Globe Corner Blogs

The Lazarus Project -by Aleksandar Hemon

After enduring an extremely brutal reading list for a class on genocide, I declared January to be a “happy book only” month for me.  But now it is February, and I can start reading about pogroms, political oppression, and mass graves again. The first book I read after my self-imposed “depressing book ban” was The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon, and it became one of my favorites overnight.

Hemon intertwines two intriguing stories about Lazarus Averbuch, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe who was shot by a Chicago Chief of Police in 1908, and a fictional, present-day Bosnian immigrant named Brik. Officially, Lazarus was declared an anarchist assassin, but Brik wants to discover what really happened. Continue Reading »

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao --by Junot Diaz

I have ticked off another box on my Writering Life List (…like birding, but with authors).

Junot Diaz was sitting across from me on the subway the other morning. I was on my way to work, so it was early; I feared my senses were still blurry from having just woken. But there was really no mistaking it. Having seen his picture everywhere when our friends at Harvard Book Store hosted a reading with him, I was familiar with that stubble, that hairline (or lack thereof), those glasses, and that peculiarly frowning mouth. It was him.

Did I go up him and tell him how much I loved Oscar Wao? Of course not! Would you casually saunter up to a pileated woodpecker if you spotted one and tell him how brilliantly red his crest was? Of course not! Most writers are known to be solitary creatures, skittish at the sight of fans clutching books to their chests, grinning shyly, practicing softly under their breath how to say, “I’ve been the biggest fan for…” without sounding like that guy.

So no, I did not bother him. Besides, he was reading.

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Ghost Train to the Eastern Star --by Paul Theroux

Everyone who was working last night was very excited when Paul Theroux stopped by the store to autograph copies of his latest book, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. I rarely get star struck, but this is the man that started my obsession with travel writing, beginning when I read The Great Railway Bazaar.

I am not sure if it was nerves or sleep deprivation, but I do remember babbling to him about taking The Pillars of Hercules to Croatia with me. He must have thought I was a bit crazy as I could only muster fragments of sentences, but later we kind of chatted pleasantly about traveling. I can’t believe that I was comparing flight prices with Paul Theroux.

We now have lots of signed copies of the author’s books, including The Great Railway Bazaar (Asia), Riding the Iron Rooster (China), The Pillars of Hercules (The Mediterranean), The Mosquito Coast (Honduras), The Happy Isles of Oceania (Pacific Islands), The Elephanta Suite (India), Dark Star Safari (Africa) and The Kingdom by the Sea (Great Britain) and the newest edition to my reading list…Ghost Train to the Eastern Star.

Hearting Chuck Thompson--photo by Llalan

Any human alive — or any alien familiar with the John Cusack oeuvre — knows the pain of crushes: the sleepless nights, the appetite loss, the general degeneration into a love-lorn automaton capable of nothing more than boring the bejesus out of all his friends with painfully detailed rehashings of eye contact near-misses. What is worst of all (if you are the crushed, not their friends) is the fact that most crushes remain, for all eternity, unrequited.

And this is why we love Mr. Thompson.

We can’t say that our adoration of the man behind Smile When You’re Lying is returned with the same intensity and fervor, or that he speaks of us with the same breathless exuberance that causes us to trip over words and fall in paroxysms of laughter that end in unfortunate snorts.

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Map of Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

I love being outside, whether it is on my bike, camping, hiking, or even driving around with the windows open. It is one of the greatest things in the world. However, I have found myself in certain situations where being outside can be a pretty scary thing. Some examples: you go on a hike, get lost, and do not know which way is which. Another time, you get up at night in the pitch black while camping and your flashlight doesn’t work. Or, your boat battery dies when you are nowhere near land. I know you’re thinking that I am an ill-prepared moron, but that is not always the case. You never know what is going to happen next and the great outdoors is called “great” for a reason.

There is a book I would recommend to you persons who might encounter these situations: Finding Your Way Without Map or Compass, by Harold Gatty. This dude tells you everything, and I mean everything. Within the book you will find:
1. How to navigate when lost at sea based on sea swells.
2. How to find your way when all the navigational tools die on your plane.
3. Where the sun is on a cloudy day just by looking at trees.

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Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks

In no particular order, these are some of my favorite books currently in the store:

1. Round Ireland with a Fridge, by Tony Hawks. Man gets drunk in a pub, man makes silly bet with buddy that he can hitchhike around Ireland accompanied by a mini-fridge (that’s right, a mini-fridge). Hilarity ensues, along with a bizarre and unexpected national celebrity. See the fridge surf; see the fridge blessed by nuns. Great beach read, or even anywhere else where breaking into fits of uncontrollable giggles is considered acceptable. Funnier than a drunk monkey. (Sorry PETA.)

2. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, by Alexandra Fuller. A beautifully written, challenging memoir of Fuller’s childhood in Africa in the last years of the white regime in Rhodesia and its transformation after independence into Zimbabwe. Unsparing in her examination of the racism that underlay her childhood as well as the tragedies and triumphs of her family, she shows the flawed humanity of all involved. One of the best personal narratives I’ve read in quite some time. Continue Reading »

Travels With Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski

The store just got in a new paperback that I’m very excited about: Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski.   A brilliant and richly detailed chronicle of Kapuscinki’s half century as a foreign correspondent and author, this memoir shows his journey as a young man just out of university in post-war Poland across the ensuing decades and all of the inhabited continents.  As one of Poland’s state newspaper’s first post-war foreign correspondents, Kapuscinski expects to perhaps be sent across the border to Czechoslovakia, and instead gets India–the start of a career that will make him witness to wars fought over soccer games, the liberation of nations from colonial bondage, coronations and overthrows of kings, and get him sentenced to death in absentia by a number of different regimes for simply reporting what he saw as he saw it.  He has in other words one of the all-time most kick-ass c.v.’s of any author since Sir Richard Burton or T. E. Lawrence.

Smile When You’re Lying is not your average travelogue. It’s way better. Chuck Thompson reveals the not-so-glossy reality behind the travel writing and tourism industries with hilarious rants and anecdotes about his misadventures overseas and in the business back home. Below are Nicole and Llalan’s top reasons for *hearting* Chuck Thompson: Continue Reading »

A fresh copy of Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao arrived today, newly emblazoned with a shiny gold sticker identifying it as 2008′s Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. And, let me tell you, if ever a book deserved a gold sticker, it is this one. Continue Reading »

Millions of people around the world bow to the Dalai Lama. Me, I worship the author Pico Iyer. Fortunately for all, the two great men have come together in a book published this March.

The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Iyer writes the ultimate biography of His Holiness, attaining a level of intimacy that only comes from a lifelong friendship. As a Globe Corner Staff Favorite, The Open Road is on sale for $19.20 (20% off $24.00). As Iyer is this staff member’s favorite, allow me to suggest several of his other travel books gracing our shelves: Video Night in Kathmandu (adventures from the “not-so-far East”); Sun After Dark (thoughts on the art of travel); Falling Off the Map (journeys in some of the world’s hardest-to-get-to places), and my personal favorite, The Lady and the Monk (a year in Kyoto), among many others. Come browse the oeuvre, or just kneel at the shrine.