BootsnAll Travel Community

Ok, favorite three books to read while travelling, not necessarilly travel related

• On The Road -Jack Kerouac
  
• The Beach-Alex Garland
  
• Lord Of The Rings-JRR Tolkein
  

-born from the
experience.

1 Lord of the Rings
2 Any thing by Stephen Donaldson(SF)
3 Any thing by Arthur C Clarke (sf)

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
And the Ass saw the Angel by Nick Cave
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Good calls, E2A!

A few of my fave books:

1) Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

2) Watership Down, by Richard Adams

3) Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters

Don't know about 'Spoon', but the first two still are fairly travel-related (just remember: Watership Down might be a book about rabbits, but it is not just a story about rabbits!).

I have lots of favourites (and they change every day depending on my mood), but here are a few:

* Haroum and the Sea of Stories, by Salmon Rushdie
* Le petit prince, by Antoine de St Exupéry

Both books are messages directed at adults, cleverly (but not-so-subtly) disguised as children's books. And they're both about travellers. Absolutely beautiful!

Another great kids' story that helped infect me with the travel bug was:

* The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis

And yes, I also enjoy grown up books...

* A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
* The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
* 1984, by George Orwell
* Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies
* The Diviners, by Margaret Laurence

And my all-time favourite, a wicked laugh-out-loud satire of life in general and human idiocy in particular:

* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy, by Douglas Adams

Cheers,
Random
(yes, I realize that I was only supposed to list three. I suck at following directions! I sometimes get carried away...sorry!)

P.S. I also have a favourite short story, "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov. It's an incredible story! I've read it literally dozens of times, both to myself and to other people. If you don't feel like reading it...well, give me a call and I'll read it to you. It's that good.

one that my father has just reading and has found insperational was

NELSON MANDELLA his life story

Lots of good ones listed above! Esp. Orwell and Conrad. They always have really interesting themes.

For me, only one thing pops into my head.
Neil Gaiman's Sandman, series of 10 graphic novels. Main character in called The Dream King, he takes you through the dream world. Illustrations are really fantastic.

Can't do it justice in description, but blew my mind away!!

My favorite books to read (and re-read!) while traveling have to be:

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (all five books of the somewhat misnamed trilogy) by Douglas Adams

On The Road by Jack Kerouac

Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

I'm also halfway through The Dharma Bums by Kerouac and I have a feeling that it will make to this list also.

You know guys, I think I'm going to set up a new page in the Traveller's Toolkit that is nothing but your book recommendations, that way people can go online and buy some cool books for when they go traveling. Sound like a good idea?

Here's a link to the Books & Guides section of the Toolkit if you want to have a look:

http://toolkit.bootsnall.com/books/

Can I still answer even though I always take new books on my trips? Pretty please...

The following are the ones I reread:

1. "Bluebeard's Egg" by Margaret Atwood. Random, I too love a Handmaid's Tale...maybe our recommendations will create some new Atwood lovers.

2. "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy O'Toole. Gives you a funky taste of New Orleans.

3. "House of the Spirits" by Isabelle Allende.

After the sad death of the auther Douglas Adams BBC2 have just started to rerun the tv version of the Hitchhikers Guide.ive just watched the 1st couple of episodes and it is still as good as when it 1st went out
If u can get a copy of the video(not sure if the bbc have released it on video)it is a must buy

I'm sure someone must have posted this already but "Are You Experienced" by William Sutcliffe - REALLY funny and good if you need cheering up. It's a novel about Indian backpacking traumas.

Three favorites to read while traveling (and in general):

1. Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov
2. The Wasteland (and other Poems) - T. S. Eliot
3. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

I never get tired of reading these. You can never have enough T.S. Eliot lying around!

With Fellowship of the Ring out, my interest in Tolkien got rekindled. I read Fellowship of the Ring back in college, but had never gotten around to reading The Hobbitt and the other 2 LOTR books. But I'm working on them now... so to add some more...

1) The Hobbit
2) Lord of the Rings (one book or three? depends on how you look at it I guess)

Oh... and delara, welcome to the boards! You've had some cool posts, it's great to have you aboard!

[This message was edited by Ant on 31 December 2001 at 14:31.]

these are my top three books for travelling with:
the dharma bums by jack kerouac
dr zhivago by boris pasternak
greenvoe by george mackay brown- to remind me of home, it is written about life in a small village on a scottish island.
i am also reading the amber spyglass by phillip pullman, the third part of the dark materials trilogy. although it is a childrens book it is the most wonderful escapism ever. the first book is claaed the northern lights and has me longing to visit the frozen tundra that he describes.

These are my favorites right now

Catcher in the Rye

The Sun also Rises

Sidartha

Being as my third biggest outlay while travelling has been bloody books (after flights and alcohol ) here's the top three, and some recommended reading.

1) The Master & Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov.
Sounds heavy, trust me its not. Its a must for conspiracy theorists, romantic's, satirists and zealot types...

2) Once More, With Feeling - Victoria Coren & Charlie Skelton.
Just amazing, read the synopsis.....

3) Not The End Of The World - Christopher Brookmyer.
Just when you thought the world couldnt get any more nuts....

I know there's the very clear argument that not one of these is considered a common "literary classic" but then ive never been a classic kind of bloke. What can I say, I judge a book by its cover...

Other important reads in my humble opinion.

Stupid White Men - Michael Moore
(Believe the hype)

Anything by Christopher Brookmyer (one for the cynical humanists out there)

Of course and without doubt The Hitchhikers Guide Trillogy in (four) parts. Surely the greatest travel story ever (I want to play with Disaster Area!)

Travel romance gone a bit awry? My Legendary Girlfriend or Mr Commitment by Miky Gayle. Its great urban romance and are great light reads...

Dan

Definitely these three:

Watership Down--Richard Adams
Lord of the Rings--ahem, really?>
anything by Paolo Coehlo.

For light reading i think everyone would do well with a dose of Terry Pratchett. He's friggin hilarious. seriously. no i mean it. no, really. oh shut up.

ummmmm, where am I? oh yeah, , hehe, here.
what time is it?? oh yeah, , hehe, Now.

The perks of being a Wallflower.

Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros

Nick Hornby novels

-"South" by Shackleton or "the Endurance" by Frank Worsley. These books are both about the failed Endurance expedition, and both are worth reading. The one by Shackleton is a more fact-based, descriptive book while the one by Worsley (his captain and an amazing navigator) is more narrative, a faster read and is full of praise for his leader.

-"The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Orczy. The original 'masked mystery man', it's about an English nobleman and his band of fellow nobles who rescue the French from the grasp of the guillotine during the French Revolution

-"The Song of the Lioness quartet" by Tamora Pierce. These are junior high/elementary school level books I read years and years ago, but I had to buy new copies of them when I quit my job at Chapters (employee discount!) since they were so well read. It's about a girl who has to disguise herself as a boy in order to become a knight, and she eventually becomes one of the best knights in the country and the King's Champion.