Travel Books

Nice book to read with a cup of coffee. Good photos and ideas for future travels.

This is just a gorgeous book. There is much information to be gotten by merely looking at the pictures. I've enjoyed flipping through it over and over again.

I received this book first as a Christmas gift from someone who had also received
as a gift. This person loved it so much she give everyone on her Christmas list one
which included my husband and I. Since we love to travel and have a couple whom we always travel
together, we gifted them with the same book that we purchased from Amazon. It's an informative
book to find out when is the best time to travel to the places we plan to go.

The photography is fantastic and the festivals described are inviting and interesting, however I expected to have a little more information when purchasing such a large book. It is not cram packed with facts, just places and only simple reasons to visit areas "when". I just expected so much more.

A truly masterpiece among the travel books. The selection and mix of pictures with useful information is spectacular. Let's take an example, page 150/151; Yunnan in China. At one glance i geat a pretty good picture of the area with 9 pictures plus a world map and the location of Yunnan. I can find easily Dos and Don'ts, getting there, getting around and what not to miss. This book finds the perfect balance between a large collection of travel ideas and sufficient information on the recommended location. Many other books simply overload the reader with too many ideas while not providing sufficient pictures/information. With'Where To Go When, DK achieved a masterpiece among travel books!

Bought this book as I was planning a trip to Glacier National Park with my wife and seven year old daughter. It was our first vacation west of the Mississippi and reading the book felt like I had already been there and it was easy to find my way around. We spent seven days in Glacier and, while we did not get to everything I had hoped, the book was indispensable. Ms. Lomax' spot-on descriptions of campgrounds, restaurants and camp stores as well as trails and sights helped us prepare better to enjoy the trip.

Fantastic guide for the park. Prices were higher than book states for many hotels and activities, so double check those since they go up constantly. Other than that, this is a great guide!

Very easy to follow. Like the way it was set-up in sections according to the park locations.

A good book with lots of details about Glacier National Park. However, it doesn't do a great job at explaining the big picture about the park and helping a first time visitor understand the general layout. There should be a different first few paragraphs that explain for a first time visitor. I couldn't find any better books though, so this is a good choice.

This was a great guide for my trip to Glacier. It proved to be invaluable. It detailed hikes, routes, accommodation, dining and wildlife in the park very accurately.Pretty much everything could be taken as fact, such as the overcrowding at Logan's Pass and the side of the car you should sit on if you're nervous of heights whilst on the Going-to-the-Sun road.
In fact, at Glacier it was the ONLY guide book I could find on the park (although I'd bought mine on Amazon!).
If your planning on visiting Glacier get this book in advance. It's really interesting as it tells you histories related to the park and lets you in on events that happen throughout the year, as well as good tips as to view the wildlife.

Going back to Chile and will visit more regions. This book is not only my perfect guide, but informs me of its history so I will not be totally ignorant and will be able to ask intelligent questions of the natives.

I visited chile in early 2007-I credit this book with the best time of my life...I you go to Lake region around Puerto Montt, this book will tell you all the cool hostels to stay...Organized information and useful...lots of good restaurants and hostels. Also recommend Argentina guide from same publisher...

We just returned from 6 months in South America. We traveled with the Footprint guidebooks but had many opportunities to use the Lonely Planet, as that is what everyone carries.

Almost everyone who was carrying this book complained about it. It is full of errors and the maps are hard to read. Hostal Nancy, in Puerto Natales, for example, is shown on the complete opposite side of town.

Do yourself a favor and try out another guidbook. Get away from the Lonlely Planet people. Look at Footprint or Rough Guide.

I usually don't like the LPs but this one worked out great. I left it in Santiago with my sister. The thing about travel books is that they are just guides to give you ideas. Never go by the book, it makes for a boring life. The best adventures I have every had in South America were the ones that were not planned that goes for life too. The Easter Island part was good because it gave alot of info about the history and culture and gave directions to the museum so that we could get even more info if needed. I also like the Spanish vocab in the back because my Spanish is Mexican border now and guess what a sopa in SA is a bread and here in border land it is a soup. winter in Santiago you want soup not bread. Buy it and see the world the best thing in life is to follow you heart and dreams.

thanks to lonely planet we found chilestay apartments at www.chilestay.com an inexpensive alternative to a hotel. also, lonely planet provides a comprehensive and updated information about places to visit and enjoy.

I couldn't disagree more with the culinary student. Having been a hospitality manager for 15+ years plus a college instructor for 6 years, I found that Miller's advise is dead-on. The cases presented are real world too. Don't be deceived by the readability of this text. It is solid as a rock. He gives practical advise that you can refer to year after year. If you want empty theory, read someone else. If you want to learn from a master, buy this book. Miller is right when he says that management is an art. Whenever you are dealing with people, you can't turn to a formula. If you want science, go study chemistry. This book is about developing practical organizational and supervisory skills. There's nothing fluffy about it.

You can be the most organized person in the world and you will still run into difficulties when trying to communicate in an effective manner, recruit, train, evaluate performance, discipline, and delegate all at the same time. For anyone, it's a lot to have on your plate. This book makes it seem simple. It offers way to alleviate some of the frustration that comes with the job.

This textbook package contained "Supervision in the Hospitality Industry" 3rd Edition hard cover (ISBN# 0-471-19420-0) and National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation-NRAEF ProMGMT Student Workbook (ISBN# 0471-41305-4). Chapter 9 on performance evaluation was the greatest insight. A great learning tool to help focus my job development within the huge vacation/hospitality employer I work for here in Orlando, Florida.

As a culinary student in a reputable institute, I was presented this book to use as a textbook for my business management course. The structure was sufficient, focusing almost exclusively on the hospitality industry, but the content was not. The majority of the book deals with self-evident truths and situations that can best be solved by common sense, but instead Miller voices his opinion that when experience fails you, revert back to the management theories, most of which he denigrates, others that he blatantly misinterprets.

Miller also pens that "management at any level in an art", a statement that many would disagree with and should give some insights as to what the 10th grade, babble-filled prose is all about. For a management book, especially one for $..., I was expecting a more technical approach to managing - theories and illustrations also combined with charts and math, two aspects that are completely vacant in the textbook.

There is a general sense of the grim reality of the hospitality industry that I was relieved to see (two stars). There's mention of the low pay, hard work, and long hours that will inevitably come with the job, and the book maintains that thought throughout. Overall however, it's too much money, and too much time, for reading what I already know.

I first read this when I was about 9. My dad was (and still is) a hot-air balloon pilot, which is why I probably found it in my parents' room one day. I don't know what made me start to read it, but once I started I couldn't put it down. Recently I found that it's still in print. Hooray! It's just as good now as it was then; a very stimulating and imaginative story that makes you long to be there!

The Twenty One Balloons

In the book, The Twenty One Balloons by William Pene du Bois a professor crashes on the island of Krakatoa in a hot-air-balloon then to discover hidden treasures on the island. I think this book was very exiting and interesting and I would read it again if I could.

A professor named William Waterman Sherman sets off on a journey around the world in a hot-air-balloon from San Francisco. He then crash-lands on the island of Krakatoa then discovering a huge diamond mine and villagers hidden on the island.

I very much enjoyed the book because I love adventure books and there is always something new to find on the island. And the only thing that was a little boring was the beginning but once he landed on the island it got much more exiting. I would recommend this book to anybody looking for an exciting and adventurous book

This was a really great book and I highly recommend it to anybody who wants to read it.

This book is sort of a "Jules Vern-lite" sort of thing. And while it's more of a travelogue than a story but it's still very captivating and quite a page-turner. I recommend it to readers 10 and over, or to be read to children as young as 7 or 8 (so certain concepts could be explained). Adults looking for an enchanting and pleasant diversion will enjoy it too.

I first read this book when I was in grade school. I am now almost 40 years old, and this is still my favourite book. It's a fantastical tale of adventure, diamonds, food, etiquette, and hot air balloons! It will not dissapoint...I didn't love to read until I read 21 Balloons. The author does a magnificant job of illustrating as well.

The 21 Balloons,
By William Pene Du Bois

A man wants to stay up in the air a year in a balloon, but he crash lands on the island Krakatoa where he meets nice and civilized people. This is a very good book that is very unpredictable
William Waterman Sherman wants to stay up in the air a year in a balloon. The wind blows him in to a flock of seagulls and sadly for him one of the seagulls pops his balloon and he comes crash landing down on to the Island Krakatoa. Professor Sherman meets odd civilized people. The main person that helps him is called Mr. F. Mr. F, shows him around the island, where there is a diamond mine. Professor Sherman is astonished by what he sees, diamonds everywhere, in the size of even a human. However, through out the Island there were a few shakings, kind of like an earthquake, but no damage done. The island also has incredible technology considering they have been on the island for over 5 years. Professor Sherman enjoys many good dinners. One day, there was a huge rumbling in the island. The volcano had started to erupt! They narrowly escape.
This book is very good. It has many examples of foreshadowing, like when he landed on the island you could tell that something bad was going to happen. The 21 Balloons is also very unpredictable. Something that you think will happen will most likely not, such as the diamond mine in the middle of the island. One of the bad things in this book is that it takes a few chapters until the exciting parts come.
I would say that this is one of the best books that I have ever read. Hope you enjoy! =D

Some cookbooks just give recipes. Others give advice that transcends recipes. This book does both. For example, the broiled salmon with miso glaze is so often made it opens to the page by itself. But the guide to fish -- which species/fisheries are endangered, which have mercury, which have omega threes -- the advice on what to look for at the fish store (etc.) are at least as useful as the recipe. The guide to roasting vegetables is another treasure: I grow asparagus because I love it; my wife makes faces when I steam it. But when I roast it (per instructions), she loves it as much as I do. Thank you for this book.

I've had this book for nearly a month and have prepared several of the recipes since I received it. Not only have the ideas I've found in the book kept me on track with my diet plan, but my family has enjoyed the food as well. My husband and two teenage children have all been very positive, and have commented that it doesn't seem like "diet food."

The book contains ideas for every meal, and several handy charts, such as a guide to roasting vegetables and a guide to cooking whole grains. The book contains lots of great ideas for cooking fresh vegetables, fruits, lean meats, and grains. For those who enjoy cooking from scratch, it is a great book.

This is such a great cookbook. There are a few recipes that call for ingrediants that you have to get at a specialty store but most you can get at a normal supermarket. The recipes are full of flavor and easy to prepare for the most part. Just looking through the book I get excited about cooking!

If you are looking for a myriad of tasty meals: appetizers, soups, salads, sides, main entrees and holiday menus that guests will rave about and ALL of the recipies are healthy, this is the cookbook for you. I have purchased several copies and given them away as gifts as my friends have complimented me on my dishes. My secret was this cookbook. Many of the meals are easy although there are some that are moderate or more complicated. Regardless of your cooking level, take the chance and learn to eat and cook well -- Bon appetite!

Overall, I really like this cookbook. I was looking for new, exciting dishes that didn't pile on the calories. This certainly delivers. I've only made a handful of recipes but have yet to be disappointed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What a wonderful little novel! If you love Italy as I do, you will love this story as it leads you through the day to day life of this interesting and colorful heroine throughout the city of Venice. Diplaced, lonely, living in this city that couldnt be further away from Saint Louis, Missouri in every way, she builds a new life for herself. The story is full of cooking, eating and enjoying the food of Venice as well as the people who live there.

The main character of this book Marlena, a chef from St Louis, is visiting Venice for one of the many times she goes there. This time , a Venitian ,as she comes to call him, notices her and her life changes forever. This memoir tells of her life setting up house with the Venitian, her forays into the markets and her recipes and meals. De Blasi has lovely words to describe the scenes and the smells and the tastes as she explores Venice with her new husband. Some of the description may be over the top but Melena lives life that way.

I love Marlena's Book, all of them! Please write more.... I'm waiting! This book, A Thousand Days in Venice, is another one of her magnifico writings, which is also a true memoir of her life. I like to read a book that is "real life" happenings! I've been taking two tour groups to Italy twice a year now for seven years. I also travel to Italy and France to the markets for my store. I love the markets, especially in Italy. And, Marlena describes them well. My extended Dad, is born and raised in Sicily, and now lives in Tuscany, which is wonderful! I am in Italy as much as the United States. Marlena describes Venice, as well as the many other places in Italy, so well. Reading her books, puts you right there with her, and that's a wonderful thing when reading! I also like the balance in her books; she doesn't talk too much about food, but keeps a balance. Lately, I've read too many books about Italy, that are so boring and too much like the others out there. Not Marlena's books, true stories of her life in Italy! They really entice me to keep reading and reading until the end! Thank you so much Marlena for sharing your life with others, especially those who are in love with Italy! You have probably seen me around Orvieto, Venice, and many other places, especially my big sign that reads, Decorate Ornate.com! That sign has been North to South many times. Keep up the writing, I have enjoyed your books so much! I highly recommended "all" of your books to my customers, especially those of them that go on my tours and love Italy! They have the same compliments too, wondeful book, and when is the next one?

Stephani Chance
Decorate Ornate
Gladewater, TX

This is a fabulous - - fiction or non-fiction - I am not sure which - book. Almost a fairy tale type book. It which makes those of us who have never visited Venice - yearn to do so. I wanted to walk where she walked and especially eat all the delicious foods she describes. A fantasic risk she takes in moving there to be with "the stranger" and the story winds through their getting to know each other in a daring yet believable manner. The romance of it all brought tears to my eyes many times. I loved it. Can't wait to read the next in the series.

This is the sort of romantic story you expect in the movies, not real life. To find your great love, almost by accident, in Venice, while walking through Piazza San Marco, seems impossible and yet that's exactly what happened to the author. Sharing this lovely story gives us all a chance to dream. And it isn't just ordinary sharing, but beautifully crafted description of a place that boasts an extraordinary amount of beauty. Not all is wine and roses for this implausible couple--eHarmony would never have matched them up--and yet it works on many levels and thanks to Ms. DeBlasi, we readers are allowed a glimpse into an inner life in Venice which leaves us wanting more--and luckily, following stories by Ms. DeBlasi provide that.

The one thing I dread about traveling is dragging my heavy luggage around. I appreciated the author's solid tips on packing lighter. I'm going to try her bundle packing method in 2 weeks and believe it will work just great. I appreciated her lists and pointing out the things I probably could leave behind. She also listed many websites where I could review and buy luggage and packing accessory items. If I follow her advice I think my next vacation will be a little more pleasant than previous ones. Thanks!

I got this book used, so for me it was a good value. I read it in a day, at least the parts that pertained to me. I did get some useful info. and have dog eared at least 20 pages for my upcoming travel, she mostly talkes about carry on, but it would be helpful to read if you check your bag too. I travel usually 3-4 times a year and each time have slight packing anxiety, what am i forgetting ect. and end up bringing way too much. A helpful guide book.

Provided excellent help to my wife as she prepared for a trip to the Holy Land

First, decide you're ready to travel hassle-free (or as close to it as possible). Next, visualize your perfect carry-on travel wardrobe. Author and packing expert Judith Gilford makes it all a breeze in this readable, oddly interesting handbook. She includes specific lists to jumpstart your thinking about packing for business, vacation and special itineraries - adventure, business or cruise travel, for instance. She offers great tips, from how to pack a layered bundle to keep your clothes wrinkle-free to the best practices for stain removal. getAbstract recommends her guidelines if you want to be able to travel light and still have everything you need upon arrival.

All my life I have yearned for some unknown knowledge. Feeling incomplete, I began at an early age to selfishly take in as much information as possible. I read everything I could get my hands on, encyclopedias, dictionaries, textbooks, but nothing could quench this thirst. That is until I found this book. I still remember the day fate brought it to me. Opening its crisp pages I began to take in its glorious advice. Immediately captivated, I read the book uninterrupted from cover to cover, twice. Hours later, as I reluctantly closed the book, I breathed a sigh of relief. My soul at rest, I put down "The Packing Book: Secrets of the Carry-on Traveler".

I have heard about many of the essays included in this text and was excited to find that I could get them all in one book. I love the footnotes for additional information and the fact that the essays include both sides to teaching this book. I highly recommend for anyone who needs to know more about this classic text.

I was introduced to this book back in high-school (in Australia), where my English Literature teach (who was an American) used this as one of our set texts. Despite this, I really enjoyed it, and now, near 20 years later, I picked it up in some second hand book shop for $1.50 and got engrossed in it all over again.

Mark Twain (not his real name) sailed the Mississippi river as a riverboat pilot early in his career, and the truth of his depiction of people and way of life in this novel shines through, despite the fanciful nature of the adventure. I couldn't help but get caught up in the crazy tale of Huck Finn, hopeless trouble-magnet that he is, as he struggles to get free of his troubles with the less-than-helpful assistance of a large cast of characters.

The language is a joy to read. The characters are fun to follow. And although the plot isn't the most complex, the characters themselves do a fabulous job of making the simple into convoluted mayhem. Several times I had to laugh out loud at the absurdity.

Even though I picked this book up cheap, it's well worth hanging onto. I can easily see myself re-reading this again - hopefully before another 20 years pass!

Wonderful book. Everybody should read it. Mark Twain is a genius. I don't care at what age you read this book whether a child or studying it in college you should read it. Read it for the story line, the literary technique and the deeper meaning.

"You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far." Uncle Remus

Huck and Jim take to the river to escape their troubles, but trouble dogs them every foot of the way. In fact, both Jim & Huck were within days of liberation when they eloped. They literally escaped from freedom.

The slavery and such are interesting sideshows, but Twain makes it pretty clear Jim wasnt mistreated, and freedom was always across the river, north & east, if Jim wanted physical freedom. Freedom was NOT down the river in the heart of the Deep South. All of this is metaphor for running away from your troubles.

You'll notice pretty quickly when you pick this up that Huck doesn't spell too good and his grammar isn't so hot either. But if you look a little more closely, you find that he sure knows how to use the semi-colon, and his sentence structure is picture perfect. Mr. Twain may have decided that he was going to have some fun with his charming narrator, but he sure wasn't going to sacrifice good writing to do so.

The novel, as everyone knows, is a masterpiece, and works splendidly on every level. Plot, character development, theme; everything is here. Anybody reading this review has probably read the book several times and moreover has probably read about it a dozen more so it's pretty certain that my little review is not going to add much. I would, however, like to comment on something which struck me while reading it most recently, which is how richly it evokes middle America of the mid-nineteenth century. In other words, as well as being literature of the first rank, Huckleberry Finn also functions as a thorough and fascinating historical document of a time and place that every year sinks deeper and deeper into our collective memory.

Here he is describing Uncle Silas' place in Arkansas upon seeing it for the first time. "It was one of these one-horse cotton plantations and they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to climb over the fence with . . . some sickly grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log house for the white folks--hewed logs with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud stripes been white-washed some time or another; round log-kitchen, with a big, broad open but roofed passage joining it to the house . . . hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about . . . outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cottonfields begins, and after the fields the woods."

The first thing that strikes you about this is how . . . impoverished this all is, especially compared to how we live today. And this is a cotton-field owner with a number of slaves! But this was the south: rural, poor, hot, languid. Oh, yes, we are all familiar with the palatial southern mansion from novels like Gone With the Wind; I suspect that most of the South in the 1840s was closer to Huck's description than to Margaret Mitchell's.

Here's Huck's description of the town in which the King and Duke put on their first show: "The stores and houses was most all old, shackly, dried-up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted; they was set up three or four feet above ground on stilts, so as to be out of reach of the water when the river was overflowed. The houses had little gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in them but jimpson-weeds, and sunflowers, and ash-piles, and old curled up boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and played-out tinware . . . There was generly hogs in the garden, and people driving them out." Charming, eh? Of course, we in our modern twenty-first century aren't immune to such slovenliness. Sometimes, historical descriptions remind us that things don't change much.

Along with his brilliant observations of humanity and the human habitat the novel also contains breathtaking descriptions of nature, especially the Mississippi River. There's heavy timber on the Missouri side, mountains on the Illinois side, the lights of St. Louis: "We run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always in the dead water under a towhead . . . Next we slid into the water and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we sat down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee-deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywhere--perfectly still--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a cluttering, maybe. The first thing you see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line--and that was the woods on t'other side." How wonderfully evocative this is; how it makes one ache to experience such things!

Again, the novel is so much more than this. I'm not going to bother with the theme and the plot and the characters--what else is there to say?--but I can not finish this without giving an example or two of the wonderful humor contained in here. Here's the charming Huck after sneaking into the circus under the tent: "I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them." And when the King and the Duke run on hard times: "First they done a lecture on temperance, but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then, in another village, they started a dancing-school; but they didn't know no more than how to dance than a kangaroo does, so the first prance they made the general public pranced in and pranced them out of town . . . "

Oh, how rich this is. Rich and funny and lovely and hilarious. Read it for the pure entertainment contained in here, if nothing else.