Book Lust to Go

by Nancy Pearl

  Jim Malusa is a botanist whose specialty is the biogeography of the plants of southern Arizona, so you wouldn’t necessarily pick him as the go-to guy to write about a series of bike trips.Yet, as he describes in Into Thick Air: Biking to the Bellybutton of Six Continents, he spent parts of six consecutive years riding his trusty bicycle to the lowest spots of all six continents, overcoming everything from extreme weather to extreme insects, not to mention the possibility of land mines if he strayed off the road in Africa. It’s clear that Malusa would be a fun guy to bike with—he has a knack for meeting interesting people, hearing some fascinating stories, and ending up in amazing places.

  Tony Horwitz’s Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia was written during the time he worked as a stringer in the Middle and Near East, while his wife, Geraldine, was working as Middle East correspondent based in Cairo for the Wall Street Journal. One of my favorite lines—pure Horwitz humor and insight—is this: “It is difficult to gaze in awe at the wonders of ancient Egypt with modern Egypt tugging so insistently at your sleeve.”

  W. Hodding Carter’s Westward Whoa: In the Wake of Lewis and Clark and A Viking Voyage: In Which an Unlikely Crew of Adventurers Attempts an Epic Journey to the New World are worth a read.

  IT’S CHILE TODAY

  It’s a bit surprising to me, but I couldn’t find a lot of armchair reading devoted to Chile. The best travel account that I found was Sara Wheeler’s Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile, and it’s a real treat. As I discovered, Chile is approximately 2,600 miles long and is nowhere more than 250 miles wide (its average width is 110 miles).Wheeler makes her way (mostly by hitchhiking, walking, or taking a bus) from the arid north to the islanded south. Before reading this, I never really considered visiting Chile; now it’s on my list of must-see places.

  It’s important to understand that—Wheeler aside—books on Chile are suffused with the political history of the place: it runs like a deep river beneath the plot or subject of a book. The terrible years of the Pinochet dictatorship are sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the background, but they are always there for the author (and us) to conjure up.

  Isabel Allende’s memoir My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile and, of course, her novels, especially The House of the Spirits, offer a picture of Chile that’s suffused with love (and a bit of magic).

  Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives takes place in many more places than the author’s native Chile; it provides a stunning portrait of Latin American life and literature.

  Ariel Dorfman’s works include Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey and Desert Memories: Journeys Through the Chilean North.

  Antonio Skármeta’s novels The Postman (the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s postman relates his charming love story) and The Dancer and the Thief (set in contemporary Santiago) are not to be missed.

  Gabriel García Márquez is not Chilean, of course, but rather Colombian. However, Clandestine in Chile: The Adventures of Miguel Littin is a totally satisfying work of journalism about Littin’s return to Chile in disguise, determined to make a film about the Pinochet regime.

  The short stories that make up Franciso Coloane’s Tierra Del Fuego are filled with explorers and adventurers, all set against the background of southern Chile.

  JAPANESE JOURNEYS

  Japan is another one of those countries whose literature written during the middle and late twentieth century is either directly about World War II or the war is a strong subtext of the plot.

  To begin, though, you simply must read The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, a story of medieval Japan that was written in the eleventh century.

  Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World, set in 1948, is the story of Masui Ono, a man who not only put his art to work for the Imperial Army, but also informed on his friends. Like all of Ishiguro’s books, what isn’t explicitly said is just as, or even more, important as the words on the page.

  One of two Nobel laureates from Japan is Yasunari Kawabata, who won the prize in 1968. (The other is 1994’s winner, Kenzabur e.) I think one of Kawabata’s best novels is The Old Capital, which tells the story of Chieko, the adopted daughter of a kimono designer from Kyoto, who must come to terms with the present when she learns the truth about her past. It’s incandescently translated by J. Martin Holman.

  The plots of Haruki Murakami’s novels aren’t easy to describe, but oh, I wish I could read them all over again for the first time. Although they don’t give you a snapshot of Japan as such, I think they still provide a sense of the country. If you’re not particularly a fan of magical realism, Murakami’s novels might not be your cup of tea, but do think about giving them a try. Start with A Wild Sheep Chase, then move on to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Kafka on the Shore.

  I found the delicate and restrained style in Yoko Ogawa’s novel The Housekeeper and the Professor to be not unlike a traditional Japanese painting. The same is true of his Hotel Iris: A Novel and The Divining Pool: Three Novellas.

  Fiction about the country by non-Japanese writers that I enjoyed include Sara Backer’s American Fuji; John Burnham Schwartz’s The Commoner; Amelie Nothomb’s comic gem of an autobiographical novel, Fear and Trembling; and David Peace’s mystery set in the country right after the end of World War II, Tokyo Year Zero.

  One nonfiction book I found interesting and instructive was Eat Sleep Sit: My Year at Japan’s Most Rigorous Zen Temple by Kaoru Nonomura. The lessons he took away during what were not an easy twelve months carried over into his life long after the year was over.

  There’s perhaps no other country in which so many non-Japanese writers are eager to relate their experiences as foreigners, or gaijins, there.They are frequently, through not always, what I can only call ruefully humorous. (In fact, I am at this moment completely unable to think of a truly “funny” novel written by a native Japanese. Enlighten me, please, if you’ve read one.) The best gaijin accounts I’ve read include:Jake Adelstein’s Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

  Dave Barry’s Dave Barry Does Japan

  Alan Booth’s The Roads to Sata and its sequel, Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan

  Peter Carey’s Wrong About Japan

  David Chadwick’s Thank You and OK!: An American Zen Failure in Japan

  Cathy Davidson’s thoughtful 36 Views of Mount Fiji: On Finding Myself in Japan

  Josie Dew’s A Ride in the Neon Sun

  Bruce Feiler’s Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan

  Pico Iyer’s The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto

  Will Ferguson’s rollicking Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan

  David Mura’s Turning Japanese

  Donald Keene’s Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan (fascinating look at the life of a man who brought Japanese studies to the American cultural landscape)

  Leila Philip’s memoir The Road Through Miyama, which tells of her apprenticeship to a master potter in a small Japanese village

  Christopher Ross’s Mishima’s Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend

  Kate T. Williamson’s A Year in Japan (an artist’s journal)

  JORDAN

  There aren’t a lot of armchair travel books devoted specifically to Jordan. In fact, aside from a few guidebooks, Jordan is usually lumped in with the rest of the Middle East—you’ll find a chapter about it here and there in most books about that region. Or, as seen in the following recommendations, you can pretty easily find a book about the history and art of Jordan. I am, though, still looking for the perfect book that will tell me what the heart of the country is like. Until then, here’s what I’ve discovered and enjoyed.

  In Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life, Queen Noor describes her life as both wife and, later, widow of King Hussein of Jordan. Much more than a trophy wife, the queen worked for peace in the Middle East an
d developed projects to aid the poverty-stricken citizens of her country.

  Benjamin Orbach’s Live from Jordan: Letters Home from My Journey Through the Middle East perhaps came closest to what I was looking for—it’s entertaining and enlightening.

  Married to a Bedouin by Marguerite van Geldermalsen is the true story of how a young New Zealand nurse met and married a man of the desert, settling down in the city of Petra.

  Getty Publications brought out E. Borgia’s Jordan: Past and Present: Petra, Jerash, Amman, a book that allows western readers to see the beauties of the country at three of its most well-known sites (although, to be honest, I’d heard of only two of them before I discovered this book).

  Harry S.Abrams is another publisher specializing in art books. One in their Discoveries series is Christian Auge and Jean-Marie Dentzer’s Petra: Lost City of the Ancient World; it’s certainly useful for the contemporary traveler. While poring over these last two titles, I was remembering a line of a poem by John William Burgon that my mother used to quote about Petra: “a rose-red city, half as old as time.”

  JUST SO MUCH GREEK TO ME

  Although I have studiously stayed away from including guidebooks in Book Lust To Go, I couldn’t resist recommending Philip Matyszak’s Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day, a charming amalgamation of contemporary guide, history, art, and literature—an unbeatable recipe for reading entertainment and information (not to mention an enjoyable trip). And—should your journey take you further afield—don’t forget to check out Matyszak’s Ancient Rome on 5 Denarii a Day.

  I think I can guarantee that you’ll enjoy Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece and Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Together, they are two of the best pure armchair travel books about Greece ever written. Long out of print, they were—I’m thrilled to say—recently reissued by New York Review Books Classics. Not only is Fermor one of the best travel companions you’ll ever encounter, he is also able to bring to life the places he goes and the people he meets. He’s one of those writers whose frequent digressions from his stated topic only improve the books.

  A good novel set in Greece is Alcestis by Katharine Beutner. For those of you who aren’t up on your Greek mythology, Alcestis is the woman who sacrificed herself to Hermes in the place of her beloved husband.

  It was so obvious to me that Zachary Mason had a terrific time creating The Lost Books of the Odyssey (that is, beyond the hard work of the actual writing), and you’ll have a ball reading these reimaginings of the story of Odysseus. Mason’s a brilliant writer; these are witty, serious, and sad—and sometimes all three at the same time.

  Other excellent choices include Sara Wheeler’s nonfiction account of her travels, Evia: Travels on an Undiscovered Greek Island (originally published under the title An Island Apart: Travels in Evia);Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens, a memoir by Sofka Zinovieff; Dinner with Persephone:Travels in Greece by Patricia Storace; An Island in Greece: On the Shore of Skopelos by Michael Carroll; and The Summer of My Greek Taverna: A Memoir by Tom Stone.

  Anne Zouroudi’s The Messenger of Athens is the first in a series of mysteries; each is based on one of the seven deadly sins. The detective, Hermes Diaktoros, arrives on the island of Thiminos and tells the shady chief of police that he’s been sent from “a higher authority” in Athens. There’s much pleasure for mystery fans to be found here.

  Mystery fans should also make a determined effort to find a copy of When in Greece by Emma Lathen; it’s one of the author’s best in her series featuring banker and unwilling detective John Putnam Thatcher.

  KENYA

  The nonfiction about Kenya is practically endless (especially memoirs); probably the best known is Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa. When you’ve finished that, try these.

  From its inviting (and very funny) first paragraph to its last heartbreaking chapter, A Primate’s Memoir by neuroscientist (and winner of a McArthur “genius grant”) Robert Sapolsky could hardly be better reading. Sapolsky spent many years in Kenya with a tribe of baboons; what makes this book so special is how he brings the troop to life (not least by giving them all biblical names). Sapolsky widens the book’s scope considerably by describing his trips around the continent and weaves in discussions of the role of game parks in Africa, the whole issue of poaching, and the corruption seemingly endemic to African bureaucracy. There’s also a rather wonderful description of gorilla researcher Dian Fossey’s memorial service.

  Maasai Days by Cheryl Bentsen was one of the American Library Association’s Notable Books when it was published in 1989.

  The Bolter by Frances Osborne is the story of her scandalous—by early twentieth-century standards, at least—great-grandmother, Lady Idina Sackville, who left her husband behind in order to live in her beloved Africa following World War I.

  Among the novels set in Kenya, here are my favorites: The saga Green City in the Sun by Barbara Wood; Bartle Bull’s The White Rhino Hotel; the quiet love story and most charming A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson (which fans of Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe books might well enjoy); John le Carré’s sorrowful The Constant Gardener (much of it takes place in Kenya); The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton; Nowhere in Africa by Stefanie Zweig, about a family that left Hitler’s Germany for a new life in Africa (the book was made into a film); and Anita Shreve’s A Change in Altitude.

  For a Kenyan-born author’s story, try Ngũgı̃ wa Thiong’o’s Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir.

  KIWIS FOREVER!: NEW ZEALAND IN PRINT

  One of the best speaking gigs I’ve ever had was to give four talks on a Holland America cruise from Auckland, New Zealand, to Sydney, Australia. We went down the east coast of New Zealand, stopping for the day in cities large and small. (Naturally, I have pictures of many of the libraries we went into.) One of my programs was an American’s view of the best reading from New Zealand and Australia. In the process of preparing for the trip, I discovered that New Zealand has a very rich literary history that many people—even the most devoted readers, like me—are unfamiliar with.

  If you stopped someone browsing the fiction section of the library or bookstore and asked them to name a Kiwi writer (after first explaining, if need be, what country the nickname refers to), the chances are, if they know of one writer, that writer is most likely going to be Keri Hulme, whose The Bone People was a winner of the (then) Booker Prize in 1985. It’s one of those books that you either love or hate. It’s definitely not an easy book to read, but if you have the inclination and patience, I found it to be a rewarding novel.

  Native New Zealander Janet Frame is best known for her three-volume autobiography (and the film made from the second book), consisting of To the Is-Land, An Angel at My Table, and The Envoy from Mirror City, but if that’s all you’ve read, try her novel Towards Another Summer. It was published after her death and is filled with a yearning to be home, wherever that may be.Another good novel of hers is Living in the Maniototo, which is more lighthearted than some of her other writing. Prizes: The Selected Stories of Janet Frame showcases her talents as a short story writer. (I’ve found the stories are best read slowly, in between other books, and not at one go as if it were a novel.)

  Speaking of short stories by New Zealand writers, don’t neglect reading Katherine Mansfield’s, especially “The Garden Party.” It’s brilliant.

  Other contemporary Kiwi books and writers include Maurice Gee (don’t miss his trilogy that begins with Plumb, as well as the award-winning Blindsight); Patricia Grace, a Maori writer whose books are both beautifully written and very depressing—you might try her Montana New Zealand Book Awards-winning novel, Tu; Nigel Cox’s Tarzan Presley, which takes two universal icons and melds them together (it’s very hard to find, but worth the search), or The Cowboy Dog (a coming-of-age tale); Maurice Shadbolt’s Season of the Jew (excellent historical fiction, set in the nineteenth century and based on the life of Te Kooti, a Maori; Rachael King’s first novel,
The Sound of Butterflies; Damien Wilkins’s The Fainter (and others); and Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance by Lloyd Jones, set in (very) rural New Zealand at the end of World War I, and then, in the present, in Wellington. If you’re familiar with this New Zealander’s work, it’s probably due to the popularity (well earned) of the multi-award-winning Mister Pip, which takes place on an unnamed island in the South Seas.

  Christina Thompson’s memoir Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story weaves her personal experiences (falling in love with and marrying a Maori) with a general overview of the culture clash between westerners and the native Maori tribes.

  KOREA—NORTH AND SOUTH

  I can’t quite believe that many of us are going to head off for a vacation in North Korea any time soon. But who knows? Just in case, here are some books you’ll want to read.

  Chances are that James Church’s atmospheric (rather than fast-moving) novel A Corpse in the Koryo is the closest you’ll get to North Korea. (After reading it, you’ll probably count yourself lucky that it is!) This is the first in a series of mysteries featuring Inspector O of the Pyongyang Police Department. The pseudonymous author spent many years as an intelligence officer in the Far East and clearly knows pretty much all there is to know about North Korean society. Inspector O is smart, pragmatic, and a bit of a romantic—much like Lew Archer, in the Ross MacDonald mysteries, or Arkady Renko, in Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park and sequels. Church uses details, both small and large (from broken cameras and stolen teakettles to the all-pervasive atmosphere of fear, deprivation, graft, and mistrust that pervades the lives of North Koreans) to make the setting palpably real.