Travel literature, part 2, Updated 13 September 2016

Honourable mentions:

I reviewed several of these book on the original 52 Books blog. Unfortunately tBlog seems to have disabled the static links, so I can not link directly to the reviews. I’m working on a solution to this problem.

Polly Evans: It's Not About the Tapas.
Around Spain on a bicycle. Previously reviewed.

Christopher Sale Wren: The cat who covered the world: the adventures of Henrietta and her foreign correspondent.
The biography of Henrietta, who lived with her owners in such diverse places as Russia, Egypt and South-Africa. An unusual and beautifully told story which qualifies as “travel” because of all the different countries they lived in.

Talia Zapatos: A Journey of one’s own.
Part travel story collection, mostly travel guide and therefore not eligible for the main list.

Bill Bryson: Down Under.
Bryson in Australia. I didn’t much care for the other Bryson books I’ve read, but I liked this one.

Chris England: Balham to Bollywood.
Memoir of filming the epic, Oscar-winning movie Lagaan, where the author played one of the bad guys. Would not have enjoyed it half as much had I not seen the movie, and would have enjoyed it more if I knew anything about cricket.

Bad Trips (alternative title: Worst Journeys).
A collection of essays by professional writers about their worst travel experiences. Most have some humour in them, but a couple of them are really harrowing.

Traveller’s Tales from Heaven and Hell and More Traveller’s Tales from Heaven and Hell.
Two collections of short travel stories by various travellers from all over the world who participated in a competition on this subject.

William Dalrymple: The Road to Xanadu.
Tracing the route supposedly taken by Marco Polo on his epic journey to China.

I am currently reading Bill Holm´s Eccentric Islands, which I will probably not finish, finding Holm a bit too preachy; and Laurens van der Post’s First catch your eland, which is about my two favourite non-fiction subjects: food and travel.

TBR
*Rosemary Mahoney: The Early Arrival of Dreams: A Year in China.

*Peter Matthiassen: African Silences. I am treating this one for cigarette smoke poisoning and will read it when I no longer need to put on a gas mask to open it.
*Mark Twain’s travel books (and those of a couple of modern followers in his footsteps).
*Robert Lois Stevenson’s classic Travels with a donkey in the Cévennes
*Isabella Bird’s books.

*Marco Polo’s "Travels".

Originally in the TBR, now read:
*Isabella Bird: The Englishwoman in America. Liked parts of it but found other parts too dry.
*Alexandra David-Neel’s My Journey to Lhasa. Loved it. Favourites list.
*Theresa Maggio: The Stone Boudoir: In Search of the Hidden Villages of Sicily.
*Mary Morris: Nothing to Declare
*Eric Newby: A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.One of my favourites.
*Freya Stark: The Southern Gates of Arabia. Honourable mentions list.
*Thomas Stevens: Around the World on a Penny-farthing. Another interesting book that eventually did not make it onto either the favourites or honourable mentions list.
*Rosie Thomas: Border crossing: on the road from Peking to Paris. Not a favourite, but had some interesting points.
*Mark Twain: The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, A Tramp Abroad. Liked them all, honourable mentions list.

The “Most Wanted” list:
*Anne Mustoe: Lone Traveller: One Woman, Two Wheels and the World

*Books by Freya Stark, Dervla Murphy, Jan Morris, Polly Evans

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...

Anonymous said…

I love Paul Theroux and Jan Morris, as far as travel writers go. Bill Bryson is without a doubt the most hilarious (not just In a Sunburned Country, but all his works). For its raunchy humour and snappy title and cover, try No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late, by Ayun Halliday. It's hysterical.

February 15, 2006 12:39 am

Bibliophile said…

Thanks for the recommendation. I will put it on my "to check out" list.
I have only read history books by Jan Morris (back from when she was still James) and found the style appealing. I'm looking forwards to reading some of her travel books.
As to Theroux, I agree he is a good writer, but I find him a bit too negative about people, almost misanthropic at times.
If you like humourous travel books, try Polly Evans and Tim Moore. Both have humour that has been likened to Bryson's.

February 15, 2006 8:50 am

Reading in Reykjavík

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