Jim Eagles: Danger lurks within

This is a dangerous book.

For a start, it's big (36cm by 27cm), thick (444 pages of glossy paper) and heavy (nearly 4kg on my notoriously reliable bathroom scales). If you hit a mugger with it, he'll go down.

It's also addictive. Just about every page produces somewhere new and fascinating that you want more of. And because of that it could end up costing you a lot of money. Not because of the $99.99 price tag, which is cheap for what it offers, but as a result of the uncontrollable urge to visit so many places.

There are 230 countries, for goodness' sake, all seductively portrayed in beautiful photographs and carefully crafted words. You can't possibly visit them all, so reading it is just an exercise in frustration.

But then again, you can visit some. And, for the places you can't visit, this book may be the next best thing.

It starts with Afghanistan, featuring a stunning picture of the beautiful Blue Mosque in Mazar-e Sharif, and finishes with the French Pacific colony of Wallis and Fortuna and the colourfully eccentric Sausau Church.

Between, there is a double-page spread on each of the 192 countries in the United Nations, some split into component parts (such as England, Scotland, Wales) plus places that are not strictly countries (Antarctica or Greenland), and what Lonely Planet calls "12 bonus destinations we couldn't bear to leave out" (such as Niue, the Arctic islands of Svalbard or Wallis and Fortuna).

The two pages on New Zealand - well, we always look at ourselves first, don't we? - feature a lovely misty shot of the champagne pool at Waiotapu plus scenes of skiing, volcanoes, a hongi on a marae and mysterious West Coast rock formations.

Then there's a brief description of a country where "Mother Nature decided to take her best features and exhibit them all ... and a people with a distinctly Kiwi lust for life".

The best time to visit is November to April "when the weather is warmest" - yeah, right!

Essential experiences include fish and chips on a Northland beach, jumping off something high, the TranzAlpine train and the Polynesian bustle of Auckland.

To get under the country's skin you should read Whale Rider, watch Lord of the Rings, listen to Salmonella Dub's Killer Version, eat whitebait and drink a boutique beer. A quintessentially Kiwi expression is "sweet as".

Trademarks include sheep, Maori, All Blacks, Janet Frame, Neil Finn, pohutukawa blossoms and the end of the earth.

And among the big surprises is "a thriving food and wine culture".

Cool place. Think I'd like to go there myself.

Needless to say, other countries get the same enthusiastic treatment.

I've heard Lonely Planet criticised for being too saccharine and uncritical, and this book is certainly uniformly positive about the places it describes. But what's wrong with that?

I've never been to a country, no matter how grotty, that wasn't exciting to visit (even if there are some I don't particularly want to see again).

The Travel Book is a timely reminder of what a wonderful world we live in and what fascinating cultures, people and environments there are around every corner ... and over every page.

* The Travel Book: a journey through every country in the world
* Lonely Planet, $99.99