Tours and Travel Books

I didn't actually buy the book until we were in Nauvoo, so we read it late but it can basically plan your trip for you. It tells you how long you need for things, where to go, what's a "must see", and many other things. I loaned to book to my sister for her trip to Nauvoo, and she also loved it. It also pays for itself with all of the discounts that you get that are inside the book. I loved it!

Legendary Lighthouses V. II continues the celebration of American lighthouses begun in the first volume, paralleling information presented in the second new PBS series and providing fine color photos of the lighthouses as well as a healthy dose of local and lighthouse history. Any with a fascination for the lighthouse will find this an invaluable guide.

I am glad I accidentally got the book. What a beautiful surprise!!! I have never been to France, but, thanks to this lovely book, I am going this April.

An enjoyable, fun filled book of clever poetry and information about many places in Michigan. A unique approach and creative in focus. Every person fond of Michigan would enjoy it.

Who says you can't judge a book by its cover? The well-designed cover of "Lighthouse Families" is what first grabs the reader's attention. Inside, the pages are made from thick, high-quality stock. The format of the book is neat and crisp--very eye-pleasing. Nostalgic family photos and full-page color pictures of lighthouses are generously interspersed throughout the book's 192 pages. The writing is captivating, telling the stories of the people who lived in and loved the lighthouses along the coasts of the United States. This book contains something for everyone--romance, heroes, history, pictures, and even recipes.

Lighthouse Trivia is a delightful and compact 83-page book filled with a wealth of 145 distinctive facts about American lighthouses presented in a multiple choice Q&A format. Readers of all ages can test their knowledge (and that of their friends and family!) of lighthouse lore while learning the answers to such questions as where was the first document lighthouse in history; which lighthouse has a ghost that screams 'keep away" in Portuguese; what an Argand lamp is; which U.S. lighthouse is the most isolated; and what a "Texas Tower" is. Fun and informative, Lighthouse Trivia is a "must" for all American lighthouse buffs.

Photographer Laurence Parent joins forces here with noted lighthouse expert Elinor DeWire to provide a visually pleasing and fine book on American lighthouses, from the oldest standing in New Jersey to unique cliff-dwelling structures. Rare archival photos blend with plenty of history and background facts to make Lighthouses suitable for coffee table presentation as well as lighthouse study.

aNYONE INTERESTED IN AN EXCELLENT OVERVIEW OF U.S. LIGHTHOUSES WOULD BE VERY HAPPY WITH THIS BOOK. A VERY THOROUGH COVERAGE OF MOST STATES AND EXCELLENT PHOTOS TO ACCOMPANY THEM. WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK.

Lighthouses Of The South: Your Guide To The Lighthouses Of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, And Florida by lighthouse enthusiast and expert Elinor DeWire is part of the outstanding "A Pictorial Discover Guide" series from Voyageur Press. Superbly enriched with the color photography of Daniel Dempster whose images rise to the level of museum quality art, wonderfully enhanced Elinor DeWire's informed and informative text. No lighthouse enthusiast's personal reference collection can be con-sidered either complete or comprehensive without the inclusion of Elinor DeWire and Daniel Dempster's collaborative compendium, Lighthouses Of The South. Also very highly recommended for lighthouse enthusiasts are Elinor DeWire's Lighthouses Of The Mid-Atlantic Coast and Daniel Dempster's Lighthouses Of The Great Lakes.

This superb period work, the honeymoon project of a remarkable LIFE Magazine photographer/journalist couple (10 months, 30,000 miles, thousands of photos), constitutes a truly unique "chronicle of American writers from 1607 to 1952." Rather than shooting a "sentimental array of personal relics," the authors opted for a "pioneering use of photographs to interpret literature," capturing the "nature, mood and quality of the writing" of 93 seminal American literary men and women by photographing America as they had seen her.

Hence, the subjects vary as widely as do the writers' niches within the "recurring spirit of revolt and reform" that is found to emerge. There are landscapes, such as Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow, Willa Cather's Nebraska plains, and Robinson Jeffer's Pacific seacoast; urban domains such as Ben Franklin's cobblestone Philadelphia, Dos Passos' Gotham skyline, Ring Lardner's tropical Grand Hotel, and Sandburg's Chicago stockyards; small town vignettes including New England farmsteads, Midwest general stores, and various country inns, mills, and "great houses"; and such psychic interpolations as John Steinbeck's long road, Sinclair Lewis' hypocritical Main Street, and all too many authors' derelicts, shanties and ruins.

Regardless of subject, the compositions evince an expert eye and sympathetic heart. Even Thoreau's cliched pond is freshly interpreted as a dawn study in receding shadow and rising mist. The shots taken from Emily Dickinson's bedroom window, or along an ancient sunken stretch of Mississippi's legendary Natchez Trace highroad, are alone worth the book's modest aftermarket price.

Production values are high in this 50's era Dodd Mead, BOTM Club Dividend publication: heavy, glossy paper only slightly browning with age does justice to the full tonal range of the superbly composed images. Many of the shots (Wolfe's Asheville; Twain's Virginia City) have themselves become historically significant records of a "today" long since replaced by much more of considerably less.

The "concise biographical material" on the writers whose worlds the 179 photos depict is designed to "place [them] in the unfolding literary scene" beginning with Captain John Smith over 300 years beforehand, and continuing through 1952 with mention of the "promising" newcomer, Eudora Welty.

The mostly black dust jacket ties it all together with a mythic aerial shot of a 19th century steamboat "headed south, below Memphis" on a gloriously golden-hued stretch of Mark Twain's beloved Old Muddy.

Many of these writers are no longer considered major, if they ever were. No matter - they fill out an American panorama, and their stories, and the hauntingly atmospheric images that interpret them, are worth returning to again and again, for something that goes a bit beyond mere nostalgia, I think. Or if not, then as broadly American a nostalgia as we can realistically hope for, at least through a survey of our literary heritage....