By Adam Brownstein
Book of the Week: Imagine a City: A pilot’s journey across the urban world by Mark Vanhoenacker
In the balmy summer of 1982 my parents plocked my little brother and me on to a TWA 747, and led us I on whirlwind tour. We hit London (Paddington Bear, yes, please! Early grey tea? No thank you!), Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and finally Paris in the space of a bout a month. My mom gifted me a travel journal for the first time in my life, and I enjoyed scribing details about Italian sodas, playing Ga Ga on Gordon Beach and my enduring a brasserie omelette.
The trip inculcated an urban travel bug that has stirred inside of me on trips to Santiago, Bangkok, Sao Paolo, Sydney, Delhi, Seoul, Taipei and more.
Mark Vanhoenacker’s exquisitely penned work is a love letter to major and minor hamlets of our planet. A commercial pilot of the grand 747 years and 787 Dreamliner of late, his perspective is distinct, fun and filled with the little details of big cities.
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