5 comments about Escape to Murray River (Adventures Down Under #1).

1. This book starts getting exciting in the FIRST chapter! Patrick's father, John McWaid, is convicted of somthing he didn't do and is getting sent on a prison ship to Australia. The rest of the McWaids follow only to get in deep trouble when they find out that the man that wants John McWaid dead, Conrad Burke, followed them TOO!!

   This series, Adventures Down Under, is full of adventure.




2. Jessica 4/10/00 This book is really awesome. If you like adventure,you should read this book. It`s filled with excitment, suspence,and a little romance. Robert Elmer puts very good details in his stories. Patrick, the main charecter is seperated from his family. Along with his new friend Jefferson. Patrick struggles to find his sister Becky ,his brother Micheal,his mother Sarah McWiad,and his father John McWaid, who was sent from Dublin to Australia. John McWaid was framed for being a Fenian in a bribe scandle, by Mr. Burke and head of chief police. Now Patrick tries to find his parents. So hold on to your seats and enjoy the ride with Patrick and everyone else.



3. We think Escape to Murray River is a great book for almost all kids. It makes you want to read more and more,you never want to stop reading once you start. It really makes you think that this is really happening to you. We think you will really like this/these books.



4. I recommend the book Escape to Murray River to any one wholikes adventure.The book Escape to Murray River is foll ofsurprise.The only character I did not like was mr.Burke.I did not like mr. Burke because he framed Patricks father and said that he would help him in court.



5. I Really liked the Escape to Murray River book. I liked it because I love to read.It was fun to read because it is mysterious.

4 comments about Emerald Greens: The Essential Guide to Golf Vacations in Ireland.

1. I purchased Emerald Greens to help me plan a golf vacation to Ireland. I was disappointed in that the book was not helpful at all. The author focuses on the obscure courses and ignores any well known venues. I'm not a total golf snob who only plays the premier courses, but if I am going to go all the way to Ireland to play golf I want to play some of the historic courses. If you have unlimited time and a limited budget this book would be helpful in finding courses to play. For my money Golfing in Ireland by Armstrong was much more useful.



2. I am sorry the reader from Los Altos was disappointed with "Emerald Greens" but I set out to write a book that featured terrific golf courses that are not on the package tour route and that can be played for less than £50 sterling. It was also intended for the non-golfing companions of golfers and for golfers who like to discover something of the country in which they are playing and who take time to "smell the flowers." That's why I describe castles and gardens and scenic drives and tell you the names of the mountains you can see while you're playing or just driving between courses. The famous links at Ballybunion, Lahinch, Royal Portrush and Portmarnock can't be played for less than £50 at any time of the year. Neither can famous parkland courses like the K Club and Druid's Glen. However, Royal County Down (rated 3rd in the British Isles) Waterville, Baltray (a real conoisseur's course and a favourite of professional golfers)The European Club ARE included in the book and can all be played at bargain rates. Moreover, Ballybunion languished in obscurity until discovered and publicised by Tom Watson. Those who read about the courses in "Emerald Greens" will discover courses that rank with the best and that aren't overrun with visitors. I love Ballybunion, but I feel like I'm playing on a conveyor belt. Play - for example - Tulfarris in County Wicklow, Baltray in County Louth, Portstewart in County Derry, Carne, Enniscrone in Counties Sligo and Mayo (there are too many fine courses to mention)and see if you agree with me. They are all described in the book. Read the book - divided into 14 holiday areas - contact the tourist office in any area you fancy. They are all very scenic. The addresses and telephone numbers are supplied for each area. Be adventurous. Book your own car and accomodation. Each of the areas described could be covered in a week or even a weekend. Could I suggest flying to Belfast, taking the short 35 minute car journey to Royal County Down - one of the greatest links in the world - playing it and two other terrific links courses, each within 30 minutes drive of Royal County Down and seeing something of the beatiful countryside (described in the book) as well? I don't think you'll be disappointed. At least I hope not!



3. It is not often that you pick up a book about golf courses and find it hard to put down. This inspirational book is well researched both in terms of the Golf courses and the local history, geography etc, but it's strength lies in the author's ability to convey her own evident passion for the subject by weaving these strands together to give an evocative picture of the places and give you a feel for the rich culture and history. I am a keen 10 handicap golfer and have visited Ireland many times over a number of years, this book really captures the charm of playing golf in Ireland. This will be the second thing I pack on my next trip - after the golf clubs of course.



4. ..."The Emerald Greens" is the perfect book for my needs. Her comments about playing golf on a conveyor belt really struck home-all of the sudden I wanted to avoid Ballybunion! In large part, the book met my needs and I used it to help me select the courses I wanted to play. So, put that in your hat if you're planning a trip. The book definitely has value in that it nicely combines local attractions beyond golf.

   But I also have a number of complaints about the book. First, it's a travel book and I just couldn't ignore the stunning lack of pictures-especially of the courses. I'd rather look at 3 or 4 representative pictures of each course than wade through mind-numbing text about how water affects your tee-shot on the 4th hole. I also would have appreciated some kind of course rating system (3 stars or whatever) based on the author's judgment as to how tough a given course is, how scenic and so on. Or, perhaps, some authoritative, judgment statements about a given course as opposed to letting me develop a theory about it based on a page of text.

   It's clear to me that the author has firm grasp on both the game of golf and what Ireland has to offer-but there may be better books out there. I hate being negative here because it was a well written and informative book, it just did not present the courses in a way I would have appreciated...

5 comments about The Tomb in Seville.

1. With several trips through Spain and Portugal in the 1990's behind me, I found this 150-page book just the right piece for turning the clock back seventy years. The previous reviewer has done a great job of summarizing the book. The two young men certainly encountered risks and took their chances in Spain as the sporadic actions of the terrible Civil War were beginning. I am most grateful to Norman Lewis for sharing his experiences with readers.



2. "The Tomb in Seville," is a real literary treat. Norman Lewis has the precise eye, the kind that reminds you of Hemingway's very effective "In Our Time" vignettes. Like Hemingway, Lewis couples finely drawn (and pregnant) images and events to a clear and understated prose. Such a combination recalls the best efforts of Rebecca West, Graham Greene and, going back, Turgenyev. To some extent I found "The Tomb in Seville" superior to Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia," though the comparison is somewhat uneven. I think, looking back, we now view Orwell's effort as part of his indictment of Communism. Lewis' effort, which precedes the events of Orwell's book, is more limited in scope (and better written).
   
   Mention is made here of this being Lewis' final book. Perhaps so, but in the Introduction mention is made of an earlier Spanish effort. Considering the slightness of the book, I tend this think "Seville" is more or less notes and outtakes of that previous effort. If so, these are quality notes and outtakes, and further testament of a fine writer.



3. A good way to be exposed to the work of the now deceased Norman Lewis. While I question if the vivid quotes and descriptions could have been so readily and clearly called to mind by the author, even if aided by contemporaneous notes, over sixty years after the events, it is wonderful writing.
   
   "...we had come to the end of Portugal. Its colour, its mystery and its splendid wilderness were no more. Forests had become managed woodlands, rivers were bridged, villages were encircled by cabbage patches and advertisements for coffee were stenciled on walls."



4. There's no agenda in this book, but the observations are so keen and the prose is so clear that you will find yourself connecting the episodes with themes of your own. The author's character is non-existant and you can substitute yourself easily enough. Never boring, I easily could have read a hundred pages more.



5. For his last book, written in his mid-eighties, Norman Lewis recounts experiences from a trip he took sixty years earlier with his brother-in-law to Spain, ostensibly to search for information on his in-laws' family history in Seville. As things happened, the trip occurred in late 1934, in the midst of civil unrest that was one of the precursors of the Spanish Civil War that broke out in full force less than two years later. Lewis was present during the five-day "Battle of Madrid" and was forced to crawl across streets while gunfire whistled overhead.
   
   To me, the more interesting incidents are not those relating to political turmoil but rather to everyday life in the Iberian peninsula (his trip also took him through Portugal) -- such things as a daily promenade in a public garden of wet nurses clutching their infant charges to their bosoms, women queuing up at a slaughterhouse to drink fresh blood from the severed veins of animals for a boost of vitality, and the communal burning of a young woman thought to be possessed by an evil spirit. And there are numerous vivid verbal snapshots, such as the one of the Portuguese village of Villa Real de Santo Antonio: "Despite the grandiose name it appeared more as an untidy village with dogs disputing the rubbish in its streets, and most of the inhabitants looked like criminal suspects temporarily free while awaiting imprisonment in chains or deportation."
   
   But in the end THE TOMB IN SEVILLE is on the thin side, both too short and too impressionistic (not so surprising after sixty years). It does not measure up to "Voices of the Old Sea", the only other book by Norman Lewis I have read. While THE TOMB IN SEVILLE is worth reading, no one need regret not getting around to it.

1 comments about Rail Map Britain & Ireland, 5th (Thomas Cook Rail Map).

1. This map is missing a few things. For example, I have no idea how long any route will take. There are some express lines in bold, and some local lines in thin print. But there's no chart to let you know how long the various journeys or point-to-point might take. I'm used to the time charts in the Triple A guide books. While you can get detailed train information on the national rail website, you can't sit down in January and find out the timetable for August. Surely after 150 years of rail, people know if a train should arrive in an hour or five.
   The map needs an index of stations.
   The colors of the various lines are hard to differentiate.
   You can't tell if a Britrail pass covers the routes or not.
   The paper is the worst. The seams rip after about three foldings, yet it is too stiff to refold to a convenient section.

No comments about In Search of Ireland's Holy Wells.

No comments about Ireland.

2 comments about Time Out Dublin (Time Out Guides).

1. This Dublin Guide is small enough to pack in your camera bag, and you won't be sorry you did. Combine it with downloads (or printouts if you favor the arcane) and you'll have a grand time in this lovely city and see all you want to see. Do pay attention to the insights about genuine, truly enjoyable pubs v. stereotypic ones pandering to tourists. Note that the few apologetic overtones are by now quite dated: fine cuisine and first rate accomodation can readily be found in the city. And one doesn't go to Dublin for the weather!



2. This guide was the one I referred to the most on a recent trip to Dublin and I found the recommendations and descriptions of restaurants and Pubs accurate and useful. It led me to a couple of out of the way places I might otherwise have overlooked that were really fun and added a lot to my experience while there.
   
   Another plus is the book is small enough to slip in a jacket pocket so it's not a pain to carry around while doing a Pub crawl.

No comments about Wexford: A Town and its Landscape (Irish Rural Landscape Series).

5 comments about The Traveller's Guide to Sacred Ireland: A Guide to the Sacred Places of Ireland, Her Legends, Folklore and People.

1. Meehan does a wonderful job of documenting and suggesting sites to visit. The ones we visited (that we could find) were great! However, the sites which aren't 'signed' (ie. listed as having signs pointing to it from the main road) are diffcult to find. Even some of the sites that are 'signed' aren't signed well, or consistently. Sometimes you'll have to guess at a cross roads, and if you don't get to the site, you'll have to backtrack and take the other. The problem we had most often is that the directions say to take a dirt road for about 1/2 mile (bring your metric conversion charts since they use kilometers in Ireland) and walk across a pasture at a cow gate. Sounds like an easy thing, until you get to Ireland and realize there are 25 cow gates on that particular road. We also found an error on a road number, which would have put us at least 30 miles in the wrong direction.
   My suggestion--get this book! It really is a great one to have to plan your visit. But also get an Ordinance map, and plan on asking directions once you get to the nearest village. In addition to getting correct and more detailed directions, you may also be told about other sites not mentioned in the book! Some of the coolest places we went were suggested to us by locals!



2. This is an excellent long overdue guide to sacred sites in Ireland. Background information is very accurate and coherent.It's much more than a guide book, as it includes history , myth and some archaeological information, as well as personal reflections on the "vibes" from different spots. Fascinating reading for anyone who has even a remote interest in Irish culture.Well worth the money. Look forward to more books by the same author.



3. I was driving in rural Ireland in late September 2003 and was very interested in locating sites sacred to pre-Christian people. The Insight Guide to Ireland had a few mentions of sites of interest. However, to my luck that I discovered this book (the last copy) in a small bookstore in Westport, County Mayo.

   What a find! The book was *exactly* what I was looking for, and was most fortunate that I discovered it early on, as I was going to spend at least one more week in the country.

   The author's attention to historical detail as well as her fine directions to finding the sites are most noteworthy. What I also liked was her bias-free and academic approach to the subject. Christians, as well as Pagans like myself, will find the book a treasure trove of information. Other reviewers have extolled the book's other virtues, so I will go no further, except to say--if you're interested in Ireland's prehistory, folklore and legends, this book is a must have. [I paid thirty Euros (approximately $35) and Amazon sells it for half that price! But I would pay 35 Euros again if I had to--it's THAT good.]

   I hope you will be as fortunate as I was to be actually in a car with this excellent reference in your lap, deciding which of the many holy wells, towers, stone circles, castles, cairns, fairy trees, fairy mounds, and other places that you'll visit next!




4. I'm planning my third trip to Ireland this October. In the past I have bought two other guide books to help me see the sights. They were okay but missed many of the old "pagan" prechristian sights of intrest. This book takes you the the Hill of Tara and Hill of Uisneach for the druidic fires of Beltane and Samhain. It tells you about the history of Ireland and her people from the stone age till the last century. And takes you to many,many, standing stones and sared sites allover Ireland. If you follow the druid path or have a deep intrest in ancient Ireland this is your tour book.



5. This book is humongous and very heavy (even in its paperback format). The photos are in black and white, which was disappointing, and there's no mention of the sites in the biggest cities because that stuff is apparently common knowledge (not). Overall, it's a pretty good book to help you research a trip in advance, but you will definitely need to leave it at home.

5 comments about Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans.

1. When three of the sections have these headings: Bits & Pieces, Odds & Ends, Fits & Starts, you get the idea: lots of thoughts mainly about but not always about Irish in America and in the US. Lynch writes well, perhaps too self-consciously (but you could say the same about Beckett, Joyce, McGahern, or Banville) about his place within the past & present Irish identity increasingly available to trans-Atlantic "passengers" reversing the emigration of their ancestors. The strength of this book comes from Lynch's determination to act out a point attributed to one of Brian O Nolan's many literary guises: to be Irish you need not have been born there, merely to claim allegiance.
   
   Comparisons to James Charles Roy's more acerbic accounts of restoring a "castle" in Co Galway and herding about Yanks on a tour, respectively "The Fields of Athenry" and "The Back of Beyond," provide a fine counterpoint to the themes Lynch takes on--a rejoinder in turn to the Niall Williams "back to nature" tendency to romanticize rural Irish life for second-home owners.
   
   The most fluent and unified part of Lynch's collection, apparently knocked about for a while in gestation since about 1970 and added to as life added to Lynch's accumulated experiences revolving around Ireland, mortality, and his place within both realms, the section "Death Comes for the Curate" tracks his priest relative who died early back three-quarters of a century ago in New Mexico, and from this Lynch frames a meditation examining Irish Catholicism from many angles, both in Ireland and its remnants in America. This portion of the book hit home, and worked in its concentration around a central theme.
   
   What worked less effectively was, as the opening paragraph about the chapter headings foreshadows, the scattered organization of much of Lynch's other musings. To his credit he steers clear of "The Troubles" and largely bypasses the cute anecdotes and clever pub banter that sinks many a travelogue about the oul' sod. Yet, in his putting thoughts to paper, he tends--like Montaigne whom he cites--to drift before coming back to where he started, at best. In sections about relatives, the old house he restores, poetry that mattered to his younger and present self, and the irritation aroused by travel and its delays in a post 9/11 world, he is often sharp and worthwhile to learn from.
   
   But in many of these same chapters, the control lessens and you feel as if too many undigested and unrevised ideas crowd out the better prose. The book wanders about mightily, and too much to reward a long sitting or two, although in parts it can be dipped into for a few pages with pleasure. Perhaps I need to re-read Montaigne to acclimate myself to Lynch, but the latter seems to treat the Irish concerns as ultimately as disorganized and fractious as any other Lynch may have. While true for him no doubt, this disorganization makes for less than fluid streams of consciousness on these finely wrought but rather too crammed and caroming essays that leave a reader as often stranded as enlightened. Yet, again, that chapter on Catholicism's superb!



2. Hilarious in parts, I found his diatribe on 9/11, the airport wait between flights, his "rise" to stardom etc. to be egotistical and boring. If he had stuck to Ireland, relatives there, the cottage there, his life in the States and the back and forth between the two, it would have made a better book. I loved it for the brogue and dialogue therein; reminded me of my father who spoke with a brogue imitating my grandparents from Roscommon but it does wander and that's a shame because he seems to have a niche with his close tie to Ireland that could be used again and again in more books perhaps.



3. I'd been waiting for what seemed like too long for a third book of stories from Thomas Lynch, but wondered if his Irish-based tales could possibility be as compelling as his earlier works, which were stories about life based on his career in dealing with the dead (in addition to being a writer, Lynch is an undertaker). But again, just as he used the funeral home as a backdrop for stories not about death but about life, Lynch uses Ireland, land of his ancestory and his frequent visits, as the canvas for telling poignant stories about life. Now I'll give friends copies of "Booking Passage" while i wait for a fourth book from Thomas Lynch.



4. "Booking Passage, We Irish and Americans" is a delight. Thomas Lynch's use of language is inspiring. Lynch's observations on Irish and American life in the last three decades are full of wit and insight. This is a great book by a great author.



5. It's hard to define this book. Mostly, it's about the experience of Thomas Lynch and his extended Irish-American family living in Michigan and his going back home to Clare to the relatives still living in the home of his ancestors. That part alone is well worth the read but Mr. Lynch goes much further, delving into his personal, spiritual faith and the schizophrenia of The Church as well as the residue of 9/11 and the chaos, fear and war that has followed, adding a depth I hadn't expected. The writing is lyrical and flows from topic to topic with ease, like an often beautiful, sometimes heart-wrenching journey.