Uncle Hunty posted a comment on a blog a couple of weeks ago asking if I could recommend any other funny/interesting travel based books.
Paradoxically, I don’t think I’m the best qualified person to answer. I tend to steer clear of reading stuff in the genre. I don’t want to be influenced by what other people are doing. Nor do I want to be disheartened by the fact that they may be doing it so much better than me. I stick to fiction mainly, stuff by writers I admire like Carl Hiaasen.
Having said that, I’ve just read Women of the Gobi by Kate James. Kate traipses across northwest China in the footsteps of three early 20th-century missionaries. It is well written, well-researched and she quotes extensively from Monkey – both the ancient Chinese text and the more recent TV series. It’s not a ‘funny’ travel book as such, but Kate is a personable guide. I should also point out that I am good friends with both her and her boyfriend Chris!
So, rather than turn this into a nepotistic plug-a-thon, I was hoping the readers of this blog could help out and make some reading suggestions for young Uncle Hunty.
I’ll start with a list of books that influenced me. Then you guys take up the slack.
The Great Railway Bazaar
Holidays in Hell
Neither Here Nor There
Last Chance to See
Danziger’s Travels
Now, over to you lot. What books do you think Uncle Hunty should spend his hard-earned on?
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I’ve just read Midadventures In The Middle East by Henry Hemming.
Henry and his friend travel around the area just before (and during) the Gulf war. They even get to Baghdad. Wonderfully written, insightful, often funny, more often shocking, but educational. I read it in 2 days.
I’ve got to mention the following books merely as light travel reading, but found these very enjoyable:
The backpacker by John Harris
The Gringo trail by Mark Mann
Are you experienced by William Sutcliffe
Magic bus by Rory Maclean
Don’t worry be happy by Jim Ford
and last but not least all books by a certain Peter Moore!
Here’s hoping to Vroom by the sea and Crikey to be published in the UK soon, any news on that Peter?
Erik
The Great American Bus Ride by Irma Kurtz
She travelled much of the USA on Greyhoud Bus system. Extremely insightful, quirky and funny. I undertook a similar journey and what Irma wrote rings true.
Also Sparring With Charlie by Christopher Hunt.
He rode an old Russian Minsk motorcycle down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam. The ride was very hard goiong but made me want to join him.
Agree totally on Danziger’s Travels, Peter. I loved that.
A while back, I read Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron – weighty, insightful and poetic. Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux was great too. However, The Accursed Mountains by Robert Carver is one of my favourites – a gripping and brutal description of the chaotic Albanian highlands in the mid-90s (and if anyone’s into Albania, any of Ismael Kadare’s novels will go down well).
On the lighter side, Tony Hawks’ books are excellent (no, not the skateboarder) and Are You Dave Gorman? by Dave Gorman and Danny Wallace is probably one of the definitive comedy travel stories and is a magnificent tale.
My most recent travel reads (if indeed it counts as travel) were the two books by Paul Carter about tales from the oil industry. Brutal, gruesome, hysterically funny and yet occasionally moving and thought-provoking. Written in easy bite-sized chunks – books you can dip in and out of.
I’m currently reading the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galazy trilogy (in five parts) for the second time. It counts as a sort of travel writing, I suppose!
I really enjoyed Three Men in a Raft by Ben Kozel.
Apart from that, agree about Paul Theroux – he has great journeys although he is a total curmudgeoun.
I really loved Andrew X Pham’s Catfish and Mandala, it’s one of my favourite books.
I have recently finished reading ‘Blood River’ by Tim Butcher, in which the author attempts to follow the route of Stanley’s Congo expedition. An at times downright dangerous journey which paints a vivid picture of a country on its knees that, despite having so much potential, has a worse infrastructure now than it veer did in colonial times. Definitely worth a read.
The best one I read last year was Dervla Murphy’s ‘Through the Embers of Chaos’, her cycling trip through the former Yugoslavia. I think that has more to do with my occasional obsession with that part of the world though (that book now occupies the space on my bookshelf next to the classic Balkan travelogue ‘Black Lamb and Grey Falcon’ by Rebecca West).
I like Colin Thubron, his book on Central Asia was very good. I’m planning to read his book on the Silk Road shortly. William Dalrymple’s books, especially his earlier ones like ‘In Xanadu’, are excellent.
Finally, I know we’re supposed to be talking about books but I really must mention Michael Palin’s wonderful travelogues. I remember when ‘Pole to Pole’ came out in the early 90s, absolutely loved it. The memory of it must’ve stayed with me, for when I went travelling in Africa many years later I followed much of the route Michael Palin took.
Nice one Peter, you answered my question with some style (and with some help from your readers).
I have a load more reading to do based on the comments. I never really thought about Hitchhiker Guide as a travel book, but in a futuristic sci-fi comedy sort of way I suppose it is. HHGTTG is my favourite book(s) of all time, being extremely funny and very clever and having been read many dozens of times. The Dirk Gently series are up there as well. My favourite travel writer is fairly obvious with Bill Bryson coming a close second. Especially his travels around Australia and England.
Kate James looks like interesting reading so she will go on the list along with some Theroux.
Although they are not travel, I can recommend anything by Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy) or Anthony Bourdain, his books are a sort of tour of food.
My final two recommendations for excellent travel based toilet reading are the Times Atlas, purely for looking at place I would like to go in an abstract way, and Lonely Planet guides. I still read old out of dates LP guides for ages, trawling through places I have been and places that sound interesting to go to.
I live on a steady diet of travel literature(burp)… recent favourites include Paul Theroux’s ‘Dark Star Safari’ , Mark Shand’s ‘River Dog’ (about his irreverant journey tracing the Ganges from source to Delta) and Eric Newby’s classic ‘A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush’- how did it take me to reach 33 years of age without having already read that one??!
My favourite book about Ireland is a travel book by Pete McCarthy, ‘McCarthy’s Bar’. It’s a hilarious look at Ireland’s sometimes confusing culture.
I also love Bill Bryson’s ‘Notes from a Small Ireland’. Bill wanders around Britain in a last hurrah, after living there for about 20 years, before he moves back to the States. A quote from the Daily Telegraph reads: ‘here is a man who suffers so his readers can laugh’.
Sarah McDonald’s ‘Holy Cow’ is an Australian journalist’s amusing journey through India, and I could not put down her husband’s book, ‘Lost in Transmission’. It kept me awake all night – Jonathon Harley took me on an adrenalin-filled journey through India and Pakistan. He was in Afghanistan while the world watched the World Trade Centre tumble to the ground, and his insights about the Taliban were fascinating. This book is amusing, sad, joyous and dark. It is definitely worth a read.
I’d like to reccommend In Search Of Kazakhstan by Christopher Robbins. Don’t need to tell you where he goes but it’s a hilarious, sometimes touching and very educational story about the history, culture and people of a country most of us know nothing about. It’s full of interesting characters and stories of famous Kazahks and exiled Russians forced to live in Kazahkstan.
Besides Peter’s books I really enjoyed The Carpet Wars by Christopher Kremmer and Only Fools & Hearses by Dav Ardlie.
Does Shantaram count as a travel book??
Thanks for the plug Peter!
The travel book that inspired me to write ‘Women of the Gobi’ was ‘The Gobi Desert’ (1942) by Mildred Cable and Francesca French – out of print unfortunately, but there’s a few copies floating around. Two even older books about the same part of the world – northwest China and central Asia – that are great reading are ‘News from Tartary’ by Peter Flemming (brother of 007 creator Ian) and ‘Forbidden Journey’ by Ella Maillart. The pair travelled together in the early 1930s and wrote their own versions of the same trip – it’s hilarious reading them together, as Flemming talks about what a wonderful companion Maillart was, while she bitches about his annoying English ways.
Oh, and speaking as someone who lived in India for eight years: ‘Shantaram’ is fiction.
Red Dust, by Ma Jian
A brilliant book, great read. Ma Jian travelled throughout China for 3 years with barely no money in the beginning of the 80′s, being forced to flee Beijing because he was sought after by the authorities.
Andalus and other titles (Duende and Guerra!) written by Jason Webster. Rather specialised around Spain, a mix between travels and journalistic research, simply written and really interesting to read. In Andalus, Jason rescues a Maroccan illegal worker from a fruit farm in Andalusia and they start a trip around Spain, looking for what’s left of the middle ages Islamic rule in modern Spain.
I,m just starting to read “tuk tuk to the road”, by Antonia bolingbroke-kent & Jo Huxster.
It tells of 2 girls journey from Thailand to England in a Tuk Tuk! All in the name of a mental Health Charity!
I also enjoyed Bryson’s “Down Under” book which kinda slags off Peter’s homeland! Then again Peter does a good job at poking fun at all things Aussie whenever he gets a chance!
“Long way round” by ewan mcgregor & Charlie Boorman is the book to the series of the same name. These guys tackle their world trip on BMW motorcycles. I suspect this was luxurious compared to the doss houses Peter has to endure on a daily travelling basis. With several support vehicles on tow there is no sense of real danger either but it’s still an enjoyable read.
I have just read “the long way round” by Ewan Mcgregor and Charlie Boorman.
This was a great read and I thought very funny. The guys travelled on motorbikes around the world.
I loved the seemingly unplanned nature of the journey and meeting people at local level, not the touristy places.
If you look for an entertaining book about independent travel, which I guess is exactly what Peter Moore fans do, you could do a lot worse than checking out “One for the Road”, written by, well, me. #8D)
It’s just been published, and while that’s the good news, the even better news is that you can download it for free in eBook format (PDF, Mobipocket, Microsoft Reader, Amazon Kindle, etc.) from the bjornfree.com Web site.
The book is sort of a 3-in-1 thing, as three journeys are covered;
1) While backpacking through southern South America (Patagonia, Fireland/Tierra del Fuego), suddenly I discover a way to get to Antarctica by boat at a reasonable price. I of course jump at it, and the journey turns out to be quite the event for a person prone to motion sickness… Oh, and don’t miss the penguins!
2) Traveling through Southern Africa (mainly South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana and Namibia) there are ostriches to be ridden, moonbows to be seen, howling skunkbutt cockroaches to encounter, and much more.
3) Surviving a month on and along the Trans-Siberian Railway, from Vladivostok to Moscow. The Russians did not amuse me, which ironically probably will amuse you.
It’s not free because it’s so bad. Really. It was originally published in Norwegian, and it received enough good reviews that I figured it would be worth translating it into a language read by even more people than the population of Norway. The reviews so far indicates I was right. I’m a seasoned traveler with 60+ countries behind me, and I wanted to write something that reads as a novel while at the same time bringing forth travel advise, on and between the lines.
Happy trails,
Bjørn
If you like scooter tales you’ll love this one, Scootergal’s blog.
A mother took her daughter as pillion around Europe for 4 months. Cracker of a tale.