We had a lovely meeting today at Prego where we discussed the work of travel writers we’ve been reading.  The books and authors included the following: The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart is an account of the author’s walk in the winter of 2002 across Afghanistan, a most readable and extraordinary tale, and A Time of Gifts, by Patrick Leigh Fermor which is similarly an account of a walk beginning in the Winter of 1933 across Europe by the 19 year old born linguist and writer of beautiful prose. Both of these writers became famous when they were older; Stewart in politics and Fermor in World War 2 heroics. 

Walking the Americas, by Levison Wood was said to be enjoyable, and educative about Central America. This author gives regular talks around the country. Venice, by Jan Morris, was considered to be something of a classic, interspersing historical information with returns to the author’s present experience of the city.
 

Three Bill Bryson books were discussed: Down Under, Notes from a Small Island and Neither Here nor There. The general feeling about all of them was that they were amusing, though perhaps in a somewhat cynical fashion, and were more about “Bill Bryson in that place” than the places  or people he met, but it was agreed that he would be good company in a pub!

The last two contributions were about shorter articles or accounts. Lost Days of the Raj by South Yorkshire journalist Stephen McClarence was a long read in The Observer, and described a visit to what had been a “hill station” in the foothills of the Himalayas, which our group member said chimed perfectly with her own experience of a visit there.  The Best British Travel Writing of the 21st Century is what it says on the cover, and two of the items in this collection were The Night Train by Leon McCarron, an account of a journey from Baghdad to Basra, and an article by Charlie Walker about a very long, hazardous and exhausting expedition into the heart of the Congo, firstly by bike and then by a hard to acquire, rather dodgy-looking canoe. We enjoyed seeing photos from this collection.