Very informative. A must have if you are planning a trip and are not familiar with Jamaican culture.

I have used four different guidebooks in two trips to Jamaica in the past two years. This Lonely Planet guide is clearly the most thorough and comprehensive (although the others are more than adequate). I can't think of anything of significance that was left out, and I've been studying the island for 30 years now. That said, it's probably far more than most tourists to Jamaica will need or want. The vast majority go to major resorts for fun in the sun. If that is your intent, then this book will be very helpful to you in planning your trip--choosing a place to go, places to eat and stay, and things to do-but so will the other guides. This is, however, the guide par excellence for those who want to know as much as possible about Jamaica, its people and culture, and who will be traveling around the island, perhaps to areas remote from the tourist industry, for an extended period of time. It will be invaluable for anyone who is moving to Jamaica and working there-such as missionaries, teachers, embassy staff, and Peace Corps volunteers.

The guide starts with an excellent 66 page overview of the island that you should read before you go. It also has a great 47 page history of popular music. And lots of beautiful color photographs. Followed by detailed information on where to go, where to stay, and what to do in every area of the country. Along with priceless sage advice on the local culture. The author really knows his way around the country and the people. It can be a tricky place to be, and most tourists don't venture far from the resort areas, so if you are going cross-country on your own then you should definitely read what he has to say.

Because it is so comprehensive and informative, I can also recommend this guide as a beginning reference on Jamaica. I don't know any other book where you can learn so much about the country between two covers.

You can rely on this guide totally. And, by the way, it's a tough book too, with a stitched spine to keep it together, so it won't fall apart before your next trip to Jamaica.

This is the guidebook that answers all of the questions you might have about this beautiful country. I was able to enjoy 2 wonderful weeks in Negril, and planned most of my activities, hotel accomodations, restaurant visits, entertainment, and transportation using this book. What I appreciate most about Lonely Planet books is that they give information on all of the towns in a given country - not just the big resort places. The ratings of hotels and restaurants was very accurate, as were the maps. They tell you the good, the bad and the ugly in realistic terms that make getting around a breeze. This book is a must if you are planning to travel to Jamaica!!

I thought I knew the Monterey region fairly well until I was given this book as a present! It is packed with great "bites" of information: natural history, human history, and how to get to all the beaches and parks. The writing is easy to understand, friendly in a way, and even fun. The maps are very helpful, and the book even has resource sections with phone numbers, website urls, and directions. AND, the photographs are stunning. A great gift for visitors, home libraries, or the glove compartment of your car.

I received this book as a gift and was immediately taken by the depth and breadth of this book. If you are traveling from Ano Nuevo to Monterey get this book! The author and photograper bring this spectacular shoreline alive with great descriptive copy and super photos(you've got to see page 136). Hidden beaches and other great spots that I would never have known existed. Great information about how to get there, what to do and how it got there. Get the family together, pack a lunch and bring this book. Guaranteed great day!

I have lived in Santa Cruz County for 15 years and thought I knew the Monterey Bay coastal zone very well--that is, until I read Jerry Emory's Monterey Bay Shoreline Guide. This Guide is the best--it covers both familiar territory and less well-known aspects of the Monterey Bay and its coastal towns. I've found myself consulting it whenever I make any kind of shoreline jaunt, from discovering where one can walk one's dog on a beach in Carmel to locating the best on-shore whalewatching sites. The photos are beautiful as well as informative. The organization of the book, which includes sidebar articles on specific topics, lends itself to easy access for both the casual and serious reader.

This book was very imformative and valuable on a recent road trip to the parks with my kids. I provided a consise resource of information and facts in an easily readable form. A valuable addition to your glove box at the start of your trip, or reading material on the flight to Jackson. Highly recommended.

There are many travel guides which will tell you where to eat, where to stay, and how much you can expect to spend. Some contain maps, important phone numbers, and local attractions. This book goes well beyond that. You will come away with a deep appreciation of the area and a better understanding of the wildlife. You will come to understand the differences between a black, brown, and grizzly bear and how to peacefully coexist with them in the park. You will learn how geysers work, what dangers exist, and how to help preserve the park for future generations.

I just returned from a visit to Yellowstone and found this book extremely helpful both in planning the trip and as a reference while there. I particularly liked the author's reviews of the accomodations within the park, which I found to be accurate, especially his reviews of the accomodations at the Old Faithful area, Canyon, and Lake Yellowstone.

The book contains excellent, accurate maps and the descriptions of touring the park contain lots of little-known sites that were worth seeing. Also, the book contains great information on hikes within the park.

I looked at several other guides to Yellowstone, this one by far outshines the other ones that I saw.

Enjoy your visit to this wonderful park!

I have to say that this book is just cool. I just got back from my first visit to San Francisco, and I am so glad I had this guide with me. The fold out maps are very clear and helpful. Even though the book is small, it hits all the highlights. I visited several shops and restaurants listed in the back, and I was never disappointed.

I've lived in San Francisco for five years, but I still get lost when exploring a new neighborhood. The comprehensive pull-out maps found in Moon Metro are so detailed, that they even include those hard-to-find alleyways and cul-de-sacs. I had friends in from out of town last weekend, and I let them use my copy. They loved it! I definitely recommend this series.

I agree that what makes them cool is the foldout maps. The book is also pretty small. I've lived in the Bay Area all my life but still manage sometimes to get lost while hanging out in the city. I can put this in my coat pocket before I step out and not worry about looking clueless in front of my out-of-town friends. For people who are just visiting, I liked their selection of shops and places to eat. They didn't just list the usual tourist traps. And the color photos inside were pretty nifty, they could be postcards!

Stunning photographs of America's number one wine region. Every page of this masterpiece is a feast for the eyes.

If you have no idea where the Napa Valley is, or that it is an exquisite little Eden, & if you like the wines that come to you from this delightful part of California, then A VIEW FROM ABOVE NAPA VALLEY will be a grand adventure.

Come fly with Charles Feil in his gyroplane, & see the mists over the patchworks of vineyards, the rows of vines as they undulate over rolling hillsides, the startling & poignant blends of water, trees, roads & fields; catch glimpses of the elegant architecture of the wineries, hot airballoons over sunset fogs.

Perhaps the most telling feature, as we glide above this inspiring landscape, is that all the things we human have made are foursquare & angled, whereas all the vines nurtured & groomed, are in flowing patterns following the contours of the earth.

There are so many photos that take my breath away & the fabric of corduroy often came to mind.

A great gift idea!

Not to brag, but I have personally seen California's famed Napa Valley, the foremost wine-growing region in America, from above - courtesy of a half-hour glider tour I took some years ago. Of course the sights I saw from that airborne vantage point have faded from memory, so I was pleased to receive this lovely book that provides much of the same experience to the general reader (without requiring you to strap into a fiberglass flying machine). A number of towns, well-known vineyards, and geographic features such as the Napa hills and Lake Berryessa are all seen here from the expert eagle's-eye view. This book is one in a series from veteran high-flying photographer Charles Feil; through his lens you can also look down on Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Key West. If you want to get the lay of the land before planning a trip to Napa, this volume provides a spectacular overview.

A more detailed view of Lewis and Clark's relations and attitudes toward the Indians. Interesting insight into Sacagawea's true role within the Corp of Discovery. A must read for any Lewis and Clark/Western history buff.

AS an author of a Lewis and Clark book, I can appreciate the research involved in writing a good book. Dr. Ronda has written the definitive book for understanding the interactions between The Corps of Discovery and the various Indian nations they encountered. He explains the politics behind the numerous interactions, some friendly others very contentious. For a Lewis and Clark buff, this is a MUST HAVE addition to their collection.
I totally enjoyed this book!

This book is a great follow up to Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage, and builds on his great synopsis of the journey. Readers will gain a greater appreciation of the rich Native American cultures that were instrumental in the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. After reading this book you will walk away with a renewed sense of awe regarding the journey, and a new found respect for a culture that has been all but destroyed by the "white man's progress". An excellent, gripping, insightful and exciting read. Involves some advanced terms and concepts that add flavor to a general understanding of this most fascinating period of 19th Century American Histroy.

Totally agree about the locals comment. I just moved here from San Francisco and found great stuff in the book to make me feel like a native. Well-written, funny, entertaining, and a great resource for anyone visiting or living here!

My husband travels to Los Angeles often for business
so he knows a lot about the city but I went for the
first time on his last trip. Since he was going to be
in meetings a lot I was worried about being on my own
so I bought this LA for Dummies guide and I'm so glad
I did! It was fun to read and so informative - it
even showed my husband the "LA expert" a few tricks.
I totally recommend it!

We visited Los Angeles for the first time recently and were worried about what we had heard - that the city is a big sprawling mess, difficult to get around, etc. All of which is true, but this book made it less intimidating and actually a lot of fun. We took the author's advice to heart and wound up not feeling like dummies at all! This is a great book for the first time visitor.

How can it be that there are only two other reviews of this fine book since 1995?

M.R. Montgomery does the thinking, the exploration, the examination and the analysis; all we have to do is read his book. His descriptions of cutthroat trout and their environs, First Nations peoples (Native Americans / Indian), the steady changing of history "ripping pages out of the history book" as he calls it, and the incredible pace of destruction are both fascinating and chilling.

Kathie Durbin's fine work on The Tongass, "Tongass: Pulp Politics and the Fight for the Alaska Rain Forest", is a work of journalism, and it describes, with a very sharp focus, the same practices at work that Montgomery reveals in, "Many Rivers to Cross", in the U.S. Nation's very first park. Montgomery had it right from the start.

Law and public policy may be on the side of preservation and conservation, but as M.R. Montgomery and his colleagues make clear, "wise use" is anything but "wise" and once used, its gone.

Edward Abbey's, "The Monkey Wrench Gang", is, apparently, the only answer that makes for popular reading. This is a shame where Montgomery's prose and observational style are just as accessible as Abbey's.

Read this fine book, check out Ms. Durbin's excellent piece of journalism and consider whether Mr. Abbey was writing a novel or a policy proposal.

In a day and age where greenhouse gasses are increasing, the US will not participate in the Kyoto accord and the lumber industry is nothing but a byproduct of the pulp industry - only books like these (ironically printed on pulped wood fibers) can educate us about the last of the wilderness.

Teddy Roosevelt created the parks. . .M.R. Montgomery shows that it is impossible to argue that wilderness conservation is limited to people with only one political view or to just one special interest group.

The valuable insights, gentle humor and wistful beauties it contains should not be reserved just for the fishing fraternity. M R Montgomery describes, with wit and sensitivity, his search for the last remaining bastions of the native trout of the mountain west, the cutthroat. He describes the people who help him on his quest with humor and with empathy. In those remote places, his interest and his eyes wander to show us paticularities of landscape and peculiarities of the flora and fauna that cohabit there with the trout. Beneath the surface Montgomery is addressing concepts like "wilderness", "preservation" and "stewardship" without referring to them directly. He begins his story near the Little Big Horn Battlefield, but the last stand that he wants us to contemplate is not Custer's.

Montgomery's gentle quest for the last haunts of native cutthroats is worth reading twice. A more gifted writer than most of his more celebrated contemporaries.

When I was in Havana (3/2001) I brought a stack of guide books to help me navigate around Cuba (and especially Havana). The top award goes to the prolific author Christopher Baker, who wrote "Havana Handbook" and "Cuba" (both are published by Avalon Travel).

In Havana Handbook Christopher Baker gives you a solid introduction to Havana and Cuba, a good, but basic, general travel information section. His two books have the best accommodations, restaurants and sights-to-see reviews and recommendations available today. He also provides excellent tables & lists of pertinent subjects, good black & white photos, scores of side bar topics that are full of informative caveats, and the beginning of web site and Internet addresses.

The only improvement I can recommend to Avalon Travel and Christopher Baker (are you listening?) would be more, much more, email addresses (especially for the hotels) additional online sources and additional maps (i.e., Baker recommends three great walking tours through Havana and these need maps). However, I have reviewed other Moon Handbooks and the Havana Handbook's maps and scattered inclusions of online resources are a real improvement over other Moon Handbooks.

So, if you are going to visit JUST Havana, and you don't want to cart around Christopher Baker's definitive, 827 page "Cuba" (Highly Recommended - see review), then this 368-page guidebook is very good and reliable choice. BUT, for three dollars more I would buy Christopher Baker's "Cuba". Regardless Christopher Baker has written a tour guide unmatched by any other Cuba guide book. Recommended

I spent a month in Cuba guided by this book. Not only does it have great information for the essential activities like eating and sleeping, but it has an incredible amount of information about the country. If you find yourself without a book to read while traveling, Chris' guide book is great for educational reading material - packed with historical and cultural reading. At first I scoffed at his tendency to flowery writing - "with water as warm as bedtime milk" but after growing accostomed to his style we began to think of Chris as our travel buddy and the other travel books brought by my travel partners were soon buried deep in backpacks - Chris' book was the only one we needed.

I have been all over Cuba, and Baker was an excellent guide. No other book goes into the detail for off the beaten track travel.

This is one of the better Colorado photography books out there. While the photos are not consistently great, they are consistently good. Wunrow spent a lot of time hiking to remote areas of Colorado, which is to be commended. I do recommend 'Colorado II' by David Muench over this book, but I have ranked 'Mountains of Colorado' as the third best book on my list of 'Best Colorado Picture Books' (which can be seen by clicking on my name and looking at the Listmania lists).

I purchased several copies of this book and sent them to my friends and relatives across the country.

Everybody loved it.

Catch a glimpse of some of the more rare and overlooked vistas that this amazing state has to offer. Wunrow offers an incredible visual aesthetic in both photography and book design that takes the reader on a voyage to all corners of this wonderfully diverse state. A keen eye for composition, combined with strenuous backcountry hiking to areas unknown to even avid backpackers like myself, the images are striking and sometimes haunting. Former Governor Lamm's essays are engaging and well written, and form a wonderful complement to the photographs. Highly recommended for anyone looking to enjoy the most uniquely magnificent and previously unpublished views of America's most beautiful state.