More and more readers are discovering the pleasure of armchair travel through the hugely successful Best American Travel Writing, now in its fourth adventurous year. Journey through the 2003 volume from Route 66 to the Arctic; go deep into Poland's Tatra Mountains and through the wildest jungle in Congo. Selections this year are from equally far-flung sources, including Outside, Food & Wine, National Geographic Adventure, Potpourri, and The New Yorker.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
Tedious:
This book is filled largely with the type of article you'd read part of while waiting in the doctor's office, and never lament not being able to finish it (or even recall you had started it). Though there are certainly a few gems, I found so many of the stories boring, meandering, droll. The couple that are meant to be humorous are altogether unfunny. And almost NONE of them is actually about travel.
Skip this book. If you want a collection of stories resplendent with what it is that calles to a... more info
Broaden your horizons...:
This is one of the best books I've read in years. Every night I would randomly open to a different story and be transported.
I think the title is a bit misleading, though. This is not full of tourist stories. They are just very well-written articles that happen to take place in a land foreign to the author. For instance, a Jewish woman's journey to the Ukraine to uncover the story of relatives that were killed by the Nazi's. Not all the stories are quite so serious, in fact there is one by Jack Handey... more info
Not Travel -- Social Activism!:
I get the "Best American" series to stay current with what some of our best writers are saying, but this year's editor has led me down the garden path.
At least 50% of the articles dwell on environmental or social causes. Yes, I suppose the writers had to travel somewhere to get their data, but their essays are not about travel; rather, they are about causes.
I will hope that, for 2004, the series publishers get a handle on things and place social essays in the "Best American Essays..." collection and... more info
Travel on the edge:
Though there are a few funny pieces in this year's travel anthology, Frazier's ("On the Rez") bent is for serious things happening in unhappy and often unlovely places. Tom Bissell's "Eternal Winter" explores the death of the Aral Sea, a hopeless Soviet-made ecological disaster with endless ghastly repercussions in a surreal landscape. Peter Chilson writes about the Tuareg rebellion at the edge of the Sahara, in Niger, which perpetually resumes with the harmattan, the dust and sand storms that cripple... more info
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