Why Aren’t Students Reading Travel Books?

Definitely!

I just finished reading Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost—an excellent book that takes a look at real facts about real society and politics in an engaging way. In a time when it’s imperative to have an understanding of other cultures, these kind of travel narratives are excellent vehicles for doing so.

Jim,

Eat, Pray, Love. Really? So awful I couldn’t finish it. And I dunno, reading fiction is never pathetic. That paragraph from Jay Matthews strikes me as ridiculous.

Why the pedagogy? So many people don’t read at all, I say any reading is good reading. Beginners mind works in the best fiction as well.

Sometimes the onslaught of travel writing, or any niche, overwhelms me. It is always, always, about the quality of the sentences. Good writing in any genre is what counts.

Sarah, who is presently reading The Ask, a novel by Sam Lipsyte, and having a life-altering experience.  (ex-UCLA extension student of yours, Key West lover. Hi!).

Sarah - So any reading is good reading, as long as it’s not Elizabeth Gilbert?

I don’t think anyone’s really out to slam fiction here. But students reading nonfiction only 10% of the time? Considering the vast array of subjects and genres covered by the nonfiction label, beyond travel? (Memoir, biography, history, geography, current affairs, humor, science, essays… just for a start.) Students being left unexposed to all that seems like a legit problem to me. It’s about balance - and that ratio is pretty far off-kilter.

Sarah,

Good point. I didn’t agree with the way he characterized fiction as having “simple truths.” I’m certainly not arguing against reading fiction—I was an English lit major and love fiction and see great value in it.

I’m not suggesting an onslaught of travel books—just one book would be great to introduce students to the genre, and if it’s the right book, it could really inspire them.

P.S. Good hearing from you!

Eva,

Yeah, I have a strong reaction to Elizabeth Gilbert, can you tell? Flummoxed that the book was so popular.

I know nobody is out to slam fiction, but we know the curricula of our public schools (in all subjects) can be dismal. My kids are at a charter school, reading non-fiction and fiction, happy to be released from their dismal years at the local public school.

I think non-fiction has made a strong showing in recent years. Just look at the self-help genre.

Don’t mind me, I am cranky and overwhelmed by the need to compartmentalize genres. It is something I think about a lot, that, and business-marketing speak.

Jim,

Glad to have found your site again. I will stop after this, but yes, it was his use of the word pathetic that got to me.

S

Three Cups of Tea…is now required reading for lots of schools.

I’m in Sarah’s camp regarding “Eat, Pray, Love.”  A terribly disappointing book. 

I’d recommend to young people “West With The Night” by Beryl Markham.

I agree that it would be great to get some non-fiction travel adventures on school reading lists. I also think that there is a lot of travel writing in fiction. Popular fiction like Under the Tuscan Sun or Dan Brown’s chase scenes through Europe can awaken the travel bug in more readers than will ever pick up a non-fiction travel book.

I have to admit that my earliest travel inspiration came from swiping my mom’s Harlequin Romances when I was still in grade school (they were G-rated back then) and reading about adventurous women being romanced in the French Camargue or on a hacienda in Andalucia. 

Maybe we would have better luck getting non-fiction travel books on the reading list if we pretend we made the whole thing up.

I agree that “Three Cups of Tea” would be a good idea. My college almuni newsletter had a story about Greg Mortensen visiting the campus this year to talk about the book. Every year, a book is chosen for the freshmen class to read as a whole and the author comes later in the year to speak and this year his book was chosen. I think that’s a great idea for students to interact with the author as well to get a discussion going and it may not be possible at every school but discussion should definitely go along with the reading. Discussions made a difference for me even if they were only fiction books in high school.

Three Cups of Tea is one of the best book I read.

Loved “Eat”; hated “Pray”; thus never got to “Love.” 

A 2006 travel book that was oddly neglected is Jason Roberts’s wonderful “A Sense of the World,” a biography of James Holman, an adventurous traveler of the early 19th century, who traveled extensively, usually solo, and went to places most people of that period never saw.  And neither did he:  he was totally blind.  It’s an inspiring story, and I think it would appeal to high schoolers.

I also admit to unabashed fandom for the “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” series, fiction set in contemporary Botswana.  With travel fiction, you always have nagging doubts about the accuracy of the descriptions of the setting, but I’m not aware of any criticism of the now ten-book series that disputes his romantic portrayal of the country.

I clicked on this fully expecting a Tom Swick essay.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, although a bit more historical than travel, it does give off that notion of what it’s like to fight in Germany. It is a must read non-fiction for any student and hold important lessions, of friendship, hardship, and a glimps at reality during the Great War.

I too read fiction almost exclusively as a youth, but by the time I hit 30 I had switched to primarily nonfiction. Maybe one has to know a bit more about current and historical events before one can get interested in nonfiction as a literary genre? Get out of the history textbook / cramming-for-a-test mindset?

Anyway, I would highly recommend Dave Eggers’ annual “Best American Nonrequired Reading” series as an accessible front door into creative nonfiction. Essays and miscellaneous oddities selected by high school youths who comb through the top magazines and web sites for their favorite reads of the past year. The kind of anthology where J. Malcolm Garcia rubs elbows with Stephen King, often writing on global/travel topics. And of course, its sister series “Best Travel Writing 2009” and earlier editions.

All Quiet on the Western Front is historical fiction.

I often recommend Tom Bissell’s “Chasing the Sea” and Peter Hessler’s “River Town.” Both of these books opened my eyes to parts of the world I knew little about.

I’d suggest an older style travel book. Mark Twain wrote a wonderful book called “A Tramp Abroad” documenting his thoughts and slow travels through Germany, Switzerland and Italy in the 1880s. Similarly one of anthropology’s Thor Heyerdahl’s adventures taking rafts from South America to Easter Island (KonTiki) or around the middle east (Ra), over 50 years ago. While Twain was a school book, it lifted my interest in travel later in life.

My guess that students don’t read travel books not because they’re non-fiction, but because students nowadays intends and are expected to do a lot of travelling in their lifetime.  Most of them have the capacity (time and money), or will have the capacity to travel to most of the places they’re interested in.  If they’d read all about it before they travel, that really takes the fun out of experiencing the place for themselves.  So by reading as little as possible, they can experience a whole lot more once they get there.