One of my favorite things to do while on a solo reading retreat is to learn from a country. I love the charm and architecture of old cities. I enjoy browsing their bookstores and museums, and walking their cobblestone streets. There is something safe and serene about taking a walk through a place where time…
Sometimes you read a book and want to buy more copies of it. Sometimes you read a book and know that twenty years later, you will still be enthralled by it. You will remember it because it is not only a book of the present; it is a book of the present, past, and future….
I enjoy reading memoirs because I find the experience transformative. Memoirs introduce me to the intricacies of a culture or place that I may not have discovered otherwise. When I read personal stories that carry universal truths, I am reminded that I am not alone in this world, that there are people in other continents…
A House of Words: Visiting Villa Ocampo This month, I added another UNESCO World Heritage Site to the Reading Around the World Trail. I visited the UNESCO Villa Ocampo Observatory, in the town of Béccar, in Buenos Aires. Villa Ocampo was once the home of the writer, Victoria Ocampo, an Argentine writer, advocate, and intellectual…
Walk around San Telmo, the oldest neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and you will find art. Art dances on the street, a slow street tango; it lingers in bookstores, on paperbacks written by Jorge Luis Borges; it simmers in coffee cups of artistically designed café con leches, it sits on street corners in frames, canvases,…
How soothing it is, to the body’s nervous system, to grab a paperback and travel to a place of retreat. You want to find somewhere away from the stresses of life, but also someplace with something new to experience. The body is willing, the mind feels equipped, and the senses are freed to participate—you have…
A Day in Vatican City is not only about seeing masterpieces—although you will see many—but it is also about observing how art, belief, and beauty are merged into a singular vision. It is consuming, awe-inspiring, and an experience you will always remember. Although a spiritual endeavor, it can be intimidating and overcrowded. People swarm in…
There is something intimate about letter writing. I cherish the art for its transparency, simplicity, and truth. I have enjoyed epistolary novels like Kafka’s Letters to Milena and Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter, so I was elated to have Natalia Ginzburg’s The City and the House as an addition to the list of books…
Portugal’s literature embraces lyric poetry and historical writing. One of my favorite Portuguese writers, José Saramago, is celebrated for how he infuses historical elements into his novels, particularly about periods of political conflict that are woven into Portugal’s history. His novel, Raised from the Ground, set in the Alentejo region of Portugal, captures tensions as…
The ancient Greeks pioneered genres of world literature like philosophy, the epic poetry, and tragic drama, but this is not the sole reason you want to read the classics in Greece. My recommended reading from a Greek author is Homer’s The Odyssey, one of the earliest extant European literary works (I may talk about that…