“Weekends for Two in Southern California: 50 Romantic Getaways”
(Chronicle Books, $17.95)
How does one define romantic? To author Bill Gleeson a romantic getaway must include the following: private bathrooms, in-room fire-places, breakfast in bed, feather beds and comforters, love seats, private decks and non-smoking rooms. In this eye candy of a guide, Gleeson found what he was looking for along California’s South Central Coast in such cities and towns as Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo and Cambria; in Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley, including the charming Danish town of Solvang; on Catalina Island; along the South Coast, including Laguna Beach, Santa Monica, Malibu and Beverly Hills; in the Southern Mountains; in desert towns such as Palm Springs; and in the San Diego area, including La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe. Includes gorgeous color photographs by Marc Longwood. (ISBN 0-8118-4039-5)
“Outside’s Wilderness Lodge Vacations”
(W.W. Norton, $22.95)
The folks behind Outside magazine have put together this practical guide to more than 100 destinations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. The lodges are listed in the United States geographically, then alphabetically by state and lodge. Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean get their own chapters. Each entry consists of a brief overview, a description of the accommodations, an activities guide (such as hiking, kayaking, canoeing, fishing and so on), the essentials and getting there. (ISBN 0-393-32520-2)
Travel narratives
“Running With Reindeer: Encounters in Russian Lapland”
(Westview Press, $27.50)
Most first-time visitors to Russia would not think Lapland to be an ideal choice. But Roger Took, an English art historian and museum curator, is hardly typical. “It seemed as good a place as any for an adventure,” he reasoned. Took spent a good chunk of time there after the fall of communism–nearly a decade; specifically, in the far northwest corner commonly referred to as Russian Lapland. He visited places like the Arctic port city of Murmansk but also traveled across tundra and taiga, traversed rivers and lakes, meeting fishermen and herders. But most of all he wanted to meet the indigenous people of the region–the Lapps, or Saami–whose ancestral lands stretch across the boundaries of these northern lands, in northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and northwest Russia. Their total population varies between 60,000 and 80,000. As a foreigner traveling alone, Took attracted much suspicion, which often leads to uncomfortable but quite humorous situations. “Running With Reindeer” is full of surprises and provides an eye-opening look at another world. (ISBN 0-8133-4210-4)
“An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude”
(Broadway Books, $24.95)
Ann Vanderhoof and husband Steve were a perfectly normal Canadian couple living a busy professional life in Toronto–she as a magazine editor, he as a freelance art director–when they decided to do what many of us only dream about: chucking it all to live on an island somewhere in paradise. The idea innocently began as merely idle chat during a typically bleak Toronto winter. Let’s take a break, Steve suggested, “and sail south to the Caribbean for a couple of years.” Then they got serious. Clearly, this was a midlife crisis that refused to go away. Of course, there were details that had to be ironed out, such as the fact that Ann had never set foot on a sailboat until she met Steve. And then there was that little thing called money. Both were determined though to go through with their exciting, risky and somewhat scary plan. They found a 42-foot sailboat called Receta, quit their jobs, rented their house and set sail on their journey to the Caribbean, which included stops in the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Trinidad, St. Kitts and Montserrat. “Cruising is a lifestyle, not a vacation,” Ann concludes, wistfully. A bonus: the book also features scrumptious recipes, such as curried chicken in coconut milk with island vegetables, papaya-banana muffins and pina colada cheesecake. (ISBN 0-7679-1402-3)
Specialty travel
“London’s War: A Traveler’s Guide to World War II”
(Ulysses Press, $16.95)
London, of course, has been the subject of countless travel books, but this one looks at the city through a particular lens: the city’s experience during World War II. Author Sayre Van Young is determined to discover what was bombed, and what survived, and, more importantly, how did Londoners–that most indefatigable of the human species–cope with the attacks on their beloved city. A somber statistic: Some 30,000 Londoners died and another 30,000 civilians perished throughout Great Britain during the war. The guide consists of 20 walking tours through Central London, from Whitehall to Soho to Bloomsbury, from Mayfair to Covent Garden to Marylebone. Van Young includes topical sidebars (gas and gas masks), biographical sidebars (Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, Edward R. Murrow) and definitions of unfamiliar war terms (such as Woolton Pie, a filling and low-cost dish of vegetables and sausage popular due to wartime food rationing). It’s also full of fascinating trivia. For example, a memorial stone in Westminster Abbey honors Edward Elgar, composer of “Pomp and Circumstance,” a ubiquitous graduation march in the States but in Britain it’s known as “Land of Hope and Glory,” a patriotic anthem that was particularly popular during both world wars. Includes plenty of evocative black-and-white photographs. (ISBN 1-56975-382-2)
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