Reviews (6)

This book saved my#$%!
This book is great.
When I was off to Romania . . .
. . . I found there was very little available in guidebooks.However, the Lonely Planet people did a good job with this difficult country.I appreciated the concise information, and I suppose it is a miracle they gathered as much info as they did!

The best available tourist guide for Moldova
As mentioned by other reviewers, there is very little useful information in English for visitors to Moldova. Most of what one can find are overly negative (and overly biased) media reports and dry, "CIA Factbook"-type descriptions.
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Subjects:  1. Europe - General    2. Former Soviet Republics    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign    5. Moldova (Moldavia)    6. Romania    7. Travel & holiday guides   

Reviews (19)

Read the book in the country - a hilarious account!
Having just traveled through Moldova on a cycling trip through Eastern Europe, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to read this whilst staying at the one and only hostel in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.
good preparation for a visit to Moldova
Without this book - I would surely have fallen down a manhole! As soon as I finished reading I added a head torch to my equipment list! I knew I was about to visit for 6 months and found the book fantastic preparation - whilst also being gut-wrenchingly funny. I have a massive collection of photographs of open manholes if anyone wants proof of the authenticity of this particular aspect of life in Moldova.
Laugh out loud funny
Having met a Moldovan at work and realising I knew nothing of the place, I typed in Moldova into Amazon's search engine and found this book.
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Subjects:  1. Europe - Ireland    2. General    3. Travel    4. Travel - General   

Subjects:  1. Europe - Eastern    2. Russia    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign    5. Eastern Europe    6. Travel & holiday guides    7. Travel / Europe / Eastern   

Subjects:  1. 1890-1976    2. Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions    3. Exhibition Catalogs    4. Exhibitions    5. Individual Photographer    6. Photo Essays    7. Photography    8. Photography, Artistic    9. Strand, Paul,    10. Egypt    11. Ghana    12. Italy    13. Morocco    14. Photographs: collections    15. Photography / Travel    16. Places & peoples: general interest    17. Romania    18. Scotland   

Features

• Bargain Price

Reviews (7)

The politics of an Obsession
I loved this book. It was honest, although at times it did teeter on the pretentious. I'm not sure if there really was a valid point to his parallel tale of Romania's last king and mistress and Benderson's affair with the his Romanian hustler. Perhaps Benderson was just trying to displace some of his guilty feelings over exploiting a poor and desperate young man. By the end it really doesn't matter - his rose tinted glasses are off and it's all just grime, grit as dirty as uncut diamonds. I came to realize that everyone is an accomplice in their own undoing.
A smart director would snatch up the rights
I am straight and was wonderfully surprised how "The Romanian" depicted facets of my own love life and how Benderson's relationship with his mother was similar --the same suffocating control and tenderness. Benderson jolts us right out of our outdated heterosexual and homosexual bourgeois notions. Whether it is his mother or a shameful street hustler, Benderson is only too aware that we are all flawed; that we are only all too human. A shocker for sure but almost right from the beginning, we stop judging and start to search, along with Benderson, deep into our own souls.
Beautiful
While I may like this book partly because I know its main locale, anyone who has ever loved a person or a place with pain, obsessed, fantasized, felt exiled, or contemplated history and fate, will find this a fascinating read. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Benderson, Bruce    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Description And Travel    4. Gay Studies    5. Gay men    6. Homosexuality    7. Personal Memoirs    8. Relations with men    9. Romania    10. Social Science    11. Sociology    12. Travel    13. Travelers    14. Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs    15. Bargain   

Reviews (10)

Great guide. Good in depth and practicle information
It was a very helpfull book. A lot of info about everything from accomodation, restorands, sites and history.
OK info, bad organization
The information is not organized in a user-friendly manner.I bought this guide and the Lonely Planet, and basically did not use the Rough Guide because it's not differentiated by category.

Excellent Travel Guide to a Rustic and Charming Land
I highly recommend this Rough Guide book and second the vote on previous review about this being the best travel guide to Roumania.
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Subjects:  1. Europe - Eastern    2. Former Soviet Republics    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign    5. Travel Guides    6. Romania    7. Travel & holiday guides    8. Travel / Europe / Eastern   

Reviews (2)

A Small Gem About a Small Country
I'm so glad I read Lost Province before going to work in Moldova last year. This book is about living with a Moldovan family and it really makes you feel how Molodovan people live and act. I also read Charles King's The Moldovans, which is great for the history but is kind of a college-course book. Tony Hawks is funny, but only about half the book is about Moldova and his book is really about being an English guy who doesn't understand the rest of the world. Lost Province is about Moldovans. It shows you how hard their lives are and why they act like they do. Henighan is great at connecting the little things that happen in a family with the big picture. His take on the language issues is very influenced by the fact that he's Canadian, which is a bit weird at first, but once you get used to it, it's kind of interesting. I remembered Dora and Senya and Andrei for a long time after reading Lost Province, and when I got to Chisinau, Moldova I kept meeting people like them over and again. Moldova is a small country, but it deserves a small gem of a book like Lost Province.

Vastly disappointing as well as annoying
Stephen Henighan begins by telling us that he was working on his doctoral thesis at Oxford.One would hope after introducing himself in this way that his writing would be better.It is not.It is uneven at best.Actual writing ability aside, the book is unbelievably pretentious.The author has a world view so narrow that it precludes his ability to describe Moldova in any way that is essentially meaningful.
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Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Europe - Eastern    3. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    4. Former Soviet Republics    5. Henighan, Stephen,    6. Languages    7. Moeurs et coutumes    8. Moldavie    9. Moldova    10. Social life and customs    11. Travel    12. Travel - General    13. Travel / Europe / Eastern   

Subjects:  1. Romania    2. Travel / road maps & atlases   

Reviews (2)

This is the real thing:NOT a "pseudo-Romanian" writer!
Francine Prose's blurb says it all:check it out on the inside cover of this book.THR is a multi-layered memoir that does not always proceed in chronological fashion.This story of a Romanian exile's return to his homeland is more substantial and real than Romanian-born writer Andrei Codrescu (who changed his surname from Perlmutter to "Codrescu," probably to appear more exotic in the US).When Norman Manea fears encountering the staff at the Intercontinental Hotel in Bucharest, he has REAL reason to, unlike the poseur "Codrescu," who likes to fancy himself a revolutionary. In 1992, Manea penned a controversial essay on M. Eliad, a conflicted man whose relations with Romania's ultranational Iron Guard caused him much intrapersonal conflict.Manea also blew the whistle then on the RO community in chicago where a significant community of IG sympathizers still carry the flame today.In fact, he intimates, there may yet be a connection between the IG/Chicago Legionnaires and the Securitate in RO even today.Dangerous stuff even in these enlightened times some 60+ years later after the changing of the fascist/communistic guard in RO.Debates of this type go on in all eastern European countries, as they begin to sort thru their messy post-fascist/post-communist pasts;combine this with the added and ironical baggage of having many former Party leaders morph into "democratic" leaders.Absurdity never dies.Manea inspires his readers to delve into the works of other RO writers like Cioran, Paul Celan, I. Culianu, Petru Cretia...so Francine Prose sums things up neatly with her observation that "THR operates on so many levels that finally, it eludes all classification."Well said.

A great autobiography
This is a wonderful, if difficult book. It cronicles the author's life. Norman Manea suffered from both the Holocaust and Communism. Being Jewish, he and his family were deported during the Second World War to a concentration camp set up by Romania's fascist regime (General Ion Antonescu, Hitler's ally) in Transnistria, where several hundred thousand Jews were imprisoned and died in horrible circumstances. Luckily he survived the KZ and returned to Romania. Later on, when he had become a writer, he was declared enemy of the state and a 'hooligan' by Romania's Communists, because he had dared criticize the antisemitic government in an article. (Another fascinating Romanian-Jewish writer, Mihail Sebastian (see his Jurnal) was described as a 'hooligan' by antisemits in a literary scandal back in the 30's - the term has deep connotations for Manea). His relationship to his homeland remained troubled even after he left Romania in the 80's, settling down in New York as a professor for literature (he teaches at Bard College). Although he is one of Romania's best writers, his country's literary elite treats him with a certain embarassment. He can be compared in this respect to Imre Kertesz's relationship with Hungary.Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Biography    3. Biography & Autobiography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Biography/Autobiography    6. Childhood Memoir    7. Childhood and youth    8. Concentration camps    9. Literary    10. Manea, Norman    11. Novelists, Romanian    12. Personal Memoirs    13. Romania    14. Romanian Americans    15. Romanian Literature    16. Travel   

Subjects:  1. Travel / road maps & atlases   

Subjects:  1. Romania    2. Travel / road maps & atlases   

Reviews (4)

Worth Reading
I would like to thank Petru Popescu for writing this book and for so openly sharing his experiences of, and feelings about, life in Romania.Having several Romanian friends and acquaintances,Popescu's book filledin a lot of blanks for me, and answered questions that have sometimesproven much too painful for my friends to answer.I have researchedRomania's communist and recent history fairly extensively in the course ofmy work, and have not come across anything that has been as informative ona personal level as The Return.Other reviewers here have noted thatPopescu comes across as a bit full of himself. I agree.On page 220 henotes that his wife, whom he obviously loves very much, has been"imprinted by motherhood, but (is) still thin."(If my husbandpaid me a compliment like that, I would throw all of his clothes out on thelawn.Who "imprinted" her, exactly? ) He also informs the readerthat he is talented, published, filmed, televised, well-known, flies firstclass, owns a Mercedes,resides in the 90210 zip code, and has enjoyedmany a sexual escapade to boot.While Popescu may lack modesty and hiswomanizing may strike some readers as a bit disturbing, this book is worthreading. Popescu has spared nothing in displaying the details of hishumanity both within and apart from communism.It is a story that shouldbe heard.

A Haunting Look Back
The images are vivid and many lives are captured in Popescu's book.Wefind in his 'return' the return we must all make.

The banality of tyranny/evil; the process of self redemption
There were two components of this book that decreased its emotional impact and its potential i.e. : (1) itseasy going American Apple Pie style and (2) the time spent on wallpapering personal insecurity with self accomplishment.Here is a man who is trying to put his Self together after living through the mental aberrations as well as the physical and spiritual confinement ofCommunism. Moreover, first he has inherited, into his very `genetic' makeup,the ghost of Romania past ( its senseless barbarism, its deviant Fascism, its glorious struggle, its bickering and Balkan feuding, its honor and genteel socialization) transferred through stories from his relatives & their personal family history, second he has had to attain his manhood in a dysfunctional family and third, after defection to & wanderings in the garden of the American dream, he marries the post war daughter of Shoah survivors. All these elements are set with a backdrop ofRomanians who, as a people/culture, cannot look truths in the eye and seek redemption. A setting for a tale of character development and self discovery par excellence!So much for potential! If one mentally subtracts the `style' and the `wallpaper' impediments out of this book then one is left with a picture of Romania the country/the people, the day to day impact of Communism, the scary banality of tyranny & evil and the subsequent process of deifying the tyrant. Food for thought! Food for thought! I only wish I could also have had the tale of personal redemption too! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Authors, Exiled    3. Authors, Romanian    4. Biography    5. Biography / Autobiography    6. Biography/Autobiography    7. Emigration & Immigration    8. Literary    9. Refugees    10. Romania    11. Romanian authors    12. Social Science    13. Travel    14. United States    15. Journeys    16. Popescu, Petru   

Reviews (1)

Romanian Phrase Book Review
this might be a good guide for visiting Romania as it gives good tips on how to get through customs, hotel, dining, etc.However, it does not really teach you in a systematic way how to speak Romanian.I amparticularly interested in learning how to speak Romanian with my fiance'.This book gives you a lot of phrases, but if the one you want is not inthere (and finding it could be a problem) it is difficult to put agrammatically correct phrase together on your own. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Dictionaries    2. Foreign Language - Dictionaries / Phrase Books    3. Polyglot Phrasebooks    4. Reference - General    5. Romance Languages    6. Travel    7. Language & Linguistics    8. Language self-study & phrasebooks    9. Romanian   

Reviews (5)

LP are the best guides
The previous review is slightly mistaken about the area this book covers. The reason they dont have Transylvania mentioned on the cover is because the book covers Romania and also the seperate country of Moldova. So none of the regions of Romania are mentioned on the cover and the title as shown is accurate. Anyway, the book is great, I travelled around in the company of a Moldovan who was also impressed by the book. The only places it falls down are the details, and I can forgive this as the country is changing rapidly as it heads towards membership of the EU. Lonely Planet always impresses me.
This book came in handy during my entire stay in Romania. It also pointed out little known monuments. This is definitely a comprehensive book on many levels...I wonder why they left out Transylvania on the cover though. Buy this if you have NO friends in Romania yet.
I found the author's tone supercilious and condescending, and the people I met and places I visited MUCH more warm and inviting than this book would suggest.The only place I found people a little "snotty" in the whole country was Bucharest - and they were nicer than the average Manhattanite, that's for sure!Your ideas about poverty and wealth WILL be challenged, your sense of humor will be expanded and thoroughly spanked, and if you don't try to buy everything that isn't for sale (or haggle over already [low] prices) you'll be amazed at how generous people are, too.Yes there are tourist traps galore, with inflated prices and rotten service, but not nearly as many as in say, the average coastal town in Maine. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Europe - Eastern    2. Europe - General    3. Former Soviet Republics    4. Travel    5. Travel - Foreign    6. Moldova (Moldavia)    7. Romania    8. Travel & holiday guides   

Subjects:  1. Photo Essays    2. Photoessays & Documentaries    3. Photography    4. Subjects & Themes - Portraits    5. Subjects & Themes - Travel - World/Europe    6. AIDS (Disease) in children    7. Photography & Photographs    8. Photography / General    9. Photography of children    10. Pictorial works    11. Romania   

Reviews (6)

There Are Better Books Out There
I was disappointed with this book.I found it to be mostly out of date and very dry and difficult to get through.It also is missing a key part of any guide book: a map.I thought the illustrations were very poorly done... just childish line drawings where photographs would've been much better.I'd say skip this one and get the lonely planet one instead.

excellent synthesis
After almost 7 years living in Romania I finally got round to reading this book and was bowled over by it. In many ways it is a better introduction to Romania that reading a conventional history of the country. Very informative and so much condensed so well. Lively and stimulating. Of course there are occasional inaccuracies and Romanians would detect more but it vastly outclasses the other guide books. Every visitor to Romania should read this book. But one caveat. The index is so disgraceful that whoever compiled it should immediately find another career

The best guide book introduction to the arts and culture of Romania
I cannot see how, from any standpoint, this book can be construed as "misleading and a danger," "disturbing," or "badly written"! Quite the contrary is true.
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Subjects:  1. Europe - Austria    2. Europe - Eastern    3. Travel    4. Travel - Foreign   

Editorial Review

His mother was German and the father he didn't know was a Romanian Jew. And at the age of 50, shortly after his mother's death and long after his absent father's, Ted Simon embarks on a 1,500-mile journey (mostly by foot), covering the lands between his mother's Germany and his father's Romania, discovering as much about his paternal ambivalence as he does about the cultures and realities of Eastern Europe. The book is a fine example of the travelogue, with humor, evocative description, and a poignant inner journey as interesting and well-explored as his Romanian-bound route. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

This is the honest and luminous prose of a natural writer.
I love Ted Simon's writing for his honesty, integrity, his luminous descriptions of people and places, his empathy, revealing of his inner thoughts and his philosophy of life. He makes you wish you were half asgood. I'd walk to the Arctic Circle with him tomorrow. Eagerly awaitingmore.

One of the best travel books...
I have read quite a few travel books, and this one is one of the best, by far. When you try to describe to someone a chapter you have just read, you realize that there is not much action to convey, but what he does leave youwith is an amazing insight into his and other peoples emotions. A great read for a journey through Eastern Europe
I am an American student living in Vienna for four months and travellingthroughout Central Europe.I've read many travel books during my trip andfound Simon's to be one of the best.Simon's walk through Central Europeprovides the reader with a better understanding of the region and itspeople while also challenging the individual to find morein his or herdaily experiences. Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th Century Description And Travel    2. Description    3. Description and travel    4. Eastern Europe    5. Essays & Travelogues    6. Europe - General    7. Europe, Eastern    8. Simon, Ted    9. Travel    10. Travel - General    11. Journeys    12. Travel / General   

Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Peasantry    3. Romania    4. Social life and customs   

Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Romania    3. Soviet Union    4. World War, 1914-1918   

Reviews (1)

Much practical info
Just came back from a few days hiking in the Piatra Craiului in Romania. Unfortunately I had three days of non-stop rain so I wasn't able to do any of the hikes from the guide that are on top of the ridge of the mountain. Instead I walked a few routes below the tree line. I did find the general info in the book very useful. It tells you about train travel, accomodation, mountain huts (cabanas), equipment, flora and fauna, useful words and phrases and useful addresses. Besides this guide I would also bring a detailed map of the area where you're hiking. The maps in the guide are too small and lack detail in case you want to trot outside the marked routes. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Europe - Eastern    2. Hiking    3. Sports    4. Travel    5. Travel - Foreign    6. Climbing & mountaineering    7. Romania    8. Travel & holiday guides    9. Walking, hiking, trekking