5 comments about Down Under All over: A Love Affair With Australia.

1. Your Amazon review diddles (cheats, swindles) your customers out of wanting to read a great book. Your reviewer does a GREAT DISSERVICE to Down Under All Over. Out of 46 chapters oozing with fascinating descriptions and experiences of the great land down under, your reviewer chose to tell readers about Brewster's surfing experience--something that could have taken place anywhere in the world.

   Your reviewer completely disregards Brewster's masterful, enthusiastic depiction of an Australia that many non-Australian readers knew nothing about and have been fascinated to meet. People around the world have feasted on "Down Under" with vast enjoyment. Unfortunately, most Amazon browers will not have this pleasure because your reviewer so thoroughly fails to give them any reason to buy this book.

   Readers:Take a look at the forward by "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport" Rolf Harris. He says he was moved to tears that someone from another country had so captured the gist of what Australia is all about, and that Brewster writes of Australia with the same love that he would.

   Readers: THIS BOOK IS NOT OUT OF PRINT. It is readily available to Amazon from Four Winds Publishing both in the US and in Australia. Just check Barbara Brewster's website if you don't believe me.




2. This book made a perfect vacation read. On a domestic trip I read it a little each day for a week, and every moment it was like I was down under. Brewster takes us through quick stops throughout the continent, telling of her hitchhiking adventures, soulful solitary moments, profoundly happy and inviting stays with local friends and acquaintences, and unique cultural experiences, both during her more recent return trip to Australia and her original stay 20+ years ago. Interested in going, I checked the book out from the library along with some travel books on Australia, and it really brought some neat vicarious experiences into my life. I'm checking into getting some of the music she mentions, especially 'Gondwanaland'. Definitely a recommended read to those wanting an enjoyable look into some of Australia's life!



3. The best travel books are first-person, and Ms. Brewster's book is charming and insightful. A first-hand look at one woman's attraction to an amazing country!



4. Barbara Brewster's book "Down Under All Over" gets inside a vast country, and let's us see, hear, see and smell it with plenty of detail and first-person account. The book has made me want to see Oz. The author's relationship with the people there has touched me as well. After all, what travel is about, when all is said and done, is the folks you meet. I highly recommend this book.



5. Having lived in Australia three years, I recognized with nostalgia many of the scenes Brewster describes. She successfully captures some of the best Australian character traits while describing life on a sheep station and at a roadhouse where they made extended stays.
   Her leisurely trek revisits places and people she knew 20 years before as a school teacher (in Australia under the Assisted Passage Scheme). This gives her the perspective to see changes to some areas (Coober Pedy) and lifestyles.
   This is more in depth than just a travel journal. She comments on the struggles of the Austrailian agricultural family, racial issues and the generosity she encounters throughout the country. One chapter describes a wide range of Down Under musicians. A bibliography at the end gives more titles to lead you further in your reading on Australia.
   If you are thinking about an Australian trip, this gives you much of the flavor that a guidebook just doesn't cover.

No comments about Samoa: A Hundred Years Ago and Long before. Together with Notes on the Cults and Customs of Twenty-three Other Islands in the Pacific.

No comments about Fodor's Exploring New Zealand, 4th Edition (Exploring Guides).

2 comments about The Best Tracks on Guam.

1. For those who like to get out and see their surroundings, this book is ideal. Dave describes how to get to pretty much everything worth seeing on Guam. Be forewarned though, this book isn't for sissies looking for easily accessible locations. Each hike or 'trek' is rated by level of difficulty, with the most difficult be exactly that. Just because the author managed to get there, don't assume you can. The pictures are great and nicely depict each hike. Some instructions are vague, but if you do the hike, you will understand why. Guam is jungle and sometimes there just aren't any good landmarks. Included GPS coordinates are usefull for those who truly prepared. This book is a must for the outdoors type who visit Guam.



2. The man is a legend on Guam - he is "The Ultimate Paramount Boonie Stomping Leader of all time".
   
   If you are planning a trip to Guam, get this book! We lived there for three years and the guide is the bible of Boonie Stomping. Five star rating...

4 comments about Diving the Pacific: Volume 1: Micronesia and the Western Pacific Islands.

1. I don't know that I've ever read a better dive book or travel guide. The author covers every minute detail, and somehow, it still reads well--a fascinating and well-treated subject. David Leonard shows great wit and a solid knowledge of his subject.

   The photographs are amazing, too.




2. One of the most informative books about diving in the Pacific , next to Tim Rocks lonely planet guides for diving and snorkelling in Micronesia this is the best , only this one accomodates all the islands in one book meanwhile lonely planet is done over three books .
   I definately recommend it !



3. Wasn't sure what to expect when ordering, but am very happy with the purchase. The maps are great! I have lived in Guam & find that the info in the book is very helpful. I'm still learning my way around the dive world here & now know where some of these places are that people are talking about. It has also helped plan our next dive trip to other islands. Great info on Palau, Chuuk, & Yap. So much to see & so little time!!!



4. I went back and bought 2 more for my travel companions! We just came back from Truk & Yap and I never saw my book, it was traveling around our group so much! We are planning to return to Palau, so I bought extra copies as self defense! The best dive guide I have found to the islands.

5 comments about Lonely Planet Diving and Snorkeling Fiji (Diving & Snorkeling).

1. "Ni sa bula vinaka", as it is said in Fiji. As a master diver who has dived since 1956, and has visited many of Fiji's dive sites, I can heartily recommend this book to anyone contemplating diving Fiji. The Mahaney - Witte team- authors, photographers and dive tour guides well-known and respected in the diving community- are knowledgeable and credible. Mind you, NO book can ever catalogue ALL of Fiji's diverse and innumerable dive sites... but this book is well planned, has a very good selection of sites- rated for conditions and experience levels- and information for the would-be Fiji diver. The book has some maps, and a visual feast of photos. In summary- going to Fiji to dive? Be prepared for stiff currents, and a kaleidoscope of colorful fishes and soft corals... and BUY THIS BOOK! Dive well and safely.



2. Simple no-nonsense guide to diving in Fiji



3. This book is seemingly a compilation of dive locations frequented by dive resorts, with little independent research or reviews of specific dive outfitters. The book lacks basic information on water temperatures, currents, winds and seasonal influences. The independent traveller primarily interested in snorkeling will also be disappointed in the lack of practical information on the best sections of the main islands for shoreline snorkeling.



4. This is an attractive book which the scuba diver will want to order. It maps and describes 74 of Fiji's top dive sites and the color photography is excellent. Despite the title, however, those interested in beach-based snorkeling will find little of use here as almost all of the sites included are accessible by boat only. Even the new Waitabu Marine Park off Taveuni is mentioned only in passing. There's virtually no practical resort or restaurant information, and the first quarter of the book is devoted to brochure-style hype you can read on almost any Fiji website. Critical reviews of dive facilities are strikingly absent, so this book is of no help in selecting a specific scuba operator. Five pages of listings in the back of the book provide basic contact information, but even this is out of date as all Fiji telephone numbers have increased from six to seven digits since the book was published. Most of the email addresses are also wrong, so substitute @connect.com.fj whenever you see @is.com.fj. Nevertheless, when one considers the cost of a scuba tour to the South Pacific and the lack of any alternative Fiji dive guide, all of the above criticisms are mute and serious divers will click this title straight into their shopping carts.



5. I bought this book primarily because I am going to Fiji in two months and wanted info on snorkeling. Boy was I surprised to find only half a page devoted to snorkeling. The rest of the book is a brief description of various dive sites.

   The book does have nice pictures and basic information regarding the more popular dive sites in Fiji. But as a snorkeling reference, it is worthless.

No comments about The Quest for Kaitiakitanga: The Ancient Maori Secret from New Zealand that Could Save the Earth (Adventures with Purpose).

1 comments about Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (Penguin Classics).

1. (This review is based on the Library of America edition.)
   
   If you liked "Typee", then you should like "Omoo"; but you should know that the narrative isn't quite as tight. What I mean is that "Omoo" is as excellently written as its predecessor, but it doesn't seem to have much a strong story-line. In short, it's a series of adventures, well told, but there's nothing building. I couldn't even sum the book up in other ways than this: a series of adventures in the South Seas.
   
   If you're into sea and island stories, you may like it. The book is made of short chapters, as usual with Melville, and it's really funny (I always found Melville funny). It's interesting in parts, but on the whole, I think it's a much less successful novel than "Typee". Perhaps this was the beginning of what Melville would later do with "Moby-Dick", a sort of willed unfocusedness.

No comments about Melbourne City Map.

2 comments about We of the Never-Never and the Little Black Princess.

1. Two novels in one.

   We of the Never-Never does nothing to make you care for the assorted host of characters. Everyone seems to be a charicature, not a true person. Rather boring, would not recommend.

   Little Black Princess is much more enjoyable, you care for Bett-Bett and learn very interesting things concerning the culture at that time. Would recommend.




2. When author Jennie Gunn wondered why Bett-Bett "shutim eye quickfella" in the presence of her uncle Goggle-eye, Bett-Bett explained, "Him little bit father belong me." In the 1920s that was as close as Gunn dared come in print to acknowledging that, among the Aboriginal tribe on her husband's acreage, a wife was automatically sexually available to all of her husband's male relatives. By Gunn's time, the fact that a child had only a single father was known. The "little bit father" status of all of her mother's intimates was a holdover from a much earlier time when it was still believed that children were jointly fathered by every man who had deposited his sperm into the child's mother.
   The social conditions described in We of the Never Never no longer exist. The book is as useful a source for a period of Australian history as is The Grapes of Wrath for American history, even if Gunn is no John Steinbeck.
   By the way, the author is not Aeneus Gunn. It is MRS Aeneus Gunn, Aeneus's wife Jennie.