No comments about Madrid Escapes (Santana Guide).

No comments about Hammond Australia/New Zealand Laminated Map (Collectors Series).

3 comments about Sunday Islands : New Zealand, Tahiti, Australia.

1. There are tourists and there are travelers. Both visit other lands, but tourists make no attempt to learn about the people and culture, preferring to view everything from their own perspective. Travelers try to learn as much as possible about the places they visit and appreciate the cultural differences. In "Sunday Islands: New Zealand, Tahiti, Australia," Harold Truman shows that he is a traveler as he offers his impressions of the South Pacific gleaned during visits to the region from 1994 to 2000. Truman is not the stereotypical "ugly American" on his journeys. He never loses the awareness that he is a guest in other people's homeland and is careful to show respect for their customs - even if those customs are totally foreign to Americans. He also shows his sense of humor in recounting his own misadventures, such as his first attempt to use an outrigger canoe and learns it's not as simple as it appears. Even when playing the tourist, Truman remains the traveler. Most tourists going out on a fishing excursion would concentrate on landing a big one, but Truman gets to know the boat's captain, learning more about the country and its people in a few hours of conversation than anyone could learn from reading thousands of travel brochures. Throughout his journeys, Truman demonstrates a keen sense of observation of people and places. Thanks to his narrative, which flows like poetry, and his descriptions of people and places, we are more than readers of his travel journal, we are his friends accompanying him on his journey.



2. Truman uses words like an artist uses paint to create a colorful masterpiece. He not only gives the reader a deep understanding of Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti's multi-tiered eco-system, but he also captures the souls of the people who call the Islands their home. It's an exotic mix filled with historical and geographical background. "Sunday Islands" is also very, very funny! This is must reading for anyone who's been or plan on visiting these southwest Pacific locales, and if the reader doesn't have an urge to travel, "Sunday Islands" will transport them to the lush Pacific locations he so eloquently describes. One can only hope Truman will write a second edition with illustrations to accompany his vivid description of life "down under".



3. There are two ways I can describe this book: as an assigned essay on "How I Spent My Vacation," in which it might receive a passing grade in High School; or as a visit by your brother-in-law, the one you never really liked but tolerated for your sister's sake, who shares his superficial ideas as if they were deep insights. I suppose there are people who will voluntarily submit to either, but I'm not one of them. The author (he can only be called a writer in the most literal sense) has no insight to speak of, is manifestly incompetent at background research, and lacks any useful power of description. He really should look up the meanings of words like "masquerade" and "circumvent" before he uses them. . . The real mystery is how something like this ever gets published.

No comments about New Zealand.

No comments about On Waiheke Island: A Guide Book.

No comments about Florida and Walt Disney World.

No comments about National Geographic Traveler: New Zealand (National Geographic Traveler).

1 comments about Lilies, feathers & frangipani (Imprint travel).

1. This is a travel journal of an Australian author, Kate Llewellyn, who spends several weeks visiting New Zealand and the Cook Islands. Instead of doing all the mainly touristy things, she meets and talks with locals, seeks out culinary delights and regional wine, muses on the many oddities and wonders she stumbles across, and thoroughly immerses herself in the culture, language and history of the South Pacific.
   
   I discovered this book in the local library while looking for things on New Zealand that weren't guidebooks, of which there are dozens. I wanted to read something about the country from the perspective of someone who had really engaged with the culture, and this short book is both insightful and well written. Kate Llewellyn's prose is lyrical and imaginative, and although she mainly concerns herself with the places she visits and the people she meets, the journal-style of the book allows us to know her quite personally through the other aspects of herself which she chooses to share with us.
   
   Because I'm going to New Zealand in a couple of weeks, that was the part of the book I was most interested in, but reading about the Cook Islands (of which I knew almost nothing) was also quite enjoyable. A couple of times I felt she lost the rhythm and style that characterised the book, particularly when she interviews the woman who was the first female Speaker of the House in the Cook Islands (with whom she also stays). It's not that I didn't find it interesting, just that it didn't really fit into the narrative that she herself had established throughout.
   
   Still, whether you're going to the South Pacific, have already been, or just like enjoying different countries from the comfort of your own home, 'Lilies, Feathers & Frangipani' is a pleasant journey through a couple of amazing countries.

No comments about Let's Go New Zealand (Let's Go).

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