Safaris: Saviors of the Printed Word?

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  08.04.09 | 1:07 PM ET

Photo by doug88888 via Flickr (Creative Commons)

In the latest installment of Bookspotting, Book Bencher Vicky Raab spied Wired’s New York editor, Mark Horowitz, toting a stack of travel books—real ones, in hard copy!—in preparation for an African safari. What, no Kindle?

Raab writes: “Horowitz acknowledged that he was ‘totally Kindlized,’ but he was a bit worried about recharging, and none of the titles he had purchased are available as downloads. Still, he said that he may bring his along for the plane ride.”

Fair enough. The man does work for Wired, after all. His list of essential pre-safari titles is a good one, with everyone from Isak Dinesen and Peter Matthiessen to Stanley and Livingstone represented.

Tags: Travel and Technology, Travel Books, Africa, Tanzania, Literary Travel

Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


2 Comments for Safaris: Saviors of the Printed Word?

Jennifer 08.04.09 | 2:27 PM ET

Personally, despite the weight practicality, I feel that electronic readers only cause to distance travellers farther from their surroundings and the cultures they are trying to experience, especially in developing areas of the world.  Can you imagine how silly and detatced from reality you may appear with your Kindle (and I have to assume Laptop and cell phone as well) to a farmer in Guatemala (just an example) who can barely put food on the table for his family?  I’m not anti-technology, but really, there’s a place and a time!

Frank Bures 08.04.09 | 2:52 PM ET

Brilliant.  Almost as nice as Sergey Brin’s comment that, “There is fantastic information in books. Often when I do a search, what is in a book is miles ahead of what I find on a Web site.”

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090608/sifton
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/technology/internet/05google.html?_r=1

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