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Today, in honor the holiday and the long weekend, I’ve decided to forgo Friday links and instead focus on one of my favorite American authors: Mark Twain.

For a lot of people, “summer reading” means one of two things. Either they’re referring to the mandatory “great books” assigned by High school English teachers or they’re talking about the light, “trashy,” less-than-literary novels commonly termed “beach reads.”  But when I hear the term “summer books,” I think about something else entirely.

For me, a summer book is one that I return to over and over, one that breathes heat out of its pages and soothes with its particular brand of fantasy.  These books feel carefree – reading a summer classic is about as satisfying as climbing a tree, or diving into a swimming hole.

My all-time favorite summer book is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, though Huck Finn comes in at a close second.  These novels perfectly capture the mischievousness of childhood, the excitement and the continual yearning for freedom.  They speak to a part of me that still sometimes secretly longs to run away from home and join a circus, or a band of traveling musicians, or just float lazily down a river, ignoring all of my other responsibilities.  With his sharp wit and ability to capture the local color perfectly, Twain transports me back to a different time, one that only appears simpler at first glance.

Another reason I love Twain has less to do with his characters and more to do with the setting.  Twain is an American Author.  He is quite possibly the quintessential American Author.  Not only does he write in that hilarious, rambling, biting-yet-kind voice that feels so American, he also manages to inject each of his novels all the beauty of our country while remaining authentic.  He does not sugar-coat his books; childhood is not a perfect place, free of tension.  Tom and Huck may not be aware of the great injustices of the world at the beginning of their journeys, but as they grow and progress, they come to see our world for what it really is.

This July 4th, do America proud and pick up a book by one of our many great authors.  If Twain isn’t your cup of tea, how about some Faulkner?  Or Melville?  (May I suggest Benito Cereno?)  Or, if you don’t have that much time, check out one of our articles on Mark Twain, which include A Revealing Interview with Terrell Dempsy, Author of Searching for Jim: Slavery in Sam Clemens’s World, Mark Twain in Unionville, Nevada, and Finding Mark Twain’s Hannibal.   You can also search for other American authors at LiteraryTraveler.com.

Happy reading!

Israel holds a very special place in the American cultural consciousness.  For many, it is a holy land, a promised place where they will finally be accepted.  It is a place for pilgrimages and coming-of-age visits.  This idea is perhaps best encapsulated in the program “Birth Right,” which provides funds for young Jewish-Americans to visit the Middle Eastern country.  This Israel is somewhat of a utopia, made even more dream-like and perfect by its distance, by our infrequent visits.

However, there is another Israel.  This Israel is real; it is the stuff of politics and war, battlegrounds both actual and ideological.  The beauty of the country is made no less by its contentious political position, but, as Dorit Sasson points out in our newest feature article, there is a schism between the various visions of the country.

In a sense, this schism can be traced down to Israel’s rich past.  This is a country seeped with tradition and history.  It is a place of poetry and song.  In order to understand her view of Israel more fully, Sasson returns to a poem of her childhood, “V’Ulai” by Rachel Blaustein.  For her, the gentle poem speaks to the different versions of Israel, the Utopian image, the longing for a dream that never has been, and the reality of a place unfinished, imperfect.

Though I have never been to Israel, reading Sasson’s article, I am reminded of another great poet of Israel: Yehuda Amichai.  Amichai was born in Germany, but he spent most of his life living in Israel (both the real country and the dream-land).  Like Blaustein, much of his poetry is about his relationship to the relatively-new motherland, but in contrast to Rachel, Yehuda’s poetry is often not fit for children.  Indeed, his poetry for Jerusalem often reads like love poetry, words written by a man to a woman.  While I cannot speak for Israel, I will always remember Amichai’s words about Jerusalem:

But he who loves Jerusalem
By the tourist book or the prayer book
is like one who loves a woman
By a manual of sex positions.

Join us in nostalgia and melancholy this week by checking out Rachel Blaustein’s Kinneret, A Child’s Poem of Israel.

For me, Italy is a familiar country that has a strong hold on my heart.  After living in Rome for 4 months, I quickly became addicted to the atmosphere, the speed, the rich history and the overwhelming sense of a beautiful ancestry.

I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Venice, Florence, and the Island of Capri.  I knew that Italy would be a place I would return to again and again.  When I came across a 6-day package with visits to Rome, Florence and Venice, I knew I would have to focus this week’s edition of Travel Deals on my favorite destination.

This package includes 2 nights in Venice, 2 nights in Florence and 2 nights in Rome.  You will stay in first-class hotels located in the city’s center.  You will be provided with 6 breakfasts and 3 dinners, which include wine (and you have to try the wine!).  The package also includes guided tours and free admission to sights.  Each of these cities is rich with history and historic sites – so much so that I recommend narrowing your focus according to field of interest.  Interested in architecture?  Then I suggest you try to visit the churches and cathedrals.  If you’re more of an art-nerd, you might want to spend an afternoon in one of the many beautiful museums.  Foodies could spend years in all of these cities and still leave without tasting every delicious morsel they have to offer, so I suggest you choose a place to start.  How about a pastry shop?   Maybe you’re more of a shopper – there’s a place for that, too!  The sheer amount of options can be overwhelming, so I suggest you try to make a schedule around the guided tours so you can prioritize and manage your time.

From my own experience, I highly recommend taking a gondola ride through the canals of Venice.  This ride offers a great way to see the city while floating through the water (plus, they can be extremely romantic).  Prices range from $65- $123.  Gondolas hold up to 6 people and rides will last at least 50 minutes.

While in Rome, please go to the Colosseum; it is bursting with history and makes the past really come alive.  I remember seeing a portion of it as I was exploring one of my first days in Rome.  I literally got goose bumps and felt flooded with awe.  I also recommend walking over any bridge that crosses over the Tiber River in the evening after the sun has just set; the lights from the city are magnificent.

I spent my time in Florence alone, my focus was to see the churches, they all held their own antiquity and were independently engaging.  I picked up treats and snacks at many of the random markets along my way.  I recommend seeing the Duomo, Florence’s cathedral church.  Also, I walked through many piazzas, but I particularly recommend the Piazza Della Signora, where you can see “The Rape of Polyxena,” a structure constructed by Pio Fedi.  I stood in front of this piece for over an hour amazed by the details and the passion pulsing from this lifeless formation.

This package is a total of $1799. The flight goes from New York to Venice, but like any deal, you can alter the city from which you depart.

As I left for Boston this weekend and began my journey down I-89, I began to think about the curse of many travelers: money.  I started wondering, how expensive will this trip be and how can I budget better?

Well, I recently received an email from a friend cluing me into some great ways to aid the escape from our mundane day-to-day routines. According to Lisa Grossberg, general manager of the historic Buckingham Hotel in Manhattan, the average hotel guest spends a third to half of their funds on dining. So my fellow travelers, instead of this entry of Travel Deals to Satisfy your Wandering Mind informing you of amazing trips and escapes, I want to let you in on some of my useful dining habits I use to cut my costs and travel cheap, which allows me to plan more adventures throughout the year.

First, it always helps to bring a cookbook.  There are so many out there with simple yet extravagant recipes. Do you enjoy Italian? Giada De Laurentiis, is my go-to girl for great Italian recipes. How about a fun 30-minute recipe? Rachel Ray makes eating and cooking a fun adventure every time. Inside these books are beautiful, fun and delicious recipes, try something different from what you cook at home and have fun with it. Plan out these recipes with your travel companion before you depart. Figure out all the ingredients you will need and once you arrive, visit the local grocery store and stock up. If you are traveling for a week, your grocery bill will range from $100-$550, depending on the type of meat you purchase and if you want wine/beer/alcohol. Compare this to 7 nights of dining out and you will be sure to save over $500.

Now in order to cook while you are on vacation, you must book a room with a kitchen. Many of the early-to-mid century hotels in larger cities, such as the Buckingham Hotel in Manhattan can accommodate travelers with this luxury.  Because this asset is becoming more popular, many hotels are advertising their extra amenities, so be sure to book this before you depart.

If you enjoy the occasional drink while on vacation, stock up on the booze while at the grocery store. Buying a bottle of vodka will cost anywhere from $15-$45, as opposed to the one drink that will cost you anywhere from $7-$16 dollars. Do you enjoy wine while you dine out? Buy a nice bottle and bring it into the restaurant.  Most restaurants will allow this, though they may charge an opening fee, it is still a great way to save up to $40 dollars.

Unfortunately for my wallet, I absolutely love dining out; I love the atmosphere, the service and the chance to dress up and look nice. If you feel the same, then I recommend dining out once or twice, it is a part of the traveling experience and like noted above, bringing in your own bottle of wine can cut a large portion of the bill.

I hope this helps if you are anxious about extra expenses. Traveling can be cheap, you just need to know how to cut your costs, find the deals and budget where you can. With these hints you can save up to $1000 just on food costs. So happy traveling (and eating) and bon voyage.

I have a special, guilty place in my heart for James Joyce’s Ulysses.  I tried to read it on the shores of Lake Michigan when I was 17, and powered through 20 pages before I realized I had no idea what was happening.  I had a similar experience with the Cliff Notes (shame) on the shores of Lake Erie.  I built up my Joyce muscle during Irish Lit courses in college, and, in a fit of substitution, took to sleeping with a Spanish-language edition of the novel when my relationship with an Argentine named Ulises turned sour.  But, like many a straw man English major, I haven’t actually read the book.

My literary pretense outweighs my shame, so I felt entitled, nay, obligated, to geek out over yesterday’s observation of Bloomsday.  In my defense, at least I’d absorbed the very basic information — the main characters are Leopold Bloom, Molly Bloom, and Stephen Dedalus, the setting is Dublin, June 16, the frequent allusions to Homer — that cushions my ignorance.

I usually opt for marathon readings, though I should admit I’m the sort of person who lets the diehards work their way through the first seventeen episodes, unaccompanied, and then swoop in for the “yes oh yes I will yes” leg and grab a commemorative T-shirt.  In lieu of hopping a plane to the mean streets of Dublin, or completing this oldie-but-goodie Bloomsday Boston itinerary, I winnowed my way through Bloomsday commentary, looking for books to add to my ever-growing “to read” list.  James Cohen’s Daily Beast article on recent novels that have been described as the [insert culture/ nationality/ ethnicity here] Ulysses is a good start, though I’m going to steer clear of the Argentine model.

If you’re still interested on reading more about Ulysses, feel free to check out our feature article, A ‘Moral Pub’ Crawl Through James Joyce’s Dublin.

You might have already heard the assertion that we — Americans, specifically — choose to spend most of our leisure time “participating in experiences we know are not real.”  (I read it here, in Paul Bloom’s essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education.)  Reading is part of that, but movies, video games, and daydreaming are included as well.  Still, the author insists, these various media indicate an addiction to fiction, a pleasure in “playing pretend” that extends well beyond our childhood years.  Bloom offers three reasons that people may find imaginative experiences more pleasurable or moving than than real ones — the ability to acquaint oneself with a colorful range of characters, the distillation of experience, and the “technologies of the imagination” — the ability to rapidly shift in time, or read another person’s thoughts — that stimulate the mind in a way that is impossible in reality.

Even our fictional characters crave fiction.  Other Lives, a graphic novel recently reviewed in The Boston Globe, explores this dynamic by following several characters — among them, a conspiracy theorist specializing in web surveillance — as they mingle and sort out their real personalities and Second Life alter egos.  The protagonist of 45, another graphic novel, interviews forty-five people who, like his future son possess the “Super S-gene,” in an effort to anticipate — or vicariously experience? — his future experiences.

The appeal of fiction is both speculative and defensive.  We use it to explore strange, new worlds in a safe environment — and, as I mentioned to a frustrated, creative friend the other day, every modern invention was a “fiction” until someone made it tangible — but it also keeps chaos, amorality, and the ennui that feeds anxiety, man’s “quiet desperation” at bay.  Narrative, specifically, lets us believe that there is a structure, a direction, and a message, a significance, to the stimuli that we find on the page, and in the world.

If the “everything is [existentially] fine” mantra becomes attached to a real world object, we risk having to address the narrative, and the experience, in all of its complexity.  Consider Meghan Daum, author of Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House. She wrote, “I knew it wasn’t just a house I was after but, rather, proof of my existence. The house was . . . an ID badge for adulthood, for personhood, even. It was the only thing that would make me desirable, credible, even human.”  When she finds a house — not the house, which is, like the job or the One, a fiction — “a peculiar darkness” sets in.  “It was as if my mood had been goaded away from situational discontentedness into a dysthymia that seemed now to be heading into full-fledged depression,” she wrote.

The house didn’t get her through that.  The story, at least, helps the reader out.

Another week has gone by, and I’m here yet again to bring you the best travel deals from around the internet.  Check out these fun ways to boost the economy, while satisfying your pulsing desire to travel and see the world.

Newport, RI

I have come across an amazing hotel deal located in Newport, RI.  I visited Newport last year for the first time while competing in the Newport, R.I. marathon (where I ran half).  I would like to commemorate running my first marathon a few weeks ago, and I think this deal is quite quaint and perfect. From June – September you can sign up to stay at the Hyatt Regency Newport Hotel and Spa for $200 mid-week.  Parking, in-room wireless internet, two complimentary signature cocktails, 20% off services at the Stillwater Spa and shuttle services to downtown Newport are included in your package.

The Hyatt is located on Narragansett Bay where you can window shop, enjoy a nice relaxing lunch on the water, or travel to art galleries that offer pieces from the 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th century.  Newport, R.I. is a beautiful, picturesque town that allows tourists to feel simultaneously at home yet away from home.

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Costa Rica

In addition to this great hotel deal, I have also found an 8-night Costa Rican trip for only $798; it even includes an adventure through the rainforest!

With this package you will be purchasing roundtrip airfare, 3 nights at the Trapp Family Lodge in Monteverde, 2 nights at the all-inclusive Barcelo Playa Langosta on Tamerindo Beach, 3 nights at Villa Tecca near Manual Antonio National Park, and tours of Moneverde Cloud Forest.

When you are exploring the rainforest on your walking tour, I recommend holding the beautiful creatures that you come across, (as long as they are not poisonous).  They are vibrant in color and are such a different composition from what we have here in America. When I was lucky enough to visit the rainforest in Costa Rica, I held an enormous, yet alluring spider, it was extremely scary but the resulting picture made the fear more than worth it.

Costa Rica is tropical. The air is hot and thick, but as you explore the rainforest you will run into cool patches of air and breathtaking creatures – it is truly an amazing place rich with color and light mist.  Enjoy your stay.

Every Friday, the staff at Literary Traveler gathers up relevant book news from around the web, bringing it together in a handy post for book lovers to peruse.  Enjoy!

• Can’t get enough of the reworked classics?  Android Karenina is one of the funnier entries into the strange new genre of novel.  The parts of the book not written by Tolstoy are the words of Ben H. Waters, who has also done his best to bastardize Jane Austin with Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.  While it seems like a fun summer read, we feel the need to add: The original is pretty amazing, too.
• The Examiner has a funny and charming interview with author Lisa Brown, whose recently published novel Picture The Dead is just beginning to garner some serious attention.  The book is described as part ghost story, part survival narrative.  Brown admits she takes a lot of inspiration from young adult novels – she even mentions one of my all-time favorite books, The Witch Of Blackbird Pond. Probably because, like Brown, I’m not an Austin-ite: “I have this theory that there are two types of bookish girls: Jane Austen-ites and Brönte acolytes,” she says.
• Baby books aren’t something we often discuss here at Literary Traveler, but there is something enchanting about the historic baby books unearthed by the UCLA library and reproduced in this article at the L.A. Times book blog.  Though not technically books – at least not in the way we normally think of them – they are pieces of personal history, a specifically feminine place for the celebration of growth and memory.
• For the first time in years, the New Yorker has published their “20 Under 40″ list, which includes a group of “young writers” in order to offer a “focused look at the talent blooming around us.”  However, as an essay in the New York Times points out, great books by those under 40 are not all that uncommon, and perhaps more importantly, these novels are often the greatest books of their careers.  Authors including Melville, Hemingway, Faulkner, Kafka and Pynchon all wrote their most significant works before the age of 40.  What becomes clear is something that seems almost self evident: Age does not actually matter when it comes to great literature.
• And finally, some light reading for your weekend.  The Passage, a post-apocalyptic novel (with vampires!) is being hailed as the “book of the summer.” Master of horror Stephen King has even voiced his approval for the lengthy tome.  Get yourself to a Barnes & Noble – or risk falling behind on what looks to be the next literary phenomenon.  Worst case scenario?  You can spend all summer expressing your unbiased opinion that it “doesn’t live up to the hype.”   And if you’re more interested in travel than literature, here’s a trip that combines the two (and adds a healthy dose of pop culture): The newly opened Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the Universal Orlando Resort.

Like many children, I used to imagine secretly that I was adopted.  Growing up with two brothers and a tomboy sister, I often felt displaced, as though I had no business being part of the busy crowd that filled our house.  I pretended I was the daughter of explorers, or maybe some sort of brave pioneers, regardless of the fact that this vocation has gone out of fashion.

Reflecting back, I can see now that my fantasies were not born out of a desire to escape, but a need to sculpt my own personal history.  Knowing little about myself, I decided to tie my fate to that of those who came before me.  Time still felt fluid enough to be molded (after reading A Wind At The Door and other books by Madeleine L’Engle, I was firmly convinced that all you needed was a little practice), and history seemed as bendable as a paperback.

As I grew older, I became more interested in my ancestral history – my real history.  People have always identified themselves by their kin, and though we sometimes forget it today, our families are perhaps the single most primitive part of our selves.  One must only read Beowulf to be reminded of the significance of kin (or if you are so inclined, the Bible has quite a bit of this as well).

This week, join us in Italy, where Angela Corrias visits the home of one of Italy’s most appreciated Marxist thinkers, Antonio Gramsci.  Corrias visits his house, speaks with his family, and in doing so, she pulls herself one step closer to understanding both Italian history and her own personal history.  In her quest, she finds much more than fascism and Gramsci’s beloved food; she also finds a piece of herself.  Her article, Beauty, Tradition & Fascism in Antonia Gramsci’s Sardinia, will transport you to the streets of Sardinia, and, we hope, inspire you to do a little soul searching of your own.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day and spent last weekend embracing their travel fantasies.

As I sit in Muddy Waters, a local coffee shop in Burlington, VT, I realize what fantastic activities Burlington has to offer. For the next ten days, Burlington’s 2010 Discover Jazz Festival will ensue, presenting artists such as Sonny Rollins to The Wailing Souls. Artists will bring music composed in various areas of the world such as the Netherlands, Jamaica, Guinea, and New Orleans to Burlington, VT.

One can also find over two-dozen artists and groups spattered around the Burlington area by checking out the Flynn Theatre, the FlynnSpace, the Church Street Marketplace and City Hall Park.

I have found some great hotel deals to consider when planning your trip to Vermont.  Stay at the Courtyard by Marriot on the Burlington Harbor for $229/night through Priceline. The views of Lake Champlain are breathtaking.  I recommend taking an evening walk on Burlington’s lake-side bike path.

Or if you would prefer to stay in a more scenic area, Stowe Mountain Lodge has rooms for $181/night through Orbitz.   Start your vacation by taking a guided hike in the morning or playing a round of golf before heading into Burlington for a relaxing dinner with a hint of jazz.  Stowe Mountain Lodge also offers kayaking and canoeing, massages, tennis and brew tours.   It’s the perfect place to escape for a week; enjoy the beautiful views of Stowe as it sits right outside your window.

Need some advice on places to eat in Burlington, VT while enjoying the jazz festival? Leunig’s Bistro on Church Street has outdoor seating and jazz all day, everyday throughout the festival. American Flatbread, which boasts a great brick oven pizza and an amazing beer list, also has outdoor seating and live music throughout the week. Bluebird Tavern, a great place for tapas (a wide variety of appetizers from the Spanish cuisine), is also offering an array of jazz artists.  Half Lounge, Halverson’s and The Skinny Pancake are a few of my favorite places to eat in Burlington, and they too, will have music playing every night.

Burlington, VT is a beautiful place to visit and reside. I hope these deals help sway your decision to make a spontaneous trip up north to indulge in a bit of jazz.  Happy listening.

Our newest feature article, on Fernando Pessoa, not only made me want to take off for Lisbon, but it also reawakened a train of thought I had shelved since returning from Europe.  I’ve often wondered if people can be broken up into two groups: the travelers and the nesters.  Some people seem best suited to home life.  They know how to enjoy the small pleasures, the ordinary moments of happiness.  They are the reliable ones, settled and stable.  Their lives may not always be happy, but they have a constant – they have a home.  Even when they travel abroad, they are able to experience the seductive lure of a foreign land without being pulled or swayed from their moorings.  Nesters seem to be driven always by an internal compass, one which points towards home.

The other group, the travelers, are restless and without anchor (it seems our writer, Steven Hermans, may fit into this category).  They relentlessly seek new places, experiences, tastes, and people.  They desire motion, continual excitement, rather than the comforts of home.

I believe most of us have fit into both groups at some point in our lives, for these categories aren’t hard and fast.  They’re probably best viewed as phases we slip into at certain points, only to later change allegiance.   In his discussion of Pessoa, Hermans describes the author as of the former group, while he himself falls into the latter.  In an interesting twist, he journeys to Pessoa’s home in order to see how the other half (the nesters) live. Walking along the eerily familiar streets, painted so vividly by Pessoa’s prose, Hermans is able to see the attractions of a room of one’s own – and compare that with the lure of the open road.

This week, we invite homebodies and wanders alike to join us this week in Portugal in Fernando Pessoa’s Lisbon of Disquiet. Perhaps you will recognize something of yourself in Hermans, or perhaps you’re more like Pessoa.  Either way, we promise you’ll leave with some food for thought.

Though it’s not literary on the face, and the genre has yet to make a celebrated entrance into the academy (though U Kansas has a Ph.D. in science fiction and fantasy literature), a genre lens can make even the most inane production take on layered significance.  Take, for example, io9′s review of Sex and the City 2: “When viewed as a rom-com, Sex and the City 2 is terrible and crappy and a horrific inversion of everything the show once was. But when viewed as a science fiction film, SATC2 is subversive, stylish and chilling. as  SATC2 is subversive, stylish and chilling.”

The blogger identifies The City as Carrie’s “deathless necropolis” based on the following information:

1.) The City can control time.
2.) The City can control their personalities.
3.) Nothing exists outside of The City.
4.) The City keeps tabs on Carrie via shoes.

Funny, and reposted frequently, but glancing on a larger point.  I’ve been reading Forbidden Acts: Pioneering Gay and Lesbian Plays of the Twentieth Century this week, and I’ve noticed that every play, from the 1926 production of Bourdet’s The Captive to Crowley’s 1968 Boys in the Band to Hoffman’s 1985 AIDS-themed As Is, takes place in one or two intimate rooms.  This could be a given of the genre — my experience with theater has largely been in the orchestra pit of high school musicals, and I only wandered into the drama section because a man fixing tax returns was blocking the essays — or a function of the stories themselves — they all involve confrontation with a family member, or a constructed family — but I wondered whether they were also evidence of the playwright’s attempt to construct a closet, a stifling environment for the audience. Certainly, in The Captive, where the protagonist cannot even name her “affliction,” this observation is relevant.

For a contemporary overanalysis of “queer space,” see this blog entry entitled Locker rooms: on exterior interiority.

I am now inspired to go back and read old Tennessee Williams plays with a queer-theory lens.

Every Friday, the staff at Literary Traveler gathers up relevant book news from around the web, bringing it together in a handy post for book lovers to peruse.  Enjoy!

• By now, most of us have seen the iPad, Apple’s newest entry into the gizmo canon, but our friends across the pond just got their first look today.  As in America, this has led Brits to ponder the question: Will the iPad lead to a reading revolution? The Guardian ultimately decides that the iPad will be good for readers and writers – not necessarily publishers.  Eventually, the iPad (and the Kindle and the like) will almost certainly change the way we purchase books, but it is not quite clear yet how this will play out, though Stephen Page does have some interesting ideas.
• Allen Ginsberg is best known for his work as a writer, but were you aware he was also a talented photographer?  A voice of the beat generation, Ginsberg was committed to documenting his life through photos, 80 of which are now on show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.  Curator Sarah Greenough explains that the “same ideas that infuse and invigorate his poetry… all of these things really help to invigorate his photography as well.”  If you’re interested in checking out some of his visual art, click here.
• Like Alison Ford, I’m in complete and total awe of John Basinger, the man who learned every word to Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost.  Basinger completed his task in 2001, but he can still recite all 12 books on command.  Ford, jealous of Basinger’s success, decided to see what poems she could recall, and the list isn’t particularly long.  Then again, neither is mine (however, I do know every word to “The Road Not Taken” and “Song of the Wandering Aengus.  Though this comes in handy about as often as you may think).  What poems, if any, can you recite?
• Finally, because we’re keeping it short and sweet for the holiday weekend, here are a few recommendations for your beach reading: 1. The L.A. Times bestseller roundup is a great place to start your summer reading list.  It has everything from the fluffy to the slightly-less-so.  2. The New Yorker just published a new piece of short fiction by Jonathan Franzen, titled “Agreeable.”  It’s the perfect Memorial Day read – highbrow enough not to be embarrassing, but interesting enough to keep you engaged.  And with that, have a wonderful holiday, and check in on June 1st for our newest feature article.

I admit it: I caught wind of Herzog’s Turn Left at the Trojan Horse far from the copies of Tin House, Utne, or The New Yorker that I pile alongside my desk when I want to pretend I’m contemporary and literary.  My pretense drop when I’m on an airplane.  I’m a voracious reader but a clumsy packer.

So I read an airline magazine, and I enjoyed the excerpt I read.  Herzog is having a “who am I/ what have I done” moment on the way to his college reunion, and his wife suggests that he take a long drive to figure it out.  He takes that to mean exploring a hero’s odyssey, so he imposes Greek mythology over a cross-country road trip, from Olympia, Washington to Ithaca, New York.  Charmed.

With graduation season upon us, you might be searching for that perfect gift to congratulate a loved one on their accomplishments. What better way to reward years of hard work than with a trip to somewhere new and exciting?

I have found a deal through Travelzoo where your graduate can stay in Cabo, Mexico for four nights in a luxurious villa. They can celebrate their new-found freedom with surfing, horseback riding, sunning themselves on the beach, and testing the guacamole at one of Cabo’s many excellent restaurants.  They can look forward to sipping wine on a private terrace in the evening and enjoying mid-night swims in the tri-level infinity pool.

If Cabo is a little too “Spring Break” for your accredited scholar, how about a 6-night stay in Scotland? This travel package includes a rental car, which offers the freedom to explore the surroundings at their own pace, 4 nights in a choice of B&Bs, and a night in 4-star Atholl Palace Spa Hotel.

While in Scotland, be sure your graduate explores the Edinburgh Castle, which offers amazing views of the city.  They also might do well to check out the Scotch Whiskey Experience, which is not just about tasting – this event allows your grad to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the classic beverage.  If they are into ghost and goblins, check out the Edinburgh Dungeon where witches, executioners and grave-robbers frolic, and if that is not enough, they can take the ghost tours through the underground vaults, an experience that is sure to leave you with goose bumps.

Want to give them the gift of multiple destination in a single week? I have found a Mediterranean 7-night cruise with stops in Naples, Rome, Florence and the French Riviera.   Although this package does not include airfare, it is a great deal that offers a $100 air rebate.  Cruises provide amazing food and entertainment 24/7 as you travel from place to place.  They also offer live shows, games, entertainment, chocolate buffets and seemingly endless amounts of food.   To make it even more enticing, cruises provide a perfect outlet for your glamorous needs – if you want, you can dress up every night and feel like a million bucks.

Graduation is wonderful milestone, so why not choose a vacation package to commemorate the accomplishment?

Every Friday, the staff at Literary Traveler gathers up relevant book news from around the web, bringing it together in a handy post for book lovers to peruse.  Enjoy!

• Last Friday we sang the praises of visually-striking book covers.  Today we have an article from the Guardian book blog on the importance of cover art – and the pitfalls of a truly bad design.   Stuart Evers discusses his distaste for certain covers (which reminds me of my hatred for the hot pink-meets-high-heels formula that has become the norm for a certain type of “chick lit” novel) and the problems faced by publishers.  “While one can understand the more commercial retailers wishing to stick to a tried and tested formula, I don’t believe this is helping writers or customers.  By packaging everything in the same colours, fonts and images, we lose differentiation,” he writes.
• Similarly, the title of a book can tell us a lot about the contents – or, conversely, it can tell us nothing at all.  Playing on this knowledge, a Twitter meme has recently cropped up, under the hashtag “Lesserbooks,” in which users create new names for old favorites.  A few examples: Of Mice, White Dentures, Dante’s Impala, and my personal favorite, The Lion, The Witch, and the Walk-in Closet.
• Continuing on the same thread is yet another article from the Guardian on the rewriting of classics to include modern elements (like the incredibly popular Pride and Prejudice and Zombies).   Instead of decrying the pop-culturally influenced remakes, Jonathan Wright suggests that this could be a valuable tool for getting people to read Great Books (much like Oprah’s Book Club!).  To make things even more interesting, he nominates a few novels for revamp.  It’s an interesting idea, but part of me wonders, why remake something as classic and stimulating as Nineteen Eighty-Four?
• Jeffrey Brown from PBS recently had the honor of sitting down to an interview with one of my favorite authors: Isabel Allende.  They discuss her new novel, Island Beneath The Sea, which is set in the Caribbean in the early 19th century.  To watch the full interview with the House of Spirits author, go here.
• And more good news for fans of magical realism: Allende’s novel has already made it to No. 4 on the L.A. Times bestseller list. Other newcomers to the list include Rick Riordan, Douglas Preston, and author of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels, Charlaine Harris.
• And finally, two fascinating articles to begin the weekend.  First, a 16-year-old published author takes a moment to consider whether age matters in publishing, and to meditate on her own feelings of inadequacy when faced with even younger teenage prodigies.  Second, the Rumpus ponders the first person narrator and praises the fallibly infallible Nick Carraway.  Enjoy your days off, and happy reading!

A quick entry, and I’m in the middle of A quick entry, as I’m in the middle of room-cleaning/ article-writing/ wedding-preparation:

I’m a few years behind on this (The Village Voice picked it up years ago), but Circus Amok , a NYC based circus whose performances focus on social justice issues,with shows like”Sub-Prime Sublime” and “Quality of Life.”

I’m trying to get an interview with bearded lady Jennifer Miller to talk about this year’s performance, but even a cursory analysis of the circus piques my interest — itinerant artists taking on broader social issues?  Sign me up, or, alternatively, come hang out in my backyard.

Since high school, when my enthusiasm for Emily Dickinson, George O’Keefe, and Eastern philosophy merged in a watercolor of a pink flower bearing the calligraphy, “I dwell in possibility,” I have marked my bedroom as an Emily-inspired zone.  She’s an icon, so my fascination is no distinction, and I’m sure many an introverted English major broached the shut-in/ “Wild Nights” dynamic in a therapy session.  Still, I was pleased with Holland Cotter’s unabashed hero worship, and NYT take, on Dickinson’s dwelling place.

I was two paragraphs into this Boston Globe review when I realized that I would read Mark Amis’s The Pregnant Widow.  The review makes it sound not-entirely-dazzling, but I am a sucker for coming-of-age novels, self-conscious writing, and Italy, and this is a story about a literature major who spends a summer in an Italian castle and tries to manipulate the present in order to maximize the nostalgic potential of his relationship with a beautiful Scheherazade.  This is an impulse-read, and, like my cash register purchase of the mint-flavored Three Musketeers, I expect novel enjoyment, but no enduring satisfaction.

Memorial Day is a time to commemorate those who have died serving our country. We celebrate with fireworks, barbecues, and parades that initiate the new summer. With Memorial Day only two weeks away, I wonder how you envision celebrating this year: on a boat fishing, exploring a new city, or barbecuing with close friends?

Either way, I have found some great deals to satisfy any celebrator’s needs.

First, I found a flight from Philadelphia to Miami through OneTravel. Miami hosts Urban Beach Week, one of the biggest beach parties that welcome over 300,000 people. If you are into hip-hop, soaking up the sun and starting your summer with 300,000 other people, Florida is the place to be.

Another amazing location to celebrate Memorial Day is in Washington, DC. Travelzoo is offering airline tickets for as cheap as $108. The city offers an amazing variety of events to accommodate any individual. From parades, to concerts, to motorcycle rallies, to Chestertown’s Tea party festival.  In my opinion, the capital city would be a perfect place for a weekend getaway with the family.

And for one more option – which I think would be the ultimate celebration – try traveling to Dallas, TX for a weekend getaway. I have never visited Texas, but there is something about the state that lures me. Is it the cowboy/cowgirl image I envision, or the warm weather and country western atmosphere I believe bombards Texas? I am not sure, and maybe these depictions are far-fetched, but either way I have found a flight through Travelzoo for $158.

Much like the other options above, the city of Dallas celebrates with a parade, but even better, Dallas also offers an annual art festival that includes the work of over 200 different artists, wine tasting, and live music.

However you choose to celebrate Memorial Day, I hope you will consider these great deals and always remember the fallen soldiers.

Every Friday, the staff at Literary Traveler gathers up relevant book news from around the web, bringing it together in a handy post for book lovers to peruse.  Enjoy!

• We’ve all heard the saying, but sometimes you can’t help but judge, especially when the cover art is so visually striking.  The Millions highlights two amazing new cover designs, for wild child Bret Easton Ellis’s new book Imperial Bedrooms and Tom McCarthy’s forthcoming novel C.  Interestingly, neither cover is particularly beautiful, but there is something unexpected and engaging about the aggressive designs.
• When I told my father that this guy, Ray Bradbury, was one of my favorite authors in high school, he said simply, “mine, too.”  Bradbury had a long and very prolific career, and as he nears his 90th birthday, Slate takes a look back at some of his best short stories.  While Bradbury was known primarily for his novels, like Nathaniel Rich, I was always most interested in his quirky, dark short stories.
• Via USA Today: “Move along, Jane Austen. Hollywood is hot for the Brontës again.”  As much as I love Austen and her spunky heroines, I must say I breathed a sigh of relief reading the above sentence.  Not only are British filmmakers working on new versions of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre (which will star Mia Wasikowska, who was amazing in Tim Burton’s recent Alice in Wonderland), but we will also be seeing a big screen biopic.
• Are contemporary novels nothing more than “antediluvian texts” that mimic the writing of those who came before?  Has literature become stagnant, and authors made impotent and unimpressive by “dead rules” of a bygone era?  If writers like David Foster Wallace are anything to go by, I would answer no, but these are the questions being raised by David Shields.  However, Shields’s is only echoing the criticism leveled at the literary world fifty years ago by Alain Robbe-Grillet.  To learn more about his theory of the evolving novel, click here.
• It seems that bad writing is having something of a moment.  But instead of simply snickering at all the horrible entries into our cultural consciousness, GalleyCat, a website that specializes in publishing news, is asking writers to help turn some very bad prose into something far more tolerable.  The book of choice?  Bad writer extraordinaire Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches novel Joe’s Luck.
• I would like to kick off the weekend with some lighthearted links.  First, we have this ridiculous new blog that has been making the internet rounds all week: Hot Guys Reading Books. While I don’t support objectification, I do love seeing people (especially young men) reading.   And finally, the writers behind the television series Lost reveal their literary influences. If there is one thing I learned from this article, it’s that these scifi guys must have very well-stocked bookcases.  It’s the best of both worlds – pop culture meets good reads – and that’s exactly what I need on a Friday afternoon.

In high school, my favorite teacher, Miss Reynolds, once told our class that F. Scott Fitzgerald was famous for writing “the perfect sentence.”  I knew immediately what she meant.  While some authors are masters of the paragraph, and others shine most strongly with a single phrase, Fitzgerald’s majesty lay between two periods.  He has the rare ability to capture an image – or a feeling – completely within these bounds of punctuation.  Unlike Hemingway, Fitzgerald’s writing tends more towards prolix than terse, yet it is possible to get a real feel for his writing by reading just one of his immaculately-crafted sentences.

I have always felt that Edith Wharton came from the F. Scott Fitzgerald school of writing.  Like Fitzgerald, Wharton uses words to the utmost advantage; she does not let the reader guess at her meaning, but rather paints with phrases, colors and tints our view with her writing.  She has the ability to transport a reader back in time, to the Age of Innocence, or move us through place, to the winding streets of Morocco.

In our newest feature article, writer Inka Piegsa-Quischotte travels through Fez, searching not only for the Morocco of Wharton’s description, but also for a house. She is looking to purchase a mini-palace; a burrow of tiny bedrooms and storage spaces that she can call home.  Like me, Piegsa-Quischotte has been seduced by Wharton’s perfect sentences and her ability to conjure up an entire world through a single phrase.  Clip-clopping on the back of a mule through the covered alleys and tented streets, Piegsa-Quischotte can’t help but remember the poetry of Wharton’s language, and the aptness of her descriptions.

This week, join us in Morocco, where we ride on colorful saddles and smell the many scents of Fez in Pink Saddles & Djellabas, Edith Wharton’s Fez In Morocco. Allow yourself to be guided by Piegsa-Quischotte and her new-found friends as they work their way through a foreign land, searching for beauty and something far more lasting: a room of one’s own.