3 comments about South Philadelphia.

1. This factual, tender, and personal treatise immediately transported me back to my childhood in South Philadelphia in the 50's. The content is both from an historical and cultural perspective,and is interspersed with wonderful photographs and humorous commentary. Much of the thorough historical information (the author is a journalist) was new to me and fascinating. However, it was the exploration of the cultural heritage which launched me on a wistful, nostalgic journey. Mr. Dubin, whose experiential reverence is evident, has infused the story of South Philadelphia with a rare intimacy. This reader feels very appreciative.



2. Being a South Philly resident sparks my interest in South Philly as well as Philadelphia. This book is GREAT! Each issue is handled with love and affection for the the good things South Philly used to be known for. I love the little facts and the info that makes you smile. It has given me a great sense of pride and I wish the sense of community the author writes about existed as fully today. If we could get rid of the violence South Philly has also been known for it would be the perfect place. If you are into facts, humor, touching life stories (without being sad), a little local history and a lot of love this is a great book to read. I do not read often but this book held my interest and was not overbearing in any one aspect. I may even read it again! If you read it you won't be disappointed! God Bless South Philly! --Nicole R.



3. The photos were wonderful and so were the comments. I have lots of memories of South Philadelphia after living there for 27 years (10th and Jackson). There were some that were good and some that weren't so great. It's a different world, but I'm happy where I am.

1 comments about The National Trust Guide to New Orleans.

1. I have probably twenty New Orleans books in my library. This one is essential--one of the 5 best. I am ordering extra copies for European business associates I met with in New Orleans.

1 comments about Hiking Kentucky (America's Best Day Hiking).

1. This is a well thought out book for any hiker, from the novice to the expert. With 100 day hikes to choose from, there is something for anyone.

   The "boot" rating system is a wonderful way of finding just the right hike for any level.

   Kudos to the Elliotts

1 comments about Appalachian Wilderness: The Great Smoky Mountains.

1. Eliot Porter's beautiful photographs of wildflowers, trees, and mountain streams are an interesting juxtaposition to the often caustic prose of Edward Abbey, who writes the main body of the text, and Harry Caudill, who writes the epilogue. This book is Abbey at his best, showing that he can write well about a landscape other than the American southwest. He describes the landscape of the Southern Appalachians in their stark reality: the billboards and phony saloons of industrial tourism, the abandoned stores and churches, the paved roads catering to the rich and sedentary, the forsaken Cherokees. His story is a truthful and compassionate account of the tragedies of the region, as well as a powerful argument that capitalism has failed. This is not the place to start with Abbey--"Desert Solitaire" or "Abbey's Road" would be a better choice--but for those who are already familiar with him, this book will not be a disappointment.

5 comments about Lonely Planet Cuba.

1. While Lonely Planet Cuba does a good job of discussing the country and its culture in an objective way, its discussion of hotels and entertainment is way off. Prices for hotels listed is correct, but reviews of the property and the surrounding area is terrible. In addition, the discussion of nightlife is ridiculously off - Cuba has very little nightlife!!!



2. In the LP, the layout for Havana/suburbs/outlying areas is very difficult to follow. maps aren't consecutive, and the division of restaurants vs paladars divided by neighborhood and separated by pages of other stuff is hard to manage when you just want to know "where to eat". However, if you're just visiting Havana, i suggest another guidebook: the Time Out Guide. the maps are in color, easy to access (at the back of the book), and there is much more up to date stuff on current events, social attitudes/mores, clubs etc.



3. This particular edition of LP Cuba will do you little good in the year 2005 and it's not necessarily all LP's fault as Cuba undergoes a metamorphosis every other day or so. So, go with another guide for more up to date information on currency and prices in general as well as legal casas.
   
   And specifically for the Hotel Lido: whomever wrote up the little ditty about how only the brave should stay there does a great disservice to that hotel.
   
   Finally, it would be nice if the author could actually stop blaming the US for 2 seconds and perhaps hold Castro accountable for something other than nothing.



4. ... the following letter was sent by us to LP after using the (then) fresh off the press LP Cuba in July 2004. We still did not hear from them.
   
   -A.
   
   Dear Madam/Sir:
   
   We have been avid travelers for the most part of our lives and cumulatively have entry stamps from over 140 countries to boast. For the past 10 years, we have primarily used Lonely Planet to aid travels around the world (see attached picture of subset of LP library).
   
   Imagine our surprise and disappointment when we toured Cuba in June with the LP Cuba (2004 edition). We have never been let down more by a travel guide in our entire lives. Of course, things change ... prices go up ... schedules evolve; but never have we seen a guide so off the mark. Here are a few reasons why LP Cuba is simply the worst guide we have ever used:
   
   1/ Biased Politics -
   
   Authors love for Cuba makes them overlook many negative aspects of both Cuban society and travel in Cuba. Neither of us are Americans and we do not support the American government sanction on Cuba or Americans traveling there. However, we fail to see the need to vilify each U.S. government action while simultaneously painting a picture of the perfect socialist State. True, Cuba has some of the best social indicators in the Americas - but please also point out the "Dollar is King" economy, the sad "apartheid" regime, which allows clubs/bars/cafés/restaurants and even whole islands with some of the country's best beaches to be exclusive domain of just tourists. How could the authors marvel at social indicators when you could sit at Hotel Inglaterra's patio, sip a mojito and gaze at the Cubans who cannot enter?
   
   2/ Biased Interpretations of Dangers -
   
   The section on Warnings, Scams, and Travel Advisory is the skimpiest we have ever seen. Why? Cuba still might be the safest destination to be in the Americas, but that's not saying much is it? Both my friend and I (and an informal survey pointed to over 70% of the tourists) were subject to daring robberies by some very skilled "jintero's" (our advice: please do NOT give rides to anyone - other than old people or women with small children - especially if crossing the circumference of metro Havana going from A1 to A4 highway). We never thought it would happen to two skilled travelers - but it did. As our informal survey indicates, our later conversation with many travelers indicated many who had been robbed, mugged, conned, etc. during their travels and almost all agreed to have let their guards down due to the lax coverage of security by the authors. In future editions of LP Cuba, PLEASE do not call "jintero's" as charming Cubans who need to be told off and do not write that the best solution is to become friends with one! Perhaps the author's personal experience(s) with a "jintero" clouded their ability to make rational judgements? "Jintero's" are EXTREMELY dangerous!
   
   Furthermore, the authors fails to point out the many tourist traps in most of the tourist towns - especially in Trinidad.
   
   3/ Biased Interpretation of Bureaucracy -
   
   Why is their no comprehensive section which deals with the level of bureaucracy and corruption that each tourist must face while vacationing in Cuba? In our experience, we were stunned at the need to pay bribes at the airport, at the car rental place (our advice: please plan from before and avoid the Transtur car rental agency in Copacabana Hotel near Miramar or going through Canadian agent A. Nash Travel Inc. in Ontario). After our robbery, we spent many hours in a police station trying to get a report done but it seemed that no one was willing to help. After having spoken to more than 10 officers over the period of 2 days, our report miraculously appeared when a $10 bill was slipped between our passports. I mean, don't get us wrong - from extensive traveling and by the virtue of one of the letter writers being from India, we KNOW bureaucracy and corruption - but Cuba took the game to a whole new level. Again for some reason, the authors were completely off the mark.
   
   4/ General Info, Maps, Prices, Numbers, Layouts -
   
   Prices go up; inflation is a part of daily lives. But how do you explain almost 200% price hikes between what's printed and the reality? These numbers are especially depressing given a/ this edition was hot off the press b/ the official inflation was running below 5-10% band c/ we traveled in low season and the prices listed were for high season. Our hunch that the authors never actually checked the prices and conduct the required background work was confirmed as we asked all the places we stayed at and NONE had the authors visit them in over 4 years!
   
   Worse than prices are phone numbers and access codes. I challenge the authors to call the numbers in the book - I am willing to buy them a plane ticket if calling the numbers gives the right destination more than 50% of the time. I know that's a low expectation rate to give someone a plane ticket, but that is exactly how inaccurate this guide is. E.g. try calling the numbers in Cayo Santa Maria. We asked the Department of Telecommunication if there had been any recent systematic changes in the telephone numbers and they answered in the negative.
   
   Outside these 2 main sub thematic issues, the maps in LP Cuba were highly inaccurate. One of our favourite reminders of Cuba was coming across many tourists at major junctions looking at the maps from LP Cuba trying to make some sense. Another was when we were driving through Santa Clara for one hour in search for a recommended wellness/massage place that does not exist anywhere close to where it is marked on the map (actually, none of the Cubans we have been asking has ever heard of the place). Furthermore, the new layout made it VERY hard to find things. Please go back to the old layout - it made more sense. I don't know if other readers had gripes but it was very complex going back and forth as opposed to the ease of the last format.
   
   Our hope from this letter is to encourage Lonely Planet to conduct a systematic review of their guide to Cuba. Moreover, it is to remind to LP that irrespective of their disclaimers, tourists do depend on them and basic expectations warrant the authors to conduct thorough investigations before sending a book to print. If there are any other questions, both of us are available via the internet to answer them. We sincerely hope LP takes our feedback into consideration and incorporates them into the next edition of its travel guide to Cuba.
   
   
   Warm Regards,
   MO, AD



5. Cuba is a fascinating country with a socio-political system all its own. Things also change rapidly, especially in the big urban centres such as Havana so it must be a difficult place to write a guidebook for.
   
   Lonely Planet seems to give their writers pretty clear rein when it comes to putting down their thoughts on paper regarding travel in whichever locale. This can lead to sections of illuminating wisdom. Often however the smug, ever so friendly, bantering style of their correspondents makes me wonder if one could survive a week in their company without belting them one.
   
   The Cuba guide doesn't fall into this category although a couple of the 'yeah baby' style sentences could do with being edited out. The information is generally accurate apart from currency and prices, then again this must be hard to get right in a country like Cuba where the economy operates on multiple levels. The maps at least broadly correspond to the actual terrain (not always the case in LP guides) and there are helpful sections on things like how to deal with Jineteros (a persistent problem for travellers to Cuba) and purchase cigars.
   
   My main gripe about the contents of the book was that there wasn't enough in it. For every decent bar or casa particular listed, there were several more that weren't, especially in Havana. I know Cuba is a small country, but it contains so much that a longer guide wouldn't be excessive.
   
   Overall, not bad, but a new edition is due out soon and for the time being travellers to Cuba may consider purchasing something more recent.

1 comments about Look Close, See Far: A Cultural Portrait of the Maya.

1. 
   Photographs: Poetry Without Words
   
   reviewed by MariJo Moore (www.marijomoore.com)
   
   Graphic, explicit, vivid, stark - which of these adjectives describes best the photographs in the book Look Close, See Far: A Cultural Portrait of the Maya by Bruce T. Martin? Perhaps real is the suitable description. But can photographs be real? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? Feasibly it would be more apropos to define this photographer as a realist, who, in 1987, began a twenty-year journey through his own misconceptions concerning an indigenous people of whom he was only superficially aware.
   In a recent interview, Martin revealed the following:
   "I stepped into the Maya world, and there was revealed the long, beautiful, rich, complicated, history and culture that they hold. One of my favorite aspects of this project was going there and the feeling of being overwhelmed by the Maya people and their story. I can't put it in words but I have tried to put it into my photography. That awakening and what I have learned in this project has changed me and helped me to see life in a different light. It also made me realize how little of this world I really know or understand, but at the same time inspires me to continue on and learn more.''

2 comments about Flight of the Condor: A Wildlife Exploration of the Andes.

1. This book is not just about the South American bird of that name. It is about that part of South America which this outstanding creature dominates from the great heights it is able to reach. Commencing with a chapter called The Islands of Tierra del Fuego & Cape Horn, the reader's journey commences in the southern-most extremities of South America. From here we begin the trek northwards by visiting; The Magellan Straits, North Patagonia, San Rafael Glacier, the rainforests, volcanoes and monkey-puzzle forests of Chile, the Humboldt current, the Atacama desert, the High Lagoons, the High Plateau, the Puna and the Altiplano.
   
   This book recounts one of life's real adventures and allows the reader a rare treat with outstanding photographs placed alongside a rare understanding of the countries visited, their peoples, their flora and fauna in addition to such wild landscapes - where only the Condor is king.
   
   An essential addition to the bookshelf for anyone with an interest in South America.
   
   NM



2. Granted that this is an interesting book about the exploration of South America from the tip - Terra delfulgga to the Brazilian rainforest should be in the bookself of all nature conservationists and students of wildlife.
   This book was published in 1982 in conjection with a 3-part documentary of the same name - Flight of the Condor. It was aired on the PBS for three weeks. Too bad, this most revealing and amazing video is now no longer available. I would urge the PBS producers to re-introduce this 3-hour documentary in the form of a convenient DVD disc.
   The pipe music of South America is both haunting and unique which accompany the video and is worthy of viewing it again and again in the privacy of one's home, provided you can get hold of it...!
   I appreciate the writer and as well as the cameramen who produced the book as well as the documentary which has won several prizes. I was fortunate in that I still have it recorded on my video but I would like to see the producers make a DVD disc of it. It is highly educational and a true classic on the difficult terrain, plants and unique wildlife of South America.
   In the meantime, if you can't get to see this fabulous video, as least, go for the book which is equally amazing and timeless on the wilds of South America. A fantastic journey from the pages of the book. So go for it, folks.
   Cheers...!

1 comments about Amazon Stranger: A Rainforest Chief Battles Big Oil.

1. This book is at once an adventure story, a profile of a fascinating individual, a heartbreaking account of one of the greatest environmental crimes taking place in the world today (the destruction by oil companies of one of the world's richest ecosystems, Ecuador and Colombia containing the greatest biodiversity of the entire Amazon Basin) and a David-and-Goliath story of a tiny Amazonian tribe, the Cofan, battling for survival against multinational corporations. As all of those things, it bears comparison with Joe Kane's "Savages," but the Cofan have already dealt with much more destruction than have the Waorani, and this book spends more time on first-hand descriptions of both the riches of the Ecuadorian rain forest and the consequences of oil exploration. (I would recommend this book not only to activists who are trying to save the Amazon, but also to those who are working to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil exploitation, to explode to smithereens the notion that oil exploitation would not devastate the ecology there.)

   The editorial reviews here cover just about everything else I would say about this book, so I won't repeat their comments, just direct the reader to them.

   ...One factual error this book makes repeatedly that I would like to correct: although they speak the same language as the Indians of the Andean highlands, and although they expanded northward into Cofan territory relatively recently, the Amazonian Quichua are NOT migrants from the highlands and NOT newcomers to the rainforest. They are true Amazonian people, distinct syncretic cultures created from the remnants of various destroyed Amazonian tribes who blended together and adopted their lingua franca (Quichua) as their first language. Though the Amazonian Quichua have been influenced (=weakened) by missionaries for much longer than the Cofan, their roots in the rainforest are every bit as deep.

No comments about South America, Surprise! (Our Amazing Continents).

1 comments about Argentina, Una Travesia Aerea/argentina, Air Flight.

1. I bought this book in a store in Buenos Aires for 150 pesos (U$S 42). The pictures are breathtaking and remind me of the trip I took to Patagonia earlier this year. I highly recommend this book - it has maps of each region and where each photo was taken. It covers all of Argentina, from the romance of Buenos Aires, the beauty of Patagonia (like Alaska for us Americans), and the desolation of the Salta in the north (salt flats). I only wish I would have bought a second copy to give as a gift to family - I figured Amazon would have stocked it, given the quality. Worth the wait and price even if you have to get it here and pay list!!