Informative, practical and up-to-date

Before travelling to Manhattan for the first time, I browsed a number of different travel guides for New York City, and decided on this one because of its clarity and authority. The guide is easy-to-use, packed full of useful information for travellers, and had everything I needed to know. I also found the maps were better and the information it gave more generally up-to-date and more thorough than the Lonely Planet guide.<br /><br />It doesn't provide you with pre-planned walks, but you don't need that if you have well-written sections on each district, a guide on what not to miss, and clear maps. The walks I've seen in other guides I actually find limiting, because I want to wander off in directions not officially"on the walk".<br /><br />The only problem I had with the guide was that occasionally the information I needed wasn't all in one place, which isn't in itself a problem, but could also sometimes be impossible to find more than once. They need to put some thought into simplifying navigation between the sections, to make it quicker and easier - but despite this gripe I still think this is the best guide out there.

Brilliant - the London you don't know

I have lived in London for thirty years and I only know a third of the places in this book. Packed full of unexpected suggestions and well researched summaries. Bit heavy on the kind of places that you need gelled hair to feel comfortable in but hey - it's a Time Out book.<br />It's in my loo, covered in biro marks and every fifth page corner is turned down. (As soon as my parole comes up I'll be right out there!)

really good fun

This is such a cute little book! the recipes aren't really hi-tec or anything but it tells you how to build a fire and gives you checklists for equipment and stuff, which is good if you've never been camping before. and it's got lots of yum stuff i never would have thought of, like cooking roast chicken or this omlette with strawberries in. Theer are other harder recipes, but I preferd the easy, messy stuff which involves stuffing things on sticks! And barbecue stuff is well-covered too. The pictures look good but not fake, and the words are quite quirky and funny, made me laugh anyway, which i wasn't expecting. glad i bought it... might spur me on to cook a bit more outdoors instead of heading to the pub...

Best ever world atlas

What a fantastic book. The maps are beautiful and the information at the front is fascinating. We leave our copy open on our coffee table and just browse through it for the sheer pleasure of it. No coffee allowed near it of course - it's much to valuable to risk!

Excellent book for the right audience

The ever increasing size of this book reflects the increasing interest in wine, so it now lands with an impressive thump on your desktop. Though its content doesn't always reflect who that new market is.<br /><br />The authors start with a, rather meandering, description of the history and production of wine and some basic notes on tasting, appreciation and handling of wine. Some of this is very useful, most of it is very basic for someone who already knows the subject and all of it could do with some editing to make the best of their material. Some of it punctures some of the myths about wine such as how long wines should be laid down and do you really need to let wine breath. Elsewhere they perpetuate some of those myths, for example they still seem to give the whole concept of 'terroir' an almost mystical reverence.<br /><br />That introduction, however, is not really the point of this volume. This appears to be aimed at the new wine connoisseur or someone who wants to be a connoisseur. The real body of this is a fairly comprehensive atlas of vineyards and producers. The detail with which they cover their subject is variable but excusably so as it reflects the varying national interest in wine. So France is covered in incredible detail while England, however much it's wine industry may be growing, is given one brief page. Annoying when you had hoped for something comprehensive but understandable. As long as you stick to well established wine producing regions and buy from those regions this will have something to tell you.<br /><br />Which, excellent as it is, is also a problem this book has. Ninety per cent of the wine buying public, whether they are buying something cheap and nasty from tescos or something better from a merchant will be buying a blend; a chardonnay or shiraz whose provenance can be narrowed down no more closely than southern Australia, South Africa or so on. Good as those wines are this book doesn't help in selecting them.<br /><br />If you've moved from just buying a muscadet or whatever to buying 'something from the Loire Valley' then this is ideal for you. If you want to do so then this is ideal. If you like wine and maps then this is interesting if not useful. If you, like me, are happy buying muscadet and merlot but have no real desire to take your wine buying much further then this is probably not for you. So, interesting but impractical for most of us but excellent for the right audience.<br /><br />

The best road atlas of Ireland

This is the best road atlas of Ireland available. <br /><br />The main road atlas pages are at a reasonable scale of about three miles to the inch. The colour scheme makes them easy to read. Shading gives an indication of hilly areas. The one weakness is that the minor roads can be hard to follow in the areas where they are most tightly packed like west cork. But that is due to the limitations of the scale and this atlas shows them as well as any atlas does. Information on roads is up to date with roads under construction shown. As the Republic of Ireland has a fast expanding road building program this is important.<br /><br />The real bonus is to find clear, detailed, good-scale A-Z style maps of the main cities at the back of the book. These will ensure that you don't navigate the countryside successfully only to get lost when you go into town. It is well worth buying this road atlas rather than smaller or cheaper one that doesn't have these detailed town maps.<br />

Fabulous!

This Alastair Sawday book is absolutely fabulous. Mya husband and I never use anyone other than 'Sawdays'. You will never be disappointed and the accommodation you will never fault. It really is a super book and well worth a buy.

Wonderful book

Have just purchased Cool Camping in Scotland and have spent the last two evenings deciding which wonderful site I will be spending my summer holidays at.<br /><br />This book is wonderfully presented with clear text and stunning photographs - I now want to vist all the sites mentioned! These are the kind of campsites I am looking for - not full of statics and vans but well laid-out sites with adequate facilities and spectacular sights to see. This is how I want to spend my camping trips and this book has opened a new part of Scotland to me. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to camp away from the 'holiday camp' options.<br /><br />It would be nice to see more sites in the East of Scotland but spoilt for choice in the North and West.<br /><br />Only small worry is that as the book becomed popular so will the featured sites - hey ho at least the scenery will still remain!

One of our fave honorary Brits goes home for a bit ...

Another tome of brilliantly sparkling gems from Bill Bryson. What I found funniest was that his wife and family, all born and raised in England, appeared to find American life like being let loose in a toyshop - reveling in becoming optimistic Americans. Whereas our Bill has absorbed so much Britishness in his twenty years here he has become an honorary Brit! This makes his exasperation with queuing, bad shop assistants, and bureaucracy of the US kind even funnier than ever. In some of the columns he tries to be more positive and these, as he admits, are the more sentimental. Would that each of the pieces were double the length though - I got through the pages just too fast.

OK, But needs updating

Although the book boasts 'www upgrades' on the cover, there is currently no update available. The hotel information appears to be VERY out of date, so the price guides are a waste of time. The book does not really reference the www, but at least it's not as uptight as the rough guides

AA Mallorca map...

It is not possible to get the equivalent of our OS walking/touring maps for Mallorca; over the years I've tried everything...David Brawn's north of the island walking map gets close, but in general - even if you try a map specialist such as Stanford's in London - recent mapping is non-existent although I did manage to get some old ex-military sections of the island. This AA map is the best of the bunch for car touring and for getting to the start of walks and finding their finish in conjunction with something like the Sunflower guide. This AA map shows many of the minor routes that you don't get elsewhere, but with lots of recent road building it needs urgent revision - the central motorway now goes on further north than Inca, for instance. Most island maps are horribly superficial, this is the best.