California Dreaming: 5 Books for California
Looking for a great read to accompany your trip to California? Read what Margaret has to say about her five top picks. Click on the title links to purchase a copy from Amazon and support Go Girl! Know another Cali book that you can’t get enough of? Add your tips to the list! . . . credit: Caveman Chuck Coker Play it As it Lays/Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion Some writers just seem to breathe the air from a certain part... Read More
5 Books for Road Trips
On the Road by Jack Kerouac Probably the most famous road trip book ever written, Kerouac’s fictionalization of his cross-country wanderings is known as the book of the Beat Generation, immortalizing the counterculture of drugs, jazz and emerging masculinity exemplified by writers like William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac himself. Retrace any of the routes taken by Kerouac’s autobiographical narrator, Sal Paradise, as he adventures... Read More
5 Books for London
credit: vemma 5 books for London Orlando by Virginia Woolf One of her lesser known but most beautiful and accessible novels, Orlando: A Biography–written for Woolf’s lover, Vita Sackville-West–is the fantastical biography of a young noble(wo)man named Orlando who is born during the reign of Elizabeth I, and decides never to grow old. As the history of England unfolds, Orlando falls... Read More
Best of Buenos Aires
As my parents can attest, I am a huge fan of “Best of ______(fill in the city) ” ratings. Since high school, I have participated annually in submitting nominations for our local newspaper’s “Best of La Jolla” list and wait expectantly for the list of “winners” to come out in September (my parents now have to mail me the newspaper when I am away for college). So, as my time in Buenos Aires is winding down, I decided to make my own “Best... Read More
Looking for an Extreme Read?
[pullquote] Why are we so fixated with such tales, gory and clichéd as they may be? The very gruesomeness of the material is an undeniable source of fascination. Yet our national obsession with extreme survival tales stems not only from their content but the fact that they are true…As opposed to works of fiction, true-life extreme survival stories are granted a special type of immunity and cultural authority. How do you critique the truth?…But... Read More
The Fine Art of Travel Reading
My mother taught me from a very young age that wherever you go for whatever length of time you must take a book, if nothing else, with you. It has now become almost a ritual of choosing the right book to take with me. Of course, the length of time and nature of the travels are huge factors when considering what to take. Whether it’s a beach holiday, a weekend break, or a longer travel stint there is always book to be taken! Not only is reading a... Read More
Review: Slow Love
Review-on-the-Go: Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put On My Pajamas & Found Happiness by Dominique Browning is a tale of a magazine editor who breaks down in the recent economic crisis and slowly builds herself up again. Don’t be deceived by the hard cover and pretty text: this is a better beach read than anything else. Full Review: One day, Dominique Browning is a big-time editor of the Condé Nast magazine, House & Garden. The next,... Read More
Review: The Places In Between
Review on the Go: The Places In Between chronicles Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan in the winter of 2002. Part travel memoir, part history lesson, and part rumination on all things from global politics to local hospitality, The Places In Between is engaging, well-written, and definitely worth a read. Map of Afghanistan. Full Review: It’s odd to write about Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between for Go Girl, mostly because his journey—a... Read More
Cartagena: Following Márquez
Dostoevsky had Moscow, Dickens had London, and Neruda had Valparaiso. Many writers have painted beautiful (or beautifully depressing) snapshots of cities, making us feel like we’ve visited and walked the streets, tasted the food, and mingled with the people. Gabriel García Márquez forced me into a love affair with Cartagena, Colombia four years before I even thought about traveling to Colombia when I read Love in the Time of Cholera (El... Read More
Review: A Week at the Airport
Review on the Go: Alain de Botton’s A Week at the Airport, a slim book about a week the author spent living at Heathrow airport and writing about what he observed, is at points revelatory and remarkable, and at other points overly ornate and self-indulgent. Though de Botton’s prose occasionally bothered me, the book is an illuminating rumination on many aspects of airports and the people who work in and pass through them. Not a bad way to spend... Read More
