No comments about Overnight Sensations Asia Pacific.

No comments about Kyrgyzstan (Odyssey Illustrated Guides).

No comments about Lonely Planet East Timor.

No comments about LUXE Chicago (LUXE City Guides).

5 comments about Inside the Red Mansion: On the Trail of China's Most Wanted Man.

1. a very readable and fascinating account of present-day china through the eyes of a british journalist (former bureau chief of the times) as he investigates the spectacular rags-to-riches rise and fall of lai changxing, a former farmer who made billions smuggling various goods like cars into mainland china. supposedly lai was able to smuggle so much into the country (and build large skyscrapers and his own folly of an exact replica of the forbidden city) because the gov't allowed him to (via a massive bribery system/turning of the proverbial blind eye). and supposedly lai's efforts helped stimulate china's economy, until he got too big for his britches and had to disappear. along the way august oliver unveils a fascinating country (and its peoples) where the best way to get ahead is through "banditry." at the same time the gov't can step in anytime with a scary, creepy orwellian swagger. well written in an informative journalistic way, with very good insight into a country that is increasingly becoming a major, major real-time presence on the global scene.



2. I enjoyed reading this book because I am interested in learning about modern day China. The author, a young reporter for an English Newspaper goes to China on assignment.
   
   Once there, he learns about a smuggler bandit king named Lai Changxing, a Chinese Robbin Hood who is reviled by the Chinese authorities but envied and loved by the money worshiping popular culture.
   
   The author has a bug in his bonnet to learn about Lai but nobody wants to talk about him because they are afraid of the authorities. The authorities are embarrassed that Lai is at large and they do not know where he or his billion$ went
   
   His search for Lai brings him to Xiamen, a boomtown in Fujian province. The author learns that Lai was the Donald Trump of Xiamen.
   
   His search for Lai becomes a microcosm of Chinese social morays and sensibilities.
   
   It seems that in modern day China, wealth and status are all the people think about. They are also very focused on food. We also learn that prostitution plays a central role to many aspects of Chinese business and politics.
   
   The author eventually loses his objectiveness. He becomes a sympathetic to Lai.
   
   This was a good book. I read it in 4 hours. The prose is compelling and it contains many funny things.



3. This belongs to the well-stocked genre of "young western newspaperman goes to China and then writes first book telling world of what he has seen in the Middle Kingdom." It is among the best of such books in terms of relaying information and providing insights, although it falls short of the first literary rank.
   
   The use here of one specific corruption case is an excellent device to show the shadowy ambiguities of the striking political, social, and economic transitions that have been underway in the PRC over the past two decades.
   
   The author gives a very good picture of the tension between the needs of modernization and the country's still highly authoritative government: it being no surprise that since Mao's death the stunning economic expansion in China has been propelled in no small part by massive official corruption.
   
   Since it appears Mr. August is now working in the Middle East, I expect another enlightening (and even better written) book in the years ahead on that troubled area.



4. Interesting book about the new China.I think it's possibly dated already the way the country is growing and changing. But never the less it's worth reading.



5. This is a meandering, though interesting, account of a journalist's observations of boom-time China and its now disgraced robber baron, Lai. The author recounts Lai's iconic status and the seeming desire of the whole country to become "rich, like Lai."
   
   Oliver finds that Maoist ideology has lost all sway -- and so too has traditional cultural mores binding the Chinese to their land and immediate local area. What, then, is holding the country together? The pursuit of wealth like the gilded age of 19th Century America? A still effective authoritarian regime? A little of both, Oliver argues. He contends that the State is a participant in the capitalist economy and still manages to wield an enormous, if dysfunctionally corrupt influence.
   
   Lai ends up being a bit smaller than life once Oliver catches up with him at the end of the book. We never quite get his story, which is a great flaw in the book.
   
   Nonetheless the book is worthwhile in providing some insight to what is going on in China. I tend to think that given China's dysfunctional government and the importance of a creative and energetic state to the rise of a sound economy and polity, that the "Chinese Century" stuff coming out of the media is so much hype.

3 comments about The Ministry of Truth: Kim Jong-Il's North Korea.

1. While attending the 9th International Pyongyang Film Festival in 2004, writer Christian Kracht and photographers Eva Munz and Lukas Nikol were granted extraordinary leeway to see a different side of North Korea. The Ministry of Truth reproduces their journey to an unseen side of the North Korean peninsula, something beyond the standard CNN-issued footage of military parades and nuclear facilities. Kracht's preface wrily points out the paranoia and anxiety that forms the basis of the Western media's impressions of the country as he elegantly weaves together an essay on the seemingly disparate absurdism of Neo-con thought and Kimgjongilism. If you are looking for an "out-of-the-box" postmodernist take on the 21st century Hermit Kingdom, then buy this book!



2. The photographs in "The Ministry of Truth" came back to haunt me long after I put the book down. Humans appear in the photographs, but we never connect. The public places seem empty of people and activity, but filled with the ghosts of...what, I just don't know. There is a quiet elegance to this collection of photographs, we are seeing things we don't really feel we have the permission to see, and then it's puncuated by a jolt of humanity, a smile, a human face caught off guard. We are looking at propaganda...its grand and its humble all at the same time.
   
   The cool distance of the photographs gives us a feeling of and anthropological study: here are the places, here are the things, here is what it looks like in this mysterious land. This distance allows us to decide for ourselves, look at things objectively, and come to peace with it all.
   
   After all that, this is a great book. Accessible to everyone interested in history, photography, and the things unseen.



3. The cult-of-personality-land seems to be getting an invigorating showing these days. This is the fourth book of photos to be released in the last two years and though they might have North Korea in the title it is mostly photos of Pyongyang that always predominate. The Ministry of Truth follows this pattern with just under a hundred photos and some posters.
   
   It is unfortunate that what is on show is of such poor quality. So many are soft focus, grey, badly composed and lacking in any creativity to really show anything of this odd country. I wonder if many of the shots were snapped while the minders were looking elsewhere? The authors also, annoyingly, take an easy out by not writing any captions but supply the dotty thoughts of the Dear Leader to go with some photos on many spreads. The uninspiring layout doesn't help either.
   
   Far better I think to go for Philippe Chancel's excellent North Korea with 129 photos that show the extent of the totalitarian regime in dazzling color
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

5 comments about Himalaya: Personal Stories of Grandeur, Challenge, and Hope.

1. This book would be worth buying for the photographs alone. There are well over 100 of them and nearly every one (as is appropriate for a National Geographic Society book) is of salon quality. But you shouldn't just look at the pictures. They are accompanied by 40 short pieces by a wide variety of people, each with a story to tell, either of how their life has been changed by their Himalayan experience, or how what they do is changing the life there. These are by leading Himalayan authorities in the climbing world (today's and yesterday's),in conservation, research, art restoration, human rights, development, and Buddhism. Among the authors are a former American president (Jimmy Carter) and a current US senator (Diane Feinstein), as well as leading Buddhist figures (including the Dalai Lama, who wrote one of the three introductory essays). You don't have to read all of these essays and yet, as you leaf through the book, you may find yourself doing just that. For one thing, they are short - two to three pages each. For another, these are personal stories, which means that in each case, the author connects himself with the subject he is describing, giving it an immediacy that it might otherwise lack. And for still another, they are talking about really interesting things - things like the region's problems, its wildlife, its earthquakes, its politics (a little bit), and - of course - their own experience there. The book has been produced by the National Geographic Society with the American Himalayan Foundation, and many of that organization's projects have been described. It is introduced by Richard Blum, who is its head and (with Erica Stone and Broughton Coburn) one of the book's three editors. He quotes the instructions of Lama Govinda, a 20th century holy man, on how to see a mountain: "To see the greatness of a mountain, one must keep one's distance. To understand its form, one must move around it. To experience the moods, one must see it at sunrise and sunset, at noon and at midnight, in sun and in rain, in snow and in storm, in summer and in winter and in all other seasons. He who can see the mountain like this comes near to the life of the mountain, a life that is as intense and varied as that of a human being."
   
   If you are not in a position to do all this for the Himalaya, just read this book. It will get you close to an intense and varied experience of the world's most famous mountains and the people who live among them.



2. My Himalayan book shelf and coffee tables already groan, but I ordered this National Geographic beauty immediately. All at once I was reminded of the depth of love and anxiety I have about these young mountains and these very old people. I learned a lot, even considering that I'm privileged to spend at least a month in Nepal and nearby countries once a year over the last decade. Photographs of masters, spiritual seekers, and people lovers lead the way to understanding the powerful impact of just being in the magic presence of the peaks. They soar beyond the clouds; the people strive for spiritual peaks and life goals too. In editing a series of short contemporary, highly relevant, but personal articles, Richard Blum, Erica Stone, and Brot Coburn show readers what can be seen and what can be done to reach out to help ease burdens there. Mountaineers, trekkers, and couch climbers, helpers and those looking for a cause, travelers, pilgrims, and all of us seeking greater human understanding will relish the guiding words of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Sir Edmund and Peter Hillary, and Lodi Gyalsten Gyari. Everyone who loves the Himalayas or wants to get to know them MUST HAVE this well rounded easy to read, glorious to see, summary of current times in and under the mountains of the Gods.
   Joyce Tapper
   Los Angeles



3. This is a wonderful essay book with stunning photography. The essays are from a diverse group - from world leaders to refugees, to mountain climbing legends. Together they tell the story of the Himalayas - its beauty, its culture, its challenges and the hope that so many people help to bring to this part of the world. I gave this book as a gift to many people for the holidays and everyone has mentioned to me that they have enjoyed reading it and it is often a conversation piece when people see it on the coffee table. I recommend it highly.



4. This is a wonderful book for anyone who loves the great places of the world like the Himalaya. This is a great collection of stories by people who have fallen in love with the region, the people and the mountains. The basis for the book is to protect places, cultures and the people of an endangered region. A must have book for your collection.



5. Himalaya is a collection of essays and photographs depicting the Himalayan peaks, the people living in the shadows of these peaks, and the needs and plights of these people. All the contributors have been very closely linked with the Himalayas. These include monks and native hillmen who were either born and brought up there, and then were typically forced to seek asylum in other countries, hardy mountaineers like Jim Whittaker, Ian Baker and the Hillary father and son pair, and famed Himalayaholics like Stan Armington and Matthieu Ricard.
   
   The book invokes strong nostalgia if you have been to the Himalayas before, and wonderstruck awe if you haven't been there. Through the three sections titled Grandeur, Challenge and Hope, you will find yourself in a world of simple hard-working villagers, troubled by malicious forces beyond their powers, and in a world of wild blue sheep, fat and honest eyed yaks, and majestic snow leopards. Pioneering climbers describe how they realized their dreams of climbing the loftiest peaks in the Himalayas, and how these ascents turned them into altogether different humans. We get interesting accounts from famous wildlife conservationists as to what made them turn to the Himalayas, and how have they been carrying out their efforts in these extreme terrains for decades.
   
   Many of the tales point out that the Himalayas are different from other mountain ranges not just because of their stupendous heights, but also due to the simplicity and genuineness of the people who have been living in its valleys and snow-covered meadows for thousands of years. Some of the views in the book are so orthodox that you might laugh them off at first, for instance, consider opposition to building roads in undeveloped regions in the mountains. But authors like Jigme Bista will explain to you that how development comes at the hefty cost of cultural degradation and decay of environmental harmony.
   
   Frankly, a few of the essays focus entirely on Buddhist philosophy, Tibetan's educational needs or on healthcare issues. Indeed these are important and relevant, and are connected with the central theme of the book, but some essays sadly do feel like space-filling digressions. Related to this is the shortcoming that the book makes Himalayas sound synonymous to the Nepal and Tibet Himalayas. Almost no mention is made of the high deserts of Ladakh Himalayas or of the vast Garhwal Himalayas.
   
   The lack of an index in such a hefty volume is also conspicuous. The book is no doubt a good collection of essays and photographs, but somehow fails to be up to the perfectionist standards of the National Geographic Society.
   
   Nevertheless, the thought which would linger in your mind for long after you finish this beautiful book, is the justifiability of human imposed geographical boundaries, if such boundaries have led to millions of torturous deaths over the years.
   
   http://readsafe.blogspot.com

2 comments about Resorts of Maldives (Guidebook Format).

1. An incredibly good book!If you like who-done-it mysteries,you'll like this.It's got a lot of suspense and i would recomend it to anybody.



2. The book gives detailed info on diving, dining, stay and all other points of interest as the author himself has stayed in every resort he is writing about. Especially for Maldives when choosing the resort is the focal point of the vacation planning and the resort stay is THE vacation this book is indispensable. I had to get mine from Maldives airport as it is hardly available otherwise.

1 comments about Groovy CHIANG MAI Map 'N' Guide.

1. I used this new edition of the Chiang Mai Groovy Guide which had a really comprehensive review of the places to go for shopping (its a lovely arts and crafts and handicrafts town so there are lots of places to buy good value and high quality things as gifts). The dining section listed a few fabulous spots (right on the river) that we really enjoyed finding. The whole guide was fun and functional at the same time. Sort of like being guided around by a friend. You feel like he is just telling you where he would want to go, so you follow along. Places are all designated by colored icons and symbols. Easy to use.

No comments about Asian Dining Rules: Essential Strategies for Eating Out at Japanese, Chinese, Southeast Asian, Korean, and Indian Restaurants.