City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing

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.Love and War in the Apennines (Picador Books)
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Eric Newby

May 10, 1996
A tender and enormously inspiring little book about his experiences in Italy during World War 2, this is Eric Newby reflecting on his loss of innocence, twenty-eight years after the event. Newby would leave soldiering behind and go on to become a first-rate travel writer, a man capable of portraying passion, excitement and mystery in a calmly sophisticated prose style. In "Love and War in the Apennines" we get a mature account of his Italian exploits rather than a contemporary journal or diary.

Newby makes no apologies for transforming his memories into a seemingly seamless narrative. He delivers an enriching and thrilling account of his experiences: life is experienced as a continuum, not as edited highlights, and life in the ... 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 ... Read More:
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.A Year in Marrakesh
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Peter Mayne

October 30, 2002
The writer's year in Marrakesh was not about seeing the sights and learning the history - rather, it was about his engagement with the real people of his neighbourhood as he gets drawn into their lives. A clearer picture than you get from the pompous, passive travel writing that casts an eye on a culture and tells you what to visit there. Thoroughly engaging.
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.McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland (A Lir Book)
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Pete McCarthy

March 15, 2001
This is a humorous - at times hilarious/laugh-out-loud funny/need to quote to the nearest person - travel book by an English man exploring his family ties to Ireland. Pete McCarthy travels across Ireland in the hopes of answering the question: "do I belong here?" Along the way, he paints the picture of a country that has changed due to a rapid economic boom - a place where the old and the new sit side-by-side in what seems to be a very tenuous balance.

Pete believes that one should always stop and have a drink in a pub that bears one's name. Since McCarthy is a popular surname in Ireland, he gets plenty of chances to sip the devil's brew while getting to know the local folk. This is, I suppose, how travel books should be written (if you discount ... 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
This is a humorous - at times hilarious/laugh-out-loud funny/need to quote to the nearest person - travel book by an English man exploring his family ties to Ireland. Pete McCarthy travels across Ireland in the hopes of answering the question: "do I belong here?" Along the way, he paints the picture of a country that has changed due to a rapid economic boom - a place where the old and the new sit side-by-side in what seems to be a very tenuous balance.

Pete believes that one should always stop and have a drink in a pub that bears one's name. Since McCarthy is a popular surname in Ireland, he gets plenty of chances to sip the devil's brew while getting to know the local folk. This is, I suppose, how travel books should be written (if you discount ... Read More:
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.The Last Grain Race (Picador Books)
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Eric Newby

December 01, 1995
Eric Newby is a renowned travel writer, and this is one of his first and best books. It tells of how in 1938 he signed on as an apprentice deck hand on a large steel square rigger engaged in the Australia - Europe grain trade. It is a fascinating, moving, exciting, funny account of the round trip with all its highs and lows, written with such skill, and passion I just couldn't put it down. You really don't have to be a sailor to enjoy this book,nut if you are it's even better. A collector's item.
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.Ray Mears Goes Walkabout
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Ray Mears

May 01, 2008
Eric Newby is a renowned travel writer, and this is one of his first and best books. It tells of how in 1938 he signed on as an apprentice deck hand on a large steel square rigger engaged in the Australia - Europe grain trade. It is a fascinating, moving, exciting, funny account of the round trip with all its highs and lows, written with such skill, and passion I just couldn't put it down. You really don't have to be a sailor to enjoy this book,nut if you are it's even better. A collector's item.
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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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.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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.In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land That Disappeared
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Christopher Robbins

April 10, 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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