1. ISBN13: 9780061804090
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Customer Review :

Incredibly informative book

For anyone interested in China and the changes that are occurring there, this book is incredible. Written by a young (thirty-five-ish) American, who has lived in China as a journalist for about 14 years as I count it, the insights are fascinating. You get to see the changes through the eyes of an American, yet one who is fluent in Chinese, which is a tremendous advantage, and who has a droll sense of humor as well.

It's three stories: First his exploration of the wild west of China, following the Great Wall, second his life in his country home in a little village north of Beijing, and his relationship with a family in the village, and his description of the changes which occurred during five or six years, with development, and thirdly, his following another large town in the south as the highway arrived, development zones sprang up, etc. It's tremendously interesting. He talks with people everywhere. In the development zone for instance, he talks with the entrepreneurs setting up a factory, with the employees, with members of a little traveling show which comes to entertain them, etc etc. You get to actually meet everyone.

As I'm writing this, all the reviewer ratings are five star. It's not often you'll see a book with all five star ratings. This one deserves it.

Rating :

How rapidly-changing China is changing the world from an American's Perspective

1st I have to say I am a huge fan of Peter Hessler, I have all of his three books and I have read the 1st two for a number of times, especially the 1st one River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.).

I had pre-ordered this new book well before it was released, the long wait was excruciating but well worth it. Unlike the 1st book "river town", which is more about a young American who was new to China and trying to adapt himself by gradually learning its culture and language. This new book is more focused on how fast-changing China is changing its own people and at the same time having an huge impact on the rest of the world. I won't spend too much time talking about what the book is about, you gotta read it by yourself.

Shortly after the book was released, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a seminar where Peter Hessler had a Q&A session with a professor at UCI. After the talk, I waited in line and got my new book signed by him. I was thrilled.

Rating :

A road trip through the racing heart of China

The first section of New Yorker writer Hessler's engrossing three-part portrait of China's headlong rush to the future is peppered with questions from the Chinese driving test:

"223. If you come to a road that has been flooded, you should
a) accelerate so the motor doesn't flood.
b) stop, examine the water to make sure it's shallow, and drive across slowly.
c) Find a pedestrian and make him cross ahead of you."

Hessler came to China in 1996 with the Peace Corp and stayed for 10 years. He got his license in 2001, as roads and drivers were proliferating, and planned a cross-country trip. Development was intense in coastal regions but the north and west were still remote, many roads unlabeled.

"352. If another motorist stops you to ask directions, you should
a) not tell him.
b) reply patiently and accurately.
c) tell him the wrong way."

He decided to follow the Great Wall, which is actually a series of fortifications built of various materials in various states of ruin. It was harvest time and the farmers laid their produce on the edges of the road for sorting and drying and threw grain into the middle for threshing.

"Initially I found it hard to drive over food. On the first day of my journey, I screeched to a halt before every pile, rolling down the window. `Is it OK for me to go through?' The farmers shouted back impatiently `Go, go, go!' And so I went - millet, sorghum, and wheat cracking beneath me. By the second day I no longer asked; by the third day I learned to accelerate at the sight of grain."

He meets amateur historians and government tree planters, picks up hitchhiking young people coming from factory towns to visit family, and camps in the desert to avoid officialdom (Hessler's favorite Chinese motto is "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.")

His prose meanders organically, exploring the China of the past and the present, from the Ming dynasty and the route of Genghis Khan to the roller-coaster excitement of road-testing the newest Chinese car.

He also proves his credentials here as a fearless adventurer. Few things can be more dangerous than driving in China, where driving lessons are laugh-out-loud bizarre, seat belts and turn signals are superfluous and traffic fatalities are twice as high as in the US, with one fifth the number of vehicles.

In Book II Hessler homes in on the traditional village, renting a house in mountainous, rural Sancha about two hours drive from Beijing (maps orient the reader at the start of each section - would there were pictures too!). There is only one child in the village (the young have migrated to the cities) and Hessler becomes friendly with Wei Jia's parents, Wei Ziqi and Cao Chunmei.

Handicapped by his lack of education (typical in the country), Wei Ziqi tried factory work, but returned to his village to farm. Smart and ambitious, he had tried and failed at leech farming and was now turning to tourism, which was following the better roads and increased prosperity.

Hessler limns the family's fortunes as Wei Ziqi builds a restaurant, and takes up the two essentials for doing business - smoking and drinking. As the friendship grows Hessler drives Wei Jia to boarding school kindergarten and witnesses Cao Chunmei's growing unhappiness and isolation. China remains a man's world and there's no place where that's more evident than the countryside.

Through his connection to the family, Hessler explores village gossip and politics, and takes part in the walnut harvest. In a harrowing section (which was a New Yorker article) Hessler encounters the Chinese medical system first-hand when Wei Jia becomes suddenly ill and it's Hessler, with his car and U.S. connections, who tracks down treatment.

Hessler's American sensibilities often illuminate the cultural contrasts. When the Weis grow rich enough to have a TV and Wei Jia comes home from school, the formerly tough and wiry boy grows soft in front of the TV eating junk food all day. Hessler frets about this, but to Cao Chunmei there's no point in having a TV if you don't watch it and few pleasures greater than watching a child eat.

The final section explores the burgeoning factory towns popping up along new expressways, each with a specialization - buttons, playing cards, umbrellas. "Datang produces one-third of the socks on earth."

Hessler chooses Lishui for his focus, a town that is about to have an expressway exit, and already has an Economic Development Zone. He gets in on the ground floor, approaching a city-dressed man outside a half-built factory and follows the fortunes of the place from factory design, which takes an hour and a half, to production (bra-strap loops), rocky times, success and reorganization.

Again, individuals provide the narrative impetus. The owners let Hessler hang around for good times and bad. Job interviews are a rough and tumble affair. The best incentives are lots of overtime and no vacations, since there's really nothing else to do.

Hessler finds another fascinating group to follow when, on the basis of outsize personality and persistence, a teenager gets jobs for her whole resourceful family, who also run a side business providing goods to workers.

There's tension in the beginning when the expensive machinery doesn't work, tension when the orders don't come in like they should, tension when their most crucial worker wants to visit his pregnant wife (code, maybe, for abandoning the sinking factory).

Contrasts and contradictions abound. The group dynamic is so strong one complaint can spark a sea of grumbling, but self-help books urge workers to lie and think solely of themselves. A precious baby's 50th-day celebration takes place in a cigarette-smoke filled restaurant amid spatters of hot oil.

Hessler engages the reader with his own affection and fascination for an ancient culture in overdrive. Endlessly curious, fluent in the language, willing to go anywhere, and talk to anyone, his graceful prose carries us along, into the mountains, the dusty deserts, the mud-walled village huts and concrete factories, but most of all into the lives of the people he meets.

Rating :

Country Driving

I am enjoying the book. If you have lived in China, you will have a better understanding of the book.

Rating :

A worthy end to the China trilogy.

As implied in the review title, this work builds on Hessler's prior non-fiction, all eminently readable. I suggest you pick up the other books first before venturing into this volume. You will note the author's assessments mature and become sharper as he goes on. Even the cover of "Country Driving" is pointed cynicism at China's approach to the highway patrol--a statue of a policeman at attention on an empty road. Whether intended or not, Hessler seems to be tiring of the Chinese experience. He is a bit less enthusiastic about the country and his characters, and perhaps more fatalistic about the future.

The author's natural maturation does not detract from the continuing insights into Chinese culture, family and village life, capitalism and factory workers. He adds to his previous vivid observations.

Please forget many tags and classifications this book is receiving. Its principal purpose is not a travelogue, or an essay on Chinese highway drivers, as the New York Times might imply. This is all good stuff about the Chinese people of the 21st Century. Hessler has observed a fantastic transformation in Chinese society over the past 14 years. I am not sure Hessler concludes with an overall positive view on what this coming decade will bring, after the massive amounts of energy and excitement during his China stay.


Rating :

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1. ISBN13: 9781598802870
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Review :

Customer Review :

Poorly organized, the worst of Steve's guides

If you know Paris well, Steve's "Paris" might be useful. Might. Only "might" because his recommendations are sorted by neighborhoods. Worse yet, some "neighborhoods," like the centrally located Opéra, are given short shrift. The entertainment/nightlife section/s are also skimpy. For once the "F" gides -- Fodor, Frommer -- and others are far better than Steve's; and such on-line guides as Virtual Tourist and Trip Advisor are also more informative and reliable. Steves's Paris is virtually worthless.

Rating :

Happy with my first Rick Steves guidebook purchase!

Although I use Amazon reviews for most of my buying research, this is one of the handful of times I feel compelled to put in my 10 cents. My friend and I went to Paris a couple months ago - my first time, her second time. Our edition, purchased in December 2009, had no publishing mistakes. Despite being tempted to buy the full-color Fodor's Paris 2010 guide, I eventually decided to give Rick Steves' hand-drawn maps and self-guided museum tours a shot.

My friend and I are very glad I did. We dragged this book all over Paris with us in a small backpack purse. We were able to find almost everything we needed in the book, no matter where we were, whether it be checking on hours/maps for a museum or looking for restaurant recommendations while walking down Rue Mouffetard/around Versailles. We liked the doing-as-the-French-do approach to the guidebook, e.g. Metro etiquette (pp. 30-31) and Parisian cuisine explanations (pp. 387-397). Back at our hotel, while one of us was napping or in the shower, the other was often chuckling over Rick Steves' commentary - learning more about things we'd seen the day before or preparing for the day to come. We used the book so much that my friend has decided to buy a copy (and a small backpack purse to carry it in) for her next trip to Paris!

A few tips:
1) On "What the Paris Museum Pass Covers" (p. 43), it is not mentioned that the pass does NOT include the Versailles audioguide. (There's a brief blurb in the Versailles Day Trip chapter, but we didn't see it until we were already on the train there. Also, not sure if the increase in audioguide price from 6 to 7 euros is recent or seasonal.) Be sure to download the free audioguide from Rick Steves' website. Aside from the continued savings, our iPods would have been easier to wear than the clunky things we rented at the Chateau.

2) A bit light on restaurant recs, so you may want to research on [...]paris, [...], or other favorite chow review website, but for our needs, it was nice to have some direction than no direction at all.

3) I don't know how the lodging recs are since we were traveling on my friend's hotel points, but someone we ran into while at the Eiffel said that there are some lovely, affordable B&B's in the area which Rick Steves doesn't seem to have any advice on (just hotels, hostels, and apartments), so maybe worth researching elsewhere?

By the way, a funny thing happened on the way back to our hotel one night. While crossing the Place de la Concorde, we passed someone looking through HIS copy of Rick Steves' guide. Maybe other people had their guidebooks in their warm jackets, but that was the only one we saw actually IN USE by someone other than us!

I can't wait to return to Paris some day to check out the rest of the book I didn't get to visit this trip!

Rating :

Excellent travel guide

This is a great book with great information for people who aren't likely to go on guided tours but still want to get the benefit of the information. I also downloaded the Rick Steeves' podcasts from iTunes.

Rating :

Don't Leave Home Without It

Would never consider taking a European trip without consulting Rick Steves. Great look at all aspects of the trip from his unique - Back Door - approach. Coupled with Zagat's Restaurant Guide, this is all you need for a spectacular Paris experience. Walk and Metro are the key ways to see this city.

Rating :

You Still Need Another Book

My wife and I bought two books to Paris with us. Rick Steves book and the Travelling Professor's Guide to Paris.

Rick Steves book has EVERYTHING in it. So, if you need to know about the Rocky Horror Picture Show (page 448) or staying in a Youth Hostel (I am 54 years old) or even where to find a public urinal (page 300) and you want to carry around a 617 page book with you, Rick Steves Paris is what you should buy.

However, the other book we used easily fit in my wife's purse and it had everything we needed to know in a book that was about 1/4 of the size of Rick Steves book.

My assessment: Rick Steves book is good but it has way too much useless stuff in it.

Rating :

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1. ISBN13: 9780061724886
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Editorial Review :

Food Network star Guy Fieri takes you on a tour of America's most colorful diners, drive-ins, and dives in this tie-in to his enormously popular television show, complete with recipes, photos, and memorabilia.

Packed with Guy's iconic personality, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives follows his hot-rod trips around the country, mapping out the best places most of us have never heard of. From digging in at legendary burger joint the Squeeze Inn in Sacramento, California, baking Peanut Pie from Virginia Diner in Wakefield, Virginia, or kicking back with Pete's "Rubbed and Almost Fried" Turkey Sandwich from Panini Pete's in Fairhope, Alabama, Guy showcases the amazing personalities, fascinating stories, and outrageously good food offered by these American treasures.

Customer Review :

yummy

Got this book for my Dad as a gift because he wants to go to the places on the show. He really liked it - as did my Mom, my daughter and me. It's helping Mom and Dad pick out some places to eat when they go away on vacation this spring. And my daughter and I are borrowing it to plan where to eat on a day trip this spring. Great book for fams of the show!

Rating :

he is a good riot.

I AM A GREAT FAN OF TRIPPLE D'S.BOUGHT HIS DVDS FRM TARGET N AM CLOLLECTING HIS BOOKS TOO.HE GOT JOKES N THAT IS WHY HE IS SO ENTERTAINING.

Rating :

A Better Road Trip

My wife and I are currently on a road trip from Delaware to Florida,ahead of the storm. As we did not have the featured book, we did very well by going to Guy's web site and printing a list of all the states we would be visiting, all along I95.
So far we are doing quite well considering the limits we have placed on ourselves.
All the states we have traversed have at least 6 places and Florida, the most, at 16 "joints".
The one place we found at our destination has been our place to go 5 times since the first of February.



Rating :

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip...with Recipes

We were amazed how fast we received the book and it was in excellent condition.

Rating :

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

I love Guy Fieri and want to go to all the restaurants he visits. The book gives you an up close and personal view of Guy and his crew as they travel around the country, as well as great recipes from the places they visit.

Rating :

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1. ISBN13: 9780470460269
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Customer Review :

Another Outstanding Job

Once again the Unofficial Guide comes through as the top Disney World Guide out there. The tips and research done by this team of Disney experts is second to none. The greatest part of this book is the section on touring plans. The research from the book as well as the accompanying website is sure to make your trip to Disney World the best possible experience. A few years ago my wife and I created our own touring plan through the advice of this book and were able to fly through the park completing every major ride at every major park in the fewest time possible. It left us the afternoons to just enjoy the park while we never waited in a line for more than 15 minutes on any ride.

The other important sections to me where the sections on food. We really felt like we knew where the good values were in every park and this only made our experience better. The latest addition was purchased in advance of our upcoming trip and I am glad that we made the purchase. Every year there are new attractions, restaurants, hotels, and ideas that make your experience better and the 2010 version fills us in on the things that are new since we went on our trip in 2008. There is no doubt that using this guide will make your trip better. It really is a bit science and a bit art to get the most out of your Disney journey and this Unofficial Guide will start you on the right path.

Rating :

The best money you will spend for WDW

The Unofficial Guide is simply the best, most comprehensive, and laugh-out-loud funny guide to WDW. It covers topics A to Z in an easy-to-use, informative, and irreverent manner. I guarantee that you will save the purchase price ten-fold during your WDW trip.

Rating :

Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2010


At first this book seems overwhelming, and if the book seems over whelming imagine how one feels when getting to the parks. But, after reading the book you come away with a better understanding and the overwhelming feeling turns into excitement. One thing I found very helpful for me is I read the book cover to cover once. Then I read it again only this time with a highlighter in hand and marked items of special interest to our family. And then I read it again to make sure I covered all my areas of interest. This book is very detailed and an excellent source to learn about wdw.

Rating :

This book is good. But I think you need to combine it with others

Each author on the 3 2010 books for Disneyworld all contribute something good and you really need all three to get the total package. But this one is the best of the three.

Rating :

interesting book

you don't have to do exactly what they describe in the book but it's a great guide to have a great wdw vacation.

Rating :

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1. ISBN13: 9780316042796
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Editorial Review :

In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman--and never went home again.

Was it love at first sight? Or was it the way her knife slid effortlessly through her pavé au poivre, the steak'spink juices puddling into the buttery pepper sauce? LUNCH IN PARIS is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs--one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine. Packing her bags for a new life in the world's most romantic city, Elizabeth is plunged into a world of bustling open-air markets, hipster bistros, and size 2 femmes fatales. She learns to gut her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen), soothe pangs of homesickness (with the rise of a chocolate soufflé) and develops a crush on her local butcher (who bears a striking resemblance to Matt Dillon). Elizabeth finds that the deeper she immerses herself in the world of French cuisine, the more Paris itself begins to translate. French culture, she discovers, is not unlike a well-ripened cheese-there may be a crusty exterior, until you cut through to the melting, piquant heart.

Peppered with mouth-watering recipes for summer ratatouille, swordfish tartare and molten chocolate cakes, Lunch in Paris is a story of falling in love, redefining success and discovering what it truly means to be at home. In the delicious tradition of memoirs like A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun, this book is the perfect treat for anyone who has dreamed that lunch in Paris could change their life.

Customer Review :

Pleasant enough, but nothing memorable

This is the account of an American woman who moves to Paris and marries her French boyfriend (who's not at all a stereotype - he's a tapdancing engineer with the unlikely name of Gwendal). It's about how she adapts to living in Paris and how she falls in love with the city and the cuisine. She ends every chapter with some of her favorite recipes, so it's part memoir, part travelogue, part recipe book.

Unfortunately Elizabeth just isn't as interesting as she thinks she is. There's too much about her - I love history! I grew up surrounded by women! I like eating! - and not enough objectively about the experience of moving to a new country. Parts of the book also felt like they had been taken verbatim from emails to her mother (eg "tonight when I came out of the Louvre I noticed them cleaning the windows").

Some of the most interesting parts for me were the way that she starts to find fault in so many aspects of the American culture. She pokes fun at American tourists and sneers at her mother for assuming that things will operate in Europe as they do in the US. Over my life I've lived in seven different countries, and it got me thinking about the way that I have adapted and assimilated. I was also interested in her views on the differences between American vs French attitudes, how what is quite acceptable in the US is seen as pushy in France and how Americans show their power by helping whereas the French show their power by blocking progress.

The integration of the recipes (more than 60) feels very natural given Elizabeth's obsession with food. (She's the kind of writer who describes walls as being the color of butter or a sweater as being the color of warm milk.) While I haven't tried any, for the most part they sound tasty and easy to follow. They are also included in the index.

While I found the book okay, I got bored towards the end, because ultimately it doesn't go anywhere. It felt like Bard wrote it because she had nothing better to do with her time. There are better books that cover similar territory. Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris is one which I recommend, or if the foodie aspect is what appeals, try The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World's Most Famous Cooking School

Rating :

A Transforming Lunch The Parisenne Way

A young girl goes to Paris for the weekend. A young pretty American girl goes to Paris for the weekend and is invited to lunch by a good looking Frenchman. And, life for this young girl will never be the same.

Elizabeth Bard from New Jersey travels to London to find herself and a job. She had a major in art and finds little bits and pieces to keep body and soul together. On a weekend in Paris she finds the Frenchman. Not the man of her dreams, but a dreamy man. They fall in love, move in together and then the meeting of the families. The overwrought American parents meet the laid back French parents. Soon everyone loves each other. And, Elizabeth, well, she is still trying to find herself. She does some freelance jobs and learns to cook. She learns to order from the meat market, choose the right veggies and fruits and finds Paris is her home. Gwendall, her French boyfriend proposes and a wedding is planned. A small quiet affair, a new apartment and a new life. Elizabeth finds her place. Elizabeth has many adventures as an American in Paris, and she shares and handles them with aplomb. The upstair neighbors who won't leave. The 38 course New Years cooked by her father-in-law- one of the best meals she has ever had. Shopping for shoes and clothes, walking and exploring all of Paris, she brings this to us and we love it.

Elizabeth Bard intersperse her stories of life with recipes and they look and sound wonderful. These are recipes from her family, and then from her husband's family. I tried her chocolate pudding cake and it is delicious. She gives advice with her recipes and shortcuts that make sense. She writes in a manner that causes interest and empathy. She is bright and witty. Paris and the French are explained in a manner that should interest every American. By the way, while riding the subway never talk about your sex life, how much you detest the French, the person sitting next to you probably understands English!

Recommended. prisrob 02-21-10



Rating :

recipes are just ok; story? so-so

Like a few of the other reviewers, I though this book was boring and quite difficult to get into. I persisted and found the author's tone a bit smug and condescending. The end of the book starts to have a little heart but I never really connected or cared about the author or any other characters and I love paris and french food. Disappointing.

Rating :

light and entertaining, with excellent recipes

For the lovers of everything French, "Lunch in Paris" is a nice pastime. Elizabeth Bard wrote up the story of her romance leading to a happy marriage with a Frenchman, lacing it with many recipes for French food.

Studying for a Master's degree, Elizabeth attended a conference in Paris, where she met Gwendal, a PhD student, and she let herself be seduced by his personality and lifestyle, falling in love with him and with Parisian life at the same time. She wanders around Paris, eating in typical French restaurants, making observations of differences between French and American homes, families, attitude to work... There are some recommendations of restaurants which sound amazing, and the Paris which emerges from her story is even more alluring than the one from guidebooks (and very realistic).

There are many similar books, in the boom that started with Peter Mayle - pleasant literary holidays for those who cannot go to their dream places. "Lunch in Paris" is not very original and fill of clichés, but it is written with humor and wit, and the recipes are excellent and not too hard to follow (I have tried some already: yoghurt cake, savory cake, lentils, ratatouille - and all of them worked). In fact, I think that the recipes may be the best part of the whole book. The narrative part is a bit naïve, banal and stereotypic, but it reads fast and is a pleasant distraction from everyday life.

Rating :

A Michelin-starred restaurant meal , prepared by a sous-chef

To be clear, this review is a straight 3 stars.

Like many of these reviewers, I too love all things French. In no small way, it is because that is my heritage. So, I too have spent much time in Paris, and thought this book would be an entertaining and insightful read. Not quite. While Elizabeth Bard has some expressive ways of describing French tendencies, it is apparent that she thought she should do this at the expense of her American heritage. Frankly, I find that boring. Plus the addition of recipes is so cliche, that I have no interest in trying them. (I had a similarly negative reaction to Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, but in that case I also disliked Mayes puerile writing style immensely).

What is good is that Bard's writing is amusing once you get past the opening line. Her turn of phrase is clever and reasonably well articulated. Even her story is compelling. But she provides too many intimate details about her "affair" with her then first date/now husband, and not enough details about trying to assimilate into a French family. The cultural and societal differences between the US and France are well known, as are the issues that come to any couple that is newly married. Since this is a memoir, why not explore in depth her trials and tribulations of fitting into a culturally different family? And, by the way, how about addressing his familial expectations and experiences with her American counterpart, and how the two of them transcend the familial issues? Not only is she capable of writing humorous antidotes about each family on personal level, without the intimate or belittling overtones, but more of that would have been "fascinating" to read. Not so her descriptions of sex, society, and the US vs. French governments. As others have noted, the last half is more interesting than the first half. Bard should understand the difference, if she wants her writing to grow. Her first book, is a quick read, with a cute story, but her personal details could have included a more intriguing bent. And, NOTE TO PUBLISHERS, enough already with the memoirs infiltrated with recipes!

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