Themes Books

This is the best travel book about the London that I found. It has all necessary information that I was looking for without the tones of text and pictures. It gives you so good ideas about what you can or should see in one day that I decided just to follow the book. :)

Took 3 guides to London for our 2005 trip. This guide has the best pictures of the 3. Most of the information is very good. The walking tours are the best! It even tells you when to stop and eat.hmmmmm

The guide doesn't really cover all aspects if you are new to the culture and city. No real tips on staying out of trouble and the detailed city map is combersome. That aside, the book is well put together with wire spirals, the cover is a hard paper for good construction.

Before traveling to London, we purchased many travel books, but AAA's London guide was the only one we took with us. The book is filled with beautiful color photos, great descriptions, planned itineraries, and a fantastic detailed map. We are planning on traveling to Rome this summer and AAA's Rome guide is the only travel book we will be purchasing before we go.

My wife and I used this travel guide extensively while in London. It served as our bible, tour guide, and street map. It is laid out in a very clearly and the sprial binder makes it very easy to flip to any page. It is filled with clear, color pictures and maps. The guide is broken down into various regions throughout London, with each section highlighting Must See Attractions, and then At Your Leisure sites that are also in the area. It also has a very nice reference on how to see a region in one day. An Underground map is on the inside back cover, and a regional map of London on the front inside cover. Other nice features are sections called 'Finding Your Feet' - which provides great information for when you first arrive in London (either by plane, train, boat, etc..) and a 'Practicalities' seciton that talks about currency, clothes sizes,etc.

What really made this book stand out compared to other London travel guides was it included detailed street maps of these regions. Those proved invaluable for us once we started walking around the area. The book is compact, and fit inside my coat pocket comfortably.

I visited Paris in September 2005, and this book was very informative. I am planning on purchasing the updated version for my trip this year. I recommend it to anyone.

My wife and I used this travel guide extensively while in Paris. It served as our bible, tour guide, and street map. It is laid out in a very clearly and the sprial binder makes it very easy to flip to any page. It is filled with clear, color pictures and maps. The guide is broken down into various regions throughout Paris with each section highlighting Must See Attractions, and then At Your Leisure sites that are also in the area. It also has a very nice reference on how to see a region in one day. A subway map is on the inside back cover, and a regional map of Paris is on the front inside cover. Other nice features are sections called 'Finding Your Feet' - which provides great information for when you first arrive in London (either by plane, train, boat, etc..) and a 'Practicalities' seciton that talks about currency, clothes sizes, basic French phrases, etc.

What really made this book stand out compared to other Paris travel guides was it included detailed street maps of these regions. Those proved invaluable for us once we started walking around the area. The book is compact, and fit inside my coat pocket comfortably.

My only gripe is that for some of the attractions, it did not have the right opening and closing times - and it suggested a shortcut to the lines at the Lourve by getting off at the Tuileries metro stop. Unfortunately, this is one stop too early, but the street map easily showed us the way.

If you only want to carry one compact tour guide for Paris - I would highly recommend it.

If you've never been to Paris and are exploring on your own, I would suggest packing this guide along with the National Geographic DestinationMap for Paris. I also carried the Paris Knopf Guide - which is amazing, but is more for educational purposes than getting from place to place (and might be left at home for later review if you're traveling light).

I spent 11 days in Paris, and it wasn't enough time. I walked from place to place most of the time - seeing the neighborhoods was wonderfully rewarding. Paris is a city to be experienced on foot. The people really live in the streets ---they don't just use them to get from place to place as in New York. The pocket-sized spiral guide was easy to carry. It also has an excellent metro map.

If you're going to Paris - make hotel reservations ahead of time. If you're traveling around France and have limited time, consider EasyJet rather than the train. Most of the time, EasyJet costs less in terms of time and money.

I also suggest buying the Carte Musee et Monuments (you can purchase this at the museums and likely other locations, although I couldn't get it at the metro stations as advertised) which offers unlimited access to 65+ museums and monuments over a one-, three-, or five-day period. You can also bypass lines with it. I used the five-day period to visit many historical sites as well as museums. I revisited the Louvre and the Musee D'Orsay three times each. It was nice to visit the same place on different days...to take additional looks at items of interest... The pass makes it very affordable.

Finally, if you only go to one museum, go to the Musee D'Orsay. It is extraordinary.

Bon Voyage!

Having just spent two weeks in the Paris area, I can highly recommend the AAA Paris Spiral Guide as a prime example of what a travel guide should be. It is concise, well organized and offers just the right amount of well thought out information. In other words for the traveler packing light, it doesn't weigh a ton.

While I do prefer the Eyewitness Guide series for pre-trip planning and research because of all of its excellent maps, photos, detailed information and "how-to" information, it was the AAA Spiral Guide that I carried around with me all over Paris. The Eyewitness Guide (my constant companion before the trip) never left the hotel room.

The AAA Spiral guide gives excellent suggestions about what are "must see" and "check out if you have time" attractions, and even suggests possible daily itineraries based on the geographic areas of Paris. I found that my list of "to do" was very similar to theirs. Also, most of the travel guides that I read had separate sections in the back for restaurants, shopping, hotels, etc. The AAA Spiral Guide organizes these topics into the different geographic areas of Paris. This was a much more logical and welcome organization in actual practice. The Guide also has a small but excellent section of "how to" information.

Overall, I am looking forward to using the AAA Spiral Guides again for future travels. I believe the title list is short at present, but hope to see it expand.

Bon Voyage!

The photography in this book is incredible. Corn and Rose are a good pair. This book makes you open your eyes and pay more attention to the detail in everyday life. Breathtaking.

I can't say enough about the photographs of Aaron Rose. His photographs are some of the most unique and thoughtful photographs made by a contemporary practitioner. Rose is a self-taught chemist, and his work explifies a true mastery of the fundamentals of photography--light and chemistry. This book does real justice to the intense and unique craftsmanships behind his photographs. It is a must for any serious photographer, and anyone interested in the mechanics and possibilities of photographic processing.

This book deserves more than five stars.

Until 5 prints of Mr. Rose's were included in the Whitney Biennial in 1997, few had seen his work. In fact, his first solo show came in 1998. Despite this, his oeuvre covers more than four decades and some of the best photography I have ever seen. You will find Mr. Rose to be a rewarding photographer who will remind you of some of the best of Edward Weston. His subjects in this outstanding volume of 100 color photographs include shells, New York City, the milky way, reflections, trees, leaves, the sun and clouds, and sky. His images are often created with very long exposures using early 20th century equipment and lenses. More recently, he often uses only pinholes and small aperature cameras. The book's only drawback is that Mr. Rose is fond of a four letter word beginning with "f" that appears several times in his interview.

Mr. Rose's work is mostly about light, and seeks to create a meditative mood. For example, the images of New York City are taken from very high perspectives and are almost abstract. You will be reminded of Cubist rectangles.

His shells are translucent and surreal. The milky way looks like fine bubbles in good champagne. The reflections are almost totally abstract and remind me of drip paintings. The trees and leaf photographs build on fractals as recurring images and provide a sense of optimism. The sun and cloud images are wonderfully romantic and mysterious. His images of the sky are done as circles that provide the impression of peering through the porthole of a space ship, an airplane, or a boat.

In each case, Mr. Rose is giving you a private view of the world that you have never seen before. These new subjective realities will inspire you to have new perceptions and thoughts.

The work evokes an earlier age, and will cause you to slow down and feel more comfortable. The images could easily have been done in the 1920s in terms of the feelings they evoke.

Unlike most books of photography, I do not need to issue any warnings about the images. Except for the language in the interview, this book would be rated "G" if it were a motion picture.

After you finish enjoying these wonderful images, think of ways that you can create similar moods in your daily life. Wouldn't life be wonderful if we always saw it as subtle, gentle, and eternal?

Slow down . . . and see more!

The quality of this book is unsurpassed, The images are unique and beautiful. A must buy for any book collection.

As a former resident of the Bay Area, this book defently takes me back there. The pictures are just wonderful. Bob Cameron included almost every city in the Bay Area. I highly reccomend Above San Francisco to anyone who love great cities and great photography.

The aerial photography is beautiful, as is the Golden Gate Bridge. Cameron presents his book very beautifully. I enjoyed this book very much. I enjoyed beautiful sunset photographs, The Bay Area, the bridges, I enjoyed every beautiful photograph in this book. The First thing I liked was the Gate Bridge (Golden Gate Bridge) And the sunsets second, then the Bay Area and of course the Way Robert Cameron did his photography.

A new look at San Francisco. Mr Cameron always manages to find new ways of looking at familiar objects. With Herb Caen's writing, this is one of his best books.

This the first of at least 12 of Cameron's "Above" books.He has set the standard for any aerial photography/coffee table books. With each new edition he finds interesting, stunningly beautiful shots-each one worthy of the "Above San Francisco" calendars he also publishes. With so much beauty and so many tourist sights in everyones favorite city, "Above San Francisco" is the way to see this unique city and the entire Bay Area.

This book has incredible arial pictures of Michigan. We bought 3 to give as gifts to other Michigan lovers. What a hit!

I stopped in the bookstore and this book caught my eye with the tremendous aerial photo of South Manitou Island in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. I've hiked there many times and was impressed by this beautiful view of the entire island.

When I looked through the book I knew this was one to share with friends and family. There are unique views here of many of the most beautiful spots in Michigan from Tawas Point to Garden Island. The views are all aerial photographs done with great artistry and perspective. There are views from on high of Manistee and the Lake Michigan Shore at sunset with the sky full of color and the lake spread out to the horizon and the lights of the city seemingly twinkling below,and others of green emerald forested islands settled in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron with a surround of aquamarine waters.

There are dozens of "coffee table books" full of beautiful pictures of the Great Lakes. It is not difficult to obtain pictures when there are so many scenic coastlines in the state. What sets this book apart and makes it by far the best photo book of the Great Lakes is the selection of the images, their color and the depth that the aerial perspective provides. You have probably not seen the Mackinaw Bridge as shown here from up in the clouds looking down across the span to the shore at St. Ignace and the eastern reach of the Upper Penninsula. I think anyone with an interest in the land and shores of northern Michigan would be enthralled with this book and would enjoy sharing it with others as I have.

I just received my personal copy of Marge Beavers latest effort ABOVE THE NORTH. If any book comes close to illustrating the beauty of Michigan,this is the one! She has combined her love of aviation with her talents in photography to produce one of the most beautiful "coffee table" books currently available. The color,detail and beauty of the state as show by Ms Beaver just hits you in the eye and is a book i definitely want to share with others.

These striking aerial photos show views of northern Michigan's most beautiful landmarks and terrain. The book includes many views of Michigan's beautiful lakes and scenery with seasonal photos from spring through winter. Not only are the pictures exceptionally well done from a technical standpoint, but it is evident that Marge Beaver has the eye of an artist as well. It was fun seeing all the places in Michigan I've visited, but also to find new locales in Michigan that I hope to visit one day.

This book is wonderful. The pictures and narratives are both wonderful and the diversity is nice as well.

Bought this for my dad on his 59th birthday while I was in Tupper Lake. I think he is really going to like it!

... truly awesome; must see to appreciate!

This was a gift to my husband who has hiked many of the high peaks. The pictures in this book were breathtaking.

I can't tell you what a surprise this book was when I received it. The text is informative and well written, which I always come to expect with Chapman's work, but it was the photography and the quality of the reproduction which pleased me so much. Rare photographs taken between 1870-1940 of Eugen Sandow (10 of him alone), Tony Sansome, Sigmund Klein, Gene Jantzen, and many other physique champions are depicted. These men, long before bodybuilding drugs, developed their bodies to such an amazing degree in both strength and symmetry, truly towards the "Grecian Ideal". This beautifully produced; softbound volume is over 100 pages and printed on fine heavy semi-gloss stock. It is a temptation not to remove the pages to frame many of them. Nearly all the black and white photographs are crystal clear and appear as though taken from the original sources. The book is a larger format and measures 9" x 10" and most of the photographs fill the pages. I hope this is only "volume one" in a series, this book is a treasure!

This delightful book of musclemen of yesteryear is both entertaining and educational for any historian of bodybuilding and the male body in art. Long before Bob Mizer captured hunky specimens in the buff, artists like Townsend were persuading handsome young men to strip and strike a pose. The early attempts at bodybuilding were pretty lumpy affairs, sorry, Sandow does not do it for me, but things get better with the debut of Townsend and his dreamy images of the athletic frame of Tony Sansone. The really good news is that early bodybuilders felt comfortable being photographed fully NUDE and this book is worth buying for these shots alone. The men are not the hard bodied gym freaks of the Arnie era, they are 'boys next door', which gives the photos a period charm. These classic studies have a cute, naive feel, with atmoshpheric light and thankfully, several images have escaped the airbrush to reveal the men's assets in all their glory. You have permission to pour over these stunning images of male nudity and you will find yourself drooling, hero-worshipping and marvelling at the pioneering skills of the early masters of the male nude in ALL its glory! These men would not past muster today as athletes, bodybuilders or pin-ups, but they make a refreshing and highly entertaining contrast to today's endless images of o-so-cute boyish east europeans.

A book to have, along with "Physique Pictorial" and "Hollywood Nudes", to appreciate the history and background of male bodybuilding and nude male photography. David Chapman's excellent text provides a crash course on the development of male bodybuilding from the slightly obese strong men of mid-19th century carnivals and fairs to the sudden and revolutionary switch to more defined and muscular "strong men". In the book are priceless photos of the great Eugen Sandow and Tony Sansone. The photos of Tony Sansone alone are worth the price of this book. Important historical document.

David Chapman has given us a great book of history showcasing early male bodybuilders, and nude male photography. This is a book of 100 pages of fine, rare, and well printed pictures of the early physique stars, and bodybuilders. These photographs cover the period from 1870 to 1940 and are accompanied with a well-written text by David Chapman. There are many photographs of the legendary "Eugene Sandow", "Tony Sansone" and many unknown male nude physique stars of that period. Many of the photos are of unknown men who were photographed in the studio. Of course, my favorite photos are of Tony Sansone, who I idolized since I first seen his photos many years ago when I was a young man.

This book should definitely be in your collection. Another great book. Let's hope he continues the series. Highly recommended!

Full of pictures, this coffee table book is exactly what I wanted. It shows elephants in all areas of life, in poses I had never seen before. It truly is beautiful!

This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in African elephants. It combines outstanding photographs with interesting and entertaining text.

This is a most impressive book on the African Elephant, with page after page of fabulous photos of these mighty beasts. It would make a great coffee table book just for the pictures but it is much more than that.

The main focus is on preservation of the species in the face of shrinking habitats and the poaching for ivory that continues today. The efforts of 16 African wildlife preserves and parks are fully described here.

Each region is profiled with information on its elephants and several photos of the elephants specific to that area. The mature huge tuskers of Kruger National Park are truly awesome.

There is also plenty of information on elephant history, physiology and social interaction. This is a beautiful and significant book on the life and challenges facing the African Elephant.

This book moved me beyond what feelings I have ever known. I learned a great deal of facts from this book and hope to share them with others. I urge other readers to cherish this book...as I do.

Pete Turner has often been called a photographer's photographer--but that doesn't mean his work lacks wide appeal. His latest book, Pete Turner African Journey, a 206-page collection of images from seven trips he made to Africa, amply demonstrates his ability to please everyone's eye. Here, with his friendly introduction serving as a guide, he takes you on a tour of his pictures and tells you some of the many stories behind them.

Few photographers have displayed as graphic an approach to the art as Turner or such a strong color sense. His shots of the people, the land and the animals glow with the intensity of stained glass. Graphis, the publisher, is to be congratulated for bringing Turner's brilliance to us--and Turner for giving us this chance to bask with him the warmth of the African sun.

Anyone familiar with Pete Turner's work over the past years, knows that he is a master magician of color. His new book, Pete Turner African Journey, a collection of color photographs taken over his many years of return travel throughout Africa is magnificent to behold for both its color and content. Pete has a creative passion for color. His connection to color reminds me of a statement by the artist Paul Klee, "Colour possesses me...color and I are one." So it is with Pete who creates his colorful art using a camera and a searching eye. The way he photographs the people, places and culture of Africa is best said in one of the quotes I have by Gordon Parks. " Recording images of serenity and beauty was a matter of devout observance." I can think of no better way to describe the beauty, sensitivity and reverence of Pete Turner's photographs. His photographs are artfully displayed in a beautifully designed book by the prominent designer and friend, Massimo Vignelli. An introduction by another prominent friend, Gordon Parks, pays tribute to Turner for "...an unforgettable gift that urges me to breathe my own roots." African Journey, is a hero's journey, and an invitation to witness the rich and radiant colors and culture of Africa, the second largest continent on our mother earth.

Showcasing 148 full-color photographs, and with an informative introduction by photography, fillmmaker, composer and author Gordon Parks, Pete Turner African Journey captures the exotic glamor of a seven-month journey from Capetown, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt while Pete Turner was on assignment for National Geographic. This is a stunningly visual journal of people, landscapes, wildlife, and visual beauty where the images captured by Turner's camera could easily stand as individual works of high art and hang on any gallery wall. Pete Turner African Journey is a superbly produced and highly recommended addition to any personal, academic, professional, or community library photography collection.

This book is a wonderful trip that takes us though the landscapes of Africa, visiting the people and the incredible wildlife, seen through the lens of one of the world's greatest photographers. Turner is a master of color and light, and he fell in love early in his career with the richness of the African continent. To spend time with this book is to be his travelling-companion, visiting ancient temples, witnessing animals in their world, crossing the Sahara and spending time in villages, getting to know the proud people who live there. One beautiful image is of a dog sleeping in an Ndebele village, its white paw matching the painted architecture. In images like this, Turner shows us again and again scenes that only his eye and lens could capture.

The other reviewers have done a great job of describing this book so I'll keep my review short. I was not prepared for this book. I'm not sure anyone can be prepared. Halfway through I started crying and had to put it away for awhile. Our country is capable of doing some wonderful things. We (and yes I mean we, because the actions of our leaders and military represent all of us) are also capable of doing some truly horrible things. This book shines a light on one of the horrible things we did in Vietnam.

In September, 1976, just back from eight years helping homeless streetchildren in Viet Nam, I wrote an Op/Ed piece for the New York Times ( "Learning From the Vietnamese -- And Giving", 12/04/76) that concluded: "And I'm at a loss how to tell my own people that Vietnam's needs are our remedy - to say that what the Vietnamese people have to offer us - as they did me - is so great that for our own sake we must help them." I was attempting to make a connection between the spiritual strengths the people of Viet Nam had to offer us and the technological assistance we, in turn, could give them. Philip Jones Griffiths, in his book "Agent Orange, 'Collateral Damage' in Viet Nam" has made an even more compelling, if depressing, case for interdependency, i.e., because of the American military's chemical spraying in south VN during the war years there are now thousands of people in both the U.S. and Viet Nam who are dealing with deformities and death because of a ticking "time bomb" planted in Indochina decades ago. Griffiths, author of "VIETNAM, INC.", an award-winning photography book on America's longest war, has included here some unsparing images of humans beings brutally deformed by man's more fiendish dalliance with Weapons of Mass Destruction. Here is a "legacy" that must give all of us pause by a brilliant photographer's tireless effort to bring almost unbearable evidence to us of man's inhumanity to man. Like the Holocaust itself, the full impact of these atrocities took years to come to the fore, but "Agent Orange" makes a compelling case that two countries once at war remain linked in a tragic bond that will not soon go away. This is not an easy book to read or, should I say, to view, but I think we ignore it at our peril. Griffiths knows what of he "speaks", having spent years in Indochina and seen un-speakable carnage firsthand. Here he has placed the evidence before us, as well as a precious opportunity to understand where we have gone wrong and how we may become better human beings in the future. "Agent Orange, 'Collateral Damage'", it almost goes without saying, may be the ultimate brief on America's own WMDs. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------

For those already committed to voting for the so-called 'antiwar' candidate, I recommend putting this book in front of Sen. John Kerry and demanding to know what he will do as president to address American responsibility and pay reparations for the genocidal assault on the people of Vietnam. Such action will constitute a litmus test for this candidate, his "band of brothers" and future warriors about how the USA intends to solve the problem of terrorism. Will they acknowledge international law and prosecute the guilty parties including politicians, bureaucrats, executive military officers and defense contractors? Will they honor, finally, the Paris Accords and repair the ecocide brutally wrought upon the Vietnamese by their chemical weapons? Or will they continue to cover up a deliberate, malefic genocide by honoring war criminals like Kissinger and McNamara who now cries cinematic tears while his Pentagon successors plan the mass destruction of any nation that dares to oppose American hegemony?

Philip Jones Griffiths's AGENT ORANGE, COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN VIETNAM is a complex, dense statement that can be viewed and read several ways. Foremost, it is unquestionably the greatest work of photojournalism ever published. I do not make this statement lightly or without professional judgement. For twenty-five years, I edited the work of distinguished photojournalists -- Capa, Richards, Salgado, Peress, and Nachtwey among many others. Comparable only to W. Eugene Smith's MINIMATA: LIFE -- SACRED AND PROFANE, a passionate chronicle of the devastating effects of post-WW II industrial pollution on a Japanese town, AGENT ORANGE surpasses all previous attempts to synthesize the medium of still photography with historical documentation. Griffiths's masterly images unselfconsciously insert readers into the scene of an historical crime and guide them through the evidence page by excruciating page as a means to elicit direct testimony from the perpetrators and their victims. With the possible exception of Erich Maria Remarque' s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, no other monograph so successfully confronts citizens with the folly of leaders who commit atrocities in their name. The stares of genetically deformed children struggling to articulate humanity across the threshold of pain and disability give absolute lie to the facile excuses of national security used by politicians to conduct high tech assault-and-battery on unwitting, innocent populations. Then it was Vietnam, today Iraq and Afghanistan.

Beginning with his eloquent book, VIETNAM INC. first published in 1971, Griffiths has pursued an unrelenting inquiry into the truth of violence and war. He reported from the Mekong Delta battlefront and also the brothels of Saigon. Returning years later, he earned the trust of farmers who had rebuilt their devastated villages with the detritus of war. Pushing his inquest further he located and photographed war orphans, now shunned as the miscegenated offspring of foreign invaders (DARK ODYSSEY, 1997). Infrequently supported by the mass media, Griffiths parlayed his skills as a commercial photographer to raise the cash necessary to return periodically to Southeast Asia, as if excavating its pitted landscape for some fragment of reason that might explain the macabre body counts and haunting trans-generational birth defects. Some photographers are celebrated for their commitments in documenting a family coming of age or the rise and fall of a nation. Journalism schools promote the virtues of in-depth or extended coverage (sometime a whole week!) while network and cable news personnel embrace the fame of sticking with a big story only to defer, in the final analysis, to the desire of corporate sponsors. By contrast Griffiths has the determination of a seasoned forensic scientist. Although no maverick, he has paid the price of banishment from the newspapers and magazines "of record" whose editors remain too frightened by management to commission or publish his work. Why would they want to remind subscribers of their own inaccuracies and slavish pandering to the official story?

In this respect, AGENT ORANGE can also be read for its scholarship because it presents new historical research about the manufacture and deployment of chemical weapons during the Vietnam era. It has been almost twenty years since American courts acknowledged the gravity of dioxin poisoning in rulings on lawsuits filed by military veterans. Yet companies who supplied the military with these chemical defoliants continue to falsify experimental data on their products' potential for birth defects. Our government stands mute on the issue of "peace with honor" and refuses to contribute any meaningful economic assistance, nonetheless stipulated in the treaty with Hanoi. The war's apologists and neoliberal ideologues continue to deride Vietnam as a failed socialist experiment. Griffith's photographs and words rip their lies to shreds and dissolve their chauvinism in the cold truth of twisted limbs, hare lips, and hydrocehpalic fetuses preserved in formaldehyde. AGENT ORANGE is the black book of American infamy, its author has given citizens a priceless instrument to test their politicians sincerity and commitment to peace. Buy a copy and ask Kerry for a clear statement of conscience!

Philip Jones Griffiths is among the unsung heroes of our time, photographing the otherwise untold, unsavory aspects of a mean-spirited war completely lacking in human decency. Agent Orange is masterfully conceived, researched, photographed and written in prose that at once is dark, beautiful poetry.