No comments about Oslo and Bergen Insight Pocket Guide (Insight Pocket Guides).

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No comments about Norway.

No comments about Norway: the Best of Norway in Glorious Pictures.

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1 comments about Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

1. I admit I am biased since I am reading this in an Email group called "18th Century Worlds", which perhaps give me more insight and perception into the world of Mary Wollstonecraft. But my Penguin edition of the book is very good, including as it does both Mary's "Short Residence" and the biography of her by her widowed husband William Godwin. Richard Holmes' introduction is a delight, situating the book in its context and also making the life of Mary accessible, and the relationships between Mary and the people of her day and age very interesting.
   
   So back to the text of Mary's letters. If you have ever wondered what it was like to be an active, passionate, capable and brave woman at the latter end of the 18th century, when the French Revolution and the tides of Romanticism were sweeping over Europe, and challenging Enlightenment thought-- or even if you've never given a damn-- this is an attention-grabbing and engrossing account. Provided you can get over its prose, or approach it open-mindedly (which many easily bored illiterati might not be able to), you will be struck by its poetic qualities, and by Wollstonecraft's candid emotional intensity.
   
   In the early 1790s, a poltically radical Englishwoman woman took a business trip to Scandinavia on behalf of her common-law husband, an American businessman involved in smuggling. She took with her only her young daughter, still a child, and her French maid. "Residence in Sweden" is an account of her journey written in the form of letters to the man she left behind (though this doesn't show up in the text itself, the informative introduction gives the background). Partway into her trip, she leaves her child and the nurse behind and continues on her own to regions remote and picturesque, and foreign not only to most English women of the period, but to the majority of English men as well.
   
   Wollstonecraft goes on philosopical rambles, as the images of social life and the landscape around her remind her of her experiences in revolutionary France. The text raise many questions important to the Enlightenment philosophes, about the role of women, man's place in nature, human habits and manners. Never are we allowed to forget that we are reading the words of a flesh and blood woman who feels deeply. Many of her recollections are painful, and sometimes she is depressed. But there is always something arrestingly beautiful in what she describes, some touch of the author's vivacity and the newness and intensity of her travels, to steer one away from the melancholy, or at least to make it something more sublime.
   
   I'm taking this one with me to college, and I foresee many re-readings. Holmes calls it Mary's best literary work: it has none of the bombast of her "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" but instead is something even more thoughtful and readable.
   
   For companion reading I highly recommend Claire Tomalin's "Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft".

4 comments about The Rough Guide to Norway 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

1. The Rough Guide to Norway is a well researched and written travel handbook. Like most books in the Rough Guide series, it strike a nice balance between "Hostel & Backpack" information for budget travelers and more conventional Hotel/Restaurant/Sightseeing entries. Norway has many small towns and cities, and this guide covers them in detail. As convention tourist attractions are somewhat scarce in Norway, this level of detail is critical to an enjoyable trip.

   We utilized this book and the Lonely Planet Norway guide, and found ourselves using the Rough Guide more (The Lonely Planet series tended to oriented more toward backpackers/hostel travel). It is nice to have both for balance.

   If you are headed for Norway, the Rough Guide would be a good one to take with you!




2. Is this the best guide for Norway? Almost (see my Lonely Planet: Norway review). The information that Lee gives you regarding the "Basics" (flights, travel companies, visas, etc.) is the best out in a guide. The maps (a critical element in any guide) are adequate, but not great. Also, the maps only show the locations of the noted hotels, but omit locating restaurants. Go figure.

   An ongoing peeve that I have about Rough Guides is their use of a number system to quote the price range of a hotel, ie. a Hotel costs a '2', then you have to flip back to the numeric legion to find out that 2 = 500-700kr, which you then divide by the current rate of exchange. As other guides demonstrate, there are betters ways to help your reader gage approximate cost.

   I am disappointed that the 'boxed' vignettes that usually embellish other Rough Guides are few and far between in this guide. Finally, this guide omits an accommodations or a restaurants index. Thus, if you have a recommended restaurant you want to look up you have to go through all the restaurant pages 'til you stumble across the name you seek or miss seeing it completely.

   The profile of Oslo is the best out, and if you are only going to Oslo, then "Norway: The Rough Guide" is the preferable guide. Phil Lee has included an excellent section on recommended books to read and a good piece on Norwegian Literature. Though not complete there is a scattering of website and email addresses for travel companies and some hotels, Although all hotels have their phone and fax numbers listed, nothing beats email.

   If you are going to explore this wonderful country then "Norway: The Rough Guide' will be a welcome companion. Recommended




3. The previous edition of the Rough Guide-Norway was the first guide book I ever got. I was planning a trip to Norway then, but, I found out that there weren't enough information in it. Then, I got the Lonely Planet version, and I fulfilled a lot more than the Rough Guide's.

   First of all, the information about Svalbard was quite outdated. Longyearbyen has quite a bit more than what I have read there. Also, throughout the book, it never gave much information on anywhere. In the Lonely Planet one, you could find A LOT more descriptions of different towns and places, while, the Rough Guide would almost only MENTION THE NAMES of the towns without saying anything more about them (where to stay, etc). Sure, they MAY NOT be as interesting to a lot of people, but a guide book's job is to provide as much information as possible, because there ARE travellers with different interests. The Rough Guide also lacks a lot of useful information such as accomodations and eateries. The Lonely Planet seemed like they weren't as lazy into researching on that part. I also have to thank the Lonely Planet for advertising my friend's restaurant in Tromsø for free basically, without him even acknowledging it until I told him!! I didn't know him until I decided to go to his restaurant for the first time. Withoout the Lonely Planet book, I wouldnt have met such a great friend.

   Anyway, overall, the Rough Guide was OK...but I will definately prefer buying the Lonely Planet books. The Rough Guide seems to NOT give enough information. If some info is outdated, it is understandable (things change all the time), but Lonely Planet definately did put more effort into it. Both the Rough Guide edition of mine and the Lonely Planet were the '97 series.

   I suggest you to do a comparison of the 2 books at a bookstore or something first, if possible. Hopefully the newest edition of the Rough Guide-Norway is a lot better than the previous one. Good luck.




4. Well I seem to have another idea of what rough is than the author of this book. Bought the book in Trondheim because I lost my LP-guide in a train. The book advises you not to camp in the wilderness because of "hostile" conditions and says that the Northern part of Norway can hardly be advised to ordinary tourists. Sure it's a strange land with midnight sun and all, but the sightseeing areas are few and to far apart. Rough indeed!
   It list a lot of hotels and sightseeing places for the ordinary tourist but it's information on Youth Hostels and budget places is flawed. We came to Tromso exhausted, only to find the 'guesthouse which is a long standing favorite with budgettravellers" to be a asylum. There was no hostel in Fauske neither, though the rough guide directed us to an imagenary one.
   ...
   (back ground information is alright though and i think the hotel information is also correct but you'll never know what you have to pay for a hostel bed 'cause they all say (1) which means 0-100 dollar (not really helpful)

No comments about Global Road Warrior for Norway.