Library

Price: $22.95

ISBN: 1400013895

Summary: Fodor’s "see it London" is perfect for travelers who want to understand local history and English culture before they arrive, and experience the city like a native londoner while they’re there.

Overflowing with brilliant color photography, this is the ONLY illustrated guide that provides the practical information that you need while traveling–complete restaurant and hotel reviews with exact prices for lodging and dining (not ranges), plus time-saving tips and how to avoid crowds, exact admission prices to key sights, great photo stops, and special notes on “kid-friendly” attractions throughout.

Hotels
Our detailed reviews represent the best accommodations in London, in all price ranges. From five-star luxury hotels to low-budget hostels, we’ll tell you what to expect in terms of price and quality through extensive coverage of hotels and their surrounding neighborhoods, exact prices of double-occupancy rooms (including breakfast), plus pictures of hotel facilities and guestrooms.

Restaurants
If you want to experience the best that London has to offer, pay particular attention to our outstanding restaurant coverage that will help you choose from the thousands of local eateries that cater to every budget and dining experience. From affordable bistros in Sohoto places where you can splurge on a romantic and stylish dinner at" Hakkasan"–you’ll find it in "see it London". Each review covers house signature dishes, ambiance, actual prices for a two-course lunch and a three-course dinner (for two people), hours of operation, and what transportation will get you there.

The Sights
Whether you want to start your day with a sunrise walk across the Millenium Bridge or a nice leisurely boat trip down the Thames and end the day with a pint at a pub or afternoon tea at the Ritz, "see it London "will take you there. Accessibly written to help you navigate throughout the city without missing a thing, each attraction includes exact admission prices, what galleries and museums not to miss, and where to stop for quick bites and refreshing drinks along the way. Sights are also rated for their “value”, “walkability”, “historic and cultural interest”, plus we suggest fantastic “photo stops” and entertaining and age-appropriate “kid-friendly” attractions throughout the book.

What to Do?
Our shopping walks will lead you to cutting-edge fashions to fit all budgets, from hip streetwear to expensive fashions for your feet. But, London has much more to offer than just sight-seeing and shopping. Fodor’s "see it London" provides insider information on classical, theatrical, and cinematic performances, London’s music scene (live jazz to underground youth centres), nightlife, spectator and activity sports, health and beauty spas, festivals and events, and a special section on “Children’s London”.

Atlas and Maps
Detailed neighborhood maps are incorporated throughout the book to help you navigate on historic walks, shopping tours, or to find a restaurant. Plus, a 16-page atlas details each road and path with highlights of important landmarks, parks, metro stations, and car parking areas.

Fodor’s see it™
A brand-new series that shows you before you go, guides you while you’re there, and makes the perfect keepsake on your return.

Price: $30.00

ISBN: 0684844168

Summary: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frances FitzGerald ("Fire in the Lake") offers a history of the politics surrounding American antiballistic missile technology. She focuses most of her account, appropriately, on President Reagan's efforts to establish a Strategic Defense Initiative (popularly known as "Star Wars") to provide the United States with umbrella-like protection from nuclear attack. FitzGerald, like many of her fellow Reagan detractors, is relentlessly critical of this initiative. Her book, in fact, is partly a psychobiography of the 40th president. She makes the familiar claim that Reagan's acting career had a profound effect on how he governed. Yet she takes it a step further by arguing that specific movies had a deep influence on his political decisions. "SDI was surely Reagan's greatest triumph as an actor-storyteller," she writes, and goes on to suggest that Reagan was favorably disposed to spending billions on ABM technology because, in the 1940 film "Murder in the Air", he played a secret agent assigned to protect a new weapon "capable of paralyzing electrical currents and destroying all enemy planes in the air."
Although much of "Way Out There in the Blue" covers recent history, the controversial debate over missile defense continues today. An epilogue covers developments in the 1990s and mentions a pair of successful tests that occurred in 1999. Yet FitzGerald remains a skeptic, believing a workable ABM system is too complex, too expensive, and too easy to defeat. Conservatives will chafe at her condescending appraisal of Reagan; liberals will appreciate her aggressive attacks on a defense strategy they have never liked. "--John J. Miller"

Price: $16.95

Edition: Updated

ISBN: 0932212883

Summary: I found much of this "Casebook," as I see it very illuminating, with regard to the sinking of the Fitzgerald.

What I liked were the text reports from the Coast Guard and the Lake Carriers Association, along with the statistics and other official information. This goes a long way toward fitting in with what Stonehouse writes, in terms of his own experience as a diver.

The interview excerpts were also interesting, with some questions that needed to be asked.

While I understand Stonehouse's views on the Coast Guard, and how they were obviously not prepared, this does not mean that under the circumstances they are inept.

Look at the situation: The Fitzgerald's captain knew he was in trouble. While he did not panic, he signalled the Arthur Anderson that he needed help, that he had a list, had lost two vents and was taking on water. He also slowed down to make sure someone was close.

McSorley also made a run for it, the only thing he could have done. In those terrible seas, he could not have stopped, could not have relied on the Anderson's crew, and no doubt knew the Coast Guard did not have the means to make a rescue at sea. He did what he had to do, and I'd have done exactly the same.

I do hope the Guard is better prepared, especially now, with year round sailing and those thousand foot tubs.

Stonehouse does point out some very important points...those boats needed waterright bulkheads, better mandated rescue gear and equipment such as EPIRBs. I'm no sailor, and I don't know for sure, but I hope that stuff is now on those boats.

One other little PS: Stonehouse sails as close as he can get without libeling an author named Jay Gourlay, who postulated in various books and on an old "In Search Of" program that as there is no set verdict, no possibilities can be dropped. So, in his head, UFOs are possible.

Please...first of all, there was no UFO activity over the lakes, and if there was, how could anyone tell?

Overall, a good sobering read.