Machines Books

I checked this book out of my public library and cried when it needed to be returned! I absolutely loved it. I tried many of the recipes and found all to be wonderful. The 4 star rating is due to the directions not always being super clear. The book tends to deal on the level of one having had experience with a bread machine. Highy recommended!

This book has a great section on sourdough breads that I have used again and again. The author provides an accurate description of each bread with suggestions of menu accompaniments. I would consider this author an expert on bread machine breads! And so easy to follow.

This book has a whole section on calzones, pizzas, and hand tossed breads which is my favorite! Everything I have made turns out WONDERFULLY!!

This is an AWESOME cookbook, I love the way the recipes are listed in the book, very easy to follow. The ingredients are listed in order to how they should be placed in the machine, there are instructions for 1, 1/2, and 2 lb loaves. The print is large which also makes the recipes easy to follow. I own her whole series of BM cookbooks because I like them so much!! Great variety also--if I have a certain ingredient that I want to use up in my cupboard, 9 times out of 10 I can find a recipe for bread that I can use it in!! Can't say enough good things about this cookbook!!

A friend lent me this book three months ago and I kept making excuses for not returning it. In the end, she came for lunch, and feeling guilty I thought I would just write out my favourite recipes, and ones I wanted to try ... an hour later and I was still writing! She came for lunch (I served Corny Bread, my favourite so far) and during dessert I was STILL writing. She felt so bad, she told me to keep it longer. She also suggested I tried Amazon, and here I am and have ordered all the books in the series, plus copies for some of my friends. This is the best Bread Machine Cookbook. It is simple, with no uneccesary information. The joy of Bread Machines is that once you have done a couple of recipes from your Instruction book you can cook anything and don't need to be told the same information over and over again. I love every recipe I have tried so far from this book. Everyone with a bread machine should have one!

This cookbook is pretty AWESOME!!! I have made many of the recipies and they've all been a hit!

I ordered this book the same time I ordered the Chefmate bread machine, & am very glad I did. The recipes are super - very different & varied - and the baking & ingredient hints are VERY handy. Every recipe I used came out perfect, & we now have bread at almost every meal. The pumpernickle was great for lunch sandwiches, the Stollen unbeatable for breakfast toasted, & the cheese & onion, outstanding! Every bread machine user ought to have this book. Thanks, Donna German. (p.s. Can't wait to try my new pasta machine & her pasta book) Onita

I've had this book (as well as the four previous books in this series) for over three years, and I still use it almost daily. I highly recommend the Potato Bread and the Dill Onion Bread. Yummmmmmmmy! As with all her other books, German includes basic bread machine instruction, LOTS of great hints, trouble shooting and even instructions (and great recipes) for making rolls and pizza using the dough cycle. These are the only bread machine cookbooks I've ever needed, and I think they are absolutely great buys. Try it, you won't be sorry!

I found many new very good recipes to try. Recipes clearly written.

High school band was my previous idea of and experience with precision marching. I'd heard of drum and bugle corps, but had never seen one in action, let alone heard of The Cavaliers. The book came as a gift. The more I read the more amazed I was at the dedication of the leadership, staff, and the kids to this form of musical performance. Colt's research and writing brings it alive as we watch the whole development of drum and bugle corps evolve. One can sense the change in perspective in the last few chapters as he travels with the corps. He gives real life to a subject matter that could be dry as dust. My tickets to one of their summer shows in TX are on the way.

Building the Green Machine will take you back to the beginning when The Cavaliers were just another Boy Scout Troop. But the man with the plan, Don Warren, took these boys and turned them into men by starting a drum and bugle corps that has risen in the ranks to be one of the best in the world. For those drum corps history buffs wanting to know more about how Drum Corps International got started, this is the book to read. Don Warren helped found DCI, which "turned the activity into the free-wheeling sprinting artistry of today."

Colt Foutz, (a person who never marched with The Cavaliers or any drum and bugle corps for that matter), does an amazing job as he explores the making of The Cavaliers with amazing detail. You'll feel like you're right there with them living in the moment. It's one of the best drum and bugle corps books out on the market.

Who should read this book? It's a "must-have" for anyone ever associated with The Cavaliers or who want to be. For everyone else, it's a wonderful history of enduring some positive "life lessons" as one polishes the perfect show. I recommend it without any reservations.

~=Gregory M. Kuzma=~
Author On the field from Denver, Colorado...The Blue Knights!: One member's experience of the 1994 summer national tour (N)

Anyone who's been part of something bigger -- band, choir, theater, or another really close-knit group -- will find something familiar in the tales told in "Building the Green Machine." I laughed out loud at all the antics these seemingly disciplined young men got up to on tour. If you're already a drum corps devotee, this gives you the inside scoop on the Cavaliers and the many other corps they've met over the years. Even if you've never seen a drum corps performance, the theme of friendship is universal.

Colt Foutz weaves an amazing, informative, and well written account of the history of the "Green Machine" - the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps. Students, fans, alumni, and current members of DCI will enjoy this book from beginning to end. Colt's narrative style and attention to detail makes the history interesting.

I've been having some problems getting my jointer tables aligned properly, and happened upon this book by accident. What luck! This book is full of great info on tune-ups and alignment. John White goes in depth into the set up and alignment of primary power tools (jointer, planer, table saw, bandsaw, router table, drill press and miter saw). His writing is clear, easy to understand and follow, with plenty of very descriptive pictures. The book is very complete on each of the tools covered. I truly appreciated that he used many shop-built jigs and common tools to get things done.

This is an outstanding book. It is well written, well organized, has excellent graphics and pictures, and serves a much needed role in most woodshops. White would have been a great engineer. His jigs and measurement techniques are clever, well documented, and easy to make and use. I found myself smiling several times at the ingenuity of his low-cost (and effective!) solutions to high-cost measurement tools. I have a middle-of-the-road chinese knock off table saw that wasn't cutting well (burns and lots of resistance). I made the jigs and went through the tune up procedure in an evening, and the saw performs much better afterwards.

I would like have heard White's recommendations for storage, cleaning, and top protection (e.g., waxing vs. oiling ground surfaces), as well as his tips and comments for shop safety, but they are justifiably outside the scope of this book.

Overall an excellent book that I am very glad to have stumbled upon.

John White does a great job with nice illustrations. I recommend this to anyone with a woodworking machine. It's amazing how far off your tools are until you set them up correctly. You'll save time and money by making better cuts the first time when the tool is setup correctly. It's amazing we take the time to measure an angle for moulding and when we cut it and it doesn't fit you think you measured incorrectly when it could have been your tool off by one degree.

What can I say, the chapter on setting up your jointer is worth the price of the book by itself. The pictures and the diagrams are great, easy to understand, and the text is informative and easy to read. This book makes you a better woodworker, because your tools will be correctly set up, which also makes them more fun to use and much safer.
I would recommend this book to you, even if you do not own the tool, but are looking at getting into woodworking, with this book you will be better able to understand how the various tools work, and you can buy decent used tools and tune them up, saving you a bundle!

Great book!!

American Crime Writers League member Richard J. Shmelter presents Chicago Assassin: The Life and Legend of "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and the Chicago Beer Wars of the Roaring Twenties, a fascinating biography set amidst the gangland violence that wracked Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chronicling the life of Vincenzo Gibaldi, who took the name "Jack McGurn" along with the sport of boxing, Chicago Assassin tells how McGurn's father and stepfather were murdered by mobsters, and how his revenge attracted the attention of the notorious Al Capone, who invited McGurn to join the organization. McGurn built a terrible reputation as Chicago's most feared gangster assassin, and may even have helped plan the infamous St. Valentine's Day massacre. He killed more than twenty people during Chicago's Beer Wars, yet was eventually spurned by the Organization he worked for, and murdered Capone's orders. A striking true crime saga, meticulously researched and providing a singularly vibrant picture of the seedy underworld that sprang up to seize advantage of the Prohibition era.

In Chicago, the roar in the Roaring Twenties was often the sound of Thompson machine guns firing. The advent of prohibition and the continuing demand for alcoholic beverages meant that enormous profits could be made. This led to the rise of the criminal gangs that took advantage of the situation. In Chicago, the largest such criminal enterprise was headed by Alphonse Capone and "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn was one of his soldiers.
McGurn's journey to becoming one of the best assassins is a story of great tragedy. Born Vincenzo Gibaldi in Sicily, McGurn's natural father was gunned down in a case of mistaken identity in a gang war in New York. After his mother remarried and the family moved to Chicago, his stepfather was also gunned down in a gang hit. Forever altering McGurn's attitude, he vowed revenge and the only way he could do that was to become a killer himself. He was ruthless in his methods, killing many men, either directly or indirectly. However, after Capone was jailed, he fell out of favor and in a short time was unemployed and broke. In an attempt to get back on his feet, he threatened to become an informant. Shortly after that threat was made, he was gunned down in gangland style, a victim of his own methods.
Paid killers are rarely the subjects of biographies as they are generally psychopaths with little to offer other than a list of their kills. McGurn is different in that he was an intelligent man and was very close to Al Capone. Shmelter makes him come alive with literary descriptions of his actions that keep your attention and on occasion you have a bit of sympathy for McGurn. No person could have their two male parents so brutally and suddenly killed without having their psyche permanently disabled.
The Chicago gang wars was an amazing time in the history of the United States, the enormous profit and power that came with bootlegging almost brought down conventional government. Members of the rival gangs killed each other with legal impunity, although nearly all eventually met with a violent death. This book provides one side of this story, from the perspective of one of the greatest of the killers. If the history of the Chicago gangsters of the Roaring Twenties interests you, then this is a book you must read.

Vincenzo Gibaldi was born in Licata, Sicily to loving parents who wanted a better life for him, and brought him to the United States. However, after first his father and then his loving step-father were killed in gangland hits, something in Vincenzo snapped. Taking on his boxing name of Jack McGurn as his nom de guerre, he became an assassin par excellence, and rose to be one of Al Capone's lieutenants. However, after rising to dizzying heights of fame and wealth, Jack McGurn fell far and fell fast, until he too became just another victim of Chicago violence. This is the story of the brutal rise and brutal fall of one of America's top gunmen - "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn.

Overall, I did not know what to expect when I picked this book up. Having grown up in Chicago, I had heard about "Scarface" Al Capone, "Bugs" Moran, "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn, "Hymie" Weiss, and all of the other famous mobsters. But, I must say that this book surprised me with its excellence. The author does a great job of bringing that era to life, and really letting you get a good understanding of the people involved and what they did.

There's never a dull moment in this book, as the author eschewed the temptation to pad out the narrative, making a great medium-sized book into a tedious big book. Plus, I liked the many black-and-white pictures included, and the final chapter that answers the question, "Whatever became of...?" This is a great book on Jack McGurn, and Chicago in the Roaring Twenties. If you want to read the best book on this subject, then take it from this Chicagoan, and get Chicago Assassin by Richard J. Shmelter.

How quickly we forget the reality of the "good old days"... That thought kept going through my mind as I read Chicago Assassin: The Life and Legend of "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and the Chicago Beer Wars of the Roaring Twenties by Richard J. Shmelter. This is an excellent biography of a major crime figure during the days of Prohibition, and Shmelter captures both the personalities and sentiments of that period in American history.

Contents:
Innocence Interrupted; Innocence Lost; "Noble Experiment, " Life-changing Decision; Chicago's Underworld Rises; Terrific Timing - Terrible Tool; Gunning for Gennas, Amutuna Gets the Hook; "Joe Batters" and "Momo"; Vengeance, Conflict, Exodus; Capone vs. Weiss - Round One; Capone vs. Weiss - Knockout Blow; On Top of the World; Aiello Threatens the Empire; The Joker; McGurn Has the Last Laugh; Close Calls; Jack Meets Louise - Frankie Meets His Maker; Return to Chicago, Unrest in the Unione; Violent Valentine; Aftermath of Carnage; The "Blonde Alibi"; The Walls Begin to Crumble; The Empire Descends; Wedding Bells, Al Goes Away; Vindication, Alienation; The Comet Vanishes; Whatever Became of ... ?; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Shmelter starts McGurn's story back in Italy, when his parents met and decided to emigrate to America. Vincenzo Gibaldi, aka Jack McGurn, was a typical kid raised in Brooklyn by immigrant parents, but his life was forever altered at the age of five when his father was gunned down by two men who mistook him for a rival gang leader. McGurn's mother remarried and Jack appeared to be a model son, but he was plotting his revenge for the death of his father. McGurn tracked down the killers and assassinated them in cold blood, starting him on a path defined by the ability and willingness to kill anyone as a hired assassin. This path was cast in stone when his second father was also gunned down by gang members over the sale of sugar to other gangs for the production of bootleg liquor. He started to work for Al Capone's organization, and quickly rose up the ranks to become Capone's most trusted bodyguard and triggerman.

As Prohibition continued and the Chicago Beer Wars grew more heated, shootouts among rival gangs became commonplace. The Thompson submachine gun, or Tommy gun as it was nicknamed, was the weapon of choice for gangsters, and McGurn could handle one with the best of them. Capone used McGurn both as a planner and as a triggerman, and soon McGurn was living the life of a high-profile gangster, complete with fancy clothes, loads of money, and beautiful women. But through all of this, he had to be aware of the fact that he was a constant target of rival gangs, and his life could be snuffed out at any time. The downhill slide for both Capone and McGurn started with the Valentines Day Massacre. That slaughter changed the public's perception about organized crime, and government officials started to crack down hard on those groups. Although it was never proven that McGurn actually took part in the killing, the general feeling was that he and Capone had orchestrated the whole thing. When Capone was convicted of tax evasion and sent to prison, McGurn no longer had the protection he was used to, and the new leader, Frank Nitti, took his revenge on McGurn and tossed him out of the organization. The Depression, constant police harassment, and failed business ventures took their toll, and McGurn was reduced to a shadow of his former glory. And even that shadow came to an end when three unknown assassins tracked him down to a bowling alley and ended his life in a hail of bullets. A fitting end to a person who lived his life gunning down others.

Apart from the fact that Shmelter writes a compelling narrative, he also captures the harsh reality of the Roaring Twenties. I kept thinking that we tend to look back at those times as the "good old days" and think our level of criminal activity and corruption is unprecedented. In reality, things were as bad if not worse back then, and all we're doing is repeating history over and over. I would recommend this book on a number of levels, ranging from a fascinating read to a sobering look at our past. In terms of "recreational reading", this is one of the best books I've read this year.

This book is certainly worth its low price. As a virtual "picture dictionary", there are tones of images to look at, ranging from all subjects and dates. Stylisticly speaking, the variety of these drawings is very wide, from 1700's style etchings to the more contemporary illustrations. I must say, it has really broadened my drawing technique.

The Clip Art Book contains quite a collection of images expressing the broad range of the visual historical human experience. The illustrations are primarily comprised of woodcuts and engravings. This book contains about 5,000 images ranging from the fantastic to the aesthetically beautiful and pleasing to the eye. The books break down and categorize the illustrations into 16 categories of subject matter and interest. The vast array of images is representative of concepts and thought provoking invigorating atmosphere. This is an invaluable book if you are really looking for a collection of engravings (black & white) for clip art.

I have found several opportunities to use some of the artwork within this book for various projects. But, even greater has been its use for idea production. As an illustrator myself, I have found the stylistic approaches to the many different illustrations within this book to be inspirational, and they have been invaluable in broadening my own pen and ink drawing and illustration perspective. Even if you are not an artist, or have any intention in utilizing this book as a professional resource, it is truly a work of art in and of itself, both creatively as well as historically. Its just great to look at.

This is a large book with an admirable variety of designs. Especially handy for photocopying--for cutting and pasting the old fashioned way! Great for zines, party invites, announcements, flyers, and so on.

The book has a nice variety of designs from sports to animals to tech objects, and so on. It's main drawback is that most of the designs are older ones. So, for example--you can work with a funky old bicycle design, but nothing from a recent decade.

Still, these designs completely spice up nearly anything you're working on. I thought it was worth fifteen bucks.

great book for those who want to know more about their machines. has helpful step by step instructions on how to repair the wood and metals of the phonograph. has washed out b/w photos that could have been color. but overall, this book is helpful for those who want to repair their machines and want to learn a little history behind phonographs as well. good low price for this valuable information.

The Compleat Talking Machine is not only a great resource for people interested in restoring old phonographs, it's also a good read -- Eric comes across as a real person with a sense of humor. He keeps his repair information and instructions general for the most part -- you may need to interpolate his instructions depending on the model of phono you have. Read carefully!

An excellent reference with great bibliography -but one warning - it focuses strongly on "table" model phonographs - has few pictures of upright floor cabinets. However it led me to buy a number of additional references to identify British machines.

I am a great fan of technical how-to books, and this is one of the most informative, well written books on the subject of phonograph restoration that there is. It covers disc phonographs, as well as cylinder phonographs. It covers too many topics to relate here. You will be impressed.

I discovered this book while working at Microsoft. They have 3 copies! It is the most profound book on computer systems, information networks and how to become a literate computer user/advocate ever written. If you find a copy I will pay top dollar for it!

When the first self-published edition came out in 1974, Ted Nelson's two-sided classic about the current and wished-for state of computers-as-cultural-tool had the memetic impact of a big ol' 2 x 4 to the forehead on the few who read it.

In an era when IBM dominated the industry, and the best most social critics could come up with vis-a-vis computers was an incoherent babble about punch cards and Big Brother, it revealed a side of computing few had seen, and dared to dream about knowledge-sharing networks and graphic interfaces.

In 1989, I bought two dozen copies of this book (Microsoft Press edition). I gave some copies to friends, but most went to my co-workers at a small home-PC company. It was a coolness test. People who talked about it, who GOT it, I had hope for. Those who didn't get it, or scoffed, I marked as duffers. Alas, this included many of the company's higher ups.

Why only four stars for what was once an utterly invaluable tome, a source of inspiration, a shining literary beacon of hope? Mostly because much of what Computer Lib / Dream Machines advocated has come to pass (albeit in ways that Nelson would probably not prefer). Partially because the battle to complete the job has moved into other spheres: Legal, commercial, and the nitty-gritty work of actual product creation.

If you see a copy, or either edition, BUY IT.

Theodor Nelson is an academic and computer visionary who is generally credited with creating the term "hypertext" in 1965. While hypertext had been conceived of as early as the 1940s, Nelson was the first to construct it within the context of the emerging computer technologies of the 1960s and 70s as a new mode of publication.

The word "visionary" gets thrown around quite a bit when one talks about computers and the Internet: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos ... all visionaries. And then you read this book, which originally appeared in the 1970s, based on ideas Nelson developed in the 1960s, and you discover what visionary really means.

Dream Machines is a bona fide computer culture classic; it is shocking that such an influential and important book is out of print.

Ted Nelson has given us a vision. The vision, and this book itself describe a paradox: quaint and futuristic at the same time. It's two books in one cover, and it's easy to pick up and read at any point. Bring it back in print so more can enjoy it! This author coined the term "hypertext", and describes a universe slightly parallel to ours, where the WorldWideWeb is known as Xanadu, where electronic documents are linked and not embedded; where authors could receive monetary credit for citations or purchases. My copy of this book is from the Microsoft Press reprints in the 80's. I still fondle it often. It's one of those books that get stolen from your bookshelf, or you leave on the table for months. I find the author can explain computer science and computer graphics in simple, fun terms. This book is a classic computer book, and it explains the wonder and the pleasure that some people get from computers in a wildly creative way. It's a love story, it's a "punk hacker" story, it's a tragedy. The source code to xanadu has been released this year, revitalizing the questions raised in this book. Not everyone will agree with Ted Nelson, but I think this is a great book.

This book was in interesting book that went into the details. It clearly explaines the details of how IBM lost the war with the best technology in the world.

This is a book book, if you like the subject. The first 1/3 tells the story of the collapse of IBM, and the rest of the book goes into the buissness aspects of what went wrong and what to do in the future. Great if you like either buissness or computers in general.

This book details how the modern computer industry came into being. Who the players were, how they fought for domiance, who won, who lost, and why. The authors cleary delineate the pivotal points that shape today's competitive landscape. For instance when Intel and Microsoft stole the day from IBM.For anyone even casually interested in the computer industry, this is a fasinating and easy read

Computer Wars remains the single best book for understanding the computer industry, both software and hardware. When people outside the industry ask why both Netscape and Microsoft have decided to lose a barrel of money by developing WWW browsers and giving them away, give them a copy of this book.

Having lost my confidence with the needle following a long spell of illness, this book, Crazy Patchwork, a Christmas gift from my husband, first gave me great pleasure just looking through it, and secondly inspiration to pick up my needle again.

Beautiful pictures illustrate the non-patronising instructions to create glorious new items from recycled bits and pieces, many of which most needlewomen will find in their possession.
Some of the projects are easier than others but even the ones which are a little more difficult have simplied options.
The projects are varied, modern without being harsh, and pretty without being old-fashioned.

Have you ever noticed in "how-to" books that there are often irritating ommissions, as if the writer wanted you to how clever they are but are not prepared to share all of their knowledge with you. THIS BOOK IS NOT ONE OF THEM!
Janet Haigh, who is obviiously an expert needlewoman, tells it all.

I LOVE this book.

This book, by an English crazy quilter was a great edition to my growing smorgesborg of Crazy Quilt books. The photos in this book are a delight, full of color and detail. The range of variations in projects is a real inspiration- the many different looks and feels of crazy quilts.

If you've grown a bit bored with conventional quilt blocks as I have, then this book will get your creative juices flowing again!

Of all the books in my growing library of crazy quilt books, this is one of my all time favorites. Great discussions of fabrics, threads, color choices. The photographs are stunning and the quilts inspiring. You won't be disappointed.