Average customer rating:
- Brilliant
- Floating Cities
- A savant at work!
- The Wrong Description
- The Wrong Description
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Floating Cities: Venice, Amsterdam, Leningrad-And Moscow
Stephen Wiltshire
Manufacturer: Summit Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Drawing
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0671755684 |
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant.......2002-08-09
Stephen Wiltshire's pen and ink drawings are fantastic. He captures each subject perfectly and in incredible detail...sometimes having only seen the subject for a few minutes. Incredible drawings made even more incredible by the fact that Stephen is autistic.
Floating Cities.......2001-11-30
Reading this book was an inspiration.The intricate detail and elegance of each drawing is breath-taking.
As an autistic individual he is able to capture the beauty an essence that a normal person with their eye would not see.
His work seems effortless, and takes him no time to do at all, but yet he is a perfectionist, right down to the last detail.
I am not an art critic, but certainly now I do appreciate the architecture that surrounds me and realize how beautiful it really is, and although Autism is not really understood and how it is actually caused.
Stephen, no matter what level of autism he seems to possess, he has truly mastered and captured the gracefullness of each buillding that he draws.
In a word he is an "Artistic, Autistic Genius."
A savant at work!.......2001-05-06
This man's pictures have to be seen to be believed. Stephen Wiltshire actually is Autistic,operating on a six year old level for most of his adult life. He has a very rare talent of being able to visually process all that he sees and reproduce these images on paper. I have seen him on a TV show being flown around London on a helicopter and reproducing a image of 4 square miles, including 11 London landmarks and over 600 buildings with perfect perspective and scale in less than three hours.
This book has to be appreciated for what it is, a work of a genius!
The Wrong Description.......2000-06-24
I agree that this is not the correct description of the book. Floating cities is actually a series of drawings done by a young english autistic boy. They are absolutely fantastic renditions of famous buildings, made more incredible by the fact that Stephen himself has this overwhelming disability, and many of them were done by memory. This book will make you realise that disabilities are by no means disabling, and can open up worlds unaccessable to the rest of society.
The Wrong Description.......2000-06-24
I agree that this is not the correct description of the book. Floating cities is actually a series of drawings done by a young english autistic boy. They are absolutely fantastic renditions of famous buildings, made more incredible by the fact that Stephen himself has this overwhelming disability, and many of them were done by memory. This book will make you realise that disabilities are by no means disabling, and can open up worlds unaccessable to the rest of society.
Book Description
Celebrated for discovering the world's most unusual oddities, Ripley's Believe It Or Not!® uncovers its third collection of weird, wacky facts from around the globe.
RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT!® EXPECT…THE UNEXPECTED is the latest oversized hardcover book filled with hundreds of astonishing, true-to-life tales about eccentric people, unbelievable places and remarkable creatures unlike any seen before. Packed with striking colour and archival black-and-white photographs that will thoroughly surprise - you won't believe your eyes when you EXPECT…THE UNEXPECTED!
Customer Reviews:
Entertaining and Amazing!.......2007-01-28
Known internationally for its oddities, Ripley's once again publishes a volume filled with amazing facts and astounding information. I loved these as a child and I'm still entertained by the snippets of stunning factoids about the world around us. It makes for a great water-closet read, not to mention a way to gain all sorts of trivia to use as ice breakers. From the one-eyed kitten to the kid that kicked a target almost 3,000 times in an hour, it's all bound to make you go, "Wow!"... or at least cause you to shake your head in wonder.
Ripley's continue to come up with the unbelievable!.......2007-01-15
One of my favorite books when I was about 10 years ago,was "Believe it or Not!" by Ripley.It was a hardcover of 172 pages and an utter delight to me,living in a small town,well before the age of TV.This fascinating and yes,,unbelievable stuff opened up the wonders of the world. Later on, we got Ripley's cartoons in the papers,and in the early 50's a long string of paperbacks.Believe it or Not!;they sold for 25 cents.
Ripley's has continued to entertain and amaze us right up to the present time.This latest book ,like those of the past,is once again excellent.Now that Ripley's is on TV,you would think that books are out of date. Not so,the stuff on TV is the sort of thing that is enhanched by sound and motion.Books still do an excellent job of covering most stories.The daily cartoon in the papers has not been available where I live for several years.However;that is not a problem,as Ripley's website carries it and has archives available as well.
The item in this book that was most interesting to me was about Bryan Berg, the amazing cardstacker shown on pages 70 and 71.I had the wonderful opportunity to watch him build these amazing structures at the Canadian National Exhibition here in Toronto in 2005.Even these pictures hardly do him justice. He has constructed the Empite State Building ,25 feet high and using a ladder. He also constructs a structure ,a couple of levels high.Then he places a plywood panel on top;and gets a baseball team and its coach to stand on top. Believe It or Not!;It doesn't collapse. If interested,Bryan has written a book,"Stacking the Deck" and shows the basis methods used in building these structures. It's a lot of fun,even if you only attempt simple buildings;but the sky is the limit.
Once again another great Ripley book.Not only is the material excellent;the paper,construction,printing and color is excellent as well.
Book Description
Every year, thousands of families visit or relocate to Japan. Fourteen years ago, Jeanne Huey and Diane Wiltshire made the crossing. Five children and six years later they wrote the first complete guide to entertaining and raising children in this fascinating but often baffling land. Now, eight years on they offer a fully updated version, with hundreds of new additions on: AMUSEMENTS festivals, theme parks, cultural centers, zoos, aquariums OUTINGS museums, beaches, parks, playgrounds, gardens TRAVEL TIPS moving, coping with jet lag, getting around town, day trips SHOPPING where to buy anything, from food to fashions to futons HEALTH CARE dentists and doctors, pregnancy and childbirth, medical emergencies EDUCATION daycare, international schools, the Japanese system, bilingualism ACTIVITIES talent agencies, sports, Japanese traditions, and extracurricular classes MAIL ORDER listings, catalogs, and the Internet ... and much, much more Compact yet bulging with priceless information and hundreds of tips, the new Japan for Kids is essential reading for families heading for or living in this part of the Far East. From planetariums to petting zoos, educational materials to interactive museums, this handy reference book remains indispensable-a guide that no parent can go without.
Customer Reviews:
Japan For Kids - best available!.......2001-10-31
OK. The book was written by an American primarily from an American point of view, and is heavily weighted towards life in Tokyo. Some basic demographics: Japan - total population about 127 million. The English speaking population in Tokyo is maybe 40,000 (if you assume that most of the West Europeans speak English on top of their mother tongues). The number of registered foreigners living in all of Japan is about 1,686,444 (as of Dec 2000) of which 2.7% are US citizens representing the fifth largest ethnic group after Koreans, Chinese, Brazilians and Philippinos. This is to give you an idea of how small the total number of English speaking foreign residents is. Naturally they are spread out very unequally all over this country with the greatest numbers concentrated in the Tokyo/Yokohama corridor and in the Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe region.
Diane writes very positively. In spite of lack in total coverage of the whole country, this book makes Japan more attractive to people who would be overwhelmed otherwise by the exotic nature of Japan, a country where very few people are capable of communicating on even the simplest level in English (unlike Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, Holland, India, etc.) The book is too short to address every nook and cranny of an endless topic, but it is a darn good start in the right direction and the only book of it's kind. Supplemented by the Japan Health Handbook, long term visitors have a good set of tools for tackling the job of living here with limited or no Japanese language ability. There are several chapters dealing with general information applicable to living in most urban areas of Japan. She has also included a lot of web site URLs in this second edition which make more detailed information on a local basis available. This book is not the definitive resource, nor was it meant to be at only 320 pages, but it is an excellant place to get started in the exploration of a potential lifetime experience.
For a family travelling as tourists to Japan this book is also immensely useful coupled with the Lonely Planet Guide and universally helpful hotel concierges (even when their English is sometimes lacking). Even if this book only manages to impart to the reader the "flavor" of this country, the multitude of things that appear similar on the surface but are actually quite different, then the reader has acquired that much more data with which to navigate. It may be best to see this book as a good reference book which will lead to other places for more detailed information once arrived in Japan.
Tokyo for American Kids.......2001-03-19
A more apt title for this book is perhaps "Tokyo for American Kids", because that is what it is mostly about. I am located in Yokohama, which is not far from Tokyo, so fortunately it is still useful for me, as it contains some references to Yokohama. However, if you are living in other parts of Japan, the book's usefulness is limited. The book makes many references to getting access to things that you are used to "back home", where home is America, so if you aren't American that's not much help either. Having said all that, the book has many good features if you are living in or near Tokyo, including lists of English-speaking doctors, parks/playgrounds and things to see and do, however don't rely too heavily on the directions to the attractions given in the book, as some of them are pretty ordinary. There is enough general type of information to make the book worth buying regardless of your location, if only to give you an idea of what to expect if you are moving to Japan with children, just don't be disappointed when you discover that most of the specific details provided are aimed at people living in Tokyo. If you are moving to Tokyo, this book is excellent. If you are an American moving to Tokyo, then it's even better!
This book should have been titled " Tokyo for Kids".......2000-09-28
This book should have been titled, "Tokyo for Kids". I was extremely excited to get this book but my excitement faded to disappointment when I opened it's cover to only find mostly things that realated to the Tokyo area. I am currently living in Japan with my husband and daughter and was hoping for more of an insiders view of things to do in Japan. However, I live quite a distance from the Tokyo area and had hoped to find out about things more locally, or even within a more resonable distance then Tokyo. It would have been nice to see more comprensive coverage of Japan. Not everyone who lives here, flocks to the Tokyo area. Although I do plan to visit there at least once while living here, it is not close enough to be the focus of weekend or even monthly outings. There were a few other areas mentioned, but it seemed to me that the authors of this book did not take enough time to throughly reasearch all areas of Japan. There is some useful information in here as far as contacts and ordering, but if you live anywhere outside Tokyo, I can not reccomend this book to you. It is a well written and informative book for what it is, but it should not have been titled, "Japan for Kids", nor claimed to be the ultimate guide...
Too Much Tokyo.......2000-09-28
Yes, there is a lot of great information here, and if you are in Japan with your kids I'm sure this book will be helpful. However, despite the "Japan" in the title, most of the specific places mentioned in the book (museums, hospitals, parks, etc.) are in Tokyo, followed by the Osaka-Kobe area. It can make you very envious if you don't live there!
A Lifesaver.......2000-03-07
This book never left the coffee table in the 2 years we lived in Japan. Although some of the info was outdated (phone numbers, etc.) it gave me so much information on wear to take my 3 year old to play, go to preschool, get a haircut, etc. It even gave me great advice on giving birth in Japan when I became pregnant with baby #2! It is written in a very easy way - I found myself picking it up and reading a few pages whenever I had a free moment. This book is a must for anyone heading over to Japan with kids - DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT! If you can wait until July an updated version will be published (thank you amazon.com for that information!)Since we will probably be heading there again for a few years (this time with 3 kids) I already have it on order.
Book Description
Since its first and prize-winning edition of 1983, Stonehenge Complete has established itself as the classic account of this most famous of ancient places. For this new edition, Christopher Chippindale has revised and updated the story to include the latest theories and discoveries.
People have puzzled over Stonehenge for centuries, speculating and dreaming about it, drawing and painting it, trying to make sense of it. Here is the story of the one real Stonehenge, as well as the many unreal Stonehenges that archaeologists, tourists, mystics, astronomers, artists, poets, and visionaries have made out of it. New studies in the last decade have revolutionized our knowledge of the complex sequence of structures that make its celebrated profile; remarkably, these new discoveries have been made without new excavations.
Stonehenge today is as lively as it ever was. After a period of dissent and confrontation, visitors are once again welcome to see the sun rise over the Heel stone on midsummer solstice day, and some 20,000 people are expected to gather at midsummer dawn this year. As the new edition explains, they are in error: although Stonehenge is indeed astronomically oriented, it is not aligned on the midsummer sunrise at all. 265 illustrations, 15 in color.
Customer Reviews:
Lots of what it is not.......2006-11-01
A solid treatment of the written history regarding Stonehenge. The author likes to chuckle at all the theories he believes are incorrect about the origins of the site. However the author spends more time pointing out how everyone else is incorrect rather than providing summaries of any new likely theories as to it's origin and function. For me I was disappointed by this ommission and feel it is unfair to bash others opinions without presenting in equal detail your own.
Stonehenge.......2005-10-05
Book was very thorough, well planned, and easy to follow. Alot of information.
The book "Stonehenge Complete" is a good read.......2004-12-16
A good book, but Christopher Chippindale failed to mention the first stones brought to Stonehenge in the Late Neolithic Period from the South Wales Coalfield area. Stonehenge's first hauled stones, of course, are the white Early Carboniferous (Mississippian) Period, Arundian Age, High Tor (Birnbeck) Limestone Formation calcium carbonates of its original counterscarp bank (3/4's later moved to Heelstone ditch and Stonehenge's nearest barrow 100 metres east-southeast of Heelstone). These first transported stones overlay Stonehenge's geologic outcrop of white Late Cretaceous Period, Santonian Age, Seaford Chalk Formation calcium carbonates. Other than Christopher Chippindale not mentioning these Stonehenge Whitestones, as they are commonly referred to by BGS (British Geological Survey) geologists, the book "Stonehenge Complete" is a good read.
The Title is a Good Indication.......2004-11-23
If you're looking for a good overview of the History of Stonehenge, this is it. This book covers the 800 years of known writing of Stonehenge to convey a good idea of the history of the monument.
The book was originally published in 1983, and still contains some of the historical viewpoints of Britain in that era, but on the whole is fair and well done. There is some removal of the Astronomical material from first edition, and it instead points toward other sources more involved with that one aspect. Likewise, the archeological data is only what is appropriate for this view of Stonehenge and its surrounding monuments.
If you only have one book on Stonehenge, this should be it, and if you plan on visiting the monument, pick it up first and at least browse through. You will understand the monument so much better, and really appreciate it.
Average customer rating:
- Refreshing comedy of marriage
- Better left unread.
- The truths and lies on which lives are based
- Thought provoking
- Long Distance Love Explored
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Intimate Strangers
Juliette Mead
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Romance
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Romance Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0671537946 |
Customer Reviews:
Refreshing comedy of marriage.......2004-07-25
Restless and out-of-sorts, the British Callahans and the American McCarthys attempt to spice up their summer with a trans-Atlantic home-swap. Big mistake. Or is it? In British author Mead's witty novel of marriage gone awry, people have a refreshing resilience.
Christy Callahan, former stockbroker and Southern belle, turned quintessential housewife and mother, is bored with her role and her husband, Gabe, a hapless, talented lawyer whose consuming goal is her happiness.
And Maggie Callahan is full of resentment toward her successful and philandering journalist husband, Oliver, and fears that she may be doomed to tawdry domestication forever. Oliver, a compulsive liar, rather likes his life the way it is.
Christy is the catalyst for change. A fount of energy, Christy takes on the Wiltshire neighborhood and her borrowed house with crusader's zeal. Enchanted by Oliver's eclectic library (entirely inherited unbeknownst to her), she comes across an unpublished novel about his great doomed love affair and becomes obsessed with his passion.
Mead's character depictions, particularly the women, are unsparing without being unsympathetic. While most novels of dysfunctional marriage, no matter how clever, tend to be arid and bleak, this one is absorbing and deliciously ironic, full of unexpected twists and turns.
A delightful and thoughtful book, Mead's American debut, should win her plenty of new fans.
Better left unread........2001-01-15
The only reason I slogged through this book was to see how it would end. The idea for the storyline was good, but other than that, the book was terrible. You basically have a group of well-to-do people who are not satisfied with what they have and constantly whine and complain about it. The children acted more like adults than the adults did. If you want to read a story about discontentment and infidelity, this book's for you. Otherwise, don't bother.
The truths and lies on which lives are based.......2000-09-16
This plot of this book is pretty straight-forward: a British couple and American couple swap their houses for the summer. Living in one another's houses, they become entwined (to various degress, depending on the individual) in each other's lives. As the sumer progresses, their lives begin to unravel and then weave themselves into different shapes. The writing is occasionally intrusive, and one of the four main characters is significantly less well-drawn then the other three; for these reasons, I gave the book only four stars.
_Intimate_Strangers_ is full of thought-provoking situations and events. It avoids an easy or clean ending, leaving the reader to ponder the prognosis for a relationship built on a significant lie. The tagged-on epilogue is laugh-out-loud funny.
Thought provoking.......1999-12-11
Truthfully, I haven't finished reading this book. I am about two-thirds of the way through the book and I am looking forward to seeing how it ends but I also don't want it to end. This book has an interesting concept. Two families from different countries swap their houses for a couple of months. (A bit like Maeve Binchy's "Tara Road" - a brilliant writer) The characters are very real and entertaining. There is a nice mix between the American culture and the English culture. I went to read the reviews on this book to see what other readers had to say. I see there haven't been too many reviews on this book. From what I have read so far, this book is well worth reading.
Long Distance Love Explored.......1997-09-22
This is the story of a long distance relationship between two very different people which begins with a very innocent house swaping arrangement. It was very enjoyable and had at least one or two real thought provoking lines including, "...you can't go around messing up somebody's life just because you ge the notion that you love them. No one has that right." (page 148)
A good read for the upcoming winter!
Customer Reviews:
A wonderful vision of a time and place........2001-02-23
The only thing that attracted me to this book was the author - I like his writing very much. But England in the past is not really my scene, neither is the rural life of farm and field. But I was captivated by this book - it's insights recreated the past as if I had actually been there. Hudson's writing is almost luminous, it certainly illuminates the subjects he turned his pen towards. If I was so inclined I might believe that I had a past life as a shepherd in England and that Hudson is triggering memories rather than creating a world with his descriptive skill.
Customer Reviews:
Nice one.......2007-05-13
It wasn't what i was expecting, but it is a very interesting book.
I never thought of that!.......2004-12-22
I happened to pick this book up at a bookstore in Japan and suddenly I realized that you can do more with an obi than wear it with a kimono. As a result, everyone in my family is getting souvenir obis, and I'm excited to start using the ideas presented in the book.
Some of the ideas made me nervous--using an obi as a table runner would eventually lead to stains--but this book opened up a whole new world to me that I hadn't even considered. For that, I'm thankful.
learn to use obi in your home.......2000-04-09
it's a great book to lead you to use obi as part of the decoration in your home. it gives you alot of ideas how to put and what you can do with obi before you display them in your home. also, it tells the different kinds of obi in design and material it is made from. actually, it gives you extra knowledge of other japanese traditional accessories; as the pictures in this book shows you how the obi goes together very well with basic things every houses have. great book.
Book Description
The British Museum Timeline of the Ancient World Katharine Wiltshire A timeline of ancient history based on the greatest museum collection of antiquities in the world today he four principal cultures of the ancient world-Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome-are featured in this au-thor-itative reference book and timeline for readers of all ages. Based on the unmatched collection of antiquities in the British Museum and the Museum's own Timeline Project, The British Museum Timeline of the Ancient World spans the period from the earliest neotlithic settlements in 5000-6000 BC to the end of the Roman Empire. Illustrated with full color photos of arti-facts from the British Museum Collec-tion, the fourteen page timeline, that allows readers to compare the develop-ments of the four cultures at a glance, can be detached from the book to hang on the wall. The timeline is accom-panied by a thirty-two page book that provides in-depth background infor-ma--tion on the four main cultures and features illustrated articles on the most important people, places, objects, and events in the time-line. From the well-known, like Tutan-khaman, to the little known, like the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, this timeline guides readers through the distant mirror that was the ancient world. Katharine Wiltshire works in the education department of the British Museum. History 1-4039-6609-5 $22.95 $33.95 Canadian 113 /4 " x 9" / 32 pages Includes full color throughout, plus 14-page timeline Palgrave Macmillan May
Average customer rating:
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Seasons of Grief & Grace: A Sister's Story of AIDS
Susan Ford Wiltshire
Manufacturer: Vanderbilt University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Medical
| Professionals & Academics
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
AIDS
| Disorders & Diseases
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
AIDS & HIV
| Diseases
| Medicine
| Subjects
| Books
Nursing Home Care
| Nursing
| Medicine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Psychiatry
| Specialties
| Medicine
| Subjects
| Books
Nursing Home Care
| Nursing
| Medical
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
AIDS
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0826512712 |
Customer Reviews:
Inspirational!.......2003-04-09
I live in Lubbock, Texas, where much of this story takes place, and I happen to know some of the people Dr. Ford mentions. But that was hardly the only reason I wanted to read this compassionate biography. Dr. Ford shows how her brother bravely faced AIDS and the bigotry related to it.
Despite its subject matter, this book is never depressing. Instead, Dr. Ford captures the inspirational aspects of her brother's life and how it touched the lives of people around him. I found her poems about his struggle especially touching and hope she'll share more of those in another book.
Duane Simolke .....
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- Hell and High Water: Global Warming--the Solution and the Politics--and What We Should Do
- High Rise Low Down
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
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