A Month in Siena 10/16/2023
44 Reviews
The backstory, and two twists
Each review contains images of the book, decorated by my son Francis.
Reading time: 2 minutes
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I've read a fair amount of travel literature.
There's so much more I need to read, though, especially if I'm writing a travelogue.
A few years ago, I started reading the travel section of the Westerville Public Library. I discovered some great books and writers. I particularly liked Bob Shacochis and the geographer Alastair Bonnett (his Unruly Places was a fun read), but after a stretch of uninteresting books, I decided it would be better to curate the list.
I made a few rules, too. They came down to: Mix it up.
I went through at least a dozen travel websites' "Best of" lists and consulted, despite some issues I have with Goodreads, travel-related reader lists. I made a few rules, too. They came down to: Mix it up.
- Not just men, not just white people, not just Westerners
- Not just trips to Europe and America (quite common for my personal travels—which I will rectify)
- Classics, best-sellers, and books I've never heard of
- Four or five in French, my second language
- No repeat books: if I read it prior to this project, I won't review it
- Exception to the above: The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton...just because
- No repeat authors: if I include one of their books in this project, that's all for them
- Exceptions to the above: Bruce Chatwin (two books) and Paul Theroux (two books), because Chatwin died an accomplished travel writer at 48, the age at which I finally managed to figure some things out, and because Paul Theroux, along with Michel de Montaigne and Anthony Bourdain, were monumental influences on me—and I cannot overstate anything in that sentence
- A few service guides (yes!), not just travelogues and memoirs
- The reviews will be short, they aren't going in the New York Review of Books
After going through the list carefully—but not too carefully—I had forty-four works. And thus we have 44 Reviews. Since life has a tendency to happen (i.e., to get in the damn way), it will take a while to read the books and review them.
You can filter the blog entries to see all of my travel book reviews by clicking this link. Click here to see only the 44 Reviews series.
Not just men, not just white people, not just Westerners.
Unique Content Ahead
I added two features to the reviews:
- My wife Gina's reaction to each book; specifically, what she heard when I talked about it (I talk to her about most travel books I read)
- Photos of my son Francis's decorations of each book; an arrangement which has nothing to do with the contents of the book, nor my reactions to it, but everything to do with a preschooler's idea of what looks good at that exact moment
The books
- Baedeker, Karl and Muirhead, J.F., The United States
- Bilski, Tory, Wild Horses of the Summer Sun
- Bird, Isabella, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan
- Bissell, Tom, Chasing the Sea
- Botton, Alain de, The Art of Travel
- Bourdain, Anthony, World Travel
- Byron, Robert, The Road to Oxiana
- Chatwin, Bruce, In Patagonia
- Chatwin, Bruce, The Songlines
- Clark, Eleanor, Rome and a Villa
- Conti, Anita, Racleurs d'océans
- Delisle, Guy, Shenzhen
- Eyewitness Travel, France
- Gilbert, Elizabeth, Eat Pray Love
- Hemming, Henry, Misadventure in the Middle East
- Jenkins, Jedidiah, To Shake the Sleeping Self
- Kpomassie, Tété-Michel, L'Africain du Groenland
- Léry, Jean de, Voyage au Brésil
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude, Tristes tropiques
- Lopez, Barry, Horizon
- Ma, Jian, Red Dust
- Mandel, Pam, The Same River Twice
- Mandeville, John, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
- Matar, Hisham, A Month in Siena
- Murphy, Dervla, Full Tilt
- Naipaul, V.S., An Area of Darkness
- Nansen, Fridtjof, Farthest North
- Page, Amanda, ed, The Columbus Anthology
- Pitts, Johny, Afropean
- Poncins, Gontran de, From a Chinese City
- Prato, Liz, Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege
- Raban, Jonathan, Bad Land
- Sedaris, David, Calypso
- Sidhu, Puneetinder, Adrift
- Taylor, Candacy, Overground Railroad
- Tesson, Sylvain, L'axe du loup
- Theroux, Paul, Figures in a Landscape
- Theroux, Paul, On the Plain of Snakes
- Thesiger, Wilfred, Arabian Sands
- Trojanow, Ilija, Along the Ganges
- Troost, J Maarten, The Sex Lives of Cannibals
- Twain, Mark, The Innocents Abroad
- Whitewolf, Harry, The Road To Purification
- Wright, Lawrence, God Save Texas
Again, you can filter the blog's travel book reviews by clicking this link. To see only the 44 Reviews series, click here.
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