Compulsively Aimless

It's difficult to be objective about yourself.  Sometimes it takes an outsider to offer a different perspective.  As Americans, our natural disposition is to be liked.  But that's not always the case.  Here's my short collection of outsiders who have come to America and reported their findings.  Some admirers; some less so. 1.  Cio America!  An Italian Discovers the U.S.  Beppe Severgnini (1995).   Columbus discovered America and five hundred years later, Italian journalist, Beppe Severgnini, rented a row house in Washington's Georgetown neighborhood and recorded his observations for the next year.  Severgnini offers a wonderful sense of detachment to make his observations amusing showing affection for America but also gently poking fun.  Bought used somewhere. 2.  American Notes: A Journey, Charles Dickens (1842; Fromm edition, 1985).  In 1842, Charles Dickens toured the U.S. writing about Wall Street, the prison...

For two years, I lived ten miles from the Iranian border.  I had always wanted to see it's great religious and historical sites going back to the days of Xerxes and Darius the Great.  But at the time Iran was off limits to Americans and in any case belligerent toward American hikers.  Meanwhile, I collected some books to help me with armchair travel to Iran.  1. Touring Iran, Philip Ward (1971).   The author published a series of tourist guides to middle eastern hot spots (Touring Libya (3 volumes) and Touring Lebanon) back when  A tourist guide adventurous westerners might have been able to travel there in relative safety.  Ward's guide is definitely for the intellectually minded tourist.  Maps, black and white photos, useful words and phrases and basic information about the cities.  Bought used at the State Department Bookstore.   2.  The Legacy of Persia, Ed. by A.J. Arberry (1953).   Collection of histories wr...

Part two of the Eclectic travel collection. 1.  Once Around Lightly, Robert St. John (1969).  St, John was a radio broadcaster from the 1940s.  He travels from Japan to southern Asia, Indonesia, India, through the Khyber pass into Afghanistan ending in Iran.   Bought used at the State Department bookstore. 2.  Whereabouts: Notes on Being A Foreigner, Alastair Reid (1987).  Are you a foreigner by necessity, accident, or choice?  Reid explores the aspects of what is like to be an outsider.  He travelers to places of his past looking for lost connections but finds himself a stranger.   Bought used somewhere.  3.  Urbane Travellers 1591-1635, Boies Penrose (1942).   Sketches of English travelers.   Traces the beginnings of English travel.  Bought used somewhere. 4.  Places, James Morris (1972).    Morris writes about American cities and remote islands.  Illustrated with Mo...

My preference is for travel books devoted to a single adventure.  I started to make an exception and buy collections of travels.  Some of the books are built around a theme--the most remote outposts or others simply write a series of eclectic adventures in one book.   Here's my collection. 1.  Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire, Simon Winchester (2004) .  Winchester traveled over 100,000 miles to vestiges of the British Empire including Diego Garcia, the Falkland Islands and the most remote island on earth, Ascension Island.  Bought new. 2.  The Offensive Traveler, V.S. Pritchett (1967).   Pritchertt says he is an offensive not in the sense that he travels in a state of arrogance or complaining but that he is always observing and watching the private lives of other people where he is an outsider.  Wonderful  essays on Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran and Spain.  Bought used but can't remember...

In a moment that out did Yogi Berra, General De Gaul is quoted as saying, "China is a big country inhabited by many Chinese."   I'll say the same with books-China is a big country with many books written about it.  I've mentioned books on China from my other lists (Paul Theroux, Colin Thubron, Ella Maillart and others) but this is a short list of  western writers and travelers who shared their insight and passion about the country.   1.  River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, Peter Hessler (2001).  Hessler is a gifted writer and patient observer--two qualities that were well suited to his two years in the Peace Corps in a backwater of China.  His travels and experiences teaching English literature in China are wonderful and rewarding.  Hessler has since gone onto write other books on China and pieces for The New Yorker.  Bought new.   2.  Frontier of Heaven, Stanley Stewart: A Journey to the End of China, Stanley...

Newby's life was an adventure from the mundane to the extreme. He is most likely my favorite travel writer for his humor, self-deprecation and gift for understatement in the face of the most ridiculous adversity.  Amazon Reviews offers a Newby-like summation saying he "has never been bedeviled by practicality."   Born near London, he left a job as a junior ad writer to sign up as an apprentice on a Finnish windjammer Moshulu  that rounded Cape Horn from Australia to Europe.  This gave him his start for the book  The Last Grain Race.   His sailing life was cut short by WWII and he enlisted in the Black Watch, an elite commando force.  He was captured off the coast of Sicily in 1942 and later escaped with the help of local Italians.  He later married the daughter of the farmer who sheltered him during the escape, which he wrote about later in h is memoir  Love and War in the Apennines.   After the war, he worked in the women'...

To the Western mind, Marco Polo is the grand daddy of all explorers--the top tier with Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong.  From 1275 to 1292, he traveled through China, Mongolia and Japan.  His accounts of Kublai Khan's Court, exotic animals and inhospitable deserts were so spectacular that he was not believed by his hometown Venetians.   Personally, Marco Polo was the gateway explorer for me as an armchair traveler.  He set out for the unknown through Central and Eastern Asia, areas that still intrigue me today.  Starting with his original book of Travels , I've added others.  1.  The Travels of Marco Polo, Edited with Introduction by Michael Komroff with Illustrations by Witold Gordon (1930).   Based on Polo's original account dictated to a fellow prisoner as well as the explorer's notebooks.  Hardback and paperback issued in 1982.  The hardback has contemporary color prints and beautiful wide margins that make it a ...

Vintage Books created a series of affordable paper back travel books--some of which have become modern travel classics.  I unintentionally started buying them because the travel topics interested me.  The series contains over 170 books.  Here's my collection: 1.  Iron & Silk, Mark Salzman (1986).  Before China was fully opened and before Peter Hessler wrote his insightful books on China, a young American martial arts student, Mark Salzman, went to live and travel in China.  The result is a series of sketches about his experience.  Salzman's experience is richer for his fluency in Mandarin. Bought used but can't remember where.  Contains a book stamp of the previous owner, Nell P. K. from Ormand Beach, Florida.   2.  Dazinger's Travels: Beyond Forbidden Frontiers, Nick Danzinger (1987).  In a fine tradition of English intrepid eccentric travelers, Danzinger creates his own epic trip He travels from Turkey to Beijing on f...

One of the joys of browsing in bookshops is that you discover interests you didn't know you had.  I didn't know I had an interest in Southeast Asia until I saw a clump of books in a used bookshop in Seattle.  It sparked an interest and I went on a brief book buying binge with the following results. 1.  Chasing the Dragon: Into the Heart of the Golden Triangle, Christopher Cox (1996).     Cox traveled to the shadowy zone where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet.  An area of drug smuggling, tribes and jungle, Cox reports on a region where few Americans have ventured.  Bought new. 2.  The Forgotten Kingdom, John Murray (1957).   A rare and revealing account of of a largely forgotten kingdom.  Murray's book draws on the life of  a Russian-born Depot Master in the Tibetan province of Nakhi--on the border of China and Tibet.  Great black and white photos showing village markets and the arduous trail on the way to Nakhi.  Bo...