Bonsai Shari SiDiao books worth price?

Anyone have any feedback on these? I certainly need help with my carving technique but will these books do it?
Mike

In my opinion, they are the best books for carving, showing both hand tools and electric. It's also a pretty easy reach to adapt your own tools to the ones that are shown. Both books also show a pretty good variety of trees from conifers to broadleaf. Other books/manuals like to only show conifers. The only downside is that they seem to gloss over the final stages of the carving. It seems to go from rough to silky smooth wood without a step. With most wood-working, sometimes the "finish" can take longer than the rough out, and I would have liked to have seen how he did it.