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Book Picks: Travel Anthologies Travel at its truest is thus an ironic experience, and the best travelers...seen to be those able to hold two or three inconsistent ideas in their minds at the same time, or able to regard themselves as at once serious persons and clowns. Anthologies
The most informative and inspirational book I?ve read in a long time. I think this book should be required reading by anyone who loves to write and travel (or even anyone who wants to follow the career of their dreams). Nowhere else can you read so many stories about how the best travel writers of our times, from the famous like Jan Morris to the more obscure writers like Sara Wheeler, got their start in the business. A Sense of Place gave me a whole perspective on my life. Throughout the years as I?ve planned my business, I?ve frequently been told that I need to go the same route as every one else (writing freelance magazine and newspapers), yet, somehow, it never felt right to me. I felt immediately vindicated about my choice to go my own way when both Arthur Frommer and Rick Steves attributed their success to avoid trying to sound like other travel experts in the beginning. When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time to Go Home While ostensibly a light hearted humorous look at travel, When You Look Like Your Passport Photo has more meaningful commentary about the power of travel to break down barriers than I expected. It also remains truly funny and insightful even fifteen years after its publication. The chapter on meeting Russian women is one of my favorite pieces of travel writing anywhere.
While I don't agree with O'Rourke's political orientation, I always enjoy his books. He, perhaps better than any other right wing political pundit, makes me understand and appreciate many facets of the right wing doctrine. He also writes powerful, concise, and deft prose that makes you think and laugh at the same time. All the Trouble in the World is O'Rourke at his best.
Travels is a moving and thoughtful look at what Crichton has learned through his travels around the world. It starts out surprisingly with an account of his days as a medical student and Harvard and gradually interweaves stories from his life as a writer-traveler including his near death experience scuba-diving in Bonaire. I read this book more than a decade ago and still picture some of the stories and remember the author's philosophy. Out in the World: Gay and Lesbian Life from Bangkok to Buenos Aires Out in the World is an insightful, sympathetic, and well written portrait of gay and lesbian life in many corners of the planet. Looking at how gays are treated provides an interesting way to delve into the psyche of another country. You learn about their views of human sexuality, family, and politics. I would love to read an updated version of this book which was written almost fifteen years ago, I imagine that a lot has happened to gay and lesbian life abroad in the interim. Let's Get Lost: Adventures in the Great Wide Open Let's Get Lost packs everything you want in a travel anthology -- humor, adventure, and insight. Like Bill Bryson, Nelson manages to artfully combine the fresh eyes of a first time traveler with the savvy of an experienced globetrotter. A powerful, yet sadly rare, combination. Plane Insanity: A Flight Attendant's Talses of Sex, Rage, and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet Many people have asked me over the years why I didn't go into the traditional travel industry. Now, thanks to Hester, I have the perfect answer to this query: "read Plane Insanity. By the end of the book, you'll wonder why anyone works in the field at all." Yet, to be fair, I think that Hester is grateful for his experience as a steward and even mildly liked it. He just sees, and artfully conveys, the humor and humanity in the otherwise mundane world of one of the world's most maligned modes of public transit. Holidays in Hell Holidays in Hell is not the kindest look at the rest of the world. O'Rourke has a uniquely American, somewhat imperialistic, view of the foibles of life in other corners of the planet. However, like Rourke or lump him, he provides a unique, thought provoking, and ultimately humorous view of the globe. A great read!
Falling off the Map provides an insightful look at some of the world's most obscure corners, like North Korea, Paraguay, and Bhutan. If you are like me, someone who finds these little hermetically sealed places endlessly fascinating, you're sure to be mesmerized by this deftly written book. Volleyball with the Cuna Indians and Other Gay Travel Adventures Sadly many people will not read this book because they don't want to read about the adventures of gay travelers. However, they are missing out on an entertaining and ultimately thought provoking look at one of the world's most vibrant cultures -- gay -- and a perceptive look at human sexuality and relations throughout the world. You can't help in reading this book but like Ebensten and his fellow travelers. Tropical Classical: Essays from Several Directions Pico Iyer is one of my favorite travel authors. He never fails to deliver books that make you think and provide a unique take on some of the world's oddest and most intriguing places. That said Tropical Classical is, in my opinion, the only book of his that somewhat disappoints. The first two, and most of the final two, chapters of the book feature Iyer, at his best, as a commentator of the world around him. The middle of the book, with book reviews, is ponderous, academic, and ultimately too tedious for my taste.
The Equator is a great read. Clarke tautly tells the story of his travels around the equator in the 1980s. He takes readers to a lot of places that are otherwise ignored by travel writers, like French Guyana and Gabon, and gives you such a memorable portrait of these places that you feel like you know them. A great read, skillfully and compassionately told.
Educating Alice is one of the few books that I wish I had written. No other book so eloquently conveys on one of the central themes of my work -- one of the best ways to see another place is to study something of interest there. Alice Steinbach, uses her background as a journalist and her insatiable curiosity, to travel around world learning about the life of geishas in Japan, gourmet cooking in Paris, sheepherding in Scotland, and the gardens of Provence (France). I couldn't help but admire the way that she makes her reader become fascinated by her studies, even if the topics may not seem very interesting on the surface (for example, I did not care much about French gardens before Alice's book).
The Size of the World probably better than any other book conveys one of the most complicated emotions that faces modern travelers: The dichotomy between wanting to see what the lays over the next ridge versus the strong urge to bond with a significant other and forge a so-called "normal, middle class existence" together. I love the way that Greenwald reveals his inner most thoughts -- often, in a way that makes him seem a bit neurotic -- about his relationships with women and his need for a less lonely existence. I also admire his ability to capture the essence of a place in a few cleverly written words. Unique Reads Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography When I was in college, one of my professors suggested that if you want to learn about another culture, check out how it deals with drugs and alcohol. At the time, I thought the professor?s comments seemed a bit melodramatic, however, reading this book, I think my professor had a definite point. Streatfield deftly takes the reader into the dark corners of the developed world?s love and hate relationship with cocaine, challenging many presuppositions that we have about drugs. He also exposes with care and compassion how the people South of the US Border pay for our drug mania with their lives. Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World What a fascinating read! Every page offers some new tidbit: from the fascinating story of how cod came to dominate the food supply for many European countries (cod served as the perfect dish for the Fridays when Catholics were required to forego fish) to the sad story of the steady depletion of the world?s cod supply in the last several decades.
Notes
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A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk about Craft, Lives, and Inspirations