A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration (Travelers' Tales) [Paperback]

Michael Shapiro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 2004 | Series: Travelers' Tales

Great writers inspire readers to head out in search of foreign sunsets, but in this instance, they inspired travel writer Michael Shapiro to head out for the great writers themselves. A Sense of Place is one writer's journey to visit all the heroes who have motivated him — to pack a pen and toothbrush, to find out where they live, why they chose the place, and how it influences their writing. In each scene, readers, writers, and travelers are given a glimpse of the locale and surroundings of the writer: Simon Winchester's Massachusetts, Redmond O'Hanlon's London, Jan Morris's Wales, or Frances Mayes's Tuscany. But then it's left up to the writers themselves to situate the reader and describe their lives, their craft, and their remarkable world, which they do with living room intimacy. The result is engaging, illuminating, and transporting for writers and travelers alike.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Shapiro (Internet Travel Planner) says that he embarked on this collection of illuminating interviews with the desire to learn more about his favorite authors, about "their lives, their hopes, their aspirations, and their thoughts about the world." He set out to meet publishing veterans such as Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods), Jan Morris (Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere), Paul Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar) and Peter Matthiessen (The Snow Leopard), writers whose insights do indeed make for fascinating reading. But Shapiro’s discussions with novelist Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits) and guidebook gurus Rick Steves and Arthur Frommer prove equally enlightening. In the chapter "At Home with the Spirits," for example, Allende talks about the ways in which travel informs and influences her work. She likens the memories someone keeps from a trip to the significant details that get included in a particular story: "The person doesn’t bring back the month; the person brings back the big strokes, the brilliant colors, the intense experiences, and in a week you have forgotten how uncomfortable you were and the mosquitoes. You only remember those things that eventually you might write about." Conversations such as these help Shapiro’s book live up to its ambitious title. By combining brief profiles with lengthy Q&As for each author, he provides a comprehensive look at the process these and other writers often go through, making the volume a good choice for both armchair travelers and aspiring writers.
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Review

Big-minded, big-hearted, progressive and compassionate. -- San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 19, 2004

Hearing some of the great travel writers talk about their craft is certainly instructive for readers and writers alike. -- New York Times Book Review, Dec. 5, 2004

I enjoyed "A Sense of Place" down to the last drop. This is a wonderful book... a fascinating read. -- Keith Bellows, National Geographic Traveler

Illuminating, entertaining, and insightful. -- Chicago Tribune, Oct. 3, 2004

Shapiro functions as a less long-winded Charlie Rose, seeming to know the books as well as their authors do. -- The Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2004

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: Travelers' Tales (August 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932361081
• ISBN-13: 978-1932361087
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!, December 15, 2004

By 

M. Lynch (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration (Travelers' Tales) (Paperback)

This is a fantastic book. I am a fan of the genre of travel writing, but what this book makes clear is that these authors are splendid writers, period. One longs to be in Jan Morris's Welsh cottage as Shapiro conducts his interview, or sipping Chinese tea with Simon Winchester on his farm in Massachusetts. These writers are fascinating people and great conversationalists. I also appreciate the fact that Shapiro introduced me to authors I was not familiar with, such as Sara Wheeler and Brad Newsham, and whose books I cannot wait to now read. "A Sense of Place" is a rare treat, and would be a great gift for any reader.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'll Never View Travel in the Same Way, September 12, 2004

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration (Travelers' Tales) (Paperback)

I guess I had never thought of travel writing as a genre. Sure there are biographers, mystery writers, text book writers and all the others. And come to think of it, when I wanted to go somewhere on vacation I would sometimes go down to the book store and pick up something about the place I was visiting. I guess that I never though about how these books got written.

Michael shapiro has changed my view. In this book he reports on visiting eighteen travel writers and getting them to talk about their lives, their profession, and their industry. These authors lead a different kind of life. I've travelled a lot on business, and the travel part of it is an unavoidable evil, cramped airplane seats, a never ending string of airports that all look much the same, an uncertainty as to the hotel, the money, the culture. For these writers, the travel is the end in itself. Well, almost. You still have to do the writing after you've done the travel. After reading this book, I'll never look at travel the same way. The people Mr. Shapiro interviews are a delightful and eclectic group, and very fascinating.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating, provocative look into great writers' lives, September 4, 2004

By 

An appreciative reader (San Francisco, Calif. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration (Travelers' Tales) (Paperback)

This book sparkles with wonderful stories and insights. By traveling to the homes of so many of the world's leading travel writers, "A Sense of Place" author Michael Shapiro gives us glimpses into how these writers see the world, how they write so beautifully, and how they achieve their success.

At first I was envious of Shapiro -- he somehow convinced just about every top travel writer (Bill Bryson, Frances Mayes, Paul Theroux, Simon Winchester, Tim Cahill, Arthur Frommer and many others) to invite him to their homes for a conversation. But that envy disappeared as I went along with him to Frances Mayes's Tuscan villa, to Jan Morris's sturdy Welsh stone home, and to Isabel Allende's hilltop abode overlooking San Francisco Bay.

Among my favorite conversations was the one with Arthur Frommer, who started out as a copy boy as Newsweek, wrote the first version of "Europe on $5 a Day" as a pocket guide for GIs, and returned from the Army to work alongside Adlai Stevenson at a top New York law firm where he defended "Lady Chatterley's Lover" against pornography charges.

I also loved hearing Morris discuss accompanying the 1953 Everest expedition as a reporter for the London Times and getting the news to London just in time for the coronation of the queen. I was intrigued by the Pico Iyer chapter - as someone who was born in England to Indian parents and moved to California and then to Japan, he's a citizen of nowhere and everywhere and seems at home wherever he goes. And Shapiro's introduction to the Paul Theroux chapter ("Will the real Paul Theroux please stand up") is spot on.

A nice touch is that the book features short excerpts from each of these author's books, so I could chuckle at anecdotes from Bill Bryson's books while reading the Bryson interview, and get a sense of Redmond O'Hanlon's style while reading that chapter.

As I concluded "A Sense of Place," I realized that the book is more than a collection of interviews; it's an appreciation by the author, a young travel writer, for his literary heroes. He manages to weave the story of his own journeys throughout the book while keeping the writers at the forefront. This is a book to which I'll return again and again over the years.