Quote de jour

"No matter how you travel, how ‘successful’ your tour, or how foreshortened, you always learn something and learn to change your thoughts.”
~Jack Kerouac, in Satori in Paris

I'm off tomorrow on an assortment of travel adventures. (These days isn't venturing through an airport an adventure?) I'll be at a spiritual retreat in Michigan, a visit to see my mom in Toronto and visit to Phoenix and Sedona with a dear friend. The blog will be posted most days on autopilot and I won't be able to respond to comments. I hope to return chock full of stories and photos galore. Ciao Ciao!
 
You'd think someone who reads as much as I do, would hanker for a Kindle or some other wireless reading device on the road, but they scare me. If someone wants to buy me one and make a believer out of me, go ahead. I lug as many books as I can but lean towards slim paperbacks. Please note: there will be no What I'm Reading This Week next week.

Considering the maelstrom of activity this week, I'm shocked how much reading got done. Is it possible to readin your sleep? Best article? New York Magazine's James Frey's Fiction Factory. Four years after his Oprah tongue lashing over his first book, the controversial US writer is now accused of exploitation for group writing project. Has that  bad boy writer no shame?



A publicist sent me a copy of Crossing the Heart of Africa by Julian Smith. It makes Eat Pray Love look like a romp to the mall. If you like travel writing with verve, romance and real adventure, Julian Smith is your man.

Inspired by the true story of British adventurer Ewart Grogan, who marched the length of Africa in 1898 to win the hand of the woman he loved, Julian faces his fear of commitment by retracing a similar 4,500-mile journey from South Africa to Sudan, just months before his own marriage. In alternating narratives he weaves Grogan's adventures with his own. It appeals equally to both genders but I'll call it an Eat Pray Love for men. Available in early December. JulianSmith.com

Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention by Katherine Ellison is a memoir about a subject close to my heart: ADHD. It's about the year when both the writer and her son receive a diagnosis of ADHD and the ups and downs of coping. Told with wit and true insight. Katherine Ellison