No comments about Cork and Kerry (Irish Discovery Map).

2 comments about The Ulysses Guide: Tours Through Joyce's Dublin.

1. A unique, creative volume, both a guidebook to contemporary Dublin (circa 1989) and the Dublin of Joyce's "Ulysses", and a guide to interpreting the text of "Ulysses." The book contain eight tours of Dublin corresponding (though not strictly chronologically) to the inner and outer voyages of Leopold Bloom on "Bloomsday," (June 16, 1904) the day chronicled in "Ulysses."

   A great deal of the text is included, along with explanations of Joyce's historical, religious, place-name allusions, as well as information on how to follow Bloom on his walking and riding tour of Dublin. (Bloom walked, took trams, trains, and hose-drawn conveyances, today's visitor is told how to use DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to negotiate Bloom's wanderings that day. Some of the city remains as it did in 1904; others have places have changed, partially as a result of being mentioned in the fictional "Ulysses." For example, Sandycove Tower, which was a real tower in 1904, and is the initial setting of "Ulysses." It is now the site of the "James Joyce Museum." The bar of the old "Jury Hotel" (one of 60 actual establishments mentioned in "Ulysses") has been transported to Zurich and renamed the "James Joyce Pub!" And some things apparently do not change: The brothel setting of "Circes" is still "one of Dublin's danger areas where street crime is common...and [the area] should be treated with caution." Because Joyce set "Ulysses" in the Dublin he knew, and based many of his characters on people he knew, the walking tours transcend (as does the book) the objective "what's there" and the subjective "how did Joyce write about it."

   This is a truly remarkable book, fascinating for those familiar with "Ulysses," and/or those who are taking either armchair or actual tours of Dublin. Includes many cites from the book (with excellent annotations and references to places in Dublin), anecdotes about Joyce, maps of the walking tours, three appendices (including "The Movements of Leopold Bloom and Stephan Dedalus on 16 June, 1904), and a useful index. Very highly recommended.




2. A unique, creative volume, both a guidebook to contemporary Dublin (circa 1989) and the Dublin of Joyce's "Ulysses", and a guide to interpreting the text of "Ulysses." The book contain eight tours of Dublin corresponding (though not strictly chronologically) to the inner and outer voyages of Leopold Bloom on "Bloomsday," (June 16, 1904) the day chronicled in "Ulysses."

   A great deal of the text is included, along with explanations of Joyce's historical, religious, place-name allusions, as well as information on how to follow Bloom on his walking and riding tour of Dublin. (Bloom walked, took trams, trains, and hose-drawn conveyances, today's visitor is told how to use DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to negotiate Bloom's wanderings that day. Some of the city remains as it did in 1904; others have places have changed, partially as a result of being mentioned in the fictional "Ulysses." For example, Sandycove Tower, which was a real tower in 1904, and is the initial setting of "Ulysses." It is now the site of the "James Joyce Museum." The bar of the old "Jury Hotel" (one of 60 actual establishments mentioned in "Ulysses") has been transported to Zurich and renamed the "James Joyce Pub."

   Because Joyce set "Ulysses" in the Dublin he knew, and based many of his characters on people he knew, the walking tours transcend (as does the book) the objective "what's there" and the subjective "how did Joyce write about it." It is truly a remarkable book, fascinating for those familiar with "Ulysses," and/or those who are taking either armchair or actual tours of Dublin. Includes many cites from the book (with excellent annotations and references to places in Dublin), anecdotes about Joyce, maps of the walking tours, three appendices (including "The Movements of Leopold Bloom and Stephan Dedalus on 16 June, 1904), and a useful index. Very highly recommended.

5 comments about Venice, the Tourist Maze: A Cultural Critique of the World's Most Touristed City.

1. A must for the regular visitor of Venice. Davis and Marvin show clearly how the historical center and the outskirts (!) are sacrifized to the needs of mass-tourism. They describe how the the city is transformed sytematically into a historical theme-park in which the remaining locals have only a stage-role. And 'resistance is useless': the inhabitants are able to slow, not to stop the process.
   The book predicts an ominous future of this cultural heritage site. Food for thought.



2. As an inveterate traveler, I usually find that books about places I have visited leave me sorry I read them - travel guides are often so filled with tourist hype or stereotypical portrayals or out-dated analysis. But, this is not a travel guide: it is a thoughful and well-researched critique of Venice as both a tourist city and a (struggling to remain) actual city.
   
   Over the years I have related to Venice in three ways: a member of the day-trip brigade (with two children in tow); a more serious tourist making a five day stay of it; a long-term (six month) resident in one of its working class neighborhoods. From all of those perspectives, this book speaks to my experiences.
   
   But, more than a souvenir of my times there (see the excellent discussion of the role of souvenirs in a tourist city), this work has opened my mind to other ways to see my beloved city. I now see the city and its people with new eyes, for the authors' critical eyes and ideas challenged me to experience Venice once again anew.
   
   If, as I would claim, I love Venezia, then I would also want to engage my heart and soul in the challenge they pose for the future of the city: not the worries about "sinking into the sea" but the worries about becoming "lost in the tourists."
   
   And did you know that tourists have been coming here for over 500 years (yes, fellow Americans, that is before any tourists invaded North America), and that tacky souvenirs have been available for at least 300 years? Lots more to know as well as ponder in this work.



3. If the City of Venice (Italy) ever decides to build a model of Las Vegas, will the model include a little replica of Las Vegas' Venetian Hotel, itself a model of Venice? It's the kind of question I might address to the authors of Venice: The Tourist Maze, this entertaining and rewarding account of what may be the most touristed city in the history of the planet.
   
   You might suppose there is nothing new in a critique of Venetian tourism. Venice first licensed tour guides in 1219 (and right there is a factoid I did not know until I read this book). Any number of others have left accounts of tourism in Venice, and quite a few have left accounts of accounts.
   
   Davis and Marvin do a creditable job of trying not to replow old ground. There's almost no mention of Mary McCarthy, Jan Morris, Viscount Norwich, and other visitors who have done so much to inform and entertain. There's only a bit of Henry James; almost none of Proust and only a glancing reference to that most famous of all sex tourists, Thomas Mann's Gustav von Aschenbach. Instead, they give their primary attention to tourism as an activity, from the standpoint alike of the provider and the consumer. You might almost call it an account of "the enterprise of tourism," except this makes it sound, misleadingly, like yet one more business book.
   
   There is a whiff of the lamp about the presentation, although it never gets overpowering: the chapter on the gondola is called "the floating signifier," which is, I guess, the kind of joke you are bound to get when academics try to have fun. They say they "take advantage" of a notion of one "Appadurai" (who?), although he never makes it to the bibliography. A more obvious progenitor is Dean MacCannell, whose "The Tourist" is one of those rare books to make fancy theory both interesting and plausible. A still better source, though surely unintended, would be the trdition o;f the mystery novel, where the hard-boiled detective sees the great city from the underside (indeed I am a little surprised that they don't say a word about Donna Leon, the Arthur Conan Doyle of the Venetian murder mystery).
   
   But forget about the theory: some of their best stuff is the nuts-and-boats practical. There is an admirable sketch-history of the gondola and its monster offspring, the vaporetto. And I particularly liked their discussion of the economics of the "artisan." They explain that Murano glass "works" because the craft is showy and dramatic, but that Burano lace-making does not "work," because the craft is not showy, and because real Burano lace is prohibitively expensive. Papier-mache masks work especially well, because the price is right, and the technology is accessible to any schoolchild. By the way it appears that those fancy designer masks (confession: I have one on the living room wall) are no part of the tradition of Venice: masks at the /carnevale/ were for the most part mass-produced.
   
   The climax comes, inevitably in a discussion of the other Venice, the Venetian Hotel at Las Vegas (but why can't I find it in the index?). They provide an entertaining account, appropriately fascinated and appalled, of the Venetian as the private obsession of Steve Adleson who has lavished on it (so they say) the sum of $1.5 billion. They seem not to have noticed that from a business standpoint, the Venetian seems to have been a rousing success. If tourists still flock to the real Venice, they seem to descend at a comparable rate on our little Venice in the desert.



4. This is an easy read, and a surprisingly thoughtful, careful, and broadly informative book. It dives deeply into the endless, diverse difficulties of modern life in Venice, but with excellent historical context. Its history of Carnival, and its revival, for example, is the best I've read. It's blemished by two or three uninteresting pages of symbolic/semiotic analysis, but these minor problems are vastly overwhelmed by impressive reporting, review and research on important issues of the day.



5. This is a highly entertaining, very readable book. It reads as "Sociology-Extra-Light". It is very like listening to ones very cranky uncle rant, if ones uncle were Gore Vidal or Christopher Buckley and had a couple of PhD's in subjects vaguely related to the psychology of tourism.
   
   What is the point the authors are trying to make? They seem to want us all to stay home. Well...that's pretty rich coming from a guy from Ohio (Davis) and one from Surrey (Marvin).
   
   I don't disagree that tourism turns beautiful places into nightmares; clearly, it is going to be the ruination of Venice. It is just sad and wasteful and, probably, unstoppable.
   
   Good for the University of California Press for publishing this book, and how delightful the authors must be when they get going after a bottle of wine. But, before they are done with the disquisition, I see myself pleading a headache and sloping away to more cheerful company.
   
   Does this book really help? Even Gore Vidal and my Uncle Mort are best taken in more temperate doses.

No comments about The Mountains of Ireland.

1 comments about Footloose in the West of Ireland.

1. An introductory portrait of this talented author sets the tone of this lovely book on page x of its introduction. His slightly raffish pose overlooking the southernmost point of mainland Ireland prefaces a splendid and colourful vista of the country's best of the west. Of course as everyone knows this is a wild and beautiful area, where farmers still carry their peat in wheelbarrows (Connemara), and stone walls are uniquely crazy (the Burren). Ireland's entire population is still less than Puerto Rico, though it is almost eight times its size. Its fiordlike coastline, and imposing mountains are wonderfully described with a storyteller's flair, a gentle touch, and often a winking eye. He lets you feel the flowers underfoot in County Clare, but doesnt talk about the ticks lurking in the bracken at the foot of Slieve Elva. He tells you of the music in the pubs, but doesnt say that a foreign fiddler can walk in to some such a pub, and be offered a fiddle hanging on the wall, so warm is the welcome. His love of the tunes is on the page... the text is interspersed with lines of musical notation (like Walter Starkie's Raggle Taggle) from Macgillycuddy's Polka to Old Nag You Have Killed Me. He speaks personally of almost losing it on the forbidding high ridges of Mweelrea, a truly imposing mountain, and he is poetic in chronicling the godawful tale of the starving, ragged band that was turned back not that many years ago by the heartless Poor Law guardians at Delphi Lodge.

   I just came back from following in some of his footsteps. The book was a true and constant pleasure, and got me a pint or two of Guinness into the bargain from trying on a few of his tales. Among his best stories, not well known apparently (so there is still possibly more guiness awaiting the telling) is the one about the true naming in Gaelic of the Devil's Mother, but you'll have to get the book for that.

No comments about Guiana Travels of Robert Schomburgk (Hakluyt Society, Third Series).

No comments about The Wee Book of Glasgow.

No comments about Miller's: Antiques Shops, Fairs & Auctions in the UK and Ireland 2006 (Millers Antiques Shops, Fairs and Auctions).

No comments about CONDE' NAST JOHANSENS RECOMMENDED HOTELS AND SPAS GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND 2008 (Johansens Recommended Hotels: Great Britain and Ireland).

3 comments about The Most Traveled Man on Earth.

1. Llewellyn Toulmin's The Most Traveled Man on Earth is a delightful book for the seasoned traveler and the arm chair traveler alike. The book is filled with interesting information about little known places in the world and written in very readable style. Toulmin's knowldge and sense humor shine through on every page.



2. The part of the book about the most traveled people is only 20 pages long. The rest of the the book is the authors own mediocre travel stories.



3. I met the author when he came to speak at our travel club. I was impressed with his stories so I bought his book, and if you are a travel fan, you'll really enjoy this. He makes it clear that he doesn't consider himself "the most traveled man on earth" instead he describes the competition for that title, and how ultimately it's a hard definition to really pin down. He relays fascinating stories from his early years (you have to enjoy the one about Haiti and Papa Doc), and then he discusses various modes of travel like tall ships, perpetual cruiser's, and other experiences around the world. The section on genealogy drags a little bit, but if the reader happens to have an affinity for genealogy, this will be another star section of the book. He then discusses road rally's which had more detail than a mere mortal might need, but again, if the reader has any affinity for cars or racing, it's a star section. The book goes on to cover adventures around the world, including "Running with the Bulls" which probably every traveler has given some thought, if only "are those people insane?" It turns out some probably are insane, others are just posers, running the race well ahead of any bulls. Others are macho or completely psycho, or both. There's even a section on disaster preparedness (the author was in that business) and the government ought to tattoo the entire chapter right across "Heck of a Job" Brownie's face. The stories are light reading, very engaging, and pleasant. There are a couple of times where editing would have helped, because these stories were largely written for a magazine and then grouped together, so of course in that context, it's necessary to remind the reader what happened in the last installment, but in the context of a book, it's just irritating. If you have a friend or loved one that's a travel fan, this would make a spectacular gift.