Travel Conditions Books

Having lived in Saudi Arabia--Riyadh to be exact--on two different occasions over a twenty-year period, I found "If Olaya Street Could Talk," a most interesting narrative on the life of an expat. I think Mr. Jones was wisely cautious in not mentioning names in his narrative, and did a rather masterful job in tiptoeing around sensitive issues, while at the same time giving the reader a feel for the excitement and frustrations that are part of living and working in that part of the world. And as cautious as he was, I understand that his book is still haram--forbidden--in the Kingdom. Yes, as fascinating as that part of the world is, it is still a long way from being an open society. Regardless, I recommend this book for those who have and have not been to that part of the world.

Bruce M. Petty

I have just finished reading "If Olaya Street Could Talk" and highly recommend it to anyone interested in Saudi Arabia. It will have special appeal to any "expats" who have worked in Riyadh or at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital. I worked there in the late 70's and while I don't recall ever meeting John Paul Jones, he has managed to capture the essence of the dramatic changes that many of us, including the Saudis, experienced on a personal, cultural and societal level. It is a rare pleasure to read something positive about living in Saudi Arabia, its history and the Saudi people.

Congratulations to Mr. John Paul Jones for writing an excellent book on Saudi Arabia for us western readers. At last here is a book that rings true. I have a chance to go to Saudi Arabia in December and was in two minds about it, but after reading "If Olaya Street Could Talk"...I will take up the offer, and who knows, I might even visit Olaya Street. Moving on to another matter, I am sick to the teeth with this pushy Jean Sasson person who is for ever singing her own praises at every given opportunity. I have read two of her books about Saudi Arabia, both are tabloid sensationalism, and do not ring true at all. This woman is now trying to steal the thunder of Mr. John Paul Jones's success by posting and advertising her own trashy books on his review pages.

The diplomat and author Sir A.T. Wilson once wrote,"Arabia retains to an extraordinary degree the power of conquering hearts," and it is obvious that the heart of John Paul Jones is one of those conquered. In this lively and thoughtful work the author celebrates the freedom of the desert - a place where you can drive without restraint in any direction for days on end, the beauty of the unpolluted night sky and the allure of ancient places, where the generosity of the poorest nomad who will slaughter his last sheep for a total stranger because that is what you do for a guest still lives.

But all is not romanticism in this book and as he writes in any population there is a 10% that will cause 90% of the problems and he is very explicit about this ten per cent - be they smug Americans or sanctimonious Saudis, that disappoint one's hopes and expectations. Mr. Jones is a perceptive realist who writes clearly about those trouble makers without losing sight of the vast majority of Saudis, Americans and others who made his 25 years in Saudi Arabia such a delight. I would heartily recommend If Olaya Street Could Talk to those relative few of us expatriates who ever lived in Arabia for any period of time and also to the many who ever considered what it would be like to live in this most astonishing desert kingdom.

This was an easy book to read...really informative of an expats life in Saudi Arabia for the past 25 years, and the massive changes going on there. The trips he and his family took through the Arabian desert were all the more interesting with the inclusion of a well marked map in the back of the book...grand idea. You actually feel that you have seen these places, and know the people he talks about. Now I want to read more about his wife and childrens life in Saudi Arabia, and about the other travels that they took over the years throughout that area and in Europe. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in a bit of the real Saudi Arabia. A very good read. Way to go, John Paul!

I bought this book along with "Vanishing Africa" and I am pleased with its quality. I am happy I bought it, because I feel it brought me closer to Africa.

This book is amazing. It draws the reader into the lives of the African people! It stirred my heart to prayer and made me love them even more!

There are few words to describe Cowart's work and Jenna's commentary. If this book made it's way into every household in America, Africa would look like a completely different country, because we could not help but be moved to action.

i reccomment this book to anyone passionate about AIDS, who cares about people living in destitution or just enjoys great photography.

The pictures are beautiful; some of them are only templates begging for words, but they convey the stuff that Africa is made off: the wood, the mud... The children's faces are smiling, always innocent and beautiful. The older people show resilience, dignity, and an expression that seems to say: 'It's done, I'm almost there'. The more enigmatic faces are of those in between, the young and middle ages; they are going through it. Most of these people dress clean clothes, specially the women. The book does a good job in that it makes the pictures alive, and their protagonists almost speak to us (although whatever they say depends on the listener).

One gets an idea of what Africa looks like. The landscapes under ominous skies, the muddy lanes, the water streams in front of the doors threatening with floods. I felt, however, that I wanted to know more about specifics in these people's lives. Their problems are mentioned as in headlines. I know it wasn't meant to be for this book but, still, I feel I would have liked to know even just a little more about those people in the pictures, from themselves, in their words.

i bought this book for my aunt who is a single, middle-aged, jouyful southern woman. she is an exuberant believer in Jesus Christ who unfortunately doesn't know much of his world beyond the USA, and i thought this would be a good way for her to explore it while connecting (a word that is very near to her counselor's heart) with people.
i don't know how much she has read yet, but my sister and i devoured it in the few days that we had it. we came away from it feeling even more curious about life in different places and reminded of our privilege as women to live in a financially independent manner.
all in all, if you need an antidote to self, this book will help.

I read the Material World several years ago and I was excited to see that Peter and Faith had published a "sequel" of sorts for the book. Women in the Material World is fascinating, especially if you can review it side by side to the Material World. I thought the questions regarding love in their marriage and their expectations for their children were so interesting. I am very happy with my purchase of this book and I recommend it to anyone who is considering it.

A sequel to the authors' successful, "Material World: A Global Family Portrait," which interviewed 30 "statistically average" families from around the world and photographed them surrounded by all their worldly goods, "Women In The Material World," by Faith D'Aluisio and Peter Menzel, revisits 21 women from these families.

With interviews conducted by women over a period of days, even weeks, and 375 color photographs of women captured in their daily lives, this is an absorbing look into an overlooked world of marriage, women's work and families. From female circumcision to divorce, from finances to education, gender roles, work, and friends, women discuss every aspect of their lives - seemingly freely.

Two themes repeat through this largely agricultural world - women's work begins before dawn and ends long after dark and most women feel they have enough children - whatever that number may be.

This is a fascinating, captivating and beautiful volume, to be read, not just browsed.

This book is a superlative sequel to the early Material World by Peter Menzel. I have read the earlier book so many times that when this new volume came out, I bought it immediately sight unseen. In this book, Faith D'Aluisio revisits 19 of the 30 families featured in the Material World to find out about the women's lives.

The articles are organized alphabetically, together with short features on marriage, laundry, work, education, childcare, hair, food, water, and friends. At the back of the book, we find statistical charts about women, and a useful statistics glossary. Each article has an extended interview with the mother of the family that reveals parts of her life story as well as her attitudes towards topics such as marriage, child care, education, money, and possessions. The articles are of course filled with numerous color photos, large and small, of the women at work and with other family members.

The Material World itself is a monumental book, but it was hard to go back to it after reading this book, where we find that the details presented in the Material World were so incredibly superficial. For example, family life for Maria dos Anjos Ferrerira in Brazil or Carmen Balderas de Castillo in Mexico isn't nearly as rosy as one might guess from looking at their original smiling photos in the Material World. On the other hand, Zhanna Kapralova from Russia continues to be a survivor. No matter how much you learn from the Material World, it will be far eclipsed by this book with its extended interviews and additional photographs.

A companion to Material World: Portrait of the Global Family, this book is an incredible expose of the lives of typical, average women all over the world. I, as an American woman with everything I could ever possibly dream of, especially appreciate seeing how things may have different for me had God just decided to make me the girl child of a Vietnamese working family vs. my background. It really makes you take stock of your life, appreciate it, and feel blessed no matter what your circumstances may be. America is truly a wealthy and favored nation. Even our poor, compared with most of the countries in the world, are rich! We should all feel compelled to give back, not matter how much (or how little) we have. I've been giving this book to my friends for gifts (thank you, Amazon!) A MUST READ!

I was given this book by the author, who is my cousin. He is an extraordenery person but I was stunned by the quality of his writing and the subject matter. This book missed winning a pulitzer and has not been made into a movie because of technical problems. His Mexican friends do receive stipends but this tragically underrated masterpiece and the gut-wrenching stories of those prostitutes need more exposure.
I started by reading this book's sequel, "The Zone of Tolerence" (Red Light District), while David was visiting for a family reunion, so I asked he and his wife, Cindy several questions. She is the railroadman's daughter he became engaged to in this book. They later visited his prostitue and other types of friends mentioned in both books. Cindy was surprised that characters were real and that these bizarre tales were true. The Stuarts were not blessed with children so Lupita was David's only brush with fatherhood. David and Cindy have taken in strays from the University of Mexico. Foreign and domestic students drop out of colleges all over the county but because of this couple's compassion, many in New Mexico have been helped back on track by free rent and encouragement. Cindy was also trained in Archaeology but became a university administrator. Her doctoral thesis researches why students drop out and how a university can prevent this loss of talent and increase the certification of potential taxpayers. In my opinion it was fortunate that David did not marry Marta, the prostitute, or Iliana, the waitress made pregnant by another man. Judge this question for yourself while these books return you to that magical time of lust-fired first love and clouded judgement.
I agree with the other reviewers. David acted in a way that later triggered catastrophic conquences. I acted the same way in the states but, in a location where people are barely surviving, small mistakes can push kids over the edge. Not having a 911 emergency system killed Lupita, not David. Ditto for the the victims of the auto accidents-- moaning while the police stole their luggage.
What you also don't know is that David was assaulted and almost killed before he made his escape out of Ecuador. His notes were written in uncoded English so they could be read by the American educated elite who were doing the exploitation he was documenting. For starters, the peasents were sold with the land and a landowner's first rites with Indian brides was enforced. The horse rolling over him was another problem. While riding over the mountains on a mule train, Indian women would try and trade or sell their babies for food. David could not purchase food for these children because the packed food was for other starving people. Giving the women this food would only encourage them to try and escape the mountains and die on the way down. "No babies", was the non-negotiable rule of the mule skinners. This book is titled, "The Ecuador Effect", University of New Mexico Press.
These two books about Mexico now serve as a documentary of what Mexico was like before drugs poisoned and altered its social fabric. The only other book that changed my attitude was "The Corner" by David Simon and Edward Burns which chronicles the lives of addicts on one drug corner of Baltimore. If you readers need a manicured happy ending without warts, best stick with boy-meets-girl fluff fiction. Pain-on-page is real life. I feel it is my duty to read these types of non-fiction books, even if there is little, or no chance of improvement. Books, like the ones I have mentioned, are not a part of American, light-impact, popular culture. Is that why our problems rarely get solved?

This is a genuine can't put it down and hope it never finishes, wonderfully intelligent, joyful, intense, sad, emotional, laugh out loud book. This is one of a very few books that I'll ever read a 2nd time - and a 3rd ... We came to San Carlos (15 miles from Guaymas) in 2005 and loved the area so much we are building a house here. We go to Guaymas several times a week and it's surely changed since the author's Chronicle days - but it's still a lovely little city. This is a true story - and that's why the characters and situations ring so true. Much recommended.
Note - the titles are a little confusing but there is another "Guaymas Chronicles" book - the 2nd "half" of the story - Guaymas Chronicles - Zone of Tolerance.

As a chronicle, I would say the book is written exceptionally well. If it were a work of fiction, I would say the author failed to generate sympathy for the main character, himself. Because the chronicle is written so well, it may seem you are reading a fictional account that doesn't quite measure up. It is what it is. An exceptional recanting of a true story.

I won't give any spoilers but this was a great book, full of emotions and well written.

Stuart's book is at once touching, funny, and heart breaking. It tells the story of his life in Guaymas, Mexico in 1970 and how his life was changed with the influance of a scruffy street urchin who he made his Mansasera. Although only 10 years old, she knew more about 'la movida' (the moves' than he ever expected. Together they enter busdiness and manage to 'do things for people'. Together with an assorment of other colourful characters, Stuarts portrait of life in Guaymas is one of those books that is contagious - buy it and get one for a friend.

Wow... I just started reading this book two days ago and I'm completely engrossed... wished i had started reading it on a weekend, in order to read it faster!!!
Having been in China just a couple of months ago, I wish I had read this before my trip. Seth Faison provides lots of information about China society, culture, history and politics without sounding too judgemental. This is one book I'm sure I'll come back to. Essential reading for these times!

I'm sure that with technology, there are no secrets. I give it four stars instead of three stars because people who take issue with his contradictions will want to read this. Break out the highlighter pens. I laughed when he acknowledges for the first time (and then frequently throughout the book) that Chinese women are fodder because I've heard the lengthy and boring explanations by those who refuse to admit that about themselves. Use a different color to highlight the many times he feels that Chinese have developed an "obsession for money" and that Chinese women use him to get magazines, currency exchange and see him as marriage material while they cannot afford his expat coffee or sundae. (The kinds of things he was asked for, many people would have no problem giving without the burden of the economic and racial differences between the giver and the receiver. Obtaining magazines are a big deal FOR EXPATS in China. There have been some socially retarded incidents of too much asking but I think the Chinese are better at showing when that's been inappropriate of Chinese so I think he could have been clearer about that.)

Then use a third color highlighter for the many times that he is reliant on the generosity not just material but the generosity of Chinese attention that helps him acclimate and get his job done. People and perhaps especially Chinese fail to draw the comparison that the percentage of Chinese immigrants who enjoy that thorough a level of generosity overseas is much less than the percentage of nonChinese who are helped by Chinese in China. I bear him no rancor though I can't imagine he would appreciate this review. I haven't laughed so much READING in a while. The pungent motives and unspoken assessments are not a shock and I think he's very clever and remembers that many Chinese know this so he presents them for consumption. It's his admissions that save him just as when Kip Fulbeck's narrator admitted that he wouldn't want his daughter dating someone like him. LOL. I wonder if M. Faison (French Huguenot! LOL) has ever been frustrated that Chinese don't realize how clever he is. This book is not about "dating." It's about world politics and its instruments. And his cleverness is not in his confessions of eliciting confidences but in the entire book.

A good companion to this book is Thailand Fever written from both Western and Thai perspectives (as interpreted by a Westerner apparently) with tips on how to successfully navigate the cultural misunderstandings to forge successful romantic relationships. The tone of Thailand Fever is different because the goal for the Westerner is different. I don't think that the authors of either books speak for all Westerners although Thailand Fever tends to generalize. Some expats may welcome South of the Clouds and refer to it to reinforce their criticisms; however, this book fails to explain that Asians and notably the Chinese are very good at ignoring other people and becoming invisible when they are not being appreciated or well-regarded sincerely so there is something to be said when they help you.

I'm fed up with the lack of Asian male faces in American media while Asian women are left exposed and devalued so that this kind of reporting is part of the mainstream depiction instead of just a blip. I'm calling quits on going to the movies and closely considering every American media purchase I make (including magazines) from now on. I've had it!

Faison brings us closer to the people of China and gives us an honest view of himself and how his own personal uncertainties influenced his choice of going to China and his life there. He dates a woman, who like China, has deep secrets, and he dates another who's personal choices help him understand himself. He visits the sauna massage to have a human touch and someone to talk with.

I like this sort of armchair "travel" book because it skips the tourist sites, hotel/restaurant reviews and encyclopediac history in favor of narratives about the people and the times. You will not read about the Great Wall nor Summer Palace here, and the Xian soldiers are only here because they are part of a story about real, everyday people.

These narratives are rich and memorable: the emmigrants and their familes of Fujian, a bootlegger, a sadly compromised government guide in Tibet, the slow build up to and the ensuing confusion of Tienamen Square. The sky burial, haunts me now, a day after finishing the book.

I recently re-read Seth Faison's marvellous book on a return trip through China. I was in Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai and then Hong Kong all in the space of a week. Faison's book was like a becalmed harbor that I could return to -- every time I got on a plane or settled down to bed. His crackling prose and incisive view of China and the gentleness with which he explained what is a tangled and complex place were something I looked forward to each day. It's a great book and deserves the widest possible attention.

I've spent over 8 years in Asia with much of it in China and have always enjoyed reading books about China. Many though, do not come close to capturing the modern thoughts of China as it changes from an agricultural to industrial power as this book does.

If you are looking for a deeper understanding of how many Chinese feel on the street, with threads of intrigue, history and current events I heartily recommend this book.

Ted Kooser, the poet, has written a beautiful little book of memories of his home. In this day of war and constant fear mongering it is a wonderful surprise to find a book this sweet. I passed it around my poetry group and some expected poetry. These small essays are like poetry in their beauty but they are vignettes about the people and the place.

Poet (and now Poet Laureate) Ted Kooser wrote this collection of prose pieces while in his early sixties, all of them appreciations of his daily life and memories of family going back to his boyhood in Ames, Iowa. Living today in a farmhouse near little Gardner, Nebraska, not far from Lincoln, he first describes the rolling terrain of the land and its Czech and Bohemian settlers, whose descendants continue to provide a cultural identity to the region. The essays are sprinkled with Czech and Bohemian proverbs, reflecting the wry common-sense wisdom of the Old World that informs his point of view.

Not all of them essays, some are short prose poems, spun out usually in one or two long sentences that reach a breathless climax that is, well, breathtaking. Reading his work, you are struck by his sincerity and the intensity of his awareness. While a man of strong opinions, they are rarely expressed directly and only seldom ironically, as when he describes the willful spraying of herbicides in road ditches by two county workers who have no sense of the risks to their health and the environment.

Identified on the book jacket as a retired insurance executive, Kooser embodies a kind of risk aversion that celebrates what is steady, dependable, and unthreatening in his world. There are rarely shadows, and when they do appear it is with a surprise that is shocking, as when a woman tells of an elderly aunt whose family was murdered by a farm hand when she was a teenager. Even his bout with cancer is told with a kind of emotional reserve and matter-of-factness that belies the anxiety he experienced over a six-month period of recovery.

Kooser is clearly abreast of the modern world, but everywhere in his writing, there's a lightness of touch - a gentleness - that harks back to a quieter time in our social history. His touching memories of his father are a tender evocation of post-war America that would easily stand beside illustrations by Normal Rockwell. E. B. White's wonderful essays on rural living in "One Man's Meat" also come to mind. Like White's, his vision is informed by humor, but rarely at the expense of other people (unless you take exception to his characterization of Republicans as "smug"). Even pheasant and coyote hunters with their arsenals and SUVs are seen as earnest and only incidentally comical.

Thanks to the University of Nebraska Press for bringing this fine book to print. Each page is a pleasure.

I am not the sort of person who revisits books. I tend to move on to things that are new since there is so much out there calling to be read. But with Koozer's "Local Wonders" I have had to make an exception. I have read certain sections of it 3 times already and find them as compelling each time. This collection of four seasonal essays contains so many examples of wonderful writing that I am amazed that this book has not received more attention than it has. I was raised in New England, but I " know" many of the people and situations that Koozer is so eloquently writing about. This is a book to be read and your leisure because it is very much like spending time with an old and wise friend. I cannot recommend it enough.

This book is easily the best I have read in years, in terms of the sheer ability to write and pass along interesting and intelligent thoughts. Admittedly, I identify with Mr. Kooser's purchase of a place in the country, and his clear enjoyment of the quiet, contemplative life, but the writing alone is worth the purchase for anyone. I actually thought it was a book of poems when I bought it but, no, it is even better. It is a poet writing a series of brief observations clearly, interestingly, and with great care. Thank you, Ted.

A wonderful book of concise snapshots of rural living. I loved to read each sentence slowly and get the gems packed into each lovingly crafted sentence. So many books these days are too repetitive and include superfulous information that doesn't add to the scene. Every word and sentence is worth reading here though! To me a mix of "The old man and the sea" combined with Willa Cather. Read it like you are eating a rich dessert; you don't need to eat it all in one setting or in large gulping bites. Treasure the book in comfortable places.

After hearing the Author on the radio, i decided to pick the book up.I found it most enjoyable,Hey maybe i will be a better customer now

I heard the Author on the radio,i thought the book was great,i enjoyed the stories the best

I enjoyed this book very much. I felt like i could hear the Authors voic

I see myself going through the same things,it was like the Author was writing about me

we give this book out to our new employees,before they can work for us. It has grear stories,and it is a very good learning tool,for customers and anyone else in this industry

When I first read Dispatches some years ago, I was astounded at how a 'parachuted journalist' from the Washington Post could manage to be so empathetic to his new surroundings. Harden displays a questioning and understanding of all the places he reported on in Africa that many who've lived for decades in Africa do not have.

In his travels, it's clear that Harden tries to stick his nose in and experience Africa. He is often more than an observer - he participates first-person - and is therefore able to tell a complete story without having resorting to hollow theorizing and trite conclusions as filler. His trip on the Kisangani-Kinshasa riverboat is a good example where the story and experience tells all - Harden doesn't need to tell the reader what to conclude. Same with his experiences with then President Moi of Kenya. He had the chance to talk to Moi, not just for an interview, but to discuss his deportation! Harden was always personally involved in his stories.

Coincidentally, a few years after Harden's Africa tenure, another Washington Post Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Keith Richburg, wrote his memoirs on Africa - Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa. Though Out of America is a very good book, Dispatches is in another class entirely. It's a must read.

Harden, a first rate writer, researcher and observer, does an excellent job demystifying the African political diaspora with insightful anecdote and personal experience. For anyone that has lived or loved Africa this is a must read - it will remind you of everything that is wrong with Africa and everything that is unforgetable about Africa.

It's a pity that the book was written in the early nineties, since the only drawback I can point out of this work is the lack of information about the last fifteen years in the different countries (Sudan, Nigeria, Zambia, etc.) the author describes (this is not his fault, obviously!). Deeply educational, this is phenomenal journalism. If I had to pont out a chapter, the most interesting one is the one that deals with the Turkana tribe in Kenya.

From page one, I was hooked, and I'm looking forward to learning more about Africa, the forgotten continent. This was the perfect starting point.

Blaine Harden's Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent is by far the most interesting book out there about Africa. It is a series of vignette-like true life examples of how the continent is imploding, thanks to "big daddies" and the west's lack of understanding about the people, cultures, values, and even geography of this underdeveloped continent. Truly a masterpeice. It should be required reading in all universities across the country. One of the BEST books I've ever read.

Harden brings one of the least reported parts of the world to light, but his reporting is now a bit out of date. It is hard to give a book this good less than five stars, but many things have happened in Africa in the last five years. I would purchase an update in a minute.

This is both a great read and an important historical document. Fanny Trollope was the mother of Anthony Trollope, perhaps the most prolific English novelist of the nineteenth century and my favorite. Fanny's husband was ineffectual in the breadwinning department, but fortunately for the family, Fanny herself was energetic and enterprising. She took one of her sons (not Anthony) and an artistic young man to the United States. She was planning to join a friend of hers who was a mover in setting up the utopian community in Harmony, Indiana, but the place turned out to be squalid, and she didn't stay long.

Fanny spent most of her time in the U.S. in Cincinnati and in her book is very hard on the city and its inhabitants. She especially objected to the pigs' role as garbage collectors. (In those days, pigs roamed the streets freely, like sheep grazing.) Fanny felt most of the people she encountered were loud, dirty, vulgar, and fanatically patriotic. It is her vivid descriptions of the physical conditions and the people that give this book its historical and entertainment value.

While she was living in Cinci, she opened a retail emporium and filled it with rather shoddy merchandise sent from England by her husband. She also attempted to bring culture to the inhabitants. Not surprisingly, both ventures failed.

After Mrs. Trollope returned to England, she supported her family by writing novels that were quite popular at the time, though they haven't become the classics her son's have. She spent her final years living in Italy with another son and his wife.

This is an extremely entertaining commentary on American manners and well written. I agree, however, with Mrs. Trollope's son, Anthony, who commented that Mrs. Trollope is a keen observer but she understands little. Certainly her complaints about the lack of gentility among Americans is valid but she completely missed the wonderful lack of class restraints endemic to English society which afforded Americans "class mobility"--freedom of opportunity (except for native Americans and slaves).

Fanny Trollope (1779-1863) wrote over 35 novels and several non-fictions books in her effort to rescue her family from poverty. However, the most read of all her books is "Domestic Manners of the Americans" which she published in 1832. It was in that distant year that Fanny and two of her children traveled across the Atlantic Ocean. Her purpose was to join a utopian community in Tennessee whose denizens were freed slaves.
Fanny left her impecunious and feckless husband the barrister Thomas Trollope back home in England. Her famous son Anthony did not make the trip as he was a student at Harrow School. Fanny knew her husband would join her in the USA when money became available. Later the family would flee to Bruges to escape creditors. Fanny eventually lived out her life in Florence near her son Thomas Trollope.
After leaving Tennessee the Trollopes settled for two years in the Queen City of the West Cincinnati, Ohio. Fanny did not like America or the American people! She found us xenephobic; boastful, prideful and violent.She hated the hypocrisy of life in Midwest Ohio although she did attend such cultural attractions as opera, plays and lectures. She favored the state Anglican Church of Great Britain not caring for America's separation between church and state.
This book could well be read alongside Charles Dickens' "American Notes for General Circulation" based on his 1842 six month trip to the USA.
Both Trollope and Dickens found the Americans crude, lacking in manners
and eager to make a quick buck. Listen to Trollope at her most scathing:
"..among the rich and the poor, in the slave states, and in the free states...I do not like them. I do not like their principals, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions." (p.314).
Fanny Trollope's book is more interesting than Dickens since she discusses colorful characters and shares anecdotes about her sojourn in our young republic. Like Dickens she hates the odious practice of tobacco chewing and the mangling of the English language. Trollope found us Yankees to be too serious and viewing us as poorly read. Unlike the wealthy and famous Dickens, Mrs. Trollope was a middle-aged woman fighting off poverty with her pen. I enjoyed her descriptions of nature such as those she paints of the Potomac River, Northern Virginia and the Niagra Falls area in New York and Canada. She is aware of flora and fauna and describes them with knowledge and in beautiful prose.
Dickens and Trollope give us the eye to see America in the days prior to the Civil War when the curse of chattel slavery ruled the land. Since those days America has granted freedom to all citizens. I wish both Fanny and Charles could visit us again in the 21st century. Their remarks would be of great interest to this reviewer and countless others!

All I can say is: what a great read! Who knew? Quite frankly, upon first sight of this book I must admit a bit of dread as the puritanical artwork does not smack of fun and games. Of course, as a literature student, I should know better than to ever judge a book by its cover.
Had I been Fanny Trollope writing such an account of America in the 1820s, I would be hardpressed to say that I would have changed a single word. Trollope has been the victim of many mean spirited caricatures and accusations by Americans and it still continues today, but what is interesting is that no one can do more than attack her person. In other words, no one seems to be able to refute her claims.
Trollope's "bitchiness" seems, for the most part, merited by my standards and while she finds much to complain about concerning an American democracy in its adolescence, she certainly discovers just as many things that she likes or finds beautiful.
Plain and simple, Americans collectively have a hard time taking criticism, especially from an outsider...and at that time, political criticism from a woman was deemed absurd if not audacious.
Last but not least, Fanny Trollope is always sure to preface anything she says with the conscious realization that she can only speak for what she has seen/heard personally and is thereby not judging ALL of America.
Trollope is witty and anecdotal and I think anyone interested in what an outspoken Englishwoman had to say about the New World should certainly pick up a copy. I found particular interest in gender/religious issues but got the most laughs out of her descriptions of American manners (or the lack thereof).
It is always interesting to see how much things have changed, and better yet, how many things have remained exactly the same!

Very entertaining read of the author's trip through 19th Century America, full of wonderful description and enlightening observations. Despite the griping below, Mrs Trollope simply reports what she sees - men spitting tobacco on the floor, ladies off in another room while the guys have a good time, etc. She reports accurately on our forefathers' rugged pioneer spirit, but points out the lack of education everywhere. We want to shout "lies!" but Mark Twain wrote about the same thing, and the aspects of our society that haven't changed much are still being commented on with the same frankness by writers like Saul Bellow, Gore Vidal, Dawn Powell, Paul Theroux and Joan Didion. Many true-hearted Americans will enjoy this book no end. Mrs Trollope clearly loved America and simply wrote truthfully about; she is simply beholden to no one - the essence of good writing. A thoroughly refreshing read.

Even if you don't live in the Southeast, this book will wow you with truly gorgeous photography. Highest recommendation from me!!

I saw the book over at a friend's house and started looking thru it...limited on time and cound not read much. The pictures are the first thing that caught my attention; so much nature and serenity. I couldn't help but come home and order the book thru amazon and have not been disappointed. It sits in my living room where I can pick it up and look thru it on a regular basis. The stories of their travels make you feel you are there with them. Would highly recommend this book to anyone who is into nature, the river or just down to earth living.

I ordered this book for research on a screenplay I'm writing about Atlanta. The detailed information was thorough, easy reading and quite useful. I wasn't really expecting the beautiful photographs, which also added a certain "atmosphere" to the screenplay as it developed. Makes a great coffee table book.

If you appreciate old fashioned values and true Americana, get this book. Truly unique and is capturing a part of our histroy that is being lost to development.

This book has won a Southern Books Competition Award of Merit in Book Design from the Southeastern Library Association. This award is given in recognition of the book's aesthetic appeal and design and for fine craftsmanship in its printing and binding. Congratulations to authors Joe Cook and Monica Cook, designer John Langston, printer Pacifica Communications, and the University of Alabama Press.