To the Booksmith

You know most of the staff at Booksmith are readers, but did you know we are walkers, too? With the weather finally warming up, with my bike in perpetual disrepair and the 66 bus perpetually 30 minutes away from where I need it to be, I've been taking to the streets, walking to work. And whenever I do decide to foot it, I usually find a co-worker heading my way who has also decided to take the longer way home.

Whether I am in conversation with others or simply letting my mind wander, I am almost always inspired by a walk. I am not the first to note the meditative and thought-provoking powers of the path. Our Destination Literature shelves are full of walkers' testaments to the transformative nature of a good stroll.

The best of these wandering narratives that I've read in recent weeks is  Olivia Laing's travelogue To the River. Laing's gorgeous prose floats the reader down England's river Ouse as she walks from its source to the sea. Readers of W.G. Sebald will recognize his style in her textured meditations, at times melancholy and always beautiful. To the River is a survey not only of the river but of the entire landscape of English literature, from Kenneth Grahame and Iris Murdoch to Virginia Woolf, whose complicated relationship to the river in which she drowned is delicately excavated and explored.

England is turning out a lot of walkers these days. You can read about the poet Simon Armitage's 256-mile walk along the "backbone of England," the Pennine Way, in Walking Home. In The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane, who you may know from his book The Wild Places, walks along England's historical byways, dredging up tales of pilgrimage, territory disputes, and other lively anecdotes that spring up from the natural landscape he crosses.

The pleasures and perils of the road as well as the purging, penitential benefits of a good long walk are explored by David Downie (Paris, Paris) in his new travel book, Paris to the Pyrenees. Downie and his wife, photographer Alison Harris, decide to walk the French portion the famous pilgrimage route, the Way of Saint James, reflecting all the while on the nature of religious ritual, local cuisine, and, of course, walking.

For the urban traveler, there's Michael Sorkin's new 20 minutes in Manhattan. This book reminds me of a non-fiction version of Teju Cole's recent novel Open City, in which the narrator meanders along the streets of New York City, musing as he goes. Sorkin's thoughts focus on the architecture he observes along his walk from Greenwich Village to his office in Tribeca, but the tangential nature of a walk allows him to digress into urban planning and the history of the city.

And finally, to remind us of the history of our wandering ways, there's Edmund White's classic The Flaneur. I recently picked up a copy on our remainder table--there may even be a few sale copies left--so walk on in for more inspiration!

Destination of the Month: Paris

I have only been to Paris in the summer. When the Champs Elysees is crowded with tourists looking for a bit of shade for relief from a relentless sun. When you decide to save yourself from the metro crowds by walking everywhere until your sandals smell so bad you throw them out rather than ruining everything in your suitcase. When you can spend long evenings watching the sky turn the stone white edifices rose from Montmartre Butte, the Sacre Couer at your back, a bottle of wine on hand, or dance the summer evenings away on the banks of the Seine.

I’ve never been to Paris in the winter, but I can imagine the lamp lit streets and bridges, the snowflakes melting softly into the Seine. And Paris is a city that is always in someways more imagined than experienced, half romance half real. This month, we’re celebrating the city of light with some lovely gift books–for the traveler who has been and wants to remember those fading summer nights, or for someone who is on their way to the sparkling snow-covered boulevards. And for the rest, there are narratives to help you imagine the trip you’ve never taken but someday will.

Flipping through Paris: An Inspiring Tour of the City’s Creative Heart is almost as good as a ticket there. JanelleMcCullough takes the traveler through eacharrondissement by way of gorgeous photographs and alluring prose. This book is coffee table and guide book in one. Looking for something more compact and practical? We have two shelves of guidebooks devoted to helping you navigate the city. Secret Paris, for example, can unlock the city and show you un-looked for corners.

Paris is a city full of stories, imagined and real. Paula Mclain has taken the well-known classic story, A Moveable Feast, and turnedHemingway’s memoir of 1920s Paris into a novel. This time, however, the women speak. The Paris Wife is told from the point of view of Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson. She narrates the well-known story: from falling in love, to meeting other members of the “Lost Generation” to the final heartbreaking betrayal.Hungry for more stories set in Paris? The NYRB has collected Mavis Gallant’s Paris Stories into one brilliant edition. This would be the perfect read for your flight to France.

And finally, the slim The Night Before Christmas in Paris makes a sweet stocking stuffer for the francophile in your life. Santa Claus is frantic because Mrs. Claus has slipped off to see the sites of Paris. Santa’s sleigh visits the Montmartre, the Left Bank, the Notre Dame, the Ritz in search of his wife. In the end, “His memories were sweet of the City of Light,” as we hope everyone’s are this holiday season, and, of course, to all a good night!

More than a Guide Book

I'd already heard the  story of how Charles de Gaulle left France during an uprising and told his country to shape up (and they did) a few times from my boyfriend's father, who lived in France at the time. But I'd never heard the slogan of that student revolution "La Beaute est dans la Rue," or understood just what the riots of 1968 were about until I read John Baxter's contribution to the Museyon Guide series, Chronicles of Old Paris , a guidebook that allows the reader to travel not only through the streets of Paris, but through time.

Each of the twenty-nine chapters focuses on a specific person, invention, trend, or revolution (militaristic or artistic) that contributed to the development of the city of light we know and love and long to travel to today. And if you do travel there, a map to each significant site is included at the end of each segment.

To read more about the beauty in the streets of Paris, travel to globecorner.com.