Oceania Books

The first thing I want to point out is that this book has many more (and better) maps of Auckland than the full Lonely Planet New Zealand, so in that sense it's a great book for someone who will be spending a while in the city. However, I think the ideal person to buy this book would be someone who is traveling around the south pacific and due to time constraints will only be hitting Auckland and the surrounding area. I met a lot of vacationers in Auckland who were doing just that. If that's you, pick up this book! It's a lot less weighty than the full LPNZ, and it covers everything from the Bay of Islands to Rotorua (and places in between like Whangarei and Hamilton) -- not just Auckland city. The only downside is that the prices are slightly out of date since it's a couple of years old. However, all the info other than prices about places to stay, things to do, etc. is still valid (I just visited July-August 2001, so I know).

My wife and I used this handy guide on a recent trip to Honolulu. It was the only one we consulted and it seemed to be adequate. The map section was particularly useful in helping us to navigate around Honolulu and Waikiki. Since we returned home there have been some more instances when the guide was needed as a reference.

The authors give only a lukewarm recommendation for the Polynesian Cultural Center. We are much more enthusiastic about our memories of that experience.

Sometimes when you read a book like this your desire to go to a place lessens. But not with this one. I am definitely going to Samoa! Get the feeling it will help me there.

A typically good LP guide, but be aware that while earlier editions of the title included the whole South Pacific area, this edition does not include Micronesia. (And LP hasn't updated their micronesia guide since 2000.) So if you're planning to visit Kiribati, Palau, or other countries in Micronesia, this guide won't meet your needs.

The third edition of this guide to Australia's smallest mainland state shows a definite shift towards, if not the high-end traveller, at least the mid-end traveller with expanded listing of lodging and eating establishments to include more expensive options, especially in the section covering Melbourne. The coverage of the rest of the state is as exhaustive as in previous editions. While Lonely Planet refuses (or does not have the staff) to update the printed versions of their guides more than once every two or three years.

The only real criticism I have of this guide is that the author(s) clearly have animus against the current Victorian government. While everyone is entitled to political opinions, they are out of place in a guidebook, particularly in a series which includes guides to such places as Burma.

I had a chance to look through this book recently at a friends house, and I was pretty impressed. It contains a bunch of useful maps, which from my experience are more than adequate to help you get where your going, or find a place to go if you don't know where you want to be. It also has page upon page of great information on all things walking in Australia. Well worth the price.

As an expatriate Sandgroper, this narrative was quite entrancing. The authors have clearly spent much time traipsing through the vast areas of Western Australia. Arguably, they have seen more of it than many of its locals, who tend to be congegated in the Perth metropolitan area. Thus, somewhat ironically, a ready audience for this book might be people in Perth that wish to get out and see more of Australia's largest state.

Overseas visitors should be cautioned about the book. Even though it does give the size of WA, the sheer immensity and dearth of people may still be surprising. Twice the size of Alaska, and with scarcely 2 million people. Well over half of which are in Perth. The book strives to convey the feeling of desolation once you leave Perth, and you should do well to keep that in mind.

Australia does not have the strong tradition of Nature writing that America does. One exception to this is Western Australian writer William Lines. This book, the title of which pays its respects to an Eric Newby classic, is the story of his walk he did along a previous version of Western Australia Bibbulman Track which runs south from Perth. Lines deftly describes the every day aspects of the walk but intertwines his descriptions with an account of the history, a rather sad one, of Western Australian forests as a result of greed, ignorance and stupidity. An Australian environmental classic.

An interesting look at Australian publishing.

The editors suggest that with media corporations buying book companies with an eye on spinoff products they still don't quite get it, and no matter what they do, they can't get the considerably over double digit profits that they want to make out of it, despite cost cutting.

Apparently a new cool scientific idea in bookselling not too many years ago was to count the actual books sold.

Sounds like they have to be a bit more sophisticated than that to work out models to improve their bottom line, so that seems to be part of the problem.

Other criticisms include paying huge advances to celebrities, which means leaving other authors languishing, or not publishing them at all, or, bizarrely, not choosing new authors.

No surprise that some book chains are starting to struggle as people realise there is not as much choice there as there used to be, and find it more easily online.

It is also rather focused on 'literature' and what they see as possible increasing decline for this sort of book given the lack of instant marketability compared to celebrity cooking or a crime series.

By today most British Commonwealth leaders in 1941 have had their history rewritten to fit into a more political desirable form. As such we are given very little about the conflicts and doubts that must have gone though their minds at this time when it looked like Hitler had won.

Two great leaders Churchill and Menzies in the British conflict appear to have come into conflict over the conduct of the war. To Churchill, WW2 became a crusade that he was willing to give all, in an attempt to defeat Hitler. To Menzies the British empire was both incompetently being led by Churchill which as the book shows is probably correct in the gross failure of the British handling of the war in Greece and getting involved in a conflict that it could not win. He felt that the British Commonwealth should make terms with Hitler.

In an attempt to replace Churchill, Menzies lost his position as prime minister of Australia.

Mixed in with their respective egos and ambitions it makes fascinating reading.