"You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there."
―Yogi Berra
TraveLit--A blog about travel literature.
Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys.
Travel Quotation
May 23, 2014
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Book Review
May 14, 2014
North-West by North: A Journal of a Voyage
By Dora Birtles. With a New Introduction by the Author. Originally published as A Journal of a Voyage in 1935. Beacon Press, Beacon/Virago Travelers, 1985, 432 pp.
Although it was first published in 1935, Dora Birtles’s North-West by North reads like a more contemporary work. This is mainly because her tale of a voyage from Australia to Singapore gives us the personal story—travel as exploration of self—that nowadays, in a world where so much has already been described, travel narratives are expected to provide. Read More
Book Review
May 8, 2014
Into the Heart of Borneo
By Redmond O’Hanlon. Vintage Departures, Random House, 1987, 192 pp.
Into the Heart of Borneo fits into a venerable tradition in travel literature: the narrative written by a traveler who is happy to mock his fears, his near-disasters, and his general lack of suitable skills for his journey. An adventure cast partly as farce, the book is also an appreciation of a place, its wildlife, and its people, and it is thoroughly entertaining throughout. Read More