The Best American Travel Writing 2003 [Paperback]

Jason Wilson (Editor), Ian Frazier (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2003 | Series: Best American Travel Writing

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundred of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.
More and more readers are discovering the pleasures of armchair travel through the hugely successful Best American Travel Writing, now in its fourth adventurous year. Journey through the 2003 volume from Route 66 to the Arctic; go deep into Poland's Tatra Mountains and through the wildest jungle in Congo. Selections this year are from equally far-flung sources, including Outside, Food & Wine, National Geographic Adventure, Potpourri, and The New Yorker.

Rebecca Barry Peter Canby Christopher Hitchens Kira Salak Andrew Solomon William T. Vollmann

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Travelers whose interest goes beyond the latest luxury hotel or high-end cruise line will adore this collection, since most of its essays concern unorthodox voyages. None come from travel magazines, although several were published by adventure magazines Outside and National Geographic Explorer. Guest editor Frazier's selections range from sidesplitting ("Pope on a Rope Tow" by Lisa Anne Auerbach, concerning John Paul II's Poland, published in Outside) to tragic (Tom Bissell's "Eternal Winter," about the death of the Aral Sea, printed in Harper's). The best pieces, such as Scott Carrier's "Over There" (also from Harper's), contain a good mixture of humor and misfortune. Some stories have precious little to do with travel, like Hank Stuever's excellent "Just One Word: Plastic," first printed in the Washington Post Magazine. Writing about the American relationship with credit-card debt, Stuever focuses on the town of Wilmington, Del., where he and millions of others send their interest payments every month. If there's a slant to the collection, it's environmental. Many of the pieces deal directly or tangentially with the degradation of a faraway ecosystem or the demise of a species on someone else's continent. As Frazier says in his introduction, he believes travel writing "is environmental by definition; the travel writer is unavoidably stuck with relating the sights and smells and general chaos he or she happens to find." The book's loose definition of the travel genre means it will appeal to any reader who enjoys high-quality nonfiction.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This fourth entry in the excellent series benefits from guest editor Frazier's (On the Rez, 1999) subversive definition of what constitutes travel writing. Here are blistering stories on slavery, environmental pollution, and privation. As Kira Salak says, in "Mungo Made Me Do It," which describes her 600-mile harrowing kayak trip down the Niger River to Timbuktu, "It is such a kind yet cruel world. Such a vulnerable world. I'm astounded by it all." And it is a cruel world Tom Bissell describes in "Eternal Winter," about how the destruction of the Aral Sea has led to ecological catastrophe and a sickened population. Other pieces are lighter in tone. In "I Am Fashion," Michael Specter gives us Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs in Paris. The rap impresario, while on trial for a shooting, spent his evenings sketching designs for clothing that would make him a major player in the fashion world. This is travel writing that not only presents bracing visions of far-flung places but also shows more familiar locations in a bizarre new light. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 358 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; First Edition edition (October 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618118829
• ISBN-13: 978-0618118823
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #516,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)