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Editorial Review :
- Completely updated every year, Frommer's Montréal & Québec City features gorgeous color photos of the sights and experiences that await you.
- Our author hits all the highlights, from Vieux-Montréal to Quebéc's fascinating Musée de la Civilisation. She's checked out all the best hotels and restaurants in person, and offers authoritative, candid reviews that will help you find the choices that suit your tastes and budget.
- You'll also get up-to-the-minute coverage of shopping and nightlife; detailed walking tours; accurate neighborhood maps; advice on planning a successful family vacation; and side trips to the Laurentians, Cantons-de-l'Est, Ile d'Orléans, Montmorency Falls, Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, Parc Mont Ste-Anne, and Central & Upper Charlevoix.
- Frommer's Montréal & Québec City also includes a color fold-out map.
Customer Review :
Excellent guide
Frommer's guides are generally the best overall guides. They provide insider information and "off the beaten path" options. This one is no exception. Well organized, easy to read, with lots little sidebars with unusual information.
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Better than nothing, but not the best guide book ever
Having recently used the Eyewitness series of guide books in Italy, this book isn't in the same league. The organization, accuracy, and presentation are all less than perfect (and being unfamiliar in general with Montreal I can't comment on the coverage). It has the de rigeur sights, restaurants, and maps, but some maps don't have enough detail, and in one case, the location of a famous bagel store was off by a couple of blocks.
In short, buy this guide if you are going and can't find something better, but expect a few hiccups.
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Pretty handy and accurate
Bonjour!
Used it for a weekend in Montreal. Description of sites for the most part were accurate. Some inconsistencies (sloppy editing) around the completion of renovations regarding Insectarium de Montréal. Also,a couple of restaurants listed for Old Montreal were off in terms of their hours and one was no longer operating.
Some of the cost information needs to be updated, regarding transportation from Dorval into Montreal. For parties of two or more, would recommend a taxi (flat rate at the time of review) of $38 is more prudent than the other options (bus) and yet convenient. Also, for the US travelers, keep in mind the ticket vending machines for the underground system *may* not accept debit / credit cards issued by US banks, so have some change handy.
Overall, the purchase was worthwhile as it did provide some useful and handy tips. As all travel guides, details around logistics are best validated using web resources for various agencies.
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Montreal & Quebec City
This book was extremely helpful for our recent visit to Canada. We ate at several of the recommended restaurants and used the walking tours in Old Montreal and Old Quebec. The maps were very helpful. I suggest marking out on the map sites you want to visit before you leave home. Some of the prices were out of date but the book was a very good guide to both cities. The subway system and pricing could be explained better. We bought more tickets than we needed. I checked several guide books before our trip and this was the best I found.
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Montreal&Quebec City 2009
The Frommer's travel book was very informative and helpful.
The maps are excellent.
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Editorial Review :
Drawing on the same standards of accuracy as the acclaimed DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, each book in DK's Top 10 series uses evocative color photography, excellent cartography, and up-to-date travel content to create a reliable and useful pocket-sized travel guide.
Dozens of Top 10 lists provide vital information on each destination, as well as insider tips, from uncovering a city's most memorable sights to finding the best restaurants and hotels in each neighborhood. And to save you time and money, there's even a Top 10 list of Things to Avoid.
Each Top 10 contains a pull-out map and guide that includes fold-out maps of city metro systems, useful phone numbers, and 60 great ideas on how to spend your day.
Customer Review :
Compact
Good compact guide book. Has nice maps. The organization of the topics are a little odd. I wish there was more than a few pages on Victoria. Great if Vancouver is your main destination. Some of the "see page xx" references are not correct, the editor messed up on the cross referencing of topics.
Updated: Just got back from our trip to BC. Did not use this more than once! Had better info from the internet. And better maps too. If I could change the rating I would. Look at it a book store before buying, Good price at Amazon if you decide you want to buy it.
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Perfect little GUIDEBOOK
We just returned last night from Vancouver, where this handy little guide was in my pocket at all times. We had just a week in this delicious city, so the "best of the best" was a great concept. Map in the back was incomplete for the city that we explored, but in terms of the things not to miss, it was just perfect.
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Vancouver for the tourist....
"Top Ten Vancouver" is in the familiar and very useful DK format, with lots of useful information in a compact format for the tourist. In just over 120 pages, "Top Ten" covers the most popular tourist attractions in Vancouver, such as Stanley Park, Canada Place, the Capilano Suspension Bridge, and a variety of museums and other parks. The guide includes pictures, details about each attraction, and maps showing how to get there.
As noted, the focus is on the most popular destinations. The guide includes useful information on reaching the city and where to stay, eat, and shop. The information addresses cautions on crime and traffic. The traveler seeking more choices and details on accomodations should consult some of the most expansive guides such as Fedor's, Frommer's, or Lonely Planet. The compact size of this DK guide makes it perfect for roaming Vancouver. A limited amount of information is provided on the City of Victoria, on Vancouver Island across the Strait of Georgia and reachable by ferry.
This guide is highly recommended for the traveler planning a vacation in Vancouver.
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Vancouver guide
This Top Ten collection is really good for summarizing everything you need to know about a place, and if you do not stay too long it is not worth buying the bigger more detailed more expensive guide!!!
Definetely worth the money...Took more than a week to arrive though.
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Good on Vancouver, slim on Victoria
Great book for the highlights of Vancouver, but don't buy it thinking it will have much about Victoria or Vancouver Island. Get the Frommer's book on Vancouver Island for that. Happy whale watching!
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Editorial Review :
During John Muir's extraordinary life as a conservationist, he traveled through most of the American wilderness alone and on foot, without a gun or a sleeping bag. In 1903, while on a three-day camping trip with President Theodore Roosevelt, he convinced the president of the importance of a national conservation program, and he is given major credit for saving the Grand Canyon and Arizona's Petrified Forest. Muir's writing, based on journals he kept throughout his life, gives our generation a picture of an America still wild and unsettled only one hundred years ago. Edwin Way Teale has collected here the best of Muir's writing, selected from all of his major works, including MY FIRST SUMMER IN THE SIERRA and TRAVELS IN ALASKA. THE WILDERNESS WORLD OF JOHN MUIR provides "reading that is often magnificent, thrilling, exciting, breathtaking, and awe-inspiring" (Kirkus Reviews).
Customer Review :
Great for nature lovers!
I really enjoyed this book as it was focused on plants and animals. My favorite chapters were "The Water Ouzel" (a bird) and "Stickeen" (a dog). However, the whole book was interesting and enjoyable, including chapters about different people he met along the way ("The Robber" and "The Blacksmith"). This book is titled as "a selection from his collected work." I enjoyed his writing so much that I will look for a complete volume of his works so I don't miss out on any other great stories.
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Very Best Starting Point to Learn About John Muir
I am often asked for a recommendation of what among Muir's writings, or writings about him, one should first read. After spending more than 30 years appreciating both his writings and most of the books about Muir that have been published during that time, and after ten years editing the John Muir Exhibit online, I can only turn to the same book that originally enthalled me with John Muir: The Wilderness World of John Muir, edited by Edwin Way Teale.
This book was edited by someone who was himself an able naturalist and nature-writer, and therefore someone who could understand Muir in a way that most academics, whether professors of literature or historians, cannot. Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980), has been ranked as a nature writer with been ranked with Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, as well as John Muir himself. His honors include being elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, receiving the John Burroughs Award in 1943, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1966. He was the author of 32 books. Teale's sympathy for Muir's message is shown in the book's Dedication page, which is "Dedicated to The Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, The National Parks Association, and all those who are fighting the good fight to preserve what John Muir sought to save."
This book serves as both an anthology of the very best of Muir's writings, and also a biography, compellingly provided by Teale.
The biographical value of this work is often under-stated, even by the publisher. The book is typically viewed as an anthology, and indeed it is, primarily; but it also contains a wealth of biographical information, far more than the typical anthology.
Teale commences his book on John Muir with an authoritative 10-page Introduction, that not merely identifies the key events in Muir's life, but provides an assessment and perspective of how Muir stacks up with other nature writers. He provides facts you won't find elsewhere: "While visiting friends, Muir sometimes would talk four hours at breakfast." Teale, writing in 1954, was able to talk with several people who knew Muir personally. He noted that everyone he talked to had a different view of which phase of natural history held first importance in Muir's mind. Some thought it was trees; another thought it was geology, another plants. Teale points out the fourth view, probably the nearest right of all: "... the whole interrelationships of life, the complete rounded picture of the mountain world. Today, Muir probably would be called an ecologist." Teale 's assessment of Muir as an "ecologist" pre-dates the "ecology movement" of the 1970s by at least 15 years. Teale admirably tells of the scope of the places, glaciers, plants, and animals named after him, and Muir's contributions to science and conservation. Although public appreciation for Muir has grown dramatically since Teale's book was first published in 1954, The Wilderness World of John Muir still provides the best introduction to Muir's life and writings.
Following the admirable Introduction, each of the 51 excerpts from Muir's writings commences with a preface by Teale, of up to a page in length, presenting in chronological order the story of Muir's life, and putting each of Muir's writings into context.
Although serving as a biography, the Wilderness World is, in fact, primarily a superb anthology. Rather than simply re-printing the full text of such of Muir's works as The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, My First Summer in the Sierra, Travels in Alaska, Our National Parks , and the Journals, Teale provides short snippets from the best of Muir's writings, arranged into seven broad categories:
I. Memories of Youth - reprints Muir's writings about his boyhood in Scotland, life on the Wisconsin Farm, seeing immense flocks Passenger Pigeons, nearly dying of choke-damp while digging a well, his inventions, and his enrollment at the University of Wisconsin.
II. University of The Wilderness - Excerpts from A Thousand Mile Walk, including people by the way, camping among the tombs of Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, and Muir's visit to Cuba and New York.
III. The Range of Light - Muir's adventures in the Sierra, including his first glimpse from Pacheco Pass and crossing the bee pastures of the Central Valley, his first visits to the High Sierra, climbing on the brink of Yosemite Falls above the Valley, tributes to wildlife including bears and grasshoppers, and his telepathic experience sensing the presence of his former University Professor Butler in the Valley.
IV. The Valley - Muir's glorious tributes to Yosemite Valley's waterfalls, the water ouzel, the earthquake, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's visit.
V. Forests of the West - Including Muir's adventure high atop a Douglas fir during a wind-storm, and writings about Silver Pine, the Douglas Squirrel, Sequoia, Nevada Nut Pines, and Muir's clarion call to protect the forests, "Any Fool Can Destroy a Tree."
VI. Glacier Pioneer - Muir's discovery of the Sierra glaciers, his climb of Mount Ritter, his perilous night on Mount Shasta, and his travels in Alaska, including his discovery of Glacier Bay and his adventure with Stickeen.
VII. The Philosophy of John Muir - excerpts from many scattered sources focusing on Muir's views on mankind's relationship to Nature. For many, this is the favorite part of the book, the part one returns to again and again for inspiration.
Despite this, the book does have some failings. The book belies the importance of Muir's family and friends, which becomes so evident upon reading his extensive correspondence. Nor does the book do more than barely mention some important places in Muir's life, such as his global travels to such places as the glacial mountains of Europe, the forests of Siberia, the Himalayas and forests of India, Australian and New Zealand forests, and, the fulfillment of his life-long dream, his last trip to see the forests of South America and Africa. The book emphasizes Muir's appreciative writings about Nature, and only briefly mentions the conservation battles which consumed so much of his life, including his long campaign to protect Hetch Hetchy. To obtain a whole picture of Muir, the reader will need to also read another work about Muir's conservation campaigns, such as Roderick Nash's chapter on "John Muir: Publicizer" in Wilderness and the American Mind, Stephen Fox's John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement, or John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite by Holway R. Jones.
Since the book was originally published in 1954, it is not informed by some of the more recent research resulting from Muir's unpublished journals and correspondence, published in the John Muir Papers in 1980. Given the popularity of this book, fifty years after its first publication, the publishers should consider a second edition, again using a nature writer rather than a literary critic or historian to update the book.
Overall, in this book Muir comes alive, as someone who can can at once write inspiringly and poetically about trees, storms, mountains, glaciers, and forests, but yet also show the attention to detail of an analytical scientist. Muir is revealed as adventurer, a lover of nature, a person who can still excite the imagination of readers. As Teale concludes, "Rich in time, rich in enjoyment, rich in appreciation, rich in enthusiasm, rich in understanding, rich in expression, rich in friends, rich in knowledge, John muir lived a full and rounded life, a life unique in many ways, admirable in many ways, valuable in many ways.... In his writings and in his conservation achievements, Muir seems especially present in a world that is better because he lived here."
August, 2004
Rating :
A Wind Storm in the Forest,
excerpted from Muir's The Mountains of California, is one chapter I've read many times. He climbs to the top of a Doug Fir so that he can experience a 100' tree swaying 30° back and forth "rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy" I take this book backpacking (there's no ultralight version yet...) in the Sierra most times and there's always something to read that fits the setting. EWT's intro is very sweet as are the
Rating :
An excellent place to start
Whether you are interested in John Muir specifically or just want to read about an interesting life, this book is an excellent place to start.
John Muir had an incredible and important life, and it is told here succinctly in his own words, excerpted to emphasize the profound. It is a glimpse into a lifestyle 99.9% of us will never know, yet it is truly important to our times. His love of nature, adventure and exploration is a reminder of why we need to experience more than our 9 to 5 workdays and why we need to apply ourselves to the protection of the Earth. Muir was a gentle but strong man, a genius with simple needs, solitary yet influential. This book is a terrific way to look into his life and his time and to gain some inspiration into our lives and our times.
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John Muir -- Pioneer Wilderness Writer
A wonderful sampling of Muir's writings and his timeless perspective on the wonders of our natural world.
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