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Armchair Travel December 2020
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Barnstorming Ohio: To Understand America
by David Giffels
The Author: David Giffels, a lifelong resident of the "bellwether" state, has spent a quarter century writing and thinking about what it means to live in what he calls "an all-American buffet, an uncannily complete everyplace."
What to expect: Barnstorming Ohio is Giffels' account of a year on Ohio's roads, visiting people and places that offer valuable reflections of the national questions and concerns, as well as astounding electoral clairvoyance.
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| Blue Sky Kingdom: An Epic Family Journey to the Heart of the Himalaya by Bruce KirkbyFeaturing: Canadian TV journalist Bruce Kirkby, his introverted wife Christine, their highly intelligent autistic seven-year-old son Bodi, and their free-spirited three-year-old son Taj.
What happened: From British Columbia, they slow traveled (no planes!) for three months, making their way to South Korea, India, China, and Nepal, and then stayed at a Buddhist monastery for three months.
For fans of: rich, uplifting family travelogues; the Travel Channel's Big Crazy Family Adventure, which covers the first part of their trip. |
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| On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist by Clarissa WardWhat it is: the absorbing memoir of an award-winning journalist (now CNN's chief international correspondent), covering her unconventional childhood and drawing on her nearly two decades of experience reporting from Beirut, Baghdad, Syria, Egypt, and more.
Don't miss: her Moscow encounter with Muammar Gaddafi's lecherous son; her time on the set of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill in Beijing.
Read this next: Lynsey Addario It's What I Do; Marie Colvin's On the Front Line; Janine di Giovanni's The Morning They Came For Us. |
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Unsolaced: Along the Way to All That Is
by Gretel Ehrlich
What it is: A wondrous meditation on how water, light, wind, mountain, bird, and horse has shaped the author’s life and understanding of a world besieged by a climate crisis.
What to expect: Amid species extinctions and disintegrating ice sheets, this stunning collection of memories, observations, and narratives is acute and lyrical and elegant. Ehrlich embarks on strenuous adventures to Greenland, Africa, Kosovo, Japan and an uninhabited Alaskan Island, always returning to her simple Wyoming cabin at the foot of the mountains.
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| Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary OliverWhat's inside: a lyrical collection of essays by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver, who died in 2019, that describes her lifelong wanderings in nature and how it inspired her creatively.
Why you might like it: Oliver contemplates artistic labor, observation, and great thinkers and writers of the past.
Want a taste? "I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple." |
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| Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World by M.R. O'ConnorWhat it's about: After getting lost in New Mexico due to a GPS fail, M.R. O'Connor became fascinated with older methods of navigation, so she met with scientists and traveled to the Arctic, Australia, and Oceania to learn about traditional wayfinding.
Read it for: the vivid descriptions; the multidisciplinary approach to the topic; the intriguing look at spatial cognition and memory.
Reviewers say: "her narrative is a marvel of storytelling on its own merits, erudite but lightly worn" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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