The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures – Louis Theroux
I enjoyed Louis Theroux’s TV show ‘Weird Weekends’ from a few years back and this book is the follow up. Theroux (who is the son Paul Theroux, one of my favourite travel writers) embarks on a six-month roadtrip across the United States, tracking down and providing updates on some of the more interesting subjects from his show. There’s all sorts of wacky folk and you could read this book having never seen a Louie show and still be entertained, moved and in some places saddened.

Awkward Situations for Men – Danny Wallace
This book was in the ‘travel’ section of the bookshop, but it’s not really a travel book. I do like Mr Wallace and his other books, but this book is more of a collection of anecdotes about his everyday life.  They are all individually very funny, but it means that the book lacks the cohesive story that all of his other books have had. The quality of his writing still shine through, however, and it is a very amusing and enjoyable read.

Made in America – Bill Bryson
This is one of Bill Bryson’s earlier books, which again isn’t quite a travel book but is found in the travel section.This book, which is the based around the history of the English language in America, is part language analysis, part U.S. history lesson and is filled with anecdotes and fun facts that make it a page-turner.

Where underpants come from – Joe Bennett
Joe Bennett, an ex-pat Pom living in NZ, follows what it took to create, ship and sell a pair of men’s underwear. His quest starts from a supermarket in New Zealand on to container ships coming from China. He travels to China and explores the factories and workers involved in creating all thsoe cheap underdaks. Very funny and interesting.

Between Terror and Tourism – Michael Mewshaw
The author sets out on an overland journey from Alexandria, Egypt to Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco and mostly travels with a driver/fixer in each country. Not real adventurous travel stuff – even though he was in potentially adventurous countries - but the writing is very good. Sadly though, not a lot happens – there are lots of long car rides, fading cities, troubles with travel arrangements and some ruins.

Dave Gorman vs The Rest of the World – Dave Gorman
I’m a big fan of Dave Gorman’s books, and although I thoroughly enjoyed this one it’s not as good as his previous titles. In this book he plays lots of games. Gorman tweeted his twittees asking if anyone fancied a game of something and he ends up playing all sorts from skittles to extreme frisbee to monopoly and Kubb. The book doesn’t have the bizarre twists of his previous books, but that boy sure can write a funny yarn.

So, have you read any good travel books this year?

New Europe – Michael Palin
I like Michael Palin. I like his TV travel series and this book is a very enjoyable and funny journey through the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe. My only gripe is that it’s all somewhat premeditated and contrived. A research team goes out and plans the entire trip, including finding ‘wacky’ festivals to attend and ‘wacky’ locals to interview. Not much true adventure – but then again it may be because I’m just so jealous! 
 

Shadows of the Silk Road – Colin Thubron
Mr Thubron on the other hand is a true adventurer. In this book he travelled through China, Central Asia, northern Afghanistan, Western Asia along the old Silk Road on donkey, camels, third-class trains, buses, and jeep. He also writes so beautifully and with real emotion about the people and the places he visits and evokes a real sense of what it’s like to be there.
 

Friends like these – Danny Wallace
Not really a travel book per se, but it is a ‘journey’ and Danny does travel from Berlin to Loughborough to L.A. to Japan. And it is outrageously positive, thoughtful and very funny. Danny Wallace decides to track down the twelve names he discovers in his old school address book. The theme is not disimilar to his last book, ‘Yes Man’, but it is a formula that works – he obviously believes that if it aint broke, don’t fix it: hilarious anecdotes about hope over varying degrees of adversity will always make for a great read.
 

Remote journeys oddly rendered – Tim Cahill
This collection of stories from Tim Cahill is over 10 years old – but that’s because I picked it up earlier this year for a couple of dollars at a school fete. In this book Cahill travels through the plains of Mongolia to the chilled waters of Alaska, from the jungles of Peru to the islands of Honduras. Slow in parts, but a well written and funny account of wild travels in unusual places.
 

Best foot forward : 30 years of Australian travel writing
This is an impressive collection of short travel stories written by the best Australian travel writers. It was published to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Australian Society of Travel Writers. Writers include John Borthwick, Ian Crawshaw, Marc Llewellyn, Susan Kurosawa, and Bill Peach. I particularly liked the earlier pieces from the days of flared pants and unwashed hair.
 

Springtime for Germany (or how I learned to love lederhosen) – Ben Donald
I read this while travelling around Germany on my book tour for Couch Surfing – Eine abenteuerliche Reise um die Welt. The book is a odd mix of insults with the occasional declaration of love and a good smattering of stereotypes (although I am very guilty of that in my books at times!). Then again, Donald does manage to be sometimes genuinely amusing, and it’s always fun reading about a place when you’re travelling through it. I didn’t finish it, though. Not because I didn’t like it – I left it on the Leipzig to Berlin train.
 

Has anyone else read any good travel books this year?

Neither here nor there – Bill Bryson
The first ‘travel’ book I ever read and inspired me to become a travel writer.

Round Ireland with a fridge – Tony Hawks
Hilarious story of Hawks’ hitch-hiking trip around Ireland with, um… a fridge. 

The Great Railway Bazar – Paul Theroux
Theroux’s first and arguably most rewarding travel book. It opens with the great line: ‘Ever since childhood I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.’

Dave Gorman’s Googlewack adventure – Dave Gorman
A very funny book about a ‘wacky’ little idea gone mad.  

In Siberia - Colin Thubron
A journey through the hearts, soul and history of Siberia. Travel literature at its best and most engaging.

The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson
Bryson’s first travel book and one of his best. 

The Wrong Way Home- Peter Moore
Great journey, great read and great guy! 

Join Me – Danny Wallace
Not really a travel book, but his travels around the UK and Europe are laugh-out-loud funny

Holidays in Hell – P.J. O’Rourke
Very very funny tales of travelling to the places most people wouldn’t want to go!

In the Empire of Genghis Khan – Stanley Stewart
Stewart’s portrayal of the people in Mongolia and the landscape in which they live is compelling and engaging.

So, Jolly Christmas everyone and thanks for reading my blog (and, more importantly, buying my books!). And, if you do happen to get a book for Christmas that you don’t like you can always take it back in the new year and exchange it for ‘Sleeping Around – A Couch Surfing tour of the Globe’ (due out January 5th).

I’ve just finished reading Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by the famously grumpy Paul Theroux. In this book he retraces the trip he did for his 1975 book The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia. Sound familiar? Yes, it’s somewhat similar to the premise of my new book – although he is following the journey he took himself. And like my trip his journey takes place 34 years after the original. I’m a big fan of Theroux and, yes he can get a bit grumpy and comes across rather misanthropic at times, but I agree with the Daily Mail when they called him: ‘The world’s most perceptive travel writer’.

It was very interesting reading this book comparing it to my journey. He too found places exactly the same and even meeting up with the same people. One of my favourite stories is when Paul Theroux travels to Maymyo in Upper Burma and went to the same guesthouse that he stayed in back in 1973. The original manager’s son (who is now the manager) recognized him straight away and said, ‘You were in room 11, let me take you there.’ He even remembered that he wore a black shirt, smoked a pipe and that the table by the window was his favourite place to sit and write. His father had passed away some time ago, but had become quite the ‘celebrity’ because of Theroux’s earlier book. And as Theroux said: ‘The portrait of Mr. Bernard in my book had done what the written word sometimes accidentally does, worked a kind of magic. It had brought visitors and it had given Mr. Bernard ‘face’, which is so important in Burma.’

Already on my trip so far I am seeing how even more so Lonely Planet has set people’s lives up and even changed the landscape of a city. Yes, sometimes it’s for the worst, but I’ve also witnessed how it also brings a place to life and a life to people in that place.

Oh, and here’s an interview with Paul Theroux that’s quite good:

We had our first taste of spring in Melbourne yesterday, so I headed to the park with a book. I was going to take one of the many books that I’m halfway through, but instead decided to pick up one of my all time favourites – Holidays in Hell by P.J. O’Rourke. I’ve re-read this book a few times now and I still chuckle away at P.J’s witty and irreverent observations. Even though the book was written in the late 1980’s and the 3rd world political references are a bit dated his experiences in Lebanon, Panama, Korea, Philippines, USSR, South Africa and Northern Ireland are still relevant and entertaining. Here’s a sample of some of the many great quotes from the book:

The larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to everybody who doesn’t speak German. For this, and several other reasons, Germany is known as ‘the land where Israelis learned their manners’.


I’ve always figured that if God wanted us to go to church a lot he’d have given us bigger behinds to sit on and smaller heads to think with.


One nice thing about the Third World, you don’t have to fasten your seat belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.) It takes a lot off your mind when average life expectancy is forty-five minutes.


If Christ came back tomorrow, He’d have to change planes in Frankfurt. Modern air travel means less time spent in transit. That time is now spent in transit lounges.


What would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World is probably the road.


Italy is not technically part of the Third World, but no one has told the Italians.


There are a lot of mysterious things about boats, such as why anyone would get on one voluntarily.


The Italians have had two thousand years to fix up the Forum and just look at the place.


Two key rules of Third World travel: 1. Never run out of whiskey. 2. Never run out of whiskey.

It’s important to understand that in the Third World most driving is done with the horn, or “Egyptian Brake Pedal,” as it is known. There is a precise and complicated etiquette of horn use. Honk your horn only under the following circumstances:

1. When anything blocks the road
2. When anything doesn’t.
3. When anything might.
4. At red lights
5. At green lights.
6. At all other times.

1. America Unchained (Dave Gorman) – A good read but not as good as Googlewack adventures, which is one of my favourite travel/humour books.

2. Finding Nino (Marc Llewellyn) – It was lovely to read an Italy book that didn’t have quirky plumbers renovating a quirky farmhouse in Tuscany.

3. Chasing Bohemia (Carmen Michael) – It’s hard to read this book and not want to live in Rio for a year or two

4. Shadow of the Silk Road (Colin Thubron) – Mr Thubron is up there with my favourite authors and this one didn’t disappoint.

5. Badlands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil (Tony Wheeler) – A great read as Tony (from Lonely Planet fame) goes to all the places you wouldn’t.

6. In search of Elvis (Charlie Connelly) – Okay, I’m an Elvis nut, so I loved this book: especially when he meets the Jewish Elvis impersonator called Schmelvis in Canada!

7. Route 66 AD: On the trail of ancient tourists (Tony Perrottet) – Tony follows the itinerary of the Romans, the world’s first tourists. Why don’t hotels today supply rooms full of nubile wenches feeding you grapes?

8. Another long day on the Piste (Will Randall) – I was looking forward to this (being ski mad), but Will’s tales of a season on the slopes in France was a little flat (boom boom!).

Sadly, probably the next 8 books I read will be travel as well!

Has anyone read any good ones lately that I might like?