Traveling Solo

A Woman Alone: Travel Tales From Around the Globe edited by Faith Conlon, Ingrid Emerick and Christina Henry de Tessan, is one of those books that make you want to run away from home. Traveling to a country completely different from what you are used to can be difficult. Traveling to that country - alone and being female - can be even more difficult. The 29 different authors from completely unique backgrounds themselves, offer a singular view of their travels. The countries they go to range from Ireland to India, and many are off the beaten path where most of us won't ever go. One of my favorite trips was the one where the author traveled in a train in India - making friends with her fellow female travelers who find her independence as astonishing as she finds them. Not too mention the bathroom facilities on this train are an adventure to themselves.

The authors make friends, discover how tough they really are, and make peace with the world around them. A thoughtful and inspiring read for when you get the traveling bug.

Second Sight

Amanda Quick's Second Sight is another book she has set in Victorian England. This time around she has created the Arcane Society, a organization founded by an alchemist, which consists of dabblers of psychic phenomena. Our heroine Venetia, is a photographer who is invited by the Arcane Society to photograph their collection of artifacts. This is how she meets the mysterious Mr. Gabriel Jones.

After an exciting night with Mr. Jones - she later reads a small notice of his death. She needs a new name for her career and she chooses Jones as a tribute and because it is common. As Mrs. Jones, she starts making a name for herself in the photography world and starts making enough money to support her extended family. Imagine her surprise when her so called "husband" comes back from the "grave".

Psychical events, auras and the death of another photographer allow the Joneses to learn more about each other true selves and each others' secrets. Fun, romance and a bit of mystery keeps this frothy book moving along. One wonders if the author is going to continue with the Arcane Society - there is Gabriel's single cousin after all! A great read!

Inside a Paris Quartier

Diane Johnson's book Inside a Paris Quartier: Reine Margot's Chapel and Other Haunts of St. Germain, is a part of National Geographic's travelogue and memoirs series. This series has various different authors writing about their favorite cities. In this case, Johnson has lived in this part of Paris for many years, and other ex-patriate Americans have too, so she is giving us a tour of her neighborhood.

She tells us that the real Three Musketeers lived here, as well as Gertrude Stein. She gives us the details and the stories of the various nearby buildings (and the people who lived there) from the 1500's to the 2000's. Paris is a old city that is continually changing. The history of this part of town has layers and layers, and this is just one quartier!

This a great introduction to the history of Paris. Johnson makes it sound fabulous and romantic and she convinces you that you must learn more - even if it is just enough to keep the Louie's straight. A must for the francophile.

Egyptian fun for the kids and the adults

Do you like the movie the Mummy and the Mummy Returns? Have you looked at every Egyptian documentary on the History Channel? Been aching to go see King Tut? This book might interest you. Egyptology: Search for the Tomb of Osiris is a book put out by Candlewick Press - the same group that brought you Dragonology. Written by Dugald Steer and illustrated by Ian Andrew, Nick Harris, and Helen Ward, this is the "fictional tale" of Emily Sands and her illfated expedition for the Tomb of Osiris.

Old and young alike can peak at the travel postcards and letters left behind in this interactive scrapbook. It is filled with illustrations of areas and artifacts they have seen along their journey. You can learn Egyptian hieroglyphics, and a game (the pieces are in the book), and read the journals left behind. This would be fun to read before going to see the next Pharoah exhibit.

Australia, Australia, Australia - we love you - Amen!

With a bit of homage to Monty Python's Australian philosophers sketch, I must start by saying that Bill Bryson's book In a Sunburned Country gives one a small glimpse of a very big land. If one is lucky enough to travel there, this book might serve as a good introduction and a bit of a warning to a diverse country. I say warning - because Bryson seems fascinated with the Australian creatures that could kill you - jellyfish, sharks and snakes, as well as the Australian environment - the surf, the riptides, the cliffs, and the temperature which could also kill you. The book abounds with stories of explorers, tourists and near-do-wells who never made it back to their starting point.

As he travels around the country he points out spots of interest, everything from the dullness of the capital of Canberra, the beauty of Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef, the desolate areas around Alice Springs, the majesty of Uluru/Ayers Rock, and the subtleties of the cities of Perth, Melbourne, Darwin and Sydney. He even addresses the issue of the Aboriginal people. After asking questions about them throughout his travels, he comes to the conclusion that Australians have really been - the kindest word might be - stupid , in their dealings with them.

Bryson realizes that Australia is an old land but a young country, and suffers from growing pains. There is more to explore, more things to find, but these things take time. My edition of the book has a extra bit about him going back to Sydney for the Olympics of 2000. He is clearly eager to come back to the land and the people that he fell in love with.

Australia anyone? Long trip, but mighty fine once you get there.

Blame it on Chocolate - Why Not?

Jennifer Greene's book Blame it on Chocolate is a fast fun read. Lucy Fitzhenry works as a biologist/chocolatier for a chocolate bar company. She is working on producing a batch of cacao trees that will produce beans that will beat the best. The fact that she is grafting trees in a greenhouse facility in Minnesota, means that if this works - it will be really huge in the chocolate industry. One night - giddy with a first successful batch tasting, she has a wild night with a guy. He happens to be her boss - Nick. And well - interesting things happen to her and Nick. And then her family seems to becoming unglued too.

If you like learning a bit about chocolate, cacao trees, and like the heroine to have a supportive family and work life, this is a book for you. Warning - it will make you get up out of bed for a midnight fancy chocolate bar snack. Hershey's will just not do!

Kinda like Seinfeld - but in Italian

Tim Parks' book Italian Neighbors or, A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona, takes the concept of travel narrative on a bit of a spin. Not only is he an American in Italy - he is living there. And unlike Frances Mayes, he is not rehabing a fab house that only the moneyed can buy. He is a translator and teacher who is living with his Italian wife in a condo, with three neighbors, and a whole village to deal with. If you think your neighbors are wacky in America, they can be quite the characters overseas. In a village outside of Verona, he learns to live with their traditions and superstitions, and they learn that the crazy foreigner can be a help around the neighborhood - cutting lawns, bottling wine etc. Tim and his wife really come into their own when she becomes pregnant and the whole area becomes friendlier and asks after the bambino.

He goes into detail on the fastidious but impracticable Italian laws and regulations that become almost prohibitive, and that require work-a-rounds to fulfill them. His seasonal writings make the reader feel as if they are taking the year off in Italy. It is a good book filed with humor, a sense of irony and answers the question - What really happens when the tourists are gone?

Feeling the Budget Pinch? Shopping, Money and America

By coincidence, I ended up reading two books on the topic of spending money. And as one ended up supporting the other - it worked out quite well. The first title was Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine. Levine took the challenge of having her and her sig other, just buy what they needed - not what they wanted, for a year. It becomes a fascinating study of minutiae - is a Q-Tip really not a necessity? (I think they are necessary!)What about a fancy mustard or new shoes to replace worn ones? How does one can convince oneself that you really NEED an item?

She finds that just deciding these things can be exhausting, and that shopping for some has become an extension of oneself. She goes into a lot of buying psychology and investigates the simplicity movement. She is not rich, although she does have two residences in which they both work from home, which complicates matters. Does she save more in NYC or Vermont? But in Vermont, they need to drive. You find yourself cheering her on, as the urge to cut back and enjoy the little things, really does start to happen. They are not saints - they have some failures, and you may think their neccessities are frivilous. In the end, she makes you want to try it (kinda like going through Lent for a really long time) and she succeeds in saving $8000. Could you do it?

To continue in this anti-consumerism mode, the book, Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic by John De Graaf, David Wann and Thomas H. Naylor is a funny and serious look (yes, they can be in the same book) at consumers in American society today. Originally, the book was meant to go along with a PBS series of the same name. This version is a updated second edition. It is interesting that the term "affluenza" has now entered the mainstream - a google search gets many hits and not all from the U.S.

For someone who has not looked at the concept of over consumerism and the simplicity movement - this might be a great place to start. With it's facts, figures, stories and interviews; it tells the tale of how life improvement became the concept of getting more stuff. For those wanting to take the serious plunge of consuming less, this might inspire you to keep you on the path of curing your affluenza. Well written - and they made the economics easy to understand.

After September 11th, the general public was told to go shopping to keep up the economy. If you thought that was a bit goofy or wacked, these might be the books for you.

Prague anyone?

Time's Magpie: A Walk in Prague is Myla Goldberg's mini verbal snapshot of the city after the Velvet Revolution. Goldberg, who wrote the novel Bee Season, lived in Prague in 1993, just as the Czechs were starting to westernize. She goes back in 2003 to see what has changed.

Prague, she writes " is time's magpie, hoarding beautiful eclectic bits from each successive era." Her descriptions of the architecture alone sound wonderful - a blending of Barouqe, Renaissance, Art Nouveau and Communism. She mentions the floods of 2002, and what work remains to be done on the city.

This is a small book and she just touches on various areas of the city: the squares and plazas where there have been protests against the Iraq war, the Communists and at one time the Nazis, and the cemeteries where the famous are honored, and the Jewish cemeteries where the dead are forgotten where "headstones that are largely blank await additions that will never come." Her book leaves you wanting to learn more about such a historical city and the yearn to see it for yourself.

This book is part of the Crown Journeys travel series which has well-known authors, take you to their home towns (like Kinky Friedman writing about Austin) or their adopted home towns (Alex Kotlowitz on Chicago) or places they have been. Read and learn. Travel and grow.

How much is that homegrown tomato?

Hey, home vegetable gardeners! This book is for you. The $64 Dollar Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in Quest for the Perfect Garden by William Alexander is one of those great "we're all in this together, gardeners", kind of read. His stories about his gardening adventures in the Hudson Valley area of New York (he has a lot of clay soil - just like our area) are pretty darn funny. His critter fight ends up being summed up by his co-worker as - "You may be smarter - but they have more time."

The title comes from the estimate he makes to figure out how much one of his heirloom tomatoes ends up costing him. I think his cost is much higher than normal gardeners (and I don't think he had any appreciation in the figure). I know my tomatoes come out much more cheaply, but I am not having a landscaping professional making/creating my garden beds either!

A fun gardening read for the home grower - perhaps something for the long winter months - but publishers always seem to put this stuff out in the spring - when real gardeners are getting busy! Read it, after the crop is put in!

Don't Look Down - Crusie and Mayer -------- I met 'em!

I had a wonderful chance to meet Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer at their booksigning for their current book Don't Look Down. Yeah, I know I wrote about it before (see below), but it really is a fun book. It was great hearing that even the authors thought their romantic adventure reminded them of the style of a movie like Romancing the Stone. We got to hear about their collaboration and how it started and how they felt about the book. Their concept of writing - Jenny writing the heroine and Bob writing the hero- and being able to combine their styles is wonderful... And the fact that they are writing another one together is very exciting.

It was also great to hear Jenny talk about the stuff that "stuck" in the books and what did not. (In DLD is it Wonder Woman) This is what I refer to as "the background bits" - the details that can make the lead character (or setting) quirky and informative. And I have a tendency to remember that stuff in odd moments (good tidbits for cocktail parties!) or make a later connection somewhere else. For instance in Jenny's previous book - Fast Women - she writes about various pottery/china. It was an aha moment - when I saw the pattern on sale at Marshall Fields. But hey - that is how you learn stuff. I learned about art glass from Jayne Ann Krentz, and beekeeping from LaVyrle Spencer. You Never Know!

And thanks to Bob - I learned a new swear word/term! Again - you never know...

"One evening in Maui, Jenny Crusie was watching the sun set over the Pacific when Bob Mayer sat down beside her and said, "What do you write?" Jenny said, "Well, basically, in my books, people have sex and get married." Bob said, "In my books, people have sex and die."
Naturally they decided to collaborate.
Nine months later, Don't Look Down was done."
from their website http://www.crusiemayer.com/story.htm

Valerie Frankel - More than just Chick Lit

Just finished Valerie Frankel's The Not-So-Perfect Man. I am catching up on her backlist. And again a book that is being marketed as Chick Lit, but it has more.

Frankel has a great sense of humor and her characters reflect that. Frieda is a young widow with a young son who is getting over the recent loss of her husband. Her older sister wants her to start dating again, her younger sister has dating problems of her own. When she meets Sam, he becomes more than just a "transitional" guy. So does she end up with the traditional provider of a guy? Or the actor who is on his way up? And how has the death of her husband really effected other members of the family and their relationships?

Frankel writes lead characters with interesting family groups and in this book the three sisters are the real leads. A great edition to her prior works.

Travel narrative at its finest

Frances Mayes' A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveler is a great example of armchair travel reading. I had not read her early work Under the Tuscan Sun, but I am now planning to. She is my kind of traveler - interested in the culture, food and history of an area. She also has an interesting habit of renting houses instead of staying in hotels, and emerses herself within the culture and the neighborhood. And she seems to be a habitual rehabber - she constant sees houses she thinks about redoing.

Her language is lush, her descriptions are fascinating and she makes you hungry for the food of the country. Each chapter is a different country or city. I have never really wanted to go to Portugal before - she makes it sound wonderful. Naples has now become a must see. (Just to experience the food alone!!) She almost manages to explain to me the complex (and confusing) history of Turkey and Greece. I think she would be a great traveling companion. Take a taste of her travels. Well worth it.

A reading Weekend.

Had a chance to catch up on some reading this weekend.

Quick short story read - The True Love Wedding Dress with authors Catherine Anderson,Connie Brockway, Casey Claybourne, Barbara Metzger. The concept - a charmed wedding dress appears through out the ages to bring true love to those who wear it. Time frames range from 1790 to "today". Great quick read with some good authors.

Miss Bubbles Steals the Show by Melanie Murray is a a fun Chick Lit read. If you like the theater world, New York City, cooking and cats, this is a book for you. Stella goes out for auditions, has a great group of friends, a stage mom in Michigan, some dicy boyfriends, a noisy neighbor upstairs and a white Persian cat named Miss Bubbles. What happens when Miss Bubbles wins a role off Broadway in a play? Life gets a bit wacky. Fun, heartache, baked goods and a cat that whistles. Nice and frothy.