Essays & Travelogues Books - Page 6

A Room With A View

E. M. Forster

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 121 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

"We were promised a room with a view..." 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

After I saw the 1985 Merchant Ivory film, I was curious about the book. Its not often that the film is as good as the book, but in this it was, so faithfully adapted. When I got the book after seeing the film, I felt I was seeing the film again while reading, the film was sooo faithful to all the key plot and character points in the book and many of the minor ones too. Whether you've seen the film or not, definitely read the book as well. There are one or two typos but its very readable. This is one of my favorite romantic novels, and whats so great about it is that its not a stereotypical "romance novel", its for guys as well. Read it.

Editorial Review:

This 1908 novel is about a young woman in the repressed society of Edwardian England. The setting is both Italy and England. Two cousins travel to Italy. Their hotel rooms have no view and they change rooms with two other gentlemen. Sounds harmless, but at the beginning to the 20^th century this was unseemly. After several plot twists the girls return to England with one of them engaged to a proper Englishman, but the man she met in Italy shows up. The story concludes with an elopement to Italy.

Ghost Rider

Neil Peart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 207 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Travels On The Boring Road 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Neil reveals a lot about himself which I don't think he intended to do in this book. He comes off as being an elitist in a lot of ways. He almost seems like he wants to be Hemingway, with his drinking, smoking and just doing his own crazy travels with little regards for anything else. I think his digs into America were very revealing too about himself. Yet, he doesn't seem to have a problem with his best friend being a drug dealer; or that he was never officially married to Jackie (common law wife of 22 years); then jumps into a relationship and marriage fairly quickly to Carrie; that he breaks speeding law constantly on his BMW bike and that he is only self consumed with himself and no one else outside his little small bubble of friends/family.

I love Rush and I think Neil is awesome at his craft, but I'm not jumping on board with everything he does or puts out. This book took me forever to read because it was really boring at times with his letters to Brutus and his ramblings of his travels which were very dry and repetitive. This is not a self help book for someone who has had a similar tragedy in their life. This book could have been cut down to a fourth of the pages written and accomplished the same thing and kept me interested.

The only thing I really got out of this book was that it probably takes longer for you to get on with your life when you have an unlimited bank account to be able to stop working. In Neil's case, it allowed him to travel all over North America on his BMW bike and spend the winter months walking on snow shoes around the lake at his house in Quebec. I believe all this free time allowed him to think more and more about things and feel sorry for himself. I think the average "fat" American, which he ran into on his travels, would probably have to go to work shortly after this type of tragedy and not be able to take two years off. Not that getting over this would be easy for anyone, but I think being forced into the work environment would eventually allow distractions in your life to stop you from thinking 24/7 about the tragedies. Neil didn't have this type of distraction and traveling alone only allowed him to dwell more and more on the tragedies in his.

I by no means am putting Neil down for what he had to deal with, but I am critical of the dribble he put into this book. I don't think if you are not a hardcore Rush fan or a friend/acquaintance of Neil's you would get much out of this book. I think a lot of the praise this book gets is because it's "Neil Peart" and the tragedy he had to deal with and not because this is a particularly good book.

Route 66: The Mother Road

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Take the trip! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Everything you would like to know about Route 66. This book and it's author served as the main source of infromation & inspiration for the Disney/Pixar classic animated movie "Cars". A must have for the motoring history buff.

Makes Route 66 come alive 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

As a child my family traveled between Tucson and NW Missouri over a number of years to visit relatives. I vividly remember neon signs, interesting signs, gas stations and diners along the way. This book made those memories come alive. The author brings in the history behind place names and the stories of the colorful and interesting people who created the various attractions along Route 66. I don't know when I have enjoyed reading a book more than this one. Michael Wallis, thank you.

Route 66: The Mother Road 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I have really enjoyed this book, Route 66: The Mother Road..." It is very interesting and full of information that you probably have never known before. Also pictures of people along the way. I am not a collector of Route 66 things but we needed something for a Painting Reception and this fit in with our theme. I ordererd it and I'm so glad I did. I am planning to read it from cover to cover when our Show is over. The book was sent on time and packaged very well. All-in-all it was an excellent experience.

Editorial Review:

Here is the definitive story of the most famous road in American history. Wallis has woven a tapestry that chronicles the road from its founding to its demise eight decades later and its current revival. 2 cassettes.

The Complete Travel Detective Bible: The Consummate Insider Tells You What You Need to Know in an Increasingly Complex World!

Peter Greenberg

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

     This ultimate "physician’s desk reference" for travelers addresses the questions, anxieties, concerns, and desire for essential information that are common to seasoned and novice travelers alike.      Peter Greenberg, best-selling author, trusted Today show travel editor, and the man that writer Paul Theroux calls "the liberator and defender of the traveling public," offers an encyclopedic look at every aspect of the travel process, both domestically and internationally, from the true definition of travel terms to in-depth explanations of how things really work.      Do you want to know which airline seats are the best and worst? How you can vacation in a lighthouse, a monastery, or even a converted prison? Which countries require you to get visas before you visit? Or won’t let you in even if you have a passport? Which airlines are the worst "bumping" offenders? How you can avoid hidden fees? The Complete Travel Detective Bible offers up answers to these questions and much more. Everything is cross-referenced and each chapter is filled with useful charts, lists, and diagrams, making for an easily accessible format.      Greenberg, who has been to more than 146 countries, is an expert without equal at outplaying the travel industry at its own games, securing the best fares, accommodations, and service at the lowest possible prices. He shares every one of these hard-won, ingenious insider secrets in this book, making The Complete Travel Detective Bible the ultimate word on travel today.

Travels

Michael Crichton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 135 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Travels With Michael 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

As a book-lover, you probably have a favorite that you read a couple of times a year. It sits there in your bookcase, and as you pass by you glance at it and smile, thinking of how much it's meant to you. And one day as you notice it, you say to yourself, "It's time I read this again!"

And so you do, visiting this old dear friend. You see aspects of its personality you hadn't fully noticed in previous readings, concepts that had escaped you before.

"Travels," by Michael Crichton, is my old dear friend.

Crichton was the author of "Jurassic Park," "The Andromeda Strain" and so many other books; and was the creator of the TV show "ER."

But did you know when he was a medical student at Harvard, he wrote a mystery he called, "A Case of Need"...using the pseudonymn "Jeffery Hunter" so no one at the university would know he was the author (students were supposed to study, not write books)? And he'd have been sucessfully anonymous, only....ooops! His book won the Mystery Writers of America "Edgar" as best mystery novel of the year.

The first part of "Travels" is "Medical Days," a fascinating look into the lives of medical students and their patients. It's not written in dry medical terms but in arresting vignettes of different patients, fellow students and teachers.

This takes us from 1965 through 1969 and to page 81 (paperback edition). Then he wrote about his travels (1971 through 1986).

He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, and when we read it we're taken right along with him. Wore me out. In Rwanda, he went looking for gorillas and found them. A zoologist with him said that she couldn't study gorillas because they "were men." At the end of his stay there, he understood what she meant by that remark.

In northern Kenya Crichton went eye to eye with an elephant in the middle of the night; in Bonaire he almost died when scuba diving with his sister; he found Shangri-La, which is no "Shangri-La;" in Jamaica his girlfriend invited a murderer into the back of their car and he came THIS close to being killed; in Pahang he was literally covered with bees in the jungle; he went swimming with sharks in Tahiti...so many countries, so many adventures, and through them all he was totally open about his feelings, about who he was (he learned this along the way.)

Crichton was self-deprecating, which is odd, because this 6'-9" man was handsome, brilliant and talented.

A little more than half-way through the book, things take an interesting/weird/off-the-wall (depending upon your point of view) turn. These chapters are about his "inner travels."

Can you picture Michael Crichton believing in spoon bending, seeing and fluffing auras, talking to cacti? He did, and the chapter "Cactus Teachings" so affected me that years ago I bought a huge cactus and have it yet.

The chapter "An Entity" is one I'll read more than once when I get to it.

At the end of the book, Crichton listed his conclusions about psychic phenomena. There are three. First, consciousness has legitimate dimensions not yet guessed at. Secondly, at least some psychic phenomena are real. Third, there are energies associated with the human body that are not yet understood.

(At his web site, he was asked once if he still believed what he wrote about in "Travels," and he answered that he did, but that he went on to other things.)

He did NOT believe in levitation, flying saucers, the Bermuda Triangle, extraterrestrials, palmistry, numerology, astrology, psychic surgery, biorhythms, coincidence or pyramid power.

Well, neither do I, but still...that chapter on "an entity"....

And now it's time to get comfortable in my beat-up recliner. sweetened tea at hand, and begin to read for perhaps the fortieth time, "Travels."

Oh, Michael, we miss you so.

Editorial Review:

"Curious, sensible, and irrevereent...Crichton comes to see his travles--both in mind and through country--as ways of getting in better touch with himself."
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Here is a record of Michael Crichton's astonishing adventures. It is a vision of travel not as escape but as exhilaration, as a testing of self, and as spiritual education. Crichton shows us travel as turmoil and as peace. All of this voyages, outward and inward, from his twenties to his mid-forties, have been journeys into awareness--leading him to the excitement and benison of direct expeirence undimmed by expectations, theories, or old assumptions. His remarkable book is in itself a fascinating realm in which the adventurous are invited to travel.

The Milepost 2008

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Get One 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I really like the fact that it also includes travel info about travel through Canada on the way to Alaska! It'll get used hard next summer.

love it 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

We are planning a trip in June,09 and I have been attempting to read this book from cover to cover. It is so full of information and is so precise with it's info with giving you enough info without info overload. I plan to take it with us, I like how it gives you email info for contacts, lists activities for each area,etc... I expected a small pocket book and received and book full of everything I could possible ask for. I am currently planning my trip from just this one book. Thanks for all the help, Also a note to the seller thanks for following up on the delivery delay. I will definitely order from you again.

None Better 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The best over land travel guide to and from Alaska that can be had.
We bought it for an upcomeing RV trip from Washington state to Dawson City, Canada and Fairbanks & Anchorage Alaska.
It contains suggested trip routes, city maps, lodging, RV/camping, sightseeing and much more.
It's updated once a year, soft cover, like a monster catalog for travel to and from Alaska with tons of information on the Canadian Rockies and western Canada.

The City of Falling Angels

John Berendt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 211 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The author of the record-breaking bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil unveils the enigmatic Venice as only he can

Twelve years ago, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil exploded into a monumental success, residing a record-breaking four years on the New York Times bestseller list (longer than any work of fiction or nonfiction had before) and turning John Berendt into a household name. The City of Falling Angels is Berendt’s first book since Midnight, and it immediately reminds one what all the fuss was about. Turning to the magic, mystery, and decadence of Venice, Berendt gradually reveals the truth behind a sensational fire that in 1996 destroyed the historic Fenice opera house. Encountering a rich cast of characters, Berendt tells a tale full of atmosphere and surprise as the stories build, one after the other, ultimately coming together to portray a world as finely drawn as a still-life painting.

Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains

Jon Krakauer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant hardships and victories more brilliantly than critically acclaimed author Jon Krakauer. In this collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian, he explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, the Eiger. Always with a keen eye, an open heart, and a hunger for the ultimate experience, he gives us unerring portraits of the mountaineering experience.

 

Yet Eiger Dreams is more about people than about rock and ice—people with that odd, sometimes maniacal obsession with mountain summits that sets them apart from other men and women. Here we meet Adrian the Romanian, determined to be the first of his countrymen to solo Denali; John Gill, climber not of great mountains but of house-sized boulders so difficult to surmount that even demanding alpine climbs seem easy; and many more compelling and colorful characters. In the most intimate piece, “The Devils Thumb,” Krakauer recounts his own near-fatal, ultimately triumphant struggle with solo-madness as he scales Alaska’s Devils Thumb. Eiger Dreams is stirring, vivid writing about one of the most compelling and dangerous of all human pursuits.

The Great Railway Bazaar

Paul Theroux

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A peerless and unforgettable travel narrative 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This fabulous account of getting on the train in London and riding trains (including the decrepit Orient Express) through Europe, across Asia as far east as Japan, then looping back to Europe on the Trans-Siberian, is not a bit dated, even though it was first published in 1975. Theroux is sometimes cross and prickly, but he doesn't miss a thing, and he ventures into places (and eats things) that most people never would. Because he is also a novelist, he's deft at limning the appearances and characters of the people he meets, and these people, who are variously vain, odd, smelly, crazy, foolish, bigoted, or just eccentric, give this travelogue--and indeed all of Theroux's travel narratives--the quality of a Dickens novel. I've read and enjoyed several of his other rail narratives, including "The Old Patagonian Express" (Central and South America) , "Kingdom by the Sea" (United Kingdom), and "Dark Star Safari" (Africa). I'd start with this one, though, with its wonderful section on Vietnam in the last year of the war and its melancholy voyage across Leonid Brezhnev's sclerotic Soviet Union. As with all good books, it will transport you to places you did not know existed, even in this era of Google Earth. As for those who don't care for Theroux's sometimes cranky persona, well, there are always the twittering ecstasies of Peter Mayle ("A Year in Provence," etc.) or--worse--Frances Mayes ("Under the Tuscan Sun," etc.). Theroux's sojourns will never inspire busloads of tourists or the astronomical appreciation of the local real estate.

Editorial Review:

First published more than thirty years ago, Paul Theroux's strange, unique, and hugely entertaining railway odyssey has become a modern classic of travel literature. Here Theroux recounts his early adventures on an unusual grand continental tour. Asia's fabled trains -- the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express -- are the stars of a journey that takes him on a loop eastbound from London's Victoria Station to Tokyo Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. Brimming with Theroux's signature humor and wry observations, this engrossing chronicle is essential reading for both the ardent adventurer and the armchair traveler.

Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own

Doreen Orion

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 72 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A pampered Long Island princess hits the road in a converted bus with her wilderness-loving husband, travels the country for one year, and brings it all hilariously to life in this offbeat and romantic memoir.

Doreen and Tim are married psychiatrists with a twist: She’s a self-proclaimed Long Island princess, grouchy couch potato, and shoe addict. He's an affable, though driven, outdoorsman. When Tim suggests “chucking it all” to travel cross-country in a converted bus, Doreen asks, “Why can’t you be like a normal husband in a midlife crisis and have an affair or buy a Corvette?” But she soon shocks them both, agreeing to set forth with their sixty-pound dog, two querulous cats—and no agenda—in a 340-square-foot bus.

Queen of the Road is Doreen’s offbeat and romantic tale about refusing to settle; about choosing the unconventional road with all the misadventures it brings (fire, flood, armed robbery, and finding themselves in a nudist RV park, to name just a few). The marvelous places they visit and delightful people they encounter have a life-changing effect on all the travelers, as Doreen grows to appreciate the simple life, Tim mellows, and even the pets pull together. Best of all, readers get to go along for the ride through forty-seven states in this often hilarious and always entertaining memoir, in which a boisterous marriage of polar opposites becomes stronger than ever.