Stacking the Deck : Secrets of the World's Master Card Architect

Average customer rating:

The Real Work

Awesome Book!

Method works even for clumsy hands

The Only Book About Cardstacking

Well written book ! Nice detailed illustrations/instructions

Stacking the Deck : Secrets of the World's Master Card Architect
Bryan Berg , and Thomas O'Donnell
Manufacturer: Fireside
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Reference | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
General | Card Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0743232879

Book Description

Written by the holder of several Guinness World Records for cardstacking, this is the first complete, fully illustrated guide to the art of building mind-boggling, multilevel structures with ordinary playing cards.

In Stacking the Deck, Bryan Berg reveals the secret to successful cardstacking with his simple four-card-cell structure and expanded grid techniques. Using illustrations and step-by-step instructions, he guides readers on to more elaborate -- and incredibly strong -- creations. He covers a wide range of architectural styles, from classic to whimsical, and various types of structures, including pyramids, shrines, stadiums, churches, an oil derrick, and even the Empire State Building. Since first setting the height record in 1992, Bryan's built awe-inspiring card models of a Japanese shrine, the Iowa State Capitol building, Ebbets Field, and his latest tower, which is more than twenty-five feet tall! This book includes photographs of some of these amazing pieces, illustrating just how appealing and enduring a "house of cards" can be. Stacking the Deck will inspire everyone from youngsters experimenting with their first deck of cards to adults, who can create their own private skyscrapers.

Once you've read Stacking the Deck, you'll never look at a deck of cards the same way again.

Customer Reviews:

The Real Work.......2007-08-14

If you want to learn to build a card castle, this is the book for you. It has all the information you'll need. Excellent book.

Awesome Book!.......2007-03-08

I purchased this book for my daughter. She had a school assignment to build a weight bearing structure out of playing cards. She got some good ideas by reading stacking the Deck.

Method works even for clumsy hands.......2006-03-20

What I found amazing about this book is that within the first few pages, you will learn the basic technique to stack cards and start building some phenomenal structures. And, even if you are clumsy, your structures will still attract admiring comments. My daughter, who is 6, has started building and enjoys it more than lego.

The Only Book About Cardstacking.......2005-08-19

This is very sad that everything that is recorded about cardstacking is merely this one book. Building Houses of Cards is more than child's play. This is a sport; just like Football, Basketball, or Tennis. I wish there was a Cardstacking Club or something like this... Here is what I hope will grow up and become the first Cardstacking Club: myspace.com/cardstacker

Well written book ! Nice detailed illustrations/instructions.......2005-04-16

Well written book. Very clear instructions with a LOT of illustrations -- how to start to finish. Author also added humor to the text by showing how mistakes can happen and how it can all fall apart. Easy for kids to start with the initial tower and then build on it.

Strongly recommend it .. it is fun .. it is different and well worth the price.

Average customer rating:

Welcome To my Studio

Welcome to My Studio: Adventures in Oil Painting With Helen Van Wyk
Helen Van Wyk
Manufacturer: North Light Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Painting | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Oil Painting | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Helen Van Wyk's Favorite Color Recipes

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Problem Solving for Oil Painters: Recognizing What's Gone Wrong and How to Make It Right

ASIN: 0891345825

Customer Reviews:

Welcome To my Studio.......2000-06-26

This book takes the reader through a step by step process, begining to end of creating a painting. It starts out by talking about setting up your composition (selecting your elements) and ends with examples of how to add finishing touches to make your painting sparkle.

It gives many examples of still lifes but also includes studies of portraits and a few landscapes. This book is especially helpful because the author makes her points very clear through her written instruction along with pictures of her own paintings and the process of creating them.

Average customer rating:
Welcome to My Studio: Adventures in Oil Painting With Helen Van Wyk
Helen Van Wyk
Manufacturer: North Light Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QYAHF8

Average customer rating:
Welcome To My Studio Adventures In Oil Painting With Helen Van Wyk
Helen Van Wyk
Manufacturer: Art Instruction Associates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UIIX7Y

Customer Reviews:

Right on For Kurtz.......2000-12-19

This book does an amazing job of telling the story that is Iowa with amazing pictures and an insightfull bit of writing as well. Mr. Kurtz has hit the nail on the head in this one. Very Well written and the Most beautiful you will ever see.

Book Description

A one-stop source for Mark Rogers's finest works, including many fantasy paintings showcasing his affection for the fairer sex. Incredibly lush settings and powerful images of warrior women and hardbody heroines. This is a magnificent overview of Rogers' work, brilliantly reproducing his rich pallet of colors.

Book Description

Two boys on a bike trip are sure to find adventure. Send them off into the wilds of the American West, and it's a safe bet adventure will find them.

In 1909, Vic McDaniel and Ray Franciso, just out of high school, set out from Santa Rosa, CA., on second-hand bikes, bound for the great Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle. Vic and Ray reported their adventures to their home-town newspaper, and what adventures they had. They met their share of memorable characters, from a young girl who stole Ray's heart to pin-striped hustler who tried to pick Vic's pocket. They traveled beside railroad tracks, fought their way around boulders and up brushy hillsides, and crossed rivers layered with salmon. They survived a grizzly's nocturnal visit and the sudden terror of a snake bite. They held their breaths crossing railroad trestles over treacherous canyons, and discovered that a railroad tunnel doesn't offer safe passage when you're halfway through and a train comes along.

Evelyn Gibb, Vic's daughter, has drawn on his recollections to tell this incredible adventure in his voice. A captivating account of a journey that today we can only dream about, "Two Wheels North" has won the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Nonficiton Book Award.

Customer Reviews:

Amazing Look Backwards.......2006-03-26

For anybody going on bike tours this is a humbling book to read, and hard to put down. You can't help but root for two 18 year old boys who don't know enough not to make the trip. It also has special meaning for anyone who has ever driven all or parts of I-5 from San Francisco to Seattle. In 1909 it was possible to stay on the best road between California and Washington, and still get lost. Finally you get a feel for what life was like when my grandfather was alive. The postcards the two boys sent to their parents show buildings still standing today, but life was so much different. A good read.

beautiful.......2001-12-07

I bought this book thinking it would be an interesting adventure tale. It is that but so much more. The writing is poetic and heart warming. An absolutely wonderful little book!!

Best Bike Book Ever.......2001-04-23

If you enjoy reading about cycling and living this is a great book. I've read every touring and cycling book you can imagine, but this is the best! It really gives you a new perspective on how we ride today when you look at what these two boys had to endure at the turn of the century when roads did not exists as we know today. A truly well written adventure, great venacular dialogue, credible and yet an incredible story.

Bicycle touring the way it used to be........2001-03-27

I first bought the book because of its Vashon Island connection, being a lifelong islander myself. But I quickly decided it's one of the best bicycle touring stories in my library -- the boys come alive in the writing, no dreary list of statistics and mileposts, just two boys becoming men on their ride north to Seattle. Puts a whole new perspective on that ride for anyone who has cycled the Pacific Coast route in modern times.

A book not to be missed........2000-10-06

This book is an amazingly well-written story of the adventures of two young men bicycling from Santa Rosa, California to the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle in 1909. You are drawn into the narrative until, before you know it, you find yourself riding along with them on their trip, tasting the dust, feeling their occasional pain, and even enjoying a piece of pie with them... and then you realize that, like an Ansel Adams photograph, you have been drawn into an illusion of a reality long past. And, smiling, you dive back into the book and continue pedaling.

Amazon.com

From the very first pages of this book, it's clear that historian William C. Davis is ready to deliver a gripping account of the first battle of the Civil War. He describes a female spy traveling with stolen information from Washington, D.C., to Confederate headquarters in Fairfax Court House, Virginia: "The whole scene so reeked of penny romance that it bordered on the ludicrous." Maybe so, but it's also real history, and Davis understands what many academic historians do not: a good history book needs to tell good stories. Davis has written many outstanding books on the Civil War era, and Battle at Bull Run is one of his earliest. It's also one of his best, and is perhaps the finest book available on how the Union's haughty overconfidence crumbled against Southern determination in a single afternoon. Confederate General Thomas Jackson earned his immortal nickname, "Stonewall," on that day, and the soldiers who fought under him showed the North that its cry "On to Richmond!" was a hollow one. Much of the book focuses on events leading up to the actual battle--how the two armies were hastily assembled, how each side found its leaders, and so on. This is a familiar tale, but probably never has been told as well as it is on these pages. --John J. Miller

Customer Reviews:

McDowell has certainly been ordered to advance on the 16th read the note delivered by the beautiful Spy Miss Duval to Gen Bonham.......2007-01-10

Thus setting up the first major battle of the War. The Battle of Bull Run.
Chaos and men like Jackson, Sherman, Jeb Stuart, Jubal Early, A.P. Hill would rule on this battle field. They would soon learn that this would not be a one battle war. Once Chaos enter the fray it did not want to leave.

"At once they opened on the enemy batteries and some companies of infantry stationed nearby. almost at the same time, considerable bodies of the enemy moved forward against them, overlapping their exposed right and part of the left as well. Then the fire that poured into that thicket truely made it a place of slaughter. 'It was a whirlwind of bullets,' wrote one who survived. 'Our men fell constantly. The deadly missivies rained like hail among the boughs and trees.'" The 8th Georgians were there fifteen minutes. Matthews Hill, 31 July, 1861.

A good work, but lacking in a few areas.......2005-09-17

I would like to give this review 3.5 stars. The book is too well written for a 3, but it has some flaws that make me somewhat uncomfortable with the 4 I am giving it. Davis' book about New Market is a 5 star effort.

Davis succeeds in most areas with Battle of Bull Run. He describes the campaign well, and he gives adequate background of most of the key participating officers. The maps are adequate. The battle itself and the aftermath are competently covered. Most importantly, Davis' writing style makes for comfortable reading. His retelling appears objective and balanced for the most part, and it appears that he tries to treat the participants fairly with the information at hand all these years later. Although he does relish in retelling a few romanticized episodes (particularly in the opening), he is quick to point out the theater in these.

So where is the book lacking? Overall, it is a bit shorter and more concise than what I expected of such a momentous battle (this will be a positive for some readers, less so for the more detail oriented.) Unlike his New Market book, there is no Order of Battle, detailed listing of unit strengths, or casualties. The maps could be larger, and zoomed in to particular zones. Davis' writing in this work is not quite as clear as it was in the New Market work (or at least as I remember it.) There are several points where sentences are not adequately phrased to give the reader a full view of the subject, without paging back through the book to find the original event 40 pages earlier. Other problems are some minor but annoying factual discrepancies (usually generalities, that are too general) or things that leave one wondering what the rest of the story was.

One of the frustrating little things is the front cover Brady photo (paperback) that is also found later in the book. The text mentions this photo being used in reporting the Federal dead on Matthews Hill. The caption of the photo does not tell us that this is now known(?) to have been a staged photo of livemen playing dead, it just says that it is "often erroneously" identified.

It is a good book and I will recommend it, but it is not a truly great book, so I feel necessary to express some reservations with my recommendation.

Davis, Like the Other Davis, Bashes Beauregard.......2005-09-16

Mr. Davis has over the years provided Civil War enthusiasts with many fine books dealing with most aspects of the war. He has written books on the politics of the era, biographies of some of the era's leading figures and is the case here, he has written battle histories. This book like the author's other offerings is clearly written and concise, easy to understand and read and most importantly, it is not dull. Many authors offer up books that are just full of good information but reading them is like reading the Biblical book of Leviticus. Heaven only knows just how many well intentioned people have attempted to read the whole Bible but have come to a dead halt upon reaching Leviticus. The same applies to history books which go into such mind numbing detail about every movement of every regiment and company that the reader finds themselves completely lost and frustrated. Davis, with his wonderfully chatty writing style avoids this problem while still giving the reader all of the pertinent details.

Davis begins his story with Fort Sumter where the reader meets General P.G.T. Beauregard, the first major player in this story. Beauregard of course becomes the "hero of Sumter" and goes north to Virginia with a high reputation and an even bigger ego. Davis is not kind to the Creole general in this book and in fact may be just a little too harsh. As the story progresses the reader is also introduced to some of the people who will be major players throughout the war. This view of men like Jackson, Ewell, Early, Sherman, Stuart and Burnside will certainly help the reader understand events shaped by these men later in the war and each of these men are destined to play a major role over the next four years. Davis does an excellent job of hinting at the future of these men and also pointing out little habits or quirks that are going to become important as these men rise in rank and stature.

As with any well-written book, Davis builds the suspense as her works his way toward the battle. Actually, more of this book deals with the preparations for the battle than with the battle itself. Beauregard, who had an excellent eye for building defenses chose his ground and fortified it well. If the Yankees had just done what he expected them to do the battle would have been over in a very short time. The much-maligned Irvin McDowell had put together an excellent battle plan and Davis offers a pretty rousing defense of McDowell in this book. Davis clearly shows that had McDowell had a little better support and a little better luck, things might have turned out much differently. Besides being completely new to this type of command, McDowell had to deal with a President who was playing politics with his army and a General in Chief who not only disliked McDowell but was also playing political games. Then there was General Daniel Tyler who almost single-handedly destroyed McDowell's plan in a bid for individual glory and also General Patterson who's sloth and caution allowed Joe Johnston to join Beauregard before Patterson even knew he was gone.

Davis does a marvelous job of setting up this battle and then does an even better job of describing the action once it all begins. He has set the whole thing up so well in fact that the narrative of the battle needed very little explanation for everything made perfect sense because of the set up. This situation allowed for the story of the battle to flow about as smoothly in this book as in any book I have ever read.

The only real fault I found in this book was the maps. The maps were good but they were a little small which required me to put on my specks and there were too few of them. There are also several typos that should have all been weeded out in this revised edition and the publishers need to correct this problem in any future editions. Still, this is an eminently readable and highly enjoyable account of the first major battle of the Civil War. Well researched, well written, and highly informative, what more could anyone ask?

Good Account of the War's First Major Battle.......2004-08-26

Davis has written an interesting read on the Civil War's first major battle: the narrative is interesting without being overly simplistic, the criticisms and praises are balanced for North and South, and the maps are okay (would have liked to have seen more and enlarged).

While the book's approximately 270 pages are small by Civil War standards (of course, other battles were larger and had more political developments and changes in leadership as opposed to the time of 1st Bull Run), Davis does a good job of weaving the political climate and military strategy in with the battle descriptions. I particularly enjoyed reading in the book's last chapter summarizing what happened to the battle's main participants after Bull Run.

All in all, a good and recommended read as the definitive account of the war's first major battle.

Concise but Descriptive Enough.......2004-05-22

While many narratives concerning Civil War battles and campaigns become extremely lengthy, Davis does a good job of covering the major events from April 12 - July 21, 1861 in only 260 pages, while still maintaining enough personal analysis, movements and primary accounts to make the read entertaining.

The maps are few and far between until the engagment, during which the maps are plentiful and troop movements are easy enough to follow. Thus it would be helpful for those who know less about the land (or haven't read about it in books covering other battles throughout Northern Virginia) to have maps identifying areas like Centreville and the Shenandoah.

The author himself analyzes the activities and decisions of nearly every brigade commander on the field. He concludes that Paterson bears the brunt of the blame for the junction of Johnston and Beauregard's armies, while lack of experience and raw troops lead to the breakdown of McDowell's offensive against the Confederate left.

All in all it's a very good book. Other books on the battle will go into stronger detail, but this is a good first book to read about the campaign.

Average customer rating:
Battle at Bull Run - A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War

Manufacturer: Doubleday & Company Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GKC7D2

Average customer rating:
Battle at Bull Run - a History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War

Manufacturer: Louisiana State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HEUQZ8

Average customer rating:
BATTLE AT BULL RUN, a History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War
William C. Davis
Manufacturer: Doubled Day & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000R3TXIU

Average customer rating:
Battle at Bull Run: a History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War
William C. Davis
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HZF63E

Average customer rating:
Battle At Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War
William C. Davis
Manufacturer: Easton Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Leather Bound
ASIN: B000K5TTLG

Customer Reviews:

Interesting and factual, but essentially useless for study.......1999-04-09

I am currently using this textbook for my AP United States History class. While it is definetly factual and a good general knowledge book for people interested in History, it's difficult to study from. The wording is not easy and often gets extremely flowery. Also, the text focuses on specific incidences and doesn't cover concepts very deeply, if at all. I often find that I'm left to draw my own conclusions from it and then I have to go to other sources for the information I need for tests.

Thuroughly written, informative, but confusing.......1998-09-06

This book provides a complete description of US History. All the importaint facts are covered in the book, but not any more in depth than a paragraph or two on a subject. Occasionally, though, the text does become difficult to follow. Topics aren't presented cronoligically, but instead are grouped together in a approximate time span. IE.. The culture of the United Stated in the 1860s and 1870s was discussed before there was any mention at all about the Civil War. However, the high level of knowledge that can be gained by treading this book in its straight forward approach far outweigh any problems that may be encountered.

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