This book covers the state reasonably well and will help you make good decisions about where to go and what to avoid. I used it during a recent three-week trip.

It's not superlative, so normally I wouldn't post. After reading the first two reviews, however, I almost didn't buy the book, so I wanted to persuade others that the author's frequent political intrusions need not push you away. His opinions do slant the narrative and make some of the sidebars less attractive, but I found them easy to ignore.

Given the absence of other guidebooks, the solid coverage of the food/lodging/activities stuff makes this a valuable resource. It's also consistent with Moon's emphasis on hidden places and the great outdoors. An added bonus is that the author has a talent for capturing the feel of a place; this doesn't suffer much because of his political views.

Those who've come to trust Moon publications shouldn't hesitate.

After reading some of the reviews on this book, I decided to reread The Idaho Handbook. The book that I read was quite a bit different than some of the reviews.

While the author's position on land-use is well documented throughout the book, I would hardly classify those views as extreme. Quite a few of the Idahoans that I talked with in the two weeks that I spent in Idaho last summer expressed real concerns regarding land-use throughout the state.

When I am looking for a tour book, I want something more than the AAA travel books. The book contains a significant amount of the history of the state. The book also contains all of the usuals for a tour book - an objective analysis of the lodging and food options in many small towns. This is very important as some parts of the state, the options are somewhat limited.

In addition, he covers the major (and many of the minor) attractions in the state. A number of these attractions were not found in other books.

I enjoy the Moon Guides a whole lot more than other guides. Their strength is that that they are written by people who spend a lot of time travelling throughout the state rather than the tourist areas. For example, Deke Castleman's Nevada Handbook dedicated 10-15% of the book on the Las Vegas area.

Idaho may not be everyone's idea of a "hot potato" destination. But if you want a clever, concise guide to a wonderful state -- this is it. Check out "Rural Bar Etiquette" on p. 78 for a sample of Root's humor.

This is not your average dry guide (Although Root's sense of humor is indeed dry!) You will find instead detailed descriptions and opinions(some very funny) which can help you decide the places that might be of special interest to you. It is one of the best guide books I have ever read.

This book lacks everything you would expect from a useful guidebook. The trail maps are completely useless in the field. Compounding the complete uselessness of this book are the vague and poorly written hike descriptions. Every hike sounds as boring as the next (even though they traverse some stunning scenery), almost as if this book was researched/written completely at a desk - instead of out in the field. I wonder if Mr. Stone even set foot on any of these trails. Don't waste your time / money.

This book may lack high quality info. for the experienced outdoorsman but for the common Missoula area Native this book supplies the perfect amount of pertinent information. Where it lacks in detail it excells in simple english.

It's a same with all the great books published today, that occasionally a book slide through that should have never made it to the press.

This book is a wonderful record of the way things were accomplished in everyday living when electricity and cars were beginning to make their way into homes. I found it enlightening, entertaining, and educating. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in rural life, history, and short story telling. It is a wonderful book to read to kids and to elderly people.

Much of the content of the 1993 edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Mongolia is badly outdated. Things have changed a lot (and for the better, in terms of availability of goods and services) since the author was here. He can't be faulted for that. But he can be faulted for having written a lot that is unkind, unfair, and uninformed. Two researchers were in Mongolia in the summer of 1996, doing research for an updated edition of this book. If you need a guide to Mongolia, try to get their updated edition

Lonely Planet guides are targeted at your average traveller interested in the usual attractions. Happily enough for them, their guides satisfy a good 80% of visitors to a said country. More intrepid travellers would be found wanting.

Sadly enough, the average visitor to Mongolia is likely to be more adventurous than those to other destinations. Herein lies the failure of applying the same formulaic approach when writing a guide on Mongolia. The tone of the book assumes that the reader has to be dragged kicking and screaming into this "God-forsaken" land of fermented milk and crumbling post-soviet era apartment blocks.

Taking into account varying degrees of "tolerence" to the harsh weather and unfamiliar cuisines seems to be an ongoing theme. The writers forget that some 70 odd years of Soviet influence has introduced western style breads, jams, pickled vegetables etc, which are readily available at most aimag capitals. Indeed, the market in Bulgan city was very well stocked. (at least in the summer and fall).

Granted that the country is ever-changing as it is thrust into the 21st Century, but one would expect that the approach to writing this guide would address this as well. Food options in UB are plentiful. Where there had been a handful of chinese restaurants as little as 2 years ago, at least 50 can be listed today.

So leave this guide at home, or better yet, bring it along so your Mongolian friends can share a good laugh.

There are some major problems with this book. It takes a condescending tone towards Mongolian culture/food/attractions from the average expectations for such things if you weren't in Mongolia. Lonely Planet compares Mongolia to the, say, average European country. The average traveler to Mongolia is not looking for an average European country. Taking this mode to guiding you through the country, cheapens the experience with unecessary and biased opinions. I found the maps to be pretty useful, and a good base for finding your way around the country. In the absence of other guide books to Mongolia, Lonely Planet is not a bad choice, if read with a grain of salt.

Ugh. This book manages to take the colorful underworld of Chicago nightlife and make it boring. I agree with the earlier posts that it's mean-spirited and sloppy, and many of the reviews are so off-base it makes you wonder if the author actually visited the bar.

But there's good news - the infamous red book ("official Chicag bar guide") that an earlier poster raved about *has* been updated. I just found it a minute ago. It comes out December 1.

A must-have for your coffee table or barstool. This book is an enjoyable trist into the strange, but true Chicago night life. Hyde Park never seemed so appealing! Give this book as a gift to all your happen'n friends!

I've had a copy of this book and enjoyed reading the often-snarky reviews, but I didn't really know how reliable the book was. I just showed the book to a friend of mine as we were driving into the city, and she confirmed the accuracy. She's worked in the city for years and has been to many of the places mentioned. She was howling at the descriptions because they were witty and astute. We even stopped in at one of the dive bars that night, and darned if it wasn't painfully on the money. A great guide to anyone looking for a good night out. I just wish they had more of these for other cities.

Was this book edited at all? It reads as though it was written in one weekend, with no references other than the Yellow Pages. For example, the author "helpfully" provides us with a listing of good temp agencies--suspiciously, every single one begins with the letter "A". You have to wonder if any real research was done in other parts of the book, or if the author just copied down names and addresses from the phone book (as she clearly did in this section). The writing is repetitive and full of generalizations, and many of her "facts" are just plain wrong. I moved to Chicago three years ago, and I wish I hadn't had this book then.

I bought this book before moving to Chicago six months ago and it has been almost a total lack of help for anything I've tried to use it for. For starters, the neighborhood information is completely out-of-date (I passed up good neighborhoods because of this book!). And unbelievably, this book for NEWCOMERS lacks a comprehensive index and instead organizes everything by neighborhoods. In other words, if you want to know where any major landmark is, you have to look it up by neighborhood--but wait, you don't know the neighborhoods yet because you're new. This was a real brainstorm by whoever organized this book, and it's a real fun way to waste 20 minutes when you're just trying to find an address. There is decent information here, but I can never find any of it when I need to. My advice: skip this title and go straight for Fodor's Cityguide Chicago or The Unofficial Guide to Chicago, both excellent guides with clearly organized and updated information. They would both be loads of help to a newcomer.

Not a bad guide ... *if* you're moving to the city. Suburbs are not covered at all, except for some off-handed remarks about the "hinterlands".

Also had some errors in radio station listings.

I find "Kansas Off the Beaten Path" (5th edition) to be an interesting guide to Kansas sights and attractions, but it seems to be loaded with inaccuracies.

Page 4 - "The term Huron is not really the name of a Native American Tribe..." Wrong - there is a Huron tribe.

Page 7 - "The Great Mall of the Great Plains - Kansas City" This is in Olathe - not Kansas City.

Page 38 - "Wealthy old Marblecrest Street has a panoramic view of the Marmaton River valley..." Marblecrest is neither wealthy nor old, and very little of it overlooks the river valley.

Page 38 - "The Good Ol' Days...is a celebration of life from the 1840s through today...." It is the recreation of an 1899 Street Fair.

Page 39 - "The Bourbon County Fair takes place the fourth week in July..." If you come then, you will miss it.

Page 41 - "Hollister Wildlife Area, 8 miles southwest of Fort Scott on Highway 69...." It's several miles off Highway 69.

Page 42 - "...Darnaby's Berry Farm and Country House...." It has been closed for several years.

Page 51 - The account of the Civil War battle: "...a total massacre of the Fort Scott troops." This is incorrect.

Page 130 - The account of Squaw's Den Battleground: "Their escape took them through eastern Kansas...." their route was in western Kansas.

This could be a really good guide to out-of-the-way attractions in Kansas, but I could not trust its accuracy. If there are as many mistakes in the rest of the book as in the portion with which I am familiar, I question its value. A book in its 5th edition should have those inaccuracies corrected. The authors need to recheck some of their information.

The book is interesting, but seems to have a number of inaccuracies. i.e., the location of the Branding Iron Restaurant (p. 45), the military bridge, "...one of only two remaining structures..."(p. 43)[the bridge was dismantled many years ago (maybe 20 years); "Wealthy old Marblecrest Street .." (p. 42), [I guess this is Marblecrest Drive; I would not call Marblecrest Drive wealthy or old]; the Battle of Mine Creek, "...fought near Trading Post..."(p. 42) [Mine Creek Battlefield is several miles from Trading Post; it is about two miles from Pleasanton.]

I find the book interesting, but with these inaccuracies in the areas with which I am familiar would cause me to be afraid to trust the book for areas in which I am not familiar.

I tried to make use of this book over the summer. It seems like its a collection of peoples descriptions rather than a collection of trails that the author has taken. At first glance it seemed like it would be very useful but when you actually try to make use of the directions you quickly realize that this is not true.

Directions start off fuzzy and then get worse. For instance, a direction might say drive 8 miles west of Custer South Dakota. Fine, at first glance this useful until you start questioning where in Custer this starting point is. This adds a couple of miles of uncertainty to the starting point. Instead she should have written something such as "Start by going west down US-12 until you reach mile marker 82. This will be about 8 miles."

If this doesn't throw you off you'll then be faced with directions such as follow a forest road to the right. Given the couple miles of uncertainty this is also a useless instruction. Even if you could precisely nail down the starting location its still not useful if there are multiple nearby roads. Roads in general have names. "You are looking for Forest Road B112, also known as Bumpkin Peak Road. It will appear on the right."

The directions become extremely vague after this. No distances are given or even a look to the left or right. I travelled up many interesting forest roads but didn't really get much useful instructions from the book. A couple of trails were accurate, most were hopelessly inaccurate. I had a good time, but may as well have taken forest roads at random.

If you're looking for a book that will pinpoint accurately areas of the State of Nebraska that you will find fossil and mineral "goodies" then you've found the wrong book. Many of the areas pinpointed in here have been exploited badly by amature geologists, and have had their resources exhausted. However, the book does give hints on where to look for minerals and fossils, and it is possible once you have experience in searching for these things that you will find them. You'll have to use your experience and wits.

Books like this are a blessing and a curse. A blessing for those starting out in the hobby and looking for places in the field to find the samples they are looking for. A curse because many people (especially those in the commercial area of our hobby) will exploit these findings for their own pocketbooks, and ruin the resources that the author has pointed out for the weekend hobbiest. It is unfortunate, in the case of this book, that that is exactly what has happened in Nebraska.

This book has been superseded by "Don Wright's Guide to Free Campgrounds: Eastern Edition," which includes all of this book's information and a good deal more. There's little reason to spend money on this book; buy the more recent one instead.

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.