City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing

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.Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Jason Elliot

July 20, 2007
This is a rather unprofessional and distorted piece of work as neither the author nor the publisher seem to have got the basic facts right about the country and its people. The map of Iran at the beginning of the book with the stretch of water in the south of the country not being shown by its proper name, Persian Gulf, is a good evidence of the ignorance and lack of professional approach in the preparation and publication of this book. As "a picture is worth thousand words" I find this critical error a shining mirror of the publisher's lack of understanding and poor judgement, making all the praises printed on the cover of the book rather hollow and misleading.

Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran
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.From the Mull to the Cape: A Gentle Bike Ride on the Edge of Wilderness
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Richard Guise

July 07, 2008
This is a rather unprofessional and distorted piece of work as neither the author nor the publisher seem to have got the basic facts right about the country and its people. The map of Iran at the beginning of the book with the stretch of water in the south of the country not being shown by its proper name, Persian Gulf, is a good evidence of the ignorance and lack of professional approach in the preparation and publication of this book. As "a picture is worth thousand words" I find this critical error a shining mirror of the publisher's lack of understanding and poor judgement, making all the praises printed on the cover of the book rather hollow and misleading.

Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran
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.Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Patrick Leigh Fermor

July 19, 2004
MANI ... It is not for nothing that Patrick Leigh Fermor is generally considered the greatest living travel writer in English. Reading any one of his books, always a smooth, elegant and intellectually exciting undertaking, is to accept an invitation to the private world of a master observer of places and manners who is also pretty sharp in such areas of human endeavor as history, architecture, music, theology, psychology, mythology, and languages both classical and modern. He is extremely erudite - an autodidact, he says - and his approach to travel writing is strictly literary and sometimes sublimely so. This book, doubtless conceived as a companion volume to ROUMELI, which deals with Northern Greece, takes us to the southernmost part of the Peloponnesus. ... Read More:
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.The White Masai
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Corinne Hofmann

September 04, 2007
For me this was a book that got better as it went along. I was fascinated by the descriptions of tribal life, and found I had to admire Corinne for her determination and sheer guts. At the beginning the obsessive way the she referred to her husband ('my Masai', 'my darling', etc) really put me off - it was like some rather unsettling fictional unreliable narrator - but by about half-way through I found I couldn't put the book down.

It's not great literature, and I do feel that - particularly at the beginning - the style and structure could have been greatly improved. However, it was a fascinating tale, full of interesting detail and observation. At page 50 I was ready to give up , but because I had to read it for my reading group I persevered, ... Read More:
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.Wiffle Lever to Full!: Daleks, Death Stars and Dreamy-eyed Nostalgia at the Strangest Sci-fi Conventions
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Bob Fischer

July 24, 2008
I confess, I picked up this book because it featured an event I was at - and I'm glad I did.

Written in an amusing and engaging style. An entertaining mix of observation and autobiographical trips down memory lane to revisit formative encounters with various fandoms throughout his early life, it draws the reader in right from the start.

I loved it.
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.Hot Sun, Cool Shadow: Savouring the Food, History and Mystery of the Languedoc
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Angela Murrills

October 01, 2007
This book livened an already keen interest in France and in French Regional cooking. So many of the places are off the recognised travel guide routes - yet appear tempting from Angela Murrills' superb (delicious?) descriptions and Peter Matthews' illustrations. This has now become our travel guide "par excellence" - and the hotels, restaurants and sites of the Languedoc are , rightly, profiting from that.

Buy it, read it, and I dare you to say you won't visit!
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.Jordan (Lonely Planet Country Guide)
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Bradley Mayhew

April 01, 2006
A good country guide. Jordan is a small country which has many sights to see, the book is not very comprehensive and only provides details of sights in a brief format, which suits me as I don't like to be have every detail thrown at me.

As with all lonely Planet guides, this book is much more aimed at backpackers giving all the transport and budget details you'll need. I found a few details were significantly out of date and resulted in expensive taxi rides and some confused looks from the locals. Check the lonely planet website for updates.

If you are deciding whether to get the Rough Guide or the Lonely Planet (I used both for my trip) then you need to decide what you need to know. The rough Guide is very good at giving you lots of information ... Read More:
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.Divine Magnetic Lands: A Journey in America
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Timothy E. O'Grady

July 03, 2008
A good country guide. Jordan is a small country which has many sights to see, the book is not very comprehensive and only provides details of sights in a brief format, which suits me as I don't like to be have every detail thrown at me.

As with all lonely Planet guides, this book is much more aimed at backpackers giving all the transport and budget details you'll need. I found a few details were significantly out of date and resulted in expensive taxi rides and some confused looks from the locals. Check the lonely planet website for updates.

If you are deciding whether to get the Rough Guide or the Lonely Planet (I used both for my trip) then you need to decide what you need to know. The rough Guide is very good at giving you lots of information ... Read More:
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.Long Way Round
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Ewan McGregor, Charley Boorman

October 14, 2004
I picked up this book to take on holiday. It's gripping reading and I managed to get through the whole thing comfortably in a week. The 350 or so pages have fairly large text.

The book documents their trials and tribulations whilst travelling east around the world from london through europe, asia, and north america to new york and does so in great detail. It made me feel like I was almost there with them experiencing some of the joys and sadness.

A lot of the book focuses on the scenery, people who they meet along the way, and various border, bike and language issues.

For me, the stories are well written within and the two differing and alternating views of the journey make the read much more interesting.

extremely enjoyable ... Read More:
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.Wild: An Elemental Journey
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Jay Griffiths

May 01, 2008
I see why people are seduced by this, but a hundred pages or so in, I fled back to Hemingway. A hundred pages of images like 'clouds mulled on the horizon'. A hundred pages of drama and ecstacy, with many proliferating adjectives, and whole flights of those alienated verbs Macfarlane likes too. It was like a Plath poem written out in long lines, but those poems need the space around them to make thier impact. I know the author is trying to say something about nature, and about its wildness, but the extreme expressivity loses impact when repeated and repeated over and over and over. I felt bludgeoned. It felt immature and starstruck, like a girl's letter to a rock star - touching, but not wise. (And the stuff about menstruation is total rubbish.) All the same, a little pruning (yes, ... Read More:
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