5 comments about Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad.

1. Evidently there was no prior research of quilt history. If there had been, the authors would have known that the stories relating the quilt blocks and the underground railroad in the first half of the 19th. Century are not possible. This book is based on false tales told to the authors. Quilt historians agree that this is all just a sad myth.



2. A great story about the Amish and the underground railroad and how they used quilts.



3. It is astounding what people had to go thru to attain the freedom that we take for granted and that art was so a part of their journey. As a quilter I loved this book. I heard about this book thru Eleanor Burns TV Quilting show. She built an entire TV segment on this book and I so enjoyed filling in the spaces with this book.



4. The story presented includes sketches of the blocks in the sampler quilt the slaves memorized to help them on their flight to freedom, along with explanations of each block. The story is well-documented and makes great reading for history enthusiasts, quilting enthusiasts, and even those who just like a good mystery!



5. I'm not a big history fanatic, but I wanted to learn a bit more about how quilts were by slaves. Some periods in history don't have a lot of documentation and any bit of information is better than none. This book made me feel like my quilting may be a part of current history, even if it is just history for my own family.

5 comments about Then and Now Bible Maps: With Clear Plastic Overlays of Modern Day Cities and Countries.

1. This Bible map book shows where places mentioned in the Bible are located today. This spiral-bound book contains 12 full-color Bible maps, each with a clear plastic overlay that shows modern-day cities and countries. Includes the following maps: * The Middle East during Old Testament Times * Overlay of modern-day Middle East * The Assyrian Empire, Babylonian Kingdoms and Persian Empire *Overlay of same areas with modern-day countries * The Holy Land during the time of the Old Testament * Overlays of United Kingdom, Divided Kingdom, modern-day Israel and surrounding countries * The Holy Land during the time of Jesus * Overlay of modern-day Holy Land * Paul's Journeys (Roman Empire at AD 60) * Overlay of modern-day Mediterranean area. The print is relatively large for an Bible atlas (not giant print, but not as bad as some Bible atlases).
   
   This product is available many ways, so check the ISBN above and make sure you are ordering the correct one, because this review appears on several product pages.
   * Spiral-bound book with clear plastic overlays - ISBN 1932645179 Then and Now Bible Maps: With Clear Plastic Overlays of Modern Day Cities and Countries
   * Set of 12 Overhead Transparencies - ISBN 0965508234 Then and Now Bible Maps: Compare Bible Times with Modern Day (Then & Now Bible Maps at Your Fingertips)
   * PowerPoint with more than 50 slides - ISBN 1890947733 Then and Now Bible Maps (PowerPoint)
   * Pamphlet (color booklet to fit in the back of a Bible) - ISBN 1596361301 Then and Now Bible Maps



2. I just got this book and, wow, I wish I'd had it in college when I was taking Old and New Testament History classes. I don't know why all textbooks and bibles don't contain these clear overlays that let you see both the geography of biblical and modern days at the same time.
   I also love the "fascinating facts" pages that help you think about biblical events in light of the world events of the time such as "the first Olympic games were held during Jonah's time" and "The Great Wall of China was built and the Mayan Calendar was invented about 200 years before the birth of Jesus."
   This book is definitely worth the money.



3. Very very helpful to study. Enlarged Maps make study clearer, and having a second reference makes flipping back and forth unnecessary.



4. I absolutely love this book. I ordered mine after seeing one in my Bible Study class. The maps in the book are so complete and easy to read, and the overlays make it easy to see what is there now. It was a great aid in my Bible Study as we followed the journeys of St. Paul. I highly recommend this book.



5. I purchased this book, interested in learning more as I studied the Bible. I was very disappointed to see that the maps are very tiny, with several on each page. They are not very detailed and some of the maps have multiple overlays that I could not read through.
   
   I also bought the Son Light Book of Bible Maps from Son Light Publishers. I like it much better because all the maps are full page size with only one overlay, and it's much easier to find what you are looking for and read. There are also more maps and some study guides and a timeline.

5 comments about Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass.

1. Underlying Blixen's tale of early 20th century Africa is the presumption that there was such a place; that is, a people or nation of peoples existed to which she went and from which she was forced to depart by economic circumstances. This presumption a priori allows her to reminisce about Africa the way it was or was supposed by her to have been.
   
   As she observed, Africa was, in a sense, leaving her. Peoples were being moved around, new laws restricting tribal behavior were being passed, and the Ngong Hills were being laid out as a suburb of Nairobi. She was there, she professed, before all these changes began.
   
   But was she? Was there a time and place, "Africa", or is this concept mainly her and the European view of the times? Blixen's Africa in fact was not any sort of original. Europeans had already produced vast changes: the tribes were by then being herded into reservations and European ways and goods prevailed. European reporters never reported Africa the way it was or had been. That information remained "dark."
   
   The informational darkness is not entirely their fault. An observer always alters that which he sets out to observe. It is only a presumption that his observations are an approximation of the reality the way it would be without him observing it. That presumption is least justifiable in human affairs. We will never know what the original Masai or Kikuyu were like, or the exact configuration of flora and fauna among which they dwelled, or how they reacted to their environments or each other.
   
   Similarly Blixen's little white light doesn't shine very far. We get some ethnic generalities as the vehicle of which she devises some stock identities, "the Kikuyu", "the Masai" and the like, which, on closer examination, turn out to be of European origin. Blixen manufactures masks and tries to get the Africans to wear them. Sociological and anthropological data are nearly entirely in deficit from these supposed traits. She probably is not alone in this process of inventing peoples. It accounts, perhaps, for why the Mau-mau insurrection caught the Europeans totally by surprise, as though you were to paint doodles on a sleeping man's body and he were to awake suddenly and demand angrily to know what you were doing.



2. I find most autobiographies to be masterbatory exercises in which the authors attempt to explain themselves.
   
   But in Out of Africa, Denison does no explaining, no apologizing. It is love poem to the Africa she knew, and while she does display racist views, it is as she unashamedly shows her heartbreak over a world she loved and was lost.
   
   Denison also wrote some very powerful short stories, most notably the ones in "Winter's Tales." "The Sorrow Acre," is technically one of the most masterly presented short stories I have ever read. Despite her later skills, though, Out of Africa sets itself apart as a masterpiece for its ability to elegantly show an individual's gushing sense of loss.



3. Now eclipsed by the Streep-Redford film presentation that appropriated its title, Karen Blixen's memoir of life on her Kenyan coffee farm speaks movingly of the more benign side of colonialism in Africa and of one European's self-evident love for the land she had made her own.
   
   Sadly, Blixen's lush descriptions of 'her people' are often judged too quickly by modern criteria of racial attitudes, a game that is like asking this early twentieth-century writer to wrestle with one arm tied behind her back. If it can be granted that there was anything good about Europe's colonization of Africa, then Bliksen (Isak Dinesen was her pen name) is its face.
   
   She loved the land and its people, entering about as far as was plausible in her time into the remarkable rhythm of both. What more can be asked of any of us, all children of our moment and enveloped in its limitations?
   
   This is a book for lovers of Africa, no matter whence they come. Blixen not only pushed an eloquent pen, she was herself shaped in the biblical and classical language of educated Europeans in a way that prepared her to bridge Africa and Europe in a day when few were equipped to do so.
   
   Blixen's Africa no longer exists, as she already realized within the window of her writing of OUT OF AFRICA and SHADOWS ON THE GRASS. Yet the Africa Blixen knew has children, not to be disinherited for the generations that have passed and the unsavory disease that a legacy of failed leaders has wrought upon this great continent. Though the primary fruit of reaching behind the celluloid to *read* OUT OF AFRICA is the satisfaction of the read itself, it is also true that today's Africa and today's Africans can be glimpsed in the great-grandparents who knew and lived in proximity to this enigmatic and uniquely gifted Danish colonist in a land she mistreated only by calling it hers.



4. I came to this book expecting to read one woman's personal experience of living in Africa, and that's what I found. There is no sociology here, and very little historical context. She does not illuminate THE African experience. She records HER African experience. Certainly that is all she owes the reader? One woman's experience, one woman's life in a time very different from our own.
   
   Do some of her observations shock the modern reader's sensibility? Oh certainly. There are things one simply does not SAY, and back when she wrote, she did. On the whole, her love and respect shine through when speaking of the people who entered her life as neighbors, employees and friends.
   
   Dinesen brings to life a physical landscape that most of us will never get to see. She takes passionate delight in her work, her companions, and her surroundings. Even her setbacks are embraced, as they compose part of a life she knew was slipping away from her.
   
   I was intrigued by what she didn't write. The book maintains almost complete silence about her husband, her health, and her relationship with Denys Finch Hatten. It is only in writing of his death that we understand how deep her feelings were. She writes around that love. Her discretion made my heart ache.
   
   Very highly recommended.



5. What is Pride ? Is it `Pride' to Review a Classic ?
   
   I've always loved the movie version of `Out of Africa' with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. Whether it was the character development, or the wild life, or the Mozart throughout the film score, the symbiosis of all of the above consistently moves me & holds my attention. Then there were the excerpted portions of the book I was introduced to in Literature class. Somewhere among the multitude of reviews of this book are plenty of words to describe how I `feel' about the prose and the somewhat dis-similar treatment by the movie.
   
   But who can compete with the authors own words ?
   
   "The discovery of the dark races was to me a magnificent enlargement of all my world."
   
   From the view to promote the perspective of a tribal native, in this country or any other, I'd like to point out that Baroness Karen Blixen/ a.k.a. Isaac Denison has recorded some highly unique perspectives about the Kenya tribal peoples and their respective roles in the predator vs prey aspects of human slavery.
   
   How the Mohammedans played the role of predators in concert with Arab slave traders to capture and sell Africans to the European slave ship masters is treated with pragmatism. The proud people of the Masai game reserve were sometimes assisting the Mohammedans, but if captured and sold themselves were unlikely to survive in captivity. The 'prey' class of social strata, named Kikiyu, who were beneath the 'marriage' qualifications that would suit the upwards-mobility of the Mohammedan women were yet accounted acceptable breeding stock as wives of the Masai, noble and proud.
   
   These variations are irregular to the politically correct assumptions of our society, yet as real as they may be in middle eastern cultures, they were described in pre-World War I central Africa. What the American descendants of Mohammedan Africans might be 'sensitive' to or 'offended' by in our culture were matters of 'pride' to the Kenyans of the post Colonial era leading up to World War II. Some readers might enjoy discovering what praise Baroness Blixen had to report about her Mohammedan servant Farah, or the Holy man from India who visited her farm, or the virtues of the Mohammedan women in obtaining a husband.
   
   Our culture is perfectly content to adopt a presidential canidate for the sake of lauding his skin color, without appreciating any of the virtues of the Kenyan ancestors who brought him to American territory. But this is one author who has uniquely appraised the strengths of the Kenyan people she knew, from living with them and learning to respect and love them. Consider a bit she writes about 'pride',
   
   "...Very proud things were about, and made their presence felt...Pride is faith in the idea that God had, when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards a happiness, or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God's idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny...the fulfillment of his fate."
   
   "People who have no pride are not aware of any idea of God in the making of them, and sometimes they make you doubt that there has ever been much of an idea, or else it has been lost, and who shall find it again ? They have got to accept as success what others warrant to be so, and to take their happiness, and even their own selves, at the quotation of the day. They tremble with reason, before their fate."
   
   [she distils a faith like to, but not to be confused as 'Christian' faith, thus]
   
   "Love the pride of God beyond all things, and the pride of your neighbour as your own. The pride of lions: do not shut them up in Zoos. The pride of your dogs: let them not grow fat. Love the pride of your fellow-partisans, and allow them no self-pity."
   
   "Love the pride of the conquered nations, and leave them to honour their father and their mother."
   
   `Out of Africa' is filled with beautiful descriptive prose. But someone also learned from Africa and her people, and was good enough to leave us a chronicle.

No comments about Moon Nicaragua (Moon Handbooks).

5 comments about Thailand (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE).

1. I found Eyewitness Travel Guide for Thailand very informative, and easy to read. It had tons of pictures, facts, FYIs, and did I mention pictures? Like Eyewitness I agree that a picture is worth a thousand words. I also bought Lonely Planet's Travel Guide for Thailand, but liked Eyewitness' much better. Lonely Planet's Travel Guide had a more standard layout for the abundant amount of facts, but was limited on the pictures. The phrase at the bottom of Eyewitness' book holds true, "The Guides That Show You What Others Only Tell You."



2. This is a good quality book, something you could open and open again.
   Highly recommended!



3. Love these Eyewitness Guides and received the item in perfect condition, just in time for the weekend, a fire in the fireplace, a warm blanket, a cup of hot chocolate, and away I went to Thailand! Thanks for making an Ohio winter almost bearable!



4. this is one of the best travel books and series of travel books. it is complete and offers all the detail the savvy traveler could want.



5. We used this book on our travels to the coast of THailand and stayed at Koi Samui. I wished that the book had revealed more about Koi Samui and hope that future editions would add more than two pages of coverage. Regardless, DK always is first rate in pictures and explaining the life of Thailand which is a beautiful country.

5 comments about Nigel Calder's Cruising Handbook: A Compendium for Coastal and Offshore Sailors.

1. My husband and I currently own a CS30 that we race and cruise on the Chesapeake Bay. We have been seriously considering moving up to a 37-40 ft cruiser. We bought this book (among several others) to prepare for cruising. It is fantastic. He covers every topic imaginable in an easy to digest format. It is a resource you don't want to be without!



2. I took this book out of the library, then renewed it for a second two weeks and still decided it had so much information I just NEEDED a copy of my own on board. Don't sail without it. An encyclopedia of information.



3. Skip the rest. Read the best. After purchasing several hundred pounds of boating publications I can definitively say, "Save yourself the trouble and buy this first."



4. This a great book for "go now and cheap" or "lots of toys" cruisers. It covers all the skills you need as a beginner, buying a boat, weather, everything! The only book you need for simple cruising like I did. www.sailingfreespiirit.com



5. This is one of a very short list of outstanding books for cruisers. Anyone thinking of cruising should read it, study it, and keep it on board. It's all about what makes a cruising boat run, how to avoid problems, and how to trouble shoot and fix them when they inevitably occur. Read and study it first, then don't leave the dock without it.

5 comments about Colorado Road & Recreation Atlas.

1. Since moving to Colorado from the UK in 06 I've been looking for a detailed enough map of Colorado - and I think I've found it. I've worked with maps and GIS back in the UK and have always appreciated the level of detail provided by the Ordnance Suvey, but struggled to find a comparable line of products for the US.
   
   I do a great deal of hiking, mountain biking, 4 wheeling and general exploring of the State, and wanted a comprehensive map which would show me trails, roads and interesting features/places.
   
   The atlas is separated into 5 sections.
   
   Section 1 shows regional maps: Entire US (1:9600000), western mountains (1:4500000) from Dallas in the SE to Bend (Oregon) in the NW, and Colorado (1:650000).
   Section 2 shows recreational maps and separates the whole of Colorado into 13 areas. Each one goes into great detail about the recreational facilities of each area, lists climate info and gives addresses and phone numbers for all kinds of services, camp grounds etc. Scale is 1:500000, except for the eastern plains area which is at 1:1350000. The final map shows locations of all the 14ers, major ski areas and 22 popular off road trails.
   Section 3 shows landscape maps at 1:200000. These are fantastic and show all the trails I've ever hiked, biked or wheeled.
   Section 4 shows the metro areas of Denver, Colorado Springs and the Boulder area at 1:125000.
   Section 5 has a comprehensive index.
   
   Overall this is an invaluable resource and miles better than any other Atlas I've looked at (and I've looked at them all!). A great all in one buy and a bargain at the moment on Amazon.
   
   Other products to consider: Latitude 40 produce some great, detailed maps at a smaller scale, but they cover selected areas and some sections are about 15 years out of date. National Geographic maps are best for hiking in the wilderness, but are only available for limited areas.



2. This map book is the best! Better than all the others I have seen which cover a state in a book format. I can only wish the mapmakers covered more states.



3. If you drive anywhere off the main highways in Colorado, this is the book of maps you need. Best map detail unless you use the USGS maps, that are cumbersome while driving.



4. The Benchmark Atlas series are the most accurate, detailed and attractive maps available. They put all the other atlases of this type to shame. You won't be disappointed with any of these.



5. I had never heard of Benchmark Maps before but I thought I'd give their Colorado Atlas a try. After a three week hiking adventure in Colorado, I was very impressed with Benchmark. Their maps do a great job in depicting the campgrounds, trailheads, trails, elevations, and ,of course, the roads in the mountains of Colorado. The Benchmark Atlas was far superior to the competition. On my next hiking trip, probably to New Mexico, I will definitely buy another Benchmark Atlas.

5 comments about A Moveable Feast.

1. If you've ever lived in Paris, visited Paris, or even just dreamt of Paris, then you need to read this book.



2. This book about Ernest Hemingway is about his life in Paris during the memorable lost generation of writers. I have one hangup about him not writing enough about a close friend, journalist, and fellow writer, Janet "Genet" Flanner from the New Yorker. All he wrote was one sentence. He writes lovingly about Gertrude Stein and leaves out the name of her partner/companion Alice B. Toklas. He had a complicated relationship regarding Stein. He also writes about the lesbians, Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier, a little about Natalie Clifford Barney also known as the Amazon, and other writers like Ezra Pound. The book is easy to read and is reminiscent about Paris during another time and generation before World War II when America was in the grips of the great depression and writers became expatriates to Paris and Europe much like Hemingway. World War II shattered the lost generation's control of Parisian expatriates like Hemingway, Flanner, Beach, Stein and Toklas. He describes Paris as a moveable feast but you could be poor and happy in Paris while struggling to be a writer. I think it's when Hemingway was the happiest along with the others. The phrase of "all good things come to an end" suits the lost generation of writers like Hemingway. They never found the happiness again.



3. A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's memoir of his early days in Paris, is nearly bursting with rich, poignant details of what it was like to be young and hopeful and excited. It's all there--Sylvia Beach, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the horse chestnut trees in bloom. Perhaps more than the reminiscenses of actual people and places, however, is Hemingway's sense of how good it was to be young. At times, you almost feel that Hemingway's heart was breaking as he recalls the beauty of his youth. Whether the stories are fact or fiction doesn't matter--Hemingway creates an aching poetry in these lovely, long ago days in Paris.
   
   Donald Gallinger is the author of The Master Planets



4. Guess what? A lot of people really like Hemingway. There are those who have never studied or even read another great author of the 20th century who has read Hem. This book was published after his death and I wonder if this wasn't something he wrote for his own kind of fun to attack and belittle everyone he knew in those years. Almost a practice writing exercise with malicious intent: read it carefully, F. Scott is famously viscously trashed but so is every single person he meets. My feeling is that if he was in his right mind - if you were to read anything about his last years he was in very bad shape - he would have destroyed this before he killed himself.



5. My personal reading of Hemingway has spanned a lifetime. This short "memoir" aside from 'Islands in the Stream' and 'The Oldman and the Sea', has to be one of the top ten "must reads" for any Hemingway reader...or any reader.
   
   Why?
   
   A Movable Feast describes that (R)omantic time after WW1 in Paris when creative life exploded in all its forms: Picasso in art, James Joyce, F. S. Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound; surealism, cubism and ultimately expressionism. Writers travelled to Paris or more so, 'gravitated' to the beautiful city and worked, starved and immersed themselves in their particular art froms.
   
   This is a 'tale' of the 'Starving Artist', as Hemingway descibes his hunger - the smells of bread along the small streets, his belly taking over while his mind focuses entirely on food - though the writing continued no matter his lack of food or his beloved drink.
   
   For example: "Chapter 8" "...you got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw a smelled the food." (p. 50)
   
   A Movable Feast is a general description of Hemingway's experiences without the details of gossip of the famous and infamous people he encountered.
   
   As the author writes at the beginning: "For reasons sufficient to the writer, many places, people, observations and impressions have been left out of this book. Some were secrets and some were known by everyone and everyone has written about them and will undoubtless write more." (Preface)
   
   Fair enough.
   
   In a biography of James Joyce, and interesting event occurred, (not mentioned in this text). Hemingway, in awe of the Irish genius, invites him to a famous bar which he and Fitzgerald had been drinking since the morning. The dapper Joyce arrives late in the afternoon, reserved as always, when some Parisian ruffian begins to insult Joyce. In true Hemingway character, he duly throws the ruffian out the front window. If memory serves, Joyce promptly bid his adieu and left. This is without doubt Hemingway in true (drunken) character.
   
   This is an unreliable historical document but the perspective of a man writing about a time in his life that has he will never forget because of the time and personalities he met.
   
   One of Hemingway's best and most entertaining.
   
   In Hemingway's own words:
   
   "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast." (A letter to a friend - 1950)

5 comments about Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World.

1. This was an amazing book. Both men tell compelling stories and convey their sense of wonder about what they see and hear.



2. I only watched one episode of the TV series as it was yet another "adventure TV" with full supporting cast. Spotted the book in local library so decided to give it a go, BIG MISTAKE. Why oh why are not books clasified for content as are movies? Where do these two apparently well educated authers get off with their constant use of four letter expletives? They will no doubt say it is a reflection of the real world, I find it insulting and uncalled for. I gave up half way through what was in fact a good read as I could not put up with the filth that they presumably believe to be clever.
   
   Roger
   Spokane, Washington



3. Great book that should be a companion to the DVD set. I do recommend that instead of this book you buy the illustrated edition. MOre pictures and the same verbage. But, buy at least one of them.



4. I enjoyed Ewan and Charley's first trip, and was excited to see that they were on another adventure. Having been to Africa myself, I was especially interested to see how the boys fared. I was very disappointed in the amount of time that the boys and the crew spent bickering with each other. Here are these two rich guys, on the trip of a lifetime, and they are complaining constantly! While their side trips to introduce us to various charities were moving, the amount of time spent complaining about the roads (did you think the roads in Africa would be pristine?), the amount of time on the bikes (should have planned better!) each day and about each other (this isn't your first trip, so you should know about everyone's little quirks) made the book a bit unenjoyable. I would have loved to read more about the places visited, the people met along the way and the sights, smells, sounds and tastes. Get over yourselves and RIDE!



5. A really good trip that gets blown by putting this adventure in
   the hands of an amateur writer.
   While this is an overall good story with some great adventure, I found
   myself at times having to figure out what was going on because of a lack
   in the writers ability. I don't know if this is a result of poorly kept journals or the inability of the writer to fully take on the opportunity to embellish on this tale and turn it into the truly great adventure that I'm sure that it was.As a result, I feel that at least half the adventure gets lost by what is not written. Furthermore,to sum up the entire North American continent in the course of about 30 pages was an extreme disappointment. Either they chose not to find any adventure in the this region ( I believe this to be the case as they seemed quite anxious to just get it over with by this point ) or they felt more compelled to focus on the more exotic,lesser known countries.
   All in all I will say that it is a good read, at times fun, but it does
   lack the overall quality that would make this a great book. I hope that
   their next undertaking includes a better written tale to capture and convey to the reader their whole experience.

5 comments about AMC White Mountain Guide, 28th: Hiking trails in the White Mountain National Forest (Appalachian Mountain Club White Mountain Guide).

1. Just what I was looking for, a guide with all kind of details about the routes of the beautiful white mountains. This is a very complete guide and it is well complemented with the maps that come with it. Some visuals could be a good add to the book but the excellent descriptions are enough and clear.
   
   Good buy for those seeking adventure at the whites.



2. This is the first edition of the WMG that I have owned, but owners of previous editions have pointed out that the maps in this edition are superior to theirs because the new maps include mileage on every single trail in the White Mountains. It is too bad that they are paper and not Tyvek or some other waterproof material, because they are already falling apart. If you are an avid hiker in the Whites, I suggest getting the Tyvek ones sold seperately.
   
   The guidebook itself is exhaustive and lists every detail of every trail, which is useful if you already have a route picked out but not if you are trying to find a good hike and aren't sure where to go. For that, I recommend Michael Lanza's New England Hiking or New Hampshire Hiking from Foghorn Outdoors.
   
   This 100th anniversary edition of WMG comes in a box that came unglued fairly quickly and then again after I reglued it. I would get rid of the box altogether except that the book doesn't have a pocket in the back for the maps like other AMC guidebooks do and I don't want to lose them. I hope that future editions of this guide will do away with the box and go back to the pocket.
   
   If you do not have your own copy of WMG and are looking to purchase one, this is definitely the product to buy. If, however, you already have an older edition of this book, I would suggest buying the Tyvek maps seperately and wait for a few more editions to be published before replacing your book.



3. This is a great set of maps and trail descriptions, though its not much for planning or suggesting anything in the white mountains. The trail maps are very well detailed, complete, and having the mileage on them directly is a nice addition. The book is a hard to use for planning, though it works for simply looking up a particular hike and reading some about the difficulty and anything you need to know to not get lost.



4. "THe White Mountain Guide" is the Appalachian Mountain Club's 28th and Centennial edition of its popular and indispensible hiking guide to New England's top outdoor recreational area. The guide itself, once past a few introductory chapters on safety and geography, has descriptions of each of the established trails in the region. Each description tells how to get to the appropriate trailhead, a narrative of the trail itself, and a breakdown by distance and elevation change of the major segments of the trail. These trail descriptions, updated for each edition of the guide, are invaluable in planning anything from a day hike to a multi-day trip in the beautiful White Mountains.
   
   The guide comes in a small cardboard box with three double-sided color maps that provide coverage of all the trail routes. The maps are detailed, easy to read, and at a usable scale for the White Mountains. Inexplicably, the maps included with the guide are paper and unlikely to stand up to repeated field use in the conditions often found in New Hampshire. Dedicated hikers are recommended to invest in the waterproof and tear-resistant versions of these maps, also published by the Appalachian Mountain Club.
   
   This guide is very highly recommended to hikers and walkers planning an outing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.



5. If you are going to do The White Mountains, here's your book. Useful, hold that, extremely useful trail maps... If you want to do the 48 4000 footers in NH, this is a great tool to plan your travels!