Reviewing Books for All About Beer

By all accounts, 2011 was a big year for beer books. Very big. Oxford University Press released the massive, Garrett Oliver-edited Oxford Companion to Beer, Jeremy Cowan and James Sullivan told the story of Shmaltz Brewing Company in Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah, and Joshua M. Bernstein wrote a highly entertaining guide to the thriving craft beer industry called Brewed Awakening. Rounding out the bunch, Running Press also published The Great American Ale Trail by Christian DeBenedetti, a journalist and zymurgist based in Oregon.

In the January issue of All About Beer I reviewed DeBenedetti's book, a title that belongs on the shelf of any craft beer fan. It's fun to browse, and worth consulting when you need help tracking down a watering hole out of town. As I wrote in the magazine, "his voice is knowledgeable, entertaining and easygoing, almost as if a trusted friend rather than a seasoned expert is dispensing the advice within the publication's 352 pages." Here's hoping 2012 has another round of great beer books in the tap line.

Best Hikes Near NYC Book Trailer

Mostly because I'd never used iMovie before, making my first book trailer took longer than it should have. But in spite of the time I devoted to it, I doubt anyone is going to mistake me for an auteur anytime soon. That said, I do hope this short video will encourage locals as well as visitors to consider day hikes as another fun way to experience greater New York this summer. To purchase a copy of my new hiking guide, I recommend supporting local business by shopping at an independent bookstore near you.

 

David Farley's Irreverent Curiosity

A couple of weeks ago I sat down with David Farley at Jack's Coffee in the West Village to talk about travel, writing, and Restless Legs, his ever-expanding support group for the wanderlust stricken. This week my Q&A with the author of An Irreverent Curiosity appears in Time Out New York. Here's an outtake from our conversation.

You’ve given advice on how to write a bad travel story. Which kinds of travel writing are you tired of reading? What makes you cringe?
 
Good question. One thing I really like about good travel writing is when the writer puts the place or the thing they’re writing about into a context. In travel writing, the best stories will entertain us and educate us at the same time. And when they’re just writing about what they did it’s neither entertaining nor educating at all. I want that nice balance of understanding the place and being able to see the place. I want the person to describe the landscape and interpret the landscape.

Pick up a copy of the magazine for my full interview with Farley or, if you're allergic to paper, read it online.

Wrapped Up in Books

Many people are wondering what the Apple iPad will do to the publishing landscape once it goes on sale this weekend. For all of the opportunities this product promises, there is also concern that it may hasten the obsolescence of so-called "old media," like books. Maybe so. I have no idea what kind of life expectancy printed information has any more, but until further notice, I intend to continue patronizing brick and mortar businesses, starting with New York's best specialty bookshops. Because book jackets do still matter to me.

Five Reasons I'm Tired of Lists

Late last year, as I was negotiating the details of a story assignment with an editor over email, he lamented to me about the difficulty of reconciling meaningful content with the tendency of web audiences to scan. While I don't deny that the proliferation of news and entertainment online has changed (and is changing) our reading habits, I will say that I recognize the utility of ordered information.

Lists can be a quick, handy way to gain some understanding of an unfamiliar subject, and occasionally lead to serendipitous discoveries. For writers, they can encourage careful thinking and considered selectivity. And although they aren't a form of expression I particularly enjoy, I am guilty of list-making myself. But lately it seems like every other article is trying to tout the Top Five Ways to Brush Your Teeth or the World's Best Places for Cold Cereal.

I find this trend somewhat disappointing, especially when it comes to travel writing. So, in the hopes of attracting people with a surfeit of time and yet lack anything resembling an attention span, I decided to outline my thoughts in a easy-to-skim format.

1. Travel Writing Should Inspire Curiosity. Some of my favorite—and arguably the best—examples of this genre are long, thoughtful ruminations that don't include a single recommendation. The writer transports you to a place and then pulls back the curtain on a peculiar aspect of it that they alone have investigated. You think to yourself: I wonder what I would say to a magical penis thief if I met one?
   
2. Every Experience Doesn't Need a Ranking. If you're going to bother leaving your routines at home, go ahead and forget about what you think you're supposed to do when you reach your destination too. Do something for the hell of it. Try something you might not like. Believe it or not, misadventures often make for fond memories.
   
3. Lists Value Templates Over Talent. As another writer I admire once said at a reading series I enjoy attending: Ideas are easy. Stories are hard. Call me old-fashioned, but I think there's something to be said for accepting a challenge every now and then.
   
4. Experts Are a Dime a Dozen. Let's say you spent a long weekend in Baltimore. You caught an Orioles game, checked out the National Aquarium, feasted on crabs at Phillips, and wandered over to Little Italy for cannoli after dinner. Wonderful. Tell your friends and family about the great time you had in Charm City, but please don't call yourself an insider.
   
5. Itemization Begets Impatient Readers. I'll be slightly impressed if you make it this far into my post.
   

Why Travel Never Gets Old

"When you cross the country, you are always crossing a new country, a moving destination." I read a good chunk of Robert Sullivan's Cross Country while staying with my parents in Maryland last week, and this particular sentence stopped me in my proverbial tracks. As I paused to reflect on the journeys I've repeated thus far in my life, I also considered how this idea summarized one of my favorite things about travel: its inconstancy.

Sure, there are places that have been designed to essentially deliver the same experience to people no matter how many visits they make, but I suspect that even in those cases, the destination has, in one slight way or another, moved. The restaurant you always visited on vacation may look the same, but perhaps a new chef has changed the menu since you were there last. Or could it be that the landmark you relied on to remind you where to turn is gone?

At home we often miss the smallest changes to the landscape, prone as we are to routine. But when we retrace routes we've taken before, unfamiliar sights and sounds contrast with the topography captured by our imperfect memories, causing us to view the scenery anew. This happened to me nearly every time I drove back and forth from college in Ohio and again during a return trip to Norway several years ago.

On my first visit I'd spent most of my time with a close friend who showed me around Oslo, introducing me to some of the places that made the city dear to her. One such spot was Cafe Amsterdam, an unassuming brown bar just around the corner from the National Gallery. Fondly remembering a long evening of conversation over dark beers, I tried to find it again one afternoon while wandering the city on my own. When I turned up at the address however, I was met with an unpleasant surprise—Cafe Amsterdam no longer existed. While my first instinct was to mourn the bar's disappearance, I stopped to reconsider. This wasn't a loss, but rather an opportunity to continue exploring Oslo. A chance to begin looking for a new destination.

Historical Maps and What They Teach Us

Because I don't enjoy shopping, I rarely buy souvenirs on my trips abroad. Yet two years ago, while browsing the stacks of a used bookstore in St. Andrews, Scotland, I happened across a small volume with a faded red cover that I couldn't bear to leave behind. Plus, £4.50 hardly seemed extravagant given that I'd paid £3.80 for a pint of beer and a mug of black coffee the night before.

Published in 1928 by Methuen & Co. Ltd. of London, The Fjords and Folk of Norway is a unique combination of travel guide, social history, and encyclopedia. It was peppered with 43 images photographed and captioned by the author Samuel J. Beckett, and to my delight, included a two-color, fold-out map of a country the preface confidently described as "a land in every way ideal for holiday travel." Given the theme for this year's Geography Awareness Week, I thought it deserved a mention here.

As readers of this blog already know, I can get a bit nerdy when it comes to maps. Even so, I'd argue that The Edinburgh Geographical Institute's precise cartography is interesting for a couple of different reasons. First of all, the scale shows distances in British Statue Miles, Kilometres, and Norwegian Miles—a unit of measure I wasn't familiar with. Secondly, the large scale inset of the great fjord region offers an informative lesson in how physical geography and population density determine transportation infrastructure. By studying the railway, road, and steamboat routes, it's possible to accurately infer that the landscape is rugged and sparsely peopled. In fact, about two-thirds of Norway is mountainous and in 1925, the population was only 2,772,414. Today this Scandinavian nation has about 4.6 million citizens, many of whom still rely on boats as a swift means of North-South travel.

Finally, I found it somewhat curious that the mapmakers also included an inset of historic Bergen, gateway to the fjord region. Lacking enough detail to be useful for visitors, it's informative nonetheless, with elevations for a few of the surrounding mountains and an attempt to indicate the growth of the city beyond its commercial center.

In Praise of Global Knowledge

Have you hugged a map lately? If not, consider doing something to show your appreciation for maps and atlases between the 15th and the 21st of November. Why, you ask? Because the third week of the month is Geography Awareness Week, an annual event observed by a growing number of students, teachers, parents, and professionals. GAW was created in 1987 to inspire kids to learn more about the distribution of and spatial relationships between people, places, and environments on Earth, but anyone can take part in this celebration of geography—it's not exclusionary.

If this all comes as news to you and you haven't the slightest clue about where to begin, stop wringing your hands and head on over to National Geographic's My Wonderful World Blog. They've already posted a "quasi-definitive list" of fun ideas for gamers, cooks, armchair travelers, and yes, bloggers too. Problem solved.

I'll undoubtedly be writing about maps myself, but I'm also planning to introduce Captain Cartography (pictured) to a few educators here in Brooklyn. With some luck, my comic book will be available in time for Geography Awareness Week 2010.

Art by Dezi Sienty

Painting Venice in China

With Halloween preparations, an especially persistent head cold, and another large editorial project to occupy my time, I haven't had the chance to write much lately. Paychecks, however, occasionally take precedence over more creative pursuits. At least subway rides to and from Manhattan give me the chance to do a little reading for pleasure.

Earlier this week I finished a fascinating article by one of my favorite travel writers: Peter Hessler. Since reading River Town, his sensitive account of life in the small Chinese city of Fuling, I have avidly followed his reporting for National Geographic and The New Yorker. His most recent dispatch, entitled "Chinese Barbizon," appeared in the October 26th issue of the magazine and addressed globalization from the point of view of several resourceful, opportunistic laborers in Zhejiang Province. One ambitious young woman and her boyfriend earn about $1,000 a month as commissioned painters—not a bad wage in a rural area where artists live rent free for the first year.

The piece is full of pithy observations and sharp insight, but unfortunately, the online version is only available to subscribers. A brief audio slide show related to the story and narrated by Hessler delves into the business of selling cheap oil paintings to foreign buyers.

Adventures in Mapping

A full month after blithely declaring that I'd soon have more news about my educational comic book, I actually have something to post. Working with an imaginative artist, experienced cartographers, and now a talented letterer, I am (I think) about a week away from wrapping up the first stage of this project. Previews are coming soon. I promise.

We've settled on a logo, four of the first five pages are inked and colored, the map I commissioned looks great, and after a bit of rewriting and lots of editing, I'm finally happy with my script. Watching Captain Cartography evolve from an idea into a full-fledged story has brought me a lot of joy already, and I consider myself lucky to have found such willing and enthusiastic collaborators. Unfortunately, the next step in the process is drafting a budget.

Introducing Captain Cartography

There was a time when I made my fondness for geography known on a regular basis. And although I don't deal with atlases every day anymore, I still have a soft spot for maps and cartography. So much so, I realized recently, that I needed to channel this interest into a summer project. Naturally, I decided to try writing a comic book.

Being a novice, I started off by reading lots and lots of comics. Of the books I discovered, Action Philosophers, a mini-series by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey "that proves that philosophy is not just the province of boring tweed-enveloped college professors," just may be the best. My hope is to do something similar with geography.

So, with a tall stack of borrowed graphic novels, a copy of The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics, a very rough plot outline, and a concept for a character with uncanny map-reading skills, I set out to write an adventure story that would both entertain and educate. Freelancing gigs, softball games, and a plethora of August birthdays slowed me down somewhat, but there's been some progress, and I plan to flesh out a script once I get thumbnail sketches from the artist who's been working with me. With luck I'll have more news on this front before Labor Day.
Illustration of Captain Cartography © Steve Wands 2007

Wordy Wandering

With iTunes, YouTube, and Twitter to entertain us around the clock, I suppose a bundle of paper glued together and perfect bound can seem like a rather old-fashioned form of escapism. But I like my books anyway. Because even though a shrinking bank account has limited my wandering to the lower 48 this summer, my little library of travel literature still affords me plenty of opportunities for vicarious globe-trotting. A few titles that I've recently added to my collection really impressed me with their honest wit and wisdom so I thought I'd post about them today:

• The last great book I finished was Jeffrey Tayler's Angry Wind, a riveting account of his journey across the Sahel from Chad to Senegal. The small sounds, smells, and sensations that he captures as he navigates the landscapes and customs of Muslim Black Africa greatly enhanced my understanding of the region.
  
• For reasons that I'll explain in another post, I've been steadily working my way through a sizable stack of graphic novels. One my favorites is called Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon. Inspired by a true story, it imagines Iraq's chaotic liberation in 2003 through the eyes of a family of lions.
  
• The next hardcover I'm eager to crack open is David Farley's An Irreverent Curiosity, a zany tale that could accurately be described as The Curious Case of the Missing Foreskin. His chapter entitled "The Semi-Retard's Guide to Learning Italian" got plenty of laughs at the last Restless Legs night on the Lower East Side.

And finally, for people who insist on doing their reading online, I have one more recommendation: my friend Nick Gill's new journal of Latin American food, drink, and travel. I can practically guarantee that his restaurant reviews, slideshows, and hotel suggestions will have you itching to book a flight to Chile, Ecuador, or Peru. Perhaps all three. So what's in your summer pile of reading materials? Which authors have transported you somewhere lately?

Reading While Traveling

When compared to other units of measure, a week doesn't seem very big—except when most of it has been devoted to a single pursuit. I recently agreed to help a friend polish a manuscript that he intends to shop around to agents this summer, so in my case, the past week involved lots of editing. The title of this yet-to-be-published novel refers to a place in Australia, but many of the events in the opening chapters actually occur in a Norwegian city I've grown quite fond of.

On my last visit to Oslo, I paid a visit to Norway's largest bookstore dedicated to maps and travel. Located behind the Royal Palace on Uranienborgveien, Nomaden is a ideal shop to peruse if you happen to find yourself in Oslo and can't decide where to go next. Its shelves and staff do not lack for sources of inspiration. You might also consider stopping by if you've chosen to walk from one of the attractions downtown to Frogner Park in the west; Nomaden is on the way.

Cup of Gold

"The sea was a round lake of quiet undulation, spread with a silken skin. Slowly, slowly, passing to rearward, the water set up a pleasant hypnosis in the brain. It was like looking into a fire... There is a peace in the tropic oceans which passes a desire for understanding. Destination is no longer an end, but only to be sailing, sailing, out of the kingdom of time."

John Steinbeck was a 27-year-old aspiring writer when his first novel, Cup of Gold, was published in 1929. Supporting himself on money earned as a laborer, a journalist, and a caretaker, he had visited Panama several years earlier and likely drew on some of his own experiences while penning this romanticized biography of Sir Henry Morgan. And yet, passages like that above still resonate 80 years later. In spite of spending such a short time in and around the isthmus between North and South America, he described this part of the world with convincing detail. For all of his determined effort and raw young talent, he received a $250 advance from his publisher, Robert M. McBride & Company.

I wasn't familiar with the book when I started planning my trip to the country this winter, but I happened upon a paperback copy at Idlewild Books and bought it on a whim. Reading it on the Pacific island of Taboga a few weeks ago, I learned something about Panama's piratical past and rediscovered an author I hadn't paid much attention to since high school. Add this book to your beach reading list now—especially if the stretch of sand you have your eye on happens to be an hour-long ferry ride from Panama City.