She Travels in Time With Flaubert and Twain

Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 03.11.02 | 4:20 PM ET

Caryn James has stopped reading modern travelogues. “Why taunt yourself reading about a place you’ll (wistful, martyred sigh here) probably never see?” she writes in Sunday’s New York Times. James hasn’t given up on the genre entirely, though. She copes by reading travel books from the past. “I found the perfect alternative by accident, when I spotted Peter Ackroyd’s thick anecdotal history, “London: The Biography,” while browsing in a store. The thought of struggling to Kennedy and landing at Heathrow may have been too much, but landing in London in the 17th or 18th century suddenly seemed irresistible. You can’t feel bad about not being in a place that doesn’t exist anymore. Armchair time-travel was the answer: a vicarious journey with no regrets.”