Tag: Travel Books
Why Aren’t Students Reading Travel Books?
by Jim Benning | 03.11.10 | 1:23 PM ET
Students at all grade levels read a lot more fiction than nonfiction—think Mark Twain and J.K. Rowling. As Tom Kuntz points out in the New York Times, a recent survey found that of the top 20 books being read these days by high school students, only two are nonfiction.
Many observers are rightfully questioning why students aren’t reading more nonfiction.
Writes Jay Mathews in the Washington Post:
Educators say non-fiction is more difficult than fiction for students to comprehend. It requires more factual knowledge, beyond fiction’s simple truths of love, hate, passion and remorse. So we have a pathetic cycle. Students don’t know enough about the real world because they don’t read non-fiction and they can’t read non-fiction because they don’t know enough about the real world.
It’s a conundrum. But it seems to me great nonfiction travel narratives would be a perfect solution—or at least a start.
Travel writers often approach their subjects with what’s known in Zen as beginner’s mind. They write about places from the perspective of an outsider. They’re students of the world. Ideally, they take readers on a journey—a real adventure—that is fun and entertaining and, yes, educational.
I’m thinking of writers like Paul Theroux (“Dark Star Safari” or “The Old Patagonian Express”), Tim Cahill (“Road Fever”) and Bill Bryson (“A Walk in the Woods”), just to name a few.
Any other suggestions? What about a bestselling book like “Eat, Pray, Love”?
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Grateful Dead: Airplane Book Fodder?
by Michael Yessis | 03.04.10 | 1:14 PM ET
Loved this aside in Joshua Green’s terrific story in The Atlantic about the Grateful Dead’s business prowess:
It can be only a matter of time until Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead or some similar title is flying off the shelves of airport bookstores everywhere.
Turns out the members of the Dead were business visionaries and masters of social networking.
The band knew a little something about travel, too.
NPR’s Mile High Book Club
by Michael Yessis | 03.03.10 | 12:57 PM ET
When it comes to airplane books, Eva is open to vampires. Susan Jane Gilman isn’t. The author of Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven picked six great airplane reads recently for NPR’s Mile High Book Club, none of which she claims will insult her intelligence or embarrass her in airports.
You probably won’t be able to spot her book picks from three gates away, either, as it’s been said you can with John Grisham books.
Interview With Ted Conover: Traveling ‘The Routes of Man’
by Frank Bures | 03.02.10 | 11:39 AM ET
Frank Bures asks the author about the role of roads in the world -- from Ladakh and the Peruvian Andes to the West Bank
Inspiration, Travel Writing and L’Esprit Frondeur
by Jeffrey Tayler | 02.25.10 | 11:16 AM ET
iStockPhoto What will you do that will be different and worthy of recounting? Jeffrey Tayler on the writer's life.
Travel Cartoon: A Tourist Taken Too Soon
by Tom Swick | 02.24.10 | 10:24 AM ET
At the drawing board
How I Got My Chinese Driver’s License
by Peter Hessler | 02.18.10 | 11:23 AM ET
In an excerpt from his new book, "Country Driving," Peter Hessler -- aka Ho Wei -- recalls his Beijing driving exam
Interview With Peter Hessler: Behind the Wheel in China
by Frank Bures | 02.18.10 | 10:23 AM ET
Photo by Darryl Kennedy Frank Bures asks the New Yorker writer about his new book, "Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory"
The Critics: ‘The Routes of Man’ by Ted Conover
by Eva Holland | 02.16.10 | 12:10 PM ET
Hard-traveling journalist Ted Conover’s latest, The Routes of Man: How Roads are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today, hit stores last week. The book sees Conover traveling six different roads, some official and some unofficial, from Peru’s mahogany export routes to China’s new superhighways, in an effort to understand the way they are “reshaping the world.”
The Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley is skeptical of the concept. He writes that “what we have here essentially are a half-dozen magazine pieces, stitched together in such a way as to resemble a real book but missing the thematic core that Conover strains to locate.” However, Yardley adds, “Conover’s six reports are variously interesting in and of themselves, and one shouldn’t expect any more from them.”
Over at NPR, Maureen Corrigan notes that the “vivid armchair travel aspect of Conover’s book is undeniably a great part of its appeal,” but wonders where the women are—the book, she writes, takes place in “a road warrior universe that is pretty much all male.” The Los Angeles Times’ Taylor Antrim is less conflicted, describing “The Routes of Man” as “refreshingly nonromantic road writing.” He goes on:
What Conover has brought back is a clear-eyed understanding that roads confine as much as they liberate, that they make the world more accessible but also infinitely more dangerous and exploitable. Perhaps the only certainty he offers is that these “paths of human endeavor” are inevitable: “They are the infrastructure upon which almost all other infrastructure depends.”
New Travel Book: ‘China: Museums’
by Eva Holland | 02.05.10 | 12:21 PM ET
This illustrated guide to China’s many lesser-known museums is due out in April. The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos has a thoughtful Q&A with co-author Miriam Clifford, on her favorite spots and the way China presents itself, to visitors and to its own citizens.
R.I.P. J.D. Salinger
by Eva Holland | 01.28.10 | 2:07 PM ET
The famously reclusive novelist, best known for “The Catcher in the Rye,” has died at age 91. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks of Salinger, and his “Catcher” protagonist Holden Caulfield, as being inextricably linked to New York City, and to Central Park in particular. Here’s a memorable passage from the novel:
I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go. I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.
World Hum contributor Beth Harpaz has a guide to Holden Caulfield’s New York City in USA Today.
Nine Subversive Travel Novels
by Thomas Kohnstamm | 01.13.10 | 11:11 AM ET
Thomas Kohnstamm celebrates fiction that uncovers deeper truths about travel and the world
Nine Subversive Travel Books
by Thomas Kohnstamm | 01.12.10 | 12:17 PM ET
Thomas Kohnstamm celebrates books that have really rocked the boat
Interview with Susan Van Allen: ‘100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go’
by Eva Holland | 01.11.10 | 10:39 AM ET
Photo courtesy of Susan Van Allen Eva Holland asks the author why female travelers (and travel writers) are so drawn to Italy
Interview with Alain de Botton: ‘A Week at the Airport’
by Frank Bures | 01.06.10 | 11:33 AM ET
Frank Bures asks Heathrow's first writer-in-residence about non-places, taking time to arrive and what airports tell us about ourselves
Saying Goodbye to 2009 in Travel: Six More Links
by Eva Holland | 01.04.10 | 5:26 PM ET
We spent last week saying our farewells to the year that’s just ended—in books, video and more. But before we truly close the book on 2009, there are a few more links worth checking out.
The Times of London has put together its own year-end list of best travel books, while the New York Times also rounds up some holiday travel reads.
Gawker’s readers provide some harrowing tales of holiday travel disasters.
Social bookmarking site StumbleUpon has collected its most popular travel content for the year, and Jaunted has handed out the full roster of its 2009 travel awards, The Jauntys.
Finally, over at Flyover America, World Hum contributors Jenna Schnuer and Sophia Dembling are ready to look ahead: They’re airing their 2010 travel non-resolutions.
Got a link that we missed? Drop it in the comments. Happy New Year!
More Great Travel Books From 2009
by Eva Holland | 12.23.09 | 2:02 PM ET
Writer Rory MacLean—whose latest book made our list of the best of 2009—has his own fine selection in the Guardian.
The Best Travel Books of 2009
by Frank Bures | 12.23.09 | 11:07 AM ET
Photo by Jim Benning Frank Bures picks a dozen, from an Amazon adventure story to a tale of the old Hippie Trail
Nicolas Bouvier: the Great Swiss Travel Writer
by Tom Swick | 12.21.09 | 12:45 PM ET
On one writer's immense generosity of spirit and openness to experience
New Travel Book: ‘To Hellholes and Back’
by Eva Holland | 12.14.09 | 3:10 PM ET
Chuck Thompson’s follow-up to his travel writing tell-all, Smile When You’re Lying, landed in bookstores last week. To Hellholes and Back: Bribes, Lies and the Art of Extreme Tourism sees Thompson journeying to “the world’s most ill-reputed destinations” to see if they live up to the hype. Intelligent Travel’s Christopher Elliott interviewed Thompson about the new book.
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