BootsnAll Travel Community

The International Gooseberry by Ben Hatch annoyed the sh)/ out of me, when I read it in Kenya. The perception delivered on travelling in it really pissed me off...

Do you have any such book?

Adrian

www.aresthetics.ch/trav
My personal travel website

Rover, wanderer
Nomad, vagabond
Call me what you will

I'm sure I'll get tomatoes pelted at me for saying it, but Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel drives me RIGHT up the wall. I hate it! I can't put a finger on just why, but I've picked it up half a dozen times (even bought - and returned - it twice) with the intent to give it another chance...and I hate it every time. I've given up now.

--Mimi

Traveling bookless is like Sartre's hell.

A Fortune Teller Told Me by Tiziano Terzini (I think that was his name). He's a writer that thinks everyone should just stop any change that is happening in Asia because it makes it ugly. Whatever. Asia doesn't exist for tourists!!

PC

Check out my new RTW blog:
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/claudia

Sean and David's Long Drive by Sean Condon

It's about S + D's long drive around Australia.

It annoyed me senseless but since I'd wanted to read it for so long I forced myself to complete it. Although, thinking back on it now, of course it was annoying as there isn't much out there in the Australian outback. If there is nothing there, what is there to say if not talk about how everything sucks? I doubt Sean Condon agrees with me though.

(and, btw, the quote I use for my sig came from his book. Smart man, annoying book).

What a wretched, overhyped piece of crap that book is. Sean Condon may think he is funny, but he's snot. Besides, he cannot write his way out of a paper bag. Avoid this book!

Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel drives me batty too! I can not finish it. (and I usually read 2-3 books a week)

Also Faintheart by Charles Jennings...wanker. All he does is complain that it rains in Scotland...like every single page! He complains they won't let him buy the queens tartan. He just complains...about everything. It was God awful. Thankfully I picked it up in a used book store for $2.

I agree with your assessment of Alain de Botton's book(s)

Okay, so I know this is going to be unpopular, but I nominate Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I haven't read any of Pirsig's other work, so all opinions are based strictly on this novel.

As far as his work as a story teller, I don't think he's very successful. The writing seems amateurish pretty consistently. It's usually just little things, like beginning consecutive clauses and sentences with the same word (Already my face was covered with mosquito bites. Already the air was without moisture. Already my eyes were puffed up. Already I'm tired of reading your book.).

The philosophy component, which I guess is more important, is what really annoys me, though. It's all so transparently elitist and didactic, it doesn't feel like it's part of the character, but the author's own arrogance. For instance, the characterization of classic vs romantic was absurd. The 'classic' view of the world is favored without giving a proper account of why.

Anyway, I've been thinking about it, and I think I would have liked the book had I read it in middle school several years ago. That probably sounds ridiculously patronizing, but I think I've maybe just studied philosophy long enough that there wasn't a helluva lot of profundity left.

If it had been a really successful book on philosophy, I don't think anyone would realize it's about philosophy. Instead, it's a divisive version of Sophie's World on a motorcycle.

No, you are not alone in that opinion.

I have tried reading "Zen & TAOMM" several times, and always end up sputtering in dismay.

(As someone who owns an old BMW twin, I really feel that I should like that book.

A more enjoyable travel tome is "Jupiter's Travels" by Ted Simon, though without all the philosophy.

I also could not finish that book. I got about a quarter of the way through it when I was 15 and saw so many loopholes in the philosophy and in the language in which it was presented that I got extremely bored with it.

I also like motorcycles. There's some new Harleys out that are quite petite and sleek, I would not mind having one of those. Especially this one.

Such a relief for a monday morning! I am not alone in the world.

I met this dutch guy in Peru four years ago and we had long conversations and he spoke of the book "Zen and TAOMM", and he raved about it. We agreed I would read it when I went back home and then write to him about it. And I did try to read it. And we never spoke ever again.

I agree. Zen and TAOMM SUCKS!!!! A "deep" person gave it to me in college and it took me forever to get through it because it was so damn stupid.

PC

I got this complilation book called Solo: on her own journey.
I expected it to be about woman's expierences in other countries, other cultures blah blah.
It was mostly about woman's expierences with themselves out in nature while camping alone.
Maybe it's good for what it is...I don't know. I was too dissapointed to care.

I didn't like "the art of travel" or "my kind of place."

I'm a librarian, and one of the other librarians I worked with said, "Don't bother reading mediocre books or bad books. There's too many good books in the world." If someone is not catching you, put it down. Don't worry, there's way more interesting things out there.

That might be the most wonderful thing I have ever heard about books in my life. I'm going to co-opt it and add it to my collection of Book Quotes.

So often, especially among writers, I hear people recommending books just because they're there, and every book is worthwhile for an aspiring writer to learn from. But that's crap. Because, I mean, I don't want to learn from a BAD example how to write.

Anyway. Zen & the art... is dull, self-absorbed nonsense in my opinion. God bless those who love it - I'm just not among you.

Another book I could have done without is Peter Jenkins' Looking for Alaska. It was just boring. Nothing against the theory or the adventure - but the man was uniformly boring, and I had to put it away and never pick it up again.

Um, this might be an unpopular post, but I wasn't too impressed w/ 'Tales of a Female Nomad.'

I mean...the first half was decent, and I enjoyed reading her story. But by the end I was getting very bored, and I didn't finish it (couldn't finish the last 40 pages or so).

I guess by the end I was really noticing her tendency to write simple, child-like sentences without any adjectives or flavor. Stuff like: "The food was good. The people were nice. I had a good time." Well, you get the idea. This is probably because her 'career' was as a children's book writer, so she couldn't transition to the adults. Or something like that.

bwahaha!

Ok, so I really loved that book. (obvious, I guess) But you're right, the first part was far superior to the end.