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Hamilton Spectator
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
I'm a bookworm and I turned over an old leaf on a bookish trip to Scotland
We asked Star readers to tell us about trips they have taken and to share their experience and advice: Where: Wigtown, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland When: April and May 2024 Trip rating: 4/5 What inspired you to take this trip? I fell in love with all things Wigtown after reading 'The Diary of a Bookseller' (2017), the first in a collection of memoirs by Shaun Bythell, the curmudgeonly owner of The Bookshop, Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. His wry sense of humour has garnered him over 50,000 online fans worldwide. A lifelong bookworm, I have worked in publishing, and in bookstores in Toronto, England and Scotland. This was a bucket-list trip, and my first one overseas since COVID. I lived in Edinburgh in 1988 and worked at Waterstones Booksellers, and my family has strong Scottish roots. What was the best sight? The most beautiful was finally seeing The Bookshop itself, and meeting Shaun Bythell, along with some of the other local people I had met through the pages of his books. I timed my visit for Wigtown Spring Weekend, which is full of talks, tours and music. Wigtown's largest annual event is the Wigtown Book Festival, when thousands of book lovers descend upon the tiny town over a 10-day period in the fall. What was your favourite activity? Shaun allowed me to price books for a few hours as a volunteer, and I felt like a bookshop employee once again. I would almost have paid him to let me do it. I was also given a partial tour of his grand old house on the main street. The Bookshop's many warren-like rooms are located on the ground floor of Shaun's house. The whole place is full of antiques and oddities, including a smashed Kindle hanging on a wall. What was the most delicious thing you ate? This is a tough question, because as a nervous and jet-lagged traveller, I unfortunately had a queasy stomach the whole week I was in Scotland. I did relish a slice of carrot and pistachio cake, just one of the varied cakes and baked goods at the bookshop/café ReadingLasses, which stocks books by and about women, and has a charming patio area covered in wisteria when in season. What was the most memorable thing you learned? Wigtown was designated 'Scotland's National Book Town' in 1998. Even with a population of about 1,000, it has about 15 bookshops. Fancy running your own bookshop? Check out The Open Book, a charity-run Airbnb. People from all over the world reserve years in advance to do so. Another Wigtown memoir is Jessica A. Fox's 'Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets: A Real-Life Scottish Fairy Tale' (2012). Jessica travels from her native U.S. to do a stint as a volunteer at The Bookshop — and stays. Kathleen Hart's 'Devorgilla Days: Finding hope and healing in Scotland's book town' (2021) is inspiring and redolent of the town's warm and quirky inhabitants. What is one piece of advice you 'd give? Wigtown is only two hours or so by car from Glasgow and three hours from Edinburgh, and it would take trains and buses to get to without one. Restaurants are limited in Wigtown, but cafés are quite plentiful — and delicious. A car would also be helpful to visit local sights and nearby towns with additional restaurants. Being such a small town, there is not a lot of accommodation available. I recommend the gorgeous Craigmount B&B, conveniently located on the edge of town. Susan Paterson, Toronto READERS ' CANADIAN TRIPS We've launched a series that invites Star readers to share places they've visited recently and would recommend, whether it's a weekend getaway in Elora, a Banff canoe trip, or a jaunt to Quebec City. If you've been, loved it and want to tell us about it, we'd like to hear from you. Email us with 'TRAVEL TIPS' in the subject line at travel@ . Please include brief responses to these questions. If your holiday experience is chosen, we'll be in touch. 1. Where did you go and when was it? 2. Where did you stay? 3. What was a highlight of your trip? Why? 4. Any travel tips?
The Hindu
21-05-2025
- The Hindu
Vidya Krishnan's book White Lilies deals with Delhi's road rage
In her new book White Lilies published by Westland, author Vidya Krishnan chronicles her grief of losing her husband in a road accident in Delhi and urges people to fact-check myths about the cities they live in. . The book, born from the pain of losing her spouse in a tragic accident, is less of a memoir and more meditative in quality. The author tries to make sense of a life turned upside down. During a chat with filmmaker Shaunak Sen at The Bookshop in Delhi recently, Vidya highlighted how road rage in Delhi is intrinsically connected to every individual's repressed feelings and emotions. The duo discussed death and trauma, and how we as a society fail to implement solutions that could minimise road accidents. 'We are constantly feeding lies to ourselves,' she says, adding that the book took shape as she began writing as a way to cope with grief. 'Writing did not reduce my grief per se but helped me make sense of the emotion. I was actually rage-typing, pouring out my feelings on an empty paper.' Shaunak Sen describes Vidya's book as a 'trans-historical rant of the city' that weaves itself around Mirza Ghalib's misery, something that the author totally identifies with. Vidya seeks refuge in Ghalib's poems; it works as an antidote to her own pain. Her book interweaves the city and the poet as Vidya visualises Ghalib as someone who is a 'broken' man. 'The halo around Ghalib doesn't mask his flaws. Delhi as a city hurt Ghalib and he took to poetry,' she says. Talking of Delhi normalising accidents, Vidya said the problem is in the citizens' refusal to acknowledge it. 'Dilli dilwalon ki is a myth. In every city, peoplelive in their own bubble; be it Mumbai's delusional story of resilience, Bengaluru's traffic, or Delhi's toxic positivity and pride. None of it makes sense as they do not address the core issues of our shared reality; how people try to escape the trauma of crimes. 'You truly belong to a place if you have buried someone there,' says Vidya, underlining her grief. Her book mentions the unsafe roads and how run-of-the-mill it is to die on the city's roads and how pedestrians are always at the receiving end. Vidya grapples not just with sorrow, but anger too, which is not explosive but slow-burning, reflective and deeply human. 'Without rage there cannot be change,' she says. 'I hope the book will make people talk about their feelings, rather than being repressed,' she adds. White Lilies is not a book about healing in the conventional sense. It is about carrying grief with grace, about learning to speak in a world that often tells us to be quiet. Rounak Khare and Seelva Mohanty
