The Best American Travel Writing 2014
Paul Theroux
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
<p>A far-ranging collection of the best travel writing pieces published in 2013, collected by guest editor&nbsp;<b><i>Paul Theroux.</i></b>&nbsp;The&nbsp;<b>Best American Travel Writing</b>&nbsp;consistently includes a wide variety of pieces, illuminating the wonder, humour, fear, and exhilaration that greets all of us when we embark on a journey to a new place. Readers know that there is simply no other option when they want great travel writing.&nbsp;<br></p><p>Theroux has lamented travel literature that…glorifies spa treatments at posh resorts or the compiling of 10-best lists in lieu of some of travel's more hard-won rewards. In the end, what captures Theroux, and what fills this volume, are compelling yarns from the road—the more arduous the better…it's entries like&nbsp;<b><i>Amanda Lindhout's</i></b>&nbsp;harrowing, heroic account of being kidnapped in Somalia…and&nbsp;<b><i>Michael Paterniti's</i></b>&nbsp;transcendent recollection of finding his corner of the sky in northern Spain that give the 2014 edition of&nbsp;<b>Best American Travel&nbsp;</b>its meat…In essay after essay, a theme runs through this volume—people journey, sometimes great distances, often enduring great hardship, only to be redeemed by human connection.</p><p>“<i>Travel connoisseurs divide the world into those places they’ve been dying to visit or revisit and places they’d never set foot in but are glad someone else did. This year’s volume of travel writing . . . focuses mostly on the latter with derring-do dispatches</i>.” -&nbsp;<b>USA Today</b></p>