PICK OF THE WEEK
“Reflections of South Carolina”
( University of South Carolina Press, $39.95)
There’s a reason you’ve seen Robert C. Clark’s photographs in the pages of National Geographic books, a reason you remember them long after you’ve turned the page. Clark’s work captures more than the look of a place; it communicates the mood. His focus is as narrow as a child’s determined bowing of violin strings and as wide as the sunset across the Blue Ridge Mountains. Here’s an action shot of a kayaker on the Chattooga River, there the empty red seats in the Newberry Opera House. The range of images is varied, as it should be in any book that hopes to cover so much ground. Look at the fog caught between the trunks of longleaf pines in the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge, the blue skies and white sands of Myrtle Beach, and the orange and purple sunset that silhouettes a fisherman casting his net on the waters. You can almost hear the Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church Gospel Singers catching their breath between notes at the Spoleto Festival; and even the dust-covered Caterpillar raising its load of sand makes its Lexington County silica mine seem inviting in a gritty sort of way. Here are photos of the state taken at all hours of the day, during every season, in city and country and of young and old at work and at play. (800-768-2500)
“The Houses of Old Cuba”
(Thames & Hudson, $45)
What a sad thing it is to look through a book with so many desolate pictures. With only these photos to go on, you might easily feel that all of Cuba has been abandoned, save for a few haunted souls, and even they seem to be in the process of leaving. Interiors and exteriors alike are shot either in the color-draining blast of mid-day sun or in the hard shadows of late afternoon. Certainly in a book about houses, you wouldn’t expect too many photos with people in them. But the rooms and courtyards here seem not made for human habitation. Like museum pieces, dining tables wait for people who’ll never sit at them, beds go unrumpled by the stir of sleepers. Perhaps these photos would have been better served if they’d been printed on slicker paper; the dull pages inside lend an undeserved harshness to photos that appear brighter on the book’s dust jacket. But they still seem mighty lonely places.
GEAR
Go Travel Kit
(Adventure Medical Kits, $9)
Just look at all the twosomes that can fit into the pouches of this tri-fold cloth wallet: two Tylenol, two Motrin, two diphenhydramine capsules, two antacid tablets, two antiseptic towelettes, two antibacterial Wash-ups. But that’s not all. Joining them in this pocket-size “doctor” are eight adhesive bandages of different sizes, a square of self-adhesive moleskin, a sample of antibiotic ointment and tiny tweezers. The wallet even has a built-in clip that can be hooked on key ring, belt loop or backpack. (800-324-3517)
GUIDE BOOKS
“Rum & Reggae’s Caribbean 2000”
(Rum & Reggae, $22.95)
The fewer screaming heads, the better, according to Jonathan Runge’s rating system. The heads have been severed from Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” to indicate the degree to which any particular Caribbean island has been smothered by tourist trappings. Runge flaunts his disgust with the highly contrived high-visibility vacation: It now takes a Swiss bank account and Hollywood snobbery to visit what’s left of the St. Barts Jimmy Buffet once sang about; the all-inclusive resorts of Jamaica are walled prisons. But Runge is not so devoted to grunge travel as to overlook the appeal of over-civilization: Venture beyond Aruba’s hotel zone and you find yourself in an ugly dust bowl crowded with cactus and weird divi-divi trees. Yet this book is definitely written for the traveler who intends to meet the populace on their home turf, rather than mingle with name-dropping social climbers over hors d’oeuvres: thus the chart that cross-references the friendliness of each island’s local population with its climate. In 688 opinionated pages there are the expected where-to-stay and where-to-dine lists, and a run-down of bests that includes the ultimate luxury resorts, from the unsurpassed service at the Four Seasons on Nevis right down to the pillow menu at Cotton House on Mustique. We’ll admit that it’s fun to take a peek at how the other half travels. But this book, from diving Bonaire to bareboating the BVI’s, was really written for the rest of us, and the expense categories prove it: they range from “Dirt Cheap” through “Wicked Pricey” and stop at “Beyond Belief.”
MAGAZINES
Travel & Leisure Family
(Fall/Winter 1999, $2.95)
There’s something refreshing about seeing familiar destinations through a child’s perspective, hearing what they’ve observed about a place. Seen through a Paris shop window, a girl seems genuinely enraptured by the simple ritual of sampling perfumes. In a spread on Boston, a boy warns that the offerings at a certain candy shop are “too beautiful to eat.” The magazine respects busy parents by keeping most stories short and to the point. This edition, for example, gives tips on how to keep kids from getting sick when traveling and lists some fun factory tours. But despite the pauper’s price at the newsstand, this magazine’s elitist agenda (this is Travel & Leisure, after all) is hard to miss. Check this phrase beneath a photo of the Hotel Ritz’s cooking school: “Long for an in-house French chef? Start your kids off early with a three-hour cooking workshop . . . .” With sentiments such as this, can the status bumper stickers — “My Child Vacationed at Fill-In-The-Blank” — be fare behind?
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Toni Stroud’s e-mail address is tstroud@tribune.com.
