Wildlife
Favorite Fiction, Part 2 -2022
I continue here with seven more of my 14 favorite novels I read in 2022. They will take you to Bangkok, Cyprus, London, and India, and touch on how a teenage tragedy can affect a family for a lifetime, Mexican immigration, Marcellus the clever octopus, & an incredibly creative story about a female taxi driver who picks up and delivers both the dead and alive.
Favorite Fiction, Part 1 - 2022
I read some wonderful novels this past year. It just wasn’t possible to winnow them down to a half dozen, so I am doing two parts with 7 books in each. Some really outstanding, informative, and entertaining stories. I hope you find something special to pick up for 2023.
BEST ROADS TRAVELED: Mexico’s Las Pozas – Jungle Fantasy
Outside the town of Xilitla in northern Mexico’s Sierra Gorda, a little known surrealistic architectural masterpiece rises out of the jungle, built by Edward James, an enthusiastic supporter of art and artists.
BEST ROADS TRAVELED: Junípero Serra’s Missions of the Sierra Gorda
“Oh, the bear went over the mountain . . . to see what he could see,” goes a campfire song of my girlhood—And I’ve been checking out the other side of mountains both real and imagined all my life.
Best Roads Traveled: Cairo, Egypt
Cairo has always been a destination that calls to travelers.
Crocodile Love: Honeymoon Adventures
“We wanted to go to hot, intense places together, to cities where open markets breathed that sweaty, fish-gutty, trash-burning smell that cling to travelers’ memories forever. We had each whiffed it before, this odor of deep travel, but it was something else to embark as husband and wife to seek it together.”
Poetry from Cuba, the Violet Island: Reina María Rodríguez
There are rare, shimmering moments in life when we connect with beauty in a way that moves us profoundly. Such a moment happened for me in January 2012 during a visit to the Havana apartment of acclaimed Cuban poet Reina María Rodríguez.