A curious person who is interested in the great wide world out there but who is not ridiculously wealthy is, by necessity, a voracious reader. At least, that’s how I explain my Amazon Prime account.
I don’t read very much fiction, mostly because it is too much work to gain a comparatively tiny nugget of truth. If that makes me intellectually lazy, so be it, but I prefer to think that I am intellectually efficient. That is, I like to read non-fiction, where there is a higher ratio of information to pages read.
Travel literature–books written about an author’s travels, but crafted in such a way as to have literary value–are a luxury for me. They are both full of information and pleasurable to read. Often times, they read like an excellent piece of journalism, extended from article to book length and depth. Needless to say, I love reading travel literature, and it is that genre of books that I plan to blog about most here.
I challenged myself to read 25 books about foreign places in 2009, and am using this blog to keep me honest and on track. Not to mention (hopefully) being able to dialogue with other people interested in books about far away lands. 25 books works out to approximately a new book every other week, so I plan to write about each book I read for approximately two weeks and then move on to the next book.
My interests tend to lean towards Europe (both Western and Eastern), the Middle East, and Eastern Asia, so you will most likely find my posts about books covering those areas. I realize that this leaves out most of the planet, and reveals my Western-educated bias. Maybe if I read more books about Central and South America, Africa, South East Asia and Oceania, I would be more interested (talk about catch 22!), so I might try out a few books from those regions and see if they light a spark in me. If you have recommendations on that front, I’d love to hear them.
This being a blog, I’d be interested in hearing pretty much anything you have to say (so long as it is written politely), so feel free to shoot me an email (Fern at PaperbackTraveler.com) or leave a comment whenever the mood strikes you.
by Orhan Pamuk
9 responses so far ↓
1 Roberta // Jan 5, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Sounds like fun. Count me in!
2 Fern // Jan 5, 2009 at 9:35 pm
You’ve been counted!
3 Janet // Jan 6, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Ha! I knew you couldn’t stay away from blogging forever…
Unfortunately, I don’t read travel books. Unless I’m actually going to that place, and then I’m not usually organized enough to prepare that well.
Fiction, on the other hand, is marvellous. Or can be. It is the art of it that draws me, and I’d rather pick up a book than a DVD when I want to escape. A well-crafted story, with people that walk right off the pages, and a depth of thought and feeling, affects me much the same way a beautiful piece of music does. It can be fun, uplifting, thought-provoking, imagination-stimulating, or all of the above. It’s an experience, not a vehicle for information, although there can be a fair bit of that too.
I would certainly be open to reading a travel book that is particularly good at catching a sense of place, or that is wrapped around a captivating story, but otherwise I see it as reference material, not something to read for pleasure.
OK, try to convert me… ;o)
4 McLovin // Jan 6, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Cool blog, can’t wait to read more….
5 Fern // Jan 6, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Janet — Very rarely would I categorize travel literature as “reference material.” Usually it reads similarly to fiction, except the story actually happened and is about real people, places, etc.
McLovin — Interesting name. Glad you stopped by!
6 Genevieve // Jan 7, 2009 at 11:02 am
Check out J Maarten Troost’s (I think I spelled that right) The Sex Lives of Cannibals for a hilarious and light read based in the equatorial pacific. I loved it and the next book, too. Just got his book on China so the Jury’s out on that one.
7 Fern // Jan 7, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Genevieve — With a title like “The Sex Lives of Cannibals” I don’t see how I could not check that book out!
8 Amy @ My Friend Amy // Jan 8, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I found your reason for not reading fiction an interesting way of putting it. I find that fiction allows me to absorb that tiny of nugget of truth in such a way that I remember it.
but what a boring world it would be if we all liked the same things.
9 Fern // Jan 8, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Amy — So true about differences making the world more interesting! I admit to having a bit of an inferiority complex about fiction. In the back of my mind I always think that my lack of interest in great literary fiction means I’m not cultured or sophisticated. I just have such an overwhelming desire to inhale information that I don’t have the patience to enjoy great fiction.
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