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I loved this Collins Gem Predicting book for its simple explanations on such a wide variety of predicting forms. While I did use it for entertainment purposes (cartomancy was my favourite one included in this book), I also found it to be a great reference for basic details when including such forms in my writings and using the tea/coffee reading symbols as a basis for some symbolism. Ultimately, the book was just so old that the binding came apart and pages were lost. I was quite disappointed to lose a valued reference book.

I loved this Collins Gem Predicting book for its simple explanations on such a wide variety of predicting forms. While I did use it for entertainment purposes (cartomancy was my favourite one included in this book), I also found it to be a great reference for basic details when including such forms in my writings and using the tea/coffee reading symbols as a basis for some symbolism. Ultimately, the book was just so old that the binding came apart and pages were lost. I was quite disappointed to lose a valued reference book.

This tiny book is a lot of fun. Simple,concise with 424 pages of everything, including science, geography, history and how things work. It's been largely replaced by a phone, just still, it's enjoyable to read a few pages at a time.

Plus Hundreds of other practical tips, fascinating facts and wicked wisdom

This is a book that time has passed by. There are seventeen pages of terse "rules" one should follow when creating a crossword. Included are such helpful tips as using a "one-time ribbon" on your typewriter to get the best results, and "the solution must be the correct answer for the clue." There are very few examples of cluing given. There's a short history and bibliography of reference books (heavily weighted towards UK puzzles, as this book was published there). But then the rest of the book -- some one-hundred-plus unnumbered pages -- are filled with blank puzzle grids of all designs. There's no indication that many publishers can't use odd-sized grids, although the constructor is encouraged to ask for a style sheet before submitting. There's a tiny paragraph that suggests using a theme in your puzzles -- by the early 1980s, that was becoming more of a requirement, and is now considered almost mandatory.

I paid a dollar for my copy, and I still feel that was way too much. Aspiring constructors should hunt down the now out-of-print Random House Puzzlemaker's Handbook or Crossword Puzzle Challenges For Dummies (good news: Patrick Berry has a revised e-book, now called Crossword Constructor's Handbook, available on his web site).

---------------
LT Haiku:

Now out-of-date guide
on writing crossword puzzles;
better books exist.½

I don't remember this as particularly arousing, but presumably it helped at some point in my education.

This is a review of The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Card & Magic Tricks (1996) by The Diagram Group.

I have a pet peeve. I don't like to see the word "Encyclopedia" in the title of a conventional reference work. For example, I would expect an encyclopedia of magic to be a comprehensive tome containing articles arranged in alphabetical order on the whole panorama of magic as a performing art. This book does not live up to such an expectation.

"The Little Giant Book of Card & Magic Tricks" -- now there's a title that fits this document. "Book," not "Encyclopedia," more appropriately describes the composition of the volume. "Little" describes the palm-size dimensions of the book, 5.4 x 4.3 x 1.3 inches. "Giant" describes the aggregate mass of the book, 512 pages of solidly packed content. "Card ... Tricks" describes the contents of part one of two, consisting of 83 card tricks. "Magic Tricks" describes the contents of part two of two, consisting of 66 magic tricks.

Pet peeves aside, there is much to like in this Little Giant book on conjuring. There is something for everyone in this book because effects are graded from simple tricks, to moderately easy tricks, to tricks requiring skill and practice.

Are you a beginning magician? You can start immediately to entertain your family and friends with Balloon Crazy, Chinese Robbery, Do As I Do, Handkerchief Cleaver, It Was a Knot but Now It's Not, Pen Through Handkerchief, and Traveling Coin.

Are you a mid-level conjuror? Here are some tricks that will stretch your skills and make you the life of the party: Blow That Knot Away, Book Test, Clock Trick, Coin in the Bun, Cut and Restored Rope, Dream Come True, Impossible Release, Indestructible Balloon, Long-Distance Trick, Newspaper Prediction, Svengali Deck, Torn and Restored Newspaper, and Vanishing Knots.

Are you a skilled performer looking for additions to your repertory? Here are some tricks for your consideration: Abracadabra, Card Through the Table, Cups and Balls (with a surprise finish), Double Prediction, Inner Tube, Ropes Change Length, Silver and Copper, Tipping the Balance, Two out of 52, and Upside-down Mystery.

My Favorite Chapter: I especially liked Chapter 3, "Tricks Using Arranged Stacks of Cards." The card tricks in this chapter are based on the Si Stebbins System. (Si Stebbins was a vaudeville performer who kept his "stacked deck" a secret for forty years.) Here are three of the startling effects made possible by the Si Stebbins System. (1) While the performer riffles through the pack, the spectator is invited to say "stop" at any time. The performer hands the larger pile created by the break-point to the spectator. Within seconds, without counting, the performer tells the spectator how many cards are in each pile -- confirmed by counting. (2) A spectator extracts a small bundle of cards from the middle of the pack, keeps the top card, and distributes the remaining cards to other onlookers. The performer proceeds to identify the first spectator's card, then identifies all the cards held by the other spectators. (3) The performer cuts the deck, then deals four poker hands face down. When the cards are turned over, all hands show a straight flush. The first hand is a five-high hearts flush. The second hand is an eight-high clubs flush, beating the first hand. The third hand is a jack-high diamonds flush, beating the first two hands. The last hand, the performer's, is a royal flush (ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of spades), beating all the others!

Great charity shop bargain, with loads of card,dice,pen & paper games and the rules of loads of sports, all with some odd illustrations.

Interesting book
However, I do not like that it has so many useless pages on zodiac, fortunate telling, paranormal,magic and medicine: alternative healing.
It looks like they tried to be commercial.½

A really excellent quick-reference guide. Neatly organised into all sorts of helpful categories.

A fairly simplistic, but quite useful, quick-reference guide to the predominant magical theories of ancient cultures and neo-pagans alike. Not very deep, but useful for things like numerology, astrology, etc.

Clear, competent rules of over a hundred card games with rudimentary tactical guidance and a some brief historical notes. The two-colour format is particularly helpful and the very small format lends itself to travel use. Some of the games are not much fun for two players: All Fives and Auction Pitch are trivial with fewer than three players. Casino is particularly effective with two players because the immediacy facilitates strategic play.

Hasn't aged particularly well, but still a worthy forerunner of Schott's miscellanies as a repository of much that is apocryphal, partially usefuly but not often wildly inaccurate.

This "encyclopedia" of music instruments from around the world has more illustrations than text, more than 4000 original drawings. It's a fascinating coffee table book to browse, and a useful reference for musicians and music lovers.

The range of instruments covered is enormous, with detailed drawings of primitive bull-roarers, renaissance instruments, whistles, percussion instruments, pipe organs and all the orchestral instruments. Traditional instruments from Africa (43), Europe (48), the middle east and Russia ((21), India (28), the Far East (30), and Indonesia (26) are carefully drawn and explained. Organized mainly by family groups of instruments, there are also pictorial indexes by geographic region, and by historical period.

From sticks and stones to H-bombs and Star Wars, it's all here in this fascinating and exhaustive catalog of the technologies humans have developed to destroy each other at increasing distances, in increasing numbers. The Diagram Group illustrate and discuss thousands of weapons here, looking at how they affected and altered the nature of war.

As a gun owner, I'm particularly impressed at the book's graphic history of the development of combat firearms. The book shows how the early matchlocks evolved over the centuries into the autoloading wonders of today, and the various strange forms they sometimes took along the way (e.g., the "Apache pistol" -- a bizarre pistol/knife/brass-knuckle three-in-one weapon.)

A must-own for anyone interested in military history, weapons studies, or the technology of human conflict.

Lots of great info but a little disorganized, partly because it is several books reprinted together.

When this book was published, it was "The first complete guide to every dinosaur now known," "including new scientific discoveries Fully ilustrated with maps, diagrams, and detailed color drawings."

And it's a treat! It has drawings of the dinosaurs as we think they looked, silhouettes of the skeleton in the dino, close-ups of skulls, feet, footprints, certain bones, teeth, etc., the dinos in their habitats, and maps of where their bones were found.

There are more dinosaurs now, with the discovery of many smaller species in Asia, including some tiny ones from Asia and some with the shadows of protofeathers around them in the rock. It seems pretty clear now that birds are dinosaurs.½

Most of us, at some time or other, find ourselves alone, unoccupied and possibly even bored. Whether waiting to see a doctor, for a train or needing to while away a wet Saturday afternoon, we sometimes want some form of amusement other than that provided by television or a novel.
Games for one fulfils this need: it is a fascinating, detailed and highly illustrated collection of solitary pastimes, offering something to everyone, young and old alike.
Games for one is a potpourri for the solo player. Whether bedridden or airborne, you can learn how to make shadow figures, play solitaire and practise string games with which to delight your friends. With each game and activity, there are step-by-step instructions and clear, accurate diagrams showing techniques and methods that are easy to follow.

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How to play all sports with diagrams