Travel Blog: Literary Travel
Cuba Stories on Public Radio’s “The World”
by Jim Benning | 01.20.06 | 4:18 PM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Beat Museum Opens in San Francisco
by Jim Benning | 01.20.06 | 1:00 AM ET
A one-room museum celebrating Beat Generation luminaries such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg has opened in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood with a slew of memorabilia, including photos, early book editions and an autographed copy of “Howl.” Jerry Cimino, a 51-year-old Beat fan and collector who worked at American Express and IBM, started the museum to “make more of a difference doing something no one else would try,” he told the Associated Press.
“Hemingway’s Hurricane” on Book TV
by Jim Benning | 01.14.06 | 2:31 PM ET
C-SPAN2’s Book TV will feature 45 minutes this evening (Saturday) on Hemingway’s Hurricane: The Great Florida Keys Storm of 1935. Author Phil Scott chronicles the storm that hit the keys with 200 mph winds and killed more than 400 people. Hemingway weathered the storm in Key West and later concluded that more could have been done to prevent the deaths. His writing about that, some believe, led to his appearance on the FBI watch list. Scott’s Book TV appearance begins at 9 p.m. EST.
Pico Iyer, Tom Arnold and the Key West Literary Seminar
by Tom Swick | 01.09.06 | 5:57 AM ET
I’m in Key West; drove down Thursday from Fort Lauderdale for the Key West Literary Seminar on the Literature of Adventure, Travel and Discovery. In the evening Pico Iyer gave the opening address, speaking for 80 minutes without notes and almost without pauses to a packed and dazzled crowd of mostly older citizens. Sketched his story—born in England to Indian parents who then moved to California, currently living in rural Japan—and the themes of his writing—interchange of cultures, traveling for contradictions, travel as a dialogue between a person and a place, an interest in the romance rather than the clash of cultures, etc. Leaving I heard an elderly woman ask her friend, “Did he say he lives in royal Japan?”
Hemingway Was a Regular on Chalk’s Ocean Airways
by Jim Benning | 12.22.05 | 1:23 AM ET
I hadn’t heard of Chalk’s Ocean Airways until this week, with the news that a twin-engine Mallard seaplane it operated crashed off Miami on Monday, killing at least 19 people on board. It turns out the company and its planes have a long, storied history. The Florida carrier claims to be the world’s oldest surviving airline, and according to a fine story in the Palm Beach Post, Ernest Hemingway was once a regular passenger on flights to the island of Bimini. The Post story opens with a description of a Mallard taking off.
Kerouac’s “On the Road” Manuscript to be Displayed in San Francisco
by Jim Benning | 12.19.05 | 5:38 PM ET
A yellowing, 36-foot section of the original “On the Road” manuscript scroll will be displayed at the San Francisco Public Library from Jan. 14 to March 19, along with Kerouac-related books and photographs.
“Kerouac wrote the novel over a 20-day span in 1951, typing on 12-foot rolls of tracing paper so he didn’t have to pause to load paper in his typewriter,” an AP story on ABC News explains.
The AP story also notes:
After Kerouac died from alcoholism in 1969, the single-spaced manuscript, which has become yellow and brittle with time, changed hands several times. Some said it spent time in a dorm room closet before it turned up at the New York Public Library. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay bought the scroll in 2001 at an auction for $2.43 million.
Related on World Hum:
* Jack Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums” Mansucript Moves to Florida
Bookstore Tourism Podcast
by Michael Yessis | 12.07.05 | 3:54 PM ET
Larry Portzline recently appeared on WHP-AM’s Let’s Talk Travel program in Pennsylvania, and he’s included several segments of his conversation with host Sandy Fenton on his most recent podcast. Portzline is the founder of bookstore tourism. He spoke with World Hum about it in October.
The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson
by Jim Benning | 12.06.05 | 12:10 AM ET
Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle featured a review of “Myself and the Other Fellow,” a new biography of the man who wrote “Treasure Island.” Critic Diane Scharper writes of Stevenson: “[H]is work received mixed reviews after he died. The gothic tales lacked the psychological twists popular in the 20th century, and his adventure stories were too difficult for children but didn’t contain enough sex for adults. Although he took the personal essay to new heights with a combination of craftsmanship and directness, and practically invented modern travel writing, his literary essays are relatively unknown today.”
Jack Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums” Manuscript Moves to Florida
by Jim Benning | 12.01.05 | 1:29 PM ET
Jack Kerouac is most famous for his novel “On the Road,” but I’ve always been partial to “The Dharma Bums,” with its train-hoping, Zen-musing, haiku-writing, Sierra-tramping protagonists. I’d put it on my Top 10 Desert Island Novels List any day. So I was happy to see a recent story in the Orlando Sentinel noting that the Kerouac Project of Orlando just acquired the final 197-page draft manuscript of the novel for preservation. Kerouac apparently found inspiration for the book’s ending while star-gazing in Florida.
Mark Twain: Travel Writer
by Jim Benning | 11.22.05 | 1:50 PM ET
Mark Twain the travel writer seems to be a relatively hot commodity these days. National Geographic Society has published a new edition of “Following the Equator,” Twain’s reflection on his 1895-1896 around-the-world trip. And The Lyon’s Press just released Mark Twain on Travel, a collection of some of Twain’s travel writing.
On the Jane Austen Trail
by Jim Benning | 11.18.05 | 1:14 PM ET
With a movie version of Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” now in theaters, USA Today explores the travel possibilities for fans. UK tourism promoters, not surprisingly, are more than happy to help. Reports the paper: “Tourism folk in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and the hilly Peak District have come up with a ‘Visit Pride & Prejudice Country’ promotion that features packages including tours of sites from the film and a free map of locations used in the movie and in the critically acclaimed 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries.”
The History of Guidebooks
by Jim Benning | 11.16.05 | 11:24 PM ET
Written Road today pointed to good read in the Sydney Morning Herald about the history of guidebooks. Written by Andrew Bain, a former Lonely Planet editor, the story traces their history back to “Descriptions of Greece,” the oldest surviving guidebook, written in about 160 A.D. for wealthy Romans.
No Bull: San Fermin Festival in Jeopardy
by Jim Benning | 04.14.05 | 9:26 PM ET
Following Tocqueville
by Jim Benning | 04.06.05 | 5:01 PM ET
‘Best American Travel Writing’ Launches with New York Event
by Jim Benning | 10.07.04 | 7:36 PM ET
Editor Pico Iyer hosts the launch event for the 2004 Best American Travel Writing anthology Tuesday, October 12, at The Explorers Club in New York City. The reception begins at 6:30 p.m. Readings from Tad Friend, George Packer and Elizabeth Rubin follow at 7 p.m. The cost is $15 for nonmembers and $5 for students. This year’s edition features two World Hum stories, Test Day by Frank Bures and Sandbags in the Archipelago by Heather Eliot.
