Rough Guide To Arabic Cafe, The - Various Artists

Advantages: great selection, good variety
Disadvantages: somehow mistitled, mostly traditional stuff

...Rough Guide, best known for their budget travel guides, has been steadily expanding in other areas, and has been responsible for quite a few musical "guides" over the years. This 1998 album, marketed as "Rough Guide to the Music of Eastern Europe", does pretty much exactly what is says on the package: provides quite a wide ranging overview of folk and (occasionally) folk-inspired music of Eastern Europe. This is an album that pretty much started my liking for "world music" coming from my part of the world, and despite its age it remains a good compilation which really does showcase the variety of what's on offer quite well. One thing that this "Rough Guide" album needs is perhaps a better definition of what is considered Eastern Europe: this is a surprisingly woolly category (I always remember somebody commenting than Poland... Read review

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Advantages: Great restauraunt recommendations, useful price guides etc
Disadvantages: Maps not great, little short of detail

...you can only do if you know where you are! So we ended up hopelessly lost and wandering the streets of Rome with luggage! Which would have been fine but the maps in the Rough Guide are, most definately, rough! If you have to rely on them alone for any length of time, take a compass! It is impossible to know which direction on a road you are going for hundreds of metres because the little roads aren't named - very frustrating! Eventually we found our hotel (not mentioned in the guide so can't tell you if their hotel reviews are accurate I'm afraid), and collapsed exhausted after our long walk! The next morning we set off to see the sights armed with the book and a better map courtesy of our hotel! The descriptions of the colloseum, vatican, panthenon, roman forum and various museums provided a good starting point for a tour. They give... Read review

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Advantages: Chatty, friendly style. Informative
Disadvantages: Not a technical 'manual'

...terms of disadvantages, if you want an all-singing, all-dancing 'technical manual' with photos and diagrams, this isn't for you. I'd recommend The Rough Guide to Pregnancy and Birth highly and if you're about to join the Kid Club you'd be well served in picking up a copy. NB - I have reviewed the 2nd Edition, 2006.... Read review

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