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Women's Fiction
My Love Affair with England: A Traveler's Memoir

My Love Affair with England: A Traveler's Memoir

List Price: $12.00
Your Price: $9.00
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Be warned
Review: I won't quibble with the reviewers who obviously adore the book, but I should say it didn't grab the Anglophile in me the way Bill Bryson's "Notes From A Small Island" did. I picked it off the bookstore shelf a few weeks before traveling to England for the first time, and the perspective she offered was too narrow to help me learn about the country.

If you can travel often and run around chasing ghosts and gardens, you may get more out of it than I did.

And prospective readers should be warned that she includes a description of a, um, romantic encounter that includes details I really didn't need to know. I actually put it down a few pages later and never got back to it.

(Then again, some folks will find that section full of practical advice!)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A Good Companion for Armchair Traveling
Review: If you're dreaming of seeing England but won't make it this year, pick up this cleverly written little book instead. Susan Toth's witty, conversational tone makes for an easy, enjoyable read. But don't confuse it with a travel book. This is instead a journal of Ms. Toth's many trips abroads from her adventurous back-packing with a friend at age 20 to the disastrous honeymoon with her first husband to her exploration of gorgeous gardens with her second husband. Reading this book is akin to traveling with a good friend and sharing likes and dislikes.

However, the England that Susan Toth really loves is the countryside and not the bustling London. If London is your heart's desire, you might be better off with another choice. Ms. Toth is not one to stand in line to view the Crown Jewels, but she will take you to memorable sheep dog shows or on a badger hunt. My favorite chapters were those she did set in London and its environs when she was teaching a class abroad. She definitely whetted my appetite for travel with her allusions to the places dear to Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and other literary figures.

This is a book to put you in the mood for England, a diary-like remembrance of her many trips to a country she loves. But it alone won't help you plan a trip there. For more on London proper for the book-lover, I would suggest "Mystery Reader's Walking Guide:London" by Alzina Stone Dale and Barbara Sloan Hendershott.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A Good Companion for Armchair Traveling
Review: If you're dreaming of seeing England but won't make it this year, pick up this cleverly written little book instead. Susan Toth's witty, conversational tone makes for an easy, enjoyable read. But don't confuse it with a travel book. This is instead a journal of Ms. Toth's many trips abroads from her adventurous back-packing with a friend at age 20 to the disastrous honeymoon with her first husband to her exploration of gorgeous gardens with her second husband. Reading this book is akin to traveling with a good friend and sharing likes and dislikes.

However, the England that Susan Toth really loves is the countryside and not the bustling London. If London is your heart's desire, you might be better off with another choice. Ms. Toth is not one to stand in line to view the Crown Jewels, but she will take you to memorable sheep dog shows or on a badger hunt. My favorite chapters were those she did set in London and its environs when she was teaching a class abroad. She definitely whetted my appetite for travel with her allusions to the places dear to Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and other literary figures.

This is a book to put you in the mood for England, a diary-like remembrance of her many trips to a country she loves. But it alone won't help you plan a trip there. For more on London proper for the book-lover, I would suggest "Mystery Reader's Walking Guide:London" by Alzina Stone Dale and Barbara Sloan Hendershott.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Endearing and engaging are Susan Toth's adventures.
Review: In Susan Toth, via her My Love Affair with England, my husband and I found a kindred spirit and, as it turns out, a pen-pal and friend. Susan and her James make the twice-a-year journey from Minnesoa to England/Scotland/Wales and have lovingly shared the foibles, ecstasies and humour of all-things-British. Helpful advice abounds in all her books, but love of a dear England overflows her pages in this gem.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Discover England, or remember what you love
Review: In this charming book, Susan Allen Toth offers a number of small glimpses of England, collected over her numerous trips. Some are quaint, some are spiritual, some are even unflattering.In them, however, the reader finds not only one woman's experience of touring England, but a panorama that conveys the essence of a country. If you've never been to England, you will have to go after reading this book. If you've been, Toth will remind you of what you love.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: attractive and romantic in its own style
Review: It catched my eye because I was planning to go to U.K.visiting my friend about a month ago. Not like the normal book that mentioned about the fantastic beauty of th scenery, but the atuhor descibed a lot of her own feeings and daily life's trouble. Yet what she did was made the scenery has its own meaning and specialities. All remind you about the nice or unchangeable companion of the mother nature. You may be poor or suffer, but you can still enjoy your life in your own way. Now I am in U.K. for my unforgettable vacation ,and feel so comfartable about the foreign life here. Through the book, I really get my way to enjoy everything of my traveling now.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Almost as good as being there
Review: Since I won't be able to go to England this year, this book nearly made up for it and I became an armchair traveler instead. The author writes as if she is talking to her best friend about her trips - there were several times when I wanted to chime in or ask her more questions! I am looking forward to reading the other two books she has written about England and would love to be a part of a tour group she leads!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Shortsighted traveller
Review: Susan Allen Toth's "love affair" with England has little to do with the country or its people and their lifestyle. Her "love" seems to hinge upon its providing an excuse to use her walking stick. While endlessly describing footpath after footpath and public garden, Toth rarely raises her nose out of the turf to appreciate the culture around her. In fact at the conclusion of an anecdote about the few months she spent living in London, she freely admits that she discovered she couldn't stand to live there. So why spend hundreds of dollars on airfare when she could be walking uncomplainingly on the trails and in the gardens of her American hometown? Why so many travel writers ignore the people of the country they profess to love is beyond me. Perhaps it's the ugly American tourist attitude that every country would be perfectly enjoyable except for all the "foreigners."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Couldn't put it down...
Review: Susan really takes you there in this book, (the first of hers I have read, but not the last.) I really felt like I was there and could smell the flowers in the gardens and feel the dampness on my face. What a treat! Anyone who is going or just dreaming of going, buy this book!!!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Shortsighted traveller
Review: This book brought back so many pleasant memories. The author and I are the same age and experienced our first trips to England a year apart. Her descriptions and adventures are right on target. The disclosure that Brits are helpful and friendly is so true. Finding that they will go out of their way to assist you is exactly what my family and I discovered. I cannot compete with the number of visits (only 6 so far) but have covered much of the same ground. You can see and smell the gardens she describes so beautifully. One can feel the earth beneath ones feet as she wanders the many footpaths available in England. Adjusting or not to inconveniences comes off as amusing and tolerable. Along with experiences she interjects more than a smattering of English History. This book makes you want to hop on the next plane and begin wandering that lovely and historic isle.


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