Things that Don't Suck
Dec. 3rd, 2006 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulroI just finished reading The Best American Travel Writing (2003). It made its way to me at least third hand and sat around here unread even longer than most books do because it got put on the wrong shelf and I forgot I had it.
It's a collection of articles that were published in American newspapers and magazines (not necessarily by Americans; some of the authors identify as British). The quality is consistently high - even the one article that I didn't find particularly interesting was well researched & written. There's two articles on Cuba, which is particularly interesting given that Americans aren't supposed to be able to go there. There seems to have been a lot of interest in the Central African Republic in 2003 as well. The most depressing one is the one on the death of the Aral Sea (I didn't know there was an odd ethnic group I'd never heard of who are sort of autonomous and thus especially screwed when it comes to the environmental degradation in that area, as they can't leave legally). The scariest one involves the writer being stranded on an island in the high arctic for a week while his Inuit guides try to fix their outboard motor. There's all kinds of nifty factoids throughout which leave me going "I so need to see that!"
Highly recommended. I need to track down the rest of the series now.
On the subject of stuff that inspires road trips, while I was in TO I picked up a massive book called "Ghost Towns of the West" which is full of pictures and maps, and impressively includes British Columbia and the Yukon as well as the US. A month long road trip could well be the result when I finally get around to reading it. It's a bit old, and the maps aren't great, so I'm considering cooking up a business plan of making an up to date how-to manual for visiting these places. Provided such a thing doesn't already exist.
I read less than I usually do on holiday. For various reasons, but partly because yet another book I bought at FantasyCon turned out to be less easy going than I expected. Last year I ran out of reading material halfway across the Atlantic (I read the inflight magazine, I was that desperate), so this year I took The Age of Misrule with me - it's a fantasy trilogy in one volume, so I figured there was no danger of running out.
Not only is there an awful lot of it, but it's a lot heavier going than I anticipated (as is the Ramsey Campbell short story collection). I am still only halfway through the second book. It's pretty good, though it has some really annoying elements. I couldn't face reading much of it on the way back, so I stocked up on magazines at the airport. I am, of course, such a dork that stocking up on magazines means purchasing Scientific American and Canadian Geographic. I found the latter quite excellent and I think I'm going to get a subscription. Apparently they're focusing on the Arctic and polar exploration in the near future, and I can't get enough of that.
Seeing as I've been awake for more than four hours, I think I need to go back to sleep.
It's a collection of articles that were published in American newspapers and magazines (not necessarily by Americans; some of the authors identify as British). The quality is consistently high - even the one article that I didn't find particularly interesting was well researched & written. There's two articles on Cuba, which is particularly interesting given that Americans aren't supposed to be able to go there. There seems to have been a lot of interest in the Central African Republic in 2003 as well. The most depressing one is the one on the death of the Aral Sea (I didn't know there was an odd ethnic group I'd never heard of who are sort of autonomous and thus especially screwed when it comes to the environmental degradation in that area, as they can't leave legally). The scariest one involves the writer being stranded on an island in the high arctic for a week while his Inuit guides try to fix their outboard motor. There's all kinds of nifty factoids throughout which leave me going "I so need to see that!"
Highly recommended. I need to track down the rest of the series now.
On the subject of stuff that inspires road trips, while I was in TO I picked up a massive book called "Ghost Towns of the West" which is full of pictures and maps, and impressively includes British Columbia and the Yukon as well as the US. A month long road trip could well be the result when I finally get around to reading it. It's a bit old, and the maps aren't great, so I'm considering cooking up a business plan of making an up to date how-to manual for visiting these places. Provided such a thing doesn't already exist.
I read less than I usually do on holiday. For various reasons, but partly because yet another book I bought at FantasyCon turned out to be less easy going than I expected. Last year I ran out of reading material halfway across the Atlantic (I read the inflight magazine, I was that desperate), so this year I took The Age of Misrule with me - it's a fantasy trilogy in one volume, so I figured there was no danger of running out.
Not only is there an awful lot of it, but it's a lot heavier going than I anticipated (as is the Ramsey Campbell short story collection). I am still only halfway through the second book. It's pretty good, though it has some really annoying elements. I couldn't face reading much of it on the way back, so I stocked up on magazines at the airport. I am, of course, such a dork that stocking up on magazines means purchasing Scientific American and Canadian Geographic. I found the latter quite excellent and I think I'm going to get a subscription. Apparently they're focusing on the Arctic and polar exploration in the near future, and I can't get enough of that.
Seeing as I've been awake for more than four hours, I think I need to go back to sleep.
