Carol at Magistramater recently posted a great list of adventure books. Then William Zinsser wrote about some of his favorite travelling nomads here. I have to admit that I don't yet share Carol's enthusiasm for travelogues, but since I love beautiful writing, I was intrigued by the closing statement on Zinsser's post: The worlds that those restless hermits wrote about were often interior worlds, tinged with mysticism, and it could hardly be otherwise; they achieved their destiny by following trails that weren’t on any map. But what raises travel writing to literature is not what the writer brings to a place, but what the place draws out of the writer. The authors that Zinsser mentions are Norman Douglas (4 of his books are available for free on Kindle), Patrick Leigh Fermor, Charles Doughty (one free Kindle title), Richard Burton (one free Kindle title), Freya Stark, T.E. Lawrence (two inexpensive Kindle titles), W. Thesiger, and Bruce Chatwin.
I look forward to giving them a try.
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