By: Alain de Botton
How art has influenced what we consider beautiful in the world, and how an
appreciation of art can enhance your travels and your life. “Although we are
inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we
should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.”—from the jacket
blurb
Reviewer: Ellen
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By: Horwitz, Tony
When it comes to history and the "discovery" of America, Tony Horwitz is a dummy
and he is betting that his readers are as well. During a visit to Plymouth Rock,
Horwitz discovers, much to his priate school educated chagrin, that he knew next to
nothing about the people who traveled the continent (before and after Columbus),
much less the folks who inhabited "America" before European contact commenced.
Horwitz writes a well-paced and humorous travelogue of self-tutoring as he sweats it
out in a lodge with MicMacs in Newfoundland, follows Coronado's trail all the way to
Kansas (who knew?) and tours present-day Roanoke which was briefly settled, not by
fantasized Pilgrim forebears, but by a, "... motley crew of slave traders, tourists,
castaways and Tudor knights...." Horwitz neatly balances historical narrative with
his own present-day travel stories for an engaging and entertaining history
lesson.
Reviewer: Tim Strawn
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By: Thubron, Colin
Thubron has penned a number of entertaining and insightful books over a long
career, and he may be one of the last in the British tradition of "gentleman
travelers." His is an elegant style. He writes with crystalline clarity and his
narratives, and travels, inevitable veer from the beaten track, bringing us vivid
tales from faraway places inhabited by strangers who soon become our familiars. In
this book, he details his journey through modern Asia along the ancient Silk Road
from China to the Mediterranean through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran
and Turkey, revisiting some of the same people and places he detailed in two earlier
books, only twenty years on. His descriptions of history, cultures and people are
vivid and unforgettable.
Reviewer: Tim Strawn
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