This is a good map of Costa Rica, though it promises a bit more than it can deliver.
The familiar blue-and-gold ‘National Geographic look’ come across attractively and clearly. The map details are, as expected, Spanish-language designations: for example, ‘Parque Nacional’ rather than ‘National Park’ and ‘Provincia’ rather than ‘Province’. Some of the ‘marginal’ text is either in English or in both Spanish and English. National Parks are highlighted helpfully and some ‘adventurous’ activities are signaled by an icon at the appropriate location. For example, a stylized surfer icon marks beaches where surfing is especially promising.
If that’s what you expect from an ‘aventure travel’ map, you’ll be pleased. If you expect more than this, then maybe not so much.
The level of detail is good for a map of a country that is roughly the size of the American state of West Virginia, splashed across the two sides of the map and labeled as ‘East’ and ‘West’. Elevation lines give an adequate sense for the topography of this largely mountainous country.
The paper is solid stock and at the same time flexible enough for quick unfolding and refolding. I find this characteristic better than the vast majority of maps of the region that I’ve seen. Yet National Geographic insists on claiming that the map is ‘waterproof’, which seems quite a stretch. If you attempt to stand under an umbrella and read this map during one of Costa Rica’s ‘aguaceros’ (= downpours), your ‘waterproof’ map will be toast. Thus, my claim about over-promising and under-delivering on what is otherwise a perfectly fine product.
The Costa Rican road system is constantly upgrading and degrading and the rhythm of this is difficult to predict, let alone to record on a paper map. Some reviewers have faulted this map for being out of date on that front. The non-local traveler in Costa Rica would be well advised never to count on a paper map for knowing whether this or that bridge was out, or this highway paved or unpaved. Costa Rica is simply not the place for a paper map to stay up to speed on such things, and this is not the fault of the product under review. Having said this, I find the map relatively reliable for road travel planning.
All in all, I like this map a lot. It fills a gap for getting the big picture of where I’m about to travel or where I’ve just driven in this inexhaustibly beautiful country, which deserves and repays scrutiny. I’ll just smile a bit at the ‘adventure travel’ and ‘waterproof’ marketing.
will get you thinking along those lines. Then you’ll need practice or another book.
It is principally a sustained reflection upon memory and how to remember well.
I believe the best way to employ this book is an as an ‘idea mine’. Scan it often and quickly for ideas that will jump start or add greater depth to your own genealogical inquiries. Even if only one of ten ideas pans out as worth pursuing, that’s a pretty good result.
True to its subject, the book is a gentle read. It invites the reader into to increasing levels of understanding of this odd people, The Amish. Though it brings to bear upon its topic social-scientific, historical, and religious-studies rigor, it does so with a profound respect for the Old Order Amish themselves. As a result, the Amish come into clearer focus as fellow human beings who have chosen a certain lifestyle in a world that offers them alternatives. Caricatures fade amid the careful instruction of the authors.
The strength of How to Read the Psalms, in my view, is the careful attention to the various genres or sub-genres of the psalms. It gives readers a doorway into an otherwise confusing morass of 150 poems. It draws on the best technical Psalms scholarship but it comes across to the reader as a helpful mentor rather than a technical geek. Longman also gives carefully selected and therefore helpfully illuminating examples from the Psalms themselves.
Canter Bridge 