Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. World Hum reviews the book this week, and we asked Gilbert for three travel book recommendations. Here’s what she told us: 

The Meadowlands by Robert Sullivan.
Gilbert says: “Proving that you don’t have to go a million miles away to find extraordinary adventure, danger and wonder, Robert Sullivan spent months in a canoe exploring the strange and history-drenched water and weed of the New Jersey Meadowlands (that’s right—just alongside the Turnpike). A beautifully written, deeply intelligent journey.”

A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne.
Gilbert says: “Definitely one of the first travel books ever written in English (the Greeks and Romans had their own guides earlier, I suppose), this terrifically entertaining read by the author of ‘Tristram Shandy’ was published in the 1760s, about Sterne’s journeys through France. Hilarious and bawdy and wonderful.”

The Companion Guide to Rome by Georgina Masson.
Gilbert says: “Don’t go to Rome without it. Seriously—don’t even get off the plane in Rome without this book in hand. It contains over a dozen guided walks through the city, along with dry, witty, scholarly, brilliant prose by its English author, whom one can imagine walking right next to you, in her tweed skirt and practical shoes, knowing EVERYTHING about everything...this book really was my best friend during my time in Italy.”