South Korea, Book Canvassers, Chocolate Hotels, Reading on Holiday & More: Endnotes 10 June

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.

Those awesome carved poles above are found in Jecheon, in South Korea’s North Chungcheong Province. Known as the ‘healing city,’ its traditional medical therapies attract people from all over the country. But it’s not just herbal treatments and chilling out! Beautiful Cheongpungho Lake is surrounded by craggy mountain ranges. You can cruise around the lake on a ferry — or ride a monorail or cable car to the top of Bibongsan Mountain. According to lore, the mountain got its name because it looks like a phoenix taking flight after sitting on an egg. Take a look and decide for yourself.

• Actor Elliot Page recommends seven books to Esquire magazine. ‘For me, euphoria is simply the act of waking up, making my coffee, and sitting down with a book and being able to read.’

• I recently learned about the website Off the Beaten Shelf, and I am smitten. This post about book canvassers in rural 1800s America is the one that got me hooked. Also fun, this peek inside Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky.

• Yes, please, I would like to go to Norway now.

• Also, Ghent, Belgium, seems pretty amazing.

• I cannot improve on this headline: 10 Sweet Hotels Chocolate Lovers Need to Add to Their Bucket Lists.

• Or this one: 8 Magical Novels by Women Writers.

• This essay by Charles McGrath — the author of The Summer Friend: A Memoir — has a very strong sense of summer. ‘If you’re like me, summer memories pile up in no particular order. Endless car trips, your thighs sticking to the pale green vinyl of the back seat, where your brother has crossed the invisible halfway boundary and now, despite your father’s shout, Cut it out, you two, requires a firm disciplinary kick to the shin. Ball games and barbecues, fireworks and fireflies.’ (For more excellent books with a strong sense of summer, listen to our chat with Anne Bogel on this episode of the What Should I Read Next podcast.)

• This essay about breakfast is the best thing I read all week. Treat yourself.

• Books published by Taschen are works of art — the kind of books you wish you could teleport into it. Like this one and this one and this one. Some of the books are so large and heavy, they’re too much for a standard table. So Taschen makes stands designed for specific titles.

• I also like to take photos of manhole covers on our travels. Click through to see this entire collection.

• The new boardwalk through California’s Grove of Titans redwood trees looks fantastic.

• As soon as I get caught up on reading for our podcast, I’m virtually spending a day at the creepy abandoned amusement park in Hide by Kiersten White. (I gushed about how excited I am to read it in last week’s episode of The Library of Lost Time.) San Diego Magazine talked to the YA author about writing her first novel for adults.

• This map of nightclubs in 1932 Harlem is dreamy. It’s part of an online exhibit about the Harlem Renaissance from Yale University Library.

• Here’s an ode to travel as dedicated reading time. 100% yes.

• Outside magazine shares a roundup of its editors’ worst nights of sleep outdoors. Reason 1017 that I don’t enjoy camping.

• This quiz about confusing words is nerdy fun (and educational).

New Episode of The Library of Lost Time

In each 5-minute show, we talk about two new book releases at the top of our TBR, then share a fun book- or travel-related distraction. Get all the episodes and books galore here.

In this episode, we get excited about two new book releases: The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill and There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World by Carlo Rovelli. Then we celebrate the genius of the one and only Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are.

Books

• The Woman in the Library by Kiersten White
• There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World by Carlo Rovelli

Distraction of the Week

• Terri Gross interviewed Maurice Sendak shortly before his death in 2012. Their conversation Maurice Sendak: On Life, Death And Children’s Lit is epic. Here’s a compilation of Sendak’s appearances with Terry Gross: Fresh Air Remembers Maurice Sendak.

• Artist Christoph Niemann illustrated a Fresh Air interview with Maurice Sendak, and it’s lovely.

• Treat yourself to 9 Surprising Facts About Maurice Sendak — and go bananas with 10 Wild Facts About Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.

• Read the Maurice Sendak obituary from The Guardian.

• Here’s our Strong Sense of Place write-up of Where the Wild Things Are. And why not simmer a pot of Roasted Carrot Caraway Soup inspired by the book?

Let the wild rumpus start!

Top image courtesy of Mathew Schwartz/Unsplash.