19 setembro 2007

The 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time

Chosen by a literary all-star jury that included: Monica Ali; Vikram Chandra; Jared Diamond; Peter Mayle; John McPhee; Francine Prose; Paul Theroux; Gore Vidal; and more.

Along the Ganges
Ilija Trojanow (2006)

Arabian Sands
Wilfred Thesiger (1959)

An Area of Darkness
V. S. Naipaul (1965)

As They Were
M.F.K. Fisher (1982)

A Barbarian in Asia
Henri Michaux (1933)

The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer
Eric Hansen (2004)

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus
Lawrence Durrell (1957)

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Rebecca West (1942)

Blue Highways
William Least Heat-Moon (1982)

Captain John Smith: Writings (2007)

Chasing the Monsoon
Alexander Frater (1993)

Chasing the Sea
Tom Bissell (2003)

Cross Country
Robert Sullivan (2006)

Dark Star Safari
Paul Theroux (2003)

Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)

Down and Out in Paris and London
George Orwell (1933)

Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff
Rosemary Mahoney (2007)

The Emperor
Ryszard Kapuściński (1978; translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand)

Endurance
Alfred Lansing (1959)

Eothen
Alexander William Kinglake (1844)

"Exterminate All the Brutes"
Sven Lindqvist(1996)

Farthest North: The Voyage and Exploration of the Fram, 1893–1896
Fridtjof Nansen (1898)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Hunter S. Thompson (1972)

The Fearful Void
Geoffrey Moorhouse (1974)

From a Chinese City
Gontran De Poncins (1957; translated by Bernard Frechtman)

Great Plains
Ian Frazier (1989)

The Great Railway Bazaar
Paul Theroux (1975)

Hindoo Holiday
J. R. Ackerley (1932)

The Histories
Herodotus (circa 440 b.c.)

The Impossible Country
Brian Hall (1994)

In a Sunburned Country
Bill Bryson (2000)

India: A Million Mutinies Now
V. S. Naipaul (1991)

The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain (1869)

In Patagonia
Bruce Chatwin (1977)

In the Country of Country
Nicholas Dawidoff (1997)

In Trouble Again
Redmond O'Hanlon (1988)

Iron & Silk
Mark Salzman (1986)

I See by My Outfit
Peter S. Beagle (1965)

The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Journey to Portugal
José Saramago (1981)



The Nobel Prize–winning novelist's early work doesn't take him far afield; instead, he digs deep, unearthing the bones of a country too often considered an afterthought. His use of the third person remains a strange choice, but the book was an important guide for Monica Ali, who set a recent novel here. "Not always a smooth read," she says, "but it's drenched in so much history and culture that it's an essential read" (Harcourt, $17).

Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians
George Catlin
(1841)

Letters from Egypt: A Journey on the Nile, 1849–1850
Florence Nightingale (1854; published 1987)

Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain (1883)

London Perceived
V. S. Pritchett (1962)

The Long Walk
Slavomir Rawicz (1956)

The Lycian Shore
Freya Stark (1956)

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
Suketu Mehta (2004)

The Muses Are Heard
Truman Capote (1956)

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches
Matsuo Basho (1694)

News from Tartary
Peter Fleming (1936)

The Nomad: Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt (1987)

No Mercy: A Journey into the Heart of the Congo
Redmond O'Hanlon (1997)

Notes from the Century Before
Edward Hoagland (1969)

Old Glory
Jonathan Raban (1981)

The Pillars of Hercules
Paul Theroux (1995)

The Pine Barrens
John McPhee (1968)

The Places in Between
Rory Stewart (2006)

Riding the Iron Rooster
Paul Theroux (1988)

The Rings of Saturn
W. G. Sebald (1998)

The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan
Winston Churchill (1899)

The Road to Oxiana
Robert Byron (1937)

Rome and a Villa
Eleanor Clark (1952)

Roughing It
Mark Twain (1872)

Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia
Peter Theroux (1990)

Sea and Sardinia
D. H. Lawrence (1921)

Shah of Shahs
Ryszard Kapuściński (1982; translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand)

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
Eric Newby (1958)

Siren Land
Norman Douglas (1911)

Skating to Antarctica
Jenny Diski (1997)

Slowly Down the Ganges
Eric Newby (1966)

The Songlines
Bruce Chatwin (1987)

Southern Baroque Art
Sacheverell Sitwell (1924)

Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue
Paul Bowles (1963)

A Time of Gifts
Patrick Leigh Fermor (1977)

To a Distant Island
James McConkey (1984)

Travels in Arabia Deserta
Charles M. Doughty (1888)

Travels in the Interior of Africa
Mungo Park (1799)

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (circa 1355)

Travels Through France and Italy
Tobias Smollett (1766)

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
R. L. Stevenson (1879)

Travels with Myself and Another
Martha Gellhorn (1978)

Two Towns in Provence
M.F.K. Fisher (1983)

A View of the World
Norman Lewis (1986)

West with the Night
Beryl Markham (1942)

The Worst Journey in the World
Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1922)

Wrong About Japan
Peter Carey (2004)

The Methodology
So many great travel books. How to choose? We asked 45 of our favorite writers for their favorite nonfiction travel titles—the ones that changed the way they considered a certain culture or place or people, that inspired them both to write and to get out into the world themselves. Their nominations—everything from Hunter S. Thompson's 1972 acid trip Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to Herodotus's 440 b.c. Histories—follow, all of them passionately endorsed and beloved.

The original date of publication follows the title; the current publisher and the price follow each entry.

Here, our all-star literary jury:
André Aciman, Monica Ali, Julia Alvarez, Tom Bissell, Geraldine Brooks, Vikram Chandra, Jim Crace, Jared Diamond, Linh Dinh, Anthony Doerr, Jennifer Egan, Stephen Elliott, Nuruddin Farah, Nell Freudenberger, Peter Godwin, Peter Hessler, Uzodinma Iweala, Sebastian Junger, Robert D. Kaplan, Mary Karr, Erik Larson, Rosemary Mahoney, Peter Mayle, Tom McCarthy, John McPhee, Adrienne Miller, Jan Morris, Stewart O'Nan, Francine Prose, Jonathan Raban, Graham Robb, Akhil Sharma, Matthew Sharpe, Jim Shepard, Darin Strauss, Robert Sullivan, Manil Suri, Paul Theroux, Colin Thubron, Lynne Tillman, Luis Alberto Urrea, Gore Vidal, Sean Wilsey, John Wray, and Lawrence Wright.

For abstracts on the books, visit Concierge.com

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