Pacific Coast Highway: 2,066 Miles from Olympic to Tijuana Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a great book full of colourful pictures that is better on a coffee table than on the road.

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Route 101, the Pacific Coast Highway, commissioned in 1926, follows the path taken by the first Spanish explores of the West Coast, and incorporates El Camino Real, the historic thoroughfare built to link California's twenty-one missions. In some areas, reconstruction and freeway development have diverted the modern 101 from its old alignment; but this book traces the original road, providing detailed directions and mileage for drivers.The layout will be similar to the one used in Nick Freeth's Route 66: Main Street USA.A prologue, outlining the Pacific Coast Highway's pre-twentieth century history, is followed by chapters giving a comprehensive guide to each section of the toad (traveling north-south). These examine 101's natural beauty that has made it what it is. Every chapter includes features focusing on places of special interest; and there will also be Voice of the Road spreads profiling the highway's key personalities, as well as numerous quotations from authors, poets and songwriters who have been inspired by it. Specially created maps will parallel the text, and the book concludes with an extensive resources section, giving contact addresses and website details for road-related organizations and en route attractions.

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Historic Photos of Orange County Review

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(More customer reviews)We expect coffee-table books to make us feel and look good by displaying them. Accordingly, this one will not disappoint. But have you ever started one and not stopped reading until you finished? I hadn't until now.
Ms. Stone's straightforward yet engaging prose is deceptively complex in weaving an historical tapestry integrating the iconography of the selected pictures. Readers may not even notice that Ms. Stone quietly leads us through far-reaching context, perspective and insight, which transcend the commonality of this genre.
In this book, Ms. Stone proves an historian's historian because, counter to our educational system, she shows us that history is about the meaning of what happened, not rote repetition of names, dates and events. Almost subliminally, Ms. Stone masterfully works in teasers that keep readers turning pages to see and learn more.
For students of black-and-white photography, flipping through this beauty will be shocking. While most historic-photo books are a front-to-back muddle of middle gray, the publisher and printer of "Historic Photos of Orange County" provide us with a full range of artistic contrast (Picker's Zone I through Zone IX).
Finally! Here's a décor-enhancing tome that is more substance than window-dressing. You might just enjoy it more by reading it than showing it off.
Dean O. Dixon
Buena Park, CA


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Fifty Places to Sail Before You Die: Sailing Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations Review

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(More customer reviews)We cruise extensively in Australia and on the Med. We bought the book hoping that it would introduce us to new, exciting sailing grounds. Sadly, the book largely fails to do so.
To start with, it lists the locations in alphabetical order: California, China, Chile, Colorado etc instead of geographical grouping. The individiual sections are crammed with general information to fill the pages. Twenty percent of each section is typically dedicated to the writer's CV! Very little information is specific to sailing conditions.
For example the Antarctica section doesn't say a word about the special cruising challenges. The Fremantle/Australia section describes how the US won the America's Cup here - but not a word about the magic beaches and crystal clear waters.

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Landlubbers joke that sailors are always wanting to head off to the ends of the earth, but Chris Santella takes that life-changing desire very seriously. In this, the third installment in his immensely successful "Fifty Places" series, Santella assembles a crew of the world's greatest championship racers and professional adventurers and persuades them to disclose their favorite destinations around the globe. Interviewees include some of the best-known men and women in the sport: Tom Whidden and Gary Jobson (members of the winning 1987 America's Cup crew), Jeff Johnstone (of J-Boats), award-winning sailing writer Lin Pardy, and many others. The amazingly diverse places they've selected range from clubby East Coast ports (Marblehead, Annapolis), to idyllic tropical refuges (Ilha Grande, Brazil; the Polynesian atoll of Mopelia), to some of the most hair-raisingly treacherous waters on earth (Cape Horn). Coastlines around the world—even Antarctica and the Arctic—are represented, and the chosen spots include some spectacular inland waters, such as the Bras d'Or Lakes and the North Channel of Lake Huron. For each of the 50 places, the sailor recommending the venue spins an entertaining yarn about his or her experience there, and each description is accompanied by a "make you want to go there now" photograph.

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