I'm off to Scotland for a week and aside from reading our new guide, I'm pocketing local goings on from Edinburgh to the Orkneys. I'm especially excited about these pop-up bars for the Fringe (Champagne at the Signet Library, check!) and seeing this mythical Stone Age complex, beautifully photographed in National Geographic's August issue. Tack on this fresh 36 hours in Glasgow story and I'm (almost) all set. —Arabella Bowen, Editor-in-Chief
I'm deep in North Korea this week, with Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee, by Jang Jin-sung, former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il. The author writes of his daily life in North Korea and subsequent escape to South Korea. I'm only about 50 pages in, but I'm completely immersed. It's like reading about life on another planet. —Linda Schmidt, Managing Editor
Owen Jones of The Guardian writes that the West must be careful not to fuel the fear upon which ISIS thrives, reminding us that the first defeat for the killers of 40-year old American journalist James Foley would be for the world to remember him as the courageous journalist that he was. —Kristan Schiller, Editor, Cities and Cultural Destinations
Recommended Fodor’s Video
Has anyone not read this yet? Quite the topic of lively discussion around here! “I wish this novel had stretched on longer with more subplots that strayed from the main story,” said no reader ever. You're welcome. —Eric Wechter, Editor, Cruises and Resorts
While catching up on a backlog of The New Yorker, I came across “Door-To-Door” in “Talk of the Town” about an app that partners with local liquor stores in NYC to deliver wine or liquor to your door, for free. All I can say is this is genius, and the portrait of New Yorkers who use this service (“Anybody who's sitting at home and wants to select a certain type of wine, they're going to have antiques, come to the door, and be polite and smile with you.”) was pretty entertaining. —Salwa Jabado, Senior Editor, Countryside and Adventure
I'm halfway through Wallace Stegner's novel Angle of Repose. Its dual narrative alternates between the story of a wheelchair-bound historian and that of his grandparents, who were among the early settlers of the American West. Stegner's inimitable descriptions of the western landscape in this four-generation epic are giving me serious wanderlust—and make it clear why the novel won the Pulitzer in 1972. —Róisín Cameron, Associate Editor, Countryside and Adventure