Empire 8 Books

I don't own this book, but I just checked out from local library. He has got such a great imagination. Another great book he created. Awesome!

There is really no reason for me to review this book with 30 other reviews already here. I will just state that I loved it. I "read" it to my 4 year old and he wanted to read it again right away. If you look at each picture carefully and discuss with a young child what is going on before you turn the page, they will love it. And if they are like my boy, they will then read it when they are alone. I went to see him that night up in his room and he wanted to read it to me. We sat there while he described each picture and the story in surprising detail. I really think this is a great book with fantastic illustrations and a wonderful story. The author is brilliant.

If you like incredible artwork with an amazing story line than you will love Sector 7 by David Wiesner. Each of his books is absolutely incredible and this is no exception. I bought this(and others of his) for my daughter who is about to become an art teacher to use in her classes and she was thrilled! Enjoy!

This item was exactly as described in the item description. It was in the original packaging and is in excellent condition. I am very satisfied and I highly recommend this seller and product to everyone. This is an excellent book by an excellent author!

Flotsam and Freefall were the first two books I explored by David Wiesner. Sector 7 is not to be missed either. Wiesner's style and creativity are wonderful explorations for all humans(and especially children). M.C. Escher has an honored presence in this book, as he does in Freefall. The theme of flying is present here, as in all of Wiesner's books, and the fanciful creative nature of Wiesner's story and illustrations (paintings?) are not to be missed. Second language learners will immediately have something to say (in their own language) about this book. So will everyone else who reads it. Anyone who has taken the time to sit back and enjoy the show clouds put on will appreciate the ideas within this book. Don't hesitate!

now that I have all the Last of the Jedi books, I can finally read them.

This is the eighth in a series of 10 that is actually one novel.
It is well written and moves well. I believe it is good reading for younger set and not bad for an adult. I have read every Star Wars novel with the exception of Invincible and this rank high on the list of all the stories.
While each story can stand alone it is better if read together book 1 to 10.
By the time you get to this book you want to get to the end that you don't want it to end.
Because of the period it is in there are a lot of threads that are left to be followed. Although a conclusion of a sorts is written it is not as satisfying as it could be.

I loved this series. Just sad to see it end. Jude Watson is a fantastic writer. I have her other 2 series . I hope she has another series of Star Wars soon. Marianne Shinmon Mshinmon@cox.net

These 10 novelettes could have been put together into one normal sized novel. Brilliant to sell them separately. They are all very well written and only get better as the series progressed, culminating with this volume (10). Wonderful story...EXTREMELY well written. I was honestly sad to see the series end. I came to like Ferris and the other Jedi immensely. This series could be made into a feature movie easily. hmmmmmm.

highly recommended.

Now . . . having read all 10 books of Last of the Jedi, I have come to the conclusion that THIS is the best work Jude Watson-san has ever done, really ! ( Um . . . my second favourite is Jedi Quest, by the way. )

Well . . . to be frank, I was already on the verge of tears when I was only half way through the story . . . and . . . I was really crying ( silently ) while I was reading the last 1/3 of it because I vaguely knew exactly what was coming which was inevitable ! *sniffles*

Hmm, I believe this "Reckoning" IS filled to the brim with unconditional love, friendship, hope, betrayal, sacrifice and TRULY unexpected turn of events ! *sobs, facedesky* And I couldn't help but read the very last chapter, playing Princess Leia's Theme in my head because they really do match.

Anyways, I really loved the ways Ferus chose to show his affection and love for Trever at the very end of the story and THAT made me cry some more and more until my nose got completely stuffy !! ; _ ;

Arigatoh SO MUCH for creating all these wonderful characters of LotJ, Watson-san !! *bows*

I bought this book for myself, not my children. As an artist, animator, and Disney fan I wanted the book as a reference for the artwork used in the film. All I can say is I love the look of this film and I can't wait to see the movie. However, this is not an art book and in fact is not approved by Disney. It gives a little background on each of the characters, vehicles, and equipment used in the film, accompanied by gorgeous artwork from the movie itself, but is not a narrative story. Be aware, if you have not seen the film, this book gives away almost all of the plot. It also has none of the creative process behind what went into the movie. It is simply a very nice picture book and, in my opinion, worth the price.

Dorling Kindersley makes great looking books. This book for Disney's ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE is very nice. It covers each character and hardware used in the film and is both captivating and educational. Excellent!

I think this book is a must have for any Atlantis: The lost Empire fan. It thoroughly describes just about everything in the movie: from characters to places. I love it and I highly recommend it.

This book has a wide range of hidden facts about the movie It's also full with awesome pictures and fantastic guidelines for a collector to know .There's also some speciality in this book that amaze me like a complete data and knowledge of each and every single character,maps,about vehicles,history of Atlantis and much more.It's simply a must have for all the disney and atlantean fans out there.

If you have seen and enjoyed the movie, you will enjoy this guide. It actually sheds some light on the reasons why the artists featured various items and artifacts.

If they had included some of the facts in this book in the movie, it would have made it way more interesting for me. I'm almost wondering if you read the book first, you would enjoy the movie more.

In this book you can find out more about your favorite characters, explore the underwater royal chambers and secret caves, see detailed pictures of the amazing fleet of vehicles and travel to the magical world of monsters, giants, princesses and kings.

~The Rebecca Review

Today the city of Venice is associated with love, song, harmless frivolity and the Italian joy of life. Such things are not to be scorned within their proper place-this world's life is not so rich in joy that we can afford to scorn such things. But that Venice is a glimpse of what it was-a fairy princess retaining her beauty but shorn of her power, majesty and menace. There was once another Venice. A city where merchants were kings(as some Victorian poet puts it). A city of furious energy. A city of Empire-builders, Adventurers, mighty in war and magnificient in peace. A city of every virtue except humility and every vice except sloth.
Alvise Zorzi gives a splendid portrait of that city. He writes in an engaging manner expressing a gentle but unashamed local patriotism toward his beloved city. He tells anecdotes of various kinds, and describes various aspects of the life of Venice. Combined with the beautiful photos and paintings, which are given, this book is a marvelous thing.

This book is a wondrous thing. It is a coffee table volume in which the author expresses his immense love of his native city. An earlier review called it "unobjective". Quite true. I would regard someone who was not biased toward his homeland at about the same level as someone who is not biased toward his wife.
The author makes no attempt to be objective. On the contrary it is a refreshingly unabashed display of regional patriotism. But it is more. The author writes in a pleasant and amiable manner, and has a great amount of both knowledge and taste. Combined with beautiful photographs and pictures, the writer gives a worthy attempt to describe Venice in all it's splendour.
This is not primarily a book about the new Venice of lovers and tourists. It is about the old Venice, of beautiful women and brave men. Of Traders, Warriors, Statesmen, Adventurers, and Empire-builders. The city of enterprise and initiative. The city of every vice except sloth and every virtue except humility. This is the city from which Marco Polo ventured on his quest to Fair Cathay, and from which the galleys rode forth under the banner of St Mark, to fight for Christiandom and revenge against the Ottoman armada in the bloodstained Gulf of Lepanto. While in many places merchants were sneered at by aristocrats, these same men cringed in terror at the banner of St Mark, a place where merchants were princes. It was cities like this that kept the flame of liberty smouldering through the Middle Ages and if their claims in this matter were often shadowed by injustice, of whom can this not be said?
Zorzi, a descendant of a Venetian Noble family, gives a splendid overview of Venice. He shows it's governmental forms, and it's policies in war and peace. He also shows it's trade by land and by sea. There are also descriptions of such subjects as Venetian cooking and architecture and interesting personalities.
This work is a work of love and communicates the author's love to the reader. It is an old friend of mine, and it can be so for you too.

Jason Taylor(son of John Taylor)

There are many books available on the history of Venice, but there is probably no book as beautifully illustrated as this one. It contains many beautiful prints of paintings, sculptures, etc. as well as excellent photographs of the city. The book also provides a very good general overview of the history of Venice. The author is somewhat biased, by his own admission, about the "glory" of Venice and its history, and, thus, some degree of objectivity may have been lost in the telling of the history. Nevertheless, for anyone who is interested in Venice and its history, this book will provide many rewards.

VENICE 697 - 1797: A City, A Republic, An Empire is as satisfying an overview of the supreme city of Venice, Italy as is available. Other books may be more academically researched, written and presented and other books on the various aspects of this ageless city - its art, architecture, Carnivale expositions, idiosyncratic glass, music - are definitely more complete. But the primary reason for the success of this book is in the writing by Alvise Zorzi, a resident of Venice who treats us to a personal tour of what makes Venice so magical. Richly illustrated, wisely paced with interesting sidebars during the history portions, Zorzi relates the treasures of Venice with an endearing love that makes both known and new facts a joy to visit. At the end of this book he has created glossaries of terms, of the lineage of Doges, a fine chronology, and (with a tender bit of pride) a list of the Venetian Patriciate that of course lists existing families of noble birth as of 1999! Quite frankly Zorzi has the gift to crystallize the stages in Venice's development as a capital of Europe more meaningfully than other writers' compendia. We can only hope that he elects to present us with "Venice 1797 to 2004" and help us understand this enigmatic, slowly sinking jewel that has attracted lovers, poets, painters, musicians and writers for centuries from his present day stance. A beautiful book for any collection!

This children's book continues the story begun with STAR WARS. Like the previous title in the series, the book compacts most of the important plot elements of the movie in fairly easy to read language that children can understand. It also contains pictures from the movie to accompany the text. My only complaint about the book, it doesn't illustrate or discuss the scene with the asteroid monster. Good read for kids who like STAR WARS.

Well, I'm just writing here because nobody else seems to have come here. Mainly because everybody that's read any Star Wars books at all has seen the original trilogy on video, so why bother with reading the story? Well, the books are always so much better than movies because you can tell what people are thinking without those echo-sounding voices or a narrator. I think this is, of course, a VERY good book. I love the way Han and Leia fall in love. That part where Han gets frozen in carbonite will have sort of sensitive people balling. See, even before the Star Wars fad, the movies were popular in our home. So, I am not a new Star Wars fan. (In other words, I like SW, and I know what I'm talking about.) Very good book.

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Empire State Building's construction is Sky Boys: How They Built The Empire State Building. While vintage black and white photos from the era greet the eye on the inside and back cover pages, the book is loaded with color illustrations which bring to life the builder's experience. The journey to Depression-era Manhattan and a boy who watches its construction brings the promise, hope and allure of the Empire State Building to life.

In Depression-era New York City, dreams collide with reality. Our unnamed young narrator's father has just lost his job, and so the boy must wander the harsh, cold streets of Manhattan, looking for firewood. However, one day near 34th and 5th streets, he sees a dream unfold, as 3,000 men construct a symbol of triumph and tenacity: the 102-story Empire Stae Building.

The book is magnificent: Powerful images, poetic language, and construction scenes and details merge into a dramatic tale that's both historic and personal. The boy (and sometimes his father) joins other New Yorkers who look in awe at the evolving building. Ms. Hopkinson uses facts and simple, strong words in her descriptions: We see men sinking "210 massive steel columns" 55-feet into the ground, building "a steel forest" that "can bear the full weight of this giant-to-be: 365,000 tons." Flatbeds carry steel beams "from the fiery furnaces of Pittsburgh" through the streets, looking "river surging through the concrete canyons of Manhattan." While strong and almost terse, the writing is somehow concommitantly lyrical. The story teems with action ("hoisting, swinging, spinning") and facts that will fascinate any young reader (and most adults as well).

Two-page action sequences set within the story slow down time so that one can appreciate the danger, the men's skill, and the scope of the project. We see four men (there are no female workers--accurate as far as I know), working as a team to rivet steel girders together: The "Heater Man" tosses hot metal to "the Catcher," who fits it into the girder hole steadied by the "Bucker-up," finally hammered into place by "the Gunman." For adults, it's is a testosterone kick; kids will enjoy the heroism and the sheer grandeur of the construction leading to the finished tower.

Although the city is not as dirty-looking, nor the people as poor as one might expect, there's still a Depression-based realism that doesn't sanitize the workers' hard lives. In one of her best lines, Ms. Hopkinson writes that while each man works as fast as possible, he does so knowing that hundreds down below him would "take his place over his spot in a flash. Yet knowing that the quicker he finishes, the sooner he'll be back in line himself, waiting and desparate for work." There's a subtle but unmistakeable contrast between the gleaming building--and the hard-working but generally vigorous men working on the gleaming building, and those hundreds below them. Another wonderful two-page spread shows the building reaching skyward between June and November. culminating in an illustration of 15 men astride the building's top in March 1931, proud and even gleeful, but also tired.

James E. Ransome's pictures are uniformly spectacular, and it culminates in his noil painting of the Empire State Building at dawn, majestically overlooking the island and beyond, towering over everything else. WE also see the golden placque of the building inside the lobby, the apprehension of the boy and his dad as they ride the elevator to the top, the father's hope ("If we can do this, we can do anything") and one last nighttime view as they head back home, their heads and hearts uplifted ("Look, Pop, we can see it from here.").

'Sky Boys' concludes with some facts about the building and the making of the book, including an acknowledgement to the EMpire State Building Archive at Columbia for the endpaper photographs of workers in dangerous positions. Certainly one of the top 20 books I've read this year, the dramatic words and pictures ensure that this wil be a favorite at home or school.

Note: A good companion book is "Pop's Bridge," a fictionalized history of peril and comraderie while building the Golden Gate Bridge.

I really like this book because over the internet I was looking for info on Phil Knight and his partner. I came to Amazon.com and found the perfect book that I never knew existed.(WOW) If you like Nike you will enjoy learning the origin of creators and how the shoe industry was rocked by these two shoe pioneers.

Thanks, and please check this book out

Tony Smith

"Byzantine Defenders of Images" is an excellent publication of the lives of eight Byzantine saints who lived during the iconoclastic period, in the eighth and ninth centuries. In this book, English translations of each of the lives of eight saints are presented along with detailed commentary on each text. The authors and translators explain how each saint's life fits into the history of the period. These saints were all defenders of icons who suffered greatly during periods of persecution in the iconoclastic era.

This book is an enjoyable read and certainly is ideal for those interested in reading about the achievements and actions of remarkable saints, learning more about the theology of iconography and about hagiography, and is essential for anyone interested in Byzantine history for the 8th and 9th centuries.

An excellent book based on high quality scholarship.

The eight saints are as follows:

* Saint Theodosia of Constantinople, the first martyr of the iconoclastic period who was killed trying to stop the destruction of an icon of Christ.
* Saint Stephen the Younger, a monk and iconodule martyr.
* Saint Anthousia of Mantineon, an abbess of a monastery and iconodule confessor.
* Saint Anthousia, Daughter of Constantine V, and a Byzantine princess who lived during the latter part of the eighth century.
* Saint Nikephoros I, Patriarch of Constantinople, whose career and struggle against iconoclasm is described in great detail.
* Saints David, Symeon and George, brothers from Lesbos who lived ascetic lives during the long period of the iconoclastic controversy.
* Saint Ioannikios, an ascetic whose struggles during the second period of iconoclasm are described in great detail.
* Saint Theodora the Empress, who led the Byzantine Empire when iconoclasm was finally ended and orthodoxy restored. Her life combines a saint's life with the typical description for the achievements of an empress.

Technical, but very useful information for canonical studies and general issues regarding the relations between the East and West.

Though short and aimed at high school students, this volume is an effective summary of various theories for why Rome fell. It will be very useful for high school and college students taking general ancient history courses. For adult readers, it's a nice, though brief introduction to the subject. For more in-depth coverage, see the author's bibliography in the back of the book.