Books Against Bombs

During Covid, Ukraine’s population bought books, thanks to a government vaccine initiative. Now there is no time to read, they can still be useful... Katerina Sergatskova, The Guardian

tristissimo.... ma poetico. Ho sempre amato molto poco il turismo e quindi ho letto con interesse questo articolo intitolato "The Big Idea: Is Tourismo Bad for Us?"

If Covid’s impact ameliorates as hoped, it will be replaced by a new virus – wanderlust. Millennials, according to one survey, would rather travel than have sex – and not only because they’re probably doing the latter wrong. [...] But the value of tourism, like sex, depends on how you do it. Cruise ships generate 21,000 gallons of sewage per day per vessel, much of it ending up in the sea. In 2019, transport-related emissions from tourism were responsible for 5% of human-made global carbon dioxide emissions, according to UNWTO. Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian

 

 

Viaggi

Gideon Lewis-Kraus, A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful (Riverhead):

"Lewis-Kraus’s search for catharsis through meaningful wandering took him to Spain, for the Catholic pilgrimage known as the Camino de Santiago de Compostela; to Japan, to walk a circuit of eighty-eight Buddhist temples on the island of Shikoku; and to Ukraine, where he joined thousands of Hasidim (and his father) to visit Rabbi Nachman’s tomb in Uman. Harper’s put six questions to Lewis-Kraus about all of these places, and more", Christopher Cox intervista Gideon Lewis-Kraus, hapers.

Roy Steward su Bruce Chatwin, "The publication of Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines in 1987 transformed English travel writing; it made it cool. For the previous half century, travel writing seemed to consist either of grim, extended journeys through desolate landscapes or jokes about foreigners. And the leading figures—such as Wilfred Thesiger or Robert Byron—in their tweed suits were celebrated for neither their prose nor their charm. But Chatwin was as attractive as a person as he was as a writer", nybooks.

Innocents Abroad. Come scrivere libri di viaggio

Come Mark Twain, possibilmente. "Twain writes simultaneously with contempt and fondness, and we're left to puzzle out what he's trying to do, and where in the mess we should stand. What he's doing, it seems, is deploying a constantly changing mix of both sincerity and irreverence, making his position on things hard to pin down". 

"I have camped with the Indians," Twain writes. "I have been on the warpath with them, taken part in the chase with them…I have roamed with them, scalped them, had them for breakfast. I would gladly eat the whole race if I had a chance." themillions.

Natura estrema

Escono due nuovi bei libri di viaggi in regioni estreme: Sara Wheeler, The Magnetic North. Notes from the Arctic Circle (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), su un viaggio attraverso Siberia, Alaska, Canada, e Groenlandia nella speranza di catturare gli enigmi dell'Artico, nytbr; e Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet (Chatto & Windus), un pellegrinaggio laicosulle sponde del monte Kailash, una delle vette più sacre dell'Himalaya, con un cuoco, una guida, un assistente e un cavallo. guardian.