China Books

China has seen many social, political and economic changes over the centuries, yet surprisingly, has managed to preserve excellent examples of changing architectural home styles throughout these years, as Chinese Houses: The Architectural Heritage Of A Nation presents. Packed with color photos of both interior and exterior décor, Chinese Houses also presents an in-depth survey of the rituals, culture, ornamentation influences, and floor plans of homes across China, from urban to rural dwellings. If it's a strong in-depth history of Chinese home architecture which is desired, look no further than the gorgeous Chinese Houses: it's much more than the coffee table picturebook it appears a first glance.

I can't imagine there being a better book out there on Chinese houses as this book has history and expert photographs. What's more it also has well-drawn sections and plans. Most books on this subject will use old diagrams or ancient drawings that are a hassle to decipher. Here the diagrams are purpose-drawn, clean, and add a great deal to the understanding. About a third is dedicated to a general history of the form, construction methods, social life, and geographical variety; and about two-thirds to about 8 pages each on specific houses. Just enough info on each.

The one gripe I would have is that, in the part of the book where he gives a general introduction of the elements and history of Chinese houses, he uses photos from the twenty or so houses that he discusses individually. It would have given a bit more breadth (and reduced a bit of redundancy later on) if he had used that opportunity for photos of houses that were not given an individual focus.

The amount of detail and research that's in this book is astounding. This is not another coffee table picture book. Its filled with beautiful pictures, and an equal amount of readable, scholarly writing about a culture thats slowly getting lost to the west.

Get it!

This book exceeded my expectations. It has informative text and abundant photographs including many vintage images. For anyone interested in Chinese architecture, this is the book for you.

If you collect Chinese labels this is a must have book.

Chinese label art has long been outstanding, so it's surprising that few coverages of Chinese ad art have revealed its history before. CHINESE LABEL ART 1900-1976 provides a fine survey of packaging and labels from the period, pairing stunning images from around China to beyond its borders into Hong Kong and Macau. From tea and medicines to foods, cigarettes, firecrackers and religious items, over 400 color images pair with an authoritative discussion of history and art from Andy Cahan, who has been collecting Chinese ephemera for most of his life.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

In this fantastic work (in all meanings of the word), Cahan opens a door to an utterly unique aesthetic - one most of us have only caught a glimpse of when we set off firecrackers as a child, or wandered through an Asian Food Market - a world of lurid colors and incredibly ornate designs, populated with dragons, temples, bearded Mandarins, strange winged creatures, and smiling sages. An initial epiphany during a celebration of lunar new year in New York's Chinatown when he was an infant led Andrew Cahan into a collecting odyssey - into old shops and factories in the backstreets of the "Chinatowns" of U.S. cities to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taipei. This beautifully printed book is a distillation of the fabulous collection of graphic art Cahan accumulated in his lifetime of collecting. Cahan's insightful commentary on the art illuminates the use of colors, symbols, and designs, as the art evolved in response to religious, political, and cultural influences from both within and outside of the region.
I would like to second the previous reviewer's perceptive and enthusiastic endorsement of this book! The Graphic Arts of China is a delightful and beautiful work of art in itself. Here's an opportunity to learn all about an utterly exotic and previously unexplored cultural phenomenon, while experiencing a vision of a fantastic world, reminiscent of the imaginary China of Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung books. Highly recommended!

Sometimes the best way to understand a culture is to take a deep look at it through a keyhole: the home cooking of French housewives, appreciation for American R&B records in the rural villages of Africa, the flourishing of Yiddish newspapers on the Lower East Side of New York City.

Now Andrew Cahan opens a window to understanding Chinese culture through an unexpected route: the vivid, fantastic, charming, and surprisingly hip label art that appeared on packaging for fireworks, cigarettes, and other consumer products in the early-to-mid 20th Century.

Most of this book, as it should be, is pictures, and what glorious pictures they are! The smiling face of Buddha unexpectedly adorns a pack of firecrackers; an entrancing image of a deer with a pine shoot in its mouth stands before a snowy mountain on a fabric label; one of dozens of happy infant boys raises his hands on a label for "The Baby" cigarettes. Along the way, Cahan offers fascinating insights on the changing social dynamics in China during that tumultuous century, examining gender issues (without getting tedious) and the ways the rise of Communism altered community values (without getting polemical). Along the way, he tells his own story of being a young suburban Jewish kid who was seduced by these brightly colored curiosa on visits to New York's Chinatown. His writing style is warm, elegant, and full of affection for his subject.

For people who collect this stuff, this book is a must-buy. But if I was a young rock star shopping for a killer-hip design for my next CD cover, I'd get a million ideas browsing through this marvelous book.

This book is very comprehensive, clearly, well organized and explaind, easy to understand. The book is realy fabulous. I highly recommend it.

Best Book Written On This Subject!

I have read many books on numerology, but he describes in full detail the solar/lunar conversion that I have never heard about before that is very accurate. It is very insightful into other realms I didn't think possible to understand. He has done a great job explaining exactly how to interpret what these numbers mean also.

But I give it five stars anyway. Just when I thought that I'd learned all there was to learn about numerology, and just when I thought that I'd heard of every possible way to use numbers to diagram lives, along comes this book. It has many "innovative" methods to tell lots about different personality types using personal info such as date of birth, name, etc. It also gives compatability information along with number and personality signs. There are methods of numerology in this book that most practicing "numerologists" probably don't even know about--it's that diverse, interesting, and innovative. Though I'm interested in these things, I'm a die-hard skeptic. I was a non-believer until I did a few diagrams for myself, and then for people that I know. The nail was hit dead on the head each time. Move over, Western astrology, and make room for Chinese numerology!

Chinese Numerology: The Way to Prosperity & Fulfillment is Richard Webster's latest book, and it's a fascinating guide to the arcane world of numerology.

Webster explains how, nearly 4,000 years ago, Wu of Hsia discovered a special tortoise shell. The markings on the back of the shell formed a magic three-by-three square. Named the Lo Shu grid, the square was regarded as magic "because every horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row added up to fifteen," a number of great significance in ancient China.

Chinese numerology, as well as I Ching, feng shui, and other Chinese divination techniques, evolved from the Lo Shu grid.

Three systems of Chinese numerology are currently in use, and Webster presents complete directions on how to use each of them. He starts with the Western version of Chinese numerology, which is the easiest to learn. He explains how to calculate your life path number, and the significance of each number. For example, "people with a life path number of 6 are nurturing, caring, and responsible," while 22's "are able to achieve anything they set their minds on."

He then shows how to calculate individual strengths and weaknesses, using personal Lo Shu grids. He presents grids of celebrities as examples. Edgar Cayce, Beethoven, and Mozart all had grids indicating growth in knowledge and wisdom through great personal losses.

Webster explains that "we live our lives in nine-year cycles. Each year contains a different energy, and if we work with the energy, or tone, of the year we will progress smoothly and quickly. Conversely, if we fight the tone of the year, we will struggle all year long." He then presents a simple way to determine which year you are in and gives examples of what kinds of activities are good for each year of the cycle.

Traditional Chinese numerology uses the Lo Shu grid, but the numbers are determined using the lunar calendar rather than the Western solar calendar. Not to worry--Webster includes an extensive solar-lunar conversion chart in the appendix.

The Ki, or Nine House Divination, is more complex. It "starts with the same magic square, but the numbers change position every year creating nine different combinations." In addition, the numbers are associated with the basic elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Each number also has its own color.

Whether you are simply interested in learning what numerology is all about, or wish to use it for character analysis or planning your future, you'll find Chinese Numerology informative and helpful.

Helps push aside the distractions provided by doddering old Chinese officialdom and trade wars waged by the G7, so the reader can grasp the fighting capacity of Chinese workers and peasants. Makes the case that big business and landowning forces were genuinely rousted by popular determination. So, all the faceless, nameless Chinese people who did this are the ones who qualitatively raised the stakes for the imperial war-mongers in their plans for World War III -- now they have to try to get back China, too! Useful and concrete on the bureaucratic stranglehold that the Chinese Communist Party maintained over the workers' movement from the very beginning. But the popular determination to repulse the invasion of Korea, and obtain land and freedom forced even Mao's hand. Also contains an article on challenges in developing China's backward economy that is very apropos today, given China's entry into the World Trade Organization and all the bunk that is being written about that.

This short work is an excellent introduction to huge developments in world history: the course of the anti-capitalist revolution that swept China after World War II and the controversial questions of leadership posed by the Maoist forces that headed the Chinese Communist Party at the time.

"The Chinese Revolution and Its Development" reprints a series of resolutions and articles adopted by revolutionary socialists in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s, analyzing and assessing the events in China at the time. The specific facts of the struggle for power in China in the late 1940s as part of the anti-colonial revolutions that swept much of the Third World after World War II; The U.S. war in Korea and the response of the Chinese worker and peasants; the twists and turns of the Maoist leadership once in power-- its all covered here. Of particular value are the detailed discussions of what it takes to overthrow capitalist rule and open the way to the possibility of developing a new, socialist society.

I'd strongly recommend following up this work with two longer titles on China published by Pathfinder Press: "Leon Trotsky on China" and "The Chinese Communist Party in Power" by veteran Chinese revolutionary P'eng Shu-tse.

China is under attack from both Imperial political parties ( Democrats/Republicans ) , union bureaucrats, and the "anti-globalization"/Dalai Lama combination. Why ?

China shook the world in 1949.The Chinese revolution tore one fourth of humanity out of the orbit of the British and Yanqui imperial domains.The workers took the factories, the peasants took the land, and China stood up in the worldýrising from its knees. But this revolution was betrayed from the beginning by its leadership.The documents in this collection, written during the events by leading militants of a revolutionary workers party here in the U.S., explain this mighty revolution and its deformation ýby the opposite of communism : Stalin-ism, represented both by Mao Tse-tung and the ancestors of the present ruling clique.Chinese workers are already beginning to resist the encroachments of Imperial capital, organized by the capitalist wannabes at the head if the Chinese "Communist" Party. As capitalism spirals into its New Depression, the Chinese workers will resist in their hundreds of millions ý billions ! ý and shake the world again, together with the workers and farmers of the world, including here in the U.S.

As hundreds of thousands of workers in Northeast China strike and demonstrate against the corruption and oppression of China's bureaucracy, the contradictory nature of the Chinese revolution appears before the world. On the one hand, a great advance against European, Japanese, and American colonialism, and China's own exploiters. On the other hand, dominated by middle class Stalinists opposed to the real victory of workers in society. This set of documents chiefly by leaders of the US Socialist Workers Party documents the social transformation in China and its contradictions. As Chinese workers, students, and farmers move forward to confront the bureaucracy, this analysis written by revolutionists who look to their struggle will become a useful tool for struggle.

I agree with the other two reviewers in every thing they said: this is an easy to use dictionary, and very entertaining, but the thing that sold me was that a) in addition to being organized in alphabetical pinyin order (though it still has a radical index of course) all the words have the pinyin pronunciation (though not the example sentences of course) and b--very important to me- there is also a table in the back to find the TRADITIONAL forms of characters that are still used in the ROC (Taiwan), Hong Kong and the US!!

Also included are charts comparing the various phonetic systems for transliterating Chinese (including the international phonetic alphabet). It has a Chronology of Chinese History, the periodic chart in Chinese, metric/imperial conversions, a pretty comprehensive list of Countries, Capitols and Currencies....even a list of the "12 Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches" and the "24 Solar Terms" (whatever they are!)

The dictionary is great if you speak Chinese but are a little rusty on writing the characters. The format is simple. The characters are organized by the Pinyin system. If you want to look up "friend" then you look for "Peng" and then there are four subgroups of "Peng" according to tone. After you are to the right tone you look up the second character "You". There it is. Pengyou

This dictionary ("A Chinese-English Dictionary"; [...]) was first published in 1978 in Beijing, and reprinted several times later on, both in PRC and elsewhere. The copy I own (ISBN 7100001307; but the cover looks exactly like the one shown at Amazon's listing for 7100005302) was printed in 1988, but the text is apparently identical to the original edition.

Despite its age, this is still likely one of the best big Chinese-English dictionaries in existence.

The size of the dictionary (976 p main body + 31 p preliminary matter), alows it to be quite complete. It includes some 6000-7000 characters, apparently covering practically every character that one is likely to encounter in modern printed matter from PRC. However it is not a "character dictionary" "zidian"), but a word dictionary ("cidian"): character articles are arranged in the Pinyin alphabetic order, and within each character article there are numerous articles for 2-, 3-, 4-character words and expressions that start with that character, all alphabetically ordered. For the users who don't speak the language, a radical-based character index is provided as well. There is no stroke-count based index, though.

The coolest feature of the book are numerous examples it gives. Two particularly interesting categories of examples may make one read the disctionary just for its entertainment value. First, pithy folksy sayings [...]: "Don't pull on your shoe in a melon patch; don't adjust your cap under a plum tree" -- don't do anything to arouse suspicions). Second, political phraseology from the eras of the Cultural Revolution and the Four Modernizations. [...] zou3gou3: running dog; lackey; flunkey; stooge; servile follower).

Dictionary articles are well provided with explanations and, when necessary, usage markers (labeling some words or meanings as measure words, archaic words, colloquialisms; regional expressions, scientific terms, etc.). However, as the dictionary as mainly intended for Chinese users, most of this explanatory matter is in Chinese as well.

English translations are good, and -- unlike certain other dictionaries -- rarely appear unidiomatic or stilted (as much as it is possible to achieve that when translating the subject matter...). Considering the conditions of the time, both the Chinese and Anglo members of the production team did an admirable job.

Written in simplified characters, the dictionary is not as convenient for reading texts written in traditional characters. There is an appendix with traditional characters alright; but, unfortunately, the way it is arranged, it is more suitable for looking up the traditional form based on the simplified character, rather than vice versa (which you'd probably want to do to read a book from Taiwan or Hong Kong).

As pretty much all standard Chinese dictionaries, it is focused on Putonghua (Standard Mandarin), so, not surprisingly, it
will not be of much help for reading something written e.g. in Cantonese.

Typographically, my edition (1988 printing -- which I bought a few years ago as the only Chinese dictionary that happened to be sold in my then-hometown in Canada) is in a rather poor shape, with printing not always easy to read, and binding not surviving heavy use too well. Hopefully, later reprints are better printed and more sturdily bound.

Overall, even though I don't know the language, and am not likely to ever learn much, the purchase was worth it for me. There are many smaller dictionaries on the market, specifically designed for a student or traveller, and they will serve their practical purposes better. But as a cultural artefact and a standard reference, this one was certainly worth it for me.

If you are only going to get one chinese dictionary, this should be it. The format is extremely convenient and the content superb given its size and price. Also, since it was written under the auspices of the Communist Chinese government, most of the example sentences are about american imperialists and so forth, which is very funny to read. It is hard for us, living in a democratic society, to really appreciate what it would be like under a totalitarian regime, and this gives us a taste of the blatant propaganda. So, not only is this dictionary useful, it is also entertaining!

My boys and I do not tire of this book. The beautiful illustrations match the delightful story of an unlikely relationship that benefits both parties, and benefits the reader! We love it.

Chopsticks is a little white mouse who lives in a floating restaurant in Hong Kong. At the door of the restaurant are two enormous pillars that are carved in the shape of magnificent dragons. And when, on a New Year's night, one of the dragons talks to little Chopsticks, it is the start of the greatest adventure of little Chopsticks' life!

Every night, I read several books to my little four-year-old. Well, this is one of our favorites! Chopsticks himself is so cute, and we really liked the foreign settings. The illustration work is very good, and goes excellently with the text.

Yep, this is a great book, one that I love to read, and she loves to see. We both highly recommend Chopsticks to you and your little reader!

Brought to life by a gorgeous selection of colours, textures and settings, this simple story of friendship and dreams transports us to another world.

A tiny mouse befriends a wooden dragon in this simple story that takes place on the Chinese New Year in Hong Kong Harbor. Anything is possible, and thanks to Berkeley's atmospheric description, it's easy for a child to suspend disbelief.

He paints whole scenes in a few lines of prose, so we're right down there with little Chopsticks, the mouse, as he scurries late at night in search of crumbs on the floor of a floating restaurant. It's an impressive place, with hundreds of windows and two enormous carved dragons guarding its mammoth entrance.

We might even tremble in empathy too when, one New Year's night, one of the dragons clears his throat and asks Chopsticks to draw near. Turns out he wants to confide his secret longing to Chopstick, and a friendship is born.

Berkeley's Hong Kong Harbor is a misty dreamscape, where an old carver in his sampam holds the secret to granting the dragon's wish. The dragon's a friendly sort, with big, cheerful eyes and a lopsided grin, and, like Chopstick, you instantly want to help him out.

His acrylics glow with filtered sunlight and streaks of gold radiate from gleaming surfaces. We're keenly aware of Chopstick's diminutive size amidst the bustle of the world's busiest harbor, but we never lose sight of the little fella' as he sets out to help his new buddy.

This is a perfect one for teaching about friendship, about good deeds, and about bringing your own sense of adventure to all you do.

This study is by a Barnard College professor that I heard lecture at the China Institute in New York City. The traditional Chinese cultural custom of deforming women's feet to make them smaller, resulting in pain, deformity, and disability, is no longer practiced. But it is a complex and controversial subject involving, among other things, sex, social status, and feminism. For me the value of this book is the author's focus on the perspectives of women who experienced, continued, and even promoted the practice, highlighting their views on it's costs and benefits. It's a useful counterpoint and a rich resource.

Dorothy Ko locates the core of interpretation for footbinding lost in so much that has been written on the topic for the last 150 years. Ko has written extensively on the topic, feeling that such a complex phenomenon cannot be adequately explained by a book or two. Not content with prevailing feminist writings which privilege "oppressive patriarchy" as the only worthwhile conclusion, Ko frequently attracts critics who often suggest she glorifies footbinding and undoes strides towards gender equality. It's even been implied she undermines advancements made since the May Fourth events which empowered Chinese women almost 90 years ago.
Though some readers feel she euphemizes the "crippled feet" by resorting to cultural poetics which justify oppression, she actually advances a much more sophisticated strategy employed by the Han women of late imperial China. Rather than rage conspicuously against patriarchy the path lies in re-appropriating the meaning of footbinding to a custom that subverts the gender inequity; in short, diminishment of the oppression from within its complicity.
With Cinderella's Sisters Ko addresses the rhetorics called chanzu, tianzu, and fengzu (bound feet, natural feet, and letting out feet, repectively). A conflation of male desires, and a redefined view women had about their own bodies are both at odds with each other yet bound together in a custom whose meaning differs not just across gender and class, but across time and place. Ko produces very original and badly needed insights through new readings of Gu Hongming (1857-1928) and Wang Jingqi (1672-1726) contrasted with (some say) biased western scholars such as R. H. van Gulik (1910-1967) and Howard S. Levy (1920- ).
By translating women-authored works from anthologies of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Ko delights readers of this latest work who benefit by having the feminine perspective so often missing. When this recovered discourse converges with the new deeper readings of male texts, both anecdotal and scholarly, the subjectivity of a whole society comes together, resulting in unprecedented integrity. Indeed, Dorothy Ko's greatest "fault" is appending the subtitle A Revisionist History of Footbinding to Cinderella's Sisters. This book is not revisionist - this book is vision, belonging on every bookshelf of every library.

It's a wonderful book for chinese women's history, let you learn about the history of footbinding in feminism perspective.

Like a typical Westerner, when I first encountered the story of bound feet Chinese women, I was horrified. How could someone actually do something like that? But my initial disgust grew into interest, and I found I wanted to learn more than simply see the results of the practice of binding feet. The world is full of misinformation of this custom.

After reading Beverly Jackson's Splendid Slippers (a beautiful and informative book), I decided to find a more academic text on footbinding, and selected Dorothy Ko's Cinderella's Sisters. This book has provided me with a thorough overview of the historical context of footbinding. It explores the difference in gender perceptions of bound feet, the different definitions of bound feet, and more. Ko's style is very readable, and I appreciated her using Chinese terms (tiangzu, chanzu, fangzu) and their rich interpretations to illustrate her points and describe the historical context.

If the name John Blofeld means anything to you, you've probably been consulting the I Ching. Blofeld wrote a popular translation to the Chinese oracle at a time when the only other version available in English was Richard Wilhelm's groundbreaking but somewhat turgid text.

"City of Lingering Splendor" is an autobiographical travelogue, one of the best ever written. Dedicated to ' the hermits, scholars, youths and courtesans who inspired these pages ' it's a love letter to Peking and the breathtaking greatness of an ancient civilisation at its twilight, about to be extinguished.

While remote jungles still offer anthropologists the chance to chew the fat with stone age peoples, the romantics among us are simply out of luck. Until someone invents a working time machine, Ancient Egypt is gone forever along with Homer's Greece and Imperial Rome.

But in 1934 it was still possible to travel back in time. Back to Old China, to a culture that had remained virtually untouched for thousands of years---and chew Peking Duck with Taoist sages. . .

Wonderful reading.

This is the most sensitive, respectful and intelligent book I have read on traditional Chinese culture. The writing is terrific, on a par with Peter Fleming's, though more from the heart.

It records the author's love affair with the city before WW2 (and includes a return to Beijing after it). While meeting many of its remaining Daoist, Confucianist, Bhuddist and literary leaders and exploring its temples, nightlife and food, we get a last sympathetic, philosophical, tragic glimpse of the splendour decaying under the Republic. Before it vanished under the Maoists.

If you thought there was little more to pre-War China than footbinding, Dowager Empresses, opium and Shanghain greed and degeneracy, this book will even the score a little.

I had no idea when I picked up this book that I had such a pleasant experience in store for me. Beginning in 1934, a young man in his twenties spends "three exquisitely happy years" in a China at the edge of the abyss. Japan had already invaded Manchuria and made no secrets of its intentions of further conquest. The shaky Chinese Republic was ruled out of Nanking; and Peking was still full of memories of the old Dowager Empress, the last of her line.

The streets of Peking were full of Confucian scholars, aging palace eunuchs, adepts of Taoism and Buddhism, starving White Russian refugees, 14-year-old opium addicts, and gentle courtesans and flute girls. Blofeld threw himself headfirst into this world which was on the point of being snuffed out forever. Most memorable are the White Russian hermaphrodite Shura and the Rasputin-like Father Vassily; the decorous Buddhist scholar Dr Chang; Yang Taoshih, the Taoist sage, and his friend known only as the Peach Garden Hermit; the lovely courtesan Jade Flute; and the mysterious Pao, who elopes with a young girl intended for a Japanese colonel.

After Blofeld leaves for a trip to England, the Japanese finally invade. There are two bittersweet chapters at the end where Blofeld revisits the scenes of his youth after 1945. His fragile Peking of the 1930s is now poised between a growingly thuggish Kuomintang secret police and the great unknown of Mao Tse-tung's Eighth Route Army.

Blofeld's Dr Chang says it all: "Decay is inherent in all things, as Shakyamuni Buddha bade us always remember. Death swallows all that has been born; rebirth or re-creation follow in their turn, as spring follows winter. Things rise and wane in unceasing flux."

CITY OF LINGERING SPLENDOUR is recommended to all sentient beings who were ever young once and are now faced with a confused welter of possibilities, none of which seem particularly appetizing.

I have been reading John Blofeld since the 80's. His writing is honest and straight forward. What is special about this work is the time frame. It is a first hand account and we are not brought down by the dreary chronology or dry scholastic jibberish of Western history academics. His introduction warns of his awareness of the flaws of the culture, but he wishes to show the strengths and beauty of a dying civilization. Truly unique, inspiring and thought provoking

Rosalind Goforth and her husband, Dr. Jonathan Goforth served in China more than 30 years. This account of Mrs. Goforths personal spiritual struggles, failures, and triumphs makes great reading, and inspires and encourages the reader. Highly recommend

This is a very good book which is also very challenging. The Goforths definitely did not live in a life of complacency which you find alot in the church today. I recommend this book for anyone who is a Christian.

A very moving and challenging story of a woman and man sold out for God. Fascinating - especially the account of the months they held "Open House" in China in order to prove that they didn't pickle and eat babies, and of the thousands of visitors who passed through their home at that time.

This is a very good book which is also very challenging. The Goforths definitely did not live in a life of complacency like the church is in today. I recommend this book for anyone who is serious about the Lord and doing the work of His kingdom.

The book was exatly what I was looking for, a very no hassel transaction which makes it a real pleasure. We have found Amazon to be a very honest company. Nothing else to say. Cheers Chris

Good book to read about Lladro porcelains but it's pretty outdated and doesn't contain samples of the newer Lladro pieces. But then again, Lladro related books are so rare, this itself is a jewel. Majority of the pictures shown here are the 'official' photographs of piece by Lladro themselves. It would have been great to see pictures taken by the author or owner as it would give a different angle and view of the pieces. I'm an avid collector and was thrilled to see many of the older pieces and read a short history about them in this book. Perhaps the author would consider to publish a newer edition?? And also source out Lladro examples from a more varied selection of collectors. A view of how they are stored in display cabinets at individual homes would be great too, to give a more personal and homely touch to the pieces. This is a great book and I'm sure it took a lot of effort to come out with it.... I would recommend it to anyone and hope that new editions will be published in the near future.

For anyone who is interested in learning more about Lladró, the company, the history, the incredible artistry, "relatives" such as NAO and Zaphir, collecting and becoming better at collecting, and how to care for your collection, this book is fantastic and I highly recommend it! Peggy Whiteneck is truly an expert in this field, and has a passion for collecting Lladró that shows in every page. This second edition includes updates and new information as well as even more photos. Lladró collectors will not want to miss this!

As a Lladro collector of more than 25 years I found this book to be most informative. Even though I have read much about Lladro there were topics covered that were new to me. A new addition would be most welcome.