Customer Reviews

Wanderlust: Real-Life Tales of Adventure and Romance

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As the Business Travel host at BellaOnline.com, I ~highly~ recommend this book!

It's rare that I read a travel book. It's like taking a "busman's holiday" since I'm on the road 95% of the year but this book looked too funny not to buy!

What impressed me most with this book is that each author was able to put such simple truth into each story while injecting humor. I found that after reading the book... I learned a little more about the regions the authors traveled to and have realized how jaded we are in the US. There's not a simple drug store on every corner. Nor is there a need for the bright lights on every trip. Each experience is unique and described as such.

A very easy read that will have you laughing and learning!

Although the theme of Wanderlust is supposed to be the combination of travel and romance, editor Don George has chosen to define romance broadly. So while there are pieces here about conventional romance, such as Laura Fraser's Italian Affair, which she eventually expanded into a full-length book, there are also essays about love of books, of country, of food, and of travel itself. In other words, this is a garden-variety travel anthology. And it's a winner!

As with any anthology, you will enjoy some essays more than others. Some of my favorites were Taras Grescoe's Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder about drinking powerful absinthe in Spain, one of the few countries where it is still legally sold; How to Buy a Turkish Rug by Laura Billings about how the experience of haggling over a carpet was more important than the carpet itself; and Laura Fraser's Italian Affair, in which she actually pulls off the feat of writing the whole thing in the second person and makes it work.

Other outstanding entries include Tampax Nightmares by Susan Hack about finding tampons in countries that frown upon such evil devices; The Last Tourist in Mozambique by Mary Roach, who does yoga with the president; and Lisa Michaels's The Man Who Loved Books in Turkey about packing books for the journey and what happens to the books you leave behind.

I love to read anthologies, especially travel anthologies. You get to read some old favorites, read new pieces by authors you like, and discover new writers. Don George is always dependable as editor. In addition to this collection, try his A House Somewhere and The Kindness of Strangers.

"[I]f travel is like love, that is, in the end, mostly because it's a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity, and ready to be transformed."

So observes Pico Iyer at the end of his foreword to this magical collection, adding that the above is also the reason that "the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end. "Anyone who has traveled at least a bit, who has loved at least once, or who is ready to be transformed should read this book. High praise is due Don George and Salon.com for gathering such a stirring and tantalizing collection of writings together: in forty short pieces not one dull or sappy note is struck.

For romance, the standouts of this collection are Maxine Rose Schur's "Passionate and Penniless in Paris," about the time she spent with her husband living in a van by the Quai de la Tournelle; Simon Winchester's "Romance in Romania" where the Rolls Royce he happens to be driving brings both him and a young Romanian girl into a beautiful moment that takes its romance from its very fleetingness; Iyer's own short, musical "Bewitched in Bali"; "Fade Into Blue," written in the third person by Amanda Jones; and most memorable of all, Laura Fraser's "Italian Affair," one of the most personal pieces in the book, but written completely in the second person (let's just say it begins with "Let's say your husband leaves you" and ends with her discovery of "la bella vita").

Notable for their adventurous qualities are Bill Belleville's "Looking for Mr. Watson" in the heart of the Florida Everglades; Don Meredith's relaxed brush with death in "Sleeping With Elephants"; Jeffrey Tayler's not-so-relaxed brush with death in "Lost in the Sahara"; editor Don George's surprising fear of climbing Half-Dome in Yosemite while watching his 8- and 10-year-old children scamper up like squirrels--he not afraid for them, he's jealous of them; and Susan Hack's humorous "Tampax Nightmares."

Of course romance and adventure are not mutually exclusive, and many of the stories here exhibit both. The writers of SALON.COM'S WANDERLUST convey the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feel of the places they go--both externally and inside their own heads. The reader is transported to all seven continents and several states of being (drunk on absinthe, crashing a motorcycle while on heroin, eating the ambrosial sauces of the Memphis World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest). It will be hard to read just a quarter of these stories and not want to make your plane reservations, stuff a new notebook into your backpack and just go.

I've been a fan of Salon.com for about a year, particularly their dearly departed Travel section. One or two of the stories in this book, I remembered reading from the online column, but they were surprising and entertaining in a second read. A book of short stories by various authors should be diverse and each story should be somewhat different, but still cohesive enough to hold together under a single theme. This book manages to do that excellently through it's theme of wanderlust. The concept of wanderlust, of desiring to go on a journey that puts you outside your everday life and opens your horizons, is thoroughly elucidated in this work. Reading this book will make you want to travel to distant lands. I highly recommend it.

This is is a must-have for anyone who likes traveling and the halarity that usually goes with it. Each of the stories takes a different direction so it never becomes tedious. The writing is diverse but usually very good.

The item about African writing is an excellent source for other books, new and old, of memoirs of traveling in Africa, not travel guides.

Travel books are the only books I make time to read these days and I read about 30 of them a year. I've just finished this one and have put it on my top ten list. I used to read Wanderlust in salon all the time and was sad to see it go. I was thrilled as hell to see an anthology of the best of Wanderlust. Pico Iyer and Laurie Gough are my favorite in this collection. I don't think I'll be able to sleep for a week after Laurie Gough's ghost story in Greece. The question now is, should I go to Naxos to find out if her story's true?

I finished Wanderlust yesterday, and in reading Joe Haschka's review, he picked out both my favorite essays in this collection and the ones I found insufferable. There were several essays I thought were very good, and several that I wondered why they made it into the collection. I also didn't finish the essay on Africa travel writing-it read more like a second-grade college paper than a travel essay.

Salon's "Wanderlust" section was always my favorite part of Salon -- even more so than "Sex":). This book is a marvelous collection of authentic writing, and answers the kinds of questions good travel writing asks -- what is it like to be drinking absinthe in Spain? to be penniless and in love in Paris? to be a cynic at Club Med? to try to stay sober in Thailand?

This is armchair travel at its very best.

This book, like everything that comes out of Salon.com, is fun, has a youthful vibe and is full of interesting essays. The only reason I didn't give it a five is that, as an inveterate traveller, the essays were too short, and there were too few places covered. But the writing is HOT. And the stories are memorable.

I quite enjoy travel stories, and this collection is a fun read. I dipped in now and then. Some of the stories are sublime, while others are just so-so. Well worth a read though.