Novel about the Taj Mahal

Every once in a while I come across an author who captivates my imagination, and I go on a splurge reading everything they've ever written.

This year, my author splurge was John Shors.

In June, I read his novel, Beside a Burning Sea, and interviewed him on my haiku web site.

In August I read his newly released novel, Dragon House, which takes place in Saigon.

Now, I've just finished reading his first novel, Beneath a Marble Sky. It was sooooooo good!

It is a historical novel, a love story, and an adventure tale all rolled up in one. It is the story of the building of the Taj Mahal.

I don't think I can stress how much I loved this book! I've never been to India, and before picking up this book, only knew the barest of bones about the Taj Mahal. And yes, I know that the book is a work of fiction, and that some of the details might not be correct, but I DON'T CARE. It was that good!

It has only fueled my desire to visit the Taj Mahal. Someday....

In the meantime, I'll have to get an India fix by reading my fellow GoNomad blogger, Mridula Dwivedi. She lives in India and posts about her travels in her home land (and sometimes beyond).

Carpe Diem -- YA Travel Novel

A friend told me about a book called Carpe Diem. It's a young adult novel, she said, about traveling in Asia.

Since she's a reader whose opinion I respect, I decided to take her advice and seek out this book written by Autumn Cornwell.

In it, a sixteen year-old girl named Vassar gets kidnapped to Southeast Asia. Well, she's not really kidnapped. But to her, it feels like it.

Her artist grandmother insists that Vassar get out of the country and away from her high-expectation parents for a summer. The grandma fears Vassar is in danger of becoming an over-focused planner with no ability to adapt to life's changes.

And of course, if you've been there, then you know that there is no better way to break someone of their love of planning than to take them on a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia.

I actually really liked the book. It didn't matter to me at all that the main character was a 16 year old kid. I identified with her journey, the places she was seeing and the feelings she was experiencing.

If you know a middle school/high school girl looking for a book, I say hand her a copy of Carpe Diem. And even if you're an adult -- so what? It's still worth a read!

Lost City of Z by David Grann

I just finished a fantastic book. It was called The Lost City of Z and it was written by David Grann.

The book is a biography, a history lesson, an adventure tale and a travelogue all rolled into one. Seeing as how I love all of these things, I was completely captivated by this book.

Plus, it was so well-written that it was just a joy to read. I lost myself for hours and can't thank the author enough for pursuing the trail of this story.

The book is about a man named Colonel Percy Fawcett, a British man who lived from 1867 to 1925 (presumably that is, no one knows for sure when he died).

Fawcett is an explorer obsessed with the idea that the Amazon rainforest is hiding a secret from the rest of the world: the remains of a long-lost civilization and its once glorious city now buried beneath tangles vines and jungle ruins.

Fawcett makes many trips into the Amazon seeking these ruins and eventually his obsession is the end of him.

If you'd like to read an excerpt from the book, a short section was published on GoNomad a while back.

The Lost City of Z reminded me of another great read that came out not so long ago -- The River of Doubt by Candice Millard.

In fact, one of the characters from River of Doubt makes a few appearances in The Lost City of Z.

Both are great books and I recommend them!

True Notebooks by Mark Salzman

This book has been sitting on my book shelf for a couple years.

My aunt gave it to me. She found it in a hotel book exchange while on vacation somewhere in the Caribbean (I totally dig hotel book exchanges, but that's a topic for another time).

Anyway, she picked it up and sent it to me because of the topic. It's a memoir written by a man, Mark Salzman, who is a writer. He volunteers to teach creative writing classes at a juvenile prison and this book chronicles his experiences. Seeing as how I used to be a public school teacher and now work as a writer, my aunt thought I would enjoy this book.

The fact that it's languished on my bookshelf for so long is more a reflection of my long reading list and not of the author. I was actually excited about the book when I got it. I recognized the author's name as I had read two of his other books: Iron & Silk and Lying Awake.

Iron and Silk is a travel memoir about the two years he spent teaching English in China. I've always remembered that title fondly.

Lying Awake is a novel about a nun who has divine visions and thus believes herself close to God. But then she learns that she is ill. Her illness has been causing her visions and now she wonders just exactly how close to God she is.

Now, this book that I just finished, True Notebooks, was a really good read -- and on so many levels.

First, as a citizen, I was totally hooked reading about the criminal justice system and how minors are treated.

Second, the teacher in me was totally hooked. I couldn't imagine myself teaching these kids to write. I would have pulled out my hair!

Third, the writer in me was totally hooked. Within the last month, I wrote a story about a group of women in a corrections facility who were writing poetry. I interviewed their teacher. Reading this book was like going deeper into that article I wrote.

Forth, throughout the course of True Notebooks, while the boys in the juvenile prison are struggling to write, the author is also struggling to write. He's having problems finishing his novel, Lying Awake. As I'd read that book, I found it fascinating to read about its creation.

All around, True Notebooks was a really great read. I highly recommend it.

French Milk, A Graphic Travel Memoir

Graphic novels are hot right now. The trend is something I've never much understood. I was never a comic book reader and my attention even wanes over daily cartoons. I prefer a good old-fashioned read with pages full of words.

However, the other day I decided to give a graphic novel a try.

The book I picked up was called French Milk and was written and illustrated by Lucy Knisley.

I initially picked up the book because it looks like a regular book. It is the shape and size of a normal paperback. I was surprised to flip through the pages and see that it was a graphic novel.

Well...graphic "novel" isn't really the right genre title. The book isn't fiction. It's memoir. Travel memoir, to be exact.

The book is an illustrated travel journal of a five-week trip to Paris that the author took with her mom.

It didn't take me very long to read, and it didn't convince me to abandon the traditional, text-laden travel memoir.

But I did find it interesting, if more from a composition standpoint than from a reader's standpoint. I liked seeing how she really pared down her text and used pictures to get across details that a traditional writer would have described with words.

Nonetheless, I think the next travel memoir I pick up will probably be full of words, words, words.

Earthshake, Geology Poems for Kids

Sometimes I wonder which came first -- my love of travel or my love of geography?

It's a chicken-and-egg puzzle for me. As far as I'm concerned, the two are intricately linked.

I can spend hours planning a trip and pouring over maps.

At some point, my love of maps and geography spilled over into an interest in geology.

After all, a trip to Patagonia spent marveling at glaciers and steep mountain peeks will eventually cause one to ask how those glaciers and mountains were formed.

Recently, I came across a poetry book for kids called Earthshake: Poems from the Ground Up.

It was written by Lisa Westberg Peters.

Each poem in this illustrated picture book is about geology.

There is a poem about drifting continents, another about the layers of the Earth, another about the softness of sandstone, and more.

I found them to be quite clever. If you've got a budding map lover or scientist on your hands, this might be a good title to pick up.

City I Love: Travel Poems for Kids

I love big cities. I love the rush, the crowds, the lights, the noise, the pulsing life.

My love of cities is what caused me to pick up this book: City I Love.

It's an illustrated children's book written by Lee Bennett Hopkins.

Every poem in it celebrates the energy and excitement of cities.

Most of the poems are about cities in general, only a few seem to speak about one city in particular.

The illustrations, however, do depict recognizable city-scapes.

I particularly liked the poem "Subways Are People" and its accompanying illustration, which shows people riding the subway in Mexico City.

Travel Guides for Kids by M. Sasek

It's that time of year. School is letting out and parents are starting to wonder how to channel their kids' energy into something productive.

With that in mind, I thought I'd share some picture book titles this week that involve travel in some way. I strongly believe that travel is a great teacher. Even if you can't actually get out there and put your feet in another country, you can still travel through books.

First off, I'd recommend a series of books by author/illustrator M. Sasek. His books have been around for years so you should easily be able to find them in a library.

They are easy to recognize as they are all titled the same: This is Paris, This is London, This is Madrid, This is Rome, This is New York, etc.

Each one highlights common sights and daily activities you might see if you were to take a walking tour of that city. The text is sparse, allowing the illustrations to shine through.

Kids won't gain any sort of deep historical understanding about the world's greatest cities by reading M. Sasek's books.

Instead, by reading the illustrations, they will start to recognized some iconic structures like Big Ben and the Colosseum.

And they will also start to see that no matter where you go, people like to go to parks, play on swing sets, feed the squirrels and watch street artists.

Travelers' Tales Best Of 2009

I relish airplane rides. It's completely acceptable to unplug, ignore the people around you and loose yourself in a book, and that's exactly what I did on my recent trip to Las Vegas.

I read The Best Travel Writing 2009 by Travelers' Tales.

It's an anthology of collected travel essays. This edition has 29 different essays by different writers, including Rolf Potts, Stephanie Elizondo Griest and Pico Iyer.

The stories take places all around the globe, and I was surprised to discover an essay in the book that takes place in Minnesota.

That story was called "A Vast Difference." It was written by Deborah Fryer. By the end of it, she's made my eyes go all watery.

If you like reading travel essays, this is a great collection to pick up.

And if you like writing travel essays, check out Travelers' Tales submission guidelines.

Great Travel Memoir - Haiku Apprentice

I have died and and gone to heaven.

Actually, that was last week. Now, I'm alive again and back on planet Earth.

The reason behind my transformative state was a book called The Haiku Apprentice.

During the time that I was reading it, I was "in heaven." Now, though, I've turned the last page and am wondering how the next book I pick up has any hope in topping it.

The book combined two of my obsessions: Travel and Haiku.

It was written by an American woman who is living in Japan and working as a diplomat. At a work function, an older Japanese gentleman invites her to join his haiku group. She doesn't consider herself a poet in the least, but decides to attend on a lark.

But she gets hooked and the rest of the book is her investigation into what makes haiku "Japanese."

She launches into a cultural study of the art of haiku and in the process reveals so many fascinating tidbits about the mindset and history of the Japanese.

I've never been to Japan, and truth be told, hadn't really had much interest. But now, I'm chomping at the bit to go.

Until reading this book, it had never occurred to me that I could plan a "haiku themed trip" to Japan. Now though, the idea is budding.

Bowling Across America

If I could do one thing in all 50 states, I think it would be to get a massage.

Or eat chocolate.

Or eat chocolate while getting a massage.

Mike Walsh, on the other hand, wanted to bowl in all 50 states. And he did it, too. He accomplished his goal.

His bowling adventures are detailed in his recently-published book called -- what else? -- Bowling Across America: 50 States in Rented Shoes.

I read it and it got me thinking about the difference between aimless travel and a travel quest.

I've done both, and each has its rewards.

While I tend to be a proponent of the "aimless" brand of travel, I cannot in good faith say that most of my trips are itinerary-free.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for having a travel plan, for setting yourself on a course and sticking to it. There is a certain amount of satisfaction felt when you reach your final destination.

But I wondered what Mike Walsh thought. His bowling quest lasted 6 months and put 25,000 miles on his car. That's a long way to go to fulfill a dream.

I sent him an email to see if he thought the bowling quest had been worth it. Check back tomorrow to see what he had to say.

Vivian Swift, author Q & A

I was so taken with my recent read, When Wanderers Cease to Roam, that not only did I post a review of it the other day, I also sent an email to the author, Vivian Swift, asking her some questions.

She wrote back, and this is what she had to say:

A lot of people seem to think that traveling and staying home are the opposite of each other. What do you think?

Traveling and staying home are actually the same activity, they are just two different points on the Being Alive Continuum.

Anyone can use time-tested travel tips in their own backyard. For instance, think of all the places in the world that are famous for their sun sets: The Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Bali, Key West...

The sun that glows with such romance in those exotic locales is the same sun that sets in your own home town.

So go find it: go find the best place in your neighborhood to see a good sun set. Your search, I bet, will take you down streets and into corners of your town that you never would otherwise have explored.

And when you find your very own sun set place, and you take in the way your familiar ground is transformed by this wonderful time of day, part of you will be watching and experiencing the sun set in the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, or Bali.

In Mark Twain's day, Sweden had the reputation for having the best sun sets in the world. And Mark Twain, himself quite a world traveler, said that Swedish sun sets, like happiness, are every where; but most people are looking the other way.

Don't miss out on the Swedish sun set in your own little world.

Have you gone out and found your very own sun set spot close to home?

I've discovered that the best place to see a sun set is in the parking lot of my local grocery store.

As I'm standing there in the glorious sun-downer display, part of me is breathing the salty air of my own special foreign sun set place . . . on the sea wall in the town of Saint Malo in Brittany, France, for example.

This is the closest I have come to having a transcendental experience.

Travelers have itchy feet. Have you really "ceased to roam" ?

Oh certainly. These days, I never leave home for more than three weeks at a time, maybe once or twice a year. I'm much more interested in processing the data I've collected from having lived on Earth for 53 years.


The traveling I do now if to pursue lines of inquiry I have about "unfinished business": personal and family history and mythology.

In the past five years I've been to Scotland and New Orleans repeatedly. I am always inspired and exhilarated, but I'm always glad to get home.

Is there another book in you?

I'm working on another one. I call it "Travel Tips for Staying Put." It's an illustrated guide for adventuresome homebodies.

Consider this: Emily Dickinson never left her house. Traveling your soul. Now that's the value of staying home.


Images (c) Vivian Swift from the book When Wanderers Cease to Roam.

Questions Answered: Caution Funny Signs Ahead

Yesterday, I mentioned a newly-released book that made me laugh called Caution: Funny Signs Ahead.

I enjoyed it so much that I tracked down Megan Edwards, editor of RoadTrip America and one of the book's co-authors, to ask her some questions about it.

Do you remember your first funny sign?

Several signs I photographed very early on in our travels are in the book. One is “Banana Slug Crossing,” which I found in Redwood National Park, California.

Another is “We Make Home Ownership a Reality” next to a trailer mounted on top of a tall pole in Pennsylvania.

Although I can’t remember which is the official first one, somewhere in there I got hooked on nabbing more. And more, and more, and OMG… yeah, I’m forced to admit. It’s an addiction.

Do you have a favorite funny sign?

It reveals my roots in middle school humor, but one of my faves will always be Erik Hollander’s shot of the “Fresh Fudge” banner strung up a little too near the restrooms.

Is there a particular part of the country that seems to have more funny signs than the rest?

There are funny signs lurking everywhere, but Kentucky has more than its share of too-funny-to-be-true place names. That’s where you’ll find Big Bone Lick and Rabbit Hash, just to give a couple examples.

Does it take a certain sense of humor or a certain point of view to notice funny signs?

Nothing more than a middle school sense of humor is required, but it helps to have a hunter’s mindset.

Also, it’s easy to become blind to the hilarious signs in your own town. It’s often easier to find good quarry in places you aren’t familiar with.

Has anyone ever gotten mad at you for taking a picture of their sign?

So far, no one has complained, but I do try to be careful. I’m very aware that Dr. Anil Ram might not think his name is funny, and that the owners of the Poo Ping Palace may not want their possibly excellent restaurant immortalized in a gallery of funny signs.

Even though the signs are out there in public, and I’m not really invading anyone’s privacy, I’m thinking about getting a more powerful zoom lens.

How has your obsession with funny signs changed you as a traveler?

Probably the most apparent effect is that I’ve pulled some pretty silly--not to mention oh-so-slightly illegal--maneuvers to get photos of funny signs.

I’ve also driven hundreds of miles out of my way just because I noticed an enticing name on a map. How could I resist going out of my way to visit Earth, for example, or Mars, or Noodle?

I guess it’s fair to say that it’s added a hunting element to my road trips that wouldn’t be there otherwise. It makes me take the back roads, too, where I’m more likely to find businesses that advertise “Custom Killing” or “Eat Here, Get Gas.”

Read yesterday's post about the book.

Caution Funny Signs Ahead

Megan Edwards and Mark Sedenquist have long enjoyed travel. However, they have a particular enthusiasm for road tripping North America.

It is a passion that helped them out of a tight spot: When the couple’s home burned in a 1993 California wild fire, they piled into a RV and started off across America.

Yet once they hit the road, they started noticing funny signs. Some were sandwich boards on downtown sidewalks with strange wording. Others pointed the way to less-than-appealing local attractions.

Edwards and Sedenquist were so delighted by these signs that they soon began capturing them on film.

In 1996, they posted their collection online at their web site, RoadTrip America, and invited the world to begin submitting pictures of their own funny signs.

Just last month, in November 2008, they released a book called Caution: Funny Signs Ahead.

It features the best of this growing collection with photos from 92 different photographers.

I sat down with the book and an afternoon cup of coffee and it wasn’t long before I was giggling.

And it also wasn’t long before I sought out Megan and Mark to ask them a few questions about their funny sign obsession and their new book.

Tomorrow I'll post our Q & A conversation.

Rolf Potts Talks

Today, GoNomad posted my Q & A with travel writer Rolf Potts.

Potts swept through the Twin Cities a couple weekends ago in support of his new book, Marco Polo Didn't Go There.

I'm having a grand time reading the essays in the book. It's some mighty fine writing.

Of course, I know you're all just dying to go read the article, Rolf Potts Talks.

Rolf Potts in Minneapolis

Rolf Potts, travel writer extraordinaire, made a pit stop in the Twin Cities over the weekend.

He was in town to promote his new book, Marco Polo Didn't Go There.

I've been a fan of Rolf's work for many years so when I saw that he would be speaking at the Twin Cities Book Festival, I sent him an email and arranged for an interview.

Turns out, he's as easy to talk to as he is to read. And I'm totally digging his new title, which is a collection of many of his well-known travel essays.

I've seen most of them before, but now he's offered a twist. At the end of each, he offers two to three pages of "end notes" where he goes back through the essay and tells you what he had to leave out in order to make the story work.

As a writer, I'm finding these end notes to be just as, if not more, interesting than the actual essay.

Now I just need to sit down and encapsulate our conversation in an article. Of course, I'll post a link to it here when it's done.

Speaking Frozen Daiquiri

My recent Louisiana daiquiri drive-thru experience has daiquiris on my mind.

They (daiquiris) make a strange subject -- perhaps -- for a blog entry, but it just so happens that I came home from my road trip through The South and got the bug to clean my office.

This bug doesn't come along very often, so when it makes an appearance, I've learned to heed it.

On this cleaning spree I decided to go through my book shelves. They are full and this is a problem as all the books I'm continuing to acquire are stacked in piles on the floor.

One of the books I pulled from my shelves during my cleaning is Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway.

I bought and read the book after traveling to Havana, for it is partially set in the city.

I also bought the book because I'd been told the main character spends a lot of time drinking daiquiris at El Floridita, the Havana bar where daiquiris are said to have originated and where Ernest Hemingway is said to have spent a lot of time.

Like many tourists in Havana, I spent an evening while I was there drinking daiquiris at El Floridita in homage to Hemingway.

It's been a few years now since I read the book. I remember a main character that struggled with being a good artist and a good dad. And - as I'd been told - I remember a main character that passed ample time drinking daiquiris.

Turns out, I underlined Hemingway's every mentioned of daiquiris while I was reading the book.

For example, I underlined this:

He was drinking another frozen daiquiri with no sugar in it and as he lifted it, heavy and the glass frost-rimmed, he looked at the clear part below the frapped top and it reminded him of the sea. The frapped part of the drink was like the wake of a ship and the clear part was the way the water looked when the bow cut it when you were in shallow water over marl bottom. That was almost the exact color.

And, among many other words, this:

All I know how to speak now is frozen daiquiri. Tu hablas frozen daiquiri tu?


Photos:

Big Easy Daiquiris in New Orleans.
Drinking an original daiquiri at El Floridita in Havana.

The Geography of Bliss

I just finished reading a book called The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.

The author, Eric Weiner, gets this idea to travel to counties where the people are notoriously happy (or in one case notoriously sad). His goal is to determine whether or not the people living in these "happy countries" know something about the pursuit of happiness that the rest of us do not.

His quest takes him to Iceland, Switzerland, Thailand, Bhutan and more. In each place, the author (being a long-time NPR correspondent) gets hooked up with some sort of social expert. Perhaps he talks with a doctor, a professor, or a government official. And always, he wants to know: Why are the people here happy?

He also does a lot of just hanging out and talking to local people, getting their views on happiness as well.

While all this might sound stuffy and somewhat clinical, it's actually a very funny read. Weiner is witty, sarcastic and really quite self deprecating.

Does he ever unlock the happiness secret? Well, you'll just have to read the book and find out.

But the book did get me thinking about my very own geography of bliss. Where I have traveled, and once there, found myself crazy happy?

Here is my list, in no particular order:

1. Inle Lake, Myanmar (Burma)

2. Mui Ne, Vietnam

3. La Paloma, Uruguay

4. Machu Picchu, Peru

5. Buenos Aires, Argentina

6. Ang Thong National Park, Thailand

7. Valle de Bravo, Mexico

8. Pisco Elqui, Chile

9. Iguazu Falls, Argentina-Brazil

10. Rome, Italy

New Articles Up

GoNomad posted a new story by yours truly yesterday.

It is called Pack Your Lipstick and is about four travel guidebooks published in the last year that all offer travel advice strictly for women.

I interviewed the author of each guide in order to write the story. It was inspiring and energizing to have four enlightening conversations about women and travel with women who think about travel as much as I do.

Also out this week is a story I wrote about four teens at a local high school who won the championship title at the state cooking competition. They go to San Diego this week to complete against 30 other teams in the national cooking competition.

Imagine that -- a high school cooking team! There was no such thing when I was in school. And even better - I was so impressed that out of this culinary team of four, only one was a girl.

Let's hear it for men in the kitchen!

Chef photo by Mark Trockman.

Torch Bearers and Tibet

The recent scuffles over the Olympic Torch in San Fran, Paris and London have caught my attention.

Indeed, even earlier protests over the progress of the torch on its way from Athens to Beijing have made me take notice.

That's because I recently finished a book about Tibet and the abuses of human rights its people have been suffering. The book was called A Beginner's Guide to Changing the World.

It was written by British authorIsabel Losada, who apparently, after a quick check of her web site, was arrested in London over the weekend for aiming a water gun at the torch.

But I didn't pick up her book because I wanted to read about Tibet. I picked it up because I wanted to read a woman-penned travel memoir. I thought A Beginner's Guide to Changing the World was going to be about one woman's travels in India, Nepal and Tibet. And it was. But it was also so much, much more.

Turned out, Losada traveled to Tibet and was so affected by what she encountered there, that she returned home to London and founded a nonprofit organization called Act for Tibet, which works to educate the public about the Tibetan cause and "act for Tibet."

In the course of the book, the author spent more time in London investigating the various Tibet-minded organizations operating there and learning to navigate the world of protests and nonprofits than she did traveling to Tibet or nearby India and Nepal.

Yet as a traveler, I was really struck by the book. I couldn't help but admire Losada. She traveled far from home, let those travels get under her skin, and then returned home determined to make a contribution. She didn't just travel and forget. She traveled and transformed.

As the protests over the upcoming Olympics look to continue as torch makes its way about the world, I highly recommend A Beginner's Guide to Changing the World.

It's inspiring, funny and educational.

Author photo from IsabelLosada.com.

An American in Iceland

This week, I got to hear Minnesota author and travel writer Bill Holm speak.

He's a fascinating character and a man of many talents. Not only did he read from his latest travel memoir, The Windows of Brimnes: An American in Iceland, but he also played the piano -- well.

Holm's ancestral roots are in Iceland and some years ago he put down actual roots there. He purchased a bitty little house that he described as "...a series of magical windows with a few simple boards to hold them up..."

Those magical windows of his offer up views of the west. If he could just see far enough, he could see all the way to America.

And it is from this great distance that he is better able to see America for what it is. Only by stepping outside it and staying away from it, he argues, has he been able to understand his country.

Here is a bit of what he writes in The Windows of Brimnes:

After a while, the United States is simply too much: too much religion and not enough gods, too much news and not enough wisdom, too many weapons of mass destruction - or, for that matter, private destruction (why search so far away when they live right under our noses?), too much entertainment and not enough beauty, too much electricity and not enough light, too much lumber and not enough forests, too much real estate and not enough earth, too many books and not enough readers, too many runners and not enough strollers, too many freeways, too many cars, too many malls, too many prisons, too much security but not enough civility, too many humans but not enough eagles. And the worst excess of all: too many wars, too much misery and brutality - reflected as much in our own eyes as in those of our enemies.

I enjoyed listening to Holm's voice (and his keyboard stylings) and went online to check out his web site.

Turns out, he's leading a writers' workshop in Iceland this May.

If Iceland and writing call to you, and you've got some free time in May, perhaps you should check it out.

Photos from Bill Holm's web site.

What's a Dik-Dik?

When I picked up this book, my husband teased me. "It's very important to stalk the dik-dik," he said with a smirk.

I smiled, made some suggestive comment then turned and took the few steps to my reading chair. I snuggled in, ready to follow author Marie Javins as she traveled from South Africa to Egypt, alone.

I found it an interesting read as the book is based on the author's travel blog, Marie's World Tour. Since I also traveled, blogged and harbor hopes of turning my online travel journal into a print book, I was curious how she handled the material.

It was a quick read, perfect for distracting me from the cold winter weather that's starting to brew outside. And hey, now I know what a dik-dik is.

Need Magazine: Ideas for Giving

It's snowing here in the Twin Cities and this morning I wrapped myself up in a thick blanket with a pot of coffee and the newest issue of Need Magazine, which is published right here in Minneapolis.

If you've never heard of Need Magazine, that's because it's quite new. It's only been around for a year. Its tagline sums up its mission quite well: "We're not out to save the world, but to tell the stories of those who are."

As a traveler, I'm drawn to the magazine because many of its articles are about far away places.

As a reader, I've found I appreciate the layout -- lots of white space, nice color photographs and good writing.

In this issue there is an article about several nonprofit organizations that do good in various parts of the world. I learned about Nothing but Nets, a group that buys and distributes mosquito nets in Africa to help prevent the spread of malaria. Just $10 buys and ships one net.

There is also a nice profile about a man named Jorge Chojolan, an indigenous Mayan man who overcame poverty and started The Miguel Angel Asturias Academy, a school for 200 children in Xela, Guatemala's second largest city.

And if you're still on the hunt for a unique holiday gift for a traveler you know, I think a subscription to Need would be a great idea.

Broken Hearts and Buenos Aires

I just finished reading a book called The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club. The author's name is Jessica Morrison and her main character, Cassie, flees to the city of good airs after being fired, dumped and evicted from her Seattle life all in one day.

While the book is billed as fiction, the author says up front in her author's note that she went to Buenos Aires after a divorce and on more or less a broken heart. After reading it, it was very clear to me that the author had indeed spent time in the city.

I picked up the book because I, too, went to live in Buenos Aires when I had a broken heart. It was 1997 when I went and the city soothed me. Well, there's nothing really "soothing" about Buenos Aires. It's a massive, crowded, noisy, bright and caffeinated city. Perhaps it would be better if I said that Buenos Aires distracted me. It distracted me from my broken heart long enough for it to heal.

In the book, the main character gets to Buenos Aires and discovers an entire subculture of ex-pats nursing wounded hearts. Oddly enough, when I was there, I also forged my own little broken heart club.

My co-broken hearter was Ali. We taught English at the same language school in the city and became fast friends. She is my Buenos Aires soul mate and, after all these years, continues to be a dear friend. Here we are on our last night in the city together. We both went home the next day.

I remember posing for this picture. We planned the shot. It's taken in the middle of Avenida Corrientes. We wanted the lights, the obelisk and the subte (subway) in the background. And because Corrientes is one of the city's main arteries, the picture was taken quick-quick while traffic was lingering at a red light.

The book, while not a stellar piece of literature, kept my interest. I kept trying to figure out if I liked the book because it was well-written chic lit or if I liked it because it was set in Buenos Aires and somewhat mirrored my own experience in the city. I've decided I'm too biased to make that call.

But the book also got me wondering - about Buenos Aires, about broken-hearted travelers, about where they end up - and I wondered: Is it simply coincidence that this book reflects my own past or is Buenos Aires really some sort of haven for the lovelorn?

Were you ever broken hearted? Did you travel to escape the break up? Did it take you to Buenos Aires? Did the city heal you, too? Or did you end up some place else?

I want to know. Post me a comment.