Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world and home to the largest Islamic population on earth. Indonesian Street Food Secrets: A Culinary Travel Odyssey is an impressive compilation of ethic family recipes that are prepared right on the sidewalk by Indonesian food vendors. Enhanced with 230 color photographs of the food and culture, Indonesian Street Food Secrets also includes an accompanying CD-ROM providing hours of movies, sounds and recipes that are customizable for their degree of "hotness" and party size. With its collection of authentic recipes, Indonesian Street Food Secrets will prove to be a unique addition to kitchen cookbook collections and is especially recommended to dining clubs wanting to celebrate the culinary traditions of the Indonesian archipelago!

Although I have never been to Indonesia, nor am I an experienced cook, I found this book fascinating. It really is about the Indonesian culture as it is represented by its food. The photos are outstanding and give the reader a non-tourist view of of this intriguing land. The recipes are easy to follow and the author gives substitute ingredients if the more exotic foods can not be found. I very much enjoyed reading the information sections and can't wait to try some of the recipes.

If you like Indonesian food as much as I do, you'll have to order this delightful book. Keith Miller finds the essence of the complex Indonesian culinary culture and provides all the "how-to-do-it" information necessary to prepare the wonderful foods of Indonesia. The book comes with a CD-ROM that helps explain to techno-geeks what can be found within the pages of the book itself. I guess some people need to see it on a computer screen before they get it. The book itself has great color photographs of all the required ingredients and the various techniques of Indonesian food preparation.

Just got back from a week on the Kenai Peninsula - this book was an absolute must. The author is very candid about places, good or bad. Saw a bunch of amazing stuff and did it all on a modest budget, thanks to this book. The history and flora/fauna sections are very accurate and very interesting. I read other sections of the book (places that I didn't go), and because of the descriptions, I am already aching to go explore more of the state. If you go to Alaska, all you need are the proper clothes and this book.

Along with "Off the Beaten Path" by Melissa DeVaughn, this book was indispensable during a 2001 and a 2002 trip to Alaska. I especially appreciated the candor in this book, for example tersely warning to stay away from a certain hotel in a certain town because it was "run-down." In the sections about Nome and Kotzebue, I appreciated the tip that these parts of Alaska aren't set up for independent travellers and are best reached via a tour group. Additionally, the sections for each region all follow the same format. And the book is just a good, chunky size and feels good in your hand!

After using Lonely Planet on my trip to Europe I purchased the Alaska one for my recent trip. This book was wonderful, it was the only guidebook that we needed. It was especially helpful in finding hostels, and allowed us to arrange lodging before we arrived. All the information contained was up to date, and pointed us to little treasures that we might not have discovered otherwise. As a result we really got to get taste of Alaska and keep our trip affordable and interesting. If you have a desire to really discover any place you go, turn to Lonely Planet I know that I always will.

This cookbook is fantastic! My mom was Italian, and the recipes here are truly authentic. I loved the format of daily recipes, and I spent a week just following along. The stories are wonderful, it is like having a visit back to my old neighborhood of long ago here in Boston. My special recommendations: Joe Red's Chicken Meatball Soup, Bolognese Sauce, BOTH Pasta Puttenescas, Fried Pepper Wet Sandwich, Italian Cheesecake...OH, HECK...JUST TRY THEM ALL !! You will not be disappointed.

I bought this book for my father-in-law who grew up in East New York and loves to cook. He is thrilled with the recipes which he says are simply written and authentic to what he ate growing up there 80 years ago. He also loved the pictures and rememberances of "the old neighborhood." I've never bought him another gift that made him this happy. He's buying a bunch to give to other Brooklyn friends.

I lived across the street from Our Lady of Loretto and went to school with the author, Gerard Renny. This november, my mom Graziella Tirino one of the last true "die hards" finally moved from Pacific St. The recipes and the stories along with the pictures had me thinking back to the old neighborhood and how much fun we used to have. We didn't have much but we had friends, good food and plenty of it. This book and the wonderful receipes are a part of my past and I look forward to sharing it with family and friends. aka Rosetta

As always Palin has produced a great travel book and series... this I found better than his "80 Days". The other thing people might find interesting about this travel book is that it takes us to some places which are hard to reach even in this day and age, so this is the only way we can know them.

Also suggested- "Hemingway Adventure"

Full Circle is just as good, if not better then his othertravel/comedy books. It is simply magnificent.

Michael Palin does it again with Full Circle. Starting in Alaska Michael travels anti-clockwise around the rim of the Pacific Ocean visiting countries as diverse as Russia, Korea, Viet Nam, New Zealand, Colombia and the west coast of North American. He tells of his adventures getting to and exploring some fantastic natural wonders, visiting a Russian gulag with a former inmate, the relief of Japan, the Vietnamese reactions to a westerner, the biggness of Australia and the hardworking people of South America. The section on the United States is short and not always sweet. Palin is taken aback by the physical bigness of Americans, and rush, and loudness. By the time he reaches Canada and attends a "lumberjack" fair (no singing Mounties included!) he really "wants to go home". We also learn a bit about how the series and book were produced, his wife Helen and their children, and that being on a job for the BBC doesn't always mean smooth sailing! Michael's friend Basil Pao took the photographs - he also joined Michael on "Around the World in Eighty Days". I can highly recommend this book and not only to fans of Monty Python - it doesn't end how you might expect!

If you're looking for a nice synopsis of places in the bay area - this is the book for you. Just don't expect more than you'd find in the Phone book if you're in the South Bay.

I absolutely dreaded planning my wedding and this book was the only thing that saved my fiance and I from spiraling into madness. We are both from the East Coast, relatively new to the Bay area, and had no family here to help us. Neither one of us had ever been married before or helped plan a wedding. Here Comes the Guide was the single most useful tool for planning our wedding, and is reliable enough that we didn't feel the need to interview a ridiculous number of vendors for each service before choosing one. If a vendor we liked was recommended by the book then we knew they had to be good. Here Comes the Guide is concise, recommends cool traditional and non-traditional reception sites, and provides all of the information you need to plan your own wedding without the help of a wedding planner. The only area which was lacking was limousines and transportation. Pretty much everything else, including bands, calligraphy, invitations, cakes, vendors, tuxedos, reception sites, and florists, was there in abundance.

I was given this book as a gift soon after my engagement. At the time, I hadn't given much thought to where I wanted to hold the event. This book was a great help in finding several locations that were ideal. As the wedding market in Northern CA is rather busy, it was very nice to have several choices so that we could find a venue that was availible on our desired date.

This book contains accurate descriptions of venues, with information pertianing to the size, cost, and other key factors. It also contains less important but still useful information on catering options at each venue, music limitations, and other factors which can help a bride and groom say yea or nea to a location that is still site unseen.

I called over 20 phone numbers in this book and all were up to date and correct. I also found the pricing information almost dead on. The black and white pictures also gave an accurate impression of the venues.

This book was essential to my planning of a wine country wedding and I highly recommend it to anyone that is arranging a wedding in the bay area.

I really enjoyed reading this book it was very interesting and adventurious. It was an average reading book and the words were not that hard to understand. I wuold recomand this book for sixth grade and up. I hope William Durbin writes more books like this I really enjoy reading them.

This fictional journal centers around 15 year old Sean Sullivan. Coming from Chicago, he meets his father. His father works for the Union Pacific Railroad in Nebraska. Soon, Sean encounters Old West Towns, mean workers, and prejudice towards Chinese and Irishmen. You'll also learn about the Transcontinental Railroad, one of our history's interesting subjects. This book takes you from Omaha to the meeting of the Central Pacific at Promontory Summit. Hop on board and enjoy for yourself, The Journal of Sean Sullivan. I assure you, you won't be disappointed!

The book was really interesting. Sean Sullivan like everyone else had to start as a water boy and work his way up: he worked as a butcher, then he shot rattlesnakes, then he laid down the rails, then finally he became a spiker. This way the reader could see what it was like to work at each job. Sean wrote in detail, but not so much as to be unrealistic. I liked the letters he got from his brother in Chicago as well.

The southwest United States is a geomorphologist's dream... There's not a lot of green stuff covering up the beautiful geology! This book details the geologic features of Death and Owens Valley, CA. It gives the geologic history of features while succinctly describing the details of the processes that brought about these features. The Tufa Pinnacles in Searles Valley, the alluvial fans in Death Valley, the interesting history and development of Gower Gulch, the mysterious ascent of desert pavement, the glacial morraines and routes of the Tahoe and Tioga Stade glaciers at Convict Lake, the Mono Craters (Domes), Fossil Falls, the Alabama Hills and more. You'll even get the heebee jeebees when you read about the monstrous explosion of Ubehebe Crater! Certainly one of the most interesting and pleasurable books I've read in ages! Highly recommended for ANYONE who plans a trip to California's awe-inspiring Death Valley and environs! A must have!

Most years we vacation in Mammoth. This book describes a number of convenient and interesting side trips to take with the family. We wander around, sometimes visiting the same features, sometimes visiting a new site. Always appreciating more & more of the world around us. My children have a much better feel for geological processes and their impact on the landscape than do their peers.

The book starts with a five page description of Eastern California's geological history, then jumps into 30 sites of interest, nearly evenly distributed between Death Valley & vicinity and the Eastern Sierra & vicinity. A glossary, "Sources of Supplementary Information," and an index round out the book.

Each site receives its own chapter, replete with photographs, maps, geological diagrams, and even driving directions, as needed. I'm not a serious geologist, but landscape features fascinate me. The explanations that the authors give work well for me: I can understand them well enough to explain them to children.

If you're interested in how the land has been shaped, if you're willing to turn off the tube & make contact with the natural world, then this book is for you. One of the best "field guides" to geology I own. One of my favorites, too. (The companion volume, GEOLOGY UNDERFOOT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, is also an excellent book).

I've always had an interest in geology, but have had only a little formal education in the subject. I've also been to Death Valley and Owens Valley a few dozen times. The accuracy and attention to detail in this book along with the vivid descriptions often made me feel like I was back there as I read. On more than one occasion, I could replay what I had seen when I was out there as I read (in some cases picturing things that I had hardly taken notice of when physically there). The many photographs and diagrams also helped immensely. The occasional touchs of humor made reading fun, and it being a series of vignettes, it's easy to cover a chapter in a short time and not worry about setting it down until later. I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in geology and how the area got to be what it is today, and you don't have to be an expert to enjoy the book.

The trapper's journal by Osbourne Russell during the early to mid 18 hundreds came as a bit of a surprise. First the book is a factual account without any explication of the events more than is necessary. It is not told as an adventure story eg "Last of the Mohicans" but rather as a journal pure and simple of the travels through the Rockies, mainly Yellowstone, of this young trapper over 9 years in the pay and as a member of Jim Bridger's fur company, around 100 men. The trade was at its peak at this time. As is true of most journals it is full of abbreviations of words because of time constraints eg brot. for brought, staid for stayed etc. This gives the impression of crudity in the writing, or of a man not used to writing but rather writing in only a haphazard fashion. Every reader knows how easy it is to loose all the fine points of writing when it is not practised constantly. The journal is full of place names and directions of travel and a few maps indicating the progress of the trappers. There is some description of the scenery and the Indians of the area eg Blackfoot which are a constant threat, Shoshones (Snake), Bonnack and Crow. Occasionaly I was pleasantly surprised by paragraphs of eloquence and beauty mixed in with the simplistic writing which was the norm. Russell was capable of very good writing when he was inspired or wished to do so. This is also demonstrated by his letters to his sisters which are written with great style and few grammatical errors, completely unlike his journals.

There is much which comes to the fore in regard to the period eg the waste and destruction as the parties of trappers even in groups as small as 3 wonder the countryside and simply kill a Bison Cow for a meal and then discard it, or just take the tongue to eat. Incredible disregard for nature is shown at times. The trapper is in continual fear of Blackfoot war parties who harrass them, both white and Indian, constantly. In one instance an enormous group of Blackfeet, thought to number up to 1000 or more by Russell, attempt to eradicate the entire group of Bridger's trappers, about 100. They decide not to due to an unfavourable (omen) display of Northern lights. Even in his day as the story nears the end of the 9 years Russell tells of the scarcity of Buffalo which were not wiped out in total until 1870 or so (80 million -> 1000). Its almost as if it comes upon them suddenly, "5 years ago thousands crossed the valleys of the Yellowstone, now its hard to find any". Russell even becomes a little conservationist in spirit when he states that maybe its time for the white man to leave this country because the wildlife has been so denuded.

An interesting book but with far too few passages describing the trapper's feeling along the way.

This is by far one of the best books that a fur trade re-enactor can read. It is also a must read for the modern beaver trapper as well. Osborne describes the everyday events of the fur brigades in their heyday. If you are a buckskinner, living historian, trapper or just an old west history buff then this is a MUST have!

A remarkable firsthand account of how it was back in the 1830's to early 1840's to be a fur trapper/trader in the Rocky Mountains. Russell lived it and told it like it was back then. One of few mountain men to keep a journal. I like how he gets quite descriptive in the day to day adventures and activities that he had to do for survival. An excellent book.

James Johnston gave a vivid, poignant and heroic account of his life with the Marines fighting in the Pacific during World War II. It was fascinating to read how it life was for the Marines in the Pacific as like he said, the media tended to focus on the European theater and thought of the Pacific theater as "easy."

Using letters that he wrote home, Johnston managed to add a personal touch to his account. It was interesting to get a glimpse on how he felt emotionally, the friendship that was formed between the soldiers and how a lot of times, soldiers are fighting as hard as they did, for their friends because they did not want to let their them down. When Johnston was the section leader, he was able to show the burden of responsibilities as you were not just in charge of your life but of others too.
Lastly, how he was disappointed with the Marines. He found flaws with the system but at the same time, it was very much part of him.

"The Long Road of War" is a wonderfully-written, highly-emotional story of Marine Corps combat from the "flat-trajectory" soldier's perspective. Johnston shares his own personal horrific views of World War II Pacfic combat. With stirring text, he shows the sudden transformation from Nebraska teenager to Green recruit to hardened veteran. This book is an excellent addition to any historian's bookshelf, once they can find the time to put it down.

This was a book that I could absolutely not put down. Mr. Johnston's description of his transition from a Midwest teenager into a battle hardened, front line Marine is told with a grim honesty that is seldom found in books about war. This book does away with any glorification or self-promotion and gives you the tragic, ugly truth about the war in the South Pacific.

Feelings of absolute splendor filled my heart while reading this tale. Captivating and thought provoking. I would highly recomend it to anyone, young or old. A story that will remain in your soul for a lifetime.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is a beautiful story, beautifully told. I love the illustrations!

Every child and every adult should read this book. It reminds us of what is important in life. A wonderful way to introduce children to symbolism, other cultures, their own cultural heritage, and so much more! I look forward to more works by Mr. Afuhaamango.