Syracuse, a great city and my hometown, has an interesting history, but unfortunately this books decides to spend a few pages on it. This book seems like it's intended for people who are looking to visit the city, so it has the depth of a AAA travel guide. It does get rather in depth to what the people of Syracuse look like, which is pretty stupid, since people from Syracuse look pretty much the same as people in other cities. It does show some landmarks of the city, but does little to explain their reason for being. To top it off, most of the photos in this book will be dated in 5 years - the list of companies in the end already is. It got 2 stars because it's worth flipping through at a bookstore or library, but not worth purchasing.

You have a wealth available to you that is truly priceless. The National Parks of America hold in trust for all Americans over 80.7 million acres of land. Over 50 times more that all of what Ted Turner owns and far beyond Bill Gates financial ability to buy. All of this, the best America has to offer, is yours for the taking, or visiting . To know what is yours is the purpose of the Guide to National Parks. Each of these eight guides have a smattering of color photos, a meager scattering of full-color trail maps and a brief, but good, highlight of each park's most impressive features. Guide to National Parks: Southeast Region covers 75 national parks in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina Tennessee, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

What this guide cries out for is maps, maps and more maps. What you get is one master map and eight color maps. That's it... that all you get to help you navigate 75 national parks - pathetic.

The key page is a two-page Southeast Region Map but there is nothing linking you from this map to where in the book the park is described. The master map doesn't have any numbers or references. To complicate matters more there is no index, so you can't reference the parks name and go to the page. Rather you return to the table of contents and search there for the park. Sixty eight parks have no map at all. For example; Cumberland Island National Seashore (36,415 acres) no map, or Biscayne National Park (172,924 acres) no map - you get the idea. This is a serious short coming that if corrected would truly enhance the value and usefulness of this book. Conditionally Recommend.

This book offers a survey of the Jersey coastal region, as the subtitle states, from Sandy Hook to Cape May. Much of what's here is information that can be found on the various shore websites. But, oddly enough, there are no Internet pages listed in the book; all the links are snail mail or telephone. It's easy to understand that some sites are transient and not worth commiting to paper, but official state or municipality web sites should be mentioned.

The presentation of the material is very uneven; Cape May and Atlantic City each get an entire chapter, as do Monmouth County ("The Inland Shore") and The Pine Barrens. The latter two are interesting, of course, but really "off topic" of the stated intention of the book. The author spends a lot of time discussing individual casinos in AC in great detail, but skims over stuff like, say, the Wildwood Boardwalk (which gets only a few measley pages in comparison.) And of course, a few things are missing entirely...such as West Wildwood.

A lot of pages are wasted on sections like "How not to die in the sun" (my paraphrase), which is common sense material, and again, off topic. And in general, the author takes a very patronizing tone with his audience. Every time a sand dune is mentioned, there is a discussion about how you shouldn't walk on them, pick the grass, yada yada. All this is important and useful...the first time. After that, it makes you feel like you wasted money. Also, the author has serious class issues that pop up in discussions of towns like Deal and Rumson. The basic message presented is something along the lines of "ahh...you don't want to go there...it's too classy." Puh-Lease.

In short, the book reads like bad propaganda aimed at grade-schoolers.

On the plus side, there are some interesting historical notes, such as the importance of various Shore towns in WWII development and defense, the history of Cape May, and some famous fires and storms. But no pictures, though. I suppose if you've never been to the Jersey shore, and you're scared of your own shadow, this book may be useful. Otherwise, save your money: buy a map, surf the web. It's not that hard.

A so-so reference book. The maps can be inaccurate when it comes to location of ramps and roads. The text is good but the updated version varies little from the orginal. A good book for the price, but there are better ones out there, ie. Clark's fishing guide.

While this book was okay, I was kind of disappointed. It seems to just be rehashed articles from the author's previous two books, Roadside NJ and Jersey Diners, without all of the great pictures that originally accompanied them. I would recommend buying one of those books, which are still published by Rutgers University Press, rather than this one.

A nice collection of maps and general info, however, this title doesn't supply much more information than the NH Gazetteer. Can't speak as specifically to the VT and ME sections. Little info on when to fish, just general descriptions of how to get there and what may or may not be stocked. Really just a surface survey.

This book takes you season by season and beautifully describes the plants that you will see in the woods, meadows, and by the stream or pond. It made me want to get out and walk on my own land upstate and see these plants for myself. The down side to this book is despite the fact that New England and New York are beautiful in every season the photos in this book don't represent them well. The photos are in such soft focus (some out of focus)that I wouldn't recognise them in real life using the pictures. Sometimes an attempt to make a photo look artistic results in pictures that don't communicate.

This is a very general guide to neighborhoods in and around Manhattan. The descriptions are fairly good you'll need to do a lot more research once you;ve found an area that looks good. This book is probably best for those who know little about living in NY.

This "so-called" guide book was not helpful at all. I suggest the author does a little more research before he puts a book out there to publish. Especially if it's suppose to be a "guide."

And using this book as a reference guide wasted a good part of it..

I honestly did not find anything helpful with this book. It was a true disappointment. I went to the places mentioned in the book that were "supposedly" dog friendly..And more than half were not, which was embarassing for me and my dog..Reference books are suppose to give facts not misinformation..I want my money back!!