This is a book I’ve seen in a few different higher-end design stores. It seems like the kind of thing that Anthropologie would stock (shoot, maybe they do); I happened to get it at one of those houseware shops that stocks things according to color. We are lucky enough to be heading to Paris at the end of the month, so I felt justified in buying this book. Written by a journalist and photographer, this book feels more coffee table book than guide book. The […]
London, you’re a Lady
Let’s get this out of the way: I really, really love London. I duly loathe the London Eye, I have my favourite Camden Lock stands and I feel a shiver of excitement whenever I smell the tube’s musk. Other tourists ask me for directions. As soon as I win the lottery – which is only a matter of time, really – I’m moving there. Until then I’m content to take my students there every year (twice, sometimes) and when I show them around, I love […]
Where Men Are Men and Sheep Are Nervous
Fun fact: from where I live, it’s possible to drive just under a thousand kilometres and pass through eight different countries. Fun fact: this is roughly the same distance as between Sydney and Brisbane. And in Australia, those two are practically neighbours. Australia is mind-bogglingly big, is the point I’m trying to make. So is Bill Bryson in In a Sunburned Country, his report of a roundtrip through Australia in the late nineties. In fact, it is something of a recurring theme within the book: […]
Fear and Paranoia in Burma
This book was a random acquisition and comes with a bit of backstory. I was reporting in Mandalay, central Burma, on a number of stories, and one of them required me to interview a comedy troupe that is known for staging vaudevillian shows that harpoons the country’s authoritarian regime. Now that Burma is considered a democracy, this comedy troupe is still putting up nightly shows for tourists, making fun of the fact that the current government is really a puppet for the military. One of […]
Fine If You’re Not Holding Out For Accuracy
I’m going on a cruise to Alaska this summer to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday, and I’m pretty excited. I’ve never been north of Vancouver on the West Coast, so I thought I’d pick up a book to learn what I should check out when I’m in the various ports. I’ve been on a cruise before, so I generally know what to expect on that front – I just wanted some information on locations and maybe a little history. This book is fine. I don’t […]
Mostly Good Guide to New Orleans
First off, I fully recognize that this review would probably be best saved for AFTER I visit the city for which I purchased it. However, that trip is over five months away, so I don’t know if I’d really remember much at that point. If anything in the book has led me wildly astray, however, I’ll come back and update my review. In my experience of the travel book world, there are a few big players, which I usually envision this way: Rick Steves (a.k.a. […]