A complete and thorough DIY repair manual for Exakta VX and VXIIa cameras. The step-by-step instructions combined with excellent photographt allow a high rate of success. Much of the information specific to these models has never been published!

Built on a bluff near Racine, Wisconsin in 1906, the Thomas P. Hardy House is one of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's most admired residential buildings. In this volume, photojournalist Hertzberg combines text and pictures in a tour of this unusual home, which has come to be regarded as an icon of modern design. Hertzberg is also the author of Wright

As the Allies struggled inland from Normandy in August of 1944, the fate of Paris hung in the balance. Other jewels of Europe -- sites like Warsaw, Antwerp, and Monte Cassino -- were, or would soon be, reduced to rubble during attempts to liberate them. But Paris endured, thanks to a fractious cast of characters, from Resistance cells to Free French operatives to an unlikely assortment of diplomats, Allied generals, and governmental officials. Their efforts, and those of the German forces fighting to maintain control of the city, would shape the course of the battle for Europe and color popular memory of the conflict for generations to come. In The Blood of Free Men, celebrated historian Michael Neiberg deftly tracks the forces vying for Paris, providing a revealing new look at the city's dramatic and triumphant resistance against the Nazis. The salvation of Paris was not a foregone conclusion, Neiberg shows, and the liberation was a chaotic operation that could have easily ended in the city's ruin. The Allies were intent on bypassing Paris so as to strike the heart of the Third Reich in Germany, and the French themselves were deeply divided; feuding political cells fought for control of the Resistance within Paris, as did Charles de Gaulle and his Free French Forces outside the city. Although many of Paris's citizens initially chose a tenuous stability over outright resistance to the German occupation, they were forced to act when the approaching fighting pushed the city to the brink of starvation. In a desperate bid to save their city, ordinary Parisians took to the streets, and through a combination of valiant fighting, shrewd diplomacy, and last-minute aid from the Allies, managed to save the City of Lights. A groundbreaking, arresting narrative of the liberation, The Blood of Free Men tells the full story of one of the war's defining moments, when a tortured city and its inhabitants narrowly survived the deadliest conflict in human history.

A compact guide covering everything you need to know about insects of the UK. This pocket-sized book is an essential guide to insects, helping you to identify around 240 of the most easily noticed British species selected from a range of orders and families. The introduction covers the characteristics of an insect, where to find them as well as the conservation work in demand around the world, then entries on each species are divided into simple sections covering general information followed by its flight period, habitat and similar species. As visually impressive as it is useful in the field, Pocket Guide to Insects features many stunning full-page and double-page images supporting the authoritative text. Part of the Pocket Guides series covering British and European wildlife, including garden birds, butterflies, mushrooms, wild flowers, trees and shrubs and tracks and signs.

Inspired by performance art and by the power of subtraction to find absolute beauty, Seiju Toda created a series of 33 compositions called Heian, a term meaning peace and serenity. In a meticulous process that took several years, Toda both assembled the pieces using plain wood and living creatures - birds, fish, insects, reptiles - and directed the photography with careful consideration for the natural elements. The result is a work of art unto itself; designed by the artist, printed on beautiful paper, intriguing, amusing, tranquil and pure.

From New York Times bestselling author and Michigan football expert John Back, an analysis of the state of college football: Why we love the game, what is at risk, and the fight to save it. In search of the sport’s old ideals amid the roaring flood of hypocrisy and greed, bestselling author John U. Bacon embedded himself in four college football programs—Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern—and captured the oldest, biggest, most storied league, the Big Ten, at its tipping point. He sat in as coaches dissected game film, he ate dinner at training tables, and he listened in locker rooms. He talked with tailgating fans and college presidents, and he spent months in the company of the gifted young athletes who play the game. Fourth and Long reveals intimate scenes behind closed doors, from a team’s angry face-off with their athletic director to a defensive lineman acing his master’s exams in theoretical math. It captures the private moment when coach Urban Meyer earned the devotion of Ohio State’s Buckeyes on their way to a perfect season. It shows Michigan’s athletic department endangering the very traditions that distinguish the college game from all others. And it re-creates the euphoria of the Northwestern Wildcats winning their first bowl game in decades. Most unforgettably, Fourth and Long finds what the national media missed in the ugly aftermath of Penn State’s tragic scandal: the unheralded story of players who joined forces with Coach Bill O’Brien to save the university’s treasured program—and with it, a piece of the game’s soul. This is the work of a writer in love with an old game—a game he sees at the precipice. Bacon’s deep knowledge of sports history and his sensitivity to the tribal subcultures of the college game power this elegy to a beloved and endangered American institution.