I generally love Lonely Planet guides, but this one is factually inaccurate in many of its addresses, locations, etc. The introductory sections, however, on history, language, and such are as good as they get in a travel guide.

Disregard Amazon's reader reviews that precede this one. The earlier comments aren't based on this book at all, but were simply ported to this page from the previous edition's. The well-deserved complaints about "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou," Ninth Edition, do not apply to "Hong Kong and Macau," 10th Edition. Note that "Guangzhou" was dropped from the title.

I never go on vacation somewhere without first buying the Lonely Planet travel book on the destination. So it's been with some frustration that for the last three years, the Hong Kong book has been among the weakest of the series, at least among those I've bought. But the long-awaited update has some badly needed changes and updates.

The previous edition came out in January 1999, several months after Lonely Planet had released another, entirely different Hong Kong book titled simply "Hong Kong." The "Hong Kong" book was pretty skimpy, including a mere 10 pages or so on Macau. But it did have some helpful color maps at the back of the book.

When "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou" came out, it included some badly needed material on Macau, as well as the Chinese border cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai. Unfortunately, the book also lumped in about 90 pages on Guangzhou, and another eight-page supplement on "Hong Kong Film." For 99-plus percent of the people who are visiting the Hong Kong area, these pages were only dead weight. Virtually nobody visiting Hong Kong plans to visit Guangzhou, and why should they? It's a long trip, and by the book's own admission, there's nothing there for tourists anyway.

Even worse, this book was out of date from the moment it hit the streets. Both the "Hong Kong" and "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou" books gave the location of the Hong Kong Museum of History as Kowloon Park. But the museum had already moved when I visited Hong Kong in November 1998, when the "Hong Kong" book had just came out. And so I was more than a little surprised that "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou" repeated the same mistake in its January 1999 printing!

But what *really* annoyed me was that "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou" didn't have the easy-to-read, easy-to-find color maps of the earlier "Hong Kong" book. Instead, the larger book had ugly, hard-to-read black-and-white maps scattered willy-nilly throughout.

This has changed under the book's all-new author, Steve Fallon. (Damian Harper does not get credit in this edition, despite what Amazon says.) Fallon has dropped the Guangzhou section and other useless padding, making the book a lot more portable. The Museum of History's current address is in there now. And the color maps from the slim "Hong Kong" book also are in the back of the new "Hong Kong and Macau." The new book still uses the hard-to-read, hard-to-find B&W maps for the border towns and Macau's islands, but that's a quibble I can live with. Other general information throughout also seems to be current.

I've been looking over the new book for several days now, and overall, it seems that while the worst parts disappeared, the best stuff carried over to the new edition. For instance, I was glad to see that the map of Shenzhen still has the names of landmarks and hotels in Chinese, as well as English. Showing the Shenzhen taxi drivers the Chinese name of where you want to go is usually the only way for non-Chinese-speaking tourists to communicate their intended destination.

While the new edition is a great improvement, it was at least a year overdue. Three years is a long time to have to wait for an update when so much has changed here, given the change in sovereignty in both Hong Kong and Macau. The ninth edition came out just a couple of months after the Hong Kong handover, and *before* the Macau handover, for crying out loud.

I don't know if I could have honestly recommended the ninth edition of "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou," but I certainly can do so for the 10th edition of "Hong Kong and Macau." Even if you don't plan on visiting here in the immediate future, it's an interesting read.

I found this guide useful in all the usual practical ways (accomodation, eating, getting around, etc), and I visited the few tourist sites thanks to it, and I LOVED the hikes in the unspoilt New Territories countryside, but I have to say I was grateful for the way the guide alerted me to the unexpected side of Hong Kong - the huge, unruly, pushy-rude crowds, the unpleasant actions and attitudes of so many people, the frankly dreary-quality of much of the over-concreted urban areas (so different from Hong Kong's famous harbour setting, which only looks good from a ferry boat or a hilltop). The comments on why this all was so - the long, sad history of the Chinese refugee movement, pouring into Hong Kong when it was British, the subsequent (also sad) insecurity that resulted, helped me appreciate more the "effervesence" of the city which didn't seem so exhilherating after a few days, but, if anything, more fascinating.

It also led me to some fascinating books on the subject. I highly recommend Jan Morris's book Hong Kong, which gives great and moving detail on the whole refugee origins of modern Hong Kong and made me realise what an intense human story there lies behind the tourist bureau image of the place (there is much info on the interesting history on British days, too). The book also led me to some fascinating hill walks in the unspoilt north-east of the New Territories (Plover Cove - a world away from the jackhammers, noise and spitting).

Bo Yang's book The Ugly Chinaman gave me a Chinese account of where all this insecurity and unhappiness and rude behaviour comes from - the centuries of stagnation that went on inside China (he calls the process "the stagnat soy-vat barrel"), the insistance on imitating the past rather than looking forward - there's a lot more to China's story than Confucious and the poetry of Li Po, he insists (I thought Bo Yang's book much more helpful than the Culture Shock guide because it explains to western readers the Chinese actions that actually cause you culture shock; the Culture Shock books tend to just tell you to say "everything's great".)

Timothy Mo's novel, The Monkey King is a great read and a great description of many Hong Kong Chinese attitudes and actions I encountered on my trip - it centers around a fascinating, eccentric Chinese family living in 1950's Hong Kong but I was amazed at how much was still relevant.

Paul Theroux's novel, Kowloon Tong, set at the Handover, captures well the sleazy side of Hong Kong money-making and greed, focusing (democratically!) on British, Chinese and American characters living in the city. Really fine description here, and dark irony worthy of Saul Bellow and Gore Vidal.

And Austin Coates' classic Hong Kong book, Myself a Mandarin, will enrich any westerner's trip (it's the story of a British magistrate in 50's Hong Kong, and I found his stories of dealing with the Chinese, the clash of cultures, the insights he gained, fascinating, hilarious and, once again, oddly relevant and accurate for today's Hong Kong).

This is Karen Harper's third outing in her Elizabeth I mystery series. Verily forsooth, "The Twylight Tower" doesn't live up to its immediate predecessor, "The Tidal Poole." Despite concerns about some of Harper's historical inaccuracies, I think the main problem with the novel was a surfeit of history. Harper has reached an historical point where Elizabeth's life and activities are too well-documented to make her a credible amateur detective. In the previous novels, Elizabeth was still the despised and ignored half-sister. While the biographical outline of her early life is known, an author like Harper could exercise wide creative latitude as to how Princess Elizabeth spent her time.

This is not the case in "The Twylight Tower." As the series proceeds chronologically, Elizabeth is now Queen of England. Harper doesn't seem able to devise a plausible mystery within the confines of the better known historical details of Elizabeth's summer at Windsor in 1560. For instance, the significance of her romance with Robert Dudley is much studied, as are the circumstances of the death his wife, Amy Robsart; the machinations of the Spanish ambassador; and the political fortunes of Robert Cecil, the Lord Chancellor.

In addition, Harper seems to be losing interest in the minor characters who comprise the Privy Plot Council. This time around Meg is portrayed as a sniveling liar, Burleigh a drunk, and Ned is barely seen at all. Too bad. These characters helped make the previous books interesting.

This series is becoming tiresome. Other reviewers have commented on the soap opera romance aspect of this novel, so I'd like to direct my criticism to Harper's knowledge of history, or lack thereof, and to her style.

First, her history. The first novel in the series was bad enough, with not the slightest mention that Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth's mother, was herself a Butler of Ormond! The princess's erstwhile murderer would, therefore, have been a cousin, and letting the reader in on their relationship would have deepened and enriched the story.

But that's a mere quibble. On page 238 of THE TWYLIGHT TOWER, Elizabeth says, in reference to the founding of the Order of the Garter, "I'll tell you one thing about King Edward III, who began this nearly six centuries ago. . ."

As a student of the Fourteenth Century, I gritted my teeth on reading so crass a mistake. The Garter's founding is sightly uncertain, but the Order was founded (indeed, by Edward III) some time between 1344 and 1348. Now, simple subtraction from 1560 gives us a difference of little more than 200 years, not 600. I thought the error might be a strange typo--perhaps originally "200" mistakenly typed as "600" and then editorially spelled out. But it is Harper's mistake. Two pages later Robert Dudley (perhaps addled by lust!) refers to the founding as occurring "hundreds of years ago."

At that point I felt like throwing an ink bottle at Karen Harper. No one so ignorant of history should be writing a novel purporting to be "historical."

As for style, Harper is too often guilty of indulging in the "forsooth school" of dialogue (Josephine Tey's term), yet is maddeningly inconsistent in her use of historically correct grammar. Since I believe that she is an English teacher, she is surprisingly ignorant of extant older grammatical forms. Here lapses are manifold, and include using the indicative rather than the subjunctive mode ("if it was" rather than "if it were") and "like" instead of "such as" in a phrase containing a verb.

Picky, perhaps, but such Americanisms are quite destructive of the novel's verisimiliatude. Are her characters Elizabethans--or modern Americans speaking U.S. English?

My recommendation is to avoid these novels...

Elizabeth is newly Queen and England is rocked by intrigue. The French and Spanish conspire to push their candidates for Elizabeth's husband--or her replacement. In England itself, the powerful jockey for their place in Elizabeth's court. Yet England is lately recovered from the civil wars that showed that any man with power could seize the crown. Can Elizabeth stand against all?

In THE TWYLIGHT TOWER, Karen Harper presents Elizabeth with an additional problem--murder. While at first the deaths appear accidental, they soon resolve to a major threat to Elizabeth herself. Elizabeth's privy council wait for her orders to swing into action (this is the third of Harper's Elizabeth mysteries after all so they know how to sidekick), but Elizabeth is too busy being enamored of Lord Robert to have much time for crime solving.

That, in a nutshell is the problem with the book. The protagonist of a mystery is too busy to solve the mystery until the very end. Like most mystery readers, I prefer to see the protagonist struggle, seeking resolution in a number of ways. Waiting through two hundred pages for the protagonist to get around to it isn't what I want.

I enjoyed THE TWYLIGHT TOWER and I think the concept of Elizabeth as detective is delightful. As a mystery, I found it merely average, however.

This manual is a waste of your money. You can buy both the actual book and the movie on Amazon for less than $25 combined, and they're both worth every penny....

I first read "To Kill a Mockingbird" when I was 13 -- I had no trouble understanding it then and, not surprisingly, I still don't. Truth be told, while it more than deserves to be held as a "classic" (usually meaning insipid and torturous, though not the case here), Lee's novel is pretty straightforward.

You should have no problem determining how well Atticus Finch made his case, or how African-Americans were treated in 1935, or the history of the town that is so well-described it becomes like another character in the book.

The only reason to buy a book about understanding "To Kill a Mockingbird" is because you are a teacher who likes to beat the meaning of such things into the ground, or a student who has unfortunately been forced or advised to purchase an unnecessary guide to one of the most enjoyably down-to-earth books ever written.

As a participant in this year's "One Book, One Chicago", I have read the "REAL DEAL", which is the book selected for the program's inaugural year. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and also felt I had no problems understanding the critical issues illustrated in the book. I then made the forunate decision to attend a lecture by Ms. Durst Johnson at the Chicago Public Library; a lecture based primarily on information contained in her commentary. My time was not wasted: for as much as I had indeed GRASPED about the novel, there were still many more interesting things to learn that I had not even considered. While some may consider it "beating a subject to death" (or some such nonsense), your reading experience will definitely be enhanced by referring to, but not relying on, this book's contents.

If you don't already speak/read Russian don't waste your money. This has no Russian to English pronunciations, yet it has them for English to Russian (in other words if you are Russian you will be able to pronounce the word in English, otherwise you are SOL).

The English to Russian section is not useful at all unless you are already familiar with the Russian alphabet and it's pronunciations.

I own at least 8 Collins Gem Dictionaries for various languages. This product is a fine dictionary. I have always been pleased with Collins Gem language products, and their pocket dictionaries are indeed very mobile and durable. About the lack of Russian pronunciation - I'm not an expert in Russian, and of course there are exceptions and dipthongs that one must learn - but Russian IS A PHONETIC LANGUAGE! Why would you need a pronunciation guide? Learn the sounds of the Alphabet and you'll be able to pronounce it fine! It's not a difficult alphabet - try learning arabic and you'll appreciate the Cyrillic alphabet. Indeed!

Living abroad and starved for English language books drove me to read Masquerade, one of the few available options. What a book. You want to say that it's a must-read on its own terms, but you can't- the best you can do is that it's an okay-read. The prose is stilted and repetitive, and while Dailey is decent at using this repetition to build up suspense, she doesn't take it anywhere, so it just kind of fizzles. Furthermore, the love story set in the middle may provide a parallel, but it has no place in her novel- she either couldn't come up with enough plot or couldn't devise a way to throw in a third love scene between the two main characters. I'm new to the romance genre, but if this is among the best of what it has to offer, I'll be searching elsewhere for good reading soon. Masquerade is a nice try, but the plot isn't compelling, and the steamy scenes just aren't steamy enough. All in all, read it if you have to, but try to avoid it.

Remy Jardin is in France as a masquerade ball when she stumbles upon a conversation that she is not to hear. Realizing she is in danger she turns to leave- being discovered by one of the participants in the conversation. He catches up with her. They argue. He hits her, knocking her to the ground where she hits her head on the tree. She is discovered by a couple of tourist. They get her to the hospital where she is discovered to have amnesia. Remembering nothing. An article about her identity is placed in the newspaper w/her picture. Her family sees it and sends someone after her to bring her back to the US, back home-Cole Buchanan, president of the family shipping company, and former lover/boyfriend of Remy. While Remy is busy trying to regain her memory with different flash backs- she stumbles on an insurance scam dealing with a company oil tanker that was lost at sea recently. She starts asking questions that someone is feeling threatened by- enough to beat her up again and tell her to stop being nosy. Did that have to do with the conversation that she over-heard in France? Is Cole involved and is that why they had broken off their relationship? The read is ok. At one time the maid tells Remy how the family got their fortune in the beginning having to do with a love affair between a rich cajun debutante and a yankee ship owner that was disapproved of by her family, ending in death, grief, loss of love, and the birth of an illegitimate son left with a fortune. I enjoyed that story more than the actual one. Read it for yourself and see what you think.

In the cassette version of Masquerade, the relationship between Remy and her lover doesn't really factor in to most of the story, and is left open, allowing the book to become more of a mystery novel than a romance.

Synopsis: Waking from a head injury, Remy Jardin finds herself in the middle of a life she can't remember. A member of one of the wealthiest families in New Orleans, the lover of a man her family despises, and the guardian of a dark secret that someone is willing to kill for.

A little misleading , marks are mostly for silver and gold antiques, not very many porcelain marks.

This book is very handy to take with you to garage sales, swap meets and antique sales. Very well organized and easy to use.

I didn't like this book at all. I thought it said very little about masculinity and African-American men. Harper is practically the best-known black gay male scholar out there and yet almost every book about gay black men that I've ever read was better than this one. This book is buried in tedious literary criticism. When I think of this book, only two words come to mind, "poor" and "disappointment."

Using a wide array of material, Professor Harper has written one of the most useful and compelling recent works examining the intersections of gender and race within the arena of popular culture.

Good concept, but the book is very out of date. Many of the area's finest courses are left out and the information isn't all that useful. There are no pictures and the greens fee data is meaningless. You can do much better by planning your trip using online resources.

On our recent trip to Arizona we ran across this teriffic book. What a comprehensive guide to all the courses we were interested in playing. Mr. Harper made our golfing experience hassle free. We want to recommed this book for anyone wanting to play golf in Arizona !!!!

I'd like to review the "contents" of this book, but I can't see them, even with a magnifying glass!

The subtitle, faintly visible on the picture of the book, but not mentioned in Amazon's text, is, "The best-selling Greek ***mini*** dictionary" (asterisks added). "(M)ini," in this instance, is a misnomer. Micro-mini would be more apt.

Amazon does list the dimensions of this book, but how many of us actually read that information while deciding if a book interests us? Like me, I'm sure you check the price, readers' reviews, availability and whether it's hardcover or paperback.

Even though I'm not able to read this educational book, I have learned one thing: Never again will I shop at Amazon.com without searching for the dimensions of its books, first.

(I've given this book one star, only because Amazon will not accept this review with none.)

This dictionary may be small, BUT the information contained therin, is not small at all. For a mini dic, you can find most of the information that you want, and it gives usage, and there is a small grammar guide. if you want a pocket dic, this is a winner!

NNNNNNOOOOOOO! Please do NOT buy this book. This is just ... awast of paper. This book has nothing of the Olsens and It is a craft book over price and made of [poor quality] paper with MKA's name on it so younger fans spend there hard earned money on this. Also, I mean, when you make it,its really fun.But think of it,after you finsh making it, theres nothing left.And I shopped at amazon.com and I think this is the most dissapointing book I have bought so far.

But it doesn't have to many things having to do with the twins. It is a great little book for making your own Valentine cards but it has nothing to do with Mary-Kate and Ashley. I thought there would pictures of them on the cards themselves and a little saying that has to do with Valentine and/or twins. Its great but it kind of leaves the twins out of the book except the cover. It comes with great art materials. If it had the twins in it more than this would be worth 5 stars.

I think that this was really cool! Even though it did not have much to do with Mary-kate and Ashley, it was cool. I do not think it was a ripoff.