Helen's Reads » Travel

The Year Of Cleopatra

helen — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:22:04 +0000

I’m just finishing up reading Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra. A much different book than I was expecting. It reads more like a text book and the long-g-g-g chapters and the need for a dictionary at times left me exhausted. A Pulitzer Prize winner I’m sure because of the research that went into it. If non of this puts you off, then keep reading because Cleopatra in all her glory will be with us for a while. The details of Cleopatra’s life as a ruler, military strategist, lover, wife, mother, linguist, women’s health advocate and even poison expert are what kept me reading. The book is a best seller, Angelina Jolie is set to play Cleopatra in the movie version (and in 3D no less), gladiator sandals are all the rage and now the cosmetic industry is jumping on board. According to the Wall Street Journal this is the year of Cleopatra. Essential oils (Cleopatra massaged her face with olive oil) are replacing facial creams as the new fountain of youth. I even found day spas touting Cleopatra inspired snake venom and 24 carat gold facial masks. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cleopatra themed vacation tours start popping up following in the tradition of The Millennium and Da Vinci Code books. Actually, that could prove to be a godsend for the Egyptian tourist board which has taken a beating lately due to the recent political unrest. I know I would buy a ticket.

Reading On Bondi Beach

helen — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:00:16 +0000

Literary Tour of London, Edinburgh & Dublin

helen — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:46:16 +0000

Thought I would pass this along for any of you who have dreamed of following in the steps of Robert Burns, William Shakespeare, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Dylan Thomas, Jane Austen, TS Eliot and Bram Stroker. I just recieved a flyer in the mail from GoAhead Tours promoting their 11 day (including airfare) Literary Tour of London, Edinburgh & Dublin. My sister and I traveled to Provence and Tuscany with this travel group a few years ago and had the best time, so I feel I can hardily recommend. AND If you book before March 12th, your companion flies for only $99. Pretty sweet. Click here for details.

Guernsey Photo Montage

helen — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:42:00 +0000

My friend Claire just returned from a Guernsey, Ireland, France cruise. She’s kindly allowed me to post her photos of St Peter Port where The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society novel is set. If this inspires a trip, you might want to check out Annette Henry Tours specializing in theme guided tours of Guernsey.

View of the Guernsey coast line

Fort and St Peter Port

St Peter Port

Fort at St Peter Port

View towards the sea

Church on Guernsey

Liberation monument with Guernsey flag

Guernsey coast line

Reads For The Armchair Traveler

helen — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:57:10 +0000

This is the final post on what Nancy Pearl (Book Lust, More Book Lust, Book Crush) recommended last month at a library sponsored event on summer reading. I previously posted her suggestions for Airplane Reads, Mystery/Spy/Thrillers, and Book Club Reads. The following books fall into the Armchair Traveler genre. Pearl announced that she is working on a new book Wanderlust and the following three titles are some of her favorites.

Narrow Dog To Indian River by Terry Darlington - funny memoir of traveling the 1,150-mile Intracoastal Waterway from Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico in a narrowboat with wife Virginia and dog, Jim. What makes it even better is that the Darlingtons are British and in their seventies.

Getting Stoned With Savages by J. Maarten Troost – hilarious memoir of ditching his job and moving with his wife to the clothing optional islands of Fiji and Vanuatu. Lots of misadventures revolving around the Kava eating natives, giant centipedes, earthquakes and government coups.

Travels In A Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile by Sara Wheeler – Pearl calls Wheeler fearless, as she travels solo and experiences a place through the hospitality of people she meets along the way.

Nancy Pearl’s Reading Wisdom

helen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:06:49 +0000

Last night I was one of a hundred adoring fans that turned out to hear our very own former Seattle Public Library librarian, Nancy Pearl, do what she does best, tell us whats good to read. The focus on this evening’s event was summer reading or as quoted in The Seattle Times piece promoting the event,

“For many people, summer reading implies lighter reading – it doesn’t matter if saltwater splashes over it or the covers get ripped off,” Pearl says. “You don’t have a lot of emotional capital tied up in the book.”

I’ve sorted the twenty one books Pearl gushed about into four categories: Airplane Reads, Armchair Travelers, Mystery/ Spy/Thrillers and Book Club Reads. (Really, she is so enthusiastic about the books she loves that I’m ready to toss what I am currently reading and dive into any one of these.) I will share her list of picks in my next couple of posts. For now, I thought I would pass along Pearl’s thoughts on choosing that next good book to read.

If you are 50 years old or younger: Read 50 pages. If the book doesn’t grab you, give it away. If you are compelled to solve the mystery or find out how the story ends, read the last chapter and be done with it.

If you are older than 50: Subtract your age from 100 and read that number of pages. It’s one of the few perks of aging, according to Pearl.

If you are 100 years and older: Congratulations! You are now allowed to judge a book by it’s cover.

Creepy Swedish Plots Make For Great Reads & TV

helen — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:12:28 +0000

Fans of Swedish author Henning Mankell are in for a treat. On May 10th, PBS will begin airing the Wallander series which first aired on BBC One last November and December. Each three 90 minute episode is based on one of the ten police mysteries that make up the Wallander series. The series was produced by Mankell’s own production company Yellow Bird and stars Kenneth Branagh as inspector Kurt Wallander. Watch the trailer and get ready to be creeped out or better yet, buy Sidetracked (#5 in the series and the first episode to air) and get creeped out now!

Click here to purchase this book from your favorite Indie Bookseller

Girlsfriends And Aging

helen — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:53:54 +0000

Tomorrow I’m headed off to San Francisco to spend the weekend at the beach with ten plus fabulous friends. It’s an annual event. We call ourselves the Stinson Beach Babes. Each year I go, I return home with aching cheek muscles from all the talking and laughing. Our friendships go back some 30 years. Back when we were newly married career gals just starting our families and hoping it was true that we could have it all. It doesn’t surprise me then that a new book about female friendships is striking a chord with a lot of women. The folks at Earlyword reported that The NY Times most emailed story this week is What Are Friends For? A Longer Life which mentions the book and focuses on research that shows people with close friends do better at fighting illness and depression, have speedier recoveries, and age slower. Read my review of the book.

Click here to purchase this book from your favorite Indie Bookseller

A Novel Way to Learn About Myanmar

helen — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:15:00 +0000

Hearing about the recent devastation from Cyclone Nargis that hit Myanmar earlier this month has made me reflect back on Amy Tan’s novel “Saving Fish From Drowning“. This is travel fiction at its best. A delicious yarn about a group of tourists that travel from San Francisco to Burma and unwittingly get themselves kidnapped into the jungle. What makes the story even better is that the narrator is the group’s recently deceased (was she murdered?) travel director, Bibi Chen.

Aloft in her spirit world, Bibi rants. The military rulers “gave Burma its new name, Myanmar, and changed Rangoon into Yangon, the Irrawaddy into the Ayeyarwaddy. And thus, practically no one in the Western world knows what those new names refer to,” says Bibi. “Like the Burmese dissenters who disappeared, the country formerly calling itself Burma is invisible to most of the Western world, an illusion.”

The San Francisco Chronicle’s review of the book when it was first published in the fall of 2005 still rings true today. We as a country are not laughing much at what is in the news today so how much you enjoy this novel may have to do with how willing you are to be bewitched by a superbly executed, goodhearted farce that is part romance and part mystery with a political bent.

Cyclone Nargis Facts:
Today marks the beginning of a three-day official period of mourning for the more than 78,000 reported dead and another 56,000 persons missing. Damage to the country of Myanmar exceeds 10 billion dollars.

How to help: World Vision Save the Children CARE

Reading Along With Matt Lauer – The Seychelles

helen — Sat, 03 May 2008 00:38:39 +0000

It’s day five of “Where In The World Is Matt Lauer?” The clue read: Many come here to see the natural wonders but the national symbol is for your eyes only. This of course refers to the fact that in the spring of 1958 author Ian Fleming visited the Seychelles for an extended holiday: seeking adventure, sunshine and inspiration for his latest James Bond book, to be called “For Your Eyes Only“.

Travel writer Jonathan Thompson writes:

During his time on Mah, Fleming stayed at a hotel on the north- west coast, built on an outcrop just north of the sprawling Beau Vallon beach. That grand old hotel, The Northolme, built before the First World War, has recently undergone a dramatic transformation. One of the first hotels on the islands, it has reopened after being turned into a luxury five-star retreat. The hotel now consists of 40 wooden villas within a mlange of paths, elevations and landscaping, all with stunning views of the Indian Ocean and the striking Silhouette Island a few miles away.

Bond fans will find the rebuilt hotel packed with Fleming associations: not only is the pretty private beach where Fleming swam exactly as it was during his visit, but the new management, Hilton Worldwide Resorts, has paid tribute to the author by dedicating a villa to him.