Ultimate Visual Dictionary

I've been a fan of the DK Oxford Illustrated American Dictionary for a few years now. The DK Ultimate Visual Dictionary is the next step. It is not a dictionary in which the words are organized with pictures in alphabetical order. However, you can look up the words and find the corresponding page numbers, so finding words is relatively easy. This is a book in which 14 sections explain everything from The Universe to Calligraphy. This book doesn't include individual sentences using the words. "It shows you what each word means!" There are detailed illustrations and gorgeous photographs in rich color. Annotations surround the pictures. In the introduction, they explain how if you wanted to know what the bone at the end of your little finger was called, a normal dictionary would leave you still wondering. With this dictionary, all you have to do is look up "hand" and you find your way to page 211. This is the section on the human body. Turn a few pages and you start to see amazingly detailed information. By page 230, you will see the hand in full detail and find a picture with the annotation reading: "Distal phalanx." The "Visual Dictionary" gives you access to thousands of words used by architects, musicians, doctors, scientists, sportspeople, astronomers and mechanics. The 14 Sections include: The Universe - This book explains why the Milky Way appears brighter in the southern sky than in the northern sky. There are pictures of everything from the solar system to the individual planets, stars and black holes. Prehistoric Earth - Kids will love the pictures of the dinosaurs and the constant movement of the earth's crustal plates shows how the continents have moved across the earth's surface. Plants - This book contains perhaps the most interesting explanation of photosynthesis and pollination I've seen yet. Kids will enjoy reading about the Venus Flytrap or how a seed germinates. Animals -The skeletal structures and internal organs (mostly drawings) of a wide variety of animals are all shown in pictures. I loved the part where they show the hatching of a quail's egg. The rabbits and rodents section will be of interest to anyone who has these cute animals as pets. The Human Body - If you want to know where the organs in your body are located or are even just trying to name various parts of a body, this section is essential for writing, research and home study projects. You can grab this book and see what an instructor is talking about when she says "deltoid" or "external oblique." The section on the development of jaw and teeth was very helpful in understanding how you eventually get your set of 32 permanent teeth. You see it all in a series of pictures. The Development of a baby will fascinate children. Geology, Geography, and Meteorology - There is a section devoted to minerals. Kids will also enjoy the section on volcanoes and fossils. I always wondered how caves form. Physics and Chemistry - A full periodic table and visual e

This is the most detailed visual dictionary that I've seen. If you're a well educated adult in the English language, perhaps a writer, and you're trying to choose between The Firefly Visual Dictionary, The MacMillan Visual Dictionary, The Scholastic Visual Dictionary, even the old What's What dictionary (which I think got the craze started), and DK's "Ultimate Visual Dictionary" - this book is absolutely your choice. As an alternative you can choose one of DK's "Eyewitness" Visual Dictionaries--these are sections from the Ultimate Visual Dictionary sold separately. Don't make the mistake of buying both unless there's a reason you want duplication. You CAN, however, get both this book and DK's "Ultimate Visual Dictionary of Science" which is a highly expanded version of the more generalized science sections of this book.

Old habits are hard to break. It's possible, though, that the "Ultimate Visual Dictionary" will cure you of yelling to anyone within hearing distance, "Do you remember what those little petals that sit on the top of a strawberry are called?" but I can tell you that when no one in the house comes running to your aid, you will be really glad to have this reference sitting right on your desk. Libraries are nice. Heavens, the NET is even nice. But nothing can surpass a good, well-worn reference that you come to know intimately, know its strengths and its weaknesses. The pictures in this book are colorful, clear and not so cute they're annoying; it is divided into sensible categories like "The Universe," "Prehistoric Earth," and "The Human Body." There is a concise index and an appendix of useful data like mathematical symbols and the ever-confounding metric conversions. Now, sometimes you will need the name for something like the hole in the face of a guitar. You are praying there is a term that alliterates with the adjective you have already chosen to describe it. You rush to the wonderful book (after getting blank stares from anyone you ask about it first, of course), find the section for "music," and are disappointed to find that it is called a "sound hole." It's not a poetic term. It doesn't have any potential for a lyrical metaphor. Still, that's not the fault of the book, is it? At least you'll know that you are on your own for coming up with a term that is kinder to the ear or that, if you settle for "sound hole," there is nothing more accurate available. Check out the page for "Books." You'll find wonderful terms about your own craft that you've forgotten or never knew--like "mull," "buckram corner piece," and "tail."Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"

This book takes everyday objects (and some historical objects as well), and makes them tremendously exciting by truly demonstrating how form follows function. The graphics are outstanding, and the attention to detail is unsurpassed by any text of its type of which I am familiar. The Ultimate Visual Dictionary 2000 is outstanding as a reference text for educators and students alike: I wish I had access to such a book when I was in school!