No comments about Lonely Planet India (Spanish) 1 (Lonely Planet India).

3 comments about Amazing Math Puzzles.

1. This book is full of cool math puzzles that you canlearnandamaze your friends!



2. I recently purchased this book for my children in third and fourth grade and I am glad that I did. The puzzles really challenge them, although some are a bit more than they can handle. While the solutions are given in the book, they are not allowed to look at them until I am completely convinced that they will not get the answer. However, I do give them plenty of clues before that option is exercised.
   Some of the problems are classics, for example selecting socks until you have a matching pair and drawing figures without lifting a pencil are problems that I did in grade school many years ago. My favorite problem in this book is the one that is illustrative of the growth of powers. It involves a million sugar cubes each a half inch in width. Making a cube out of them would create a cube approximately four feet wide, a rectangle would cover a tennis court but a stack would be higher than Everest. Since the first involves the cube root of a million and the second the square root, this demonstrates the significance of squares and cubes in a unique and educational way.
   This book is an excellent source of mathematical puzzles for students at the level of fourth or fifth grade. While none of them is really new, they are well-suited for children of that age and all three of mine enjoy them greatly, although they do get frustrated.
   



3. This book is upto my expecations. There are very good math puzzles, both educational and entertaining.

No comments about Langtang, Gosainkund and Helambu (Cicerone Guide).

5 comments about Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel (In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel).

1. First, before starting this book, I recommend that you take a look at the author�s two page guide to pronunciation, to better understand the Hebrew, Mizo, Thado, and Burmese words in the text. Halkin, a well known translator of Hebrew books, posits that a little-known ethnic group living along the Indian-Burmese border is descended from the ancient Jewish tribe of Manasseh. The fate of the ten lost tribes of Israel has haunted Jewish and Christian imaginations throughout the ages. Hillel Halkin has long been intrigued by the subject. And why not? Many American Jews of a certain age dreamed of an aboriginal, strong, warrior Jew, the type who could win fistfights on the way to and from junior high school. And so, Halkin embarked on a journey. In 1998, he accompanied a Jerusalem rabbi and dedicated lost-tribes hunter to China, Thailand, and northeast India, where the rabbi hoped to discover traces of the lost tribes. Halkin went with a very healthy dose of skepticism. Most look at Rabbi Avichail as a well meaning crackpot. Whatever the Rabbi is, he makes for an interesting story, having traveled to Marranos in Portugal, Karens in Burma, Tatars in Dagestan, Kananites in Kerala, and �Indians� in Manipur and Mizoram. The book captures your interest from its first paragraph. The Sabbath is approaching as Halkin and the rabbi are searching out the non-Chinese Chiang�s in Western Szechuan. Then the police arrive at their hotel. You�ll have to read the book to find out what happens. After a variety of adventures and misadventures, Halkin returned several times to the Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram, where 5000 people belive they are a lost tribe of Hebrews. Are these people the victims of a mass cultural delusion, having accepted a myth to promote and reinforce their distinct cultural identity? Or are the actually descendants of some Bnai Menashe? Are these Kuki-Chin-Mizo people, living along the Indian-Burmese border, descended from the ancient biblical tribe of Manasseh. Halkin isn�t a scholar, linguist, or ethnographer, but neither am I, and the story is still fascinating. Why do they have a song about crossing the Red Sea while living in Northeast India, a song they have sung prior to any missionaries showing up and one that contains ancient words? Why do they have a god named Yah(za), a history of brit milah circumcision on the eighth day after birth, a mourning period of 7 days, a Spring festival of unleavened bread (among rice eaters), and the use of the word �selah.� There are some who broke away and even started a competing shul (if that�s not Jewish, what is?) Whatever you decide, the book is an exciting, mysterious and enlightening read. Sign me up for a Bnai Menashe kippah?



2. Hillel Harkin's study of the fabled 10 lost tribes of Israel succeeds because he is not an anthropologist or biblical scholar. Indeed, if one is looking for an in depth study of the lost tribes and their hypothetical present locations, this probably is not the best place to go. However, if you are looking for a story rooted in history, told by a world traveler who writes sweeping narratives and locale descriptions, than this is your best bet.

   The story of the lost tribes is a fascinating one. It is so interesting that thousands of anthropologists and explorers have spent their whole life looking for this group of ancient Jews. The story is as mysterious as it is educational. In the 8th century BC, the Assyrians conquered northern Israel. The ten tribes of Jews that inhabited the area were mostly uprooted and moved, east, to the vast areas of the Assyrian Empire. After that, no one is sure where they ended up. It would be a good guess that wherever they settled, they were assimilated into the native culture, but influenced the natives greatly, possibly with their monotheist religion. This may seem to many as a curious historical footnote, but to some in the Jewish religion, it is one of the most important factors in the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The location and return of the 10 northern tribes is an integral part of Jewish tradition, even if many have cast it off as a relic of the past.

   Harkin story follows the travels of one Rabbi Avichail, an eccentric but dedicated Jewish scholar. Avichail firmly believes that the tribes and their culture can still be found, in former Assyrian areas such as India, Central Asia, and China. Now, just years ago, this was deemed almost absurd. However, with recent technological and genetic discoveries, the lineage of some of these groups is no longer hypothetical. Roman genes in China and Greek genes in Afghanistan have been discovered, pointing to ancient connections. Avichail believes that he can find these groups, and return them to the promise land. Harkin is skeptical at first, mainly because the often shaky evidence Avichail provides, and the fruitless tribe search in southern China. However, he, and the reader, soon become fascinated by the Mizo people of northeastern India. They passionately claim lineage to the Manasseh, one of the lost tribes. They share some intriguing similarities, such as one God known as Ya (Yahweh), an old song of the Red Sea, and ritual circumcision. The Mizo are constantly split from within, as Christianity and cultural strife strain the relationship between them and their old ways. Avichail and his party, including Harkin, are quickly wrapped up into this intriguing cultural and religious situation.

   The book benefits from Harkins insightful eye, which look into almost every facet of Avichail, the Mizo, and their claims. The sweeping descriptions of the areas the party visits and the surrounding political situations are vivid and entertaining. It is a remarkable hybrid of a travel, history, and religious narrative that synthesizes very well.

   A fascinating read.




3. "Sabbath River" is well researched and well written, but it suffers from the absence of graphics: maps, timelines, and tables. Halkin would better serve his 21st century audience with visuals. Call me intellectually lazy, but I would have been fully on-board this "great adventure" had the author used graphics. As it was, I read the first half and thumbed through the latter half-unable to trudge through the details that could have been fleshed-out graphically. For example, in the final chapters much is made of various obscure texts, but these are never put into perspective on a graphic that shows their temporal and spatial context. In another case, the author cites a "lost," then "found" will of questionable provenance. I wanted to see the picture of the will-a picture of the will with arrows pointing to all its questionable features. This books is attractive to the curious, but it suffers from an insufficient number of graphics.



4. This is an enormously enjoyable book that is both educational and thrilling. In 1999, Israeli journalist Hillel Halkin accompanied the eccentric Rabbi Avichail to Mizoram (in Northeast India near the Burma border) in order to investigate whether the Mizo people who lived there were indeed the descendants of one of the "Lost Tribes of Israel." Halkin is skeptical and constantly has to challenge Rabbi Avichail's fanatic true-believer mindset. Then Halkin's own investigative methods begin to reveal surprising things. This is a fascinating scientific mystery. Halkin entertainingly gives a clear history of the lost tribes as well as the many theories about what happened to them that have been posited by others over the centuries (including the once popular notion that the Lost Tribes wound up in North America, in which belief the Mormon Church is rooted). The Mizo people believe that they are Jews and want to get back to their true roots. They also want to immigrate to Israel for a better life. As a result they throw themselves into the study of Judaism with the zeal of Holy Rollers at a revival meeting. Rival synagogues are founded that try to incorporate Jesus into Jewish teaching. Rabbi Avichail has his hands full when he tries to explain to them that they cannot do that. The Mizo people had thrown off their indigenous religion in favor of Fundamentalist Christianity at the beginning of the 20th Century. There are very few people among them who remember anything about the former religion. Halkin tries to find out what, if anything, their former religion had in common with Judaism. His efforts are hampered, Halkin realizes, by his third-rate con man translator, who is not above creating phony evidence and altering existing evidence. His investigations hit mostly dead ends until several tantalizing clues and his non-academic approach seemingly solve the mystery in which there were next to no clues. Journalist, linguist and scientist, Halkin is a brilliant man who has written a brilliant book. I found ACROSS THE SABBATH RIVER a very satisfying reading experience. Highly recommended. Five Stars.



5. Hillel Halkin has done a marvelous job of consolidating the knowledge of a lost people and weeded out myth, superstition and misplaced information.
   
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   DON'T READ PAST HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO FIND OUT THE CONCLUSIONS THAT HALKIN CAME TO IN THE END.
   
   On a trip to NorthEast India, Halkin was bit by the "Lost Tribe" bug that has had Jews looking all over the world for the northern tribes of Israel who were exiled by Assyrian Empire in the 7th century b.c.e. Where did they go? Based on this study by Hillel, part of the tribe of Manasseh migrated across central asia, past Tibet and into the Burma/India border area.
   
   He studied the stories told by " the old people " who predated the Kuki-Mizo-Chin migration into the Mizoram/Assam area of northeast India. Once the area was under British protectorship in the late nineteenth century, many of the stories/storytellers were lost because of the proselytizing of Christian missionaries. The missionaries did their best to destroy the old religion, and force people not to teach it or the language of the priesthood to the next generation.
   
   Luckily, Hillel was able to find one man, who himself was quite elderly, who had spent forty years, collecting and documenting the old stories and religious rites. What he was able to prove in the end was that included in the old stories were parts of stories from the Old Testament that had been passed down in families prior to the OT being translated into the indigenous language or taught by the missionaries (many who considered the OT to be too Hebraic and not 'christian' oriented).
   
   Though these families had 'israelite' traditions, they were a hodgepodge of stories that had been enbedded with local history and myth. Halkin was able to establish the authenticity of the stories. But, it need study by Forensic Anthropologists to prove how much of the story was OT and how much was passed on from another (members of a lost tribe?) people.

No comments about The Tropics And the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape, And Science, 1800-1856 (Culture, Place, and Nature).

No comments about Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures of Travel (Post-Contemporary Interventions).

1 comments about India: Then And Now.

1. This is a beautiful book. Half filled with historical pictures, the other filled with current photographs, it is both a coffee-table picture book and an interesting historical review.
   
   Recommended.

2 comments about Trekking and Climbing in the Indian Himalaya (Trekking & Climbing Guides).

1. This book is a superb guide to anyone planning treks/climbing in the indian himalayas.The layout is elegant ,cartography and maps are precise especially the strip maps .The details are what a trekker would normally want to know ,which enhances the value of the book manifold. So if you are a mountain lover and want to explore the Indian Himalayas get hold of this book.For others who are arm chair travellers ,you'll feel you are amidst the himalayas .



2. This is a good book containing details of 25 treks and some climbing in Indian Himalaya. Contains precise details - with beautiful photographs - of treks. List most of the books the treks mentioned here are of popular type - though definitely good enough for a beginner. Some tips about mountain photography, preserving ecology, good amount of info for foreign(though not as good as lonely planet) nationals. The reason why I bought the book was for photographs and it was worth it!

5 comments about Chasing the Mountain of Light: Across India on the Trail of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond.

1. Simply, beautifully written, takes you THERE...I've been to India, many of those places he's written about, and he recreates them on the page like a stereographic synaesthetic pop-up from the page. Made me laugh really hard, too, unexpectedly. Full of sights, sounds, history-in-living color, intrigue and mystery. An ideal read for armchair backpackers and yogis, and for anyone without an armchair, for that matter.



2. Rushby follows the legend(s) of the Koh-i-Noor diamond (the title's "Mountain of Light") as well as the history of Indian and Middle Eastern gem trading in this entertaining book. Like all good travel books, a unifying theme, once found, is seldom respected slavishly, so someone expecting a diligent history of the diamond itself and its travels would be better served by the Encyclopedia Brittanica. For others who wish to see an unusual side of the Indian subcontinent and its history, Rushby's an affable and able guide.



3. Kevin Rushby's trek across India in search of the legendary diamond, the "Koh-I-Noor" (mountain of light)is much more than a history of this fabled and "cursed" stone from the Golconda mine. Rushby's journey takes the reader through many small villages, many of them long abandoned after British rule.

   Rushby's days in Gujarat state are the most interesting. There, he meets an old gentleman who lives in a large but very lonely estate home. They speak of the old days when the gentleman's estate was full of people, servants and animals. Now, his days are spent on the rooftop terrace taking tea in the afternoon and reminiscing about his past. A sense of melancholy and lost time is felt throughout all the varied characters' lives Rushby comes to know so well.

   The story of the diamond trade and the wars fought over their inherent riches is only a small part of the book. The stories of the Indian people Rushby meets make this a great read for those of us who have not yet seen India. Time for me to book passage!




4. Read this book in 2 days...beautifully written. Rushby keeps the reader engaged and provides the most intresting descriptions of places, sounds and smells as he journey's across India. Inspires you to follow the route!

   For those studing Duleep Singh or the Panjab, this a must have for your collection.




5. _Chasing the Mountain of Light_ by Kevin Rushby is an interesting and sometimes humorous travelogue about India, ostensibly about the author's efforts to track the origins and history of the Koh-i-Noor or Mountain of Light, one of the most famous diamonds in the world, from its origins in the mines of Golconda in southern India to centuries later and its presumably final resting place in the Tower of London. Though the diamond's history and lore was indeed chronicled, the book was really the story of one traveler's adventures and encounters throughout India. Journeying from Madras on the Coromandel Coast in southern India all the way north to Amritsar in the Punjab, near the Pakistani border, Rushby undertook an epic quest to find the origins of this stone and to relate its bloody history. He had to contend with reluctant, unfriendly, tight-lipped officials, shady sellers of black market diamonds in dangerous back alleys, eccentric but knowledgeable experts on diamond lore and Indian history, and thieves, alerted to Rushby's inquires about diamonds, thinking him not a writer but a man who actually possessed large quantities of these gems on his person.
   
   The diamond known as Koh-i-Noor was believed by many devout Hindus to actually be mythic in origin, to be a stone that was once called the Syamantaka, a gem which the Hindu sun god Surya gave as reward to a worshipper. Later the god Krishna was accused by the people of stealing the gem and fought terrible battles to return the diamond back to humanity. The stone was owned by the Mughals for generations, beginning with the first Mughal emperor Babur in the 1520s, though many scholars dispute the notion that the Syamantaka and a magnificent stone known simply as "Babur's diamond" are the one and the same. The Persian invader Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739, leaving the Mughals as vassals but along with many other treasures took the great diamond with him, giving it the name Koh-i-Noor (which means Mountain of Light). After Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1747 the Koh-i-Noor was taken by Ahmad Khan Abdali to Afghanistan. The last member of the Durrani dynasty (which was founded by Ahmad Khan Abdali), a ruler by the name of Shah Shuja, went into exile, the gem then taken by Ranjit Singh in 1813 (a man who founded a Sikh kingdom in the Punjab in 1799). During one of the Anglo-Sikh wars the Koh-i-Noor was captured by the British, who took the diamond to Queen Victoria, who in turn had the 186 carat diamond re-cut to improve its brilliance, bringing the stone down to a 108 carats (though strangely enough improving the diamond's allure, as the number 108 is a very auspicious number in India).
   
   Many in India believe the stone is cursed and that the stone can only be given freely to another person by its owner or be won rightfully in battle; horrible things will result when the stone is bought, sold, or stolen. Further, they also believe that the stone will produce good fortune for good people but very bad things for the wicked.
   
   Like many other great Indian diamonds, the Koh-i-Noor was always searching for a new master, "leaving behind the failed and the dead." Claimed by India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, the Sikhs in particular are keen to retrieve it as a symbol of Sikh nationalism (though they insist that like their famed Golden Temple, it would be the property of all Indians). Given its history and the immense prestige that would be gained by any in the subcontinent or the region who came into possession of the stone, Rushby wondered if the diamond was not best left in the Tower of London.
   
   As fascinating as the Koh-i-Noor was, its history fills a fairly modest part of the book. More interesting perhaps was the numerous encounters Rushby had. He toured Fort St. George in Madras, the largest building left in the world constructed by the East India Company; never a favored post by Englishman, many sent there never returned, often committing suicide or drinking themselves to death. Also in Madras the author visited an Armenian church and met a Mr. Gregory, the last remaining Armenian, sole representative of a once thriving Armenian trading community. Rushby met with astrogemologists, men who believed that they could control fate by the proper manipulation of gemstones. Religious encounters as one might imagine definitely occurred, as Rushby met with Zoroastrians who had fled from Aden, Yemen after the British left, observed a Sikh worship ceremony in the Golden Temple, and met a number of Jainists, going on a Jain pilgrimage and encountering members of both sects of the religion, both the Digambaras or "sky-clads," who believe that it is most holy to be without clothing, and the Svetambaras or "white-clads," who believe that nudity is not possible in an imperfect world. Rushby visited Alaung, the world's largest ship breaking yard, where tens of thousands of unskilled laborers work on an oil-soaked beach to destroy 50,000 tonne tankers with practically their bare hands. One of my favorite parts was his visit to Bilkha, once a tiny state that was only 7 miles wide and 10 miles long. Rushby met with the last descendents of its raja, a man with memories of a garage of Rolls-Royces, a stable of fine race horses and elephants, and lion-hunting expeditions, now a friendly and affable man sought by the locals for kindly advice, with only a single servant that he treats like a son, a man who took pleasure in personally fixing his own jeep and in participating in studies of the lions of the Gir Forest, no longer seeking them as trophies but working hard to conserve them for the future.
   
   A good book, at the back of the book there was a helpful chronology of the diamond and a bibliography. Though there were two maps some of the places he visited were not noted on them.

5 comments about Nanda Devi: The Tragic Expedition.

1. Wow. My first reaction on reading this book was amazement as to how dysfunctional this team was due to the fractured leadership style. The inability of the strongest climbers to agree on strategy and work loads contributed to the team's overall slowness on the climb. Yet they still managed to put people on top of the mountain. Other climbing expedition books often make allusions to similar types of disagreements on strategy and plan but this one really lays it all out in front of you.

   My second reaction was that there are surely two or more sides to any story -- this version of the climb was surely colored by Roskelley's own self-acknowledged aggressive personality and his bias/perceptions of what his team members were thinking at each step of the way. The second afterword from Roskelley describes a bit more of other team members' own reactions.

   The story was compelling but I left one star off the review because the writing style was somewhat wooden. Plus, I wanted to hear more about the climb from someone other than Roskelley to get a different perspective.




2. Between the fragmented leadership, conflicting agenda's of the climbers and general lack of cooperation between various members of the expedition it's a small wonder that more people weren't seriously injured or killed. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. The suspense that John Roskelly creates is fantastic. With so many possible things that could go wrong...



3. I have read a number of mountain climbing books over the past few months, and this was the least enjoyable of the bunch. The problem is both the subject matter and the writing style. The expedition itself seemed like a mess--two leaders, one of whom lost interest half-way through and left the country, the other of whom didn't seem to notice or care that his lovely college-age (I think) daughter was dangerously ill. A team that had widely different ideas about what the goals of the expedition were and who never overcame those differences in philosophy and skill-level. And a climb scheduled at the wrong time of the year to accomodate the teaching schedule of the leader who left half-way through. It's surprising that Roskelley and two other members got to the top of the mountain, but by the time they did, I couldn't even take any joy in their accomplishment.
   
   The other problem, and perhaps the more serious as far as the worth of this as a book, is that it is Roskelley's first book and it shows. It is apparent much of the time that his narration is barely edited diary entries. The narrative doesn't have the flow and the perspective that fully-fleshed-out story-telling requires. Many of his sentences are short and wooden; for example: "The weather was bad." There is little attempt to make the technical aspects of the climb comprehensible to non-climbers.
   
   All in all, the book left me feeling depressed. Many mountain-climbing books have a tragic tale to tell, of human error and over-powering difficulties, and yet something of the human spirit, of the struggle to overcome, shine through. But perhaps as a result of the personality of John Roskelley, this story just seemed pitiful and sad.



4. John Roskelley's "Nanda Devi: The Tragic Expedition" is a brutally honest narrative of the 1976 American-Indian climb of 25,000 foot Nanda Devi in Northwest India. The expedition never came together as a cohesive group, leading to endless arguments en route to and on the mountain, and perhaps contributing to the death of Nanda Devi Unsoeld, daughter of expedition co-leader Willi Unsoeld and named for the mountain itself.
   
   Roskelley's description of the effort to bring a team together, gather the necessary equipment, and move it to Base Camp in India contains the early signs of trouble. The expedition co-leaders seemed unwilling to assert themselves. Perhaps worse, the expedition members did not share a common climbing philosophy. Team "A", of which Roskelley was a founding member, was focused on summitting the mountain. Team "B" seems to have entertained the notion that the trip was the adventure, with reaching the summit a seemingly secondary objective. Whatever the merits of the respective approaches, they were incompatible in the same expedition and left Team B less mentally prepared for the horrendous challenges of the actual climb.
   
   Roskelley's description of the approach march into the remote valley at the base of Nanda Devi is fascinating. The actual climb makes for exciting reading; the expedition worked under marginal weather conditions on an untried and extremely dangerous route up the Northwest Ridge of Nanda Devi. Team A repeatedly pushes the pace, alternately bullying and shaming Team B to participate in placing camps higher on the mountain. Several climbers suffer from illness and crises of confidence. One sick climber is evacuated; another quits. In retrospect, Team B's misgivings about the route were well-taken; Roskelley describes a series of hair-raising pitches over difficult rock in poor weather and under constant threat of avalanche. Only some superb mountaineering overcomes the challenges and places three men on top. A second summit team which included Devi Unsoeld moved to the top camp but turned back when Devi sickened and died at the 24,000 foot level.
   
   Roskelley's candid commentary appears to have been adapted from his diary entries and letters; the story is told day by day, without undue foreshadowing of the outcome.
   
   Leadership challenges should not have been unexpected given the fierce will, competitiveness and self-confidence required to climb at high altitude. The failure to pick a more balanced team might have been the first failure of leadership. The reluctance by the expedition leaders to impose organization led to a second major failure: rolling chaos in the creation and supply of the various camps and in constant bickering over assignments. In retrospect, the lack of leadership created a third failure: a situation in which an unwell and unacclimatized Devi Unsoeld was allowed to proceed on a summit attempt against the expressed better judgement of the expedition doctor and several more experienced climbers.
   
   Roskelley's multiple epilogues underline the hard feelings that followed the expedition. Death at altitude is a common hazard of the sport; unnecessary death made all the bickering less forgiveable. Although not within the scope of this book, an account by a member of Team "B" would be of interest in providing "the rest of the story."
   
   This book is highly recommended to those interested in high altitude mountaineering and to those interested in some lessons in leadership.



5. As an avid reader of mountain books, this is one of the better ones. The story of the ascent of Nanda Devi and the unfolding tragedy is a compelling one. That being said, I have read other accounts of this expedition, and of other expeditions that included John Roskelly, and it is obvious that the author has very much climbing skill and very little emotional intelligence. This version is self-serving, and it is doubtful that it represents anything other than his perspective. One thing that is glaringly obvious- Roskelly's complete lack of respect for the Unsoeld family and their values, his distain for women (except the kind he can control), and his lack of interest in anything other than the summit.Who knows what effect this had on the expedition's outcome? I sincerely hope he has grown up by now.