A testament to FAITH

BY SUSAN SPANO LOS ANGELES TIMES

LOURDES, France — When Pope Benedict XVI visited this small town in the foothills of the French Pyrenees last month, he followed in the footsteps of millions of pilgrims who had come before him. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

Hotels add technology that baffles even CEO

BY ALFRED BORCOVER CHICAGO TRIBUNE

From radio-frequency-controlled door locks to Nintendo Wii, hotel rooms are getting techier. Plain vanilla rooms are going the way of the Ma and Pa motels strung along long-forgotten byways. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

Scenic Georgia town is Bavaria with a Southern drawl

BY LINDA LANGE KNOXVILLE (TENN.) NEWS SENTINEL

HELEN, Ga. — A few turns off the Richard Russell Scenic Highway and suddenly you’re no longer in Georgia. It’s Bavaria, right here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Old World clock towers, half-timbered houses, red roofs, cobblestone alleys and murals on stucco walls may baffle, leading up to the question: Why is oompah music playing here? - Sunday, October 12, 2008

TRAVEL IN EUROPE : Journals let travelers relive trips, remember nuances

RICK STEVES

Travel can make you a poet. Travel can be spiritual. You meet people on the road you’d never meet otherwise. Traveling rearranges your cultural furniture ; challenging truths you assumed were self-evident and God-given. By traveling, you learn not only about the people and places you visit — you learn about yourself. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

Vivid colors paint New England’s fall landscape

BY RAMIT PLUSHNICKMASTI THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MYSTIC, Conn. — Ten years in Jerusalem, a city with only two significant seasons — hot summers and cold, damp winters — made me determined to have the best autumn possible my first year back on the East Coast. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

Paris’ ‘chocolat’ a hot, sweet quest

BY ELLIOTT HESTER UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

PARIS — On cold, damp, wintry days in Paris, nothing is more satisfying than a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Not the faux hot chocolate made with warm milk and sweetened cocoa powder. Not the counterfeit concoction made with milk and chocolate syrup. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

Fall is best time to ride Katy Trail

BY ROGER PETTERSON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Long sections of unused railroad rights of way all over the country have been converted into rural avenues for hiking and biking, and one of the longest and oldest is also one of the most scenic — the Katy Trail, which snakes for 225 miles along the bluffs of the Missouri River across the center of the state of Missouri. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

CONSUMER TRAVEL : Storms, iffy schedules demonstrate benefits of hiring a travel agent

ED PERKINS

“While most travelers were trying to get through to their airlines, I was sitting at my computer rescheduling and rerouting our clients.” That’s what a travel agent I know told me about coping with the disruptions of Hurricane Ike. And it raises again the issue of why — despite the Internet — so many travelers continue to rely on travel agents. Maybe you should think about doing the same. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

Realism is the lure in Billy Collins’ poetry

BY JANET MASLIN THE NEW YORK TIMES

Ballistics, by Billy Collins, 112 pages, Random House, $24 The poem is called “Old Man Eating Alone in a Chinese Restaurant.” It is about an old man preparing to eat rice and shredded beef alone in a restaurant called Chang’s. Accuse Billy Collins of fanciful charm if you must, but never say that he fails to give reality its due. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

Warren Buffett and the art of making money

BY JAMES ROSEN IN THE WASHINGTON POST

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, by Alice Schroeder, Bantam, 960 pages, $35. “Manual labor is for the birds,” Warren Buffett decided somewhere around the eighth grade. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

BEST-SELLERS

Fiction 1. THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE, by David Wroblewski. A mute takes refuge with three dogs in the Wisconsin woods after his father is murdered. 2. HEAT LIGHTNING, by John Sandford. Virgil Flowers investigates murder cases linked by a lemon in the mouth of each victim. 3. THE GIVEN DAY, by Dennis Lehane. A policeman, a fugitive and their families persevere in the turbulence of Boston at the end of World War I. 4. HOT MAHOGANY, by Stuart Woods. A Stone Barrington mystery set amid the intrigues of the world of antiques and old and new money in New England. 5. ONE FIFTH AVENUE, by Candace Bushnell. The worlds of gossip, theater and hedge funds have one address in common. 6. THE OTHER QUEEN, by Philippa Gregory. The story of Mary, Queen of Scots, in captivity under Queen Elizabeth. 7. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson. A hacker and a journalist help a wealthy octogenarian investigate his niece’s disappearance 40 years ago; the first part of a trilogy by the late Swedish journalist. 8. TSAR, b - Sunday, October 12, 2008

Le Carre’s latest an ugly novel only an author could love

BY JONATHAN YARDLEY THE WASHINGTON POST

A Most Wanted Man, by John le Carre, Scribner, 323 pages, $28 Not satisfied, apparently, with continuing to write his generally first-rate novels, John le Carre has now taken to reviewing them as well. On the front cover of the advance edition of A Most Wanted Man is reproduced a letter from the great man addressed to “Dear Reader” : “New spies with new loyalties, old ones with old ones; terror as the new mantra; decent people wanting to do good, but caught in the moral maze; all the good, sound, rational reasons for doing the inhuman thing; the recognition that we cannot safely love, or pity, & remain good ‘patriots’ — I’m pleased with the way this novel turned out. Best, John le Carre.” So what, after that, is the mere reviewer to do? Were he to say, perhaps, that “John le Carre has written an interesting new novel about decent people wanting to do good, but trapped in moral dilemmas,” readers would say that this interpretation merely parrots and paraphrases le Carre’s, and they would be right. One of the r - Sunday, October 12, 2008

Believer explores gulf between between theists and atheists

BY JACQUES BERLINERBLAU IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers, by Michael Novak, Doubleday, 310 pages, $23.95. - Sunday, October 12, 2008

James Thurber really did grow up in an odd family

BY ROGER K. MILLER SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

My Life and Hard Times, by James Thurber, Harper Perennial, 106 pages, $11 paperback. - Sunday, October 12, 2008