Oktoberfest: OR, It Could Be Wurst

The real live Oktoberfest wraps up in Munich this week, though if you're planning on going we still have plenty of great books AND if you plan on bypassing the crowds and going to Munich after Oktoberfest, many of the biergartens will still be around, not to mention all those great breweries, so this exhaustive display in your favorite travel section can help no matter where you plan to drink your beers in October.

The original German-style Oktoberfest has been around in various incarnations since King Ludwig I married a pretty princess in Bavaria. Since then, a huge party complete with many of the beers from the regions spotlighted by breweries have washed down countless Wurst, Brezeln and Sauerkraut for locals and tourists alike always around the end of September to the middle of October. So slap on some lederhosen and get the low-down with Meet Me in Munich: A Beer Lover's Guide to Oktoberfest which breaks down the best tents, what to wear and the whys and hows of all the many Oktoberfest traditions. Also the author's name is Moses Wolf and that in and of itself justifies the price of this beautiful, photo-rich book. And as with most locations in the world, we have quite the Schmaus of more general guidebooks and maps to the region.

For many in New England, the dual signal of leaves changing colors and the proliferation of pumpkin beers signals Autumn time. What better time to hit the road, go on a road trip through the brilliant leaves, stop for a jaunt in an orchard, and to wrap up with a tour to the many magnificent New England breweries? Norman Miller's Beer Lover's New England is an exhaustive list of the best breweries, restaurants and bars in New England. So if you don't want to shell out a tiny fortune to Lufthansa, stay stateside and celebrate your own Oktoberfest, in the prettiest autumnal location in the world!

Conversely, for the armchair tourist who wants to avoid all those Mid-Atlantic leafers scoping out our trees, stay at home with this massive, beautiful World Atlas of Beer. There's a lot of history and science about beer in the beginning, and then broken up by region a rundown of the most popular beers by location. What the locals like, what the international community likes that is produced there, and at what specific temperatures to best consume a beer in a pub in Sheffield. Among many other details. There are also tons of gorgeous photographs. An incredible gift for those upcoming holidays, too, folks.

To keep track of all these beers is the Moleskine Beer Journal where you can write down all the beers you've tasted and what you thought about them BEFORE YOU FORGET. So go out there and toss one back for me! And if you've gone to Oktoberfest or are having your own, tell me all about it in the comments!

Czech it Out!

I want to live inside every
7-11 in Prague

We're putting our own Destination Literature section in the Used Book Cellar because it's an awesome idea and because we just love Jodie and her blogs so much. So Carl and I are rounding up some cool titles that take place in or are written by denizens of cool destinations the world over. And lo, as we pile up books in the section, we notice that we have in particular quite a few novels from the Czech Republic.

"Get intimate with history"

Here's the part first where I show off. Yeah, I've been to Prague. It was pretty rad. A crazy city with stunning architecture, almost untouched by WWII but frozen in time for about 20 years while the Soviets ruled, it now has huge LED reader-boards next to fairy tale spires. The people are sweet. The public transportation is efficient (without being sterile). The beer is great. The food is pork. Basically: paradise.

But back to the Communist part. One of my favorite novels of all time, which also happens to hail from CZ is The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Yeah, I know it's been around for forever and you don't need yet one MORE pretentious philosophy/English major type telling you to read it. BUT. Seriously, read it. The book starts off with the Prague spring in which the Soviets rolled into town and took over the country. The Czech people were under Soviet rule from 1968-1986 and they were happy to oust them. They even have a museum dedicated to how hard and crappy life was under the communists. The impression this iron fisted rule had on the art that comes out of the Czech Republic is varied. One such novel now in our destination literature section is Jiří Gruša's The Questionnaire. Gruša took a lot of heat for writing a novel in which the protagonist is faced with a bureaucrat and a job application and writes his own surrealist, world-building response to the questions. The book is bold, brave, unlike anything else yet totally familiar. The book David Foster Wallace wanted to write when embarking on The Pale King, or One Hundred Years of Solitude if it were the product of hundreds of years of Bohemian history.

Kafka is (of course) another super-important Czech author. There's a great museum dedicated to him in Prague with some WACKY sculptures of some of the more unsavory scenes from his stories. There's even a street named after him! You know you've made it when...

So come "Czech" out our new Destination Lit section (man, I bet nobody is sick of that pun yet). And while you're at it, sell us some cool books to stock it with. Wednesday through Saturday, 10 AM-4PM.

Note: Blurry, sub-par photographs from the author's travels. Don't judge.