In the style of the Footprint Series the Thailand Handbook is an exhaustive source for even the most ambitious of travellers. It is the best source for practical information on hotels, transportation etc. It is not, however, as easy to use or as visually pleasing as many others. For those who want to have all the information with them on their trip, this will be the book that makes it into the luggage. Not for those who have trouble with fine print.

When I left for Thailand, I was uncertain that this book would provide the information I needed to navigate Thailand. I quickly discovered this book had a wealth of information. The book led me to many relatively undiscovered towns, hotels, and restaurants, all of which provided a truly rich traveling experience. As for its practicality, the book is lightwieght, durable, using small fonts to pack data in. When in the company of those carrying Lonely Planet, I found others consistently closing their books in favor of the recommendations in my Footprint guide.

Forget Insight, Travel Bug and even Lonely Planet. They are all too heavy to carry on your destination. Leave them behind next to the armchair. Real travellers will want any book from this series: They are small, written on thin tissue paper, and print tightly spaced. The Thail book, which I am updating every two years has so much practical information, from hotels and fax numbers, to suggested itineraries, and maps. Indispensible to the travelling traveller.

Fascinating, though too long. I recommend starting with Taylor's _Liberty Men and Great Proprietors_, which seems to have been less of a "labor of love."

The tale of James Fenimore Cooper's father on the New York frontier in the 1790s is an Horatio Alger story run amuck. Born to a poor Quaker farm family, William Cooper learned the craft of making and repairing wheels before reinventing himself as a land speculator, founder of Cooperstown, judge, congressman, patrician farmer and Federalist party powerhouse.

Alan Taylor's WILLIAM COOPER'S TOWN: POWER AND PERSUASION ON THE FRONTIER OF THE EARLY AMERICAN REPUBLIC is an outstanding biography of an archetypical American character, an extraordinary social history of life and politics on the late eighteenth-century frontier and a brilliant exercise in literary analysis.

This is a wonderful read. Taylor's lively prose, compelling narrative and original, fresh story sustained my interest from cover to cover. I never would have imagined such a dull title could cover such a marvelous book. WILLIAM COOPER'S TOWN certainly deserves the Pulitzer Prize it was awarded.

Taylor not only describes William Cooper's rise from rags to riches and even more meteoric fall but analyzes Cooper's political odyssey in America's frontier democratic workshop.

"As an ambitious man of great wealth but flawed gentility, Cooper became caught up in the great contest of postrevolutionary politics: whether power should belong to traditional gentlemen who styled themselves 'Fathers of the People' or to cruder democrats who acted out the new role of 'Friends of the People.'"

Taylor argues "Cooper faced a fundamental decision as he ventured into New York's contentious politics. Would he affiliate with the governor and the revolutionary politics of democratic assertion? Or would he endorse the traditional elitism championed by...Hamilton." "Brawny, ill educated, blunt spoken, and newly enriched," writes Taylor, "Cooper had more in common with George Clinton than with his aristocratic rivals." "For a rough-hewn, new man like Cooper, the democratic politics practiced by Clinton certainly offered an easier path to power. Yet, like Hamilton, Cooper wanted to escape his origins by winning acceptance into the genteel social circles where Clinton was anathema." Taylor concludes "Cooper's origins pulled him in one political direction, his longing in another."

James Fenimore Cooper's third novel, THE PIONEERS, is an ambivalent, fictionalized examination of his father's failure to measure up to the genteel stardards William Cooper set for himself and that his son James internalized. The father's longing became the son's demand.

Taylor analyzes the father-son relationship, strained by Williams decline before ever fully measuring up to the stardards he had set, and the son's fictionalized account of this relationship.

James Fenimore Cooper spent most of his adult life seeking the "natural aristocrat" his father wanted to be and compensating for his father's shortcomings. It is ironic that the person James Fenimore Cooper found to be the embodiment of the "natural aristocrat" his father had longed to be and that he had created in THE CRATER and his most famous character, Natty Bumppo, was the quintessential "Friend of the People"--Andrew Jackson.

I enjoyed this book immensely and give it my strongest recommendation!

This is the story of William Cooper, the founder of Cooperstown, New York, and of how his son, James Fenimore Cooper, used his father's life and experiences in his novels. Described in this way, this sounds like a narrow book, of interest mainly to specialists. But anyone interested in early America should read this book: it reveals truths not only about these two men but about the whole period. One of the key themes of the book is that the Revolution, which in a sense made William Cooper by pushing aside the old aristocracy of New York, also unmade him by creating an anti-aristocratic politics that ousted him and other Federalists in 1800. A fascinating minor detail: the city fathers, in their effort to maintain a proper tone in Cooperstown in the early 1800s, outlawed stick ball, the precursor of baseball.

Robert Taylor: The Man With the Perfect Face is a book that tells of Taylor's life, and it does a decent job. It published just four years after his death in 1969, and the author, Ms. Wayne, was able to meet him, so that lends credibility to her biography of this Hollywood heartthrob.

But the book doesn't go deep enough. It reads like a compilation of data, with little life added in. It paints Robert Taylor as almost a "goody two shoes."

Yet there was more to him, & I for one hope to read a book that uncovers and tells the truth about many other factions of his life. He WAS a good, solid family man. He had no shocking secrets. Yet he DID harbor demons, and this is the story Ms. Wayne should've told.

THE MAN WITH THE PERFECT FACE is the third release of the biography that Jane Ellen Wayne first released in 1973. The introduction is different and some of the pictures are different but it is the same book. Ms. Wayne showed a lot of respect and admiration for Mr. Taylor. Her book is very funny and at times very poignant. She quotes Mr. Taylor so often that at times it seems more like an autobiography. The book is never trashy or sleazy like some biographies. She doesn't waste time on rumor or heresay but only presents documented facts. She answers most of the questions that people have had about Mr. Taylor through the years and makes a point of showing his flaws and weaknesses as well as ALL of his well known assets. After reading the book one thinks of Mr. Taylor like a family member instead of a matinee idol. One gets a real insight into old Hollywood. I do not agree with Ms. Wayne's opinions of some of his films but other than that I applaud her for a job well done. The book is written with class and style.

I found this book to be really funny. I was laughing outloud at most of the antics of Phoebe and he would be rescuer. It was a good thing that my husband wan't home or he would have thought I was weird. It was so nice to see such a strong opinionated heroine. I admit that she was eventually subduded, but not before she pushed another woman into a pond at a party. That part had tears running down my face. This book was really enteraining and I highly recommend this to anyone who needs a good laugh.

Phoebe Hampton's car broke down on a highway, and in bad judgment accepts a rid from some very unsavoury types. Being typical Jayne Ann Krentz ( Jayne Taylor is one of her earlier names when she wrote series romance), the spunky heroine escapes them and stumbles to the mountain cabin of Harlan Garand. And he is hardly you knight in shining armour. He tells her to get back into the car and leave. She tries to make him understand her situation, but he really shows little sympathy. Not that he is a complete louse, he just thinks this is another attempt by his matchmaking Aunt Flo to get him married.
He grudgingly lets her spend the night still not believing her story, buts getting very exasperated with her insistence she escape from two men, until he later catches one trying to sneak around his cabin.

Once they return to town Harlan suddenly becomes very dominant and 'informs' Phoebe they will get married.

A wee bit dated, but still fun for JAK fans.

... this book needed a better editor, however, the stories included certainly make up for it. It was very obvious how talented Mitchell was. I only regret that parts of the stories were missing. I think this book is more for fans of Margaret Mitchell rather than fans of Gone With the Wind as the stories aren't nearly as sophisticated and deal with completely different subject matter.

Being a collector of GWTW memorabilia, I'm always anxious to find anything about its author and to see how her incredibly creative mind worked. To find the material in the manner in which Jane Eskridge and her beau did only adds to the fascination of the book. The history and pictures included are informative, and although some of Margaret's stories are incomplete, the talent exhibited for such a very young age only makes the reader shake his/her head in amazement. She considered herself a "made writer" instead of a "born writer" but was badly mistaken. All of us who have struggled through the years with writing wish we had been so blessed. Jane Eskridge did a remarkable job in editing this latest work of Margaret Mitchell.

I have been a fan of Gone With the Wind and Margarett Mitchell since I was a junior in high school, the same year the book celebrated its 50th anniversary. Since then I have re-read GWTW (many times) and anything else I have been able to get my hands on pertaining to GWTW and Margaret Mitchell and I have to say this book was a great find!

The actual writings are a bit hard to follow as there are bits and pieces - and in some cases whole chapters missing, but all and all it is a very nice glimpse of her talent and love of writing even at a very early age. What I was most impressed with were the pictures and background information provided about Ms. Mitchell's life and life in Atlanta at the time. The physical quality of the book is very nice as well - the pages are a slick heavy stock paper and the deckled eges were a very nice touch. I have no complaints and can only hope that somewhere in the recesses of another old building in Atlanta there are more such treasures to be found.

I bought this book when I was first setting up my aquarium. I looked at the aquarium guides offered on Amazon.com, and bought three at once: this book, along with "Dr. Axelrod's Mini-Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes" and "The Aquarium Owner's Guide" by Gina Sandford.

One of the first things I noticed about this book is that it shares a lot of the illustrations with the Sandford book, and indeed, they share the same publisher, so the same photos appear in the sections on setting up the aquarium, and the same diagrams are used in calculating how many fish for the size of the tank, etc. That didn't really bother me, but it's fair to say there is some duplication.

The orientation of this book is different from the Sandford book, and where Sandford deals with detailed information about individual fish, this book is oriented more towards the tank as a whole, especially in an aesthetic sense. It was helpful for me to really plan out my tank before setting it up, and to think about different tank environments. As a beginner I stuck with the basic community tank, but as I become more experienced I may take a page from this book and think about setting up a more specialized tank.

If you are looking for information about different kinds of fish, you won't find much more than the barebones here. The author describes lots of fish as "easy" or "fairly easy" when Sandford goes into more detail.

The illustrations are beautiful, and the book presents a lot of possible variations beyond the basic community tank.

This book does a great job of showing how to build different types of "themed" aquariums, be it a West African Floodplain Swamp or a Hawaiian Coral Reef. While these types of tanks are extremely beautiful in each of their own ways, I think that such projects are best left to more advanced aquarists and not beginners. I base this on a few reasons. For starters, many of the resources required to build these tanks are not common, and may require a lot of searching to scrounge up the necessary material (specific wood, substrate, plants, etc), basically a lot of things mentioned in this book I have never seen in any retail fish stores. Secondly, many of the themed tanks combine fish that are not suitable for a starting aquarist, who is not acclimated to the needs and wants of our fishy friends. I think
anyone who has maintained an aquarium and is reading this can recall mistakes that they made early on.
The "Complete Aquarium" does contain information on a community tank, which is fine for a beginner, but this occupies a small portion of the book comparatively.
Criticism aside, there are many good looking, full-color pictures and backgrounds on specific fish used in each tank project. There is also a chapter in the beginning of the book dedicated to the natural fish habitats and anatomy. If anything it is a nice book to have around if you ever want to undertake any of the "project" aquariums listed, or to read up on some of the natural habitats where aquarium fish come from.

This book has so much going for it! It is an interesting and invaluable resource, especially for those who are considering the aquarium hobby. What is so great & unique about this book is that it instructs the reader on how to re-create the natural environment of the type of fish he or she may be interested in keeping. There are step-by-step instructions on setting up each tank, all accompanied by full color photographs. The author includes information on what equipment works best in each tank, plant & rock selection, aquascaping, & fish species compatability. I purchased this book several years ago & still enjoy referring to it & reading it. The photos & information contained within are truly inspiring. The concept behind it, recreating the natural aquatic environments of such far-off places as Sumatra, Borneo, & Zaire is what truly makes this book special. Anyone who is interested in the aquarium hobby would benefit from this book. Those that are well on their way may find themselves reconsidering the choice of materials & fish contained in their tanks. This book benefits not only the aquarist, but the fish as well! Order this book if you have not done so, you won't be sorry.

I'm a young adult with Aspergers Syndrome and I find it silly how Kate McDonnel gives herself so much credit for helping Paul succede when during his most critical years of development she was a depressed drunk. Curious how she never mentions her possibly drinking during pregnancy to contributing to Paul's Autism and Kate's Cerebral Paulsey. If that wasn't bad enough she and her husband due to their cultural/gender prejudices encourage Kate to be confident, secure and independent while making Paul needy and dependent by forcing him to go to the "special kids camp" and making him feel even worse. The psycholigists at the hospital were right to see Paul as passive agressive because later on in a relationship he threatened to kill himself if his girlfriend left him. This is classic P/A behavior, overprotective, overbearing mothers combined with abusive often absent fathers. Right now I'm very active in what I call the "Alpha" community, Alpha meaning (autistic, asperger, add/adhd). That one lady was right how the only reason Paul got so far was due to himself and his friend Allen. I myself came from a dysfunctional family but I overcame it. What Jane and Paul McDonnel have done to Paul is child abuse of a severe magnitude, if anyone out there wants to learn more about High Functioning Autism or Aspergers, please do not buy this book and continue lining this sick, pathological couple's wallets.

I read this book for the first time in a psychology class I was taking. When my teacher first handed me the book, I looked at the cover a few times before realizing that this book was written by one of my childhood friends moms. I grew up around this family and at the time I was very unaware of what the situation was with Paul. I was incredibly impressed with Jane's ability to write this book. I know this had to be a very hard thing for her to start.

After reading this book, not only did I understand Paul's situation, but I had a great understanding of autism.

I was loaned a copy of this book along with dozens of other books once my son was diagnosed. I put this book at the bottom of the heap because I was sure I would "cure" him with dietary interventions etc. I was sure I didn't want to be depressed by what I was sure would be a sorrowful experience.

After a few months I was going through my desk and saw the book, felt ready to read it - McDonnell's book has eased my fears. My experiences with my son mirror some of hers - but mostly she gave me a human view or perhaps a humane view of autism.

I feel that after reading her book and Paul's afterword that I am more patient and can understand more of what it is like to be in my son's mind. I hope Paul continues to do well in life - I enjoyed being able to have a glimpse into his life.

The writing itself is wonderful prose - to be expected from an English professor I suppose - describes a real life situation without promising a cure. As a parent of a "High functioning" son, I found it to be a terrific escape from all the promises, and pressure in most books out there.

Heart warming, sensitive and honest. Get a hold of a copy! You will not regret it.

"Memoir writing shares with fiction writing the obligation to lift from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform an event, deliver wisdom," Vivian Gornick states in her foreword to Living to Tell the Tale, a point McDonnell (who teaches memoir writing classes) proves in what follows.

In the first few pages of the book we see she's a formidable talent in command of her subject: "It isn't enough just to live a life; we must be continually explaining it to ourselves, sorting, remembering, casting out the less important stuff, interpreting, sometimes justifying ourselves to ourselves."

The first half of the book offers strategies (such as "learning to remember") designed to help generate material, while the second half provides techniques to use in shaping your story, complete with examples from published and student memoirs.

Describing the rich content of photographs - in particular, the material gleaned from a photo from her own past - McDonnell notices, "Only after I had written and rewritten this passage did I discover that I was at least three selves within it."

She goes on to describe the value of other documents and provides insight into what to tell - and what not to tell - in writing memoir.

In the end, McDonnell lends an artistry to her understanding of the form that is nothing less than sensational.

Has anything drastic ever happened to you and you couldn't find a way to deal with it? Or you were so hurt from an experience the only way that you saw fit to overcome it was to write about it? That is what Jane Taylor McDonnell's book, Living to Tell the Tale is about. It is a book to help a writer overcome a bad experience from the past. This book is set up in a way that the reader will find all the proper and necessary steps in writing a book about memoirs easy.

Memory is the key part in writing about an experience. Her suggestions for trying to remember details include making lists of all the things that the writer can and cannot remember. Think of the little details that are important in the story. Another way to get the memory working for writing your book is to use pictures and legal documents such as wills, divorce papers, and receipts to help remember things from the past.

McDonnell uses language that is easy for the reader to comprehend, no matter what degree of education the reader may have. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is going to write a book or a paper about a past experience that was very painful.

During an expat job in the UK, I would wonder how the countryside there got many of the features you see there. This book did a very good job of explaining the origins of roads, walls, forests, woods, pastures, hedges, etc in the UK. I look forward to tracking down a few more of Rackham's books on other parts of the world.

It is nice addition to anybody aircraft library.