The book world is shaken this week by a massive price war in which two major retailers and an online behemoth battle it out to prove that avid readers love them best. After Wal-Mart announced it would be knocking the price of 10 recently released and pre-order-ready hardcovers to $10, Amazon stepped up and did the same—so Wal-Mart dropped the price to $9, and Jeff Bezos' baby did the same. Target has since followed suit, and indie bookstores are crying foul; sadly, $8.98 is still $8.96 too many to be paying for Sarah Palin's new "memoir," which is included in the sale at all three outlets.

Just the words "book" and "sale" together tend to raise our blood pressure, but the money you save on these blockbusters can go directly into your travel fund. Here are some of the places the anointed bestsellers will take you this fall: ]]> egw 2009-10-22T15:26:47-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/10/132231/540

Don't go until you're well-read: The L.A. Times' travel blog recently rounded up its favorite travel bookstores in the world, for those of us who still prefer the ability to doodle in the margins of a guide to pulling it up on a smartphone. We definitely want to check out their picks, but why so Eurocentric?

The Times singles out London's venerable Stanfords (even mentioned in a Sherlock Holmes story!), Paris' Librarie Ulysse and Rome's Libreria del Viaggiatore—and they all sound like the kind of dusty nooks in which to while away several happy hours planning our next adventure. But three just aren't enough! ]]> egw 2009-09-10T14:33:51-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/4/105044/6390

Maybe you're already off gallivanting for this Labor Day weekend, and maybe you're only dreaming about it. Hey, we sympathize! But either way, you can always do a little armchair traveling. With the help of the current New York Times bestseller list, we suggest one of the following cities for some end of summer reading:

Charleston, South Carolina
South of Broad, blockbuster author Pat Conroy's first novel in 14 years, follows a group of high school friends reuniting in 1989 for their 20th reunion.
Pack it: If you're also off to see old friends at home. Celebrate the people who made you you!
Skip it: If you're heading for storm territory—much of the book's back half is dedicated (spoiler!) to the ravages of Category 5 Hurricane Hugo. ]]> egw 2009-09-04T11:28:04-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/6/24/123715/512

Pick a long enough book to take on your next trip and you'll have fodder for every pit stop and flight delay. This week marked the launch of Infinite Summer, a group reading project designed to get people to tackle one of those major doorstops of a book which might be sitting on your shelf this very moment. The choice book is David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.

At 75 pages a week, infinite summer-ers [Ed note: count us among them] who start this best known novel from the late author will finish the week of September 21, fitting it thus to the solar definition of summer. Set in a dystopic future America, the book nevertheless adopts some locales from Wallace's life, from suburban Boston to Tucson, where he studied philosophy and fiction writing respectively. This great photo set points Boston visitors to the locales that inspired Wallace for the book's scenes there. ]]> egw 2009-06-24T14:07:16-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/5/2/155230/8200

Writing about the differences between in-flight magazines got me to thinking about how often I really do read long-form travel writing, compared with the staccato bursts of stylized news briefs one might find on, say, a travel blog. The truth is, I don't often read all the great feature stories published every month, even in magazines I subscribe to. But when I finally make the time to read a lush and descriptive feature by one of today's best travel writers, I'm always glad I did. That's why anthologies like the Best American Travel Writing series are so great. I recently finished reading this year's edition - which has stories originally published in 2008 - and enjoyed it immensely. ]]> Victor Ozols 2009-05-02T15:52:30-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/6/25/113528/686

Stuck in front of your computer today? Take a mini-break with Field-Tested Books, an essay collection in which writers talk about where they were when they read a very memorable book.

Some of our favorite folks are represented in this e-anthology, but what we love the most is that the pieces are short. You can easily pack a year's worth of long weekends into an hour or two--just make sure your boss isn't peaking over your shoulder.

Our Picks:
· Stalking an Actor in Perugia, Italy [Steven Heller]
· Forgoing Sodom and Gomorrah for Ayn Rand [Ben Karlin]
· Shocking the Other Passengers on a Cross-Country Flight [Annie Logue]
· Getting Drunk in Mexico [Andrei Codrescu]
· Armchair Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: ddsiple]]]> egw 2008-06-25T15:15:05-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/9/25/23518/5759

We admit our experience of Antarctica is limited to the kinds of cruise-ship-hits-island stories that we like to chuckle about. But we'd really love to check out the great southern continent and just haven't yet because nobody's offered to pay our way there.

Second best might be reading the latest offering from Travelers' Tales: It's a collection of travel essays called Antarctica: Life on the Ice. Featuring plenty of penguins, a few dinosaur bones, hefty blizzards and places where your footprints will outlive you, it'll surely whet your appetite for more freezing experiences. Just be sure to invite us along when you go, k?

Related Stories:
· Antarctica: Life on the Ice [Travelers' Tales]
· Antarctic Cruise Gets Stranded, Turns Notsofun [Jaunted]
· Armchair Travel [Jaunted]

[Photo: towse]]]> amandak 2007-09-27T09:30:01-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/