I did tons of research before our cruise in April 2003, mostly on the Internet. About 75% of the info in this book can be found elsewhere, but not in one place--and that's what makes this purchase worthwhile.

I looked at lots of Caribbean travel books and was disappointed to find little to no valuable information on DCL's ports of call. It hardly seemed worth buying a big fat book on the Caribbean islands when only a handful of pages actually covered the ones I'd be visiting. This book, on the other hand, has several pages dedicated to each of DCL's ports of call and excellent descriptions of excursions and on-your-own adventures.

Especially useful are sample menus for the DCL restaurants, details of spa services, packing tips, stateroom plans, and misc "magical" hints to make a DCL cruise memorable.

I discovered some inaccuracies while on the cruise, but nothing that ruined my vacation. Changes in schedules, activities, menus, prices, etc. are inevitable. Fortunately the authors keep their web site up to date with revisions.

Two things I love about this book besides the content in general: one, the authors aren't snobbish or know-it-alls; they're "real" people. I don't worry that they're being paid by someone to say positive things, and they seem to be very honest with their reviews. Two, it's a compact book that's easy to take along anywhere--and believe me, you'll want to.

Don't re-invent the wheel! Get this book, and if it doesn't answer all your questions, THEN check out some of the few excellent web sites dedicated to DCL info.

We rec'd this book only days before we left on our cruise. Despite doing extensive research on the web for months prior, within minutes of receiving the Passporter I learned new and useful information. The book was a joy to have onboard as we used it throughout the day to determine dining choices and entertainment possibilities. Most importantly the index and/or maps provided instant clarification to questions about specific locations on the ship. The book is written in an easy to follow format and in such a way that makes you think of Jennifer and Dave as old friends just giving advice. Great Book.

This info is all on the web, IF you are willing to comb websites, download hundreds of pages and comb through the message boards for hours, days, weeks..... Finally, you do not have to do that, thanks to Jennifer, Dave and Mickey and their crew of writers. Nicely written, well organized with everything you need to know about cruising the Magic or Wonder.

I loved this book. I read it before I gave it to my daughter. It is a fictional family, but all the information is true to life. Interspersed with the story of the Robertsons, you can learn how to make your own cheese, dip a candle, or learn to tell the time from the sun.
This book will add to your library, and is a nice complement to Laura Ingalls Wilders books. Homeschooling familys will enjoy it, I know we did.

The Pioneer Sampler

The Pioneer Sampler is a fun and fascinating book. It tells about a pioneer family. Can Nekeek and Willy catch fish by hand? You'll find out. This is a fun book.
I'd give this book a five *...

Barbara Greenwood has written a wonderful book that is as much fun for adults to read to children as it is for the children to read themselves. She doesn't just 'tell' about the Robertson's, she 'shows', drawing the reader into their lives...a pleasant place to be. I especially love Granny's story about how she came to America,on a ship, from Scotland.

The book is beautifully illustrated...all the way through...by Heather Collins. The pictures are so well done that, even as an adult, I would like to step into the scene!

There are instructions for simple, fun activities such as growing a potato plant, dyeing fabric using an onion, or making a cardboard jumping jack; pioneer games that will even entertain today's children for hours such as shadow shapes or knucklebones; and recipes that are easy for children.

Reading this book to a child is a great 'stress releaver'...it's like a little escape from the treadmill of life!!!

Shaffer is a gifted poet, generously allowing us to see the world from his sometimes tilted (like a pinball machine) but generally optimistic viewpoint. His verse is accessible without being simple, and often cheerful but not sappy. And it comes with instructions! If you like your poetry dense as ancient fruitcake and studded with indigestible pellets of unidentifiable allusions you may not enjoy this book, but I found it refreshing and strongly recommend it.

Portable Planet is that rare book of poetry that gives you both immediate pay-off and a lifetime of contemplation. From the opening poem, "At Play in the Fields of the Word," Eric Paul Shaffer makes you laugh ("None come to the door but grim vendors of an angry God and trademark plasticware") and makes you think ("Today, I define 'freedom' this way: with nothing done, the future is full"). Each of Shaffer's poems hits you with power and precision. Shaffer has more to SAY than any other living poet I've read. Unlike most acclaimed (and rather boring) poets, he never hides behind safely ambiguous imagery; his voice is loud and clear, and playfully challenging. For example, consider this line from his long poem "The Western Room:" "From Japan, America is the land of the rising sun, inscrutable." From his poem "Yadokari: Hermit Crab, Okinawa," you can also learn how to live your life: "Life is kind. Move on. Carry what you can." If I were forced to choose my favorite, I'd pick "On the Verge of the Usual Mistake." (His titles alone are both funny and thought-provoking.) If you buy only one book of poetry this year, make sure you buy Portable Planet. It doesn't get better than this.

Portable Planet liberates American poetry from the stuffiness of the Academy and the silliness of the Slam. Here is a book whistling with fresh air, open vistas, and good humor. Portable Planet should be made into our next National Park, but hurry and get your copy, before the next administration sells it off! If Walt Whitman had looked under his own boot soles, he would have found Eric Paul Shaffer--and Shaffer would have been giving old Walt a hot foot. This book burns!

This book is fascinating! After spending an hour with this book I felt like I really knew what time has meant to Borinquen. Hearing family stories is one thing, but seeing pictures from when they were growing up is another. Anyone interested in Puerto Rican history should have this book.

I simply love this book. As a starving college student, I still haven't come up with the money to buy it, but...someday I will. I've leafed through it a million times and never get bored by it...as a native Puertorrican living abroad, this is simply my favorite photographic work on my homeland. Delano did an amazing job.

The pages of this pictorial opus expresses the legacy, struggle, beauty, misery, joy of Puerto Rico of days past. Second, third generation Puerto Ricans will reconnect with their roots page by page. This is surely an enlighting photo memoir of our People, the images speak louder then words. The power of photograph comes to light in these pages, and Delano did it so well. Delano saves the spirit of Puerto Rico's past, once thought to be lost with faded memories. This is a book to keep for oneself, it strenghtens one's soul.

Roy Gerrard is a rare talent. The charming text, the masterful watercolor illustrations (as an advertising creative, I see a LOT of illustration. Few illustrators hold a candle to Roy) come together in a wonderful book. The rhyming text entertains my kids and I at storytime

With dashing flare and tuneful rhymes, Roy Gerrard brings us a colorful tale of the old west, where the good guys are the good guys and the villians just can't catch a break! We all loved the spirit of the old west, "Bonanza-style" and this is your chance to recapture it with and for your child. You will read it a hundred times if you read it once...I try for an accent that is early Walter Brennan. The art is second to none, the length just right for bedtime...in today's fast paced world, it is a pleasure to share this with your children! 5 STARS ONLY BECAUSE 6 ARE NOT AVAILABLE!

It's a great story with lots of action and coyboys andhorses. My mother used to read it to me every night and I can recite it by heart. To me it's a classic!

The Pallisers carry on in this rambling Victorian novel. Phineas Finn's wife dies, and he again enters politics. He picks up with the various women in his life. Violet Effingham is now happily married. Laura Standish is married, but estranged from her husband. Marie Goesler is the eternal enigma. Love and money again wreaks havoc with Phineas's life. Trollope mesmerizes the reader with polished prose that adds a touch of elegance. Style prevails over substance in his novels. British politics are bewildering, but Victorian manners and morals are the real story. The mating dance that unfolds in drawing rooms and country weekends is amusing. Subplots abound. The novel has more drama than usual. Phineas is accused of murder. Trollope manages unexpected tenderness in his depiction of Laura Kennedy. She longs for Phineas, who once was her lover. Fearing scandal, she suffers a lonely life, and regrets what might have been. Lady Glencora and Plantagenet Palliser play a role in the book. They are now the Duke and Duchess of Omnium. Consequently, a new dilemma confronts Plantagenet. Lady Glencora is the tireless meddler, regardless. Marie Goesler is ever more important in Phineas's life. Trollope's work is lightweight, but refreshing. This book is good down time reading to escape the clamor and fast pace of modern life. ;-)

Combined, PHINEAS FINN and PHINEAS REDUX constitute one of the great yarns in Anthony Trollope's large catalog of novels. As art, they are not masterpieces and do not quite match up against his very best books, but as entertainment, they are unsurpassed. Together, they are easily as enjoyable as any that Trollope wrote. All of the major characters of the former novel are back with a vengeance, and a far more satisfying end to the Phineas Finn saga is provided than that provided by the first novel.

By all estimations, PHINEAS FINN, while a thoroughly enjoyable novel, ended badly. So badly, that Trollope felt compelled essentially to delete the ending of the former novel, and provide a new ending in the form of a novel to correct the error of his ways. In his AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Trollope expresses his extreme dissatisfaction with the ending of that novel. Happily, he more than atones for his literary sins with the sequel.

This novel, like its predecessor, is set against the background of a great political reform. In the former, it was suffrage (i.e., how many people would be given the right to vote), in this one, the disestablishment of the Church of England (i.e., breaking the tie of mandatory local taxes to support the Anglican Church). Perhaps for this reason, Phineas Finn's Catholicism, which was not alluded to in the former novel, is made much of. The same cast of parliamentary characters are brought back for this new controversy. One curiosity is that sometimes Trollope refers by name to the achievements of members of parliament such as Gladstone, Disraeli, or John Bright. What is odd about this is the fact that Gresham is pretty transparently based on Gladstone, Daubeny on Disraeli, and Trumbull on John Bright.

Far more than the Barsetshire novels, a large number of increasingly familiar characters flit in and out of the various political novels. The major characters of one novels are found as minor characters in another. As one works through the novels in the political series, one sees such characters as Glencora Palliser, Joshua Monk, Mr. Rattler, Lord Fawn, Lord and Lady Cantrip, Lizzie Eustace, and a myriad of other characters. One of my favorite Trollope characters is prominent in PHINEAS REDUX, Madame Max Goesler. Dark in her features, thin, beautiful, extremely wealthy, widowed, extremely self-possessed, sharply intelligent, efficient, and very much a woman of action, she seems very much to be a woman before her time. One of the most remarkable things about Trollope, who was in many ways the epitome of the Victorian world, was his obvious love for strong, intelligent, exceptional women. Although there are many such women in Trollope's novels, Madame Goesler is easily the one I find most compelling.

A deep story of confusion and love. Contains a horrid climax and odd conclusion. Read on!

Entirely evocative of the Montana landscape. An excellent gift or coffee table book for Montana natives or Montana-philes. Not only does Evelyn capture the physicality of the place - she captures it's soul - it's very essence.

Evelyn Cameron left her English home to become a rancher in Montana in the late 1800s: she used her photography skills to help support her family, and captured Montana life in the process. Photographing Montana gathers photos which portray early Montana life and deserves a spot in any Montana history collection as well as in art libraries seeking examples of regional photographic talent. Excerpts from her diaries and letters include plenty of autobiographical insights.

This is an outstanding book of frontier American photography, as well as an interesting story of the photography, Evelyn Cameron. Cameron was a high-society woman from England who moved to Montana with her husband in the late nineteenth century. Bored with frontier life, she learned photography from a neighbor and then began to photograph the natural beauty on wildlife of Montana. This books succeeds from both the frontier photography and the story of this woman's life.

Pioneer Women-The Lives of Women on the Frontier is a must for collectors of western lore-whether as used for reference or just for reading pleasure this book delves into little covered issues and answers the questions previously unmentioned regarding women on the frontier. From traveling west to every day life, from cooking to birth control, women domestic pioneers to women entrepreneurs; if you have a question about the lives of women in the 1800's this book probably has the answer in its pages.

This book will open your eyes up to the way things were a century and a half ago. Back to the basics is an understatement. Imagine raising 8 children on a farm that you had to establish yourself because your husband and other family members perished on the trip west to get to an unknown territory far far away from immediate family? These women did it. They survived and thier children either a: lived and learned the life or b: died from illness or accidents. This is very graphic and very personable to the very core of many women's souls. Women who kept diaries on the Oregon Trail in 1850 and onwards. Women who were always "in the background" keeping the family fed, clothed, silent and schooled. Women are most definitly the most gentle and most strong of the sexes.. Why? Because they have a continuous human spirit and one that gets them through the toughest of times of all.
Please read this book and with that said.. the pictures in this book are a historian's dream!

Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith do a fine job of showing and telling the pioneer experience through the eyes of our frontier women. With visual images and descriptive narratives, PIONEER WOMEN details the everyday struggles and deprivations experienced by our westward women.

The stories are about courageous women that left behind well-established homes to travel to unsettled regions; women that learned to "make do" and start from scratch to set up housekeeping; women from all walks of life who melded together to do what they could to improve their new surroundings; and the women who civilized the West.

PIONEER WOMEN is a collection of stories as taken from letters, diaries, memoirs, oral histories, and other personal papers of women themselves. It's brilliantly reconstructed and a must read for the avid or casual reader!

I checked this book out of the library prior to a trip to London, and now I'm going to buy a copy for my library. This is such a well laid out book, and the perfect size for the field. The information on the covers is particularly nice, with black and white illustrations of members of all the families so that you can quickly determine where in the guide to look for details. This is very helpful because there are many unfamiliar birds there that don't fit into the categories of birds we're used to in the states. And right inside the front cover is a color-coded index to help you quickly get to the section you need. I also liked the interesting facts about the birds that you don't see in many field guides. If you need a guide to birds for this area, this is definitely the one to have!

I ordered this book for a trip to Northern Germany and really lucked out. I read previous reviews, liked the format and size and gave it a shot. It was perfect for my needs. I recommend it highly.

Before our vacation in Denmark this month, I purchased this guide and based my selection on the 2 previous reviews and its small size. Boy, did I get lucky! This is one great field guide! Not only is all the pertinent information for each species located on one page, but that one page is also full of all sorts of interesting items (such as behaviors and flight patterns), written and/or pictured. If the authors would compile a similar guide for our North American species, it would surely replace my almost-worn-out National Geographic (my previous favorite)!

While it is true, this is a wonderful, true-to-life autobiography of one of the central figures to the Haight-Ashbury scene, there is something fundamentally tragic about Grogan, especially if you read Peter Coyote's introduction and realize what happened to Grogan in the 1970s. Grogan was no bohemian intellectual, and so the reading is rough at times, but Grogan was a man who had an amazing amount of gaul, a joie-de-vivre, and a sense of daring that made his life fascinating... "a life played for keeps" as his subtitle tells us.

Unfortunately, at too early an age, that sense of daring led him to heroin. Perhaps because Grogan opens himself up so completely in "Ringolevio", one comes away from the book with a sense that somehow, despite Grogan's disappointment with the failure of the Haight-Ashbury adventure, he was going to be all right, he was going to find a new way to do his good work in this world. The book ends with a first-hand account of the Rolling Stones Altamont Speedway murder. Grogan was writing with hindsight, recognizing that the concert marked the end of the illusion: many residents of Haight Ashbury began to move away, or get into trouble, and it didn't take long before the whole gig was over. But Grogan seemed optimistic that he would find other gigs, equally as enriching as his years as a Digger in San Fransisco.

The first time I read this book it was a first edition copy, and I didn't have the benefit of knowing what happened to Grogan in the years following this book's publication. Reading Coyote's recollections of Grogan in the years after the book's publication - how financial success led Grogan back to the needle, and how the needle eventually claimed Grogan's life - makes the feigned optimism of Ringolevio's end all the more bittersweet.

I don't give it five stars because it reads at times like the work of a hack. Nonetheless, this is a fascinating document for anyone interested in the history of the Haight-AShbury community of the late 1960s, who the figures involved in the community were and what events shaped that community. And for the most part it seems honest, warts and all, not some nostalgia-tinged feel-good book about peace and love.

Each time I read this book, I'm more amazed and amused by it. There is never a dull moment, and I still can't figure out when or whether it crosses the line from fantasy into reality. It has a voice as authentic and American as "Huckleberry Finn" and Woody Guthrie's autobiography, and it stands as tall as they do in American literature, no joke. One of my favorites of all time. It captures a place and time, and delivers an unforgettable character, as charming as he is unreliable. I hope it will be rediscovered and recognized someday.

Anybody who wants to know anything about the San Fran "hippie" scene of the late 60's has to beg, borrow or steal "Ringolevio." Even if some of it is ***, it's the read of a lifetime. Far better than fiction