A totally unscientific reader poll has produced the following Top Ten Summer Reading List :
The Magicians — Lev Grossman
The Girl Who Played With Fire — Stieg Larsson
Her Fearful Symetry — Audrey Niffennegger
The Strain — Guillermo del Toro
Dead in the Family — Charlaine Harris
The Defector — Daniel Silva
Tinkers — Paul Harding
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest — Stieg Larsson
Faithful Place — Tana French
Olive Kitteridge — Elizabeth Strout
The following post is by Meg Pier and is from her site View From The Pier. Meg is an award-winning travel writer, photographer, regular contributor to The Boston Globe travel section, and the author of A Vision for Today.
The Philosphy of Timing & Waterfalls in Iceland
“You could not step twice in the same river, for other waters are ever flowing on to you” — Heraclitus
Seljalandsfoss (by Meg Pier)
This image was taken during our May trip to Iceland, on our drive from Reykjavik to the southernmost point of Vik. A couple of hours into our journey, on a flat stretch of road, we saw the Westman Islands off to our right, a family of triangular rocks rising from the shimmering Atlantic. Ahead, something on the face of a steep green hillside glinted in the sun. As we got closer we realized it was an immensely long strand of gushing water spilling over the horizon high above–the 131-foot Seljalandsfoss waterfall.
We swung left, joining a handful of cars in the parking lot, and approached the cascading water. No rangers, no ticket office, no lines, no one else even in sight. We stood together transfixed, our mouths hanging open. Then Tom realized there were a couple of people actually behind the sheet of water and left me to go climb the rocky path to join them. Mere feet from the pool at the waterfall’s bottom, getting damp from its spray, I experienced a glimmer of what I imagined it must have been like for early Icelandic settlers when they first approached this roaring wonder. Awed, I felt tears well up.
“The weeping philosopher” is how Heraclitus is often referred to–apparently he was a lonely fellow who suffered from melancholy. Rather than considering himself a part of something bigger than himself–umanity–he was quite contemptuous of mankind. The sage lived in what is now Turkey more than two-and-a-half millennia ago and espoused a doctrine that change is constant and the basis of life.
Allowing for the possibility that just maybe there could be a display by Mother Nature that could top Seljalandsfoss, we later headed down a gravel road to Skogafoss. Timing is everything, in more ways than one. As we pulled in, crowds were re-boarding their tour buses. Once again, we were practically by ourselves, being humbled by hydrology. It would have been a very different experience for us had it been necessary to appreciate the falls shoulder to shoulder with throngs of our fellow man–eraclitus’ misanthropy is something we can all share from time to time I guess .
Seen in reverse order, Seljalandsfoss perhaps would not have been as moving for me. Skogafoss is more than 35 feet higher, and seemed to be ten times as wide, the rumbling louder and the spray harder and reaching a greater distance. What these wonders share in common is the title foss–Icelandic for “waterfall.”
Heraclitus’ other monikers over the ages include “the Obscure” and “the Riddler,” because his treaties were worded in such a way as to lay themselves open to differing meanings. His law of flux has been interpreted differently by other philosophers over the ages. It is believed his actual words were “On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow.” In other words, though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same.
At Skogafoss, I stood back farther than Tom and watched him watching the water with his legs apart, head tilted back, and hands shoved in his jeans pockets. I could almost feel the wheels turning, and visualized a big “Why” question mark over his head.
A sense of wonder and desire for understanding are part of the human condition, and beautiful traits of the human race. Yet whether Tom and I had admired the waterfalls in a different order, or seen Seljalandsfoss or Skogafoss by ourselves or as part of a crowd, the powerful surge of water flowing ever on would continue, with or without our delight.
Godafoss
Oscar Wilde Merrion Square
This week Dublin has become only the fourth city to be designated an “UNESCO City of Literature”. Joining Edinburgh, Melbourne and Iowa City, Dublin now shares the coveted distinction and honor.
Mary Hanafin, Ireland’s Minister of Tourism, said that the designation would give the city a boost with cultural visitors:
“Dublin has been awarded this accolade because of the rich literary past of the city, the vibrant contemporary literature, the variety of festivals and attractions available and because it is the birthplace and home of literary greats. Names such as Swift, O’Casey, Wilde, Shaw, Behan, Beckett and Joyce are synonymous with Dublin and there are reminders of their great literary works throughout the city.”
James Joyce statue
A new website has been established to celebrate the achievement, Dublin City of Literature, which highlights literary events and explores the city’s history and heritage.
Post from Michaela Potter at briefcasetobackpack.com
Michaela Potter
“Meet, Plan, Go!”
A Nationwide Event to Help People Realize Their Travel Dreams
On September 14, 2010, Briefcase to Backpack and Three Month Visa will be hosting Meet, Plan, Go! a free, nationwide event to inspire people to fulfill their career break and long-term travel dreams. The event will offer participants the opportunity to MEET inspirational speakers and like-minded travelers; get motivation, contacts and resources necessary to PLAN the trip of a lifetime; and start taking concrete steps forward to GO on that global adventure.
“In countries like Australia and the UK, career breaks, life sabbaticals, ‘gap years’ and other forms of extended travel are commonplace, but Americans have shied away from claiming a similar birthright. We are on a mission to change that,” says Michaela Potter, co-founder of Briefcase to Backpack, a site that offers travel inspiration and advice for Americans planning a career break or sabbatical.
For years, books like Vagabonding by Rolf Potts and Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman have inspired countless readers across the country to break out of their daily routine and travel the world. Then, in 2006, Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love exploded onto the literary scene, becoming a runaway hit and opening up a wider conversation about Americans and long-term travel experiences.
“Many people found themselves asking, ‘Wait a minute…why haven’t I ever taken time off? Where is MY gap year?!’” says Tara Russell, a Life Sabbatical & Long-term Travel Coach through Three Month Visa. “Now, with the Eat, Pray, Love movie starring Julia Roberts coming out in August, the dialogue is sure to reignite. We want to connect people with useful resources and contacts that will make planning the trip of a lifetime that much easier.”
Every event will feature individuals who have either fulfilled their own world travel dreams or are currently in the planning stages. Such real-life stories have a built-in understanding of the unique challenges that all long-term travelers must overcome in order to make things happen, including the re-entry process and returning to work.
Sherry Ott, a Meet, Plan, Go! collaborator, left her corporate job in 2006 and hasn’t looked back. “During my original 16-month career break, I traveled to 23 countries, primarily solo, armed with my camera.” The travel experience of her life led her to co-found Briefcase to Backpack with Potter. “When I returned to the States, I realized that the corporate world wasn’t for me. So, I spent the last year living and working in Vietnam, experiencing the ups and downs of being a solo expat in a very foreign culture.” Ott has been blogging about her travels on OttsWorld: Travel and Life Experiences of a Corporate America Runaway.
Sherry Ott
Ott is just one of the many life-changing stories that Meet, Plan, Go! will showcase. For a complete listing of Meet, Plan, Go! bios and participants, visit www.meetplango.com. Current event locations include Atlanta | Austin | Boston | Chicago | Dallas | Minneapolis | New York City | Orlando | Philadelphia | San Francisco | Seattle | Washington DC | Toronto, Canada. Attendees will also have the opportunity to win a trip to Peru from GAP Adventures as well as a volunteer trip to France & Cambodia from GeoVisions.
If you have ever dreamed of escaping your cubicle to strike out and discover the world on your own terms, then don’t miss out on this event. And if you have, join Meet, Plan, Go! to help inspire others.
In the latest stop of the Notable Dead Summer Exhumation Tour 2010, Romanian scientists disinterred the remains of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, from a military cemetery in Bucharest to take DNA samples and verify their identities.
The couple were executed by a firing squad on Christmas Day 1989, after a summary trial. The uncertainty about the actual location of the bodies is due to the fact that the execution was not filmed, only the trial and the bullet-riddled bodies afterwards. The burial location was also kept secret.
The campaign to establish the identities of the corpses was initiated by the dictator’s daughter Zoia, who died in 2006, and carried on by her brother Valentin. DNA analysis is expected to take months.
On July 16th, the Notable Dead Summer Exhumation Tour visited Caracas, Venezuela. Most historian have accepted that Simón Bolivar, the 19th century hero of South American independence movements died of tuberculosis in 1830, and that his body was interred in the Venezuelan national pantheon in Caracas in 1876. But acting on personal suspicion that his idol had been assassinated by poison and buried elsewhere, President Hugo Chavez ordered a controversial exhumation.
Venezuelan television showed live pictures of a team of scientists with gas masks opening the coffin and displaying the remains of Bolivar. A team of fifty forensic specialists will carry-out tests on the well-preserved corpse.
Chavez opponents have dubbed the exhumation a political stunt to distract the people from rising inflation, crime, corruption and government seizures of private companies.
On July 5th, the Notable Dead Summer Exhumation Tour 2010 kicked-off when the authorities in Iceland disinterred the remains of chess legend Bobby Fischer in order to carry out a DNA paternity test to settle Fischer’s estate. Iceland’s Supreme Court approved the exhumation to establish if the unbalance chess prodigy was the father of a 9 year old girl from the Philippines, as her mother claims.
Fischer’s estate, estimated to be worth over $2 million, is contested by his two American nephews, Myoko Watai of Japan, who claims to be his wife, by the US government to whom he owed back taxes, and by Marilyn Young of the Philippines.
In 2005, Iceland came to Fischer’s rescue by granting him citizenship and asylum to help him avoid arrest by the US government on passport violation charges. Fischer had made history in 1972 by defeating Soviet chess champ Boris Spassky in a “Cold War” showdown in Reykjavik that put Iceland on the tourist map.
Summer vacation time is here again, and this year, as very other year the chattering classes and book reviewers have told us what they expect you to pack for the beaches and the mountains.
This year on the fiction front, it seems that some genre novels are expected to escape from their typical readership ghettos. Justin Cronin’s blockbuster, dystopian epic The Passage will be weighing down many vacationers’ carry-ons. While plenty of non-Scandinavians will be doing marathon reads to catch-up on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy.
On the non-fiction lists, serious vacationers are expected to opt for an exploration of their cluttered minds by immersing themselves in Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Or they will be risking putting a damper on their vacation fun by trying to wrap their minds around the Afghanistan debacle with sebastian Junger’s intense look at US soldiers in War.
So, what’s on your summer reading list?
Biblioteca Belle Arti, Milano
National Library, Finland
El Escorial, Spain
Bodelian, Oxford
Bibliothek St.Gallen, Switzerland
A few European library favorites from our readers.
Jantar Mantar, Jaipur, India
Yesterday, the World Heritage Committee began its annual meeting to consider requests for the inscription of new sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The session is being held at Brasilia, Brazil, and runs until August 3rd.
During this year’s session,35 States party to the World Heritage Convention will present properties for inscription on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Three of those countries – Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Tajikistan – have no properties inscribed on the World Heritage List to date.
Mount Vernon, Virginia
Thirty two new properties in total were submitted for inscription on the World Heritage List this year: 6 natural, 24 cultural and 2 mixed (i.e. both natural and cultural) properties, including four transnational nominations. In addition, 9 extensions to properties already listed have been proposed (see list below).
The Committee will also review the state of conservation of the 31 World Heritage properties inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger and may decide to add to that list new properties whose preservation requires special attention. The In Danger List features sites which are threatened by a variety of problems such as pollution, urban development, poorly managed mass tourism, wars, and natural disasters, which have a negative impact on the outstanding values for which the sites were inscribed on the World Heritage List.
To date, the World Heritage List recognizes 890 properties of “outstanding universal value,” including 689 cultural, 176 natural and 25 mixed properties in 148 States Parties.
Schloss Eggenberg, Graz Austria
The Convention encourages international cooperation to safeguard the common heritage of humanity. With 187 States Parties, it is one of the most widely ratified international legal instruments. When signing the Convention, States Parties commit to identifying sites for potential inscription and to preserving sites on the World Heritage List, as well as sites of national and regional importance, notably by providing an appropriate legal and regulatory framework.
The World Heritage Committee, responsible for the implementation of the 1972 Convention, comprises representatives of 21 countries, elected by the States Parties for up to six years. Each year, the Committee adds new sites to the List. The sites are proposed by the States Parties. Applications are then reviewed by two advisory bodies: cultural sites by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and natural sites by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which inform the Committee of their recommendations. The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Conservation of Cultural Heritage (ICCROM) provides expert advice on conservation and training in restoration techniques.
St Sophia, Kiev
Natural properties submitted for inscription to the World Heritage List:
Pirin National Park (extension, Bulgaria)
Danxia (China)
Pitons, cirques and ramparts of Reunion Island (France)
Phoenix Islands Protected Area (Kiribati)
Dinosaur Ichnites of the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal / Spain)
Putorana Plateau (Russian Federation)
Monte San Giorgio (extension of “Monte San Giorgio”, Switzerland, Italy)
Tajik National Park, Mountains of the Pamirs (Tajikistan)
Cultural properties submitted for inscription to the World Heritage List:
Australian Convict Sites (Australia)
City of Graz – Historic Centre and Schloss Eggenberg (extension of “City of Graz – Historic Centre”) (Austria)
Augustowski Canal – a work of man and nature (Belarus / Poland)
Major Mining Sites of Wallonia (Belgium)
São Francisco Square in the Town of São Cristóvão (Brazil)
Historic Monuments of Dengfeng in “The Centre of Heaven and Earth” (Originally “Historic monuments of Mount Songshan”) (China)
Konso Cultural Landscape (Ethiopia)
Episcopal City of Albi (France)
Upper Harz Water Management System (extension of “Mines of Rammelsberg and Historic Town of Goslar”) (Germany)
The Jantar Mantar, Jaipur (India)
Matheran Light Railway (extension of the “Mountain Railways of India”) (India)
Sheikh Safi al-din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble in Ardabil (Islamic Republic of Iran)
Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex (Islamic Republic of Iran)
The Triple-arch Gate at Dan (Israel)
Fort Jesus, Mombasa (Kenya)
Bikini Atoll, nuclear tests site (Marshall Islands)
Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Mexico)
Prehistoric Caves of Yagul and Mitla in the Central Valley of Oaxaca (Mexico)
Seventeenth-century canal ring area of Amsterdam inside the Singelgracht (Netherlands)
Røros Mining Town and the Circumference (extension of “Røros Mining Town”) (Norway)
Historic Villages of Korea: Hahoe and Yangdong (Republic of Korea)
Church of the Resurrection of Suceviţa Monastery (extension of the “Churches of Moldavia”) (Romania)
At-Turaif District in ad-Dir’iyah (Saudi Arabia)
Palaeolithic Rock Art Ensemble in Siega Verde (extension of “Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Valley”), (Portugal, Spain)
The Mercury and Silver Binomial. Almadén and Idrija with San Luis Potosí (Spain / Mexico /Slovenia)
Sarazm (Tajikistan)
Kiev: Saint-Sophia Cathedral with Related Monastic Buildings, St. Cyril’s and St. Andrew’s Churches, Kiev Pechersk Lavra (extension of “Kiev: Saint-Sophia Cathedral and Related Monastic Buildings, Kiev Pechersk Lavra”) (Ukraine)
Darwin’s Landscape Laboratory (United Kingdom)
Ngorongoro Conservation Area (re-nomination under additional criteria) (United Republic of Tanzania)
Mount Vernon (United States of America)
Central Sector of the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long – Hanoi (Viet Nam)
Mixed properties submitted for inscription to the World Heritage List:
Central Highlands of Sri Lanka: its Cultural and Natural Heritage ( Sri Lanka)
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, Hawaii (United States of America)
A few of my favorite European libraries from an ongoing project. Send us some photos of your favorites.
Melk Abbey, Austria
Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow
Strahov Monastery, Prague
Trinity College, Dublin
Mafra, Portugal
Wren Library, Cambridge
The following post is by Alison Flood:
From novelists to poets and playwrights, would-be French authors are signing- up to take part in France’s first venture into crowdfunded literature.
Launched this spring by publisher Éditions du Public, the initiative – slogan: “I invest in what I want to read” – has already received 80 manuscripts. Sixteen have been merited good enough to make it onto the publisher’s website, from Nathalie Tavignot’s Croissant de lune (Crescent Moon), in which a series of murders occur in a village whose inhabitants have just woken from a long sleep and remember nothing, to poetry collection Ghislaine Hammer’s poetry collection, Les colosses nus( The Naked Colossi).
Natalie Tavigot
The publishers are now looking for co-editors to help fund publication of the books. Each co-editor must invest $17 in their chosen title, and will then be able to discuss the book with its author on Éditions du Public’s forum, following each stage as it is written. Each title has six months to sign up 2,000 co-editors and some are already proving more popular than others: Tavignot’s thriller has 45 subscribers, while Hammer has just two.
Once the 2,000 threshold has been reached, an editor at Éditions du Public will go over the text and layout with the author. The book will then be sold online and through bookshops, with each co-editor able to recoup “up to eight times the amount of their initial subscription” depending on sales, as well as receiving a free copy of the book they have edited.
“We want, thanks to crowdfunding, to give the chance to every author to be published,” said Laurence Broussal at Éditions du Public. “Thanks to our website, authors have a real communication platform to make themselves known to internet users and to meet their public. But we want this to be without risk: the internet co-editor is refunded with 100% of their output, and the author gets back their manuscript, if the book is not published.”
Broussal said that Éditions du Public was the first publisher to utilise crowdfunding in France, although the concept has already been experimented with in music and film. The publisher has already received around 1,000 subscriptions across all its titles after starting to recruit co-editors at the beginning of July, and hopes to publish its first book by the
Travel Between The Pages 