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Travel
Rick Steves' Italy (2003)Rick Stevess Avalon Softcover, 469pp $18.95 Add To Cart Rick Steves doesn't just list where to travel in Europe, he leads travelers through the "Back Door," and reveals how to give every journey an extra, more authentic dimension. He shows travelers how to delve into European culture, make friends with the locals, and experience each region's natural wonders — economically and hassle free. Rick Steves' Italy 2003 covers The Cinque Terre; Florence; Pisa, San Gimignano, and Siena; Orvieto and Civita; Rome; Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi Coast, and Paestum; Venice and Verona; Bolzano and the Dolomites; Varenna, Lake Como, and Milan. 
Paris To The MoonAdam Gopnik Random House Softcover, 368pp $14.95 Add To Cart Many Americans are smitten by the allure of an expat's life in Paris, but few of us go so far as to indulge that fancy. In 1995, longtime writer for The New Yorker Adam Gopnik did just that, however, taking his wife and infant son along as he followed in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway, Berenice Abbott, and so many other restless Americans of the past century who have made their way to the City of Light. Gopnik recounts his experiences in this terrific book. 
A Thousand Days in VeniceMarlena de Blasi Algonquin Books Hardcover, 256pp $23.00 Add To Cart When Fernando spots Marlena in a Venice cafe, he believes he's found the one. Marlena is less sure. A divorced American chef and food writer traveling in Italy, she thought she was satisfied with her life. Yet within months of meeting Fernando, she has sold her house in St. Louis, quit her job, given away most of her possessions, kissed her two grown children good-bye, and moved to Venice to marry "the stranger," as she calls Fernando. Once there, she finds herself sitting in sugar-scented pasticcerie, strolling through sixteenth-century palazzi, renovating an apartment overlooking the Adriatic, and preparing her wedding in an ancient stone church." "But nothing perfect is ever easy. Fernando speaks no English. The only Italian Marlena speaks is the language of food. He's a buttoned-up pessimist. She's a serene optimist. She wears bright red lipstick and vintage Norma Kamali. He finds her lipstick too bright and the meals she makes too much for him. It's "festival cooking," he says. Fernando likes things simple, and there's nothing simple about Marlena. As this transplanted American learns about the peculiarities of Venetian culture, we are treated to an honest, often comic view of how two people, both set in their ways but also set on being together, build a life. In the end, Marlena shows Fernando how to let go and live well. And he shows her that tenderness really does exist. Filled with the foods and flavors of Italy, A Thousand Days in Venice is the true story of a woman falling in love with both a man and a city. 
The Art Of TravelAlain de Botton Pantheon Books Hardcover, 256pp $23.00 Add To Cart Aside from love, few activties seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so. In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton, author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, explores what the point of travel might be and modestly suggests how we can learn to be a little happier in our travels. 
Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent WomanAlice Steinbach Random House Softcover, 320pp $13.95 Add To Cart Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steinbach took an extended leave from her newspaper job to travel around Europe in search of spontaneity. She started off in Paris, where she got romantically involved with a Japanese man and shopped; moved on to London, where she shopped some more; took a course at Oxford University; and headed to Italy, where she wandered through Milan, Venice, Rome, and the Tuscan countryside--and shopped a bit more. Chapters begin with postcards sent to Alice from Alice, each with a bit of advice or a lesson learned. Steinbach, divorced and with grown children, appears to be much at ease traveling alone, making new friends along the way. Her mental journey through the past and present and the reassessment of her life, rather than descriptions of the places visited or the people met, are at the heart of the narrative. 
Pasquale's Nose: Idle Days in an Italian TownMichael Rips Back Bay Softcover, 209pp $12.95 Add To Cart Beloved of readers and critics everywhere for its quirkiness, its hilarity, its charm, Pasquale's Nose tells the story of a New York City lawyer who runs away to a small Etruscan village with his wife and new baby, and discovers a community of true eccentrics -- warring bean growers, vanishing philosophers, a blind boot maker, a porcupine hunter -- among whom he feels unexpectedly at home. 
The Knopf Guide To TuscanyKnopf Guides Staff Alfred A Knopf Softcover, 336pp $25.00 Add To Cart This stunning guide to the cultural heart of Italy will take you from Florence, with its many museums and its palaces and newly cleaned churches, to the surrounding hill towns, villas, and celebrated gardens; from the once Roman, walled city of Lucca to Pisa and its spectacular Piazza del Duomo; from Massa, Carrara, and the Apuan Alps to Arezzo and the rolling hills of Chianti, dotted with villas and vineyards; from Siena, the jewel of Tuscany, with its glorious Campo and Duomo, to such beautiful nearby towns as the 13th-century circular-walled Monteriggioni; to the unspoiled alternative Tuscany of Volterra and Livorno, the "Etruscan Riviera." This is a guidebook that takes you to the well-known and the less traveled parts of Tuscany alike. The Stone Boudoir: Travels Through the Hidden Villages of Sicily Theresa Maggio Perseus Publishing Hardcover, 246pp $25.00 Add To Cart 
A remarkable collection of intertwined stories about the unknown hill towns and villages of Sicily, from the acclaimed author of Mattanza.In this sparkling book, Theresa Maggio takes us on a journey in search of Sicily's most remote and least explored mountain towns. Using her grandparents' ancestral village of Santa Margherita Belice as her base camp, she pores over old maps to plot her adventure, selecting as her targets the smallest dots with the most appealing names. Her travels take her to the small towns surrounding Mount Etna, the volcanic islands of the Aeolian Sea, and the charming villages nestled in the Madonie Mountains. Whether she's writing about the unique pleasures of Sicilian street food, the damage wrought by molten lava, the ancient traditions of Sicilian bagpipers, or the religious processions that consume entire villages for days on end, Maggio succeeds in transporting readers to a wholly unfamiliar world, where almonds grow like weeds and the water tastes of stone. In the stark but evocative prose that is her hallmark, Maggio enters the hearts and heads of Sicilians, unlocking the secrets of a tantalizingly complex culture.Although she makes frequent forays to villages near and far, she always returns to Santa Margherita, where she researches her family tree in the municipio, goes on adventures with her cousin Nella, and traces the town's past in history and literature.
Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World Rita Golden Gelman Lonely Planet Publications Softcover, 320pp $14.00 Add To Cart 
In a small cemetery deep in the jungle of Borneo, two men climb into a freshly dug hole and retrieve the bones of a long-dead grandmother. An American guest joins the procession from the cemetery to the elaborately decorated village square for a traditional ceremony that will properly send Grandma off on her journey to the next world. In years past, a man from a neighboring tribe was sacrificed whenever this ceremony was performed. Today, in a new era, the neighboring tribe has been invited to participate in the festivities, and the only victim is a cow. A few years earlier the American guest, Rita Golden Gelman, a children's book author and the mother of two grown children, was living in a comfortable suburban home, dining in elegant restaurants, and attending glamorous parties. Rita only dreamed of traveling to exotic places and experiencing other cultures. When her marriage failed, she decided to live her dream. She sold all her possessions and, at the age of forty-eight, took off to see the world. Fifteen years later, she's still without a permanent home.
Lonely Planet Austria Mark Honan Lonely Planet Publications Softcover, 408pp $17.99 Add To Cart 
Whether you're exploring the magnificent Hohe Tauern National Park, paragliding from a Tirolean mountain, admiring the angelic voices of the Vienna Boys' Choir or wine tasting in Styrian vineyards, this essential guide has all the insight and practical information you need.
50 detailed maps, including full-colour country map, hundreds of accommodation options, from camp sites and mountain chalets to magnificent period hotels, valuable 12 page guide to Austria's best walking and skiing destinations, the lowdown on Vienna's famous restaurants, coffee houses and wine taverns, comprehensive illustrated architecture section, helpful language chapter and glossary.
Florence: A Delicate Case David Leavitt Bloomsbury Publishing Hardcover, 256pp $16.95 Add To Cart 
David Leavitt brings the wonders and mysteries of Florence alive, illuminating why it is, and always has been, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The third in the critically-acclaimed Writer and the City Series-in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the cities they know best-Florence is a lively account of expatriate life in the 'city of the lily'.
Why has Florence always drawn so many English and American visitors? (At the turn of the century, the Anglo-American population numbered more than thirty thousand.) Why have men and women fleeing sex scandals traditionally settled here? What is it about Florence that has made it so fascinating-and so repellent-to artists and writers over the years? Moving fleetly between present and past and exploring characters both real and fictional, Leavitt's narrative limns the history of the foreign colony from its origins in the middle of the nineteenth century until its demise under Mussolini, and considers the appeal of Florence to figures as diverse as Tchaikovsky, E.M. Forster, Ronald Firbank, and Mary McCarthy. Lesser-known episodes in Florentine history-the moving of Michelangelo's David, and the construction of temporary bridges by black American soldiers in the wake of the Second World War-are contrasted with images of Florence today (its vast pizza parlors and tourist culture). Leavitt also examines the city's portrayal in such novels and films as A Room with a View, The Portrait of a Lady and Tea with Mussolini.
The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris Edmund White Bloomsbury Publishing Hardcover, 160pp $16.95 Add To Cart 
A flâneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through a city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the place and in covert search of adventure, aesthetic or erotic. Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the streets and avenues and along the quays, into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many Parisians. Entering the Marais evokes the history of Jews in France, a visit to the Haynes Grill recalls the presence—festive, troubled—of black Americans in Paris for a century and a half. Gays, Decadents, even Royalists past and present are all subjected to the flaneur's scrutiny.
The Flâneur visits bookshops and boutiques, monuments and palaces, providing gossip and background to each site, looking through the blank walls past the proud edifices to glimpse the inner, human drama. Along the way he recounts everything from the latest debates among French law-makers to the juicy details of Colette's life in the Palais Royal, even summoning up the hothouse atmosphere of Gustave Moreau's atelier.
Route 66 A.D. Tony Perrottet Random House Hardcover, 320pp $29.95 Add To Cart 
The ancient Romans were responsible for many remarkable achievements -- Roman numerals, straight roads -- but one of their lesser-known contributions was the creation of the tourist industry. The first society in history to enjoy safe and easy travel, Romans embarked in droves on the original Grand Tour, traveling from the lost city of Troy to the top of the Acropolis in Athens, from the fallen Colossus at Rhodes to the Pyramids of Egypt, ending with the obligatory Nile cruise to the very edge of the Empire. And as travel writer Tony Perrottet discovers, the popularity of this route has only increased with time.
Perrottet first discovered the origins of this ancient itinerary when he came across the world's oldest surviving guidebook in the New York Public Library. Intrigued by the possibility of recreating the tour, and wanting to seize the opportunity for one last excursion with Les, his pregnant girlfriend, before their lives changed forever, Perrottet set off to rediscover life as an ancient Roman. He was armed for travel with only the essentials -- a backpack full of ancient texts and a second -- century highway map reproduced on a twenty-foot-long scroll. As he retraced the historic route, fighting the crowds and reading aloud to Les two-thousand-year-old descriptions of bad food, inadequate accommodations, and pushy tour guides, it became clear to him that tourism has actually changed very little since Caesar's day.
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