1 comments about Tanzania Travel Map (Globetrotter Travel Map).

1. This book hit the mark for a travel guide to Africa. Small, it fits into the 32 pound weight limit for local plane flights. The map which comes with it is nicely detailed. The book has a good blend on info about the parks and brief reviews of the places to stay. There aren't a lot of books to help with traveling to Tanzania, so this was a good find.

5 comments about Amharic English, English Amharic Dictionary: A Modern Dictionary of the Amharic Language.

1. This is a brilliant dictionary Endale Zenawi whose work established Ethiopian linguistics as an essential
   part of Semitic studies was a great friend and collaborator of Wolf Leslau and both these individuals went on to write the best two dictionaries on Amharic.
   They were models of dedicated scholarship and academic productivity.
   
   This dictionary by Endale Zenawi's dictionary is the original Amharic English, English Amharic Dictionary there is another dictionary printed on bad quality paper by A. Zekaria which is based on this one and printed in India.
   
   In the 1980s there were a large number of Indian teachers in Ethiopia and Endale Zenawi's dictionary was taken to India and reprinted there in order to teach new teachers Amharic. If you have the Indian version by A Zekaria then do not buy this one as they have much in common.
   
   However if you do not have a dictionary If you wish to buy the best Amharic dictionaries then buy this one and also the one by Wolf Leslau.



2. i don't even think find such a differnt book,amazon get all you want,what you want,on right time of course better price too.



3. I highly recommend this book to students who are learning the Amharic language. The reason why I did not give it a 5 star is because of the ink on some pages are smeared. I personally think that the Concise Amharic English dictionary from Wolf Leslau is a better choice but both are very good. This book is a must need for students.



4. I ordered this for my Ethiopian son who lives and studies in Albania. It has been a great resource and he uses it many times each day as he studies to improve his English.
   
   The best Amharic / English dictionary we have found. Excellent for students of all ages.



5. Amharic English, English Amharic Dictionary: A Modern Dictionary of the Amharic Language I was disappointed !!!! On the website I could not" look in the book" and see if the dictionary had translitaration from English to Amharic in Englsih letters. when I got the book I saw that the English part only has the translation in Amharic letters so I have no way to find the word in English and see a transliteration in English letters of the Amharic word! that is what I really wanted!!

1 comments about Kenya - Culture Smart!: a quick guide to customs and etiquette (Culture Smart!).

1. I spent three months in Kenya living with people from the Kikuyu tribe working at an orghanage in Dagoretti Market. I wish I had read this book before going. Now I have a better understanding of Kenya and it's wonderful people. When I go back next year I will take the book and hopefully improve my ability to integrate closer. I still know very few words in Kikuyu!
   
   Thank you for the information in this well written book.

1 comments about The Rough Guide to First-Time Africa 1 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

1. Rough Guide's "First-Time" series give a basic overview of a given part of the world meant to orientate people who have a vague plan of going there and a little uncertainty about independent travel. Indeed, each installment contains much the same information about basics like how to pack, how to get air tickets, and what to wear. A large portion of the book is made up of two-page summaries about each African country, excepting those currently dangerous to travel in (CAR, Buruni, Republic of Congo, Somalia). These summaries sketch the major places to see and the daily budget you'll need. There's also general coverage of African culinary traditions, health matters, and how to stay safe. I found the boxed texts with travel anecdotes fun, where travelers write in to talk about zany or touching situations they found themselves in.
   
   There is nothing here that you couldn't pick together from disparate Internet sources. And certainly, this is more valuable as something to get psyched up with than to plan your trip in any detail. However, if your budget allows, this is an entertaining all-in-one resource to get you started on going to Africa.

5 comments about The African Adventurers: A Return to the Silent Places.

1. Capstick has an ability to write as few others have ever mastered and those that did are also revered. His stories are addictive and captivating! A must read for those who love to hunt.



2. I know Peter personaly and have hunted with him. I am in his book Sands of Silence. I highly recommend all of his books. They draw from real experiences and actively bring the reader into the wild. He loved the outdoors and his work helps preserve memories and times of people and activity that is passing away. Each book is a treasure of adventure. BL Melrose, MD



3. I could not put this book down. What a sad world we live in today when there is no dark continent to explore the way that the professional hunters and wardens described in this book had to experience around the year 1900. What a sad world and what a bunch of counterfeits the Croc Hunter and Croc Dundee are. Author Capstick puts you there a hundred years ago, where prides of lions manage to devour 450 villagers before being shot, or where 30,000 elephants are shot in one country alone just to limit crop damage! These examples give you an idea of the world the hunters profiled by Capstick in this anthology of sorts walked into circa 1900 to 1940. Lions walking into huts populated with 100 sleeping people, only to leave without molesting a soul, only leaving their footprints around the myriads of sleeping African tribesman. Big cats jumping through windows to snatch infants in bassonets, toddlers grabbed off porches, the head being found a day later in the grass, Cheetahs killing humans just for the fun of it. Guns jamming and cartridges failing in the face of wounded lions. Deadly snakes, Puff adders, Black Mambas, no antidote, one example of these snakes even dropping out of trees to bite a human victim.

   Make no mistake about it, Africa was all the danger you ever dreamed about and more at the turn of the last century. ANy game animal in North America is tame in comparison to the African beasts described so vividly by Capstick. Get this book and dream of an Africa unspoiled, full of game more cunning and ferocious than you, and dream about the original tribes, and the Englishmen that first made contact with them.

   I will work my way through all of Capstick's books. I am hooked. This book is fanstastic.




4. I've loved all the Capstick books and own and have loaned the ones I own many times, mostly to husbands of friends. But I must admit that I can only read one or two and then I have to stop for a while. Times were different then and there were lots of animals. No talk of endangered species. Today when I read about macho men slaughtering beautiful animals for sport it can get to be sickening. But, again, he is an excellent author and the books keep you on the edge of your chair. When you see the movie based on the Lions of Tsavo and have read the book - the book is soooo much more exciting. And - no love interest.



5. Excelent recount of great african hunters and adventurers, very well written and documented.

4 comments about The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit.

1. "The Voices of Marrakesh," by Elias Canetti, has been translated from German by J.A. Underwood. The copyright page of the 2001 edition notes that both text and translation have a 1967 copyright date. The back cover notes that author Canetti was born in Bulgaria and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981.

   "Voices," which is divided into 14 short chapters, is the first person account of a visit to the Moroccan city of the title. Canetti tells of encounters with and observations of camels, beggars, donkeys, merchants, and other inhabitants of the city. The book is a fascinating record of cross-cultural contact, and includes an intriguing view into the Mellah, the Jewish quarter of Marrakesh.

   The book is full of vividly rendered scenes; Canetti really brings these people and animals to life on the page. The book also has a dark edge as he recounts the exploitative underside of the city. Literacy and linguistic difference are also key themes.

   "Voices" is a short text (103 pages), but rich in mystery, tragedy, and wonder. As a companion text I recommend "The Jaguar Smile," by Salman Rushdie.




2. As a twelve-year foreign resident of Marrakesh, I read with interest this slim volume in about two hours. Before reading, I thought this was something written in the past 20 years. But I quickly discovered that the author's sejour in Morocco must have occurred in about 1959 (according to my Moroccan husband) due to certain events mentioned. (The book was first published in 1967.)

   The book takes place in the time when Morocco was still part of the French Colonial Empire, and when the French had placed a "puppet" sultan on the throne. The author speaks of camel markets in Bab Khemis, the camels having walked in a train of 105 animals from the Western Sahara. Those not purchased by butchers (yes, for eating) in Marrakesh were to continue walking north to Settat, the end of the line for the camel trains (just outside of Casablanca). This must have been before trucking was the common method of transport. Occassional "blue men" of the Sahara could still be seen in Marrakesh.

   This book will be of particular interest to any visitors of Moroccan Jewish origin who may be returning to visit the land of their parents. The author, we find out, is Jewish, and just happens to meet up with some members of the Jewish community. He gets pulled into their own little world (which no longer exists in Marrakesh, as most of that community emmigrated to Israel after 1967). He relates his experiences.

   If you are thinking of traveling to Marrakesh, or anywhere in Morocco, this little book will open your eyes to the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. Much of the city has changed, but the atmosphere has remained the same.




3. "The voices of Marrakesh. A Record of a Visit" is one of the sharpest and most original accounts of the life in the Moroccan city written by a tourist. The1981 Nobel Prize winner, and author of the famous "Auto da Fe", Elias Canetti, has described his impressions from the stay in Marrakesh. He was indeed a tourist, although the better word in his case might be "a visitor", and many of his observations are typical for such, but his language and style would make this slim book exciting anyway. His view makes the streets of Marrakesh interesting and mysterious, the camels have their own personal life, the donkeys accept their sad fate and the art of negotiation at the souk is a starting point for the divagations on the human nature.
   
   There are, however, many chapters on not-so-touristically-obvious subjects. Canetti, being Jewish, was especially interested in the life of the Jewish minority and explored the Jewish quarter, which resulted in amazing observations, central to the book. His perception is acute and his opinion of people he encountered (he loved the native women!) are witty and deep at the same time. His voice is very fresh, the book does not sound like a guide, and one of the best points is that, despite his obvious fascination with his exotic surroundings, he can be very critical without being offensive and retaining the respect for the people he describes. His use of words is superb and the translation does not cause the loss of the flow and atmosphere he evoked.
   
   Although written more than 50 years ago, "The Voices of Marrakesh" did not lose the charm and magnetizing quality.



4. I purchased and read this book while in Morocco and loved the descriptions of life in the streets.

5 comments about The Village of Waiting.

1. Haunting--this book is raw and hontest. I can't get it off my mind. Will be visiting friends doing VSO in northern Ghana soon and am trying to get a copy for them as well.



2. George Packer's ability to describe the lives of many who live in Togo make this piece of text a must-read for all, even for those who do not have an interest in serving in the Peace Corps. He writes with raw emotion and sincerity, without a tad of pretense. I'd say that Packer's foremost accomplishment in this text is that he makes no attempt to tell a story about how a superior white individual intervenes in a remote village and rids the residents of poverty and illiteracy. Rather, The Village of Waiting is a sincere account of his realization that sadly, some things just cannot be altered. I think Packer knew this from the outset, but it is interesting to read about he endures this realization during his 2-year service in Togo.



3. I have to disagree with every review written about this book thusfar. It is not well written, for one. The style is amateurish, and it has little substance.
   But that's not what really bothers me about this book. What really bothers me is that he writes about soliciting a prostitute that he describes as having a "twelve-year-old's body." Another thing that bothered me was that George Packer dropped out of the Peace Corps without even telling his so-called friends in the village that he was leaving. He wasted the opportunity that was given to him, wrote a mediocre book about it, and yet reviewers come on Amazon.com and laud it.
   Want some free advice? Read any other book about Africa, Togo, or the Peace Corps instead. This one is not very good.



4. I spent 6 months in Africa while in college and was seriously considering joining the Peace Corps when I came across Packer's book. I was very realistic about the comic grind that is day-to-day life in Africa and the maze of paperwork, mind-numbing waiting for mundane administrative tasks to be accomplished and pervasive acceptance of inefficiency. However, Packer's book really brought home to me the toll of isolation takes on your ability to cope with these realities. Early on, Packer states that Peace Corps volunteers fall into 2 categories, the world savers and the folks that just to try to help in a small way and enjoy the experience. Packer recognizes he falls into the second category and even the detachment humor and a bit of cynicism can not protect him from the inequities and pain of life in pre-AIDS ridden Africa. I thought the book was honest and is on my list of 'must reads' for those thinking about committing full time to any volunteer group.



5. If you want to cast moral judgement on George Packer, don't read this book. If you want to read the best Peace Corps book ever written, at least about life in Africa, then pick up this book. I lived in Guinea in the mid-90s, while Packer was in Togo in the early 80s. Yet I felt like he was describing my own village, my own frustrations, my own thoughts and feelings (save the prostitute). This was the book that convinced me not to write a book about my own experience. He did it, only better.

No comments about Egypt Travel Pack (Globetrotter Travel Packs).

3 comments about Botswana: Okavango Delta, Chobe, Northern Kalahari, 2nd: The Bradt Travel Guide.

1. This travel book of Botswana does not cover all of the wildlife viewing areas of the country. We will be traveling to the Tuli reserve on the Eastern edge and wanted to see some information on the private parks in that area as well as the lodges. The book didn't cover any of that, which was pretty disappointing.



2. Having just returned from Botswana, I highly recommend this book. It is accurate with just the right amount of detail. Although the author owns his own travel company, his comments and reviews were accurate, thorough and objective as to safari experiences as well as other tour operators.



3. This book offers practical advice on structuring your wildlife safari in Botswana, complete with information on where/when to find which species, how to select a safari company, how to do it on your own, choosing a lodge or camp, and tailoring your itinerary to meet your unique needs. The descriptions of the various parks and reserves were not as compellingly enticing as the Bradt guide to Tanzania, so I will probably choose to visit Tanzania instead of Botswana. But if I am lucky enough to be able to take a second safari, I will definitely use this book to decide where in Botswana to go, where to stay, and what time of year to visit.

5 comments about The Wreck of the Medusa: The Most Famous Sea Disaster of the Nineteenth Century.

1. One of the many masterpieces within the Louvre is a huge and grim painting of a group of men abandoned on a raft in the middle of the sea, each in a pose of despair, or of the sliver of hope that a ship, seen as a tiny smudge on the ocean's horizon, might notice them. The famous painting, _The Raft of the Medusa_, is an 1819 version of what moviegoers now know as a disaster picture. It is the most famous artifact inspired by a real incident that had occurred three years before, the result of a shipwreck that had caught the imagination of the people of France and was a scandal that affected the restoration government of the time. The stories of the sailors, raft, and survivors have been told before, but Jonathan Miles in _The Wreck of the Medusa: The Most Famous Sea Disaster of the Nineteenth Century_ (Atlantic Monthly Press) has incorporated them into a larger tale of politics, painting, and propaganda. The disaster at sea is inherently fascinating, but it is finished in the first half of the book, the many strands of which Miles has made just as interesting and vital, if not so macabre.
   
   The ship _Medusa_ was a French frigate in a convoy bound for the French colony Senegal, carrying Governor Schmaltz, the new leader for the colony and captained by Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, was an old Royalist who was given his commission by the new king Louis XVIII, who with Napoleon in exile was trying to produce a unifying government. De Chaumareys was an incompetent seaman, and the _Medusa_ ran aground on bank west of the Sahara. To handle those fleeing the wreck who could not fit into the boats, the crew made a huge raft, lashing together spars and planks, and giving it a mast and sail. 147 people crowded on board the raft, which was tied to the ship's boats and was supposed to be towed by them as the whole conglomeration made for land. The raft was waterlogged and it held the boats back, so the governor gave the order that the tow rope be cut. For two appalling weeks, the diminishing crew experienced murders, suicides, delirium, hallucinations, mutiny, and cannibalism. The raft was eventually found by another ship in the _Medusa_'s convoy, with only fifteen men barely alive. One of the survivors was Alexandre Corréard, an engineer who went on to co-write the outstanding account of the disaster, along with political blaming for it. One of those susceptible to the romantic horror and the political barbs of the book was Théodore Géricault, who was inspired by the horrors of Corréard's story to depict the lamentable raft and its final crew. To help with research for the painting, he gathered body parts from the nearby morgue, and kept them within his studio. Corréard would come to the study and be unfazed by the stench and the gore, as it was a commemoration of an episode he had actually lived. Géricault painted his new friend into a key role in the painting, and among his other (living) models was also his friend Eugene Delacroix, who could not endure the body parts in the studio with Corréard's detachment.
   
   Géricault produced a romantic, horrifying painting which was not a journalistic depiction of the actual events but an artistic exaggeration of them in many ways. Miles points out that the bodies are of classic musculature, not wasted away. There are too many of them in the picture, and the raft is too small. There are three black Africans in the painting, one given pride of place at a pinnacle as he tries to wave down the distant ship. Actually, only one black man was aboard; Miles examines the French attitude toward slavery at the time, and Géricault's use of these figures to make a statement upon it. The painting, completed in 1819 made Géricault's name, although not immediately. Critics objected, among other things, to its almost monochromatic use of sickly browns and greens. When it was viewed in London it caused a sensation, but it failed to sell. It was rolled up for storage, and the disappointed Géricault lived on only three more years, dying at age 32. He was emaciated and crippled by tuberculosis, and by debt and disappointment. His morbid fascination with his subject and his macabre way of producing his masterwork could almost be said to have made him yet another victim of the shipwreck. Miles's retelling of the story of the wreck and the abandoned raft is full of grisly thrills, but his account of its effects on Géricault and his art is of heart-wrenching humanity.



2. I had the impression to step into the very fabric in the canvas of Gericault's celebrated masterpiece, knowing personally each of the painting's characters. Mile's storytelling is so vivid, down to the last historical detail, that I soon forgot Medusa is not a novel. Compelling, hypnotic, fascinating.



3. Anyone who has studied art history is probably already familiar with Gericault's famous painting of the Medusa. I was first introduced to the painting in high school and while I remembered that it was inspired by a true and politically important incident, I didn't really know much beyond that. This book explains the event in great detail, but in a way that is very readable and not at all tedious. It also provides an overview of Gericault's life, his experience of creating the painting and public reactions to it. So really, you get a lot out of this book: naval history, 19th century French political history, art history and it has enough depictions of humanity at its worst that one might even classify it as having "true crime" elements. Highly recommended.



4. After reading this book, the Stern Librarian found it necessary to amend her Amazon List of "books to keep you on the sea after finishing Patrick O'Brian." Overlapping in time with the Aubrey-Maturin series, but telling a French story, this book is a fascinating tale of what results when a Navy rewards political favoritism over skill. The story of the wreck of the Medusa off the coast of Senegal is artfully related, and the author alternates between details of the tragedy and the creation of Gericault's painting of its desperate survivors, which today hangs in the Louvre. Although there is horror to spare in the details of the shipwreck, I was most moved by the story of Gericault's love affair with his uncle's wife and of the unhappy fate of their abandoned child. The Stern Librarian (I am the daughter of a daughter of a sailor).



5. I just finished "The Wreck of the Medusa," yet I am stuck on a pretty basic question: What is this book about?
   
   "Duh!," you might say. "Look at the cover: It's about the wreck of the sailing ship Medusa in 1816."
   
   Well, yes, it's partly about the wreck, but the book skitters across several other subjects, too. Author Jonathan Miles spends as much time on French politics of the period as he does on the shipwreck. He also includes a biography of the painter Theodore Gericault (who painted "The Raft of the Medusa"). And he spends one section looking at the slave trade, which had nothing to do with the Medusa.
   
   Miles is clearly a thorough researcher, having dug through diaries, old books and newspapers, and other records to put together this book. He carefully describes how the incompetence of the Medusa captain led to its wreck off the African coast, and he details the horrific ordeals - including cannibalism - of those who had to abandon ship.
   
   But by the middle of the book, the wreck and the survivors' ordeals are over, and the book seems adrift for the rest. There's too many characters that come and go briefly, and too many shifts in direction. "The Wreck of the Medusa" needs some focus.