City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing

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.Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Kapka Kassabova

July 07, 2008
The kapka's book is just a "PR" event. Like a show. I am Bulgarian and shamed of what she has done to my (and her, as far as she states so) native country.

For instance - what if Britain have someone British traveller, writing in his/her second language, spit against Britain and try to get acknowledgement. Fakeness is fakeness, wrong is wrong.
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.The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Paul Theroux

May 30, 1996
I began reading this book after having thoroughly enjoyed "Dark Star" by the author. "Dark Star" swept me into its narrative, educated me and gave me a real sense of Africa's contradictory nature. It was a wonderful book! However, Theroux came across as an arrogant, ignorant old man who's views of the landscape outside his train car and his opinions of the people inside had no more depth than the narrow route of the train tracks upon which he travelled. If I had wanted a narration of how grumpy and irritable everyone and everything made him I could have listened to my father-in-law! I commend Theroux for learning Spanish but he learned little else and had nothing much to share with his readers. I was looking for some insight into the people ... Read More:
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.Journey to the South
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Annie Hawes

July 07, 2005
I really enjoyed this latest offering from Annie Hawes. Her wonderful descriptions of the people she met in Calabria are so realistic. Maybe it is because I now live in Italy but much of her writing seemed relevant to life here in Lazio. I have to say though I do wonder how some of the personalities featured would react if they were ever to read about themselves!!

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.Sailing Alone Around the World (Penguin Classics)
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Joshua Slocum

October 28, 1999
After spending years commanding large merchant vessels, Capt Joshua Slocum completely rebuilds a 37 foot yacht and sets sail around the world in it. Slocum's grasp of the English language is exemplary as he describes his single-handed voyage around the world. The book is a fascinating insight into life 100 years ago when sailors were unable to use electronics for navigation, meteorology or helming and vessesls had to sail around the Capes as the "shortcut canals" (Panama and Suez) had not yet been constructed.


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.The Water Road: An Odyssey by Narrowboat Through England's Waterways
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Paul Gogarty

May 29, 2003
So good I read it twice. Contrary to the previous reviewer's opinion on the 'present tense' style of writing, I find that it works extremely well with this book and serves to carry the reader along on the journey with Paul. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to anyone interested in the canla system, narrowboats or travel in general.
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.The Age of Kali: Travels and Encounters in India
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: William Dalrymple

June 21, 1999
The Age of Kali, to be honest, is a bit disappointing. First off because of the form - it is a collection of pieces written for different journals at different times in the 1990s, and there is occasional repetition from one piece to the next, with no overall guiding structure. Second, because of this, the book lacks any synthesising introduction or conclusion, apart from a page at the very beginning explaining the concept of the Age of Kali, the Kali Yuga.

Having said that, what you are left with is a series of very readable, vivid, in-depth essays on particular places, personalities or events; we start with sectarian violence in Bihar, and end with the Bhutto family. The book is mainly about India, but there are excursions also to Sri Lanka, Réunion, and ... Read More:
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.Spain
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Jan Morris

August 07, 2008
The Age of Kali, to be honest, is a bit disappointing. First off because of the form - it is a collection of pieces written for different journals at different times in the 1990s, and there is occasional repetition from one piece to the next, with no overall guiding structure. Second, because of this, the book lacks any synthesising introduction or conclusion, apart from a page at the very beginning explaining the concept of the Age of Kali, the Kali Yuga.

Having said that, what you are left with is a series of very readable, vivid, in-depth essays on particular places, personalities or events; we start with sectarian violence in Bihar, and end with the Bhutto family. The book is mainly about India, but there are excursions also to Sri Lanka, Réunion, and ... Read More:
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.The Chains of Heaven: An Ethiopian Romance (non-fiction)
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Philip Marsden

August 21, 2006
I read this on the strength of Marsden's other book: "The Crossing Place", he seems to have a knack for writing books about countries I'm slightly obsessed with. I hate to get bogged down in cliches but this is another modern classic. Within any travel book there needs to be a sound motivation for the journey, without this central motivation it often seems like somebody is just writing a book for money, or doing something to please a publisher. All my cynicism was left behind as I followed Marsden and his numerous guides through both the difficult topography and turbulent history of Ethiopia. I recommend this book to casual readers in search of some escape or serious students of history and theology. The strong point of the book is that he undertakes the journey on foot so we ... Read More:
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.A Small Place in Italy
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Eric Newby

June 09, 1995
The urge to escape the comforts, routine and refinements of our living conditions to somewhere more challenging, primitive and raw is something that many of us feel - especially those who read books. The books we read can sometimes stimulate the urge, sometimes satisfy it. All I ask of such books is that the author can write well and that he is not boastful.

Eric Newby, especially in "A Small Place in Italy", meets these requirements admirably. Indeed, he ranks for me as a travel writer of near genius. He was almost 50 years old when he and his Italian born wife Wanda took up permanent residence in a ruined farmhouse in northern Italy. His account of the trials and tribulations that followed, the neighbours and the locality, is told in this wonderfully witty, readable ... Read More:
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.Lady Hester
City Travel Guides > Books > Travel Writing
by: Lorna Gibb

May 04, 2006
This is a real find of a book. Gibb writes like a novelist and really captures the drama and adventures of Lady Hester's life. The research is meticulous without intruding on the readability of the work. Hester's story - she was the niece of William Pitt and ended up living alone on top of a Lebanese mountain having had all sorts of love affairs, a shipwreck and the plague in between - is almost too exciting to be true. The Middle East stuff gives a real picture of the fragmentation then, as now, while the British settings are carefully drawn and atmospheric. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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