No comments about New Hampshire: A Book of 21 Postcards.

No comments about The Companion Guide to Kent and Sussex (ne) (Companion Guides).

No comments about Brewer (ME) (Images of America).

2 comments about The Historic Shops & Restaurants of Boston: A Guide to Century-Old Establishments in the City and Surrounding Towns.

1. The title gives the impression that it is about Historic shops and restaurants. It is more about shops and restaurants once at historic locations. Stoddard's dates back to the early 19th century but there is nothing historic about its present store in a suburban mall. New Balance is now a modern sport shoe company, but began as a shoe repair shop. Shreve, Crump & Low moved. Long's jewellery has gone. Necco moved from Cambridge years ago.
   
   Many of the places mentioned are NOT in Boston but in Concord, Lexington, Revere, Milton and other towns.



2. This is a delightful book, rich in the history of establishments in and around the city. My parents are from Cambridge and I remember walking to Masse Hardware with my grandfather. I didn't know about the origin of the business until I read it here, it made sense that my Canadian immigrant grandparents were comfortable with this merchant.
   
   Later on my parents moved out to the suburbs and we would shop at Wilson's Farm in Lexington and dine at the Colonial Inn in Concord, two establishments that I learned more about in this book. This is an important documentation of these businesses, it is informative and entertaining. With each listing there is an address, phone number, directions and hours of operation making it easy to locate and visit.
   
   This is a great size to carry around and dip into and makes a great gift.

No comments about SHORT BIKE RIDES(TM) IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS, 2nd Edition.

1 comments about Wintering.

1. As I recall, I read this book about ten years ago, at, appropriately, the time of the winter solstice, but, because of several moves and several redistributions,lendings, shufflings, etc., I realize that this fine book is, unfortunately, no longer in my possession, but I recommend it highly as a way to emerse yourself, vicariously, in the winter landscape of rural Vermont. Diana kappel-Smith admonishes herself to--and this is a paraphrase--"put away the field lens" and "burrow yourself, like the vole, into the snow." This is truly a celebration of winter in which the reader becomes the vole, the owl, the fox through the authors vivid descriptions and narratives. The author and the reader become the woods, the snow, the trees, the rocks, the sky! Who needs the handlens when they've already become the thing they would discover under the glass!? Great! Written with the enthusiasm of the novice and the expertise of the trained naturalist!

No comments about Exploring the Chesapeake in Small Boats.

No comments about The Road to Canterbury: A Modern Pilgrimage.

No comments about Jewish Heritage in England.

1 comments about The Polite Tourist: Four Centuries of Country House Visiting.

1. Tourism in Britain started with pilgrims seeking out the tomb of Thomas ? Becket at Canterbury, expanded with a renaissance of topographers and antiquarians poking into odd corners of the country, and broadened again with the arrival of foreign visitors in London on the Continental Grand Tour. But the heart of this lovely book is the practice in the 18th and 19th centuries by owners of stately homes of allowing visitors to inspect the premises when they (the owners) were not in residence. (Think Elizabeth Bennett's first encounter with Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.) The Victorians also loved mysterious and romantic locations like Stonehenge and the Roman baths at Bath, and they loved to listen to (and frequently accept uncritically) the bizarre legends associated with them. (No, Julius Caesar did not build the White Tower!) Like all books I've read that were published by the National Trust (without which most of these tax-heavy properties would probably have been torn down decades ago), half the enjoyment is in the hundred-plus illustrations and the seventy color plates. A beautifully produced addition to English social history.