Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Book TalkTuesday- April 29, 2008

Fun with the Family Utah, 4th ed. by Michael Rutter



This book is another great offering from Globe Pequot, known for their great travel guides and outdoors books. Author Michael Rutter offers dozens upon dozens of places to go in Utah, organized by region; Northern Utah, Greater Salt Lake, Central Utah, Northeastern Utah, Southeastern Utah, and Southwestern Utah. This format, combined with an index of places and yearly events, makes finding things to do in your neck of the woods a snap.

Each place to go, event to attend or thing to do is accompanied by a lot of information including addresses, phone numbers, hours of operation and pricing. Various maps are placed throughout the book to help you get where you are going. Rutter gives his "Michael's Top Ten" for each region- the best events or places, in his opinion, to go to. This book will provide enough activities for a years worth or more of weekend activities.

I do find a few minor drawbacks to this book though. First, in this day and age where color printing has gotten fairly inexpensive, and more and more travel books are infused with color pictures, this book is very dull in black and white and few good, clear pictures of the places mentioned. Also, the 4th edition was printed in 2004, and this can create problems with changes in phone numbers, locations of events, and associated costs of activities. Best to read the book, then double check on the Internet before you head out. Lastly, Utah is growing rapidly, and many new things to do for families have been added to the state since the book was last printed.

Overall, 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. Recommended reading.

No comments: