Stumbled onto this small work on a back shelf and bought it for a quick read 15 years ago. I have never stopped thinking about it. It is the personal journal of a young romantic on a personal quest seeking a rumored city lost in the desert of Morocco. The danger, pain and ultimate loss of his life to illness far from home is punctuated by his momentary view of the ruins, which to the true romantic, overshadowed all else. You can put yourself in his place on every page and feel his pain and exhiliration. The book is testimony to his brother who followed his trail to find the truth after his failure to return, and found the journal with the nuns who nursed him till his death. It is truly a gem in the travel book genre.

An amazingly real account from the journals. Steeped in the romantic tradition of solo travel, the account begins in hope and ends in the still silence of illness where no words can be written, though the flicker of hope undoubtedly held on in this man's breast till the end. It is as honest and immediate account of a personal adventure of great risk and pain as can be found in the twentieth century. All travelers should read and admire.... though none should follow.

Usefulness is the key when it comes to travel books, and I have yet to find a more useful travel guide to any city. When my family and I planned our trip to New York City, we knew we only had a few days to see everything we wanted (not to mention the Broadway shows we had tickets for) but were at a loss as to how to plan our sightseeing. I mean, how many sights can you see in New York? How long can ne spend at the Metropolitan Museum and still have time to see other sights? What other sights are available in the same general area? Too many times on other trips, I'd see one thing and find, to my horror, that the other thing I wanted to see was on the other side of town and would close before I could get there! This book lays out for you in detail several different three-day tours you can take. It includes recommendations for lunch stops and evening activities. The section on the Metropolitan Museum was invaluable, as the museum is so large that, without this book, I never would have been able to see everything I wanted to see, and I would have missed some exhibits with which I fell in love...

I highly recommend this book to everyone who's going to New York City. In fact, I recommended it to a friend of mine who lives in New York. She not only found it useful herself, but she bought the book so she could loan it out to friends who visit and stay with her.

This book was a last-minute buy right before my trip, and I have to thank the travel-guide gods for my good fortune in finding it. The trip wouldn't have been the same without it! Now I'm planning a trip to London and Paris and have been lucky enough to find a book by the same author on London. Unfortunately, I'll have to wing it in Paris, as she doesn't have a book out about that city (too bad).

It's embarrassing that we Yanks need an Australian to write our history for us, but Shane White does it with humor, insight, and thoroughness. This is unquestionably the best book I have read on the subject of slavery in New York, and I've read all the books there are on the subject. (There aren't many.) White uses primary sources and original research, supplying data which our own historians have not bothered to ferret out. He gives an excellent description of the peculiar nature of the peculiar institution in New York, the different slave culture and different relationships between slaves and owners which in no way resembled that of the South.

Most recent books that deal with the subject of slavery in New York quote this book extensively; you might as well read it for yourself.