This volume describes 721 French B&B's in 370 pages, each B&B keyed to one of 18 useful regional maps. An additional 40 pages provide maps, indices, some French vocabulary and advertising for Sawday's other products. The descriptions are very useful and the book's organization conducive to effective planning of an independent trip.

I am using this volume to plan a trip from Nice to La Herradura in southern Spain during during the next few months. This permits me to compare this book to the companion volume, Special Places to Stay:Spain.

After reading the Spain volume I expected French B&B's to be as detailed as that of Spain. Certainly it provides information about B&B's in every corner of France. Yes, it too is a marvelous aid for planning the independent trip. Yes it is much stronger than any Rough Guide to France or Spain that I have read. It provides prices, the number and type of rooms, web site references, e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers. It very briefly describes what each B&B offers and when it is open or closed. What is lacking for my taste buds, compared to the "Spain volume", is the detailed descriptions provided by a pithy writing style descrbing the locale, the owners and of the cooking style that almost makes the roast kid aroma of a described culinary delight jump out of the pages. My wife misses photographs of the interiors of each B&B.

To provide considerable detail for two establishments per page is an ambitious task and the editors carry it off. Not withstanding my "comparative disillusionment", the word descriptions do compensate for the missing photographs, directions to local eating places anticipate culinary delights and "How to get there information" makes it easy to locate a Special Place on a detailed Michelin map.

Based on my personal experiences, the Spanish volume appears to be very reliable, I see no reason why the French B&B should not be equally so.

This is a delicious and absolutely reliable guide to the delightful B&B establishments of France. I wouldn't think of traveling without it. The selected accommodations always have some unique feature or special charm.

I used this guide to plan my husband's and my last trip to France. Although we've been to France many times, the excellent bed and breakfasts in this book made this the best trip ever. The descriptions were accurate and the facilities all lived up to our expectations and more. This book must be popular in the U.K. because most of our fellow travelers were British and had found the B&B's through the book. The book indicates which B&B's serve evening meals along with the cost of the meals; we enjoyed the lively family style dinners immensely. The places we stayed were outside of the towns and cities but the book gave adequate directions to find them.

Many of the B&B's owners did not speak any English which can make telephone reservations difficult for anyone who does not speak French, however fax numbers are included where available. Although the book did not stress any need for reservations, we traveled off-season in the fall and many places were full and turning away drop-ins. I highly recommend the book for planning a casual trip in the French countryside.

I purchased this book for my 13 year old son for Christmas, and took the liberty of reading it. I read Cooke's sections on George C. Marshall, Winston Churchill,Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Bobby Jones because I was familiar with all of them from other works. Cooke writes in a breezy style, butI believe he captures the noble, transcendent charateristics of each man.I enjoyed each sketch thorougly. His vignettes are all perceptive. I hope that this might spark my son's interest in reading more about these figures. Overall an excellent, quick read.

Prior to buying this volume of Alistair Cooke's writings, I knew him only as the former host of Masterpiece Theater, with his career as a journalist being only something I had heard about. The essays collected here are from various periods of Mr. Cooke writing career (1957 through 1999) and include a diverse group of people, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Irma Bombeck, Gary Cooper, Barry Goldwater and Eleanor Roosevelt . Each essay is rather short, averaging about ten pages. I read a comment by a reviewer that Mr. Cooke was excellent at creating a "portrait" of his subjects. While this is probably true, "Memoirs of the Great and Good" aims more at anecdotes and episodes, that Mr. Cooke elaborates upon, rather than having the detail and depth of a short biography. Many were written upon the death of the subject, so they are valedictory in tone. The essay about FDR relates an occurrence that happened to Mr. Cooke when he encountered the President as he was arriving to give a speech at Harvard. The last piece is a book review of "The Last Lion" by William Manchester, a biography of Winston Churchill, that gives us an insightful look into the early years of Churchill.

In sum, I found these essays to be thoughtfully written and compulsive to read. It was surprising to realize how quickly I went through the book.

"Memories of the Great and the Good" is a collection of essays that, as much as introducing the more casual and less public sides of nearly two dozen luminaries, reveals the evolution of America and of Alistair Cooke. The pieces stretch from 1951 through 1999 and the most useful advice, repeated both in discussing Churchill's love of war and hatred of the idea of women's suffrage, and in dismissing the alleged racism of golfer Bobby Jones, is to beware the "shame of seeing a man out of his time." One reporter recently dubbed Cooke the Dorian Gray of journalism, perhaps both for having been silver-haired and apparently the same age for as many decades as not, and because it is difficult to tell to what time the man himself belongs.

Even though he is my grandfather, I can be no help on that score; in recent years I have seen the replacement of a knee and an angioplasty (both of which he has mentioned in his weekly BBC "Letter from America") leave him as sprightly as I have ever known him.

Each essay reflects the time of its creation, whether that was 1967 or 1999. The 1974 piece on Duke Ellington mentions a visit to the bandleader's flat "on the swagger side of Harlem," and comments, "There is such a place," the Duke being at the top of "the hierarchy of Negro social status." Yet the 1999 piece on FDR is most memorable for an account of the unexpected, unseen, and contemporarily unpublishable view of the president being carried out of a car and limping, assisted, into a giant hall. By urging the reader to look at his subjects in their times, he sometimes implicitly admonishes himself for failing to do so. "Wodehouse at Eighty," for one, shows the father of Jeeves unquestionably out of his time, an anachronism as viewed--and, to be honest, caricatured--by Cooke, in his early fifties at the time. In other essays he steps almost too much into the times and shoes of his subjects, for example when mirroring the outlook of Erma Bombeck, whose career "was that of her generation--brace yourselves!--mother and housewife." While many of the pieces attempt and succeed at portraying the individuals 'in their time,' a large number of the pieces were written far after 'their times' as obituaries, which should not be surprising as Cooke shares with every nonogenarian the fact of having seen an extraordinary number of players both step onto the stage and then take their bows and make their exits some time later.

Combined with this historical span, what is truly worthy about this book is that, like his earlier "Six Men," it displays the extraordinary degree of access which he, as a foreign correspondent par excellence, enjoyed with a dizzying array of figures. George Bernard Shaw is in a behind-the-scenes committee discussing the pronunciation of proper "BBC English." "The General"--Eisenhower-- sits on his back porch, commenting on his golf and waiting for Cooke's t.v. crew to reposition themselves. And Duke Ellington is in his boxers and a towel, devouring breakfast at two p.m. These are the kind of stories that I've heard come out over drinks in his study, or on Christmas afternoon in Vermont, as if they were the most pedestrian, ordinary experiences.

On October 2, 1999, a fascinating sixteen-minute interview about the book was broadcast on Weekend All Things Considered, recorded in that self-same study in New York. NPR's finest have come to call, just as Cooke did on Wodehouse or Ike; as Cooke thus becomes a living museum of the twentieth century, I wonder if his plea is partly that he himself not be viewed out of his time. In the interview, he posits that America and Americans have, in asserting our 'rights,' lost track of the collective societal duties to which they correspond. With this I must respectfully disagree; we must recognize that these courtesies, if they existed, were only accorded to a small, privileged establishment. Thus, I far prefer a society where anyone can enforce his rights, to one that relies on a collective sense of duty from which many could never benefit. In any case, "Memories of the Great and the Good" offers a rare look, at Cooke (long an icon of Britain to Americans and in icon of America to Britain) and at many of the most important actors on the stage of the twentieth century. I truly hope you will enjoy it.

This is a story about a nurse (Zainaba) who lives in Mauritana. Zainaba and her friend has established a training "programme" for traditional midwives living in isolated communites. As part of the "programme" they discuss female circumcision to the midwives. This story is very informing and interesting.

I absolutely love this book.
It gave me a wholistic view of women's lives in the Middle East. I love the combination of short fictional stories, autobiographies, and essays. This book is entertaining as well as mind opening.

Six years ago my girlfriend gave me this book, I am ever grateful to her and the persons who compiled these writings. As an American born Arab woman, Opening the gates gave me a sense of pride to be Arab and to be an Arab woman that no other book has done. I actually read stories in this book that my aunt (a woman with no formal education, living in a small village under Israeli occupation in the West Bank) used to tell me as a child. I was able to see that even in the simplist of Arab women and even as far back as a hundred years, flickers the flame of independence and the yearning to be recognized and appreciated as equal contributing members of society and mankind.

This book did a wonderful job of exploring the character of Zeena. This book, even though it draws from an earlier work, is one of the more original books that I've read in a long while.

Trying to spin a tale from a classic cannot be an easy feat, but this story really captured me. For anyone who liked Ethan Frome, this book is for you. A carefully weaved story with characters that are as real as they get.

The characters came alive in this story, and Elizabeth Cooke told it wonderfully. I just wish it was longer.

This book is interesting in that it is told from a straight man's point of view .... for a while. Both exciting and engaging, The Chimney Sweeper is a murder mystery that revels in its reverse format. It's not the greatest book you'll ever read, but it is really a fabulously enjoyable one.

john payton cook made me want to meet the character

This is one of those novels that you will dig out years after reading it just to read it again. Cooke spins two great stories into one as he first gives the reader the smart aleck, homophobic younger character and the more self-confidant character a few years later. We then watch as both sides crash together with the discovery of the transvestite's corpse in a chimney flue.

This book contains gruesome scenes of violence and attitude which makes it all the more a taught suspense thriller.

Got to love the Coens, and thheir style of filmmaking. Read it.

This is a terrific book for anyone interested in the Coen brother's films, or indeed anyone interested in the filmmaking process. While the book is true to its title, other Coen films such as 'Raising Arizona', 'Miller's Crossing' and 'Barton Fink' are also briefly discussed. Along with spotlighting Joel and Ethan's work practises, the book looks in detail at the storyboards, cinematography, set and wardrobe design on 'The Big Lebowski'. Of particular interest is the comparison of still frames with their orginal storyboards during a detailed breakdown of 4 Lebowski scenes. Also appreciated is Robertson's practise of actually explaining many of the film terms used is the book, recognising that not all his reader's are Directors!

Ron Fisher wrote this "bookazine" in a very plain, homespun style which causes one to learn tons of information about people and places of the Blue Ridge without realizing it. There was too-scant mention of the region's physiography and natural history; however, once I got far enough inside to notice that, I was already sufficiently captivated by the tales of human history and folklore that the book was well worth finishing. Like Fisher, I cruised the Blue Ridge Parkway on a cool, misty weekday; and he captured the peaceful mood perfectly in his description of that jaunt. Whether from watching a Salem Buccaneers minor league game, interviewing Foxfire writers, or recording the tales of an elderly wood whittler, the hundreds of micro-stories of Blue Ridge folk life come out well done. Of course, as is the Geographic's gold standard, the photography is splendid. Any high school or college student writing about the Appalachian way of life must have this work in his reference list. And I strongly recommend this book for anyone planning a driving trip (off the interstates!) through western Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee or far northern Georgia.

I am from the Blue Ridge Mountains and I think this magazine was great. It has alot of information about the people, parks and places of the Blue Ridge. There are tons of pictures and suggestions of places to visit. READ IT!

I enjoyed this book. The stories were unpredictable, the characters tragic and interesting. Each story had a concrete thread that tied it to at least one other story. Some connections between stories were compelling, while others, it seemed to me, were more tangential, sometimes too stretched to claim a serious underpinning. It is very possible I missed some underlying associations that others will appreciate more.

I read The Bostons in one gulp and just entered fully into the stories; it was totally mind blowing. The details are so amazing and vivid, the characters are really colorful and sordidly loveable, and I really love the way the plots interconnect - it was like a really awesome soap opera, and I just kept waiting to see what characters would pop up and to find out what they are doing now... and their lives are just all so full of intrigue, scandal, and clinging to the last remnants of their fallen nobility - it's just really great.

"Follow the Monsters" is a typically lighthearted Sesame Street book ideal for kids in the 12-36 months range who are just learning to enjoy books, and maybe can even read a bit on their own. The characters are a large cast of furry monsters in search of a way to Sesame Steet. The book focuses on describing the monsters (fat and thin, red and blue, old and young) and how they travel to Sesame Street (walking, flying). No deep messages here, but our 16 month old loves it and, perhaps as important, it is a book we enjoy reading to him.

This book and "Big Bird's Copy Cat Day" are books that I keep in my car to read to my son (age: 1 1/2)when he gets cranky. The rhyming of the book is good. I do not mind it when I have to read them over & over to him.

This books contains fascinating, first person, anecdotal material about the intriguing subject of foreign prisoners of war in the United States during WWII.

This book provides a fascinating look at human nature in an unusual environment: enemies who would kill each other on a battlefield are forced to adapt to each other in the context of a Prisoner of War camp in California.

It's the little things that stick with you: the amazement the young Germans felt at taking three days to cross the country by speeding train, and the realization that their government had gone to war with a nation with virtually unlimited resources. The multiple cases of guards dropping or losing their guns, only to have a prisoner hand it back to them. Or the few hardline Nazi's who threatened their fellow prisoners and attempted to keep the war going at any cost.

A compassionate and reassuring study of human nature.

By WWII's end America held nearly 450,000 German POW's scattered all over the U.S., and these are the personal histories of a handful of those POW's held in Central California Branch Camps. Wonderfully done by historian Geiger: Insightful, human, sad, humorous. All about German men who fought a vainglorious war against the world, and lost. I can vouch for its accuracy, authenticity,and descriptions. I was an American G.I. in one of those camps Geiger wonderfully describes.