Place de la Concord: Obelisk and la Fontaine des Mers installed in 1836 and 1846

Destination: Paris

Book: The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (NEW May 2011) by David McCullough

1900 Cafe, Left Bank

The master biographer, David McCullough , in the travel biography  The Greater Journey , focuses on a variety of people who spent time in Paris during the period between 1830 and 1900.  A crowd of medical students, art students, scientists, politicians–some dilettantes and some accomplished and dedicated to self-improvement–come from the raw new country of the United States to soak up some style in the cultural capitol of Europe.

It seems appropriate to review this book the day after the tenth anniversary of September 11, a day that sharpens a feeling of patriotism in America. Despite the fact that it takes place in Paris, the reader also learns about the maturing of the young country. Time after time these travelers to Paris–whether short-term tourists or long-term ex pats–tell friends how their time in Paris has made them feel more American.  McCullough skillfully shows the growing confidence of the United States citizens in their own country.

In the early sections, McCullough pulls off a complex act, juggling a great many life stories and at the same time filling in the history, culture, and look of Paris itself. People we meet include Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., father of the better known Supreme Court Justice. The elder Holmes studied medicine in Paris when U.S. medical schools lagged far behind.

And did you know that Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph, intended to become an artist? That’s why he went to Paris.

Posters for sale in book stall

We follow Richard Rush, American Minister to France, through the overthrow of the last King of France and then the horrible uprising of 1848, brought on by desperate economic conditions. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American female physician, makes interesting observations on the arts, comparing Rembrandt to Hawthorne. “ The House of Seven Gables is a succession of Rembrandt pictures done in words instead of oils.”

Writers flocked to Paris, too.  McCullough gives us an in-depth portrait of James Fenimore Cooper. Regardless of whether you like Cooper’s  overwrought adventures of the American frontier, (eg. Last of the Mohicans) you must admit that he truly was an American writers, despite the fact that many of his books were actually written while he was resident in Paris.  McCullough says in the Source Notes “Cooper was a far more interesting man and the popularity of his work abroad far greater than generally appreciated in our time.”

Of the outstanding New Englanders whose brilliance distinguished American letters in the 1850s, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and now Harriet Beecher Stowe had all made pilgrimages to Paris.  In 1858 followed yet another, Nathaniel Hawthorne…The only one of the New England “immortals” who did not come was Henry Thoreau , but then he seldom went anywhere.

McCullough also praises the ordinary people who kept diaries–a form of writing that generally escapes fame– and we can thank this book for bringing them to our attention.

“….so many of the protagonists were superb writers… Such descriptions to be found in the letters and journals of even those who did not regard themselves as professional writers–like Emma Willard, Charles Sumner, or Thomas Appleton–amply qualify as American literature of the sea.  Anyone wishing a sample of the professional virtuosity of a writer like Nathaniel Willis need only read his hilarious account of dining on board the brig Pacific in rough weather.” From the introduction to Source Notes, Section 1. The Way Over.

In the Source Notes, McCullough recommends the first of John Sanderson’s  two-volume The Americans in Paris, as  ”one of the best books about Paris by an American ever written.”

In the later sections of the book, McCullough focuses on one or two people at a time, going into great depth about men and women we may or may not remember, but who deserve our attention. The story of Elihu Washburne, friend of Ulysses S. Grant and ambassador to France during the great upheaval of a German siege from outside and a vicious internal revolt, surely deserves to be known as one of the truly great men of American history. We get mini-biographies of artists John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

Pont Neuf, Paris

Why does this book deserve a place in the traveler’s library? For one thing, a traveler planning a trip to Paris could use The Greater Journey as a guide. Here an uprising took place, here a famous artist or author had an apartment, here a  famous American took medical classes, or attended an artists’ atelier.

Traveler’s activities today echo those described in The Greater Journey. Naturally, all artists flock to the Louvre, many sitting all day and copying paintings.

Copying a Masterpiece at the Louvre (21st century)

Many of the figures in the book live on the left bank–several in St. Germaine. The Jardins Luxembourg and the Tuilleries are important to the lives of the 19th century visitor as they are today. The landmark bridges and even the venerable Procope restaurant had been visited as far back as the 18th century when Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and John Adams came to Paris. They are all still there.

Rear view of Procope with portraits of famous guests

McCullough always has an eye for the telling detail. For instance when the city residents are scrambling for food–dining on rat and horse, American Minister to France Elihu Washburne holds a Christmas dinner in which he serves canned goods, and

“…in addition chocolates, of which there was still no shortage in Paris.  Indeed, supplies of French chocolate, mustard, and wine appeared to be inexhaustible.”

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, or as Henry James called it, “the still-present past of Paris.”

[A copy of the book, The Greater Journey, was supplied by the publisher, Simon & Schuster for the purposes of review. All photos are the property of Ken Badertscher and Vera Marie Badertscher. Please inquire if you want to reuse. The book title is linked to Amazon for your convenience. If you click through to Amazon and purchase anything at all, I get a few cents which helps support A Traveler's Library. Thanks.]

For many of the figures in the book, their time in Paris was transformative. You can see more modern stories of the influence of Paris in the book, Paris Was Ours. Have you visited another country and felt the visit changed you in important ways?

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Book: A Volume of Friendship: The Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway 1904-1953, Edited by Kristie Miller and Robert H. McGinnis

Roosevelt Cottage at Campobello

“It has been such lovely weather that just to be alive was all one wanted….”  Eleanor Roosevelt in letter to Isabella Greenway in August, 1906. Isabella Greenway was the first female member of Congress form Arizona and built The Arizona Inn in Tucson which is still going strong.

When my sister and I decided to travel on a road trip in Nova Scotia, we looked at the map for our route, and noticed that Campobello Island sits on the Maine/Canada border. Canada and the U.S. have created an International Park at the old Roosevelt compound. I have long been entranced with Campobello, so glowingly mentioned in Eleanor Roosevelt’s letters, and we are both interested in politics and former Presidents, so we decided to make a slight detour to Campobello on our way to Nova Scotia. I had met Kristie Miller, the editor of the book, A Volume of Friendship, and have read three of her books. I went back to this one to remind me of Eleanor’s exact words.

In 1916, Isabella writes to Eleanor: “I picture you on your enchanted island.”

Dining Room of cottage near Roosevelts

My sister Paula and I knew that this trip was too short to do justice to the island. After all, the Roosevelts uprooted their household and moved all their children (eventually five), along with servants and all they needed to exist nearly every summer. My sister and I were only going to spend the night.

I was growing accustomed to managing quite a small army on moves from Washington to Hyde Park and to Campobello and back.  Eleanor Roosevelt in This is My Story, her autobiography.

At first they were staying with Franklin’s mother in her long-time summer home (purchased in 1883 when Franklin was one year old).

Eventually, “Mama” bought a 34-room “cottage” on 5 acres for Eleanor and Franklin and their “chicks.” Eleanor was delighted.

Franklin and I love our house. The view is too lovely, the sailing glorious, the weather deliciously cool, but of course, people, there simply are none.  Eleanor to Isabella, 1909

View from back of Roosevelt Cottage

The “no people” is a slight exaggeration, since the extensive Roosevelt family and friends tended to come and stay for weeks. But still, the isolation must have been a relief from their otherwise busy political life in Albany New York, New York City, and later Washington D.C.

The letters to Isabella Greenway in this book unveil a different Eleanor Roosevelt than the famous dynamo of later days. When Isabella and Eleanor wrote, they were young girls, and Eleanor was very shy and not at all interested in public life. Isabella Greenway was an enthusiastic, energetic young woman, who was soon to marry and have two children. However, her husband, Bob contracted tuberculosis and they settled on a ranch on the Arizona/New Mexico border.  After her first husband died, Isabella married John Greenway. Both her husbands had served in Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.  Tragically, Greenway died after only two years of marriage.

Isabella went on to become a politician–the first female member of Congress from Arizona–and Eleanor and Isabella shared their political interests as avidly as they once had shared gossip about friends and news about their young children.

After 1921, when FDR was diagnosed with polio after a swim in the cold Bay of Fundy left him feeling sick, the Roosevelts spent less time on the island. Instead, they went to Warm Springs, Georgia. FDR was elected Governor of New York State and then President of the United States and after he became President, he spent brief periods on the island according to this FDR web site

The Roosevelt home on Campobello Island is now an International Park.

Kristie Miller is a whiz at biography. I first read a book about her female relative, Ruth Hanna McCormick and her latest is Ellen and Edith, Woodrow Wilson’s First Ladies

There is no charge to visit the International Park, which is open most days from 10 am to 6 pm. We found that an hour and a half were adequate to see the Roosevelt cottage, the Hubbard cottage next door and the small museum, plus watch a short film in the visitors center. In nicer weather, we would have walked down to the beach behind the house. Mama Roosevelt’s home, where FDR grew up, is no longer there and most of the mansions and grand hotels have gone. However you can hike in parks and take sea cruises to whale watch. Change to Canadian money before you arrive on the island. There is no bank and the day we were there the sole ATM that took American cards was out of cash.

You should know: these photos are my property. If you are interested in reusing one, do get in touch.  My stay on Campobello Island was partially underwritten by the New Brunswick Tourism office. The book title is linked to Amazon for your convenience. If you click through to Amazon and purchase anything at all, I get a few cents which helps support A Traveler’s Library. Thanks.

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At Machu Picchu

Destination: Peru

Book: Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time (NEW: June 2011) by Mark Adams

I’m celebrating the anniversary of the rediscovery of Machu Picchu this week, although for some reason the Peruvian government jumped the gun and celebrated early–on July 8.

Sometimes I really love this job. Once again I am able to read and share a book that amuses, amazes, and inspires the reader to pack her bags and hit the road. In this case a VERY old road in South America, known as The Inca Trail.  There are actually a lot of Inca trails, as Mark Adams discovers in Turn Right at Machu Picchu.

The amazing “lost city” of Machu Picchu, a World Heritage Site, could quickly devour more superlative adjectives than a writer could stuff into a 60-lb backpack. Mark Adams, a former editor, never resorts to telling us how spectacular the Inca lairs look. Instead he masterfully shows us. He relies both on research into Hiram Bingham, the popularizer of Machu Picchu, and the very witty tale of his own mid-life adventure as he follows Bingham’s footsteps. (Terminology coinage alert: experiential biography) In relating the history of the Spanish conquest of the great empire of the Incas, Adams describes Pizarro thus, “Pizarro was a bastard (in the genealogical sense, though he was no dream date as far as the Incas were concerned, either.)” Adams describes himself as “Mr. Travel Guy.”…”Between my microfiber bwana costume and the bags of candy that Justo (the cook) kept foisting on me, I could have been trick-or-treating as Hemingway.”  Bingham, might have been “Mr. Travel” of 1911.

Hiram Bingham

Hiram Bingham, a Yale professor with chiseled cheekbones and an ever present slouch hat, organized expeditions into Peru in the early 20th century, and 100 years ago this week (July 24, 1911) he re-discovered Machu Picchu.

Same guy?

As Turn Right at Machu Picchu tells the story of Bingham’s life, we learn that we have already met him, but his name was Indiana Jones in the movies. But more importantly, we learn that his several expeditions were daring and he quite literally broke new trails–including one very old trail–The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. No matter if someone else (after the ancient Incas) actually investigated (and looted) Machu Picchu before Bingham, he was the one who trumpeted it to the world and made it popular.

Mark Adams quotes Rudyard Kipling‘s poem The Explorers:

Well, I know who’ll take the credit–all the clever chaps that followed

Came, a dozen men together–never knew my desert-fears

Tracked me by the camps I’d quitted, used the water-holes I’d hollowed.

They’ll go back and do the talking. They’ll be called the Pioneers!

If you were thinking, as I was, that a trip to Peru would be complete once you took the train to the famous Lost City, you may revise your travel plans after reading this book.

Train to Machu Picchu

Adams shows us, toward the end of the book, why a hike up the Inca Trail packs such a wallop that those who take the Hiram Bingham  train to Machu Picchu and fly home, miss the interconnectedness of a cluster of sites.On the trail you can explore other sites along the way. For another thing, this was a sacred processional route for the Incas. The whole area is packed with similar cities in the jungle.  The other sites, a bewildering array of names with too many letter a’s and too many syllables–Ollantaytambo, Choquequirao, Vitcos, Llactapata, Patallacta, Espiritu Pampa–reward the visitor with solitude instead of the jostling for best camera angle you find at Machu Picchu.  Granted, no other sites have the grand location of Machu Picchu, but they do have Inca stonework and mysteries of their own. And get this–they are all connected in lines that tie them to the sun and stars and solstices.

Bingham wrote articles for National Geographic Magazine. In 1913, an article titled, “In the Wonderland of Peru” tells about the rediscovery of Machu Picchu. Adams says,

The story and its accompany photographs–including a panoramic view of the entire site, printed as a foldout–conveyed a romantic tale of exploration and discovery that would endure for about a century; an intrepid young American professor, searching the capital of a vanished kingdom, discovers an immense city in the clouds, lost to the jungle for untold centuries.

So how romantic and adventurous can it get? And how can you resist reading such an enthralling book? And haven’t you packed your bags yet?  Wait…you’ll need a guide. Mark Adams suggests lots of books–from scholarly to popular, the guidebook he recommends is The Machu Picchu Guidebook: A Self Guided Tour  by Ruth Wright.

A comment on an earlier post came from my friend Mark at Travel Wonders of the World: I went there a few years ago including walking the four-day camino (trail). Walking through the Sun Gate at dawn is one of travel’s great experiences as the entire city awakens below you. Mark provides two articles at his site that are well worth seeing: a brief description of the trail and the other Incan towns on the way and  the 100th birthday article with a historic Bingham photo.

I want to thank the publicity department of Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Books for sending me this book for review, and I thank Flickr and other sources linked to the photos for the wonderful illustrations. And yes, if you click on a book title and order something from Amazon I make a little money. (And it works if you are in Great Britain, Canada or France as well as the U.S.)

Your turn. Have you been to Machu Picchu? Do you have it on your list? Why not?

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Destination: The Western United States

Book: Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West–One Meal at a Time by Stephen Fried (2010–New paperback edition in 2011)

The reader gets more than his/her money’s worth with the fascinating book, Appetite for America. A biography, a history of the western expansion of tourism in the early 20th century, an analysis of a unique business model, a travel guide for nostalgia buffs, a railroad book for “trainiacs,” AND recipes from the Fred Harvey kitchens–all told in amusing and highly readable style by Stephen Fried.

Santa Fe locomotive

I have always been fascinated with the story of the influence of  the Santa Fe railroad and Fred Harvey hotels and restaurants on the growth of tourism in the Western U.S. After all, I know that because the Santa Fe promoted the West as a destination of natural beauty, they were largely responsible for our National Park system. Likewise, they promoted Indian arts and built a market for potters and basket makers. This book reveals that the story is even more interesting than I imagined.

La Posada Hotel

Ken and I recently took a road trip to one of the few Fred Harvey establishments being refurbished to its original, classy style. Mary Jane Colter designed La Posada in drab little Winslow, Arizona. (Ironically, when we last spent a night in Winslow–in the mid 1960′s–Winslow was thriving, but La Posada was a wreck.) Colter, probably the highest ranking woman in any company in the country in her day, worked for Fred Harvey for more than 30 years, starting with the company Indian store in Albuquerque, and moving on to designing buildings at the Grand Canyon, interiors and even dinnerware.But La Posada is her masterpiece, and we are fortunate that loving hands are bringing it back to life.

The Santa Fe railroad won the railroad jousting match to dominate the routes from Chicago to Los Angeles, back in the day when railroad travel was the most modern and classiest mode of transportation and competition between lines was cut-throat.

Did you know that before the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, each railroad had its own station, and separate ticket office? There were no “Grand Centrals” or “Union Station.”  Did you know that each city declared its own time until the growth of railroads demanded standardized time zones in the United States? A meeting of representatives of the major railroads determined the four time zones we still have and clocks were reset on November 18, 1883.

It is this kind of reportage of detail that keeps Appetite for America fascinating throughout. That, and the fact that Fred Harvey is the kind of character that biographers dream of. He had a virtual rags to riches story, and left reams of notebooks, lists, letters and memorabilia scattered across the country. (Fried helpfully lists all the places that you can find the memorabilia today.)

Contemporary Harvey Girl serves our Anniversary dessert

From selling railroad tickets and newspaper advertising, Harvey progressed to building an empire that bore his name. And it was JUST his name–no “company”, or “and sons” or any other qualifiers. Even after he died, the sons and grandsons continued to run Fred Harvey, the business. Harvey’s dedication to high quality meant he dictated the exact uniform of each “Harvey Girl” who served food; he would not tolerate variance in the way coffee was made or cutlery arranged, and his company execs had apoplexy if someone reported that their olive oil was not as good as another eatery. When he paid a surprise visit to a restaurant, if the silverware was not properly aligned, he would yank the white linen (imported) tablecloth off the table to make a point.

The size of his empire is indicated by a statement that when the price of coffee (they used only Chase  & Sanborn) went up two cents a pound, “That’s going to set us back five thousand dollars, just about.”…”We’re using twenty-five thousand pounds a month or more.”

I could go on with more great stuff from this book, but I’ve already talked enough. Just go add the book to your Traveler’s Library, and make your travel plans to visit La Posada Hotel or restaurant in Winslow on your way to the Grand Canyon and the great old Harvey Hotel, the El Tovar. According to Fried you can still visit 22 of the original 155 Fred Harvey establishments to dine or stay overnight, but the Fred Harvey company collapsed when automobiles replaced railroads in dominance of American transportation.

My heartfelt thanks to Random House for sending me this Bantam book for review.  The La Posada and Harvey Girl pictures are mine, the Santa Fe locomotive comes from Flickr with a Creative Commons license, and the back book cover is from Stephen Fried’s web site.

Hardback edition, back cover jacket

The book title is linked to Amazon for your convenience. If you click through to Amazon and purchase anything at all, I get a few cents which helps support A Traveler’s Library. Thanks.

P.S. If you are tempted to find a copy of the movie, The Harvey Girls, with Judy Garland–DON’T. Trust me on this one. I suffered through it so you won’t have to. Besides, the one good number in the movie, The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, gets thoroughly stuck in your head and you won’t get it out for days.

REMEMBER: Win a Book About African Wildlife Photography. THIS WEEK ONLY.

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PodCast: IndieTravelPodCast

Book: Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist

If you want to know what I sound like–and what Craig Martin’s New Zealand accent sounds like (although he thinks I am the one with the accent), take a listen at Indie Travel PodCast. Craig interviewed me via Skype about traveling on the Navajo Reservation, and let me bring up our book, Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist. (Which you can buy by clicking on that box over there on the right.)

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Book Cover

Destination: Mostly England

Book: George Eliot in Love by Brenda Maddox (NEW September 28, 2010)

Ugly. George Eliot (Mary Ann or Marian Evans) was beyond plain. Everyone noted her over-sized nose, prominent jaw and long chin. But her charm and brilliance saved the day. Furthermore, she is one of the best English novelists ever.

When I was in high school, our assigned reading included Silas Marner and like so many ill-planned high school assignments, forcing me to plow through this book because it was “Good Literature” turned me against the author for a very long time. (I had a similar experience with arguably the best book to come from America, Moby Dick.)

Thank goodness a few years ago I belonged to a book group that read Middlemarch (Oxford World’s Classics).  Expecting to be bored by a musty old book, I found instead a lively, compassionate story about timeless problems faced by an interesting array of characters. And such a crystal clear depiction of time and place!

Evans/Eliot constantly fretted that she could not write well enough–that no one would like her work–that no one would like her. And as Brenda Maddox shows in  George Eliot in Love, Eliot was not as impervious to the mores of the day as one might think.  Despite her daring use of a man’s name (a la George Sand), and despite her more than thirty years of unwedded bliss, she was not what we would consider a liberated woman. This book introduces some surprises, such as the fact that George Eliot did not support women’s suffrage.

George Eliot in Love reminds us that despite the fact that she ran in an intellectual and liberal-minded crowd, this was still the time that Jane Austin wrote about.  A woman’s main task was to marry–or at least to find a man to look after her. The young Mary Anne/Marian Evans had numerous affairs, some sexual, falling in love at the drop of a hat.

George Eliot

The long nose and masculine features took second place to her intellect and her soft-spoken, attentive manner.  Henry James, the great skeptic, described her as “deliciously hideous” but went on to say,

Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes steals forth and charms the mind so that you end as I ended in falling in love with her.  Yes, behold me literally in love with this great horse-faced blue-stocking.

After many disappointments, she fell in love for keeps with a man who doted on her and managed her career. George Lewes was even responsible for masking the female writer behind a masculine name when she wrote her first novel, Adam Bede, in 1857. She was 38 years old. Although the couple kept her identity hidden through several more books, people eventually knew George Eliot.

However, even when George Lewes died after they had lived together for 24 years, some people were shocked to find he had never divorced his first wife, and the happy couple, George and George, had never wed.

This is a brief book, focused on personal life, although synopses of the important novels sneak in, somewhat unnecessarily. The author also crammed the first few chapters of George Eliot in Love with details of her early life that struck me as not essential to the later story. Mary Ann Evan’s life before she became George Eliot lacks strong direction.  However when she partners with Lewes, writes a string of successful novels and becomes a celebrity, the book moves swiftly with fascinating glimpses into her life.

The array of characters in the social circle of the two Georges, included the intelligentsia of London and beyond. Luminaries mentioned include Thackeray, Dickens, Jane Austin, Lizt, Darwin, Spencer (the first to posit evolutionary theory), Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, T. H. Huxley and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

If you are an avid reader of biographies, you may have run into Brenda Maddox before, since she has won numerous awards for her biographies. In this Google excerpt, she talks about some of her philosophy. The stimulating world of ideas in this book, combined with George Eliot’s magnificent capture of the Midlands where she grew up–in Warwickshire– in her novels, makes her an essential for the traveler’s library. (Although she traveled widely, England was her subject.) George Eliot in Love provides an interesting view of the life of the great writer.

For more at A Traveler’s Library about British writers who capture England, see Jane Austin, an Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Movie, and Bill Bryson,

I invite you to follow the links to Amazon and take a look at Middlemarch or George Eliot in Love, and share your thoughts on Eliot below.

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Kate Nelligan in the title role of 1985 movie Eleni.

Destination: Northern Greece

Book: Eleni by Nicholas Gage

A GUEST POST by Michelle Duffy

Eleni is a story of passions. The passionate love a mother has for her children; the passionate fervor of men and women who take up arms to improve their world; the small passions which we call neighborly disagreements but which, given the right circumstances, can have terrible consequences. It is a story of family and of tradition told against the backdrop of the Second World War, the Cold War and the Greek Civil War. It is a story of immigration told by someone who knows what it was like to be left behind and then later, had to learn how to become an American.

Nicholas Gage starts with the execution of his mother. He tells his own story about his emigration to America and how he felt compelled to tell his mother’s story even from a young age. We learn about his first visit to Greece in 1963 when he realized that he was now a stranger in this village where, just 14 years before, ‘every tree and rock’ had been familiar to him.

We feel the depth of his emotion as he begins to understand that he cannot write his mother’s story from memory, that to tell it well he has to take the reader to Greece to the pre-war years and describe the hardscrabble life of the people in the bare, mountainous villages in the Mourgana mountains on the Albanian border – where his mother grew up. He has to accompany the reader through the war years in that village as the factionalism between the Democratic (EDES) and Communist (ELAS) groups was building even as the country was occupied by the Nazis.

Eleni’s story sets the tempo and emotional depth of the book. Gage skillfully alternates short factual chapters framing this tragic story within the contemporary political situation in Greece and the world. His training an investigative reporter for the New York Times comes out strongly as he maintains his powerful narrative while interspersing references to the people and sources he used to develop the factual basis for the story almost imperceptibly. You will feel the hunger of the children as the deprivations of WW II lift only briefly to be replaced by the harsher and more complicated Civil War. You will cry for the village girls wrenched from their conservative homes to be trained as andartinas – guerrillas. You will ache for the hearts and arms of the mothers whose children were taken in pedomasoma.

Like the British soldiers mentioned in this story, on my first visit to Greece – in 1991 – my expectations were heavily influenced by a “romantic mist distilled from the poetry of Byron and Keats”. Rudely awakened by the hustle and bustle of modern-day Athens, I went looking to learn more about this fascinating country and a family member recommended Eleni. Reading this powerful story has helped me understand Greece at a much deeper level than as a casual tourist, in fact, you might say that it started my love affair with this enigmatic country. I’ve been back to Greece twice since that first visit  and I plan to return many more times if I can.

Michelle Duffy

Michelle blogs as WanderMom and is co-author of Wanderlust and Lipstick: Traveling with Kids. She is currently planning a 15-month round-the-world trip with her family. She is a co-founder of the travel bloggers’ fund-raiser, Passports with Purpose and of BestFamilyTravelAdvice.com.

Michelle is a busy lady, and we are fortunate to have her share one of my own favorite countries, and a book I also found inspiring.  I particularly want to put in a plug for Passports with Purpose. Please check it out. I’ll be participating. Last year we built a school in Cambodia. This year the goal is a whole village in India. Good for the founders, including Michelle!!

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Book: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens by Jerome Loving (April 2010)

The first half of Mark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens
follows the rootless Mark Twain as he becomes a travel writer. Although we think of Twain as a humorist, he clearly wrote the outstanding travel literature of the day.  And in the mid nineteenth century, it seemed that everyone was writing travel literature.

This video gives you a peek into the thinking of Jerome Loving, whose new book is being praised as the ultimate critical biography of Twain and his work.

“More books have been published about Mark Twain than any other American writer and, with this centennial year (also the 175th anniversary of his birth and the 125th anniversary of “Huck Finn,”), the world’s fascination with Twain will be remembered and reignited,” says Harper Barnes in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. If you want to learn about some of the flood of books celebrating this year of the 175th anniversary of Twain’s birth, read this informative article.

Jerome Loving’s book, which focuses on the minutiae of Twain’s wanderings–both physical and philosophical, provides all the information you could ever want about Mark Twain. Reading Loving is like listening to a friend with a subject he is passionate about. He grabs your collar and talks your ear off. Loving’s passion comes through, even though I sometimes got a bit lost in sidetracks into Walt Whitman (Loving also wrote Walt Whitman, the Song of Himself) and other digressions.

Still, I appreciate this view of Twain as a developing travel writer, and the short chapters which allow you to focus on the segments of Twain’s life as he zig-zagged through many “apprenticeships” as he called his false starts. This book belongs in the Traveler’s Library as a reference for all those places that Twain, the inveterate traveler, first brought to the American reader–Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, the Holy Lands, Hawaii, Europe. It sometimes seems that wherever you go, it seems that Twain was there before you.

If you want to read more about Twain from A Traveler’s Library, don’t miss the guest post by Mark Heers about his favorite book, A Tramp Abroad. I thought about Roughing It when I was visiting Lake Tahoe.

Disclaimers: The video is shown courtesy of YouTube. The publishers, University of Berkeley Press sent me a review copy of this book.  I include a link to Amazon for your convenience, and because by purchasing anything at Amazon when you link there from this site, you are supporting A Traveler’s Library. Thank You.

I would like to hear your opinion. Do you like having videos embedded in posts, or do they slow down loading for you? And of course, I’d love to have a rip roaring conversation about Mark Twain and what he means to you. Leave a comment and join the fun. (When you become a subscriber you discover new travel books every week. We’re close to one hundred regulars now, and would like to break through those 00′s.)

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Lamanai Maya ruins, Belize

Destination: Belize

Book: The Possibility of Everything by Hope Edelman

UPDATE: LIBRARY THING INTERVIEW WITH HOPE EDELMAN

A Guest Blog by Julia Drake

“The Possibility of Everything — Search for a truer self”

The Possibility of Everything, acclaimed author Hope Edelman writes, “A person in the act of traveling from one place to another is a person stripped down to her very essence, perhaps the truest self that can exist.”

Our travels take us away from home, our familiar surroundings, our familiar self. For Hope, her familiar self was the eternal skeptic. A “card carrying member of the Church of the Senses,” she had to see to believe. But when her 3-year old daughter Maya develops a mysterious imaginary friend, named “Dodo,” whose presence becomes increasingly disturbing, Hope and her husband make the unlikely choice to take their daughter to Mayan healers deep in the rainforests of Western Belize. In the process of this journey, Hope transforms from a woman, who only believed in the “visible” and “proven,” to someone, open to the existence of larger, unseen truths––a leap of faith that heals both her and her family.

Publishers Weekly called the Possibility of Everything, “equal parts a meditation on the trials of motherhood and marriage, a travelogue and an exploration of faith.” That’s where the power of this book lies for me. It explores life in all its facets, traveling being an essential ingredient in the quest for a larger truth, a larger self.

Steeped in the ancient culture of the Maya, a world where body, mind and spirit, are tightly intertwined, Hope starts to question the truths she built her life on and opens her heart and mind to the possibility of everything.

In Western culture where many parents resort to the next best prescription drug to ensure the “normality” of their child, I cheered Hope’s leap of faith to a more holistic approach to her daughter’s condition––not out of a romanticized Western desire to dabble in the voodoo magic of third world cultures, but to try to be the best mother she could be, to do anything for her child.

Beyond Hope’s personal story, her detailed descriptions of Belize, the poverty, yet generosity and warmth of the people she befriends, the untouched beauty of the countryside, and the continuing presence of ancient Maya Civilization in the life of people in Belize, put a trip to Belize at the very top of my travel list.

The book is ripe with Mayan history, cosmology and accounts of a visit to Tikal National Park (Guatemala), one of the most fascinating archaeological remains of the ancient Maya Civilization. On her journey, Hope also stayed in some beautiful places worth checking out. In fact, the book website provides Hope’s itinerary and resources to accommodations and must-see sites.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone with an open mind and heart, and a sense of adventure.

For more info on the book, visit the book’s web site.

Julia Drake was born and raised in a small town in the Black Forest, Germany. Julia left her home at the age of 19 to pursue screenwriting in Los Angeles. A graduate of UCLA film school as well as the American Film Institute, she finally followed her addiction to culture shocks and wanderlust into freelance writing with a focus on travel and holistic living. She lives in the secluded canyons of Topanga, California, with her husband, filmmaker Jared Drake.

Photo by Harry Kikstra, WorldOnABike.com

Thank you so much, Julia, for bringing us this unusual travel book that inspires as well as guides us to Belize.  Going to other country’s for healing seems to be a growing reason for travel.  Reader, have you or others you know gone to another country to try that culture’s approach to healing?  Please add your experiences in the comment section.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

The people of New Orleans

Destination: New Orleans, LA, United States

Book: Nine Lives, Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum

Just in case you think this book has something to do with how a tourist survives a Sazerac hangover, forget it. The latest addition to my traveler’s library tells about the lives of real people who survived Hurricane Katrina.

A New Orleans friend mused, “I wonder how this book has gotten so much attention with all the hurricane books that have been written?”  But perhaps he answered the question himself, when he said, “I didn’t want it to end.”

Dan Baum makes the readers of Nine Lives voyeurs who learn details of more than ‘life in New Orleans.’  We watch every move of nine people–through things they are proud of and things they are not so proud of.  It is true life to the extent that memory is true and to the extent that anyone who has lived in New Orleans all his or her life can tell a story without a bit of embellishment. Because we become voyeurs, we want more details of each life.

However, being a stranger to  New Orleans myself, I had had quite enough of some of these people by the time the book ended. Some were not the kind of people I wanted to hang around with for long periods of time. And yet one character who spent most of his life in prison and the rest getting in trouble, delivered some of the most memorable observations.

Which is not to say I did not enjoy the book. And, oh my, how much I learned. From the history and importance of the Black Indian Tribes of Mardi Gras to the importance of high school band classes in the city of music. I learned to appreciate the poetry in ghetto speak. I learned more about the fragmentation of the unique class system of New Orleans.

My own enjoyment was enhanced by the fact that this book is totally based on interviews–over 100 people helped tell the stories of the nine.  A friend and I have just completed a biography of Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma which was largely based on interviews. So I appreciated the authors’ research methods and the delicate balance one must walk in trying to tell the truth based on people’s oral history. (We discuss that writing journey at the Tahoma blog.)

I highly recommend this book for your traveler’s library if you want to understand New Orleans. Just keep in mind that there are some people leading less dramatic lives, as well.  It is just that in New Orleans, high drama is more the norm.

As prototypical criminal type, Anthony Wells,  says of his expulsion after the storm, “I missed walking around. In New Orleans, you walk around. You sit down. You see people. You talk. There’s noise all the time–wreck on I-10, the pool hall, somebody playing on a saxophone. Gunshots. Yeah, man.  I even missed the gunshots.”

Photography by Vera Marie Badertscher, all rights reserved

See other articles on New Orleans:

Literary Hotel

New Orleans as Seen by Faulkner

Classic New Orleans Restaurant

Book Lover’s NOLA

Book Stores

Faulkner and Williams

Writers from Faulkner to Ford

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.