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Reader’s Relaxation Kit
Guaranteed stress relief: scented bath salts, White Ambrosia tea, a copy of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and other indulgences.
basbleu.com $49.95
Jack London Wine
This literary vintage is made by Kenwood Vineyards using grapevines that were once part of the adventure writer’s ranch in California’s Sonoma Valley. Choose from cabernet sauvignon, merlot, syrah, and red zinfandel.
$20-125/bottle store.kenwoodvineyards.com
Pride and Prejudice Ornament
Each of these handmade glass ornaments is unique, filled with strips of text from salvaged copies of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
$14.25 giftshop.janeausten.co.uk 
Literary Dog Note Cards
Bookish canines adorn these adorable note cards. Each set of eight comes with four different designs.
$5.90 victoriantradingco.com
Emily Dickinson Necklace
The sprig of leaves adorning this gold and silver pendant lifts up to reveal a line of verse by Emily Dickinson: That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.
$75 thelibraryshop.org
Book Bags
Flaunt fashion sense with handbags made from vintage books like Anna Karenina, Jane Eyre (right), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Roget’s Thesaurus.
$130-250 rebound-designs.com
Literary-Themed Journal
Inspire creativity with a journal from Paperblanks’ Embellished Manuscripts line. Covers are imprinted with reproductions of manuscripts by famous figures like Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre, left) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby). Prices vary; visit Paperblanks.com to find a retailer
Greener World Water Bottle
This aluminum water bottle is emblazoned with Penguin Books’ iconic logo. Available in orange or white.
$10.99 us.penguingroup.com
Mood Pillow
This stylish throw pillow, a recreation of one owned by Louisa May Alcott, has a dual use: mood indicator. If it stood on end, the writer wanted to socialize; if it lay flat it was best to stay away.
$24-34 louisamayalcott.org
Book Each Month
Give a year’s worth of armchair adventure with books like Novel Destinations and 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, or novels featuring classic writers like Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance and The Last Dickens. justtherightbook.com or ask at your local bookstore.
A Traveler’s Library is featuring Shannon’s guest blog post about literary wanderlust — what book sparked her interest in travel, places she has visited on the page and in person over the years, and an adventure she’ll be undertaking in the spring.
Is there a book that inspired your interest in travel? Please share it in the comments section.
Those of you who live in England may have seen the National Trust’s Wordsworth House in Cockermouth on the news over the weekend, as reports have come in of the terrible flood damage and devastation up in Cumbria, caused by the foot of rain that fell over a 24 hour-period. The damage to the region was heaviest in the town of Cockermouth, where property team and volunteers for the Wordsworth House worked around the clock during the flooding to protect the house (which lies on the banks of the River Derwent) and safeguard its beautiful contents. The speed and strength of the flood tore down a 3 metre wall around the front garden, and although the handsome Georgian townhouse is still intact, like many buildings in the flooded region, it has sustained substantial structural damage. If you would like to make a donation toward the emergency safeguarding efforts, please donate to the National Trust’s Lake District Flood Appeal.
If a trip to France, Fiji or some other far-flung locale isn’t possible, armchair adventure is always on the itinerary. At A Traveler’s Library, Vera Marie Badertscher explores the world through “metaphorical guidebooks” – books and movies that transport readers to different landscapes and cultures. Today we talk with Vera about her favorite destination, atmospheric mysteries and, of course, some of the literary landmarks she has visted on her travels.
NovelDestinations.com: The slogan for A Traveler’s Library is “Read today, gone tomorrow.” What destinations have you been inspired to visit after reading about them?
Vera Marie Badertscher: So many, and not always in books. My favorite destination is Greece, and I started to get the travel itch to go there from reading, believe it or not, the philosophy of Plato and Socrates. They made me realize that Greek civilization underlies all of Western thought, and I wanted 
to walk on the paths of that history. Just last year, on my fifth visit to Greece, I walked on the path to Plato’s academy (left), which winds, symbolically, I think, through the ancient Kerameikos Cemetery in Athens.
As for specific destinations, I HAD to go to Mycenae after reading the plays of Euripedes as a theater major in school. And I had an itch to go to Cambodia that wasn’t scratched for about 40 years. I saw a Life magazine article that showed Jackie Bouvier (before she was Kennedy) clambering over the roots of trees that crumbled the ruins of a temple and I HAD to go to Angkor Wat. I finally did.
ND: You’ve said that mysteries are terrific for armchair travelers because the authors must create a strong sense of place. Can you tell us about some of your favorite mystery novels and where they’re set?
VMB: Fairly recently, a friend got me hooked on Donna Leon as I was preparing for a trip to Venice. I read every book she had published up until then. Her kindly, interesting police detective and his feminist wife and two very normal children live in old Venice and as you follow him walking to work, stopping at a coffee bar, crossing a bridge, you become familiar with Venice as a place of residence rather than just a tourist stop.
I seek out mysteries to feature at A Traveler’s Library, and a few months ago I read one set in Yosemite, written by Nevada Barr, who writes a series set in National Parks. Since she was once a park ranger, she knows the territory well. I loved her middle-aged park ranger/detective and would like to read a lot more of her books.
ND: What literary landmark made the greatest impression on you?
VMB: When I read the question, I immediately flashed on the desk of Emerson at the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts. For some reason, seeing his stand-up desk, looking out on grass and trees, just made me feel as if I was right there with him. It somehow explained the combination of an influence of nature and an austerity that pervades his writing.
Another favorite author-related destination is the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, which was a haunt of Tennessee Williams and other writers. I also enjoyed lunching alone at Napoleon House Bar (New Orleans) and imagining I was dining with Tennessee in one of his favorite haunts.
I also stayed in the Dashiell Hammett Suite at the Hotel Union Square in San Francisco, surrounded by authentic D.H. memorabilia, and as you can see (at left), a replica of the beginning of The Maltese Falcon movie on the window. Spade and Archer is lettered on the window overlooking the place where the trolleys turn around. My husband and I waited until just the right moment and got a shot of the shadow on the floor, just like in the movie. This must have been the most atmospheric night I’ve ever spent in a hotel.
See Vera Marie’s writers site (www.pen4hire.com) for
samples of her articles for magazines such as National Geographic
Traveler. And visit A Traveler’s Library for articles mentioned here
on Greek Theater, Cambodia, Yosemite N.P., New Orleans, the Monteleone and Tennessee Williams. She has also written about Venice for Your Life Is A Trip, and other destinations at Girls Getaway and iExplore.
[Photos ©Vera Marie Badertscher]
Authors want books as gifts, too. A number of Penguin Group scribes selected page-turners they’d like to give and get this holiday season. Joni and I were happy to see a familiar title on Sue Monk Kidd’s wish list: Novel Destinations, which she describes as ”the ultimate book lover’s travel guide.”
Coincidentally, right now I’m about halfway through Traveling with Pomegranates, a memoir Sue Monk Kidd wrote with her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor. It’s a lyrical and vivid account of their travels together in Greece and France, as well as their emotional and spiritual journeys.
One intriguing aspect of the book is the insight Kidd shares on how she came to write her bestselling debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees.
If you check out the What to Give & What to Get feature, be prepared to take notes for your own wish list. Like Sophie Hannah, I’ll be hoping for Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making by John Curran. And if I were on Randa Jarrar’s list of recipients, I might be getting Edmund White’s The Flaneur, which, she says, “gives you the feeling you’ve gone for a walk through Paris.” Now that’s a great gift. –Shannon McKenna Schmidt
“I beleive [sic] I drank too much wine last night,” Jane Austen wrote in a letter to her sister, Cassandra, in November 1800. She went on to say that she danced nine out of a dozen dances that evening and “was merely prevented from dancing the rest by the want of a partner.” This light-hearted missive is one of 51 on display in the exhibit A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.
Austen penned some 3,000 letters during her lifetime, only 160 of which still exist. (Her sister destroyed many of them at Austen’s request.) Of those, the Morgan has the most of any institution in the world. In the letters Austen talks about her fascination with people watching and preparations for her family’s move to Bath after her curator father’s retirement. A highlight is a note she penned to her eight-year-old niece in which each word is written backwards.
The exhibit is an intriguing look at Austen’s world — her everyday life, her novels, and the Recency era. Along with the letters, there are other items from the museum’s collection. Drawings by Isabel Bishop (above) depict scenes from Pride and Prejudice. Social satirist and Austen contemporary James Gillroy’s colorful prints touch on many of the same themes as in her novels, like women’s fashions and social rank. An engraving by William Blake of Portrait of Mrs. Q., a French painter’s rendering of Mrs. Harriet Quentin, piqued Austen’s interest. After seeing it in London, she remarked that it was just as she imagined Jane Bennet, aka Mrs. Bingley, of Pride and Prejudice. “Mrs. Bingley is exactly herself, size, shaped face, features & sweetness; there never was a greater likeness,” declared Austen. (William Blake’s World: “A New Heaven is Begun” is at the Morgan through January 3, 2010).
The exhibit offers fascinating facts about Austen and her novels: in addition to prose she penned poems, 18 of which have survived; two previous titles for Northanger Abbey were Susan (the original name for the story’s heroine) and Catherine; and the price of a first edition of Emma was 1.1s pounds, at the time more than double the average weekly earnings of an agricultural laborer. Fewer than 20 books that belonged to Jane Austen are still around. On view is her copy of the journal The Spectator, which is given a mention in chapter five of Northanger Abbey.
Connections between Austen and other literary figures are prevalent throughout the exhibit. In one of her letters she reports seeing productions of Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet and Macbeth, and in another reading Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem Marmion. While on a lecture tour to earn money to renovate the Norman tower he purchased in Ireland, William Butler Yeats told a friend in correspondence, “I read all Miss Austen in America with great satisfaction.” A copy of Fanny Burney’s novel Camilla contains in it a list of the subscribers who purchased the book, one of whom is Miss J. Austen, Steventon — the only time Austen’s name appears in print. (Her novels were published anonymously.)
A documentary created for the exhibit features contemporary figures talking about Austen’s literacy legacy. Philosopher Cornel West reveals, “She blew my mind” and notes that her works are “ironic and full of wit.” Writer Colm Toibin would seat Austen next to Freud at a dinner party and “feed them a lot of alcohol.” He adds, ”I would love to see what Austen would make of Freud.” Novelist Siri Hustvedt is captivated by both the spoken and the unspoken dialogue in Austen’s works. “This is as pertinent and relevant today as it was then,” she says.
A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy runs through March 14, 2010, and the museum is hosting numerous related programs, including film viewings and lectures. A Winter Family Day celebration on December 6th will celebrate the Austen exhibit and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (the original manuscript of Dickens’ holiday tale is on display in Mr. Morgan’s library from November 20 – January 10).
Austen’s letters are the most illuminating aspect of the exhibit, but the most touching is one written by Cassandra after the writer’s death. “I have lost a treasure, such a Sister,” she pens, “such a friend as never can have been surpassed.” –Shannon McKenna Schmidt
[Image courtesy of the Pierpont Morgan Library & Museum]
Do some local literary travel today. It’s National Bookstore Day and a great time to start your holiday shopping, pick up some travel guides for planning future adventures, or stock up on reading selections for yourself. Maybe a copy of Matthew Pearl’s The Last Dickens or Gyles Brandreth’s Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile, both of which are about classic writers and feature literary landmarks.
One of my favorite bookstores is the Strand in New York City (above, decorated for the holidays last year). There are “18 miles” of books lined on shelves and stacked on tables throughout a warren of rooms on three levels. They were featured in an article in last Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, “A Tour of Literary Manhattan,” along with Idlewild Books, a travel bookstore where titles (guides as well as fiction and narrative nonfiction) are arranged by destination.
National Bookstore Day was started this year by Publishers Weekly magazine to encourage people to shop locally. (Scroll down on their information page for a list of participating retailers.) Click here to read about it on Entertainment Weekly’s Shelf Life blog.
And please let us know in the comments sections about some of your favorite bookstores, in town or around the world.
Literary traveler Zachary Petit recommended Novel Destinations as one of five “Great Gifts for Writers” in the November/December issue of Writer’s Digest. Each one was selected by a different staffer.
Novel Destinations is featured as a gift For the Writer on the Road. Zachary, the magazine’s managing editor, described it as “a definitive travel guide for writers that venutres into all the literary corners most guidebooks overlook. Wildly useful for any getaway.” He suggests giving a copy of Novel Destinations in lieu of a plane ticket to Key West to visit the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum. If you can spring for both, it’s worth the trip — for the literary connection and also for the legendary cats who liv
e th
ere and roam the house and gardens. You can meet Emily Dickinson (far right, who has the famous six toes), Archibald MacLeish (at right, lounging in Papa’s bedroom), and 50 or so of their friends.
Thanks, Zachary, for recommending Novel Destinations. We wish you and all the other literary travelers out there many memorable adventures!
[Feline photos courtesy of the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum]
This year, Christmas in London is taking on a decidedly Dickensian tone as the city gears up for the release of the blockbuster Disney movie, A Christmas Carol, starring Jim Carrey, Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins. Set in London in 1843, Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas tale centers on Ebenezer Scrooge, a loney and bitter old miser visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Eventually, he opens his heart and discovers the joyous spirit of the season.
Events across the capital will seek to capture that magical spirit starting Tuesday, when the movie premieres to a worldwide audience from right here in London. The stars will be walking the red carpet in Leicester Square shortly after they preside over
London’s city-wide Christmas Carol-themed lights switch-on and celebration, “London’s Christmas Carol”, at 5:00 p.m. at various locations around town. (I’ll be situated on Regent Street and then walking over to Leicester Square to see Andrea Bocelli and the St. Paul’s choir lead London’s attempt to break the world record for the biggest ever Christmas Carol sing-along).
Tickets to the movie premiere at several theatres in Leicester Square are still available at a cost of £50, but you can enjoy the light switch-on festivities for free. –Joni Rendon
