The New York Times Practical Guide to Practically Everything, Second Edition: The Essential Companion for Everyday Life

By: New York Times Staff

A New and Totally Updated Edition of the Ultimate Practical Reference. The New York Times Practical Guide to Practically Everything is the comprehensive resource for hands-on pursuits of everyday life, from personal finance to home maintenance and gardening. All the wisdom of The New York Times' experts in every field is packed into one volume that is filled with new articles and up-to-date advice and has been completely revised and updated. The Practical Guide makes it easy to find information on any topic, while inviting the reader to browse its pages. The text covers twelve major topics, including Money; Spending and Saving; Health and Fitness; Food and Drink; Education; Careers; House and Garden; Travel; Sports and Games; Arts and Entertainment; Science and Symbols; and Mores and Manners. The book provides detailed information, tips, and step-by-step instructions on such relevant and timely topics as: *How to sell your home in a down market *Investing lessons from the crash of 2008 *Buying "green" products *Cosmetic surgery *New treatments for cancer and heart disease * Budget travel tips *Going organic *What to do if you're laid off *Job-hunting in the new economy *Making the four-hour workweek work for you *Gay and lesbian etiquette guide By addressing common everyday projects, problems and dilemmas with authoritative answers from experts in the field, The New York Times Practical Guide to Practically Everything makes it easier to live a better, more productive life.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031255169X
• ISBN13: 9780312551698
• Release Date: November 2009
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 896 Pages
• Weight: 3.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.9" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

How informative was it?

This book does contain all the essential information an individual should know. It is good to keep as a reference.

New york times review

This book was so full of all kinds of information. I read through this book occasionally and still learn new things.

Practicaly all I was searching for

I checked this book out from the library and after only a few pages I knew I must have it! It has sections written by many experts in their field. For example Bob Vila wrote about home renovation, and how long you can expect certain things to last, like drywall, and roofs. There was a section on how to scale and filet a fish with pictures I know I will refer to in the future. Also loved the section on how to pick out a good sofa, I knew nothing about coil count or that % of goose feather in the padding will let you know how soft the sofa could be. And that padding on the arms of a new sofa was particularly important because that's where you are more like to see wear and tear. The more I'm reading this book the more I'm learning. And although this doesn't completely delve into every subject, it enlightens me enough to point me in the right direction and is really enjoyable read. It has subjects that I feel I'm an expert in and don't need any more advice (such as Pets, Home technology and travel). And it also has subjects I want to learn more about and am far from an expert like gardening, real estate, parenting, investing, career paths, and so much more. I'm impressed by how much is in this book and how clearly things are explained. I would recommend this book to anyone and I know that I will be referencing it again.

Make friends, influence people, fix your life...

The NY Times Practical Guide is indeed an essential guide to practically everything. Facinating, a must coffee table book--keeping yourself and guests intrigued, may be even a game based on this book. Entertains stray vistors, neglected guests, and necessary absences of the host/hostess (you) superbly. Excellent source of expanding your range of topical conversational skills. And, egads, it is chock-a-block full of information with accompanying diagrams and directions you can use! Well received by the guys on my Christmas list. It is a gender neutral book, so next year, it will be for the ladies.

What You Need to Know About Everything

I don't know just how many entries there are in this book, but the index alone runs for 21 pages, five columns wide, tiny type. You wouldn't think that a book like this would be needed in the day of Google and Yahoo reacy to supply you with tons of information in a few seconds. But with those tons of information, which one do you trust? Which ones are simply ads trying to get you to buy something? This book is put out by the New York Times. If you can't trust them, who can you trust. And it's organized in a more or less straight forward way to make it easy for you to find what you are looking for. It's broken down into several major categories, as follows: Health and Fitness Food and Drink Money Spending and Saving Education Careers House and Garden Travel Sports and Games Arts and Entertainment Everyday Science Law and Mores Under these broad subjects are a hundred or so smaller categories with dozens of entries under that. I'd list some of the entries, but it's easier just to say that almost everything you could possibly think of is almost certainly to be included from fly fishing to pricy vacation, from antique furniture styles to fishing lures, from investing in Wall Street to investing in wine.