Sloane instructs readers how to glean climate information by "reading" such natural phenomena as winds, skies, and animal sounds. A beautifully illustrated and practical treasure trove of enlightening lore for outdoorsmen, farmers, sailors, and anyone who has ever wondered whether to take an umbrella when leaving the house. 87 illustrations.

The Wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard Almanac. Over six hundred bits of wisdom from the the most witty Founding Father.

Americans love their breakfast cereal, which is second only to milk and soda in supermarket spending. Cereals and their cartoon spokescharacters are some of the most enduring pop-culture icons of the 20th century. The Great American Cereal Book is the definitive compendium of breakfast cereal history and lore, celebrating the most recognizable brands and packaging, such as Cheerios, Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Grape-Nuts, and Trix. Award-winning writer Marty Gitlin and co-author Topher Ellis provide behind-the-scenes stories about the creation of these iconic kitchen-table companions, with 350 images of cereal boxes, vintage ads, and rare memorabilia.Praise for The Great American Cereal Book: "Instantly evokes feelings of childhood--watching Saturday-morning cartoons and being bombarded with commercials for sweet cereals with colorful mascots like Toucan Sam and Tony the Tiger." --TMagazine.Blogs.NYTimes.com "While many of us have ditched the cereals of our youths (in all their freeze-dried marshmallowy glory) in favor of flax seed (boring!), the eye-popping colors and kooky designs on the cereal boxes of our childhoods still have a pull, which is why we're loving The Great American Cereal Book. -- Oprah.comIf you're a cereal lover, you'll enjoy poring through Marty Gitlin and Topher Ellis' The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch (Abrams Image). Full of factoids and countless cereal boxes from days of yore, Gitlin and Ellis trace the history of this most iconic of American breakfast dishes. It's a lot of fun to look at how cereal packaging has changed over the decades, and for anyone a little bit nostalgic, it's the perfect venue for a walk down memory lane. -- epicurious.com"A crisply colorful history of a favorite kids' food that became a pop culture icon." --Tampa Bay Times "Whether you're a food history buff, package-design geek, or just an enthusiastic consumer of the country's favorite morning bowl, these pages provide enough--ahem--snap, crackle, and pop to keep everyone happy." --Real Eats magazine

With over 170 photos and an engaging text, this book tells the stories of fourteen extraordinary Civil War quilts and the women who made them. Some of these quilts tell love stories, others relate the determination of women seeking an active role in the war effort, and some of patriotism and creative abilities of people caring about others. All of these quilts tell stories of struggle and survival. In addition, this book contains information for making traditional 19th century bindings and potholder quilts, plus over 45 patterns for making reproduction Civil War era quilts. Also included is information on reproduction fabrics and how to participate in modern soldier-related community service quilting. This book is a must read for any serious quilter, historian, or Civil War enthusiast.

A true adventure story and the go-to guide for "picking" American treasures from anyone’s backyard, straight from the stars of History's American Pickers In these pages, professional treasure hunters Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz chronicle their road trips across the American countryside in search of “rusty gold” to buy and sell among the picking world’s one-of-a-kind characters. Whether you are a fan of the show or just like finding hidden riches, you will love seeing what Wolfe and Fritz dig up and enjoy meeting the devoted collectors, extreme stockpilers, and elite dealers who they encounter along the way. Wolfe and Fritz do not deal in fine antiques. Their secondhand treasures are of the down-and-dirty and sometimes even bizarre variety, from old bicycles and vintage tools, to sun-bleached cars and handmade furniture, retired carnival games and unusual taxidermy. Assisted by Danielle Colby, who helps out at Antique Archaeology, Wolfe and Fritz buy on the cheap and then sell to dealers, art directors, interior designers, or anyone looking for a little bit of authentic Americana. The three now share their secrets to finding hidden gems, offering helpful hints that will show what average Americans can do to find the treasures that await them. From American Pickers Guide to Picking: Junk is Beautiful When we knock on a door, 90 percent of the time the things we find are junk. But we don’t care about the odds; a picker never turns down an opportunity, no matter where it is. We’ve picked pickup trucks. We’ve picked flat beds. We’ve picked dumpsters. We even picked a Mercury Sable. We’re looking for the unusual, the impossible, the funky, the different, the bizarre—things we have never seen before. And we’ll go anywhere we have to go to find it. No location is off-limits to a hard-core picker. And there’s plenty of things to be found at antique stores, thrift and consignment shops, flea markets, estate sales, and swap meets, and a lot of the tips in this book apply to finding treasures at these joints. But that’s not really the kind of picking we do anymore. We look outside the box to find our junk—a word we use almost like a term of endearment: to us: junk is beautiful.

One dealer's journey from the populist mayhem of flea markets to the rarefied realm of auctions reveals the rich, often outrageous subculture of antiques and collectibles. Millions of Americans are drawn to antiques and flea-market culture, whether as participants or as viewers of the perennially popular Antiques Roadshow or the recent hit American Pickers. This world has the air of a lottery: a $20 purchase might net you four, five, or six figures. Master dealer Curt Avery, the unlikely star of Killer Stuff and Tons of Money, plays that lottery every day, and he wins it more than most. Occasionally he gets lucky, but more often, he draws on a deep knowledge of America's past and the odd, fascinating, and beautiful objects that have survived it. Week in, week out, Avery trawls the flea and antiques circuit-buying, selling, and advising other dealers in his many areas of expertise, from furniture to glass to stoneware, and more. On the surface, he's an improbable candidate for an antiques dealer. He wrestled in high school and still retains the pugilistic build; he is gruff, funny, and profane; he favors shorts and sneakers, even in November; and he is remarkably generous toward both competitors and customers who want a break. But as he struggles for a spot in a high-end Boston show, he must step up his game and, perhaps more challenging, fit in with a white-shoe crowd. Through his ascent, we see the flea-osphere for what it truly is-less a lottery than a contact sport with few rules and many pitfalls. This rich and sometimes hilarious subculture rewards peculiar interests and outright obsessions-one dealer specializes in shrunken heads; another wants all the postal memorabilia he can get. So Avery must be a guerrilla historian and use his hard-earned knowledge of America's past to live by and off his wits. Only the smartest survive in one of America's most ruthless meritocracies. Killer Stuff and Tons of Money is many things: an insider's look at a subculture replete with arcane traditions and high drama, an inspiring account of a self-made man making his way in a cutthroat field, a treasure trove of tips for those who seek out old things themselves, and a thoroughly fresh, vibrant view of history as blood sport.

"Girls, Gags&Giggles" - this was publisher Robert Harrison's recipe for dishing up the American pin-up to the U.S. male. In the 1950s, his girlie magazines sold by the millions, before becoming icons of pulp and trash culture.These skilfully illustrated girls with their curvaceous forms and inviting lingerie soon overtook America's national dessert, in terms of popularity, and even developed considerable potential as a cultural export during the 1940s. 'Never show everything,' was always the motto. Smiling prettily at the camera, the models exuded just the right amount of sex appeal without seeming too sophisticated or artful. They were the 'girls next door' whose wholesome attraction soon made one forget the magazines' deliberately trashy presentation. Their rosy complexions and innocent allures still titillate even in an age when far more graphic material is the norm. This is for everyone who enjoys pin-ups, push-ups and pulp style!

Grandma’s rusty teakettle, old fishing lures, a broken antique camera from the attic—these are your foundation pieces for building authentic collections on the cheap.When Tereasa Surratt’s husband convinced her that they should buy a derelict summer camp in Wisconsin, they had no idea the treasure trove they’d inherit with the property. While renovating the decrepit cabins at Camp Wandawega, they kept stumbling upon curious objects, some dating back ninety years or more: a Boy Scout patch, an old sled, a pristine set of Fiesta Ware, dozens of midcentury aprons, an untouched box of board games in their original packaging. Tereasa knew the power that one mundane object has when grouped with its siblings. So rather than discard everything, she set out on a five-year expedition to turn the more than 150 found items into full-fledged collections. Relying on her own thriftiness, she only acquired pieces for free or at a bargain price: items that she found, negotiated for free, or unearthed at a flea market. Found, Free&Flea explores Tereasa’s passion for collecting while encouraging you to tap into your own with ideas on where to look to see collectibles. Throughout the book, she shares her secrets and historical tidbits behind these prized antiques, now used to create innovative displays and for entertaining guests at her renovated lakeside retreat. From vintage wine taster cups turned into a wind chime to cheese boxes reinvented as drawer organizers, to a chicken feeder that houses old tea cups for impromptu coffee bar setups, everything at Camp Wandawega earns its keep. Learn how to navigate flea markets and how to best negotiate, why “localvore” collecting should matter to the thrifty shopper (and what finds to expect on your travels), which vintage collections are easiest to start and the quickest to fill out, and what tips you should employ for turning even the most simple items into stunning displays. The beautiful photography and Tereasa’s clever DIY projects and sharp eye for design will inspire anyone to add charm and personality to interiors with a few well-worn objects. A celebration of Americana and ingenuity, Found, Free &Flea is a must-have for knowing how to spot treasures, complete collections, and display them artfully.

Designing Disney sets into history and puts into context the extraordinary contributions of John Hench, who, at the age of 94, still comes into his office at Imagineering each day. His principles of theme park design, character design, and use of color have made him a legendary figure, not only for Disney fans but also for students and aficionados of architecture, engineering, and design. Designing Disney reveals the magic behind John's great discoveries and documents his groundbreaking work in several key areas, including the values, attitudes, aesthetics, and logic that went into the original design concepts for Disney theme parks. Hench details the essence and various meanings of colors and how they work in the parks, and lets the reader in on how and why of the Disney character's inherent popularity-their timeless human traits, archetypal shapes and gestures that suggest their qualities graphically, and their emotional resonance in our lives.

The Art Hunters Handbook is an Antiques Roadshow type book that reveals Trade Secrets to hunting down valuable paintings at garage sales and flea markets. The cover photo is the true story of Ripening Pears, a 19th century masterpiece by Joseph Decker bought at a garage sale for $5 and sold to the National Gallery of Art for $1,000,000! Will you find a million-dollar painting for five bucks? Probably not. But you might find a $5,000 painting for $100. Think Of This Book As A Lottery Ticket, the Foxes claim, With Better Odds. The Art Hunters Handbook is a profusely illustrated art book for the average person, not just art collectors, who'd like to make money while having fun. Based on decades of personal experience, it contains dozens of exciting stories of art discovered in garage sales, schools, attics, basements, farmhouses, estates, even in the trash, often bought for very little and sold for a lot. However, in order to find some of the millions of undiscovered paintings that may be waiting for you just around the corner, the authors need to teach you the basics of Art Appraisals (they offer Free Art Appraisals to the general public), and How To Sell Art At Auction, including Sotheby's and Christie's. Believe it or not, by following the simple Art Hunter Tips in this book (like don't assume a painting isn't valuable just because you don't like it, especially modern art), and comparing the Artist Profiles of 120 American, European and Latin American artists, Les and Fox say they'd be surprised if you don't find several valuable paintings a year. How valuable? That's the thrill of the chase! Although this book is intended for everyone who loves TV shows like The Antiques Roadshow, American Pickers, Pawn Stars and Buried Treasure, the Foxes are knowledgeable art experts with a knack for plain talk and common sense. You won't be intimidated by this art book. Instead, will find it as entertaining as a page-turner novel. But what you'll also like is that your $16.95 investment may come back to you a hundred-fold, or maybe a thousand-fold or more, if that weird painting of colored rectangles, or people eating dinner, or a winter landscape, turns out to be something unexpected. The Art Hunters Handbook is not about finding Picassos or Van Goghs. Forgetaboutit. This book will teach you about the other 240,000 listed artists whose paintings are worth $1,000 to $10,000,000, most of whom you've probably never heard of. Like Lyonel Feininger, Emile Gruppe, Hayley Lever. One of these three artists is worth millions. The other two are generally worth $5,000 to $25,000. The only way to find out who's who, and how you can cash in on becoming an Art Hunter, with Les and Sue Fox as your personal guides, is to read The Art Hunters Handbook.