25 Essential Books about Americans in Paris

The list, care of Flavorwire.

Are Travel Guidebooks Dead? Spoiler Alert: No.

The Huffington Post offers some reasons why they're better than what you get on your device.

From the post...


Paper Maps
Ebook maps are hopeless. The format just doesn't lend itself to usable maps. Once cached, Google maps on a smartphone or tablet are convenient but don't quite replace a good paper map with a map key that locates important highlights and is easy to annotate. If I need directions (as I surely will), I'm more comfortable whipping out a paper map on a busy street than asking a stranger to pour over my tablet. In fact, just taking out the map can attract a helpful local. 

Easier to Use
Unlike a novel which is read sequentially, using a travel guide involves a lot of jumping around. Flipping through paper pages or turning to a good index to find what you're looking for is easier than the tapping, searching and bookmarking in an ebook. Should I visit this village or that village? In a guidebook, I can put a finger on one page while reading another, easily comparing the two places. Not so in an ebook, let alone an app. And, it's still useful to hand-write a notation, cross out a phone number or circle an essential sight.

Great Books about Wandering the City

The list, care of Flavorwire.

3 Books on the True Nature of Paris

The list, care of NPR.

Innocent and Abroad: Mark Twain and the Art of Travel Writing

In the end, travel books -- or personal essays -- are doomed. Try to describe the gorilla and you fail. Words are never enough, and most will ultimately be forgotten. And if that gorilla is a man? Maybe better not to have begun at all.

From a piece on the Millions...

Not long ago, I lived in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where I wrote stories about, among other topics, a meet-up of Twitter users, a dire sandstorm that befell a mixed-gender rock show, a tour of one of Riyadh’s oldest hotels, and what happens when the most Islamic country in the world attempts to hold a festival to “celebrate culture.”

I was young and proud and eager to share my work. So every month or so, I’d send out an email to friends and associates with a link to my latest. Not too many complained. Some, apparently, even enjoyed what I sent.

But among my harshest critics was a writer friend, who in a scorching series of emails said mine was this obnoxious, privileged gaze, that in every description of Saudi lives, I mainly revealed that I wanted Saudis to grow up and be good democratic Westerners — which was an impossible goal, he said, because good democratic Westerners are monsters who started wars and were a menace to the whole world.

Years later, I lived in Beirut, where I was still writing stories. As part of an effort to do better this time, I began to read The Innocents Abroad, a record of traveling by Mark Twain.

As a traveler, I had always written earnestly about my observations. Twain, it seemed, was all too eager to write wryly about his own ignorance. There was probably a lot I could learn.

My Favorite Travel Book

Named by some of the world's foremost travel writers.

The Lost Art of Postcard Writing

I'm not entirely sure it's an art form, but, alas, sending postcards is going the way of the dodo. NOOOO!!!

From an article in the New York Review of Books...

Unlike letter writing, there never has been, and there never could be, an anthology of the best of postcard writing, because when people collect postcards, it’s usually for reasons other than their literary qualities. If there was such a book, I’m sure it would contain hundreds of anonymous masterpieces of this minimalist art, since unlike letters, cards require a verbal concision that can rise to high level of eloquence: brief and heart-breaking glimpses into someone’s existence, in addition to countless amusing and well-told anecdotes. Now and then one encounters in antique shops and used book stores boxes full of old postcards valued for their antiquity, their images and their stamps. The writing found on them most often tends to be in faded ink and hard to read. To anyone with plenty of time on their hands, I recommend reading a bunch of them. Postcards continued to be used by people of modest means to convey important family news long after telephones ceased to be a novelty. I once came across one that said:

Francis Brown died last night, funeral on Tuesday.

That was all there was. The image on the other side of the card was of a famous race horse from 1920s, so I immediately pictured Mr. Brown with a straw hat, a cane in his gloved hand and carnation in his lapel, stopping for a beer in a saloon before catching the streetcar to go to the track in Boston or San Francisco.

So, dear reader, if you happen, on your daily rounds, to come across in a coffee shop or a restaurant some poor soul sitting alone over a postcard and visibly struggling with what to write, take pity on him or her. They are the last of a species, and are almost certainly middle aged or elderly, already nervous and worried about all the problems older people face in this country.

Manuscript Stolen from a Spanish Cathedral

Time Magazine takes note of the theft of the priceless one-of-a-kind Codex Calixtinus.

From the piece...

The illuminated Codex was apparently removed from the cathedral archives on July 5 and reported missing to police the following day. At a press conference on Thursday, the cathedral deacon, José María Díaz, said that only he and two other archivists had access to the manuscript and that one of them had last seen the document on June 30 or July 1. Although the Codex was taken without signs of forced entry, Díaz said, "We have been victims of a terrible attack."

Written in the mid-1100s under the auspices of Pope Calixtus II, the Codex is about the apostle St. James, whose remains are believed to have miraculously washed up on the coast of northwestern Spain. The town that houses his tomb, which became known as Santiago de Compostela (Santiago means "St. James" in Spanish), was transformed in the Middle Ages into a major pilgrimage site — the third most important, after Jerusalem and Rome — for Christians from all over Europe. Indeed, book five of the Codex is a sort of a Michelin guide to Santiago, helpfully instructing pilgrims on the best routes to take and the poisonous rivers to avoid. "It is one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages and of incalculable value," says Jesus Tanco, a St. James expert at the University of Navarra.

Great Essay about Bad Travel

Flavorwire has compiled a nice list of travel essays, here.

Is Travel Writing Dead?

Not quite.

Between cellphones, Google Earth, and jumbo jets, it seems there's nowhere in the world left to explore, but Malcolm Jones says, for the Daily Beast, that new books by Paul Theroux and John Gimlette prove that travel books still have something to tell us.

From the story...

This raises the unsettling question, is the grand era of travel writing dead? If it is, it had a good, long life, beginning with Sir Walter Raleigh's glowing prospectus for the New World and then thriving for the better part of four centuries. The men and women who defined the form—the Burtons, Von Humboldts, and Meads—were explorers, pioneers, and scientists bent on discovery. That any of them could write was just our good luck. And if the tradition is dead or in decline, it will not be because there are no longer such people but because their subject matter is literally running out. Google Maps is not the problem but merely a symptom of how overrun the world has become (Read Paul Theroux's take on our shrinking planet). You can still risk your life retracing Henry Morton Stanley's exploration of the Congo River, but only Stanley could do it first and then break the story.

Until well into the last century, the adventurers and naturalists who went out and came back with fabulous stories—the Wallaces, Starks, Apsley-Gerrards, and Matthiessens—were explorers almost in the same sense that Marco Polo was an explorer. Until then, there were plenty of places and people yet to be found and written about. People read travel books almost like news stories, for the fresh information they revealed about exotic climes and customs. After all, until the advent of the car and the airplane, most people simply did not get out much or go very far when they traveled—the travel book predates the travel guidebook by several centuries. But in an age where you can book a trip almost anywhere, from Angkor Wat to Antarctica, when China alone is in the process of building some 250 new airports, the world shrinks by the day, and so does the possible itinerary of the travel writer itching to go off the map.

The Tao of Travel

In a new book, The Tao of Travel, Paul Theroux has distilled his experience as a traveller and reader. From the Telegraph, he considers great feats – from swimming the Panama Canal to riding through the Americas – that have given rise to memorable books.

From the piece...

There is a strong urge to conquer the dreadful forces of nature, and perhaps to get consciousness of ourselves, of life, and of the shadowy workings of our human minds. Physical capacity is the only limit. I have tried to tell how, and when, and where. But why? That is a mystery.”

Maybe there is an answer. When I was preparing to write the introduction to the American edition of Alone, Gérard d’Aboville’s account of his single-handed journey rowing across the Pacific, I pressed d’Aboville on his reasons for making this dangerous voyage. He became silent. After a long while he said, “Only an animal does useful things. An animal gets food, finds a place to sleep, tries to keep comfortable. But I wanted to do something that was not useful – not like an animal at all. Something only a human being would do.”

What separates some feats from others is the way the tale is told. Sir Richard Burton’s book about how he, an infidel, travelled to Mecca in disguise is a classic.

Summer Fiction: Around the World in 24 Books

Argentinian thrillers, Tuscan farce, love in the Australian outback. Wherever you're jetting off to this summer, there's a story to suit your surroundings. Some suggestions, care of the Telegraph.

The Best Books for the Armchair Traveler

The list, care of Flavorwire.

"Travels with Charley" a Bunch of Hooey?

Quite possibly.

The New York Times does a reality check with Steinbeck's famous work.

From the article...

Early on in the book, for example, Steinbeck has a New England farmer talking in folksy terms about Nikita S. Khrushchev’s shoe-pounding (or -brandishing, depending on whom you ask) speech at the United Nations weeks before Khrushchev actually visited the United Nations. A particularly unlikely encounter occurs at a campsite near Alice, N.D., where a Shakespearean actor, mistaking Steinbeck for a fellow thespian, greets him with a sweeping bow, saying, “I see you are of the profession,” and then proceeds to talk about John Gielgud.

Even Steinbeck’s son John said he was convinced that his father never talked to many of the people he wrote about, and added, “He just sat in his camper and wrote all that [expletive].”

In the current issue of the libertarian monthly Reason, Bill Steigerwald, a former journalist for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, writes that not only is the meeting with the actor made up, but on the evening in question, Oct. 12, Steinbeck wasn’t anywhere near Alice. He was in Beach, N.D., more than 300 miles to the west, staying not in the camper but in a motel.

According to Mr. Steigerwald, Steinbeck stayed in motels a lot — when he wasn’t at luxury hotels. On a night when he supposedly camped out on a farm near Lancaster, N.H., Steinbeck was actually at the Spalding Inn, a hotel so fancy that he had to borrow a coat and tie to eat in the dining room.

Ten Books about Places You'll Never Visit

The list, care of Flavorwire.

Travel Writing Round-Up

Travel writing isn't what if used to be.

Actually, travel writing is dead.

Check that, travel writing lives.

Book Your Trip

The great Nancy Pearl, for NPR, highlights some must read travel books.

Drive-By Shooting

The New Yorker celebrates Matt Dellinger's new book, Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway, a book, I do believe, that I'd want to write and, now, at the very least, read.

Tall Tales and Fictious Voyages

The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers takes note of travel books, rare and extraordinary.

From the piece...

Mungo Park’s second voyage gave rise to a hoax perpetrated by a German publisher who would not wait for official news of this traveller. When nothing had been heard from Park for some time, he commissioned an unknown author to make up his own version of his (Park’s) demise and published it. This book is still often cited as a “true” account, even though in it Park is robbed and killed by natives in a stony desert – just about the very opposite to what actually happened to him.

The 19th century was the century of the scientific traveller and explorer. Cook had made the start by mapping the Pacific, Hedin set foot in Asia for the first time, the poles were being attempted. And then there was Africa, dark, mysterious and just waiting to be colonized and exploited. As always the hoaxers were there first. In 1832 a certain Douville published “Voyages au Congo et dans l’interieur de l’Afrique” in 3 volumes with an atlas. Most of the book was pure fantasy, with a few excerpts from older or unpublished writers thrown in.

The Don't Bother Travel Guide

Everyone wants to have a great vacation - see new places, visit with new people, have new experiences. But should that be at Seattle's fabled GUM WALL?!?! On NPR, they discuss Catherine Price's new book, 101 Places to Not See Before You Die.

From the story...

The Museum Of Tap Water, Beijing

In 2001, Price says, an edict was issued that required Beijing to open 150 new museums by 2008. Hence a museum devoted to the fascinating history of ... tap water.

The museum is full of artifacts from the early days of Bejing's tap water system, which dates back to 1908. On display are coupons that people brought to water stations to receive water, and stethoscopes that were used to detect leaks in the pipes.

The irony of the whole museum, Price says, "is that Beijing's water is not safe to drink from the tap."

A brief aside: 6 Places I Would Actually Really Like to Visit Before I Die...

1) Iceland
2) Ghana
3) Quebec City
4) New York City
5) South Africa
6) Peru