Explore the history and geography of Tuscany and the Greek Islands. Learn about the cuisines of Europe, the wealth of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and more. By visiting our Reading Room collection of books, films and essays, you can experience these places and historic stories anytime, on the road or at home.
Our Reading Room says a lot about ExperiencePlus! – and our customers. The folks who ride with us customers include some of the most interesting people on the planet. They are inquisitive, intelligent, and love to travel. When they are not traveling they enjoy reading about traveling. Our book reviews include travel narratives, history, geography, food, and modern best sellers. As we say, the next best thing to traveling – is reading about travel! So, click away and send us any good books or films you may have read or seen recently. We always value your input.
- The Essential Mediterranean
Since I began traveling in Italy over forty years ago I’ve been struck by just how "local" food is. So when I ran across Nancy Jenkins’ collection of essays and recipes on the essentials of Mediterranean cooking I couldn’t resist.
- War in Val d'Orcia by Iris Origo
- On Italian Politics, Landscapes and Two Movies about the Po Valley
Facing his first chance to vote in an Italian election, Rick turns to two classic Italian films for a little historical context on Italian politics.
- Graham Greene's "The Third Man" Movie - Reviewed by Rick Price
The classic British film "The Third Man" is a great introduction to the history of Austria in the mid-20th century.
- The Venetian Empire - by Jan Morris
One of the best books about Venice away from Venice that you can find.
- Schwinn Bicycles, by Jay Pridmore and Jim Hurd
Jay Pridmore and Jim Hurd capture the history of the Schwinn bicycle company in their book, Schwinn Bicycles, a 1996 publication of Motorbooks International.
- Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride
Peter Zheutlin, Annie Londonderry’s great-great nephew, has written a masterful homage to his great-great aunt, while recounting the extraordinary “ride” of a remarkable woman.
- "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck
Steinbeck's travels may have been conceived as a search for America, but the book that resulted is about more than just what he found on that one trip. The lessons he has for us - slow down, talk to the people, take time to feel the way life is lived in the places you visit - echo in my memories of the best trips I've been on.
- The Motorcycle Diaries
Despite only having been to South America a few times, Rick found the scenery in the Motorcycle Diaries strangely familiar. It turns out that he'd been unwittingly shadowing Che Guevara's epic motorcycle trip.
- Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
Julie Van Scoy reviews this month's book, subtitled A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts. She writes:
With a title like that, who wouldn’t be skeptical? Open the cover and before the first paragraph even begins you get a cast of characters who seem so eccentric that they must be fictional. What factual story involves a ballet-dancing detective, a national police chief, the host of a hit television show, and an entire professional hockey team?
- Paris, by Émile Zola (1898)
In Paris, the second volume of Zola's trilogy The Three Cities, one of his protagonists is a priest who abandoned the cassock after becoming disillusioned with the church. The priest finds himself on a bicycle ride with a young woman who was betrothed to his older brother. Their conversation about bicycling and women gives us a window into the mind of a liberal intellectual at a time when the power of personal mobility for women was only just beginning to be understood and the layers of strict Victorian morality were being stripped away from traditional French society.
- Who Killed the Electric Car?
Rich Young recently watched "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and took it a little more personally, perhaps, than the filmmakers intended: "Who Killed the Electric Car?" is a documentary on the bizarre tale of electric vehicles in the last decade that had me squirming on my couch. You see, I killed the electric car. I can explain, if you'll give me a chance.
- Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
This month, Rich Young reviews the improbable bestseller Salt and finds it to his liking:
"If you are a food enthusiast, a history buff, or a traveler with experience or interest in any of the regions given treatment in this book, you'll savor Salt."
- Guidebooks to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
Rick compares the Lonely Planet Guidebook to Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania with the three individual country guides published by Bradt.
- Around the World in 80 Days
The round-the-world travels of Train, Bly and Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg spurred the 19th century imaginations of everyone, including those who could travel and those limited to armchair travel.
- Imagining History: Imagining Argentina & Chile
How do you prefer your history? Straight up like a strong shot of espresso, maybe a double? Or would you prefer to soften the impact with a little milk and some chocolate mocha? This list includes three movies and one just-published novel that are about as good a starter set as you could find for Chile and Argentina.
- An Evening with Al Gore and Ed Abbey in Moab, Utah
Al: "The twentieth century has... led many of us to wonder if survival – much less enlightened, joyous, and hopeful living – is possible.”
Ed: “Whether we live or die is a matter of absolutely no concern whatsoever to the desert.”
- Book Review: The Places in Between by Rory Stewart
This remote area of Afghanistan was involved in a war with Russia from 1980 through 1989, then subject to local warlords in a civil war for another seven years, then subjected to the conservative Taliban whiplash beginning in 1996. When Stewart walked through here the region had known nothing but invasion, war, and devastation for well over two decades.
- Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth: The Environmental Ethic versus the Big Business Ethic
Will Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth change minds and turn heads? Alone I don’t think it will. Will it help? I don’t think it will hurt, although, there is the potential that it may help to further widen the gulf between the “environmentalists” and “big business” until such time as more solid, physical evidence hits us in the pocketbook to cause the general public to raise their voices.
- Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
"A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourist can in a hundred miles."
-- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
- The Delights of Delicate Eating by Elizabeth Robins Pennell
- In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor
- The Aran Islands by John M. Synge
- In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
- My Life on Two Wheels
Clifford Graves’ autobiographical account of bicycling spans forty years from his first ride as an adult in Denver -during gasoline rationing in 1942- to his last in the 1980s. Read Rick's review.
- Tour Leader Christina Taioli publishes her second book - Rio
ExperiencePlus! Tour leader Cristina Taioli has just published her second book, a children's fairy tale entitled Rio.
- The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman
I’ll be buying the updated version and passing both versions along to our daughters so they can help us figure out where we’re headed.
- Three Italian Flicks to Warm Your Heart
Catching up on a few of the great Italian movies that have been made through the years, Rick got to thinking about our fascination with Italy.
Where do we get the clichés the images, and the preconceptions about places like Italy? Certainly some of it is from movies but if you add some personal experiences I think you provide the mortar that solidifies those images for life.
- The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
My reluctance to embrace just any travel writer had caused me to shy away from Alain de Botton's book The Art of Travel. I must have picked it up three or four times in bookstores since it came out in 2002 and put it down again thinking it was just another how-to travel guide. I learned that I couldn't have been more mistaken after finding this fascinating book in my stocking at Christmas.
- A Passion for Piedmont: Italy's Most Glorious Regional Table by Matt Kramer (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1997)
With the winter Olympics coming up in February 2006 in Italy's Piedmont region we thought we might suggest some reading for the epicures. The Piedmont is, of course, Italy's most "French" region. The culture, the history, the food, and, above all, the wine bear French influence from centuries of contact with French culture and society despite, as Matt Kramer writes, the wall of mountains surrounding the Piedmont on three sides.
- Peter Pezzelli, Home to Italy (New York: Kensington Books, 2004)
- Al Young, Shifting Gears, My Global Bike Odyssey (including an interview with the author)
Al Young's book tells three stories in one. The first is the story of just how easy it is to plan, sell and bungle an enterprise like Odyssey 2000. The second is the story of how a quiet, reserved music teacher from small-town America "discovered" herself and the world on such an odyssey. And the third is the story of the trials and tribulations of a round-the-world-bicycle ride from the rider's perspective.
- Read Any Good Books Lately?
We usually try to make sure our book reviews have at least something to do with cycling, or hiking, or the places we visit and their history. But that's not all we read!
- Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180 by Mike Magnuson
Heft on Wheels is a good read that will inspire you to examine your own life with a critical and ambitious eye.
- Bicycle: the History by David V. Herlihy (Yale University Press, 2004)
Almost a coffee table book, Herlihy's Bicycle: the History is substantial, richly illustrated and intimidating at 470 pages. The author has done an extraordinary amount of work, reviewing literature as far back as 1696.
- Grow with the Flow: Powerful New Paths to Effective Intelligence for Your Child by David Cantrell, Ph.D.
Dave Cantrell brings wide-ranging knowledge of psychological reserach and 30 eyar of experience to his work with parents and children.
- Introducing Salt and Garlic
I just had to comment on the role of salt and garlic in Mediterranean cuisine when Rich asked to review Mark Kurlansky’s book Salt, and when I saw Paola had chosen Skordalia, a classic Greek dip with garlic, as this month's recipe.
As I pondered the recipe and review I couldn’t help but think of garlic and salt mixtures I’ve eaten....
- 2004 Race DVD's
- Giving Good Weight: Unmasking Food Writer John McPhee
It may come as a surprise to serious food critics but I think John McPhee deserves recognition as one of the all time great food essayists.
- 2005 Race Companion by Bob Roll and Dan Koeppel
Bob Roll lends an authenticity and enthusiasm to the subject of The Race that makes for an entertaining and informative read.
- Pride of Carthage, A Novel of Hannibal by David Anthony Durham
There is no shortage of books on Hannibal, but I can recommend this one without reservation. David Anthony Durham has taken a fascinating historical odyssey and turned it into a fictional account of a gigantic figure who, in the end, was human too. Durham develops subplots and stories within the broader history of Hannibal's fourteen-year campaign ravaging Italy.
- Tour Leader Cristina Taioli publishes her travel essay: "Una Romagnola sul Kilimangiaro"
Tour leader Cristina Taioli went to Kenya and Tanzania in the winter of 2004 where she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. The travel diary which she kept during that trip has been published in Italian. Read the full story of her diary here.
- Toucan Guides Waterproof Map of Costa Rica
Rick Price reviews the latest map of Costa Rica created by Ray Krueger-Koplin. Thousands of hours of independent research, and thousands of km of travel in Costa Rica went into choosing the 100 plus canopy adventures, hot springs, surf schools, white water outfitters, and other travel resources shown on the map.
- The Race - by Dave Shields
Book Review of the famous French Race by Dave Shields
- The Broker by John Grisham
John Grisham eats, writes & stumbles with this best selling book placed in the Bologna, Italy.
- Landscapes of Cycling by Graham Watson
The folks at VeloPress (Boulder, Colorado) have teamed up with Graham Watson to produce what is arguably the finest book of bicycle racing photography ever.
- Food and Culture in Europe - Part II
An exploration of books on food and culture in Europe part II. Find out why the Italian inventions of the 2 pronged fork and pasta spread through Europe in the mid 15th Century.
- Food and Culture in Europe, Part I
Join me as I wander through some of my favorite books about food and gastronomy in Europe. As a geographer my interest is in the history and geography of food and how food relates to culture. - Rick Price
- Too Much Tuscan Sun (Confessions of a Chianti Tour Guide) by Dario Castagno
Heavy on anecdotes about those tourists you hope you'll never encounter, light on natural history, and with just enough historical and cultural vignettes to make it worth your while.
- Paris-Roubaix 2001 DVD (World Cycling Productions, 2001)
This DVD of the 2001 running of the 'world's toughest one day bicycle race' will entertain and instruct you. We recommend it enthusiastically.
- The Maigret Detective Series: Novels and Murder Mysteries by Simenon
These books had a big impact on Rick's understanding of French geography. Simenon's descriptive skill at painting word pictures of French places has stuck with Rick for many years.
- Beyond Lance
I'll admit that I nearly collapsed like a teenage girl suffering from Beatlemania, thrown into a hypoxic daze from cheering too vigorously for him at the 2004 Tour's Alpe d'Huez time trial... So it might come as some surprise that, as he embarks on the last few years of his remarkable career, I am beginning to look beyond Lance.
- The Giro d'Italia (Coppi Versus Bartali at the 1949 Tour of Italy) by Dino Buzzati
The historic 1949 Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) brought legends Coppi and Bartali head-to-head. "They are pilgrims traveling to a distant city that they will never reach: they symbolize, in flesh and blood, as depicted in an ancient painting, the incomprehensible adventure of life. . . "
- The Road Within, edited by Sean O'Reilly, James O'Reilly, and Tim O'Reilly
In the words of the editors, 'It is a book of transformation, of lessons learned, maps drawn and burned, and spiritual blessings bestowed by that great and hard teacher: travel.'
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
I had never read Frankenstein. So when our English-professor friend, Carol Cantrell, learned of our upcoming hike around Mont Blanc this summer, she handed me this early 19th century classic and said, 'Here, you might find Mary Shelley's descriptions interesting. I don't know that you'll want to read the whole thing but I'll be curious to have a geographer's interpretation of this." So off I went to Mont Blanc with Frankenstein in my daypack!
- The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
Dunant's retelling of Florence's history accompanies the fictional story of the characters. This is told in the first person through the diary left by Sister Lucrezia, alias Alessandrea Cecchi, daughter of a rich Florentine cloth merchant. I appreciate reading about historical and social events described from a woman's point of view.
- The Tour de France Companion by Bob Roll
If you are looking for a primer on Race strategy, about the 'races within the race', about sprinters, the "King of the Mountain," and the under-25 racers, this book is for you.
- A Guide's Guide to the Best Travel Guide Books
Which is the Best Travel Guide Book?
- The DaVinci Code/ Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Brown's stories are part science fiction, part history, and part socio-religious commentary. No doubt he's found a hot button item in taking on the controversial history of the Catholic church. Brown offers a whole new perspective on topics like the role of the church in art and history, conservative sects like Opus Dei, the history of the Knights Templar and the role of goddess worship and feminism in western society.
- Best American Travel Writing, 2003
Geography is about places, people, and environments and what makes places different, one from the other. Our best travel writers explore the sense of "place" of locations both familiar and foreign. Read this book to explore anew Wilmington, West Texas, Kabul and the Arctic.
- Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong
This is not a continuation of the story about his battle against cancer. Nor is it a book about bicycle racing, The Race, business management, team training, marital harmony, or parenting. Or is it? In short, this is a book about Lance Armstrong, and a good one at that.
- As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
Laurie Lee set out in 1933, spent a year in London and then at the end of the next year found himself stranded on the far side of Iberia at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. He carried his fiddle with him, lived by the music he played on the street, and described his journey in a memoir some thirty years later.
- Pelle the Conqueror/ Smilla's Sense of Snow/ Babette's Feast
Three Danish books that have been made into popular movies, available in video, which help satisfy my craving. Let me introduce them to you. They are Pelle the Conqueror, Smilla's Sense of Snow and Babette's Feast.
- Race Book Reviews
Graham Watson's photography, plus the history, legends and people that make up The Race, in five books reviewed by Rick.
- Moderata Fonte: Women and Life in Sixteenth-Century Venice
Moderata Fonte: What did it mean to be a woman in sixteenth-century Venice? How did women impact the everyday life of this brilliant, festive, but essentially patriarchal city? The overview of the political, economic, cultural, and spiritual components of life in Venice during this time focuses on the impact that women had on their society's activities.
- A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica/Naturalists Guide to Costa Rica
I recommend this book enthusiastically to anyone going to Costa Rica, whether you'll be sitting on the beach or engaging in active adventure travel with ExperiencePlus! or someone else. The first fifty pages are an introduction to geography, climate, habitat and general comments about Costa Rican birds.
- Galileo's Daughter: A Drama of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel
Dava Sobel has woven, in a masterful way, Suor Maria Celeste's letters to her father within the detailed and often anguished story of his life and vicissitudes. Unfortunately Galileo's side of this correspondence is not still in existence.
- Spoke Songs/Metal Cowboy
Willie Weir approaches bicycle touring like Don Quixote crosses La Mancha. Joe Kurmaskie is different, but only a little. He still uses the same picaresque style that Weir uses, moving from place to place, chapter to chapter, recounting his duels on the road, but Joe's battles are more philosophical treatises on life than they are bicycle adventures.
- Travel Photography: A Selection of Books & Resources
Rick reviews the following modern photographers: John Fielder, Galen Rowell, and Bryan Peterson. All three are practicing photographers. All three have published a variety of books. And all three have a huge amount of experience with lots to teach. Here's his assessment of each...
- The Words of Bernfrieda, A Chronicle of Hauteville by Gabriella Brooke
The story begins in a monastery in Calabria, Italy in 1061. The reader is immediately taken back to Normandy at the turn of the millennium by the narrator, Bernfrieda, servant of Lady Fredesenda.
- House of Niccolo; by Dorothy Dunnet
The time is 1460 to roughly 1480, the place, the 'known world' for Europeans of the time. Dunnett chose a young apprentice in a Flanders textile merchant's house as her protagonist. His name is Claes vander Poêle, later to become Nicholas de Fleury.
- It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong
To win The Race after traveling to the brink of death, undergoing debilitating cancer treatments, and having your physique (and your psyche) reduced to a shadow of its former self is nothing less than astounding. Then to write a book about your ordeal and come back to win The Race three more times pushes the definition of Herculean!
- Famine by Liam O'Flaherty
The history of the Great Famine (1846-50) in Ireland is brought alive through the story of three generations of Irish peasants, just as Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath documented the dustbowl migration of poor, starving families from Oklahoma to California. It is a story of poverty, starvation, disease, and socio-political struggles of a suppressed class caught by chance in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Cycling Past 50 by Joe Friel
Joe Friel is widely know among bicycle racers and triathletes for his book, The Cyclist's Training Bible: A Complete Training Guide for the Competitive Road Cyclist, first published in 1996. So is it any wonder that as the author saw his book go to press at age fifty-three, he looked at himself and the baby-boomers around him and thought 'they need a book like this of their own?'
- Clear Waters Rising, A Mountain Walk Across Europe by Nicholas Crane
British geographer Nicholas Crane decided, at age forty, to walk from Cape Finisterre on the coast of Galicia in northwest Spain to Istanbul. His intent was to undertake this walk along the ridgeline - the "watershed" - of Alpine Europe. Indeed, that means walking the crest of the Pyrenees, France's Massif Central (not really Alpine but a good substitute), the Alps through Switzerland, Italy, and Austria, the great arc of the Carpathians through Slovakia, the Ukraine and Romania, and the Balkan Mountains through Bulgaria to Istanbul.
- The Best American Travel Writing, 2000, 2001, 2002
Best American Travel Writing 2002: How do you find the great, modern travel writers without spending hours with new travel books only to find you've abandoned it one third of the way through? I've found this series to be the answer. Here's why.
- Granite Island: A Portrait of Corsica by Dorothy Carrington
Carrington first visited Corsica in 1948 and began a lifelong quest to understand the history, social history and anthropology of this fascinating island of 300,000 souls. Corsica has been a part of France since 1768 but has never really identified with France, is more Italian than French, and, indeed, more 17th century Genoese than Italian.
- Attila: King of the Huns - the Man and the Myth - by Patrick Howarth
Understand how Ravenna and Venice fit between East and West during the last decades of the Roman Empire. Attila ruled for the briefest of period, from 445 - 453 A.D. Yet he and his army became known as the - scourge of God - in western Europe as his horsemen could move faster than word of mouth, often appearing on the doorstep of west European cities before advance warning could reach his victims...
- Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnick
Those who wish to be travelers, not simply tourists, yearn for the kind of insights that author Adam Gopnik shares in his book of essays about Paris.
- Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby
Eric Newby's narrative of war, escape, love, and peasant farmers in Italy's Apennine mountains in 1944 has lasted thirty or more years since its first publication in 1971.
- Provence by Lawrence Durrell
Essays on the history of Provence from the perspective of one who has seen and experienced as much Mediterranean history as any other English writer. Durrell's fascination with this mixture of place, landscape and history is evident throughout the book but is perhaps nowhere better stated than in his description of the Roman ruins in Orange and Nimes, where he states, "The heartbeat of a place is recorded in these stone experiences."
- Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves (An American Naturalist in Italy) by Gary Paul Nabhan
Have you ever thought what Italy might be like without tomatoes on pasta, without sunflower fields in Tuscany, corn flour polenta in Veneto, or prickly pear cactus in Sicily? Gary Nabhan thought this and more on his walk through Tuscany and Umbria.
- To the Ends of the Earth by Paul Theroux
A smorgasbord of short pieces by Theroux on his travels in India, Central America, the British Isles and China.
- Timeline by Michael Crichton
When I read Timeline I was again transported back in time - to the 14th century Dordogne river valley in southwestern France.
- Off the Road: A Modern Day Walk Down the Pilgrim's Route into Spain by Jack Hitt
Jack Hitt's book moves quickly along this famous pilgrimage route. Most books about the Camino are slow-moving personal narratives of a very long walk. While this book fits the genre, Hitt is an excellent writer and his book is full of interesting and entertaining historical vignettes.
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