Travel Week Archives - AudiobooksNow Blog

A Bit Gentler…A little Kinder….”Medium Raw”, by Anthony Bourdain

Anyone who is familiar with food critic, Anthony Bourdain, is familiar with his most of the time brash and bawdy language when he is describing food and restaurant experiences. In his first book, Kitchen Confidential, there were many who criticized his, what they observed as, overuse of tawdry language. He contends that it was the descriptively best to use in rants about food and cooking failures along the way. After serving as a journeyman cook, he became a world traveler giving elaborate prose on what he has seen and heard from the most prestigious chefs in the world.

In his newer work, Medium Raw, it has been said that he is a bit gentler in his descriptive language, and just a little kinder to those that he had previously ripped apart. Some give kudos to his status change as a father to a three year old daughter. It was humorous to read that he is already educating his daughter as to the evils of American fast food. One quote had him telling her……the fast food industry is the enemy……that Ronald McDonald has cooties and stinks like…..poo! Poor child!

In Medium Raw, Bourdain gives a witty and insightful view of the culinary world. He describes the many changes that have taken place in the subculture of chefs, cooks, the restaurant business, and in his personal life in the ten years since he wrote Kitchen Confidential. One recommendation was to listen to an audio book version of the book. Hearing his own voice tell the stories gives the book another added dimension.

It was with great sadness that the world learned of Bourdain’s suicide by hanging in June of this year, while in France.

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Two Unlikely Couples Begin a Friendship that Lasts for More than Two Decades…”Same Beach, Next Year”, by Dorothea Benton Frank

The Lowcountry of South Carolina is author, Dorothea Benton Frank’s favorite location for her acclaimed beach books. Some readers determine their signal of true summer and beach time by the addition of a new book from author Frank. Her book, Same Beach, Next Year, continues to give her readers another great story to include in their beach bag. What could serve as a better backdrop for a summer book…… ocean breezes, the beaming sunshine, fruit filled cocktails, and a beautiful, starry night……lending to those promises of excitement in love and friendship. Such is the setting for Same Beach, Next Year.

In one particular summer, two unlikely couples begin a friendship that lasts more than two decades. Every year, Adam and Eliza and their twin boys spend a few weeks on Isle of Palms, which is not far from their home. Adam owns a very successful construction business and Eliza is a great cook with aspirations of writing a cookbook. This particular year, a new couple rents the condo next door. As it turns out, the wife is Eve, who was Adam’s first love in high school…….pretty coincidental. Eve is married to Carl, who is a pediatrician, and hardworking in his own right. They have one daughter who is about the same age as the twin boys. The two couples also have parents who come with them to help with the children. The two families hit it off and become fast friends who then go back to the same places each year for several years.

Readers say that this format is a departure from Frank’s usual format, which they were pleased to see. Most reviewed it as a very moving story with well-developed characters and a good narrative from the couple of Adam and Eliza. They seem to be stuck in the past……each for different reasons. Eliza, even though thought to be quite shallow, was an obvious voice of reason among the four. The book follows their stories of both ups and downs, leaving the reader having no idea how the relationships would mature until the very end of the book. Most readers agreed that they were sorry to see the book end. Their testament to a very good novel.

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Distance between Different Cultures and Desires…”The Hundred-Foot Journey”, by Richard Morais

Richard Morais is a former Forbes magazine correspondent turned author, when he wrote his first novel, The Hundred Foot Journey. An American who was raised in Switzerland, Morais has spent most of his life overseas, giving him an international perspective in his work. He now resides in New York City.

The Hundred Foot Journey began as the main character, Hassan, leaves India after tragedy strikes. He takes his family with him as they begin a long trip to find their niche in the world of culinary service. Eventually, they end up settling in a small village in the French Alps. In this village, they open an inexpensive restaurant infusing the sleepy little town with the spices of India. By doing this they incite a culinary war with the town’s famous French Chef. Eventually, she agrees to mentor Hassan, which leads him to Paris and the opening of his own restaurant. The Hundred Foot Journey refers to the distance between a new Indian kitchen and a traditional French one that represents the gulf between different cultures and desires.

The novel has been adapted to film and was released in August 2014. The director for the film is Lasse Hallstrom for DreamWorks Pictures (and others). The cast includes Helen Mirren and Manish Dayal as the French Chef, Madame Mallory, and the Indian chef, Hassan.

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A Week of Armchair Travel

Travel books have a wide appeal, to actual travelers, potential travelers and simple armchair explorers.

We looked at The Daily Telegraph ‘s list of twenty best travel books. I mentioned The Happy Traveller (1923) by the Reverend Frank Tatchell, because it’s brilliant and deserves your attention.
Frommers took us on car journeys in France.
For younger, poorer travelers, we recommended Lonely Planet’s Europe on a Shoestring,
Zagat’s guides are the go-to source for restaurants – we thought we’d dine in Paris with them.
For adventure on a budget, we went with the many guides from Lonely Planet, looking at Nepal and Botswana.
For adventure at premium prices, we looked at Fodor’s The Complete African Safari Planner
The Book Haven has a great review of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods.
David Miller’s AWOL on the Applachian Trail covered the same ground, but less incompetently than the hapless Bryson and Katz team.
For classic travel tales we looked at Eric Newby’s A Short walk in the Hindu Kush and Mark Twain’s Following the Equator.

Pack your bags… and head for your armchair!

Classic Travel Books

There are so many classic travel books, and recommending a single one is hard. So I’ll go to yet another list of great travel books – remember the Daily Telegraph list we saw – let’s go to that for Eric Newby’s A Short walk in the Hindu Kush.

” — but readers of the much-loved book are recompensed with a hilarious segment that recounts a mountain-side encounter with the adventurer Wilfred Thesiger: “We started to blow up our air-beds. ‘God, you must be a couple of pansies,’ said Thesiger.”

Want an audiobook? How about Mark Twain’s Following the Equator, about his Pacific journey. Twain told us the travel is fatal to prejudice, and here we get some of his wry reflections on the world.

Travel Memoirs

Bill Bryson is the funniest writer working today. That’s my opinion. He has traveled widely, lived in Britain and the US, and written about science, language and, of course, travel.

My extra- special favorite Bryson book is “A Walk in the Woods”, the tale of an overweight middle-aged man (being Bryson) and his even more out of shape childhood friend Stephen Katz, as they kike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine.

But don’t trust me. The Book Haven has a great review of it. Buy it where you buy good books. For an audiobook of the same journey by someone else entirely, listen to David Miller’s AWOL on the Applachian Trail.

Adventure – in Style and On the Cheap

We all love adventures. Some of us want to go on them. Some of us recall adventures we’ve been on with pleasure or “What was I thinking?” – I say this as a suburban officer-dweller who helped move a bus stuck in a streambed in the Andes, 16,000 feet above sea level. Some of us simply want to read about other people’s adventures.

Guides to adventure travel come in two varieties . There are the backpacker, Nepal-on-a-budget guides that are strong on youth hostels, environmentalism and places to eat for an American dollar. Lonely Planet is very strong in this area. Here’s that book on Nepal. But you can also go to Bolivia, or Sri Lanka, or Botswana.

For those of us who aren’t twenty two anymore, and are happy to trade a bit more money – okay a lot more money – you can do the eco-tourist thing in the world’s rainforests, or play Ernest Hemingway and go on a safari. These days safaris are almost all photography-based. You have to be very rich to go and shoot wildlife, and people will think poorly of you, and deride your manhood. Try Fodor’s The Complete African Safari Planner. This is from Amazon.

Where to Eat in Ouaggadougou

One of the main reasons to travel is to eat. If you ask me about the time I visited the amazing rebuilt medieval city of Carcassonne, destroyed by a French crusades against the Cathar heretics in the early thirteenth century, I will tell you about the Vietnamese restaurant where I could not – not – get the waiter to bring the check. I can tell you about why you should not eat the sausage sandwich at a particular British motorway cafe (because it’s disgusting) and why you should not eat the cuy in the Andes (because guinea pigs are cute).

The Travel Channel features almost no shows about travel that aren’t really about eating.

Your standard guidebook will suggest some places to eat, along with where to stay and what to see. But if you are going to a big city, that list of six restaurants (two cheap, two medium-priced, two expensive) isn’t enough. You need a real foodie guide. Try Zagat, whose restaurant guides also feature maps, city info and reviews from recent diners.

I could give you Zagat’s guide to new Jersey, but let’s go to Paris instead. The driving is about the same, but the food is better.

No, I don’t know where to eat in Ouaggadougou. I have never vacationed in Burkina Faso.

The Big Fat Guide Book

We’ve all seen them, and many of us have bought them – those chubby volumes designed to cram lots and lots of information in small print (with tiny maps) that tell us all we’ll need to know about wherever we’re going. Some are aimed at a high-end traveller, with lots of swish hotels and five star restaurants. Some are more budget conscious.

In the 1950s, Arthur Frommer began publishing guidebooks for American GIs returning to Europe to visit the battlefields where they fought during WWII. He became the go-to travel authority for his generation and for the baby boomers that followed in his footsteps. Frommer’s remains a leading name among travel guides. Let’s go for some great car journeys in France, shall we? The other biggie in this group of guides are Fodor’s.

Travelers who want the best can look at HIP Hotels or Nota Bene, of which it has been written:

“If your choice of hotel depends on which one offers the highest thread-count in its Egyptian-cotton sheets, Nota Bene is for you.”

For those who won’t be tipping any valets of maitre ‘ds, you can go to Rough Guide or Let’s Go. The Lonely Planet series covers the world. For a taster, look at Europe on a Shoestring, which covers 45 countries alphabetically from Albania to Ukraine. Although, of course, you are going to Amsterdam, like everyone else who bought the book.

The Armchair Traveler

Some of my favorite books are travel books. Last month I borrowed a guide to Iceland, and looked especially at the remote northern region known as the Westfjords. Now, I’ve never been to Iceland, have no immediate plans to do so, and frankly my partner in all things indicates that I am a lunatic for even thinking about it. But now I now where to find the best place to eat locally caught fish – and, oh look! A pizza joint!

Travel books generally consist of guide books – where to go, where to stay, what and where to eat – and what are sometimes called ‘travel memoirs’, which at minimum consist of “Where I went, stayed and ate”. The best of these are far more interesting than that, of course.

The Daily Telegraph of London did a list of twenty best travel books, from Kerouac’s On the Road through George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia to Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia. Pick any of these and you won’t go wrong. My own choice of these – the strangely Victorian explorer-out-of-his-time Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands details five years wandering among the Bedouin of the desert known as The Empty Quarter.

Lastly I’ll mention my favorite travel book, the hard to find The Happy Traveller (1923) by the Reverend Frank Tatchell, an eccentric English clergyman who – paying for a curate to cover his duties – spent much time travelling alone, often in disguise as a tramp. If you want advice as to what to do if attacked by wild dogs or middle eastern mobs, this is the place to start!