2 comments about Lonely Planet World Food Ireland (Lonely Planet World Food Guides).

1. Very entertaining and informative, this little book was a pleasure to read. Written by Irish folks, it offers witty commentary on the social and cultural traditions of Ireland as well as discussing the wholesome and delicious cuisine. If you've got any interest in Ireland at all, you're sure to enjoy this wonderful guide.



2. This is a really great book. It covers not only the subject of Irish food, but also gives information on the culture and a brief history of Ireland. The book is packed with information, maps and beautiful photographs. It is a really helpful book for anyone interested in Ireland.

4 comments about Ireland: Standing Stones to Stormont.

1. Ireland: Standing Stones to Stormont is more than a "coffee table book." It's a reference filled with dozens of gorgeous photographs of Ireland. But it's also a collection of legends, lore and personal experiences of author Kumpf. I was compelled to read every page, astonished by the incredible pictures and entertained by stories about Irish history, faeries . . . even hazel nuts (my favorite story in the book). Yes, I proudly display this book on my coffee table. And I visit it a lot!



2. I have read several books on Ireland and this one is my favorite so far. He not only gives you information about Irish history; but, does so in a way that really makes you feel as though you were there. His respect for the heritage, traditions and legends was what I found most enjoyable. Ireland is a country rich in so many ways. It's beauty and stories I never tire of reading or hearing. Tom Kumpf has created a fabulous book which brings out the magic of this wonderful place.



3. The Irish people thrive in two worlds: the earthly and the divine, folklore and the present. To understand today's Irish, one begins in the past with their rich world of mythology. Ancient stories shaped the landscape, as much as they were wrought from it, and remain integrated into the everyday lives of a people who are unalterably tied to their land and generations. Kumpf retells the old stories, while revealing their modern-day form with superb photographs. Like all good art books, you may open it to any page or absorb it from cover to cover. It's a history lesson, cultural survey, and a bit of a tour book rolled into one.



4. Any fostering an interest in Irish history, culture and peoples will relish the gorgeous blend of color photos and cultural insights to be had from IRELAND: STANDING STONES TO STORMONT. From names and places to Irish legends, mysticism, and peoples, IRELAND captures all this during the author's personal journey through the country, surveying both links to ancient history - architecture, ruins, heritage sites - and modern landscape alike. The author's first-person insights contribute a lovely blend of travelogue and survey. IRELAND could've just as easily been featured in our arts or travel sections, but is reviewed here for its wide-ranging appeal across boundaries, defying categorization.
   
   Diane C. Donovan, Editor
   California Bookwatch

No comments about Killarney National Park, Scale 1:25 000: Killarney National Park Comprises the World-Famous Lakes of Killarney and the Mountains and Woodlands That Su (National park series).

No comments about Discovery of the Hebrides.

No comments about A Description of Ukraine (Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies).

No comments about Family Walks in Scotland.

No comments about When Summer's in the Meadow.

5 comments about Dances with Luigi: A Grandson's Determined Quest to Comprehend Italy and the Italians.

1. I am an Italophile with southern italian roots. This book grabbed me by the throat. I couldn't put it down. He trudged through the northern Italian stereotypes of southerners, but then colorfully decribed wonderful, vital people, as he finds friends, countrymen, and then, finally family in the Southern Italian towns that his ancestors left so many years before. His story describes a combination of hard work, diligence and good fortune. A great read for anyone trying to find their roots, or who is interested in things Italian.



2. Nice story, sometimes too sloppy, the book could be cut down 70 or 90 pages, too redundant. I barely trust the find of Mr Paolicelli's grandfather birth record during his last days in Italy; too rushed the editing, many misspellings of Italian names. Needed a much better editor.



3. This book was one I found hard to put down. An accurate story about what it is like to visit Italian villages and mix with the locals.
   The author has a way of taking you along and making the scene come to life. I do wish he had included a family chart to help keep tract of the family members.
   I'll remember this book for years to come!



4. I was really pulling for this book because I'm going through the same experience, although more at my family's behest, of tracing my Italian ancestry. The first chapter or two show promise, and Paolicelli has a readible style. When his Italian friends insist he detour off the highway into a town whose name he suddenly remembers from his childhood, the resulting episode at the town hall is fascinating. But in the end the book just doesn't hang together very well. The story wanders off into too many dead ends. We read at first about his landlord and guide Luigi, who the book is named after, but that really isn't the focus of the story. And when it appears that the common thread between the author and his ancestors may be music, that theme doesn't get developed either. I could live with that, but the main problem with the lack of focus is with the ancestors themselves. No sooner do you begin to get a picture of one relative from the old country than he jumps to another of the dozen or so aunts, uncles, grandparents and great grandparents on both sides of his family that he's tracing. You'll need to chart his family tree to keep up.



5. When I picked up "Dances With Luigi", I thought the author would put into writing thoughts that I, as a third generation Italian American would relate to in some wonderfully metaphysical way. I was disappointed.
   
   Firstly, the title has nothing to do with the actual theme of the author's journey. I suppose Mr. Paolicelli intended to interperse his musings with his Umbrian landlord, Luigi, as chapter endings, to further enlighten his findings about his family, and the Italians of the Mezzogiorno region of Italy. But, these revelations do not occur consistently enough to warrant the honor of a title. Luigi, a man living through his own tragedy, merely comes along for the ride and acts only, at times, as Paolicelli's sounding board. I believe that Mr. Paolicelli, as a television journalist, intended to follow New Yorker magazine's Adam Gopnik lead in his 'Paris to the Moon' essays that eventually formulated a bestselling book. This would account for some of the redundance in descriptions and events from chapter to chapter that as individual essays would need the refreshment of repeated explanation.
   
   However, this observation is minor. My main problem with 'Dances With Luigi' is that it succeeds only in telling the story of one specific grandson searching for his grandfather's records; it fails in becoming universally emblematic for all the rest of the third and fourth generation Italian Americans in America who know nothing about their roots in Italy. Paolicelli is lucky that he knew anything about his grandfather's life in Italy; many of us were told nothing. The southern Italians wanting nothing more than freedom from the oppression of the Risorgimento government and the prejudice of the Northern Italians. They wanted a better life and chose a strange place with unfamiliar sights and sounds, in spite of their immense sense of family and tradition, over the repression they knew in their homeland. Paolicelli touches on this a little when he talks about his grandfather's obsession with the needs of his children rather than those of himself. For that generation, as in all other founding American generations, the past was over, the present endured and the future awaited.
   
   I am pleased that Mr. Paolicelli found his grandfather's records, but more so that he found a sense of his future----a future that he speaks of only when he describes his musical triumphs and more concretely in a very small epilogue. I sense he finally understands the unselfishness of these strong people of America's past.
   
   I would have rather heard more about how Paolicelli realized his grandfather's dream, rather than the goings on in a homeland that our grandparents wanted to forget. Perhaps more of the reasons why his family specifically left Italy would have been revealing. The book should have been called Francesco's Gift in honor of his grandfather, who gave him a name, a life without stuggle and a dream for the future.
   

   Nevertheless, I will recommend the book to all Italian Americans that have that itch for understanding.

2 comments about A Travel Guide to Jewish Europe.

1. This book is filled with a wealth of information that every Jew traveling to Europe should have. It is an excellent resource guide with addresses, phone numbers and email addresses to help you plan your itinerary and get more information from European sources prior to your trip. I highly recommend this book.



2. I have now traveled extensively through Europe and toted Frank's guide with me everywhere. Whenever I reach a new country I enjoy reading his account of the history of Jews there, as well as what he has to say on major Jewish sites, architecture and the other facts he offers. However, as a listing of useful reference information such as telephone numbers, addresses, etc., it is woefully short.
   Too many of his facts are simply out of date. He frequently gives the home phone number of rabbis and others connected with various synagogues rather than those of the shuls themselves. This can make it extremely difficult if not impossible to contact anyone on a Friday morning or afternoon before Shabbos. On the other hand, there are no personalized contacts - he never gives the information for a community liason, for instance, or anyone else who could be of assistance. He has no maps or other means of indicating how close or far things are from a central point or each other; just try and make it around Dublin with this guide and you'll find yourself miles out of town with no easy way back.
   It frequently becomes clear in his writing that Ben Frank is rather lenient in his halacha. He recommends kosher-style restaurants without valid hashkachah while failing to mention many of those which do. Paris and London are endowed with fabulous Jewish communities and consequently dozens of kosher establishments, but one would never know it from his guide.

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')