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August is upon us, summer's last hurrah before we prepare to nestle in for the long winter. It's a time for holidays, trips to exotic locales and faraway destinations, even if only in our head.
So we want to know, what's your favorite book about or regarding travel? Do you read a travel guide about Timbuktu for fun to imagine you're visiting? Or maybe your vacation setting is ideal for where you'd like to be, regardless of the story line.
Let us know what book takes you there.
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J. Maarten Troost's Sex Lives of Cannibals: drift in the Equatorial Pacific. While I would never in a million years choose to live in Kiribati (pronounced kiribas), Troost's recounting of his two years among the i-Kiribati is bizarre yet hilarious.
I'm setting the over/under of "On the Road" posts at 6.
Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley" is great.
One of the best travel books ever is Jerome K Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog."
Right now I'm reading a book called "On The Nile" by Rosemary Mahoney about this lady who rowed down the Nile on her own. I'm just at the beginning, but I'm already fascinated by her journey, just the accounts of her trying to navigate Egypt on her own is excellent.
If you're looking for something recent, "Dark Star Safari" by Paul Theroux is a pretty interesting read, though much more than a travel narrative.
John Banville "Prague Pictures: A Portrait of the City"
The most memorable part of this book is a train ride. Banville describes traveling in and out of Prague as an Irish National in order to smuggle a friend's photographs past the Soviet Guards. The friend wants them to be sold in the west so that the money might be use to send a friend's daughter to college.
Banville is an accomplished writer (he won the Booker a couple years ago). The book picks just the right tone by amplifying the city's mystical charms, while at the same time confessing that it has become a typical westernized city, with a McDonalds located at the end of the St. Charles Bridge.
For a lighthearted read, try Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks. This guy's friend bet him 100 pounds that he couldn't hitchhike across Ireland with a refridgerator at his side.
Also, I'd recommend:
Mornings in Mexico - D.H. Lawrence
Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu - J. Maarten
Vroom with a View - Peter Moore
As far as fiction goes, I recommend The Beach by Alex Garland or any Paul Theroux ~ Hotel Honolulu esp.
For non-fiction, I always purchase any Rick Steves travel guide if I can. His guided foot tours are the best!
I love the "Collected Traveler" books edited by Barrie Kerper, which seem to be out of print (if the prices on Amazon are to be believed). It's an anthology of writing about a country, region or city. The essays are a combination of contemporary writing and classics from literature. It's a very different approach than your average guidebook, but I loved reading both leading up to my trip, and as I was touring an area. For example, chapters in the Morocco anthology include:
* "Late 19th Century Morocco Through a Foreigners Eyes" by F.V. Parsons
* "The Indices of Fate: How Moroccan Time Works" by Roger Joseph
* "Cafe in Morocco" by Paul Bowles
* "Paula Wolfert's Pursuit of Flavor" by Peggy Knickerbocker
I second the Banville pick.
Also, "The Sun Also Rises" by Hemingway is a good summer read. It only takes about 3 seconds to read and never fails to make me want to go swimming in Spain.
Anything by Rush Limbaugh. You liberals need to have some sense knocked into you! And a pain pill popping racially insensitve weirdo is just the man to do it.
i know everyone and their mother has read it, but 'The Historian' sure as hell made me want to see the Hagia Sofia up close and personal. more notable for the locations than the vampire aspect, imo.
Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb is an all-in-one book that gives the culture, cuisine, and violent history (past and present) of this unusual island. It's one of my favorite books, period.
I also recommend 36 Views of Mount Fuji by Cathy N. Davidson. Terrific book about Japan.
Part travel book, part food book, Anthony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour" is a good quick read. The chapters in Scotland, Vietnam and Cambodia are excellent.
Ooooh! I'm supporting the Hemingway read, too.
I could never figure out why they make kids read The Old Man and the Sea in High School. It's like they're trying to make kids hate Hemingway, instead of love his work.
in re: hemingway. they did a good job; i've never read any since.
for "travel" books ...
life of pi
jitterbug perfume
Last Chance to See Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine is fantastic. It documents the late Adams, of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame, and zoologist Carwardine travelling the globe in search of species on the verge of extinction. There are hilarious bits about how the horrors of travel bureaucracy (and this is pre-2001!) It's filled with Adams's lovely British sense of humor, and it's heartbreaking at times. (One of the species they search for, the Yangtze River Dolphin, was just reported "probably extinct" last week.)
Eat, Pray, Love is the best! The writing is light and funny, the travel narrative unexpected and fresh.
"A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again" by David Foster Wallace has two of the best travel essays ever (and many other fine essays as well, but that is off topic). One is about a cruise and the other is about the Illinois State Fair - both are extended versions of columns he wrote for Harper's. Worth the read. And they are quite long, so, almost like a book!
Travel books??
"Moby Dick" - Melville
"Heart of Darkness" - J. Conrad
"The Odyssey" - Homer
I second Last Chance to See. Fabulous.
American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America's Back Roads by Pascale Le Draoulec is a really great road trip book. The author is a woman who's parents are from France, and she decides to drive cross country from her old job to her new and try to find the quintessential American pie.
It's a fun summer read, and has recipies. I'm still scared to try making my own crust, though.
I would wholeheartedly recommend "In a Sunburned Country" by Bill Bryson. It talks about Bryson's tour of Australia. What makes it so good is that there are several points where you can tell that he is literally scared shitless of the country he has decided to visit. His anecdotes about things--the number of rabbits in the country, for instance--are always priceless.
Sarah Vowell's "Assassination Vacation" is also really, really good. She takes a road trip to the locations of the first three Presidential assassinations. With her sense of black humor, the book is awesome.
I would recommend City of Falling Angels by John Berendt (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). THe author spent four years in Venice after its famed opera house burned to the ground and he became involved with the many people in Venetian society that were working to rebuild the opera house. It is a great character study and travelogue of a beautiful historic city.