By DENISE SMITH
Summer is here and, thankfully, COVID restrictions have lessened. The San Die go County Library branches have expanded their hours to providing indoor service Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
We are also offering our Summer Learning Program with easy registration and participation for all ages no matter where you are this summer. Sign up at sdcl.org/summer to see how we can help you read, learn, and create! Now that the ability to go out and travel while participating in the Summer Learning Program is within reach, you may want to dip into these new books about voyages others have taken.
If you haven’t yet made plans for a journey, Lonely Planet’s “Ultimate Travel List: the 500 Best Places on the Planet Ranked” could be just what you need. Locations in this travel guide include places to hike, museums, and UNESCO World Heritage sites. Each of the 500 places is covered in one to two pages and gives you an idea of what there is to do and why it made it to the list. This coffee table book includes breathtaking photos of locations like Zocalo de Oaxaca, Mexico; Bagan, Myanmar; the Uffizi in Florence, Italy; Hot Water Beach in New Zealand, and more.
“In Gran Tour: Travels With My Elders” author Ben Aitken throws off any millennial stereotypes a reader may be holding onto and learns that retirees have this whole traveling thing down to an art form. Aitken gains multiple learning experiences via bus tours all over the United Kingdom and to Lake Como. He realizes that not only do senior citizens seem to have a care-free, genial attitude while traveling, they are fantastic conversationalists, know all the gossip about the other travelers, and are experts at sleuthing the best deals at their destinations. Witty charm abounds in this one.
The movies of director Wes Anderson, such as “Royal Tenenbaums,” “Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” and “Moonrise Kingdom,” inspired a fan-photography Instagram project. When people came across places that seemed to come straight out of one of Anderson’s films, appearing ultra-quirky and idiosyncratic, they photographed it and shared it online. Wally Koval collected these photos and created a book, “Accidentally Wes Anderson,” which covers places from all over the world (number one is in our own county). If you’ve seen any of Anderson’s films, you’ll be surprised how spot-on these photos are. This book is also available to download with the Libby app.
A family of five puts their normal lives on hold to travel the world in “We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year.” As one would imagine, there are highs, lows and laughs while a husband, wife, and their three teenagers immerse themselves in the cultures of the world all while trying to stick to their budget. In nine months they cover six continents, encounter a giant spider in a jungle, make life-long friends, and evade a local army. If you’ve had a bad case of cabin fever, give this book a try, which is also available to download on the Libby app.
For these titles and all upcoming news about the library, visit www.sdcl.org.
— Denise Smith is a librarian at the San Diego County La Mesa Branch Library.
