Travel Blog: Literary Travel
Joseph Conrad: Adventurer, Writer, Post-Colonial Lightning Rod
by Jim Benning | 03.13.08 | 12:10 PM ET
Like Hemingway and Melville, Joseph Conrad transformed a life of adventure into gripping novels. As Adam Kirsch notes, he was “a ship’s captain, visiting ports from Malaysia to Venezuela. He attempted suicide in Marseilles, had a ship blown up under him in Sumatra, almost died of dysentery in the Belgian Congo, and fell in love with a mademoiselle in Mauritius.” A biography, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad, by John Stape, explores the many facets of Conrad’s character. In recent weeks, it’s been receiving mixed reviews.
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Yahoo! Buzz‘Lighting Out’ and the 100 Best Last Lines from Novels
by Jim Benning | 03.11.08 | 12:00 PM ET
The American Book Review has made its list of the 100 best final lines from novels. Coming in at No. 5, from a book featuring a couple of our favorite fictional travelers, the last lines from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”: “But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before.” The American Book Review site doesn’t have a Web page with the complete list, but you can download a pdf of it here.
Related on World Hum:
* 10 Greatest Fictional Travelers
* Disney’s Tom Sawyer Island: Too Old Media for 2007
Photo of the Mississippi River by bluepoint951 via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Seattle’s Rise to Literary Prominence
by Jim Benning | 03.11.08 | 10:18 AM ET
Or at least book-selling prominence. Seattle is the base of Amazon.com, Starbucks and Costco, the New York Times observes, “three companies that increasingly influence what America reads.”
R.I.P. Bookstore Tourism?
by Michael Yessis | 03.06.08 | 12:29 PM ET
Larry Portzline has shut down Bookstore Tourism indefinitely. “Unfortunately, despite a great deal of excitement and interest from supporters, the necessary funding was scarce,” he writes on his blog. “So, after five years of working on Bookstore Tourism without making a penny (and, in fact, virtually driving myself into bankruptcy), I had to make a very tough decision and pull the plug on the entire project.” He adds: “It may be permanent. I’m simply not sure.”
Are Women Who Read ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ ‘Kind of Dim’?*
by Michael Yessis | 03.03.08 | 1:43 PM ET
Charlotte Allen calls “Eat, Pray, Love,” Elizabeth Gilbert’s lightning rod of a travel memoir, “hysterical,” “superficial,” and “gooily sentimental,” and points to its success as an example of why women are “kind of dim.” She did all this in a Washington Post opinion piece this weekend called “We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?”, which, as of this posting, has 870 comments and counting.
A Life’s Travels, Six Words Only
by Julia Ross | 03.03.08 | 9:23 AM ET
Last month, the online magazine Smith published an addictive collection of six-word memoirs, titled Not Quite What I Was Planning. As you might expect, the project’s abbreviated life stories—contributed by Smith’s readers and a few well-known writers—cover a wide arc of joy, tragedy, heartbreak and fulfillment.
‘Eat, Pray, Love’ Driving Memoir Boom
by Jim Benning | 02.28.08 | 3:30 PM ET
Oprah sang its praises. Rolf Potts didn’t. But love it or hate it, Elizabeth Gilbert’s post-divorce travel memoir “Eat, Pray, Love” is among the popular books now driving a boom in new memoirs being published, reports USA Today.
R.I.P. Dutton’s Books
by Jim Benning | 02.26.08 | 1:36 PM ET
Sadly, Los Angeles’ beloved literary bookstore, located in Brentwood, plans to close April 30.
Proper Use of Semicolon in New York Subways Hailed by Riders, Writers
by Michael Yessis | 02.20.08 | 11:55 AM ET
One sentence on a public service ad in the New York Subway has turned Neil Neches, a writer in the New York City Transit agency’s marketing and service information department, into an unlikely hero. In an effort to get riders to not leave newspapers strewn about subway cars, Neches wrote: “Please put it in a trash can; that’s good news for everyone.” The tale of his properly-placed semicolon is currently the No. 1 most e-mailed story at the New York Times.
Former Punk Paul Theroux in India
by Jim Benning | 02.19.08 | 2:40 PM ET
Perhaps the most anticipated travel book this year—or at least the one I’m most looking forward to—is Paul Theroux’s Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, due out in September. It’s an account of his journey through Europe and Asia, retracing the route he followed in the 1975 classic, The Great Railway Bazaar. He’s been talking it up recently in India, popping up in press accounts here (on “human architecture”), here (on beekeeping and whether he’s “a hack”) and here (on India’s soul).
Two More Bookstores Beloved by Travelers to Close
by Michael Yessis | 02.18.08 | 12:27 PM ET
Candida’s World of Books, Washington D.C.‘s only travel bookstore, opened to the public for the last time this past weekend, and the Reading Room, the only literary bookstore on the Las Vegas Strip, announced it will be closing as soon as March.
‘International’ Novels: ‘There’s a Bit of a Buzz on the Web Right Now’
by Michael Yessis | 02.07.08 | 7:31 AM ET
Rory MacLean follows it to, among other places, a World Hum blog post, and offers some book recommendations of the best fiction books for transporting readers to a foreign land.
Related on World Hum:
* Crime Fiction Where You Least Expect It
Historic Canadian Bookstore to Close
by Ben Keene | 01.31.08 | 11:37 AM ET
Independent bookstore closures are hardly a new phenomenon, but this one really stings. As Canada’s oldest bookstore, The Book Room has kept readers in Nova Scotia supplied with bound volumes for 169 years—since 1839. But as a result of declining sales, the Halifax store is selling down its inventory in preparation for a March closure. Said the store’s president Tuesday, “The staff and I are both really sad about having to do this.”
Blog to Watch: ‘Evolution of Security’
by Michael Yessis | 01.30.08 | 2:43 PM ET
Awful name, but an interesting development: It’s a new blog from the Transportation Security Administration, which, in the words its chief, Kip Hawley, aims to provide “a forum for a lively, open discussion of TSA issues.” The key word here: Lively. The blogosphere isn’t shy when it comes to Hawley and the TSA.
Nine Independent Bookstores Worth a Trip
by Jim Benning | 01.17.08 | 12:58 PM ET
The AP offers up a list with all the usual U.S. suspects: City Lights, Books & Books, Politics and Prose, etc.
