Browsing Archive: August, 2009
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
About 15 months ago my father and I made a trip to Paris followed by a roadtrip to Normandy, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. It was an amazing holiday and one I won't soon forget. It was a great time spent with my father doing something we both love: traveling. One of the highlights of the trip for me was visiting Notre Dame Cathedral. When planning the trip I shrugged it off as something I'd like to see, but didn't think that it was exactly a vital part of the vacation. Needless to say... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail turned out to be a much better buy at the Denver Public Library used book sale than the Theroux sadness I recently read. Granted it was only a dollar as well, but what a great find, or gift rather. And that gift is what I want to talk about here. Why not review the book I'm saying I'm going to review? Well, alright, I'll do that first. It's a Bill Bryson book, so everyone already knows it'll be a winner. And yeah... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
About a month ago I stopped at the Denver Public Library's used book sale and instantly made for the travel section. I didn't expect to find much more than some old travel guides, but was pleasantly surprised when I started  going through the tables covered in books. I grabbed my fair share of old travel guides, I won't deny, but I also found a few that I considered gems. One of those books was Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas, which was published back in... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is a fantastic memoir of what life was like growing up in Des Moines, Iowa in the 1950s  for Bill Bryson. And as far as I'm concerned, despite a 30 year difference, it's not much different than what it was like growing up for me just a bit farther up Interstate 35 in the Twin Cities. With each page I turned I felt as though I swam a lap in my own memory. The book helped me recall so much of my own childhood that I found it quite difficult to put down. T... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
On this trip, much like going from London to New York, the duo went from the northernmost point in Scotland to the southernmost tip of South Africa by motorcycle. They covered some extremely treacherous roads, seemingly constantly needing to repair their bikes due to the wear and tear, and had some  amazing advent... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
I had heard about the book a while ago, but had never picked it  up until I heard about them publishing the next one, Long Way Down, where they ride their motorcycles from Scotland to South Africa. According to Amazon.com, that second book is supposed to be released on paperback on June 9. Long Way Round was such...
Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
 How does one review travel writings and poems that were written in the late 1600s? Well, truthfully, you don't. They've successfully shown the test of time and demonstrated why they are considered to be classics. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Basho really is a prototype for top notch travel writing.
No matter where I fall
On the road,
Fall will I to be buried
Among flowering bush-clovers.
Haiku is prominently, and masterfully, used in all of four ...
Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
I recently purchased, with my girlfriend Amy, the National Geographic sixth edition Guide to National Parks of the United
States. I thought it'd be a great companion for the American the Beautiful annual National Parks pass I planned on purchasing this year. There are just so many national parks I plan on visiting this year that it only seemed logical. And with one national monument, the Florissant Fossil Beds, below, already under my belt I've already started getting my money's worth.  In re...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
I'm beginning to believe that it's just not possible for me to be a fan of Paul Theroux. I've now read three of his books and have  only enjoyed one, and that one only mildly. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is the third book of his I've read, and it comes on the tails of reading The Great Railway Bazaar. And really the only different in the two books is a few countries and about 30 years.
In Ghost train to the Eastern Star Theroux attempts to retrace his route through Europe and Asia...
Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
I read my first Bill Bryson book about 16 months ago before I took my vacation to Australia and New Zealand. In a Sunburned Country seemed like the perfect book to read before heading downunder, and it came highly recommended to me by several friends. Since then I have not had an opportunity to pick up another one of Bryson's books, which I  regret, until I was given I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away by my father for Christmas. When I first picked ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia has been said to be, by some, the quintessential travel novel. If ever there were one travel book to  read, this is supposed to be the one.
So, on the heals of the release of Theroux's Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, a book that is essentially a sequel to The Great Railway Bazaar, I decided to pick up the first and give it a read before I got in the second.
I felt secure in my pu...
Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
 I suppose the title Reading The Great Gatsby in Tehran, or Reading Jane Austen in Tehran, is no where near as sexy as Reading Lolita in Tehran, but either certainly would've been more accurate. Reading Lolita in Tehran had very little to do with the actual Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita. It was certainly incorporated in the book, right from the start even, but it was never the focal point of the book, or even one that was revisted throughout. Reading Lolita in Tehran is an interesting novel over... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
 Ranulph Fiennes: Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know was a book gifted to me by my friend Stephen Mills on his last visit to Colorado back in March. After much indecision about what to read after Three Cups of Tea, I finally decided to pick it up and give it a go. I'm quite surprised really that I had never heard of Fiennes until Stephen gave me the book, especially with all of the other books he's written that have sold so well. But, I guess that it's just my lack of desire to look at bestseller lis... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jason Hussong on Tuesday, August 18, 2009,
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin was my latest read.
If you haven't heard of it you need to climb out from under the rock you've been living under since it's been on bestseller lists everywhere, as well as prominently displayed on bookshelves in almost every store I've walked into as of late that carries books.
Three Cups of Tea is the story about how one man, Greg Mortenson, after losing his father...
Continue reading ...
| |
