Globe Corner Blogs

Veuve Cliquot estate

Tomorrow night, thousands, nay millions, of bottles of champagne will be popped, sprayed around and drank. As I try to figure out where, and if, I’ll be having a champagne toast this New Year’s Eve, I couldn’t help but reminiscing about my semester in Paris and my visit to the champagne cellars in Reims, France. I visited the Pommery and Veuve Cliquot-Ponsardin champagne houses. Touring the champagne valley may sound luxurious and extravagant, but in actuality, it’s less pretentious than it sounds.

While the Pommery and Veuve Cliquot houses and showrooms aren’t exactly modest, the best part of the tours, and the most important part of any visit to the region, is walking through the chalk and limestone caves in which each and every bottle of champagne ferments for well over a year. Even if damp, dusty, cool wine cellars don’t appeal to you, never fear, for each visitor is rewarded with a glass of bubbly at the end of the tour. So whether you’re toasting with Andre, Veuve or Dom Perignon, Happy New Year!!

Read more about the Veuve Cliquot empire in the recently released book, The Widow Cliquot by Tilar J. Mazzeo and about the Champagne valley in the Michelin Green Guide for the Alsace Lorraine Champagne region.

Pets by Bragi Olafsson

Yes, The Pets is a recent Icelandic novel, written by Bragi Olafsson, a former member The Sugarcubes. Maybe that is the reason why the book title sounds a little like an indie band name from far North. The book, being small in volume, is engaging and with each page the plot takes a more unexpected twist. It also happens that the main character who narrates the story, spends probably what might be the most meaningful hours of his life hiding under his own bed. I would say that this book is very similar to a bizarre dream that starts make a lot of sense after you wake up and drink a requsite cup of coffee. As the two plot lines merge together you cannot even tell for sure when exactly the true meaning of things gets subtly revealed to you. As always, remember that things are not always what they seem to be, and be prepared for an unexpected ending!

Lonely Planet Greenland & The Arctic

**The GCB recently coerced Santa (with the help of cookies and plenty of egg nog) to write a guest post for our blog**

In less than a week, I will be loading up my sleigh for my annual trip around the globe. Millions of little minds all over the world are wondering not only, “what will I get this year?!” but also, “how does he do it?” Well, my tiny tots, there is no GPS system in Santa’s ride. All year long I pore over world maps, country maps, city street maps until I’m sure I have the best route down. This is not to say I don’t keep a few in the mitten compartment. (Always make a wrong turn at Albuquerque…) Of course, the magic reindeer help out too.

Now, I come visit each of you once a year–it’s time for you to come visit me up in the North Pole! Maybe this year I’ll leave some brightly wrapped books on the Arctic region under your Christmas tree. Or perhaps I’ll just leave you a guide to the Arctic–or how about a guide to the animals here? It’s not just reindeer and snowmen, you know; there are even polar bears up here!

Things are pretty busy in the ol’ workshop these days, though, so hold off on your trip till after Christmas – and after Santa’s winter vacation in Cancun… As for now, just snuggle up in your PJs with some hot cocoa and make sure the grown-ups clean out the chimney.

Birdscapes -by Miyoko Chu

Past a certain age, pop-up books no longer seem like an appropriate style of book to have prominently displayed on the bookshelf or laying out on the coffee table. Most would probably choose a leather-bound world atlas or a lovely photography book of, say, Paris, over any pop-up book. After all, pop-up books are always for kids, right? Well, as you may have guessed, there are adult-friendly pop-up books too! And we have two of them: Birdscapes, A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound and Modern Architecture Pop-Up.

These two books are carefully designed and crafted by “paper engineers” (yes, that is the proper title for pop-up artists) whose attention to detail proves that pop-ups can be truly complex and artistic.

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Ohio woods in winter -photo by Llalan

In one week I will be on the road again (or in the air again, technically). It’s been a while since I’ve traveled, but it’s not a bite from the travel bug that has prompted this trip. Nor am I headed to some posh hotel on a business trip. And I’m certainly not headed to any exotic locale. Yet I’m more excited about this trip than any I’ve been on in a long time. I’m going home.

It’s been quite a while since I spent any significant amount of time back home in Ohio. Though the forests have been stripped bare of leaves and the green fields have turned to a collage of browns, it’s still beautiful to me.

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I have hit a Christmas present-buying road block. My father officially has everything he will ever need that concerns golf. He neither needs nor wants anything else except for his grandson to become the next Tiger Woods. This has become a problem for me, because I have faithfully given him some golf related gift since I was an infant.

So, I have to move on to another one of his obsessions: Boeing and airplanes. I recently gave him the book Ask the Pilot: Everything you Need to Know About Air Travel. Patrick Smith, an airline pilot explains all the secrets and mysteries of commercial flights. My dad’s review was “I’ll be darned! I never knew that in the 1950s a Boeing 707 was intentionally flown upside down! How did I miss that!?” If you knew my dad, you would be impressed. He is a man of few words.

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The Wisdom of Birds --by Tim Berkhead

These are a few of the books that I would like to read if I had the time. I know they are all about animals…but I like animals.

The Wisdom of Birds. Everybody knows that “the bird is the word!” This book looks really cool. Maybe I am just hoping that it will fulfill my dream of flying, I’m not sure. But it does talk about the myths and the history of an amazing creature. This book describes behaviors and songs, misconceptions of birds, and includes some gorgeous illustrations that make the book worth flipping through even if you don’t want to read it.

American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon. This is about an amazing animal that definitely deserves your attention. A vague memory I have from when I was small is being on a cross-country trip with my family and getting to see one of these fascinating animals.

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Catfish and Mandala --by Andrew X. Pham

C is for Catfish and Mandala

M is for Memoirs of Montparnasse

P is for The Poet of Baghdad

Can you guess what X is for?

If you think A to Zs are just for little kids, fortunately you are mistaken. We at the GCB have compiled a list of some of our favorite travel literature – everything from A to Z. Check out our new web page that lists some spectacular reads we think you’ll enjoy.

Three Cups of Tea --by Greg Mortenson

With so much to say about such a remarkable and now so popular story, it’s hard to know where to start. Before he set about single-handedly changing the landscape of northern Pakistan (work that, some contend, will eventually earn him the Nobel Peace Prize), author Greg Mortenson was a climbing enthusiast. It was after a failed and traumatic attempt at K2 that he first stumbled upon the small village of Korphe in the Baltistan region of Pakistan. Touched by the poverty, wisdom and kindness of the Korphe village, Mortenson’s life-path changed literally overnight and he committed himself to building a school for this unknown village. And the rest is history… Well, not exactly.

“The rest” is actually the remarkable story that is retold in Three Cups of Tea. Already from the cover anyone can see that Mortenson accomplished something great – the “#1 New York Times Bestseller” caption is one clue, the Kiriyama Prize Winner seal and the Tom Brokaw blurb are two more. But what the cover doesn’t reveal, and what no friend can properly relay to you (because  by now most know someone that has read this book and felt compelled to talk about it),  is just how hard Mortenson had to work to build the first school, not to mention the subsequent fifty.

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