After enjoying a number of different writers listing out their Top Ten Writer’s Read in recent editions of the Geographical magazine, http://www.geographical.co.uk, I thought I’d attempt my own list. Most are travel orientated and most have been reread more than a few times J I’m not sure whether there’s any other common themes – probably it’s a mix of enjoying their writing styles or having travelled to the locations talked about.
The Sinbad Voyage by Tim Severin, published by Hutchinson & Co. One of my first travel reads – a very boy’s own adventure but it fired my imagination about what travel could show me, crucially as at sixteen I had not even been out of England. Tim totally immerses himself & his team into different cultures & peoples, whilst realising a fantastic project from start to finish. His writing style depicts the joy of travelling itself – from planning, through the journey and onto a wider world that he has not seen before.
The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby, published by Picador. Newby, one of the first modern era travel writers, talks about his time spent on the four masted steel barque Moshulu’s last voyage in the Australian grain trade in the 1930s. Its sea journey feels hard, uncomfortable – as Eric stumbles his way around the globe as a novice deckhand. Whilst I found his technical sailing difficult to follow at times, I did undertake a couple of my own ship journeys…aboard the Malcolm Miller around the Canary Islands & aboard the Soren Larsen down to New Zealand. After those journey I understood more about his adventure and how other worldly being away from land for days can be and yet how much camaraderie can develop in such a confined space.
Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene, published by The Bodley Head. Unusually a fiction that grabbed my attention and whilst not an out & out travel story, it does use travel to expand the lives of the two main characters as they cross Franco’s Spain. Eminently readable and quite intimate in the development of friendship that was freed from limitations by being on the road.
A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain, published by Bloomsbury Publishing. It is Bourdain’s account of his world travels — from the perspective of eating exotic local dishes and trying to experience life as a native in each country. The book was recommended to me by a friend and appealed to one of my reasons for travelling…the enjoyment of different tastes and foods, though many of Bourdain’s ingredients wouldn’t pass my lips !
Long Way Round by Ewan McGregor, Charley Boorman, published by Little Brown Book Group. Probably like most, I watched the TV program and then indulged in the book – their journey around the globe is a simple premise itself but I think the appeal lies in it being a motorbike journey by two friends, who despite their star studded lives, encounter similar travel ups & downs to many of us who set out on some trip. Particularly resonating is Ewan reminding himself more than once that he has to leave behind his London suspicions & scepticisms towards strangers & difference circumstances.
Annapurna, The first 8000 meter Peak by Maurice Herzog, published by Dutton. I bought this mountaineering epic at the Pilgrims Bookshop in Thamel, next door to the Kathmandu Guest house – I wanted to anticipate my forthcoming trek up to South Annapurna Base Camp. Little did I realise Herzog would cause so much controversy after he returned to France in the early 1950s…many critics and colleagues have since accused him of playing up his singular role at the expense of the other expedition members.
Jupiter’s Travels by Ted Simon, published by Penguin Books Ltd. After Long Way round I finally got round to reading this now classic…Its very intense & detailed in reflecting his experiences, particularly around his time in Africa and California – Ted manages to convey his daily life around his motorbike and their interactions through the world they pass through.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee, published by W. W. Norton & Company. Second time around I thoroughly enjoyed Lee’s account of travelling from his ‘Cider with Rosie’ rural upbringing on to a quite different & more complex world…his travels through England are unusual and talk of an England I’ve never known. Lee’s writing is very open and I found I recognised much in his sense of heading up to London & beyond..
A time of gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor, published by John Murray (Publishers). Another classic that I’d heard of but knew nothing about ! What fascinates me is not only his descriptions in travelling in the 1930s but the historical backdrop Patrick is passing through, as Europe heads to war. Fermor is another who leaves behind a way of life I’ll never experience and two more volumes await me as he completes his epic walk to Istanbul.