Weekend travel -- a literary magic carpet

If the price of fuel is keeping you close to home this summer, why not find a comfortable spot and spend some time with a great travel book?

A few years ago, National Geographic Traveler magazine published a list of classic travel narratives, compiled from suggestions forwarded by explorers, writers, editors and photographers.  It was called Around the World in 80+ Books. 

Besides well-known stories like Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (1937), Roughing It by Mark Twain (1872),  A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (1964) and Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger (1959), the list offers some tantalizing works.  The titles alone are a magic carpet ride:

The Valleys of the Assassins: And Other Persian Travels by Freya Stark. Written in 1934, Stark travelled alone in the mountainous region of Western Iran.

Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonseca (1995).  The writer spent four years wandering with the Roma throughout Eastern Europe to learn their ways and traditions.

Cold Beer and Crocodiles: A Bicycle Journey into Australia by Roff Smith (2000). An American living in Australia decides to ride around the continent and meet its people. The journey takes almost a year, and the beer, well... you get the idea it's important to the Ozzies. 

Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea by Eric Hansen.  Written in 1991, this is the story of Hansen's search for journals he buried in the sand ten years earlier, after being shipwrecked. 

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz (1998).  A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Horwitz travelled in the so-called "unvanquished" Southern States to explore why some Americans are still obsessed with the war.

Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone by Mary Morris (1988).  National Geographic calls her "emotive and gutsy" and says she deserves to be on television talk shows. Morris lived in a Mexican town for some time and wandered around Central America.  She writes about the difficulties of living in strange places and her voyage of self-discovery.

As you can see, just reading the list promises adventure, like having a unlimited visa. To peruse the complete list, go to the National Geographic Traveler page here.

Many thanks to Bart De Poorter for his photograph of Kyrenia Castle in Cyprus.

-------------
> To send this to a friend, click on the envelope icon.
> To bookmark or share on social networking sites, click the icon in the top right corner of the page.

Can humanity evolve to a new level of consciousness?

Some time ago, I found a great amount of help in a book by Eckart Tolle called The Power of Now. Tolle and other spiritual leaders opened my eyes to the covert and often destructive way in which our own minds and our egos take control of our lives and determine our behaviour. These two aspects of ourselves very often smother and distract us from the true essence of our being.

Tolle stresses the importance of awareness and how we must work daily to stay focused on the present.

One could argue that many sad and painful events in our world are related, in one way or another, to egos influencing people in negative ways. I'm thinking of things like wars, murder, and abuse of all kinds. These are all related to two things. First, a lack of real consciousness. Instead of focusing on what's actually happening around us, we focus on the pseudo-life that plays itself out in the mind. Secondly, we have a tendency to allow bruised egos to determine actions.

Egos demand protection and gratification. They demand revenge, action, retaliation, "honour" and a host of other entitlements. Think of something like the Gollum character in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. (The pictures in the link give you a very good idea.)

And of whom do egos ask these things? Actually, of us, the very people who "own" them.

Tolle says humanity hasn't evolved to its true spiritual potential. He believes this has not happened yet because we have not reached a fully conscious state in which we can separate our thoughts, our egos and our underlying life energy. He argues our true selves are to be found in that underlying authentic essence.

His ideas aren't all that new; they've been around for thousands of years through the words of Abraham, Mohammad, Jesus, the Buddha and of the Hindu masters. However, Tolle presents them in a modern context and reminds us of the value of these teachings.

Now, Tolle's new book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, has caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey, who has made it one of her monthly picks. For the first time in Oprah's media world, an author's work will also be the basis for an on-line course that will be presented on her website, beginning in March.

Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper, offered a primer on the main messages of Tolle's latest book and the structure of the course. I found it interesting.

For a short overview of Tolle's ideas of the "egoic self," see this article.

Last October, a related post appeared here, called "The present is the only thing that's real."

-----------------------------
Thanks to Tibor Fazakas of Romania for his photograph of the park benches in that quiet winter setting.

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.

--------------------------
Photo from http://www.sxc.hu/