As of October 2001, this appears to be the best book available on the subject of bike touring in France. Neither Karen & Terry Whitehill's nor Jerry Simpson's books come even close to being as comprehensive as this book. The best thing about this book is all of the useful logistical information it provides. For example, the authors thoroughly document how to get out of Paris with your bike (both from Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports). They also explain the SNCF's fairly unfriendly policy with respect to bikes on trains. And in typical Lonely Planet fashion, they also document the myriad of important details for survival in France, such as how to make a telephone call and how much to tip.

With respect to the actual tour documentation, this book does a good job. There are tour choices in all regions of the country including Corsica. Routes are well documented and the road choices seemed pretty reasonable. Cue sheets are provided with good distance information between all intermediate points. Some tours have elevation profiles included. I would have liked to have seen a bit more information about food and lodging availability--particularly in the intermediate towns.

The truth about cyling in France is that the bike touring part is really easy. Unless you are worried about hills (in which case you should stay in the Loire), all you need is a Michelin map. The color scheme tells you all you need to know about route choices (seek out the white roads, and green highlights mean scenic routes). You can usually find some place to stay and eat in any town and if you can't, you can usually find another town a few kilometers down the road. All of France is wonderful for riding, so you really don't need a book to lay out a tour for you. What you do need is information telling you how to get around with your bike and how to survive once you are over there. This book does that exceptionally well.

With this book, you find the most interesting roads to ride on. In addition, you will also find nice stories of professionals who ride these roads - experiences on what to do & what NOT to do. So, whether you come to france, or stay at home, with this book, you'll have your own tour de france in your room!

First-rate illustrations are the best feature of this book. The story is entertaining but can be long for 4 and 5 year-olds.

The story faults, in that it employs too many characters with no character development, which adds unnecessary confusion and clutter to the story. There is a little boy (Sean) and girl (Meghan), three very old ladies (the children's aunties), and a leprechaun exchanging dialogue in the same 1 or 2 pages, at different points throughout the book.

As a parent reading to a child, who wants to present a different voice for each character so that the child can easliy identify who is speaking in the story, there are too many characters talking, but with no distinguishing personalities to make understanding easier.

However, the story is somewhat entertaining despite its flaws.

We really enjoyed this book and recommend it to all people, especially the Irish and people who love the mythology of the "Wee Folk"! The faces are wondefully drawn and kids will love the ingenuity of the children in the book. A magical delight people the world over should love!

I did. There is basic information about the animal. Their life cycle and the different sub-species. I saw no encouragement to take them from the wild. Nice pictures. I'm looking for something similar that's not out of print.

I found this book in our D.R.E.'s library, and after some initial prayer, had a wonderful and warm discussion with my 12 year old about sexual intercourse. I had really been skirting the technicalities of this topic for a while, and my daughter has been very resistant to my clumsy attempts to discuss things. This book really gave me a focal point for our dicussion. I would read aloud a chapter, and then we would use the discussion questions to work on together. I so much appreciate finding this careful, correct, but not crudely detailed book. Many of the other books I looked at were just way too "illustrated" and grossly detailed. My daughter responded really well to an intelligent disussion about biology, and God's plan for the union of a man and woman. Thank you author.

Back Cover description: Nothing rattles confident Scotsman Dillon Cameron--except learning he's fathered a child by his best friend's beautiful widow! Saddened at the secret of his daughter's birth, haunted by a deathbed promise, Dillon storms Thea Kearney's highlands cottage, intent on claiming 'his lasses'. In wrenching grief Thea had once sought comfort in Dillon's sheltering arms, but she and her baby scarcely need him now! Yet Dillon's salty brogue and sea-swept sorcery shatter her resistance and win her heart...until she discovers the man-to-man pledge that even the roguish Dillon apparently feels compelled to honor...

The plot description makes it appear that these characters are forceful and take charge types. That is misleading. I very rarely cry when reading romance stories, sometimes I get a little teary, but not cry. Well, this book will get you to turn on the tears, but in a good way, the way you cry when something is touching and to the heart. All the characters are likable, from the dead husband, Dillon, Thea and the islanders. The reason I didn't give it 5 stars is the scene near the end where she finds out what the promise is and takes exception to it, instead of seeing it as a last gift from her husband. Try it, good story.

This is a book to savor, packed with beautiful close-ups of plants as well as photos of the author's various borders. Written by someone who obviously loves both the plants and the planting process, it's like taking a walk with an experienced gardner and getting the inside story on each flower.

Patrick Dillon's account of the Gin Craze of the 18th century is an informative, well-written, and lively account of the social problems surrounding the introduction of high-octane spirits into English society. He provides enough names-and-dates for demanding historians without being pedantic. Mr. Dillon describes in detail the great toll 'Madame Geneva' took on the poor: the spirit's maiming and blinding qualities (turpentine was a favorite flavoring agent after all); the destruction of the social fabric; the ill-begotten reform attempts. (I did find myself wishing he had more fully described when gin cleaned up its act and became a respectable liquor; maybe that will be in the sequel!). Mr. Dillon pointedly closes his book with the lesson that those who don't know history are destined to repeat it: the war on drugs has failed, just as previous attempts at prohibition have failed.

Robert Sobel wrote the best biography of Calvin Coolidge I have seen so far, which means best of five. Even better than Coolidge's autobiography. His contextualization of Coolidge included astute observations on the American economy, and on Wall Street in particular. So I searched out this out of print book on an online service and began to read. To Dillon Read.

This is the firm which gave us George H.W. Bush's treasury secretary, Nicholas Brady, whom Sobel also covers pretty thoroughly in this book, hinting that his undergrad grades were not so hot and that he may be dyslexic. But great connections.

Clarence Dillon is the star of the book, which starts with the Dutchman Vermilye and his investment trading operation in New York. Dillon joins after Read joins, and Dillon is the gutsy Jewish guy (although Dillon cloaks that in an effort to run with the WASP dominators of New York at the time) who engineers brash and bold, huge deals, then makes a lot more money by taking over companies (buying them by lending them money) and hiring "management" firms secretly owned by....Clarence Dillon.

The Pecora hearings are profiled, and Sobel gets into the 1933 and 1934 Securities laws and the SEC, giving us the impression that Pecora was a little extreme, and the SEC--although harshly received by the "Street" at the time--was a pretty good idea.

Sobel does not stop there, though. He follows the Dillon Read firm past Clarence, and on to Douglas (who also became a Secretary of the Treasury, but who didn't have the same pizzazz of the old man, who drifted off into old age in aristocratic fashion on a huge New Jersey estate). Then on to the Bechtel and Wallenberg family connections of Dillon Read, and terminating in the mid 1980s with a glimpse of new ways-a-borning with the addition of New Court Capital and the opening of the firm to modern V.C. investment.

A great companion to this book is the very recent book "The Last Partnerships" which does the same biographical analysis of our entire economy, by profiling a whole collection of investment firms, Dillon Read included. Sobel has less range, in comparison, but Sobel's mission is to drill into Dillon Read. This book does not "sing" like Sobel's Coolidge, as I said, but forms a link in Sobel's scholarship which I'm glad to have. Next will come a read of Sobel's history of the New York Stock Exchange, to lengthen the chain.

I really enjoyed this book, even though it was a children's book. It focuses on a mysterious baby-sitter named Mrs. Tooey and her evil sister Velma, who is obsessed with birds. Although part of the book in which Mrs. Tooey morphs one of her pint-sized charges into a bird to spy on Velma and discover her diabolical plans for destruction with the toxic tar may be a little frightening for the youngest children, all in all, it's a hoot. :)