World Guide to Tropical Drift Seeds and Fruits

Book Description

This guide is for amateurs and professionals who find pleasure and excitement in beachcombing for stranded tropical seeds and fruits (sea-beans) on beaches ranging from Norway and Holland to South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and South Florida. Included are over 100 accurately and beautifully illustrated line drawings of the common sea-bean. These drawings, along with a key and detailed descriptions, make it possible for the first time to correctly identify a sizable number of tropical drift fruits and seeds from beaches around the world. Also contained in this guide is a section on planting and growing these seeds and fruits, many of which are from common plants of the tropics. Much useful information on polishing sea-beans and making them into artifacts of various kinds is also provided, as sea-beans are commonly fashioned into jewelry and keepsakes in many parts of the world. Readers will be fascinated by the histories of these tropical seeds and fruits.

Customer Reviews:

Good Sea Bean Book .......2007-07-27

This is a good book. It is scientific & complete with excellent drawings of sea beans. It is a must for any sea bean collector.

Nice enough?.......2002-12-29

A 1976 classic, reprinted at the occasion of the 1999 Sea-Bean Symposium. As reprints go this is quite good, with a sturdy cover. The book consists of a general part (Introduction, History, Currents & Beaches, Collecting & Uses, Key) and a catalog. The latter, which comprises just over half the book, consists for each entry of a page (or less) of text and a page (sometimes three) of line-drawings. The line-drawings are not of top quality but adequate.

Although it is good to have this back in print it would have been far preferable to see a revised, expanded and updated edition. In this day and age the black & white photographs in the general part look distinctly out of place, especially for such an appealing subject matter, lending itself so well to spectacular color photography. The topic deserves better?

Average customer rating:
World Guide to Tropical Drift Seeds and Fruits
Charles -- Dennis, John Gunn
Manufacturer: Demeter Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O62HDS

Book Description

INTRODUCTION

Positioned uniquely between Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and at the centre of three major monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - the Holy Land has been fought over since biblical times. Given its extraordinary significance, it often comes as a surprise, therefore, to learn that what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip together take up an area only one and a half times the size of Wales or slightly larger than the state of Maryland, and contain a tiny, yet fractious, population of just 5.5 million.

Packed into this small region is an astonishing range of scenery: from the sandy beaches of the Mediterranean coastal strip, inland to the green valleys of the Galilee and goat-tracked, olive-groved hills of the West Bank - largely unchanged backdrops to many biblical events; from the towering, snowcapped peak of Mount Hermon northeast in the Golan Heights, south to the Dead Sea - the lowest point on earth - and the lunar landscapes of the Negev desert, at whose southernmost tip lie the spectacular coral reefs of the Red Sea. It's home too, to some of the world's holiest sites; visiting them and the abundant historic monuments to its troubled past, you'll be walking in the footsteps of David and Solomon, of Jesus and Mohammed, and of the numerous armies - Roman, Crusader and otherwise - who have conquered the region. Add to the pot a handful of vibrant cities - primarily cosmopolitan Tel Aviv and the holy city of Jerusalem - and you have an unrivalled density and variety of things to see, often only a couple of hours apart.

Sooner or later, however, even on the most hedonistic beach vacation, you're going to come face to face with the complexities and contrasts of a region that eludes easy definitions - whether geographical, political or cultural. It's here that East meets West head on, with all the bizarre juxtapositions that brings - religion and secularism, tradition and innovation, Jewish-Arab synthesis and Jewish-Arab conflict. The political situation, in particular, hits you as soon as you arrive. For all the millennia of religious and political strife, the question that has dominated the area since the State of Israel came into being just over fifty years ago is: one country or two? Though increasingly seen as the latter - Israel and Palestine - there are still those on both sides who deny the other's right to exist. But for all the fits and starts that the peace process has been through, attitudes have mellowed, and most Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, however reluctantly, now accept each other's claim to nationhood, and even each other's right to self-determination. Even so, it's not always clear where one ends and the other begins: Israeli settlements dot the West Bank and Gaza Strip, while in Israel itself, nearly one in five of the population are Arabs, most of whom regard themselves as Palestinians. As a visitor you are unlikely to encounter trouble, but conflict still simmers.

Inhabiting this complicated yet intoxicating melting pot is a multicultural population equally difficult to classify. Though it belongs, for the most part, to one of two ethnic groups - Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs - there are a plethora of subdivisions within both. Israeli Jews can be religious or secular, and ethnically Sephardi or Ashkenazi, while further diversity arises from each Jewish immigrant community retaining something of the culture of its country of origin, be they Yemeni, Russian or Ethiopian, Cochinese Jews from Kerala (south India), the Shinlung of Manipur (northeast India), or Jews from the English-speaking countries of the West. Among Palestinian Arabs, too, there is a religious-secular divide, and further separation into Muslim and Christian. Smaller ethnic communities that have found a home here include the Samaritans of Nablus and Holon, the Druze of the Carmel, the Galilee and the Golan Heights, and the Armenians of Jerusalem, who have one of the Old City's quarters virtually to themselves.

Customer Reviews:

outdated, spiritless.......2006-01-12

I bought this and thought it was OK but then I saw my friend's Let's Go Israel. It's much much much much much better in every way, and it was pub'd in 2003. Get it instead.

Good But Needs Updating.......2005-01-08

Despite the 1998 publishing date, I used this for a two week trip to Israel in December 04. Generally very good with the usual thorough Rough Guide background sections. Not too much problem with out of date information, but the lodging sections desperately need updating. Six years is a long time.

Rough Guide to Israel.......2000-05-19

The guide was basic and gave general information. Would have like to have more history on places of interest. But good over all guide. I found the Knolf guide excellant for history, architech, customs and arts of the area. A good refernance to Palestinian Territories.

Book Description

Since the beginning of civilization there have been slaves. Men and women, young and old, black and white, from China to Brazil and everywhere in between, millions have been enslaved. Richard Watkins traces the countless journeys and trials of slaves around the world and throughout time, and champions those who fought against it and helped shape slave-free nations for future generations.

Customer Reviews:

Insight in simplicity.......2003-08-18

Watkins places the whole slavery phenomenon in perspective. In SLAVERY: BONDAGE THROUGHOUT HISTORY, he situates the American experience within a wider spectrum, in a broader time and space framework. Watkins includes the reasons for and how one became (or becomes) a slave. What is great about this book is that is extremely readable, even if Watkins has limited sources. Nonetheless, his translation thereof is understandable without being trite or condescending. Watkins always walks the fine line between making the book understandable and placing as much information as he possibly can. I have to give Watkins kudos for infusing very relevant timeline information into the six heavily weighted New World chapters.

This is not a unique observation, but the aesthetics of his illustrations are readily apparent ý they are hauntingly beautiful. The sketches are a wonderful complement to the text. Watkins gives his target audience (G 6-10) a graphic sense of the horrific nature of the institution of slavery. What comes through is the sense of hopelessness when one person becomes property of another. Watkins is strong on the sense of a lack of agency. Nonetheless, he has an out; agency can be had via the anti-thesis of this lack of agency ý those who fought to free the slaves. Watkins is sophisticated without being pretentious. A wonderful source/foundation and a great introduction to a complex issue.

Miguel Llora

Good beginning at explaining slavery to younger people.......2002-10-29

In the USA, slavery is tinted by the nature of slavery here from the 15th to 19th centuries. Slavery did not begin in the New World nor was New World slavery typical of the condition throughout history and around the world. Watkins is the first real attempt I've seen at trying to express this reality on the level that a older grade schooler or a junior high student could understand. In 15 short chapters, the variety of slavery is fairly good. However, at least 6 chapters are focused on the New World but these are mixed in with the other chapters making it a bit awkward to follow. There are a few errors in the book and some contradictions that are not explained by the inherite contradictions of human slavery. Frankly the bibliography is horribly brief and very New World focused too. Add into this that the tone is rather judgemental especially about slavery in the modern world. So why 4 stars? This is a very brief book whose target audience is the 14 under group. The pictures are beautiful and I think that Watkins is riding a good balance between too much information and realistic information.

Substance of the debate in the House of Commons, on the 15th May, 1823, on a motion for the mitigation and gradual abolition of slavery throughout the ... reasonings illustrative of colonial bondage.

Average customer rating:

Substance of the debate in the House of Commons, on the 15th May, 1823, on a motion for the mitigation and gradual abolition of slavery throughout the ... reasonings illustrative of colonial bondage.
Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons.
Manufacturer: Cornell University Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Product Description

This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection

Book Description

Drawings are conventionally thought of as handmade objects, on a flat surface, that can be hung on a wall. The works that Edward Kienholz termed drawings are, like his freestanding sculptures, assemblages of things found ready-made. They appeared as early as 1961, the year in which Kienholz produced the first of the room-sized sculptural tableaux that became synonymous with his name. The evolution of the drawings runs precisely parallel with that of the tableaux, stretching across the whole of his career, first as a sculptor working alone, and from 1972 in collaboration with his wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz.

Until now the drawings have been shown and reproduced only in relation to the large sculptures. This handsome book examines this central and major body of work and explores the concept of "drawings" as a studio process for the Kienholzes

Customer Reviews:

This book is for the specialist researcher and collector ........1999-07-23

This book is a facsimile reprint of the original arsenal report of the 1874 equipment boards for infantry and horse equipment. I have found it useful in my studies but the general reader has no need for this.

Average customer rating:

Another Antique Trader Teaser

Art Pottery: American & European Price Guide (Antique Trader's American & European Art Pottery Price Guide)

Manufacturer: Krause Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Glass & Glassware | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Pottery & Ceramics | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Reference | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Ceramics | Other Media | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Miller's: American Art Pottery : How to Compare & Value (Miller's Treasure Or Not)

Antique Trader's Pottery & Porcelain Ceramics Price Guide (Antique Trader Pottery & Porcelain Ceramics Price Guide, 3rd ed)

Kovels' New Dictionary of Marks: Pottery and Porcelain 1850 to Present (Kovel's Dictionary of Marks)

American Art Pottery: Identification & Values

Antique Trader Metalwares Price Guide (Antique Trader's Metalwares Price Guide)

ASIN: 0873494059

Book Description

This handy reference provides the only comprehensive price guide to the field of Art Pottery, both American and European. Drawing from major auction and dealer sources, 3,500 detailed descriptions and 500 photos highlight the products of well-known firms such as Rookwood, Grueby, Weller, and Fulper, as well as dozens of lesser known firms creating pieces in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Features a special introductory section on the American Art Pottery Movement, sketches of typical Art Pottery forms, and sketches of markings found on many varieties of Art Pottery.

• Comprehensive price guide to American and European Art Pottery
• Includes detailed descriptions with photos making identification and pricing easy
• Special introductory section on the American Art Pottery Movement

Customer Reviews:

Another Antique Trader Teaser.......2005-10-30

As with most Antique Trader (AT) reference guides, this one covers a broad range of art pottery artists and manufacturers. However, as is again typical of the AT guides, the scope is quite ambitious, as is the content. The pieces are rare and pricey, and there is too great a variety at the expense of thoroughness. It's a good book for getting a basic range of the different price levels and styles of artists and manufacturers, but if you want to seriously collect or deal in any specific pottery line, you'd do better to find a book devoted to that particular pottery.

Antique Trader American & European Decorative and Art Glass Price Guide (Antique Trader's American & European Decorative & Art Glass Price Guide, 2nd ed)

Average customer rating:

If you can buy the pieces in this book, you can probably afford a nicer book
Excellent reference book for the price!
Great New Guidebook For Decorative and Art Glass Collectors

Antique Trader American & European Decorative and Art Glass Price Guide (Antique Trader's American & European Decorative & Art Glass Price Guide, 2nd ed)

Manufacturer: Krause Publications
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 | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Reference | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Glass & Glassware | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0873418964

Book Description

All major types of American and European art and decorative glasswares produced in the 19th and 20th centuries receive comprehensive coverage in the second edition of this authoritative guide. Working with the most current sales results and assisted by material from special contributors, a compact package with a wealth of information has been compiled. Noted authority, Louis O. St. Aubin, lends his special insights and expertise to insure that this is the most current and accurate information available. Dealers, collectors and appraisers searching for a single, handy reference to this field couldn't do better than this volume.

-240 pages of listings as well as drawings of typical glass forms, a glossary of terms and special appendices.
-Listings for 5,000 items highlighted with 500 black and white photos.
-Special sixteen-page color supplement.

Customer Reviews:

If you can buy the pieces in this book, you can probably afford a nicer book.......2005-10-30

Interestingly enough, this book doesn't have a table of contents. Fortunately, unlike the general topic Antique Trader guides, this volume does contain an index, making it much more pleasant and efficient to use. However, the content is a bit ambitious for the average collector. The average price of the pieces in this book is about a $1,000.00. If you're looking for a book to help you value moderately priced collectible glass, this isn't it. However, this is a good book for learning the various forms and styles of art glass. It also contains a decent glossary. With the advent of e-bay, the prices are also a bit out of whack. Some of them are quite low, while others are too high. However, generally speaking, this is a good book for the person who wants to learn about art glass in general and get a good synopsis of some popular styles such as Custard, Cut and Opalescent. If you can get this book for a few bucks, it's a good addition to your glass library, and it's fun to look at the pictures!

Excellent reference book for the price!.......2001-09-25

I probably have spent over $6,000 on glass reference books, and this little gem get's used as much as any of them. For the $14 [...]charged it's a great investment, I throw it in my car and have a great little reference when I'm out and about that covers a very broad variety of glass. There are a few miss-atributions, but overall it's a good price guide, well worth the small price!

Great New Guidebook For Decorative and Art Glass Collectors.......2000-12-30

This brand new year 2000 2nd edition volume contains 240 pages of useful information about this fine collectible. There are more than 500 black and white photos along with a 16-page full color section. There's plenty of text in this book including a useful introduction to the collectible, the evolution of art glass 1880 to 1930, diagrams of typical forms of baskets and bowls, cruets and decanters, pitchers and ewers, and vases. Each of these categories is diagrammed with a description of its characteristics, making identification easy. Items are clearly described, and values shown. There is a bibliography, listing of collectors clubs, and location of museum collections. A wealth of information in this handy sized (6 x 9") softbound volume that's easily carried when you antique. A very helpful publication.

American & European Decorative & Art Glass Price Guide

Average customer rating:

American & European Decorative & Art Glass Price Guide

Manufacturer: Antique Trader Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Art | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Glass & Glassware | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Reference | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0930625498

Book Description

Few women in the past three decades have lit up the American imagination like Cybill Shepherd. From wholesome beauty queen to saucy cover girl, from heartbreaking movie star (The Last Picture Show) to one of television's most beloved comediennes (Moonlighting and Cybill), she has imbued each of her roles--right down to her current passions as devoted mother of three, champion of women's issues, and sultry cabaret singer--with an indomitable spirit that has made her, at fifty, a female icon to an entire generation. Now in her much-anticipated memoir, she tells her remarkable story with humor, pathos, and more highlights than her famously blond hair. Cybill has absorbed the lessons of Southern womanhood, including the whispered message about sex: Wait until you're married, then you won't enjoy it, and certainly never speak of it. She gleefully disobeyed these and other rules of decorum in a career laced with controversy, featuring unforgettable cameos by Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Orson Welles, Robert De Niro, and Jeff Bridges. Whether stepping on Elvis's blue suede shoes or going toe-to-toe with Bruce Willis, Cybill has never held anything back, and it's all in Cybill Disobedience, including:

the night a network executive tried to barter thirteen episodes for a horizontal tour of Cybill's bedroom

why she'll never be invited back to Ryan O'Neal's beach house or Marlon Brando's island

the time she greeted David Letterman in nothing but a towel

the real reason two of television's most popular and acclaimed series, died premature deaths

how she made Richard Nixon blush for the first and only time in his life

From her Memphis roots to her insider's track in Hollywood, Cybill Shepherd is a woman who has weathered every onslaught and withstood every rebuke to emerge as a luminous model of endurance, courage, and an insatiable lust for life.

Customer Reviews:

The Cybill Strikes Back!.......2007-05-07

I wanted to read this book mainly to see what Cybill would say about Bruce Willis and Moonlighting, one of my all-time favorite shows, and although I was left wanting more, she does give a few interesting tidbits about them. But even if she hadn't this would still be a page turner.

Most references to Cybill Shepherd by the media over the years have been negative. I just wanted to hear her side of her story for a change and I have no problem with this so-called 'B-list' actor making a few bucks in the process.

While I don't approve of or agree with everything Cybill says she's done or believes in, this little book is a small interesting slice of history and a record of how things work behind the scenes of the modeling and acting professions. The message I got is 'proceed with extreme caution - or better yet choose another career.'

Also, my belief that Hollywood culture is depraved in general remains unshaken after reading this. And you certainly can't blame it all on Cybill Shepherd.

Even so, I appreciate what I believe is Cybill's candor about herself, the people she's met and her experiences which is written with a witty humor and a verbal style I appreciate.

You Know...She May Be A B-List Celebrity But This Isn't That Bad A Book.......2005-10-16

I don't know what compelled me to check this out from the library since I didn't really know who Cybill Shepherd was, but she kept me reading with her honesty and `dang-it-it's-true' breed of self-flattery. In this autobiography, the star of the '80's TV hit Moonlighting (when she mentioned Moonlighting, I was finally like, "Oh, I know who she is...") candidly talks about the cut-throat world of Hollywood, tells about how Hef, of Playboy fame, stole images from her nude scene and improperly published them, talks about an affair with Elvis (who "charmed" her by telling her in one of his pill-popping hazes about the time a doctor gave him an injection directly into the pupil of his eye!!!!!) and throws caution to the wind and dodges claims of skankhood by talking about a seemingly unending series of affairs with scores of married and unmarried men, from her beauty queen teen years in Memphis, well into her fifties. Shepherd name-drops and that's the making of this book since it's most interesting when the focus is not on her. She tells about having Orson Welles as a long-term house guest, about how she introduced Elvis to certain amorous technique, tells of clashes with Bruce Willis, whose ego was a match for her own, and provides tell-all revelations about some of the biggest stars in the movie business during the 1970's. Shepherd is also doggedly committed to certain feminist causes and gives ink to her views on them. This book is definitely a celebrity stroking her ego, but it's not dull or preachy and since it can be read in about two hours, it's not a bad way to spend a free afternoon.

I'm blonde, I'm beautiful, and don't you forget it!.......2005-05-20

Truly the title sums up the whole of this autobiography. I wonder if Ms. Shepherd hadn't believed so deeply in her ephemeral outer beauty, maybe others wouldn't have assumed that that's all she had going for her.

Conspicuously absent from her story were her relationships with her siblings, which were touched on ever-so-briefly toward the end, tellingly admitting that they had a tenuous connection at best, their sibling bonds having been sacrificed at the alter of Shepherd's career.

Cybill Shepherd spent her life being promiscuous, including involvment with married men, and lays it all out for the record, no matter how it makes her look. It's amazing to me that she never came away from fling after short-term fling not feeling used or taken advantage of.

The comment that rings the loudest to me, out of everything she crammed furiously into this book, was the fact that she tried to make '5 minutes feel like 5 hours' with her kids, as if that were possible. Although she does go on to admit that it is simply not possible to do it all.

Contradictory to me is the fact that Ms. Shepherd found lurid tabloid stories to be embarassing and insulting to herself and her children, but she voluntarily lays bare all her personal laundry.

I picked up this book because I fondly remember Moonlighting as must-see TV of my teenage years, Maddie Hayes and David Addison being the best on-screen couple of my generation. Although that was just one small part of Cybill's story, I did find the Hollywood insider stuff a fun guilty pleasure.

One last criticism - the subtitle is far too long and completely unnecessary, bordering on downright silly.

Example of one version of the Liberated Life.......2004-08-24

Cybill Disobedience : How I Survived Beauty Pageants, Elvis, Sex, Bruce Willis, Lies, Marriage, Motherhood, Hollywood, and the Irrepressible Urge to Say What I Think
by Cybill Shepherd

This was an interesting read and useful as a resource since it is a first person description of the kind of life one can lead as a liberated (using the pill) female. Not only was Cybill successful, but as she says, she was "a very, very, bad girl." Cybill did what she wanted to do.

Regardless of whether or not this sort of life should be recommended, it is certainly a resource that can be referred to as an example.

You have to be a big fan, to find all of this interesting........2004-04-19

Some interesting comments about show business, and about some of the people she worked with, and went to bed with. The last part, about her TV show, "Cybill," would only interest a BIG fan of the show. (Who did what and who said what about the show's individual episodes isn't exactly gripping reading.) (I'm glad it's a short book.)

Customer Reviews:

Must Read for Napoleonic Fans.......2006-09-13

This is a unique book. It is one of the few memoirs of a line infantryman from the Napoleonic Wars. It is all the more interesting in that it is a soldier of the famous 95th Rifles. The original version was a stream of conciousness tome dictated by Rifleman Harris some years after the war. In was not in chronological order and could be quite confusing to all but the most informed student of the war. Eileen Hathaway has done two marvelous things in this version that make it much more accessible. First she has sorted out the original narrative of Rifleman Harris in chronological order with very brief explanations of the context in which they were written. (With one chapter of all the bits even she could not figure out when they happended.) Secondly, she has incorporated extracts from other memoirs of the time that bear on the same events that Rifleman Harris is describing. This also helps to give context. Rifleman at the time often had little or no understanding of the larger context. Not only did they suffer the same lack of view of the entire battlefield as any infantryman, but the nature of how riflemen were employed lead to them generally seeing an even more restricted portion of the battle. Hence Eilens narrative and the related memoir extracts puts everything in a perspective.

All ain all a great read and a perspective hard to come by elsewhere on Napoleonic service.

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