Customer Reviews

The Best American Travel Writing 2006 (The Best American Series)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is a little bit hard to review this book because I have read most of the series and like them all. This is no exception and I thought that there are a few things that I can add.
As always a good/great selection of material and most/all are great reads. As has been stated elsewhere if you do not like one, you can skip it. However, I never skip a story. I sort of think that I might not finish one, but then I do and am glad that I did.
Not only do I like the stories, but I think of the book as a study guide for an aspiring travel writer. Thus far I have limited my travel writing by sneaking it into other nonfiction wrting that I do (I recommend this technique). I may never seriously go down the travel writting road, but the idea helps me notice things that I might not otherwise.
Here is a specific tip. Be sure to read the forematter of the book--the foreword and introduction. They are good reading too.
One small point. Compared to the others in the series that I have read, this edition would have to qualify for an R rating because of the story about prostitution in Costa Rica. I liked the story--and you can, of course, skip it if you do not like it--but I fell obligated to mention it. There was one other place (that I forget right now) that made me think the same thing about R rating.
As soon as I finished this book, I went out and bought one from the sports series!

Travel writing, in this annual "Best of" series, has nothing to do with vacationing. Well, almost nothing.

GQ sends the very witty George Saunders to wallow in some of the most excessive luxury resorts in the most decadent and opulent city in the Middle East (the world?), Dubai. And the equally entertaining Calvin Trillin goes to Ecuador for Easter to eat the traditional Holy Week soup, fanesca, and practice his Spanish idioms.

But most of these lively, first person stories express only the most glancing acquaintance with "vacation" as we know it.

Some are profiles, like Kevin Fedarko's ride down the rapids of the Grand Canyon with writer, conservationist and outdoorsman Martin Litton, still an opinionated, controversial adventurer at 87.

Several deal with the specifics of air travel, including a typically hilarious, squirmy ordeal from David Sedaris, Sally Shivnan's lyrical view of flying cross country in a window seat and P. J. O'Rourke's humorous and informative portrait of France's Airbus A380.

Some are reflective, like Alain De Botton's appreciation of his native Zurich's essential, orderly bourgeoisie and Ian Frazier's journey from his small Ohio hometown to a hitchhiking epiphany when "I quit living in Hudson and began to live in the world."

Many take us to places we're unlikely to go. Qaddafi's Libya, for instance, where venturesome Kira Salak follows loosely, and sometimes nervously, in the footsteps of Scotsman Hugh Clapperton who explored Libya and crossed the Sahara in 1824, when it was rather a different place. Or Papua, New Guinea, where Michael Behar goes on a strange, uncomfortable tour to make "first contact" with undiscovered indigenous people.

Whether witty, clever, musing, or adventurous, what all these pieces have in common is an acute and reflective sense of observation and really good writing.

Like all the volumes in this series, the pieces are culled from a vast array of periodicals, including the Internet, but the final selection tends to be from major publications, like "The New Yorker," and "Outside." Series editor Wilson chooses his top 100 and the guest editor (Cahill) winnows it down to the last 25 or so. Cahill, a founding editor of "Outside" magazine, emphasizes "literate writing" and storytelling in his approach and the result is a provocative and fascinating portrait of some of the more interesting corners of the world.

-- Portsmouth Herald

I bought this book to supplement a travel writing course. I read many of the travel articles and found them interesting and well-written. It was especially helpful to read these articles without the pictures that must have accompanied many of them -- the writing for the most part was superb.

I picked this book for a recent trip as a change of pace from what I normally read -- non-fiction, science/tech/business/chess. I have read several other book in the "Best American" series - but this is my first in the "travel" category. I like these books because the articles are generally short -- and if you don't like on article, you just move on to the next.

So I was pleasantly surprised by the choice of articles made by the editor Tim Cahill (a best selling author and (LA Times) book reviewer himself). There is nothing worse than picking up one of these books and finding the editor is using it as a political soap-box or finding that it is terribly repetitive, etc... Not the case with this compilation! Cahill's choice of articles were varied and generally very well written. At least it is much better than the travel writing in airline magazines!

I wasn't able to travel this summer, so I was more or less stuck in my small town in the middle of Oklahoma. Luckily, a handful of well-chosen books escorted me to exotic--and some very familiar--ports of call, this book, 2006's Best American Travel Writing being one of the most memorable. This is a wonderfully diverse collection of writings, featuring what many of us think of as "exotic" travel narratives, as well as my favorite kind of travel writing, essays that question the nature of travel and what we learn in the process of leaving the familiar behind.

One of the gems of this collection is Alain de Botton's piece, "The Discreet Charm of the Zurich Bourgeoise." I, too, am fascinated by the comfortable, efficient towns and cities in the world, ones that are rarely tourist destinations, but are fascinating in their own, discreet way. This piece is very similar to his book, The Art of Travel, as he juxtaposes Pieter de Hooch's paintings and their seemingly unremarkable domestic world with his love for the sedate charms of Zurich. It won't appeal to the National Geographic type of tourist, but this is what makes travel writing such a vital genre to me--and why I buy books like this.

Other high points include Sean Flynn's portrayal of American sex tourists in Puerto Rico, Ian Frazier's beautiful memoir of small town Ohio, Michael Paterniti's remarkable piece about befriending a Ukranian giant, Kira Salak's tour of modern-day Libya, George Saunder's enthusiastic (and humorous) account of Dubai, and by far the most laugh-out loud selection of all, Christopher Solomon's "Let's Ski Korea," which is everything you expect and more.

I always delight in these Best American... volumes, and the Travel Writing remains my favorite to read and re-read. Tim Cahill did an amazing job in selecting these works, and I look forward to "traveling" in them whenever the simple pleasures of Ada, Oklahoma become rather less poetic.

No matter how your personal tastes run, it would be hard to find fault with this impressive collection of great writers at the top of their game. You've got Pico Iyer on a Japanese convenience store, P.J. O'Rourke on the largest commercial airplane in the world, Alain de Botton on why interesting people shouldn't need Zurich to be interesting for them, and David Sedaris hilariously covering his beef with a seatmate on a flight--coughdrop accidentally spit onto her lap and all.

This is an unsually varied collection that still manages to hit a home run far more often than most anthologies manage. George Saunders' GQ story on the have-nots and the super-haves of Dubai is like taking a walk on another planet. Caitlin Flanigan's New Yorker story about a huge hotel complex in Hawaii is a keen-eyed, honest, and downright funny critique of the expensive mega-resort concept--"The Price of Paradise." Christopher Solomon runs down the Korean ski experience in a piece from Ski magazine. Sean Flynn looks into the seedy underbelly of Costa Rica's sex tourism trade. Tad Friend rides around Oman with Tony and Maureen Wheeler, founders of the Lonely Planet empire. Michael Paterni spends time with a different kind of giant: an 8-foot Ukranian man living in a little village with no plumbing. And on it goes, one quirky surprise after another, usually highly entertaining or full of new insights we haven't read a dozen times already somewhere else.

Those who love Cahill's work will be happy to find some "writer tests the limits" adventure travel too, whether it's by camel through Libya, by sailing ship around the world, or being the first Western Whities to cross through an old Silk Road pass in Afghanistan.

This is a collection of essays that captures the joy, the wonder, and the irony of travel in the world we live in now.

Travel wrting is a special skill and the editor has chosen what I consider the best of last year's articles. I found the writing style and content of these articles show the special talents of these writers.

I really do love the Best American Travel Writing series. This is the third or fourth I have read, and I look forward to reading them all (in my heart at least). In fact, Houghton Mifflin's entire Best series is well worth my reading time. Still, despite all that, this was not my favorite one of the bunch. This editor seemed to favor more adrenaline-filled and visceral pieces, whereas I guess my taste runs more towards thoughtful stuff. Also, there are a few pieces in here I could have very much done without, such as overrated David Sedaris's little throwaway item and the often-a-bit-dull Ian Frazier's reminiscences of growing up in an Ohio town (that is travel writing?)

Of course there were still brilliant pieces in here that make the book well worth reading, and in no way out of date. Michael Behar's "The Selling of the Last Savage" is a must-read, that is all that can be said about it. Paul Bennett's wry look back on giving up everything to sale around the world should likewise not be missed. Tad Friend's profile of Lonely Planet honcho Tony Wheeler is a fascinating portrait that supposedly is the basis of a movie that is in development. P.J. O'Rourke's piece demonstrates very clearly why he is one of the most popular humor writers at work today, and Tony Perrottet's piece also had me laughing out loud and looking up his books on Amazon. Kira Salak's visit to her ancestral homeland of Libya is another trip you will want to hear about, as is George Saunders dizzying and satirical look at the splendors of Dubai. In "Airborne" Sally Shivnan applies superb prose skills to something this reviewer has done a fair amount of himself, looking out an airplane window. So it may not be the best of the series, but there are still plenty of reasons for fans of good travel writing to give this book a try.

I have read two stories in this book so far and they are both intriguing. This book is filled with various stories by multiple writers who are all talented. I bought the book for an internet course that I am enrolled in but I will keep the book after the semester is through because it is entertaining. I can't afford to travel right now but some of the stories in this book will take me around the world in the comfort of my own home. Plus I got a really great deal with the purchase from Amazon dot com. Wish that I had known about this site sooner, I could have saved even more money with the previous books that I bought for classes.

I bought this anthology based on the strength of its user reviews on Amazon and LibraryThing, plus my positive experiences with another title in the series The Best American Science and Nature Writing. However I had serious trepidations, after all isn't modern travel writing mostly just light touristic pieces found in `Reader's Digest` or the local newspaper, barely hidden attempts at selling us packaged vacations? Was I ever wrong and pleasantly surprised, the 2006 collection turns out to be one of the best books I've read this year. There are 26 essays and not one is bad, they are all fantastic and at least 4 of them are classics. Normally in anthologies like this I'm happy when a third are favorited enough to mark the page for re-reading later, but here it's almost 100%; marking the pages is superfluous.

The guest editor for 2006 is Tim Cahill, founder and editor of `Outside` magazine, so it is perhaps not surprising that, as a professional editor of a magazine that caters to travel writing, he was like a Saudi Sheik with unlimited funds on a shopping spree in Paris, able to pick and choose from the best the world has to offer, the only limit being 320 pages. But how does he pick the "best"? "In choosing pieces for this anthology", he says, "I've looked for the best *stories* I could find", [emphasis added] - clarifying what he means by story, "if I can't find a story, I often feel I'm being beaten over the head with an encyclopedia. Stories are the sole written instrument that can bring tears to our eyes, or make us laugh.. and they are more fun to read. Story is of the essence. " This collection then is a testament to Cahill's ideal of travel writing as story, and it succeeds brilliantly. Cahill also posits that America is currently in a "Golden Age" of travel writing and after reading this collection I might agree.

If you read only one travel writing anthology this would be an ideal place to start. Even if your not interested in travel writing as a genre, most of these pieces were not written as strictly travel writing, or for traditional travel magazines. The articles are mostly by well established and known journalists and novelists and non-fiction authors in top-tier magazines like `National Geographic`, `The New Yorker`, `GQ` and others. I look forward to reading more from this series, but based on admittedly shallow investigations of user reviews, none of the other volumes in the series look as good as this one. Perhaps 2005 was just a very good year for travel writing, perhaps Cahill has an unusually good talent for picking the best articles, or perhaps since this is my first experience with the series, and my initial low expectations - whatever the case this volume will be revisted in later years and has earned a satisfying place on my bookshelf.