No comments about Walking the Gobi: A 1,600 -mile Trek Across a Desert of Hope and Despair.

1 comments about China from Above (World of Emotions).

1. This is my second "Above" book and it is breathtaking! Obviously these books are wonderfully consistent. I would recommend this series to every world traveler.

5 comments about Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet.

1. A friend of mine whom I lovingly refer to as the Uberlibrarian once recommended a book to me that I thought was a total stinker. So when she began to rave about Sky Burial, I was skeptical. After all, the last book she was very enthusiastic about was The Smoke Jumper--which was the aforementioned stinker. Could she be trusted again?
   
   Oh, yes. This is a very slender volume of a woman's search for her husband who was reported dead by the Chinese government shortly after their marriage. As they were both doctors, the woman left her home and volunteered her service to the Chinese army, traveling to Tibet in search of her love, hoping he was not dead. Abandoning the army (in a hopeless situation of invasion and occupation), she was adopted by a Tibetean family, changed her way of life and along the way found the truth about his remarkable fate, so much more than the Chinese government had even known. Her journey--which took nearly three decades--is not to be missed. It is a great story written by a female journalist who met this amazing woman and took her story down over the course of two days.
   
   Might I add: this is a fantastic book if you are traveling. It is slender and can be read in full on a cross-country flight. You will be so engrossed you probably won't notice when they ask you for coffee or tea or peanuts or whatever.



2. Amazing story - I didn't want it to end as you can't beleive the committment shown.



3. Sky Burial is based on a true story as it was told to the author, Xinran, by the principal character, Shu Wen. Wen's young idealist husband is an Army doctor in 1950's China, sent to Tibet during the time of China's "liberation" of Tibet. They had only been married three weeks when he left, and around 100 days after his departure she received a letter stating he was dead. The lack of explanation of death gave her a hope that perhaps he really wasn't dead, just lost, and she joined the Army as well, in her husband's unit. Herself a dermatologist, they were only too glad to of her request to be sent to Tibet--doctors were much needed on the front. Shortly after reaching Tibet, however, Wen is separated from her unit and spends the next thirty years wandering with a family of nomadic Tibetans, never giving up hope that she will find the answer to her husband's disappearance.
   
   The writing is sparse and without a lot of descriptions, and whether it is intentional or because Xinran is in fact a journalist and not a novelist, it works wonderfully for both the untamed Tibetan landscape and the slowly unfolding, sometimes bleak but always beautiful, story.
   
   The reader follows Wen, amazed at her tenacity as the years go by, at her unwillingness to give up against such odds. As she becomes more and more comfortable in her Tibetan ways, the reader sees Wen falling in love, unknowingly, with Tibet--and does the same, openly embracing this wild country. Like Wen, the reader can not give up hope, knowing there will be an answer to Wen's search, because such determination and love does not go unrewarded.
   
   Subtitled "an epic love story of Tibet", Sky Burial is just that--a love story of a woman for a country as well as her husband; a love story of the reader for Tibet, for Wen, and for Xinran for giving such a gift.



4. Sky Burial is Xinran's telling of Shu Wen's story of the thirty year search for her husband in Tibet. Shu Wen was only married to her husband for 3 weeks when he was called up to serve as a doctor in the People's Liberation Army. After only 100 days of marriage, Shu Wen received notice that her husband had died in Tibet. She was given no details and what she had been told led her to doubt that he was really dead. Shu Wen was herself a doctor and so she joined the army in order to get into Tibet with the hope of finding her husband. This dedicated woman spent 30 years in Tibet before she learned her husband's fate. Sky Burial is truly a love story unlike any I've ever read before. It is made more amazing by its veracity.
   
   The sense of place and people in Sky Burial left a great impression on me. The immense landscape, and the isolation and intense spirituality of the nomadic people with whom Shu Wen lived out her years in Tibet, were a striking part of the story. I was also struck by the timelessness of the vast spaces and hardy people. That lack of time sense was a bit disconcerting to my Western mindset, but perhaps it is more reflective of the place and people than I might comprehend from my own compartmentalized life. Counting days on a calendar, or even counting seasons, would seem irrelevant in a life that needs to be lived in the present. Sky Burial provides no markers to let the reader know just how long Shu Wen was in Tibet but for her own statement that she had been in that country for 30 years.
   
   The isolation of the Tibetan people and the vast spaces in which they lived would seem a hindrance for finding someone and gaining information, but this was not so. I was astonished that Shu Wen was able to learn her husband's fate and receive his last words in such an environment. Contrast that with her return to modern China to her family neighborhood. No one was able to provide Shu Wen with any information as to the location or fate of her parents and sister. The neighborhood itself had been razed and rebuilt 3 times in a decade and the residents had no history with the place nor the people.
   
   Overall I found this a fascinating look into the life of a very dedicated woman and into a culture with which I have little familiarity.
   
   If you are interested in world music, I would suggest "Sister Drum" by Dadawa as a companion to your reading of Sky Burial.



5. I'm sorry, to call this an Epic Love Story is ridiculous. Yes Shu Wen loved her husband enough to make an attempt to go find him after she received a questionable letter than he had died, but that is as far as the 'love story" in this tale goes. I found it really hard to like this book and was so bored with it about three quarters of the way through I tossed it and didnt find myself interested enough to finish it. It's not written that well in the sense that I found her story intriquing or her character one to love. In fact, what I want to know is, if she loved her husband so much to travel alone into unknown Tibet from China to find him, why the hell did she lolligag for over 20 years with that family that took her in? She wasnt exactly eagerly pounding the pavement or working hard at locating him. She literally got very comfortable with this family and deliberately instated herself into their lives without looking for him very hard. Over 20 years? Please! The reader learns a little history of what happened to Tibet with the occupation of China and thankfully learns a bit about Tibetan nomad culture. That is about all that is redeeming about this story. I also think that this story can not be SO unusual. I'm sure that at this period in time there must have been MANY Chinese woman who lost their husbands to the war with Tibet and many woman who did the same as she did by leaving her country to search for them. Truly, I dont find anything about Shu Wen or this book so unique. The author also does not really portray Shu Wen's character in a way that you fall in love with her or find her interesting. And again, to say this is a love story, or to say what she did was romantic is really really far fetched. To me, this story reminds me of Krakauer's Into the Wild, it is a pointless story about a person who didnt do much out of the ordinary and at times made themselves look very foolish.

No comments about Travel Around China: The Guide to Exploring the Sites, the Cities, the Provinces, and More (Travel Around).

No comments about Adventures in Ancient China (Good Times Travel Agency).

5 comments about A Field Guide to the Birds of China.

1. This field guide is a well done book introducing the birds of China to its readers. It is fairly standard as far as field guides goes in content. The book contains 128 color plates depicting the birds of China with the corresponding range maps opposite the plates. Next, the descriptions of the 1329 species are given. Herein lies the major problem with the book, the descriptions are not adjacent to the plates; however, had the book been arranged in this manner, the number of pages would have at least doubled and the book is already a bit cumbersome for use as a field guide at its present size.

   A couple of other bits of useful information in this book include a map detailing vegetation type and an introduction to the region. Also, a list of protected and endangered species is included. For researchers, a nice bibliography is also included. Whether you just want to look at birds from a country you never plan on going to, or if you intend to go birding in China, this book is for you.




2. This book is absolutely essential for any birder who plans to visit any of the regions covered in this guide. The plates are very good and the descriptions are detailed. This is probably the most up-to-date guide for the region. The taxonomy is based on Sibley and Monroe, and nearly all subspecies and their ranges are listed. There is even an edition in simplified Chinese available in China and Hong Kong. However, covering such a broad region has its drawbacks, and at least in Taiwan, I recommend that this book be used more as a reference than field guide. A bird's voice often varies across its range, and the status of a species in one location can be completely different in another. For example, the White-bellied Green Pigeon, described by the book as "very rare," is in fact common in Taiwan. The quality of the plates is sometimes inconsistent (e.g. the geese and swans on plate 7 look very small!). Also, errors I've noticed include where the range map does not correspond with the descriptions (e.g. Eurasian Jay, plate 67), the bird number on the plate does not correspond with that of the range map and descriptions (e.g. Varied Tit, plate 88), and some typos (e.g. Pygmy Wren Babbler subspecies, plate 105). Although Appendix 2 lists the species endemic to the region, it left out at least three species from Taiwan (Yellow Tit, Collared Bush Robin, and Taiwan Whistling Thrush). In general, this book is excellent and highly recommended, but I do hope a new edition will be published in the future that fixes the errors and include new discoveries made since publication (e.g. Chinese Crested Tern, Taiwan Bush Warbler).



3. A Field Guide to the Birds of China is a must for any traveler who wants to identify birds in China. De Schauensee's earlier Birds of China is not really a field guide although it provides useful background reading. A Field Guide to the Birds of Japan includes a lot of the species occurring in eastern China, and the Beijing area is included in most of the range maps, so if you don't have the MacKinnon-Phillips new guide, this is second best.

   All species of known regular occurrence somewhere in China are illustrated in excellent drawings by Karen Phillips, all but a few in full color. Colored range maps are on the page facing each of the 128 plates. The text for each species provides a detailed description, voice, distribution and status, habits (useful), and in some cases a note on taxonomy.

   I used this book for more than two weeks in China during October 2001 and confidently identified every bird I got a decent look at. (Regrettably, eastern China is not exactly overrun with exotic birds, but you can find some interesting species even in the cities.)

   The most noticeable problem with this book is its sheer bulk; at 256 pages of plates, 586 pages of text, and some front material, this monster tops out at well over 800 pages and won't fit in most fanny packs, not to mention pockets. So taking a utility knife with a new blade, I sliced the spine following the last plate and taped the last page to the spine, creating a book of front matter, 10 pages of introduction and all the plates and range maps--a tad over a third the thickness of the whole book. A few species are illustrated in black-and-white in the text, so I xeroxed those (with their black-and-white range maps) and pasted them below the range maps of appropriate plates. I left the text home.

   The book is not without minor errors, of course. For example, the range maps on plate 35 mistakenly call the Red Phalarope the Red-necked Phalarope, with the same error in the scientific name (although, curiously, the Chinese name appears to be correct). Both species are illustrated. On plate 56 the illustration of the Red-throated Loon is mistakenly marked with the species number of the Common Loon (which is also illustrated and correctly numbered on the same plate). On plate 72 the female Japanese Paradise-flycatcher is so marked but the symbol for the male is missing. Most users can figure out such slips.

   ...




4. I visit Taiwan at least once a year, and always make it a point to do as much birding as possible. The main problem I have faced in the past has been finding a good English language field guide. I have always used James Wan-Fu Chang's "Field Guide to the Birds of Taiwan" (ISBN-13: 978-0917056437), and Wu Sen-Hsiong's "A Field Guide to the Birds of Taiwan" (ISBN 957-9578-00-1). Both books are very good, and highly recommended. However, each has its drawbacks. The main one being that both are written in Chinese, although Chang's guide does have very brief descriptions of range, habitat and status in English. In addition, both books are a bit out-dated.
   
   The MacKinnon & Phillips guide addresses these drawbacks. For starters, it is written entirely in English. The paintings are generally of high quality, and differences between subspecies are indicated. Range maps are also shown on the page facing the paintings. The descriptions of many (but not all) species are fairly well detailed, and the ranges for subspecies is also described.
   
   The guide does have some minor problems, which are probably unavoidable. Because of the large geographical size of the area covered, and the number of species described (over 1300), the guide is quite bulky - and somewhat expensive. In addition, the descriptions are in the back of the guide, rather than on the page adjacent to the paintings, making it somewhat inconvenient to use. As I have alluded above, some of the species descriptions, particularly those of the Taiwan endemics, seemed to have been glossed over (perhaps to save space in an already sizable guide). And although most of the paintings are of high quality, not all were. Overall, I think they are slightly inferior to those of the Wu guide. That being said, no field guide is perfect. Putting a field guide together requires a lot of patience and a great deal of hard work. I, for one, really appreciate the dedication and effort of the authors.
   
   All in all, this is the best field guide to the birds of China available. I would highly recommend this guide.



5. We just completed a nine-day guided tour of the Tibetan plateau. Repeatedly, during this tour which allowed us to identify 165 species new to us, we attempted to use the subject bird guide, which by the way at $92 plus US is the most expensive guide we have EVER encountered anywhere. Repeatedly, we found the guide absolutely no help in either understanding the differentiation among various species or in providing visual representations and even rudamentary field marks. Nomenclature for some species was totally out of wack with locally/historically accepted nomenclature. This is one book that should be banded and burned. Start over, please, someone who really cares. The magnificant birds of this region deserve better.

No comments about Trekking in Tibet: A Traveler's Guide.

1 comments about National Geographic Traveler: Hong Kong, 2d Ed. (National Geographic Traveler).

1. This travel book is fantastic....I have several National Geographic Traveler Guides and wish they made them for everywhere. I have always used Lonely Planet exclusively but have been switching over to these guides instead in places that are covered by National Geographic. I work for an airline so I travel a lot, and these really are the best. They sometimes miss a few little details that Lonely Planet has, but the problem with Lonely Planet is there is often too much information and not enough photos/descriptions. The National Geographic books have tons of photos so you know what you want to see, and give great route and detailed itinerary descriptions so you don't miss anything along the way. You must have this book if you are going to Hong Kong! If you are backpacking you might still need the Lonely Planet, but if you are just traveling through or are visiting on business or pleasure buy this book.

5 comments about Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey.

1. My wife and I saw Kropp at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and we were so enthralled that we decided to see his lecture a second time! He is a very enjoyable, congenial, and has an attractive personality. I read the editorial reviews of his book, which were overall slightly disparaging of his elitism and the "ham-handed" story. I can't disagree more. If the reviewers heard him speak I bet they would change their tone.

   Kropp is a humble and likeable figure who deserves our admiration. I will follow his career as it progresses. Hats off to Kropp, a man who understands the importance of our natural environment.

   P.S. The book is great too. Too bad you can't have Kropp there to read it to you!




2. Goran Kropp's and David Lagercrantz's "Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey" is an excellent autobiography of a climber. Kropp wisely chose to tell his story with the help of a professional writer, Lagercrantz. Kropp's book is liberally peppered with fascinating stories that leave one astonished. As with any autobiography, it is only an enjoyable read if you like the author. I found his spirit delightful.

   A bit more than half the book covers Kropp's own three attempts to summit Everest in the context of the much written about events of May 1996. Kropp adds interesting details to Jon Krakauer's classic account of the 1996 Everest tragedy, "Into Thin Air". Disturbingly, far too much of chapters ten and eleven of "Ultimate High" appear to be borrowed, in places with the almost same wording, from "Into Thin Air". Lagerkrantz acknowledged a debt to Krakauer at the back of the book. Perhaps this is customary in Sweden. Other than this problem of sometimes repeating or paraphrasing Krakauer, "Ultimate High" is a fun read.

   It would be valuable, if a second edition of this book could be published that includes a biography of Kropp after Everest until the end of his far too short life in 2002.




3. Göran Kropp was an extrodinary man. This book describes his crazy one man expedition to Mount Everest. I would have given it five start if it had been as good as the lecture he gave that I once attended. The book could have had more details about the amazing things that happened during his tríp. It is very inspiering and well worth reading though.



4. I enjoyed Kropp's story very much ~ I always find it fascinating to read about these type of experiences and about explorers who have such a fascinating drive to go to such extremes to attain their goals. Kropp's story is a unique one in that he sets SUCH high aspirations for himself (bicycle with no help from Sweden to climb Everest, then bicycle back again) then is maniacally headstrong about following through on his goals.
   
   Although I enjoyed his account, I was quite put off by his criticism of others and his opinions of what they were doing "wrong." And he had a LOT of opinions. It's his book and he can say whatever he want, however, it is just my feeling that this book would have benefited from Kropp staying with HIS story and HIS experiences and not veer off every other chapter to rag on others.



5. This guy is a total nut - driven beyond all reason - and it finely caught up with him after he finished this book - he's now dead. An unbelievable story of what a man can do if he is determined enough. It is not a great piece of literature but rather a great story that is made greater by the fact that it's true.

No comments about Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing Restaurants and Hotels (Zagat Survey: China).