For a few years now the New York Times has not printed a Travel section to go with the other sections in its Sunday paper. To read this section, subscribers have to go online, a simple effort that I have never made.
But once a year the paper deigns to print a special section listing 52 places to go in the new year. This is the most meaningless form of travel writing (claims someone who, under pressure from supervisors, did his fair share of annual where-to-go lists), based – when no special event or natural occurrence is involved – on nothing more than the whims and prejudices of a group of editors. Why are the Albanian Alps (to cite one of the Times’ picks) the place to go this year as opposed to last year – or next year?
Still, I peruse the special section every year, and this year I was disappointed to see that no place in Poland made the list. Is the country already too mainstream, with none of the edgy caché of Albania? Hard to know. I’ve been visiting Poland regularly for the last few decades and each time I go I’m struck by how attractive it has become, not just for tourists but also for residents. Planning a return this spring, I realize that I should be grateful that the New York Times found it wanting, as there will be fewer Americans – at least fewer Times readers – on the streets.
Then Sunday evening I zoomed with Scott Simon, who had invited me on his podcast Open Book. We talked about Florida mostly – he had read my “Florida Man” essay in The American Scholar – but also about Poland – two subjects that are rarely paired. The podcast is available on his timeline on X.
Over the weekend, Pauline Frommer interviewed me about my new memoir. I was the second guest on the show, so while waiting to hear me you can learn about finding cheap airfares.
No phrase better describes the experience of listening to Christmas music on the radio, where you can go from "Once in Royal David's City" to "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer," from "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" to "I Saw Three Ships A Sailing."
Sunday’s New York Times Book Review listed the best books of the year in various categories, including Thrillers, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Horror, and Crime. It mixed genres I have very little interest in with genres I have absolutely no interest in.
The Winter issue of The American Scholar is now out, with my essay "Florida Man." It is a defense of the state against the people outside it who continue to make fun of it and the writers inside it who insist on sensationalizing it. The full essay is not yet online, but here is the beginning: https://theamericanscholar.org/florida-man/