No comments about AAA Spiral Las Vegas, 3rd Edition (Aaa Spiral Guides).

5 comments about Super Casino: Inside the "New" Las Vegas.

1. I was not able to put this book down. It is broken into two parts. Part one is the history of Vegas, part two focuses on a handfull of its residents over a year. While I was looking for a book on Vegas, I wanted to know more about personal experiences there, like what was in the second part of the book. I figured I wouldn't care for the history part, and would maybe skip it if it got boring. I was totally wrong. The history part was every bit as engaging. It's really a study in business more than history. It was thoroughly enjoyable, and part two was also. I like the way the author spends a year with these people (prostitiute, security guard, showgirl, etc.) and tells their story thoughout the book, instead of all in one chapter. Very well written. Also, very balanced in my opinion. At no point did I feel the author was judging anything, merely reporting it.

   I could go on and on. It's books like this that make fiction look so dull.




2. ....surprise ! I could only find the paperback edition (while stealing a deal !). It is the best book (of too many written) about what's really happening behind-the-scenes in the casino life -- L.V. style. Not only that I strongly recommend it to those who go and play, and waste, while "dreaming" of an instant win, but now I will read more from Pete Earley : his style is terrific. I think he can lead - successfully - a cultural, social or psychological revolution. In case Americans would want one, naturally !



3. This is the best book written about Las Vegas. it includes the early history, all the major players in the development of the city and a real inside look into the mystery and wonderment of the casino business. You will never see Las Vegas the same after reading this book



4. If you don't love the sound of solt machines and the rush you get from doubling-down, than you may want to skip this read. Super Casino is an account of how the sleepy, small town of Las Vegas, NV transformed into one of the most powerful cities in the world. There were a lot of an interesting facts and some great history that you might already know if you watch any of those Vegas specials on The Travel Channel. But the writer does a good job of making it fun to read, including an account of a closed-door meeting of one of the biggest casino corporations on the planet. Fun read for anyone who likes to gamble at a casino.
   
   [...]



5. Las Vegas and the gaming industry have caused more trees to be needlessly sacrificed than any topic in popular culture with the possible exception of professional wrestling. This is not to say that there is nothing of interest to say about either subject; on the contrary, both are thriving industries whose practices and appeal tell the sensitive observer a great deal about American culture. But most authors seem content to ply their readers with commonplace facts ("there are three shifts in the casino-day, swing and grave"), "inside" vocabulary ("a 'whale' is casino jargon for a heavy better"), and recycled publicity hype ("more Americans visit the Strip than Walt Disney World"). While all of these "facts" may be true, they don't really explain anything about why Las Vegas is so popular. Pete Earley's Super Casino: Inside the "New" Las Vegas is an "inside" history of Mandalay Resorts merged with a first-hand account of a "super casino," mostly gotten from the author's hanging out in Luxor. Earley would seem to be overly impressed with the "new" Strip megaresorts of the 1990s as he reports that these were the first casinos marketed as complete destination resorts. In fact, that is how Strip casinos have sold themselves since Thomas Hull's El Rancho Vegas opened in 1941. This "new" paradigm isn't so new; it just grafts huge hotel towers and shopping malls onto the tested casino resort concept: casino, entertainment, restaurants, and rooms. The more intense theming of the casinos of the 1990s actually has more to do with trends in American commercial culture than Vegas innovations, and the larger hotels are a result of Las Vegas's successful promotion as a vacation and convention destination. Earley implies these explanations, but does little more to explain why the "new" Las Vegas is new.
   
   The book's structure is somewhat conflicted; a reasonably straight telling of the development of Circus Circus resorts from Jay Sarno to Mandalay Bay is followed by a seemingly random series of chapters detailing the jobs of selected casino personnel. Thrown into the mix are small vignettes from casino patrons and employees that are often complete non-sequiturs. For comparison, think of When Harry Met Sally. In the place of couples reminiscing about how they fell in love, substitute lurid tales of the pleasures of sunbathing topless in Las Vegas, interminable contrasts to the "good old days" of goodfella imperium, and random tales of personal bliss and woe at the hand of the cruel goddess Fortuna. Some of the stories are interesting, but they really have nothing to do with anything else. If they are meant to capture the pulse of the "real" Las Vegas, they seem a rather poor representative sample; much more interesting stories are in the air even on slow nights. If they are meant to flesh out the goings on in the Luxor, they simply don't.
   
   Earley is on his strongest ground when describing the inner politics of the Circus Circus/Mandalay Resorts company. He translated his astute observations of the corporate boardroom into genuinely interesting prose. The story of how William Bennett and William Pennington rescued the Sarno's ailing Circus Circus by transforming it into the K Mart of the Strip contrasts nicely with Clyde Turner, Glenn Schaeffer, and others' baccaratization of Luxor, Circus's first foray into an upscale market. With the opening of Mandalay Bay and Circus Circus's rebirth as the Mandalay Resort Group, briefly covered at the book's end, the company had come full circle. As early relates, this was just as much a function of the clashing personalities of the men at the helm of Circus/Mandalay as it was the result of a deliberately studied marketing approach. In this regard, Earley provides a truly interesting look at how a large casino company actually runs.
   
   But Earley fails to look past the hype. His consideration of actual casino operations is hopelessly uncritical. For example, he writes with admiration about the Luxor's "sophisticated" security systems without really looking at them; because the Director and a few chosen shift managers told Earley the Luxor was the state of the art in surveillance and security, the author dutifully accepted this as fact. The illusion of omnipresent, devouring surveillance and ubiquitous control is precisely that, an illusion. Earley doesn't question the logistics of how a security "force" of fifteen men and women, five of whom have assigned sitting posts, can maintain order in a crowded casino and hotel (p.236). He catches echoes of line employee's despair at Luxor boss Tony Alamo's insistence on improved service in the face of slashed costs, but doesn't really consider whether these are valid criticisms or sour grapes.
   
   Earley disappoints most strenuously, though, in his glimpses of the "real" Las Vegas. There are the myriad high rollers, casual gamblers, and compulsive addicts, and of course the de rigueur look at the two most fetishized females in Las Vegas past and present, the showgirl and the prostitute. Even though Earley carefully apprises the reader of the hard work needed to become a successful showgirl, his parallel consideration of the two "career paths" tends to degrade the dancer's life. Besides a new security shift manager who is given a brief treatment, these are the two most consistently prominent women in the book. Is that a commentary on the glass ceiling in the casino industry or an author's lazy contentment to recycle stereotypical considerations of women in the casino? Given the success of women in rising to top management positions in several casino companies, the latter is the more obvious choice.
   
   "Inside" books on Las Vegas by journalists (Earley is a former Washington Poster with several acclaimed books to his credit) generally follow the same pattern: the author is a Dante whose glimpse of the Inferno is only as good as his Virgil. For example, when a former law enforcement agent is the guide the author usually wanders onto avenues of speculation about who "really" rules Las Vegas and where all the bodies are buried. In this case, Earley apparently had Glenn Schaeffer and Tony Alamo as his primary handlers. The result is excellent material on the culture of Mandalay Resort Group's boardroom and the Luxor's management team. But the specious quality of Earley's less structured research, e.g., his discussions of the lowlifes and high rollers that call Las Vegas home or haven unfortunately slides this book precipitously close to the pile of bad books about Las Vegas. In addition, there are a few factual errors, such as the inexplicable statement that "Bally's no longer exists," at the corner of Flamingo and the Strip (p.126) or the reportage of Asian high rollers' predilection for a novel dice game called "pia gow," that might have been caught by a seasoned industry observer, or at least someone who has spent a day on the Strip and leafed through a promotional guide to playing pai gow tiles and other games.

1 comments about Fun with the Family Las Vegas, 4th (Fun with the Family Series).

1. I've never been to Vegas; never really wanted to, actually. But guess what? We're a military family and our motto is: 'Home is where the Air Force sends us.' How do you tell two teenagers that they have to leave their friends in our nice quiet community to move to "Sin City"? Well, for once, I did the right thing. I picked up Lynn Goya's book, FUN WITH THE FAMILY LAS VEGAS and poured over the contents in one afternoon. The once crisp clear pages are now folded, marked, tabbed, and highlighted to grab the attention of my once unenthusiatic teens. Well, one month til "zero hour" and we're ALL (myself included) actually really looking forward to checking out the great kid-friendly activities that Ms. Goya's book introduced us to. Here's the thing, my original plan was to avoid "the strip" at all costs -- especially with the kids. However, Ms. Goya took me by the hand (well, it felt like that while I was reading it) and showed me each kid-friendly spot that "the strip" has to offer. Anyone for Laser Tag at Circus Circus? Uh, sign me up! Of course, you've got the Venetian and their gondola rides (Goya covers all that for you too), but frankly, most kids are going to want to have a hand in choosing which hotel to stay in based on which one has the coolest pool. Guess what, the book lays all that out for you as well. I'm telling you, as a military family we've traveled to at least 20 countries and countless states within the US and my bookshelf is busting at the seams with guide books to prove it. When comparing the general information that each of my other books has to offer with Goya's FWTF LAS VEGAS, I have to say this one holds up on its own. For one, I can't tell you how many times we would vacation and all my kids would talk about was how bored they were. Too many of today's books show you where to stay, where to eat, how much each will cost you and the occasional historical building/monument that will take up all of 10 minutes until boredom sets in. How sad is it that we adults forgot how to have fun. I dare you all to try this one out for a day if you find yourself in Vegas. Hit the occasional casino if you want -- Goya shows you each one's kid-friendly hot spots, but get a car and drive off further afield to check out the REAL Las Vegas. Believe it or not people actually live there, and they love it. What's not to love when you have Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in your back yard!!! Goya's book covers it all, and more. I, for one, have gotten over the shock of having to relocate to Las Vegas and this book lent a huge hand in that recovery. I've got big plans for us all after all of the boxes are unpacked and this book will live permanently in my car for the next three years. Take the challenge and live like a kid again.

1 comments about Zeropolis: The Experience of Las Vegas (Topographics).

1. This shortish meditation on the "Vegas experience" suffers from a willful lack of focus and thoughtfulness. The book's most obvious flaw is that the author's goal is to figure out what "Las Vegas" actively does to people. "Las Vegas makes fun of everything. It makes every reality an object of mockery....it uncovers the primeval scene of society: the impossibility of believing in the truth of the other" (13).
   
   My snappy answer to Begout is that Las Vegas is an inanimate collection of asphalt, concrete, and building ordinances. It doesn't "do" anything any more than Cleveland, or Cardiff, or Amiens (Begout's usual stomping grounds) does. Certainly people in Las Vegas do things: casino executives try to maximize their RevPAR and slot win, players try to hit a royal flush, and gourmands go all in at the buffet. But it is impossible for the city itself, which is either a physical object or an abstraction, to perform actions. But Begout spends page after page treading water with this kind of superficial analysis that, frankly, I wouldn't accept from a freshman.
   
   Begout's chief conceit is that Las Vegas is "Zeropolis," a city whose "urbanity is nothingness" (121). If that's the case, I'd like a full refund of my real estate taxes, and the cops and firefighters are probably wondering why they've been getting paid to watch over "nothingness" all these years.
   
   Las Vegas is a real place. Just ask any of us who live here. We've got very real lives, and aspirations, and failures, and Begout's vapid reductionism is as hurtful as it is inane. Begout's failure to accept Las Vegas as a city built and inhabited by real people leads him to some strange twists, such as, "The unknown artists who created the giant signs of the Sands, the Sahara, and the Stardust are called Hermon Boernge, Jack Larsen, and Kermit Wayne" (60). What? If we know their names, they are, by definition, not "unknown." if Begout's point is that the trio of artists are unappreciated, that line should read, "A mostly-unheralded group of neon artists, Hermon Boernge, Jack Larsen, and Kermit Wayne, created the trademark giant signs of the Sands, the Sahara, and the Stardust." It's evidence of poor writing and sloppy thinking that Begout resorts to such byzantine formulations to make his point.
   
   Reading this book, I kept waiting for Begout to deliver some original insight gained from his time in Las Vegas, or at least to get out and talk to someone. It sounds most of his time here alone in his room, reading Baudrillard and feeling uninspired, or cruising the streets in a rental car. He observes, but doesn't interact. This wouldn't be a problem, but he claims with great authority to reveal the soul of Las Vegas, and it's clear that he doesn't have the slightest idea about how the city really works. He knowingly tells us that "the ideal Las Vegas customer resembles Raymond, an engineer from Phoenix and an unrepentant gambler, still sitting at a craps table at half past three in the morning," then goes on to blockquote Tom Wolfe's description of Raymond, first published in 1964! (51) One of the characteristics of Las Vegas is that it changes quickly, so using forty-year old borrowed reportage hardly esteems Begout as a topical commentator.
   
   Nor does the author let the facts get in his way: one page 38, for example, he says that there is gambling in the "toilets" at McCarran airport. Yes, there are slots at the airport, but last time I check, nobody's installed them in the bathrooms yet. Unless Begout was talking about some Larry Craig-type antics, which is probably a whole other book in and of itself. As a result, Zeropolis is glib without being pithy. It's mostly stuff that Begout's read about Las Vegas glued together with unoriginal generic "Vegas is bad" musings-whether it's by design or by accident, there's no "experience" in this book about the "Las Vegas experience."
   
   To make matters, worse, either Begout's original prose was hideous or he's suffered from a gruesome translation. How else to explain text like, "With its thousands of fitful garish glitterings, it illuminates the celestial vault, which puts on a pallid show by comparison. (17)". Now that's mildly amusing if you imagine it being read by Jean Girard or spoken as a piece of linking narration in a Sandy Frank movie, but it's impossible to take it seriously.
   
   I have an almost visceral aversion to giving books bad reviews--check out my other reviews if you don't believe me--but Zeropolis has few merits, outside of the reverse entertainment of seeing how absurd it is. Nothing city, indeed.

5 comments about Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century.

1. Boy, I'll tell you: there's nothing worse than a reviewer who either didn't read or can't understand a book. Neon Metroplis does not argue that Las Vegas is economically malleable at all. It says that Las Vegas thrives as a tourist town because the image it presents is malleable - that it can change to meet the trends. All you have to do is remember the so-called family era - with theme parks etc. - of a decade ago and look at the ads today: "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," to see that this is true.

   Neon Metropolis also says that Las Vegas is the one horse in a one-horse state; as anyone who followed 2003's tax debacle in Nevada could see, this is ever more true.

   Las Vegas' problems are real and Neon Metropolis is a lot more conversant with them than these two reviews suggest. This is by far the best book on Las Vegas.




2. Overall, Neon Metropolis presents an overview of the history and sociology of modern Las Vegas. Rothman's focus is on modern Las Vegas, so readers looking for more of a straightforward history starting before the twentieth century may be disappointed. This book is best for readers looking to understand the development of the modern casino and entertainment industry or for readers looking to understand how Las Vegas functions behind-the-scenes as a modern city.
   
   The book not only describes the development of gambling and entertainment along the Las Vegas Strip but also describes the immigration of people to Las Vegas and the problems caused by Las Vegas's high growth rate and desert location. Special attention is given to such simple things as the development of city infrastructure and the use of Hispanic immigrant labor, things that would otherwise be ignored in the history of any other city. Rothman thereby gives his readers a pespective into how both the casino industry developed and how the city as a whole developed. Rothman is also unafraid to critically analyze the problems facing Las Vegas as a modern day city, although his positions on some issues (such as labor unions) are clearly biased.
   
   Aside from questionable biased viewpoints on some issues, Neon Metropolis suffers from being written with poor English. Rothman's largest problem is that he writes sentences that are too long to be readable. It is sometimes difficult to determine what some sentences are trying to say. Rothman also likes to use very bad metaphors and cliches. It seems as though he is trying to be funny or clever, but instead he simply sounds trite. Additional organizational problems and grammatical errors further hinder this book's readability.
   
   In summary, I would recommend this book to readers who seriously wants to understand Las Vegas. For casual readers, however, I would recommend passing on this book unless the author produces a new version that includes some serious revisions.



3. I like the way Rothman writes. I also recognize that this is one man's view of how Las Vegas became what it is. I think anyone asking what happened to unions should read this book.



4. Rothman does a nice job pointing out what has proven to be the very effective economic engine of the modern American service industry. When organized labor meets the lucrative tourist industry, wages for folks with a high school education can indeed be quite solid. For those here that doubt the role of organized, unionized labor, simply compare the economy of southern Nevada to southern Louisiana. While New Orleans has a strong gaming industry, wages are bad, and poverty profoundly rampant. On this point, Professor Rothman is correct: Las Vegas, with it's robust mix of service economy and unionizatin, could point the way to the future.
   
   Professor Rothman does, however, tend to gloss over the nagging social ills inherent with the gaming industry. In particular, Nevada has spectacular suicide and divorce rates, sky-high spousal abuse and very, very high teenage dropout rates (comparable to inner city neighborhoods in east coast cities). He also misses the biggest problem of all: chronic gambling addiction among many casino workers and the wholesale, even arrogant, failure of the gaming industry to address the problem.
   
   It is somewhat ironic that Rothman, who does indeed have a background in environmental history, ignores many of Las Vegas' environmental issues. The vast sprawl of Las Vegas may well NOT be sustainable in an age of skyrocketing oil prices; a large percentage of Las Vegas visitors still arrive by car from Southern California, relying on an increasingly clogged 4 lane interstate (I-15). The city itself relies on just one pipeline to bring gasoline to the valley from southern California and local fuel prices are threatening to reach dangerously historic highs this year.
   
   Rothman is also blithely unconcerned about water. Climate Change is predicted to make the US southwest far drier than it is today. Indeed, the region is currently suffering under a years-long drought that has taken reservoirs to insidiously low levels. Both Lake Meade, just an hour's drive south of the city, and Lake Powell, between central Arizona and central Utah, are at dangerous, historically low levels. Despite extremely strict residential water usage restrictions in southern Nevada, lack of water could well derail growth in the Las Vegas metropolitan area within the next decade, particularly if the current drought persists.
   
   Rothman's anecdotes often miss serious underlying sociological issues. Sure, you can find stories of community in virtually any city or neighborhood, but Rothman's often cutsy anecodotes miss the big picture. The state suffers an intense brain drain. Many of it's young residents leave state to attend college and if they receive a master's degree or higher, very few will ever return. The city is profoundly transient, and the exaggerated suburban sprawl of the new "instant city" variety has its drawbacks.
   
   The average tenure of home ownership is very brief in Las Vegas: even residents who live their entire lives in the city tend to move once or twice to flee declining neighborhoods. Shiny new (but rapidly and poorly constructed) suburban tracts fall from middle to working class and even into crime-ridden lower working class neighborhoods in 25 years or less. Rings of impoverished, aging inner suburbs are causing grief for city planners as the middle class flees a growing core of decaying housing for newer digs in the outer sprawl. In eastern cities, historic buildings and brownstones in the inner core drew a new generation of college educated adults willing to restore and rediscover neighborhoods. Cookie-cutter, cinder block nightmare neighborhoods, thrown together by careless contractors in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are less easily renovated or rediscovered.
   
   Finally, Rothman misses the macro-economic taxation issues. Because Nevada relies almost solely on the gaming and sales taxes to run the state, the state is extremely vulnerable should a real recession hit.
   
   Rothman, ultimately, misses as much as he hits. The landbreaking sociological study of the modern gaming town, sadly, remains to be written.



5. As a casual visitor to the Las Vegas strip, I found myself wondering what was going on behind all the glitz of the casino hotels. I wanted to understand the cost of the fantasy. After reading Rothman's book, I feel like I have a better grasp. It answered a lot of questions I had as I was cruising down Las Vegas Boulevard. Where does all the money come from? Where does it go? What is the environmental cost of all the water in the fountains? How well are all these blackjack dealers, cocktail waitresses, cooks and housekeepers treated?
   
   More of a historical and geographical chronicle than a sociological report, the book tries to present a very organic view of the city by following the history of its growth. I want to make it clear that this is a book with a very specific topic: how Las Vegas became a tumbleweed railroad town to a metropolis with a culture and economy rivaling Phoenix and even L.A. There are about 60 pages devoted to the casino strip, its former mob days and its modern showiness, but the vast majority of the book is devoted to the more mundane but crucial issues that prove that Las Vegas is a real urban center.
   
   The book is divided into three sections: a section about the economic, cultural and political incentives for people to move to Las Vegas, a section about the types of people who have moved to Las Vegas by the tens of thousands each year in the 1990s, and a final section devoted to the environmental, geographical and social impact that Las Vegas's hyperactive growth has caused. Chief topics are the casino economy, libertarian politics, labor unions, retirement communities, illegal immigrants, water rights, highways and homeowners associations.
   
   If the whole picture of Las Vegas is what interests you, not just the intrigue and vice, you will find this book both informative and pleasant to read. Though some of the topics I listed seem pretty mundane, they are presented with a lot of emotional investment. Rothman compares in this way to the pop sociology writers, like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. Keep in mind, though, that one of the reasons that this book is so entertaining is that it is just an overview; you might feel that it doesn't go quite as much into detail as you would like at some points. But that's the case with any 320 page book dealing with such a vast topic.
   
   I would agree with another reviewer in saying that a major flaw in this book is its writing. While it's clear that Rothman writes in plain, understandable English and writes with much better-than-average energy, zest and emotional insight, the book is plagued with missing words, awkward phrasings and the occasional completely incomprehensible sentence. It could have stood to be edited a bit more.
   
   On the other hand, these mistakes, though more frequent than in most books I have read, are not frequent enough to really make that much of a difference. They're more a noticeable curiosity than they are anything frustrating.
   
   To sum up:
   I give this book 4/5 as a history and urban studies book, for being both a pleasure to read (a huge challenge for history books) and informative. It is recommended for those who are questing for true insight into the realities of modern Las Vegas and the American city. If you're only interested in reading about the city's gambling, mobsters, burlesque shows and buffets, either borrow the book to read only the first 60 pages, or look elsewhere.

No comments about Las Vegas: Portrait of a City (Portrait of a Place).

4 comments about Driving by Memory.

1. Though published by a university press, this is no dry academic tome. It's an unusally creative attempt to capture the spirit and the meaning of the drive through the desert. Fox writes of three approaches to the archetypal desert city, Las Vegas: from Sante Fe, from Los Angeles and from Reno. His writing is personal, captivating and will make you see the desert (and our paths through it) in entirely new ways.



2. What a letdown. Yes, the prose is decent, and the premise is undeniably attractive but, for anybody who holds the drive to Las Vegas close to their heart, these 3 separate tales of driving across the desert toward that glittery focal point called Sin City will all leave you feeling cheated. Why? Well, most of all, the author TURNS OFF THE HIGHWAY BEFORE GETTING TO VEGAS! How can you leave out the final 5 miles!? If you have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a casino, what in the world are you doing writing a book with Vegas at its center? Yes, the author shows that he knows the road, and what the various mountains are called, etc., but he obviously has no understanding of what compels most of us to take that road so many times in our lives. Skip this book and spend the money on a tank of gas yourself. This book has no Elvis.



3. Last November, I flew into las Vegas for the first time on a bright, sunny day. I had my nose pressed to the window most of the way, and was in awe of the what lay below. I followed the roads through the desert that led to Vegas and vowed to make the drive myself some day. I couldn't believe my luck when I happened across this book. But, the book left me bored and disappointed. Maybe I was expecting too much, but even the author's reader-friendly prose could not make this an interesting read.



4. Fox's wit, charm, and intellect combine to create a fascinating book that is part memoir and part geography, culture, and history lessons. A rare combination that suits a reader like me who is always looking for books that help me see life through a clear new lens!

3 comments about Avant-Guide Las Vegas: Insiders' Guide to Progressive Culture (Avant Guides).

1. This book was my introduction to the Avant Guide series, and I was thoroughly impressed. I've been to Vegas several times and used as many guide books, but this is by far my favorite. The author demonstrates a refreshing respect for everything cool -- from groovy local dives to swanky tourist hot spots. If you wish to revel in all things Vegas -- if you dig the history and the kitsch -- this book will show you a good time regardless of your budget.

   Be warned: Square types may find plenty to offend on these lively pages. Hotels are ranked from "Very Expensive" to "Cheap A--"; drugs and prostitution are given a comic wink; and the author makes a point of helping you avoid child-infested locations. If any of this sounds like a bad thing, you'd best avoid this book.

   But for anyone with a healthy sense of humor, irony, and things absurd, this book is the next best thing to having a supercool, local friend guide your Vegas experience.




2. Dan Levine and his crew have experienced what they write about.It's based on reality,not on puffery. Savvy,irreverent at times, funny and wonderfully practical.It's extremely well organized and easy to use. I've read a ton of stuff on Vegas and this is the only one I actually use and give to others. Their opinions are the same as mine.
   
   My only criticism is the binding. It tends to fall apart after many uses. Dan, would you consider spiral binding?
   
   Thanks, Dan. Samuel Henderson



3. I bought this book after using and fully enjoying the Avant-Guide to Paris. I knew nothing about Vegas before a recent trip and Avant-Guide made sure I was well prepared. It had excellent information on cool and hip places as well as "classic Vegas" and must-see destinations. It covers it from the perspective of singles or couples. This is not a family vacation book or a budget travel book. It is fun to read and easy to navigate. Because of this I also bought the New York book which is equally enjoyable.

No comments about In the Spirit of Las Vegas.

No comments about Why Shouldn't a Woman Wear Red in a Casino? The 101 most asked questions about Las Vegas and Casino Gambling (More of the West).