Some of my friends adore travel writing - they read it, they write it, they live it. Me, not so much. I just don't enjoy a lot of the genre and I've decided its because, being mostly autobiographical, I don't think I'd enjoy spending time with the authors in real life either
Bill Bryson is snarky, Peter Moore is foolhardy and boorish, but David Dale: him I like.
Dale's The Obsessive Traveller : Or why I don't steal towels from great hotels anymore came with me to Europe in 1992.
This week I've read his 1996 publication, A Traveller's Alphabet of Essential Places : A book about ideas and where they started. It does what is says on the box - the reader travels to 26 places on the globe that gave rise to some of the most crucial ideas (or things) in history.
Not everything is earth shattering, but David is an intelligent and humourous guide to the places and the history of ideas spawned there.
How much did I enjoy it? I had to read bits (lots of bits) out to TOF. Wanting to share it is always the sign of something good.
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