1 comments about The Xenophobe's Guide to the Irish (Xenophobe's Guides - Oval Books).

1. Hilarious insight to the Irish Psyche. Explains our search for 'The Craic' and what it is to be an eejit. Not a travel guide but an examination of our collective mindset.
   
   Very well done... And explains a few of the scenes in Father Ted (Chapter 'Why the Irish can't say Yes' .. followed by the even funnier chapter 'Why the Irish can't say No')

5 comments about A Corner in the Marais: Memoir of a Paris Neighborhood.

1. This book reminded me of William Murray's City of Soul, about Rome. Karmel is obviously in love with his Paris and it is infectious.

   The narrative about Karmel's first trip to Paris, then how he moved to Paris and bought an apartment in the Marais was intriguing, although his detours into the history of the neighborhood were less interesting. I found I wanted to know more about Karmel and his wife than about who had lived in his street two hundred years ago.

   And the photographs! There are some marvelous black and white Atget photos in this book and although there really isn't much going on in them, these studies of shadow and light are worth the price of the book alone.




2. man this book gets boring at times. it's more the history of the neighborhood and medieval and renaissance parisian life as it took place around the author's apartment building. Maybe the other books I've read about Paris are overly sentimental, but this book does little to invoke the romance of the city of lights.

   for instance: there is an entire chapter devoted to a legal wrangle which took place over the non-payment of taxes on the home, in which various people bickered over the ownership in the 17th century. this should have been at most a paragraph.

   there are some fascinating descriptions of period toilets,17th century french bathing habits, and 13th century house construction. the length of space devoted to meaningless crap is stunning.

   some bits of it are interesting. i love the marais, and thought it would give a sense of the personality of the area, particularly as the cover makes it seem like quite a warm book. it isn't. but if you want to know about feudal french land taxes and Cardinal Richeliu's preferred urinal (the fireplace), then this book is for you.




3. This is a great book to read while in Paris. With the book in hand, we easily found many points mentioned in it (and it answered some questions we had had while walking around the Marais on our own). It's very much a "labor of love" by someone who became intrigued by a small slice of history that, coincidentally, sheds some light on the broader picture over a long period. Anyone who enjoys history will envy the author's dig through old documents and records searching for even tangential mentions of his building, and the people associated with it. (Also recommended, for entirely other reasons: "Paris to the Moon," by Adam Gopnik.)



4. I loved this book, especially as I was staying a few doors down from his apartment in a hotel and it made my visit enhanced by his descriptions and thoughts.



5. I can't believe I actually skimmed through a particular chapter, I never, ever do that. It tried to bore me to tears with a tedious description of a wrangle over the ownership of an apartment 200 years ago!!! I love this area of Paris, and was hoping that the historical content of this book would leave me delighted... sadly not.
   There are some interesting descriptions of life at the time, however the book tends to only touch on the interesting bits and rave about the mundane. I kept hoping it would improve as I pressed on... unfortunately, it didn't.

3 comments about Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race.

1. Overall, I thought this book was somewhat shallow, with little "meat" to fully engage the reader. It's an OK overview for someone who really didn't know much about rocket development/space programs from the 40's to the early 70's.
   
   I found the discussion of German rocket development during WWII the most interesting part, and learned a few things about the Russian space efforts that I hadn't heard before. The discussion of the US space program was fairly mundane. If you followed the news during that period of time you'll already know most of what's presented here.



2. This should be a good book, but disappoints in both the quantity and quality of its coverage of the great power rivalry for the dominance of space.
   
   It starts well, with an first-person account by Sergei Kruschchev of the first Sputniks. Kruschchev had a unique vantage point on the whole affair, as a technically knowledgeable person with an insider's pass on the political affairs of the Soviet Union. The first chapter or so, on the WW II German effort is worthwhile as well.
   
   From that point it deteriorates rapidly into superficial re-hashes of old news, poorly presented. I started working on an errata, but gave up after averaging one a page for twenty pages. Some are slipups on minor facts: page 159 map referring to "Kennedy Space Flight Center", or using the acronym "LEM", which was discarded in the early 60's, or saying that the Cape was scorpion infested. Some are bad editing, leading to incorrect statements: p. 249 "Mir, which remained in orbit between 1971 and 2001". Some are failures to globally edit, e.g. telling the tale of the renaming of Cape Canaveral twice. There's also a problem of scope: at times it can't decide if it wants to be about the 50s and 60s or today. This on top of being full of technical groaners too numerous to count, like constantly calling RP-1 "volatile" or completely missing the point on why Gemini used ejection seats rather than an escape tower.
   
   A single volume account of the most turbulent days of the space effort would be welcome; sadly, this isn't it. I wish I could even recommend it as an introduction, to be followed immediately by something more in-depth, but it's so full of inaccuracies I would be doing the reader a disservice. For the interested reader, "Apollo" by Murray and Cox, and "Red Star in Orbit" by James Oberg will readably take you through the two sides, are much more thorough and technically correct, and both rated 5 stars by hordes of readers. They will take you three times as long to read, but you will ultimately profit by not having to unlearn any thing later.



3. In a snapshot world with nano attention spans, Epic Rivalry manages to grab and hold on. The world in 1957 was on the seam between vacuum tube and microchip, between perceived American complacency and Russian Atomic tests that dropped Strontium 90 in milk bottles across the United States. Amid the tension and fear, two clumsy stumbling giants began the race that framed the future and shapes the world view of space to this day.
   
   Von Hardesty and Gene Eisman take you back to the origins, before Sputnik, through its launch in October of 1957 and into the arms of current space. With eloquence and discernment they bring to life the voices of the electrifying story from both sides of the Iron Curtain. There is magic in these pages because what you are hearing isn't competing specifications but rather the rise and fall of mutual dreams.
   
   Noah could have floated on the flood of space books currently available. Epic Rivalry is the place to dip your oar. It's the core of the whole story. If you are old enough to remember or young enough to wonder, Epic Rivalry is your book and Hardesty and Eisman your always illuminating guides.

1 comments about Megalithic Monuments of Britain and Ireland.

1. The details showing how sites were created were good but the content wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be.

5 comments about Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes (Classic Non-fiction).

1. If you want to discover a beautiful and wild French region through the eyes of a Scottish writer, read Travels with a donkey. Stevenson, before he became famous, depicted his journey in the cevennes, with his donkey "Modestine". Rediscover the excellent style of a young writer about to become world-wide-known.



2. R.L. Stevenson writes here the first account of a touristic journey in France. He is the first modern tourist. He penetrates and discovers the country and the people of what he calls the Lozère, this mountain range in the south of The Central mountains in France, a range of mountains that was the locale of a protestant rebellion at the very beginning of the eighteenth century, severely repressed by Louis XIV. These protestant insurgers are known as the Camisards. Stevenson tries to discover the landscape, the natural setting of this insurrection and tries to show how the insurrection was connected to the very nature of these mountains. He also shows how no repression can change a person or a population. These old Camisards are still alive in the memory and the customs and ways of the protestant population of this region. It is the survival of this faith that interests and fascinates Stevenson. He also notices that the catholics and the protestants, at the time of his travels, lived in harmony but with an absolute divide between the two communities. A young catholic man who married a protestant girl and changed his faith in the process was unanimously condemned for this breach of loyalty. This book is also a perfect example of what tourism can and must be : the discovery of the visited people's mentality, culture, way of life, and the connection of these with the surrounding nature, and not only a quick look at monuments and other (un)perishable. One has to live with the people, no matter how little, to eat the people's food and to be in contact with the people in order to discuss general and particular subjects and to understand their way of thinking and behaving. Thus tourism becomes an adventure even in the heart of the most civilized country and only a couple of miles away from a railroad.

   Dr Jacques COULARDEAU




3. In the late 1870s, Robert Louis Stevenson needed cash to break dependence on his parents so he could go to the woman he loved (and they did not). A chronic invalid, he also needed adventure. He decided to do some travel writing and one such trip is recounted in TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY. He headed off to the remote Cevennes mountain range of south central France and got himself kitted out nicely, so nicely, he needed assistance in carrying everything. Enter Modestine, a donkey. He might as well have attempted to harness and pack up a cat. Thus, to a deft narrative that works in powerful landscape description, sketches of country folk met along the way, and a revisiting of the region's dramatic history, he adds the self-deprecating wit that would become a model for his 20th century counterparts like Peter Fleming, Eric Newby, and Bill Bryson. Though his commentary moves along at a swift but casual gait, it builds a tension on the upside, beginning with the age-old legend of the murderous Beast of Gevaudan that haunts a neighborhood where he finds the peasantry by turns hostile and friendly and accommodations primitive. Near the summit, a visit to a monastery introduces the religious theme that will attend his descent into the beautiful land of the Camisards, the friction between Protestants and Catholics that erupted into a tragic civil war in the first decade of the 18th century. Stevenson does a fine job of sorting out the history and evoking the awe that comes with visiting the deceptively bucolic scene. No wonder this book has continued to inspire: it often appears on recommended lists and it prompted Romantic biographer Richard Holmes to retrace the journey early in his career, a century later, complete with a donkey of his own (see his book FOOTSTEPS). The critical introduction to this edition is worthwhile.



4. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1878) is among the earliest published works of Robert Louis Stevenson, and yet it is in no way inferior to his later writing that established his fame. In fact, this delightful account of Stevenson's solo trek in the Cevennes Range in south central France ranks among the best travel literature in the nineteenth century.
   
   Wishing not to advertise that he would be camping alone in remote areas, he chose not to travel with a tent. Instead, he designed a sleeping sack some six feet square, made of green water-proof cart cloth without and blue sheep's fur within. This commodious bed was too heavy to carry, and thus Stevenson acquired a donkey, one Modestine.
   
   Stevenson and Modestine for twelve days were close companions, traveling some 120 miles over several mountain ridges, along rocky roads, and even through boggy marshes. The stubborn Modestine was never quite convinced that the journey was entirely worth the effort, but nonetheless Stevenson and Modestine eventually became fast friends.
   
   Stevenson actually found lodging most nights, including a stint at a monastery, Our Lady of the Snows, allowing him not only to sleep more comfortably, but to share meals with strangers. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes is as much about the people Stevenson encountered as about his adventuresome travels through this remote region of France. My only criticism of this short account, a little more than one hundred pages, is that it is not twice as long.
   
   Stevenson was familiar with the history of the Cevennes, especially the Protestant-Catholic strife under Louis XIV that eventually resulted in a Protestant rebellion in 1702. With the passage of nearly two hundred years, the Protestants and Catholics were now living peacefully together, although these two peoples seldom mixed socially and intermarriages were quite rare. Stevenson himself was Protestant, and while staying at the monastery his hosts made sincere efforts to convert him to the Catholic faith.
   
   The young Robert Louis Stevenson was a rare individual that truly enjoyed life, one that was continually fascinated with his chanced acquaintances. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes is delightful and amusing, but at the same time it is equally successful as a thoughtful examination of the people of the Cevennes, isolated by both mountainous geography and a minority religion.



5. Excellent, short book. This is a must read for anyone interested in donkeys, The Cevennes, or Robert Louis Stevenson.

3 comments about Trip to Ireland: Quilts Combining Two Old Favorites.

1. Elizabeth Hamby Carlson's Trip To Ireland takes two classic quilt patterns - Irish Chain and Trip around the World - and combines them for impact and innovation. From Irish Squares to an easy Irish Trip, this is filled with colorful photos and examples of blends.



2. This book is extremely helpful. Everything is spelled out clearly and simply - right down to pressing instructions (which are extremely important with these quilts).



3. The quilts in this book are breathtakingly beautiful with using only squares. If you're sick of dealing with half-square triangles (I sure am!) you're sure to find something you like in this book. It's not in print anymore, but I bought it used through Amazon and was very pleased with the perfect condition (and price) of the book.

4 comments about Croatia: Travels in Undiscovered Country.

1. A terrific book. I have found no other book on Croatia that offers such insight into the country's current way of life and historical emblems, without becoming trite or resorting solely to political fact listing. Reveals the fragile beauty of a an undiscovered country in the midst of economic and cultural change. A wonderful travel book. Accessible and imaginative writing. Very well done.



2. Croatia: Travels In Undiscovered Country by Tony Fabijancic is a superbly written, personal memoir and eye-witness travelogue of what it was like to experience the land and people of Croatia as both an ancestral home and an undiscovered country. Transporting the reader on one man's journey into a rich and varied landscape, Croatia: Travels In Undiscovered Country is a vividly written, deftly informative, and memorably presented experience of a land steeped in centuries of tradition and lore. Croatia: Travels In Undiscovered Country is especially recommended reading for armchair travelogue adventure enthusiasts and anyone thinking of a trip to Croatia for themselves.



3. This is an account of its author's travels in what for him was "undiscovered country" but for the reader, save for this book, would be forever undiscoverable. Mr. Fabiancic, a Canadian born in Croatia, fluent in the language and connected with the culture, combines a native's access with a foreigner's perspective; he thus engages deeply on our behalf with places and people that otherwise, if we encountered them at all, would be no more than two-dimensional snapshots, real or remembered.
   
   Indeed, much of what Mr. Fabiancic saw and experienced just ten or so years ago may well already have been swept away by the riptide of progress that has swept over the newly independent nation since the disintegration of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991. His observations are keen and his descriptions immediate.
   
   Mr. Fabiancic also shares his inner travels with his audience. That aspect of the book is not especially to the taste of this reader, for whom Mr. Fabiancic's reports of personal epiphanies and developmental milestones ("My youth is over") get in the way of his descriptions of the often striking landscape and its often colorful and, it seems, always engaging inhabitants. At times, too, his striving for literary effect can be a bit labored: in places the similes are so thickly spread as to obscure the nouns they are meant to illuminate, and more than one perfectly effective account is blunted by a last-minute effort to give it Meaning.
   
   Should such distractions tempt you to put the book down, don't. If you find a chapter heavy going, try another; they vary in style, as in subject matter, and little is lost by reading them out of order. Later, returning to a passage that had seemed a little overblown, you may experience it more sympathetically. Especially if you have in mind to visit Croatia, the author's vivid insight into what the country and its people are and have been will make coping with the book's less successful qualities more than worth your while.



4. I recently returned from three weeks in Croatia and came across this book. I would say Tony's writing is fair to good, and I enjoyed his insights into how the country felt and looked in 1996 post war. Because most of my time was spent along the Dalmatian Coastline his stories have inspired me to spend time on my upcoming return to Croatia in the rurual areas. Speaking Hrvatska is going to help and for anyone contemplating travel to Croatia he does a good job of articulating the lifestyle of 10 years ago. It is changing drmatically now that it is poised to join the EU. His stories are off the beaten tourist path and defininitely reflect the flavor of a very diverse country that remains in denial about its history and its future.

No comments about Dublin, 2nd (Footprint - Pocket Guides).

No comments about The Little Green Book of Blarney (Little Black Books) (Little Black Books (Peter Pauper Paperback)).

2 comments about The Dingle Way (Rucksack Readers).

1. We are planning to do the Dingle Way this summer and this is just the sort of guide needed to stay on the path.



2. Provides lots of good information on the walk. I will take and use this book when I walk the Dingle Way.