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World Hotels - The Cities Book (General Pictorial)
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List Price: $50.00
Our Price: $31.50
Your Save: $ 18.50 ( 37% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.91732
EAN: 9781741047318
ISBN: 1741047315
Label: Lonely Planet
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 428
Publication Date: 2006-03-01
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Studio: Lonely Planet
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Editorial Reviews:
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Cities represent civilization and human achievement: they are bubbling microcosms of virtues and vices, vanguards of technology and creative pursuits, incubators of traditions and melting-pots of diversity. More than half the world's population now lives in cities, and for travellers they hold an endless fascination.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Unclear who the audience for this book is...
Comment: I was looking for a book that had a few great pictures of each city and a bit of commentary. I'm more than willing to overlook the commentary -- how could any 1 page of bullet-point text ever really capture a city? But the commentary is weak -- a bizarre mix of pseudo-hipness and hackneyed stereotypes that may have been apt 20 years ago (if ever).
What I found unforgivable are the pictures. The only explanation I can come up with is they let loose an amateur photographer with instructions to be "artistic". Poor-quality pictures included of Paris: The canvas canopy of a pizzeria, pastries, the underside of the Eiffel tower, a couple kissing in a cafe. Of Rome: The face of a statue, a blurry shot of a street, a slice of a colonnade, 2 men with the city in the background. Lisbon: A tram in a narrow street next to hanging laundry, 3 undistinguished houses, a woman in a window and a crowded beach.
I've spent time in many of the cities covered and can't fathom why they chose the photographs included. They don't capture the cities and they are not good stand-alone photos.
I was looking forward to an interesting read with some evocative pictures. I don't recognize most of the cities as depicted in the book -- including New York where I live. I strained to identify all but 1 of the pictures (close shot of 2 women in the subway, a blurry shot of 2 cabs, a painting in a gallery at MOMA and the Apollo Theater sign). A little New York nit: how can one of New York's "strengths" be Dean & DeLuca and a "weakness" be "the coffee". One can find any style of really great coffee in NYC -- and Dean & DeLuca has some of it.
The book has the feel of an 8th grade social studies textbook. With the odd commentary and bad photos -- completely grim.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Quality for its purpose
Comment: I feel that this book is fairly good quality for what (I believe) was intended of it. I have the Travel Book and was excited to purchase this book also. It is a beautiful coffee table book and many guests flip through it even though they already have before.
While I can agree with everyone's comments about the cities that are included. I find it completely ridiculous that people are whining about what cities are included. Its done, that book is published. Yes some great cities are left out, I have been to many of them. But Lonely Planet put together a decent list of cities, I am not sure that anyone would ever agree with the rankings. But the Title is "The Cities Book", the subtitle even says the best cities in the world, NOT the highest ranked/favorite cities. Its just showing readers a informative/pictorial narrative of A FEW of the world's best cities. You can find amazing cities all over the world. My advice to you find some of them, either in this book or on your own, and go visit them.
This book does give an excellent quick glance at these great cities, and thus serves its purpose.... 4 stars!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ranking Cities is a Fool's Task
Comment: Unexpected below par book from Lonely Planet. Fair to middling at best! I gave it one star overall. This book's purport to rank world cities is a fool's endeavor. The rankings are totally subjective and are based on opinion. I consider myself a well traveled individual, and unless one has personal knowledge of each city to be ranked, they can not provide a valid ranking of any one city as it compares to all the other ranked cities. Not a valid reference work, a non-scientific amalgamation of mere opinion; to be read by those with too much time on their hands. Thanks.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Skewed rating
Comment: Flipping through this book, I couldn't help but to have a feeling that, aside from the top 10 cities, the Lonely Planet city ratings are pretty skewed.
The majority of submissions are probably done by backpackers who sneer at the "orthodox" cities and find the "obscure" ones more "cool". In my opinion, Han Hoi (23) or Kathmandu (13) may be exotic to the unfamiliar eyes, but I fail to see how they are ranked much higher than Florence (24), Shanghai (48), or Delhi (60).
Some cities (no names mentioned) are simply, for the lack of more polite terms, wrecks, and yet they show up on the list in relatively high ranks. When evaluating the "goodness" of a city, stablity should be a pretty important criterion. But it is understandable how these young adventurous travellers who end up in these places would overlook this factor.
Not that I think they should exclude these "underdog" cities from making it to the list, but for the cities that already have a reputation, there are reasons that reputation is there in the first place. The evaluators should keep that in mind, and not let their passion cloud their judgement, whether be it for the sake of representation, political opinion, or simply to be different.
Another peeve of mine about this book, is that much better pictures could be used to represent certain cities. But I suppose sometimes Lonely Planet is really at the mercy of the same travellers for footage. This begs the question, would the lack of "good" pictures indicative of the lack of willing travelers? If so, does it have something to say about the skewness of the Lonely Planet ranking system?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Addictive Armchair Travel
Comment: Initially, I bought this book as a gift for my brother, but once I looked through it, I found it so hard to part with that I ended up buying one for myself too. Although it doesn't quite measure up to the sheer bliss that is Lonely Planet's The Travel Book, this sleek coffee table book is chock full of stunning photography and interesting trivia about 200 cities around the globe. Admittedly, the rankings are subjective (the order is based upon the results of an online survey), but the cities included in the book are very diverse, and one doesn't need to put much stock in the rankings to enjoy vicariously wandering through each city.
One thing I couldn't help but notice: since the book is geared toward tourism, it tends to whitewash the horrible conditions existing in some of the cities it describes, leading to rather silly-sounding descriptions such as "Strengths: lovely foliage; friendly people; excellent coffee...Weaknesses: rainy weather; expensive golfing; land mines; summary executions; boring food." Also, you can tell things are bad in a given city when it receives a Gold Star for "optimism."
With the holidays approaching, The Cities Book makes an excellent gift...and you may consider buying one for yourself.
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