General Books

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip . . . with Recipes! (Food Network)

Guy Fieri, Ann Volkwein

Amazon Price: $11.97 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: William Morrow Cookbooks Amazon Marketplace: 23 new & used starting at $10.85

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Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Regional & International -> U.S. Regional -> General
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Regional & International -> U.S. Regional -> General AAS
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

good fun book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

guido is off the hook,good cook,good host and put a pretty damn good cook book together,thats it!

Great Cookbook 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I bought this for a friend and for my husband for x-mas, both are huge fans of Guy's. This is an excellent book, it has receipes from different places he has been to. This is a great gift for any Guy fan out there!

Editorial Review:

Food Network star Guy Fieri takes you on a tour of America's most colorful diners, drive-ins, and dives in this tie-in to his enormously popular television show, complete with recipes, photos, and memorabilia.

Packed with Guy's iconic personality, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives follows his hot-rod trips around the country, mapping out the best places most of us have never heard of. From digging in at legendary burger joint the Squeeze Inn in Sacramento, California, baking Peanut Pie from Virginia Diner in Wakefield, Virginia, or kicking back with Pete's "Rubbed and Almost Fried" Turkey Sandwich from Panini Pete's in Fairhope, Alabama, Guy showcases the amazing personalities, fascinating stories, and outrageously good food offered by these American treasures.

1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die

Patricia Schultz

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Workman Publishing Company Amazon Marketplace: 96 new & used starting at $7.38

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Subjects -> Sports -> General
Subjects -> Sports -> General AAS
Subjects -> Travel -> Canada -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Wonderful Travel Ideas 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

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!

Editorial Review:

It's a traveler's life list, a guide, an inspiration, a memory book. Open it to check out where you've been, and where you should go next. What to see and what to do and what to show the kids. Where to eat and where to stay. And how to change your life.

Covering the U.S.A. and Canada like never before, here are 1,000 spectacular, compelling, essential, offbeat, utterly unforgettable places. Pristine beaches and national parks, world-class museums and the Corn Palace, mountain resorts, salmon-rich rivers, scenic byways, Chez Panisse and the country's best taco, lush gardens and Holden Arboretum, mountain biking on the Maah Daah Hey trail, historic mansions, vineyards, hot springs, the Talladega Superspeedway, classic ballparks, and more. Includes more than 150 places of special interest to families, and, for every entry, the nuts and bolts of how and when to visit.

Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey

William Least Heat-Moon

Amazon Price: $17.03 List Price: $27.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Little, Brown and Company Amazon Marketplace: 55 new & used starting at $15.44

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Quoz 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I wasn't sure there was a word for what happens to me when I read Heat-Moon's works. I find treaures in them that seem to be written just for me to find. How can that be?

"PrairyErth" was such a treasure-box; I have read it every year since it was written, each time finding something new. "Roads to Quoz" is also such a book. Its wisdom, depth and humor take you on journeys that are pure joy for the intellect and the imagination.

Heat-Moon's "roads to Quoz" cover a vast area, so I was suprised that one of his Quoz stories mentioned a tiny town in Kansas called "Otis". It is where my mother grew up. I cannot explain such crossings of paths, but at least now I have a word for them: Quoz.

This is simply a gem of a book. It looks forward and backward at the same time, giving insights along the way, and finding wonder.
Gary Gackstatter, St Louis

Editorial Review:

About a quarter century ago, a previously unknown writer named William Least Heat-Moon wrote a book called Blue Highways. Acclaimed as a classic, it was a travel book like no other. Quirky, discursive, endlessly curious, Heat-Moon had embarked on an American journey off the beaten path. Sticking to the small places via the small roads--those colored blue on maps--he uncovered a nation deep in character, story, and charm.
Now, for the first time since Blue Highways, Heat-Moon is back on the backroads. ROADS TO QUOZ is his lyrical, funny, and touching account of a series of American journeys into small-town America.

Assassination Vacation

Sarah Vowell

Amazon Price: $11.20 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $6.42

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Presidents & Heads of State
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 137 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other -- a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue -- it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and -- the author's favorite -- historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

How the States Got Their Shapes

Mark Stein

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Collins Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $12.49

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Historical Study -> Social History

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?

We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand.

How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey.

How the States Got Their Shapes examines:

• Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania
• Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan
• Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii
• Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size

Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert M. Pirsig

List Price: $35.00 By: William Morrow & Company Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $1.42

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Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Authors, A-Z -> ( P ) -> Pirsig, Robert
Subjects -> Travel -> North America

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 528 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Self-Absorbed, Self-Pitying Rubbish 1 out of 5 stars.
6 of 17 people found this review helpful.

I agree with many of the other one-star reviews, this is actually the worst book I have ever read, out of thousands read, in my entire life. The worst book designation goes to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance because it is extremely, extremely, over-rated. I found it to be one of the most self-absorbed, self-pitying, whining complaints I had ever been exposed to - and I know about those, because I'm a former junior high school teacher.

Not only did it not contain any philosophical insights whatsoever, the book is just plain boring and badly written. The only book I have ever thrown in the garbage can - it's just rubbish, and that's where it belongs. I'm sure the author is a fine human being. I just think he wrote a very, very, bad book. Please don't waste your time on this book.

Editorial Review:

One of the most important and influential books written in the past half-century, Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a powerful, moving, and penetrating examination of how we live . . . and a breathtaking meditation on how to live better. Here is the book that transformed a generation: an unforgettable narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest, undertaken by a father and his young son. A story of love and fear -- of growth, discovery, and acceptance -- that becomes a profound personal and philosophical odyssey into life's fundamental questions, this uniquely exhilarating modern classic is both touching and transcendent, resonant with the myriad confusions of existence . . . and the small, essential triumphs that propel us forward.

In a Sunburned Country

Bill Bryson

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Broadway Amazon Marketplace: 180 new & used starting at $1.98

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Subjects -> Travel -> Australia & South Pacific -> Australia -> General
Subjects -> Travel -> Australia & South Pacific -> Australia -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 409 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.

Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path. Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book. Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Sarah Vowell

List Price: $22.00 By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 30 new & used starting at $2.69

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Historical Study -> Essays

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 64 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and, in doing so, investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell -- widely hailed for her inimitable narratives on public radio's This American Life -- ponders a number of curious questions: Why is she happiest when visiting the sites of bloody struggles like Salem or Gettysburg? Why do people always inappropriately compare themselves to Rosa Parks? Why is a bad life in sunny California so much worse than a bad life anywhere else? What is it about the Zen of foul shots? And, in the title piece, why must doubt and internal arguments haunt the sleepless nights of the true patriot?

Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, themes, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration.

The result is a teeming and engrossing book, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.

The Most Scenic Drives in America: 120 Spectacular Road Trips

Robert J. Dolezal, Jerry Bates, Barbara Dolezal

Amazon Price: $18.30 List Price: $30.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Reader's Digest Amazon Marketplace: 40 new & used starting at $17.59

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Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> Regions -> General
Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> Regions -> General AAS
Subjects -> Travel -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Superb book to plan a scenic roadtrip 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This one is favorite travel book. Being an amateur photographer, I like to drive along the scenic drives, enjoy the spectacular views and capture them in my camera.

This book will provide you:
- The scenic drives and the key places on the route.
- Tell the facts & specialties of the places.
- What time of year is good to go.
- Awesome pictures of the drives to motivate you to go there.
- Contact numbers and information websites.
- Information about side-trips.

I will recommend to map out your route on Google Maps and do some search online for the side-trips before leaving. Some side-trips are not worth missing, so information-at-hand will help you to get there, w/o stopping anywhere to get local directions.

Editorial Review:

A one-of-a-kind trip planner, a superb on-the-road reference, and an album of 400 photographs. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, here are 120 outstanding drives that show the magnificence of America-each with detailed, easy-to-follow maps.

Rand McNally 2009 The Road Atlas Large Scale: United States (Rand Mcnally Large Scale Road Atlas USA)

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Rand McNally & Company Amazon Marketplace: 26 new & used starting at $13.55

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Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> Regions -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A road atlas for older folks 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

After many years and countless referrals to Rand McNally, This larger size print atlas with spiral bound pages is just the ticket. We refer to it and use it on all our many trips by auto. I strongly recommend it to all road atlas users

Rand McNally Atlas 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Well constructed (I love the spiral binding). The LARGE size edition was exactly what I wanted.

Great help 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Just drove across country and back and it was a help to have a new atlas in the car.

Indispensable Atlas 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

If your traveling, the 2009 Rand McNally large scale road atlas is the atlas that you want by your side. It's very well detailed and has all of the information that you expect from a great atlas. Buy It!

Great Atlas! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Rand McNally 2009 The Road Atlas Large Scale: United States (Rand Mcnally Large Scale Road Atlas USA)

My husband and I really like this large scale edition of the road atlas. It also has a spiral binder on the side which makes it so easy to open the book to certain pages without harming the integrity of the book.

The large scale makes it so much easier to see the area you're looking for while driving in the car.

I would recommend this product to anyone.
Karen Hartwick <><