The National Gallery – The Bookshop

I found my favorite museum bookstore case:  it’s about 4 feet high and wide, has three shelves and is full of art fiction.  I’ve never seen a museum bookstore give this genre it’s own section.  The shelves contained Byatt’s Matisse Stories, Zola’s The Masterpiece, Pamuk’s The Color Red, and Rembrandt’s Whore by Matton and Black.  There were several books I hadn’t read and I’d forgotten all about Byatt’s book.

In general, this store is very similar to good museum stores in the US, not quite the Met Store, but then again, what is?  There is a wide selection of art theory, art history, technique, museum studies books.  The requisite large bookshelf dedicated to National Gallery publications.  A great kid’s section which made me long for the days when my kids loved museum stores until it occurred to me how much money I save by not buying the puzzle that is twice the normal cost because it is a famous painting.  We never did finish the Botticelli puzzle we bought last year, all that creamy skin got confusing.

The British Museum Bookstore

Tucked away in small room is the British Museum Bookstore.  It’s a space completely dedicated to and packed with books.  I’m not an anthropologist, but I’m guessing this store is an anthropologist’s dream.  The store is divided primarily by geography (Asia, India, Europe, Greece, Americas, Britain, Egypt) including all seven continents.  Not surprisingly there is an emphasis on the Parthenon including a free handout concerning why the Elgin Marbles should stay there.  The upshot is ‘a deal’s a deal’ and more people would see them here.  In addition there are sections on history, natural history and catalogues for the current exhibitions.

If, hopefully when, I have the opportunity to spend a couple of days in the British Museum, I’ll use A History of the World in 100 Objects by the director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, as a guide.  A snippet of the description from the museum website:

This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them. The book’s range is enormous. It begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with an object from the 21st century which represents the world we live in today.

In fact, why wait, I’ll add that book to my Christmas list.

Siop Lyfrau Lewis Bookshop - Only marginally organized by genre, this store is a delight for those who love to sort through stacks of books to find a gem.  Books are in a variety of conditions, some are pristine, others not so much.  It’s really a treasure hunt type of store, it may be frustrating to dash in for a specific book, but perfect for good search.  The books were cheaper than the going rates at Hay-on-Wye.  I found Essays at Large by Solomon Eagle, the title reminded me of one of my favorite books, At Large and at Small by Anne Fadiman.  For all I know her title is related to Eagle.  If so, then the circle is complete because I bought his book in tribute to her.  Plus, the title of the first essay is “Reading in Bed,” a favorite activity.  Lord of the Flies was Kelsey’s required reading for the summer and we couldn’t find it in any of the Hay-on-Wye bookstores, but here, buried under a three foot stack of books, was a gold embossed edition.  After successfully retrieving it without collapsing the tower of books on top of it, Kelsey wondered about it’s ‘cool factor.’  Is it better to have the paperback everyone will be reading or something different?  I told her what I wish I understood at 13, it’s all about attitude.  Mark it up to look well-read and thought over, then carry it with confidence.

There is a relatively large selection of Welsh books and cards.  We bought a card that says “Happy Birthday” in Welsh, at least we think that’s what it says.  Oh well, the recipient won’t know any better either.  [Address:  21 Madoc St, Llandudno, Conway, UK  Tel:  01492 877 7000]

Madoc Books – This is a stunningly beautiful store, practically an art gallery of books.  It’s an antiquarian shop containing rows of shelves each filled with neatly placed and tagged leather bound books.  I walked through enjoying running my hands over the books.  While there was a smattering of literature, the focus was on history, natural history, travel, topography, religion, most with an emphasis on Wales.  There are choices in English and Welsh.  The books are pricey.  This store is for the collector or people like me, the voyeur.

There is “best” list for everything in Great Britain, one day we were fortunate to visit the “best loo in Great Britain” and while it was quite nice, as bathrooms go, we found it humorous that such an award existed. Kelsey patiently waited for me to meander around the store curled up in what she declared the “best chair in Wales.”  [Address:  5 Madoc St., Llandudno, Conway, UK  Tel:  01492 871 590]

Beacon Books - A Christian bookstore combined with a fair trade crafts store, I was surprised to see an Indie Bound poster in the doorway.  Beacon Books carries a selection of Christian fiction, Bibles, devotionals, and Bible study materials.  The store caters to the entire age range from children, to YA, at adults.   Much of the selection is similar to US Christian bookstores, but the baked goods sure looked tempting.  [Address:  30 Madoc St., Llandudno, Conway, UK  Tel:  01492 877995]

Once and Future King by T.H. White – This is one of Claire’s favorite books and when I decided we would travel through the region of Arthurian legends, I knew it was time to read it.  I’m not a huge fantasy reader (love C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, but who doesn’t), yet I enjoy the Arthurian legend with all those handsome knights dashing around.  White’s take is deservedly one of the best for combining adventure with moral challenges and decisions, it is definitely my kind of fantasy.  Plus, I liked the mental torture of envisioning how Merlin lived backwards.

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart – When I read this series 20 years ago, I raced home from work, grabbed dinner, and spent the entire evening reading.  This time, I revisited the Arthur tales with Once and Future King and passed Stewart’s tale to my husband and daughter.  Keith loved The Crystal Cave and went on to read the entire series.  Kelsey kept asking “when is Arthur going to show up?”   At which point I remembered that this telling was from the Merlin angle, that Once and Future King is largely about Lancelot, and The Mists of Avalon about Morgan Le Fey.  Who writes from Arthur’s point of view?  After reading about the legends, we all got a kick out of standing in silence (required) around the well in which Arthur dropped the chalice.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Sussana Clarke – Staying in the fantasy genre with some historical fiction thrown in (think British magic meets the Napoleonic wars), I enticed Kyle with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  While he liked the book and was able to add historical tidbits when walking around London, he thought it was unnecessarily long.  My husband picked it up about halfway through the trip and realized at about page 200 that he liked it, but not enough to read another 400 pages.  If you love delving into a long book, my impression is that this one is great company for an overseas flight.  (Recommended by Idlewild Books)

Un Lun Dun by China Mielville- a fantasy book for Kelsey recommended by Idlewild Books, she read it multiple times.  Set in present day London, a different world is discovered by the heroine.

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson – We have a family of Bryson fans, all lead by Kyle, and when I found a book about Bryson’s travel around Great Britain at Idlewild Books, I knew it would be a hit.  Little did I realize how much laughter it would add to our trip.  Both Kyle and Kelsey read the book in the backseat of our little rented car and we would hear bursts of gut splitting laughter.  As we traveled through some of the areas Bryson visited, the kids found the appropriate page and read what he wrote.  There is a mining city in Wales that I laughed all the way through.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – a crossover YA book, I bought it for Kelsey and me.  Kelsey tried reading it several times, but it didn’t interest her.  Initially written in 1948 and recently republished, it isn’t the typical plot driven YA book.  It has an aura of romance and a clash of American and British youth, but the plot builds relatively quietly.  I enjoyed it but understood how today’s younger YA reader expects a book to move faster.  (Recommended by Between the Covers)

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen – We spent a couple of days in Bath and I couldn’t imagine visiting there and not knowing its Austen heritage.  I gave my husband  Northanger Abbey and possibly I should have remembered that it is Claire’s least favorite Austen.  He finished it, grumbling.  I’m not sure if he’ll ever read an Austen book again.  I did ask if he understood 18th century Bath better because of the book, were the Pump Room lunch or the walking the promenade enliven by the book?  I think his response was something along the line that Northanger Abbey kills more than it enlivens.  That being said, I love the book and felt I was walking around the city in Jane’s footsteps.

I read a slew of realistic novels that contained social commentary and/or an inside view of British life.  If I were to do it over again, I’d read them in the following order, that is date order by subject matter:

Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence – 19th century novel about a mining family, it’s a modern novel that reads like chick-lit.  The setting is central England, areas we drove through (mostly lost), but added a lot to the mining areas we explored in Wales.  Not an easy life, yet somehow better than I anticipated driving around the areas.  The mother is a character I still think about months after reading the book.

The Children’s Book by A. S. Byatt – A look at the writers, artisans and thinkers of pre-World War I British society.  This is one of my favorite books in the last year.  It explores the growth of political and literary thought while showing a world that ended with the Great War.  A must to read if you plan on visiting the V&A.

The Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh – Picking up in time where Byatt left off, Brideshead reveals the crumbling of the old landed gentry in English society.  I read it while staying outside York in a country home, it couldn’t have been more perfect.  I expected Julia, Sebastian and Lady Marchmain to show up for dinner every evening.

Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst – Using Waugh’s technique of writing from the point of view of an outsider school friend joining an upper class family, this time the reader gets an insider view of Margaret Thatcher’s England.  It some ways it felt stranger to read about a society that existed(es) within my lifetime, yet has the feel of being so out of touch.  Maybe one person’s ‘out of touch’ is another person’s  ’traditional.’

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simpson – such a lovely look a English village life set in present day England.  It’s a meeting of traditional and contemporary English society and how to meld the best of each.

Do these recommendations spark any of your own?  Please share them, because really, who needs to wait to travel there to read good English literature?  I’m ready to read more now.

The entire five days I spent in New York City, I exited the subway station to the street and turned in the correct direction only once.  Even when I thought ‘my instincts say it’s to the right, so I’ll go to the left,’ I went the wrong way.  I was so sure I heading the correct direction down 19th Street to Idlewild Books that I walked blocks and blocks away from the store.  It’s a lovely neighborhood, I know because I’ve seen it at a pedestrian’s pace.  Actually, a little quicker.  On the way back it started to sprinkle, then it started to rain, then hard, and I started to sprint.  When I entered Idlewild Books I was dripping.  I literally shook myself off on the landing like my golden retriever.

Some of the stained glass and chairs are from the original Idlewild Airport

David, the owner of the store, asked “Did you forget your umbrella?”

I said, “I’m from Los Angeles, I don’t even own an umbrella.”

I’m sure the store is beautiful in any weather, but it is perfect for a stormy day.  It exudes warmth.  Check out the picture with the wooden floors, huge front window and bookshelves everywhere.  There is an alcove or two for curling up in.  In fact, the entire time I was there a man was diligently working on his laptop in a corner.  In Los Angeles, he would be a screenwriter, but since I was in New York I assumed he was writing the next Great American Novel (no, it wasn’t Franzen).

I hesitate to say that Idlewild Books is a travel bookstore because I fear that the title invokes the travel section at Borders with sloppy shelves of guidebooks.  Idlewild Books has guidebooks (they looked neatly organized), but its charm is as an advocate for traveling with or through literature.  In the last 18 months, I think I’ve purchased about a dozen books there (a set for each family vacation) and only one was a guidebook that David practically had to beg me to buy when he found out I loved Italian art.  My experience has been to tell David where I’m going and what I’m interested in and he tells me the books that will add an entirely new dimension to the trip.  I should add, it’s not just me, he recommends the books my teenagers will carry with them.  [What we read on our latest family vacation, including David's suggestions, will be in a future post.]

The store is divided geographically with all the guidebooks, novels, YA, classics and non-fiction about the appropriate area in one location.  By providing novels relevant to the literature, culture and history of various countries, the store is also a treasure trove of translated literature.  When I was looking for books to read while traveling in Italy, it was from Idlewild Books that I found translated gems.  Lately, they started offering language classes in the store.  It’s one stop shopping-research traveling in a country, read it’s literature and learn its language-all at Idlewild Books.

If you can’t make it to the store, check out the website.  I found the website focuses more on guidebooks than literature for some areas, for those countries I recommend calling the store directly and ask for recommendations.  Give it a try, you’ll find that ‘you are there’ reading (to quote Anne Fadiman) enriches your trip.

Idlewild Books

12 W 19th Street

New York, NY 10011

Tel:  212.414.8888

My favorite line?  ”Is that your blood?”  ”Oh . . . yes, some of it.”

I feel fairly certain Jane would have loved this.

San Miguel is a town to meander around.  The colonial buildings open into court yards containing stores, restaurants and galleries.  And if the door is closed?  So much the better because the doors of San Miguel are beautiful, so much so there is a book, aptly named The Doors of San Miguel de Allende, by Robert De Gast, documenting them.

Wandering through the streets, we stumbled upon Garrison & Garrison Books, an English language used bookstore.  It’s fairly tiny store with about 8 bookshelves, a book table and a few tattered but comfy chairs.  The flyers for ex-pat events showed the store was a bit of a community center itself.  The store offers the traveler a variety of literature, mystery or airplane reads.  There is also a selection of local interest books, among them said Doors book.  Before leaving for Mexico, I looked for Life in Mexico by Frances Calderon De La Barca the Scottish wife the Spanish Ambassador from Mexico from 1839-1845, a book of lively letters, but was told that it was out of print.  It was sitting on the table in Garrison & Garrison, I was thrilled until I noticed the size.  It was a doorstop book that I couldn’t imagine carrying around all day and then home in  my luggage.  Every time I was in a taxi that drove by Garrison  & Garrison, I was tempted to ask the driver to pause just for a minute while I ran in to buy a book the weight of a newborn child.

Recommended Reading for San Miguel de Allende

Not willing to endure an aching back from hauling around Life in Mexico, I did read two books that added flavor to my visit.  To make progress on the Essay Challenge, I chose DH Lawrence’s Mornings in Mexico.  Traveling in the San Miguel area while reading Lawrence’s essays created a dialogue between what I was seeing and what I was reading.  The essays were written in the 1920s and described a world that is much changed 80 years later, but there was an essence of the place that Lawrence experienced and I sensed.  The courtyard life Lawrence describes in “Corasmin and the Parrots” as he ponders evolution is very similar to the atmosphere we wandered through and relaxed in.  We visited during Holy Week, consecutive days full of beautiful observances, and Lawrence was struck by a similar beauty in one of the church scenes he witnessed in ‘Walk to Hayapa.’  My favorite, along many other people, is ‘Market Day.’  I read it after returning home from San Miguel’s huge Tuesday market.  Kelsey bought sandals, Keith ancient coins and we all decided to try a cactus dish.  During his market day, Lawrence pretends to bargain for a pair of sandals but doesn’t buy them because they stink, knowing the whole time that the odor is the result of tanning them in manure.  I couldn’t stop myself from sniffing Kelsey’s sandals, just to make sure.  I sat for an hour one afternoon in the central jardin reading the descriptions of the characters in the essays and watching the Mexicans milling around me, the traits Lawrence described in one person or another seemed to pop up repeatedly.

The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes throws Mexicans and Americans together as part of Poncho Villa’s army.  Fuentes throws the two cultures together just as both cultures intermix in San Miguel.  The stories of the interactions in The Old Gringo and what I witnessed in San Miguel are different, but the concept of the two neighboring countries living together and apart was interesting to read in a ex-pat outpost in Mexico.

If you’ve read about  a romantic Mexico with a colonial or hacienda feel but have wondered where it is as you’re on the beach in Cancun or shopping in Tijuana, you’re in the wrong place, go to San Miguel de Allende.

Garrison & Garrison Books

Hernandez Macias 59

San Miguel de Allende

It started in the airport.

No, I take that back.  It started weeks before that, at the school library, where my teenager (for reasons I never was clear on) checked out the first book in Patterson’s Maximum Ride series.  And then the second and the third and the fourth . . .

Note to anyone interested in reading them: they don’t end.  They just keep coming.

There’s a reason for that.  Patterson isn’t an author the way, say, I’m an author, or even that a big name like Michael Chabon is an author.  He’s a factory.  He freely admits he works with co-authors on most of the books he writes: he comes up with the idea and the outline and someone else connects the dots, adhering to his style.  According to the New York Times article which describes this process, “since 2006, one out of every 17 novels bought in the United States was written by James Patterson.”

Why are his books so successful?  Well, I’ve started the first Maximum Ride and I can tell you that everything we’ve talked about on this blog as far as the direction kids’ books are moving in is there to the nth degree: constant action, simple language, direct dialogue, exaggerated peril . . .   This isn’t The Secret Garden.  This is hardboiled, exciting and intense thriller-style fiction.  And my boys are eating it up.

Which brings me back to the airport.  So my teenage son is reading the Maximum Ride books and he gets my ten-year-old hooked on them too, right before we head off on our two-week spring break vacation.  My ten-year-old has read the first couple of books and we’ve downloaded another one onto the Kindle.  He’s also bringing a bunch of other books on the trip: my kids read more on vacation than the rest of the year combined.  (Mostly because they watch less TV on vacation than the rest of the year combined.)  His brother is packing the most recent Maximum Ride book, a hardcover called Fang, but there’s a book between the last one Will has and that one, which means there’ll be a gap in his reading.

There’s a very small book display near where we’re sitting in the airport.  And guess what’s there?  Maximum Ride books.  Including the “gap” one–the one Will hasn’t read and we don’t have with us.  I ask him if he wants me to buy it.  And he thinks about it and says, “No, I have enough to read.”

Fine.

Cut to our family, a week later, searching through every English language store in Rome and Venice, trying desperately to get our hands on a copy of that book.  That book we saw in the airport.  That book I pointed to and said, “You want me to get it now?” and Will said, “Nah” to.  The book he now wants more than life itself.

Fortunately for Will, I like an excuse to go to English language bookstores.  Even his father, who normally thinks it’s a waste of time to shop in a foreign country, spots a store in Rome called MelBookstore and goes in (after all, my father’s name is Mel so it’s a good excuse for a photo op).    He scores the third Stieg Larsson book–the British edition.  But they don’t have the Maximum Ride book we need.

I grab the Stieg Larsson book from Rob and insist on reading it first.  (He’s used to this.)  (More on the family vacation reading to come.)  But Will’s birthday is fast approaching and the one thing he truly wants and needs is this Maximum Ride book.  I remind him we could have gotten it at the airport if he’d just said yes.  Oddly enough, he doesn’t find this at all comforting.  He didn’t want the book then.  He wants it now.

Whenever we see, the words “English books” or “International bookstore” we dart inside.  We end up at a store near the Spanish Steps called Il Mare where they have books in English . . . only they’re all about the ocean.  (Ah, yes: Il Mare.  The Sea.  A little slow on that one.)  Will is annoyed.  He wanted James Patterson; he got Jules Verne.  It’s a beautiful little bookstore, though, with an espresso machine and tables in the back and lots of artwork devoted to the sea.   But no one’s in a mood to appreciate it so on we go.  Later, thanks to the list Kim linked to in an earlier post on bookstores in Rome, we go on a journey to find the famous Lion Bookstore, near the Spanish Steps.  At this point, Will is desperate, so when–after a certain unnamed member of the family leads us the wrong way and we get lost for a while first–we finally find the Lion and it’s closed for the night, Will succombs to despair.  Dinner helps.

More bookstores, more disappointments.  There’s a cool one near our hotel that runs underground–you can go down on one side of the big intersection and come up on the other.  My kids are convinced it was once a subway stop but the employees shake their heads no, although that might have been, “no, we have no idea what you keep asking us” as opposed to “no, it’s not a subway stop.”  Anyway, that one doesn’t have any English language books but it helps us get across the street so it’s all good.

A couple of stores taunt us, promising books in English, and featuring James Patterson in their windows (he does get around, that guy).  But they don’t have Maximum Ride.  Or at least not OUR Maximum Ride.  Even the bookstore at the train station where we caught a ride to Venice–which had an enormous English language section, almost a whole floor–didn’t have the one book we wanted.  His disappointment was huge: if it wasn’t there, could it be anywhere in Italy?

It certainly didn’t seem like it could possibly be in Venice, that overpriced Disneyland of a city.  The bookstores near us carried more drawings than books, and the books they had were for gazing at, not reading.

And then.  And then.

Walking along a street, we spot an international bookstore, the Libreria Mondadori (read here for a wonderful description).  We enter.  It’s got a small downstairs but promises a bigger section upstairs.  We run up the stairs and traipse around.  Where are the English books?  In a far off corner, we discover.  We prowl, we poke, we scan the shelves. James Patterson, yes; Maximum Ride, no.  We tell Will to find something else, so he obediently–if somewhat unenthusiastically starts looking through the shelves.  He’s picked a possible contender when Johnny shouts exultantly: he’s just unearthed a single Maximum Ride book.

And it’s the one we need.

13 Euros later (Don’t think of how much cheaper it would have been in the airport, Claire, not to mention at any bookstore near home), the book was safely tucked away in Will’s backpack.

His birthday was the day after and guess what he wanted to do for it?

Stay in the hotel and read, of course.

Maybe someday he’ll see the Doge’s Palace.  But not this year.

One of my top two favorite gifts I have given was Claire’s 40th birthday present. We had talked for years about the kinds of books we read and Claire is a big fan of the beach read, or to put it more bluntly, the trashy book. In honor of her reading choices, I bought a small trash can and filled it with the appropriate books. Decorated with balloons and tissue paper, books piled in and stacked up to keep the trash lid open, truly, the gift was a sight to behold. Unfortunately, neither one of us took a picture of it.

I received quite a few stares as I dragged the trash can through Duttons Bookstore, selecting the perfect books and trying to shove in as many as possible. It’s been a few years (actually I can’t remember how many years, but I do remember that it was during the baseball play offs and I would like to take this moment to once again remind Claire that I left a Dodger playoff game to attend your party), so I don’t remember all the books I picked, but here are some of my favorite poolside-thoroughly-enjoyable reads:

1. Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon – this is my favorite beach read! I think there are seven in the series, who knows, they seem to multiply like rabbits. Yes, she is in desperate need of an editor, yes, the series isn’t as good as it continues, but none of her fans care. This isn’t high literature, it’s fun and when Claire and Jamie are off on an adventure the world melts away.

2. Any Dan Brown book – Claire and I said we wouldn’t buy his latest book, it’s just not worth the money, but we’re so glad we received it as a gift. I’m scheduled to fly on a little plane to a third world country; with The Lost Symbol to distract me I’m sure not to drive my companions crazy questioning every little noise the plane makes.

3. The Josephine Bonaparte Trilogy (starting with The Many Lives and Sorrows of Josephine B.) by Sandra Gulland – great escapist historical fiction.

4. Tara Road by Maeve Binchy – This is the only Binchy I’ve read completely, the others I’ve dropped after a few chapters, but this book carried me through a terrible week with an insane boss and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

5. From my high school years I have fond memories of Princess Daisy by Judith Krantz and Kane and Abel by Jeffery Archer, both big rags to riches family sagas.

6. No Angel by Penny Vincenzi – The wonderful bookseller at Corner Bookstore in NYC recommended this book to me as the perfect antidote to two cranky kids and a wonderful companion for a cross country flight. She was right.

CLAIRE:

Kim’s gift was truly a pleasure to behold and then to enjoy.  A brilliant idea and one you should think about if you want to give a fun gift (but it does require two stops, since few bookstores stock small trashcans).   She totally got me hooked on Outlander and since I’m the crass one, I’ll go ahead and say that the sex scenes in that book are phenomenal and it was ultimately probably as much a gift for my husband who never read a word of it as it was for me.  Which brings me to an important point: I need romance and/or sex in my escapism.  Guns and plots don’t do it for me unless they’re wrapped around a romance.

And of course I loves me my fantasy . . .

1.  Anything by Robin Hobbs. I know few women my age share my passion for fantasy,  but it’s the genre I turn to first to escape real life. Robin Hobb’s trilogies are fantastic (especially the one that starts with Assassin’s Apprentice).   I actually saw a news story about a teenager with amnesia who the reporter said was carrying around one of Hobb’s books–experts were saying that she was so lost in the author’s created world that she lost her sense of reality.  I’m not making this up.  And I remember finishing the last of her nine book series (three trilogies really) and feeling like a door was closing on me and I wanted to stay.  I wanted to stay.  Pure entertainment, beginning to end.

2.  George R.R. Martin is similarly wonderful, but his series A Song of Ice and Fire DOESN’T END.  He just kind of stopped publishing in the middle of the saga.  Maybe he’ll start up again but when you start having five year long gaps between books, you risk losing readers.  He’s fun and enthralling though.

3. For true trash, there’s Jackie Collins, of course.  Haven’t read her in years, but I went through a big phase about twenty years ago and had me a ball.  The books are fun and they didn’t annoy me the way most books written to be amusing trash annoy me (usually because they’re badly written and cliched).

4.  Mary Renault’s books about ancient Greece and Rome.  I read her when I was a teenager and then again when I was an adult traveling to Europe.  Sexy fun with enough history and mythology to make you feel like maybe you haven’t wasted your time.  You probably have–but what a way to waste it.

5.  The Stieg Larsson books.  See?  I do occasionally read contemporary novels.   I liked Girl Who Played with Fire a little more than Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, although Dragon was a little more romantic . . .  Anyway, the books are good solid trashy fun.

6.  Going back in time again: Ian Fleming’s James Bond books are magnificent.  I’m talking about the REAL Ian Fleming novels, the originals.  Sexy, harsh, tough, believably extreme and much better than the movies.  I used to reread them every summer and still do on occasion.  They don’t disappoint.

7.  Lauren Willig’s The Secret History of the Pink Carnation and I guess its sequels although I haven’t read them.  She does sex scenes REALLY well.  I always loved The Scarlet Pimpernel and while Willig is no Baroness D’Orczy, she . . .  does sex scenes REALLY well.  Enjoy.  (And by the way, if you ever blurb one of my novels for any reason, I’m happy with “does sex scenes really well” as the blurb.  Remember that.)

I could list more but I’m dead on my feet with exhaustion and we’re in crazy pre-break mode.  But this is fun.  I think Kim and I should get our hubbies to do this next and then we can do an analysis of what men look for in a trashy novel–plots?  peril?  tax fraud?  That last is my nod to Grisham whose exciting denouements always seem to involve . . . tax fraud. Woo-hoo.  I’ll take my sex scenes, thank you very much.

Anyway, have a great vacation–we intend to.  But before you go, let us know which trashy books you’d recommend to a fellow traveler searching desperately in the airport bookstore for something to transport her completely away from the inevitable screaming babies and seat-kicking toddlers.  And I know I’m going to think of a bunch more and be annoyed at myself for forgetting them, so look for future comments from me.

MY 15 FAVORITE MODERN TRAVEL BOOKS BY 15 DIFFERENT AUTHORS
(A Totally Idiosyncratic List)

Barry, Dave - Dave Barry Does Japan
Bryson, Bill - Notes from a Small Island
Byron, Robert – The Road to Oxiana
Chatwin, Bruce – In Patagonia
Dalrymple, William - In Xanadu
Fermor, Patrick Leigh – A Time of Gifts
Fleming, Peter – News from Tartary
Greenwald, Jeff - The Size of the World: Once Around Without Leaving the Ground
Iyer, Pico – Video Night in Kathmandu
Kerouac, Jack – On the Road
Naipaul, V. S. – An Area of Darkness
Newby, Eric – Slowly Down the Ganges
Stark, Freya – Alexander’s Path
Steinbeck, John – Travels with Charley
Theroux, Paul - The Great Railway Bazaar

Don’t forget to enter our Holiday Helper giveaway, buy any two books at an independent bookstore before December 31st, send us the receipt(s) and we’ll enter you in a drawing for an ABA Gift Card.

Michelangelo Distilled

After hours listening to art history lectures, wading through biographies and art history books, I found A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome refreshingly informative and compact.  Angela Nickerson finds the perfect balance between the man, his era, and his art.  Michelangelo’s creations are a product of the intellectual fervor, the spiritual upheaval, and the political patronage system of the Renaissance.  In the opening chapters, the book gives  an overview of the events that shaped Michelangelo’s world.  The book then continues with a focus on his life and his work.  Without any information, Michelangelo’s works are beautiful, but with the right background, their brilliance grows.   

His Art – Technical and Fun

With luscious photographs, Angela leads us through Michelangelo’s life in art, from The Madonna of the Stairs to the Florentine Pieta.   Angela points out the unique aspects of each piece of art and the interesting stories behind them.   While thousands of words could be written about the Rome Pieta, Angela precisely points out Michelangelo’s mastery: 

The composition Michelangelo created involved carving two full-sized figures from one block of marble–a difficult task.  Michelangelo bent the rules of proportion to his own purposes:  Mary is much larger than Jesus to support the weight of a life-sized figure in her lap, but their heads are the same size, making  the difference in size hard to detect.  Mary’s size serves as a structural purpose, but it also allows the grieving mother to hold her son on her lap, creating a tableau that is both powerful and tender.

And the gossip about the piece?  After it was installed in St. Peter’s, Michelangelo overheard someone attribute the work to another artist.  Not happy, Michelangelo carved his name along Mary’s sash.  This is the only work he ever signed.  I love back stories; I frequently find the art more intimate and memorable after hearing them.

I enjoyed the pairing of photographs of Michelangelo’s work of art with the inspiration for the art, something usually only found in art history classes or huge art history books, not in a portable book.  I can’t view the ancient Laocoon and Michelangelo’s Moses at that same time, they are miles apart, but having the photos side-by-side, I could look at one in person and see how it was in dialogue with the other. 

In my very limited experience, Michelangelo’s architectural work is frequently overshadowed by his sculpture and painting.  Angela describes his impact on St. Peter’s and his design for the Capitoline Hill.  When I walked up the Capitoline Hill, into one of the most beautiful piazzas ever, the Piazza del Campidoglio, I was so grateful I had read  A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome.  Without Angela’s guidance, I would have missed all that Michelangelo accomplished there.

Michelangelo – The Man

A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome isn’t limited to Michelangelo’s art.  Angela gives insight into his family relationships, his friends, his spirituality, and his work habits.  I found his relationship with Vittoria Colonna is fascinating.  The book provides a history of the relationship and a map showing where they met to talk for hours about their faith.  Attacked by his enemies, Angela describes Michelangelo’s struggles with other artists, the Pope (the tomb project would plague him) and papal advisors.  Cesena disagrees with Michelangelo’s portrayal of nudes and earns a portrait of himself as Minos in The Last Judgment,  beautiful photo of which is included in the book. 

The Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome extends beyond Michelangelo’s lifetime, describing the drama over the location of his body (it was stolen and sent to Florence), the work on his tomb, and the artists he influenced.  Interestingly, Vasari, who gives a contemporaneous view of Michelangelo in his Lives of the Artists, receives the commission to complete Michelangelo’s tomb.  Vasari’s design, in Florence’s Santa Croce, does not compare with Michelangelo’s Florentine Pieta, which he started to sculpt for his tomb, but never completed.

The combination of both personal and professional, with photos and maps, results in an art history book that invaluable to the Roman visitor and a joy for the armchair traveler.