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Armchair Travel February 2020
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| Mud and Stars: Travels in Russia with Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Other Geniuses of the... by Sara WheelerWhat it is: an informative, lighthearted, and personal look at both contemporary Russia and some of the country's most famous writers.
What happened: Veteran British travel writer Sara Wheeler spent two years traveling in Russia, skipping hotels for homestays, learning the language and cooking traditions, and focusing on the country's Golden Age writers, like Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Dostoyevsky.
Read this next: Ian Frazier's Travels in Siberia, Elif Batuman's The Possessed, or Rachel Polonsky Molotov's Magic Lantern. |
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Books You May Have Missed
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| Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide by Tony HorwitzWhat it's about: Going from West Virginia to Texas via car, barge, mule, and more, Confederates in the Attic author Tony Horwitz traveled through a sharply divided U.S. in 2016 to retrace the eye-opening 1850s journey of reporter (and future landscape architect) Frederick Law Olmstead.
About the author: A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Horwitz died in 2019 at the age of 60. He is survived by two sons and his wife, novelist Geraldine Brooks, who won a Pulitzer Prize herself in 2006 for March. |
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| Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam HoustonWhat it is: an evocative, lyrical essay collection that discusses life at a 120-acre Colorado Rockies homestead as well as the author's abusive childhood, self discovery, and many travels.
Reviewers say: "Always impressive, Houston is in striking form here" (Booklist); "profound and inspiring" (Kirkus Reviews).
For fans of: Cheryl Strayed's Wild, Terry Tempest Williams’ The Hour of Land, or Dean Kuipers' The Deer Camp. |
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| The Salt Path by Raynor WinnThe problems: A friend's betrayal found 50-somethings Raynor and Moth Winn kicked off the Welsh farm they'd fixed up over 20 years. That same week, Moth learned he had a terminal disease.
What happened: Homeless and at a loss, they set out to walk and wild camp along England's challenging 630-mile South West Coast Path.
Read this next: Caroline Van Hemert's The Sun Is a Compass, another inspirational memoir about a couple at a crossroads and the redemptive power of nature. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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