Reviews & Views: Globetrotting and gallivanting

Summer often brings travel, a plan to go somewhere familiar or far away. For those who don’t want to plan a trip but love to take a journey, there are ways to travel other than leaving home. 

How about a book that offers a chance to wander in Paris, shiver in the Arctic, visit a faraway planet, or immerse yourself in a pastime that fascinates you? The goal is to transport yourself to a state different from your current one. But if you decide to go somewhere, read up on it first — it feeds our escape fantasies to imagine how different life can be somewhere else, even if we’re there only a few days.

“Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge” by Ian Kumekawa (Knopf) is about a boat that carries goods and people that make our global economy possible, with profit and pain for all involved. It made me think hard about the true cost of getting whatever we want when we want it, no matter the price. Can we continually achieve happiness through acquiring stuff? “The Geography of Bliss” by Eric Weiner (Twelve) focuses on how different countries and cultures can create happiness without excess materialism. 

I still don’t want to move to a supposedly happy Scandinavian country, probably because I’ve been reading the Scandi Noir Dept Q thriller books. No place can be that happy and produce such scary stuff. “A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck” by Sophie Elmhirst (Riverhead) is even more terrifying. It’s the account of an adventure Elmhirst took aboard a boat with her new husband and how it nearly wound up costing them their marriage — and their lives. 

I’ve never been to India, but “The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy (Random House), one of the most deserving Booker Prize winners, gives some insight into what part of it must be like. It’s a modern classic of one family in Kerala whose experience reflects not just the Southern Indian geography but also the complexities of its society. Roy’s indelible work can be viewed through the lens of her forthcoming memoir, “Mother Mary Comes To Me” (Deckle Edge/Scribner), which details her complex relationship with her mother. It drove Roy to become an author, but also left deep scars on her psyche. 

Vacations inspire culinary adventures, but you don’t need a passport to explore new flavors. And kitchen shelves can be treasure troves of ingredients when you feel like something different. I looked in my pantry and found Greek olives and preserved lemons, so tossed them into pasta with some Parmesan and, voilà, a Mediterranean dinner. I’ll be spending some time in France soon, so I am poring over “Mostly French: Recipes from a Kitchen in Provence” by Makenna Held (S&S/Simon Element). Held bought Julia Child’s country home in France, moved there, opened a cooking school, and has her own show. Out of gratitude for wonderful local harvest foods, I’m reading “We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate” by Michael Grunwald (Simon & Shuster) to get some ideas about how to eat responsibly. 

If you like the idea of Julia Child in France, try the charming “Mastering the Art of French Murder” mystery series by Colleen Cambridge (Kensington) starring Child in post-World War II Paris, learning to cook and solving crimes with her American friend Tabitha. Très charmant and loaded with period detail and tips on France. I read “The Heatwave” by Kate Riordan (Grand Central Publishing) to get into the mood for what’s sure to be a sweltering week and was impressed by the mood of simmering emotions and outbursts of violence that plague a family during their chateau holiday — hopefully my holiday won’t resemble that. I do love a mystery with a train theme, so I am eagerly waiting for “Five Found Dead” by Sulari Gentill (Poisoned Pen Press). A crime fiction writer recovering from serious illness boards the Orient Express, hoping for inspiration, but instead finds murder. I suggest you pick a film version of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express” to watch for comparison — I love the Albert Finney version, especially for the score.

Some of my favorite travel stories are in Paul Fussell’s book “Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars” (Oxford), which is both celebratory of the opportunities to experience the world if you have a bit of money, education, or style, and hilariously accurate in how many of the British moan about the U.K. yet hate to leave it.

I stayed up very late reading “The Impossible Fortune” by Richard Osman (Pamela Dorman), the latest in the Thursday Murder Club series, due out in September. I was lucky to receive an advance reading copy, and it was great fun but also bittersweet. The characters are a little older, sadder, and wiser but still capable of skilled sleuthing — and some derring-do — particularly when it comes to protecting each other. Get on the library list now if you want it before the end of the year.

“Before I Lived Here” by Stacy S. Jensen, illustrated by Victor Ngai (Holiday House) is a picture book for older children, with history happening under your feet in your house, going back 66 million years. There is so much science and social science content here that your child will learn history and geography without even realizing it.

A great local trip is to the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst. She herself rarely traveled beyond Amherst or even her own back garden, yet her imagination took her and generations of poetry lovers along new pathways of poetry and consciousness. You could do worse than walk in her path for a day and bring some of that inspiration home.