Travel Blog: Literary Travel
Granta 94: “On the Road Again. Where Travel Writing Went Next.”
by Jim Benning | 07.13.06 | 7:43 AM ET
The latest issue of Granta, On the Road Again, focuses on travel, and on Sunday, the Guardian published a thoughtful piece about the issue and Granta’s proud travel-writing history. Writer Robert McCrum notes that former Granta editor Bill Buford “charmed and bamboozled” contributors such as Paul Theroux, Redmond O’Hanlon and Bruce Chatwin for stories. “Buford celebrated travel writing as a cocktail of reportage, storytelling and ‘a narrative eloquence’ that placed it ‘somewhere between fiction and fact,’” McCrum writes. “Now, in more sober times, new editor Ian Jack, who locates the genre somewhere more trustworthy and responsible, has come up with an absorbing edition subtitled ‘Where Travel Writing Went Next.’”
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Yahoo! BuzzTahir Shah: Books that Inspire Wanderlust
by Michael Yessis | 07.11.06 | 10:56 AM ET
The author of The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca and other tomes wrote about six books that inspire wanderlust in Sunday’s Book Post section of the Washington Post. Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft and Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines made the cut, as did the No. 1 book in World Hum’s recent countdown of top travel books, Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger. Shah writes in his lead that he once met Thesiger in Kenya. It’s a great anecdote.
Tom Bissell on Robert D. Kaplan and Travel Writing
by Jim Benning | 06.21.06 | 7:51 AM ET
Chasing the Sea author Tom Bissell doesn’t much care for the work of Robert D. Kaplan, the author of numerous books about travel and world affairs. In a new essay in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Bissell offers an extensive critique Kaplan’s work. He also has a few words for travel writers in general. “[T]he travel genre has much to answer for,” he writes.
More Ways to See the World Through Literature
by Michael Yessis | 06.16.06 | 11:53 AM ET
Salon debuted a Literary Guide to the World yesterday, which, if you’ve read World Hum’s budding Three Great Books feature, will seem familiar. “From Turkey to Togo, D.C. to L.A., Rio to Russia and beyond, the Guide promises to recommend the best books—fiction, history, memoir or otherwise—to take with you on your travels,” writes Hillary Frey, Salon’s books editor, in her introduction to the package. “And if there’s a place that you’ve always dreamed of seeing, but won’t visit in the foreseeable future, the Literary Guide will point you to the books that offer the best virtual tours around.”
“What Color is Your Jockstrap? Funny Men and Women Write from the Road”
by Jim Benning | 06.14.06 | 5:52 PM ET
That’s the wacky title of Travelers’ Tales’ new humor collection, which hits stores this week. Edited by Jennifer Leo, the book features stories by writers familiar to readers of this site, including Frank Bures, Rolf Potts, Elliott Hester, Doug Lansky and yours truly. Other contributors include Tim Cahill, Susan Orlean and J. Maarten Troost. The book’s Web site features the introduction and author reading dates. I’ll be joining Jen Leo and contributors Sean Presant and Don Priess for a 7:30 p.m. reading at Distant Lands bookstore in Pasadena on Monday night, which should be good fun. If you’re in Southern California, stop by and say hi.
I Want My Book TV: June 10-11, 2006
by Jim Benning | 06.09.06 | 1:30 PM ET
Lots of good stuff on C-SPAN2’s Book TV this weekend: South Florida Sun-Sentinel travel editor Thomas Swick discusses his book, “A Way to See the World” (broadcast at least once before); Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Friedman and Ted Koppel debate globalization; and John Tayman talks up his book, “The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai.”
Podcasts with Tim Cahill and Simon Winchester
by Jim Benning | 06.06.06 | 2:03 PM ET
Travelers’ Tales has added podcasts to the offerings on its Web site, debuting interviews by executive editor Larry Habegger with travel writing heavyweights Simon Winchester and Tim Cahill. I agree with Jen Leo’s assessment: If you can get past some stiff introductory remarks, there’s some good material inside. I enjoyed hearing Simon Winchester discuss the awful review that his recent book, “A Crack in the Edge of the World,” earned in the New York Times. “Let it ruin your breakfast,” he said, “but don’t let it spoil your lunch.”
Traveler’s Literary Companion Series Adds Titles on Mexico and Japan
by Frank Bures | 06.06.06 | 12:32 PM ET
When asked how he prepares to travel to a country, Ryszard Kapuscinski said he reads the literature. Of course, not all of us have time to read an entire canon before every journey. Fortunately, Whereabouts Press has made sampling literature from some countries much easier with its Traveler’s Literary Companion series. Building on the strength of previous editions on Italy, Cuba, Vietnam and other places, the publisher has just added collections on Mexico and Japan. While the guides aren’t comprehensive (Haruki Murakami is notably absent from “Japan,” for example) they do offer a good way to get a feel for a place. They’re also a fine introduction to these countries’ writers, from greats like Carlos Fuentes and Kawabata Yasunari, to lesser known authors like Hino Keizo and Bruno Estanol.
Pico Iyer on “The Naked Tourist”
by Jim Benning | 06.05.06 | 12:08 PM ET
We noted that Lawrence Osborne’s The Naked Tourist: In Search of Adventure and Beauty in the Age of the Airport Mall earned high marks in Sunday’s New York Times. On the other coast, in the L.A. Times, Pico Iyer also had praise for the book. “Osborne’s premise, in short, is to chronicle a journey through the virtual, simulacrum world that has emerged so quickly that increasingly we can barely tell (or long to tell) one site from another,” Iyer writes. “He decides to sample Planet Tourism, as he calls it, and experience ‘whateverness’ by passing gradually along ‘the Asian highway’ through a series of ever more ersatz places until he arrives at the unadorned treehouses of west Papua, an area kept remote by civil wars and cannibalism. Along the way, he tells us that French playwright Antonin Artaud based his ‘theater of cruelty’ partly upon the intensities of Balinese dance, that boys in Thailand enjoy the legal right to wear skirts to school, and that in Papua pidgin, the pope is known as ‘Jesus Number One Man.’” Iyer observes that Osborne’s writing sometimes echoes Paul Theroux’s: “Osborne is an Englishman of the oldish school, scrupulously crotchety, generally disenchanted and aware enough of worldly realities not to make a fuss about them.”
Patrick Leigh Fermor: ‘An Englishman Abroad’
by Jim Benning | 05.31.06 | 10:53 PM ET
A few weeks ago, we declared (with the help of Thomas Swick) “A Time of Gifts” by Patrick Leigh Fermor one of the greatest travel books of all time. Leigh Fermor, now in his 90s, is not as well known to many American readers as other great travel writers of our time. So it was a pleasant surprise to find, in the May 22 issue of the New Yorker, a lengthy profile of Leigh Fermor by Anthony Lane. The story describes a writer who has lived one of the most compelling lives of the 20th century—so fascinating, in fact, that Lane insists it makes the rest of our lives “laughably provincial in their scope.”
No. 1: “Arabian Sands” by Wilfred Thesiger
by Frank Bures | 05.31.06 | 12:14 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1959
Territory covered: Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Arabian Penninsula (now Yemen, Oman, Saudia Arabia, United Arab Emirates)
No. 2: “The Road to Oxiana” by Robert Byron
by Tom Bissell | 05.30.06 | 7:51 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1937
Territory covered: Persia (Iran) and Afghanistan
No. 3: “The Great Railway Bazaar” by Paul Theroux
by Terry Ward | 05.29.06 | 12:58 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1975
Territory covered: India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and Japan
No. 4: “The Soccer War” by Ryszard Kapuściński
by Frank Bures | 05.28.06 | 8:34 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1978
Territory covered: Africa, Central America, Cyprus and Israel
No. 5: “No Mercy: A Journey to the Heart of the Congo” by Redmond O’Hanlon
by Michael Shapiro | 05.27.06 | 7:41 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1997
Territory covered: Central Africa
