I've used this guide to travel from Estonia to Lithuania via Latvia, and I can assure that the coverage of those countries is absolutely great. The stories included in the book are simply juicy drops of culture, and surely they capture your interest and push you to get more deeply in the history of those sites you are visiting. No matters where you go, you will find the essential information and much more than that. This guide worth the money.

As with all of Lonely Planet in Eastern Europe, this book is excellent. The historical background is particularly good, it makes some sense of an extremely complicated, and at times, surprising history. This are in many ways countries, almost of myth and old stamp collections, that have come back to the real world -a fairy tale in more ways than one. This book keeps that spirit alive, and I highly commend it.

In common with our Lonely Planet publications, the book is extremely strong on research and honesty; the latter sometimes can border with cynicism, but then I do not see anything wrong with this. It is perhaps a good idea to have realistic expectations.

For getting around, lodging and day-to-day needs, the book is superb (although upon arrival, you will also want to buy one of locally published "In Your Pocket" guides - these remarkable and inexpensive magazines are in the league of their own).

Unless you already know a lot about the history and spirit of the Baltic states, you may long for some more pictures and articles where timetables and opening times are NOT mentioned. In this case, Baltic States by Insight Guides can be recommended as a supplement - but by no means as a substitute.

The Baltic countries, which do not have a streamlined and shrink-wrapped tourist industry, are a destination where a Lonely Planet guide is needed, whatever your budget. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are friendly and well-developed, but even premium-paying customers can seldom expect to be steered through their holiday or business trip without a bit of understanding how things work. This book is a perfect tool fitting this purpose.

I have read both of Mr Noble's books. I am amazed to learn that he is still alive in Dresden. What a fantastic story!

I am American who lives in Dresden Germany. I had the great pleasure of meeting John Noble today at his home here in Dresden. We talked for about 3 hours about his life and views on the world today. He is the most fascinating person I have ever met. If you ever get to read one of his books, I'm sure you be very please with his insight and wisdom.

John's story is well written and informative, explaining the details of life in slave labor prison camps as well as it's impact on a person brought up in a free society. The writer further details the thoughts and philosophic struggles of himself and his fellow prisoners, giving faces to the faceless millions. This book could be used as a manual for communist slave labor camp survival or a picture of what happens to the mind of someone enslaved.

This three-volume set is a must for anyone seriously interested in Japanese painting. There are entries on 235 works in the Powers Collection by Japanese artists of many different schools, including Zen Masters, haiku poets, literati, ukiyo-e masters, and eccentrics. These mini-essays are well written, thorough, and fascinating. Professor Rosenfield consistently includes valuable information on the artist and subject, plus analysis of the style, for each painting. In addition, the third volume contains longer biographies of the artists and other helpful infomation such as seal photographs, a useful index, and a full bibliogfraphy. Most of all, however, this set of books makes the art come alive within the context of an early modern Japan that welcomed individualism, leading to some of the most poetic, dramatic and evocative painting in East Asian history. This set of books can be read for pleasure, as well as serving as a vital resource in the field of East Asian art.

If you thought why spend a significant price for a book concentrating on a private collection of Japanese painting, take into account the following: 1) the collection is superb, covering a number of styles and cultural backgrounds, from Zen to nanga, from tea to Rimpa. 2) The scholarship, research, reading and traslation that went into the text is exemplary, I'd say even touching. Every piece of art is complemented with an interesting analysis of its form and content, the cultural influence that it sprang from, the poetic or religious sources that it connects to, or the social and political significance of the work and its authors. The book is a treasure trove of knowledge about Japanese art and culture in the Early Modern Era, and I find the price exceptionally well justified by hours of pleasure and learning that this book provides. If you are a dealer, collector or just seriously interested in Japanese painting, make sure you own this book before it becomes a collector's item.

The Lonely Planet guides are excellent for any locale..but this edition (covering Italy, Spain, Greece, France, Portugal and even Morocco) is a must-read for the quintessential backpacker jumping on a plane for Europa. These guides excel at recommending lodging of many price ranges (from youth hostels to 5-star hotels) and meal choices of the same range (excellent recommendation for outdoor markets.."buy a loaf of bread, a block of cheese and a bottle of wine here"..which is a plus as many guides catering to this area focus on only older travels with large budgets..or persons seeking to spend only a dollar a day or some insanity..it's always good to have the most information possible..and it's included here. Entertainments ideas from free plaza and park visiting to museums, discotechqes, architecture, boat rides etc. etc. are included..good for young and old. It even lists culture-sensitve information such as appropriate dress for visiting churches and monasteries as well as travel-safe tips for women. Book your Eurorail pass and get going.

Lonely Planet has great books and this one certainly was. It's very thorough and tells alot about things that interest travellers. They are up to date and tell you the pros and cons of the different countries. I liked it alot and I know that other people will too.

This tiny book is large in its potential to help you acquit yourself well when the occasion calls for a toast. You find out what a Gentleman would do (in a somewhat exaggerated way that reminds me of my 5th grade ballroom dancing class) with a slight tongue in cheek. But the advice is basically sound: A gentleman "just says what's in his heart and lets the party proceed." The book offers "simple guidelines . . . not to be taken as strict rules . . . or as rigid models . . . ."

The introduction begins with key guidelines about when, where and how to toast. Some of them aren't quite explained (like why you should not toast before noon and not use a coffee cup), but then etiquette never did make perfect sense.

The heart of the book comes in 40 sample toasts for typical life situations (marriages, anniversaries, birthdays, graduations, holidays, religious events, and work situations). You could easily take any of these and redo it to fit your situation. Some of these are not as usual such as the "Not-So-Happy-Closing of a Business," "Lesbian or Gay Friends upon their Commitment Ceremony," "Religious Leader Retirement," and "Successful Candidate to Supporters and Staff." To me, the best parts of these toasts were examples of what not to do. These were hilarious. I won't quote any, but this book is worth it just for the humor in those examples! What they have in common is giving someone a little back of the hand in the toast. This behavior is usual among male friends, but can lead to serious hurt feelings on important occasions.

Although this book is designed for Gentlemen, I think most women would find the advice to be helpful for when they are expected to raise a glass and utter the appropriate words.

Interspaced among the sample toasts are bits of history (toasting was a way to show your guest that the wine wasn't poisoned and the Romans put toast in their wine to help get rid of impurities), other guidance (like responding to a toast, being a toastmaster, and how to toast as a teetotaler), and the right way to clink glasses (and especially what to do if your glass shatters).

Of special interest to many will be the classic, brief toasts that work for any occasion and a list of classic Irish toasts for those who are Irish or have Irish friends, relatives or acquaintances.

I've been in many situations where toasting was stressful. This book would have saved me on every one of those occasions while allowing me to acquit myself better than I did with my "original" efforts.

After you finish enjoying the book, take a friend, loved one or colleague out to lunch or dinner . . . and make a toast from the heart!

Erin Urban's moving biography of John Noble not only does an excellent job of introducing and explaining his work, but also allows the reader to understand why the work is important. Anyone who is at all interested in maritime history, shipbuilding, or even rigging will find a wealth of information here. Everyone will be moved by these superb lithographs that are a testament to those who worked for and built this country.

If you're traveling to Andalucia, Spain this is the book to take along. I reviewed Eyewitness Travel Guide (both Spain and Andalucia), Fodor, Frommer, Cordovon, and others. Lonely Planet has outstanding city maps and lots of them. It has built in "tabs" of the provinces, e..g. Cadiz, Sevilla, city guide maps with numbered legends on food, lodging and sights. The book is jam packed with useful information, things to buy, walking tours, practical information. The Lonely Planet guide has one two page color map, and some scattered color pictures, augmented with frequent and helpful black and white artwork. This book was recommended by a Spanish website.

Comparison to other guide books: The Eyewitness guides had much more color. Some had color photos, some not at all. Cordovon had bigger type, but much less information, and poorer artwork. Both Fodor and Frommer have full size maps with their main book on Spain. If you want an additional map, go with Michelin 446 available at Amazon.com or the more detailed EuroAtlas Spain Portugal by American Map--about 300 pages, including some cities. The Lonely Planet book, comes with a colored map and many supplements. A separate map is an option, not a necessity.

Murder Most Medieval is the best anthology of detective stories I have ever read. What makes it unusual is the uniformly high quality of the stories it contains. Each story is superb, beautifully written and skillfully plotted. Yet each story embodies its own author's style. The stories also differ from each other in in content; they are about different periods in time, about different kinds of person, about different ways and walks of life. I rarely like anthologies, but this one is truly extraordinary. The authors deserve much praise; most of the stories make me want to rush out and find other works by those authors unfamiliar to me. The editor deserves much praise as well for putting together such a unified and excellent work.

John Cooper's Noble Street taught me more about America's race and poverty problems than any history book would ever dare try to. Noble Street is hysterically funny and frighteningly sad. Having read this book I am painfully aware of three things: American racism is uglier than our imaginations will allow us to believe, nobody can destroy a child like a parent, and no one can save a child like a parent. Mabel Scriven is a true American hero who proves that love and faith may not conquer racism and injustice, but they are definitely our best weapons against it. After reading Noble Street you will never again believe that poverty and familial disintegration solely result from the choices of their victims. John Cooper makes it clear that if people had this kind of choice, poverty would not exist in America.

I bought this at Schiphol Airport as I had nothing else to read ... doesn't sound much of a recommendation, does it? - but the small cover photo of two surveyors perched on a precarious butte, though simple, begged my attention. It succeeded - and grabbed!

This book is deceptively large, due to the small font, tight spacing and thin margins.
But it needs to be:- there is so much information crammed in here ... all that the layman should ever need to know about maps & mapmaking, surveyors & surveying and discoverers and their discoveries. My only complaint is that there are no colour illustrations, which would have amplified the descriptions greatly.

The narrative style of Pulitzer winner Mr.Wilford makes for easy, yet highly informative reading, taking us from early Chinese maps with their variable scale to modern digital mapping of the cosmos, all the while inserting interesting snippets of fact and conjecture. He draws heavily on other authors (showing the depth of his research), but only to illustrate and augment the narrative. I took longer than usual to read this book, simply because I wished to savour the experience.

Required reading for all who wish to know how we came to view the world as we see it now. ...

I agree with the other reviews about this book, but what I think is missing is emphasis on the more recent usages of maps. At first maps were created to fill in the gaps of undiscovered areas of the world. This is enough to excite the imagination and enthusiasm of anyone with a bent toward histroy. But, maps are now becoming devices for use by agencies and persons more interested in distribution of ideas, beliefs, and the like. Mapmakers have turned their efforts inward as well as outward, as in the case of the maping of Mars and the Moon, to meet the demands of Social Scientists in what we can only hope will be for the benefit of mankind as before. There will be hardly a book, be it historical, about art, or science that can be read after reading this one but that relevence will shine through for the benefit of one discipline or another. Rather than get too involved, however, I recemmend the book be read for the enjoyment of learning. It is well written and most informative.

"The Mapmakers" by John Noble Wilford (ISBN 0-375-40929-7) published by Knopf/Random House in August 2000 is an updated version of the 1981 text. The revisions reflect the radical changes in the process of map-making that we already take for granted. It is of interest to anyone who has ever paddled along a complex shoreline, looked at a map, and thought " I could be here, there or anywhere". Or to anyone who has spent a winter dreaming of a lake or river, seen only in the mind's eye aided by a "window" created by maps...

This book covers the history of cartography or map-making from ancient times to the present day . Drawing on various sources, it explores the "need" to create maps both as a concrete form of communication describing the physical location of objects and our relationship to them, as well as the philosophical beliefs which can make "maps lie" based on the ideological bias of the map-maker, and the prejudices of the user. It traces in chronological format the evolution of maps (beginning in pre-history judging from some cave paintings) , from the Near East and Egypt in the period from 2000BC, to Greek philosophical conceptions of the world, to the civil engineering and mapping of the Romans, to the laughably inaccurate and fabricated maps of the early Middle Ages reflecting Europe's inward turning in the pre-Renaissance period. The Age of Discovery and the slow progress in developing maps for coastal trade reaching further and further from home, the new ( and rediscovered) technologies that aided the "mapping of both the African route to Asia, as well as the nascent understanding of the New World coastline, are covered in great detail.

Time is given to the development of map projections, problems of determining latitude and longitude, early and modern navigational devices, as well as the individuals who pioneered new concepts in mapping, often with their achievements lying fallow for another 100 years or more. Problems of mapping even long settled areas like France are discussed in the context of new systems of measuring land, as well as the State's "need" to quantify it's holdings in a more scientific manner.

The author develops his concepts within the book like small streams joining to form a great river, over a great distance and time. The final third of the book is a torrent , as the various technologies are refined, demand for accurate maps increases, and communication becomes almost instant. In the discussion of the modern era there is a already a quaintness to the debates as to whether map making might ever be "automated", or derived from computerized data alone. In the final chapters the book moves beyond the mapping of coast lines, cities and Earth itself, to mapping projects of Mars and the Universe itself. Yet the author retains his premise that maps locate the human mind in space and time, and are as essential to humans as language itself. An interesting premise early in the book is that the creation of maps may have pre-dated the complexities of language. Certainly anyone who has ever had someone "draw them a map" when words and language were insufficient , might be intrigued by both the history and ideas contained in this book!