2 comments about The Last Frontier: Incredible Tales of Survival, Exploration, and Adventure from Alaska Magazine.

1. "The Last Frontier" is an interesting collection of feature stories that originally appeared in "Alaska" magazine from 1935 until the present. They were chosen by the current editors of the magazine. The subject matter is quite varied, featuring outdoor adventure tales, life among the native people, wildlife exposes and much more. The stories are as varied as the people who inhabit the last great American wilderness.

   The caveat I would note for anyone interested in reading the book is that most of the stories are quite short, and because they were published for a then-contemporary audience, someone not familiar with local history or geography might sometimes get lost in the narrative. Also, "Alaska" started out as a sportsman's magazine, so a lot of the early stories are about hunting and trapping, which some people might not enjoy.

   Those cautions aside, "The Last Frontier" is a decent read for those who likes outdoor adventure stories.




2. I bought this book for stories about fishing, hunting, trapping, wilderness travel and "white knuckle" adventure. What I found was a book that covered a wide variety of topics, all relevant to Alaska but in some cases a little "tame" or mundane for the typical adventure reader.

   So, as is always the case, whether or not you'd like this book depends on your particular interests. I give it a high rating because it has something for everybody. In fact, the book contains almost 60 stories and if you find only 10 that you really enjoy the book is worth buying. I also rated it high because while every story is not a "gripping" adventure thriller, many of them are, and others are informative, entertaining or interesting in other ways.

   Among the more "riveting" stories are two about men surrounded or pursued by wolves; one about researchers on a frozen lake during an earthquake; one about a fisherman caught under a capsized fishing boat and one about a daring float plane rescue of men stranded in a deep canyon river. There is the obligatory "avalanche" story and another about a raging walrus, and several "big fish" stories.
   
   One or two stories deal with the psychological effects of prolonged isolated, wilderness living. Another, and one of my personal favorites, is a unique and revealing story about crime and punishment in the bush. It is entitled "Of Traps and Treasures--Klutuk."

   Another story, "My Sunset Moose" deals with the realization that time changes everything, and that for better or worse, change must be accepted. Another, "A Trapper Leaves the Country" deals with the same subject, in the same somber way, but in a different context.

   But my single favorite story is "A Few Mosquito Bites." I believe that any man or woman or any child old enough to understand simple language would enjoy this story about a man, his hybrid wolf-dogs and life in the wilderness. In fact, it would be worth buying this book just to get this story.

   But please don't think that every story is about men going hunting or fishing, or getting killed or maimed in the woods! Many are written by women about the extraordinarily tough and determined women who were attracted to life in the the world's last great wilderness and last free country!

   Lots of stories, lots of fun, easy reading. Recommended.

5 comments about Grand Canyon, The Complete Guide: Grand Canyon National Park.

1. This guide had beautiful pictures, detailed maps etc... It listed lodging but no reviews of lodging, just a glorified description. Had I not seeked out advice and reviews about lodging at the Grand Canyon, I would have been seriously disappointed. This book is more of a thick glossy brochure than an actual "guide" to help you plan a trip.



2. Out of all the Grand Canyon guides I bought, this one was my favorite.
   The color photos are amazing, and the background info about the
   canyon's history, geology and wildlife is fascinating. If you're going
   to Grand Canyon I would definitely recommend buying this book.



3. The Grand Canyon is universally acclaimed as one of the great natural wonders of the world. Now in a fully updated and beautifully illustrated third edition, James Kaiser's "Grand Canyon: The Complete Guide" is the ideal guide for novice visitors and a superbly informative reference for the seasoned visitor as well. A complete and 'user friendly' travel guide and planner for visiting the Grand Canyon, this ideal reference includes the Havasu Falls, topography maps, trail descriptions for both day trips and overnight hikes, mule rides, scenic flights, Colorado river trips, public campgrounds, historic lodges, the canyon's geology, native wildlife, history, and a great deal more. Compact and easily portable, "Grand Canyon: The Complete Guide" truly lives up to its title and is an invaluable addition to personal and community library travel guide collections -- as well as the supplemental reading lists of the armchair explorer!



4. This author gives a comprehensive overview of everything to do here. The photos are fantastic and I love the snippets of history too. I only wish he wrote more guides for other places.



5. This book is more detailed than most I have found. It gave me much needed background info.

5 comments about On Mexican Time: A New Life in San Miguel.

1. I absolutely loved this book!! The writer's style was such that I could vividly imagine myself in SMA during the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties. The characters were so real and full of life: the gardener who had a mistress, the man who killed someone twice, the young girls who helped around the house and grew to be women with their own girls, and many many more characters came to life. The book was like a great movie you don't wish would end and when it does it leaves you sad that it's over. Luckily for us Tony Cohan has another book, Mexican Days: Journeys into the Heart of Mexico, on his life in Mexico which I'll be quickly ordering to pour through just like I did with "On Mexican Time".



2. I bought this book 7 years ago and am currently reading it yet again. This is one of those books I can't read enough. I never get bored with this book. Cohan uses all the senses to bring the reader into the story and paint the most beautiful mental portrait of Mexico.
   -Jodi: age 24



3. I have lived in San Miquel and this is a good book on the city and the people. Things have changed a lot in the past forty years and we need another update.



4. When I was 16 years old, I traveled to San Miguel de Allende under the kindly watch of a young teacher-couple that I knew through my church. After two weeks in their rented home on Calle del Chorro, they set me up in a casa de huéspedes on Pila Seca Street. It was the most formative adventure of my young life! The introverted and frightened-of-his-own-shadow kid that I was disappeared rapidly as I was enveloped into the fold of the guests at Domingo and Pita's place. I really grew up that summer and made San Miguel my home. I returned home an older and more confident person. My stay in San Miguel de Allende changed my life and is responsible for my love of Mexico and my chosen profession: high school Spanish teacher.
   
   Tony Cohan caught the essence of San Miguel de Allende and I was transported back through his wonderful prose to those days. It was such a thrill to recognize the places he wrote about and the experiences (both frustrating and exhilarating)that time and travel in Mexico provides.
   
   If you want wonderful writing, a deeper understanding of Mexican culture and a view of one of the most beautiful towns in Mexico, I highly recommend On Mexican Time!



5. Author has a nice touch, however, half way through he seems to run out of much to say except reportage. Reports about fixing a centuries old house can be about as dull as being there. No duller. There are interesting reflections, along with descriptions of people and places in the first half of the book, making it worth the cost of the book and your time reading at least half of it.

5 comments about Buried Treasures You Can Find: Over 7500 Locations in All 50 States (Treasure Hunting Text).

1. Great book. I have found two forts and an old gold mining town close to me to hunt in thanks to this book. It really is a good book.



2. This book contains a few interesting and potentially helpful tidbits of information for the treasure hunter. However, most of the information about the "7500 locations" is often little more than can be had from reading the "Welcome to..." signs found as you drive into town. If you expect to have a handy collection of ideas to keep you and your metal detector busy, then this book will be a disappointment.



3. But this writer simply tried to cut too wide a swath. I'd have preferred fewer lost treasures and more information on those.



4. This book is great. It has many great places to look for treasure in every state. The author has done years of research to find many old ghost towns, buried treasure stories, and many other places. It gives tips on metal detecting, but seems to have been paid by Garrett Metal Detectors to advertise and show their detectors in this book. It also informs you how to find good places to look. This book is a masterpiece and very interesting even if you are not going out to look for lost treasures of yesterday.



5. it listing a lot of tips 7500---however since it list so many tips--- needless to say it can only give a brief bit on each one----its a good starting point of "local treasure stories /tales" in your state & area that you then must go and do the "leg work" to flesh out the rest of the story. if you are a research based type hunter its a good starting point--- "tips" to get you started ---if you expect ---"well go the the corner of elm and jones street in zippytown,florida and walk seven feet east --dig five feet down and you'll be set for life ---well get real --if it was that easy the bookwriter would do it. good hunting to all.

5 comments about Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France.

1. Peter Mayle effectivately takes us once again to beautiful Provence through his second book. His writing is witty yet very unassuming and laid back. He gives the reader vivid and often funny accounts of the land and its people. He has an uncanny ability to observe the smallest details in the Provencal locals that he meets and to express it in a very entertaining way through his books.



2. Food, the air, water, the land and the people in the South of France. The book beautifully took me thru life in this person move to this area.



3. The book was everything I expected...but y'all sent it in paperback. I never buy a book that I do not want to keep....and I never buy and keep paperback books.



4. For an unexplained reason, Peter Mayle and his unnamed wife (presumably the "Jennie" of the dedication) left paradise in Provence for Long Island. In Encore Provence, he returns to the south of France, where the food, wine, and slow pace of life again absorb his attention.
   
   Even less structured than Toujours Provence, Encore Provence covers familiar territory from new angles. "The Unsolved Murder of the Handsome Butcher" and "Recipe for a Village" address both the insularity and charms of village life ("Recipe" much less successfully), while "How to Be a Nose," "Discovering Oil," and "Friday Morning in Carpentras" provide insights into the perfume, olive oil, and truffle industries, respectively. In one of the best chapters, "Restaurant Critic Makes Astonishing Discovery," Mayle effectively and humorously discredits Ruth Reichl's flippant dismissal of Provence. How could a serious critic, after only a month's visit, write, "I had been dreaming of a Provence that never existed"? To help the reader find ripe tomatoes--which Reichl could not manage to do--and other products of Provence, Mayle provides the names and places for markets, vineyards, restaurants, bakeries, and producers of goods like olive oil and honey. It becomes clear that Reichl could not find Provence because she actively avoided it; perhaps she thought that deflating the expectations that Mayle helped to create was a better story than simply reinforcing them.
   
   Several chapters, like "Curious Reasons for Liking Provence" and "Eight Ways to Spend a Summer's Afternoon," reveal one of the problems with Encore Provence--the lack of significant new material. More filler than substance, they are more like random personal essays than integral parts of a cohesive work, as though Mayle could not think of a better way to frame his random observations. These chapters are forced, splintered, and almost unnecessary.
   
   Surprisingly, there is a less of a sense of place. In the previous Provence books, Mayle's stone house, with its location abutting public forest, its isolation from traffic, its drawn-out renovations, its pool that attracts thirsty sangliers, and its quirky neighbors like Faustin and Massot, gives the reader a strong sense of a place with personality. The house is at the heart of A Year in Provence. In Encore Provence, it is not clear that Mayle and his wife return to the same house or what their neighbors are like. Even the dogs are mostly absent. Without structure and intimacy, Encore Provence is nothing more than a series of disconnected travelogue stories. Perhaps weary of intrusions into his privacy, or perhaps unclear about the reasons for the first book's success, Mayle distances himself from his reader.
   
   There may not be much left for Mayle to say about Provence. He writes that, due to building restrictions, not much has changed. Yet he notes that "the garage and the geese are gone, and the farmhouse has sprouted wings and annexes . . . the vines have been groomed" and "the refugees' urge for rapid [gardening] results has spawned an industry: instant gardens, shipped in and set up with astonishing speed." These are only a couple of small changes, to be sure, but in time there will be more, and Provence will alter slowly and subtly. Mayle should know that that is the nature of change in the countryside and that, with enough demand, pressure, and money, change can accelerate, transforming a village into a resort town or farmland into suburbia.
   
   Even if you cannot visit Provence, much of the lifestyle that Mayle describes--with food and drink of varying type and quality--is still available in many places outside France. The slow pace, the fatalistic viewpoint, the elderly gossips and moralists, the close-knit relationships, the helpfulness, and the beauty and quirks of the countryside are found in many regions. If you are as observant and open as Mayle, you may be able to find your version of Provence closer to home.



5. If you have ever visited Provence, reading "Encore Provence" will ensure a flood of pleasant memories. Homesick for Provence, Peter Mayle leaves his home in America (he is originally from England) and returns to his true love, France.
   
   What really keeps the French trim and healthy? What prevents olive oil from quickly turning rancid? How can you ease a sore throat with lavender essential oil?
   
   Peter Mayle answers these questions and more. His writing has a rare warmth and his descriptions of restaurants makes you want to experience every nuance. Whether he is visiting a distillery or explaining the process of buying a house, he tells the story with a sense of adventure.
   
   Since Peter Mayle loves to watch people more than TV he provides some interesting descriptions of village inhabitants. He tells his stories with a sense of relish and he even made Marseille sound more exciting. This book made me wish for another bottle of olive oil I found in Cassis on a weekend trip I made to Provence. It also reminded me to buy another bag of Fleur de Sel.
   
   I can also recommend: A Year in Provence
   
   ~The Rebecca Review

4 comments about Culture Shock! Ecuador: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Guides).

1. My son is in Ecuador as an exchange student for a year, and I found the book interesting. It gives you a sense of the culture and what to expect if you go to live there.



2. If you're planning on going to Ecuador this is the book for you. The author writes in a very lively way to keep you interested all the way to the end. Having lived there for over 20 years he has authoritatve views and accurate histories to really get you prepared to interact with the people of Ecuador. The author also has a helpful list of do's and don'ts to help keep you out of trouble. Check it out.



3. As all Culture Shock books, this too is a very good one in unerstanding the soul of a country.



4. This book is a very comrehensive look at the culture & people of Ecuador. It is written like a travel guide giving an inside look into different locations & the people living there. This book would an enjoyable read even for people who are not planning on traveling to Ecuador.

3 comments about Frommer's South Korea (Frommer's Complete).

1. This book was apparently issued at the beginning of summer and I bought it to used during a recently completed trip to Korea. It had some good information but I found it maddeningly sloppy in execution and extremely frustrating to use. Maps were inaccurate--for example the map of downtown Seoul shows the magnificent National Museum of Korea near the city center, but in fact it is close to the river several miles away--having been moved from the place shown on the map in 2005. (The text does describe its new location and how to get there, but the map will confuse many readers who might be interested in the museum.) Was the map simply carried over from an earlier edition without any updating? A section on a region in central Korea describes a museum (the Independence museum) in the "second largest city" in the region but the regional map doesn't show the city. (It is, however, shown on the map of all of Korea at the beginning of the book.) Areas of Seoul are described but for many of them there is no map as to where (even in general) they actually are--e.g., Itawon. Very few restaurants are listed in Seoul and for many there is no map even indicating the general area where they are located. Two cities, Incheon and Daejeon are both described as the "fourth" largest city in Korea. (I could find no "third" largest city listed.) I could easily go on. There should be a thorough re-editing of the book if it is to be a helpful guidebook and not a frustrating experience for a traveller trying to negotiate his or her way through Korea.



2. Finally Frommers puts out a traveling guide for Korea. I've used their books before and will use again. Just in Time for my visiting. Thanks!



3. well, there aren't too many travel guides for korea out there. i came across this one and found it interesting. i have to say, thanks to frommer's for finally introducing a travel guide to korea. i look forward to taking it on my journey!

No comments about 2009 Las Vegas Wall Calendar.

2 comments about The Texas Hill Country: A Food and Wine Lover's Paradise.

1. Slow Food (eating local) in Texas explored!
   
   Not only is this a celebration of eating local -- it's a Hill Country travel guide to boot! Terry searches central Texas with one thing on her mind: local food with local folks! What a treat to see so many wonderful home-grown businesses featured. From fantastic bakeries & restaurants, to fresh picked apples & peaches, wineries, fresh goat cheese & olive oil and lavender trails --- no culinary aspect of the Hill Country is missed (a number of great recipes are included too). Of course not every farm & restaurnt is visited -there are just too many! But she does a great job to tempt all of us to travel the backroads and explore Texas's rich culinary diversity. Epicuiran delight!



2. Wonderful photography! Makes you want to hop in the car, on an empty stomach, and see/taste everything shown in this wonderful guide book !

5 comments about AA Road Atlas Ireland (Aa Atlases and Maps).

1. I will first comment that I have not yet used this atlas in Ireland so I presume information to be accurate. I ordered this as an extra item to the two fold-out maps I was primarily interested in to qualify for free shipping, but will be leaving the maps behind. The scale (1:200,000 or 1" = 3.16 miles) is 2x the scale of the better of the two fold-out maps (Michelen Ireland #712). I will be using it both for driving and for reference in traveling by bus/train. At 8-1/4" x 11-5/8" x 1/4" thick it fits nicely in the outer sleeve of my backpack. I find the Michelen Ireland #712 fold-out map, while a nicely detailed map, somewhat thick and cumbersome to fold. This bound atlas handles nicely.



2. This atlas was absolutely useless during our trip to Ireland. It did NOT provide detailed maps of the cities, and the layout and organization was horrible! The free map we got from the Rental Car Agency was of more use than this atlas. Do NOT buy this product!



3. I am planning a trip to Ireland where I will rent a car to tour the places I wish to visit. This promises to help navigate the country.



4. AA Road Atlas: Ireland (Road Atlas)Just returned from a road trip in Ireland with my girlfriends, this was invaluable, very easy to read, a must far all attempting to drive the roads in Ireland!



5. This atlas is inferior to the Ordnance Survey Atlas (ISBN 978-1-905511-40-2). We bought the AA atlas before our Ireland trip and found we needed the Ordnance Survey atlas once we got there.