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The best travel books are their own form of transportation...whether you are actually planning to travel or you're just dreaming of an adventure.
Here's the place to discuss books that send you on journeys across distance and time.
Travel books are one of my favorite genres ever! It's the first section I go to in any bookstore.
The last one I read God's Middle Finger by Richard Grant was great to read because I knew I'd never go where he was. This took place in the Sierra Madre region where all the lawless Mexicans and drug dealers now live, where the outlaws would go to when they left the States. It's a rough area and the book was good though it got a little repetitive towards the end. Still it was an interesting read and I can scratch off one area of the world to visit.
LizzieD
Member
I'm just about to finish a Virago/Beacon Traveler, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella Bird who took an interpreter with her in the summer of 1878 and set off to visit the Ainu (Ainos). I have thoroughly enjoyed her detailed observations of her adventure and have nothing but respect for this intrepid little woman. She writes about crossing a flooded river, "The coolness with which the Aino guide took to the water without giving us any notice that its broad, eddying flood was a swim, and not a ford, was very amusing." That's typical and makes me happy to read about it in my own warm, dry house!
Lizzie, I read an Isabella Bird book a while ago, don't remember what it was, not Japan though, but I remember loving how she just went for it, was not intimidated.
LizzieD
Member
Absolutely, Shree! I am in love with the whole Beacon/Virago Traveler experience. All the women seem to be remarkable.
My current travel book is not one of those, although I guess it could be if they were still printing them. It's Eight Feet in the Andes in which Dervla Murphy writes about her trek the length of the Andes (north to south from early September to late December) with her 9 year-old daughter and their mula bonita, Juana. My heart is in my mouth a lot of the time. I'm not sure what kind of woman takes her child on such a foray when they don't know whether they're going to find food for themselves - much less the mule - or how, exactly, they are going to go. What a timid little creature I am! Anyway, it's fascinating reading.
LizzieD
Member
One of the things that I'm currently reading or not is TheLondon Journal of Flora Tristan, a Virago/Beacon Traveler. FT was Gauguin's grandmother, a Frenchwoman, who wrote about her experiences in London in the 1830's. I had hoped for many details about life then, but so far it's a pretty straightforward piece of socialist propaganda. I don't necessarily object to socialist propaganda, but I was hoping for more true local color. At any rate, it's interesting enough that I will likely read all of it.
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