Every Friday, we celebrate the weekend — and all the reading and relaxing and daydreaming time ahead — with Melissa's favorite book- and travel-related links of the week. Why work when you can read fun stuff?!
This post is part of our Endnotes series.
The fantastical pink tower wrapped in a dragon is Wat Samphran, a Buddhist temple just outside of Bangkok in Thailand. Inside the 17-story building, you’ll find a giant gold Buddha and several shrines. Intrepid visitors can also climb up inside the winding belly of the dragon.
It’s always fun to eyeball other peoples’ bookshelves, and these vintage photos do not disappoint.
scribbles notes furiously: How to Travel Like a Crime Novelist
We love independent bookstores with our whole hearts. Now Bookshop.org is here to bring the indie experience online. Independent bookstores become Bookshop.org affiliates to sell books online, and they earn a 25-percent commission on every sale.
Note to self: Purchase ticket to Zanzibar asap.
News you can use: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village
Louis Vuitton’s models strike a pose on the cover of horror and sci-fi novels. Reading really is in fashion!
How about anime adapted from manga about a manga bookstore? Meet skull-face bookseller.
Destination Inspiration: Bodø, Norway. Shortlisted as one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2024!
Literary Airbnb Reviews from McSweeney’s are just as cleverly snarky as you’d expect. (Shout-out to Claire Diaz-Ortiz for the link.)
This isn’t new, but slick vocabulary never goes out of style. Are you an abibliophobe and a bibliophagist — or are you more of a logophile?!
Ken Jennings tells us all about Oymyakon, Russia is the coldest place on Earth.
Bookish podcast of the week: On the BBC Bookclub podcast, host James Naughtie talks to accomplished authors about their best-known novels. In this installment, Peter Høeg talks about Smilla’s Sense of Snow, which I re-read recently and loved all over again. (But it was stranger and nerdier than I remembered. Have you read it? Let’s chat in comments about it.)
Travel podcast of the week: Women Who Travel is a podcast from Condé Nast Traveler magazine. In this episode, the hosts talk to Jessica Nabongo, the first black woman to visit every country in the world.
Top image courtesy of R.M. Nunes.
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