Oceania Books

GREAT BOOK TO READ. IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE HISTORY OR THE CULTURE OF ABORIIGINAL READ THIS BOOK. YOU WILL KNOW A LOT.

I found this book to be of great interest although it was a bit more scholarly than I expected. Given how little is known about that part of the world and the Oceanic peoples I found it to be full of interesting information.

Well, if this is what passes for postcolonial criticism "down under" then it's a good thing at least we'll always have New Zealand.

Not only does Dr Boer seem incapable of mastering even the most basic dialectic schema, but he insists upon subjecting us to his photography.

Is he even a real MarXXXist. Was he ever?

In spite of - or, perhaps, becasue of his countless scholastic slips and revisionist inklings - Roland Boer remains the only man capable of dragging biblical studies out of the 19th century and into the retro-futuristic age of joyless humanism we all thought died with Della Volpe. More please!

Vastly superior to it's competitor, this book still has a few inaccuracies but nothing compared to the mistake ridden Lonely Planet Australia. This new edition by Let's Go isn't too different to its predecessors but it is slightly smaller in size. Every centimetre and gram of weight does count when you're lugging the thing around the vast continent of Australia. Let's go has also introduced some new small features down it's left hand columns on some pages. They are In Recent News which reports on regional issues that may affect you tells you about recent local council works or stuff like what is happening with Tim the Yetti Man. Irrelevant, yes and weight adding but somewhat interesting if you're bored somewhere. The Local Story, From the road, The Big Splurge are a few of the others which are equally irrelevant to most backpackers and seem to have been created just to give the book a new look so you'll buy the current instead of an older version. The big grey rectangle with interesting tid bits still exists. Find out why Hungry Jacks is called Burger King down here for example.

A fair number of hostel listings are in here but not all of them. There are lots of free publications in a lot of hostels with most hostels listed so if buying the book for this reason alone maybe save your money. There is still a lot of weight unnecessarily taken up with stuff such as hotels and restaurants which backpackers obviously never use. Let's Go should produce two versions one for travellers interested in that kind of stuff and one for backpackers. This book would then be half the size and weight.

This book is good for general information on Australia especially if you've never been here before or don't know much. You don't really need one of these types of books to travel Australia or anywhere else but if you must get one definitely get this over Lonely Planet.

I bought just about every guide I could find before my recent trip to Sydney. This is the one I ended up carrying with me at all times. It has the maps you need, and enough basic info on the locations and attractions that you'll always have some idea what to see and do next. While not a substitute for a detailed guidebook that'll tell you more background, this combination map and mini-guide is extremely useful.

I am planning a trip to New Zealand and have been absorbing as much information as possible before I go. I have seen several guide books and this is the first and only one I have seen that is set up for a budget traveler. Most of the guides list their $ (supposedly budget) meals at less than $30, this book has it's cheapest listed as under $7 and the expensive stuff listed over $25. Not everyone who travels makes $100,000+ a year :)
It also has heaps of extra information about traveling to NZ and travel in general. Information on passports, visas, safety, health, history, etc. All of the authors are people who have traveled to New Zealand, rather than living there, so you get an angle from the traveler's perspective more than from the usual travel writer's perspective.
It has the same kind of break down that most books have by city, attractions, restaurants and housing. It also has suggestions on other ways to experience the country such as farmstays, volunteer work,
education, and different travel styles.
A very good travel book, and easy to read rather than tedious. I don't feel like I am being sold anything while reading, it's more like having a friend tell me about their experiences and giving me travel advice, which is just what I need!

All you ever wanted to know about this fascinating place and a little bit more can be found in this book. Good reading, great pictures, and fun to share with friends. Makes a great gift for those who enjoy learning and sharing!

This book is a collection of letters written by Margaret Mead to friends and family while she was working in the field. The letters span her entire career, from 1925 until 1975, and are accompanied in every chapter by photos by and of Mead. I found the letters quite intriguing, both for what they said as well as for what they didn't say. Some of the letters provide travelogue-like details of what conditions were like at her research sites. Some tell us a little more of what she was really thinking about the people and cultures that she later wrote formal descriptions of. Some of the later letters are quite formal, more journal entries than personal letters.

I found some of the most interesting materials actually to be the short introductions that Mead wrote at the beginning of each chapter, where she glosses quickly over the enormous upheavals in her personal life. In chapter 1, she says goodbye to her "student husband, Luther Cressman." In the next chapter, she notes that she stopped in Auckland on her way to the Admiralty Islands to marry Reo Fortune before starting her 1928-29 research project in Manus. Then in chapter 5, she stops in Singapore to marry Gregory Bateson in preparation for their 1936-1939 project in Bali. Since I had only read Mead's professional writings before, the book's casual mentions of frequent successive marriages aroused some curiosity about her personal life. A quick Web search revealed quite a bit more, including a long-standing connection with Ruth Benedict (see for example "Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women" by Hilary Lapsley). If you are interested in the life and work of Margaret Mead, this book will give you some insight into Mead's own opinions of what she was observing that go beyond the objective descriptions found in her formal works.

Comprehensive, Good-looking and Feeling so "cool" to carry restaurant guide for Sydney (heavy-pocket) goers. I found this book after I came back from Australia. So it was quite a good memory for me, coz there is one of the restaurants I went to which listed here, and what is said in the book is just what I thought of that restaurant really is. For me, I rated the credibility for 8 out of 10, Practical (how useful of the book) I give 5, coz there are only the expensive restaurants listed, and we all know that there are loads of good food and cheap restaurants out there...so I would say ok, if you wanna go out once a while to dine in a fine restaurants. Presentation (how the book looks) I give 9.5 for the presentation: with the pocket size that you can bring along, the PVC cover that will make the book tougher coz we all know that this kind of book need to open quite a lot and the inside is so cool with the photos (you can't tell what they were taken anyway) good paper and very nice 10 points cover. I would say that overall compare to the other restaurant guide I have read...("Sagat's survey"---Bad. Presentation (which always stays in my passenger side's compartment) but excellence and trustworthy data...The "Tatler's"--- all commercials but really nice with 4 colors photos of the restaurant and mouth watering dishes) So "Out to Eat" is in between---- if you are looking for the restaurants quide, I would recommend this one but do not expect to pay less than 30 Aus$ for a meal.

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).