Travel Books

The only guide book that gives you current detailed information. They even post updates online between editions. Things tend to be poorly marked in Hawaii and so the mile marker details help get you where you want to be.

What can I say? Awesome! I've read Frommer's Hawaii 2008. Frommer's is just a book telling you there is a beach here and there is a fall there. And I notice Frommer's involves A LOT of ads from activity companies who try to sell their activities to you. In contrary, Andrew Doughty's book offers you a really personal but neutual experience of every place in Hawaii. Because Doughty and his group actually been to every place and experience by themselives, you feel that each evaluation and comment he gave towards a sight or activity is solid and trust-worthy. Not to mention his fun-to-read style. I would say even if you just want to know about Hawaii not visit, the book is a fun to read. ABSOLUTELY!!!

Maui Revealed is a good book - perhaps too good! The locals in Maui really hate this book and are not afraid to tell you. It has led to many tourists trespassing on lands and places where they are not welcome...so beware.

This is a spectacular book! I used this book while on vacation because a friend recommended it. It came it SO handy! We called it the "blue bible." It had everything we needed in and great detail. I bought this book to give to a friend that is going to Maui on her honeymoon. I recommend this book to everyone that's going to Hawaii.

Very detailed and helpful. My copy was a slightly out-of-date though (some of the trails had been fenced off). If you can obtain a recent copy prior to your trip, it is well worth it. The author's commentary and insights are all right on!

In the Reader's Guide at the back of my edition, Octavia Butler is reported to have said that she considers Kindred to be a "grim fantasy," not science fiction, as there is "absolutely no science in it." The mechanism by which Dana is "called" from 1976 to the early 1800s is never discussed. It simply is not relevant to this riveting story.

Through the story of Dana, a happily married woman, a successful author of 1976, suddenly and inexplicably thrown, repeatedly, back to a farm in the early 1800s in the slave state of Maryland, Butler examines slavery, the enslaved, and slavery's effects on all the people it touches: those born into slavery, Freedmen and -women returned to slavery, a Black woman from our own era who suddenly finds herself in a slavery-based society, a white man from our era also suddenly thrown into that same society, and those who "owned" other human beings - the slave owners.

She examines the choices slavery thrusts on each of these characters, too. Some of the most interesting parts of this story, to me, were Dana's agonized thoughts as her modern ideals and preconceptions were broken on the rocks of the horrors she saw all around her under the system of slavery. In some instances, she found that the reality of an impossible life made impossible (she thought) choices all-too-possible, for both herself and others.

Octavia Butler thoroughly researched this book by studying the Slave Narratives, first person "autobiographies of nineteenth-century Americans who lived as slaves," as well as other elements of the geography and culture of the era in which Kindred is set. Her meticulous research gives this book a stunning authenticity.

I read this book in one sitting. I literally could not put it down. I would recommend it to anyone.

Anyone interested in Kindred simply MUST read Toni Morrison's Beloved, in my opinion. Beloved is an even better book. Don't miss either one!

When I first looked at this book's details here at Amazon, I was put off by the fact that it is referred to in the category "books for girls." I was afraid it would be some kind of simplified "children's" book. Make no mistake: this is NOT a "children's book!" It is a thoroughly adult classic."

The only good thing I can say about this book is that Octavia has an interesting writing style and the story idea is creative. However, Octavia seems to think that if you are strong in these areas, you can be weak everywhere else. The first major flaw of this book is how extremely mawkish it is. For instance, there is a slave in the book named Tess. Now, Tess never had any speaking lines, so my brain came to referring to Tess as slave x because all the other slaves without speaking lines had no names, so why should Tess? Now, you can imagine how hard it is to make the reader care about slave x who has no speaking lines, so it took me completely by surprise when something bad happened to Tess and I was supposed to feel bad about it. Next, why don't you kill a character before they appear? Then, protagonist Dana spends some time moping over slave x and getting all worked up about it. However, the characters were so uninteresting that I wondered if Tess having a personality would make any difference. The most interesting character was the bad guy tom weylin, but octavia decided to ruin this by not deciding whether I should hate him or care for him before writing the book. This wasn't the only time she couldn't decide if I should hate someone or care for them. The character Alice was in a bad situation, so all too realistically she had Alice lash out at everyone around her. I hated Alice, but it seemed like Octavia wanted me to do differently despite making her a revolting character. Rufus weylin was pretty much a repeat of his father, being nice one second then abusing his slaves the other. The highly obnoxious margaret weylin became a sweet old lady in her old age, freed of racism and with the ability to no longer annoy everyone. This wasn't just with caring about characters, but protagonist dana would switch from being a compassionate pushover to being overly assertive. That's just an example. The story only gets worse as it goes, as nothing new really happens. Slaves are mistreated I GET IT ALREADY! Pretty much every part after the fourth part was redundant. The ending itself was highly disappointing, even for such a bad book. The only reason I can think of to buy this book is if you've never read a book about slavery before. Indeed, the treatment of slaves is accurate to the point that anyone who likes historical fiction will be outrageously bored because that's all their is in the story. No exciting plot twists, no deep characters, what else do I need to say?

I just finished Kindred and was inspired more by the character development and slave narrative than the fantastic aspect of the text. I think Butler handled the historical situation more effectively than she did the actual situation of time travel. I was expecting to be drawn more than I was into the ramifications of the protagonist's time traveling on her present-day life.

I agree that about half-way through the story became a bit too predictable, but I never lost interest, because Butler never slowed the text's pace.

I can't say that I was riveted by the book, but I read it in afternoon, so I mustn't have been bored either. I would recommend the book for high school students specifically. (I am a teacher and I think the book would be one students would be interested in.)

Ms. Butler combines the slave narrative with conventions of science fiction in this novel. Dana is a black woman living in the late 1970's with her white husband Kevin. She is transported back in time to the 1800's in order to save the life of her white, slaveholder ancestor. Once, Kevin is transported with her. She spends quite a bit of time in this period and is treated as a slave. Her 20th century upbringing and sensibilities quail at this and she tries to affect some change, at times with disastrous results. She is forever changed, both physically and mentally by this experience.
While I am quite used to stories of time travel, the slave narrative is new to me. This book was loaned to me by my African American co-worker when she found out I liked science fiction. I would imagine this book reads more like a slave narrative than science fiction, as the time travel is just a device to place the protagonist in this setting. Her experiences are heartbreaking, and remind us that it wasn't too terribly long ago that people of African decent were treated as less than human.

Unfortunately, this inspired writer recently died. I encourage ALL to review her works. This novel was my introduction to Octavia E. Butler, and I would advise any enthusiasts of speculative and science fiction to investigate it, and her multiple works!

Loved the book. And it reads really fast and funny!! Being a resident and hiker in western NC, I was disappointed that they skipped all of my area, which I think is the best and most beautiful part of the AT that I have seen. But having hiked many pieces of the AT, I surely can relate to his experiences.

A Walk in the Woods

On a recent trip to my local bookstore, the cover of this bright green paperback caught my attention. Or maybe it was the bear peering out at me. I'm not sure. I'm a frequent hiker myself, and have always dreamed of hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, so reading the description for this book immediately peaked my interest.

I was not disappointed. With the book, that is. It was everything the back reviews said it would be--Bryson finds comic wit to expend on every situation. His hiking partner, Katz, had some one-liners that made me laugh out loud, if not cringe a bit at their social meanness. And I appreciated reading the story of a hiker who did not head out into the woods with a Bear Grylls level of fitness and training. Having hiked myself, I know the bone-weariness and utter despair that sometimes can come over you when you've just climbed an impossible hill to discover...another impossible hill. Bryson both loves and hates the woods and the trail and I think that's a pretty honest response to the wilderness. There's nowhere I'd rather ever be than out in the deep, green woods on a cool day. Or even a hot day or the cold, grey-brown of winter. But that doesn't mean the woods don't sometimes feel like they're crushing the life out of you. And, having not been a thru-hiker, I've never even had to do it with a 50-pound pack on!

I also appreciated that the book was sprinkled with short bits relating some of the history or botany of the trail. That is to say, I liked the facts, but sometimes rankled a bit at the preachiness. Bryson goes on at length about the loss of some species of tree, like the famous American chestnut. It's easy to be sad for the loss of the chestnut. One stupid asian fungus and the entire species of tree is wiped out! And while it's unquestionably human error that led to the fungus being transported here and killing off the species, there is an argument for Darwinism to be made here. Humans are not the only creatures who transport pollen, seeds, microbes, etc. from one part of the world to another. Birds do this, hurricanes do it, tsunamis certainly do it, even volcanic eruptions can cause massive shifts in atmospheric streams, raining foreign particles onto lands. In other words, if one tiny fungus was all it took to knock out an entire species, then that species, possibly, was just not strong enough to survive the brutality of the natural world. It was too cloistered for too long, and when it died off, it made room in the forests for hardier trees that could withstand the punishment. This is the way of it. In other words, had humans stepped in and genetically altered the chestnut or found a way to spray it with something that protected it from the fungus--well, what is really the unnatural occurrence here? What newer, cooler tree did we possibly prevent from evolving because we prodded the chestnut along beyond its natural lifespan? I mean, that's not to say that letting the tree die off was the "correct" course either. The point is there are arguments for right and wrong on both sides, so couching the "facts" that Bryson presents with such an air of superiority turned me off a bit from that aspect of the book.

The only other part that I found a tiny bit disappointing is that he doesn't, in fact, wind up hiking the trail. In fact, he only does about a third of it. Walking 800+ miles in one summer is no small feat, but I was kind of routing for him to really get out there and conquer the path.

In the end, I wound up finishing this book in two days. For a story about one, long walk through the woods, it's never once boring or repetitive. There is always a new interesting anecdote or, even better, funny character that Bryson meets along the way. This is a must-read for anyone who loves to hike, or thinks they may. One thing is for sure, reading it makes me want to hoist on my pack and head out for the nearest woods I can find.

Ive not read anything by Bill Bryson before so I had no idea what to expect. I'm one of those who has always wanted to do the AT but from the comfort of my couch so this gave me a flavor of what I was missing! Two middle-aged out of shape men trying to prove to themselves that they're otherwise by trying to go the distance. The pace of the book moved along well with some interesting educational facts thrown in to put things in perspective. However, I felt the ending lacked the same punch the rest of the book had and not because they failed to meet their goal. Seemed like he ran out of things to say. Still, all in all this was an enjoyable read.

Overall this was a very interesting book that I enjoyed reading. Off color language scattered throughout book though. Too bad that was not left out.

I bought this book as a replacement for a lost borrowed book. I had started reading it in Phoenix when I lost it. But the few pages I read there prompted me to buy this book from Amazon when I returned home. (And yes, I did return the new book to the lender.)

Into Thin Air is a true account of a fatal expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1996. Jon Krakauer, a journalist and hobby mountaineer, went with a group of climbers on their quest for the summit in order to document the effort for an American publication. Due to bad weather, some poor choices, and competition between summit guide companies, four of the five teammates in his climbing group never made it back down the mountain.

The book seems to be a way for Krakauer to purge some of the demons that have plagued him since Everest, but also a tangible way to factually account for how disaster struck the expedition. Krakauer takes great pains throughout the book to honor the memory of those climbers who perished during the descent.

I learned so much from this book. I never understood how risky climbing such a high peak was - the freezing cold, the unbelievably thin air, the tiny ridges which must be navigated, the crazy interdependence you must share with the other climbers on the mountain. Without bottled oxygen, most climbers would never make it to the top and back. The incredible lack of oxygen at high altitudes causes swelling in the brain, leads to fluid seepage into the lungs, etc. Combined with the freezing cold and the probability of bad weather, it's a miracle that anyone makes it up the mountain and back down in reasonably good health. The more I read this book, the more I understood how truly crazy you have to be to undertake climbing Everest.

I also found the commercialization of climbing Everest utterly mesmerizing. Experienced guides can charge clients $70,000 a pop to guide them to the summit, and competition among guides for business is cutthroat. So, in some cases, you may see guides who are taking risks to get clients to the summit because they've anted up the money AND because guides want a high success rate of getting clients to the top. (A success rate they can later emphasize in order to drum up new business.)

This would all be capitalism as usual, of course, if getting to the top of the mountain wasn't such a risk of life and limb. Krakauer mentions on more than one occasion that one could frequently see corpses on one's way up (or down) the mountain, a sad fact of how dangerous the endeavor can be.

Although this book isn't a pleasure to read (it's more of a clammy-hands, up all night kind of venture, as you are desperate to complete the book), the story is gripping and true. Krakauer goes to great pains to demonstrate the veracity of his account, with footnotes and a lengthy response to those who have criticized his documentation of events. At heart, the man is a journalist, and he fact-checks via exhaustive interviews with other climbers on the mountain and cites from interviews individuals have granted to other outlets to bolster his account.

I found it a fascinating tale of one of the deadliest seasons the mountain has ever seen. Not to be missed.

"..I hoped that something would be gained by spilling my soul in the calamity's immediate aftermath, in the roil and torment of the moment I wanted my account to have a raw, ruthless sort of honesty that seemed in danger of leaching away with the passage of time and the dissipation of anguish."

As an avid mountain climber in his youth, Jon had always wanted to climb the Everest. However, as he grew up his dreams faded away into the practicality of a family life. All that changed dramatically when Outside magazine, where he was a contributing editor, commissioned him to write a story about the commercialization of Everest, and agreed to fund him to go all the way to the top as part of Rob Hall's guided expedition of 1996.

The expedition ended in a disaster, when on summit day, a storm blew up out of nowhere and several members of Hall's expedition, as well as Scott Fischer's guided expedition got stuck on the slopes on the way back from the summit.

Five people from the 2 expeditions died as a direct result of the storm, including the two leaders Hall and Fischer. Of course, Jon and many others survived through that difficult day, and many (including Jon) successfully climbed the summit.

Into Thin Air is a chillingly personal and detailed account of this episode. Jon's book gives a detailed description of all the people who were on the peak at that time and the incidents leading upto the disaster and beyond. At times his too-honest approach doesn't hold back from questioning the judgments of several individuals, some of whom died, and many of whom are still alive.

Jon is equally critical of himself, and hasn't spared himself in his analysis of the events around the calamity. "My actions - or failure to act - played a direct role in the death of Andy Harris. And while Yasuko Namba lay dying on the South Col, I was a mere 350 yards away, huddled inside a tent, oblivious to her struggle, concerned only with my own safety."

Into Thin Air raises many difficult moral questions, wrapped inside the tortuous circumstances in which these individuals were coping with the effect of lack of oxygen to the brain. Instead of choosing to answer them in his own way and make judgments of right and wrong, Jon chooses to lay every fact in front of the reader to let them form their own conclusions.

Jon's book is a must read for those who aspire to challenge themselves physically, by going to the Everest or otherwise. But it's also a must read for many of us who encounter situations in our lives where we have to make instant and tough decisions in circumstances where our intellect and emotional control can be excused for failing itself, and where each action can significantly impact the lives of others. While Jon's book isn't a moral guide of any sort, it does force us to introspect by introducing us to an extreme situation which most us of would likely never encounter.

Into This Air is written in a fast paced narrative style, almost like a fiction thriller with some drama thrown in. Go read this book -it's guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seats.

P.S. : The title of this review is borrowed from the name of Scott Fischer's adventure company.

This book is both an engrossing account of a perilous journey up Mt. Everest...the "top of the world"...and a deeper study of what drives individuals to willingly take on great, and known, risks. It is this unique balance of best-seller caliber action and deeper content that make "Into Thin Air" stand out for me.

Krakauer's writing caters to a wide audience and he brings credibility and first-hand experience to the subject matter. When delving into the larger question of what drives people to take on risk, however, his own point of view looms large. As the title of this book includes the words, "A Personal Account," this is understandable, but I found the author's personal outlook overshadowed the theme of life and risk.

Overall, this is a book well worth reading. It offers a gripping account of a harrowing set of events in the loftiest areas on Earth.

Even though the title of the review is what it is, the book does has some interesting tidbits about high altitude mountaineering. For non climbers and arm-chair adventurers it would satisfy you, as the author writes well. You'll learn some intrinsic details, enough to keep the "how and what" types occupied. For this the book gets it's two stars -- good writing and technical details (like the effects of high altitude sickness).

But what makes this book really hard to stomach though, and how a reader can learn to despise the author, is how critical the author is about those in the expedition. Usually I like to know the "real story" in adventure disasters, to know the interpersonal reactions (like the character chemistry in the Scott South Pole Expedition), yet I draw the line at common decency. The Japanese woman climber, he complained about what she carried, claiming it helped to contribute in her death. That cold. Then in the end of the book the author tells of how he tries to cope with the tragedy, and the death of the very people he was critical over. It comes off self-serving, and after the meat puppetry, even put on. Guess the author tries to cope with some anger and denial, which means he didn't recover enough after the tragedy to write the book without it, and would explain how upsetting a read this book can be.

Get the book if you like mountaining stories. Get it for some history (some tidbits about the IMAX expedition in the book). But don't get it if you have a heart, you'll be wanting to tear pages out of the book as he pokes the dead in the eyes.

Of all the books that I have read, this is the best. Absolutely fascinating. And, in my opinion, it's an adventure story that can be enjoyed by folks who aren't necessarily into mountain climbing. My dad gave this book to me as a gift, and he being a writer himself had told me that he thought it was one of the best books he had ever read. I've since given it as a gift to a few of my friends. Also, another fun book by Krakauer is Eiger Dreams, which is a collection of short climbing/survival stories. I'd highly recommend Into Thin Air!

Kaku has proven himself as a physicist, author, and television personality who can take complex concepts and make them understandable.
Many negatives reviews of this book call it silly or fantastic. I wonder if they understand the precipice phyics and cosmology are standing on. Just in the last decade we have witnessed "fantastic" hypotheses become popular concepts by scientists: Dark energy, Dark matter, challenges to the Big Bang Theory, parallel universes, and multiverses are known to the layperson.

Healing the Rift

Perhaps these concepts all seem too outlandish to be true but recall that phyicists believe that a vacuum and space is full of "stuff" as declared by Nobel Laureate Robert B. Laughlin. So "impossible" is a metaphor for one of the hypotheses which is thinking outside the box like the concepts above were at one time. This brings up the question: how do these concepts fit with spiritual teaching? I believe that 21st century science is moving towards the spiritual and ancient spiritual teachings. Kaku and scores of leading scientists make the case. Healing the Rift: Merging Science and Spirituality

this book is very interesting..in a few years we will thank kaku for formulating the 'impossible'

It is difficult to realize that a book about parallel universes, pyschic phenomenon, faster than the light travel, etc., could be humdrum boring - but this book proves it is possible to write a boring book about such topics. This was a superficial, half-hearted review of these topics written perhaps for the reader with absolutely no science knowledge. Very disappointing.

Dr. Kaku presents another outstanding book to expand our minds to endless possibilities. Why limit ourselves when we need, more than ever, to think out of the box, and ask the big "what if" questions. In my own writing, vis-i-vis, The Ninth Cube, I have tried to answer these questions, alot of them inspired from the work of Dr. Kaku. I throughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone. Great job, Michio!

I have a very high respect for Mr. Kaku's work. The first book I read from him was 'Hyperspace' and became immediately his fan. 'Physics of the Impossible' is another exceptional work. Like Brian Greene's 'Fabric Of The Cosmos', the book is full of great examples, details that are easily visualized and exciting historical facts that make the scientific terminology digestible.

Mr. Kaku helps the readers by smartly classifying the 'impossibilities' (such as time travel and teleportation) and gives estimates as to when these may become 'possible'. The book is very engaging and I highly recommend it.

I don't speak any Italian, so this guidebook was a bit of a lifesaver. I don't like to refer to books when I'm trying to experience the culture, but it was nice to be able to review this at the end of the day or in the morning before we started the day. I tried to learn a few important phrases and feel my way through the rest. We visited Venice, and most people in Venice do speak English. While I can confidently speak French, Italian is quite different (more akin to Spanish). I love the pronunciation guides; they were most helpful.

Has all the phrases you could ever want/need while traveling to Italy! The phrases are written in both English and Italian and include phonetic pronunciations for each word and phrase.

I would highly recommend buying this for your travels to Italy.

The hard to find words in the Italian vocabulary are presented here...there is something for everyone. If you are cussing out an Italian driver--ordering a meal--visiting a museum--or asking for directions--Steves provides phrases and words for you!

Rick Stevens has written a book with all kinds of useful phrases and lots you may never need but will laugh at while reading.

It seems that Americans buy books such as these in great numbers. They are generally a waste of time. If one observes how most foreigners speak English when they visit us, we might try to emulate them when we go abroad. Italian is not a particularly difficult language to learn; there are many cognates with English....and Spanish and French. You will enjoy foreign travel so much more if your vocabulary can be extended beyond "Where is the Post Office". In fact, with laptops and e-mail, no one really uses the post office very much these days. Get some tapes and listen to them on your commute; take an adult ed. course, but these phrase books, which looked cute 50 years ago when post-war Americans started discovering Europe should now be considered obsolete.

Upon first glance, it might appear that this book details economic aspects of a
single industry, namely that of T-shirts. You'd be mistaken. It instead offers
an insightful look into several different aspects of T-shirt production,
including agriculture, factory working conditions, free trade (and
lack thereof), and concluding with the world-wide used T-shirt market. Each of
these sections could merit a book topic in its own right, but Ms. Rivoli has
wonderfully combined them into a single book ripe for reading.

Learn about the history of cotton production, including the rise of American
production and why it's still on top. (Hint: the American government has more
than a small role, but farm subsidies aren't the major reason.) Learn about the
back-room political dealings that ensure that some of your clothes come from
Bangladesh and Mexico instead of China, even though China could provide them for
less (and why it might be a good idea to keep things that way). Learn about what
happens to a used T-shirt once it's donated to the Salvation Army, and how it
might end up being sold in a Kenyan's clothing stall instead of your local
thrift store.

There is not a dull moment to be found in the book, and in fact seems to get
more interesting as the book wears on. If there is any fault with the book, it
is that the book was published in 2005 which means that the revised textile
trade agreements from 2006 have been left out. A revised edition would be
appreciated. Luckily, that's the only fault I have with the book. Highly
recommended.

This is easy to read and understand, written in an engaging and conversational style, with some important insights into the mysteries of crop subsidies, textile quotas and the fate of donated clothing. It's a great illustration and analysis of globalization in action.

Allow me to provide a more descriptive title for this volume: What I did last summer + a history of cotton growing in America + a history of cotton mills around the world + a brief history of Shanghai + a brief history of child labor + a brief history of labor activism + a brief history of workplace safety regulations + a not-at-all-brief history of US textile protectionism + a characterization of the international market for used clothes. Interesting? Often.

In the course of all these histories - occasionally interspersed with a reminder that we are following Rivoli's t-shirt around the world - we jump from England to Japan to Texas to West Africa; we leap back and forth (and back and forth) from century to century. By the middle of the book, I had gotten dizzy and wished it had been a long magazine article.

But in fact, the second half is the most interesting. Rivoli gives a detailed history of textile protectionism in the United States, giving a peek into the dizzying, constantly morphing tariff and quota systems as well as the huge bureaucracy the system supports. And finally, she gives an illuminating description of what happens to the t-shirts after they get donated to the Salvation Army and how they make it to market stalls in East Africa.

Rivoli is an economist and so recognizes that her inherent leaning is toward free trade, but she argues for the value of both sides of the textile battle, both the free traders and the student demonstrators.

The first half of the book feels too long (even though it isn't that long), and Rivoli's strength is in illuminating description rather than careful analysis. But if you get bored, just skip ahead to the next chapter: There's plenty to choose from!

[I listened to the unabridged audiobook narrated by Eliza Foss, published by Recorded Books. The reading is fine, but Foss's voice is too syrupy sweet and storybookish for 8 CDs (think the voice-over narration from Desperate Housewives).]

Worst of both worlds - claims to be anecdotal to get around having to have too much actual information (other than the more boring parts of the history of the American textile industry, but trades in interesting anecdotes for general suppositions and a couple sucess stories.
The last section is very cool and interesting and saves this book from the bin. If you get it, skip to the end.

The book is a good read, since I am taking my international trade class, this is actually one of the require reading. If someone who is very liberal, or cuddle to grave type of mentality, this book does not offer the cuddly senstivitive that the faint hearted people are looking for. But it is quite realistic. If you can look pass the sweatshops and all, this is a good read.

Excellent second book in the series of the Outlander. I am almost finished and ready to start reading Voyager. You should have at least two books of the series with you, so that you don't have to wait for a week or so for the next book. Oh aye, these are excellent books, to be sure!!

This subsequent installment following Outlander is riveting. This series has caused me to do additional research into the Jacobite wars and I have found the books to be pretty accurate in their broad strokes. Excellent characterizations and an attention to detail keep them interesting even when plot slows a bit. Worth the time it takes to work through these ponderous books.

This book is amazing. As the second in a series it holds my attention and ignites my imagination.

If you like Hustler you will love this book - if I wanted Pornography I would order it on Pay per View. Totally unnecessary porn as in Mister Raymond putting fingers into Claire's vagina in order to save her life! Randall buggering Jamie and Jamie letting him after Randall had already let Claire leave. Yeah I know he gave his word of honor but I don't believe any true Highlander would let himself be buggered for the sake of honor. If you are anything like me you will find yourself skipping pages at a time in order to avoid this trash.

Boring to the point of fatigue through a lot of it. If you are having trouble sleeping this is the book for you.

Maudlin enough at times to bring on nausea.

Crisis after crisis after crisis and all they have to do after each crisis is bang each other's brains out and that makes everything all right.

I'm sorry I had to give it one star.

Dragonfly in Amber is the second book in Diana Gabaldon's phenomenal "Outlander" series. At the end of Outlander, we left Claire and Jamie Fraser in an abbey in France, exiled from Scotland. At the opening of Dragonfly in Amber, we find Claire back in the highlands in 1968, investigating the fates of Jamie's men at the battle of Culloden - with her red-haired daughter Brianna: Jamie's daughter.

As the search for Jamie's men, and then Jamie himself, unfolds, Claire finds herself revealing to Brianna and their friend Roger her history with Jamie in the past - and we learn the other half of her and Jamie's adventure as they attempt to prevent the carnage they know is coming in the Jacobite rising and its culmination at Culloden.

As with Outlander, I have nothing but praise for Dragonfly. Although I did not race through Dragonfly as quickly as I did Outlander (this time it took me roughly a month to read Dragonfly's 950 pages as opposed to the week it took me to fly through Outlander's 860 pages), I still loved it. Every time I picked the book up, I could not put it down without having read at least 100 pages, if not more.

Dragonfly in Amber had me in turns gasping, laughing, and (at the end) crying. Sometimes I did all three at once. Even though I knew the battle was an inevitability - and we, as readers know this from Claire's search in Inverness from the beginning of the novel - I found myself hoping ad praying that Claire and Jamie could somehow prevent the disaster. Having been to Culloden battlefield myself, I cried at Gabaldon's description of battles and the uselessness I knew Jamie and Claire's self-appointed mission to be.

In fact, I immediately picked up the third book, Voyager, and am already 450 pages into it. Gabaldon delivers a powerful narrative, drawing the reader fully into her world: you cry with Claire, scream with rage for Jamie, and end on a hopeful note with Claire and Brianna, searching for the man whose love for them endures through the ages.

I've been on a bit of a traveling kick lately. I'm really interested in seeing different parts of the world and different parts of the US. I bought this book because I was planning a road trip to quite a few different states and I thought it would be a good reference book.

Let's talk about the positives first. In terms of how it's written, the book is organized by sections of the country (New England, the west coast, etc.) It's not hard to find a specific state. Second, there's something listed for everyone in all of the states. From theme parks to museums, from parks to restaurants, there's quite a bit of information in this book. The writer even mentions the best times of the year to visit a particular area as well as the cost. Also, the writer lists some recommendations (like what to eat at certain restaurants) which is a bonus.

And now for the negatives. I have to say that a good amount of the attractions listed are historical in nature. Now, I'm all for doing historical-related things but I wish there was a bigger selection of other attractions. Second, in my opinion, this book doesn't read like a typical book. I wouldn't find much enjoyment from reading it from beginning to end. This is simply a reference book.

Overall, I think this book is great to have on hand when you're planning a trip to another state. It has some interesting tidbits that may be useful. However, I'm sure there are better books out there.

1,000 places to go before I die? More like 1,000 spas and resorts and resturants. Big deal - the more money you spend, the bigger the wall you create between yourself and the local culture. Who wants to know about exotic resorts and five star restaurants? Don't tell me about the big ticket items! Tell me about quirky offbeat places with personality and charm, things I cant get anywhere else. Tell me about Hole in the Rock, UT. Tell me about The Last Stoplight on I-90. Tell me about a PLACE, not about how to spend money at generic locations.

Worthless.

I was pretty harsh on Schultz's previous international edition of this book. So I am going to be a little nicer here and admit that the book is fun to read through and does let readers know about some great places to visit that they might otherwise have never heard of.

But the fact remains that Patricia Schultz is who she is, a snobby writer for Conde Nast Traveler magazine who has an intense obsession with fancy hotels, restaurants, spas and resorts that are out of the price range of most travellers. I also agree with the previous reviewer that the more you enclose yourself within the gated confines of luxury the less of an authentic travel experience you are likely to have.

I was especially upset by Schultz's international edition because it reinforced the notion, that too many Americans already have, that global travel is only possible for wealthy jetsetters. Instead the truth is that travel on a budget is available to everyone. And, in fact, many backpackers manage to spend a year or more travelling around places like Latin American and Southeast Asia for less then the costs of paying rent and bills at home. Of course, the declining U.S. dollar is making this harder to do now, but that's a whole other story.

I see Schultz's fascination with the lifestyles of the wealthy and fabulous to be slighty less problematic in this book because Americans and Canadians are generally more aware of domestic buget travel options as compared to travelling abroad. Still I think if Schultz focused a little less attention on the Hamptons and Palm Beach, on $700 hotels and $300 restaurants, then she might have been able to write a book that is more useful to the ordinary traveller.

I have an 'undying' love for some of the places listed in this tome... and have a greater appreciation of the diversity and complexity of America to the South. I was hoping to see more similar places and people listed for Canada... but perhaps that is too much to expect from an American Publication. With todays Gasoline prices, reading about those American destinations and searching for them on the Internet is perhaps the only travel my family and I are likely to launch into.

New Mexico, South Carolina, Montana, Vermont, New York, Virginia, and Maine are some of the places I have lived that are well covered and reasonably represented in this guide (with the East certainly receiving more attention than the West). Although anyone can name worthwhile places not included, or argue about the appropriateness of some of the places that are included, overall, the balance of well-known attractions and lesser-known gems is a good one. There seem to be fewer expensive hotels featured in this book than in the world-wide volume, but emphasis on restaurants is stronger--not a bad thing for those of us who consider culinary treats an important part of travel and culture.
As with her other "1000 Places" volume, this guide provides more inspiration and travel ideas than practical travel details--that's what conventional guide books and the Internet are for. I love the book and recommend it to anyone considering travel.
-Lynn Michelsohn, author of Roswell, Your Travel Guide to the UFO Capital of the World!

I thought this book was excellent and really helped make my trip to Kaua'i a great one. I followed the recommendations closely and was happy every time. It could be organized better. For example, the region overviews and the activities in each region are in separate sections of the book which made it hard to figure out where I read something to go back to it. Once I got used to the structure of the book, I was ok. Highly recommended.

We read the book cover to cover, and with our previous experience with Oahu Revealed, found the same informative detail on Kauai. My wife would not put the book down for two evenings. It has really gotten her interested in the trip, which adds so much more enjoyment. The book explores all aspects of the island and does a great job.

This guide book is full of detailed, and unbiased reviews of restaurants, activities and sight seeing spots. Also, there is plenty of information about places that are off the beaten track. Very helpful.

Don't waste your time or money looking at other books. This is the one you want, you won't be sorry. We took this book with us everywhere. It was the only thing we used while on Kauai for 9 days. From maps to restaurants to activities it covers it all along with very concise directions.

This book (along with the other ones in the series focusing on the other islands) are fantastic information and highly, highly entertaining. They are insightful, funny, honest, helpful, and point you to lesser known sites and other interesting places. They give you the real rundown on what is interesting and what is not worth doing. We relied on these heavily for our trip. The maps are for the most part very helpful, he is up front about prices and quality of service, and we found the reviews of restaurants and lodging to be moderately helpful. The best features of the book are that 1) It is very informative and gives you the lowdown on the island & 2) It is highly entertaining. You will laugh. It's fun pleasure reading on its own. Best guidebooks I have seen.