The Brick Fan

LEGO News, LEGO Reviews, and Discussions

Category: LEGO Books (Page 32 of 37)

Brick Wonders: Ancient, Modern, and Natural Wonders Made from LEGO Book Review

September 25, 2014 /

Continuing with another book review from Warren Elsore, we have Brick Wonders: Ancient, Modern, and Natural Wonders Made from LEGO. The book is a sequel to the best-seller Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO which we have also reviewed. Like the previous book, it contains 256 fully illustrated pages and it retails for $19.99. Also, the cover is a mix of a hard and softback in a sense that it is not a full hardback but soft enough to bend a little.

Brick Wonders: Ancient, Modern, and Natural Wonders Made from LEGO Brick Wonders: Ancient, Modern, and Natural Wonders Made from LEGO

The first chapter of the book follows its predecessor where it talks about the history of LEGO, where to buy bricks, building tips, LEGO design software, so on and so forth. There is some information about sorting and storing of your LEGO bricks and online resources you can use to help you build.

In a little different format than the previous book, Brick Wonders has the chapters that are categorized into types of wonders in the world including the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Historic Wonders, Modern Wonders, and Natural Wonders.

Brick Wonders: Ancient, Modern, and Natural Wonders Made from LEGO

Like his previous book, there are lots of photos of Warren’s highly detailed builds along with an informative description of the what the subject is about. Included in the chapters are some builds that you can build using the instructions that he has provided like a Mini Sphinx, Trojan Horse, and Chinese Pagoda just to name a few. The instructions again are condensed into one page and are somewhat small. This may give novice builders some trouble when … Continue

Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO Book Review

September 23, 2014 /

Recently, we received a couple of LEGO books from Barron’s Educational Books to review. The first of these books is Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO by Warren Elsmore. It contains 256 pages and retails for $19.99.

Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO

Warren Elsmore isn’t as well-known here in the States as he is in the UK as the organizer of AFOLCON and as a former chairman of the Brickish Association. He is also known for some very elaborate builds such as London’s St. Pancras Railway Station and the London Olympic Park.

The first part of the book takes a look at the history of LEGO which every book seems to do. It continues to talk about the most useful bricks in LEGO building, where to get the bricks, design software, and different building techniques.

The rest of the book which is about 90% is devoted to real-world objects that were built by Warren as well as from other LEGO builders around the world. There are over 100 recognizable global landmarks in 39 different cities that are shown in the book with many of the builds having instructions on create them yourselves. Each build also has a little information block about the object.

Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO

Although there are instructions for the builds, they are are fairly small to look at. For novice builders, it may be difficult to follow since the steps can go by pretty fast.

Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO

Finally, Brick City contains two large fold-out posters that are suitable for framing. The posters include Warren’s St. Pancras Railway Station and Spencer … Continue

Upcoming LEGO Books from No Starch Press

September 19, 2014 /

There are a couple of new LEGO books coming out from No Starch Press in the next few months which I look forward to reviewing.

Art of the Brick is a book that showcases the work of Nathan Sawaya including going behind-the-scenes to see how he has made the creations. Nathan is a world-renowned artist and The Art of the Brick takes us into how he uses LEGO bricks as an art form.

Steampunk LEGO by Guy Himber is a book that I am very interested in reading. This book will showcase a number LEGO artists who has created Steampunk-type builds from cities to pirate ships to robots.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Idea Book takes a look a many different ways to build mechanisms with LEGO MINDSTORMES EV3 (31313). Each build will have a list of parts needed and colorful photos so you can easily build it yourself.

Beautiful LEGO 2: Dark by Mike Doyle continues off where the first Beautiful LEGO left off. Dark takes a look at LEGO builds that are categoried as “dark” which includes sci-fi to scary builds. There are also dark humor builds in the book as well.

… Continue

The LEGO Neighborhood Book Review

September 17, 2014 /

We’ve recently received a new book to review from No Starch Press called The LEGO Neighborhood Book: Build Your Own Town! by Brian and Jason Lyles. Brian runs Brick City Depot where he publishes instructions for LEGO modular buildings and if it sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen an ad to their site on our right sidebar beneath the categories.

No Starch Press is known for their AFOL-centric books such as LEGO Space: Building the Future and The Art of LEGO Design which we’ve also reviewed before. The LEGO Neighborhood Book is geared towards people who build LEGO cities with modular buildings. It contains 204 pages and retails for $19.95 but you can get it cheaper at various retailers like Amazon. The book has a high quality softback cover and the images in the book are very nice which is what we’ve come to expect from No Starch.

Since the highly popular LEGO Modular buildings were released back in 2007 with the Cafe Corner (10182) which have continued with eight more Modular sets, LEGO fans have been creating their own MOCs of the buildings to grow their city The LEGO Neighborhood Book is basically split into two halves. The first half of the book contains six chapters and it takes a look at some of the foundations of what a modular building consists of.

The first chapter gives you an introduction to the standards of a modular building like the base size and the depth and height. This is what the authors call the “Cafe Corner” … Continue

BrickJournal Magazine on Sale at TwoMorrows Publishing

September 16, 2014 /

BrickJournal September 2013, Issue 25

TwoMorrows Publishing is having a “Brick to School Sale” and every back issue of BrickJournal is 50% off. Another sale they are having is the BrickJournal subscriptions are 15%. These offers are valid for print copies of the magazine until the end of September so you have about two weeks left to get in on the deals.

BrickJournal is a magazine which showcases many different aspects of the LEGO community including events, builders, MOCs, as well as how-to articles by many builders in the community. The magazine is edited by our good friend Joe Meno.

If you haven’t checked out BrickJournal before, this may be a good time to purchase it especially when you can get two copies of the magazine for the price of one.

… Continue

Blocks Magazine Will be Available at US Barnes & Noble Stores

September 5, 2014 /

Blocks Magazine

The highly popular Blocks LEGO magazine which was first released a few months ago in the UK will now make its way to the US. They have just announced on their Facebook Page that Barnes and Noble stores will be stocking the magazine.

Before, we could purchase online and ship it over here but at pretty expensive shipping costs. Now that we can purchase the magazine locally, we don’t have to worry about that. Also, the first issue has been sold out at a majority of the stores in the UK so clearly there is a market for the magazine. Whether or not it will be the same here for the US remains to be seen but I look forward to reading it if I can find a copy.

There’s still no word yet on when Blocks magazine will be available at Barnes & Noble or how much it will go for at this time. More details as they come.

… Continue

LEGO Star Wars: The Dark Side Now Available on Amazon

August 29, 2014 /

The new LEGO Star Wars: The Dark Side book by DK Publishing is now available for purchase on Amazon. Technically, the release date was September 1st but Amazon has decided to take orders a few days early. Also included with the book is the exclusive Emperor Palpatine minifigure. As of this post, the price is $11.04 which is 35% off the list price and is eligible for Prime shipping.

Journey to the dark side of a galaxy far, far away and meet the LEGO® Star Wars minifigure members of the ruthless Imperial Army in LEGO Star Wars: The Dark Side!

Witness Darth Vader battling Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, meet the Sith and all of Darth Vader’s minifigure subjects, and explore the Death Star and all of the Sith starships. Turn the pages to find facts and information about your favorite LEGO Star Wars minifigures and vehicles from the dark side in action-packed situations and discover everything there is to know about the legendary Darth Vader.

With new and exciting photography and an evil exclusive minifigure, LEGO Star Wars: The Dark Side will have you questioning on which side your allegiances lie.

… Continue
« Older posts Newer posts »

When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.

The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

We partner with Rakuten Advertising, who may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located here: https://rakutenadvertising.com/legal-notices/services-privacy-policy/

Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Disclosure Policy






Web Analytics


© 2026 The Brick Fan

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑