Best travel books of 2010

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 13 years ago

Best travel books of 2010

By Bruce Elder

The best of 2010

It is ironic that the most enjoyable travel book of 2010, at least for this writer, was written a decade ago. Andrew Mueller's re-released and updated Rock and Hard Places (Affirm Press, $29.95) is what a great travel book should be — full of surprises and wry, perceptive observations.

His story about being sent to Afghanistan in the late 1990s is a classic of muddle-headed London hipness.

Loading

The editor of The Face, Craig McLean, "thought it might be fun ... to write a story about a place where the people of our generation really were in charge and suggested Afghanistan, then under the control of the disproportionately youth-run Islamist cult trading as the Taliban".

Equally significant this year is the arrival on these shores (they have been published during the past 18 months) of the outstanding city-lit series. There are six so far — Berlin, Paris, London, Dublin, Amsterdam and Venice (Oxygen Books, $19.95). Each book is a collection of extended quotes from writers both famous and unknown. To read them is to fall in love with the cities through the eyes of people who understand how to capture a city's essence and put it into words.

The travel book as microcosm is beautifully evoked by Scottish conservationist John Lister-Kaye's At The Water's Edge (Canongate, $45). He turns a short daily walk into a hymn to the beauties of rural Scotland.

Of the local books, two stand out. I love Fiona Capp's journey through Judith Wright country in My Blood's Country (Allen & Unwin, $27.99), which evokes rural New England and the Monaro as powerfully as Wright's poetry.

Also, Margaret Somerville and Tony Perkins's vision of the NSW North Coast through the eyes of the local Gumbaynggirr people in Singing the Coast (Aboriginal Studies Press, $34.95), which provides a new and important way of experiencing Australia.

Sign up for the Traveller newsletter

The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now.

Most viewed on Traveller

Loading