5 comments about Paris For Dummies (Dummies Travel).

1. My wife and I (very unitiated to Paris) returned from a beautiful trip there last November -- a large part of that due to this book. Ms. Pientka really tries hard to let you get the well known and not so well known of the city and explains the pros/cons to areas so incredibly well. Other books might have more specifics about attractions, but they won't be as comrpehensive as this one. We loved her restaurant choices (even as Vegeterians she had some places for us!). The book was the basis for our trip and we felt we hit everything we wanted (included an out of the way flea market -- my wife loves going to them here and was excited to learn that one happens on the weekends in Paris). The only cons were that it would have been nice to have metro stops (and lines) listed next to each entry and her hotel list could have been more comprehensive. We booked a hotel on our own (not in her book) and loved it. Whether you are going to be in the City of Lights for a 2-3 days or a month, you will love this book.



2. Excellent, well-written, with a great deal of practical, currrent information , a treasure to take with you to Paris



3. I went to Paris, France in 1996. It was a dream come true. I didn't have a guide book of the city and I think this book would have been quite useful if I had to choose about books for Paris, France. One of the American writers, Janet Flanner also known as Genet, wrote from Paris' Hotel Continental for decades. Now that I have this book, I pick it up to look and read about a location, a restaurant, an attraction, etc. What troubled me the most about my trip to Paris was the panhandlers, the homeless children, and the beggars during the hot summertime. I suggest that Paris is not the place to be during a heatwave. Most attractions and Parisian hotels don't have air-conditioning. Maybe that's changed since my last visit. Oh, I yearn to go back again and this book makes me want to go more than ever.



4. I just got back from Paris and I used this book everyday. It was very helpful



5. Full disclosure: I own the 2nd edition of this guidebook, so maybe the omission I found has been corrected.
   
   For the daytrip to Versailles, the author lists two methods of transporation: driving a car or taking a tour bus. However, the easiest, quickest, and cheapest way is to take the RER. It deposits you about 200 yards from the palace. I was shocked that this info wasn't included as every other guidebook mentions it. I hope the newest editions have been updated to include this.

3 comments about Moleskine City Notebook Paris (Moleskine City Pocket Book).

1. Was given this book as a gift for my trip to Paris. It was THE book I kept on me at all times. An indispensible tool for the travler who likes to travel light. The maps, broken down in areas, were great for walking the often complex Paris streets. Blank sheets to jot down addresses of that special restarurant or patisserie. Smaller note sheets to tear out after using them, say, for metro directions. A small pocket for ticket stubs. A truly useful tool for getting around. Going to Rome later this year and will get the Rome version. Another bonus, you can give your book to friends after you use it so they can benefit from your notes and book info. It does not have destination information, so you'll have to use another book for that, like Eyewitness Travel (good also). So get out there!



2. The city book series by Moleskine is very compact and useful. It is small enough to fit in my purse and has a wonderful city maps section that is very useful. I love these city books. I want them to add more cities!



3. if you've already been to Paris and you just want to re-live your experiences and jot down your thoughts that's your option. The quality of the street finder is very good. In my case i used the 6 or 7 guides i had at hand and took note in the book of adresses and phone numbers and brought just this guide to Paris

3 comments about The Mystery of the Blue Train: A Hercule Poirot Mystery.

1. Agatha, in her autobiography, said she never knew why people liked this book.
   
   It was a charming adventure--great for Agatha fans.



2. The Mystery of the Blue Train begins with the story of an American millionaire obtaining a set of unique rubies despite the attempted interference of a mysterious criminal. From there we meet the millionaire's daughter Ruth and her no-good husband. The story is a bit of a soap opera involving infidelity on both sides, proposed divorce, blackmail, and various other unpleasantness. Later a woman is introduced who has recently inherited a large sum of money. After following her story for a bit, most of the cast boards the Blue Train (along with Poirot) where Ruth is murdered and the rubies stolen.
   
   It is worth noting that the murder does not occur until page 100 and that we see very little of Poirot until then. For that matter, we don't see nearly as much of Poirot after the murder as we typically would. To be sure, there are the typical interviews with suspects but far more time is spent following the other characters around France and England than you would normally expect. This change might be welcome if the characters were interesting, or if the space given to them resulted in real growth and development, or if just about anything noteworthy happened at all. Unfortunately, they mostly seem to listlessly wander about mouthing inanities and doing very little of consequence.
   
   When Poirot at last solves the case, it is much more of a relief to be done with this book than it is satisfying to learn the answer to the crime. This book is such a poor effort that I can scarcely believe Dame Christie really wrote it. The structure feels like she meant it to be a standalone mystery like And Then There Were None rather than a Poirot novel and then perhaps the author changed her mind at the last minute and grafted the little Belgian in to very poor effect. It also feels much more like a crude first draft than a finished novel from a great writer. All the extra space given to the cast is wasted since they all remain little more than cardboard and the story is equally bland. I have greatly enjoyed some of the Poirot novels I've read but this one should be avoided by all but the most devout Poirot completist.



3. This book was published in 1928. One of the things I like about Agatha Christie's books is that things are done the old-fashioned way with messengers, no cell phones, no computers. In other words, with plain old leg-work. Hercule Poirot is his usual amusing self.
   
   I didn't try to guess the murderer and just enjoyed the book! I wouldn't mind taking a trip on the Blue Train myself.

5 comments about The Civil War Battlefield Guide, Second Edition.

1. I took a group of college students on a "civil wargasm" last spring---to Gettysburg, Antietam, and dozens of sites in Virginia. We took a parcel of books and maps. This is the one we referred to more than any other. By laying out the battle over a modern map, this guide makes it easier to understand what happened where, and definitely enhances a visit to any site, large or small. It is especially useful for stops at battle sites that are only commemorated by historical markers, and for sites that have nearly disappeared under freeways and housing developments. If you plan to visit Civil War sites anywhere, this is the first book you should buy.



2. I bought this book because i was working for a battlefield in the Park Service this summer and I had some free time to see other Battle fields in the surrounding areas: Richmond, Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Harper's Ferry, Malverin Hill. And this book is just what I needed, because sometimes the best thing is just a concise history to understand with great detailing maps for comprehension and this has it. I value mine on a Civil War Battlefield trips



3. I do not live near many of the major battlefield sites, and I have never had this guide in my possession when visiting any battlefields so I cannot comment on its "real-time" usefulness, but I can say that having this guide has been quite valuable in personal study. The maps cleverly overlay the North/South troop placements and movements on modern topographic renderings that include today's highways and other developments. So, before or after a live visit to a particular battlefield, these maps will help you to place the precise historic details in the context of, say, the visitor's center or other modern landmarks (like roads) that can be recognized. I have also found the narrative descriptions to be both brief and comprehensive enough to supplement my readings for particular battles. For instance, I am reading Cozzen's difficult study now about Chickamauga. Having this guide at hand, I can refresh myself on the overview of the battle, and thus better absorb and enjoy the expert details of the book that I'm reading. The chronological order of the battles also provides a great overview of the entire war at a glance (in case, for example, you're not sure how the two Bull Run battles fit together, or how Chickamauga relates to Chattanooga, or how either of these relates to Gettysburg or Vickburg). Lastly, this is just a great book for browsing if you are interested in the Civil War.



4. This is one of the best books to have to study the civil war locations, and tour the battles. It has superb topographical maps of the battle area's.
   
   It also has more information on the battles and different topic's on the civil war.
   
   I have never been to any of the battles back east, since I have lived in the Midwest and Arizona, so I wish the book had more pictures of the area's then and now. I have talked to a few people and it is sad that we are losing some of these battlefields to land development



5. The Conservation Fund's title "The Civil War Battlefield Guide" in my opinion is an invaluable tool for understanding the flow and troop dispositions of several Civil War battles.
   
   In all, there are maps and troop movements for around 60 Civil War engagements and range from smaller battles such as Cloyd's Mountain to major engagements like Gettysburg. Another important feature of the book is the inclusion of modern-day roads included in the maps so the reader and battlefield visitor can better understand where the battle was fought in relation to where he/she may be standing at the time (assuming, of course, that the reader is on the battlefield at the time).
   
   My only real complaint is that some bloody battles (Franklin, Nashville, etc.) were left out. However, the book does an overall good job of including most of the major engagements.
   
   An excellent read and valuable battlefield tour aid. Read and enjoy! Recommended.

2 comments about The Rough Guide to Italy 8 (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

1. We were planning to travel to the heel of Italy (Puglia region) and there really aren't any books that cover that area alone. Usually I buy other brands (Moon or Lonely Planet) but after comparing the information on Puglia side by side with the other books I decided that the Rough Guide better met our needs due to the quantity and practicality of the information provided (many of the smaller towns weren't even covered in the other books). We purchased local books in Italy that were more focused on the region but ended up using the Rough Guide every day.



2. This book is decidedly not for those who choose to rent a car as part of their visit to Italy. The "arrival" section of each town and region only discusses arrival by train or bus; nothing on roads or parking - either for towns or hotels. The chapter on Puglia mentions a coastal route, but then abruptly states, "you won't be able to come this way by train or bus anyway," and then jumps to a discussion of what's beyond the coastal route.
   
   (For price discussion, I will precede numbers with an "e" for euros, as e1.)
   
   The paragraph on car rental says "car rental in Italy is pricey... at around e250-e300 per week..." I have found a TWO week rental (April 2008) to be just over e300, including taxes and mandatory insurance coverage. Mandatory insurance is not mentioned by the guide, but it is what drives the price up. I agree that this is pricey, but it is about half the price of what the authors suggest.
   
   Does this guidebook eschew the car more for political reasons? Can't be, as the planet would be better off if we didn't travel at all (and did not buy guidebooks.)
   
   So, then, is this book geared to budget travelers? Not necessarily. The cost of train travel (for two) in Italy is comparable to the cost of car travel (even with gas approaching $10/gal.) For example, the train from Rome to Milan, according to the authors, would cost e94 for 2 adults (about $145), roughly the same as a compact car and gas for the day. I'm certainly not advocating renting a car to drive from Rome to Milan, but if one was traveling from Rome to Perugia to Siena to Florence to Pisa to Cinque Terra and then to Milan over several days, the costs are comparable. The authors should allow the traveler to weigh the cost/convenience factors of each.
   
   But, for real evidence that this book is not geared as budget traveler's guide, consider the nine price ranges for accommodations: (under e50), (e51-75), (e76-100),... (e251-300), (e300+). At the current exchange rate of e1=$1.60, e50=$80, e75=$120, and e300=$480. Certainly at these levels of expenditure, a budget traveler would be much better off financially by renting a car and staying outside of towns in cheaper rooms. Unfortunately, this option isn't really covered in this guidebook. (And, honestly, do people who spend $480+/night for a hotel really buy a Rough Guide and plan their own vacation?)
   
   Generally, I quite like Rough Guides; they tend to be much better written, more colorfully and honestly, than one of the leading brands ("LP") which refuses to even say something bad about Newark, NJ, in its USA book. But, generally speaking, Rough Guides also tend to be better than this particular Rough Guide.
   
   I do very much appreciate the inclusion of detailed instructions on using the buses and trains; this information is often the best reason to buy a guidebook. But, by omitting everything about renting a car in Italy, and at the same time having an $80 lowest price category for accommodation, this book ultimately is not ideal for any audience and disappoints.
   
   These authors must realize that a sensible way for many people to visit Italy would be with some time spent in major cities without a car, and some time in the countryside behind the wheel. I have no problem omitting the discussion of "what to do with your car in Rome, Milan and Venice", but the omission of suggested driving routes, parking locations and sites along the route to smaller towns and national parks is a major oversight and a serious negative of this guidebook.
   
   The included material is good; the omitted material is glaring. I net this to 3 stars.

2 comments about Edith Wharton's Italian Gardens.

1. With plenty of pics, this book is good for a casual flick through or a more careful read. The photographs of the gardens are stunning and inspire a desire to visit in person.



2. This is not the ultimate writing on Italian gardens, nor the most sumptuos as a coffee-table book. But you can do a lot worse than this when you search for garden books on Italy. And then there is the added dimension that Mrs Wharton drove up to these places a hundred years ago and had a look around. Gentle people alledgedly just showed up "never mind us, we're just here for a stroll in your lovely garden", not recommended today...
   Photographs are very good/good. The selection of gardens covers the major part of the most celebrated, with a few minor ones added. No sites south of Rome alas, put the blame on Edith.

1 comments about The Rough Guide to France 10 (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

1. You certainly wouldn't want to need this book in a hurry. It took almost 4 months for it to be delivered. On top of that, when Amazon lose something in the post, they re-charge your credit card and then refund you-I'm still waiting for my refund having paid twice for a book that took months to arrive. They obviously don't have good customer service as I feel at this stage I should be refunded entirely!!
   Other than that this book is very helpful, it has excellent transport tips and guidelines. It also has good detail on all the different regions in France. I like the layout of it too and would chose the RoughGuides over other guidebook brands. I needed information on one particular region in France, how to get there and wanted to know what to do and despite this book being aimed at the whole of France, I still found plenty of information on the town and surrounding areas. There was even really good restaurants recommended for all budgets. Very happy with the book over all.

5 comments about Henri Cartier-Bresson: A Propos de Paris.

1. As my favourite photographer, Cartier-Bresson has some kind of impayable discernment. His gallery of Paris is his magnum opus. His Leica, his 50mm lens, his mysterious face... all made him a monumental legend. I bought this gallery (hardcover) in 1995 for the price of $US 50 in Hong Kong. What are you waiting for? Just click it and buy it immediately, you will never regret buying this book.



2. As my favourite photographer, Cartier-Bresson has some kind of impayable discernment. His gallery of Paris is his magnum opus. His Leica, his 50mm lens, his mysterious face... all made him a monumental legend. I bought this gallery (hardcover) in 1995 for the price of $US 50 in Hong Kong. What are you waiting for? Just click it and buy it immediately, you will never regret buying this book.



3. As my favourite photographer, Cartier-Bresson has some kind of impayable discernment. His gallery of Paris is his magnum opus. His Leica, his 50mm lens, his mysterious face... all made him a monumental legend. I bought this gallery (hardcover) in 1995 for the price of $US 50 in Hong Kong. What are you waiting for? Just click it and buy it immediately, you will never regret buying this book.



4. This book is one of two Henri's books I have and the best one. The book to go through again and again. Then go shoot some pictures and go through it again. You'll be surprized how many fresh impressions you'll get every time. Very inspiring book. Highly recommended for practicing fotographers.



5. I have many of Cartier-Bresson's books, but this is the one I find myself drawn to.
   
   Time and again I thumb its pages and find something in the photographs that I never before noticed.
   
   This isn't some book full of "pretty" pictures in the conventional sense. One has to look at each picture to understand what inspired HCB to capture it.
   
   I have a few favorites photos from this book, but those that stand out in my mind are of the picnic by the Marne and of the little boy carrying two large bottles of wine.
   
   The Marne photo is so well layed out that, if one didn't know better, it would seem staged. That simply wasn't Cartier-Bresson's way. Although their faces are not seen, I "know" what each of the people look like.
   
   The opposite is true of the little boy. His face is there for all to see and interpret. What is he thinking? Is he happy? Is he proud to be showing off for the little girls in the background?
   
   Many of HCB's photos force us to read his mind and the minds of his subjects. These seemingly impromptu snapshots not only depict what HCB saw, but also depict it geometrically.
   
   To someone like myself who has dabbled in "street photography", HCB epitomizes the genre.

5 comments about Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer.

1. This book is highly informative. My father, a B-17 Bombardier in the 8th Air Force apprecitated the authenticity of this book. Well written without the Hollywood fluff.



2. Whether this is your introduction to daylight bomber operations over Europe, or you've read hundreds of accounts, Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer will not disappoint. What really sets this book apart from a typical account, is that O'Neill has managed to get the entire crew's recollections mission by mission. Each individual's perspective is different, and taken as a whole provides a remarkably complete picture of life on a B-17 crew during the most intense period of air combat in the ETO. You will be hard pressed to find a better book on the subject.



3. Half a Wing, Three Engines, and a Prayer , written by Brian O'Neal, is the historical account of a B-17 Bomb Wing in Europe during the Second World War. Though many crews and other wings are followed in the book, the central story is that of the 303rd "Hell's Angels" Bomb Group and the B-17 crew of Lt. Bob Hullar. The period covered is from training in 1942 to combat over Europe from 1943 to 1944.
   
   Though several previous histories of Air Combat in World War II had been written, few had given the full perspective of the individual bomber crew. For B-17s, this consisted of 10 men, 3 of whom were officers and the rest enlisted. Together they flew the airplane, operated navigation instruments and radios, sighted and dropped the payload, and used machine guns to fend off attacks from enemy aircraft along the way. Often noted by the book was the fact that nearly 25% of these air crews would never return from the European Theater of Operations.
   
   The crews of the 303rd Bomb Group began their training for the most part in 1942, following the American entry into World War II. These men came from all walks of life and trained at bases all across the country before being assembled at a base in Washington for their final phase of training, where they trained as the crew they'd be a part of in Europe. From there, they were sent to England, where the 303rd was based as part of the strategic bombing campaign of the 8th Air Force against occupied Europe and Nazi Germany. The Group operated the four-engined B-17 "Flying Fortress", and crews typically flew different airplanes during their tour in Europe, which required 25 missions to be completed. Bob Hullar's crew would fly no less than 10 different aircraft during their tour, several of which were later destroyed, rendered irreparable by damage, and one of which had to be ditched in the English Channel.
   
   O'Neal relied heavily on interviews from members of the crews, particularly that of Bob Hullar. Each chapter of the book is devoted to a mission flown during the Hullar crew's tour, their targets ranging from coastal towns in France to large industrial cities deep in the heart of Germany. Likewise, the missions varied from somewhat un-remarkable to enormous aerial battles and fierce anti-aircraft fire. Regardless of the target, however, every mission posed extraordinary danger to the crews who flew on them. They remained in constant fear of their own destruction, and this perhaps played a role in how well the individual crew members could remember the particulars of each mission decades after it occurred. When events could not be correlated with the accounts of the crew's, O'Neal turned to the official records of the 303rd Bomb Group and even those of the German Luftwaffe to determine what actually occurred during the air battles documented in the book.
   
   The story of the American Amry Air Force in Europe was first made famous by the story of the crew of the Memphis Belle, which was the first B-17 to complete 25 missions and served as the platform for a now famous documentary on the subject, made during the war. Since that time numerous documentaries and books have been produced on the subject, making it one of the more well understood aspects of the war in Europe.
   
   Overall, one learns a great deal from the individual accounts that are contained in the book. They give an eye-witness view to the carnage and fast-paced action that occurred thousands of feet above the earth during the air war, and offer a glimpse into how it actually felt to be caught in the middle of this. One is surprised to learn the ineffectiveness that often plagued American bombing missions, which frequently missed their intended target or did little damage, despite the involvement of hundreds of airplanes for each mission. At times there were well over a thousand aircraft, both bombers and fighters, engaged in accomplishing these missions. The crew of Bob Hullar , one finds out, was lucky to survive the slaughter that took place at 25,000 feet on an almost daily basis, and the story of the air war in Half a Wing, Three Engines, and a Prayer is forever memorable because of it.



4. It's always a pleasure to find a non-fiction account of any period which is so good you don't want to put it down. Here's an account of the American contribution to the bombing war in the European Theatre of Ops which is truely readable at all levels (no pun intended.) The story concentrates essentially on bombing operations, in a chronological order, explored mainly through the eyes of the bomber crews themselves as recorded in their diaries and wartime interrogations and de-briefings. These experiences are reinforced by solid research into US and German records, just to confirm the men's accounts. The story concentrates mainly on the crews of one bomber group as they go through their tour of duty. But in the process, it recounts what many men saw and did in the air over Germany. This is NOT a statistical account of the US strategic bombing offence. This is an up-close-and-personal account of men at war, trying to beat the odds and survive the full 30 Ops needed to finish a tour and go home. So when planes blow up beside you and Messerschmitts pop out of the clouds behind, you'll discover what it felt like to have your guns jam at the critical moment, to feel enemy cannon shells hammer your airframe, to sense the hand of death at the controls, then to see 'little friends' come racing to the rescue. The paperback edition contains some unpublished aerial photos, and some surprises - like a photo of the first US experiment with flying bombs, which looked like miniature Lightning fighters carried under a B-17s wings. Most of all, this book is a good read - covering lots of action at a ripping pace. It's a good, thick book and well worth the price. I was glad I bought it.



5. Bob Hullar was my father. I was born in 1948 and my Dad went back into the newly formed US Air Force shortly after that and retired as a bird colonel. While my Dad and I were pretty close, he didn't talk much about WWII and what he did. As a kid, I knew that he was a B17 pilot based in England and that he probably dropped a lot of bombs, but that was about it. This book opened up a part of his life to me that I didn't really know and couldn't possibly understand. My mother, Jean, provided a lot of documents, photos and information to the author as he was researching for it. "Half a Wing, Three Engines and Prayer" is very well written and factual, but also manages to convey the incredible dangers these men continually confronted and the courage they must have had to get back into those planes day after day. As I was reading it, I constantly asked myself "Could I have done this?" and "What was I doing at age 25... surely nothing like this!" It helped me to understand my Dad, who remained a quiet, complex man for the rest of his life and gave me a glimpse of what surely was his peak lifetime experience. For anyone who is interested in the World War II and the US Army Air Force, I think it is a must read.
   Thanks to the author for undertaking this task and doing such a great job!

5 comments about The French Chateau: Life, Style, Tradition.

1. If you love French history, art, decoration and life style; if you have ever dreamed of living in a beautiful French chateau, you must get this book. Each time I open this book I am enchanted. What makes this book especially interesting is that people still live in these chateaus, these dreamscapes of tall Mansart roofs, formal French gardens and rooms filled with 18th century furniture. Forget about the text, it's the ravishingly photographed gardens and interiors that inspire one to dream. Beyond the sheer fantasy of it, this book showed me how I could create a little of the "French Chateau Style" in my own humble living space.



2. Christiane De Nicolay-Mazery is a fabulous author with fabulous connections. I'm an interior designer & I find Christiane De Nicolay-Mazery's books to be the most inspirational decorating books that I own. One of her other books, 'Private Houses of Paris', is my favorite book on the topic of decorating and I own almost every significant book published on this topic. I do wish that this book was available in hardback, as I prefer hardback books, but this fact should not dissuade you in purchasing it because inspirational design is absolutely on every page of this book!



3. See how the other side lives in this fascinating book on private French chateaux. Their residences as well as their lifestyles are revealed in this book packed with gorgeous photos dripping with color and layers of texture. What's also interesting about this book is the history behind each property as well as its past owners. One can only dream...



4. An unusual and beautifully published book that profiles privately-owned chateaux, inside and out. It gives you an intimate view of life within the rooms, formal and informal, utility and casual, garden and forest. Family and friends are included from a respectable distance, showing weekend sporting activities and day to day life. Snobbish? Unapproachable? Not really. Think of it as a personable Architectural Digest a la Francaise, with much more panache.



5. ok book,not one of my best picks,several out there that are better as far as decorating goes!