This excellent book covers I-95 from Boston, MA to the southern tip of Georgia. It includes such thoughtful information as: a list of radio stations playing everything from soft rock to sports, a summary highway map listing every exit and the services available (food, gas, and lodging). A little further on, the book takes you through the states exit by exit. You'll read about a 90-year-old chocolate store at exit 10 in Massachusetts. At exit 44 in Connecticut you can eat at Nick's Luncheonette instead of fast food. Exit 15 in Maryland is for a soul vegetarian restaurant started by African Hebrew Israelites. Let's not forget the the Ava Gardner Museum at exit 95 in North Carolina, or the shopping opportunity at Exit 38 in South Carolina at the Le Creuset Factory Store.

If you drive I-95, you'll find this book delightful reading, and touring.

The Dream O' Genie was (they've since sold it) a Kha Shing Spindrift 40 -- double cabin, sundeck trawler with twin diesel engines.

The joys are clear. Evenings on the deck sipping a cocktail and enjoying the water and the view. Interesting people, intriguing sights, and unexpected vistas. But there were also perils which threatened their bank account, and frightened them for their lives.

The Stobs are honest about their experiences and the lessons they learned. It's expensive. Valves, water heaters, generators suddenly need replacing. Welds on water tanks rust and turned drinking water an unhealthy (and undrinkable) orange. And more. At one point Ron renamed himself Grumpy to match his mood. They recall being trenched in storms and navigating through a tangle of sand bars. Not to mention being knocked around by other larger boats.

Yet the one thing that never faltered was their sense of adventure, and their devotion and respect for one another. Strained sometimes, but game throughout. One particularly harrowing docking was described by Ron as:

...an athletic event worthy of Olympic status - run, jump, throw the rope over a piling, yell "stop," break a nail; run, jump, throw the rope over a piling, shout "STop," break a nail; run, jump, throw the rope over a piling, scream "STOP," break a na... Well, you get the idea.

There are also the joys of being on the water.

We were in a place we loved - rested, sated, happy, the lake as quiet as a reflective pond, a full panorama of the lake and a picturesque town on the hill. Sailboats reflected off the water at their moorings and we painted in our minds another portrait of life at sea.

They were also tourists, and they describe the sights.

Smith Falls [Ontario] is the location of the Rideau Canal Museum, a centerpiece for historic memorabilia preserved from the time when Scottish stonemasons and Irish laborers hacked a waterway through stone, ice and swamps. The five-story museum includes working models of the locks and views of the countrywide and waterway from its multi-storied observation deck

You can enjoy this book as a fun and interesting narrative of two articulate, resourceful people, as well as a how-to manual. In fact, the Stobs take this part so seriously that they have include a "potpourri" of information. The Great Loop is the route they took, but there are choice points along the way. They include these other possibilities, and the factors to consider when making decisions. There's a day-by-day itinerary with mileage, a listing of all the charts and guidebooks they used, and other resource information, including considerations in choosing a boat, necessary equipment, and generally helpful bits and pieces of wisdom.

If you've ever longed to pretend you were royalty, or simply wanted to experience a lifestyle that vanished long ago, this is the book. Barrus describes in loving detail over 100 castle and palace hotels in 10 countries including Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain (England, Ireland, and Scotland), Italy, Portugal and Spain. There's a description of the hotel and its history, and the crucial basics -- including rates, on-site recreation, nearby diversions and contact information. The book was published before the change to the Euro and the prices are in the original national currency.

The charming towns, the restored manor houses, the elegant rooms, the tantalizing whiffs of a lifestyle long gone. The only drawback to this book is trying to decide which of these lovely hotels to visit first. You'll probably find yourself drawing up a long list.

If you read a conventional guidebook on Italian cities you'll find a few pages on many different towns. Or you can buy a book that focuses on one of the big three (as I usually think of them). But if you want to visit Padua, or even Verona, you're pretty much on your own.

Italy: three cities fills the need for substantial information on the wonderful but lesser known city-states. It certainly contains the basic (but often crucial) information on how to get to Italy, how to get around inside Italy but it does so with the air of a seasoned traveler. So, it has a section on what to do if there's a strike (the answer, by the way, is pretty much to keep your eyes open to see one coming and then shrug and be flexible). The section of postal service in Italy is priceless (it's bad, expect problems and slow service).

There are sections on the major festivals, regional food specialties, wines, national holidays. There's engagingly written summaries of the country's colorful history, art and architecture, even a listing of the major artists.

Then comes the main courses, an in-depth look at each city -- history, transportation, the major areas, what to see and do, where to eat, where to stay, entertainment and finally, day trips from that city as home base.

If this review sounds very positive, it's because we wish we had read this book before we had toured these cities. But, we'll know for next time. And we'll take the book with us for both its concrete and useful information as well as it's entertaining style of writing.

In short, ...Gothic architecture, as it arose in the twelfth century, was the result of great technical innovation: the bringing together of the ribbed vault, the pointed arch, and finally the flying buttress."

Parry is aware of the tendency of visitors to these magnificent creations to be overwhelmed. The sheer size of the principal Gothic cathedrals can overpower us in a single moment. The kaleidoscopic effect of the stained glass, the sculpture, the arcades, and vaults opening up in every direction can startle us to such a degree that it is hard to gain our bearings. We can end up wandering aimlessly about, gazing blankly at one feature or another and leave both stunned and defeated." I can only conclude Parry has watched me as I've toured some of the world-famous cathedrals. Happily, his book goes a long way to explaining what we see and why it was so ground-breaking.

He describes over a dozen of France's most beautiful gothic cathedrals as well as other related buildings and what makes each unique in some ways and yet similar to its cousins in other ways. The text is complemented by color and black & white photographs.

There's also a chapter on how to "read" stain glass windows. Yes, they do tell a story, if you know what you're seeing.

If you are planning on visiting any of these edifices, take the book with you. It is chock full of information you didn't even know you wanted to know.

I relax into my chair and flap the front of my scarf to try to point some fresh air in the direction of my skin. This prompts Turtle Man to speak for the second time all day:
"You like hejab?"
Do I like wearing this?" I ask with what must be a strained expression.
"Yes. Is it joyful?"
I shift in my seat, now a full-blown pool of perspiration. "Uh, I'm not sure about joyful, but it's certainly warmful."
He doesn't understand.
"Hot," I explain.

Of course, there is more than portraits of the people, although they make up the heart of the book. Few of us will go to Iran. Even fewer will live with the people and as the people live. This is truly the book for armchair travel and vicarious experience, written by an even-handed author with a sympathetic eye.

"Ten miles? Is that all? You guys must be like really out of shape. I did fourteen-two."
"How many have your lips done?" said Katz, looking up from his noodles.
She fixed him with one of her more severe squints. "Same as the rest of me, of course." She gave me a private look as if to say, "Is your friend like seriously weird or something?" She cleared her ears. "I started at Gooch Gap."
"So did we. That's only eight point four miles."
She shook her head sharply, as if shooing a particularly tenacious fly. "Fourteen-two."
"No, really, it's only eight point four."
"Excuse me, but I just walked it. I think I ought to know." And then suddenly: "God, are those Timberland boots? Mega mistake. "How much did you pay for them?"
And so it went.

Not only are there the folks they meet along the way that make the book, it's also Bryson's emotional reaction to his experiences. All described with gentle humor. "So I was happy. We were doing fifteen or sixteen miles a day, nothing like the twenty-five miles we had been promised we would do, but still a perfectly respectable distance by our lights. I felt springy and fit and for the first time in years had a stomach that didn't look like a ball bag." There are scares about bears, about Katz going missing, snowstorms springing up suddenly.

You'll learn about the history of the Appalachian Trail -- how it has changed over the years and what it's like now. You'll learn about the hikers who do the Trail from start to finish, even though it starts in Georgia and finishes in Maine. And about Bryson's views on the environment and environmental catastrophes that somehow faded from public view - like Centralia a ghost town sitting on smoldering underground coal fires.

Book jackets have been known to overstate and oversell. That's kinda their job. But I'll read anything and everything Bryson writes. And when the jacket says "An adventure, a comedy, a lament, and a celebration, A Walk in the Wood is destined to become a modern classic of travel literature," we can only concur.

The strength of the book lies in its ability to inspire women to act on their travel dreams, and to explore not only a foreign country but also themselves. There are moments of sadness and occasional loneliness, and the antidote (be open to experience, treat yourself well). She describes arriving in Paris "not an excited woman but an anxious one. Without warning, halfway through the flight, my sense of excitement deserted me and a new, less welcome companion arrived: a complete failure of nerve." But her openness to the life going on around her overcomes her trepidations. And, at the end, as she readies to leave Venice she looks around.

"This is mine," I thought suddenly. "This is what I will have forever. The memory of this moment, of rain falling on Venice."

The people all seem somewhat eccentric, whether because we are seeing people from a different culture or because Hoffman finds the offbeat ones more interesting. There are her neighbors like Jacko, less-than-happy retired store owner, Amram who shepherds them through the intricacies of a Moroccan wedding, and the store-owner Meir and their visit to his apartment. An Arab cab driver, Mahmud, who lived in a refugee camp, ends up inviting them to his home for dinner. There's Ahmed who seems to be a homeless man with a magic touch when it comes to plants and growing things.

The people who don't fare well, oddly enough, are the Orthodox students in a nearby yeshiva.

"It was a study house for the newly religious, and most of the men who lived and learned the fundamentals of Jewish law there had a distractedly unkempt and tentative look about them, as if they were in hiding."

We learn about less than admirable policies and practices of Israel, and Hoffman's own reaction as an American Jew who now makes her home in Jerusalem. Her quest to learn more about the Arab family who might once have owned her apartment, and might also have lost it when Israel declared itself an independent country. The book describes a side of Jerusalem that tourists probably won't see, or if they do, walk by somewhat quickly. But it makes for very interesting reading.