I have been known to plan vacations based on where there’s been an economic crisis, because then it will be cheap. It’s not ghoulishness so much as knowing that I’m getting a bargain and the people who live in the destination will be happy to have the business. In The Disaster Tourist, Yun Ko-Eun creates… [Read More]
Blog
Category: Rest of the World
Dominican Republic: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díaz won the Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, his novel about a Dominican family haunted by a fukú, a multi-generational curse. Like his protagonists, Díaz has split his time between the US and the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispañola with Haiti. Haiti is a bit of… [Read More]
Monaco: meet Me in Monaco
I found Meet Me in Monaco: A Novel of Grace Kelly’s Royal Wedding in a Little Free Library and grabbed it, because Monaco is a country and I have a long list of countries to read about. This is a fun read that moves along at a nice pace, about people who are tangentially involved… [Read More]
Bangladesh: The Good Muslim
I started this books around the world project in the pandemic, when travel was off limits. It’s taken longer than I thought it would, in part because there are so many countries! It’s a big world out there, and not every place has a lot of good books written about it. Take Bangladesh. I had… [Read More]
New Orleans: Museum of Trade, Finance, and the Fed
In many cities in the US, you can visit a fun and free museum about money at the local branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. I recently visited the New Orleans Museum of Trade, Finance, and the Fed, and I can vouch for it. Located at the New Orleans branch of the Atlanta Fed, the… [Read More]
