Customer Reviews

The Best American Travel Writing 2001

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anyone who's read Paul Theroux's travel books - "The Old Patagonian Express," "The Happy Isles of Oceania" - knows he's not in it for the fun. His selections for the best travel pieces of 2000 (for this 2001 edition), reflect his seriousness of purpose, his sense of place and his eye for quality writing. "It is not about vacations," he states in his introduction, and explains, "travel writing at its best relates a journey of discovery that is frequently risky and sometimes grim and often pure horror, with a happy ending: to hell and back."

This book is not about places you want to go to. It's about the world, much of it remote, in its workaday, sometimes hostile, raiment. Taken from a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, presented in alphabetical order (with contributor notes in the back), these essays consider the reflective traveler's relation to unfamiliar places, people, and events.

There are contemplative journeys: Russell Banks' strange encounter at the top of the Andes; Scott Anderson's brotherly competition for dangerous destinations; Lawrence Millman's lighthearted sojourn on the Mediterranean island of Pantelleria; Janet Malcolm's search for Chekhov in the places he wrote about; Edward Said's grim "Paradise Lost," recalling his idyllic childhood in the Lebanese hills, now buried in rubble.

There are anthropological adventures like Gretel Ehrlich's long dog-sled hunt with the Inuit in Greenland and there are adventures touched with politics and history, like Philip Caputo's travels among the man-eating lions of Kenya, Tim Cahill's trip to Ecuador's erupting volcanoes (and their villages) and David Quammen's winter search for the wolves in post-communist Romania.

Journalistic pieces tell us the things we don't know, the things we should know. Michael Finkel's "Desperate Passage" places him among a leaky boatload of desperate Haitians hoping for America, and Susan Minot relates a tangled, ugly history as she introduces us to children kidnapped by rebels in Uganda. Andrew Cockburn visits the "new" Iran, Patrick Symmes searches out the guerrillas in Columbia. There are portraits of places, politics and loneliness like Peter Hessler's story of the inept burglar on the China/Korea border and Susan Orlean's portrait of Khao San Road in Bangkok.

In a category all its own is Salman Rushdie's eloquent, emotionally nuanced "A Dream of Glorious Return," the story of his first trip back to India since the publication of "The Satanic Verses" twelve years before. His 20-year-old son, Zafar (who has never read his father's books) accompanies him and Rushdie, ebullient with homecoming rapture, attempts to see the country through Zafar's fresh (often appalled) perspective as well as his own. It's a piece full of joy and sadness and political tension, beautifully told.

There is humor in many of these pieces but hilarity is not Theroux's first interest. These essays will appeal to those looking for an armchair view of the world's niches, many of them ugly. Without exception the writing is clear and vivid, and the writer's eye intelligent and unpretentious.

Last year's "Best American Travel Writing" was a very, very satisfying collection; I have read it twice, have placed it on my "permanent" bookshelf, and constantly recommend it to friends who are ardent nonfiction readers and/or travelers. This 2001 volume is enjoyable but not as well balanced. The 2000 edition had its share of serious and sometimes even searing and terrifying articles, but those entries were leavened by a few sidesplittingly funny ones. Since my favorite travel experiences have been guffaw-worthy (usually at my expense), I appreciated the inclusion of the humor. I'm a HUGE fan of Paul Theroux's fiction (especially "My Secret History" and "My Other Life," and some of his short stories and novellas), but not his travel books; while I would love to sit down with Paul and talk for hours about books, the idea of traveling with him is about as appealing as spending a week on the road with my aged and increasingly whiney Aunt Sally. So perhaps that explains my respect for but RELATIVE lack of enthusiasm for this collection. Taken separately, each article is compelling; but put together, this is a somewhat somber collection. Having said that, I must urge you to buy this book--each entry is worthy of a careful reading and will expand your knowledge of the world.

BUYER BEWARE - especially if you are purchasing this Audio CD to supplement or replace reading the book. NOT ALL ESSAYS FROM THE BOOK ARE ON THIS AUDIO CD.
They have annoyingly used the book table of contents in the photo for this audio CD, and they state "unabridged" in the listing.
Technically, each of the essays CHOSEN are unabridged, but the book itself has been abridged from about 26 essays to only 11 chosen for the CD.
The Audio CD should be more clear in stating how much the material in the book is omitted. "Unabridged" should refer to the book compared to the CD, not describing the individual pieces within the abridged work. That's the equivalent of abridging a novel and saying "Well, only 5 of the novel's 10 chapters are included, but each chapter is written in its entirety."

This is the specific listing under which I purchased this audio CD:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618155686/ref=oss_product

Thankfully I was purchasing the CD as a supplement to the book, not in place of it, or I would not have known I was missing more than half the pieces. As I've been reading the book, they definitely missed a couple of nice ones if they were picking "the best" of this "best of" collection for the audio cd.

This tactic of taking less than half of a book for audio CD's and having the gall to call it "unabridged" in the listing should be an illegal move, false advertising and if the best I can do is give it only 1 star for false advertising, lousy selection of the whole, then I at least can offer that.

BUYER BEWARE.

I enjoyed the volumes before and after this one immensely, and only bought this one with reluctance. I was correct in my misgivings.

While many of the pieces are quite good, I did find a monotonous repetition in the style of the pieces. Hearty adventurer finds some remote location, undertakes a manly man's activity (even when a woman) and reports on it with an affected sarcasm or wryness or ennui style. Ho-hum. Doesn't Theroux write entire books like this? Maybe I've just read too much of his works to like the derivatives.

Thankfully, I skipped those pieces to read the good ones (even good ones that fit the above mode -- like Philip Capute's piece about looking for lions while on safari). Those jewels made me glad to buy this volume, even though I skipped the bulk of the pieces.

Of course, if you LIKE gonzo-style travel writing, then this is the volume for you. Buy it and enjoy.

I like travel literature, and I've enjoyed Paul Theroux's books, so I thought I'd try this book. I read the 2000 version of Best American Travel literature, which really reflects Bill Bryson's writing style. And true to my expectations, this version reflects Paul Theroux's style. The articles are more political, more edgy, more depressing, just like Theroux. It's superb writing though, while not always light, so you should expect to take on some of the more 'heady' travel topics in this volume. Theroux really has stuck to his own style in choosing the stories that make up this book. A really good set of stories though.

This was a quite enjoyable audiobook,
especially the Salman Rushdie bit.

I think the 2000 edition was slightly better,
but then again, I love BILL BRYSON.

This edition was more cerebral, less comedic.
Nevertheless, it was good, really good.

I'm givin' it 5 stars, to even up the odds.
a one-star slam this book deserves not.

What is there to add here? It's the best from last year. Some of the essays were about things I didn't care about, like a tedious thing on wine, but I just skipped those. The ones I was into, I was really into.

Simply wish to say item arrived in acceptable amount of time and was in good condition. I'm very happy to have access to the purchase of difficult-to-find items.