BOOKPATHS

Bookpaths

If land has determined books, than have books also exalted land. -- Lawrence Clark Powell

Bookpaths brings together literature and place. Through books we can strengthen our connection with all places on earth and through travel we can enrich our reading experience by stepping into a book's setting. Bookpaths is growing slowly. Check weekdays for new entries or browse the archives by place or date to find books, links to articles, and destinations that inform our sense of place.

I've changed locations, please go to http://bookpaths.wordpress.com/.

If land has determined books, than have books also exalted land. -- Lawrence Clark Powell

Bookpaths brings together literature and place. Through books we can strengthen our connection with all places on earth and through travel we can enrich our reading experience by stepping into a book's setting. Bookpaths is growing slowly. Check weekdays for new entries or browse the archives by place or date to find books, links to articles, and destinations that inform our sense of place.

I've changed locations, please go to http://bookpaths.wordpress.com/.

Lake Tahoe, California

As a frequent visitor to Lake Tahoe, it’s only recently that I finally picked up the first in Todd Borg’s mystery series, followed by the second, third, fourth, and fifth novels -- and I’m still reading. Who can resist Own McKenna, a Dalmatian owning, art loving, detective whose beautiful girlfriend, Street Casey, just happens to be an entomologist often called in to help solve homicides. The Owen McKenna Mystery Thrillers will keep you guessing, and reading, while also taking you on a tour of Tahoe and the surrounding region, including Emerald Bay, Maggie’s Peak, Mt. Tallac, Zephyr Cove, Evans, Red Hut, and on and on. Tahoe Hijack! is the most recent in the series. For other titles and information, visit Todd Borg’s website.

New Orleans, Louisiana

In the September issue of Smithsonian, Randy Fertel explains why New Orleans is "my kind of town."

New Orleans is a Southern anomaly: in the South but not of the South, more Catholic (or pagan) than Baptist, as much Caribbean (or Mediterranean) as American. Almost everything here bears explanation, even how we orient ourselves. Because of the curve in the Mississippi River that makes us the Crescent City, we look to its West Bank for the sunrise. North Rampart is east of South Rampart. Since standard directionals are unreliable, we use our own: Lake Pontchartrain is on one side of the city; the Mississippi River on the other. Riverside and lakeside, Uptown and Downtown, as the river flows: those make up our compass rose.

England

Writer and translator, Jesse Browner, explains why we "must read" A Month in the Country, by J. L. Carr.

Most importantly, Tom needs to be healed, as we all do to some extent, and he is — by the restorative powers of his slow, patient work, by his recognition of love, even unfulfilled love, as a regenerative force, by the erosion of his isolation in the warm waters of community. And as his month in the country comes to its gentle, quiet end, the reader, too, somehow feels healed, as if they had shared a common, ancient hurt.

Egypt

Negar Azimi considers the question -- "what do Egypt's writers do now?"

Still, his tale [Waguih Ghali's 'Beer in Snooker Club'] presents uncanny parallels to today’s Egypt, where artists, intellectuals and youth at large are beginning to fashion a new cultural republic of sorts even as they also struggle to find their bearings.

New York, New York

Christopher Reynolds shares some "New York City's spots for book lovers."

So, old-fashioned book people, hit literary Manhattan soon and hard. Even if you have only three days, as I did earlier this year, you can squeeze in an eight-stop tour, complete with thinking, drinking, Bibles, tote bags and a certain pair of municipal mascots.

Dublin, Ireland

Author John Banville (pen name Benjamin Black) describes Dublin noir.

Like his protagonist, Black's Dublin setting is flawed, but full of character. 'I suppose I love this place,' Black says. 'I feel very odd saying it. In a way, it's the cheapest thing you can do. It's like saying, 'I love my mother,' or 'Apple pie is nice.' But I suppose I love this place in a strange, embittered kind of way, which is the best way to love somewhere I think.'

San Francisco (and, of course, Paris)

There are a number of excellent exhibitions at Northern California museums currently, including The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. You can easily visit one museum in the morning, stop for lunch, and then walk a couple of blocks to the other museum in the afternoon. While the SFMOMA exhibition is broader in scope, focusing not only on Gertrude Stein, but on her brothers and fellow collectors, Leo and Michael, along with the artists they championed during “the birth of modern art;” the Contemporary Jewish Museum focuses primarily on Gertrude Stein, following her “life from the end of World War I through World War II,“ “illuminating her pivotal role in art during the 20th century.” By day’s end, you’ll feel both exhilarated by the masterpieces you’ve seen and awed by the foresight, intelligence, and creativity of the Stein family. These are exhibitions you’ll carry with you.

Whether you are able to attend the exhibitions or not, both catalogs are well worth their hefty prices.

World

The extremely wise Rebecca Solnit writes about the care and feeding of hope.

Hope, on the other hand, is based on uncertainty, on the much more realistic premise that we don’t know what will happen next.  The next thing up might be as terrible as a giant tsunami smashing 100 miles of coastal communities or as marvelous as a new species of butterfly being discovered (as happened recently in Northern Ireland). When it comes to the worst we face, nature itself has resilience, surprises, and unpredictabilities. But the real territory for hope isn’t nature; it’s the possibilities we possess for acting, changing, mattering -- including when it comes to nature.

Los Angeles, California

Read Carolyn Kellogg's July 17th birthday tribute to Raymond Chandler, "one of Los Angeles' greatest writers."

Chandler is known for his novels, all featuring hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe saw a city full of both beauty and betrayal, and to survive he followed his own moral code: He lied to cops, took beatings from bad guys and regularly got and/or rejected the most beautiful woman in the room. Chandler wrote with the bitterness of a brokenhearted romantic: tough yet ready to fall in love again. His prose was indelible.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Brian Donaldson offers "10 of the best literary haunts in Edinburgh."