Buy a 90-year-old Dutch canal barge and cruise the canals and rivers of France. Eat snails. Drink Burgundy. Sounds like a retirement dream. Sometimes. In On a Barge in France Harvey Schwartz tells of the four years he and his wife, Sandra Hamilton, spent on Hoop Doet Leven on the French waterways. Each chapter presents a vignette of French country life and life in the unique linear village of international bargees traveling extremely slowly through the most beautiful, historic and mind boggling areas of France.

This comprehensive guide lists descriptive information for every European riverboat and hotel barge, including vital statistics, stateroom size, descriptions of public areas, dining and shipboard facilities, and itineraries. Each vessel is evaluated as to comfort and luxury. Hundreds of photos of the vessels exterior and interiors are included, as well as sample menus and daily programs. Several chapters are devoted to descriptions of the cities and villages visited by riverboats, and the regions and villages visited by hotel barges, along with descriptive photographs.

In World War II, 59,000 women voluntarily risked their lives for their country as U.S. Army nurses. When the war began, some of them had so little idea of what to expect that they packed party dresses; but the reality of service quickly caught up with them, whether they waded through the water in the historic landings on North African and Normandy beaches, or worked around the clock in hospital tents on the Italian front as bombs fell all around them. For more than half a century these women’s experiences remained untold, almost without reference in books, historical societies, or military archives. After years of reasearch and hundreds of hours of interviews, Evelyn M. Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee have created a dramatic narrative that at last brings to light the critical role that women played throughout the war. From the North African and Italian Campaigns to the Liberation of France and the Conquest of Germany, U.S. Army nurses rose to the demands of war on the frontlines with grit, humor, and great heroism. A long overdue work of history, And If I Perish is also a powerful tribute to these women and their inspiring legacy.

Anyone unaccustomed to the bewildering array of European waterway signs, symbols, rules, and regulations will find this book a blessing. Marian Martin demystifies this new world for the visitor, eliminating the potential for problems arising from being unfamiliar or unprepared.