Greystone

Trent

 

Call it the big book of Vancouver lists.
The Ultimate Guide is short on narra-
tive and long on places to go on those
days when, gosh darn it, there’s just
nothing to do.

- Want to know a good restaurant to
go to? Flip to page 39 and start
browsing. Looking for a park other than
Stanley? Page 101. How about a
comedy club? Try page 143.

This book is designed with tourists in
mind, but it is also a necessary
addition to the shelves of anyone who
enjoys exploring the city.

Vancouver: The Ultimate Guide
Terri Wershler and Judi Lees

Logically organized, intuitive, and
well documented (not only is there a
full table of contents, each chapter
has a table of contents breaking it
down into its component parts—the
chapter on getting around Vancouver
is broken down into public transit (page
67), coach lines (page 71) car rentals
and parking (71), taxis (72), limousine
services (72), trains (72), ferries (74),
airport (77), and flights to Victoria
(80)—but there is an index at the back
of the book, just in case you just
couldn't find the topic you were looking
for), The Ultimate Guide, is, unfortu-
nately, not complete.

But then again, in a city this size,
how could it be? The best it can hope
to do is give the readers springboards.
It is easy to list all the car rental
companies in town (there are six main
ones listed), but to list all the cool
places to shop? Impossible. (Well, not
quite, but then you would have to call
this the Yellow Pages.) Instead, it
outlines the best shopping areas
(Robson, Granville Island, Yaletown,
Kerrisdale, etc) and a few specialty
stores (art supplies, clothing, outdoor
equipment, photo supplies, etc) and
leaves the rest up to the reader.

So get up, get out, and go explore
the city. And pick up a copy of The
Ultimate Guide so you don’t get lost on
the way, eh?

book speculations

 

The Twentysomething Guide to Creative Self-employment

Jeff Porten
Prima Publishing
and

Guerrilla Marketing for the Home-Based Business

Jay Levinson and Seth Godin
Houghton Miflen

Arthur Hanks

OK, the industrial revolution is way,
way over, | am often told, and we are
moving into some form of a new
paradigm. Socio-economic, that is. We
are riding the next wave, hard, into the
cyberland of “contracts” not jobs, rife
with downsizing and job insecurity.
Either by choice or because of eco-

nomic necessity, more and more
people are becoming self-employed in
one form or another. It strikes me that
this movement of work from the
workplace and back into the home is.
catching students and recent gradu-
ates (like me) quite unprepared. But
help is at hand—here are two irrever-
ent books that offer proactive solutions
to anyone who finds themselves on
this path.

Porten’s book is wretchedly titled,
and has an even more wretched cover

(showing a bunch of clean-looking,
smug-smiling prep school types).
Based on looks alone, many cynical
and otherwise clever folks would pass
on it. Appearances are deceiving;
Twentysomething is written to motivate
and educate readers getting into the
high risk and high reward world of
entrepreneurship

Porten takes the reader through an
initial brainstorm and self-goal exer-
cise. (A strength...you don’t have to
spend much time doing self-help
exercises, something that mars other
books in this genre). From that point
on, he talks about the need and trade
off (maybe), to work part-time while
your self-business establishes itself.

He talks about budget , spreadsheets
contin on next page...

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