Bill Bryson by Simon Schluter
As the end of the year approaches, you can expect the standard listings of "best of" books for the year, including a few sites that specialize in travel literature. Most of these digests are just recycles of reviews and hardly surprise, though I thought the list compliled and profiled at Longitude was adventurous and elegant.
Longitude
Best of 2005
READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE
Our 15 favorite books of 2005, including an atlas we can't keep our hands off, followed by additional New & Notable books of the year.
Atlas Maior • Peter van der Krogt
ART & ARCHITECTURE • 2005 • HARD COVER • 626 PAGES
A richly embellished, gloriously annotated collection of maps from the largest, most complete atlas of its day, published between 1662 and 1672 by Amsterdam mapmaker and entrepreneur Joan Blaeu. The gold-heightened, hand-colored 11-volume original, from which this sumptuous book is taken, is the showpiece of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Editor Peter van der Grogt provides a history of this exceptional example of art and cartography. (MAP22, $200.00)
The Explorer's Eye, First-Hand Accounts of Adventure and Exploration • Fergus Fleming • Annabel Merullo • Michael Palin
EXPLORATION • 2005 • HARD COVER • 264 PAGES
A gripping tale of 50 heroes and explorers from Alexander Von Humboldt to Robert Peary, Jacques Cousteau and Neil Armstrong, featuring a choice selection of archival photographs. Fleming once again dishes up surprises, telling quotes and even-more-telling photographs in this collection of diary excerpts, quotes and archival illustrations. Well done indeed. (EXP40, $45.00)
Finding George Orwell in Burma • Emma Larkin
TRAVEL NARRATIVE • 2005 • HARD COVER • 294 PAGES
In this penetrating book, Larkin searches for the legacy of Orwell in modern Burma, combining travel, history and reportage into an incisive portrait of the country. Writing under a pseudonym, Larkin -- a British journalist who speaks Burmese fluently -- exposes the corruption and horror of Burma's dictatorship through the people she meets on her year-long quest. Along the way she visits many of the places Orwell frequented during his five years as a civil servant in the 1930s. (BMA40, $22.95)
Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed • Jared Diamond
HISTORY • 2005 • HARD COVER • 592 PAGES
Diamond's provocative analysis of ecological disaster (usually pollution or deforestation) and the subsequent collapse of society. A follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs and Steel, it uses diverse examples from Easter Island and the Maya to Greenland's medieval Norse in order to make his arguments, which are insightful and tightly logical. A paperback version is expected in December. (GEN324, $29.95)
The Gods Drink Whiskey, Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha • Stephen T. Asma
TRAVEL NARRATIVE • 2005 • HARD COVER • 256 PAGES
Asma, a university professor and a Buddhist, writes with verve and humor of his stint teaching at the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh. The book is both an introduction to Theravada Buddhism and a portrait of contemporary Cambodia. He confesses in his preface quite pointedly that it is his mission to take "California" out of Buddhism and his earthy account of his (mis)adventures is refreshingly free of cant and high-minded prattle. He is also acutely aware of his position as a western scholar in a Buddhist country (albeit one where Buddhism was outlawed by the repugnant Khmer Rouge). (CBD46, $24.95)
Feet on the Street, Rambles Around New Orleans • Roy Blount, Jr.
TRAVEL NARRATIVE • 2005 • HARD COVER • 144 PAGES
Organized as eight wonderfully digressive, personal rambles around a favorite city, Feet on the Street takes in the neighborhoods, music, history, food and local characters of New Orleans. A book in the exceptional Crown Journeys series, which marries writers and places. (USS370, $16.00)
Into a Paris Quartier, Reine Margot's Chapel and other Haunts of St. Germain • Diane Johnson
TRAVEL NARRATIVE • 2005 • HARD COVER • 204 PAGES
An affectionate, personal portrait of place, Johnson writes with insight, verve and wit of her neighborhood on the Left Bank. She weaves history, anecdote, and tales of the many, mostly American, expatriates of St. Germain. The book, a volume in the National Geographic Directions series, works as both a history and walking guide. (FRN491, $20.00)
The Fate Of Africa • Meredith Martin
HISTORY • 2005 • HARD COVER • 752 PAGES
Ambitious in scope, immensely readable -- and as big as a doorstop -- Meredith Martin's overview of the tumult, horrors and strides made in Africa since independence is invaluable. A veteran newspaperman and historian, Martin has written biographies of Mandela and Mugabe. He is particularly strong in sketching the personalities and events in South and East Africa. (AFR154, $35.00)
A History of the World In 6 Glasses • Tom Standage
FOOD • 2005 • HARD COVER • 240 PAGES
A history of the world as seen though six key beverages, from the stone age to now. Standage argues, the drinks that mattered are beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Each is a tale of politics, prestige, imperialism, commerce and society. The technology editor for The Economist, Standage documents social and technological trends through the ages in this highly enjoyable chronicle. (GEN333, $25.00)
Why Birds Sing, A Journey Through the Mystery of Bird Song • David Rothenberg
NATURAL HISTORY • 2005 • HARD COVER • 258 PAGES
Rothenberg, a jazz clarinetist and philosopher with a strong interest in the interconnectedness of things, weaves music, poetry and science in this intriguing series of essays. It's a riff on the meaning and pleasure of birdsong, including, of course, a chapter on the nightingale. He opens the book with an account of a jam session with -- and for -- the birds of the national aviary. (BRD23, $26.00)
The City of Falling Angels • John Berendt
HISTORY • 2005 • HARD COVER • 414 PAGES
Berendt here does for Venice what he did for Savannah, Georgia in the phenomenally popular Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. His central hook is the investigation of the devastating fire of January 29, 1996, which destroyed the Venice opera house. What follows is intrigue, political machinations, financial chicanery, and, of course murder. Berendt succeeds in conveying a certain essence of what it is like to live in modern Venice. (ITL644, $25.95)
Hungry Planet, What the World Eats • Peter Menzel • Faith D'Aluisio
FOOD • 2005 • HARD COVER • 288 PAGES
As in their mind-expanding, gorgeously photographed and provocative Material World, Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio once again present diverse families around the world, this time focusing on what people eat. The photographs themselves (of 30 families in 24 countries with a week's worth of groceries arrayed around them) are fascinating -- and the accompanying sidebars and statistics on food habits, diet, and economics are just as riveting. With essays by Michael Pollan, Alfred Crosby, Carl Safina and others. (WLD65, $40.00)
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