No comments about Rome at Your Door (Culture Shock! At Your Door: A Survival Guide to Customs & Etiquette).

2 comments about Through the Windows of Paris: Fifty Unique Shops.

1. As a part-time resident of Paris, I thought I knew all of the "bons addresses", those hard-to-find shops where you can find that perfect, unique gift for yourself or someone at home. I was wrong! On my next trip to Paris, I'll be looking into a number of the lovely boutiques mentioned in this book. Not only are the addresses provided, complete with compelling descriptions, but there are gorgeous photos that make your mouth water in anticipation of actually visiting these havens of shopping pleasure, if only to browse and take in the beauty of their wares. Bravo to the authors and photographer!



2. a wonderful book, showing the real character of paris to whet your appetite. as someone who is soon to go to Paris for the first time, i loved this book for doing the legwork for me in finding those little boutiques that add character to your holiday , that i probably would have missed. i'm sure they will lead me to other great little shops and experiences.

1 comments about Dublin.

1. Well, I have been purchasing a bunch of things prior to my upcoming summer vacation to Ireland (most of which are from Amazon!). I bought this book, mainly because it was just released and I thought it would give me the most recent view of the city. Not knowing exactly what to expect, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. This is a beautiful book, something you would be proud to display on a coffee table. With beautiful, colorful pictures of the city I felt that as a foreigner someone was actually holding my hand and leading me around the city and sharing the most beautiful sought after areas. Not only does the author show pictures of the outside of many landmarks, the pictures inside the buildings are just as spectacular, showing many hidden treasures. Interdisbursed between the pictures are historic tidbits which left me craving for more. I learned a lot about this beautiful city of my ancestors and I can honestly say that I can't wait to go now and see it in person. When I return, I will spend hours reading this book again to see the places I visited. I loved this book and highly recommend it to everyone!

2 comments about Christian Travelers Guide to France, The.

1. This is an awesome idea! When I suddenly had an opportunity to travel to France for a short time with even less notice, I came across this book, and decided to make it somewhat of a spiritual pilgrimage. I have often thought that there should be more to Christian historical travels than just Israel. We have been in a few other places. With the help of this book, I was able to have a much more invigorating and fulfilling trip. I like to be able to both plan trips and be open to serendipity, and the guides in this book allowed me that opportunity. I like to be able to both plan trips and be open to serendipity, and the guides in this book allowed me that opportunity. So I went backwards through time, visiting the Abbey de Citeaux, a reform movement that returned to simplicity and poverty. As the head of the Cisterians it became perhaps the biggest evangelistic outbreak in French history, with hundreds of monasteries throughout the world, from Great Britian to Asia, according to Hexham. I then traveled to Abbey de Cluny, out of which Citeaux came when Cluny became too worldly. Cluny itself was a reform movement, taking the power of the monasteries out of the hands of corrupt state officials and reporting only to the Pope. The abbot eventually became second only to the Pope in power in Roman Christianity. And then on to the birthplace of Christianity in Lyons, where the great Irenaeus once preached, and 20 of us were killed in about 200 AD in the first mention of the Christian sect in French history. And it was with sadness that I read and then observed the many cases where wars and especially the French Revolution had completely demolished Christian sites.

   The flaws in the book were more of the nature that I wish there had been more to the book. For instance, I would have desired to actually visit sites of the Hugonauts and Waldensians, who seem to have the most revitalized Christianity in France since it's birth (despite certain heresies in the latter group). But there was only mention of what cities they had been active in. I wish there were more in this collection besides Germany, Italy, and Great Britain. It is definitely exciting to be able to locate places of one's history in different lands.

   But I leave the best for last. Near Cluny I also stopped by another place, the Abbey de Taize. I am ashamed to say I had never heard of them before I read this book, and for that, I am greatly indebted to Hexham. Here is the only Protestant monastery since the Reformation, composed of monks from all over the world, and from the Roman and Orthodox churches as well. They have people regularly come from around the world to visit and worship together, coming up with a new form of worship and chanting called Taize chants, now practiced in many churches worldwide, wherein the same phrase is repeated many times in many languages. I went expecting perhaps 100 visitors. I was not expecting 3,000 people, and 4,000 more if I had made it there a few days earlier for Easter. Here people from the UK, America, Germany, France, New Zealand, Korea, and many other countries had come to simply worship Jesus together. I believe some had come to do this and were not even Christian. They gather 3 times a day, every day, to sit and chant in the various languages, lead by the monks, and beautiful hymns of praise rise to God in front of a collection of icons and candles. Most stay a week in the very cheap room and board provided there. Some of those who visited in the past were the President of the EU, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Secretary-General of the UN, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, and the Roman Pope. I am greatly glad I took the time to purchase this rather inexpensive book before my trip.




2. From the Library Journal, Vol. 126, No. 8, p. 117, 1 May 2001:
   These guides do not lead tourists to the most popular bars or shopping districts but instead to the various Christian heritage sites in each country ... Each guide follows the same layout: Hexham begins with an overview of the history of each country from prehistoric times to the present. He then includes a chapter on literature, art, and architecture and lists what he considers the top ten Christian heritage sites in each country. Each entry thereafter is in alphabetical order ... Recommended for all public libraries.

No comments about Michelin Atlas Routier France (Michelin Atlas).

No comments about The Rough Guides' Paris Directions - Edition 2 (Rough Guide Directions).

4 comments about Life in Mexico.

1. At age 33 Frances Erskine, a Scotswoman living in New York, married Sr. Calderon de la Barca, a Spanish diplomat. Her husband was then sent to Mexico City as the first Spanish ambassador to Mexico after Independence. The book consists of about 50 letters that she sent to her friends in the USA, describing their 2.5 years there, 1840-42.

   The book includes her experience of two revolutions (one failed, one successful), three long journeys by horseback and carriage (one to the silver mines in Hidalgo, one south to Cuernavaca and environs, one west to Michoacan), and innumerable social events in Mexico City. What emerges is a sharp, detailed picture of a long-gone Mexico, a very poor country with a very wealthy upper class, still underpopulated and filled with natural beauty (even around Mexico City), beset by weak and unstable governments, tremendously influenced in daily life by the Catholic Church, in sum a country in many ways not out of the 18th century (or the 17th or 16th either).

   I recommend this book for lovers of social history and lovers of Mexico. There are 500 pages of text, so you get your money's worth. I gave it only 4 stars because I thought it needed footnotes to explain the historical events and customs of the time. Only someone with a deep knowledge of 19th century Mexican history and customs, especially religious customs, would capture all the references. I know I missed many of them.




2. Francis Erskine Inglis was a Scotswoman emigrated to Boston, where she met and married an older Spanish diplomat, Angel Calderon de la Barca. Soon after they got married, he was appointed the first Ambassador of Spain in Mexico (after this country's Independence). They were in Mexico from late 1839 to early 1842. During that time, Fanny wrote many letters to her family, of which 54 were edited and published. Together they form one of the best books ever written about Mexico by a foreigner. Fanny had great power of observation, an ironic but endearing sense of humor, as well as education and cultivation. Her feminine perspective gives the book an interesting domestic touch (she reports in detail about the women's dresses, hairdoes and so). Although of course political and economic issues are present, her chronicle focuses more on everyday life.
   
   After a stay in Havana, the travellers reach the dirty and disordered port of Veracruz (nowadays a beautiful city), from where they set out to Mexico City, having previously visited Santa Anna, 11 times president of Mexico and the victor at El Alamo, at his hacienda. The Mexico portrayed by the Madame is extremely beautiful in natural landscapes, extremely varied in them, but it's also a sparsely populated country, in bad order, infested by criminals. In spite of a few cosmopolitan and sophisticated people, Mexico was basically parochial and backwards, not without a certain charm for a Bostonian. In one of the most lucid passages, Fanny compares Mexican towns with New England towns. The Mexican are solid, full of history, always looking at the past. The New English are temporary, focused in the present and the future. Naturally, the Calderons get in touch with the "best society" in Mexico, including many interesting characters. Something that both fascinates and terrifies Fanny is the absolute power of the Catholic Church. A Church that is totally Medieval, rigid, cruel and obscurantist. Mexico City is at the same time full of convents and destitutes.
   
   Fanny decides to take advantage of her adventure and does many things, which form the bulk of the book. She goes to bull fights, cock fights, shows of equestrian prowess, and she drinks the horrid "pulque", a beverage she ends up loving. The couple survive two revolutions (nothing too serious) and three long journeys through Mexico's inland. The first one was to the state of Hidalgo, full of silver mines and wonderful estates and towns (very recommendable little trip if you can do it). A second and longer trip takes them to Cuernavaca, and Guerrero, where they visit several sugarcane haciendas and the impressive caves of Cacahuamilpa, returning through a long detour towards Puebla. In their last trip, they travel West to Michoacan.
   
   This is simply a delicious book even if you've never been in Mexico, but of course you can picture everything more clearly if you've visited. If you are Mexican or live there, it is a wonderful book and many things are explained by watching its past. Fanny is ironic and a harsh critic of many things, but she truly shows affection for the country where she was so happy. Much recommended.



3. This would have to be required reading for anybody with even a slight interest in Mexican history. It is a fascinating glimpse of life in Mexico, especially the capital, in the 1840s, after the separation of Texas from Mexico and before the U.S.-Mexican War. The book originated as personal correspondence, written in English, from the author to friends of hers. She was a well educated Scottish-born American woman married to a Spanish diplomat. It is essentially a sequence of anecdotes, most of them indescribable and unforgettable.



4. Madam Calderon de la Barca was a young woman from the east coast USA who was a natural born writer. She kept a wonderful personal journal about her life in Mexico after she married the Spanish ambassador. They travel by ship to Havanna then on to Veracruz where she encounters mangos and other New World delights. After a long hard road via stage coach to Mexico City they settle into their new home in the Mint on the Zocalo in the heart of downtown. Senora Calderon de la Barca has an eye for detail and a wonderul understated humor she uses to describe life in Mexico in the early 1700's. She visits haciendas, nunneries, great ballrooms, corner tortilla and lace makers, drinks pulque and she notes it all down with a most deliciously transporting pen. Enjoy.

5 comments about On Pilgrimage.

1. Just finished the book and found it very poetic in some parts and kind of confusing in others. There were two errors that I found, and maybe it is nit-picking, but it made me wonder about other information that was given. First, Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine in the cathedral at Poitiers, not in Lisieux, and Abelard is buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetary in Paris with Heloise, not in Cluny. Well worth reading, tho, especially if you've been to some of the places mentioned, or plan to visit others. I found it fascinating that she most always found a room wherever she stopped whatever the time. Obviously she spoke French well.



2. Jennifer Lash, who appears to be the mother of the actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, made a solo trip of pilgrimage through France in l993 after winning a battle with cancer (for awhile). As a non-practising Catholic in late middle age, she knew her theological territory when traveling from convent to monastery to basilica to pilgrimage camp; but she approached her visits in a determined spirit of not-knowing. I found that intellectually or maybe morally refreshing; it served as a Carlos-Castaneda-like bridge role which helped me, the reader, someone else who does "not know". Her experience of moving on repeatedly reminded her that travel brings us back up against our selves. She feels strongly and works transparently to understand her feelings; the sorting-out process which the pilgrimage crystallizes for this writer can illuminate whatever journey her reader is on.
   
   Her writing is both erudite and humble. She was a sophisticated Briton who had spent much of her life raising her very large family. From miracle site to miracle site on the French trains, carrying her baggage on an injured back, she tells us the stories of the saints whose cults have given rise to these sites, and describes the religious communities which maintain them. In between, she tells us about the people she meets and re-meets. She is often wry, but never sarcastic; describes ridiculousness sharply but never cruelly. She learns as she goes, and as she learns she teaches, in the kindest way. She is a LADY - decent and sincere, and also funny and engaged.
   Her descriptions make the feel of each place most vivid - the baroque, fully alive Santiago de Compostela, the gloomy, cold Rocamadour, the wild emotional Gypsy pilgrimage in the Camargue are all made quite visible, audible, smellable, each entirely different from the others - and there are about fifteen of these places in the book.
   The book is horribly proofread - the commas are in the wrong places, so that Ms. Lash reads like a rather bizarre speaker - a peculiar pauser for breath in funny places. There are outright mistakes that no one caught - the word "paramount" is confused with "tantamount", for example, and a priest is described as wearing a "scapula", the shoulder blade, when she meant "scapular", a liturgical garment. We know what she means, but we have to wade along doing our own corrections.
   This strange aberration makes reading the book feel like chatting with a deeply imaginative, thoughtful, unselfconsciously wacky human being, rather than "a writer". But what a writer, and what a significant story this journey is when told in her voice.



3. It was too wordy and because I don't know much about the Catholic Saints it was very confusing. This was not fun or enjoyable to read. It was more like an assignment than for pleasure, which is why I didn't bother finishing it. There are too many other good books out there to read than to waste my time finishing this one. My book club read this and all of us found it very blah. If you do decide to read it I hope you find it as interesting as the other reviewers did -- but notice that they even found a lot of problems with the prose and editing.



4. My motivation for reading this book was to gain insight into the astounding acting talent and integrity of one of Jennifer Lash's sons, Joseph Fiennes.She was the formative influence in his life and I was curious as to what is was about her that could produce such results.
   She took her pilgrimage as a result of having survived cancer and now questioned some of the beliefs on which she had heretofore based her life, namely her Catholic faith. Non catholics may have a difficult time understanding the significance of the holy sites that she visits on her pilgrimage. However, this is not a syrupy, God is Love kind of tome. She does not necessarily believe in God and is objective about the arcane practises that have grown up around these "holy" places. Women, particularly, will identify with her need to go off on a solo journey at midlife. They also will understand that as she attempts to find answers she only comes up with more questions.



5. ...so comforting. Her tone is so easy to relate with, her writing is prosaic and full of feeling, totally uncontrived. She goes to all these Catholic shrines seeking something she's not quite sure of and in the end we're fairly sure she has found an elusive truce with her God. The characters we meet on the journey range from heartwarming to simply disgusting (like [...]priest and the freak on the train to Spain (just read the book). This book made me very glad to be a Jew. We don't have to traipse all over the globe seeking out Marian apparitions or mythical magical global Christian Hot Spots, all we need is Israel. Anyway, my favorite piece is where she's feeling disconsolate and alone in a café and suddenly she sees an apparition of her husband walk in and she's flooded with peace.
   Here's hoping we get a re-release of Jini's older work an perhaps a new edition of On Pilgrimage with proper copyediting.

3 comments about Take the Kids: South of France (Take the Kids - Cadogan).

1. We just got back from a trip to the South of France and this book ended up being on of our main resources. From recommended accommodations (the Hotel Montmorency in Carcassonne has a great location and is tremendously kid-friendly) to warnings on things which seem like they might be good ideas but really aren't (the walk up to Peyreperteuse is pretty steep and windy for kids and there's no railing for a lot of it) "Take the Kids" gave great advice, presented in an engaging (even for reading aloud to the kids) manner. Read it before you go and take it along!



2. Even with a 2003 publication date, this book was our primary resource while traveling with the kids in Provence in July 2005. The book bailed us out with appropriate restaurant recommendations on more than one occasion, provided just the right amount of information about sights to see (and those to avoid)and did a great job preparing all of us for the trip. Thanks Cadogan Guides!



3. I found this guidebook extremely helpful during our trip to the South of France with our three kids (aged, 2,4 and 13). It was easy to digest, included important and interesting things but didn't overwhelm with too much detail. Some of the prices were slightly low, but the phone numbers, times and locations were accurate. It also helped me pick out things that would appeal to the different aged kids in our family. I particularly liked the sections on Avignon and Nimes/Pont-du-Gard. The resturant sections were helpful as well, although a couple of places were no longer around.

3 comments about Walking Easy in the Italian & French Alps (Walking Guides).

1. The Italian dolomites offer the best hiking anywhere. Lost of variety great food reasonable prices and lots of people who speak English. This book gives accurate information, wonderful hotel recommendations and suggests towns I would not have discovered elsewhere. A must for anyone who hikes. The hikes may be easy for some, but it there are lots of more diffucilt options when you get there. We followed the Liptons advice and had a fabulous trip!



2. The descriptions of the walks and of the excursions (presumably car-based) appear very useful; we'll be trying some of them in a few weeks. The book would have been more attractive & useful with more photos, especially color photos, & more maps would also be helpful--but what's there will help a great deal in prioritizing what we do.



3. This book will be appreciated by readers who want to ride up on a ski lift and then start hiking, because most of the hikes in the book begin that way. It's an efficient way of getting up out of the valley and into the high country, instead of hiking up a set of steep switchbacks. We have hiked in the French areas described in the book and have ridden the lifts several times (as many hikers do), but we prefer to hike in more remote, wild areas without ski lifts. Most of the French towns the authors recommend are fashionable ski resorts made up of modern hotels, without the charm of authentic Alpine towns and villages. Other hiking guides are available in English that concentrate on hiking away from the resorts and lifts, where you get to the trailhead by a road or a "navette" (shuttle bus).