5 comments about Knopf Guide: New York (Knopf Guides).

1. We used this book on our first visit to Manhatten and found the book to be very helpful. After preparing for our visit with this book, I felt comfortable and a familiarity with the city.



2. folks, this is the best idea for a tourbook/map that i have stumbled across yet. i'm not prone to raving, but this will garner praise from me until the cows come home (bearing foot & mouth) no doubt.

   so, why is this so great? first of all, it's simple and well designed. the city is broken down into sections. you turn to those pages and there is a brief description of places to eat, shop, etc. the pages then open up into a map of the section with a description of major sites in the area.

   brilliant! no fumbling around a big map trying to find your street. no squinting to figure out where you are. it's easy to find landmarks, metro stops, etc.

   the card stock is nice and heavy and has lasted well even in my back pocket. the descriptions have been helpful without being too lengthy. and at this price, it's quite competitive with other maps while providing much more.




3. If you are traveling to NYC, and spending your time in Manhattan, this is the only map book you will need. It's compact, and will fit in your pocket, and is easy to use and to read.

   It starts with a map of Manhattan, which is divided into several sections. Each section has a corresponding map. When you open the book to a section, you will see some text and small pictures showing some of the highlights that you may want to see in the area. Then, the page folds out to a detailed map that is large enough to read easily, even while your walking, but still quite compact. The paper is very heavy, and after ten days of extensive use, my book has no torn maps, or even battered edges.

   The back of the book has both bus and subway maps, and although they are pretty small, you can still use them to get around on public transportation. The only thing I used to supplement this book was a compass, which helped when we emerged from a subway tunnel, and needed a quick direction.

   The cost of this book is only slightly more than a traditional map and is, in my opinion, an incredible value for the money. As a first-time visitor to NYC using this book, I was amazed that I never got lost; not even once!




4. It's the most handy guidebook I ever used. It tells you all the attractions in Manhattan and it doesn't flood you wth words. It organized into sections, so you don't have to fold the map over and over to find where you want to go. If you love to travel by yourself and you don't want to carry a big book around and look like a tourist, you should get this book.

   It's only good for Manhattan though.




5. These Knopf Guides are fantastic. They are beautiful little books, they are not quick guides, they are conscious and indepth. The images are well presented and the text highly informative. This book on New York is especially good, New York is unique and lends itself well to a guide of this kind. Highly recommended.

No comments about On the Road to the World Championship 1923-27 (Pergamon Chess Series).

No comments about Cool Hotels France (Cool Hotels).

No comments about France: La Douceur de Vivre (Exploring Countries of the Wor).

1 comments about To Travel Hopefully: Footsteps In The French Cevennes.

1. Written by the author of A Twelvemonth and a Day, and named as one of the "100 Greatest Scottish Books of All Time", To Travel Hopefully: Footsteps In The French Cevennes is a powerful work of travel writing about the journey through Southern France, from Le Monastier-Sur-Gazeille to St. Jean-Du-Gard. Accompanied only by a donkey named Anatole, Rush contended with territorial hunters, massive downpours, hunger, and the hazard of getting lost. Yet with help from his friends, he gradually transformed the perils of his trek into a spiritual quest and a singularly unforgettable travel memoir. Very highly recommended, To Travel Hopefully is a thoroughly "reader friendly", armchair travelogue.

No comments about Paris (Pitkin Guides).

2 comments about Michelin Green Guide Chateaux De LA Loire (5th ed).

1. Because France does not change that much, Michelin Green Guides (1994 edition) did not change either. They still keep this handy pocket format that all other publishers copied. They still are very shy with pictures. They don't tell you everything you would expect from a french guide-book. Still, they tell you what is most important. You cannot make any mistake if you follow their advice. So bring this guide-book with you ... and buy the Knopf or Eyewitness guide to get a more detailed view of our nice region. If you want to get advice from famous Michelin staff about restaurants and places to stay, buy the 2000 edition (english)of this book. If you are interested in more than just castles, read the "Wine and food guide to the Loire" from Jacqueline Friedrich and bring back home some bottles of Champigny wine.



2. Because France does not change that much, Michelin Green Guides (1997 edition) did not change either. They still keep this handy pocket format that all other publishers copied. They still are very shy with pictures. They don't tell you everything you would expect from a french guide-book. Still, they tell you what is most important. You cannot make any mistake if you follow their advice. So bring this guide-book with you ... and buy the Knopf or Eyewitness guide to get a more detailed view of our nice region. If you want to get advice from famous Michelin staff about restaurants and places to stay, buy the 2000 edition (english)of this book. If you are interested in more than just castles, read the "Wine and food guide to the Loire" from Jacqueline Friedrich and bring back home some bottles of Champigny wine.

1 comments about Michelin Charming Places to Stay: 1000 Hotels and Guesthouses in France for Less Than 80 (Charming Places to Stay in France).

1. This is the first no-brainer best guide to elegant yet inexpensive accomadations. It helps to dispel the myth that France=TROP CHERE! The hotels and B&B's listed are inexpensive, but not run-down holes in the wall. They are chic, "charming" inns that won't break the bank.
   The accomadations are listed organized by region and city, and every selection includes a Michelin perk regarding the location, establishment, food, attractions etc. BUY THIS BOOK if you are searching for the right way to travel France.

2 comments about A Time We Knew: Images of Yesterday in the Basque Homeland (Basque Series).

1. "A Time We Knew: Images of Yesterday in the Basque Homeland" is the product of a fascinating collaboration between photographer William Albert Allard and the dean of Basque-American literature, Robert Laxalt.

   In the fall of 1967, Allard spent two months in the Basque country of northeastern Spain and southwestern France, capturing with his camera the everyday life of the people who lived there. Although Allard spoke no Basque and was linked to the Basque country only through his Basque wife, his stunning photos evoke the tremendous power of the Basque landscape and people: the haunting flanks of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques at evening; the gloomy mountains of the northern coast of Spain just at the approach of a storm; a rough-hewn woman with a scythe at Behorleguy, on the frontier between youth and age, in whose face is reflected the painful past of the ancient Basque people. From a technical point-of-view, these incredible photographs are so good that they could truly be "images of yesterday": the color is brilliant. Alas, though, "yesterday" in the Basque country is no more. The years since 1967 have seen the heavy industrialization of both the French and Spanish sectors of the Basque homeland and the gradual passing of the ancient ways Allard captures here.

   Laxalt's contribution to this book is his prose vignettes, some of the best of his characteristically exquisite prose-poetry. A second-generation Basque-American whose father grew up in the French Basque country, Laxalt knows the region as well as probably anyone in the United States. While one cannot miss the heavy dose of romanticism in his prose ("Girls slender as reeds walking hand in hand down the lane, singing an ode to spring in soprano voices pure and light as air") and even pastoralism (exacerbated by the fact that the Basques are some of the world's greatest shepherds), it is obvious that Laxalt is a remarkable writer.

   A poetic look at "yesterday" in the Basque country. Get it on your shelf.




2. The Basque people are certainly an interesting race; it is believed that theirs is one of the oldest languages in Europe. Where they came from and how they ended up in northern Spain has been a point of contention between anthropologists for some time. They suffered terribly during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's; the famous painting by Picasso represents some of the suffering in the Basque city of Guernica. The people of that city had the dubious distinction of being the first in history to have been the victims of the deliberate terror bombing of civilians. The Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA has been engaged in a decade's long struggle to create an independent homeland for the Basque people out of the Basque areas in Spain and France.
   This book is a collection of photos taken in the Basque regions in Spain and France. It is a rugged, yet beautiful land; most of the buildings are very old. While there are some modern devices displayed in the pictures, the majority could have been taken decades ago and some perhaps over a century ago. People are meeting over drinks, coffee and traditional food. Some of the beautiful pictures of the villages in the valleys could have been taken at the turn of the century.
   When people appear in the photo, one thing is clear. The Basques are a very proud people, they have lived on and worked their land for centuries and will continue to do so. Rugged mountains and terrain breeds rugged, hardy people and that certainly describes the Basques. No small set of photographs with associated explanations in a book can truly describe any culture, especially one this old. However, it can both literally and figuratively give you a snapshot and that is done very well in this book.

2 comments about Having The Frenchman's Baby (Harlequin Romance).

1. I don't even know where to begin to tell you how much of a waste of time this book is, so I guess I'll just start at the beginning.
   
   Rachel Valentine is a wine buyer for her family's chain of restaurants called Bella Lucia located across Britain. She is on a trip to Thann, France on behalf of her grandfather and decides to visit the wineries in the area. When she tries the white wine from Chartier et Fils, she immediately decides that it's the best she's ever tasted and that she'll have to order a large quantity for the restaurants. She doesn't count on falling for the master vintner, Lucien Chartier, and becoming so swept away that she winds up losing her virginity to him. When she finds out from Luc's mother that he's been keeping secrets from her, she doesn't confront him about them. Of course not. Instead, she runs away like a 30-year-old child and foolishly assumes that what everyone else says is true.
   
   Basically the big secret is that Luc's ex-wife is still in a coma on life support at a hospital nearby (that gives nothing away since you know as much when the story is told from Luc's point of view). Luc has been fighting his former wife's family to keep her alive on life support in the hopes that one day she'll wake up. Rachel, jumping to conclusions, takes this as evidence that he must still be madly in love with her and unable to let her go. Perish the thought that he just doesn't want to see someone he once loved die. Of course he's still obsessed with his ex-wife even as he's making love to you. Because that's what children would believe and Rachel is nothing but a child.
   
   First of all, it's completely ridiculous to assume that in this day and age this women who has been dating for more than half her life would still be a virgin, but okay. I'll run with it. It's even more ridiculous to have her fall in love with the first man she gives it up to just because she likes the taste of his wine, but fine. I'll allow that one as well. What I won't allow is how these two are so completely in love after 180 pages when they barely had more than 30 pages of dialogue and know pretty much nothing about each others' interests, backgrounds, and family. It's too much to ask for me to suspend disbelief even if it is Harlequin. I remember back when Harlequin was good, cheap romance that would still have a good plot and a nice story to tell.
   
   Wrong. Don't pick this one up. Save yourself the time, because I really wish I could somehow get mine back.



2. It's been a long time since I read a romance where a man's love was so strong and powerful, I wished I could step inside the pages with him. There are so many moving scenes that penetrated the very depth of my soul, and that doesn't happen very often. This book truly touched feelings I didn't know were inside me. I don't want to give away the plot, but you must read this one. It's unique.
   Jeanne D'Arc