2 comments about The Stormrider Guide Europe: The Continent (Stormrider Guides).

1. This and all the Stormrider Guides are truely great sources of information about surf travel. Cleverly put together, have beautiful illustrations, and are packed with all the necessary information you need to start planning your surf adventure and travel. Every surfer (young or old) should have all of them on the shelves of their personal library. Go ahead and invest. You'll be stoked, dude!
   
   Cowabunga, nos vemos en el agua!



2. This is the updated version (2006) of the already very good Stormrider guide Europe book. More and updated info, maps and pics on the usual spots as well as some new ones that have been added. A must have for anyone considering venturing out on a surf trip around europe and/or Morocco. Includes northern europe, portugal, spain and the mediterranean as well as morocco.

4 comments about National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe.

1. Ruth Ellen Gruber's new guide gives readers the best of both worlds--interesting and accurate histories of the places covered and extensive practical information to help both more experienced and new travellers.
   
   Her introductions to each chapter (the book is organized by country) give readable narratives of each country's history, covering both general history and specifically Jewish history. She is great about giving multiple place names, a particularly useful addition in countries formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
   
   Unlike general travel guides (and some Jewish ones as well), which often only list official synagogues in main cities, Gruber lists unaffiliated and independant organizations, giving as much contact information as possible. It's obvious that through her experience as a journalist, she made many contacts with people actually working in the communities listed.
   
   She also lists many sites that are no longer functioning in their original capacity--unused synagogues (or those that now serve different functions), out-of-the-way cemetaries, and former houses and businesses of local notables. Gruber seems especially interested in architecture, and points out particularly interesting examples of synagogue design and decoration.
   
   I especially appreciated Gruber's emphasis on visiting communities that are active and vibrant today. While the Holocaust did irreperable damage to once-thriving Jewish life, and while it can seem that Europe is full of remnants of the Jewish past, this book gives due time to the Jewish present.



2. Not as good as expected. Not as much information as I expected about the areas covered, and some important parts of Eastern Europe are not included.



3. Wow! This book is no mere travel guide! I had intended only to riffle through the pages. Instead, I read the entire book, unable to resist being carried along on a most remarkable tour. Jewish Heritage Travel is rich with information about the geography, culture, religions, architecture, and thousands of years of history in a part of the world that has deep significance for the human story. For, let's face it, shockingly horrible things happened here. While the book is organized like a travel guide, its dramatic impact is unmistakable and resonates with the reader long after the book has been set down.
   
   Ruth Ellen Gruber is a most compelling guide. Her descriptions of specific towns, synagogues, cemeteries, and "evocative remnants of shtetls" are not warmed-over fifth-hand accounts. She is forever scrambling over walls, swimming through weed grown fields, tramping through shin deep snow, knocking on doors, crawling through holes in ruined walls, and striking up conversations with strangers. One trusts her reports utterly. And she knows everything. Why Jews were invited into this area, or driven from that one, and when, and by whom, and who these people were, how they worshiped, how they differed from one another, and what their destiny became. She tells us about their land, their history, their architecture, their persecutors, their champions. She finds their cemeteries, describes their headstones, and reads us the inscriptions. If people were taken by the thousands into the woods outside their towns, shot and dropped into ditches, she tells us that too.
   
   Gruber's narrative style is intriguing. The prose is always crisp and objective with a reportorial attention to detail and an allegiance to fact, but sometimes it rises to pure lyricism. The result is a deeply evocative, richly detailed account and the reader finds himself on a journey that is both informative and poignant. The small black-and-white photos are remarkably clear and helpful, and are placed near to the relevant text. They are of an excellent quality. This is small thing, perhaps, but important in its effect.
   
   There is a good map at the front of the book. Within each chapter, and at each chapter's end, are numerous additional resources - publications, web sites, addresses of note, and more. The index is stellar.
   
   In the final analysis, this book is destined to become a classic of travel literature because it is illuminating in so many ways. Its readership should not be limited to a specific, relatively small group of travelers, and at the small price the book is offered, it needn't be.



4. Bought this for a friend who is going to Poland in April. She really likes the book, good info, and will let me know if it was a help.

2 comments about Bonjour L'Enfant!: A Child's Tour of France.

1. We got this book for our two boys and I can't say enough good things about it. It exposes them to a different country and language in a fun way that they can relate too. It is written from a childs perspective which makes the book easy for them to follow. And the pictures are fun, colorful and full of detail. We love that the book introduces the French language in a way that is easy to understand and makes it fun to learn. There is counting, colors and many fun phrases that the children can also follow through the illustrations. The French language is injected into the story (with translations provided) and we are enjoying our boys enthusiasm when they practice the new words they are learning. They are also talking about the Eiffel Tower, Louvre and a Chateaux as if they have been there themselves! I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to introduce their child to a different culture or language in a fun and "kid friendly" way!



2. Children's books that are engaging and a learning tool? But of course! In Danna Troncatty Leahy's children's book, "Bonjour L'Enfant!" the youngest of children can become fascinated with France and learn a French word, or two, or fifty!
   
   Young Michael shares his scrapbook and explains how he and his parents, his little sister Elizabeth, and his teddy bear Globe, travel to France, dance and sing by the River Seine, and eat French foods. They visit the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum, see the Tour De France, and admire Monet's Garden. Through it all, Michael engages the reader by naming the French words for colors, numbers, and days of the week and enticing children to say them too. Important conversational words such as yes, please, thank you, and the much needed French fries, are also included. Michael happily shares his adventures and gently broadens the worldview of children everywhere.
   
   Leahy's "Bonjour L'Enfant!" is a delightful expedition into the great unknown for children to explore. Seeing the world as a bigger place than our own little environment, with people who are excitingly different and foods that are deliciously new (or comfortingly the same), is a great benefit to children, whether in preparation for a trip of their own or for the simple pleasure of reading. The book offers a more formal lesson in language in the back, with pronunciation and meanings of the words mentioned through out the story. With illustrations that are colorful and engaging, and characters that are fun and likeable, this second in a series of children's books is a delight. The series is sure to be a hit with parents and children alike.
   Review by Heather Froeschl.

No comments about Culture Shock! Sweden: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Guides).

1 comments about Prague: A Cultural and Literary History (Cities of the Imagination).

1. Excellent, well-written book about one of the great cities of the world. Orderly, logical structure for the first-time visitor as well as for those who visit Prague often or live there. Not only a good writer but an accurate, non-revisionist historian. A pleasure to read and to share with others.

No comments about AA 2008 Big Road Atlas Europe (AA Atlases).

No comments about Culture Shock! Belgium: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Guides).

5 comments about Armenia with Nagorno Karabagh, 2nd: The Bradt Travel Guide.

1. This the first guidebook by a major publisher to this wonderful country. The book has a couple of quirks but makes up for it
   with lots of detail and a real passion for the country.
   It's a huge leap forward from the 'Georgia with Armenia' book previously published by Bradt. There are maps for each marz (province) and a smattering of city maps - Yerevan, Gyumri and Ejmiatsin. My main quibbles is that the selection of restaurants in Yerevan isn't as good as it could have been, and that the author has a clear fascination for trains which may not be shared by all readers. For example, most of the space devoted to Kapan, one of the nicer regional cities, refers to the trains and carriages stranded there. Otherwise, it's well written and obviously very thoroughly researched. The only place I can see which was missed is the Amaras monastery in Karabakh.



2. I agree with the other reviewer - it's a good effort and fairly well written. My main issues with this book are 1) that the photographs are incredibly bleak. If I had not visited Armenia last year, I definitely would not have based on the pictures. 2) The Nagorno Karabagh section was very light. It basically seemed like an after thought that was tacked on the last minute.



3. I recently moved to Armenia and purchased this book right before leaving the USA. My interest was mainly to use it to find neat places to go in the countryside, and this book definitely fills that purpose. We live in Yerevan, the capital, which is fairly well documented by the book.
   Our second weekend in the country we decided to travel up one of the nearby mountains - wife and three young children - to go sledding in April - and not speaking ANY Armenian yet. All we had to go on was the region map on page 106 and the narative description on the authors travels. We made it to our destination (and two meter deep snow) easily.
   Just this past weekend we used the book again to visit an old (1000AD) castle ruins and some monestaries hidden in the forests of the Lori region. The narative in the book was once again precise in all details - our only issue was when we encountered a newly paved road that was described as being in poor condition in the book (time has passed since the writting).
   I specially commend the book for those interested in getting out and around to the more remote areas.
   The book would be considerably better with maps of every town that the main roads turn in and color pictures mixed in with the text (right now the pictures are all at the center of the book). Yerevan itself is changing rapidly and may not be quite as described, but the countryside is almost identical to when the author visited.



4. This is a good book to have if you are visiting Armenia for the first time, so, you get a sense of what everything is and where to go. Compared to some guides about Europe, it lacks the picture/entertaining part. Usually, people see pictures, are attracted to what they see, and therefore decide to visit that particular location. However, lack of pictures only gives history and people may miss out on some great location, city, monument or achitecture because they may not feel moved by only its history. Overall a good book to have, it can be better though.



5. First of all, Nagorno Karabakh is a territory of Azerbaijan and listing it as territory of Armenia is totally inappropriate. Armenia itself as well as any country in the World never admitted that above referenced area belongs to republic of Armenia.
   What to expect from the book if its author don't even know geography and ignores all the ethical rules. This book is a total misrepresentation of facts.

2 comments about Monet's House: An Impressionist Interior.

1. The impressionist master,Monet's home represents a palette of vibrant color harmonies, and light fused into a radiant home of personal warmth and beauty. A perfect setting for the lush gardens flourishing outside. A full view of the rooms, that made Monet's house truly an artists abode with its elegant, yet simple furnishings.



2. I ordered the copy of Monets house and inadvertently entered the wrong address. The shipper kept me updated and sent me the book as soon as the post office returned it to them. I was very impressed with the service of the bookseller.

No comments about Travelers' Tales Spain: True Stories (Travelers' Tales Guides).