Monday, July 19, 2010

National Geographic Traveler’s 'Around the World in 80 Books' - Part I

Back on March 27, I gave you National Geographic’s list of 100 Best Adventure Books. A few days ago, a friend of mine e-mailed me a similar list, one called National Geographic Traveler’s “Around the World in 80 Books.”
In creating this list of classic travel books, the magazine’s editors asked “dozens of travelers (writers, photographers, explorers, editors, and others) to name the books that have most enriched their senses of place and best informed their peregrinations. Here are their choices."
1. Amsterdam by Geert Mak
2. Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
3. Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger
4. Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
5. Australian Colors: Images of the Outback by Bill Bachman
6. Bad Land: An American Romance by Jonathan Raban
7. Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History by Robert D. Kaplan
8. Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon
9. Brazilian Adventure by Peter Fleming
10. Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonseca
11. Chasing Monarchs: Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage by Robert Michael Pyle
12. City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple
13. Cold Beer and Crocodiles: A Bicycle Journey into Australia by Roff Smith
14. Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller
15. Coming into the Country by John McPhee
16. Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
17. Cuba by Elizabeth Newhouse
18. Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source of the Black Sea by Claudio Magris
19. Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
20. The Edge of Paradise: America in Micronesia by P.F. Kluge
21. The Eighth Continent: Life, Death and Discovery in the Lost World of Madagascar by Peter Tyson
22. The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris by Edmund White
23. A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East by Tiziano Terzani
24. Full Circle: One Man’s Journey by Air, Train, Boat and Occasionally Very Sore Feet Around the 50,000 Miles of the Pacific Rim by Michael Palin
25. Galapagos: Islands Born of Fire by Tui De Roy
26. The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest by Timothy Egan
27. Heidi’s Alp: One Family’s Search for Storybook Europe by Christina Hardyment
28. Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
29. Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey by Alison Wearing
30. Hong Kong by Jan Morris
And I’ll stop right there for tonight. Visit the blog tomorrow for the other 50 titles on this interesting list. Of the above books, how many have you had a chance to read? What did you think about them? Which would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.

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