Sports and Hobbies Books

Obviously, this is a little dated, but it is still quite good. The first piece of good advice that I took was to buy a "light industrial" sewing machine with really good basic stitches. I bought a 1950's era Pfaff from Germany that is often touted as good for sailmaking with heavy canvas. I was impressed with how beautifully straight the stitches were, compared to Singer and other more modern machines, and the great strength and simplicity of the mechanical design. I have altered some parkas to include pit zips and am ready to embark on more serious projects like tarps and tarp-tents and light packable vests and gaiters and lightweight windshirts for hiking the Appalachian Trail. For years I swore that I would never ever sew my own outdoor gear.

Although I had never used a sewing machine and knew almost nothing about fabrics, this book got me started custom sewing for the out doors. It covers the basics of thread, needles, fabric types, seam construction, and zippers. Instructions for several basic projects are included.

As I have sewn my way through a backpack, sleeping quilt, pants, coats, and a tent, I have constantly gone back to this book for advice on both design and technical details.

This book did give me information about sewing that was helpful (i.e. the info on French-felled seams I had not seen elsewhere), but I found the author's approach limiting. For example she suggests that sewers purchase industrial sewing machines and sergers - not an option for me anyway. In general the approach is for sewing heavy-duty gear. If you want to sew to produce lightweight hiking gear, this is probably not the book for you.

I just had this book out from the library and found that it is absolutely indespensible for sewing camping gear. It has saved me much of the learning curve for creating durable items. The tips presented in the book also enable you to go out and dream up new items and make them work. I just got back from camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and am happy to report that all 3 items made with the help of the book passed the wilderness test.

This book gives an excellent overview of the available material and techniques used to sew unusual fabrics for unusual projects, such as a backpack or tents. Repairs of outdoor gear are presented as well. Every chapter is devoted to a different theme and the book is simply but neatly written. She provides the reader with some projects and outlines the facts that not everybody needs the top of the line fabric to practise outdoor activities. So don't be afraid to try some of her projects, you won't be anxious to have spent a huge amount of money and be unsure of the results

Interesting photography. If you are a fan of the swimsuit issue, and art, you will love this book.

Who would have believed that body-painting could so realistically depict actual swim-suits, etc. Outstanding!

Terrific collection of SI photographs highlighted by pains taking application of paint. Very artful!

A beautiful gift for any SI fan, photographer or artist... the book is well put together and done with class. It goes through each year SI has featured the "painted" models with additional, never seen before photos and model comments. Gorgeous color. Great holiday gift.

SI's annual swimsuit issue is a highly anticipated delight for many afficionados of the female form.

This collection of photos of some of the most beautiful women on the planet features the body painting genius of Joanne Gair. These bountiful babes sure look like they are wearing some nifty swimsuits. NOT!

They are all as naked as the day they were born. Wow! I wish I had this to read back when I was in my teen years! Still enjoyable, even now.

The perfect gift for that straight male you know, aged teen to octagenarian. He will appreciate your exquisite taste.

These are good activities for kids when a "time filler" is needed. Each activity is fun, educational and sometimes physical. Kids love the competition.

ISBN 1878257528 - A 1993 recipient of the Parents' Choice Award. The first reader review of this book, suggesting it's perfect for long car rides should probably be disregarded. The Events are almost all too physical to do in a car!

Funny - and surprisingly challenging - events to compete in, 73 in all, make for great it's-too-cold-outside or rainy day entertainment. Parents may well find themselves losing to the kids, without losing on purpose, because these are not events most people will have spent any time practicing. From Floss Writing to the One Foot Marathon, everyone will find their niche and have fun doing it!

If you happen to get a copy that doesn't have a stopwatch, there is a free catalog available from Klutz listed on the last page of the book. You can order a watch, other books from Klutz and lots of other fun stuff.

I have always loved any book from KLUTZ, always entertaining and tons of fun for both kids and adults! "Stop! the Watch: A Book of Everyday, Ordinary, Anybody Olympics" has lots of fun activities to do with a friend. The pictures are hilarious to look at and the instructions are easy to follow. The stop watch (batteries included) that comes with the book is easy to handle and easy to use.

Do you think you can set a world's record? Well, let's see! The book includes 73 events you can do, separated into four categories:
*Solo Events
*Meet the Clock Solo Events
*Two-Person Team Events
*All-Day Events

Entertainingly fun, here are a few examples of the kind of crazy activities you might try your hand at beating the world record of:
*Sing "Happy Birthday" to Rumpelstiltskin five times. Has to be loud, completely understandable and bear some resemblance to music.*
World Record 5.81 seconds

*Count by 6s until 12 seconds have elapsed. Exactly.*

*Sing the first verse of "Jingle Bells", alternating each word between partners.*
World Record 5.38 seconds

This book is really great. It comes with a sturdy stopwatch that you use to time yourself.

The various suggestions for "everyday Olympics" are ordinary to unusual. This is to be done with a friend.

The first one is - get this - timing how fast you can start and stop the stopwatch! Write the word with "banana" with dental floss as quickly as you can (and legibly), putting your jackets on backwards and zipping them up. flip a coin until you get 8 heads or tails in a row, etc.

Some of these are really fun and a lot of them are active.

My kids really like this book.

This book is a must on long car rides with children. It's clever and inspires children to be creative.

THIS BOOK IS THE BEST BOOK I'VE SEEN YET! THAT EXPLAINS HOW TO DO. MASKINGS AND BAYERINGS, AS WELL STEP BY STEP INFORMATION ON RUBBER STAMPING ON ANY SURFACE.
I WAS JUST AT THE LIBARY TO AND I FOUND THIS BOOK AND SAT AND READ IT COVER TO COVER. I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN.
I WOULD RATE BOOK AS EXCELLENT!!!!

Gail Green gives rubber stamping a new meaning with lots of fun projects available in the book. She makes everyone want to try their hand on some project that's fun and exciting even if they are not an artist. I throughly enjoyed trying the easy projects. I even enjoyed the project stamping bricks. This is a must have book for the true collector.

Not only is this book a must for beginners, but also for anyone else with any interest in rubber stamping. It has so many ideas and projects that it seems like anyone could find something they are interested in trying but haven't. For the beginner, it has very complete but very easy to understand directions for becoming a complete rubber stamper. I don't think a "How To" book could accomplish any more than this one does.

Until I bought this book I didn't think that I could create anything really interesting and professional-looking. Was I wrong! The Ultimate Rubber Stamping Technique Book provides excellent direction and, more importantly, really inspires you to try some new things. Even my husband has now taken a turn at stamping and found it to be far less complicated than he thought it would be.

Bottom line: follow the directions in this book and you can be an artist, even if you can't draw!

I suppose this is a good book if you have NEVER rubber stamped or seen anything other that stamp on ink on paper. But I am rather inexperienced, and I thought this was not good at all for what I was looking for. If you are new to rubber stamping, fine. But if you have anything more than even the most basic experience, I'd pass on this and get something more advanced.

I got this for my 10 year old son. He loves it. He loves it so much I went back and bought another so that he and a friend could build together. Nice, sturdy card pieces with realistic artwork. Have to admit, I'm enjoying it also and I'm in my 50's.

I purchased these Building Cards for my 7 year old nephew as a Christmas present. I have always been happy with all Klutz products, my young adult children had many products when they were young. I was even more impressed with the Building Cards than I thought I would be. They were sturdy, directions were easy to follow, as well easy to be creative and make his own designs and easy to take along (especially important for my nephew since he was here out of state visiting with his family and going from relative to relative and easy for my sister-in-law to pack to take home). I highly recommend this product for any creative child. I know I will continue to give Klutz products as gifts.

I got this for my 5 yr old son for x-mas. He did need help with it, but really enjoyed planning out different castles for his dad and uncles to build. And of course the men really started enjoying it as well as the teenagers.

My almost 7-year-old son saw this at the school book fair. I asked if he would really use it. Sure enough, he built something that night. When I went to look at it, I ended up building a full castle. This set comes with 150 pieces and you can buy more (of course) so you can build the giant castles shown in the booklet. One problem -- Klutz doesn't include a container to keep the puzzles in. The pieces come in plastic that you have to cut open and can't be reused.

Klutz doesn't even sell containers for its many items that come with lots of pieces. It would be nice if the booklets came with the pieces in a reusable box.

It's a fun challenge to come up with your own ideas as there is a lot you can do with the puzzle. The pieces are sturdy and feel like unbendable cardboard. Well, if you try your darndest, I'm sure you can bend it especially where the little slits are for connecting the puzzle. But when you're building, it doesn't give in like some puzzles do.

We are fist time boat owners and this book is a godsend. When you are out on the water, and have a question, you can just look it up in this easy to use book!

I really liked the book. It explains stuff so people who misunderstand the fundamentals of sailing and boating can learn easy!

The book covers many subjects but none in any great detail. A good book for beginners like me but it also left me with more questions.

I knew nothing!!! This book was perfect, I learned everything about boats, boating, the rules of the sea, little tidbits that will save you or your boat. Perfect for a beginner

This is a great confidence builder, especially when you don't peek at the answers. Solving gives a real boost to your self esteem. A good way to build your vocabulary and word usage. I am 76 years old and love cryptic puzzles, particularly the black and white square type.

I used this book as a textbook in an adult ed course on cryptic crosswords and was really disappointed. The setter's clues are below par and all too often forced. He uses truly unusual words as answers that one must look up in dictionaries; this is acceptable in British cryptics, but not the norm in American cryptics. Definitely not a book for beginners and not all that satisfying for seasoned solvers.

Excellent book. I take it with me and do a few clues at a time. The answers at the back really help. It is my first go at crosswords and this book is the perfect solution.

You will surely enjoy Everything Cryptic. The puzzles start out just easy enough to get you warmed up, and then you find a variety of increasingly challenging cryptics. If you believe that mental exercises keep your mind young and fit, this is a good choice for you.The Everything Cryptic Crosswords Book: 100 Complex and Challenging Puzzles for Word Lovers (Everything: Sports and Hobbies)ou!

This book is soooo cool for the home scrapbooker. It is full of great ideas, some I have used as a base and finished with my own touches. Turned out great!! Wonderful book!!

I am very pleased with this book and would definitely recommend it. It has a large repertoire and it is easy to follow. I know it is also easy to do a few different things to the ideas presented, but do like the simplicity of it all. Thanks.

I make many scrapbooks thru out the year and this book will help me make a scrapbook of all the family reunions that we have every year

I'm creating a Heritage album and found this book very useful for ideas; however, many of the submitted pages (from scrap-bookers)that they showed suffer from a lack of journaling and/or clarity, so it is hard to tell the stages of the family trees. I wish MM had critiqued some of the family trees to show how they could be improved so that future generations... and even the creator in a few decades!... could easily determine the line of descedants.

My main interest is bead stringing and wire wrapping so I skimmed over this book for about a year. After a closer look, I bought it and wondered why I didn't do it sooner. It melds wire working technique with fiber arts. Basic wire working tools and skills are necessary for Fiber-Wire Beads Jewelry. The book doesn't teach it which is the only drawback but there are other books that do this. All Wired Up by Mark Lareau would be a perfect companion for this book.
The instructions are clear and encouraging. The photos of beads and finished jewelry are inspiring. Another plus is that it requires mimimal equipment and can be made with brass, copper or craft wire instead of the more expensive silver and gold wires.

I found this to be informative for myself, a beginner. My work has been in textiles and beads separately, this is a very good intro to the combination of the two. There are precise, clear instructions for the interesting designs. I am pleased with the range of possiblities going forward with my own designs.

Man, whoever wrote the description for this book musn't even have cracked it open! Sure, there are instructions for 30 some odd (and I might add, wonderful) beads but that's the least of this book. The bulk of it is jam-packed with amazing wire and fiber jewelry that has nothing to do with fiber wire beads. You've got to take a look at this amazing stuff....for example, fabulous neckpieces using a simple method of winding wibers around ball chain and an entire chapter on crocheting with fiber and wire! Just gorgeous.This book has been seriously under rated, it's a wellspring of innovative and elegantly simple fiber and wire jewelry.

This book is interesting - but it seems to be lacking in it's ability to properly show the reader how to end one of these "wiber" beads. The descriptions on how to finish the beads leave me with the impression that these beads will not hold up through repeated wearings.

When I create jewelry, I like to think that my work might someday be passed from one generation to the next. I am just not seeing that this technique will create heirloom quality costume jewelry components.

If you enjoyed the Oscar winning movie Chariots of Fire, you will probably also enjoy this biography of Eric Liddell, the Scottish sprinter whose refusal to run on a Sunday - even in the Olympics - drew headlines. More than just a successful athlete (who did win the Olympic gold medal in the 400 meters in world record time), Liddell was a man of strong character and religious convictions. His selfless actions were a constant source of inspiration to others. This book is neither boring nor long and can be read with pleasure.

Eric Liddell is the "Flying Scotsman". This nick name comes from the name given to the fast steam train which did the Edinburgh to London route. Eric was fast too - a fast 100 and 400 metres track runner. His exploits at the 1924 Olympics are sketched out in the classic film "Chariots of Fire".

This is one of the few books I've read through more than once. But you don't really get to know, even in this well written book, the real driving force behind Eric Liddell; though the book makes you aware of it by emphasising its enigma. Really, the truth is, that he knew how to dwell in the secret place of the Most High (see Psalm 91).

Sally Magnusson is, or was, a TV personality in Britain. I can always remember thinking every time she came on the screen: "What a beautiful soul". Whatever Sally's sympathies with Christianity might be, it is interesting that time and time again, she reflects on this self same quality of Eric Liddel: the beauty of his soul. She weaves this theme into the comprehensive and intimate account of his life.

Now, it may be true that many loved this man because he excelled in sport (running and rugby), but there is equally no doubt that those who met him were inspired by this other worldly quality which so impressed.

Though I myself was born long after he died, I remember an incident which emphasises this point. I had to go down to Tiverton, in Devon, about 20 years ago, and there was no reply at the house I was to call on. The next-door neighbour came out and told me that they were all away.

Thinking that this was a wasted journey didn't stop me from talking to the man and it transpired that he had been in China when Eric was there, and had known him personally. He began to speak of Eric with almost an awe, and described this very aspect of his character that Sally had found unable to overlook.

Sadly, this gentleman had concluded that Eric was virtually the only Christian that had ever lived, and wasn't interested in the gospel that Eric had so loved. Ironic isn't it? when Christians don't live up to their profession people find excuse for not believing; and when people go beyond all expectation of what holiness can be had down here, they also draw back! Still, I sent him Sally's book and another one that was out at the time, and I am sure he would have read them with great pleasure just as I have.

Many of our sports-crazed world would do well to study and emulate this great man.

From the classic Chariots of Fire movie, I wanted to see how Hollywood handled this accurately. From Magusson's research, certainly one can see from actual photos that Liddell was not as thin or attractive as Ian Charleston. Also to my great disappointment, Jason, the American sprinter, never gave Liddell the Scripture verse right before the race.

Interesting sidelight to this is that in 1988 Olympics all but 2 of 19 Israeli athletes refused to compete on the Yom Kippur celebrative day.

This is wonderful read. Do not know how this relates to other works on Liddell as I'm just discovering them to find out.

This book portrays the details of this celebrity's daily life through his journals, letters, personal interviews, and the writings of those who knew him. They describe a faithful man of God who didn't prize religiosity or overly pious appearances. Instead, he modeled Jesus' character of love and kindness with his own humor, wit, and laid-back nature. Great book for all who wish to see how the Christian life is lived out amidst the daily grind.