Travel Books

Jeremy Cowart is an incredible photographer. If you have a heart for Africa, you will absolutely love this book. It has a good balance of quotes and photographs.

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.

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.

This is a well written & nicely illustrated book about how common items may come from far away, exotic lands. If you enjoyed this, you may also like Cocoa Ice by Diana Karter Applebaum - written for slightly older readers about two little girls whose families harvest and trade cocoa beans and ice.

This is an excellent teaching resource for second person point of view. It is an excellent story and the children enjoy it!

This is a wonderful book with lovely illustrations. It is a favourite of my daughter's since childhood and she was thrilled to have her own copy for her 16th birthday!

Good book for teaching the natural, human, and capital resources used to produce the apple pie. Identifying the types of transportation used by the baker in gathering the resources for her pie. Trace the route of the baker as she travels around the world. A skit can be made from the book also.

We had so much fun with this book! We used it with the Five-in-a-Row Homeschool curriculum and enjoyed it so much. Besides being a really neat children's book in general, there is a lot to learn about geography and language and other cultural benefits in this book. I recommend this one for any kid who likes to read or be read to. We have enjoyed it very much - it is one we had to have in our home, not just borrow from the library! Can't say enough!

For most of us the best indicator of what tomorrow or next year will be like is to look at yesterday or last year and just project it out. More of mostly the same. We let our responses to the normal events of the day define our experience. Many hopes and wishes just remain hopes and wishes. These two decided very purposefully that they wanted something different. They decided this at the beginning of their eighth decade of life, and produced a written plan of just they wanted from their next five years and how they would do it.

Their goal was to experience the daily life and the culture of several locations in Europe The path to that goal included selling a home, disposing of years of accumulated stuff, renting an apartment, making the travel plans, and dealing with health issues along the way.

It is a story written from each of their perspectives giving some history of their families, what brought them to this decision, the challenges they faced and a description of their stays in European. Their descriptions are personal and delightful. Those who have traveled even briefly in similar style will be reminded of their own frustrating mishaps that then became fond and some of the best recollected memories.

You'll likely end the reading of their story wondering about your own next few years and maybe even getting out a pencil and paper.

Ron Skrabut, Harrisburg, PA

What fun to read and reread the story of this wonderful couple's adventures. It should give all of us who are over 65, courage and hope. It fill me with new energy for what lies ahead.

Here exposed are our crushed, red-faced, travel humiliations, misunderstood language blather, and misinformed directions together with quaint chambres, unforgettable meals, and new found friendships. Subtly illustrated and printed in a fun graphic style, the authors' experiences courageously revealed as few of us would ever admit to our mothers.

Most people shudder at the thought of relocating anywhere and International moves are known to be fraught with more complications than most. Not considered so by Don & Dana Manges, a couple who, at age 72, spontaneously agreed to eschew the classic retirement life of napping and rocking precious days away but instead to sample living for a time in four major European cities.

Don & Dana record their impressions of the cultural offerings of each sojourn, the places and events savored and the pleasure of forming new friendships. They've described frustrations encountered with language whilst settling into each place but even those hiccups were viewed as amusing episodes .

Leaving Home at 72 details these two years through alternating essays written in Don and Dana's individual, whimsical, thoughtful styles that reveals much about their personalities and enduring interests. It's apparent that both thoroughly enjoyed the going, seeing, doing and laughing at the peculiarities of living abroad. Best of all, they bring to the reader an awareness that life after 70 affords a special opportunity to plunge ahead, to act on a dream and "to boldly go" to parts not yet explored.

Leaving Home at 72 is a charming and delightful saga of an imaginative couple's joi de vivre as they explore the beauty of Europe in a fascinating time aboard. A wonderful read for anyone who loves to travel.

I don't fall asleep while reading. When I get sleepy, I put the book aside, turn out the light, and pull up the covers. How anyone can fall asleep with a book in their hands and the light on is beyond me--or at least it use to be. Candie Moonshower's The Legend of Zoey was so compelling that I simply couldn't bear to put it down. I knew I was growing sleepy, but I couldn't stop reading. So finally, I have the experience of falling asleep while reading thanks to Zoey.

The Legend of Zoey is the story of two thirteen year old girls who meet under strange circumstances--strange because they're living two centuries apart! Zoey, your average, mouthy twenty-first century gal boards a school bus for a class outing and finds herself in 1811. She meets Prudence and her mother struggling to survive the wilderness while the man of the house is off converting Indians to Christianity. You'd think that was enough turmoil for Zoey, but no, she picked the months the New Madrid fault took bites out of the Mississippi Valley landscape to time travel!

Clearly, the time traveling is a clue that the book is fiction, but the story's non-fiction details add charming pieces of reality. You aren't just reading a book--you are a young girl traipsing through the wilderness with a very pregnant and grouchy woman you barely know. You hear the leaves crackling under your feet. You feel the cold wind bite at your nose, fingers, and ears. The campfire stings your eyes as it gradually thaws your tired, aching body. You will experience this book, not just read it.

Moonshower does what every author sets out to do--she tells a story so vivid and so captivating that once it's over, the characters live in your head for days. I am especially grateful to the author for allowing Zoey to have a real experience. Moonshower didn't sell out in the end.

Almost all the characters are female, so this is probably a girl's book. However, Moonshower weaves those females into real events and traditional stories about the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812. For that reason, it should be an easy choice for students studying the event--boy or girl.

I loved so much about this novel, The Legend of Zoey by Candie Moonshower. These are the things I enjoyed the most:

1. Candie blended the past and the present so well together . . . they literally tied into one another. That was a really good move.

2. The two girls (Zoey and Pru) both faced similar problems in their lives, one with modern conviences and one without.

3. Zoey was not interested in the past, but when she had to go to the past she wished she'd paid more attention in her history class.

4. I actually felt at times as though I'd traveled back to the past with Zoey and it made me wonder if I could have been as brave as she was about the time difference.

5. Candie didn't make the kids sound stupid. That's always a plus.

6. The comet! The comet was an awesome detail. I loved how it became sort of like this invisible bridge, and similarity between the two worlds, past and present.

7. I loved the description and close detail Candie used throughout Zoey. Great job!

8. For someone like me, who hated having to study Arkansas history and American history, made history just a little more interesting. Even though the story was about Tennessee history. I actually had very little knowledge of what happened with New Madrid and everything that occurred, so I learned something. :)

9. The novel was very believable. Candie did a great job telling this story of Zoey and Pru.

This novel is a great choice for young adults and adults as well. Happy reading.

Candie Moonshower has seamlessly meshed the experiences of two girls in two different eras into a delightful tale. Against the background of real events, she has written a fun and at times, poignant story and manages to teach the reader, too. Writing about time travel and using two points of view can be tricky, but Moonshower makes the transition between points of time and view with ease. I look for more great books from Candie Moonshower.

I love Zoey's strength and the way she always tries to figure out a solution, rather than just sitting and giving up. Also, it was a nice change to see the main characters aware that Zoey was from another time, rather than the usual dance around the truth and attempts to hide it. Most of all, I love that the links across time don't go away (I don't want to put in a spoiler!) after Zoey returns to the present.

Wonderful, lovely read!

The Legend of Zoey is a charming time travel novel. Candie Moonshower has done an exellent job of integrating the facts of the New Madrid earthquakes with an exciting story. It was a real pleasure to read about two wonderfully diverse characters. It works.

A trip back in the pages of history and geography that is made relevent by todays front pages.

I love books like this: Accounts of travels by intrepid adventurers who take you far into diverse societies and let you experience the pleasures and dangers without having to put up with all the inconveniences. Peters has lived an interesting life and his career in the army truly was one of looking for trouble, which often resided next to adventure. Peters' candor is quite refreshing and one finds oneself wishing that everybody in national office should be required to read this book. He vividly shows how you can't understand third world societies without getting out into them. He slams the diplomats who stay hidden in their embassies or Foggy Bottom as well as some jerks at the Pentagon. The tales told in this book are made even more relevant by Peters' ability to write well. All in all, a very good book. A necessary book.

This is a great book by a tremendously talented writer. The geographic range of Peters' journeys is vast but his tone is engagingly familiar, like an old friend holding forth on the world as he met it, and as it met him. While his medium is language, Peters has the perspective of a visual artist, able to capture a single moment that distils the zenith and nadir of a country's history. He is equally capable of finding the humorous heart of any situation, no matter how unpromising a prospect that may seem. This book is brimming with great stories, poignant moments, and more passages than I can count that made me laugh to near tears. Humor leavens the keen eye Peters casts on a threatened and threatening world. its too often reckless governments and their hapless agents.

I'd advise anyone considering the book not to be put off by a review or two here that perhaps imply it will appeal to only those of a distinctly conservative bend. The author's insights will surprise, delight, engage, and yes, sometimes provoke those of all political persuasions because Peters himself met the world head on, prepared to be surprised, delighted, engaged and provoked.

I always enjoy reading Ralph Peters' writing. He has such a fresh take on the subjects he writes about that it can be jarring. However, once you take the time to think about it you are better off having considered his thinking whether you end up agreeing with him or not. This book has the especially nice benefit of being funny as well as insightful, informative, and challenging. Peters can write in a delightfully entertaining fashion while writing about matters that are serious at their core. This is no mean feat. I mean, how can you not love a chapter on the War on Drugs called "Elvis, Buddha, and the Burrito of the Apocalypse"? When you read the chapter, it is even funnier.

This book is a memoir of his travels around the world doing his work as an intelligence officer for the military and covers the years 1990 to 1996. The story is not told sequentially, but in a way that helps us understand our present situation in the world. We get a tour of parts of the old Soviet Union. Peters is wonderful in showing us how the cultures that the Soviets tried to suppress reasserted themselves after the USSR contracted into Russia. He is also free in his analysis about why America has so much wrong about this region (and other regions) of the world.

We even get a tour around the world when he worked for McCaffrey in battling drugs. Peters is willing to name names and discuss how the organizations responsible for fighting the War on Drugs are more interested in protecting their bureaucratic empires than in coordinating their forces and fighting effectively. Of course, Peters has also said the same things about the Pentagon many times.

This is an excellent read that will entertain you as well as give you insights into areas of the world I don't think you can get anywhere else and you also get fresh insights into America's politics.

Recommended.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

What a treat to have this insight - through the brilliant eyes of Ralph Peters - into a decade or more of change across a part of the world that was considered rough when the Polo brothers crossed it and has improved little since. As an intelligence officer dedicated to his own education, Peters, often accompanied by military colleagues, recounts his stories and observations during days spent crisscrossing the "broken world" of areas that would soon break away from the former Soviet Union, and of the rough border areas - places like Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Balkans.

This is a work unlike Peters' more recent books in that it focuses on his travels and adventures rather than on geopolitical forecasts and military analysis. In that aspect it quickly captures even the most casual reader and zips him though the pages with the pacing of an old-fashioned adventure yarn. However, those readers who have become spoiled by Peters' excellent writing will get their fill and more in this book. His lyricism, skill with metaphor both biting and poetic, scalpel-like analysis, and ability to turn an awful situation into side-splitting humor season every page.

One of the most valuable aspects of Peters' book is the x-ray vision it provides into a decaying Soviet system that is now rising out if its coffin like Dracula. Following Peters into Georgia, for example, with the border hostility, internecine rivalries, and revanchist Russian spirit - visible even then - makes one realize that his observations are as pointed and relevant now as they were at the time.

Looking for Trouble wanders around a part of the world that few know - none with Peters' perspicacity - and are rarely visited, yet that are burning fuses on today's powder-keg politics. Want to understand present day Georgia-Russia issues? Look here to find root causes. Same with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

The truths that Peters reveals are as appealing and valuable as is the beauty of his presentation. This is a must-read book for anyone who has a spirit of adventure, a sense of history, and a desire to learn about the issues that stampede across our headlines and threaten to overwhelm.

Buy this book immediately. It is too good to wait! Then make sure you get a couple and send to your friends. You will be their new hero just as Ralph Peters will be yours.

The book starts out in Palm Beach, with Oliver Booth trying to make himself a bit more important that he really was. He owns an antique store but it's not on the main drag of town, Worth Avenue, so as a result he doesn't see much traffic. (Not that he would anyway-he has reproductions that still have the Made in Mexico stickers on them!) After an unfortunate incident at the Morningwood Country Club on New Year's Eve, Oliver finds himself in an unusual situation. He is asked to go to Paris, along with his assistant Bernard (also a waiter at Morningwood), and find furnishings for the guest house for Margaret Van Buren-one of the Palm Beach Society's elite. The trip is, to say the least, hilarious, and it has Oliver in an even more interesting situation, one he would definitely NOT want to have appear in the Shiny Sheet in Palm Beach.

I really enjoyed reading this book; I felt as though I was looking into the lives of the rich and famous. The characters were rounded, and I felt as though I knew Bernard and Oliver personally. I was a bit worried when I first started the book though-I noticed that Desmond was using larger words than necessary. I realize that it gives the air of importance and richness, but I wasn't sure it was necessary. By the middle of the book, however, either I stopped noticing it as much or it slowed down, because I flew through the book, just wondering what was going to happen next.

I definitely would recommend this book-I think everyone wonders what life of the elite is like, and this does give a taste of it, even if it is just an amuse bouche.

David Desmond's The Misadventures of Oliver Booth: Life in the Lap of Luxury (publisher: Green Leaf Book Group Press) is a light, clever satire on the social and economic particulars of life in Palm Beach and Paris.

Oliver Booth is an unlikeable, unsympathetic, unethical buffoon. Passing off Mexican imports as European antiques, Booth occupies a small shop and apartment just off (as in, around the corner from) Palm Beach's trendy Worth Avenue. He's nearly $3000 behind in his electric bill and hasn't paid his rent in months. He dresses in gaudy clothes and throws his morbidly obese self into the path of his affluent, uninterested neighbors. If this book had been solely about this character, I wouldn't have finished the book. He's just that aggravating.

But Booth actually serves as a catalyst for events that happen to two far more interesting characters: the wealthy, elderly matron Margaret Van Buren, and the young French traveler Bernard, who comes to work as a clerk in Booth's antiques shop.

Through their random associations with Booth, Van Buren and Bernard meet, and the older woman sees great potential and talent in the Frenchman. She sends Bernard and Booth to Paris to purchase antiques for her guest house, and despite Booth's constant blunderings and attempts to interfere, the trip is a great success.

Author Desmond does a good job of balancing the satirical tone of this book and his parody of Oliver Booth with a more heartfelt treatment of Van Buren's and Bernard's stories. Some of Booth's "misadventures" definitely go over the top, but they fit in the world of the book and provide some good chuckles. I've never been to either Palm Beach or Paris, but even I could see where Desmond was poking good-natured fun at the Dowagers in Paradise (DIPs) and the young Parisian students on strike for better cheese options.

Desmond wraps everything up nicely for Bernard, consistent with the reader's desires for his future. In the end, I'm not sure Booth deserved what he ultimately got in terms of abuse and reversal of fortune. But I suppose you could say that he imported his fake European chaise and now he has to sit in it.

The Misadventures of Oliver Booth may not necessarily need to move to the top of your To Be Read pile, but it's definitely a fun and harmless way to spend a few hours of your free time.

Thanks go to Mini Book Expo for Bloggers for providing this free review copy.

High society is rarely what it's cracked up to be, but that doesn't stop some people. "The Misadventures of Oliver Booth: Life in the Lap of Luxury" tells of the titular character's overwhelming desire to live the good life, the life of the filthy rich. Opportunity presents itself and there are no lengths Oliver won't go to mount himself among the most elite in the world. Hilarious and biting satire, "The Misadventures of Oliver Booth" is riveting and recommended reading.

The Misadventures of Oliver Booth will certainly entertain you. Oliver Booth makes a lot of blunders and only thinks of himself and how to swindle people by having them buy over priced "antiques". His antiques are reproductions made in Brazil, not the French ones that he pretends them to be. Even though you know the kind of person Oliver Booth is, you are sympathetic towards him and even begin to feel for him and the predicaments he gets himself into. David Desmond has written a book that keeps you enthralled to the very end.

Fun and fast-paced, Oliver Booth is a casual, amusing read that captures the spirit and shenanigans of Palm Beach, from the real players to the social climbers. Highly recommend it!

Parallax is a marvellous book that will interest almost anyone who likes to read popular science and popular astronomy. It is an example of a new genre of science writing: writing a biography of a scientific puzzle that had a long life. In this case the puzzle is to find small changes in the positions of stars, due to the Earth's annual motion round the Sun. In learning about this, we find unexpected discoveries, such as the aberration of starlight. Alan Hirshfeld, a professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts, tells the story at a rattling good pace. All the science you need to grasp is explained clearly. The book truly captures the adventuresome spirit of the astronomers involved.

There have been a lot of history of science books over the last few years - Dava Sobel in particular is very popular. If you like books by her or Jared Diamond or Amir Aczel, you'll love this volume. A smooth read, but with plenty of meat. The theme of the book is also rather more important than that of Sobel's Longitude; the program for the search for parallax was laid out in Galileo's Starry Messenger, and drove astronomical progress for centuries, and is still an important area of research, while remaining mostly unkown to the public. The only scientific theme which lasted longer, or generated more incidental progress, was the search for a proof of Fermat's theorem.

I don't think you can grasp the history of science without being exposed to the material in this book. Give a copy to the budding bookish teenager in your life.

In science, clever minds and precision equipment go hand in hand. Take string theory - it sounds great [and I personally hope it's correct], but we don't have the equipment needed to do the experiments. In the book Parallax by Alan W. Hirshfeld, we take an almost two thousand year journey through history trying to confirm or deny the existence of stellar parallax - the apparent motion of a star due to the Earth's revolution. Hirshfeld introduces us to great scientific mind after scientific mind, all who knew exactly what they should see, but all thwarted in their efforts until the science of telescope making caught up with their brilliant minds. Since we know where the journey ends, part of the fun of reading Parallax comes from Hirshfeld's vivid portraits of the lives of the philosophers, astronomers, and instrument makers involved with finding stellar parallax. My favorite portrait was of Joseph Fraunhofer, telescope maker extraordinaire and survivor of incredible childhood trauma. I highly recommend Parallax by Alan W. Hirshfeld to anyone with an interest in astronomy, the history of science, or instrument making.

This is very simply a great book. The writing is clear and engaging and the history and the science are well presented in a logical chronological order. The love of the author for his subject stands out on every page; and his enthusiasm is contagious - one feels like getting a telescope (if one doesn't already have one) and start exploring the heavens. The book also illustrates in the best and most painless of ways how scientists' work complements that of others - hence progress. Highly recommended!

This is the best book on popular astonomy that I have read in many years, perhaps ever. It is hard to imagine a more balanced, better organized and readable description of a thorny technical topic than is presented here. In the mini-biographies of astonomers for 2,500 years, one is reminded ot Richard Rhodes book "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" in which he capsules 20th century science, Chemistry in particular. Hirshfeld provides interesting and often amusing thumbnail sketches of all the Parallax protagonists from Aristarchus to the present. His descriptions of Tycho Brahe, Galileo and Kepler are particularlly vivid. I had always read that Tycho had his nose bitten off in a drunken brawl, but, alas, not so! It was in a drunken duel.

The balance of the book is outstanding; each progression of understanding of the magnitude of the problem is presented with equal weight. The actual magnitude and dimensions of the problem (physically measuring the movement of a star from the exremes of the earths orbit) are described in bite sized increments, until by the time that the problem is surmounted in the mid 1800s, the full appreciation of the achievement is inescapable. If genius is "an infinite capacitiy for details", then the astronomers, and Dr. Hirshfeld both fully qualify for the title.

I am enthusiastically recommending this book to every literate person I know. It is satisfying and mind stretching, beautifully constructed, illustrated and edited. A great book!

Know this first: I'm a huge fan of all things Disney, especially POTC the ride.

Imagineer Surrell's book is very well-done. This is one of those (along with his earlier work on the Haunted Mansion) that I go to again and again, like watching a favorite movie or listening to a favorite album. Maybe I'll notice on the 50th reading ONE MORE DETAIL I somehow missed...
I especially enjoyed the look at the other parks' version of the ride. Rock on, Jason!

Con: Woulda liked it in HARDCOVER.

Now, as with any OTHER topical subject, some of the info goes out of date the day the book is published, and will continue to "go stale". The 2nd, 3rd, and even talked-about 4th movies are, of course, not included. The much-publicized ride rehabs are not either. This is the same with Jason's earlier Disney's Haunted Mansion book (a good companion piece, by the way). That said, the HM book goes off into a hopeful description of the actually-miserable HM movie, touting it as the best thing since Bela Lugosi. This was written well in advance of the actual public release of the HM movie, I guess, so they were gambling the public would love what turned out to be a huge embarrasment. ( When I need cheering up, I sometimes imagine HM Director Minkoff at what I hope is his new day job, asking people if they want to add a cherry turnover to their order for just 50 cents more ). Okay, here's your soapbox back.

They shouldn't have pushed the HM movie so hard in THAT book.

Not so in THIS book: Because they "got burned" on the HM movie, there's a decidedly less-throat-cramming push for Curse of the Black Pearl, which, of course, in hindsight, they could have laid on thicker, now that the movie has generated some kind of Star-Wars-level cultural shift.

Buy the book. You know you want it.

I know I want more books on CLASSIC Disney attractions, and I only want 'em writ by Jason Surrell. Amen.

I love Disney world and I love love The Pirates Of The Carribbean! Great if you like both!

I really enjoed the first chapter on how the concept translated into the final product of a ride. Amazing how these things come together. The second chapter comparing the ride throughs between the four parks I found a bit frustrating - hard to really picture it unless you're there (for me). I was more interested in the ride portion than the movie chapter myself. Worth the buy (though I bought it used).

My daughter just loves all the background information. She's very happy with it.

As of November, 2006, a newer, updated version of Mr. Surrell's book is now available! Look for the version with the compass rose in the upper right corner of the cover.

Cheers!

Beck

This is one of the most enjoyable and most readable books I've read on any aspect of astronomy. It does show that some planetary astronomers are a bit more human than they ought to be, putting fame ahead of knowledge, but at least they're fussing about something that might conceivably be useful (but hardly, right?) and not about how old Time is, or how to convince me that there is no center to the universe although 'it did so start with an explosion!'. Much of astronomy, and all of cosmology, is just a big boondoggle for smart graduate students and their mentors, but at least the ones Ken Croswell writes about are almost 'down to earth'.

I generally liked this book. I will mention here that the author does tend to write in all the politics amongst the different astronomers and their institutions, making these people real and their discoveries intriguing. However, the bitterness he dotes on gets tiring in some places. Also, he writes to keep you in suspence and only a few times does the anticipation get annoying.

This is an excellent book on the given subject, covering the history of the search for other planets in a technically proficient but accessible way. Croswell frequently brings in the scientists involved and lets us hear what they have to say. Since the search for planets has often been controversial, this makes for exciting reading sometimes, as two leaders in the field take turns taking potshots at each other.

Mostly, though, it brings more of a human face to this arcane endeavor. Croswell also takes pains to explain how the search is progressing and how so many false alarms have managed to take place over the years.

Again, an excellent book.

Planet Quest is a great book for all you armchair astronomers who want to learn more! I am not an astronomer or even an amateur astronomer, in fact, Planet Quest is only the Third book I've read on the subject but my interest is growing. Planet Quest is very easy to understand because all of the scientific jargon is followed by words and explanations that beginners, like you and me, can follow. Read this book, you won't be disappointed!

Ken Croswell's book, "Planet Quest" is a must for anyone interested in the search for planets outside of the solar system. The book reads well, telling a fascinating story from the beginnings of speculation about the existence of alien worlds right up to the present when information is coming to us all the time about strange new worlds around distant stars. Anybody with an interest in the possibilities of life elsewhere must read this book.

"Scotch and Holy Water, by John D. Tumpane, is a charming account of the adventures of a fun-loving group of American ex-pats in Turkey in the late 1950s and 1960s.

John D was a graduate of Yale who went to Turkey with his family's engineering business. I grew up around John D, and he was always a positive influence on me and the other kids around him. John D adored life and travel and language and people. He traveled extensively around Turkey, learned to speak Turkish quite well, and seemed to rejoice in exploring the Turkish culture.

John D often wrote short stories and "Scotch and Holy Water" is the book that grew from his collection of hilarious stories. He wrote lovingly about both the Turks and the American ex-pats. His writing describes the uniquely Turkish spirit of hospitality and joy of life. When he writes about the Americans, he emphasizes the exploration and fun. John D doesn't cover up the foibles of the Americans there in Turkey, but he does treat them gently and with kindness. Having grown up in the places and times he describes, I can attest to both the accuracy and the gentleness in John D's writing.

"Scotch and Holy Water" is full of good deep laughs from this earlier time of innocence.

THIS IS FOR ALL TURCOPHILES OUT THERE, OR ANY ONE INTERESTED IN A GREAT COUNTRY: TURKEY!

For perspective, I was 2 years old when John D met me and 12 years old the last time I saw him. As for the book, it's all true, and couldn't have been better said. I recall my father (Art) and mother (Mim) coming back from the evening excusions John D. and the others would go on and how the laughing never stopped. Like other readers comment, it all needs to be put in perspective. I recently loaned the book to an associate who just returned from Izmir...the book has yet to be returned. They're making another trip and have commented toward the value the book has offered in understanding the people and places. Like the many of us who endured there for over 10 years, as the book prefaces the subject, you begin to understand the people, like the people and land, and never want to leave...yearning periodically to consider a return trip.

I recommend the reading of this book...it's well worth the time...it'll make you laugh..consider, the literal interpretations that can only exist...

A must read for anyone who has lived or is living in Turkey. I laughed the whole way through and could relate to almost everything, even though it's 30 years later. The author captures the uniqueness, frustrations, and wonders of living in Turkey.

I am half american half turkish airforce military brat. I can vouch that the attitudes and ways in the book in the time it was written and even in general today are the turkish people.
It is a great way to understand the culture. I first read this book after finding it my fathers library when I was 18. I read it as almost his own stories from his stationing there earlier on.