Globe Corner Blogs

There are quite a few excellent memoirs about growing up in Zimbabwe packing our shelves, but The Last Resort is the first one I have ever described as “really funny.” The Last Resort quickly became a staff favorite (not just because the frog on the cover is really cute) because it is a fascinating read – I found it impossible to put down. Douglas Rogers, now a Brooklyn-based journalist and travel writer, grew up in Zimbabwe and his parents continue to run their backpacker’s lodge, Drifters, today. The problem was that after reading the book, I desperately wanted to know what happened next to his parents and Drifters. So I asked, and he responded with an update.

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Living and traveling green doesn’t take great personal sacrifice, but not all of us know how to get started without giving up our habits and routines. “Green” may be a popular trend, but you don’t have to buy expensive “earth friendly” products, eat strictly vegan, or stop going places and retreat to a secluded cabin in the woods to practice eco-living. Allow me to present some Hidden Treasures that will prove it to you.

Wake Up And Smell The Planet, The Non-Pompous, Non-Preachy Grist Guide to Greening Your Day edited by Brangien Davis with Katharine Wroth

“We bet we can guess what your morning routine looks like: You gently click off your solar-powered alarm clock, crawl out of your hemp sheets, don organic cotton slippers a recycled fleece robe, and shuffle across your bamboo floors to the bathroom where you bathe in rain water and botanicals harvested from your own garden.
Not quite? Good.” This is when you snicker and read on.

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If you’re anything like us this time of year, you’re grumpy, tired, and sore from falling down so many times. To help you get through the last few months of winter we’ve prepared a list of authors that will get you out of the doldrums and into spring. What follows is an alphabetical list of some of our favorite make-you-laugh-out-loud authors.

1. Peter Allison

Allison’s books Whatever You Do, Don’t Run and Don’t Look Behind You take you into the surprisingly not-so-glamorous life of a safari guide. Every job has its challenges, but not many involve packs of hyenas and irritable hippos. Not to mention tourists in the wild.

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2. Bill Bryson

Bryson is perhaps best known for being a middle-aged white guy doing absurd activities for the sake of absurdity, and simultaneously finding the absurdity in the world around him. From A Walk in the Woods where he tackles the Appalachian Trail to In a Sunburned Country where he tries all things Australian, Bryson shows us the humor of living on this planet.

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3. Tim Cahill

Need a little adventure in your life? Try some books from the founder of Outside Magazine. His titles tell you all you need to know. Among others: Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, A Wolverine is Eating My Leg, and Pecked to Death by Ducks. It’s probably all the excitement you can take for one sleepy, snowy day curled up on your bed reading.

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I was surprised to learn that a young Western woman with little to no knowledge of the language and no special skills can find a well-paying job in Tokyo. No, it’s not in the industry you might have just thought of. It requires the looks of a model, the personality of a friendly bartender, the ambition to earn money of a Vegas cocktail waitress and the level of nonsense-resistance of a mental ward nurse. Add some babysitting skills, a good liver and an ability to keep very late hours, and you’ve got it. This kind of a job may never get a name in English, but in Japanese it is called geisha.

Of course Japan has drastically changed since the Edo era and a geisha’s job requirements have changed too, but the essence stayed the same. You entertain and pamper your guests, and you get rewarded according to your level of professionalism. A fashion model and a true journalist at heart, Chelsea Haywood decided to try the job first-hand and document her experience in a book 90-Day Geisha.

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Thomas Jefferson really liked wine. While living in France, he acquired a profound knowledge about wine and amassed an impressive collection of fine wines. Apparently, he didn’t drink all of it though, because in 1985 a Chateau Lafite Bordeaux from 1787 that supposedly belonged to President Jefferson sold for $156,000 at an auction. Benjamin Wallace doesn’t lead us on a journey to exotic lands in The Billionaire’s Vinegar, but guides us through a journey filled with decadent wine tastings through the world of collecting rare wines. Whether the the wines tasted were genuine or forgeries, well,  you will have to read the book. However, if you want to find out more about Benjamin Wallace you can just continue reading.

1. Do you prefer aisle or window? (Please explain.)

Aisle. It’s bad enough to be compacted into a too-small seat in a too-small cabin, but at least in an aisle seat it’s possible to stretch out your legs, when the aisle’s clear, and easier to stand up and walk around the cabin.

2. Now for some general wine questions:

a) Red or white? Do you have a preference and why? Red *and* white (and pink, too, for that matter). It really depends on my mood, the weather, and what I’m eating.

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Chuck Thompson’s books are not for the faint of heart…or stomach. But anyone who has traveled past their city lines will appreciate his commentary on the highs and lows of travel. His first book,  Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer, is a favorite of the GCB staff. His upcoming book due in December, To Hellholes and Back, promises to be equally popular. Chuck was kind enough to answer a few questions for us about his travel, his books, and his taste in beer.

1. Do you prefer aisle or window? (Please explain.)

Aisle always, avoiding at all costs the trays-down imprisonment of slow post-meal and beverage-service pickup.

2. The subtitle of To Hellholes and Back is “bribes, lies, and the art of extreme tourism.” Could you give us your definition of “extreme tourism“?

“Extreme tourism” is often associated with space tourism or living in a grass hut in Papua New Guinea for a month. But if your idea of a good time is hanging out in grass huts, what’s so extreme about that? Extreme travel, to me, is anything that takes you out of your comfort zone — physically, intellectually, emotionally. That’s why both the Congo and Disney presented me with “extreme” opportunities. I didn’t want anything to do with either one.

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The Sex Lives of Cannibals - by J. Maarten Proost

J. Maarten Troost  has been Lost on Planet China, caught Getting Stoned with Savages and adrift in sea of The Sex Lives of Cannibals. Although he isn’t presently floating on a raft off a remote island in the South Pacific, it took some sleuthing to find him. When we did track him down, he was nice enough to respond to some of our questions.

1) Do you prefer aisle or window? (Please explain.)

Window, which is kind of odd because flying is essentially one long cardiac event for me. I do not like to fly. It is what it is and I try to live with it. But whenever I find myself looking down upon Afghanistan or Iran or the Kamchatka Peninsula I find that I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, unless there’s turbulence, in which case I whimper and sway as I try to find my special place.

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An Irreverent Curiosity - by David Farley

First and foremost, David Farley is a (self-proclaimed) awesome dancer. Secondly, Farley is the author of An Irreverent Curiosity and has travel essays in Travelers’ Tales Best Travel Writing 2009, Travelers’ Tales Prague, and 30 Days in Italy–as well as in numerous magazines and newspapers. And wait, there’s more: he also writes for WorldHum.com. We had so much fun asking Rolf Potts some questions we decided to see if one of our other favorite travel writers would answer and even be up for our version of The Hemingway Challenge.  He was kind enough to respond.

1) Do you prefer aisle or window? (Please explain.)

Always the aisle. I like to move about the cabin whenever the spirit strikes me and if I’m sitting at the window, I’m stuck there, lest I want to pester the person sitting at the aisle (which I don’t). Extra special bonus lovely seat: the aisle seat in an exit row.

2) Have you ever pretended that you were Canadian while overseas?

Never. And I never will.

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Marco Polo Didn't Go There - by Rolf Potts

Marco Polo Didn’t Go There is a collection of travel stories by Rolf Potts from a decade of writing for publications like National Geographic Traveler, Salon.com, and WorldHum.com. He’s also been selected for The Best American Travel Writing anthologies several times and is best known for his book, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel. Each essay in Marco Polo is accompanied by  a “special commentary track” that gives the reader clarifications and anecdotes about each story. After Sarah and I read the book, we still had a few questions that we were dying to ask. Since his travel advice column for WorldHum.com is called Ask Rolf…we did.

1. Do you prefer aisle or window? (Please explain why.)

Aisle.  I have long legs, and it’s nice to stretch them out every so often.

I’d say the bag of peanuts I bought in the Siphandon region of Laos in 1999. There were rumors of a cholera epidemic in the area at the time, so I was avoiding restaurant meals.  I figured a bag of peanuts would be fine.

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The Last Fish Tale by Mark Kurlansky

Like Mark Kurlansky’s other books, including Salt and Cod, his most recent, The Last Fish Tale, explores one subject in great detail. In this case, the book could have easily been called Gloucester.  The narrative explores local Gloucester, Mass from past to present, covering fishing industry issues it has faced and how the city has progressed since then.

This book was particularly relevant to me, as I spent three frigid months last winter living out of a motel there, working on day-fishing boats for my job as a National Marine Fisheries Observer.  Since working at The Globe Corner Bookstore, I appreciate being dry, not being covered in fish slime, and being on solid ground.  Still, I miss Gloucester.  So when I picked up this book recently, I was transported back to that unique town.

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