Greetings ! I live much of the year on luxury cruise ships as an enrichment lecturer, exploring the intersection of history, culture, and cuisine. I write about these in my weekly Destination Curation, 8-Hour Guides to Cruise Ports, and Books for Travelers reviews. I'll help you make your travel full of meaning and context! Join me!
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📚 Books for Travelers | May 31, 2026 📚
Published 1 day ago • 8 min read
May 31, 2026
Greetings!
Hello from the lovely Queen Mary 2, making her stately way over the Atlantic. We had a lovely few days in New York, including a very swanky luncheon at the incredibly elegant New York Yacht Club: we were invited by fellow travelers who have become dear friends. What a treat to tour the massive trophies, the fantastic model room, and the dining room designed to look like the hull of a swift luxury yacht. No pictures, as that is not allowed, but take my word for it — truly exceptional!
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Queen Mary 2 | Courtesy of Cunard
Dima ventured out to catch this great photo of Manhattanhenge: a marvelous event that happens four times a year. The sunset aligns with the east-west streets, creating a magical glow.
Manhattanhenge from 21st street | Photo by Dmitry Eremeev
This is the beginning of the second leg of my two months on the road: in Southampton, I will fly right to Reykjavik to join Seabourn Ovation for 21 days in Iceland and Norway. I'm looking forward to returning to some beloved places.
I've just added a new Baltic cruise on Seabourn Quest for 2027:25-Day Baltic Nights. It is a fabulous itinerary, which includes overnights in Stockholm and Copenhagen, transit of the Kiel Canal and visits to Tallinn, Antwerp, Visby, and my own Riga. I'm particularly keen to visit Oslo next year as the new Museum of the Viking Age will finally (finally!) be open. Many of you have asked me about cruising in the Baltic, and I can tell you that this cruise hits all the highlights. Find out more about the Baltic cruise ports here.
As a subscriber to the Destination Curation Newsletter, you have access to my cruise schedule , which you can visit here. If any of these voyages align with your travel plans, I'd love to share the journey with you.
This week’s reading and listening pile leans towards the Mediterranean, which feels right, given how many of you are heading into peak cruise season. Three books, three podcasts, and a common thread: the particular pleasure of arriving somewhere whose history you’ve already lived with on the page.
The Empress Theodora: Partner of Justinian by J.A.S. Evans
The Empress Theodora: Partner of Justinian opens with a problem: the most vivid account we have of Theodora was written by a man who despised her. Prokopius, Justinian’s court historian, produced a portrait so venomous it reads like a revenge fantasy. Evans dismantles it calmly and asks the better question — what did Theodora actually do? The answer is considerable. She received petitions, managed the empire’s fractious religious politics, and, during the Nika Riots of 532, made the decision that saved Justinian’s throne when everyone around him was ready to flee. Essential reading before Istanbul — or Ravenna.
The Hemlock Cup is ostensibly a biography of Socrates, but it functions as something more immediately useful: an immersion pass for fifth-century Athens. Hughes has a gift for making ideas feel located. Her Socrates is charismatic, relentless, and frankly the kind of person who ruins a perfectly good dinner party by asking one question too many — and yet you keep listening because the air changes when he walks in. Read a few chapters before Piraeus, and the remains of the Agora will take on an entirely new meaning.
Seven Ages of Paris is the book to pack for any France-bound cruise. Horne divides eight centuries of Parisian history into seven distinct ages, from the medieval city of Philip Augustus to the Liberation of 1944, and the cumulative effect is a kind of chronological decoder ring for the city’s monuments. Nearly everything you will encounter in central Paris was built, rebuilt, destroyed, or repurposed during one of his ages. The boulevards you consider quintessentially Parisian? Haussmann’s Second Empire invention, barely 160 years old. Horne makes the city genuinely legible.
Be sure to check in with the Destination Resources Reading Lists, which I update regularly with new books, podcasts, TV and film, and other resources designed to make your travel meaningful. I did a big update recently, changing the format to make it easier to navigate. Visit via this link!
For those who prefer their history narrated, I’ve paired two of the books with a matching listen.
Empress Theodora: From the Brothel to the Throne
Empress Theodora: From the Brothel to the Throne from the wonderful Empire Podcast covers the same ground as Evans with slightly more dramatic sweep — a vivid companion to the biography, and a satisfying listen in its own right. This is part of Empire's longer (and very satisfying) series on the Ottoman Empire.
Socratesis Melvyn Bragg at his sharpest: A rigorous, wide-ranging discussion of the life and work of the great philosopher with some of the leading experts on Ancient History. All done in under an hour. Perfect for the transfer between port and Athens.
The Republic of Venice was a superb listen: tracing the maritime republic that controlled Eastern Mediterranean trade for centuries. Essential context for any Adriatic itinerary — and a useful reminder that Venice’s extraordinary beauty had remarkably ruthless origins.
I am deep into the blockbuster novel of the moment: Yesteryear, in which a highly successful trad wife influencer suddenly wakes up in a version of her house with a version of her husband, and children who resemble hers. But everything is different. Turns out it is 1857. It’s clever, gripping, and offers a lot of commentary on the way we live now. I’m listening to the audio version, which is fabulous!
My skincare routine has been ruthlessly edited by years of living out of a carry-on, and I’ve decided that a small number of very good things will always outperform a large number of mediocre ones. The Jones Road Miracle Balm in Au Naturel is my proof of concept — a single pot that delivers an entirely believable flush of color to lips, cheeks, and eyelids, buildable and forgiving in the way that only the best products are. Bobbi Brown's instincts remain, as ever, impeccable. I loaded up at their Upper East Side store, where the sales people are knowledgeable and friendly, especially with the brand’s core audience: older women. The shop was packed.
For lips specifically, the Sara Happ Dream Slip Overnight Lip Mask has become something of a non-negotiable ritual before I turn in after a long day of lecturing. I always wake up with softer, more hydrated lips — not a small thing when you spend as many hours talking as I do.
Sun protection is genuinely non-negotiable at sea, where the reflected glare off the water is far more intense than most people realize until it is too late. Dr. Barbara Sturm's Sun Drops SPF 50 have quietly become my favorite way to apply it — a few drops blended into moisturizer gives you thorough coverage without the chalky, greasy residue that makes so many sunscreens a misery to wear under makeup. Made in Germany, and it shows.
The particular challenges of hair on a ship deserve their own seminar: sea air, salt, the alternating brutality of Baltic wind and over-airconditioned cabins, and the logistical puzzle of getting ready in a compact bathroom all conspire against one's hair in ways that are difficult to anticipate until you are already three days out of port. Harry, the lovely hairdresser I discovered in Bergen, introduced me to Shu Uemura's Color Lustre Color Protecting Shampoo and, despite its somewhat elevated cost, it is one I reach for again and again — it keeps color vivid and hair manageable without weighing it down. On the days between washes — and there are always days between washes — Olaplex's No. 4D Clean Volume Detox Dry Shampoo is nothing short of heroic.
I came to the Blue Lagoon Iceland Mineral Mask the obvious way, having visited the Blue Lagoon itself, and I can confirm that the experience translates beautifully to a ship cabin at the end of a long day in a blustery Norwegian fjord. The silica-rich formula leaves skin genuinely luminous, and the Eye Care Kit is great for long haul flights. I suffer from psoriasis and the Blue Lagoon products are very helpful in getting rid of lesions.
My most recent beauty conversion is the FOREO Luna, the coral silicone cleansing device that I resisted for longer than I should have, on the general principle that I am suspicious of anything that requires me to replace a component on a schedule. I need not have worried — it is remarkably gentle, genuinely effective, and, crucially for travel, entirely self-contained.
That’s all for this edition, and I hope you will find inspiration in these book and podcast choices. Next week I will be coming to you from the Westman Islands in Iceland on board Seabourn Ovation with another spotlight on a truly remarkable destination.
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Destination Curation Newsletter: Make Travel Meaningful
Greetings ! I live much of the year on luxury cruise ships as an enrichment lecturer, exploring the intersection of history, culture, and cuisine. I write about these in my weekly Destination Curation, 8-Hour Guides to Cruise Ports, and Books for Travelers reviews. I'll help you make your travel full of meaning and context! Join me!
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