1 comments about Short Bike Rides in and around Chicago (Short Bike Rides Series).

1. It's a nice book, BUT sloppily edited. For example, we just went on the ride by the Skokie Lagoons. The books says to take I-94 north to Golf Road; guess what? there's no Golf Road exit. One has to go to Old Orchard, go west to Harms Road (which is shown on the map as Harris Rd.) and then turn south again and go down to Golf. Once there, the books says to park in the Chick Evans Golf Course parking lot. This necessitaes a 3/4 mile bike ride back to the trail-head, on a supremely busy 4-lane street, with no bike lane and hardly any shoulder.
   
   Given that one passes parking areas along Harms Road, in the Forest Preserve, right by the trailhead, this made NO sense. These parking areas are closer and safer...so why aren't we directed to park there instead?
   
   I am looking forward to more biking in and around Chicago this fall, but I'll doublecheck driving directions before I go.

No comments about Pictures of gold rush California.

No comments about The History of Cartography, Volume 2, Book 3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies (The History of Cartography).

1 comments about English Journey.

1. Priestley travels around the UK and in his dependable prose examines aspects of British life and landscape. His passage about the mythical 'Rusty Lane, West Bromwich' is a superb piece of writing. Occasionally he over-sentimentalises but mostly he stands up for the disenfranchised in the nation. Softer in tone than Orwell's Wigan Pier but similar in intention. A great read.
   The book reminds me of Louis Theroux's Kingdom by the Sea or the work of Bill Bryson although it details a more innocent age.

1 comments about Frommer's(r) Memorable Walks in Chicago, 4th Edition.

1. We made good use of this walking guide to Chicago, and found the information acurate, informative and fun. There are ten tours: Architecture Tour of the Loop, Sculpture Tour of the Loop, South Michigan Avenue and Grant Park, Magnificent Mile, Gold Coast, Old Town, Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Oak Park and Hyde Park. each tour starts with information about the starting and end points, public transportation, time of the walk, best time to walk and worst time. The walks feature building and places of interest, with stories and eateries along the way. Lots of fun and very useful!

3 comments about Route 66: 2,297 Miles from Chicago to LA.

1. �Route 66 came closer than any other highway to becoming the National Road.�

   �And in the halcyon days of US 66, it became the most magical road in all the world.�

   I grew up about 1 mile from Route 66 in San Bernardino, California, and loved to hear the name of our town in the famous Bobby Troup song. I was even more thrilled when I found Route 66 in The Grapes of Wrath.

   But the ultimate for me was when the television series, Route 66, ran from 1960-64.

   For anyone with nostalgia or curiosity about Route 66 in its heyday, this pictorial tribute will be very rewarding. I recommend the book for personal pleasure, as a gift to those who loved Route 66, and to show to your children who missed the experience of this great road.

   Many more dimensions of Route 66 are captured here than in any other book I have seen, including:

   the speed traps; gangsters who made their getaways on the road; Burma Shave signs; water bags on car radiators; Phillips 66 gasoline signs; buses; diners; motels; and truck stops. To add to this color, you see photographs of classic automobiles and motorcycles, tourist sights, bridges, gas stations, drive-in theaters, and meet many of the famous people who operated well-known businesses along the route.

   Route 66 started in the east in downtown Chicago, near the headquarters of the Santa Fe Railway (the company where my father worked), and there�s a nice photograph of the building here. You then mosey through Illinois (including Mitchell, Illinois), Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California through to Santa Monica. Each state�s section shows you the names of the key towns passed through, the mileage to each one, and visual highlights from many of these areas.

   For my own home area, I was delighted to see a nice section on Cajon Pass, just a few miles northwest of my childhood home, a photograph of the Wigwam Motel in Rialto (about 10 miles away) where I always wanted to stay overnight on my birthday (until I found out how expensive it was to stay in a small concrete teepee), and the first McDonald�s restaurant on E Street in San Bernardino (about a mile from my home) where I began eating fast food hamburgers and those great french fries in 1948.

   Sadly, the Interstate Highway program was begun in 1956 and began to replace Route 66. Two of the first sections were from San Bernardino to Los Angeles and Barstow (through Cajon Pass). We loved the speed of the new roads, and our lives have been busier and faster ever since. Sometimes when I�m back in Southern California, I�ll take a slow, relaxing drive however down Foothill Boulevard, which was Route 66 in this area. I enjoy those trips enormously!

   Route 66 was decertified as a federal highway in 1985. You will still find signs along parts of its route letting you know you are on �historical Route 66.) The roads glories are fading now, as the many seedy motels and rundown diners will show you in this book.

   But, if you should be near any of these sights, take time to go see them. And say hello to the people described in the book who operate them. I particularly recommend the Genuine Giant in Elwood, Illinois.

   What did you enjoy doing when you were young that is disappearing today? Have you taken time lately to stir up a little reunion with those happy experiences?

   Stop, look, and listen . . . for America�s romance with the open road!




2. I absolutely relived my tour on route 66 in august of this year. The author gives a beautifull description of every enjoyable feature on this road. He shows you great full-color pictures, the beautifull countryside en great architecture and collector's items. Besides that the book shows and tells you the history of one of thé most historic roads in the world.
   The book gave me the feeling that I got when I visited in august this year: The USA are a beautifull country, with outstanding architecture that you should preserve and with very nice and warm people living in it.
   Hope to visit you again soon! And keep the faith in these difficult times.

   Greetings from the Netherlands, Europe!




3. This pictorial contains hundreds of photographs of old Route 66. The pictures are mostly present-day photographs of old (both surviving and defunct) businesses as well as of the natural landscape in the eight states that the "Mother Road" and "America's Main Street" traversed.
   
   The book follows old U.S. 66 from east to west, from Chicago to Los Angeles. This is more than a coffee-table book. It contains ample text describing the history of the road, the story of some of the people who owned businesses along the highway, how and when the road was supplanted by the Interstate Highway System, and driving tips for those who want to try to follow surviving stretches of the original road today.
   
   There are also separate brief features describing the restaurants, truck stops, cars, motorcycles, semis, gas stations, and motels that were all a part of Route 66 during its mid-century heyday.
   
   Looking at all of the pictures of the wide-open spaces of the sun-splashed Southwest is a great way to "get your kicks" on a cold, gloomy day.

3 comments about The Unofficial Guide to Chicago (Unofficial Guides).

1. This guide offered everything I needed for my trip to Chicago. I found out where to shop, which beaches to go to, and all about the night life in the Windy City.



2. This guide has ratings for the places you can visit, by age range. This is helpful so that you know it your family members will be interested in visiting there. They gave helpful hints for some of the locations. We found they underestimated the amount of time needed at some of the sites. The maps were very well laid out and showed how things were related to each other. They didn't give many parking locations, but often places to park were easy to find. Take plenty of money for parking (usually $18 and for all the toll roads). Some of the restaurants were much higher priced than listed in the book.



3. No discussion of pre-theater dining! When you are going to see Wicked at the Ford Theater, there is not much more you care about than where to eat first. In fact, the restaurant guide does not even mention half the restaurants that are listed online as "the" pre-theater dining places (none of which "grabbed" me online, so I was hoping this book would be more enlightening).
   
   Also no full drawing of the various parts of the city. Small maps that show only two districts do not tell me where Bucktown is relative to The Loop. This is critical when all the hotels, restaurants, etc. are referred to by district.
   
   Overall disappointing, because The Unofficial Guides tend to be better than other guides, and they tend to be better than this.

4 comments about Blue Trout and Black Truffles: The Peregrinations of an Epicure.

1. Wechsberg's book is an established classic on a par with those of A. J. Liebling and Waverly Root. Like those other authors, Wechsberg was a journalist who wrote about food, restaurants, and food cultures in the mid-20th century, and his insights and great storytelling give the writing a permanent appeal. This can be seen from the reaction after this essay collection (whose chapters were originally written as magazine articles) appeared in this reprint edition in the mid-1980s. I was at a Christmas party with some accomplished food folks, including Paul Bertolli of the Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and was recounting to someone one of the stories ("Tafelspitz for the Hofrat") from this book. When I finished I found that most of the room was listening, and that many of them, independently, had recently read the book too. That particular essay, by the way, has lately been re-discovered in Vienna, where it was set, and has been proudly adopted by some restaurants there. In this book Wechsberg interviewed, and popularized to US readers, the legendary Fernand Point, chef and owner of the 20th-century's most famous and influential restaurant in France (and for whom the _Guide Michelin_ reportedly debated adding a fourth star to their rating system for premium restaruants). Some of the chapters are interviews, some experiences and some celebrations of food. This book is well known and indispensable to food fanatics and those seeking more of the background and context from which contemporary western culinary culture -- high cuisine as well as comfort food -- emerged.



2. Wechsberg's name ought to be mentioned alongside M.F.K. Fischer's. His writing is evocative, precise, and vivid. Reading this book makes me wish I could board a time machine and eat in the restaurants he described in the 1950s. Like many Viennese, Wechsberg loves the old city, the city that vanished after the wars, and resurrects it in memory.



3. What a romp in the world of food! You'll feel satisfied at the end of the book... like a good meal.



4. Though Blue Trout and Black Truffles is billed as Culinary journey, and it is at that, it is also something completely unexpected, an introduction to European life in the 1920s through 1940s. The exploration of food and wine is coupled with vibrant characters and unforgettable settings.

3 comments about The Last Kings of Thule: With the Polar Eskimos, As They Face Their Destiny.

1. Insightful and introspective account of the author's extended study of the Polar Innuit of the Thule district in Greenland. The most recent edition includes the author's bittersweet reflections many years later on modern incursions that threaten the survival of this indigenous culture.



2. Fantastic background to the area both from the antropological and geographical points of veiw. However, when I visited Qaanaaq in 1990 and mentioned this book I found that the local inhabitants were not impressed by their protrayal. Particularly concerning the more private aspects of their society.



3. Although the primary objectives of Malaurie's work were cartographic and geological in nature, he became, by default, a primary voice in describing the Thule culture by recounting his personal experiences and lifestyle during the expedition. Surely, ethnography can never be a truly objective effort, but Malaurie seems to appreciate this and relates cultural information through an admitted cultural filter. Rather than stifle his own reactions in his writing, Malaurie has adequately described, with sensitivity, his personal paradigm shift as well as that of the culture he is inevitably impacting by his very presence. It is inevitable that in any ethnographic description it will be found that something is amiss, lacking, due to the inevitable loss of information that occurs whenever information is transferred across cultural and linguistic lines. This work is one of the few that I have read that treats cultural interaction and exchange with dignity on behalf of the observed and the one observing. And, after all, these lines of distinction regarding observer and the observed shift and change radically during such a period of cultural interaction. Malaurie wonderfully describes this process.

1 comments about Moon Metro Chicago (Moon Metro).

1. Moon Metro Chicago is a unique and easily portable tourist guide in which every single two-page spread unfolds into a practical and durable map of this great midwestern city. In full color, printed on heavy stock paper, these detailed and up to date descriptions and "user friendly" maps make for an economical and handy guide for tourists, business travelers, and vacationers looking to explore Chicago's diverse greatness with a minimum of hassle and a maximum of efficiency.