A Momentary Taste of Being

A book for those who love Paris and the thought of Paris.  John Baxter is a writer who has lived in places all over the world (Australia, England, and the United States, among others) andhas settled in Paris.  The book is a kind of tribute to Paris.  Starting with some personal recollections and experiences--including one fabulous story about a broken door lock on Christmas Eve, Mr. Baxter walks us through the history, literary and otherwise of his part of Paris. The walks are sometimes literal--Mr. Baxter was tapped to replace a particularly dull tour guide for a small writer's gathering.  And sometimes they are metaphorical.  We meet mass murderers, thugs, and literary and artistic celebrities.  If there is one place that the book is lacking, it is in the world of music.  Surprisingly, there is little of it in the book, neither in the streets nor in the historical walks--perhaps not one of those things that Mr. Baxter has on the tip of his ton...

In Morocco reviewed I note this book with particular delight because, until today, I was in complete ignorance of it.  Now I can delight in looking forward to an Edith Wharton of which I had been unaware.

Grounded is a travel book with an interesting premise--let's travel around the world completely by surface transportation, a la Around the World in 80 Days.  The premise is compelling enough to make the otherwise somewhat slack reading possible.  Seth and his girlfriend Rebecca set out from Washington D.C. and travel to Philadelphia--there to embark on a cargo carrying boat, destination Antwerp.  And so it goes. Antwerp, Rostock, Helisinki, Talinn, Moscow, Vladivostok, and so forth. The cities visited are just barely visited.  The whole notion here is motion.  The couple often arrive at a given location with just a few hours to get on the next leg of the transportation.  Where there is a lag, we often learn little of the surroundings.  Each leg of the journey is accompanied by reflections on contextual reading that the author is doing along the way. On the whole, this made for an interesting travel book.  I must say that the antics of the lea...

A list of amusing travelogues

I picked the above referenced book from the library more for its subject matter than for the author.  Indeed, the name of the author was somewhat obscured by the plethora of tags and IDs from the library.  What a pleasant surprise to find that it was by Peter Carey--an author whose work I had formulated a wish to take in.  Now, I know this will not be exemplary of his work; however, it provides an entrée to the prose--a sampling, as it were. from Wrong About Japan Peter Carey "Come!" he called from the bathroom, "Come now. Quick!" Whatever he had seen in the bathroom, I knew immediately, was very strange. He'd already seen weird Japanese stuff on the way here--the white-gloved taxi driver, the extraordinary neon-lit shop of pink and organe and blue flowers, a newsstand filled with countless manga with spines two inches thick.  But the strangeness he was now negotiating was of a different magnitude. "Everybody with a taste for traditional architectu...