Life stories

Recently on the CBS television program Sunday Morning, the producers looked at the role of obituary writers in newspapers and how their work has changed over time.

Originally obituaries were written about community leaders, influential citizens, the powerful. But over time these records of lives lived gradually evolved into stories about many kinds of individuals, citizens of all kinds - plumbers, teachers, doctors and so on. In short, the newspaper obituary now reflects the idea that ever person's life is a story worth telling.

In the aftermath of the World Trade Centre attacks in 2001, the New York Times found itself with a daunting challenge: how to tell the story of thousands of victims of the collapse of the Twin Towers? The newspaper decided to publish short summaries of as many of those lives as it could. The Times called the capsules Portraits of Grief. They were published every day for more than three months. The paper won the Pulitzer Prize for the feature.

What struck me most while watching the program were the comments by one of the newspaper reporters who wrote those summaries. Jan Hoffman interviewed a lot of victims' families and colleagues. She remembers that people usually focused their response around simple themes: "It was about love, it was about singularity, it was about connection, it was about moments of thoughtfulness."

"The singular quality that really stays with me is almost no one ever talked about that person's job."

A sobering thought for all of us.

Road tales on a budget

Matt Gross, the New York Times' "Frugal Traveler," is moving on to something else. After four full years of writing travel articles for the newspaper, of blogging and videotaping his budget-wise, globe-trotting ways, Matt has decided to take off his backpack. (If you'd like a little background, see the posts entitled "Rome and Malta" or "Bucharest rising" in this blog.)

Before moving on to his next assignment, he wrote one last blog entry that summarizes what he's learned from being a traveler on a tight budget. He says one of the key lessons that will stay with him is that the amount of money spent on a trip does not determine the quality of the experience. What instead is much more valuable is having an open mind and being willing to go outside of one's comfort zone. Matt says meeting new people and establishing new friendships are the real reward for travel, regardless of budget or destination.

He explains his reasons, his joys and his regrets. The blog entry also has some embedded video samples of some of his experiences. You can read his last post here.

The "Frugal Traveler" column, however, isn't dead -- it merely has a new protagonist: Seth Kugel will be picking up where Matt left off. This summer, Seth will be travelling on less than $500 a week from Sao Paolo to Manhattan. The writer of the "Weekend in New York" column will offer some unique insights from the road. You can read some of Seth's previous work on his website, linked here.

Summer travel

It's been two weeks now, and I can't get Banff and the Rockies out of my mind. Like many parts of the Continental Divide on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, these landscapes inspire awe and respect for their pristine beauty. We must preserve them for future generations.

Summer is traditionally a time for holidays and travel; but this year, the rising price of gasoline and other travel-related expenses is making holiday planning a real challenge.

The New York Times recently published some great suggestions for summer travel on a budget. Included in their list is the train ride to the Pacific Northwest from Chicago to Seattle. The train crosses the Rockies and passes through Glacier National Park, in Montana.

The Times list also features a number of Canadian destinations, including Montreal, Quebec City, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Manitoba and the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia.

If, on the other hand, your taste for travel pulls you towards Europe, you might enjoy the work of reporter Matt Gross, who is taking a 12-week tour of Europe on a really tight budget (less than 100 Euros a day). The tour is part of the Time's Frugal Traveler series. Gross is posting a weekly video on the site, and this week he shows us his visit to a town I really like: I'm referring to Menton, on the border between France and Italy, on the French Riviera. When our children were little, we stopped there one summer for a short stay and it still brings back warm memories for our entire family, especially my own parents. They have visited more frequently. You can see the video here.

Matt is also writing a blog during his European adventure that you can read here.

If you're into books...

The editors of the New York Times Book Review have sifted through the items they reviewed since last December and have come up with their list of the "100 Notable Books of the Year." As always, it's an interesting list, one that ranges over vast literary distances.

In the fiction section, for example, the editors have selected many books from writers around the world. These include Per Petterson's "Out Stealing Horses," about an Oslo professional trying to overcome his loneliness; "After Dark," by Haruki Murakami, about two sisters, one awake all night, another asleep for months; and "Dancing to 'Almendra'," by Mayra Montero, set in Cuba in the 1950s.

Of course, the list includes some of the more publicized novels we've heard about, including J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," Philip Roth's "Exit Ghost" and Alice Munro's "The View from Castle Rock: stories."

In the non-fiction section, the titles appear tantalizing. The list begins with "Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love and Betrayal," about a British criminal who became a double agent during the Second World War, and proceeds through an extensive choice of biographies and other works that provide explanations in a variety of subjects.

Interested in Africa? The Book Review proposes "Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer" by Tim Jeal and "Too Close To The Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton," Sara Wheeler's look at the man who was the focus of Karen Blixen's autobiographical "Out of Africa" story.

If you like popular culture, the Times highlights "Shulz and Peanuts: A biography." The book explores how Shulz's frequent gloom and melancholy were reflected in the actions of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and other cartoon characters in the famous syndicated strip.

Biographies of note this year also include volumes on Pablo Picasso, Thomas Hardy, Alexis De Tocqueville, Leni Reifensthal (the woman who directed Hitler's Nazi propaganda films) and Princess Diana.

The Times selects some notable explanatory books. There is "How To Read The Bible: A Guide To Scripture, Then and Now." (A former professor of Hebrew guides readers through the Bible, navigating through waters marked by literalists and skeptics.) Another is "How Doctors Think," a look at the difficult relationship between doctors and patients and some of the tough choices facing medicine today." If you're interested in the American justice system, there's "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court."

Finally, I'd like to list two more. The titles are rather curious: "Foreskin's Lament: A Memoir" by Shalom Auslander and "Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire" by Judith Thurman. Hmm...

You can review the entire list on-line at the New York Times book pages here. Each listing links to a separate book review.

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