Author brings cities' character to vivid life

As a longtime political correspondent for the New York Times, where he is now associate editor, R.W. Apple Jr. visited and revisited cities all over the country. Not just a political animal, this journalist loves food (plain and fancy), architecture (historic and contemporary) and music (popular and classical, especially opera). So it's no wonder, as we learn from his introduction to this book, that people about to visit a city often ask his recommendations on hotels, restaurants and noteworthy attractions.

"Apple's America," its author tells us, grew out of a series of monthly articles written for the New York Times starting in 1997 and ending in 2000. Writing for a New York audience, Apple decided to give the Big Apple a skip, but his roster of 40 "great" cities includes the 20 largest after New York, along with smaller places he just happens to like.

The contents are arranged (roughly) from east to west, beginning with Boston and concluding with Honolulu. Also featured are three Canadian cities -- Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, the last of which, in Apple's opinion, has "the best collection of Asian restaurants in North America." Metropolitan areas around bodies of water -- Tampa Bay and the Hampton Roads region of Virginia -- intrigue him, too. Included, of course, are most of the usual tourist destinations -- Las Vegas, Miami, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. -- but we're also offered a closer look at less glamorous towns such as Buffalo, which Apple describes as a city with "an even longer history of architectural distinction than Chicago." "Like a dowager in decline," he writes, "Buffalo still has good bones to remind people of her more prosperous and glamorous days."

Compared with other guidebooks, many of which feature extensive coverage of hotels and restaurants, detailed maps and useful tips for getting around, "Apple's America," it must be said, falls short. The maps are small, vague and skimpy; the travel tips scant; and only a few inns and eateries are listed for each city. (Apple generally commends the Four Seasons or the Ritz-Carlton, and in L.A., it's the exclusive quartet of the Hotel Bel-Air, the Peninsula, Casa del Mar and Raffles L'Ermitage. He's not the man to go to for the scoop on less expensive hostelries.)