Category: Travel

June 22, 2014

Talk to the Snail by Stephen Clarke *** (of 5)

It’s a standard genre. Expat, in this case British, lives in France long enough to write an irreverent, comic, snarky account of French mannerisms. He...

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March 9, 2014

In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh *** (of 4)

Ghosh recounts the life of a Medieval Jewish trader, Ben Yiyu, who transported goods by ship from India to Egypt. Evidence of his trader emerge...

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February 12, 2014

Ninety Percent of Everything by Rose George ** (of 4)

I loved Rose George’s, The Big Necessity about toilets and the lack of them around the world. I’m also fascinated by the sea and even...

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July 23, 2013

Paris to the Pyranees by David Downie * (of 4)

So much promise, so little delivery. David Downie sets his mind to walking the old pilgrim trail of Saint James. He’s trying to recover from...

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April 28, 2013

Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff **** (of 4)

Detroit, once the nation’s industrial capital, is forty percent vacant. Politicians are corrupt, robbing what little money still flows through the city. Murderous thugs roam...

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July 15, 2011

The Woman Who Fell from the Sky by Jennifer Steil * (of 4)

If a book is this bad I ordinarily just leave it off my list, but this one deserves to be panned, partly because it received...

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December 4, 2010

Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux **** (of 4)

Fresh out of college in the mid 1960s, just before he became famous as one of the great travel writers of a generation, Paul Theroux...

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November 23, 2010

The Tenth Parallel by Eliza Griswold ** (of 4)

Griswold travels the around the globe hanging out approximately 10 degrees north of the equator. In Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines it’s...

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July 15, 2010

Schlepping Through the Alps: My Search for Austria’s Jewish Past with Its Last Wandering Shepherd by Sam Apple

A journalist who traveled from childhood memories to adult memories from urban NY to Austria’s highest peaks in search of Hans Breuer, Yiddish folk singer...

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June 21, 2010

Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson **** (of 4)

This was my first Bryson. It’s his description of walking the Appalachian trail. I can think of no other book that made me laugh out...

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