News
Read to Roam Book for January
I love it when my MPR world & my Reading & Roaming world collide! Turns out that one of the most hotly anticipated novels for 2023 is also 548 pages of some of the most richly textured writing about a foreign place that I've read in a long time.
"Age of Vice" by Deepti Kapoor is set in the misty mountains, the oceanfront towns and the sprawling cities of modern day India.
It follows the rise of a young servant, Ajay, born into dire poverty but gifted with charm, intelligence and a moral character at odds with the wealth and corruption and yes, vice, that swirls around him.
Here's a sentence from an early chapter that will give you a sense of Ajay's new and disorienting world:
"They travel out of Delhi more and more. Sometimes in a private jet. Ajay is the beating heart of Sunny's world. Wordless, faceless, content."
Catch my interview on MPR with Deepti Kapoor in late February.
Kerri's Adventurous Book Club
By the time this newsletter wings its way into your inboxes, I'll be just days away from sending out my very first Adventurous Book Club book to the book-thirsty members of the club.
And I'm designing our first get together when the snow melts. In July. (Just kidding!)
The more intrepid readers, the better! Thank you to everyone who has already signed up. You are my kind of people.
To join, just follow the link.
My Favorite Word Guy has a New Book!
If pride does indeed goeth before a fall…U of M prof Anatoly Liberman may be in for a comeuppance. Comeuppance is a great word, isn’t it??
Prof Liberman has declared his newest dictionary so exciting–so rip-roaring–that it reads like a thriller. No–he says– ”it is better than a thriller because you can open it at any page, go forward or backward, and find yourself neck-deep in a never-ending intrigue.”
And he's right!
We travel the world in ancient times to learn where phrases like "All my eye and Betty Martin" came from; why two London surveyors after the Great Fire-- Hook & Crook-- gave rise to the phrase "By Hook or By Crook"; and how we got the idiom "round robin" from a small sacramental wafer.
Anatoly is at his drollest, wittiest best in "Take My Word For It." Catch my MPR interview with him on Feb 2nd.
The Birds & Gorillas Await Us in East Africa!
Lake Bunyonyi in Uganda is nicknamed "the place of many little birds" and it's one of our destinations on next November's adventure. We'll spend three nights here as we prepare for our mountain gorilla trek.
The waters of the lake are beautifully clear and the air resounds with the chirps and calls of grey-crowned cranes, levillant cuckoos and fan tailed widow birds.
Lonely Planet describes Bunyonyi as "reminiscent of parts of Nepal" with its lush forests and terraced hillsides.
Check out the link above for the itinerary and deliciously adventurous book list!
Books about Chicks Who Spy
Still working your way through your towering TBR list for 2022? Well, here are 10 more great reads from last year that will keep you company for hours on that weeknight when the snow is swirling, the temps are plunging and you've wisely decided to stay in.