Hotel Emma Library, Eating Route 66, Fall Reads, Famous Steps & More: Endnotes 22 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.

The soothing library above is found in the [Hotel Emma], a 19th-century brewery-turned-luxury-hotel in San Antonio that Texas Monthly describes as ‘Ralph Lauren meets steampunk.’ There are overstuffed leather sofas, colorful Persian rugs, brass fittings, and exposed pipes. We can only assume it’s blessedly cool inside and maybe smells lightly of mesquite. But! Relevant to our interests: The hotel is home to a two-story library comprised of 3700 books. The varied leather- and cloth-bound volumes are the former personal collection of Sherry Kafka Wagner, a novelist, historian, Harvard fellow, and beloved San Antonio icon; charming photos and story about her love of books here. (Fun fact: She wrote the first cover story for the fledgling Texas Monthly in February 1973.) The books are an eclectic collection, including titles on folk art, birds, the state of Texas, women’s studies, and architecture/design. Guests are welcome to read in the library — coffee, housemade muffins, and newspapers are served in the morning; afternoon brings crafted margaritas from the bar cart. Books are also available to be checked out via the library’s vintage card system. Explore more photos of the Hotel Emma here and here. Covetourist offers a nice first-hand account of staying at the hotel — and if you’d like more bookish hotel options, here are the 20 best literary hotels in the world.

• 60 Most Anticipated Books of the Fall. (Is 60 too many? Trick question. NO! There is no such thing as too many.)

• 53 Inspiring Ideas for Bookcases (Is 53 too many? HA! Trick question again. NO! There is no such thing as too many.) FWIW, I love #3, #5, give me all of #9, #19 and #21 are dreamy, #29 looks haunted in a good way… and now I will stop because it’s just becoming a list of all of them.

• This is such a fun idea: Walking audiobook clubs.

• Did you know there’s an organization called the Guild of Book Workers? It was founded in 1906 to ‘establish and maintain a feeling of kinship and mutual interest among workers in the several hand book crafts.’ Its members are bookbinders, printers, conservationists, typographers, papermakers, calligraphers, and more.

• The latest from our favorite street artist Nespoon:

• Walking up steps to see where they go is one of my favorite ways to get lost while traveling. Here are 11 irresistible staircases from around the world.

• Take another look at the 1884 painting ‘Bathers at Asnières’: The Radical Manifesto Hidden in Georges Seurat’s 1884 Masterpiece. Or how math, color theory, a factory chimney, and light contributed to this amazing painting.

• There are so many fun examples of travel journals in this Substack post.

• News you can use for a good (travel) night’s sleep: The Best Earplugs for Sleeping and 11 Best Sleep Masks.

• Treat yourself to this heartwarming story about a rebellious rollergirl, skating through the streets of Melbourne, circa 1977. ‘With worn-out skates strapped onto the feet and her best outfit on, she zoomed past pedestrians, catching attention as she glided.’ (Thanks to friend-of-SSoP Diane W for sharing this story with us.)

• Must-click headline: I Tried Every Restaurant on Route 66.

• This story about the cartoonists at this year’s CRACK! underground comics festival in Rome is pretty inspiring. ‘Fascists will not stop us from drawing what must be drawn, from expressing what we believe in. Conformism will not stop us if we keep creating spaces where dissent can speak through art.’ The setting and photos are fantastic!

• Quiz: How well do you know famous streets around the world? I only got 5/12, but it was fun to learn about these iconic streets!

• I suspect this doesn’t need a hard sell: stained glass that depicts breakfasts and books.

Here’s hoping you get lost in a great book.

Top image courtesy of Hotel Emma.