Turning the Page on Another Year With a Wide-Ranging Stack of Reviews

“I don’t know if you’ll have enough books for two columns every month,” warned my editor when I started penning this biweekly column in June. Ha! The titles pour in--general guidebooks (how many different series are there by now?), specialized guidebooks, literary travel, picture books. . . . I could review a dozen or more books a week and I’d still be missing plenty.

As it is, even though I weed out literally scores of books every month, the titles that I do want to review are towering in stacks all around my desk. In a spirit of year-end housecleaning, then, I offer brief notices (in no particular order) of at least one stack’s worth:

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Smithsonian Book of the Nation’s Capital (Smithsonian Books, $39.95 hardcover).

Half coffee-table book, half high-school (college?) history/civics text. Lots of nice photographs and savvy D.C. lore.

VENICE: The Four Seasons by Lisa St. Aubin de Teran (Clarkson Potter, $30 hardcover).

Rich seasonal imagery of this magical/eerie/tacky city by photographer Mick Lindberg, and a dreamy, atmospheric text by a British novelist (“Keepers of the House”) who has lived in Venice since 1986.

HAWAI’I by Moana Tregaskis (Compass, $15.95 paper, $22.95 hardcover); and HIDDEN HAWAII: The Adventurer’s Guide by Ray Riegert, updated edition (Ulysses Press, $14.95 paper).

Honolulu-based ex-war correspondent Tregaskis’s richly-textured paean to America’s Pacific paradise is the latest title in the excellent Compass series--and, as with the others, it offers beautiful photography (by Wayne Levin and Paul Chesley in this case), solid information and lots of cultural asides. Riegert’s guide is long on facts and knowledgeable-sounding recommendations (so up-to-date that the ravages of September’s Hurricane Iniki on Kauai are described) and short on style. A useful traveler’s companion, nonetheless.

OUT OF THE NOOSPHERE; Adventure, Sports, Travel, and the Environment: The Best of Outside Magazine, compiled by the editors (Fireside/Simon & Schuster, $14 paper).

A highly literate, often quite literary, collection of pieces by such topnotch writers as Bill Bryson, Tim Cahill, Jim Harrison, Thomas McGuane, Bill McKibben and Peter Matthiessen. Though only marginally “travel” writing in the conventional sense, there is much evocation of place and time and character herein. Donald Katz’s bizarrely funny “The King of the Ferret Leggers” is worth the price alone.

CALIFORNIA WILDLIFE VIEWING GUIDE by Jeanne L. Clark (Falcon Press, $7.95 paper); and HUMBOLDT REDWOODS STATE PARK: The Complete Guide by Jerry and Gisela Rohde (Miles & Miles, $15.95).

Two useful titles for nature-lovers in the Golden State. Clark’s book, produced in conjunction with Defenders of Wildlife and numerous state and federal agencies, is a straightforward listing of 150 wildlife-viewing spots. Descriptions, directions, viewing tips and access information are given. The Humboldt guide, full of helpful maps and sketches, is a dry but exhaustively informative manual for the enjoyment of this lovely 51,000-acre park south of Eureka in far northern California.

THE NEW KEY TO COSTA RICA by Beatrice Blake and Anne Becher, 11th edition (Ulysses Press, $13.95 paper).

A completely revised and updated guide to one of the most popular travel destinations of the early ‘90s, including a “code of environmental ethics for nature travel” and ratings of the environmental sensitivity of various tourist facilities. Very well done.

SLOAN’S GREEN GUIDE TO ANTIQUING IN NEW ENGLAND: A Traveler’s Guide, 4th edition (1993-1994), edited by Susan P. Sloan (The Antique Press, $15.95 paper).

The new edition of this classic directory to antique shops and specialty stores (antiquarian bookshops, autograph dealers, backward-looking art galleries, even dealers in classic cars) in six New England states. Maps, an antique show calendar and a section on museum decorative arts collections.

FRENCH LEAVE ENCORE by Richard Binns (Chiltern House, $20 hardcover , includes surface mail postage when ordered from the publisher at Honeywood House, Avon Dassett, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV33 0AH, England; add $4 for air mail).

The highly opinionated Binns, who has little use for three-star restaurants and pretentious hostelries, offers the fourth edition of his idiosyncratic, well-researched guide to eating and sleeping all over France. Good sense of the country and trustworthy recommendations. Abbreviated descriptions of attractive routes and information on local foods are a bonus.

USA BY RAIL Plus Canada by John Pitt (Bradt, $15.95 paper).

Not a timetable, but descriptions of 25 major long-distance American trains (with notes on their facilities and brief sketches of their many stops), plus information on 20 additional trains in the U.S. and a number in Canada. One section lists still-extant steam trains--which, like this volume, are probably mostly of interest to rail buffs only.

THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO LAS VEGAS by Bob Sehlinger (Prentice-Hall, $12 paper).

An offbeat guidebook with an insider’s feel. (“Be forewarned that in most showrooms there is no rest room, and . . . it is not uncommon to start feeling a little pressure on the bladder minutes before showtime.”) Extremely detailed information on casinos, restaurants, sports facilities.

GOUSHA BUSINESS TRAVELER’S ATLAS by Christine Miles, Janet Bamford and Alice Huston (H.M. Gousha/Simon & Schuster, $12.95 paper); and GOUSHA TRUCKER’S ROAD ATLAS, written and edited by Will K. Balliett and f-stop (sic) Fitzgerald (H.M. Gousha/Simon & Schuster, $16.95 paper).

Gousha’s atlas for business travelers, flat enough to fit in a carry-on bag’s outside pocket, offers mini-guides to 35 major American business centers and 120 maps, many of which look suspiciously like the kind rental-car companies give away. (Routes between airports and train stations on one hand and downtown areas or business parks on the other are thus clearly marked.) Truckers get fewer city plans but more and larger state maps, with main and alternate routes prominently indicated. (City bypasses are also marked--useful even for the non-trucker.) A large appendix covers inspection sites, truck stops, updated state and federal regulations and stress-fighting tips.

FESTIVALS & OFFBEAT EVENTS AUSTRA- LIA by Chris and Karen Wyeth (Kangaroo Press/Seven Hills, $9.95 paper).

The Australians obviously like parties, and are obviously extremely inventive in thinking up excuses to have them on a grand scale. Thus the Campbelltown City Festival of Fisher’s Ghost (honoring a specter said to have appeared here in 1826), the Myall Prawn Festival and the Darwin Beer Can Regatta (featuring boats made out of same), among others. All these and more are included in this lively little book, as are countless music, food and wine festivals, ethnic carnivals and the like.

PLEASURES OF THE CANARY ISLANDS by Ann & Larry Walker (Wine Appreciation Guild, $12.95 hardcover).

The Canaries are a fascinating place, little-known to American travelers--an archipelago of volcanic islands (seven main ones and a handful of islets) that belong to Spain but are located off the coast of southern Morocco. Tacky high-rise hotels aside, the Canaries can be beautiful; they are home to four of Spain’s nine national parks. This slim, anecdote-salted volume is a good introduction--hardly an in-depth portrait, but a useful and amiable guide.