Globe Corner Blogs

Moon Handbook to New Jersey

I will soon be leaving the greater die-hard Red Sox fans area for a much needed escape from the city: in a few weeks I will be headed back down to Cape May, New Jersey. I went there last summer, and was so enchanted I can hardly wait to return.

Everybody has at least one place in the world that they go to in their heads to retrieve some quiet, relaxation, pleasant memories. Be it a seaside room from a honeymoon or a lush garden from childhood, this place exists for you alone and provides a sense of peace. Cape May is one of these places for me (and Erieau, of course).

On days when I need a reprieve from reality I can slip back into the hushed house near the beach, make myself a gin and tonic and sit on the porch. Or I can carefully apply suntan lotion to every exposed inch of fish belly-white skin and lie on the beach absorbing the warm sunlight, orange behind my eyelids. I can prove again my superiority at bocce ball while smelling our dinner of fresh fish on the grill. I can even watch the bats flit about above my head in the purple dusk and later amble down the darkened beach, sit in the life guard’s chair, and listen to the waves come ashore.

…Excuse me, I wandered there.

Great News!!! Reif Larsen’s new book, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, lets you in on the four things needed for an adventure: “Guns & Knives”, “A Magnifying Glass”, “A Map!”, and, of course, “Adventure Pants”! (Be sure to pick a good pair.)

I have recently finished reading The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet and was not disappointed in any way. In fact, I am able to say that it is one of the best books I have ever read. It is packed with amazing illustrations and maps, as well as a great story. With my new found discovery of “The Hobo Hotline”, I am now able to travel across the country by train with the knowledge of where each specific car is going. I am also now aware of how to go about mapping a mustache and that a flashlight really has futuristic healing powers. His cross-country journey takes him on a great adventure filled with questions about the world that you should really be asking yourself.

This might sound like a bunch of nonsense, but it is truly spectacular nonsense! For example, I guess that every twelve year old boy knows that Winnebago’s have their own personal names, such as Valero, and can talk to you. In order to fully grasp the whole situation of young Mr. Spivet, I highly recommend this book to you and suggest you then pass it on to everyone you know. Not only for the read but also for the visual understanding of how car alarms can affect your brain.

Lonely Planet China

When you come into the store, it is impossible not to notice all the books about China. They come in every shade of red possible, in all sizes and weights – including the hefty new edition of the Lonely Planet China. Saying that they are everywhere would be a slight exaggeration, but they have taken over four shelves of one of our bookcases. They have very intriguing titles. (Don’t you want to know how to cook a dragon, or what on earth The Corpse Walker is about?) After looking at all those books for a while your resistance is eventually undermined – your curiosity is piqued – and this is when you give in and pick one up.

I still can’t tell exactly why I picked up China High. Maybe it was just the right shade of red. Or maybe because the author is easy to relate to and gives a very good look at China – a place that is not so easy to understand. This book turned out to be about his own astonishing personal changes following his experiences in China.

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The Lazarus Project - by Aleksandar Hemon

Love and Obstacles, the new book of short interlinked stories by Aleksander Hemon, arrived just in time for me to browse it before I went to hear him speak at the Harvard Bookstore. These stories are linked by a common character: a young Bosnian from Sarajevo who leaves for the United States right before the war in Bosnia erupted in 1992 and ends up sort of stranded abroad. The narrator is a familiar voice, and it is very similar to characters’ in Hemon’s previous books, The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, and current Globe Corner Bookstore Staff Favorite and highly acclaimed The Lazarus Project. The books are not autobiographical, but Hemon’s biography and the character’s share many common traits so I kind of felt like I knew him–I was very curious to see what he was like.

I was a little shocked when he first came to the podium, as he looked a bit different from the author photo on the back page. But, soon I was laughing along with the crowd as he read the witty dialog from the final story, The Noble Truths of Suffering. I became completely charmed if not completely smitten with him. As he was reading a passage describing “his” Sarajevo (one of my favorite places in the world) I was lulled into a dreamlike state and started to think of one of my most favorite places in Sarajevo…the cevabdzinica. The sausage shop.

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Memorial to Fisherman--photo by Llalan

The first stop on “Cape Ann Curiosities” in Lonely Planet’s New England Trips is Gloucester. Curious is not the first word I would use to describe the town, but maybe they couldn’t resist the alliteration. I probably would have gone with charming or simply lovely. My parents would have gone with, “It’s time to move here.” The main street, lined with budding trees and locally-owned businesses, winds down to the ocean and the iconic fisherman statue and memorial. Facing the ocean were old houses with widow’s walks around their roofs. Given the number of fisherman lost at sea who are honored at the memorial, Gloucester has known its fair number of widows.

The next “curiosity” we visited was an artists’ colony in East Gloucester. We walked down one street populated only by artists who were more than happy to show and explain their works to us. Even the

Cape Ann Brewing Company--photo by Llalan

shops themselves were artsy, each one decorated to match the personality of the artist living there. And there was something for everyone: paintings for my mother, jewelry for me, miniature replicas of ships for the boyfriend, and real ships bobbing at the docks outside for my dad. My parents’ desire to move there increased manyfold. Our visit to the Cape Ann Brewing Company further convinced Dad and me that it was time to order a U-Haul.

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Lonely Planet Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan

Last year, I was so inspired by some photos of Laos in the New York Times Travel Section that I bought some mosquito repellent, packed my bags, and spent three months in Southeast Asia and several glorious weeks in Laos. I think I am going to name my first child Luang Prubang, regardless of gender, and the next one will be JoMa, after the amazing Lao bakery of the same name. I guess that’s more of a girl’s name.

Well after this morning’s weekly perusal through the Times’ Travel Section, I’ve decided to go to Tbilisi. Apparently, it’s in Georgia. The country, not the state. And it looks amazing. So, who’s with me? We can drink wine at cafes in the Old Town and stroll across the medieval bridges over the Kura River. Later, we will listen to Ossetian folk music and drink vodka.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - by Alfred Lansing

While I’m nearly always drawn to fiction, I recently ventured into the world of nonfiction and found a page-turning, can’t-put-it-down book that’s entertainment value rivaled that of my favorite novels and even, believe it or not, television. Wow.

This book is Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. First published in 1959, the book is certainly not new nor is it the only book written on the subject matter. Far from it. While Sir Ernest Shackleton’s failed yet celebrated voyage to Antarctica has been the topic of plenty of books, Lansing has one thing going for him: he’s a great writer and storyteller.

Culled from personal interviews and access to crew members’ private journals, Lansing pulls out not only the most compelling comical anecdotes, emotional traumas, and physical hardships from the crew, but also taps into the mental psyche of Shackleton and the others to reveal just how resilient his men were starting in January 1915, when The Endurance became bound by ice in the Weddell Sea, to when everyone (yes, everyone) was rescued in May 1917 – over two years after their ship was crushed by the ice.

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Netherland - by Joseph O'Neill

So, apparently President Obama is reading Netherland. This is great news for Joseph O’Neill, the novel’s author.

Netherland, just out in paperback, was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and, much to my surprise, cut from the short list.  It was also one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2008.

When I told a friend I was reading Netherland, he responded by asking if it was a book set “back in the day.” It’s not, but it was a fair question. The title is enigmatic and elusive: Netherland refers to the protagonist’s birth country (the Netherlands) and to the primary setting of the novel, New York City, once called New Amsterdam (“back in the day” of course). And going further, the title, read as nether-land, evokes images of some sort of underworld, a hidden realm that exists below the surface of the what’s most apparently visible, a nether world I understand to be the psyche of New Yorkers living in a post 9/11 world and struggling to make sense of life in a city that is often too immense, too overwhelming. Continue Reading »