-sheds a lot of light on Morocco and on the perspective of the British guy who wrote it at the end of the 19th century. In some ways Morocco at that time was perhaps a bit like Afghanistan today...? --Worth thinking about...

Cunninghame Graham is a superb observer and writer. In Mogreb-el-Acksa, published in 1898, Graham describes his attempt to cross the Atlas Mountains and reach the forbidden city of Tarudant. However, he was detained in the mountains for four months by the Kaid of Kintafi, and ultimately turned back to Marakesh. The places he visits and the people he meets come alive, and a current of humor bubbles throughout the narrative. His observations on western vs. eastern cultures, in many instances unfavorable to both but usually funny and profound, apparently made the book unpopular when it was published. I recommended the book to two friends, one a world traveller, the other a Moroccan. Both loved it.

Literally dozens upon dozens of books have been written on the war in Bosnia and the break-up of Yugoslavia by journalists, scholars, diplomats, politicians, etc. both from the former Yugoslavia itself and abroad. However, hardly any of them shed as much light on the war in Bosnia (and, by extension, the recent tragic events throughout former Yugoslavia) as this slim volume. Jergovic has made an art-form of capturing so much feeling, passion and depth in such incredibly short stories. "Sarajevo Marlboro" can definitely be ranked among the great world literature of the last few decades. This is an outstanding book - read it by all means.

When Jergovic's book Sarajevo Marlboro was published in Croatia I thought here it is, another so called writer who wants to make money out of people's tragedy. But then, I met him and has been surprised. Man like him just can't be one of those nationalist writers in which books every second word is the name of his country. He thinks and he has great talents with words. Sarajevo Marlboro is mosaic made of two-three pages stories that point directly to your heart. Jergovic understand perfectly well what is going on in his city, to his fellow citizens and though he can't do anything to stop the history, he can remeber it - in his own voice. And that is the beauty of Sarajevo Marlboro.

What possessed George Gissing -- best known for his hardscrabble pictures of poverty in London, such as NEW GRUB STREET -- to travel to Southern Italy and write a classical travel book about his journey? Yet there he is, working his way along the underside of the boot of Italy as a traveller. Even then, the area was known primarily for its rural poverty and has not attracted tourism at any time in its existence since the Greeks settled there over 2,000 years ago.

And yet this is perhaps Gissing's most charming book. He becomes ill, is taken care of by strangers, does his best to escape the clutches of the local bands of outlaws, and succeeds in his quest to see a corner of Europe known to few outside of Italy.

I highly recommend this book as the best introduction to a writer who deserves a revaluation of his literary reputation.

This is a representative collection of essays by Hilaire Belloc who, among other accomplishments, was one of the great travel writers of the early 20th century, and whose accounts still make evocative and lively reading today. Perhaps the most remarkable piece is "The Wing of Dalua" which tells of a night-time crossing of the Pyrennes, which verges on the eerie and supernatural.

If you've ever had a dream to travel outside of your own backyard, this book will give you the push you need to make that decision. Alexander Kinglake takes you through the exotic east by the most interesting modes of transportation. Horseback, Camels, Dromedaries, and fantastic sea vessels. You'll travel through places such as Stanboul, Constantinople, Cyprus, Galilee, Cairo, the Pyramids, and Jerusalem just to name a few.

A brilliant descriptive writer, Kinglake tells you every detail about what he's viewing along the way, along with the emotional side of traveling through history. Standing on a hilltop, possibly the precise spot where Homer did, that inspired his works, Kinglake takes you there with him, describing unchanged landscape and the flood of emotions that will definately touch you. When he arrived at the Holy lands, it left me in tears, and a great yearning to plan my own pilgrimage there.

It amazed me that this man made it through his travels safe and sound. He survived the plague which was rampant at that time. It was frightening to read about, let alone live through it! Which he tells about in depth. The extreme fear everyone lived in. Yet despite all the precautions taken, it still managed to seek you out and take you into it's unimaginable numbers. Day after day, he watched cavalcades of funeral processions pass through the streets, from sunrise to well beyond sunset. How he fooled it, I'll never know. He always seemed to be in contact with plague stricken people, and even thought for a time that he too had fallen victim when symptoms began to appear.

Through this journal you'll learn about the people of this era and before. The Ottomans, Bedouins, Monks, Jews, Catholics, and Christians. Aristocrats, such as Lady Hester, Sheiks, and Pasha's. Most interesting was Kinglake himself. Just who was this man? He tells little about his own background. But as you read, this intelligent, confident, diplomatic Englishman unfolds before you. With a sense of humor few can match!

This book was gifted to me, and sparked the desire to be a part of what Kinglake and others knew about life. Not to let each day pass by caught up in mundane routines, but live each one to the fullest.

This is a book to be treasured and I read it several times. It is hard to imagine the world Kinglake describes which is virtually extinct now at a time when lions abounded in Eastern Europe, Caliphs and Pashas smoked their pipes through long tubing and Lady Hester Stanhope gets esoteric.

Full of humour, the book is as British as they come with such sensitive nuances about the subject matter including disease, women, customs and issues of religion in the holy land.

I'm still looking for this brand of hero inside and out but don't think he's that common except as a carricature. Did Kinglake's world and attitude really exist?

This is a very good, and very funny book. I also came to it through Churchill's recommendation. As I read about it, the man who overheard Churchill growl "Kinglake" went off and read Eothen, loved it, and then asked Churchill, "What now?"

The gruff reply was "More Kinglake." This rather puzzled our aspiring author -- Kinglake's only other book was his two-volume "Invasion of the Crimea."

After a casual search of more than twenty years, I finally located this two-volume set through Amazon, and -- guess what -- it's terrific. It's even better than Eothen, because it has a serious purpose. It is marvellously written, and numinously intelligent. It needs to be brought back into print.

This book is like a sip of water which is neither cold nor so hot.And you just drink it without any complaint. It takes you to a long journey and you find yourself in a quiet misty evening in Ireland,the land of peaceful beauties... The book doesn't tell you about the facts and statistics,but it makes you walk and travel in Ireland with magical steps.

This is a very good read for someone who is about to travel to Ireland or has an interest in the country. Concise, insightful and wonderfully written, it really captures the essence of the people.

Heinrich Boll and his family visited Ireland about 50 years ago, and this book was a tangible result. It is beguiling and entrancing, with vivid descriptions -- the prose bordering on poetry at least in the German original. This may be Boll's most accessible work; it is a clear demonstration of why the Nobel Prize Committee honored him.

If you are from Ireland; if you have visited Ireland; if you want to visit Ireland; or if you just like to read the work of a master of prose, Irish Journal is extremely rewarding.

When I first read this book six years ago, I was struck by its leisurely pace -- some readers in today's "now" technological age might find the text maddeningly slow -- but that is the delight in a book of this sort, written in 1912. Tomlinson's meditations, ruminations and wanderings are part of the larger adventure reflected in the times in which he took the "Capella" voyage. And, from these digressions come crisp, first-rate descriptions of the ship, its crew, and the surroundings. Even today, I can recall certain passages that still strike me in their clarity and precision (Ex: the huge, turbine arms of the Capella's engines whir and thump with "bird-like alacrity."). This book requires patience and indulgence, but is extremely rewarding for someone in this right frame of mind.

I loved this book for its dramatic yet humorous portrayal of a sea voyage across the Atlantic and an exploratory trip up the Amazon River in the early 20th century. If you can handle long sentences, he is a wonderful writer. I will never forget the passage about the shrunken head!

Tomlinson traveled in a ship hauling cargo to the head of navigation on the Madeira River, cargo for construction of the Madeira-Mamore railway. At that time, the upper reaches of the Madeira were as wild and inaccesible as any place on earth, including Antarctica. It's said that a man died for every crosstie on the railroad, and that's probably not a huge exaggeration. So Tomlinson's trip was a true adventure, even though his writing style is modest.

His account of the Amazon and the Madeira near the beginning of the 20th century is fascinating, and his anecdotes about his time at the construction site are hilarious. He comes across as a modest man with an adventurous streak and a wonderful sense of humor. This book is a delight to read as a sheer travel adventure.

It is also the only easy-reading description I've encountered of what was then the sheer wilderness of much of Amazonia was like before it was opened up by the advent of airplanes and the construction of the Trans-Amazon Highway. Even now, much of Brazil's part of the Amazon basin is wild, but now one can get in and out of all but the most remote spots conveniently. In Tomlinson's day, a million square miles was still mostly unmapped and almost unexplored; reading this book is an easy way of learning what true wilderness was like.

I recommend it highly; it's one of my favorite books.

My dad was born there in the 1950's and i was named after it. not a bad place, not much to do but nice to visit. the book is informal but informative.

. . . on Aran as everywhere else. I have had the privilege of spending two weeks on Inish Mor, one 4 years ago and one in the summer of 2001. The difference between the two visits was enormous . . . where on the first visit I saw perhaps 5-6 cars a day on the little roads, now there are minibuses beetling along everywhere. The pony carts are strictly for the tourists. I missed the women setting up kiosks on the road, selling their beautifully made sweaters. At the same time, throughout the summer, the young people put on a nightly concert featuring traditional Irish music and dance -- and it is fantastic! So wonderful to see the beauty of the old traditions taking hold in the hearts of the young men and women.

BUT ... what is quaint to the tourist translates into abject poverty for the native. Reading Synge gives one a sense of what WAS, and how hard it has been (and still is) for families to make a go of it on Aran.

Read it with respect, and remember . . . all things are changing.

"The Aran Islands" is a delightful rendition of the experiences of J. M. Synge during his visits to the Aran Islands just over a century ago. Synge's journey had been encouraged by William Butler Yeats. "Go to the Aran Islands. Live there as one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression." Here Synge gained an insight into the Irish character which would enrich his later works.

The Aran Islands are a chain of islands off the coasts of Connemara and Clare. Isolated by the sea, the Arans, like the Galapagos in the natural world, preserve the language and customs of traditional Ireland.

The book is a narrative of what Synge saw and the stories he heard during his stays in the Arans, told by a master storyteller in the finest Irish tradition. The language is delightful, the stories are entertaining and the insight into the Irish soul is profound. A must read for any lover of the Irish.

Peter Fleming's "News from Tartary" is a classic travel book about trekking through the wilds of Asia. Unfortunately, it has been badly served by this edition; it's overpriced and lacking in quality. It doesn't have the 26 illustrations of the original; it doesn't even have the absolutely necessary map. Reading it is like watching a great movie without sound or captions. Fleming (Ian Fleming's brother, as it happens)would have had a well-turned phrase of damnation had he seen how this edition emasculates the original. I urge you to read the book, but not this way. Go online and buy a used copy of the hardback for not much more (over 50 copies were listed when I checked abebooks.com)and enjoy Fleming's travel saga as it deserves to be enjoyed. I feel cheated; readers should be informed when a reprint edition is, like this one, incomplete. My one star rating is not for the writing--its for this shoddy presentation of a great travel book.

This is probably the best travel narrative ever written about China (although Owen Lattimore's 'The Desert Road to Turkestan' is a close second) and has influenced a great deal of subsequent writing about the region--not in content, but in style. Fleming presents himself as a bumbling amateur traveller, a mild eccentric, and someone who has only the vaguest idea what's going on. Later writers, attracted no doubt by the fact that this book has stayed in print for nearly 70 years, have taken this as justification to write narratives which revel in their own ignorance. But Fleming's amateurishness is merely a pose, and the book is full of humorous detail on life in China at that time, backed by sound journalism and knowledge of the political situation. It's also full of perceptive observations on the people he meets and their behaviour, guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of the modern traveller when coming across their latter day counterparts, both Chinese and expatriate foreigner.

I haven't bought this edition yet. I read this while in Nepal and India and loved it. It is one of the finest pieces of travel writing I know of. I rank it with Harrer's "Seven Years in Tibet", Newby's "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Thesiger's "Arabian Sands" and Stark's "Valleys of the Assassins." No new-age, PC navel-gazing here: just an honest and humorously-told narrative of an adventurous overland crossing of central Asia in a turbulent time. If you are interested in central Asia, I think this book is a must.

If you want to discover a beautiful and wild French region through the eyes of a Scottish writer, read Travels with a donkey. Stevenson, before he became famous, depicted his journey in the cevennes, with his donkey "Modestine". Rediscover the excellent style of a young writer about to become world-wide-known.

R.L. Stevenson writes here the first account of a touristic journey in France. He is the first modern tourist. He penetrates and discovers the country and the people of what he calls the Lozère, this mountain range in the south of The Central mountains in France, a range of mountains that was the locale of a protestant rebellion at the very beginning of the eighteenth century, severely repressed by Louis XIV. These protestant insurgers are known as the Camisards. Stevenson tries to discover the landscape, the natural setting of this insurrection and tries to show how the insurrection was connected to the very nature of these mountains. He also shows how no repression can change a person or a population. These old Camisards are still alive in the memory and the customs and ways of the protestant population of this region. It is the survival of this faith that interests and fascinates Stevenson. He also notices that the catholics and the protestants, at the time of his travels, lived in harmony but with an absolute divide between the two communities. A young catholic man who married a protestant girl and changed his faith in the process was unanimously condemned for this breach of loyalty. This book is also a perfect example of what tourism can and must be : the discovery of the visited people's mentality, culture, way of life, and the connection of these with the surrounding nature, and not only a quick look at monuments and other (un)perishable. One has to live with the people, no matter how little, to eat the people's food and to be in contact with the people in order to discuss general and particular subjects and to understand their way of thinking and behaving. Thus tourism becomes an adventure even in the heart of the most civilized country and only a couple of miles away from a railroad.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU