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Get Your Travel Read On Thanks To The Controversial $9 Book Sale

October 22, 2009 at 3:26 PM | by | Comments (0)

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:

Maine:
Stephen King once again "honors" his home state in Under The Dome, a novel about a town which, "Simpsons Movie"-style, is trapped under glass. The captive town of Chester's Mill appears to not exist in real life (although we found this Chamber of Commerce page, it looks fake) but enjoy the small-town fall foliage in Fryeburg, currently at its peak colors, where you can poke around in microfilms of hundred-and-fifty-year-old newspaprs at the Fryeburg Historical Society.

Mexico City:
Harrison Shepherd, the protagonist of Barbara Kingsolver's new novel The Lacuna, comes of age hanging out with Frida Kahlo and working for Leon Trotsky. Some people have the best traveling companions! Pretend you, too, were born to hobnob with greats at the Museo Leon Trotsky (Av. Río Churubusco 410) and the Museo Frida Kahlo Casa Azul (Londres 247).

Port Royal, Jamaica:
Michael Crichton's posthumous novel got the world's best title, Pirate Latitudes, but you'd have to travel back in time to witness the described greatness of the city of Port Royal, Jamaica's formerly largest port before an earthquake in 1692 caused most of the city to sink into the ocean. But as this pirate fan found, there's still some to see left of this once mandatory stopover.

Related Stories:
· In Book-Pricing Battle, How Low Can They Go? [NY Times]
· Where Is Your Favorite Travel Bookstore? [Jaunted]
· Wit, Whiskey and Wales [Jaunted]

[Photo of Port Royal: alosa_sapidissima]

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