I hope you’ve all had a good start of the new year. I know that’s challenging when we see COVID-19 numbers surging and don’t even get me started on what was going on at the Capitol last week. Good grief. I have not been making a lot of progress in my reading but that’s because work was busy and I was kind of hooked on the news. But, really thank goodness for books that take us away from all of this. I have been greatly enjoying one of my reads and wanted to share a bit about it.

“Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from Baedeker. He does but touch the surface of things. As to the true Italy – he does not even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be found by patient observation.”

Founded in 1827, Baedeker was a German publisher who pioneered the business of world travel guides. They offered practical advice for travelers, including detailed maps and a star-rating for hotels, restaurants and cultural sights.

This line made me remember my first trips to Europe and how much I’ve changed as a traveler since my first trips. Not just because now we can rely on finding a lot of information online and you don’t need a fold-out map when you are touring a city, but while I do love to go and see the important sites in a new city, I also enjoy going off the beaten path and finding my own places. As you know, one of the things I most enjoy doing is visiting bookshops in foreign countries. I also love stationery and art supply stores, antique stores and libraries. I think it’s so important to take time and really experience the place where you are at. I know that is often complicated because of course time and money.

Bolzano, Italy, 2012

But, I completely understand how much Lucy and the other characters in this novel rely on those Baedeker guides. I believe my first guidebook was a Fodor’s and then I found Lonely Planet guides which were much more my style. When I started traveling in the early 90s I had to rely on these to get the most of my trips. How I remember packing my backpack with the travel guide, books, travel journal, a Minolta and 10+ rolls of camera film.

Now I no longer take a guide because I save all the information I want to checkout on my iPhone. My backpack is downright light nowadays as it just holds my Kindle, a light jacket, lip balm and of course my travel journal.

The way I travel has really changed and I’m sure it now feels so different as I’ve traveled many times to Europe. Of course who knows what travel will be like once we are over the pandemic but the one thing I know I’ll always hope for is that whatever B&B, apartment or hotel we stay in that we will always have a room with a view.

Tell me if you enjoy traveling and if so, what’s one thing that you’ve noticed has changed for you over time.

It’s a new year and time for new book releases. So excited to see what the publishing world has for us. Here are the books I’ve received thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the review copies.

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi. This was released last year in the U.K. and was even shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but it’s now coming out in the U.S. This is a story of a complicated mother – daughter relationship and I’ve heard great things about it so I’m very excited about this one.

Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez. The stories in her new collection are as terrifying as they are socially conscious, and press into being the unspoken—fetish, illness, the female body, the darkness of human history—with bracing urgency. I don’t read a lot of short stories so that’s why this one interested me.

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins. Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates––a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name. Sounds like a thriller with a promising premise.

In the Garden of Spite by Camilla Bruce. An audacious novel of feminine rage about one of the most prolific female serial killers in American history–and the men who drove her to it. Sounds chilling.

Sleep Well, My Lady by Kwei Quartey. In the follow-up to the acclaimed series debut The Missing American, PI Emma Djan investigates the death of a Ghanaian fashion icon and social media celebrity, Lady Araba. I haven’t not read the first book but I’m a bit more relaxed about reading books in order than I used to be so I look forward to this one.

Before the Ruins by Victoria Gosling. It’s the summer of 1996 and school’s out forever for four friends. When Andy’s alcoholic mother predicts the apocalypse, the four teenagers decide to see out the end of the world at a deserted manor house, the site of a historic unsolved mystery. Who doesn’t want to read a book with a deserted manor as a setting?

Sounds like a lot of great reads to kick off the year. Is there one that sounds good to you? Which one would you pick up?