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Book reviews for "Wurman,_Richard_Saul" sorted by average review score:
Access New Orleans (Access Guides)
Published in Paperback by HarperResource (1999)
Authors: Constance Snow, Richard Saul Wurman, and Kenneth Snow
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Extremely handy guide and terrific maps
Just returned today from a week-long trip to New Orleans (my first). This book was an absolutely indispensable resource. Must have checked it 5-10 times per day. The best maps (by neighborhood) I've found in a travel guide, and the concise, informative notes on restaurants, parks and attractions were very helpful.

Best plan is to combine this book with another (like Delahanty's Ultimate New Orleans) that contains more history and culture information. Taken together, you've got everything you need.

But even by itself the Access New Orleans book is extremely useful. I found the information in the book to be spot on in every case, and it's so easy to use it makes you want to refer to it more...

This books ROCKS!
I've taken two 2-week trips to the Crescent City and have planned 60-70% of the activities around advice the first edition of this book gives. It's neither stodgy nor preachy, and doesn't cater exclusively to upscale or downscale crowds, either -- so no matter your mood/budget, you'll find something good to do or eat in the city when you plan with this book. Also, it gets deep into the stuff the natives like: my best anecdote is Sid-Mar's, this crawfish shack we eat at that's WAY off the beaten path, having read the recommondation from the book. While we were staying at a B&B, the proprietor asked us where we were eating one of the nights we were staying there. When we answered "Sid-Mar's," she looked at us cross-eyed and said "How on earth did you figure out to go there? It took us two years to find that place, and we go there all the time now. Ain't it great?" The book is concise and pithy when the situation calls for it, is hip yet down-to-earth enough that you can trust it. Can't say anything else, except that I'm upgrading to the fourth edition so I can plan this year's return to New Orleans.

great organization
I love the ACCESS travel guides because they fit my travel needs -- I like to explore. Unlike traditional guides that are arranged alphabetically or categorically (a section for restaurants, a section for hotels, etc.), these are arranged geographically. Why is this important? Suppose you are staying in the French Quarter and don't have a car...going to visit the (albeit very interesting) sights on the north shore of Lake Pontchatrain may not be feasible. This books helps you find the sights that are near where you are staying, or where you are shopping, or where you are eating. And, the book is not only organized in a useful way, but it is also quite complete. Granted, not every hole-in-the-wall bar on Bourbon Street is listed, but all the major ones are. This book is certainly a necessary and sufficient resource for a tourist's quick trip to New Orleans.

Access London (5th Ed)
Published in Paperback by Access Pr (1900)
Author: Richard Saul Wurman
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Inaccurate and Out of Date
Though this series embodies a clever concept, both the current edition (the 7th) and the previous one contain many inaccuracies, especially the inclusion of places that have changed dramatically or that are simply no longer there. While the format is convenient for having at hand while walking around the city, I cannot recommend using this book for planning. Moreover, the concept and presentation around which this series is based has been significantly improved upon by the DK-Publishing Eyewitness Travel Guides series.

If you intend to walk around London and want an accurate guide that orients you and points out the essential and interesting sites, the Eyewitness Travel Guides series is a much better bet. If you are really looking for a street-by-street, house-by-house listing of everything there is, the Access series is useful--but be sure to check everything that matters to you with another source before departing to make sure it really is there!

The best single series of guides
Richard Saul Wurman transformed the world of guidebooks, beginning more that 20 years ago with Access Los Angeles. An architect and graphic artist, Wurman breaks cities into neighborhoods. Maps, the intelligent use of color and good information combine to make this series the best single set of guidebooks on the market.

The London guide is typical; and excellent. Another plus of the Access guides is the excellent insider reviews of hotels and restaurants. Also, best bets by locals often take you off the beaten path to places the locals frequent. I have yet to be disappointed.

This is the one you will tuck in your pocket or stash in your shoulderpack as you explore London.

Best for the rest
Any travel guide to London is going to describe the main attractions: The Knopf guide gives the best background and cultural information, the DK guide gives the best maps and "move about town" information. Where the Access guide shows its genius is information about hotels, shops, and restaurants. This is a book to use to plan before going, and slip into your pocket when heading out to the London streets. The hotel descriptions are excellent (in this book I found the Fielding hotel in Covent Garden, everything the book said and a great place). This is the book to study what kind of shopping to do and where the shops are (have a teapot shaped like the Tower of London now). Found a great Turkish restaurnat near the Strand from this book. This is the book that fills in the spaces between the big attractions with the stuff that is fun. It is laid out geographically, so if you are walking from Trafalgar to the British Museum, a look at this book will give excellent, useful, short descriptions of shops and restaurants between the two, so you can take not the fastest path, but the most fun.

Emily Post on Etiquette
Published in Paperback by HarperCollins (paper) (1995)
Authors: Elizabeth L. Post and Richard Saul Wurman
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good
Mrs. Post gives good unbiased advice on a slew of situations. It's to the point and practical.

Tokyo Access
Published in Paperback by Hungry Minds, Inc (1984)
Author: Richard Saul Wurman
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Completely accessing Tokyo
Just prior to the Japanese Bubble Economy, this guide book began to grace the shelves of bookshops here in Tokyo.As a guide book for visitors, the maps were rather too vague for newcomers to the city.At the time, in a review of newly released guidebboks to the city, it did not stack up particularly well in comparison to others, but this guide book, being bilingual, should really be seen as a guide for residents. Although nearly 15 years old, many of the comments are still pertinent, if at times a little opinionated. A good guidebook SHOULD carry some opinion, though. The layout is very stylish, and there is a wonderful emphasis on architecture.Tokyo is not a major tourist destination, so that's probably why it has not been reprinted, but in light of the fact that many people come to live and work in Tokyo for a few years, an updated version of this guide for the 21st Century would be appropriate. I think this is a sorely underrated guide, and although it is not without faults, it should be seen as a guide for residents. You guys at ACCESS, do something about resurrecting this guide!

Access New York City (Access Guides)
Published in Paperback by Access Pr (1996)
Author: Richard Saul Wurman
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A Frenchman's New York
I found this book to be an excellent guide for New York because it focuses on places to go, not so much the history of the place like other guidebooks. I don't know who comes to New York just for the history, anyway! (There's Paris for that.)But for restaurants, hotels, and even some clubs ACCESS was better than even my hotel concierge. Although there was no way to try everything mentioned in the book, every place I did go to, or restaurant I dined at, was current and good even though sometimes the chef was different. Maybe even more details on the downtown scene would be good, instead of pages on boring Upper West Side, etc., but overall this is a tres bon map to a good time to what is still the greatest city in the world. And that's coming from a Frenchman...vive le New York!

The perfect guide book for your first or 100th visit.
The Access New York City Guide is divided into sections for each region in the city, with separate maps for each area and detailing, in color code, destinations and places of interest in each area, including hotels, restaurants,(both rated for quality and expense), and shopping. It is the easiest New York guide book I have used, because I am able to find where I want to go, see the easiest way to get there, and know what's there when I do. The guide contains maps for subway and bus travel and airport access. I prefer this area-by-area format because I can see easily all the attractions in each part of the city. This has a distinct advantage over guides which group by topic; for example, I might find a hotel that suits my needs, and by checking the area on the map, I can find a restaurant on the same page, in my price range, within walking distance, and know what's cooking for dinner. Other guides would have you searching another chapter. This is the latest of many editions of the Access New York City guide, and is just as enjoyable from your armchair at home as it is from your tourbus. Also included are such fun tidbits as a list of movies filmed in the city, books written about New York, and little-known facts about the histories of the most famous landmarks. Altogether this guide and its logical format would make your hundredth trip to the city as exciting as your first.

Not just for tourists
I lucked into buying this guide when I first moved to New York seven years ago, and it served as a perfect introduction to the city. Even in a city that changes as rapidly as New York, I continued to find this book useful for several years after I bought it, and I still frequent some of the off-the-beaten-path restaurants that the author recommends. (But I'm not telling you the names; you'll have to discover them for yourself!)

As much as I liked this book, I can see how it might not be ideal for everyone. For one thing, unlike a lot of guidebooks, it doesn't go out of its way to prioritize the different sites and to dictate what you ought to see as a visitor. Unless the book has changed since the edition I bought, you won't find any walking tours or suggested itineraries. But if you have enough time and are willing to give serendipity a chance, the best way to experience in New York is on foot, exploring neighborhood by neighborhood, with this book in hand. Whether you're interested in architecture, shopping, arts, or history, you will find this book an excellent travel companion.

Access Paris
Published in Paperback by Access Pr (18 June, 2002)
Author: Richard Saul Wurman
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Uggghhh! Frustrating and difficult to use guide
We brought this guide along as the one of two that we chose to lug all the way across the Atlantic. One was this one, the other was Frommers France (much heftier than this one). After two days of trying to make this one work we finally gave up and carried the Frommers around everywhere because we could never find restaurants or enough information in the Access guide. It was really frustrating to stand at the Louvre, look across the street at a massive church and find absolutely no entry in the access guide. It is very difficult to find a restaurant by type of cuisine (French, Alpine, Chinese) and many of the hours of museums and restaurants where incorrect in the guide, causing us a lot of lost time in futile trips. Definitely opt for the Frommers Paris or Frommers France books if you have a choice. They were great

My favorite Paris guidebook
This is the book my wife and I always (and still) carry around with us when strolling in Paris (discreetly tucked into an overcoat pocket, of course). I think the best way to use it is to skim it repeatedly before going, and hi-liting or placing post-its on places that sound worth visiting. Then, once at the given locale, Access tells you what else is interesting in that neighborhood.

I've heard criticisms of this book to the effect that it doesn't categorize restaurants, hotels, and the like. It isn't that type of guide. What it does best is truly point out the best of each neighborhood, and provide historical background as well.

One other note: previous editions have far better maps than the newest edition. I beg Access to return to the beautiful detailed maps and abandon the more generic maps in the current edition.

Great book, but not for the budget traveler
Paris Access is a must-have guide book for Paris -- a real insider's view of the city. Also fun for armchair travelers with its great graphic design, drawings, and logos. There are no photographs, that is left to your memory or imagination.

Access Florence & Venice : Plus Tuscany and the Veneto
Published in Paperback by Access Pr (05 December, 2000)
Author: Richard Saul Wurman
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This one will go with me....

This guide is a keeper, if only for the great maps! Arranged by neighborhood, I can see myself needing them when I'm in Italy. Also, I like the "day-trips" section for each city. Other city guides don't have this information, and it's really helpful for that day out. The guide is a bit long, so you have to make sure that your day trip bag is large enough for it.

What this guide does lack is depth - historical, artistic depth. If you are traveling in Venice or Florence, it is just essential that you know about what you're seeing. That's part of why we go to these amazing historic sites. I would suggest traveling with a Blue Guide for each city that you visit. They are a great packing size, and they offer so much more descriptive information. They don't offer too much practical information, so that's why I'll be taking the Access Guide with me too.

Great handy travel guide with terrific layout
This is a great book if you only want to pack 1 travel guide on your vacation. All points of interest are listed in the same order you would find them as you walk through each neighborhood, and they're clearly labeled on the neighborhood maps. The writing is very engaging and candid, offering just enough art historical background to get a better understanding of points of interest, while restaurant and hotel reviews offer the "inside scoop." Contrary to the previous reviewer, I liked the "personal touch" of having residents list their favorite spots - who cares if they've been paid or not - their suggestions are still good. Color-coding also makes for very handy reference. I loved this book and highly recommend it.

the only travel guide we actually pack
This guide series is one of the easiest to use and especially if you have never travelled to the destination before. Broken both into regions or neighborhoods and color coded to distinguish restaurants, hotels, shopping and points of interest. This is very useful when one finds themselves hungry in an unfamilair part of town. The reviews are very good, with great recomendations. You will never want to use another travel guide after this series.

Information Architects
Published in Paperback by Watson-Guptill Pubns (1997)
Authors: Richard Saul Wurman, Graphis Press Corp, and Peter Bradford
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WASTE OF PAPER!
I was very disapointed when I read this book. I am a professional graphic designer and very interested in information design. This book is a paradox. A book about information design wrapped in ugly design. It is too big, too selfabsorbed and seems to be oldfashioned too. A group og designerfriend padding eathother on the shoulders. It is not woth buying, however the book: "Information Anxiety by the same author is great, but has ugly confusing design too, -I dont understand why!

ART versus communication (ART wins)
Saul Wurman is one of these artistic types who use closely spaced white on black text. The book is therefore an example of bad design and extremely difficult to read. His examples might be good, but it is hard work to read about them. The book is therefore NOT a design guide for information. However, the pictures look nice, so you may want to leave the book around if you have no other means of impressing visitors.

such dispare reviews
Well, what can you expect of a book? And what can be expected of this book? In it I found a collection of some good responses (from press, to brochures, websites, interactive CDs, etc) to complex communicational problems, even when not all of them satisfy my aesthetic expectations, each work must be understood as "for who is it made", "in what media it will reproduce" and "what wishes to communicate". This book isn't a hip catalogue of what's cool, trendy or fashionable. The only short come of the book is that the comments are "just that" in most of the examples.

Access California Wine Country
Published in Paperback by Access Pr (1994)
Author: Richard Saul Wurman
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Inaccurate and outdated
I got this guide after skimming it pretty extensively at a bookstore. I was impressed by the content, the nice user friendly format, and the graphics quality.

When I actually tried to use the information in the guide, however, I was deeply disappointed and angered, because (1) much of the information is hugely outdated even though the guide claims to be updated - for example, a restaurant that has been closed since 2001 is still highlighted in the guide in several places - tells you how dated the "best of" opinions written by local Napa luminaries are... and (2) the author and publisher didn't bother to verify that phone numbers were accurate, so I wound up calling wrong numbers, dead numbers, numbers for business offices of wineries only to find that I should have called the tasting room number, which these guys didn't bother to include...

in short, don't buy this book! judge this book by its "cover" and you will be fooled and disappointed.

Helpful for planning but a little outdated!
This guide is very comprehensive-- great to help plan a trip to Wine Country. It gave us the scoop on activities, wineries, hotels, restaurants, etc. The maps are also good. The disappointment came when we tried to find dinner our first night in wine country. We literally went to 3 restaurants in a row that were recommended by the guide but were no longer in business. We wasted a lot of time driving around to find these places. In the end, we did find our 4th choice restaurant in town, and it was an excellent dinner. Moral of the story-- great guide, but can't hurt to call ahead!

Good guide.
Just returned from a trip to Sonoma and Mendocino counties. This book was an excellent guide and I really liked the maps detailing where everything was. Of course things change and places close or move - we only had one "surprise," when we went to Hidden Cellars and learned they'd been bought by Parducci and were now in that tasting room instead.

Otherwise, this book is terrific to have along. I recommend looking at websites on the internet before your trip - just type "Suffolk County wineries" (or whatever) in a search, and start studying! If a winery you want to visit is in the book, definitely read what they have to say. Just be aware that other wineries that are good (Gary Farrell) or great (the tiny but superb Nalle Winery) are not included in the book, and are really worth seeing. Use the guide to augment your research, but don't rely solely on this - or any other one - guide to give you complete info on a trip to the wine country.

Access Cape Cod Martha's Vineyard & Nantucket (Access Guides)
Published in Paperback by HarperCollins (paper) (1996)
Author: Richard Saul Wurman
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Pricey but mostly handy
Fairly decent guide book, but somewhat overpriced for a paperback. The inclusion of logos from some establishments makes me wonder if their reviews have been skewed by a monetary inducement to the author... Also, I can't believe a Cape Cod guide book that doesn't include a reference to Cuffy's factory store!

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