Tours and Travel Books

I live just a few blocks from Central Park, but reading through this book, I realize how many things there are that I've never seen or appreciated! It's a great introduction to the history of the park and the things beyond the grass and trees that there are to explore. It joins my Zagat guide in my purse as things I don't leave home without on the weekends.

An excellent pocket-size guide to restfull oases in NYC. Even my inveterate NYC friends say they learned something new. Use this with the thicker City Secrets guide. Sorry, there is nothing more to be said. Buy this book!

It's a beatiful book, I rated five star but I felt as if I read the first half...Hopefully I'll see the "New York II" shortly on the shelf somewhere..

This is our second purchase of this book. We gave the first one away to a dear friend who was born in Newport News and now lives in Richmond. This is a fascinating collection of postcards, some of which include comments about the city and its growth as a shipbuilding community. We love and collect postcards ourselves so this was a real treat.

This is the next best thing to being there! A readable, accessible history of the Musuem of Natural History itself; or rather of its world famous halls of dinosaurs and mammals. After a multimillion dollar facelift the exhibits reflect the latest theories in vertebrate science--and there are some major revisions made. The chapter on Horses is worth the price of the book. Black and white photos of the older mounts are juxtaposed with brilliant color shots of the new, revised versions. The Apatosaurus gets a new head and longer tail, the Tyrannosaurs goes for a run, and the Horses develop in groups. The book's tone reflects the pride the Museum's staff feel in their accomplishments, and it is enough to make one book an immediate flight to New York just to see these marvels--if not 'in the flesh' at least in the round. Highly recommended

I grew up reading Jerry Bledsoe in the Greensboro Daily News. I enjoyed his columns then and I enjoyed NC Curiosities even more! I thought I knew a lot about the Tarheel State until I poured over this book! It made me want to go back on a pilgrimage to visit all the crazy places I never knew existed and to re-visit all the places I know so well, but which apparently have curious secrets!
Jules Shepard, author of Nearly Normal Cooking For Gluten-Free Eating: A Fresh Approach to Cooking and Living Without Wheat or Gluten

I have not seen a book like this done about the lighthouses of North Carolina - or any lighthouse book for that matter. It is easy to read as well as a pleasure to look at with all the spectacular photography. This book is not a fluff piece. The information contained in it is interesting and goes beyond the ordinary. It links the history of the lighthouses to the very origins of The Unites States of America. (and the book looks real good on my coffee table, too).

Sometimes the road to adventure starts from your own backyard. If you have the itch for adventure, Lee Foster shows you the way!

This book is exteremely informative and well organized. I enjoyed the book and highly recommend it for all adventure seekers.

The endpapers of this book feature an 1848 map of lighthouses on the Great Lakes. The evolution of the Lighthouse Board and the Fresnel lens are accompanied with historical photos as the book moves toward the 20th century. There are even some sequential photos of early training exercises for keepers and rescue workers. Readers then get to meet some of those keepers and their families, not in dry biographies, but in colorful accounts and memoirs. Once acquainted with these brave men and women, the tour of the Great Lakes lights begins, and sometimes I think that you see these lights today through their eyes. There is a pride in those that have been lovingly preserved, and a sadness for those in ruins. Each light covered has its historical significance and photo; some lights have more than one. A great many of the shots are aerial views, all in all a treat for any lighthouse buff.

What's funny is that nobody will be reading this review, but I'm writing it anyway. I bought a copy of this version of the book at an airport book store after having been to the Air and Space Museum a few times. I found the book provided a good guide for the time in which it was written, and has good photographs. Obviously however, one should not rely on this version of the book as a guide to the Air and Space Museum in its current form. Therefore, instead of recommending you read this book, I recommend you visit the actual museum.