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Best American Travel Writing 2011: The Best American Series (2013)

by Sloane Crosley(Favorite Author)

3.42 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1299884458 (ISBN13: 9781299884458)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Mariner Books

review 1: I really enjoyed reading most of the stories in this collection of travel writing. There's an interesting mix of places (Saudi Arabia, Haiti, a NASCAR race) as well as types of stories, and in general the authors' takes on them are original and humorous. In my opinion, there are some truly standout pieces, such as "Venance Lafrance Is Not Dead" by Mischa Berlinski, and Ben Austen's "Southern Culture on the Skids", stories which I will definitely be coming back to as examples of the very best kind of journalism. But there are also a couple of excessively specific pieces which clash with the overall tone of the collection and were frankly hard to read, such as "A Year of Birds". Overall a good book for anyone interested in travel writing or any student of journa... morelism.
review 2: For me, good travel writing should either 1) make me want to go to that place you're writing about and experience what you're writing about, or 2) describe a place in such a way that I feel like I'm there and have an insider's look at the location and culture.Few of these stories accomplished both, and some -- "A Head for the Emir" and "Stuck" -- made me never want to visit those places (roadside bombs and eternal traffic, anyone?) "A Girls' Guide to Saudi Arabia" was my least favorite, and seemed to throw a very American, these-people-are-so-backwards lens on the place. As a woman, ok, I understand it's not a great place to be, but I wasn't keen on the writer essentially making fun of the people and culture she was writing about.My favorites included "The Last Stand of Free Town" which was kind of fascinating as I'd never heard of the place before, and "Twilight of the Vampires" -- but probably because I read it on Halloween and it seemed appropriate. "Miami Party Boom" was surprisingly well written, too.In all -- meh. It's what I read in bites in between reading other, longer things. Some good writing in there, but didn't really hit the spot for me or, as had been my intention in reading the anthology to begin with, teach me a whole lot about fantastic travel writing. Just, I suppose, what this editor considers is fantastic travel writing. less

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