My Reading While Traveling

I’ll start by confessing that I did less of it than I planned! Between walking miles every day (literally), consuming enough wine, cheese, and desserts to pack on five pounds, and napping on the bus between cities, the time just flew by. On the other hand, I did promise a report, so here it is.

Alentejo Blue

reading way portugal monica ali alentejo blue
This book set in Portugal just got better and better. Each chapter is a story, and each story switches to a different POV character while the other characters fade into secondary or supporting roles. In the course of the book, each character gets richer and richer. It’s a fascinating look at a town as a whole, experienced by its citizens. Often the stories/lives seem to be downers, but in the end, it’s more upbeat than I expected! And as I said when I started it, the writing is excellent throughout. I recommend it as a story read, but also as an example of how to put together a novel in an atypical structure.

Sedella: The Story of a Spanish Village

[Source: Amazon]
Sedella, on the other hand, just didn’t grab me. The description drew me in, tracing a Spanish town from pre-history to the present, with a mixture of historical/anthropological information and a fictional story line. In this instance, the structure didn’t work for me, going back and forth between the fact and the fiction. I soon found myself skimming the facts and skipping to the story line. In the end, I put it aside altogether in favor of the second novel set in Spain.

Bueno: A Love Story Set in Spain

[Source: Amazon]
Bueno: A Love Story set in Spain by Christy Esmahan is delightful. The “hero” is Harvey Jones, an American and novice headmaster of a private school in Spain, the Cantabria American School. Although there’s no hint of a love interest in the first half of the book, it drew me in immediately. Harvey is full of good intentions but he’s on his own in a strange place where he knows nothing of the politics among the teachers, the Board members, the parents, and his mentor. The priorities of the president of the Board, largely responsible for hiring him, are not shared by the teachers and parents.

Harvey has come to Spain in part to be closer to his brother, recently deceased, who was killed in a terrorist attack while living there. He’s taking classes in Spanish to improve the Texas version he arrived with. His nemeses take advantage of that and start calling him “Cinco” because when the J in Jones is silent, as it is in Spanish, it becomes the verbal slur “sin cojones.”

This is Book 1 in the Cantabria American School series and I fully intend to find Book 2! But when shall I get back to Don Quixote and Tales From the Alhambra? I acquired them abroad and haven’t really started either!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I’ve taken hundreds of pictures during my time in Portugal and Spain. Below you will find a selection of these pictures, along with a suggested writing prompt. Choose one or more of these pictures, and using the suggested prompt or one of your own, write 1000 words based on it. It doesn’t need to be polished or finished, just do it!

 

vivian lawry picture worth thousand words
Who would have a table setting like this?
balcony divorce
This is called the balcony of the quick divorce. It overlooks a 500’ gorge.
make own juice portugal
How is this to be interpreted?
Bottom line: Draw on visual cues to trigger your creativity.

Reading My Way to Portugal!

By the time you read this blog, I will have arrived in Portugal. Needless to say, I read ahead.

 

reading way portugal monica ali alentejo blue
This is a book of short stories set in the Alentejo province of Portugal. I started it at home and, if I didn’t do so on the plane, will finish it on site.  Monica Ali is an award-winning author whose work has been translated into thirty languages. I like what I’ve read so far, and am sure the remainder of the book will be equally gripping.

 

Each chapter features richly drawn, complex characters. Some of the families have lived in the village for generations, some are ex-pats, and some are just passing through. Their stories weave together making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

 

All the ex-pats and tourists are disenchanted with their lives, and moving to another place doesn’t help them. Meanwhile, the local Portuguese have very little, and many yearn to be someplace else—e.g., Cape Cod or London—but live their lives as best they can day to day.

 

The great hope is that Marco Alfonso Rodrigues will come back home and bring prosperity to the district. He is rumored to be “a very big name in the tourist industry… Luxury resorts in Thailand and Singapore. So I have been told.” (p. 45)

 

In fact, when he does return, villagers, tourists, and ex-pats come together, their jealousies and disappointments colliding. It is not a happy book (although there are touches of humor). Why read it? Because the writing is excellent!

 

my portugal george mendes
My other do-ahead reading was cookbooks. Eating is one of my favorite travel activities! I enjoy eating fish that have no comparables in the U.S. I relish identifying traditional seasoning patterns for various countries. Sometimes I even eat ahead, so to speak.

 

reading way portugal tomato tuna salad
This tuna, tomato, and onion salad from My Portugal was great—though my creation didn’t look quite so picture-worthy! I am looking forward to Portuguese port and other wines, and to learning to love salt cod!

 

learning love salt cod
One thing I especially look forward to is tasting the differences between Portuguese and Spanish cooking.

williams sonoma savoring spain portugal joyce goldstein

Watch my Facebook page for photos!

Travel Reading

savoring spain portugal
This fall my husband and I are traveling to Portugal and northern Spain, so we are starting our travel reading.

 

For many years, wherever I traveled, I bought a cookbook as a memento of the trip. Three problems with this approach emerged. First, I couldn’t always find a local English language cookbook. In Rome, I went to great lengths to find an English language bookstore only to discover that the cookbooks had been printed in the U.S., and often written by people in the United States! And, of course, there were times when I couldn’t find any cookbooks in English at all.
my portugal
The second problem with buying books while traveling is that there is too much to see and do to read more than bits and pieces.

 

spanish cooking
And, finally, I realized that I’m more likely to read about where I’m going than where I’ve been! So now I read ahead.

 

No doubt you’ve noticed a common element among the books pictured so far. I have a long-standing cookbook collection. But these books are more than recipes! The first two give a great deal of cultural history and geography, talking about ethnic foods and how they came to be. My Portugal is more personal. Although a renowned chef in NYC, his roots are in Portugal. This book contains stories of his time in Portugal, his family, and his experiences as a chef. And all of them contain spectacular pictures of the places as well as the food!
journey portugal jose saramago monica ali alentejo blue
My husband chose Journey to Portugal: In Pursuit of Portugal’s History and Culture. It is a travelogue—not my usual choice in reading. However, José Saramago was a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, so perhaps I’ll put aside my biases in this instance. Alentejo Blue appeals to me more. It is fiction, set in a village in Portugal, and the author (Monica Ali) is highly praised.
spain reading
One of my favorite ways to enjoy “foreign fiction” is to read some of the country’s best contemporary writers. The Traveler’s Literary Companion is a series, published by Whereabouts Press. Check it out.

 

Perhaps I haven’t convinced you to read your travels, but why not give it a try?