Malmö Library, Magical Realism, Lady Spies, Food Markets & More: Endnotes 08 September

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.

That airy building above is the Malmö City Library in Malmö, a city on the southwestern tip of Sweden. As you might expect, it’s home to an extensive book collection, plus 10,000 DVDs and 33,500 music CDs. It was also the first library in Sweden to lend video games! See more photos and learn about its unique architecture here — and enjoy this walk through the library.

• An exploration of the question: What’s the difference between urban fantasy and magical realism?

• The Guardian presents the Top 10 Female Spies in Fiction.

• Sort of related: The gorgeous seaside home where John Le Carré wrote his novels is on the market. Shall we pool our funds? It has a library and this view:

• Who wouldn’t want to take a long walk across northern England and eat a bunch of sandwiches? ‘I ate a cheddar cheese sandwich with Branston Pickle and salt and vinegar crisps on brown bread while looking out over Lakeland… I have to admit, I am a full convert. I never want to walk again without a sandwich. It is a perfect walk companion.’

• Meanwhile, across the pond: 10 Great American Food Trail Road Trips. I had no idea there was a Pepperoni Roll Trail in West Virginia. (‘Welcome to the Pepperoni Roll Trail, a route that traces West Virginia’s official state food — one that stuffs pepperoni inside various types of bread.’)

• Daphne Du Maurier is just as feisty as you might expect:

• The movie A Haunting in Venice opens next week, and I could not be more ready for a film featuring Venice scenery, a seance, and Michele Yeoh.

• Tangentially related: An adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher is coming to Netflix.

• These papier-mâché animals — foxes and badger and bears, oh my — made from pages of upcycled books are very, very (very) cute.

• Dave and I were almost kept off a flight to Prague a few years ago because the name on my ticket didn’t match my passport. CN Traveler answers the question, Can You Change the Name on an Airline Ticket?

• The 25 Best Food Markets in the World (outside the US). Thailand! Spain! Argentina! Hungary! Mexico! And so many more.

• This whimsical installation in Mumbai is so much fun.

• The Rosenbach in Philadelphia has previously offered fantastic deep-dive seminars into books like Jane Eyre (videos here) and Pride and Prejudice (videos here). The next installment — Sherlock Mondays — starts on 18 September. The free online course features 27 stories in 30 weeks (!). Here’s the scoop: ‘Host Edward G. Pettit and a rotating group of cohosts will have a conversational annotation about each story, providing context and insight about Doyle and his creation. Once a month we’ll also have a special guest for a conversation about a different Sherlockian topic.’ Register for the free class right here. (If you can’t attend the live online sessions, the videos are available shortly thereafter.)

• I want to fill my closet with these rock-concert-style literary t-shirts. A Rochester band tee? Yes, please.

New Episode of The Library of Lost Time

In each mini-podcast episode, we discuss two books 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 books: Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome’s Jewish Kitchen by Leah Koenig and The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson. Then Dave shares highlights from the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction longlist of nominees. [transcript]

Links

• Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome’s Jewish Kitchen by Leah Koenig

• Website for cookbook author Lean Koenig

• Leah Koenig’s cookbooks

• The Food of Rome’s Longstanding Jewish Community Gets Its Due

• The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

• The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

• The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

• Time’s Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance by Jeremy Eichler

• The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee

• Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn’t Food_ by Chris Van Tulleken

Wishing you an unputdownable read for the weekend.

Top image courtesy of Naumova Ekaterina/Shutterstock.