Let's Get Lost: Adventures in the Great Wide Open

by Craig Nelson

Tiny crease to corner of back cover. Craig Nelson has walked along the Great Wall in China and taught cannibals to dance in New Guinea. He has visited countries from the Amazon to the Yucatan Peninsula and plans on visiting Zanzibar if only to round out the alphabet. This book recalls some of his many adventures.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published August 1, 1999

About the author

CRAIG NELSON is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Rocket Men, as well as several previous books, including V is for Victory, Pearl Harbor, The Age of Radiance (a finalist for the PEN Award), The First Heroes, Thomas Paine (winner of the Henry Adams Prize), and Let’s Get Lost (short-listed for W.H. Smith’s Book of the Year).
His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, Soldier of Fortune, Salon, National Geographic, The New England Review, Popular Science, California Quarterly, Blender, Semiotext(e), Reader’s Digest, and a host of other publications; he has been profiled in Variety, Interview, Publishers Weekly, and Time Out.
Before turning to writing, Nelson was vice president and executive editor of Harper & Row, Hyperion, and Random House, where he oversaw the publishing of twenty national bestsellers and worked with such authors as John Lennon, Andy Warhol, Lily Tomlin, Philip Glass, Rita Mae Brown, Steve Wozniak, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Alex Trebek, William Shatner, the Rolling Stones, Orson Welles, Robert Evans, David Lynch, Roseanne Barr, and Barry Williams.
He is a graduate of UT Austin, and attended the USC Film School, the UCLA writing program, and the Harvard-Radcliffe publishing course. He turned to writing full-time in 2002.
As a historian he is known for epic moments in the American experience — Pearl Harbor; the race to the Moon; the nation’s founding; and the nuclear era — that are both engrossingly page-turning and distinguished for their scholarship. Massively researched from scratch, his books are eye-opening and definitive accounts of the profound moments that made us who we are today.
Craig lives in an 1867 department store in Greenwich Village.

Reviews

[Jimbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this years ago, and have my copy stored away in a box somewhere else, but am reminded of it now because in the introduction the author advises us to travel to places while we have the chance...

[Michael Kerjman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An ocean of information which could hardly be used by average traveller as his eteninary for quite obvious differences both U.S.passport and dough sustain.

[Melissa Kidd · Rating 2 out of 5]

This travel book was better than the last travel book I read, but it still wasn't quite what I was looking for. It's more a memoir of a guy who apparently has gobs of money and can travel whenever and wherever he wants. There were parts of the book that I appreciated but there were less than I wanted. And the writing bogged me down. I had to make a plan to read this book which doesn't happen very often - fifty pages a day and then I can put it down and move on to something else. If I didn't have so much time on my hands at the moment I might have left it and not finished it. It wasn't horrible, it just wasn't that good.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's Get Lost is exactly what a travel narrative should be: Funny, insightful, and memorable.

Craig Nelson takes the reader on a tour of the third world, giving advice, describing locations and people, and telling about adventures along the way. Nelson has traveled extensively, and the range of experiences in the book show that quite well.

As a writer, Nelson is concise while almost poetic in his descriptions of the things he has seen. The book could easily be twice the length and still keep one entertained by the writing alone.

Heavily recommended.

[Tom M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Craig Nelson's LET'S GET LOST is a prime example of a book that was too short by far. Nelson divides his book into five or six sections, each a separate travel experience. Those experiences are so rich and diverse, and his story-telling so funny, that I think each section should have been expanded into their own book.

Too often I felt cheated by how short the chapters and sections were, and that's a rare thing.

[Jeannette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a laugh-out-loud book. It's split into small sections perfect for a quick read.

[Jrobertus]

funny and interesting - an overweight texan visits india, s. amer., egypt, africa etc.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chrissy gave me this before I went bumming around Europe and it served as an inspiration for my misadventures there.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

My feet are itching

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick fun read. Could be inspirational for traveler.