Epistolary Novels, Dinner Parties in Lit, Tiki Bars, Whaling Art & More: Endnotes 15 January

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 elegantly crumbling theater above is a reminder to us all to look for inspiration in unexpected places. Photographer Paul Morris turns his lens on natural landscapes and abandoned buildings to great effect. To capture this haunting image, he lit the theater — found in an abandoned hospital complex in France — with 300 tea lights at 1:00 a.m. {more}

• This essay by Amy Stewart makes the case that all epistolary novels are mysteries: ‘It’s this sense of discovery — the slow reveal through the shuffling of documents, the paper trail left behind in the wake of a tragedy — that gives us, the readers, the same thrill that historians and archivists must feel when they uncover a cache of historical records.’

• This is colorful fun: Can you match these iconic national costumes to the country? (I got 11/17.)

• Who couldn’t go for a colorful cocktail (or mocktail) in a tiki glass right about now? This illustrated history of tiki culture will have to do for the present.

• Did you get caught up in sea shanty mania this week? David and I did! The version below is my favorite rendition of ‘Wellerman,’ but you can find more here. Also of interest: The Public Domain Review (a fantastic site with essays about images in the public domain) features beautiful illustrations from the logbooks of Nantucket whaleships.

• Whoa! If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be a bartender in Antarctica…

• Is reading War and Peace worth the effort?!

• Surely you want 10 facts about Jane Austen.

• Learned about a new-to-me destination: Socotra. It’s an island archipelago in the Indian Ocean between Somalia and Yemen, and it’s home to plants and animals found nowhere else.

• Ooooh! Food in fiction is one of our favorite things! This essay on LitHub stresses the importance of getting food right in novels — and at CrimeFiction, a roundup of the best dinner parties in fiction. (You might also enjoy our Food+Fiction series of recipes inspired by books.)

• This photo essay and history of Route 66 in the southwestern US is kitschy fun. David and I spent a memorable night — about 20 years ago, with our two cats — at the WigWam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona when we road-tripped from our old home in California to our new one in Austin, Texas.

• Team Jessica Fletcher FOREVER! Or, how Murder, She Wrote captured our hearts.

• These photos of cool cafés around the world gave me so much wanderlust!

• Bookish podcast of the week: On the Lit Century: 100 Years, 100 Books podcast, the hosts choose one book for each year of the 20th century and take a deep dive into its pages with a special guest. In a recent episode, they discuss Shirley Jackson’s classic The Haunting of Hill House. Part 1 — Part 2

• Travel podcast of the week: On the You Should Have Been There podcast, the hosts Simon Calder (travel correspondent for The Independent) and Mick Webb discuss the world of travel. In this episode, they talk to Susan Baxter — the author of A History of the World in 500 Walks — about the joy of long walks.

Wishing you delightful new things and comforting familiar stuff.

Top image courtesy of v2osk/Unsplash.