Traveling Without Moving

I spent almost three weeks with Eleanor Roosevelt via a three-volume biography by Blanche Weissen Cooke. Although I knew much about the period, it was a reminder of how much ahead we are in the rights of blacks, refugees, workers, labor unions and the poor because of her work. We still haven't begun to reach her goals. 

I was in D.C., Hyde Park, New Zealand, Campobello and every other place, this woman travelled through my reading.

I stayed in Virginia and the D.C. area with the book Those Empty Eyes by Charlie Donlea, a murder mystery. There were brief stops at Cambridge University and a Zurich Bank both places I know. Nice to see them again.

I already have the next book on my Kindle which will take me to Maine, Cider House Rules, which I read when it first came out in 1997. It was by John Irving who's new book Queen Esther which is connected in some way. I'll read the new book after I finish. 

Although I never met him, Irving and I lived in Exeter, New Hampshire at the same time. My Masters degree from Glamorgan University in Wales was on repeated symbolism in his work: short people, wrestling, bears, Vienna, etc. As for Vienna, the couple of times I've visited my writing mate in that city we ate little sandwiches at Trzesniewski. I can't remember if Irving ever mentioned the sandwiches along with his other symbols.

After that, I'm not sure what I'll read. There are still lots of books unread in both France and Switzerland. Never mind that we might pass a telephone booth changed into a free bookstore and I'll find something. 

Switzerland has the English Library and the English book store Pages and Sips. If we go in for scones, we find it impossible to leave without a couple of books and maybe ever a literary jigsaw puzzle.

I love books with Boston, New England, Canadian, German, French, Swedish, Scottish, Russia and Syrian settings, etc. Places I've been and may or may not go back to. Equally I love reading about places, I've never been and still want to go. Of course, it isn't just the settings, but the people that inhabit the pages, their problems, their solutions that send me into different worlds. I love being in different time periods and cultures. 

Reading adds a dimension to my life from the comfort of my couch, bed or chair. 

My mother thought that she didn't have to travel if she could read about a place. I disagree. I've had both. I don't care how well Irving describes Vienna. I can't taste the little sandwiches in a book.