Thursday, September 29, 2016

Not For Parents New York City


Not For Parents New York City: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know (Lonely Planet Not for Parents) Paperback – October 1, 2011
Author: Lonely Planet ID: 1742208150

Age Range: 8 – 12 yearsSeries: Lonely Planet Not for ParentsPaperback: 96 pagesPublisher: Lonely Planet; 1 edition (October 1, 2011)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1742208150ISBN-13: 978-1742208152 Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.4 x 8.3 inches Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #138,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #86 in Books > Children’s Books > Geography & Cultures > Travel #330 in Books > Children’s Books > Geography & Cultures > Explore the World > United States #785 in Books > Children’s Books > Geography & Cultures > Multicultural Stories
This is a book of its time, as one would expect from the Lonely Planet people. It is colorful, geared toward (some) kids, and to some extent sacrifices content for presentation. Each subject gets a two-page spread filled with bright colors, lots of pictures (both photographs and animations), and pun-titled short blurbs. Topics include: the nickname "The Big Apple", ethnic foods, Central Park, Sesame Street, sports, Chinatown, Broadway, Coney Island, the Guggenheim, MoMA, the Brooklyn Bridge, subways, skyscrapers, inventions, Wall Street, 9/11, taxis, music, Warhol, Grand Central Station, etc. There are a total of 44 subjects as well as an index.

I applaud the effort, and I learned a couple of fun facts myself — an elephant-shaped hotel?! — but it’s difficult to know to whom this will appeal. There isn’t a lot of information given, just snippets and factoids, and no maps; there’s not much in the way of organization — topics are in random order (so the index will be useful); if you’re truly visiting the city, there’s not enough useful information, and if you’re interested in the history, there’s not nearly enough either, 4-6 blurbs in each spread, typically 1-3 sentences long. My twelve-year old nephew flipped through it and scanned a few things, but wasn’t particularly interested or impressed. And maybe I’m getting old and crotchet-y too, but I’m frankly tired of the "not-for-parents" selling point, which is reiterated in the introduction, stating it’s "definitely not for parents" and will show you a New York that "your parents probably don’t even know about". Really? Tiresome attitude considering it’s most likely the parents (or at least adults) who will buy the book and pay for the trip to New York.
I grew up within sight of the NYC skyline. I could see the tops of the tallest buildings in the City from my attic window and if I rode my bike a few blocks, I would be on the top of the Palisades, looking at the Hudson and beyond. To coin a phrase, I love New York! My mother used to work in NYC and since we didn’t have a car growing up, going shopping meant taking the "Orange and Black" bus to Port Authority and walking everywhere (my mother didn’t believe in spending 15 cents EACH for the subway). So, as I walked, I watched and learned. By the time I was in high school, I would take dates to NYC (yup, I even took a girl to see Sammy Davis in Golden Boy) So I was not only comfortable with NYC, I grew to really enjoy all that it had to offer. Music, art, street theatre and shopping. What a great place! And any book that hopes to educate a kid in the ways of the City – without talking down to him or her or speaking over the kid’s head is OK in my world.

My measure of usefulness for guide books is did I learn something I didn’t know. Once in a great while, I come across a gem and the book gets a thumbs up. For this book – one aimed at a younger and perhaps less experienced explorer – I backed off a bit on that requirement. Also, I backed off because they specifically said it wasn’t really a guide book. Rather, it was a book designed to tell the reader about NYC by relating fascinating stories about the culture, people, art and history.

I think authors nailed it pretty well – hitting a lot of the high points from interesting background on the skyscrapers, to the art scene (without getting too deep), throwing in the Zoos, Central Park’s amazing history and my favorite, FOOD!

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Utah Atlas & Gazetteer


Utah Atlas & Gazetteer (6th Edition) Paperback
Author: DeLorme ID: 0899332552

About the Author

DeLorme has been directly responsible for many of the major technological advances made in the mapping industry over the past 30 years.

Series: Utah Atlas & GazetteerPaperback: 64 pagesPublisher: DeLorme Publishing Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0899332552ISBN-13: 978-0899332550 Product Dimensions: 0.2 x 11 x 15.5 inches Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #35,351 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #16 in Books > Travel > United States > West > Mountain #23 in Books > Reference > Atlases & Maps > Atlases & Gazetteers #46 in Books > Reference > Atlases & Maps > United States

I have been a huge fan of DeLorme State Atlas and Gazetteer books for 20+ years. I will never plan a trip without one. I find them absolutely indispensable and have them with me on any car trip, period. I do however have a preference for the older style of mapping used on the earlier editions. I used to own an old Utah Atlas and Gazetteer and much preferred it to the new one. The enhanced topo information and colorations are neat but the actual road mappings have a new style that are annoying to me. It is much harder with longer dashed lines for unimproved roads to determine whether the road intersects another one. Anyone who does backroading in Utah knows that when a road is near another on the map does not mean they intersect. One road could be 1000 feet below another and both will dead-end. It is not fun to plan a trip not being sure whether your road goes through. Although I still like the maps, I feel the need to have another topo source for backroads. I wish DeLorme would update their Atlas and Gazeteers in the old format rather than the ‘slick’ newer style.

I recently went to buy several new Delorme Atlases (for a few different states) because my old ones are getting a bit long in the tooth. Well, I left the store without them. I’m glad I didn’t order them here because they would have been sent right back. The newest versions are simply zoomed-in highway/road maps. I can get the same info at the gas station for a dollar and have 70 less pages of nothing to carry around. There are no elevation contours, half the details are gone, and the format is generally ‘dumbed down.’ These maps used to show all sorts of interesting things for those who ventured off the main roads. The new ones show major roads, pretty colors, and generally which Interstate takes you to the national forests. If you’re cruising the Interstates and are looking for the triple latte of highway maps, you’re set. Otherwise… worthless.

Sorry, but Delorme REALLY blew it. They need to rehire the cartographers and fire the graphic artists.

I have several of these of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Duplicates of each… one in the house for planning and study, one in the truck. Occasionally I rotate them so they don’t wear out too quickly. I gave Delorme top billing in my Desert Emergency Survival Basics book, but you don’t need a desert and you don’t need an emergency to need a delorme atlas. Any rural area in the United States is probably covered by them.
If you spend a lot of time in the back country these maps are the best alternative, from my point of view. It’s true the maps don’t have labels on the back country cow trails another reviewer complained of. The fact is, neither do the roads. But it’s often helpful when you come to the fork in a dirt two-track and they both wander off a few degrees off North, to be able to crack open the Delorme and discover the one on the left plays out just over that hill over there at a windmill. There’s no excuse for needing labels these days. A compass and Delorme will allow you to locate yourself in most instances.
However, even the back woods purist ought to own a GPS. I’ve been wandering around the back woods longer than most readers of this have been alive. I rarely get lost, but I frequently don’t know exactly where I am. Occasionally my old TrailBlazer saved me a lot of walking to get back to the truck. Once it saved my life in a snowstorm, I imagine.
For motor traveling you’ll cover too much ground to allow the 7.5 minute maps to help much. You pass from one map to the next too quickly. When you are afoot a couple of them become useful. Meanwhile, I use Delorme as one of the ways to keep track of my wanderings. I recommend them wherever you are. And a GPS, as well.
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Monday, March 14, 2016

Into Thin Air Audible – Abridged


Into Thin Air Audible – Abridged dged
Author: Jon Krakauer ID: B0000544YH

Into Thin Air is the definitive, personal account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of Eiger Dreams and Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside magazine, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas to report on the growing commercialization of the planet’s highest mountain. Everest has always been a dangerous mountain. From the first British expeditions in the 1920s until 1996, one climber has died for ever 4 who have attained the summit. This shocking death toll has not put a damper on the burgeoning business of guided ascents, however, in which amateur alpinists with alarmingly disparate skills are ushered up the mountain for a $65,000 fee. To ascend into the thin, frigid air above 26,000 feet – the cruising altitude of a commercial jetliner – is an inherently irrational act. The environment is unimaginably harsh, the margin for error miniscule. Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people – including himself – to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concern of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer’s frank eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.
Done.
Audible Audio EditionListening Length: 5 hours and 59 minutesProgram Type: AudiobookVersion: AbridgedPublisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell AudioAudible.com Release Date: December 15, 1999Language: EnglishID: B0000544YH Best Sellers Rank: #93 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Mountaineering #131 in Books > Audible Audiobooks > Nonfiction > Sports & Recreation #337 in Books > Travel > Travel Writing
By and large, the negative reviews posted here have little to do with the quality of this book and almost everything to do with the presumed character of the writer, Jon Krakauer. Similarly, those who dislike Krakauer’s Into the Wild tend to focus their judgment of the book’s worth on their own feelings regarding the essay’s subject, Christopher McCandless, the young man who traveled the Western United States and Mexico for two years before perishing in Alaska. I read Krakauer differently. I am not interested in Krakauer’s liberal politics, his emotional instability, and variable maturity. I am not interested in whether he portrays the absolute truth in his account of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster for the simple fact that I don’t believe the truth can be told. Writing is a very poor substitute for a frostbitten finger or a hypoxic head. All we have is Krakauer’s writing, so let’s look at what he does as a writer.

Krakauer is a sensationalist journalist, and since he reports on dangerous and near-death experiences regularly, he really can’t help being grandiose and spectacular. The subject of his writing demands that he ratchet up the emotional power of his style and word choice. And let’s be honest–don’t we, as readers, demand it of him as well? Don’t we want a voyeuristic and graphic account, where the size, the shape, and the smell of death seem to lift from the pages? Who wants to read about a mountain climbing disaster sans the emotion and the ego it takes to put one’s self unnecessarily into such perilous situations?
Having never understood why people climb mountains, and after seeing Beck Weathers on
television last year, I bought INTO THIN AIR in order to gain more insight. Krakauer delivered.

Have some time on your hands, because once you begin reading Jon’s story depicting the turn of
events throughout his journey on Everest in the Spring of ’96, you won’t be able to stop reading until you’ve read the last word in his book. This account of summitting Everest is a page turner even though the outcome is old news. It will leave you wanting to know more about other attempts made
on Everest, both failed and successful.

For those who don’t understand why on earth anyone would want to do something as dangerous as
climbing "Into Thin Air" on rock and ice … this book answers that curiosity. Because Jon introduces his readers to the backgrounds and personalities of the main characters in his book, we can better comprehend the different reasons people spend thousands of dollars and two or more months of their lives in "hell" on a mountain – freezing and injured – ‘just to get to the top’. We learn through Krakauer why they continue their ascent even though the conditions are pure torture and more life threatening with each step; why they don’t give it up once they’ve lost feeling in their extremities, separated their ribs, lost their vision, can no longer breathe due to oxygen depleted air, why they don’t turn back even when they see the dead who’ve attempted to reach the summit on prior expeditions. You’ll understand because of Krakauer’s talent as a writer … his ability to replay his emotions, his thoughts, his experiences, and his opinions through writing.

Into Thin Air abridged Audiobook Jon Krakauer Download Into Thin Air audiobook abridged Into Thin Air Audiobook Into the Wild and Into Thin Air Download Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer eMusic Download Into Thin Air by the high priced expeditions that take novices and experts alike into the most Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer 2007 Abridged Play Into Thin Air Audio Cassette Abridged Audiobook Into Thin Air Abridged Audiobook Intrinsically irrational is how Jon Krakauer characterizes the compulsion to climb Mount Everest in his audiobook Into Thin Air

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