These are the best books I read in 2020
Do you have a book addiction? Well I’m here to make it worse.
I love a good reading list like a hobo loves Aqua Velva.
Writer, Explorer and Travel Philosopher
Do you believe in the spirit of place?
June 9, 2020 by 9 Comments
The desert is my personal landscape — what’s yours?
The novelist and island writer Lawrence Durrell believed we are each aligned with certain places.
This is where we do our best work because we resonate with the Spirit of Place.
Will travel writing survive COVID-19?
April 28, 2020 by 2 Comments
The travel section of London’s Skoob books…
The future looks bleak for travel writing — at least, for the highly commercialized side — but I don’t think this is true for travel literature. They aren’t the same thing.
So It Goes by Nicolas Bouvier
October 29, 2019 by 4 Comments
“So it goes” recurs like a refrain throughout this collection of essays, and I found myself wishing it would go on and on.
Nicolas Bouvier is one of those legendary writers whose name circulates among travelers, but few of my North American road friends had ever heard of him. It was European friends who told me about his classic road trip book, The Way of the World.
Getting the Drift in London
February 8, 2019 by Leave a Comment
The Great Court of London’s British Museum…
I’d only been in London for a few hours, and I was already thinking I’d have to scrap a year’s work.
The Best Books I Read in 2018
January 1, 2019 by 4 Comments
Best Books 2018
It’s that time again.
I typically read about 100 books a year. Everything from travel literature to poetry, history, psychology, fiction and memoir.
I love reading lists and recommendations, and I bet a few of you do, too. So at year’s end, I like to take a moment to share my top reads of the past twelve months.
An Interview with Lawrence Millman
August 10, 2018 by 4 Comments
At Hellisheidi, above Vindfellsfjall, Iceland…
Lawrence Millman is the author of eleven books, including Northern Latitudes, Last Places, An Evening Among Headhunters, and Lost in the Arctic. His travel articles have appeared in such magazines as Smithsonian, National Geographic Adventure, The Atlantic Monthly, Sports Illustrated, and Islands.
Old Glory by Jonathan Raban
August 4, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Old Glory by Jonathan Raban
After a childhood of river dreams inspired by readings of Huckleberry Finn, Jonathan Raban set out to travel the length of the Mississippi River from north to south in a 16-foot open aluminum boat.
Coasting With Jonathan Raban
July 9, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Coasting by Jonathan Raban
In 1982, Jonathan Raban bought a wooden two-masted sailing boat and circumnavigated England in a slow, wandering, unhurried way.
He called this manner of travel “coasting”: moving along with the tide, letting the wind decide the direction of travel, and living “on the shifting frontier where the land meets the water and the water shades into the land.”
Travel Lit and The Mark of the Eland
July 4, 2018 by Leave a Comment
I always find something amazing in the travel lit section…
My last London day was a short one. We had a flight to catch that evening, but there was still time to shift the scope of my trip back to books.
