Travel | Raging Biblio-holism

Iron Council

January 22, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: A railroad sets out from New Crobuzon and goes rogue, setting off across the continent in pursuit of an ideal of freedom. Time passes and the train turns to myth – but with war tearing apart New Crobuzon from within and without, a small band of adventurers sets out to bring the train home. The Iron Council is needed… The Review: I don’t know why I’m so ambivalent about this book. On the surface, it should deliver […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction • Tags: Bas-Lag, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Cartography, China Miéville, Fantasy, Fiction, Iron Council, New Crobuzon, Politics, Reviews, Revolution, Trains, Travel, Weird, Weird Fiction

M Train

December 18, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: Over the course of a year and a half or so, Patti Smith reflects on the roads she has traveled to come to this point as well and also recounts some of the roads she continues to travel down. The Review: Just Kids is, I think you’ll have to agree, one of the best memoirs ever written. Patti Smith gave us a glimpse into a world that transfixes us even still – the 60s & 70s in New York, a […]

Categories: Essays, Memoir, Non-Fiction • Tags: Book Review, Book Reviews, BookClub, Books, Essays, M Train, Memoir, New York City, Patti Smith, Reviews, Travel, Writing

Hotels of North America

December 9, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: The compiled hotel reviews of one Reginald Edward Morse, who was briefly the top reviewer on RateYourLodging.com and whose writings reveal certain truths about society, humanity, and one man’s life. The Review: I’m distinctly self-aware of my writing this review, in a way that I’ve not ever been before, because this book is the compiled reviews of an online reviewer – and his reviews sometimes spin off of the object at hand into broader considerations. Although they go […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: America, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Hotels, Hotels of North America, Literature, Meta, Online Reviews, RateYourLodging.com, Reginald Edward Morse, Reviews, Rick Moody, Travel, Travelogue

Fugitives and Refugees

August 14, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: A town like Portland, Oregon is the sort of town you’d expect Chuck Palahniuk to live in. So it’s no surprise that he would be the one to put together an off-beat travel guide of sorts, as part of the Crown Journeys series. It’s a time capsule of sorts but also a way to see a different side of a very weird city. The Review: A couple of weeks ago, I took a proper vacation for the […]

Categories: Non-Fiction • Tags: A Walk in Portland Oregon, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Chuck Palahniuk, Crown Travel, Fugitives and Refugees, Non-Fiction, Oregon, Portland, Portland Oregon, Reviews, Travel, Travel Guide

The Rise & Fall of Great Powers

May 27, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: Tooly Zylberberg has had a interesting life, to say the least. Brought up first by a father who, as a private contractor, never spent more than a year in a place, she then fell in with a magnetic bunch of misfits who carried her through her second decade. But now, having passed 30, she’s adrift and wondering exactly what her life has meant – and so she begins to put the pieces together of just what happened to […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Literature, Reviews, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, Tom Rachman, Travel

Undercities

September 6, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: A collection of stories that blur the lines (sometimes heavily) between what’s ordinary and what’s extraordinary – and what’s weird. Cities in the Calvino style, the imaginary travels of a library book about caves, an appearance by Heidegger – it’s all possible inside this collection. The Review: (ed note -This is a tough one for me, a first time circumstance, but one that was unavoidable – it had to happen eventually. This book was sent to me by […]

Categories: Fiction • Tags: Fiction, Short Stories, Tim Horvath, Travel, Understories

Beautiful Ruins

June 2, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: During the filming of Cleopatra, a young actress’ life changes drastically and irrevocably in a town on the Italian coast. In the relative present, the players from that fateful time (as well as some youngsters along for the ride) are trying to find each other again – and complete the story begun all those years ago. The Review: I’ve never read Jess Walter before, despite his having been one of those authors who people continually say “oh, you […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Beautiful Ruins, Fiction, Film, Jess Walter, Literature, The Tournament of Books 2013, Travel

Here is New York

December 18, 2012 by Drew

The Short Version: E.B. White’s classic stroll through New York City at the end of the 1940s, reflecting on this marvelous metropolis. The Review: What is there to say about this essay that hasn’t already been said? What is there to say about this magnificent city that hasn’t already been said? I’m not sure that there’s anything – and yet we all keep writing and we read this essay and we keep coming to this city, so clearly there’s still more […]

Categories: Non-Fiction • Tags: BookClub, E. B. White, Essay, Here is New York, New York City, Non-Fiction, Travel

The Marriage Plot

December 3, 2011 by Drew

The Short Version: Brown University, 1982. Madeleine Hanna is dating Leonard Bankhead, a large and mercurial oaf with a mind like a rocketship, while Mitchell Grammaticus pines away for her. They graduate and find themselves thrust into that terrifying post-graduate year – coming to terms with ‘the real world’ and finding oneself and dealing with all of the mistakes that come with that terrifying new territory. The Short Version: From sentence one, I felt like Eugenides wrote this book for me. […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: College, Fiction, Jeffrey Eugenides, Literature, Religion, The Marriage Plot, The Tournament of Books 2012, Travel

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Tag: Travel