No comments about Wolfgang Borchert's Germany.

5 comments about Road Of Stars To Santiago.

1. This is a great book and is a very useful guide to the pilgrimage. It is hard to find, and Amazon is doing a great service in trying to provide it for pilgrims. However extracts from the book with very useful information can be found at the Telegraph Online London web site in the TRAVEL section. Look search under Yahoo for Telegraph Online and then Browse the many pages and articles on the pilgrimage found under the travel section. The book is fully reviewed in the newspapers's travel pages, the site has many useful useful facts about the pilgrimage including a FAQ



2. This book is powerful in its simplicity. Stanton's journey is mundane, but from the people he meets and the sites he visits, we learn much about life and travel.Books on the pilgrimage are plenty now, but I would recommend this one for the everyday traveler taking the path.



3. This is a fascinating book, and will appeal both to those who love travel tales and those on a spiritual quest. No self-described holy man, the author is frank about doubting his faith and his ambivalence in making the pilgrimage. Yet you see throughout the book how the journey emptied then replinished him He draws vivid word pictures about the sights, smells and characters that he encounters. If you have a desire to drop out of the hustle and bustle of life to learn to listen to the great, glorious creation around you and the Creator above, then this book will make your feet itch to begin your personal pilgrimage. I enjoyed this book thoroughly, and was enriched by the reading. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!



4. When I bought this book I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd already purchased a couple of pilgrim guides but was hungry for more readable material. This isn't a pilgrim guide but rather a sort of journal of the author's experiences on the Way of St. James.

   For anyone interested in the Camino, hiking or just a well written yarn that's hard to put down, I give "Road of Stars to Santiago" two thumbs up!




5. This was the first book I read about the Camino and it remains, more than a decade and 40 similar texts later, still one of the very best such. If one is to read a single straightforward journal account I can think of no better introduction to the subject.
   
   For my recent compilation of pilgrimage quotations ("Ultreia! Onward! Progress of the Pilgrim") I read all 40 or so contemporary English journal accounts available about the various routes. Stanton's is clearly within the first grouping of 8 or so best such books (i.e. largely those written by established authors and/or academics). And Stanton is immensely quotable; indeed, with 20 such abstracted for my review volume Ultreia!, the Road of Stars to Santiago was the single most quoted text of all.

No comments about Philip Plisson's Celtic Coastlines.

No comments about The Road Taken: A Guide to the Roads and Scenery of Mayo.

No comments about Where Dublin CityGuide (Where Cityguides).

2 comments about MTV Ireland (MTV Guides).

1. I recently took a trip to Ireland, specifically Galway, Cork and Dublin areas. This was the only guide book I brought with me and it let me down on several occassions. In Galway we were looking forward to checking out Padraig's Bar since it was listed as one of the best in the area. Too bad no one has ever heard of it and the bar's phone is out of service. I was surprised that the book was off on some things since it was a recent edition - 2006. I wouldn't recommend this guide book. I should have known better since it was funded by MTV.



2. I recall that the "Let's Go" guidebooks for young travelers were started by Ivy Leaguers on summer break. They mix a commendable exposure to culture with practical tips on decent, affordable digs and eats. Their ethos speaks to a generation who combined a budget with a brain. By comparison, the title of MTV perched above all else proves the power of branding for the current demographic. They may not have come out of the Ivy League, however, and from the contents I've perused appear more likely to party all night down the pub, cruise for a genial hook-up, and crash the next day at the recommended hostel.
   
   If you are wanting guidance on pick-up spots, internet cafe rates, gay-friendly hangouts, shopping sprees, or surfing or kayaking, this book, on the other hand, appeals to the young visitor more eager to chat up new friends for a night or a fortnight rather than take in another cathedral's nave or a dull display of a famous writer's scanty memorabilia. It does give helpful advice on ice-breakers for meeting folks in Belfast, how to turn down firmly but gracefully a persistent come-on from the next barstool, or how to tap with a coin your freshly poured pint of Guinness to know when it's best to hoist the glass. Nuggets of such information, often as blue-printed sidebars, make up for the rather mundane layout and lack of pictures. The book opens easily, the type is readable, and stars, "best," and "free" mark particular entries. Specific (a good touch for foreigners) credit card info, URLs, and phone numbers are included.
   
   Unlike many competing guidebooks such as Rough Guide or Lonely Planet, there's no colorful illustrations to leaven the pages of text. Unlike the Moon Handbook (reviewed by me on Amazon), the maps are few and poor in detail. Unlike the Footprint guidebook (also reviewed by me), there is a paucity of attention given cultural or historical contexts. Surprisingly, however, the editing even for Dublin, for example, compresses too much. Only three bookstores are recommended for all of Dublin, while the well-chosen stock (with a generous emphasis on gay topics) at Books Upstairs receives no mention, contrasted with the rather fustier (but still it's often overlooked, and so deserves a mention too) Greene's. The county map at the back endflap is useless, indicating only the borders and 32 county seats. The space could have been used for a decent, if again minimal, highway and major cities and market towns map on this crucial portion of any useful guidebook.
   
   The tone tends towards the glib, no surprise if you watch MTV. This is not a Frommer's (which however spun-off this via a John Wiley distribution with this guide!) for the mature and more affluent tourist, or a Fodor's with its calm recitation of the finer places to lounge and dine. The choices for both horizontal and reclining activities here tend to be ranked as Cheap, Doable, and Splurge, but all for a far more vibrant hipster crowd. Sleeping, Eating, and Partying (Bars/Lounges, Pubs, Clubs, Gay Scene, Live Music, Comedy Clubs, Performance Venues: subheadings in Cork City!), replace the more terse lists of a few pubs or cafes most competitors provide.
   
   Basics, Getting There & Getting Around, Sightseeing, and Road trips from hub cities are featured. This follows a sensible design that I recommend given the reality of how most visitors get to know a corner of the country for a few days. What to do lists if you have a day are also helpful. Maps however, may need to be supplemented by those in other guidebooks, or free maps from tourist offices. I do like, perhaps since the snarky attitude comes as a refreshing if soon annoying antidote to my usual preference in both armchair and actual use of Irish guidebooks, the honesty. The lack of pretense, after all, remains a certifiably native trait.
   
   This would not be my only guidebook, but if you happen to be under 35 or so, or accompanied by younger folks on your visit, I'd give the target demographic a look at this guidebook with an eye towards packing it along. In the rural areas, many counties only earn a handful of sites or towns for detailed mention. This book covers the major cities better but skimps on the market towns and scenic but perhaps half-moribund (for the ravers' tastes) hamlets. It does cover the Aran Islands, yes, but it tells of the boredom that readers with a short attention span may find along with the beauty. Granted, you can tell the younguns to read the appendix, "History 101" that does give a few quick pages to necessary background for even the least scholarly member of your travelling road show to comprehend during the flight over.
   
   I know this is meant for an audience that no previous guidebook has catered fully to, and more power to it if it draws its readers into a more sustained immersion in the craic and the warmth that even tawdry consumerism cannot totally eradicate. We hope. Its persistent lack of depth regarding the Irish heritage (one page total for books, films, and music recommended, and many of these poorly chosen!) can be countered by a Blue Guide at the other archaeological extreme, or the New Age-Celt pilgrim might choose Cary Meehan's Guide to Sacred Ireland (also reviewed by me). Let's Go combines brains with frugality. Footprint & Moon are both commendable one-writer introductions that convey a single sensibility well while exhausting the island; Lonely Planet & Rough Guide stick to the path once less-travelled if no longer off the beaten track, and Fodor's & Frommer's do carry a gravitas that balances the tipsiness in MTV's p-o-v.

No comments about Lonely Planet Best Of Dublin (Lonely Planet Encounter Dublin).

No comments about Lonely Planet Dublin: Condensed (Lonely Planet Dublin Condensed).

No comments about St.Petersburg: History, Art and Architecture (History, Art & Architecture).

2 comments about Frommer's Ireland from $80 a Day.

1. This book was indespensible for the trip that I just took. It really helped on the front end for planning where to go, and also when we were there, so we would have extra ideas. It was neat to see a place and wonder if maybe we ought to try it out, and more than half the time there was a description of it in this book. The desciptions really helped. Great book.



2. I really like the "from $__ a day" series. The books really helped me plan my trips to England/Ireland. My only issue with the Ireland book was when I went in 2003, there was a museum still listed in Dublin (a music museum) that had been closed for several years. Aside from that, the books were great. I used them to find some very affordable and friendly B&B's that I would return to.