Best American Travel Essays

by Erik Olsen on

I blogged a bit about a story in this book the other day, but realized the entire book itself is worthy of a quick post. I haven’t actually got my hands on it yet, but every year I do, and always I find it the most wonderful reading. I am talking about the series called Best American Travel stories. It is part of a much wider series of Best American books that cover essays on everything from science to mystery to crime and sports. In the case of the Best American Travel Stories, it is basically a hand-picked compendium of what the editor decides are the travel essays published in a particular year.

Last year’s book was edited by Jamaica Kincaid and featured contributions from luminary scribes like Jim Harrison, Madison Smartt Bell, Pam Houston, Simon Winchester, and John McPhee. This year’s promises to be a real treat. It was released just a week or so ago.

Edited by the always entertaining (and talented) Tim Cahill, the book features wanderlustful tales by the likes of Gary Shteyngart, George Saunders, Alain de Botton and (always funny) P.J. O’Rourke. The 2006 edition also seems to place special emphasis on food with an essay by Chitrita Banerji’s about a Calcutta wedding feast and Calvin Trillin’s New Yorker piece about spending a week in Ecuador indulging his love for “thick and hearty” fanesca soup.

I recall reading a couple of these stories over the year in mainstream rags like the New Yorker, but the cool thing about the Best American series is that they usually select a number of essays from spunky little literary mags that you’ve never heard of. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get my hands on it ASAP.

Google Mapping Kerouac

by Erik Olsen on

It is regarded as the seminal book about exploring the American road. I’ve read it three times, and most people I know have read it. I for one can say it was supremely inspirational as a source of both adventure and literary aspiration. I am tracking about On The Road, Jack Kerouac’s magnum opus featuring the character Sal Paradise and his scruffy, incandescent-spirited iconoclast friend Dean Moriarty. It is a wonderful book, but it is still, well, a book. So what about taking On the Road into the Internet age? How might one do that, exactly?

Michael Yessis of Worldhum fame has got an interview with a guy named Michael Hess who has done just that, basically by retracing Sal Paradise’s steps (or stops, as the case may be, since he was, after all, in a car much of the time) during a cross-country roadtrip from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Los Angeles. Hess did the trip with his wife, and launched a project called Littourati in May 2006. And here’s the modern angle: he then decided to plot their (and Paradise’s) westward progress on Google Maps. The project is the product of Hess’s self-professed interest in literature, maps and programming.

It is a cool project, particularly if you are a Kerouac fan (or fanatic), and could serve as a rather cool template for other epic and famous roadtrips (Animal House anyone?).

Gordon Wiltsie on NPR

by Erik Olsen on

Who among you out there doesn’t like outdoor photography? Not a single one of you, I imagine. There is something deep down genetic to our love for the outdoors, to our appreciation for color and form and harmony in nature. I know that whenever I travel, I simply MUST carry a camera, not simply because I want to remember the places I’ve been, but because the photos I take are a reminder of the beauty that lies outside my door, outside my city.

And if there were any single ideal job (other than being Hugh Hefner) it would have to be adventure outdoor photographer. I have sitting here on my book shelf several volumes of outdoor photography by folks like the late Galen Rowell and James Balog. And over at NPR I noticed that there is a new volume worth checking out by the well-known photographer Gordon Wiltsie.

Wiltsie has shot some of the world’s best mountain climbers and explorers while out on expeditions, and he has compiled some of the best among those photos in a new book called To the Ends of the Earth: Adventures of an Expedition Photographer. In this NPR interview, Wiltsie talks with Alex Chadwick about his adventures and profession, including some of his other work as a writer. To wit, he was the author of a critically acclaimed study of the nomads of Mongolia’s Darhad Valley that was featured in the October 2003 National Geographic.

Take a moment away from you day and give a listen.

LA Mapped

by Erik Olsen on

I believe there is a mapping gene. That is, there is a gene (I am guessing it is on the Y chromosome, since not many women I know share this passion) that codes for a protein in the brain that creates a passion for maps. I have it.

In fact, I am sitting right here in my home office with a lovely map of the country on my wall, and at work I have maps of new York City and the world. I stare at them every day, not just for directions around the city or to figure out where, for example, the Mississippi runs through Arkansas. But also, at least where the world map is concerned to help me figure out where I’d most like to travel next . Maps are truly one of the most amazing creations of mankind.

So bearing this in mind, I’d like to highlight a post over Boing Boing from earlier in August that discusses the show Los Angeles Mapped, currently on display in Los Angeles through 2007 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The maps are diverse in both subject matter and style, with a finely detailed railroad system map to a movie-star map to a map showing the early Owens Valley. This is way cool, and I only wish I’d been able to drop by the exhibit during my recent trio to LA. Perhaps Neil can go and check it out for us. But if not, the site here actually has some excellent representations online that you can peruse. It is very well done and I have to say that I wish they were selling some of these as well. I’d love to have the map pictured here on my wall as well.

Wallpaper* City Guides

by Adrienne Wilson on

Just when you start to sleep on Wallpaper* they go and make their debut in the publishing world with these nice little City Guides. Their reason being, after 10 years in the game uncovering the best new design and urban travel spots globally, packaging that decade of experience into well-thought out yet simple guide books was only obviously. They make it clear that the traveler’s time is as important as their own and they don’t waste it chucking in massive quantities. It’s about quality and they very best. The first 20 were published this past September and another 20 will be published every six months after that. Current titles include Mexico City, Los Angeles, NYC, Madrid, Bangkok and Stockholm to name only a few.

The books can be purchased at Phaidon. Don’t see what you’re looking for? Stay tuned for the rest in 2007!