Let's Go China 5th Edition (Let's Go China)

Rating:
Summary: overall quite useful, but needs to be updated
Review: I used the Let's Go Eastern Europe book last summer and liked it so I gave this a shot for a trip this winter to China (Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha, Guilin, Yangshuo, Guangzhuo, and Hong Kong). Overall I like the way that information is presented/organized in the Let's Go books better than Lonely Planet, but this particular edition is due for an update. Some small (but possibly confusing) problems: certain large streets in Chinese cities have different names indicating the north/south/east/west side. This wasn't explained until deep in the book on a section on a particular city, but it is pretty important for orienting oneself. That should have been foregrounded and the street names for addresses and maps made consistent throughout. Also more detailed/comprehensive maps (with coverage of subway systems in cities where they exist would have been great). We came across a number of places that were no longer in existence, but that just harkens back to my earlier comment. It also would have been nice to have more Chinese on the maps (in addition to Romanizations) when asking for directions,etc.
All in all, well done but there is still room for improvement. I would use a Let's Go guide again.

Rating:
Summary: Not Useful for the Atacama Desert, true-but fine otherwise
Review: The only other review declared that they "used this book during our trip to the Atacama Desert. It was not helpful..." Well, I imagine it wouldn't be very useful, seeing that the Atacama Desert is in Chile, not in China!

I generally prefer the Lonely Planet guides over the Let's Go guides, which tend to sound like they are written by know-it-all teenagers with too little life experience to be offering advice to real grown-ups. This guide on China, in contrast, is informative and pragmatic rather than preachy. Just one cautionary note: If you are actually planning on traveling around China on your own and don't speak Chinese, get a couple other guides and review them also-China is one of the few remaining countries where you cannot count on every shopkeeper and hotel manager conveniently being able to speak English.

Rating:
Summary: Inaccurate and incomplete
Review: We used this book during our trip to the Atacama Desert. It was not helpful for any of the things that are critical during a trip. The scale on at least one of the maps was wrong, this part of the guide seemed to have been written for people who wanted to take tour guides. We rented a car, so this book was NOT a good choice for us. Information on how to get places, or how long it would take, was not there or not complete. Information on room rates was inaccurate. Information on restaurants was fine, but there aren't that many restaurants in those small towns anyways. In the end, we bought a good topographical map, and it was far more useful than the guidebook, since everything was incredible out there anyways.