Save your money on this package--especially the tape. The tape has no grammar explained and simply does not teach. The phrases are only given once, and some are garbled beyond recognition to anyone but the fluent (who wouldn't need the tape anyway). Unless you have have the time and patience to rewind constantly, and never really need to understand what you're saying, this tape is useless. I suggest the Barron's "Spanish for Law Enforcement Personnel" as an excellent, methodical beginner's book and tape that you can listen to in the car and get something out of.

Cirigliano provides some excellent critical and philosophical background to this masterful Italian poet, but he tries too hard to break with older translations -- which he finds dated. The problem is, in his efforts to provide an up-to-date text, he attempts to lend Cavalcanti's poetry a modernist and perhaps even avant-garde air that strips the poetry of its feeling and adds pretension in its place. His translation of verse number 51 ("Guata, Manetto, quella scrignutuzza") is particularly awful, with his dryly academic and unhip use of "cool" slang that is actually awkward and outdated. He also manages to make "Donna me prega" unbearably pretentious. Better to go with Lowry Nelson Jr.'s version -- which features a slightly less insightful though bolder analysis and a much, much better translation

This book was published in Great Britain by Thames and Hudson in 1991 as "Egypt from the Air". I have just checked out a copy of that book from a public library and my comments relate to that edition.

Only about one-third of the book is devoted to pharaonic Egypt.

The photographs are very grainy. Many were taken in the early morning and/or late afternoon and therefore have a pinkish hue.

The text is journalistic.

Flick through a library copy before you even consider buying this book.

Save your money for a copy of Dorling Kindersley's Eyewitness Travel
Guide to Egypt.

If you are expecting beauty, hairstyling ideas, or a nice coffeetable book, you will be disappointed. The photos are not visually appealing and don't seem to have any artistic intent, though some do have the dark lurkings (without the genius of lighting) of the back-room B&W nude photos by Mapplethorpe. Aside from a young Kate Moss, these young faces exhibit marked sun damage and acne scars; perhaps these were "before" photos for a dermatologist's office. The hair cuts and styles are crude (perhaps intentionally), and with the amplified pits and valleys in the skin they leave the reader wondering what Guido's intention was in publishing this, as it hardly flatters his talent or esthetic sensibility.