Gifts for the Traveler: Photo Books

Travel Blog  •  Jim Benning  •  11.17.06 | 11:31 AM ET

image‘Tis the season when intriguing travel-related photo books hit bookstores, offering travelers a raft of gift ideas. We already noted the recent release of Middle of Nowhere, Lonely Planet’s celebration of picturesque, far flung places. Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Regan McMahon suggested several other intriguing titles. For starters, McMahon noted Hans Kemp’s Bikes of Burden, featuring photos of motorbikes pressed into delivery work in Vietnam. “In each sharp color photo, one can barely see the rider as items from ducks to hula hoops to fish to wooden cabinets to topiary are piled high on the two-wheeled vehicles,” McMahon writes. “My favorite: a shot from behind of a towering stack of live fish floating, one each, in water-filled, gallon-size baggies, with the driver completely obscured.”

McMahon also points out Viva Colores: A Salute to the Indomitable People of Guatemala by photographer Paul Gianturco and writer David Hill. It features profiles of 41 people working to improve the lives of their fellow Guatemalans.

“The stories are inspiring, and the vivid photos of people and fabrics, flora and fauna are breathtaking,” McMahon writes.

Another intriguing title, particularly for travel lit fans with a historical bent, is Journeys and Journals: Five Centuries of Travel Writing.

“Featuring writings by Peter Beard, James Cook, Victor Hugo, Lewis and Clark, Gauguin, Picasso and many more, this beautifully designed book is the size of a coffee-table tome,” McMahon writes. “Illustrated with archival photos, artwork and reproduced pages of scrapbooks, sketchbooks and notebooks, it gives the reader a real feel for what it must have been like for those early travelers, artists and explorers to be encountering exotic plants, animals and cultures for the first time.”

Tags: Asia, Vietnam, Literary Travel, News and Briefs


1 Comment for Gifts for the Traveler: Photo Books

Sophie 11.17.06 | 2:58 PM ET

I noticed digital photo frames in Office Depot the other day, an intersting idea if you would like to enjoy your shots without printing them all out. They run about $100 and up now but I’ll bet prices go down over the next few weeks.

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