No comments about Hong Kong Complete Residents' Guide.

No comments about Insight Guides Southern China & Hong Kong (Insight Guides).

No comments about Franko's Guide Map of Guam USA.

No comments about Insight Flexi Map Hanoi (Insight Flexi Map).

5 comments about Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story.

1. That's right, don't bother rating it, because I'm here to say I'll never read a book by some over-privileged little delinquent who crawls out of Taliban-infested Afghanistan, gets citizenship in this country, gets into Yale, publishes a book, and then . . . gets together with his two teenaged foreigner buddies and burns the American flag. Oh, how very chic. What a statement.



2. After reading this book, I felt I had a better understanding of the situation in Afghanistan. I really have no experience with the situation there, and this book helped me to understand on a more basic level. I was very upset to hear that the author burned the American flag recently. Until I hear his defense, as an American I no longer feel that I can support this book.



3. Yesterday a friend asked what I was reading.
   
   I just finished 'Come Back to Afghanistan: My Journey from California to Kabul' written by Said Hyder Akbar, a 20-year old college student in California. Like many others, Akbar's story is a migrating one - from Afghanistan to Pakistan, India, and then the USA.
   
   When the Taliban were ousted in 2001, Akbar's father, a long time friend of President Hamid Karzai decided to go back to Afghanistan. Akbar started coming with him on his school and college breaks, and got back in touch with his country that he had left a long time ago. It's a homecoming of sorts.
   
   The book is brilliant. Written with the assistance of journalist Susan Brunton, Akbar takes us into corners and niches that few books on Afghanistan do. It is deeply personal and highly political without the usual history, geography or other details. Born in Afghanistan and raised in the US, Akbar is able to straddle both countries and regions. He neither despairs nor scoffs at anyone or anytime. His writing is passionate, gentle and unassuming.
   
   Akbar's goal in Afghanistan is to be with his father and get to know his country. He travels with, among other things, a tape recorder, and makes programmes for National Pubic Radio in California. He interviews the person in the highest office - President Karzai - as well as his driver, Sartor. He listens to everyone and judges none. During the two years he goes back and forth, Akbar's brother and mother visit Afghanistan. His father is appointed as the Governor of the province of Kunar, a remote and troubled area, where the family collects and lives together.
   
   Through sickness and health Akbar goes through the journeys he charts for himself. His writing is sensitive and engaging. It never strays or lags. It is clear that he loves Afghanistan, is sensing what his relationship with his old land is, and how it will develop. He is conscious of the contradictions within himself.
   
   When I think about why I liked the book so much, and the experience of reading the book, I feel it its so akin to my time in Afghanistan. Without being able to speak the language (Dari an Pashto), I communicated with those I could, in Urdu, Hindi and English. I reached out to the humanity in them, and they in turn, reached out to mine.
   
   In the final analysis the book is about being reconciled to where we come from. No matter where we are, our multiple identities always call us to the land we were born, and we yearn to return. That has been my experience too.
   
   The book also describes the Afghan situation - the challenges to the Afghan people, the leaders, the donor community and Americans stationed in Afghanistan and back home. It presents everyone's reality. Akbar's strength is his ability to see what is happening, from many perspectives, and present it in a dispassionate way.
   
   In a growing body of literature on Afghanistan, Akbar's will enjoy a place of pride. It's young, passionate, and terribly easy to read.



4. The beginning of the book where he had talked about the plane parts in the airport, really got me to read it. I had to read a non fiction book for LA, and I chose this book. It looked like an interesting story so I picked it up and read it. I really enjoyed the book but I had some questions for the author. For instance: If you knew what was happening in Afghanistan why did you still choose to go there. I would not have because I wou;d've been afraid to go there and something happen to me. I really liked your writing style and how you described the bombing and crossing into Pakistand. Very good book but it's kind of confusing for me



5. Said Hyder Akbar is a surprisingly strong writer for his age. The way that he leads the reader into this exotic world is amazing. One genuinely gets to feel some of the things that are in the news as far as the conflict near Pakistan's border. Although the book was written in 2006 many of his observations ring true to this day. If you are interested in Afghanistan/Pakistan make sure to read this book becuase it will not dissapoint you.

5 comments about Japan by Rail: Includes Rail Route Guide and 29 City Guides.

1. This book is a total let-down.
   It offers extremely limited information on all places worth seeing. The JR lines may be given but are not including the new Kyushu Shinkansen line and many new or discontinued stations.
   
   Also, as other folks pointed out, the private railways are not mentioned. A superb trainplanner in conjunction with Rough Guide or Lonley Planet would be Jorudan. Jorudan in an online travel planner for Japanese public transport and airlines. They have an excellent guide with up to date initiary data for all your trips in Japan. If you are not a US national, you may want to avoid onley Planet aswell, as it is verry clearly aimed at and written by US nationals.



2. An excellent book to have with you whilst travelling around Japan by rail. Recommend the publication to anyone who will be travelling to Japan. Has excellent places to visit on a budget.



3. This book is terrible. I lived in Japan for more than a decade and I was planning a short excursion so I bought this book. It was not helpful at all. It covers the greatest hits of Japan but has very little detail about most places. It seems to assume that you'd want to just ride the train all the time without ever getting off. Most of the suggested trips are incredibly unrealistic about the amount of time it would take to visit the listed places, almost to the point of ridiculousness. I do not recommend this book at all! Any other guide book and a rail map would be much better.
   If you are planning on traveling in Japan, skip "Japan by Rail" and get "Gateway to Japan" published by Kodansha. It is the best!



4. I just came back from a very nice trip to Japan, and having this book was really helpful. There is a lot of very helpful, accurate, and detailed information. I covered 4 cities, and rode every form of rail transportation. This book helped me with diverse tasks from how to choose which sites to see to how to navigate through the airports and train stations.
   
   Get a JR pass and this book and you can cover Japan!



5. Getting up to daet information about rail travel anywhere in the world is becoming difficult due to rapid changes throughout the world. This book is good for reference only. If you need something like a train schedule go to the internet.

2 comments about Papua New Guinea Map by ITMB (Travel Reference Map) (Travel Reference Map).

1. There is absolutely no place on our planet like Papua New Guinea. Wild, wonderful, lawless, infrastructure-less adventure awaits.



2. I am a research entomologist studying certain groups of insects on New Guinea. Frequently, localities mentioned on sample data labels (villages and small towns)are on not indicated on most atlas maps. This map has many more such localities than do most maps and is thus very useful to me. Additionally, the boundaries of the provinces are clearly indicated. I have thus found this handsome map very useful.
   For anyone travelling to PNG, this is the map to get!

5 comments about Dateline Mongolia: An American Journalist in Nomad's Land.

1. I was sent this book to read and started it in earnest, having not read much travel literature before. I enjoyed it from start to finish. Michael Kohn adopts a very conversational style to tell his story and each episode is told well. He illustrates all the people he met with such detail that by the end you feel you know them and I was heartened to read that he married one of his friends whom he met out there.
   
   Michael tells the story of Mongolia from the cities to the steppes and includes some interesting insights into its political history including its sometimes painful transition from Soviet Communism to a free-market economy. In this reviewer's opinion it made that transition quite well with little of the corruption of the ex-Soviet states to the West.
   
   In short this book brought a whole culture and country to my attention which I had never thought existed; believing as I did that Mongolia was much like an outpost of China. For seasoned travellers and armchair enthusiasts alike, this book will interest you.



2. Any reader looking for a blend of travelogue and cultural understanding will find Dateline Mongolia: An American Journalist in Nomad's Land fits the bill. It tells of the author's journeys through Mongolia and its cultural milieu, from turf wars between lamas and shamans to falcon poachers and exiled Buddhist leaders and child jockeys. His first-person encounters with the peoples of Mongolia bring to life the nation's peoples and culture like no other: any general lending collection strong in travel and cultural exploration - particular Asian cultures - will want this.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



3. A most fascinating journey into the otherwise mysterious world of Mongolia. Kohn has a keen sense of the land, the history, and the people and is able to convey it to readers in a way that is at some points heart-breaking and at others inspirational; all the time being engaging, humorous when appropriate, and tremendously insightful.



4. As a reader who spends most of his time in Asia and who visited Mongolia a few times, I agree that what the author has written is mostly true--only on the surface. So I am not surprised that other Western readers who never had a chance to be in Mongolia or Asia would think the book highly. However, if you are a reader who reads it closely based on abundant knowledge of Asia and world politics, you will find that the book is simply inferior graffiti that midleads western readers.
   
   One of the things I feel especially absurd was the author's frequent use of "Red China", "Communist China" to refer to this big neighbor of Mongolia. The author is either a fool who does not really know what he is talking about or he is deliberately cheating his English readers. The Cold War was over almost two decades ago. China is a capitalist country except that it is a one-party state whose political power happened to be monopolied by a party that still calls itself "Communist Party." There are also a long list of other common-sense mistakes or purposeful distortions in this book about Mongolia or world politics that I want to spare my time to point out one by one here.
   
   If the author wants to write more about Asia or any book about international politics, I seriously suggest that he reads more books before he picks up his pen or turns on his computer. He can help protect the natural environment by not wasting the precious paper on his ugly graffiti. He can even make a greater contribution to a healthy and clean publication environment by not producing misleading, highly prejudiced or cheating rubbish. I thank the author for doing these!



5. I thought the most hostile review of this book was unreasonable. I worked in Mongolia for several years and found plenty in it that I had not known before. It doesn't set out to be comprehensive and it isn't -it's weak on matters nomadic - but it is both informative and entertaining. I would certainly recommend it.

No comments about Spirit of China 2009 Wall Calendar (Calendar).

5 comments about Sadhus: India's Mystic Holy Men.

1. The men (and very occasionally women) portrayed in this inconspicuous volume are compelling in the extreme. It is only necessary to gaze at their faces and ash-dusted bodies to fully appreciate the gift of this work. But the author/photographer offers so much more.

   As a study in psychology in extremis, the wealth of behavioral detail and description is satisfying. And the diverse, often incredibly imaginative, rituals of self-abnegation are conveyed with tremedous sensitivty and scrupulous balance.

   The text is dense, and possibly impenetrable in places. It is academic in its emphasis on getting every possible relevant detail down. So one is met with an avalanche of esoterica upon delving in.

   Perhaps the writing assumes a bit of knowlege and sophistication in Eastern ways? But it really doesn't matter anyway. Somehow a sense of what is important filters through after a while. And the photo captions are well-written and fascinating.

   This is a picture of a society of devotees who have given it ALL up in order to stay exquisitely near to the timeless, pitiless cycle of death and regeneration that powers all life. The book itself is clearly an act of devotion to that extaordinay commitment.




2. This is a beautiful book about a bunch of morons. The basic fallacy of this book is that the people written about in this book are "mystic holy men" and that living a life of asceticism and renunciation and smearing your body with ashes and doing a bunch of rituals will bring enlightenment. Total hogwash.



3. I went to India twice, the first time for 4 months, and sadhus are definetly one of the most interesting people of the hindu world. Obviously their lifestyle is not comprehended by westerners and even less by closed-minded people who probably have never been to another continent with a different culture (as reviewer fro Hawaii); or if they have, they still have'nt learned to respect the differences and traditions among different societies. Since my first trip to India I saw this book on many bookstores there, and after comparing it to many others this is the one with the best pictures of the holly men. Incomprehension should not be a cause of disrespect; actually, this has caused wars, and still does.



4. This is one of my favorite books. Just by looking at the pictures I feel as though I am put in a higher state of consciousness. These men - and a few women - are fascinating. The pictures are beautifully done, and the text is very informative and provides information regarding the different groups of Sadhus and their - by our society's standards - unusual practices.

   Two things that I found interesting about this book were: the discussion of rituals done by the Sadhus with the intention of shedding light on the non-duality of life ("life is death, death is life"), and that to the Sadhu "rationality" is not the prime objective in life. The book says that what is considered rational is too grounded in the transient world of appearances to be of concern to the Sadhu. The goal of the Sadhu is to go beyond the world of appearances and duality, and that often means going beyond what the world would consider rational.

   This is a group of people that most of us will probably never be able to fully understand, and I certainly do not claim that I do. But I find them fascinating and very inspiring. This book is one of the best documentations of their life and world which, as the book mentions, may sadly be coming to an end due to the influence of the West.




5. If an ordinary worldly-minded person was to read this book, there would only be two extreme reactions. One would feel shocked and disgusted while the other would be filled with deep admiration for this class of human beings. I belong to the latter!
   
   While reading this book, I felt a great shift of my consciousness to a higher plane. It was as if most of the sadhus were blessing me and were aware that I was reading about their fascinating way of life. It is definitely light years away from the modern world! The pictures of these holy men were simply breath-taking and the authors objective view (filled with subtle humour) of these sadhus is amazingly filled with reverence and a deep understanding of Hindu philosophy.
   
   If one were to visit India, he/she must pay a visit to these holy men. That is the REAL India!