The Literary Salon – Travel Books

March 27, 201917 Comments

If you’re not fortunate enough to get away for a vacation this year, what better activity than to curl up with a travel book and listen to the March winds howl, (like a lion the same way they came in). Last year I wandered into the travel section at bookoutlet.com and never left. There are so many wonderful travel books available, it’s difficult to narrow it down to just a few, but here are some of my personal favorites. (Warning: travel memoirs can be equal parts enjoyable and annoying. There can be a fine line between reading about someone’s wonderful experiences in a sunnier place, especially when you are still in the dull dreary dregs of winter, and resenting the hell out them. But remember there can be comfort in staying home too…see The Golden Age of Travel post).

The Pioneer

Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim, was published in 1923, and could be called the first travel memoir of it’s kind. Set in Italy, I profiled it in a blog last year – see link. How could a book with a captivating opening sentence like this, not be good.

“To those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine. Small medieval Italian castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April. Necessary servants remain. Z, Box 1000, The Times.”

The King and Queen

A Year in Provence (1989) by Peter Mayle was the first travel memoir I read, and I found it LOL funny. He went on to write a whole series of memoirs (read) and a few novels (not read), about Provence. He made Provence so famous that at one time he moved to Long Island to get away from all the publicity. He died last year, shortly after his last Provence book was published, My Twenty-Five Years in Provence – Reflections on Then and Now, (read) which is a summary of his life there.

If Peter Mayle is the King, then Frances Mayes, of Under the Tuscan Sun fame, is the Queen, and she made Tuscany a very popular place to visit. It’s been 25 years since her bestselling book, and she has written wrote four or five more travel books, (read) and has a new one coming out this year – See You in the Piazza – New Places to Discover in Italy. (on order) She also wrote a novel, Women in Sunlight, last year, which I found so unreadable that I can not recommend it. I’m still not sure how a novel about four women who travel to Italy can miss, but it did. Travel memoirs are definitely her forte.

My Personal Favorite

Susan Branch is my personal favorite of all the travel writers. For those who think of her as just The Heart of the Home cookbook author, did you know that after she lost her publishing contract with Little and Brown in 2009, she started self-publishing and now has a trilogy of marvelous illustrated journals, with a fourth on the way next year about England, Ireland and Wales. Her first, Martha’s Vineyard, Isle of Dreams, is about her move from CA to Martha’s Vineyard in the 80’s after a divorce, which I enjoyed as that is a part of the world I would love to visit. (Her second is about growing up in the 60’s and 70’s and is not really a travel book, but more a memoir of her youth).

A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside by Susan Branch

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Her third, A Fine Romance, is about her trip to England and is full of photos and watercolor illustrations, of such sites as Beatrix Potter’s farm in the Lake District and the Jane Austen House in Chawton.

I find her monthly newsletters inspiring, and you can check out her books and order them from her website. I wish she would venture into France and Italy.

A Paris Year – Janice MacLeod

All About Paris

One of my favorite books about Paris, is Janice McLeod’s, A Paris Year, which I profiled last year in a blog titled, April in Paris – Part Two. A watercolor artist, her journal is illustrated with her own artwork, and is a quirky and whimsical look at her day to day life in Paris.

A Paris Year – Janice MacLeod

Italy Revisited

Marlena de Blasi has written three memoirs about Italy – A Thousand Days in Venice, A Thousand Days in Tuscany and The Lady in the Palazzo – At Home in Umbria , which was my favorite of the three. Her books are well-written and often poetic, but sometimes irritating with respect to her ex-pat mentality and whining about their failure to fit into a foreign culture. So if you want to read about someone who makes an impulsive decision to buy a run down palazzo and then complains about how long it takes to renovate it, then this book is for you. So much of appreciating a travel memoir is based on finding the essayist appealing, still it’s an interesting if illogical journey.

My Current Read

Elizabeth Bard wrote Lunch in Paris – A Love Story with Recipes, about her move to Paris and subsequent marriage to a Parisian, which was good, even if I wasn’t much interested in the cooking part, (there are recipes at the end of each chapter). But I am really liking her second book, Picnic in Provence – a Memoir with Recipes, about their move to a small village in Provence, with their young son. The writing is honest and real and so well done, that it’s easy to overlook the fact that she has a wee bit of a privileged princess attitude.

My Latest Discovery

My latest discovery is Vivian Swift, another watercolor artist, found while browsing the bookoutlet website. (I feel like I’m regressing to my childhood with all these picture books!) Le Road Trip – A Traveler’s Journal of Love and France – is a self-illustrated memoir of her fun and whimsical jaunt through France on her honeymoon.

Her latest book (2015) entitled, When Wanderers Cease to Roam – A Traveler’s Journal of Staying Put details the pleasures of finding a place to call home (Long Island Sound) after 23 years of wandering – because sometimes there’s nothing nicer than staying home and reading about travel!

As you can see, my tastes run to England, France and Italy. But there’s a whole wide world out there. What is your favorite travel book?

The Golden Age of Travel

February 28, 2019February 19, 202026 Comments

This is the time of year I used to be winging my way south to escape winter for a week. Travel-wise people routinely book flights months in advance to get the best prices for the prime travel season over the February/March break, but years ago travel was still an unknown venture for the vast majority of people. Only 15% of North Americans had even been on a plane in the 1970’s. It took the hippie generation of young baby boomers, staying in hostels and Euro-railing their way across Europe on $10 a day, to jump start the travel industry so that flying became a commonplace experience. In the Pan-Am years of the 50’s and 60’s with the first charter trips to the Caribbean and Mexico (Acapulco anyone), travel was only for the fortunate few and the very rich. The jet-setting life of airline stewardesses was advertised in books like Coffee, Tea or Me……a line that would surely be considered sexist now. My SIL was an airline stewardess in the mid-80’s and said it wasn’t really all that glamorous….more like being a hard-working waitress in the air and trying to sleep in stuffy hotel rooms.

When I took my first trip in 1975, March break to Florida with four high school friends, we went on a bus. While a two day drive, the bus at $380, was considerably cheaper than flying, and that included the hotel room. I still have the set of baby-blue Samsonite luggage my parents bought me, not just for the trip but also for going away to university (currently in the basement as I never throw anything even remotely vintage out). Today the majority of people hop on a plane at least once a year and think nothing of it. It’s hard to remember when flying was a new and exciting experience, whether someplace tropical or abroad. (The whole concept of Abroad used to be considered exotic, bringing to mind an era of elegance, with ocean liners like the Queen Elizabeth and sleeping cars on the Orient Express). Now flying is just routine, often fraught with headaches, and certainly not part of the fun of going away. Unmanned check-ins and luggage kiosks, long pre-boarding wait times, luggage fees, cramped seats, no meals or drinks and a general lack of amenities have taken the fun from the friendly skies. And consider yourself lucky if no one is ejected from your flight for rude comments or behavior, as many online videos can attest. A friend of mine was so traumatized by a bad airline experience that when her husband found a great price on a mid-winter trip she turned it down because she didn’t want to have to deal with the airport. (I am imagining a future where we might be instantaneously whisked away to our destination in our own magic bubbles like the Jetsons).

I was 24yrs old when I took my first plane trip, a two-week vacation to Hawaii, a popular destination in the 80’s but expensive even back then. I flew on on a Wardair Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, a 9½ hour flight straight from Toronto to Oahu – an experience I will remember forever. Wardair was a Canadian airline company started by Max Ward in 1946 as a bush pilot operation carrying cargo from the Yukon and Northwest Territories to Edmonton, which eventually expanded into a luxury domestic and international travel fleet of aircraft. Mr. Ward believed that PART OF THE FUN OF TRAVEL SHOULD BE GETTING THERE. Wardair’s motto was luxury “Steak and Champagne” flights at reasonable prices. Here’s a Wikipedia link for more on the Wardair history.

During our long non-stop flight all 500 plus seats were treated to first class service. My sister had warned me about the initial rush of takeoff, (which I found a bit scary), but the jet was so big once we were up on the air it felt like nothing at all. The stewardesses (all female in those days) had passed out trays of candies in preparation for any ear popping. About an hour into the flight we were treated to a champagne breakfast on real china, then they passed out hot towels. The seats were spacious. All drinks were free. An in-flight movie followed, nothing I remember. One of the stewardesses, a classmate of mine from high school, sat down with me on her break and regaled me with stories of her four day lay overs in Hawaii. What impressed me most was the spiral staircase to the upper deck where there was a bar where you could mix and mingle, or just stretch your legs. Imagine a bar in the sky – very James Bond.

Later we were served a wonderful filet mignon dinner on the special Wardair Royal Doulton china with snowy white draped tablecloths and napkins, your choice of wine, then coffee and a fancy dessert. We read and rested, then more hot towels to wipe your face and hands before we arrived – at 3pm with the time change. I remember descending into balmy weather where we were greeted with the traditional lei necklace welcoming us to Hawaii. Yes, this flying was a wonderful thing – I was spoiled for life.

Fast forward a few years, and after a few cramped experiences with Air Canada (famous for frozen green peas and rubber chicken), and other airlines, I was less than impressed . Flash forward to the 80’s and another set of luggage (wheels had been invented), with a vintage-style carry so chic it once got me upgraded to First Class and salmon.

As a carry on it was pretty useless, but so Audrey Hepburnish, with all those little spaces for cosmetics and toiletries. In regular class you still got fed, (I remember a particularly stale sandwich on a flight out west), but all the frills were gone. A few more years, and Wardair was gone too…..bankrupt. Mr. Ward had expanded too quickly and people were now being swayed by discount airlines, cheap flights and frequent flyer miles.

I haven’t been on a plane in years, for a variety of reasons – work, family, medical. If there is one airborne germ circulating on the plane it will have no difficulty finding my seat. My last trip was spent in a Mexican five star all inclusive resort with a sore throat and sinus cold so miserable I barely left the room, except to gaze upon the bougainvillea on the balcony. The food was tasteless, and deficient in chicken noodle soup. (At least in Hawaii the dreaded sore throat did not arrive until the second last day although it took three days for my ears to unplug from the flight home). I do hope to travel again someday, but not in a run down but let’s cram everything into one week and arrive home sick and exhausted kind of way, but at a more leisurely pace. When you are young, cheap and basic will do, when you are older, you require a bit more luxury and space. High rise hotel rooms where you can’t open a window make me feel claustrophobic, so perhaps an Airbnb or renting a villa for a month would be more appealing. In the meantime, while everyone is talking about their trips down south, I am thinking of this quote from a delightful book by Vivian Swift, who finally put down roots in a small Long Island town after twenty years of roaming the world – When Wanderers Cease to Roam – A Traveler’s Journal of Staying Put.

Quote: ‘Travel is not what it used to be. And that’s a good reason to Stay Put.’

In the meantime I am living vicariously through travel books – let someone else deal with the crowded airports and the lost luggage.

(See the upcoming Literary Salon – Travel Books– in March).

What was your worst airplane/travel experience?

Enchanted April

April 24, 2018April 24, 201922 Comments

Despite being written almost a hundred years ago the book, The Enchanted April, is just as enchanting today. Four very different women, all unknown to each other in dreary post WW1 Britain, answer an ad for an Italian villa. Two are married but taken for granted by their husbands, one is single and beautiful but tired of grabby men, and one is a widow facing a sad lonely old age. They have nothing in common other than they are starved for beauty and love, and for the fresh air and sunshine of the Italian coast.

Italian Villa – 2015

I watched the movie first, before I read the book, which is what I would recommend. The movie is from 1992 and while film quality has improved tremendously since then, it is still a lovely period drama, (and if I’m ever reincarnated I want to come back with straight black bobbed hair).

My Good-reads review:

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved this book, but I had watched the movie first. A timeless tale with a lovely story line and such vivid descriptions of flowers, gardens and beautiful countryside that you almost felt like you were there.
I ordered the book because it is one of those timeless classics you simply have to own. It was a bestseller in it’s day, 1923, and was based on a month long trip the author, Elizabeth von Arnim, made with her husband to the village of Portofino, Italy, which soon became a famous tourist destination because of the success of the book. They stayed at the Castello Brown, (now a museum), which is where the movie was filmed seventy years later.

It’s such a charming story, that it might inspire you to grab three of your girlfriends and go off on your own Italian adventure. Who wouldn’t want to live la dolce vita?

Tuscan Villa – 2015

Of course in the book the villa came complete with all the necessary servants, so hiring a chef to do the cooking would be the sensible thing to do. (You could invite Amal for tea, she’s British and may be in need of a cuppa and a break from the bambinos). Isn’t that part of the attraction of period pieces, there was always someone to prepare the meals, wash the dishes, care for the children…..and look after the garden.

It’s not surprising that there were such lovely descriptions of the flowers and grounds in the book, as the author’s first bestseller was Elizabeth and Her German Garden in 1898. I have not read that one yet, as I plan on reading it outside on the deck whenever it gets warm enough, as inspiration for gardening season. But I did read her book, The Solitary Summer, last summer which I enjoyed also, which concerned her need for solitude and beauty in the countryside with her April, May and June babies. Her first best seller was published anonymously, and the subsequent ones as by the author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden. Because these books are old and often out of print they are best ordered online.

Perhaps there is something about being in such a lovely setting that inspires love. In the book their husbands became more appreciative, although no one runs off and has an affair, (it was a more decorous time), well only the single one. I remember reading once in a book on Italy about a medical condition called, Stendhal’s Syndrome, which is an emotional reaction to too much loveliness. A handful of tourists are treated for this every year in Florence, having been overwhelmed by an excess of beauty. Finally a medical condition we can all aspire too! Of course we don’t have to go to Italy to experience beauty in our lives – it is all around us, we just have to pay attention. Is it possible to surround yourself with an excess of loveliness, especially in a world which so often seems full of evil, hate, and ugliness? Perhaps not, but it is an admirable goal to choose to focus on what is lovely in the world, and so much better for your health! Buona giornata!

Quote of the Day: “It is their manners as a whole, their natural ways, bonhomie, the great art of being happy which is here practiced with this added charm, that the good people do not know that it is an art, the most difficult of all.” (Stendhal on Italy)

Song of the Day: April Love by Pat Boone

In Praise of Second-Hand Books

February 1, 2018January 20, 201814 Comments

The Rotary Club is holding its annual second-hand book sale, 27,000 volumes are up for grabs, and I am a bit grumpy today because I’m missing it. A snowstorm descended upon us about the same time the venue opened at 8:30 and as every book lover knows, the best ones go fast. Normally I’m content to stay inside on such a blustery day, but I’m regretting the bargains I am surely missing, at one or two dollars a book. But no use crying over lost volumes. I have resigned myself to going on Sunday, when the remainders are five dollars a bag, but the selection poorer. Last year I went both Friday and Sunday – the stuff-a-bag day was to stock up on travel/photography/coffee-table books for my mother, the artist AMc, to use for inspiration for her paintings now that she is too old to travel. (She has an extensive collection of over-sized volumes of Canadian scenery if anyone wants to know what Canada looks like). We also have a second-hand book store in town, but the hours are erratic and the prices higher, nor have I had much luck with garage sale castoffs, which tend to be mostly romance or paperbacks or both. Admittedly book sales are always hit and miss, but other people’s discards can turn out to be treasures.

The beauty of book sales is you never know what you might find. Last year’s haul included a Loonyspoons Low Fat cookbook, (which I had always wanted but have not used), a medical manual of Cardiopulmonary Emergencies, (my dysfunctional heart valve will need repairing some day and I might want more info than WebMd can provide, also not opened), a thesaurus, (somewhat obsolete but the online version has limitations), a slim volume of pioneer Christmas stories with a pretty cover and a red ribbon, (because I’m a sucker for a book with a ribbon), two novels, The Lake House by Kate Morton (already read but might re-gift, I like to share good books), and Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (not read, but I enjoyed her latest), Victoria – A Shop of One’s Own, (I collect old Victoria books as well as the decorating magazines), a calendar day-book of art by Maud Lewis,

(a Nova Scotia folk artist whose life was recently portrayed in the movie Maudie, because my mother’s paintings have been compared to hers), and an apprentice textbook from U of Toronto 1934 (which I found fascinating because it was full of old chemical formulas and my profession has evolved way beyond how to sterilize bottles), plus three quotation books which turned out to be absolute duds, (I would really like Bartlett’s Book of Quotations, as it would be useful for the blog).

Book sales are good for travel books if you are an armchair travel like myself. I scooped up a travel guide to Provence and two books on Italy, one of which I had already read, Elements of Italy, and the other,A Month in Italy, because it’s my dream someday. If you can’t go yourself you can enjoy reading about someone else’s adventures and avoid the jet lag and lost luggage, and in the case of Italy, the weight gain. Speaking of good food, there always seems to be a profusion of cookbooks at book sales, as well as diet fads from years past. The children’s books always go quickly I am happy to see. It’s nice to see parents starting a library, and the book-on-every-bed Christmas project is such a good idea to inspire early readers.

Last year I came across a young adult book, Robin Kane, The Candle Shop Mystery, which I did not buy because I have the exact same copy in my basement. What were the chances of that happening, as I don’t remember that series being as popular as Trixie Belden, which I also still possess.

I always got a book for Christmas, usually a Trixie Belden, the Nancy Drew-like girl detective of the 1960’s, (here she is searching for dead bodies),

otherwise we went to the library. I still get the majority of my books from the library, as I read so much it would be prohibitively expensive to buy them all, and our local library is excellent at ordering in anything you might request, plus the librarians there are all such lovely helpful people. Generally, I only buy what I would re-read, but this year as one of my New Year’s resolutions I decided to start to add to my library again, which is currently three shelves in the basement and den, (see decluttering blog Jan), but only those books which I truly love and would re-read. When I end up in a nursing home some day I want to be surrounded by my favorites, and not dependent on some volunteer lady bringing around a cart full of Harlequin paperbacks.

Now, I haven’t actually opened any of those books I bought last year, (some may end up being recycled), but it gives me comfort to know they are there if I am desperate for something to read. I once spent a week on Turks and Caicos with a selection of bad books and no store in sight, only a strip mall with one lonely souvenir shop, this was before the island was developed and long before e-readers, which are wonderful for travel, but I would much rather hold a book in my hand. I am such an avid reader, that I always want to have something in reserve or I get antsy. What if nothing comes in from the library – it’s either feast or famine – although sometimes having too many books out can be a strange form of retirement stress. That stack on your bedside table can start to feel like pressure when they are all non-renewable best sellers, and if you return them unread there are sixty-five people ahead of you again. Buying them solves that problem, as you can read at your own leisurely pace.

It’s amazing the weird and wonderful things you can find at book sales, ancient volumes from estates, such as yellowed cloth-worn sets of Poe or Kipling, or outdated encyclopedias. Did people really read such wordy tombs? Does anyone want them now and what do they do with them when they don’t sell? Although it can be interesting to see what people were reading a hundred years ago and to read the inscriptions inside the books. I have a few old books from the farm attic, but many more got thrown out in the moving process.

farm attic books

A Trapper’s Son was a gift to Lillie from Grandfather, Birthday Sept 14, 1900. L.M. Hewitt is written inside the flyleaf, as well as my aunt’s name at a later date. I have no idea who Lillie was but I googled and The Trapper’s Son, A Tale of North America, was published in 1873 and deals with the conversion to Christianity of a boy brought up in the wilderness. My ancestors were Christian folk, so any religious book was a keeper. Opening A Chestnut Burr, was inscribed to a Miss Lori Dody, and was published in 1874. Surprisingly there were two reviews of this book on Goodreads, the first one, a female, said, “A deeply Christian story with a thoroughly delightful ending. There’s a good bit of romance and outdoors.” The other reviewer, a man, said, don’t bother. The romance factor must have far outweighed the outdoors part. I couldn’t find anything on The Recluse of Rambouillet, (pub.1896), but it appears to be a translation from French about castles and kings. As my grandmother’s name is inscribed inside, Dec 1899, 3rd prize, 4th class, it was probably some kind of school prize. Poe’s Tales, (Xmas 1904, from Henry), can join it’s many brethren on E-Bay, but it is nice to know that books were welcome Christmas presents back then too. Some day I may tackle them, but they seem like relics from some long ago world, full of purple prose as L.M. Montgomery called such grandiose language. Opening sentence from Poe, “The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment.” Perhaps there there is something to be said for being concise, what would Poe think of Twitter’s 140k limit and texting. Times change and so do tastes.

Books can be a portal to another universe, especially if the one you are currently in is snowy and white. I’m going to read now…happy hunting!

P.S. What is your favorite book sale find?

Quote on Reading: “Reading is one of the few things you do alone that makes you feel less alone, it’s a solitary activity that connects you to others.” (even in the middle of a snowstorm) Will Schwalbe – Books for Living, author of The End of Your Life Bookclub.

PS. This years treasures included,

The Christmas book jumped out early, whispering, buy me, I will come in handy for next year, the beloved Bartlett’s only revealed itself late in the hunt in a discarded bin under a table, and the Little Women collector’s edition 1994 caught my attention, because even though I still have my childhood copy, it had a ribbon and such pretty illustrations.