Reviews and Comments

i pick this book up, i get historically annoyed, i put it down. c'est normal. rinse and repeat

A charming guide to network infrastructure, in the style of a nature field guide, by a self-proclaimed artist-not-techie. Like a good field guide, the sketches highlight the visual differences between, say, a public Wi-Fi access point and an automated license-plate reader.

Atlas Obscura wrote the review that I'd like to have written: www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mapping-the-hidden-structures-of-new-york-citys-internet-networks

i should not read about the central freeway this late at night

Very old, but still very useful, pocket-sized dictionary for food and menu items in Spain. With useful tips like "nobody eats dinner before 10pm."

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.

I'm normally quite happy with the Lonely Planet series, but their pocket Bilbao/San Sebastián guide reads like something straight from Marketing. For example, they show a photo of a pintxo (tapa) with callouts reading: "artful touches transform the pintxo into a delicacy", "careful cooking illustrates the Basque quest for perfection", "high-quality ingredients are the cornerstone of great pintxos", "freshly baked baguette-style bread forms the base of many pintxos."

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.

i'm often a bit off-put by suddenly stopping for major world-building in the middle of a book, but i'm quite enjoying it here

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.

I've seen many, many reproductions of the très riches heures, but this is the only one that has a real gilded feel to it. Ran across it at Powell's on a past trip and had to have it.

I pull this out every year. It's not the tradition I was raised in, but I try to learn something each time.