tuckerdc

I know there's a thread (on the US forum, I think) about "What are you reading now?" but that seems to encompass all sorts of reading. What about great travel books? NOT guides. I mean the Travels with Charlie/Year in Provence/Paul Theroux/Blue Highways kinds of writing that bring locales alive and "take you along?"

azure0327

Hi tuckerdc, great question! I am an avid reader, especially of travel essays. Here are some of my favorites:

Neither Here Nor There (Europe) - Bill Bryson
Seasons of Rome - Paul Hofmann
Extra Virgin (Liguria, Italy) - Annie Hawes
The Hills of Tuscany - Ferenc Mate
Stone Boudoir - Teri Maggio
A Thousand Bells at Noon (Rome) - Franco Romagnoli
The Reluctant Tuscan - Phil Doran
Botticelli Blue Skies (Florence) - Merril Gerber
Pasquale's Nose (Italy) - Michael Rips
A Summer in Tuscany - Sandra Swanson
Driving Over Lemons (Spain) - Chris Stewart
The Olive Farm (southern France) - Carol Drinkwater
Facing Athens - George Sarrinikolaou
The Olive Grove (Greece) - Katherine Kizilos
Baghdad Without A Map (Middle East) - Paul Horwitz
Kingdom of the Film Stars (Jordan) - Annie Caulfield
Istanbul - Orhan Pamuk

RufusTFirefly

Here's a couple from Graham Greene (the British author, not the American Indian actor):

Journey Without Maps--His trek through Liberia in the 1930s

The Lawless Roads--Anticlerical Mexico in 1938. This trip provided background material for his celebrated novel, The Power and the Glory.

azure0327

I forgot to put the location of Stone Boudoir (Sicily)

Bree

Pleasures and Landscapes: A Traveller's Tales from Europe – Sybille Bedford (France, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, Yugoslavia (as it then was))

Travels with Myself and Another – Martha Gellhorn (China, Africa, Russia)

A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor (In 1933, an 18-year-old Englishman sets out to walk from Rotterdam to Constantinople. This book takes him as far as Hungary. A second book, Between the Woods and the Water – which is on my “to read” list – completes the journey.)

tuckerdc

Some great suggestions here! Some of which I already know, and quite a few that are new to me and I look forward to looking into.

You initial responders have done great, but just to keep things clear for any further posters, it is non-fiction that I'm asking about.

kywood1955

The Charm School by Nelson DeMille; it's about Russia. So now I've put Russia on my long list of places to travel.
Another good travel read of his is Up Country about Vietnam. Put it on my list, too.
Happy travels!

SusanEva

Azure,

If you're a Theresa Maggio fan, I liked Mattanza even more.

Bitter Almonds and On Persephone's Island by Mary Taylor Simeti were also great reads for those interested in Sicily.

karens

Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

Desert Solitaire - Ed Abbey

All My Rivers Are Gone - Katie Lee

When I return from a trip, I love to read the Travelers Tales books. I usually read travel guides before a trip and travel narratives after a trip.

magatha

I really like H.V. Morton. He has written tons of books, especially about the United Kingdom. Mainly wrote in the 50's to 70's. he really brings the places to life, and always seems to uncover unusual things that aren't in the guidebooks.

isabel

Almost French by Sarah Turnbull
One Year Off by David Elliot Cohen
A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena De Blasi
Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach
At Home in France by Anne Barry
Too Much Tuscan Sun by Dario Castagno

Luisah

Anything by Paul Theroux
A Moveable Feast -- Ernest Hemingway
Paris, France -- Gertrude Stein
Hemingway, The Paris Years -- Michael Reynolds
Sylvia Beach (founder of Shakespeare & Company Book Store and publisher of James Joyce "Ulysses&quot and the Lost Generation -- by Noel Riley Fitch
Shakespeare & Company -- Sylvia Beach
(recounts her experiences with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Stein etc.)
Travelers Tales -- Anthology
Travelers Tales Tuscany -- ed. O'Reilly & Weaver
A Woman's Passion for Travel -- Anthology. Ed. Bond & Michael
The Snow Leopard -- Peter Matthiessen (sp?)(You'll be along on a trek through the Himalayas)
Under the Tuscan Sun & Bella Tuscany -- Frances Mayes
Two Towns in Provence -- M F K Fisher
War in Val D'Orcia, An Italian War Diary 1943-1944 -- Iris Origo (a fascinating account of an Anglo-American woman's experiences raising a family in Tuscany while dealing with escaped British POWs, Fascists and German soldiers.)

I enjoyed all of the above because most of them are exceptionally well-written and they put me in different places at different times: the 20s in Paris; the 40s and the 90s in Tuscany, and the 30s in Provence.

tuckerdc

I just discovered H.V. Morton (thanks to a Fodor's post, I'm sure) earlier this year and promptly delved into his London book. Alice Sternbach's Without Reservations jumped to the top of my 'favorite' list before I was even finished with it and I'm now in the midst of her "Educting Alice." Has anyone looked at Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation (US-focus, not Europe, but she's such an entertaining writer, and packs this one with an amazing amount of things you'd never even think to wonder about.)

Ah travel - if you can't do it, read about it! Keep 'em coming!

diddl_maus

I second Marlena de Blasi's A Thousand Days in Venica and would like to add
A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi and
A Castle in the Backyard by Betsy Draine and Michael Hindon

azure0327

SusanEva:

Thanks for the recommendation of Mattanza - I liked her style in Stone Boudoir so look forward to reading something else by her.

gertie3751

Anyone read Little Novels of Sicily by Giovanni Verga? Translated by DH Lawrence. Atmospheric portraits of small Italian town life in the 1860s. Makes you realise why they all went to the USA.

laverendrye

I heartily endorse the recommendations for the Patrick Leigh Fermor, Sybille Bedford and Graham Greene titles.

As this is not confined to Europe, I would also recommend Sybille Bedford's "A Visit to Don Otavio" about her travels in Mexico in the late 40s and early 50s. For Mexico, I also like Alice Adams "Mexico" and Ronald Wright's superb "Time Among the Maya"

The great travel writer (and traveller) Eric Newby's first account "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush" is a classic, as is Lawrence Durell's "Bitter Lemons" (Cyprus).

For Paris in the 20's, Morley Callaghan's "That Summer in Paris" is as good as Hemingway's "Moveable Feast", and contains an account of Callaghan's boxing match with Hemingway, with Scott Fitzgerald as timekeeper.

Finally, I can't leave out the redoubtable Redmond O'Hanlon ("Into the Heart of Borneo" et al). I wouldn't want to be his travelling companion, but he certainly tells a fascinating (and sometimes horrifying) tale.

michelleNYC

TTT as I'm looking for some new and fantastic travel reads. Anyone reading something now that they'd like to share?

GreenDragon

Actually, I came across this well-written travelogue by a guy who travelled to the west part of Ireland.

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/ire...rnal-2005.html

I was searching for pubs in Ennis when I found it.

laclaire

Truman Capote: the Dogs Bark (which includes the essay collection "Local Color" and "The Muses are Heard.&quot

Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky. I read this in a day and though initially did not like it (hence the fast read, I wanted to be done with it), find myself thinking about the characters a lot. So, I recommend it, but not for plot, but for characterization.

Marguerite Henry: King of the Wind. A children's chapter book that starts in Morocco and ends in England, focusing on one Arabian horse (Sham) and his mute horseboy (Agba). I think that most of my cultural sensitivity comes from having been read that book when I was little.

Claire

I read art text books from other countries, which I find complimentary to travel.