Fodor’s Is a Little on the Lite Side

FODOR’S EXPLORING CALIFORNIA by Mick Sinclair; FODOR’S EXPLORING FLORIDA by Emma Stanford; FODOR’S EXPLORING FRANCE by Adam Ruck; FODOR’S EXPLORING GERMANY by Lindsay Hunt and Michael Ivory; FODOR’S EXPLORING PARIS by Fiona Dunlop; FODOR’S EXPLORING ROME by Tim Jepson; FODOR’S EXPLORING SPAIN by Adam Hopkins, and FODOR’S EXPLORING THAILAND by Tim Locke, Gavin Lewis and Dick Wilson (Fodor’s Travel Publications, Inc., each $19 paper).

These first eight volumes in a new Fodor’s series, all of which bear the subtitle “The Complete Guide That Puts Discovery and Color Back into Travel,” are part Insight Guide (that being the popular and visually sophisticated series that first brought real color and atmosphere to travel guides) and part USA Today. Handsomely designed, with plenty of color photography, evocative little sketches, mini-maps, boxed micro-walking tours and asides of every kind, these books are fun to leaf through, to nibble at and sip, and convey at least a superficial sense of what each of their subject destinations is like. Look elsewhere, though, for serious background, thoughtful analysis, comprehensive description of sights and sites. (The two single-city guides, with about the same number of pages as the state and country guides, are obviously a bit more detailed.) By all means, have a look at these, and maybe take them along when you travel--but bring Lonely Planet, Cadogan or Michelin Green too. You’ve heard of traveling light? This is traveling lite.

SPECTRUM GUIDE TO KENYA, revised edition, compiled and edited by Camerapix (Hunter Publishing, Inc., $ 19.95 paper).

The small, Kenya-based Spectrum series--which thus far includes books on Pakistan, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and the Seychelles as well as on wildlife safaris in a number of African nations--recall the aforementioned Insight guidebooks, too, at least in their generous use of exquisitely reproduced and often stunning photographs. In the case of Kenya, it’s a good thing the images are as strong as they are, because the prose is bone-dry and as uninspiring as can be. The “Camerapix” whose byline the book bears is obviously not a word person. (In fact, it is the company which designs and produces the Spectrum guides.)

NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN LANDMARKS: A Traveler’s Guide by George Cantor (Visible Ink Press, $17.95 paper).

This is a well-researched, no-nonsense compilation of information about 300-plus Native American sites all over the U.S. (with a few in Canada)--from museums and cultural centers to battlegrounds, missions, pueblos, mound dwellings and petroglyphs and more. Brief background sketches are provided, as are maps and sketchy practical information. A foreword by “Indian activist Suzan Shown Harjo,” as she is described on the cover, addresses such questions as, “Do Indians still live in tipis?” and “Am I welcome in Indian country?” (“The short answer (to the latter question) . . .” writes Harjo, “is ‘yes’.”)

Quick Trips:

A SELECTION OF LONDON’S MOST INTERESTING PUBS by David Gammell (Woodfield, $9.95 paper). Dirty Dick’s, the Dog & Duck, the Hog in the Pound, the Old Wine Shades, the Water Rats and 65 more London pubs (not all with curious names, incidentally) are listed and described in this book--tiny enough to fit comfortably in the purse or pocket of any pub-crawler. Theatre pubs, literary pubs, Cockney pubs, even a drag pub (the New Black Cap) are included.

SWISS-BERNESE OBERLAND by Philip and Loretta Alspach (Intercon Publishing, $16.95 paper). An appealingly personal, if sometimes terse, guidebook to the many charms (from mountain views to ski facilities to wildflower fields) of a particularly beautiful Alpine region in southwest-central Switzerland.

100 HIKES IN THE ALPS, second edition, by Vicky Spring and Harvey Edwards (The Mountaineers, $14.95 paper). Recommended hikes in Alpine portions of Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, Germany and Liechtenstein, with just-the-facts information (and not particularly detailed maps) for each itinerary.