Europe Books

Rabbi Neuman tells his story starting through the eyes of a young boy and ending through the eyes of an elder Rabbi. The Story is told in a calm and matter of fact manner, leaving the adjectives describing the German brutality to the mind of the reader. Thus, the reader can get a much broader picture of the times without getting hung up with anger at specific transgressions. Most everyone would enjoy this book, but especially anyone who is old enough to remember the time when all this was happening.

Rabbi Nueman tells his story starting through the eyes of a young boy and ending through the eyes of an elder Rabbi. The Story is told in a calm and matter of fact manner, leaving the adjectives describing the German brutality to the mind of the reader. Thus, the reader can get a much broader picture of the times without getting hung up with anger at specific transgressions. Most everyone would enjoy this book, but especially anyone who is old enough to remember the time when all this was happening.

Rabbi Nueman tells his story starting through the eyes of a young boy and ending through the eyes of an elder Rabbi. The Story is told in a calm and matter of fact manner, leaving the adjectives describing the German brutality to the mind of the reader. Thus, the reader can get a much broader picture of the times without getting hung up with anger at specific transgressions. Most everyone would enjoy this book, but especially anyone who is old enough to remember the time when all this was happening.

I am not as eloquent as some others who have provided their perspectives, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this great book and author nonetheless. I live in NYC but grew up in Champaign, IL recognizing that Rabbi Neuman was and is a very bright and strong-willed man who packs great wisdom into relatively few words. But only after reading this book, and the brutality and hardships he faced, obstacles so great they are hard for most of us to even fathom, could I, or most anyone, fully appreciate the depth of his strength and courage. I have read very good books that more fully illustrate the details of the day-to-day murder and brutality (books such as Ordinary Men and Treblinka), but Rabbi Neuman makes it clear that not only were numerous innocent people murdered, but many wonderful communities and ways of life were forever destroyed. And yet, he, like many others, found the strength to move beyond the worst event in human history in order to make a difference and help others. This is among the must read books for anyone who wants to understand what was lost, particularly in Poland, in the genocide and devastation of the holocaust, all the while getting to learn about the courage and strength of survivors like Rabbi Isaac Neuman. Thank you for everything Rabbi Neuman!

In the Narrow Bridge: Beyond the Holocaust, Isaac Neuman set himself the most of difficult of tasks to write the "silent song of my vanished people.

He succeeds so well in invoking the presence of those who are absent that this reader feels as if he had sat at the study table of Reb Mendel as he taught a page of Talmud and told ancient stories that echo again and again the most contemporary of wisdom. The memoir is passionate and deep, religious in its intensity, and yet so very compassionate in its understanding.

Isaac Neuman makes the characters of his past come alive. We gain an insight into the world that ways and is no longer. We learn the streets of his beloved cities and its courtyards, more importantly we are privileged to enter the inner lives of its inhabitants. Unlike most Holocaust memoirs, which are most intense in their portrayal of the evil the survivors experienced, Neuman is most passionate about the past that has vanished and most successful at calling it forth.

Religious Jews will hear the echoes of Jewish legends in the last moments of minyan of martyrs who accepted their decree with dignity and had more faith in the divine that a God present in the Holocaust could ever possibly merit. Secular readers will read of Passover in the camps and glimpse the power of tradition to speak forth even in the most atrocious of circumstances. They will experience the consolation of the invocation of a miraculous, redemptive past in a world without miracles, without hope.

This lyrical work will touch the soul. One laughs, one cries, one mourns and indeed one even celebrates. Restrained prose glisten with insight. The work is deep, passionate, charming -- and ever so welcome.

Michael Berenbaum

Before I say anything about this book, I should mention that I was lucky enough to have Saul Friedlander as my professor at UCLA. The class was called "The Third Reich and the Jews" and it was easily one of the three or four best classes I took at UCLA. As for the book itself, it provides the reader with an overview of the deteriorating status and living conditions of German Jews during the 1930s, under the anti-Jewish Nazi regime. This volume details the collapse of German Jewry as an organized society while the second volume actually goes over the physical extermination of most of the Jews of Europe (I cannot comment on the second volume as I have yet to read it). This book is an excellent resource for those who would like to know more about this sad period in German history.

I've taken several seminars at UCLA with Saul Friedlander, and to say that he is an objective and very insightful historian is an understatement. This book is terrific and deserves all the critical praise that it has received. Even if you are just curious about the Holocaust, or you are a serious historian of the time period, you should definitely pick this book up.

This book is an excellent book for anyone wanting to learn about the rise of Fascism in Germany. It is factual and yet easy to read. Anyone that wants to understand how Hitler got his power should read this. The author's bias is kept to a minimum.

Nazi Germany and the Jews is part one of the two set history of the Nazi reign of terror from Hitler's ascent to the chancellorship of Germany on January 30, 1933 to the regime's collapse in 1945. Volume I focuses on the years of persecution of the Jews from 1933 to the outbreak of World War II in the autumn of 1939. As the infamous Goering said, "I would not want to be a Jew in Germany".
Friedlander was born as a Jew in Prague, lived in occupied France during World War II and now teaches in Tel Aviv and UCLA. His book is a blunt, basic and brutal evocation of what it was like to be a Jewish individual in the Dantean hell of Hitler's unspeakably cruel Third Reich.
In plain language we see how the Nazis used German law to dispossess the Jews of their professions, homes, possessions and lives. We have explained the Nuremburg Laws of 1935 which gave definition to who is a Jew. It was horrible for this reader to witness the Crystal Night destruction of almost 300 synagogues and nearly 100 murders of Jews on the night of November 9-10, 1938. We see how concentration camps were set up administered by cold killer Himmler and his murderous SS thugs.
Friedlander posits that Adolf Hitler believed Jews to be behind the World Communist movement. It was Judaism and Communism he wanted to eradicate from the face of the earth. While most people turned their faces away from the horrors the Jews disappeared from German life. Goebbels and Nazi propoganda portrayed Jews as vermin which needed destruction if the Aryan German blood and folk were to be preserved.
As volume one ends the war has begun. Volume II covers the war years and the concentration camps where over six million Jews and other captive people would be murdered.
This book is written in a scholarly but understandable style for the general reader. It is one of the essential books you should read to inform yourself of a tragic time.

This is a wonderful book albeit with few personal experiences of the victims but on the whole you will enjoy the book. The writer's grasp of English is exceptional and in fact taking this parameter alone you can enjoy the book and learn something new in word and sentence formations. Though at first glance it may look like one of those boring and dry books, which inhabit the shelves of libraries all over the book without being opened for many years to come. The book is excellent and shows the level of utter nadir reached by Nazis and German people while persecuting their own. Seems to have been a sort of a collective disease in which even a modicum of humanity or decency taken a permanent back seat. The author has presented the facts and names of very difficult and guttural German names with such ease that there is no confusion to the reader.

I wonder why Israelis have to have any kind of relationship with Germany or Poland. . I think Israeli children are not really taught history but some kitsch formulated to draw their minds away from the murderers of their grandfathers to Palestinians. I think Israelis pretend that the Palestinians are the Germans of 1930's and 1940's, hence the highly ambiguous stance and conflicting gestures. Though it must be remembered that Arabs briefly flirted with Nazis like the Great Indian Leader Subhash Chandra Bose who fought against British imperialism - who excelled in demonstrative racial discrimination that was religiously followed by Germans with such ardor. I support the bombarding of German cities and also of the London Blitz. No doubt such "innocent" darlings hugely deserved each other.

George Sullivan's "Not Built in a Day" has many virtues. It is well-organized (as a series of walking tours); it is well indexed (to enable the reader to organize his/her own study; it is written fluently--neither densely scholarly nor "tour book breathless," each mini-essay captures the history of a building and its context in a direct straight-forward way. But the real difference between this book and so many others is that each essay--whether brief or more extended (like one on the Pantheon)--both reveals and encourages in the reader a careful "reading" of each building itself. I was especially interested in Bernini and Borromini's designs, and NBIAD was as good as any textbook could have been in guiding my eye as I studied the aesthetic relationship between these two acclaimed architects of baroque Rome. Anyone really interested in understanding architectural composition in Rome will find a worthy friend in this book.

Fabulous for those who have been to Rome. Mandates that you return to see it anew and deeper. Great job.

My wife and I recently returned from Rome, and one of our many fine moments in that glorious city was sitting on top of Michelangelo's Campodiglio, with Mr. Sullivan's book in hand and understanding for the first time exactly what Michelangelo did and why -- and thus helping us understand more deeply the greatness of his accomplishment. So it went with magnificent works such as Borromini's San Carlino or Bramante's Tempietto. Similarly, we came to understand the failures -- what the architect wanted to do and didn't quite get there. Mr. Sullivan's goal, was to help us move beyond admiration or puzzlement at what we are looking at, and understand what was done, and how well it did or did not work. Very well written, tough in its judgments, and infused throughout by a love for the city. Don't go to Rome without it.

A good read for those who love history, it is an excellent companion for travel to Rome

George Sullivan's "Not Built in a Day" is a unique and wonderful combination of scholarly knowledge, art, passion, and wit. The author recently gave a series of slide lectures at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. based upon the material in the book, which I attended. His lectures were exceptional -- insightful and enjoyable, a college-level crash course on the history of European architecture that was set entirely in Rome! He really made the buildings come alive through his enthusiasm and humor; I especially liked that he not only had definite opinions on buildings, but also explained clearly what architectural qualities those opinions were based on. This same in-depth but accessible approach can be found in the book, which is unlike any other guide to Rome that I have seen. I would enthusiastically recommend it if you are going to Rome, and if the lectures show up at a museum near you in the future, I would enthusiastically recommend them as well.

Carol Drinkwater provides so much information and knowledge about her Olive Farm. Delightful Memoirs of her life. Excellent.

The Olive Season, the sequel to Carol Drinkwater's The Olive Farm, transcends the travel memoir genre to create a searing personal narrative.

In The Olive Season, Drinkwater has wed her fiance, Michel, in the South Pacific, and has returned to their farm in southern France to bring in another olive harvest. The harvest season proves difficult, however, and the care of the olive farm becomes a challenging undertaking for the newly pregnant Drinkwater, whose situation is complicated by her husband's absence, her own professional obligations, and intrusions from her past.

The events of The Olive Season force Drinkwater to revisit her past, transcend her present and muster her courage to shape her future. Suffused with the idyllic scents and scenery of southern France, The Olive Season is both a superb piece of travel writing and a wrenching examination of life, its tragedies and its triumphs.

A five-star read that will not disappoint.

All of Carol Drinkwater's books are very well written and hard to put down. If you like the subject matter of olives, this is a particular treat. Beyond the work and detail involved in maintaining olive trees, the hard work of the harvest, the anticipation of having them pressed and rewarded with fine oil as a result..Carol's books are to me, a realization of a dream. She and Michel took the risk of buying a poorly maintained property and poured their hearts and soul into it.

THE OLIVE SEASON and THE OLIVE FARM are excellent as is THE OLIVE HARVEST. When I recently saw A CELEBRATION OF OLIVES, I thought C. Drinkwater published a new book and ordered it. I received it today and was disappointed to find it's a double volume of THE OLIVE SEASON and THE OLIVE FARM combined, both of which I have. According to Amazon.com readers who buy A CELEBRATION OF OLIVES also buy her other books. I feel like I was duped and cannot return the book.

In the Olive Season, Carol Drinkwater continuous Michel and her dream-come-true olive farm experience in the south of France. Other reviewers of her first book, as well as this reviewer, hoped for a sequel and Carol did not disappoint them. Although the book can be read and enjoyed without reading The Olive Farm, this reviewer strongly recommends that readers first read the Farm, as it provides the necessary backdrop and introduction to characters that enhances the enjoyment of the Season.

In the Season, Carol shares a lot more on personal level than in the Farm. Although I have enjoyed the first book specifically because it largely revolved around their farming experience and dealt less with them at intimate level, I can accept the change in focus because it is quite understandable when one reads about their tragic loss halfway through the book. The closing paragraph of the book confirms this conclusion. Do yourself a favour and do not read the last page of the book before you "legitimately" can after you have read the rest of it - apparently some people actually do that! It will not necessarily spoil your reading experience, but the story unfolds very well and pulls the reader closer to the author as it develops. Similar to the first book, the Season is well written and/or edited.

I again enjoyed Carol's description of the French rural characters she and Michel meet during their farming adventure. Although I appreciate her sharing of her research into various aspects of farming and nature, I find that those specific paragraphs tend to clash with the writing style of the rest of the book. Although short, they are almost reference book fact-like descriptions. However, they are far and in between and do not really distract from the overall reading experience. Their exploits into the French countryside and visits to interesting little shops and eating places do a lot to make the reader want to get onto a plane and explore those hide-away places!

If you have enjoyed The Olive Farm, you will also enjoy The Olive Season, although it is somewhat more "heavy" because of the dramatic events referred to earlier. Would I buy the next episode if Carol writes it? Yes, probably, even if only to find out whether they have managed to find a beekeeper! She clearly wrote, or at least completed, this one, inter alia for her own personal healing, but her writing style is such that I would support sequels in the Olive-saga much more positively than I would support Hollywood follow-on's!

I collect Oriental rugs and Oriental rug books. This book is not for the beginner, but is meant for in-depth study of the subject of Oriental rugs. As you read you are directed to other pages for study and comparison. This is a time consuming but valuable process. If one wants to really study Oriental rugs this book can elevate you from beginner to a person who is comfortable with the subject and able to talk with experts. I used this book as a self teaching text book and loved it.

This book has the best information I've found on distinguing one type of rug from another. Many books give information about the major types of rugs...they're a dime a dozen. Ford breaks everything down into what specific tribes and villages weave, and tells us what the weavers use for warps and wefts, distinguishing colors, area motifs and designs, and more.

This book is definitely academic in nature, but this is exactly the kind of fact-filled information I've been searching for. I had thought I would find it in Peter Stone's works, but even Stone's 2004 book on motifs does not come close to what Ford did twenty years ago. I currently own about 50 books on oriental rugs, and Ford's book offers the most comprehensive, detailed information of any of them.

If you want to move from being a novice to becoming a more knowledgeable buyer and rug lover, you will want this book.

I bought this book after going to the library and checking out a number of carpet books - I was looking for a reference that would teach me some of the history of rug making and the people who make these incredible pieces of art as well as the practical side such as what to look for in a rug. This book is great at teaching about the different types of rugs. There are color pictures on every page, there are drawings of specific patterns so you can see specifically what make a rug one type rather than another, there are uncommon examples of types of rugs shown, etc. Its quite a good book (which is why I bought it after returning the library copy). This book is ok at teaching about the history/people or about how to tell a good quality rug - the intro goes into some good detail about things like knot types, weaves, use of synthetic dyes, chinese rugs etc but it's a fanatsic guide to decoding the different traditional motifs and patterns. I'm giving it 4 stars rather than 5 only because the text is so dry and they don't really give the stories - they give more dry facts such as this type of rug was woven in this manufacturing/village setting in x,y,z town. It would have been niceto have more details about the people and about the symbolism of the motifs. But, like I said, I knew all that before I bought the book since I had checked t out at the library. I use this book to augment others that I ended up buying that do tell more of the stories.

The book is a very well written vol d'oiseau over modern oriental rugs and carpets with excellent pictures and timely historical notes. Certainly one of the best works available in the field both to beginners and connoisseurs.

This is an excellent book to find all the information one needs on Persian and Oriental carpets. Very informative, and beautiful colour plates.

Want your life enriched? Read this book! Want to understand the value of perseverance, the resilience of children, the un-tethered endurance to survive? Read this book! As illustrated through their memoir, Katherine and George teach us more than just an unannounced accounting of post-WWII Eastern Europe. They teach us about family, about the will to live, about the soul and how one can survive anything while suspended by a single thread of hope.

The trauma and pain suffered by the two families is unimaginable. Yet, the world knew little of what was happening to the thousands of innocent ethnic Germans left behind to fend for themselves in the wake of Hitler's crimes. Despite their families having lived in Yugoslavia for some 200 plus years, the ethnic Germans would face a death penalty for having German surnames. While they knew little of Hitler, and even less about his audacious adventures of domination, the German settlers of Yugoslavia turned baron land into the breadbasket of Europe. They were a very proud people demonstrating a strong work ethic as well as developing harmony among all living in Yugoslavia. Yet, their payment for their hard work was to be thrown into concentration camps, stolen from, starved, raped, and murdered; a complete people's way of life decimated. The world in the meantime, with a blind eye turned to Yugoslavia, convicted Nazi war criminals for similar crimes committed in WWII. I can only ask, how hypocritical was this?

Their survival alone is miraculous. But, to learn that these two continued life after losing so much, then immigrating to America to become successful in a new life, is even more amazing. Many of us would have had to seek psychological counseling for life. Not Katherine and George. They pressed on, and found a life that was meaningful and fulfilling. They created that life by centering on family enabled by love. They are by any stretch of the meaning, models for all of us! In the context of a bigger story, they are but two who refused to kneel to tyranny. They are but two who refused to let the communist regime of Yugoslavia win an insane war against good and innocence.

It is with great enthusiasm that I endorse A Pebble In My Shoe as a book that has changed my life. The lessons I have learned from this testimony are still being discovered...a full year after I first read it. You will most surely be rewarded by reading A Pebble In My Shoe!

In her inspiring and thoughtful memoir, A Pebble in My Shoe, Katherine Hoeger Flotz tells the story of her and her husband's separate escapes from persecution at the end of WWII. The story of Katherine and George were equally fascinating, moving, and disturbing. My overall sense, at the end of the book, is one of astonishment. The incredible strength, determination, sense of survival, hopefulness, and faith exhibited from this amazing couple is nothing short of unbelievable. But, what's even more mind-boggling is that their stories are just two of the thousands/millions of other "displaced" ethnic Germans--stories to which the public seems to be largely unaware. But, their story is fully representative of these brave people who left all they knew and loved to start over in a strange, frightening, and challenging USA.

The experiences of Katherine and George are described in Katherine's spare and straightforward style. She doesn't embellish...because she doesn't have to. Instead, she takes the reader on both of their journeys, the Flotz family journey and the Hoeger family journey, and their related family journeys that were occurring simultaneously. I found her words to be emotionally engaging while maintaining an authentic believability and fittingly descriptive point of view. And, Katherine skillfully handles the changes in story line, time period, chronology of events, and character development.

Katherine relates for the reader the searing pain of losing her home, her belongings, and, eventually, her parents and other family members. And, Katherine reveals an extraordinary awareness, throughout her development, of her loving and caring cadre of family members who didn't allow her to be an orphan--who refused to leave her behind. She engages her readers as she shares her story and her ongoing healing from the soul-tearing effects of losing her mother and father as well as other family members while being in constant fear of losing her sister.

I thank Katherine Hoeger Flotz for this beautiful and moving story. I know I will use her words to inspire my own thoughts. And, I know I have learned from her the value of perseverance and faith.

I found the book to be in my "couldn't put it down" category, and, actually, I read it one sitting. As a career educator, I truly believe the book should be required reading for high school students as it shines a bright light on a rarely discussed historical topic while teaching the lessons of strength, endurance, and compassion. Thank you, Katherine, for this amazing story!

This book gives a first hand look at what life was like for the German Donauschwaben who were victims of Tito's ethnic cleansing. At the age of eight, Katherine Flotz' world turns upside down. Through her eyes we learn about the brutal abuse that her family endured. This book also helps us realize that her story is not an isolated incident since she is only one of the 15 million Germans who were displaced (2 million of them murdered)during this time. My hats off to the author for having the courage to write about this difficult period in her life so that we may learn more about it.

In the spring of 1945 World War ll ended. But in Communist Eastern Europe all hell broke loose for millions of Ethnic Germans. Revenge was taken on young and old. Families were torn apart for no other reason then to obtain vengeance. Many people died. The majority of the victims who survived those brutal years still carry these memories in silence. Very few people have dared to go back and recall that time - let alone put down their memories on paper because the pain is to great.

Childhood became none existing. Hunger, sorrow, fear and confusion was what children experienced in their daily lives. As one grows up sometimes that lost child within begs to be set free, to tell the world what it was like growing up during that time. Katherine Hoeger Flotz has listened to her inner child and set it free in A PEBBLE IN MY SHOE. She has taken the painful road back to revisit her childhood in Gagowa, Yugoslavia, and the long trail that finally led her to America. Next to Katherine's story we find her husbands story, running parallel to hers. Both stories come together in America and end when George and Katherine become a family.

I applaud Katherine for having written A PEBBLE IN MY SHOE. We need more books like hers. History through the eyes of innocent children. Maybe then the world would be a better place for all..

E. Walter author of BAREFOOT IN THE RUBBLE

What a wonderful gift from Katherine Hoeger Flotz! A deeply moving memoir of a child's recollections of life in one of Tito's concentration camps. A story not only of survival but of triumph over deadly adversity. This is a most valuable contribution to the too little known saga of the ethnic cleansing of the Donauschwabians after WWII. As a fellow survivor from another village I was often moved to tears as I read this memoir. Enriched by deeply evocative family photos, touching but never vengeful, A Pebble in MY Shoe deserves a wide readership. A triumph from a wise and generous survivor.

This book is an amazing story of courage, ingenuity and survival in WWII. So what makes this book different from the other hundreds of books that would fit this description? For starters the majority of this story is based in North Africa, which is not an area covered nearly as comprehensively as other areas of WWII. It is about an amazing individual who leads a group of men in some of the earliest forms of 'behind-the-line' guerilla type fighting. Working with local people and the limited resources of the desert to create some significant hindrances to the German thrust into North Africa. Something that even guerilla warfare could learn from in present day. There is an array of courageous, if not plain crazy, feats of tactical genius and reconnaissance.
The end of the book leads them through the beginning of the closing of the war through Italy and up against some incredible odds behind German lines.
Popski was an incredible pioneer in guerilla warfare and negotiation. An enjoyable read as well as incredibly educational.

Excellent book, it gives a good account of one of the British irregular army units in action in Italy and Germany during the later states of WWII.

There are books on your shelf you should never loan out if you ever hope to see them again. This is one of those books. The WW2 British unit known as Popski's Private Army (PPA) operated in North Africa and Italy. Written by its founder, Vladimir Peniakoff (Popski), the book covers the units contributuion to the war effort. Using machinegun armed Jeeps like the later fictional TV Rat Patrol, this small united operated behind the German and Italian lines. The PPA did not beat Nazi Germany by itself, but its contribution far exceeded its small size. If the grand sweep of armies leaves you hungering for the individual courage found in small units, then this is the book for you. I also recommend "Fighting with Popski's Private Army" by fellow PPA member Park Yunnie.

Peniakoff tells a interesting tale of WWII, but I was struck by his continually contradictory behaviour.

In one sentence he'll say that the purpose of a mission was reconnaissance only, and his unit was not to engage the enemy unless escape was not possible and they were attacked. In the next paragraph, he'll tell how they attacked a convoy of enemy vehicles simply because they felt the need for some action before heading back to base.

He complains about the Italian gentry exploiting the peasantry and the next minute, he's eating a seven course meal with them.
That's just a couple of examples; the book is loaded with similar incidents.

Still, it's a good read, and shows how intelligence is gathered during wartime (sometimes you just get on the phone and call ahead!).

On the 6th of May 1945 men in wheeled vehicles crossed the mosaic floor of the Piazza San Marco in Venice for the very first time in history. They drove around the square seven times in the small, heavily armoured vehicles in which they'd fought their way across North Africa, Italy, and were to travel on to Austria. At the head of this curious band was a man who sported a hook for a hand, and a nom de guerre which was similarly incongruous for a 48 year old Major in the British army. Vladimir Peniakoff, or "Popski" as he became known, was the enigmatic Belgian born son of White Russian emigres, who had until recent years "pursued the ordinary activities of industry" as a discontented sugar refiner in Egypt. Having tutored himself, alone in the Sand Sea but for the navigational instruments of antiquity, he emerged from the wilderness to train the men who accompanied him through the years of turmoil to this long dreamt of moment of victory. "Private Army" is one of the finest military memoirs I have read, and ranks alongside Fitzroy McLean's "Eastern Approaches" and TE Lawrence's "The Mint". This is the authoritative work on Popski's Private Army, but is much more than a Regimental history. This is a superb piece of literature which you will not quickly forget. Read also "With Popski's Private Army" by Ben Owen, a superb companion book to the above.

Yes, this book is very witty and very easy to read. I am en route to France for a year next year as an American exchange student, and I found this book to be very helpful for every aspect of the process--except I wish she added more information like "Why did she switch host families?" and about school. She barely mentioned anything about homework, the lycée, or anything like that. But I loved everything else about the book. It was intriguing and exciting. And also, it's a very nice quick read. If you are, going to be, or was an exchange student, this book is a must-have. Anther book I recommend is The Exchange Student Survival Kit. Au revoir!

I am planning on studying abroad to France in 2003 and this book has helped me out in many ways. It told me exactly what I need to know before I go, how the French people are, the school system, and it gave me encouragement. Just reading about how she doesn't regret going makes me want to go even more. I just wished she would have added more about how to handle so much school! Anyway, this book is great to read, even if you aren't planning on going to France. It has a lot of interesting facts that I could never imagine possible. Great book.

The author of Postcards from France, Megan Libby, was just 16 when she went to France in 1994 as your typical AFS student. But she wasn't typical: she had her eyes wide open and was able to record, in a series of letters and postcards sent back home, what a humbling experience it is to be a newcomer in another culture. By turns comedic, touching, insightful, and revealing, Postcards from France is always refreshing - and it's highly likely this talented young author will go on to write more books that will be a pleasure to read.

The moment I saw this book in the bookstore, I knew I had to get it because Megan did what I have always wanted to do: be an exchange student in another country. This book is just so charming, delightful, and cute. I finally was able to be an exchange student this summer in a Spanish speaking country, and while I was not gone a whole academic year but only for a couple of weeks, I always had this book by my side because so many things were the same. So if you have ever been an exchange student before/hosted one in America, or are going too I recomend this book right away, and if you are just looking for a good book to read you'll have a ball.

On the cover of this book, the publisher exudes, "A delightfully irresistible, charming account of a young American girl's year abroad." For once, this kind of description is actually an understatement. Yes, the book is in fact "delightfully irresistible" and truly charming. But the writing is also exceptionally limpid and evocative and betrays an exceptional maturity and talent. Megan McNeill Libby gives us beautifully impressionistic portraits of France, the French, and her very personal struggles, disasters, and triumphs. Her depiction of the French is extraordinarily perceptive and from my own experience living in France totally accurate. At times, I laughed until I cried; more frequently, I caught myself involuntarily smiling and nodding in agreement. But the deeper reward of reading this book is simply seeing the way that Ms. Libby writes and thinks. She is one of those rare authors with whom one falls in love after (no, during) a single reading. I am normally sparing with my praise, but I readily admit to being a gourmand for this book. Merci bien, Megan, and please give us more!

Rick Steve's book is a down-to-earth book that gives so much information to which you can relate. It's a wonderful guide.

We went to Ireland last year for the first time and loved it so much, we are going again this year. We purchased this book as well as another guidebook. This one is fabulous -- very well thought out and organized - you can tell he really knows what he is talking about -- this is the one that we will bring with us -- he even tells you when and how to drive the Dingle Peninsula to avoid the tourist buses -- does not give you too much information. He has a very honest and down to earth approach which makes for an informative and interesting read!

Rick Steves' Ireland 2008 is like your brother (your very detailed and analytical exploring brother) writing home with the in's and out's of each city and stop in Ireland. Hitting highlights and lowlights, Rick leaves no Irish pebble unturned for the common traveler. If you have a question about Ireland, it is most likely answered in this book; if not, then Rick has made himself available through his websites if you need further information. It is very helpful to not walk into a new situation unprepared and Rick's Ireland 2008 has proved most helpful!

We are planning a trip to Ireland in April and this book was great. It gave us several great Bed & Breakfasts to stay in and also suggested what to see and what NOT to see.

Thanks.

Ireland offers visitors a diversity of memorable places to visit, memorable people to encounter, and memorable opportunities for recreation. Rick Steves is a seasoned and experienced travel writer and in collaboration with Ireland specialist Pat O'Connor has authored the "Rick Steves' Ireland 2008", a compact, 425-page travel guide that is packed from first page to last with informed and informative information for tourists and business travelers to the villages, towns, and countryside of the Republic of Ireland in the south, as well as the cities and counties of Northern Ireland. Of special note is the introductory chapter dedicated to the best use of this outstanding guide for planning a trip whether of short or extended duration, practicalities when traveling, money, sightseeing, sleeping, eating, 'Traveling as a Temporary Local', and 'Back Door Travel Philosophy'. Another special section is devoted to Irish history, art, literature, language, and an Irish-Yankee Vocabulary. Enhanced with appendices on resources; money matters; telephones, emails, and postal mails; transportation; holidays and festivals; conversions and climate; an essential packing checklist; and a sample hotel reservation form, "Rick Steves' Ireland 2008" is an ideal and enthusiastically recommended guide for anyone anticipating a trip to the Emerald Isle.

Certainly the warmest and friendliest guidebook out there, this one also happens to be the best. Although he may or may not have written the entire book, it sure feels like Rick Steves is there page after page talking to you one on one, telling you all about the places to go in and around London. Leaving little out, covering things you'd never think of on your own, this is a book to buy and pack and take with you. Well worth the price!

Went to London. I wasn't able to see everything, but this helps get you on your way. Going back soon.

Had the opportunity to visit london for a short stay. Book was an imense help on finding a hotel ways to move around.

This book was excellent. I found it very helpful in finding places and in getting background information about the places I wanted to see. I would recommend this book as one that you should purchase when Planning a trip.

I am a big fan of Rick Steve's guidebooks so understand my bias. We used this 2006 version in Dec 2006 to find lodging, a few restaurants and many of the walking tours. All information was still up to date and excellent. However, please note that the 2007 version should come out in Jan 2007 or close to that time and will be even more current. Great tips and easy to read information on days and times that sights are open or open late is essential and very helpful in planning the trip.