The latest books to read
The American Future
Simon Schama
Vintage, £9.99
This column has been accused in the past of smuggling in a history book or two disguised as a travel book – and this week is no exception. Simon Schama’s treatise on the US, from the founding fathers to the election of Barack Obama, is an immense book that wears its research and intelligence lightly, with facts weaved into historical anecdotes that rattle off the pages in this historian’s inimitable, contemporary tone. What make it fascinating from a travel point of view are how these events have shaped and continue to shape the US, and Schama’s take on some of the US’s most iconic places and institutions, be it his brief but illuminating history of the military cemetery at Arlington or his descriptions of the great plains of Colorado, where “the mountains become no more than a sawtooth edge to the far horizon”. Gripping, stirring stuff of the highest historical calibre.
New York 2009
Time Out, £6.99
If you’re more of a modernist than a historian, then New York will no doubt be on any US itinerary. This pocket guide to the city is freshly updated, and written in Time Out’s typically breathless style, with all that’s hip and happening on the NYC scene, from the slickest bar and clubs to the hottest restaurants in the Big Apple, though there’s still room among the current crop for a few old favourites (take a bow Village Vanguard and Katz’s). A handful of itineraries, from Harlem to the city’s top surf spots, should also get you off the beaten track. Be warned, though: this is all about Manhattan; Brooklyn et al get only a passing mention.
lmackin@irishtimes.com