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Tatler Asia
13-05-2025
- Tatler Asia
10 books about travel that will spark your wanderlust
2. 'Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail' by Cheryl Strayed Above 'Wild From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail' by Cheryl Strayed (Photo: Vintage) Cheryl Strayed's memoir is more than a tale of hiking boots and blisters. Traversing over a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone, she unpacks grief, failure and the slow, healing rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other. Wild stands out among books about travel for its raw honesty—this is not a romanticised journey, but one that earns its transformation mile by gruelling mile. 3. 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho Above 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho (Photo: HarperOne) Paulo Coelho's philosophical tale of a young Andalusian shepherd who dreams of treasure in the Egyptian pyramids has become a global touchstone for spiritual seekers. Along the way, Santiago meets desert dwellers, merchants and mystics. While some roll their eyes at its aphorisms, it remains an enduring reminder that the most compelling books about travel are often the ones that take you inward as much as outward. 4. 'The Lost City of Z' by David Grann Above 'The Lost City of Z' by David Grann (Photo: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) A gripping blend of biography and historical adventure, this non-fiction narrative follows British explorer Percy Fawcett's obsessive quest for a mythical city in the Amazon. David Grann interweaves Fawcett's journals with his own trek into the jungle, revealing the line between ambition and madness. For fans of perilous expeditions, this is one of those books about travel that reads like a fever dream. 5. 'A Year in Provence' by Peter Mayle Above 'A Year in Provence' by Peter Mayle (Photo: Vintage) Peter Mayle's memoir of buying a farmhouse in Provence is less about adventure and more about immersion. With dry humour and a keen eye for detail, he chronicles the region's eccentric locals, seasonal rituals and culinary pleasures. The book doesn't shy away from the bureaucratic and logistical headaches of relocation, making it a grounded yet charming addition to any collection of books about travel. 6. 'A Cook's Tour' by Anthony Bourdain Above 'A Cook's Tour' by Anthony Bourdain (Photo: Bloomsbury Publishing) Long before he became a global icon, Anthony Bourdain wrote A Cook's Tour —a globe-spanning, sharp-tongued food memoir that proves cuisine is one of the most intimate ways to know a place. From the markets of Vietnam to a Russian military base, his prose is as raw and unsentimental as the meals he describes. It's one of the few books about travel that reads with the bite of noir fiction. 7. 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy Above 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy (Photo: Random House Trade Paperbacks) While not a travelogue, Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize-winning novel is steeped in place. Set in Kerala, India, it offers a lush, tragic portrait of childhood, caste and forbidden love. The setting is inseparable from the narrative, described with such sensuality and specificity that readers unfamiliar with the region will feel they've been dropped into its monsoon-soaked heart. This is a literary reminder that some books about travel don't involve a plane ticket. 8. 'Under the Tuscan Sun' by Frances Mayes Above 'Under the Tuscan Sun' by Frances Mayes (Photo: Bantam) Frances Mayes' memoir of restoring an abandoned villa in Tuscany walks a fine line between reverie and reality. Her love of Italian food, landscape and architecture spills across the pages, but so do her frustrations with Italian bureaucracy and renovation woes. Less about travel and more about building a life abroad, it remains a favourite among readers seeking books about travel that blend aspiration with authenticity. 9. 'Into the Wild' by Jon Krakauer Above 'Into the Wild' by Jon Krakauer (Photo: Anchor Books) Christopher McCandless' fatal journey into the Alaskan wilderness has become mythologised—equal parts cautionary tale and manifesto. Jon Krakauer's investigation raises questions about freedom, recklessness and the modern craving for solitude. As far as books about travel go, it's one of the most haunting, probing not only what it means to venture far from home, but why some people feel they must. 10. 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert Above 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert (Photo: Riverhead Books) Often imitated, occasionally derided and widely beloved, Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir traces her post-divorce pilgrimage through Italy, India and Bali. Though it sparked a wave of self-discovery tourism, the book itself is self-aware, funny and emotionally intelligent. It's a reminder that books about travel can serve as both map and mirror, showing not just where we might go, but who we might become along the way.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Writing as Architecture: Notes on Building vs. Writing Your Memoir
Before I began writing, I imagined every writer began at the beginning and laid down the tracks of their story in one clean take. And perhaps there are writers out there who do just that. But I have personally found the writing process to be more physical than intellectual. (9 Things I've Learned Writing a Memoir.) In the beginning, we are surveying the land of possibility, searching for firm ground that might support the story we want to tell. We start digging trenches to test that ground. Perhaps a question rises from the sea of possible questions. It grabs hold of us and doesn't let go. The first question that grabbed me as I was writing my memoir, My Mother in Havana, was why, at age 49—30 years after I'd lost my mother—I missed her more than ever. And why that missing was calling me to Cuba—a country neither she nor I were from. The lines and angles that connected my story with the island's felt both impossible and inevitable. It would take the writing of My Mother in Havana—a memoir about traveling to Cuba to find my mother among their gods and ghosts and mother saints—for that geometry to click into place. And that writing process felt more akin to building than it did to writing. We are sensory creatures, taking in the world around us and translating those bits of sensory experience into meaning, which means that when we write we are constantly deconstructing and reconstructing the world in a way that makes meaning both for us and for our reader. As I found my way into the architecture of My Mother in Havana, I studied memoirs like Cheryl Strayed's Wild and Helen MacDonald's H is for Hawk that seemed to adhere to this building principle. I was particularly interested in the way Strayed structured her book so that each chapter begins on the Appalachian Trail, a decision that creates the foundation upon which the reader moves along the narrative of that arduous hike while allowing Strayed to set the posts that frame its themes of grief and loss, motherhood, and survival. Similarly, all but one chapter of My Mother in Havana begins on my pilgrimage to Cuba. I poured that foundation in a mad fever, laying down the narrative that led me from sacred dance to séance, sacrifice to pilgrimage. But there were also multiple layers of backstory I needed to introduce my reader to: who my mother had been; why her death had plagued me for so long; how my grief over her loss had morphed over the years. And why I was looking for answers in a country and spiritual experience so far from my own. Click to continue. As I wrote my way into those themes, I scoured family letters for backstory; puzzled over how and where to insert memories of my mother into the more linear narrative of my trip to Cuba. Devoured books about the mythology and practices of Santería and the Afro-Cuban gods known as the oricha. I made numerous trips to Cuba to scour archives and deepen my understanding of the rituals that lie at the heart of this book. I laid down these materials like a brick layer lays down bricks, or a teacher lays down transparencies—with each new layer illuminating and building upon what lies beneath it. An Incomplete List of Materials to Try as You Build Your Memoir: Memory Photographs Letters Genealogy & family lore Timelines Interviews Archival research Immersion into your subject matter Image & Motifs Narrative Lyricism Inquiry & Speculation We live in times that privilege speed and efficiency, doing vs. being. But there is a beauty, even a subversiveness, in allowing ourselves to take our time. As we try out different materials, we trust that the ways they'll find their way to one another will lead much deeper than the surface of any single narrative. And it is often only after the writer turns off the conscious part of their writing brain—say to take a nap or go for a walk—that the new arrangement comes. At first our manuscript looks like a big mess, and perhaps this is one of the most challenging aspects of writing—to resist simplification. Turn off the part of our brain that craves instant results and lean into the mess, climb the ladders of our scaffolding to survey our work in progress, move or add walls and plumbing as necessary. Make room for the process to take as long as it needs to take. What keeps our work from staying a mess are the foundation and walls we've put in place, and the patterns and repetitions that emerge from and support that framework. And so, once we've waded into the mess of possibility that is our manuscript comes the time to seek pattern and connection, and prune away any element that detracts from those patterns. The first drafts of My Mother in Havana resembled a cross between a Pinterest and a forensic murder board. I wrote themes and images on index cards and Post-It notes. Arranged and rearranged them across pinboards and floors. With each revision, I found myself making choices—saying yes to images I believed were central to the architecture of the writing, and no to those that led the reader away from that center. There is something intuitive and dare I say magical about this process. You must trust that all those carefully placed note cards and Post-Its are leading somewhere. Because, at the end of the day, the beauty of building vs. writing is the element of surprise. Whether it's a poem or a book-length memoir, both the writer and the reader enter the piece not knowing how these seemingly-competing materials and patterns will resolve themselves. And then, if you're lucky, somehow, both impossibly and inevitably, they do. Check out Rebe Huntman's here: Bookshop | Amazon (WD uses affiliate links)
