About book The Best American Travel Writing 2010 (2010)
I don't usually get into these compendiums, but I saw this on the shelf at Big Hat Books the other day for the glorious price of $2.50 and just had to snatch it up. Reading Ian Frazier's "travels in Siberia" was worth the cost of the book alone.I read many of the stories here, and only belatedly recognized that the editor for this edition is none other than Bill Buford , author of one of my better reads this summer, Fire.I loved these travel stories I read so much that I passed this along to my father in law Bruce along with a picture of us deep sea fishing in the Pacific last year. Hit and miss... I definitely enjoyed some stories quite a bit, but skimmed or skipped others. I'm always afraid reading travel books is going to further stoke my wanderlust (more out of control than it already is, anyway) but amusingly it often has the opposite effect, especially when I read stories set in places I'd really rather never go. It's funny but I almost enjoy those the most. The stories set in Siberia and the Amazon were I think my favorites, just because they were the most "foreign" and the most evocative. There's a lot to be said for getting to experience a place through books even if (or especially when) you don't want to go there. The descriptions of the horrifying Amazonian creatures, climate, and even the plants (some with leaves like razor blades) were great to read about from a comfy chair in my cozy house. I loved the part of the Amazon story where one of the hikers shouted "what the hell is that thing?" (about an electric eel, it turned out) and the author noted that "you really don't want to hear something like that while hiking in the Amazon." Too true.
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I gave this book to my friend Enzo in Malbato, so that he could practice reading English.
—cat
One of the better "Best American..." collections I've read.
—Joe
