The Usborne Living World Encyclopedia (Encyclopedias)

Customer Reviews:

Living World Encyclopedia.......2007-09-05

Who reads an encyclopedia? But this one is great. I'm reading it with my 2nd grader as part of home school. She's learning a lot. The words are bit difficult for a beginning 2nd grader, but the content is educational.

It's a great book, but..........2007-08-13

The print and picture are way too small in this miniature version. I wish Usborne would print this book in a more normal size. It should be at least 2-3 times bigger.

If the size was more reasonable, I would give it a 5 star rating. It's truly a beautiful, informative book. My kids and I are enjoying reading it together.

Average customer rating:

Wonderful insight into Austrian Christmas traditions
Very enjoyable and authentic book.

Christmas in Austria
World Book Encyclopedia
Manufacturer: World Book Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Children's | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books

Religion | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books

Christmas in Greece (Christmas Around the World) (Christmas Around the World Series)
Christmas in Germany (Christmas Around the World)
Christmas in Sweden (Christmas Around the World) (Christmas Around the World)

ASIN: 0716608839

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful insight into Austrian Christmas traditions.......2007-03-23

Part of a series developed by World Book Inc. several decades ago for young people, these books have evolved into a rich storehouse of information for anyone of any age who enjoys learning the Christmas history, stories, native Christmas songs, Christmas crafts, and holiday recipes of many nations.

One of the highlights of "Christmas in Austria" is the way they cover Austria's heritage of Christmas music. Unfortunately for the reader, there have been new discoveries regarding the history of "Silent Night." These came to light in the 90s but the book was published in 1982. Since World Book updates the books in this series every few years, hopefully this misinformation will be corrected in a new printing of "Christmas in Austria."

The book is richly illustrated with full-color photos and illustrations. Three Austrian carols have the original language, English translation, and piano arrangement -- "Silent Night," "The Twilight Is Falling," and "Still, Still, Still." There is also a section of Austrian Christmas crafts.

Recipes in the book include rasberry tartlets, cheese dumplings and apricot cookies.

Collect the whole series for your home library, re-read them every December, and share them with friends and family.

The title gets less than five stars while it still has the misinformation about "Silent Night."

Very enjoyable and authentic book........2006-07-27

This is a brief, but engaging book about Christmas traditions in Austria from the World Book Encyclopedia. With many beautiful color photographs, the book covers the following subjects:

1. Awaiting Christkindl (The Christ Child)
2. An Austrian Family Christmas
3. The Twelve Nights and Sylvester
4. Alpine Holidays
5. "Silent Night" and Strauss
6. Visions of Vienna
7. Christmas Expressions
8. Austrian Treats
9. Austrian Accents
10. Austrian Melodies

The book is charming and pleasant to read as it chronicles the Advent season in Austria. Each page is loaded with pictures, and there are many folk poems, songs, instructions for Christmas ornaments that you can make yourself, and even recipes for making authentic Austrian Christmas treats. Without being dull or academic, the book conveys a good amount of detail about Austrian culture, the history and meaning of the holiday, and the various celebrations that go on at that time of year.

I lived in Austria for nearly two years and can say that the book is very informative and accurate. About the only downside is that there could have been more recipes, songs, et cetera, but I suppose they wanted to give a random sampling and not a comprehensive survey of Austrian cookery/music and so on. An impressive amount of information is contained in this slim volume. Well worth a look for anyone interested in Austria.

Usborne Living World Encyclopedia (Usborne Encyclopedia)

Average customer rating:

Usborne Living World Encyclopedia (Usborne Encyclopedia)

Manufacturer: E.D.C. Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Encyclopedias | Reference & Nonfiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Reference & Nonfiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Biology | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible
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ASIN: 0746030517

Alden's living topics cyclopedia,: A record of recent events and of the world's progress

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Alden's living topics cyclopedia,: A record of recent events and of the world's progress
John B Alden
Manufacturer: Alden
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00089OU3G

Christmas in the American Southwest (Christmas Around the World) (Christmas Around the World from World Book)

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Wonderful insight into Christmas traditions in America's southwest

Christmas in the American Southwest (Christmas Around the World) (Christmas Around the World from World Book)
World Book Encyclopedia
Manufacturer: World Book, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Customs & Traditions | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Religion | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Each 80-page Christmas Around the World book includes full narratives explaining the customs of the region covered, photography and illustrations, special sections of native songs, recipes, and fun-to-do crafts.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful insight into Christmas traditions in America's southwest.......2007-03-12

The Encyclopedia of world faiths: An illustrated survey of the world's living religions

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The Encyclopedia of world faiths: An illustrated survey of the world's living religions
Peter Bishop , and Michael Darton
Manufacturer: MacDonald Orbis
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Religion | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Comparative Religion | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0356140628

The Guinness Encyclopedia of the Living World

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The Guinness Encyclopedia of the Living World
Brian Gardiner , and Peter Moore
Manufacturer: Guinness World Records Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

History | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books

The Kingfisher Young People's Book of Living Worlds (The Kingfisher Young People's Book of)

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The Kingfisher Young People's Book of Living Worlds (The Kingfisher Young People's Book of)
Clive Gifford , and Jerry Cadle
Manufacturer: Kingfisher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Natural History | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0753453908

Book Description

This new title in an award-winning series celebrates the incredible diversity of the natural world and brings to life the complex relationships between different species and their environment. Rich, full-color images accompany the text that describes all the major habitats and eco-systems, including deserts, oceans, the tundra and polar regions, forest, grasslands, and even cities. The full gamut of life is covered, from the unusual communities that thrive around undersea volcanic vents to growing human populations and their impact on the delicate balance of both natural and man-made environments. Special Features - Covers key ecological topics including food chains, migration, and climate - Coverage of relevant websites with details of conservation programs - Glossary and factlist

The Life of Prairies and Plains (Our Living World of Nature) (World Book Encyclopedia)

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The Life of Prairies and Plains (Our Living World of Nature) (World Book Encyclopedia)
Durward L. Allen
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000R39K88

Average customer rating:

Living World (Encyclopedias)
Leslie Colvin , Emma Speare , and Isabel Bowring
Manufacturer: Usborne Publishing Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Encyclopedias | Reference & Nonfiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

History | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0746003447

Book Description

This book analyzes a wide range of Beardsley's most characteristic work. It establishes his assumptions about the underlying nature of his world, and clarifies why so many observers have considered Beardsley's art indispensable to understanding fin-de-siecle Victorian culture. Beardsley's pictures present a dialogue between seemingly polarized impulses: a desire to scandalize and destabilize the old order, and, equally strong, a need to affirm traditional authority. Beardsley depicted various grotesque shapes, caricatures, and mutated figures, including foetus/old man, dwarf, Clown, Harlequin, Pierrot, and dandy (the icon of the Decadent "Religion of Art"). Incarnating the fearful contradictions of decadence, these images served as objective correlatives of some "monstrous" metaphysical contortion. His grotesques suggest the impossibility of resolving these contradictions, even as his elegant designs try formalistically to control and recuperate the disfiguration. As a canonical style, Beardsley's "dandy" sensibility and grotesque caricatures become his means of realigning canonical meaning. Thus, he effects what might be termed a "caricature" of traditional signification. An aesthete devoted to the "Religion of Art", Beardsley, nonetheless, creates a world inescapably "de-formed". He is a Dandy of the Grotesque.

Customer Reviews:

Strongly Recommended for the Serious Beardsleyite.......2004-03-21

Firstly, I feel it important to say that this book is not necessarily for the viewer with only a lightweight, or passing, interest in Aubrey Beardsley - it is a very deep, involved study of the man, as well as of his work. That said, I will say that for the Beardsley fanatic, it is an absolute must-read.
I have read many books on Beardsley, and none reach into his work so deeply as this. The book provides a psychological study, as its basis for review of Beardsley's greatest works. While it does focus on the man's self-identification as a dandy, other facets of his complex personality are also brought to attention, and analyzed. Chris Snodgrass approaches such an endeavor with some detachment, but it is quite clear that he is anything but lukewarm towards Aubrey Beardsley and his art - rather, his admiration for both is apparent.
I would not recommend this book as a first read for the budding Beardsleyite - rather, I'd go with Matthew Sturgis' wonderful biography. This book seems to assume that the reader is already intimately familiar with Beardsley's life story, and also intimately familiar with his works. If you fit in this category, please give this book a read - its value cannot be underestimated. An indispensible reference, and never a dull moment.

Aubrey Beardsley, Dandy of the Grotesque

Average customer rating:

Aubrey Beardsley, Dandy of the Grotesque
Chris Snodgrass
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

"Methods of the Classical Theory of Elastodynamics" deals not only with classical methods as developed in the past decades, but presents also very recent approaches. Applications and solutions to specific problems serve to illustrate the theoretical presentation. Keywords: Smirnov-Sobolev method with further developments; integral transforms; Wiener-Hopf technique; mixed boundary-value problems; time-dependent boundaries; solutions for unisotropic media (Willis method); 3-d dynamical problems for mixed boundary conditions.

Book Description

First Betsy Taylor loses her job, then she's killed in a car accident. But what really bites is that she can't seem to stay dead. And now her new friends have the ridiculous idea that Betsy is the prophesied vampire queen, and they want her help in overthrowing the most obnoxious power-hungry vampire in five centuries.

Customer Reviews:

The Queen Is Here.......2007-09-12

Betsy is queen of the dammed without even knowing it. She was nibbled by strangers one night while leaving a high garlic restaurant and then is killed by accident, of course after loosing her job and trying to get her cat back into her house. She awakens wearing hand me down shoes, not her designer ones, and a pink dress. She is pissed and ready to kill being humiliated like that on her funeral day. As she progresses through her realization about being dead she meets hot ancient vampires and creepy overly melodramatic vamps. She finds out quickly that there are factions and she is caught in the middle. The middle of a vampire world, her old life and of course her pain in the butt step-mother.

This story is amazingly fun and a quick read. Talk about a perfect beach book.

Amusing comic tale of Chick Lit and Vampires.......2007-09-06

This entertaining vampire romance is the first of a series which incongruously combines chick lit romantic comedy and Vampire adventure - from the viewpoint of a new vampire.

It is the first of a series which currently consists of six books

1) Undead and Unwed
2) Undead and Unemployed
3) Undead and Unappreciated
4) Undead and Unreturnable
5) Undead and Unpopular
6) Undead and Uneasy.

The first line of the book is "The day I died started out bad and got worse in a hurry."

Told in the first person by Elizabeth Taylor, who prefers to be called Betsy for obvious reasons. Betsy is a former model and is still a fashion fanatic: at the start of the book, on the morning of her disastrous 30th birthday, she is working as a secretary. Her main interests are designer shoes, designer clothes, and her cat. In quick succession she loses her job, loses her cat, and is killed in a car accident. It is a great surprise to her when she rises again as a most unusual vampire.

Mary Davidson has great fun with the incongruity of mixing up the Vampire genre, as in Laurell Hamilton's "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter" series (or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and Chick-Lit romantic comedy. This book is way over the top and very funny. Perhaps the author goes slightly too far when she has a group of rebel vampires bribe Betsy to take on the local evil Master Vampire by offering her a neat line in designer shoes, but the book is always good fun.

An interesting comparison with other authors who have written entertaining comedies by combining incongruous genres would be with Marianne Mancusi and Robert Frezza.

In the same way that this book gets plenty of laughs by combining chick lit with vampires, Frezza write two very funny books which combined vampires and science fiction ("McLendon's Syndrome" and "The VMR Theory") and Mancusi combined chick lit with time travel in "A Connecticut Fashionista at King Arthur's Court" and "A Hoboken Hipster in Sherwood Forest." Anyone who likes this book is likely to enjoy all four of these and vice versa: if you've read and enjoyed one or more of the other books I have just mentioned you hav e a good chance of enjoying "Undead and Unwed".

OK, it's never going to win any of the major awards for classic literature, but if you have the right sort of sense of humour this is quite good fun. I can recommend "Undead and Unwed" and am looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

Perfectly awful..........2007-08-26

Could be a good teenage girl book if it wasn't for the two or three graphic sexual encounters.

OK, she's invincible and she knows it - where do you go from there?

Don't waste your time on this one...

CHECK OUT Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse Series for the real deal.......2007-08-01

Anyone who found the Queen Betsy books disappointing should check out Charlaine Harris' excellent Southern Vampire series starring Sookie Stackhouse. It has a similar theme - modern vampires - but much better character development, writing, humor, plot... basically everything is better! Book # one is Dead Until Dark.

Vampire secretaries are cool........2007-07-18

I like how Queen Betsy fawns over designer shoes and how she drives the other vampires batty by always questioning vampire rules. Betsy armed with her keen fashion sense and allied with her friends are about to modernize vampire society into the 21st century. Hope you enjoy reading the book.

3 Titles By MaryJanice Davidson Queen Betsy Series : Undead and Unwed - Undead and Unemployed - Undead and Unreturnable

Average customer rating:

3 Titles By MaryJanice Davidson Queen Betsy Series : Undead and Unwed - Undead and Unemployed - Undead and Unreturnable
MaryJanice Davidson
Manufacturer: Berkley Sensation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000WVZ55M

Product Description

multiple books ship as one item. save on shipping/handling charges.

Average customer rating:

Undead and Unwed
Maryjanice Davidson
Manufacturer: Berkley Sensation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000QSG4HO

3 Titles By Mary Janice Davidson - Undead and Unwed - Undead and Unreturnable - Undead and Unappreciated

Average customer rating:

3 Titles By Mary Janice Davidson - Undead and Unwed - Undead and Unreturnable - Undead and Unappreciated
Mary Janice Davidson
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000M2BRQM

Product Description

3 massmarket paperback Titles By Mary Janice Davidson - Undead and Unwed - Undead and Unreturnable - Undead and Unappreciated

Queen Betsy Series; Undead and Unwed, Undead and Unemployed, Undead and Unappreciated, Undead and Unreturnable, Undead and Unpopular (Set of 5 Paranormal Romance Novels)

Average customer rating:

Queen Betsy Series; Undead and Unwed, Undead and Unemployed, Undead and Unappreciated, Undead and Unreturnable, Undead and Unpopular (Set of 5 Paranormal Romance Novels)
MaryJanice Davidson
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000UFUYG0

Average customer rating:

The Queen Is Here
Amusing comic tale of Chick Lit and Vampires
Perfectly awful...
CHECK OUT Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse Series for the real deal
Vampire secretaries are cool.

Undead and Unwed
Maryjanice Davidson
Manufacturer: Berkley Sensation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Similar Items:

Undead and Unemployed (Queen Betsy, Book 2)
Undead and Unappreciated (Queen Betsy, Book 3)
Undead and Unreturnable (Undead)
Undead and Unpopular (Queen Betsy, Book 5)
Dead and Loving It

ASIN: B000KWL3SQ

Customer Reviews:

The Queen Is Here.......2007-09-12

Amusing comic tale of Chick Lit and Vampires.......2007-09-06

Perfectly awful..........2007-08-26

CHECK OUT Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse Series for the real deal.......2007-08-01

Vampire secretaries are cool........2007-07-18

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