My new favorite travel book

Lonely Planet's Trip Builder by Lonely Planet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My better half and I enjoy travel, and I enjoy travel books, whether it's travel narratives that take me places without leaving home or travel planning books from Lonely Planet, DK, Fodor's, Frommer's, Rick Steves or others.

With that said, I don't just like this book. I LOVE it. It takes an approach to travel planning and idea generation that's quite interesting and helpful. Each section of this massive book is just two pages. Rather than provide an exhaustive list of places to go in each area, city, etc., with details on how to make reservations, where to eat and other minutiae, it gives very broad strokes and lets you fill in the details if you plan to go. For example, one 2-page section, A Literary Tour of England, suggests London to the Lake District. In the broadest of strokes, it guides you from London to Oxford to Bath to Stratford-upon-Avon to Haworth to The Lake District. There are some details, but not a lot. To give you a better idea, the entirety of the Stratford-upon-Avon part says,

William Shakespeare is arguably the most famous writer ever, and his medieval hometown sees crowds that attest to his continuing popularity. Seek out his birthplace; pay your respects at his tomb in Holy Trinity Church; and enjoy one of his plays at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

That's it. The rest is left for you to fill in. Nothing on how to get tickets to a play or any number of other things most guide books would throw in.

For me, this is perfect. I want ideas. I can figure out the rest on my own. This massive book gives many such ideas--concise itineraries you can review to find what looks like fun for your next trip--and that's why I love it!

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Catching up on a classic I'd never read

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a famous book, of course, and I'm just getting to it now, almost 80 years after it was written. This is a book of tragedy and sadness. Some of it literal, in terms of the characters, but some of it clearly metaphorical. It touches on both the good and bad people in South Africa, as well as the potential for life to be different and possibly better. Having lived through the history of the anti-apartheid movement (including major protests in my college days), I know things didn't change easily, and racial discrimination and inequality continue to be issues in South Africa to this day.

The writing itself strikes me as stilted. Part of that may be the age of this book, but I also felt it didn't flow as well as other books of its era. I realize the author was trying to convey the manner in which his characters would have spoken, but I didn't particularly enjoy that and felt it hobbled the pacing of the narrative, at least for me.

Overall, I think this is an important work for its time, and I was split between 3 and 4 stars. I went with 3, because it was a slow read due to the writing style, and I feel that's a very important consideration.

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Some people really worry me

The three of us were wandering around Sedona yesterday, visiting some of the shops. We went into a fudge shop. In addition to fudge, they made a few other types of chocolates. 

One of the items was called Coyote Droppings. While trying to decide what she wanted to buy for her grandson, a woman asked if they contained actual coyote droppings.

My congratulations to the employee helping her who managed to keep a straight face and answer her seriously.