5 comments about Route 66 (Enthusiast Color).

1. Any book published as part of an "enthusiast color series" is likely intended to be a coffee-table book. And indeed, Route 66 has lots of pretty pictures, captured beautifully by Jim Luning. But unlike most such fare, this book deserves more than coffee-table placement (or, the pinnacle, bathroom-rack status.)

   I know the author, Tim Steil, a friend of mine. So, as one who loves grammar, right from the start I had every incentive to pick at his writing. But, alas, I was disappointed. Finding only the most minor of grammatical errors, I had to concede the fact that Steil has written a really good book. Tim's breezy writing makes the book a quick and easy read, and conveys efficiently so much of their adventure that the reader cannot help but feel as if he were there for much of the ride.

   Another plus: it's not preachy, or full of phony nostalgia or contempt for "the evils of progress." I love it this book, and I'm not really even a fan of Route 66.

   Luning's pictures are gorgeous. I got to meet him when the two authors did some of their preliminary research on the Chicken Basket, one of the offical Route 66 sites covered early in the book. An unassuming and disarming guy, Luning does not betray that he has a long list of credits. But in the book, Luning cannot hide his talent: a fantastic eye for light and color and balance.

   So enjoy the pictures. But realize they will not really come to life until you actually read the text.

   Route 66 is what an "enthusiast color series" should be.




2. This is the best Route 66 book I've ever read. The pictures range from breathtaking to amusing and the writing is fresh and clean. A must have for anyone interested in Route 66.



3. Route 66, by Tim Steil, is a trip in present, but a journey back in time. There was a day and age when Route 66 was the heartbeat of the Western half of the United States. Unlike its predecessor the Lincoln Highway, Route 66 was modern road made offering fast travel from Chicago to Los Angeles for both automobiles and trucks. Because of the limitations of vehicles of the 1930's through the early 1960's, the road was lined with repair shops, cafes, motels and scenic wonders that range from simple statues or absurd monuments.

   More than any other highway, Route 66 has a history and an allure that never ceases to draw the adventurous to it. These days traveling on Route 66 is sort of like visiting a huge living museum of automobile Americana. Steil, aided by photographer Jim Luning, take the journey and give their vision to this long familiar story. The nice part about this book is that MBI, the publisher, chose to offer it as part of the inexpensive Enthusiast Color Series rather than an expensive coffee table book. You can easily take this book with you for easy reading along the way and without taking up too much space at lunch counter. This was a good choice on their part and is sure to make give this book a long sales life.

   The author is accurate in his descriptions and the photographer's keen eye caught quite a few features of Route 66 that have not appeared in other publications. Truckers are big part of this story, in fact the famous Dixie Truckers Home in central Illinois gets good coverage right in the beginning of the book. If the lore and legends of Route 66 are already part of your life, or you would just like a low-cost introduction to this famous highway then Route 66, by Tim Steil is a must have item.
   - Gary Bricken




4. Probably the best book to date on the subject, Route 66 is a joy from beginning to end. Referred to affectionately as The Mother Road, Route 66 was the first highway built for high speed travel in the United States. Due to the reliability of the cars and trucks using this road, it was lined with repair shops, diners, and tourist traps. The photography is excellent and the text is insightful and well written. Travelling from Chicago to Los Angeles via this book is a joy!



5. I recently received this beautiful color collection on "The Mother Road" Route 66. Having traveled West from Chicago to Kingman AZ in the mid 60's on Route 66 it brought back many memories. It also has left me with strong ambitions to repeat that journey but this time all the way to L.A. Wonderful photography and dialouge by the author. Even if you have never traveled on Route 66 you may very well want to after viewing this book.

5 comments about Time of Wonder (Viking Kestrel Picture Books).

1. The reviewer who found this book "boring" must not have much in the way of imagination. This was one of my favorite books as a child and I still remember it fondly (I'm 38). It doesn't matter if you haven't had experiences exactly like those of the children in the book. The writing and the illustrations make you feel as if you are there. You can practically smell the sea, hear the wind and rain, and the laughter of the kids at the beach. While drawing a vivid picture of a concrete time and place, the book also invokes a sense of timelessness, as well as of "deep time" and the ancient rythyms of nature. I think my favorite moment is when one of the girls stands in a forested area on a misty morning, her eyes closed, and listens to nature awakening around her.

   This is a book about taking a break from the fast-paced modern world and connecting with nature (and appreciating its power), with the past, and rediscovering your sense of wonder. Written in the mid-50's, it was ahead of its time in some ways and is definitely as relevant today as it was then, if not more so.




2. I read my children to sleep with this book every night. They call it their dream book since they drift off to sleep with thoughts of sand and sea in their heads. The words draw beautiful pictures.



3. Great book, especially for those of us who love Maine. You can almost smell the sea air, feel the wind coming off the water and hear the gulls in the distance as you read this!



4. Being a fan of Make Way for Ducklings, I was in search of other books by Robert McCloskey when I found this gem of a book. It is gentle, lyrical and so beautiful in it's prose and artwork. My children like to listen to it at bedtime and it lulls them to sleep each time. It is a book that celebrates nature and it's beauty. It's hard for me to describe but it touches me deeply, evokes memories of my childhood camping trips in the mountains.



5. The wonders of the world as seen from a child's perspective are rendered beautifully in this story. I long to visit this part of Maine to capture the same wonder as the two girls, from jumping off a rock into the bay, to the sounds heard through the fog, to an oncoming hurricane and the preparations for it. Everything is described in calm language and illustrated beautifully. Probably McCloskey's most exquisite, wonderous children's book. A child will love having this book read to them--it brings a time and place to life that all children should experience.

5 comments about Weird Wisconsin: Your Travel Guide to Wisconsin's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets (Weird).

1. Do you like stories about strange phenomena, ghost stories, or stories that simply tingle your spine? How about stories about strange places that exist? Perhaps you are the type of person who is interested in UFO's. What about stories about interesting persons who have their own stories to share? What if I could tell you that this book is all of that and more?
   
   Who would think of a fairly quiet place like Wisconsin as being a state full of weirdness!? Everything from UFO's and ghosts to the world's largest, well, urinal, this book covers it all.
   
   It is very hard to put this book down once you begin to read it, and after reading it, I still find it hard to put the book down! Each story in this book is priceless, and the authors made sure that the book was very reader-friendly.
   
   The only problem I had was that I couldn't rate this book any higher than 5 stars.



2. The book's outer cover had a slight tear on it, other than that it was in great shape and it was delivered very quickly!



3. I thought it was cool. I had no idea how many places were haunted and such. I would definately buy more books of the same.



4. bought this as a gift and it was LOVED!! my sis gets into stuff like this and of course we are from wi .. so she loved every page!!! great gift for people who like wierd stuff!



5. This was an amazing book, I'm planning on buying myself a copy since checking it out from the library. The only problem I had with it is they got a few addresses wrong. The truck in the tree in Clinton, WI... They say it's visible from interstate 90. I'm not good with road names but my dad is, an 84 native of rock county says it's no where near 90. In the picture it's obvious that they went buy the house, I know these people personally and they don't mind visitors so I'm confused as to why they didn't mention the road it's on.

No comments about The Pacific Crest Trail: Southern California (Pacific Crest Trail).

1 comments about Hidden Wyoming: Including Jackson Hole and Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

1. Hidden Wyoming appears in its third edition to provide selective recommendations and reviews of lodgings, sightseeing, and special dining experiences throughout the state. A "user friendly" and recommended pick for destination-bound travelers.

5 comments about Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings.

1. Let me see if I can write a review that does justice to this book and at the same time explain to myself why it is such a great piece of literature.
   
   I think the first point to make is that the writing mirrors the, by turns, eddying, chaotic, reflective quality of the sea itself, leading one deeper and deeper into the author's own meandering introspections about life and, yes, water in a very (to this reader anyway) seductive style, a style which is nothing if not allusive, reflecting Raban's own lifelong fascination with and profound love of literature. The account of Captain Vancouver's voyage along this same passage, taken from many sources, while certainly the most superficially parallel and certainly the most discursively ongoing of the allusions, is not in the end, the most significant and profound. That award must surely go to Raban's recounting of Shelley's last days and ultimate demise in the chapter entitled "Charred Remains", striking a parallel, in a much more profound manner than those accounts of Vancouver's voyage, to the last days and death of Raban's father and to the unsurpassed final chapter in which he invokes Cowper's "The Cast-Away" as a metaphor for his crumbling marriage and his own mortality.
   
   Perhaps one, like Raban, has to already have a love of and familiarity both these poets to see what a feat he has pulled of here - though Raban provides the basic biographical background for each. To stick with the last chapter---Cowper isn't a poet much read anymore. But he's always been one of my favourites. One really has to be familiar with his intensely unbalanced life and mind to fully appreciate his poetry. In any event, by this last chapter of the book, we know what it's like to walk in Raban's shoes, to be in his boat, to wander through his mind and heart and to know how much he loves his family. When the hammer falls at the end with his wife and daughter deplaning in Juneau, we feel how crushed he is by it. And Cowper's "The Cast-Away" is the perfect poetic expression of the way we feel he feels, drowned not by the "real" sea he's been traversing, but by Cowper's metaphoric sea of despair. I frequently return to Cowper's "The Task"-A poem given him as a sort of assignment to ward off one of his mental fits-as well as "The Cast-Away" as two of the greatest poems in the language. I NEVER thought I'd see a modern author apparently effortlessly bring the despair of the all but forgotten poet back to life, but......Raban does.
   
   So, yes, readers looking for a "sea adventure" yarn had better look elsewhere. How to know if you will fancy the book? Do you love history, English literature, introspective depths? Above all, do you know the feeling of being drowned by despair? Can you relate to Cowper's couplet?
   
   "But I, beneath a rougher sea,
   And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he."
   
   In short, do you know that INNER Sea? If so, this book will not disappoint.



2. I've read many of Mr Raban's books and loved them all but this is my favorite. This isn't just a "travel" book, it's the history of the beautiful Inside Passage. You really feel like you are on Mr Raban's boat as he travels from Seattle, where he lives, to Juneau. He recounts the history of all the travellers who went before him - how certain Sounds and Inlets got their names - tells you about the people he meets - the things he sees - and shares a little piece of his own life history as he travels. During this journey he deals with the death of his Father and his upcoming divorce from his wife. He is a master storyteller. I live on the Puget Sound and have scuba dived up and down this Passage - this book brings the whole area to life. If you haven't enjoyed Mr Raban's prose before now, start here. You'll be hooked.



3. I tend to ignore author Raban's political diatribes (most of his writing, unfortunately) and revel in the beauty of his books about his personal boat journeys. I had earlier read "Old Glory: A Voyage Down The Mississippi" and felt that it lost focus about halfway through the narrative. That book seemed to reflect the desperate lack of focus and national malaise that the Carter administration brought on in the late 70's, and "Old Glory" would not be a Raban book I'd recommend.
   
   However, Passage to Juneau is different. His solo journey by sailboat from Seattle to Juneau in the late 1990s is beautifully written with haunting scenes of his personal life interspersed with his musings on the sea. During the journey, his father dies and his wife demands a separation, the first personal tragedy giving Raban insight into his personal feelings about life and the sea, the second (at the midpoint of his journey, reaching Juneau) causing him to focus inward for the return trip to Seattle.
   
   Despite his occasional lapses towards anti-americanism (throughout the book I kept wondering why he didn't move back to England or at least move north to British Columbia), Passage to Juneau is an intimate portrait of a man who is facing life's trials and the vagaries of some of the more treacherous seas in the world at the same time.



4. Raban deftly weaves George Vancouver's expedition with his own journey up North America's West Coast two centuries later.
   
   Introspective and heartfelt, the book is in parts auto-biography, travel-guide and biography. As a Passage to Juneau unwinds, Raban describes situations and others with great perception, yet is never afraid to expose his own frailties.
   
   Passage to Juneau is beautifully written and explores Raban's thoughts every bit as much as the miles of water he covers. A tremendous book and fully deserving of the great praise it has received.



5. The best thing about this book is that it tells you what _else_ to read if you really want to learn about the history and culture of the Inside Passage. The worst thing about the book is that Raban's ego, maybe buoyed by the success of Bad Land, is out of control. Bad Land is a great book about a place. Passage to Juneau is half about the place, half about Raban and what an untamable nomad (but somehow a devoted father) he is, and neither is particularly satisfactory.

5 comments about 101 Hikes in Southern California: Exploring Mountains, Seashore and Desert (101 Hikes).

1. A bunch of great hikes for ALL fitness/experience levels. If you are 100 pounds over weight and want to start hiking there are plenty of hikes you can do!! don't let being out of shape scare you away from some of southern california's most beautiful scenery!



2. Received book on time for Christmas was neatly packaged and I was pleased.



3. Jerry has explicit knowledge which he chronicles in this book. Each trail is well described and you are told what to bring in order to be prepared. The classification system used to classify each trail is simple to use and understand. This book is great!!!



4. I purchased this book for a recent trip to Los Angeles, and found it to be a valuable resource for finding interesting hiking spots. Some photos from that trip and others can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pstao/
   
   I would definately recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the outdoors, and exploring the natural beauty that persists throughout Southern California.



5. might be an ok book if you lived in the area
   not useful for out of towners - hikes not too interesting
   more popular and too spread out to be useful.

4 comments about Alaska.

1. Art Wolfe's beautiful photos and Nick Jans' reader-friendly text blend in a beautiful coffee-table paperback edition of Alaska (1-57061-216-1, $29.95), featuring gorgeous full-page color photos of environments and animals and reflecting the contributors' familiarity with Alaska's many faces. Choose this as a keepsake memoir of the state's natural beauty.



2. WOW! Breathtaking photos of Alaska. He captures Alaska as it should be.



3. Whether this book of color photographs accurately shows what Alaska really looks like, I don't know, because I haven't been there yet. But having finished it, I'm planning my trip!

   But I can say this is a great book of photographs of nature. Anyone who loves to look at photographs will love this book. Wolfe demonstrates that he is one of the greatest living outdoor photographers. His sense of light and composition is unexcelled. Almost every picture has a strong sense of line, either vertical, horizontal or diagonal. And the range of light is exceptional, often including in the same picture the darkest blacks and the brightest whites.

   The handling of sky is as sublime as that of any of the 19th century American landscape painters. I'm certain that there must be plain blue skies in Alaska but every one of Wolfe's skies has clouds that are fleecy, or glowering, or mysterious. And the light that falls on the landscapes illuminates them with a strange beauty whether casting deep, hard-edged shadows that make a rugged peak look even more majestic; or soft shadows that fall across a brush-covered hillside and create a subtle modulation of green; or the red rays of the magic hours of dawn and dusk.

   Occasionally his pictures take on a strange abstraction that requires a careful examination to discover what one is looking at, like the pictures of white ice floes on the surface of an inky-black river or the network of crevasses on a glacier with a few spots of emerald blue in the white field, where the snow has melted into a pond reflecting the sky.

   Wolfe is a master of color field photography. Consider the brownish, grayish web of fine lines with several smears of white across it that resolves into a portrait of musk oxen with white horns and muzzles. Or the white arctic foxes in the snow with a bare hint of orange on their undersides. Or the receding green hillsides distinguished only by differing textures with a tiny browsing caribou in the foreground.

   The text by Nick Jans is sometimes overly poetic and almost unnecessary given the photographs although explaining just what it is that makes tundra tundra has some interest. However when I turn the page to see just the top halves of the heads of two fierce little owls peeking at me with yellow eyes hidden amongst a row of wildflowers in the Arctic Wild Life Refuge, words disappear from my mind.

   Most people agree that Alaska is one of the last great wildernesses and that we are unlikely to see anything more exciting in our lives. Art Wolfe has captured the excitement of Alaska. He has also captured the excitement of great photography.




4. Beautiful photography of the grandest state. If you've read any of Nick Jans work, you know the text is excellent as well.

5 comments about Hot Springs and Hot Pools of the Southwest: Jayson Loam's Original Guide (Hot Springs & Hot Pools of the Southwest: Jayson Loam's).

1. I gave this four stars because most of the book is awesome and we've good experiences with the other additions. My wife and I love to travel to natural hot springs and we bought this after visiting most of the springs in the Northwest US.
   We bought this edition just to get some idea of the springs in Texas. There is only one listed though which is pretty inaccurate. Nothing in the Austin area is included but the stuff in Hawaii was right on!



2. I got into hiking and discovered hotsprings a few years ago. This book is a great guide and map to many great springs all over the South west and more.
   Def. reccomend it for the adventurer



3. This is probably the best hot spring book in existence for the southwestern U.S.. It is great, it has everything you need. Beyond the locations themselves, the book lists temperature of the pools, driving direcetions, driving conditions, exact GPS coordinates, accessability and a great description of the springs along with some black and white pictures. It has all of the major hot springs in it (I am sure there are still some minor ones on private property). I have been to a couple of the sites in the book and it was easy to find them. I would highly recommend this book.



4. By using the GPS coordinate, we had a lot of fun searching the hot springs in the Mammoth Lakes area. The only reason I give it 4 stars is there is a wrong GPS coordinate (reading the direction eventually got me there). Great book.



5. If you like hot springs, this is the book for you! The most information in the easiest format to follow. The directions are better than most other books like it, Really I haven't found a hot spring book that compares, this one has been around a long time and it's still the best. Also has been revised so its up to date.

No comments about Best Places Northwest (Best Places).