Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel Summer 1998, $3.95
Armchair travel to exotic and expensive places is fine. But for many of us, vacations must fit within a cost-conscious, penny-pinching, real-world budget. No one knows that better than Arthur Frommer. Here, in tight, bright nuggets that quickly get to the point — and the bottom line — are the how-tos on renting a motor home in the Pacific Northwest for as little as $85 a night, or on staying in Costa Rica for less than $50 a night, or on finding all-inclusive spots where a whole week will run you no more than $700 or $800. This one shows the route maps of seven low-fare airlines (though, regrettably, it mentions nothing of their safety or dependability records), tells you how to tackle China without a group tour, and explains why you really can afford to go to Thailand, exotic as that sounds.
Travel & Leisure June 1998, $3.95
But enough of reality. In defense of dreaming, linger over the 50 most spectacular pools in the world. Then have a look at the Four Seasons’ “water villas,” which are built, like fishing piers, out over the shallows of the Indian Ocean, on the island of Kuda Huraa, in the Maldives. We won’t interrupt your reverie with prices. On sale until July 7.
VIDEO
London, City of Majesty
This is the London you don’t want to see, the one that whirs past through the curving glass of a moving vehicle, lingers over shop and pub signs, zooms in on tree branches and tells, in numbing detail, whose portraits hang in the National Gallery. This video, and the entry on Paris we’ll tell you about next, was created as one in a series of Museum City Videos, the idea being that each city would be presented through the eyes of its artists, architects and poets. Which makes it even more inappropriate that this focus on the English capital dwells at length on the “Arnolfini Wedding” portrait by the Flemish artist Jan van Eyck. Other titles: Paris, Florence, Rome, Barcelona, Vatican City, Seville, Venice, New York City. From View Video, $19.98. (212-674-5550)
Paris, City of Light
This is the Paris video we mentioned above. It is more organized than the London entry, and it does a better job of introducing Parisian sights through Parisian historical figures. We learn how landmarks such as Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame got built and how the Louvre, conceived as a palace, actually functioned as an art museum from the very beginning. You almost can’t do a piece on Paris without mentioning the Italian “Mona Lisa,” but this video presents its acquisition as part of the city’s history — in contrast to the van Eyck problem above. This video won’t inspire you to visit Paris, but if a trip is already in the works, it will help you better understand what you see once you get there. From View Video, $19.98. (212-674-5550)
BOOKS
“Deep South” (Lonely Planet, $19.95)
There is a place where Christian evangelism and Caribbean voodoo coexist, where genteel manners and wild parties live side-by-side, and lazy bayous and pulse-pounding jazz share the same address. That place is the American South, the Deep South, and Lonely Planet has captured it, contradictions and all, in this first edition. It covers Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi by giving advice on finding a cooking school in New Orleans, describing the burnt-out bus at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, and listing a museum in Ferriday, La., that’s devoted to the crazy-cousin trinity of Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley. But it’s best to stop filling the South’s kitchen sink when it’s full. Lonely Planet’s “bonus” material on Memphis and Nashville make it overflow.
“Oxford Archaeological Guides: Rome” (Oxford University Press, $17.95 each title)
Blame Caesar Augustus for the pecking order of theater seats. The tradition appears to have originated with Rome’s Theatre of Marcellus, a building project Augustus inherited from Julius. You have to really like this sort of information, really like diagrams and measurements, history’s jots and tittles, and inventories of what each room of a museum contains to appreciate this series of guidebooks. Consider this an investment in reference materials you’ll long hold on to. Other titles in the series include The Holy Land, Scotland and Spain.
“Knopf City Guides: Milan” (Alfred A. Knopf, $14.95 each)
You haven’t really gone shopping until you’ve done it on Via Monte Napoleone, “Montenapo” to it’s Gucci-booted patrons. Between the shiny silver covers of this info-bite guide, Milan becomes an assemblage of easy-to-digest lists: 75 restaurants, 48 sights, 42 things you need to know — heavy with pictures, phone numbers, maps and directions, light on cultural detail. The cataloglike design and gushy, shopper-ese prose raises a question as to whether the businesses listed have paid for the mention. But the book’s dimensions make it easy to carry in purse or pack, and its many maps — streets as silvery as the cover — are equally easy to decipher. Other titles in the series: Berlin, Lisbon, London, Madrid, New York, Paris.
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Toni Stroud’s e-mail address is tstroud@tribune.com
