Plant Clinic Handbook (Imi Technical Handbooks , No 3)

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This book provides practical details of techniques used in plant clinics for plant disease diagnosis and assessment. It is a concise manual covering both field and laboratory techniques used worldwide. Students of plant pathology and crop protection as well as non-specialist practitioners will find this handbook a helpful diagnostic resource.

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Full color and fact packed, yet portable and affordable -- only 15.95! Bonus! Pullout wallet-sized Mini Restaurant Guides and City Map

Insight Pocket Guide Tokyo (Insight Pocket Guides)

Average customer rating:

Best Guide for Tokyo

Insight Pocket Guide Tokyo (Insight Pocket Guides)
Stephen Mansfield
Manufacturer: Insight Guides
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0887294022

Customer Reviews:

Best Guide for Tokyo.......2003-09-14

This handy guide is small enough to fit in your pocket, but is packed with great information. It's got several day trips outlined, and I found the information in here much more usable than the Lonely Planet Condensed Guide. It also comes with a subway map that is pretty good, although I generally used the free ones they gave out in the subway so I wouldn't lose my good one. This, along with the larger Insight Tokyo Guide, were the two best books for Tokyo.

Insight Guide to Tokyo (Insight City Guide Tokyo)

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Insight Guide to Tokyo (Insight City Guide Tokyo)
Insight Guides Staff
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0395774640

Insight Guide Japan (Insight Guides Japan)

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Insight Guide Japan (Insight Guides Japan)

Manufacturer: Insight Guides
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Asia | Travel | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 9812586008

Insight Guide Tokyo (Insight City Guides)

Average customer rating:

Beautiful Book But Not So Practical
Tokyo

Insight Guide Tokyo (Insight City Guides)
Francis Doral
Manufacturer: Insight Guides
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 9812349677

Book Description

Insight Guides, the world's largest visual travel guide series, in association with Discovery Channel, the world's premier source of nonfiction entertainment, provides more insight than ever. From the most popular resort cities to the most exotic villages, Insight Guides capture the unique character of each culture with an insider's perspective. Inside every Insight Guide you'll find: .Evocative, full-colour photography on every page .Cross-referenced, full-colour maps throughout .A brief introduction including a historical timeline .Lively essays by local writers on the culture, history, and people .Expert evaluations on the sights really worth seeing .Special features spotlighting particular topics of interest .A comprehensive Travel Tips section with listings of the best restaurants, hotels, and attractions, as well as practical information on getting around and advice for travel with children

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful Book But Not So Practical.......2005-03-31

This guide has beautiful color pictures and lots of information. Over 100 pages is just information about Japan. The guide part of the book is split into districts and talks about the different sights to see. The pictures and this organization is nice for planning a trip to Japan, or reading up on the history of Japan, however it's not as practical as a companion book to carry with you.

First of all, it's heavy. You wouldn't want to carry a 1.5-pound book around. It doesn't have as many maps as some of the other guides do and the organization can be a little confusing if you want to look up info on just one place. The major problem with this guide is its complete lack of Japanese characters. It doesn't write hotel names, restaurant names, or anything in Japanese characters for you. If you want a book to carry around on your travels I would recommend Lonely Planet Tokyo instead.

Tokyo.......2003-11-20

This book is great for planning a trip to Tokyo. It shows all the attractions that are of interest and is a great companion for finding places to dine, stay, and shop. This guide has it all with high-quality photogrpahs and maps on every page. This is a must of a beginner traveller to Tokyo or anywhere in Japan.

Insight Guides East Asia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan (Insight Guides)

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Insight Guides East Asia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan (Insight Guides)

Manufacturer: Apa Productions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0395662516

Average customer rating:

Beautiful pictures - but hardly useful when travelling
As always, the Insight Guides bring the experience
nice pictures, but really made for the typical american
Great pictures and stories but highly culture-opinionated
best guide for Japan

Insight Guide Japan (Insight Guides Japan)
Scott Rutherford
Manufacturer: Langenscheidt Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0887295886

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful pictures - but hardly useful when travelling.......2003-07-03

It is very good as a coffee-table book: publishers pull all the stops with beautiful, expensive, high quality photographs. There are loads of good cultural and background information, and these articles also read well (unlike writings of some supposedly insightful books like Rough Guide which are terminally, heart-stoppingly, mind-numbingly BORING).

However, the guide is thin on practicalities, and all this premium quality glossy super-paper is too heavy to carry around. It is a pleasure to leaf through at home, though.

As always, the Insight Guides bring the experience.......2001-07-22

As a Insight Guide fan I feel this is a great visual guide to Japan. You can buy much better detailed traditional-style guide books with more information, but Insight Guides arent about that imho, they aim to bring the living experience of a country or an area to you via images. Content is lightweight as with most IGs. If you can afford it buy the Lonely Planet Japan for sheer information plus this book for the experience and you cant go wrong when visiting Japan.

nice pictures, but really made for the typical american.......2000-06-08

I feel like this book was made for the average traveler with heaps of money to spend. Not many cheap options. Plus there was no coverage of off the beaten track places. Only the main cities and sights. The pictures were quite lovely, though...

My advice: If a trip to Japan is in your future, pick up Lonley Planet's Japan. And if your Japanese is non-existant, I hear that LP also publishes a good phrasebook.

If you have heaps of money to spend and are the type of person who likes organized tours and planned itenaries, buy this book. If not, skip it.

Great pictures and stories but highly culture-opinionated.......2000-05-07

I picked this book up to do some research on a possible future trip to Japan. Wanted to see, with pictures and stories, what there is to see. This book is great for that, but I keep getting distracted by the sometimes highly-opinionated (albeit fascinating) views on Japanese culture and life. Wasn't expecting such editing from a general guidebook not advertised for its opinions. Without these distractions, I'd give the book 5 stars as an advance-research book. If I had been Japanese, I might have returned it long ago (and every time I read another section, the thought still occurs to me). Can't say much more than this since I haven't been to Japan myself and haven't finished the whole book yet.

best guide for Japan.......1999-07-23

This is the best overview guide to Japan I have seen. Not necessarily your best bet as a travel guide if you need detailed lodging info and such, but this book has beautiful pictures and great text to introduce you to the country.

Insight Guide Tokyo (Insight City Guide Tokyo)

Average customer rating:

Insight Guide Tokyo (Insight City Guide Tokyo)

Manufacturer: Apa Productions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Insight Guide | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0887297838

Average customer rating:

Nice for planning and dreaming, not practical for travelling
A Good Reference To Use On Japan

Insight Guides Japan
Insight Guides
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0395664330

Customer Reviews:

Nice for planning and dreaming, not practical for travelling.......2002-03-20

This book is very useful for someone, like me, who lives in Tokyo and needs a bit of inspiration to get up at the weekend and drag themselves out to see a bit more of Japan. If you're planning a trip and not sure where to go - this book will also be useful. It is full of very beautiful pictures.

It's not, however enough on its own to be used as a guidebook. Maps are too small, listings too brief and it lacks sufficient practical advice on coping with day to day life. For people coming to Japan to live or travel I would recommend this book as part of a selection of books to take. If you don't have the luxury of choosing several books then this may not be suitable. On the other hand if you're just sat at home wondering where to spend your next holiday - it would be a good buy.

If you are coming to live in Japan then I recommend: Being a Broad in Japan (by Caroline Pover) which is aimed at women, but probably useful for all travellers, to give you the practical side of things.

A Good Reference To Use On Japan.......1999-04-05

This book will tell you everything you need to know about Japan. I live in Tokyo, and it'll teel you that it is the largest city in the world, the most populated, and probably have the most cars you willl ever see. This book is something you should you for people going to Japan as a tour guide to hep them understand the Japanese cultures, and major tourists sites in Japan. So ig your ever planning a trip somewhere in the orient or planning on movie in Japan, read this book before getting there. It will help you a lot.

Average customer rating:

Insight Guides: Tokyo (Insight Guides)
Miguel Rivas-Micoud , and Joseph Zanghi
Manufacturer: Apa Productions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Insight Guide | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0395662060

Book Description

One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji by the renowned Japanese artist Hokusai is a work of unending visual delight. Considered Hokusai's masterpiece, this series of images captures the simple, elegant shape of Mount Fuji from every angle and in every context. With no more than delicate, engraved outlines and flat washes of gray, Hokusai displays his consummate virtuosity as a draftsman, printmaker, and compositional innovator. Seen behind hanging strips of cloth outside a dyer's shop, or through the close stems of swaying bamboo, Mt. Fuji takes on a variety of guises--at times majestic, ominous, and even occasionally comic--to reflect its multiform meaning within Japanese culture.

Customer Reviews:

Better than I had imagined.......2005-04-01

This book is the next best thing to having the original works. English notes are limited to the beginning and end of the book. I was concerned when I read the review mentioning the cut off Japanese text. Yes, they are cut off, but not lost. The originals would appear exactly the same way. That's because the originals were printed on only one side of double spreads which were folded down the middle, right through those columns of text. You only have to flip the page to see the other half of the text. As for the washed out grays, that is a shame, but I am peronally more interested in Hokusai's line work anyway, so it doesn't bother me. He used the best carvers, so we have a good representation of his original brush work. My one complaint is that the cover on my paperback copy was not well glued to the spine, and fell off in a few minutes. But now my pages spread out flat with no resistance, so maybe it's an improvement.

Essential prints from an "Old Man Crazy about Painting".......2004-04-03

This is Hokusai at his best. His quality of line is exceptional and the images are a constant delight. The fertility of the artist's imagination is nothing short of astonishing. Hokusai gives us the mythological origins of Fuji, simple views of Fuji, pilgrims climbing and descending Fuji, Fuji's reflection, Fuji seen through rain and through mist, Fuji framed by trees, windows and bridges, Fuji from near and Fuji from afar. In one striking interior view, we see some surprised people looking at a miraculous vision of an inverted Fuji that floats on a screen before them. The explanation? A knothole in the house's wooden wall has transformed the building into a kind of giant camera obscura, and the morning sun is projecting an image of the mountain onto the screen. So... Fuji outdoors and Fuji indoors.

One has to make a firm distinction between the original project and this edition. Hokusai's "100 Views of Mt Fuji" first appeared in three separate volumes: this book reprints them in one handy paperback. There are several extremely nice touches about this version. For a start, all the prints are reproduced to scale, and organized in the Japanese manner (i.e. the first print appears at the back of the book, and the last at the front). Better still, the prefaces, colophons, and title pages are all included, too. In total, you actually get 102 views of the mountain, and many of these consist of two separate prints on facing pages. This book is certainly great value for money because it doesn't stop here. Placed at the back of the volume--so as not to interfere with the flow of the prints--are translations of the Japanese texts and a commentary for each view of the mountain. All of these are extremely illuminating, and manage to outline just enough about Japanese history and culture for the images to make perfect sense. There's also an excellent introduction, which goes into more detail about the rich cultural and religious significance of Fuji, and about the nature of Hokusai's project. Why, for example, were there 102 views, not 100? Here's Henry Smith's appealing theory:
"I think that that the two beyond one hundred were related to his underlying preoccupation with long life: they were like the 'one to grow on' candle that we stick in a birthday cake, a wish that he actually live on past his cherished goal of one hundred."

I have just two major gripes to make about this otherwise excellent version of Hokusai's "One Hundred Views..." The first is that the edges of each facsimiled page seem to have been cropped in such a way that some of the original material (generally Japanese writing) has been lost. More seriously, the original prints were made with black ink and a range of grays, but, here, many of these grays appear to be rather washed out. Sometimes this doesn't much matter, but sometimes it seriously effects the legibility of a print. An example: one of the most famous views of the mountain consists of a spider's web with a leaf caught in it. "Where's Fuji?" we wonder. (Hokusai is constantly making us mutter these words to ourselves.) In a good print, we eventually notice a couple of light gray zones at the top of the image, which represent the sky surrounding the top of Fuji. We're seeing the mountain through the web. But, in this book, these grays have almost entirely disappeared and, as a consequence, so has Fuji.

Nevertheless, you should absolutely buy this book. Rarely has so much inventiveness, wit and visual poetry been crammed into such a small space.

One of the greatest.......2000-10-14

Hokusai is my second favorite Japanese print artist whose art reflects mostly nature. I have two pictures of his hanging on wall. 100 Views of Mt. Fuji is one of his most beautiful works. It depicts the seasonal changes and the things done on Mt. Fuji. If you are intrested in Japanese woodprint and love nature, I'd strongly advice you to get this book. Awesome!

Average customer rating:

Young man crazy about this book
excellent
The definitive collection

Hokusai
Gian Carlo Calza
Manufacturer: Phaidon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0714843040

Book Description

Katsushika Hokusai (1769-1849) was one of the greatest of the Japanese printmakers, painters and book illustrators. This richly illustrated monograph provides an overview of the master's life and works. Comprising introductory essays, seven chapters embracing Hokusai's entire career and some 700 illustrations, it presents and analyses a large selection of Hokusai's finest works in all media, covering his whole career and giving a scholarly and up-to-date interpretation of the artist and his significance.Gian Carlo Calza is Professor of East Asian Art History at the University of Ca' Foscari, Venice, and Director of the International Hokusai Research Centre in Milan. A distinguished authority on Hokusai and Japanese art, he has published many books, exhibition catalogues and articles on Hokusai, and is currently preparing a catalogue raisonn+ of Hokusai's paintings.In addition to Calza's eight introductory essays and his catalogue of the artist's works, the book includes discussions of various aspects of Hokusai's art by inter-nationally respected authorities in the field, namely Roger S. Keyes, Visiting Professor in the History of Art at Brown University; Matthi Forrer, Curator at the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden; John M. Rosen-field, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Art at Harvard University; Richard Lane, independent scholar; Asano Shugo, Curator of the Municipal Museum of Art, Chiba; Tsuji Nobuo, Rector of Tama University of Fine Arts, Tokyo; and Kobayashi Tadashi, Director of the Muni-cipal Museum of Art, Chiba, and Professor of East Asian Art History at the University Gakushuin of Tokyo.

Customer Reviews:

Young man crazy about this book.......2006-09-28

Looking at this collection really shows the diversity in Hokusai's long career. In one of the essays, the writter comments that Hokusai changes his style so much that his work looks like the work of a different artist. The breath of this volume helps the viewer see how creative and inventive this master is. What I like about Hokusai is that his personal life is just as interesting as his work. The essays included do a good job placing the differnent periods in context with the times and Hokusai's own massive body of work.

excellent.......2004-06-17

Excellent printing and selection, a great book for art reference or read.

The definitive collection.......2003-12-05

There are two or three different collections of Hokusai's works in print this Fall (2003), and of them this is the best. The others are good, solid selections of his material, but this combines an encyclopedic sweep of nearly all of his available prints (including ones rarely seen, such as his erotic prints) with a superb color printing. I'd recommend this above all of the others, if you're looking for a complete catalog of his works.

Hokusai: Prints and Drawings (African, Asian & Oceanic Art)

Average customer rating:

Outstanding survey
Hokusai:Mountains & Water; Flowers & Birds
disappointing
Great Art But Poor Writing
Just a note of caution

Hokusai: Prints and Drawings (African, Asian & Oceanic Art)
Matthi Forrer
Manufacturer: Prestel Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 379131131X

Book Description

Hokusai was one of the great masters of the Japanese woodblock print. His exquisite compositions and dynamic use of color set him apart from other printmakers, and his unequalled genius influenced both Japanese and a whole generation of Western artists. Now available for the first time in paperback, this book reproduces the artist's finest works in plates that convey the full variety of his invention, each of which is provided with an authoritative commentary.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding survey.......2007-10-09

Forrer starts this book with about 35 pages of historical notes, which sketch Hokusai's career and the social milieu in which he lived, albeit with some maddening omissions. The timeline on page 37 notes a brief period in which he was "reduced to penury" - something the narrative seems to skip over.

No matter, this book is really about the artwork: 130+ works, prints with a few drawings, in color or B&W to match the original work. Opaque, bright paper carries the printing well. Colors tend not to be saturated, something that disappointed me until I realized that it's probably true to the natural fading of inks 150-200 years old. In fact, the one real annoyance in the printing (plate 85) could have gotten its over-processed look from a misguided attempt to pull more contrast from a faded print than the print had to give.

A few paragraphs describe each image. The more helpful notes identify the site of a scene, or pick out "product placement" of the publisher's name among kanji characters that I could not make sense of unaided. A few times, descriptions of the obvious seemed un-needed. In a number of places, the author added art-historian notes on the different inking of other known impressions of an image. That could have been helpful in a more scholarly study, but the brevity of this catalog makes such detail seem a bit much.

None of that detracts from the art itself. Although the pieces aren't presented chronologically, they cover many parts of Hokusai's career. They include extracts from several series of prints, including the famous "36 Views of Mt. Fuji." No series appears in its entirety (the brevity I mentioned earlier), but I was happy to see selections from groups that I had not heard of before. Of course, the later work includes a few specimens of Hokusai's shunga - the erotic images that so startle a Western eye. This doesn't catalog Hokusai's work exhaustively or give the most detailed history of his life. It does, however, present a gorgeous collection of his work, a collection that goes well beyond what you might expect of an introduction.

-- wiredweird

Hokusai:Mountains & Water; Flowers & Birds.......2004-10-27

Hokusai is to the educated Western eye synonymous with Japanese art. Indeed, "the Great Wave at Kanagawa" represents all the powerful symmetry of the simple, direct force of line drawing and
pointillism and the clean coloration that has come to symbolize the zen eye. While these gorgeous studies are woodcuts, their place in the artistic firmament is assured at least for those of us in the West. This beautifully designed collection has sewn-in
signatures and features The Wave on its cover and contains over four dozen satin-finish reproductions from Katsushika Hokusai's nature theme portfolio. The editor, Matthi Forrer gives us 16 pages of biographical and historical commentary.
It should be noted that much of the Nature work of Hokusai was accomplished in his seventh decade (he lived to about 90). To spend time with these pieces is to enjoy a whimsical and light-spirited romp through a time in Japan when it was barely open to any significant degree of Western influence. His work is fanciful and yet done with grace and simplicity. It is the technique of a painter who not only knows his medium, but manages to add the wry and jaded perspective of serendipity.
At the same time Hokusai was pouring forth his woodblock prints, it is worthwhile to remind ourselves that the skies over much of southern England were darkened and polluted by the cranking-up of the machinery of the Industrial Revolution. The unselfconscious qualities of these colorful prints show people of leisure and workers alike, but it is a depiction of society that has yet to feel the impact of dehumanizing and Nature-damaging machinery. Plate #14 is a fine example. While showing workers in a lumberyard, the movements of the bodyframes tossing wood suggests a flow of energy that is natural and contrasts with
the death and injury brought to their counterparts in the West by the forces of industrialization. We can only imagine what a simpler life and times for Hokusai's countrymen must have been like and which these prints reflect. One can sit with and contemplate his elegant immutable cranes (plate #32) for hours.
This is a wonderful, rich compilation and Prestel Publishing gets major kudos for producing this affordable volume.

disappointing.......2001-09-03

Unlike Matthi Forrer's previous effort, entitled "Hokusai" (now sadly out of print), and which by far exceeded the current volume both in size (litterally, having been close to A3 format) as well as depth and scope, this issue is hampered by a diminished quality of graphical reproduction (small-sized images, mostly black & white), as well as an almost complete omission of Hokusai's accomplished late works - which are mostly colour paintings on silk (kakemono), rather than the more familiar ukyo-e prints.
Overall a regrettable step back.

Great Art But Poor Writing.......2000-02-19

This book gets 3 stars for the beautiful reproductions of Hokusai's work. There are approximately 130 plates, most of them in gorgeous color. But I found the text by Mr. Forrer to be very disappointing. There is an opening chapter of around 30 pages which is meant to give you some information about Hokusai and Japanese art in general. It is very straighforward and written in a dry manner. I was hoping for more of a biographical sketch of Hokusai but did not get it. Mr. Forrer writes that "apparently Hokusai lived for his art". Is that supposed to mean that he didn't have a life? I doubt that is the case but unfortunately it is how Mr. Forrer excuses the fact that he doesn't really tell us anything about the man who is generally thought to be the greatest artist Japan has ever produced. The descriptions that accompany the plates are equally disappointing. Hokusai worked mainly in woodblocks and Mr. Forrer spends a lot of time telling us about what variations (reproductions of which are not included) of these woodblocks looked like. He does this on page after page and I found it annoying. Mr. Forrer hammers home the same points on page after page rather than trying to make each plate interesting and distinctive. He keeps pointing out Hokusai's use of linear perspective and of his western style of painting skies (showing individual clouds rather than the traditional Japanese method of just painting a flat wash with some haze for the entire sky). This is interesting the first couple of times you read it but gets tedious after awhile. There is much more that could have been said about these works.If you just want to look at some pretty pictures you will enjoy this book. If you want a more complete picture you will need to look elsewhere.

Just a note of caution.......2000-02-18

This is a wonderful high quality book. Hokusai's work is rich, intricate and completely captivating. Parents should just be aware that there are four or five plates in the very back of the book that are erotically explicit.

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