I just finished Wandering Home by Bill McKibben. Partly a memoir of his trek from Vermont to (almost) central New York, partly a call for greater environmental awareness in the northeast part of the US. It was a really good book, and I don't usually care for travel books about the US.

Now reading Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper which could be considered a travel book but is very hard reading - many of his experiences are very painful and there is a lot of raw, pain-filled emotion in his writing even though he spends a good portion of the book trying to deny his feelings.

Here’re the travel accounts I’ve read so far this year.

1. Paris to the Moon - Adam Gopnik: contemporary and smart and well written but kind of fluffy

2. Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens - Sofka Zinovieff: follows her spouse to live in Greece. Very good more as an expatriate memoir but works as travel too.

3. Irish Journal - Heinrich Boll: early 1950s trip to Emerald isle before it became a destination. Worth reading

4. Journey to the Vanished City - Tudor Parfitt. To southern Africa investigating claims of  Black Jews

5. Looking for the Lost - Alan Booth: Classic accounts of walks in rural Japan in the early 1990s

5. Pagan Holidays - Tony Perrottet: Travels around the Med in footsteps of ancient tourists. Light on the level of a Discovery Channel doc, a big disappointment

6. From Heaven Lake - Vikram Seth: Travel journals so unpolished but a unique trip and it’s nice not to read a UK or US travel writer for once.

7. The Sea and The Jungle - H.M. Tomlinson: Classic between the wars travel writing. Tramp steamer up a river in Brazil Highly literary. Amazing.

8. Colossus of Maroussi - Henry Miller: Class Account of trip to Greece in 1939. Readable only if you like Miller.

9. I Have Seen the World Begin - Carsten Jensen: A Dane travels in SE Asia. Very readable and interesting though some of the anthropology and sociology is dubious.

10. Tracks - Robyn Davidson: doughty Australian woman hoofs in the Australian desert accompanied by four camels. If you like travel writing by women, this is a must.