World Hum | Travel | New York Times Selects ‘The Places in Between’ as Top-10 Book of 2006

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12.1.06

New York Times Selects ‘The Places in Between’ as Top-10 Book of 2006

Deeming it suitable company for “the masterpieces of the travel genre,” the New York Times chose Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between as one of its Ten Best Books of 2006 this week. In his review in the Times this summer, World Hum contributor Tom Bissell praised Stewart’s comic timing, sense of character, as well as the effort made to empathize with the men he meets along his trek, and then concludes by extracting a few pieces of valuable advice from the narrative: “If you are forced to lie about being a Muslim, claim you’re from Indonesia, a Muslim nation few non-Indonesian Muslims know much about. Open land undefiled by sheep droppings has most likely been mined. If you’re taking your donkey to high altitudes, slice open its nostrils to allow greater oxygen flow. Don’t carry detailed maps, since they tend to suggest 007 affinities. If, finally, you’re determined to do something as recklessly stupid as walk across a war zone, your surest bet to quash all the inevitable criticism is to write a flat-out masterpiece.” Here’s hoping other end-of-the year lists include a few of the other examples of excellent travel writing published in the last twelve months.

Posted by Ben Keene • 12.1.06
Categories: Weblog • Media Addict • The Critics

Permalink • Comments (2)

COMMENTS

I like Tom Bissell as much as the next Harper’s reader, but I was actually offended that The Times hired him, a fellow travel writer, to do the Stewart review and then, shocking!, he procedes to anoint the book a “masterpiece.” It was a decent book that took humongous balls to write. But it lacked even the slightest sense of rhetoric, of circumspection. It was a very nice adventure story, but a masterpiece? Although he’s no master himself, at least Bissell has the distinction of being the most well liked writer in NY.

By on 12.20.06 at 08:03 PM

hugo, no need for much scrutiny when it comes to this book, especially since it’s non-fiction. I’m re-reading it right now and it’s even better the second time around. I feel like this book did a really good job shedding light on Afghani society, culture, and people without the intention of doing so.

By on 4.2.08 at 01:56 PM