The Best American Travel Writing 2007 (The Best American Series (TM)) | 
|  | | | Title: | The Best American Travel Writing 2007 (The Best American Series (TM)) | | Author: | Susan Orlean (Editor)
Jason Wilson (Series Editor) | | Publisher: | Houghton Mifflin | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 10 October, 2007 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0618582185 / 9780618582181 | | List Price: | $14.00 | | You Save: | $2.10 | | Amazon Price: | $11.90 | |
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| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
"Travel is not about finding something. It's about getting lost -- that is, it is about losing yourself in a place and a moment. The little things that tether you to what's familiar are gone, and you become a conduit through which the sensation of the place is felt." -- from the introduction by Susan Orlean
The twenty pieces in this year's collection showcase the best travel writing from 2006. George Saunders travels to India to witness firsthand a fifteen-year-old boy who has been meditating motionless under a tree for months without food or water, and who many followers believe is the reincarnation of the Buddha. Matthew Power reveals trickle-down economics at work in a Philippine garbage dump. Jason Anthony describes the challenges of everyday life in Vostok, the coldest place on earth, where temperatures dip as low as minus-129 degrees and where, in midsummer, minus-20 degrees is considered a heat wave.
David Halberstam, in one of his last published essays, recalls how an inauspicious Saigon restaurant changed the way he and other reporters in Vietnam saw the world. Ian Frazier analyzes why we get sick when traveling in out-of-the-way places. And Kevin Fedarko embarks on a drug-fueled journey in Djibouti, chewing psychotropic foliage in "the worst place on earth."
Closer to home, Steve Friedman profiles a 410-pound man who set out to walk cross-country to lose weight and find happiness. Rick Bass chases the elusive concept of the West in America, and Jonathan Stern takes a hilarious Lonely Planet approach to his small Manhattan apartment.
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Customer Reviews:
• Excellent Collection 28 December, 2007
I loved this year's collection, edited by Susan Orlean. Many great essays, but the highlight is definitely Elizabeth Gilbert's report of a two week eating/walking tour through Provence via rural trails.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A24ESRDRM8RP35
• My First Year 17 April, 2008
I've long been a fan of the various Best American books, but this was my first year to read the travel writing, but I figured, Susan Orlean, okay. My mistake. Most of the pieces were tedious, though I did enjoy Jason Anthony, Ian Frazier, Steve Friedman, Nando Parrado (but didn't he already write this), and my two favorites, though I'm not sure I'd call them travel writing, Andrew Solomon and Jonathan Stern. It's because of them two that I'll probably pick up next year's edition.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2S166WSCFIFP5
• A Depressing Entry In An Otherwise Great Series 29 September, 2008
For those of you looking for travel writing as a form of appealing escapism, avoid this book. Susan Orlean is either clinically depressed or prefers to roll around in the more tragic underbelly of the world's great places. Those of us who travel know that the world is a far from perfect place and that great poverty and cruelty exist in the world, but is it really necessary to throw it in our faces, essay after essay after essay? I mean, seriously, essays children surviving on scavanging on mountain-high mounds of garbage? Drug-induced stupors in Djibouti? Hunger induced cannibalism in the Andes? Even the few fluff pieces she picked are depressing, i.e., surviving off of processed foods on Swan Island. What a depressing entry in an otherwise great series. Someone get that woman a Prozac subscription stat.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AB848Q87FTM4S
• Disappointing 24 November, 2008
I first came across Susan Orlean when, after watching the film Adaptation (Superbit Collection), I bought the book upon which it was based, Ms. Orlean's The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle). Although I found the latter to be wordy, I went on to read two collections of Ms. Orlean's shorter pieces: My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere and Saturday Night. In both cases, the topics were (to me) quite interesting, but by some sort of magic, Ms. Orlean managed to make her descriptions of them tedious. [I am aware that she writes for the New Yorker, and that admirers of that magazine now consider me a cretin].
Liking her choice of topics, I bought this book, thinking that she would have managed to choose some interesting travel pieces, but failing to realize (stupid me) that she was most likely to appreciate monotonous writing like her own.
In fact, there are no traditional (or nontraditional, for that matter) travel pieces in this collection, a fact that Ms. Orlean makes clear in her introduction: "My rules (for selecting a piece) were very uncomplicated: one, the stories had to take place somewhere in the physical world, and two, I had to like them a lot." In other words, any essay on any topic would qualify as long as Ms. Orlean liked it.
So, if you've enjoyed Ms. Orlean's writing in the past, you'll probably enjoy this book. On the other hand, if you have not or are not familiar with Ms. Orlean, you'll probably do better elsewhere.
The one piece in the book I found riveting was "High in Hell" by Kevin Fedarko, which appeared in GQ managine. For me, that piece justified the cost of the book, although it did not justify the tedium of reading the other articles.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2AV7Q95QGPTO0
• Fun, Fast, Diverse -- Highly Recommended 08 February, 2008
This is the fifth in this series that I have read. Only one other (I think it was 2002) was this good. I love this series and give it as Christmas gifts every year. This editor had exactly the right point of view in compiling these stories.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3527T3X8R6LU2
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