Travel Books - Page 6

The Spirit of St. Louis

Charles A. Lindbergh

List Price: $17.95 By: Minnesota Historical Society Press Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $0.73

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

An Enthralling Saga 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Lindbergh took some risks with this book. He wrote it out first person, present tense. (A big "no no".) And he broke up the storyline with frequent flashbacks. Somehow it all works anyway, in spite of or because of these risks.

But, then again, Lindbergh was a risk taker. He put his life on the line with his Paris flight and succeeded gloriously. He does the same thing here, in the literary world, winning the Pulitzer prize.

We should all stop to reflect a moment on how great a coup this was. And how improbable. Lindbergh published this book in the decade following his ill-fated attempt to prevent America's entry into World War II. In many ways his star had fallen with the American public, politically and otherwise. Yet, he was able to resurrect himself through this first-hand story of his great experimental flight. You can't keep a good man (or woman) down.

My favorite part of this book is the section where he refers to his metaphysical experiences during his flight over the Atlantic. He recounts these experiences in more depth in Autobiography of Values, but it is here that they first see the light of day.

This is an enthralling saga of a great moment in the history of aviation, told by the flier himself. It is a unique contribution to world literature, and as such, scarcely needs me to recommend it. Yet, I do so, unreservedly.

Richard Salva--author of Soul Journey from Lincoln to Lindbergh [UNABRIDGED]

Editorial Review:

Autobiography of Lindbergh's historic adventure piloting his single-engine plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, from New York to Paris on the first nonstop flight over the Atlantic Ocean in May 1927. "It was in this book, written over a period of seventeen years, that he tried to represent as accurately as he possibly could both the story and the meaning of his 1927 flight. In doing this, inevitably, he also told the reader who he was."--Reeve Lindbergh, "Introduction"

Barcelona The Great Enchantress (Directions)

Robert Hughes

Amazon Price: $8.76 List Price: $10.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: National Geographic Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $3.89

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Robert Hughes has been a regular visitor to Barcelona since the 1960s and published a book about the city in 1992 that was quickly hailed as a classic. In Barcelona the Great Enchantress, Hughes crafts a more personal tale of his nearly forty-year love affair with the Spanish metropolis, one of the most vibrant and fascinating cities in Europe.

Beginning with a vivid description of his wedding in the splendid medieval ceremonial chamber in Barcelona's city hall, Hughes launches into a lively account of the history, art, and architecture of the storied city. He tells of architectural treasures abounding in 14th-century Barcelona, establishing it as one of Europe's great Gothic cities, while Madrid was hardly more than a cluster of huts. The city spawned such great artists as Antoni Gaudi, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, and Pablo Casals. Hughes's deep knowledge of the city is evident—but it's his personal reflections of what Barcelona, its people, and its storied history and culture have meant to him over the decades that sets Barcelona the Great Enchantress apart from all others' books.

The Only Road North

Erik Mirandette

Amazon Price: $10.39 List Price: $12.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Zondervan Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $1.10

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Please Read NOW! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

If you have ever had an unanswered calling that keeps nudging you, please read this honest story/JOURNEY from some very brave young people! The story does leave you shocked, but it won't let you stop reading until you finish.

a glorified 300 page blog 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 7 people found this review helpful.

First, I applaud the author for his earlier humanitarian efforts. However, I can't help but get the feeling the entire time he was really only seeking adventure. I know there are thousands of people who volunteer for humanitarian efforts for all of the right reasons, it just doesn't mean everyone does. For example, there are plenty of poor/underprviledged/needy (whatever you wish to call them) right under the author's nose in Grand Rapids, MI. But then again, that wouldn't give him "stories to keep the grandkids busy for hours".

Also, there really isn't anything wrong with volunteering for Foreign Humanitarian Aid efforts partially for the experience. Just don't write a book afterward unless you have a point to make.

To be frank, the author seemed to be quite self important in the "blog" and many paragraphs and "stories" were dedicated to the glorification of his deceased brother. I can't tell you how many times he mentions that he was made for this life. What life? The life of a Young thrill seeking American needlessly risking his life in unstable countries while treating the Dark Continent as his own private off-road course?

I'm also surprised that this book was published by a "christian" publishing company. What exactly was the "message" that was intended to be sent/received? That if God doesn't act as your own private "genie" granting all of your prayers as if they were wishes you will abandon the little faith you profess to have?

I stuck with this book continually hoping the next chapter would offer something of value. It never delivered. Save yourself the time.

Editorial Review:

The Only Road North is the true-life adventure of a 9,000-mile journey across Africa taken by author Erik Mirandette, his brother, and two friends. When the travelers fall victim to a terrorist attack, Erik must struggle through grief and darkness to find his way back to a life lived for God.

Long Ago In France: The Years In Dijon (Destinations)

M.F.K. Fisher

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $12.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Touchstone Amazon Marketplace: 84 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Reader's Feast 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

Between 1929 and 1932, young M.F.K. Fisher (later a famed chef and memoirist) and her husband Al Fisher lived and studied in Dijon, France. Here she discovered the people and the food of Burgundy, and she describes both with warmth, sensuality, and humor (without becoming overly sentimental: "It was there, I now understand, that I started to grow up, to study, to make love, to eat and drink, to be me and not what I was expected to be."

Her writing is crisp and evocative. "He took the apple slices from the bowl one by one, almost faster than we could see, and shook off the wine and laid them in a great, beautiful whorl, from the outside to the center, as perfect as a snail shell. We said not a word. The music trembled in the room." Fisher helps the reader discover the beauty of our appetites. She writes of an old soldier who offers her chocolate: "The chocolate broke at first like gravel into many separate, disagreeable bits...Then they grew soft, and melted voluptuously." Then a doctor offers her bread, admonishing, "Never eat chocolate without bread, young lady!" There is a delicious denouement: "...in two minutes my mouth was full of fresh bread, and melting chocolate, and as we sat gingerly, the three of us, on the frozen hill...we peered shyly and silently at each other and chewed at one of the most satisfying things I have ever eaten..."

This was a time of great importance for Fisher, and she generously shares her experiences in a richly satisfying book. It's a small treasure.

Editorial Review:

From one of the most gifted writers of our time, a nostalgic account of France, replete with fascinating characters and memorable meals. In this very personal reminiscence, readers glimpse beautiful Dijon against the backdrop of between-the-wars Europe through the eyes, heart and stomach of a most wise and articulate woman.

Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books

Ted Bishop

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: W. W. Norton Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $1.96

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Not as good as I had hoped 3 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Although there were portions of this book that were good, many of them seemed uninteresting to me. I had hoped it would be a story that provided interesting details of both a bike journey and book collecting. In the end I feel like a got less than I hoped for either. He seems to gloss over many of his actual riding journey but spends a lot of time on details that added nothing to the story for me. Perhaps I am spoiled by Peter Egan.

Editorial Review:

"Part travelogue, part ode to his bike and part literary criticism...a memoir infused with joie de vivre."—Publishers Weekly

In this "joyful book" (Booklist), archive diver and Ducati enthusiast Ted Bishop takes readers on an epic trip from Edmonton to Austin, through the classic landscapes of the American West, and to some of America's and Europe's most famous cities as he considers what it means to be a road dog and a researcher. Whether describing how he came to own a Ducati, debating the merits of D. H. Lawrence's novels, relishing the outlaw thrill of cruising small American towns on his bike, or holding Virginia Woolf's suicide note in the British Library, Bishop "easily blends his love of books and archives with his love of motorcycles and riding...an unusual combination...but one that ultimately works" (Library Journal). A Playboy Best Book of 2006.

Kingbird Highway: The Story of a Natural Obsession That Got a Little Out of Hand

Kenn Kaufman

List Price: $14.00 By: Mariner Books Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $1.74

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

At sixteen, Kenn Kaufman dropped out of the high school where he was student council president and hit the road, hitching back and forth across America, from Alaska to Florida, Maine to Mexico. Maybe not all that unusual a thing to do in the seventies, but what Kenn was searching for was a little different: not sex, drugs, God, or even self, but birds. A report of a rare bird would send him hitching nonstop from Pacific to Atlantic and back again. When he was broke he would pick fruit or do odd jobs to earn the fifty dollars or so that would last him for weeks. His goal was to set a record - most North American species seen in a year - but along the way he began to realize that at this breakneck pace he was only looking, not seeing. What had been a game became a quest for a deeper understanding of the natural world. KINGBIRD HIGHWAY is a unique coming-of-age story, combining a lyrical celebration of nature with wild, and sometimes dangerous, adventures, starring a colorful cast of characters.

A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler

Jason Roberts

Amazon Price: $19.14 List Price: $26.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: HarperCollins Amazon Marketplace: 62 new & used starting at $1.83

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Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

He was known simply as the Blind Traveler -- a solitary, sightless adventurer who, astonishingly, fought the slave trade in Africa, survived a frozen captivity in Siberia, hunted rogue elephants in Ceylon, and helped chart the Australian outback. James Holman (1786-1857) became "one of the greatest wonders of the world he so sagaciously explored," triumphing not only over blindness but crippling pain, poverty, and the interference of well-meaning authorities (his greatest feat, a circumnavigation of the globe, had to be launched in secret). Once a celebrity, a bestselling author, and an inspiration to Charles Darwin and Sir Richard Francis Burton, the charismatic, witty Holman outlived his fame, dying in an obscurity that has endured -- until now.

A Sense of the World is a spellbinding and moving rediscovery of one of history's most epic lives. Drawing on meticulous research, Jason Roberts ushers us into the Blind Traveler's uniquely vivid sensory realm, then sweeps us away on an extraordinary journey across the known world during the Age of Exploration. Rich with suspense, humor, international intrigue, and unforgettable characters, this is a story to awaken our own senses of awe and wonder.

Still Waters

Jennifer Lauck

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Gritty and Moving .... 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I will be honest ~~ this book did not move me to tears like "Blackbird" did ~~ but it did make me angry ~~ really angry and disgusted with human beings, especially those who are in charge of taking care of the children who need them. I was so relieved when I read the ending of "Blackbird" that Jennifer was going to be rescued by her father's family (though I was really confused as to why Aunt Georgia and Uncle Charles didn't pick her up at the bus stop since they were the ones that went looking for the Lauck kids in L.A.). Then I picked this book up, the sequel to "Blackbird" and finished it in two days.

This is a fast paced book ~~ it skims a lot of Jennifer's growing up years but it dealt with her anger and frustrations. She was separated from her brother, Bryan, as he "chose" to live with Uncle Leonard and Aunt Sylvia. Jennifer didn't get to choose ~~ after spending several weeks with her grandparents, her father's parents, (a few weeks where she began her healing process and started to feel safe) she was sent to live with Peggy and Dick, her father's youngest sister and husband. From the very beginning, Dick made her feel like that she was never welcomed. Peggy was inconsistent with her behavior and gradually became meaner to her over the years, in spite of the fact that she loved Jennifer's mother and was one of her closest friends. Jennifer grew up in various places in the Northwest, confused, lonely and gradually getting angrier. Shuffled among different relatives, enduring sexual abuse, emotional abuse, basically being her aunt and uncle's (though they eventually adopted her) housekeeper/cook and on and on. The dishonesty of her relatives boils me ~~ and no wonder why Jennifer was so angry and bitter by the time she made her escape at the age of 18.

Then her brother committed suicide. Bryan was never close to Jennifer and she mistakenly thought he had the "better" life since he was an all A student, and so handsome. When Jennifer finally went on a journey to discover peace and the truth of what happened to her family and how it impacted her, she discovered so much more about Bryan that the reader ends up grieving for him too. By the end of the book, Jennifer has faced her demons and rediscovered the youth she missed out on by enjoying her son's life. She was able to find peace again.

This book is about surviving. This book is about finding peace in the worst that life can offer you. This book is an inspiration to all people ~~ regardless of how they live their lives. This book is just a wonderful sequel to the first one and for once, it shows that someone can have a happy ending in spite of it all. It shows how some people can survive neglect and abuse and how some people can't. It shows the power of forgiveness and the power of letting go.

This is one that I will definitely recommend to my book club to read ~~ it provides so much fodder for conversation just by reading these alone! It is not easy reading but sometimes, readers just need to be reminded that life isn't always easy and reading about someone else's struggles can affirm our sense of survival. At least Jennifer's story did.

7-10-07

Women Travelers: A Century of Trailblazing Adventures 1850-1950

Alexandra Lapierre

Amazon Price: $29.70 List Price: $45.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Flammarion Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $24.64

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An award-winning novelist brings to life the stories of the greatest women adventurers in history. From deserts and jungles to mountains and icebergs, they faced unimaginable dangers as they crossed all five continents, often armed with little more than a corset and an umbrella. Spanning a decade, this book mixes triumph and tragedy. The featured women include Fanny Vandegrift, the wife of Robert Louis Stevenson, who ventured all the way from Indiana to Samoa, and Nellie Bly, journalist and social reformer, who went around the world in seventy-two days. The thirty-one women celebrated here hail from fourteen countries and traveled to the farthest reaches of our planet. Twice as brave as their male counterparts, in the face of social convention, these women set off into the unknown. Their bold journeys across the globe had long-lasting effects on the role and status of women in society, and they made important contributions to disciplines as varied as medicine, archeology, and anthropology.

Barcelona

Robert Hughes

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Beautiful city, scholarly book 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I visited Barcelona in 1982 and then again, 20 years later, in 2002. I am certainly glad I read Robert Hughes' "Barcelona" before going the second time since it certainly gave me a new perspective on the city, its history, its art, and its architecture.

The history of the Catalunya area is fascinating, an area that predates the Roman Empire. Two Roman Emperors came from Barcelona, Trajan and his nephew Hadrian. Hughes helps us understand the unique development of the Catalan language, culture, history which is frequently at odds with Madrid and Spain's central government.

Hughes does an excellent job of mapping the development of city with changes in politics and the coming of the industrial revolution. At one point, Barcelona was filled with sweat shops, offering long 12 hour days, very low wages, unhealthy nasty work conditions, deprivation of exercise and light, and explotative child labor. As I walked the city of Barceona, I imagined the struggling families trying to survive under these conditions in times past.

Even though the full 574 pages are engaging in this long book, the chapters on Gaudi are the strongest, most enjoyable, and most insightful. If pressed for time before taking a tripto Spain, I would strongly recommend reading the sections on Gaudi before seeing his actual works which are spread out all over the city of Barcelona.

The concept that was fascinating to me was Hughes' explanation that Gaudi's work was in fact very conservative rather than radical. His work is based on a return to the natural object, the shell,the wing, the tail, the spine, the leaf, the root. His work takes these natural objects and reduces to essential form and then expands again from that essential form with texture, color, and sensitivity to the material and physicality of the medium. This explains the amazing popularity among the Japanese for the work of Gaudi, which philosophically and esthetically is more in line with Japanese culture and esthetics. Knowing this before seeing his Cathedral, parks, and residences gave me a completely new appreciation for Gaudi and the city in which he created his masterpieces.

Editorial Review:

Barcelona is Robert Hughes's monumentally informed and irresistibly opinionated guide to the most un-Spanish city in Spain. Hughes scrolls through Barcelona's often violent history; tells the stories of its kings, poets, magnates, and revolutionaries; and ushers readers through municipal landmarks that range from Antoni Gaudi's sublimely surreal cathedral to a postmodern restaurant with a glass-walled urinal. The result is a work filled with the attributes of Barcelona itself: proportion, humor, and seny -- the Catalan word for triumphant common sense.


From the Trade Paperback edition.