For the last year or so I've been on a full-tilt binge. Nothing nefarious like drugs or alcohol, of course. No, I've been maniacally binging on something much more nerdy: Travel books...Travel essays to be more precise. I'm not sure when I made the connection between loving travel and actually reading about it. But when I did, my wallet became a whole lot lighter. It's the first section I hit in the Barnes and Noble and I can't seem to walk away without buying at least one (more often than not, more than one: I'm weak!) If I remember correctly "Lunch in Paris" was my gateway drug. It was pretty much down-hill from there. I had bought "A Trip to the Beach", "In a Sunburned Country", and "The Spice Necklace" before I knew what hit me. Of course those were followed by "The Sweet Life in Paris", "A Cook's Tour" (a re-read but SO much better the second time around) and "Stephen Fry in America (of course if there was a travel book written by him I was going to find it). Then dozens more...
While backsliding I've become a bit of a connoisseur of this tiny little genre of literature. There are a few things you must learn to gain a true appreciation for these books.
1. Even at the best bookstores, the Travel Essay section is going to be TINY. I emphasize Travel Essay because there's a huge difference between Travel Books and Travel Essay. A Travel Book tells you what you should do in some beautiful and amazing city. A Travel Essay tells you what a very interesting person did in that same beautiful and amazing city. See the difference? Essays are so much more entertaining! Now where was I? Oh right, TINY. It will at most be about 4 or 5 shelves and if you visit those 4 or 5 shelves as often as I do, you'll become intimately familiar with those 50 or so books. So look for anything unfamiliar, those are your must-buys.
2. Foreign travel (at least in my mind) is far more sexy and mysterious than US travel. Who wants to read about Iowa (nothing against Iowans) when they can read about the islands that combine to create the "Spice Necklace"? Just a personal opinion, however you might really want to hear about Des Moines...
3. Reading travel essays can be dangerous. Here's the thing, before I started reading them, I had no desire to visit Paris or Tokyo or Moscow. I didn't know that you could eat puffer fish (carefully!), or bone marrow or Durian. I had never heard of the Spice Necklace Islands. But now, after indulging in my new fix, I DESPERATELY want to try all of these things. I have visions of selling all of my belongings, packing a bag and hightailing it to wherever I can afford. It's unfortunate (and a total downer, man) that all of my belongings barely add up to what I would need to do a trip like I would want to. That's not even counting the money you spend on the actual books to dream about all of these amazing places.
4. Lastly, you will gain so much useless knowledge that you will absolutely trample your friends in trivia. Of course, that hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it will... Eventually, all of this information is going to come in handy, if not on Jeopardy, then on one amazing trek around the world...right?
My name is Kristen and I have a problem...
0 comments:
Post a Comment