Alice Steinbach (1933–2012)

Journalist Alice Steinbach decided that she was going to take a break from the life she was living. She was happy, but she felt that she needed some time to get acquainted with herself now that her two sons were grown. So she planned an open-ended months-long trip to Europe. She had only the vaguest of itineraries and very few travel reservations. She went to Paris, London, Oxford, Milan, Venice, Rome, Siena, and Asolo.

I genuinely liked the Alice Steinbach I found in these pages. She is show more intelligent, educated, and interested. My copy is littered with post-it flags marking books she mentions that I have to read or artists whose work I want to look up. She is curious and she is friendly and she is a traveler, not a tourist.

Her writing is beautiful. I've had a sort of "I'd like to go to Paris but, you know. That reputation Parisians have" attitude for a while. Within pages, I was dying to go. The city came alive for me as she described it. I want to follow in her footsteps and take the time to just stand in the light in the chapel of Sainte-Chappelle. I want to buy a ridiculously expensive French dress. I want to see the Carré Rive Gauche celebrate Five Extraordinary Days.

Ms. Steinbach is a curious, friendly traveler. She strikes up friendships wherever she goes and writes meaningfully about the people she meets. She is willing to learn whatever they teach her either directly or indirectly.

Paris was the strongest section, but I enjoyed her other destinations as well. She dislikes Rome, for a very good reason, but I wish she had liked it. I somehow loved the city when I visited.

Each chapter begins with a picture from a postcard and a message that Alice has mailed to herself at home. I loved these. I looked forward to each new chapter for that reason.

There is a lot of introspection in the book as well. She never crosses the line into being self-indulgent. She always pulled her story back into her travels before I lost interest in her internal musings.

I recommend this for the well-read armchair traveler. I feel like I've had a mini European vacation now that I've finished it. show less

I picked up this book because it was recommended on The Ultimate Reading List. The back cover called Steinback a "Pulitzer Prize-Winning" journalist, so I anticipated something special. Unfortunately, the author inspired the snarky in me right from the introduction. She said she decided to travel because she had dropped into "the habit of defining myself in terms of who I was to other people." Oh, so this was going to be one of those "find myself" books, was it? I'm rather suspicious of that show more kind of quest--I don't think we can plan self-discovery, and if and when we do it's often in challenging ourselves in some in some way--not by being tourists in comfy vacation spots in Paris, London and Milan. Travel books are interesting for two reasons. Either the traveler--and their voice, their writing--makes it interesting, or the destination does--because it's exotic to the reader or the traveler finds themselves in the midst of exciting, historic times. Neither is the case here. I found the writing, at best, undistinguished. One reviewer noted the overuse of the colon. I thought Steinbach overused the question mark--use of the rhetorical question abounded. I agreed with the reviewer who called Steinbach's metaphors and literary allusions forced. And I found the chirpy postcards she sent to herself heading the chapters--signed, "Love Alice,"--trite and cringe-worthy.

Worse, I found no particular insight into the places she went to. Except for her time in England, she didn't even know the languages, nor did she stay long enough to be more than a tourist. The one place she went to I had personally visited was England. But I didn't feel any pull or identification with her experience of London and other places I had visited. Maybe it's because she had visited before, but I didn't find reflected here all the little details that stood out and made England feel paradoxically at home and yet strange as an American. She might as well been describing my hometown of New York City. After putting down this book, I next read Conway's The Road from Coorain, the memoir of a woman who grew up on an Australian sheep farm and would go on to become the first woman president of Smith College. At one point she visited London and other parts of Europe with her mother--and here, in a memoir not focused on travel per se, in the one chapter about her visit to Europe, I found more keen observations and insights in each paragraph than I did in the whole of Steinbach's book. show less

What I should probably say, right away, is that I found the book immensely readable. I spent a couple of weeks reading this, during a time when health complications often left me tired, listless, and easy to distract. I would huddle up with the book for fifteen or thirty-minute sessions, sometimes clearing a chapter in as many as four or five installments. That's not a criticism; Steinbach's prose was inviting and easy to read, and it didn't put any stress on me as the reader. It was a show more perfect recuperative read.

If I had to get more critical, I might say that Steinbach's "adventures" start to blend together after a while. They generally follow a set pattern: Steinbach arrives in a new location prior to an educational tour, seminar or conference she plans to attend; she uses her journalistic skills and her innate curiosity to delve into the less-touristy areas; she makes friends with a local woman or a fellow female tourist (or both). The details are different enough in every case that, especially when read in small segments, the repetition doesn't really matter. You, the reader, are along for a lackadaisical tour through Alice Steinbach's life; there's no pressure, no timetable, nor really even a goal. The aim is just to enjoy yourself as the author satisfies her curiosity. (There is a very loose attempt at a recurring epistolary romance throughout the book, but while the letters are charming, they never really amount to much, and it's a little bit of a mystery why they're ultimately included.)

I don't know why Steinbach's memoir wasn't fashioned into something just a bit more of a, well, narrative; perhaps she was aiming for a Sunday afternoon read, and if so, that's pretty much what she got. It's a terribly pleasant little volume, perfect for reading in the garden. Just don't expect any grand revelations. show less

This is one of the best travel memoirs I've read. Now here is a woman who, deciding to take a sabbatical from work to travel, manages not only to provide some thoughtful insight into taking life (and love) slowly and savoring the little moments, but also shares the delight she experienced, in meeting some people along the way, some for just a day, and some for a good portion of her stay in France, Italy, and England. I would consider it an honor if I were to chance upon Ms Steinbach at some show more point in my lifetime ... she is intelligent, kind, humorous, witty and yes, eventually wise. Without Reservations is a well-written travel memoir but it is it not ONLY a travel memoir, it is also a book that gently nudges the reader to pause and consider some of the very poignant and profound thoughts Ms Steinbach has been generous enough to share. This book is a definite keeper. show less