Divisions are constantly cropping up in this book with devastating effects for families: August senior escaped to West Germany leaving his parents behind

Divisions are constantly cropping up in this book, with devastating effects for families: August senior escaped to West Germany, leaving his parents behind. In the next 40 years he was allowed to return only twice - for their funerals.Although August finds little physical trace of the so-called "death strip", there are psychological scars aplenty in the former border guards, ex- Stasi members and decollectivised farmers he meets along the way. Their house was in the Soviet zone, while the fields were in the British zone. August's father was 14 when the Second World War Allies drew a line across the family's tree nursery. Two millennia later, Hitler tried to push back borders in his quest for Lebensraum."August's concern is more contemporary - his 800-mile journey from the Baltic Sea to the Czech border along the vanished Iron Curtain is an account of post-Wende Germany's attempt at reunification. As German-born Oliver August states in this intriguing social history: "The Romans sliced Germany in half when they built the Limes defence wall that stretched from Scotland to the Black Sea. Along the Wall and Watchtowers: A Journey down Germany's Divide Oliver August (HarperCollins, pounds 17.99)For centuries, Germany has been defined by its ever-shifting borders and the struggles they have ignited.

Bored of the same old continents, the same old countries, the same old stereotypes - clogging up our maps and guidebooks year after year.Is that it? Is that why we now need maps larger and with more details than the places they purport to map, and why we need to fill our guidebooks with mumbo-jumbo about bodies in wells and pirates in pits? Because India and China - and dare I say it, the United States of America - are not mysterious enough in themselves?If so I suggest that the solution might be to throw away all guide-books ever written to date Then wait a few years. Eventually we might start getting up our passions (of the burning, feverish variety) for this world all over again.. It is as though we have already decided that the real world is not interesting enough any more That we are bored of it. Even the right spot to observe the shades of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson (the White House). And underneath you'll even find details of where to stay and how to get there.Having reduced the entire planet to a tourism commodity, guidebook writers (I confess I'm one of them) seem to want to move to another level altogether. It's all meticulously recorded in this book for you, along with the telephone numbers of the local chambers of commerce.

The best place to hear the disembodied voices of Capuchin priests for example (outside St Louis Cathedral on rainy nights). The ideal location to detect the screams and groans of the victims of the St Valentine's Day Massacre (a nursing home in Chicago). What really depresses me is that guidebooks to the world are seeking to become more interesting than the world itself.In search of the unknown? Longing to seek the mysteries of the universe? Don't expect to have an adventure looking for it. The introduction to the book after all - following immediately after the photograph of the headless man by a tombstone holding a three-cornered hat - does refer to Discovery Communications as "the world's premier source of non- fiction television programming".But I'll put aside the question of whether or not ghosts are supposed to be fictional. I don't know who she is supposed to be, but she is certainly not a person I have the slightest expectation of meeting on any earthly holiday.Nor does Haunted America strike me as a brilliant place for self-proclaimed "information-providers" such as Discovery to start its new series.

The opening pages of the book are packed with photographs of "ghosts", such as the transparent woman in a wedding dress standing in a cemetery in Arizona on pages six and seven. The guidebook I see before me, entitled Haunted Holidays, is one of a new series of themed guidebooks from Insight Guides, in conjunction with the people who own the Discovery Channel.It is certainly making me feel ghastly. "Venture deep into the heart of your interests, with a new approach to travel planning ..." breathes the back page. "This guide summons free- spirited travelers [sic] enchanted by the supernatural mystique that shrouds locations throughout the United States ..." Oh dear, so it's that kind of passion Not a burning, feverish desire, then But a dreary, little suburban interest A hobby A trainspotterish pastime. Visit: www.ski-independence.co.ukSTEPHEN ROE. Oh no, a horrible apparition has just arrived on my desk A guidebook - not to a place, but to a "passion". Website: www.heliski.co.ukCross-border skiSpend five nights in Quebec's colourful and lively resort of Mont Tremblant, followed by five nights in the peace and tranquillity of New England's Sunday River, in Maine.