Japanese Pizza Toast, Authors' Homes, How Books Got Cheap & More: Endnotes 07 August

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.

Would you be surprised to learn the name of that fantastical garden above is the Supertree Grove? It’s one of the attractions in Gardens by the Bay, a nature park in Singapore. There are 18 supertrees in clusters throughout the park. In addition to their beauty, they’re also tech marvels that mimic the ecological functions of real trees, working as ‘environmental engines’ for the garden. Visitors can take a lift to an elevated walkway among the treetops and at night, they light up with colors and music. In December 2019, the Supertree Observatory opened at the top of the tallest supertree. Its open-air deck provides 360-degree views of the gardens, nearby marina, and the skyline of Singapore. {more}

• The Widows of Malabar Hill is one of the books we recommended it in our Reading Atlas. This interview with author Sujata Massey about her characters is really great.

• I’m not hiding out in my room with the curtains drawn and the fan pointed directly on me because I’m antisocial. I’m estivating.

• What do you pack for a trip to Siberia? Apparently, you need dehydrated food and something called a head net. Read all about it.

• Such a cool project! The University of Texas at San Antonio has been digitizing the largest collection of historic Mexican cookbooks in the United States. And now they’re releasing them as free ebooks. (Thank you to SSoP pal Jo Ann for the link!)

• This is some eye-popping airline decor!

• David might have found the winning link of the week! The website Drive & Listen takes you on a video drive through cities around the world while you listen to the radio. Destinations include Amsterdam, Paris, Prague, Beijing, Berlin, Munich, Budapest, and so many more.

• The more you know: Lapham’s Quarterly put together a timeline of book production to explain how books became cheap.

• Yet another great piece of writing by Rick Steves — this time, for The Atlantic — on the unexpected pleasures of appreciating your home and hometown.

• Which of these famous authors’ homes would you like to live in?

• I can’t do better than this title: I Walked 600 Miles Across Japan for Pizza Toast

• Yes, to famous people sharing their favorite books! Here’s author Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus, The Starless Sea) and singer Stevie Nicks. (By the by, I think I should be besties with both of them because our book tastes overlap a lot.)

• Cheerful news, indeed: Deanna Raybourn’s new book An Unexpected Peril will be released in March; get more details!

• This is a very astute book review:

• The TV show Zoom was one of my favorites as a kid. I remember watching an episode about a little boy in Japan whose favorite snack was a rice ball, wrapped in seaweed, with a pickled plum inside. My tiny mind that had yet to leave Pennsylvania was blown! PICKLED plum?! Seaweed?! This New Yorker piece on the show made me tear up. The inclusive, empathetic premise of Zoom was powerful then and is still so needed.

• Here’s a fun project: paper roses made from newspaper or old book pages.

• Bookish podcast of the week: Mitchell Kaplan has been a bookseller and owner of the shop Books & Books for more than 35 years. In the podcast Literary Life, he talks with guests about their books and the reading life. In this episode, he and author Susan Wiggs discuss her new book The Lost and Found Bookshop and the magic of bookshops: ‘I like to think of a bookstore as what a candy store is for a kid.’

• Travel podcast of the week: This episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast amusingly goes deep into travel nightmare territory: When Your Passport Goes Missing.

Eat something delicious, read something compelling — maybe at the same time.

Top image courtesy of Luiz Guimaraes/Unsplash.