Top 5 unusual titles from the June Armchair Travel eNewsletter

Do you subscribe to our NextReads eNewsletters? Have you even heard of them? Our NextReads eNewsletters are email newsletters that provide reading suggestions for all ages in more than 25 reading categories. You think I'm kidding but I'm seriously not. Lookit: Christian fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, biography and memoir, armchair travel, romance, nature and science... See? LOTS.

As if that isn't awesome enough on its own, each book is selected by editors, who then add a brief summary. (Okay, I'll let you in on a little secret - the 'summary' is taken from the catalogue BUT STILL it counts because we have to manually add it!).

Subscribing is easy - simply select which eNewsletters you'd like to receive, add 'Create Your Account' details (name, email, password) and click SUBSCRIBE. Et voilà. Done.

I was looking over the Armchair Travel eNewsletter (which went out just last night) and I chortled over some of the titles. They are bizarre. (Maybe it's a case of 'one man's eww is another man's oohh'?) So I'm highlighting five of them for this post. You can read the rest of the eNewsletter here. (And oohh it has pretty, moving pictures because yes, I am that shallow).

5 travel books that make me want to DO ALL THE THINGS and SEE ALL THE WORLD

I'm going to keep this short: I like to travel. I want to travel more. I haven't done nearly enough. As a child I knew I would take trips, but I didn't for years and years. It wasn't until I was 33 that I realised I was waiting for SOMETHING. I don't know what. But when I realised it, I fixed it, and I booked my first ever overseas trip to New Orleans and Memphis. I haven't looked back since. This year I have a couple of small trips planned to Brisbane and Sydney (and possibly Perth but I haven't fully decided). Next year is Cape Town. The year after is back to New Orleans twice because, hey, it'll be my 40th and I'm absolutely going to do Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras. After that, who knows. I mean...I can go anywhere. Right? For today's list, I rounded up unusual/quirky/funny looking travel books that I found by happy accident in the catalogue. Now these? Are my kinda trips! Happy weekend, people.

PS: The pic above is one I took of my sibling our first night in New Orleans, standing in the middle of Bourbon Street. This was my second trip back. It was roughly 12am or 1am, and we'd spent forever on planes. Got to the Banana Courtyard (if you ever stay there say HI to Miss Mary and Mister Hugh - they tell the BEST stories), dumped our bags and headed out to see the city immediately. And this shot took place. We ended our night at Cafe du Monde at about 2am eating beignets and drinking hot chocolate. I can't wait to do it again.

5 types of places to eat in New Orleans for less than $20 (as recommended by New Orleans: City Guide

List by Tosca

"Great restaurants are, of course, nothing but mouth-brothels. There is no point in going to them if one intends to keep one's belt buckled."
- Frederic Raphael

This book right here? This book - New Orleans: City guide by Adam Karline and Lisa Dunford - is going to be my food bible over the next two weeks! Big words? Well, yeah, very possibly so. True words, though. On my first trip to New Orleans I did the usual tourist-y thing and visited all of the usual foodie places that came highly recommended (by, well, books, websites, tv shows, etc.). Over the weekend, though, I kinda thought I'd like to do the places that maybe tourists don't really know about, only I wasn't quite sure how to go about finding these places. Luckily (?) I'd requested a whole heapload of books about the city, and one in particular - THIS ONE! - got me thinking that maybe I turn this in to a challenge, instead. And so, being a complete dork about lists, obsessed over coming up with a process. Of sorts. What I ended up with, instead, was writing down everywhere people could eat a meal for up to $20 (lunch, breakfast or dinner). I'm not entirely sure how do-able this list is, but I'm darn sure going to have fun finding out. OH! I don't intend to try them all because, hey, impossible, but I figure I'll do as much as I can (one dish at each, even if it's just a coffee, or a beignet, MMM BEIGNET!) and, at the end of my trip, choose the 5 best. Bon appetit!

Warning: I'll be kinda/sorta posting while away (recommendations from the book, my impressions and photos), so I hope this'll be okay, otherwise you might want to avoid the blog for the next few days

Honourable mention:

Deli: Verti Marte, 1201 Royal Street - meals $3.50 - $8.50

Fried chicken: McHardy's, 1458 N Broad Street - chicken pieces per box $5

Grill: Clover Grill, 900 Bourbon Street - dishes $3-$8

Takeaway: Cajun Seafood, 1479 N Claiborne Ave - take-out meals $3-$5

West African: Bennachin, 1212 Royal Street - mains $8-$16

Italian: Central Grocery, 923 Decatur Street - sandwiches $7-$10

Italian: Fiorella's, 1136 Decatur Street - mains $7-$15

Italian: Louisiana Pizza Kitchen, 95 French Market Place - mains $8-$16

Italian: Mona Lisa, 1212 Royal Street - mains $9-$14

5 books about people rebuilding lives and homes after Hurricane Katrina

List by Tosca

"It's a big deal, what's happened here and what lies ahead. Rebuilding this city is history in the making, and my family - as we're fond of singing around here - is going to be in that number: This is not just Anywhere USA we're talking about. This is New Orleans. This is our home. Our future.

It's a hard-luck city right now, and you can look at it as a half-empty, half-full conundrum, although, in New Orleans the truth is that the glass is shattered.

But we're going to pick up the pieces. Starting today."
- Chris Rose in 1 dead in attic

In 2005, from the warmth and safety of my home, I remember watching news footage that showed the devastation that Hurricane Katrina left behind when she had finished with New Orleans. It was heart-breaking. Perhaps 'finished' isn't the right word because, really, the physical damage was just the start of a long and emotional journey for a city and its people to rebuild itself. Something they're still doing at the moment. I was fortunate enough to visit there in 2009, the culmination of a 22-year old dream to do so, and was amazed by the generosity and hospitality of a people in perpetual recovery mode. I met so many people who had such personal stories to share. And share them, freely and without prompting, they would: the cabdriver who lost his business, the woman who relocated and came back once a year to visit family, the student who moved to Mississippi but commuted each week because she wasn't quite ready to move back and start again, the young man who saw the hurricane as a clear message to get his life together and make something of himself. I heard these stories and so many more just like them and all told without any pretensions whatsoever. The most memorable conversation I had was on the Amtrak to Memphis with a young woman seated beside me. The New Orleans she spoke of - broken, dirty, unrecognisable - broke my heart. She had moved herself and her son to Chicago, unable to face starting over in the Lower 9th. Not forever, she made it more than clear that it wouldn't be forever, but certainly for the forseeable future. In the meantime she so desperately missed all that was familiar about home: family, friends, food, music, lifestyle, Mardi Gras, sleeping in your own bed...the list was endless. I was moved by her honesty and by her hope that, eventually, this would all pass over and be something she looked back on as having made her stronger. I'm not sure I could have found peace in that were I in the same situation.

Top 5 books to help me get my kicks on Route 66 (or something much like it)

List by Tosca

'66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert's slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads, 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.'
- from The grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck, 1939

In 1983 two momentous things happened to me: 1) I discovered a love of Louis Armstrong's music that later turned into a lifelong affair with New Orleans-style jazz, and 2) I fell in love with Route 66, a feeling that would forevermore embody my idea of freedom, wanderlust and adventure, and kickstart a lifelong yearning to travel the road myself to experience that.

I'd always wanted to travel, right from when I was about 8 years old. For some reason, I never really did, though, other than little trips around New Zealand by myself. I would squirrel money away and save for a perpetual 'rainy day.' That never came. Finally, I got to 31 years of age (5 years ago) and realised that I'd never travelled because I'd been waiting. For what I'm not sure. Then, at 32, I decided it was do or die, and booked myself a return trip to New Orleans as a 33rd birthday present, a place I'd wanted to visit since the first time I could remember hearing Louis Armstrong. My trip, in 2009, was everything and more I could want it to be, so much so, in fact, that I'm booked to go back in Feb 2012. This time with a sibling. 1983 was also the first time I heard - and felt an affinity for - Nat King Cole's version of 'Route 66' and, much like Louis Armstrong, I decided then and there that one day I would drive it. Something I plan to do for my 2013 international trip. It seemed as good an excuse as any to go a little crazy with research - the good, the bad and the ugly of Route 66. I requested everything even remotely Route 66-related that we have in our libraries (including a book that features a pair of road-inspired socks, I kid you not) and spent the last week going through each book to get an idea of the history of the road, why it was so important, whether or not it still is, and the state of things now. You can bet that I have read everything big, small, fantastic and tacky. And oh! What fun I had! Yeah sure, my trip is two years away, but I doubt my excitement will abate a whit before then. Roll on 2013!

Opened in 1926 and trekking its way across eight US states, Route 66 is, undoubtedly, one of America's most famous highways. For many people the road was a means to an end and allowed them to get away for family holidays. For others it was a pathway to relocating and making new beginnings, new homes and new memories. Over time newer, bigger and improved highways - soulless pavements, as one author put it - saw to the eventual decline of the old route. A move that local businesses and towns felt especially deeply. But the spirit of the road, the heart of it, the legend of it, refuses to die. All of these books (yes, even the grimly cynical account) go a long way toward preserving and recapturing that same feeling and hope. As Bobby Troup wrote (and Nat King Cole recorded) I can't wait to get my kicks on Route 66.

Query: Have you travelled Route 66? Have you ever wanted to?

Top 5 motorbike journeys

List by Tosca

Please note: This top 5 list has been transferred across from our Manukau Libraries website.

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."
- St. Augustine

About four or five years ago I read and watched 'Long way round: chasing shadows across the world' by Ewan McGregor, Charley Boorman and Robert Uhlig and it struck a chord. The idea that two men, both of them actors, decide to travel the world on motorbikes with a camera crew seemed like a crazy trip - but I envied them the freedom to be able to make that decision. At the heart of it this book is about two guys who always dreamed of riding around the world but this memoir also manages to entertain and inform at one and the same time, and allows readers to get a frank and honest look at life on the road in all its exhaustion and glory.

Which got me thinking, what other great books do we have about people who head off to see the world on two wheels...?

We'd really like to hear from you if you know of books that would fit this theme and, if you've experienced your own two wheeled odyssey, leave a comment and tell us about it :)

Top 5 new travel books

List by Danielle
'Regardless of which circle you deem the worst, I think we can all agree that hell is not a great place to visit.' ~ '101 places not to see before you die' by Catherine Price

I was scavenging the cataloguers' trolleys for goodies and noticed a theme developing; we have several intriguing new titles by intrepid explorers on the trolleys this week. If you've ever been bitten by the travel bug - or like to read about people who get bitten in your place while you kick back in a comfy chair - then take a look at these travellers' tales...