Shoes Books

Although I rate this book somewhat higher than one star, I would have to agree that, given Valerie Steele's reputation and credentials, I had hoped for something more than a composite of fashion magazine photos. Particularly disappointing since this book was loosely considered a catalog in conjunction with the small, but interesting, exhibition held at Fashion Institute of Technology. Like the two earlier reviewers, I would agree that it contributes little to the scholarly history of footwear, still, I am glad to have it in my collection.

well... it's a hard cover.. nicely designed... neat book..
nice to have at home... to flip thru look @ different shoes..
for that purpose, a very nice book.. for the sheer joy of looking at the photos.... and i think that's enough..

but certainly not a book w/ extensive info on shoe history and all that.

Although I rate this book somewhat higher than one star, I would have to agree that, given Valerie Steele's reputation and credentials, I had hoped for something more than a composite of fashion magazine photos. Particularly disappointing since this book was loosely considered a catalog in conjunction with the small, but interesting, exhibition held at Fashion Institute of Technology. Like the two earlier reviewers, I would agree that it contributes little to the scholarly history of footwear, still, I am glad to have it in my collection.

The review from dated May 23rd from Manhatan expressing a disppointment expressed my feelings exactly.

This stylish book has more of a contemporary focus than most books on shoes, making it a "must-have" even if you already have several shoe books on your shelf. Stunning photographs by top fashion photographers, like Helmut Newton and Mario Testino, depict playful, sexy, sometimes fetishistic shoes by today's most innovative designers, including Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik. The text explores the link between clothing and shoes, showing shoes by Bella Freud, and other fashion designers and exploring the role that trainers, sneakers, and sports shoes have on our contemporary conceptions of `cool.'

I was thrilled to find this collection of stories by Jerome K. Jerome! His stories are timeless. He has a way of mixing the light-hearted along with the tragic. I rarely read a story again - Jerome K. Jerome is the exception.

I'd recommend both the author and his work but not in this format. A paperback that is nearly 10" by 8" by 2" is too heavy and clumsy to hold and read. I've already dropped it a couple times and I'm hoping I can finish reading it before the binding starts to go. Too expensive a purchase to last through only one reading.

This book offers an extremely rare opportunity - to own most of JKJ's works in one volume at a terrific price! I have been collecting Jerome K. Jerome's books for years; editions ranging from early 20th century to contemporary paperbacks. And now I have them all, the works of the greatest, the most brilliant humorist ever born (to say nothing of his punctuation!)

Unless you must have the text of these 14 Jerome K. Jerome books, don't waste your money (as I regret doing) on this terribly disappointing volume. It's densely printed, in two columns per page, in a rather small typeface, and has none of the illustrations that the original books had and that, for me, added much to their charm. I opened this volume once, and immediately put it straight into my bag of "Books to be Discarded."

Ronald Wyllys

I am in a Spanish 4 class in college, yet I found this book still too difficult to read. I also expected it not to be as long--I was looking for a book that was only around 25 pages.

The review from the 4th level Spanish college student is quite misleading. However, there are other titles in the 'leer en español' series at level 1 with a vocabulary of only 400 words which she might consider for remedial reading.

This level two book has a controlled vocabulary of 700 words. The words are overwhelmingly basic vocabulary words. As with all other books in this excellent series, there is a glossary (also in Spanish) and study questions to further aid readers and check comprehension. I think a reader at early intermediate level will be familiar with many of these glossary words already. Some are cognates (i.e., marcas, drogas, imagina, plan) and others are quite clear from the context of the story ('contestador automático is obviously answering machine, for example). The glossary also explains a geographical reference to 'Las Ramblas', the famous street in Barcelona.

Concerning the number of pages: this is one thing not standardized throughout the series. This particular book has 61 pages, but the story only takes 40 of these; the remaining pages are composed of illustrations and reader's aids.

What is particularly good about this book (and others in the series) is the constant reinforcement of basic vocabulary and common idiomatic expressions. These books are good to read aloud. In fact, Transparent Language's "Language Now" cd-rom program has used several of the titles as reading selections (This is how I first became familiar with the series). I usually keep a title in my purse to read at any time when I may have to wait.

This particular story is admittedly not great literature. With such a limited vocabulary, one should not expect great prose. I think considering these limitations, it does pretty well. The story is easy to follow and does go forward in a logical matter. And the plot is not as predictable as it may first seem. It is a mystery story in which a young man and young woman try to solve the death of the girl's friend.

While this title is contemporary and appears to have been written especially for the series, other titles in the "Leer en español" series are based on great literature or historic events. The series does have quite a bit of variety. At this same reading level (level two) is "La Ciudad de los dioses" (City of the Gods) which I read as a selection of the "Language Now" cd-rom program. It is about Moctezuma and the fall of Tenochtitlán, as seen through the diary of Hernando Cortez's secretary . I enjoyed it immensely.

Dance is, arguably, complicated to teach in text.

I wanted to like this book, give it a break; it has a campy feel and the dancers are wearing cute vintage clothes. It gives names to moves you might have learned outside of a structured classroom environment or forgotten the name of. Sadly, "Swing Dancing- Put Your Dancing Shoes on and Get With Hip-swinging, Toe-tapping Swing" is confusing to any level of dancer because of lackluster information and appalling information design.

This book, however eye catching, makes even the simplest swing dance moves utterly confusing. The "flow motion" selling point, while at times adds a touch of clarity, for instance, about which direction to turn, often does not and usually serves as a barrier to understanding even the simplest moves. Turning, in almost every case, could be better represented with a simple, curved, directional arrow.

More confusion caused by "flow motion" is the miscommunication of traveling motion. In swing dance, we do move back and forth and spin but the faded in between pictures don't help readers understand when they are moving in place and when they are stepping. Instead, it makes it look as if swing dance is some kind of traveling line dance that moves dancers to the opposite side of the floor in a single move. This is seldom the case.

Also is it seldom that dancers float in thin air. It looks better visually but learners could benefit from knowing how high to step and better see the difference of a step, a heel raise, and a toe touch. For that a bit of reference to flooring is necessary.

Chapter text is overlaid with dance move text and chapter introductions are no more clear then the introductions of new moves making the information about the different forms and where they apply, again, confusing. The only real way to tell that the dancers have moved on to teaching a new form is that their outfits have changed. And for many of the moves they should have, apparently, put on an additional outfit! Within the Lindy Hop section, Charleston, a historically classic dance that predates Lindy Hop, is shown as a couple of moves called Charleston butset up as a move tucked inside Lindy Hop while, Hollywood Swing, which is considered, by most, to simply be a more slotted/elegant stylization of Lindy developed to make dancing look more divine in Hollywood films, has its own chapter!

Needless to say, the history chapter is also a bit mixed up doing little to describe the actual variation between different swing forms.

Simply reading the descriptions of the moves does give some useful information and if you can look past the confusion of the graphic design, you can see clean stop action poses by the dancer models, but on second thought the writing is sexist (man/woman instead of lead/follow) and requires trying to match up the visuals with the misaligned text blocks in order for much of it to make any sense. The starting point too, does not necessarily seem to line up with the photo action and bounces around from page to page.

I could say more but I think I've said enough.

This book gives more usable detail on steps for Savoy- and Hollywood-style lindy hop, as well as for East Coast (6-count) swing, than any other I've seen, and it's a nice reference for intermediate-level dancers. It covers a good range of the steps frequently encountered in social dancing (examples: tuck turn, back Charleston, sugar push, catapult, Texas Tommy), plus a couple of basic air steps *not* suitable for a crowded floor. You'll never learn to dance from this or any book, but you might use it as a supplement to instruction or experience.

The layout is unique. (Amazon, how about putting up a couple of sample pages?) Each step gets a two-page spread of photos like those on the cover, with the kind of "stro-motion" series of photographs of its progress that TV sportscasts sometimes use to detail figure-skating moves or football plays. There are text explanations below each part of the step, and a running count of the musical beat at the bottom of the page. Some complicated but crucial steps -- notably whips and swing-outs -- get three two-page spreads, with leaders (= men, usually), followers (= women), and both-together each shown separately.

So what's not to like? Several things, all of which spring from the lack of space on the two-page layouts:

* The overlapping photos are presented so densely in places that it's hard to see crucial details, and the text often isn't quite below the appropriate photo. If you've never seen the step before, you'll have a hard time understanding what's going on.

* The follower's footwork gets short shrift in too many of the descriptions -- particularly annoying on moves in which she's turning. (In this regard the book is no better and no worse than many dance instructors.)

* The descriptions pretty much always tell the leader what to do with his hands during the step, but frequently don't explain what the actual *lead* is that signals the start of the step. That's the kind of information somebody who's learned the step in a class needs to be able to dance it afterwards.

These beefs aside, I like the book, I'd recommend it for dancers trying to remember which foot you start the kick-around on, and paging through it makes me want to grab my dancing shoes and head for the floor.

This book is awful and a waste of money. My mother book this book for my teenage daughter. I read this book before she got to and it was nothing but trash. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

I purchased this book thinking it might be a good book about a child being mistreated by her family... thinking I would feel bad for her. However, this book is full of foul language, monotonous details and contradictory statements. For instance, she claims her mother never has food in the house for her and her brother (that they're being starved to death) but then she talks about how she's always having to wash a bunch of dirty dishes. The fact that she contradicts herself so much makes me think she's not telling the truth. Also, I was turned off by the fact that she wants to blame God for everything that has and goes wrong in her life but she doesn't give him any credit for what good things happen. I'm just really sorry I wasted my time and money on this book.

I just wanted to write a pre-warning to this book. For those of you who do read this book PLEASE do not take this book as fact. Courtney or Gert (as we call her) is my cousin. This book is full of made up facts about my family. She is a sad little girl. The people she writes about have done nothing but help her through her life. The fact that she flat out slaps her mother in the face with this book outrages me. My Aunt has been there for ever fit Gert has thrown, there are some facts that Gert left out. There is a completely different story on the other side. I wish people would have gotten the facts before they blindly published this garbage. In her book she stated that she felt like a piece of trash that no one wanted to throw away well thats exactly what this book is. A Piece of trash That needs to be thrown away. Gert has made up every fact in this book, none of which are true. I just need to point out that Gert is still living with her mother as I type this. If she was so bad why is Gert still there?? This book has tainted my family name, and every one she points out in this good are all good people. Please again remember there is no truth to this book.

Congratulations Gertie on a book well written. It took a lot of guts for you to write this and I'm very proud of you. As for the other "review", the whole town knows the truth, at least those who don't live in denial and know how to hold themselves accountable for their own actions. I wish you all the best and encourage you whole-heartedly to continue writing. Your nieces and nephew are blessed to have you as their aunt. I am comforted knowing how much you love them. The four of you (and Ryan and Heath) are in my prayers daily and will continue to be. You have a gift! Please don't ever give up on yourself.

It seems like Professor Parker tried to fit too many subjects into one report this time. The subject matter deserves more respect than that. This should really be divided into two books, "The 2006-2011 World Outlook for New Motor Vehicle Brake Shoes Sold Separately with Lining" and "The 2006-2011 World Outlook for New Motor Vehicle Brake Shoes Sold Separately without Lining".

"Four erotic tales inspired by the sensational television series." Eh. Definitely erotica, not romance.

There's a bit of an "oooh, look how very daring we are!" feel to it, kind of like an adolescent boy with a Victoria's Secret catalog.

Quite possibly my "ick" reaction to this one is that I didn't find any of the situations very sexy: Two-timing, adultery, causing a car crash... sorry, not my kink. At all.

So I'll freely admit that YMMV, with the caveat that if I EVER read the phrase "steaming gash" again, the offending book will be hitting the wall.

Hannah's New Boots, by Celia Berridge, made in 1992 is probably not a book I'd recommend for an award, but one rather that would make one smile! A day filled with fun, Hannah experiences different activities with her new red boots, which this little red headed Hannah is enthralled by.
At first she experiences the different sounds the shiny boots make, and the appearance. She walks, heel toe, heel toe, up and down the hall feeling the funny, glip-glop. This curious little girl wants more then to see what sounds they make and what they look like, but what they would do if thrown down the trash. Out to play, to eat, and games with her new boots, Hannah experiences the creativity she can have with her new red boots.
I think it is just a story that was made to amuse children, not to really teach them a lesson. It's cute and playful, with many emotions included.

Having ordered by catalog three copies of this title before it was released, I was truelly disappointed when they arrived. An expensive book, it suffers greatly from amateurish and often out of focus photographs as well as poor design. The photographs are badly set up, with distracting superfluous props which obscure the object of interest - the shoe. Given that this is primarily a picture book rather than a textual history, it is ironic that the photographs are so inferior. Where shoes are modeled, they often appear ill fitting, or are shown in inexplicable full figure shots where you cannot see them well, detracting rather than adding to the allure of what could be fabulous shoes. The inexpensive books on the same subject by Linda O'Keefe or Pattison & Cawthorne stand far above this recent addition .

I pretty much agree with the former reviewer. I didn't find the photos to be out of focus, but indeed some of them are shot eg. with such bad lighting and bad composition that they can't be made out at all. Others don't even come close to matching their captions, and the inexplicable big black boxes on several pages are just weird. The neverending use of obscure French terms (some of which aren't even in the glossary) comes off as rather pretentious.

Why does a book whose cover says "With Values" include so many that are valued as simply "Special"?

The previous reviewer was too kind.

I thought my precocious 5-year-old granddaughter would have great fun with this. Her favorite things are shoes and problem solving puzzles.

When she and I could not make heads or tails of the illustrations, I thought it was just that we were distracting each other and I left her to figure it out on her own with a big shoe.

Eventually she threw the book aside in defeat and allowed as how she'll keep on with her bunny ears technique.

Later, I sat with the book (and shoe) myself and tried my darnedest to end up with tied shoelaces based on the steps (1-7) given.

No helpful instructions appear, just illustrations by a person who color codes the laces and then reverses the colors for step 7, by which time it really doesn't matter.

This book should be taken off the market.

Tying shoes is a milestone for a child's sense of accomplishment and competence.

Causing readers to surrender to hopelessness and to doubt their capabilities instead is outrageous.

While this book was easy for my son to read, it did nothing to help him learn to tie his shoes.