As loyal readers of my blog know, I like travel and I like writing. But I don’t like much of the “travel blog” type of writing which dominates the scene these days. “We went to City A, did activities B-D, took these pictures, then moved on to our next destination” doesn’t do much for me. I prefer stories, and moments.
This is where “Wayward: Fetching Tales From a Year on the Road” by Tom Gates excels.
“The Glass Castle” is a family memoir by Jeanette Walls, detailing her trauma-racked childhood, growing up with an abusive father and a neglectful mother.
That’s how other people might summarize the story. But it’s not how Walls tells it.
“To realize one’s Personal Legend is a person’s only real obligation.”
These were the words with which Paulo Coehlo stole my heart.
My world is far too full of I cant’s, but’s, and if only’s. I hear these words all the time from friends, from lovers, and from family. I heard these words from the woman who introduced me to this book: “I wish I could do what you did and travel, but I need to work.”
Essentially, Paulo Coehlo’s “The Alchemist” pivots around this idea of “I can’t.”
This book exists to convince you: “You can.”
With the stunning conclusion to season six of Game of Thrones, an embarrassingly large number of us are now left with nothing to look forward to every Sunday night.
Now that the series has finally, totally and truly eclipsed George R. R. Martin’s books, you can’t even fill the 10-month gap between seasons by reading those. Well, you could, but trust me: at this point, it’s better just to stick with the show. Books 4 and 5 weren’t all that good, and the wait for 6 will just make you angrier than you need to be, really.
Instead, pick up a copy of Patrick Rothfuss’ 2007 novel, “The Name of the Wind.”
“Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains” was first published in 1990. Well before the cultural zeitgeist embraced the outdoors as the hippest, healthiest place to play, and long before #adventure became chic, Krakauer began his book with this epigraph:
“Having an adventure shows that someone is incompetent, that something has gone wrong. An adventure is interesting enough in retrospect, especially to the person who didn’t have it; at the time it happens it usually constitutes an exceedingly disagreeable experience.”
There’s something to be said here about the wisdom of your elders, but considering the name of this website, I’ll leave it hanging.
A collection of climbing and mountaineering essays and articles written for Outside Magazine and others, “Eiger Dreams” was the first book ever released by author Jon Krakauer, who would later go on to find literary fame with two heavy hitters: “Into The Wild” and “Into Thin Air.” By nature of being an essay collection, “Eiger Dreams” doesn’t demonstrate the thematic and narrative tightness of those later books; some essays are worth reading, others will likely have you skipping ahead to see how much longer until the next one.
thisisyouth 