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Armchair Travel December 2020 |
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| The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi by Richard GrantWhat it is: A mix of history and travelogue that presents a fascinating portrait of Natchez, Mississippi, tracing the city's past and present and its remarkable contradictions.
Read it for: Intriguing stories about locals, including a 19th-century enslaved West African prince and modern-day feuding garden club members.
Why you might like it: Vibrant writing; eye-opening history; the examination of racism through the lens of one town. |
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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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| Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward AbbeyWhat it is: A classic account, first published in 1968, of author Edward Abbey's experiences, observations, and reflections as a seasonal park ranger in 1950s Arches National Monument in Utah, including a trip by boat down Glen Canyon.
Want a taste? "The ravens cry out in husky voices, blue-black wings flapping against the golden sky." |
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| Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey through Every National Park by Conor KnightonThe impetus: His fiancée unexpectedly called things off (and then got engaged to her co-worker), leaving him at a crossroads.
What it is: A thematically arranged (Animals, God, Ice, Love, People, etc.), personal look at 59 U.S. national parks over the course of a year.
Did you know? As part of a video series on the National Park Service's 100th anniversary in 2016, the author, a CBS Sunday Morning correspondent, also did TV segments at several of the locations he visited. |
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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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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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