Travelogue Books

A collection of essays and stories about living in foreign countries. Books about this usually contain certain predictable themes. The writer is usually English or American, doesn't have a regular job, and the natives among whom he lives are lovable eccentrics with fractured English. It's commonly an island, or somewhere remote and warm, and when we next read about the writer he's no longer living there. (Jan Morris points out of these cliches in her or his introductory essay, "Some Thoughts from Abroad")
Some of the pieces fall into these obvious categories but one writer is Indian, one Welsh, and one South American. In three of them the foreign country is the United States. Others are set in the Philippines, Paris, Provence, Italy, Kenya, Singapore, Mexico, Ireland, Morocco, Japan, China, Egypt, Thailand, Turkey and Greece. Tragedy strikes in two of them but the mood is mostly light-hearted and humorous. I enjoyed them all. They made me appreciate electricity, paved roads, and being able to turn on a faucet and drink the water.

This compendium of travel stories provides essays by Isabel Allende, Jan Morris, and more notable travel writers and provides an unusual focus on experiences of living abroad. Essays range from the humorous to the observation of cultural differences as they provide both entertaining and enlightening autobiographies embracing the overseas living experience. A House Somewhere is perfect as a leisure literary pursuit and highly recommended for the traveler who contemplates residency in another country.

This was the first book I bought from iUniverse to gain insight on how someone could use self-publishing to get their novel out there. Although it has some interesting situations, it helped me understand what I needed to do to get my book published through supported self publishing as a finished product.

Thank you.

-GM
Gregory M. Kuzma
Author, On the field from Denver, Colorado...The Blue Knights!: One member's experience of the 1994 summer national tour (N)

This is the 2nd book I have read of Mr. Miserandino's and I enjoyed every minute of it, as much, and if possible even more than the first. It is funny, lighthearted, and engaging.
This easy-to-read book provides even more interesting travel destinations and leaves you wanting to travel more often yourself and read more of his married adventures.

Whether you are single, engaged, or married; enjoy travelling or like living vicariously through other people's travels, you will enjoy this book.

The title of this book should be "Fun, Fun, and More Fun." Mr. Miserandino has succeeded in introducing a great mother-in-law into a travelling tale starring his wife, great locations, and great food. This is a funny book but also a treasure trove of information about popular travel destinations. Even though you may have visited these places, the author presents the places in a different light and never fails to identify great places to eat. I suspect that the author returns from these trips fat and poor, since the food is abundant and his wife shops non-stop. But what is life for but to eat, drink, and be merry? And shop!

The book is well written and I recommend it if you want to read a "fun book" but especially if you intend to visit Niagara Falls, Newport (RI), Sanibel Island, Opryland, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Mobile (AL), San Antonio, Grand Rapids (MI), or if you wish to take a river or luxury cruise.

Fi Glover, a dj on BBC in England, finds herself between radio gigs for a few months, and decides to see what radio is like in other countries. So she buys a wind-up radio that requires no batteries or electricity and sets off for some places she'd heard were interesting, radio-wise. Travels With My Radio is the result, a hodge-podge of radio adventures in Europe, America, Lebanon, and the Caribbean.

The original title was I Am An Oil Tanker, based on a radio blooper made by a dj reading a breaking news bulletin. I'm glad the title was changed to something more straightforward because I would have ignored the book otherwise, thinking it was a children's book. As it was, I saw the title in a catalog (since Amazon doesn't sell the book, only the audiotape, I don't have any qualms about saying that I found it in The Common Reader catalog) and thought, what a great idea for a book. I always travel with a tiny transistor radio and enjoy hearing the different programs around the world.

Since Glover is in the business, she gains access to stations and radio hosts wherever she goes and this behind-the-scenes look is quite revealing. She sets off determined to meet Howard Stern and Art Bell, as well as some less famous, less quirky radio personalities. At least half the book is set in the U.S., in California, Las Vegas, New York, and Chicago.

Part of the fun of Travels With My Radio, for me, is the Britishness of it. (The book is not published in the U.S.) It's always fun to see what someone from abroad thinks of your country (Ciao, America by Beppe Severgnini, for example). Glover translates everything American into something her intended readers, Brits, will understand. So we end up with a New York traffic reporter saying "there's one flipped over on the carriageway in Queens," and a Santa Rosa dj saying "another beautiful summer day in Sonoma County with lows of 25 (celsius) on the coast." She misspells unfamiliar placenames: Pahrump, Nevada is consistently spelled Parumph and San Bernardino as San Bernadino. And she decides to take the Greyhound bus to Palm Springs from L.A. Naturally she finds her fellow riders are an odd, scraggly lot, because in this country, no one rides the bus unless they are unable, physically or legally, to drive a car. When she tries to take the city bus within Palm Springs, the bus driver advises her to take a cab.

Even though it is now possible to listen to just about any radio station in the world on the internet, Glover still manages to make her radio travels relevant. Her description of Gene Hackman giving a petulant interview, her arrival and adventures in Las Vegas the very week that Art Bell was quitting his paranormal talk show (coincidence?), her white-knuckle drive through Beirut, all great stories. She should be on the radio.

Fi Glover is an acclaimed BBC Radio Five Live broadcaster who began her career at the BBC's smallest local station Somerset Sound, later worked for GLR in London, flirted with television in BBC2's The Travel Show and now hosts BBC Radio Five Live's late show.

Glover is a self-confessed radio anorak whose first priority, when checking into any hotel room anywhere is to tune in the bedside radio to whatever local station takes her fancy. The Travel Show having given her a dose of wanderlust, she decides to travel to various far-flung parts of the world and discover them through their local radio stations. For some reason she has not made a radio programme about this, she has instead written a book, presumably because there was more money in a book. There's certainly very little in radio (and even less in web sites!).

I am an Oil Tanker is a travel book, in much the same way that Bill Bryson's books are and we are immediately as interested in the person doing the travelling as we are in the journey itself.

The first thing I do when I pick up a book to read it is look for a list of chapter titles to give me some idea of what might lie in store. This doesn't work with Terry Pratchett books but in this case we get:

1. Are you the girl on the radio this morning?
2. I'm feeling a bit grantic today
3. I am Frank Warren
4. And then he puked up over the minister
5. Why isn't there any radio porn?
6. We have the technology to take you to hell
7. Where do retired air stewardesses go?
8. I just love your value system
9. Gene Hackman has a jackal of a day
10. Maybe I'll stay a while
11. I haven't forgotten the chutney

... so we're clearly going to have a varied and interesting time in the company of a girl with a fully working sense of humour as our guide!

At the start of the book we find ourselves unceremoniously plonked in North California at a radio station whose breakfast show appears to be being presented by a couple of 'good old boys' who are absolutely full of it, and yet their programme connected with its audience and the phone-in element seemed to be the show's saving grace. I guess you had to be there.

In complete contrast chapter 2 takes us to Austria, and specifically to Blue Danube Radio, a wonderful station with an educational remit aimed at the international traveller. Sadly, at the time of her visit BDR is about to be closed, to be replaced by new and trendy Fear FM. Fear FM will not be, as it happens, a completely different station but one staffed by exactly the same people working in the very same building. But fortunately for us the change has not yet happened at the time of Glover's visit, and the book is well worth reading just for this chapter alone.

The Frank Warren bit comes in because Glover gets given Frank Warren's ticket for Euro 2000, so we're on our way to a small opt-out outpost of Five Live at Charleroi in Belgium. This gives us a fascinating insight into the way BBC radio manages to function on a budget worth slightly less than half a pair of shoelaces. (I presume this is what people mean when they say shoestring?)

Succeeding chapters then fling us to Beiruit and Southern Lebanon, New York, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, New York again, Chicago, Montserrat and Taunton, spending just enough time in each place to regain enough composure to steal a few hotel towels.

I particularly enjoyed her visits to Palm Springs, where she sampled KJJZ's brand of Cool Jazz and Montserrat, where Radio Montserrat proved to be the cement which held the island together both during and after the eruption of the islands once 'dormant' volcano.

To say that this book is readable is an understatement. Fi Glover has a wonderful writing style in which she holds little of herself back. In Beiruit she tells us of the "roasty toasty heat" of the Lebanon:

"we are all dripping with sweat - obviously I could at this point pretend that I was simply perspiring slightly but I wasn't, I was drenched - I suggest we stay under the shade of the trees in the garden to chat amicably about how he got to be a DJ in the middle of a war zone. This is the army after all - no time for idle chit-chat."

Fi Glover is the perfect companion on this trip around bits of the globe. There is also an abridged audiobook.

And the title...? Well, if you don't know the story, you'll have to buy the book for the explaination!

The Idiots grabbed me by the nose & didn't let me go until I turned the last page. The Author's voice is what gives this work such great appeal. Dan generously wears his humanity on his sleeve for all of us to delight in as he takes us on his Eastern Europeon adventure with Roman and much more. A curious blend of hysterical humor and sombre emotion, The Idiots begs you to empathize with them as they journey through a whole gamut of experience in which even boredom seems interesting. Dan successfuuly weaves an ecelectic mix of story telling using journal entries, sketches and various anecdotes with a detailed eye and a spirited reflection that really embodies this work with a unique character. I'm ready for the sequel!

I've never met Dan, but while doing a google search for another Dan MacPherson, I stumbled upon this hidden treasure! The title sold me almost instantly. For some reason, I had to order it. For an "Absolute Nobody", Dan seems to have lead an extrordinary life.
Not since "Reverend" (By Dr. Gabby Johnson)have I been so touched by the work of someone I've never never met. For all I know, Dan MacPherson is an figment of a very creative writers' overactive imagination, but I don't care.
While reading this fantastic book, for a brief, shining moment...I was Dan.

Bravo.

I have not yet read this book, I have only just ordered it, but I am so excited to read it because currently I am the coordinator of the Hollenback Community Garden in Brooklyn New York. Our garden is on the former site of the Hollenback Mansion where Amelia grew up, which burned down in 1979.

Compiled, edited and Annotated by Mary J. Straw Cook, Immortal Summer: A Victorian Woman's Travels In The Southwest is a collection of letters and black-and-white photographs by Amelia Hollenback, a Victorian woman who had the opportunity to see 1897 America with her own eyes. With extensive contextual annotation, Immortal Summer is a vivid, superbly organized and presented primary source which takes in what American life, land and people were really like more than a century ago. One curious note: Author and historian Mary Cook lives in Santa Fe in the very house that Amelia Hollenback commissioned John Gaw Meem to build in 1932!

There is at least another book in the 10 years prior to where the Impatient American begins, a period I knew Mr. Pat on the Oregon coast. I haven't enjoyed a book as much since Hemingway passed on. Mr. Pat's engagement with life makes me feel like I sat mine out, and it turns out he also writes very well. I highly recommend this book, and anxiously await his next.

I have a confession. Although I am usually a liberal and often a middle-of-the-road independent old cuss with little time for radicals who despise opposing views, I do get a kick out of reading or listening to the likes of Limbaugh, Buchanan, George Will and Buckley. They are thinkers. Well, Patrick James Roelle has provided an insight into Egypt of the 1980's that no left or right winger should miss!

Think M*A*S*H meets King Tut! This novel is as appropriate to its subject as M*A*S*H was to the Korean Conflict. And this book, if turned into such a movie or TV series, could be just as big!

I know Pat. I traveled and worked with him in Egypt. I traveled and also worked with him in Botswana. Most of the events have at least some truth at their core.

Some of the more unbelievable parts are much more fact than fiction. Seriously, during the late 80's, you didn't need much imagination to write a novel about Egypt. Just print the truth, make some minor alterations so people would believe it to be possible and, presto, you could have a great novel.

Put another way, the parts of this book that are more believable, are the fiction.

The greatest value, however, is Pat's insight into the common man in Egypt. No Ivory Tower Liberal, No Palace Guard Conservative I have recently heard has even a clue as to why the abyss between America and the Third World. Nobody. Not Kerry, nor Blair, nor Bush nor Cheney. Perhaps nobody understands, because, deep down, nobody cares. When I post this review at surfreviewandreport I will be more colorful, but for now, Bill Anderson must show restraint.

Deep down, though, I want to spout a Churchillian-accented Limbaugh jab in Stephen King or Eddy Murphy language!

But I digress. Read Impatient American and you will come to understand why lurching from Soviet-style closed society into an open and transparent capitalism, and all that that entails, is causing such grief for this proud conservative society. The lurch, in the instinct of the Egyptian, is said to be forcing King Tut and Queen Nefertiti to roll over in their tombs - Bill Anderson, aka Andy.

Although Pat may have a different take on history than more scholarly folks, his take might be much closer to that believed by the common man. I'm betting he could write a pretty darn good version of American history of the 60s and 70s that would be more useful and understandable than the dribble of the politically correct class!

Read The Impatient American also for its humor. Read The Impatient American to learn how brilliantly Mr. Pat was assisted by yours truly - lol.

Hey, Mr. Pat's sense of humor was his greatest strength. Patrick James Roelle will score great success as he continues his series of novels based on fact but colored with humor and imagination. This book could well be converted into a terrific movie a bit like M*A*S*H.

if you are moody, cause winter is around, then you have to read this book, you will feel the sun, ocean breez, friendly people, more than your expactation. even I only have chance to read in Chinese version, but I can feel so touching and travel with the writter at same time, such as flying through storm and leave my heart on those beautiful south pacific Island. so, please sit tight, relax, and go......

Thanks for Gavin Bell for introducing me to Robert L. Stevenson. This book is so fasinacting. Everytime I read this book, I feel like I am surrounding by the ocean, palm trees, moonlight, friendly people...How much I wish I could be there. I don't have money to go there but Mr. Bell satisfies my dream. Now I start to get into Robert L. Stevenson. I have recently read a book about Fanny Stevenson, she is such an incredible woman. Now I am reading In Search of Tusitala in Chinese, I have been looking the English version and I have not found it yet. I hope it will be reprinted soon. If you have not read this book, you are missing a lot.

At times both poignant and prescient, "In the Shadow of Islam" is the revelation of a brilliant mind. The book is, as one would expect from a trade paperback, well printed and bound.

This volume of Isabelle Eberhardt's original Dans L'ombre Chaude de Islam "In the Warm Shadow of Islam" was penned in 1904. As a big Eberhardt fan I still enjoyed reading this slim 1993 edition although it's lamely billed "In the Shadow of Islam". Translated by Sharon Bangert, the omission of this single word from the title, "Warm", quite neatly reverses its meaning. Thus the translator or publishers (Peter Owen Publishers) chose to slyly sabotage Eberhardt's empathic sympathetic message about her chosen faith Sufism/Islam with a beckoning yet ominous tang. I suppose her original title, 'In the Warm Shadow of Islam', (emphasis mine) was too long and Islam-friendly for today's market?

Thus, the publisher's choice perpetrates the ever popular anti-Islamic bent. That said, it's the brilliance of Eberhart's work that manages to shine through even a biased translation.
Without ado, let me provide some of my favorite quotes from In the Shadow of Islam:

"To the extent that I feel myself saturated by ancient, unshaken Islam, which here seems to be the very breathing of the earth...And I understand that one could end one's days in the peace and silence of some southern zawiya, end in ecstasy, free of yearnings, confronting only radiant horizons. " pg 114

"I have jotted these reflections in the margin of a letter...Having written them, I relapse into my feeling of exile, wishing to bury myself even deeper in this hostile south, without any desire for the Paris I have known, where the newspaper's lip-service to feminism was even more repugnant to me than the Parisian coquettes.

I have said nothing in my response worth reading. Why bother? One day paths separate, destinies crystallize. And this is so much more than having made a few friends. When they are good enough to invite us to share their foreign happiness, let's show them what's possible to a true fraternity of minds.

Let's regret nothing, since our happiness and theirs will consist in letting ourselves go one day, into mysterious currents which will carry our souls adrift towards impossible shores. Then we'll enjoy the intoxication of decadence and shipwreck; and wandering over the immense beaches of the night, we'll feel within us the seeds of suffering begin to germinate." pg 70

"...forgetting the principals of tolerance propounded by Islam at its purest..." pg 49

It strikes me that prayer, and dreams, too, should never end." pg 60-61


Please enjoy this timeless piece of writing...still relevant and convincing.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE VOLCANO: ONE FAMILY'S BAJA ADVENTURE is adventure reading at its best: in the early 1970s the author and his family explored Baja, living in a tiny hut they constructed on a remote beach. But that didn't end their adventure: in 1985 they revisited the area with their sons ages and 8, living for a summer in another beachside hut. Their first-person adventures offer warm reflections on local culture and family experiences alike.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I loved this book--his descriptions of the beauty of the place they lived really made me want to see it. I have not traveled in Baja but now I want to go to Bahia de Los Angeles where they lived.
I especially liked the way he wrote about the wildlife and the different animals they owned, the burro and the chickens and their dogs. The whales and the dolphins that swam in the bay nearby, too.
I think they were a brave couple to take their little boys to live on the beach. It sounds like it was good for them bonding as a family, though, and what a great place to spend your vacations!

If you read only one "South Seas" book from the 1920s back, this should be the one. This Penguin issue corrects a number of inaccuracies from previous editions, including Stevenson's own error in their departure date (!) It is the classic travel and observation book of the Pacific. The early descriptions of the Marquesas are unmatched, as are the accounts of the several islands they visited in Kiribati (Gilbert Islands). The account of Tem Binoka will give you a real eye opening into an absolute ruler and his ways in the late 19th century. Reading this could start a life long interest in Pacific literature.

In his book, In the South Seas, Stevenson gives an accurate and in depth look into the people and culture of the islands of the South Pacific. The book describes Stevenson's two year journey from the Marqueses Islands, to Tahiti, then Honolulu ,and finally Somoa. Stevenson uses the great adventures he experienced and his masterfully writing skills to paint a breath taking view of the islands and thier many beauties.