Beads on Bags:1800's to 2000 (Schiffer Book for Collectors)

Book Description

The antique beaded bag is a most exquisite and sought-after vintage collectible. Over 600 detailed color photographs display hundreds of mostly European (French, Italian, Austrian, and Czechoslovakian) handbags, many never before published, including Miser, American Indian, embroidered, drawstring, framed, scenic, Bohemian, and cut steel, with information on care, history, and design techniques, and close-up photographs of the intricate beadwork. Detailed captions, a current value guide, a comprehensive bibliography, and an index guarantee this to be the ultimate collector's guide to vintage handbag fashion design.

Customer Reviews:

Great addition to Library.......2002-09-21

I continually sit and just look through this book, I love the pictures and the variety.

Customer Reviews:

Good for beginners and advanced origami makers.......2005-04-24

This book has very good instructions for every origamist. It also has very good paper to used with the right colors to make envelopes have flowers on them or books to have a spine and say My Book.

Amazon.com

The comic-book world continues to fill in the blanks of the Star Wars universe between the feature films Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. In Dark Horse's four-issue miniseries General Grievous, a small Jedi strike force attempts to assassinate the six-armed multi-lightsaber-wielding droid before he kills any more of their order, not knowing that he has something even more sinister in mind for a group of young Padawan he's captured. Written by Chuck Dixon (Nightwing) with art by Rick Leonardi and Mark Pennington, General Grievous takes place before Sith and the animated Clone Wars series. --David Horiuchi

Book Description

On a rescue mission to Vandos, Padawan Flynn Kybo and his master T'chooka D'oon come face-to-face with General Grievous, one of the leaders of the Separatist army. After Grievous kills Master D'oon, Kybo goes to the Jedi Council with a plan to take the depraved general out immediately. But when the council rebukes his plans for vengeance, Kybo decides to take matters in his own hands. Seeking out others who feel the same as himself, he sets out to stop the Separatist killing machine before more Jedi lives are lost. Meanwhile, Grievous hijacks a transport ship, and its precious cargo may give him a horrible advantage over the Jedi that they would never expect. For now, his sights are on the planet Gentes - and on taking its Ugnaught population and mining facilities as trophies of war!

Customer Reviews:

About General Grievous this book is not.......2006-03-31

This is not a horrible book, but you might be disappointed if you think you'll be getting a story about General Grievous. As with a lot of Star Wars EU, the focus here is on characters you've never heard of and will probably never hear of again, a group of teenaged Padawan who have lost their masters to General Grievous and who strike out on their own, against the wishes of the Jedi council, to hunt down and assassinate the multi-limbed cyborg. As this story takes place before "Revenge of the Sith," you already know their mission will be a failure, so there's not a lot here to create suspense. And since we know that Grievous can wield as many as six lightsabers at a time, you know too how the Padawan are likely to meet their end.

With over a dozen characters in a such a short book, it's a fairly impossible task to make even a handful unique. Having boxed himself in on the plot, writer Chuck Dixon is left with little to do and the story is carried mostly by the very fine illustrations of Rick Leonardi and Mark Pennington.

If you'd like to read more about Grievous, as of this writing the only sources that contain background on the General himself is the novel "Labyrinth of Evil," and the graphic novel "Star Wars Visionaries," which contains one Grievous story. Both of these books come highly recommended.

Had great potential, but didn't deliver.......2006-01-28

General Grievous could have been much better. Excellent art, frequently showing Grievous as frightening and intimidating, as he should be. The dialogue was what really ruined this. Grievous had several cheesy lines such as
"The Mon Calamari are such a disgusting species. Please tell me they are all slain"
and "Let not one of them leave alive".
Apart from that, the plot was very good, with Grievous capturing several Padawans and planning to turn them into cyborgs like him. This TPB was average, so it gets 3 out of 5. Only serious fans should read this. For anyone else looking for a Star Wars graphic novel starring a villain, I'd reccommend the Darth Maul TPB.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (Unabridged)

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Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (Unabridged)
Matthew Stover
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
ASIN: B000MZHSUI

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Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil
James Luceno
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
ASIN: B000NJXFA0

Customer Reviews:

Gabba Munky Munky in the Funky Bunky -- O-E-A-BaaBoo!!.......2006-01-14

I'll admit it, I was as drunk as Frenchmen at a surrender party and once again fell prey to the clever gods of the impulse buy. To be fair, my oafish tv-addicted spouse loooves these Desperate Housewives--and even stupidly says she can relate to "their plight" or some such nonsense--so I figured I could get by with this calendar on my office wall. So far so good and this glossy appointment keeper looks spankin' (ha!) terrific on my cubicle wall (right corner, out of sight!).

Lemme say this for the DH calendar: it's a pretty average one as these things go and there are no moob shots if you know what I mean (and if you don't, substitute a b for an m) and certainly no buff shots if you try the reverse. But overall, it's an acceptable tool (ha, ha) for keeping track of holidays and appointments even if one of those girls has lopsided nostrils and that's something I find more than a little distracting. And a distracting calendar is a distracting calendar. Or is it a monkey with a box on its head. Dunno. Baboo baboo. HHD.

DH Calendar 2005-2006.......2005-10-26

Well, it's a wall-calendar, it has a hole in the right place (middle-top) and it's topic is the must see desperate wives series. Can't tell i couldn't live without it, but hey it makes a nice wallpaper nevertheless :). Good enough for me anyhow !

Desperate Housewives Calendar.......2005-10-19

It's a great looking calendar with plenty of room to write down appointments or important engagements. You don't have to be a Desperate Housewives fan to enjoy it!

Desperate Housewives 2006 Wall Calendar.......2005-10-19

Calendar is fantastic, great pictures and well worth the money.

Book Description

More than two decades after his death, John Wayne is still America's favorite movie star. He has become a cultural icon whose stature seems to grow with the passage of time. In this illuminating biography, Ronald L. Davis focuses on Wayne's human side, portraying a complex personality defined by frailty and insecurity as well as by courage and strength.

Customer Reviews:

A well done look at the Duke.......2005-08-09

His friends & fans simply call him Duke.

More than 20 yrs. after his death he is still coming in 1st or 2nd in polls askings Americans who their favorite actor is.

Why is this?

Come on, he's dead already!

Beginning in 1930 with THE BIG TRAIL & ending in 1976 with THE SHOOTIST, DUKE has been bigger than life, a symbol to the world of the ruggedness, tough independence, personal conviction, & courage that make up the American character.

I love him not just because he was a great actor, but because he played roles that showed us an America to be proud of. He was the type of guy you wouldn't mind sitting with in a bar for a few drinks &, definitely, you'd love him at your back in a fight!

The author of this book will help you understand & appreciate John Wayne the way I & millions the world over do.

You will never look at John Wayne, the actor & the man, in the same way ever again.

He is my favorite American Actor of all time, and, before I sold the collection a couple of years ago, I owned nearly all his films on Video.

Not the best book out there, but still informative.

A good look at John Wayne without the scholarly commitment.......2000-05-30

This biography succeeds in its evenhanded portrayal of John Wayne. No doubt some will criticize it because Davis doesn't spend his time eschewing Wayne's politically incorrect opinions, but neither does the author lionize Wayne the man. What you have left is a concise and readable 400 page biography that covers all the movies and all the wives. Davis gives his opinions as to why the Wayne legend still survives, and what his fellow actors thought of him way back when.

Interesting is the story behind the making of the ALAMO, a film he produced, directed and starred in, the subsequent Oscar campaign, and the aftermath. Also interesting is Wayne's relationship with director John Ford, whom he loved, and their disagreements.

Outstanding.......2000-03-13

Though very in-depth in explaining each movie John Wayne appeared, the book lacks somewhat in explaining who John Wayne was. In comparison, Donald Dewey's recent biography of Jimmy Stewart gives the reader a more detailed examination of Stewart than Ronald Davis does of Wayne. Ronald Davis also relies too much on the self-centered Pilar Wayne, the third Mrs. John Wayne, for anectdotal information. Davis's use of interviews with Harry Carey, Jr. are quite valuable and illuminating. It's a shame that Davis didn't thoroughly interview other actors who shared the screen with Duke, including Ron Howard, about whom Duke thought highly or Kim Darby (Mattie in True Grit), who didn't like the Duke (remember, True Grit was filmed in 1968). Mr. Davis does an excellent job explaining Duke Wayne's desert years in the thirties doing one-reel westerns. One has to admire Wayne's persistance. One note Pilar Wayne reveals through Ronald Davis that puts Wayne in a very bad light and has changed my personal views toward him to the strongly negative, was Duke Wayne's insistance that a pregnant Pilar get an abortion. The baby was inconvenient as Duke was in the divorce court with number two wife Chata in a highly charged divorce battle. The baby was killed but Duke Wayne received a fairly good divorce settlement. A conservative icon, when the chips were down, was capable of a selfish, dishonest, sordid, dirty act. The Duke was a great actor and icon but was not a good person. He was not a great American.

--Derek Leaberry

Average customer rating:
Duke the Life & Image of John Wayne
Ronald L Davis
Manufacturer: UNIV OF OK + PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000Q2VWTK

Book Description

Includes: Bigger Isn't Better * Black and White * The Colors of My Life * Come Follow the Band * I Like Your Style * Join the Circus * Love Makes Such Fools of Us All * Out There * The Prince of Humbug * Thank God I'm Old * There's a Sucker Born Ev'ry Minute.

Book Description

This second collection features zany crossword puzzles and awesome word games by acclaimed childrens puzzle book author Helene Hovanec is chock-full of fun.With plenty of riddles and puns, kids will groan happily while solving a diverse range of puzzles.New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz writes a funny introduction to begin the book, followed by a special tricks of the trade primer designed to help kids solve each and every puzzle.

Customer Reviews:

Great book for elementary school kids!.......2006-07-09

My 9 and 7 year olds love this book! I was looking in bookstores for crossword puzzle books (only crosswords, not all the other puzzles that come with them usually). There were none to be found. Amazon has this great series of just crosswords and they're perfect! Clues are just hard enough that they have to think a little, but not so hard that they get frustrated and give up. A great find!

Average customer rating:

Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business

It's People! Everything Depends on Recruiting, Mobilizing, and Retaining People.

Make Your Talent a Greater Force!

How to find, attract, and retain high-quality talent?

Great Read!

Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business
Rusty Rueff , and Hank Stringer
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Talent Management Handbook: Creating Organizational Excellence by Identifying, Developing, and Promoting Your Best People

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ASIN: 0131855239

Customer Reviews:

Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business.......2007-07-17

There seems to be a new trend in business books, titles written by lucrative CEO's and Managers who realize that their success is not based upon their great product, their wonderful organization skills, or their golden management style but based upon finding the right team of people for the job at hand.

Talent Force takes a deeper look at what makes that right team. Groups of employees can't simply be made to fit a specific one size fits all mold. Each company, each circumstance, and each set of problems requires a different set of talents to make the venture successful.

Talent Force does not give step by step directions on how to collect and mesh together the right individuals. Instead, this book gives a lot of examples (historical, modern, global economies, large corporations, and smaller business) of good and bad use of employee talent. These examples and the discussion that is included with each of these situations starts the reader thinking about the obvious benefits of creating a talent force. From here, the reader begins to come up with an individualized plan based upon these concepts.

It's People! Everything Depends on Recruiting, Mobilizing, and Retaining People........2007-03-23

Back in the olden days of "B school," several--ahem--decades ago anyway, we were all economists and sports writers. To determine the business value of an enterprise, we learned to "line up" the last five years of audited financial reports, calculate "batting averages" and financial ratios, project historical performance into the future, and then "call a huddle" to determine the present value of the future cash flows. This approach is how we made our merger decisions, it was how we purchased capital equipment, and it was how we decided on new product lines. Only as a second thought did we make any attempt to evaluate the management team, or to delve into the important staffing strengths and weaknesses. Those personnel questions would have been too subjective, too qualitative, for our valuation models. The professors would explain, "Quality of the management team is already discounted into the historical performance of the firm, and hence the stock price." We took this to mean we could ignore these issues because good managers generate good numbers. So we followed the numbers.

Predictably, we emerged from school with monetarist attitudes about the power of capital, the amazing quality of market information, and a resulting suspicion of "marketing types," flashy people with pinky rings who advocated controlling our firm's public perception. We were never troubled by the nagging doubts that should have made us wonder, "so how's come none of my models ever determines, with any accuracy, the value of a stock, or the selling price of a company?" We were sure that these discrepancies happen because the market, with its perfect knowledge, knew something about the industry that we didn't know. And too often, we would later learn that we had overlooked an important personnel issue; a looming retirement, a shortage of specialists, an obsolete benefits package, a drinking problem. We should have known. But comforting ourselves with a truism about the focal acuity of "hindsight," we would "get back out there and step back up to the plate."

So it is no wonder that most of my generation still hires, retains, and plans for its workforce in some rough imitation of the way our boss' generation hired. When we have a need for a new person, we concoct a job description, get our bosses approvals, and post the "vacancy" on line. When the hundred thousand resumes arrive, we form a team to winnow the pile down to a manageable fifty. Then we spend the evening with those fifty resumes and in the morning we have ten candidates. After some uncomfortable phone calls, we schedule two or three interviews. Unhappy with the selection, we send the job description out to a small group of "contingency" head hunters. And the same hundred resumes begin filling our inboxes and tying up the fax machine again. But this time, each resume comes with a head hunter advocate, pushing us to meet with this one candidate. By now, everyone in the industry knows that you are hiring, including your own employees, many of whom feel this job would be the next logical stepping stone in their own career track.

If you recognize yourself at all in this short description, you would certainly benefit from a close reading of Rueff and Stringer's Talent Force: a New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. In the time it will take to meet with a heartbroken and valuable employee who feels "passed over" in your staffing program, you can be reintroduced to the latest tools for maintaining and building the people force that IS your company. More than a motivating "locker room talk," you will learn how to find resources and strategies that you may have overlooked. The most helpful insights may be in the sections on "Emerging Recruitment Practices" and "Strategic Integration Point Person," in which the processes of recruiting, outsourcing, and retaining talent are integrated into a marketing approach prioritized at the top of your organization. Specific advice is offered on how to find qualified talent consultants and specialists. And this is all packaged in an easy to read book that steers clear of theoretical approaches and industry-specific solutions. A copy of this book should be placed in the reading bin of every first class seat on commercial airlines.

Make Your Talent a Greater Force!.......2006-05-06

I read this book because one of the authors is a friend of mine from college and because I know that demographics are working against us - the amount of talent leaving the workforce as Baby Boomers retire isn't being replaced - in numbers, experience, or skills. This trend has vast implications for all of us, yet it hasn't become a prevalent part of business conversation yet. I hoped this book would help me think about that fact.

Having read the book, I recommend it somewhat different reasons. Yes it helps you understand this trend, and yes Rusty is a great guy. But you need to read this book because it helps you put your talent in a strategic frame of reference. The skills of the people in your organization are paramount to your success, and this book describes that and reinforces that point in fresh and salient ways.

Initially I thought this book would mostly be for leaders in large organizations with lots of ongoing hiring. I was wrong. As a small business owner, I have many ideas and processes in mind to help me as I move forward. I believe a line manger or leader in an organization of any size will gain value from this book.

If you care about keeping the talent you have and expanding or replacing it rapidly and effectively, you must read this book.

How to find, attract, and retain high-quality talent?.......2006-03-08

What we have in this brilliant book is a rigorous and eloquent analysis of challenges to which Rueff and Stringer refer in this excerpt from the Introduction: "This book is about how to find, attract, and retain high-quality talent in the midst of a new global economy that makes it more difficult and more important than ever to have the best people contributing to your organization. It's about how technology is changing the ways that both individuals and companies approach the job market. It is about how these forces and others will shape the talent market during the next decade and beyond and what smart companies will do to stay ahead. Most importantly, it is about the human factor involved in all of this and how expectations, views, and approaches to work are changing for participants in today's talent market."

Rueff and Stringer carefully organize their material within nine chapters whose subjects range from "The Quality Talent Imperative" to "Talent Forces of Tomorrow." They address a number of real-world business issues which include those specifically related to developments and challenges when managing talent capital. In a perfect world, every organization will have the right person in the right place at the right time. Also, every organization will have a "deep bench" of talent immediately available whenever needed. In reality, it is possible but highly unlikely that any organization has the right person in every place or even in most places, and always or almost always at the right time. More often than not, organizations must make do with adequate talent in many -- if not most -- positions.

As I read this book, I especially appreciated a number of reader-friendly devices throughout Rueff and Stringer's narrative. For example, their provision of boxed supplements such as "The Parable of the Talents" (pages xx-xxi), "Will the United States Experience a Labor Shortage?" (pages 15-16), "The Benefits of Automated Qualifying [Interview] Questions" (pages 87-88), and "Blogs Bring Media Power to the Masses" (pages 120-122). I also commend Rueff and Stringer for including a number of checklists which summarize their key points and, later, expedite a review of them. For example, a list of proactive, strategic steps that various organizations are taking to meet their long-range talent needs (pages 72-74), five ways that senior managers can contribute to their organization's talent goals (pages 97-98), and "Ten Qualities of Great Recruiters" (pages 138-139). Well-done.

In "The Parable of the Talents," an important question is raised which remains relevant more than 2,000 years later: Do we figure out how to take one talent and turn it into 10, or do we bury our talent in the ground to protect what we have? For Rueff and Stringer, this is an "awesome challenge." I agree. What they offer in this book is a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective response to that challenge. Only a fool would immediately agree with every observation, accept every premise, and implement every recommendation. No system is seamless, much less appropriate to every organization every time and in every situation. However, after modification, what Rueff and Stringer offer in this book can help almost any organization (regardless of size or nature) to find, attract, and retain high-quality talent.

According to an ancient Chinese proverb, "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now." Why wait?

Great Read!.......2006-03-08

Hank and Rusty have teamed to put together a great book that really puts into perspective the vital importance of having an effective Talent Plan at every level of the organization.

Hank's a top recruiting strategist with a great understanding of todays candidate(s) and the actions organizations must take to effectively & consistently recruit and retain Q Talent. Rusty led one of the most successful Talent Strategies with his work at EA enabling them to be the undisputed leader in the gaming industry. A must read for every executive and anyone that hires and manages Talent.

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