Welcome to Litsy!

Here‘s a tribute to my dog Toppy. Since she‘s now at the Rainbow Bridge, I decorated our calendar in our kitchen with some stickers for the day she passed away and it happened on my brother‘s birthday too. I remember the time she saw a turtle on a walking trail that I took her to. She crouched down in the grass and sniffed it where its head was. It put its head inside its shell. I wish I could hide my head inside my shell sometimes like a turtle.

In 1982, despite an absence of boating experience, Jonathan Raban decided to sail around England. Here he presents his travels on sea and stops on land in a snapshot from a different era. He also does a little random noodling. I enjoyed it.

I read this in anticipation of an upcoming trip to Greece. It‘s a memoir set in Athens around 2004. The author‘s anthropological eye is used wonderfully here to capture her adopted country. I loved learning more about what sets the Greek people apart. It‘s not a frothy read, and focuses frequently on dark things from their history, but I really enjoyed it and felt like I was getting an honest look at the country beyond the tourist borders.

I actually enjoy reading the correspondence of various writers — and Bruce Chatwin‘s is no different. In fact I enjoyed it as much as reading his collected articles, “What Am I Doing Here”

If you‘re not generally inclined towards letter reading then this won‘t be for you. But I find reading about the various trips they took, what they thought about people and events, all of that can be very entertaining.

I‘ve come to love nonfiction works from authors who‘ve trekked the world thanks to the #readingthecontinents challenges. So I couldn‘t miss this book written about the author‘s journey through #Venezuela from 1798-1804. He was a naturalist so he includes many in-depth descriptions of plants and animals, landscapes and people. He was obviously extremely knowledgeable and tough to deal with the harsh terrains of all sorts. He was sensitive to the ⬇️

Ugh! He described the mosquitos being so thick he couldn‘t see the horizon to take location measurements. Their faces and hands would swell from the biting and poking insects. Just miserable.

#Venezuela #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

Dark tourism is the exact opposite of normal tourism. The author here prefers this kind of travel, though most people shun it. He grew up in Beirut so is familiar with life in the middle of chaos. In this book he tells us about his trips to such places as Iran (for the skiing), Chernobyl, North Korea, Cambodia and Beirut. He even discovered that Osama bin Laden was a student at his old school. Entertaining and affecting. Four stars

I‘m very curious about what happened in the Andes now!

#Venezuela #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

Well…

#Venezuela #foodandlit @Catsandbooks