Travel recommendations

There are problems for a genre whose authors defining qualification is not necessarily literary ability, but a sense of adventure. No novelist would presume to embark on their first book without at least a vague acquaintance of the work of their predecessors. Yet too many would-be travel writers, without so much as picking up a book, presume that because their journey was deeply fulfilling to them, it will prove automatically satisfying to readers. It seldom does - and the fact that the bad pennies outnumber the good cheapens the whole currency. This is unfortunate, because good travel writing is to be valued for the way it unearths a rich sense of otherness in a landscape, a people, a form of activity, a set of events. Its central achievement is to allow us to appreciate the rare or extraordinary where we had previously assumed the commonplace. In his study of travel between the wars, Abroad, Paul Fussell argues that part of the travel books appeal is its absorption of the role once played by the political and literary pamphlet. Its very lack of formal convention means that it is no more than an empty vessel, where authors can both listen to the sound of their own voice sometimes for the first time, as in the case of Bruce Chatwins In Patagonia and sound off on whatever moral or aesthetic theme they wish. The travel book is constantly metamorphosing to take on the issues of the day - and this very adaptability is one reason why reports of its death have so far been greatly exaggerated.If one overlooks Isabella Trees clichéd and meaningless subtitle, Travels in Unknown Mexico, her book Sliced Iguana Hamish Hamilton, £17.99 is an excellent, highly readable account of this huge, fascinating country. Far from taking us off the beaten track - a quarter of the book recounts her time in the capital - she rehashes what is perfectly well known. Ironically, this is what makes shoes the book so satisfying. Tree deftly intercuts her personal experience with a fluent precis of the regions tragic past and its diverse cultural origins. Given that this is her first journey in the country, her readings of Mesoamerican civilisation and history are unerringly secure. On first acquaintance, Michael Rips, author of Pasquales Nose Chatto and Windus, £15.99 seems an unlikely travel author. A resident of Manhattans Chelsea Hotel, Rips moved with his family to Sutri, in the Umbrian hills to the north of Rome. His observations of town life have the amused detachment of someone watching fellow guests while they pass through the hotel lobby. Gradually, their medieval strangeness inspires both a deeper curiosity and commitment and before long we meet an array of bizarre friends - the man with a cats paw instead of a hand, the hermaphrodite shoe-seller and so on. As Rip is inexorably lured into the shared masculine world of Sutris piazza, he gives us a gently satirical yet affectionate portrait of the ancient pattern of life in this region of Italy.The blurb for Pilgrim Snail

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