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England For All Seasons [Hardcover]

Susan Allen Toth (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)


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Book Description

February 25, 1997
Susan Allen Toth's love affair with England is a long and happy one. Her books *testaments to undiminished affection *are designed to help readers discover the rich and beautiful land for themselves. Now her love affair continues in England for All Seasons, an experienced traveler's journal that captures the lively pleasures of offbeat exploration all year round.



With whimsy and a trenchant eye, Toth first takes her readers through a London they might otherwise miss. She suggests ways to uncover the city's overwhelming variety of theatre, music, and other cultural events *as well as just plain fun. From directing the route to the most scenic London buses to bargain-hunting and splurges to out-of-the-way places and personal walking tours of eccentric museums, Ms. Toth will entice even a seasoned London visitor into new adventures.



Outside London, England for All Seasons traverses the country, including forays to Wales and Scotland, from the estuaries and rivers of Cornwall to the lonely beaches of Anglesey to the wild sea-lochs of Mull. In her fascinating tour, Ms. Toth also stops at many of England's great gardens, a donkey sanctuary in Devon, an outdoor sculpture museum in the seacoast resort of St. Ives, and a modernist castle on the edge of Dartmoor.



Readers who already know England will cherish the author's affectionate and humorous observations on glorious desserts ("the irresistible sweet trolley"); the unacknowledged pleasures of a rainy climate; and the need for survival techniques in museums. First-time visitors can look forward to a quintessentially English experience, with an abundance of surprises along the way.



Whether looking for literary landscapes or the most delicious sherry trifle, Susan Allen Toth illuminates the nooks and crannies of a multifarious culture, the vibrant real England that every Anglophile dreams of finding. At once entertaining and contemplative, England for All Seasons is as delightful a travel companion as your liveliest, most trusted friend.


Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Traveling with Susan Allen Toth is like journeying with a good friend who's anxious to show you her own personal England. Whether walking under the Thames in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, meeting the residents of a donkey sanctuary in Devon, echoing through the halls of a "new" medieval castle, offering advice for the "guilty traveler" or strategies for the "sneaky shopper," Toth's writing is alive with a passion for her subject. She completely agrees with Samuel Johnson: "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life," and her repeat trips to this city and the English countryside show she's anything but tired.

England for All Seasons is the third in a trilogy of Toth books devoted to the joys of travel in Great Britain. This book shows that any season is the right time to be in England, as the author relishes in the changing essences of English rain, shares her penchant for secondhand books, glories in the profusion of English gardens, dabbles in the art of "doing" a museum well, and dares the decadence of English desserts.

Toth's useful insights and tried-and-true advice is applicable for seasoned travelers and first-time visitors. Her enthusiasm prompts one to seek and to find one's own English secrets. --Kathryn True --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Toth (England As You Like It) offers homely chats about the things she and her husband like to do and see on their travels to England. An irrepressible Anglophile, she raves about English rain and puddings. In London, the couple likes to stay in a historic flat in Cloth Fair, an enclave in the financial district, which they rent from a British Landmark Trust. While it is far from the residential areas and shopping, the author's husband likes it particularly because he can drop in at the wholesale meat market nearby. Although there are only two flats available for short-term rentals, in one of her few lapses into practical details, Toth divulges the landlord's address and phone number without, however, hinting at the cost. English gardens are a special love of this husband and wife, and she conveys their pleasure in several both within and beyond London. They also like castles and museums and find many little known to tourists. They have favorite picnic spots along the Thames, places for walks along the Cornish coast and sites with literary associations. Travelers eager to find the "real" England, off the beaten track, who don't need the help of a guidebook that deals in more logistical detail, will find Toth's oozy style and quirky enthusiasms appealing.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 237 pages
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (February 25, 1997)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0345403908
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345403902
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,121,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars The third of S. A. Toth's affectionate reminiscences, April 28, 2001
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Ms. Toth is at it again -- making one long for a visit to the isle of book shops and tea rooms, great theatre and lovely gardens. This, the third volume in the series, has particularly good information on theatre-going, museums, and London transport.

While I enjoyed the book, I do have some reservations about recommending it. Again there is a heavy emphasis on gardens, with a LOT of specific information about what flower species are present and where they're located in various gardens. I think the author writes very well on literary landscapes and I would like to have had more than one short chapter. I do wish the author and her husband would branch out a bit -- in the three books of the series they visit many of the same areas many times over -- Cornwall in particular -- but totally neglect others. My only other complaint, and it sounds silly, is that Ms. Toth seems a bit of a ninny in this book, though she was very charming in the other two volumes: she intrudes, rather rudely I thought, on a priest teaching a class; she does not know that European VHS tapes do not work in U.S. machines; she is several times 'unsettled' by images which turn out to be statues or sculptures; she is a bit more condescending toward people who don't share her philosophy of travel.

While the author gives valuable contact information for various agencies, I do hope that future editions will include online resources as well.

If you love England, and especially if you love English gardens, this book will delight you. While not as charming as the author's first book about visiting Great Britain, My Love Affair with England, it is still loaded with good information and fun anecdotes.

No index.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars When is the next flight to London?, February 9, 2001
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"Cloudy with outbreaks of rain at times. However, there will be drier interludes."

Thus might an English weathercaster ambiguously predict the day's weather, as noted in the first chapter of ENGLAND FOR ALL SEASONS, the third book in a series by travel essayist Susan Allen Toth on her ongoing romance with England and all things English. (The other two books in the series are MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH ENGLAND and ENGLAND AS YOU LIKE IT.)

Granted, for someone residing where the climate is livable year round, say Los Angeles, CA, such a weather prediction might not offer much inducement to make the eleven-hour trip across The Pond. However, if living in a place with beastly humid, hot summers and teeth-chatteringly frigid, snowy winters, say Downer's Grove, IL, there's a lot to be said for England's temperate climate, however uncertain its application.

ENGLAND FOR ALL SEASONS is chock full of so many of Susan's reminiscences and recommendations, all presented in her usual humorous and relaxed style, that it's hard to summarize the book without writing a review of similar length. The twenty-five chapters cover a multitude of topics. The art of garden visiting, and the temptations of the "sweet trolley", a.k.a. the restaurant dessert cart. Buying books in England, and the exploration of literary landscapes, i.e. the exploration of those locales in which the country's legion of authors lived and wrote about. "Lolloping" around London, perhaps best translated as a relaxed peregrination to the city's numerous attractions, including some of the major museums (Transport Museum, Imperial War Museum, Theatre Museum, National Portrait Gallery) and grand historic houses. Then there are those quirky depositories outside the capital devoted to the oddest of interests: bagpipes, thimbles, ceramics, plasterwork, waterways, oast houses, lawn tennis, stained glass, and (!) lawnmowers. Susan whisks us away on a tour of the Thames as it meanders its way through London. Then it's off to the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall, the Scottish island of Mull (popular Skye's "shy sister"), and the Welsh island of Anglesey. If you're a creature lover, you'll be delighted on field trips to various animal sanctuaries for donkeys, otters, seals (near the village of Gweek), and owls.

It's apparent that the author escorts the armchair traveler well beyond England's boundaries deep into Wales and Scotland. This is not because England is wanting in things to do or see, but rather in recognition of the fact that many, if not most, of her fellow Americans are woefully insensitive to the distinction between England and Great Britain. Bloody Yanks.

I can conclude with no better than Susan's very words, because my several trips to the United Kingdom would cause me to advise the same:

"But, when I finish a book, I'm a little sad, too. Writing about my trips reminds me that they're over; I will never have exactly that experience again... Perhaps that touch of sadness has to do with my realization that places and people change. Travelers know this. Perhaps we take those snapshots because we know that even if we return to this precise spot, it will never be exactly the same... I want to urge everyone who dreams of going to England, go NOW."

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Back to basics..., June 6, 2000
This review is from: England For All Seasons (Hardcover)
Toth returned to her forte in this book, describing her own adventures which she does best. I enjoy her newsy writing, what you would expect from a friend or close relative. Although I've made many trips to England, she always manages to find something I haven't visited, and sure enough she did it in this book too. I found her "Meandering Through Museums" most helpful. It's too easy to stay with the same old favorites, and I always hit a few of them, but London is diverse and it pays to get off the beaten track. On my last trip a year and a half ago, I went out of my way to try some of her recommendations. I won't list them all here of course, but there seems to be a museum for anything and everthing in Great Britain. Like thimbles? There's a museum in Biggar Scotland filled with them. "On walls lined with row after row of very narrow shelves, only inches apart." Of course, if you're into almost anything, the Vicoria and Albert Museum in London will fill the bill. After several trips, I still haven't exhausted the place.

Toth not only finds odd little museums as well as old favorites, she finds odd little places. How about Groombridge Place near Tunbridge Wells. I stayed in Tunbridge once and I don't think I even heard of it. How does she do it?

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First Sentence:
Everyone knows it rains in England. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
otter park, owl sanctuary, seal sanctuary, sweet trolley, donkey sanctuary, garden visiting, coastal path, blue plaques
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
National Trust, Castle Drogo, Cloth Fair, Apsley House, Barbara Hepworth, London Transport, Covent Garden, Clegir Mawr, Spencer House, Time Out, British Museum, Leighton House, National Gallery, Anthony Head, Imperial War Museum, National Portrait Gallery, New York, World War, Egypt Farm, Good Gardens Guide, Hyde Park, Jane Austen, Lieutenant's Quarter, National Theatre, Plas Newydd
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