Tower Bridge is one of the most iconic landmarks in London.

Destination: England

Book: Watching the English (2008) by Kate Fox

A GUEST POST by Julie, The Lady From London

Julie writes a London travel blog, works as travel consultant to help people plan trips throughout the world, and runs a Europe travel website with information for independent travelers. She is a California native who resides in London when she is not traveling throughout the world.

Three years ago I quit my job in San Francisco and decided to move to London. I had spent time visiting England before, but had not stayed for a significant amount of time in the country, let alone its capital city.

St Paul's Cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the 17th century. The dome can be seen from all over London.

I did not experience a huge amount culture shock when I first arrived in London. It was the little differences that caught my attention. The most memorable of these was the habit of passers-by on the street running into me without offering an apology or even a glance of recognition.

A month into my time in London, I was starting to notice other differences, too. People weren’t as open and outgoing as they were in California, and the estate agent from whom I rented my flat seemed oddly untrustworthy. I discussed these things with an American friend that had studied in England, and she recommended that I read Watching the English. The book was a study of English culture by an Oxford anthropologist named Kate Fox. I later learned that it was also the de facto expat bible for understanding English culture.

Watching the English takes a deep look into why the English are the way they are. From the unspoken social rules about talking to strangers (discussing the weather is the best way to go) to the English propensity to cheer for the underdog, Fox sheds light on various facets of English culture that are foreign to foreigners (pun intended. As she explains, the English love them).

As I read the book, I started to notice all of Fox’s observations coming true in my everyday life in London. When I went to the pub, I followed her rule to stand close to the bar if I wanted to mingle, and to order my food and drinks at the counter. As Fox assured me, the English did the same, but the foreigners all sat in random places and wondered why the server had not come by yet.

Over time I witnessed more of the book’s findings, from the way English people dress, to the way they speak, to the way they furnish their homes. Sure, many of them were small things, but it was interesting to observe the little details.

Three years on I still find myself witnessing the culture that I read about in Watching the English. So far everything I read in the book has proven true except for one thing. My very first observation of people bumping into me without so much as a nod contradicts Fox’s finding that the English always apologize after running into someone. Maybe American expats just aren’t extended the same courtesy as their native counterparts. I’ll assume it’s just a cultural difference.

Julie supplied the pictures that go with this article. I am so happy to be able to present this first person experience that verifies what a valuable book this is. Thanks, Julie, and continue to enjoy your encounters with otherness in England.

Readers, have you found other guides to cultures in other countries that helped you adapt to a foreign country? I am particularly interested in what people outside the U.S. should read to help them understand America. Or are we just too inscrutable?

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Destination: Paris

Movie: Amelie (2001) (English subtitles)

But surely you have seen Amelie? Have a listen to a piano version of the sound track:

I had indeed seen Amelie, when it first appeared, but what a delight it was to see it again on a DVD, and particularly to follow along with the director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet as he discussed the making of the film. Jeunet drew my attention to many things that had escaped my attention the first time around, plus answered questions I would have asked if I had met with him in person.

First the irresistible Audrey Tautou makes the movie unforgettable. The casting is one of those rare moments of bringing together the perfect actress with the part. The huge brown eyes, the whimsical smile, the dreaminess she portrays make it impossible to imagine anyone else in the part.

Then there is the equally picture-perfect setting of Montmartre with its village feel. While many movies that we are watching as a prelude to our trip to France  give only fleeting glances of Paris, or soundstage recreations, this one sticks to the narrow streets and shops and parks of Montmartre.

Some movie goers get impatient with whimsy, but the layers of Amelie keep everyone interested. As Amelie flits through life fixing other people’s lives like a fairy godmother, we see her own sometimes ridiculous attempts to direct her own destiny.

It is hard to pick perfect scenes, but the very old painter who lives in Amelie’s apartment building and recreates ancient masterpieces intrigues me.  Amelie gives him helpful hints and in a sense paints herself into his picture as her little romance develops.

So if you have not seen Amelie, take a trip to Montmartre with the movie. If you saw it long ago, take another look and check out the fascinating director’s notes. Me–I’m off to see if I can find a copy of the soundtrack to add to my I-pod.

What is your perfect French movie? Is it set in Paris, like most movies that want to say FRANCE, or elsewhere? Period or contemporary? American-made, French or from somewhere else?

See more French movies in these posts:

Province

Julie and Julia

The French Resistance in World War II

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AND A new plug in will tell you where to go if you copy something from A Traveler’s Library. I mean that in the nicest way. Copies will automatically have a message added with a link back to the Library, and information about Creative Commons license.  Now on to JAPAN:

Destination: Japan

Movie: Departures (2009)

Won ten Japanese Academy Awards and was Hollywood’s Best Foreign Film in 2009

But most important, it was recommended in the comment section here by loyal readers Alexandra and Sven from the green stay on Cape Cod,  Chez Sven B & B .  Thank you so much for the recommendation. I rented it as soon as possible and can not say enough good things about it. Departures is a film that will play with your emotions. I laughed out loud, I got misty-eyed, I gasped in surprise, I yearned to be in the beautiful scenery of rural, northern Japan.

Departures tells a unique tale that unveils for westerners some ancient Japanese culture.  When the young man, a cello player, loses his job in Tokyo because the orchestra is disbanded, he moves back to a small town to live in his deceased mother’s house. His adorable wife, always cheerful, supports everything that he does, although she leaves a computer programming job behind and has to learn small town ways.

He applies for a job that the ad describes as dealing with ‘departures’, so he guesses that it has something to do with travel. Well, metaphorically, maybe. He and “the boss” will be preparing people for their journey to the other side–just before the undertaker comes to take them to the graveyard or the crematorium.

The story has just enough comedy to please, but never becomes silly. I also loved the complex self realization and character growth of the young man, and eventually an awakening of his wife as well.  Every actor is superb. The details of setting and backgrounds draw you in so that I still feel that I have had a trip to Japan.

Definitely a good travel movie for a traveler who wants a taste of Japan.

See more on Japan: 39 Thrills for the Tokyo Traveler, Geisha, Children’s books.

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West Virginia in the fall

Destination: West Virginia

Movie: October Sky (1999)

There is no question in my mind that West Virginia would like to be known for more than coal mining, and yet the industry so defined the state, that a movie set in a coal mining town seems a perfect introduction to a West Virginia stop on the Great American Road Trip. However, this movie shows that besides coal, some great people came out of West Virginia.

Be sure to click on over to Music Road for some coal mining music to play while you drive through West Virginia.

“Sometimes one dream is enough to light up the whole sky.“

Jake Gylenhaal

I recently re-watched the ten-year-old October Sky, starring the adorable Jake Gylenhaal as Homer, the Rocket Boy. The movie affected me as strongly the second time around as it did the first, but this time I paid more attention to the background.

Armed with some research, I now know that the movie was actually filmed in and around Coalwood, West Virginia, a company town until the mine was closed some ten years after this story takes place. Despite the gritty reality of coal mining, some of the surrounding wooded hills and streams will lure travelers looking for some backwoods peace and quiet. And the 1950′s atmosphere is recreated nicely, particularly helped along by a terrific sound track of music right off the Hit Parade.

In brief, the Soviet Union’s 1952 launch of the first rocket to become an earth satellite  inspires a group of high school boys, led by Homer Hickam, to experiment with rocketry. For Homer, the event that sets him on fire, also ignites a feud with his father, manager of the mine. One teacher believes in him, and the book and the movie form an education message that continues to be used in classrooms.

While the movie (I have not read the book, written by the real Homer Hickam) simmers in all sorts of delicious twists and turns, some pretty melodramatic, everything is based on fact. (Here’s a site that sorts out the real from the reel drama.) The most heart-warming scenes of the entire movie, for me, come at the end when pictures of the real-life rocket boys flash on the screen and we see how their “little hobby” led to solid careers, not one of which involves going underground in a coal mine.

You might want to take your Road Trip to West Virginia in October, not only to see the beautiful colored leaves on the hillsides, but also to attend the October Skys Festival in and around Coalwood.

My research also revealed an interesting fact about the movie title. Of course, the obvious reason for October Sky, is that the Soviet Union fired off the first rocket to orbit the earth in October, 1952.   But in addition, there’s a bit of word play going on with the title of the book that spawned the movie, Rocket Boys. Your assignment for today is to figure that out and report in the comment section what you discover.

Other questions about West Virginia? It is bordered on the northwest by the ___River.  It used to be part of what other state? It was the birthplace of several famous people including a Civil War General. The major industry is___.

You can find a whole bunch of other movie sites to visit in West Virginia when you take your own movie road trip to that state at this site researched by an academic.

Photo of Blackwater Falls State Park, courtesy of West Virginia Department of Commerce (www.wvcommerce.org) Photo of Jake Gylenhaal from web site–click on picture to go to site.

The HUGE book giveaway continues all month in May 2010. Check out the rules and come play along. See other road trip movie posts:Martha’s Vinyard ;  Connecticut; and the first American Road Trip.

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Book Cover: Under the Huang Jiao Tree

Book: Under the Huang Jiao Tree: Two Journeys in China September, 2009,(presently in 3rd printing) by Jane Carswell

Winner Whitcoulis Travel Book of The Year 2010

Not until we are lost do we begin to discover ourselves. Henry David Thoreau.

There are always two journeys, the outer and the inner. Jane Carswell.

New Zealand resident Jane Carswell accepted a job teaching English in China, but her objective was to learn. She wanted to learn about herself by putting herself in an unfamiliar situation. At the same time, she figured, she would learn about this new culture.

Both journeys that she describes in Under the Huang Jiao Tree were difficult, although she was more adept at dealing with the physical hardships than many of the other English teachers in the group. Her description of self portrays a person calmly accepting, with brief moments of despair and wonder, whatever is thrown at her.

Assigned to a top grade school, she was surprised to see the distinct class differences between students, depending on their exam scores. The better students had airy, well-equipped classrooms, while the students who had not scored high enough (sometimes by a hair, sometimes because they were sick the day of the test) were relegated to dark basement rooms without even a teacher’s desk. Eventually students and other teachers invite her into their homes so she is able to see where they come from–physically and emotionally.

Teaching English in China

We learn very little about the actual teaching here, but she deftly sketches personalities with a sentence or two, and I came away feeling that I had learned a lot about Chinese culture–most of it surprising. For instance, things seemed to happen without advance notice, or scheduled things never quite went off on time, but the Chinese just smiled their way through. I was shocked by the poor living conditions of some people–couples we would consider middle class living without a bathroom in their apartment.

Some people will no doubt find the book inspirational, because she tells us all about her inner life and her discovery after returning home of a true calling as a Benedictine oblate. I had mixed feelings. While I learned a great deal about the way the Chinese society works, quite beyond what you might see from a tour bus window, her constant focus on herself annoyed me.

Perhaps it was my expectation that this would be more travel book and less spiritual journey because it won a Travel Book award. But its secondary description as a spiritual book makes more sense. Perhaps I was just annoyed because I am a frivolous traveler who has ignored the inner journey. I am not sure if that is true. Perhaps it was a rare case of personality conflict between the reader and the writer. (You can read another take on teaching English in China from Ashley Bruckbauer, who wrote the guest post on Pearl Buck below.)

When Under the Huang Jiao Tree wonThe Whitcoulis Award, I wrote to the publisher and asked if I might have a review copy. They sent me the book and the catalogue of Transit Lounge Books. I recommend that readers looking for fresh literature about faraway places, take a look at what they offer.  And this may be the only place Americans can find this book, too. (The image of the schoolgirls is through Creative Commons license from Flickr.com. Click on the photo to learn more.)

See other posts on China –Pearl Buck, Three books on China

Do you feel that you discover things about yourself when you travel? Can you describe some self discovery that came about in a foreign surrounding?

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I was grateful to Lady Bird Johnson that she had the foresight to pack things away whenever she did updating of the house, so that it could be returned to the look it had when LBJ was there. All that 1960′s aqua-green Naugahyde! LBJ had a wall of three TV sets in his office, a reminder that you could get all the news on just three channels in his time.

I also loved the typical LBJ stories. In the garage, beside the impressive Presidential cars, was a little funny-looking car, like a Nash Rambler, if you’re old enough to remember them. He would load it up with guests, and drive it toward the river and start yelling that the brakes were failing and they were going into the water. Okay. It was an amphibious automobile, quite comfortable floating in the Pedernales.

And how Lady Bird and LBJ lived together all those years is a mystery. She had refined tastes, and liked to decorate in country casual, but with polished furniture and nice pieces of art.  She got a beautiful dining room set with chairs carefully matched to the table. However, one day, LBJ dragged one of his overstuffed leather cowboy chairs in to the head of the table. There it stayed beside the telephone that was attached to the table in case he got a call during dinner. Both totally out of place in the lady-like decor.

He had nearly 70 phones installed around the ranch so he would never miss a call. Wouldn’t he have been in heaven with a Blackberry!

I used to wrinkle my nose at his down-home paeans to Texas hill country and his beloved Pedernales. But by golly, standing there on the lawn of the Western White House and looking past the bluebonnets  and across the road, through the live oak trees  at the narrow strip of muddy water across the road, I could totally understand why he spent more than 1/3 of his Presidency in this lovely spot.

The humble childhood home seemed similar to the white clapboard homes in small town Ohio where I grew up, although this was a generation older and I never actually had to put up with an outhouse. The most striking thing about that small house was learning that his mother taught elocution to the town children on the front porch after regular school. Her love of literature and poetry and public speaking fills in a gap in my knowledge about LBJ.

The homes and the surroundings go farther in explaining the President than any biography could ever do.

Have you visited LBJ’s home or other President’s homes? What do you get out of the experience?

Other slide shows of Texas: San Antonio on My Mind, and the Art and Food of San Antonio.

A favorite Texas Writer, Larry McMurtry

Disclaimer: I went there on a press trip as the guest of the Fredericksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau.

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July 4th/Independence Day

Destination: New Jersey, (plus a little of Connecticut and Cooperstown, New York.)

Book: Independence Day (1995) by Richard Ford. This Book won PULITZER Prize for Literature AND Pen-Faulkner Fiction Prize.

Let’s hope that Richard Ford is not reading this.  According to an interview in the Guardian newspaper in 2008, he does not want to be called a Southern writer, despite being born in the South.  He would be even more horrified at being accused of writing travel literature, so let’s hope he does not see this. But this book is helpful in planning an east coast road trip.

In fact, while many of the settings in [amazonify]0679735186::text:::: Independence Day [/amazonify] are fictional and Ford is not interested in literal descriptions of place, he nevertheless sketches the American regional scene, accents, and cultural quirks, so that you would feel deja vu if you went there.

Ford’s first big hit novel was [amazonify]0679762108::text:: The Sportswriter [/amazonify], and the title character, Frank Bascombe returns in Independence Day with a new career as a real estate salesman. This career opens a closet full of metaphors for life. Frank, now in what he terms his “Existence Period,” ponders the risk and risk-avoidance dance of shopping for a home, the acceptance of larger uncontrollable forces (the economy) that affect life (and appreciation of property), the compromises an individual must make to find the good life.

(The Third of the series about Frank Bascombe, The Lay of the Land came out in 2007)
The first two books take place in Haddam, a fictional place, but you’ll see it if you drive through New Jersey far enough south of the industrial suburbs of NYC. Cooperstown, New York, on the other hand, is real and when Frank Bascombe and his son spend an Independence Day weekend there, we come to know the tourist town intimately. But the detailed descriptions of either the fictional or the real town really takes us beyond the specifics to a place we will know as Eastern Seaboard America.

Since Bascombe sells houses, we get a super close look at the lifestyle of New Jerseyites. His descriptions remind us that Jersey is not all smokey factories and freeways. It also contains leafy small villages, farmland and seashore. His descriptions are all the more interesting since he does not live in New Jersey. He once lived in New Orleans and we spotted his history there.

Here is Ford describing what Bascombe sees when he stops his car at a pull-off to stretch:

Beyond me hawks soar, martins, dip, a tiny airplane buzzes, a distant hang glider like a dragonfly wheels and sways in the rising molecules..And visible on the hillside opposite, where the sun paints a yellow square upon the western gradient, a tractor, tiny but detectably red, halts its progress in an emerald field; a tiny, hatted figure climbs down, pauses, then starts on foot back up the hill he’s tractored down.

Or just taste the lush first sentence of the novel:

In Haddam, summer floats over tree-softened streets like a sweet lotion balm from a careless, languorous god, and the world falls in tune with its own mysterious anthems.

Okay, it is not a travel guide, but Richard Ford writes about a character who spends a lot of time on the road,  road trip planning, and takes a road trip with his son. All the way he is while traveling around inside his own head, trying to understand himself in this coming-of-middle-age book.

I have inserted links to Amazon books, making it easier for you to purchase Richard Ford’s books. I make a few cents from ANY Amazon purchase you make when you follow these links. Thank you.

The photo above is used under Creative Commons license and comes from Flickr. Click on the photo for additional information.

Please also see Music Road Trip, a post on New Jersey musicians from my partner on the Great American Road Trip at Music Road.

Have you spent some time in New Jersey?  Been to the shore?  What have you seen?

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Michigan's Sunset Coast book cover

Destination: Michigan

Book: Traveling Michigan’s Sunset Coast: Exploring Michigan’s West Coast Beach Towns – from New Buffalo to Mackinaw City,(2007) by Julie Royce

A Guest Post by Dr. Jessie Voigts

I am particularly pleased to have Dr. Jessie Voigts of Wandering Educators bring us this book and this author, since the subject is home territory for Voigts. It always gives more credibility to a guidebook when a resident of the area approves it.

This is an incredible resource for west Michigan residents and visitors – a complete description of places to eat, stay, and visit while traveling the sunset coast. I looked up many of my favorite restaurants, and indeed, they were listed and recommended – as well as many that I had never heard of before!

The first part of the book is a resource guide, while the second half provides a history of Michigan, including ghost sightings, ship wrecks, lighthouses, sand dunes, and legends. This is a fantastic travel guide to a lovely part of the United States. Julie also has a guidebook to Michigan’s thumb region. I was able to sit down with Julie and interview her…

Wandering Educators: What led you to do these guidebooks?

Julie Royce: I took an early out retirement from the State of Michigan where I had worked as a First Assistant Attorney General in the Workers’ Compensation Division. Jennifer Granholm had been my boss for a while back when she was Attorney General. After retirement my husband and I moved to Lexington, Michigan and bought a condo just three blocks from where I was born.

During our first summer here Ms. Granholm (then governor) gave a speech at a local restaurant and I went to hear her and to have the chance to see my prior boss. Part of her pitch that day was that we really need to promote our state and she talked about all the Thumb area had to offer.

After she left that evening I was thinking about what she said and decided she was right. It is beautiful here in Lexington. I decided to write Traveling Michigan’s Thumb. It became kind of a joke among my friends as I was writing it: “After the first two pages what are you going to say?” In truth, I found plenty to write about. We have several cute little towns, lots of beautiful water, a slow pace of living and great people.

W. E.: Tell us about some of the characters you met, while doing this research…

Petoskey Lighthouse

J. R.: One of the true pleasures of writing the book was the people I met along the way. Certainly the west side of the state had its characters – that’s why I included a chapter on the famous, infamous and notorious with Lake Michigan ties. Unfortunately I did not get to meet Ernest Hemingway, Carl Sandburg, or Al Capone. I really would have loved to meet Magdelaine LaFramboise.

The people I did meet were generally just friendly people willing to tell me about their towns. I did have an interesting experience in Petoskey. I went into a gift store and a customer walked up to the register where I was talking to the owner about her shop. I moved aside so a “paying customer” could take care of business. The customer said, “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation, are you writing a book?” I told her I was and I explained I had done one earlier called Traveling Michigan’s Thumb and this was my second book. She surprised me by telling me she bought Traveling Michigan’s Thumb at the Victorian Emporium in Lexington, a few blocks from where I live. Small world!

Dr. Jessie Voigts

You can read more of the interview, in the book review section of Wandering Educators. Dr. Jessie Voigts is the Publisher of  WanderingEducators.com and contributes each month to A Traveler’s Library. She has a doctorate in International Education, and is passionate about intercultural learning. She and her husband are Worldschooling their daughter, and enjoying every minute of it. She is also a nature photographer and lives on a lake.

Thanks Jessie, for bringing us a book so appropriate for our road trip. Look for a stop in Michigan later this year. And, dear reader, if you would like to read more here about Michigan here are three suggestions.

• Nick Adams aka Hemingway in Northern Michigan
• Mystery set in Paradise
• Hiawatha for Children
  

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City of Buffalo, NY

Destination: Buffalo, New York

Book: City on the Edge by Mark Goldman

My great aunt Maude Bartlett lived in Buffalo with her husband, dearCarlos.  She always referred to him as though his name had three syllables. I never visited Aunt Maude in Buffalo, and Carlos died before I was born.  He was a lawyer for the railroads, back when the railroads were very prosperous, so they lived a solid upper middle class life and Maude belonged to Women’s clubs and Shakespeare societies and hosted teas. DearCarlos died when he was only 42 years old, but Maude continued to live a comfortable life in Buffalo.

She finally moved back to the small town in Ohio where she grew up, and where my Grandmother Vera lived all her life.  Maude and Vera fought constantly. Two sisters were never so different. Apparently great-grandmother had shown  great favoritism to Maude, the older sister, the refined one, the one who played the piano and knew all the best brands of silver and china. But they called each other every day.

When my family moved back to the same town, I sometimes visited her, and as her eyesight failed, she wanted my brother and me to read to her. I dutifully spent summer afternoons one summer reading a book about Alaska to her, but I didn’t like doing it and soon got out of it.

I have always regretted that my self-centered teenage self didn’t have the sense to ask about Buffalo, and what her life was like in that city on Lake Erie. Because of these memories, for our road trip stop in western New York state, I chose to read [amazonify]1591024579::text::::City on the Edge[/amazonify] a history and analysis of Buffalo by Mark Goldman.

I gobbled up the first few chapters about Buffalo’s peak days, when they idolized industry, glorying in giving away lakefront to shipping and manufacturing companies and allowing railroads to split the city. Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of Central Park, was invited to lay out boulevards and parks for Buffalo. Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses for the wealthy. But  industry eventually toppled from its pedestal and crushed the economy of the city along with other rustbelt cities in the northern tier of Midwest states.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo

Despite a decade by decade retelling of grim mistakes and economic disaster,the book points out a rich cultural life.  The Albright Art Gallery, later to become the Albright-Knox, starting early in the 20th century, built what is still one of the best modern art collections in the country.  And in music,  Buffalo became known for supporting avant-garde music, and the Buffalo Philharmonic, founded in 1935, performs in a historic hall designed by Eliel and Eero Saarinen. Buffalo also boasts the 2nd oldest Chamber Music Society in the U.S.

It would have been wonderful to see the beautiful elm trees that crowded the edges of Buffalo streets before the Dutch Elm disease thinned out those trees. Today, Goldman says, volunteers are replanting trees and restoring the plazas and parks designed by Olmstead.

Blizzard

Yes, I wish I had asked Aunt Maude more about her life in Buffalo, which was at its hey-day when she lived there. But is this a book for road trip travelers? Is Buffalo even a city for travelers? The Buffalo-Niagara Falls web site proclaims “Be Surprised.” And the Albright-Knox Gallery site says “Experience the Unexpected.” As in, ‘you weren’t expecting anything, so whatever you find is going to be better than what you were expecting’?  Warning: unless you really love blizzards, do not visit in the winter.

As for this book,  the danger in writing history is the temptation to use every fact you uncover and City on the Edge is crammed with facts. I also got the feeling that Goldman, a investor and restaurateur when he’s not writing history, also used some of the book to settle some political scores. Let me suggest that you might use it as a reference, if you are going to stop in Buffalo. For more information on Buffalo, Goldman suggests Buffalo Rising, an on-line newspaper.

Music Road tells about three western New York songwriters for our road music to go with the road trip to Buffalo.

Photos by M.H.Baker from Flickr, used under Creative Commons license. Click on a photo to see more of this Buffalo photographer’s work.

So, have you stopped in Buffalo when you were on a road trip to Niagara Falls?  I shared the high culture, but what about the strictly fun stuff?

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Iran - Caged

Destination: Iran

Book: Inge Morath: Iran Additional text by Monika Faber and Azar Nafisi and edited by John P. Jacob. Review copy provided by the publisher, Steidl, Germany.

Traveling alone, Inge Morath (who later would marry Arthur Miller and collaborate on various projects) toured Iran and took photographs for various clients in the United States. She died in 2002, and the Inge Morath Foundation has assembled photographs and records of this trip taken in 1956 for [amazonify]3865216978::text::::Inge Morath: Iran[/amazonify].

Monika Faber, from the Albertina Museum in Vienna, who explains Morath’s techniques in a text, quotes Morath.

I always preferred territories: Iran in the Middle East…Spain and Mexico, Russia and China, countries whose influence extended beyond their borders, ‘mother cultures,’ she wrote.,[...]Most of the time it was literature that raised my enthusiasm for a certain place, visual and popular art that stimulated my eye…”

Iran Marketplace - broom seller

Ah, yes, that sounds familiar doesn’t it?  “Literature than raised my enthusiasm for a certain place”?

The reader is not only treated to a beautiful presentation of the black and white photos of an Iran that does not exist any more, but details such as her letters of assignment and minutiae of the journey that make it easier to understand the circumstances of her travel.

It is difficult to convey the fascination of these photos–a marketplace in a village of sand-blown mud huts, a Zorastrian ceremony inside a home, ordinary people in traditional costumes posing unselfconsciously for the camera. You can look at these photographs for sheer enjoyment, for a history lesson, or if you love photography, as a lesson in technique. You don’t have to be traveling to Iran to enjoy poring over these 320 images.

Iran: Little Girls Weaving Rugs

An interview with Azar Nafisi, author of [amazonify]0812979303::text::::Reading Lolita in Iran[/amazonify] and [amazonify]0812973909::text::::Things I’ve Been Silent About[/amazonify], relates the historical Iran with today’s realities. This afterword and the one by Monika Faber, make this book more satisfying to me–because I like a story–than books with ONLY photographs in them.

The photos shown here are copyright by the Inge Morath Foundation. DO NOT COPY. Shown by courtesy of Magnum Photos.

Some lucky reader of A Traveler’s Library will win a copy of this book (list price $59.95) when we do our next giveaway. I should mention that I frequently put links to Amazon with book titles. It makes in convenient for you to buy the books, but also provides a few cents to A Traveler’s Library. Please use my links when you buy ANYTHING at Amazon. Thanks!

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