La Vie En Rose for 2006 May 30

Here is the problem with guidebooks. I have been puzzling and puzzling over which ones to buy for my upcoming trip. My dear friends at the bookstore gave me a nice basket of goodies when I came back to cheer me up, and in it was one on Serbia, so I am well covered in that respect. However... Eastern Europe doesn't have Greece or Turkey (explain that to me!), Europe on a shoestring has just about every country that could be remotely defined as European, but that means you have to pay about $30 and carry around 5 pounds of rainforest (nooo, lonely planet probably uses recycled paper) for four pages of information on Salonika (or whatever they call it these days). Mediterranean Europe has Greece and Turkey, but excludes Bosnia and Herzegovina and FYROM and includes Italy, France, Spain, Morroco, who needs them? Western Balkans is more detailed and reasonabley sized, but has neither Greece, Turkey, nor Bulgaria.

It seems to me that there is a very simple solution and I'm surprised no one has put it into action. All they have to do is bound each country cheaply (much easier to carry about in day packs that way) and have people pick out whichever ones they want, maybe getting them all bound together as an option. Or have them in a three-ring binder, what a concept. It could even be a supplement to their regular guide books, on a website somewhere, for people like me, who have very picky plans of where they want to go for very specific, obscure reasons... Although, really now, is it so hard to imagine wanting to visit both Croatia and Romania? Is it really such a strange concept to have a guide book encompassing all the Balkans? (Susie: "What's a Balkan?") Why just the "Western Balkans?" Is that more of the "Western bias"? (I doubt it; Romania and Bulgaria will surely join the EU long before Serbia and Bosnia will) Why not include Greece? They are part of the Balkans too, though they are loathe to admit it... Anyway, I can't imagine it being any more expensive than having to buy 3 or 4 different but over-lapping guide books.

The other thing they could do that would be a good idea is hire me.