Turning a new leaf in Carolina

BY JAY CLARKE UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

LAKE LURE, N.C. — Soon the leaves will turn gold and red, and the hillsides here and elsewhere in western North Carolina will burst into a kaleidoscope of color. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

Road less traveled is the attraction in Peru

BY LESLIE JOSEPHS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VICOS, Peru — Far from the lines of tourists that snake around the entrance of Machu Picchu, hundreds deep before dawn, is Fausta Colonia’s open-air kitchen. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

Wild and woolly TIME

BY ALLEN HOLDER THE KANSAS CITY STAR

CUSTER STATE PARK, S.D. — Lesson No. 1: Don’t tailgate. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

TRAVEL IN EUROPE : Anglican ritual and music of Meatloaf mingle in Bath

BY RICK STEVES TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES

BATH, England — Shaking off my umbrella as I walked up to my bed-and-breakfast, I reviewed the events of my day. Bath, just 90 minutes or so west of London by train, is one of the most touristy towns in Britain. Even so, I was pleased that my time was filled with vivid, untouristy memories. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

A different kind of reality

BY CAROLYN THOMPSON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario — The biggest challenge in creating a new tourist attraction at Niagara Falls is trying to live up to the main event. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

CONSUMER TRAVEL : There are other rail passes besides Eurailpass

ED PERKINS

When you think about rail passes, you automatically think about Eurailpass and its many derivatives. This year, however, with the weak dollar in most of Europe, you may well be considering alternative destinations. No other regions have as extensive a rail network as Europe, so rail travel isn’t quite as big a deal as it is there. However, you can get around pretty well by rail in several regions and a few of those offer the convenience and economy of passes. Unfortunately, none offers price breaks for senior citizens. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

Traveling via Eurail is less risky

BY LINDA ZAVORAL SAN JOSE (CALIF.) MERCURY NEWS

Question: My 21-year-old son, who has never traveled alone, has bought a Eurail pass and will be heading across Europe, starting from Barcelona, Spain. I’d like him to travel with other Americans. Can you help? - Sunday, August 31, 2008

Historian:The black, white and gray of LBJ

BY HILLEL ITALIE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — In the centennial year of Lyndon Johnson’s birth, historian Robert A. Caro would like to think of his longtime subject at his happiest and most fulfilled: Not when Johnson was president, in anguish over Vietnam, but a few years before, as Senate majority leader, the one-man legislative machine. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

Keats’ eternal poems sprang from fleeting mortality

BY CHARLES MCGRATH THE NEW YORK TIMES

Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography, by Stanley Plumly, W.W. Norton, 392 pages, $27.95 When John Keats died in February 1821, just 25, his friends believed that it was the reviews that killed him. In truth, the critics could hardly have been less kind, especially about Keats’ second book, Endymion. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

BEST-SELLERS

Fiction 1. SMOKE SCREEN, Sandra Brown. Scandalous deaths thwart the investigation of a fatal fire at police headquarters in Charleston, S.C. 2. THE BOURNE SANCTION, Eric Van Lustbader. Robert Ludlum’s character Jason Bourne pursues the leader of a Muslim terrorist group. 3. ACHERON, Sherrilyn Kenyon. Book 12 of the Dark-Hunter paranormal series. 4. THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. After World War II, a journalist travels to the Island of Guernsey to meet residents who resisted the Nazi occupation. 5. MOSCOW RULES, Daniel Silva. Gabriel Allon, an art restorer and an occasional spy for the Israeli secret service, uncovers a Russian arms sales plot. 6. THE HOST, Stephenie Meyer. In this first adult novel by the author of the Twilight series for teenagers, aliens have taken control of the minds and bodies of most humans, but one woman won’t surrender. 7. THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE, David Wroblewski. A young mute who can communicate with dogs takes refuge with - Sunday, August 31, 2008

Historical peek at Fayetteville’s Dickson Street

BY KRISTIN NETTERSTROM

Once Upon Dickson Street: An Illustrated History, 1868-2000, by Anthony J. Wappel, Phoenix International, 330 pages, $22.50 West Dickson Street is one of the few, if not only, 10 blocks in Arkansas where a person can learn physics on a Thursday, partake in too many “Call the cabs” on Friday, watch a live show on Saturday and pray in church Sunday morning. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

Reporter lifts curtain on Kurds, their role in Iraq

BY JOSHUA PARTLOW THE WASHINGTON POST

Invisible Nation: How the Kurds’ Quest for Statehood Is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East, by Quil Lawrence, Walker, 366 pages, $25.95 In journalistic accounts of the Iraq war, the Kurds, if they are mentioned at all, tend to be used as a counter-example. Kurdistan is a place of relative calm amid chaotic violence. Its construction boom highlights the economic wasteland elsewhere. Its politicians are stalwart partners of the United States in a country bristling under U.S. occupation. A Kurdish public relations campaign describes the region simply as “the other Iraq.” In Invisible Nation, the first thorough, book-length chronicle of the Kurds’ recent history and their role in the war, BBC reporter Quil Lawrence doesn’t deny these differences. But his brisk and engaging narrative makes clear just how tenuous — and anomalous — is this period of relative peace and prosperity for the Kurds of Iraq. They endured a genocidal campaign by Saddam Hussein and have been pushed to the corners of the four nations they prima - Sunday, August 31, 2008

REMEMBERING ARKANSAS : Rabbi Sanders had lasting spiritual, social effect on state

TOM W. DILLARD

On this date in 1963, Rabbi Ira E. Sanders retired as leader of Arkansas’ largest Reform Jewish congregation, Temple B’nai Israel in Little Rock. - Sunday, August 31, 2008

Reefs, beaches, pet conchs greet sun at Turks and Caicos

BY BETSA MARSH TRAVEL ARTS SYNDICATE

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos — Blue angelfish flash over the reef like neon lightning. Rock iguanas shimmy for shade under Silver Top Palms. Pet conchs, Sally and Jerry, uncurl out of their shells at the sound of their keeper’s voice. - Sunday, August 31, 2008