5 comments about Volunteer Vacations: Short-Term Adventures That Will Benefit You and Others (Volunteer Vacations).

1. This book is very informative and easy to navigate. I was able to ready it over a 2 day period on my spare time and breakdown the vacations that would best suit what I am looking to do.



2. This book was extremely well organized. I was able to quickly sort through for an organization that allowed teens and was for the duration of time we had available. From there, it was easy to go on the specific websites for the pretty pictures. We have just come back from our experience building homes in Costa Rica and can't wait to go again! You will never again feel the need for a beach vacation. It was much more invigorating to give something of yourself.



3. I'm sure you can get most of the information in this book online but there's nothing like being able to curl up with this while dogearing pages and marking it up. It is extremely well organized and indexed in multiple ways so you're sure to find what you're looking for. Once something gets your interest you can contact the organization or look online for more info. One really nice feature is the occasional presence of first person narratives from people who've actually done the vacations.



4. *****
   I bought this book out of curiosity and was amazed at the variety of opportunities available to travel and contribute throughout the world. The book is a compendium of opportunities of every imaginable type, an incredible resource if you're even thinking about a taking a vacation in which you volunteer.
   
   Each opportunity contains all contact information, include web site, the types of projects available, organization mission statements, the year founded, the number of volunteers last year (so that you can see the scope of the program), funding sources, what kind of work the organization does, project locations, time line (when and for how long commitments are made), cost (including arrangements that must be made like medical examinations), how to get started, needed skills, and the specific populations that could qualify.
   
   The book is very friendly to those with limitations (for example, sight limitations, physical agility, etc.). There are also stories throughout the book from volunteers about their actual experiences while volunteering.
   
   There is a section on long-term volunteering opportunities. There are four indexes: by project cost, project length, location, season, and type.
   
   It is a wonderful book to use to explore what types of things you might like to do, as well as to use as a research base to search out specific opportunities. It is a great value, and an organized way to begin your volunteer journey!
   
   Highly recommended.
   *****



5. Bought this for my husband who is deciding which v. v. he should go on!
   thanks

No comments about Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality, and AIDS in the Dominican Republic (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture).

5 comments about The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (Phoenix Books).

1. Kramer provides a brief survey of the history of ancient Sumer. Even though this book is listed as archeology, he gleans most of his narrative from literary sources. It includes a history of the area from early dynastic times down to the time of Hammurabi, as well essays on Sumerian literature, education, religion, and so forth. Kramer writes very elegantly and includes a large collection of primary sources, making this book, despite its age, one of the best on its subject. On the other hand, it is a rather old book, and there are some subjects where Kramer's interpretations do not seem to have been accepted by more recent scholars, for instance his theories about Magan, Meluhha, and Dilmun. Despite this, his book is a good introduction to the history of Sumer, worthy of a read by anyone who is or thinks they might be interested in the subject.



2. An extremely rich series of tableaus of a fascinating cvilization in all its past glorious history. The author is a superb writer. And this book is a treasure...almost all the vital aspects of Sumer are depicted with bright colors:...religion...culture, way of life...society..ideology...history and fascinating stories..It is rich rich rich. No library on history and civilizations is complete without this book! Really a rare gem!!



3. Very good book to start reading about a people and a time that is hard to research and investigate.I think the author presented a very good account of the Sumerians and in a clear and concise manner.Excellent book!



4. I am neither an ancient history buff nor a historian, but began to explore the Sumerians only after my curiousity about the beginnings of civilization enabled me to discover this amazing culture. Here were the beginnings of epic literature. myth and religion, writing and an advanced
   culture almost three millenia before the birth of Christ! Samuel Noah Kramer is a specialist and authority in this field, and has produced an interesting, factually correct and fascinating book. If you're bored with the 21st century, give this one a try!



5. _The Sumerians_ by Samuel Noah Kramer is a very readable overview of the ancient Sumerians, those ancient, non-Semitic peoples who produced the world's "first high civilization" and were the world's first urban culture. This ancient culture spanned the fifth to the second millennium BC though its scientific and literary achievements would have lasting influence throughout the ancient world and down through today.
   
   The first chapter reviewed the history of the modern study of the Sumerians. As late as the 19th century the Sumerian culture was completely unknown. When scholars and archaeologists began excavating in Mesopotamia they were looking for Assyrians, not Sumerians. The Assyrians were discussed in Greek and Hebrew sources, but of the Sumerians, there was "no recognizable trace of the land, or its people and language, in the entire available Biblical, classical, and postclassical literature" (though some experts now think that Sumer is mentioned in the Bible with a variant name). Sumer had "been erased from the mind and memory of man for more than two thousand years."
   
   This chapter revealed the history of the decipherment of Sumerian writing (the name cuneiform dates from 1700 when Thomas Hyde coined the word to described Old Persian writing that he believed was decoration, not actual speech) and the naming of these people (Sumerian was proposed as a term in 1869 by Jules Oppert, who used the name from the title "King of Sumer and Akkad" found in some royal inscriptions, believing that Sumer referred to the non-Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia while Akkad referred to the Semitic people of Mesopotamia).
   
   Chapter two dealt with political history. The Sumerians didn't really produce what we would call histories; they were rather more archivist than historian, chroniclers more than interpreters of history. The first real record of Sumerian events was essentially to preserve for posterity what great building projects (particularly of temples) Sumerian rulers had accomplished. Not all historical source material is "curt and lifeless" though, as one source of information is the royal correspondence between rulers and officials, letters that can reveal motives, rivalries, and intrigue.
   
   As far as history itself the reader learns that two of the truly ancient Sumerian rulers were deified (Dumuzi, a deity whose worship would have profound influences in Judaism and in Greek mythology, and Gilgamesh, the "supreme hero of Sumerian myth and legend," his deeds written and rewritten not only in Sumerian but also in other languages), and that Sargon the Great was the conqueror that finally brought about the end of the Sumerian people as "an identifiable political and ethnic entity" and began the "Semitization of Sumer."
   
   Chapter three looked at life in the Sumerian city. In the third millennium B.C. Sumer consisted of a dozen or so city-states surrounded by a few villages, each city's main feature being the main temple situated on a high terrace, one that gradually evolved into a staged tower or ziggurat, "Sumer's most characteristic contribution to religious architecture." The temple was the largest and most important building in a Sumerian city, reflecting the importance of religion in Sumerian life (though scholars have debated for decades whether Sumer was a "totalitarian theocracy dominated by the temple" or whether there was some relative freedom and private property; opinion now leans towards the notion that while the temple was the major economic player, private individuals could buy and sell property and own businesses).
   
   An important chapter, Kramer looked at such things as the average Sumerian house (a small, single story, mud-brick building with several rooms arranged around an open courtyard), the Sumerian calendar (they divided the year into two seasons, emesh, "summer", and enten, "winter," with the new year falling between April-May), even Sumerian medicine (providing translations of several ancient prescriptions).
   
   Chapter four looked at religion and mythology. The Sumerians recognized a very large number of gods, some of which had some very specific areas of interest (such as a deity in charge of the pickax) but recognized seven gods who "decree the fates" and fifty deities known as "the great gods." Sumerian gods were entirely anthropomorphic, appearing human in form and could eat, drink, marry, raise families, and even die.
   
   Sumerians believed that rite and ritual were more important than either personal devotion or piety, and that man was "created for no other purpose than to serve the gods." They also believed in something called me, essentially a set of rules and regulations that were meant to be followed in order to keep the universe running smoothly. These me's included both positive concepts, like "truth" and but also negative ones like "strife."
   
   The parallels between Sumerian and Greek and Biblical stories were quite striking and Kramer discussed several examples (the Sumerian underworld looked a lot like the later Greek version, complete with a "Charon," for instance and the Sumerians had a Flood myth as well).
   
   Chapter five examined their literature, which included religious hymns and lamentations, epics, dirges, elegies, collections of proverbs, and a favorite Sumerian form of literature, the "wisdom" compositions or disputations in which two opposing protagonists debate back and forth (even if the two protagonists might be say personified animals or tools).
   
   Chapter six looked at the Sumerian edubba or school.
   
   Chapter seven examined Sumerian "drives, motives, and values." The author looked at the role of hatred and aggression in the Sumerian character, their drive for prestige, preeminence, and superiority, though they also valued goodness, truth, even mercy and compassion. Kramer noted though that their ambitious drive for preeminence produced many of the advances for which the Sumerians are noted, such as the development of writing and irrigation but also carried with it the "seeds of self-destruction," which trigged bloody wars between the Sumerian city-states and impeded unification which ultimately proved the downfall of Sumer.
   
   Chapter eight examined the legacy of Sumer, its tremendous influences on other ancient cultures and religions, its numerous technological inventions, even its political advances (they invented the city-state which was in marked contrast to the state of affairs in Ancient Egypt).

5 comments about The Cheap Bastard's Guide to Chicago: Secrets of Living the Good Life--For Free! (Cheap Bastard).

1. I suppose the title gives it away, but I was unaware how much of a CHEAP BASTARD one has to be to find this book useful. This is NOT a book that gives you clever ways to cut corners. Instead, it assumes that you are in absolute poverty. Make sure you examine how much of a Cheap Bastard you really are before spending $15 that the book assumes you don't have.



2. I got this book as a present when I spent a few months in Chicago for work. At first I thought is was just a fun gift - love the title, but I wasn't really expecting to get much use out of it. But I was shocked by how much useful stuff is in the book. I was able to see some amazing shows for free including performances at The Goodman and Steppenwolf, ate more than my fair share of free pizza, took a wonderful walking tour with the Chicago Greeters and got a great dirt-cheap massage at a massage school. I was really surprised by how much great free and seriously cheap things are in Chicago (and this book!). I highly recommend it.



3. This book will pay for itself. Easily the most useful guide for moving to Chicago I've seen. If you are starting out in the city, you should get this book.



4. Partially my fault. I was looking for inexpensive restaurants, etc., in Chicago. I thought this was similar to the now defunct Mr. Cheap's Chicago.
   
   Instead, it only lists free stuff, such as museums that provide free admission in January. Too bad this was May.
   
   If I lived there it might be different. But I am not SO cheap as to travel all around town to a bar that lets me nurse a drink and pig out on their free food.
   
   Too bad. There is lots in Chicago for people on a budget.



5. Saw this at the bookstore and it seemed like something I should own. Good book, good condition.

4 comments about Top 10 Chicago (REAL CITY GUIDES).

1. This was a wonderful introduction to Chicago and definitely
   made my trip more enjoyable. I have used many of the top 10/eyewitness travel guides throughout the years, and really feel that Top 10 Chicago was one of the best. It captured the best the city has to offer, and was perfect for someone who had less than a week in the city. With the help of my Top 10 guide I made it to 8 of the 10 top sites. One of the best features of this book is its size - it's compact, chock-full of information, and easily fits into any bag/purse. The book also included a very helpful subway/street map and, because the book is so thin, I didn't feel like I was being conspicuous when I referred to the guide in public. DK continues its tradition of
   including top-notch photography, and there was also a lot of
   background information about each of the Top 10 sites. My
   book was a copyright 2004 and all of the information (prices, free museum days, discounts) was still the same ; I would definitely recommend this book for your upcoming Chicago trip but, like with any guidebook, make sure it's the most recent version you can find so dates, times, etc. are still useful. Highly recommended!



2. What do you need when you are in a big city for the first time and just for 4 days? You need a simple guide, one that you can take with you while you're exploring the area. Using the top 10 system you can find all the highlights in a few seconds. As I need some structure in my exploration too, I used this guide in combination with Frommer's Chicago day by day. It made my visit to Chicago to a success. There will certainly be a next time.



3. It's occurred to me that even though I've lived in Chicago for a good number of years, I still don't know the city *that* well. I picked this book up on a whim since I've had good experiences with DK travel books in the past and it floored me because of the amount of things I haven't been to and history I felt like I should have known. It's a combination of both me sucking at Chicago history and this being a really good book.
   
   Most travel books suck, but the DK Top Ten books are essentially the most distilled books you can get for a city and make a good book you keep in a pocket or in a bag while exploring.



4. Color throughout. Easy to use and keep track of what we saw to reference back to in the future. Great street maps. Has all the famous pizza parlors!! Perfect little guide! Always get theirs and Fodor's.

No comments about Fodor's Chicago 2008 (Fodor's Gold Guides).

3 comments about Streetwise Chicago (Street Map).

1. I recently moved back to Chicago and needed a map as a refresher. I was very disappointed when I received this map. It's great and handy, unfortunately it didn't cover the city. The map didn't show Bucktown or anything West but included all of the Southside. I was looking at moving into an area that I didn't have a map of!!! If you want to see any of Bucktown, Wickerpark or Logan Square do not buy this map.



2. This map does not show any of the parts of Chicago that I am interested in - mainly anything very far west of downtown. I would say that this item is not useful at all and a total waste of my money.



3. Great series of maps for residents and tourists. Very detailed but extremely compact (though still legible), laminated, folds easily. It can be used quite subtly, so you don't look lost (giving the apperance of a goofy out-of-towner, or worse, a safety issue.)
   
   Chicago Streetwise features:
   -Main map (north to Lakeview, south to Hyde park, west to Ukranian Village)
   -Downtown map
   -neighboring counties road map
   -Hyde Park/Kenwood detail
   -CTA/Metra train lines
   -street and landmark index
   
   On the main map, it identifies train stops (but unfortunately no busstop info, which may be helpful), street numbers, various important buildings (landmarks, colleges, some hotels, etc.).
   
   If you are planning on visitng Chicago, or have just moved to the area, look no further than this map.

No comments about Zagat Chicago Restaurants 2008/09 (Zagatsurvey: Chicago Restaurants).

No comments about Moleskine City Notebook Chicago (Moleskine City Notebook).

5 comments about Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago (Crown Journeys).

1. A Walk in Chicago: Never a City So Real
   by Alex Kotlowitz
   Crown Journeys, Crown: New York 2004 159 pp. Hardcover
   
   The "Big Onion" is better than the "Big Apple" in many ways, and Alex Kotlowitz, a former New Yorker who has made Chicago his home for over twenty years, sets out to prove how great and diverse his adopted city really is. As he writes in his introduction, "Chicago is a place of passion and hustle...a place eternally in transition, always finding yet another way to think of itself, a city never satisfied."
   
   But this is not the Chicago of the Art Institute, of Michigan Avenue, of Water Tower Place, or the Magnificent Mile. This is the Chicago of the South Side housing projects, the South East's closed steel mills, of Division Street and the 26th Street Criminal Court. It is the Chicago of the resilient and dedicated people who make their own neighborhoods places that come to life with positive energy and social change.
   
   In Kotlowitz's book you meet "Oil Can Eddie," AKA, Ed Sadlowski, the retired steelworker who climbed the ranks of union leadership and "...who loves his city's opera, its museums, and its baseball teams..." You read about how this steelworker went from the steel furnace to the cover of Time Magazine, and how the union that he organized created a better life for its workers, and how that working life is now in peril. The 64-year old Sadlowski takes Kotlowitz on a city tour in his beat-up "Crown Vic" to places off the tourist map, places like Pinkerton's gravesite and the Calumet Riverfront where the strikers once clashed with police.
   
   You get to lunch at Manny's Jewish Deli just south of the Loop, the hangout for political bosses and pit stop for every major politician who swings through Chicago. Then it's off to Edna's soul food restaurant with his two social worker friends, Millie and Brenda. As they sit down to eat, we get to overhear their conversation as if we were sitting in the next booth. This lets the reader eavesdrop on some of the problems that plague this city, from gangs in public housing to unwed teenage mothers. But in Kotlowitz's hands, the city is brought to life through the eyes of Millie and Brenda. And we get to meet Edna, sixty-six years old, who in the middle of taking lunch orders hears gunshots and runs out onto the street to shoo away the gang kids with her apron.
   
   We meet Milton Reed, the lanky street artist who paints provocative murals for the residents of the projects, and we tag along while Milton sets up his sketch pad on the street corner so that he can sketch portraits of parade watchers as the Bud Billiken Parade winds its way through the city's South Side, a still racially divided part of Chicago.
   
   Next we meet the embodiment of Sandburg's "City of Big Shoulders" in the form of a sturdily built six-foot female attorney, Andrea Lyon, who once while being attacked for her bag, punched her mugger so hard she broke his jaw. This imposing former public defender now works as a De Paul law professor and takes on some of the city's toughest criminal cases. It's a riveting account of the goings-on in this huge criminal beehive of a courthouse, and how Andrea heats up the proceedings.
   
   And we also meet a painter who paints the derelicts and prostitutes on Division Street near Wicker Park, and who has sold his work for many thousands of dollars in Paris, but who remains unknown in his own city. Robert Guinan paints the side of the city that is fast becoming gentrified out of existence and we hear him lament that the city is trying to homogenize itself. Guinan takes us into his studio and down to the jazz clubs like the HotHouse and the Velvet Lounge where he has painted the famous Blues musicians that have made Chicago legendary.
   
   We even go outside the city limits to Cicero, a suburb made infamous by Al Capone, to meet Dave Boyle, political gadfly and social activist, who runs a legal clinic for Cicero's disenfranchised. In Boyle's account, we learn how he foiled the town's corrupt politicians by exposing them to the truth of their actions when he tried to have illegal liquor licenses revoked.
   
   And finally, near the end of our tour in the city's northwest side at GT's Diner, a diner taken over by an Albanian immigrant who hands out free coffee and food to the Mexican day laborers who congregate in the parking lot outside his business, we read how he grumbles about the ones who don't pay and who sit all day in his booths, but we also learn why he sympathizes because as a child in Albania he learned from his parents that you have to help others.
   
   We read about how the city keeps changing in Kotlowitz's book as new immigrants arrive and change old neighborhoods, but we learn how much they add to the life of this great city. Wherever Kotlowitz takes us, we learn to love "his Chicago" and the very real people he introduces us to. These are the people that you would love to meet and sit down with in a bar to talk to for hours. Fortunately, Kotlowitz has done the sitting for us, taking it all down in this brilliant book.



2. Sometimes a book is "fine". This is one such book. I'd recommend it, but not very very strongly.



3. This waste of ink, paper, and time isn't even useful as a doorstop. This book is not about Chicago, it is about the author's politics (which is communism disguised as liberalism.)
   
   Early in the book, the author claims that the owners of Chicago steel companies got complacent and forgot how to compete. The fact of the matter is that meeting the demands of the unions priced the steel much higher than the units arriving from East Europe and Asia. This is the first of so many instances that the author proves he is uninformed. He is also inaccurate in geography, history, and one funny instance of a math goof.
   
   Don't waste your time.



4. Alex Kotlowicz mostly succeeds with this slice-of-life look at Chicago's grittier side. He begins by interviewing Ed Sadlowski, former steelworker and union official living on the southeast side where most of the mills have shuttered. Equally interesting was the view from Edna's restaurant in the west side ghetto where there are few businesses other than liquor stores. We also hear from an artist that paints murals for residents in public housing, a neighborhood of recent immigrants from many lands, a gadfly that fights corruption in the border suburb of Cicero (former headquarters of Al Capone), and several others. In many ways the author captures the city's feel, and allows readers to see how Chicago has evolved into a mostly post-industrial city, yet one where poverty and fear of minorities and violence remain touchstones for some.
   
   Oddly the author, who moved here 20 years ago from New York City, alternates praise with suggestions that the most successful see Chicago as unlovely and leave. In reality, most stay put in middle-class neighborhoods (or suburbs), acknowledging the city's problems, but prideful of our vibrant economy, superb lakefront, museums, parks, skyline, and universities - Chicago leads the USA in Nobel Prize winners. Despite small flaws, this is a revealing, concise, readable book.



5. Alex Kotlowitz's "There Are No Children Here" is rightly held up as one of the greatest works of journalistic nonfiction of the last twenty-five years. His "Never a City So Real," though, falls somewhat flat precisely because he tries to write an anecdotal series of re-creations of "Children."
   
   This book is readable and even interesting, but fails at introducing its reader to much of Chicago as a city. It contains almost no history and focuses solely on poorer, fringe neighborhoods while neglecting many more central (and historically important) points of interest. An interesting diversion, but one that is too skewed by Kotlowitz's politics to serve as anything more than that.