As a cook and literary buff, I always thought of Harry's Bar in Venice as a monument that has provided me with great inspiration.

Tucked away on a corner not far from St Mark's Square, it is quite small with low ceilings but with an incredible view of the Grand Canal from its first floor. The decor is very relaxing with small comfortable chairs and tables in pleasant shades of apricot and cream. Upon opening the doors, you immediately drink in the atmosphere that is intimate, worldly, historically rich and alive.

I remember the first time I visited Harry's bar twenty-five years ago. I went to this legendary bar, made famous by Ernest Hemingway, after having promised myself that I would only have a drink. I knew the prices would be outrageous for someone on a student budget since Harry's Bar had enjoyed an international reputation since 1931. But the moment that last sip of wine was out of my glass, I had to ask for a table. I do not remember what I had for lunch that day at Harry's Bar. I do remember though, how impressed I was by the quality of the house wine, the simple presentation of the food that tasted wonderful and the professional and friendly service with which the Harry's Bar staff made sure that this was going to be a memorable experience for me. So, Harry's Bar became part of my growing up and thus gained a significant importance in my life.

Ernest Hemingway used to have his own table in one corner of Harry's Bar. At the end of World War II, Hemingway dedicated to the bar a page of his famous novel "Across the River and into the Trees." The list of famous people who frequented Harry's Bar is long and impressive. Arturo Toscanini, Guglielmo Marconi, Charlie Chaplin, Truman Capote, Orson Welles, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Princess Aspasia of Greece, Aristotle Onassis, Barbara Hutton, Peggy Guggenheim and Woody Allen, just to mention a few.

Harry's Bar opened in 1931 when Giuseppe Cipriani, an enterprising bartender at the Hotel Europa in Venice, was rewarded for his earlier generosity to a rich, young American from Boston named Harry Pickering. Pickering had been a customer at the Hotel Europa for some time, then suddenly stopped frequenting the hotel bar. One day, the elder Cipriani asked Pickering why he no longer patronized the bar. Pickering was broke, he explained to the bartender -- his family cut him off when it was discovered he had not curtailed his recklessness and fondness for drinking. So, Cipriani loaned his patron $5,000 U.S. so that Mr. Pickering could pay his hotel and bar bill as well as his cost of transportation home and ... have one last martini. Two years later, Pickering walked back into the Hotel Europa, ordered a drink at the bar, thanked Cipriani for the loan and handed him enough money to repay the loan and enable Cipriani to open his own bar.

In 1991, Giuseppe's son, Arrigo Cipriani, assembled a book of recipes: "The Harry's Bar Cookbook" (Bantam Books). The book contains more than 200 original recipes, more than 125 lavish full color photographs, wonderful anecdotes and insight into the nuances of classic Italian cuisine and their philosophy of entertaining.

During the 1930s and 1940s, founder Giuseppe Cipriani created many of the dishes still served today. Giuseppe invented the Bellini and the Montgomery cocktails. The Bellini, contains white peach pulp, juice and Prosecco (an Italian sparkling wine). Giuseppe is said to have invented it in 1948, and named the drink for the Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini whose works were exhibited in Venice that year. The Montgomery, as Hemingway called it, is a very dry martini with a proportion of gin to vermouth of fifteen to one - the same proportion that the famed British General Bernard Montgomery was said to have endured when he lead his soldiers to fight against the enemy during World War II.

Other classics include: hot sandwiches; shrimp sandwiches (favorites of Orson Welles and Truman Capote); egg pasta with ham au gratin; risotto; and Carpaccio which is the most popular dish served at Harry's Bar. Consisting of paper-thin sheets of raw filet mignon, seasoned with a light white sauce, the Carpaccio, according to the bar's legend, was inspired by one of Cipriani's regular customers, the Countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo, whose doctor prohibited her from eating cooked meat. The dish was named after the celebrated Renaissance Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio, famous for his use of bright red-and-white colors.

The "Harry's Bar Cookbook" is a beautiful book to own and a great inspiration for the creation of meals tantalizing to the palate. The recipes are innovative, well written and they work! This cookbook is the second best thing to having lunch at Harry's Bar, but with the stories in the book and your dreamy imagination, it's almost like being there!

The beauty of the recipes lies in their simplicity, their adaptability to a range of dining styles from elegant to informal and their memorable flavor. I hope you enjoy this cookbook as much as we do in our home.

My parents loved Harry's in the 1950s. I never knew why until I visited the bar in Venice myself in the 1980s. I cook a fair amount, so I often use someone's recipe just as a taking off point. I frequently think I can outcook most authors. Not so with Harry. Like Paul Bocuse, this is one of a few cookbooks where you should try to follow the recipe precisely. The world's best osso bucco, the best scampi fritto which anyone can cook and stun your friends, tuna fish mousse to startle you, the best sauteed mushrooms, and the world's best club sandwich. What else can you ask? If he says cut the tomato sideways in three even slices, try it. He does not waste words, and he does know how to cook.

March 23 I try to go there and celebrate my father's birthday. Mr. Cipriani celebrates his fatther too. I've never met him, but maybe that's another thing we have in common.

This book provides the best recipes for regional Italian cooking I have ever used. They are simple to follow, reasonable in the produce suggested, and they invariably taste fantastic.

My wife and I went to Harry's in New York, we can't wait to get back to Venice to try out the original.

Although the outcome is known, there is much to be gained from reading this book.

Apart from the specific history of the climb which 'conquered' Everest (a much-used but dubious claim about one of the great feats of human endeavour, and one not used by those involved), I was particularly interested in several aspects:

* The description of the expedition took place, the mechanics of it from someone outside the actual expedition;
* The non-mountaineer's view of mountain-climbing and experiences in the Khumbu ice-fall and Western Cwm especially. This was the experience many an armchair-Everesteer would wish for themselves, I am sure;
* The journalist's view of the people involved - all the other accounts I have read have been written from the point of view of being 'insiders' in the ecpedition - Hunt, Hillary, Tenzing, for example
* The mechanics of how Morris set up 'exclusive' media coverage from the mountain! It is amazing to think that it was a mere 50 years ago that messages were taking 8 days to reach London, when nowadays we hear live radio broadcasts of people dying in snowstorms, have immediate Internet access to expedition journals etc.

Thoroughly recommended for anyone with any interest at all in the subject.

This slim volume details the trip of London Times journalist Jan Morris with the 1953 British Everest Expedition. It provides interesting and unique first-hand accounts of Hillary, Tenzing, and other expedition personnel, as well as beautifully written descriptions of the landscape and persons encountered on the expedition. It is written in the style of its day - English "Public School" in tone - and reflects a love and command of the English language all too lacking in today's expedition accounts.

The account flows easily and draws the reader along with the expedition. Despite knowing the outcome, the reader is kept interested by the tone and language, and by the behind-the-scenes looks at how this mammoth effort came together, and its ultimate effect on those on the mountain and those back home in England. For example, as the book opens on the eve of Elizabeth II's Coronation, we see Field Marshal Montgomery reading the Time's account of Hillary and Tenzing's triumph as he waits in robes to process in the Coronation parade. Small asides such as this give the book its unique flavor, and make it an interesting and invaluable addition to the armchair (or actual) mountaineer's collection

This is a wonderfully written book of the events surrounding the historic Everest expedition of 1953 which saw Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summit Mount Everest. It was written by special correspondent for The London Times, James Morris, who accompanied the expedition and first broke the news to the world of the successful summit. The news fortuitously reached England on the eve of Queen Elizabeth's the II coronation of June 2, 1953, and was the cause for much nationalistic pride. Hence, the name of the book.

The book is reflective of the time in which it was written and evokes a feeling of an era long gone. Therein lies its charm. Nostalgia buffs will love it, as will those readers looking to consume anything about Everest. It will not disappoint, though the book is not about the climb to the summit in the strictest sense. The book chronicles in great detail the author's journey to Everest, as well as his personal experiences and observations while at Everest, waiting to break the story of the end result of the historic climb to the summit. It also chronicles the cloak and dagger methodology which he employed in order maintain exclusivity for The London Times.

It should be noted in the interest of clarity and to avoid confusion, that times do indeed change. The author, James Morris, underwent a gender change subsequent to the original 1958 publication of this book. When the book was released again, however, the publisher did so under the name which the author had since adopted, Jan Morris. James or Jan, the author is a hell of a writer, and the book is well worth reading.

This is the most affectionate writing on Portugal I've encountered in English. Pure pleasure from beginning to end. Note the incisive comparison between Spaniards and the Portuguese. I can tell you it's right on the money. There are things in this book that would escape the notice of a native, so it's a particular treat for Portuguese-Americans.

I initially read this book because of the author's great bird hunting book, Pheasants of the Mind. I have read 100's of books and it is one of the best explorations of a place and its culture I have seen. I wish I could find others like it.

I can't believe this book is out of print! Proper combines three aspects of Portugal to create his richly evocative book: his relationship to the land through trout fishing, his relationships to old and new Portuguese friends, and his sensitive portrayal of the way the past informs modern life in Portugal. You'll smell the fresh bread, frolic with Camoes's nymphs, and feel the sun in the Algarve. A terrific book.

Most of my several thousand volume library consists of serious books, works of literature, literary criticism, philosophy, history, theology, political science, and so on. But I also have a shelf or two devoted to "fun" books, books that I pick up and just lose myself in having fun. This is one of my favorite fun books. Not a masterpiece. Probably won't be in print twenty years from now. But the photographs are spectacular! And in just under 300 pages, almost every major city and structure of Europe has been photographed from the air. It is not merely the famous sights and buildings that makes this such a fun book, but some striking photographs of relatively unknown features. For instance, one of the most stunning photographs for me is what would appear to be a gigantic green field in Denmark that has been punctuated by a series of large housing circles, each cut off from one another, and each surrounded by the same green field.

The text has been provided by noted travel writer Jan Morris. The book is largely structured by starting with Italy and proceeding clockwise through the entire European continent, ending with Greece, Romania, and Turkey.

I really can whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone except those who don't like to look at anything. But if you have any interest in the world, in traveling, in Europe, in history, in photography, or in just having fun looking at awesome photos, this book will prove to be an utter delight.

I stumbled upon this title in a competitor's bookstore and was astonished that I hadn't read a review anywhere. With a 1998 imprint and Jan Morris as the author of the text, it doesn't seem like it should be an obscure tome, yet even here on Amazon.com, only one other person has reviewed it!

The photos are designed to provoke a sense of wonder and awe in the reader/viewer, and they succeed aesthetically, emotionally, and psychologically. From the rock of Gilbralter to a dense set of "potato row" houses in Copenhagen; from snowfields near the Arctic circle to Turkey--it's all here, images snapped from blimps, airplanes, helicopters, almost any method by which one might be "over" Europe.

One will not be able to glimpse most of these sites from comparable vantage points on a typical trek across the continent unless one plans to do so in a biplane. The images here are unusual in their breadth and majesty. ... The text is literate and fun. Buy it and marvel.

If you regard this book as just another coffee table book you aren't even half right. This is one of the best photo books I have ever seen. The pictures are outstanding. Nearly every photo takes you to the alter of the church, the edge of the cliff, or the gate to the castle. Not only is it a photo book, but a great travel book. These aren't just descriptions of what to see, but beautiful pictures showing you what you will want to see when you get there. You won't even need to take a camera or change for postcards-- the best pictures are right here. Get this book before you plan your vacation to Europe.

This is an urbane, witty book, beautifully written and structured so that every facet of Oxford is covered in a very readable manner.
Although I loved Oxford to begin with, this book enhanced my appreciation of the city and I feel that I know more about its history and its manners now than I ever did before.
Jan Morris never resorts to sentimentality, but she shows her enjoyment of her research in many ways.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is even remotely interested in "The Oxford Story".

Oxford is one of the most intriguing, enchanting, mysterious, historical and beautiful cities in the world. It is the location of _Alice in Wonderland_, _The Wind in the Willows_, much of Waugh's _Brideshead Revisited_, and Dorothy Sayer's _Gaudy Night_. Jan Morris's book is a celebration of this city so witty, so well informed, and so gripping that you may find it to be the best "travel book" you have ever read. A must for anglophiles, lovers of cities, lovers of literature, architecture, and history, and those fascinated by university life. I myself have the same experience as Susan Hill, a reviewer in the (London) Times, who wrote, "I devoured, and now constantly dip with delight into _Oxford_."

This is an abridged version of the original 3 volumes, but a delightful book -- both for the opinions expressed and the wonderful pomposity with which they are presented. It's impossible not to learn about art and architecture from this book, but it also (perhaps not intentionally) makes Woody Allen's or Steve Martin's New Yorker pieces seem like downers. The man has no humility and there is no opinion other than his, yet somehow the clarity and vitality of his description allows you to continue reading. I was fortunate enough to pick this up in Venice, so I was able to search out his examples of the 5 worst buildings in Venice, and similar Ruskinisms.

I haven't read this yet, but I thought I would warn other buyers that this is not the full text of the Stones of Venice--it is abridged. J. G. Links seems confident that he has done so in an intelligent way; perhaps he will win me over...

In her writing career, Jan Morris has wrestled with centuries of history, mighty empires, great cities, historic expeditions, timeless cultures, and much more. And yet, for her entry in this series of 'travel' books, she leads us into one of the most magical and affecting places of all ... her own home.

This is an informal, light-hearted, and quick read (just two sessions in my Writer's Hammock in Seattle). And yet, it's also deeply moving. Morris describes all the facets of her converted stables -- a house in Wales, a Welsh house, a writer's house, and finally, a writer's house in Wales -- while meditating on life, death, history, culture, and the nature of friendship and hospitality. There's a lot packed between these covers!

As a book person myself, I responded most strongly to Morris' tour of her library -- a space chock full of art, music, and, of course, books. 'I have never counted the books in my own library,' she writes, 'but I would guess there are seven or eight thousand here, packed tight in their long white bookshelves, upstairs and down. I love them all, whatever their subject, whatever their condition, whatever their size. I love walking among them, stroking their spines. I love sitting on a sofa amongst them, contemplating them. I love the feel of them between my fingers, and I love the smell of them...' (pp. 101-2). She waxes just as lyrical about her kitchen, the stones of the exterior walls, the exposed wooden beams overhead ('marinated, so to speak, in age and hauled up here to my house to bless us all, like incense in a church' [p. 43]), the smell of smoke in the air, the view of the sea, even the poachers who steal onto her land to fish from her stretch of the river.

This book is like a hymnal. And while Jan Morris fans may be the readers most immediately attracted to it, anyone who responds strongly to a sense of place and a writer's connectedness to it will savor the hospitality and companionship of a warm and welcoming person in an equally welcoming home.

Jan Morris is a superb travel writer. She's been everywhere--Manhattan, Australia, Venice, Candada, Trieste, etc. etc.--and brings an open-minded, generous view to places near and far. After declaring last year that she was done writing, out she comes with "A Writer's House in Wales" a love poem to her own corner of the world.

Wales is rocky, hilly, wild and smack up against the Atlaantic. Its people, among the oldest of Britain's many peoples, hve clung to their language, their rocky shores, their magic for centuries against the many Saxon, Norman, and English incursions. One hopes they can withstand the latest onslaught of modern "culture".

Morris waxes eloquently about her centuries old house--once a stable--which she preserves. It is strangely modular from the heart of the house downstairs kitchen where neighbors stop to gossip and the postman drops in to leave the mail (once catching Morris descending her stairs in the buff!) to the entirely separate library and study where she does her work.

The house is delightful. The grounds overgrown and magical. Morris worships--at least metaphorically--the ancient god Pan and the book reflects that: a sensuality and sensibility that are natural, druidical and incredibly appealing. This is a quick delightful read, wherein you gain insights into a wonnderful land and a unique individual. Take the trip!

Gordon Chaplin does what most people only dream of - sailing into the unknown for the sake of an adventure. Starting out of the FL. keys with his girlfriend and a loose itinerary of tracing a dead relative's footsteps - to re-discover many of the lost Mayan ruins and maybe re-discover himself as well. Along the way the reader is treated to tales of boat life and 3rd world culture, filled with magnificent descriptions of the people and their surroundings, making you feel like your standing next to him at the bar.

If your looking for that one book to end the summer with, this is it - great vacation, beach reading. This book would make for a great Jimmy Buffett song.

If you ride hunt seat and you only buy one book this is the book you should own. If you own more than one book this is the one you should read first AND last. George Morris breaks down every task into simple to understand steps with concise instructions and helpful pictures. As my trainer once told me, if you can follow George Morris's instructions, you'll be an excellent rider. I simply cannot say enough terrific things about this book!!

There is a reason why George Morris is such a revered member of this sport! This book is brilliantly written in that it takes a form of a horseback riding that appears so complex and makes it easy for anyone to understand. I rely on this book as the basis for my training in hunt seat. His emphasis on not only on technical maneuvers, but on style as well and, through his pages, the reader truly comes to appreciate both the athleticism and beauty of this sport.

I have read and reread this book and consider it my equitation bible. It is not only for huntseat riders but the basics apply to all riders. Mr. Morris is one of the finest equestrians I know of. I own a first edition of this book and whenever I have a question I go to the master. I have always ridden according to the principles set out in this book and though I ride stockseat now , the same principles still apply. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to ride or to veteran riders.

This book is a delight. It does not fit easily into the categories of history, biography or psychology, and yet it has elements of all of them. The author has obviously written it for sheer personal pleasure and this sense of fun - of which the splendid Jacky Fisher himself would have thoroughly approved - is communicated to the reader. It is no fault of the writer that Fisher remains an enigma at the end of it, a man of vast contradictions, enthusiasms, energy, genius and simplicity, but the journey is enjoyable on every page. Fisher was a force of nature who tackled every challenge, regardless of size, with zest, verve and originality and the story of his whirlwind career, and his transformation of the Royal Navy has much of the epic about it. Few men can have had greater vision, or a greater gift for grasping the potential of technology for transforming organisations and national destinies. Much of what he did and said could serve as a textbook for today's business schools - while the rest might have marked him for a straitjacket. For all his greatness however, he was diminished by his last years and by Churchill's disastrous decision to recall him to the Admiralty soon after the outbreak of the First World War. Old, and by now unstable, his tenure was marked by huge miscalculations and personal behaviour that swung erratically between the inspired and the lunatic. Those who enjoy this unique book will be no less delighted by Fisher's idiosyncratic memoirs - entitled "Memories" - which are an eccentric and haphazard collection of ideas, reminiscences and dictums (slogans might be a better word). This is long out of print, but well worth the seeking.

I'm reading this book for the second time now and its every bit as fresh as during the first go round. Morris brings history alive as few others and has chosen a wonderfully exciting subject to biography. God, how we need more leaders like Jacky Fisher these days! And more writers like Morris. Well done, I'm searching the back list for your other titles.

I read this book in Cyprus, and there, Fisher's adventures whilst Admiral of the Mediterranean fleet seemed strangely poignant. The book is so unusually written that I actually thought that I was about to meet him at any point. I wish that I had, because as a life long lover of the navy, I find Fisher to be a most compelling character. There can be few people in this century that would be a more interesting correspondent. I wish that I could write to him now on the Web instead of writing this. If there is a more revealing (and one always feels, only slightly speculative), colourful and fun biography about anyone at all, pray tell me about it because this book was truly superb!