AA Great Cities of the World - AA Publishing

Advantages: Bright, colourful, great pics, good text
Disadvantages: £12.99 less to spend on Rum!!

...I must admit, I wouldn't instinctively turn to the AA (Automobile Association) when it comes to guide books, especially not one for the Caribbean! However, the AA do produce a good range (300 or more) of guidebooks, and the Explorer series is really rather good. Softback, handy travel bag size (not pocket), around 300 pages of a mixture of text, full colour photographs and useful maps. This book covers all the major islands including: Anguilla, Antiga, Aruba, Barbados, Barbuda, Bonaire, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Grenadines, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinque, Montserrat, Nevis, Puerto Rico, Saba, St. Croix, St. John, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Martin, St. Thomas, St. Vincent, Tortola and Trinidad & Tobago. Whilst perhaps each island could command a book in itself, this is a great introduction... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Beautifully illustrated and tough.
Disadvantages: A bit higgledy-piggledy

...section dividers with tabs to make finding each section easy. If like me you head for the travel guide section when you are in a bookshop, you will know what I mean, as these are a bit of a trademark for the AA Key Guide series. There are a great many maps (more about them later) and a high picture to text ratio. The durability of the book is in part due to its cover, a sort of reinforced paperback. But looks are not everything, what about substance? For this, I will take you through the book section by section and judge each one according to my experience of it. ~Introduction~ **************** The book starts with a 38 page introduction to the city comprising general, historical and background information about the city. This is the part I spent some time reading before leaving and it was an adequate introduction to the city, with links... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Stunning insights into unknown places
Disadvantages: Could do without the laddish element

...Not being a Times reader, and even if I were: not being a TV or restaurant critique reader, I may never have come across A.A. Gill - except maybe via Jeremy Clarkson (in whom I take a shameful juvenile delight!). Mr Gill, I'm sure, is suitably albeit insignificantly pleased that I came to his words without his friend & sometime co-author's assistance. Jeremy, I'm equally sure, couldn't give a whatsit. "AA Gill is away" is a collection of traveller's tales from the years 1995 to 2001. As reproduced magazine pieces they are necessarily short, and self-contained. They are, to steal a word from my musician friends, tight. They are full of humour and rancour and personal insight and - just occasionally - incomprehension. They are unapologetically personal, political, take-it-or-leave-it-this-is-my-take-on-it journalism. And some... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful