Reviews and Comments

Offers thematic itineraries (e.g., Spanish sunsets, British literature, Art Deco), all built on rail travel and many spanning multiple countries. It is by no means a guidebook; for each itinerary, you get a map and, for each city proposed, a picture and some copy. Don't expect restaurant listings. But as an idea book - particularly themed on trains - it's quite attractive and eye-opening.

Tyson is the most objectionable writer I've encountered all year. I'd like to fill in my science knowledge gaps, in an entertaining way, but he's picking fights with the New York Times (over Pluto as planet) and J.R.R. Tolkien (over the plural form of "dwarf"). It's tiring and self-centered. It's a very bad year when I give out two one-star reviews, but this is a very bad year.

Bite-sized is truly bite-sized; between the tone and the lack of endnotes, it's impossible to know what to believe or research further.

This is a well-written, opinionated guide to the eastern portion of the Pyrenees mountain range dividing France and Spain. It's a good overview if you're thinking about the area, which is poorly covered by most tourism books. It loses a star just because it's rather old, and as quite a small book, it's poor value for money as a general guidebook.

If you're already considering a trip to this area, I do highly recommend it.

Packed with photos of the beautiful Palau de la Música Catalana, this is my favorite keepsake from an early noughties Barcelona trip. Brief descriptive text in Catalan, Spanish, and English mostly lets the pictures speak for themselves.

This and a prior edition are the only books I've found to cover Mt. Tam properly, with detailed terrain and history discussions as well as clear maps. Printed on heavy, glossy stock, it's a bit heavy to carry on a major trek. But no other book I've found serves me as well.

I threw away most of my travel books from before the pandemic. This 2016 guide is one of the few I kept.

Much of this book is fascinating, if you're a geek old enough to remember BBSes. As hacker groups go, Cult of the Dead Cow was likely among the most ethical. But the handful of brilliant fools ended up solidly in the establishment — at Facebook and Yahoo, at DOD and the NSA, or at firms contracting for them. It's so common as to seem inevitable: an idea that starts in a garage ends up monetizing by spreading hate or spying on you.

I've never been filed under "Nick Cave fan," though I owe him musical debts that take too long too explain. A non-fan expects a goth rocker with all the tropes that go with the phrase. In this series of interviews with friend and journalist Seán O'Hagan, Cave opens up about his faith (!) and how the death of his son, followed by Covid, changed the trajectory of his life and music.

Compared to my decade-plus-old copy, the modern AP Stylebook carries much more information but chops it up into singular categories like an old record shop. Religion, sports and punctuation have separately alphabetized sections, and other concepts are tossed into narrative sections like "Health and science" and "Business." The information is all there, but the index is 100 pages long and you'll need it.

Although targeted at kids, this illustrated French dictionary has been useful to me as an adult learner as well. I'm averse to learning through translation, having inititally been taught in immersion. This is great for seeing a bunch of related words on a single spread.