5 comments about Poor Richard's Almanack (1733).

1. Though Benjamin Franklin never suggests that all the words are his, his assembly of commonly used phrases and sayings provides the reader with material that will make them think. Do remember, that this doesn't read like a novel.



2. So to start, there is a huge problem with this page. If you utilize Amazon's Search Inside feature for this version of the book it is actually showing you the inside of a different copy of Poor Richards Almanack. What you see is definitely not the inside of this book and I'll tell you why later.
   
   Another problem with this page is the fact that people are reviewing the content of Poor Richards Almanack and giving you, the consumer, a history lesson on the book. But come on... the content of the book is pretty much a given. If you're not familiar with the Poor Richards Alamanack, then it's probably a good idea to check it out from a library before you buy it. You would want to own a copy simply for novelty's sake.
   
   So onto the review of the actual product... This is a very poor copy in terms of quality (just like this review). This is just speculation, but it literally appears as if someone from the publisher went to the copy machine with an original copy of the book, pressed the "Enlarge 150%" button, photocopied the entire original book onto larger paper, bound it, put a cover on it, and sold it as the copy you see here. The black space you see on the cover is about the size of the margins within the book. This creates an obnoxious amount of white space around the paragraphs which in turn makes the book difficult to read. On top of this, some of the pages are slightly crooked.
   
   So as I've stated, the content is exactly like the original, but you can easily find a better version than this one. Unless the book was intended for people with impaired vision, there is no reason the original book should have been blown up and placed on 2 inch margins. I would steer clear of this version and find a better one.
   
   As a side note, there are several versions of Poor Richards Almanack. Some have his quotes reorganized into categories and some versions have his quotes re-written into more modern language. And there is, of course, the original. For Christmas, I got my Mom the original as well as the one with the organized quotes. So I guess it's whatever your preference is.



3. Given as a gift so have no input. Recipient did not care for the format of the book.



4. Ben Franklin's book is loaded with tips just as relevant today as they were centuries ago. You will truly be surprised at the amount of knowledge, useful knowledge, you get from this book.



5. Love this book. I am a fan of Benjamin Franklin. He is so witty and thoughtful. I also like Henry David Thoreau.

3 comments about American Windmills: An Album of Historic Photographs.

1. Any collection strong in early American history will find plenty to admire in AMERICAN WINDMILLS, by an expert historian on windmill who's been writing about wind-power history for a decade. His coverage here gathers historic images captured by professional windmiller B.H. Burdick and from corporate archives of windmill manufacturers, so it goes far beyond the usual light travelogue approach to cover the entire country's windmill production. Photos show wind machines in use and in manufacture and provide a fine survey which could have been equally well profiled in our Photography Shelf area, but which is recommended here as a top pick for any comprehensive collection strong in early American history.



2. This book was a complete surprise, meaning, I never knew there was such a colorful history about windmills. This book would be good to have in a school library. It would be useful for historians writing about early America.



3. Prairie Wind, Poems & Stories
   "The windmill is a fondly recognized feature of the American landscape, a sentinel rising above rooftops and fields. Its stalwart presence states clearly that human ingenuity has been at work."
   And so we begin an enjoyable guided tour of one of the mechanical icons of America. Even while rushing by on interstates, in the far distance a windmill can often be seen. If less hurried and slower routes are taken, windmills can be seen along the roadside as reminders of man and nature cooperating.
   American Windmills is a pleasant and enjoyable experience. Through Lindsay Baker's photographs and clarity of writing, windmills and those who made them and used them are brought to life. Having written about wind power history for twenty-five years, his album contains historic images captured by professional windmiller B. H. "Tex" Burdick and from corporate archives of windmill manufacturers.
   Windmills were used in a wide variety of settings: ranches and farms, alongside railroads, in industry and even in urban areas.
   The photographs depict the manufacture, distribution and use of windmills in all regions of the United States with an emphasis on the Great Plains.
   In a visual tour, we are taken into the factories showing how commercial windmills were mass produced and marketed. In rural America we learn how inventive people designed their own homemade wind machines.
   Windmills are the remnants of lives lived in harmony with the earth. They are symbols of a peoples' determination. They are Americana.

1 comments about Eric Sloane's AbCs of Early Americana.

1. From the basic european tithe barns and farmhouses that matured into this country's architecure and repeats it's basic load bearing beauty across our america, and is as much a stamp of who we are, as an american eagle is. To see our architectural heritage, and America being both torn down and copied, is quite moving i'm sure to a purist such as eric sloan. i have a large library of rural american country structures, and eric sloan is not only the guru of farmhouse source material, he is the only one who really knows, reminding us to get right and keep it right, before we sell our heritage off completely, as many other unique countries have done. i am thankful that he is being published again, as i have a small fortune into his old books, in trying to track them down used and rare over the years. i re-look at them more than any others on my architectural shelf. his "an age of barns" is also a must own book.
   jim brolin...los angeles designer/builder Rural

2 comments about Halloween in America: A Collector's Guide With Prices (A Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. Stuart L. Schneider's dynamic Halloween In America: A Collector's Guide With Prices spectacularly captures the spirit of the classic years of the American Halloween tradition: the period from the turn of the century through the end of the nineteen-fifties. Though the book includes more recent material, Schneider wisely focuses on what he recognizes to be the holiday's glory days in this country, when its spirit hadn't moved too far from its agricultural roots and American culture was predominantly positive, forward-looking, and uncynical--and its Halloween decorations charming and vividly imaginative.

   The book opens with three short, loosely-composed essays, "A Brief History Of Halloween," "The Colors And Images Of Halloween," and "Halloween In America." Schneider, who provides no source material, is often broadly correct but specifically wrong. He suggests, for instance, that the Druids may have built Stonehenge when it has been long established that they did not, and that 'Dryad' is another word for 'Druid.' The author also writes a paragraph about witches and "witch conventions" during the Celtic reign of the British Isles as if this were an established historical fact, embellishing his account with images of witches stirring cauldrons, speaking in tongues, dancing around bon fires, and sacrificing animals; if Schneider knows this to be historically factual, then he has access to information the rest of the world doesn't. He also discusses 'Samhain' as a god of the Celtic people who "controlled the dead or non-growing season," when whether or not 'Samhain' was a Celtic deity or even an entity, rather than a season or holiday, is something currently hotly debated among historians, scholars, and Wiccans.

   Schneider is to be commended for his honesty in addressing some of the more unpleasant aspects of the holiday and its associations head-on, as well as for the wonderful historical scope he provides in placing Halloween origins in a wide, multi-cultural context. Readers will find a rich phantasmagoria of topics discussed in the essays, including the custom of sin eating, All Saints' and All Souls' Days, the belief in the 'veil between worlds' and the return of the dead to their families one the night of the harvest feast, the story of 'Jack of the Lantern,' Snap-Apple and Crack-Nut Nights, apple bobbing, fortune-telling, the Scottish influence on American Halloween traditions, Cabbage and Mischief Nights, the various theories surrounding the origin of trick-or-treating, the meaning of the literal 'scapegoat' and its influence of the appearance of the Christian Devil, the Mexican Day of the Dead, and even mention of the elves, gnomes, boogies, and goblins with which agrarian societies peopled the forests and fields.

   The gorgeous main portion of the book is dedicated to collectible items and includes sections on Postcards, Decorations, Lanterns, Costumes, Hats and Masks, Noisemakers, Invitations, Games and Toys, Trick Or Treat Bags, and Vegetable People, Figurines and Candy Containers.

   Halloween In America is by far the best of the books on Halloween collectibles available, and also the best of the Schiffer books on the subject. Many readers will remember these items from their childhood homes, classroom bulletin boards, Five & Dime store shelves and windows, and neighborhood parties. Readers will also be astonished at how the painters, artisans, and creators of these crepe paper, cardboard, composition, glass, and celluloid items were able to envision and capture what we remember and still think of as the very essence of holiday, and in a wide variety of forms: lonely, barren, orange-skied landscapes with setting suns ablaze or yellow rising moons, black cats and owls lurking in pumpkin patches with an anthropomorphic moon overhead, witches flying on broomsticks in formation over dark, isolated houses, skeletons parading in graveyards, etc.

   Folklorists, sociologists, academics, and artists may have special appreciation for the visionary and sometimes surreal paintings, illustrations, and three-dimensional designs revealed here. One 1908 German postcard portrays a witch, a black cat and a vegetable spirit riding in a car made of a partially hollowed-out watermelon with squash-slice tires; another portrays a red-caped witch riding a immense cob of husked corn like a phallus-conquering Amazon through the stratosphere, with an astonished moon and planet Jupiter looking on; and a third, from 1911, shows children happily bobbing for apples in their warm, cozy home, while a tall, red-skirted, stone-faced witch, accompanied by an owl and a black cat, looks in at the window like the ultimate outsider and a disenfranchised, but still proud and powerful, loner. An entire page is devoted to 1910 postcards of anthropomorphic vegetables riding cars, dancing with or chasing fairies, and joyfully imitating human family practices. Others display Rockwell-like scenes of boys and girls carving pumpkins or trick-or-treating, or elderly women in dimly-lit Victorian mansions being frightened by children's pranks and high jinks.

   Throughout the book, visionary landscapes and distant horizons beckon; curly-toed elves spring from hollow trees and slide gleefully down rooftops; lone witches warm their hands at their cauldrons under brilliant, star-filled skies; beautiful young ladies sleep fitfully on ruffled pillows while fairies circle their heads; peaked-hat shadows stretch in threateningly at midnight doorways; black cats screech to their own banjo, accordion, violin, and horn playing; and scarecrows extend their arms heavenwards to frighten off their circling opponents.

   Readers will run for their magnifying and/or reading glasses so that none of the often minute detail will escape their gaze and inspection. Halloween In America is a huge treat, will make collectors and seekers out of most, and hopefully inspire generations to come to celebrate and pass on the traditions recorded here. Highly recommended to holiday lovers, educators, folklorists, Scout leaders, and all lovers of Americana.




2. This is much more than a book for collectors of Halloween.This is the best book on the subject. I've read all the others and this is the bible of Halloween. If you have only one book on Halloween, this has to be the one. It brings back childhood. This book is really a look at what Halloween means. Ghosts and goblins, fall colors, adventure and childhood fears. I've read mine over and over and over again.

2 comments about Collecting Disneyana: Identification & Value Guide (Identification & Values (Collector Books)).

1. Let me start right off by saying that "Collecting Disneyana" is by no means a definitive guide on the hobby. Such a book, in one existed, would have to be beyond massive. There has been so much Disney merchandise produced over the past 80 plus years that it would be an impossible feat to catalog it all. Disney was a company who was at the forefront of marketing its characters and as such, there is simply a voluminous amount of material out there. What the book does do very effectively is give a sampling of Disneyana from the past eight decades although its main thrust is with the Golden Age of Disney from the 1930's.
   
   Geared towards the novice or intermediate collector, even long time fans and collectors will find a lot to enjoy in the book, beginning with the hundreds of brilliant, full color photos of rare Disney collectibles. In today's era where things tend to be overly merchandised, you get a good idea of just how popular Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the rest of the characters were back in the 30's. Their images could be seen everywhere...toys, books, salt & pepper shakers, figurines, radios, even on packaging for Noma Christmas lights.
   
   The first 115 pages of the 240 page book are dedicated to these early years. Now this not a typical price guide listing. This isn't about long pages of tiny, hard to read text. There are typically three to five pictures per page and pricing information is provided for each item shown. These include the manufacturer and year (if known) and the value range. The items are enough to make the most seasoned collector drool...there's a Lionel Circus Train, a Mickey bandleader doll by Knickerbocker, a Disney windup balloon vendor toy, and some of the earliest Mickey Mouse watches.
   
   The next chapter deals with characters other than the usual suspects. These include items that bare the image of Oswald the Rabbit, Ferdinand the Bull, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and others.
   
   The final two chapters cover the television years of the 40's through the 60's and a look at modern Disney collectibles. Perhaps the most valuable part of the book, at least for new collectors, is the collector's guide, which contains valuable information about buying, selling, and collecting Disneyana. There's great stuff about how best to store your items, buying on the Internet, and more.
   
   WRITTEN BY TIM JANSON



2. David Longest's COLLECTING DISNEYANA: IDENTIFICATION & VALUE GUIDE will prove an exciting, popular pick for any library catering to Disney collectors. Color photos pack a survey of early to later Disney items, from films and books to figurines, packing in notes on collectible items and their prices.

5 comments about Farming with Horses (Country Workshop).

1. This book provided an excellent read and a good overall picture of the topic. Even though it is written for the American market it has a lot of information that is transferrable to Australia and other countires. A good buy for people interested in the topic, especially for beginners such as myself.



2. The information in Farming with Horses is presented in a clear,and readily understandable manner. This book answers the how and why of harness fit, hooking to a vehicle or implement and how to do it all safely. The photos illustrating the text are of the highest quality. This book is a must read for anyone interested in driving whether for pleasure, show or work.
   
   SMCannon D.V.M.



3. The text and photographs in this book are equally instructional. Especially enlightening is the book's emphasis on the humane approach to farming with drafts -- an approach that benefits the horse, the driver, and the land as well.



4. Steve Bowers is a master at driving. His straightforward, logical approach keeps the principles in this book clear and easy to implement. Bowers keeps both horse and driver safe and working together. Whether you're heading for competition or just work around the ranch, this is a must read. You can apply "Farming with Horses" to any driving discipline.



5. This is the best book on driving horses that I have ever read, and I've read everything on the subject that I can find. The information is not confined to farming with horses. There is valuable information on training, hitching, aligning teams and many other things that is applicable to any type of horse driving. This is a must book for beginners and experience professionals as well.
   
   Dwight G. Bennett, DVM

No comments about Warman's Coca-cola Field Guide (Warman's Field Guides).

5 comments about A Museum of Early American Tools (Americana).

1. I just finised reading the 1976 edition of A Museum Of Early American Tools. I love this book! It is obvious that Mr. Sloane had both a deep understanding and a heartfelt reverence for our American history, the implements that were such an integral part of it, and the ingenious craftsmen who designed and fabricated them. Our early history is indeed told most eloquently by the tools our ancestors devised. And who better to lead us through that story than Eric Sloane. I'm adding more of his books to my wish list.
   Mike Dearing



2. I love tools, especially old tools and I found this book to be a treasure trove of information. As the title claims, it is a museum. For every tool there are one or two drawings and a short blurb on the tools were used and made - frequently I want more detail than this, but it is a starting place, just as any museum. For the price, this book is a good value for any lover of old tools.



3. Eric Sloane doing what he does best. The illustrations are superb as usual and so are the descriptions of how the tools were used. This book is bound to make you think differently the next time you are at a yard sale or fleamarket standing in front of a bunch of old rusty tools.



4. I would have to say this is one of my best books! The pen and ink drawings a wonderful. So well writen with so much information. I just finished reading this again and feel like going and useing some of the tools in there that i own! I love working with wood and other materials in the American way. Some of the tecniques he dessribes are so ture an i use the all the time! If u love America and/or hand tools, you must own this book.



5. 
   Very informative and well written

1 comments about This Was Logging.

1. I thought this was a photography book on log-ing in Northwest Washington. My grand- father was in one of the photo's. I can't re- member the photographer's name. Lost book, sadly, and would love to replace it. John Oftebro

1 comments about Samuel Colt: Arms, Art, and Invention (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art).

1. This large-format, full color book is a must-have for gun collectors... especially those who study Colt firearms. The photographs are clear and large. The text is comprehensive and well-written. An excellent book!