Travelogue Books

I loved the book. I am Dominican and I can say proudly that I know my history; that's why I think the author of "dead man in paradise" really did his homework in order to show the reader the Dominican culture and history, as sad as it was. Do not think he is exaggerating about the cruelty and oppression of those days; he is not.

By many expressions in the book, I can tell he is really identified with the Dominican People. I do not know how long it took for him to write the book, but I can tell it was quite some time. You could not get to know such a complicated history in details in a few months.

I hope this book someday is translated into Spanish and put in the bookstores of the Dominican Republic. We would hear a lot about it since many people from the book are still alive, and still in powerful positions.

This is a wonderful book filled with facts that the recreational reader, the traveler and student of the Middle East will enjoy. Kreiger takes the reader on the journeys of several explorers in and around these waters. You celebrate with their accomplishments and are saddened with their inability to achieve all their goals Kreiger takes the reader back to prehistoric periods, over 14000 years ago, when Lake Lisan covered most of the Jordan Valley, including the Dead Sea. You are also left with the feeling of traveling down to the lowest point on dry land in this world of ours with the intense heat engulfing your body.

She speaks of the problems brought on by the social forces on this ecosystem. Will the Dead Sea survive? I highly recommend this book.

George Erich

This was written in the 80s and revised in the 90s, but television has undergone such a revolutionary shift in its very nature (with hundreds of channels where there were only a few when this was first written) that Marc needs to do a complete rewrite. Even so, the book is still a goldmine of THEORY about how to think about TV: why we watch, what we're seeking when we turn on the tube. Yes, there's some academic jargon, but it's generally a clear and concise look at the dominant medium of our age. He dissects several popular shows and really gets inside the box. There's a little of everything here: history, theory, criticism, sociology. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand TV instead of just watching it.

Denali Journal, a Thoughtful Look at Wildlife in Alaska's Majestic National Park allowed me to relive my experience in Denali!

On my flight home from a recent trip to Alaska, I began reading this book and thoroughly enjoyed Tom Walker's experiences and interpretation of Denali National Park.

This book is written in "diary form" so you can see the difference each month has to offer.

I took the all day bus ride the book refers to. Even though I was not fortunate enough to see girzzles, moose or caribou up close, I was excited to read that the seeing Mt. McKinley's snow capped mountain surrounded with beautiful blue sky and viewing a red fox, right by the road, were both very rare!

Reading this book makes be want to go back to Denali and spend a few days camping, hiking and experience some of the times he had while getting away from the road.

What better experience can you receive from a book than to "be right there" and that is just how Tom Walker makes you feel!

When reading of the locations Dennis goes to you feel you were in the back seat with him. He gives very vivid detail of exact places.
One place he reviewed was Manistee Michigan the Victorian Port City. the Milwaukee House was owned by Great Grandfather and Grandfather Diefenbach and we know the information was factual and interestingly portrayed.
There are many such articles that make you want to go to these byways he deplicts.

In Departures And Arrivals, British writer Newby and world traveller Eric newby describes his latest travel adventures with a gift for irony and description: here his experiences in Calabria, with canal travels, and in Beijing capture the vivid peoples and personalities he encounters. An excellent armchair read.

Pausanias' two volume travel logs, which were written in the second century A.D., are the most comprehensive sources of data about ancient Greece. Pausanias travels throughout Greece in a linear fashion, describing the historical artifacts he sees and he make thousands of comments about the people and events associated with the artifacts. Most of this information has been lost and is only available in Pausanias' works.

It is particullarily enlightening to use Google Earth to follow in the footsteps of Pausanias and see the terrain he describes, and see how the terrain affected the events involved, the battles, and the interactions between the various peoples.

These works provide an overview of Greek history, and should be the starting point from which to focus in on specific people and events. The works are not so much entertaining and specific, but they provide a wealth of information that is not available anywhere else.

A young Dane converts to Islam and dressed as an Arab seeks to travel across the Lybian desert by car to Egypt.

While this may seem dangerous enough at the best of times K Holmboe made this journey during the Italian occupation of Lybia while war was still raging between the Italian fascist occupiers and the Sanusi Sufi order who were leading the resistance.

You don't need to be a Muslim to read this book or even to have any serious knowledge of Lybia as K Holmboe is an exellent travel narrator. He is opinionated when he wishes to be (such as his criticism of the brutality of the Italian forces towards the Lybian people)but on the whole sympathetic and open minded to all sides.

His travels take him deep into the desert where he has more than one dangerous encounter including being kidnapped by Sanusi fighters who mistake him for an Italian spy (and narrate to him some saddening tales as to why each of them has taken up arms) before he is finally arrested by the Italians who regard his presence in Lybia as suspicious (in that a European should have such sympathy with the native Arabs) and deport him.

This is an exellent read (much better I found than 'Road to Mecca')and while there are two editions of this book available (one by Darf Publishers and another by the Quilliam press) I strongly recomend the Darf Publishers edition, not least because it is a hardback (and only a few pound/dollars more than the Quilliam press paperback) but also because of the 'soap-box' introduction to the Quilliam press edition by T. J. Winter (Abdul Hakim Murad) which spoils the book.

Exelllent read and highly recomended.

I've lived in Chile and I've lived in the desert (but not Chile's Norte Grande). Ariel Dorfman writes very compellingly about the many complex aspects of desert life - the mining-based economy, the range of people who come from elsewhere, the relation of the desert as "periphery" to those "other places" who live off its wealth. Also he does justice to the desert's beauty, native peoples, transportation systems. He involves himself in the narrative, almost Woody-Allen style at times, but this book isn't in the British travel narrative mode of "here are all the awful things that happened to me." Rather, it's a story of extraordinary people and places - world-class scientists, grass-roots activists, byzantine networks of in-laws (few Chilean memoirs would be complete, lacking these!). It's a measure of this gifted writer's absolute skill that he has so many funny moments, and fine descriptions of the desert's landscape, and the pathos of people working to reclaim the ghost towns of the mining industry, all in one book. One of the book's most moving moments, for me, is the chapter that ends with the narrator observing of one town citizen who'd returned to a reclaimed ghost town, that there was no need to ask if he'd kept the key to the house he'd been forced to leave thirty years earlier.

The title is absolutely right: memory and time are crucial to the desert. In writing of Chile, one of the most complicated and interesting country of the world, Dorfman brings with him his experience, contacts, broad awareness of this land. The narrative is beautifully structured, too. Dorfman, in all, is getting better and better with time. There are many wonderful books about Chile's extraordinary history, its many-layered social class structure, its heart-breakingly beautiful geography. The field of social and ecological memoirs/travelogues about Chile is a very crowded one, with some top-notch writers (think Darwin, just for starters...). Desert Memories is one of the best books there is for anyone considering a trip to this country.

Desperate Voyage takes the reader on a wonderful journey of discovery. This true life adventure takes place at the close of World War II and details the trials and tribulations of the author in his attempt to return to his wife in Austrailia. When he finds there is no transportation available, John decides to sail a small yacht the 8000 miles to Austrailia from Panama. Never mind that he has never sailed a boat before! His challenges are many and John learns many things the hard way. This book, which is hilarious at times and sad at times, keeps the reader always longing to turn the page and see what happens next.