Publications Books

Nice book. I chose the book because of the Amazon.com reviews. It appeared to be what my Grandson had requested and he seemed pleased to get it as a Christmas present. We will have to wait to see if the information in the book helped him with the training.

This book is absolutely fantastic. After reading numerous other training books and still having difficulty with my young dog I stumbled onto this book by accident. Spencer covers every aspect of training the puppy right through to advanced blinds and marks. His style of writing is very clear and his use of anecdotes helps to illustrate the real life ramifications of various techniques. Until I read this book I had great difficulty training consistent blind retrieves. Spencer's explanation of the correct use of conditioning flags has made it so much easier. I have read this book at least ten times and learn something new every time. I can't recommend it enough.

James B. Spencer's Training Retrievers For Marshes And Meadows will hold a specific appeal for hunters who use retriever dogs in their work. Beginners are taught how to gain rapport and train dogs, from basic obedience to training for the hunt - and receive instructions particular not only to retrieving in general, but to the breed.

Before, during and continuing with the training of my current yellow Lab, I have read quite a few books on the subject. I wish I would have had this one sooner! Easy to read and great instruction all in one book.

I found out about this book in 1991 shortly after I had gotten a Lab puppy that I wanted to train to be a working dog.

I had read all the popular books at the time, but none made it clear to me - what I needed to make clear to my dog !!

I met a man on Compuserve who raised and trained working retrievers in the Midwest. He highly recommended this book, but it was difficult to find, and in those days we did not have "AMAZON.COM".

Anyhow, I finally got the book and my dog Molly became the best working dog I have ever had the pleasure to hunt with. She was nothing short of amazing at spotting birds down, and she could easily blind retrieve the ones she did not see fall (almost always a double).

This book also taught me the concept and importance of teaching "force training" for retrieving, and it indeed works.

Molly is 15 yrs old now and is "retired", but if she was physically able she would hunt with me tomorrow.

So my strong advice here is get this book if you have a young dog that you want to be well trained and a pleasure to hunt with. Also, well trained dogs make MUCH better and happier pets!!

-- Cain

A Genie in the House of Saud: Zubis Rises (A Genie in the House of Saud)

A bit arachaic in language and cultural approach, but the narrative pictures Doughty draws are fascinating; submersion into a little known cultural and time. Great for anthropological studies.

I must, grudgingly, give this monumental classic work of travel and adventure five stars, despite the fact that I don't really like the author. Doughty was probably not a very nice, friendly person; his life and opinions seem centered around a strict, almost fanatical and unforgiving, religiosity (he was a very fervent christian). Nevertheless, what he set out to do, he did with ample success and eficiency; and what he set out to do is not so simple as it seems at first sight,in my opinion, except for one of his main, but most superficial goals: to redeem the English language from the poverty and oversimplicity it had fallen into (Doughty believed the English language had fallen from grace since Spencer: I wonder, what would he think of it now?).

"Travels..." is an account of Doughty's two years of wandering through the Desert, in the 2nd half of the 19th century, with Hejaz and Nejd nomads. Unlike many other travellers before him (such as Sir Richard Burton), he never even tried to pretend he was a muslim, but admited to the nomads he travelled with that he was christian....and then went on, once and again for two years, to argue christianity's superiority over Islam and to explain how the fact that they were muslims excited his pity at seeing them fooled by their fraudulent Islamic beliefs. We know that traveleng in Arabia in those times was quite risky and dangerous, so it is a wonder that he was not killed by the nomads he was travelling with after they had to hear, for the hundredth time, how their faith was a fraud!!! This pious propensity, or even thirst for martyrdom (some times the provocations seem to point at that), is also quite trying for the reader.

However, if you can stomach the religious dissertations in his very special saintly style, the reading is rewarding indeed. Doughty had the (undeserved, I think with envy)luck to find the remains of the Nabataean town of Hegra, which he describes in some depth, with sketches of the tombs and copies of the inscriptions he found there. Who doesn't dream of finding the abandoned, lost, ancient town, built by a mysterious half-forgotten people? His descriptions of life with a Nomadic tribe of those times, with its unbelievable hardships, due to the famine-level subsistence usual among nomads, are an etnographic work of first rank. His report of the abuse, threats and indignities he had to suffer at the hands of the nomads because of his refusal to deny his christianity are unintentionally funny, in spite of himself.

But it is when we see that Doughty constantly compares the nomads of the desert with the Patriarchs of the Bible, and we know he can imagine himself in the company of Abraham's or Ishmael's tribes, when we learn the extent of the religious significance that this journey had for him. The ignorance and fanaticism that he finds in these nomads, he imagines in the Patriarchs of the Bible. For him Christianity, his own faith, was the light and salvation that took people out of the pitiful and primitive state these nomads live in. In fact, his journey is actually a pilgrimage to invest his religion with a significance that maybe he had been in the process of losing from sight.

And it is this, the fact that this author had set out for a journey with the intention of profoundly despising the people he was going to live with, what makes me despise him as a person, even though I see the importance of his work. Although Doughty repeats, now and then, the common, admiring expressions that were usual and fashionable to speak about the nomadic Arabs of those times -all the usal "noble savage" stuff-, we can read between lines (and later on, directly) that he thinks they are repulsive, inferior creatures. He goes to Arabia thinking he will be a superior among primitives, and he leaves Arabia, two years later, convinced that this has, indeed, been the case. In my opinion, the one who comes out the worst from the experience, is himself, although I have to thank him for recording his experiences and so, giving me the oportunity of reading between lines and learning from that.

I would like to add that this is not a complete edition of Doughty's work, which I read in the Dover two-volume edition, with an introduction by T.E.Lawrence and translations (of the Nabatean inscriptions) by Ernest Renan, and with some beautifully drawn maps.

There are few travel books that can stand up to the depredations of time - indeed, travel literature by its nature tends to be ephemeral. We may peruse the Victorian travelers, but mainly to get a sense of the exotic, from a time when it still was that way.

Fewer travel books still can claim to have had a conscious impact beyond their own genre. One thinks of Stendahl's travels in the South of France, Radishchev's journey from Petersburg to Moscow, or Stephens and Catherwood in the Yucatan. But Doughty is in a class by himself.

This remarkably eccentric man with the remarkably eccentric writing style set off into one of the last fringes of society, to a world where the art of the word was cultivated and where a man's worth was set by his speech. He is not an easy read. Yet his writing reflects the sense of a major intellect from one culture confronted by a tradition which is very old, very venerable and yet totally alien from that in which he was raised. That he sought to explain it by creating a new way of writing is perhaps not remarkable.

Many writers of the last century have been quite vocal about the debt that they owe him; one sometimes wonders if this is honored more in the breach than we would like to believe. But try him on for size, but be prepared to be patient. You will find that his style will win you over if you are.

Doughty had reflected his belief throughout his journey and I am not surprised. He decreased the Bedw traditions and tried to link it completely to the teaching of Islam. He knew from the beginning that the Bedw tradition especially in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula has nothing to do with the teaching of Islam. It was basically their culture. He did used the Bedw to serve his purpose since he wrote this book only to the western readers at that time to capture their imagination of the Arabian desert and to lay down the first step toward the colonization period that took place 30 years later.
Doughty in his book has described the Bedew life with many details that have shocked me. Since he lived with my great grandfather (Tollog) during his stay on al Harra, I was able to tell how close he was to reflect the real life of my tribe.
If we ignore his belief's reflection in his writing, we can conclude that his book is truly a masterpiece in detailing the life of one of the most isolated part of the world in 1800 century.

After reading this work detailing the 1870s [mis]adventures of the legendary Charles M. Doughty, one comes to understand much better why T.E.Lawrence so admired the Bedu and mistrusted the Arab city dweller. Doughty's "travels" really amounted to being "driven" through hostile lands occupied by "fanatics," continuously handed off from one group of outlaws and thieves to another. "I found in them an implacable fanaticism," wrote Doughty. "All their life is passed in fraud and deceipt." Sacred oaths, swearing in the name of God out of mere habit, traditional mores of protecting the fellow-traveller in one's charge honored mostly in the breach. One friendly Arab acquaintance along the tortured path tells Doughty, "I hope that your life may be preserved: but they will not suffer you to dwell amongst them! You will be driven from place to place. As many among them as have travelled, are liberal; but the rest, no." Abdullah el-Kenneyny advised Doughty, "I am even now in amazement! that in such a country, you openly avow yourself to be an Englishman; but how may you pass even one day in safety. You have lived hitherto with the Bedu; but it is otherwise in the townships."

Early on, the strange language seemed humorous and distracting, but it soon grows on you. "Give me a hand" becomes "Lend me a grip of thy five." Robbed, stripped, insulted, the intrepid Doughty gives the evil-doers the back of his hand as often as he dared, many times with his hand on a revolver hidden under his robes. One bluff carried off successfully against fellow travellers, who were sworn, of course, to defend him -- "By the life of Him who created us, in what instant you show me a gun's mouth, I will lay dead your carcasses upon this earth."

Occasionally some paragraph seems to be the obvious inspiration for a like passage in Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," an exquisitely detailed description of how a camel comes to a halt and lies down being one of the most obvious examples.

A major feature of this work is the great care taken by the author to use and then explain the Arabic vocabulary for places and things unique to the Arab culture. Each and every page is peppered with these terms. There is a fine glossary, praise God, the Merciful One!

The first half of this collection of selected passages from the massive original work will give readers warm feelings for the Bedouin and sweet dreams of wandering amongst them at peace with God and nature. The second half will likely wipe out any such urge. Civilizations still clash, 130 years later. Extremists rear their ugly heads on both sides of a vast chasm. Will the next 130 years bring much fundamental change?

From the files of FATE Magazine, the oldest of paranormal publications, comes this collection of True Mystic Experiences to set your mind aflame. I have personally always loved the "Believe it or Not" types of tales but have been on the skeptical side until recent years, and taken the stories with a grain of salt. However, this book, being from my favorite paranormal publisher, leaves no room for doubt in my mind. I know the practices of this publisher, being a writer who has submitted to them, and can attest to the fact that every story, such as these, is published only after the author has signed a sworn affidavit of its truth.

What a well-rounded collection is this! From guardian angels and premonitions of death, to psychic dreams and out of body experiences, there is something here to suit every curiosity. The stories come from everyday folks: soldiers at war, daughters in mourning, newlywed couples and more. Some are written in detailed prose, while others are more like a letter from home. But all exude a feeling of "Something wonderful and awesome has happened, and I was a witness to it."

Jennifer Spees has compiled a wonderful collection into chapters of the unexplainable. Whether you sit and read through it all on a rainy, snuggly weekend or savor it bit by bit in moments of peace, True Mystic Experiences will be a book you won't forget. The stories will haunt you and inspire you to look about for signs of your own mystic encounters. And what a wonderful thing to have happen!

This book is one of the greatest books I've ever read. This book is full of fascinating real-life stories of spirits, ghosts, and strange phenomena. If you are really into supernatural unexplainable stuff, this book is perfect for you to read.

I've loved this stuff since I was a kid. Rationalism may be a nice security blanket for those who are scared of the dark -- but just because you've nailed up the closet door it doesn't mean the monster's not still in there! The personal experience of the invisible world is universal, and can't be explained away. These stories are great examples of that experience, and fun reading too.

Ignore the slightly cheesy cover...this book is great. We always had Fate Magazine around the house when I was growing up, and I later subscribed (although the current incarnation of the magazine can't hold a candle to the ones from the 60's, 70's and before). My favorite monthly segments were always "True Mystic Experiences" and "My Proof of Survival"...ordinary readers wrote in to tell their ghostly/paranormal/psychic experiences. It's great to have this collection of stories to take me back...and this has plenty from Fate's 50+ year archives. Hopefully Fate will put out a "My Proof of Survival" book next...I read this in a couple of evenings and want more!

After reading this beautifully compiled book of strange and unusual mystic experiences, the world was not the same for me. Jennifer Spees weaves together a scary, yet poignant fabric of unbelievably true stories, threaded with supernatural, paranormal, and just plain spooky undertones. This is a must have for anyone who has experienced the unbelievable, who has an interest in the paranormal, or who just wants to be entertained. Be prepared to be mystified!

Turtles into Butterflies is a marvelous tale for children and adults alike. Turtle is an inspiration to us all, overcoming self-doubt and finding self-love. This book teaches children to accept themselves in spite of their differences with others. It teaches children that they can appreciate the qualities of others without having to give up who they are to become someone they're not. It is a helpful reminder for adults that we should be ourselves and teach our children their value through our own living examples. This book is filled with lovely illustrations and exciting adventures as turtle learns that he is beautiful. This book also teaches the value of friendship. It is important for kids to learn that sometimes friendship entails uplifting our friends when they are feeling down. I am grateful to Dane for writing a book that teaches children the value of self-love in a fun, creative and adventurous way.

This book is a marvelous tale for children and adults alike. Turtle serves as an inspiration to us all, overcoming self-doubt and finding self-love, a notion we certainly want our children to learn. It teaches children that they can be proud of who they are in spite of their differences with each other. It teaches children that they can appreciate the qualities of others while loving themselves, that they do not have to give up who they are to try to be someone they're not. It is an excellent story for adults as well, reminding us to be ourselves and to teach our children through our own living examples. This book is filled with lovely illustrations and exciting adventures as turtle discovers that he is beautiful. This book also teaches the value of frienship, demonstrating that butterfly is a true friend by helping turtle see his beauty. It is important for kids to learn that friendship sometimes entails uplifting our friends when they are feeling down. I am grateful to Dane for writing a book that teaches children the value of self-love in a fun, creative and adventurous way.

this book is asbolutely wonderful not only for children but for kids of all ages! i highly recommend this book!

I was lucky to be introduced to this book. It's such a fun book with a Wonderful story about going for your dreams. Adults and Children will love this book. It will touch your Heart, too.

This book is awesome. My kids totally loved it and they want me to read it to them over and over again. The book is not long which makes it easy to read to my kids before they go to bed repeatedly. I'd recommend it to anyone whose got children. Jorento is a gifted writer of children's books.

As someone who took up chess late, I faced the challenge of trying to find out a bit on different openings and what would be best suited to me. There are huge resources in any specialised opening but this overall guide to the types of openings has a clear help. Instead of trying to guess 2-3 moves of a reply, you get a clear explanation of white or blacks plan to move into the middle game. I've met Sam Collins at tournaments and duely said "Thank you !" on behalf of the adult learner.
Without doubt in my mind, this book has helped provide a straight forward, uncomplicated structured approach to finding your way out of the beginners to a competent club player...and even beyond.

There is always work to be done in improving but this is an excellent book to put you smack in the centre of making the best informed choice of what opening or reply you can take on.

Excellent work Sam, Get to the Cork congres soon so we can get you autgraphing books !

There are many different openings books which focus on different aspects of opening play. This book is like a survey of the territory and covers the most likely openings to come up and the many variations of each. What I most like about it is that it is logically organized, well-written and easy to follow. It includes commentary, but the commentary is not comprehensive. This good or bad depending upon what you are looking for in a book on openings. In short, the text gets to the point with respect to the major tactical advantages and disadvantages of particular openings. However, it doesn't cover any of them in great depth.

I like this book because it doesn't repeat a lot of the ground covered in other books. It is a small volume at less than 225 pages of many different openings and the MOST important points about each. This makes it a great reference book to get one started with a particular opening. However, you need something with more depth to go along with it.

I am sometimes "turned off" by chess books which are 1,000 pages with very little text or diagrams. This is a bias that I have and learning anything sometimes seems overwhelming. This book strikes a nice balance between text, diagrams and presenting a series of moves. It makes the content more digestible and because of how its organized, easy to learn.

As far as I am concerned, this is a MUST own book for a serious chess player and particulary for someone transitioning from the beginner to advanced beginner or early stages of intermediate play. It uses modern notation and it is extremely well thought out with respect to layout. Both the author and the editor did an excellent job!

This book WILL help you to improve your opening play. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to any player and if you are turned off by poorly organized or cumbersome large volumes, you will like it even more.

This book should have been entitled "Learning the Major Chess Openings". It organizes the main opening lines and many sub-lines well, and it's a good reference if you want to learn the difference between say, a Scheveningen Sicilian and a Najdorf Sicilian, but it does little to help you "understand" these openings.

As is typical with most worthwhile chess books, the text contains a lot of strings (and stub-strings [and sub-sub strings] of moves, and it can get confusing. My objection is not to that, but rather to the fact that the explanations as to why one move is correct and another is incorrect are often so perfunctory as to be completely unhelpful. Over and over again, I found myself asking "why?" Clearly, this book wasn't helping me "understand."

As an alternative I'd suggest John Nunn's "Understanding Chess Move by Move." His book takes the approach of examining specific games to explore various themes in chess, not just the opening, but it will give you much better insight into the "why" of the opening moves than Collins's book. My one quibble with Nunn's book is that the Table of Contents does not specify the opening for each game (I've taken to handwriting them in myself).

So, alas, I guess we'll have to wait a little longer for the definitive replacement for Reuben Fine's classic, "Ideas Behind the Chess Opening," still arguably the best book on opening theory but now a little out of date.

Well-covered by other reviewers, I feel compelled to add my vote for this rare, well-written chess book. I've played chess for years but just recently started getting serious about getting a decent rating. While Reuben Fine's book is often referenced as great for understanding openings, I found it to be impenetrable. Meanwhile Sam Collin's book has become my first go-to book for getting a basic understanding of what an opening is all about. His writing is crystal clear, and he gets you straight to what the opening is trying to accomplish. Other books, like Modern Chess Openings or Standard Chess Openings, can then be used to examine alternative variations, but speaking for myself, I really need to start from Collins to get the strategy behind the opening first. I find this book to be an essential reference for a beginning or intermediate player.

This book is very well organized. I am very pleased with it. By playing several of the openings in the book I have found myself (finally) able to defeat the computer at chess at levels where I couldn't do so before. I have also learned which openings are to be avoided as well, that way I don't have to spend time memorizing all of them. But it is still important to understand why some openings aren't good.

Van Ness cures the common problem of vapid thermodynamics texts by clearly explaining the basics and then stopping.

His little book is an easy read, and firmly roots the student in the reality of what thermodynamic laws and equations actually mean. Most importantly, van Ness repeatedly makes clear that thermodynamics is about imaginary processes that will never occur in real machines.

This should be the first week's read of every course in thermo.

This thin book is a must-have for anyone who wants to understand thermodynamics. A better title for this book may be `Thermodynamics Companion'. This it not a stand alone text, but a supplement to a text book or more advanced reference. This author explains in detail (and without a lot of mathematical mumbo-jumbo) the basics of thermodynamics. It is geared toward the advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate student in engineering or physics who wants to understand thermo. The mathematics is simple (anyone with a little knowledge of calculus can handle it), so the reader won't get bogged down in the equations. If you really want to get a handle on what thermo means (beyond just manipulating equations), this would be a great place to start. This book contains the best discussion of entropy that I've ever found. The notion of entropy is a difficult one for many new to thermo. It is easy to learn how to manipulate the equations, another thing to really understand what they mean. The latter is the author's goal in this book, and he has succeeded. At less than $8, this is a no-brainer.

First, skip over the silly introductory analogy of a little kid playing with marbles or whatever. But then it gets good. Aside from introducing an equation (p.28) including the variable S without even defining, let alone explaining, it, the 1st and 2nd law are explained very lucidly and with much care (I am a graduate electrical engineer with a full-semester thermodynamics course under my belt who's forgotten most of the subject). Entropy is very well dealt with. The last part of the book deals with thermodynamics vs statistical mechanics & there it gets pretty rough. I didn't try to assimilate too much of that part, not being as intetersted, but it's rigorous and doubtlessly also a fine exposition.

This book is certainly worth the small price and a chunk of your time.

Who knew that thermodynamics could actually be entertaining? This book is a joy to read regardless of your technical background or interests. It isn't meant to be a text, or even a demonstration of the subject's importance, but, rather, an invocation of the sheer wonder that can lie in the most mundane things if only you can look at them from the viewpoint that thermodynamics offers.

This book is an excellent conceptual introduction to thermodynamics. It helps you to get the "big picture" without getting into mathematical details. The first few chapters are suitable for high-school students that are interested in the fundamental concepts and laws of thermodynamics.

All that and much more can be found in this delightful little book. Broken down into chapters focusing on different geographic regions, Dr. Karl Shuker takes the reader on a wonderful tour of the strange, mysterious and sometimes down right bizarre. Some of the material is thought provoking, other stuff Dr. Shuker openly admits to be hoaxes. Still, this book can provide fun reading for both adults and children, particularly those interested in the paranormal. All the usual things you'd expect are here... ghosts, sea serpents, bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, Atlantis, crop circles, spontaneous human cumbustion. But there are also plenty of lesser known gems to pick through as well.

The first chapter is focused on Ireland and the British Isles, showing the region's rich heritage of hauntings, alongside the Loch Ness monster, black dogs, spring heeled Jack, alien big cats, stonehenge and stranger things. Next, we delve into historical mysteries of continental Europe, continental Europe like Kasper Hauser, Austria's tatzelwurm, alchemy, the Comte St. Germain, Leonardo da Vinci and the Voynich manuscript. A chapter on Africa and the Middle East explores both Biblical mysteries like the Ark of the Covenant, King Solomon's mines and Noah's ark beside more primal mysteries of the Dark Continent such as dinosaurs in the Congo, man-eating trees in Madagascar, pygmy elephants and strange snakes.

A chapter on Asia explores the mystics and occult lore of the east, such as the Himalayan yeti, fakir magic in India, the Tunguska enigma, the lost city of Shambhala, and Mongolia's death worm. Moving on to Latin America, we get treated to the mysteries of the Aztecs and Inca, Puerto Rico's chupacabra, giant anacondas lurking the Amazon, Voodoo and the crystal skulls of doom. Closer to home, a chapter on North America covers such infamous American phenomena as the Minnesota ice man, thunderbirds, the Marfa lights, Edgar Cayce, the Jersey Devil and alien abductions. A final chapter focuses on Australia and the Pacific, examining sea serpents, Uluru, the Aboriginal Dreamtime, the lost continent of Mu and the survival of the Thylacine.

This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. The book covers so much other stuff that I don't have time or space to get into here. More obscure stuff that you rarely see in other books, including several photographs which I believe are unique to this book. If your interested in the paranormal, you should probably get this book.

I have more than my share of cryptozoology and paranormal (pity that those two are so often lumped together) texts among my multi-thousand-volume library. Shuker's stands out as a beacon light amid an ocean of foolishness, for his are the words of an objective scientist to truly employs the scientific method and is open to being amazed, not jaded against progress. (By way of contrast, promulgators of the "scientific method" such as CSICOP's Joe Nickell seem utterly unable to approach any mystery with an open mind, declaring it non-mysterious a priori and carefully working backward to those subsets of "the facts" that support their theses.) Shuker weaves a handsome panorama that covers a broad swath of mysteries--ranging from cryptozoological to spectral to religious to geokinetic (I just coined that, but I refer [hopefully obviously] to rocks that move by themselves and that sort of thing)--and does so in a unique and refreshing continent-by-continent basis, giving the feel of a gazetteer with frequent, detailed sidebars. Bravo, Dr. Shuker, for a job well conceived and expertly realized. I shall treasure your balanced portrayal for years to come.

All that and much more can be found in this delightful little book. Broken down into chapters focusing on different geographic regions, Dr. Karl Shuker takes the reader on a wonderful tour of the strange, mysterious and sometimes down right bizarre. Some of the material is thought provoking, other stuff Dr. Shuker openly admits to be hoaxes. Still, this book can provide fun reading for both adults and children, particularly those interested in the paranormal. All the usual things you'd expect are here... ghosts, sea serpents, bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, Atlantis, crop circles, spontaneous human cumbustion. But there are also plenty of lesser known gems to pick through as well.

The first chapter is focused on Ireland and the British Isles, showing the region's rich heritage of hauntings, alongside the Loch Ness monster, black dogs, spring heeled Jack, alien big cats, stonehenge and stranger things. Next, we delve into historical mysteries of continental Europe, continental Europe like Kasper Hauser, Austria's tatzelwurm, alchemy, the Comte St. Germain, Leonardo da Vinci and the Voynich manuscript. A chapter on Africa and the Middle East explores both Biblical mysteries like the Ark of the Covenant, King Solomon's mines and Noah's ark beside more primal mysteries of the Dark Continent such as dinosaurs in the Congo, man-eating trees in Madagascar, pygmy elephants and strange snakes.

A chapter on Asia explores the mystics and occult lore of the east, such as the Himalayan yeti, fakir magic in India, the Tunguska enigma, the lost city of Shambhala, and Mongolia's death worm. Moving on to Latin America, we get treated to the mysteries of the Aztecs and Inca, Puerto Rico's chupacabra, giant anacondas lurking the Amazon, Voodoo and the crystal skulls of doom. Closer to home, a chapter on North America covers such infamous American phenomena as the Minnesota ice man, thunderbirds, the Marfa lights, Edgar Cayce, the Jersey Devil and alien abductions. A final chapter focuses on Australia and the Pacific, examining sea serpents, Uluru, the Aboriginal Dreamtime, the lost continent of Mu and the survival of the Thylacine.

This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. The book covers so much other stuff that I don't have time or space to get into here. More obscure stuff that you rarely see in other books, including several photographs which I believe are unique to this book. If your interested in the paranormal, you should probably get this book.

All that and much more can be found in this delightful little book. Broken down into chapters focusing on different geographic regions, Dr. Karl Shuker takes the reader on a wonderful tour of the strange, mysterious and sometimes down right bizarre. Some of the material is thought provoking, other stuff Dr. Shuker openly admits to be hoaxes. Still, this book can provide fun reading for both adults and children, particularly those interested in the paranormal. All the usual things you'd expect are here... ghosts, sea serpents, bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, Atlantis, crop circles, spontaneous human cumbustion. But there are also plenty of lesser known gems to pick through as well.

The first chapter is focused on Ireland and the British Isles, showing the region's rich heritage of hauntings, alongside the Loch Ness monster, black dogs, spring heeled Jack, alien big cats, stonehenge and stranger things. Next, we delve into historical mysteries of continental Europe, continental Europe like Kasper Hauser, Austria's tatzelwurm, alchemy, the Comte St. Germain, Leonardo da Vinci and the Voynich manuscript. A chapter on Africa and the Middle East explores both Biblical mysteries like the Ark of the Covenant, King Solomon's mines and Noah's ark beside more primal mysteries of the Dark Continent such as dinosaurs in the Congo, man-eating trees in Madagascar, pygmy elephants and strange snakes.

A chapter on Asia explores the mystics and occult lore of the east, such as the Himalayan yeti, fakir magic in India, the Tunguska enigma, the lost city of Shambhala, and Mongolia's death worm. Moving on to Latin America, we get treated to the mysteries of the Aztecs and Inca, Puerto Rico's chupacabra, giant anacondas lurking the Amazon, Voodoo and the crystal skulls of doom. Closer to home, a chapter on North America covers such infamous American phenomena as the Minnesota ice man, thunderbirds, the Marfa lights, Edgar Cayce, the Jersey Devil and alien abductions. A final chapter focuses on Australia and the Pacific, examining sea serpents, Uluru, the Aboriginal Dreamtime, the lost continent of Mu and the survival of the Thylacine.

This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. The book covers so much other stuff that I don't have time or space to get into here. More obscure stuff that you rarely see in other books, including several photographs which I believe are unique to this book. If your interested in the paranormal, you should probably get this book.

Let me cut to the chase. If the reader is sceptical of the paranormal, this book is a good place to start. Karl Shuker, who actually has a Ph.D. in zooloogy, dissects many of the popular and forgotten mysteries from places all over the world, and from magazines like the dubious Fate and the more credible Fortean Times. He takes the cases, lays out the facts and comes to conclusions by graciously mentioning the scientific evidence and comparing it against what has been said elsewhere and what he witnessed. And if the explanations are too abstruse, then he will entertain with his mordant wit. A competent book in a normally incompetent field.

( If this book appeals to your tastes, I would further recommend Karl Shuker's other books, especially "From Flying Toads to Snakes with Wings" which specializes in mysterious animals, the works of Bernard Heuyvelmans, the father of cryptozoology, Ivan T. Sanderson, and Janet and Colin Bord. Most of the other people in the field are really amateurish tin horns (e.g. Budd Hopkins and Whitley Striebert) who are convinced they are doing the work of God. The aforementioned authors are cool and objective in an area rife with hoaxes and misinformation.)

I have been using this book since I began teaching design and the design process 16 years ago and LOVE IT! BUT, for some reason this version has removed a number of very helpful images and drawings. SO, I recommend ONLY the original Brown cover or the NEW UPDATED CLASSIC in BROWN cover.

Fantastic book. I have owned this book since 1974 and I love it. The author's approach to problem solving is just as inventive today as it was then. The book is a guide to using your creativity to think out of the box and arrive at unexpected solutions and goals.

I carry this one in the sachel that I bring with me everywhere- I have done so for years now. At the movies, at the restaurant, at work... I always have it. Every time I am totally without any solution to an engineering problem, I turn to it. It has yet to let me down.

I purchased this book in the early nineties because it was a required book for a design methods 101 class within a four-year design program. It would have been worth my while to have read it in it's entirety then but, unfortunately, I failed to do so until years after I had received my degree. Having done so earlier may have saved me years of frustration of not fully understanding creative idea generation and development, and consequently, not realizing I was working with and for people who fostered, out of the same ignorance of the creative problem solving process, a non-creative work environment. I have since read The Universal Traveler many times as it has become a major source in my own intellectual inquiry into the psychology of creative problem solving. This is a must read for anyone who values creative thought and who desires the freedom only process awareness can bring. Seperate yourself from the pretenders.

Being Don Koberg, the author of The Universal Traveler now in it's just released Thirtieth Anniversay Classic Edition, I can assure anyone interested in buying this book that Jim Bagnall is not the author but rather my associate and soley responsible for the graphics, not the text, of this and other editions wandering about during the past three decades.

I've never been a Rossi fan; although a very committed MotoGP fan. After reading this book, I've come to understand the sport and it clarified my unclear situations that I have come across in the current years of MotoGP. I think it is a must read for all the Sport fans.

I enjoyed reading this book tremendously. The writing style was surprisingly good, though I'm not entirely sure if it was more representative of the author or the translator. The reader is taken through his childhood, decision to commit to racing motorcycles, evolution through the European classes to MotoGP, many bad-boy exploits and finally some of the most challenging experiences Rossi has participated in as a MotoGP rider. It was fascinating to compare his perspective from inside the helmet with my perspective as an observer. It reads much like the script to Sundance film, starting in the present, digressing into history, and progressing back to present. I found it a bit difficult to follow at times but in the end was satisfied. If you follow MotoGP at all this book tells you what you already know, Rossi is a bad a-- on and off the track, yet warm, thoughtful, personable most of all simply human.

If you are a fan of Rossi or MotoGP this is a must read.

This is a neat book that dives into the life of one of the most accomplished racers to ever live. Lots of pictures, but haven't read entire book yet.

Definitely another good V. Rossi book which contains so much images within his life and two wheels.

What a great book. I bought this book as a present for my husband and being a fan of motogp myself we both really loved this book. A must for all Valentino Rossi fans to add to the collection. A great insight into the man and what drives his talent.Great photos.An inexpensive purchase but worth it's weight in gold.Very colourful and detail is excellent.

This is a true lost classic that reveals the beginning of the great character of Dracula. The editor's notes add to the interest of the book and build knowledge on the times and elements of Varney. I recommend this reading for any Dracula fan or a fan of interesting reading. A+++ to Herr for bringing this hidden treasure back to the world of literature.

I very much enjoyed this book. The victorian style creates a great atmosphere for the antics of a vampire who wins the readers sympathy even as he drains his female victims. The editors notes are at the bottom of the pages for easy reference, like having a friend reading with you. Thank you Curt for such a good presentation of must read vampire fiction.

I have been following Mr. Herr's work for years and I truly appreciate this edition of Varney the Vampire. If you are new to the genre, this is a great place to start!

I absolutely love this book! An excellent relic from the golden (or shall I say black) age of Gothic Lit. Why this gem has remained hidden for all these years is a mystery to me, but Mr. Herr has finally revived this old Penny Dreadful and brought a new light to this style of writing. A wonderful Gothic novel by the same author who originated the Sweeney Todd story. A must buy!

Ignore all the talk about Dracula in other reviews, that book and this one are two uniquely different entities. Legends about vampires existed outside of Transylvania, and even Europe for that matter, long before the Victorians tightened their first bodice. My impression of this book is that the writing is closer to Robert E. Howard in its great forward momentum; another apt comparison might be to the movie serials of the '30s-'50s. Thrills and more thrills! The style may be a little underwhelming, but if you can read Ann Radcliffe you can certainly read this. And incidentally, I think the ungrammatical and linguistically oafish reviews for this book are very appropriate for a book written at top speed and with little editorial supervision. Take a trip back in time to a very different world - read this book!