenson on our Board asking tough questions and offering possible solutions. Like I said, it is a must read.

Although in previous reviews, the word "easy" is used, the value of this book is found by taking the time to give it serious study. "Make Your Own Luck" is not a simple read with slap-your-head insight at the end of each chapter. Rather, it provides a step-by-step methodology that, if you understand and follow it, increases the odds of your success.

Even though I'm a highly productive person, prior to buying this book, my thoughts and actions related to a business plan were scattered and unproductive. Based on my anxiety, I instantly understood the value of "The Gambler's Dozen Predictive Map." This technique shows how to match goals (bets) against probability (the unknown), a process so clarifying that it inspired me to created a software application so I could easily use this technique on a wide-range of issues.

I just finished studying the concept of "risk splits." After mastering the Predictive Map, it still took a few hours to wrap my mind around what the authors were describing; not because they are unclear, but because I've never before cast my thoughts using the patterns that they suggest. What I learned is that the hardest thing about making winning business decisions is understanding the impact of the future. By employing "risk splits," I can now look back from the future to analyze today, which is a major shift in my thinking process.

I'm starting to define my "It," a task of concisely describing my business that I've put off for the past year. As I'm a writer and a programmer, describing objectives is easy for me. In this case, however, I've come to realize that the uncontrollable elements revealed in my Predictive Map increased my anxiety and scrambled my brain. In other words, without employing "magic thinking" (more commonly called "BS"), I didn't know enough about my own project to make a meaningful statement, or properly invest my time and money (called "marbles" in Luck-speak) to make it come to life.

This book has plenty of pictures and also clear step-by-step instructions, easy to follow, for all stages - from beginners to more experienced artists. Very realistic miniatures, absolutely perfect!

There is only "raw" food though, no dishes... (suggestion for her next book!) I'll buy any book she writes!

I have been looking for a book that will help me make some of the foods for my little people in the doll house. Now, they can have tasty and semi-real food. Very detailed and easy step by step instructions.

This is a book come with the step by step guide to create the indivdual items. It is a book value for money.

Anyone who is interested in making miniature food should purchase this book, the explanations are superb.

A great book! This book covers the basics of working with polymer clay, including mixing colors and which tools you'll need. It also shows you step-by-step, with words and pictures, how to create each project. And the best part: the finished food that *I make* by following the steps, looks REAL! Making miniature food is so much fun, thanks to this book!

OK, so it was the title that got me since i was not a "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" fan. My friend loaned it to me and i had HAD to check it out. Then i had to have one of my own.

What a clever, funny book that was clearly written from the heart. What a fresh directive. I could almost hear the author talking to me. I could almost "see" the people and nearly experience what was going on, the desciptions were so clear.

I think Im now a Millionaire Fan..

Now i tape all the shows to find J.E.'s show and watch it. -THANKS ALOT -

All i need to know now is.....what's next Millionaire Boy?

about writing a review for this book, Millionaire Boy/The Adventures of a Game Show Contestant, that I forgot to rate it with stars. 5 STARS! 5 STARS! 5 STARS!

Loads of fun!
A very entertaining read!

I wanted to read this book for several reasons. ONE because it was about one of my favorite tv programs, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and TWO because the author was from Montana.
I enjoyed this book thoroughly! It was well-written and very amusing.
The author has a very comfortable style. It is really like he is talking right to you. There are inner monolouges to let you know what he is thinking at key parts of the book.

This was a very visual book, because the author's descriptions of people, settings, and activities were superb!
I had read other reviews of "Millionaire Boy" and questioned if people were really laughing out loud as they claimed.
I can atest to the fact that this is a very funny book and, yes, I DID laugh out loud. SEVERAL times!
I have passed the book along to other fans of WWTBAM and they have enjoyed it as much as I did.
I too am looking forward to the author's next book.
I think he has a great future ahead of him.

Have a game show fan or a Regis Philbin fan on your gift list?
This is a book for them!
But like I said at the beginning, "Millionaire Boy" really is a book for everybody!

This book was a lot of fun and much like several of the others who have written reviews of Millionaire Boy:The Adventures of a Game Show Contestant, I found myself laughing outloud several times.

The perfect sitting by the pool book!
If you like Dave Barry, you'll appreciate the humor in this book.

Anybody know if the author has written anything else?

With all the wit of a Dave Barry read but better! Full of humor and trepidation about making a public appearance on national television. The true story of making your dreams a reality. A great book that is very difficult to read without pausing to go back and read parts out loud to who ever might be around to listen...friends, family, cats, pillows.

The book arrived in a timely manner and in excellent condition as promised. Thank you.

Hardcover edition. My mom bought this book for me after I wouldn't stop raving about it after checking it out of our local library. Chinese culture has always fascinated me and this book gave me an overall idea of the culture. Great recipes of traditional food, a variety of craft projects for kids of all ages, and tales of how the traditions started. It also includes an overview of Chinese holidays such as the Chinese New Year, the Dragonboat Festival, and the Festival of Lights. *Mom's footnote - My daughter was born in the year of the Dragon.

We are in the long wait for an adopted sister from China and this book has been invaluable for communicating to our son what his soon-to-be sister's culture is like. It is beautifully illustrated and great for teaching him and preparing him for the holidays we will be celebrating. Very informative with great crafts and recipes. The festival introductions are great as well. We have actually made a few of the crafts. The puppet show was a huge hit!

This book is full of activities; stories and recipes--we will be using this book a lot in keeping the some of the traditions of China alive for our adopted daughter.

A nice book full of pictures and stories about the various festivals. There are craft items to make and food to cook. A good idea for those who are trying to incorporate chinese culture into their family life.

This is a great book and unfortunately not too well known. Children and adults love puppets, the ideas are original and the characters very distinctive. The book offers many types of puppets and it makes a great gift.

I ordered a Muppet book from them that was quite cheap. It was in great condition and very low-priced. I received it promptly and was very pleased with the service.

I bought this book expecting little more than sharing some arts-and-crafts time with my kids that also blended with my interests in puppetry and the Muppets. Big surprise -- this book is full of good, basic advice on puppet manipulation, voice, and puppet building. My daughter and I have already made one of the puppets, involving gardening gloves, ping-pong balls, and feathers, and each of us came up with something different and delightful. The addition of some small supplies to get the aspiring puppet builder started is very nice, but this would have been a good buy even without that.

This book has so many great ideas using many easy to find objects. It even includes a little packet with 2 pairs of eyes, some faux fur, a few feathers and other sundries. The day this book arrived, my daughter and I made 3 puppets. In the next several days we made many more out of socks, oven mitts and other things that were just laying around the house. If you hate to throw things away, you'll love this. After reading the book, you'll start looking at your trash with new eyes. Old paper towel rolls, band-aid tins, fabric scraps, plastic spoons, small plastic bottles you might throw out, sponges, pot scrubbers, erasers--all these things can be transformed into puppets.

My only quibble is that the suggested reading level is ages 4-8. My nearly five-year-old can't do these projects alone, (I also use a hot glue gun, so it's too hot for her) so I've ended up letting her direct what goes where on the puppets. I think a six year-old working with less dangerous adhesives could do many of the projects himself, and I think kids even older than the age range would find the projects fun, especially if they have little siblings or an opportunity to teach younger kids. (Like helping out at Sunday school).

The book is full of projects that are easy to do right away, don't cost much money or require special trips to the craft store and let your child develop her imagination/creativity/emotional skills.

but children will not be able to reproduce the puppets pictured. Maybe that is the point, that you can make puppets out of anything. So the book is good for inspiration. But don't expect to be able to make the puppets quite like they do!

THIS BOOK IS AN EXCELLENT LEARNING TOOL. IT IS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT AND I AM SURE IT WILL BE READ AND EACH CHILD WILL LEARN FROM IT!

An excellent message and a good chapter book for those readers who are starting to gain confidence.

I just got this book yesterday for my son who just turned 3 years old. He really enjoyed it and after reading it, he kept asking me to read it over. He was very interested because he started asking questions at the end. He just started preschool and I wanted to introduce him to possible situations he might go through while in school. This story gives a great lesson on how to handle a situation when someone says something mean to you. My son also enjoyed it because the situation takes place in school and at a basketball court, which he can relate to because he started school and he loves to play basketball.

I was looking for a book to help my 9 year-old deal with other kids who say cruel and demeaning things. My son and I sat down and read the book together and then discussed how saying "so" when mean things are said takes away the bullies power. We decided that "so" was his new secret weapon.

My son was so excited when the very next day at school he used his secret weapon and it worked. He has also shared the book with a few of his classmates and it has helped them too.

GREAT BOOK!

The Meanest Thing To Say is not about saying mean things back to mean people. And it isn't even about mean people. What it IS about is children learning self-control, level-headedness and heart. When the new kid, Michael, calls Little Bill names, and says he has to think of the meanest things to say back the next day, Bill is frustrated and anxious. This comes up at home and his dad tells him to just say, "So?" to everything. Little Bill does this and it halts Michael. It takes two people to fight. But the moral of the story doesn't stop here. Bill observes Michael is a new student and maybe just needs a friend. So he invites him to play basketball with him and they become friends.

Unfortunately it is reality that children can be very mean and hurtful. As parents, we need to teach our children how to handle bullies and it's equally as important to teach them not to BE a bully. Also, just ignoring mean actions and words doesn't always work. Everyone has good in them and we all, ages 2-102 need to offer kindness instead of anger. Great job, Cosby! Thank you and please keep writing. Peace & Soar!o8E

I found this a fantastic guide to finding many of the hidden gems that we all take for granted when visiting Disney World. You blink you will miss them. I like some of the history and meanings behind many of the items that I would have missed otherwise. I think this guide would be great to entertain and the teens on your trip.

This lets you see the ins and outs of Disney. It lets you look at Disney in a different way. It's just fun and it's great. So it's great fun!!!!!

My husband and I are avid Disney goers, visiting at least once a year. We always try to find something different to do when wer're there (i.e. tours around the parks). This book has provided that new fun thing to do on our next trip. It asks a lot of questions and you really have to hunt for answers. There are differnet levels of hunts so it's great for kids, teenagers, or kids at heart. Enjoy!!!!!!

I'm sure this is a perfectly wonderful book and I'll give it 5 stars based on how well it's written and how much fun it looks like it would be. However, I bought this book along with the Hidden Mickey's book and we soon learned it was impossible to do both, so we chose looking for Hidden Mickeys. I think the Treasure Hunts would be a lot of fun for large families, church or school groups.

This book is a necessity for anyone who visits WDW. We have been 11 times now, and thought we knew everything. WRONG. We had more much fun on this last trip using this book than ever before.

If you look around at WDW, everyone is hurrying, running, to get to the "next" thing. What you may not realize is that every step IS the next thing.

WDW is not just about shows and rides. It's all the little details that create the whole fun effect. We had never even stopped to read all the handprints in front of The Great Movie Ride, examine the fountain in front of Muppet Labs, notice all the details inside Country Bear Jamboree, or a million other things. Treaure hunting gave this trip so much more and really made this trip more "magical" than ever.

This dazzling book could have been called "Loving the Enemy." That is, in fact, what Nelson Mandela did to prevent a much feared bloodbath in South Africa as it passed from the hated Apartheid regime to majority rule.
"Playing the Enemy" shows how he did it - first by winning over his prison guards through forgiveness and simple human kindness then by his shrewd seduction of the white government leadership and finally by making the obsession of white South Africa, its Rugby team, the team of all South Africans - black and white.
It's The Greatest Story Ever Told for the twentieth century - and beyond!

There has been plenty written about the master statesman Nelson Mandela, but John Carlin's story about how Mandela transformed his nation by leveraging the sport of rugby is truly inspiring. This book is a must read for anyone who has ever been discouraged from creating change. Mandela's mindset and approach to liberating his country is unmatched.

Playing the Enemy is a very timely book. In these days when nations are often more divided than before, Nelson Mandela's instinct to show respect, friendliness, and common purpose with those who saw him as an enemy is a beacon that lights up the potential for all people to come together to accomplish more. John Carlin has used the Rugby World Cup imaginatively to illustrate the essence of President Mandela's approach. Mr. Carlin is a wonderful story teller, and you'll feel chills as you read the many great moments he brilliantly captures in Playing the Enemy.

Leaders have always used foreign enemies to bring their purpose together. Who realized that this could be done at the level of sport rather than through war as a way to unify a country where people were deeply suspicious (even paranoid) about one another?

I was glad to see that Mr. Carlin provided lots of background about how someone imprisoned for decades became the leader of a reconstituted nation in South Africa and went on to accomplish things that not even the most optimistic would have expected. President Mandela's story is one for the ages, and this way of telling the story makes it easier to understand for those who never saw South Africa during the Apartheid regime.

Although I had long studied and worked to help change the government in South Africa from the inside and outside, the political impact of the international boycott of the South African rugby team had been lost to me. I hope those who would like to encourage governments to behave more appropriately towards their people will remember this example.

Bravo, Mr. Carlin!

This book is an absolute masterpiece of writing, a true gem and one that will certainly melt the hearts of many. On the surface it is about a rugby match between South Africa's Springboks and New Zealand in 1995. But it is representative of much more because, as the author shows, this match helped bring together South Africa after the fall of Apartheid, healing, at least in a small way, the anger of the blacks and the fear of the whites that the new nation would reject them. This was clear when Mandela came to support the rugby team, which had been seen as a symbol of Afrikaner nationalism, wholeheartedly. The book is more than the game, it covers many important characters and their reactions on the day of the match. The author is certainly an expert on South Africa, having lived there as a journalist, and he understands the soul of many of the people of the country. He understands also the history of the Afrikaners, the tradition of the 'Bitter enders' who had fought the british to 'bitter end' in the Boer War. This is a very nice book, an important story and one that will surely inspire. Unfortunatly the story paints a perfect utopian pciture of South Africa, one that has not stood the test of time. With the murder rate the highest in the world, AIDs running wild, farm invasions and the prospect of a new president whose motto used to be 'bring me my machine gun', South Africa's 1995 rugby match may well have just been a moment of reconciliation that could not last.

Seth J. Frantzman

A marvelous book. Anyone who wants to understand the hope (and the chances for failure) in post-apartheid SA should read this book, particularly in the light of Mbeki's failure and the test that is to follow.