Reading Up on El Salvador’s Saint You don’t have to be Catholic to be curious about who Oscar Romero was and the impact he had—especially if you happen to be embarking on a journey to El Salvador. For those looking…
A Book for the Road by Jennifer Lawler Right at the outset of her latest book, The Improbable Adventures of a Middle-Aged Woman, author, traveler, and single parent Jennifer Lawler tells her reader that everything she has ever done made…
It’s Not Just about 1066 and the Battle of Hastings It having been a very long time since I learned about William the Conqueror, the Battle of Hastings, and the importance of the year 1066 to British history, it is…
A Journey of the Actor’s Mind, Body, and Spirit in One Volume Actress Shirley MacLaine—of Downton Abbey, Terms of Endearment, Steel Magnolias, and Postcards from the Edge fame—also has a bit of a New Age-bent. She takes quite an interesting…
Doing the Camino de Santiago Your Way The little nagging fear about embarking on a pilgrimage is, at least in my case, that everyone else on the trail will be a whole lot more religious than I am. So it…
Of Pilgrims, Progress, Power I begin reading Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower with the hope that the ending is going to be a slightly different one. I resist picking up this work for a long time because I know it isn’t going…
Looking for a book about the Depression? Roger Vercel’s 1938 novel about the mount still entices What I like about Mont Saint Michel is that the closer you climb to the top of the mount, the farther you are from…