1 comments about Stubs: New York City Seating Guide (Stubs Seating Plan Guide).

1. We purchased this 'new' guide to replace our out-of-date 1990's copy. The only thing "new" about what Amazon is purveying is the cover art. Inside it is IDENTICAL to our out-of-date copy; misnamed , non-existent or unlisted venues. If subsequent information we received is accurate, the Stubs book isn't even being printed anymore.directories

No comments about Rand McNally Easy to Fold! Long Island Highways, New York.

2 comments about Garden Guide: New York City (Garden Guides).

1. This book is filled with beautiful photos and short descriptons of gardens from all five boroughs of New York City. Leafing through it, once again I realized how special this city is. Garden Guide: New York City is a must for anyone who wants to know the city better; for those of us who live here and for those who are just visiting.

   Small enough to carry in one's purse, it is concise and well researched. It is pleasure to read and makes you want to explore the city through its gardens. Be careful, if you are not already a garden lover it might make you one. From the Chinese Scholar's Garden in Staten Island to the Botanical Garden in Queens; from Rincon Criollo in the Bronx to The Conservatory Garden on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, even in its gardens the diverstiy and creativity of New Yorkers is evident and that makes New Yorkers like me burst with pride.




2. This thorough book organized gardens in New York city by location, gave subway and/or bus directions, and a wonderful description of each garden so it was easy to decide whether I wanted to go see that garden. It was amazing and I saw gardens big and small throughout my visit to the city in a short period of time. I'm going to check to see if the book is available for other places I tend to visit.

5 comments about Finger Lakes Panoramas.

1. The pictures are beautiful. Mr. Reynolds is a top knotch photographer. You can tell much time and effort was put into this book.



2. As a previous resident of the Finger Lakes area, I can personally vouch for the beauty of the area. Mr. Reynolds has captured it as well as any human being can capture the glory of nature's beauty. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a taste for looking at beautiful places, beautifully photographed. Mr. Reynolds has presented an excellent talent with this beautiful book. I look forward to his next effort.



3. I live in the Finger Lakes area (Elmira) and I have either driven, hiked, or bicycled around all the lakes and sailed across several. This is a wonderful piece of work and all scenes are easily recognized. A great compilation.



4. This book reminds all of us who live in the Finger Lks, how beautiful this area is, and how lucky we are to live here. GREAT JOB KRIS!



5. Reynolds uses a panoramic camera for the views in this book. Whether one cares for this sort of photo with itsunconventional proportions may be a matter of taste. The subjects represented are fairly conventional for this sort of picture book, and several similar volumes about the Finger Lakes are available. Little textual information is provided. On the other hand, Reynolds is a photographer of the first rank, with a good eye and technical command of the medium. The book is handsome. For this reader, it is less rewarding, however, than his subsequent "Wine Tour of the Finger Lakes," where the pictorial subjects are less predictable, while the informative text by Grady Wells makes the content more substantive. That one is a full five stars!

5 comments about First Light: A Magical Journey.

1. I bought this book when I was visiting New Zealand in 1988 where people kept recommending it, and I am just now rereading it for something like the fifth time--including one time with a discussion group. This time through I am finding new delights that I must have skimmed over before. Parts of the book are naively New-Agey, but even those parts are personal and honest and fun to read. It is the story of a woman whose job takes her into the middle of an enormous cultural shift, and she manages to stay in the middle--between the world views of American bureaucracy and a traditional people's values, and somehow to walk that precarious boundary and to be receptive to the ways it changes her. It's an amazing story.



2. My mother mailed me this book from America to New Zealand because I have recently arrived in NZ and I will be living in New Zealand for the next year. I find Carol O'Bistro's insights about New Zealand culture relevent and insightful for a current long-term visitor. Her writing is lyrical and fun to read. I wonder what she is doing now.



3. Thought provoking, moving and fun. The story is told in a masterful way that made me laugh, cry and sit-up thinking about it for a week after I read it. The author takes you along on her own personal journey and as her New York City eyes and heart transform into something miraculous so does the readers'. It touches the heart and reminds us of our humanity in the most magnificent way. Read it slowly; you won't want it to end!



4. Perhaps the best book ever to explain why New Zealand is not the USA with minor differences. There are considerable cultural and societal differences which may escape the visitor unless and until they experience New Zealand on a deep level. Some find the mysterious aspects of her experience of the Maori culture to be doubtful or merely coincidence. Those born in New Zealand will understand them and will not be surprised.



5. On September 10, 1984, at first light, New York's Fifth Avenue was the scene of an unusual ceremony. On the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art a group of Maori women wailed the ritual welcome: HAERE MAI !! Their calls were answered and taken up by a group of Maori elders down the avenue, their leader in a feathered cloak, their path cleared of evil spirits by a small band of tattooed warriors ferociously thrusting their spears.
   
   It was opening day of a groundbreaking exhibition at the Met: Te Maori: Maori Art from New Zealand Collections. The elders were in New York to lift the tapu and open the exhibition. Their greeting was for their ancestors, spiritually residing in the 174 taonga (treasures) on display outside New Zealand for the first time. Nine years in the planning, Te Maori was the culmination of a massive exercise in politics and logistics.
   
   Carol O'Biso was the registrar of the exhibition, responsible for the packing and safe passage of these treasures collected from a number of New Zealand museums. First Light: A Magical Journey is her lyrical story of this great adventure.
   
   The "cultural artifacts" are believed by the Maori to be sacred and powerful. Carol, overwhelmed at first by the vast divide between her New York self and the ancient Maori beliefs, struggled to do her job in the midst of controversy over the exhibition. She was excluded by Maori custom from speaking at the many ritual gatherings in museums and meeting houses. Frustration was her constant companion, in those early days. Gradually the power of the collection became entirely real to her and she found herself honoring the treasures in ways she would not have found possible.
   
   Carol spent several years packing, shipping and unpacking the irreplaceable treasures and was under their spell when she returned them to New Zealand in 1986. She handed them over, in yet another ceremony that left her in tears, to a New Zealand registrar for their awe-inspiring progress through New Zealand museums.
   
   Carol's story is a very personal one and some of her early impressions of New Zealand were less than favorable. However the country's charm and especially the strength of the Maoris' respect for their culture led her to a deep appreciation of The Land of the Long White Cloud.
   
   I had the privilege of seeing Te Maori in New Zealand, and First Light brought back vivid memories of its power. I read the book in the early 1990s and then gave it away (read it! you'll love it!), and when I found a copy on Amazon this month I was delighted to be reacquainted with it.
   
   Linda Bulger, 2008

1 comments about New York City 5-in-1 Pocket Map.

1. This is a great map, but it is hard to use on a day to day basis as a quick reference while walking the streets of New York. It has great detail of midtown Manhattan, where most tourists spend their time. The streets, subways, and nearly every landmark and store/hotel/resturant are situated to scale on the map. This is extremely helpful if you don't have the exact address of, say Carnegie Deli, you can just go to the area where you think it is, and look around till you find the actual Carnegie label. It also has great detailed maps of the other neighborhoods (the Villages, East Side, Lower East Side, Financial District, etc.) with all the major landmarks, but less detail about the stores and businesses than the midtown section. The problem with the map is it is made of that real thin, cheap paper (I mean look a the price) and it is BIG when unfolded (It's a bit awkward when you're in the subway, or in a tight line at an attraction, and you have to pull out this big old bedsheet of a map), so you have to constantly fold it back/forth/up/down against the creases and with the in and out of the coat pocket, it wasn't long before it just started shredding at the creases. It did last me the week however, and I used it daily and excessively, but it's not much good for anything now except a keepsake of our great trip. If I had it to do again, I'd still buy this map for it's exceptional detail (and cheap price), but consider getting one of the laminated maps for the day to day stuff (I think the National Geographic Destination Maps are great for this purpose, they were the best thing I used for London, Rome, Paris, and the New York one looked just as good--I should have gotten that one as well).

No comments about New York's 50 Best Places to Go Birding in and Around the Big Apple.

No comments about Gardenwalks in the Mid-Atlantic States: Beautiful Gardens from New York to Delaware (Gardenwalks Series).

5 comments about Peppe the Lamplighter (Caldecott Honor Book).

1. "Peppe the Lamplighter" combines a story by Elisa Bartone with illustrations by Ted Lewin. The story takes place "[a] long time ago when there was no electricity and the street lamps in Little Italy had to be lit by hand." The hero of the book is Peppe, who lives with his widowed father and sisters in a tenement. Peppe's decision to get a job as a lamplighter leads to conflict between Peppe and his father.

   This is a good story that is greatly enhanced by Lewin's superb artwork. Most of the illustrations are two-page spreads that are packed full of energy and emotion. Lewin's realistic style is well-suited to capturing many colorful details: the sausages hanging in the butcher shop, a crowded street scene, the old-fashioned iron stove in Peppe's home, etc. Overall, a memorable celebration of Italian-American history.




2. I purchased this book for my husband for Father's Day (he's Italian American")--I didn't really think that our then 2.5 year old would really care for the book. But he loves it! It's a good story, although at times the messages can be a bit confusing for a very young child--but my son seems to enjoys the illustrations, the sounds of the Italian names, and of course the most elemental aspects of the story.



3. There's a whole genre of picture books that examine the working class members of American society throughout history. These stories are usually based on the lives of the relatives and ancestors of the authors. "Peppe the Lamplighter" is no exception. Loosely based on the grandfather of author Elisa Bartone, the book examines one boy's occupation and his struggle be accepted in the eyes of his father.
   
   Peppe lives with his sick father and seven sisters (not including the one in Naples) in the section of New York known as Little Italy. Taking place in what looks to be the 1910s, Peppe moves from store to store, attempting to find work. His father, is too sick to work himself, and all the children in the family must strive to find some kind of money. One day, old Domenico the lamplighter asks Peppe if he would light the lamps for him while he returns to Italy to fetch his wife. Peppe agrees readily and is delighted with the prospect. Delight slowly sours to shame, however, when his father is horrified by the job. Says he, "Did I come to America for my son to light the streetlamps?". As time goes by, Peppe's disenchantment with the job grows until he doesn't light the lamps at all. Only through the discovery of how important his job is to others can Peppe find the strength to return to lighting the lamps of New York City.
   
   The pictures in this book are wonderfully rendered. Here we find the New York City tenements in all their filthy glory. At the same time, we see the strength of the people living in them. The first painting in the book shows Peppe and his family staring at the viewer as if they were posing for a formal family photograph. The light from a single latern lights them all, and illustrator Ted Lewin shows off his talents. In many ways, the book is similar to Chris K. Soentpiet's style (of "Molly Bannaky" fame). Reading this book is to actually find yourself in early New York itself. Crowds come alive and individuals display a wide range of emotions. The best picture in the whole book, to my mind, is the image of Peppe lifting his little sister so that she can light the lamp on the street herself. The light is above them, illuminating their faces with incredibly intensity. The two stare up at it, entranced.
   
   The story itself if good, if not overwhelming. Peppe's father has a somewhat unbelievable change of heart towards the end of the tale. For a man who has harbored so much bitterness towards his son's chosen profession, he seems to come around to it mighty fast when the mood calls for it. Otherwise, it's lovely. Peppe compares the lighting of the lamps to the lighting of candles at Mass, and even goes so far as to say a small prayer for each. Small details like this truly bring the story to life.
   
   The book celebrates one small boy who can, in his sister Assunta's words, "scare the dark away". It is a book about how every human being, if they've a mind to, can bring light into the world in their own humble fashion. Peppe may only be a lamplighter, but even his father recognizes by the end that this honest job gives safety and comfort to others. We should all be so lucky as to have jobs that do half as much.



4. A young boy of modest means seeks a job to contribute to the needs of his family. Initially, his father is disappointed in the lowly responsibility that his son fulfills. The young man takes inspiration from his sister's admiration of him and finds that his job as a humble lamplighter blesses others beyond his understanding. The breath-taking illustrations span the entire two-page spread. This is a beautiful story of how everyone has their important role in life and can embrace it with excellence and passion.



5. My son is 5 and absolutely loves this book. It's a story about young boy and how he must help to care for his large Italian family that has come to America in hopes of having their dreams fulfilled. Disappointment of a father leads his young son to think his job is meager. But in the end one little boy does make a difference, for without his light the whole world is a dark place. The book just gives you a warm wonderful feeling when you finish reading it. The illustrations are beautifully drawn and give you the contact to really feel what Peppe and his family are feeling.

No comments about Putnam County NY Pocket Map.