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Rating: 
Summary: A great way to spend a few hours on Arm Chair Travel.
Review: I love guide books. I used them extensively when I used to fly for free. This book was user friendly, entertaining and jam packed with all sorts of good information. Best Bet: Go to your local bookstore and check it out in person before buying it.
Rating: 
Summary: informative and stylishly written
Review: I used this book on a recent trip and found it excellent. Each time I followed its recommendations I was rewarded with a fascinating place that most tourists did not know about. This book gave me access to the city's excellent nightlife, which few tourists seem to know about, and gave me the low down on some great restaurants. It's also very well written - sometimes I laughed out loud at the authors sly, sceptical humour. My friend was travelling with the lonely planet but he soon abandoned it and kept borrowing my book.
Rating:
Summary: A VERY GOOD , true 'pocket size' compact guide.
Review: Straight away, you're going to love the 'deck of cards’ size of this wonderful guide. It slips in your hip pocket and leaves your hands free to part the pressing masses of Beijing. If you’re a people person, you will love China (1.3 Billion and rising). Lewis has condensed, in a few hundred pages, a very intelligent and functional guide to this sprawling city. The nightlife section is the best and there are some very interesting dives to explore in Beijing. The color maps are great and easy to use. Want to find a restaurant that Simon Lewis recommends? Go to map 7, cross reference C,8. Besides these color maps at the back of the guide, the b&w map of the Hidden City is very good, showing the palaces, buildings and special locations at the site. The restaurants and accommodations that I used on my visit to Beijing were 'spot on'. Simon Lewis' unique and 'off the beaten tracks' vignettes are a joy to read. Topics include, Feng Shui, Beijing online and the Trans-Siberian Train and Dissent in Tian'anmen Square, just a few of the vignettes. On the other hand, very little information is given to help the reader understand the culture and history of Beijing. Though Simon Lewis includes a very informative directory of important offices, i.e., airlines, banks, embassies, hospitals etc., he only gives names, addresses and directions in English, not Chinese characters, so they are basically useless for taxi drivers and just about everybody else. But he does have Chinese characters for all accomodations and resturants. Simon Lewis focuses on the budget minded when it comes to recommending accommodation and restaurants, "Luxury hotels in Beijing are legion (and very pricy), but, you can still avail yourself of their lavish facilities, such as the lobby toilets and pick up free copies of the 'China Daily'. A peeve that I have about Rough Guides is their use of a number system to quote the price range of a hotel, i.e., the Friendship Hotel costs a '6', then you have to flip back to the numeric legion to find out that 6 = 600 to 800 yuans, which you then divide by the current rate of exchange. As other guides demonstrate, there are betters ways to help your reader gage approximate cost. A weakness of many guides, including this one, is the absence of a hotel/ restaurant index. Thus, if you have a recommended restaurant you want to look up, you have to go through all the restaurant pages 'til you stumble across the name you seek or miss seeing it completely. Another significant short coming when you wish to make a reservation, especially considering the 2000 published date of this guide, is the lack of website and email from any of the listed hotels. Most all Beijing hotels are connected to the web. If you want a very good true 'pocket size' compact guide, "The MINI Rough Guide to Beijing" is a must buy and one of the best guides out today...Highly recommended. 4 1/4 stars....
Rating:
Summary: A VERY GOOD , true 'pocket size' compact guide.
Review: Straight away, you're going to love the 'deck of cards’ size of this wonderful guide. It slips in your hip pocket and leaves your hands free to part the pressing masses of Beijing. If you’re a people person, you will love China (1.3 Billion and rising). Lewis has condensed, in a few hundred pages, a very intelligent and functional guide to this sprawling city. The nightlife section is the best and there are some very interesting dives to explore in Beijing. The color maps are great and easy to use. Want to find a restaurant that Simon Lewis recommends? Go to map 7, cross reference C,8. Besides these color maps at the back of the guide, the b&w map of the Hidden City is very good, showing the palaces, buildings and special locations at the site. The restaurants and accommodations that I used on my visit to Beijing were 'spot on'. Simon Lewis' unique and 'off the beaten tracks' vignettes are a joy to read. Topics include, Feng Shui, Beijing online and the Trans-Siberian Train and Dissent in Tian'anmen Square, just a few of the vignettes. On the other hand, very little information is given to help the reader understand the culture and history of Beijing. Though Simon Lewis includes a very informative directory of important offices, i.e., airlines, banks, embassies, hospitals etc., he only gives names, addresses and directions in English, not Chinese characters, so they are basically useless for taxi drivers and just about everybody else. But he does have Chinese characters for all accomodations and resturants. Simon Lewis focuses on the budget minded when it comes to recommending accommodation and restaurants, "Luxury hotels in Beijing are legion (and very pricy), but, you can still avail yourself of their lavish facilities, such as the lobby toilets and pick up free copies of the 'China Daily'. A peeve that I have about Rough Guides is their use of a number system to quote the price range of a hotel, i.e., the Friendship Hotel costs a '6', then you have to flip back to the numeric legion to find out that 6 = 600 to 800 yuans, which you then divide by the current rate of exchange. As other guides demonstrate, there are betters ways to help your reader gage approximate cost. A weakness of many guides, including this one, is the absence of a hotel/ restaurant index. Thus, if you have a recommended restaurant you want to look up, you have to go through all the restaurant pages 'til you stumble across the name you seek or miss seeing it completely. Another significant short coming when you wish to make a reservation, especially considering the 2000 published date of this guide, is the lack of website and email from any of the listed hotels. Most all Beijing hotels are connected to the web. If you want a very good true 'pocket size' compact guide, "The MINI Rough Guide to Beijing" is a must buy and one of the best guides out today...Highly recommended. 4 1/4 stars....
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