PICK OF THE WEEK
“Rush Hour French”
(Berlitz, $21.95)
I’ve had this song in my head for three mornings in a row. It’s all about “Are you hungry?” and “How’s the weather?” and “What time is it?” Pretty silly stuff. But the thing is, I’m answering those questions in another language. This series from Berlitz takes the drudgery out of recorded foreign-language lessons and makes learning fun by setting the words to music. The Rush Hour program packs two CDs and a 112-page booklet in a sturdy case. You can just listen, just read or do both at the same time by following the recording’s script in the book. The system puts into practice what the Sesame Street crowd has known all along: Music makes it easier to learn. Although the tunes aren’t Top 40 material–they don’t compete with “Volare” or “La Vida Loca”–they are catchy, again in a Sesame Street sort of way. They stick in your head, and before you know it: “J’ai faim,” “Il fait beau” and “Il est trois heures.” Also available in Spanish. (ISBN 2-8315-7714-4)
MAPS
The Road Atlas 2001
(Rand McNally, $10.95)
This 2001 edition has a subtitle: “United States, Canada & Mexico.” They might have saved themselves a page in the printing, though, for that’s the extent of its Mexico content. It is a continual failing of “North American” road atlases in general that the entire nation of Mexico gets crammed onto a single page–in this case, a page measuring 11-by-15 inches that includes Mexico, plus insets of Puerto Rico and Mexico City and a mileage chart; plus all of Belize, most of Guatemala and Texas; parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Honduras; and pertinent portions of the Pacific, the Gulf and the Caribbean. Even if someone doesn’t intend to drive in Mexico, it would be nice to be able to locate more than a handful of cities. But this atlas is more than a collection of road maps; it offers additional features in return for your $11–if you have no interest in Mexico. There’s a guide to highway construction zones and phone numbers to call for updates (for the U.S. and Canada but not Mexico); a list of toll roads and prices (for the U.S. and Canada but not Mexico, even though Mexico does have toll roads); a weather chart (for the U.S and Canada but not Mexico); and a directory of events and tourism phone numbers (for the U.S. and Canada but not Mexico). The atlas also comes with a card of colorful see-through stickers–arrows and starbursts and such–you can use to customize the map; and they can be removed and used again and again. Without overlapping any of the stickers, there’s enough to cover all of Mexico except Baja. (ISBN 0-528-84286-2)
Cognoscenti: New York City
(Cognoscenti Map Guides, $7.95)
If you are young enough to buy your underwear at Religious Sex, hip enough to drop by Meow Mix for a drink and naive enough that you must be cautioned to dress warm for winter–all of which this map-guide recommends–then maybe you can make it all the way through the 56 inches worth of tiny, thin black letters printed on slate-blue background that presumably describe New York City’s museums, galleries and attractions. If you go blind in the attempt, just remember, oh thou young-and-hip, I warned you. Unfolded, this thing measures 17 1/4-by 32 1/2 inches. But only a quarter of its two-sided surface is actually a map of Manhattan. That’s too bad because the map is the most informative of this guide’s several elements. The map, for instance, points out the Langston Hughes House and the Masjid Malcolm Shabbaz mosque, with phone numbers for each. I’ve never seen another New York map include those sights. It shows Herman Melville’s birthplace and even the entrance to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. But for a guide series that named itself for the cognoscenti–that is, people “who are especially knowledgeable in a subject”–it does seem to waste precious space stating the obvious: “The New York Times is a prestigious daily” newspaper, for example, and New Year’s Eve 2000 is “scheduled as an all-day, all-night party.” (I could read those parts because the tiny letters on that side of the guide were printed on a cream-colored background.) Fortunately, Cognoscenti’s guides for Paris, Chicago and Amsterdam are easier to read, none of that black-on-blue stuff. (888-COGNOS; or at www.cognoscentimapguides.com)
SKI GUIDES
“Winter Trails: Michigan”
(Globe Pequot, $14.95)
The Harlow Lake Ski Trail is about 6 miles long and “takes in part of a dog sled trail. Otherwise,” says the guide, “there’s no one here but skiers and snowshoers.” This particular trail is in Little Presque Isle State Forest Recreation Area at Marquette, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. And its description goes on to recommend warming hut and lodging strategies as well as what to eat: pasties, which, “for the uninitiated, are enclosed meat pies” and the unofficial dish of the Upper Peninsula. Each of the book’s 42 trails are similarly described in detail, and with the enthusiasm only a winter-sports aficionado can muster. Each entry also is accompanied by a topographical map with trails outlined; mile-by-mile written directions; information about surface quality, terrain and degree of difficulty; and local phone numbers. Small icons reveal at a glance whether the trail is open to cross-country skiers, ice skiers or snowshoers. Trails throughout Michigan are included. The book’s subtitle, by the way, is “The Best Cross-Country Ski & Snowshoe Trails.” (ISBN 0-7627-0304-0)
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Contact Resourceful Traveler in care of Toni Stroud at tstroud@tribune.com.
