A Traveler’s Library is now three years old. Should you feel inclined to give presents, I will just mention that the 2012 Bloggies nominations are now open, but only until January 15.

So what happened in year three?

1. Kerry Dexter and I finished our Great American Road Trip–words here at A Traveler’s Library, and travelin’ music at Music Road.  I posted a roundup of 54 Books and Movies for the road, and Kerry posted the most popular suggested music for the road.

2. Middle East/Muslim countries were in the news, and during the unrest in that area of the world ATL focused on that region. I thought perhaps you felt as “at sea” as I did in trying to understand those countries.  Although there are still conflicts (particularly in Syria) I feel much better informed having read books and watched movies about Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran, Jordan, and Afghanistan.

3. Despite good intentions to do the same for Africa,  I did not get as far into Africa as I had hoped. On the positive side, we did discuss more books and movies  about Africa and set in Africa than we have in previous years.

4. A new series debuted (and will continue) reviewing past posts on a particular place (alliteration allowed). It is called “What I Learned.” So far I have done What I Learned about France and What I Learned about Italy.  There will be more, but honestly, the flow of new wonderful books tends to take first priority.

5. Thanks to Budget Travelers Sandbox, photos from deep in my files are being exposed on Thursdays as part of Travel Photo Thursday. Although most days, like today, I depend on Flickr to keep me supplied with the perfect picture to fit the content of the post. The next picture is a good example: New contributors writing from the rooftops, as it were.

6. We welcomed SIX regular contributors to A Traveler’s Library, to talk about travel from new angles–music, culture, movies, pets, family travel and food. If you somehow missed the 18 posts the contributors have done so far, they will be here next week, and the following Tuesday, and you can meet them here, on the contributors’ page.  They will bring you fresh approaches to travel at least once a month. HURRAY!

7. I reported on my personal trips to Nova Scotia , New Mexico and  Mansfield, Ohio, but no European or Asian trips this year.

8. Finally–my attention has definitely been divided this year, since in April the book I co-authored with Charnell Havens, Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist was published after a decade of research and writing.  I’ve been traveling in Arizona and New Mexico for book talks and signings. And in October we learned that judges chose our book as a Top Pick among the Southwest Books of the Year. You can get your own copy by clicking on that “buy now” button in the right hand column at A Traveler’s Library. Or learn more about the inspiring  life of Quincy Tahoma at the Tahoma blog.

AN IMPORTANT P.S.  I forgot to mention A Traveler’s Library participation in Passports With Purpose. This year we sponsored THREE prizes, and PwP raised $89,000 to build libraries in Zambia. The winners have been chosen and you can read all about it at Winners and winners.

The stats:

• ATL topped 725 posts in December.
• Other folks did a lot of the work, but I read and wrote about 71 books and watched and discussed 13 movies. AND I wrote 18 guest posts related to travel and a dozen or more related to Quincy Tahoma.
• We love guest posts, and 10 terrific writers honored us with their work this year, Jessie Voigts doing several and Kerry Dexter and Jane Boursaw each contributing one even before they joined the contributors’ team.
• In addition, we were given permission to reprint a post on Lisbon from the great travel book site, Packabook.com

Did you know that the patron saint of writers, journalists and editors is St. Francis de Sales?  (Okay no lame  jokes about Sales of your writing!)

St. Francis de Sales

Here are all the scribes with links to their own sites, so you can thank them by visiting their “home ground,” and ask St. Francis de Sales to bless them.

Alisa Bowman, relationship writer, told us  about her personal Un-Travel Book Reading Tour

Jessie Voigts, cultural travel, (5 interviews with authors)

Traveler’s Bro, film lecturer, (who does not have a website, blog, nor, apparently, a name) wrote about old movies set in Egypt

Kerry Dexter, music, wrote about Northern Ireland

Kris Bordessa, sustainability,wrote our last road trip stop about her home state of Hawaii

Mara Gorman, family travel, shared the Horrible Books in London.

Jane Boursaw, movies, told us about the Jordanian movie, Captain Abu Raed

Casey Barber,food,  salivated over the cookbook of the year, Blood, Bones and Butter

Melanie McMinn, crafts and sustainability, shared her love of the Swedish detective Wallander on the BBC TV series.

Thank you so much for sharing your talents. Come back any time!

And thank you, readers.  Come back every day. The library is always open. Better yet, subscribe by e-mail or RSS feed so you never miss a thing in A Traveler’s Library‘s fourth year, AND so that you can win a prize during this month’s Giveaway.

As usual, to celebrate a birthday, there are presents. YOU get the present if your name is drawn from the comments, tweets, Google + or subscribers.  See all the contest rules  about four ways to enter here. Today’s prize to one person who comments, subscribes, tweets or mentions us on Google+ is a copy of  Lonely Planet’s fantastic book, Great Journeys, which was one of my recommended 10 Perfect Gifts for Travelers Who Read. (You can comment on this post or on an earlier post. Just do it before Thursday 1:00 a.m. MST. If you already subscribe by e-mail and want an extra entry as a subscriber, be sure to tell me that in the comments.) Disclaimer: The book Great Journeys was provided by Lonely Planet for review, without any expectations on their part. Photos here are linked to the Flickr page they came from so that you can learn more about the photographers who graciously allow their work to be used via Creative Commons license.

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Of A Traveler’s Library, she says:” A Traveler’s Library is to readers and travelers what a candy shop is to those with a sweet tooth.”

Awww, isn’t that nice?  And you’ll want to go to Travel ‘n Write and see what other blogs Jackie recommends to treat the travel bug.

Do you have other suggestions for Jackie? I would start with My Itchy Travel Feet, J the Travel Authority, and Nerd’s Eye View, for instance.

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Reading a book

We brought you reviews of 129 books and 20 movies this year. Really?? Guest reviewers wrote 38 of those reviews, but I penned the rest.

If you are a regular reader, you may understandably be yearning for “faraway places with strange sounding names.”

And you can see why it is difficult to pick my favorites! Plenty of the books I shared with you were classics or at least a few years old. So although I loved James Thurber and Tom Wolfe and Donald Harrington and Willa Cather and others,  I am only counting NEW books here. Here’s the count down to Number One:

Disney World

10. A Journey Through Literary America by  Tamirah Dempsey. A gorgeous photo book visiting author’s home territories.

9. 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go by Susan Van Allen. Although I tend not to review this kind of book–almost a guide book–this one is delightful from beginning to end and the frosting on the cake is book recommendations from several women who write about or cook in Italy.

8. Come Again No More by Jack Todd. (Wyoming) I galloped right through this novel about life in Wyoming during the Great Depression. (Road Trip Book)

7. Dogtown by Elyssa East. (Massachusetts) Our very first road trip book turned out to be a great choice for several reasons.

6. Iran by Inge Morath. This black and white photos in this book were taken in the 1950′s, but the book was brand new in 2010.

5. Nine Lives by William Dalrymple. (India) After reading a column by Dalrymple, I was prepared not to like his writing, but this book won me over. The stories of nine holy men and women in India.

4. The Last Child by John Hart. (North Carolina) This mystery was a winner of best novel award in the Edgars, and I can see why. A road trip book.

3. February by Lisa Moore. (Newfoundland) As gloomy as a foggy winter day in her home country, the novel is based on a true event. Nevertheless the book exudes hope.

2. The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Jennifer Steil. (Yemen) I was so fascinated by the book that I did a second post with an interview of the author.

1. The Invisible Mountain by Carolina de Robertis. (Uruguay)  When I read this book back in January, I said that I had already found my favorite book of the year, and I was right. The wonderful story brings a lesser-visited South American country to life and tells the story of three generations of women. Not since Isabella Allende have I been so charmed by a south American novel.

To see a list of some of the best new books during the last quarter of the year, see my article at Wandering Educators. And if you want MORE Travel reading, World Hum listed 100 travel books earlier this year.

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Book Cover

Destination: Everywhere or the Armchair

Book: Book Lust To Go by Nancy Pearl NEW September, 2010

Nancy Pearl travels the world from her easy chair. The prototypical armchair traveler, a former librarian and bookseller who suggests books and interviews authors on radio and TV, attracts crowds of fans.

Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers,  is the third of Nancy Pearl’s books that suggest random books for people to read. This time she talks about travel literature.

When I say “random”, I mean a mix of genres, and also a mix of new and old.  She explains that she does not shy away from suggesting out of print books and is quite happy that it is now easier to get them over the Internet.

She has arranged the entries in Book Lust to Go alphabetically by title of section. The titles relate to a state, city or region, but also sometimes to an activity or type of travel. And if you are looking for books about the country of Colombia, you had better look in the index, because alphabetically it shows up as “Hail, Colombia.” She gets a bit, well, “creative” with those titles. Most of her titles at least are alliterative, so they will show up close to where you expect them, but not New Zealand, that comes under K for Kiwi.  I was relieved to be informed that unlike the review copy I was looking at, the final version of the book has an index by place name.

Readers of A Traveler’s Library should feel a companionship with Pearl, even though she says in her introduction that she herself is NOT a traveler. Rather she likes to travel in her mind with a travel book. She says, “I adore books–whether fiction or non-fiction–that give me a sense of being in another place and time.” Well I can certainly relate to that–can’t you?

It was fun to find that she admires some of the books that we have talked about here–The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Jennifer Steil (Yemen); The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim (Korea); Nine Lives by Dan Baum (New Orleans); and February by Lisa Moore (Newfoundland) caught my eye.  When you read Book Lust To Go, you probably will notice some other books we have in common. She admits that had she realized when she wrote her first, or even second Book Lust book, that a series was in the works, she might have saved up some of the travel books for this volume. I will admit I skimmed pretty quickly, because let’s face it, this is the kind of book you put in your traveler’s library to refer to. You couldn’t absorb all of that content at once!

You probably will also notice a lot of books that are your own personal favorites that she left out.  If you want to tell her about them, she gives her e-mail address in the book, and you can find her at her Nancy Pearl blog and on Facebook.

This may become my second favorite place to look for books about travel. My first favorite? The comment section of A Traveler’s Library, of course. And where do you find the perfect travel book?  Please share….

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Celebrate!

VOTING CLOSED JANUARY 31. Thanks to all who supported A Traveler’s Library, and I hope you visited all the other nominees, including my favorite music blog (links below).

Whoo!Whoo! A Traveler’s Library has been chosen as a finalist in the 2010 Bloggie Awards Travel Blog category. And if that is not enough excitement for one day—my partner on the road trip–Music Road is a finalist in the Music Blog category.

So I’m asking all my readers to cast a vote for A Traveler’s Library AND a vote for Music Road.  Go to the Bloggies Award page and do whatever it is they ask for you to do.  Once you find the Travel nominees, vote for A Traveler’s Library, and when you find the music nominees, vote for Music Road. And of course tell everybody you know that THEY should vote for A Traveler’s Library, and Music Road, too. (You can use the buttons below to spread the news.)

The competition is really tough.  Four other blogs that I admire are also finalists in the travel category. But sorry, Dave and Gary and Kristen and all that bunch of lovely gals at that other site, but A Traveler’s Library needs a trophy on IT’S shelf! May the best blog win.

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A Little Celebration for A Literary Birthday

Yesterday was the one-year-anniversary of the beginning of this blog about travel literature and movies. Actually, I learned a lot more than ten things about blogging in my first year on the job, but I don’t want to keep you here all day, now, do I?

1. People like posts that list 10 things. This is related to why they watch car races and trapeze acts. They’re waiting for disaster. They read fervently hoping you will run  out of steam by “8″ and they can cry triumphantly, “LAME!”
2. On WordPress, choosing a theme is the equivalent of gettting married. You’re going to spend a lot of time together, so take time to get acquainted. Both of you need to be flexible. Give a little on color, get a little on SEO.
3. It takes more time than I thought it would. Writing a blog about Travel Literature means you have to read a lot of books. Some of them are really long books with no pictures. Duh!
4. Guest Bloggers are life (and blog) savers. I truly could not have kept the flow going here without the help of a long list of guest bloggers. (I’m going to go back and tag each guest post with “guest”, so you can find them). I LOVE every one of them.
5. Twitter is myfriend. People will come and see what’s behind the link you drop there, but only if you work extra hard at a clever come-on. ‘See my post on “x”.’ is not clever.
6. Stumble Upon is my friend. S.U. has consistently drawn more traffic to my blog than any other source.
7. Friendship is a two-way street. I spend more time helping on-line friends than writing posts.
8. There is terminology to learn. A post is a one-time thing. A blog is forever (or until you run out of ideas.)
9. (Lame, yet?) To expand upon Woody Allen, 98% of success is showing up more than one day, which is how long it takes most would-be bloggers to run out of ideas.
10. You will never get to read everything in your RSS feed, so get over it.

Coda: Sadly, most people who are reading this post have never been here before, and will never come back again…unless they are moved by my (nearly daily) appeals that go something like this:

If you liked this post, please add A Traveler’s Library to your RSS Feed by clicking that big orange button up at the top of the page. If  RSS sounds like a snake to you, perhaps you would prefer that I send you a personal message every day. I can do that. Subscribe to A Travelers’ Library by Email by clicking on the blue type. And this month, if you subscribe by e-mail, you get THREE chances at the Grand Prizes in my Great Big Travel Literature Giveaway.

And if you want to see another post about blogging go here.

Korean Palace Garden

Don’t forget to enter the Great Big Giveaway by leaving a comment here, and win  a book that takes you to KOREA: The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim.This beautifully realized book traces the history of a Korean family that survives Japanese occupation and the Korean War. See my review here. Only one day to enter–drawing at midnight tonight MST. Don’t forget–Mention the name of the book in your comment if you want to win it. (See contest announcement to review rules)

Pictures are both through Flickr, with Creative Commons license. Click on the picture to go to the photographer’s page.

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Prison Cell

Traveler’s Library breaks some blogging rules. What I would like to know is, what works for YOU.

• What kind of posts do you like?
• What are you looking for when you come here?
• If you just Stumbled in–did you find what you were looking for?
• What countries, regions, authors, movies, do you want to see covered?

SOME FACTS TO THINK ABOUT

This is the 220th post of A Traveler’s Library. Which is about 219 more than 80% of starting bloggers post, according to what I’ve heard in the blogosphere. Even if the one-post-and-I’m-bored scenario is an exaggeration, the fact is that few people stick with it for very long and fewer blog five days a week, which is what I have been doing.

Like most bloggers that stick with it, I’m interested in what makes a blog tick–and keep ticking.  The gurus have some rules:

1. Keep the blog posts short–200-300 words.
2. Keep the language simple–middle school is pushing the limits.
3. Mix it up–have some super short posts; some that are only pictures, or one picture; some that are mainly lists of links to interesting things you have seen on the web.
4. Talk about things that are in the headlines–preferably celebrities or Twitter trending topics.
5. The Internet is crawling with geeks, so talk about geeky stuff.

Okay, let’s look at A Traveler’s Library:

1. The length of posts tends to be around 500-600 words. When it is very short, readership plummets.
2. According to the nifty tool, websitegrader.com, the vocabulary here is college level.
3. When I have short posts, link posts, photo posts, readers go elsewhere. When I have extended discussions, they stay to read.
4. Obviously I am not oriented to breaking news, and do not even talk about new books all the time, although newly minted books do  draw more attention than older books.
5. The closest I have come to geeky talk was talking about audio books and Kindle.

One place that A Traveler’s Library agrees with the gurus–content is king.  I work to bring you varied and interesting subjects with intelligent discussion.  But it is important to know What do YOU want to discuss here?

Reading a blog post a while I ago, I saw comments referred to as another form of microblogging.  What a great description! So, hey, I’m setting you free –blog away!

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Party Time. The Great 5 Day 5 Book Giveaway. Win a book here.

Five Readers will win One Book Each. Just browse through A Traveler’s Library posts and leave a comment on a post here or tweet @pen4hire, naming a book that I have discussed that you would like to win. No guarantees, because the winners are picked at random. Click here for Details of 5 Books 5 Days Contest. And here for Basic Traveler’s Library Contest Rules.

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VMB in Kastro, Sifnos Island, Greece

Yesterday A Traveler’s Library hit one of those landmark days, and I was not even here to celebrate. (I’m in New Orleans ensconced in my favorite hotel, Hotel Monteleone.)

Ta-Da–100 Posts!

Somehow, it seems appropriate, though, that I had a guest post on India here yesterday, because it is symbolic of the ways this blog has introduced me to people, places and books to read for travel.  I might not have met Sue Dickman, yesterday’s guest poster,  had it not been for the 30-day challenge started by Michelle Rafter.

I certainly would not have had much to say about India, since I have not been there myself.  But by using guest experts, A Traveler’s Library roams beyond the  destinations that I have traveled to personally. We have had guests posts on New England, Croatia, Mumbai, and now India again.

And I met the nice folks at Wandering Educators, who invited me to be the Traveler’s Library Editor. I wrote their earlier this month about popular posts from April at A Traveler’s Library.

In the first 100 posts, we have traveled to an amazing 53 different places! I hope you’ll join me as we travel to more places and learn about more great books in the 2nd hundred posts.

TEN random selections from the First Hundred:

• Post Number One: 3 Civilizations, 4 Museums and the Morality of Collecting. A book with an important message. And you can join my favorite cause to return the Parthenon marbles to Greece, if you agree.
• Post Number Three: 4 Thrillers to Inaugurate Your D. C. Tour Don’t wait for the next inauguration to go to Washington, D.C., read Baldacci.
• Post Number Nine: Secrets of the Alhambra. A favorite destination and a great book.
• Post Number Twenty: Most Romantic Destination. My contribution to Valentine’s Day.
• Post Number Twenty-Nine:Victor Hugo and Paris. My brother, who is always right, recommended The Hunchback of Notre Dame as a guidebook for Paris.
  
• Post Number Thirty: Crete and History. Another favorite, and I love the books because I found them in Crete.
• Post Number Forty: Nice Movie to See, But Do I Want To Go There? This post about the movie Slumdog Millionaire received the most viewers and the most comments.
• Post Number Forty-One: The Don’t Even Go There Book. I think this post got lost in the hoopla about Slumdog Millionaire, but The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is one of the best I have read in years.
• Post Number Fifty: Listening a Book While You Travel This one struck a nerve with travelers who like audio books.
• Post Number Fifty-Eight: 5 Road Trip Books and The List I love road trips, and although I am wary of “best” lists, gave in this once because the 5 best American road trip books seem pretty obvious.
  

Onward toward that First Year celebration  January 10, 2010!

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Reading quotes like this, “My main advice to a first-time traveler would be to read something from, or at least set in, the place they’re going.” and “The books that are most compelling to me have always been books that transport me to another place or time…”, it is all I can do to stay chained to my computer chair instead of flying directly to JFK.  But before going to Manhattan, according to DelVecchio, I need to read…” Bartleby the Scrivener and Washington Square, which are both set in the 19th century of course, and Three Bedrooms in Manhattan, a Simonen book from the 1940s that has a very Hopperesque feel to it. Enemies, A Love Story is another great book, also set in the ’40s.”

And besides, I can, if I don’t mind skipping the tactile and olfactory  joys of a bookstore, shop at Idlewild on line.

I encourage you to stray away from A Traveler’s Library and read the interview with Del Vecchio. The Book Slut’s introduction reveals that she is one of us, also. “My preferred way of learning about any subject is through reading literature,” she says.

Thanks goodness for places like Idlewild Books.  Here are a few more bookstores for travel literature:

• Get Lost Books , San Francisco
• Globe Corner, Cambridge MA
• The Complete Traveller, Antiquarian Bookseller, NYC

Do you know of another wonderful store that understands that travelers need more than guidebooks and maps?  Please share.

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