Books That Take Me Places

Summer is drawing to a close, well, the summer of swimming pools, fireworks, barbeques and reunions. The blistering heat is still here. But the mood of summer is fading. Already it’s back-to-school-halloween-autumn in all the stores and all the travel plans are over. So every year, I fight back by embarking on a few last minute adventures from my library. I’ve compiled my favorite list of books that take me places. Now all you’ve got to decide is:

Where do you want to go?

Everywhere:

Read Travels by Michael Crichton. He ventures across the globe and into his psyche; literally everywhere. The narration mixes exotic explorations with personal discovery that makes for a seamless adventure read.

The most travelesque moment: the scuba diving section.

Travel Back in Time:

Read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. The circus-prohibition era just oozes off the page. The unique story and memorable characters are only part of the delight as she delicately recreates this age of wonder.

The most travelesque moment: the whole damn thing.

Travel To The Future:

Read Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov. Asimov walks the line between accessible and realistic; diehard sci-fi fans will love it and others will not be overwhelmed by scientific jargon. He creates a world that’s futuristic enough to be new, but same enough to be familiar.

The most travelesque moment: the main character’s life within the City.

Travel to a whole new crazy place:

Read Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. Fforde creates a chromatic society that is unexpected in a fun way. Spoons are a rare and cherished commodity, Greens don’t like Reds and no one likes Yellows and there is only one rabbit. Richly written and beautifully unique.

The most travelesque moment: the trek to a nearby uninhabited, dangerous town.

Travel to the afterlife:

Read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. The journey from the living to the beyond is crafted with care and precision. Beautiful prose illuminates as unconscious expectations are realized; it's as if we always knew heaven would be like this.

The most travelesque moment: arriving in heaven.

 

 

 

So, whatever your inclination, we've got a destination.

The Cowardly Lion and The Hungry Tiger by L. Frank Baum

 

In the splendid palace of the Emerald City, which is in the center of the fairy Land of Oz, is a great Throne Room, where Princess Ozma, the Ruler, for an hour each day sits in a throne of glistening emeralds and listens to all the troubles of her people, which they are sure to tell her about. Around Ozma's throne, on such occasions, are grouped all the important personages of Oz, such as the Scarecrow, Jack Pumpkinhead, Tiktok the Clockwork Man, the Tin Woodman, the Wizard of Oz, the Shaggy Man and other famous fairy people. Little Dorothy usually has a seat at Ozma's feet, and crouched on either side the throne are two enormous beasts known as the Hungry Tiger and the Cowardly Lion.

 

These two beasts are Ozma's chief guardians, but as everyone loves the beautiful girl Princess there has never been any disturbance in the great Throne Room, or anything for the guardians to do but look fierce and solemn and keep quiet until the Royal Audience is over and the people go away to their homes.

 

A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewcka

Book: A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian

Author: Marina Lewycka

Why I Read It: I was in a hostel in London and the common room "library" only had three books in English and this one looked the most intriguing.

First Line: "Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukranian divorcee."

 

First Impression: Wow. This is really good. I'm surprised someone left this here.

Last Impression: Nowhere near the journey I was expecting (and I didn't really learn anything about tractors) butit was engrossing and satisfying.

 

Ratings

Overall – 4 Heart Skipped A Beat

Characters – 4  Each charager was dynamic and virbrant; the female narrator gives just enough space for her aging father determined to tell his history of tractors, the conniving and surgically accented Ukranian divorcee and her well-meaning but overbearing sister to fill up the pages.

Story – 2  Honestly the story became a bit dull and the characters were the reason to keep reading, not the action.

Narration – 4 The pacing was rhythmic and lulling, the word chocie was powerfully decisive and it was surprising how quickly all the intricacies of this Ukranian family felt familiar.

Read Again? Yes. It was unique and fun and a perfect road tripping read. But I might just feel that way because it was acquired in travels and read on the road.

Tell Others to Read? Depends on the person. If I see them in the bookstore with a stack in their arms 10 books tall, or flipping through a book about travel, then absolutely. Or if they are a "reader" and are looking for something different than their usual fare. If they're looking for something to read after finishing 50 Shades of Grey, probably not.

Excerpt: Tart. Bitch. Cheap slut. This woman who as taken the place of my mother. I stretch my hand out and bare my teeth in a smile.

   "Hallo, Valentina. How nice to meet you at last."

   Her hand in mine is cold, limp, no grip. The long fingernails are varnished in peach-pink pearlised nail-polish to match the lips. I see myself through her eyes - small, skinny, dark, no bust. Not a real woman. She smiles at Mike, a slow, wicked smile.

   "You like vodka?"

   "I've made a pot of tea," I say.

   My father's eyes are fixed on her as she moves about the room.

A Matter-of-Fact Fairy Tale by A.A. Milne

Once upon a time there was a King who had three sons. The two eldest were lazy, good-for-nothing young men, but the third son, whose name was Charming, was a delightful youth, who was loved by everybody (outside his family) who knew him. Whenever he rode through the town the people used to stop whatever work they were engaged upon and wave their caps and cry "Hurrah for Prince Charming!"--and even after he had passed they would continue to stop work, in case he might be coming back the same way, when they would wave their caps and cry "Hurrah for Prince Charming!" again. It was wonderful how fond of him they were.

But alas! his father the King was not so fond. He preferred his eldest son; which was funny of him, because he must have known that only the third and youngest son is ever any good in a family. Indeed, the King himself had been a third son, so he had really no excuse for ignorance on the point. I am afraid the truth was that he was jealous of Charming, because the latter was so popular outside his family.

Moths Of The New World by Audrey Niffenegger

The book woke up in a strange man's apartment.

The book had been published in 1928 in Minneapolis. She was exceptionally well illustrated, with many colour plates; most of the illustrations featured moths, larvae, pupae, caterpillars, cocoons. She had 364 pages, all clay-coated stock, and was cloth bound in faded saffron buckram with her title stamped in silver on the cover and spine. There was some foxing. Her title was Moths of the New World.

Or: the book was a small-boned light-haired woman with big brown eyes and a startled expression. She was shy and always wore nondescript clothing. She preferred to fade into the background and seldom spoke. Like most real books she spent a great deal of her time sleeping, but even so there were dark circles under her eyes. She had never met her author and because her original print run had only been 500 she was seldom read now. Most of her copies had been relegated to special collections and rare book rooms, or cut up and sold for the pictures. So Moths of the New World spent her nights and days dozing on her shelf in the Library, content to be left alone.

How did I get here? She looked around at the heaps of books and wondered if she had been taken to some unfamiliar part of the Library, but there was something about this place that was wrong. It smells wrong.