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The Best American Travel Writing 2009
Acclaimed writer Simon Winchester brings his keen literary eye to this year's volume of the finest travel writing from the past year. "Full of insights, humor, the exotic and distant, and the ordinary and near" ( Library Journal ) this collection finds "a perfect mix of exotic locale and elegant prose" ( Publishers Weekly ).
384 pages, Paperback
First published October 8, 2009
9 people are currently reading
284 people want to read
About the author
Simon Winchester
93 books2,309 followersSimon Winchester, OBE, is a British writer, journalist and broadcaster who resides in the United States. Through his career at The Guardian, Winchester covered numerous significant events including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. As an author, Simon Winchester has written or contributed to over a dozen nonfiction books and authored one novel, and his articles appear in several travel publications including Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic.
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
April 5, 2013
**Heh, 3.5 stars if GoodReads had such a thing**
I tethered with the rating on this one because some of the essays were non-memorable and almost boring, not bothering to uncover the travel experience through narrator experience and setting authenticity.
Yet some were indeed memorable. Like:
1. "A Dip in the Cold" by Lynne Cox: first published in The New Yorker and catalogs her experience while swimming portions of the Northwest Passage, from Greensland to Alaska, using Roald Amundsen's (the endurance athlete who quit medical school to study polar explorations and in 1897, served as a second mate on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition) account of his journey as her guide.Cox, an endurance swimmer, wanted to test whether her body "could tolerate extreme cold." This essay takes you on her journey with setting, dialogue, people, experience.
2. Hotels Rwanda: interesting mixture of voice and scope, as well as juxtaposition of the Rwandan countryside and the tourist experience of the narrator and his group of friends. The descriptions were beautiful and authentic, the history of the country's most turbulent time carefully adhered to in this piece.
3. You Do Not Represent The Government of The United States: Seven American poets, novelists, and journalists traveled the Middle East. As part of Iowa University's International writers program sponsored in part by the U.S. State department, they were expected to tour various universities in the region and have brief meetings with other intellectuals in the area. Though they were clearly warned that in no way, were they to give the impression that they were representing the U.S. government. The most interesting part of the essay for me was the tone: interestingly light and factual, starting with Daniel Alarcon wondering if he even knew what he was doing on the tour, ending with his explanation of the tone he observed within the Middle East, and some facts surrounding places like, the Old City of Damascus for example.
I tethered with the rating on this one because some of the essays were non-memorable and almost boring, not bothering to uncover the travel experience through narrator experience and setting authenticity.
Yet some were indeed memorable. Like:
1. "A Dip in the Cold" by Lynne Cox: first published in The New Yorker and catalogs her experience while swimming portions of the Northwest Passage, from Greensland to Alaska, using Roald Amundsen's (the endurance athlete who quit medical school to study polar explorations and in 1897, served as a second mate on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition) account of his journey as her guide.Cox, an endurance swimmer, wanted to test whether her body "could tolerate extreme cold." This essay takes you on her journey with setting, dialogue, people, experience.
2. Hotels Rwanda: interesting mixture of voice and scope, as well as juxtaposition of the Rwandan countryside and the tourist experience of the narrator and his group of friends. The descriptions were beautiful and authentic, the history of the country's most turbulent time carefully adhered to in this piece.
3. You Do Not Represent The Government of The United States: Seven American poets, novelists, and journalists traveled the Middle East. As part of Iowa University's International writers program sponsored in part by the U.S. State department, they were expected to tour various universities in the region and have brief meetings with other intellectuals in the area. Though they were clearly warned that in no way, were they to give the impression that they were representing the U.S. government. The most interesting part of the essay for me was the tone: interestingly light and factual, starting with Daniel Alarcon wondering if he even knew what he was doing on the tour, ending with his explanation of the tone he observed within the Middle East, and some facts surrounding places like, the Old City of Damascus for example.
April 2, 2023
This anthology of travel articles is edited by Simon Winchester famous for his own nonfiction writing. The articles are not constrained to travel within the United States but instead the majority is about travel in other countries. Articles focus on Cuba, Burma, Lagos, Italy, Greenland, Lebanon, Rwanda, India, Chad, Bolivia, Bulgaria and Argentina. There are several articles unique to the United States, discussing travel on the Mississippi River and the river in the movie Deliverance, barbeque cooking in Texas and the world of Walt Disney.
International topics include the state of the revolution in Cuba, disappearing penises as a belief, a man eating tiger reserve, a war torn Middle East, the cult of having servants in poor countries, traveling across the oceans via cruise ships, the rise of female wrestlers in South America and the dream of retiring for almost nothing in other countries. Readers will be able to visualize countries and practices that they are not familiar with.
Authors in this year's edition include Calvin Trillin, Patrick Symmes, Frank Bures, Bronwen Dickey, Andre Aciman, Chuck Klosterman, Tony Perrottet, Lynne Cox, Matthew Power, Seth Stevenson, Tom Sleigh, Jay Kirk, Kiran Desai, Caroline Alexander, Paul Salopek, Eric Weiner, Aima Guillermoprieto, Roger Cohen, Karrie Jacobs, Mark Schazker, Dimiter Kenarov, Jay Cowen, Elisabeth Eaves and Daniel Alarcon. Each writes on a topic that reflects their interests and own travels. This book is recommended for nonfiction readers interested in travel writing.
International topics include the state of the revolution in Cuba, disappearing penises as a belief, a man eating tiger reserve, a war torn Middle East, the cult of having servants in poor countries, traveling across the oceans via cruise ships, the rise of female wrestlers in South America and the dream of retiring for almost nothing in other countries. Readers will be able to visualize countries and practices that they are not familiar with.
Authors in this year's edition include Calvin Trillin, Patrick Symmes, Frank Bures, Bronwen Dickey, Andre Aciman, Chuck Klosterman, Tony Perrottet, Lynne Cox, Matthew Power, Seth Stevenson, Tom Sleigh, Jay Kirk, Kiran Desai, Caroline Alexander, Paul Salopek, Eric Weiner, Aima Guillermoprieto, Roger Cohen, Karrie Jacobs, Mark Schazker, Dimiter Kenarov, Jay Cowen, Elisabeth Eaves and Daniel Alarcon. Each writes on a topic that reflects their interests and own travels. This book is recommended for nonfiction readers interested in travel writing.
August 13, 2023
I have read a number of these annual volumes of travel writing essays, each volume reflecting not only the times and the world, but the taste and preference of the editor. The 2009 editor, Simon Winchester, has chosen a group of the most hard-hitting pieces of travel journalism I have ever read. Though there are some "lighter" pieces, such as an essay on Texas's best barbecue spot and Lynne Cox's description of swimming in some of the coldest waters in the word, the more memorable pieces are about the impact of war in Lebanon and Rwanda, dictatorship in Burma, the sometimes fatal encounters between man and animals, getting jailed in Darfur, and the poverty and oppression in Castro's Cuba. At times, I felt I was reading essays designed to discourage travel.
But the writers of these essays are excellent, well-traveled, and each piece is crafted with feeling. This series is one I hope continues, and continues to be different every year.
But the writers of these essays are excellent, well-traveled, and each piece is crafted with feeling. This series is one I hope continues, and continues to be different every year.
February 19, 2021
I've been a sucker for good travel writing for decades; the way it can transport you to far-away places you'll probably never visit in person, giving you insights to diverse peoples and perspectives hits me right where I like to be. So it's no surprise that I enjoyed "The Best American Travel Writing 2009" a great deal. Containing over two dozen excellent essays recounting experiences from Texas barbecue (Calvin Trillin) to Bolivia's female lucha libre wrestlers (Alma Guillermoprieto) to the disorientation of American poets sent on a cultural mission by the US State Department to Assad's Syria following Iraq's destruction (Daniel Alarcon), this book never fails to inform and entertain. It also makes for excellent bedtime reading, as most of the essays are shorter than 25 pages, so you can read one or two before falling asleep. I'll be searching out other volumes in this series!
October 26, 2017
Excellent writing.
July 30, 2019
Everyone should read more of stories like these.
July 27, 2022
If this is the best???? Dang. Mine at least are more fun. None were impressive, few gripped even a little bit. Not one motivated me to write - which is what I always hope to get from reading.
October 28, 2025
There are some good stories in this particular Travel Writing collection. I would recommend the book for its kaleidoscopic view of various countries and their habits and culture(s).
October 5, 2016
Of course I didn't like every essay, but I'm glad I read it if only for the final essay in which a group of US writers go on tour in Syrian. So interesting to read, especially in light of subsequent events.
December 14, 2009
I won’t describe all of the book’s 25 essays here, but I will highlight the best of the lot. Strangely, it seemed to me that the best essays were located in the first half of the collection.
Not so surprisingly, the very best essay, Patrick Symmes’ “The Generals in Their Labyrinth” is the first one. Even Winchester remarks in the introduction that Symmes’ essay “is destined to be ranked among all-time great magazine essays.”
In “The Generals in Their Labyrinth,” Symmes visits the country of Myanmar (Burma) in April 2008. From the beginning of the essay, I was hooked and I’ll show you why:
"There never was a man on the ferry to Pakokku, and he didn’t say what he said. I didn’t meet Western diplomats from three nations. Not for coffee. Not for drinks. Not in the official residence, with rain and palm fronds pelting down, just hours before the storm hit.
I didn’t talk with the country’s most distinguished astrologer or its worst comedians. Nobody from any NGO’s helped me, either. If I had tea with a prominent intellectual or lunch with a noted businessman, nothing happened. I was just in Burma – sorry, I mean Myanmar – to play golf and look at the ruins.
The boy monks never cried and begged me to conceal their names. At the monastery in Pakokku, they never told me anything at all.
I wasn’t there when the storm hit. There was no cyclone. I didn’t see anything."
Whew. How could I resist such an opening? The rest of the essay details Symmes’ observations of the repressive Burmese regime, and includes his visit to their newly built capital city, Naypyidaw.
One of my other favorite essays was Jay Kirk’s “Hotels Rwanda.” An excellent blend of humor and compassion flavors his writing. I also loved that he had, and wrote about, his travel companions – people who had previously been strangers. Here is a small excerpt from the essay about the group’s first sighting of giraffes, a part that made me laugh out loud:
"With their black-and-yellow fur, their stubby horns like eye stalks, and the way they move, lurching almost aquatically, they look like gigantic, yet infinitely graceful banana slugs … They are so strange-looking. Despite their apparent benevolence, it is not a stretch to imagine laser rays shooting from their eyes, scorching everything in sight."
Other notable essays include:
“Intimacy” by Andre Aciman (Rome)
“Who is America?” by Chuck Klosterman (Germany)
“A Dip in the Cold” by Lynne Cox (various Arctic locations)
“Mississippi Drift” by Matthew Power (the Mississippi)
“The Deeds” by Tom Sleigh (Lebanon)
“You Do Not Represent the Government of the United States of America” by Daniel Alarcon (Syria)
Not so surprisingly, the very best essay, Patrick Symmes’ “The Generals in Their Labyrinth” is the first one. Even Winchester remarks in the introduction that Symmes’ essay “is destined to be ranked among all-time great magazine essays.”
In “The Generals in Their Labyrinth,” Symmes visits the country of Myanmar (Burma) in April 2008. From the beginning of the essay, I was hooked and I’ll show you why:
"There never was a man on the ferry to Pakokku, and he didn’t say what he said. I didn’t meet Western diplomats from three nations. Not for coffee. Not for drinks. Not in the official residence, with rain and palm fronds pelting down, just hours before the storm hit.
I didn’t talk with the country’s most distinguished astrologer or its worst comedians. Nobody from any NGO’s helped me, either. If I had tea with a prominent intellectual or lunch with a noted businessman, nothing happened. I was just in Burma – sorry, I mean Myanmar – to play golf and look at the ruins.
The boy monks never cried and begged me to conceal their names. At the monastery in Pakokku, they never told me anything at all.
I wasn’t there when the storm hit. There was no cyclone. I didn’t see anything."
Whew. How could I resist such an opening? The rest of the essay details Symmes’ observations of the repressive Burmese regime, and includes his visit to their newly built capital city, Naypyidaw.
One of my other favorite essays was Jay Kirk’s “Hotels Rwanda.” An excellent blend of humor and compassion flavors his writing. I also loved that he had, and wrote about, his travel companions – people who had previously been strangers. Here is a small excerpt from the essay about the group’s first sighting of giraffes, a part that made me laugh out loud:
"With their black-and-yellow fur, their stubby horns like eye stalks, and the way they move, lurching almost aquatically, they look like gigantic, yet infinitely graceful banana slugs … They are so strange-looking. Despite their apparent benevolence, it is not a stretch to imagine laser rays shooting from their eyes, scorching everything in sight."
Other notable essays include:
“Intimacy” by Andre Aciman (Rome)
“Who is America?” by Chuck Klosterman (Germany)
“A Dip in the Cold” by Lynne Cox (various Arctic locations)
“Mississippi Drift” by Matthew Power (the Mississippi)
“The Deeds” by Tom Sleigh (Lebanon)
“You Do Not Represent the Government of the United States of America” by Daniel Alarcon (Syria)
September 2, 2012
I teetered between giving this book three or four stars. I gave it four stars beause it's an anthology, and, as such, it's going to be a mixed bag for all readers that will appeal and disappoint depending on what essay you're reading and your individual taste. Go into this book knowing you'll love some essays and hate others.
There are three essays in particular that caught my attention, for different reasons:
1. "Game Over, Perseverance, All I Want Is Everything," by Dimiter Kenarov. Writing about the Roma in Bulgaria, Kenarov's descriptions of this subculture's poor living conditions left me wanting to know more. Unfortunately, the end of the essay fell flat and didn't do the rest of his piece justice. The last few sentences make me think Kenarov was fast approaching his deadline and just needed something, anything, even a cliché, to end his essay.
2. "The Cabin of My Dreams," by Patrick Symmes. Oddly enough, I just happened to read this essay while vacationing in a cabin near Yosemite, the same one that began my dream to live simply in a (somewhat) remote cabin nearly 6 years ago. The difference between Symmes' cabin dreams and my own is that I don't want to build mine with my own hands, and his essay reaffirms this for me.
3. "A Tale of Two Crossings," by Mark Schatzker. Good travel writing, at least in my mind, fits into two categories: that which brings about social and political awareness; and that which inspires others to visit the place they're reading about. I find the former to be necessary and important; but I find the latter the most exciting to read. "A Tale of Two Crossings" was my favorite piece from this book, prompting me to quickly, and quite literally, add "take transoceanic trip on an ocean liner" to my list of things to do.
There are three essays in particular that caught my attention, for different reasons:
1. "Game Over, Perseverance, All I Want Is Everything," by Dimiter Kenarov. Writing about the Roma in Bulgaria, Kenarov's descriptions of this subculture's poor living conditions left me wanting to know more. Unfortunately, the end of the essay fell flat and didn't do the rest of his piece justice. The last few sentences make me think Kenarov was fast approaching his deadline and just needed something, anything, even a cliché, to end his essay.
2. "The Cabin of My Dreams," by Patrick Symmes. Oddly enough, I just happened to read this essay while vacationing in a cabin near Yosemite, the same one that began my dream to live simply in a (somewhat) remote cabin nearly 6 years ago. The difference between Symmes' cabin dreams and my own is that I don't want to build mine with my own hands, and his essay reaffirms this for me.
3. "A Tale of Two Crossings," by Mark Schatzker. Good travel writing, at least in my mind, fits into two categories: that which brings about social and political awareness; and that which inspires others to visit the place they're reading about. I find the former to be necessary and important; but I find the latter the most exciting to read. "A Tale of Two Crossings" was my favorite piece from this book, prompting me to quickly, and quite literally, add "take transoceanic trip on an ocean liner" to my list of things to do.
May 5, 2010
The tenth year of this anthology is a beguiling mix of insight and idiosyncratic exploration. The chosen contributions first appeared in publications both internationally prestigious (The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, GQ, Esquire, etc) the locally perceptive (The Virginia Quarterly Review) and the electronic (Slate.com). The quality of the writing is generally estimable and the desire to communicate palpable.
There are pieces that verge on political analysis - Roger Cohen on Cuba, for example, or Dimiter Kenarov revealing more than enough about Bulgarian gypsies. And there are delightful excursions that might be flights of fancy were they not happily quirky reportage: salivate with Calvin Trillin's ode to Texas BBQ, thrill with Jay Cowan following the ski trails of James Bond, or empathise with Patrick Symmes as he struggles to build the cabin of his dreams in remote Argentina.
There is something - or somewhere - for every armchair escapist. And only the authors get bitten by mosquitoes.
There are pieces that verge on political analysis - Roger Cohen on Cuba, for example, or Dimiter Kenarov revealing more than enough about Bulgarian gypsies. And there are delightful excursions that might be flights of fancy were they not happily quirky reportage: salivate with Calvin Trillin's ode to Texas BBQ, thrill with Jay Cowan following the ski trails of James Bond, or empathise with Patrick Symmes as he struggles to build the cabin of his dreams in remote Argentina.
There is something - or somewhere - for every armchair escapist. And only the authors get bitten by mosquitoes.
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July 29, 2011*Eh.* I figured the editor was a douchebag while reading his introduction to this book, and he really only reaffirmed that opinion throughout the course of the book. Not only did his glorifying of colonialism rub me the wrong way, but his idea of travel writing and mine are completely different. For me, travel writing is the exploration of a place (or places) through the traveler who pays attention to the juicy details and also the impact of that experience on him/herself. For this editor, sometimes travel was just a history of a place; sometimes travel was people self-exploring while paying no attention to the PLACE they were, and sometimes they were just plain boring or confusing. My travel companions need adventure; I'm living vicariously through them--duh! The only gem in this book was "Hotel Rwandas."
December 28, 2023
I learned a lot about world situations I had been unaware of at the time this book was published, most notably about the Rwandan genocide in "Hotels Rwanda" by Jay Kirk and Daniel Alarcon's "You Do Not Represent the Government of the United States of America," about his surreal trip to Syria with other writers (also mentioning some rumors about former President Bush that might resonate today with a different former president). I originally got the book to read "A Dip in the Cold" by famous endurance swimmer Lynne Cox about swimming in the Arctic regions to swim in the paths of Roald Amundsen and other explorers. Her book on the subject, South With the Sun, was published in 2011. The other essays in the book were entertaining, eye-opening or mind-expanding, just like real-life travel!
January 26, 2010
This compilation of American travel writing was disappointing to me. While there was something new and unique to learn from each story, I found it to be an overall plodding read. Not that anything was outrightly bad, just that the writing and topics didn'ts absorb me or pull me in as I had expected.
The notable exception was Hotels Rwanda which was both eye opening in its descrptions of a beautiful country of which the genocide is only one part of the story and intimate in its search for the real amongst the virtual.
The notable exception was Hotels Rwanda which was both eye opening in its descrptions of a beautiful country of which the genocide is only one part of the story and intimate in its search for the real amongst the virtual.
September 10, 2010
Yes, I desperately need a vacation, but this entry in yet another series that I had been ignoring (at my peril) helped tide me over. Some favorite pieces: Seth Stevenson on the hidden meanings of Disney World, Jay Kirk on the precarious present of Rwanda, Caroline Alexander on a swamp full of hidden tigers in Bangladesh, Paul Salopek on the nature of the Sahel in Africa, and Mark Schatzker on the surprising differences between cruising the Pacific and the Atlantic. I liked this volume so much I'm following up with the 2008 volume.
May 31, 2010
This collection of essays and magazine articles is interesting; I didn't love it, but I was interested to read at least half of the chosen pieces. I think having the accompanying photos (at least from the magazine articles) would have lifted my enjoyment level, but I understand how that's not feasible given printing costs.
I would try another of these collections, though I would not force myself to read each piece.
I would try another of these collections, though I would not force myself to read each piece.
March 10, 2010
I have discovered a bias. I skip stories about Africa, they bore and depress me and I have trouble caring. I favor stories about Asia and America. Europe is hit-or-miss.
The Tigerland story was good. And the Cuba story was very good. And the one about the river country from the movie Deliverance. Good too. Otherwise, meh.
The Tigerland story was good. And the Cuba story was very good. And the one about the river country from the movie Deliverance. Good too. Otherwise, meh.
November 17, 2012
My favorite pieces from this volume:
Frank Bures, "A Mind Dismembered" (Nigeria)
Tony Perrottet, "The Pervert's Grand Tour" (France)
Lynne Cox, "A Dip in the Cold" (Greenland/Canada)
Matthew Power, "Mississippi Drift" (Mississippi River)
Seth Stevenson, "The Mecca of the Mouse" (Disney World)
Calvin Trillin, "By Meat Alone" (Texas)
Frank Bures, "A Mind Dismembered" (Nigeria)
Tony Perrottet, "The Pervert's Grand Tour" (France)
Lynne Cox, "A Dip in the Cold" (Greenland/Canada)
Matthew Power, "Mississippi Drift" (Mississippi River)
Seth Stevenson, "The Mecca of the Mouse" (Disney World)
Calvin Trillin, "By Meat Alone" (Texas)
August 11, 2016
Maybe I'm a little burned out on these anthologies - this was good, but took me forever to finish as I slogged through some of the more boring pieces. The ones on the Middle East and Africa were the most engaging; in particular, Daniel Alarcon's closing piece on then-peaceful Syria is a chilling prelude to civil war. A decent introduction to some of these writers if nothing else.
February 13, 2016
I wanted to see if Winchester was as goo at editing as at writing, and he is! There were a lot of interesting stories here. I particularly liked "Mississippi Drift", "Mecca of the Mouse", Bolivi a's Wrestlers", and "a Tale of Two Crossings". These essays are just the right length to read before sleep.
July 6, 2011
I always love these 'Best American' series. To call this travel writing is a bit misleading, since many of the articles would be better called journalism. The essay on Burma was fantastic. Essays on Cuba, Lebanon and Bulgarian Roma were also pretty damn enlightening.
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November 30, 2009Favorite essays were: A Mind Dismembered by Frank Bures, Hotels Rwanda by Jay Kirk, My Servant by Eric Weiner, Ecotouring in Honduras by Elisabeth Eaves.
February 28, 2010
Really nice variety! This was the text for a course I taught and it served me well.
December 5, 2010
Wonderful, as always.
January 22, 2010
facinating, scarey, funny, places I want to see, other places I never want to see
March 14, 2010
These stories make me want to slit my wrists... that I didn't write them! Fabulous compilation.
August 17, 2010
As in most travel writing there is a lot of variation in the quality of these articles reprinted from other publications.
October 22, 2010
There were definitely some good pieces in this collection, but some were kind of lackluster. I did like to see a number of selections from the VQR, though.
January 12, 2011
The good essays in this collection I had already read. The others were either boring or about icky places.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews