Access London 6e (6th Edition)

Book Description

The 25 detailed neighborhood maps in this guide will help you immediately locate the hotels, restaurants, shops and sights of London.

Customer Reviews:

Definitely a useful guide book.......2004-11-08

We used Access London on our Honeymoon in 2000, and it was invaluable. It helped us find everything we wanted to visit, especially since we studied it beforehand, and marked all the places that were interesting. The maps seemed fine, and we liked the way we could look at the numbered list and find the items on the maps. The color coding was very helpful, and we always had our copy with us wherever we went.

We recommend this book, and the Paris one as well.

Cannot get by using this guide only.......2004-09-24

A friend gave me this guide book as a birthday gift for my trip to London. Having always travelled with Lonely Planet guide books, I hesitated before finally deciding not to buy the Lonely Planet guide as a complement to this one (I also already had a Knopff map guide)... Big mistake! First of all, this guide book does not have a tube map!!! Second, the maps of the different boroughs are not very good. Also, the information is all thrown together so you have restaurants and hotels amidst tourist attractions. Even thought the titles are color coded, this is not very practical, making it harder to find the information you need.

I also found that this guide book did not include sufficient practical information that one might need when travelling: addresses for Internet cafés, laundromats, information for women travelling alone, etc, which Lonely Planet guides offer extensively. Furthermore, the recommendations in this guide book, in terms of restaurants and hotels, seemed more suitable for "older" travellers and travellers with a larger budget. If you are young or if you are looking for the "cool" places to hang out, this guide will not be very helpful.

One good thing about this guide book though is that it has detailed background information on the different tourist attractions one might visit. This is nice to have when you are not taking a guided tour.

Overall, this guide book is OK, but not good enough to be the only book you rely on during your trip.

BEST GUIDE EVER.......2004-01-11

I work in a book store,so, believe me, I have had plenty of time to look at travel books and I have to say that these access guides are the best.There are a couple of reasons why. First off, the pages are thicker paper so they wont tear as easily if you are carrying it aound every day and thumbing thru it constantly like i was!! They also color code the listings..green for parks, blue for hotels, you get the idea. As another person said before, its all by area so you can always se whats up where you are..very nice. I highly reccomend it and all the others!!

Access guides are great but shoud be updated!.......2003-08-09

I have used "Access" city guides for many years and have found them to be excellent! They are easy to understand with lots of information that is quite useful. In addition, they are a lightweight and handy size. Unfortunately, they are not updated often, in fact I just purchased "Access London" eighth edition ( I have all of the previous editions) and have found it to be a repeat of the previous two editions. Much of the guide is out of date. This is disappointing,as I have come to rely on "Access" guides to plan trips. I now will have to use a more current guide.

The best single series of guides.......2002-04-19

Richard Saul Wurman transformed the world of guidebooks, beginning more that 20 years ago with Access Los Angeles. An architect and graphic artist, Wurman breaks cities into neighborhoods. Maps, the intelligent use of color and good information combine to make this series the best single set of guidebooks on the market.

The London guide is typical; and excellent. Another plus of the Access guides is the excellent insider reviews of hotels and restaurants. Also, best bets by locals often take you off the beaten path to places the locals frequent. I have yet to be disappointed.

This is the one you will tuck in your pocket or stash in your shoulderpack as you explore London.

Book Description

A wonderful blend of polemic, autobiography, travel adventure, and myth.

Customer Reviews:

Profound and touching.......2007-09-26

You wouldn't think it possible to say "this is Martin Prechtel's best book yet" because they are all so exceptional. If you are interested in current Mayan culture, indigenous peoples, love, life, Central American politics... this book is a tour de force. Martin Prechtel is one of the most truly amazing, talented, gifted, wise, insightful people you might ever hope to meet. On top of this, he is an extraordinarily gifted writer. Buy the book. Buy them all.

The One You Keep.......2006-11-16

TV, more than any other medium, has become America's storyteller. Sometimes that's not so bad; other times it presents shallow and false values to impressionable minds. When I'm hungry for ultimate truths, I've often found it best to go to other cultures and borrow their stories. One of the very, very best is "Stealing Benefacio's Roses." Within this story you will find your heart and be surprised at how strong and lovely it is. You will find your soul and come to know your true self. It's a story that works on the surface level of "Once upon a time . . ." yet also touches the deeper realms of mythology, spirituality, psychology, history and the many varieties of love. The writing is superb. Here's a quote: "Onto the floor I dropped to sleep, drifting on the tossing sea of my aching heart in a little canoe of Gustavo's friendship, into dreams filled with the unkillable perfume of Benefacio's roses." To understand and savor the last five words, buy the book and enjoy the revelations. This is the one you will keep to reread over time.

A suggestion.......2003-03-27

It might help readers to know that this book and "The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun" are written to be read aloud. When you do this the prose has a rhythm that is part of the meaning of the book.

The Great Story.......2003-03-27

"In much wisdom is much grief" says the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, "and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow." There is much wisdom, grief, knowledge, sorrow, and finally joy in Martin Prechtel's new book. You don't have to read his previous three, *Secrets of the Talking Jaguar,* *Long Life, Honey in the Heart,* and *The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun* to understand and appreciate the message of *The Toe Bone and the Tooth* - but it helps.

This is a story about keeping the Great Story alive - "An Ancient Mayan Story Relived in Modern Times: Leaving Home to Come Home."

It starts out with Martin's return to Guatamala in 1992 after many years in exile from his adopted country, where his village of Santiago Atitlan had been destroyed and 1800 of his friends and villagers slaughtered by American-backed death squads in the 1980s. He was picked up at the airport by three teenage boys (who had been small children when the devastation took place) and smuggled back to the village under a truckload of Mayan squashes. Along the way, the boys were eager to hear the story of the Toe Bone and Tooth that had been outlawed (as well as their language) by the various and many invaders of their country. Landmarks of the Story were everywhere (much as Australian Dreamtime stories are dependent on the land for the telling).

Martin was welcomed in Santiago Atitlan as the Shaman and healer that he was for many years. He had had a Mayan wife and three sons there (one son died) and his little family had barely escaped with their lives.

The ancient story of the Toe Bone and Tooth is inserted here - the Story of a mortal, Raggedy Boy, who fell in love with the Water Goddess, the story of her death after bearing him two corn children and being forgotten when her husband returned to the mortal world. When he did remember her through dreams, he had to re-member her, gathering her bones with the help of Coyote (who had the toe bone and tooth) and descending into the underworld to retrieve her heart. He was helped by an old magical couple. Re-membered, she became an ordinary woman and he became an ordinary man, and from them, all humans are descended.

The next few chapters chronicle the story of Martin's first arrival in Santiago Atitlan - how he'd been lost in a blizzard in his American homeland of Northern New Mexico in his youth, and how he was saved by a mare named Morningstar and an old Spanish lady who cured him of an almost fatal fever with bear grease and herbs. During his convalescence, he had 11 dreams of Santiago Atitlan and Nicolas Chiviliu Tacaxoy, who was to become his teacher, friend and mentor and who had called him through dreams for three years before he finally arrived in the village. Says Prechtel, "Though I was blond and born far away, we were the old and young generation of throwbacks from other times and layers of existence in which a humble dynasty of people in service to the remembrance of the Dismembered Goddess was continued from century to century."

Another chapter tells of Martin's defense of a young Mayan seminary student, Gaspar Culan, who was accused of worshipping idols because he had participated in an ancient Mayan sacred ceremony involving Holy Boy, whom the Catholic Church had branded as a devil but is actually a Christ figure. Martin (who speaks English, Spanish, and Mayan fluently) was to be Gaspar's advocate. Holy Boy had been called a Jew by the Church. Martin pointed out that they had dubbed the deity a Jew (and a devil) because Jews were at least considered to be human and therefore were subject to the 16th Century Inquisition. Mayans hadn't been considered people before that, so if their God was a Jew, the Inquisition could persecute and prosecute them. Martin won his case, and Culan was ordained as the first Mayan Catholic priest.

Several chapters are devoted to the Prechtel family's nothing-short-of-miraculous escape from Guatamala. Martin's teacher had ordered Martin to stay alive at all costs so that he might carry the seed of the story to the U.S. and preserve it for the Mayans whose history and culture had been outlawed.

When Martin got back to the U.S. and his old homeland in New Mexico, he and his family lived in poverty and difficulties for several years, but in Santa Fe he met a homeless couple who were like the old couple in the Story. Here, the narrative goes into the third person as the old couple tell Martin's story and do for him what he had done for countless people in his life - re-membered him for the holy amnesiacs (all of us). Martin's story mirrors the Great Story - "the story of ordinary people, extraordinarily in love and the story of the struggle of what it takes to be graced with such love is the story from which all humans are descended."

The author dedicates this book to the "deer-eyed daughter of the mountain, the mother of the great diversity" and to "all those peoples, plants and animals who have been and continue to be forcibly uprooted, rerouted, relocated, corralled, cut, branded, burnt out, burned down, burnt up, crushed, eradicated or driven from their homes in infinite diasporas of all types, to live where they may be unwelcome, while still trying to keep alive their seed capsules of cultural memory in hopes to regrow a home again. May their descendants be carved by the inherited grief of their ancestral loss to become feeders of what is holy in the ground, dedicated to something bigger than their need for justice and the pursuit of revenge."

Customer Reviews:

Didn't work for me this time - maybe just my mood? .......2007-03-06

I don't know whether I've changed or Keillor, but I didn't get as much pleasure out of this collection of Lake Wobegon vignettes as I have from other books. As ever with collections like this I'm probably more reflecting on the last few stories because I stretch my reading over several months. Maybe I've reached some sort of saturation point. There were some good moments, but rather than finding most of these stories whimsically touching I found them inconsequential. I didn't identify with any of the characters as much as I have in other books. I'm cautious about dismissing it - I wonder if in a different mood I would have liked it - but where I am now it didn't connect.

A good light read.......2006-03-17

I found this book at my school's library in the free book section. I had no idea what it was about or who the other was, but only grabbed it because it had the nicest cover in comparison to the other books. I was pleasantly surprised that I found a nice collection stories for the 'price.'

The stories all take place in Keillor's fictional, religious, small town in Minnesota, Lake Wobegon. The only things that I really know about Minnesota is that it's cold, the Twins play in the metrodome, and the state has a unique portrayal in Fargo (the movie). Leaving Home gave me a better picture of the state, and how strange and interesting the place and the people are.

It's not a very deep book, but its a fun read. It's perfect for when you're really bored and just want to read something. Some of the stories are actually quite funny. Some are so-so, whilst the others are forgettable. After finishing Leaving Home, I had a nice feeling the rest of the day. It's corny, I know, but that's how it made me feel. Check it out when you get that chance.

The Price of Timelessness.......2005-04-11

Garrison Keillor's literary devices have served him (and us) extremely well. Those who thought he was in danger of becoming a victim of his own success have been proved right. But we are victims, too.

As a fellow only a few years younger than Garrison Keillor, I, too, bemoan our culture's voracious appetite for "content." The universal availability of our culture cannot be criticized. That's like saying there is too much breathable air.

But, it has its consequences. We drown in words now. What used to be made precious by its limited availability in libraries is now everywhere. When we got what we wished and worked for - universal access to literature, art, music - we did not fully understand the scope of human ability to adapt to environment.

Something about "evil overlords" has been making its way around the internet recently. There are 100 top things a current-day evil overlord can do; here are the last two:

"99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size."

"100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access."

Drowning in thought, we lose the ability to think. Garrison left home, as he had to; we're all with him now.

An accidental read.............2004-11-05

As I was browsing through the library one day last month, after reading some Latin short stories, I came upon this book. I was intrigued by the cover at first. So I sat down in MY SEAT in the library. Then I began flipping through the pages. Man, was I surprised. I thought, in the beginning that these stories were fiction, but when I finished it, and read the last lines, my god, it's all true. The stories, not all, but most of it, hit you somewhere. It really does. It makes you say, "Hey, I know this.. This is...(name here-me?)." There's not much continuity in the chapters, like from TRUCKSTOP to DALE. Anyway, it makes the book greater. Again and again, the book is fantastic. Well, if you don't believe me, read the book. Then you'll realize that there is one more thing constant in the world... It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.....

Favorite Stories - Dale, The Ticket, Aprille, The Royal Family, uh, some more... Truckstop... hell, the whole book!!!!

Lake Wobegon Favorites Gathered Here to Re-Read.......2003-04-11

This has many favorites from PHC shows, including my favorite, "Pontoon Boat." Certainly, the original delivery of Keilor adds much to the presentation, but easily any of us who have heard these can still here his pace, and emphasis as we glide across the words. And, for those who haven't, this is still such entertaining tales.

"Hawaii" and the Usher competition is another fav. How about hand signals for such as "child removal" - "crossed arms and kicking motion?" Or "A Glass of Wendy" --- "if a horse got on the sauce himself, he might get mixed up, but usually they did hte job and if the sheriff came, all he found was a wagon and a horse with red eyes and bad breath."

Amazon.com

How do we become who we need to be? How do we make the transition from child to adult? Sometimes we have very few people to guide us. Sometimes the journeys are lonely. Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to see how far we've come. "Leaving Home" is a collection of stories by some of the world's most powerful writers (including Toni Morrison, Amy Tan, Gary Soto, Norma Fox Mazer, and Sandra Cisneros) about departing from familiar worlds, encountering pain and confusion, finding a new way of being. Transcendent, magical, transforming . . . for readers young and old.

Book Description

Leaving home for the first time is a rite of passage. Fifteen of the most respected authors of our time contribute their perspectives to this masterfully crafted anthology. From fear to desire, joy and hope, the mixed emotions that accompany each journey--physical and metaphysical--are conveyed in a manner that both stimulates the mind and satisfies the heart.

Everyone eventually goes on a journey.

"I remember packing a suitcase and carrying it out to the kitchen, standing very still for a few minutes, looking carefully at the familiar objects all around me. The old chrome toaster, the telephone, the pink and white Formica on the kitchen counters. The room was full of bright sunshine. Everything sparkled. My house, I thought. My life. I'm not sure how long I stood there, but later I scribbled out a short note to my parents."
What I said, exactly, I don't recall now. Something vague. Taking off, will call, love Tim."
--from On the Rainy River by Tim O'Brien

You leave home and undergo trails and rites.

"The minute I walked in and the Big Bozo introduced us, I got sick to my stomach. It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the morning--it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl form a whole other race."
-- from "Recitatif" by Toni Morrison

You come back form the journey transformed.

"I felt growing light, I rose up into the air and flew out the window. Higher and higher, above the alley, over the tops of tiles roofs, where I was gathered up by the wind and pushed up toward the night sky until everything below me disappeared and I was alone."
-- from Rules of the Game by Amy Tan

We leave home to find home.Here is an unusual collection of short stories, from a variety of distinguished writers from different cultures and different viewpoints, that explores the turning point in every adolescent's life when he or she is forced to take that first step away from home, family, and the known. From personal tales of unwed mothers, arranged marriages, and divorcing parents, to stories about refugees and war resistance, Leaving Home paints a canvas of universal experience for teen-age readers, and includes stories by Tim Wynne-Jones, Sandra Cisneros, Gary Soto, and many others.

Customer Reviews:

everybody has been through it.......2002-04-18

This book has a lot of situations that people been through when they were younger. Some had it easier than others,but when it all came down they had to leave their nest and be on their own.The book Leaving Home has stories from people of all ages stating their situations about why they had to leave and what happened to them when they were own their own. The stories that I read was very interesting, it reminded me of the day I left my nest.

It's a wonderful book.......2002-04-18

Leaving Home is a wonderful anthology of stories by d
different authors who make you feel if your really in the story
in the story.Ireally like reading Allan Sherman A
Gift Of Laughter because the father and the son
had similar characteristic.They both reacted in the same way same
same way when they were talk to in a manner that they didn't
didn't like.In Leaving Home some their decision was
either based on a choice that they had to make or
their parents sendin them away on vacation.

Been There done That.......2002-04-18

Its interesting, a book about what it feels like to dream of leaving home and the and alll the posibilties that could follow., I was real impressed with their desire to go out and explore the world. The problem is that most of the situations in the book has happened to me.

leaving home: just a state of mind.......2002-04-18

how many times have we gone through an overboring period in our teenage years when we felt that we couldn't expand our horizons? how many times were we either excited, concerned, or upset about something that happened during our chilhood? this is what leaving home is about, states of mind. it's easy to read a story, but it may not be that easy to live it. however, it's easy to picture it in your head, and that happens whenever a story is well-related. In Leaving Home you don't get anything besides plenty of well-related personal passages that changed somebody's life, and they can make you realize how or when did your life changed.

My review of a fruite bowl for grandma.......2002-04-18

My veview of this story is that it did not fockus much on the main charrater it only flashes back sou you really dont get a good feel of what the chareter is going through our feeling

Hungry for Home: Leaving the Blaskets: A Journey from the Edge of Ireland

Average customer rating:

Hungry for Home: Leaving the Blaskets: A Journey from the Edge of Ireland
Cole Moreton
Manufacturer: Viking Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Emigration & Immigration | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Average customer rating:

Leaving Home
Garrison Keiller
Manufacturer: Random House Value Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literature & Fiction | Large Print | Formats | Books
ASIN: 0517685167
Release Date: 1989-12-27

Average customer rating:

It was okay

Leaving Home (Sweet Valley High)
Francine Pascal
Manufacturer: Demco Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Turtleback

ASIN: 0606023135

Customer Reviews:

It was okay.......2000-05-06

Liz wants to go to Switzeland for boarding school and Jessica tries to stop her. Jessica is worried she'll lose her best friend! What will happen? Meanwhile, Enid and Jeffrey make Liz a scrapbook and Liz thinks they're together because they spent a lot of time together making it. Puh-leeze! Liz is WAY too paranoid about that. Every single time she jumps to conclusions. After this book, I didn't like her anymore.

Leaving Home - A Collection Of Lake Wobegon Stories

Average customer rating:

Leaving Home - A Collection Of Lake Wobegon Stories
Garrison Keillor
Manufacturer: Penguin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K1ORIA

Average customer rating: