Synopses & Reviews
In his introduction to
The Best American Travel Writing 2008, editor Anthony Bourdain writes that the pieces that "spoke the loudest and most powerfully to me were usually evocative of the darker side, those moments fearful, sublime, and absurd; the small epiphanies familiar to the full-time traveler, interspersed by a sense of dislocation and the strange, unholy need to record the experience." With this in mind, Bourdain and series editor Jason Wilson have assembled a wide-ranging and wonderfully eclectic collection that delves headlong into those darker moments and subtle realizations, looking to absorb, provoke, and offer a moving record of what it means to travel in the twenty-first century.
Here you will find Seth Stevenson's extraordinary experience of "Looking for Mammon in the Muslim World" as he makes his way through sweltering and paradoxical Dubai. Exotic tastes and larger-than-life personalities abound as Bill Buford accompanies the chocolate maker Frederick Schilling to the rain forests of Brazil. And on the other side of the world, Calvin Trillin trolls Singapore for the ultimate street food, while Kristin Ohlson delves into the harrowing challenges faced by proprietors of restaurants in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The twenty-five pieces in this collection have their fair share of the absurd as well. David Sedaris explains the hilarious highs (sundaes) and woeful lows (sobbing with your seatmate) of flying Business Elite. Gary Shteyngart goes "To Russia for Love" during St. Petersburg's vodka-soaked wedding season. And Emily Maloney gets up close and personal with her fellow travelers and their massage devices in a South American hostel.
Culled from an amazing variety of publications, "the writing in this volume is so vibrantly good, you'll feel like you've armchair-traveled around the world" (Chicago Sun Times).
Review
"[Crosley's] selections succeed in piquing the armchair travelers wanderlust."
--Booklist
Synopsis
Contributors include Bill Buford, David Sedaris, Gary Shteyngart, Paul Theroux, Calvin Trillin, Catherine Watson, and others.
Synopsis
The hilarious and well-traveled Sloane Crosley, author of the New York Times bestseller IWas Told There'd be Cake, helms this collection of the genre's gems.
Synopsis
A collection of the best travel writing pieces published in American periodicals during 2010.
Synopsis
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the countrys finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volumes series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites . A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.
The Best American Travel Writing 2011 includes
André Aciman, Christopher Buckley, Maureen Dowd,
Verlyn Klinkenborg, Ariel Levy, Téa Obreht, Annie Proulx,
Gary Shteyngart, William T. Vollmann,
Emily Witt, and others
About the Author
Sloane Crosley is the author I Was Told There'd Be Cake, which was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Her second collection, How Did You Get This Number, finds her riffing on European vacation disasters and doing bridesmaid duty in Alaska. JASON WILSON is the drinks columnist at the Washington Post, the series editor of The Smart Set, and the author of Boozehound: On The Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated. He teaches at Drexel University.