Books for/about - travel

Publisher: Harvest Books
Authors: Audrey Niffenegger

ISBN: 015602943X
List Price: $14.00
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 4
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Summary: Brilliantly constructed tragicomedy
What if you could go back in time and meet your future husband or wife as a child? How would that change your relationship? The Time Traveler's Wife is more of a love story than generally suits my taste in fiction, and that is why I cannot give it five stars. However, if a beautifully constructed, evocatively written tale of enduring love couched within a highly paradoxical (yet central) premise of time travel is your cup of tea, then you cannot get better than this. The characters, emotions, and family dynamics ring true to life; the story is seamlessly developed through multiple timelines; and the writing is adept enough to make me feel like I was eavesdropping on the devoted married couple. (Maybe that is what made me a little uncomfortable with the "love story" aspect. I will admit there were a few occasions where I just wanted to skip pages because I did not want to know that level of detail about these people. Clare's sexual awakening--regretably told from Henry's point of view--is one example.) Flawlessly constructed, at times almost painfully evocative, but always highly original, this novel offers much to consider about the enduring nature of love.

Summary: I Love This Book!!!
This is an excellent book. It kept me consumed with it the entire time I was reading it. Like nothing else I have ever read. Love it!

Summary: Save it for a long weekend....
This is a truly original novel, both fascinating and endearing...though he travels through time, Henry is otherwise a fairly average Joe. However, I do recommend reading this book in as few sittings as possible. Every couple of pages the story leaps backward or forward through time, and if you leave the book sitting for too long, you may have to re-read certain portions to get back up to speed (I began dog-earing passages that seemed particularly important). I work full-time and am a law student in the evenings, so it took me a month or longer to get through the novel....I wish I had saved it for a long weekend, as I fear I may have missed some of the finer details...but I thoroughly enjoyed it, nonetheless.

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The Places in Between

Publisher: Harvest Books
Authors: Rory Stewart

ISBN: 0156031566
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 3
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Summary: Interesting...to a point
The parts about the book where the author describes his encounters with Afghanis are the best parts of the book. It is a western perspective, of course, but given that there are few accounts from anyone on present-day Afghanistan, his point of view is more progressive and enlightened than I expected and few outsiders have seen the country the way the author has seen it. Of course, that is what the book is primarily about and on that level it is very good. However, I could not help but be distracted by my growing dislike for this author as the book went on. It's his point of view and his memoirs so I think it is relevant for this review. The journey to replicate Emperor Babur's original journey by foot, across mountain passes and desert, in the middle of winter in a war-torn, devastated country seems really self-indulgent and frankly, extremely foolish. He took a sick dog with him; Book dedication aside, the author has the audacity to be 'disappointed' by the hospitality he received. As a guest he created an obligation for others to put him up each night in their poor villages, feed him and the dog what very little they had and/or accompany him on these walking jaunts in the middle of snowstorms. Some of the things he did are absolutely confounding and while the whole story was fascinating, he is quite annoying.

Summary: A Classic Of A Different Sort
Travel/adventure books are read for many reasons; excitement, curiosity, the desire to be along on an adventure one can never make for oneself. But rarely, rarely do you expect to be deeply moved. Rory Stewart's ability (and simple courage) to get on the ground in Afganistan and literally put his life at risk day after day sets him apart from most writers of this genre. What takes this book to a whole different level though is his ability to allow us to connect and gain some glimmering of understanding for people drastically different from us. The problem many readers will have with this book is the adventure Stewart goes through is very grim. I don't refer here to the horrible weather conditions he experiences in crossing the Afghan mountains in the middle of winter, but to the people and social conditions he experiences on his trek. Misery and suffering are everywhere. Violence is casual,arbitrary, and sudden. Ethnic, tribal, and village societies are complex. Common, everyday interactions are intricate and frequently leaden with potential danger. Tragedy and physical destruction abound. His description of poverty stricken villagers destroying an archaelogical site of immense importance in order to sell artifacts at ridiculously low prices to distant antique dealers is heart breaking. Stewart survives with his wits and luck, barely. He recounts human greatness and depravity, simple life-saving kindness and sadistic cruelty. This is the best writing I have come across on Afghanistan. I can't recall another travel/adventure type book which has affected me as deeply. You are to be pitied if you can't be moved by this book. Yes, Stewart was crazy to do this, but the book justifies him. This is a classic but not one with the ingredients for widespread popularity. I will put this alongside Newby's "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush", the two books reflecting the tragedy and comedy of the human condition in Afganistan and in all of us.

Summary: Simply Amazing
This book opened my eyes to a world that I couldn't being to have understood before reading it. It's beatifully written and insightful without being heavy-handed. It will change your understanding of the world you live in. Highly recommended.

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	Into the Wild Publisher: Anchor Authors: Jon Krakauer
ISBN: 0385486804 List Price: $12.95 Amazon Price: $10.36 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: BUY THIS BOOK!!! Don't think about it or read any further. Just buy it. It's well worth 10 bucks and the very few hours it takes to read it. This is the best outdoors/adventure book I've ever read. If you are at all adventurous (or wish you were) you will enjoy the author's search for the root of what motivates people like McCandless. Krakauer's tale is not simply an account of Chris McCandless's life. It was never intended to be. In fact the author spells this out very clearly in his Introduction. Another reviewer accuses Krakauer of using mostly unrelated material to fill up pages. Unfortunately, this reviewer does not really understand the purpose of these other stories. The other people Krakauer profiles are as much a part of what Krakauer is exploring as is McCandless's story. Krakauer is delving into the McCandless/Ruess personality type as much as he is delving into the life of Chris McCandless. He does a wonderful job juxtaposing the journeys and trials of McCanless with relevant similar or dissimilar characters including the well known Everett Ruess to the lesser know Carl McCunn. The result is a masterful work about a "personality type" that more often than not leads itself to tragic unintended ends. Summary: Should be read by anyone ready to travel to the edge. . . The author effectively reconstructs the tragic story of Chris McCandless naive adventure into the wilderness of Alaska. McCandless is in search of a life's purpose. The book explores the when, how and possibly why McCandless died in an extensive fashion. The scenario is common among young men and women who set out on similar quests for understanding in unforgiving rural and urban wildernesses. Most live to tell about it. Some, like McCandless, do not. The book is a little long for its subject matter, but should be read by all those considering finding themself traveling to the edge to look for meaning in there life (I'll keep looking for mine here is Cabo--it warmer here!). I just finished a great fictional adventure tale set in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California "Across the High Lonesome" highly recommended! Summary: Quick, Interesting read. Worth the time. This book did read like a long magazine article. But that's not a bad thing. Ever read a magazine article and wish it went into more depth? Here you go. At around 200 pages, this is a pretty quick read. Any longer would have been too long. The story revolves Chris McCandless' travels and offers some insight into his thought process. After finishing the book my only two thoughts were: Either A) Chris McCandless marched to the beat of a completely different drummer and maybe that's OK and we should respect that, or B) he was mentally ill. I think probably some of both. After looking at the facts presented in this book, I am almost certain that he meant to walk out of the wilderness alive. He was stupid and unbelievably unprepared for his trek. A 10lb bag of rice and a poor quality map? Was he joking? It's not hard to see why many people feel he got what he deserved. But is doesn't seem he got what he intended. He was arrogant, immmature, foolhardy and determined.... a pretty dangerous mixture as we have seen. Good read overall. I especially liked the chapter about the authors own experience similar to Chris McCandless'. Pick it up here or at the library. Summary:

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Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Publisher: Viking Adult
Authors: Elizabeth Gilbert

ISBN: 0670034711
List Price: $24.95
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: I have recommended this book to so many friends!
Elizabeth Gilbert is a poet. I read her book practically non-stop for three days, laughing out loud, crying (crying even more now that I loaned my only copy out!), and feeling so inspired by her courage and resilience, I cashed in all my frequent flier miles (that I was saving for my when-I-meet-Mr.-Right honeymoon) and signed up for surf lessons in Bali - something I've always dreamed about. What made this book all the more personal to me was that for weeks after reading it, I looked for Indian prayer beads to help me meditate and sleep at night. I could only find plastic ones, and finally gave up. About a month later, I had the opportunity to house-sit a small orchard in Kauai with a friend. Driving up to the house on the site, my friend said, "I forgot to tell you, there is a really cool tree on the site - it's a blue marble tree. It's from India, and it's said that if you hug the tree, it takes away your worries, and these little blue marble-shaped fruits are the tears it cries for you... also," she said, "the seeds from the fruits are what they use to make Indian prayer beads." It's funny, how things are all connected in strange and magical ways. But then, I think Gilbert knows all about that sort of thing. :)

Summary: My Comments on Eat, Pray, Love
I really enjoyed this book. It was well written, entertaining and funny. I think the author could have provided the reader with a little more information about the reason for her divorce (since it is the main reason she proceeds on this journey)-she mainly talks about sitting in the bathroom crying, but we don't know why she thinks so poorly of her husband or why she decides to leave him.

It is a great travel adventure and makes you want to travel to Italy, Indonesia and India.

Summary: 4.5 stars
Good read, however I gave this four stars since I thought the second section on India was just average, even dull - there was just too much navel gazing and self-pity for my taste. Loved the other two sections. The author has an endearing sense of humor and a resilient attitude to life. She also manages to bring out the complexity of the characters, the woman in Indonesia she tries to help is a particularly memorable episode in the book. This is also a great travel book, made me feel like I was in those places she was talking about.

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The Restaurant Managers Handbook: How to Set Up, Operate, and Manage a Financially Successful Food Service Operation

Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Company (FL)
Authors: Douglas Robert Brown

ISBN: 0910627096
List Price: $79.95
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: 2004 Writers Notes Book Award Winner
The Restaurant Manager's Handbook is a no-nonsense, coverall manual for the food establishment industry. It's the essence of a successful handbook-no jokes, parables, and preachy lectures, just the facts. If you delve into the heal-thy index for fault, you'll abruptly bump into a page number for an answer, and if you're currently running a restaurant and afraid to appear inadequate, you can load the handy CD-ROM and pretend you're checking your e-mail while figur-ing out the monthly audit procedures or why the beer is flat. I'm not kidding. The next time your favorite kitchen runs short of the daily special or closes down for a lack of permit, serve them a copy of this great reference book.

Summary: Large Print and Weak Content
I recieved this book anxiously, but soon became quickly disappointed with its extreme lack of content. It could have just as easily been published in 30 pages of novel sized text, because that's about all that's contained between it's large vinyl bound covers. There are less expensive books that tell you just as little as this one.

Summary: If you know the restaurant business, this book is not for u
This book has a lot of information, however it does not go into great detail for those who are familiar with the principals listed inside but are looking to expand on those ideas. If you are an experienced restaurant manager or owner, this book is a waste of money.

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	Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a lot of bad motels, a moving van, Emily Post, ... kids, and enough coffee to kill an elephant Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Authors: Robert Sullivan
ISBN: 1582345279 List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $15.72 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 4 Reviews: Summary: Sullivan always finds the story beneath the story This guy is an excellent writer. He could write about rats and it would be interesting. Wait, he DID write about rats and it was interesting. "Cross Country" is about Sullivan, like most of his books, but he somehow dodges the navel-gazing traps of so many so-called memoirists out there. Summary: Memories... I loved this book. Took me back to long car trips to see the grandparents in Illinois, fighting with my stupid sister, having to pee every half hour, eating junk we never got at home... The writing is just fine, regardless of what the previous reviewer says. Read it! Summary: Long descriptions, short ride I was looking forward to this book as I love driving and I loved this author's last book, Rats. The author packs his family into a rented car and drives across the continent while musing about the history of American roadtrips, starting with Louis and Clark and ending with his own. Unfortunately, it's quite a rambling book, and it would be hard to imagine anyone but a well-known writer being able to pass this off to a publisher. Frankly, most travel blogs are better written than this. Still, there's a lot of interesting trivia that he spouts while driving his family (and readers) batty with his incessent ramblings about spilt coffee and other things too minor to warrent writing a book about. I'll grant him this: don't think I'll ever look at a Holiday Inn or coffee lid the same way again. Summary:

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Fast Food Nation

Publisher: Harper Perennial
Authors: Eric Schlosser

ISBN: 0060838582
List Price: $14.95
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: Entertaining Investigative Bestseller About the Industry
When I bought this bestseller I thought it was mainly about McDonalds since it has a pictures of some McDonalds fries on the book cover, but this is not a book just about McDonald's per se, but about the industry as a whole including economics, food supplies, and the labor problems and working conditions at the restaurants and at the suppliers. The author Eric Schlosser is a journalist, an excellent writer, and does a good job at keeping our attention. Each chapter is entertaining, almost a page-turner, and he follows the 270 page main text with 100 pages of notes and comments.

There are some things that are a bit unfair about the book. I think the author goes into many issues in great detail that are only marginally related to fast food. The author uses Colorado as a case study and for example the decline of small ranches in the western plains and the economics of beef producing is only marginally tied to fast food as is the issue of mad cow disease. Similarly the author takes us step by step through a cattle slaughter house and describes possible injuries to workers, and that has almost no relationship to fast food - in my opinion - but is a general problem of the meat industry.

Having said that, what the author does with great clarity is to describe fast food operations and how the food is produced. He presents a brief history of the national chains, and discusses (not in this order) franchising, SBA financing, profit margins on things like French fries, the structure of the corporations, marketing to children, television adds aimed at children, market penetration in schools and sports, influencing - believe it or not - the textbooks in the classroom, salaries, teen workers, intentional employer induced employee turnover, migrant labor, bussing in of illegal aliens, ghettoes of illegal workers on the high plains, federal and state government financial subsidies of worker "training", crime and violence in the workplace, child labor, automation and training, standardization, economics of food production, animal wastes, political lobbying and donations to politicians, the minimum wage, and the production problems of potatoes, beef, and chicken. Of course he discusses calories and fat content. There are many interesting passages along with lots of facts and figures on the fast food business. It is all a very worthwhile read and an eye opener with some very dramatic parts.

One of the things that sticks out for myself is the relationship between the franchiser and the franchisee. I had always been under the impression that there was a fair degree of security in the purchase of a national fast food franchise. But apparently, and according to the book, there is a high degree of financial risk involved, many hours of long hard work for the franchisee, and surprisingly a high percentage go bankrupt or lose their franchises. So if you are considering such an undertaking, do your research before entering a franchise contract even with a major national name brand, and do so with some caution. It is not so rosy and your fate is tied to the fate and often the whims of the franchiser. Also, some brand names cannot provide the owner with a living wage with single fast food outlet.

Great book

Summary: MMMmm, fattening..
Before the movie Super-Size Me, there was Fast Food Nation. Great read. Now, originally I thoughgt this was going to be the book that turned me off from fast food for good, with disgusting descriptions like chicken mcnuggets were really pigeon mcnuggets, but that is not the case. This book looks at the history of fast food from a road side start-up into the multi-billion dollar fat factory it has become. It looks at how they get the food to you and how they financially make it possible to serve an entire meal for $3.99. My favorite lesson from this book - chicken mcnuggets are fried in beef stock oil. Hence why I can never make chicken nuggets at home that taste so full of greasy goodness!

***1/2

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Summary: Fast Food : never again
I found some of the information in here shocking. He also covers the history of institutions that are shaping the fast food industry today and includes detailed examples to make solid points. Overall a good read for the curious fast food consumer.
What I really enjoyed, was reading about the meat industry, the demise of family farms and the demise of union influence. Reading about the way the employess are treated in the meat industry was very disturbing to say the least. The story of "hank" and his family ranch, was heartbreaking. I enjoyed reading about the hard-working guys who originally started some of these fast-food restaurants many years ago. I think this book was a very good read!

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A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander)

Publisher: Delacorte Press
Authors: Diana Gabaldon

ISBN: 0385324162
List Price: $28.00
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: Another page turner
Diana writes a marvelous book, each page turns itself.

I've read all of the 6 books in the sequence, one right after the other. Since I'm in Iraq, the only thing we have to do when not working is read, and I went through all 6 books in less than 4 months.

It was depressing when they were finished. I'm sure I'll read them again before passing them along to others!

Summary: Don't let it end...
Ms. Gabaldon simply cannot let Jamie and Claire age and fade away. When I read any of the Outlander books I forget where I am and have to blink a few times when I have to put the book down.

The Jamie and Claire love story continues to captivate and far surpasses the scenes with Bree & Roger. At least Bree has become more tolerable and Roger is an interesting guy who has earned Jamie's respect...no small feat. I love the historical detail and the intelligence with which the author tells the story. After the last book I will just start to read the series over again.

Summary: Breath of Snow and Ashes worth the wait.
Loved being able to spend time with Jamie and Claire after such a seemingly long time without them. The dialogue between those two is my favorite reason for reading this wonderful series, particularly when Jamie is speaking as I love his dialect. Brianna and Roger are getting more interesting and the tender scenes with Roger and little Jemmy are ones most parents can relate to. Only negative is Claire's need to tell us every last detail of the medicinal concoctions she's dreaming up and the descriptions of the wounds or illnesses. Obviously beautifully researched but perhaps less is more.

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