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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African Village Food Booth at Tucson Gem Show

I talked with a vendor who explained this mask to me. It comes from the Ivory coast, he said, and represents a bird who is a story teller.  How appropriate for A Traveler’s Library.

The Story Teller Mask. For more info go to http://www.africanmasks.ca/history-tradition

I mentioned in my post about geography, that I am rather clueless about Africa.  A whole continent, and what do I know?  I have seen a few movies. The Last King of Scotland.  Out of Africa with Meryl Streep. The Snows of Kilimanjaro with Ava Gardner. King Solomon’s Mine with Deborah Kerr.  I am dating myself here, so better stop.

And literature?  Well, despite the many fine books available on Africa, I do not have many in my travel library.  In my usual quest for detective stories that tell me about a country, I did read Alexander McCall Smith’s very humorous The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and The Kalahari Typing School for Men.  There are more in the series and I will probably read them, too.

But I need to find good literature by Africans, and here is a blog that is a good source. A writer from Zimbabwe, Emmanuel Sigauke, gives not only interesting posts, but links to many African sites and blogs and writers.  I am running out of excuses for my ignorance.

Photos by VMB

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Don Quixote and Sancho Panza drawn by Honore Daumier

Destination: Spain

Book: Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes

On the road south of Madrid, the names on restaurant and hotels begin to read: Sancho Panza, Dulcinea, Don Quixote–named for the characters in Spain’s most famous book.

As we travel through the flat, sun-baked landscape of La Mancha, we burst into song.

“To dream the impossible dream,

To fight the unbeatable foe,

To bear the unbearable sorrow,

To run where the brave dare not go.”

Stirring lyrics and a tune that climbs like the mountains surrounding these plains.

Cervantes story of the indomitable Don Quixote and his down-to-earth sidekick Sancho Panza, and the musical based on the tale, Man of La Mancha, have forever typecast the Spanish people. The men must be adventurous, dreamers, believers in fantasy (or stoically practical peasants). The women are so beautiful they even the poorest are mistaken for royalty.  Is Cervantes’ picture correct, or is our vision of Spain clouded by the dominant literary guidebook to Spanish culture?

Either way, the legend of Don Quixote ranks high as a must-read book in the traveler’s library.  Just try to drive across the dusty plains of La Mancha without thoughts of striving for  better worlds to conquer in the nearby mountains or across the sea.

Once you have seen the musical, Man of La Mancha (on stage, please, the movie disappoints), you will be singing, “To dream, the impossible dream…”

(See another post on Spain, Secrets of the Alhambra)

What books in your travel libary have defined Spain for you? Did you see Don Quixote in the windmills of La Mancha? Join the conversation by leaving a comment.

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Book: Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving

Moonlight illuminates tile walls and stone lions that are more than 600 years old. The light peoples the walls of the Alhambra with romantic ghosts.  Washington Irving knew the evocative power of moonlight. In his book , Tales of the Alhambra, which describes time that he spent in the wonderful building that dominates Granada Spain, he weaves stories that take place in daylight shadows and others that slink through the dark.  “…clothing naked realities with the illusions of the memory and the imagination,” as he puts it.

Thanks to Irving’s book, when we went to a bank that sells tickets to the Alhambra, Ken and I bought tickets for both the daytime tour and the evening tour.  We lined up at the appointed time for the daytime tour and wandered on cobblestone streets to graceful stone archways, past flower-bordered paths and into the endless intricacy of Moorish rooms covered in jewel-toned tiles.

In one courtyard, we came across a wedding party. The bride, a slightly-past-sell-date dark haired lady stuffed into her white gown, led the mustachioed groom toward a fountain for wedding pictures. On the rim of a reflecting pond, a pair of lovers did what lovers do, oblivious of the throngs of sightseers.  The Spanish sun glanced brightly off the fountains and turned the flowers into neon.

When we went back in the evening, low lights along the paths led us into a world of shadow, where shape, not color, became the star attraction.  We saw subtle details of ceilings and arches that daylight’s bright colors distracted us from noticing.  But we also saw the possibilities. We knew suddenly why Moorish Spain held such allure for a story teller like Irving and for the Romantics of the nineteenth century.

Have you ever read a travel book by a literary figure of a bygone era that struck you as completely in tune with your travels today?  What older books do you have in your library? Please join the conversation and tell us about your books.

By the way, the links in these posts usually take you to Amazon, but today’s link takes you to a free on line source.  Stay tuned, I will soon be talking about all the myriad ways we receive our words today. (See another post on Spain, Riding with Don Quixote.

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Destination: Venice

Gondola Traffic Jam in Venice, Italy Photo by VMB

Books: Any mystery byDonna Leon

Donna Leon has made a career out of killing off many people in just one city. But with all the romance and mystery of Venice, Italy, why not?

Unlike the many writers who have plumbed the rich history of Venice, Donna Leon goes after the gritty underbelly of today’s Italy. Grubbing around in police works and political corruption she exposes plenty of things that the tourist board will not be telling you about. I gobbled the books  down like potato chips before, during and after my Italian trip.

In 2008 the yearly high tides in Venice reached exceptionally high marks, making Leon’s 1996 (reprinted in 2005)  Acqua Alta , timely all over again. Leon’s  police procedural mysteries (16 so far) about the personable family man, Comissario Brunetti, come across as a love letter to Venice. But not a love letter from a smitten teen. Her books strike me as a mature kind of love letter that says I know all your warts and I love you still.

When I went to Venice, the romantic decay all seemed just a little too seedy. And the city that once built an empire on commerce, now trades in made-in-China copies of Venetian masks. Talk about tacky souvenirs–I thought that if I saw one more pair of men’s underwear sporting a bit of David’s anatomy (that’s David by Michelangelo)—I would jump in a canal.

Leon (and Brunetti) also led me to hidden treasures of Venice, and explained the little cultural secrets that sometimes elude a tourist.I went on a Comissario Brunetti alert, recognizing street and plaza names and remembering the crime that took place in a particular canal. The British fan site for the author emphasizes the way that place dominates her novels with a wonderful graphic map

You may want to start with her latest book,  The Girl of His Dreams , but once you add Leon to your travel library, I’ll bet you can’t read just one.

Thrillers from Baldacci in Washington D.C. , mysteries from Donna Leon in Venice.  Why does this kind of book make such a satisfactory travel read?  And what other mystery writers have you read that add spice to your travel? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

* NOTE: In 2011 the number of mysteries has climbed to 20 and you can also buy  Brunetti’s Cookbook. Thank goodness. I’ve been drooling over those pages in the novels where his wife whips up a wonderful dinner for the family.

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The works of Robert Louis Stevenson will soon be on line. Why should we travelers care? Because Stevenson penned not only the well known Treasure Island, from which all pirate novels spring, but, as Katherine Ryder says, he was a travel writer and champion of leisure. She suggests we read An Apology for Idlers. Thanks, World Hum for leading me to this item in the New Yorker.

Jane Austen

Granted, Jane Austen is a good read if you are headed to England, but you might not want to pay this much. For one book in your traveler’s library?

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MacCarthy's Bar, Castletownbere, Ireland, Photo by VMB

Destination: Ireland

Okay, so my title is a little misleading. But then so is the title of the book, [amazonify]0312311338::text:::: McCarthy’s Bar[/amazonify].

Author Pete McCarthy sometimes stays sober.  But never somber.  Even though his name is McCarthy and he does find a few Mc Carthy’s Bars in Ireland, Pete McCarthy’s subtitle is a bit more in touch with the true nature book. He takes “A Journey of Discovery in Ireland.”

Along the way, he visits a large number of pubs. Americans who separate their bars (for drinking) from their restaurants (for eating) not to mention separating their bars from their grocery stores (for buying food) and their cobblers (for fixing shoes) need to adjust to the idea that Irish pubs can be the Circle K/General Store/Mini Mart/Pool Hall/Shoe Store or most anything else of a small community.

McCarthy uncovers the life of everyday Irish people and revels in their hospitality, if not their inevitable bar food of thin slices of ham between slices of spongy white bread with nothing on the side. The very funny book is a road trip that takes you beyond the usual tourist haunts as he searches for his roots in his mother’s native land.

I must admit that the cover drew me to the book. It pictures the MacCarthy’s bar in the small town of Castletownbere where I spent three days on my trip around southern Ireland. And yes, my husband and I had a meal of those spongy white bread sandwiches in the bar in Dunquin that advertised itself as the last pub before Boston.

Sign along the road to Dunquin, Dingle Peninsula, Ireland. Photo by VMB.

This book was published in 2001 and followed in 2003 by [amazonify]0007162138::text::::The Road to McCarthy[/amazonify] which chronicles a world-wide search for all things McCarthy, an even wilder expedition than the Irish jaunt. Unfortunately, McCarthy, who had been a comedy star in England as well as a comic writer, passed away in 2005.

Who are your favorite travel humorists? Bill Bryson? P.J. O’Rourke? Or have you discovered an as-yet unknown writer of funny travel tales?

You can see another post about Ireland’s Castletownbere here. And don’t miss Robert Todd Felton’s book on literary Ireland.

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Capitol Hill at Night, by Thomas Hawk at flickr.com

Destination: Washington D.C.

Are you setting off for the inauguration? No? Good choice.  Wait until the crowds thin out.

All eyes turn toward Washington D.C. on January 20 every fourth year.  Trivia moment:  Presidential inaugurals used to happen on March 4.  Then I was born on that date and since the country could not have two such important events on the same day, the President was moved to January 20.  Well, that’s the way my mother told the story.

Oh, sure, it is a good idea to read some history, and maybe the biography of Thomas Jefferson (for whom the main building of the Library of Congress is named) or Abigail Adams (First First Lady in the White House).

But to truly feel like an insider when you travel today’s Washington, add to your travel library the David Baldacci’s series about a group of misfits in D. C. who outsmart all those guys with big shoulders and blackberries who belong to alphabet agencies. The books are guaranteed to have you looking behind trees and wondering about the guy lurking on the marble steps.

• Camel Club, first in the series.
• The Collectors , my personal favorite, perhaps because it involves books and the Library of Congress will be next if you are reading them in order.
• Stone Cold , next up, is named for the leader of the gang, Oliver Stone.
• Divine Justice , the latest in the series, is also the last, according to the author.  I heard Baldacci speak at a conference in November 2007, and he said that Divine Justice is the last of the Camel Club series.

Once you have read yourself into a totally paranoid state bred by all those thrillers you have read, visit the Spy Museum.  It will convince you that you really are being followed.

With so many books set in D.C.,  from history to mystery, we just may have to revisit this city in a later post. Your suggestions?

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Musical film Mama Mia gets reviewed–on a skewer–at World Hum.  Of plot, character development, acting, singing, dancing and scenery, the latter came off best.  Why not?  Greek Islands can never be bad.

Eva Holland  and Eli Ellison refer to the setting as “travel porn.”  Skopelos and Skiathos, the islands shown in the movie lie north northeast of Athens in the Sporades group of islands. (Picture from Flickr, licensed by Creative Commons)

As we get acquainted, you will learn that my travel library of books on Greece takes up many, many shelves.  Books on islands, books on Athens, ancient books and new books. I’ll be talking about them all.

Other movies set on Greek Islands: Shirley Valentine;Summer Lovers; Corelli’s Mandolin.

Other posts on Greece: The Mani Peninsula;  Thucydides as a Guide; The Miracle of Siphnos at Spot Cool Stuff; Crete; Athens; Novels set on Greek Islands;  and Museums and Loot. Well, I TOLD you I love Greece.

Skopelis beach by Titanis

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Destinations: Greece, Turkey, Egypt and the British Museum in London, Metropolitan Museum in NYC, the Louvre in Paris, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles

Part of the Parthenon Freize in British Museum

Welcome to my traveler’s library.

Have you ever wondered how the lovely antiquities from some long-gone civilization arrived at a major museum? Looters have dug up treasures as long as people have been burying them. But when Napoleon set out to Egypt, he took an army of scholars with him and in recording and taking treasures, they started a trend.

Nineteenth century collectors took it for granted that the more advanced countries had a right to collect “because they alone know how to appreciate them,” as the author of an 1835 book, Voyage de Luxor said. Some people still argue that point of view. Others have become bothered by the lack of provenance on many objects in museums. Both factions will be enthralled by Sharon Waxman’s book, Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World

I got hooked on the debate over the morality of collecting antiquities when I first visited the Acropolis in Athens thirty years ago and saw the blank spaces where Lord Elgin relieved the Greeks of pieces of magnificent carving. He wanted them because at the end of the nineteenth century it was all the rage to decorate ones’ estate with statuary from Greece and Rome. Eventually, he wound up broke and sold his treasures to the British Museum.

In 2008 I traveled to London and visited the enthralling British Museum. Of course I toured its most popular space, the display of the Parthenon marbles. Forty-eight hours later, I was in Athens, visiting the Parthenon for the fifth time, on a scorching hot day. I also got a sneak-preview of the soaring spaces of the New Acropolis Museum and the space the Greek government has prepared for the return of the Parthenon marbles from England.

Opinionated as I am about the Parthenon marbles (which I will never call the Elgin marbles) Sharon Waxman made me question my stance on the rightful role of museums with her well-researched look at the needs of countries like Egypt, Turkey and Greece and the rationale of world class museums. Since the New Acropolis Museum has been completed, the argument has become more public. For a frequently updated overview of the looting of antiquities worldwide, see this blog .

While Loot certainly will not be found in the travel section of your bookstore, it nevertheless belongs on the travel library shelves. It helps readers understand the cultures of Egypt, Turkey and Greece and the long-gone civilizations that inhabited the land the modern countries now occupy. It also adds understanding of a culture the traveler may never have thought about—that of museums.

Where do you stand on the debate about ancient artifacts? Are their limits to what foreign countries should be able to keep from the source country?

The photos here were taken by VMB on a visit to London and Athens just one day apart.

NEW: Sign a petition to join my favorite cause, return the Parthenon Marbles taken to England by Lord Elgin.

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