Books

Souvenir Sunday: a journey with “Luggage”

Baggage, Books, ,

On my travels this week I’ve been toting a review copy of Susan Harlan’s book, Luggage, which is part of Bloomsbury’s charming Object Lessons series.

The slim book is travel-sized, but densely-packed and Harlan has stuffed it with stories and side-trips that touch not just on the actual history and development of suitcases, bags, trunks, carry-ons and valises, but on the role baggage plays in literature, art and films.

Remember Mary Poppins’ carpet bag?

“It contains all of her desires,” writes Harlan, and is a “powerfully enabling object” from which the nanny is somehow able to produce a lamp and a mirror (in the 1964 Disney movie) and, in the novel by P.L. Travers, everything from an apron to an armchair.

Poppins’ luggage was not only magical, notes Harlan, it gave her freedom. “She can come and go as the wind changes, which would hardly be possible with a steamer trunk,” Harlan writes.

In “Luggage,” Harlan tells us about her own collection of vintage luggage, a bit of how she and others approach packing and of her visit to to Alabama’s vast Unclaimed Baggage Center, which is not just a store but a tourist destination.

Along the way she unpacks the role and relationship baggage has to everything from home and gender to class, memory, loss and, of course, travel.

“The history of luggage is the history of travel: how we traveled, and why, and where, and what we have packed,” Harlan tells us at the beginning of this journey, “It is virtually impossible to think of traveling without luggage.”

 

 

 

 

Books, Shopping, , , ,

A rare and much-loved amenity at Raleigh=Durham International Airport is closing this week after serving passengers for almost 34 years.

2nd ed. Booksellers – a used bookstore located post-security at RDU – is closing it doors on December 31 after 33 and half years at the airport.

“It is quite sad to see it go, but it is time to retire as I have arthritis issues that strongly recommend that I stop lifting and toting boxes of books,” owner Walter High, who operates the store with his wife Karen, wrote on the store’s Facebook page. “We will miss our faithful customers and RDU will lose one of its most unique aspects. A used bookstore behind security at the airport doesn’t happen anywhere else in the US that we know of.Thank you all for your support over the years!”

RDU’s used bookshop was a favorite with travelers and a rarity at an airport. Two other airports have bookstores (that I know of) that also sell used books: Renaissance Book Shop at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport and a branch of Powell’s Books (selling new and used books) at Portland International Airport.” But these are pre-security.

Souvenir Sunday: read an illustrated history of travel

Aviation history, Books, History, Hotels, Souvenir Sunday,

Journey – an Illustrated History of Travel, published by DK in association with the Smithsonian Institution, arrived in the mail a few weeks back and our household has been leafing through it since then.

It’s a big coffee table-style book – 440 pages, in full color and pretty heavy – and is separated into 7 chapters, or “ages,” each tackling advances, experiences and the means by which humans have made their way around the world.

Chapters 1 through 3 tackle the Ancient World (including travel in ancient Egypt and the travels of Odysseus and Alexander the Great), travel that powered trade and conquests, including the travels of Marco Polo, and The Age of Discovery, when explorers set out to find “new” parts of the world.

Chapters 4 through 7 dig deep into the ‘The Age of Empires’, ‘The Age of Steam,’ ‘The Golden Age of Travel,’ and “The Age of Flight,’ with lots more achival images, historic maps, artifact images, bits of journals, and works of art.

I was delighted to find a spread on the Wunderkammern – or curiosity cabinets – that collectors began putting together in the 16th century to show off souvenirs such as shells, preserved animals, scientific and mechanical obects, and other odd tidbits they’d picked up on far off journeys or purchased from others who had gone on adventures.

The three voyages of Captian Cook are detailed, as are the inventions and inventors that brought the world flight.

There are sections on the rise of the manufactured souvenir, World’s Fairs, Grand Hotels, luggage labels, national parks, efforts to create maps that accurately reflect the world and parts of it, camping, Route 66, travel to every corner of the world, the Jet Age, space travel – and much, much more.

Towards the end of this big book there’s a section of biographies stretching from Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, to Amelia Earhart, Thor Heyerdahl, Ernest Shackleton, and Amerigo Vespucci.

This one is a keeper and a good gift for anyone interested in travel or history.

All images from Journey – an Illustrated History of Travel.

 

Souvenir Sunday: Aerial Geology book

Books, ,

Anyone who’s looked out an airplane window will surely have wondered about – and wondered at – the landscape below.  Mary Caperton Morton has clearly done that and put together a book that goes a long way to explaining how those great views got that way.

Aerial Geology:  A High-Altitude Tour of North America’s Spectaular Volcanos, Canyons, Glaciers, Lakes, Craters and Peaks (coming soon from Timber Press) is filled with incredible images, descriptive illustrations and fact-filled, geology-based explanations of how each site was formed and what makes each landform noteworthy.

I love all the photos in this large-format book, but one of my favorite features is the little box by each landform titled “Flight Pattern” that lets you know where you’d be flying when you’re most likely to spot the image featured.

Here are couple of images from the book:

Cape Cod – Massachusetts, credit NASA

 

Shiprock – in northwest New Mexico – credit Malcolm C. Andrews/AerialHorizon Photography

 

Light reading on Lufthansa flights

Books, ,

Need something to read on your next Lufthansa flight?

Lufthansa will be providing a selection of e-journals for passengers from a library that currently has more than 250 digital titles available in a choice of 18 different languages that can be accessed by passengers up to three days before their date of travel.

Download  is via the Lufthansa app, where  you enter your name and either your booking code or ticket number, then download a title to your own electronic device, where you can read it as a PDF on the flight or on the ground for an unlimited time.

The number of titles available depends on your booking class – from one (economy class) to twenty (HON Circle Member) – digital magazines/newspapers per flight. Additional titles are available for a fee.

Why is Lufthansa offering this?

“By switching over to digital reading material, Lufthansa is able to provide a better service to its passengers through the considerably wider spectrum of magazines and newspapers, offering many more genres and language options. A contribution is also made towards protecting the environment; the e-journals are more sustainable, as no paper or printing ink needs to be used and logistics services are not required for their distribution. The reduction in printed reading ¬materials also means less weight on board and thus also helps to reduce kerosene consumption. ”

Printed material won’t disappear entirely. In Lufthansa lounges and in the First Class sections on long haul flights, the usual printed reading material will still be provided. Printed versions of the magazines in the Business Class section on intercontinental flights will also still be available. And at Lufthansa’s Frankfurt and Munich hubs – and in Berlin, Stuttgart, Hamburg and Düsseldorf airports – newspapers will be offered to all Lufthansa passengers from several central distribution points.