Bestsellers of 2009
Bestselling Travel Narrative & Armchair Travel Books of 2009
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1. How to Read Buildings: A Crash Course in Architectural Styles
by Carol Davidson Cragoe
This practical primer is a handbook for decoding a building’s style, history, and evolution. Every building contains clues embedded in its design that identify not only its architectural style but also the story of who designed it, who it was built for, and why.
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2. The Sharper Your Knife the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris
by Kathleen Flinn
In 2003, Flinn, a 36-year-old American living and working in London, cleared out her savings and moved to Paris to pursue a dream diploma from the famed Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.
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3. The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World
by Eric Weiner
The author takes readers on a whirlwind tour of countries that are quietly pursuing the most American of obsessions – the pursuit of happiness – or, in the crabby author’s case, moments of “un-unhappiness.” Weiner doesn’t profess to know what happiness is, but with a mixture of psychological insight, scientific research, geopolitical analysis and wry humor, he successfully shows us where happiness is.
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4. Morning Glory Farm and the Family That Feeds an Island
written by Tom Dunlop, photographs by Alison Shaw
A beautiful and evocative look at this most traditional of farms, along with 70 favorite Martha’s Vineyard recipes. Enjoy the story of the family that for thirty years has brought healthy, locally grown food to the island.
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5. The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
In this enthralling international bestseller, two girls live inconspicuous lives in the center of an elegant Paris apartment building. It is only when a stranger moves into their building–and sees through the girls’ disguises–that Paloma and Rene discover their kindred spirits.
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6. Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer
by Chuck Thompson
From Bangkok to Bogota, a hilarious behind-the-brochures tour of picture-perfect locales, dangerous destinations, and overrated hellholes from a guy who knows the truth about travel. Travel writer, editor, and photographer Chuck Thompson has spent more than a decade traipsing through thirty-five (and counting) countries across the globe, and he’s had enough.
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7. Chinglish: Found in Translation
edited by Oliver Lutz Radtke
Chinglish offers a humorous and insightful look at misuses of the English language in Chinese street signs, products, and advertising. A long-standing favorite of English speaking tourists and visitors, Chinglish is now quickly becoming a culture relic.
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8. The Cellist of Sarajevo
by Steven Galloway
In a city ravaged by war, a musician plays his cello for twenty-two days at the site of a mortar attack, in memory of the fallen. Among the strangers drawn into the orbit of his music are a young father in search of water for his family, an older man in search of the humanity he once knew, a young woman, and a sniper.
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9. Unaccustomed Earth
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lahiri delivers eight dazzling stories that take readers from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life.
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10. The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine
by Benjamin Wallace
The Billionaire’s Vinegar tells the true story of a 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux – supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson – that sold for $156,000 at auction and of the eccentrics whose lives intersected with it.
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11. Three Cups of Tea
by Greg Mortenson
One man’s mission to promote peace…one school at a time. The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard.
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12. White Tiger
by Aravind Adiga
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life — having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
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13. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Diaz
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku – the curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations.
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14. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson
An international publishing sensation, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.
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15. More Chinglish: Speaking in Tongues
edited by Oliver Lutz Radtke
More Chinglish: Speaking in Tongues offers a fresh look at the unintentional but very funny creative misuses of the English language in Chinese street signs, products, and advertising. Enjoy 100 brand-new examples of this unique cultural heritage
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16. My Life in France
by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme
This is a delightful memoir of Julia’s years in Paris, Marseille, and Provence. Funny, earthy, forthright – Julia is with us on every page as she relishes the French way of life that transformed her, and us.
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17. The Enchantress of Florence
by Salman Rushdie
The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a mysterious woman, a great beauty believed to possess the powers of enchantment and sorcery, attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It is also the story of two cities at the height of their powers – the hedonistic Mughal capital and the equally sensual city of Florence.
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18. Travelers’ Tales the Best Women’s Travel Writing
edited by Lucy McCauley
From the Travelers’ Tales series. Told by women who traveled the earth to discover new places, people, and facets of themselves.
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19. Bicycle Diaries
by David Byrne
Since the early 1980s, David Byrne has been riding a bike as his principal means of transportation in New York City. Two decades ago, he discovered folding bikes and started taking them on tour with his band. The more cities he saw from his bicycle, the more he became hooked on this mode of transport and the sense of liberation it provided.
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20. Netherland
by Joseph O’Neill
The author of the New York Times Notable Book Blood-Dark Track delivers a mesmerizing novel about a man trying to make his way in an America of shattered hopes and values, and the unlikely occurrences that pull him back into an authentic, passionately engaged life.
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21. The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History
by Linda Colley
This is a book about a world in a life. Elizabeth Marsh (1735-1785) traveled farther and was more intimately affected by developments across the globe than the vast majority of men. She was the first woman to publish in English on Morocco, and the first to carry out extensive explorations in eastern and southern India.
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22. Best American Travel Writing 2009
edited by Simon Winchester
Acclaimed writer Winchester brings his keen literary eye to this year’s volume of the finest travel writing from the past year, providing a collection that is full of insights, humor, the exotic and distant, and the ordinary and near.
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23. Strange Maps: Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities
by Frank Jacobs
Spanning many centuries, all continents, and the realms of outer space and the imagination, this collection of 138 unique graphics combines beautiful full-color illustrations with quirky statistics and smart social commentary. The result is a distinctive illustrated guide to the world.
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24. The Beer Book
written by Tim Hampton, introduction by Sam Calagione
The world-wide interest in good beer is on the rise, and with it comes a thirst for more knowledge on the subject. The Beer Book offers a wealth of information on all aspects of beer, from its history to popular styles to brewing techniques.
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25. The Lazarus Project
by Aleksandar Hemon
Hemon has turned his talents to an embracing novel that intertwines haunting historical atmosphere and detail with sharp, shimmering and sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking contemporary storytelling.
