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Armchair Travel December 2022 |
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Top 160 unusual things to see in Ontario
by Ron Brown
"Thoroughly researched and written in an inviting style, Ron Brown's selection of unusual sites offer fascinating stories with background, location and accompanying color photographs. Most places are easy to reach from Ontario's major population centers and bordering American cities and towns. Each of the 160 destinations is updated with detailed maps that pinpoint every location. This new edition features 10 new unusual sites."
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| Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo FaloyinWhat it is: a lively, thought-provoking look at Africa, home to 54 countries, 1.4 billion people, and over 2,000 languages.
Why you might like it: Though this isn't a traditional travelogue, acclaimed journalist Dipo Faloyin presents a needed corrective about the continent and its past, present, and future.
Don't miss: his views on Lagos (where he grew up), a look at democracy via 10 dictatorships, details about the African Cup of Nations rivalries, and the debate over which country makes the best jollof rice. |
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| My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy by Clint Hill with Lisa McCubbin HillTreasure trove: Going through old belongings, retired Secret Service agent Clint Hill found photos, diaries, and other items from his time protecting Jacqueline Kennedy.
Locations include: Virginia, France, Mexico, India, Italy, Greece, and South America.
Read these next: The author's earlier memoir, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, or Jackie's Girl by Nancy McKeon, who as an Irish teen became Jackie's live-in assistant, working and traveling with her in the years following John F. Kennedy's death. |
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On his fifteenth birthday, in the summer of 1880, future science-fiction writer M.P. Shiel sailed with his father and the local bishop from their home in the Caribbean out to the nearby island of Redonda--where, with pomp and circumstance, he was declared the island's king. A few years later, when Shiel set sail for a new life in London, his father gave him some advice: Try not to be strange. It was almost as if the elder Shiel knew what was coming. Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda tells, for the first time, the complete history of Redonda's transformation from an uninhabited, guano-encrusted island into a fantastical and international kingdom of writers. With a cast of characters including forgotten sci-fi novelists, alcoholic poets, vegetarian publishers, Nobel Prize frontrunners, and the bartenders who kept them all lubricated while angling for the throne themselves, Michael Hingston details the friendships, feuds, and fantasies that fueled the creation of one of the oddest and most enduring micronations ever dreamt into being. Part literary history, part travelogue, part quest narrative, this cautionary tale about what happens when bibliomania escapes the shelves and stacks is as charming as it is peculiar--and blurs the line between reality and fantasy so thoroughly that it may never be entirely restored. |
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| Solito: A Memoir by Javier ZamoraWhat it is: poet Javier Zamora's moving story about his 3,000-mile journey from El Salvador to the United States in 1999 when he was nine years old.
What happened: The planned two-week trip took two months, and Zamora faced dangerous boat trips, desert treks, and more. But though he was traveling unaccompanied alongside a group of strangers, he found a makeshift family who helped him survive.
Want a taste? "Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago -- 'one day, you'll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.'" |
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| Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country: Traveling Through the Land of my Ancestors by Louise ErdrichWhat it's about: In the early 2000s, together with her 18-month-old daughter, acclaimed writer Louise Erdrich traveled via car and boat visiting the land and lakes of her Ojibwe ancestors in southern Ontario and northern Minnesota, often accompanied by her daughter's Ojibwe spiritual leader father.
Reviewers say: Readers will find Erdrich's "signature combination of the sacred and the ordinary in this lively traveler's memoir" (Booklist). |
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| Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots by Morgan JerkinsWhat it's about: Bestselling author Morgan Jerkins, who lives in New York and was raised in New Jersey, traveled to Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and California for insight as she thoughtfully explored how the Great Migration affected families, especially her own.
Read this next: For more on the Great Migration, which saw millions of African Americans leave the South between 1916 and 1970, pick up Isabel Wilkerson's award-winning history The Warmth of Other Suns; for another book combining family, travelogue, and modern African American history, try Candacy Taylor's Overground Railroad. |
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| Two Trees Make a Forest: In Search of My Family's Past Among Taiwan's Mountains... by Jessica J. LeeWhat it is: a meditative, lyrical mixture of travelogue, history, and memoir, by a British Canadian Taiwanese author fascinated by language and nature, who explored Taiwan, guided by the writings of her maternal grandfather, who'd been a Flying Tiger before immigrating to Canada.
Want a taste? "Born into conflict at the junction of two volcanic arcs, Taiwan is an unstable landmass in perpetual confrontation."
Reviewers say: "poignant and beautifully written" (Library Journal). |
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| The Hundred-Year Walk: An Armenian Odyssey by Dawn Anahid MacKeenEscape: During and after World War I, over one million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman government in one of the first modern genocides. Stepan Miskjian survived, walking 1,000 miles across Turkey and Syria.
In his footsteps: Using Miskjian's journals as a guide, his American granddaughter, journalist Dawn Anahid MacKeen, retraced his path and learned about her grandfather, herself, her roots, and the Middle East.
Read this next: Meline Toumani's There Was and There Was Not, which describes the Armenian American writer's move to Istanbul, Turkey, to try to understand the genocide she heard about every day growing up. |
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| House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony ShadidWhat it's about: After Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Anthony Shadid visited his great-grandfather's abandoned house in southern Lebanon, he moved there to restore it, pondering his failed marriage and dealing with contractors as armed conflict loomed nearby.
Why you might like it: This thoughtful, evocative memoir explores renovation projects, family, war, and the meaning of home.
About the author: Just before the 2012 publication of this memoir, which was a National Book Award finalist, the talented Shadid died while reporting in Syria. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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