The Ultimate Visual Dictionary 2001. No author listed - ISBN: 0789461110 according to Amazon.com. You look up the subject in the index, go to the page, and look at the picture with all the parts identified. There's over 6,000 full color pictures in the book. The hard cover edition will break your foot if you drop it. In general, I like the Howdunnit series for mystery writing, but some of the books work well cross-genre: Deadly Doses - A Writer's guide to Poisons by Serita Stevens and Anne Klarner. (It includes historically used poisons as well as modern ones.) Body Trauma - A Writer's Guide to Wounds and Injuries by David W. Page. (I'm very sqeamish, so I'm very slowly making my way through this book.) It gives a good idea of what someone can and can not do given a specific injury. It's written for modern times, but it can be used for any genre. Currently, I'm looking for a good historical reference book on medieval life in various countries. The one that I bought sucketh. What have y'all found?

Some may laugh at this... Baby Names book The one I have (Baby Names for the New Century by Pamela Samuelson), has about 2000 names (not sure, haven't counted lol) from around the world. It gives names, pronouncation, race, meaning, people in history who share that name (I think this is most popular people that is) and variants. There are a number of these types out, but becareful because not all books will have the same information and not all books will agree to what race any of the most common names come from. This is as far as I got for my research material. I usually enlist my husbands help in doing searches for stuff on the internet or my state/local library because he is really good at doing research lol.

Good Grief!!! I need to go back to spell checking school LOL

I have the "Police Procedural, a writer's guide to the police and how they work" It is a Howdunit book. Also "The Writer's Complete Crime Reference Book" I got them from Writer's Digest.

Crescent, I've got a 'Renaissance England' (sp?) reference at home - I'm at work of course. Think it's by Writer's Digest - I'll get back with publisher. It covers general areas such as govt/portlife/food/clothes/etc (like a D&D ecology guide if your familiar with that). I use baby naming books too, BellaMorte. There is a thick writer's name reference book (at home also darn it. If interested I'll post publisher name also. I've got way tooooooo many 'how to books'.

Oops, made a parenthetical boo boo.

"Everyday Life in Renaissance England from 1485-1649" by Kathy Lynn Emerson (Writer's Digest). Not Medieval but covers pre-industrial culture.

1.) The "New How it Works," this is actually an encyclpedia-type set that literally shows how anything works. 2.) American Headlines (1776- 1984) If you want to relate to certain events in US History. 3.) Find It Fast (How to uncover expert information on any subject fast.) 4.) The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows (if your characters are known to watch tv, etc. Good cultural references here.) 5.) Panate's Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things (Great for background on almost anything, such as the origins of Halloween, the Vacuum Cleaner, whatever.) 6.) The Modern Man's Guide to Life. (Great for about everything a man might want to know.) 7.) Be Your own Detective.