Around the World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums, edited by Barbara Levine and Kirsten M. Jensen,  is the compilation of diaries, stories, scrapbooks, and photographs by travelers who roamed the globe in the early 1900s, meticulously recording their adventures with brownie cameras, calligraphy pens, and collections of ship menus, newspaper clippings, and souvenir postcards. Page after page of vintage photography and lettering, this is an astounding book like no other, drawing us back in time to a world before digital cameras and photography, when each journey and voyage was recorded by hand.

For those of you who like looking at travel journals and turn-of-the-century writings and photographs, this is a book you’ll want to add to your winter wishlist. I’m having so much fun looking at each page ~ this is armchair traveling at its finest.

November 7th, 2007