Just like you, we try to make some more time for reading during those hot summer days. Here are some of the Journeys staff’s favorite travel reads.

Mary I, Queen of Scots. Photo:Government Art Collection

Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley, by Alison Weir

This is one of the best books I’ve read recently. It’s a history of the life of Mary Queen of Scots, focusing on the romance and downfall of her second marriage to Lord Darnley that ended in his mysterious murder. Set in and around Edinburgh, it really lends an extra spark of history to all the buildings in the Old Town.

Betsy Brand, Program Operations Assistant

Oranges in the Sun: Short Stories from the Arabian Gulf, edited and translated by Deborah S. Akers and Abubaker A. Bagader.

This collection includes short stories from writers in the Gulf region and offers a unique personal perspective. The short story genre is fairly new to the region’s writers compared to other places in the world and has really developed in the last 70-80 years.

Alyssa Bobst, Program Support Coordinator

Eurydice Street, A Place in Athens, by Sofka Zinovieff

A fresh and entertaining account of the author’s first year in Athens; a description of her new life in a new city as well as the hurdles, frustrations, and joys of integrating into the complex Greek society.

Gloria Baxevanis, Finance and Program Coordinator

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang

An amazing book that gives you insight into traditions of China at a time of tumultuous change in the 20th century, through the prism of three generations of women in one Chinese family.

Amy Kotkin, Director

Summer reading. Photo: flickr user Honou

Finding Nouf, by Zoe Ferraris

A murder mystery set in contemporary Saudi Arabia, this book provides a transporting story as well as unique insight to Saudi society and the roles both women and men assume there. It’s an intriguing window into a place that most of us haven’t been able to see yet, and a great book to get lost in.

Leah Ibraheem, Direct Marketing Manager

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This is a convoluted tale of a successful but burned-out London journalist and the relationship that develops between her and a group of Guernsey book club members. Some may find it too dear, but the character development, sense of place, and the account of Guernsey life under the Nazi occupation is fascinating.

Linda Stevens, SI Research Notes Coordinator

What are some of your favorite travel reads? Share below.

Linda Stevens is Field Notes Coordinator for Smithsonian Journeys. Combing the Institution for interesting projects happening around the world, she prepares these research notes especially for travelers. Today, she shares some experiences from her own travels. Learn more about Linda here. Click here to see more research notes.

Hawaiian lei flowers. Photo: Courtesy of Flickr user babasteve

I never set out to collect cookbooks; it just sort of happened when I wasn’t looking. I had the standard ones on my kitchen shelf, but a Smithsonian Journeys trip to Hawaii in 1987 sent me off in a whole new direction.

My husband’s talents in the kitchen did not even cover making coffee, so before the Hawaiian trip departed, I alerted all my local family and friends that I would be gone, certain that they would take the hint and extend a dinner invitation (or two) in my absence.

The trip was a delightful exploration of the islands of Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai. One of the highlights of the trip was a luau at a private home in Hawi on the island of Hawaii. Earl and Audrey Veloria and their son, Kaleo, welcomed us to their home for an afternoon and evening of preparing the luau feast, lei making, singing, dancing, story telling—and eating!

Earl had already dug the imu (underground oven) in which our luau was to cook, and he had lined it with hot rocks. It was our job to help him gather banana leaves and lug them back up the hill to the imu. Audrey brought out the food and placed it on the imu. Earl showed us how to cover it with banana leaves, then shovel dirt over it and sprinkle with water to create the steam that would cook our feast. (more…)

Lourdes Fernandez is an avid traveler, reader, and photographer. She recently joined Smithsonian Journeys on our Mystery Lovers tour. Click here to see her bio.

A deserted beach in Northumberland. Photo: Lourdes Fernandez

“They were at the southern end of a long sweep of beach, about four miles long. At the northern end it swung into a narrow promontory where the lighthouse stood, almost lost to view in the haze … Julie stopped again. There was that salt breeze that you only ever get by the sea.”
- Hidden Depths, Ann Cleeves

Authors write from their imagination, but they also write from what they know—especially the places they’ve been. As a two-time Smithsonian Journeys traveler on their mystery tours, I’ve walked through Morse’s Oxford, Dalgliesh’s London, and Rebus’ Scotland. On one particular blustery day in September, a group of us found ourselves gingerly negotiating a British stile for the first time and walking a deserted beach—almost the very same described by British author Ann Cleeves, who sets some of her books in the windswept coastal villages of Northumberland.

It was a simple thing, but for our mystery buff group, it was an adventure—not the usual type of tourist activity. And that’s what sets these tours apart. Let others walk the museums, our mystery buffs will walk the moors of The Hound of Baskervilles, or find the spot amid the Oxford colleges (at least approximately) where Lord Peter Wimsey proposes to Harriet Vane in Gaudy Night. At the right time, Study Leader Rosalind Hutchison will whip out a book from her voluminous briefcase and read the appropriate passage, putting us at the scene of the crime, as it were.

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Our book of the week this week is by Mary Morris, novelist and author of the marvelous travelogue, Nothing to Declare. Morris has compiled a new expert anthology, Maiden Voyages: Writings of Women Travelers, chronicling three hundred years of women traveling around the globe. Morris observing that, “women move through the world differently than men.”  Selected essays describe exotic locales, dangerous situations, and drug addiction, as well as the varied customs, cultures, and people that can be found in the travels of these amazing women. With contributions by such literary lionesses as Margaret Mead, Willa Cather, and Mary Wollstonecraft, to name a few, this pleasurable collection is a who’s who of female letters.

Click here to learn more about this book.