Cruisers: A Novel

Book Description

As a child Frank Kohler learned of his mother’s brutal murder. Now, years later, he yearns for some affirmation that remains elusive. As a state trooper on the night shift, Russell Boyd cruises the highways of Vermont constantly reminded of the true depths of human misery. The lives of these two men will intersect only tangentially, until fate catches up with them.

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Frank Kohler is ready to snap. He is capable of love, but he knows time is running out. His mother was brutally murdered, and he never knew his father. With each passing day he perceives his anger with an almost religious sense of beauty. In an attempt to save himself, he decides to marry a mail-order bride from Russia.

Russell Boyd is a state trooper who resists those acts that damage life forever. He has seen about as much of them as he can take. And yet, he has met the woman who makes him feel whole. She is the center of his life.

Frank Kohler's and Russell Boyd's paths will cross three times. And the third time will change everything. It is the moment when the line between good and evil is made dramatically clear.

As with such modern classics as Dennis Lehane's Mystic River and Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter, Craig Nova gives us an illuminating story of characters who struggle against the collisions of fate, and who are motivated by the touching need to be human.

Customer Reviews:

Psychological fog with a few sun breaks.......2006-06-03

A highway patrolman, a computer repairman, their girlfriends (one from Russia) and some strange side characters all contemplating their every sensation and thought in great detail. The fog gets pretty thick at times and within it a few people are killed, some are terrified and some love weaves though it, both beautiful and sick. I would not have thought I would like such a book, but at the end, it left me with such strong feelings that I had to say it was pretty good - at least a 3.5. It is not so much a mystery, nor a thriller, as it is just a psychological study through which, if we hang in there, we may learn a few things about ourselves

"Where did the knowledge stop and self-loathing begin?".......2005-03-06

A murdered woman lying by the side of the road, her breasts mutilated; a pregnant Russian mail order bride; a strangely conceived foxhunt; and a black snake - a metaphor for all that is evil - slithering through the rafters of a country cabin. With an almost symphonic force, author Craig Nova brings these seemingly disparate elements together to create a story that is infused with drama, love and tells an evocative tale of loneliness and the isolation of life. The characters in Cruisers are desperate and fraught, trapped in emotional cages of their own making; they're ready to snap, endlessly driven by anger, desperation, and colossal family conflict.

Told in alternating chapters and set in Southern Vermont, Cruisers is a portrait of two men, each battling with his own conflicted soul. Both become the prey and the predator, and together they are irrevocably set upon a collision course with one another. Russell Boyd is a Vermont state trooper having doubts about the risks his night-shift job entails. Every night as he traverses the highways and tickets speeders, he wonders whether there are other possibly more serious offenders out there. Falling into the arms of Zofia, his lover, Russell seeks solace from the rigors of the job. But Zofia, a responsible schoolteacher, knows the inherent dangers of Russell's job and hesitates to make a binding pledge to him.

When Zofia becomes pregnant and considers an abortion, Russell is left with a sense of a collision between common sense and his beliefs about what he should do. He tries to decide just what it was he needs to hang on to - was it his grandfathers love or the certainty of what things are like when they go wrong? Plagued by the ineffectual, and haunted by Zofia's worries, Russell feels powerless to stop the tawdry senselessness of his job, which seems to exist in the memory of colours and the half-frozen landscape. Life has left Russell restless and fatigued so he permanently hangs between the two.

Frank Kohler, a thirty-year-old computer repairman, lives alone in the Vermont woods and patrols his property with a fanaticism that borders on the dangerous. Frank is struggling with a "deep and nameless turmoil" and is driven by the angry memories of his murdered mother. In desperation, he decides that love will save him, but since he's too publicly clumsy to court a woman, he orders a mail-order bride from Russia. Frank constantly lives on the edge and the only reason he has been able to survive is by being careful about what he had led himself to remember.

Frank's sense of fragility, which he detested and his closeness to that abyss of sparkling light, steadily becomes worse. Racked with life's claustrophobia, Frank's emotional solace though love is futile, because the dye has already been cast. It is though everything about the world that he couldn't get control of had been there when he found his mother murdered. His new-fangled flashy black sports car and his new Russian bride have unfortunately come to late for him.

Nova steadily builds the tension with a subdued but mighty force. Both men are emotionally disconnected, but they ache to reconnect to those they love. Russell, in an effort to solve the mystery of the murdered woman, goes to the hotel where she was last seen. Frank wonders the fields of his property remembering the battered torso of his mother that was found in a box by the local river. At once refrained, but also quite unnerving and powerful, Nova has a formidable noir style that gradually encapsulates the reader, unadulteratingly revealing the steadfast heart of human quandary and insecurity. Mike Leonard March 05.

Extrordinary!!!!.......2004-08-23

I am an avid reader during the summer months and came across this book while perusing the book shelves at my favorite bookstore.
Well! Reading this novel was a brand new experience!
The story is gripping, the characters are "real", and my soul just "resonated" to the "words"....the duality of our humaness and lives, the dark and the light, the mundane and the violence, the confusion and the clarity.
Never have I read anything like this before.

I am a new Craig Nova fan.

A Dark Book, Beautifully Written.......2004-08-14

Cruisers can refer both to the car driven by State Trouper Russell Boyd or the two men who cruise thorough this dark novel, Boyd and a wacked out computer techie named Frank Kohler.

Boyd cruises Vermont's highways during the night, chasing down speeders and lawbreakers. He loves his job, but broods about the dangers, knowing that anything can happen when he stops someone. He lives with school teacher Zofia Wira who worries throughout the night about whether or not he'll come home safe and sound. Only when he does, can she relax and start her day.

Kohler is a lonely, damaged and slightly deranged soul who saw his prostitute mother murdered when he was a child. It's a memory that haunts him. How could it not? Like the Beatle's song, he believes all he needs is love and he searches for it with a Russian mail order bride, who is not exactly what he expected. Katryna Kolymov, the bride, has her own agenda, one very different from Frank's, and in the end it pushes him beyond where any sane man would ever go and being that Frank is a man drawn to black, to the dark, when he's pushed, violence is the result.

The book alternates between Russ and Frank's stories, crossing paths just three times, the first when Russ and Zofia accidently trespass on Frank's land when they are fishing, from that point on, we sense that something bad, something very bad is going to happen, and it's impossible to stop reading. This is a dark book, beautifully written by a masterful storyteller. The characters stay with you long after you've turned the last page, intruding into your night, hanging around throughout the day.

The Raider : A Novel of WW I : The Chronicle of a Gallant Ship : The Gallant Cruiser Emden

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The Raider : A Novel of WW I : The Chronicle of a Gallant Ship : The Gallant Cruiser Emden
John Jennings
Manufacturer: William Morrow and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KF61S0

Star Blazers Space Cruiser Yamato (W. C. C. Animation Comics, 4)

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Star Blazers Space Cruiser Yamato (W. C. C. Animation Comics, 4)
Yoshinobu Nishizaki
Manufacturer: West Cape Co. Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000LZHWO6

Product Description

Uses actual drawings from the original Japanese animated movie. "General Lysis, the commander of all Gamilon Space Forces, lures the Star Force into one trap after another, and finally challenges them to a duel at the edge of the Magellanic Cloud."

Star Blazers, Volume 4: The Trap of General Lysis (Space Cruiser Yamato)

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Star Blazers, Volume 4: The Trap of General Lysis (Space Cruiser Yamato)
Yoshinobu Nishizaki
Manufacturer: West Cape Co., LTD.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000EE8YWI

Product Description

W.C.C Animation Comics in English language Sci-fi Fantasy with actual drawings form the original films

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CLASSIC PARK-AFTER-DARK
A comic without pictures
Well described and informative

Young Cruisers
Cort Forbes
Manufacturer: Millivres Prowler Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

CLASSIC PARK-AFTER-DARK.......2000-08-02

By the time I got around to this book, it's U.S.A. edition wasalready out-of-print. Luckily, I found an available copy onamazon.co.uk. I'm glad I made the extra effort! In that, at least for me, there's something close to home about this anthology of short stories, linked by the common denominator of a particular city park (possibly as close to home as the park just down the street from where I live, where I witnessed and participated in a good deal of the very same "stuff" that goes down in the short stories of this Cort Forbes' anthology). If the majority of these stories are high on sexual content, lower on plot, there are those of us who sometimes like stories that provide just that. (For those who want more plot, as well as hot and steamy sex, check out anything by William Maltese, including his latest mainstream mystery novel, A SLIP TO DIE FOR). I think the enjoyability of Cort Forbes' short stories in YOUNG CRUISERS can best be summed up by the fact I presented at the very beginning of this review: all available U.S.A. copies having long since been grabbed up off the shelves...

A comic without pictures.......2000-02-25

I found Young Cruisers, banal, a travesty of the English language. The stories are totally predictable, the English terrible, a total lack of grammer and syntax.

The book does nothing for the causes of homosexuality, it is raw sex in its most basic form. Each of these stories has the capability to be turned into something more beautiful, but instead is left like graffiti on a toilet wall. If there was a zero star rating, that would get my vote.

Well described and informative.......1998-10-14

I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to my freinds. It was written with thought and the story flowed from point to point. I should like to see more books available.

Average customer rating:

The cruiser,: A novel
Warren Tute
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

THE WORST KEPT SECRET IN THE WORLD

Ten-year-old magical prodigy and girls’ school instructor Negi Springfield has a new secret . . . and some of his more stubborn students are determined to uncover it. Few know that Negi has magical powers. (In fact, he’ll be turned into a weasel if he is officially found out). No wonder Negi is so cautious while taking magic lessons from the so-good-at-being-bad Evangeline. As one of the few students who actually knows about his special abilities, Asuna is the one girl to whom Negi decides to tell yet another secret–one involving Negi’s long-lost father who disappeared years ago. But what connection can there possibly be between the Thousand Master and Asuna?

Customer Reviews:

enter Kotaro... again.......2007-07-18

Negima volume 8 is here at last, and it more than exceeds the expectations set by the climactic ending of volume 7. Despite the fact that really nothing major happens til the end of the volume, Akamatsu keeps you hooked through the whole thing. Basically, Negi continues to train under both Ku Fei and Evangeline, even inviting most of his class to Eva's resort, where he (after alot of badgering) finally agrees to begin teaching magic skills to Konoka, Yue, and Nodoka. Meanwhile, Natsumi Murakami and Chizuru Naba find a "stray dog" and take him in... except it isn't really a dog, you know. It's Kotaro Inugami (the black-haired master of the dog onmyou that fought Negi and Asuna in volume 5) in his dog form, and Natsumi gets quite the scare when Kotaro changes back to his human form... and he's totally naked. Natsumi and Chizuru end up "adopting" Kotaro as their own (much to the chagrin of Class Rep, whom Kotaro headbutted in the stomach as she entered the room), and Kotaro has to pretend to be Natsumi's younger brother.

Eventually, Negi and the others return to the real world, but Negi isn't finished with Asuna yet. Using one of his magical abilities, he transports himself and Asuna into his memories to tell her why exactly he tries so hard at everything he does. (Recall that in volume 7, Asuna told Negi that she would be his partner in any way possible... leading to a BIG misunderstanding on Negi's part, as he assumes she's talking about hanky-panky...) Thing is though, the memory was meant to be seen by Negi and Asuna alone, but thanks to Eva "appropriating" Nodoka's mind-reading diary, everyone there got to see what Negi was remembering. (Which brings up an interesting point: Eva was crying, too, at the end of Negi's story... maybe she's not as cold-hearted toward Negi as she might have everyone believe...) Things aren't over yet for Negi, though, as an old arch-enemy shows up at the campus and takes Nodoka, Asuna, and Chizuru captive with four others... and this Graf Wilhelm is one character that Negi hoped he'd never meet again!!!

I usually end with some kind of wrap-up paragraph, but I'll just end with this: Volume 7 promised us much more action to come, and volume 8 delivers. (Oh yeah... don't be anxious. Since this is written by Akamatsu, his fan service is still there.)

Enjoy!!

~andy~

Negima never fails to please..........2006-11-06

Negi's combat training continues. A flashback of sorts shows when Negi met the Thousand Master. Asuna is kidnapped, and Kotaro the dog-boy teams up with Negi to rescue her.

There's action, uncomfortable and wild situations, slime girls, and a troublesome little pendant. All in all, it has everything one expects from Negima, and more.

Overall Well Done, again a few problems however.......2006-02-24

Just like in the previous volumes (after the change in translators) some of the characters have drastically changed. Although the translators at Del Rey attempt to portray the characters "how they seem to be," I believe that they take too many liberties when translating. They overexaggerate certain characteristics of characters as well as incorporate outdated, non-relevant slang.

One of the most blatant examples would be from a previous volume, Volume 6 where one of the main characters (Asuna) SAYS "... OMG WTF." Now, had this been written out, it may have been more realistic, but to have it written in the manner it was, not only was it a childish attempt to incorporate slang, it is demeaning to the characters themselves.

If you are able to read past the ridiculous attempts by the translators to incorporate slang where it is obviously not needed and the broad liberties that Del Rey takes in translating the speech of the characters (Ku Fei- making her speech the equivalent of a stereotypical uneducated person of far east descent ex. i speak good english; give that me now, etc.), I believe that this product tells a superb story. Volume 8 of Negima is no exception to the excellence of story telling that Ken Akamatsu continues to present. This is clearly a case in which a exquisitely radiant story is only fettered by the cliches and fallacies of the translators.

Good.......2006-02-21

The book was real good. It had a good story to me and I liked the twists it had at some points. The only reason it doesn't get a five is cause the ink was off on some of the pages or smugged, but otherwise I liked it.

Negi's choice.......2006-01-27

This is the eighth volume in the manga series about a 10 year old Welsh wizard who teaches at a girl's school in Japan. This volume features Negi's training with Evangeline, a story about Negi's past, the return of Kotaro the dog boy and a showdown with an old enemy. This volume also is the first time we get to know Chizuru and Natsumi (two of the students). One of the problems with the series is with so many characters, some of them don't get much "screen time". If you enjoyed the previous volumes of this series, you should enjoy this one.

Negima! 8 : Magister Negi Magi (Negima!: Magister Negi Magi)

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Negima! 8 : Magister Negi Magi (Negima!: Magister Negi Magi)
Ken Akamatsu
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OVY43E

Magister Negi Magi Vol. 8 (Mahousensei Negima!) (in Japanese)

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Magister Negi Magi Vol. 8 (Mahousensei Negima!) (in Japanese)
Ken Akamatsu
Manufacturer: Kodansha
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic

All Japanese Books | Japanese | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: B000LMH4TM

Book Description

Jimmy and his friends hear a scary story that inspires them to do a little scaring of their own. With Halloween just around the corner, the boys decide to turn the old abandoned house next to the pumpkin patch into a haunted house. But Jimmy and his friends aren't the only ones with plans to scare. Find out what happens when some unexpected guests show up for tricks and treats.

Customer Reviews:

A Great Halloween Story (and scary, too!).......2005-05-31

I highly recommend this because I've seen the excerpt. A Retroville ghost story? Nah. It's a farmer in disguise! I mean, come on! So he was the one who started the whole scary story. It's not a real story anyway. The farmer made up that story to scare kids, you know that. Anyway, since I am a Jimmy Neutron fan, I would encourage everyone to read Return of the Pumpkin Head because it's a really cool book!

Average customer rating:

The Book Of Life

Truely enchanting!!!

Think: Ken Wilber with a Lot More HEART

A Unique Insight into the Mystical Tradition

An exceptional guide to the spiritual journey.

Coming Home: The Experience of Enlightenment in Sacred Traditions
Lex Hixon
Manufacturer: Larson Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Gurus | Other Eastern Religions | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Mysticism | Other Practices | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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Sufi Meditation (Lights of Wisdom Series, No. 1)

ASIN: 0943914744

Book Description

Explores the experience of enlightenment in sacred traditions and how it affects those who experience it.

Customer Reviews:

The Book Of Life.......2005-08-10

"Coming Home" is The Owners Manual of Life; an easily digested primer of the Ultimate Truth; an informal introduction to Spiritual Imperatives. Every mother should lovingly include a gift copy to her babe, as part of the birthing process, to ensure its joyous journey home. If you missed getting yours, it's not too late.

Truely enchanting!!!.......2003-02-03

I was very enchanted by this book. Lex Hixon had opened my eyes to the different worlds of faith. It guided me through a vast arrys of Eastern and Western walks of religions. The works in this book had brought a whole new prospective from teahers of different walks of life. I, myself, being the son of a preacher was searching for answers from the loopholes of christianity that was taught to me. Lex Hixon had enlightened my world into a spiritually journey I thought I can never find the answers to. This book had helped me on my search. Even though, I still searching this book had helped me on my quest. Coming Home is well craft and very inspirational. This book will always be a keeper!!

Think: Ken Wilber with a Lot More HEART.......2002-02-28

I enjoyed this book so much that I wrote to Lex Hixon. To my suprise, he telephoned me and we talked for an hour! His PhD in comparative religion from Columbia University should not make you think that his approach to the world's mystic traditions was the least bit dry or academic. He was an ecstatic lover of God, like Rumi, while remaining an encyclopedic scholar and a wonderful writer, like---well, like Rumi. I've read all of his books. This is one of his best. Lex Hixon died of cancer at age 55, but like a 20th Century version of Ramakrishna (a great mentor of his) he had lived the lives of several devotees rolled into one.

A Unique Insight into the Mystical Tradition.......2001-01-05

An excellent book - well written and insightful.

At one level the book is a survey of "enlightenment" or the mystic experience/way of life (direct experience of the Divine) in several religious traditions.

At another level - and the more important one from my perspective - the book uses its discussion of the particular nuances of each of these mystic traditions to draw a common definition/description of enlightenment. The clear message here is that the apparent differences among religions are more a matter of the nature of human perception/ways of communicating than any fundamental difference at the real level.

The last chapter of the book contains a valuable set of guided exercises in prayer and meditative practice to equip the reader with the tools to embark on the path of mystic experience.

Hixon was both a scholar (Ph.D. in Comparative Religions from Columbia) and a practicing mystic (Sheikh in the Havleti-Jerrahi Sufi Order) so this book combines the best of scholarship and direct experience. He is the author of several other very valuable books.

An exceptional guide to the spiritual journey........1999-04-06

Contrary to what the heading says, the book is by Lex Hixon alone, with a brief forward by Ken Wilber. That aside, the book is a welcome addition to the literature on the world's religions. Focusing as it does on the territory of enlightenment in various traditions, it is a breath of fresh air from narrow minded, my-way -is -best religious wrangling. He cover some of the greats: Maharshi, Ramakrishna, the Baal Shem Tov, Plotinus...and his ending with a consultation of the i ching is intriguing.

Average customer rating:

My favorite seafood cookbook yet

Quick From Scratch Seafood Cookbook (Quick From Scratch)
Adam Ward
Manufacturer: American Express Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Seafood | Meat, Poultry & Seafood | Cooking by Ingredient | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
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Quick from Scratch : Real Food for Busy Weeknights

Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2005: An Entire Year of Recipes (Food & Wine Annual Cookbook)

Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2007: An Entire Year of Recipes (Food & Wine Annual Cookbook)

ASIN: 091610396X

Book Description

“Not only is the food honest, fast, and delicious, it's contemporary.”—Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and author of How to Cook Everything

“[These are] obviously written by and for people who enjoy good food, lead busy lives, and yet want to cook well and creatively. The clear and well-organized steps are a sure path to great meals.”—Michael Lomonaco

Many people love fish and seafood but don’t feel confident enough to prepare them at home. With this collection of tasty, versatile, and quick-to-make recipes, they’ll securely cook up everything from Curried Carrot and Mussel Soup to Korean-Style Seared Tuna to Skate with Capers and Brown Butter. Loads of test-kitchen tips, ideas for fish substitutions, and essential ingredient tips explain everything a home chef needs to know, and mouthwatering photos provide inspiration, too.

Customer Reviews:

My favorite seafood cookbook yet.......2005-05-08

This is one of the rare cookbooks where I can flip through and become excited about almost every dish. On top of that, here are some specifics about this book that I loved:

* There's a picture for every dish -- I don't know about other people, but I'm much more likely to try a new dish if I know what it should look like.

* For every dish, they have a sidebar discussing possible alternatives and substitutions.

* The dishes cover a wide variety of regions and cultures, including several that you just don't see in cookbooks that often.

* The book has a good general introduction with tips on cooking seafood in general, making it all much less overwhelming to those of us unfamiliar with it all.

* In addition to all the recipes for grilling, broiling, roasting, etc, that show up in every seafood cookbook, this one has some amazing recipes for seafood stews.

The only negatives I would have about the book are that 1) it isn't spiral bound, which I really wish all cookbooks would be, and 2) the chapter on sauteed and fried fish was less exciting than the others.

Average customer rating:
AMER ART GLASS,BOTTLES (The Knopf Collectors' Guides to American Antiques)
Jane Shadel Spillman
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Glass & Glassware | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Glass Tableware, Bowls, Vase (The Knopf Collectors' Guides to American Antiques)

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The Knopf Collectors' Guides: Toys (The Knopf Collectors' Guides to American Antiques)

Dolls (The Knopf Collectors' Guides to American Antiques)

ASIN: 0394715411
Release Date: 1983-10-12

Book Description

Publish Your Memories in Baby's Very Own Keepsake Book!! This kit makes it easy to turn your memories into a personalized, archival quality book you'll treasure for a lifetime. Just layout your pictures and write the photo captions or story you want typeset on the pages provided. You can even personalize the pages with the infant related Mrs. Grossman's stickers provided, or get creative with your own. Mail in your pages and in just weeks you'll receive back an archival quality, 7" by 9", laser reproduced 15 page hardback book. Numerous options allow you to create almost any type of book up to 50 pages in length. The kit makes a great shower gift and additional (optional) book copies make terrific gifts for family and friends.

Customer Reviews:

GREAT alternative to the traditional baby book!!!.......2004-05-07

When my husband and I brought our little angel home, we were stumped to find a baby book that worked well for an adopted child. The Baby Story memory kit was the perfect solution!!! We could create the story of our daughter's adoption and include all her "baby firsts" that would be a true original. The process is so simple and you can really make a beautiful book... no matter what your skill level might be. This makes a great baby gift for anyone; because it's something the child will never out grow or get bored with. What kid doesn't love to read all about them selves?

Book Description

Decorating with style and creativity -- no matter what challenges real life may bring -- is a Mary Emmerling trademark. In her last book, Mary Emmerling's Quick Decorating, she proved that beautiful rooms could be put together in hours and even minutes; now she brings the same ingenuity and panache to decorating on a budget in Mary Emmerling's Smart Decorating. The secret of her system for avoiding expense is keeping the big-ticket furnishings simple, focusing instead on the movable feasts of accessories and flowers, pictures and fabrics. It is a strategy that works every time.

Hundreds of full-color photographs present ideas from which any home decorator can draw inspiration or improvise. Chapters are organized by price, from "Pennies" (using produce and fresh flowers placed in interesting "found" containers, for example) to "Dollars" (such as covering books with a uniform paper to create an instant library) to "Bigger Bucks" (a vintage tablecloth artfully hung as a contemporary window treatment).

In addition to ideas for every room of the house, Mary offers strategies for shopping smart, salvaging old pieces, incorporating objects from nature into a decorating scheme, and creating new uses for everyday objects, as well as a directory to her favorite home stores and antiques shops.

Throughout, Mary's inimitable approach makes decorating itself fresh and fun. Perfect for the beginner and seasoned decorator alike, Mary Emmerling's Smart Decorating is an invaluable resource for finding great style without great expense.

Customer Reviews:

GREAT BOOK.......2004-10-30

I FOUND THIS TO BE ONE OF THE BEST DECORATING BOOKS AROUND.I DO NOT HAVE ALOT OF MONEY BUT WITH THE IDEAS IN THIS BOOK YOU DON'T NEED ALOT OF MONEY -JUST TASTE AND SOME CREATIVE THINKING.IF YOU ARE A YUPPY WITH NO INDIVIDUALITY AND YOU WANT A HOUSE THAT LOOKS LIKE EVERYONE ELSES THAN SKIP THIS ONE.IF YOU WANT A CREATIVE,UNIQUELY BEAUTIFUL HOME AND ARE WILLING TO INVEST SOME TIME IN DECORATING THEN BUY THIS.AND YES THERE IS A SHABBY CHIC AIR TO SOME OF THIS,HOWEVER I THINK IT IS QUITE LOVELY AND VERY TASTEFULL.ONE OF THE BEST DECORATING BOOKS I'VE SEEN. IF YOUR'E A FREE THINKER AND LIKE TO MAKE YOUR OWN THINGS THEN IGNORE SOME OF THOSE REVIEWS.EVEN IF IT'S NOT YOUR'E STYLE THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK.

But, this is how my house looks now!.......2000-07-06

One simple word sums up this book: Yuck!

Sticks and stones may not break my bones, but ..........2000-04-12

... they make for lousy decorating. I like Mary Emmerling, and enjoyed her "American Country Cottages" book a lot. It was beautifully photographed, with lots of images of comfortable, lovely, livable rooms. But this book is all rusty wires and birds' nests and peeling lead paint, like a house decorated by the witch from "The Blair Witch Project." I recommend Mary Randolph Carter's "American Junk" for a truly charming book about decorating on the cheap.

Decorating with rust and chipped peeling paint.......2000-02-01

I could not believe the book I received is the same one I read about in the editorial and customer review. Both failed to mention that this book is for those who like rustic, primitive decorating with broken items, peeling and/or chipped paint, rusty metal, twigs and branches, torn wallpaper etc. You really should mention this in your review. I don't know anyone who decorates like this except maybe at their cabin in the mountains or cabin at the bay. Please do not compare her to Martha Stewart - this book has copied some of her ideas and quite poorly at that. This should be called junk shop decorating or flea market decorating so that those of us who think we are getting a book about decorating smartly with new things or fixed up items are not fooled. I sure hope I don't have to decorate like this just because I don't have much to spend on decorating. I would not even give it one star. This book goes back by return mail.

Amazon.com

Have you ever seen a travel advertisement that truly made you want to pick up and go? Perhaps it was a shot of the Grand Canyon at sunset or the majestic, snow-capped Rocky Mountains. The selling of America through glossy travel brochures is a multimillion-dollar business, but its heyday was in the 1920s and '30s, when tourist boards hired graphic illustrators to dream up splashy Technicolor characters and copywriters came up with hokey slogans to sell their state. If you're intrigued by commercial design and have a healthy case of wanderlust, you'll enjoy See the USA: The Art of the American Travel Brochure, written by pop-culture specialist John Margolies and designed by Eric Baker. Pore over 200 examples of earnest and often unintentionally humorous travel literature that inspired countless Americans to hop aboard trains or into their Model Ts. A 1918 brochure touting Boston reads, "You don't know beans till you've 'Bean' to Boston!" A 1939 ad for Las Vegas features a straw-chewing cowboy in a four-gallon hat and checked shirt holding a "Howdy, Podner! Come on Out Just for Fun" sign. While advertising has come a long way (you'll no longer see tomahawk-wielding Indians selling the Adirondacks), certain elements somehow remain the same (those bikini-clad, smiling women imploring you to come on down to their eternal beach paradise). --Jill Fergus

Book Description

Liberal, Kansas: "The Pancake Hub of the Universe." Sullivan County, New York: "The lowest death rate of any county in New York State." Rapid City, South Dakota: "The climate is excellent and hog cholera is as yet a stranger." For more than a century, travel brochures have been wooing American "vacationists" with handsome graphics and enticing (and frequently amusing) prose descriptions. See the USA presents more than 200 examples of these delightful documents, drawn from the heyday of American road-tripping. The range of subjects and styles in travel brochure art makes it among the finest work ever produced by American commercial artists, and the descriptions of far-flung destinations are priceless. An entertaining popular culture and design history, See the USA will delight anyone with an interest in the images and words that fueled the patriotic desire to explore the country from coast to coast.

Customer Reviews:

She Sells Chevys, By D. Shore.......2003-02-02

This is a pleasant collection of travel-related visual bric-a-brac, mostly from the teens, twenties, and thirties, presented without much comment or context. The material speaks for itself, and is worthy of collection, but a few better-focused volumes would serve this subject matter better.

On the road........2002-02-11

Another reviewer has suggested that the brochure covers in this book are examples of good design, as a designer I can say that most of them are mediocre, though some of the illustrations are excellent. However, collect two hundred and put them in a well laid out book and they become fascinating and informative. Who can remember that in 1950 Liberal, Kansas was the 'Pancake hub of the Universe!

Authors Margolies and Baker write an interesting short history of these brochures and their choice of material is comprehensive. A bibliography is provided and a very detailed source list. If you have travelled around the country in the early part of the last century and like to look at printed Americana this book is certainly well worth having.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

Beautiful and hip.......2000-05-19

Travel literature used to be stunningly beautiful, and See the USA captures the best of the best in a very hip layout. Cowgirls, Southern belles, beach babes promoting tourist Meccas all look luscious and inviting. This book ought to be required reading for any student of the graphic arts. Check it out!

Product Description

How did this record become a hit? The life of a man who always worked for what he wanted.

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