On the one hand, it is pleasing that any part of J D Davies's great History of West Gower is available at a reasonably affordable price. The facsimile, such as it is, is quite nicely printed and reasonably but not robustly bound, in paperback format.
On the other hand, whilst the title, cover and listing promise a facsimile of Parts 2,3 and 4 of the History, the content comprises only Part 4 of Davies's work. Parts 2 and 3 are not included.
In keeping with the other volumes in this series, the DK Pocket Guide to Venice is a very handy little book to keep in your pocket when out and about. The maps are reasonable and the bite-sized location guides are useful reminders of the key features of the major sites. These little books do not replace proper travel writing - for Venice Jan Morris and JG Links are indispensible, while the full-size DK Guide to Venice and the Veneto is the best of the detailed tourist guidebooks to the region. But the Pocket Guide is small to carry, discreet to refer to and just the thing for on-the-fly navigation.
When we were kids we were amused by Americans who told us that they had been to the UK and had been 'all over'...'The Tower of London, Madame Tussauds, London Zoo,' they would intone and we would suppress a giggle. Sadly, Ms Rosenleaf Ritter, an American, takes the same approach to her book about the Czech Republic, and tells the reader much about how it feels to be an outsider in Prague and very little else about this historically and culturally rich country. She deflects giggles by making some alarming claims: for example, averring that one of the worst atrocities of the second world war was the assassination of Heydrich. Most Europeans would feel that it was the terrible Nazi… Read more
