Foreign-corporation Books

Vivat russia and trahnem vsu ameriku na babki

The content of this "book" is printed on one side of 4.5 pages. The remainder of the nine pages include the title page, a general blurb about the group that put it together, and some information lifted from Edward Hall. Even though it is a stretch to label this scanty pamplet as a "book", we had hoped that the concentrated content would be useful or insightful. No on both counts.

Virtually all of the pointers are both common-sensical and apply across most if not all Western cultures. We actually read this book in less than ten minutes while traveling in Switzerland. It includes such gems as don't smoke at dinner and keep your elbows off the table -- useful advice for someone who as never experienced any version of Western culture.

I had to read this exercise in futility for a class. It started off badly and I thought if I had to read one more "Ben SAYS" or "Rick SAYS" that I would have to drown the book in the bathtub where I was reading. I'd have rather tried to sort through the indistinguishable voices of Ben and Rick than keep reading the word "says". I was so annoyed that I really didn't care which boring person was talking. All we have to go on is what the people say to each other. We're not in anyone's head, and there is no internal dialog, which makes the characters flat and half-formed.

The back of the book informs us that Ben's encounter with this woman, and her grandmother's story "illuminates Ben's half-lived life". It seems to me that for both Ben and Lily,possibilities are far more interesting than reality. Too bad that the possibility of the book was not borne out in the reality of the reading. Too bad Josipovici only manages to half illuminate the reader.

The street names are listed with English letters but not with Russian. This map is a total waste of the money I spent on it.

I've bought lots of maps, many of them here. This is the only map I ever wanted to return. The problem is with the CBD. The rest of the map is not that bad. For the CBD, they put too much information in too small an area. It is color coded, which makes it worse. It is incredibly cluttered and difficult to read.

This book is sort of the stereotypical "How to hide your money offshore" sort of book, which totally ignores the realities of how people, banks and trust companies must respond to subpoenas, and how they must report offshore activity to the IRS or else face perjury charges for filing false returns. Indeed, some of the strategies advocated by this book have since proven not to work, such as those involving offshore credit cards (the IRS simply issued subpoenas to the major credit card companies for their records and now the people who held such credit cards are facing criminal investigations and possibly significant jail time).

In other words, it is unintentionally a guide as to what not to do. Pass on this one.

Another vanity publication by a truly inept scholar. I had the misfortune of taking a couple of classes from this pseudointellectual bozo about 8 years ago. Let me warn you now, he has no idea what he is talking about. Lest you think I'm trashing him because he gave me bad grades, I ended up with a 3.65 average in his classes. The guy is woefully uninformed, and this work shows it. Do some more research and don't touch this turkey with a 20 foot pole.

Korean is a difficult language to listen to.
There is a need for an easy-to-follow, step-by-step Korean listening course.
This publication does not meet that need.

I am an experienced traveler (30+ countries) who is nearing retirement and plan to travel extensively, who has recently become obsessed about finding "good" guidebooks. So this review is a comparison of the books I looked at for Madrid.

I started with the Insight Guide. I was seeking to get background, history, etc. The Insight Guides seem to vary enormously from one to the next in both quality and orientation. I think they are good for an entire country if you are trying to decide where in the country or what parts you want to see. I thought the guide for Madrid was useless. It provided very little information about the city or the culture. It seemed to be best if you were planning on moving to Madrid and wanted to find out the differences between the various suburban areas. I suggest you forget this one.

I looked at the Mini-Rough Guide. I didn't like the format and it was too terse for my taste. In my opinion, Rough Guide still needs to produce a guide for Madrid that is a regular, not a mini Rough Guide. The LP Guide to Madrid seemed pretty mediocre. The stiff covers also made it awkward to use or hold open to a particular page. The information and descriptions were inadequate compared to some other guides. The Eyewitness Guide to Madrid is, I think, the best overall guide to Madrid. (Generally I prefer Eyewitness guides for City's much more than as a guide for an entire country.) The maps are good, the pictures of the food and other items are very helpful. The hotels and restaurant sections were pretty good, but not great. If you are looking for hostels, you will need the LP guide. Eyewitness does not give great historical depth, but it gives you some, probably enough for most tourists. Guide Books are not the best source for detailed historical and cultural information anyway. The Time Out guide was almost like a tourist's yellow pages, primarily a listing of hotels, restaurants, sites, services, etc. It had the best listing of restaurants and hotels and covered all price ranges. It wasn't as good as Eyewitness is describing the things to see and do.

I ended up getting the Eyewitness Guide to use while sightseeing, supplemented by the Time Out guide for picking hotels, restaurants and being able to look up things. Another reviewer recommended this same combination in order to visit Tapas bars. I'm not that much into Tapas, but I still think these two are the best combo.

Incidentally, the Spain Rough and LP guides Madrid sections do not cover Madrid as well as the Madrid-only guides. You are looking at a 60-page section, compared to the Madrid-only guides of around 300 pages length.

The only reason I gave this book one star is because I couldn't figure out how to give it zero stars.