What's New in the Travel Section

The holidays just blew through the store in a twinkling blur! Now I have to go back to eating grown up food and not dreaming about all the maps selling out and Oprah choosing a National Geographic map as her Nobel Prize Book of the Month. And in the world of exciting maps, if you didn't already see it on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, we got some seriously cool new maps in from National Geographic, the perfect sort of thing to spend your shiny new Booksmith gift card on:

There's Shakespeare's Britain, Earth at Night, Mars(!), Antarctica (to go with the single guide book that actually exists AND is in stock!), National Parks of the USA, the Universe, and as always the classics are in stock as well. Super special stuff. Be the coolest kid on your block with a Mars map!

In other new stuff news, we now carry Wildsam travel guides. I believe we're the only bookstore on the Eastern seaboard with these beauties and they are MAGIC so come snatch 'em up before anyone else. They are beautifully designed and the perfect size to take on the go. They have a small chunk of graph paper in the back for notes and scraps to save, and the content is AMAZING. Beautiful essays from great writers, fascinating almanacs, hip hand-drawn maps of individual neighborhoods and all the things to see and do. They currently exist for Nashville, San Francisco and Austin (where they're based). Come check them out in person, my stunning photograph barely does them justice:

And finally, our Destination of the Month continues to be Brazil for a few short days. Come check out our copious books, maps and novels as you plan your southern migration and/or World Cup vacay.

Superbowl Sunday: Literary Showdown

Superbowl Sunday! Either you've waited for it all year or you're just in this for the snacks and funny beer commercials. Unless you're me, in which case you completely forgot that football existed until Carl proposed a literary showdown between writers from this year's rival cities (Baltimore and San Francisco, if you've been living under the same rock I was).

Let's see the line-up!

From SAN FRANCISCO:

Lawrence Ferlinghetti - The patron saint of indie bookstores and the heart & soul of this ragtag team of miscreants. If they win this thing, he's taking a gatorade shower.
Tobias Wolff - Crowd favorite. Makes short work of the opposition.
Charles Schulz - insists the Charlie Brown football schtick was not a self-portrait. We'll see.
Shirley Jackson - assumes the ceremonial coin flip augurs darker things to come. Doubts anyone will be "going to Disneyworld."
Jack London - thinks Shirley Jackson is optimistic.
Lemony Snicket - thinks Jack London is cheerful.
Allen Ginsberg - will probably streak at half-time.


Aaaaaand east coast! From BALTIMORE:

Edgar Allen Poe - With a team name like the Ravens, this guy's the clear MVP. Has big-name draw but isn't exactly known for his happy endings.

Gertrude Stein - renowned for dizzying duck-and-weave tactics and elaborate touch-down victory dances.

Upton Sinclair - or "Jungle Fever," as his teammates call him. This is a dirty business and he's in it to win.
Emily Post - will tackle you with her pinky out.

Ogden Nash - endears himself to the cheerleaders by improving their rhyme schemes.

John Barth - is all about the mind games. He'll sneak off the field and into the media box to give voice-over commentary. Says Baltimore is winning but we have no way of knowing that's true. Or even that this game is real.
Tom Clancy - his strategy involves a CIA mole, international espionage and the Goodyear blimp.

Holy cow, folks. It's anyone's game. We'll be pulling for Frisco, if only because we've got a huge crush on City Lights.