2 comments about Ski Magazine's Guide to New England and Quebec.

1. This guide is so much more personal than others I've seen. Instead of getting into what kind of carpeting the hotel has (like Fodors), this guide really talks about the feel of the ski resort. You get the true sense that the writer really understands the place and helps you to feel what it's really like. I cannot wait to use the "insider tips" this winter. This is a great guide for anyone who likes to point their car north and head out in the winter. Mine will be well used!



2. Nevermind any previous reviews, with McCarthy at the helm of this installation of the east's must-have ski guide , there may never need to be another. Thorough, insightful, and downright truthful, it's essential for even veteran eastern skiers to get the real deal on their favorite small and mega resorts. I've put it in my bib's map pocket (my only complaint is that it's a bulky pocket fit) and am waiting for the winter storm clouds.

No comments about Woodall's Far West Campground Guide, 2007 (Woodall's Far West Campground Guide).

No comments about Lunenburg Then and Now.

1 comments about Montreal Up Close: a pedestrian's guide to the city.

1. This wonderful guide book allowed me to stroll through the streets of Old Montreal and the entire downtown area, discovering the architecture and history of the many fine old buildings. The two fold-out colour maps were very useful to get around. They are air photographs of the city with buildings and cars and everything in detail. VERY COOL! I really liked the way it pointed out architectural features that I would certainly have missed. The stories about the places it guided me to made me learn more about the city in which I live. I'm reccommending it to all my friends who are planning a visit to me in Montreal. The historical background brought the city into perspective.

3 comments about Kiss the Sunset Pig.

1. Laurie Gough is an intrepid traveller with a youthful exuberance for adventure. I realize, though, that no matter what one's age, some people are born with wanderlust and have a need to travel the world. The interesting thing is, travellers always return home. That's what Gough does. She's been to thirty countries, hitchhiking thousands of miles by herself though fourteen of them. But she always returns to her hometown of Guelph, Ontario in Canada.
   
   At the beginning of Kiss the Sunset Pig, Gough sets off for California from Guelph in a "blue, beat-up mini Ford Bronco" she calls Marcia. To help with driving and expenses, she picks up a travelling companion named Debbie, whom she has met through an ad and, before the trip begins, has only spoken to on the phone. Debbie gets dropped off in St. Louis, Missouri, at the home of a boyfriend she has never met face to face.
   
   "Sometimes I think I'm still looking for an axis," Gough writes early on in her journey. After reading her book, I think the axis may be the wanderlust. It's who she is. For a person with wanderlust, there is no perfect place to live. A place may seem ideal, for a time, but really it's just a base at which to prepare oneself for the next adventure.
   
   Reading about her encounters with strange and wonderful people is frightening at times (for the reader and for her), but I realize travelling with a companion or in a group, as I usually do, one is not open to the same exciting possibilities. Travelling solo, Gough finds herself talking to strangers more readily as she's more open and more herself. "That's the thing about travelling: it's like peeling away a layer of yourself, exposing yourself to the world so it can expose itself to you".
   
   The structure of the book is an interesting one that works extremely well. (She did the same in her first book, Kite Strings of the Southern Cross, which I highly recommend.) Rather than write a book of travel stories in chronological order, Gough reflects on previous journeys as she drives across the United States in a car that needs lots of garage visits along the way.
   
   One of those reflections is the Greek island of Naxos. There Gough created a temporary home under a small bamboo wind shelter on the beach. Her backpack went missing for a time and to ease her panic, she looked at the "dependable milky rock" of the moon. Gough realized things like that didn't matter "in the great scheme of the universe" (she had her passport and money), and I realize too, as a traveller, one needs to practice non-attachment. Gough describes Greece beautifully as a "land where myth and reality swirl around each other in a luminous haze." Yet she needed to move on, "to see the rest of the world."
   
   One summer, Gough hitchhiked to the Yukon, 3,000 miles from Guelph. She says hitchhiking is "always a surprise study of human beings." Her travelling companion Kevin told her of his own world adventures. His advice was "You have no idea what's in store for you, but if you let yourself go along with the flow of the unknown and accept whatever happens, things seem to work out".
   
   The "exotic detours" of which Gough writes don't all have happy endings. Her teaching job in Kashechewan in Canada's sub-Arctic ended after only three months with Gough defeated and exhausted by the chaos of a third-grade class. A trip to Jamaica with her sister ended quickly, as Gough likes to stay with locals while her sister prefers fancy hotels.
   
   Gough is full of questions about where she belongs. Those questions don't at all detract from the book; they help us relate. After all, travel is about looking for oneself, and as travel-book readers, we get to reflect on similar questions.
   
   On her trip to California, Gough plays Joni Mitchell's "California" that includes the phrase "kiss the sunset pig." She carries a tattered notebook called "Cave Journal" and would like to find that cave on the Pacific again, where she spent some time thirteen years previously. Along with her questions and her longing, Gough has a healthy sense of humour about her encounters along the way. She describes a town on the Great Plains called Grainfield as the "size of a bath mat."
   
   At an earlier age, Gough described herself as "still on my way to everywhere." She has learned that travel can mean "hours, even days of despair, rain, heatwaves, snow, mosquitoes, late trains, no trains, followed by a single moment of dazzling elation. It was those single moments one tended to recall." Gough makes some realizations at the end of her California trip that I don't want to reveal here. But I would say, even though she is older and perhaps wiser, I still see her as on her way to everywhere.
   
   Gough has married since the stories written about in her book and has a baby son. They divide their time between a farmhouse outside of Guelph, Ontario, and a Quebec village. Seventeen of her stories have been anthologised in various literary travel books, including Salon.com's Wanderlust: Real-Life Tales of Adventure and Romance and Sand in My Bra: Funny Women Write from the Road. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Outpost, Canadian Geographic and numerous literary journals.
   
   by Mary Ann Moore
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



2. If you enjoyed Kite Strings of the Southern Cross, or even if you were not lucky enough to read it, Laurie Gough's second book offers the same magical combination of beautiful, descriptive travel writing and soul-searching that never comes across as self-involved or forced. Starting in Canada, Gough takes the reader along on her road trip to rediscover a special cave she once stayed in along the California coast - and how she has evolved since that memorable sojourn. Interspersed throughout the narrative are chapters on some of Gough's other international adventures to such exotic locales as Sumatra and Seoul, South Korea (a place that comes across as utterly unappealing).
   
   Much of the beauty in Gough's writing comes not just from her memorable descriptions of the people, places, and things she encounters and learns from (especially those harrowing Indonesian bus and ferry rides and Marcia, her struggling car), but also from her brutal honesty about some of the low points she struggled through along the way. By the end of the book, the reader truly roots for Gough to find her cave so the journey can go full-circle.
   
   Despite an unexpected outcome, Gough manages to discover the meaning and convey the depth of her experience in a way that never seems heavy-handed or cliched. This is a beautiful and inspiring piece of travel writing that offers many riches for fellow travelers, those who enjoy strong writing, and anyone who has ever considered his or her place and purpose in the universe.



3. When I opened 'Kiss the Sunset Pig' I was expecting a travel book, which it is ... and a great one at that. What I wasn't expecting was how much it would touch my soul. I sat, riveted, as I took a journey not only around the world, but across thoughts, hopes, dreams. Anyone who's ever questioned whether, with the whole world to choose from, they're living their lives in the best place or whether they've filled their lives to the very best of their ability, will find a resonating spirit in this book.
   As Laurie Gough makes her way from Canada and across America she hopes not only to settle happily in California, but to find the coastal cave that she lived in for six nights, years ago. But the search is not so much for the cave itself, as for the more free-spirited (she believes) girl that lived there. As she drives, she recalls previous travels in the Greek islands, the Yukon, Jamaica, Sumatra, and Seoul, to name a few. These tales can't fail to inspire. Her bravery alone, traveling solo through often uncomfortable, and sometimes dangerous, situations is humbling to say the least. But it's this bravery she feels has been lost and she hopes to rekindle by finding her cave.
   Several times the author seemed to wander into places I thought only existed in my daydreams. Some were so uncanny they made me gasp. Since childhood I have wanted a glass-walled bedroom perched on the top of a house, entirely surrounded by trees. I clapped my hands in delighted envy when the author set up home in just such a room ... and in a Californian Redwood forest at that. These instances were some of the most poignant for me - the fact that daydreams can so easily be reality if you go out and make them so ... that really hit home.
   The travel stories are touching, humourous, enchanting, and filled with travel's usual mix of discomfort, frustration, alarm, and achingly beautiful encounters. All are told with the author's clear natural gift for portraying the lightness and the depth in every situation.
   So if the idea of sleeping in a coastal cave, inside a Californian Redwood, on a Mediterranean beach, or on the banks of the remote Yukon river lights something intangible inside, I wholeheartedly recommend you read 'Kiss the Sunset Pig' and let inspiration rain over you.

No comments about TORONTO COLOURGUIDE (Colourguide Travel Series).

No comments about Pocket Map and Guide Toronto (Eyewitness Travel Guides).

No comments about Saskatchewan Recreation Map (Recreation Maps).

2 comments about Maritime Provinces Off the Beaten Path, 5th (Off the Beaten Path Series).

1. We used this guide for an individual trip (not a group tour)to Nova Scotia. Don't be misled by the title--it's a great book for mainstream tourists, focusing on the history and culture and sites, giving a lot more background than your standard Frommer's guide for example. At the end of each chapter there's a very limited list of hotels and restaurants, so you'll also want one of the standards--Frommer's for example, as a complement. Also, the Nova Scotia Tourism authority has GREAT free material and maps which are yours for the asking on their website.



2. I used this book (4th edition) a few years ago on a road trip from Halifax, NS to Saint George, NB. This book and a road map were very helpful in getting around the region and getting a sense of the history and background of the area.
   
   The book covers New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Each province is divided into multiple sections and each section has a map with some key towns on it. You will find lots of recommendations for shopping, lighthouses, natural parks, art galleries, historical homes, museums, restaurants, places to stay, local tours, and as the book title suggests, some off-the-beaten path places. Interspersed with this information is local history, trivia, stories, and even recipes for dishes like Rappie pie and Irish moss pudding.
   
   On my trip, I ran out of time and I did not make it to Cape Breton. However, some of my favorite things were: Peggy's Cove (NS), The Ovens Natural Park (NS), Sackville Waterfowl Park (NB), Hopewell Rocks Park (NB), spotting a moose around dusk at Fundy National Park, and of course, visiting lots of lighthouses. The Public Gardens, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, and the waterfront area in Halifax were enjoyable too. All of these places are described in this book.
   
   One place that was not included is the Parrsboro Rock & Mineral Shop. Parrsboro is a great place for rock and fossil hunting. When I stopped at this shop, I had the pleasure of talking with Eldon George who is a well-known fossil collector in the area. In 1984, he found what was then the world's smallest dinosaur prints. If you're interested in geology, I highly recommend that you stop by there when in Parrsboro.

No comments about Coastal Hikes: A Guide to West Coast Hiking in British Columbia and Washington State (Wild Isle Guide).