Jason Roberts is the author of A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler. World Hum reviews the book this week, and we asked Roberts for three travel book recommendations. Here’s what he told us: 

An Italian Affair by Laura Fraser.
Roberts says: ”The definitive book on travel as an act of transformation. After a brief, imploded marriage, Fraser reclaims her freedom and sense of adventure at the same time. The affair (with a mysterious Frenchman) is really just one interlude in a layered, compelling story.”

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo by Peter Orner.
Roberts says: “One of the most astonishing evocations of place in contemporary fiction. Set in Namibia after the wars of independence from South Africa, Shikongo sees a country at once new and ancient, through the eyes of a volunteer American teacher. Orner is a superb writer, who captures dead-on details in almost poetically-compressed prose, sometimes painting vivid scenes in just a single sentence.”

The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux.
Roberts says: “Theroux at his grumpiest, which means at the height of his irascible form. On a book tour to Australia, he brings along a folding boat and paddles himself in and out of numerous milieus and meditations. He’s also floating himself through something of a midlife crisis, making the book perfectly balanced between interior and exterior worlds.”