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Showing posts from May, 2011

Coming to America

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How do we look to visitors from abroad?  Some collected views from the nineteenth century, two from the twentieth century including one from an American expat who returned after 20 years away.  1.  I'm A Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson (1999).    An American, Bryson lived the expat life in England for 20 years and returned to this country with the sensibility of an outsider.  Some of of it dated, most all of it funny.  The good natured criticism is easier to take coming from a "member of the family" so to speak (my name for criticism that can be made only by a family member but by someone outside the family).   Bought in a bookstore of unknown origin.   2.  Ciao America!  An Italian Discovers America, Beppe Severgnini (1995).  Lived for one year in a townhouse in Georgetown and develops a happy but perplexed interest in American culture.  (As an Italian, even he admits he is impressed by Americans coffee intake)...

Introduction to the Great Game

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Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game was the door that opened my armchair travels onto the deserts and secret spies of the the shadowy war for empire in Central Asia.  Hopkirk introduced most of today's travelers to the region.  He brings to life the struggle between Tsarists Russia and Victorian England.  Their empires were first 2000 miles apart and ended up with outposts within 20 miles of each other.  Little did I know when I picked up his first book in 1995 that I would end up living and working there, in very place that I thought inhospitable and mysterious.  I bought his other books wherever I've found them. 1.  The Great Game (1990).   If you only read one of Hopkirk's books read this one.  The scene setter that brings to life the stories of Russian and English spies who risked their lives disguised as holy men or native horse traders mapping secret passes and building alliances with powerful khans.   "Borrowed" from wife.   2....

Picture This

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An eclectic set of photo books.  Some subjects can only be told by photos.  A few of the subjects I know well, others I'd like to know more about and have used them for armchair travel. 1.  Leelanau, Ken Scott & Jerry Dennis (2000).   Portrays a sense of place in Michigan's peninsula county. Gift.                 2.  Magnetic North, Mike Beedell (1983).  North of the tree line, above the sixtieth parallel is a spectacular landscape.  Beedell's pictures capture the land, people, wildlife and desolation.  Bought used State Department book store.     3.  Imprints, David Plowden (1997).   Plowden's subjects are the landscape of the midwest, small towns, grain elevators, machinery bridges, trains,and  gritty industrial landscapes.  There is a haunting beauty to his subjects that evoke a nostalgia for my hometown.  The nostalgia is for the machinery of an old rust be...

To Everything There is a Season

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Have you ever wanted to live in a small piece of land, isolated from the outside world and see what thoughts you'd come up, like Thoreau?   I'm waiting for the day.  Meanwhile, I'm reading about what it's like.  Some close to home and some in the middle of the desert.   1 .  Winter: Notes from Montana , Rick Bass (1991).   Living solo in the Montana back country.  Survival depends on the ability to use a chain saw cut wood and not yourself.  Bought used.   2 .  A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold (1966).   Set in Sand County, Wisconsin, Leopold's writings about the relationship to the land.    Published by his son a year after Leopold's death .  Bought used.   3 .  Desert Solitaire , Edward Abbey (1985).  First released in 1968, Abbey w rote as an eloquent loner.  He w orked as a US Par k Ranger living for three   seasons in the desert at Mo...

The Scourge of God

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""A man's greatest work is to break his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all the things that have been theirs, to hear the weeping of those who cherished them."   --attributed to Ghinghis Khan and later adapted for the movie Conan the Barbarian.  Part of my fascination with Central Asia started with a fascination with Ghengis Khan and his Mongol armies.  The Mongal conquest and destruction is unimaginalble even by today's standards.  The Mongols terrified the Chinese, Indians, Arab states, Russians and Europeans.  Referred to by Europeans of the day as the Scourge of God.  1.  The Devil's Horseman , James Chambers (1985).   Joined the history book club in the late 1980s.  One of my first purchases.  Concise history with Ghengis Khan family tree.  Bought in the history book club.   2.  In the Empire of Ghenghis Khan: An Amazing Odyssey Through the Lands f the Most Feared Conquerors in History , Stan...

What's In a Name

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I once drove through a small cross-roads in New Mexico marked on my Rand McNally Road Atlas as Pie Town.  I was disappointed that there seemed to be no pies around.  Ever wonder how your town or any town got its name?  Since my passage through Pie Town, New Mexico, I was inspired to find out the origin of place names.     1.  All Over the Map: An Extraordinary Atlas of the United States , David Jouris (1994) .   Book is divided in themes: Musical, Mythical, Animal, Historic and contrasting place names. (But they missed Paradise and Hell Michigan.)  Bought new. 2.  Storyville USA , Dale Petsrson (1999).   A quirky road trip through the more unusual town names in the US:.  Starting with Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky to Roads End, Alaska.  Bought used a book store in Amherst, MA.  3.  American Place-Names: A Concise and Selective Dictionary For the Continental United States of America , George Stewart (1970). ...