Monday, August 14, 2006
Favorite travel books
In honor of my upcoming vacation, and one of my favorite kinds of books to read, I'll start with favorite travel books. I've always been an armchair traveler, and in fact I've read so many British travel narratives that I automatically want to write traveller instead of traveler. After the title and author, I'll list the publisher and date for the edition I happen to have - which in many cases isn't the first date of publication. If I can find the original publication date I'll list that too. Enjoy. I sure have. These books appear in no particular order. Pack the steamer trunks, slap on the luggage labels, and I'll try to go easy on the superlatives.
The Road to Oxiana – Robert Byron. Picador, London 1994 (original publication date 1937). This was Bruce Chatwin's holy grail, and he carried his copy in his haversack on his own journeys until it practically fell to bits. Written in the style of a diary, this book was actually the result of hard labor long after his 1930s journey around Persia took place. Byron died when his ship was torpedoed by a u-boat during World War II. Oxford University Press keeps this book in print, bless them.
Passenger to Teheran – Vita Sackville-West. Moyer Bell, New York 1990 (1926). An absolute classic of British literary travel between the world wars. The Moyer Bell edition is published with the author's photographs. I consider her travel writing much finer than her fiction.
Twelve Days – Vita Sackville-West. Doubleday, Doran, Garden City, New York 1928. The follow-up to the above, equally good, but much harder to find. Her account of traipsing around the Bakhtiari Mountains in southwest Persia.
A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor. Penguin, New York 1988 (1977). His account of of a walking trip across Europe, when he was 18, in 1933. This volume covers his journey from London to Holland and then on foot to Hungary. I just bought a copy of the second volume, in which he continues to Constantinople, Between the Woods and the Water (1987), and I can't wait to read it. This may be one of the books I bring with me next week. I cannot stress enough how truly beautiful this author's prose is.
The Traveller’s Tree – Patrick Leigh Fermor. Murray, London 1951. His thick lovely book about the West Indies. Another of Bruce Chatwin's favorite authors (a theme seems to be emerging here).
The Women of Cairo – Gérard de Nerval. Routledge, London 1929. Unusual, descriptive, Flaubert-ish but more mystical. Strange title, because the women of Cairo are not the focus of the book in general. Perhaps the publisher thought this mysterious title would sell more copies of an otherwise-straightforward travelogue.
The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Oxford 1967. Eighteenth-century author whose husband was the British ambassador to Constantinople. Her letters are witty and intelligent, and she must be classified as one of the first bluestockings.
Orient Express – John Dos Passos. Harper, New York 1927. I've tried to read his fiction and I can't make any progress whatsoever. This book, however, I really loved - a vivid account of his journey on the famous passenger train. The original edition of the book is illustrated with a few of his own watercolors.
Hot Countries – Alec Waugh. Farrar & Rinehart, New York 1930. Tahiti, Ceylon, a chapter entitled "The Englishman in the Tropics" - this is my favorite travel book (barring Byron's) from the period of travel writing between the world wars. I love Alec's travel writing, but can't get interested in his fiction at all, meanwhile his brother Evelyn's travel writing is interesting but not (so far) fantastic, yet his fiction (and letters) are terrific. Go figure.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning – Laurie Lee. Atheneum, New York 1969. I keep using the word classic, but this really is one of the great travel books, about the author's walking trip to London, and then through rural Spain.
Arabian Sands – Wilfred Thesiger. Dutton, New York 1959. Thesiger's account of his travels among the Bedouin tribes and deserts of southern Arabia. Written with deep love for the landscape and the people. One of those books in which the reader senses that the author has been lucky enough to discover a true spiritual home, one which was not the country of his birth.
To the Back of Beyond – Fitzroy Maclean. Little, Brown, Boston 1974. Detailed history and travel narrative-style description of Mongolia and the wilds of Central Asia. A compelling book on this remote region.
A Short Walk – Eric Newby. Doubleday, Garden City, New York 1959. Called A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush in later U.S. editions, the title is meant to be facetious (because there is no such thing). The intrepid author and a friend decide they will go mountainclimbing in the Pamirs. They have never climbed so much as a hill before. Hilarity and despair ensue. Newby wrote many travel narratives but this is my favorite, a gem in the fine tradition of the intrepid and self-deprecating British travel memoir.
The Light Garden of the Angel King – Peter Levi. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis 1972. Peter Levi and Bruce Chatwin and friends scramble around Afghanistan on donkeys. Chatwin was going to write a book about this trip, but Levi got there first and Chatwin thought Levi's book was better than anything he could have written. However, some of Chatwin's photographs are in Levi's book, so this is a must-have for the Chatwin collector (that would be ME).
In Patagonia – Bruce Chatwin. Summit, New York 1977. He finally appears himself. My aunt, god love her, sent me this book as a Christmas gift when I was twelve. I still have that copy, with her gift tag, which says, "This is one of my favorite books." Now it's one of mine. And what a strange and lovely book it is - part memoir, history, travel book. Immediately captivating. Chatwin legend says he sent a telegraph to his boss at the Times, saying, "Gone to Patagonia." If it didn't really happen, it should have.
The Snow Leopard – Peter Matthiessen. Viking, New York 1978. Part Himalayan travel book, part Zen memoir. Matthiessen wrote this account of a trip with scientist George Schaller, who wrote his own book, Stones of Silence, about the wildlife of the Himalayas. Interesting to read them back to back, though they are completely different in style and substance.
In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods – Galen Rowell. Sierra Club, San Francisco 1977. Rowell is known as a photographer and climber, but his writing is also fine - this book is about Rowell's attempt to climb K2 as part of a team of American mountaineers.
Steaming to Bamboola – Christopher Buckley. Congdon & Lattès, New York 1982. Tramp freighter travel and container-ship travel is an obsession of mine. This rather dark memoir helps to dispel any romantic illusions one might have about this form of travel.
Rolling Nowhere – Ted Conover. Penguin, New York 1985. Who says it's too late to be a hobo. Like Buckley's book, this one also clears up any romantic ideas we might have about riding the rails. Good journalism, and a great memoir.
Falling Off the Map – Pico Iyer. Knopf, New York 1993. Subtitled "Some Lonely Places of the World." Iyer's third book, and my favorite thus far (clarification: I have some more recent books of his which I have not read yet, but fully intend to).
The Sun Never Sets – Simon Winchester. Prentice-Hall, New York 1985. Winchester visits all the remaining (and remote) outposts of the British Empire, such as it was in the 1980s. Odd, and rather wonderful.
The Happy Isles of Oceania and The Pillars of Hercules – Paul Theroux. Putnam, New York 1992 and 1995. I'm tired of hearing Theroux described as curmudgeonly. Sure, he's got bad things to say about a lot of places and people, but I find that these bits of sullenness are always balanced by descriptions of great beauty and moments of joy. He's after the whole experience of a place. The Pillars of Hercules particularly kept me captivated, but I took a lot of notes out of both books as I read. I wanted to go too, the test of a great travel book?
The Art of Travel – Alain de Botton. Pantheon, New York 2002. I've already dithered about de Botton, but he's just so good. This is too, and it's not like any other travel book I've ever read. Why do we travel? Is it ourselves we wish to leave behind? Are we lulled into thinking this can actually happen? How does a beautiful or sublime place affect us?
Travels with a Tangerine – Tim Mackintosh-Smith. Welcome Rain, New York 2001. I devoured this book. I know there's a second part that was published last year, and it's not available in the U.S. yet. I may break down and buy the British edition, because I must have it. Mackintosh-Smith follows in the footsteps of fourteenth-century Muslim traveler Ibn Battutah. When I finished this book, I realized many things: I will never travel this route, thank god the author has, and has written about it, so I can follow along, thank god that intelligent books such as this are still being published, I wish I knew ten languages, what else. One of my favorite new-ish travel narratives. Real substance here, and again, that classic British self-deprecation that I so admire.
Ok, I've got to stop somewhere or this will take all day. I know I've left out so many people, like Freya Stark, and Dervla Murphy, and - holy mackerel - Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, which I dearly love, and so many others - these authors are on my shelves, but what can I say. There are only so many reading hours in the day. List number two, new subject, tomorrow.
The Road to Oxiana – Robert Byron. Picador, London 1994 (original publication date 1937). This was Bruce Chatwin's holy grail, and he carried his copy in his haversack on his own journeys until it practically fell to bits. Written in the style of a diary, this book was actually the result of hard labor long after his 1930s journey around Persia took place. Byron died when his ship was torpedoed by a u-boat during World War II. Oxford University Press keeps this book in print, bless them.
Passenger to Teheran – Vita Sackville-West. Moyer Bell, New York 1990 (1926). An absolute classic of British literary travel between the world wars. The Moyer Bell edition is published with the author's photographs. I consider her travel writing much finer than her fiction.
Twelve Days – Vita Sackville-West. Doubleday, Doran, Garden City, New York 1928. The follow-up to the above, equally good, but much harder to find. Her account of traipsing around the Bakhtiari Mountains in southwest Persia.
A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor. Penguin, New York 1988 (1977). His account of of a walking trip across Europe, when he was 18, in 1933. This volume covers his journey from London to Holland and then on foot to Hungary. I just bought a copy of the second volume, in which he continues to Constantinople, Between the Woods and the Water (1987), and I can't wait to read it. This may be one of the books I bring with me next week. I cannot stress enough how truly beautiful this author's prose is.
The Traveller’s Tree – Patrick Leigh Fermor. Murray, London 1951. His thick lovely book about the West Indies. Another of Bruce Chatwin's favorite authors (a theme seems to be emerging here).
The Women of Cairo – Gérard de Nerval. Routledge, London 1929. Unusual, descriptive, Flaubert-ish but more mystical. Strange title, because the women of Cairo are not the focus of the book in general. Perhaps the publisher thought this mysterious title would sell more copies of an otherwise-straightforward travelogue.
The Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Oxford 1967. Eighteenth-century author whose husband was the British ambassador to Constantinople. Her letters are witty and intelligent, and she must be classified as one of the first bluestockings.
Orient Express – John Dos Passos. Harper, New York 1927. I've tried to read his fiction and I can't make any progress whatsoever. This book, however, I really loved - a vivid account of his journey on the famous passenger train. The original edition of the book is illustrated with a few of his own watercolors.
Hot Countries – Alec Waugh. Farrar & Rinehart, New York 1930. Tahiti, Ceylon, a chapter entitled "The Englishman in the Tropics" - this is my favorite travel book (barring Byron's) from the period of travel writing between the world wars. I love Alec's travel writing, but can't get interested in his fiction at all, meanwhile his brother Evelyn's travel writing is interesting but not (so far) fantastic, yet his fiction (and letters) are terrific. Go figure.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning – Laurie Lee. Atheneum, New York 1969. I keep using the word classic, but this really is one of the great travel books, about the author's walking trip to London, and then through rural Spain.
Arabian Sands – Wilfred Thesiger. Dutton, New York 1959. Thesiger's account of his travels among the Bedouin tribes and deserts of southern Arabia. Written with deep love for the landscape and the people. One of those books in which the reader senses that the author has been lucky enough to discover a true spiritual home, one which was not the country of his birth.
To the Back of Beyond – Fitzroy Maclean. Little, Brown, Boston 1974. Detailed history and travel narrative-style description of Mongolia and the wilds of Central Asia. A compelling book on this remote region.
A Short Walk – Eric Newby. Doubleday, Garden City, New York 1959. Called A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush in later U.S. editions, the title is meant to be facetious (because there is no such thing). The intrepid author and a friend decide they will go mountainclimbing in the Pamirs. They have never climbed so much as a hill before. Hilarity and despair ensue. Newby wrote many travel narratives but this is my favorite, a gem in the fine tradition of the intrepid and self-deprecating British travel memoir.
The Light Garden of the Angel King – Peter Levi. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis 1972. Peter Levi and Bruce Chatwin and friends scramble around Afghanistan on donkeys. Chatwin was going to write a book about this trip, but Levi got there first and Chatwin thought Levi's book was better than anything he could have written. However, some of Chatwin's photographs are in Levi's book, so this is a must-have for the Chatwin collector (that would be ME).
In Patagonia – Bruce Chatwin. Summit, New York 1977. He finally appears himself. My aunt, god love her, sent me this book as a Christmas gift when I was twelve. I still have that copy, with her gift tag, which says, "This is one of my favorite books." Now it's one of mine. And what a strange and lovely book it is - part memoir, history, travel book. Immediately captivating. Chatwin legend says he sent a telegraph to his boss at the Times, saying, "Gone to Patagonia." If it didn't really happen, it should have.
The Snow Leopard – Peter Matthiessen. Viking, New York 1978. Part Himalayan travel book, part Zen memoir. Matthiessen wrote this account of a trip with scientist George Schaller, who wrote his own book, Stones of Silence, about the wildlife of the Himalayas. Interesting to read them back to back, though they are completely different in style and substance.
In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods – Galen Rowell. Sierra Club, San Francisco 1977. Rowell is known as a photographer and climber, but his writing is also fine - this book is about Rowell's attempt to climb K2 as part of a team of American mountaineers.
Steaming to Bamboola – Christopher Buckley. Congdon & Lattès, New York 1982. Tramp freighter travel and container-ship travel is an obsession of mine. This rather dark memoir helps to dispel any romantic illusions one might have about this form of travel.
Rolling Nowhere – Ted Conover. Penguin, New York 1985. Who says it's too late to be a hobo. Like Buckley's book, this one also clears up any romantic ideas we might have about riding the rails. Good journalism, and a great memoir.
Falling Off the Map – Pico Iyer. Knopf, New York 1993. Subtitled "Some Lonely Places of the World." Iyer's third book, and my favorite thus far (clarification: I have some more recent books of his which I have not read yet, but fully intend to).
The Sun Never Sets – Simon Winchester. Prentice-Hall, New York 1985. Winchester visits all the remaining (and remote) outposts of the British Empire, such as it was in the 1980s. Odd, and rather wonderful.
The Happy Isles of Oceania and The Pillars of Hercules – Paul Theroux. Putnam, New York 1992 and 1995. I'm tired of hearing Theroux described as curmudgeonly. Sure, he's got bad things to say about a lot of places and people, but I find that these bits of sullenness are always balanced by descriptions of great beauty and moments of joy. He's after the whole experience of a place. The Pillars of Hercules particularly kept me captivated, but I took a lot of notes out of both books as I read. I wanted to go too, the test of a great travel book?
The Art of Travel – Alain de Botton. Pantheon, New York 2002. I've already dithered about de Botton, but he's just so good. This is too, and it's not like any other travel book I've ever read. Why do we travel? Is it ourselves we wish to leave behind? Are we lulled into thinking this can actually happen? How does a beautiful or sublime place affect us?
Travels with a Tangerine – Tim Mackintosh-Smith. Welcome Rain, New York 2001. I devoured this book. I know there's a second part that was published last year, and it's not available in the U.S. yet. I may break down and buy the British edition, because I must have it. Mackintosh-Smith follows in the footsteps of fourteenth-century Muslim traveler Ibn Battutah. When I finished this book, I realized many things: I will never travel this route, thank god the author has, and has written about it, so I can follow along, thank god that intelligent books such as this are still being published, I wish I knew ten languages, what else. One of my favorite new-ish travel narratives. Real substance here, and again, that classic British self-deprecation that I so admire.
Ok, I've got to stop somewhere or this will take all day. I know I've left out so many people, like Freya Stark, and Dervla Murphy, and - holy mackerel - Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, which I dearly love, and so many others - these authors are on my shelves, but what can I say. There are only so many reading hours in the day. List number two, new subject, tomorrow.
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Well,I'm not much of a travel reader but I do have a couple of titles that I can recommend:
Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff-The well known 84 Charing Cross Road author's diary of her first trip to her beloved England. Crisp writing and at times,amazingly funny.
Old Books in the Old World by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern-The lifelong friends and Louisa May Alcott scholars' account of their book buying trips thru Europe between 1947 and 1957. It's like stepping into a time machine with two delightful companions.
Time was soft there by Jeremy Mercer-This book came out earlier this year and will probaly be in paperback soon. It's about the time Mercer lived in Paris at Shakespeare and Co(not the Sylvia Beach one,rather the modern day version started up by George Whitman). A great look at bohemian life in Paris and quite a few tips on how to live very,very cheap as well!
Sixpence House by Paul Collins-I'm sure you've read this,Sarah but I had to add it. For those of you who didn't,it's about how Collins and his family lived in the famous book town of Hay-on-Wye for a year. So great and charming a read:)
Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff-The well known 84 Charing Cross Road author's diary of her first trip to her beloved England. Crisp writing and at times,amazingly funny.
Old Books in the Old World by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern-The lifelong friends and Louisa May Alcott scholars' account of their book buying trips thru Europe between 1947 and 1957. It's like stepping into a time machine with two delightful companions.
Time was soft there by Jeremy Mercer-This book came out earlier this year and will probaly be in paperback soon. It's about the time Mercer lived in Paris at Shakespeare and Co(not the Sylvia Beach one,rather the modern day version started up by George Whitman). A great look at bohemian life in Paris and quite a few tips on how to live very,very cheap as well!
Sixpence House by Paul Collins-I'm sure you've read this,Sarah but I had to add it. For those of you who didn't,it's about how Collins and his family lived in the famous book town of Hay-on-Wye for a year. So great and charming a read:)
Great stuff, Lady T, thanks - we are on the same page, I have read them all! One or two may appear on my books-about-books list later in the week.
Apologies if this appears twice; it did not seem to post the first time I tried...
Great idea, Sarah. I look forward to adding yet more books to the to-be-read-list, based on your suggestions, Lady T's, and others to come. I have a couple suggestions, but first some comments on yours.
Your first paragraph on British travel narratives reminded me of something and I eventually tracked it down to our friend Alexander Smith. In 'On Vagabonds', one of his Dreamthorp Essays, he wrote about these creatures:
"The English are eminently a nation of vagabonds. The Englishman is ubiquitous. He shakes with fever and ague in the swampy valley of the Mississippi; he is drowned in the sand pillars as they waltz across the desert on the purple breath of the simoom; he stands on the icy scalp of Mont Blanc; his fly falls in the sullen Norwegian fiords; he invades the solitude of the Cape lion; he rides on his donkey through the uncausewayed Cairo streets. That wealthy people, under a despotism, should be travellers seems a natural thing enough. It is a way of escape from the rigors of their condition. But that England- where activity rages so keenly and engrosses every class; where the prizes of Parliament, literature, commerce, the bar, the church are hungered and thirsted after; where the stress and intensity of life ages a man before his time; where so many of the noblest break down in harness hardly halfway to the goal- should, year after hear, send off swarms of men to roam the world, and to seek out danger for the mere thrill and enjoyment of it, is significant of the indomitable pluck and spirit of the race. There is scant danger that the rust of sloth will eat into the virtue of English steel. The English do the hard work and the travelling of the world. The least revolutionary nation of Europe, the one with the greatest temptations to stay at home, with the greatest faculty for work, with perhaps the sincerest regard for wealth, is also the most nomadic. How is this? It is because they are a nation of vagabonds; they have the 'hungry heart' that one of their poets speaks about."
Smith's 'A Summer in Skye' is on my list.
A recent New Yorker had a very favorable profile of Patrick Leigh Fermor, as a man and writer.
You inspired me to start my previously unread copy of 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning'; it's delightful.
One of Noel Perrin's recommendations is 'Riding the Rails', by Michael Mathers, on the life of a hobo. (Another is 'When the Snow Comes They Will Take You Away', by Eric Newby.)
I've enjoyed a slim volume, 'Patagonia Revisited', which is essentially a dialogue between Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux, exploring early settlers and writers from, or influenced by, Patagonia.
I like H.M. Tomlinson's 'Gifts of Fortune (With Hints For Those About to Travel)' and the stories in David W. Bones's 'Broken Stowage'.
Thanks to Lady T for the Mercer recommendation and, Sarah, you've almost convinced me to try Alain de Botton.
Dan
Great idea, Sarah. I look forward to adding yet more books to the to-be-read-list, based on your suggestions, Lady T's, and others to come. I have a couple suggestions, but first some comments on yours.
Your first paragraph on British travel narratives reminded me of something and I eventually tracked it down to our friend Alexander Smith. In 'On Vagabonds', one of his Dreamthorp Essays, he wrote about these creatures:
"The English are eminently a nation of vagabonds. The Englishman is ubiquitous. He shakes with fever and ague in the swampy valley of the Mississippi; he is drowned in the sand pillars as they waltz across the desert on the purple breath of the simoom; he stands on the icy scalp of Mont Blanc; his fly falls in the sullen Norwegian fiords; he invades the solitude of the Cape lion; he rides on his donkey through the uncausewayed Cairo streets. That wealthy people, under a despotism, should be travellers seems a natural thing enough. It is a way of escape from the rigors of their condition. But that England- where activity rages so keenly and engrosses every class; where the prizes of Parliament, literature, commerce, the bar, the church are hungered and thirsted after; where the stress and intensity of life ages a man before his time; where so many of the noblest break down in harness hardly halfway to the goal- should, year after hear, send off swarms of men to roam the world, and to seek out danger for the mere thrill and enjoyment of it, is significant of the indomitable pluck and spirit of the race. There is scant danger that the rust of sloth will eat into the virtue of English steel. The English do the hard work and the travelling of the world. The least revolutionary nation of Europe, the one with the greatest temptations to stay at home, with the greatest faculty for work, with perhaps the sincerest regard for wealth, is also the most nomadic. How is this? It is because they are a nation of vagabonds; they have the 'hungry heart' that one of their poets speaks about."
Smith's 'A Summer in Skye' is on my list.
A recent New Yorker had a very favorable profile of Patrick Leigh Fermor, as a man and writer.
You inspired me to start my previously unread copy of 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning'; it's delightful.
One of Noel Perrin's recommendations is 'Riding the Rails', by Michael Mathers, on the life of a hobo. (Another is 'When the Snow Comes They Will Take You Away', by Eric Newby.)
I've enjoyed a slim volume, 'Patagonia Revisited', which is essentially a dialogue between Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux, exploring early settlers and writers from, or influenced by, Patagonia.
I like H.M. Tomlinson's 'Gifts of Fortune (With Hints For Those About to Travel)' and the stories in David W. Bones's 'Broken Stowage'.
Thanks to Lady T for the Mercer recommendation and, Sarah, you've almost convinced me to try Alain de Botton.
Dan
# posted by 
: 5:04 PM
: 5:04 PM
The White Rock by Hugh Thomson; Overlook, 2001
Thomson's take should be read as an update to Bingham's The Lost City of the Incas, but is completely readable on its own. It's fantastic.
Thomson's take should be read as an update to Bingham's The Lost City of the Incas, but is completely readable on its own. It's fantastic.
# posted by : 11:40 PM
: 11:40 PM
Tim Moore's book, Grand Tour: The European Adventure of a Continental Drifter, in which he re-traces the route of the originator of the 'Grand Tour' Thomas Coryate, from England to Venice, in a broken down Rolls Royce is hilarious and filled with acutely perceptive social commentary.
# posted by : 1:03 PM
: 1:03 PM
So many travel books, so little time! Thanks for the great suggstions. Dan, I love the quote by Smith.
My favorite travel book is Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley (1897). Kingsley is completely unflappable in the face of crocodiles, leopards, cannibals, and tumbles into spiked pits (where she was saved by her corsets and petticoats!). Her wry tone is often hilarious.
I love Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sacks. Sacks traveled to Mexico with fellow fern enthusiasts and revealed his characteristic curiosity and gentle humanity in his journal.
I had fun reading Come Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan. This charming and funny book follows Christie's adventures in the desert of Iraq where she camped with her archaeologist husband (and did a spot of writing).
My favorite travel book is Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley (1897). Kingsley is completely unflappable in the face of crocodiles, leopards, cannibals, and tumbles into spiked pits (where she was saved by her corsets and petticoats!). Her wry tone is often hilarious.
I love Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sacks. Sacks traveled to Mexico with fellow fern enthusiasts and revealed his characteristic curiosity and gentle humanity in his journal.
I had fun reading Come Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan. This charming and funny book follows Christie's adventures in the desert of Iraq where she camped with her archaeologist husband (and did a spot of writing).
# posted by : 4:00 PM
: 4:00 PM
Thanks for the long reply, Dan, and for the wonderful quote. The Intrepid English... I just found a collection of Smith's poetry, I too would like to find "A Summer in Skye." I've read "Patagonia Revisited" and I have but have not read (YET) the Tomlinson book.
I also have but have not read (the shame, the shame) a biography of Hiram Bingham. It looks good! When will I get to it? Who knows... I've never heard of "The White Rock" but it's on my radar now.
I've read Tim Moore - I loved "The Grand Tour" and loved even more "French Revolutions" - his bike trip along the course of the Tour de France. Monty Python-esque, truly.
Vicky, you've got me with all of your selections, I have NONE. I've had the Agatha C.M. book before, and... sold it at the shop... I'll look for another.
Thanks for additions and suggestions, everyone, this is really fun... being a book geek is the best, isn't it?
I also have but have not read (the shame, the shame) a biography of Hiram Bingham. It looks good! When will I get to it? Who knows... I've never heard of "The White Rock" but it's on my radar now.
I've read Tim Moore - I loved "The Grand Tour" and loved even more "French Revolutions" - his bike trip along the course of the Tour de France. Monty Python-esque, truly.
Vicky, you've got me with all of your selections, I have NONE. I've had the Agatha C.M. book before, and... sold it at the shop... I'll look for another.
Thanks for additions and suggestions, everyone, this is really fun... being a book geek is the best, isn't it?
Another note for Dan: I came across the word "tryst" this week, while reading Gene Logsdon's book "You Can Go Home Again." Here is the quote: "Along every trail and every road were places where little events important to me had happened - trysting places, tiny adventures that shaped or influenced my life in some small or large way. This was home, and it was so vast and deep and high and wide that I could never tire of it." (p.203) A lovely book about living the way you truly want to live.
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