Going Local: Experiences and Encounters on the Road Reviewed by Steffy McCourt In the age of social media, authentic cultural travel experiences have become simultaneously coveted and carefully staged. The world is a backdrop, and travel increasingly feels performative. One photograph. One reel. One impossible moment at a time. In the palm of my hand,…
By Teresa Bitler The cover of 100 Years of Dude Ranching—a coffee table-style book celebrating the centennial of the Dude Ranchers’ Association—captures the allure of a dude ranch vacation. In the photograph taken by Western photographer Scott Baxter, a cowboy rides across Wyoming grasslands against a backdrop of mountainous rock formations glowing pink in the…
By Nancy Wigston Why do we collect? Shopping has long ranked high among travelers’ favorite activities. For the affluent, collecting carpets in Turkey, art in Paris or Puerto Vallarta and gems in Thailand can evolve into decades-long passions. We like to think that our own collections reflect our best, most tasteful selves, so we buy…
Reviewed by Nancy Wigston Once upon a time, Brian Kelly’s father handed his tech-obsessed son control over the many points he’d accumulated while traveling to California working for a healthcare startup. He thought his family of six might use the rewarded air miles and hotel loyalty to vacation in Florida. Then drive home to Philadelphia.…
Gobsmacked! The British Invasion of American English When we hear “British Invasion” many of us remember the rock groups who appeared out of the UK in the late 60s and 70s to dominate American Top Forty stations—the Beatles, the Stones, the Animals. But not Ben Yagoda. This professor emeritus of English and Journalism from the…
Hippies were everywhere. Small groups of them were coming up the A303 from the west, others from the east. I saw hippies cresting a rise to the north. In the distance, hippies were climbing over the stones of the monument. They were setting up tents and tepees and makeshift shelters. Scattered about the field one could find hogans, hovels, wickiups, and homemade sunshades. Pennants, flags, and brightly colored strips of cloth flapped and snapped from tree-branch poles next to the rude lodgings. The growing colony on the grassland looked like a cross between a medieval fair and an Arapaho village.
Reviewed by Nancy Wigston Pack your bags, saddle your horses, load your stores of wine for we’re off to the Middle Ages with the most excellent guide, Anthony Bale, a professor of medieval studies at the University of London’s Birkbeck College.
Reviewed by Nancy Wigston Before Charles Dickens’s bones were laid to rest after his death from a stroke in 1870 literary tourists already were arriving in London, eager to experience for themselves the world that the 58-year-old writer brought so vividly to life in fifteen novels and countless short stories and essays. Variously described as…
Reviewed by Casey Fahrer What is adventure? Most American boys discover adventure in books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain’s 1885 story of a young Southern boy floating on a raft down the Mississippi with an escaped slave. Or Daniel Defoe’s, Robinson Crusoe, which features a man who leaves the comfort of England for…
Islamic Architecture: A World History, Eric Broug Publisher Thames & Hudson | Reviewed by Charles Cecil It will be a long time before another publication equals the beauty and quality of this one. Eric Broug is previously known for his publications teaching the art of Islamic geometric design. With an MA in the history…