Exotic Books

This book was purchased for a reference library. It covers a broad range of plants that will grow in Florida. There are a number of errors in the book and photos mislabeled, especially in the section on palms. This causes me to doubt the credibility of other information and plant names in the photos. I hope that the publisher will come out with a revised edition because this has the makings of a good referernce book if all the information was accurate.

The paintings shown here are pretty and colorful but rather derivative. Based on the number of web sites the author and painter have I would guess this artist is better at self-promotion than at painting. However, if you want a tropical feel to your decor, pick an example that matches your sofa. Don't waste your money on the book.

Dr. Nelken has compiled a series of articles
by a variety of authors dealing with particularly
diverse aspects of exotic options.

Although some of the papers contain useful
information, the book does not deserve to
be called a "handbook": it is more like a
loose compilation, thus making it useless
as a reference.

I ordered the book in 1998 at my local
bookstore and felt cheated after the
first browsing. The extra star is there
to praise the occasional pearl of wisdom
you will encounter while reading through
all 15 chapters.

Finally, the cover advertises with
"valuable software included", referring
to a demo (!) of EXOTICOP (c). I strongly
disagree: the program is nothing more
than a black-scholes type exotics pricer
with a primitive interface, barely touching
the level of an undergraduate paper.
To add insult to injury, some of the
input parameters are frozen in the
demo version.

To put it in dealer's phraseology, this
book is a big yours.

I bought this book seeking for practical information on how to successfully raise ratites, mainly Rheas and Ostriches. However, it deals mainly on Ostriches and Emus (has 2 to 3 paragraphs on Rheas and no pictures about this bird). Its section on reproduction focuses on artificial incubation in a serious and straight forward veterinarian vocabulary (as does the whole book) but it virtually ignores the natural incubation process, which is used by most small ratite farmers. I do recommend the book if you are interested in the feed composition area, it brings lots of tables, graphs and tips on ratite feeding. Its section on ratite anesthesiology is also very complete. I do not recommend the book if you are an average farmer who didn't graduate in veterinary medicine and are looking for rpractical advice on ratite breeding as it is written in a technical vocabulary directed for Vets and therefore carries the technical terms and conditions necessary for a serious (but not practical for the average farmer) veterinary assistance at a ratite farm operation. The only chapter written in an average vocabulary is the one on Anatomy of Ratites, including drawings of the internal organs of all ratite birds, again, if you are not a Vet you may find it pretty difficult going beyond this point of the book.

It's clearly obvious to me (precisely BECAUSE of the horrible spelling and grammar) that English must not be Jewels' native language.

Hence, if she is not American-born, or perhaps was raised in an otherwise ethnically different home, then it naturally follows that she will have some difficulties with both the English language and the American culture.

Of course, better editing would have helped the book immensely.

Some examples of this spelling/grammer issue are things like this: She speaks of herself and her previous husband parting on "applicable terms". Obviously she must have meant "amicable terms".

Another example: She speaks of somebody interrupting her... she uses the word "interpret" instead.

I am finding it a (little) bit easier to read the book if I keep in mind that the author must be of a different ethnicity, and this probably and most likely explains why she delves into details of things that are most obvious to other people (such as leg shaving, using candles, etc.)

Will post more thoughts on this book as I continue reading...

As a person who frequents strip bars, I can tell you that Jewels is painting a glamorous-fairytale picture of a strippers life in her book. The book is poorly written, with bad grammer and Jewels jumps from subject to subject and copies the liquor/bar regulations straight from the Arizona's State law books!(how creative).

Jewels greatest tip of advise from her professional stripper capacity is(light a candle to set the mood and shave your legs in a downward motion)

I can honestly say this book is not worth the paper it is printed on. As I read it, I kept thinking, this has got to be a joke!

I bought this book a couple years ago, but am only reviewing it now because I do want to point out two pluses in this book.

Jewels' main point in writing this book seems to be an attempt to defend her life choices and the life choices of her colleagues, with whom she has an affectionate, supportive view. She wants to encourage all women to better themselves. There is nothing wrong with this motive. But she does this by trying to paint the job of stripping as more esoteric and spiritual than it is. I refer to myself as a stripper. Anything else is just a useless euphuism.

However noble her intentions are, all of her history and personal musings do not belong in a guidebook. A chapter or two at the most should be devoted to these topics and then left alone. As an English major I found the book irritating because of the obvious lack of an editor. As a former stripper I found the book irritating because it did not really go into the detail needed to teach less experienced strippers the tricks of the trade. There are many things to learn, some of which are important for personal safety, some of which are important for maximizing earnings potential. She rarely covers much of anything that cannot be easily figured out.

There are two good points in this book that I liked. First, I did like her ideas for fantasy dance routines (Chapters 10 and 11). For house girls interested in trying to do feature routines, she made some easy suggestions that would work well without a lot of financial investment. A dancer doesn't have to follow these routines to the letter, but they offer a good basic foundation to work with. Yes, I have seen other books with much better suggestions, but the step-by-step routines are a much-needed plus for this book.

The second thing I liked was in Chapter 4, the strange questionnaire chapter. Again, this could have been arranged differently with better effect. I like questions #18-21 where she discusses her method of financial goal-making, breaking it down from monthly to weekly to daily to hourly. She discusses this concept more in the book, but I don't remember where. As a goal-oriented person myself, I found that by setting an hourly goal of dances each night really did help me keep on track so I was able to reach my monetary goals a lot easier. This will not work for every personality, but it was a good tip. It was not something I had thought of before.

Her tips on dancing itself are nearly useless. There are other books that do better. Any description of a physical activity is hard to do, especially dance. Dance lessons are best learned in person or through a well-made video. She never takes into account the actual beat of the music, which is so important to dancing well. This section should've been greatly modified or simply left out. A discussion of good dance music would have been more effective.

This was not the guidebook I was expecting when I bought it. I am glad that she had the wherewithal to get this book published, but I wish she had been better able to explain how to work successfully in a club after 10 years. Her disruptive personal life just overshadowed the book and instead of making her seem human, just made her seem like a flake. There are better stripper books out there, and there are worse as well. I am giving this one star due to the very poor English, the meandering thoughts, the glaring lack of solid "how-to" material and the poor representation of a profession that I know well.

I started reading this book and could barely get through the fist chapter. I skimmed through it and found it to be a stupid book written by an illerate stripper who only boasts and brags about how much money she made while rubbing her privates on strangers.

I paid way too much money for this joke!. Not recommended, not even to my worst enemy!

From star to finish, this book is a complete joke!. This book which was written by an ameteur starts off with Jewels talking about her childhood, accomplishments, and goes into a dedication that goes on and on and on and on!. Then she writes about the clothing worn by Exotic dancers, their preference in dance music, how much to tip the bouncer, and the boring facts about Bar rules.
Jewels then writes an entire chapter on why a woman should be proud to be a stripper(expensive toys for your kids, lots of clothes, different men,etc). Towards the end of the book, Jewels goes out of her way to make taking a bath sound like a ritual done only by the sexiest most seductive women in the world, not the common everyday lady.
I am a stripper and I'm always looking for tools to better my performances, but Jewels only wasted my time and money with this ridiculous book, I guess I shouldn't complain too much since it will make good fireplace material.
Ladies, there are lots of informative books and videos out there. Here on amazon, you'll be able to find plenty good books, not like this one. I only wish I had read the reviews about this book before I purchased it.

This is nothing more than a multipage advertisement for his other books. There is no advice on understanding or maintaining burners that he doesn't refer the reader to another of his books, and what's up with the incessant hot-tub analogies? His other books may be of more value for potters, but I won't buy any of them.

This book is pretty much completely useless to anyone, unless you are firing a very controled kiln environment. Most of what the author talks about is either pointless or just common sense things that go unsaid which you already know.
This book is an extremely bad buy. It lacks any practical value, and is way over priced. This book MIGHT be worthwhile if you can get it for less than $3.00... Even the quality of the book is extremely poor. It is much smaller and shorter than it appears and the actual paper the book is written on appears to have been xeroxed. VERY BAD BUY!! STAY AWAY!!!
I am a fairly advanced potter and own my own gas fired kiln which I built myself from scratch. I know about kilns and kiln books and this is of very little value. If you want a good one try "The Kiln Book", it seems to be the best one out there.

From the title I was expecting a more technical book than what I received. Was looking more for designs and engineering rather than general information this book gives.

... with all the seedy bits of a romance novel save the romance.

Graphic depictions of child sexual abuse rendered this book revolting.

Just to be clear, the "real" Mata Hari did not author this diary.

This "Diary" was not written by Margaretha Zelle aka Mata Hari it's not even a diary it's just the pornographic fantasy of an unnamed writer.This was a huge dissapointment I would give it no stars if the option existed

I'll keep this short. I was contracted to draft the images in this book, for reproduction. The AutoCAD layout was not looking like the machinist drawings in the book (I used the books' dimensions). So I scaled the drawings in the book (as directed in the text). Then I took the dimensions from those parts. Way off. I can only assume that the dimensions (on every drawing) are intentionally wrong. Or the machinist templates (again, every drawing) are intentionally wrong. If this is a reference manual, then maybe the men in black have altered the contents of the pages so we may not have the information. Or maybe this book is just fiction. I realize this information should not be used to construct these parts. Still, the information should be acurate. Freedom of speech and of knowledge.

Good book if your a gunsmith - not for the amateur. Don't waste your money
on this book.

A great big book full of plant names that the author obviously knows little about. The descriptions of plants are often ridiculous. Full of inaccuracies. If the publisher had someone that knew something about plants look at this book, it would never have been published. Wayne Knight

Not impressed at all. I could get these names for free online. Save your money.