I wonder how many years I will need to wait until I ever get myself onto somebody’s list of Top Travel books?!
A long time, I fear, if I am competing against books as good as these.
Whoever picked these books for the Telegraph chose well.
- On the Road by Jack Kerouac
- As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
- Naples ’44 by Norman Lewis
- Coasting by Jonathan Raban
- Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
- Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson
- Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
- The Beach by Alex Garland
- The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
- The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron
- Venice by Jan Morris
- In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
- A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
- Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
- Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
- The Journals of Captain Cook
- Among the Russians by Colin Thubron
I’mve read 15 of these, and can’t really dispute the choices. The God of Small Things is on my (large) shelf of books to read soon (see here).
Moods of future joys and Thunder and Sunshine are in my top ten of travel books Alastair. Your writing is so engaging and emotional.
Glad to see Hunter S. Tompson and Kerouac. Alex Garland is a bit of an odd choice imo.
Anatomy of Restlessness.
That’s a great book!
Black Lamb, Gray Falcon—–Rebecca West. Magnificent.
Forbidden Journey—–Ella Maellart. Companion to Peter
Flemming, Notes From Tartary.
Under The Tree Where Man Was Born—-Peter Mathiessen.
Loving these posts. Some great reads above.
I Follow The Wind by Louise Sutherland?
Hard to find a copy it seems, so I cherish mine. Great book.