Australia Books

This book is pretty thorough. I haven't gone on my trip yet, but I feel much more confident traveling with this book in hand. I'm very pleased and the information is all relevant to this year. Written clearly and concisely and something for every budget.

This guide was concise and easy to find things in. It divided the city into the various regions and had what there was to see and do in each area. It was a great fast reference tool for activities and places to see.

If you are using this guide for hotel and restaurant info, that is where it is a bit lacking and I would refer you to another book or to the fodors.com website where on the message boards you can ask Australians or prior travelers about first hand experiences.

Truly a guide to what there is to see and do when in Sydney! (And I hope if you travel there you will love it as much as my new husband and I did!)

Being on a long term stay in New Zealand, we have received nearly all the travel guides as gifts. This on is by far and away the most functional. It is not merely a laundry list of sites and hotels, but includes rankings and other information to prioritize your visit. It helps enable you to get the most out of the time you have available. Strongly recomended

This travel guide to New Zealand wins five stars for two reasons.

First, this book explodes with dozens and dozens of color photographs and color maps. You cannot help but be "wowed" with the beauty of the nation of New Zealand, as well as the beauty of this book.

Second, this travel guide points out--using a star system--(1.) how naturally beautiful; (2.) how kid-friendly; (3.) how historically intersting; (4.) how walkable, and (5.) how photo-friendly a whole list of cities and regions are. This information is precious because it helps you plan out your trip accordingly. (By the way, I took this book with me to New Zealand, and I found their rankings accurate and very helpful.)

But this guide alone won't be sufficient for travel in New Zealand. You'll have to add another one or two guides that are far more chock-full of details and practical information than "Fodor's See It New Zealand" is. My suggestion is "The Rough Guide to New Zealand," which served as my go-to lifesaver when I was over their on my honeymoon.

I would highly recommend this book to anybody who likes original and imaginative food. The recipes come from Australia's leading chefs many of whom are world famous. Cheong Liew (his recipes in the book include Four Dances of the Sea; and Veal Cutlets with Shrimps and Green Tea)is perhaps best known for inventing much of Australia's fusion cuisine. His restaurant, The Grange at the Adelaide Hilton certainly bears his name as much as the restaurant name itself. Just reading the recipes in itself is a temptation to visit Adelaide and make a booking at The Grange.

Easy to follow instructions and wonderful color photographs of the dishes certainly make this one of the better cookbooks. For the adventurous cook, try substituting ingredients, if it is not available in your hometown.

If you are intrigued by the name of the dish, Four Dances of the Sea, I'd recommend taking a look at the book.

What an excellent find. I highly recommend it, both for Australia and Western Australia. It's new, different and has information that other guide books just don't have.

After utilising the Lonely Planet books through various countries, I became increasingly frustrated with the format, inaccuracies and out of date information. Above all, I was sick of being one of the crowd, following other LP readers from place to place, having the same conversations.

A few years ago in South America, and using the LP SA, I had the lucky nature to photocopy a few pages from the Footprint SA handbook. Wow. Bible thin paper and stacked full of quality information. Yes it took a small while to get used to the format, but from then on there was no turning back. So when I [ad]ventured to Australia, and discovered that a brand new [i.e. not a 'revision'] Footprint Australia Handbook had been released, I jumped at the chance. I was not disappointed.

In Western Australia, for example, I'm fairly sure the tips are not in any other guide book, and on visiting some of the guesthouses and recommendations one sometimes gets the feeling that these places are rarely visited. And some of the locations give you the distinct impression of what it was like for the first [white] explorers.

I enjoyed the refreshing editorial style, layout, enthusiasm, funny comments, quality and quantity of information.

I suppose one would never know, but if I had stumped for the LP, I would not have known what I would have missed, but now that I do know, I really should keep it a secret, but that wouldn't be fair would it?

The only real downside is having to choose what to complete in the time available, oh well, another holiday then! Thankyou Andrew, Katrina and Darroch.

I was not familiar with this British travelguide series until I used this edition for my recent trip to New Zealand. The book is very easy to use, with pleasing layouts, and up-to-date and reliable restaurant recommendations of sites to see, hotels, restaurants, etc. The writer really showed his familiarity with NZ, and the writing was crisp and energetic. I had researched several guides to NZ (Fodors, Frommers, Lonely Planet, Rough Guide) before I left and found this one to be the best. I also looked into the Footprints guide to Australia and found it to be equally first-rate. I will definitely consider a Footprints guide again the next time I travel.

Don't let the cover art of this book fool you into thinking it's just a fluffy, inconsequential, melodramatic, romantic novel. This is actually one of the finest, best written, most substantial books I've ever read. This book spans centuries of one family's existence and evolution, from their arrival in Australia during the days of squatters and convicts through to almost the present day, to the days of the Vietnam war.

I read this novel as a teen (although it is not a teen book!) and until this day, I still love it. It's not just a great story, it also really opened my eyes to a whole lot of facts about Australian history I didn't know about until then, facts that are often not even taught in schools, probably because they're so shameful. For instance, I learned that in the past, the north of Australia was a lot like the deep south of America...they kidnapped black slaves from the Pacific Islands and forced them to labour against their will on sugar plantations. These slaves were treated horrendously, and often didn't survive their captivity. And native Australian Aborigines were forced to live in 'reservations', where they had no rights and no freedoms. In fact, Australian Aborigines didn't even legally 'exist' until a few decades ago...before that they could not vote and were not even counted as people in the census. The only right they really had was to join the army and die for their country...but when they came back from the war as heroes, they were still treated just as poorly.

Don't get me wrong, this book isn't just about the struggles that peoples of colour faced in Australia's past. It's also about the struggles EVERYONE who settled in this harsh yet beautiful land went through, whether they were black or white or any colour in between...the convicts from the UK, the beaten rebels from Canada, the gold prospectors, the wealthy squatters, the poor and downtrodden looking for a new and better life, and so on. And yet, in spite of its powerful, confronting storylines, this isn't a bleak book, but rather a wonderful celebration of the triumph of the human spirit. At all times it's poignant, beautiful, exciting and moving, and is penned with such astounding scope and detail that it proves this writer to be one of the literary greats.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Even if you have no interest whatsoever in Australian history, you'll still enjoy this, because it's not just about the history of the country, it's also about the people who made it what it is today...and those people, good or bad, are absolutely astounding.

Sleep deprivation has a considerable impact on our society. This book is the first of its kind, I understand, to look at the legal implications of this fascinating subject. It is extremely well-written and is quite accessible to the lay reader. A remarkable book.

The book (correct title is Forensic Science and the Expert Witness) was researched and written by two of Australia's leading legal practitioners. Their knowledge has been translated into a simple to read guide, that is an excellent reference for lawyers and people interested in the role of forensic science in legal proceedings.