Travel and Adventure: Some Very Different Books for Your Gift List

Your friends and relatives will smile.

Regard this post as a public service. We’re into the holiday season and unusual tales of travel and adventure make grand gifts.

“Unusual” means they are unlikely to be found in any bookstore where the works of Stephen King, James Patterson, and Danielle Steel hog the shelf space.

I have read all of the following unusual volumes and mention each with a smile. Track them down by checking the used bookstores or the online Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Abe Books, or Thrift Books warehouses.

But why do I recommend them? There are three reasons.

The first is that I like to learn and each one of these provides information and insights not available in summaries or news stories.

The second reason is my desire to be transported to strange places and experiences.

The third reason is a simple love of fine writing. There are sentences in each of these – many sentences, of course – that are excellent examples of how to convey information via beautiful clarity.

Curl up with them and you’ll see what I mean.

The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue by Frederick Forsyth. His childhood and early career make it easy to understand why Forsyth wrote riveting spy novels such as The Day of the Jackal.

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller. Beautifully written and absolutely fascinating. A childhood in Rhodesia before things got very strange. And they already were strange enough.

La Class de la Concorde Suisse by John McPhee. There’s a lot more about Switzerland than most of us suspect, such as what’s in many of those charming cottages facing the Alps.

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin. A streetwise view of what Zimbabwe was like when Robert Mugabe was in power, and the price of your restaurant tab could rise in the middle of your meal.

Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat. A young man is dispatched to the Canadian wilds to study wolves. The film was very good, and the book is even better. Mowat cannot write a boring paragraph.

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey. An anti-growth environmentalist icon and rebel who was happiest, it seems, when he was away from people. Abbey is, however, a very pleasant companion.

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Dugard. An expedition into Africa in those days was like exploring another planet. Stanley and Livingstone were the astronauts of their time.

The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia by travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux. He’s written many excellent travel books since this first effort, but I believe this one remains the best as he rumbles along from London to Tokyo and back. Don’t get “duffilled.”

Facing the Congo: A Modern-day Journey into the Heart of Darkness by Jeffrey Tayler. Crossing into the Congo was scary enough when Mobutu was in power. I kept wondering why Tayler didn’t turn back.

Legionnaire: An Englishman in the French Foreign Legion by Simon Murray. The author joined the Legion as the war in Algeria began to heat up. Bad timing, but his hope for adventure was more than fulfilled.

Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier by Amy Wilentz. It is impossible to write a boring book about Haiti. Every time I think of this book, the term “loup-garou” comes to mind. There’s a chilling reason why. Papa Doc and his family were not the only scary people in Port-au-Prince.

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz. This takes you into the world of Civil War re-enactors, where some of the participants are so dedicated to a realistic portrayal of the times that they go on near-starvation diets. The less-obsessive (and truly chubby) ones with new shiny uniforms are dismissed as “farbs.”

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz. If you’re going to glue the readers into an already very interesting tale, bring in an Australian.

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson. Did you know that bears love Snickers bars?

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. If you think Australia is fascinating and different, triple that estimate. Where else does a former prime minister walk into the water and just disappear?

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. Anyone who wants to retire to the south of France should read this for its balanced accounts of frustration and reward. You’ll be ready to pack your bags.

In Obscura [Part I]: Adventures in the World of Intelligence by Peter Theroux. In the talented Theroux family, this is the younger brother who switched from travel writing to the CIA. I vow to read anything else he’s written.

Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James. If you know anything about Clive James, you’ll expect this first volume of his memoirs to be both informative and funny. Clive never disappoints. The book is marinated in wit.

That’s it!

The list could be much longer and yet it would not necessarily be better. There is a hidden gift provided by writers who know what to put in and what to leave out. Each of these books meets that standard. You savor each story and do not long for it to end.