No comments about Guide to Tanzania (Bradt Guides).

5 comments about There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey To Rescue Africa's Children.

1. I like what the story is about, however the book has so much detail it is hard to get through the first chapters.



2. This was a wonderful book! Having myself been to Addis Ababa recently (July 07) with my daughter to pick up her adopted Ethiopian baby boy (4 months old), you can just imagine how this story of one woman's love for so many orphans resonated with me. The book is a quick read -- something interesting in every chapter. The author intertwined Haregewoin's up and down story with bits of Ethiopian history and the unwinding spread and theories of HIV-AIDs plus added her own experience with H. and the adoption her own Ethiopian children -- which made the reader come away with a true cultural experience. H. is truly a "Mother Theresa" figure and an inspiration to all women. Thank you, Melissa, for introducing us to her. I really enjoyed having the photos of many of the children and their adoptive families to relate to. I will be sure that my daughter reads this book and I have suggested it to my book club in Boulder, CO which will read it in the fall. -- Gayle Weiss



3. Melissa Faye Green is an excellent writer. She is a true artist painting a vivid picture of scenes, and weaving historical, political and social aspects of the deadly HIV/AIDS epidemic. This is an incredibly powerful book. It is not easy to read due to the difficult emotional toll it can take on one, but I felt morally obligated to read it, so that I wasn't just shutting out the devastating misery suffered by so many millions. She portrays the human face of this awful disease with poignancy. It is an inspiring and human story of one woman's efforts to alleviate her own and others suffering. God bless Melissa for opening our eyes.



4. Author Melissa Fay Greene, who is the adoptive mother of two Ethiopian children, relates the story of Haregewoin Teferra, an Ethiopian mother who becomes the foster mother for a multitude of AIDS orphans during the height of the pandemic. Greene truthfully tells the tale without painting Teferra as a "modern day Mother Teresa," but rather as a very real and human woman who is asked by clerics to take in one abandoned orphan after another. A grieving mother whose adult daughter died from AIDS, Teferra discovers that helping the children provides her with a means of overcoming her grief. The individual stories of these "lost children" who arrive on Teferra's doorstep are riveting, as is Greene's account of the assimilation of her adoptive children into her family. Accompanying photos show children shortly after they arrived in very bad shape at Treferra's compound and then later with adoptive American families.
   Greene spares no one as she rails against the pharmaceutical companies that withheld AIDS medications from third-world countries at the height of the pandemic, causing the loss of a whole generation of parents. Despite having no drugs to help the children, hit-or-miss medical care, and scarce food for all, Teferra does her best to feed, clothe, house, and educate the orphans put in her care. Although one might think that this book is a "downer," it is a very uplifting page-turner that relates the indominable spirit of one Ethiopian woman and her many foster children.



5. I'm writing this as the mother of an adopted Ethiopian child- I bought this book after a random search and it has been the most valuable book of our whole adoption journey. It's loaded with helpful background info on the AIDS & Orphan crises in Ethiopia, history of Ethiopia, insight into the cultural perceptions of adoption (especially by affluent, white Westerners!) and the very moving perspectives of the orphans themselves, and their Ethiopian caretakers. The heroine of this story is very real, and her character development was deep and insightful. I laid the book down several times to have a good laugh (or cry!) but could hardly keep from turning the pages. Whether you are adopting yourself, supporting someone who is, or just interested in learning more about Ethiopia and this heroine's story, I know you will come away inspired.

1 comments about Kenya from the Air.

1. This book is packed with stunning shots of aerial views of the countryside, the wildlife parks, the mountains, (e.g. the Mt Longonot crater) and the lakes & islands. Even for one like me who was born and bred in Kenya, the clarity, angle and panoramic view of the shots is simply stunning and taught me that there is amazing beauty all around me...I'm just not tall enough to see it all!

No comments about Las Reinas De Africa.

No comments about Lonely Planet Sur de Africa / Lonely Planet Africa Meridional (Lonely Planet. (Spanish Guides)).

3 comments about The Silence.

1. Having last week been in Kigali, Rwanda as half a million refugees returned from exile in Zaire, I found this book to be extremely important to help me understand the trauma lying under the surface of these people. The photographs are stark and brutal as was the situation. This is a must read for anybody planning to work in Rwanda



2. The images are breathtaking, they leave you unsettled and wondering about the inhumanity of the situation in Rwanda. For people new to the topic, this book is not necessarily for you. The genocide was complicated, and this book, as a collection of images, does not explain the full story. There is no text in this book except for the chronology at the end, which is decent, although selective and somewhat incomplete.

   The photographs, while powerful, have no captions, and therefore the guilt and the innocence of the people being photographed is ambiguous. In fact, that is why I give this book four stars rather than five. To look at this book with no real knowledge behind the genocide, all you see is a great deal of human suffering. The reality is that the images at the beginning are of the tutsi massacres by the genocidaires, whereas the images toward the end are of the terrible conditions of the refugee camps where the killers fled to escape the advance of the RPF. What one must know and understand clearly is that those people at the refugee camps were, for the most part, the perpetrators of the genocide. The ambiguity in his images of clearly distinguishing between victims and killers can be misleading.

   If you have done research on the genocide and feel compelled to have a visual to accompany the stories, then this book is a worthwhile one to use for that purpose. But otherwise, the sight of so much indiscriminantly photographed human suffering can be really distracting to the cause of determining guilt and innocence. It's important to look through this book with a discerning eye.




3. The books serves as an indictment against those who committed the atrocities during the Rwanda genocide, against those that stood by(most everyone), and those that stood in the way(the French).

   It also serves as a silent memorial for those who died and for all the other innocents caught in the middle and forced into refugee camps.

   A highly recommended accompaniment to "I wished to inform you that we will be killed tomorrow".

   This books stands with "The House of Bondage" by Cole, an indictment of Apartheid, and "Amin's Bloody Rule", an obvious indictment of Idi Amin, as the best photo documentaries of the hardest of times in Africa. (Amin's Bloody Rule is impossible to find, published in Uganda).

1 comments about John Muir's Last Journey: South To The Amazon And East To Africa: Unpublished Journals And Selected Correspondence (Pioneers of Conservation).

1. Muir's journals were good but I didn't care for the introduction to the journals in each chapter by the author. The intro's went into way to much background detail. I would have been fine with less intro.

1 comments about Soul of Africa Magical Rites and Traditions.

1. This book teaches so much about traditional African religion -- Yoruba, voodoo, et. al. The beautiful photos show how to propitiate the African gods better than any text I have ever seen. Each photo is worth more than a thousand words -- a MILLION is more like it! I had never seen Eshu/Legba with the phallus that I had only read about before Soul of Africa. This is a good book for someone who wishes to incorporate the best of African religion -- taking away some of the prudishness found in diaspora/New World/syncretic Catholic Santeria.

4 comments about Lonely Planet Canary Islands.

1. Damien Simonis wrote the first edition of the Lonely Planet's gide to the Canaries, and an excellent companion to the islands it was; now (May, 2001) Lonely Planet has issued the second edition of this work, and I am delighted to say that it is just as good (but more up to date) than the first version. Simonis was joined by Miles Roddis to prepare the current book, which follows essentially the same plan as the first guide, and which conserves intact much of the original writing about the islands. The current version displays and entirely new set of photographs by Simonis, who seems to have improved his camera work in the intervening years since he first published the guide.

   The book is amazingly fruitful for its relative compact size and number of pages (271): it provides brief but essential information about the history of the islands, its dogs, its Canary birds, people, plants, transportation, medical services, its gay life, the island sports, and the means of getting there. It accurately describes each of the seven islands, and managest to convey the major and the subtle differences between them -- and those differences can be huge: from the dry Saharan landscapes of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, to the verdant La Palma, to the scraggly beauty of Hierro. The Pico de Teide, on the island of Tenerife, is the 3rd largest volcano on earth (after Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, in Hawaii)and rises from the sea to over 12 thousand feet. Its peak is covered with snow most of the year, but at sea level the islands have superb weather.

   For those about to visit the Canaries, a Lonely Planet guide to them is essential. I don't think it is necessary to buy the second edition if one already owns the first: there are no dramatic changes between the books, and with a little flexibility the traveler will find the first edition just as useful as the second one. The travel tips are pricesless in both books and they will surely enhance the pleasure of visiting this strange and beautiful corner of the world. Don't leave without a copy.




2. I took this book on my recent trip to Canary Islands. Most of the information contained in the book can be easily found on internet (or even more). The content is an encyclopedic compilation of facts (probably rehashed from other publications) with very little personal experience. This is another hastily written and impersonal guide book. I expected something like the Ultimate Kauai and got less than could be found on Ecanarias web site. The most irritating, in my opinion, were multiple references to another book by one of the authors about hiking trails. If you want to hike - buy another book, uh. There is no even basic walk described. I laughed pretty hard when I read about poorly marked trails in the National Park on La Gomera. The reality is quite opposite. The trail-heads have excellent markings and even area maps. You wander how many years it has been since they visited last time. (the signs start show age here and there). There is nothing outstanding about this book. No personal touch like Ultimate Kaui Guide or sumptuous visual information like in DK Eye Witness series that steers you to the best sights (too bad none on Canary Islands is available yet). Explanation for this mediocre performance dawned on me when I realized what a prolific author Damien Simonis is. He "fathered or better bastardized" guide books covering about 15 - 20 areas (depending how you count) and these include whole countries like Italy, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, southern Spain and even all of Africa. Doing simple math tells you that he could not work on updating each more than 3 weeks a year. Probably many tourists would beat him in this aspect.
   I enjoyed other Lonely Planet publication but this one is a real disappointment. There is plenty of free guides in English, even hiking maps and trails, once you get to islands. Save your money and skip it.



3. I lived in the Canary Islands for 10 years. I am returning this winter for the first time as a tourist, and purchased Lonely Planet's guide, because they are normally good. Using this guide, I cannot find a single decent place to stay, any good restaurants, and even the activities list is pathetic. I know you're probably thinking that I'm just jaded because I lived there and know the spots, but from a basics perspective, not ONE of the major hotels that I know are good are listed, the three hotels that I did recognize are dumps, and the restuarant selections are crappy tourist dives without any real authenticity. Unfortunately, I don't have a good guide to recommend yet, but whatever you do, don't get this one!



4. I got the guide, because I like the Lonely planet books. Well, that one is an exception - there is nothing interesting or useful. use some other guide or go to turist information in the airport. Canaries are pretty civilized and there are not many surprises here, so maybe that is why the book is so thin and uninteresting.

1 comments about WAWA.

1. Thomas Lee Turmam volunteers to teach architecture in Ghana for a year in the 60s after graduating from college. This book is selection of the events he experienced while in Ghana. Some of the events are humorous while others are not. Turman taught at Laney College in Oakland for 30+ years before retiring from teaching in 2003 and he is still a practicing architect.