Happy Fourth of July

World Hum’s Most Read: June 28-July 3

What We Loved This Week: Def Leppard in Greece, Austrian Competence and Freedom in Colombia

The LAX Theme Building, Then and Now

As a Woman, Can I Really Travel Without Much Fear for my Safety?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Inside Slum Tourism

With mixed feelings, Rob Verger recently signed on for a tour of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. He looks back on the experience—and the photos he was allowed to take.

Break Bread and Brie in France

Great cheese abounds in the land of Gaul, but dig in and you risk committing any number of faux pas. Terry Ward explains how to partake of the nation’s famed fromage with savoir faire.

10 Wanderlust-Inducing Summer Concerts

Call it world music or global pop or the sound of the world hum. Ben Keene reveals 10 acts on tour that are sure to transport you. Plus videos.

Bryan Mealer: ‘War and Deliverance in Congo’

The former AP correspondent traveled up the Congo River. Frank Bures asks the author of “All Things Must Fight to Live” about following in the wake of Joseph Conrad. 

A Journey Into ‘The Second World’

Some bureaucrats joke that they would never claim expertise about countries they had not at least flown over. In an excerpt from his new book, Parag Khanna argues that real global understanding can only come from serious travel.

‘The Worst Guidebook Writer Ever’?

Lonely Planet author Robert Reid reviews Thomas Kohnstamm’s “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?” and weighs in on the controversy surrounding it

Pico Iyer on World Hum’s Top 30 Travel Books

Alexandra David-Neel, Magic and Mystery in Tibet or My Journey to Lahsa should be on one of these lists.

This is an interesting list. Travel writing can succeed on many levels and what appeals to the reader is very subjective. It depends on the reader’s viewpoint, interest and mood among other things and how well the author elicits an emotional response.

Among the travel books I have greatly enjoyed and didn’t make the list are:

Throwim’ Way Leg, by Tim Flannery
Far Away and Long Ago, by William Hudson
India: No Full Stops, by Mark Tully
Slow Boats to China, by Gavin Young
Fruit Palace, by Charles Nicholls
Calcutta, by Geoffrey Moorehouse.

I would also second Pico Iyer’s recommendations of a Hindoo Holiday by J R Ackerly and Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrier.

To these I would add anything written by Jim Corbett (largely forgotten gems) and if I may, throw in Eric Newby’s Love and War in the Appenines - for me this is his best, though not travel writing in the usual sense.

Annapurna by Maurice Herzog is an honourable mention.

One travel book I would have liked to be on that list is G.K. Chesterton’s “What I saw in America”.  For an early 20th century writer, the travel philosophy and politics he supports were remarkably forward thinking. 

John

We provide recommended reading for travelers and, naturally, here at Longitude Books we are in awe of Pico Iyer. I thought we’d weigh in with our own top books, rather skewed to advanture.

http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/d/8972/pc/Favorites/mcms.html

I missed not seeing at least two other titles by the grumpy, great writer Paul Theroux; “The Pillars of Hercules” and “The Happy Isles of Oceania”.