Burke Books

This is a great book. My husband and I bought it before we got pregnant, and folllowed through it for all 3 trimesters and after our baby was born.
The book covers lots of issues like healthy diet, pre-pregnancy and pregnancy excersise, healthy weight gain, lots of advices on "do's" and "dont's." It helped us a lot! In fact, we didn't buy any other pregnancy cookbooks, we just didn't need them after reading this one.

If you like gorgeous photos of food, then this is your book. If you want useful recipes to increase fertility and stay healthy during pregnancy, better books exist. Since this book is published in London, American (United States) readers will find it hard to translate some of the expressions; i.e., gingernuts for gingersnap cookies, rocket for arugula, and a food referred to as "pulses" which I still have not figured out. The beginning of the book covers general topics related to pregnancy (such as eating and exercising) with only 2 to 3 pages dedicated to each topic and no new information. The exercise section had only 3 exercises with references to breathing in and out while closing and opening your front and back passages. I could not figure out what was meant by "passage". The recipes seemed to be based on five ingredients--ginger (fresh or sugared), sardines, tofu, figs, and apricots. Many had ingredients that are hard to find, like tamarind pulp and creme fraiche. The Nutrition Notes that follow each recipe would be helpful if they were listed with the measurement system in the USA. By the time I read the Chilled Garlic and Almond Soup with Grapes and the Bacon-wrapped Trout with Oatmeal Stuffing recipes, I was queasy and decided to return the book.

I have to confess that this book took me by surprise. All the buzz that I had heard about it focused on Spencer Burke's supposed "universalism" and that's what I expected the book would mostly be about. But, as it turns out, that discussion is really only a very minor part of the whole book. Instead, the bulk of the book is about why Spencer thinks institutional religion's time is past, and how we need to move beyond religion towards spirituality. While I didn't agree with everything Spencer had to say, I think he did raise some good questions for conversation.

One of the biggest issues raised in A Heretic's Guide is the authors' dichotomy between religion vs. spirituality. Right away (and this is one of the things I didn't really like about the book), it's hard to get a handle on what exactly is meant by these terms. The book doesn't really give a clear definition. But to briefly attempt a definition (quoting Professor Scot McKnight's review of the book):


"Religion seems to be his term for institutional faith, esp Christianity, in its churchiness, its creeds, and its required commitments. It is finite attempts to capture the infinite and, as I read him, religion is a "consensual illusion". It is designed to "point the way to God, not to control the flow".

Spirituality is equality, a feminine/masculine sense of God, countercultural dynamic, mystery, experience, interconnectedness, beyond authority structures, holistic individuals, the particular rather than the universal, material as much as heavenly, authenticity and honesty, and a communal, holistic celebration of the sacred that eradicates boundaries."


Given these definitions, Spencer says a lot about how religion has become a barrier to people who are honestly seeking God, and how now, in our postmodern era, people are gradually learning to circumvent religion and approach the divine through the freedom of spirituality. He predicts that religion in its institutional forms are destined to die away, and suggests that perhaps we're entering an age when people will no longer look to institutions to help mediate their relationships with God. As he says on page 90-91,


"People are not leaving churches because they've ended their spiritual journey or have abandoned their commitment to the teachings of Jesus... On the contrary, people are leaving the church because they want to embrace something more than abstract ideas and religious dogma. They want a transforming spirituality that gives their life shape and meaning."


Personally, I think Spencer somewhat overstates his case, though I don't completely disagree with his assessment. Actually, I was never quite sure how far to take Spencer's comments. At times he seems to come down pretty hard on "religion", but I couldn't quite tell if he really thought that all forms of church and corporate spirituality were worthless or bound for the trash heap. In my own opinion, it is far too premature to write eulogies for institutional religion just yet. I also don't think that the church, even as an institution, entirely fails at leading people into a transforming spirituality. At least, I have known many people whose lives have been transformed for the better in and through the church.

What I had a hard time figuring out is whether Spencer was saying we needed less church or better church. Is the problem with institutionalized religion altogether, or do we just need better institutions (perhaps scaled back, and based more on horizontal rather than hierarchical relationships and leadership structures)? As someone who is in the process of creating an "institution", i.e. a local church, I would personally say the latter. I think there is value in the church, and really, I think some institutionalization is inevitable. Human beings like organization. Whenever you have more than a handful of people who get together on a regular basis for spiritual pursuits, you are going to need some kind of structure, some kind of system, some order. At any rate, I think that religion and spirituality are not always opposites. Often the church is an important means for people to find spirituality

At times Spencer doesn't seem to have entirely given up on the church either. Indeed, spencer himself still spends the bulk of his time speaking and interacting within the structures of institutional Christianity (i.e. churches, conferences, publishers, etc.), so I would guess that he still sees something there worth being redeemed.

Spencer's main complaint against institutional religion, however, seems to be the ways in which it seeks to exclude people from God's grace. He writes several chapters about how religion likes to set itself up as the gatekeepers of heaven, determining who gets in and who doesn't. Instead, Spencer suggests that we should stop worrying about who is "in" and "out" altogether. The important thing, according to Spencer, is "not a belief system, but a holistic approach of following what you feel, experience, discover, and believe; it is a willingness to join Jesus in his vision for a transformed humanity." The true purpose of the church then, "is to take on a facilitating role, helping people find their way with God rather than attempting to determine and control exactly what that relationship to God "must" look like."

This is where Spencer's "universalism" comes in. I say that in quotes because Spencer is not actually a universalist. While he uses that term in the book, he does so rather "tongue-in-cheek". He is a "universalist that believes in Hell", which is to say, not really a universalist. Rather, Spencer is an extreme inclusivist. His suggestion is basically that perhaps salvation is an opt-out rather than an opt-in. In other words, God's grace and forgiveness is already extended to all people. Because of what Christ did on the Cross, we are all "saved", i.e. recipients of God's grace right from the day we are born. However, because we still have free will, and because God will never force anyone to love him, we all still have the option of rejecting God's grace, of refusing his love. Perhaps, suggests Spencer, salvation is not so much about intellectually assenting to the particular doctrines of the Christian religion, but is simply about responding to God's love and accepting his free grace to us, in whatever form it appears. (Incidentally, I think this whole view would help greatly in making sense of what Paul says in Romans 5:12-19.)

Personally, I think Spencer is on to something. I think many of his ideas: his inclusivism, his opinion that faith is more about spiritual transformation than intellectual orthodoxy, and his vision for a church that serves as facilitators and tour guides to faith rather than as gate keepers to heaven - these are all valuable contributions to the conversation. They are ideas that are worth pursuing further - and many already have, from Brian McLaren to NT Wright to Dallas Willard. My disappointment however, is that Spencer himself doesn't do a very good job of supporting his ideas with much deep biblical thinking or persuasive argument. Of course, I don't think his intention in the first place was to try and convince Christians to all agree with him. However, these issues are important enough that I'd hate to see a lot of Christians simply dismiss them because of Spencer's lack of intellectual or biblical rigor.

In short, my own suspicions about this book was proved true: I liked some of the answers in Spencer's book, but not how he arrived at them. And I disliked some of his answers, but still really value the questions they were born out of.

I have a friend who likes to "stir the pot". If there is a controversial side to an issue, he'll take it. If there are questions to be asked or alternate points of view to consider, he'll ask them and find them. He's something of an instigator, though to those he's questioning or instigating he's seen as more of a troublemaker. I'm not sure why he can't "just let things be". I don't know why he keeps upsetting the apple cart, maybe it is his personality, his disposition, or his spiritual gift. Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor do much the same in A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. The work is keen on instigation and thus, for those in Religious power-centers, full of troublemaking heresies.
Burke and Taylor, though it seems that Burke's voice is dominant - either by the convention of writing or in actual fact, begin by setting the cultural and philosophical stage. The Enlightenment brought about the age of science and reason. It also ushered in the rise of secularism whereby religion, spirituality, and mystery were vanquished to the realm of private or non-existent. "Secularism's partner, technology, pitched the assurance of a better future and the guarantee of unending progress" (xix). However, it is clear that this dream has ended. In recent years there has been a marked rise of interest in things spiritual or mysterious. "God is coming back into the picture in new and different ways" (xxiii). It appears that the institutions that held sway in the modern era are either in decline or irrelevant to our current cultural situation. "As with government, many people no longer count on religion to deliver on its promises and provide meaning and motivation" (xxii). Note: to this reviewer it is worth noting that Burke's and Taylor's cultural analysis is not dissimilar from a myriad of books, websites, and sermons. In a word, they've said nothing new. It would seem that they have two paths they could take. On the one hand, they could suggest "X" (insert your favorite number here) ways of reinvigorating religion. On the other, they could envision a path beyond religion all together. They chose the second and spend the remainder of the book explaining why.
"Spirituality in the twenty-first century is not etched in stone but fashioned out of the fabrics of our lives in new and ever-changing permutations. This is the focus and hope of this book" (xxiv). In many ways, the book is an amalgam of thoughts arranged more or less in a readable order. Stylistically it is not unlike the remixed spirituality that the authors are advocating. In many ways reading A Heretic's Guide is like reading a collection of blog posts around a general theme of remixed spirituality visa-a-vi tired old-time religion. In fact, it seems that Burke and Taylor have never met a provocative spiritual idea that they didn't like. The reading experience was similar to reading a RSS (Really Simple Syndication) aggregator of blog posts and news feeds.
As to an assessment of the dichotomy played out in contrasting religion vs. spirituality, I must admit that I left the book feeling less than convinced. I believe they are essentially correct in their diagnosis of religions shortcomings in our global information age. The democratization of information and proliferation of technology has forever changed the fabric of our world. We most certainly need a new vision for what it means to be a person and a people of faith. A Heretic's Guide may provide stepping stones for that new vision, it may be the first glimmers of light before the dawn of a new day, but it does not go far enough. Mind you, I do not think the authors intend that it does. I suspect they are well aware of emergent nature of the things they are presenting. But the shortcoming I do see is that religion becomes something of a straw-man to get knocked down by ambiguous and all-pervasive "spirituality". But what happens when a group of people chose to live out a particular spirituality together? At what point does a corporate spirituality - organized and practiced in a local community - become "religion"? Obviously religion as it has been known has changed and will continue to do so. And I'm not advocating for tinkering with our religion to make it more relevant or palpable to a disinterested public. But to create such a polemic between religion and spirituality seems to do disservice to both.
In summary, I believe that Heretic's is an intentionally provocative book and, for those who can stomach such agitation, it will probably serve as a helpful resource. But its helpfulness is mostly confined to deconstruction rather than reconstruction for a future faith.

Thanks to the previous author for the brief review of our book. I fully agree that the "people stuff" is what projects are all about. However, from my experience, very few people involved with projects actually practice the "people stuff".
We have tried to capture some of the less well documented aspects of project management that will (hopefully) be helpful to people new to projects and old hands alike. Indeed, there are some new ideas presented that are the result of our research and development.
Project Management Leadership is not just about team building, but also covers subjects such as Emotional Intelligence, Decision Making and Conflict in project contexts.
Yes, projects need to consider the involvement of people and this book is written to help readers introduce their own ways to develop these needed skills. I hope it helps improve your project success!

This book spends its time telling project managers how to build teams. Heh, get a grip, that is what project management is all about. Nothing new here.

"A Rhetoric of Motives" was published in 1950, five years after "A Grammar of Motives," the first volume of a planned trilogy "On Human Relations" that was never officially completed. Having established the critical vocabulary of the dramatistic pentad in the first volume, this second work explores how all forms of human activities, whether linguistic or not, are modes of symbolizing. Specifically, Burke focuses on the relationship between persuasion and identification (hence, the focus on rhetoric rather than grammar). This is where his definition of man as the symbol-using/misusing animal comes into play. Within this context, the goal of the critic is to interpret human symbolizing in whatever arena it can be found (which necessarily means all human interactions) in order to explain human motivations.

Part I "The Range of Rhetoric" sets up the key Burkeian concepts of Identification and Consubstantiality. Part II "Traditional Principles of Rhetoric" reworks those concepts into Burke's framework, using diverse texts from Dante and Machiavelli to Carlyle and Rochefoucauld to support the analysis. Part III on "Order" develops positive, dialectical and ultimate terms to establish the idea of forms that are paradigmatic of the rhetorical process as well as those that are better termed caricatures. Students of rhetoric and social theory should certainly read "A Grammar of Motives" before making their way through this volume, although a thorough appreciation of Burke would require starting with his pre-war "trilogy" of "Counter-Statement," "Permanence and Change," and "Attitudes Towards History." That middle volume is especially important in light of Burke's argument in "A Rhetoric of Motives."

Burke never wrote "A Symbolic of Motives," which was to complete the trilogy. Both "Language As Symbolic Action" and "A Rhetoric of Religion" are sometimes represented as the third volume in some embryonic form, which is about as valid as such considerations can go. My argument would be that Burke's earlier works are much better sources of enlightenment and inspiration than either of those particular volumes.

No matter how much and how well you understand the project - to determine the rhetoric that correspond to a motive according to the nature of this motive, you find the approach artificial because it only uses linguistic means to define this rhetoric of the said motive or motives. No body language, no facial language, no language beyond language. At times it becomes purely absurd. How can we follow a « discourse » and its rhetoric if we do not consider what happens when it is « uttered » to a crowd and « enacted » physically. The case, when it is so obvious that we feel floating in thin air, is when he pretends symbols are anterior to all human inventions. This is philogenetically absurd. Man when he emerged out of animality invented the symbols, the first words let's say, in and out of his daily survival practice, hence his daily economic practice and then these symbols amplified the practice by making its transmission and improvement easier. We cannot accept this assertion : « The laws of symbols are prior to economic laws. » At this moment we feel that Burke, in spite of his great insistance on the central dimension in human thinking of dialectical processes, loses his dialectic. Symbols and socioeconomic practices are absolutely linked together genetically as well as structurally in the most dialectical way imaginable. The key to that loss of his dialectic comes later, I think, when he pretends that the oxymoron, the basic dialectical figure of speech that significantly associates two antagonistic elements (and oxymorons must not be reduced to words as Burke does it), when he pretends that this oxymoron is a realization of mysticism. Absurd. Mysticism states an absolute unity of a one and only being that dominates you because it is your creator. And this creator is not oxymoronic, even if you may thing this concept of a creator is a moronic idea. In this book Kenneth Burke traps himself by limiting his rhetoric to language. There is no rhetoric that is not also material, corporeal, emotional, and even repressive, military, agressive, using all kinds of bodies and corps to impose one's point of view, even if officially the orator only uses words. Others, behind him, use other means, but far more effective means. If you want to keep a historical site clean, you have to use written and oral rhetoric to incite the public to keep it tidy, but you also use special visual signs, specially devised trashcans that attract the attention and reinforce all the other signals, but also some wardens who enforce the rules by asking politely at first and then more forcefully if necessary the trespasser to please comply with the rule. That is the full rhetoric of cleanliness on an historical site, and it can go as far as showing the unreformable, un redeemable trespasser the way out. It also includes some cleaning people that are here to remind you of the dirt visitors create, and thus make you feel guilty and comply with the inciting rhetoric of cleanliness.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Université Paris Dauphine, Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne

The book contains some very common Italian naughty expressions and there are people in every culture who enjoy peppering their everyday language with these kinds of expressions - as far as Italian language goes, I've heard many more men than women using these expressions. You may or may not want to use them, but if hang around Italian communities (even if you're not travelling to Italy), or if you're watching Italian movies - you may be glad to understand what they're talking about.

A funny book to read, but not something you can really use. The phrases are accurate for the most part, but in order to be able to use these phrases correctly, you need an understanding of the situations in which they are applicable. Something that comes with days and weeks of listening, not reading a 100+ page book.

Stephanie has been promising for along time to do stuff with Michelle, but the Big Pals Little Pals program changes that.

Stephanie and Michelle's classes are doing this thing at school and Steph and Michelle want to get each other so they can spend time together. But unfortanly Steph gets Cynthia, and Michelle gets Stephs friend. Michelle doesn't like Cynthia.

Soon Steph and Michelle get in a fight and they're not talking to eachother!

Steph and Cynthia's projectis a secret and they find its ruind one day!!They keep blaming it on Michelle. They have to share it with both they're classes, so that day they ask who knows what they're project is for a movie ticket and ony one person knows. Is Michelle gulity?? Read it to find out.

I really liked this book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I give it 5 stars. You should read it too!

That's what my mom would have said. This is a 5 star Michelle story, but Stephanie is totally out of character. Maybe as a sixth grader she might totally ignore Michelle's feelings, feel really bad about lying, breaking a promise, and doing everything she promised to do with Michelle with Cynthia and yet doing nothing to correct the problem until near the end, and consider Michelle selfish for just wanting her to do what's right, yet doesn't consider Cynthia selfish when keeping their prjoect a secret is causing problems - she says "well, it's just important to her." Yes, Cynthia is very lost and needs lots of help in a strange city, but so did Mandy in "Full House Michelle: My Two Best Friends," and Michelle got her friends to co-operate when they were fighting over who would be her friend. Not every third grader can do this, of course.

It's a great mark of love that Michelle forgives all this so well at the end. It did speak to me about how important it is to forgive, and how we should let bygones be bygones.
But equally comforting is the fact that Stephanie has matured by 8th or 9th grade in all the other Full House books. And while she might do one or two of the things in this book, she wouldn't do all of them. This book is great in talking about how it feels to be left out, but they could have done it differently - it would have been neat to see Michelle paired with an 8th grader who felt really depressed and refused to try to make other friends.

Of course, Cynthia's from New York, and Stephanie talks about how she loved it there. Since "Two on the Town" seems to be their first trip there, and Steph's in 9th grade and Michelle 5th, I can comfort myself thinking that this book isn't canon, anyway :-)

Educating the masses is a critical feature of the functioning of a modern society, yet doing it properly is becoming more difficult with each passing year. The goal of the public school system is to educate each child according to their ability, yet those abilities have vast differences. Children have different ways of learning, yet the school system is forced to mass produce the educational process.
This book will not help solve this problem; the goal here is to lighten the heart and to put education in the proper social perspective. The value of education, both the short term of classroom attendance and long-term continuing education are praised in this book. Teachers are also praised for performing the difficult task of trying to educate everyone in a situation where individual attention is often a far better approach. No matter whether you are a student, educator or interested observer of the educational process, this book contains something that will uplift your spirits.

This small book is a collection of mostly short (and a few long) quotations on the topics of knowledge, teaching, and learning. About half are from "famous" people. My favorites include Moliere's "without knowledge, life is no more than the shadow of death," Emerson's "knowledge is the antidote of fear" and "life is a festival only to the wise," and Pope's "men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot." The other half are quotes from children about their favorite teachers. It's probably worth another half star. I bought it to give to my nephew who's just starting to teach. It does have some inspirational quality in toto.

When I first read the synopsis for this story, I was excited. I mean two of my favorite themes (IR & science fiction romances) where put together. This story had everything it needed not only as an erotic novel but just a really good romance novel in and of itself, yet the writer fell short of what is promised. First of all there were intirely two many typo's which made it hard to follow the story (I was unsure if it was intentionally done or not) and the female lead in this story who was portrayed as a strong black woman didn't come off that way. As a matter of fact I found that as a black woman myself i couldn't relate to the heroine of this tail...I know that it's science fiction but half of what makes a good sci-fi read is it's believability to the readers... ms. burke failed to recreate her world that she invisioned in her mind on paper....

I know your wondering why if i didn't enjoy the book did i give it three stars well........
#1. Like i said this book does have the ingredients of being an excellent read.....unfortunately it doesn't come out that way.
#2. The secondary characters mentioned in this book aren't focused on a whole lot but it does arouse the mind to the idea that they may have a story in the works (hopefully with more depth)
#3. I really enjoyed the hero in this book... I just wish that he wasn't so two dimentional
#4. The twins (aaawww) i just love babies 'nuff said
#5. The sex scenes were well written as well...

I really wish i could've have loved this book...I really wanted to honest but fortunately/unfortunately I need more than cute babies and hot sex scenes.....to be a good story. I also believe that it was too short to convey all that is promised on the back cover...the story was too quick and i was left with the what the f^&5 feeling you get when your unsatisfied.

So if you just want hot sex scenes where the characters have no depth and you really can't understand why they're so in love in the first place,or you just got money to waste by all means purchase this book......better yet see if they have it in the library or a thrift store....you'll get more for your buck then.....

I have read this book before. I enjoyed the characters very much, it was well written and the story line kept you wanting to read the next page.
I consider a book good when I can remember the plot of the story and the characters in the story. It's what I would call a keeper.

This book is basically a rehash of the product docs that come with Ant. There are some examples included, but for the most part, there isn't any information in this book that can't be gleemed from the documentation.
If you are someone that likes to printed examples available, then this book will be useful. The examples seemed to be fairly well formed and complete (although not all the complex topics are covered in adequate detail).
Ohterwise, if you are looking for a Ant reference that will cover complex examples, and include strategies for using the tool properly, look elsewhere.

I learned something on page 2 -- ANT stands for Another Neat Tool. I was surprised, I always thought ANT was a pretty dull tool. To be sure, every time I wanted it to do something I could eventually get it to do it. (Actually I went and got help from the guru.) That reached a point where I got handed this book and told to go away.

First, of course, I turned to the index, looked up what I wanted to do, went to the proper page and it didn't make any sense at all.

Son-of-a-gun!

The guru said, "have you read the manual?"

Well, not all of it."

Go read the manual, start at page one."

I did. And the surprising thing was that it didn't take long at all. From the beginning, it made pretty good sense. And as I got further into it I started finding something neat that I should do about every six or ten pages.

ANT is a pretty powerful program.

The book? It's an O'Reilly book, professionally written for professional programmers, what more can I say. Oh yes, it's a new book, and it covers ANT 1.6.

Highly Recommended!

this is a great book for getting your knowledge past the basics in ant, but i don't think it is the best reference. use this book to learn ant and use online help for reference.

This book is good if you have no idea what Ant is about. The book lacks creative code examples, and doesn't explore many things that Ant is capable of doing. The book should be called "Ant the Definitive Introduction". I think the Ant Developer's Guide does a better job of touching into the depth of Ant's capability. However, the book would be very good for an Ant newbie.

I really scratch my heads these days on the book reviews hence I'm writing this one. I have this book AND the Manning Ant book.

This book does a great job of teaching you basic fundamentals and how the pieces work. So as an example the other book which is over 600 pages talks about DataTypes BEFORE talking about properties. This book talks about properties FIRST which is a much better progession of complexity IMHO.

This book has some typos. There was also a typo in the Apendix B on how to create a super zip jar of your open source lib jars. This example does not work nor can I find anything on the publisher's site with a fix. :-(

I can understand mistakes but I'm not a big fan of people being lazy or not supporting their web site with current updates. To help further this point the errate site last changed on 7/21/04 an today is 2/8/05 with no clue how to fix the busted example on page 254.

This book I would recomend as an intro or if you just have a small project you want to use Ant for. If your doing J2EE work with things like ejbdoclet the Manning book is a great reference. Don't expect the Manning book to be a good intro. Ironically the Manning book STATES in chapter 3 where they introduce the key concepts that it CAN NOT be digested in one reading.

So basically treat this book as a good salad an the other one as a steak dinner. There are a LOT of folks who really only want a salad for dinner. :-)

Also the salad is about 1/3 of the pages of the steak dinner so if you have to carry one around the salad will fit easier in a book bag. :-)

BTW

I'm not associated with either authors or publishers. I am a software developer by trade and got assigned to fix a year old Ant build that was over 800 lines of text. This book helped me get started down the right path while the Manning book filled in the outer edges. I also managed to reduce our build file down to a little over 100 lines plus it now WORKS but enough about me. :-)

I would recomend it plus I would have given it a 5 star had the publisher shown better diligence on updating the supporting web site.

When I first read the reviews at amazon, I thought I just ordered a worthless piece of paper. In fact that guide was as useful as I used lonely planet in other countries. It gave me maps of where I was, general knowledge of many regions of Laos and much more, exactly what a guide book is intended to do.

I agree though that some of the information in the book is no longer right, but it is as always in a country opening up to tourism, constantly evolving. Anyway, if you live by the book, you will be deceived so use it as a reference when needed and try to go beyond the book (same for every lp).

I agree 100% w/ Bryan below. (So, you could stop reading my review now) But when planning a trip to Laos, one needs to do allot of research on one's own. You can't leave it up to a guidebook. But why would you really want to anyway? Of all the guidebooks on the market, I'd still pick this one as my top choice. It's respectful of Laos, imparts a firm sense of culture, history and identity with the reader and then let's you figure some things out for yourself. Laos is a beautiful country... but you need to relax and keep in mind the motto" LAO PDR...please dont rush".... same thing with any guidebook, relax, enjoy the read and let the journey take you where you need to be.

This book made traveling through Laos a fantastic experience. Though prices in the book can't keep up with increases, most of the information was very timely and accurate. Very useful as a reference guide and helped make our trip go smoothly.

I bought this edition for a bicycle trip across northern Laos, but was very disappointed with the very old and inaccurate information on Hua Phan Province in the northeast of the country. It's a remote region, and probably on few travelers' itineraries, but it was on mine. I felt let down that the authors didn't provide up-to-date coverage. Neither author even visited the province! That's not good enough.

What a difference a new edition makes. Lonely Planet's brand new guidebook, Laos 6th edition, released August 2007, is easily the best on the market. The traveller looking for comprehensive coverage in a guidebook need look no further. An extra 60 pages long, this title packs an impressive punch, with a good balance of exhaustive coverage of the key destinations along with sound information on the lesser known spots.

Quite simply, Australian co-authors Andrew Burke and Justine Vaisutis have put together what is the best English-language offline resource for travel in Laos. From a tourism perspective, Laos is a rapidly developing nation, especially in the major tourist centres where new accommodation options multiply at a seemingly ever-increasing rate, yet they've done a fine job of boiling down a snapshot of the country into a guide that will be more than enough for the most demanding traveller.

Matters get off to a good start -- a good, easy-to-read colour map (even if some of the roads look a tad sketchy), suggested itineraries and a completely rewritten history section by Professor Martin Stuart-Fox, author of A History of Laos (1997). This is followed by a pretty stock-standard introductory section -- the people, government and culture are all covered, though the government -- arguably the most repressive and certainly the most secretive in Southeast Asia after Burma -- gets off the hook pretty lightly.

What does stand out in the introduction is the generous space given to Laos and its natural environment -- particularly its budding eco-tourism industry. As Burke says in an upcoming interview with Travelfish.org, "If there's anywhere in Asia where eco-tourism can be a success, then it's Laos". There's an outstanding summary of all the main trekking opportunities in the country's NPAs -- this alone makes the book worth buying (or at least a quick use of the library photocopier).

At the other end of the book, the "Directory" section, covering everything from getting a flight to what you should have in a medical kit is informative and rather well organised. As with other Lonely Planet titles, I think it's a bit too lengthy and hand-holding in nature.

Listings
The guidebook's listings are comprehensive, not exhaustive -- if you expect every place on Don Dhet to be listed, prepare to be disappointed. Perhaps half the available options in Vang Vieng are listed, similarly so in Luang Prabang, but what are listed are the best, and these can be taken as representative of others in the offing. Burke and Vaisutis do a fine job of brushing away the slimy rambutans and spoiled sticky rice to leave you with a feast of the best options to choose from.

The accommodation listings are generally easy to digest, with one exception -- Luang Prabang. There, the listings have been divided up geographically into "Near the Mekong", "Historic Temple District", "Thanon Pha Mahapatsaman", "Ban Wat That" and "Elsewhere". This is confusing in a number of ways -- "Near the Mekong" and "Historic Temple District" could easily be taken to be the same area -- neither is marked on any of the maps of Luang Prabang -- nor is "Ban Wat That". "Thanon Pha Mahapatsaman" is a short strip of around 200m of road that carries just three accommodation listings, and "Elsewhere" is just vague and meaningless. All this for just 37 listings -- Luang Prabang isn't that big a place!

Where this guide does come into its own is regarding things to do -- and this is particularly the case with the Southern Laos section. While it tends to be motorcycle-focused, there are lots of good tips and suggested day-trips to week-long adventures you can undertake. Less of this type of material is suggested in the north, where the focus is more orientated towards trekking and the tried and tested destinations, but you'll find ample material within the book to point in the right direction.

Transport
One of the big issues people face in Laos is the time it takes to get from A to B. Over time the road network has improved considerably but it still takes a while to get around, so it's refreshing to see that most of the bus and songthaew travel information includes an estimated trip time.

Border information is outstanding. Every main international border has a boxed section containing detailed information on how to get to and from the various border crossings and what's particularly good is there's information on onwards travel as well.

Text and design
As always, the densely-packed text has been put through the Lonely Planet humour wringer, so don't expect too many Laugh Out Loud moments, but the facts are all there and that's what really matters. As with all the new Lonely Planet titles, there's more fact boxes scattered throughout the book than I'd like, but at least in this case they're mostly interesting or of some practical use.

Maps
With 61 maps you'll struggle to find yourself needing many more. Some -- the Wat Phu locale (p 267), Wat Xieng Thong (p 142) and Around Vang Vieng (p 124) -- seemed superfluous, but all the key spots are mapped out well.

I had two issues with the regional maps: they're difficult to read, and make frequent use of the "unsealed road" indicator. Some of these roads are really little more than foot-trails. Perhaps they need an extra map indicator for goat-tracks.

Photos
The guide contains a pretty good collection of pics. There's one of kids fooling around in the Nam Song at Vang Vieng (p 11) which really caught my eye, but it's a shame that given the weight the NPAs get in the text, there's only one photo taken in one -- and that of an easily visited waterfall. Having photos taken of the more remote (and beautiful) parks would have been a great means to showcase some of Laos' more challenging destinations. People aren't going to go if they don't know about it!

Conclusion
My gripes are minor and mainly focussed on the layout and in some cases organisation of the title. These are factors that will be minor inconveniences once you're on the road. Lonely Planet's Laos 6 really delivers the goods -- it isn't exhaustive (that's why it's called a guide), but it's succinct, accurate and very easy to use. Be you a first time visitor to Laos or a repeat visitor looking to get off the beaten track, you'll do well with this title in your backpack.

The friendly people at Lonely Planet sent me a complimentary copy of Laos 6, so even though I didn't pay any money for it, we'd suggest you do -- it's worth every kip.