guide books

guide booksHey. Sorry this blog is so late. It's because NYU took us on a trip to the north of the country, and I got back late Sunday night. The trip was amazing, and I'll write it about it in my next open topic, if any of you are interested:)
I'm not sure if I am following this assignment exactly correctly, because the book I am writing about is actually a travel guide, not a read-through book. Although this definitely gives a different, probably generalized view of the place, I think it's interesting to look at in terms of defining the relationship between travel experiences and what we read. The specific book is called "the Rough Guide to Argentina."
I've often taken travel guides with me when I go to new places, but never before have I read one of these books from beginning to end. When I started reading this guide, it was my first time actually reading the beginning of a book like this. This was an interesting experience because I got to compare the book's introduction must-sees with what I already knew about this country after spending two months here. Like most travel books, the first twenty-or-so pages are all about what you can't miss. I was glad to find out that I had heard something about almost each one of these places, and had even been to a few of them. It also seemed strange to me the way it was written, not too focused on facts but rather on convincing the reader that such-and-such is spectacular, and YOU shouldn't miss this, because it will give you THIS feeling. I was surprised by how personal the writing was. On the one hand, this makes sense, but it's sort of strange to think about who is writing to you, and why you should believe them. With travel guides, we often put a lot of trust in the authors, even if we don't mean to. With this specific travel guide, the subjectivity of the author seemed especially obvious compared to say, a lonely planet guide. Normally, I would have chosen a lonely planet guide, but when I was on amazon, I figured I would try something new. The preview amazon provided of this "rough guide" book seemed nicely written and more personable than the lonely planet guide, so I chose it. Now that I've read it though, I realize why lonely planet guides are more successful (in my opinion)--guide books aren't made to be read from front to back, they aren't supposed to be interesting The "rough guide" is nice and helpful, but by being more interesting to read, it can't avoid having disorganized facts and information. I guess what I got from this experience is that I appreciate more organized, less interesting travel guides. The interesting stuff happens when you get there.