A to Z, A Selection of GCB Favorites
What follows is a list of what we at the GCB think is outstanding travel writing, all the way from A to Z.
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A
At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels through Paraguay
by John Gimlette
The author travels from the insular cities and towns of the east, along ghostly trails through the countryside, to reach the Gran Chaco of the West. Gimlette also visits with Mennonites and the indigenas, arms dealers and real-estate tycoons, shopkeepers, government bureaucrats and, of course, Nazis.
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B
Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey Into Bhutan
by Jamie Zeppa
Zeppa recounts her three years spent in the tiny Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan just south of Tibet in this memoir that is part travel adventure, part Buddhist philosophy, and part “a testament of newfound faith.”
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C
Catfish and Mandala
by Andrew X. Pham
Catfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey–a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam–made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland.
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D
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
by Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey lived for three seasons in the desert at Moab, Utah, and what he discovered about the land before him, the world around him, and the heart that beat within, is a fascinating, sometimes raucous, always personal account of a place that has already disappeared, but is worth remembering and living through again and again.
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E
Eastward to Tartary
by Robert Kaplan
In Eastward to Tartary, Kaplan returns to the Balkans for the first time since Balkan Ghosts and goes on to fill in the rest of the story. As in Balkan Ghosts, his emphasis is on people and history and on the shape of things to come.
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F
The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
by Elspeth Huxley
As pioneering settlers, Huxley’s family built a house of grass, ate off a damask doth spread over packing cases, and discovered – the hard way – the world of the African. Huxley paints an unforgettable portrait of growing up among the Masai and Kikuyu people, discovering both the beauty and the terrors of the jungle, and enduring the rugged realities of the pioneer life.
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G
God’s Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre
by Richard Grant
At loose ends after a devastating divorce, Grant makes the decision to to travel down the Sierra Madre mountain range, Mexico’s 1000 mile-long spine that occupies the heart of the country’s forbidden zone: an area that for centuries has kept outsiders out with its incredibly rugged terrain and well-armed, very paranoid population.
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H
Hong Kong
by Jan Morris
Jan Morris celebrates the city’s charm and squalor, unravels the tangle of its history, and gives us an informed glimpse into its future. Combining firsthand reportage with exemplary research, Morris takes us from Hong Kong’s clamorous back alleys to the luxurious Happy Valley racecourse.
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I
In Patagonia
by Bruce Chatwin
This “little masterpiece of travel, history, and adventure” is Bruce Chatwin’s account of his journey through the “uppermost part of the earth”: that stretch of land at the southern tip of South America, where bandits were once made welcome and Charles Darwin formed part of his “survival of the fittest” theory.
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J
The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey
by Salman Rushdie
Rushdie went to Nicaragua in 1986, harboring no preconceptions of what he might find. What he discovered was overwhelming: a culture of heroes who had turned into inanimate objects and of politicians and warriors who were poets; a land of difficult, often beautiful contradictions.
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K
The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain
by Paul Theroux
After eleven years as an American living in London, Theroux set out to travel clockwise around the coast of Great Britain to find out what the British were really like. The result is this perceptive, hilarious record of the journey.
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L
The Last Grain Race
by Eric Newby
A seafaring tale of the first order, The Last Grain Race captures the drama and excitement of the last great commercial fleet under canvas. From the Lonely Planet Journeys series.
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M
Memoirs of Montparnasse
by John Glassco
In 1928, the nineteen-year-old John Glassco escaped an overbearing father and the dreariness of North American university life for the wilder shores of Montparnasse, the haunt of geniuses from Modigliani and Brancusi to Hemingway and Man Ray, not to mention a legendarily limitless source of sex and booze.
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N
Notes from a Small Island
by Bill Bryson
After nearly 20 treasured years in Britain, the author decided it was time to return to the United States. His last trip around the green and kindly isle resulted in a hilarious travelogue which coveys the glorious eccentricity of Britain.
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O
Out Stealing Horses
by Per Petterson
Set in the easternmost region of Norway, Out Stealing Horses begins with an ending. Sixty-seven-year-old Trond has settled into a rustic cabin in an isolated area to live the rest of his life with a quiet deliberation. A meeting with his only neighbor, however, forces him to reflect on one fateful summer.
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P
The Poet of Baghdad: True Story of Love and Defiance
by Jo Tatchell
In the winter of 1979 Nabeel Yasin, Iraq’s most famous young poet, fled Iraq with his wife and son. Written by a journalist who has spent many years in the Middle East, and who is a close friend of Yasin’s, Poet of Baghdad is the gripping story of a family and its fateful encounter with history.
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Q
The Quiet American
by Graham Greene
Pyle is a brash young idealist sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission to Saigon, where the French Army struggles against the Vietminh guerillas. He eventually becomes entangled in the life of a British journalist, going so far as to steal his mistress.
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R
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
by Peter Hessler
Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the ways of the town of Fuling – and about the complex process of understanding that takes place when one is immersed in a radically different society.
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S
Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer
by Chuck Thompson
From getting swindled in Thailand to running afoul of customs inspectors in Belarus, from defusing hostile Swedish rockers backstage in Germany to meeting with travel execs telling him why he’s about to be fired once again, Thompson’s no-holds-barred style is refreshing, invigorating, and all those other adjectives travel writers use to describe spa vacations.
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T
Time of Gifts
by Patrick Leigh Fermor
At the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey – to walk to Constantinople. Leigh Fermor’s book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed.
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U
An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan
by Jason Elliot
Part historical evocation, part travelogue, and part personal quest, An Unexpected Light is the account of Elliot’s journey through Afghanistan, a country considered off-limits to travelers for twenty years. Aware of the risks involved, he is still determined to explore what he could of the Afghan people and culture.
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V
Vroom with a View: In Search of Italy’s Dolce Vita on a ’61 Vespa
by Peter Moore
Riding the back roads, visiting small towns, sleeping in haylofts, Moore shows readers an Italy rarely seen–from picnicking in the Italian Alps to rattling through cobbled hilltop towns to gate-crashing Frances Mayes’ villa.
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W
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun
by Peter Godwin
When A Crocodile Eats the Sun is the unforgettable story of one man’s struggle to discover his past and come to terms with his present. Godwin writes with pathos and intimacy about Zimbabwe’s spiral into chaos and, along with it, his family’s steady collapse.
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X
In Xanadu: A Quest
by William Dalrymple
While waiting for the results of his college exams, Dalrymple decides to fill in his summer break with a trip. But the vacation he plans is no light-hearted student jaunt – he decides to retrace the epic journey of Marco Polo from Jerusalem to Xanadu, the ruined palace of Kubla Khan, north of Peking.
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Y
Yacoubian Building
by Alaa Al Aswany
All manner of flawed and fragile humanity reside in the Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor now slowly decaying in the smog and bustle of downtown Cairo. These disparate lives careen toward an explosive conclusion. Teeming with frank sexuality and heartfelt compassion, this book is an important window on to the experience of loss and love in the Arab world.
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Z
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Robert Pirsig
This fall marks the 40th anniversary of Pirsig’s classic narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son from Minneapolis to San Francisco. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions on how to live.
