I purchased this book several years ago and I was very impressed with the information that is in this book. Everything from planting instructions, soil requirements, and so on! It is also very detailed with "actual" color photos of the plants. It is a handy guide for those landscape architects and landscape contractors out there and it is very useful for the home gardener.

This book captures and preserves the robust atmosphere of a truly unique place - the Southeast Alaska logging camp - from an insider's point of view. And it is a rare view, indeed, as little has ever been recorded, or likely ever will be...a whole way of life has nearly vanished away in one generation. To a veteran of the camps, the book brings a warm reminiscence. To other readers, a warm invitation...

With crisp and easy-to-read Lao print and easily understood phonetic representations to aid in correct pronunciation for almost all entries, this dictionary is a classic which has and will continue to serve the needs of both students and professionals. The material was drawn from all available Lao and Thai dictionaries, publications, and from conversations with native speakers during over ten years of research.

Amazon com. found this book quickly, it'd been out of stock although. When the book was delivered to me, it was second hand with a signature@"Mrs.xxxx in Bali in 1933." As a person making a private research on the art movement in Bali in 1920th, this book is truely great and gives me a lot of rare info about that time. It's not difficult for anyone having been to Bali, to understand the story.

This is a great book. I personally know the author, and it took her over 13 years to write it. She interviewed many real cambodian refugees and did a lot of hard work. It is very informative.

A friend and I took this book and Lonely Planet to Thailand. By the end of the trip we using only Let's Go. It was simple and easy to use. While Lonely Planet it stacked with history and information and about twice as heavy, it takes twice as long to find what your looking for. The index was horrible, it didn't list anything.
I found Let's go maps and all around book layout to be a lots more user friendly. I recommend this book over Lonely Planet anyday!

This guide is a must-buy for any travelers in the southeast asia region... I highly recommend it!!!

There has been a glut of books on Rumi in the past few years, many of them of dubious authenticity or quality; this assessment applies especially to the "free" translations of his poetry which have been such a big hit in the West! I think those poetical translations are not doing justice to the message of Rumi since they are so far removed from many of the original Persian poems.

This book then is a welcome change. It is quite an old book but its republishing is an important event in the world of Rumi studies, in my opinion.

For a start this book, though perfectly accessible to the lay person, is primarily a scholarly endeavour and as such much more concerned about relaying the events of Rumi's life and his message as accurately as possible than in selling copies!

It is unique of all the books I have read on Rumi to date in that it tries to look, in depth, at his early life and how that affected him later when he met Shams Tabrizi and was moved by Divine Love to compose ecstatic poetry.

Thus we have a detailed chapter on the political conditions of the area (Afghanistan) in which he lived; then we have an exposition about his father (who himself was a very famous Muslim scholar and jurisprudent as well as a Sufi) who, as this book shows, had a major influence on Rumi's development and later ideas. We also then are introduced to the other people who influenced Rumi in one way or another, his teachers and his family and friends.

The sections on Rumi's life are detailed too: his life is divided into three sections: his birth, childhood, migration to Konya and early training as an Islamic scholar under his father and other famous teachers; his period following his father's demise as a prominent scholar, and Sufi teacher himself (he was an heir to his father's position); and then the period of his meeting with Shams and afterwards for the remainder of his life. This latter period is also further sub-divided based on his various works and mystical states as evidenced by his poetical output. Most other works on Rumi tend just to concentrate on this last period of his life.

After this the major poetical works of Rumi are discussed in, more or less, chronological order of writing. Thus the Divan-e-Shams-e-Tabrizi, his great collection of ecstatic lyrical poems in praise of Shams is dealt with first followed then by an explanation of his magnus opus, the Masnavi. Then the author discusses Rumi's overall message. The final section looks at sections of the Masnavi which RE Nicholson, in his great translation of the Masnavi, decided to translate into Latin as he believed them (erronously) to be of a pornographic nature. In fact, when one reads the English translations here, one sees that Rumi simply uses examples of human sexual behaviour to underline an important teaching point of Sufism.

For those who are interested in Rumi's message and life in earnest, and not in the suspicious "New-Age" fad which the spurious translations of his works seem to have started (and which he, being a pious Muslim, would no doubt be horrified by!), this book is a must.

Dr. Iqbal needs to be congratulated for trying to bring Rumi's message across as it is!

My journey home to Pakistan started a little over five years ago when I married a Pakistani national who had immigrated to the United States in the early nineties. The decision to visit my family back home in Lahore City was one that took nearly five years to make. After securing my flight at the height of the summer travel season and I might add the hottest time of year in that part of the Indian subcontinent I desparately sought out the most comprehensive travel guide I could find. Isobel Shaw's book is informative and a godsend to a novice traveller to the Indian subcontinent such as my self. From her descriptions of famous landmarks to the locations of hotels and hospices she gives an accurate account of what to expect. The index of Urdu phrases came in handy on several occasions as I do not speak or read the language and was often dependent on my husband's translating capability. The maps and descriptions of the different regions allowed us to the luxury of travelling to areas of Pakistan I might never have seen otherwise. My only regret is that we were unable to see more of Kashmir than the border checkpoint. Due to my blonde hair and western features the border guards were relunctant to let us in. Perhaps next time I shall be allowed to travel in that region. I would not hesitate to recommend Ms. Shaw's guidebook to anyone travelling in Pakistan. It is an informative and enjoyable book on the people and the country of Pakistan.

I bought this book because of its lingustic interest. Material about Lisu, Lahu, Hmong, Akha, Mien, (et al) is very hard to come by. Ordinarily I would anathematize all phrase books, but this gives a lot of detailed information about these languages, including their structure and pronunciation, that is nearly impossible to find anywhere else. The author's presentation is very clear, and included also is some information about the peoples and the cultures of this little-known place. It actually made me want to go there.