Category Archives: Books
Serbo-Croatian
Dear ex-Yugoslavs, without any intention of being disrespectful to your dramatic break-up, I am not going to have time to learn Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin separately. No, I am going to stick with good old Serbo-Croatian. At a used-book … Continue reading
Random Thoughts (18)
“Time is more valuable than money could ever dream of being.” (Dan Kieran in The Idle Traveller) Thanks to Thomas Kuban for pointing me to The Ultimate Productivity Blog. Thanks to Priscila Serrano for the book 60 Degrees North, in … Continue reading
Random Thoughts (17)
Now I know why it’s called CATalonia: it doesn’t know if it wants to walk through the door or not. Shouldn’t nobody sign no contract that they ain’t read before. (I am now giving legal advice in country lyrics, at … Continue reading
Why travelling with little money is the best
Dan Kieran writes in The Idle Traveller: If you have to rely on other people, you are forced to be open and engage with them, which quickly spreads the notion of friendship and community. One person leads you to another … Continue reading
“Neither Here nor There” by Bill Bryson
I like Bill Bryson and have enjoyed some of his other books, but Neither Here nor There, his account of traveling through Europe from Norway to Istanbul, is disappointing. The book is full of clichés that you already knew about … Continue reading
Random Thoughts (14)
If I am ever on a quiz show, my telephone joker will be the dude who wrote Wikipedia. Suki Kim has done impressive undercover reporting in North Korea, fooling both her employer, by pretending that she was a devout Christian, and of course the … Continue reading
Book Markets in the Middle East
In Iraq, booksellers leave the books at the side of the road overnight, thinking: “Readers don’t steal, and thieves don’t read.” That reminds me of an episode during my first visit to Iran. In a used-book shop, I found so … Continue reading
“Death in Venice”
… and there goes Gustav von Aschenbach: “Death in Venice“ is not my favorite book by Thomas Mann, but he is one of my most favorite authors. I have met a few people who have dismissed Thomas Mann as a writer … Continue reading
My house in Colombia
Bogotá is actually quite green for a large city, but I wanted only nature, without the city. So I rented a little house north of Colombia’s capital, which I reached on smaller and smaller roads, shared with a surprising number … Continue reading
The Happy Hermit 