Capote book listed among '86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time'

In a post Saturday about Wilfred Thesiger’s classic adventure book, “Arabian Sands,” I mentioned that that book was listed on Longitude Books’ list of the “86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time.”

I realized later that I'd never posted this great “best of” book list, so today I present you with that complete list. I compiled this list from Longitude Book’s Web site, www.longitudebooks.com, and for whatever reason, a close inspection revealed that there are actually only 73 books on the list. Don’t ask me why unless it's because some of these books are multi-volume, which I know is true in at least one case.

Without further ado, here’s the list, which I’ve put in alphabetical order by title:

THE 86 GREATEST TRAVEL BOOKS OF ALL TIME:

1. Along the Ganges by Ilija
2. An Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipaul
3. Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger*
4. As They Were by M.F.K. Fisher
5. A Barbarian in Asia by Henri Michaux

6. The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer by Eric Hansen
7. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West and Christopher Hitchens
8. Blue Highways: A Journey Into America by William Least Heat Moon
9. Captain John Smith: Writings With Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown and the First English Settlement of Virginia by James Horn
10. Chasing the Sea by Tom Bissell

11. Cross Country by Robert Sullivan
12. Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux
13. The Definitive Journals of Lewis and Clark by Gary Moulton, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
14. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
15. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

16. Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney
17. The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat by Ryszard Kapuscinski
18. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
19. Eothen by Alexander William Kinglake
20. Exterminate All the Brutes by Sven Lindqvist

21. Farthest North by Fridtjof Nansen
22. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson*
23. Great Plains by Ian Frazier
24. The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
25. Hindoo Holiday by J.R. Ackerley

26. The Histories by Herodotuss
27. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
28. The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
29. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
30. In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music by Nicholas Dawidoff

31. In Trouble Again by Redmond O’Hanlon
32. Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman
33. I See By My Outfit by Peter S. Beagle
34. Journey to Portugal: In Pursuit of Portugal’s History and Culture by Jose Saramago
35. The Lewis and Clarke Journals by Gary Moulton, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

36. Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
37. The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz
38. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta
39. The Narrow Road to Oku by Basho Matsuo and Donald Keene
40. Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Nobuyuki Yuasa and Basho Matsuo

41. News from Tartary by Peter Fleming
42. The Nomad: The Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt by Isabelle Eberhardt
43. No Mercy: A Journey to the Heart of the Congo by Redmond O’Hanlon
44. North American Indians by George Catlin
45. Pillars of Hercules by Paul Theroux

46. The Pine Barrens by John McPhee
47. The Places in Between by Rory Stewart
48. Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote by Truman Capote
49. Riding the Iron Rooster by Paul Theroux
50. The Rings of Saturn by Winfried Georg Sebald

51. The River War: An Historical of the Reconquest of the Sudan by Winston S. Churchill, Mary Soames and James W. Muller
52. The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron
53. Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia by Peter Theroux
54. Sea and Sardinia by D.H. Lawrence
55. Sha of Shas by Ryszard Kapuscinski

56. A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
57. Slowly Down the Ganges by Eric Newby
58. The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
59. Southern Baroque Art by Sacheverell Sitwell
60. Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World by Paul Bowles and Edmund White

61. A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
62. To a Distant Island by James McConkey
63. Travels in Arabia Deserta, Selected Passages by Charles Doughty
64. Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa by Mungo Park
65. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville: The Fantastic 14th Century Account of a Journey to the East by John Mandeville

66. Travels Through France and Italy by Tobias Smollett
67. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson
68. Travels With Myself and Another: A Memoir by Martha Gellhorn
69. Two Towns in Provence by M.F.K. Fisher
70. A View of the World: Selected Journalism by Norman Lewis

71. West with the Night by Beryl Markham and Sara Wheeler
72. The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard*
73. Wrong About Japan by Peter Carey

In the end, how many of these books have you read? Which would you recommend? Which did you like or dislike? Which is your personal favorite? Let us know in the comments section below.

(For more information about this list and the books mentioned above, visit http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/d/11357/pc/Best%20Travel%20Books/printable/1.)

* Those that I’ve read as of this printing.