5 comments about A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube (New York Review Books Classics).

1. Patrick Leigh Fermor's work is a joy to read. I brought it with me this past summer when I was living/traveling in the former Yugoslavia and I have as many fond memories of reading that book on long bus rides as some of the places I experienced. I ended up giving it away to a friend I had met as a present and I miss it dearly now and plan on purchasing it again when I have the funds. His description of the beer hall in Munich is my favorite part.
   Having read numerous works of Kaplan and Rebecca West, I feel that Fermor is the best in the league, at least with this series. Speaking of which, I read them out of order so it is not entirely necessary to read Time of Gifts first. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Fermor finishes the third book before he passes, though I cannot find any news of it. Does anyone know?
   
   I highly recommend this work.



2. A friend told me to buy this book, and that if I did not like it, he would refund my money. I did not ask for the refund. One gets caught up in the trek through Europe, where the author visits places many of which I have visited myself, albeit many years later. I have experienced big-time nostalgia from reading this book.



3. A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor.
   If this book is what comes from getting kicked out of a good British public school, one can only wish fewer writers made it through. Not that Leigh Fermor needed more education, if it is, as they say, what is left when what you learned has been forgotten. In 1933, getting caught in flagrante--holding hands with a greengrocer's daughter--proved too much for the last school that accepted the challenge of the eccentric Leigh Fermor. He took a hike, walking from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople, along the Rhine and the Danube. Forty years later and many adventures thereafter, he wrote it down for a comrade he had shared waratime night watches on Crete with. Even in the hands of a lesser spirit, a report from Europe on the brink of World War II would be of interest, but with Leigh Fermor, it is pure enchantment. He is gregarious, curious, terrifyingly learned, sensitive and wry. With the meager contents of his knapsack (and later less, after its theft) and four pounds per month, he mixes with barge hands, toothless prostitutes, well-brought up girls, and genteel widows. He has Shakespeare's gift for getting familiar words to show off hidden talents. His description of a night in Munich's Hofbrau house has Mozart in the speed and lightness with which he gets opposing moods to minuet. Leigh Fermor takes us from room to room and brew to brew of the beer palace; from burghers "as wide as casks" to an S.A. chorus, from blond beer (a "cylindrical litre of Teutonic myth") in mugs with a monogram like a cannon's foundry-mark, to a "long Wagnerian chord" of dark beer. Strangling laughter follows the reader on a helpless reel through vulgarity, gluttony, joy and menace, to the sobering slap of the final phrase of British self-deprecation. Other writers took entire books to portray Germany in those years, Leigh Fermor does it in mere pages. And that is only midway through volume one, there is still volume two: Between the Woods and the Water



4. Patrick Leigh Fermor was born in Great Britain just before the start of the First World War. When his mother and older sister left by ship to join his father in India, Fermor was left in England so that one of the family would survive if the ship were hit by a torpedo. He had been left in the care of a 'kind and simple' farm family who were shy about disciplining him, and so when his mother and sister returned four years later they found their little boy had transformed into a 'little savage' with a heavy Northamptonshire accent. While Fermor did become more civilized during a tour of British schools, he was never able to totally adhere to the all-important rules of those strict establishments. As a consequence, after being kicked out of school for the umpteenth time, Fermor decided to give up the normal scheme of things and cross the channel to start a walk from Holland to Constantinople. The month was December and the year was 1933. A Time of Gifts is his record of the first half of this trip.
   
   Europe had had a tradition going back hundreds of years of encouraging and succouring the wandering student. This tradition dictated that Fermor was to be taken in, fed, housed, and helped along his way. This was true of all levels of society (he slept in haylofts, cowsheds and myriad castles, crumbling and sumptuous.) He was to be engaged and enjoyed by those he met, not feared or shunned or hurried on his way. I wonder if this attitude still survives in places. One hopes.
   
   Fermor, besides giving a detailed description of the people and places he encounters, also makes the history of these places seem real. He delves into the important part the people of the Frisian Islands (located on the edge of the Zuider Zee) played in the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. We learn about the history of the croissant (hint -it has to do with the siege of Vienna by the Turks). He presents and discusses layers and layers of fascinating history as he travels the invasion prone Danube valley. Between 400 AD and 500 AD, there was almost grid-lock among different peoples invading this area to fill in the vacuum created by the fall of the Roman Empire -the Huns arrived and displaced everyone they encountered. The Visigoths and Vandals went charging westwards and southward. The Suevi, Bayuvars, and the Rugii all squeezed in there somewhere. One of the Rugii joined the Roman legions and worked his way up to Emperor, and ruled well until he was sliced in two (from the collar-bone to the loins) by Theodoric the Ostrogoth, marking the end of the Roman Empire and the start of the Dark Ages.
   
   Fermor visits the Danubian castle where Richard the Lion Hearted was held for so long. In the shadows of this moody, history soaked edifice, he recounts the incredible tale of King Richard I -how he insulted Leopold, Duke of Austria, on the Third Crusade, and how, summoned back to England because of the mis-rule of Prince John, he was captured and imprisoned until freed by his minstrel, Blondel, who had visited every castle on the Danube, singing a particular song that he knew only Richard would recognise the second verse to.
   
   Fermor meets a rich variety of kind, wonderful, interesting people and you can't help but wonder how they fared in the cataclysmic storm about to engulf them, advance clouds of which occasionally chill this other wise sunny narrative. For example, Fermor arrives in Vienna by truck in a rainstorm to find the power out and martial law in effect because of action by socialist sympathizers (the authorities explain that usually these conflagrations are caused by Nazi sympathizers, but this one happens to be a socialist problem).
   
   Reading this book, one gets a feel for what a wonderful geographic and social anomaly Europe is. The variety of peoples, the history, the art, the architecture and the number of cultures and languages all packed into a relatively small area are spectacular.
   
   A paradox -the vast majority of people encountered are kind, decent human beings, and yet Fermor wanders across regions of Europe where the most unspeakable and wide-ranging atrocities were to occur a short five years later. How could this come to be?
   
   Some of Fermor's descriptions and musings on art and architecture can be abstruse and frustratingly prolix, but those occasions are thankfully rare. Here are just a handful of the words I had to look up while reading this book -flocculent, exfoliation, fiacres, glaucous, recondite, irrefragable, deracination.



5. This well written & mesmerizing book is about one man's journey through Europe & his life. He distills all his experiences into his trek, how he approaches it & how he sees it. I have just started reading this but am looking forward to a long, satistying relationship with his other writings.

5 comments about Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople: From The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates (New York Review Books Classics).

1. I got this book before Amazon existed and I've bought multiple copies since then.
   Buy this and treasure it, give it to your friends.



2. This is the continuation of, "A Time of Gifts." The English youth continues his walk across Europe to Constantinople. He picks up now in Austria, on to Hungary following the Danube valley. I wanted to quit reading this - page after page of allusions to east European history from Roman and pre-Roman times, Hungarian geography, reflections on Slavic languages. Esoterics I cannot appreciate. Still, they lured me and challenged me. These are places and these are people - Magyars and Gypsies - we seldom find in writing. We are introduced just as an era is about to end and everything is to change. It can be a book to go to bed with.



3. `Between the Woods and the Water' is a delightful travelogue, even though the sites and sounds are long gone. Fermor paints a picture of the life every young man wants to lead - well-funded itinerant travel, nearly effortless sociability, and a seemingly endless nightlife. This is the ultimate "Wish You Were Here" card, well worth the read for anyone interested in travel, history, and tales of pre-war social frivolity in Eastern Europe.
   
   The narrative structure took me by surprise. Almost every region receives a minor academic treatment prior to Fermor's personal tales: history, language, architecture, nature, fun and games, repeat. I found myself skimming past descriptions of birds and trees, but fascinated by the author's insights into the interplay of geography, language development, and regional history. And, of course, it is impossible not to be won over by the author's late nights, fleeting loves, and brief stays with forgotten royalty.
   
   My father often told me that `On the Road' had a profound effect on him as a youth. `Between the Woods and the Water' has a similar effect on me, only later in life. After the reading the story I was offered a brief trip to Hungary which I could not pass up. Far from Fermor's experience, I was greeted with mindless business meetings, post-communism industrial architecture, a robbery, and small-scale street riots. In the end, my disappointment with reality deepened my appreciation of the book - a memorializing tale of a geography and way of life that no longer exists.



4. The title above is German for "Absolutely nothing!", Fermor's droll reply to "What are you studying?" when visiting a scholar with his newfound Transylvanian friend Istvan, who laughs about such blasphemy all the way back from the visit. The polymathic Fermor had contemplated his answer a few moments before answering-"Languages? Art? Geography? Folklore? Literature? None of them seemed to fit." The truth is, of course, as anyone who has read of anything of Fermor's knows full well, that Fermor has been studying all of these things, but with his own assiduous, unacademic zeal. This time he spent in Transylvania (The country's name meaning, as any first year Latinist would know, "Across the Woods") is by far my favourite: His escapades with Istvan, the fleeting amour with Angela, the effortless historical erudition about the region all make it exemplary of the book as a whole - which is not to slight the rest of it at all!
   
   I disagree profoundly with the reviewers who take umbrage at Fermor's "esoteric" use of language and historic allusion. For the armchair traveler, these qualities make the book just that much more fun - Diving into the OED and various encyclopedias to thresh out some of the references.
   
   The overall effect of this book, as with A Time of Gifts, is best likened to a friendly punch in the gut by an old chum. It takes you at unawares but leaves you invigorated and happy to be alive in the world. Yes, there are sadnesses to the book, not the least of which is that the beautiful View of the Danube near Regensburg on the cover of the NYRB edition is now underwater, lost forever; But as Fermor contemplates as his time with Angela draws to a close, "There are hours in life worth more than diamonds." This book is full of them!
   
   
   And all these youths chain-smoking cigarettes! Perhaps the Surgeon General should put a warning label on the book lest a youth of today discover the vibrant meaning of carpe diem!



5. This book and its sequel, "Between the Woods and the Water," is truly a classic of the personal odyssey genre. Together they are the report by the English author of a diary he wrote between the ages of 19 and 22 while he walked from Holland to Istanbul. But he writes his report after a lengthy career in military service and, among other things, in journalism. The result combines the enthusiasm of a young student with the measured and spare prose of a seasoned and skilled veteran. The author as student is amazingly well schooled, even though thrown out of his public school. His reflections on what he sees are both erudite and almost poetic. (Read, e.g., the chapter, Prague Under Snow.) They don't serve as a normal travel guide, but they'll introduce you to the lands he traverses in a way that will make your own visit unusually well informed.

5 comments about Frommer's New York City with Kids (Frommer's With Kids).

1. We recently spent a week in New York state for a family wedding. Three of those days were spent sightseeing in NYC with our two children, ages 6 and 3. This guidebook was invaluable! We used it to plan our agenda in advance, and then carried it with us on our trip. We had a great time, and we knew exactly where to go and what to do. This is a great resource for any family! I especially liked the detailed information about transportation options, playgrounds in the city, and family-friendly restaurants.



2. We recently planned a trip to NYC with our 6 and 1 year old. I picked up this book, seeing as we have never been to NYC. The hotel we chose out of this book was in a neighborhood I would not consider safe for children. We ended up changing hotels because of it. The book said there was a children's playroom in our new hotel...there was not. We went to the Children's Museum of Manhattan, which the book says is good for kids 8 and under...our 6 year old was bored!! Also, the museum does not allow strollers, which I think is important info that should have been mentioned, but was not. There were other little bits of info that the book mentioned that were incorrect.
   
   Needless to say, the book was packed away by the middle of the trip...it just wasn't reliable.



3. Our family recently spent time in Manhattan. We took several books with us, and this was the one we found most useful. It's not perfect -- I found myself flipping pages a lot to connect restaurants and attractions etc, but it was still so loaded with good info that I always took it with me when we went out. We found several good restaurants that were just as depicted (though one was closed), and we chose several places to visit and were not disappointed. There's a good introductory chapter as well as excellent information about parks, playgrounds, restaurants, hotels, shopping, walks, entertainment and side trips. No pictures. Excellent resource.



4. I am satisfied with my travel guide purchase.
   
   We can feel it has been written by someone who really experienced NYC with kids. A lot of tips that can help a great deal.
   
   I hope not to get disappointed when I get to NYC.



5. The book is ok but I bought it because I was going to NYC and when I actually went I found that one restaurant, which was supposedly near my hotel, did not exist, another one was closed forever, so in the end I could not rely on the restaurant information. Also the information was put very sparsely, I would have arranged it more by area, given the fact that if you travel with kids the main problem is moving around and you are therefore more restricted in your movements. Overall it's 3 stars, I don't know if there are better guides, looking back I would not buy it again.

2 comments about Moleskine City Notebook New York (Moleskine City Notebook).

1. I love these books. I wish they would add more cities. They're small enough to fit into a purse or backpack without it being too cumbersome.



2. Great maps make it easy to get around the city. Used the subways during my trip. Subway map was a big help.
   
   Get it and have fun in NYC!

5 comments about The Never War (Pendragon Series #3).

1. For this book review I read Pendragon: The Never War. The author of this fantasy book is D.J Machale.
   
   This book is mostly about Bobby Pendragon who is a traveler and Gunny and Vo Spader, another two travelers who go through the flume that killed Uncle Press. Vo Spader and Bobby Pendragon come out and see two gangsters who have machine guns pointing right at them. The gangsters take them but they both escape and that's where they meet Gunny. Gunny takes them back to his hotel because he is a hotel bellboy. He lets them stay on the sixth floor. They meet a gangster named Max Rose but Max Rose makes them go see Winn Farrow. Winn Farrow catches them and ties them up and he burns the place down, but they escape. A big blimp called the Hindenburg comes in with Max Rose's money in it, but Winn Farrow fires a rocket at it and blows it up and Max runs into the blimp and he dies. They all go back to Second Earth and see their friends.
   
   I think this book is a really good book because it didn't get boring or anything. It was a really exciting book. This book would be best for people who like good adventure books and exciting books.



2. This is a really interesting book for probably one reason: the historical fiction.
   This book takes you to First Earth, where life is eternally 40 yeaers behind our Second Earth. The plot of this story is where Saint Dane is trying to alter things that have already happened to cause chaos throughout Halla. This is about the Hindenburg. Saint Dane offers Bobby a chance to save the Hindenburg from crashing but what will happen if he doesn't?
   This is book is chalk full of good historical fiction. I liked it, A LOT!



3. The Never War is the third book in the Pendragon series. I thought this book was amazing this book I think was the best of all of the pendragons. This book brings back the characters Mark, Courtney, Spader, and Bobby and a new traveler Gunny. This book brings you back into 1937 on first earth. At the start of world war two and ends with a big ending that may shock you.
   I would totally recommend this book because it envolve your own world and it makes you brush up on your history. This book is definitely the greatest sci-fi I have read. The Never War is a book that you never want to stop reading it keeps you on the edge of your seat through out the whole story and this book always has you thinking of what could happen next.



4. D. J. MacHale wrote for television for years before turning his attention to novels. He created ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK?, a long-running series on Nickelodeon in the United States, but it also showed in Canada on YTV and Cinar.
   
   For the last few years, he's been writing the adventures of Bobby Pendragon, a boy who's destined - hopefully - to save the world. Several worlds, actually. Bobby is a Traveler, one of those who have the power to "flume" from world to world. He's brought into the adventure by his Uncle Press. As Bobby was growing up, Uncle Press also took Bobby scuba diving, mountain climbing, to martial arts, driving, and several other things that gave him skills he needs to survive against enemies he encounters. All during that time, Uncle Press was training Bobby to be a Traveler.
   
   Bobby's greatest foe is a villain called Saint Dane. Saint Dane has the ability to change his appearance at will and constantly hides in different worlds while working his nefarious plans.
   
   THE NEVER WAR is the third book in this exciting series. In it, Bobby travels to First Earth, which takes place in the year 1937. The gangster era isn't new by any means, and I was slightly let down when I discovered I wasn't being taken to a new world. I especially loved Cloral, the world Bobby went to in the second book, THE LOST CITY OF FAAR, and I look forward to returning there hopefully in one of the later books.
   
   Still, I'm older than the average Pendragon reader. The 1930s and the Hindenburg are familiar to me through several other books I've read as well as history I've researched.
   
   For all the familiarity with the time period, though, MacHale tells a fascinating and fast-paced tale. Bobby and his new best friend Spader land in the 1930s while pursuing Saint Dane. They're immediately met by machine-gun toting thugs that try to kill them. Bobby figures out how to escape and gets Spader out as well. Spader is way out of his depth because he's never seen anything as "technologically advanced" as the 1930s.
   
   One of the best things about the Pendragon books is that Bobby usually gets to save the day in a down-to-earth manner. He doesn't have any really special skills or powers that help him. At this point, he's fourteen years old and can do what most kids that age can. This makes the series more believable in some ways, and I think it draws the Pendragon audience in a little closer.
   
   MacHale's sense of timing and pacing is excellent. The story moves quickly, and I got a real sense of urgency throughout the book as Bobby tries to figure out what Saint Dane is really doing. Many of the chapters end up on cliffhangers that will draw you rapidly into the next chapter. The dialogue is fantastic and sounds real.
   
   One of the other facets of the series that I really enjoy is Bobby's friendship with Mark Dimond and Courtney Chetwynde. The closeness they share, even through Bobby's journals, feels real.
   
   MacHale also mixes in adult heroes with his young champion. Vincent "Gunny" Van Dyke was an excellent grown Traveler in this novel. He was kind and gentle, and guided Bobby and Spader throughout the adventure.
   
   I did miss the world-building in this novel, but I know MacHale gets back to it in later volumes of the series. But for kids who haven't researched the 1930s much, this should be a fun book and on equal footing with fans of Artemis Fowl and Alex Rider.



5. The Never War (Pendragon Series #3) This book came as part of a box set containing the first 3 books in the series. They are quality paper backs. They will probably stand up to a lot of re-reads. I had been in search of a series to fill in the void left from the conclusion of the Harry Potter series. I have found that D. J. MacHale's series about time travel by a teenager and his friends to be an excellent transition from Harry Potter. I am currently finishing up book 8 in the series. I have purchased 7 of the books from Amazon and will buy books 8 and 9 when they come out in paper back. I would highly recommend this series to fans of Harry Potter. Trust me, you won't be disappointed and you will love the adventure.

2 comments about Fodor's New York City 2008 (Fodor's Gold Guides).

1. Great book to buy & read before going & planning your trip to NYC. It's something every 1st timer should have.



2. I found this guide slightly cumbersome due to the breadth of information, but what can you expect when covering such a vastly rich expanse such as New York City? I enjoyed the pictorial nuances and especially the "Word of Mouth" section that includes what you might expect: thoughts, recommendations & suggestions from native New Yorkers. These tid-bits are included in various parts of the guide--I thought this was an exceptionally informative touch. The introduction is well written, especially the suggestion on seeing the sights on foot.
   
   As a side note: I have visited New York on many occasions but had never invested in a guide. I would certainly recommend the Fodor's over perhaps Frommer's, but would also caution those to purchase a secondary guide as well. There are a couple of wonderful publications around the superficial premise of "secrets" of New York--these are actually helpful and insightful guides. I'd also recommend: The Best Things to do in New York: 1001 Ideas.

5 comments about This is New York (This is . . .).

1. This is New York is a great book that shows the diversity of New York City.



2. Exclamations come to mind: beautiful design and drawings, comprehensive and to the point guide! And this goes for all his city guides Paris, Rome, Venice and Hong Kong. You might argue it is a bit old fashioned, but I think you are confusing it with "it s one of the Classics". And when something is called a Classic, it is timeless and a Must-Have! Trust me, it is worth your while and money!



3. I am so glad to have found this book, it is from my childhood. New York Rocks.



4. Great book but a poor job of printing/scanning ("Printed in China"). My copy just arrived and all the images look washed-out, with blurry grays where there should be blacks. The copy I saw at the Tenement Museum bookstore in New York did not look like this. Very disappointing. Same for my copy of "This Is San Francisco" that was also part of this order. Bleh.



5. We are talking our grandchildren to New York and I can't wait to share this book with them on Christmas Day. I love the illustrations and the simplicity of the text. It will be fun to let them plan our itinerary.

5 comments about Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies.

1. As a Niagara Falls native, who has traveled all over the world and lived in several other parts of the country before returning to WNY, I found this book to be right on target. It was an engaging and easy read. Although I also thought I knew a lot about the history of the region, this wonderful book filled in a lot of blanks for me. It also made me remember the "good old days" when Niagara Falls was a destination to be enjoyed.



2. It was very enjoyable. Ginger Strand showed the very great diversity of history that constitutes the foundation of "present circumstances" at innumerable discernable geographic regions. This type of story is of value to many more people than just those who have lived there. I also thought that her presentation was well-balanced between facts, stories, and weirdness. I have already recommended her book to my day-job boss and one of my co-workers.



3. There may be many reasons for going to Niagara Falls. Sure, you have to be awed by the spectacular falls themselves. You might go to start up a marriage, or to re-start one. You might go gamble. "I went to Niagara Falls because I wanted to laugh at it," says Ginger Strand, author of _Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies_ (Simon and Schuster), and she finds plenty of the historical and regional environs funny. But wanting to laugh was the reason she went there during her college years, just to smirk at the tackiness and kitsch. She has been going back, though, over and over since then, because "I do love hydroinfrastructure - water tunnels, reservoirs, canals, sewers, aqueducts." She finds it inspiring, but she also finds that the natural wonder that everyone loves about the falls is not natural at all. It has been used, changed, prettified, trivialized, exploited, and poisoned. There is thus a great deal of amusement in this wide-ranging account, but a good deal of loss and sadness as well.
   
   "Niagara Falls as a natural wonder does not exist anymore." It is originally hard to believe this. It is not surprising that the water does not fall exactly as it did three hundred, or three thousand, years ago, but it is surprising how much people have made the changes happen in recent years. This is not entirely because of using the water for hydroelectric power, although this is certainly one cause of the change. The waterfall has hours of operation. In the summer, and during the daytime, when people come to see the falls in action, the water gets turned up to maximum flow. At night, it gets dialed back "like a fancy massaging showerhead" so that more electricity is generated. No more than half the water that could go over the falls actually does so, and an engineer assures Strand that yes, if they wanted, the power companies could divert all the water to the generators with none for the tourists. The effect on the scenery of the reduced flow has been minimized by huge engineering projects, tinkering with the flow and diverting it so that it goes evenly over Horseshoe Falls, for instance. The fall of the water is not all that has changed, of course. The "Free Niagara" movement, guided by the famous landscape architect Frederic Law Olmsted, proposed to make the surroundings of the falls to be picturesque and spiritually elevating. Strand writes that this was questionable social engineering. Worse than that, it hid the hydrodynamic and chemical exploitation of the area as industry sprang up to take advantage of the water's power. Only later did atrocities like the toxic dumps of the Love Canal come to light. There is a long history of utopian dreams for the region, but few of them have come true.
   
   Much of Strand's book is therefore distressing. Humans have tried to do what they always try to do, take control of nature for reasons esthetic, and especially commercial, and whatever successes have come are inextricably linked to failures. The pessimism does not mean that Strand's book is preachy. There are stories of shrunken heads here, and Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, and fake Indian legends, and of course the peculiar thrills of those who go over the falls in barrels. There is a great deal of fun here. Strand writes, "On every level, Niagara Falls is a monument to the ways America falsifies its relationship to nature, reshaping its contours, redirecting its force, claiming to submit to its will while imposing our own upon it." There is plenty of documentation here of this theme, but Strand still travels to Niagara every chance she gets. She is continually amazed at the landfills or the other examples of disharmony with nature, but that's not important. The real amazement, and she writes about it heartily and endearingly, comes from the big, green spectacle of water, falling. Anyone reading this entertaining account will understand how well-placed is her obsession.



4. This book tells us of the REALITY of the destruction of Niagara County NY. I enjoyed this book so much that I bought a copy for all my family members who are still living in the area. Many of them had no clue of the environmental damage going on around them. This book is a MUST read for anyone living in Niagara County NY.
   
   The book reads like a movie and you can "see" all that is happening throughout the time periods. Then when you hit chapter 8, your mouth will literally hang wide open when you see what greed, and ignorance has done to such a beautiful place. I was born in that area but I am sorry to say I will never return to it. Now I understand why so many people are dropping from cancer back there. There is a saying in Lockport NY as told to me by my sister and it is; "Everyone knows someone with cancer."
   
   Nothing will change back there until the people are educated and informed about their surroundings but the powers that be hide reality. So I'm hoping this book gets into the hands of the people back there.
   
   This is an eye opening reality. I recommend it to everyone no matter where on this planet you live. The things that happened in that area are still happening all around the world. We are killing ourselves.
   
   Thank you Ms. Strand for writing a book that takes us through history, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Excellent!!!!



5. In "Inventing Niagara:..." Ginger Strand writes a comprehensive albeit brief history of the Niagara Falls region without once mentioning Lockport Dolomite. She explores some myths, including the Maid of the Mist and Love Canal. For a non-native, she shows a real fondness for the area. The book is a good introduction to the area. Ms. Strand's style isn't academic, but she includes an extensive bibliography which gives the reader a path toward further study. She's done her homework but doesn't show off. As an engineer, I might have liked more technical discussion of the chemical and power plants, in lieu of the red-hat stories.
   
   The history of the area is rich with dreams, schemes, scams and characters. In about 350 pages, Ms. Strand brings them to life. You root for the area, but like Wile E. coyote's plans, things never seem to go as designed. You see the area go from frontier gateway to commerce center to crucial wartime (1812) site to industrial mecca to tourists' paradise and back and never quite getting it right. All the time there's some true believer guiding the Michigan on its course.
   
   The single reason to (buy and) read this book is for Ms. Strand's interviews and interactions with the locals. The funniest bit, that doesn't quite happen, is when she gets the Power Vista manager to shut the Falls off, because he can. Through her, you get to see the passion that the area inspires in people. From historians to preservationists to ex-Linde workers people want what they believe is best for the area. You get a feel for the power that the area holds over people. Sadly Ms. Strand didn't get to interview Robert Moses. That would have been entertaining.
   
   If you plan to make a pilgrimage to Niagara Falls, I recommend this book before coming. After you watch water fall over rocks for 10 minutes, the book might inspire you to look further.
   
   If you're an aspiring civic planner, I recommend this book. Think of this as the Goofus (of Goofus and Gallant) book.
   I would also recommend this book for schools and home-school libraries, especially in Western NY.
   
   -30-

5 comments about Here is New York.

1. A tightly written prose essay. An appreciation of the city that was and is. Memories and images of things past and things enduring. The city of E.B. White. If you live her, love her or even dislike her this memoir will evoke strong recollections.
   Short, incisive, majestic. A small treasure for those who love the great cities of the world.



2. Early to a party, I was looking at a friend's bookcase and pulled this slim volume from a shelf. After reading the first sentence, I knew I had to have it.
   
   Originally published in 1949, E.B. White, who no longer lived in New York City, captured the soul and spirit of the place. Nothing has changed. At the time, the United Nations building was under construction, and the bombing of London was fresh in his mind. He ends the book with a vision that perfectly balances hope with danger, in words prescient of September 11 - I re-read those paragraphs on every anniversary, it has become my ritual.
   
   But what originally drew me to the book is not only the truth and insight of White, but his style, his felicity of expression. The author of "The Elements of Style" certainly knew the rules, and knew when to break them, as well. The second paragraph ends with a run-on sentence 198 words long, a thrilling joy ride which itself demonstrates how impossible it is to capture, in prose, the enormity and importance of this city.
   
   I agree with Russell Baker, this is "the finest portrait ever painted of the city."



3. HERE IS NEW YORK is a truly spectacular 1948 essay that originally appeared in Holiday magazine. Written by E.B. White and named one of the ten best books ever written about New York, this is a quick read that will leave you years later savoring White's timeless observations.
   
   Writing in a hotel room during a sweltering heat wave, White takes the reader through the essence of New York City and its eight million inhabitants who he notes roughly fall into three groups: the natives, the commuters and the transplants.
   
   Warning that "no one should come to New York unless he is willing to be lucky," White lovingly explains how the city is more a collection of thousands of small neighborhoods that implausibly operate independently of each other, completely oblivious to what is occurring only a few blocks away.
   
   Though it was written almost 60 years ago, HERE IS NEW YORK is just as accurate today as the moment it was written. Yes, the city has changed but the basic structure of life in New York remains the same.
   
   Overall HERE IS NEW YORK is a very positive book that will leave everyone feeling welcome and needed in America's biggest city. But eerily the book presciently warns that "a single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal passages, cremate the millions."
   
   Though it was tough to read that passage right after 9/11 as I did, I still whole heartedly recommend HERE IS NEW YORK to anyone who lives in New York, commutes to and from there, or has just moved there and is now, as White observed, generating "enough heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company."
   
   - Regina McMenamin



4. Anything by E. B. White is fine - he must have been quite young when he wrote this but I enjoyed reading it and getting a sense of what New York was like at that time - some of it is still true but much has changed.



5. The reviews I read said that White gives the reader a feel for life in New York. Nonsense - the book is vague to the point where it could have been titled, Here is London, or Here is Shanghai. If you want to get a feel for New York, or at least the Bronx where I grew up, read "World Fair" by Doctorow.

5 comments about Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism.

1. Author Thomas Kohnstamm must be one of those charming, but thoroughly irresponsible, ne'er-do-wells with whom my past is littered - he certainly has a glib way with words. How else can I explain why I was up all night reading this book, fascination mingled with disgust, as he describes in painful detail his Rabelaisian descent into an underworld of booze, drugs and cheap women while gathering research for the Lonely Planet Guidebook on Brazil.
   
   Whether you are a seasoned traveller or an aficionado of the travel writing genre in all its extremes, you'll want to add this gutter's eye view of travel to your experience, albeit, from the safety of your armchair. But -- be warned - it's not for those of faint heart and queasy stomach. And yet the extreme physical privations Thomas subjects himself to in his quest for information, although perhaps viewed as immoral by many of us, are surely no worse than those endured by the great travellers of the past (Stanley, Scott, Peter Fleming, Eric Newby, Dervla Murphy) and for no better reason.
   
   This book may contain a certain level of hyperbole (one hopes so); after all, hyperbole is the author's business, and he readily describes with an adman's skill how he translates seedy reality into picturesque prose for the guidebook's naïve audience.
   
   Do travel writers go to hell? I'd say Thomas has been there, but hell wouldn't have him.
   
   I know I'll never look at a guidebook the same way again.



2. I read about this book when all the buzz came out about the Lonely Planet writer you didn't actually visit the location. After the buzz ended up being about nothing, I was still interested in the book.
   
   The writer does an excellent job keeping us in his head as he travels and lives a little on the edge. The story moves well and I found myself really looking forward to getting back to the book.
   
   AS someone who really enjoys travel, I was inspired by the adventureness of the writer. I usually restrict myself to high end hotels and the standard tourists destinations. But it's the times that I have moved off the beaten path that I have found myself enjoying the trip most. Thomas is an expert at finding that route.
   
   If you enjoy travel, it's likely that you'll enjoy this book.



3. ...much more than simply throwing stones on his own former glass house, Lonely Planet -- Kohnstamm has committed a grabbing road memoir on travelling through Northwestern Brazil.
   
   One thing is the underload of cash and time and overload of rules and inflexibility his employer set for the (ad)venture into these up and coming tourist destinations, another is the lack of discipline and resistence to the many temptations the same destinations throw in his face. Beautiful and usually not unwilling women, sometimes girls. Cheap alcohol and easy drugs, a less easy drug dealing business, and not at all easy Brazilian policemen. Here a free meal without a deal, there a free night. Kohnstamm's basically just a young man being exposed to choices and often giving in to them. And being honest, and courageous, enough to share them.
   
   True, 'Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?' will certainly make a wannabe travel writer, as well as any potential guidebook buyer -- not only of Lonely Planet but in general! -- think twice. But its first and foremost justification is the journey. A journey which is entertaining but much more so, it is a journey causing the author as well as the reader to reflect on morality, society and even humanity. On a down to earth level, in an almost frighteningly real life universe.
   
   Kohnstamm writes in a slightly philosophical but in no way pretentious language. Behind his inviting style lures a hint of a post-20s male's indignation and self-scepticism. But Kohnstamm also suggests which roads might lead in a more acceptable direction. An absorbing book by a skilled writer with much more to say than simply bashing the standard-setting travel book publisher to earn an easy buck.



4. This travelogue by Thomas Kohnstamm is about his journey and misadventures through Brazil as a first time writer for Lonely Planet travel guidebooks. Thomas spends the first portion of this book getting out of his job, separating from his girlfriend, and spending the night out with his friend which ends disastrously. Thomas then shows up in Brazil, with his purportedly meager wage advance on which he must travel, eat, and lodge. He spends much of the book complaining about being low on funds and time he is but will rent apartments for a month, buy ecstasy and other drugs, and do a lot of partying with other travelers as well as the locales.
   
   He tries to abide by the Lonely Planet creed of 'no freebies or gratuities" from hotels or restaurants for inclusion in their guidebooks. It takes Thomas most of his retelling to come to the conclusion you can only do the whirlwind travel and expenses by informing just such business owners who you are and where you work in which you get comped rooms, food, and meetings with the staff. Also you can't visit all these places and gather the input without using locals and other travelers to tell you about them and using their opinions rather than your own experience. I'm not knocking the author for doing this, I can understand why you need to do so.
   
   The book itself is based on the struggles of an aspiring travel writer and what it takes to be one. Secondary is the attempt to expose the underbelly and tribulations these writers endure and often outright lie about because you can't get paid for negative press. Thomas best writing is in his descriptions of the people he meets as the text is full of flavor and inspiring visions such as finding out what is roommate Inara's actual modeling job consists of or how the unassuming Otto is not to be taken for granted. His random sexual encounters are limited in coverage but his drinking and drug use was a bit much. Maybe cutting down on those could have stretched his money further. It was more like he took the job for the trip and went as a backpacker instead of a guidebook writer only to find out that he needed to do some actual research. Overall, quick read with some amusing misadventures.



5. An excellent read that reminds me of some of my own shenanigans (although not as crazy as the author's) while traveling in Latin America.