Destination: Books

Writing Family History Workshop

During this month of January while Destination Books is in hibernation, I have been devoting my energy (fueled by holiday cookies) preparing for a workshop I am moderating at the DeKalb History Center located in the downtown Decatur Courthouse. It started with my book A Father's Letters: Connecting Past to Present which came out early last year. In July 2024 I did a workshop about the book and with the encouragement of the History Center it has been expanded. 

One take away from the previous workshop is that participants feel a kinship with the like-minded individuals, which makes for a good exchange of ideas and thoughts.  

Moreover, this is the time of year that reminds people about families, and you may have a made a resolution that 2025 will be the year you are moving forward on capturing those important memories.  This workshop can help.

For more details, including a syllabus visit the DeKalb History Center Workshop events page which includes times and the links to register. 

Last Summer's Presentation

 

Expanded Inside Inventory

During the month of December, we've expanded our booth inventory at the Journeyman in Downtown Decatur. We've included some of our more popular titles and travel books. Here are several samples of our offerings:

Rebecca Solnit Infinite Cities: Trilogy of Atlases.

Rebecca Solnit a prolific activist, social historian and author spearheaded a three-book collection known as Infinite Cities. Published individually as Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (2010) Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (2013), and Nonstop Metropolis: New York City (2016) the University of California Press re-issued the books as a boxed set in 2019. 

This three-volume boxed paperback set contains:

• The original, gorgeously designed atlases--Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas; Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas; and Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas
• Three new and updated, full-color, fold-out posters for each city, including the popular "City of Women" map
• A new and thoughtful essay by Solnit reflecting on the project ten years after the publication of the first atlas

Her unique books on New York, New Orleans and San Francisco are available individually.  (The new books are hermetically sealed but display copies are provided so you can browse.)  In the words of one reviewer, each volume contains "historical, cultural and biographical essays are interspersed with photographs and maps that inform and revise our understanding of America's most storied places."

Another similar book that is truly a unique take on travel is:

Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Island I Have Not Visited and Never Will (2009) by Judith Schalansky.

The German author and graphic artist Schalansky credits the idea when she surveyed a giant globe in the Berlin National Library and began studying the tiny islands names that dot the blue expanses of the ocean.  First, she collected the facts including their longitude and latitude coordinates, their current population (if any), a timeline of major events and their distance to nearby continents or other remote islands. Some you may have heard of such places as Easter Island, Iwo Jima, or Christmas Island but she gives equal billing to some uninhabited ones like Deception Island (near Antarctica), Bouvet Island (in the South Atlantic) or the cold and barren Lonely Island (near the Arctic Circle).

She dedicates four pages to each entry/chapter. The first two pages provide the facts and the timeline and a detailed map including points of interest such as elevation, bays and any villages. Pages 3 and 4 are very short essays about the history or geological/biological makeup of the place such as the Pacific Isle of Banaba, which is made up entirely of phosphate from centuries of bird guano buildup. Schalansky's writing style has been aptly described in The Paris Review " as a prose poem of sorts. Facts sit side-by-side with a kind of highly personal fiction; we are given latitudes and detailed maps, but also lore and speculation."

Accidently Wes Anderson

This is one of the Wes Anderson inspired travel books. You are familiar with the films of Anderson—The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch and Asteroid City, the latter which you probably still don’t understand even after sitting through it twice. Through crisp photography of these exotic places you become immersed in the Wes Anderson orbit. 

More about the Journeyman

The "full" name of the Journeyman is the Guild + Journeyman. More than an indoor haven for Destination Books, Journeyman is a bike repair and accessories shop with a coffee shop vibe. And they sell an array of products ranging from Legos to Rooftop Refillery.   The latter is booth inside the Journeyman that has an inventory of clean environmentally friendly products.

The Journeyman on Claremont --near the Old Courthouse -- is open daily, Tuesday to Sunday.

 

 

End of the Year Book Selling

December marks the end of our fourth year doing popups at the Freedom Farmer’s Market at the Carter Center in Atlanta. (Officially, you could say fifth year, but our 2020 season was severely truncated by the Pandemic). Weather permitting, we will be out there on Saturday morning, December 7th. Cold weather does not bother us as we come equipped with hand and toe warmers and there are vendors serving hot coffee nearby (book burning is not an option).

In a more temperate venue, we also carry a sample of our offerings at Journeyman in downtown Decatur located near the Courthouse on Claremont Avenue. We have had our booth with them since the Fall of 2023. The Journeyman goes beyond being a bicycle repair and accessories shop, it also has a community coffee hangout vibe and our books reflect this.

For example, on Saturday afternoon (12/7) they are hosting a Maker’s Marketplace.

And finally, Destination Books has an online presence where we have stocked with some of the more popular books you’ve liked from the popups. It even has a few related categories such as Books on Books and Best of the Book Shopper, another blog we manage that has been spewing its opinions about books and book culture since 2009. Where else can you buy a copy of Jose CarriÓn's Against Amazon and Other Essays?

Our online store is powered by Bookshop.org and books purchased there raises money for local bookstores -- even pop-ups like this one. Sometimes Bookshop run deals on free shipping, and they are good about delivering books in a timely manner. And remember --

"There are no booksellers on Amazon. Human book recommendations were eliminated because they were understood to be inefficient and because they torpedoed speed, the only value the company recognizes." - Jose Carrion, Against Amazon and Other Essays

Unreadable Books Can Make Great Gifts

No, I am not talking about re-gifting. I am referring to gorgeously printed books that are illustrated with artwork or photographs of distant places.

A good example is the Kew Pocketbooks Garden books that are a collection of illustrated watercolors, oils, prints, and drawings from the Royal Botanical Garden’s collection (not many words - hence unreadable). Each book is dedicated to a single species covering separate topics (i.e. Wildflowers, Carnivorous Plants and Fungi).

Words Cannot Express...

Another example is the Wes Anderson inspired travel book Accidently Wes Anderson Adventures. You are familiar with the films of Anderson—The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch and Asteroid City, the latter which you probably still don’t understand even after sitting through it twice.

The book matches the look and feel of a Wes Anderson film. No reading necessary.

We will have these books and more at our next popup at the Freedom Farmer’s Market at the Carter Center in Atlanta on Saturday morning November 23rd. This will likely be our second-to-last pop-up of the year.

The Gift of Travel

Destination Books--in living up to its name--is a bookseller that promotes travel as well as books on gardening and sustainability. We've recently added a series of unusual atlases to our inventory especially for those of you who may want to get out of town for a while.

Rebecca Solnit a prolific activist, social historian and author spearheaded a three-book collection known as Infinite Cities. Published individually as Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (2010) Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (2013), Nonstop Metropolis: New York City (2016) the University of California Press re-issued the books as a boxed set in 2019. 

This three-volume boxed paperback set contains:

• The original, gorgeously designed atlases--Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas; Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas; and Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas
• Three new and updated, full-color, fold-out posters for each city, including the popular "City of Women" map
• A new and thoughtful essay by Solnit reflecting on the project ten years after the publication of the first atlas

However, the books are available individually.

I have provided my personal dog-eared copies on loan at my booth at the Journeyman in downtown Decatur so people can check them out (The new books are hermetically sealed.)  You will discover in the words of one reviewer, that each volume contains "historical, cultural and biographical essays are interspersed with photographs and maps that inform and revise our understanding of America's most storied places."

I plan on bringing them to my next popup at the Freedom Farmer's at the Carter Center, scheduled for November 23rd weather permitting.

If you cannot make to the Journeyman, the atlases are also available at my online store along with other Solnit standards like Hope Against the Dark (currently on backorder) which she wrote after the 2004 election. Her recent essay in The Guardian "Authoritarians Like Trump Love Fear, Defeatism and Surrender. Do Not Give Them What They Want" is equally inspirational.

Clicking on the QR code below will take you directly to the store.

Serendipitous Book Shopping

I am often asked how I select the books I bring to pop-ups. There are book reviews and those of you frequenting the book stall have made suggestions. I take those recommendations to heart.

Then there is one of my favorites – serendipitous book shopping which happens when you browse a bookstore (or a popup) or one of those little libraries, or some stack of books you have piled up in a corner of your house, followed by an “Aha!” moment. (I wrote an entire book about it.)

Recently, I was in historic Savannah for a couple of days for a “book club” retreat and I visited two bookstores off Bull Street-- the Book Lady Bookstore and E. Shaver Booksellers. I remember both stores from when I visited Savannah over ten years ago and both are well-stocked with a variety of books.

At E. Shaver, I found two books that I purchased to review:

How to Keep Your Plants Alive by Kit Carlson, PhD, and Aaron Carlson which includes colorful pictures and tips on “50+ plants that are impossible to kill.” What inside-the-house gardener can resist a challenge like that?

And

Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them by Tove Danovich, a personal and breezy account of the chicken culture. I have chicken blood in my veins—sorta. My father and grandfather raised chickens. My sister played with chickens as a child, and my daughter raises chickens. But myself? Not so much, but I was fond of this chill bird (a silky) Granger who I am holding here before his untimely demise via a hawk.

Both these books will be available for serendipitous-like book shopping at our next popup on Saturday morning, November 2nd at the Carter Center’s   Freedom Farmers Market.

Bird Books

Recently I have been curating some bird books that I will bringing at my next popup at the Freedom Farmer's Market at the Carter Center on Saturday morning, October 12th.

There are reference books like Birdpedia and Birds of Georgia which are never out of date. The book The Verb to 'Bird' is a timeless eclectic memoir on birding that came out over two decades ago. 

Birds and Us: A 12,000-Year History from Cave Art to Conversation, just arrived in my last shipment of books. It is a hefty sized book, which you would expect of a book that spans centuries of bird lore.

You may wonder why Gods, Wasps and Stranglers: The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees is part of the mix, but the not-to-be-ignored Rhinoceros Hornbill plays an integral part of the fig tree Circle of Life. I just finished reading this book a month ago inspired by the reports from those readers who visited our booth. They  absolutely correct about what a delight this book is.  

Admittedly, I was so inspired that I am looking to plant a couple of fig trees in the back pollinator area of our development. 

(Most of these books are also available at our pint-sized "permanent" popup stall at The Journeyman in downtown Decatur.)

End of Summer Sale

Call it an end-of-summer sale or an inventory reduction sale, but many of our books will be marked down at our next popup at the Freedom Farmer's Market at the Carter Center, Saturday morning, September 21st.

Tallamy at the Atlanta Botanical Garden

Few authors in the gardening/sustainability space have been as impactful as Douglas Tallamy. His two books Nature's Best Hope and Bringing Nature Home promote the idea that individuals can each do their part to restore habitats in small spaces by planting native plants which allow native insects to survive and provide food sources for birds and other wildlife. 

On a personal level, reading Nature's Best Hope inspired me to try to restore a dead, mostly eroded area between my housing development and the Decatur Cemetery. For the past several years, I cleaned out old remnants of building materials, added soil, amended it with alpaca manure and planted wildflowers and herbs to hold the soil. 

My neighbors have responded with their appreciation and the HOA paid for extending a water line and faucet that I can attach a hose for watering when the plants get too dry (though I try to grow plants that do not require a lot of watering). I started some plants from seed, (I learned how at the Wylde Center) but friends have given me others such as Joe-pye -weed, Rattlesnake-weed, Mountain mint, milkweed and Goldenrod, all which have thrived. Coneflowers and Black-eyed-Susans not so much.  

So not everything has worked and some weeds like mimosa want to take over, but the improvements have been noticeable. It all started with the Tallamy book, but I have still have a long way to go to match the Atlanta Botanical Garden (on the left).

Tallamy will be leading the discussion as part of the Fuqua Lecture series at the Atlanta Botanical Garden beginning at 7 p.m. Tuesday, September 18th. If you cannot attend the lecture, it will be broadcast live. See the Garden's events page for details. If you're interested in either one of the books check out the online version of Destination: Books where both books are listed. 

 

Anthropomorphic Plants

Lately as I drink my morning coffee on my deck, I have been watching this morning glory (which I intentionally planted though considered invasive) make its way up a support pole, across to this dragon fly lawn ornament before jutting out to wide open spaces.  I ask it, "Where are you going, morning glory?"

Previously, I didn't understand how it navigates until I read Zoë Schlanger's The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth. The book explores the hidden world of plant intelligence, their ability to communicate, socialize and to hear sounds.  

With respect to sounds, Schlanger explains how climbing vines (like my morning glories, my peas and cucumbers) know where to climb. There is research that shows plants utilize a kind of echolocation (sonar --like bats) to sense where to position themselves to grab onto something solid.

This is just the beginning tip of the book's reach. It even made my little book group's read and discuss list. (Complete notes about this book can be found at GRSG Reading Notes 2024 but you will have to scroll down the page.)

And finally a shout out to those regulars who visit our pop-up book booth at the Freedom Farmer's Market at the Carter Center for putting this book on my radar. Btw, our next pop-up is scheduled for Saturday morning August 24th.

Available at https://bookshop.org/shop/destinationbooks