Radiant Energy in Relation to Forest

Book Description

Family vacations have never been so easy with Frommer's. It's like having a friend show you around, taking you to the places local parents and kids like best. Our expert authors have already gone everywhere you might go-they've done the legwork for you, and they're not afraid to tell it like it is, saving you time and money. No other series offers candid reviews of so many hotels and restaurants in all price ranges, and tells you which ones are kid-friendly. Every Frommer's with Kids Travel Guide is up-to-date, with exact prices for everything, dozens of color maps, and exciting coverage of sports, shopping, and outdoor activities. You'd be lost without us!

This new first edition of Frommer's Toronto with Kids reveals the most fun experiences for kids of all ages in Canada's biggest city. It's full of incredibly detailed tips - right down to which hotels offer cribs and rollaway beds and which restaurants offer high chairs and kids' menus. Inside you'll learn where to find hands-on, interactive museums; children's entertainment, from concerts to puppet shows; a guide to the top ten attractions; kid-oriented shopping; plus amusement parks, green parks, and other places to play. There are even suggested itineraries for each age group making trip planning a snap! Let Frommer's Toronto with Kids show your family the exciting sights and sounds of Toronto.

Book Description

Investors have too often extrapolated from recent experience. In the 1950s, who but the most rampant optimist would have dreamt that over the next fifty years the real return on equities would be 9% per year? Yet this is what happened in the U.S. stock market. The optimists triumphed. However, as Don Marquis observed, an optimist is someone who never had much experience. The authors of this book extend our experience across regions and across time. They present a comprehensive and consistent analysis of investment returns for equities, bonds, bills, currencies and inflation, spanning sixteen countries, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. This is achieved in a clear and simple way, with over 130 color diagrams that make comparison easy.

Crucially, the authors analyze total returns, including reinvested income. They show that some historical indexes overstate long-term performance because they are contaminated by survivorship bias and that long-term stock returns are in most countries seriously overestimated, due to a focus on periods that with hindsight are known to have been successful.

The book also provides the first comprehensive evidence on the long-term equity risk premium--the reward for bearing the risk of common stocks. The authors reveal whether the United States and United Kingdom have had unusually high stock market returns compared to other countries. The book covers the U.S., the U.K., Japan, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, and South Africa.

Triumph of the Optimists is required reading for investment professionals, financial economists, and investors. It will be the definitive reference in the field and consulted for years to come.

Customer Reviews:

Priceless.......2004-02-09

This book, together with a good book on Warren Buffet basics, will provide the private stock market investor with the tools needed for extraordinary investment success. First, a book on Buffet basics will teach the investor how to identify exceptional businesses and how to value them correctly (by calculating the present value of the total cash that can be extracted from the business during its expected life). Next, Triumph of the Optimists will be of tremendous help in selecting the appropriate valuation variables, e.g. equity risk premium, discount rate, etc to be used. By incorporating the statistics provided in this book into your valuations, you will have 101 years of global investment history on your side. As a global investor for more than twenty years, I sometimes had to learn the hard way that "reversion to the mean" is a basic investment truth that dare not be ignored. This book will tell you what that "mean" is. Some may argue that this book is expensive, or that its statistics may be slightly distorted, but in real life this book's practical value makes it priceless.

Very disappointing given the price.......2003-07-14

This is a very handsome book with lovely graphs etc. However I was after a useful summary of historical market performance.

This book was lacking in several respects:

1. The numbers behind the graphs are not provided and are not available so you cannot do any further analysis yourself. The graphs themselves are also drawn in such a way that it is hard to extract the numbers using a ruler.

2. The problem of survivorship bias. They claim that while the 16 countries analysed are an incomplete list (only 70% of world GDP in 1900), this is not a big problem, they feel. Their message that stocks do well in the long run supposedly remains intact, however they do not provide any solid evidence of this. The countries left out of course suffered terrible performance, with total confiscation of assets in most cases and major losses in others.

The countries left out include: Russia, China, Eastern Europe, Latin America. As an example, Argentina was the wealthiest country 100 years ago but was left out. They claim that their criterion for inclusion was the availability of data, but Switzerland was included even though the data is incomplete.

In my opinion, some attempt should have been made to adjust for this problem.

3. No assessment is made of the issue of capital controls etc as an impedement to implementing the world indexing strategy. It is simply assumed that equal dollar indexing could be implemented without any costs, and with no taxes.

All in all, this book fails to provide a realistic and convincing assessment of global investment returns in the real world.

Victor Niederhoffer uses this book to justify his bullishness on stocks, Sorry Vic, no cigar.

Fun to read in conjunction with Adventure Capitalist.......2003-07-09

A lot of work went into this book. But it is scarce on the conclusions side. I know this is deliberate and that the purpose of the authors was just to provide a volume of data with some interpretation but there are just too many loose ends.

First, although much is made of the quality of the data much of the data is from other authors and sources and is used blindly. In other words much of what the authors have done is collation.

Second, there are several countries that ostensibly did better than the U.S and Britain during the twentieth century but little is said about this fact and indeed the authors spend some pages justifying the emphasis on the U.S. and Great Britain during the twentieth century. But the reasons they give are hollow. There may have been justification but greater depth was in order.

Third, although there is a great deal of information in the book several graphs are presented in a confusing manner i.e. the same color line is used for several curves on the same graph making interpretation almost impossible.

Fourth, reading the book is in many places a lot like taking the SAT or GRE graph interpretation section. There is much here but it would have been much more impressive if the authors had drawn some deeper conclusions than was the case. Probably many will attempt to justify this deficiency by stating that the purpose of the book was the assembly of the data in one place and that others will use the data for developing profound interpretations and conclusions. But I don't believe that will happen: the authors understand that the main users of the book will be institutional and personal investors. That is sad for there is much to be interpreted here in a deep and satisfying manner.

Fifth, the authors clearly suscribe to the idea that the data in this book will help readers determine the most likely future returns of the stock markets. But I suspect strongly that William Bernstein is correct and that past returns are best at determining future risks of investing and rather less usefull for determining future returns. The case the authors make for using the data for determining future results is laughable: in essence everybody else does it. The hypothesis may be true but that is hardly a case for it.

Sixth, it would have been fascinating for the authors to have analysed how open some of these societies were during various periods in the twentieth century and related that to investment performance.

Those that believe a CD or soft copy would have been better because of the more detailed access to the data have missed the point entirely.

In the final analysis there is enough data here to keep political economists, sophisticated investors, and many others occupied for many years-if nothing else they can attempt to fill in some of the gaping holes. For instance, many in the U.S. believe that our inflation numbers for several years now are "cooked" to some extent. Certainly this is true for some other countries as well. Yet every bit of the inflation data is presented as the gospel with no challenge or analysis. If the authors did do some analysis here (or even if the primary sources did) and found the "cooking" insignificant or significant then it seems they should have presented their findings in a more complete fashion. Is the data reliable or not? That is the question. This is just one example out of the entire book. Hardly a page goes by without similar questions arising. Too bad the authors could not be bothered to answer any of them

Finally, it is particulary fun to read Triumph of the Optimists in conjunction with Adventure Capitalist.

Triumph is a Triumph.......2003-05-16

Triumph of the Optimists is a terrific resource for those wanting to know more about how different types of investments have performed in different countries over the long term. This information should appeal to a wide variety of readers including investors trying to globally diversify their portfolios, corporate managers trying to estimate their company's cost of capital, and professors and students of finance seeking a more global perspective on the age-old subject of risk and return.

This is a knowledge bank.......2003-02-03

I was keenly looking for a topic that I did not find treated in this book either: some correlation between demographics and the performance of stocks and bonds. As the developed world faces unprecedented demographic challenges with decline of the working age populations, I was curious to see its implications analysed in a historical sense (positive or negative). For, this phenomenon alone may render the historical trends that we have come to rely on, irrelevant.

All in all, this book has made a lasting impact on my investment thought process. Among the many titles that I have read on finance and investing, this is definitely the best. For me, this information bank provided insights and perspective like nothing else.

I disagree with a previous reviewer that this is some kind of a Census Bureau document. Sure, a CD ROM would have complemented its utility (while potentially increasing the cost); but that in no way lowers the utility or readability of this great work. If anything, the book contains a lot of graphs, which is great.

Average customer rating:
Birdkeeper's Guide to Parrots: Macaw
David Alderton
Manufacturer: Salamander Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Birds | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0861019903

Average customer rating:

A Handy Little Book

Birdkeeper's Guide to Parrots and Macaws
David Alderton
Manufacturer: Tetra Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 392388074X

Customer Reviews:

A Handy Little Book.......2005-06-18

A Guide to Parrots and Macaws is a handy little book to have with the beautiful pictures and short descriptions of several parrot species in the back one third of the book.

In the chapter "Choosing Parrots and Macaws", David Alderton give brief information on various thoughts and differences in choosing pet birds or breeding birds.

In the chapter "Keeping Parrots and Macaws in the Home, he gives some very good information about cages and cage placement. Unfortunately he then goes on to give an outdated method of wing clipping.

The chapter "Keeping Parrots and Macaws in the Garden, gives wonderful details on building outdoor aviaries for all sizes of parrot species.

The "Feeding Parrots and Macaws" chapter has some good information, but is outdated in some parts. Although he does give the basic seed/pellet/fruits/vegetables diet, he indicates the need for grit for digestion.

The "Basic Health Care" chapter lists several disease possibilities and stresses the fact that you must take your bird to veterinarian. I would stress that it must be an avian veterinarian or at the least a veterinarian who regularly treats birds.

The chapter Breeding and Rearing Parrots and Macaws explains methods of sexing birds that are not sexually dimorphic since knowing the sex of your birds is certainly the first step in breeding them. He gives details on the various nestboxes for the various sizes and species of parrots.

This book was published in 1989 and as with many books that are a little older, some of the information is outdated. We have learned a lot about bird care over the last few years that was not known in 1989.

If you can find this book at a reasonable price - taking into consideration that it is quite a small book (95 pages) - I would suggest getting it. The 90 colour photographs and illustrations are wonderful.

Average customer rating:

Another great book of patterns

More Quilts From The Quiltmaker's Gift

More Quilts From the Quilt Makers Gift

More quilts from the Quiltmaker's gift

19 traditional quilt patterns for young quilters

More Quilts From The Quiltmaker's Gift
Joanne Larsen Line
Manufacturer: Orchard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Crafts & Hobbies | Arts & Music | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Quilts & Quilting | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Quilts From The Quiltmaker's Gift

The Quiltmaker's Gift

The Quiltmaker's Journey

Miss Hunnicutt's Hat

Return to Elm Creek: More Quilt Projects Inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts Novels

ASIN: 0439519519

Book Description

Gail de Marcken, illustrator of the award-winning bestseller THE QUILTMAKER'S GIFT, used thirty-nine beautiful quilt patterns to decorate the story, celebrating not only generosity of spirit, but also the joy of quiltmaking. QUILTS FROM THE QUILTMAKER'S GIFT included instructions for twenty of the patterns for both novice and seasoned quilters. MORE QUILTS FROM THE QUILTMAKER'S GIFT provides instructions for the final nineteen quilts.

Customer Reviews:

Another great book of patterns.......2007-10-05

ANOTHER 'drool and dream' book! Oh, I wish I had the experience and talent to make every quilt in this book. A must have companion book to the book "The Quiltmaker's Gift", and "Quilts From the Quiltmaker's Gift". Simply a delight!

More Quilts From The Quiltmaker's Gift.......2007-03-31

This is a wonderful book. The instructions for the quilts are the best I've come across and the illustrations throughout are delightful.

More Quilts From the Quilt Makers Gift.......2007-01-29

I found this book to be exceptionally interesting and helpful.

More quilts from the Quiltmaker's gift.......2007-01-29

Don't know where to start. Hope to be able to make some of the esquiste quilts.

19 traditional quilt patterns for young quilters.......2004-02-08

This needlecraft publication by children's books publisher Orchard Books is deftly designed to have appeal to quilting enthusiastis all ages, and so is reviewed here as the perfect parent/child introduction to quilts and quilting. More Quilts From The Quiltmaker's Gift features 19 traditional quilt patterns for young quilters, including instructions on fabric selections, assembly details, and clear piecing directions. Parents will want to use Joanne Line's More Quilts From The Quiltmaker's Gift as a guide for involving the entire family in a quilting project, as it's most accessible to all.

Average customer rating:

Quilts from the Quiltmaker's Gift
Must have book
well done
book
Let's Have Some Fun!

Quilts From The Quiltmaker's Gift
Joanne Larsen Line
Manufacturer: Scholastic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Quilts & Quilting | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0439309093

Customer Reviews:

Quilts from the Quiltmaker's Gift.......2007-10-10

This is one of the best quilting books I have in my collection. I have been quilting for over 10 years now and I find myself going back to these books. They have variations on each pattern, wonderful illustrations that show step by step how to make each cut and seam. Wonderful books for beginners as well as experienced quilters! A must have for anyone who loves to sew.

Must have book.......2007-10-05

This is truly a 'drool and dream' book! Oh, I wish I had the experience and talent to make every quilt in this book. A must have companion book to the book "The Quiltmaker's Gift".

well done.......2007-06-27

I love the [patterns taken from the quiltmakers gift and easy to make directions.
For all ranges of quilters from beginner to advanced.
Wonderful for scrap quilts.
Enjoy

book.......2007-01-29

it looks good..i havent used it yet..but it looks just as i thought it would

Let's Have Some Fun!.......2007-01-09

Quilters! Lets have some fun with this book! I am currently making every quit in this book crib size. The directions are easy to follow. You might wonder why? I will be using these quilts while reading to children The Quiltmaker's Gift. It will be fun for them to hold the quilts while listening to the story! This book is for any quilter beginner or advanced. Let yourself go and have some fun with it!

Average customer rating:

Quilts from the Quiltmaker's Gift

Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 1417655003

Average customer rating:
Money, Manure & Maintenance: Ingredients for Successful Gardens of Marian Coffin Pioneer Landscape Architect 1876-1957
Nancy Fleming
Manufacturer: Country Place Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0964300303

Book Description

Money, Manure, and Maintenance were the three ingredients necessary for successful gardens, according to Marian Coffin, a pioneer landscape architect in the first half of the 20th century. The book contains many illustrations of Coffin's garden designs, including Delaware estates: Winterthur, Mt. Cuba, and Gibraltar, as well as the King's Garden at Ft. Ticonderoga, and other estate gardens and campuses.

Average customer rating:

Great for week to week notations / dedicated journal writers

No baby development

Your Pregnancy Journal Week by Week: A Keepsake Journal to Chart Your Progress and Thoughts
Glade B. Curtis , and Judith Schuler
Manufacturer: Perseus Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Spiral-bound

General | Pregnancy & Childbirth | Women's Health | Personal Health | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
General | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Your Pregnancy Week by Week, Fifth Edition

The Everything Pregnancy Organizer (Everything)

Your Pregnancy For The Father To Be: Everything Dads Need to Know About Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Getting Ready for a New Baby (Your Pregnancy Series)

Expecting You: My Pregnancy Journal

The What to Expect Pregnancy Journal & Organizer

ASIN: 1555613438
Release Date: 2002-04-09

Book Description

From the authors of the best-selling Your Pregnancy Week by Week series, a handsomely packaged journal that is also a wonderful resource for expectant mothers.

The nine months of pregnancy are a special time for all women, a time of wonder, dreams, hopes, and, above all, awesome physical change. Your Pregnancy Journal is the perfect place for women to record thoughts and also to keep a record of their physical progress as they march toward delivery. In addition to ample space for the mom-to-be to write weekly musings and keep track of doctor appointments, test results, and changes in weight, blood pressure, and belly measurements, this elegantly designed journal includes a wealth of helpful and interesting medical, nutritional, and exercise information and tips. The perfect gift, Your Pregnancy Journal is also a wonderfully wise and reassuring resource for a mother-to-be.

Customer Reviews:

Great for week to week notations / dedicated journal writers.......2007-09-17

I bought this book with my 2nd pregnancy and found it gratifying to write on a weekly basis. Most preg. journals do not have that option. I wish I had this book with my 1st pregnancy for a more detailed account to compare to my 2nd pregnancy.

No baby development.......2005-08-14

I am disappointed in this journal. This is my second pregnancy and I should have just gone ahead and bought the same journal I used the first time, which is "The Pregnancy Journal: A Day-to-Day Guide to a Healthy and Happy Pregnancy" by A. Christine Harris, PhD. Dr. Harris' book is excellent with detailed development of your baby day-by-day, but doesn't have tons of space for writing (which is great if you only want to jot a few things down each week). Dr. Curtis' journal is week-by-week, but doesn't explain if this journal is for the pregnancy time of gestational age or ovulatory age, so I wasn't sure what dates to write in. Each week gives common sense advice on pregnancy in general, not really needed in a second pregnancy. I bought this journal because I wanted more space to write, but I find myself referring to my old journal for the info I really want to know.

Book Description

Andy Warhol was queer in more ways than one. A fabulous queen, a fan of prurience and pornography, a great admirer of the male body, he was well known as such to the gay audiences who enjoyed his films, the police who censored them, the gallery owners who refused to show his male nudes, and the artists who shied from his swishiness, not to mention all the characters who populated the Factory. Yet even though Warhol became the star of postmodernism, avant-garde, and pop culture, this collection of essays is the first to explore, analyze, appreciate, and celebrate the role of Warhol’s queerness in the making and reception of his film and art. Ranging widely in approach and discipline, Pop Out demonstrates that to ignore Warhol’s queerness is to miss what is most valuable, interesting, sexy, and political about his life and work.
Written from the perspectives of art history, critical race theory, psychoanalysis, feminist theory, cinema studies, and social and literary theory, these essays consider Warhol in various contexts and within the history of the communities in which he figured. The homoerotic subjects, gay audiences, and queer contexts that fuel a certain fascination with Warhol are discussed, as well as Batman, Basquiat, and Valerie Solanas. Taken together, the essays in this collection depict Warhol’s career as a practical social reflection on a wide range of institutions and discourses, including those, from the art world to mass culture, that have almost succeeded in sanitizing his work and his image.
General readers with interests in Warhol, Pop art, and gay and lesbian issues will find this book appealing as will more academic audiences working in art history, queer theory, cultural studies, postmodernism, and popular culture.

Contributors. Jennifer Doyle, Jonathan Flatley, Marcie Frank, David E. James, Mandy Merck, Michael Moon, José Esteban Muñoz, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Brian Selsky, Sasha Torres, Simon Watney, Thomas Waugh

Customer Reviews:

oh well.............2003-01-05

I didn't think this book was particularly strong. It has writings from academics whom I totally admire. And I understand why people would study gayness as it relates to 1960s popular culture. Still, this book has very little about Warhol and his sexuality in it. A person is better off reading a biography of Warhol, especially those written by the people who knew him personally. This was quite an unimpressive anthology.

Book Description

Certain to fascinate anyone intrigued about the future of the Middle East, these revealing memoirs of Shimon Peres, former Israeli Minister of Defense and winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, tell of his relationships with Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and others whom he encountered during his amazing career.

Customer Reviews:

Better To Read What Rabin Said About Peres..........2006-11-19

It was the murdered Yitzhak Rabin who described his perenniel
rival and sometimes partner, Shimon Peres, the best:
"the inveterate underminer" (quoted from Rabin's autobiography).
Peres is the quientessential politician who has no charisma
or ideas of his own, but who works hard, harder than any
of his rivals, and through endless intrigues,
makes sure to place people loyal to him in positions of
power and influence, so that when the time comes and he decides
to make his move for power, those who oppose him are strongarmed
(or worse) out of his way.
Peres played a major role in building Israel's defense establishment
and defense industries, and in addition served an outstanding
term as Prime Minister in the years 1984-1986, but this wasn't enough for his immense ego.
He wanted international recognition as a "statesman", and in
a world largely hostile to the idea of a "Jewish State", he
came to realize that true international approbriation comes NOT to Israelis
like Ben-Gurion, Eshkol or Golda Meir, who built up Israel, but rather
to those who begin to dismantle it. It truly galled him that his
Likud opposite number Menachem Begin won the so-called Nobel "Peace" Prize
for destroying Jewish communities in the Sinai and giving up Israel's only supply of oil to Sadat who had no intention of honoring his "Peace" agreement with Israel, so he decided to outdo Begin by bringing mass-murderer Yasser Arafat and his terrorist gangs to Israel, giving them money, weapons, and territory from which to attack Israel. Peres denounced
those who did not fall into his trap as "murderers of peace", "fascists", and the such. Peres managed to convince, bribe or threaten enough Knesset members to support this madness and got the Israeli government to carry out this suicidal policy. Sure enough, Arafat launched his long-awaited terrorist war in September 2000 and it has claimed THOUSANDS of Israeli dead and wounded. Yet, in spite of this, there is not a single word of regret of remorse from Peres and he still sits near the pinnnacle of power.
Peres has lost, to the best of my knowledge, every single secret-ballot election (either to the Knesset or the leadership of the Labor Party) he ever ran in where he was opposed by a serious candidate. However, in open votes, he fairs better because those who openly oppose him, often fall victim to police investigations, criminal proceedings (whether they are actually guilty of
anything is irrelevant), slander in the media or worse.
If you really are interested in finding out about Peres' influence on Israeli politics,
I strongly urge you to read Rabin's autobiography. That will give a much
clearer view of this man.

Battling for Credibility.......2001-12-24

Is Israel's perennial loser perhaps a winner after all? It is said that people take comfort from the setbacks of others and after his failure to win any election making him PM it would be easy to write off Shimon Peres.

His autobiography "Battling for Peace" shows how a very ambitious politician uses reverses to strengthen his political backbone.

Peres describes his early childhood in Poland, his emigration to Palestine and his political progress which started even while he was on a Kibbutz.

Peres has been at the core of world politics for half a century and has met all other leaders of significance and his pen portraits especially of Mitterand Nixon and Clinton are most entertaining.

The Olso process is reported in detail and this book is a must for anybody who wishes to acquaint temselves with the twisting currents of events in the Middle East.

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