Oceania Books

Eyewithess Travel Guides give the most complete overview of any travel book or other travel product - good organization; great pictures, maps and other graphics; interesting & concise text and descriptions about history, national foods and beverages, etc.; good suggestions for lodging and eating. They are excellet resource and reference books, but they are concise enough to give a relatively complete overview but short enough to quickly convey information, especially if you do not have a lot of free time.

I believe that carefully reading about a desination is important for planning any trip. The Eyewithess Travel Guides are the best way to obtain that overview and prioritize where you want to go. Australia is a large country and this book covers alot of territory. The Australia guide is enormous help to us with our planning.

I live in Australia and wanted a nice guide, and have always been drawn to the DK travel books with their lush photos, beautifully illustrated maps, building cut aways etc. In addition, this book was the 2006 version, latest update and later than many of its competitors.

As another reviewer has noted, all these photos and illustrations come at a price, which is lack of detail. In addition, I am not sure how rigorous the update process is. For example, the 2006 version does not cover the most significant new building in Brisbane, the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), which cries out for inclusion in such a guide. This building was completed in 2006 and under construction for some years before.

Probably best as a supplementary guide or photo history of your travel.

I love the DK eyewitness travel series because of the fine detail in describing geographic regions of the world while also including useful information about accommodation based on your budget, how to get around etc. The books have valuable information about each country ranging from culture and history to government and natural beauty.

The Australia book was very useful on my holiday over to Queensland and New South Wales. I had never been to Australia and so it was nice to have a guide that provided not only visual appeal with its pictures of the landscape and coloured maps but also had info detailing places to stay and see. I highly recommend this book and any other DK books offered for your next trip because unlike other travel books they not only offer an insight to the history and culture of the region but also offer info on the sights you may want to see. The thing I love the most is unlike other travel guides DK isnt just in black and white (thin pages) which are sometimes difficult to read and not as appealing to the eyes. DK books make you want to engage and get you excited to travel.

Only downside to the series is that they can be a bit more expensive than other books though amazon has good prices compared to other stores. Also they havent got books for many other countries/regions of the world, so Ive had to use other brands, I recommend Fodors Exploring series, theyre also colourful and affordable.

The DK Eyewitness Travel book for Australia is a decent travel guide, which includes a lot of pictures to help the traveler see what the attraction is while doing their planning. This 2006 revised edition runs over 600 pages, and includes an introductory section as well as 8 sections on the various areas of Australia, including one for Sydney by itself. It also has a section for Travelers' needs, which include accommodations, restaurants, and shopping information, and a section titled "Survival Guide" which contains a lot of useful information for travelers.

While the pictures are quite striking, they do seem to come at a price of more information about each of the attractions as well as the general areas. For my trip, I found the section on Tasmania to be rather sparse. The section on Melbourne was significantly better, but even there it would have been nice to have more information. I also question the practice of grouping all the hotels and restaurants together in a single section for the entire country. It seems as if the traveler would be better served if information of that sort was included in each of the sections rather than all together. They do organize the items by region within those sections, but in a hurry one might not notice if they stray outside of their area.

This is a useful reference, but I think it works best as a supplemental reference along with other material. If one needs a single reference, you should look elsewhere.

Two fine new travel guides use the popular 'Eyewitness' approach DK fostered in its children's books to provide adult travelers with clear, eye-catching and fun guides. AUSTRALIA packs in the color photos, maps and illustrations and not only covers the usual places to go and stay, but adds tips on local foods, cutaways and floor plans of all major sights, town listings of sights and beaches, timelines of festivals and special events, and more.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I would recommend all of his books, but there is still only one I will go back and read again and again.....Confederates in the Attic. The best.

It is an enteratining (if slighty dated) view of Australia from an American Hitchker's point of view. I did find I was not totally sucked into the book, but his descriptions were rich and un-biased. Throughly enjoyable

In this book we see Pulitzer Winning writer Tony Horwitz hit the open road hitchiking around Australia. On his journey he gets enough rides from strangers to "fill a Rehab Clinic " 3 times over. Tony is introduced to an Outbackworld where distance are measured in beers consumed., i.e. a short trip is known as a "six pack of beer" whereas a long journey is refered to as 24 cans of beer!!!. The author describes how hitchiking can be a very jarring way to travel as you are stranded alone for hours trying to get a ride and in the next breath you are trying to reassure the driver who picked you up that you are not a Serial Killer.Luckily the author remains lucid and coherant throughout the book otherwise it would have all just been a blured memory of visting one pub (Hotel) after another!!It is a testament to the author' writing ability that he can make a simple ride through the Australian Outback so entertaining and a joy to read. Strewth, this guy was chockers full of beer on his way to the Black Stump but he only did his lolly once and didn't skite to anybody about how much beer he could drink even though he was surrounded by Piss Artists!!! If you didn't understand that last sentence I suggest you buy this book and all will be revealed. Well done Tony!!!

This is Tony Horwitz's intial entry his into travel series preceding "Confederates in the Attic" and "Blue Lattitudes". As a Yank living in Sydney Australia, he leaves his newspaper to journey 7,000 miles, in the mid 1980s, across the outback and western Australian coastline with his thumb and a ruckasack. Horowitz has a gift for being descriptive of not only the landscape but also the people, capturing not only their lifestyle but even their dialogue. That includes both intersting and amusing descriptions or talk. Crossing barren country dependent on a wide variety of transportation in various forms of condition, particular the Australian Ute panel truck, as well as riding with friendly aborigines who in one instance use him to buy beer where it is illegal to sell to the natives as part of a hospitality exchange for a ride. You get a real feel for the hard life in the outback and a view of the different yet hard forms of work that is done by the people of the outback while on on the roads or of course the pubs that are the main centers of every town no matter how small. Each town, driver and interesting person has a story and Horowitz captures them all. He also mixs a little history and travelers education of the land both past and present. Of course, Horowitz sprinkles it all with dry humor particularly as he runs into some interesting situations such as the outback man's love of beer, particularly Fosters, "the blue one". A defining qoute from Horwitz' Australian wife is very striking when she comments that Americans tend to panic when they cannot see evidence of another person while out in the wilderness whereas in Australia, that is the norm in most of Australia. An enjoyable book where the land and the people are captured like verbal snapshots. After finishing this book, I had to go out and buy Fosters beer. I only found it sold in a 24 ounce can, which seems appropriate as a man in the outback can empty the contents quite readily on a hot day after a long day of work.

As another American who lived in Australia for many years, let me assure any prospective buyer of this book that the author really gets the place.

He started out like many, seduced by life in megalopolitan Sydney, thinking that the superficial similarites between two essentially suburban cultures mean that there's little for an American to learn from his adopted home.

Life on the road teaches him otherwise.

There's a certain melancholy to life in Australia, which Horwitz comes to understand over his journey; the physical journey across a forbidding continent contrasts with his internal journey as a moden young man, a lapsed rebel, a faithful husband and a sentimentally observant Jew (Is this trip his own wandering in the desert, perhaps?)

I was moved by the story of Horwitz's passage across the northwest of Western Australia (beginnning on page 136). It's here that he surrenders his obsession with getting to the next town, and begins to understand the weft and weave of his surroundings.

The story of finding a Jewish family in Broome with whom to celebrate Passover--an Akubra sunhat acting as a makeshift yarmulke--warmed my heart, simply because I know that any true Australian would be equally welcoming to a displaced stranger.

And the story of Anzac Day the following morning...well, I've never heard anyone capture the curious mixture of joy and pain that marks the Australian Memorial Day as succinctly as Tony did. An ostesnsible victory witout glory--what kind of a nation does this make? He summed it up in three paragraphs or so.

Buy it, even if you never intend to visit Australia. It will help you understand the mind of an eventual Pulitzer Prize winner, and the experiences that opened his mind.

Oh, by the way, Tony, I'm serious about the offer of a beer.

A 5th edition of Moon Handbooks Tahiti: Including the Cook Islands (ISBN 1566914124) was published in September, 2003. Search for it on this site!

This book is good in a sense that it has a lot of information in it,mainly concentrated on history and ecology. However, what I was looking for is info on accomodation, places to eat, things to see, entertainment etc and this book does not provide a much explanation on those kind of things.

This book was informative, but was on the preachy side with respect to commentary on ecotourism, the history of the Polynesia and other topics. I consider myself a responsible tourist and found myself feeling guilty about even visiting Tahiti while reading this book.

Many guidebooks have come out on the South Pacific, but this is most definitely at the top of the list. Although Lonely Planet guides are - in my view - usually better and more comprehensive, in this case Moon Handbooks have surpassed them. With superb maestry, David Stanley has put together a masterpiece, with a combination of unparalleled travel advice for all types of travellers, as well as easy-to-read, yet deep, insights into the history and reality of this fabulous region of the world. Several factors add to the marvel of this book. One is that Easter Island and the Cooks have been included, thus comprising in one single guidebook so many islands which, despite their geographical distance that separates them, have a lot in common. Another is the unmistakeable talent of the author, so strong in all of his guidebooks.

This is the only book you need for a trip to Tahiti, catering to luxury travelers right on down to backpackers. The author separates the Polynesian island chains into different sections, giving complete coverage to history, accomodations, food (including cooking local cuisine), getting there, getting around and more for each island. The maps are simply spectacular, starting with the entire region (including air travel routes) all the way down to individual island and primary city maps. In fact, individual maps even have exact, pinpointed hotel and attraction locations, an extremely useful reference during your actual trip.

The Tahiti handbook also contains useful background on this region. Topics include the coral reefs of the Pacific, typhoons, Tahiti's climate, plants, animals and local customs. Show me another guidebook that has such unique content like Polynesian dance diagrams or instructions how to buy a black pearl.

The book concludes with a complete bibliography, related Internet web pages and some useful direct email addresses of contacts in the region. Overall, I highly recommend this guide book to anyone planning a trip to Tahiti/French Polynesia, Easter Island or the Cook Islands.

Fast-moving and fascinating account of Captain Cook's three around-the-world voyages, culminating in his death at the hands of Hawaiian peoples who apparently mistook him for a god based on his ill-timed arrival and departure schedule.

The concept of leaving on just one 3-year trip in uncharted lands so far from home and family and communication with them seems even more astounding and heroic today in the age of always available, always on communication. Of course, Cook and his crew weren't always heroes, displaying at times the reflexive racism and cultural arrogance of the age of Empire that spawned the exploration in the first place. However, it is interesting to watch Cook's attitudes change and mature during the voyages.

You may want to cross-reference to Tony Horwitz' Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before which I also reviewed. Horwitz applies his witty and accessible style to a popular cultural, anthropological, historical, and gastronomical view of Cook's travel stops and his impact on them.

This book covered Cook's 3 voyages into the Pacific. Cook's drive to explore new lands and interact with the people that he met along the way was fascinating. This book did not try to judge the actions of Cook and his crew, but rather chronicled the good and the bad, describing the various attitudes of several of the crew members as taken from their diaries and accounts of the voyages.

This is an anthropologically informed history of James Cook's three voyages to the Pacific. If you are looking for a biography of James Cook, a general history of Cook's voyages, or a maritime history, this book is not for you.

The anthropological approach seems perfectly suited to these voyages since they included a number of first contacts between Polynesian and European civilization. In some cases, especially in his discussion of the artwork and the scientific approaches of 18th century Europeans in confronting Polynesia, Thomas is engaging. However.....

As some other reviewers have noted, there is an air of anachronistic academic disdain that permeates the narrative and distracts the reader from engaging the subject. I'm not quite sure what Thomas's point is in much of the contempt he has for his subject. For example, he will deride Cook et al. for misinterpreting a certain aspect of Polynesian society, and tisk at the ignorance and cultural insensitivity that supposedly malinformed this misinterpretation. After all this, you'd think he'd supply better interpretations, right? Well, sometimes yes, with all the arrogance that 250 years of hindsight will buck you up with. Yet strangely, quite a bit of this book is devoted to his own guesses and speculating about Polynesian society. Perhaps these guesses are informed by that 250 extra years of scholarship, but they are often poorly argued and unconvincing.

Read a more standard history of Cook before you read this, and then be prepared to wade through quite a bit of the ideological sludge that sullies some interesting material.

Fewer things are better than a good sea story dealing with unexplored regions of the world. Captain James Cook's British Naval expeditions in the late 1700's were some of the last expeditions to the unexplored parts of the world. For introducing the subject and telling a good story, Thomas does an excellent job of introducing the reader to the inherent problems in leading a naval and scientific expedition and first contact with Pacific Islanders.

In many ways, today's outer space missions are less complicated than Cook's expeditions.

The anthropology sections of this book are the weakest sections, but there are simply few ways to understand the native Pacific islanders of Hawaii and Polynesia and the Maori peoples of New Zealand and Aborigines of Australia.

Cook's legacy is somewhat mixed in the Pacific basin, though to his credit, he handled first contact issues as well as he probably could. His death that resulted from an altercation with some Hawaiian tribe members was a bit of a tragedy, for few of his generation had as much patience in dealing with the inherent issues of Western and native interaction.

For the reader wanting a solid introduction to one of history's greatest explorers and one of the greatest sea stories, this is a worthwhile book.

Before reading this book, most of what I knew about Captain Cook was from high school (not much) and from a vacation or two in Hawaii complete with visits to historic sites. I saw it at the library and checked it out because I am enrolled in a "Pacific Islanders in the U.S." course at my local junior college, and because I'm planning another vacation in Hawaii and want to feel more grounded in the history of the place while I'm there.
I thought the book was great. It really cut through a lot of the mythology that surrounds what most of us are taught about Cook, to the real person, with failings as well as strengths. What I loved was I felt I got both perspectives, Cook's as well as the point of view of the People he encountered on the islands. One thing I got from the book is that Cook missed a lot. His journal records his perspective, but as well-meaning as it might be, that perspective was narrow and often limited by his own background. The island kingdoms he encountered, in Tonga, Hawaii and others were politically complex, and socially and culturally rich. Power plays were being made, not only by Cook, but by the People on the beach. I thought the presentation was balanced, and fascinating, and I am grateful for having read a book that allows me to think about this moment in history, and the islands themselves, in a broader way.

I purchased this book after visiting New Zealand. Specifically, the area where Rohan was set up. I would not have bought this book otherwise, but it became a nice companion when i wanted to remember the lay of the land and the challenges one only experiences in New Zealand. To get to this place, one must walk from a road, across a cow field, through 3 rivers (ice cold and too wide to jump, mind). So for me it was worth it. If you don't have an unusual love for the films or another big reason to get this book, you're probably wasting your money.

I bought this while in New Zealand, in Mt Cook Village.

Though My wife and I hadn't planned a "Lord of the Rings Tour", we did enjoy noting when our current stop was used as filming location.

I sympathize with both Mr Brodie and the reviewers wanting more maps.

While it may not have been his intent, it is called a "guidebook", and even a casual reader like myself would have appreciated more maps. But it doesn't detract from the fact that this is a fun book, with lots of vignettes and pictures.

I've been on two trips to New Zealand and used the first guidebook on the first trip and the revised edition (after Two Towers) on the second trip. The revised edition was much improved over the original one. I visited probably 80%+ of the sites in the book between the two trips. The guidebooks give a lot of interesting trivia about filming LOTR and can certainly help you decide what to visit, how accessible it is and how to plan a route. As all have stated, the problem is that the directions get you sort of there, within a hundred meters if you're lucky, and the pictures are marginally helpful. On the second trip I brought a portable DVD player with the LOTR DVDs and I found the relevant scene in the film while I was at the location, so I could make a positive identification and not have to wonder if I was at the right rock or tree. It was particularly useful at Mavora Lakes, Poolburn and Whakapapa, for example, where so much of the scenery looks the same throughout the whole site. Otherwise, without the DVD, about the only thing to do when you get to Whakapapa using the guidebook is to just look around and know that it was used for the Mordor locations. With the DVD you can identify the exact spot where the opening title for Two Towers was filmed, among other venues. If you don't want to drag a DVD player with you, another option I would recommend is to print out screen caps from the films of those locations you really want to identify and take along a notebook filled with them. Either option is a must for identifying, for example, the Legolas rock at Deer Park Heights, particularly since the rock was flipped 180 in the film. Ian's book is a good start, but its utility will vary for each person depending on just how precise you want to be in saying "I was there."

I went to New Zealand with the book, hoping to see as many sites as I could. Everyone has the book, and everyone has the same comment - it gets you almost there. Almost just isn't good enough. But my first complaint is the scattered writing. Stick to the subject - the sites. One site is mentioned. Then a bunch of drivel, and suddenly you're reading about that site again, and this time it's different information. The book could have so much better organized. Why not put decent maps in a location guidebook? One example: we followed the written directions exactly and found ourselves at the park off Gemstone. Okay. So, where exactly along this park is the site? I searched for an hour for rock formations that matched the picture in the book and never found them. Same thing at "Rivendell". Got there, but what good is it if the exact sites are not given? We ended up going out again the next day on a tour, and told the tour guide about our trouble with the book. "Everyone says that," she said. "I see people out walking around with the book, trying to figure out the exact site. Finally they ask if they can follow me." Ian, you present this as being a location guide, and you got everyone to buy one. But I didn't go halfway around the world to get "almost" there. It needs better pictures, real maps, and better organization. Keep ALL the information about one site together, not spread here and there over several pages.
Give directions from the major city, not from the previous site. And I am still steaming over Legolas's rock at Deerpark Heights. The picture shows the VIEW from the rock instead of the rock itself. You know how many rocks are at the location? Why is the world didn't you put a picture of the rock in there so we could tell when we were in the right place? I appreciate the fact that someone even wrote a guidebook. That said, it should have been done 100%. I paid 100% of the price for it.

What a blast. We took the original edition on our tour two years ago and will be taking the extended edition this year. We also took a GPS with us and called our tour, "GPS to Mordor: there and back again," and dutifully listed the references we achieved in our trip diaries. Through unseasonal sleet and floods and snow we had more fun than anyone deserves hunting the references and squinting at the photos. "It's this tree. No No. It's that one." We went places we would never have dreamed of going otherwise, met fantastic people and saw astonishing country given a specific quality of discovery by finding the associations. Travels by quotation: "We're going to Rivendell to see the elves," was a particular triumph. The additional trivia of filming and background simply added pleasure to the reading at night while checking the next day's itinerary. Without being a textbook, we certainly found it got us where we wanted to go as close as we needed to get there (except for the parts of NZ that were under water at the time). Think of it as an invitation to get out of the house and go find your own adventures.

I have read both of Kira Salak's books and thoroughly enjoyed them. I am hoping she will write another one soon. Four Corners was great and I was able to compare much of my trip to hers (although mine was not quite as adventurous). I don't feel she spoke too much on the dangers of PNG, as one reviewer wrote. The dangers are very real and different than other countries. I also enjoyed the excerpt on her travels through Mozambique included in this book. She has a gift for writing. Hurry up Ms. Salak and write another book soon!

This book was fabulous. It kept me riveted from page one. What Ms. Salak accomplished in New Guinea (with her intelligence, guts, wit, courage and luck) is truly amazing. Hands down the best book I read all year. A true travel adventure.

The book is full of personel feelings. I read travel journals and that is what I am looking for. If I want a guide I buy a guide. I admire writers who leave the reader with an understanding of who they are as well as where they are. Ms. Salek does a fine job doing just that.

WOW! This book blew me away, and like the title of my review states, there were several times throughout where my heart was literally pounding. Any writer who can transport a reader like that knows how to write. This book is definitely among my "Top 5" favorite travel narratives.

Some reviewers suggest that there was too much inner reflection on the part of the author regarding why she was in PNG and what she was trying to reveal about herself. While this was definitely a thread running through this book, I do not believe that it takes away from the overall "picture" in any way. Any traveler who embarks on a similar trip and who doesn't reflect on why they're doing it has simply been on vacation. Those that do choose to reflect have been on a journey.

If you are a seasoned traveler to PNG, like one reviewer annoyingly overstates, why would you want to read a travel narrative by someone else about the same place? Being there is always better and I make it a point to not read books about places that I have already visited extensively. What would be the point? So, if you've spent a good deal of time in PNG you probably will not get much from this book. If not, then I highly recommend it! * Side-note: Just because you've been to a place does not neccessarily make you qualified to review a book that takes place there.

While I agree that some of the situations that Ms. Salak gets herself into do seem very dangerous she herself is honest about the immensity of these situations and does not try to down-play them in any way. Lucky for readers because this makes the book that much better. The suggestion by one reviewer that Ms. Salak in not respectful of PNG and the people that she meets there is unfounded and I do not recall anything in the book indicating that this was the case. This book is not a "PNG how-to" and the suggestion that the author's journey is irresponsible (and even unbelievable) is ridiculous, she is simply telling her story and it is fabulous! If you are looking for something to help you travel in PNG then pick up the Lonely Planet guide. If you're looking for a great adventure story that takes place in PNG then this is the book for you.

I have resisted reading Ms. Salak's second book, "The Cruelest Journey" for some time now because I will then have nothing of hers left to read and that's a depressing thought! I eagerly await more work from this author!!

This is by far the BEST travel adventure book I've ever read. The first chapter is so intense I guarantee you won't be able to put the book down! Without giving away anything from the book (you can read the description on Amazon yourself), I'll tell you this book is exciting from the first page all the way to the last. Does this woman have a death wish traveling alone through Papau New Guinea? I've read her other book, "The Cruelest Journey" and that was also incredible. I can't wait until she writes another book!

I have owned this book ever since its first release on the American shelves.
It has beautiful pictures of Phar Lap. The pictures of him galloping up close are astounding.
The book gives an accurate history of the freak horse.
I definitely recommend it to everyone who loves Phar Lap.

What really happed to the racehorse Phar Lap? Why did they call him a freak. I want read the story and find out.

Phar - Lap is one of my favorite racehorses, but I have to agree with some of the other people on here.....It is hard to get into. Not very well written. have to force myself to read it.

Phar Lap is still considered one of the best, if not the finest Thoroughbred champion from Australia.

The book is an outstanding history of the racer and the impact he made in Australia and the potential career he made have had in the United States. Phar Lap died under mysterious circumstances before his scheduled debut in the U.S.

There has been controversy swirling over his death in the U.S. and there were those who felt Phar Lap was poisoned deliberately, though it was ruled then by natural causes. A 2006 necropsy - obviously not in this edition of the book - revealed that he was poisoned through a high-level of arsenic.

Phar Lap - nicknamed "Big Red" - was bred in New Zealand and grew to be slightly over 17 hands tall. He captured 37 of the 51 races and was not highly regarded as a juvenile; being bought at auction for a small price due to his pedigree.

But from the humble beginning came a legend who certainly can be compared with two other racers who carried the "Big Red" tag; Man o' War and Secretariat.

This book was never written to be a novel it is meant to be factual history of Big Red and the race scene at the time and it shows our Australian Culture at the time of the Great Depression which is when the he raced, how desperate people were for money and also the snobbery that was part of the AJC and VRC in Australia. The photos were of particular interest as a lot of them haven't been seen by people who never saw him race (like myself).
The final listing of his all of the races he ran and amount of stakes money that he won in the Depresssion was also enlightening. The mind just boggles if he was alive and racing today with the prize money that is around.

The chapter that was devoted to his death finally explained to the world and particularly Australia what happened to this great horse and the sad fact that the veterinary practices at the time couldn't have saved him.

This book for me is a collectable and will be an heirloom. The picture on the front cover has been taken where he finally stands in the Melbourne Museum, where he is the most visited display in the Museum.

It's a good book for english speaking person, because the phrases are written how a Swed would have said it. Now, if a swedish person are reading it, it all looks all messed up, but it looks very logic for en English speaking person.

IT'S GOT ALL THE THINGS YOU NEED TO SAY OR UNDERSTAND ON YOUR TRIP, THE PICTURES AND THE LAYOUT AND THE PAGES ARE VERY NICE, I RECOMMEND IT!

It is a really useful book for people with no time to learn swedish using the long way. Practical words, phrases, idioms, and expresions. If you only want to communicate accurate in many situations without any idea what the swedish is, This is the right book, the cassete is very interactive. Don't forget you Swedish dicctionary Berlitz also, is really good despite its size. Both, are easy to carry on with you all time.

I have used the very fine Pimsleur course for another language (Hebrew) but, in looking for a course that costs a fraction of the Pimsleur price, I struck gold with the Berlitz Basic Spanish. There are 24 lessons, each about 7 minutes long. The lessons are divided into scenes on three audio tapes. The lessons are taught entirely in Spanish. It is amazing how well this works by putting the conversation in context and by using a guidebook. By going through each lesson several times and doing the exercises in the book, you learn Spanish in an easy and enjoyable manner, Having used Pimsleur, I believe that dollar for dollar, the Berlitz method compares well. You can't go wrong with either {Pimsleur or Berlitz) but, for less than 30 bucks, your money is very well spent with the Berlitz basic Spanish. The big difference between these two fine methods (Berlitz & Pimsleur) is the following: (1) Pimsleur has a series of 32 longer lessons in which the language is taught using both English and the language you are learning on the tape. The Pimsleur lessons are about an hour long. (2) The series of Berlitz lessons are about 8 or so minutes long and no English is spoken. The accompanying book provides English translation in marginal notes for new words that are introduced into the vocabulary. Both, programs are effective but Berlitz is a great bargain.

Swedish is a very difficult language for Americans to pronounce. It's a double tone language. In other words, you often stress more than one syllable in the same word. This sounds kinda silly to English speakers. You simply cannot look at this book (or any book) and try to speak Swedish. What is good about this book is the pronuniation guide that appears beside each word. This makes it possible that you won't sound silly every time you try to speak Swedish. Once you have been in Sweden and listened to the way they speak, you can use this book's pronunication guides and try to immitate the Swedes.

But, this book is really only for travelers, and travelers don't need to speak Swedish. Most Swedes speak English very well.

this is the most useful and necessary guidebook not only for indonesia but for any destination you may have!

This is a good book, but an updated edition is supposed to come out December 2006 so wait until then if you want this book.

This is currently the best overall guide to Indonesia for independent travellers. It covers enough attractions to keep people occupied for months, and is more than enough for those with an average interest in the country.
As usual with this series, it is strong on practical details like prices, public transport and city maps, though one should never forget that prices in particular will have changed by the time one gets there - this 7th edition was researched in 2002, and reflects the situation as it was then.
There is also more than enough background information about culture and history for most readers.
Note however that coverage of remoter, less-visited regions is poorer - the chapter on Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) is nearly useless, and the one on Papua (Indonesian New Guinea) is little better.
Those with a deeper interest in Indonesia, or with an interest in a particular region, might want more detailed guides to those areas - Lonely Planet has great guides to Java and Nusa Tenggara, while Periplus has eight separate ones to all parts of the country, though the Periplus ones are best backed up with this book for practical details.

This book is great for giving you ideas as to which places to visit. But seeing now that it's 3 years out of date it has a lot of errors. I just used it in august of 2003 and all the prices are way off. Expect to pay about 2-3 times (sometimes 5-6 times) what the guide says because Indonesia's economy has picked up since the book has been released. For example: Borobudur is listed as 10,000Rp (~$1.80CDN) for entrance in the guidebook, now it's 58,000Rp (~$10CDN). They should be putting out a new one soon so if you can, wait for the next one to come out.

This is a good guidebook and fairly accurate. In a country like Indonesia, however, things change quickly so use this book as a reference not as a bible. Do you own research and talk to other travellers. Since LP Indo is the default travellers' guide to this region, most of the restaurants and hotels are not the best values. Many get a steady stream of customers just because of a good review and never bother to maintain the facilities. The best deals require a lot of footwork and bargaining! Also, bus/boat schedules always change. So don't plan a rigid itinerary based on the data in this book. I know a couple that lost a week because they planned a trip around a ferry described in this book but didn't actually exist! Be prepared to wait if you're going off the beaten path. Some boat services are infrequent between the islands.

Learning some bahasa indonesia always helps bargaining. The language section is adequate but the phrasebook is much better.

It is the turn of the twentieth century and science promises to explain many of the wonders of the world. Walter T. Goodwin is an eminent scientist who has just finished a field study of the flora of the volcanic islands of the South Pacific. At Port Moresby, in Papua New Guinea, he boards a ship headed for Melbourne, in Australia. From there he intends to travel further to his home in New York. Having boarded the ship he finds to his surprise that his old friend Dr. David Throckmartin is also a passenger. But Throckmartin seems strangely distant and changed. His face wears an expression of both extreme ecstasy and horror weirdly co-existing. Throckmartin tells Goodwin that he has discovered the ruins of an extremely ancient city on an island of the coast of Papua. In these ruins he discovered a strange door, which led to an underground pool. From this pool, during the rising of the full moon, an apparently supernatural creature emerges. This creature steals away people, turning them into zombie like creatures who then disappear underground never to be seen again. Throckmartin's wife Edith has been taken as well as two other members of the scientific party. Throckmatin, however, has a plan to travel to Melbourne, collect some necessary scientific equipment and return to the 'moon pool' to rescue his wife. All this of course seems too much to believe, but then the 'creature', the "Dweller", arrives and steals away Throckmartin before Goodwin's very eyes. Goodwin decides the only thing he can do is to try to compete Throckmartin's rescue plan.

Just about everything in this story is given a 'scientific' explanation by Goodwin, the die-hard-rationalist narrator of the tale. The story is thus technically science fiction, however, these 'explanations', at least to the modern reader's mind, seem so thin that the tale in fact has the feel of fantasy. Merritt seems particularly taken with the then new field of nuclear physics and this gives the story interesting depth. Merritt is aware of the possibility of nuclear science promising great benefit, but also great harm. The luminous "Dweller" is thus a predecessor of Godzilla, the radioactive movie monster that destroyed Tokyo, though Merritt, of course, wrote well before the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped.

Of course this book, like all others, takes its place in the history of literature and owes some of its details to earlier novels. The phosphorescent walls of an underground kingdom is highly reminiscent of Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864). The discovery of a lost civilization which is ruled by a totally amoral, iron willed woman is straight from Rider Haggard's She (Oxford World's Classics) (1887).

I must warn that this is not an easy book to read because of the complex writing style. Merritt uses long and winding sentences that are difficult to keep track of. I found myself sometimes going back and rereading what I had just read to understand it. Also Merritt at times uses a super-profusion of adjectives, most of which are little used in common language. I at first ran to the dictionary, but soon gave up, letting the worlds roll over me in a strange, hypnotic, half-understood, poetic spell that added to the weird atmosphere of the book.

I don't mean to be overcritical of the book. is in fact a rip-roaring read full of high adventure. Merritt certainly manages to keep you turning the pages. The ending is great, keeping you on the edge to the last page. No anticlimaxes here.

A loose association of adventurers penetrates the lost kingdom that lies far beneath a South Pacific island, where opposing religious factions teeter on the brink of war and a being of living light threatens to conquer the surface world.

Abraham Merritt's verbose and adjective-heavy prose varies in its effectiveness. At times, he does such a good job of describing settings that they appear effortlessly in the mind's eye. This is particularly true of the first part of the novel, which is set on and around the island of Ponape. On the other hand, once our heroes descend into the bowels of the earth, things become rather murky. Even after paragraph after paragraph devoted to depictions of his otherworldly settings, I was more often than not mystified as to their physical layouts and it made some of the action confusing.

The pacing is problematic as well. The first part of the novel is riveting and mysterious, so much so that I thought this would be a 5-star book. The story slowed down considerably once the action moved underground, with those confusing descriptions and too much uninteresting characterization. I was particularly annoyed by the character of Larry O'Keefe, a stalwart pilot whose superstitious Irish nature is way overblown. However, things pick up considerably at the end, with an exciting, apocalyptic climax that features some extraordinary imagery.

One of the most popular science-fiction writers in the early 1900s, Merritt had the reputation of the Lord of Fantasy. "The Moon Pool" evidences the "baroque complexities that Merritt introduced into his fairly standard plots through his use of elaborately contrived creatures, technologies, and settings," as the editor Levy remarks in his Introduction. The Dweller reawakened on the island of Ponape where an ancient civilization once existed by a Dr. David Throckmartin and his group of scientist explorers is a vampire seeking new souls to devour. Merritt's fantasy about the Manichean struggle between good and evil is colored by his interest in the mystic Madame Blavatsky. Looked on unfavorably by some leading critics of the time, Merritt never gained much notice outside of the field of science fiction. For later generations, his ornate style limited his appeal. But he holds considerable historical interest in this genre of popular literature for opening it up to diverse elements such as developments in the sciences of physics and biology, figures from folk literature, literary references of all types (e. g., Celtic literature), and philosophical and religious ideas and themes like Blavatsky's mysticism which were all a part of his eclectic erudition. One sees such effects not only in today's fantasy literature, but also the popular fantasy movies.

A. Merritt's masterful first novel, "The Moon Pool," originally appeared in the magazine "All-Story Weekly," as a short story entitled "The Moon Pool," in 1918. Its full-length sequel, "The Conquest of the Moon Pool," followed in that pub the following year. The first book publication, later in 1919, combined these two works into a unified whole, and the result is an astonishing piece of fantastic fiction. And it would seem that Orson Welles' radio rendition of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" on 10/30/38 was not the first piece of fantasy to dupe the public, either. Readers of "The Moon Pool" in 1918 were so convinced of the book's veracity that they wrote to "All-Story Weekly" wanting more information. I can easily understand their confusion, as this novel is told in a very realistic style, purportedly from notes that the famous botanist Dr. Walter Goodwin had submitted to the International Association of Science. Goodwin had been en route from Port Moresby, New Guinea to Melbourne when he encountered an old associate, Dr. Throckmartin, who told him a remarkable story. It seems that Throckmartin's entire scientific party had been abducted by a being of light, while they were exploring the (actual) Nan-Matal ruins off Panape, in the Caroline Islands. Throckmartin himself is abducted before Goodwin's eyes, leading to Goodwin's exploration of those same ruins. Throckmartin's tale is eerie and quite suspenseful; indeed, those first 30 pages of the book are so very intense that the reader will be amazed to realize that there's another 250 pages in this novel yet to go! En route to Panape to effect his investigation, Goodwin, through a series of somewhat forced coincidences, encounters a Norwegian captain whose family had been abducted by the strange light entity; a visionary, somewhat fey, Irish fighter pilot; and a duplicitous Russian (German in the original magazine version!) scientist, all of whom accompany him on his adventures. And this is just the introductory setup in what turns out to be a long, involving, at times hallucinatory, and all in all quite remarkable tale. Underground civilizations, invisibility cloaks, giant jellyfish, disintegrating beams, good and evil priestesses, battles involving thousands, frogmen, shell-shaped flying cars...Merritt's imagination seems to be bursting loose in this, his first work. Much has been said regarding the fact that Merritt, a newspaperman for the most part (for many years on "The American Weekly"), could switch so easily from dry journalese to the florid, purple prose that soon became his trademark. This book would not be what it is without his dense, adjective-heavy, hyperimaginative prose, with its wide range of reference and yearning lyricism. Just take this example, in which the author describes the flora of the underground world that Goodwin & Co. discover:
"...moss veils like banners of a marching host of Titans; pennons and bannerets of the sunset; gonfalons of the Jinn; webs of faery; oriflammes of elfland! Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of pedicles--slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals, or curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of Tanit in ancient Carthaginian groves--and all surmounted by a fantasy of spore cases in shapes of minaret and turret, domes and spires and cones, caps of Phrygia and bishops' mitres, shapes grotesque and unnameable--shapes delicate and lovely! They hung high poised, nodding and swaying--like goblins hovering over Titania's court; cacophony of Cathay accenting the "Flower Maiden" music of "Parsifal"; bizarrerie of the angled, fantastic beings that people the Javan pantheon watching a bacchanal of houris in Mohammed's paradise!"
Despite the reader's desire to flip through the pages breathlessly to see what happens next, prose such as this almost demands a more leisurely pace. I found myself rereading many such passages, just reveling in Merritt's ability to conjure up dreamlike word pictures. But strangely enough, although he is extraordinarily good with these descriptions, sometimes Merritt overreaches himself, and then his attempts to picture things fall flat. I defy any reader to fully visualize Goodwin & Co.'s means of descent into the Murian underworld, for instance, or the geography of the bridge leading to the Portal. But for the most part, Merritt's prose is extremely effective at conveying a sense of alien wonder, and "The Moon Pool" does indeed live up to its reputation as a fantasy classic. I recommend it wholeheartedly to all amazon.com readers.

This is a fascinating novel. Merritt has a gift for setting. You actually feel like you are in a South Pacific ocean, or standing in front of the moon pool. This book grabs you and suck you into the setting. You have the feeling of gloom and wonder as you enter the Moon Pool for yourself.

However, Merritt's gift for setting is also the books main drawback. His prose gets wordy and adjective-heavy to the point of being absolutely unreadable. I kept rung back to Strunk and White: "Omit needless words," "Be clear," "Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place," and "Avoid the use of qualifiers."

I cant tell you how many times I read "coruscations," a word that refers to metallic sparkles and glitters. It is also the noun form of "Coruscant," of George Lucas fame.

It is an obscure word, but it blunts the prose's effectiveness and story-flow if you have to stop reading and get a dictionary to figure out what's going on.

Once again, Strunk and White:

"Avoid fancy words. Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute. Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able. Anglo-Saxon is a livelier tongue than Latin, so use Anglo Saxon words."

Amen!

*

Aside from being thoroughly unreadable, this novel fascinates me. The setting is supernal, and I felt something move in the dept of my soul as I read it. To be sure, it is pure pulp, but pulp is just a corruption of true myth. It seemed to be a return to the underwater cave of Grendel's mother in "Beowulf."

Pits strike fear in the core of our being. That is why Luca uses them so much in his films for the death of villain. This same archetype works in this novel. Once you get past the awkward prose, you find a very interesting story.

I hope someday they adapt this to film.