An Embarrassment of Riches

A Journey of a Thousand Miles begins with a Book - by Helen

A friend introduced me to Penguin's Great Journeys series of short travelogues.
I began with Jaguars & Electric Eels by Alexander Von Humboldt. Containing excerpts from the last three volumes of the thirty volume set of Von Humboldt's account of his journey around the New World in 1799, this book is full of sights, sounds and adventures of this thinker and traveler.

Another fun series of travel tales is Crown Journeys by Crown Publishing. This series of literary travel books tries to match interesting writers with interesting places. The writers are all known for their work in other genres: Christopher Buckley on Washington, Tim Cahill on Yellowstone and Chuck Palahniuk on Portland, among others. The only rule of the format is that the writers take their journeys on foot, hence the books tend to be personal and often quirky.

In preparation for a visit to the East Coast, I read Frank Conroy's Time and Tide: a Walk Through Nantucket and Land's End and Land's End: A Walk Through Provincetown by Michael Cunningham. Both are in the Crown Journeys series.

Traveller's History is another good series, particularly for the armchair traveler looking for a nutshell history. The library owns many titles in the series - from Canada to Athens to Turkey to New Zealand and the South Sea Islands. Take a look at the variety.

If you are traveling in the United States, look for the Art of the State series. These nifty little books have state symbols, cultural arts, roadside attractions and lists of tourist destinations to enhance enjoyment of the state.

Happy trails!

Vicarious Journeys - by Helen

 Price of travelling too high? Take a vicarious journey of adventure this summer. Balthasar's Odyssey is a tale set in the 17th century, but several of the threads are oddly contemporary -- the differences between Muslims, Christians and Jews; the tug between superstition and reason, the fear of signs and portents.

Next year will be 1666, the Year of the Beast, and many communities are wrapped in fear and dread that the Apocalypse is near. Balthasar Embriaco, a Genoese bookseller and antique dealer, living in the Levant sets out to find a book called The Hundredth Name of God which many believe will reveal the secret name of God and will thus save the world from destruction.

The voice of Balthasar as he spins the tale of his journey from Gibelet to Constantinople, to Smyrna across the Mediterranean and on to London shortly before the Great Fire is a treat. A kind of braggart so proud of his family name and heritage, Balthasar entertains us with his journal of travels and travails, musings and romance. Described by one reveiwer as picturesque and picaresque, this novel provides much entertainment.

Since I've been thinking about traveling, I was delighted to find a new CD title called Selected Shorts: Travel Tales. These short stories are read (performed really), by acclaimed actors and actresses mostly in front of a live audience at the Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York City.

I was particularly delighted with Paul Hecht's reading of "The Hat of My Mother" by Max Steele, one of the travel tales from Selected Shorts. His pauses, pacing and the way he draws out certain parts of the sentences makes this humorous story come alive. I could picture the family gathered around the breakfast table the morning after Mother was kidnapped and safely returned. "I only want to tell this story once and I'd better not hear it repeated from anywhere outside the family", she says in a very firm voice.

There are currently 49 different Selected Shorts CD titles on a variety of subjects. Find a list here. Get one and listen for yourself.

Can you think of other vicarious journeys to recommend to the armchair traveler?

My Family and Other Books - by Ruth (read) One of my favorite books of last year is an oldie but a definite goody:  My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.  I was finally motivated to read this book when PBS aired a movie version, and I almost never see a movie before reading the book it's based on.  Months later, I found out that it was a friend's favorite book, and he told me about other Durrell books he had enjoyed including two short story collections:  The Picnic and Other Inimitable Stories and Marrying Off Mother and Other Stories.  Durrell is a keen observer (as any naturalist should be!) of not only nature, but of family, friends and other people he comes across in his peripatetic life, and his delightful descriptions make for lots of fun reading.  My Family and Other Animals is about the time he spent with his mother and three siblings on the Greek island of Corfu in the 1930s.  Larry (I had a "Duh!" moment when it finally hit me that Larry was the novelist Lawrence Durrell, author of the Alexandria Quartet!) is querulous and self-absorbed, Leslie - the second eldest brother - will shoot anything that moves (and some things that don't), and Margo, the lone daughter, could be a teenage girl today, with her boyfriend troubles and diets.  Mother is vague and sweet, constantly mediating her family's quarrels while cooking a constant stream of tasty-sounding dishes.  Gerry delights in bugs and all other things in the natural world, and finds friends among the locals while enjoying his status as the youngest family member.  This early love of nature endured throughout Gerald's life - he became a well-known naturalist who established the Jersey Zoological Park, and a prolific author and TV personality. The other two books in the Corfu trilogy are Birds, Beasts and Relatives and Fauna and Family.  If you've never read Gerry, you're in for a treat!

Travelling in Bible Lands - by Helen

I've found a good book for people who like to read travelogues. In the Steps of St. Paul by H.V. Morton is a gem. Not only is it a good introduction to the travels of St. Paul, but also a modern (1936) travel journey complete with humor and wonderful scenes of interaction between the author and the people that he meets.

The author is visiting the Turkish city of Konya and has found a modest-looking hotel owned by Russians:

    "At dinner that night a smiling, collarless waiter placed before me a roughly-hewn scrap of meat and potatoes which had been painfully cut into thin slices and then subjected, before a slight heating, to a bath in one of the more revolting oils. From the expression of eager expectancy on the faces of waiter, proprietor and proprietor's wife, I gathered that this was either a speciality or a death verdict. Sawing off a portion, I took an apprehensive mouthful, whereupon the waiter bowed, grinning all over his face, and the proprietor came forward and, also bowing, pointed to my plate, and said with some difficulty:
    'Beef-roast!'
    Then I realized that in this far-off place the pathetic sweetness of the human heart, that transcends all barriers of race, had devised a little compliment to England. I rose and told them in sign language that the meat was superb. They laughed and bowed with delight. And when the room was empty for a moment, a little hungry dog that had slipped beneath the table was a friend in need and -- in deed!"

And who can resist wanting to travel to the islands of the Aegean Sea after reading a description like this?:

"I have seen the islands of the Aegean dried up like last year's walnuts, seamed and wrinkled by the heat of the sun, their moisture sucked up and hidden in the fruit of the fig-tree, the melon, and the pomegranate. But in the spring these islands sing to the sound of torrents falling through pinewoods to the sea. They shine like emeralds, green with growing corn, with fig-leaves like green fingers held to the sun, with vine-leaves running over the ground like small green fires of the earth."

    Reading the introduction to In the Steps of St Paul by Bruce Feiler, I was reminded that he has written his own book of travels in Bible lands called Walking the Bible. It will be interesting to compare his viewpoint to the very British attitudes of H. V. Morton.