1 comments about The Connecticut River Boating Guide, 3rd: Source to Sea (Falcon Guide).

1. This is a detailed mile by mile guide to the Connecticut River, breaking the river up into a series of 28 reaches (1 reach per chapter). There are maps for each reach with sufficient lat/lon indicators to enable interpolation for GPS waypoints.
   
   River conditions from flatwater to Class IV whitewater are covered in detail as are campsites, sightseeing/sidetrip opportunities and major landmarks along the river, plus a bit of history.
   
   As a 'boating' guide, it is probably most useful to paddlers in canoes or kayaks, or perhaps rafts/inflatables. Access points, particularly formal and informal access points for cartop boats, are covered in text and on the maps.
   
   The thick, coated cover of the book is excellent quality, will handle some spray, and the page edges are rounded to avoid fraying/splaying -- making this guide suitable for on-river use.

5 comments about Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World.

1. I discovered this book quite by accident years ago. I was in a used bookstore for a long time, and eventually I shyly inquired about a Limited Editions Club book. It would have been my first purchase of a used book that was nicer - and more expensive - than a new book. The shop owner helped me, and then suggested that I might get a kick of this book. Much like another reviewer, I devoured it in less than 24 hours.
   
   Sometimes, I felt the authors were making me more comfortable in a world new to me. At other times, I felt I was being made fun of, for loving old books, and my willingness to consider paying a lot of money for them. To disagree with another review, I don't think it was mean spirited, but rather the authors candidly reveal their emotions as they evolved during the narrative. Sometimes they felt truly excited, and sometimes they felt a little embarrassed and obsessed. Even scared - as when they first bid in an auction. All book lovers have friends that don't understand the appeal. I love the book because I often feel alone in alternating between those same emotions. Even when the authors came on a little strong, and I wanted to come to the defense of some of the characters, I kept reading. The book pulls you in, even when you might disagree.



2. I really enjoy this series and following the authors on their journey collecting books. The travels and booklore that they share are interesting and enjoyable to read.



3. Though I found the opening chapters of URTBW greatly annoying (had the two professional-novelist authors of this book really never been to a used bookstore before they moved to the Berkshires? Did they really have no idea what pleasure used/antiquarian/rare books might hold for booklovers?), and the stereotyped description of book-dealers throughout tiresome (nearly every one an eccentric, an ego-maniac, or both; even if true, no need to make the point over and over), in the end I found URTBW pleasurable enough. Sure, it's the lightest of fair. But what booklover and die-hard-haunter-of-used-bookstores wouldn't relate to the authors' exciting adventures? URTBW is neither learned nor particularly well-crafted. But once one gets past the first couple of chapters, it's a good bit of fun. I'm happy to count the Goldstones among my fellow travelers in Booklandia.



4. This is very well done and enjoyable. It is a light treatment of the subject prompted by my journey through the Bookman Series by Dunning.



5. I just finished this book and I found the stories wonderful. This book is obviously aimed it the beginning book collector. It details the adventures of the authors as they began to dip their feet into the world of rare books and collecting. The stories detail the adventures of the authors as they haphazardly jump into collecting books. As a somewhat novice book collector I found the stories both humorous and reassuring. I could see myself in many of the stories. There is a pull to collecting that sometimes overrides good judgment. I highly recommend this book.

5 comments about Block Island: Rhode Island's Jewel.

1. An absolutely beautiful coffee table book. Even if you have never been to Block Island, this photographer is extremely talented. His photos are so beautiful and peaceful. It really captures the beauty of a special Island.



2. This is a wonderful book for all Block Island lovers! Block Island natives all love Malcolm Greenaway's photos...they're in many, many homes there. To have an entire book of them is divine! It makes a great gift for anybody who's ever been there, on top of which the photos are wonderful for anyone who loves the sea and it's islands.



3. This wonderful book arrived quickly even with the Christmas rush. Very pleasd, would order from this supplier again.



4. When you look at the many gorgeous pictures compiled here you almost FEEL like you are on Block Island. It is a very special place to me being a Rhode Islander and to have it photographed so amazingly makes me proud. I love opening it up and flipping thru it on a cold winter day knowing that with each summer, Block Island will be there in all its glory and beauty! Amazon's price is more in line vs the every day bookstores. While the compilation of pictures is fantastic, you can buy one of Greenaways prints for what the book retails for.
   It is a book to share and foster memories created on a special piece of land known as "the block".
   The sky in many of the pictures is breathtaking....well done!



5. My husband and I have been visiting Block Island for the last six years for our wedding anniversary. The book is a lovely compilation of the island's delights. It is a great addition to our coffee table collection and reminds us of the memories we share of this great vacation spot. We stay at a bed and breakfast called the "Island Home" that is run by a wonderful couple (Dina and David), who we look forward to seeing each year on our return to the "Block"!!

No comments about AMC's Best Day Hikes in Connecticut: Four-Season Guide to 50 of the Best Trails from the Highlands to the Coastal Lowlands.

No comments about Not For Tourists Guide 2009 to Boston (Not for Tourists Guidebook).

4 comments about Time and Tide: A Walk Through Nantucket (Crown Journeys).

1. I'm one of the author's three sons, so I won't pretend to be unbiased. But listen, this book is great, empirically speaking. Dad light-heartedly provides a fun and fascinating window into the small island so many of us love.



2. Frank Conroy speaks from the heart. Nantucket Island has gone through some dramatic changes in
   the last 30 years, most not for the better. For some of us that still live here, it`s wonderful to be able to read and remember those times when the Island felt like a place of sanctuary from all else. The stories give the reader the felling that the Grey Lady`s Skirt has been torn but her sole has not been touched.
   Thank you Mr. Conroy
   A Chef from the Rock



3. I just started this book this morning and am almost done. It made me nostalgic for my old home, the way it used to be, yes, but for those of us who have had to leave Nantucket for one reason or another, it will always be a wonderful place. Reading it I feel like I am on a wonderful visit home. It's one of those books you don't want to end but at the same time can't put down!



4. Quite coincidentally, the second consecutive book I've read by an author with the last name of Conroy, the first the overstuffed The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. This is one of a series of slim books on the micro-geography of famous places:
   
   Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg (Crown Journeys)
   Washington Schlepped Here: Walking in the Nation's Capital (Crown Journeys)
   
   that I've read and reviewed that are not exhaustive or encyclopedic, but instead personal and intimate.
   
   Conroy describes the small and shrinking (literally and figuratively) Nantucket Island on which he has spent some time as a near-native year-round resident, and where he still owns property.

2 comments about Fodor's New England, 28th Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides).

1. I took this 28th Edition with me on my August 10-day tour through Boston, New Hampshire & Maine. I also had with me: Frommer'sVermont, New Hampshire and Maine, However, hands down, Fodor's is the better of the two.
   
   Do note, that both Fodor's and Frommer's target those who have some jingle in their pockets. Thus, if you are a student/backpacker/struggling worker/stock trader who specialized in Bear Stearns, you might want to consider getting Lonely Planet 2008. In Fodor's you will find very few restaurants (under $20) and fewer accommodations (under $80).
   
   This guide starts out with Boston, the jewel of New England's cities. There is an ample seventy plus pages to get you around this great city. As the guide states, "bring your walking shoes," for much of Boston exists to be explored by foot. Throughout Fodor's when you see a "Fodor's Choice" next to a restaurant, hotel or site, do yourself a favor and take time to imbibe. I found Fodor's recommendations in New Hampshire and Maine to be "right on" and the writing was as informative as it was engaging.
   
   Where this guide falters is with its maps (or lack of). There are no city maps for many of the most important cities. In fact outside of the four cities of Boston, Concord, Providence, Newport and Portland, there are no other city maps. This means you are on your own, and most of the time it is not easy find where the restaurants, hotels and sites are. It baffles me why would a quality guide skimp on something as important as maps? Duh.
   
   Wait, the worse blunder is the total absence of anything that can help you understand the culture, customs, the people and politics of New England. AND, there is NO mention of history! I mean, New England does have a serious history, right Fodor's? I mean, does the birthplace of the nation ring a bell?
   
   Wow this could have been a five star guide if they (editors/writer) coulda/woulda done it right. But, even with these significant shortcomings Fodor's still is a useful and reliable guide. Strongly recommended



2. FODOR'S NEW ENGLAND, 28TH EDITION is a great guide to all of the New England states. From the shoreline of Southern Connecticut to the northernmost tip of Maine, this book has it all, including recreation, dining, nightlife, and shopping. Sure, it manages to miss some great independent music stores, and includes nothing on each area's radio stations, but overall, it's a wonderful book that complements various INSIDERS' GUIDES perfectly.

5 comments about England (Country Guide).

1. Now in an updated and expanded second edition, England: An Ancient Land In A New Light is Lonely Planet's latest guide to traveling throughout England. Accessibly covering all of facts that any visitor would need to know, including transportation advice, and a careful piece-by-piece dissection of every corner of English territory, Lonely Planet's utility as a travel guide is further enhanced with the inclusion of extensive maps, information concerning activities such as horse riding, biking, visiting national landmarks, and so much more. The collaborative and impressive effort of David Else, Paul Bloomfield, Fionn Davenport, Abigail Hole, and Martin Hughes, this compact, portable, extremely useful and authoritatively informative resource make England invaluable for planning any kind of trip anywhere in this island nation.



2. You're going to LOVE BRITAIN! I've spent a year in England and have made >30 visits all together.
   
   Here are my reviews of the best guides....to meet you r exact needs.....I hope these are helpful and that you have a great visit! I always gauge the quality of my visit by how much I remember a year later......this review is designed to help you get the guide that will be sure YOU remember your trip many years into the future. Travel Safe and enjoy yourself to the max!
   
   Lonely Planet
   Lonely Planet has City and Out To Eat Guides. They are all about the experience so they focus on doing, being, getting there, and this means they have the best detailed information, including both inexpensive and really spectacular restaurants and hotels, out-of-the-way places, weird things to see and do, the list is endless.
   
   Fodor's
   Fodor's is the best selling guide among Americans. They have a bewildering array of different guides. Here's which is what:
   The Gold Guide is the main book with good reviews of everything and lots of tours, walks, and just about everything else you could think of. It's not called the Gold guide for nothing though....it assumes you have money and are willing to spend it.
   SeeIt! is a concise guide that extracts the most popular items from the Gold Guide
   PocketGuide is designed for a quick first visit
   UpCLOSE for independent travel that is cheap and well thought out
   CityPack is a plastic pocket map with some guide information
   Exploring is for cultural interests, lots of photos and designed to supplement the Gold guide
   
   MapGuide
   MapGuide is very easy to use and has the best location information for pubs, hotels, tourist attractions, museums, churches etc. that they manage to keep fairly up to date. It's great for teaching you how to use the underground and the double decker buses. The text sections are quick overviews, not reviews, but the strong suite here is brevity, not depth. I strongly recommend this for your first few times learning your way around the classic tourist sites and experiences. MapGuide is excellent as long as you are staying pretty much in the city centre. When you get to be an old London hand, remember that the classic Londoners guide will always be an A to Z (zed) map and guide. If you want to go a bit beyond the central core of the city (perhaps to Windsor, Hampton, or further away) you really need the proper AtoZ to be able to find exact routes and streets.
   
   Time Out
   The Time Out guides are very good. Easy reading, short reviews of restaurants, hotels, and other sites, with good public transport maps that go beyond the city centre. Many people who buy more than one guidebook end up liking this one best!
   
   Blue Guides
   Without doubt, the best of the walks guides.... the Blue Guide has been around since 1918 and has extremely well designed walks with lots of unique little side stops to hit on just about any interest you have. If you want to pick up the feel of the city, this is the best book to do that for you. This is one that you end up packing on your 10th trip, by which time it is well worn.
   
   Michelin
   Famous for their quality reviews, the Red Michelin Guides are for hotels & Restaurants, the Green Michelin Guides are for main tourist destinations. However, the English language Green guide is the one most people use and it has now been supplemented with hotel and restaurant information. These are the serious review guides as the famous Michelin ratings are issued via these books.
   
   Let's Go
   Let's Go is a great guide series that specializes in the niche interest details that turn a trip into a great and memorable experience. Started by and for college students, these guides are famous for the details provided by people who used the book the previous year. They continue to focus on providing a great experience inexpensively. If you want to know about the top restaurants, this is not for you (use Fodor's or Michelin). Let's Go does have a bewildering array of different guides though. Here's which is what:
   Budget Guide is the main guide with incredibly detailed information and reviews on everything you can think of.
   City Guide is just as intense but restricted to the single city.
   PocketGuide is even smaller and features condensed information
   MapGuide's are very good maps with public transportation and some other information (like museum hours, etc.)
   
   Frommer's
   These are time tested guides that pride themselves on being updated annually. Although I think the guides below provide information that is in more depth or more concise (depending on what the guide is known for), if your main concern is that the guide has very little old or outdated information, then this would be a good guide for you.
   
   Rick Steves' books are not recommended. They may be an interesting read but their helpfulness is very poor. They don't do well on updates, transportation details, or anything but the first-time-tourist routine and even that is somewhat superficial on anything but the mega-major sites.



3. I love these books!! The first one that I used was Chicago. I have let more friends use it. They love the notes my husband and I made in the margins. The England book has been so helpful in planning our 10 day back packing trip through Great Britain. My only complaint is that maps need to be in color!



4. Lonely planet has a great team of writers. Every time I travel I get one of theirs books. It is a good format, has information on hotels, attractions and so on that are updated and realistic. Lonely planet a great job.



5. Guidebooks tend to be hit or miss, and Lonely Planet's tend to be especially inconsistent.
   
   I have used the Lonely Planet guides during my trips to Morocco, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand and found those to be excellent. So when I recently went on a two-week trip to England, I picked up this guide and figured it'd be very handy.
   
   For London, it is very useful; It lists the major sites with phone numbers and hours, has a reasonable guide to accomodation, and the maps are very well-done.
   
   For anywhere outside London, I found this book to be less than useful. I went out to explore the New Forest and drive around Cornwall, and actually found the AA Road Atlas more useful for finding popular sites and information about them. Many items listed in the AA Road Atlas had side-note paragraphs in the Lonely Planet guide, but these were not indexed so were nearly impossible to find.
   
   Also, most of the smaller towns that are interesting were not even listed in the Lonely Planet book. RE: New Forest, the only town listed was Lyndhurst and the listing was very weak; Brockenhurst was recommended to me by some British friends, and I ended up staying there, but this book didn't even list the town (though it did mention it in passing, and that mention was not in the Index). Towns like Land's End were listed, but it didn't mention that it's a horrible tourist trap, whereas the listing for Lizard didn't mention it was actually a nice idyllic little town and the activities around it. We nearly skipped Lizard in favor of Land's End, which would have been a horrible mistake!
   
   Overall this was a very disappointing guide for anywhere outside London.

No comments about Southern New Hampshire Trail Guide, 2nd: AMC Guide to Hiking Mt. Monadnock, Mt. Cardigan, and the Lakes Region (AMC Hiking Guide Series).

5 comments about Journey Around Boston From A to Z (Journey Series).

1. It seems a bit strange to use an alphabet book format for middle schoolers, but the idea is well-executed in this nicely illustrated guide to Boston. The book begins with an undetailed map of the Boston vicinity, continues with a paragraph of introduction, and then moves on to the alphabet. Each letter gets a full page and has an alliterative title with a few explanatory sentences and some related factoids. For example, "M" is entitled "Minutemen made ready at a moment's notice"; text describes the events in Lexington and Concord on April 18, 1775; watercolor pictures show the Minuteman statue in Lexington and the Old North Bridge in Concord; factoids tell us that British soldiers were called "regulars" and that the midnight riders (Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott) called out "The regulars are out! The regulars are out!" as they rode through the night. End pages depict an alphabet of objects other than those seen in the book, such as Magnolia for "M".

   With nice art and layout, this book imparts quite a few interesting facts about Boston, though one thinks it might have benefitted from an overarching coherence with which to motivate the more sophisticated young readers at which it is purportedly aimed.




2. JOURNEY AROUND BOSTON is another title in the series created by author, artist and one time teacher Martha Zschock. Zschock was a third grade teacher at the time she wrote the book. As a teacher she has the respects both the natural curiosity and intelligence of children. A mallard, a duck often associated with the city thanks to Robert McCloskey's immortal MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS, leads visitors on a tour of Boston and the vicinity. Her book includes the familiar tourist attractions as well as lesser known and perhaps even ignored places in Boston. It serves as a wonderful introduction to Boston and its illustrious history.

   This book is a must for any family with young visitors coming to the city of Boston. It will also be of interest to the children of Boston who wish to learn a bit about the city and its history.




3. I discovered this book while doing a search for travel guides
   to Boston. I was surprised when this book popped up 2nd in the
   list, but since I collect children's illustrated books, I had to
   take a look, and found it to be absolutely wonderful. I do have
   to admit that it certainly would be for the very top end of the
   picture book gang, not those just learning their ABC's. But so
   what. It is wonderfully informative with beautiful illustrations.
   
   Whenever I run into an ABC book, I first look to the X's to see
   how the author handles that. I am pleased that this author
   did not feel compelled to use X's in the beginning of the words.
   Her X's became "Extraordinary Exhibits excite viewers." That is
   so much better than yet another xylophone.
   
   Perhaps my favorite page was "Y": Yarns have been spun at Ye Olde Union Oyster House for Years". The page was so compelling, I made special effort to get to the Oyster House though it wasn't
   on my original agenda.
   
   Besides a very attractive architectural illustration of the Oyster House, there is an insert that shows some of regional foods such as Boston Baked Beans and Boston Cream Pie. Below the
   pictures is a short paragraph about the pictures. In this case
   there is information about baked beans and why they were so popular with the Pilgrims. Below that is a wavy line (as there is on each page) with another bit of information, this time about
   lobster which is usually available in the waters close by.
   
   In September I am going to Cape Code and her A to Z book on
   Cape Cod will be part of my planning. I hope she keeps this
   wonderful series going, and if she branches out into Europe -
   so much the better! If you are reading this, Martha, I am going
   to London in the Spring next year and Venice in the fall, just
   in case you are looking for your next subject.
   
   Highly recommended.



4. A wonderful book to see Boston and find out about Boston. I would recommend this to anyone (adults and children) about to visit Boston. I am looking forward to buying more books by this author and illustrator.



5. I love Boston. I really do. This beautiful, progressive city known for being an academic, cultural and historical mecca is brilliantly presented in this delightful book.
   
   This book will take readers alphabetically through the city that has long established itself as the Cradle of Amerian History. The alphabet format is good and effective as readers will more easily remember the sites in and around Boston. The map of the Boston area is also a good idea and an excellent added touch.
   
   Using alliterative sentences is another good mnemonic device; readers will readily make associations with the places they are reading about in this delightful book about Boston. Readers also get text with chronicled detailed history about the places and historical events that took place in the Boston area. The lovely illustrations and rich history will delight readers of all ages. I highly recommend this one.